(EDITORS NOTE: Check out our two special graduation sections that will appear in the Staten Island Advance on June 21 and June 28. The sections will contain letters from Island celebrities wishing the graduates well, senior profiles, feature stories and lots of photos like the ones seen below. Parents and grandparents wanting to take out an ad for that special graduate are asked to call 917-525-9362. Ads are only available for the June 28th section.)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- 2020 will forever go down as a crazy time for the world and America as the coronavirus hit and interrupted our way of life -- from school to work and everything in between -- for a few months.

It also ended some big plans for high school seniors, who had to cancel proms, senior trips and other activities. The pandemic also played havoc with high school graduations as many Staten Island schools have had to hold virtual ceremonies in front of gymnasiums occupied by no more than 10 people.

The St. George Theater is the setting for Curtis High School's graduation exercises for 395 seniors. (Staten Island Advance)Staten Island Advance

With that in mind, SILive.com and the Staten Island Advance thought it would be fitting to take a look at some past high school graduations.

Please scroll through the slideshow below to see some timeless photos.

Seniors march to their seats in New Dorp High School stadium before the start of the graduation ceremonies Staten Island Advance

Schools-Tottenville High School. Graduation Staten Island Advance

Port Richmond High School graduation at Wagner College (Staten Island Advance/Steve Zaffarano) Staten Island Advance

Author Paul Zindel delivers the commencement address at Staten Island Academy. Paul Zindel Staten Island Advance

Graduates of St Joseph Hill Academy march toward commencement exercises at the Arrochar campus. (Staten Island Advance/Steve Zaffarano) Staten Island Advance

In caps and gowns, 105 students march in procession to graduation ceremonies of St. John Villa Academy. Staten Island Advance

Susan Wagner High School graduation. Schools- Susan Wagner High School Staten Island Advance

slug:concord grad date of pub:6/26 destination:a10 size: editor: PHOTO BY: Falco 6/25/96 DATE TAKEN: CAPTION INFO (L TO R): Young men anticipate their graduation from Concord H.S. as they wait in procession.

Seniors at Moore Catholic High School march in for the commencement ceremony in which 133 received diplomas yesterday. Staten Island Advance

HUguenot - As parents and friends look on, members of the graduating class of St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School file down aisle in their last moments as high school seniors. Staten Island Advance

Graduating students at Staten Island Academy, in the first three rows, listen to a commencement speaker. Staten Island Advance

slug: notre date of pub: 6/7 destination: a11 size: 3colby4.0 editor: hoey PHOTO BY: jin lee 6/6/97 DATE TAKEN: CAPTION INFO (L TO R): NDA 1997 cmmencement.

Graduates of St. Peter's Boys High School line either side of gymnasium during ceremonies. Salutatorian Gregory Giardiello is speaker Staten Island Advance
An old rumor resurfaced in May, 2020, on news outlet the Global Times, which states the Chinese central bank has gold stored at Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). From the Global Times:

an analyst [Dong] said there is a risk that the US may freeze Chinas assets, including gold reserves. Dong suggested the regulators lower the portion of US Treasuries in Chinas forex reserve basket and transport gold stored in the US back to China as soon as possible. 

The first time I came across this rumor was in 2013, on the website of one of the largest Chinese lenders, Agriculture Bank of China (ABC). Liu Zhongbo from ABC stated:

Statistics show that China has at least 600 tons of gold deposited with the US Federal Reserve

There are also other websites and blogs that mention the 600 tonnes figure.

Unfortunately, I havent been able to contact the analyst quoted in the Global Times (Dong Dengxin), nor ABCs analyst Liu Zhongbo. Neither did I find any official statistics that proof gold owned by the PBoC is in New York.

Though, I did collect valuable intelligence from my contacts in China mainland. Added with data from Chinas State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), my analysis is that the PBoC does not store gold in at the FRBNY.

One of my contacts, a former precious metals trader at ICBC, told me its very unlikely the Chinese central bank stores gold in the U.S. And his logic is compelling.

First of all, the U.S. has never been an ally of the current Chinese regimequite the opposite. Second, China has ample foreign exchange reserves. China doesnt need to store gold in the West, to be able to swap or sell gold for dollars when it has a balance of payments problem.

I would say, China didnt need to permanently store gold in the West since the early 1980s. By then, its gold reserves were significant (400 tonnes), and there is evidence the PBoC was occasionally transporting gold to London to sell for dollars.

Story continues

We know that in the 1970s China ramped up domestic gold mining, for a number of reasons*. The most important reason was to obtain foreign exchange to reform its closed planned economy. Since 1978, the State Council approved individual prospecting, which made tens of thousands of Chinese farmers replaced their ploughs for gold pans. All domestic gold production was required to be sold to the PBoC, who was the monopoly dealer in the Chinese gold market until the Shanghai Gold Exchange was erected in 2002.

In the 1983, China transported at least 120 tonnes of gold to London to exchange for dollars. Through these gold sales China started building its foreign exchange reserves. In 1983, Chinas foreign exchange reserves exceeded $8 billion U.S. dollars. In the early 2000s, Chinas foreign exchange reserves significantly increased, which removed the necessity to store gold in London or New York altogether. Hence, in my view the PBoC currently does not store gold in New York. If I find any evidence to the contrary I will report accordingly.

Below you can read part of a blogpost by Feng Yi, who worked for the Bank of China (BOC) in the 1980s, and was involved in foreign exchange and precious metals transactions on behalf of the Chinese government. The blogpost is inter alia about how Feng and a small team transported 120 tonnes of gold to the U.K. in 1983. At night, they brought the gold from Beijing to London in one Boeing 747. (If you can read Chinese, the entire blogpost is worth reading, as it describes how China first started trading in international financial markets in the 1980s, how the pioneers had to learn everything from scratch, and eventually wrote their own textbooks and set up SAFE.)

While we were flying through the night, we slept on the gold beds.

The cross-border transport of gold and silver

In the early days of the trading room, we executed across-border escort for gold and silver.

The Treasury Department of the Head Office was about to transport a large amount of gold deposited in Beijing to London, where it would be stored for sales in the international market. According to the conditions at that time, we not only didnt have to pay a storage fee, but could also charge a considerable rental fee [lease rate]. The escort work was carried out by Mr. Li Shucun and Mr. Dong Wenchao from the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC), and Mr. Chen Zhentai and Mr. Gao Jilu from the Bank of China (BOC). I was responsible for the escort work on site. It was in 1983, a month or two after the armed hijacking incident with Zhuo Changren, so it brought a high degree of tension to the air transport of the gold. The Ministry of Public Security send their men to accompany us to London. During a meeting, we had to decide whether or not the men from the Ministry of Public Security should be armed. From the viewpoint of security, it was needed. If anything went wrong, the pilots and treasury staff would be very vulnerable. But it was a problem entering other countries with arms, so we finally decided not to carry any weapons.

We also discussed the plane to fly through Pakistan territorial sky. Do we need to inform the government of Pakistan? We thought. If we did, it might cause a news leak. If we didnt, there would be no protection from the Pakistani government. Finally, it was decided not to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan until the plane took off, to minimize the possibility of a news leak. At the same momentright after the aircraft took offwe would notify Lloyds for the insurance policy.

Back then one of the places where gold was stored was at the basement of the Head Office at the East End of Xijiaominxiang, Beijing, which is near the Mao Memorial Hall. Gold was to be transported out from there to the Capital Airport and then to Gatwick Airport in Londons by air. For the urban transport in Beijing, only the open Jiefang trucks were available.

About ten trucks were lined up. In each ride a heavily armed PLA [Peoples Liberation Army] soldier and two staff members of the Treasury Department were present. We relied on ourselves to handle, load and unload the trucks. A staff member of the Treasury Department used a steel hook to move each package, a black steel carton in the size of a shoe box, bound by steel bars, containing two pieces of pure gold weighing about 25 kilograms, to the trucks one by one.

Because the entrance to the courtyard of the head office at Xijiaominxiang was too narrow, the big Jiefang trucks had to park on the street to load the gold, which delayed the operation. Many passers-by saw it. It created a rumor that the gold was dug up during an excavation of Memorial Hall. Of course, the rumor was harmless.

The gold was transported to the airport, and loaded on the airplane by a machine quite smoothly. The Boeing 747 was loaded with 120 tonnes, instead of being fully loaded, because of the high mass density of gold and the safety of the flight. We laid out the steel cartons with gold on the deck in the middle of the plane, each of which was laid out as a large single bed, and twenty or thirty single beds in the entire cabin. While we were flying through the night, we slept on these gold beds. We joked; we were flying on a golden dream.

The plane arrived at London airport in the early morning, but I was surprised that no guards were arranged on site for the arrival of the gold. It was not long before the BOC London branch contacted several professional escorts to transport the gold to the vault of the Bank of England.

Due to the international recognition stamp on the gold, inspection procedures were waived. Because there were no metal detectors [for assay testing] at the time, it only relied on weighing at the Bank of England. Less than a month after our shipment of gold, we heard that bandits had robbed gold at the airport. We had been lucky.

* The Prospect for Gold, by Timothy Green (1987).

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Statues honoring Christopher Columbus were destroyed and disfigured in Boston and Richmond, Va., overnight Wednesday - the latest in a wave of attacks on historic monuments by George Floyd protesters.

Most of the vandalism has been aimed at Confederate memorials in cities across the South, including Richmond, Birmingham, Ala., Charleston, S.C., and Raleigh, N.C. But Columbus, once celebrated for "discovering" the New World, is reviled for brutalizing the indigenous people he found there.

On Wednesday at 12:30 a.m., Boston Police Department officers responded to a call about vandalism to the city's Columbus statue, Sgt. Detective John Boyle told The Washington Post.

A member of the media went to check on the statue and noticed that it had been beheaded, he said. Fragments of the structure were nearby.

Area detectives and the civil rights unit of the department are investigating the destruction. Boyle encouraged members of the public to come forward with any information and noted that they can remain anonymous.

In Virginia, a few dozen people gathered in Richmond's Byrd Park to see a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus submerged facedown on the edge of Fountain Lake.

"I'm not going to say I approve, but I'm not going to say I disapprove either," said Ronald Johnson, 33, who has marched five nights in Richmond over the past 12 days.

Johnson was with at least 100 people at the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee - which Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has said he plans to put in storage - when word spread that the Columbus statue had been torn down. A "massive cheer" went up, he said, and he drove over to Byrd Park to see it for himself.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the idea for the statue came from the city's Italian American community in the early 1920s. It was dedicated in December 1927, the newspaper reported.

Columbus statues and the holiday have become increasingly controversial in recent years. Many cities have junked Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples' Day.
RALEIGH, N.C., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CAPTRUST Financial Advisors (CAPTRUST) today announced that Lakeside Wealth Management (Lakeside), based in Chesterton, Indiana, has joined the firm. The Lakeside team brings to CAPTRUST $1.6 billion in assets under advisement (AUA) and 27 employees, increasing CAPTRUST's nationwide headcount to more than 700. CAPTRUST now also has more than $390 billion in AUA and $45 billion in assets under management (AUM).

Lakeside provides retirement plan design, investment management, and participant education for institutions and financial planning, retirement goal setting, and legacy planning for wealth management clients. Founded in 2002 by CEO Mark Chamberlain, the firm is also led by President Tim Rice and senior leaders Chip Mang and Timothy VerSchure, who will all be joining CAPTRUST as principals.

"During our diligence process, it occurred to us that because of our business mix, ensemble structure, and culture, we may have been looking for a unicorn. Then CAPTRUST came along," said Lakeside Chief Executive Officer Mark W. Chamberlain. "By aligning ourselves with CAPTRUST, we are confident that our clients will benefit greatly from the added resources of a national firm, and we are excited about continuing to grow as part of the CAPTRUST brand."

"Lakeside Wealth Management is an ideal fit for CAPTRUST not only because of the alignment across their three lines of business, but also because they are a firm that prioritizes giving back to their community," said Rick Shoff, a managing director in CAPTRUST's Advisor Group. "Despite these unprecedented times, we are continuing on our trajectory of strong organic and inorganic growth."

Giving back to the Indiana community has been a core focus for Lakeside since its inception. The firm has volunteered more than 20,000 hours and received 43 accolades for their efforts, including being named to the 2019 Invest in Others Charitable Champions List. Lakeside team members will now be able to work with the CAPTRUST Community Foundation, CAPTRUST's employee-run nonprofit that seeks to enrich the lives of children in the communities they serve, to continue this worthy legacy.

Named one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and one of the Best Places to Work for Financial Advisors by InvestmentNews, Lakeside adds $1.1 billion in institutional and $526 million in wealth managements assets to CAPTRUST. Moving forward, Lakeside will be taking on the CAPTRUST name and brand.

This is CAPTRUST's forty-first transaction since 2006. Lakeside Wealth Management was represented by Dick Darian of Wise Rhino Group.

About CAPTRUST

Founded in 1997 in Raleigh, North Carolina, CAPTRUST is an independent registered investment advisor with more than 700 employees nationwide and $390 billion in client assets under advisement (as of March 31, 2020). CAPTRUST has clients in all 50 states and provides investment advisory, asset management, and planning services to thousands of affluent private clients and institutional investors such as retirement plan fiduciaries, endowments, foundations, and religious entities.

To learn more, visit captrust.com.

SOURCE CAPTRUST Financial Advisors

Related Links

http://www.captrust.com


[June 10, 2020] DDC-I's Deos RTOS Selected by MDA to Develop Communications System for SNC's Dream Chaser Cargo System

PHOENIX, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- DDC-I, a leading supplier of software and professional services for mission- and safety-critical applications, today announced that its Deos safety-critical real-time operating system has been selected by Macdonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) for use in a communications subsystem destined for Sierra Nevada Corporation's (SNC) Dream Chaser Cargo System. The subsystem will provide on-board communication signal processing capabilities for the Dream Chaser Cargo System, a cargo transportation spacecraft being developed by SNC under the NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS2) program. The spacecraft is scheduled for at least six cargo delivery missions to and from the International Space Station between 2020 and 2024. "We are excited to have been selected by MDA to provide the safety-critical RTOS platform for this prestigious project," said Greg Rose, vice president of marketing and product management at DDC-I. "Deos has a proven pedigree in the avionics industry, and our DO-178C processes track well with NASA and ESA assurance requirements. Add to that a modular, reusable architecture that decouples I/O device drivers from the RTOS and BSP and you have a tailor made platform for rapid development, certification, and deployment of the most demanding safety- and mission-critical applications." "We have enjoyed working with DDC-I to develop advanced new communications capabilities for SNC's Dream Chaser Cargo System," said Steven Taser, Program Manager  DCCS Comm Subsystem at MDA. "DDC-I's track record in the safety-critical industry, together with their advanced RTOS capabilities, certification expertise and customer support were certainly key factors in our decision to bring them aboard."



Deos is a field-proven, safety-critical, avionics RTOS that has been utilized to host a multitude of flight-critical functions, such as air data computers, air data inertial reference units, cockpit displays, flight control, flight management, engine control, and many more. Built from the ground up for safety-critical applications, Deos features a unique modular design with time and space partitioning, providing the easiest, lowest cost path to DO-178C DAL A certification, the highest level of safety criticality. DDC-I's SafeMC technology extends DDC-I's advanced time and space partitioning capabilities to multiple cores, enabling developers of safety-critical systems to achieve best in class multicore performance without compromising safety-critical task response and guaranteed execution times. About DDC-I, Inc.

DDC-I, Inc. is a global supplier of real-time operating systems, software development tools, custom software development services, and legacy software system modernization solutions, with a primary focus on mission- and safety-critical applications. DDC-I's customer base is an impressive "who's who" in the commercial, military, aerospace, and safety-critical industries. DDC-I offers safety-critical real-time operating systems, compilers, integrated development environments and run-time systems for C, C++, Ada, and JOVIAL application development. For more information regarding DDC-I products, contact DDC-I at 4545 E. Shea Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85028; phone (602) 275-7172; fax (602) 252-6054; e-mail [email protected] or visit http://www.ddci.com/pr2006 Press Contact: Ken Marrin, Phone/text 321-298-8889, Email [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ddc-is-deos-rtos-selected-by-mda-to-develop-communications-system-for-sncs-dream-chaser-cargo-system-301073275.html SOURCE DDC-I Inc.

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The episode reflected a now-ingrained political calculus for Republicans when confronted with outrageous utterances from a vindictive president who detests being criticized. Instead of addressing the content or the person responsible, Republicans long ago determined that the least politically fraught avenue is to ignore it altogether, in the hope that the outrage of the day quickly fades. It has proved a steady bet, given that Mr. Trumps Twitter provocations almost always give way to yet another frenetic news cycle, often generated by the president himself. Privately  and sometimes publicly  they have voiced frustration with having to respond to every missive issued.

Most of us up here would rather not be political commentators on the presidents tweets, said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. Thats a daily exercise that is something you all have to cover. (Mr. Thune acknowledged that he saw both the tweet and the video of the assault, and deemed the post a serious accusation.)

Even Mark Meadows, a former representative and now the White House chief of staff, has maintained use of the tactic, telling reporters as he left Capitol Hill on Tuesday that he had learned a long time ago not to comment on tweets.

And yet Mr. Trumps Twitter feed is impossible for Republicans to ignore. The charged language Mr. Trump uses and retweets mingle on his Twitter feed  which has 81.9 million followers  with critical updates on personnel (the abrupt firing of a cabinet official, for instance) and policy changes (including increased tariffs and recognition of Israels sovereignty in the Golan Heights).

But lawmakers insisted that it was far more productive, particularly during a pandemic and amid growing demands for action to address police brutality and the racial disparities in the country, to remain focused elsewhere.

If we sat around all day and just worried about what the president tweeted instead of legislating, then wed be caught in your vortex, Mr. Cramer said in an interview after reading the tweet. Most of the time when the president tweets something that seems crazy, somebody else tells me.

I dont mean to be flippant, he added. When I wake up in the morning, the presidents tweets are not in the top 100 things I think about.
For information only - not an official document

UNIS/OS/531

8 June 2020

PRESS RELEASE

UNOOSA and ESA announce winner of opportunity to conduct hypergravity experiments at ESTEC

VIENNA, 8 June (United Nations Information Service) - The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that the team from Mahidol University, Thailand, is the winner of the 1st cycle of the HyperGES fellowship.

The fellowship is part of the UNOOSA Access to Space 4 All Initiative and offers scientists from all over the world, with particular attention to developing countries, the opportunity to conduct their own hypergravity experiments using the Large Diameter Centrifuge (LDC) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), which is part of ESA.

The winning team is currently working with UNOOSA and ESTEC to prepare their experiments at the LDC facility. Due to the COVID-19 situation, the date for the experiments has not yet been determined, but the team is aiming to conduct them before the end of 2020.

The experiments will study the effect of hypergravity on watermeal, the smallest and fastest growing flowering plant on Earth. This will help unlock many possibilities for future applications of the plant as a food and oxygen source for space exploration and on other planets that may have higher gravity than Earth.

The team is composed of five researchers, including two women scientists, from Mahidol University, Thailand. Each member brings a unique academic background to the project, including physics, bio-innovation, biochemistry and electrical engineering.

By opening up the unique LDC facility to teams from all over the world, the fellowship contributes to expanding access to space education and research in hypergravity, particularly capacity building for teams from developing countries, who may otherwise not have access to such equipment.

Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of UNOOSA, said: "We are delighted to announce the selection of the Thai team as the first winners of this unique opportunity, part of our Access to Space 4 All Initiative to bridge the gap among countries in access to space and space skills. We are grateful to ESA for opening up their unique research space for this ambitious project, which will shed light on how to produce food and oxygen beyond Earth, potentially leading to important break-throughs for space exploration"

Jan Worner, Director General of ESA, said: "I congratulate the team of Mahidol University for being the first to win the HyperGES fellowship. This unique initiative by ESA and UNOOSA combines all that space accounts for: high-tech, science and research and international cooperation for the benefit of our societies."

Franco Ongaro, ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality and head of ESTEC, remarked: "We are pleased and grateful to UNOOSA for this opportunity to open up LDC access to worldwide researchers for testing, in order to explore the role of gravity within, in this case, life support systems. This proposed experiment is a good example of how such ground-based centrifuges can be used to support space activities."

Tatpong Tulyananda, head of the winning team, said: "This is a great opportunity and a big step for the space biology research program in Thailand. We are very excited to explore how aquatic plants perform in a hypergravity environment, which might answer questions for future space exploration."

UNOOSA plans to publish the announcement of opportunity for the 2nd cycle of HyperGES in the second half of 2020. More information about HyperGES can be found here: https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/psa/hsti/ldc_hyperges/ao_main.html

* *** *

For more information, please contact:

Ottavia Pesce

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)

Telephone: (+43 699) 1459 8718

Email: pesce[at]un.org
Police, community members and others meet near the Columbia Heights Metro Station to discuss recent shootings and other crime in the area on Jan. 20. (Matt McClain/The Post)

Residents, who on Thursday toured the area with D.C. police and city leaders, say shootings have made them feel unsafe in their neighborhood.
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North Carolina Republicans are making a last ditch effort to try and win back the marquee event of the Republican National Convention even after President Donald Trump made it abundantly clear hes moving on from the state.

The attempt amounts to the legislative version of the boombox scene in the 1980s romcom Say Anything - a grand gesture to keep Trumps affections in their state. But just like the romance in the film, no one really thinks itll work out in the end.

As far as the convention goes, as much as we want it here, I really don't think it's going to happen no matter what we do, Mark Brody, North Carolinas national GOP committeeman told The Daily Beast. It's not going to happen. Gov. Cooper doesn't want it here.

In truth, Trump walked away from the convention after Governor Rory Cooper couldnt promise him a packed arena due to continued concerns over COVID-19 infections in the state. But that has done little to quell the disappointment felt by Republicans who have watched helplessly as the Republican National Committee has gravitated towards other contenders.

A Republican familiar with the situation said the RNC remains in discussion with a handful of cities eager to host a celebration of the Presidents acceptance speech.

Enter North Carolinas GOP chairman, who took to Twitter last week to promote legislation from Republican state Rep. John Torbett with the flashy intent of giving Trump the kind of GOP mega event the president clearly envisions in August regardless of public health concerns.

On Tuesday, Torbett told The Daily Beast that details of the bill were still being worked out as he described the president as a businessman rather than a politician.

I'm trying to salvage the relationship, Torbett said.

His colleagues were quick to admit they already knew how this effort would end.

Reality is, we can pass anything we want to but it'll get vetoed by the governor and we don't have the votes to override, Republican state Rep. Michael Speciale said. So the governor is going to end up getting his way on this one.

Story continues

Its also unclear how intense the effort is outside of the statehouse. The North Carolina Republican Party did not respond to questions about what it is doing specifically to try and keep the presidents speech in the state.

I'm resigned to the fact that it's not going to be in Charlotte," said Brody, who also serves as a state representative. "So whoever else gets it, I'm glad for them and I hope it goes well.

Trump first began threatening to pull the convention from Charlotte on Memorial Day, further escalating the tension a day later as he envisioned a grandiose event for his second nominating convention, regardless of persistent health concerns over the coronavirus.

The presidents tactics enflamed the fears of some businesses in the Charlotte area who had already seen their bottom lines dented by the public health crisis, with one limousine company telling The Daily Beast before Trump made a final decision it's going to cripple us.

The ensuing back and forth between the RNC and Coopers administration publicly appeared to make little progress with a clear breaking point coming from a letter Cooper, a Democrat, sent last week emphasizing a scaled back event instead of the full convention that Republicans felt they should have during the pandemic.

On Twitter, Trump blamed Cooper for not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised as he announced the party would now find another state.

With that in mind, the draft of Torbetts bill that was promoted on social media last week by the states GOP chairman included a clear line to try and win Trump over, saying capacity events at scheduled events shall be allowed.

Even then for Torbett, the North Carolina Republican said he expects the president to do what he thinks is best, when it comes to the convention.

That's in his purview, that is above my paygrade," the state lawmaker said. And so I have to either trust what he's doing is the correct thing or trust that what he's doing is not the correct thing. I choose to trust what he's doing is the correct thing.

During a press briefing Monday Cooper told reporters that intervention by legislators to guarantee a full arena was irresponsible."

"What we need to do is to continue our conversations with the RNC, Cooper said. But understand that the public health and safety of North Carolinians and everybody at that convention should come first."

Plans still call for the official business of the convention to be held in Charlotte, depending upon Coopers actions heading towards August, but Trumps acceptance of the 2020 GOP nomination remains in search of a home.

Republican governors in Tennessee, Florida and Georgia were quick to make public plays for the kind of health anxiety inducing event the president foresees for his August speech, and the RNC has been clear that theyre going venue shopping even though there is little time to spare.

But Democratic led cities in those GOP states havent been shy that the convention is not something theyre eager to see brought to their cities.

Thats far from the case in Jacksonville, where Floridas governor and the local mayor are both Republicans who have advocated for the state to become the home for Trumps dream event.

Mayor Lenny Curry said last week that Jacksonville would be honored to host a world class event like the Republican National Convention. But this week a spokesperson for the city did not directly respond to questions about what promises are being made to try and woo the Trump campaign and the RNC.

We dont have any comments regarding the RNC at this time, a spokesperson for the city said in an email.

Back in North Carolina, Ada M. Fisher, the Republican national committeewoman for the state, wasnt ready to completely give up. Despite all the talk about moving the convention, Fisher said she's had no confirmation of what the final convention is going to look like and hasnt counted Trump out from coming to the state.

She said shes encouraged the president through all kinds of channels, at her disposal but declined to elaborate further.

One thing that you must know about Donald Trump, and I know Donald Trump, he's going to do what he wants to do, Fisher said. So you can push till the cows come home, but if the president has made up his mind, he is going to choose whatever he wants.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Fighters from an IS-linked jihadist group on Tuesday killed 59 people in a raid on a herding village in northeast Nigeria's Borno state, local militia members and residents told AFP. Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) drove into remote Felo village in Gubio district in the early afternoon, shooting fleeing residents and running them over with their vehicles. "Fifty-nine bodies were recovered from the raid on the village," anti-jihadist militia leader Babakura Kolo said. "Some of them were shot and others were crushed under the wheels," he added. The attack is believed to be a reprisal for the killing of jihadist fighters by local vigilantes protecting the villagers' herd from theft by the militants, a local leader in the village said. "We have lost 59 kinsmen in such a short time," said the local leader who asked not to be named for his personal safety. The jihadists have been stealing livestock from the village, prompting residents to form a militia force to end the theft, said another militiaman Ibrahim Liman, who gave the same toll. The vigilantes have been "hunting for the insurgents" in the bushes, killing some of them in gunfights, Liman said. Gubio, 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the regional capital Maiduguri, has been repeatedly targeted by the jihadists. The incessant attacks prompted the authorities to send more than 100 vigilantes and local hunters to protect the town and nearby areas against incursions from ISWAP. ISWAP is a splinter faction that broke away from Boko Haram in 2016. It has intensified attacks against the military in the last two years, repeatedly carrying out deadly strikes against soldiers. In recent months there has been an increase in attacks on civilians blamed on the group. The decade-long conflict has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast. The violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition to fight the insurgents. Map of Nigeria locating the northeastern Borno state where a jihadist attack on Tuesday left dozens dead
Touchpoint to provide health and wellness expert Casey Fleyshman innovative mobile app platform to live stream fitness, motivation and focused wellbeing classes



Casey Loves Fitness to connect with more than one million followers

MIAMI, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Touchpoint Group Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB: TGHI), a media and digital technology holding company, today announced that it has entered into a licensing agreement with Casey Loves Fitness, LLC (CLF) to utilize the Touchpoint app on iOS and Android devices.

The CLF Fitness app will provide subscribers the ability to live stream classes in fitness, motivation and wellbeing hosted by Casey Fleyshman, who has over 1,000,000 followers across social media channels due to her proficiency in nutritional counseling, goal mapping, exercise testing, and much more. As a certified personal trainer, Casey is well equipped to provide access to basic, intermediate and high-level training class schedules. Casey will live stream and record classes, which will be regularly uploaded to the app, providing users access to content anytime and anywhere, and will also offer original merchandise. The CLF Fitness app will be available soon for download in Apples App Store and the Google Play Store.

Mark White, CEO of Touchpoint, said, This agreement with Casey, who has achieved more than 1,000,000 followers for her fitness education abilities, is a further illustration of the traction our Touchpoint app is gaining in the market as a tool to help celebrities connect with their fans in new ways. The new experiences we are having with fitness during the COVID-19 pandemic with an emphasis on stay-at-home health and wellness, we expect to continue during the new normal. The Touchpoint app provides users the ability to stream live and recorded interactive content from the safety and convenience of their homes. With fitness centers around the world looking for new revenue streams and the health-conscious seeking convenient home-based interactive fitness, we look forward to building upon this relationship and positioning Touchpoint as a leading and innovative fan engagement platform.

Casey Fleyshman, founder and owner of Casey Loves Fitness, commented, I am excited to enter this agreement to establish CLF as a premier online personal training app. My hope is to be an outlet for those who are passionate about living a healthier lifestyle and achieving the highest goals they have for their bodies. I believe in the education and experiences I have because I have learned the hard way that while many people themselves may look healthy or fit and have the urge to help others, unfortunately that doesnt make them qualified to help. I am extremely excited to begin my partnership with Touchpoint, as a new way of offering fitness and wellbeing to my fans.

About Touchpoint Group Holdings.

Touchpoint Group Holdings Inc. is a media and digital technology acquisition and software company. For more information, see http://touchpointgh.com/.

Safe Harbor Statement

This news release may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ from those in the forward looking-statements. Potential risks include such factors as the inability to enter into agreements with parties with whom we are in discussions, the uncertainty of consumer demand for the Companys products, as well as additional risks and uncertainties that are identified and described in the Companys SEC reports. Actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release. Statements made herein are as of the date of this press release and should not be relied upon as of any subsequent date. The Company does not undertake, and it specifically disclaims, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect occurrences, developments, events or circumstances after the date of such statement.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Though you cant yet have that face-to-face conversation you long to have with your local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) staffer, you can still get many types of transactions completed by mail, online or through secure on-site drop boxes.

And theres no waiting in line for your number to be called.

You can renew your current license or non-driver ID online now, but REAL IDs and EDLs require an in-person visit and will have to be put off until later due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Because of the pandemic, the federal REAL ID enforcement deadline has been extended one year until Oct. 1, 2021.

On June 1, however, the state DMV began offering more than 60 transactions online, including:

 Select driver license services, such as renewing or replacing a license

 Vehicle transactions, such as renewing or replacing a registration

 Requests for DMV records, like crash reports or driving abstracts

 Address change

 Paying fines and fees for suspensions, civil penalties, driver responsibility assessments

 Pleading or paying New York City traffic tickets

To do a DMV transaction online, your computer must accept cookies. For example, if you set your browser to "tell sites I do not want to be tracked," you are disabling cookies and you may not be able to use DMV online services.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

SECURE DROP BOXES

Also, since June 4, the DMV has been accepting transactions through secure drop boxes located at each office. When dropping off documents, customers must wear face coverings and only two customers will be allowed in at a time to access the drop box.

Customers should ensure their documents are filled out completely prior to bringing them to the DMV. All documents and instructions are available on www.dmv.ny.gov. Customer service representatives will not be available to assist with these transactions.

Customers will not be allowed to pick up their completed transactions. Once transactions are complete, a receipt, or license plates and registration documents, when applicable, will be returned to the customer by mail.

Customers who wish to register a vehicle should complete the DMV online registration checklist before mailing or dropping off their documents.

Among the transactions offered via mail or drop box are:

Vehicle registrations

License plate transfers

License plate surrenders

License and registration renewals

The replacement of lost documents and address changes

All driver licenses, non-driver identification cards and vehicle registrations that expired after March 1 and vehicle inspections that expired after March 31 will continue to be extended.

To print forms or complete transactions online, visit the New York State DMV website.

NON-DMV TRANSACTIONS

The DMV will also assist residents with the following transactions online:

 Become an organ donor

 DMV electronic voter registration application

 Sign up for E-Z Pass

ROAD TESTS

Road tests and reservations for Class D (passenger cars) are not available at this time. That service will resume when New York City enters Phase 3 of the states reopening process.

Commercial driver license (CDL) road tests have begun. All road tests will be conducted with strict safety requirements in place. Road test examiners will wear gloves, face shields and have hand sanitizer, and customers must wear masks and be screened prior to beginning the test.

Customers whose CDL road tests were canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak will be given priority for rescheduling. To schedule a commercial road test, visit online registration.
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Single-use, also known as disposable, refers to products that are intended for one-time use. These products are made from a plastic (polyamide {PA}, polyethylene {PE}, polycarbonate {PC}, polyethersulfone {PESU}, polypropylene {PP}, polyvinyl chloride {PVC}, polytetrafluorethylene {PTFE}, cellulose acetate {CA}, and ethylene vinyl acetate {EVA}) and are disposed after use. Single-use products have revolutionized the field of bioproduction. These products are becoming popular in the biopharmaceutical arena as they reduce the risk of contamination during development and production. Various disposable products such as laboratory instruments, including petri plates, flasks, filling and tubing systems, cell culture apparatus, filters, pumps, bioreactors, are used in bioproduction.

Single-use technologies are mainly used in bio-therapeutic development and manufacturing processes. These technologies facilitate the development of small amounts of drug products for use in preclinical and clinical testing procedures.

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The global single-use technologies market is categorized based on technology and application. Based on technology, the report covers membrane adsorber, bioreactors, disposable mixing systems, tangential flow filtration, tubing and connectors, depth filtration, buffer containers, waste containers and media bags, and filter cartridges. The application segment is further sub-segmented into monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, gene therapy, recombinant proteins, and blood derivatives

In terms of geography, North America dominates the global single-use technologies market. This is due to improved biopharmaceutical industry in the region. Moreover, increased awareness about therapeutic applications of biotherapeutics has also fueled the market in North America. The U.S. represents the largest market for single-use technologies in North America, followed by Canada. In Europe, Germany, France, and the U.K. hold major shares of the single-use technologies market. The single-use technologies market in Asia too, is expected to experience high growth rate over the next five years. This is due to improving Life Sciences arena in the region. Furthermore, increased foreign investment in this field is also supporting the growth of the single-use technologies market in the region. India, China, and Japan are expected to be the fastest growing markets for single-use technologies in Asia.

Rising awareness about therapeutic applications of biotherapeutics is a key driver for the global single-use technologies market. Also, increasing demand of biologics and advancements in medical technology are fuelling the growth of this market. Low manufacturing and maintenance costs of single-use products and instruments attract end-users to adopt this technology in bioproduction. Increasing research on cell biology and stem cell is propelling the demand for single-use products.

Moreover, drug pricing control is forcing large and emerging biotech companies to change their overall approach in development and production of bioproducts. This is leading to rise in demand for improved process optimization and more efficient operations such as single-use technologies and bioengineering. This is creating growth opportunities for single use-use technologies market.

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However, stringent regulations imposed by various governments hamper the growth of global single-use technologies market. Increasing number of mergers and acquisitions of biotech and pharmaceutical companies and rapid product launches are key trends in the global single-use technologies market.

The major companies operating in this market are Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, Applikon Biotechnology B.V., GE Healthcare, Pall Corporation, NewAge Industries, Inc., Saint-Gobain S.A., BioPure Technology Limited, Sartorius AG, RENOLIT, Novasep, W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., EMD Millipore, and Dow Corning Corporation.
Strategically Positioned on Therapies for Military, Veterans, Front-Line Personnel Globally to cope with Mental Health & Well-Being.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. (CSE:MYCO) (OTC: NLBIF) (FSE:0NF) ("Mydecine" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce it has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent ("LOI") dated June 9, 2020 to acquire NeuroPharm Inc., ("NeuroPharm") a Canadian-based healthcare company working to deploy the power of nature's medicine for the wellness of veterans, EMS and front line personnel inNorth America and globally (the "Acquisition").

"The exceptional roles and responsibilities Canada's military and veterans, EMS and front-line personnel undertake on a daily basis, contribute to these professional's underlying mental health challenges" said Josh Bartch, CEO, Mydecine Innovations Group. "I look forward to working with NeuroPharm's talented clinicians, scientists, academics and industry leaders focused on responding to these individual's mental health and wellness needs in the years to come."

"Our mission is to build a capability that will truly have a focus on veterans, EMS and other front-line personnel. This new capability will bring to the table unique skillsets to meet this enormous challenge of building veterans, EMS and front-line staff confidence and restoring their overall wellness. With our experienced team, we understand their unique circumstances related to service that may have contributed to operational stress injuries namely post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or anxiety" added Colonel (Ret'd) Pucci, Chairman and CEO NeuroPharm Inc.

Mydecine and NeuroPharm will combine to focus on an integrated health and wellness research strategy and the development of products underpinned by therapies to assist veterans with mental health issues. NeuroPharm is focused on developing unique pharmaceutical and natural health products for veteran wellness , with a specific focus on the use of psilocybin. Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of mushrooms, collectively known as psilocybin mushrooms. Once ingested, psilocybin is rapidly metabolized to psilocin, which then acts on serotonin receptors in the brain. NeuroPharm has developed unique and proprietary technology to treat various mental health conditions that are frequently experienced by veterans such as PTSD, depression, addiction, anxiety, and panic disorders as well as migraine and cluster headaches. Preliminary studies from institutions including the Imperial College of London, University of Zurich, Johns Hopkins, NYU, and UCLA suggest that psilocybin-assisted therapy could be a revolutionary treatment for depression and addiction.

NeuroPharm - Executive Management

The key to NeuroPharm's unique position is its stewardship, which has extensive established relationships with global military organizations, as well as an experienced cross-functional team poised to oversee all areas of the product life cycle, from medical mushroom cultivation, drug delivery system development, clinical trial execution, through to product commercialization and marketing:

President and Chief Executive Officer, Colonel (Ret'd) Richard Pucci, OMM, CD, BSc, MDS, served as the Deputy Commander of the Canadian Forces Health Services, during which time he oversaw a team of approximately 6,400 active members and 500 contractors; during his tenure he was responsible for over watching via the chain of command 43 units and 82 detachments, including clinics, mobile medical units, field hospital, schools, research establishment, and a medical equipment depot. He also held the position of Chief of Staff of the Health Services Group, with the overall responsibility for a financial and business planning cycle of $462 million, and an infrastructure budget of $600 million. Colonel (Ret'd) Pucci's knowledge and affiliations within the military community provide additional pathways to unique funding sources and facilitate the development of psilocybin-based treatments for the veterans population.

NeuroPharm - Medical and Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Rakesh Jetly, OMM, CD, MD, FRCPC, part of the Company's Medical & Scientific Advisory Board, is currently the Head of the Centre of Excellence on Mental Health in Ottawa, Ontario, and an associate professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University (Halifax); and the University of Ottawa. He has published numerous articles in professional journals and presents nationally and internationally on such topics as PTSD and operational psychiatry.

Dr. Mohyuddin Mirza, PhD, P.Ag, Chief Science Officer, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta and served as an adjunct professor at his alma matter. He was inducted into the Alberta Agriculture Hall of Fame and, subsequently, the Alberta Greenhouse Growers Association created the "Dr. Mohyuddin Mirza Educational and Scholarship Foundation". Dr. Mirza brings with him his vast knowledge of greenhouse technologies, infrastructure, feasibility, research, and development to the NeuroPharm team.

Prof. dr. H.G.J.M. (Eric) Vermetten MD, PhD, is professor Medical-Biological and Psychiatric Aspects of Psych trauma, LUMC/University of Leiden.Eric Vermetten is psychiatrist at the MGGZ in Utrecht (Military Mental Health care). From 1991 he has been linked to several universities as a researcher, including Stanford University, California, Yale Univ, New Haven CT, Emory Univ, Atlanta, and studied at the University of Maastricht and followed several postgraduate courses. In 2003, Eric was promoted on Posttraumatic Stress Disorders: Neurobiological Studies in the Aftermath of Traumatic Stress at the University of Utrecht. Vermetten considers PTSD a heterogeneous disorder, with different contributions of neurobiological systems and circuits. He is convinced that longitudinal cohort studies, more than research with cross-sectional designs, is important to obtain knowledge breakthroughs. And assumes that in the psych traumatology computer-assisted technology, the patient can give more influence on therapeutic - and care processes.

Terms of the LOI

Pursuant to terms of the LOI, the Company will purchase all of the issued and outstanding shares in the capital of NeuroPharm for $6,000,000, payable in common shares in the capital of the Company at a deemed price per share of $0.90. The Company will pay a finder's fee on the Acquisition.

The completion of the Acquisition is subject to a number of conditions, including, but not limited to, the execution of a definitive agreement, completion of satisfactory due diligence, and receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that the Acquisition will be completed as proposed, or at all.

About Mydecine Innovations Group Inc.

Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. is the parent company operating innovative product divisions in the Naturally Sourced Therapies (NST) space. While controlling a variety of Psilocybin and hemp-derived CBD brands that design, manufacture, and distribute cutting edge products, Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. further enhances its portfolio with numerous cultivation properties, retail locations, and other land assets.

Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. is the progressive and innovative Naturally Sourced Therapies (NST) lifestyle group known around the globe. Focusing on the rapidly emerging psilocybin and psychedelic medicines market, the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary 1220611 B.C. Ltd. (operating as Mydecine Group) ("Mydecine") is a vertically integrated company engaged to utilize the vast medicinal, health and wellness capabilities of the various compounds found in mycology as a whole. Established to parallel the early emergence of the industry, Mydecine aims to be a pioneer in the cultivation, processing, product development, and research and development of mycology's exciting compounds through its three divisions, "Mydecine Farms," "Mydecine Wellness" and "Mydecine Labs." Furthermore, the Company's wholly owned subsidiaries in the hemp-derived CBD space, We are Kured LLC, Drink Fresh Water LLC, Relyfe Brand LLC, Fresh Water CBD LLC and TeaLief Brand LLC have quickly developed into market leaders and maintain extensive retail and cultivation land investments in the United States.

About NeuroPharm Inc.

NeuroPharm Inc. (NPI) is a Canadian based healthcare company developing a unique set of pharmaceutical and natural health products addressing mental wellness in vulnerable populations such as Veterans and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel. We are committed to bringing to market adaptive plant-based therapies for use as an adjunct to clinical therapy to treat traumatic disorders specifically observed in the Veteran and EMS space. NPI was founded by a dedicated group of former military personnel motivated to seek alternative treatments addressing these traumatic disorders experienced by many Veterans following active service. The NPI team is proud to include contributions and advisory from esteemed scientific, academic, clinical and product development specialists.

For further information about Mydecine Innovations Group Inc., please consult the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or visit the Company's website at http://mydecine.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

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 management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected 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 Company's 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.

For Further Information Contact

Corporate Communications

250-488-6728
Foreign ministers of Germany, France and Italy join EUs Josep Borrell in calling for immediate ceasefire agreement.

The European Unions top diplomat has urged all parties in the conflict in Libya to immediately stop all military operations and engage constructively in peace negotiations.

As Turkish drones helped drive eastern Libyan forces back from Tripoli this month, Russia was said to be reinforcing the forces with warplanes, raising the stakes in a civil war that has partitioned the north African country.

Recent weeks have marked a turning point in a complex conflict between two uneasy coalitions that are each backed by an array of foreign states, whose competing regional agendas make them unwilling to countenance defeat.

In a joint statement with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Italy issued on Tuesday, the EUs top diplomat, Josep Borrell, called on the conflict parties in Libya to swiftly agree on a ceasefire and withdraw all foreign forces, mercenaries and military equipment.

The joint statement followed increased diplomatic efforts by Germany to push for a political solution to the Libya crisis.





Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier on Tuesday expressed her concern in a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the recent escalation of fighting in Libya.

On Monday, Merkel discussed the situation in the country with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Merkel told el-Sisi that United Nations-backed negotiations must remain the key aim of the peace process where the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) is fighting General Khalifa Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army in the east.

On Saturday, el-Sisi proposed a new ceasefire after the Turkish-backed GNA won a series of rapid victories over Haftars forces, dashing Haftars bid to unite the country by force with help from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Buoyed by their recent military victories in western Libya, GNA forces have launched an offensive to capture Sirte, with fighting so far concentrated on the citys western and southern outskirts.

Known for being the birthplace of former longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, Sirte holds significant symbolic value as it is located roughly halfway between Tripoli and Haftars eastern bastion of Benghazi.
After nearly two weeks of silence, the Russian government issued its first official statements on the mass protest in the United States and major cities in the rest of the world, sparked by the brutal police murder of George Floyd. On Sunday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Maria Zakharova declared, They [the US and the European governments] have reaped what they have sown. Having sown chaos, they have gotten chaos.

All around the world they have promoted the possibility of destabilizing conditions, the possibility of playing on internal contradictions that naturally exist with any state and people, Zakharova told the television station Russia 1.

Speaking to Komsomolskaya Pravda on Monday, Zakharova described the accusationsmade most prominently on May 31 by former President Barak Obamas National Security Adviser Susan Ricethat Russia was responsible for the crisis gripping Washington as mythology.

To state, as have several representatives of the Democratic Party in the US that behind the protests in the States stands the hand of the Russians, Russia and Kremlin, means to simply not respect your own people and not to understand what is happening. The only thing that links the current situation in the US with Russia is that Moscow has repeatedly pointed out to Washington the necessity of first of all minding ones own internal politics before preaching to everyone else.

The same day, the main state television channel, Perv y i Kanal, swapped out the credits that were supposed to roll at the conclusion of the film Brother 2 with scenes of looting and violence from the United States. The song Goodbye America by Nautilus Pompilius played simultaneously. The plot of the popular cult classic gangster movie, which was aired on official TV to mark the twentieth anniversary of its release in 2000, touches on racial and social tensions in the US.

The Kremlins seeming smugness over the political crisis in America seeks to mask extreme nervousness within the Russian ruling class over the mass protests sweeping the United States and expanding globally. The social moods driving these events also exist in Russia, where the coronavirus pandemic has infected hundreds of thousands, sent the economy into a tailspin, and wrecked the livelihoods of millions. Popular anger at the federal and regional authorities is rising, President Putins popularity rating is falling, and a mood of exasperation, anxiety, and anger is spreading, as a recent study highlighted in the business daily Kommersant noted.

Three percent of the Russian population controls 89 percent of the countrys financial assets. Ninety-eight Russian billionaires have more wealth than the combined savings of the entire population of 144.5 million people. Real incomes have been falling for years and are expected to further decline as an estimated five to six million workers are expected to find themselves jobless by the end of the year.

In an attempt to forestall the spread of protests to Russia and prevent a feeling of solidarity from emerging within the Russian working class, across the political spectrum the countrys media has sought to portray the demonstrations in the United States as little more thanas Alexei Poplavsky of Gazeta.ru put itdisturbances, brigandage, and looting. They have, according to reporter Rustem Safronov, who works for the Kremlin-funded Radio Sputnik, started to take on a bad form, becoming pogroms.

The news daily Lenta.ru featured an interview on June 4 with a one-time American policeman about rioters in the United States. The ex-marine and former member of Floridas Palm Beach County police force insisted that the murdered George Floyd was indisputably engaged in a crime when detained. Supposedly the sequence of events that led to the mans asphyxiation are hazy but indicate little more than an excessive use of force.

Combining outright lies with half-truths and stupidities, commentators have openly or implicitly endorsed President Donald Trumps military-police crackdown against what they described as a sort of black peril emerging from below. Racist tropes and xenophobia abound.

Writing on Ekho Moskv y, Russias leading pro-Western liberal news outlet, economist Vladislav Inozemtsev blackguarded George Floyd as a convicted criminal under the influence of drugs when arrested. He lamented the deaths of white police officers and falsely claimed that the killing of a white person at the hands of the cops has in 40 years never resulted in a single speech against police violence in the US. He described the mass, interracial movement against state oppression exploding in the US as a demonstration of power that does not serve to affirm racial equality, but the superiority of ethnic minorities over the majority.

Writing in Gazeta.ru, owned by the billionaire oligarch Alexander Mamut, Georgi Bovt joined in. In a June 8 article entitled, Do whites have to kneel before blacks? Bovt argued that other minority groups in American history faced conditions not worse than blacks, but had seen their socio-economic status improve over decades. The social misery experienced by many African-Americans, he claimed, is their own fault. In a particularly nasty moment in the article, Bovt boasts that in Russia it is supposedly acceptable to refer to blacks by the derogatory term negr, which, as Bovt clearly knows, is especially ugly to the American ear because it sounds like the n-word.

Bovts colleague at Gazeta.ru, Poplavsky, insisted the crisis gripping the US was one of political correctness. Noting the opinions of a right-wing French commentator, the Russian journalist said that America was in the grips of an aggressive ideology that has essentially declared oppressed minorities the builders of the future, in the manner of the proletariat for the Bolsheviks. While Trump and the Republicans have responded with an admirably strong hand, the Democrats had done nothing and attempted to justify the violence in the streets, Poplavsky wrote.

While having a different political coloration, the racist attacks in the Russian press on the American protests echo the efforts of the Democratic Party and its adjuncts in the media to insist that the demonstrations against police violence are fundamentally a struggle of blacks for black lives against white privilege. In both instances, the interracial and multi-ethnic character of the social anger erupting across the United States and internationally is denied. In the Russian media it is smothered in bigotry and ugly tropes trading in racial superiority. In the American media, it is drowned in the claim that race, not class, is the dividing line of American society. The aim of both approaches is to block a unified struggle of the working masses against the universal source of their oppressioncapitalism.

A notable feature of the present press coverage in Russia has been the relative lack of attention that has been given to the spread of the demonstrations in the United States to other countries, particularly European states. Like the racist denunciation of the protests in the US, this silence is aimed at suppressing the universality of the social grievances underlying the protests by workers and youth throughout the world against racism and police violence.
Murder-suicide has been ruled out as the cause of the deaths of a Melbourne mother and her son who were found slumped next to each other in the woman's backyard.

Police are not treating the deaths of Ingrid House, 63, and her son Nicholas House, 34, as suspicious after they were found dead at the Notting Hill property on May 28.

It is understood Ms House died of natural causes and her devastated son took his own life after he found her body, reports The Herald Sun.

Nicholas House, 34, was found on May 28 at his mother's Notting Hill house in Melbourne

The exact cause of Ms House's death has not yet been established but will be investigated by the Coroner.

A report on the death of Mr House was prepared and will also be handed to the Coroner.

The sister-in-law of Ms House previously said the family was struggling to terms with the loss.

'It is difficult to understand. We don't know the circumstances,' she said.

Police are not treating deaths of Ingrid House, 63, and her son Nicholas House, 34, as suspicious after they were found by another son at the Notting Hill (pictured) property

Ms House had three sons, including Nicholas, and lived in the house for several years.

Neighbour Peter Wrighter, an Iraqi immigrant, said an elderly couple had lived in the house for more than a decade.

'I was in shock when I first heard the sirens and opened the window and saw all the police and everybody,' he said.

'Back home in Iraq I'm used to killing but my wife is very upset.'

Mr House had posted online in the weeks before May 28 that he had experienced 'one of the sh***est years'.

His posts also show he was a passionate NRL and Wests Tigers supporter, often going to games with family and friends.

For confidential support call the Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14.

For further support contact Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 and MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78.
It has been a decade since the horrific violence in June 2010 between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities ravaged southern Kyrgyzstan and left at least 470 people dead, thousands injured, and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Amid the smoldering aftermath of the senseless carnage, interim President Roza Otunbaeva called for an independent, international investigation to uncover the root causes of the events.



As a result, the seven-member Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission (KIC) was created with experts from Russia, France, Britain, Estonia, Australia, and Turkey.



It was led by Finnish politician Kimmo Kiljunen, who was the special representative for Central Asia from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.



Kiljunen brought together prominent international lawyers, human rights experts, specialists on conflict analysis, and others who spent nearly a year investigating the causes of the violence in order to advise Bishkek on how to prevent similar outbreaks in the future -- and most importantly to bring "peace, stability, and reconciliation" to the Uzbek and Kyrgyz communities.

After interviewing hundreds of witnesses and reviewing thousands of photos and videos of the events -- which mainly took place in the cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad -- the commission's detailed report was issued on May 3, 2011.

While finding no war crimes or genocide had taken place, the report said some acts of violence could have been prosecuted as crimes against humanity.

Both Kyrgyzstan's parliament and its interim government -- which took office after the violent uprising in 2010 that ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev -- rejected the report's conclusions when it was released the following year.



A government statement called the report unacceptable and one-sided, claiming that it unfairly portrayed ethnic Uzbeks as "defenseless victims."



It said the investigators displayed an "overwhelming tendency that only one ethnic group" had committed crimes and ignored ethnic Kyrgyz "victims and deaths."



One lawmaker in Bishkek accused Kiljunen of accepting bribes from ethnic Uzbek "separatists" in order to whitewash attacks against ethnic Kyrgyz citizens -- an allegation rejected by Kiljunen as "ridiculous" and a "big lie."

For her part, Otunbaeva at the time praised the work of the international investigation as "important and necessary."

But rather than moving to implement some of the commission's recommendations to prevent similar outbreaks of violence, lawmakers in Bishkek on May 26, 2011, declared Kiljunen persona non grata.



Ten years after the ethnic clashes of June 2010, Kyrgyzstan still has not implemented many of the KIC's recommendations.



And Kiljunen, who is now the vice president of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, is still persona non grata in Kyrgyzstan.



'Truth' And 'Reconciliation'



"It's really a strange situation because I'm actually, maybe, the only person in the world who is persona non grata based on a parliamentary decision," Kiljunen told RFE/RL ahead of the 10th anniversary of the violence.

"Throughout the world, [it normally is] the government that makes the decision of persona non grata and that can renew it," he says.

"We wished, we really sincerely hoped, that we could help by telling the truth, by trying to open the situation as it happened in a way that could help solve the issue" through a "reconciliation process," Kiljunen says of the commission's report.



"We only tried to give the facts and say who the victims were, how many people were killed, and what the problem areas are," he adds.

In fact, the KIC's investigation concluded that ethnic Uzbeks suffered disproportionately in the violence -- and were the victims in about 74 percent of the deaths.



Meanwhile, Kiljunen notes, about 80 percent of the trials and prosecutions by Kyrgyz authorities targeted ethnic Uzbeks.



The KIC also concluded that some attacks on ethnic Uzbek neighborhoods in the city of Osh could amount to "crimes against humanity" if they were "proven beyond a reasonable doubt."



Those crimes included "murder, rape, other forms of sexual violence, physical violence, and persecution against an identifiable group on ethnic grounds," it said.



Looking back on those events a decade later, Kiljunen says the commission's report has failed to be fully heeded in Bishkek because "the Kyrgyz population didn't want to read it and didn't want to recognize the problem."

"It's up to the Kyrgyz society as a whole to try to build up the process of reconciliation," Kiljunen tells RFE/RL. "It's very much an educational process" for the entire society.



"The whole international community was very alarmed and shocked at how it was possible that in a country like Kyrgyzstan -- which among the Central Asian countries was one of the most, let's say, most open and also democratically minded -- that such a violent outbreak could have happened," Kiljunen says.



Kiljunen, 68, insists the KIC's recommendations "were made with sincere thoughts" that would help alleviate ethnic tensions in Kyrgyzstan.

"We said a truth commission is very frequently used in this type of situation," he explains. "A truth commission tries to open the problem so that there are no [closed] pages in the history of the country and each side can recognize what the facts were.

"By seeing the facts, they could forgive and go further," Kiljunen says. But if you dont open up the facts, if you try to deny what has really happened, it is still there as a potential reason to erupt [into violence] once again."

WATCH: Azimjan Askarov was arrested by Kyrgyz security forces in connection with ethnic Uzbek-Kyrgyz clashes that first erupted in the city of Osh. A court in Bishkek recently upheld the ethnic Uzbek human rights activist's life sentence, despite international pressure for his release.



"Obviously, that's the first thing -- to open the issue and discuss it, and maybe have community representatives meet each other" to move forward beyond the violence, he says.

Kyrgyz officials never came close to establishing a truth commission.



Names Named



When the ethnic violence broke out in southern Kyrgyzstan on June 10, 2010, the new government headed by Otunbaeva had been in power for just two months.



Otunbaeva admitted to RFE/RL in an interview days before the anniversary of those events that her government was "not very stable or powerful" and was "busy trying to stabilize the situation in [the capital] Bishkek" in the aftermath of Bakiev's ouster.

She blamed the poor state of interethnic relations inside Kyrgyzstan for triggering the violence in Osh and said there were several other mitigating factors and other forces that "took advantage of that moment to try to make a fire."

Sooronbai Jeenbekov, the man appointed by Otunbaeva as the governor of Osh Province just two months before the violence began, is now Kyrgyz president.

KIC investigators exonerated Jeenbekov, saying he had "responded appropriately" after surrendering his legal powers to the commandant of Osh when authorities in Bishkek declared a state of emergency on June 11, 2010.



The KIC said Jeenbekov "gave instructions to prevent the mobilization of rural Kyrgyz and was present" during a crucial meeting between provisional government representatives and the mayor of Osh.



But the actions of some other Kyrgyz government and military officials was deemed by the KIC to have been "inadequate" to prevent ethnic Kyrgyz crowds from storming ethnic Uzbek neighborhoods in Osh during the peak time of violence.

"General Ismail Isakov, the special representative of the provisional government for southern Kyrgyzstan, took effective command over the operational headquarters and security forces in Osh city and province," the KIC report noted.



"His failure to deploy the security forces with clear orders and rules of engagement providing for the use of nonlethal force on 11 June or subsequent days constitutes a serious omission," it said.



The KIC said the commandant of Osh city and province, Bakyt Alymbekov, "unlawfully abdicated control over law enforcement in favor of General Isakov and failed in his duty to ensure that human rights were respected during the restoration of order."

"The commandant of Jalal-Abad, Kubatbek Baybolov, failed to take all measures within his power to end the violence in Jalal-Abad," Kiljunen's commission concluded.



The KIC also criticized what it described as the "nationalist rhetoric of the mayor of Osh, Melis Myrzakmatov," during the crisis -- saying his public statements were "not conducive to the calming of interethnic tensions."



Noting that Baybolov later became Kyrgyzstan's prosecutor-general, the KIC said he also "failed to ensure that the investigation and prosecution of crimes" were carried out according to the country's "domestic and international legal obligations."



Since then, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have continued to criticize the way ethnic Uzbeks have been targeted by most of the 5,000-plus criminal investigations launched by Kyrgyz authorities.
OTTAWATime is running out.

According to Carleton University professor Jennifer Robsons reading of government statistics, more than 2 million people could clock out of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) at the beginning of July. Thats when the first wave of recipients is set to crash against the end of the 16-week eligibility period for the payout program that was designed to support people who lost work during the pandemic crisis.

Unless the government changes course, the window for people to receive CERB will keep closing until the program  Ottawas answer to the massive job losses of the pandemic that has doled out more than $43 billion since early spring  winds up in the fall.

What will happen when its gone?

That question is starting to poke through the politicking and analysis of Canadas response to COVID-19. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cabinet is already exploring what to do about it.

Some number of people will be lucky enough to move into EI, but I worry about delays in the benefits getting paid, Robson said by phone on Wednesday, referring to wait-times for employment insurance before the federal government crafted its pandemic-specific jobless benefit.

I also worry about the people who are not eligible for EI and what are the options available to them. And those dont look good, she said, pointing to provincial welfare programs or the underground economy.

In Ottawa, the Liberal minority government  armed with proposed legislation that targets CERB fraudsters, among other things  has made clear it hopes people can return to work under a different program, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, which is supposed to prop up jobs in the troubled economy with government cash to cover up to 75 per cent of businesses wage costs.

For David Macdonald, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the wage subsidy ship has sailed  and there remains a great deal of uncertainty around when and how the pandemic lockdowns will be lifted so that greater economic activity can start up again. As of Monday, the government had paid out just $10 billion through the wage subsidy that was originally budgeted for $73 billion.

Macdonald said the government may have to look at different options if the uptake on the subsidy doesnt gain steam in the coming weeks. The New Democratic Party is already calling for the CERB to be extended for at least another 16 weeks, with Leader Jagmeet Singh pushing the Liberal government to offer the program for as long as it is deemed necessary.

Macdonald said an extension makes sense, especially if the only alternative for many CERB recipients is to return to the EI system he described as less efficient and less generous. But he also argued that the crisis has shown the government should reform the EI system to incorporate some of the brightest aspects of the CERB, which Macdonald described as a clear success with its $500-per-week payouts.

We need to take some of the elements of the emergency benefit and incorporate it into a new modern EI system thats not built on the computers of the 1970s and the working world of the 1970s, Macdonald said.

For instance, the speed and simplicity of the CERB application process, as well as the eligibility of gig workers and people who need to quit their jobs to care for children, could be part of a new program, he said.

But such an overhaul would not happen in the short term, Macdonald said, suggesting the government could extend CERB for another month or two while we build a more modern EI system.

Robson, the Carelton professor, agreed the EI system needs to be changed, but suggested that Ottawa could create a temporary system to replace CERB instead of extending it through the pandemic crisis. Robson said this could be delivered through the Canada Revenue Agency  just like the CERB  and include lower payouts closer to EI benefit rates earnings, with the requirements to report regularly on any income and efforts to find work.

The framework Im thinking of here is kind of rehab, Robson said. You try and give people transitional supports until theyre actually able to be more self-sufficient.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Trudeau said the government is in discussions about the future of CERB, but did not say what it will do when the benefit starts to run out. Nevertheless, as he has done throughout the crisis, the prime minister promised his government will continue to be there to support Canadians who need it.

With files from Heather Scoffield

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Forget strawberries and even British cherries. This month, theres just one bumper crop thats got foodies salivating with anticipation  mangoes.

But not just any mangoes, and certainly not the rather hard, often disappointingly dull red and green varieties usually found in our supermarkets.

Instead, this year  thanks to a combination of circumstances caused by the coronavirus  the British food market is being flooded with much tastier fruits, mostly grown in India and Pakistan.

Typically, these jewels are snapped up by the gourmet restaurant trade; chefs including Raymond Blanc and Jason Atherton sing their praises. But with the industry in lockdown, suppliers are offering them direct to consumers.

Forget strawberries and even British cherries. This month, theres just one bumper crop thats got foodies salivating with anticipation  mangoes (pictured)

This means were in for a rare treat. In India, mangoes, such as the Alphonso, which is far sweeter than a typical supermarket mango, are referred to as the fruit of the gods.

Poets have extolled their virtues and mango festivals are held to celebrate their arrival each year. Hot debate rages over which of the many varieties is tastier.

Theres just one drawback: unlike supermarket varieties, typically picked and shipped before they are fully ripe for cost reasons, these must be harvested when ready to eat.

That means they have a short season, and since ripe fruits are easily damaged, theyre more difficult and expensive to transport.

In India, mangoes, such as the Alphonso (pictured), which is far sweeter than a typical supermarket mango, are referred to as the fruit of the gods

This year, however, because of pandemic across the world, lots of fruits have been left to ripen on trees while the restaurants that normally buy them are shut.

As a result, theres a glut of delicious mangoes set to arrive in the UK. So where can you get a taste  and how do you know which one you should buy?

Red Rickshaw, a specialist food retailer, is offering a 1.5kg box (about six, 9.99) to get you started, or 3kg for 18.99 (redrickshaw.com).

Five-Stars Honey Mangoes sources Chaunsa and Sindhri (also known as honey) mangoes directly from Pakistan (from 9.99 for four, 5starshoneymangoes.co.uk). You can also get them at your local Asian grocer.

And supermarkets have started making summer desserts using the mangoes to take advantage of their superior flavour. Try Alphonso Mango Sorbet by Italian gelato makers Remeo (4.95, Tesco), or Waitrose Alphonso Mango, Passionfruit & Yuzu coulis (2.50).

When buying fresh, you should choose mangoes that are slightly yielding, but not soft, when lightly squeezed, and that smell fruity.

If the mangoes need to ripen further, wrap in newspaper for a couple of days  the fruit releases an odourless gas called ethylene, which speeds up ripening, and the paper will help trap it close to the fruit.

And, should you find yourself in the enviable position of having too many mangoes, you can always slice and pop them in the freezer for more sunshine joy in the weeks to come.

Throughout June its the Alphonso mango season undoubtedly one of the most sought-after, which Raymond Blanc calls perfection when added to Thai coconut milk sticky rice. From July, look for super sweet Langra, Sindhiri, and Chaunsa mangoes.

Raymond Blanc (pictured) calls Alphonso mangoes perfection when added to Thai coconut milk sticky rice

Asma Khan, founder of Sohos Darjeeling Express restaurant, loves visiting her fathers mango orchards in Bulandshahr in India. Its the taste of my childhood, she says.

Eating mangoes is messy (some suggest enjoying them naked in a bath) so they are a great option for the outdoor picnics we are all allowed now. Or why not try these top chefs mango recipes . . .

TASTY SALAD

Jason Atherton, owner of Pollen Street Social in Mayfair, serves mango salad with grilled fish.

His wife Irha is from the Philippines, where mango is much loved, and that is the inspiration for this salad.

Stir-fry a finely sliced red onion in rapeseed oil until soft, add 2tsp tamarind paste and stir-fry for a few minutes. Add to mango wedges in a bowl with washed leaves, chopped coriander and mint.

Next make a dressing by combining a deseeded green chilli and a knob of grated ginger.

Blitz to form a paste, then add 3tbsp lime juice, 1tbsp honey, a little salt and 1tbsp rapeseed oil, and pour over salad.

MANGO SMOOTHIE

Creamy mango lassi (smoothie) is considered an essential refresher in the roasting Indian summer.

Chef Asma Khan recommends infusing a quarter of a tsp of good quality saffron threads in 1tbsp of warm milk and setting aside.

Creamy mango lassi (smoothie) is considered an essential refresher in the roasting Indian summer

Whip 900ml full-fat yoghurt and whisk in the pulp of four mangoes. Add the saffron-infused milk, plus sugar to taste. Serve over crushed ice.

INSTANT MOUSSE

Cook and food writer Mallika Basus instant mango mousse is the perfect quick treat.

Slice and peel two fresh Alphonso mangoes, blitz in a food processor with four peeled and smashed cardamom seeds, then sweeten with soft brown sugar to taste. Stir 4tbsp low-fat creme fraiche into the pureed mango and serve.

Cook and food writer Mallika Basus instant mango mousse is the perfect quick treat (file image)

SIMPLE SALSA

Spicy mangoes are a winning combination served with barbecued meat. Combine two peeled, chopped tomatoes, one finely shredded green chilli, a crushed garlic clove and two Alphonso mangoes, peeled and cut into cubes.

Stir in a grated, thumb-size piece of ginger, the zest and juice of half a lime, a pinch of caster sugar and salt and plenty of chopped dill.
The triple-fronted brick veneer house in Beaver Street, St. Albans, is rented by Mr. Cass Young, national organiser of the Australian Nazi Party.

A policeman searches through the wreckage of the St Albans house (left) and a policeman carries away a rifle found in the house (right). Credit:The Age Archives

Anti-Nazi demonstrators rampaged through a St. Albans house yesterday smashing windows and doors and wrecking several rooms.

Mob goes on rampage at Nazi Party house

First published in The Age on June 12, 1972

About 100 people raided the house following a protest meeting in the City Square yesterday.

They stormed through several rooms, wrecking furniture, smashing doors and windows, and burning clothes.

The kitchen stove was ripped out, and a bungalow at the rear of the house wrecked.

Police said nobody was home when the raiders arrived.

Mr. Young said last night the house was the Victorian headquarters of the Nazi Party and his office was in one of the rooms.
HAMDEN  Quinnipiac University affirmed its commitment to racial justice and equity in a statement Wednesday, as officials announced they had investigated social media posts of concern by incoming students.

Accordng to a letter from University President Judy Olian, Vice President of Equity & Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Don Sawyer and other administrators, the university was notified by alums and students about social media posts from two incoming students in recent days.

One post showed a person in blackface; the other referenced the Chinese virus when discussing the negative impact of the coronavirus on high school graduations.

The university said it could not divulge the results of either inquiry for privacy reasons, but officials said they wished, with the letter, to explain the core values guiding our thinking, should we face similar situations in the future.

The officials described the use of blackface as so antithetical to our fundamental values that it represented a boundry that cannot be crossed for the university, and the reference to the Chinese virus as offensive, highly inappropriate, and sweeping in its mischaracterization of the cause of the pandemic.

These two instances are forceful reminders that words and images have consequences, that regardless of intent, some forms of expression carry destructive meaning and cause harmful impact because of their historic or symbolic significance. Part of our educational purpose is to create awareness among our community to these sensitivities, and to hold ourselves fully accountable for true equity and inclusivity, officials said.

Officials asked concerned almuni and students to join with the leadership team in making changes that achieve results that demonstrate commitment to equity and fairness, noting that the university had officially stated its values in recent months.

They also said the school had begun implementing many necessary changes, such as increased diversity among faculty and the universitys leadership team and building bridges to QU for historically underrepresented minority students in high schools and community colleges, as well as an exploration of how to best address, head-on, the legacy of racism in our country starting with a re-examination of the curriculum for greater presence of racial and social justice content across courses.

We are not naive to think that change happens overnight. Much more must be done on our part, and as a community. We embrace this pivotal moment in our nations history to avow that Black Lives Matter, and to stand with our students, alumni, faculty, staff and neighbors in black communities  and in all underrepresented communities  in decrying acts of racism, prejudice and bias. Let us join together in achieving truly meaningful change, where equity and inclusiveness shine as cornerstones of who we are at Quinnipiac, officials said.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
STAMFORD  Two students from Greens Farms Academy turned Columbus Park into a memorial to George Floyd Wednesday.

The Hearts for Floyd event was dreamed up by Hannah MacDonald, 16, of Stamford, and Jennifer Llamas, 16, of Norwalk, who were looking for a way to support the Black Lives Matter movement in a way that could attract some who might stay away from a protest. Roughly 200 people showed up, many with kids in tow, to lend their voices to the movement to end racial discrimination in this country.

We both have been to protests for Black Lives Matter and they were so powerful and cool, but we realized that the protests  some people are seeing them in the wrong way, said MacDonald.

Large-scale events in some cities have turned violent.

So we wanted to have a way for other people, who are seeing the protests like that, to see this movement as a more positive aid to our community, she said.

Llamas said many kids have parents who do not want them attending protests.

I know a lot of kids want to get involved and dont know how to do it without attending protests, she said. Sometimes that seems like the only way. So, we wanted this to be a nice little thing for people to come out to do.

MacDonald and Llamas got reams of colorful paper donated from Staples High School and along with markers and scissors brought them to the park, where they passed the supplies out to people to make hearts with messages on them.

The teenage organizers also called up stores, restaurants and businesses around the park and got permission for people to tape the hearts in the storefront windows.

Police at the scene Wednesday afternoon were helping people cross Main Street and West Park Place in order to post their hearts in nearby windows.

The hearts displayed many different messages: Enough is enough, Be kind, Stop killing black people, If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

One, pasted onto the statue of Christopher Columbus, read, White privilege.

Llamas and MacDonald have asked Mayor David Martin to rename Columbus Park. Many have come to see the explorer as a conqueror who brutalized indigenous people.

Lizzie DeMarhey, 20, came out to make hearts with her friend Annabel Devault, 20.

DeMarhey was going to Marquett University in Wisconsin before the pandemic sent her home. She said she has witnessed discrimination there as well as home in Stamford.

Ive been wanting to get involved as much as I can with Black Lives Matter, said the Stamford High School graduate.

Devault, who graduated from Stamfords Academy of Information, Technology and Engineering, said she saw the Instagram post for the Hearts for Floyd event and felt comfortable because it mentioned wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

I wanted to post these hearts around town because it is something important for our city, Devault said.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
A mother has recounted the harrowing moment she discovered her three-year-old daughter's body after the girl was shot with her paranoid father's gun.

The woman, 44, had believed she could protect her children from their father's reckless and unhinged behaviour, but tragedy struck when they found a shotgun he had stashed in a bedroom, Parramatta District Court heard on Wednesday.

In mid-2017, the woman had returned to her Lalor Park home in Sydney's west to find it had been boarded up by the man, who has a history of mental illness and drug use, in a haze of paranoia.

The woman was 41-years-old at the time of the tragedy (pictured with her daughter and three sons)

The three-year-old girl(pictured) who was tragically killed after a gun had been left out in the house

The 46-year-old man, who cannot be named, has previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter on March 4.

In a statement to the court, the mother described how she had been putting the children to bed and had been in her son's bedroom while the man and his brother were outside in the driveway when the gunshot rang out.

'I remember the gunshot and seeing my baby girl lying face down and not really knowing what was happening at the time but the scene echoes in my head and my thoughts to this day,' the woman said, according to The Daily Telegraph.

'I remember turning my baby girl over and seeing her lifeless eyes and there being so much blood everywhere.'

The woman had previously taken out an AVO against the man, who was well known to authorities, but had been 'manipulated' into letting him move back into their family house before the tragedy.

A picture understood to be the girl's mother and father, who cannot be identified

The court heard how the man, whose other brother had been shot in 2001, was convinced shadowy figures were lurking about his house, with the paranoia leading to the boarding up of the property and stashing of the sawn-off shotgun.

The man's barrister said on the night of the girl's death in his delusional state his client had not left the shotgun between two mattresses too heavy for the children to lift as he believed he had.

Police were unable to confirm exactly how the shotgun went off but on theory is that another of the young children might have retrieved the weapon from under the bed and accidentally fired it.

Judge Stephen Hanley SC asked the man's legal team what he should make of someone with a history of mental illness who had chosen to take psychosis-inducing illicit drugs.

He said the shooting had torn apart the family with the remaining young children taken away from their mother.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she 'collapses inside' whenever she thinks about her daughter, has nightmares every day, and often jolts awake when she is able to fall asleep.

The biggest impact, she said, however, was the loss of her 'beautiful baby girl'.

'She would be at school now if she was still alive  I used to dream of the day she would grow into a beautiful young woman and live out her dreams. I see little girls everywhere that look like her and my heart hurts,' she said.

The man will be sentenced on June 16 is facing a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
An attempt to find the origins of a gun was the catalyst for several weapons trafficking arrests earlier this year.

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An attempt to find the origins of a gun was the catalyst for several weapons trafficking arrests earlier this year.

Police first began looking into the history of a .45-calibre semi-auto handgun after it was found during a search warrant on the 1200 block of Downing Street on April 21.

The Winnipeg police Firearms Investigation and Enforcement Unit performed a public safety warrant to search a residence on the 100 block of Maple Street two days later, where officers found four of a residents 17 guns violated firearm regulations, and two were stored unsafely.

It was then that Marc Charles Archambault, 53, allegedly told officers he had additional firearms in a storage container in Inkster Industrial Park, some restricted and some non-restricted. Archambault was arrested and charged with possessing a firearm in an unauthorized place, incorrect storage of a weapon and not reporting a lost weapon. He has been released and will appear in court at a later date.

Information from that investigation led police to the St. Andrews home of Pedro Paulo Desousa, 56, who was arrested on weapons trafficking charges and released to later appear in court.

Police also executed a search warrant on the 300 block of Alexander Avenue on May 13 and arrested 42-year-old Michael William Davidson, who has been charged with weapons trafficking along with possession of methamphetamine and oxycodone.
The long-standing wrangle over voting rights and election security came to a head in Georgia, where a messy primary and partisan finger-pointing offered an unsettling preview of a November contest when battleground states could face potentially record turnout.

Many Democrats blamed the Republican secretary of state for hourslong lines, voting machine malfunctions, provisional ballot shortages and absentee ballots failing to arrive in time for Tuesdays elections. Democrat Joe Bidens presidential campaign called it completely unacceptable.

Georgia Republicans deflected responsibility to metro Atlantas heavily minority and Democratic-controlled counties, while President Donald Trumps top campaign lawyer decried the chaos in Georgia.

It raised the spectre of a worst-case November scenario: A decisive state, like Florida and its hanging chads and butterfly ballots in 2000, remaining in dispute long after polls close. Meanwhile, Trump, Biden and their supporters could offer competing claims of victory or question the elections legitimacy, inflaming an already boiling electorate.

A lot to lose

Adia Josephson, a 38-year-old Black voter in the Brookhaven area just outside Atlanta, waited more than two hours to vote but was not about to let the long lines stop her.

Problems with voting machines and long lines must be corrected before the next election, she told The Associated Press news agency. Theres no room for error, she said. Theres a lot to gain and a lot to lose.

The last voter in Georgia cast a ballot 5 hours and 37 minutes after polls were supposed to have closed. And then the police were called. This is America in 2020 https://t.co/FORe8Fzn9H  Ari Berman (@AriBerman) June 10, 2020

At Trumps campaign headquarters, senior counsel Justin Clark blamed Georgias vote-by-mail push amid the COVID-19 pandemic, alluding to the presidents unfounded claims that absentee voting yields widespread fraud.

A threat to democracy

The American people want to know that the results of an election accurately reflect the will of the voters, Clark said. The only way to make sure that the American people will have faith in the results is if people who can, show up and vote in person.

Rachana Desai Martin, a Biden campaign lawyer, called the scenes in Georgia a threat to democracy. We only have a few months left until voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian  and every American  is able to safely exercise their right to vote, she said.

Martin stopped short of assigning blame, but two Georgia Democrats on Bidens list of potential running mates pointed at Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who led the selection of Georgias new voting machine system and invited every active voter to request an absentee ballot.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused mail-in voting of being the same as election fraud [Patrick Semansky/AP Photo]

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted at Raffensperger about problems in pockets of metro Atlanta. Is this happening across the county or just on the south end, the Democrat asked, referring to an area with a heavily Black population.

Placing blame

Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor and an Atlanta resident, said: The blame rests solely and squarely on the shoulders of the secretary of state. Abrams established herself as a voting rights advocate after she refused to concede her 2018 race because of voting irregularities when her Republican opponent, now-Governor Brian Kemp was secretary of state.

Georgia has seen this before, Abrams told CBS This Morning on Wednesday. Yesterday was the most egregious example.

Voting rights groups, including Abrams Fair Fight Action, said Georgias experiences justify their efforts to combat what they describe as a coordinated GOP push to restrict ballot access. Fair Fight, Priorities USA and American Bridge this week announced a Voter Suppression Watch partnership.

Absentee ballot mystery: Georgia says 96% of ballots that were requested were delivered. Voters and local officials report many people did not receive them so they showed up in person. Vendor used by state says they sent out 100% of ballots. What happened? No one seems to know  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 10, 2020

Trump is already trying to extend this culture war by creating fear around vote-by-mail, said Aneesa McMillan of the Priorities political action committee. She noted the Republican National Committees plans to recruit thousands of poll watchers now that the GOP is no longer under a court order banning the practice that Democrats equate to voter intimidation.

We have to learn our lessons, not just from Georgia, and protect the entire process, McMillan said.
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The latest standoff on the India-China border represents an escalation not seen since 1962. We have had many standoffs since then, but it always involved differing perceptions about the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

In most sectors there is an overlap of these lines with the Indian and Chinese claim lines going well beyond each others LAC, sometimes by a few meters and sometimes by many kilometers. But we had tested Confidence-Building Mechanisms (CBMs) in place to keep the peace.

But the latest standoff at the Galwan Valley represents a PLA ingress into a hitherto undisputed area. By doing so, the PLA has thrown down the gauntlet. How does India now respond?

At Galwan, the PLA found an unguarded but very strategic spot on the LAC and occupied it. It now places it less than 2 km from the newly rebuilt strategic all-weather Durbuk-Daulat Beg Oldi road that supports the lone Indian outpost of DBO at the mouth of the Karakorum Pass. It happened in a sector supposed to be guarded by the home ministrys Indo-Tibetan Border Police.

Each year the PLA conducts an exercise on the Aksai Chin and its immediate forward areas along the LAC. Every year the Indian Army moves its reserves forward to check a possible PLA move.

This year the Indian Army, funked by the outbreak of Covid-19 in some formations in Ladakh, held off. The PLA just stepped in.

Just like the Pakistan Army occupied the Kargil heights in 1999.

It was a gross dereliction of duties by the home and defence ministries. China has occupied a strategically vital bit of Indian territory.

The irony is that they have done a Doklam on us. We had objected to a Chinese road leading to the disputed meadow in Bhutan, which we rightly surmised would threaten the Siliguri Corridor, commonly referred to as Chickens Neck.

Here China has put another chickens neck under threat by claiming the all-weather road actually threatens it in Xinjiang.

We have left the border question to fester for much too long. It seems unresolvable now, with public opinion inflamed on both sides. There was a time when, with a little bit of give and take, this contentious and now protracted problem seemed solvable.

In 1960 Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, while visiting New Delhi, had suggested something akin to a status quo as a permanent solution.

This was repeated in 1982 by Chairman Deng Xiaoping to Indias ambassador in Beijing, G. Parthasarathy.

Once again it was offered during Rajiv Gandhis tenure as Prime Minister to the then Indian ambassador, A.P. Venkateshwaran, by then Chinese PM Zhao Ziyang.

When Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing in 1988, both countries decided to keep a permanent solution aside and focus on the immediate doables. All along India felt that the internal political situation would not allow the government of the day the room to go with it.

What is commonly referred to as the border dispute between India and China has now manifested itself into two distinct disputes.

The first is the dispute over two large and separated tracts of territories that we have agreed to leave for history to sort out. But what causes the frequent frictions between the two is that they do not agree on the LAC to separate the jurisdictions.

The perceptions of the LAC differ at many places. At some places just by a few meters, and elsewhere by tens of kilometers.

To minimise the inflammability due to active patrolling by security personnel of both sides, the two countries have a CBM in place. This is the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA), that sets out norms of behaviour for both sides.

The important things being that nothing of a permanent nature will be built on these disputed areas, and that the patrols will take all precautions not to confront each other. Which simply means, if they come face to face at any point, they will both withdraw.

The corollary to this is that the patrols will not tail each other either. The agreement also requires the local commanders to frequently meet and exchange views and sort out local differences across the table. This CBM is now in tatters.

For three long decades, since Rajiv Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping met in 1988 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the two countries have been meeting to discuss the border issue, but so far we have seen unwillingness by both sides to forget the past.

Since 2003, these talks were elevated to a high-level political dialogue between the two countries special representatives, in Indias case the national security adviser and in Chinas case an official at the level of state councillor.

The first meeting at this level took place between Indias NSA Brajesh Mishra and Chinese state councillor Dai Bing Guo.

We had the 22nd round of this dialogue between Indias national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinas state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi in New Delhi in December 2019.

The BDCA is a major outcome of these talks and that had by and large worked.

The next logical step of these talks should be to agree on resolving the ambiguities in the LAC. But unfortunately, even that is now being weighed down by aggressive nationalism driven by the social media, which equates giving up with a national loss of face.

This is something increasingly very important to both countries. We will not be seen giving up anything, not even our obduracy and historical short-sightedness.

The immediate task now must be to get the PLA to leave Galwan without loss of face. On the other hand, this could be just the right opportunity for the two sides to settle new LACs in all the three sectors.

Both India and China are now relatively prosperous and militarily powerful. This has engendered aggressive new nationalisms, that has led to the hardening of hearts, and arteries too.

To add to our confusion, many strategic thinkers in India now labour under the illusion that when push gives to shove, the recent bonhomie between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will translate into active military and diplomatic cooperation.

They talk of a Quadrilateral  of the United States, Japan, Australia and India to face China. That is just deluding ourselves. When push comes to shove, we will stand alone.
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"We know that without a vaccine we're going to be dealing with this virus for a while," said Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health, in an interview with Johannes Czernin. "We have to learn how to continue to provide health care as a health system with the presence of this emerging infectious disease." The interview is one of 5 new COVID-related articles and commentaries published in the June issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM).

In the interview, a JNM "Discussions with Leaders" column, Spisso discusses how UCLA Health and the UCLA Hospital System have dealt with the pandemic and some of their ongoing initiatives in research, including a convalescent plasma study. The organization has now begun dealing with reintroduction of care that had been postponed at the height of the crisis.

In "Guidance and Best Practices for Nuclear Cardiology Laboratories during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic: An Information Statement from ASNC and SNMMI," Hicham Skali, MD, MSc, and colleagues address the practice of nuclear cardiology in the setting of the pandemic, reflecting perspectives of diverse practices across the United States and worldwide. The statement focuses on how to adapt nuclear cardiology practice to COVID, including steps for protecting healthcare personnel and patients.

In "The Role of Nuclear Medicine for COVID-19 - Time to Act Now," Freimut Juengling and colleagues point out that nuclear medicine has much to offer in COVID research, including substantial experience in detecting inflammatory disease. The authors suggest repurposing established nuclear medicine pharmaceuticals and developing new ones to target different aspects of the virus.

In "Yttrium-90 Radioembolization: Telemedicine during the COVID-19 Outbreak, Opportunity for Prime Time," Lawrence Han Hwee Quek and colleagues discuss the use of telemedicine in Singapore to bridge the gap among physicians with necessary medical expertise and ensure continuity of service. "This outbreak may spark a wider adoption of tele-nuclear medicine in the post-COVID-19 era--not just in diagnosis and therapy but also in education for developing nations with limited access to formal training," the authors said.

In "Who Was the First Doctor to Report the COVID-19 Outbreak in Wuhan, China?" Xixing Li and colleagues tell the story of Dr. Zhang Jixian, who is considered to be the first doctor to report the novel coronavirus before its outbreak.

JNM is fast-tracking COVID-related content and providing free access without subscription.

###

Please visit the SNMMI Media Center for more information about molecular imaging and precision imaging. To schedule an interview with the authors, please contact Rebecca Maxey at (703) 652-6772 or rmaxey@snmmi.org.

About the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) is the world's leading nuclear medicine, molecular imaging and theranostics journal, accessed close to 10 million times each year by practitioners around the globe, providing them with the information they need to advance this rapidly expanding field. Current and past issues of the journal can be found online at http://jnm.snmjournals.org.

JNM is published by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine and molecular imaging--precision medicine that allows diagnosis and treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. For more information, visit http://www.snmmi.org.
(Reuters) - Protesters around the world have taken to the streets in response to events in the United States, where the death in police custody of black man George Floyd has sparked a wave of anti-racism demonstrations.

(Reuters) - Protesters around the world have taken to the streets in response to events in the United States, where the death in police custody of black man George Floyd has sparked a wave of anti-racism demonstrations.

Reuters interviewed five people in five countries about why they had taken to the streets in recent days and what they hoped to achieve. Here is what they said:

LONDON: Stedroy Cabey, a 30-year-old actor, who spoke while surrounded by hundreds of noisy protesters at the weekend:

"As a black man it feels like your skin is a weapon. It feels like for some reason they feel like you're a threat and you don't understand why because you've never done anything to do that. Personally I haven't done anything.

"When I first moved to the UK there was an incident where ... me and my cousin were on the bus and (a stranger) started looking at us in a weird way. When he got off the bus he ran up to us, he was like 'go back to where you came from, you don't belong here'. And I was speechless in that moment. I was a young boy, a young man coming from the Caribbean ... for a better life ... It was like wow. It reminded me that racism is actually real."

PARIS: Bokar Ture, a U.S. citizen and economist living in Paris, addressing his small daughter whom he held in his arms:

"I said that there are some people who might think less of us because we're black, but we know that's not true, right? We know that we're just as smart, just as intelligent, and you're just as beautiful as anyone, OK? ... It doesn't matter what other people think. OK? So you're proud of yourself, OK? You can achieve anything you want and the colour of your skin, if other people are stupid enough to think that it should be a barrier, let them be stupid. You be smart, OK?"

BRUSSELS: Pauline Sobze, 17, a high school student living in Ath, western Belgium.

"The reason why I come here to protest (was) because as you can see (from) the colour of my skin, it can happen to me, it can happen to my family, my friends. And it's important for me to come here because we ... have to be together to protest for the things that matter to us."

MADRID: U.S. national Frank Bradford, who now lives in Madrid, speaking through a face mask:

"I grew up in America's south, Mississippi. It has one of the darkest histories of racism and I've seen it on a day-to-day basis, growing up in school, the university, at work and I think it's a major problem that we have to deal with."

"I have seen it around day-to-day like in the grocery store or supermarket, on the street. It's been something challenging. Also I'm a teacher, so I see it at the school a little bit and I try to correct students and try to teach them a better way, to recognise racism and fight against it."

LOS ANGELES: K.C. Coleman, a 55-year-old former police officer from Inglewood, California.

"I am protesting today because I'm a bi-racial woman. I have faced racism in my life. As an ex-police officer I faced racism, and now it's time for a change. So, I'm here to support the cause for justice for all, freedom for all, equal rights for all.

"I am very optimistic about the protests and (them) leading to change, because at first it was just the black and the minorities that were out here but now you have a nation that's all coming together as one. So, as I go out to these protests, it's not just the African-Americans that are out here, it's everyone out here so we're finally united as one. So change is definitely coming and I'm feeling extremely positive about the change."

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Compiled by Lucy Marks and Mike Collett-White)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
OAKLAND, CALIF.  President Donald Trump aimed his Twitter feed on Tuesday toward a 75-year-old man who had been shoved to the sidewalk and badly injured by police in Buffalo, New York. Trump speculated that the man, Martin Gugino, could be a provocateur affiliated with an anti-fascist movement. The president also wondered if the man had been trying to sabotage police equipment, or fell intentionally to generate outcry over police brutality.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 23:07:57|Editor: huaxia

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TAIPEI, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's industrial and service sectors hired fewer people and offered lower salaries in April due to the impacts of COVID-19, the island's statistics agency said Wednesday.

The number of employees in the two sectors dropped by 0.44 percent from the end of March to 7.93 million by the end of April, and by 0.05 percent year-on-year, the agency said in a press release.

The figure has continued to fall month on month in the first four months of this year and reduced year on year for the first time since the global financial crisis in 2008.

The number of employees at the accommodation-and-catering sector shrank the most, down by 12,000, the agency said.

Meanwhile, the average monthly salary for employees in Taiwan's industrial and service sectors reduced by 0.41 percent month on month to about 42,100 new Taiwan dollars (about 1,423 U.S. dollars) in April.

The salary level in the aviation sector slipped the most, falling by 3.3 percent month on month, followed by a reduction of 1.66 percent in the education sector.

The average working hours of the employees also reduced by 12.6 hours from March to 162.9 hours on average in April, down 2.7 hours year on year. Enditem
When you need to warm up, what's your favorite winter comfort food?
Photograph: Sergio Moraes/Reuters

For weeks, the booze-soaked, coronavirus-themed parties had raged over the road from Ticyana Azambujas home in Rio de Janeiro, until finally she snapped.

She picked up a hammer, marched across the street and used it to smash the rear windshield and Union Jack-patterned wing mirror of a revellers car.

I just wanted them to come out and listen to me. Id pay to fix the car, but they needed to understand how ridiculous it was to be throwing those parties day and night  right in the middle of a pandemic, the 35-year-old said.

Related: Brazil condemned to historic tragedy by Bolsonaro's virus response  top doctor

Azambujas moment of fury was understandable, if illegal: an anaesthetist, she has spent the last three months battling to save lives on the frontline of Brazils fight against Covid-19  even catching the disease herself.

On 30 May, the day she lost her cool, she had been trying to rest after a gruelling 24-hour shift at one of the three hospitals where she works.

The organizers of the bacchanalia showed no compassion.

They came out to kill me, Azambuja recalled of the vicious assault she suffered at the hands of several enraged partygoers, which was filmed by a neighbour. She was knocked unconscious and suffered fractures to her knee, neck and hands.

As neighbours rushed the doctor to hospital, the festivities went on.

Every day Im faced with life or death. I just cannot understand how these people can manage to have fun when so many people are dying, Azambuja said as Brazil overtook Italy as the country with the third-highest Covid-19 death toll.

Her case was an extreme one but the party  where guests were reportedly given customized cups featuring the image of a pistol and the words Baile do Covid-19 (The Covid-19 Dance)  was far from an aberration.

Even as Brazils coronavirus death toll has soared to more than 37,000, illicit shindigs have been reported from southern cities such as Curitiba to the Amazon in the north.

Story continues

In Rio, where more than 6,000 people have died, the anti-crime hotline Disque Denuncia has received 700 calls reporting underground parties since the pandemic began  many of them bailes funk (funk dance parties) in the favelas. On Friday a luxury yacht with at least 20 people onboard could be seen moored off Rios chic south zone, music blaring.

Ive seen lots of parties like that, said a resident of Urca, where the citys Yacht Club is located.

The organizers of one recent rave called Pool Party Secrets asked guests to come in face masks. None did. According to an anonymous Instagram account which denounced the gathering, guests included lawyers, members of the military, two dentists, three nurses and even two doctors from one of Brazils biggest private hospital chains.

Related: Jair Bolsonaro branded a 'killer' during hotdog trip as Covid-19 death toll soars

In Sao Paulo, where more than 8,000 people have died, funk parties have continued in many favelas such as Agua Vermelha in the citys east. The parties are still happening when Im heading out to work, said one local man, a gravedigger who buries Covid-19 victims while the revelry goes on.

In Porto Velho, capital of the Amazon state of Rondonia, police are investigating two recent blowouts where coronavirus carriers allegedly danced the night away. They werent working  they were having fun  they were putting their lives at risk  and the lives of those of you who are following the governors quarantine order, the state health secretary, Fernando Maximo, fumed in an online video.

If you see anyone throwing parties  report them. Call the police, Maximo said.

Even the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has broken health ministry regulations to have fun  attending a barbecue at a ranch in Brazils midwest on the morning of Azambujas attack where he was photographed hobnobbing with a crooner whose hits include a song called the Castle of Dreams.

Flavio Dino, a leftist governor and prominent Bolsonaro opponent, said it was unsurprising efforts to keep Brazilians indoors were gradually crumbling when the president set such an example.

When a governor says A, and the president of the republic says B, and A and B are utterly contradictory then of course you cant keep up the preventive efforts for very long, said Dino, governor of the northern state of Maranhao.

Azambuja, who has a two-year-old son, said she was perplexed at how some seemed incapable of thinking about others and obeying social distancing rules during a health emergency some fear could claim 125,000 Brazilian lives by August.

When I caught Covid-19, right at the start of the pandemic, my dad brought me some chicken soup and I told him to go away. I didnt even want him at my door, she remembered.

Every day I see this disease kill people, she added. The doctors in some hospitals dont even have sedatives and painkillers. They intubate patients with muscle relaxants, aware of it all. Thats why these parties are so surreal.

Azambuja said she was determined to get back to work despite her injuries.

My legs still bad, she admitted. But I dont need my leg to intubate patients.
Business group Dublin Chamber yesterday welcomed the move by Dublin City Council to waive charges on the placement of tables and chairs within the public realm.

The representative group for businesses in the Dublin region said the move will help many cafes and restaurants in the city to reopen and recover more quickly.



Dublin City Council announced that applications are now being taken from businesses who would like to expand into the public realm. Under the Government's Covid-19 reopening plan, it will be possible to put out tables and chairs, once permission has been granted by the Council, from the 29th of June when Phase 3 is scheduled to commence.



Speaking yesterday, Dublin Chamber's Head of Communications, Graeme McQueen said, "We welcome the constructive and positive move by Dublin City Council to waive charges on tables and chairs for a period of six months. Social distancing requirements mean that many cafes and restaurants will be extremely tight for space when their premises reopen for customers at the end of June. Being able to expand out into the street, where deemed appropriate by the Council, will provide a badly-needed release valve for businesses."

He added, "We are aware of a strong appetite amongst consumers for outdoor eating and drinking in Dublin, so this move should lead to increased trade and a more vibrant city centre over the second half of the year. The availability of more outdoor seating will give people an opportunity to experience the summer in Dublin in a different way."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Its true that Trump has so far shown no interest in the kind of painstaking, collaborative, scientific action that would stand a chance of arresting a public health crisis. But the observation that Trump was squandering a chance to consolidate power seemed to assume a particular understanding of power, more attuned to shortages of N95 masks than enthralled by helicopters and pepper balls. It also played down what the president did do during the pandemic, such as restrict immigration even further and fuel attacks on Asian-Americans by insisting on the term Chinese virus.

Not to mention that the timing for Moyns essay was unfortunate; it appeared on May 19, nearly two weeks before Trump was on a call with governors, threatening to send in the military if they didnt dominate protesters who were calling for an end to police brutality. That call happened to take place on the same day that protesters were tear-gassed so that the president could pose in front of a church.

But the critique of fascism analogies runs deeper than whatever it is Trump says or does. Moyn suggests that crying fascism obscures the extent to which Trump is a thoroughly American creature while also exonerating the establishment rot that allowed him to flourish in the first place. Corey Robin, in an updated edition of his book The Reactionary Mind, has argued something similar. Both Robin and Moyn seem animated by a similar suspicion  that fascist analogies ultimately serve centrists trying to gin up fear among the left, pushing progressives to settle for expedient political choices by overstating the strength of a floundering right.

Robin cites a modern classic by the historian Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, to attest that what made the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler so potent was its youth and its novelty, an advantage forsaken by a lumbering and nostalgic Trump. But one of the most striking aspects of Paxtons book, which was published in 2004, is how much attention he shines on the circumstances that allowed for fascisms emergence in the early 20th century and its subsequent rise.

Paxton wasnt laboring under the same conditions as current writers, who get drawn into endless debates over whether Trump is or is not a fascist. Historically, fascist movements hardened into fascist regimes when given the opportunity by enfeebled conservative elites trying to cling to power, who resort to bringing in an outsider to rile up the base. It was only after the Nazis started losing electoral support that Hitler cut a back-room deal to be appointed chancellor. Like a vampire, Hitler had to be invited into the house.

And maybe its telling that Americans have traditionally been so preoccupied with a nightmare scenario that has the coverlet of European fascism draped over it, as Gerald Early put it recently in the journal The Common Reader. Early was reflecting on the novelist Sinclair Lewis, whose fictional depiction of Nazism in the United States  with all its brutal and arbitrary violence, police state surveillance and unrelenting incarceration  bore more than a passing resemblance to the historical reality of American slavery.

Lewis had a keen awareness of race in America and was probably thinking ironically when he decided to call his 1935 novel It Cant Happen Here, Early writes. He knew, as any aware American must, that it already had.
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For information only - not an official document

UNIS/OS/532

10 June 2020

PRESS RELEASE

UNOOSA and UAE Space Agency announce agreement to advance space sustainability

VIENNA, 10 June (United Nations Information Service) - The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency digitally signed an agreement today to increase collaboration on the long-term sustainability of space activities and promote the use of space for sustainable development.

Space exploration is booming more than 80 countries have launched satellites since 1957 and over 2,500 are currently operational, according to UNOOSA estimates. Record political and economic capital is being invested in the space sector. This includes middle- and lower-income countries. With such increased interest comes heightened risk testing the normative and institutional structures underpinning a secure and sustainable space environment. Challenges include: the proliferation of space debris, the emergence of large constellations of satellites and the increasing complexity of space operations. These pressures point to a clear need to reinforce dialogue and the exchange of best practices among both - established and emerging space faring nations.

The benefits of space for sustainable development are increasingly evident. The growth of space applications presents an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate global sustainable development. It is therefore crucial that more countries have access to space and space data, something UNOOSA is working on with its Access to Space 4 All Initiative.

This agreement lays the corner stone to establishing a UNOOSA project office in the United Arab Emirates, acting as a new global hub to foster international progress on space sustainability and space for development issues. This collaboration will see the convening of the global space sector to support dialogue, research and trend-analysis, reinforcing efforts to catalogue best-practices on both responsible activities in space and leveraging the potential of space to accelerate sustainable development.

UNOOSA Director Simonetta Di Pippo said: "Through this agreement, UNOOSA and the UAE take a big step towards establishing a new international hub for space sustainability. With space technology accelerating sustainable development around the world and global investment in the space sector increasing, now is the time to strengthen global dialogue on space sustainability issues. The UAE, with its steadfast commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals and significant achievements in the space sector, is the perfect partner for this ambitious plan."

UAE Space Agency Director General Mohammed Al Ahbabi said: "The UAE Space Agency is pleased to collaborate with UNOOSA in the effort to ensure sustainable development in outer space so that all of humanity can continue to benefit from its uses for peaceful purposes and socioeconomic benefit now and in the long term. We look forward to continued fruitful dialogue designed to accelerate the global space sector's contribution to humanity's aspirations."

* *** *

For more information, please contact:

Ottavia Pesce

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)

Telephone: (+43 699) 1459 8718

Email: pesce[at]un.org
Without the ability to host face-to-face interactions to which the sales teams were accustomed, the Ministry of Tourism quickly pivoted to launching and participating in online events such as webinars, virtual travel shows, virtual trip simulations and live social media sessions.

As part of a strategic effort to share openly about The Bahamas' road to recovery, the BMOT brought together all of its international partners in the US and Canada for two days of virtual meetings hosted by Director General, Joy Jibrilu. These meetings were widely welcomed by the partners as anticipation grew for the return to 'new normal' business.

"While grappling with the effects of COVID-19, all travel was put on hold," said Director General Jibrilu, "but we remained committed to providing our travel suppliers, travel agent communities, key meeting planners and destination wedding planners, flying ambassadors, boating community and all of our other business partners with the resources and information they needed to assure new and returning guests, we would be ready once the world was ready to travel again. Now, more than ever, we need to show our partners just how important they are since we will be calling upon them to help bring tourists back to our shores, the moment it is safe to do so."

The sessions received rave reviews and a number of our partners followed up with notes of thanks to the team for being accessible and transparent in the face of incredible circumstances. Bob Duglin, Vice President of the International Membership & Host Agencies for the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA), a leading global advocacy group for the travel trade industry said. "It was very uplifting to hear from Director General Joy Jibrilu that The Islands Of The Bahamas will be safely opening soon to travelers from North America; getting to The Bahamas is so easy with nonstop flights from the U.S.  people can get from their home to the beach in a matter of hours."

Others like Elvi Cal, VP Product Development, Travel Brands, Canada said "Thanks so much for extending the invitation to today's presentation. Joy did a great job in explaining the BTO's plans and the different phases of reopening. Thrilled to see BTO very proactive and already thinking of marketing this fall."

The 'next normal' as everyone is coining this moment in time has accelerated the Ministry's efforts in further developing and leveraging digital resources and platforms that help to reach and engage its target audiences. Many advances have been made already and the global teams are especially proud of those resources that allow the destination to export product immersive experiences and deepen customer engagement virtually.

ABOUT THE BAHAMAS

With over 700 islands and cays, and 15 of the 16 unique island destinations currently open for business, The Bahamas lies just 50 miles off the coast of Florida, offering an easy fly away escape that transports travelers away from their everyday. Explore all the islands have to offer at www.bahamas.com or on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram to see why It's Better in The Bahamas.

PRESS INQUIRIES

Anita Johnson-Patty

Bahamas Ministry of Tourism & Aviation

[email protected]

Weber Shandwick

Public Relations

[email protected]

SOURCE Bahamas Ministry of Tourism & Aviation
If there's a natural disaster in your neighbourhood and people need help, who are you gonna call? Sikh people!

When there are peaceful protests happening and people need help, who are you gonna call? Sikh people!

Honestly, at this point, they are nothing short of superheroes who are always there to help anyone in need and that's a fact, not even up for discussion. Whether it's doing whatever they can to support everyone who is fighting injustices or people who have suffered due to any reason, the Sikh community is always the first one out there to help and that's a commendable thing.

Recently, there have been protests in every state of the United States of America against police brutality and the inhumane death of George Floyd at the hands of cops was just the tipping point for the Black Lives Matter movement to come back in full force.

 Reuters

During the protests, guess who's making sure everyone is well-fed by providing langar? Actually, it wasn't just the protests but throughout the pandemic, a gurdwara in Queens village has been helping out.



Sikhs believe in feeding anyone in need.



They found a new energy and purpose in the latest U.S. turmoil.



In NYC they served 145,000 free meals to hospital workers and poor.Sikhs are feeding the Protestors.



When some find the meal free they say"You are kidding, right?



NYT pic.twitter.com/WL3hE10rS6  Kohli G. Singh (@ks1941) June 9, 2020

About 30 cooks have made and served more than 145,000 free meals in just 10 weeks. Not only that, but they have even offered food to medical staff and anyone else who is not able to afford to feed themselves right now. While talking to The New York Times, Himmat Singh, a coordinator at the World Sikh Parliament, an advocacy group providing volunteers for the Queens Village efforts, said, "Where we see a peaceful protest, we are going. We are looking for justice. We support this."

#News via #NYT by Priya Krishna "How to Feed Crowds in a Protest or Pandemic? The Sikhs Know" https://t.co/KaFjTkFvuK pic.twitter.com/dHJGINmNyQ  Standing with Marco (@StandWithMarco_) June 10, 2020

Reportedly, about 80 gurdwaras in the United States are now providing food assistance. A lot of Americans are in disbelief when they find out that all the food is 'free'.

A volunteer from a gurudwara in Los Angeles said, "It is our duty to stand up with others to fight for justice. Langar at its core is a revolution  against inequality and the caste system"

Now that's how you support such an important movement. There's only one critique -

Tbc, I dont hate everything about that NYT piece. The Queens Sikh community is dope and I love the idea of langar as political solidarity.



I just know our stories would be so much better if they were told by us.  bhanwar dhanoa (@bdhanoa) June 9, 2020

We salute the spirit of this community !
Trade Nation is an online trading platform where individuals can trade shares, commodities, currencies, and stock indices without facing complicated barriers to entry.

LONDON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Trade Nation has focused exclusively on making online trading more accessible to everyone, everywhere. Created for beginner and advanced traders alike, the company offers a self-serve trading experience while ditching all the confusing terms, charges, and financial intermediaries. Now Trade Nation is on its way to becoming a global business and making a lasting impact on the trading industry.

As competitors continue old methods of practice, Trade Nation has made a number of important innovations. The first is their self-directed, online and mobile trading platform. Along with the option to get familiar with the platform through a practice-and-learn account, Trade Nation has a fully staffed, human customer service team that is on hand whenever the markets are open. All Trade Nation clients can be confident that there is a knowledgeable and friendly person at the end of the line who will support them and help personalise their trading journey.

Trade Nation has also challenged the norm with their innovative financial model. Unlike industry competitors, Trade Nation's dealing costs are fixed. Traders know what their costs will be ahead of time, regardless of market volatility. The process is fully transparent, which means the only surprises come from the market itself.

Launched in 2014 by a management team with extensive experience in the industry, Trade Nation is the new trading name of the successful Finsa Europe group. Trade Nation has the simple and long-standing goal of shaking up a stale, uninspiring sector, and delivering fresh ideas with a customer-first approach.

"Trade Nation was born from the simple belief that customers deserve better. We have challenged the standard perspective and thought about our customer needs before our own. We put our values of simplicity, transparency, and of being dependable and human, at the heart of everything we do.", says Stuart Lane, CEO of Trade Nation.

Lane credits the huge increase in customer interest to the competence of his team, which is growing with some of the finest talent in the market.

"Our journey to become the most trusted brand in the marketplace has begun, and we are delighted with the response to our approach from existing and new customers."

Regulated in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and the Bahamas, Trade Nation is well placed to continue its mission to become a global business, and to challenge their competitors to do more for their customers. The company will look to continue to strengthen its regulatory position with acquisition of further strategic licenses.

"It's our hope that we can offer customers a better trading experience, raising standards and making the world of online trading a brighter and more trusted environment for all."

To learn more about Trade Nation, visit https://tradenation.com/

Media Contact - Darryl Brisebois - darryl@goup.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178404/Trade_Nation_Trade_Nation__A_Fresh_Approach_to_Trading.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178405/Trade_Nation_Trade_Nation__A_Fresh_Approach_to_Trading.jpg
New Delhi, June 10 : Women have a biological clock and their fertility declines with age. With more and more women chasing to push their marriage to their mid-30s and even 40s, the need for fertility treatment and assisted reproductive treatments like IVF is increasing, especially in urban areas.

According to WHO, 'Infertility' has been defined as a "disease of the reproductive system" and is a time-sensitive issue, which can result in disability if timely measures are not taken. They have further calculated that over 10 - 15 percent of women are affected with infertility. The chances of a woman getting pregnant in one monthly cycle at age 20-25 is 25 percent, which falls to 3 percent by the time she is 40.

Dr. Manish Banker, Medical Director, Nova IVF Fertility, gives us more insight on the topic.

A female fetus has nearly 6 million eggs, which are reduced to 1 million by the time the baby is born. By the time she reaches puberty, only about 300,000 remain, of which, about 300-400 will get released during ovulation in her reproductive lifetime. "Ageing" eggs are more prone to errors during division, making it more likely to result in abnormal embryos with chromosome defects, thus increasing the chances of miscarriage, having a baby with Down Syndrome or other developmental abnormalities. Since there is nothing that can prevent this depletion of egg reserve, many women opt for assisted reproductive therapies such as IVF and / or freeze their eggs or embryos at a younger age so that they can have a biological child at a time they deem suitable.

A fixed number of eggs start to develop every month out of which one gets releases; the rest degenerate while they are lying dormant in the ovaries. This is a completely natural occurrence, independent of any hormone production, birth control pills, pregnancies, nutritional supplements, or even health or lifestyle. With rising life expectancy and increase in the number of women focusing on their profession, more and more women are delaying marriage and childbirth. Since there is nothing that can be done to prevent the age related depletion in egg reserve, many need assisted reproductive therapies such as IVF or preservation of their eggs / embryos at a younger age so that they can have a biological child at a time they seem suitable.

The biological clock is ticking for men too as a body of research suggests that sperm count diminishes with age; however, the effect of this decline is not so severe and the social pressure of having a baby and the sense of being incomplete if you don't have one are not as high.

Don't Delay your IVF Treatment Infertility treatment, especially IVF, is, for some women time-sensitive. Example, for older women, women with poor ovarian reserve, men / women needing fertility preservation due to malignancies and other conditions. A delayed decision of IVF or any other ART treatments may lower their chances of success in addition to aggravating feelings of depression, anxiety, isolation, and loss of control. Assisted Reproductive Technology has aided many couples around the world to conceive and fulfil their dreams of parenthood. It would be a wise decision to not neglect early signs of infertility and consult a specialist on time to address any concern.

Let's bust some myths Periods means you're fertile: Having periods is not an indication that you are ovulating and are fertile. It simply means you are menstruating. As the name suggests, Ovulation is the release of egg from the ovaries. After ovulation, the egg becomes available to be fertilized by sperm. Both the processes are a part of a woman's 28-day menstrual cycle with ovulation taking place of the 14th day and the period occurring a few days later if the egg is not fertilized.

Age is not a dominant factor: Success of any infertility treatment depends on the number and quality of eggs. Age of the woman is the most important factor controlling this.

IVF can resolve any issue: Everything cannot be resolved by treatment. Certain problems can be pre-empted for example by having your eggs or embryos frozen, but otherwise conceiving a child after 40 will require guidance by an expert health care professional such as a fertility specialist.

Oral contraception reduces fertility: There is no medical evidence to suggest that oral contraception reduces fertility and forces your biological clock into panic-mode. However, one should consult gynecologist before popping those pills.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
KYODO NEWS - Jun 10, 2020 - 16:46 | All, Japan

Japan will consider making convicted sex offenders wear global positioning system tracking devices in an effort to strengthen measures to prevent recidivism, a source familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

The idea, along with tougher punishments for school teachers who commit sexually lewd acts, was added to a draft policy plan which the government aims to submit at a meeting Thursday to discuss steps against sexual violence and crimes, the source said.

The plan, to be implemented within three years, is expected to be reflected in the annual economic policy blueprint to be compiled in July.

The government will study overseas laws and monitoring technology for their discussion on the issue. It will also consider tougher rules on teachers who commit obscene acts, including dismissal.

The draft plan also includes strengthening one-stop support centers to offer integrated services to sex victims such as mental health care and legal aid and introducing education to prevent sexual violence.

According to the Justice Ministry's 2015 White Paper on Crime, the recidivism rate for sex crimes was 13.6 percent, based on a study of around 1,800 people who had been convicted during one year from July 2008 of crimes including rape and forced indecency.

Related coverage:

Japan court rejects notion same-sex couples are de facto marriages

Efforts to fight COVID-19 in Japan may fuel domestic violence

"Flower Demo" fighting sexual violence in Japan
A socially-distanced Take The Knee protest has been organised in support of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd in London this evening.

Stand Up to Racism South London has organised the protest in Brixton for 6pm on Wednesday, UK time.

#BlackLivesMatter protests have been taking place all over the world, including many across the UK.

Tonight's demonstration is planned as a peaceful and socially-distanced event.

Stand Up To Racism South London

Stand Up To Racism South London said: "This is a socially distanced demonstration. Please make sure to wear a face mask and maintain a safe distance.

"There will be stewards on site to help maintain this as well as some speakers."

Last week, those who couldn't attend protests or were sheilding at home were encouraged to take the knee at home. Stand Up To Racism's Sabby Dhalu said: We call on people to take the knee on their doorstep in solidarity with George Floyd, at 6pm, Wednesday, June 3.

"We stand for justice for George Floyd and say Black Lives Matter.

There are a number of ways to support the BLM movement from home.

A number of charities and funds - such as the Minnesota Freedom Fund and the George Floyd Memorial Fund - are taking donations from members of the public, while petitions demanding justice have been circulating.

For those who want to learn more about racism and white privilege, a number of books have been recommended - including some for children.
Police are calling on a dog owner to come forward after a sheep worrying incident has left the affected farming family 'devastated'.

Police are now looking for the man who walked a 'number of dogs' that ended up attacking sheep at around 3.30pm on 16 May.

The incident happened on a small farm in Lower Hazel, near Alveston, South Gloucestershire.

This was a nasty attack that has left the family devastated," PC Will Price, of Avon and Somerset police, said.

The sheep had to be put down after being injured by the dogs, the force added.

The man left the scene before the police arrived, but two terrier dogs were left behind.

PC Price added: We hope that the man who was involved will come forward to help us with our enquiries, or anyone who witnessed the incident can provide us with some additional details.

"Anyone with information is asked to call 101 and give reference number 5220106333."

It comes as Scottish farmers welcomed proposals to tackle livestock worrying, including an increase in the maximum sentence to a 5,000 fine or imprisonment.

Recent NFU Mutual figures show that livestock worrying cost British farmers 1.2m last year.
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Market Reports on India Provides the Trending Market Research Report India Styrene Acrylonitrile (SAN) Market: Plant Capacity, Production, Operating Efficiency, Demand & Supply, End Use, Type, Distribution Channel, Region, Competition, Trade, Customer & Price Intelligence Market Analysis, 2015-2030under Chemical Category. The report offers a collection of superior market research, market analysis, competitive intelligence and Market reports.

Styrene Acrylonitrile resin (SAN) demand in India stood at 119 KTPA in 2018 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.85% during 2015-2030. Significant demand for SAN is observed in various sectors owing to its impressive properties like high rigidity, high heat resistance, and chemical resistance. Increasing demand for Styrene Acrylonitrile in electronic sector for jacketing of air conditioner impellers, dial switches and industrial battery switches on account of its thermal insulation properties is expected to escalate the demand for SAN in India in the forecast period. Moreover, sudden outbreak of Coronavirus in the final quarter of FY 2020 has raised high concerns over improved medical facilities and healthcare services all around the world. Owing to the appreciable usage of Styrene Acrylonitrile in autoclavable devices, medical light diffusers and dental application, the demand for SAN is anticipated to grow considerably on growth in the demand for medical devices due to potential advances in healthcare sector after Coronavirus stress . In addition to this, demand for SAN in packaging applications in cosmetic and food industry to further drive the growth of the Indian SAN market in the forecast period.

Request a free sample copy of India Styrene Acrylonitrile Market Report

http://www.marketreportsonindia.com/marketreports/sample/reports/2084969

Styrene Acrylonitrile is being produced in India by two renowned companies, INEOS Styrolution and Bhansali Engineering Polymers. These domestic manufacturers cater over 60 per cent of the domestic demand of the products while the rest of the demand is met through cheaper imports from China and South Korea. India is a major importer of Styrene which is a prominent raw material for SAN. Henceforth, availability of Styrene in the domestic market is also a crucial factor in the production and supply of Styrene Acrylonitrile. Recent proposal to impose anti-dumping duty on imports of Styrene in order to check the material injury of the domestic manufacturers and promote the domestic production of the product can linger the production of its derivatives like SAN and ABS till next fiscal year.

However, this reform is likely to benefit the domestic SAN market in the forecast period owing to the easier availability of raw material at a relatively lower price.

In India, North and South region India holds the maximum consumption share of SAN due to presence of large number of end user industries and vast distribution channel. Demand for SAN is further dependent on the yearly production of derivative Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). Proposed plan of capacity expansion of ABS from INEOS Styrolution due to its vivid demand from consumer goods and packaging industry is anticipated to further propel the demand for SAN in the next five years.

Years Considered for this Report:

Historical Years: 2015  2019

Base Year: 2020

Estimated Year: 2021

Forecast Period: 2022  2030

Objective of the Study:

The primary objective of the study was to evaluate and forecast SAN capacity, production, demand,and demand  supply gap in India.

To categorize SAN demand based on end use, region and distribution channel.

To study trade dynamics and company share in India SAN market.

To identify major customers in India SAN market.

To evaluate and forecast SAN pricing in India.

To identify and profile major companies operating in India SAN market.

To identify trending news, deals and expansion plans in India SAN market.

The demand for Styrene Acrylonitrile in India is primarily fulfilled by domestic manufacturing. However, India imports raw material Styrene in abundant amount from countries such as China, South Korea, and Taiwan. Some of the major players operating in India SAN market are INEOS Styrolution India Limited, Bhansali Engineering Polymers Limited, LG Chem, Daicel Polymer Limited, Lotte Chemical Corporation, Sabic Innovative Plastics, China National Petroleum, Toray Industries, Ningbo LG Yongxing Chemical, Formosa Plastic Group, etc.

Domestic prices of SAN are majorly dependent on the prices of its feedstock Styrene and Acrylonitrile. Henceforth, the domestic manufacturers certainly mark their prices considering the fluctuations in the prices of its feedstock in the international market. Owing to unprecedented dive in the oil sector as an outcome of reduced demand after the outbreak of Coronavirus has caused the prices of its derivatives like Benzene and Styrene to hit a record low. Despite of the downfall in consumption witnessed in the final quarter of FY 20 as a ripple effect of Coronavirus outbreak, prices of SAN altogether increased by around 2 percent in FY 20 on its high demand from electronic sector in the first half of the year.

To extract data for India SAN market, primary research surveys were conducted with SAN manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, wholesalers and end users. While interviewing, the respondents were also inquired about their competitors. Through this technique, Chem Analyst was able to include manufacturers that could not be identified due to the limitations of secondary research.

Moreover, Chem Analyst analyzed various end user segments and projected a positive outlook for India SAN market over the coming years.

Chem Analyst calculated SAN demand in India by analyzing the historical data and demand forecast was carried out considering growth in end use industries. Chem Analyst sourced these values from industry experts and company representatives and externally validated through analyzing historical sales data of respective manufacturers to arrive at the overall market size. Various secondary sources such as company websites, association reports, annual reports, etc., were also studied by Chem Analyst.

Key Target Audience:

SAN manufacturers and other stakeholders

Organizations, forums and alliances related to SAN distribution

Government bodies such as regulating authorities and policy makers

Market research organizations and consulting companies

The study is useful in providing answers to several critical questions that are important for industry stakeholders, such as SAN manufacturers, distributors and policy makers. The report also provides useful insights about which market segments should be targeted over the coming years to strategize investments and capitalize on growth opportunities.

Report Scope:

In this report, India SAN market has been segmented into following categories:

*Market, by End Use- Electronics and Appliances, Automotive, ABS Manufacturing, *Medical Devices, Household Appliances, and Others

*Market, by Distribution Channel- Direct/Institutional Sales, Retail Sales, Other Channel Sales

*Market, by Region- North, West, East and South

Competitive Landscape

ChemAnalyst offers detailed analysis of major players including basic company details, Segmental/product information, financial matrices, growth strategies, expansion plans, collaborations, SWOT analysis etc.to give a comprehensive and meaningful insights on the respective product market.

Available Customizations:

With the given market data, ChemAnalyst offers customizations according to a companys specific needs.

Browse our full report with Table of Content : http://www.marketreportsonindia.com/marketreports/india-styrene-acrylonitrile-san-market-plant-capacity-production-operating-efficiency-demand-supply-end-use-ty/2084969

About Market Reports on India:

Market Reports on India is an excellent source to obtain top quality market research reports that helps you to understand the business in the Indian market. We cover various industries, identifying and understanding key macro and micro-economic trends, insights and futuristic growth opportunities. To help achieve all this and more, Market Reports on India is the answer to all your business needs.

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Market Reports on India

Tel: +91 22 27810772 / 27810773

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Though retail stores are opening up across the country, it will take a while for it to be business as usual. A consumer sentiment survey conducted by Retailers Association of India (RAI) and LitmusWorld says that over 62 per cent of Indian consumers plan to visit retail stores within the first three months of their opening. Around 32 per cent say that they would visit retail stores in the next 3-12 months, and only six per cent of consumers want to stay away from physical stores for more than 12 months. Over 75 per cent of consumers who plan to indulge in retail therapy in the next three months are residents of tier II and III cities, where the incidence of coronavirus pandemic is relatively lower than the metro cities. The not so good news, however, is that 41 per cent of consumers have said that their shopping budgets would contract extensively and only 6 per cent talked about higher shopping expenditure.

More women are opting to shop online than men. Around 60 per cent of women, as per the RAI report, prefer shopping online, while 64 per cent men prefer visiting offline stores. In tier II and III cities, 75 per cent of consumers prefer shopping offline. Though shopping for food and grocery shopping is a given, the RAI-LitmusWorld report says that 52 per cent of consumers are keen to buy clothes post lockdown, while 31 per cent want to invest in consumer durables. However, not all shoppers want to shop for apparels in physical stores. Around 79.50 per cent prefer buying clothes online. In fact, Kavi Mishra, CEO, House of Anita Dongre, in a recent interview with Business Today, had said that a consumer in Hyderabad bought 22 pieces of garments through a link that was sent to her by WhatsApp. Though the appetite to shop for apparels is surely there, only 8.19 per cent said that they would shop with an increased budget. The demand, therefore, would be more for basic clothing rather than high-end fashion. In fact, with work from home becoming a way life, most fashion brands are focusing on causal wear, and many of them are coming up with work from home clothing collections.

ALSO READ: Malls vs High Street: Who will win hearts of shoppers in post-covid world?

Like apparel, 75.4 per cent consumers prefer buying appliances online. No wonder, from Godrej Appliances to Panasonic, all the leading consumer durable brands are stepping up their e-commerce offerings. They are also helping their traditional dealers to go digital. Amazon's recent initiative, Amazon Local, for instance, has a host of local consumer durable stores listed on the platform. So, when a consumer living in North Delhi searches for a washing machine or TV panel on Amazon, it will throw up details of not just the models available on the marketplace, but also details of local retailers in North Delhi. This will enable the consumer to browse the inventory at the local store, and if she wants she can go to that store and touch and feel the product before buying. The local store will also give her the advantage of delivering the product on the same day and installing it for her. Even in consumer durables, only 6 per cent consumers have indicated they would have an increased spend.

So, Unlock 1.0 will surely see pent up demand, but consumers are certainly not going to splurge. They are going to buy only those products which they haven't been able to buy due to the lockdown. So, a consumer not having a washing machine or dishwasher, may invest in one, but those consumers who already possess these products will surely hesitate to upgrade. Many retailers actually fear that demand may eventually dry up a couple of months post the lockdown.

ALSO READ: Unlock 1.0: No more discounts on apparels, fashion retailers decide in unison
A new appointee to the Trump administration once said that the US is in the clutches of a 'homo-empire' that pushes a 'tyrannical LGBT+ agenda'.

Merritt Corrigan was appointed as the deputy White House liaison at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on Friday.

According to a Politico report last year, Corrigan wrote on Twitter account that 'our homo-empire couldnt tolerate even one commercial enterprise not in full submission to the tyrannical LGBT agenda'.

Corrigan, who previously worked for the Hungarian Embassy in the US, recently made her Twitter account private.

Merritt Corrigan (pictured), who was appointed as the deputy White House liaison at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on Friday, once said that the US is in the clutches of a 'homo-empire' that pushes a 'tyrannical LGBT+ agenda'

In another post, Corrigan wrote: 'Liberal democracy is little more than a front for the war being waged against us by those who fundamentally despise not only our way of life, but life itself.'

Last October, Corrigan slammed the 'false song of feminism' in an op-ed for The Conservative Woman.

'A woman today is expected by society to come to marriage and motherhood in physical and spiritual decline, if ever, she wrote.

'This is the life women have been offered by those who would rather us toil away as isolated economic units for faceless corporations, far from the natural pleasures of the domestic, far from the guardianship of a loving husband, and far from the life-giving experience of motherhood.'

John Barsa, the acting administrator for USAID released a statement defending Corrigan late Monday.

'Political appointees are appointed at the discretion of the White House to carry out the President's foreign policy agenda at USAID,' he wrote.

In another post, Corrigan (pictured in February 2018) wrote: 'Liberal democracy is little more than a front for the war being waged against us by those who fundamentally despise not only our way of life, but life itself'

'I have full confidence that each political appointee at USAID has and will continue to implement the President's policies and agenda to the best of his or her ability.

'I want to specifically condemn the unwarranted and malicious attacks on Deputy Chief of Staff Bethany Kozma, Deputy White House Liaison Merritt Corrigan, and Religious Freedom Advisor Mark Lloyd.

'USAID is honored to have Bethany Kozma, Merritt Corrigan, and Mark Lloyd serve at the agency. They are committed to enacting the policies of President Donald J. Trump.'
Michael Flynn.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

A veteran former judge and prosecutor appointed to review the Justice Department's motion to dismiss its case against Michael Flynn determined this week that the department "engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President."

The former judge, John Gleeson, added that there was "clear evidence of a gross abuse of prosecutorial power" in the motion to dismiss, and that the court should deny the DOJ's request.

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI as part of the Russia probe but later tried to withdraw the guilty plea.

The DOJ abruptly moved to drop its case against Flynn last month, alarming national security veterans who said it was the latest example of Attorney General William Barr using the department as a shield for President Trump and a sword against Trump's perceived enemies.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A veteran former prosecutor and federal judge appointed to review the Justice Department's motion to dismiss its case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn determined on Wednesday that the case should not be dismissed.

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is overseeing the Flynn case, appointed the former prosecutor, John Gleeson, to argue against the DOJ's motion to dismiss the case.

In his brief Wednesday, Gleeson determined that Flynn perjured himself by admitting under oath that he lied to the FBI about his communications with the former Russian ambassador and later seeking to withdraw the guilty plea.

However, Gleeson said, Flynn should not face a contempt hearing and should instead be penalized as part of his formal sentencing for the guilty plea.

"This approach  rather than a separate prosecution for perjury or contempt  aligns with the Court's intent to treat this case, and this Defendant, in the same way it would any other," Gleeson wrote.

Story continues

The former judge listed two primary reasons for why the court should deny the DOJ's motion to drop its case against Flynn:

The department's claim that there isn't enough evidence to prove Flynn made materially false statements "taxes the credulity of the credulous" and is "conclusively disproven by its own briefs filed earlier in this very proceeding." Gleeson added that the government's grounds for dismissing the case also "contradict and ignore this Court's prior orders, which constitute law of the case. They are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact. And they depart from positions that the Government has taken in other cases."

There is also "clear evidence of a gross abuse of prosecutorial power" in the motion to dismiss, Gleeson wrote. Rule 48(a) of the federal rules of criminal procedure is meant to protect against "dubious dismissals of criminal cases that would benefit powerful and well-connected defendants." However, that's exactly what's happened here, Gleeson added. Specifically, "the Government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President."

Gleeson's brief comes ahead of a July 16 hearing in which Sullivan will weigh arguments on the merits of the DOJ's motion. But a three-judge panel on the Washington, DC, circuit court of appeals is scheduled to hear arguments on Friday on Flynn's request to have the case immediately dismissed. Two judges on the panel are Republican appointees.

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak regarding US sanctions against Russia.

Flynn initially cooperated with prosecutors but later shifted course and hired Sidney Powell, a defense attorney who took a more combative stance, urging the court to dismiss the Justice Department's case against Flynn and accusing the department of prosecutorial misconduct.

Last month, the DOJ abruptly moved to drop its case against Flynn after Attorney General William Barr tapped an outside prosecutor to reexamine the case.

Trump and his allies rejoiced over the decision, saying it confirmed their claims that the FBI acted out of political bias when it investigated the Trump campaign for conspiring with the Russian government in 2016.

Department veterans and national security officials, meanwhile, excoriated the decision as being part of Barr's ongoing effort to use the department as a shield for Trump and a sword against his perceived enemies.

They pointed, specifically, to the fact that Flynn had already pleaded guilty and acknowledged his wrongdoing several times, weakening the department's claim last week that it could not legally bring a case against the former national security adviser.

Brandon Van Grack, one of the prosecutors from the former special counsel Robert Mueller's team who worked on the Flynn case, also withdrew as counsel for the government shortly before the DOJ filed its motion to drop the case.

Van Grack's sudden withdrawal was the biggest red flag to DOJ veterans, who told Business Insider it was reminiscent of when the prosecutors working on the US's case against Roger Stone, another Trump ally, withdrew en masse after senior department leadership publicly reversed their sentencing recommendation in the case.

The controversy kicked up another when Mary McCord, the former acting assistant attorney general for national security who was directly involved in the Flynn case, wrote that the DOJ twisted her testimony to justify dropping the case.

Jonathan Kravis, one of the prosecutors from the Stone case who left the department altogether after withdrawing, also wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the DOJ's move to dismiss Flynn's case was a "disastrous mistake."

Kravis accused the DOJ of putting "political patronage ahead of its commitment to the rule of law" and moving to dismiss the case even though Flynn pleaded guilty and the court ruled that the plea was valid.

Read the original article on Business Insider
SPRINGFIELD  City Councilor Orlando Ramos on Tuesday called for police reforms including a ban on choke holds following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and protests around the nation.

Ramos, who is chairman of the councils Public Safety Committee, issued four recommendations aimed at improving the Police Departments use of force policy and response to citizen complaints.

Ramos six-page report was addressed to Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood, and was revealed at a press conference conducted by Ramos and most other councilors on the steps of City Hall.

Eleven members of the 13-member council attended and spoke, all promising action to address racism and to promote policies aimed at deterring police misconduct.

Were here because we have heard the voices of the Springfield residents who are demanding change, Ramos said. "They, just like millions of people around the world, were hurt by the murder of George Floyd and appalled by the actions and inaction of those Minneapolis police officers."

Ramos recommendations were:

Chokeholds and carotid restraints shall be explicitly banned under the departments use of force policy.

De-escalation shall be listed as the first option in all five progression of force" levels under police policies.

The Police Department shall create a tracking system for citizens complaints and expedite the implementation of an Early Intervention System (EIS) to help identify, intervene, and if necessary, retrain potentially problematic officers.

The Police Department shall begin accepting citizen complaint forms by phone and online, in addition to the existing measures of mail and dropping off forms. The department should also expand information provided to the citizens on the complaint process.

Councilors said they support those policies and will file resolutions at the next council meeting, June 22, at addressing community concerns.

Ryan Walsh, a police spokesman, said the department does not authorize or train officers to use chokeholds or carotid restraints. Clapprood does agree with Ramos to strengthen the language of the policy, Walsh said.

Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said,.following the press conference that chokeholds are not permitted, and deescalation training is provided to all officers.

The commissioner and I are more than willing to work with him for the good of the people of the city of Springfield," Sarno said.

Councilors have participated in various demonstrations in Springfield that have followed the death of Floyd. Councilors praised the marches as peaceful, and said the anti-racism message was heard loud and clear.

Councilor Marcus Williams said the city expected the worst from the demonstrations but got the best.

Williams said that as African American man and elected official, that black and brown bodies are tired of being the teachable moment. We are now wondering when the lesson will be learned.

He plans to file a resolution with the council that calls for a national registry of decertified police officers.

Councilors Michael Fenton and Timothy Allen said they plan to file a resolution that would call for the professional licensure of police officers similar to licensing requirements now in place for other labor groups in Massachusetts.

Councilor Adam Gomez said he plans to file a resolution that would have the city declare racism as a public health emergency.

Gomez said we grieve for all the innocent lives lost in communities that have known the realities of systematic racism for centuries.

Today, we grieve, but we also recognize that now as much as ever before, our communities must demand accountability and action from our leaders. and the work to build trust between government and the people must begin now, Gomez said.

Other speaking out were Council President Justin Hurst and Councilors Malo Brown, Victor Davilla, Tracye Whitfield, Jesse Lederman, and Kateri Walsh.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 20F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 20F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
UPDATED Thursday, June 11: Junction City man accused of threatening girlfriend, shooting houses apprehended after chase, police say

***

Authorities are searching for a Junction City man accused of threatening his girlfriend, trying to shoot her friend and firing shots into her parents house, police say.

Law enforcement agencies are searching for Victor Burgoyne throughout Linn and Lane counties, according to Junction City police. Hes suicidal and extremely dangerous, police said.

Burgoyne, 44, tried to shoot his girlfriends friend by firing a bullet into the friends Junction City house early Tuesday, according to police. The bullet ripped through a wall and partially penetrated another, the woman told authorities.

Bullet fragments came to rest near the drain of a tub where the woman had been taking a shower minutes before, she told authorities.

Burgoyne then fired multiple shots into his girlfriends parents Harrisburg house Tuesday night, police said. He was also threatening to kill family members and friends if she didnt meet with him, police said.

Burgoyne kept threatening his girlfriend in phone calls and text messages throughout the early morning, police said Wednesday.

Authorities are searching for Burgoyne, whos described as being 6-foot-3 and 163 pounds. He has hazel eyes and may be unshaven with a mustache and goatee.

Burgoyne may be driving a white 2003 Ford F-350 pickup truck with Oregon license plate No. 521LBY. The truck may be towing a 20- to 25-foot Outback camper with out-of-state plates and a damaged passenger side awning.

Police ask anyone who has information about Burgoyne or his location to call 541-998-1245.

-- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
The meteorite is a piece of the surface of asteroid Vesta. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis recently discovered presolar grains in the meteorite. Credit: Ogliore Lab

The formation of our solar system was a messy affair. Most of the material that existed before its formationmaterial formed around other, long-dead starswas vaporized, then recondensed into new materials. But some grains of that material, formed before the sun's birth, still persist.

These "stardust" grains arrived on Earth inside primitive meteorites. New Washington University in St. Louis research led by Nan Liu, an assistant research professor in physics and the Laboratory for Space Sciences in Arts & Sciences, shows that stardust was also delivered to another planet-like body in the solar system, asteroid 4 Vesta, by micrometeoroids that also carried water.

The research was published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

"Like our Earth," Liu said, "Vesta has a core, a mantle and crust," features that formed as the materials melted, differentiated and coalesced into a single planet-like object. And like Earth, Vesta is also pummeled by micrometeoroids. The brightest asteroid in the night sky, Vesta orbits the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Liu, along with Lionel Vacher, a postdoctoral researcher, and Ryan Ogliore, assistant professor of physics, studied samples of the Kapoeta meteorite for this research. Kapoeta fell to Earth in 1942 in what is now South Sudan, landing on a road in front of a British convoy during World War II. NASA's Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta established a link between Vesta and the howardites, eucrites and diogenites, groups of meteorites found on Earth.

The research team focused on small, dark inclusions in Kapoeta that seemed out of place, like pieces of clay in lava rock. "They look completely different from surrounding material," Liu said. They turned out to be microscopic meteoroids, less than 100 microns across (smaller than the thickness of a human hair), that landed on Vesta's surface.

Liu used the university's mass-spectrometer microscope, the NanoSIMS, to search the inclusions for presolar material. Because stardust has a very different isotopic composition from material that formed within the solar system, it jumped out at her under the microscope.

The stardust in asteroid Vesta is a unique record of ancient, galactic material delivered long ago to a body far from Earth. The researchers postulate that the micrometeoroids arrived at Vesta after the violent impacts of the Late Heavy Bombardment, about 3.5 billion years ago.

Vacher and Ogliore measured the chemical compositions of the micrometeoroids to understand in what type of environment they formed. They recognized minerals and textures that were linked to interactions between rock and water from melted ice.

Images taken using NanoSIMS of micrometeoroids that impacted Vesta. Credit: Ogliore Lab

One of the big questions is: How did water get on Earth?

"We need a mechanism to bring ice from the outer solar system, where the temperature is low," Vacher said. "This research shows that you can transport small micrometeoroids that contain ice to dry bodies that formed without water."

The ancient record of these micrometeoroids impacting Earth has been erased by weather and plate tectonics. The micrometeoroid record from asteroid Vesta may help to explain how water was delivered to the young Earth.

"If icy micrometeoroids delivered water to the inner solar system when the Earth was still forming, this could be one way that the Earth ended up with enough water to support life," Ogliore said. "Habitable planets around other stars may have acquired their water through similar means."

More analyses are needed to determine the when and the where. "Our next measurements will constrain when this wet material was delivered to Vesta, and where it came from: an icy asteroid, a comet or some other exotic source," Ogliore said.

Take a trip to 4 Vesta

You can zoom in on Kapoeta thanks to Ryan Ogliore, assistant professor of physics. He worked to develop techniques to visualize objects from the micrometer to the millimeter scalethat's a factor of 1,000. "It's like he took a puzzle with 1,000 pieces, but Ryan is doing the same puzzle with 10,000 pieces," said Lionel Vacher, research assistant. Click here to visit the meteorite.

Explore further The abundance of water in asteroid fragments

More information: Nan Liu et al, NanoSIMS isotopic investigation of xenolithic carbonaceous clasts from the kapoeta howardite, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (2020). Journal information: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta Nan Liu et al, NanoSIMS isotopic investigation of xenolithic carbonaceous clasts from the kapoeta howardite,(2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2020.05.026
When Spike Lee phoned in for an interview late last week, New York was still in the throes of demonstrations against police brutality, a lockdown brought on by covid-19 and the civic unrest and economic crisis that have ensued.

But Lee, who was calling from his home on the Upper East Side, was in a surprisingly exuberant mood. "Wednesday was the first day nobody died from corona," he said, citing data regarding confirmed deaths published by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. What's more, he had taken a bike ride to mayoral residence Gracie Mansion a few days earlier that considerably raised his spirits.

"I had a mask on, trying to be in-cog-negro," he recalls with a wry laugh. "And it was a great sight for my sore eyes to see my fellow New Yorkers - white, brown, red and black - unified and speaking up against the powers that be."

He was even more heartened by what he saw on CNN all week. "It happened all across the United States of America, not just New York," he says excitedly. "It's all over. Baltimore, D.C. - I mean, even places where there are no black people! Salt Lake City, Utah. Des Moines, Iowa. ... Many more places that don't have a large minority population. But they're out there, too. I haven't seen this since I was a kid growing up in the '60s."

Having a conversation with Lee, who turned 63 in March, is akin to a dance: He is as sharply observant and coruscatingly critical as the films he's been making since his groundbreaking debut in 1986 with "She's Gotta Have It." But, like most of his movies, he possesses an underlying current of humor that can instantly disarm even his harshest detractors. His new movie, "Da 5 Bloods," which begins streaming on Netflix on Friday, exemplifies what makes him so distinctive as a director: He's one of a handful of filmmakers who have refined their own, instantly recognizable cinematic language (those rack-focus dolly shots, those double-edit hugs).

Lee has also been fearless about making polemical work, and speaking out about politics off-screen, regardless of the blowback he might receive in Hollywood or from his audience. Given the huge and diverse turnouts at the nationwide demonstrations over the past two weeks, is he optimistic that systemic change is at hand?

The answer, he says, is all about follow-through. "Let's not get (ahead of) ourselves," he warns. "Let's see what's happened when we wake up on Nov. 4. Because regardless of what's happening now, if Agent Orange gets re-elected, then it's been in vain."

"Agent Orange," as Lee's fans know, is the filmmaker's preferred name for President Donald Trump. It's also a deadly chemical that was used as an herbicide and defoliant in Vietnam, where "Da 5 Bloods" takes place. The movie stars Delroy Lindo, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Clarke Peters and Norm Lewis as veterans who return to the country to recover the remains of their fallen squad leader (played in flashbacks by Chadwick Boseman). Along the way, they embark on a scheme reminiscent of John Huston's "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," one of Lee's all-time favorites.

Although it obeys the conventions of war films and caper flicks, "Da 5 Bloods" also recognizes the disproportionate sacrifice of black soldiers in Vietnam, who were drafted, sent to the front lines, killed and court-martialed far more often than their white peers. Lee, who with Kevin Willmott retooled Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo's script that had originally been about white characters, first heard about the project as he was preparing to direct "BlacKkKlansman," in 2017. Although he couldn't have known then that the themes of "Da 5 Bloods" would be so germane in 2020, he says, "It doesn't take a great leap to make a correlation between what happened to black and brown boys in Vietnam and what's happened to black and brown communities with corona. You can tie that together without having to work."

Inimitable Spike Lee touches abound throughout "Da 5 Bloods," which features one of his most familiar stylistic flourishes: a stirring prologue and epilogue, in this case featuring Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. - both of whom criticized the Vietnam War, both of whom were reviled for doing so at the time, and both of whom have been sanitized into sentimental heroes over the ensuing decades.

The decision to include King in "Da 5 Bloods," was particularly personal for Lee. The civil rights leader was a senior at Atlanta's Morehouse College when Lee's father was a freshman; Lee graduated from Morehouse in 1979 with Martin Luther King III. "Dr. King wasn't just talking about how immoral the Vietnam War was," Lee insists. "He was talking about Dow Chemical and all the other people who were profiting off the war, who were making napalm and Agent Orange. And I think that's why he got assassinated. Not because he was trying to desegregate counters or all that other stuff. When he started speaking against the war, they were like, 'This guy gotta go.' "

Film fans will recognize more than a few shout-outs to "Apocalypse Now" in "Da 5 Bloods," which features at least two straight-up homages to Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film. Lee had just graduated from Morehouse and was preparing to attend film school at New York University when that film came out. He was working as an intern at Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles.

"I was at the first screening," he recalls fondly, trying to find the ticket stub while he talks. "Twelve noon, the Cinerama Dome, Sunset Boulevard. Every time I see Francis he says, 'Spike, you've told me this story a million times already!' But it's true! That was one of the most exhilarating experiences I've ever seen in film."

Lee says that he cast Laurence Fishburne and Albert Hall in "School Daze" and "Malcolm X" on the strength of their supporting performances in "Apocalypse Now." He gives credit to Coppola and Oliver Stone for casting actors of color in their Vietnam movies, which were breakthroughs compared with John Wayne's "Green Berets" and other whitewashed histories of the war. He says he has "nothing but love" for both directors, especially Stone, who served in Vietnam. Speculating that Stone may not have felt qualified to tell the black soldiers' story, Lee compares him to Norman Jewison, who had intended to direct "Malcolm X" before Lee took on the project.

" 'Malcolm X' was Norman Jewison's film. And he gracefully bowed out. He didn't have to do that," Lee says, adding that, to this day, their conversation has remained private. "Without saying exactly what he said, you know, he kind of acknowledged that maybe he was not the person to direct that film."

Far from being despondent about coronavirus and political unrest, Lee says, he feels he was "built for this." Since New York went into shutdown, he has been isolating at home with his wife, Tonya, their grown children, Satchel and Jackson, and their Yorkshire terrier, Ginger. "The family motto: Be safe and one day at a time."

When the video emerged of George Floyd dying under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis, he responded almost days later with a breathtaking 94-second short film called "3 Brothers - Radio Raheem, Eric Garner and George Floyd," in which he intercut the deaths of Garner and Floyd with footage from the 1989 film "Do the Right Thing," in which Radio Raheem, played by Bill Nunn, dies while in a police chokehold.

Reflecting on the devastating parallels of fact and fiction in "3 Brothers," Lee takes a moment to clear up what he says has been a 30-year misunderstanding about "Do the Right Thing," which ends with two quotes about violence, one from Martin Luther King and one from Malcolm X.

"There were some people who were saying that Spike put these quotes in the movie for the audience member to make a choice," Lee says. "That was not the intent at all. Before Malcolm X got assassinated, (he and) Dr. King were trying to find a common ground, where they could unite their different points of view. But they were united in the freedom of black folks. So the end of 'Do the Right Thing' was not saying to the audience, 'Pick one or the other.' I felt that you could put both of them together."

Does Lee feel compelled to make a particular movie in light of these extraordinary times? "No," he says flatly, although he suggests he might be inspired to make another short film. The position of individual artists and their proper creative response, he says, is a private decision.

"As I've gotten older and more mature, I can understand that every artist has their own path," he says. "And there are some artists - and I'm not making any judgments - they think that their gift to God is their talent and to entertain people, and they make a conscious decision to leave politics out of it. And that's their choice.

"But I do think that history has showed us that when times have been rough, they've produced some of the greatest music, movies, plays and whatnot from artists who feel that it's their duty to comment or hold up a window to the evil that's going on."

Whatever he does next, there's little chance that Lee will leave the audience wondering which side of that equation he's on.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following article contains an image and the name of a deceased person.

The brother of a 20-year-old art student will remain behind bars after he was charged with his younger sister's murder.

Lucas Delaney, 30, was arrested on Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours after the body of his sister Gabriella was found inside a townhouse their shared near Penrith.

Police believe Ms Delaney's body had been inside the home for several days.
By PTI

BENGALURU: The Karnataka Anti-Corruption Bureau on Wednesday conducted raids at 14 places linked to four government officials in the state.

On receiving received credible information about the officials amassing disproportionate assets, an illegal assets case was registered and raids are being conducted at 14 places linked to them, ACB said in a release.

It said the raids are still on and investigation is being carried out about their assets.

Raids are being conducted on properties linked to L Sathish Kumar, Additional Commissioner,Department of Commercial Tax; N Ramakrishna, Divisional Forest Officer, Srinivasapura, Kolar; Gopalshetty Mallikarjuna, Executive Engineer, District Development Cell, Raichur; Raghappa Lalappa Lamani, Krishna Bhagya Jala Nigam Ltd official in Almatti, Bagalkote, the release said.
Some large health insurers are only willing to cover coronavirus testing under certain circumstances  potentially undermining a key part of the U.S.' coronavirus response.

Why it matters: Widespread, easily accessible testing is an essential part of containing the virus, and the U.S.' testing capacity has gotten much better. But insurance restrictions that deter people from getting tested could undermine that progress and put people in danger.

The big picture: Public health experts say testing needs to keep increasing, especially in high-risk places like nursing homes, and for people with a high likelihood of exposure  for example, from a public-facing job or participating in protests.

Many employers are interested in using widespread diagnostic testing as a workplace safety tool.

In most circumstances, a coronavirus test costs an insurance plan roughly $50.

Yes, but: Some insurers aren't willing to cover purely precautionary tests, or at least won't do so without cost-sharing.

They're only extending that benefit to tests that are deemed "medically necessary" and which have been ordered by a doctor, and in some cases they explicitly exclude the types of regular surveillance testing that experts say is so important.

Details: UnitedHealthcare, for example, says that we will cover medically necessary COVID-19 testing at no cost-share...when ordered by a physician or health care professional.

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina will cover diagnostic tests when ordered by an attending health care provider and provided at the point-of-care for individuals who are symptomatic and are concerned about infection, per its website.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City will cover both diagnostic and antibody tests with no cost share if you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and your physician orders the test, according to its website.

BlueCross BlueShield of Mississippi says it won't cover tests that are not medically necessary," which includes tests for asymptomatic people as part of public health monitoring efforts or screenings for returning to work.

The other side: Not every insurer has added coverage limitations. Aetna, which is owned by CVS, has waived cost-sharing for all diagnostic tests, which can be done by any approved testing facility.

What they're saying: Insurers have never typically covered medical services that aren't ordered by a health care professional, or that aren't considered medically necessary, and they say it's unclear whether they should be on the hook for such services now.

They generally understand "medical necessity" to refer to situations in which a patient is exhibiting symptoms or has been directly exposed to someone with the virus.

It is essential that strategies that addresses workplace testing be part of an overarching public and occupational health strategy, and that federal guidance clearly articulate the roles of insurance providers, employers and public health officials. It is also critical that these strategies consider related funding in that context, said Kristine Grow, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans.

The bottom line: There are clear health, economic and societal benefits to coronavirus testing, meaning that theres a plausible argument for insurers, employers and the government all having a role in funding it.
A mother from Kentucky is honoring her son coming out as transgender with an "it's a boy"-themed photo shoot for his 20th birthday.

Heather Green of Louisville shared pictures of her family celebrating her eldest child, Adrian Brown, 20, along with a message supporting his announcement. The post quickly garnered more than 20,000 likes and 15,000 shares on Facebook.

"Now, 23,000 people have seen it -- so 23,000 people know I'm trans, which is a little scary but exciting," Adrian told "Good Morning America." "I've made some awesome friends along the way because of this post."

PHOTO: Adrian Brown, 20, came out as transgender to his mom in September 2018. (Kara Davis)

In September, Adrian, a student at the University of Louisville, came out to his mom and brother Lucas, 17.

Adrian was assigned female sex at birth. He now identifies as male.

Transgender is a term used to describe a person whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, according to GLAAD.

"Gender identity is a person's internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or boy or girl)," GLAAD's website states. "For some people, their gender identity does not fit neatly into those two choices. For transgender people, the sex they were assigned at birth and their own internal gender identity do not match."

PHOTO: Adrian Brown, 20, posed in a photo shoot to celebrate coming out as transgender. (Kara Davis)

"All the things we go through as parents -- when they bring home a good report card, or get a lead in a musical, but nothing came to mind on what to say or do when your child tells you that they're transitioning," Green told "GMA."

She went on, "I didn't know how to react and that's what I told him, but it was something we were going to work through and I would support him all the way."

Last week, Adrian posed in a gender reveal style photo shoot dreamed up by his mom. He popped blue balloons and held "it's a boy" signs. Green even wore a faux baby bump to signify that she was gaining another son.

Story continues

PHOTO: Adrian Brown, 20, came out as transgender to his mom in September 2018 and he and his family posed in a photo shoot to celebrate his bravery. (Kara Davis)

"When your child comes out as trans, the best thing to do is create a photo shoot to celebrate the fact that he silently and bravely stepped out of the race that he never wanted to be in, found his own lane and proceeded to win. HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY, Adrian!" Green wrote on Facebook.

"It was a good time and it made me feel really great to have such an amazing family that would support me like this," Adrian said, adding that he has a message for others struggling to come out.

PHOTO: Adrian Brown, 20, is photographed with his mom, Heather Green and brother, Lucas Brown, 17. (Kara Davis)

"It's probably going to be a little terrifying to tell someone for the first time," he said. "But even if they're not accepting, there is a community out there that is going to love and accept you. It'll be OK."

For a list of transgender resources, please visit GLAADs website.

This story was originally published on February 5, 2019.

Mom celebrates son coming out as transgender with sweet photo shoot originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Education on Tuesday issued an alert asking Chinese students to be prudent in choosing to go or return to Australia for study, citing risks of the COVID-19 pandemic and discrimination against Asian people there.

The alert noted risks involved with international travel and on open campuses, as major Australian universities plan to open around July although the spread of COVID-19 around the world is still not under effective control.

Also, multiple cases of discrimination against Asian people took place in the country during the pandemic period, the alert said.

The ministry warned relevant students to be fully aware of such risks and make prudent choices.
Chennai:

With Mettur Dam witnessing steady inflows following Karnataka's release of water from the Cauvery River, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Friday ordered opening its sluice gates for irrigating samba crops in the delta districts.

"To enable farmers take up samba cultivation, I have directed release of water from Mettur Dam from September 20, 2016," she said.



The government decision to release water was based on factors like the dam touching 84.76 feet (capacity 120 ft), likelihood of receiving more water from Karnataka reservoirs in view of the Supreme Court order, the Cauvery Supervisory Committee's expected decision on quantum of water for her state and an anticipated normal north east monsoon, she said.

Also read: Watch Tamil Nadu bandh: DMK leaders Stalin, Kanimozhi, MDMK Chief Vaiko detained during protest over Cauvery issue



Tamil Nadu has received 8.92 tmcft of water till September 14 at Biligundulu, the designated entry point, with Karnataka releasing water following the Apex Court order, Jayalalithaa said in a statement.



She recalled that the 2007 final award of the Cauvery disputes tribunal was published in a Central gazette in 2013 after a Supreme Court order, and blamed the Centre for not constituting the Cauvery Management Board and Cauvery Water Regulation Committee.



Since the Centre has not constituted these, "We are in a situation of approaching the Supreme Court to receive our share of water from Cauvery," she said.



The state government had earlier moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to Karnataka to release 50 tmcft of water from Cauvery. The court had initially directed Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of water for 10 days, but later modified it's order, and asked the upper riparian state to release 12,000 cusecs of water till September 20.



Jayalalithaa said that the court's direction was sought after her government's communication to Karnataka seeking release of its share of water from Cauvery and to Centre urging its intervention did not yield any results. As the state did not get its share of water, she had last month announced a Rs 64.30 crore package to help Delta farmers raise Samba (a form of paddy) crop, Jayalalithaa recalled.

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A study led by the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) has found significant differences in disease risk perception and channels of information about Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Guinea, West Africa

A study led by the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) has found significant differences in disease risk perception and channels of information about Ebola virus disease (EVD) in rural areas and urban centres of Guinea, West Africa.

Findings were established after researchers investigated residents' opinions of the wildlife potentially posing a risk for EVD transmission to humans, wildmeat consumption before and during the 2013-2016 EVD outbreak in Guinea, and the ways in which EVD transmission risks were communicated during the outbreak.

The research led by Dr Tatyana Humle (DICE) alongside colleagues from Beijing Forestry University, China and other international institutions, found that rural people mainly received information about EVD through awareness-raising missions, especially in villages, as opposed to urban respondents who also gained their information through newspapers and radio.

Bats, chimpanzees, monkeys, warthogs, crested porcupines, duikers and cane rats were perceived as potential transmitters of EVD, but only bats and chimpanzees were reportedly consumed less often during the epidemic period even though a wildmeat ban was in place. Reduced consumption of bats and chimpanzees and an increase in domestic meat consumption revealed influenced consumption behaviour based on perceived disease risk. Yet many respondents in rural areas still did not strongly believe that wildlife could act as vectors of EVD, underestimating the risk associated with handling, capturing, butchering, and transporting infected wild animal carcasses.

Respondents who believed that EVD is not natural blamed developed countries for its spread. These individuals tended to maintain their wildmeat consumption habits and potentially mistrust information conveyed. The high cost and low availability of domestic meat were also cited as barriers to alternative meat protein consumption, especially in rural areas.

Dr Humle said: 'Our research indicates that future public health and behavioural change campaigns must use carefully developed messaging in relation to the risks of zoonoses. There should also be a bigger focus on raising awareness of affordable and accessible alternative protein resources. This will be more beneficial to residents than imposing bans or restrictions. In regions such as West Africa, the relationship between socio-economic context, food security, and public health is so important and requires greater attention.'

###

Their paper, 'Consumer perceptions and reported wild and domestic meat and fish consumption behavior during the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, West Africa' has been published by PeerJ. DOI: http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9229
WILTON/RIDGEFIELD - Following guidance from the White House, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and state and local public health authorities, Weir Farm National Historic Site is increasing recreational access.

The National Park Service is working servicewide with federal, state, and local public health authorities to closely monitor the COVID-19 pandemic and using a phased approach to increase access on a park-by-park basis.

Beginning June 10, Weir Farm will reopen access to park grounds and parking lot to 50% capacity. Parking is limited.

Park hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and the parking lot closes promptly at 5 p.m.

Short visits are encouraged to allow others the opportunity to enjoy the park, get outdoors, and recreate responsibly.

There are resources available on the visitor center porch for self-guided visits, including maps, self-guided tours, Junior Ranger activities, and the National Park Passport Stamp.

With public health in mind, the following facilities remain closed at this time:

Restrooms - (plan accordingly).

Burlingham House Visitor Center.

Historic Weir House, Weir Studio, and Young Studio.

Portrait photography and group activities are not permitted at this time.

Weir Farm will examine each facility function and service provided to ensure those operations comply with current public health guidance, and will be regularly monitored to ensure they are safe and clean for visitors, employees, partners, and volunteers.

A return to full operations will continue to be phased and services may be limited. When recreating, the public should follow local area health orders including the latest guidance from Governor Ned Lamont, practice Leave No Trace principles, avoid crowding and avoid high-risk outdoor activities.

The CDC has offered guidance to help people recreating in parks and open spaces prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Weir staff will monitor all park functions to ensure that visitors adhere to CDC guidance for mitigating risks associated with the transmission of COVID-19, and take any additional steps necessary to protect public health.

Weir Farm offers virtual visits, including a new virtual Junior Ranger program and online art exhibit.

Details and updates on park operations will be posted on Weir Farms website at nps.gov/wefa and social media channels. Updates about National Park Service operations will be posted on nps.gov/coronavirus.

Weir Farm National Historic Site, the former home and studio of artist J. Alden Weir, is located in Wilton and Ridgefield, Connecticut at 735 Nod Hill Road, Wilton.
Celebrities and public figures using Photoshop is a common occurrence. But when its Queen Elizabeth accused of sharing altered photos, its sure to raise a few eyebrows.

The photo in question got posted to the official British royal family Instagram account on June 10 in honor of Prince Philips 99th birthday. Its a milestone birthday even by royal family standards  and theyre known for longevity.

The picture of the queen and Philip standing outside Windsor Castle is making rounds on social media not because the Duke of Edinburgh turned 99, but rather because many royal fans are saying its a total fake.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip | ALASTAIR GRANT/AFP via Getty Images

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip dont take many photos together

Part of the reason the photo became instantly popular is that Her Majesty and Prince Philip dont take many photos together anymore, especially after the Duke of Edinburgh retired from his public duties in 2017. The picture is the first glimpse of Prince Philip since he was spotted leaving a London hospital on Christmas Eve 2019.

Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth is still very active in public life and ruling even during the current global pandemic.

Did someone alter the photo of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip?

At first glance, the Duke of Edinburghs birthday snapshot looks totally normal. He and Queen Elizabeth are standing on the lush, green lawn of Windsor Castle where she and her husband have been holed up since quarantine guidelines became mandatory.

But upon closer inspection, fans are noticing that theres something strange about the picture. Theyre saying it looks like a bad Photoshop attempt.

Look at [the queens] hands  its clearly photoshopped. I have a feeling they werent even physically together for this photo, one Facebook user in a royal family fan group shared. The more I look at it the more I can see what is wrong with the photo, another agreed.

The shadows in the photo make it look unnatural

The main complaint about the photo is that the shadows on Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip dont match the sunny background, giving it an odd appearance that seems fake. Could it be that the photo was taken in front of a green screen with the backdrop added later? Maybe.

My guess is that they took the picture indoors and then superimposed it over the outdoors of Windsor Castle. Either that or its some sort of 3D photo, one commenter explained.

Others claim the couple looks too healthy in the picture. They are too young in that pic. He is much more frail, another person said. Am I the only one who thinks he had his jacked padded to appear healthier? one follower wondered. Philips hair looks touched up too! added another.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip want to reassure the public

Between the global pandemic and civil unrest, people are feeling very nervous all around the globe. The royal family released the photo partly to celebrate the Duke of Edinburghs birthday and partly to remind the United Kingdom that Her Majesty is still working and still in charge.

Photoshopped or not, its a lovely photo and positive gesture from the royals.
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.
She's beautiful. I wish I had lips like that.

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Omg i was so confused. I thought it was her daughter in that still before pressing play

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I am definitely guilty of believing the misogynoir tropes placed on her. Especially as I was a fan of Siobhan. Now I see it for what it was and unfortunately too late.



The member changes and reserved natures of Mutya and Keisha really brought about such ugly bs from white british commentators (I mean presenters and DJs and writers). I hope they both (but Keisha especially) get some closure and outpouring of love and apologies. But those white commentators will definitely not be the ones doing it.



Also, I just thought of Mercy from Eastenders and the abuse she got. It was a shit time for British unambiguously Black Women at the start of the social media becoming what it is now.

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Bumni (Mercy) has spoken up about this recently about how hard it was, it was also cause EE clearly had no idea how to write for or style/makeup up a black woman, you can tell that all the black actresses on that show do their own hair, its a small thing but it defiantly makes a difference.



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I was too young to really remember much but I def remember her character's looks being made fun of unfortunately. Eastenders are sorta trying, they're doing a story now about systemic/institutional racism and it's affect on a young black (mixed) boy Keegan. There's still the usual complaints but I'm happy they're explicitly showing the racial biases that exist to an audience who probably haven't really had to think about it.

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My English QUEEN!!



Bless her

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Mel B being scary spice was always so fucked up.

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it should be brought up how it was lazy journalism that lead to their names, like apparently it was bc Mel was loud but uhhh so is Geri?? and she was named after her hair so like..... 

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I dont think she will tbh, you dont really hear Mel B speak about race and if she did, she would probably get told she was being too sensitive.

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Damn that didn't even occur to me as a racist thing. I just thought it was the personality trait, which is just as wrong but I thought yo strong independent women scare pathetic men so that's why she was "scary" ?



Damn how blind I was

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Looking back it's crazy that that's what they made her gimmick be.

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Mel B recently did an interview about racism whilst in the Spice Girls: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/mel-b-racism-spice-girls-george-floyd-protests-blm-a9553751.html

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Luckily Mel B was never labeled a bully in the media after Geri left. That's what Geri's pr team tried to spin but it never gained any real traction because other girls rallied behind Mel B and in the end Geri got dragged in the media and rightfully so. In Sugababes case, Keisha and Mutuya were immediately labeled as hell raisers and bullies after Siobhan quit and that image followed them throughout their SB tenure. It was the same with Eternal, after Louise left. She was the white victim and black girls ousted her because they were jealous. And the list goes on...

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God I remember all those stories, she was a tabloid fixture in those years. The British tabloid press is the worst.



And Push the Button is the perfect pop song js

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All countries do it, but I feel like UK is especially successful in pulling the 'At Least We Don't Do Things Like in The USA' when it comes to race and racism. While, like, check your history books and the genetics of the USA maybe once every five minutes.

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100% and its apparent in our media, we are decades behind the USA when it comes to content from non-white Brits.

There have literally been a handful of black British shows and films that have had wide releases and they are almost all about the struggle cause thats the only story white folk will allow, the last widely released Black Brit film got banned from cinemas cause they said it would lead to gang violence in cinemas, this was literally last year!



Even Black US shows get air here, Insecure comes out here months after the US release even though it trends for days after every episode while white shows literally get released at 3am here so that they air at the same time as they do in the US. Same thing happened to Atlanta, didnt get a UK release date until it was nominated for an Emmy while Dave was aired straight away.



This is the exact reason why so many of our Black actors GTFO and go to America as soon as we can.







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I also wonder if it's because the minorities are mostly brown because of South Asian immigration (" ") and therefore another lullaby to put their worries to sleep with? "No black people here, no need for talks about racism"?

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they aired game of thrones at the same time as america. it was like 2am or some shit because i had so many coworkers who came in on monday tired as fuck because they stayed up to watch it.

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sooooooo many adverts for dave in comparison to like any black american show. they're not even trying to be subtle about it.

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Shit even in Russia Insecure and Atlanta are aired the next day after US premiere

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Yeah, r/unitedkingdom is so fucking gross about that. LMAO so because your police doesn't brutalize people doesn't mean that you guys aren't one of the most classist, racist, unequal Western country in the world lol.



France is just as bad but doesn't get called out because the media is in French, not English. So many opinion pieces saying that ~French police doesn't kill, just brutalize~ as if it's good thing? Also 17K French policemen were outed as violently racists right after the Minister of Home Affairs said that they would systematically charge racism among the police. After this scandal, dude said that these policemen would be charged for "racist slurs".

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they like to pretend classism is the ONLY issue, and while it is a very huge issue, is also obviously linked to racism but when you tell them that they're all like via GIPHY

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Scotland is the worst for this because we are always saying how much better we are then England when it comes to racism and never examine how racist we still are. Plus the narrative we were colonised and not colonisers will not die no matter how many times you point out all the nasty evil shit Scottish people did all over the world.

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I mean even people in the US do it. The number of people thinking Canada and Europe are some places where racial bias is non-existent and it's some magical unicorn fairyland is sending me.

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The Netherlands too.

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the Netherlands, Belgium, France, UK, Nordic countries etc pretend like they're better than America when their "progressive" economies are built from imperialism.



ask everyone of them if they knew just how much these countries stole and continues to steal from Africa and Asia, it's crickets from them. they would constantly suck their own dicks about how progressive their countries are yet you ask them about reparations and it's silence. yawn

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Yeah, we do a lot of the 'well, we don't have their gun problem!' but considering we import weapons across the globe, it's pretty weak.

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Germany is trying to pull that shit too, to get out of police reform. One politician literally said, "We don't have a racism problem in our police force, we're not the USA."

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Yes. Between our own long history of glossing over how our Empire was achieved and the lack of understanding that just because our racism doesnt look like the USs doesnt mean its any less racism, thee are a lot of assholes around.



Ant and Dec just posted a Twitter apology for doing blackface in sketches years ago, and oh the Twitter replies are enraging. So many people who do not see the problem and insisting no apology owed. Comedy is dead, you cant even be funny any more... blah blah I cant imagine how I can be funny if I cant be racist wah wah

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i never understood the stories bc she looks like the cutest thing, shes always had such an angelic look to her imo. then again i had no idea about the tabloids until a few years ago bc i was young



i was listening to freak like me a lot at the beginning of lockdown, that was one of my fav songs as a kid lol

and angels with dirty faces is a great album + their love actually song bc i dont think thats on it

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Freak Like Me was ~so sexy to me. This and Freak Me. Where did 'freak' go in lyrics?!

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freak seems like such a nineties/noughties term, i think it should have a comeback!

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I love Angels With Dirty Faces so much and I was listenning to the leaked Mutya Keisha Siobhan album yesterday

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I'm raw as fuck this morning and this made me cry. The worst thing is that we have a LOT to be fucking angry about - and yet most of the time, our very survival hinges on our ability to fucking compartmentalize it. It's exhausting.

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Spotify, play everything you own of Sugababes.

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i always thought she seemed shy. her and the other one that replaced the irish girl

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it's tough being a shy/quiet black girl tbh. people make assumptions that you're a bitch/snooty/"uppity" even though you're literally just quietly minding your own business.

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So many people thought i was stuck up when i was younger :( I remember my friend in college told me that his friend group would call me an ice queen and a b**** :/

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Oh my gosh this. I'm not shy but I'm the type that observes my surroundings first and then socialize and the amount of people telling me I seemed "too cool for school" or "bored". Like I'm sorry I'm not faking over engagement in your conversation like other people do. So many dates with white dudes being like "you seem bored". Like I'm listening to you and giving honest reactions when they happen. So irritating.

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I feel this so much since those labels were assigned to me as well growing up.

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Same. I got that in college but it wasnt because I was stuck up, Im just really shy. Im nervous talking to new people and Im just awkward in general.

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The amount of times I heard: oh, you always seemed angry or I thought you were bitchy.. EXHAUSTING. And, that's without people even speaking to you. Jfc

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I never knew she had this reputation, tho I didn't read newspaper/tabloids as a kid, she was my fav and always seemed so cute and nice to me. Her and Mutya ARE the Sugababes lbr



White british people need to take this moment as British people and realise that racism in Britain might not be as extreme as in America, but it still exists, it's still foundational to the country and we need to see it so we can finally listen to Black and other PoC voices and begin to fix it. British people are so obsessed with not being as bad as America that we won't even hear it, which you can see in the ridiculous government responses.



I remember about a decade ago there was an ONTD post about Kelis experiencing racism in a London airport, and the post was crazy. I made some naive comment abiout how it's sad that racists exist and ruin it for the rest of us, but there were some British ONTDers agressively claiming that the UK, and London were diverse paradises and how dare you say otherwise. On the other side, there were lots of ONTDers explaining and educating about why that wasn't the case. That post opened my eyes to the reality of how racist Britain is, and how let down we are by our education here. I'm very thankful for ONTD tbh, the discussions here do change people's minds for the better.

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I never knew she was considered a bully either, I appreciated her for staying the hell around unlike those other chicks lol

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seriously thanks OP for posting this!



I was young at the time but I definitely remember her reputation as a bully and mean girl. It's really sad to hear how she was feeling at the time. Racism is traumatic in all forms, which I hope is something people are starting to understand. It's not just racist name calling it's also things Keisha experienced like gaslighting instigated by the people who are meant to have your back.

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Yeah people need to realize that while not every black person will be harmed by police, they are still facing trauma in so many ways. The thought of how many black people had to be professional at work last week after everything happened is sad

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The angry black person imagery that white people and shitty black men towards black women continue to push is tired and irritating. I'll say that people tried to put me on a box of having and attitude or being angry even when I'm using a calm voice but speaking truth and it's just so dismissive. Ive had to unlearn the behavior of playing nice politics.



Let's hope my comment doesn't get torpedo'd by that one user trying to start a stan war in the Doja post yesterday. Clown tings

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I just went back to that post and... wow. That was just crazy.



Every post Ive seen from you that is discussing music, you always make sure to distinguish context and quality and youve always been vocally active in noting when people are problematic but receiving palpably different reception on ONTD. Its just so disrespectful to reduce you to just a Stan, when your posts (especially that one) always have depth and reasons behind your conclusions and you extend this to every musician you discuss, especially when other posters here are far more indulgent in Stan culture than you are.

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you're one of the most thoughtful, respectful posters here bb (whilst also being hilarious)

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I was always jealous of how hot she was because my favourite Busted member was super into her and I was like damn how can I compete with THAT

(I was like 12 lmao)

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Ooh which one?

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matt willis lol

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DALLAS, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

Chris Foster, Director of Solutions Architecture, XM Cyber, explains how breach and attack simulation can improve cloud security

You don't need a sophisticated understanding of cloud computing to appreciate the extraordinary growth in the space. According to Gartner, the public cloud services market reached nearly $215 billion in value in 2019, growing at roughly 17.5-percent year-over-year. This represents just one point on an overall growth trajectory that has cloud services pacing to become a $330 billion market by 2022.

In a market growing with such rapid speed, it's imperative to make security a key strategic objective. Today's organizations must maintain robust security in a variety of different contexts and environments, whether public, private or hybrid cloud. They must safely manage cloud migration and understand the unique challenges of operating within a hybrid environment.

Just as importantly, they need the right mix of cutting-edge tools to protect their critical assets in all their environments.

Understanding the Specific Risks Associated with Cloud Security

There is considerable overlap between traditional on-premises security and cloud security. In both cases, organizations must guard against the prospect of data breaches, the presence of poor access controls and the specter of painful downtime disruptions.

Yet despite these many commonalities, cloud environments present additional challenges. Why? Because they are both dynamic and complex. Cloud environments are ever-changing, and the threats posed by malicious actors are ever evolving. This doesn't mean, however, that cloud must be less secure. The key is to understand the unique nature of each environment and take steps to maintain strong security.

One example: The connected nature of cloud environments makes them more susceptible to a breach due to an insecure API or poorly managed credentials. Understanding this risk -- and deploying advanced encryption and strong password management with two-factor authentication -- can greatly lower the odds of a breach occurring.

Other common cloud security concerns include:

Malware leveraged by threat actors

Insider threats, both malicious and unintentional

Third party risk - an organization does not control the infrastructure or applications used by their cloud services provider

API risk - cloud application integrations must be protected from the threat of actors attempting to intercept or redirect such data transfer.

The Challenges of Operating Safely in a Hybrid Environment

Another security concern that is often overlooked is incompatibility within hybrid cloud environments. On-premises tools, for example, are sometimes incompatible with certain cloud environments. This can create serious vulnerabilities, whether through misconfigurations, access controls or other issues. Organizations must understand not only the specific risks of cloud and on-premises environments, but additional risks created by the interplay of both.

This is important, as hybrid environments offer significant benefits in terms of flexibility -- you can choose where to locate workloads or data based on policy, compliance or security requirements. Not all company information is critical or requires an equal level of protection. By operating in a public/private hybrid cloud environment, organizations can reap performance benefits and added flexibility while still locking down their "crown jewels."

Security, however, must always be top of mind.

How to Improve Security Within Hybrid Cloud Environments

Now that we've detailed some of the most common challenges associated with cloud/hybrid security, let's take a moment to address some tips or best practices organizations can follow to mitigate these risks.

To effectively manage the risks associated with cloud (complexity, larger attack surface, data migration etc.), it's important to follow an overarching framework that emphasizes smart security strategies, policies and comprehensive identity and access management (IAM). As mentioned above, password control and encryption should also be top priorities, along with appropriate network segmentation.

In addition to these basics, organizations need the most powerful cyber security solutions to deal with the risks posed by sophisticated threat actors leveraging attacks against cloud environments. A breach and attack simulation (BAS) platform -- which performs a highly advanced form of cyber threat modeling for cloud environments -- is the most effective way to confirm attack paths, mitigate risk and manage your security posture.

It's imperative to know how to choose a breach and attack simulation solution. A BAS solution works by launching non-stop, simulated attacks against a security environment -- much in the manner of conventional "red teaming." During manual exercises, skilled teams of security professionals attempt to breach an environment in a controlled fashion, helping to uncover any existing vulnerabilities.

A BAS solution does the same thing, yet in an automated and continuous fashion. This means that organizations can go on the offense to adopt the mindset of an attacker and continuously probe their defenses for weaknesses.

For more information, please visit xmcyber.com.

About the author

Chris Foster is the Director of Solutions Architecture at XM Cyber. He has nearly 20 years of security experience serving both public and private sector organizations. He previously held senior security positions with Flashpoint, iSIGHT Partners, FireEye and Chevron. Chris spent over a decade in the public sector at numerous organizations, including Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC, supporting U.S. Military and Intelligence Community operations. He holds degrees from Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin.

SOURCE XM Cyber

Related Links

www.xmcyber.com


The lone private security guard who tried to shield the Duty Medical Officer from the attack, was locked inside the bathroom

The police team posted outside the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Gandhi hospital, where family members of a Covid-19 patient attacked a doctor yesterday  left 30 minutes before their shift was to come to an end, without waiting for their colleagues to relieve them and take over  which gave the attackers a free run, multiple eye-witness accounts suggest.

The lone private security guard who tried to shield the Duty Medical Officer from the attack, was locked inside the bathroom (along with the doctor) by the two attackers, who created a ruckus after their family member died of Covid-19 last evening.

Eye witnesses and hospital sources told Deccan Chronicle that trouble was in the offing at the ICU as attendants of several patients were making regular attempts to get inside the ward. Some would get food and medicines for the patients while others said they had to take the patients to the toilet as they were unable to do so on their own.

Many attendants often complained of the poor facilities in the ward and argued that there was no one to take care of the patients needs. This was the reason why many of them often demanded access to the ward so that they could take care of their ailing family members.

But for the hospital authorities and the policemen alike, the top priority was to prevent attendants from going inside as most of the elderly patients in the ICU were Covid-19 positive.

''Over the last few days, the policemen on duty at the ICU ensured that no attendant was able to get inside as there was strict monitoring. Even the entry gate was locked and only the medical staff had access,'' sources said. But the increasing number of patients and lack of medical attention was constantly bothering the attendants.

Policemen posted in different wards including the ICU work in three shifts  6 a.m to 2 p.m is the first shift, 2 p.m to 8 p.m is the second while the third shift is from 8 p.m to 6 a.m.

Eye-witnesses said that it was around 7.30 p.m when the two police Constables and one Sub-inspector of police who were present there since 2 p.m., were no where to be seen in the ward. ''They left without waiting for their colleagues in the next shift to arrive and relieve them, which would have happened at 8 p.m.,'' they said.

Some 15 minutes after the policemen left, all hell broke loose following the death of the 55-year-old man. Emotionally charged and hurling abuses, his relatives picked up a stool, a chair and threw it at the doctors and nurses and attacked them after barging inside the ward.

It was only after frantic calls to the superiors in the hospital that policemen present elsewhere in the premises were asked to rush to the ICU, located on the third floor of the emergency block. By the time they reached, the damage was done. ''Had the police team been present at the time, the attack could have been thwarted or dealt with effectively,'' eye-witnesses said, describing the attackers as being in a ''very foul mood.''
The tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis is making history.

Never before police violence in the US (sadly frequent against black American citizens) had been followed by such a global movement of anti-racism protest. With black and white youths taking the lead of demonstrations, from the US to Europe and from Asia to Africa.

It is not a surprise, then, that statues were involved. The Winston Churchill at Westminster was the first to be accused of racism , but the offense was quickly deleted and the statue is now under surveillance.

Then came Christopher Columbus (or perhaps we should call him Cristoforo Colombo) , whose statue in Richmond, Virginia was draped in a burning flag and dumped in a lake.

Columbus in recent years had been repeatedly accused of cruelty with local populations after his voyages across the Atlantic opened the way for European colonisation of the Americas.

But lets go back to Britain. The statue of Edward Colston, a notorious slave trader, was pulled down in Bristol and thrown into the harbour.

The Bristol City Council, surprisingly, wants now to exhibit it in a museum. And a Brussels councillor, the day before yesterday, has demanded a national debate on what to do with the statues of King Leopold II , the brutal Belgian coloniser of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

If this tendency develops, we might be left with very few statues.

Ph: Jacek Wojnarowski / Shutterstock.com
The opposition used to "mock" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's digital India campaign but the exercise has turned out to be a "boon" during the COVID-19 pandemic as welfare benefits have been directly sent to the people who need them, Union minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a 'virtual rally' for Uttarakhand, she said cash was transferred to over 20 crore 'Jan Dhan' bank accounts and poor households received ration for three months free, according to a BJP statement.

Crores of people have also received benefits as part of Rs 1.7 lakh crore package announced by Narendra Modi, she said.

"The opposition had mocked the slogan of digital India given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi six years back. But now digital India is proving to be a boon during this global pandemic," she said.

People's faith in the government has increased under Modi as they are getting their welfare benefits straight in their bank accounts which was not the case earlier, she said.

Targeting the Congress, she said most of the money meant for development earlier used to be lost to corruption.
At an April 6 ministerial meeting, Russias newly appointed Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin made a remark to the governors of Russias provinces, who in the preceding weeks introduced a ban on leaving and entering their respective regions in order to curb covid-19 infections, advising them not to confuse regional powers with federal authorities. As Chechnyas strongman Ramzan Kadyrov had introduced a ban on the republics physical contacts with the outside world in the end of March, Kadyrov took this general statement personally. Soon, Kadyrov expressed concern that the prime minister was being misled. The conflict marks what some believe is the beginning of a troublesome relationship between Chechnyas leader and Russias newly appointed prime minister.

BACKGROUND: Kadyrovs move to hinge against the spread of the covid-19 pandemic into Chechnya was received rather positively within the republic. Yet, according to most observers, the initiative violated his jurisdiction as head of a federal republic. Prime Minister Mishustin did not mention specific names or regions. His initial criticism was very soft and rather indirect as it aimed to ensure free movement of food products, technology, and other necessary items in the nations fight against covid-19. Yet those knowledgeable of Kadyrovs notorious self-sensitivity and revengefulness wondered how the Chechen strongman would respond. The response came quickly. On the same day Kadyrov stated that, if Mishustins remark referred to Chechnya, then he was misled: If we are talking about Chechnya, I want to ask Mikhail Mishustin and others, where did such information come from, why havent you studied what real measures we are taking? Kadyrovs increasingly harsh style of communication has become his trademark, thanks to his impunity within and beyond Chechnyas administrative borders. However, this time around, he may have made a mistake.

According to some Moscow sources, both Kadyrovs initial move and his later remarks irritated Mishustin and his close associates. Mishustin did not publicly express his irritation with the Chechen leader who  wrongly  questioned his judgement in front of the whole country, even though Mishustin commented on the issue in a delicate and non-personal way. Yet some Moscow sources claim that Mishustin made some jarring unofficial remarks. Intriguingly, Mishustin is known as a sober and disciplined individual who acts rationally. Yet at the same time, according to a person who knows the new Russian prime minister well, he has a specific trait: he remembers wrongs for a long time. Kadyrovs arrogant and macho behavior may further aggravate his chances of getting along with Mishustin.

IMPLICATIONS: A recent example of conflict between Kadyrov and the federal authorities dates back to the Stavropol shooting in April 2015, when members of the regional police force of Stavropol, which neighbors Chechnya, crossed the Chechen border and opened fire on a suspect. Following angry remarks by the Chechen head, Chechen officials filed a criminal case against the Stavropol siloviki. The Kremlin kept its distance in the Stavropol case, tacitly instructing the Investigative Committee to reject the Chechen request for a criminal investigation. The Stavropol incident caused a stir in the already uneasy relations between the Chechen leader and the Russian Ministry of Interior (MVD), which openly criticized Kadyrovs claims that his security forces were allowed to open fire on siloviki from other regions operating in Chechnya without his consent. As in the current spat with Mishustin, it was later revealed that Kadyrov overreacted  the Stavropol siloviki in fact informed their Chechen colleagues about their raid and even collaborated with them.

The most recent implication of the disagreement between Kadyrov and Mishustin on the jurisdiction over the control of federal borders was the drop in reported Covid-19 infection rates in Chechnya reported by Novaya Gazeta. Experts point out that Kadyrovs row with Mishustin has had little effect on border control restrictions in Chechnya, as the republics authorities have retained the regime of strict border checks, prohibiting anyone without a negative Covid-19 test result from entering the republic. Following the altercation between Chechen and federal officials, the official number of Covid-19 infections has been kept steady with under 30 confirmed cases, which experts argue aims to demonstrate that Chechnyas border control measures are effective in curbing the spread of decease. In reality, the disagreement between Kadyrov and Mishustin has seemingly further convinced the Chechen authorities of the need to cover up the actual Covid-19 statistics in order to justify the heavy use of budget-costly security forces to control the population.

As both federal authorities and their Chechen counterparts are currently preoccupied with the rapidly developing pandemic, it seems that neither side is currently willing to exacerbate the debate on the border restrictions issue any further. Kadyrovs most recent comments on social media illustrate the Chechen leaders continued willingness to pursue his own approach to dealing with the situation. Notably, Kadyrov has commented that the Chechen republic is preparing to tackle the virus without any external aid and that all Chechens are encouraged to grow their own food.

The Kremlin has maintained a similarly reserved position when maintaining that no actual disagreement exists between Kadyrov and Mishustin. When commenting on the issue, the presidents press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that despite coordination of quarantine measures with the federal authorities, all regions reserve the right to introduce different levels of restrictions corresponding with the situation in their respective regions. Since this statement was rather supportive of Kadyrovs position, it is obvious that the Kremlin is currently seeking to settle the issue without further provoking Kadyrov.

CONCLUSIONS: Many observers considered Kadyrovs response to Mishustins general statement as undiplomatic. Hence, some have speculated that this incident could mark the beginning of a problematic relationship between the Chechen leader and Russias new prime minister. Given that both have close relationships with Vladimir Putin, a conflict between Kadyrov and Mishustin, the latter being a considerably more autonomous and competent premier than his predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, may have repercussions in the years to come.

This is the first time during Mishustins premiership that Kadyrov has formally violated his subordination, challenging the competences of an important person in the Kremlin hierarchy. The Kadyrov-Mishustin feud could have implications for Chechnyas economic situation at an increasingly uncertain time; something that would affect Kadyrovs personal finances, as well as the extent of his popular support within Chechnya. Given Mishustins personality, the Russian premier is likely to put Kadyrov to his place at some point in future, according to an observer close to the Moscow corridors of power. While Putins protege will survive politically, his exclusive position among other regional leaders is likely to shatter. Yet it is also possible that the current disagreement was nothing more than an attempt by Kadyrov to test the new PMs resolve and willingness to compromise.

AUTHOR'S BIO:

Emil A. Souleimanov is Associate Professor at the Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University.

Huseyn Aliyev is a Lecturer at the Central and Eastern European Studies (CEES), University of Glasgow.

Image accessed on 6/10/20
The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. has been at the heart of the fight for civil rights for most of his 78 years, a journey that has taken him from aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to running for president in 1988.

But while social justice gains have often been elusive, Jackson now finds himself optimistic. The multi-racial and multi-city protests sparked by the death of George Floyd suggest that many Americans have become painfully aware of the nations festering racial wound, Jackson told USA TODAY Monday.

Im hopeful because we have finally pulled the scab back, Jackson said. Many white people never had the chance to really express how they feel. These marches are marches of hope. White people are saying racism is a problem, thats an awakening.

While for decades white America tolerated lynching, Jackson added, today white people feel embarrassed by whats happening.

In recent days, diverse crowds of Americans have protested in cities large and small over the death of Floyd and other men, women and children killed by police.

Many of the protests were held in towns with relatively small African American populations, from Norfolk, Nebraska, to Farmington, New Mexico. White celebrities have come out in support of Black Lives Matter, including Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.

Minneapolis City Council leader Lisa Bender, who is white, was among those voting for an historic measure Sunday to defund the city's police department. Also on Sunday, former presidential hopeful and Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah tweeted out photos of himself  with the caption "Black Lives Matter"  at a protest near the White House, becoming the first Republican lawmaker to do so.

Democratic National Convention delegates Shirley MacLaine of California and Jesse Jackson of Illinois talk on the convention floor, July 12, 1972 in Miami Beach, Fla.

Jackson said the unprecedented protests are due in part to a perfect storm of issues coming to the fore at the same time, including the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately hit black Americans. He said the outbreak, along with police brutality and income inequality, need to tackled at the ballot box in November.

Story continues

We must vote and have our vote counted, he said.

Jackson highlighted the defeat last week of Iowa Republican Steve King, a longtime congressman whose various controversial remarks included observing that its not objectively true to call all cultures equal, as well as the growing number of African American leaders in cities outside the South, as evidence of the growth of our political strength.

Civil rights figures lead marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the recreation of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march in Selma, Alabama, March 4, 1990. From left are Hosea Williams of Atlanta, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Evelyn Lowery, SCLC President Joseph Lowery and Coretta Scott King (glasses).

Jackson attended a memorial for Floyd in Minnesota Thursday, hosted a virtual town hall meeting with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to discuss the protests on Saturday, and called for the passage of anti-lynching laws on Sunday while visiting with the family of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Kentucky EMT killed by police in her own home whose death has also fueled the ongoing protest movement.

In recent years, Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition have challenged a range of technology company leaders, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, to improve efforts to recruit people of color. Despite much talk, the numbers remain low: only 6% of Apples tech workers are black, compared to 13% of the U.S population.

In this 1988 photo, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, then running for president, shakes hands with actor Rob Lowe.

Jackson said more pressure must be applied to make sure corporations set goals on recruiting, retaining and promoting people of color.

But by far the biggest issue of concern, Jackson said, is shifting the way Americans are policed, especially given the disproportionate impact on people of color.

The cops who killed George, they were free without charges for days, Jackson said, referring to officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree murder. Every town has a George Floyd in it.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: White Americans are finally confronting racism, Jesse Jackson says
Programme draws on efforts in war-ravaged Yemen where people were encouraged to eat protein-rich locusts amid famine.

Chickens in Pakistan have been feasting on captured locusts under an initiative to combat swarms of the insects that are threatening food supplies in the impoverished country.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has endorsed plans to expand a pilot project in the breadbasket province of Punjab, where villagers earned cash by gathering locusts that were then dried out, shredded and added to poultry feed.

Farmers are struggling as the worst locust invasion in 25 years wipes out entire harvests in Pakistans agricultural heartlands, leaving people scrambling for income.

Muhammad Khurshid from Pakistans food ministry and biotechnologist Johar Ali set up the programme, drawing on efforts in war-ravaged Yemen, where authorities have encouraged people to eat the protein-rich locusts amid famine.

The pair chose Punjabs Okara district, where farmers had not used any pesticides that would make locusts unsuitable for consumption.

We first had to learn, and then teach the locals how to catch the locusts. Nets are useless against them, Khurshid told the AFP news agency.

At night, locusts cluster on trees and plants, making them easy to scoop up as they lie motionless in the cooler temperatures until the sun begins to rise.

For a reward of 20 rupees (12 cents) per kilogramme (roughly two pounds) of locusts, locals worked all night to collect them.

One farmer who lost all her crops to the insects said she and her son earned 1,600 rupees ($10) during a single locust-gathering outing, helping to offset the financial damage.

Organisers struggled at first to convince farmers to join the hunt but, by the third night, word had spread, and hundreds joined in  turning up with their own bags to stuff full.

With 20 tonnes of captured locusts, authorities ran out of money to pay the collectors and the programme was paused.

The ministry, which recently announced the results of Februarys pilot, is now preparing to expand the project to other locations.

The harvested locusts went to Hi-Tech Feeds  Pakistans largest animal-feed producer  which substituted 10 percent of the soybean in its chicken food with the insects.

There was no issue with the feed, the locusts have a good potential for use in poultry feed, general manager Muhammad Athar said, after trying the modified product on 500 broiler hens.

Nationwide emergency

While the project is not a solution to the devastation inflicted on crops, it can provide hard-hit farmers with a fresh revenue stream and relieve pressure on authorities struggling to distribute locust-beating pesticides.

Locust swarms have gnawed their way through crops across East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of India this year, and experts fear their numbers will explode as monsoon rains arrive this month.

The crisis is so severe that the government has declared a nationwide emergency and appealed for help from the international community.

Bananas, mangoes, vegetables and other crops are all vulnerable  raising fears of food shortages  as are the wheat and cotton harvests that provide Pakistan with vital revenue.

According to the UNs Food and Agriculture Organization, Pakistan could suffer about $5bn in losses if 25 percent of its crops are damaged.

A reduced harvest could also push prices up and risks worsening food insecurity.

About 20 percent of the population are already undernourished, with almost half of all children under five stunted, according to the World Food Programme.
The Bombay high court (HC) has rejected the bail plea of HDIL promoters, the father and son duo of Rakesh Wadhawan, and Sarang Wadhawan, who have been arrested on charges of money laundering in the 6,500-crore Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank fraud case, but directed the Maharashtra government to give details of their health status amid the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in Mumbai.

The Wadhawans had moved their bail plea on the grounds that Mumbais Arthur Road Jail houses several Covid-19 inmates and they are afraid of contracting SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease, while citing their medical condition and also the Supreme Courts recent order of decongesting prisons because of the viral outbreak.

A single-judge HC bench of Justice Bharati Dangre directed the jail authorities to submit details of the precautionary measures that have been taken to prevent the inmates from contracting the pathogen.

Advocate Amit Desai, who appeared on behalf of the Wadhawans, informed the court that if his clients were granted bail, then they would observe self-quarantine and also be available for further probe at a said address.

However, public prosecutor Prajakta Shinde opposed the plea and cited that adequate precautionary measures were put in place by the prison authorities for the inmates safety and the applicants apprehensions were unfounded.

Justice Dangre heard the state governments submissions and observed that the Wadhawans were safer in the jail rather than being granted bail amid the pandemic.

She sought a status report of the jail barracks in which the Wadhawans are lodged and posted the next date of hearing of the case on Friday.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 00:03:57|Editor: huaxia

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ISLAMABAD, June 10 (Xinhua) -- A group of fruit-eating bats attacked mango orchards in several villages of Pakistan's east Multan district, damaging the mango crop spreading at a vast area, local media reported on Wednesday.

Villages in Multan, which were already marred by locust attack, saw the fresh rare attack by the mega bats with wingspans of more than four feet, the reports added.

The reports said the villagers tried to save their crops from the bats, and killed about 40 of them and scared several others away. However, the attack incurred a considerable loss to the farmers.

If the mammal attack continues in the mango-rich area of the country, the fruit's yield is feared to further decline this year in the region located in the south of the country's east Punjab province.

The bats in such a large size were earlier seen in 2015 in south Sindh province, where they were eating mangoes and dates in fruit farms, according to the reports.

The bat attack created panic among the villagers as the mammal is notorious for being reservoirs and vectors for a range of diseases and viruses lethal to humans and cattle, the reports said. Enditem
UPDATE: Police investigating fire at N.J. property where group reenacted George Floyd killing

A video posted on social media shows a group of men, including a New Jersey state corrections officer, taunting and mocking protesters in Gloucester County Monday - with one kneeling on a mans neck, reenacting the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

The officer has been suspended, officials said Tuesday. Online commentators and state employment records identify him as Joseph DeMarco.

A second person who participated in the taunting was fired from their job at FedEx, the company said.

And late Tuesday, Gov. Phil Murphy condemned the incident, writing on Twitter, Mocking George Floyds murder in effort to belittle the calls for justice from our Black and Brown communities is repugnant. I condemn this behavior in the strongest terms possible. We wont let the actions of a few distract from our progress toward dismantling systemic racism.

Floyds death over Memorial Day weekend has set off protests across the world.

That was the case Monday, when peaceful, chanting protesters marched along Delsea Drive in Franklinville, an unincorporated community in Franklin Township.

As the protest passed by a property, a group of men, with a President Trump banner behind them, shouted at protesters as one had his knee on the back of a mans neck.

You dont comply, thats what happens," the kneeling man is heard saying in one video. You dont comply, thats what happens right here, look. He didnt comply. He didnt comply. If he wouldve complied, it wouldnt have happened.

Floyd, who was being arrested for alleged forgery, was not armed and did not appear to be resisting arrest, according to multiple reports. The officer who kneeled on Floyds neck - for nearly nine minutes - was ultimately charged with second-degree murder. The three other officers involved were also fired and were all later charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Multiple calls to Franklin Township Police Chief Brian Zimmer and Mayor John Bruno were not immediately returned. But Tuesday afternoon, the mayor, police chief and police department released a joint statement that does not specifically reference the kneeling incident, but denounces the actions of certain individuals.

The Franklin Township committee and its police department are appalled and saddened by the revolting actions of certain individuals after Mondays locally organized peaceful march, the statement said. This is not who we are as a community. We support the goal of this march which is to spread awareness and to ensure a better future for all of us.

Franklin Township police, who rode alongside protesters, were aware of the group of men taunting those in the march, with one officer telling protesters they would ride ahead and provide a physical buffer, according to a marcher named Russell, who is one of the people who recorded the reenactors. He declined to have his full name published.

In the joint statement, Franklin Township police said they are investigating the incident, but did not release any further details or charges.

Social media commenters later outed one of the reenactors as a state corrections officer. On Tuesday, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) confirmed that a senior correctional police officer participated in the reenactment.

We have been made aware that one of our officers from Bayside State Prison participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd, said Matt Schuman, DOC spokesman.

The officer, whose name was not made public by the agency, was suspended from his post and was banned from state DOC facilities, pending an investigation, Schuman said. The officer was hired in 2002 and worked at Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County until January 2019, when he moved to Bayside.

The corrections officers union, PBA Local 105, posted a statement on Facebook Tuesday which did not specifically mention the incident, but said:

Make no mistake about itunder absolutely no circumstance do we condone nor will we ever tolerate actions and expressions of discrimination, harassment and hatred based on race, faith, skin color, national origin, nationality, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or disability. We need to continue practicing tolerance and understanding; not discrimination and hate.

PBA Local #105 is comprised of approximately 6,000 correctional police officers representing men and women that come... Posted by NJ PBA Local 105 on Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Another reenactor was identified as an employee of FedEx, which a company spokesperson confirmed late Tuesday.

The behavior depicted in the video ... is appalling and offensive. The employee in question was immediately removed from all FedEx work duties while our investigation is concluded and all internal procedures are followed, FedEx said in a statement. A diverse and inclusive workforce is at the heart of our business, and we stand with those who support justice and equality.

Late Tuesday, the company said theyd fired the employee, saying, FedEx holds its team members to a high standard of personal conduct, and we do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video. The individual involved is no longer employed by FedEx. A diverse and inclusive workforce is at the heart of our business, and we stand with those who support justice and equality.

The videos also show the group of men standing in front of a pickup truck on a property with an American flag and a sign that says, All Lives Matter. The property is owned by James and Toni Demarco, according to property records.

Russell, a lifelong Franklinville resident, said the marchers saw the reenactors on the first leg of the march, and they yelled, All lives matter." On the way back, more people had joined them and the group reenacted Floyds killing, he said.

He was ready, said Russell.

In one video that appears to be shot by one of the men involved in the reenactment, a man is heard responding to protesters chants of Black Lives Matter," with to no one. The videos show the group of men standing in what appears to be a firewood business, with a sign advertising firewood for sale. The phone number listed on the sign had been disconnected as of Tuesday.

Russell, who is Black, said some of the men who taunted protesters had made racist and inflammatory remarks before on social media platforms. What bothered Russell the most was that young people who joined the protest were now exposed to hate while marching peacefully.

That gentleman is somebodys uncle, Russell said of the man who kneeled. That gentleman is somebodys father. So you can imagine the hate that he has been feeling and the generations that come from him. Thats what probably hurt the most. To know that hate is not just being from them, but its being continued.

For Russell, the group of men and what they did speaks to an ugly secret that protests like the one in Franklinville Monday will hopefully shed light on: racism is everywhere.

I want people to see, they think this only exists in the deep south," he said. "Or in the midwest or the middle of the country where theres only three houses in a town. Thats not the case. We want people to understand and see racism exists everywhere.

- Reporter Kevin Shea contributed to this story.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.
Meteorologists are warning central Pennsylvanians to take caution Wednesday from extreme summer heat and powerful thunderstorms in the forecast.

In a hazardous weather outlook issued this morning, the National Weather Service said damaging winds moving at 60 mph or more from isolated or scattered thunderstorms  coupled with hail thats more than an inch in diameter  could move through the area in the afternoon and evening.

The alerts list of affected counties includes Dauphin, Lebanon, Perry, Cumberland and Adams.

Storms are most likely to hit the area after 2 p.m., according to the NWS. Showers and thunderstorms are likely to continue into the evening.

Although the storms could cause damage, the NWS said the probability of widespread, hazardous weather is low.

Forecasters also said temperatures that could climb into the mid-90s on Wednesday increase the risk of heat-related illness.

Today

Partly sunny, with a high near 90. Chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2 p.m. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Tonight

Mostly cloudy, with a low around 74. Showers and thunderstorms are likely. Chance of precipitation is 70%.

Thursday

Partly sunny, with a high near 85. Chance of precipitation is 50%.

Thursday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 60.

Friday

Sunny, with a high near 84.

Friday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 59.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 18:41:50|Editor: huaxia

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Face masks are displayed in the Guangzhou international medical protective supplies fair at Poly World Trade Center Expo in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, June 10, 2020. The medical protective supplies fair held here on Wednesday has attracted some 600 exhibitors. (Xinhua/Deng Hua)

GUANGZHOU, June 10 (Xinhua) -- An expo of products meant for epidemic control that opened in Guangzhou on Wednesday aims to connect Chinese producers with global buyers.

More than 600 enterprises are participating in the two-day international expo held in a 36,000-square-meter exhibition hall in the capital of Guangdong Province, organizers said. It is expected to draw more than 6,000 visitors, mostly potential buyers.

Chinese companies are displaying everything from facial masks, non-woven fabrics, to high-tech products like rapid detection kits and epidemic control robots at the event.

Officials said it is the first exhibition in Guangzhou that hasn't been held online since the COVID-19 outbreak.

"It not only assists the global fight against the epidemic, but also helps related industries grasp opportunities amid complicated foreign trade," said Yang Yong, director of the Guangzhou branch of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

Ronnie Almeida, chair of the South China-Ecuador Chamber of Commerce, said his team has bought 700,000 masks and 50,000 detection kits in China. He plans to expand their purchase list at the event to facilitate resumption of work in Ecuador.

Organizers have promised to assist foreign buyers with customs clearance and delivery of epidemic control supplies, taking advantage of an international distribution center located in Guangzhou's Nansha free-trade zone. Enditem
Sudbury, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - Rockcliff Metals Corporation (CSE: RCLF) (FSE: RO0) (WKN: A2H60G) ("Rockcliff" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that an initial 3,000 metre drill program has commenced on its Tower Property. The drill program will initially focus on expanding the Tower deposit mineralization immediately south of hole TP20-080 which intersected 4.9% CuEq across a down hole width of 13.5 metres including 12.4% CuEq across 2.7 metres. The Tower deposit remains open along strike to the south and at depth.

Rockcliff is well-funded and is the largest development and exploration junior landholder in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt, the largest Paleoproterozoic VMS ("Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide") district (copper, gold, zinc, silver) in the world.

Rockcliff's President and CEO Alistair Ross commented: "It is exciting to commence the next phase of our Tower Project development. The key objective from the first phase of the summer drill program is to establish the extent of the newly discovered extension to the South and West of the main deposit. If it is of significance it will influence where the drilling will go for the Feasibility Study that will follow a successful Preliminary Economic Analysis (PEA), currently underway with anticipated completion by end of July 2020."

"Of special note in obtaining this renewed Drill Work Permit is the use of the Manitoba Government's streamlined permitting process, announced by Minister Pederson at PDAC in March 2020. The process has been very effective, especially considering the requirement to consult in virtual mode in order to manage COVID-19 protocols. Also of note is the continuing cooperation of our First Nations partner at the Tower Project, the Norway House Cree Nation. Their support in our permit application process was very helpful, and we look forward to extending the business partnership that benefited both Rockcliff and Norway House. The relationship that Rockcliff is enjoying with NHCN at this phase of the project bodes well for a mutually beneficial relationship should the project proceed to construction phase."

Larson Anderson Chief, Norway House Cree Nation commented: "Norway House Cree Nation was pleased with the results of the partnership with Rockcliff Minerals during the 2019/2020 exploration/drill program at Tower. Chief Anderson is pleased to announce that the partnership has been extended as part of the 2020/2021 exploration/drill program. NHCN will continue to provide camp facilities as well as services such as cooks for camp meals, food provisions, and fuel. This is all part of NHCN's future of developing themselves as a full partner for socially and environmentally responsible mining companies."

Quality Control and Quality Assurance

Samples of half core were packaged and shipped directly from Rockcliff's core facility in Snow Lake to TSL Laboratories (TSL) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. TSL is a Canadian assay laboratory and is accredited under ISO/IEC 17025. Each bagged core sample was dried, crushed to 70% passing 10 mesh and a 250g pulp was pulverized to 95% passing 150 mesh for assaying. A 0.5g cut is taken from each pulp for base metal analyses and leached in a multi-acid (total) digestion and then analyzed for copper, lead, zinc and silver by atomic absorption. Gold concentrations were determined by fire assay using a 30g charge followed by an atomic absorption finish. Samples greater than the upper detection limit (3,000 ppb) were reanalyzed using fire assay gravimetric using a 1 Assay Ton charge. Rockcliff inserted certified blanks and standards in the sample stream to ensure lab integrity. Rockcliff has no relationship with TSL other than TSL being a service provider to the Company.

Ken Lapierre P.Geo., VP Exploration of Rockcliff, a Qualified Person in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements as set out in NI 43-101, has read and approved the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for the disclosure contained in this press release.

About Rockcliff Metals Corporation

Rockcliff is a well-funded Canadian resource development and exploration company, with a fully functional +1,000 tonne per day leased processing and tailings facility as well as several advance-staged, high-grade copper and zinc dominant VMS deposits in the Snow Lake area of central Manitoba. The Company is a major landholder in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt which is home to the largest Paleoproterozoic VMS district in the world, hosting mines and deposits containing copper, zinc, gold and silver. The Company's extensive portfolio of properties totals over 4,500 square kilometres and includes eight of the highest-grade, undeveloped VMS deposits in the belt.

Visit Rockcliff's YouTube channel with a message from the President and CEO, Alistair Ross. To access the video, please visit: https://youtu.be/eNGgyezfnZM





Cannot view this video? Visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNGgyezfnZM

For more information, please visit http://rockcliffmetals.com

Youtube: Rockcliff Metals Corporation

Twitter: @RockcliffMetals

Linkedin: Rockcliff Metals Corp

Instagram: Rockcliff_Metals

For further information, please contact:

Rockcliff Metals Corporation

Alistair Ross

President & CEO

Phone: (249) 805-9020

contact@rockcliffmetals.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward-looking. Although Rockcliff believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not a guarantee of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.

The Canadian Securities Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57598
A U.S. State Department inspector general fired by President Donald Trump told lawmakers a longtime ally of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to 'bully' him over an investigation of U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

He also confirmed his office was probing sensitive matters including one involving potential 'misuse' of government resources by Pompeo and his wife, Susan.

He said higher ups at the department discouraged him from investigating arms sales to Saudi Arabia before he was dismissed last month at Pompeo's request, according to a transcript released Wednesday.

'We had an administrative review of allegations relating to misuse of government resources by the Secretary and his wife,' fired State Department IG Steve Linick told lawmakers

His reference to pressure was in regards to Undersecretary for Management Brian Bulatao, who followed Pompeo to the CIA when Pompeo was director, and then the State Department.

'He tried to bully me,' the fired IG, Steve Linick, told House Democratic lawmakers during closed testimony that was released Wednesday.

'The other thing I would add to that is sometimes I felt he was unfamiliar with the role of inspectors general,' said Linick of the nonpartisan role IGs fulfill.

Linick, was fired on May 15, the latest in a series of government watchdogs dismissed by the president. Members of Congress, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, are concerned that the dismissals will prevent adequate oversight of the government.

Pompeo on Wednesday blasted Linick as a 'bad actor'

Mike Pompeo ppsts photos of himself with his new puppy Mercer on May 17, 2020. He has another dog, 5-year-old Sherman. The IG was probing whether Pompeo had a government aide perform errands

Linick said his office was doing an 'ongoing review involving the International Women of Courage Award,' announced this year by Pompeo and first lady Melania Trump

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said Linick's dismissal might have been illegal.

Democrats launched an investigation, including an interview of Linick on June 3 by members and staff of three House and Senate committees.

In the congressional interview, Linick said Pompeo declined to sit down for an interview in the investigation of the administration's decision to declare a 'national emergency' to justify $8 billion in military sales to Saudi Arabia despite congressional objections.

He also said a department official had argued the probe was outside Linick's jurisdiction.

'I told him that, under the Foreign Service Act of 1980, it was within the IG purview to review how policy is implemented,' Linick said.

When he was fired, Linick also was investigating allegations that Pompeo and his wife used a taxpayer-funded employee for personal errands. Linick said in the interview that his office was engaged in more investigations when he was fired, including an audit of the Special Immigrant Visa process.

Pompeo has insisted Linick's dismissal was not retaliation. On Wednesday, Pompeo called Linick a 'bad actor.'

'Heres what I can tell you. Steve Linick was a bad actor in the inspector general office here,' Pompeo said at a press briefing.

'He didnt take on the mission of the state dept to make us better. Thats what inspector generals are supposed to do,' he continued. 'They work for the agency head, thats me. And they are supposed to deliver and make that organization better. Its not what Mr. Linick did.'

In his testimony, Linick said it would be inappropriate for him to confirm details of what he was probing when he got fired.

It has been publicly reported that the IG was probing complaints that Pompeo had an aide walk his dog and perform other errands.

'We had an administrative review of allegations relating to misuse of government's resources by the Secretary and his wife, but I can't talk about the merits of that,' Linick said. 'As to that review, I never spoke with the Secretary directly about it,' he said.

Pressed on other matters his office working on, Linick said: 'So we were doing an audit of Special Immigrant Visas. 9 We were doing an ongoing review involving the International Women of Courage Award. We were doing an ongoing review 11 involving individuals in the Office of the Protocol. I'm 12 not at liberty to talk about the details of those.'

In a letter sent on Monday and seen by Reuters, a top department official criticized standards in Linick's office and said he should be investigated for leaking information.

Linick was cleared in a previous probe of alleged leaks.
Japanese International Strategist Calls for Joint Forces to Save Hong Kong

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On May 28, Chinas National Peoples Congress unilaterally approved a proposal to impose new national security legislation for Hong Kong. Japanese international strategist Hidetoshi Ishii, Vice President of the Free Indo-Pacific Union, said that bloodshed will likely continue to happen in Hong Kong before the law is implemented in August. He calls on joint forces to avoid deterioration of the situation. Ishii has been committed to various human rights activities in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and for issues such as freedom of belief and illegal organ transplantation for 25 years.

International strategist Hidetoshi Ishii, Vice President of the Free Indo-Pacific Alliance, said: If the National Security Law is put into effect in August, freedom of speech will be completely suppressed, and one country, two systems will end. The only time they can reject it is now, before the law is implemented.

Vice President Ishii said that things are likely to continue to escalate.

Ishii said: From June to July 1, Im worried that there may be serious conflicts. This is the last righteous place of China. The Hong Kong people will definitely fight against the CCP to death, and we cant just sit back and ignore them.

Various groups organized protests and called on people to pay attention to the evil nature of the CCP.

Ishii said: The CCP not just killed people in Tiananmen Square thirty years ago. It persecutes the Chinese and destroys human rights till now. The CCP is a common enemy of mankind, so everyone must join forces.

Japanese civil and parliamentary organizations started petitions to support Hong Kong, and many members of Congress signed to show their support.

Ishii said: This is a hard fight.

Japanese people said: The next target of the CCP after Hong Kong will be Taiwan, Hong Kong, keep it up!

Vice President Ishii also said that if Xi Jinping visits Japan, he will continue to cooperate with all walks of life to protest and do all he can to awaken the world.
U.S. police shoot, kill and imprison more people than other developed countries. Here's the data



By Rob Picheta and Henrik Pettersson June 09, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Enough. That's the message from many of the protesters who have filled American cities for nearly two weeks, demanding justice for the death of George Floyd and seeking to end a litany of police killings of black Americans. The protests have rippled across the United States and throughout the world, with activists streaming through the streets of many capital cities in solidarity with the movement.

Floyd was just one of the many Americans killed by police officers each year. But in other developed countries, such incidents are rare. Statistical comparisons show that police in the US typically shoot, arrest and imprison more people than similarly developed nations. Each nation listed below either accompanies the US in the G7 group of the world's most advanced economies, or is ranked similarly on global wealth, freedom and democracy indexes. But when it comes to policing and criminal justice, the US is a noticeable outlier, and black Americans are disproportionately affected.

Data on arrests, deaths and prison populations do not exist uniformly across developed countries, so it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly how the US fares in comparison to every nation. For instance, it is impossible to know exactly how many people die at the hands of police officers in the US each year: no single, nationwide database that contains such information exists.

"We can't have an informed discussion, because we don't have data," former FBI Director James Comey told the House Judiciary Committee in 2015. "People have data about who went to a movie last weekend ... and I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographics. And that's a very bad place to be." We are therefore forced to rely on estimates -- but even they paint a stark picture. A media review by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found a total of 1,348 potential arrest-related deaths in the ten months from June 2015 through March 2016 -- an average of 135 deaths per month, or just over 4 per day. (The review excludes deaths under the jurisdiction of federal and tribal law enforcement, and the BJS acknowledged it does not provide a complete picture.) By comparison, only 13 people in the UK died in or following police custody in the closest time period, according to the country's police watchdog. In Australia, 21 deaths occurred in police custody or custody-related operations in 2015/16. Those measures are the most accurate comparison to the US's figure of arrest-related deaths, according to the UK Home Office. The UK's figure does not include every death that occurred following police contact.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter American police also shoot more people than forces in similarly developed countries. The FBI recorded that 407 people were shot in an act of "justifiable homicide" by a police officer in 2018, a decline on previous years. But homicides ruled justifiable do not capture every police killing, and the FBI's numbers are derided by many human rights groups and news organizations which have collected far higher figures. The Washington Post counted 1,004 people fatally shot by police in 2019, for instance, while the group Mapping Police Violence tallied 1,099. Comey's comments to the House Judiciary Committee illustrate the FBI's own acceptance that their number does not tell the full story. Nonetheless, even the FBI's figure dramatically dwarfs that of many other countries, where police shootings are highly isolated incidents. And police in New Zealand and the UK (except Northern Ireland) do not routinely carry firearms. Canada may most closely follow the US among G7 countries. Official data is only collected when an officer is charged, but an analysis by CNN affiliate CBC found 461 fatal police encounters between 2000 and 2017.

Americans are also more likely to be arrested or jailed than their peers worldwide.

A total of 10,310,960 arrests were made in the US in 2018 -- that's one arrest made per every 32 American citizens. Those figures give the US a far higher arrest rate than the UK or Australia, among others.

Of those confronted or arrested by police, black Americans are more likely to be subjected to force -- a key complaint of the protesters marching across the US.

Police officers are more likely to use force on black Americans -- and, according to a 2016 study published in the American Journal of Health , black men are nearly three times more likely than white men to be killed by police intervention. Comparable figures for other countries are not readily available.

In general, more Americans are subjected to the cogs of the criminal justice system than in many other countries; and more end up in prison, too. The US has the largest prison population in the world, as well as the largest incarceration rate per capita, according to World Prison Brief -- a London-based initiative that counts inmate populations around the world annually.

Only four US cities have more inhabitants than the country's prisons -- and America's prison population of 2.2 million is higher than the combined populations of Washington, DC, Boston and Miami. Rates are high across the country. If every US state were counted as a country, the 31 countries with the highest incarceration rates in the world would all be US states, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi all have incarceration rates of over 1,000, meaning more than one in a hundred people in those states were prisoners in 2018. By comparison, the highest incarceration rate outside the US is in El Salvador, where 614 people per 100,000 are prisoners, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

Black Americans make up a third of the US prison population, despite only making up around an eighth of the country's total population. The UK and Canada suffer similar issues, but not on the scale that the United States does. The available data paints a clear and concerning picture -- and explains why policing and justice reform have been rallying cries of protesters for so long.

Post your comment below See also George Floyd's Niece Invokes Trump at Houston Funeral: 'When Has America Ever Been Great?'

Caught on camera: Police brutality and racism in Trump's America
SHIMLA: Acting on complaints of women teachers, the department of higher education of Himachal Pradesh has warned of departmental action against members who post irrelevant and obscene messages on official WhatsApp study groups.

Director, higher education, Amarjeet K Sharma said on Wednesday that he has issued a memo in this regard to all principals of colleges and higher secondary schools and headmasters of high schools.

Sharma said that the department had taken the initiative to create WhatsApp groups of all institutions to facilitate employees and students to stay connected for day-to-day activities and for the delivery of online study material of all classes.

However, its been observed that some members of these WhatsApp groups just post good morning/evening greetings besides irrelevant messages and videos even at odd hours, he said.

Sharma said that this creates unnecessary burden on the minds of other group members. Some women employees informed the authorities that such messages put them in an awkward position before their families, he said.

Directions have been issued that only departmental information should be shared and irrelevant messages should be strictly avoided in the official groups. All members must respect the dignity and self-respect of others at all levels. Any violation will be viewed seriously and departmental proceedings will be taken against the offenders, he said.

Schools and colleges had created WhatsApp groups to facilitate online studies as the institutions are closed since March due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, some obscene material was posted in these groups which have parents and teachers as members.

The government has announced vacations in educational institutions till June 30 which may be extended till July if the situation does not improve.

There are 10,714 primary schools in the state with 23,909 teachers; 1,996 middle schools with 6,614 teachers; and 2,749 high schools with 36,288 teachers.

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The arrests of opposition leaders have become so common in the state of Telangana. They are not permitted to visit irrigation projects and police keeps stopping them everywhere. Even on the day of Telangana formation , most of the Congress leaders were not allowed to garland the mother of Telangana statue. Congress leaders, including the TPCC Chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, planned to visit irrigation projects but all of them were arrested before they could step out of their homes.

TPCC treasurer Guduru Narayana Reddy said ,In a democratic country like India, apart from ruling party, the opposition should be allowed to function. Is opposition not a fit organisation to function in Telangana? Backed by police, why does the govt strangulate the opposition? Why these many arrests? The ruling party and opposition are two eyes and hands of the people. Concrete ideas of the opposition should be noted by the government , then only the government will function in a proper manner.

In a survey by a national daily, the popularity graph of Telangana CM KCR is completely down. He stands at 16th place among CMs where as Andhra CM Jagan Mohan Reddy at 4th place. TPCC treasurer Narayana Reddy alleges that the chief minister was confined to Pragathi Bhavan enjoying a lavish lifestyle and taking very little interest in administration. The CM became very intolerantm not only with opposition parties, but also with his own MLAs, people and media whoever questions him.

Krishnak , TRS leader said Congress leaders taking up protests for mere politics. They should realise that we are under Epidemic Diseases Act, which strictly denies permit to protests , rallies, meetings. Henceforth, they are violating norms, law protecting agencies acting upon them. This summer, state has seen no water problem. Farmers have produced a yield which has officially made Telangana, Rice Bowl of India. Arent these a testimony that governments work towards projects are showing result. Why are they forgetting history that no leader or government has built a irrigation project in a span of 3 years like Kaleshwaram and reservoirs stretching to extent of 250 km distance have been constructed in record time.

If the police is so particular about the implementation of lockdown rules, TPCC President Uttam Kumar Reddy questions how come they permitted CM KCR and Swamy Chinajeeyar to go to Kondapachamm project with almost ten thousand people to perform poojas? He questioned whether there were any special rules for them. The CM needs to answer. Even the students and workers are hardly allowed to express their displeasure openly.

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American dictionary Merriam-Webster says it will modify its definition of the word racism at the request of an African-American lady to better make it reflect the oppression of people of colour.

The revision comes against the backdrop of protests around the U.S against police brutality after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pinned his neck to the ground.

Kennedy Mitchum, a recent graduate of Law from Drake University, Iowa, United States, contacted Merriam-Webster via emails to request an update of the term after she realised the current definition of the word was problematic if she tried to define it as a lawyer in a law court, local media and CBS affiliate KMOV-TV reported.

I basically told them that they need to include that theres a systematic oppression upon a group of people, she said.

Its not just, Oh, I dont like someone.

In its online version, Merriam-Webster dictionary first defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

But Merriam-Websters editorial manager, Peter Sokolowski, said the second definition borders on Ms Mitchums point.

According to the second definition, racism is a doctrine or political programme based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles, and a political or social system founded on racism as its third definition.

Assuring Ms Mitchum of a modification of the term, Mr Sokolowski said,this is the kind of continuous revision that is part of the work of keeping the dictionary up to date, based on rigorous criteria and research we employ in order to describe the language as it is actually used.

Amidst the protest in the country, the Merriam-Webster site which houses free, available definitions was said to have had nearly 50 million unique visitors in May because of its sassiest nature.
By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Authorities in Pakistan have stepped up enforcement of government safety measures after a rise in the daily number of coronavirus infections pushed total cases to more than 100,000.

Official statistics released on Monday showed 103,671 infections and 2,067 deaths from the virus. Record numbers of new infections over the last 10 days partly reflect increased testing.

The south Asian nation lifted its lockdown last month, putting protocols in place for the reopening of markets, industries and public transport -- including mandatory wearing of masks and social distancing.

But Planning Minister Asad Umar, who is in charge of the national response to the pandemic, told a weekend news conference that many markets and shops had been sealed because of non-compliance over the last few days.

"First we educated the masses about the protocols, then we warned them, and now, in the last meeting with the prime minister in the chair, we directed administrations to crack down on places protocols are not being followed," he said.

Of 23,000 daily tests, more than 1 in 5 have been positive over the last 10 days. Before the lockdown was lifted on May 9, the number of tests finding the coronavirus was approximately 1 in 10, government statistics show.

Graphic - Pakistan coronavirus infections: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/qmypmoqropr/pakistan%20data.PNG

Government officials say safety protocols are not being followed, particularly since just before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

The decision to lift the lockdown on May 9 despite increasing infections of the coronavirus, which causes the respiratory illness COVID-19, was prompted by a worsening economic crisis and unemployment.

Pakistan is the 16th country to exceed 100,000 infections, a Reuters tally showed.

Infections among high profile political personalities has also increased in the country, with Minister for Railways Shaikh Rasheed, and former prime minister of Pakistan Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also testing positive on Monday.

(Reporting by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Starbucks expects to swing to a loss in its fiscal third quarter, predicting it lost as much as $3.2 billion in revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Shares of the company fell more than 3% in early trading Wednesday. The stock, which has a market value of $92.6 billion, has fallen 10% this year.

Starbucks, which withdrew its prior outlook in April, is forecasting a net loss per share of 64 cents to 79 cents and adjusted losses per share of 55 cents to 70 cents for quarter ending June 28. But it expects that its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings will improve, predicting net income per share of 11 cents to 36 cents and adjusted earnings per share of 15 cents to 40 cents.

By the end of June, Starbucks expects weekly cash flow to be positive.

Its forecast for same-store sales growth is more grim. For the full fiscal year, the company expects same-store sales in its two largest markets  the United States and China  to decline 10% to 20%. It is forecasting flat same-store sales growth in China by the end of the fiscal fourth quarter and predicts U.S. same-store sales will remain negative.

"With each passing week, we are seeing clear evidence of business recovery, with sequential improvements in comparable store sales performance," CEO Kevin Johnson and CFO Pat Grismer wrote in a letter to stakeholders. "The Starbucks brand is resilient, customer affinity is strong and we believe the most difficult period is now behind us."

U.S. same-store sales tumbled 43% in May as the company reopened locations with modified hours and operations. By the end of the month, 91% of U.S. stores had been reopened. In the last week of May, same-store sales were down 32%.

About 95% of U.S. locations are open again, with the majority of closed locations located in the New York City area.

In China, same-store sales fell 21% in May, an improvement of April's same-store sales declines of 32%. In the last week of May, same-store sales were down just 14% from a year earlier.

About 90% of Chinese cafes are back to their pre-pandemic operating hours, and 70% have full seating available. In April and May, Starbucks opened 57 net new stores in China.

New store openings have also resumed in the Americas. Starbucks now expects to open about 300 net new locations in fiscal 2020 in the segment, down from its prior estimate of 600.

The company also plans to shutter as much as 400 company-owned cafes over the next 18 months as part of its plan to accelerate changes to U.S. stores. As more customers order through Starbucks' app, the company had planned to modify its cafes over the next three to five years, but the pandemic moved up that timeline.

Starbucks plans to add more pick-up stores in dense urban markets, like New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The chain opened its first mobile pick-up location in November in Manhattan's Penn Plaza. Suburban cafes will get walk-up windows, curbside pick-up for mobile orders and double drive-thru lanes.

The coffee chain will also renovate some cafe layouts by adding a separate counter for mobile order pick-up from customers and delivery couriers at busy locations.

Starbucks said it amended its fixed charge coverage ratio covenant of its credit agreement for $3 billion of revolving lines of credit through the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. As of Wednesday, it has not tapped any of those lines of credit.
Somebody was interviewing people abroad in English on how to fight the coronavirus, Shah said in an apparent jibe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and added that the Congress never did anything during disasters that the country has faced over the years except for 'interviews'.

Targeting the Opposition, Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said that the central government might have made a mistake or may had some shortcomings while dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak but its commitment was always there, and then asked what the rival parties did.

Somebody was interviewing people abroad in English on how to fight the coronavirus, Shah said in an apparent jibe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and added that the Congress never did anything during disasters that the country has faced over the years except for "interviews".

Rahul has been speaking to personalities from different fields on various aspects of the coronavirus crisis.

The senior BJP leader said the central government sought suggestions from all states; be it Odisha, West Bengal or Kerala, and rose above any partisan biases in this joint battle against the disease.

Shah also said that all states have done a good job in the battle against COVID-19 pandemic which the central government has jointly fought with them.

Speaking at a ''virtual rally'' for people of Odisha, Shah also lauded the Modi government's track record on national security and recalled the air and surgical strikes inside Pakistan ordered by the prime minister in his first term.

"Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, any intrusion into the the borders of India will be punished. Some used to say that US and Israel were the only countries which were willing and capable of avenging every drop of the blood of their soldiers. Modi ji has added India to that list," he said.

The world realises that India will now not tolerate any intrusion into its borders, he said, while underscoring the Modi government's commitment to protect India''s sovereignty.

His comments came at a time when Indian and Chinese armies are engaged in a standoff in Ladakh with both countries trying to defuse the crisis through diplomatic and military channels. Shah, however, made no direct comment on the issue.

The BJP leader also strongly defended the central government over the migrant crisis, saying everyone was anguished by their pain but their safety was a top priority for the Centre.
UPPER DARBY  Township officials announced the launch of Upper Darby Rebuild, an effort to disperse $350,000 to small businesses through $2,500 grants to help them survive and flourish.

The program is being funded through the U.S. Community Development Block Grant CARES Act funding for businesses of 25 or fewer employees. Priority will be given to those businesses in the low-to-moderate income census tracks and those who have not received funding from other programs. Township officials anticipate outreaching to its multi-lingual and international businesses for this program.

Our community has already withstood a great deal this year from the COVID-19 pandemic to the unrest over long-standing racial injustices, Mayor Barbarann Keffer said. Weve seen our neighborhoods and our communities rocked to the core. Its now time to move forward with what weve learned and what we still need to learn and emerge from these turbulent times with a renewed sense of purpose, of community and of dedication. Weve seen the pain and frustration and the destruction these twin crises have raised in our community and now its time to act.

She explained that by targeting businesses that have not yet received assistance, we hope to maximize our impact as we revitalize the township and seek to rebuild our business community stronger than ever.

A Zoom information session will be held 11 a.m. Monday. The link will be available on the township website at upperdarby.org or on the Entrepreneur Works site at myentrepreneurworks.org.

Upper Darby has partnered with Entrepreneur Works to help businesses navigate the application process and to provide additional support.

Toni Truehart of Entrepreneur Works has more than 30 years experience of helping businesses in Delaware County communities like Lansdowne, Upper Darby and Chester, as well as in Philadelphia. Her organization is a Community Development Financial Institution that assists those looking to start or grow small businesses with business development services, training, technical assistance and access to funding, especially for those who would not have access through more traditional sources.

Were in the marketplace to support that individual because it is about economic development, Truehart said, explaining her organization has been the catalyst for everything from fashion retail, furniture makers to cosmetologists and barber shops to transportation services, as well as businesses created by returning citizens who have faced challenges trying to get employed because of their background.

Through Upper Darby Rebuild, she plans to use her extensive expertise to the benefit of this business community.

Im here to help and support in every way that I can, she said.

Upper Darby Township Councilman Hafiz Tunis Jr. said this program touches the most asked question he gets from his constituents.

A common question Ive been asked throughout the whole COVID-19 pandemic is, How do we bounce back from this? How do we respond to this?' he said. I feel this is a very appropriate response for small businesses.

He said many of the business owners want to know what their options are.

This truly affected every industry, every industry, Tunis said, adding he was grateful that the township created this program. I think itll help a lot of businesses bounce back. I think itll have a huge impact.

At least two business owners were enthusiastic about the Upper Darby Rebuild program and intend to apply.

When they asked us to do delivery, it wasnt working, Innocent Omwubiko, owner of SA Cafe at 48 Garrett Road and three other businesses, said.

Raj Akhtar, owner of the three-employee Aban Sweets & Restaurant at 6908 Marshall Road, said hes hoping to open next week and wants to pay his landlord.

Its going to help me a lot because Im completely broke, he said. Ive been closed three and a half months. Bills I have to pay, bills that are on the way, like with the rent and theres no money coming in right now  I owe rent to the landlord and hes banging on the door.
As youre reading this, I want you to think about all the people who have recently passed: George Floyd in Minneapolis and James Scurlock in Omaha. A retired police captain in St. Louis named David Dorn. Italia Kelly, killed in Davenport, Iowa, as she was trying to get away from a protest that was getting out of hand. David Patrick Underwood, shot as he was guarding a Federal Building in Oakland. These are just a few of the victims that we should hold in our prayers.

As the volunteer coordinator at the Refugee Empowerment Center, I am representing myself as well as the staff when I say that we stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. We are a nonprofit organization that focuses on the resettlement of refugees. We not only stand with BLM, but we also stand for humanity and human rights for all. Many on our staff came to the United States as refugees. They appreciate seeing peaceful protests and people fighting for their basic dignity. Theyre from nations where people in power would seek retribution for speaking out. They see these protests as a constructive way to bring about change, and change is what is needed. We believe that change doesnt entail defunding the police. We believe in better training not only for police but also for society as a whole. We believe in the dismantling of for-profit-prisons, as this is the main driver for a police state. This is the only way to bring about real change.
A Hamilton resident was arrested June 5 for strangulation of a partner or family member, a felony.

According to the charging affidavit, on June 5, Jimmy E. Hammond, 46, put pressure on the throat and neck of his girlfriend. A Ravalli County Sheriff's Officer was dispatched to the scene and saw redness on the victims face and neck and bruising around the base of her neck. She told the deputy the argument was about bills and house chores and that Hammond held her on the ground and placed pressure on her chest and neck with his hands. She also said Hammond struck her in the forehead with his head. Hammond told the deputy that they had a verbal argument and nothing physical happened.

Hammond appeared before Justice of the Peace Jim Baily on June 8. Hammond is being held in the Ravalli County Detention Center, his bond is set at $5,000 and he will appear in Ravalli County District Court June 24 or 25.

A Corvallis resident has been charged with a felony after assaulting a peace officer Saturday. Sharon Irene Jessop, 34, is also charged with driving while under the influence of alcohol and or drugs and having an open container of alcohol, both misdemeanors, according to charging documents.

According to the affidavit, at 7:30 p.m. on June 6, Jessop drove her pick-up truck into the creek up Middle Burn Fork Road. A Montana Highway Patrol trooper dispatched to the scene noted she was only wearing a black bathrobe and had slurred speech, needed assistance walking and had an empty White Claw can on the passenger floor. He took pictures of the crash scene and transported Jessop to the hospital. During a blood draw, she kicked the left ankle and shin of the trooper, court documents said. Jessop appeared before Justice of the Peace Jim Bailey on June 8, is out on her own recognizance and is set to appear in Ravalli County District Court on June 24 or 25. She was previously convicted of a DUI on June 15, 2017, according to records.

A Hamilton resident was arrested June 5 for possessing dangerous drugs, a felony, and possessing drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor.

According to the charging affidavit, Byron Alan Dutton, 42, possessed methamphetamine and had a glass pipe and a used syringe with the intent to ingest, inject, inhale or introduce a dangerous drug into the human body.

Dutton appeared before Justice of the Peace Jim Baily on June 8 and bond was set at $5,000. Dutton is being held in the Ravalli County Detention Center and scheduled to appear in District Court June 24 or 25.

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(Newser)  He's the longest-serving consort in UK history, and the "Iron Duke" is now a year away from centenarian status. Prince Philip celebrates his 99th birthday Wednesday and plans on spending it with his wife of 72 years, Queen Elizabeth II, having a "quiet lunch" at Windsor Castle, where they've been self-isolating since March due to the coronavirus lockdown, the AP reports. Per Vanity Fair, he's also expected to field calls from family on his special day, likely including Prince Charles, who said last week in a TV interview he was "terribly sad" at not having seen his father for months due to the pandemic. It sounds like it will be a low-key but pleasant day for the prince, who's had a royally rough couple of years: He was involved in a 2019 car crash that injured two; grandson Harry recently defected to the US with his wife, Meghan Markle; and son Prince Andrew is caught up in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

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Born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark on June 10, 1921, to Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg, a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Philip was evacuated from Greece as a baby by the UK's Royal Navy after a military coup overthrew his uncle, King Constantine. He first met his future wife when he was 13 and she was 8 at a wedding; they fell in love five years later when they met again at Dartmouth's Royal Naval College. Philip had a promising career in the Royal Navy, but he gave it all up when he married Elizabeth in 1947 and was made the Duke of Edinburgh. The Guardian notes Philip hasn't been seen in public since December, when he was briefly hospitalized. He can be seen, however, in a rare official photo (above) taken with the queen on June 1. Sources tell Vanity Fair he's doing well healthwise. Read more about Philip's life here. (Read more Prince Philip stories.)
WASHINGTON, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the authority on boardroom practices representing more than 21,000 directors, today released the NACD May 2020 COVID-19 Pulse Survey , which revealed the trends and governance challenges that corporate directors expect to tackle over the next three months. Designed to better understand the challenges that boards are facing as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, the survey gathered thoughts and opinions from more than 300 directors and built on the insights garnered from the organizations March COVID-19 poll .



As directors and their organizations expand their focus on employee health and corporate survival to now also preparing for recovery and success in a new normal, several findings emerged:

Boards see the changing nature of work as the top post-recovery issue. Looking three months ahead, directors reported that changes to the employee experience are most likely to impact recovery in their organizations. More than half (54%) cited changes in the way work gets done as one of their top three concerns. Another third (32%) ranked accelerating digital transformation as a top priority. There was some variation by sector, with directors from consumer-focused firms ranking major shifts in customer preferences higher, while smaller organizations ranked access to capital and overseeing financial health higher than other factors.



Directors see strategy as the top challenge over the next three months. Shaping a post-crisis strategy was the top governance challenge listed by nearly 6 in 10 (60%) of respondents. Many directors are concerned about their ability to understand new risks and their implications. As top challenges, 46% ranked the need to get up to speed on emerging risk dimensions of the crisis, while 49% ranked ensuring the health and safety of staff (49%). Meanwhile, important in-boardroom activities, such as director engagement (8%), board succession planning (5%), and director recruitment and onboarding (4%), have unfortunately been pushed aside.



Directors expect to continue more engagement with management. As the need for more frequent communication between boards and management has increased, so has the time commitment for many directors. A plurality of directors and almost a majority (48%) reported that boards are likely to spend more time with management after the crisis than before. In doing so, nearly every board has made use of tools to enable virtual board meetings. This suggests that new, responsive best practices are potentially on the horizon with directors engaging more frequently with management and in new ways.



Boards remain confident in their organizations and management teams. Consistent with findings from our March survey, boards continue to give high marks to their management teams. When asked to grade their CEOs performance during the crisis, the average grade was an A, with a GPA of 3.8 on a 4-point scale. More than 9 out of 10 (92%) directors reported confidence that their organizations will survive the crisis, and 87% of directors reported that their management teams had an effective playbook for this type of crisis.

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Directors report that their boards should be prepared to answer the following questions in the next three months:

What are the key information requirements of our stakeholders to sustain their confidence in the company?

How should we redesign our workforce after the crisis?

What are the lessons learned from managements response to the pandemic?

What business development opportunities have developed during the pandemic? What are the associated risks? How should we take advantage of a rare opportunity to reposition ourselves in our sector?

How can we promote the new leadership capabilities in the c-suite?

The NACD Resource Center, Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis offers board-relevant guidance to help companies confront COVID-19 and mitigate its business impact. NACD updates these practical resources frequently to reflect new developments. Committed to providing the entire governance community with the best available information to understand the COVID-19 pandemic, NACD has opened these resources to the public.

About NACD

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:14:13|Editor: huaxia

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TIRANA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Albania's Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu on Wednesday called for the citizens' cooperation in respecting protective measures and health protocols as the country registered the biggest daily increase of coronavirus cases.

"Ever since we decided to reopen, we have shared with you the belief that things will go well, only if a basic condition is met: the citizens' cooperation," Manastirliu said via a Facebook post.

Forty-two new coronavirus were reported by the Health Ministry on Wednesday, the biggest daily increase registered in Albania, raising the total number of confirmed cases to 1,341.

"Following the initial gradual opening and then the complete lifting of lockdown measures two weeks ago, Albania still has a community transmission of the infection," Manastirliu wrote.

Manastirliu said that in recent days there is an increase in the number of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in the Infectious Diseases Hospital.

"As long as no country in the world has yet been able to find either the cure or the vaccine, no one can relax and neglect individual measures of hygiene and social distancing or health protocols," Manastirliu underlined.

According to her, health system in Albania is at the highest level of readiness and field work is continuing to reveal any case and contact as well to break the chain of infection.

On Wednesday, the health authorities informed that the number of recovered patients reached 980, while the death toll stands at 34. Enditem
Uyghur men arrive before Eid al-Fitr prayers, marking the end of Ramadan, outside the Id Kah mosque in Kashgar, in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, June 5, 2019.

Authorities in northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) ramped up detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities last year to implement counterterrorism measures that severely violated religious freedoms, the U.S. State Department said in an annual report released Wednesday.

According to U.S. government estimates, more than 1 million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Hui, and other Muslim groups have been detained in a vast network of internment camps in the XUAR since April 2017, the State Departments 2019 International Religious Freedom Report said, although many nongovernmental organizations believe the number is much higher.

Detainees were subjected to forced disappearance, political indoctrination, torture, psychological and physical and psychological abuse, including forced sterilization and sexual abuse, forced labor, and prolonged detention without trial because of their religion and ethnicity at the camps, which RFAs Uyghur Service has reported may number around 1,300 facilities and have held up to 1.8 million people.

The report, which included a separate section on the XUAR this year due to the scope and severity of reported religious freedom violations specific to the region, said that amidst the detentions, the whereabouts of hundreds of prominent Uighur intellectuals, doctors, journalists, artists, academics, and other professionals, in addition to many other citizens, who were arrested or detained remained unknown.

The government intensified use of detentions in furtherance of implementing a Xinjiang counterextremism regulation that identifies extremist behaviors (including growing beards, wearing headscarves, and abstaining from alcohol) and the National Counterterrorism Law, which addresses religious extremism, the report said.

In particular, authorities punished people for praying or studying the Quran, and donating to mosques; demanded that individuals remove religious symbols from their homes, and barred youths from taking part in religious activities.

They also banned several categories of people from fasting during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan and considered observing the Ramadan fast and participating in the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca to be suspicious behavior. The report noted that satellite imagery indicated that the government destroyed numerous mosques and other religious sites, and monitored others.

Additionally, authorities maintained what the State Department called extensive and invasive security and surveillance, in part to document the religious adherence and practices of individuals. Some of the monitoring included behavioral profiling and forcing Uyghurs to accept government officials living in their homes and to install mandatory spyware applications on their phones.

Many of these measures were undertaken in the name of eradicating the three evils of ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorisma longstanding pretext used by the government to justify its restrictions in the region.

In late 2019, several internal government documents were leaked that described the governments mass detention and surveillance programs, including a manual for how to operate internment camps, keep their existence secret, and methods of forced indoctrination. Another document showed that the government initially interned or extended internment of individuals on religious grounds in four camps in one county in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture.

Uyghur Muslims also continued to endure significant societal discrimination in employment and business opportunitiesin addition to suppression of language, culture, and religious practiceswhile authorities promoted the Han Chinese majority in political, economic, and cultural life.

The report comes as the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020which makes possible U.S. sanctions on Chinese government officials responsible for arbitrary incarceration, forced labor and other abuses in the XUARawaits signing by President Donald Trump.

TAR and other parts of China

In the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas of China, authorities continued to engage in widespread interference in religious practices, especially in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, the report said, noting reports of forced disappearance, torture, physical abuse, prolonged detention without trial, and arrests of individuals due to their religious practices.

Government and ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government-approved monks were appointed to manage religious institutions, while authorities continued to restrict the size of Buddhist monasteries and other institutions, evict monks and nuns from monasteries, and prohibit them from practicing elsewhere. Monasteries were forced to display portraits of CCP leaders and the national flag.

In July, Wang Neng Shang, vice minister of the TAR and director general of the Peoples Government Information Office, said the selection of the next Dalai Lamathe Tibetan spiritual leaderwas not the current Dalai Lamas decision to make, and instead must be recognized by the central government in Beijing.

In other parts of China, a State Department-designated Country of Political Concern (CPC) since 1999, the government exerted control over religion and restricted activities and personal freedom of religious adherents when it perceived them as threatening state or ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interests, the report said, while only state-sanctioned religious groups were permitted to hold worship services.

The government also continued a campaign of religious Sinicization to bring all religious doctrine and practice in line with CCP doctrine, adopting a formal five-year plan on Jan. 7.



The State Department noted reports of deaths in custody and that the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, detained, sentenced to prison, or harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices.

Myanmar

In Myanmar, the State Department noted continued violence, discrimination, and harassment against ethnic Rohingya in Rakhine state in the aftermath of an ethnic cleansing campaign against the group in 2017 that resulted in the displacement of more than 700,000 refugees to Bangladesh.

Rohingya remaining in Burma continued to face an environment of severe repression and restrictions on freedom of movement and access to education, healthcare, and livelihoods based on their ethnicity, religion, and citizenship status, it said, citing the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Those who fled Myanmar during 2019 reported ongoing abuses in Rakhine state, while others spoke of continuing government pressure to participate in a residency verification campaign, which they stated they did not trust.

In November the International Criminal Court (ICC) approved a request from prosecutors to investigate allegations of certain crimes committed against the Rohingya, while in that same month, The Gambia filed a case at the International Court of Justice stating Myanmars actions against the Rohingya violated the countrys obligations as a signatory to the 1948 United Nations genocide convention.

Several U.N. entities spoke out or released reports on the Rohingya crisis in 2019, with a U.N. Fact-Finding Mission concluding in September that the threat of genocide continues for the remaining Rohingya. The government denied the mission permission to enter the country and publicly disavowed the report.

A second attempt by the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh to initiate a return in August was refused by Rohingyas, who said they would be subjected to rights abuses if they returned without a guarantee of citizenship.

Meanwhile, government and military officials continued to use anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim rumors and hate speech circulating on social media in formal meetings, public speeches, and other official settings, it said. Facebook removed hundreds of accounts, pages and groups linked to military leadership for propagating hate speech, including anti-Muslim rhetoric.



In addition to the Rohingyas, non-Buddhist minorities throughout Myanmara Buddhist majority country that has also been on the CPC list since 1999reported restrictions on religious practice, denial of freedom of movement, closed places of worship, an inability to obtain permits for religious buildings and repairs, and discrimination in employment and housing.
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China has sensationally claimed that Australians are 'chronically racist' in the latest insult to come out of the communist state as relations continue to deteriorate.

The claim comes as the Xi Jingping's government threatens to destroy China's relationship with Australian universities, worth $3.1 billion in fees alone.

Education officials have already announced they will no longer recommend students study in Australia, and have threatened to divert thousands of students to the UK.

It leaves the $12 billion pumped into the Australian economy annually by Chinese students under threat, with China being the largest source of overseas enrollments.

In an article on the Global Times, a mouthpiece for the Chinese government, said Australia has a 'chronic' problem with racism - encouraging students not to come.

It quotes a supposed University of Sydney student, saying 'even though the campus is safe, hanging out with friends and shopping could be dangerous.'

Two women are seen wearing face masks in Melbourne on May 28 (pictured) amid claims Australia has become 'racist' towards Asian people

At UNSW (pictured), thousands of international students come from China, but this partnership could be under threat

It comes amid growing tensions between Australia and its largest trading partner, sparked by China's refusal to release vital information at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

China has already imposed huge 80 per cent tariffs on Australian barley, a huge economic hit for farmers.

'In March, a Chinese student from Hong Kong was punched in the face and injured for wearing a face mask, and a pair of Chinese students were attacked by local gang members in broad daylight in April,' the editorial reads.

'Chinese business owners were also targeted, finding racist slogans outside their shops and restaurants, or their properties being vandalised.'

At the University of Sydney (pictured) 69 per cent of its international students are from China

The University of Sydney (pictured) receives millions in fees from Chinese students every year

HOW MANY CHINESE STUDENTS ARE IN AUSTRALIA? Chinese students bring in $3.1 billion in university fees alone every year. They account for 60 per cent of international enrollments at the 'Group of Eight' universities. University of Sydney: 69 per cent University of Melbourne: 56 per cent Monash University: 57 per cent RMIT: 37 per cent UTS: 53 per cent Overall, more than a third of foreign students who come to Australia to study are from China, who contribute an estimated $12 billion to the economy each year. Advertisement

The article also warned that returning to school and studying could be dangerous as 'the pandemic has not been brought under control.'

The claim is despite no new community cases of coronavirus in Australia for two weeks in New South Wales, and only 7,276 infections overall.

Austlink chairwoman Amy Mo, a Beijing education agent, said the worsening of relations would bring 'immeasurable economic losses to Australia'.

Ms Mo, whose company sends over 2,000 students every year, said she is reconsidering the deal, and may send them to the UK instead.

'If Australian politicians don't regret and keep being the running-dog of the United States in the name of so-called values, Chinese tourists and students will not go there,' she said.

'I hope Australia can change its attitude toward China. If a country loves Chinese money but doesn't like Chinese people, China surely is not willing to do business with it.'

Relations have been strained since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Accusing Australia of being a US 'puppet', China brought in crippling trade strikes on $1 billion worth of beef and barley in April.

Earlier this week, the communist government hit again, warning its tourists not to travel to Australia because of an 'alarming increase' in racism.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in a statement on Friday that 'Asian people' were being targeted with racism (pictured, commuters in Beijing on May 18)

In a shocking move on Friday, the Chinese tourism ministry said citizens should avoid holidaying in Australia because people were 'racist'.

'Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial discrimination and violence against Chinese and Asian people in Australia have seen a significant increase,' the statement said.

'The Ministry of Culture and Tourism reminds Chinese tourists to enhance their safety awareness and do not travel to Australia.'

But Australia's Trade and Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham, along with deputy prime minister Michael McCormark on Saturday slammed the claims.

'We reject China's assertions in this statement, which have no basis in fact,' Senator Birmingham told AAP.

'Our rejection of these claims, which have been falsely made by Chinese officials previously, is well known to them.'

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism told tourists not to visit Australia (pictured, president Xi Jinping)

Australian Trade Minister Simon Birmingham (pictured) slammed the claims as having 'no basis in fact'

Mr Birmingham said the decision to close Australia's borders with China during the height of the pandemic was not easy.

'This decision was criticised by the Chinese Government at the time, but it proved to be a critical decision in keeping Australians safe from the devastation faced by much of the rest of the world,' he said.

Education Minister Dan Tehan said Australia and its universities remain a safe destinations for all students.

'Australia is a popular destination for international students because we are a successful, multicultural society that welcomes international students and provides a world-class education,' he said in a statement to the ABC.

'Our success at flattening the [coronavirus] curve means we are one of the safest countries in the world for international students to be based in right now.'

Sophie (pictured, left, with sister Rosa) were alleged subject to a racist attack in the street in Sydney

The Group of Eight universities plans to seek further clarification about the advice with the Chinese Embassy in Canberra.

The claims come after a string of racist behaviour was seen against people of Asian appearance during the outbreak of COVID-19.

One man was captured in footage cracking a whip outside the Chinese Embassy in Sydney in April and hurling racist remarks at people lining up outside.

The racial tirade went on for several minutes with the man claiming the Chinese 'deliberately released coronavirus'.

'We know it's deliberate. Five million people left your country and spread that filthy f***king disease worldwide,' he said.

On another occasion two sisters were allegedly abused and spat on by a teenager in Sydney's inner west.

Sophie Do, 23, and her sister Rosa, 19, were allegedly called 'Asian dogs' and a 'dumb wh***' as they crossed the street and were told they 'brought corona here'.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday accused the New York Times of lying about the substance of Senator Tom Cottons controversial op-ed for which the paper later apologized after an outcry from readers and Times journalists.

During a floor speech, McConnell mocked the Times for bowing to criticism of the papers decision to publish Cottons opinion op-ed, titled Send in the Troops, which called for military intervention to quell the rioting across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

One of our nations most storied newspapers just had its intellectual independence challenged by an angry mob, and they folded like a house of cards, McConnell said from the Senate floor. A jury of people on Twitter indicted them as accessories to a thought crime and instead of telling them to go take a hike, the paper pleaded guilty and begged for mercy.

After the columns publication, several Times staffers tweeted that, running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger. The backlash eventually resulted in the resignation of James Bennet, the Times editorial page editor, on Sunday.

The Times has since added a lengthy note editors note to the op-ed saying that the essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published. While Cottons basic arguments represent a newsworthy part of the current debate, the note reads, the life-and-death importance of the topic and the Arkansas Republicans influential position warranted further substantial revisions. Editors also lamented the needlessly harsh tone of the essay and singled out several claims Cotton makes which they said should have been fact-checked.

Cotton wrote that nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyds death for their own anarchic purposes. The Timess editors note takes issue with those assertions, saying Cottons claims are unsubstantiated and have been widely questioned.

Story continues

McConnell acknowledged that Cottons view was controversial but said it remains a legitimate one.

Afterwards, the Times began lying about what Senator Cotton had said, saying he had called for a crackdown on peaceful protests when he had specifically distinguished them from violent rioters, McConnell said.

McConnell noted that in the past, the Times has published op-eds from Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Iranian foreign minister, and a leader of the Muslim brotherhood.

Presumably it was understood that pushing the envelope and airing disagreements are necessary in a free market of ideas, the Kentucky Republican said. But one week ago, the Gray Lady finally met her match. Vladimir Putin? No problem. Iranian propaganda? Sure. But nothing, nothing could have prepared them for 800 words from the junior senator from Arkansas.

The New York Times had erred grievously by making people confront a different viewpoint, McConnell said mockingly. It hurt their feelings by making them confront a different point of view.

More from National Review
(Natural News) Branden Michael Wolfe, 23, has been arrested and federally charged with aiding and abetting the arson attack on Minneapolis 3rd precinct on the night of May 28, the first night of the engineered riots in the city. Wolfe was arrested on June 3 in neighboring St. Paul, where he lives, after a 911 caller alerted law enforcement to a person wearing body armor attempting to break into a home improvement shop.

Police officers found Wolfe in a vehicle several blocks from the store. He was wearing body armor with his name handwritten on a piece of duct tape on the back and he was carrying a police-issue duty belt that had handcuffs, a baton, a knife and an earpiece.

On May 28, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) abandoned their 3rd Precinct as the rioters breached the perimeter of the building. As soon as the MPD left, people started streaming into the building, setting things on fire and destroying valuable police equipment. Investigators who examined the wreckage later commented that multiple separate fires had been set in the precinct.

Wolfe agreed to speak to police officers without a lawyer. During his interrogation, he admitted to being inside the 3rd Precinct on the night it caught on fire. He admitted to stealing property from the building and to pushing a wooden barrel into an already-existing fire, knowing fully well that it would only fuel the flame.

Investigators pieced together Wolfes admission of guilt with evidence found at the remains of the 3rd Precinct, such as a photograph of a wooden barrel and charred barrel rings near where the barrel was last seen.

When presented with photographs from the night of the arson attack, Wolfe identified himself as a shirtless individual in several of them. In one of the photos, he was even holding a police baton, presumably stolen from the precinct. Wolfe was even fired from his job as a security guard after photos of him stealing items from the 3rd Precinct circulated on social media.

The investigators also found several stolen items in Wolfes apartment, including a police radio, a pistol magazine, a riot helmet and a police-issue overdose kit.

Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he discusses how the Antifa rioters and looters are turning into a new class of untouchables who are never required to abide by any of Americas laws.

Mayor Frey defends decision to abandon 3rd precinct to Antifa

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, has defended his offices decision to abandon the 3rd Precinct. In an interview with WCCO, Frey said that holding onto the 3rd Precinct would have resulted in even more deaths.

If we decided to continue to hold the 3rd Precinct there very likely would have been hand-to-hand combat, likely serious injury and maybe death, and in the decision between a building and life-or-death, we decided to evacuate.

On May 28th, the Minneapolis Police 3rd precinct was set on fire in an act of collective retaliation after George Floyds murder 3 days earlier. All 4 officers later charged for Floyds killing were based at the 3rd precinct. pic.twitter.com/cBqsvfJQy3  Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) June 8, 2020

Freys abandonment of the 3rd Precinct resulted in its destruction at the hands of Antifa rioters. (Related: 3 Rioters in Gwinnett County, Georgia arrested for STALKING police officers and attempting to set their patrol cars on fire.)

Frey further justified his actions by stating that Minneapolis officers were stretched too thin and were at their breaking point. He recalls getting a call from MPD Chief of Police Medaria Arradondo on the night the 3rd Precinct burned down. During the call, Chief Arradondo begged the mayor to call in the Minnesota National Guard, a request that Frey acceded to. However, it took two days before the Guard could arrive at Minneapolis.

Minnesota Democratic governor Tim Walz has also criticized Frey, putting the blame on the rioting solely on him, to which the mayor responded by saying that it is improper to be pointing fingers during a crisis.

Riots are occurring all over the country. To keep up with the latest attacks on life and property, check out the articles on Rioting.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

KARE11.com

Edition.CNN.com

MPRNews.org

Minnesota.CBSLocal.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 23:20:30|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- South China's island province Hainan is accelerating the construction work of the expansion project of Haikou Meilan International Airport to serve the development of its free trade port.

The second phase of the project in Haikou, capital of Hainan, is expected to be ready for operation in 2020, according to the Haikou Meilan International Airport.

The project is anticipated to better serve Hainan's development as an international trade hub and a free trade port with a comprehensive modern transportation system.

So far, the construction of the new runway, terminal, and airport transport facilities have all entered the final stage. The key works of the project are expected to be completed by June 30.

This under-construction second phase of the Haikou Meilan International Airport expansion project includes a 4F-level aircraft movement area, the highest level in China's civil aviation industry, which will be capable of handling the takeoff and landing of the A380 superjumbo jet.

The new project will help the airport achieve its annual throughput target of 4.2 million international passengers initially, and the number is expected to reach 10 million in the future.

On June 1, Chinese authorities released a master plan for the Hainan free trade port, which aims to build the southern island province into a globally-influential high-level free trade port by the middle of the century.

A free trade port system focusing on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation will be "basically established" in Hainan by 2025 and become "more mature" by 2035, according to the plan jointly issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council.

Advanced technologies, such as the seismic isolation technique, have been applied in the terminal construction.

The new terminal will offer passengers a unique travel experience through its design and decorations with local culture elements of the island province, such as the traditional architecture and boathouse.

In the new terminal, the Haikou Meilan International Airport will also create the country's largest tax-free airport shopping area.

The airport is exploring the civil aviation market to create an "aviation economic circle" with more flexible air services, both at home and abroad.

By the end of 2019, the Haikou Meilan International Airport had served 297 air routes, connecting 149 cities at home and abroad.

In 2019, the airport's annual passenger throughput exceeded 24.2 million, ranking 17th in the country's total of nearly 240 civil airports.

China's civil aviation authorities on Tuesday unveiled a plan to trial the "Seventh Freedom of the Air" in the Hainan free-trade port.

The trial means that some international routes in Hainan are now open to foreign airlines to operate here.

The number of Hainan's international routes reached 103 in 2020, up from five in 2003. Enditem
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Time is precious.

We even monetize time, charging for services or getting paid at rates per hour, day, week, month or year. In the end, though, people tend to value time over money. In fact, studies show that people who value time over money are happier.

Thats one reason why medical advances are such big deals. One such technological advance in the fight against cancer is the NanoKnife System, which arrived at OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, this winter.

Survival time after diagnosis doubles

Pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose in its early stages when its more treatable. By Stage 3, while it has not spread to other organs, it is often too advanced to be able to remove surgically. Average life expectancy after diagnosis of Stage 3 pancreatic cancer is about nine to 15 months, in part depending on what treatment options are feasible.

The NanoKnife is changing that.

Thus far, were seeing studies that using the NanoKnife virtually doubles life expectancy for pancreatic cancer patients, said Tom Cox, director of Radiology, Radiation Oncology and OSF Cancer Services at OSF Saint Francis. On average, weve been told life expectancy for these patients is around two years.

From my perspective, what we are trying to do is give people options. Patients want it straight from providers: Lay out my options and lets decide what direction to go. This is another option we can show and give them another chance to live longer  and maybe the chance to live a lot longer. Cox said

Limits on pancreatic cancer treatment

Thermal ablation  a menu of procedures that treat cancer by using probes to apply extreme heat or cold  is a technique that can be used for tumors that cannot be surgically removed. It kills not only cancerous cells but also healthy cells in adjacent structures. Some organs can tolerate this collateral damage, but others, such as the duodenum and the common bile duct, which are around the pancreas, cannot. The same type of damage to healthy cells occurs with radiation.

In regard to thermal ablative therapies, the pancreas is an organ that doesnt like to be messed with, said Robert King, MD, director of Non-Invasive Vascular Imaging for Central Illinois Radiological Associates in Peoria.

The pancreas is located behind the stomach and tucked under the liver. Its about six inches long, and its head is connected to the small intestine.

Because the pancreas is high real estate and there are other major structures and vessels in the area, you cant cut the cancer out in surgery unless youve diagnosed it relatively early, said Sonia Orcutt, MD, medical director of Surgical Oncology for Peoria Surgical Group.

Kill cancer cells, save healthy cells

Dr. King and Dr. Orcutt are two of three physicians at OSF Saint Francis trained to use the NanoKnife System. The third is Chandler Wilfong, MD, of OSF Medical Group  Surgery.

The NanoKnife probes are placed around the tumor with image guidance. The probes then deliver a series of high voltage pulses to cancerous cells. But rather than burning or freezing, like the thermal ablation probes, the NanoKnife pulses punch holes through the cell membranes.

That disrupts the equilibrium of the cell with its surrounding area, and the body says that cell needs to be destroyed because its membrane has been damaged, Tom said. The body in essence is ridding the tumor on its own, recognizing there has been damage to all of the cancerous cells.

The key is being able to target the diseased cells and minimize the peripheral damage.

We can place the probes next to an artery or vein and ablate cancer tissue while leaving the arteries and veins intact, Dr. King said. That gives us a huge advantage.

Exciting potential

Nine to 15 months. That might not sound like much, but think about all the living that can be packed into that amount of time. One more holiday. One more round of family birthdays. A graduation. A wedding. The birth of a child or grandchild.

Studies show an average two-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients who have undergone NanoKnife procedures.

And that average of two years is going to grow, Tom said.

The NanoKnife System isnt just for pancreatic cancer, either.

We have a patient scheduled for soft tissue ablation of recurrent anal cancer, Dr. King said. We have some other cases, outside the pancreas; a couple of patients with liver cancer that look like good candidates. There is a multi-center trial going on now, hopefully to be completed this summer, that gives me hope that this technology may be a viable option to treat prostate cancer.

The potential of the NanoKnife is great, according to Dr. Orcutt.

Its great to be on the front lines of something like this. she said.
On the Frontline Against China, the US Coast Guard Is Taking on Missions the US Navy Can't Do

Competition with China has drawn more Pentagon resources to the Pacific, but the most visible U.S. military presence there...
Delhi will need 150,000 beds by the end of July if its hospitals are to also treat coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients from other states, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Wednesday, even as he promised to implement in letter and spirit Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijals order overruling the Delhi governments decision to only allow Delhi residents to be treated in government and private hospitals in the state.

By July 15, Delhi will need 33,000 beds, and including those from outside the city, it will require 65,000, the chief minister added. By July 31, 80,000 beds were projected for the people of Delhi. But now, we will need a total of 150,000 beds.

His comments came against the backdrop of a sharp increase in the number of cases in Delhi. On Tuesday, the state added 1,366 news cases and on Wednesday, it added 1,501. Delhis dashboard on Wednesday night stood at 32,810 cases, with 12,245 recoveries, and 984 deaths.

Separately, Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain said there is community transmission in Delhi, repeating what he said on Tuesday, but added that only the Centre could declare this.

Referring to the Delhi data, Kejriwal termed the task of arranging over a 100,000 beds an unprecedented and a huge challenge. He asked neighbouring states such as Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to augment their health infrastructure to ensure that people from there do not have to come to Delhi for treatment.

Kejriwal emphasised that this was not the time to fight over differences and appealed to all political parties, religious institutions, doctors and the public to jointly fight the Covid-19 pandemic. He called for a peoples movement for promoting the wearing of masks and ensuring social distancing and personal hygiene for the purpose.

The Centre has taken a decision and the L-G passed an order accordingly. There is no room for disagreements now. The decision of the L-G will be implemented in letter and spirit. There is no dispute on this subject anymore and I want to make this clear to everyone, including the members and workers of our own party [Aam Aadmi Party], Kejriwal said at a digital press conference a day after he tested negative for Covid-19.

Later in the evening, he met home minister Amit Shah. Met Sh Amit Shah, Honble HM. Discussed the situation on corona in Delhi in detail. He assured of all cooperation, Kejriwal said on Twitter.

Baijal on Monday also restored national guidelines on who can be tested for Covid-19 in the Capital; the Delhi government had said only high-risk direct contacts of infected people would be tested if they were asymptomatic. The Delhi governments orders on both testing and treatment created a huge controversy. On Wednesday, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued notice to the state government and the Union ministry of health for alleged mismanagement of the situation in the national capital. The notices were prompted by a complaint made by Congress leader Ajay Maken.

Kejriwals deputy, Manish Sisodia, had on Monday, in a digital press briefing, attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over Baijals order and said the Centre must involve states in decision-making processes. He accused the BJP of pressurising the L-G into overturning their decisions.

On Tuesday, the deputy CM alleged that the L-G had no plan even after reversing the Delhi Cabinets decision to accommodate the huge influx in patients.

Baijal is the governments administrative head and reports to the President. He is the topmost authority of the Delhi disaster management agency, which is coordinating all matters related to the pandemic. On Tuesday, his office issued a statement saying the L-G had clarified to Sisodia that right to health is an integral part of the right to life under the Constitution of India. Baijal had said that rather than discriminating between patients, the goal of the government should be to plan and prepare for adequate infrastructure. In his Monday order, Baijal acknowledged that Covid-19 has spread in Delhi in threatening proportion.

Kejriwal said he will soon begin inspections to monitor the arrangements. I will get started on this and go to stadiums, banquet halls and hotels to make arrangements. We will try everything, do whatever we can to ensure enough hospital beds.

A committee, which has been constituted under the chairmanship of divisional commissioner Sanjeev Khirwar to explore the possibility of creating additional bed capacity, has so far suggested that Pragati Maidan and Talkatora indoor stadium be used as makeshift hospitals.

On the basis of the current doubling rate of 12.6 days, the Delhi health department has projected that the number of active cases in Delhi will touch 60,004 by June 30; 134,722 by July 15 and 319,237 by July 31.

Kejriwal said the fight against Covid-19 has to be turned into a peoples movement. We need to keep in mind three things: wearing masks, washing hands regularly and maintaining social distancing. People should encourage each other to follow this.

Kejriwal added that 1,900 people have been hospitalised in Delhi government hospitals over the last eight days. He attributed most of the hospitalisations to the Delhi Corona App launched on June 2 to allow people to check availability of hospital beds on a real-time basis.

... around 200 people [also] faced difficulty in getting beds. Nearly 4,200 beds are still vacant, but they are mostly in Delhi government hospitals. Private hospitals are mostly full. We are working on increasing the bed capacity in that sector, said Kejriwal.

The Delhi government on Tuesday issued an order asking 22 private to increase the number of beds reserved for Covid-19 patients by 2,015. The capacity in these private hospitals has now gone up to 3,456 from 1,441 beds. With this, the number of beds has increased from 8,872 to 10,887 in Delhi.

The fatality rate in Delhi currently is 2.92%, which is higher than the national average of 2.81%. Delhi is conducting 13,433 tests per million as compared to the national average of 3,797 tests per million, according to government data. Till Monday, Delhi had conducted 266,156 tests.

Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta said that instead of complaining about the L-Gs decisions, the Kejriwal government should back his demand with data. I demand that the chief minister release the detailed figures on how many Covid-19 patients from which states other than Delhi were treated in Delhi, how many of them recovered and how many died. They have just been raising this issue to hide their mismanagement of the pandemic, he said.

Meanwhile, as anecdotes of hospitals overcharging patients continued to do the rounds, L-G Baijal said all major hospitals, clinics and nursing homes in Delhi will have to display near their entrance, room charges and availability of beds on a real-time basis. In a directive issued to chief secretary Vijay Dev on Wednesday, Baijal also asked him to deploy officials to conduct surprise inspections in all hospitals to keep a check on malpractices such as overcharging or false refusal of beds.

Baijal also asked the health department to ensure that the data displayed on the boards near the entrance is reconciled with the data available on the Delhi Corona App and the delhifightscorona.in web portal.

Dr Lalit Kant, the former epidemiology and communicable diseases head at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said it is not surprising that cases in Delhi have seen a spurt. Thats what lifting the lockdown does. More people are bound to get infected. But, during the two-month long intense lockdown a lot of arrangements should already have been completed by the authorities. Now, the authorities must think on their feet and just go all out in expanding their health infrastructure, he said.

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LinkedIns annual Emerging Jobs Report 2020 for Australia places the site reliability engineer role as the fifth emerging job in the country.

But the role seems relatively new in Australia as the largest job seeking websites in the country dont offer data on the role itself. A LinkedIn search for the SRE role returns some 10,000 results and 212 jobs posted on the social media platform in Australia.

Computerworld Australia spoke to several SREs to learn how they got started in the role and what they suggest for those looking to follow this path.

[ Keep up on the latest thought leadership, insights, how-to, and analysis on IT through Computerworlds newsletters. ]

SRE defined: What a site reliability engineer does

The site reliability engineer (SRE) role is a concept created by Google in the early 2000s. To ensure the reliability of the company platform, an SRE performs several roles, including consulting on the designs for new features, breaking a test environment to see how the systems built will respond, figuring out what the service level indicators are, and coordinating the response for high-severity incidents.

There are many flavours of site reliability engineering, but the one thing that does seem to hold consistent is that SRE is less about specific technologies than it is about the process and practices.

LinkedIn describes the role of an SRE as the use of a software engineer approach to system administration topics. According to the jobs board Seek, the common annual salary of a software engineer in New South Wales is $130,000 while a systems administrator get roughly $110,000 a year.

The skills needed to be an SRE

Broad practical skills. Tigerspike SRE Tony Wong said that all the core SRE books are free and filled with knowledge for those seeking the career. Knowing how to utilise the public cloud and work on a few side projects and work towards certifications is very important in solidifying practical skills. Be cloud-agnostic, be program-language-agnostic, because most variations are quite similar; its knowing the fundamentals first that allow for easy transitioning, Wong said.

Working on personal projects like setting up a web application, monitoring the application, and sourcing the best practises to do certain things have always been key in my professional development, Wong said.

To become an SRE specifically, Joshua Hui, an application infrastructure engineer at Mortgage Choice who performs the work of an SRE among other functions, advises to start by learning a scripting language, as it is important in systems administration to find a way to automate things.

Dan Adams, an SRE at Google Australia, suggests finding a technology of interest and learning to look at it both broadly and in detail where there will be interesting problems to learn how to solve or fix it.

Continual learning. Being autonomous and a self-learner is critical as our understanding of the discipline and the technologies we interact with are always changing, said Anton Engelstad, an SRE with Stax. As with any other industry, to keep learning is essential, especially in IT as technologies change and evolve fast. He explained that an SRE can cover a wide range of personal and technical skills, but rather than being able to cover it allwhich it isnt easywhat is vital is having a passion for continuous learning.

Having knowledge of how IT systems work in terms of front end, back end, data pipelines, networking, OS, and architecture is still fundamentally core in the SREs toolbelt, said Tigerspikes Wong. He also believes that networking with other professionals is also very important to see where the trends are going.

I have seen others left behind because their skill set has become redundant. New technologies emerge, and old ones become obsolete. It is important to stay relevant, otherwise time will leave you behind, Hui said. His manager has helped by encouraging him to learn skills across other IT functions, making him an asset to the business and also helping his personal development.

Coming into Google, I didnt have experience with the scale and types of problems you have with a globally distributed computer system, Adams said. I had to learn a different way of thinking about fault tolerance and system consistency, which has been an exciting and interesting challenge.

Strong communications. Everyone in the business is in a position where they rely on system reliability, so communicating well is crucial especially when things arent working. So, for an SRE, it is important to explain to stakeholders and be transparent about downtime, Hui said. Most of the time stakeholders get more frustrated from the lack of communication than from systems being down. Excellent communication skills and willingness to work within a team is vital as SREs act as consultants across development teams, said Staxs Engelstad.

Problem solving. Also, a passion for solving problems with sound methodology when facing the unknown and the ability to manage risk is essential, Engelstad said. For example, an SRE has to be able to effectively handle deployments gone bad. Always have a rollback plan. If things failthey willalways think of the unhappy path and contingency plans. Know when to roll back, and how to roll backalways super importantespecially when it comes to databases, Hui advises.

Working with others and understanding different viewpoints will get you very far, Wong said. The IT industry is not easy, it takes a lot of trial and error and many hours. Be as flexible as possible. Some may say specialisation is key, but Im a big believer in being a generalist. Its the generalist who has the far reaching outlook of the connecting parts and allows for a more fulfilling career.

Formal qualifications. Engelstad said that when he first started many companies had strict requirements for formal qualifications to make it to the interview stage but after hed started working, it was much less important except in the way that it informs how you approach your work.

Even if a formal qualificaton is not required, Wong said a diploma is a great entry method to tip your toes into an IT career and experiment with all the different niches in the industry.

Building your way to become an SRE

As a fresh role, IT professionals who become site reliability engineers come from different backgrounds having worked in many different roles in information technology before landing an SRE role.

Today, theres not a defined path to the role other than gathering experience that demonstrates the skills of being an SRE. Testing, development, and operations are all valid paths into the SRE role, Staxs Engelstad said. In general terms, working as a software developer or systems administrator are both great start but being able to speak about how reliable the services you built or operated were is even better, he said.

Engelstad studied network engineering at RMIT where his interest in software development first showed. After graduating, he joined NABs graduate program as a programmer, where he stayed for eight years moving through different roles and ending up in the operations team for the internet banking and mobile apps platform.

Having worked mostly in the maintenance side, he was ready for a new challenge and some practical experience building reliable systems. Turns out there is a lot to it, Engelstad told Computerworld Australia. Last year, an opportunity came up to move [from Versent] to Stax and build their site reliability team, which felt like what all my work so far had been leading up tobeing a software engineer tasked with ensuring the reliability of Stax, through the whole life cycle of development.

With an interest in IT and business from a young age, Tigerspikes Wong got a bachelor of business information system degree from Monash University. In his first job, he worked with financial data for Oxfam, later moving to NAB where he was able to explore agile software development in the banking industry.

After going through the Thales graduate program, he joined Telstra where he explored report analysis and cloud infrastructure risk management and where he was introduced to the site reliability engineering mindset and ways of working.

Mortgage Choices Hui had been working at a bank, which he found monotonous and unchallenging. After some time he also noticed he could not see a clear progression within his role and so he left the job and enrolled at university where he studied for a bachelor of science degree.

After his first year at university, he applied for a help desk role with Mortgage Choice, which gave him the challenge I was after. It taught me time management and also prioritisation skills. After a year or so in help desk, I got promoted to junior infrastructure engineer, and after some long hours and a few years in the junior role, I am now in a team of two, in a role of application infrastructure engineer, Hui said.

Google Australias Adams has a degree in physics and one in computer systems engineering, he said his original plan was to be a physicist but he ended up enjoying the computer side of things more due to the ability to build interesting things.

Adams started his career in embedded systems, later working for a games startup as a game systems engineer. He then worked on software and hardware for robotics and autonomous systems for tele-operation mining in remote locations.

So a few jobs covering a lot of different problems and technologies at a systems level and product engineering, Adams explained, adding that this is what led him to SRE as you need to look at problems at a system level but also be able to dig into detail when required.
Is there a sure shot way to get a tweet banned from Twitter? One would think posting content on the microblogging site which is against the platform's content or health policies would do the trick. But with Twitter, it's not always as black and white as that.

Many Twitter users have time and again observed that though Twitter was active in taking down posts that went against its community guidelines, it is perhaps a bit selective in meting out punishment equally. Meaning, the same tweet may or may not get banned, depending on who the poster is. But is that really true?

A Twitter account called "Will They Suspend Me?" has been trying to find out exactly that using the most unusual method - by copying and tweeting all of United States President Donald Trump's tweets verbatim.

The account, which was created in February 2015, first started copying Trump's tweets on May 29, a day after Trump signed a Presidential order stopping social media of the "liability shield" such platforms are constitutionally allowed in the United States.

After constantly copying every tweet posted by the President since then, the experiment finally became a success on June 2 when the account posted the following tweet:

"These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I wont let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!"

Speaking to News18, The Twitter user who runs the account but wished to remain anonymous refers to themselves simply as "an American citizen".

"I decided to run this experiment right after the Presidents executive order to strip social medias protective liability shield. I wanted to see for myself if he was indeed violating the TOS. Figured what better way to test out the hypothesis than to see if they suspended me for the exact same language," the user told News18.

The tweet was special for more reasons than one. Not only did it get the anonymous experimenter's account temporarily suspended, but it was also the tweet that got Twitter to tag the President's tweet as "glorifying violence" - an unprecedented move - even though the platform did not outright remove the tweet.

"This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the publics interest for the Tweet to remain accessible," was the note that was attached to the tweet.

The showdown came in the midst of rising tensions between the Jack Dorsey-owned Twitter and US President Donald Trump.

"Companies that engage in censoring or any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield," Trump said while signing the order against Twitter and other social media platforms. The liability shield is part of Section 230 from a 1996 federal law that was meant to protect then fledgling internet companies and websites.

According to the American experimenter behind @SuspendthePres, it was a tough spot for Twitter to be in.

"I think Twitter is locked in a very tough position," they said. "A lot of peoples opinions are split on Twitter's decision, but I don't really blame them for allowing his tweet to remain".

As violence unleashed across the United States in the wake of the police killing of 46-year-old African-American man George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, many on Twitter slammed the platform for not suspending the President's account or at least the said tweet. @SuspendThe@Pres, however, took a more balanced stance, implying that freedom of speech cannot be curtailed either.

"Whether or not you agree with what is being said or if a platform should allow it is a matter of perspective," they said.

Whether they thought the President of the United States used one of the most popular tools of communicating with the masses unfairly? "That's a loaded question," they said.

"Id prefer to have the results of the experiment stand on their own merits. Im not running this account to answer that question. Im here to pose questions and open the floor up for civil debate," the quipped, adding that they were glad the stunt had managed to do just that.

The anonymous account by @SuspendThePres has come back online after a 12-hour suspension. But many are now following the account to observe what becomes of the social media experiment.

Incidentally, the experiment coincided with a sort of revamping that has been taking place within Twitter in terms of their community guidelines and public health policies.

On June 3, Twitter said that it was committed to making Twitter a place that respected human rights and would move to remove or protect users from any content that threatened those. Through using public notices against content that increase the potential for likely harm, propagate harmful incentives and biases, Twitter seems to be aiming for the proverbial sweet spot between censorship and political correctness.

It has since been propagating a "decrease in reliance on content removal" and "increase in diverse perspectives" by using measures like public notices to "increase public accountability".

Some may critique Twitter's idea of encouraging freedom of speech by regulating problematic speech via warning labels as a rehash of what filmmakers and producers did when they came up with 'R' or 'A' ratings and parental content advisories for films that promoted (albeit by way of depiction) gratuitous violence or sex.

Another test for Twitter would also be the equity with which it deals with various users. In India, for instance, several anti-caste activists such as Dilip Mandal had to wait for years before receiving a blue-tick, despite being renowned and widely cited scholars.

Several users have complained of unfair account suspensions, even as accounts of powerful users such as political leaders, influencers and businesspersons have remained active despite repeated posting of problematic content. Will Twitter's shift toward lesser increased user accountability and decreased policing bring an end to such issues?

Perhaps we would need more experiments like @SuspendThePres's to ascertain that.
Raging fire at natural gas field kills two firefighters and forces nearly 8,000 people to leave their homes.

A raging fire at a natural gas field in remote northeastern Indian state of Assam has killed two firefighters and forced nearly 8,000 people to leave their homes, an official said.

Workers have been trying to cap the well since gas started leaking nearly two weeks ago, Tridiv Hazarika, spokesman for government-owned Oil India Limited (OIL), said on Wednesday.

OIL operates the gas field in Baghjan, 550km (345 miles) east of Assams main city of Guwahati.

The well caught fire after an initial explosion on Tuesday, when the two firefighters went missing. Their bodies were recovered on Wednesday, Hazarika said.

Flames were still leaping nearly 15 metres (50 feet) into the sky more than 36 hours after the inferno began.

We started evacuating people in the vicinity of the well from May 28 onward, and have flown in experts from the Singapore-based company Alert Disaster Control, Hazarika said.

The fire in the periphery of the well has been doused, but it has spread mainly because of the presence of natural gas condensate in the region, Hazarika said.

Hundreds of people came out of villages in the periphery to watch the fire and the thick black plume of smoke which could be seen several kilometres away.

Some 200 engineers and workers  including a team of experts who arrived from Singapore on Monday  are trying to stem the leak within four weeks, the company said.

Environmentalists said they were increasingly worried about the impact of the gas leak.

The well was producing 100,000 standard cubic metres per day (SCMD) of gas from a depth of 3,870 metres (4,234 yards) before the blowout in May, according to the OIL.

Just one kilometre from the field is Maguri-Motapung wetlands, an ecotourism site. State-owned sanctuary Dibru Saikhowa National Park  renowned for migratory birds  is about 2.5km (1.5 miles) away.

Authorities established an exclusion zone of 1.5km (about a mile) and ordered a probe into the deaths of five people from the areas surrounding the field.

But the district administration said a preliminary investigation suggested they died of natural causes.
Wavemaker appoints CEO, CSO as directors

Wavemaker South Africa has appointed chief executive officer Lwandile Qokweni and chief strategy officer Merissa Himraj as its new directors. As the company's directors, Qokweni aims to create a positive working environment for diverse South Africans who are passionate about media, while Himraj will be responsible for the agency's growth, and ensuring its teams are motivated and empowered to deliver on its mandate.



Qokweni is a skilled marketing and business development professional with 19 years of experience. He has been the company's CEO since March 2018 and has previously held both chief strategic officer and managing director roles at MEC Global, which later became Wavemaker. Himraj joined Wavemaker as a business unit manager in 2014, before taking on the role of chief strategy officer in January 2019. She also currently serves on the executive committee of GroupM, Wavemaker's parent company.
WASHINGTON - The independent State Department watchdog fired by President Donald Trump says top department officials tried to bully him and dissuade his office from conducting a review of a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

Former Inspector General Steve Linick told Congress last week that two senior officials sought to block an inquiry into the arms deal, according to a transcript of the interview made public Wednesday by Democrats leading an investigation into his dismissal.

Linick, who had been inspector general since 2013, also said he was looking into previously reported allegations that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife may have misused government staff to run personal errands and several other matters. Trump abruptly fired him late on May 15 with what Linick said was no warning or cited cause.

I was in a state of shock because I had no advance notice of anything like that, Linick said, recalling his reaction when he was informed of Trumps decision. I had no indication whatsoever.

Shortly after the transcript was released, Pompeo called Linick a bad actor who had been acting inappropriately and not in the best interests of the State Department. Pompeo did not address the allegations of attempted bullying. He stood by his recommendation that Trump fire Linick, one of several inspectors general whom the president has recently dismissed.

Linick said he had opened a review of last years $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia at the request of lawmakers who claimed Pompeo had inappropriately circumvented Congress to approve the deal. Linick said the State Departments top management officer, Brian Bulatao, and legal adviser Marik String tried to stop him.

Bulatao said that we shouldnt be doing the work because it was a policy matter not within the IGs jurisdiction, Linick said, adding that both Bulatao and String were of the same mind on the matter.

Linick said in the interview that he believed the Saudi review, which is continuing, was appropriate because it looked at whether proper procedures and regulations were followed. He said he had requested an interview with Pompeo on the matter but had never received a response. Linick acknowledged that Pompeo did respond in writing to questions.

All I can say is its ongoing and their report is ongoing, he said of the Saudi arms sale review.

Linick testified that he repeatedly clashed with Bulatao, a former business associate and close friend of Pompeo, over other issues as well. I would say that sometimes the relationship was professional; at other times, he tried to bully me, he said.

Pompeo, Bulatao and others have said Linick was dismissed in part because of inappropriate actions but also because of the alleged leak of one of his offices reports into accusations of political reprisals by Trump appointees against career State Department officials.

Linick denied his office was responsible for the leak. He said an investigation into the alleged leak by the Defence Department inspector general cleared him and his office.

Linicks office has been highly critical of such retaliation but had also criticized Democratic officials during the Obama administration, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons use of a private email server.

At a State Department news conference, Pompeo questioned the validity of the leak investigation and said he and others still had questions about the origin of information that was critical of the administrations top envoy for Iran, Brian Hook.

We have asked for a more through investigation than Mr. Linick asked for, Pompeo said. Were determined to figure out how that information escaped to harm someone who works here.

In addition to the Saudi arms deal and Pompeos use of government staff, Linick said that at the time of his ouster, his office had open reviews into several other matters. They included issues related to the conduct of the former chief of protocol who was dismissed last year, the curtailment of visas for former Afghan and Iraqi translators who served with U.S. forces, and a controversy over a rescinded Global Women of Courage award.
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How Books and Buckets program in Long Beach aims to keep kids away from gang violence
Author Craig Silvey says he is enormously proud of his first novel in more than a decade. It is set to be one of the biggest releases in Australian literary fiction this year.

Publisher Allen & Unwin has revealed new details about Honeybee, including its release date. It will go head-to-head on the shelves with the years other big-ticket novel, Trent Daltons All Our Shimmering Skies, in October.

Craig Silvey has described his first novel in more than a decade as a "sincere, hopeful book". Credit:Daniel James Grant

In his first comments about the book, Silvey hinted at the tumultuous experience of writing another novel after the runaway success of Jasper Jones. His 2009 novel sold more than 600,000 copies  two-thirds of those in Australia  and was transformed into successful film and stage adaptations.

I put everything I have into writing Honeybee. It tore me up, but it filled me with joy. Im enormously proud of it, Silvey said.
State health officials reported 108 new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, June 9, which marks the fewest in a 24-hour period to date.

Michigan also added 25 new COVID-19 deaths, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Through nearly three months, the state has reported 59,107 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 5,698 deaths linked to the infectious respiratory virus. In addition to those totals, Michigan is now reporting 5,891 probable case and 245 probable deaths that have yet to be confirmed positives by testing.

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Public health experts recommend looking at seven-day moving averages to more accurately track trends during the pandemic. The latest average for new cases per day is 197, which is the lowest average since March 20.

Despite there being a slight increase in deaths over the last few days, the seven-day moving average is at 21, the fewest since March 26.

One week earlier, the state was averaging 375 new cases and 41 new deaths per day.

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Fifty-one of Michigans 83 counties reported no new cases Tuesday. A handful of counties had cases removed from their totals, led by Macomb County with 17 removed and Ingham County with four removed.

Wayne County reported the largest increase with 48 new cases, followed by Kent County with 12, Oakland County with 8 and Muskegon and Calhoun counties with five each.

Heres a look at the Michigan counties with the most confirmed cases.

1. Wayne County: 20,828 cases (2,532 deaths)

2. Oakland County: 8,495 cases (1015 deaths)

3. Macomb County: 6,836 cases (835 deaths)

4. Kent County: 3,966 cases (106 deaths)

5. Genesee County: 2,068 cases (256 deaths)

6. Washtenaw County: 1,353 cases (101 deaths)

7. Saginaw County: 1,108 cases (112 deaths)

8. Kalamazoo County: 878 cases (60 deaths)

9. Ottawa County: 824 cases (43 deaths)

10. Ingham County: 769 cases (28 deaths)

Rollover/click the region numbers on the map to see % positive rate.

Among the 12,215 diagnostic tests processed Monday, June 8, almost 1.9 percent came back positive for COVID-19. Michigan has processed 752,468 diagnostic tests for COVID-19 and 116,586 antibody tests thus far.

Region 5 and 6 in West Michigan reported the highest positive rates at 2.76 percent and 2.84 percent, respectively. The remainder of the regions had positive rates of less than 2 percent.

Dozens of Michigans 250 testing locations offer free testing, and individuals seeking a test no longer need a doctors note to get one.

To find a testing site near you, check out the states online test finder, here, send an email to COVID19@michigan.gov, or call 888-535-6136 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

For more statewide data, visit MLives coronavirus data page, here.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Read more on MLive:

Restaurants, pools, libraries reopen: An updated chart of whats allowed in Michigan

Blue Cross Blue Shield waiving coronavirus treatment costs for Michigan members through year end

How Michigan couples are getting married - or not - during the coronavirus pandemic

Tuesday, June 9: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan
On-line Orders Explode, Exceed $2.4 Million Overnight

WAKEFIELD, Mass., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Byrna Technologies Inc. (OTCQB: BYRN) (CSE: BYRN) ("Byrna" or the "Company"). Last night, Sean Hannity suggested that perhaps non-lethal weapons such as the Byrna HD personal security device might be part of the solution to the recent events that have inspired the protests sweeping the nation over recent weeks. As Hannity spoke, traffic to Byrna's e-commerce site exploded with more than 160,000 web sessions from 9:00pm to 12:00am EDT (compared to 105,000 web sessions for the entire month of May). Additionally, between midnight to 5:00am, Byrna saw another 30,000 visitors to its website.

Byrna received a torrent of orders. At its peak, the Company was receiving more than one order every second. By midnight, it had received over 4,300 orders totaling more than $2.0 million. The Company also received numerous requests from individuals and companies around the world interested in becoming Byrna dealers.

"We are grateful to Sean Hannity for highlighting the benefits of less-lethal options such as the Byrna," stated Bryan Ganz, the Company's CEO, "however, the Company was not prepared for such an onslaught of orders." By 10:00pm EDT the Company modified its website, letting customers know that there would be an 8+ week waiting period to fulfill orders. By 5:15am EDT, the Company had received another 750 orders totaling over $375,000. Consequently, the 24 hour total in new on-line orders for the Byrna HD, ammo and accessories was over $2.45 million.

Byrna is ramping up production by hiring additional workers and adding shifts and is already reaching out to all of its critical vendors to do the same. According to Ganz, "Last night reinforced our strong conviction that people on all sides of the gun debate can agree on one thing  there is a need for a truly effective personal security device that can stop a would-be attacker without the risk of permanent injury or death. We will move heaven and earth to fill the recent influx of orders in the next few months."

The Company remains fully committed to providing its consumers with a safe and effective means of protecting themselves and their families. Byrna will be working diligently to fulfill the open orders as quickly as possible and hope to have all current orders filled by the end of August. As always, producing the highest quality product possible, while maintaining customer satisfaction remains the Company's ultimate priority.

About the Byrna HD

The Byrna HD is the Company's first personal security device designed for the consumer and private security markets. The Byrna HD is engineered with patented designs and proprietary parts to provide an effective non-lethal option for home safety and personal security with the form factor of a compact handgun. The Byrna HD is easy to use, with virtually no recoil and can be fitted with a laser or light to facilitate accurate shooting even by non-gun owners. Unlike pepper spray and stun guns or Tasers, it provides a safety zone of 60 feet and comes with multiple easily reloadable magazines that can hold five .68 caliber highly effective payload rounds designed to burst on impact. Payload rounds include the Company's proprietary chemical irritant and pepper rounds designed to burn an assailant's eyes and respiratory system upon contact, and hard kinetic rounds. The Byrna HD is not a "firearm" and does not require a background check but it is subject to certain state and local regulation. Always check local laws before purchasing or travelling with a Byrna HD or other CO2 powered or "pepper spray" type device

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable U.S. and Canadian securities legislation. All information contained in this news release, other than statements of current and historical fact, is forward-looking information. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "budget", "guidance", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "strategy", "target", "intends", "objective", "goal", "understands", "anticipates" and "believes" (and variations of these or similar words) and statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "should", "might," "occur" or "be achieved" or "will be taken" (and variations of these or similar expressions). Forward-looking information is also identifiable in statements of currently occurring matters which may continue in the future, such as "providing the Company with", "is currently", "allows/allowing for", "will advance" or "continues to" or other statements that may be stated in the present tense with future implications. All of the forward-looking information in this news release is qualified by this cautionary note.

Forward-looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements related to the Company's projections for the quarter ended August 31, 2020, plans and timing related to the Company's ramp up of production to fill new orders, including hiring additional employees, adding shifts, and reaching out to vendors to ensure sufficient supply of critical parts to meet demand . Forward-looking information is not, and cannot be, a guarantee of future results or events. Forward-looking information is based on, among other things, opinions, assumptions, estimates and analyses that, while considered reasonable by Byrna at the date the forward-looking information is provided, inherently are subject to significant risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that may cause actual results and events to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. The material factors or assumptions that Byrna identified and were applied by Byrna in drawing conclusions or making forecasts or projections set out in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to convert orders to sales, the Company's ability to find and hire qualified workers and manage multiple production shifts, the cooperation of third parties such as critical parts suppliers and their willingness and ability to add shifts or take other steps needed to supply parts needed to fill orders, the risk of interruptions in production and the supply chain including the Company's ability to deliver products for any reason including interruptions due to parts availability, illness or quarantines, or delays in deliveries or new or expanded shutdowns related to the current civil unrest or to the Coronavirus (including reclassification of or extension of shutdowns to stores selling essential goods) or extended trade halts or embargos that disrupt the production or shipment of parts or finished goods, parts or finished goods product recalls, legal developments that could impact the sale of or market for the Company's products or prevent or threaten to prevent the Company's sales, reduced demand due to competition, inability to fill orders promptly, insufficient cash to meet increased production costs or increased costs of sales and one time transaction costs whether related to the pandemic or otherwise, negative market response to the Company's products, negative events or publicity related to any Company product, spokesperson, announcement or endorsement that negatively impacts the Company's marketing plans or reputation, and the financial and product market conditions and other events including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing civil unrest in the United State. Should one or more risk, uncertainty, contingency, or other factor materialize, or should any factor or assumption prove incorrect, actual results could vary materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Accordingly, the reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Byrna does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this news release or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law.

SOURCE Byrna Technologies Inc.

Related Links

https://byrna.com/


ICC: Israel war crime probe faces no obstacles

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 2:35 PM

The International Criminal Court (ICC) says a potential probe of war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians can proceed despite warnings and allegations to the contrary by the regime and its ally the United States.

The ICC's Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda made the remarks on Monday after the court's Pretrial Chamber asked her whether the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) would prevent initiation of such a case, saying the agreements had no impact on the conduct of such investigation.

The 1993 and 1995 accords purportedly sought to enable "peace" between the two sides based on UN Security Council resolutions and realize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.

Israel has alleged that the agreements prevent the PA from lodging a case with the court against Tel Aviv.

On May 19, however, PA chief Mahmoud Abbas said the Authority no longer viewed itself as bound by the Oslo Accords due to an intention announced by Israel to annex some 30 percent of the occupied West Bank in a US-backed move.

Last December, Bensouda announced that she was "satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine."

A PA-appointed committee has trusted The Hague-based tribunal with dossiers on Israel's 2014 war on Gaza that killed thousands of Palestinians, the regime's illegal settlement construction on the occupied territories, and its abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.

Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the court against asserting jurisdiction over Israel, saying the United States would "exact consequences" for any "illegitimate" investigations.

Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute from which the ICC draws its power, and may, therefore, refuse to cooperate with a potential investigation.

The ICC has, however, accepted Palestine as a state with the status to file a complaint that could lead to the probe.

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Mughawir al-Thawra have seen off an attack by the regime, who attempted to attack the 55 kilometer zone in the Badia region reports Al-Modon.

The Mughawar al-Thawra group, a faction within the Syrian National Army, announced that it repulsed an attack by regime forces on Monday in the 55 kilometer zone in the Syrian Badia region along the Syrian-Iraqi border. In a statement, the group stressed that it, will not tolerate any party that tries to attack the 55 kilometer zone, and will respond with force.

The faction said that regime forces mobilized along the western border of the 55 kilometer zone. As they attempted to approach the area, clashes broke out between the two sides, resulting in heavy losses for the attacking forces. The group, which receives support from the International Coalition, affirmed that regime forces had been defeated outside the zone.

Mughawir al-Thawra has repeatedly halted attempts by regime forces to attack the zone, previously announcing that it had killed 12 regime and Iranian fighters who had tried to approach. In February, the faction announced the death of one of its own fighters during clashes with regime forces who had infiltrated the zone.

The International Coalition against the Islamic State controls the 55 kilometer zone, where the al-Tanf US military garrison is located, as well as the al-Rukban displacement camp.

The US and Mughawir al-Thawra conducted joint military exercises in al-Tanf and its surroundings in September 2019, and in October 2018, when it carried out training airstrikes within the 55 kilometer zone near the garrison to demonstrate their ability to protect the area from any threat.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Amos Stern, CEO & co-founder, Siemplify Siemplify Cloud is the first offering with the flexibility and functionality required to enable security teams of all sizes to reap the benefits of SOAR.

Siemplify, the leading independent provider of security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), today announced Siemplify Cloud, the industrys first cloud-native security operations platform. Reimagined for cloud delivery, Siemplify Cloud enables end-users and MSSPs to hit the ground running and derive value from SOAR faster than ever before, removing much of the complexity involved in deploying, maintaining and operating a SOAR platform.

Built using cloud-native technologies, Siemplify Cloud also makes it easier than ever to secure hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Siemplify Cloud seamlessly connects to native cloud threat detection technologies, traditional detection tools, such as SIEM and EDR, as well as any on-premises tools, effectively bridging the gap between cloud and on-premises security operations to deliver unified incident response at the speed of cloud.

The Siemplify Security Operations Platform combines SOAR with end-to-end security operations management to make analysts more productive, security engineers more effective and managers more informed about the SOC. Trusted by many of the worlds leading enterprises and MSSPs, security teams leverage Siemplify to reduce alert overload, build automated processes that slash response times and measure and improve SOC performance.

The technologies that security operations teams rely on daily, such as SIEM, EDR and threat intelligence, are moving to the cloud at an accelerated pace, said Amos Stern, CEO and co-founder of Siemplify. Coupled with the fact that nearly every enterprise has a growing cloud footprint it needs to secure, there is no better place for a security operations platform than the cloud. We are thrilled to continue to demonstrate our leadership and commitment to the SOAR category by providing a true cloud-native SOAR platform.

Siemplify Cloud is available in the following packages:



Essentials: For smaller security operations teams looking to automate key use cases quickly and easily. Siemplify Essentials includes all pre-packaged use cases, as well as the ability to build custom playbooks.

Professional: For larger security operations teams with more advanced security processes and higher alert volumes, Siemplify Professional features unlimited alert volume, playbook creation and includes a dedicated customer success manager.

Enterprise: For enterprise SOCs looking to manage large scale security operations from end to end. Siemplify Enterprise includes advanced capabilities, such as crisis management, business intelligence and premium 24/7 support.

Service Provider: For MSSPs looking to deliver high-margin, tailored security services to a diverse and demanding customer base. Siemplify Service Provider includes unlimited multi-tenancy, secure remote connectivity to customer sites and a customer portal for complete visibility into managed operations.

The Siemplify Community Edition continues to be available for free download for the benefit of the security community.

All Siemplify Cloud versions make extensive use of Siemplifys use case marketplace. Deployed in minutes, use cases are designed to address a specific challenge, such as ransomware or phishing, and come packaged with all the playbooks, integrations and data required to get up and running. New use cases are continuously added by Siemplify experts, as well as members of the Siemplify Community and instantly available to all Siemplify Cloud users.

The combination of an on-premises deployment, time-consuming playbook creation and a lofty price tag has traditionally put SOAR out of reach for all but the highest end of the market, Stern said. Siemplify Cloud is the first offering with the flexibility and functionality required to enable security teams of all sizes to reap the benefits of SOAR.

Starting at $2,500/month, Siemplify Cloud is generally available. Security professionals can sign up for a free 14-day trial of Siemplify Essentials and Siemplify Professional by visiting: siemplify.co/get-started.

About Siemplify

Siemplify, the leading independent security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) provider, is redefining security operations for enterprises and MSSPs worldwide. The Siemplify platform is an intuitive workbench that enables security teams to manage their operations from end to end, respond to cyberthreats with speed and precision and get smarter with every analyst interaction. Founded in 2015 by Israeli Intelligence experts, with extensive experience running and training security operations centers worldwide, Siemplify has raised $58 million in funding to date and is headquartered in New York, with offices in Tel Aviv. Visit us at siemplify.co or follow us on Twitter at @Siemplify.

Products, service names and company logos mentioned herein may be registered trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
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New Delhi: A dust storm engulfed Delhi-NCR on Wednesday (June 10) after a sizzling heatwave. Thunderstorm with light rain accompanied with gusty winds of the speed of 40-50 kmph occurred over the Delhi-NCR

The dust storm followed by rains has led to a decline in the mercury level in the Delhi-NCR. The rains in Delhi-NCR also contributed to a change in the weather patterns, bringing relief from the humid summer.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) earlier forecasted that humidity and heat will persist throughout the week. From Saturday, the weather is expected to change. There will be some relief on Sunday also, but heat and humidity will continue.

The next week, however, is likely to witness rain. From June 15, the maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to gradually reach around 35 and 26 degrees Celsius, said the IMD. The change in weather will give relief to people from both heat and humidity.

Notably, South West Monsoon is likely to reach Delhi by the last week of this month. The IMD has forecasted its arrival in the Delhi-NCR by June 27.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the country's health and interior ministers are to be questioned Wednesday by prosecutors looking into how the government handled the coronavirus pandemic, news agencies reported.

Sources close to the probe were cited as saying Conte, Health Minister Roberto Speranza and Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese would be asked in particular about the failure to designate hotspot areas so-called 'red zones', allowing the virus to spread.

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Mr Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, Election 2016 Presidential Candidate of the Convention People's Party (CPP), has declared his intention to contest the party's flagbearership with a mission to re-organise and position the party to win Election 2020.

He acknowledged the need to overhaul the party, strengthen the structures, with resources to undertake effective campaigns to enhance its electoral fortunes, which calls for collective united front from all.

Mr Greenstreet, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the comeback was to join forces to build the party, while admitting that there are challenges within the party which is affecting party cohesion but promised to work to address the concerns of party members to ensure a united front towards fighting for political power.

The CPP Flagbearer Aspirant is a lawyer as well as a writer and publisher. He was called to the Ghana Bar and the English Bar (Inner Temple).

Mr Greenstreet contested as a parliamentary candidate in 1996 on the ticket of the CPP but had to withdraw due to the Great Alliance at that time.

In 2004, he again contested as a parliamentary candidate for the CPP in the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency and had 4,964 votes for the party prior to that election the vote for CPP in that constituency had never exceeded 500.

He was later elected as General Secretary in 2007 and again in 2011, being the only national officer to be re-elected for a second term.

---GNA
Emotional US legislative debate comes as big states and cities move ahead with sweeping reforms of police departments.

A still-grieving Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, testified on Wednesday before the United States Congress in support of police reforms proposed by Democratic politicians.

Im tired. Im tired of pain, the pain you feel when you watch your big brother  who you looked up to your whole life  die, begging for his mom, Floyd said.

He did not deserve to die over 20 dollars. Is that what a Black mans life is worth? Floyd asked, as he called for justice for his late brother  whom friends and family called Perry.

Now, Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced sweeping reform legislation to address police brutality. The bill is headed for a vote in the House by the end of June, but faces opposition from Republicans and President Donald Trump, setting up an emotionally-charged political contest going into Novembers US elections.

Floyd died while being arrested by police in Minneapolis on May 25 on suspicion of attempting to buy cigarettes with a counterfeit bill. With Floyd handcuffed, face down on the street, and restrained by three cops, a white officer pressed his knee into Floyds neck until he went unconscious and his heart stopped beating. The scene was recorded by a bystander, and the video  distributed via social media  triggered protests and riots nationwide.

The House bill would ban chokeholds, end racial and religious profiling and eliminate judicial immunity for officers charged with abuse. A House vote could come by the end of June.

Republican efforts

In the US Senate, five Republican senators led by Senator Tim Scott, the Senates only African-American Republican, are developing alternative legislation that may offer compromises to Democrats but would carry limited change.

Scott told reporters at the US Capitol that the bill would focus on training for police in de-escalation tactics but would not ban chokeholds or adopt other proposals Democrats want. Scott said he hopes to get a Senate vote on the bill by early July.

Meanwhile, throughout the US at local and state levels, public officials are proposing sweeping changes.

Trump is scheduled to meet with police officials in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday and will give remarks on his views of police reforms proposals, a White House spokesman told reporters.

Local moves

In Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, the city council has voted to dismantle the police department, which civic leaders judged cannot be reformed, and will seek to create a new public safety system.

New York City is discussing cuts to the police departments budget and reallocating the funds to youth and social services. The New York State Legislature quickly passed a new law that will make police disciplinary records and misconduct complaints available to the public.

The mayor of Los Angeles has proposed a $250m reduction in the citys police department and the redirection of the money to healthcare, jobs and community development in the Black community.

The proposed federal legislation would not directly defund police departments. Those decisions are made at the state and local levels.

The Democratic bill, however, would withhold federal funding from police departments that do not ban the use of chokeholds. It calls for a national registry of cops who are fired for misconduct.

Republicans and police unions oppose those changes in US policy and are accusing Democrats of taking a dangerous policy approach by slashing police budgets.

Unions fight back

It is pure insanity to defund our police, and the fact that our Democrat colleagues wont speak out against that policy is crazy, said Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican.

Great statement to Congress by @Jim_Jordan concerning Defunding (not!) our great Police. This Radical Left agenda is not going to happen. Sleepy Joe Biden will be (already is) pulled all the way Left. Many, like Minneapolis, want to close their Police Departments. Crazy!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

Police unions are fighting back against the proposed budget cuts and new accountability measures. In Los Angeles, the police union called the mayor unstable and warned budget cuts would lead to greater crime.

At the House hearing, Darrell Scott, CEO of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, described how budget cuts for police in Cleveland, Ohio have resulted in greater crime and decline in the USs 15th largest metropolitan area.

Defunding of our police departments has already happened and it has proven to be an epic fail, Scott told Congress.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Monday in Houston as he met with Floyds family that he does not support defunding police, a rallying cry of the protesters.

I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honourableness, Biden told a US television interviewer.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil and human rights groups are calling for reductions in funding for police.

Smaller police role

We are calling for divestment from law enforcement agencies and reinvestment into the Black and Brown communities that have been harmed by over-policing and mass incarceration, the ACLU said in a statement

The role of police has to be smaller, more circumscribed, and less funded with taxpayer dollars, the ACLU said.

Paul Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University, told Congress that, historically, violent protests by Black people in the US have always been sparked by police abuse.

We need the police to stop killing us, to stop beating us up, to stop arresting us in situations in which they would not do those things to white people, said Butler, who is African-American.

The Democrats proposed legislation heralds the urgency of transformation, said Butler, who is the author of a book titled Chokehold: Policing Black Men.

Ron Davis, a former US Department of Justice official in the Obama administration, said the Trump administrations policies undoing reforms proposed by former President Barack Obama are dangerous.

The institutional structures of US police departments were established in the mid-1900s to enforce Jim Crow laws that discriminated against African-Americans, Davis said.

The US House legislation would provide federal grants to localities to develop new models of policing and community support. Davis called on Congress to collaborate with communities to redefine and reimagine policing.

Dan Bongino, a pro-Trump talk radio host and former Secret Service officer, warned that defunding police departments would shred the thin all between civilization and chaos.

Please stop this defund-the-police abomination before someone gets hurt, Bongino said
White lab coats and dangerous experiments all epitomise the 'mad scientist' from many a Hollywood blockbuster but, even beyond the silver screen, the stereotype lives on, and according to new research, it could mar the next generation of potential scientists.

Conducted by the University of South Australia and the Australian Catholic University, the new research shows how gender stereotypes influence young people's perceptions of scientists, with findings showing that despite enjoying science, few children are interested in pursuing it as a career.

UniSA researcher, Dr Garth Stahl and ACU researcher Dr Laura Scholes say understanding how stereotypes of science and scientists can influence children's career aspirations - even at the primary school level - is important if we are to tackle the skills shortage in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

"Primary school is a time when kids are influenced by all sorts of stereotypes - through books, TV and movies. In the case of science, media often shows scientists to be eccentric men in white coats," Dr Stahl says.

"The problem with stereotypes is that they tend to stick, so what we're seeing with primary school students is that their perceptions of science and scientists are influencing their ideas of future careers."

In this study, researchers interviewed 45 (29 male and 16 female) Year four (9-10-year-olds) primary school students, across six economically and geographically diverse schools. Children were asked about the job they'd like when they grew up; whether they'd like to be a scientist; what kind of work a scientist did; and what a scientist might look like.

The majority of students (55 per cent) both Scholes and Stahl spoke with had no aspirations to be a scientist; six were ambivalent; and 13 said they would strongly consider a job as a scientist. Nearly 40 per cent of students said they 'did not like' science, and that it was 'boring' or 'weird'.

A heartening finding was that most students did not see gender as a defining factor for a scientist, with only two students saying a scientist was 'usually a man'.

"The fact that most kids said science could be a career for a woman or a man, shows just how far we've come in terms of gender, and the waning of gender stereotypes may reflect the impact of a range of initiatives across Australia to normalise women in STEM," Dr Stahl says.

"But there's still room to do more, especially as students talked about stereotypical images of scientists wearing white coats and protective goggles and doing lab-based experiments.

"The notion of science being 'weird', 'unusual', 'dangerous' and 'challenging', is a barrier that we still need to tackle, with many kids feeling that a career in science could be too difficult or high-pressure for them to achieve.

"It's two steps forward, one step back - gender stereotypes may be in decline, but we still have a long way to go if we are to get children to understand the role of a modern scientist."

###

Media contact: Annabel Mansfield office +61 8 8302 0351 mobile +61 417 717 504

email Annabel.Mansfield@unisa.edu.au

Researcher: Dr Garth Stahl office +61 404 804 323 email: Garth.Stahl@unisa.edu.au

NOTES TO EDITORS:

The full article - 'I'm good at science but I don't want to be a scientist': Australian primary school student stereotypes of science and scientists - is published in International Journal of Inclusive Education and is available online here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13603116.2020.1751316?journalCode=tied20
School is going to look very different for Oregon students come fall.

The state Department of Education on Wednesday released mandatory and recommended guidelines for districts to reintroduce pupils to classrooms. They include social distancing guidelines, cleaning protocols and instructions to cluster classes into smaller groups to manage potential spread of COVID-19.

We are all leading through a time that nobody has experienced before. A global pandemic is a new challenge for school districts in Oregon, state schools chief Colt Gill said.

School districts will have to submit blueprints for how they plan on adhering to these new guidelines by Aug. 15. The education department will host districts blueprints on its website.

This will help parents understand exactly what it is their school is doing to ensure safety, Gill said.

Those blueprints will differ between districts, department officials say, as state education and health officials recognize communities across the state have different needs.

Its an approach Jim Green, executive director of the Oregon School Board Association, agrees with.

We understand that our students, parents and staff members are facing numerous challenges in safely restarting school this fall, he said in a statement. This is unfamiliar ground for all of us, and what works at one school district may look quite different at another.

Districts will have three overarching options for what classes will look like during the 2020-21 school year.

They can opt for a model where students return to school buildings for all their lessons, continue exclusively offering distance learning or combine the two approaches.

When students are inside school buildings, educators will need to keep them at least six feet apart and limit the number of people per classroom or other interior space so that each person has 35 square feet of space.

Every time we say people can come together, those are opportunities for transmission. In this process, we want to mitigate all of those, Gill said. "Individual plans need to be responsive to local public health but they also need to have heavy responsibility to keep people safe.

In deciding which model to use, districts must assess their building and staffing capacity, what percentage of school employees and students belong to demographics particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus and the local communitys rate of infection.

Older children should be able to easily follow physical distancing guidelines, Reynolds School District Superintendent Danna Diaz said. Educators in the Reynolds district will mark up common areas such as cafeterias with tape to show students where they can safely stand.

Elementary music teachers in the Reynolds district are composing songs to teach younger children about physical distancing and how to properly wash their hands.

Kindergarteners and first graders do a really good job of listening to their music teachers and PE teachers, Diaz said. "They love touching each other and theyve got to understand they have to keep their distance and wash their hands.

Hillsboro school district officials used tape to mark off separate, safely distanced play spaces for children in a child care program for essential workers' children at Century High. Schools all across Oregon will need to keep students of all ages six feet apart when schools reopen in August or September, state officials say. That will require reducing class sizes, asking students to attend on alternating days or other creative solutions, they say.Photo by Omar Rivera/Hillsboro School District

State officials say class sizes should be adjusted in an effort to maintain proper distancing and say teachers may use outdoor space and common areas to spread students out.

One option is for teachers to split their classes into smaller chunks and have students alternate which days they physically attend school, according to the state guidance. For instance, one half of the class could attend on Tuesdays and Thursdays while the other attends Wednesdays and Fridays.

Gill said that, under that approach, teachers would either livestream lessons for students who arent in the classroom or send home packets covering that days material.

In middle and high schools, the Department of Education suggests rigging student schedules so they stay in the same classroom while teachers cycle in and out.

The state will require adults who regularly come within six feet of students to wear face masks or transparent shields  a mandate that all but assures nearly every school employee across the state must have one.

Students wont be required to wear face coverings, state officials say, although it will be recommended.

The requirement poses an added expense for districts as they slice their coming years budget in anticipation of a shortfall in state revenues.

Gill said the Department of Education may dole out cash assistance for districts to buy their own masks and protective barriers or possibly purchase its own stock and provide personal protective equipment for districts that request it.

That way, Gill said, the state may be able to leverage a lower price per unit as it negotiates a bulk order with suppliers. The Oregon Department of Education received $121 million in CARES Act funding from the federal government, $109 million of which has already been distributed to districts.

Children who physically attend school must be screened for symptoms before they enter the building or hop on the bus, whichever comes first. If any student or school employee shows symptoms of COVID-19, including a fever, dry cough or shortness of breath, theyre to be immediately isolated and sent home.

Each school will designate a point person to enforce social distancing rules and report to the state any suspected coronavirus infections.

In order to return to the school building, those sent home will need to either be tested or wait three days after their fever breaks without the use of any medication to bring it down.

If a student or school employee tests positive for COVID-19, theyll need to wait at least 10 days before returning or after testing negative twice, with those tests being administered at least 24 hours apart.

State guidance also requires districts to consistently clean playground equipment, common areas, classrooms and door handles. Students also wont be allowed to share materials like scissors, pencils or art kits.

Oregon Rep. Cheri Helt, R-Bend, in a statement said she hoped guidelines for reopening wouldnt prove excessive and unrealistic, emphasizing her position that students should be in classrooms across the state come fall.

Failure to open is unacceptable and unfair to all our kids and families. We cannot sacrifice two years of learning to fear and a lack of creativity. Local districts should be allowed to design safe classroom learning experiences, Helt said. Until a vaccine arrives, our schools must adapt so every kid can learn, grow and achieve. This virus is temporary, their education is not.

Gill said the state guidelines are meant to address the challenges of potentially shepherding more than half a million students back into their classrooms. The Department of Education will revisit them at least three times before September on June 30, July 21 and Aug. 11.

While these guidelines may seem challenging, we think this is the safest way to begin and maybe loosen restrictions as we go forward, Gill said.

And when students do return to their classrooms, educators will be charged with attending to their social and emotional needs first and assess their academic standing after that.

What we want to happen in the fall is for our educators to reestablish that care and connection with their students, Gill said.

--Eder Campuzano | 503-221-4344 | @edercampuzano

Eder is The Oregonians education reporter. Do you have a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email ecampuzano@oregonian.com.

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.

Oregons education reporters are looking for parents who would like to speak with a journalist about the effects coronavirus is having on families across the state. Would you like to chat with one of us? Fill out this form.
Joe Biden, who has received increasing pressure to pick a woman of color to be his running mate, said Tuesday night that the weeks of George Floyd protests over racial injustice have not changed the way he plans to move forward with selecting his No. 2.

Biden, 77, did claim that the recent events have increased his 'focus and urgency' to announce who he plans to help bring him across the finish line in November  and repeated that he plans to pick someone who is 'ready to be president on day one.'

The presumed Democratic nominee has said publicly for months that he plans to pick a female running mate, and has previewed that he has a list of women he has in mind for the job.

He also hopes to announce his decision by early August  just ahead of the postponed date for the Democratic National Convention.

Biden reiterated in an interview with CBS News' Norah O'Donnell on Tuesday night that he still wants a running mate who 'is ready to be president on day one,' adding that he plans to select someone who is 'totally simpatico' with his philosophy.

'It's really important that whomever you pick as a vice president agrees with you in terms of your philosophy of government and agrees with you on the systemic things that you wanna change,' Biden said during the interview.

Presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden claimed that the George Floyd protests have not affected the way he plans to move forward with selecting a running mate

The nationwide protests over racial injustices  especially between the black community and police  has increased public pressure for Biden to choose a woman of color as his vice presidential running mate

Biden has publicly vowed for months that he plans to pick a woman running mate 'who is ready to be president on day one.' On his short list are California Sen. Kamala Harris (top left), Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (top right), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (bottom left) and Florida Rep. Val Demings (bottom right)

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, another short-list contender, has also garnered a higher public profile over the past few weeks in the midst of the protests

This week, Biden sharply rejected the idea that he supports defunding police  a movement many protesters are demanding and that the far-left wing of the Democratic Party has embraced.

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has also, on several occasions, thrown her name in the ring for Biden to consider her for the position

'While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments that are violating people's rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police,' Biden wrote in an op-ed published in USA Today on Wednesday morning. 'The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.'

The decisive stance on the defund movement received praise from more moderate and establishment Democrats, but was scorned by more progressive factions of the party.

Biden told CBS that his vice president will 'be someone who is not at all intimidated by the president, not at all intimidated walking in the White House.'

'And is going to be prepared to give their unvarnished opinion and be able to privately argue with the president if they disagree. I want someone strong,' he asserted. 'I want someone strong, and someone who can  who is ready to be president on day one.'

The former vice president's list of potential running mates includes California Senator Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Florida Representative Val Demings and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

In the midst of protests following the death of Floyd at the hands of a white cop during an arrest in Minneapolis at the end of last month, there has been more calls for Biden to choose a woman who is also a minority.

This has boosted Harris, Demings and Lance Bottoms' chances of clinching the spot.

Stacey Abrams, who served in the Georgia House of Representatives before losing her bid to become the state's governor in 2018 to her Republican competitor Brian Kemp, has several times thrown her name in the ring to become Biden's VP.

Biden also says he wants a running mate who agrees with him 'philosophically,' as he recently came out against the defund police movement  which many protesters and the far-left faction of the Democratic party have embraced in the midst of protests

Biden, his aides and his surrogates have never mentioned Abrams being on the short list.

During a fundraiser with Harris Tuesday night, Biden showered praise on his former competition for the Democratic nomination.

'She's been a fighter and a principled leader, and I know because I've seen her up close, and I've seen her in the trenches,' he said during the event, according to a poll report of the event.

Of rising race tension between black people and police, Biden said he had been speaking with Harris and Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson.

'I was calling Bennie to ask him to take a position  anyway. And we were talking,' Biden said. 'He said, I can't believe it. Here in Mississippi we hadpeople marching. He said, Joe I looked out there. There was as many young white men and women as young black men and women. In Mississippi. In Mississippi!'

'Our nation is reeling in anguish and anger over the brutal killing of George Floyd or the systemic racism that still infects every part of our society -- as Kamala knows better than anybody. At the same time, we're facing the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression,' Biden said, speaking of both the nationwide protests and the vast economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden just now earned enough delegates over the weekend to qualify him to become the Democratic nominee.

He became the presumed candidate in early April, when the remaining competition, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden.

As Biden continues to see a boost in polling in the midst of nation turmoil, it becomes even more clear that he will choose a more well-known candidate to run alongside him  like Harris or Warren.

The boost against Trump comes as Biden continues to garner support from voters of color and the president faces criticism, even within his own party, over his handling of the riots and protests.

In a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released over the weekend, Biden received 82 per cent support among African American voters compared to Trump's measly 9 per cent.

Also in that survey, eight in 10 Americans claimed things are 'out of control' in the midst of George Floyd riots and the continuing coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout that ensued.

Among all registered voters, Joe Biden held his 7 per cent lead against the president.

A separate CNN poll released Monday revealed Biden held a 14 point lead against Trump.

On Monday, Biden traveled to Houston, Texas to meet with George Floyd's family the day before his funeral.

The same day, Trump held a meeting with law enforcement officials and attorneys general to discuss policing in the U.S.  and specifically showered praise on the good work of police officers.
In the wake of George Floyds death, protesters across the country are calling on officials to defund the police. WSJs Shelby Holliday examines what the phrase means and how it might work. Photo: Ragan Clark / Associated Press
One part marketing genius, one part philanthropic, and two dashes timely, Singapore Airlines yesterday launched an initiative that may be the only worthwhile way you spend your KrisFlyer points this year.

Not only is this just what the world needs right now, but it also sheds light on how Main Players in the airline industry will gain and maintain their customer support through these challenging times.

First of all though: what the heck is it? The new project lets KrisFlyer members donate their airline miles to buy edible treats for 100,000 frontliners and other unsung Singaporean heroes in the battle against the pandemic.

This includes healthcare workers, conservancy workers, public transport operators, taxi drivers and migrant workers.

RELATED: Air Canada Makes Dramatic Change To Assist Medical Workers Amid Pandemic

Named KrisPay It Forward, the donation is done via the KrisPay app. With each donation of 450 KrisPay miles (equivalent to S$3, or AU $3.11), KrisFlyer members can purchase one food item.

These include a samosa set, a muffin and bun set, milk tea or green tea set, doughnut set and a curry puff set. These items will be provided by KrisPay partners such as Anglo Indian Cafe and Bar, Cedele, Gong Cha, Krispy Kreme, Polar Puffs & Cakes and Sakunthalas Food Palace.

The campaign will run until July 15, or until the target funding of 50,000 treats is met. Singapore Airlines will match this with another 50,000 treats. The treats will be prepared by SIAs partners and delivered to recipients after the target has been reached.

If youre a KrisFlyer member and want to donate, all you need to do is download and log in to the KrisPay app. Next, click on the KrisPay It Forward link in the Highlights section and follow the instructions. Members can top up their KrisPay wallet with KrisFlyer miles and donate any amount they wish.

Of the initiative, JoAnn Tan, Acting Senior Vice President, Marketing Planning, said: This initiative provides a platform for KrisFlyer members to show their support for frontliners, and as well as many of the unsung heroes in our community.

This is our small way of thanking them by giving them a well-deserved treat, and giving local businesses a boost at the same time.

This comes in the context of Singapores flagship airline returning to Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane and unlocking free e-magazines and newspapers for passengers.

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At a time when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is battling the daily rise in Covid-19 cases, it is mired in another controversy  mishandling of bodies of confirmed or suspected Covid-19 patients.

Recently, two patients went missing from the hospitals, only for the bodies to be found in the morgue in one case and on the railway tracks in the other. The body of a Covid suspect was handed over without waiting for the test result, while in another, a patient was cremated without informing his family. BMC on Wednesday said inquiries are being conducted in each complaint. In two instances, the civic body has also ordered probes against its staffers. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has blamed BMC for mismanagement.

The first case involved a 74-year-old Kalachowkie resident, who was admitted to KEM Hospital on May 14. The patients nephew said, We got a call on May 19 that his condition was critical, and on May 20, we got a call that he was not present in the ward. On May 25, we even filed a police complaint. However, later on June 2, we got a call from the hospital saying there was some confusion and his body was in the hospital itself. We understand there is a shortage of staff, but something like this should not happen with anyone. In our case, it looks like a case of miscommunication among hospital staff, considering only the staff could have kept the body in the morgue.

In another case reported by Hindustan Times on Wednesday, an 80-year-old Covid-19 patient admitted to Shatabdi Hospital was missing from the Covid ward for 12 hours. It was later discovered that the patient had died in a train accident at Borivli railway station on Monday. He was admitted to Shatabdi Hospital with severe body pain and vomiting on Saturday. His Covid-19 test results came positive on Sunday and he was shifted to a Covid ward. The hospital authorities could not explain to the family how the patient left the hospital when he was in a Covid ward.

Pramod Nagarkar, medical superintendent of Shatabdi Hospital, said, I have instructed our assistant security officer to investigate the matter and take necessary disciplinary action against the security lapses. Also, I have asked them to strengthen the CCTV system, if required.

In the third case, the body of a 62-year-old suspected Covid-19 victim was handed over to her kin by the civic-run Sion hospital without confirming if the woman was infected. The 62-year-old was admitted to the makeshift hospital at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) as a Covid suspect and later shifted to Sion

hospital.

Last week, the Jogeshwari Trauma Hospital performed the last rites of a 41-year-old, terming the body unclaimed. The family complained that the hospital and police cremated the body without informing them. The police insisted that the familys address was not found and the family claimed they were quarantined.

When asked about the BKC and Shatabdi hospital incidents, municipal commissioner IS Chahal said, Our IAS officer concerned is looking into the matter.

BMC, on the other hand, issued a statement stating, Allegations are being made that six bodies have gone missing from various hospitals of BMC till now. However, these bodies have not disappeared. The cases related to KEM, Nair, Sion, Jogeshwari trauma centre and Shatabdi hospitals have been solved. Although, these incidents occurred mainly due to lack of contact with relatives or late contact with relatives. In five out of six cases, the bodies have been identified, relatives have been informed or appropriate action has been taken along with the police administration as per the guidelines. An inquiry has been ordered by the administration into the Rajawadi hospital case and a separate explanation is being sent. One should co-operate with health system, and facts should not be distorted.

Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar reacted to the incident on Wednesday saying: There will be strict action against officials responsible for the negligence. Earlier, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had said the state machinery was vigilant. We are taking information on these incidents and it will soon be made public, he said.

The BJP on Wednesday lodged a complaint at the BKC police station against the civic body. BJP leader and former MP Kirit Somaiya, who is one of the complainants, said, It is criminal to handle patients the way civic hospitals have been doing. How can patients go missing? We will be lodging complaints in all such cases. We will get justice for all such families.

Meanwhile, Dr Siddarth Paliwal, a Mumbai-based health consultant with a private hospital, said, The reason could be lack of manpower to monitor those admitted. In case of dead bodies going missing, there could be lack of communication among hospital staff. This is also because of the burden on the staff with many not reporting to duty. The staff strength has to be augmented to ensure there is no serious lapse in the future and to give timely rest to the existing staff.

In a non-Covid case, a body of 23-year-old man who was stabbed to death went missing from the civic-run Rajawadi Hospital. The civic body on Tuesday also announced an inquiry, the report of which will be out in five days. In the same case, the Tilak Nagar police have registered a case against an unknown medical officer and morgue in-charge of Rajawadi hospital.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner of BMC, said, We have issued fresh instructions to all officers concerned about the process to handle, dispose of and upload information about Covid-19 deaths on the website in 48 hours after the death. There is exception in cases such as non-availability of relatives or where further medical examination is requiredWe have asked all staff members to be more vigilant, especially the staff of the mortuary.
One day after he signed a bill expanding COVID-19 reporting requirements, Gov. Charlie Baker filed a new data-collection proposal that he hopes will put a finer point on tracking the viruss impact.

At a Tuesday press conference in Lawrence, Baker said his proposal builds on what the Legislature sent him by giving public health authorities more power to access the data they need in order to comply with the new requirements.The bill (H 4672) Baker signed requires the state Department of Public Health to compile and publish daily reports on the viruss impact, and his new bill (S 2753) imposes additional mandates on the local sources from which the DPH draws that information.

Baker told reporters the integrity of DPH data depends on what laboratories, local health departments, long-term care facilities and correctional facilities communicate to the administration."Currently the law makes clear that DPH is required to collect data on COVID-19 cases and patient demographics, but whats not so clear is what the provider community and the lab community has to submit to DPH," Baker said. We believe that this (bill) will help improve the spirit of the law to have accurate and complete reporting and to have everybody whos part of that process compelled to actually deliver the information that well be looking for on a timely basis.In a letter to the Legislature alongside his new bill, Baker said the existing law fails to codify the providers and laboratories responsibility to timely and completely report this data to the Department.

The governors new proposal would empower the DPH to issue fines of up to $2,000 per day upon entities that fail to provide data required under the new law to the department.

Bakers bill also seeks two other changes to the law he just signed: it would explicitly allow the DPH to aggregate data when doing so would not violate federal law or privacy rights, and it would also exempt elderly housing complexes from the requirements to report COVID-19 case information among their tenants.The governor said he agrees that a section of the law imposing those reporting mandates on long-term care facilities is valid because they have access to residents health information, but that it should not extend to all forms of senior housing."Certainly, improved data collection makes sense for nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities, who play a critical role with respect to patient care, but the law also includes other housing complexes, which could come with a few problems," Baker said. Landlords, generally speaking, do not and should not have access to a tenants private healthcare records, nor should they have the burden of reporting that to the Department of Public Health.

Baker has included data-reporting mandates in executive orders during the crisis, and he said Tuesday that his bill will ensure those requirements remain in place even after the state of emergency he declared on Mach 10 ends.

If all goes according to plan, we wont be in an emergency forever, he said. We would really like to have statutory authority that can sustain this process going forward in place so that there is no doubt about the fact that this isnt something were expecting people to participate in for just the period of the emergency. We want to have a statutory framework in place that is permanent.

Baker could have proposed measures in his new bill as amendments to the bill that the Legislature sent him on May 28, but he opted to sign it on Sunday after taking the full 10 days he is allotted for review. Now hes hoping the Legislature will restart the data debate.

Lawmakers themselves took more than a month on the matter. House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka announced support on April 16 for legislation to require robust data collection and a diversity task force, but the two branches traded competing proposals and occasional barbs before settling on the final version.

Over the course of the crisis, the DPH has increased the COVID-19 information it offers daily. While the department is currently publishing much of the case data the bill requires, there had not been a requirement in statute, and some key gaps exist.

In a section of Mondays update describing cases by race or ethnicity, 36.2 percent of total cases were labeled as race or ethnicity unknown or missing.The new law requires elder care facilities, including the state-run soldiers homes in Chelsea and Holyoke that have both experienced deadly outbreaks, to provide daily reports on the virus to local health departments.

It also creates a task force that will study how Massachusetts can address health disparities amid the outbreak, instructing the panel to submit an interim report by June 30 and a final report by Aug. 1.

The pandemic has hit communities of color and senior populations particularly hard. Most of the municipalities with the highest rates of infection have significant or majority nonwhite populations.

More than half of the total COVID-19 deaths in Massachusetts -- 4,597 out of 7,353, as of Monday -- have been reported in long-term care facilities.

There are also a number of important components to the bill that we signed into law that everybody agreed were the right things to do, Baker said. Were hopeful that the new legislation will help put a finer point on data collection for seniors and ensure the DPH has access to complete information to identify infection rates and health disparities across the Commonwealth.

Baker announced the new legislation following a tour of New Balances Lawrence factory, which has pivoted to producing personal protective equipment during the pandemic.

So far, the company has produced more than 1 million masks and has renewed designs into a second and third version as well. Other manufacturers across the state have worked with the administration to help fill critical needs during the pandemic, a program Baker touted Tuesday as a major success.

Baker spoke with optimism about the outlook with Massachusetts one day into Phase 2 of his teams reopening plan, noting that the rate of COVID-19 tests to come back positive and the number of patients hospitalized have both dropped significantly since mid-April.
Officials: KCK officer charged with sex crimes involving minor KANSAS CITY, KS (KCTV) - The Wyandotte County District Attorney's Office held a press conference Wednesday afternoon in relation to charges filed against a Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department officer. According to Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree, officer Nicholas Schafer, 36, has been charged with aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

Aftermath of a press conference today and a reminder that not every cop should be considered a hero . . . Here's the indictment:
In 2018, an Indian unicorn gave some of its employees a rare chance to cash out the shares they held in the billion-dollar company. While many went ahead, one of the employees saved them for later, hoping to fetch a better price. In the post-COVID world with businesses bleeding, it seems highly unlikely now, the employee told Moneycontrol, requesting anonymity.

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are offered by startups in India and across the world as part of compensation, a means to reduce attrition and offer staff a stake in the company and its success.

In their glory days, ESOPs made millionaires. There are stories of employees holding on to these shares and using them to buy plush apartments and posh cars.

Flipkarts sale to Walmart and Citrus Pays sale to PayU are some instances of employees striking it rich. More recently, social commerce firm Meesho, online car portal CarDekho and payments platform Razorpay, all gave early ESOP holders some liquidity.

By these accounts, ESOPs should dominate the conversation at a time when startups, like the larger economy, have taken a beating due to the coronavirus outbreak and the lockdown.

But in India ESOPs have confounded employees and are a cause of frustration for founders who have found only limited use for them.

It has not helped with hiring at all. We offer ESOPs to senior management in addition to a market level salary because many people still don't see the value. If we don't offer, they dont even ask, said the founder of a leading consumer brand, requesting anonymity.

From a founders point of view, ESOPs are a key hiring tool to attract the best talent without having to pay fat salaries like a multinational firm. They are crucial in the early stages when a startup may not be well funded.

For employees, these are meant to align incentives and work by giving them a stake in the company.

Employees are unconvinced because they havent seen enough people cashing out.

Barring some acquisitions and secondary sales, it takes longer for investors to make returns from Indian startups than most other countries.

"ESOPs are valuable if there is a precedence, where people have made money. It all depends on the credibility of the organisation and how employee-friendly it has been in the short to the medium term," said a person requesting anonymity.

"The early-stage startup I worked with crashed just after a few years. After that, I joined a unicorn. However, I left the company before a decent chunk of my ESOPs could be vested.

Back to ESOPs?

As companies conserve cash to survive in an uncertain economic climate, ESOPs become all the more important as founders prefer giving out shares than money.

Now companies have started making larger ESOP pools. They are thinking of it far earlier, at a pre-Series A level, which was unheard of earlier, said Sanjay Khan Nagra, partner at law firm Khaitan and Co.

While ESOP pools have generally been 10 percent of a companys shares, lawyers and founders are pushing it to 15-20 percent.

But problems remain. ESOPs vest for about four years after which they become fully valid for redemption. But even then, founders hold lop-sided rights. Some may get rich but not everyone is lucky.

Over the last two months, Indias startups--from billion-dollar companies to year-old firms, have laid off more than 10,000 people, according to a Moneycontrol analysis. All these employees saw their ESOPs terminated overnight, for no fault of theirs.

Most of these agreements explicitly say that the founder has the absolute right to decide the fate of ESOPs. If an employee leaves for any reason, voluntary or involuntary, the shares stand cancelled, a document seen by Moneycontrol says.

There is possibly an ethical issue with terminating ESOPs during layoffs but these calls get taken in the apparent greater good, which is the companys survival, said Nagra of Khaitan.

Lawyers also say if they draft 15 agreements for 15 companies, each will have 15 different specifications. There are no standard norms, unlike in the US or China. This creates a further potential for unfair treatment of employees.

Moreover, employees hold ordinary shares and not the preferential ones, which founders or investors have. The value of these can erode quickly.

"The price at which stock options can be exercised (the strike price) is very important. The strike price varies from situation to situation and could be as low as the face value of the shares," said Karan Kalra, founder of Bombay Law Chambers, an advisory firm.

When stock options are given in lieu of salary, typically the strike price is the then prevailing market value of the shares. However, these days when the situation is tough, were seeing stock options being granted at much lower prices as well.

In the current environment where ESOPs are often a balm for salary cuts, a senior industry executive said that these were just feel good ESOPs.

The real value will emerge only in the long term. Besides, ESOPs as a part of the salary is mostly a good deal only when it comes over and above your lifestyle cost else it is far riskier, another lawyer added.

While ESOPs are a long-term tool and meant to make holders richer, the uncertainty prevailing in India diminishes their value.

Employees, too, tend to value cash over stocks during uncertain times. People are not using ESOP options as much as one would expect. Shares are further diluted because of down rounds, so ESOPs become tougher, said Nagra.

A down round is when a startup raises funds at a lower valuation, giving out more shares for the same or less amount of money.

Some employees may not want shares but many times, candidates are not even aware of such an option, indicating ESOPs have not gone mainstream yet.

Most people joining have a very poor understanding of what valuation you are getting shares at, what could be the upside, so just education of this option is also badly needed, said Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, co-founder of online mattress retailer Wakefit.

Startups were not pushing hard enough for ESOPs, he said. They were either busy struggling to find funds or if they were well capitalised, they were looking to buy back the next round but ESOPs were not a priority, Ramalingegowda said.

Employees and investors remain unsure of the potential of ESOPs, with many lawyers asking for staff to have more rights, to make the stock option more mainstream and a wealth creation tool.

In the last one month, Zomato, Oyo and Grofers are among the companies to have offered ESOPs to those who have been furloughed or have taken a salary cut.

The budget hotel chain Oyo said all its employees would be shareholders in the company. It announced an $18-million pool for the furloughed employees and also dropped the one-year cliff on the vesting of stock options. The cliff meant that 25 percent of the shares would have been vested on completing a year after which they would vest every month.

Zomato, on the other hand, said it would offer ESOPs double the worth of salary cuts to the employees.
German authorities believe they have evidence that Madeleine McCann is dead. (AP)

One of the prosecutors investigating the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann disappearance has claimed she died not long after she was abducted.

Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the probe into a 43-year-old convicted child sex offender named in German media as Christian B, told The Times that the toddler was killed after being taken from her familys apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007.

He told the paper: My private opinion is that he relatively quickly killed the girl, possibly abused her and then killed her.

We believe our suspect committed further crimes, especially sexual crimes, in Portugal possibly but also elsewhere like Germany.

Kate and Gerry McCann have always vowed to do 'whatever it takes for as long as it takes' to find their daughter. (AP)

The paper goes on to say that Christian B discussed the kidnap, rape and killing of a girl with another paedophile in a graphic online conversation.

It comes as German authorities said they have "some evidence" that Madeleine is dead.

Christian B, 43, is reportedly serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in 2005  a conviction he is appealing.

MORE: Man bailed after rape of child near primary school in Manchester

However, he could be released from jail if granted parole for serving two-thirds of a 21-month sentence for dealing drugs, according to Wolters.

He added to The Times: The sooner we get evidence, the better for us to avoid the risk of him ever being released.

Christian B is known to have lived on the Algarve coast and his Portuguese mobile phone received a half-hour phone call in Praia da Luz around an hour before Madeleine, then three, went missing.

German authorities have previously said they believe Madeleine is dead and are investigating the suspect on suspicion of murder.

Wolters said on Monday that investigators have some evidence that Madeleine is dead but did not have enough for a trial.

He told Sky News: "The hard evidence we don't have, we don't have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann's body.

"We expect that she is dead, but we don't have enough evidence that we can get a warrant for our suspect in Germany for the murder of Madeleine McCann.

Story continues

"At the moment, we also don't have enough proof for a trial at court, but we have some evidence that the suspect has done the deed.

MORE: Statue of slave owner Robert Milligan removed

"That's why we need more information from people, especially places he has lived, so we can target these places especially and search there for Madeleine.

Meanwhile, German prosecutors are reportedly examining any links to the disappearance of two other children, and Wolters said he believes there are victims of related sex crimes who have not come forward.

Madeleine vanished shortly before her fourth birthday while her parents were eating dinner with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant, and would have turned 17 last month.
WASHINGTON - Amid widespread demonstrations against police violence that have transfixed the nation's capital, Mayor Muriel Bowser, D, has emerged as an unlikely foil to President Donald Trump.

Bowser defied the president's attempt to seize control of city streets and demanded he withdraw federal law enforcement and military deployed to quell unrest. She also installed a massive Black Lives Matter street mural on 16th Street, across from the White House, and renamed that stretch of asphalt Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Bowser's left-leaning critics, who want her to defund the police department, slow gentrification and greatly expand housing for the poor, dismissed the renaming as an empty gesture. Others hailed her as a fresh voice of the anti-Trump resistance.

The Washington Post spoke to Bowser in her city hall office for 30 minutes Monday. She sat on a couch, several feet away from a reporter, her face mask off for the interview. A book by Susan E. Rice, the former Obama administration official whom Bowser tapped to co-chair a task force on reopening the city after the coronavirus pandemic, was pulled from a stack that included books by former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Here are key excerpts from the interview.

- Bowser's decision to antagonize Trump did not come without risk.

Her administration is trying to secure Republican support for D.C. statehood and for more than $700 million in coronavirus relief funds. A Trump-allied lobbyist helping the D.C. government secure relief funds dropped the city as a client amid the escalating dispute.

But Bowser said she had to oppose the federal incursion into the streets of Washington no matter the consequences.

"Every anxiety you can imagine, or every concern you can possibly think of, I've had. At the end of the day, I had to do what's morally right, legally right, and it turns out those things are also politically right," said Bowser.

The mayor also suggested the city had little to lose from Republicans.

"Before any Black Lives Matter plaza, they already screwed us over on money," she said. "And we already had to fight them off on riders. [Trump] already said that he doesn't support statehood for Washington, D.C. for partisan reasons. They've already done all of those things to us. If you're suggesting that if lying down and letting them moving the Army into the city would get us money, we don't have any reason to think that would be the case."

Bowser also said White House officials have no business criticizing her for doing what they would have done in her situation.

"One question I keep asking myself is, what did they think we were going to do? Say, 'oh, OK?' " Bowser said. "Anybody in the White House, especially the ones who've been in political life, know they would do exactly what I did. Fight back. They would have done exactly that."

- On calls to "Defund the Police"

Bowser quickly learned she is not the only one who can use street art as a form of protest.

A day after city crews painted Black Lives Matter on 16th street, activists painted over the stars on the D.C. flag at the end of the phrase and added "defund the police," spelling out "Black Lives Matter = Defund The Police."

The city restored the stars but left the protest message alone. In the interview, Bowser gave demonstrators props for the idea.

"I thought it was what an activist's job is to do, so I can't fault an activist for making sure that their message is heard, and attaching it to a piece of art that is seen around the world is probably not a bad idea," Bowser said. "Defacing the D.C. flag? Not so good."

Bowser also said she did not think "defund the police" was as radical a concept as it appears on first blush.

"I do think I've listened fairly carefully over the last several days, and it seems like the 'defund police' mantra is also nuanced," Bowser said. "I don't think the slogan represents what a lot of people are calling for. I think a lot of people are calling for reform. I think 'reform police' may have been a better slogan, and I think that there are probably a lot of departments across this country that need that focus."

- On reforming the D.C. police department

Asked if she has rethought her administration's approach to policing because of the public demonstrations, Bowser largely defended her police department.

"I think about policing all the time in the District of Columbia. And public safety, you've heard me say, public safety and public schools have transformed this city," said Bowser. "We have safer neighborhoods and better schools and more people wanting to live here, more businesses wanting to do business here.

"I also know that the balance and relationship between community and police is always tenuous. You've probably heard me say this before, but we work very hard every day to make sure that balance is one we invest in."

Asked if police in the nation's capital treat black residents fairly, Bowser pointed to a favorable report from an independent monitor.

"Should they get better? Is there something for us to learn from the stop data? Yes, absolutely," Bowser said, referring to city statistics showing African Americans are disproportionately stopped by police.

Bowser said one change to policing she would like to implement is to make it tougher for fired officers to win back their jobs.

"The ability for us, for the mayor and the chief, to deal with the bad apple, more importantly to deal with somebody who killed somebody, we have our hands tied in some ways," Bowser said. "We need to be able to have the power to have more immediate action to fire a police officer in a clear case of misconduct."

- On her political future

The office of D.C. mayor has no term limits, and whether Bowser will seek reelection in 2022 is one of the hottest questions in local politics. A poll last fall found a majority of Washingtonians would back her for a third term.

Asked how recent events affected her thinking on another mayoral term, Bowser groaned and chuckled. "We are not even through our second year!"

But asked if she has had enough after governing through a pandemic, a budget crunch and a showdown with White House, Bowser hinted she may seek a third term.

"I wouldn't say that. I would say the prospect of managing D.C.'s comeback from covid is energizing," she said.

As Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden searches for a female running mate, some have floated Bowser's name since she entered the national spotlight. But Bowser said she is not being vetted by the Biden campaign.

Asked if she would allow herself to be vetted, she gave the same response she had when asked if she would do so for Bloomberg, back when she endorsed him for the Democratic presidential nomination:

"You know I have the best job in Washington, D.C., already."
Police officers in San Jose, California, on Tuesday.

Anda Chu/Digital First Media/The Mercury News via Getty Images

A man who trained police trainees on racial bias was hit by at least one rubber bullet fired by a police officer during protests in San Jose, California, last week, according to multiple news outlets.

A rubber bullet reportedly struck Derrick Sanderlin in the groin, requiring emergency surgery. He was told he might never be able to have children.

He and his wife plan to file a lawsuit against the city and the police alleging excessive force, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Derrick Sanderlin spent three years training the San Jose Police Department on implicit bias and procedural justice, but during a protest over the death of George Floyd, Sanderlin was injured by at least one rubber bullet from that same police department, multiple news outlets reported.

Sanderlin is now wondering whether his efforts made any difference.

"The way that  the way that they've treated people out there has over the weekend has been really heartbreaking because the chief is like a good person, who's really trying to do the right thing," he told the local outlet KGO.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Sanderlin stood between protesters and the police and pleaded for the officers to stop shooting rubber bullets at the crowd before having the bullets aimed him.

"I pause for a moment like maybe this isn't, maybe this doesn't hurt, and falling afterward is like the most painful experience," Sanderlin told KGO.

KGO reported that an officer named Jared Yuen was placed on desk duty and was facing an internal-affairs investigation over the incident.

"I really just couldn't watch it anymore," Sanderlin told KGO. "And just kind of made like a parallel walkover, put my hands up, and just stood in the line of the fire and asked them to please not do this."

Sanderlin needed emergency surgery for a ruptured testicle after being struck by a rubber bullet, according to the Times.

Story continues

While the surgery was successful, he was reportedly told he might still never be able to have children.

"And I just started weeping at the thought of that," his wife, Cayla Sanderlin, told KGO. "You know, we, we do want kids and we're very close to having kids."

The couple hired an attorney and are reportedly preparing a civil-rights lawsuit against the police and the city alleging excessive force.

"To see how the protest unfolded really, really disappointed me," Sanderlin told the Times. "Because I was holding the tension of already knowing what police relationships were like and also hoping for a change, hoping for something new and good. And it seems as if they [the officers] just didn't get that message."

Videos captured by local outlets had shown Sanderlin de-escalating a situation in which a protester smashed the window of a car with the driver inside. The Times reported that videos showed Sanderlin "shooing" people away.

"As soon as I heard the glass break, I turned around and was like woah, woah, woah," Sanderlin said. "He seemed like a nice dude. I just said, 'Get out of here, man!' He seemed really upset, and I didn't want things to escalate further or anyone else to get hurt, so I just tried to encourage him to just move along."

KGO said that it told Chief Eddie Garcia of the San Jose police about the incident and that he then reached out to Sanderlin.

"Derrick has been a real leader in our communities' efforts to reduce bias and discrimination through dialogue. I assured him we will be investigating this incident," Garcia told KGO.

The police chief also said he was reviewing officers' use of rubber bullets and projectiles and crowd control.

Read the original article on Insider
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A new museum dedicated to the life and music of Avicii will open in Stockholm, Sweden next year.

Per a press release, the Avicii Experience will bring its visitors closer to the artist Avicii and the person Tim Bergling. The audience will follow Tims journey from a reclusive music nerd to a celebrated superstar, from his boyhood room where it all started to the Los Angeles studio where the biggest hits were created.

More from Rolling Stone

On display at the museum will be a mix of memorabilia and previously unseen photographs and videos. Exhibits will also offer visitors the chance to peer inside the creative process and the many collaborations behind the music. When the Avicii Experience opens, it will boast previously unpublished early version of Aviciis breakthrough hit Levels, as well as troves of previously unreleased music used to craft the 2019 posthumous album, Tim.

In a statement, one of Aviciis collaborators, Chics. Nile Rodgers, said, Avicii has quite rightly been celebrated as one of the greatest DJs of all time and as an important artist who made massively successful records but what I will remember the most is that Tim was one of the finest songwriters I ever worked with. We could work together for 24 hours a day and his melodic ideas would never stop coming. He was a melodic beast who has not as yet had the recognition he deserves for his extraordinary talent.

The Avicii Experience will be part of a new facility in Stockholm called SPACE dedicated to music, gaming and content creation. A portion of revenue from the Avicii Experience will go to the Tim Bergling Foundation, which Aviciis family launched after his death to raise money and awareness for an array of causes, especially those related to mental illness and suicide prevention.

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We started this process with the belief that the community, teachers and students and North Chicago Community School District needed to have input on the design and structure," AbbVie said in a statement. "The collaboration has been tremendous and will serve as a positive guiding force in North Chicago. The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching impact, and in the interest of the safety and health of all involved, the projects timeline has been slightly impacted.
DUBLIN, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "The Global Monthly Semiconductor Report" newsletter has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Semiconductor Monthly Update Report reflects the need for immediate analysis and comment in the very fast changing electronics and semiconductor market. This report is published monthly and emailed to industry executives for immediate consumption and application.



Monthly rolling charts illustrating Units, average Selling prices (aSp) and Revenue, show industry growth rates broken down into IC, Optoelectronic and Discrete categories, a useful industry momentum indicator. The link between the economy and the semiconductor industry is loose at best. However by measuring and understanding the impact of wafer fab capacity on lead-times and prices, and by monitoring the level of system OEM, distribution and semiconductor company inventory, more sense can be made of this fundamentally unstable industry.



Because this report is published monthly it is able to concentrate on short-term issues, and is written by analysts from the leading semiconductor analyst company in Europe, and each issue is also considered for long term impact.



These monthly reports are essential for those that need up-to-date knowledge for planning, managing and funding companies in the semiconductor industry. The reports are also a must for those in outsourcing roles such as IC and system design houses, mask making, IC assembly and wafer foundries.

Key Topics Covered:



The Executive Overview: Looks at the global issues influencing the semiconductor industry, and provides analysis and commentary on the market trends and outlook



Market Summary: Monitors worldwide & European growth rates for total semiconductores ICs, optoelectronics & discrete devices. Growth rates are plotted on an actual 4-week month adjusted basis for units, average selling prices (aSps) & revenue



Industry Capacity: Examines the current global wafer fab capacity utilisation and other capacity related issues & their potential impact on semiconductor revenues, particularly aSps



World Economic Round Up: Key to understanding the global economy, this section provides a world summary with detailed reviews of the major world regions, namely North america, Europe, China, Japan & asia-pacific



Russia/CIS: a monthly feature and analysis of the economic & industry trends in the Former USSR



Economic Case Study: Each month a particular issue is taken as a case study & analysed in further detail



Market Trends: Selects a different key end use application sector or product and reviews its market potential. particular issues, concerns and semiconductor market opportunities are analysed



Semiconductor Spotlight: analyses new technology trends or industry characteristics



Exchange Rates: Trends for the Euro against the US Dollar and UK Sterling is shown for reference purposes

For more information about this newsletter visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/v9daj6

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Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

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KV Navya By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: When doctors told Joel Pinto that his father had a better chance of beating COVID-19 if treated with Tocilizumab, the 28-year-old ran pillar to post in search of the drug. It was then that Joel realised the drug has not been available in the city for the last 15 days.

Tocilizumab, a patented drug made by just one manufacturer, is used to suppress inflammation, and costs anywhere between Rs 75,000 and Rs 95,000.

"The doctors initially told me they would arrange for it to be delivered in two days. Later, they asked me to try as they were uncertain of the arrival. I called hundreds of pharmacies in the city, and placed several requests over the social media," recalls Joel.

"I couldnt find the drug, but I realised a lot of others were scrambling like me for Tocilizumab, to save their loved ones," Joel said. His father had a lung infection two years ago. He needed the medicine to reduce inflammation and breathing difficulties.

ALSO READ | Indian women with COVID-19 at higher risk of death than men: Study

"Monday was the 13th day of my dad being admitted in the hospital. The doctors warned me that time was running out. If it gets any late, treatment may not be possible. I cannot express the fear I felt then," he added.

Joel kept on calling pharmacists. Finally, one in Otteri told him he could get it from a pharmacy in Hyderabad. The catch was that it would take at least three days for the drug to come by post to Chennai. Joel had to go there and get it himself. "The pharmacist charged me Rs 92,000. I didn't have time to decide if I should trust him. I paid an advance without questions and applied for an e-pass,"

Since the hospital's letter was attached, the e-pass was granted in flat 45 minutes. "I just took my car and left for Hyderabad. I reached around 1 am Tuesday and got the medicine. I was so relieved. I left for Chennai shortly and got back home by Tuesday noon," says Joel. The doctors have started treating his father with Tocilizumab, and the family is hoping he recovers soon.

"I feel bad for those making frantic searches here for the drug. I spoke to so many in need of it. In such situations, the government and hospitals must procure adequate stock for the benefit of public. If there's delay, there's no saying how many lives would be lost."

Twitter is filled with requests from people in Chennai for the drug. Director the drugs control department K Sivabalan says there's a nationwide shortage of the drug. "The central government must take an action on it as they control import and export of the country."
The shattered parents of a young woman allegedly murdered by her brother say they are at a loss over exactly what led to their family being torn apart.

Gabriella Delaney, 20, was allegedly killed by her brother Lucas Christian Delaney, 30, inside the home they shared at Cambridge Park, in Sydney's west, on June 3.

Her body lay inside the home for five days before being found by police on Monday.

Officers were called to the home to check on her welfare by her parents Brenda and Ross - who live in Western Australia - after they could not make contact with her.

As the charges against their son were read out in Parramatta Local Court for the first time on Wednesday, Mr Delaney admitted he was 'confused' by what had happened.

Gabriella Delaney (pictured), 20, was allegedly killed by her brother Lucas Christian Delaney, 30, inside the home they shared at Cambridge Park, in Sydney's west, on June 3

Ms Delaney was a budding artist who attended the University of Western Sydney and would often document the process of making her artworks on YouTube

Lucas Delaney (pictured) was due to front before Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday via video link, but chose not to appear. His matter will return to court on August 7

'We know as much as the media is telling us (at the minute). Feeling really confused and numb,' Mr Delaney told a friend on Facebook.

Lucas Delaney did not appear on the video screen during the brief court hearing on Wednesday and his legal aid lawyer did not apply for bail.

Police allege that he murdered Gabriela on June 3, before fleeing the house with her body lying inside.

The Daily Telegraph reports that over the days that followed he used a credit card to book into several motels.

He then checked himself into Cumberland Hospital, a mental health facility, and was eventually arrested there by police on Tuesday.

The Delaney family is understood to be planning to make their way to NSW later this week.

In the hours after his daughter's body was found, Mr Delaney updated his Facebook profile picture to a photo of a painting done by his daughter.

He also shared a link to the emotional Elton John song, Candle In The Wind.

Detective Inspector Jason Pietruszka admitted it was a 'confronting' crime scene for those police who attended.

Shocked neighbours in the quiet residential street said they had no idea anything was wrong until they noticed a number of police cars parked outside

Police remove evidence bags from the home - at the end of a cul-de-sac - on Tuesday morning

Gabriella had been studying art at the University of Western Sydney where she was regarded as a rising talent who regularly showed off her talents on Instagram and YouTube.

Next door neighbour Brittney Hotchkiss, who is the same age as Ms Delaney, said she was shocked to find out the news about what allegedly happened to her friend.

'She was really nice and she was just so young. She was my age and I just couldn't imagine what her family's going through,' Ms Hotchkiss said.

'I'm pretty freaked out. It was right next door so that's a bit scary.'

Forensic and homicide squad detectives spent much of Tuesday at the 'confronting' scene assisting local officers in their investigations.

A couch - believed to have been stained with blood - was removed from the home and taken away with other evidence.

Gabby Delaney's parents, who live in Western Australia, asked police to conduct a welfare check after making several failed attempts to contact her

Nextdoor neighbour Brittney Hotchkiss (left), who is the same age as Ms Delaney, said she was shocked to find out the news about what allegedly happened to her friend.

Detective Inspector Jason Pietruszka admitted it was a 'confronting' crime scene for officers who attended.

'It was quite a confronting scene, the young lady had not been seen for six days and police who entered the scene described it as devastating,' he said.

Police are yet to determine an official cause of death, with their investigations made difficult by the length of time Gabriella's body lay inside the home.

Some neighbours in the quiet street said they had no idea anything was wrong until they saw the police cars parked outside.

'You kind of say hello to people in passing, but there's a lot of coming and going so it's a bit hard to tell who lives there and who is just visiting,' one man said.

Gabriella's father Ross paid tribute to his daughter on Facebook, sharing the emotional Elton John song, Candle In The Wind and writing: 'RIP Gabriella Lila Delaney'

Police allege the budding artist was murdered on June 3, meaning her body lay inside the home for up to five days

Detective Inspector Jason Pietruszka admitted it was a 'confronting' crime scene for officers who attended

'The only thing my daughter said over the weekend was that it was a bit quiet, they normally have a few parties or that kind of thing.

'We didn't realise anything was up until my wife walked out to put the bins out and saw the police cars.

'Next minute there was police everywhere, an ambulance, it was all happening.'

Lucas Delaney will return to Parramatta Local Court on August 7.
(Alliance News) -A A no-deal Brexit would heap further pressure on a UK economy already struggling with the Covid-19 outbreak, said Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday.

A cliff-edge EU exit would damage the UK's "potentially fragile recovery from its deepest recession in almost a century" following the coronavirus pandemic, Moody's said.

"Although such an outcome is not the rating agency's current baseline forecast, it is becoming increasingly likely," the ratings agency warned.

Last Friday, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said there had been no real progress made in post-Brexit trade talks and accused the UK of backtracking on commitments. David Frost, Barnier's British counterpart, acknowledged there had been only "limited" progress in the talks, which were the final ones before a potentially make-or-break high-level summit later this month.

Moody's said that by the end of 2020, when a no-deal Brexit would occur, the size of the UK economy would still be significantly smaller than pre-virus forecasts. Its resilience would also be weakened, with higher public debt and unemployment.

Moody's has previously identified sectors that have a particularly high exposure to a damaging EU exit, including automotive, aerospace, ports and chemicals. They are now among those most affected by supply chain disruption, production issues and weak demand due to Covid-19.

"The economic fallout from the coronavirus will likely remain the major driver of credit risk in the UK over the coming years, with negative effects on the sovereign and on sectors such as airlines, retail and automotive," said Benedicte Andries, a Moody's analyst and the report's co-author. "Our base case scenario continues to assume that the UK and the EU will reach an agreement by the end of the year, albeit a limited one focused on goods trade. But the risks of a no-deal outcome are rising."

By Lucy Heming;A lucyheming@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
GENEVA (ILO News)  The International Labour Organization (ILO) has called for urgent and coordinated action to release the 150,000 to 200,000 seafarers trapped on board ships around the world because of measures to contain the COVID-19 virus.

The ILO has urged governments, immigration, health and maritime authorities to work together to recognize seafarers as key workers who ensure the flow of trade and the movement of vital medical supplies, safety equipment, food and other critical goods during the pandemic.

Referring to the provisions of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 , the ILO has called on governments to adopt without delay all possible measures to facilitate crew changes and the repatriation of seafarers, while taking steps to minimize the risk of contagion.

More than a month after the ILO issued warnings , at the end of April, about the plight of seafarers refused permission to leave their ships, limited progress has been achieved and, according to the ILO, the situation is worsening by the day.

Many of those on board completed their tours of duty more than four months ago but with contracts extended exceptionally because of the crisis, many are now reported to be experiencing mental health issues and physical exhaustion, which is reducing their ability to safely carry out their duties.

Meanwhile, the restrictions on crew changes, brought in by countries to reduce the spread of COVID-19, have meant that seafarers waiting to return to sea have lost their income.

I urge member States to recognize seafarers as key workers and adopt the urgently-needed measures that will enable those who have been working hard to keep us supplied with medicines, food and other necessities, to go home and be replaced by fresh crews, said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

Forcing exhausted seafarers to continue working more than four months beyond the end of their contract is unacceptable. This jeopardizes their health and endangers maritime safety. Action is needed now to ensure decent work for seafarers, avoid maritime accidents and environmental disasters. We call on governments to work together to make these crew changes happen in safety.

The call for key worker status for seafarers was underlined in a joint statement issued on 22 May by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the ILO. This would exempt crew from travel restrictions and facilitate their joining or leaving ships.

The International Chamber of Shipping, the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Transport Workers Federation called attention to the urgency of the situation in a letter to the United Nation Secretary General, Antonio Guterres on 21 May. They highlighted the risks to the mental and physical health of crews trapped on board and expressed concerns about the most vulnerable potentially resorting to self-harm and even suicide.
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The Maharashtra cabinet approved a proposal to allot 54.40 hectares of land in coastal Sindhudurg district ona 90-year lease to the Indian Hotels Company (IHCL), a subsidiary of Tata Group, to set up a five- star tourism centre.

The facility, first of its kind in the district known for its picturesque beaches, will come up in Shitole Velghar village in Vengurla.

The land has been acquired by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC).

"Tourism is the main service sector to boost the state's economic development and hence the government has decided to set up a five-star tourism centre in Sindhudurg district," the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said in a statement.

In another decision, the state government will stand guarantee to loans taken by state-run power companies.

The government will stand as the guarantor for MoUs that might be signed by state-run utilities like Mahagenco, Mahatransco, MSEB, Mahavitaran Company with NTPC, PFC or nationalised banks in future to raise funds.

The government will give the guarantee to a minimum of Rs 20,000 crore, the statement said.

It further said since industrial and commercial establishments have been shut in the state due to COVID-19 crisis, residential demand for power has gone up.

"Residential use of power has increased while industrial demand has reduced. The average daily demand has reduced from 23000 mw to 16000 mw, but the demand from agricultureand residential has risen," it stated.

The government said operations of industry might take a year to normalise once the lockdown is lifted.

The government has also decided to waive charges against the guarantee given.

The Cabinet also approved a proposal to rename the Environment ministry as the department of Environment and Climate Change.
Regulatory News:

Europcar Mobility Group (Paris:EUCAR) and Bureau Veritas announce today they have signed a business partnership for the entire Europcar Mobility Group's corporate network, to ensure that the company's facilities and vehicles comply with Health Authorities' safety recommendations and follow best-in-class cleaning standards and protocols.

Bureau Veritas, a global leader in testing, inspection and certification services, will provide Europcar Mobility Group, a major player in mobility markets, with support across its operations.

"As we were actively preparing for the full restart of our activities, anticipating the progressive lift of lockdowns and travel restrictions that the world is currently going through, we decided, as the European leader, to design and implement a highly demanding "Safety Program". This provides material evidence of our commitment that safety is our #1 priority for our employees and our customers. Thanks to this partnership with Bureau Veritas, we will ensure that we flawlessly deliver this promise, so that you can book and travel with us in full confidence." declares Olivier BALDASSARI, Group Countries Operations Director, member of the Management Board of Europcar Mobility Group.

"We are proud to stand by Europcar Mobility Group in order to help them make a difference and demonstrate they are fully prepared to serve their clients in a healthy and safe environment. By leveraging our 200 years expertise in conformity assessment and certification, Bureau Veritas is committed to support all sectors of the economy to cope with this

"New Normal". Our teams around the world are engaged to help our clients in addressing society's new expectations in terms of health, hygiene and safety as well as transparency" explains Didier MICHAUD-DANIEL, Chief Executive Officer of Bureau Veritas.

The partnership covers operations across 14 countries and relies on two main axes:

Assess and challenge Europcar Mobility Group guidelines and processes, to ensure safety for customers and employees, in line with local regulations and scientific recommendations.

Support the deployment of best-in-class sanitary protocols in Europcar Mobility Group's corporate geographies.

About Europcar Mobility Group

Europcar Mobility Group is a major player in mobility markets and listed on Euronext Paris. The mission of Europcar Mobility Group is to be the preferred "Mobility Service Company" by offering attractive alternatives to vehicle ownership, with a wide range of mobility-related services and solutions: car rental and light commercial vehicle rental, chauffeur services, car-sharing, scooter-sharing and private hire vehicle (PHV rental to "Uber like" chauffeurs).

Customers' satisfaction is at the heart of the Group's mission and all of its employees and this commitment fuels the continuous development of new services. Europcar Mobility Group operates through a diversified portfolio of brands meeting every customer specific needs and use cases, be it for 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week or longer; its 4 major brands being: Europcar the European leader of car rental and light commercial vehicle rental, Goldcar the low-cost car-rental Leader in Europe, InterRent 'mid-tier' car rental and Ubeeqo one of the European leaders of round-trip car-sharing (BtoB, BtoC).

Europcar Mobility Group delivers its mobility solutions worldwide solutions through an extensive network in over 140 countries (including wholly owned subsidiaries 18 in Europe, 1 in the USA, 2 in Australia and New Zealand completed by franchises and partners).

Further details available at: www.europcar-mobility-group.com

About Bureau Veritas

Bureau Veritas is a world-leading provider in testing, inspection and certification. Created in 1828, the Group has more than 78,000 employees located in more than 1,500 offices and laboratories around the globe. Bureau Veritas helps its clients to improve their performance by offering services and innovative solutions in order to ensure that their assets, products, infrastructure and processes meet standards and regulations in terms of quality, health and safety, environmental protection and social responsibility.

Bureau Veritas is listed on Euronext Paris and belongs to the Next 20 index.

Compartment A, ISIN code FR 0006174348, stock symbol: stock symbol: BVI.

For more information, visit www.bureauveritas.com, and follow us on Twitter (@bureauveritas) and LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005649/en/

Contacts:

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Valerie Sauteret valerie.sauteret@europcar.com +33 6 72 93 31 05

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DGM Conseil

Thomas de Climens thomasdeclimens@dgm-conseil.fr +33 (0)6 14 50 15 84

Quentin Hua quentin.hua@dgm-conseil.fr +33 (0)6 28 63 27 29
[June 10, 2020] 2020 BioGENEius Hall of Fame Awardee

Today, the Biotechnology Institute announced the winner of the BioGENEius Hall of Fame Award, who will be recognized today at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization's BIO Digital 2020 Convention. Each year, the Biotechnology Institute honors a past BioGENEius who best exemplifies the goals of its mission. This year, we honor Anvita Gupta, former BioGENEius winner and currently CEO of AINovo Biotech. Anvita received her M.Sc and B.Sc in Computer Science from Stanford University with honors in Artificial Intelligence and Biocomputation, graduating in four years with both degrees. Originally from Arizona, Anvita was the 2015 first-place winner of the International BioGENEius Global Healthcare Challenge and a winner of the 2019 Champions of Science BioGENEius Storytelling Challenge from Johnson & Johnson. Anvita was invited to present her BioGENEius research on computational drug discovery to the President at the White House in 2015, and she has been an invited speaker at global events including the White House Ebola Innovators Conference, sponsored by USAID and OSTP. Her work in generative modeling and protein design has been published in Wiley's Molecular Informatics (News - Alert), Nature Machine Intelligence, and sh has presented at international conferences in machine learning and biology including ICML and ISMB. Anvita has more than nine years of technical experience in artificial intelligence domains, including generative modeling, computer vision, and natural language processing for genomics, proteomics, and drug design for global academic labs at Stanford University, Harvard Medical School, and ETH Zurich.



Anvita is also passionate about inspiring young women in STEM, and is the founder of LITAS (Learning IT, Apps and Software) For Girls, a 501(c) (3) international nonprofit to inspire young girls to pursue careers in STEM. The organization includes over 15 chapters across India and in the Bay Area on the West Coast. AINovo Biotech Inc. uses artificial intelligence and synthetic biology to transform therapeutics and diagnostics development. It is currently focusing its platform's efforts to accelerate the development of rapid diagnostic tests for COVID-19.

"Anvita exemplifies the Institute's vision for its BioGENEius family," said Dr. Larry Mahan, President of the Biotechnology Institute. "Her pursuit of scientific discovery and application balanced with a strong STEM education perspective embodies those qualities that make our futures bright." About the Biotechnology Institute The Biotechnology Institute is an independent, national nonprofit organization dedicated to education about the present and future impact of biotechnology. Its mission is to engage, excite and educate the public, particularly students and teachers, about biotechnology and its immense potential for solving human health, food and environmental problems. For more information, visit www.biotechinstitute.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005660/en/

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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jun. 09, 2020 | PADUCAH

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 09, 2020 | 08:12 PM | PADUCAH

West Kentucky Community and Technical College has once again been named one of ten finalists for the 2021 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. It is the nation's signature recognition of high achievement and performance among community colleges, and takes place every two years.



WKCTC President Dr. Anton Reese told West Kentucky Star, "They rank 1,000 community and technical colleges who compete for a top prize of a million dollars across the nation, and we have been selected to be in the top ten to compete for that prize for the fifth time."



The college has earned a place on Aspen's Top ten finalists' list in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017. The college did not participate in 2019.



WKCTC was named a "campus of distinction," in 2011 and 2015 for being among the top three colleges in the nation, falling just short of the $1 million prize.



Reese outlined achievements that he hopes will carry them to the top prize this year.



"We have incredibly high retention and graduation rates, more than double the national average. The career placement is a big factor, so jobs and the placement of our graduates is an important piece. A lot of our diversity initiatives, getting more underserved populations from around our region is also a factor that can make us very, very competitive this year, and certainly the graduates that we have coming across that stage is where we tend to excel at more than double the national rate, Reese said.



He also stressed community support is an important factor that makes them competitive. Those who judge the competition visit the campuses and interview people in the area as they evaluate each entry.



Reese said this type of recognition should help feed their future success, and the community, too.



He said, "Quality matters to students and parents. That national recognition speaks volumes. I've also got to add that it's also an important link to economic development. As our chamber (of commerce) and economic development areas throughout the region try to recruit top-notch and competitive business and industries, the quality of education and the preparation of the workforce are huge factors. So these designations and recognitions have implications beyond the education corridor, because there's also economic and societal benefits as well."



Two other KCTCS schools, Big Sandy and South Central, were among the 150 schools named in the competition last November, but WKCTC once again emerged in the top tier.



Awarded every two years since 2011, the Aspen Prize recognizes institutions that achieve strong student outcomes across four key areas:

 Teaching and learning

 Degree completion and successful transfer to four-year institutions

 Success in the workforce

 Equitable outcomes for diverse student groups



"The Aspen Prize finalists define what it means to be an excellent community college," said Josh Wyner, executive director of the College Excellence Program. "By organizing everything they do around student success, these colleges stand at the forefront of national efforts to develop the talents of diverse students that we need to strengthen our nation's economic future."



Here are the 2021 Aspen Prize Finalists:

Amarillo College, Amarillo, TX

Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, NY

Broward College, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Odessa College, Odessa, TX

Pasadena City College, Pasadena, CA

Pierce College, Pierce County, WA

San Antonio College, San Antonio, TX

San Jacinto College, Pasadena, TX

Tallahassee Community College, Tallahassee, FL

West Kentucky Community and Technical College, Paducah, KY
ELBERTA, MI - A bridge connecting two Lake Michigan beach towns is under water and out of commission until further notice.

The bridge that spans Betsie Lake to connect Frankfort and Elberta in Benzie County is part of the scenic M-22 highway. It was closed by the Michigan Department of Transportation due to water over the roadway on Wednessay, June 10. It is unclear when the bridge could reopen.

The M-22 bridge between Elberta and Frankfort is closed due to water over the roadway, which is a result of high water levels.Michigan Department of Transportation

RELATED: Bigger brewery, beachfront treks make Frankfort a great escape

The weight of the water coupled with vehicle weight could compromise the safety and structure of the bridge, according to the Benzie County Office of Emergency Management. Authorities are urging travelers to heed the closure and follow detours.

The alternate route for southbound M-22 takes travelers east on M-115/Frankfort Highway to U.S. 31 south and then west on Grace Road, returning to M-22; the northbound detour is the reverse. The section of U.S. 31 included in the detour is under construction and has single-lane closures northbound and southbound.

We have been advised that MDOT has closed the M22 causeway bridge east of Elberta. There is no know time given as to... Posted by Benzie County Office of Emergency Management on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

RELATED: How a photographers darkroom hobby became one of the best breweries in Michigan

Lake Michigans record high water levels have impacted other nearby areas. A section of the Betsie Valley Trail that runs parallel to the M-22 bridge is also closed due to flooding.

READ MORE:

Dangerous swim conditions at these Lake Michigan beaches through Thursday

70 mph+ gusts, a few tornadoes likely as severe risk upped to 4 on 5-step scale

80 birds recovered from suspected cockfighting ring in Detroit

Humpback whale found dead in river leading to Great Lakes

All-time high recorded water level on Lake Michigan and Lake Huron wont take much to achieve

Great Lakes high water is going to affect everyone in Michigan
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse)  Wed, June 10, 2020 09:08 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd79beb 2 Art & Culture Paris-Biennale,exhibition,coronavirus,COVID-19,auction Free

The 32nd edition of the Paris Biennale has been postponed to September 2021 due to "the COVID-19 pandemic and the health risks associated with the organization of an international event."

Organizers of the fair have now announced an online auction will take place at Christie's from September 10 to 21, 2020, in lieu of the annual event inside the Jean-Michel Wilmotte-designed Grand Palais Ephemere.

The sale will feature a selection of objets d'art, pieces of furniture and jewelry, which will collectively cover 6,000 years of art history.

The catalogue was established by more than 50 internationally renowned dealers that were brought together by La Biennale Paris and the Syndicat National des Antiquaires.

Among them are Ariadne Galleries, Yves Macaux, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Brun Fine Art, Galerie de la Beraudiere, Laffanour - Galerie Downtown and Galerie Neuse, most of which have already confirmed their intention of participating in the 32nd edition of La Biennale Paris in 2021.

The full list of participating galleries and art dealers will be unveiled at a press conference in July 2020.

Read also: Venice Architecture Biennale postponed until 2021

Additionally, the works offered online will be exhibited at Christie's and on view at the participating galleries, for the duration of the sale.

"La Biennale Paris is an event organized by dealers for dealers. It is essential that we support the profession in this unprecedented crisis with new and appropriate initiatives. We are very pleased to be partnering with Christie's for this sale. Christie's wide reach and extensive capacities worldwide will bring great visibility to dealers and will enable them to reach out to new collectors," Georges De Jonckheere, President of La Biennale Paris, commented in a statement.

Earlier this year, la Biennale de Paris made a commitment to donate the profits from its Gala Dinner to the "Mission Stephane Bern" for the protection of historic monuments and ancient buildings in France.

While the gala has been canceled in reaction to the global pandemic, Christie's has confirmed that it will donate a part of the proceeds from the sale to the "Mission Stephane Bern."

Aside from the online sale at Christie's, organizers of the Paris Biennale have announced plans to launch a series of digital events to entertain fairgoers and collectors, details of which will be made public in the coming weeks.
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Moses on the Plain, a film executive produced by art house director Diao Yinan, is among the first notable Chinese titles to have completed shooting since the countrys coronavirus outbreak.

It stars A-listers Zhou Dongyu, who has enjoyed a further rise on the back of last years breakout teen drama Better Days, and Liu Haoran, the young star of the Detective Chinatown franchise. The third installment of Chinatown was postponed from its Chinese New Year debut in January because of coronavirus and is one of the most hotly anticipated blockbusters awaiting a future release.

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Diaos crime thriller Black Coal, Thin Ice won the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin Intl. Film Festival in 2014. His Wild Goose Lake debuted in competition at Cannes last year.

On the social media platform Weibo, producer Dun He (Send Me To The Clouds) explained that filming was stopped early on in the shoot due to coronavirus on January 26, the second day of the Chinese new year, and wrapped amidst many difficulties after resuming again in March.

Towards the end of production in mid-May, a new outbreak of coronavirus occurred in the shooting location Jilin, leading the region to impose lockdown measures anew. What was originally expected to be a 70-something day shoot was cut down to around 50 days, Chinese reports said.

It hasnt been easy, and the struggles were endless, Dun wrote, adding optimistically, See you in theaters.

Chinese cinemas have been shut since late January, with officials giving no clear indication when exactly they might re-open, although the rest of Chinas economy is back up and running.

Moses on the Plain is set in Chinas hardscrabble, industrial northeast. It tells the story of a man (Liu) investigating the murder of a taxi driver, only to find a childhood friend (Zhou) may be involved. It is based on a popular novel of the same name by writer Shuang Xuetao, who worked on the film as art director.

Story continues

The movie is directed by Zhang Ji, a young director of photography making his directorial debut after being nominated for a Golden Horse Award for best cinematography in 2014 for North by Northeast, a detective story set in the same region.

Currently, the film division of the Maoyan online ticketing platform, Beijing Wishart Media and Shanghai Turan Film Company are listed as producers backing the title.

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A special meeting to brief heads of religious and educational institutions on the governments directives on the reopening of schools and churches was held across the municipality.

The Municipal Director for Education, Mrs. Mabel Botokro in her opening address said that through the goodness of God and the efforts of the President and his government, issues of coronavirus has been well contained in our country and due to that, the government has eased restrictions to allow some church activities and educational activities to resume. Talking about education, she mentioned some of the measures put in place by the ministry of education in consultation with GES and other key stakeholders.

Mrs. Botokro said all educational institutions will be opened for only final year students across the country and mentioned that all extra-curricular activities have been banned in schools to keep students safe, class sizes have been reduced to 25 in a class. Personal protective equipment will be provided for all students, class hours have been reduced, among many other measures that have been put in place to ensure students' safety till they write their final exams.

Ending her address, she urged parents and all stakeholders to do their parts to ensure that the Ahafo region does not record a case of coronavirus.

The Municipal Director for Health, Dr. Peter Asare, said the earlier reports of a Covid-19 patient having contact with people in our municipality was true but a contact tracing and after the test was conducted, the results came out negative, meaning, Tano South Municipal and Ahafo region as a whole has not recorded any Covid-19 case yet. He added that, health workers in the municipality have been well trained and equipped to face this pandemic. He continued that, the pandemic will obviously stay with us for a while and pleaded with the people to practice the safety measures put in place by the government, he continued by advising churches on how to have their church services without putting their members at risk.

He ended his address by reiterating his outfits readiness and commitment to protecting the people of Tano South and Ghana as a whole and urged all the people to call on them anytime need may be.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Tano South Municipal, Hon. Collins Takyi Offinam in his speech welcomed them and told the gathering that the government isnt pleased with the hardship Ghanaians to have had to endure due to the outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic and it is doing everything within its power to protect lives and also make life a bit easier for Ghanaians. He said this is one of the

On the teasons that informed the governments decision to ease restrictions, he said the easing of restrictions was necessary since the restrictions though important werent really helping the majority of Ghanaians.

He advised religious leaders to accept that we are not in normal times so they must heed to the directives that came with the opening of places of worship, such as disinfecting their places as often as required, observing social distancing protocols, amongst others.

He ended by thanking health workers and all the people in the municipality for their efforts in ensuring that the municipal and Ahafo havent recorded any case yet. He urged them to keep up the good work and help Ghana fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shootin' the Bull Swift Trading Company - 14 minutes ago In my opinion, factors formed the past couple of weeks, and still forming, have created an outcrop on the wall of worry.

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Attorney General William Barr speaks during in a roundtable with law enforcement officials in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on June, 8, 2020. (Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)

Barr Tells DC Mayor Federal Law Enforcement Presence Was Necessary to Quell Rioting

Attorney General William Barr defended the presence of federal law enforcement and the National Guard in the nations capital after Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser criticized him and the president for adding grievances to those who were protesting over George Floyds death.

Barr told the citys mayor in a letter on June 9 that bringing in federal and National Guard personnel was necessary because the violent activity and unrest, which started on May 29 and culminated on May 31, had reached dangerous levels and conveyed the impression that the United States was on the brink of losing control of its capital city.

Over that weekend, the city saw incidents of looting, violent rioting, and arson, leading to significant damage on federal property, including arson damage to the historic St. Johns Episcopal Church. Barr described the violence on May 31 as reportedly the most violent day of civil unrest in the District in 30 years.

The attorney general said that increasing federal personnel presence was intended to be a temporary response to an escalating security crisis aimed at ensuring that the rioting would end and that law and order would be restored in the city.

[H]ad the recent demonstrations remained peaceful and within the control of local law enforcement, the President would never have had any need to augment existing resources for the purpose of restoring law and order, Barr wrote.

He noted that law enforcement personnel from a number of federal agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Prisons were deployed to assist with the enforcement of federal law.

Let me assure you that the President shares your interest in returning to a situation where such additional forces are unnecessary to maintain law and order in the District, he added.

Bowser sent a letter to President Donald Trump and other senior officials of his administration, including Barr, to request the withdrawal of all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from Washington D.C.

In her letter, Bowser expressed concern over the use of federal personnel who were not wearing identifying insignia patrolling the streets and the use of helicopters to disperse crowds.

The deployment of federal law enforcement personnel and equipment are inflaming demonstrators and adding to the grievances of those who, by and large, are peacefully protesting for change and for reforms to the racists and broken systems that are killing Black Americans, she wrote in her letter.

Bowsers office did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times request for comment.

John Falcicchio, acting deputy mayor for Planning and Economic Development, responded to the letter in a Twitter post calling the letter revisionist at best, while criticizing Barr for failing to mention examples of incitement by their administration and for omitting information.

This is revisionist at best/cya at worst; fails to mention examples of incitement by their Admin; and omits that: deployment of federal assets was not coordinated with nor requested by DC peaceful protestors were attacked at the direction of the feds MPD was & is in control, Falcicchio wrote.

Many of the protests calling for change and reform in policing in the wake of Floyds death have been peaceful. But several cities across the nation experienced violent activity such as looting and property destruction amid the protests from outside groups. Federal authorities have blamed the violence on extremist organizations such as Antifa, saying that they were hijacking the protests to carry out their own separate agendas.

Trump has repeatedly cast himself as your President of law and order and has vowed to restore order on American streets. On June 7, Trump ordered National Guard troops to start withdrawing in Washington, noting that everything is under perfect control.

Meanwhile, Barr has repeatedly condemned the violent rioting amid the Floyd protests and has defended the actions of federal law enforcement officers. He acknowledged the outrage felt by the national community, saying that accountability for Floyds death must be addressed, but emphasized that it should be addressed through the regular criminal justice system.

That system is working and moving at exceptional speed. Already initial charges have been filed. That process continues to move forward. Justice will be served, Barr previously said.
COLONIE  The Albany International Airport and the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York will host a contactless drive-through food distribution beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday at the airport's E-Lot parking area, for anyone in need of food during this uncertain period for the economy.

Fresh produce, meat, dairy products and shelf-stable items will be included in the distribution. Those attending should drive to the main entrance to the terminal, where signage and airport staff will direct them.
In recent weeks, a call to defund and disband local police services has surged across Canada and the United States and into the public lexicon, prompting activists, educators and all levels of government to weigh in on what reimagining policing could actually mean.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 9/6/2020 (591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In recent weeks, a call to defund and disband local police services has surged across Canada and the United States and into the public lexicon, prompting activists, educators and all levels of government to weigh in on what reimagining policing could actually mean.

In order to understand what defunding the police means, University of Winnipeg history professor Paul Lawrie said it's important to first grasp what it doesn't mean.

"People have an image that it will result in some sort of anarchic dissolution of any form of law and of order, and that's not what it is," Lawrie said Tuesday. "Its a reconstituting of how policing  and flowing from that the criminal justice system  operates."

Calls to defund local police forces  steadily reducing their budgets and reinvesting funds in community supports  have been taken up by an increasing chorus of voices as sustained protests against police brutality, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism within the police system sweep across Canada and the United States.

Calls to defund local police forces have been taken up by an increasing chorus of voices as sustained protests sweep across Canada and the United States. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune files)

"Defunding the police, disbanding the police, is a step towards abolition," said Syrus Marcus Ware, an artist, researcher and organizer with Black Lives Matter Toronto.

"Its a way of listening to our communities who are shouting a loud chorus to defund the police, to instead invest that money into community supports and into things that would support people who are in crisis, that would actually help us to resolve conflict when conflict comes up, and that would help us to heal harm when harm happens in our communities."

Meenakshi Mannoe, criminalization and policing campaigner with Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver, said she's seen community groups in the city's Downtown Eastside performing this work over the years in service of communities that experience overcriminalization and "who the police were never seen as safe to."

Redistributing police funds, Mannoe said, could lead to financial and policy investments in critical systems such as "housing, safe supply, peer support, peer outreach, peer advocacy, access to public space where they're not being policed, and again transformative justice processes that keep them out of jails and prisons."

Governments in Canada and the United States have begun publicly discussing what shape police defunding could take. While city councillors pledge to disband police forces or make modest cuts to police budgets, responses among federal leaders such as Prime Minister Trudeau have been more aligned with police reform through increased civilian oversight, the introduction of oft-debated body cameras and banning methods of restraint such as chokeholds.

Black Lives Matter protests and calls for police reform have been spreading around the world, including in Geneva, Switzerland. (Salvatore Di Nolfi / Keystone files)

"Reform assumes that the system is broken and that there are bad actors within the system, and that these measures will rectify that," Lawrie said of the difference between reforming and defunding. "Defunding is predicated on the notion that the system is working exactly as it has always intended to work, and that is the problem."

Abolition through defunding and disbanding is important because the current model of policing and prison is "tied up with slavery," Ware said.

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"Reform doesnt address the inherent initial problems that are why we need to get rid of police and prisons; reform doesnt address anti-Blackness, it doesnt address white supremacy," he said.

The solution is not reform, but rather to steadily cut "bloated" police budgets and reimagine community safety through systems rooted in care and social justice, Ware said.

"Defunding the police would free up resources to go to community supports like community centres, like housing for all, like making sure there is a safe supply of drugs for folks who use drugs. It could go towards having crisis support teams for people who are in emotional crisis or psychiatric distress," Ware said.

"It could go towards community programs in our school systems that teach children about de-escalation, harm reduction and conflict resolution from a very young age so we can learn ways to de-escalate conflict without relying on the police."

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers
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Linkedin Richard Horstman (The Jakarta Post) -  Wed, June 10, 2020 12:38 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd8c135 3 Art & Culture arts-and-culture,arts-and-culture-in-Indonesia,COVID-19,pandemic Free

The massive disruption caused in the art and creative sector of the Indonesian economy by global governmental measures to limit the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was the subject of a recent webinar.

Titled "Discussing the Fine Arts during the COVID-19 Pandemic", the webinar was conducted on June 4 and organized by Sarasvati Art Communication & Publication of Jakarta.

Moderated by Lin Chi Wei, founder of Sarasvati and the chair of an independent research institute that devises economic policy plans for the Office of the Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister, the webinar invited leading art figures to offer insight and solutions to curb the losses experienced in the arts.

Many artists and art workers have lost their source of income, and while art activities depend heavily on patrons, private funding and market mechanisms, in the national context, there is no social safety net for these people.

Some foreign governments and private sources, however, have launched social initiatives to help art workers. Intervention from the state and private sector is needed to ensure the continuity of the Indonesia art world during this pandemic.

In the open forum of about 30 people, Lin Chi Wei called for help on public figures including Oei Hong Djien, senior art patron and founder of privately-owned OHD Museum in Magelang, Central Java; Jasdeep Sandhu, director of Gajah Gallery Singapore and Yogya Art Lab in Yogyakarta; Soemantri Widagdo, founder of TiTian Art Space and the TiTian Awards; Zamrud Setyanegara, exhibition division head of the National Gallery of Indonesia; Suwarno Wisetrotomo, curator and senior lecturer at the Indonesia Art Institute (ISI) Yogyakarta, along with writers, curators, historians, art conservators and artists themselves.

Indonesian art stakeholders hold a webinar organized by Sarasvati on June 4. (Courtesy of Sarasvati/File)

The objective of the webinar was to gain an overview of the current situation of artists, curators and museum/gallery managers in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, to get input and insight from some of these senior art stakeholders in responding to the pandemic, so that the art world can remain alive and create cooperation and networking between focus groups of producers, reviewers, organizations/institutions and the government, Lin Chi Wei told The Jakarta Post.

The goal is then to spearhead multi-discipline collaborative projects with these specific focus groups. Operational proposals for private sponsors and the government will have clearly defined objectives and outcomes in order to help spark a rebound and the development of the art sector post-COVID, so that specific stakeholders will be the beneficiaries.

The 2.5-hour webinar began with information on the global and local pandemic situation by epidemiologist Panji Hadisoemarto to help develop a time frame about the virus and the possible reopening of the economy. Following this, the focus was on the development of online platforms to develop the local art ecosystem by increasing the exposure of Indonesian art to the world  where the challenge is to find new and sustainable models of collaboration.

During the discussion, words of encouragement were offered to artists from the OHD Museum and especially Jasdeep Sandhu, who stated that, [now] is a good time to develop your work, and the art world is cyclic and has always endured ups and downs. Now with the benefit of new and dynamic online platforms, the internet can help lead us out of this crisis.

On the subject of collectors and artist engagement, he added: They must work together to find new common ground in their communications and be sensitive and prepared to be flexible and offer more incentives. It is now a buyers market.

Soemantri Widagdo underlined the significance of the medium of storytelling through digital platforms to help in both the education of the art public as well as creating new value through explaining the specific importance of certain works of art. He also underlined the importance of developing markets for unknown and emerging Indonesian artists.

Art conserver Michaela Anselmini reminded institutions that the COVID-19 period was an excellent time to work on art conservation. Suwarno Wisetrotomo suggested eliminating event and exhibition opening ceremonies. Lin Chi Wei prompted the National Gallery to challenge the standards of social distancing and to renegotiate the rules, so that galleries and institutions could soon reopen.

The mood of participants during the webinar was upbeat and positive; many believed the pandemic was an enormous opportunity in disguise for positive sustainable growth and development in the Indonesian art world.

The path forward does, however, require a two-pronged approach: one looking at the short-term possibilities and potential, the other at a long-term strategy that takes into account the massive disruption and reset yet to come in the global financial and economic systems. (kes)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
Twitter will finally reintroduce its 'blue checkmark' verification program after a more than three-year hiatus.

According to reverse engineering master Jane Manchun Wong, Twitter is working on a new system of verification as evidenced by a 'request verification' field found in the 'personal information' section of its app's settings.

Specifically, the new system will allow individual users to request verification from Twitter for the first time since 2017.

Twitter is working on Request Verification 



(Im not Twitter employee. Im not tech support) pic.twitter.com/ED58QsD7kM  Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) June 7, 2020

Twitter has come toe-to-toe with President Donald Trump after the platform fact-checked a tweet claiming mail-in voting results would be fraudulent. Picture: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

Since a tweet posted by Manchun Wong detailing her findings, Twitter has confirmed that it's working on a revamped verification process.

Perhaps more significantly than the program returning, is the fact that Twitter will, for the first time, clarify how its verification process works and what purpose it serves.

In 2017 Twitter's verification process came under scrutiny after the company verified the account of a known white supremacist who organized racist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia.

While Twitter argued that its verification process was meant to apply to accounts considered 'public interest,' the choice sparked a debate over whether those propagating hate speech should be allowed into the process.

The company has continued to verify accounts since it discontinued individual requests, but only those firmly in the public eye - namely politicians and in recent times public health experts.

Though Twitter plans on reinstituting verifications, it didn't provide any details on when users will be able to start submitting requests.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., halted the deportation of a 16-year-old Honduran boy on Tuesday night, in the first legal challenge to the Trump administrations border closure policy in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Lawyers who filed the case hoped the decision would serve as a first step toward reversing the March 21 order by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that blocks most nonessential travel across the borders with Mexico and Canada.

The boy at the center of the case, known as J.B.B.C., entered the United States on June 4, hoping to seek asylum. Rather than transferring him to a federal shelter for migrant children while his asylum claim was reviewed, as has been customary for decades when children arrive without adult guardians, border officials began making arrangements to deport him immediately back to Honduras, where, according to his father and lawyers, he would have been in danger.

The boys father, Carlos Emilio Barrera Rodriguez, said that when he learned what was happening to his son, he began frantically searching for a lawyer who could help keep the boy in the United States. The boy has been staying temporarily in a hotel in West Texas, in the custody of the federal Customs and Border Protection agency.
Christies Islamic Art specialist Sara Plumbly and Diana Heath, a metal conservator, reveal the history behind this precious piece, and how it was brought back to life

This ewer is a really exciting discovery, declares Sara Plumbly, head of Islamic and Indian Art at Christies, in the film above. It has real wow factor.

She is referring to a rare type of brass jug, 47.5 cm in height, which originates from medieval Egypt and is densely inlaid with floral and geometric motifs in silver and gold, as well as four bands of calligraphy around its neck and body.

One of those bands, Plumbly explains, provides a clue as to exactly when and for whom the ewer was created.

The calligraphy around the body bears the titles of the sultan of the time, Al-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun, which indicates that it was probably made for an emir or prince, she says.

Al-Malik Muhammad (1285-1341) was the ninth Bahri Mamluk sultan of Egypt and enjoyed three distinct reigns: 1293-4, 1299-1309 and finally 1310-1341, when this ewer was most likely made.

Egyptian Mamluks acquired great wealth by controlling the silk and spice trade between the East and West from their base on the river Nile. They channelled much of this into workshops that produced enamelled glass, fine textiles and inlaid metalwork to local commission, as well as for export across the Mediterranean.


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Today's Daily Dose brings you news about Denali halting the development of DNL747 in Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; the update on Immuron's research collaboration with the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center that was inked last October; the retirement plan of Inogen CEO and Intersect ENT's Sinus implant getting approval for reimbursement with a new C-Code.



Read on.



1. Denali Halts Development Of DNL747; To Focus On Backup Compound DNL788



Denali Therapeutics Inc. (DNLI) and its partner Sanofi (SNY) have decided to pause the clinical activities of DNL747 in Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), based on molecule-specific toxicity findings and a superior profile of backup compound DNL788.



In two phase Ib studies in Alzheimer's disease and ALS, and in an open-label extension study of ALS, DNL747 has been shown to be safe and well-tolerated at the dose tested with no significant treatment-related adverse events. But chronic toxicity studies with DNL747 in cynomolgus monkeys, conducted in parallel with clinical studies, have shown dose- and duration-dependent adverse preclinical findings at exposures higher than those tested in the clinic.



In addition, data from the completed phase I study with DNL758, the backup compound to DNL747, in healthy volunteer subjects suggest an encouraging profile, as the molecule appears safe and tolerable at doses tested, added the Company.



DNLI closed Tuesday's trading at $25.71, down 1.42%. In after-hours, the stock fell another 6.85% to $23.95.



2. Fate Prices Offering



Fate Therapeutics Inc. (FATE) has offered to sell 6.18 million shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $28.31 per share. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 927,234 shares of its common stock.



The proceeds from this offering are expected to be approximately $164.2 million. The offering is expected to close on or about June 11, 2020.



Subject to the completion of the offering, the Company also expects to sell to Johnson & Johnson Innovation-JJDC, Inc. in a private placement, 1.77 million shares of common stock for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $50.0 million.



FATE closed Tuesday's trading at $32.72, up 15.58%.



3. Immuron Soars On US DoD Naval Medical Research Center Collaboration Update



Shares of Immuron Limited (IMRN) jumped as much as 1,280 percent in intraday trading on Tuesday, following an update on the Company's research collaboration with the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center that was inked last October.



The research collaboration is intended to develop a new oral therapeutic targeting Campylobacter and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) to prevent acute infectious diarrhea.



The Naval Medical Research Center plans to file an investigational new drug (IND) application for the new oral therapeutic later this year and commence two phase II clinical studies during the first half of 2021. One trial will focus on the ability of the drug candidate to protect volunteers against moderate to severe campylobacteriosis while the second trial will focus on ETEC infections.



Immuron's flagship product is Travelan, a novel, over the counter ('OTC') product for the prevention of Travellers' diarrhea. For the third quarter of fiscal 2020, which ended on March 31, 2020, global sales of Travelan were A$983 thousand compared to A$616 thousand in the year-ago quarter.



IMRN touched a new high of $28.99 in intraday trading on Tuesday, before closing the day at $20, up 809.09%. In after-hours, the stock fell 21.25% to $15.75.



4. Inogen CEO To Retire Before End Of 2021



Inogen Inc.'s (INGN) Chief Executive Officer and President Scott Wilkinson has announced his intention to retire before the end of 2021. Wilkinson will remain in his current position until a successor is appointed.



The Company has begun the process to identify a successor for Wilkinson and intends to engage an executive search firm to support the search.



INGN closed Tuesday's trading at $40.15, down 1.47%.



5. Intersect ENT's Sinus Implant Approved For Reimbursement with New C-Code



Intersect ENT Inc.'s (XENT) SINUVA Sinus Implant has been approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for transitional pass-through payment status for reimbursement with a new C-Code. The new Code 'C9122 Mometasone furoate sinus implant' is slated to take effect July 1, 2020, and the pass-through payment status will last for three years.



According to the Company, the new C code will simplify the reimbursement process for ENT physicians and their practices, as well as provide Medicare patients easier access to this novel drug-eluting sinus implant.



Thomas West, President & Chief Executive Officer of Intersect ENT, said, ' With over 70 percent of commercial lives already covered for SINUVA, this new C Code assignment further expands access to SINUVA in a very important patient population, Fee for Service Medicare, comprised of approximately 40 million additional lives.'



XENT closed Tuesday's trading at $14.53, up 14.5%.



6. Stocks That Moved On No News



Plus Therapeutics Inc. (PSTV) closed Tuesday's trading at $2.33, up 33.91%.



Aptorum Group Limited (APM) closed Tuesday's trading at $4.71, up 34.57%.



Enlivex Therapeutics Ltd. (ENLV) closed Tuesday's trading at $6.20, up 16.54%.



Zynex Inc. (ZYXI) closed Tuesday's trading at $20, down 12.63%.



Community Health Systems Inc. (CYH) closed Tuesday's trading at $3.65, down 11.19%.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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As many as 14 staff members of the Harsul jail in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday

Aurangabad: As many as 14 staff members of the Harsul jail in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, a prison official said.

Earlier, 29 undertrial prisoners of the jail had tested positive for the disease following which samples of the prison's administration staff were sent for testing.

Reports of 14 jail staff members, including two officers, came out positive on Wednesday, a senior prison official said.

All the new patients are asymptomatic and they have been quarantined at facilities set up in the jail premises, the official said.

They are being monitored by health teams of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation, he said.

"Since the lockdown came into force, nearly 60 staff members of the jail administration have been on duty in the premises for almost two months. The main gate of the jail will be opened on Wednesday evening (as part of lockdown easing)," jail superintendent Hiralal Jadhav told PTI.

Meanwhile, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Aurangabad rose to 2,264 on Wednesday after 114 more people tested positive for the disease, a district official said.

So far, 116 patients have died in the district while 1,283 have been discharged after recovery.

As of now, 865 patients are undergoing treatment, the official said.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Derek Nicholas Padilla had himself a busy month.

According to online court records, Padilla has been charged in nine separate cases in Santa Fe magistrate and District Court since May 4  mostly for vehicle theft, but also for breaking and entering, trespassing, possession of controlled substances and concealing his identity. And thats not counting the federal case brought against him late last month for theft of government property.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Padilla, 29, is accused of stealing an SUV from Santa Fe Studios and later a pickup truck from the Bureau of Indian Affairs compound on Nambe Pueblo. He also allegedly stole a dozen firearms from the BIA Office of Justice Services in Nambe and controlled substances from an evidence room at the office.

Padilla is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on the theft of government property charge in federal Magistrate Court in Albuquerque.

An affidavit from BIA Special Agent Carleen Fischer says that on May 20 the Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office was called to investigate an abandoned 2019 Infiniti SUV parked on Arroyo Cuyamungue Road in Nambe. While trying to determine the vehicles owner, deputies found a debit card belonging to Padilla and several firearms. BIA officials were called and it was discovered that a storage building on the BIA compound had been broken into, the security system had been dismantled and the door to the evidence room was breached.

There was indication that someone had been living in the building as there was clothing under a desk in one of the offices, Fischers affidavit says. In addition, boxes of Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs) belonging to BIA Fire Agency had been opened and some were laying on the desk.

A Ford pickup truck owned by the BIA was also missing from the compound.

That same day Santa Fe deputies located Padilla about a mile away from the compound and questioned him about the vehicle in which his debit card and guns were found. Padilla told deputies that he recently bought the SUV from someone for $900 with the money he had received from his stimulus check. He said the weapons belonged to a man and woman he had met in an Espanola park who were trying to sell the guns.

According to Padilla, the couple got into a fight and walked off, leaving the firearms in his car, the affidavit states.

Padilla was let go, but the next day deputies conducted a more thorough search of the vehicle, which by then was suspected of being stolen from Santa Fe Studios. Thats when they found a green leafy substance and white powdery substance in baggies with evidence tape from the BIA NPA Evidence room at the compound. They also found syringes, which Padilla previously admitted belonged to him as he was a heroin addict.

Then, on May 22, a BIA officer was driving through Espanola when he spotted the missing BIA pickup truck traveling down Paseo de Onate. A police pursuit ensued, the pickup truck crashed and Padilla and another man ran away but were caught and detained, according to the affidavit.

Two days later, Santa Fe County deputies arrested Padilla for breaking into Santa Fe Studios while attempting to steal a Jeep. He was booked into the Santa Fe County jail May 24 and is being held without bond.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  President Rodrigo Duterte said the Philippines and China should forge even stronger ties amid the coronavirus crisis.

"As the entire world continues to face challenges to security and stability and the rule of law and with the rise of non-traditional and emerging threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic, further strengthening Philippines-China partnership takes on even greater significance," Duterte said in his letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping dated June 9.

"We must forge on and ensure that the potential of our special ties is fully realized," Duterte added.

June 9 marks the 45th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Chinese Embassy in Manila posted a copy of Duterte's letter on its official Facebook page.

Duterte reiterated that China "is a close neighbor and valued friend," and that the Philippines remains committed "to preserve and build on the gains of our close partnership for greater peace, progress and prosperity for our nations."

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro "Teddy Boy" Losin, Jr. said in a separate letter that he's confident the two countries will "continue to grow in friendship, bridging gaps, cooperating for mutual benefit and prospering in tandem."

Duterte has nurtured friendship with China despite Beijing's refusal to recognize Manila's arbitration win in the South China Sea dispute. The arbitral ruling invalidated China's sweeping claim to almost the entire South China Sea. It recognized Philippine sovereign rights in some areas in the West Philippine Sea that Beijing is claiming.

Duterte agreed to "shelve differences" to make way for the planned joint oil and gas exploration in disputed areas.

The commemoration of the 45th anniversary of Philippines-China ties on Tuesday was also marred by a controversial visit of Filipino officials and reporters to Philippine-occupied Pag-asa Island in the disputed Spratlys. The island is claimed by the Philippines, China, Vietnam and Taiwan.

Upon arriving at the island to formally open the Navys beaching ramp, reporters were surprised to receive text messages welcoming them to China. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana also received a text greeting which said, Welcome to Vietnam!

Lorenzana only found the text messages amusing and largely ignored them, but suggested that the Philippines also set up its own powerful cell sites on the island that will greet mobile users with Welcome to the Philippines!

The Duterte government earlier filed diplomatic protests over China's declaration of two new districts in what it calls Sansha City, which covered areas in the West Philippine Sea, and a Chinese warship's pointing of a radar gun at a Philippine Navy warship.

Despite China's aggression, the Duterte government has been vocal in thanking Beijing for its support in the Philippines' COVID-19 response, and is even counting on the East Asian giant to develop the vaccine against the new coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China in 2019.

READ: Govt. expects first dibs on COVID-19 vaccine if 'BFF' China produces it
The FTSE 100 closed down 0.1 per cent or 6.59 points at 6,329.13 and the pound was at $1.27 against the dollar.

The Restaurant Group, which owns Frankie and Benny's and Wagamama, has confirmed plans to close 125 of its sites as it tries to push down rents after the huge hit to the hospitality sector from coronavirus.

Fashion retailer Quiz said it would place its stores unit into administration and then buy the business back so it can try to renegotiate better rental terms. The group's 82 standalone stores in the United Kingdom and the Ireland are the ones affected.

Emirates, one of the world's biggest long-haul airlines, will lay off more pilots and cabin crew, sources have told Reuters, in a bid to stave off a cash crunch caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
By Peter Nurse

Investing.com - European stock markets pushed higher Wednesday, helped by gains in the banking sector, but trading ranges have been tight ahead of the conclusion of the latest policy meeting of the Federal Reserve.

At 4:00 AM ET (0800 GMT), the DAX in Germany traded 0.7% higher, France's CAC 40 rose 0.8%, while the U.K.'s FTSE index was up 0.6%.

These gains are continuing the positive tone of late, largely based on optimism over a global recovery from the coronavirus crisis, as well as coordinated monetary and fiscal stimulus from central banks and governments.

The European Central Bank is now looking at a scheme to cope with potentially hundreds of billions of euros of unpaid loans in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reported.

The project is aimed at shielding commercial banks from staggering amounts of debt that is considered unlikely to be repaid, particularly if rising unemployment chokes off the income needed to do so.

The banking sector responded positively to this, with Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) up 2.7%, Credit Agricole (PA:CAGR) up 2.6% and Santander (MC:SAN) gaining 2.2%.

Earlier Wednesday, the French government said it is considering whether to end all emergency health measures imposed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic on July 10.

This comes as the countrys industrial production slumped by 20% in April, following a drop of 16% the previous month.

Investors will also be keeping a keen eye on the Federal Reserve as the U.S. central bank concludes its policy meeting later in the day.

While no major policy announcements are expected, investors will scrutinize its remarks on the health of the economy, the worlds largest, particularly after the recent upturn in jobs numbers.

In corporate news, Inditex (MC:ITX), the Spanish fashion giant, said Wednesday that it swung to a first-quarter loss and recorded a big sales decline, citing the impact of the coronavirus.

Oil prices sold off Wednesday, weighed by the American Petroleum Institutes surprise estimate of an 8.4-million-barrel build for the week ended June 5 late Tuesday, prompting renewed fears of a supply glut.

Story continues

Investors will now look closely at the Energy Information Administrations prediction, due later in the day.

At 2:00 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 2.3% lower at $38.05 a barrel. The international benchmark Brent contract fell 1.9% to $40.40.

Elsewhere, gold futures rose 0.2% to $1,725.80/oz, while EUR/USD traded at 1.1362, up 0.2%.

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Smartcare health check summary view for childcare programs Smartcares functionality has been integral to allowing our organization to re-open while following CDC guidelines, giving parents peace of mind that their children are well cared for in a very safe environment. - Dustin Forsythe, Director of IT at YMCA of Williamson County

As childcare providers, afterschool programs and summer camps adapt to the new normal, implementing touchless check-in and digital health checks to reduce the risk of COVID transmission is imperative.

To support the industry, Smartcare has launched functionality that enables digital health checks at drop-off, consistent with CDC guidance to do so as a best practice. Health checks ensure that children who have COVID-like symptoms or may have been exposed to COVID can be isolated which reduces the risk of infection to other children at the same facility.

As an innovative care provider, the YMCA of Williamson County near Austin, Texas, implemented Smartcares new functionality as part of its broader plans to provide safe childcare options to parents in the area.

We know providing childcare options is essential to parents being able to return to work and to the ongoing education of children, said Dustin Forsythe, Director of IT at YMCA of Williamson County, Smartcares functionality has been integral to allowing our organization to re-open while following CDC guidelines, giving parents peace of mind that their children are well cared for in a very safe environment.

As the economy reopens, Smartcare realizes that quality, safe childcare is essential. Smartcare believes strongly we are entering a new normal. What this means is that many of the common practices in place before COVID-19 will need to be replaced with practices better suited to current challenges. As a company, were committed to bringing innovative technology solutions to market that enable care providers to efficiently adapt to the new normal.

Smartcare (https://smartcare.com/) is the leading provider of mobile-first, software-as-a-service solution to childcare provider, early educators, afterschool programs and summer camps. Our mission is to solve the industrys unique technology needs with easy-to-use solutions for teachers and administrators, and a modern experience for parents. Our solutions include lead management, online registration and enrollment, a system of record for families, students, parents and teachers, scheduling, billing and payments, lesson plans, assessments and parent communication.

The YMCA of Williamson County (https://ymcagwc.org/) has operated in the Round Rock area since the 1970s providing you development, opportunities for healthy living, and programs for social responsibility. Today, the organization provides childcare, summer camps, health and fitness facilities, community programs and much more. As Williamson County continues a period of unprecedented expansion, the YMCA is ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century as an integral part of the community.

For more information, contact hello@smartcare.com.
The sound of Taps returned to Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery on Wednesday morning, the first time in more than two months.

Jeff Standage, 97, was laid to rest with a committal service with military honors, the first veteran to receive such services at Fort Sam since March when concerns about the coronavirus put a halt to them.

The Department of Veterans Affairs had paused so called committal services and military funeral honors as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The decision affected services at the 142 VA cemeteries across the United States and in Puerto Rico, but not burials in private cemeteries.

Bob Owen /Staff photographer

The VA allowed the resumption of burial and memorial ceremonies starting this week, although with restrictions.

With the resumption of services, members of the U.S. Army Honor Guard and the Fort Sam Houston Memorial Services Detachment were able to offer final honors to the U.S. Army veteran, including the playing of Taps. Toward the end of the ceremony, the Honor Guard members folded the flag draping the casket and presented it to Teresa Standage, his widow.

OnExpressNews: San Antonio home where GI and family found dead was once owned by oil theft ringleader

The last burial with military honors to take place at Fort Sam was on March 20. Since then, veterans and their spouses have been interred without a ceremony with only up to 10 people present to witness the direct burial.

Fort Sam held its first committal service Tuesday when the spouse of a veteran, Effie Brown, 87, was laid to rest.

William Luther /Staff photographer

Although services have resumed, there are still coronavirus-related restrictions in place.

VA cemeteries will continue to limit the number of people attending services to 10. Cemetery employees, funeral home personnel and military honor guards will not count toward the limit.

OnExpressNews.com: Nazi headstones at veterans cemeteries, including San Antonios Fort Sam Houston, spark outrage

The cemeteries also will impose physical distancing between individuals not from the same household, and require that their workers and those attending wear masks. Those at the services will be encouraged to use hand sanitizer frequently and anyone who is sick is asked to stay home.

Families can still request direct burials and have a memorial service later, when restrictions have been lifted.
The music drifted over downtown Oakland as about 100 people gathered on 14th Street Tuesday evening.

The song, Amor Eterno, is played at memorials or funerals to honor the dead.

Nearly 2,000 miles away and a few hours earlier, thousands mourned George Floyd before he was laid to rest in Houston, 15 days after he was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.

His death set off protests and demonstrations around the country, filling streets in urban and suburban communities and at times resulting in rage-filled clashes with law enforcement.

But by Tuesday, the violence had ebbed in the Bay Area, curfews had been lifted days earlier as fury gave way to quiet grief and hope for change, with demonstrations and gatherings filled with music, prayer, grief and persistent calls for reform.

The Oakland event, Brown Folx 4 Black Lives, was an expression of solidarity, said, Ana Perez, founder of the event, Latino Equity Project, which sponsored the gathering with the Greenlining 360 Center.

The message is that mixed race and indigenous Latinx are here to say that the mass murdering of black people in this country needs to stop, Perez said. That we are in deep solidarity with the black community. And that we are tackling racism that happens in our communities by educating people about that.

Now Playing: Ben McBride addresses a group of protesters gathered outside Oakland PD headquarters Video: San Francisco Chronicle

The demonstrations were among dozens scheduled across the Bay Area this week, organized by local nonprofits and other groups, all advocating for change.

At the same time, some 40 miles south at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez in San Jose, a few hundred demonstrators sprawled out on the grass near an altar honoring Floyd as well as Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in Louisville, Ky., and Ahmaud Arbery, gunned down by a man in Georgia while jogging.

The altar was decorated with flowers and demonstrators took turns dropping offerings, many lingering in silence and kneeling.

Arleen Cardenas, 37, and her 4-year-old son, Miguel, biked to the plaza for the gathering.

Cardenas, a 7th grade math teacher, said it was crucial to teach her son the importance of civil engagement. He had seen the crowds of protesters in their San Jose neighborhood, the clouds of teargas and items thrown.

Now Playing: Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, local artists and community members paint over boarded-up storefronts in Downtown Oakland. The grassroots project responds to the civil unrest over police violence and systemic racism, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Video: Caron Creighton

Cardenas said she has educated him on why people are calling for police reform and accountability when police kill black men, women and people of color. Miguel knows police officers are sworn to protect their communities, she said, and he had many questions about Floyds death.

Im a teacher so reform has to be in the education system, it has to be in the neighborhoods with our police officers. It has to be in our economics system, Cardenas said. I feel there is a lot of momentum and I honestly feel like there is a lot that is going to come out of this.

Miguel stood among the crowd, hold the sign he made with his mom: Killing is sad and bad.

Speakers urged the crowd of hundreds to register to vote, pointing to a woman balancing a clipboard in her arms on the plaza steps.

Now Playing: Shortly before 7 p.m., hundreds of demonstrators at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez in Downtown San Jose dropped to one knee and began 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, marking the period of time a Minneapolis police officer knelt on George Floyds neck with his knee. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

Just before 7 p.m., the demonstrators dropped to one knee and began 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, marking the period of time Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyds neck with his knee.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Tears flowed from the closed eyes of protesters and into their cloth face coverings. People buried their faces into their palms, and others hugged their knees. Some raised one fist in the air, others balanced spray-painted illustrations of Floyd above the heads, which waved in the gentle breeze.

As demonstrators in San Jose raised their fists in the air, the Folx 4 Black Lives event in Oakland was ending and another group of people started gathering for a prayer and protest rally at City Hall. About 200 protesters then marched to Oakland Police headquarters, where they shouted Black Lives Matter, as a dozen officers stood outside.

The event was organized by the Church for America. When one of the speakers called on the department to fire all racist cops, the demonstrators dropped to their knees on the corner of 7th and Broadway and like their San Jose peers, went silent for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

The only sound was someone occasionally repeating: The knee is still on George Floyds neck.

Some had placed a hand on the gray exterior of the police building, including Marcus Green, 26, of Oakland and prayed.

It was a powerful image for the officers to see, Green said.

I think its powerful standing there with everybody all linked together, Green said afterward. We have our hands there and were trying to just get the demons out of the OPD and have God fill it with war angels and really put that love and all that back into the building.

Lauren Hernandez, Matt Kawahara and Jill Tucker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com, mkawahara@sfchronicle.com; lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker @matthewkawahara @bylhernandez
A superintendent of police (SP) in a district in Assam and his three other staff exchanged their khaki uniforms for personal protective equipment (PPE) kits on Tuesday to conduct the last rites of a coronavirus disease (Covid-19) victim in a bid to set an example of precautionary measures against the raging pandemic.

Debojit Deori, SP, Karbi Anglong, his two bodyguards and a driver were left to perform the last rites of a 54-year-old person, the first Covid-19 victim in the district, after mounting local resistance because of the social stigma and a growing panic against the viral infection.

The victim, who had returned from Chennai in May, had died at the medical college hospital in Diphu, the headquarters of Karbi Anglong district, on Sunday.

However, his last rites were performed two days later because of the opposition from the locals and a delay in locating a suitable place to bury the dead.

Nobody was willing to perform the victims last rites because of lack of awareness among the locals. His last rites were performed at a place, which is not usually used for cremation, as local people were scared of contracting SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, said Deori.

Ultimately, we decided to step in, as someone had to set an example and perform the last rites with proper dignity. We performed the last rites at Bokoliaghat, around 50 kilometres from Diphu. A family member conducted the rituals before the burial, the SP added.

Deori has sent his aged mother to his native place, as a precautionary measure, and he has also quarantined himself at home. The other three persons, who helped the SP to conduct the victims last rites, have also gone under home quarantine.

Someone had to perform the last rites, as we couldnt have kept the body for long and he had to be given a decent send-off. We also needed to show it to the people that as long as you use the necessary safety measures, theres nothing to fear about the viral outbreak, said Deori.

There have been instances of delays and problems in disposing bodies of Covid-19 patients at several places across the country.

Similar problems were reported after Assams first Covid-19 death in the Barak Valleys Hailakandi district and the first fatality in neighbouring Meghalaya in April.

We couldnt conduct the last rites at the two places chosen earlier, as the public was panic-stricken. Sanitary workers were also unwilling to take part in conducting the last rites. Finally, it was performed close to a public cremation site near the deceaseds residence, said Mukul Kumar Saikia, deputy commissioner (DC), Karbi Anglong.

Im thankful to SP Deori and the other men who came forward to conduct the last rites to set an example. He and the other three men are in quarantine for a few days as a preventive measure, he added.

Assam has recorded five Covid-19 related deaths till Wednesday. Over 3,000 Covid-19 positive cases have been recorded in the state and nearly 1,100 patients have recovered to date.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 19:55:11|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday refuted a report from an Australian institute for strategic policy, which claimed China is collecting intelligence through "thousands" of organizations, affecting overseas Chinese communities and foreign elites and promoting Chinese interests.

Spokesperson Hua Chunying told a news briefing that this institute has long received financial support from the United States government and U.S. arms dealers. It is keen on concocting and hyping anti-China topics.

"The academic credibility of the institute is seriously in question," said Hua, adding that this very institute also concocted an absurd report related to the Xinjiang issue.

China has always insisted on developing ties with other countries based on the principles of mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs, said Hua.

"Interfering in other countries' internal affairs has never been part of China's diplomacy, nor is it what we excel at. We hope that external forces will stop trying to make this an issue," she added. Enditem
The federal Office of Civil Rights reached an agreement Tuesday with the state of Connecticut that allows caregivers of those with disabilities to have a support person accompany them to hospitals and other medical settings.

Disability Rights Connecticut and several other advocacy groups filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights on May 4 urging the federal agency to immediately investigate and take swift action to resolve allegations of disability discrimination.

Because of COVID-19, hospitals and other medical settings were not allowing the caregivers of persons with disabilities the opportunity to accompany their loved ones to the hospital.

As part of the resolution reached Tuesday, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to issue an executive order to ensure that people with disabilities have reasonable access to support personnel in hospital settings in a manner that is consistent with disability rights laws and the health and safety of patients, health care providers, and support persons.

As vulnerable populations around the state continue to be disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a priority for my office and the state to come to a resolution on allowing a support person to accompany and advocate for individuals with disabilities into our hospitals, Lamont stated. The order issued by Commissioner Gifford implements vital safeguards for individuals with special needs to ensure proper and safe care is being provided and received in a hospital setting.

The order, according to a press release from the Office of Civil Rights, will include establishing a statewide policy requiring hospitals and other acute care settings to permit the entrance of a designated support person for a patient with a disability and permitting family members, service providers or other individuals knowledgeable about the needs of the person with a disability to serve as a designated support person. Where patients with a disability are in such a setting for longer than one day, they may designate two support persons, provided only one is present at a time.

The Department of Developmental Services and the Connecticut Hospital Association reached an agreement at the end of April to allow some caregivers to accompany their loved one with an intellectual and developmental disability to the hospital. But the accommodation was limited to only those receiving services from DDS.

The guidance unlawfully limits protections to only those individuals with I/DD who are served by DSS, Disability Rights Connecticut said in their complaint. The letter excludes people with disabilities in Connecticut not served by DDS, as well as those who do not have I/DD but have equally critical needs for, and the legal right to, a support person to accompany them to the hospital.

With the exception of three Connecticut hospitals operated by Nuvance Health, which also operates hospitals in New York, not a single Connecticut hospital had an exception to its visitation prohibition for support persons for individuals with disabilities, according to DRCT.

DRCT was joined in filing the federal complaint by the Center for Public Representation and CommunicationFIRST, both based in Washington, D.C., and The Arc of Connecticut, The Arc of the United States, and Independence Northwest: Center for Independent Living of Northwest CT.
The death of a well-known and highly respected Londonderry farmer - described in tributes as one of life's wonderful characters - has left his grief-stricken family stunned, his minister and friend has said.

David Crockett is understood to have died at the family farm on the Coshquin Road near the border when he fell through the roof of an outbuilding.

It is believed Mr Crockett's son Gordon was also involved in the accident although his injuries are not believed to be serious.

The Health and Safety Executive is conducting an investigation into Mr Crockett's death.

He was a popular member of the farming community on both sides of the Irish border, with his land straddling the border in counties Londonderry and Donegal.

Mr Crockett was a well-known voice on the radio, contributing to debates concerning rural affairs and Brexit.

Paying tribute, Rev Jim Lamont, minister of Burt Presbyterian Church, said the devastating loss of Mr Crockett will be felt far and wide.

He said: "I visited Margaret and the family and they are just in a state of sheer shock, they are stunned by the enormity of what has happened - just shattered. It will take them a long time to come to terms with what has happened.

"David's death has been such a shock to the whole community - he was just a man who was loved, respected and had a great sense of humour.

"He was a dedicated family man first and foremost but we are all in sorrow because he was a man with a warm personality and kind nature who stood ready to help anyone who needed help.

"He was a faithful member of our church and of the choir. I always met him coming into church and he always had some little story or something to joke about. He was just an amazing person - one of life's characters."

Mr Crockett, whose farm has been in the family since 1911, was a lifelong friend of Gordon Elder. He said not being able to pay his final respects because of the restrictions on funerals due to coronavirus has deepened everyone's sorrow.

He said: "I have known David a lifetime and knew his father before him - our families go back a long way.

"David was a great storyteller - a gift he took from his own father and he loved nothing better than to recall stories of growing up on the farm, of schools days, everything really.

"David was irreplaceable and his loss will be deeply felt not just within the farming community but by everyone who knew him.

"David's son Gordon was on my farm last Saturday shearing sheep and he was telling me how the Young Farmers Club had raised money for the Air Ambulance with little idea that two days later the Air Ambulance would be called to his own farm.

"I am devastated about David's death but above all my heart is sore for his wife Margaret and the family.

"The natural thing for me to do would have been to go and visit them and tell them how sorry I am but we can't do that.

"The coronavirus restrictions that are on us now means that we cannot do what we would by nature do at a sad time like this.

"Donegal people are well known for their attendance at funerals and I have no doubt hundreds of people will want to pay their last respects to David Crockett because he was so highly thought of by everyone.

"I know we are not suppose to question why things happen but it is at times like this - you have to wonder."

The county chairman of the Irish Farmers' Union also offered his condolences to Mrs Crockett.

Brendan McLaughlin said: "On behalf of everyone in the Irish Farmers' Union, our sympathy and heartfelt prayers are with Mrs Crockett and their family.

"Our condolences are offered too to David's two brothers, John and Robert, who are also members of the Co Donegal farming community who are all shocked and saddened by this terrible tragedy."

He was a regular contributor to Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show.

Mr Patterson said he too was saddened to hear of Mr Crockett's passing, saying: "Davy had a tragic farming accident last night. Down the years, he had become part of the BBC Radio Foyle family.

"A warm, generous man with a huge personality."

The PSNI said the death is not being treated as suspicious.

Funeral arrangements for Mr Crockett will be announced later.
Standard Chartered headquarters and a HSBC building are pictured on March 16, 2020 in Hong Kong.

A major shareholder in both HSBC and Standard Chartered has hit out at the banks over their support for China's controversial new national security law in Hong Kong.

In a rare rebuke, Aviva Investors, a top 20 shareholder in both banks owning almost 800 million ($1.02 billion) of their shares, said on Wednesday it was "uneasy" with their public support for the proposed law, given the lack of detail around how it will operate in practice.

Aviva Investors Chief Investment Officer for Equities, David Cumming, said in a statement: "If companies make political statements, they must accept the corporate responsibilities that follow.

"Consequently, we expect both companies to confirm that they will also speak out publicly if there are any future abuses of democratic freedoms connected to this law."

Both HSBC and Standard Chartered declined to comment when approached by CNBC on Wednesday.
(MAYSVILLE, Mo.) DeKalb County mourns their fallen hero Wednesday.

Sheriff Andy Clark was laid to rest in Amity, surrounded by his family, friends and devoted community.

DeKalb County residents pulled out all the honorary stops for the beloved sheriff in Maysville, making sure to give Sheriff Clark the send off he deserves.

He wanted us all to be united and I think everybody stepped back and said we have to do this for him, said Missy Meek, DeKalb County Clerk.

Sheriff Clark received a police escort to his final resting place, Oak Cemetery, where he was buried with full police honors.

First responders and county residents stood out in the rain, a week to the day after Sheriff Clark lost his life in a car crash in the line of duty, to pay their respects and say one last goodbye.

The void in his absence is one thats going to be hard to replace, said Meeks.

Sheriff Clark is remembered as an exceptional sheriff by those who knew and loved him best.

Andy and I worked close together. He and I had our times, but we loved each other. I think Andy loved, you know that word. Andy loved everybody he came in contact with, said Meeks.

A county forever changed. Now, sworn to protect and serve Sheriff Clark's family.

We are here for Andys family. Whatever they want or need, we will continue to be here for them. Whatever that is, said Meeks.

Sheriff Andy Clark's legacy lives on in DeKalb County, a legacy residents said is an unforgettable one.

Were gonna be here, were gonna honor him forever, said Meeks.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson ordered all flags on government buildings in Missouri to be flown at half-staff on Wednesday in honor of Sheriff Clark.
Two firefighters of Oil India Ltd lost their lives in the wake of the oil well fire in Assam's Tinsukia district. The oil well had been continually leaking gas for the last 14 days until it finally caught fire on Tuesday. The massive fire thus caused can be seen from 10 km away.

The bodies of the firefighters were discovered at a wetland near the site of the fire. "Their bodies were recovered from a wetland near the site. Prima facie it looks that they jumped in the water and got drowned as there is no mark of burn injury. The exact cause will be ascertained only after a post mortem," Oil India spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika told news agency Press Trust of India.

According to the officials, the fire has been contained in a 1.5 km radius around the site of the incident. However, the fire continues to burn as the gas is still leaking from the oil well.

The Indian Air Force is helping with the firefighting operations while the army is helping the NDRF and the local authorities with the rescue operations. The area has been cordoned off by paramilitary forces.

The gas leak

The well had been continuously spewing out gas or undergoing a blowout since May 27 in Tinsukia district.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had called up Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan to get foreign experts to repair the damage.

OIL Chairman and Managing Director Sushil Chandra Mishra, on June 8 said three experts from Singapore-based Alert Disaster Control reached Tinsukia district to plug the blowout in the gas well.

On the status of repair work, the PSU major had said arrangements were made to create a water umbrella to control operation. Besides, the preparation of placement of high capacity water pumps was also under progress.

However, poor weather condition was hampering the work progress, according to a statement issued by the company.

Five people have reportedly died due to the gas leak in the area. However, the district administration, where the gas field is present, had ordered a magisterial inquiry on the matter.

According to OIL, it had appointed an environmental consultant to assess the impact of the blowout in nearby areas of the district.

Earlier, pictures of carcasses of a river dolphin and fish in Maguri Motapung Beel, adjacent to Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and about 1.5 km from the site, went viral on social media.

Following this, the Assam Forest department had issued a notice to OIL on May 29 seeking details of the incident.

Since May 27, around 1,610 families were evacuated from the nearby affected areas and were camped in four relief camps set up at Baghjan Dighulturrang LP School, St Joseph School- Baghjan Tea Estate, Gateline LP School-Dighultarrang and No. 1 Baghjan Gaon LP School.

OIL had also assured that it would provide immediate financial relief of Rs 30,000 each to over 1,600 families affected by a major blowout from a gas well in Assam.

Also Read: Coronavirus treatment cost: Tamil Nadu hospitals can't charge above Rs 15,000 a day

Also Read: Vizag gas leak: Andhra govt forms committee to probe incident; seeks report by June 22
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico health officials announced six new coronavirus deaths Wednesday and 147 additional cases, bringing the death toll to 410 and the total number of cases to 9,250.

This comes after Tuesday saw the lowest number of new cases since April.

McKinley County reported the most new cases Wednesday, at 50, followed by 34 in San Juan County and 27 in Dona Ana County, according to the Department of Health.

The new deaths were adults ranging from their 50s to 70s. One was a woman in her 60s from Bernalillo County who was a patient at the Canyon Transitional Rehabilitation Center in Albuquerque.

McKinley County reported three deaths: two women in their 70s, and a man in his 50s. The man did not have any underlying health conditions.

San Juan County reported two deaths: a man in his 50s and a woman in her 70s.

Of the six deaths, five had underlying conditions.

Counties in the northwestern part of the state are continuing to lead reported cases with McKinley County at 2,807 and San Juan County at 2,034. Bernalillo County has 1,623 cases.

Currently, 197 individuals across New Mexico are hospitalized and 3,806 have recovered.

State officials continue to urge people to stay home except for outings absolutely necessary for health, safety and welfare.
Three women in traditional Muslim dress were stopped by Coles staff and had their bags searched for stolen items before they were told to leave the store.

The women were shopping at Coles Ramsgate in southern Sydney on Tuesday when they accidentally tried to leave through a designated entrance.

This set off an alarm and the women were stopped by staff members who told them to produce their receipts to ensure they had not stolen anything.

But the situation quickly escalated after the women became angered by the accusations of theft and they were then told to leave the store.

The three women were shopping at Coles Ramsgate in southern Sydney, NSW on Tuesday when they accidentally tried to leave through a designated entrance

In a video of the incident uploaded to the Sydney Crime News Facebook page, one staff member wearing a high-visibility jacket can be seen examining one of the women's receipt.

The video included the caption: 'These ladies were accused of stealing and then when they (staff) checked, they found nothing.'

Another staff member, wearing a black jumper, told the women to separate their shopping so they can properly search their items.

One of the women became frustrated with the staff member and asked why their shopping was being searched.

It was explained to the women they were stopped because they tried to leave through a designated entrance, setting off the alarm, and it was company policy in those circumstances to ask for proof of purchase.

'Lots of people try to steal out this way. All we did was ask for your receipt,' the staff member told the women.

Tensions continued to rise and one of the Muslim women snatched the receipt from the staff member in frustration.

The staff member wearing the black jumper scolded her, saying 'don't snatch it' while pointing a finger at the woman.

This set off an alarm and the women were stopped by staff members who told them to produce their receipts to ensure they had not stolen anything

The video cuts to the end of the altercation as the staff member in the black jumper can be seen telling the women to get out of the store.

'Leave the store' the staff member yelled as she gestured her arm towards the exit.

Other staff members and customers gathered to watch the three women walk out of the store with their heads down.

One commenter on the video said: 'Why were they targeted in the first place I wonder? If they didnt steal and no crime was committed then a full apology should be given.'

'Should have told them to get f***ed. They're not allowed to check personal bags or stop you,' another said.

Another person commented: 'This is sad. Not even an apology.'

Other commenters supported the Coles staff.

'The lady explained to them that they're checking their bags because they tried to walk out from the "other way" and pointed to entrance,' one woman said.

'What's the big deal in checking your bags if you haven't stolen?'

But the situation quickly escalated after the women became frustrated by the accusations of theft and once they proved to staff they had no stolen items, the three women were forced to leave the store

A Coles spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia as part of the COVID-19 health and safety measures currently in place, their stores have designated entrances and exits to manage the flow of customers.

'On Tuesday this week, a security alarm sounded as a group of customers attempted to leave through an entrance at our Ramsgate store,' the Coles spokeswoman said.

'Our team asked the customers to show their receipts to confirm they had completed their transactions.

'Once the customers had shown their receipts they were permitted to leave the store via the entrance.'

The spokeswoman said Coles does not tolerate abuse or disrespect towards their team members.

'Coles is grateful to the vast majority of customers who have continued to show compassion to our hard-working team members during these busy times.'
New Delhi, June 10 : The Supreme Court on Thursday will hold a hearing for the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) case.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra and comprising Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and M.R. Shah will hear the contention of various telecom firms - Vodafone Idea, Tata Teleservice, and Bharti Airtel.

In the previous hearing on March 18, the apex court slammed the Centre and telecom companies for not complying with its order on the payment of dues and penalties, saying: "Actions of telecom companies tantamount to seeking to bypass our judgement. All dues as per our judgement will have to be paid, including interest and penalty." In its order, the three-judge bench, led by Justice Mishra, and comprising Justices Abdul Nazeer and Shah, held that no self-assessment can be done on AGR dues and no further objection on its verdict would be entertained.

While hearing Centre's plea granting a 20 year window for payment of dues by telecom firms, the court asked that where did the concept of self-assessment come in.

"Who permitted self-assessment without permission of this court? This is sheer contempt of court.

"If reassessment is permitted - it is fraud on this court," insisted Justice Mishra, emphasising this is a question of the prestige of the apex court.

The Centre had cited adverse impact on the economy, telecom sector and banking sectors. The telecom companies' total AGR dues are a staggering Rs 1.47 lakh crore.

"Do companies feel they are more powerful on earth?" asked Justice Mishra. He did not mince any words against the media and said the newspapers are trying to influence courts. "All the companies are trying to influence us through the media," he added.

The top court also noted that the government, in the AGR case, fought tooth and nail, and suggested penalties during its arguments. "Now it wants to do away with the interest," he queried Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Department of Telecommunications.

The bench - comprising Justices Mishra, Nazeer and Shah -- had upheld the DoT definition of AGR in the court ruling on October 24, 2019.

The top court observed that the DoT demand has been confirmed by this court, how can there be self-assessment. "This is impermissible," it said.

The court noted that some telecom players have suggested they need 8-10 months' time to corroborate numbers of self-assessment, but "this cannot be allowed." Instead, the top court insisted that dues have been finalised by the court.

"Won't tolerate this. Companies want to hoodwink us. If required, we will summon the MDs of all the telecom companies and send them to jail from here only. These companies are the usurpers of public money and don't even want to pay a fraction of revenue earned," said Justice Mishra.

On March 16, Mehta, appearing for the DoT, had sought staggered payment over 20 years of AGR dues by telecom companies. Bharti Airtel had already paid Rs 13,000 crore as AGR dues so far, and Vodafone Idea has paid Rs 3,500 crore.
The Mumbai police on Tuesday filed an FIR against the employees of Rajawadi hospital after the body of a 27-year-old murder victim, who had also tested positive for the novel coronavirus, went missing on Sunday.

According to a report in The Indian Express, the kin of the deceased fear that body may have accidentally been handed over to someone else.

The 27-year-old man was allegedly attacked and stabbed in the abdomen by his cousins on the night of June 3 after a family argument, the report added. Subsequently, a murder case was registered at Deonar police station and five persons were held in connection with the incident.

The man's body was then carried to Rajawadi hospital where the doctors said that a test for Covid-19 had to be done before the body could be freed.

The kin was intimated that the deceased had tested positive for Covid-19 on June 5. However, when they arrived at the hospital to collect the body, the hospital was unable to trace it, the IE report added.

The family of the deceased then told local police and an FIR was filed on Monday. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has launched a probe into the incident.

In another bizarre incident, the body of an 80-year-old man  who had recently gone missing from Shatabdi hospital in Kandivali  was discovered near Borivali railway station.

On Tuesday, Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar noted that recently, many incidents of patients running away from hospitals had surfaced. She instructed BMC administration to launch an investigation into the missing incidents reported from the two hospitals, an official release said.

The mayor further directed doctors to evaluate the CCTV footage at Shatabdi hospital and take adequate precautions to ensure that such incidents do not happen again.

(With inputs from PTI)
Representative Image

Population-wide face mask use could push COVID-19 transmission down to controllable levels for national epidemics, and could prevent further waves of the pandemic disease when combined with lockdowns, according to a British study on Wednesday.

The research, led by scientists at the Britain's Cambridge and Greenwich Universities, suggests lockdowns alone will not stop the resurgence of the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, but that even homemade masks can dramatically reduce transmission rates if enough people wear them in public.

"Our analyses support the immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public," said Richard Stutt, who co-led the study at Cambridge.

He said combining widespread mask use with social distancing and some lockdown measures, could be "an acceptable way of managing the pandemic and re-opening economic activity" before the development of an effective vaccine against COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

The study's findings were published in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society A" scientific journal.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

At the onset of the pandemic, scientific evidence on the effectiveness of face masks in slowing transmission of respiratory diseases was limited, and there was no data on COVID-19 since it was a previously unknown disease.

But, prompted by some new research in recent weeks, the World Health Organization said on Friday it now recommends that everyone wear fabric face masks in public to try to reduce disease spread.

In this study, researchers linked the dynamics of spread between people with population-level models to assess the effect on the disease's reproduction rate, or R value, of different scenarios of mask adoption combined with periods of lockdown.

The R value measures the average number of people that one infected person will pass the disease on to. An R value above 1 can lead to exponential growth.

The study found that if people wear masks whenever they are in public it is twice as effective at reducing the R value than if masks are only worn after symptoms appear.

In all scenarios the study looked at, routine face mask use by 50 percent or more of the population reduced COVID-19 spread to an R of less than 1.0, flattening future disease waves and allowing for less stringent lockdowns.

Experts not directly involved in the latest British study were divided over its conclusions.

Brooks Pollock, a Bristol University infectious disease modelling expert, said the likely impact of masks could be much smaller than predicted. Trish Greenhalgh, an Oxford University professor, said the findings were encouraging and suggested masks "are likely to be an effective population measure".

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
Two weeks after George Floyd was killed by four police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, his body was laid to rest Tuesday in Houston, Texas. He was buried in his hometown in a grave next to his mother, for whom he had cried out as police officer Derek Chauvin held him in a chokehold with his knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

The murder of Floyd, caught on bystander cellphone video in excruciating detail, has sparked the largest nationwide and international outpouring of political opposition in decades.

Millions of people have taken part in multiracial, multiethnic demonstrations in hundreds of American cities in all fifty states, and in dozens of cities around the world, to oppose police violence, racism and social inequality. The protests have been met night after night with an onslaught of police brutality. Hundreds of protesters have been wounded and several protesters have been killed.

LaTonya Floyd speaks during the funeral service for her brother George Floyd at The Fountain of Praise church Tuesday, June 9, 2020, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Pool)

Over the last week, tens of thousands have lined up for hours to pay their respects to Floyd and support his family at public memorials in Minneapolis, Houston and North Carolina. Protests continued Tuesday with demonstrations across the country, including in San Antonio, Texas; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Monroeville, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh.

With the backing of President Donald Trump, who has threatened to deploy the military to bring the protests to an end, heavily armed police forces have launched volleys of tear gas, smoke bombs, beanbag munitions and rubber bullets. Democratic as well as Republican mayors and governors in dozens of states have deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers to quell the protests. Journalists across the country have been deliberately targeted by the police for assault and arrest.

Trump expressed his ongoing support for the brutal crackdown yesterday morning, shortly before Floyds funeral began, by tweeting that the 75-year-old man who was violently shoved by police in Buffalo could be an ANTIFA provocateur. Trump, who operates on the basis of the Nazi principle of the Big Lie, declared that Martin Gugino was attempting to scan police.

While the Trump administration continues to threaten to drown the protests in blood, the Democrats are taking a different tack, feigning sympathy for the mass movement while attempting to strangle and coopt it.

Floyds funeral was characterized by a contradiction between the heartfelt speeches from Floyds family members and friends on the one hand, and the cynical posturing of Democratic politicians on the other.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrats presumptive 2020 presidential nominee, recorded a five-minute speech in which he delivered a string of empty platitudes. We must not turn away, Biden declared. We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul. From systemic abuse that still plagues American life.

Biden wrote the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which expanded mandatory minimum sentencing, packed the prisons disproportionately with African American men, and vastly expanded the death penalty.

Among the others speaking at the funeral were Texas Representatives Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee, speaking on behalf of Congressional Democrats. Green promised that the House would pass the Justice in Policing Act, which he declared would make it illegal for a police officer to place his foot on someones neck, end no-knock warrants and require body cameras for all cops, knowing full well that it would not be passed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Houstons Democratic mayor Sylvester Turner also took to the stage to demagogically announce that he would sign an executive order banning the use of chokeholds by police officers in the city, even though his police departments policies already officially bar the use of such brutal tactics.

What the Democrats promise of police reform means in practice is shown by eight years of the Obama administrationwith Biden as vice presidentduring which the police killed approximately 8,000 people. In every police violence case brought before the Supreme Court, Obama sided with the cops. The Obama/Biden administration oversaw the militarization of the police and the crackdowns on protests against police violence in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland.

Democratic party leaders have already made clear that they oppose any significant changes to policing the United States, with Biden declaring his opposition to popular demands for defunding or dismantling police departments. Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has endorsed Biden for president, told the New Yorker in an interview published Tuesday that he supports increased pay for cops and hopes to see police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals.

The main speaker at Floyds funeral was Democratic Party politician and former FBI informer Al Sharpton, who infamously declared after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri that too many African-American youth were sitting around having ghetto pity parties instead of getting positions of power.

Sharpton sought to present the killing of Floyd entirely in racial terms. If four blacks had done to one white, if four black cops had done to one white, what was done to George, they wouldnt have to teach no new lessons, Sharpton said. They wouldnt have to get corporations to get money. They would send them to jail.

While racism in the police is deliberately promoted, the killing of Floyd was carried out not by whites, but by the police, an instrument of class rule. It is, moreover, a lie to say that police who kill white people are swiftly brought to justice.

Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez, the officers who shot homeless man James Boyd in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 2014, had all charges against them dropped. Philip Brailsford, who shot Daniel Shaver as the latter was crawling on his hands and knees, was found not guilty. In fact, the plurality of people killed by the police in the United States are white, and in the vast majority of cases the police are never prosecuted.

Sharpton went on to praise Democrats in Congress, who on Monday carried out a stunt, kneeling for eight minutes and 46 seconds, before unveiling a package of police reforms that will not address police violence and, as they well know, will never pass.

Sharpton, Biden and Green ignored entirely the broader socioeconomic conditions that have brought hundreds of thousands of people of every ethnicity into the streets in protest: the social and economic crisis wrought by the COIVD-19 pandemic, which has taken the lives of more than 114,000 people in the United States and forced tens of millions of people into unemployment and poverty.

After the ruling elite gave itself a $6 trillion bailout, endorsed unanimously by Democrats and Republicans, American corporations have carried out a drive to force workers back on the job, risking their lives in manufacturing facilities and service sector workplaces that have become hotbeds of the disease.

It is this social order, with its inherent and daily violence against the working population, that gives rise to the epidemic of murder and brutality by the police, who are the guarantors and defenders of social inequality.
LOS ANGELES, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Every drop, who's mission is to save consumers money and solve beauty frustrations, today announced that its Beauty Spatula and Every drop Lip Spatula will launch in Whole Foods Market stores nationwide immediately. Both products are reusable tools that help consumers retrieve trapped product in containers, while saving our Planet from beauty waste.

"Our nationwide launch in Whole Foods Market stores aligns with both our company's missions to care for the environment while delivering products that go beyond clean beauty," says Gene Sands, Senior Vice President. "We are thrilled to provide an innovative beauty solution to Whole Foods Market consumers."

Every drop 'Beauty Spatula' was the first spatula made for beauty use in the market. It retrieves most usable cosmetic and beauty product in bottles and containers. It easily reaches under those hard-to-get at shoulders of bottles, the bottom of bottles and is bendable to get product on the sides.

Every drop 'Lip Spatula" was the first lip spatula in the market. It retrieves lip gloss that's stuck, as the bottle's applicator cannot reach the bottom. The lip spatula can also be used for lip stick, so you can continue to use your favorite shade by retrieving any product trapped in the base.

About Every drop Beauty

Every drop's mission is to save consumers money, solve beauty frustrations while saving our Planet from cosmetic waste. For more information, visit EverydropBeauty.com or @EverydropBeauty.

Every drop Beauty Spatula Hi Res Image

Every drop Lip Spatula Hi Res Image

in use image

SOURCE Every drop Beauty

Related Links

http://EverydropBeauty.com


MILAN, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

Article and slides can be found at https://www.athero.org/activities/survey [https://www.athero.org/activities/survey] or contact Karen Foy (karen.foy@athero.org[mailto:karen.foy@athero.org])

A new survey by the International Atherosclerosis Society (IAS) provided a 'snapshot' of the gaps in knowledge among clinicians that limit best practice. This web-based survey was carried out in countries representing different regions of the world: Japan, Germany, Colombia and the Philippines. In Japan, the survey was a follow-up to an initial survey in 2017. Overall, 1,758 clinicians, 508 in Japan, 500 in Germany, 345 in Colombia, and 405 in the Philippines, took part in the survey. Participants were selected randomly from existing databases in each country and invitations to participate were sent to physicians from five medical fields:

-- Cardiology -- Diabetes/metabolism/endocrinology -- Neurology/neurosurgery/stroke medicine -- Nephrology -- General medicine.

All had experience of treating patients with high cholesterol.

This survey demonstrates that as difficulty elevates when treating patients, such as moderate and high-risk patients, a greater degree of uncertainty exists in the approach to care. Additionally, while most clinicians believe they treat elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol according to the guidelines, only half know the targets in high-risk patients. This lack in understanding of the guidelines deters the best treatment of LDL cholesterol, a major risk factor for cardiovascular events.

This survey highlights gaps in beliefs and behavior among physicians in all four countries, resulting in the following take-away messages:

-- With the exception of FH, physicians are uncertain about how to manage higher- risk patients who may benefit from aggressive approaches to LDL-C lowering. -- There is concern about potential adverse effects on cognitive, renal and hepatic function, and risk for new onset diabetes with statin use to lower LDL-C levels. Haemorrhagic stroke is the main concern as LDL-C levels go lower. In particular, more than one in three clinicians was uncertain about the risk of haemorrhagic stroke with such low LDL cholesterol levels. -- Despite recent guidelines recommending target LDL cholesterol levels below 50 mg/dL or 1.29 mmol/L in very-high-risk patients more than one-third of clinicians had no opinion about the safety of low LDL cholesterol levels.

Failure to treat LDL cholesterol adequately is the number one cause of the high residual cardiovascular risk that persists in all regions of the world.

Clearly we need a CALL TO ACTION, as there is an urgent need for education programs to clarify the information in the guidelines and overcome barriers in practice, an action very much in line with the mission of the IAS to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease,' commented IAS President Dr Raul Santos, Heart Institute -InCor, University of So Paulo Medical School Hospital, and Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, So Paulo, Brazil.

This survey was supported by an unrestricted grant from Amgen. The Philippine Lipid and Atherosclerosis Society received an in-kind support from Merck Sharpe & Dome (Philippines) in setting up the platform.

Logo -- https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178589/International_Ather... [https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178589/International_Ather...]

CONTACT: Emanuela Folco, Executive Director, Email:emanuela.folco@athero.org, Tel: +39335276195
Investigators are being urged to take "all the appropriate steps" to review the case of an Irish woman who was raped in Portugal in 2004 after she said she believes the new suspect linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann could be her attacker.

Hazel Behan, who is originally from Dublin and now lives in Westmeath with her family, was working as a holiday representative in Praia da Rocha when she was viciously assaulted in June 2004, two weeks before her 21st birthday.

She told police her attacker was about 6ft 1in tall (1.85m), had blond eyebrows, piercing blue eyes and spoke English with a German accent.

The victim believes a key suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, named as German Christian Bruckner, could be her attacker after she noted similarities between Bruckners 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz and her own ordeal.

He is currently serving a 15-month jail term for drugs trafficking and has applied for early release.

Hazel, who waived her right to anonymity, told The Guardian: My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out.

SUFFERED

I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience.

Noeline Blackwell, lawyer and head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, urged police in Portugal to follow up Hazels case.

This woman was the victim of a horrific crime and she has suffered a lot. It is a matter for police all over Europe to do their best to bring the person who carried out this crime to justice, she said.

Recalling the horrific ordeal, Hazel said: I had gone to bed around 1am, and was awoken by someone calling my name.

I turned on to my back and standing there was a masked man dressed in tights and what resembled a leotard, a machete around 12in long in his hand.

The man had removed his shoes at the door and set up a video camera in the room.

He took out a bag full of whips and chains before cutting her clothes from her body and gagging her.

She said: It seemed to me he had worked everything out, he had a plan and was very deliberate.

He consistently cleaned his hands, and repeatedly changed condoms. This went on, I guess, for around four or five hours.

He got angry and ordered me into the bathroom and he picked up the machete. I was convinced he was going to kill me and I threatened to scream and said I would not go in there.

My hands were still tied behind my back and he leaned me over a small bench and put a sheet over my head.

I thought that was it, my life was over. But underneath the sheet I watched as he backed out of the door, put on his shoes and ran away down the street.

Once her attacker left, she ran down the corridor to find help and shortly after, around 30 policemen and officials came to investigate. Hazel said they took her back to the room where I was asked to strip off and stand in a star jump-like stance whilst they took pictures of me. That was one of the most humiliating aspects of the whole ordeal.

She was brought to the local hospital where she was examined, but she does not know if forensic evidence was taken.

Hazel added that she is not very confident police examined her room correctly either.

She said she had little hope over the past 16 years that detectives would find her assailant.

I was told at the time that I should just be quiet, that if I talked about what had happened I would bring bad publicity to the resort and put off the tourists.

Then I read about the poor American woman who was raped in September 2005  who I would love to talk to  and the possible link that was being made between her attack and the person who abducted Madeleine McCann, and I was so full of anger, I knew in my gut it was the right thing to do to speak out.

I think if the police had done their job investigating what happened to me, if this is indeed the same man that attacked the American and abducted Madeleine McCann, they might have prevented the attack on her and Madeleine would now be at home with her parents.

Hazel has given a statement to the London Met police, who have told her they are taking her case seriously and would be contacting Portuguese police.

Last year she was selected as Sinn Feins candidate for the Kinnegad area in Mays local elections.

ABUSE

She is an advocate for people who have experienced domestic abuse or sexual abuse and has worked with families living with addiction.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centres 24-hour helpline can be contacted on 1800-77-88-88.

Meanwhile, a German prosecutor has said he has evidence Madeleine McCann is dead as he appealed to British tourists to help identify the suspects former homes.

Hans Christian Wolters said police need more information about where the new suspect has lived so police can search for Madeleines body.

We expect that she is dead, but we dont have enough evidence that we can get a warrant for our suspect in Germany for the murder of Madeleine McCann, he said. At the moment we also dont have enough proof for a trial at court.

Thats why we need more information from people, especially places he has lived so we can target these places.
Come meet our Wonder Women! They have no special lassos or bracelets. They do have the impassioned determination of Jewish women  of Mothers. AMIT is proud to present our first National Mother-in-Israel virtual event on Sunday, June 14, 2020 12 noon EST, 11 a.m. CST, 9 a.m. PST and 7 p.m. Israel time. Don't miss your chance to experience Jewish herstory" together with women across the country and in Israel, 
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

A one-stop shop for agricultural services is being established in the Fergana region of Uzbekistan, Trend reports with reference to Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of Uzbekistan.

It will serve over 500 agro-industrial complexes under public-private partnership terms.

More than 40 types of services of the Center will be provided on the basis of innovative technologies: geo-information systems and drone service.

Also, 15 scientists from agricultural research institutes and more than 30 representatives of local and foreign agribusinesses will work in the Center on a permanent basis.

The Center's modern laboratory has passed international accreditation and provides services to 9,000 farms and 500 representatives of agribusiness. It conducts five types of research: check of safety of agricultural products, seedling nursery, soil, water and phytosanitary analyses.

The Agro Services Center of Fergana region will provide employment for 133 workers with modern knowledge and experience. Of these, 40 specialists have completed advanced training in the US, Turkey, Israel, Netherlands, Germany, China and Latvia, while the rest will undergo training in international agricultural centers by the end of the year, the report says.

To organize the Center's activity, government plans to use loans of World Bank, European Union grants and funds of private investors. According to the message, in the near future similar centers will appear in other regions of the country.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
Portlanders protested against police violence and systemic racism for the 13th straight night Tuesday.

The demonstrations began hours after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced plans to disband three police units and shift $12 million of city money to support communities of color. The mayor also pledged to advocate for a slate of other police reforms when the city council formally votes on the proposal Wednesday.

The shift in priorities follows calls for change from fellow Portland city commissioners Jo Ann Hardesty and Chloe Eudaly, as well as the thousands of protesters who have turned out each night to advocate for change.

City officials constructed a plywood barrier Tuesday around City Hall to keep protesters away from the historic stone building. But within hours, the citys chief administrative officer announced that it would be taken down to put (the citys) relationship with the community first.

The Portland movement came out of the national reaction to the death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man killed May 25 after a white police officer knelt on Floyds neck for almost nine minutes.

Dozens of similar demonstrations take place every day across Oregon, including in Eugene and Salem.

Demonstrators in Portland decried Wheelers proposed changes to the citys police force as falling far short of the sweeping reforms they seek. Many people encouraged supporters gathered at a Southeast Portland rally Tuesday to attend the citys budget hearing Wednesday to speak out against the changes.

James Thornton III stood among the hundreds who had gathered. He said he joined the demonstration to advocate for the cause, which he said goes beyond Portland.

There is a police brutality that is targeting people of color, and George Floyd was the byproduct of that," said Thornton, 53. Change needs to happen now, moving forward.

The rallying site, at Southeast Stark Street and 12th Avenue, is one of two places that have come to define the Portland demonstrations. Thousands of protesters unite every night on the city-owned lot to call for nonviolent resistance. Most days, the group also marches through different parts of the city.

The organizers of the Southeast Portland gathering called for a day of rest Tuesday and opted not to march.

A smaller yet sizable group also converges most nights outside the Multnomah County Justice Center, which houses the downtown jail and police headquarters. Protesters often confront police who are staged behind the fence that surrounds the building and other public buildings near it.

Kent Ford, 77, has attended the demonstrations since they started nearly two weeks ago to call for the immediate end to police brutality and killings of black people. Ford helped start the Black Panther Party in Portland more than 50 years ago.

This is all part of the struggle, from one generation to the next, Ford said.

Ford stood on the fringes of the crowd gathered in Southeast Portland Tuesday. Several people gave speeches and led chants for more than an hour.

Hundreds of people clapped after one organizer called the mayors proposed police changes upsetting.

I want Ted to know that were out here," the person told the crowd, referring to Wheeler. Were going to continue being out here, and that you have not done nearly enough.

Leif Gregory, 18, Calvin Dunleavy, 17, and Zachary Brant, 18, wore their white high school graduation gowns to the demonstration. The three picked up their Jefferson High School diplomas earlier in the day. Several of their classmates also attended the rally.

Were just trying to do whats right, said Gregory, who wore a Jefferson Black Student Union hoodie beneath his gown.

Fabiola Casas, 34, said she attended the demonstrations for the first time after she saw a Facebook callout to mothers to turn out Tuesday so frequent protesters could recuperate.

I am a big believer in resilience and rest, and so it really resonated with me to be able to hold space for folks, she said, to feel like its OK for them to go home and rest.

In downtown Portland, the crowd grew as night fell. About 500 people had gathered outside the Justice Center by 9 p.m. Many people held signs that said Black Mamas Matter.

Police remained largely out of sight. At the same time, a federal judge granted a 14-day temporary order barring Portland police from using tear gas on protesters, except if officers deem lives are at risk.

Police used a loudspeaker to warn the crowd around 10 p.m. to stop cutting the fence or be subject to arrest." The announcement energized the hundreds who were gathered. They chanted, "Whose streets? Our streets.

A gray tarp covered a hole in the fence near Southwest Third Avenue and Main Street.

Unlike previous nights, Portland police remained silent on Twitter for much of the night. Police have used Twitter as a key platform to communicate messages to protesters and provide updates to the rest of the community. But police did not tweet anything until about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The bureau broke its silence on Twitter to say anyone who entered the hole in the fence would be arrested for trespassing. Officers used a loudspeaker to again warn the crowd to stop cutting the fence. Police warned that they would use force to stop people who entered the fence.

There is a criminal activity occurring in this crowd," police said in person and on Twitter. "If you are a nonviolent demonstrator, we ask you to leave now.

The crowd had diminished to a few hundred people by 11 p.m. More people left as the rain picked up.

Police have not announced any arrests in connection with the days demonstrations.

Dave Killen, Maxine Bernstein and Everton Bailey Jr. of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
The latest:

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo on Wednesday rejected the idea that the two officers who lacked experience on his force are less culpable in George Floyd's killing, saying Floyd "was expecting humanity" that he did not get that day.

"The policies that I put out for our department, those are not guided in years of service," he said. "I don't put policies that you should only react or respond if you're a two-year member or a five-year member or a 10-year member. If policies or subculture get in the way, then I expect and I demand one's humanity to rise above that."

The four officers on scene when Floyd was killed on May 25 have all been fired and charged criminally, and Arradondo has said they were "complicit" in his killing.

Derek Chauvin, who pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes, was charged with second-degree murder, and the three other officers on scene  Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng  have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Chauvin was on the police force for 18 years, but Lane and Kueng were rookies. Lane had been on the police force for four days when Floyd died and was "doing everything he thought he was supposed to do as a four-day police officer," his attorney Earl Gray said. Kueng was on his third shift as an officer, his lawyer said.

But Arradondo said that lack of experience did not absolve them of their responsibility.

"When I helped craft the duty to intervene and duty to report (policies) in 2016, it does not signify if you have two days on or 20 years on. We expect you to, whether it's verbally and physically, to call out for help and intervene. Mr. Floyd was certainly expecting that," he said.

"I don't believe that during Mr. Floyd's encounter with the officers that he knew the years of service those employees had on, but he was expecting humanity that day, and it was not (provided)."



The "inextricable" link of race and policing

The comments came in a press conference in which Arradondo acknowledged the "inextricable" link between race and policing.

"Race is inextricably a part of the American police system," he said.

"We will never evolve in this profession if we do not address it head on. Communities of color have paid the heaviest of costs, and that is with their lives," he added.



On Sunday, members of the Minneapolis City Council said they intend to defund and dismantle the police department in the wake of Floyd's killing.



Arradondo said Wednesday that he recognizes parts of the police department are broken and says he brought attention to it several years ago.

"But I did not abandon this department then, and I will not abandon this department now," he said.

Arradondo also proposed two immediate changes to the department.

He said he is immediately withdrawing from contract negotiations with the police union, the Minneapolis Police Officer Federation. He will bring in advisers to review how the contract can be restructured to "provide greater community transparency and more flexibility for true reform."

Mayor Jacob Frey applauded the move to suspend contract negotiations, he said in a statement.

"We don't just need a new contract with the police," Frey said. "We need a new compact between the people of Minneapolis and the people trusted to protect and serve  and we need to go farther than we ever have in making sweeping structural reform."

Arradondo also said he wants to shape a "new paradigm of peacemaking" and will be able to have a police department that the community views as "legitimate, trusting, and working with their best interest at heart."

In addition, Arradondo said the department will use data analysis on performance data to find early warning signs of misconduct. The chief said that data and automation will allow the department to intervene with officers engaged in problematic behavior.

Jefferson Davis statue torn down in Richmond, Virginia

Protesters tore down a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis along Richmond, Virginia's famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday night.

The statue in the former capital of the Confederacy was toppled shortly before 11 p.m., news outlets reported.

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced this week that he and a city councilman would introduce an ordinance removing that statue and others, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported the city council unanimously affirmed support for such a move.

Photos showed the statue tipped over on the ground, completely separated from its foundation.

George Floyd's brother pleads with Congress

Floyd's brother challenged Congress on Wednesday to stop the pain" as lawmakers consider a sweeping law enforcement overhaul, so the man he loved and looked up to won't be just "another name on a growing list of black Americans killed during interactions with police.

Philonise Floyd's appearance before a House hearing came a day after funeral services for his older brother, the 46-year-old African American whose death has become a worldwide symbol in demonstrations calling for changes to police practices and an end to racial prejudices.

Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain, Philonise Floyd told the silenced hearing room.

Choking back tears, he said he wants to make sure that his brother, whom he called Perry, is more than another face on a t-shirt, more than another name on a list that wont stop growing.

Floyd challenged lawmakers to be leaders: Our country, this world needs the right thing.

Philonise Floyd's testimony captivated the room as he recounted what he saw in the widely viewed video as an officer pressed a knee into George Floyd's neck while other police stood by. Chauvin, who is white, is now charged with murder, and three others also face charges.



He called all of the officers 'sir,'" said Philonise Floyd. He still called them sir as he begged for his life."

His life mattered, the brother said. He broke down at one point over the images. At another, he said he wonders every day if he will be next.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A report released last week shows that commercial drones can successfully deliver medical supplies in an urban environment under isolation or quarantine orders.The report , from drone service company DroneUp, describes delivery tests that were performed in April on the former grounds of St. Pauls College in Lawrenceville, Va. Drones were used to carry supplies weighing 1.275 pounds in 90 progressively more difficult delivery test flights, with an average round-trip distance of 924 feet.Avoiding obstacles such as trees, buildings and power lines, the drones completed every test, though one flight had to be aborted and retried due to wind. The tests utilized Inspire 2 drones from manufacturer DJI, and were made possible in part by Virginias Center for Innovative Technology and the United Parcel Service (UPS).While many in the industry offered ideas or theories, no exercise had ever [been] conducted using commercial operators and readily available drone platforms with actual and actionable data, DroneUp CEO Tom Walker told Fox News. That was our mission. We conducted delivery of supplies at scale in a challenging, real-world environment throughout multiple days and nights.The report indicates that the flights involved a number of different activities, including using drone thermal imagery to see humans and drones at night; using a drone as a public address system; measuring drone noise at different altitudes; and delivering a package to an automated drone package mailbox.The report also shared a number of lessons learned. The document makes multiple points about the roles of the remote pilot in command and the visual observer, including what phrases and terminology should be used in different situations.The company also identified a wide range of suggestions about equipment. For instance, commercial drones have limited battery life, so the report provides insight into how battery swaps should be performed.Favorable operating procedures were outlined as well. The report recommends ensuring that pilots use checklists for preflight, postflight, and maintenance checks during the exercise. Additionally, for missions that involve multiple deliveries, the report advises pilots to fly to the furthest target first to maximize battery power.DroneUp CIO Joe Fuller, the author of the report, told Inside Business that the report was sent to local governments as well as the federal government.The delivery testing and outcomes prove that drones can be used to safely deliver critical items to a quarantine area, Fuller said. Experienced drone pilots could be quickly dispatched to hot zones to provide real assistance in pandemic response.Scott Price, UPS chief strategy and transformation officer, told the Journal of Emergency Medical Services that drones provide a low-touch method of transporting medical and lab supplies during urgent times.Weve proven through ongoing commercial drone delivery programs that effective drone delivery of medical products is faster than conventional ground-based transportation, Price said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:26:14|Editor: huaxia

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A man walks on the street in Paris, France, May 29, 2020. The French government has decided to end the state of health emergency on July 10, two weeks ahead of the previously scheduled date, and expected to retain certain power to restrict freedom in the next months to contain the spread of coronavirus, French daily Le Monde reported on Wednesday. France, one of the European countries worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic, declared a state of health emergency on March 24. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

PARIS, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The French government has decided to end the state of health emergency on July 10, two weeks ahead of the previously scheduled date, and expected to retain certain power to restrict freedom in the next months to contain the spread of coronavirus, French daily Le Monde reported on Wednesday.

"Given the positive development of the health situation at this stage, the government wishes to end the state of health emergency, which must remain an exceptional case," le Monde quoted the prime minister's office as saying.

This exit from state of health emergency "must be organized rigorously and gradually in order to continue to protect the French in the face of a virus which is still spreading, and can justify the continuation or even, if necessary, the reinforcement of certain measures already applied over next weeks or months," it added.

The government has prepared a draft bill that allows it to extend some restrictive rules until Nov. 10 if the epidemic situation requires. The bill will be debated on June 17 at the Natioanl Assembly before being sent to the Senate, according to the report.

France, one of the European countries worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic, declared a state of health emergency on March 24. In May, the government decided to extend it by another two months until July 24.

Under the French law, a state of health emergency empowers the government to rule by decree without parliamentary approval to take special measures, such as to restrict people's freedom of movement and to requisition certain goods and services in order to fight against a health disaster.

The new bill, if passed by the parliament, will allow the executive to restrict the freedom of movement to a certain extent beyond July 10 for a period of four months. People's movement and access to public transport may be limited. Public gatherings could be banned, while certain establishments, including restaurants, cinemas and shopping centers, may be temporarily closed.

As of Tuesday, France recorded 29,296 coronavirus-related deaths, while the number of people in intensive care, a key indicator to evaluate the ability of the country's health system to handle the epidemic, fell below 1,000 for the first time since mid-March. Enditem
MINNEAPOLIS, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Legal-Bay, The Pre-Settlement Funding Company, announced today that they are accepting applications for settlement funding to all Minnesota residents that have a pending lawsuit and need cash now. The Minneapolis and St. Paul areas have been hit the hardest over the last few weeks, where unemployment has soared.

Legal-Bay is reporting that the Minnesota Supreme Court has held that a litigation funder contract was indeed enforceable and not contrary to public policy.

Chris Janish, CEO of Legal-Bay, commented, "We are ecstatic to immediately begin funding to residents in the great State of Minnesota, who've been hit as hard as New York and California. The court also acknowledged that the view on commercial litigation funding has changed drastically over the years. Such rhetoric is music to the ears for so many people waiting for their cases to settle and who need an immediate cash advance."

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SOURCE Legal-Bay, LLC
Lawyers for a senior police officer accused of unlawfully leaking crime reports to the media during his tilt at state politics have argued his charges are invalid.

Senior Sergeant Michael Lamb is fighting charges that allege he leaked details of violent crimes in what investigators say was an attempt to bolster his chances of becoming an MP at the 2018 Victorian election.

Senior Sergeant Michael Lamb at the Liberal conference in April 2018. Credit:Daniel Pockett

Senior Sergeant Lamb stood as the Liberal candidate in the seat of Frankston but lost to incumbent Labor MP Paul Edbrooke.

Investigators allege that in the months before the poll, Senior Sergeant Lamb leaked details of 21 crimes across Melbourne, including home invasions and armed robberies, to radio station 3AW.
Rural Independent TDs told the three party leaders that Green policies would "decimate" farming during a two-hour meeting yesterday.

TDs Michael Healy-Rae, Danny Healy-Rae, Mattie McGrath, Richard O'Donoghue and Michael Collins raised concerns about the impact of a live export ban and reducing emissions by 7pc a year.

"There is massive worry out there that the Greens will decimate farming further than it already is," Mr Collins said afterwards.

Michael Healy-Rae said it was unlikely he would support a FF-FG-Green deal.

"If they really wanted to have Independents we should have been with them in the talks all along."

The tripartite talks continued last night with agreement reached on issues, including political reform, local government, mental health and some elements of education. But the parties remain unable to agree on agriculture, energy and emissions, which are crucial to hitting the 7pc target.

There is also growing concern in the Greens that Mr Ryan is not sufficiently arguing for party policy in private talks with Mr Varadkar and Mr Martin.

A senior Fianna Fail source said positive meetings of the three leaders were followed by more difficult exchanges with Green negotiators who are led by Catherine Martin, the deputy leader who is challenging Mr Ryan's leadership.

Meanwhile, Children are set to lose their voice at the Cabinet table under plans being discussed by the parties attempting to form a coalition government.

The Irish Independent has learned that a proposal to abolish the Minister for Children as a standalone Cabinet-level position is now back on the table as Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens work to finalise a Programme for Government by the end of this week.

Fianna Fail wants a new Cabinet-level Minister for Higher Education, and to free up a position it has been proposed that the Minister for Education become the Minister for Education, Children and Youth Affairs, taking on responsibility for both the Departments of Education and Children and Youth Affairs.

"It should be a wraparound model from birth to 18," said a Fianna Fail source. "Education is the common strand. Then from 18 you have the Department of Higher Education and Research."

While the department and the child protection agency Tusla would be retained, the move to abolish standalone Cabinet representation for children, in place since 2011, has sparked alarm in the Green Party.

A Green source said it was a "really regressive step - that children's rights can be shunted around for the university rankings".

Children's Rights Alliance chief executive Tanya Ward said: "Both education and children and young people stand to lose out. Only one minister has so much political capital and one area is bound to suffer as we walk into a recession."

Constitutionally there can only be 15 full members of the Cabinet, including the Taoiseach and Tanaiste.

The designation of Cabinet portfolios will ultimately be decided by the three party leaders - Leo Varadkar, Eamon Ryan and Micheal Martin - and sources stressed that no final decision has been made.

When a Fianna Fail plan to abolish the Department of Children emerged in May, it sparked furious reaction from children's rights organisations.








New Delhi: Amidst reports that a loophole in WhatsApp could be exploited by scammers, thus posing a threat to your privacy, the company thinks it is not a matter of much concern.

Reports recently showed, a new bug has been discovered in WhatsApp that makes your phone number discoverable on Google search. The research found that the feature called 'Click to Chat' puts mobile numbers at risk.

Meanwhile WhatsApp, in an emailed statement to BGR said, Our Click to Chat feature, which lets users create a URL with their phone number so that anyone can easily message them, is used widely by small and microbusinesses around the world to connect with their customers. While we appreciate this researchers report and value the time that he took to share it with us, it did not qualify for a bounty since it merely contained a search engine index of URLs that WhatsApp users chose to make public. All WhatsApp users, including businesses, can block unwanted messages with the tap of a button.

All about the bug that exploits the loophole

As per the research, several websites use the Click to Chat facility to start a WhatsApp chat session with those visiting the website. The website and the site visitor can interact without having the need to save the WhatsApp number. It simply asks you to scan through a QR code image created via third-party services.

The users phone numbers is visible in plain text in the URL -- https://wa.me/<phone_number> -- that are consequently being used by scammers put together a list of exposed phone numbers.

The even severe threat on your privacy is that not only your number is searchable, the scammers who get hold of your number can actually do reverse-image search using your profile photo to find your other social media accounts.

In November 2019, a weird bug had surfaced that triggered snooping concerns via an MP4 file. If someone sent you an MP4 file on WhatsApp, guard against downloading it as hackers may use a critical vulnerability in the Facebook-owned app to execute snooping attack on both Android and iOS devices.

The specially crafted MP4 file triggers the remote code execution (RCE) and denial of service (DoS) cyber attack.
Daniel Itai  The Zimbabwe Daily

Dodoma, Tanzania  Freeman Mbowe, leader of Tanzanias main opposition political party, Chadema, was on Tuesday night attacked at his house by unknown assailants.

Mbowe has a fractured right leg due to the assault, although the police are still investigating the incident members of Chadema are already pointing fingers at Tanzanias President John Magufuli for having a hand in the incident.

Unknown people surrounded him and assaulted him before he started taking the stairs. Though these people had carried firearms, they didnt use them, said Chademas Secretary-General John Mnyika.

In recent months, Mbowe accused Magufuli of being in a state of denial over the COVID-19 pandemic and warned that his government was hiding information about the real scale of the crisis.

- Advertisement -

On Tuesday, Magufuli declared the East African country COVID-19 free due to prayers by citizens, although Magufuli is stating that Tanzania is now COVID-19 free, the World Health Organizations COVID-19 database states otherwise citing more than 500 COVID-19 cases.

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A federal Labor senator has called for Australia to diversify its export markets away from China to prevent the trade relationship being used as "a weapon to secure our silence against injustice" in the wake of Beijing's move to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong.

In a speech to Federal Parliament on Wednesday night, Victorian Senator Raff Ciccone also urged the Australian government to accept Hong Kong residents as refugees if they face persecution under the new laws.

Labor senator Raff Ciccone says Australia needs to stand up against China's human rights abuses. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The speech came hours after Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells crossed the floor and voted for a motion put forward by Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick to have an inquiry into Australia's relationship with China. The inquiry did not pass with the government and Labor voting against the motion.

Senator Ciccone said it was time for Australia to accept that its advancement of human rights cannot always be separated from its trade relationship with China.
Australians are being urged to avoid buying an apartment in a fast-growing outer suburban area - with faith in real estate at an all-time low.

The major banks fear capital city unit prices are in for a double-digit plunge during the next year.

Buyers' agent and advisory group Metropole Property Strategies has suggested investors reconsider buying a small flat in areas a long way from the city.

'For instance buying a one-bedroom apartment in the outer suburbs, where the predominant residents are young, growing families, isn't really a smart investment decision,' the group's national director of property strategy Kate Forbes said.

Australians in general appear to be worried about houses and apartments with a record-low nine per cent of people favouring real estate as the wisest place to invest savings, in the Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment barometer for May.

Australians have been urged to avoid buying an apartment in fast-growing outer suburban areas with faith in real estate at an all-time low. Pictured is the cracking Opal Tower building at Sydney Olympic Park

Westpac chief economist Bill Evans said fewer people would be interested in buying a home to rent out during the coronavirus pandemic.

'With price expectations negative, investors look likely to stay away from Australia's housing market near-term,' he said.

As recently as March, property was regarded as the best place for savings by 13 per cent of the monthly survey's 1,200 respondents.

Despite recent plunges on the share market during March and April, the Australian Securities Exchange in May was regarded as the best place for savings by 11.4 per cent of respondents in the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey.

Metropole is also urging potential investors to avoid buying properties in suburbs where the majority of residents are renters.

Buyers' agent group Metropole Property Strategies has suggested investors reconsidering buying small units in areas a long way from the city where families were more prevalent

At Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner north, 80 per cent of residents are renters, going by Census data.

Median unit prices there plunged 13 per cent in five years, falling from $504,666 in 2014 to $438,482 now, CoreLogic data showed.

At Sydney Olympic Park - the home of the cracking, two-year-old Opal Tower - two-thirds of residents are renters.

In this pocket of western Sydney, median unit prices went backwards, falling from $721,192 in 2014 to $719,516 - in a city which had posted some of Australia's strongest property price growth.

At Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner north, 80 per cent of residents are renters, going by Census data. Median unit prices there plunged 13 per cent in five years, falling from $504,666 in 2014 to $438,482 now, CoreLogic data showed

National Australia Bank is particularly downbeat about apartment values, forecasting a 12.8 per cent plunge in Sydney by next year as equivalent median prices for units fell by 14 per cent in Melbourne and 14.1 per cent in Brisbane.

Ms Forbes said suburbs needed to be particularly appealing to those who lived in the property they owned for there to be strong, long-term capital growth, when the good times returned.

'While tenants pay your rent and assist with that all-important cash flow to sustain your portfolio, owner-occupiers are the market force who ultimately determines the value of your investment property,' she said.

'When purchasing an investment property, you need to be fully versed in who the tenants and home buyers in that location happen to be.'
Archeology is a dirty business, and I'm not just talking about the treacherous black arrowhead market. Arguing with local councils who don't want you digging up their playgrounds, sweating under the sun of the cradle of civilization, nervously shoveling dirt praying you don't chip the depiction of a donkey show off an ancient jar ... If only there were an easier way to take a direct look into the past. Preferably one that no longer involves a shovel but some cool sci-fi technology -- and a kickass quad bike.

This week in Antiquity, a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Ghent, Belgium, have published a groundbreaking study on the future of ground-not-breaking archeology. Through the use of ground-penetrating radar, which can bounce radio waves through the soil as easily as through air or water, the team was able to upside-down periscope into the earth and map out an entire buried Roman city all without getting their hands dirty. Except for when they had to use the machines after Carl. That dude's gross.

But this first-ever large scale GPR mapping project hasn't just proven to be remarkably convenient and cheap (all it took was an academic on a quad bike covering billions of data points over farmland like they were sowing the seeds of knowledge), it might be a vastly superior way of uncovering the past. The scanned city in question, Falerii Novi (or New Falerii), gave an unprecedented top-down look into the workings and planning of ancient Roman cities. Not only could the GPR show individual buildings like shops, baths, and temples in incredible detail, it even offered extensive insight into the city's plumbing. It also revealed a religiously relevant procession route around the city -- something that would've been almost impossible to recognize when mucking through the dirt.
ZHEJIANG,CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 /This June, many businessmen and institute leaders gathered in Ningbo. On the afternoon of June 9, the opening ceremony of the 22nd China Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium (ZJITS Online) was held in Ningbo.

For the first time, the conference focuses on "cloud" including "cloud forum", "cloud trade", "cloud investment", "cloud consumption" and "cloud service". The opening ceremony was also divided into four parts with names related to "cloud" such as "cloud rising", "cloud gathering", "discussion" and "cloud touring". Activities were carried out both online and offline to realize multi-channel communication.

The opening ceremony of the 22nd ZJITS

Because of the "cloud ZJITS", Chinese and foreign guests gathered in Ningbo. Zhejiang provincial governor Yuan Jiajun, Ningbo Municipal Party Secretary Zheng Zhajie, provincial vice governor Zhu Congjiu and other provincial leaders attended the opening ceremony. Ambassadors from Serbia, Slovakia, Montenegro and Slovenia to China, diplomats and consular officials from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary and other countries, representatives from provincial departments, project contracting parties and key enterprises attended the meeting as well.

At the opening ceremony, the signing ceremony of representative major projects was held, while the signing ceremony of other projects was also held in the sub-conferences of each city. It is released that 179 projects were signed in Zhejiang province with a total investment of 363.1 billion yuan, including 81 foreign investment projects with a total investment of 97 billion yuan ($13.7 billion), 83 domestic projects outside Zhejiang province with a total investment of 251.9 billion yuan, 15 foreign investment projects with a total investment of 14.2 billion yuan, covering industries like high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, biological medicine, health, digital economy, science and technology innovation, and "Internet +".

Representative major projects signing ceremony

It is worth mentioning that Haiyan, as one of the top 100 business environment counties in China, also announced the official commencement of Air Products project -- the commencement ceremony of hydrogen energy and supporting industry base project. The project, with an investment of 1 billion dollars from Air Products of the United States, involves hydrogen energy preparation and packaging, hydrogen energy key equipment parts manufacturing, and hydrogen energy utilization demonstration city construction. The project, with a total investment of 400 million dollars and a land of 160 mu, will build a hydrogen purification plant, a liquid hydrogen plant, a liquid nitrogen plant, and helium separation, as a comprehensive set of equipment for industrial gases production. After many negotiations and consultations, the project officially started on June 9.

Live link with branch meeting in Haiyan

According to data from the Commerce Department of Zhejiang Province, from January to April, the actual utilized foreign capital in Zhejiang province reached 4.96 billion US dollars, with a growth rate of 8.9%, which is 17.3% higher than that of the country. Zhejiang's actual utilized foreign capital accounts for 12% of the whole country and 1.9% higher than that of the same period of last year, ranking the fourth in terms of scale. It indicates that Zhejiang's actions to stabilize foreign investment has led to good outcomes.

For zhejiang's investment and trade, ZJITS will bring lots of positive impacts.

At the opening ceremony of ZJITS, 12 foreign political leaders, heads of sister provinces and organizations, including Senior Minister of Communications and Information of Singapore, Ambassador of Rwanda and Pakistan to China, Governor of Shizuoka prefecture of Japan, Governor of Schleswig-Holstein of Germany and President of THE US-China Business Council, delivered online video speeches. Mayors of cities made video presentations on the city business environment. Executives and experts from well-known enterprises such as Westlake University, Alibaba, AstraZeneca, Zhejiang Seaport Group gave speeches at the ceremony. Hungarian Foreign Minister and heads of relevant UN agencies made video speeches. Gilead representative spoke on behalf of foreign companies. Online Tours were conducted on such platforms and activities as the single service window for international investment, the Online Consumer Expo, the Online Trade Matchmaking Conference, and the 2020 CEEC Products Online Fair. The ceremony of new digital life service and "Zhejiang Commodity for World" was held, and the license for newly approved cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone was awarded.

Mayors of cities made video presentations on the city business environment.

Shi Yigong,President of Westlake University made a speech

Lai Minglong, General Manager of AstraZeneca China, made a speech

Mao Jianhong, president of Zhejiang Seaport Group, made a speech

Huang Hao, senior vice President and member of Alibaba's economic decision-making committee made a speech

Luo Yongqing, global vice President of Gilead, spoke on behalf of foreign companies

Online tours on platforms and activities

Company Name: Zheshang magazine

Contact Person: Xia Sainan

Phone: 0571-85310626

Email:sabrinaland@sina.cn

Country:China

Website:www.zjsr.com

SOURCE: Zheshang magazine

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593388/The-22nd-Zhejiang-Investment-and-Trade-Symposium-Opened-in-Ningbo-Signing-179-Projects-with-a-Total-Investment-of-3631-Billion-yuan
The death of a well-known and highly respected Derry farmer - described in tributes as one of life's wonderful characters - has left his grief-stricken family stunned, his minister and friend has said.

David Crockett is understood to have died at the family farm on the Coshquin Road near the border when he fell through the roof of an outbuilding.

It is believed Mr Crockett's son Gordon was also involved in the accident although his injuries are not believed to be serious.

The Health and Safety Executive is conducting an investigation into Mr Crockett's death.

He was a popular member of the farming community on both sides of the Irish border, with his land straddling the border in counties Londonderry and Donegal.

Mr Crockett was a well-known voice on the radio, contributing to debates concerning rural affairs and Brexit.

Paying tribute, Rev Jim Lamont, minister of Burt Presbyterian Church, said the devastating loss of Mr Crockett will be felt far and wide.

He said: "I visited Margaret and the family and they are just in a state of sheer shock, they are stunned by the enormity of what has happened - just shattered. It will take them a long time to come to terms with what has happened.

"David's death has been such a shock to the whole community - he was just a man who was loved, respected and had a great sense of humour.

"He was a dedicated family man first and foremost but we are all in sorrow because he was a man with a warm personality and kind nature who stood ready to help anyone who needed help.

"He was a faithful member of our church and of the choir. I always met him coming into church and he always had some little story or something to joke about. He was just an amazing person - one of life's characters."

Mr Crockett, whose farm has been in the family since 1911, was a lifelong friend of Gordon Elder. He said not being able to pay his final respects because of the restrictions on funerals due to coronavirus has deepened everyone's sorrow.

He said: "I have known David a lifetime and knew his father before him - our families go back a long way.

"David was a great storyteller - a gift he took from his own father and he loved nothing better than to recall stories of growing up on the farm, of schools days, everything really.

"David was irreplaceable and his loss will be deeply felt not just within the farming community but by everyone who knew him.

"David's son Gordon was on my farm last Saturday shearing sheep and he was telling me how the Young Farmers Club had raised money for the Air Ambulance with little idea that two days later the Air Ambulance would be called to his own farm.

"I am devastated about David's death but above all my heart is sore for his wife Margaret and the family.

"The natural thing for me to do would have been to go and visit them and tell them how sorry I am but we can't do that.

"The coronavirus restrictions that are on us now means that we cannot do what we would by nature do at a sad time like this.

"Donegal people are well known for their attendance at funerals and I have no doubt hundreds of people will want to pay their last respects to David Crockett because he was so highly thought of by everyone.

"I know we are not suppose to question why things happen but it is at times like this - you have to wonder."

The county chairman of the Irish Farmers' Union also offered his condolences to Mrs Crockett.

Brendan McLaughlin said: "On behalf of everyone in the Irish Farmers' Union, our sympathy and heartfelt prayers are with Mrs Crockett and their family.

"Our condolences are offered too to David's two brothers, John and Robert, who are also members of the Co Donegal farming community who are all shocked and saddened by this terrible tragedy."

He was a regular contributor to Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show.

Mr Patterson said he too was saddened to hear of Mr Crockett's passing, saying: "Davy had a tragic farming accident last night. Down the years, he had become part of the BBC Radio Foyle family.

"A warm, generous man with a huge personality."

The PSNI said the death is not being treated as suspicious.

Funeral arrangements for Mr Crockett will be announced later.
KITCHENER  The pandemic is causing plenty of uncertainty and change to the way we work but is unlikely to spell the end of office culture in Kitchener-Waterloo, some experts say.

Its probably too early to fully understand the full impact of the pandemic, said Cory Bluhm, executive director of economic development at the City of Kitchener. I think remote work will certainly be more prevalent. The question is, what does that mean for offices?

He believes there are three potential scenarios: First, some companies, like Shopify, may encourage all or most employees to work from home, which could lead to them needing less square footage than previously. Second, the recent trend of office hotelling may increase  where employees sometimes work from home, and dont have an assigned desk space when they do come in the office. So it may not change their footprint, it may just change the number of employees they bring to an office space on a given day, Bluhm said.

But weve also heard companies whove said they have concerns whether a remote office will hinder creativity and they may be less inclined to do virtual and may just have to look at different office scenarios, to increase physical distancing.

Thats how Craig Beattie, CEO of Perimeter Development Corporation, sees it. His company has developed a number of Class A office buildings in Waterloo Region, building the Google building and 345 King West in Kitchener.

While working from home has stepped up in recent weeks, he says, ultimately, companies that really value engagement, branding and culture are going to continue to place high value on delivering a great office work environment for their team.

Humans are ultimately social creatures, said Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic, and most of us benefit from regular contact with our colleagues.

Were not machines, Vrbanovic said. Were human beings. We interact and react to each other. We need that physical connection, at least some of the time.

Thats what Beattie hears from many companies and seniors executives. People are genuinely looking forward to getting back to the office and tired of endless video calls, he said. I think there was a bit of a novelty in the first six or eight weeks, but Im sensing that people are missing the social and collaborative nature of a work environment.

Even companies like Shopify that are pivoting to more remote work are still retaining some office hubs as central places for meetings and for gatherings.

Perimeter hasnt seen any companies looking to cut back on their office space, Beattie said. If anything, he thinks there may be more demand for top-flight office space with high-quality air filtration systems.

I think the fundamentals still apply, he said. If you put employees in a position where they feel diminished and disconnected, nothing good will come of it. Attracting and retaining talent is still the ultimate goal, and creating a great workplace is still a competitive advantage that beats cost cutting every time.

Concern about the pandemic might actually increase demand for office space in medium-sized cities like Kitchener and Waterloo, Vrbanovic says.

The Toronto investor market continues to be quite buoyed about our area, he said. One of the things that were going to need to grapple with is people are going to want to get out of the larger, more dense cities.

That will force communities like Waterloo Region, where theres a certain amount of comfort and spread, to think hard about how much density is right for this area, Vrbanovic said.

This will generate a conversation for us, in terms of understanding what it the right density as we go forward. This is going to challenge all of us to really question what is that right space requirement that we need?
Medical supply manufacturing continues to thrive in Baja California even as workers protest over health safety issues.

Dialogo Chino reported that as the pandemic has dramatically augmented worldwide demand for medical supplies and equipment, Baja California stands to economically benefit from this demand. However, the lack of health workers and other "scarcities" in Mexico have contributed to its having one of the highest death rates due to COVID-19 globally.

Manufacturers in states, like Baja California, in the country's northeast part, have been making crucial medical equipment like catheters, syringes and disposable intravenous. However, they are produced not for local use, but export to other nations and this infuriated the local officials.

In April, there occurred a conflict when Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla Valdez accused Smiths Medical. This multinational company manufactures ventilator parts, of the declining sell of medical equipment to the government.

This took place several weeks after Mexico reached its peak COVID-19 contagions while still having one of the highest numbers of cases and deaths in the country.

Manufacturer Refused Local Sale of Medical Equipment

During a daily report, the governor explained to citizens that if Smiths Medical would refuse to sell medical supplies to the state, its status as an essential business would then be lost.

The governor addressed citizens in one of his daily reports and explained that if the company would not sell medical equipment to the state, then it would lose its status as an essential business. Afterwards, he indeed shut down the company's operations.

By end-April, the same government leader announced, the medical equipment manufacturer could reopen and start operations again.

This was after the executives from transnational firms and the state government agreed that a portion of the produced equipment would go to the hospitals in Baja California.

An Opportunity that cannot be Missed

According to the secretary of the economy of Baja California, Mario Escobedo, "developing the medical equipment industry" while this global health crisis is active, is "an opportunity that cannot be missed."

The secretary added, while other businesses elsewhere are paralyzed, in Baja California, they are set to open as the Mexican state opens its doors.

Meanwhile, news reports said, two companies, Centerpiece and Medline, both North American firms which manufacture sterilization machines and other medical supplies, have already announced they were investing "nearly $200 million in Baja California."

The industry in Baja California has increased by up to 10 percent annually for the last five years, with up to $800-million investments.

Both firms have selected the locations, specifically in Mexicali and Tijuana, the two largest cities of Baja California.

Aside from its being an export-friendly business venue, Baja California has a lot of experience as well, in the medical equipment business.

At present, there are more than 70 factories of either manufacturing or assembling medical devices. Of all these seventy-plus factories, Baja California Medical Products Cluster said, 48 are located in Tijuana, producing around 49,000 direct employments.

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A Canadian man has survived 96 hours pinned under his all-terrain vehicle in the Rocky Mountains by eating rotting animal carcasses and drinking melted snow, he says.

Ken Hildebrand was trapped face down for four days and three nights in the Crowsnest Pass area of southwestern Alberta, where he tried numerous ways to free himself in below-freezing temperatures.

Throughout the ordeal, he kept wolves and coyotes away by blowing on an emergency whistle.

"I thought of my family and God and that was it," Hildebrand, a paramedic, told Reuters from his hospital bed in Lethbridge, Alberta.

He was finally rescued from the wreck on a little-used trail in the foothills by hikers.
Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), the worlds largest aluminium smelter ex-China, has been running its operations at full capacity despite Covid-19, said Alba Board of Directors Chairman Shaikh Daij Bin Salman Bin Daij Al Khalifa during the second quarterly board meeting held virtually on today (June 10).

Shaikh Daij said: As Covid-19 unfolds, we had to adapt quickly, finding our balance in the new normal.

Our production facilities continue at full run rate while new safety measures were adapted across the plant to ensure that our workforce is safe at all times.

I also congratulate everyone -- employees and contractors -- on topping more than 22 million work-hours without lost time injury (LTI) mark for the first time in our history and for keeping Alba safe as we deliver on our commitments to our customers, he said.

During the meeting, the board approved the minutes of the previous meeting as well as reviewed reports of the Executive Committee, Board Audit Committee and the Nomination, Remuneration and Corporate Governance Committee. Updates were also given on safety and plant performance amidst Covid-19, insights on the overall market conditions and Albas financial performance to-date.

Including the Chairman, board comprises six directors appointed by Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company  Yousif Abdulla Taqi, Suha Karzoon, Shaikh Isa Bin Khalid Al Khalifa, Tim Murray and Rasha Sabkar. The three directors appointed by Sabic Industrial Investments Co (SIIC) are Ahmed Al Duriaan, Iyad Al Garawi and Omar Al Amoudi and one elected director, Mutlaq Al-Morished.  TradeArabia News Service
Egypts Dar al-Ifta caused a social media uproar when it referred to Islamic conquest of Constantinople as occupation.

Tensions between Egypt and Turkey are showing no sign of abating as Cairos religious authority, Dar al-Ifta, referred to the Ottoman seizure of the city of Constantinople in 1453 as an occupation.

The statement was issued on Sunday by Dar al-Ifta on its Facebook page in an attack on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who it accused of using religion to further his colonial ambitions abroad.

The Hagia Sophia was built as a church during the Byzantine period in AD537, and it remained for 916 years until the Ottomans occupied Istanbul [Constantinople] in 1453, turning the building into a mosque, said the Egyptian authority responsible for issuing religious edicts.

After the comments caused an uproar on social media, Dar al-Ifta issued a correction the following day.

We have repeatedly confirmed with documents and evidence that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to use fatwas as a weapon to install tyranny at home in the name of religion, and to justify his ambitions abroad in the name of an alleged caliphate, it said.

As for the conquest of Constantinople, it is a great Islamic conquest that was preached by The Prophet, may Gods prayers and peace be upon him, and it was carried out by the great Ottoman Sufi Sultan Mohammed al-Fateh, it continued, referring to Sultan Mehmet II.

But Erdogan is not and has no connection to Mohammed al-Fateh.

The head of Turkeys religious authority, Ali Erbas, called Dar al-Iftas statement unfortunate and ugly.

Last year, the Turkish president pledged to revert the Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.

It was not the first time Egypts religious authority accused Erdogan of using religion to impose Turkish hegemony on Arab countries that were previously colonised by the Ottoman empire.

The Turkish president and his followers are not immune from using religious discourse in general, and fatwas in particular, as a cover for their military operations, it said in February.

Relations between Turkey and Egypt have been virtually non-existent since the Egyptian military, then led by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, overthrew democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi  a close ally of Erdogan  in 2013. Ankara has not dispatched an ambassador to Cairo since then.

At the time, Erdogan said he would never talk to someone like el-Sisi and called for the release of Muslim Brotherhood prisoners in Egypt.

There is an authoritarian system, even totalitarian, he said, referring to Egypts government under el-Sisi.

The two countries have also been at odds over maritime jurisdiction and offshore resources in the eastern Mediterranean, and support opposing sides in Libyas conflict.
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of Norwegian Refugee Council, has questioned if disinterest is a result of racism.

Nine of the worlds 10 most neglected displacement crises are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to an international aid group.

For the second year in a row, Cameroon topped the annual index released by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Wednesday, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Meanwhile, the Sahel region comprised a larger portion of the top 10 than in previous years, with Burkina Faso and Niger joining Mali in the ranking for the first time and reflecting the growing security and humanitarian crisis unfolding amid the regions multi-layered conflict.

The 10 most neglected displacement crises 1. Cameroon 2. Democratic Republic of the Congo 3. Burkina Faso 4. Burundi 5. Venezuela 6. Mali 7. South Sudan 8. Nigeria 9. Central African Republic 10. Niger Source: NRC

Also on the list were Burundi, ranking fourth, South Sudan, at seventh, Nigeria, at eighth and the Central African Republic at ninth. Venezuela, which ranked fifth amid a humanitarian crisis driven by a flailing economy, sanctions and political instability, was the only country in the top 10 outside of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The NRC ranks countries based on three criteria: Lack of political will on both the part of in-state and international actors; lack of media attention; and lack of international aid.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the NRC, said the countries on the list were victims of a vicious cycle of neglect perpetuated by disinterest from world powers who see little strategic value in resolving them.

There is little diplomatic political efforts to end the crisis, leading to less journalists going there, leading to less attention and less donor money, therefore fewer aid workers there, he said.

Drawing a link to protests that have swept the world following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of white police in the United States, Egeland questioned if the location of the most neglected crises belied a larger racist pattern.

Maybe in this age when we discuss all of the structural racism around the world, is there some racism here? he asked. How come Africa is time and again being at the bottom of this attention, resource, diplomacy list. A life in Africa should be of as much value as a European or an American or an Asian.

Cameroon and DRC top list again

By the end of 2019, half a million people fled their homes in the Far North Region of Cameroon amid fighting between the government and Boko Haram. The armed group carried out 100 attacks in 2019, killing more than 100 people.

Meanwhile, in the countrys south, nearly 700,000 people had been internally displaced in the conflict that followed after separatists in 2017 launched an armed campaign to establish an independent homeland for Cameroons English-speaking minority. During that period, about 52,000 people also fled to neighbouring Nigeria.





Cameroon has also had to contend with 280,000 refugees crossing the border from neighbouring CAR in 2019.

Meanwhile, journalists in the country reportedly face arbitrary detention and prosecution. Reporters Without Borders ranks Cameroon 134 out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index, while international journalists rarely gain access to the conflict areas, leading to a dearth of coverage, NRCs report concluded.

Humanitarian funding also lags, with a 2019 United Nations Appeal only garnering 43 percent of the funds needed.

The DRC received similar neglect, the report said, despite facing the largest number of newly displaced people on the continent: 1.7 million in 2019.

200605091341816

That number included hundreds of thousands who fled armed fighters and ethnic violence in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. In early 2020, fighting in Ituri brought the total number of internally displaced in that province alone to one million people.

The crises in the DRC was further compounded by an Ebola outbreak in eastern regions and a hunger crisis.

Still, a 2019 UN appeal for aid was met only 37 percent by donors.





Sahels worsening crisis

Countries in the Sahel region have also grown in prominence on the list.

Parts of the largely semi-arid region in recent years have been engulfed by a fireball of conflict that involves multiple armed groups, military campaigns by national armies and international partners as well as local armed groups.

Burkina Faso, which has experienced the spill-over from the conflict since 2018, ranked third on the NRCs list this year, after having never ranked previously.

Last year, the number of displaced people increased five times to nearly 500,000 in Burkina Faso, according to the report. Hunger has also risen sharply, with more than 1.2 million people needing food assistance by the end of 2019.

Mali and Niger ranked sixth and 10th on this years list respectively, with all three meeting about half the humanitarian funding needs outlined by the UN in 2019.
NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday filed three chargesheets in the Ghaziabad court against ex-chief engineer Yadav Singh and others for criminal conspiracy and causing financial loss to the Noida Authority.

According to a statement issued by the CBI, The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed three chargesheets in the Court of Special Judge, CBI Cases, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) under relevant sections of IPC & P.C. Act including 120-B r/w 420 of IPC, section 13(2) r/w 13(1) (d) of PC Act 1988 against the then CME(JAL)/then Chief Engineer, NOIDA Authority and others including then officials of NOIDA authority& proprietor of private company etc. on the allegations of causing loss to NOIDA authority.

CBI                   CBI   2018           Jitender Sharma (@capt_ivane) June 10, 2020

''The first chargesheet was filed against the then CME(Jal)/then Chief Engineer, NOIDA Authority; Proprietor of NOIDA based private company and 11 then officials of NOIDA Authority for causing an alleged loss of Rs.50.20 lakh (approx.) to NOIDA Authority,'' the central probe agency said.

The CBI said in its chargesheet that the accused public servants 'had fraudulently entered into criminal conspiracy during the period between 2007-08 among themselves and with the proprietor of the said private company to award three contracts pertaining to laying of feeder line through underground cable, electrification work of flyover and shifting of 33 KV & 11 KV electrical lines, to a private company.

The second chargesheet was filed against the then CME(Jal)/then Chief Engineer NOIDA Authority; Proprietor of NOIDA based private company and 10 then officials of NOIDA Authority for causing an alleged loss of Rs.54.28 lakh(approx.) to NOIDA Authority, the CBI release said.

It was alleged that the accused public servants during the period 2008-09 fraudulently entered into criminal conspiracy among themselves & with the proprietor of the said private company to award two contracts pertaining to shifting of electrical lines and shifting of 33/11 KV line, to private company, the agency said.

The third chargesheet was filed against the then CME(Jal)/then Chief Engineer, NOIDA authority; Proprietor of NOIDA based private company and 09 then officials of NOIDA Authority for causing an alleged loss of Rs.72.05 lakh(approx.) to NOIDA Authority.

The third chargsheet is based on the allegations that the accused public servants during the period 2010-11 fraudulently entered into a criminal conspiracy among themselves & with the proprietor of the said private company to award two contracts pertaining to the construction of 7 number of 11 KV underground feeder and conversion of 33 KV overhead line into underground system, to private company.

It may be noted that the CBI had registered the case on January 17, 2018, against the then Chief Engineer, NOIDA Authority and others including Directors/Proprietors of private companies/firms & unknown officials of NOIDA Authority on the allegations of criminal conspiracy and misuse of official position as well as accepting a bribe from the contractors as quid-pro-quo for awarding contracts in violation of tender norms, causing loss to NOIDA Authority.

Earlier, a preliminary inquiry was registered on the basis of inputs received out of the investigation in two other cases against then Chief Engineer, NOIDA Authority and others.

The said two cases were registered in compliance with the orders of the High Court judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench, Lucknow dated 16.07.2015. Charge sheets in the said cases have already been filed by CBI.

The public is reminded that the above findings are based on the investigation done by CBI and evidence collected by it. Under the Indian Law, the accused are presumed to be innocent till their guilt is finally established after a fair trial, the CBI release said.
Philonise Floyd told lawmakers that the eight minutes and 46 seconds that officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of his brother George Floyd felt like eight hours and 46 minutes.

My family just cries every day and asks, why? why? he said at Wednesdays House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Philonise Floyd choked up several times during his testimony, which came the day after George Floyd, 46, was buried in Houston. Philonise also eulogized his brother at his memorial service. At one point in the nearly six hour hearing, Philonise deferred questions to his attorney, Ben Crump, who was also testifying, saying he was 'too emotional' to answer any more questions.

He offered powerful testimony about his brothers life and death and spoke of his own fears as a black man, that he could be next.

They lynched my brother. That was a modern day lynching in broad daylight, he said of the Minnesota police officers. People was out there pleading, please get off, he can't breathe. People were video recording. Nobody cared. Nobody.

The video of George Floyds arrest and of Chavuin kneeling on his neck  as Floyd said I cant breath and asked for his mother  went viral, leading to a nationwide demonstrations to support the Black Lives Matters movement and a call for police reform.

Philonise Floyd broke down during a congressional hearing when he talked about the death of his brother George Floyd

Philonise Floyd told lawmakers that the eight minutes and 46 seconds that officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of his brother George Floyd felt like eight hours and 46 minutes

Philonise Floyd offered powerful testimony about his brothers life and death and spoke of his own fears as a black man, that he could be next

Philonise Floyd said the video would follow him for the rest of his life.

That's all people will talk about the rest of my life, he said. Kids see that video.

He paused and wiped away tears as he remembered what happened to his brother.

You dont do that to a human being. You dont do that to an animal. His life matters. Our lives matter. Black lives matter, he said.

I just wish I could get him back, he said and he called on the Minneapolis police officer who arrested his brother and stood by while Chauvin had him in a chokehold to be convicted. Those officers, they get to live.

He was unable to continue to his testimony.

Philonise Floyd began with a plea to lawmakers to reform law enforcement and asked what a black man's life is worth in today's world.

'George wasn't hurting anyone that day. He didn't deserve to die over twenty dollars. I am asking you, is that what a black man's life is worth? Twenty dollars? This is 2020. Enough is enough,' he said.

Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd who predicted that his death 'is going to change the world,' pleaded with Congress to reform law enforcement

Speaker Nancy Pelosi escorted Philonise Floyd into the House Judiciary Committee hearing

The House Judiciary Committee hearing lasted more than five hours on Wednesday

George Floyd was arrested on May 25 after trying pay with a counterfeit $20 bill at a store in Minneapolis. His arrest was captured on video that spread on social media after his death. During the arrest, as Chauvin knelt on his neck, Floyd said 'I can't breathe' - words that became a rallying cry to the Black Lives Matter movement, sparking peaceful demonstrations and protests across the country.

'Every time I walk around I ask myself am I next,' Philonoise Floyd said. 'I ask myself all the time because I don't want to do anything wrong, to make anybody think that I'm doing wrong so I just try to live life.'

He told lawmakers his brother was mild-mannered and polite.

'He was mild mannered. He didn't fight back. He listened to the officers. He called them 'sir.' The men who took his life, who suffocated for him eight minutes and 46 seconds. He still called them 'sir' as he begged for his life,' Philonise Floyd said in his testimony.

Pressure is on lawmakers to act after protests sprung up around the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd

'I'm tired. I'm tired of the pain I'm feeling now and I'm tired of the pain I feel every time another black person is killed for no reason. I'm here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired,' he added.

He asked lawmakers to listen to the protests that spung up around the country in the wake of his brother's death and the calls to reform police.

'George's calls for help were ignored. Please listen to the call I'm making to you now, to the calls of our family, and to the calls ringing out in the streets across the world. People of all backgrounds, genders and race have come together to demand change. Honor them, honor George, and make the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution  not the problem,' he said.

Philonise Floyd paused and choked back tears as he concluded his opening remarks.

'You're changing the world,' he told his brother. 'Thank you for everything. For taking care of us when you were on Earth, and for taking care of all of us now. I hope you found mama and can rest in peace and power.'

As he walked into the committee room on Wednesday morning, Philonise Floyd was asked what message he hoped to send Congress, 'Justice for George,' he said.

Philonise Floyd also said Chauvins action against his brother was premeditated.

It had to be premeditated and he wanted to do it, he said during the question and answer period.

George Floyd and Chauvin had worked security together at the El Nuevo Rodeo club. They were bouncers together for nearly 10 years.

Philonise Floyd Chauvin didnt like his brother and said Chauvins action was tied to racism.

He didn't like him, and it has to be racist, he said.

Republicans, while expressing their sympathy to Philonise Floyd, used the hearing to blast Democratic efforts at police reform, specifically criticizing the 'defund the police' movement.

The 'defund the police' movement calls for funds to be removed from police departments and allocated to social services instead. Some in the movement are even calling for police departments to be dissolved altogether.

Democrats did not include that provision in their reform police legislation they released on Monday and Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear that is a local issue, not a federal issue.

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, a prominent Capitol Hill ally of President Donald Trump, attacked Democrats for the 'defund the police' movement

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a liberal star in the Democratic party, has embraced the 'defund the police' movement but Democratic leaders kept it out of the legislation on reforming police they presented on Monday

Angela Underwood Jacobs, a Republican witness, and Philonise Floyd, a brother of George Floyd, are sworn in during a House Judiciary Committee hearing

But Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, a prominent Capitol Hill ally of President Donald Trump, attacked Democrats for it in his opening statement.

'It is pure insanity to defund the police,' he said. 'The fact that my Democratic colleagues won't speak out against this crazy policy is just that frightening.'

During the hearing, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, another close Trump ally, asked any of the 12 witnesses to raise their hands if they agreed with the 'defund the police' movement.

Not a single witness did.

'Anyone? Ok, so that's unifying and wonderful,' Gaetz said when no one raised a hand.

He also told Democrats that the GOP wants action on the use of chokeholds and to make lynching a federal hate crime. 'You will be able to count on Republican cooperation,' he reassured them.

President Trump gave Jordan's statement his seal of approval.

'Great statement to Congress by @Jim_Jordan concerning Defunding (not!) our great Police. This Radical Left agenda is not going to happen. Sleepy Joe Biden will be (already is) pulled all the way Left. Many, like Minneapolis, want to close their Police Departments. Crazy!,' he tweeted.

The president made no mention of George Floyd or Philonise Floyd's testimony.

But he did play TV critic, complaining that Fox News cut away from the hearing before the GOP witnesses spoke.

'Incredible! @FoxNews just took Congressional Hearing off the air just prior to important witness statements. More like CNN!!! Fox is lost!!!,' he wrote.

Fox News cut away as House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy was introducing Angela Underwood Jacobs, a former Republican candidate for Congress whose brother Patrick was killed May 25 in Oakland.

She said he was killed in the unrest that swarmed the nation after George Floyd's death.

'My brother, Dave Patrick Underwood, a federal officer, was murdered 5/29/20 in Oakland California, while on duty during the riots,' she wrote on Facebook. 'This Violence Must Stop.'

Patrick Underwood was a contract security officer for the Department of Homeland Security, guarding the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building, when he was killed in a drive-by shooting.

'Underwood died from gunshot wounds sustained after shots were fired by an unidentifed subject in a vehicle,' according to a police statement.

No one has been arrested and a motive for the shooting has not been determined. The FBI, Oakland police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating the shooting.

'I want you as our representatives in Congress to make a change, so that no one ever has to wake up to the phone call that I received telling me that my brother was shot dead and murdered,' Angela Underwood Jacobs testified on Wednesday. 'How my brother died was wrong.'

Republican witness Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who is now a conservative radio host who has interviewed President Trump, used his testimony to plead with lawmakers not to defund police

Dan Bongino arrives at the hearing with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee scheduled the hearing in the wake of protests after George Floyd's death

Rep. Matt Gaetz puts up tweets as he asks questions during a House Judiciary Committee

And Republican witness Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who is now a conservative radio host who has interviewed President Trump, used his testimony to plead with lawmakers not to defund police.

'We can and should commit to police accountability there's no question about that, but we can do it without shredding the thin wall between civilization and chaos. There are a few jobs in the country as stressful as policing,' he said.

'I asked you please with the greatest of respect and humility. Please stop this defund the police abomination before someone gets hurt,' he added.

The 'defund the police' movement has become a rallying cry for some progressives in the wake of George Floyd's death, including for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a liberal star in the Democratic party.

She told ABC's 'Good Morning America' on Thursday that calls to 'defund the police' are criticisms of many departments' outsized budgets.

'It's not always just about the number of officers on the street. It's about these police precincts that have tanks, that have military weaponry, and frankly have a degree of material resources and warlike weaponry that people ask why does a local police precinct have this in the first place?' she said.

'People always say 'how are you going to pay for it'? What this movement is doing first and foremost -- it's important to note -- that this is directed at city councils and mayors. And so you should look to see if your city is having this conversation,' she added.

George Floyd was buried in Houston on Tuesday

Philonise Floyd, wearing a picture of his brother George Floyd on his face mask, is sworn in at a House Judiciary Committee hearing

A bystander-captured video of the incident showed officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, as he repeatedly said he was in pain and could not breathe and eventually went limp

She compared the rallying cry to that of 'Black Lives Matter.'

'Just a few years ago, everyone said that Black Lives Matter polled poorly, that it was divisive, that it required too much explanation. But these are everyday people going out into their communities saying this is what we want for ourselves and for our city council budgets,' she said.

Democrats' legislation outlaws chokeholds, makes it easier to sue police officers, prohibits racial profiling, makes lynching a federal hate crime and ends no-knock raids.

Republicans are looking presenting their own police reform legislation this week. It would be narrower than the Democrats' bill.

It does not include the chokehold provision, for example.

The draft GOP plan would condition grant funding on reporting on the use of force that causes death or injury, seeks increased funding for body-worn cameras and penalties for failing to use them and to establish a new independent commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system and make recommendations for reform, among other ideas. It also calls to make lynching a federal hate crime, according to CNN, which obtained a copy of the draft proposal.
Trump's Final Gamble: From Chinagate to Hybrid Wars

The disastrous failure of the Trump administration to contain COVID-19 will result in catastrophic 2nd quarter data. As a result, Trump is risking his re-election on domestic unrest, fatal geopolitics and a global depression.

The cold reality is that the Trump administration learned about the virus already on January 3, when CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield informed Secretary of Health Alex Azar that China had discovered a new coronavirus. Yet no mobilization was initiated until toward late March (see my report here ):

Indeed, the Trump White House missed three opportunities to contain the virus outbreak; in January (between CDC alert and WHOs international emergency), the 1st quarter (between the WHO emergency and the pandemic alert) and the 2nd quarter (since social distancing began 6-8 weeks late and inadequately).

Instead of virus mobilization in early January, a long debate began within the White House over what to tell to the American public, while Azar and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began repeated attacks against China. The consequent economic carnage is evident in the 2nd quarter free-fall (Table).

Table Human Costs and Economic Damage of the Pandemic

Human Costs Q4 2019 (#) Q1 2020 (#) Q2 2020 (#) Cumulative Cases China: US 1 0 China: US: 82,500 140,600 China: US: 85,000 2.3 million+ Economic Damage Q4 2019 (%) Q1 2020 (%) Q2 2020 (%) GDP Growth China: US: 6.0% 2.1% China: US: -6.8% -4.8% China: US: 3% to 4% -38% to -45%

Source: WHO, IMF, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Difference Group.

At the end of June, the US is likely to have more than 2.3 million cumulative cases and over 130,000 deaths. In the 1st quarter, US annual GDP growth contracted (-4.8%) but the real carnage will ensue with the 2nd quarter plunge (-38% to -45%), as I projected in April and major US investment banks have warned. The Atlanta Feds model expects a -52% plunge, however.

To survive its pandemic and economic failures, the Trump White House has initiated a series of measures in a hybrid war against China. In the absence of timely countervailing actions, these measures have potential to undermine global economic prospects in the short term and the promise of the Asian Century over time.

Southeast Asia will not remain immune to such headwinds.

From Chinagate to hybrid China Wars

As the Trump White House has targeted China as a its re-election scapegoat, the early victims include US-Sino high-level bilateral dialogue, trade and investment relations, US treasuries, military relations and destabilization in East Asia.

High-Level Dialogues. Undermining decades of US-Sino bilateral progress, President Trump has let US-Sino high-level economic, law enforcement and cultural dialogues freeze since fall 2017; the diplomatic and security dialogue since fall 2018.

Trade. Trade tensions are re-escalating. After the Phase-I deal, China is obliged to buy $200 billion in additional US imports over two years on top of pre-trade war purchase levels. The truce would require 18% annual import growth from the US, which is challenging to China amid Trump protectionism and dire global prospects.

Investment. Before the trade wars, US investment to China averaged $15 billion per year, whereas Chinese investment in the US soared to $45 billion. US investment to China has persisted, but Chinese investment in the US has been forced to plunge to $5 billion. Thanks to Trump decoupling, over a decade of progress has been reversed. Nevertheless, seven of ten US companies do not plan to leave China.

Treasuries. For years, Beijing invested much of its foreign exchange reserves in US assets, particularly US Treasury securities. In another low-probability but high-impact re-election scenario, Republicans are threatening Beijing with unilateral $1.1 trillion debt cancellation, while Democrats hope to de-list Chinese companies from US markets. As a result, Beijing is diversifying investments away from the US, while pumping over $1.4 trillion into the tech sector over to 2025.

Military Relations. Despite political differences, US-China military exchanges used to feature high-level visits, exchanges between defense officials, and functional interactions. According to Pentagon, these engagements have fallen by two-thirds in the Trump era, while bilateral tensions are rapidly escalating in South and East China Sea. Whether accidental or provoked, a conflict is a matter of time.

Special Administrative Regions. Destabilization efforts in Chinese mainlands proximity have escalated dramatically since 2017.

Taiwan. Unlike previous administrations, the White House, in cooperation with Taiwans president Tsai Ing-wen, seeks to undermine decades of One China policies. If the past strategic ambiguity gives way to force, the geopolitical impact could destabilize East Asia.

Unlike previous administrations, the White House, in cooperation with Taiwans president Tsai Ing-wen, seeks to undermine decades of One China policies. If the past strategic ambiguity gives way to force, the geopolitical impact could destabilize East Asia. Hong Kong. According to Washington, pro-democracy forces are threatened in Hong Kong. According to Beijing, cooperation between the White House, Congress, and Tsai government is fueled by a quest for color revolution. As Senate Intelligence Committee chair, radical-right Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) hopes to exploit the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act for regime change in China as he has in Iran, Russia, Venezuela and elsewhere.

According to Washington, pro-democracy forces are threatened in Hong Kong. According to Beijing, cooperation between the White House, Congress, and Tsai government is fueled by a quest for color revolution. As Senate Intelligence Committee chair, radical-right Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) hopes to exploit the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act for regime change in China as he has in Iran, Russia, Venezuela and elsewhere. Macau. Financier of the Trump campaign and Republican conservatives, billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson allowed the CIA to use of his Macau properties for US espionage in the early 2010s. More recently, his Sands Corp. played a critical role in an apparent spying operation targeting Julian Assange, when the CIA came under the control of Mike Pompeo, another Adelson ally.

Financier of the Trump campaign and Republican conservatives, billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson allowed the CIA to use of his Macau properties for US espionage in the early 2010s. More recently, his Sands Corp. played a critical role in an apparent spying operation targeting Julian Assange, when the CIA came under the control of Mike Pompeo, another Adelson ally. Tibet. Before Trumps Hong Kong declaration, US lawmaker Scott Perry (R-PA), a retired Pennsylvania Army National Guard Brigadier General, has introduced a bill to recognize Tibet as a sovereign country.

From pandemic geopolitics to US debt crisis

In 2003, the Bush administration began its Iraq War under a pretext, presumably to achieve a domino-effect democracy across the Middle East. The consequent nightmare led to still another forever war in the region, in which the costs soared to $3 trillion, as estimated by economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Barely two decades later, the Trump administration has initiated what in Beijing looks like a nascent hybrid war to win re-election. The economic costs of complacency, which are misplaced on China and WHO, are estimated at $9 trillion; thats three times the costs of the Iraq War.

These tragic losses could pale with the imminent new policy mistakes. In what I have termed a Great Power Conflicts scenario, lingering pandemic risks would result in intense trade and technology wars, hot geopolitical conflicts and a long, multi-year global depression. This is the current path of the Trump White House, which is predicated on leveraging US economy to the hilt.

US debt has soared to $26 trillion that puts US debt-to-GDP ratio to 120% (at par with that of Italy amid its debt crisis in 2011-12), which the White House and the Fed will soon have to further increase.

Due to the central role of US in the world economy, such economic leverage  coupled with the human costs of the pandemic and deadly geopolitics  is pushing global prospects toward the edge of global depression.

Dr. Dan Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and has served at the India, China and America Institute (US), Shanghai Institute for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net/

 2020 Copyright Dan Steinbock - All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Dan Steinbock Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Insurtech provider Bold Penguin has announced that it has integrated workers compensation insurance from AmTrust Financial on the Bold Penguin exchange platform.

As the largest commercial insurance exchange, were laser-focused on connecting small businesses, agents, and carriers in record time, said Ilya Bodner, founder and CEO of Bold Penguin. Our integration with AmTrust will strengthen our workers compensation offerings for out platform users. The speed at which AmTrust executed has been truly remarkable.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 01:45:12|Editor: huaxia

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PRAGUE, June 9 (Xinhua) --The interior ministers of the Visegrad group (V4), namely Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, plus Austria discussed on Tuesday easing border restrictions, new European Union (EU) asylum and migration policies and a Czech initiative to reject mandatory asylum quotas, the Czech Ministry of the Interior said in a press release.

The ministers discussed developments over the past several weeks with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic and came to an agreement that the V4 will promote a coordinated approach to opening the EU's external borders.

"In some countries, the disease has not even reached its peak, so we must talk together about what is and what is not possible," Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said.

In their discussion of a new EU asylum and migration policy, the ministers disapproved of mandatory asylum quotas, a position already articulated in a letter to the European Commission (EC). The letter was drafted by the Czech Republic and co-signed by Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia.

"We made it clear in the letter that we offer any assistance in protecting the EU's external borders, but we unequivocally reject mandatory relocations," said Hamacek, noting that Austria and Denmark also shared similar concerns in their own letter. Enditem
HOWELL, MI  Police are pursuing a criminal charge against a state employee accused of suggesting protesters burn the city of Howell in a message posted on Twitter.

The results of an investigation into the tweet have been forwarded to the Livingston County Prosecutors Office, Howell Police Chief Scott Mannor said. Police are seeking a charge of making a terrorist threat, he said.
Nabiev's trial is being held at the Old Bailey. (PA Images)

An angry pizza delivery driver ran over a young man and dragged him along a pavement after his cars wing mirror was snapped off, a court has heard.

Uran Nabiev, 63, had been at home drinking vodka as John Ambler drunkenly punched out at his parked Toyota Prius in the early hours of 19 October, jurors were told. He was walking with Jake Kemp, a 26-year-old air conditioning engineer.

Nabiev is alleged to have responded by taking the law into his own hands with tragic consequences, and got into his car and driven at the two men, the Old Bailey was told.

Kemp was hit after he stumbled and fell, and was dragged nine metres down the pavement after Nabiev hit him, the court heard.

Jurors were shown CCTV footage from that morning, when Nabiev is alleged to have driven up behind the two men, revved his engine and mounted the pavement in Bexley Road, Erith, south-east London.

Ambler, 33, a delivery driver, was hit in the arm and Kemp ran off but was pursued by Nabiev, jurors heard.

Kemp stumbled and fell and Nabiev reversed, mounted the opposite pavement, and drove straight over him, the court was told.

Part of Bexley Road, where the alleged murder is said to have taken place. (Google Maps)

Prosecuting, Anthony Orchard QC said Nabiev has used his car as a weapon and added: Jake had no chance. He ran and fell.

Despite a clear time gap, the defendant made no attempt to brake. The Toyota was accelerating. It dragged the prone Jake Kemp for about nine metres before driving off.

No attempt was made to stop. The defendant knew exactly what he was doing when he drove at both these men as they walked on Bexley Road. They stood no chance.

Kemp ended up face-down in a pool of blood. He died in hospital three days later after suffering a serious head injury.

The court heard that Nabiev drove to a friends house, shaking, panicking and slurring his words, and allegedly said: Thief, thief. They broke the car.

Nabiev travelled to his native Azerbaijan but was arrested when he returned to the UK in November.

Opening the murder trial on Wednesday, Orchard said: Instead of ringing the police to report his wing mirror damage, he took the law into his own hands with tragic consequences.

Story continues

The court heard that after his arrest, Nabiev told police he was extremely sorry for Kemps death.

In a prepared statement, he said he did not intend to harm anyone or to cause them serious harm, and he denies the murder of Kemp and the attempted murder of Ambler, who both come from Barnehurst, south-east London.

He also denies lesser alternative charges of manslaughter and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The trial continues.
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LOS ANGELES, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Portnoy Law Firm advises Townsquare Media, Inc. (NYSE: TSQ) investors that the firm has initiated an investigation into alleged violations of securities laws, and may file a lawsuit on behalf of investors to recover losses suffered by investors.



Investors are encouraged to contact attorney Lesley F. Portnoy , by phone 310-692-8883 or email : lesley@portnoylaw.com, to discuss their legal rights, including eligibility for appointment as a class representative.

The investigation focuses on whether Townsquare Media misled investors regarding its compliance with proper accounting practices. On June 9, 2020, Townsquare Media disclosed that it would report an impairment charge of approximately $39.4 million for its licenses and an impairment charge of approximately $69.0 million for its goodwill. The Company also announced that certain financial statements for fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019 should no longer be relied upon and would be restated due to an error "in the projected cash flows that were utilized in [its] valuation model."

On this news, the Company's share price fell $1.20, or nearly 19%, to close at $5.28 per share on June 9, 2020, thereby injuring investors.

Please visit our website to review more information and submit your transaction information.

The Portnoy Law Firm represents investors from around the world and specializes in securities class actions and shareholder rights litigation. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Lesley F. Portnoy, Esq.

Admitted CA and NY Bar

lesley@portnoylaw.com

310-692-8883

www.portnoylaw.com

Attorney Advertising
Columbia Hillen

Twin brothers, Omar and Othmane Belkhayat (31) are just the kind of tourism entrepreneurs Morocco needs.

Personable, multi-lingual, having lived in cities such as Montreal, Paris and Madrid, and with banking background experience, they returned to their native home two years ago and revamped their fathers riad in Fez.

Tucked away along a narrow alleyway, a 5-minute walk from the central medina, Le Grand Alcazar Riad is an elegant, three-floor property - four if you include an open terrace overlooking the city - which once belonged to the Ministry of Culture.

Columbia Hillen

The twins have managed to put together a young, friendly staff, most of whom speak several languages, including English and French. Ghizlane Aqachmar (27), for example, acts as receptionist and guest relations manager, having studied English at university. No request seems too much for her quiet, patient manner, as it was for her colleague, Eiub.

Upon arrival guests are treated to a cordial traditional welcome, with ceremonial mint tea and a selection of sweet, scrumptious cookies, bahla, kaab ghazal and ghriba, made with sesame and almond, that crumble delectably in your mouth.

Columbia Hillen

Sipping tea in the elegance of the ground-floor lobby with its mosaic tilework known as zellige, gleaming marble floor, intricately carved wooden doors, traditional wall decorations including Berber wood necklaces, Fezi brocades, and fresh flowers and plants while gazing to a skylight high above was sheer delight.

Columbia Hillen

Our suite, one of seven rooms in the riad, was located on the third floor, the only one opening on to a roof-top outdoor terrace. Not surprisingly, evenings found us sitting at a table gazing out over the stars and the cityscape that stretched all the way to a hill burial ground of former Sultan rulers, the Merinides, a powerful 13th century dynasty.

The highlight of our suite, aside from its spaciousness, was a splendid, intricately carved cedar wood ceiling and colorful tiled floor. Furnishings included soft comfortable couches, a big-screen TV, flowing curtains, a walk-in wardrobe and a combined bath and shower.

Columbia Hillen

One word of caution, while our suite offered us terrific views and privacy, there is no elevator so the walk up the steep stairs could be cumbersome for people not used to such exertion, so lower floor rooms may be more suitable.

Renovation of Le Grand Alcazar took place in two stages, between 2005-2007 and 2018-19, with every room being decorated in a different style, often using reclaimed traditional furnishings. Omar describes the completed project as, a balance between authenticity and modernism.

Columbia Hillen

Whether for breakfast or dinner, food by chef Fatiha and her daughter is of high quality. The former consists of freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, olives, cheese, jams and a Moroccan version of peanut butter but with almond and argan nuts, called amlou.

A wide range of detox juices are also on offer made from beetroot, cucumber, ginger and red pepper; tonic juices comprising kiwi, cucumber, honey, ginger and parsley; and vitality juices with orange, carrot, apple and lemon. Try the rghaif, sweet pancakes with almonds and honey, and harcha, a flat bread made with semolina.

Columbia Hillen

Dinner is equally delightful. We feasted on candied tomatoes, spinach, aubergine caviar, candied pumpkin, peppers, traditional pastille and Moroccan-style ratatouille. With Moroccan cooking involving aromatic spices such as turmeric, cinnamon, cumin and paprika, a healthy menu is guaranteed. Other dishes include lamb with prunes and meatball tajine.

Columbia Hillen

My companion and I were not the only people impressed by what the two friendly brothers have accomplished. Restoration of this riad is masterful, said Paul Casowitz, a retired former deputy New York Fire Commissioner, who was a guest at the same time as us. The view from the rooftop terrace is worth the climb. The location is perfect, close to the souk. The staff and owners could not be more welcoming or helpful. Our room was beautiful. Casowitz reflects the cosmopolitan nature of the clientele at this riad, with other guests originating from such places as the UK, France and central and south America.

Columbia Hillen

Among the advantages of Le Grand Alcazar is its proximity not just to the traditional medina but also to several museums, art galleries and a Royal Palace.

If you are interested in something quite different, dont miss a visit to the American Fondouk  a sanctuary for sick and injured mules, donkeys and horses, providing charitable veterinary care in Morocco since 1927. Entrance is free and one of the devoted vets such as Dr. Safaa will show you round and explain what she and her fellow doctors, mostly women, do. A donation box is located inside the entrance door with contributions supporting the admirable work overseen by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Omar and Othmane aim to set up a project to support the sanctuary.
Over seven long minutes Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer went at each other  and how. Gnawing, jabbing, poking one another.

Peck, peck, peck. Nip, nip, nip. It was like watching two budgies squabbling over the last crumb of cuttlefish.

For the second week in a row at PMQs the pair were immersed in petty point-scoring over the reopening of schools. And what a wearying sight it was.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured left) and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (right) came to blows once again during Prime Minister's Question on Wednesday. This week, the pair petty point-scoring over the reopening of schools

The education of a generation is at stake  not to mention those poor parents being driven potty by the demands of home schooling  and here were our two leaders behaving like whiny toddlers.

Sir Keir was half way through his allotted questions when he once again decided to have another moan about a letter hed written offering to help with getting teachers back to work.

Boris, he pointed out, hadnt even bothered to reply. How hurt the poor lamb sounded. How wounded.

Boris trotted out the same excuse as last week. He had tried to reach an agreement on schools with Starmer over a modern device called the telephone which, he claimed, his opponent squirmed out of later on.

Oooh, this got right under Sir Keirs fingernails. He bolted for the dispatch box.

Lets just have this out, he spluttered. Here was a rare flash of Starmer anger. It hasnt shown itself before.

The Prime Minister and I have never discussed our letter in any phone call; he knows it, and I know it.

He accused the PM of flailing around trying to blame others while children suffered. Boris pulled an exasperated face, which seemed to ask: Who is this numpty?

He accused Starmer of trying to have it both ways. Last week he said classrooms werent safe enough to return to, this week he wants children back there quicker. Sir Flip-Flop, if you will.

One brief one day, one brief the next, the PM chuntered. I understand how the legal profession works but what the public wants is consistency.

That gag at least raised a laugh on the Government benches. Sir Keirs face, meanwhile, remained stiff as a gargoyle.

The best that can be said for Boris yesterday is that he has recovered a bit of va-va-voom.

The best thing you can say about Boris Johnson (left)'s performance in Wednesday's PMQs was that he's recovered a bit of his va-va-voom

For the first time since returning to the chamber after contracting Covid-19, he actually looked like he wanted to be there.

Appearance-wise, he remains a lost cause. His jacket and trousers did not appear to match, and his barber may need to arm himself with something from Black & Decker when hes finally let loose on his hair.

As for Sir Keir, I fear this earnest, lofty act of his is already wearing thin. It will start to grate with people after a while.

At the start of the session, he repeated his trick of sombrely reciting the latest Covid-19 death figures as a way of shaming the Government. It was a bit much.

Soon the monitors flashed to SNP leader Ian Blackford for some light relief. He was sporting some rather spiffing Harris tweeds. Was he off deer stalking? Blackford was concerned about proposals to reduce the social distancing rules from two metres to just one.

He accused the PM of not bothering to read the relevant scientific papers.

Nonsense, said Boris... but hesitantly. Hed read many papers on social distancing. Anyway, he was keeping the issue under review.

Sir Ian Blackford then appeared on the big screens wearing some rather spiffing Harris tweeds which lightened the mood

The thorny issue of race relations loomed. Acting Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey demanded an end to the polices stop and search powers, which he claimed were 47 times more likely to result in a black person being stopped.

Boris insisted such powers were a very important utensil, particularly in fighting knife crime.

He fell out with Theresa May on this issue as I recall when she was in the Home Office. Kirsty Blackman (SNP, Aberdeen N) raised President Trumps indelicate handling of the George Floyd affair.

What were the many good qualities Boris had previously ascribed to Trump, she asked?

Boris pointed out that Trump was President of the United States, our most important ally and that was all that needed to be said on the matter.

Biggest disappointment of the afternoon came when it was announced theres no chance of pubs reopening before July 4 despite the rumours.

The last thing we needed was a roiling, bacchanalian mass drunkenly spreading disease about, said the PM. Pah.

Still, how ridiculous that schools will have to wait so much longer.
CAMEROUN :: A notorious wildlife trafficker arrested :: CAMEROON

A notorious wildlife trafficker has been arrested for unlawful possession of ivory tusks in Bertoua. He was arrested alongside another trafficker during an operation carried out by wildlife officials of the East Regional Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife following investigations into wildlife trafficking spanning the North and East Regions and the Central African Republic. The operation was also carried out in collaboration with the gendarmerie and with technical assistance from LAGA, a wildlife law enforcement organization.

The two men were arrested at the Camp sic CRTV road in possession of 3.7 kg of ivory tusks partitioned into 6 pieces concealed in a bag. According to a source close to the matter that spoke on condition of anonymity, one of the traffickers travelled from Kentzou to Bertoua with the ivory tusks where he met the other and they both attempted to sell the illicit product, A military bag was used to conceal the tusks and they believed it would facilitate the transportation without him being intercepted on the way. The same source reported that the notorious trafficker, a former accountant with a money transfer agency at Kentzou, has been in the dragnet of wildlife officials of the East Region for a while now. He had been at the center of many illegal wildlife activities in the region.

Preliminary investigations show that he is part of a large network of wildlife traffickers operating in the North and East Regions of the country which extends beyond the borders and cover the sub region. Investigations carried out after his arrest reveal that he is also known in several towns (Kentzou, Mpaka, Lolo and Panda) in connection to the illegal gold trade. The two suspects, who are expected in court soon, were placed in the Bertoua central prison.

More and more evidence is emerging as to the risk of coming in contact with parts of wildlife species given that Covid-19 is a coronavirus found in many wildlife species. The law therefore targets those who illegally handle wildlife species. According to the 1994 wildlife law that prohibits poaching and trafficking of wildlife animals, anyone found in possession of parts of a protected wildlife species is considered to have killed the animal and is liable to a prison term of up to 3 years and or a fine of up to 10 million CFA francs. Elephants are totally protected and it is illegal to kill them or to trade in elephants products as well.
Voting opportunities really shouldnt depend on where you live, or which party controls your access to the ballot. Photo: Li Ying/Xinhua via Getty

During this pandemic spring, it seems as if the right to vote is up for debate  or some would say under siege  all over the country. President Trump has repeatedly urged his Republican Party to fight expanded voting opportunities as a counter to alleged (but never, ever verified) voter fraud, but also as a matter of partisan self-interest. State-by-state  and in some jurisdictions, county-by-county  disputes over voter-registration procedures, voter-roll maintenance, early voting options, polling-place staffing and safety, and most of all voting by mail, have become intensely politicized, more often than not in a fraught context of public-health fears and grossly inadequate funding for election administration.

Its far past time to address this crazy quilt patchwork of state and local procedures and end the partisan guerrilla warfare over voting by creating a national system with uniform rules, nonpartisan election administration, and adequate funding to make elections fair and secure. While both parties would benefit from settling how we hold elections on a national level, Democrats should have a particularly strong interest in establishing a meaningful and uniform right to vote that can overcome perpetual efforts to disenfranchise the vulnerable populations that Democrats are sworn to protect.

Election-law expert Rick Hasen has called for this fundamental reform for years, most succinctly in 2013 after an earlier close presidential election that might have gone badly awry:

Long lines. New voting machines that dont work right. Poll workers wrongfully asking for photo ID. Democratic election officials keeping Republican poll watchers out of Philadelphia polling places 

There is a better way. We can do things as they are done in most mature democracies, like Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Nationalize our elections and impose professional nonpartisan administrators. A neutral election board with its allegiance to the integrity of the voting process rather than to a political party should take on the basic tasks of voting. The goal would be to make sure that all eligible voters, but only eligible voters, could cast a vote that would be accurately counted.

Theres no question that nationalizing elections is constitutional if limited to federal elections (those in which House and Senate seats and/or the presidency are at stake). But since all but a handful of states choose to coordinate most elections with federal elections, such an initiative would establish a general principle that voting opportunities would no longer depend on where an eligible citizen lives, much less on which political party happened to control a given state or county.

A key feature of nationalizing elections would be to create a national voter-registration system in which the maintenance of rolls would no longer be in the hands of (often-partisan) state election officials conducting often-over-aggressive purges. Hasen explains:

The most important mission of this [nonpartisan national election board] would be to maintain registration and voting rolls. The government would register all voters now on the rolls and pick up new voters when they graduate or drop out of high school, paying all the costs of getting the documents necessary to prove a voters identity. When a voter moves and fills out a change of address form, the voter registration moves too.

The government would provide all voters with a national voter identification card, containing a unique number that a voter would use in federal elections for life.

This would in effect create a universal and nationally recognized right to vote that state and local elected officials could not abrogate. Today, that only exists for certain categories of voters in certain circumstances (e.g., minority voters facing clearly discriminatory practices).

A national election board could also set uniform rules for voting by mail, in-person early voting, and ballot security. No longer would an individual state be able to simply ignore vulnerability to hacks (like Georgia did in 2018). And no longer would states set rules for early in-person and by-mail voting on the fly, with the major parties both fighting for angles that would improve their bottom line. National standards could provide a reasonable accommodation for legitimate fears of mail-ballot tampering. Making it a federal felony to fake signatures on mail ballots or alter their content, or imposing national sanctions on organizations that engage in questionable mail ballot collection processes, might offer pretty strong deterrents to fraud.

Most of all, a nationalized election administration system could and should be accompanied by the kind of funding only the federal government can supply to reform our ramshackle voting infrastructure. After the 2000 election fiasco in Florida, which simply exposed deficiencies in our radically decentralized voting apparatus that had been there all along, Congress did pass the Help America Vote Act to encourage state and local reforms. But it was underfunded, entirely voluntary, and too focused on replacing older voting machines with newer ones, which typically were even less reliable and secure. The Election Assistance Commission it created has been toothless, politicized, and sometimes lacking enough confirmed members to even function. And as we are about to vividly see in November (and have already seen in some primaries), state and local election officials are in most places entirely incapable of handling major changes in voting behavior such as this years sharp rise in voting by mail, which is going to produce some very long counts and claims of skullduggery.

A robustly funded national election administration system could for the first time offer adequate resources to make voter registration and balloting procedures uniform, transparent, and voter friendly, while also enabling enforcement of ballot security measures that dont depend on intimidating voters.

Why move in this direction right now? We are approaching a dangerous breakdown in public confidence in the fairness and integrity of elections and the legitimacy of election results, as The Atlantics Edward-Isaac Dovere observes:

Nearly three in five Americans dont have confidence in the honesty of our elections, a February Gallup poll found. Republicans, Democrats, state officials, grandmothers, first-time voters, the politically engaged, the anti-institutionalists  pretty much the only thing they could agree on was their doubts about the integrity of our democracy.

And that was before the pandemic made everything worse. Now, on top of questions from President Trump about the legitimacy of the election, Russian interference, persistent claims of supposed fraud, and a history of voter suppression, there are all sorts of new worries because of the coronavirus pandemic: long lines, unsafe sites, canceled elections and closed voting locations, absentee ballots faked or claimed to be faked, a collapse of a voting infrastructure thats being haphazardly reassembled on the fly.

The odds of a disputed presidential election, a constitutional crisis, and perhaps major civic unrest have never been higher, as is evidenced by a recent gathering of political scientists exploring six scenarios for post-election chaos. Perhaps the most likely, thanks to the presidents crusade against voting by mail, is one in which states with Republican legislatures refuse to accept the reversal of Election Night GOP leads as late mail and provisional ballots are counted, and instead award electoral votes to Trump despite the fraudulent popular-vote totals.

It may be too late to avoid such perils this November (though a presidential outcome too decisive to question would really help), but at a time when Democrats in particular are open to bigger and bolder policy proposals than ever before, they should seize on nationalizing elections as a reform that could prevent the descent of this country into banana-republic territory when it comes to holding elections: Lets nationalize election administration and the voter-registration system underlying it.

Yes, Republicans will mostly oppose this sort of initiative, on the sad grounds that the GOP has decided that restricting the franchise where it can is the key to its long-term viability as a governing party at a time when demographic trends seem threatening. But Democrats ought to be willing to make this a major and permanent national policy priority, particularly after this years experiences. And in the long run, taking away the temptation for either party to manipulate rules for voter registration, balloting, or vote-counting via control of state and local governments across a vast battlefield of guerrilla warfare may be the only way to make voting rights a bipartisan issue once again.
In the Joint Forces Operation zone, the militants do not admit the citizens to the occupied territory. About 100 pedestrians are waiting near Mariinka checkpoint as the Interior Ministry of Ukraine reported.

During two hours of work of the checkpoint, the militants admitted nobody.

As of 13:00, one man in the car was admitted to the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine through Mariinka checkpoint; however, he was returned by militants after a while. Five people were passed to the temporarily occupied Donetsk. They expect the procession at the militants checkpoint, the message said.

Some people got in a queue since 6:00 a.m. About 70 pensioners and 10 children are still waiting in the line.

The chairman of the regional state administration noted that the militants have not renewed the admission of the citizens.

According to 112 Ukraine TV channel correspondent, the state of one of the women deteriorated and the medics provide her with assistance.

At Stanytsia Luhanska, six citizens went to the occupied territory and expect the procession at the militants checkpoint.

Earlier, the so-called Luhansk Peoples Republic stated that it is not going to open the checkpoints n Donbas despite the intentions of the Ukrainian side.
Actor Clark Gable in his role as Rhett Butler kissing the hand of a tearful Scarlett O'Hara, played by Vivien Leigh, in 'Gone With the Wind.' (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

HBO Removes Gone With the Wind Amid Black Lives Matter Protests

HBO quietly removed Gone With the Wind from its HBO Max streaming service late Tuesday amid protests and riots over the death of a black man in police custody.

In a statement released later explaining the move, HBO said the movie is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society.

These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible. These depictions are certainly counter to WarnerMedias values, so when we return the film to HBO Max, it will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed, HBO added.

If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.

Scarlett OHara runs through the street, filled with horses and men, in this promotional poster for the book Gone With the Wind, 1936. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Gone With the Wind premiered in 1939. It focuses on a love story unfolding in the South during the Civil War and reconstruction periods.

Most of the actors are white. The black actors and actresses in the film depict servants or workers. Several black characters are former slaves who stick with the family that owned them after slavery was abolished.

Hattie McDaniel, who played a house servant called Mammy, was the first black actress to win an Academy Award.

McDaniel said in her acceptance speech in 1940: This is one of the happiest moments of my life.

She thanked people who selected her. For your kindness, it makes me feel very, very humble, she added. And I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything that I may be able to do in the future.

Some streaming services in recent years began adding statements to shows and movies, including Tom and Jerry and Dumbo, that contain outdated cultural depictions.

HBO Max, which is owned by AT&T, pulled Gone With the Wind a day after John Ridley, the screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave, called for its removal.

In an op-ed, Ridley alleged the movie glorifies the antebellum South.

Writer John Ridley speaks onstage at Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Oct. 14, 2017. (Earl Gibson III/Getty Images)

It is a film that, when it is not ignoring the horrors of slavery, pauses only to perpetuate some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color, he said. It is a film that, as part of the narrative of the Lost Cause, romanticizes the Confederacy in a way that continues to give legitimacy to the notion that the secessionist movement was something more, or better, or more noble than what it wasa bloody insurrection to maintain the right to own, sell, and buy human beings.

Ridley said he wasnt calling for censorship. Instead, he proposed, the film should be removed temporarily before being reintroduced to the platform after a respectful amount of time has passed along with other movies that give a more broad-based and complete picture of what slavery and the Confederacy truly were.

Or, perhaps it could be paired with conversations about narratives and why its important to have many voices sharing stories from different perspectives rather than merely those reinforcing the views of the prevailing culture. Currently, there is not even a warning or disclaimer preceding the film, he added.

In another move prompted by protests over George Floyds death, Paramount Network said it was canceling the reality show Cops. A&E said it was pulling Live PD from its schedule out of respect for the families of George Floyd and others who have lost their lives.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 23:02:00|Editor: huaxia

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Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa delivers a speech during a ceremony marking Portugal Day, the national day of Portugal, at the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon, Portugal, June 10, 2020. The day was marked all over the country in a serene emotional atmosphere as some citizens are still mourning the loss of loved ones to COVID-19 while looking into the future with optimism about return to "normal life." (Photo by Pedro Fiuza/Xinhua)

LISBON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- "Portugal Day," the national day of Portugal, was marked all over the country in a serene emotional atmosphere as some citizens are still mourning the loss of loved ones to COVID-19 while looking into the future with optimism about return to "normal life."

The day commemorates the death of the Portuguese poet Luis Vaz de Camoes, a significant figure in the country's history, in 1580.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa chose to hold a "small and symbolic" ceremony with only six guests at the Jeronimos Monastery, canceling several other traditional activities, including outside the country.

"Portugal cannot pretend that there is no pandemic and brutal financial crisis. This day is the exact moment to wake up and see that yesterday's solutions are not tomorrow's," he said in a speech.

The president also honoured his country's health professionals, announcing that he will grant them the "symbolic insignia of the Order of Merit."

"We come together to honor the health heroes in Portugal. Not being able to symbolically award all of them, I chose those who treated the first patient with COVID-19," said Rebelo de Sousa.

The president also thanked all his fellow citizens for the "sacrifices demanded by the pandemic, especially from the patriots spread all over the world, away from family and friends, who were unable to return home."

"It was a different June 10, we can't meet in person, touch and hug, but we do it from a distance. Portugal is a unique case in the world," he said.

The president also laid a wreath on the tomb of Camoes, whose day of death also marks the "Day of the Portuguese Communities and the Armed Forces."

Sousa paid tribute to those killed in combat at the Church of Santa Maria de Belem, with Prime Minister Antonio Costa at his side.

All over the world, several "virtual events" were also held to mark "Portugal Day." Enditem
Washington - (June 10, 2020) - A new set of expert consensus-based recommendations lays out how best to study possible neurodevelopmental impacts of pubertal suppression treatment in transgender youth. Developed by a consensus panel of 24 international scientists, the recommendations were published in the journal Transgender Health.

While early evidence suggests suppressing puberty has positive effects on the mental health of transgender adolescents, little is known about how this standard of care treatment affects an adolescent's brain development.

"We don't know how stopping puberty for a year or more affects a transgender adolescent's neurocognitive development. Clearly, pubertal suppression is important for many transgender youth, but at this time, we can't speak to a family's questions about how this medical treatment might affect brain development," said Diane Chen, Ph.D., co-lead author of the study and Behavioral Health Director for the Potocsnak Family Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

John Strang, Psy.D., co-lead author and director of Research for the Children's National Hospital Gender Development Program, continued, "We need high quality research to understand the impacts of this treatment - impacts which may be positive in some ways and potentially negative in others. This information about benefits and risks will help young people make informed decisions and assist providers in knowing how best to provide this treatment for optimal outcomes."

Transgender youth, who are on the verge of developing sex-based characteristics that don't align with their gender identity, often work with their care providers to suppress pubertal development via gonadotropin releasing hormone agonists (GnRHa). This medication approach suspends the production of gonadal (sex) hormones for as long as GnRHa is administered, which is often 1-2 years.

Employing a Delphi consensus method that included 24 international experts from the fields of adolescent neurodevelopment, gender development, neuroendocrinology and measurement science, the authors identified three primary domains of neurodevelopment that should be measured in these studies: mental health, executive function/cognitive control and social awareness/functioning.

In addition, the authors identified 44 study design elements, that all experts agreed were crucial components, out of the original 160 identified at study start. The consensus elements include:

Measuring neurodevelopment domains repeatedly over time, before and during treatment

Identifying an individual's stage of puberty prior to treatment

Applying analytical approaches that account for the heterogeneity, or broad range of differences that exist between transgender individuals

Incorporating comparisons between multiple groups, including untreated transgender youth at the same pubertal stage, cisgender youth at the same pubertal stage and an independent sample from available largescale youth databases.

"This is a critical topic for transgender youth and their families. It is also a difficult topic to study because we would never randomly assign transgender youth to treatment and no treatment groups - that would be harmful and unethical," says Dr. Strang.

Dr. Chen concludes, "Instead, we gathered the world's experts in relevant fields to work together and design the best possible research approaches to study the effects of this treatment without relying on a randomized treatment design."

###

About Children's National Hospital

Children's National Hospital, based in Washington, D.C., celebrates 150 years of pediatric care, research and commitment to community. Volunteers opened the hospital in 1870 with 12 beds to care for Civil War orphans. Today, 150 years stronger, it is the nation's No. 6 children's hospital. It is ranked No. 1 for newborn care for the third straight year and ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. Children's National is transforming pediatric medicine for all children. In 2020, construction will be complete on the Children's National Research and Innovation Campus, the first in the nation dedicated to pediatric research. Children's National has been designated twice as a Magnet hospital, demonstrating the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a convenient, community-based primary care network and specialty outpatient centers in the D.C., metropolitan area, including the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs. Children's National is home to the Children's National Research Institute and Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation and is the nation's seventh-highest NIH-funded children's hospital. It is recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care and as a strong voice for children through advocacy at the local, regional and national levels.

About the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago

Lurie Children's is ranked as one of the nation's top children's hospitals by U.S. News & World Report. It is the pediatric training ground for Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Last year, the hospital served more than 220,000 children from 48 states and 49 countries.
Stassi Schroeder was abruptly fired from Vanderpump Rules on Tuesday after racist remarks and behavior from recent years resurfaced.

But the 31-year-old reality star apparently never realized her conduct could put her job in jeopardy, according to Us Weekly.

Sources close to her said she was 'surprised and upset' to have been booted from the Bravo series after her former cast mate Faith Stowers revealed that Stassi and her friend Kristen Doute had lied to police to accuse her of a crime.

'Stassi was not expecting to be fired. She is surprised and upset,' a source said.

They added that she had 'lost a lot of money from losing sponsorships and paid opportunities,' though it doesn't appear to be too great a loss, as she and her fiance Beau Clark had been saving up.

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Not paying attention: 'Stassi was not expecting to be fired. She is surprised and upset,' a source said; still from Vanderpump Rules

Prescient: She has been axed from Bravo's Vanderpump Rules. And it turns out that Stassi Schroeder publicly begged the network not to fire her back in February following an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen and Summer House star Kyle Cook

Stassi publicly begged the network not to fire her back in February following an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.

Alongside a selfie taken with Cohen and Summer House star Kyle Cook that she posted to her Instagram, Stassi, 31, wrote: 'Dear Bravo, please never fire me, because I love this s*** so much.'

It's not known why she chose those words but in hindsight they seem prescient.

Following stories of Stassi's treatment of Faith, along with racist comments she made on her podcast, she has been dropped as a spokesperson for the women-focused shaving supplies company Billie, as well as Secret deodorant and the vitamin startup Ritual.

The deciding factor leading up to Stassi's firing from Vanderpump Rules seems to be an incident in which she and her costar Kristen Doute called the police and accused Stowers of being the woman mentioned in an article about a black woman thief.

Financial hurt: They added that she had 'lost a lot of money from losing sponsorships and paid opportunities,' though it doesn't appear to be too great a loss, as she and her fiance Beau Clark had been saving up; pictured in January

'There was this article where there was an African-American lady. It was a weird photo, so she looked very light-skinned and had these different, weird tattoos. I guess this woman was robbing people,' Faith revealed during an Instagram Live session with Floribama Shore star Candace Rice.

'And they called the cops and said it was me. This is like, a true story. I heard this from, actually, Stassi during an interview.'

Both Schroeder and Doute have since apologized for falsely accusing their co-worker.

Pointing fingers: Stassi and Kristen were fired from Vanderpump Rules after they called the police and accused former cast mate Faith Stowers of being a thief; pictured in 2016

Trickery: During an Instagram Live conversation with Floribama Shore's Candace Rice, Faith said Stassi and Kristen told the police she was a black female thief mentioned in an article, despite clearly looking nothing like her

Too late: Both Schroeder and Doute have since apologized for falsely accusing their co-worker

'Racially insensitive comments from my past have resurfaced,' Schroeder wrote on Instagram only days after publicly supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

'It is important that I continue to take accountability for what I have said and done, while pushing myself to do better,' the New Orleans-born reality star said.

'I have grown significantly from the person I was then, and I am still filled with remorse and regret for the hurt I caused.'

Stassi also admitted to calling the police about Faith despite knowing she was not the criminal in question, and blamed it on their personal squabbles.

'My emotions over something that happened between our friends outweighed my logic, and there is no excuse for that.

'I did not recognize then the serious ramifications that could have transpired because of my actions. What I did to Faith was wrong. I apologize and I do not expect forgiveness.'

Schroeder's actions took on chilling weight following an incident last month in which a white woman named Amy Cooper called 911 to report a black man, Christian Cooper (no relation), who was birdwatching and had asked her to leash her dog for the sake of the birds.

She lied on the phone and claimed he had threatened her, despite video he took showing he had done no such thing.

Critics of the encounter pointed out that calling law enforcement on a black person could have led to a deadly encounter.

In addition to firing Schroeder and Doute, newer hires Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni were both fired for racist remarks that had been previously reported.

Lisa Vanderpump had originally chosen to let them slide after claiming it no longer represented their views, though Bravo wasn't taking any chances with the renewed scandal.

Stassi's actions earned her a swift dismissal from Vanderpump Rules, but the choice to fire her wasn't as easy to make within Bravo.

Tough choice: Bravo reportedly had a tough time firing Schroeder, who 'has become a major piece of the Bravo puzzle over the years,' according to a second insider; pictured with Doute in 2018

'Stassi, in particular, has become a major piece of the Bravo puzzle over the years, and the network truly enjoyed working with her,' a second insider said.

'That said, racism and discrimination have no place on Bravo, so Stassi, Kristen, Max and Brett left the powers that be with no other option. The people behind the decision are now discussing ways that Bravo can publicly and more thoroughly address the situation.'

Another Vanderpump star, Jax Taylor, had also accused Stowers of being a criminal responsible for 'grand theft auto,' though he doesn't appear to have reported her to the police as Schroeder and Doute did.

The reality star, who is infamous for his infidelities, has had plenty of his own run-ins with the law and has been arrested multiple times.
Justin Trudeaus Liberal government plans to make legislative changes to its Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in the coming days, so that it can use threats of onerous fines, criminal prosecution and jail time to force workers to return to work under unsafe conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposed changes underscore that the trade union- and New Democratic Party (NDP)-backed Liberal government is spearheading a homicidal back-to-work drive that prioritizes big business profit over workers lives and threatens to dramatically increase the numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths.

Millions of workers who have lost their jobs or are unable to work because of the pandemic are currently receiving the CERB, a makeshift program that has temporarily replaced the more restrictive Employment Insurance system. But with provincial governments across the country rushing for the past five weeks, with Trudeaus assent, to rescind all lockdown restrictions, there has been a mounting chorus of complaints from big business, the Conservative opposition, Quebecs CAQ government, and other right-wing forces that the overly generous CERB is a disincentive to work.

The proposed changes to the CERB, outlined in a draft bill circulated to the opposition parties last Saturday and leaked to the press Monday, are meant to threaten and bully workers into returning to work as soon as their employer and big business political hirelings in government pronounce it safe.

Under Bill C-17, CERB recipients who fail to return to work when it is reasonable to do so and the employer makes a request for their return, fail to resume self-employment when it is reasonable to do so, or decline a reasonable job offer when they are able to work will be liable to punitive fines. These could be as much as three times any CERB amount they are deemed to have improperly claimed.

The proposed legislation also outlines a series of new CERB fraud offenses punishable by fines of up to $5,000 and six-months in jail. These include making false or misleading statements, failing to fully disclose all relevant income or receiving an income support payment for which a person is not eligible.

The last of these is especially threatening, given that the bill stipulates that a worker who refuses to return to their job is ineligible for further CERB benefits. In effect, the government is seeking the legal power to imprison workers who attempt to use the CERB to prevent their employer from starving them back to work under unsafe conditions.

The Liberals bill will also change eligibility criteria for the CERB. As of July 5, recipients will apply for the benefit every two weeks rather than every four weeks. According to news reports, this alteration is aimed at making the program more flexible, including by helping employers take workers back on reduced hours. The government also wants to reduce the amount of money CERB recipients can earn before experiencing clawbacks to their benefits, from $1000 to $500 per month.

The draft bill underscores that the Trudeau Liberal government is intent on ratcheting up corporate Canadas reckless back-to-work drive, which is proceeding apace even as total coronavirus infections approach 100,000 and deaths surpass 8,000; and that it stands ready to use the full force of the capitalist state, including the courts and prisons, to suppress worker opposition.

From the outset, the Liberal governments overriding concern has been to protect the wealth and investments of the ruling elite. While over $650 billion was funnelled into the coffers of the big banks and corporations with virtually no strings attached, the aid offered to the more than 7 million workers who lost their jobs and income has been meager and temporary.

The CERB pays recipients a mere $2,000 per month, a sum that fails to even cover the rent of a modest apartment in Toronto or Vancouver, and for a maximum of 16 weeks. For millions of workers who lost their jobs in March, the end of their 16 weeks of eligibility is fast approaching, with many facing the prospect of having no job to return to when their CERB payments expire in July.

Once the bailout of the financial oligarchy was concluded, the Liberal government, trade unions, federal opposition parties, and provincial governments began working in tandem to remove lockdown measures and reopen the economy. Trudeaus Liberals, who never tire of touting their progressive credentials, have worked hand-in-glove with the hard-right premiers Francois Legault in Quebec and Doug Ford in Ontario to ease restrictions under conditions where virtually nothing has been done to strengthen Canadas woefully underfunded health care system. In flagrant violation of World Health Organization recommendations, the reopening of the economy has proceeded without the implementation of systematic mass testing, contact-tracing, and quarantining programs.

Now, in the same week that Ford announced Ontarios move to the next phase of reopening, the federal Liberals are establishing a punitive framework to bully workers back to their jobs under threat of destitution, bankruptcy and even imprisonment.

Needless to say, business has warmly applauded the brutal measures contained in the Liberals draft bill. Dan Kelly of the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses demonstrated just how far removed the corporate elite is from the daily lives of working people, claiming, While some workers are worried about returning to work for health-related reasons, many are happy to take the summer off if their income needs are taken care of through CERB.

The reality is that the measures contained in Bill C-17 were dictated by the major corporations and banks. In the days leading up to the publication of the legislation, Trudeau held one-on-one discussions with the chief executives of Canadas six major banks, as part of the governments consultations with big business on its economic recovery plan.

If the Liberals and corporate Canada can pursue their back-to-work agenda so ruthlessly, it is because they know they enjoy the support of the New Democrats and trade unions. The unions and NDP have responded to the deepest crisis of global capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s by cementing their long-standing alliance with the Liberals, long the Canadian bourgeoisies preferred party of government. This is the political expression of the union bureaucrats and social-democrats intensified efforts to supress the class struggle, amid mounting working class anger over the criminal indifference of the ruling elite towards their working conditions and lives.

In March, Canadian Labour Congress head Hassan Yussuff initiated what he called a collaborative front between the unions and Canadas employers organizations. This, above all, consisted in maintaining radio silence on the vast sums of money forked over to the financial oligarchy, while helping the Trudeau government design and promote its rations-style CERB. Now the unions are assisting the ruling class in its premature back-to-work drive.

As for the NDP, in late May it once again gave the minority Liberal government the votes it needed to proceed with its agenda. Touting a worthless commitment from Trudeau to ensure workers across Canada receive 10 days per year of paid sick leavea proposal most provincial governments have already dismissedJagmeet Singh and his fellow social democrats voted for a Liberal motion to shut down regular sittings of parliament until September. As a result, the government will now be able to gut financial aid to workers with virtually no public or parliamentary debate.

Working people must oppose the Liberal governments efforts to bully them back to their jobs with threats of fines and imprisonment. To do so, they must establish rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the pro-capitalist unions, in every workplace. The tasks of these committees should be to uncompromisingly fight for the safety interests of the workers, and oppose the demands of corporate management and governments alike to subordinate all health considerations to capitalist profit.

The fight against the pandemic is inseparably linked to workers struggle against the ruling classthe corporate and financial oligarchyand its dictatorship over economic and political life. It is, therefore, a struggle against capitalism and for socialism, that is, for the restructuring of socioeconomic life under a workers government so that meeting social needs, not swelling investor profit, is the animating principle.
Without a cure or vaccine for COVID-19, it is likely the virus will continue to cause more deaths across the world. As of June 10, 2020, there are more than 1,096 COVID-19 clinical trials in the world and these numbers are changing rapidly. Only 35 (3%) are in Africa according to clinicaltrials.gov, PACTR and COVID-19 Trial Tracker. However, the African scientific community is adapting to the rapidly changing COVID-19 environment by readying themselves to conduct both drug and vaccine focused clinical trials. This has been possible in part because the number of COVID-19 cases remains low in Africa giving the community an opportunity to plan, improve processes and define new ways of doing things under COVID-19 instigated lock downs that have been implemented across the continent.

As such, the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) is today launching a first iteration of the Clinical Trials Community (CTC) online platform with features that will increase visibility of African clinical trial sites and investigators with potential to participate in COVID-19 clinical trials. This platform will promote & enhance intra-Africa collaboration around clinical trials with hopes of reducing duplication of work across the region & accelerating the fight of combatting COVID-19.

"The AAS in collaborations with African and global partners has begun mapping clinical trial sites in Africa led by local researchers. By creating this resource, we want to showcase already mapped sites and encourage others not captured yet to register and showcase their capabilities to enhance relationships with trial investors, partners and regulatory support," said Dr. Thomas Kariuki, Director of programmes, AAS

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) launched today is part of the CTC online platform established as a result of engagements that evolved within the AAS' sustainability platform, the Coalition for African Research Innovation (CARI). The CTC online platform seeks to strengthen all the aspects of clinical trials and translational sciences capacity in the continent. CARI is a nascent effort by the AAS to build a highly coordinated, well-funded and African-led platform to improve systematic collaborations and scale up resources for African Science Technology & Innovation (STI) to achieve outcomes that would help more Africans lead better lives sooner. See more on CARI and its partners here

An MVP is a process of releasing a system with enough features to attract early-adopter users and validate a product idea early in the development cycle. This early release to the public is necessitated by the urgent need to share information on ongoing COVID-19 clinical trials in Africa, profile the researchers leading these clinical trials and provide insight on the regulatory requirements of different countries on the continent to guide expedited review of clinical trial protocols. This information will potentially provide researchers, on the continent, with access to potential partners including other intra-African research collaborations, funding partners and industry, and African governments for support in regulation, citizen awareness and decision-making.

An additional feature on this MVP platform is a community forum section for the public to discuss: the nature of the COVID-19 disease, the role of clinical trials to advance understanding of the safety and efficacy for drugs and treatment and general information on participating in a clinical trial.

"This platform is timely and will be game changing, ensuring Africa is not left behind in the initiative to identify a cure or vaccine for COVID-19," said Prof. Henry Mwandumba, Deputy Director of the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme.

The full CTC platform is due for launch in late 2020 and will cover all diseases of public health importance for the African continent. Access the Clinical Trials Community (CTC) MVP online platform

Learn more about the Case for Why Africa Should Host COVID-19 Candidate Vaccine Trials

###

Notes to editors:

The African Academy of Sciences

The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) is a non-aligned, non-political, not-for-profit pan African organisation whose vision is to see transformed lives on the African continent through science. The AAS's tripartite mandate is recognising excellence through the AAS' highly prestigious fellowship, Affiliates and award schemes, providing advisory and think tank functions for shaping Africa's Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) strategies and policies and implementing key STI programmes addressing Africa's developmental challenges through the agenda setting and funding platform, the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA).

Join us on Facebook and Twitter @AASciences and learn more at http://www.aasciences.africa

Clinical Trials Community

The Clinical Trials Community (CTC) is a programme of the African Academy of Sciences whose goal is to increase the level of Clinical Trial investments in Africa by increasing the visibility of the African clinical trialists and sites and making transparent and accessible individual country regulatory and ethics procedures to inform decision making by sponsors and funders. The programme is implemented with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The AAS established the CTC in 2019 to strengthen all the aspects of clinical trials and translational sciences capacity in the continent. The CTC's immediate goal is the creation and global adoption of a centralized, transparent and accessible online platform of clinical research site capabilities on the African continent.

To register on the MVP or for more information, please contact

CTC@aasciences.africa I +254 700 073 229 I +254 20 806 0674

For media enquiries, please contact

Davies Mbela: d.mbela@aasciences.africa | +254 726 604720 | +254 20 806 0674

Copyright  2020

Our mailing address is:

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The post by CrossFit Central echoed the sentiments of hundreds of other gyms around the world in what has been an astonishingly swift backlash against CrossFit. The speed at which companies and affiliates have distanced themselves from the mother ship was accelerated by social media, and to some degree, the coronavirus pandemic, said marketing and branding expert Allen Adamson.
SAN MATEO, Calif. and MONTPELIER, Vt., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Vermont Agency of Education (AOE) today announced a partnership with global education network Edmodo (www.edmodo.com) to create a statewide network for Vermont educators to collaborate and access Continuity of Learning resources that enable continued support for all Vermont students. The Edmodo platform will also provide educators with a virtual ecosystem for peer learning and networking communities to share information and best practices. Each school district and supervisory union (SU/SD), and approved independent school will be provided with an independent space for localized development and online teaching.

"Vermont educators are very innovative," said Secretary of Education, Dan French. "Design and development of new practice has long been in our DNA, and the COVID-19 pandemic has just accelerated that. Edmodo solves the longstanding challenge of resource sharing at scale by giving educators equitable access to professional networking and learning in a virtual manner."

Built like a social network, the Edmodo platform enables group conversations and threaded discussions, in addition to classroom tools and a robust content resource library. At the district level, schools will be able to build out environments for students, parents and teachers to communicate and collaborate if they choose. Educators will also have access to powerful remote teaching functionality for virtual learning and a robust mobile app.

"No teacher is an island, and feeling part of a learning community is more important than ever for educators," said Edmodo CEO, Susan Kim. "Edmodo aims to inspire teachers to stay connected and engaged. We know that teachers reach their full potential when they have easy access to the tools they need -- so this partnership with the AOE will enable Vermont educators to explore related interests and join designated group spaces for focused collaboration."

As the first statewide partnership in the U.S. for Edmodo, the Vermont AOE chose to introduce the network to all Vermont stakeholders because of Edmodo's ease of use and multifunctional offerings. Additionally, it was important to support Vermont's education community throughout the Continuity of Learning phase with a solution that addresses the long-standing equity gap in how educators can come together in a physical learning space.

In the past, in-person AOE convenings and training opportunities have been held in larger towns and cities like Burlington, or in the geographic center of the state, presenting a geographic barrier to educators in the northern and southern areas of the state. Edmodo will support a virtual convening space so that educators from across the state -- from the farthest northeast corner to the farthest southwest corner -- can interact and learn from each other.

In the coming weeks, AOE and Edmodo will work with Vermont school districts to set up accounts and provide login information and training for educators to access and use the network. More information for Vermont educators can be found by visiting: https://geo.edmodo.com/vermont

About Edmodo

Edmodo is a UNESCO recommended global education network and learning platform that connects teachers to the people and resources needed to reach their full potential. Founded in 2008, Edmodo supports more than 125 million members worldwide for accessible learning from any location, at any time.

Our classroom tools provide a secure space for teachers, students, and parents to communicate and collaborate. Our innovative remote learning offering supports continuity of learning in events of prolonged school closures or student absence.

The company is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Visit us at https://www.edmodo.com/ to join or for access to additional learning resources. Connect with us on Twitter and Facebook.

About the Vermont Agency of Education

The Agency of Education implements state and federal laws, policies, and regulations to ensure all Vermont learners have equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities. The Agency accomplishes this mission through leadership, support and oversight of Vermont's public education system.

Connect with the Vermont Agency of Education on Twitter, Facebook and the Web.

Contact:

[email protected]

SOURCE Edmodo

Related Links

https://www.edmodo.com


Nepal's Parliament on Tuesday started discussions on a Constitution amendment bill to change the country's political map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura under its territory, amidst a border row with India.

Kathmandu: Nepal's Parliament on Tuesday started discussions on a Constitution amendment bill to change the country's political map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura under its territory, amidst a border row with India.

Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Shivamaya Thumbhangphe tabled the Constitution amendment bill for discussions in Parliament in a bid to amend the Constitution to update the country's map.

The Constitution amendment proposal was to be tabled in Parliament last month but it could not proceed further after Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli said that he wanted to hold an all-party meeting to discuss the matter.

The bill seeks to amend the political map of Nepal included in schedule 3 of the Constitution. It requires a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament to bring an amendment to the Constitution.

Parliament members belonging to the ruling Nepal Communist Party and Opposition parties are taking part in the discussion.

The NCP commands a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, but it needs support from other parties to get the Constitution amendment proposal through the Lower House, as it falls short of around 10 seats.

The Nepali Congress, the main Opposition party, has decided to vote in favour of the bill.

Nepal last month released the revised political and administrative map of the country laying claim over the strategically key areas of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura.

India reacted angrily to the move saying such "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims will not be acceptable and asked the neighbouring country to refrain from such "unjustified cartographic assertion".

The spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs also asked Nepal to respect India's sovereignty and territorial integrity, hoping that the Nepalese leadership will create a positive atmosphere for diplomatic dialogue to resolve the outstanding boundary issues.

The ties between the two countries came under strain after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated an 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on 8 May.

Nepal reacted sharply to the inauguration of the road claiming that it passed through Nepalese territory. India rejected the claim asserting that the road lies completely within its territory.

Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali said on Tuesday that Nepal was still waiting for a response from India on holding talks to resolve the border dispute.

We have expressed time and again that Nepal wants to sit at the table to resolve this problem, Gyawali told The Associated Press.

He said that requests to talk were made in November and December last year, and again in May.

We are waiting for formal negotiations so that these two countries with ... a very unique type of partnership can develop a more inspiring relationship that reflects the requirements of the 21st century, he said.

Gyawali last month said that he was confident that the Kalapani issue between the two neighbours will be resolved through talks.

"We have always said that the only way to resolve this issue is by negotiating in good faith. Without impulse or unnecessary excitement, and without prejudice, Nepal wants to resolve the border issues via dialogues, Gyawali told Republica, an English daily.

"We are confident that this issue will be resolved via bilateral talks," he added. He, however, did not mention about Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh - the two areas Nepal claimed belonged to it.

Responding to a question, he said, "We have been trying to hold talks in the matter. However, formal talks and conversations have not taken place yet."

"We are hopeful that our formal and informal channels of communication will yield something positive," he added.

Gyawali expressed the view that "the Indian side is also deeply concerned and feels the responsibility to address the issue."
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The Federal Executive Council has approved N5 billion for the completion of the Zungeru-Wushishi water supply project in Niger State.

The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, revealed this to State House correspondents on the outcome of this weeks cabinet meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

He said the approval was in line with the governments desire to complete all ongoing projects, and enhance the livelihood of Nigerians.

As part of our efforts to continue to complete projects that we inherited that have huge socio-economic impact on the lives of the people, today we presented to council a request for approval of the revised estimated total cost for the completion of Zungeru-Wushishi water supply project in Niger State in the sum of N5.021 billion. This will thereby raise the total cost form N1.93 billion to N6.9 billion inclusive of all taxes, he said.

Mr Adamu said the project was started in 1998 by the Niger State government but was later transferred to the government at the centre before it was abandoned in 2012.

This is a project that was started in 1998 by the Niger State government but eventually they couldnt fund it so it was transferred to the federal government. In 2012, there was an effort to revive the project and that was when it was revised from N889 million to N1.9 billion but after work started and attained about 30 per cent completion, funding stopped.

Coming into office in 2015, we did an audit of the projects that we inherited and we accorded this project medium priority and now that we are almost completing our high priority projects, we decided to bring this forward, he said.

The minister said the cost had to be revised because its design in 1998 had one million gallons of water per day water treatment facility which is no longer feasible for Zungeru and Wushishi, as a result of population explosion.
By Florence Tan, Julia Payne and Olga Yagova

SINGAPORE/LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ian Taylor, who built Vitol into the world's biggest oil trader, has died from pneumonia at the age of 64, the company said on Tuesday, after surviving bouts of cancer and a stroke last year.

From drinking with Fidel Castro to providing billions of dollars to Kazakhstan, Taylor was known as a risk taker who even flew to Libya during the 2011 uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.

In 1995 the Oxford University graduate became CEO of Vitol, which with Britain's blessing supplied the opposition in Benghazi with vital fuel in exchange for crude oil cargoes.

During Taylor's time in charge, Vitol also carried on trading Iranian fuel oil in 2012, despite U.S. sanctions.

Glencore's CEO Ivan Glasenberg said Taylor was "one of the last of the pioneers that helped transform the oil trading industry", adding that he would be missed.

Described by his successor Russell Hardy as "exceptional", Taylor became one of Britain's richest businessmen and in 2007 stepped in to save Scottish fabric maker Harris Tweed Hebrides.

"He combined energy and a determination to succeed with humility, humour and humanity," Hardy said in a statement.

A Conservative party donor who turned down the offer of a knighthood from former British Prime Minister David Cameron, Taylor was chairman of the Royal Opera House until 2019.

After starting his career at Shell in 1978 and working in South America and southeast Asia, Taylor joined privately-owned Vitol [VITOLV.UL] in 1985, turning the once modest Dutch fuel dealer into a global trading operation.

"Ian was a formidable figure in the modern commodities trading industry, and central to the establishment of Vitol as a successful company," Trafigura CEO Jeremy Weir said.

Vitol, run out of London, became the biggest trading rival to BP and Shell under Taylor, partly by poaching their top staff. Last year, the firm traded around 8 million barrels of oil per day.

Story continues

"We owe him a great deal," Hardy added.

Taylor, who stepped down as Vitol CEO in 2018, told The Times last year that he was first diagnosed with throat cancer in his late fifties and would donate funds to develop the proton beam therapy machine that saved his life.

(Reporting by Julia Payne, Olga Yagova and Florence Tan; Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Writing by Julia Payne; Editing by Louise Heavens and Alexander Smith)
Even at facilities that have remained open for essential workers, Perez added, profit margins are slimmer than they already were because of smaller group sizes, a need for more cleaning supplies and labor-intensive safety protocols. When parents are unable to pay, providers may have to shut their doors permanently.

Those closures have reverberating consequences, Perez said. For parents who cannot afford nannies, a lack of child care options exacerbates the risks for more job losses. Even family members, a common source of child care during the pandemic, might become unavailable as they have to go back to work.

Were hearing a lot of panic and a lot of fear about whats going to happen because the options are limited, Perez said. We know that women disproportionately leave the work force when their child care breaks down. I think that whats going to happen is, essentially, were going to just see an amplification of a problem that already exists.

The email announcing the closure of Bright Horizons at the U.C.L.A. Westwood location was sent on April 16. Based upon a review of available information, coupled with the low usage of the center by essential workers, the decision has been made, at this time, to temporarily close the center effective Monday, April 20, 2020, the email read.

The message came as a shock to parents, who had been reassured that the center would remain open for essential workers and still are not sure when it might reopen. A survey sent in late May asked parents to indicate when they would like to resume child care. There was also a space for them to share their thoughts about parenting during this time.

The Westwood center has not yet responded to requests for comment. The centers website says it is still temporarily operating. A spokesperson from the national office in Watertown, Mass., responded by email, saying that the company has been operating 150 child care centers with enhanced health protocols during the pandemic for health care workers, and that they are following official guidance in each state and region for reopening. We made the decision to temporarily close the UCLA Westwood center because, by mid-April, very few families were still attending, they wrote. The center also stated there may have been a potential coronavirus exposure when a teacher developed cold-like symptoms, but was not tested for Covid-19. Based on all of these factors, we made the decision to close the center a few days earlier than originally planned.

Frustrated by a lack of communication from the center during the closure, Adrienne Keener, a neurologist and a parent, learned of another nearby center from a friend. In order to get a spot there, she needed to take a tour, fill out an application and pay an application fee as well as a $1,200 registration fee. Her 4-year-old daughter will start there in June. As America wants to open up and get back to work without considering child care, she said, its not going to be feasible for a lot of families, especially with younger kids.
MOSCOW, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced concern over the escalation of hostilities in Libya and examined problems of the intra-Ukrainian conflict settlement in a phone conversation Tuesday, the Kremlin has said.

"The leaders expressed concern over the escalation of hostilities in Libya. The inevitability of an early ceasefire and the launch of intra-Libyan negotiations under UN auspices were emphasized," it said in a statement.

The Russian side gave a positive assessment of Egypt's mediation efforts to peacefully settle the Libyan crisis, following on from the decisions of the international conference on Libya held in Berlin on Jan. 19, it added.

Putin and Merkel also exchanged views on the intra-Ukrainian conflict settlement, expressing concern over the lack of progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements signed in 2015 and resolutions of the Normandy Four summit in Paris in 2019, it said.

Key aspects of developments in Syria and issues related to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic were also discussed, according to the statement.
An increasing number of American cities are rethinking the presence of law enforcement officers in their schools.

City officials are considering ways to answer the concerns of thousands of people who have protested the death of George Floyd. In some areas, young protesters have been demanding the removal of officers from schools.

George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd was handcuffed and lying on the ground. He can be heard saying I cant breathe in videos of his arrest and death.

Minneapolis suspended its school resource officer program last week. School district officials in nearby Saint Paul, Minnesota, and in Denver, Colorado, are considering doing the same. Protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia have made the end of its school resource officer program one of their demands.

School resource officers are law enforcement officers who are responsible for keeping schools and their students safe. Along with enforcing the law, the resource officers are expected to act as unofficial counselors and provide guidance on issues such as bullying and drunk driving.

Portland Public Schools, the largest school district in Oregon, announced last week it was cutting ties with the Portland Police Bureau. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said he would also discontinue using school resource officers in two of the citys smaller districts.

Leaders must listen and respond to community, Wheeler said. We must disrupt the patterns of racism and injustice.

Many in Portland have voiced support for the decision to remove the officers. But others raised immediate concerns about student safety in the event of a school shooting or other emergency.

Mo Canady is head of The National Association of School Resource Officers. He described any decision to remove the officers from schools as a knee-jerk reaction. In other words, the decision happened very quickly and without much thought.

Canady added that the actions by a few school districts could cause many other districts to make the same decision. He said such moves cause harm to students around the country.

Canady called Floyds death atrocious and the actions of the Minneapolis police evil. But he said that when school resource officer programs are done right, they can be good examples of community-based policing.

But critics of the programs say the officers presence can also lead to the criminalization of students, especially students of color. In 2015, a school resource officer in South Carolina was caught on video forcing a female student on the ground and pulling her across a classroom. The student had refused to surrender her phone to the officer.

There are an estimated 25,000 school resource officers nationwide, Canady said.

Across the United States, 43 percent of public schools had an armed law enforcement officer present at least once a week in the 2015-2016 school year. That was the last year the National Center for Education Statistics studied the issue.

Im Ashley Thompson.

The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

Quiz - Protests Cause US Officials to Rethink Use of School Police Officers Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

handcuffed - v. to put a set of two metal rings that are joined together and locked around a person's wrists

district - n. an area or section of a country, city, or town

counselor - n. a person who provides advice as a job

bullying - v. someone who frightens, hurts, or threatens smaller or weaker people

disrupt - v. to interrupt the normal progress or activity of (something)

pattern - n. the regular and repeated way in which something happens or is done

mayor - n. an official who is elected to be the head of the government of a city or town

atrocious - n. very evil or cruel

respond - v. to say or write something as an answer to a question or request
The Louisville police detective who applied for the 'no-knock' search warrant that led to the police killing of Breonna Taylor has been placed on administrative reassignment, officials announced Wednesday.

Det. Joshua Jaynes will be reassigned until investigators determine how and why he sought the 'no-knock' search warrant in pursuit of a drug suspect who did not live at that home, Acting Police Chief Robert Schroeder said in a news conference.

They will also investigate why the search warrant was approved.

'This is all part of the process of getting to the truth of what happened that night and leading up to that night,' Schroeder said. 'I recognize the process takes longer than we all would want, but it's what must be done to ensure a thorough and fair investigation for everybody involved.'

Det. Joshua Jaynes, the officer who applied for the 'no-knock' search warrant that led to Breonna Taylor's death, has been placed on administrative reassignment, Louisville police announced Wednesday

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black EMT, was shot eight times in her bed on March 13 by Louisville police officers who stormed into her home on a 'no-knock- warrant searching for a drug suspect who wasn't there

Taylor, a 26-year-old black EMT, was in her bed in her Louisville, Kentucky home on March 13 when a team of plainclothes police officers stormed into the apartment without announcing themselves.

Her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, a licensed gun owner, thought burglars were breaking in and used his firearm in self-defense. Police returned 22 rounds of fire, shooting Taylor eight times, killing her.

In the affidavit, Jaynes said he was targeting a suspect believed to be in a 'trap house' that was more than 10 miles away from Taylor's house.

Only later was it revealed that the drug suspect they were looking for was already in custody by the time Louisville officers killed Taylor.

'This is all part of the process of getting to the truth of what happened that night and leading up to that night,' Acting Police Chief Robert Schroeder. 'I recognize the process takes longer than we all would want, but it's what must be done to ensure a thorough and fair investigation for everybody involved'

Taylor was shot eight times in her bed in the horrific incident. Her death, along with the police killing of George Floyd, has sparked national protests decrying police brutality and racism

Kenneth Walker, pictured, who has a license to carry, fired his gun thinking they were being robbed, his attorneys say

The warrant has also been referred to the FBI, which has already been investigating Taylors shooting.

The controversial 'no-knock' warrant was signed on March 12 by Jefferson Circuit Judge Mary Shaw.

There is no body camera footage from the raid and neighbors have conflicting reports of whether the officers announced themselves before entering Taylor's home.

Schroeder said a concern raised about the warrant came from a Louisville postal inspector who told WDRB that no suspicious packages were being sent to Taylors apartment.

Cops claimed that a US postal inspector 'verified' that Glover was receiving packages at Taylor's home, but Louisville inspector Tony Gooden said Louisville police did not ask his office to conduct that investigation, but a different agency did.

He said the local office concluded no potentially suspicious mail was being sent to Taylor's apartment.

The three officers in the case - Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Officers Brett Hankinson and Myles Cosgrove - have not been charged in the shooting and have been placed on administrative leave. From left to right Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Det. Brett Hankison, Det. Myles Cosgrove

Jaynes wrote in the warrant that drug suspect Jamarcus Glover, made 'frequent trips' to Taylor's home and had been receiving packages there.

He wrote he believed Glover may be 'keeping narcotics and/or proceeds from the sale of narcotics' at Taylor's apartment.

The warrant was to search for drugs, money, weapons, 'paperwork that may be a record of narcotic sales' and any electronic records as evidence of drug trafficking.

In the end nothing illegal was found in Taylor's home.

Taylor's family filed a wrongful death suit two months after her killing, claiming charges of battery, wrongful death, excessive force, negligence and gross negligence.

The three officers in the case - Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Officers Brett Hankinson and Myles Cosgrove - have not been charged in the shooting and have been placed on administrative leave.

On May 21, the FBI's Louisville office launched an investigation into the case the police department mandated all cops activate their body cameras.

In the incident Walker was initially charged with attempted murder after authorities said he shot a Louisville officer in the leg during the raid. Those charges were later dropped on May 22 following the probe announcement.

A petition for justice in her case and demanding the officers involved be arrested and charged has gone viral with over 6million signatures and support from celebrities like Janelle Monae and Bernice King.
The "Turkey Hotel Market Volume, Budget Star Rated Hotel (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th) Star, City, Province, Chain Hotel (International, Domestic), Company (Hilton, Marriott, Radisson, Accor) Forecast" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

According to the report, it is anticipated that Turkey Hotel Market will be US$ 11.6 billion by the end of the year 2026.

In recent years, Turkey has been considered as one of the most attractive destinations for travel across the world as a variety of options is available at affordable prices. Besides, the country classic sun sea vacation, apart from that it is also known for its historical, heritage as well as cultural attractions among tourists. In the year 2019, Turkey has named the 6th most visited country across the globe hosted a large number of tourists.

Foreign visitors have risen dramatically in the last few years in Turkey. Countries like Germany, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Iran, and Russia are the country from where many tourists arrive in Turkey. Star rated hotel has the most significant market share in Turkey due to numbers of the facility given by star-rated hotels. Besides, visitors also prefer star rated over a budget hotel.

Antalya is one of the most preferred cities in Turkey and has 4-star and 5-star hotels in its center and surrounding towns such as Kemer, Belek, and Ka. Star rated hotel occupancy is increasing year on year. Turkey's lucrative tourism industry souring and its top destination for Halal Tourism tend to drive Turkey hotel market in the future.

COVID-19 Impact on Turkey Hotel Industry

Around the world, COVID-19 has impacted almost every economy, mostly tourism, hotel, and the airlines' industry. Turkey is a part of an interconnected globally, and this new crisis hits at the center of globalization. So, we expect the coronavirus will affect the Turkey hotel market severely in the year 2020. The year 2021 will see some growth on the back of domestic tourists. Read the complete analysis of Cornonavirus's impact on the hotel industry of Turkey in the report.

Antalya is the Most Preferred City in Turkey Star Rated Hotel

In this report, we have covered Star rated hotel Volume by City: we have studied complete insights of Star Rated Hotel Volume (Hotel rooms) by in these ten cities (Antalya, Istanbul, Mugla, Izmir, Aydin, Ankara, Mersin, Busra, Afyonkarahisar, Balikesir).

1 to 5 Star Turkey Hotels Market and Volume Covered in the Report

In this report, we have shown complete insight into Turkey Hotel by Star category. The covered market Volume by Star Rated (By Number of Hotel and Number of rooms) are; 1st Star, 2nd Star, 3rd Star, 4th Star, 5th Star.

5 Province Budget Hotel Analysis

5 Province has been studied thoroughly in this report, namely Istanbul, Marmara (East West), Aegean (Aegean Mediterranean), Black Sea (West East), Anatolia (Central Anatolia, Northeast Anatolia, Central-East Anatolia, Southeast Anatolia).

All the hotels have been studied from two points:

Recent Developments

Sales Analysis

Company Insights Turkey Hotel Market

Radisson

Hilton

Accor

Marriott

Hotel Category Turkey Hotel Market

Star Rated

Budget

Star Rated Hotel Volume By City Turkey Hotel Market

Antalya

Istanbul

Mugla

Izmir

Aydin

Ankara

Mersin

Busra

Afyonkarahisar

Balikesir

Market Volume of Budget Hotel By Province Turkey Hotel Market

Istanbul

Marmara (East West)

Aegean (Aegean Mediterranean)

Black Sea (West East)

Anatolia (Central Anatolia, Northeast Anatolia, Central-East Anatolia, Southeast Anatolia)

Chain Hotel Turkey Hotel Market

Top 10 International Chain Groups

Top 10 Domestic Chain Groups

Top 9 Domestic Brand

Chain Hotel by Category

Top Five Countries People Visited in Turkey

Distribution of Arriving Foreign Visitors Top 5 Countries (2017-2019) November

Distribution of Arriving Foreign Visitors Top 5 Countries (2017-2019) January-November

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/popqre

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005383/en/

Contacts:

ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

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The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has so far buried 16 persons who had died from COVID-19 in Accra with the youngest and the eldest being nine (9) and eighty-four (84) years old respectively.



Head of the Environmental Health Department of the AMA, Madam Florence Kuukyi who disclosed this said 27 families of the 48 persons who died from COVID-19 had registered with her outfit for the burial of their relatives out of which 16 bodies have so far been interred.



She pointed out that all burials undertaken so far were done per World Health Organization (WHO) standards and protocols adding that the bodies were buried at a designated site earmarked by the Assembly for the burial of persons who die of infectious diseases.



According to her, out of the number registered, 19 were Christians with the remaining 8 being Muslims.



She added that all the Christians were buried with coffins donated by the family members while the Muslims were buried with body bags.



She explained that all burials were done under the strict supervision of Environmental Health Officers from the Assembly adding that none of the bodies was viewed naked.



"It is the responsibility of the Environmental Health Officer to give persons who die of infectious diseases a befitting burial... In these cases, officers disinfect the bodies right from the mortuary to the cemetery to be laid to rest, " she said.



She also disclosed that none of the officers was infected with the virus and was hopeful that no one would contract the virus.



Florence Kuukyi appealed for more Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) as well as other logistics.









Source: Daily Graphic









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Jennifer Whitney/For the San Antonio Express-News

The city is trying to help downtown businesses bounce back by taking the hassle out of paying for parking.

From June to August, parking is free Monday to Friday from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. and all day Saturday and Sunday at city-owned garages, pay stations and meters. The City of San Antonio website has a map of lots and garages in the downtown area where there is free parking.
Days after the gruesome death of George Floyd under the hands of ex-Officer Derek Chauvin, new developments about their connection is coming to light.

Floyd and Chauvin knew each other

According to the new details obtained by CBS News from a nightclub coworker of Chauvin and Floyd, the two had bad blood. Both Chauvin and Floyd worked security at the same nightclub years ago and had a history of not getting along.

David Pinney, the coworker of Floyd and Chavin at the nightclub where they worked at the same time, said that the two bumped heads frequently. Pinney said that Chauvin is known to be very aggressive in the club with some of the customers, and it became an issue.

The family of George Floyd now believes that what Chauvin did to Floyd was personal. Their lawyer has called for the ex-officer to be charged with first-degree murder because he knew who Floyd was. Chauvin was initially charged with third-degree murder until it was changed to second-degree murder last week.

CBS News asked Pinney if there was any doubt that Chauvin knew Floyd, in which Pinney answered that he was sure Chauvin knew him.

The owner of the club, Maya Santamaria, said that Chauvin treated black patrons unfairly. Santamaria had been paying Chauvin to sit in his car outside the club, El Nuevo Rodeo, for the past 17 years. Chauvin did it as a sideline when he was off-duty.

Also Read: 64-Year-Old Woman Arrested for Blocking Protesters, Spitting on Black Man's Face

The owner also said that Floyd worked as a security guard inside the club in 2019, and both Chauvin and Floyd worked on Tuesday nights because that is when the club had a weekly dance competition. Santamaria said that she thinks Chauvin is afraid and intimidated by black people.

As the investigation continues about Floyd's death, numerous cities across the United States are considering police reforms.

Defunding the police

On June 9, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that he would support police reform measures in New York, including banning chokeholds as a tactic of the police officers to restrain an arrested civilian.

Gov. Cuomo said that it is a moment to do reform and real change in the police force. In Minneapolis, city officials are now discussing defunding or dismantling the police department after a series of complaints regarding police brutality.

What happened in the state has sparked a worldwide protest that is demanding law enforcement to be held accountable for their excessive use of force. If the police force is defunded, the budge will be invested in education and low-income housing.

In 2019 alone, the police department had a budget of $6 billion, which is 10 times more than the budget allotted to education, mental health campaigns, and low-income housing.

Derek Chauvin has become the world's most despised man after a video of him kneeling on the neck of George Floyd surfaced online.

The gruesome video also showed how Floyd begged Chauvin to let him go, but Chauvin refused to move. He knelt on his neck for almost 9 minutes until an ambulance arrived. The incident has opened talks about the racism in America, police brutality, and the priorities of the government.

Related Article: White Cop Tackles, Punches Black Store Owner

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Umesh Patil, a farmer in western India, pawned 40 grams of gold jewellery to raise 130,000 rupees ($1,723.11) to buy supplies needed to plant his next crop.

Many Indians are using gold to secure loans, bankers and industry experts say, as banks are otherwise increasingly unwilling to lend during the coronavirus pandemic due to fear of the loan souring.

"State-run banks were seeking lots of documents for crop loans and furnishing them all wasn't possible quickly," said Patil, whose farm is in Sangli district, nearly 400 km (250 miles) from Mumbai.

"So I decided to pawn jewellery. I got a loan from a local co-operative bank in just an hour."

Using gold as security is not unusual in India, but gold-backed loans are becoming more popular with banks, which tend to consider them safer than other unsecured borrowing.

India's economy is expected to contract this financial year as the pandemic ravages activity worldwide, and there are growing concerns that people will struggle to repay riskier business and personal loans.

Overall loan growth in India's banking system has already been decelerating and is expected to hit a multi-decade low of 0 to 1% in this financial year due to the fallout from the pandemic, said credit rating agency Crisil.

"As banks could exhibit greater risk aversion in the current context, gold loans would be a convenient route for many customers to raise liquidity and working capital," said Somasundaram P.R., head of the World Gold Council's Indian operations.

George Alexander Muthoot, managing director at gold-financing company Muthoot Finance, said he was seeing demand "from all quarters" as people took out short-term loans to tide over uncertainties. He said the average gold loan was around 40,000 rupees ($529.87).

Several state-owned and private banks are also coming out with promotional offers around these loans to lure customers.

"We're actively promoting gold loans and seeing good traction," Ashutosh Khajuria, the chief financial officer of Federal Bank. said.

"We may be able to clock in the same growth as last financial year of 29% or even higher."

Also Read: Coronavirus treatment cost: Tamil Nadu hospitals can't charge above Rs 15,000 a day

Also Read: Vizag gas leak: Andhra govt forms committee to probe incident; seeks report by June 22
Northam said at a news conference Tuesday that he remains committed to removing the monument.

This is a statue that is divisive. It needs to come down, Northam said, and we are on very legal solid grounds to have it taken down.

Gregory, who is being represented by lawyer Joseph Blackburn Jr., said the states intentions are in conflict with the 1890 agreement. The lawsuit criticizes Northams plan to remove the statue and also criticizes the graffiti thats been put on the statue by protesters, who have rallied at the monument over the past week and a half in opposition to police brutality and racism.

The lawsuit claims the graffiti has happened in large part because of the states failure to guard and protect the Lee Monument as required by the Deed and Joint Resolution, and carry out their official responsibilities.

Roger Gregory and Bettie F. Allen Gregory signed the March 17, 1890, deed, transferring the land, a 200-foot diameter circular plot, from the family to the state. Then-Gov. P.W. McKinney also signed the deed, according to the lawsuit.
The Minneapolis police chief announced Wednesday that he will immediately withdraw from negotiations with the citys police union as the department considers a suite of reforms after George Floyds death.

Chief Medaria Arradondo said the citys contract with the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis will be subject to a review that will focus on the departments use-of-force policies as well as its disciplinary process.

I plan to bring in subject-matter experience and advisers to conduct a thorough review of how the contract can be restructured to provide greater community transparency and more flexibility for true reform, Arradondo said at a press conference in Minneapolis. He added that he also plans to implement policies enabling the department to identify early warning signs of misconduct and to provide proven strategies to intervene.

Arradondos decision comes amid national furor over the death of Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, during which time he passed out.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey hailed the police chiefs move and called for sweeping structural reform of the department.

We dont just need a new contract with the police. We need a new compact between the people of Minneapolis and the people trusted to protect and serve  and we need to go farther than we ever have in making sweeping structural reform, Frey wrote in a tweet.

In response to calls to overhaul and defund the police department, the Minneapolis City Council on Sunday announced that a veto-proof majority had voted to dissolve the department, a proposal opposed by both the mayor and Arradondo.

Our elected officials certainly can engage in those conversations, but until there is a robust plan that reassures the safety of our residents, I will not leave them, Arradondo said in response to the city councils proposal.

More from National Review
By Natalie Thomas

LONDON (Reuters) - Ryanair <RYA.I> believes Britain's courts will either strike down a 14-day quarantine for international travellers this week or the government will drop the measure before the end of June, boss Michael O'Leary told Reuters on Monday.

Britain introduced the 14-day quarantine on Monday in a bid to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus despite the threat of legal action from some of the largest airlines that fly in and out of one of Europe's biggest airline markets.

O'Leary said action proposed by British Airways-owner IAG <ICAG.L> and supported by low cost rivals easyJet <EZJ.L> and Ryanair seeking injunctive relief has a "high likelihood of success." Legal papers are due to be filed on Monday or Tuesday, he added.

"I think in their heart of hearts the government would like the courts to strike it down because it would get them off the hook. I think either the courts will strike it down this week or the government will quietly drop it before the end of June," O'Leary said in a Reuters TV interview.

O'Leary, who has become one of the most outspoken critics of the measure, calling it "completely useless and defective" on Monday, said it has not stopped British holidaymakers planning holidays abroad with bookings "building very strongly."

He said he expects flights from the United Kingdom to be heavily booked when Ryanair ramps its daily flight schedule back up on July 1 but that the quarantine would cause "untold devastation" to British tourism.

Inbound bookings into the UK in July are the only notable weakness Ryanair sees as confidence returns.

"It seems to be the usual peak summer holidays, families going abroad for some much needed sunshine and outbound bookings are very strong from Ireland, the UK, Northern Europe going to Mediterranean," O'Leary said, namechecking holiday destinations in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.

(Writing by Padraic Halpin in Dublin; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
VAN BUREN COUNTY, MI  Linda Stermer was convicted in Van Buren County Circuit Court in 2010, charged with setting a house fire that led to the murder of her husband. Stermer served eight years in prison, but has spent the last two out on appeal.

Now, Stermer will be tried a second time in Van Buren County Circuit Court for the alleged crimes, Prosecuting Attorney Michael Bedford confirmed with MLive on Wednesday, June 10.

After numerous failed attempts at an appeal, Stermer, 55, was ordered release from prison and granted a new trial by a U.S. District Court judge in December 2018.

The Michigan Attorney Generals office appealed that decision in April 2019. But on May 15, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the judges decision to grant Stermer a new trial by virtue of a 2-1 decision.

The Attorney Generals Office was faced with deciding whether to retry the case in Van Buren County, appeal to a higher court or dismiss the charges.

Bedford said his staff met with the Attorney Generals Wednesday afternoon and made the decision to proceed with a new trial. He said court dates are expected to be set during a June 19 status conference involving Stermer and her attorneys.

Bedford, whose office will handle retrying the case, told MLive in an interview last month that he hopes to have the case retried by the end of the year.

The Van Buren County prosecutor said he is extremely familiar with the case and was present during the initial trial, which had been tried by former county prosecutor Juris Kaps.

Stermer  who was found guilty of setting the fire that killed her husband, Todd Stermer, and later running into him with a van after he escaped the burning house  did not testify at her 2010 trial in Van Buren County Circuit Court.

In February, as she awaited the recent court decision by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, her story was featured on CBS News 48 Hours." She opened up at length on the show about her relationship with her husband, the 2007 fire and her case.

Stermer  who lost multiple attempts at appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court  was released from prison in December 2018 after U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow of the Eastern District of Michigan ruled in her favor.

Tarnow decision was based in part on Stermers defense attorney at trial, Jeff Getting, being found to have provided ineffective counsel. Getting is now the Kalamazoo County prosecutor.

Tarnow also ruled Kaps was guilty of prosecutorial misconduct.

U.S. Circuit Judges Eric Clay and Karen Moore upheld Tarnows decision, finding the former Van Buren County prosecutors arguments to be improper, stating he based his argument on Stermer being a liar and did not support his theories with evidence.

The prosecutor relied heavily on Stermers statements in his closing arguments, and he repeatedly called her a liar while misstating her own testimony, the joint opinion of the two judges stated. All these factors combine to show that Stermer was clearly denied due process.

Clay and Moore also opined that Gettings failure to object to Kaps statements during closing arguments, significantly undercut Stermers defense and could not have been part of a reasonable trial strategy."

The two judges also said Getting was ineffective by not consulting with a fire expert to rebut the states expert testimony.

Getting told MLive in January that the decisions to not hire a fire expert in the 2010 trial were strategy decisions that were discussed with and agreed with by Stermer. When asked about the outcome of Fridays ruling, Getting said he had not had a chance to review it yet, and as such had no comment at this time.

The dissenting judge in the May ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, wrote:

"The evidence introduced in the state court trial left no doubt that she tried to burn her husband alive and ran him over with a car in the front yard of their house when that did not work.

All that was missing was a film of the matricide."

Also on MLive:

Michigan woman convicted of killing husband in house fire one step closer to new trial

Michigan woman convicted of husbands killing, released after appeal, featured on 48 Hours

Woman granted new trial in husbands death in house fire

Linda Stermers life in prison verdict bittersweet for murder victims mom
Security forces shot dead five terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Hizbul Mujahideen in south Kashmirs Shopian district on Wednesday, officials said after the third successful operation in the region in four days.

A top district commander of the Hizbul was gunned down in the encounter, according to officials who did not immediately reveal the identities of those killed. Officials also said the operation once again proved that the Pakistan-based LeT and the local Hizbul group were working together in the Valley.

Wednesdays action was the third such operation within 96 hours in Shopian, considered a hotbed of militancy. While five terrorists were killed on Sunday, four more were shot dead the next day.

Following inputs of the presence of terrorists in Sugoo village, the police, Rashtriya Rifles and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) launched a joint cordon-and-search operation in the area early on Wednesday.

The terrorists fired at the security team, triggering a gunfight that lasted around eight hours, according to the police. After the encounter ended, the police recovered the bodies of the terrorists along with arms from their possession.

I congratulate our forces for showing the highest order of professionalism, which led to no collateral damage, Kashmir inspector general Vijay Kumar said. He added that the bodies of the terrorists were sent to Baramulla for last rites.

For the past one month, the police are not handing over the bodies of terrorists to their family members, fearing gatherings at funerals in violation of guidelines drafted to halt the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Twenty-two terrorists, including six top commanders, have been killed over the past two weeks in nine different operations in the region, Jammu and Kashmir director general of police Dilbag Singh said on Monday. He added then that a total of 88 terrorists had been killed since January in 36 operations.

On that day, terrorists gunned down a sarpanch, Ajay Pandita, in Anantnag district neighbouring Shopian. The police said the Hizbul was behind the killing.

On Wednesday, the police recovered the body of Tariq Ahmed Paul, a resident of Shopian, in the districts Kongnu area. Paul lived close to the area where the four terrorists were killed in the Monday encounter. The police said he was kidnapped by terrorists and killed after being tortured. Pauls house was damaged in the encounter in Pinjora village.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 15:24:30|Editor: huaxia

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BANGKOK, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on Wednesday said that the government is set to lift the night curfew for 15 days as a trial, however the state of emergency will still remain to ensure continued containment of COVID-19.

CCSA spokesman Dr. Taweesin Visanuyothin said on national TV that the 15 day trial is important as it will determine Thailand's imminent future in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and how to move Thailand's economy forward.

"The 15 day trial is more like testing the waters, to evaluate public behavior as well as their reactions, and also to see if a second wave of infection may occur after 2 weeks," said Taweesin.

He said there is no definite date of when the lifting will take place. However, he hinted that the coming Friday is a possibility, a day ahead of the weekend.

The curfew is currently in effect across Thailand from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m, which government officials have maintained that it is necessary to prevent people from hanging out in groups.

In regards to the state of emergency, Deputy Army Chief Gen. Nathapol Nakpanit, who also is the deputy chief of the CCSA, said with the emergency decree in place, the government will then have full control should incidents occur.

"Without the curfew, people can still resume their normal lives, but the state of emergency will remain in place in case the government needs to take swift action to prevent the spread of COVID-19," Nathapol said.

Thailand on Wednesday saw four new imported virus cases from returning Thais from India, Pakistan, and Madagascar.

There were no reports of new fatality on Wednesday.

Total infections now stand at 3,125 with total deaths at 58. Enditem
Flights to Spain are set to become even more expensive for potential holidaymakers after airports said they would pass the cost of new coronavirus safety measures onto individual airlines.

The announcement has sparked concerns of higher air fares and the potential collapse of embattled airlines.

The bill for new coronavirus safety measures is likely to run into millions of euros across the Spanish airport network. Hard-hit airlines may have the option to 'pay off' the additional fees over several years.

The Spanish government announced it would be opening up the country to foreign travel on July 1, but it remains unclear when British holidaymakers will be able to travel to the country as Spain is not discussing the creation of an 'air bridge' for UK tourists, it emerged yesterday.

Flights to Spain are set to become even more expensive for potential holidaymakers after airports said they would pass the cost of new coronavirus safety measures onto individual airlines. Above, passengers arrive at the Palma de Mallorca airport, Balearics, Spain on June 8

The proposals were officially published on Wednesday by the Spanish government, which is granting the airport authority special permission to recoup the costs of all the coronavirus checks once the State of Emergency is lifted on June 21st.

The Royal decree published yesterday for the 'new norm' rules that Spanish airport network AENA will be responsible for providing 'the human, health and support resources necessary to guarantee the sanitary control of the entry of passengers on international flights. '

The terms will be agreed between the Ministry of Health and AENA itself through a deal that will be signed in the coming days.

'The staff or material expenses, which will depend on intangibles such as the volume of tourists that come to Spain in the coming months or the existence of outbreaks in the pandemic, will be charged to the airport tariffs for this and subsequent years until their recovery,' the Spanish government said.

Existing agreements envisaged no increase in airport tariffs until 2027 but the coronavirus pandemic is being accepted as exceptional circumstances.

The proposals were officially published on Wednesday by the Spanish government, which is granting the airport authority special permission to recoup the costs of all the coronavirus checks once the State of Emergency is lifted on June 21st. Above, passengers at Palma de Mallorca airport

The terms will be agreed between the Ministry of Health and AENA itself through a deal that will be signed in the coming days. Above, a passenger walks behind an information board at the Gran Canaria airport

During the State of Emergency, most of Spain's airports were paralysed up until a few weeks ago when 13 of them were reopened and accepting passengers only if they passed one of five criteria, including the need to travel for work.

Air travel is expected to surge again once all airports reopen and international travel is once again allowed.

There is currently debate about whether travellers will have to take coronavirus tests before they leave or even on arrival in Spain. All Spanish airports are likely to take the temperatures of passengers and get health questionnaires filled in.

Major safety measures will also be implemented at the airports, such as social distancing markings and screens.

Yesterday, the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, highlighted the work carried out by both AENA and the Spanish airports, and emphasised that when Spain opens its doors and tourists can come, 'they will have maximum security conditions'.

Minister of Transport, Jose Luis Abalos, has hinted that certain discounts in tariffs could be used to encourage travel.

With the epidemic now well under control Spain has been slowing easing out of its mid-March lockdown, and the country is set to reopen international borders from 1 July.

But British holidaymakers' plans for a summer holiday in Spain were yesterday thrown into confusion as the country said it was not discussing the creation of an 'air bridge' for tourists with Britain.

Britain introduced a 14-day quarantine for international arrivals and returning tourists from Monday this week.

With the epidemic now well under control Spain has been slowing easing out of its mid-March lockdown, and the country is set to reopen international borders from July 1. Above, beachgoers enjoy the sunny weather at the Las Canteras beach in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

While Portugal has said it is discussing a travel corridor that would exempt British visitors returning from Portugal from that quarantine, Spain has no plans to do the same.

A foreign ministry source said: 'Spain has called for a common (European Union-wide) approach to opening the borders. If this is not done, it will establish its own criteria.

'The UK is in a period of transition. This means that they will receive the same treatment as EU and Schengen countries for the opening (of borders to tourists), unless they stay out of it because of the epidemiological situation.'

Meanwhile, Spain will allow about 6,000 tourists from Germany, where the pandemic is largely under control, to fly to the Balearic Islands from June 15, two weeks before the country reopens its borders, to test how to restart tourism.
My price is $20 million, so I dont think [Channel 10, the network it airs on] can afford it  Im not going to expose myself publicly in that way for a low price, she quipped.
Burkina Faso: 58 killed in attacks targeting Christians

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At least 58 people, including children, were recently killed in northern Burkina Faso in three separate attacks by armed Islamic militants who were targeting Christians.

Christians were among those targeted and killed in the attacks that took place in the provinces of Loroum, Kompienga and Sanmatenga within 24 hours, from May 29 to May 30, according to the U.K.-based aid agency Barnabus Fund.

The group said a local source spoke to a survivor, who said the militants targeted Christians and humanitarians taking food to a camp of internally displaced people with many Christian villagers who had fled before the violence.

Referring to an attack on a humanitarian convoy in Sanmatenga provinces Barsalogho area, which left six civilians and seven soldiers dead, the survivor said, The driver shouted forgive, forgive, we are also followers of the [Islamic] prophet Muhammad. One of them [among the gunmen] turned to the other attackers and said, they have the same religion with us.

The attack subsequently ended, the charity said.

Apart from the attack in Sanmatenga, militants opened fire indiscriminately at a cattle market in Kompienga on May 30, killing at least 30 people. The day before, a convoy of traders, which included children, was attacked while traveling from Titao to Solle in Loroum province.

Dozens were injured in the three attacks.

Last December, at least 14 people were killed when gunmen stormed a Protestant church service in the town of Hantoukoura near the border with Niger. Last April, gunmen killed a Protestant pastor and five other Christians who were leaving a worship service in Silgadji.

Burkina Faso, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has been fighting armed groups with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for more than four years.

Over 4,000 people were killed in Islamic extremist attacks in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali in 2019, according to the U.N.'s envoy for West Africa and the Sahel Mohamed Ibn Chambas.

Since 2016, extremist groups including the Islamic State West Africa Province and Ansaroul Islam have carried out attacks throughout the Sahel region of West Africa. But attacks increased fivefold in 2019  deaths rose from 80 in 2016 to 1,800 in 2019.

Jihadist violence has now spread from the countrys north to the western Boucle du Mouhoun region where rice and maize are produced and transported to other areas, resulting in a food shortages and might cut off food for millions more in the region, according to The Associated Press.

It is feared that the COVID-19 pandemic might exacerbate the situation at a time when 2 million people in the country are already facing food insecurity.

If production goes down in this area and if movement restrictions due to the coronavirus drive up food prices in the markets, it could push numbers of severely vulnerable people to double or triple, Julia Wanjiru, communications coordinator for the Sahel and West Africa Club, an intergovernmental economic group, was quoted as saying.

According to the U.N., the number of people displaced in Burkina Faso rose 1,200 percent in 2019. There are about 600,000 internally displaced people in the country as it is becoming one of the worlds fastest-growing humanitarian crises.
When the COVID-19 quarantine began in Mexico by federal decree at the end of March 2020, Sunset World Group began to design a new way to operate its six hotels in Cancun and the Riviera Maya, creating the Sunset World Safe Stay program for the "new normal".

With a large investment, Sunset World Group digitized most of its services and created the new "Sunset World Check-in" app, so that its members and guests can check-in before arriving to their hotel, preventing crowds in the lobby that could expose them to unnecessary contact with other people. Another app allows them to order food and drinks from their room, the pool or their beach bed.

In addition, the menus in all restaurants were digitized, so that they can be consulted from the app with a QR code located on the tables. To choose a dish, the diner simply touches it and it is sent directly to the kitchen. The waiter is present, of course, at a safe distance, in case they require something else.

"Adapting to the 'new normal' requires something different for everyone. We think that all the changes we are making are very positive and will add comfort and satisfaction for our members and guests," said Annie Arroyo, Sunset World Group Brand and Communication Corporate Director. "It is quite a challenge for hotels because by definition they are centers of social coexistence, but we are committed to continuing our dedication to service by offering our members and guests safe options for their stay, she pointed out.

Sunset World Group is a family-owned Mexican company and a leader in the hospitality industry, offering authentic and unforgettable vacation experiences in Cancun and the Riviera Maya. It was founded more than 30 years ago and has grown to offer four resorts, world-class travel services, amenities and a diverse network of operational and marketing solutions that focus on providing the best vacation experiences for its Members and guests. From cultural excursions to water sports, the Members of Sunset World are never far from their next great adventure.
The youth of Appolonia in the Kpone-Katamanso constituency of the Greater Accra Region have called on the Kpone Traditional Council (KTC) to start the process of destoolment of the Chief of the town.

According to the youth, not only has Nii Nuertey Amobi II showed gross disrespect to the Paramount Chief and President of the Kpone Traditional Council, Nii Tetteh Otu II, but most importantly gone contrary to the provisions of the Chieftaincy Act.

We, the youth of Appolonia are calling on the Kpone Traditional Council to commence the process of destoolment of Nii Nuertey Amobi II because he has virtually gone contrary to the provisions of the Chieftaincy Act for the last two years.

Speaking at a press conference held by the youth at the Appolonia in the Kpone-Katamanso constituency, Harrison Noye Quarshie, Assistant Secretary of the youth, yesterday said it is time the Chief is destooled for a new person to take over.

Harrison Noye Quarshie continued; Nii Nuertey Amobi II, soon after his installation as Chief of Appolonia teamed up with a group of people who fiercely opposed him and the kingmakers, an issue we still cannot fathom. We keep asking ourselves how and why events have turned up this way.

This same group of people held a press conference and told the whole world that they do not recognize him as the legitimate Chief of Appolonia simply because he is the son of a linguist. It did not end there; they prevented him from entering the St. Stephen Methodist Church, Appolonia where he intended to hold a thanksgiving service after his installation.

Mr. Quarshie intimated: As if that was not enough, the group, under the impression that one of the signs that show that a Chief has been destooled is when his sandals or Ahenema is removed from under his feet, brought some young men suspected to be land guards into the town, and ordered them to remove one of the sandals from under the feet of our Chief to signify his destoolment.

These land guards during the process fired gun shots into the air thus scaring residents in Appolonia and causing several other people to run for their dear lives. Soon after the incidents, some of his detractors went on Oman FM, a Madina based radio station to declare war against him with threats of death.

"Overwhelmed by activities of the land guards, their assigns and cohorts, coupled with the absence of the Chief to stamp his authority over issues in the Community, members of the Appolonia Stool Council and the Appolonia Youth Development Association lodged a complaint with the Paramount Chief of the Kpone Traditional Area, Nii Tetteh Otu II, for immediate redress.

"Nii Amobi II was invited by the Paramount Chief of the Kpone Traditional Area, Nii Tetteh Otu II and warned him to return to Appolonia to do his work as the Chief of Appolonia, for whatever reason, Nii Amobi II didnt care about the advice," Mr. Quarshie noted.

According to him, since his mysterious departure from the town, both members of the Appolonia Stool Council and the Appolonia Youth Development Association have spent time and resources combing the nook and cranny of the Kpone-Katamanso Municipality in search of the Chief, but all to no avail.

He stressed: it is the desire of natives and residents of Appolonia alike, that our Chief emerges from his hideout and return to the town to continue with his duties as Chief and steer affairs of our beloved Appolonia towards the right direction to ensure the development and wellbeing of the youth in the Community.

As a result of his absence from his duties, running the affairs of the Stool has become a task as Herculean as taming a lion and also making it difficult for the Stool to fight its cases in court because Nii Nuertey Amobi II has rejected summons documents, which are to be endorsed by him.

Mr. Quarshie explained: "Another area of concern is that as a result of his absence from duties, groups of people and individuals who pose as land guards have enough room to operate, grabbing Appolonia Stool lands, and releasing or alienating same indiscriminately, not forgetting their atrocious acts of terrorizing the indigenes, attacking them on their way to their farms.

"We are calling on all members of the Appolonia Youth Development Association and all well-meaning natives or residents to put their shoulders to the wheel to help SAVE our beloved town before all our lands are taken away from us by unlawful and greedy people."

When contacted for his side of the story, the Spokesman for Nii Amobi II, Asafoatse Nii Odiasempa said the Chief has no comment because, the case was sent to the Judicial Committee of the Kpone Traditional Council and also the Human Rights Court in Accra and still pending.

We dont want to say anything for now. At the appropriate time we shall state our position, Asafoatse Nii Odiasempa emphasised.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 01:52:17|Editor: huaxia

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A Burundian national flag flies at half-mast at the State House building to mourn for the late President Pierre Nkurunziza, in Bujumbura, Burundi, on June 10, 2020. Burundi's outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza has died of a heart attack in a hospital in east-central Burundi, said a government statement issued here on Tuesday. (Photo by Evrard Ngendakumana/Xinhua)

BUJUMBURA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Burundi's outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza has died of a heart attack in a hospital in east-central Burundi, said a government statement issued here on Tuesday.

Nkurunziza watched a volleyball match in Ngozi Province in the afternoon of June 6, before being taken to a hospital in Karusi Province for treatment as he felt discomfort in the evening, the statement said.

His health condition improved on Sunday but surprisingly changed later and died at the age of 55, it said, adding that immediate intensive care was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of doctors with cardio-respiratory assistance for many hours but were failed to recuperate the deceased.

"Burundian government offers its sincere condolences to his family and all Burundians," said the statement.

The government also announced a seven-day national mourning from Tuesday.

Government Spokesman Prosper Ntahorwamiye announced the statement at the national television station.

Speaker of the Burundian National Assembly Pascal Nyabenda will lead the transition government until August 20, as stipulated by the Constitution.

The "unexpected death" of Nkurunziza came days of the Constitutional Court declared Evariste Ndayishimiye the winner of May 20's presidential poll, who is expected to be inaugurated on August 20.

Ndayishimiye, Secretary General of the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy, was in January elected as the party's presidential candidate after Nkurunziza announced that he would not seek reelection.

Nkurunziza was elected the president of Burundi in 2005, and was re-elected in 2010 and in 2015. Enditem
Splendour in the Grass has been cancelled, with international performers unable to travel to Australia due to coronavirus restrictions.

The music festival had already been pushed back from July to late October, but will now not return until July 2021.

The Byron Bay event was to be headlined by Tyler, the Creator, the Strokes and Flume.

But with Australia's international borders still closed to non-residents to stop the deadly virus from moving into the country, foreign artists can are not allowed in.

No definite timeline has been set for the borders to reopen, but officials have suggested it is unlikely to be until the start of next year.

It leaves big music events in limbo, with major international artists banned from entering the country.

Festivalgoers pose in the sunshine at Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay in 2017 (pictured)

Revellers enjoy the Splendour in the Grass festival in 2018 (pictured) which is held annually in Byron Bay

'We have been monitoring the situation closely for the past few months,' Splendour in the Grass co-producers Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco said in a statement on Wednesday.

'And while Australia is now moving into the recovery phase, there is no timeline yet around the opening of international borders.'

'As a result, and with our audience interests front and centre, we must announce the reschedule to 2021 now.

'We intend to re-book as many of the 2020 artists as possible and we have started to work through that process.'

Tickets for the 2020 festival will remain valid for the 2021 dates, but refunds are also available for those unable to make it.

It is among many music festivals that have been cancelled as a result of the pandemic with BluesFest, CMC Rocks, Groovin the Moo and Download already off.

Currently, mass gatherings are also banned - meaning the thousands who usually turn out at festivals would be unable to do so.
EDWARDSVILLE  Discussion and approval of a contract with a retiring Madison County Sheriffs Department captain to perform some administrative duties was delayed because several members of the county boards Public Safety Committee said they still have questions.

The approval of a contract with Decker Analytics, a Godfrey-based company owned by the sheriffs departments Capt. Eric Decker, was among topics at this weeks Public Safety Committee meeting as Decker, the commander of administrative services, is set to retire at the end of this month. Thus, the sheriffs department wants to contract with Deckers company for some of the administrative work he does in his current role.

Some parts of the contract still are under negotiation, but in general, if approved, Decker would deal with grants, budgets, technology, procurement and act as a consultant on a number of other issues.

Public Safety Committee members Eric Foster, R-Granite City, and Ray Wesley, R-Godfrey, both said they had some questions about the contract.

I think a little more time would do us all some good to study the agreement, Wesley said. Generally speaking, Im in favor of agreements like this.

Deckers sheriffs department salary and benefits package currently is approximately $165,000 annually, county officials said. The contract would cost the county $114,000 and was touted as a way of saving money and keeping Deckers expertise.

Chief Deputy Sheriff Jeff Connor said Monday at the meeting the captains position would remain vacant.

After a short discussion the committee voted 3-2 to table the discussion. Foster, Wesley and Judy Kuhn, R-Trenton, voted Yes to table the discussion and Mike Parkinson, D-Granite City, and Public Safety Committee Chair Gussie Glasper, D-Madison, voted No.

Once the vote was taken, it was brought up that the Public Safety Committee might want to hold a special meeting to discuss the issue before next weeks full Madison County Board of Directors meeting.

The Decker Analytics contract also was on the agenda for Wednesdays Finance and Government Operations Committee, but was pulled from discussion.

Also at the Public Safety Committee meeting, four purchase requests were approved and will move to the Finance Committee before heading to the full county board.

Those included a resolution to purchase a UV germ-zapping robot for use in the Madison County Jail.

The cost of the unit would be approximately $94,000, with most of the cost coming from federal funding. Funding for the purchase was previously approved, the resolution is for the actual purchase of the unit.

Also approved were professional services for two promotional exams, at a cost of $6,350; lettering for 18 sheriffs department vehicles, at a cost of $7,300; and, emergency repairs to a courthouse X-ray machine, at a cost of approximately $5,319.
THE WOODLANDS, Texas, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AXIOS Industrial Group LLC and A&L Industrial Services are pleased to jointly announce that effective June 5, 2020, the two companies have reached an agreement to merge. The combined company will operate under the name AXIOS.

This is a merger of two highly complementary companies, which offer scaffolding, insulation, painting, coating and liners, sandblasting, heat tracing, fireproofing and other soft craft services to industrial clients across industries, including oil and gas, chemical, agricultural, pharmaceutical, and pulp and paper. Both AXIOS and A&L Industrial Services have decades of experience and a track record of success built through exceptional customer service and project execution and an exemplary safety record. The combined company has a strong capital base and is well positioned to serve clients and accelerate growth with greater scale.

"This merger of AXIOS and A&L has the right mix of similarities and differences. We have essentially the same product and service offerings in the same geographic markets, with different customer bases and industry segment strengths. Combined, we will offer our clients even greater service, expertise and efficiency," said Joe Compofelice, AXIOS Chairman and CEO.

So far in 2020, and despite the pandemic, the combined company has been awarded more than $50 million of new business in the oil and gas, chemical, agricultural and pharmaceutical segments. Awards include a multimillion-dollar, three-year service contract for a major pharmaceutical company in Pennsylvania.

White Deer Energy, the former controlling shareholder of AXIOS, and Hastings Equity Partners, the former controlling shareholder of A&L Industrial Services, will continue as the majority shareholders of the combined entity.

Vinson & Elkins LLP served as legal counsel for AXIOS and White Deer Energy. Locke Lord LLP served as the legal counsel for A&L Industrial Services and Hastings Equity Partners.

ABOUT AXIOS INDUSTRIAL GROUP

Delivering comprehensive, innovative solutions to the industrial sector for more than 54 years, AXIOS and A&L Industrial Services are leading providers of industrial scaffolding, insulation, coatings and other specialty service solutions for turnarounds, capital projects and routine maintenance. By combining unparalleled expertise with leading-edge technology, the company consistently maximizes value for customers seeking comprehensive industrial services.

Headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, AXIOS maintains offices and operations throughout the US.

For more information, visit www.axiosindustrial.com or email [email protected] .

ABOUT WHITE DEER ENERGY

White Deer Energy is a private equity firm with investments in oil and gas exploration and production, oilfield service and equipment manufacturing and the midstream sectors of the energy business and industrial service industry and is based in Houston, Texas. White Deer's investment strategy is to partner with talented management teams and build successful companies. For more information, visit www.whitedeerenergy.com .

ABOUT HASTINGS EQUITY PARTNERS

Hastings Equity Partners is a lower middle market buyout firm that provides first institutional capital to founders of businesses serving high-growth end markets within infrastructure and industrial services. With extensive financial and operational expertise, Hastings has a track record of helping businesses grow rapidly and responsibly. For more information, visit www.hastingsequity.com .

Contact: Chris Romano, Chief Operating Officer

AXIOS Industrial Group

[email protected]

713.352.0633

SOURCE AXIOS Industrial Group

Related Links

http://www.axiosindustrial.com


WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI  Some University of Michigan medical students used their time away from studying to team up with a free clinic to deliver food to those in need during Michigans coronavirus outbreak.

The students and Ypsilantis Hope Clinic began the partnership when students were temporarily pulled from their studies due to the outbreak. Emmeline Weinert, Hope Clinic food programs and communications manager, said the goal is to deliver food to those who cannot or do not wish to leave their homes.

Now more than ever, a lot of people cant leave their homes, Weinert said. We had talked about starting grocery delivery in the past. Now, we knew we had to do it.

Hope Clinic is a nonprofit, Christian medical and social service organization at 518 Harriet St., along with a satellite locations in Westland. Weinert said along with providing free medical and dental services to those who are not insured, the clinic aids with applying for social services, mental health treatment and getting food.

Volunteers help deliver food for Food Gatherers, a Washtenaw food bank that supplies hope Clinic with food, which has seen demand skyrocket in the past three months.

Medical students who are part of the recently formed M-Response Corps were looking for ways to help the community, organizers said.

The group was able to fill the gap with volunteers to help deliver food for Hope Clinic, David Portney, a fourth-year UM medical student who plays a logistical role with M-Response Corps, said. M-Response Corp also has its own grocery pick-up program, which involves the students grocery shopping and delivering to people in need. The Hope Clinic initiative is a subset of the M-Response Corps initiative, Portney said.

With the M-Response Corps initiative, the clients are the ones usually buying the food, while groceries in the Hope Clinic initiative come from Food Gatherers.

Volunteers have made about 70 deliveries for the M-Response Corps initiative and 94 for the Hope Clinic initiative, Portney said. The volunteers did about six weeks of deliveries.

Our biggest help to Hope was providing a launching point (for them), Portney said.

Weinert said the clinic is bringing in new volunteers now that the students have returned to their medical work.

Hope Clinic is accepting donations of dry goods and toiletries for distribution.
Brussels: The European Union on Wednesday accused China of a concerted effort to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, lumping it with the Kremlin as a global scofflaw seeking to sow divisions in European societies.

It was the European Union's highest-level and most forceful criticism yet of the way Beijing has handled its messaging about the pandemic. The bloc, along with individual European capitals, has been struggling to strike a balance between the United States and China, two rivals that are increasingly at odds on a range of security and diplomatic issues, including the pandemic response.

Vera Jourova, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality. Credit:Bloomberg

"The pandemic showed that disinformation does not only harm the health of our citizens, but also the health of our democracies," Vera Jourova, the senior EU official charged with rule-of-law issues, told reporters, unveiling a list of recommendations for the 27 EU member states to help promote facts and combat misinformation.

"We are clearly mentioning Russia and China," she said. "If we have evidence, we should not shy away from naming and shaming."
A full 'health-check' of an organic farm has shown how environmentally-friendly farming and a profitable business can go 'hand in hand', its owners say.

Nature and soil health are 'flourishing' at the National Trusts Wimpole Home Farm near Cambridge, according to an audit of the farm.

The results show increases in the numbers of breeding pairs of rare farmland birds, invertebrates and how the land is a significant sequester of carbon.

The 1,419 acre mixed livestock and arable farm has been focusing on sustainable farming methods for the past 12 years to reflect National Trust's green goals.

Key results included a 38 percent increase in invertebrate numbers over 13 years to include the recording of 95 rare species.

A total carbon balance of -2,260 tonnes of CO2 per year was achieved through the amount of organic matter in the soil, the number of trees and grown out hedges.

In terms of public goods, Wimpole has over 40km of public rights of way and permissive paths which see over 350,000 visitors a year.

The farm is also returning a healthy profit. Last year, production levels across 912 acres of the arable farm reached high levels for an organic farming system.

Last years harvests resulted in 142 tonnes of wheat, 123 tonnes of organic barley and and 126 tonnes of organic oats.

Last year, production levels across 912 acres of the arable farm reached high levels for an organic farming system (Photo: NT Images & Catherine Hayburn)

For 2019, this resulted in 294,617 income, 117,588 profit for the farm - including subsidy payments.

Callum Weir, farm manager at Wimpole, said many of the increases recorded were down to the combination of organic farming methods and the mosaic of margins, hedges and habitats that surround each field.

That is not to say that organic farming is the only way to farm with nature," Mr Weir explained.

"There are great examples of farmers across the UK who arent organic, but are still delivering massive benefits to the environment.

"Like many farmers, we dedicate areas of Wimpole to help biodiversity. For example, we sow a variety of plants including phacelia which has purpley blue flowers, clover and sainfoin, with its bright pink flowers which flower from early April right through to October.

"These attract and support pollinators and insects which have a vital role in the ecosystem," he said.

The results show increases in the numbers of breeding pairs of rare farmland birds, including skylarks (Photo: Nick Upton & NT Images)

The Wimpole team used the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit to conduct a full carbon analysis across the whole estate to include the farmland, parkland and woodland.

The land is a significant sequester of carbon, with a total carbon balance of -2,260 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Mr Weir added: When you think that an economy class return flight from London to New York emits an estimated 0.67 tonnes of CO2 per passenger, this is really significant.
RICHMOND, Va. - State Attorney General Mark Herring, D, has served notice to a Circuit Court judge that he will defend the effort to remove Richmond's grand statue of Robert E. Lee and complained that a temporary injunction against the removal was issued without informing his office.

"The Governor has both the authority and the moral obligation to remove this badge of white supremacy from its place of exaltation, and [Herring] intends to defend the Governor's decision and ensure the removal of this divisive relic," the attorney general's office wrote in a court filing Wednesday afternoon.

Gov. Ralph Northam, D, said last week that he was taking down the statue from state property on Richmond's Monument Avenue, partly in response to daily demonstrations against police mistreatment of African Americans.

On Monday, after state workers had begun surveying the statue for removal, Richmond Circuit Judge Bradley Cavedo granted a temporary injunction sought by William Gregory, who contends in a lawsuit that the state promised to "affectionately protect" the statue when it annexed the land it stands on from Henrico County. The suit identifies Gregory as a great-grandson of a couple who were signatories to the deed.

State lawyers said they were not informed of the hearing on the injunction, which halts any effort to remove the statue for 10 days. While a notice was not required, Herring's office said it is almost always given a heads up in such circumstances.

"Defendants were not even aware of this suit until after an ex parte order had been issued, and Plaintiffs did not provide formal notice of the complaint and temporary injunction order until . . . both had been released to the media," Deputy Attorney General Samuel Towell wrote in Wednesday's filing on behalf of Herring and other lawyers in the office.

The filing points out that the court issuing the injunction is only two blocks from the attorney general's office. Gregory's attorneys have declined to comment on the case or the way it was handled.

Towell asked for a transcript and any filings from the Monday hearing at which the judge granted the temporary injunction.

Northam vowed Tuesday to fight the injunction and the underlying lawsuit all the way to the state Supreme Court if necessary.

The statue is on state property that was annexed from Henrico in 1890. In the deed recording the land transfer, the state "guaranteed" to "hold said statue and pedestal and circle of ground perpetually sacred to the monumental purpose" and to "faithfully guard it and affectionately protect it," Gregory's lawyer, Joseph Blackburn Jr., argued in a court filing Monday.

"His family has taken pride for 130 years in this statue resting upon land belonging to his family and transferred to the Commonwealth in consideration of the Commonwealth contractually guaranteeing to perpetually care for and protect the Lee Monument," the suit states.

But Herring and his lawyers argued Wednesday that "the statue is a daily reminder of one of the darkest periods in our Commonwealth's and Nation's history. The statue does not seek to explain or seek reconciliation for that time: it seeks to glorify it. It is a piece of state property freighted with exclusionary meaning to broad swaths of Virginians."

- - -

The Washington Post's Laura Vozzella contributed to this report.
This isn't an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it's time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.

For people who don't know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who'd lost her job for what were deemed 'transphobic' tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn't.

My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya's case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I've met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I'm writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it's intensely personal, as I'm about to explain.

All the time I've been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a 'like'. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly 'liked' instead of screenshotting. That single 'like' was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

Months later, I compounded my accidental 'like' crime by following Magdalen Burns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn't believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he'd composted them.

What I didn't expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who're all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They're worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women's and girl's rights. Above all, they're worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody  least of all trans youth  well.

I'd stepped back from Twitter for many months both before and after tweeting support for Maya, because I knew it was doing nothing good for my mental health. I only returned because I wanted to share a free children's book during the pandemic. Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all  as every woman involved in this debate will know  TERF.

If you didn't already know  and why should you?  'TERF' is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who's vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they're allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women's changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren't even trans-exclusionary  they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who're cowering before the tactics of the playground. 'They'll call us transphobic!' 'They'll say I hate trans people!' What next, they'll say you've got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren't a dimorphic species).

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I've got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It's been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it's pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

The second reason is that I'm an ex-teacher and the founder of a children's charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I'm interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I'm concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

Most people probably aren't aware  I certainly wasn't, until I started researching this issue properly  that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

'Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.'

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification 'youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.'

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person's gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.

The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don't let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not 'align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.'

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I've read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I've wondered whether, if I'd been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I'd found community and sympathy online that I couldn't find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he'd have preferred.

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette's description of herself as a 'mental hermaphrodite' and Simone de Beauvoir's words: 'It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.'

As I didn't have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it's fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it's OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.

I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I'm also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I've been told to 'just meet some trans people.' I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who's older than I am and wonderful. Although she's open about her past as a gay man, I've always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she's completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren't aware of this.

We're living through the most misogynistic period I've experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world's long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of 'grabbing them by the pussy', to the incel ('involuntarily celibate') movement that rages against women who won't give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.

I've read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don't have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It's also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or  just as threatening  unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I've received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn't enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.

But, as many women have said before me, 'woman' is not a costume. 'Woman' is not an idea in a man's head. 'Woman' is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the 'inclusive' language that calls female people 'menstruators' and 'people with vulvas' strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who've had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it's not neutral, it's hostile and alienating.

Which brings me to the fifth reason I'm deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I've been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn't because I'm ashamed those things happened to me, but because they're traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn't want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she'd feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I'm mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who've been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.

I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty, but I'm now married to a truly good and principled man, safe and secure in ways I never in a million years expected to be. However, the scars left by violence and sexual assault don't disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you've made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke  and even I know it's funny  but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven't heard them approaching.

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you'd find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I've outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they're most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who've been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman  and, as I've said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones  then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to 'become a woman' is to say he's one. To use a very contemporary word, I was 'triggered'. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they'd drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn't shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls' safety.

Late on Saturday evening, scrolling through children's pictures before I went to bed, I forgot the first rule of Twitter  never, ever expect a nuanced conversation  and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since. I was transphobic, I was a cunt, a bitch, a TERF, I deserved cancelling, punching and death. You are Voldemort said one person, clearly feeling this was the only language I'd understand.

It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags  because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter  scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow. There's joy, relief and safety in conformity. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote, ' without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one's liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.'

Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They're afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who're standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who're reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who've never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

The one thing that gives me hope is that the women who can protest and organise, are doing so, and they have some truly decent men and trans people alongside them. Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women's concerns at their peril. In the UK, women are reaching out to each other across party lines, concerned about the erosion of their hard-won rights and widespread intimidation. None of the gender critical women I've talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they're hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who're facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don't endorse. The supreme irony is that the attempt to silence women with the word 'TERF' may have pushed more young women towards radical feminism than the movement's seen in decades.

The last thing I want to say is this. I haven't written this essay in the hope that anybody will get out a violin for me, not even a teeny-weeny one. I'm extraordinarily fortunate; I'm a survivor, certainly not a victim. I've only mentioned my past because, like every other human being on this planet, I have a complex backstory, which shapes my fears, my interests and my opinions. I never forget that inner complexity when I'm creating a fictional character and I certainly never forget it when it comes to trans people.

All I'm asking  all I want  is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.
A NHS nurse died with coronavirus after sitting with a patient who later tested positive for the disease, an inquest heard.

Dominga David, 62, was a nurse for 16 years at the University Hospital Llandough when she became unwell and was sent home on March 31.

South Wales Central coroner's court in Pontypridd heard Mrs David went home as she had a temperature, before being admitted to the same hospital six days later.

She was admitted to the University Hospital Llandough with a cough, fever and muscle pain on April 5 and died in the intensive care unit on May 26.

Nurse Dominga David, 62, died on an intensive care unit at University Hospital Llandough on May 26 after sitting with a patient who later tested positive for the disease, an inquest heard

Mrs David worker at the same hospital when she became unwell and was sent home on March 31, before being admitted six days later with a cough, fever and muscle pain on April 5

A post-mortem examination was not carried out but hospital consultants provided a provisional cause of death as ischemic bowel, Covid-19 and hypertension.

Coroner's assistant Lauren Howitt told the short hearing: 'Mrs David had been a nurse for many years and was working on ward West 5 of Llandough Hospital.

'She was usually fit and well. She was sent home on March 31 as she had a temperature.

'She had been sitting with a surgical patient who later tested positive for Covid-19.

'She developed further symptoms and was admitted to the University Hospital Llandough with a cough, fever and myalgia.'

A CT scan was carried out on May 25 and clinicians felt her condition was 'unsurvivable', the inquest heard.

Mrs David, who was born in the Philippines and lived in Penarth, died the following day.

Mrs David was an 'integral part of ward life on West 5 in University Hospital Llandough since 2004', says the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board

Coroner Graeme Hughes said an inquest would take place as there was 'reason to suspect that her death may be related to her employment'.

He adjourned the hearing until a full inquest, which was listed for June 16 2021 at 1pm.

The coroner offered his sympathies to Mrs David's family and friends.

After her death, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said the 'exceptionally hard worker' had died after testing positive for Covid-19.

A spokeswoman said Mrs David joined the health board in 2004 when she came to the UK from the Philippines to begin a nursing adaptation programme.

'She has been an integral part of ward life on West 5 in University Hospital Llandough since 2004 and will be remembered as an exceptionally hard worker and a respectful, kind and compassionate person when interacting with patients, families and colleagues alike,' she said.

'She was part of the ward family and was well-loved by everyone. She is survived by her son Renzie, to whom we send our deepest condolences.'

The health board's website describes West 5 as a trauma and orthopaedics ward to care for patients through their recovery after planned procedures to improve their health and quality of life.

The Cardiff and Vale University Health Board says: 'She will be remembered as an exceptionally hard worker and a respectful, kind and compassionate person'

Mrs David's former patients expressed their condolences on social media after hearing of her passing.

Wanda Webb said: 'Terrible news. I was nursed by this lady following a spinal operation.

'She was very kind and she worked really hard to make me comfortable when I was in pain.

'My thoughts and love go out to her family and colleagues at her most tragic loss.'

Mrs David died on the same day as theatre assistant Allan Macalalad (pictured with his son Justin and wife Elsie), 48, from Cardiff, who also worked at University Hospital Llandough

Neil Thomas added: 'Dominga looked after me during serveral admissions on West 5 with my ongoing battles with Sepsis.

'She was hard working, friendly, compassionate and an integral part of the nursing team. Please pass on my condolences to her family and to the team on West 5.'

Mrs David died on the same day as theatre assistant Allan Macalalad, 48, who also worked at University Hospital Llandough.

The carpenter by trade died at Royal Glamorgan Hospital in South Wales after testing positive for Covid-19.

Mr Macalalad, from Cardiff, leaves behind son Justin and wife Elsie, who is also a nurse.
SAGINAW, MI - Gov. Gretchen Whitmers office recently announced that three Saginaw-area leaders will be joining the Michigan Workforce Development Board to help grow the states economy.

Central Michigan President Robert Davies, Saginaw Intermediate School District Director of Career & Technical Education Jennifer Geno and Bavarian Inn Lodge Vice President Martha Zehnder Kaczynski were three of 20 Michigan leaders appointed to the board.

Whitmers office announced the board appointees May 31 as part of Executive Order 2020-107, which established the Michigan Workforce Development Board as a replacement for the previous workforce board, the Michigan Future Talent Council.

As mandated by the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, each governor must create an advisory workforce board. Whitmers board will assist her in developing, implementing and modifying Michigans workforce growth plans. Part of the plan includes achieving the 60 by 30 goal she outlined last year, which will help 60 percent of Michigans workforce earn a post-secondary degree or certification by 2030.

This group of leaders will be instrumental in bringing together efforts and partners from key industries to expand our workforce, economy and educational attainment efforts, Whitmer stated in a release.

The board consists of educational and business leaders from across the state. Board members were nominated for appointment, and a selection committee contacted nominees they believed were most qualified for the position. Those nominees were invited to apply for the board.

Geno, Saginaw ISDs career director, wanted to apply because of her past experiences related to both industry and education.

Career and technical education is workforce development, she said. Im passionate about the topic and its effects on students and the economy. Its of great interest to me to advance these goals.

Geno said she hopes the board will work on offering more career accreditation options to high school students. This would help students move more efficiently into the work force past graduation. Most critically, these programs need to be easily accessible to all students no matter their ZIP Code, Geno said.

To expand on that leads right into Gov. Whitmers 60-30 plan," she said. It is critical to expand students opportunities to gain access to high-paying, in-demand jobs.

Fellow educator President Davies also stressed the importance of bridging the gap between industries and education in order to improve the economy.

Colleges and universities must work collaboratively with our private and public sector partners to identify and pursue goals that will drive innovation, improve our economic outlook and propel our state forward, Davies said.

Other members of the board include Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan; Dave Meador, DTE Energy vice chairman and chief administrative officer; and Matthew Wesaw, tribal council chairman of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the chairman and CEO of the Pokagon Gaming Authority Board. Other members include religious leaders, entrepreneurs and college board members from across the state. A full list of member can be found online.

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June 10 : South Korean smartphone brand Samsung, which had launched Galaxy M11 and Galaxy M01 in India recently, opened a flash sale on Tuesday at e-commerce site Flipkart. The smartphones are also available on Amazon.

Compared to their price tags, these budget smartphones offer decent specifications. While Samsung Galaxy M11 starts at Rs. 10,999, Samsung Galaxy M01 is priced at Rs. 8,999.

At Flipkart, there are some sale options on both smartphones. Buyers can avail 5% unlimited cashback on Flipkart Axis Bank credit card, and an additional 5% off with Axis Bank Buzz credit card.

The 3GB + 32GB storage variant of Samsung Galaxy M11 is retailed at Rs. 10,999. Its 4GB + 64GB storage model is priced at Rs. 12,999. The phone comes in three huesblack, metallic blue, and violet.

Samsung Galaxy M01 has a single model. Its 3GB + 32GB storage variant costs Rs. 8,999. You will get three colour optionsblack, blue, and red.

Specifications

Samsung Galaxy M11 and Galaxy M01 both have dual-SIM (nano) options, and both run on Android 10 with One UI 2.0 on top. While Galaxy M11 comes with a 6.4-inch HD+ (720x1,560 pixels) Infinity-O display, Galaxy M01 has a smaller display5.71-inch HD+ (720x1,560 pixels) TFT Infinity-V.

Galaxy M11 is powered by octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 SoC with 4GB of RAM. Galaxy M01, on the other hand, comes with octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 SoC with 3GB of RAM.
A retired judge on Wednesday urged a federal court not allow the Justice Department to dismiss its criminal case against President Donald Trump's former adviser Michael Flynn, citing evidence of a 'gross abuse of prosecutorial power.'

The U.S. district judge hearing the case, Emmet Sullivan, last month tapped John Gleeson to serve as a 'friend of the court,' after the Justice Department abruptly asked the court to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general.

Gleeson accused prosecutors of doing a 180 because Flynn is a friend and ally of President Trump's.

A retired judge on Wednesday urged a federal court not allow the Justice Department to dismiss its criminal case against President Donald Trump's former adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts

'They reveal an unconvincing effort to disguise as legitimate a decision to dismiss that is based solely on the fact that Flynn is a political ally of President Trump,' he wrote.

Even recognizing that the Government is entitled to deference in assessing the strength of its case, these claims are not credible, Gleeson continued. Indeed, they are preposterous,' he added.

The stunning move by the Justice Department followed a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies and came even though Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations with former Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Trump regularly tweeted about the case as part of what he calls the 'witch hunt' and the 'Russia hoax.' Attorney General Bill Barr took the extraordinary step of publicly urging Trump to stop talking about the case publicly.

'The Department of Justice has a solemn responsibility to prosecute this case - like every other case - without fear or favor,' Gleeson wrote. 'It has abdicated that responsibility through a gross abuse of prosecutorial power, attempting to provide special treatment to a favored friend and political ally of the President of the United States.'

Gleeson said Sullivan should proceed with sentencing Flynn.

President Donald Trump continues to rail against the Russia probe as a 'witch hunt' and 'hoax,' and has not ruled out pardoning Flynn

Attorney General Bill Barr accused the FBI of having 'ignored all the exculpatory evidence that was building up' and continuing 'pell-mell' with the Russia probe

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment beyond what the government has already argued in court filings.

Flynn was one of several former Trump aides charged under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that detailed Moscow's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Gleeson said there was 'ample evidence in the record that Flynn committed perjury,' or lied under oath.

He recommended that Sullivan take Flynn's perjury into account when sentencing him for lying to the FBI, rather than commencing a follow-on prosecution.

Despite admitting twice under oath to lying to the FBI and agreeing to cooperate in the investigation, Flynn later changed legal tactics and his attorneys now allege the FBI entrapped him.

The Justice Department now says the FBI investigation that led to the charge lacked an adequate legal basis and that Flynn's statements, even if untrue, were not material. 'The reasons offered by the government are so irregular, and so obviously pretextual, that they are deficient,' Gleeson wrote in response. 'They reveal an unconvincing effort to disguise as legitimate a decision to dismiss that is based solely on the fact that Flynn is a political ally of President Trump.'

Gleeson highlighted the conversations that Flynn had with Kislyak that led to the false-statement charge against him, and compared them against how Flynn portrayed them during his January 2017 interview with FBI.

A transcript showed Flynn telling Kislyak he wanted to avoid a 'tit for tat' over sanctions the United States imposed on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election.

The conversations came at a critical time  when the outgoing Obama administration was seeking to punish Russia for interference in the 2016 presidential elections.

Flynn has also asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to force Sullivan to accept the request to drop the case. Arguments in that case are set for Friday.

Sullivan has told the federal appeals court he cannot serve as a rubber stamp and must carefully review the facts in this 'unprecedented' request.

Barr in an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday accused prosecutors of proceeding with a case against Flynn and others while ignoring 'exculpatory evidence.'

'The other area of concern is that after the election, even though they were closing down, some of it as we've seen in the [Michael] Flynn case and say there's nothing here, for some reason they went right back at it, even at a time where the evidentiary support or claimed support, like the dossier, was falling apart,' Barr said.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has agreed to reopen karaoke parlors and discos, the only services to have remain shuttered in Vietnam since March because of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The government leader gave the nod as he concluded a meeting on COVID-19 response on Tuesday morning, around a month after the government had allowed reopening of most non-essential services with exceptions for karaoke parlors and discos.

No specific date for the return of the two services was mentioned at the meeting.

However, Phuc asked law enforcement agencies to deal strictly with violations, especially drug trading and abuse, at these venues.

Vietnam ordered a series of non-essential businesses, including karaoke parlors and discos, to temporarily cease operations in late March when the country had entered a critical phase in fighting against the pandemic.

He allowed the majority of the businesses to come back on stream on May 9 as part of the gradual restart of the economy, but discos and karaoke lounges continued to be shuttered.

Tuesday mornings approval was given as the country had gone nearly two months without detecting infection cases in the community, with all recent cases being imported from abroad and quarantined upon arrival.

The countrys last community infection was a 16-year-old Vietnamese girl from the northern province of Ha Giang who was placed in quarantine on April 7 and confirmed positive for the virus on April 16.

Vietnam has confirmed 332 COVID-19 patients as of Wednesday morning, with 317 recoveries and no deaths, according to the Ministry of Healths statistics.

Six out of the 15 active patients have tested negative for the virus at least once, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Globally, over 7.31 million people have caught the virus while more than 3.59 million have recovered from the disease as of Wednesday morning, according to the Vietnamese health ministry. Nearly 413,000 people have died of COVID-19 worldwide.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A n Australian CEO, author and mother has live streamed her home birth to her 57,000 followers.

Emma Isaacs, founder and CEO of Australian media company, Business Chicks, which aims to empower women in the workplace, is now a mother of six, too, as she welcomed her latest addition, Louis, last week.

On June 1, Isaacs began to have contractions and handed her phone over to family and friends to film the process and broadcast to her Instagram followers.

Isaacs, who is based in LA, said in a Instagram post as contractions began: Ok friends, looks like we might have some baby action tonight. Contractions about seven minutes apart. Im going to hand my phone over to friends and family who are here with me (lets hope they know what theyre doing!) and will see you all on the other side ... Well start by sharing some stories then go live when it feels right. My two midwives and doula arent here yet, but shouldnt be too long. Im feeling strong and ready.

In a prior post, Isaacs said she had initially wanted to livestream the birth of her fifth child, Piper, but was talked out of it. She continued: I dont want to make that same mistake again so Im going to livestream this one.

Ive had five amazing homebirths and really hope the sixth will be much the same. Im also open to the possibility it might not be. I just want to do my little part to show that women are strong and birth (no matter what your choices are) can be amazing.

Isaacs continued, saying that those who might be fearful of birth could benefit from watching the livestream.

During the livestream, Isaacs was joined by her husband Rowan, two midwives and a doula as well as some of her children. Over 6,000 people joined in to the live stream but parts are now available on Isaacs Instagram highlights.

After the birth, Isaacs posted a picture with baby Louis with the caption: Welcome Louis Mack! Our little Louis, born at sunrise during a pandemic under a stay-at-home order and a curfew due to protests all around us. May this mean you make your life stand for something, just as your entry into the world did."
The conservative cable network One America News has a minuscule audience, attracts few readers on the web and has struggled to break into the television mainstream.

But thanks to one powerful viewer in the White House, the networks influence  and its conspiracy theories  are echoing in the highest reaches of American politics.

President Donald Trump, responding to a One America News segment, floated a baseless theory Tuesday that a 75-year-old man in Buffalo who was knocked to the ground by the police  and hospitalized after bleeding from his head  was an ANTIFA provocateur who had tried to interfere with law enforcement.

@OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed, the president wrote on Twitter. Could be a setup?

There is no evidence to support the claims about the man, Martin Gugino, a longtime peace activist who has been affiliated with human-rights groups and the Catholic Worker movement.

But One America News aired a segment that presented the false theory as reported news, as opposed to a baseless conspiracy. The segment would probably have faded into obscurity had Trump not chosen to amplify it to his nearly 82 million Twitter followers.

The One America News correspondent who narrated the segment, Kristian Rouz, is a Russian native who has also worked for Sputnik, a Kremlin-controlled news outlet, which was first reported by The Daily Beast. Sputnik has been accused by intelligence services of contributing to Russias efforts to interfere in American elections.

Later on Tuesday, One America News aired a follow-up segment that portrayed Gugino as a liberal extremist, far from the kindly old man that many in the media are describing, in the words of a correspondent, Pearson Sharp.

One America News, based in San Diego, was founded in 2013 by Robert Herring, a California businessman who made a fortune in the technology industry. The network rallied behind Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and its coverage increasingly shifted to cheerleading on behalf of the president and his administration.

Trump, a keen tracker of his media coverage, took notice. On Twitter and sometimes at public events, he often promotes One America News as a preferable alternative to Fox News.

Inside the West Wing, One America News often airs on television screens alongside mainstream cable news networks.

The Herring family, in turn, has positioned One America News as a destination for pro-Trump viewers who feel alienated from more mainstream conservative outlets. Its White House correspondent, Chanel Rion, is now a staple of news briefings, often called on by Trumps press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany.

Rions questions tend to be soft ones, and she has parroted some administration talking points. She was also rebuked by her fellow White House correspondents after she attended briefings in violation of social distancing guidelines intended to protect journalists from the coronavirus.

Rions website describes her as a fierce foe of anything Clinton, of everything Obama, and as a total and unrelenting enemy of academic left-liberalism and political correctness anywhere.

In the segment about Gugino, the One America News reporter, Rouz, claims that newly released video appeared to show Gugino using a police tracker on his phone trying to scan police communications during the protest. The footage, as seen in the segment, offers no obvious evidence to back up that assertion.

The allegation of a link between Gugino and a far-left anti-fascist group referred to as antifa appears to have originated on Conservative Treehouse, a fringe right-wing website that has spread baseless conspiracy theories. The site bills itself as a Rag Tag Bunch of Conservative Misfits.

The unsubstantiated theory that antifa activists were responsible for riots and looting at the protests prompted by the killing of George Floyd was the biggest piece of protest misinformation tracked by Zignal Labs, a research firm that follows the spread of falsehoods in the media.

In response to an inquiry, a spokeswoman for One America News, Krista McClelland, wrote in an email Tuesday: From numerous sources, OANs investigative team is aware of Mr. Guginos anti-police sentiment and statements.

And Herring claimed in a Twitter post that his network would present follow-up reporting to back up its claims about Gugino. The follow-up segment on Tuesday afternoon asserted that Gugino had ties to antifa, the violent terrorist group.

Mr. President, you havent let us down on doing what you say and we wont let you down as your source for credible news! Herring wrote.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Indian poet, lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar gestures as he attends 'Rehmatein', a music concert organized by Sangeetam Charitable Trust to raise funds for artists, in Mumbai on Sept. 25, 2019. We are excited to honor Javed Akhtar for his eloquence and courage in the fight against irrationality and superstition, said Indian American inventor and entrepreneur Vinod Bhardwaj, a member of CFIs Board of Directors. (Sujit Jaiswal/AFP via Getty Images)
Mumbai, June 10 : The key Indian equity indices ended on a positive note on Wednesday after a sharp surge in the last 30 minutes of trade.

Healthy buying was witnessed in the banking and finance stocks. The S&P BSE Banking index rose by 1.79 per cent and the Finance index settled 1.44 per cent higher.

Rahul Sharma, Head of Research, Equity Advisors said: "While Foreign Portfolio Investors remained active buyers in select private sector banks and NBFC stocks, traders and high-net-worth investors were seen chasing select state-owned companies, pharma and other beaten-down stocks." He noted that the overall market mood now has turned positive with the restriction on lockdown being gradually eased by the government across the country. Also, investor confidence is seen improving and most feel that worse is now behind us and the period of wait-and-watch is over for now, Sharma added.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services said: "Indian equity markets witnessed a range bound session today but finally managed to close near day's high. Reliance Industries and financial heavyweights (HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank) lifted the market." He said that investors are awaiting the US Federal Reserve's policy outcome, which will be the first since the US began to reopen.

On Wednesday, the BSE Sensex closed at 34,247.05, higher by 290.36 points or 0.86 per cent from its previous close of 33,956.69. It had opened at 34,029.14 and touched an intra-day high of 34,350.17 and a low of 33,949.46 points.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange was at 10,116.15, higher by 69.50 points or 0.69 per cent from the previous close.
North Carolina health officials have ordered Ace Speedway in Alamance County to close, saying the stock car track's defiance of limits on mass gatherings during the pandemic makes it an "imminent hazard" for spreading coronavirus.



Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson has refused to cite the speedway for violating state restrictions, saying it is unfairly being singled out.

The speedway has held racing each of the past three weekends. Gov. Coopers executive order caps most outdoor meetings to 25 people.



Media outlets have reported crowds at the speedway attracted between 2,500 and 4,000 people, including the one on Saturday.

The governors office wrote to Johnson last week telling him to perform his duty over the weekend and enforce Coopers order.



A placard at the speedway on Saturday read: This event is held in peaceful protest of injustice and inequality everywhere. Gatherings to express First Amendment rights are exempt from the order.

Johnson wrote on Monday that no action was taken on other tracks that raced over the weekend.

This concerns me greatly to know that my citizens have basically been singled out for the same alleged violations that are occurring all over the state of North Carolina, he wrote in a statement. I assure you that I respect the Office of the Governor of North Carolina but I have serious reservations on the legality of his order.

In an email to sister station WXII-TV on Tuesday, Byron Tucker, the public information officer with the Alamance County Sheriff's Office, said in part, "Sheriff Johnson says he believes the issue is now between the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and Ace Speedway thereby ending the Sheriff's Office role."

Cooper said at a media briefing earlier Monday that opening the speedway to crowds was a reckless decision by the owner.

People shouldnt run a money-making operation that puts in danger not only their customers but anybody who would come into contact with their customers, Cooper said, adding the state will have to take action this week if the local officials dont.



Johnson wrote that Cooper was within his right to ask a court to issue an injunction against the speedway or ask state police agencies to issue a citation.



On Tuesday, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services issued an Abatement Order requiring ACE Speedway to immediately close their facility and halt operations.

While the Abatement Order halts operations, it allows Ace Speedway to propose a new plan which could allow races to resume, under the condition that steps be taken to adhere to the restrictions in place regarding mass gathering numbers and social distancing precautions.

"It was irresponsible for them to keep operating in the way they were doing with thousands of people shoulder to shoulder, no face coverings, and so we want to take this action so folks know we need to take this seriously, particularly in a week when we are seeing our trends go in the wrong direction," Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a press conference held Tuesday afternoon.

In that same press conference, Cooper said in part, This particular speedway knows that the order is in existence and has flagrantly violated the order and put their customers in danger as well as anybody who comes in contact with their customers.

The novel coronavirus continues to threaten North Carolina, with recent data indicating an acceleration in the number of new cases, a greater percentage of positive tests and an increase in hospitalizations resulting from COVID-19.



Across the state, North Carolinians are making huge sacrifices to protect their families and neighbors. This virus is highly contagious and very dangerous. Bad actors who flagrantly violate public health orders put all of our families and loved ones at risk, NCDHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen said.
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Eva Rahmi Salama worries that authorities in Jakarta, Indonesias sprawling capital, are acting too soon to lift restrictions put in place two months ago to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Salama, who lives in Jakarta with her husband, has reason to be concerned. She saw firsthand the tremendous agony the virus can inflict when her mother and father both died from COVID-19 within two days of each other.

As Indonesias overall virus caseload continues to rise, Jakarta has moved to restore normalcy by lifting some restrictions this week, saying that the spread of the virus in the city of 11 million has slowed after peaking in mid-April. This has raised concerns among some, including Salama.

It seems that people are underestimating the virus now, she said.

Looking at Indonesias overall handling of the crisis, its easy to understand her skepticism.

While Indonesias neighbours scrambled early this year to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the government of the worlds fourth most populous nation insisted that everything was fine. Indonesias southern neighbour Australia and some fellow Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore took action as early as late January that included containment and tracing measures.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo acknowledged in March that his government had chosen to keep the public misinformed about the state of the coronavirus in the country. Indeed, we did not deliver certain information to the public because we did not want to stir panic, he said at the time.

Adding to the problems, Indonesia has one of the lowest rates of coronavirus testing in the world, with roughly 1,000 tests per million people, according to government figures  far behind neighbouring Malaysia, which has a rate of over 19,000 per million. The United States is at around 63,000 per million, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

Indonesias virus caseload continues to climb rapidly. On Tuesday, the government reported 1,043 new cases, a single-day high for the country, which has confirmed over 33,000 infections in all. More than 1,900 people have died from the virus in Indonesia, the highest toll in Southeast Asia.

Jakarta itself has confirmed more than 8,300 cases and at least 533 deaths, the most in Indonesia. The city had roughly 3,400 new cases in both April and May, and has reported at least 1,037 new ones so far in June.

But even though Jakarta seems to have flattened the curve of the virus, other parts of Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people, are still seeing their curves rise, due largely to people travelling to these places from the capital.

East Java province  which, like Jakarta, is on Java island  has had the second-most confirmed cases in Indonesia, at over 6,500, including more than 500 deaths, and the numbers are still rising there, according to the governments COVID-19 Mitigation Task Force.

People from Jakarta travelled to East Java ... . That is why East Java suddenly became the next epicenter in Indonesia, said Pratiwi Sudarmono, a microbiology professor at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. I am sure that after Ramadan, many people from East Java went back to Jakarta. This can cause a second wave in Jakarta.

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan ended in late May in Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim-majority country.

Still, Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan has moved to reopen the city, which imposed large-scale social restrictions on April 10. According to the graphs, Jakarta is starting to be under control, he said.

Offices, restaurants and grocery stores in Jakarta reopened on Monday with only 50% of their employees and customers. Public transportation also resumed services. Last Friday, the citys worship facilities, including mosques, were allowed to reopen at half capacity and with social-distancing requirements in place.

Some shopping centres will reopen next week, while schools will remain closed.

Many experts, however, fear that the move to reopen may be premature, and that a second wave of the virus could hit the capital.

Countries including China and South Korea, whose tracing campaigns, testing and other social initiatives are far more robust than Indonesias, have experienced coronavirus relapses after lifting restrictions.

The second wave of COVID-19 potential here is high, Sudarmono said. This is because there is a lack of awareness and there is no clear plan.

Agus Pambagyo, a public policy analyst, said that even though many people have been hit financially by the restrictions in Jakarta, the government should be looking at other factors and increase its testing for the virus before reopening.

Because it is a pandemic, there should be scientific evidence that the virus is under control, Pambagyo said.

Salama, meanwhile, remains concerned about the situation in Jakarta, with the horrific memories of what happened to her family still vivid.

Salamas 68-year-old mother was hospitalized in Jakarta in March with typhus. She also had difficulty breathing, and was tested for the coronavirus at the familys request.

We were very suspicious my mother was infected by the coronavirus, said Salama, who is 42. But the nurses did not take it seriously.

After testing positive for the virus, Salamas mother was transferred to a COVID-19 hospital, where she died five days later. Salama and her two younger brothers never had a chance to say goodbye.

Two days later, the family got more tragic news: Their 70-year-old father, who had been hospitalized earlier because of a heart condition, had died on same day the family received a positive COVID-19 test result for him.

In addition to losing her parents, Salamas 36-year-old brother also contracted the virus and was quarantined for nearly three months.

For Salama, relaxing restrictions in Jakarta has its pros and cons.

On one hand, it would allow her and her husband to continue their efforts to open a restaurant in the city after putting their plans on hold due to the virus outbreak. But she is not confident Jakarta is prepared to reopen, and worries that many people are not taking the coronavirus seriously enough.

I want people to know that it is not easy to recover from COVID-19, she said.

___

AP Science Writer Victoria Milko contributed to this report.
On October 2015 at Rio de Janeiro, on the occasion of the annual conference of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth, I was there to deliver a keynote address representing India. That was when I first heard a presentation on physiological changes occurring in the Human on exposure to microgravity in a simulated environment. This was followed by many slides that showed what happens to astronauts' bodies in Outer Space.

The icing on the cake was a photograph of the presenter floating in microgravity during a parabolic flight! That was how I first came into contact with Prof Thais Russomano!

My interest was kindled, but living in India I thought Space medicine was irrelevant to us. 3 years later came the announcement from ISRO that the first Human Space Flight Mission from India was a go! I now realized that Space Medicine in India would indeed be a reality even in the lifetime of a septuagenarian! I started reading.

A review article on Neurological changes in Outer Space was followed by bringing out a special supplement on Extra-Terrestrial Neurosciences for the journal Neurology India with articles by Space Scientists and Flight Surgeons. Each of the 14 articles has been downloaded from 1200 to 2500 times within a short span of time. It looks like interest in even such an ultra-focused niche area is being generated and Space Medicine will soon become a reality even in India!

Genesis of Visit to Lyndon Johnson Space Center

Exchange of mails 5 months prior to my visit to the USA made me realize that it may be possible to "gain entry" to the Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas, from where healthcare is provided to astronauts. Thanks to Dr. Teri Mader a contributor to our Special Supplement I was introduced to Dr. William J. Tarver, MD MPH FAsMA, SANS Clinical Lead - CNS and Deputy Crew Surgeon stationed at Johnson Space Center. Dr. Tarver was, to say the least, "Fantabulous". He went out of his way to facilitate all the preliminary paperwork, he was instrumental in getting me into the NASA "IDMax" system and "badged" for this visit. I received a request for specific personal information from NASA. After enclosing copies of my passport, US Visa. Local address, telephone number and other required information, a second email was received. This provided me a unique passphrase for accessing the NASA Identity Invitation Website.

On 17th December 2019 I was at Baylor College of Medicine to give a talk. I found a gentleman "playing" with the AV system and gave him my presentation thinking he was the AV technician. Without batting an eyelid, he loaded my presentation. I later found that he was my host for the next day. Dr. William Tarver (he is indeed an institution by himself) and was most willing to share information that could be shared. I am sure I would not have spent 6.5 hours non-stop taking a visitor around and answering dozens of questions - and realize that he was one of less than 40 true "space doctors" on Terra firma with such super selective clientele!

A Day at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center

We were scheduled to meet at 0900 hours at Building 110 at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) main gate. At 0858 he dropped in and in a few minutes got me "badged". He had warned me earlier that being the week before Christmas, JSC will be in "pre-holiday" mode. Activities would be reduced with fewer staff. As the campus extended for several miles, Bill also provided me with transport. I was surprised to see that he had a sturdy large pick up van which went well with his informal attire. What followed was an amazing tour of multiple buildings, meeting the staff in each of these units. A feeling of bon hommie exuded from every single individual. It was obvious that every individual was truly passionate about what they were doing. None of them were here by accident. They had worked hard to get a placement here. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. Obviously with Humans in Outer Space the entire chain has to be super strong.

A statement by a former Administrator of NASA speaks for itself -. In terms of a number of dollars or men NASA has not been our largest national undertaking, but in terms of complexity, rate of growth and technological sophistication it has been unique - it may turn out that the space program's most valuable spin off of all, will be human rather than technological: better knowledge of how to plan, coordinate and monitor the multitudinous and varied activities of the organizations required to accomplish great social undertakings.

JSC's Role - Located on a 1,620-acre campus the JSC is the hub of NASA's human spaceflight research and oversight activities. The Human Research Program coordinates research and development projects at a number of facilities and test sites across the USA. Scientists and engineers at the JSC conduct studies related to space radiation, exploration of medical capability, microgravity, human factors, habitability, and behavioral health.
Coronavirus Tracing Apps Conflict With Privacy

Smartphone apps designed to trace people at risk of Covid-19 infection have attracting criticism in Europe and the US for their potential as surveillance and spying tools to be used by governments.

Scientists and researchers from more than 25 countries have published an open letter urging governments not to abuse such technology to spy on their people and warning of risks in an approach championed by Germany.

More than a hundreds of the British researchers and scientists have expressed concern over privacy and security resulting from 'mission creep' as the UK's government plans for using smartphones to trace and combat coronavirus slowly get going.

Much of our pre-coronavirus lives may be reclaimable with some modifications around how we work, socialise and travel, however in one crucial way the post-pandemic landscape will be very different as an individuals autonomy and data privacy may be lost as mobile telephones are used for surveillance.

This will have important consequences for the relationship not just between citizens and governments, but also between consumers and businesses.

The risk of the coming end of privacy is attributable to the success of virus tracing apps in South Korea and Taiwan which have both been effective in flattening the Covid-19 curve by digitally tracking infected persons. No government was using dispersed databases as extensively to fight the spread of the disease as South Korea. Before an explosive outbreak in its worker dormitories, Singapore earned praise for TraceTogether, which claims to be the first Bluetooth contact-tracing app covering an entire nation. The 1.4 million users represent roughly a fourth of the islands population.

Governments want access to phones, with or without informed consent and turning the clock back will be difficult, if not impossible. Where boundaries between private and public are thin to begin with, a pandemic can make them disappear.



There have been assurances from various governments, including those in France, India and Singapore, that tracing Apps will go away once the outbreak is contained, but no legal guarantees.

The Singaporean app records physical proximity in an anonymised form on smartphones. Minimal data is stored on servers. The national TraceTogethers App building blocks are in the public domain although he source code of is yet to be disclosed.

As India reopens after a 43-day lockdown, its mandatory, first for public-sector employees and now for private-sector workers and company bosses are liable to ensure their workers download the app, though nobody is accountable for misuse of data. The Indian government recently denied a French security researchers claim that the privacy of ninety million Indians is at stake.

An analysis of Chinas Alipay Health Code software, which uses various data sources of data to categorise a persons health status with a colour code, found that some information is shared with the police.

One consequence of Covid-19 will be to erode privacy in the name of public health. European data protection laws will try to ensure that the emergency collection and processing of personal information is legally accountable and for a limited purpose but the British parliaments human rights committee says it isnt convinced that the National Health Services tracing App protects privacy.

Where they exist, robust institutions could will offer resistance to surveillance but in many places the individuals autonomy has already become a virus casualty. Poorer countries where consumers have only recently started going online will see states insist on devices that come with pre-loaded tracking apps.

Whether sensitive data will be kept safely on devices or stored on a central server in a way that might allow a bad actor to reconstruct a persons social activity, keeping a record of where they have been and when and who they meet. will become an urgent question as efforts to control the Coronavirus extend around the world.

Bloomberg: ZDNet: SCMP: LA Times:

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Speaking with Saigon Investment, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, General Director of Vietravel Tourism Company, said that from now on until the end of the year, his company hopes to attract at least 30 to 35 million domestic visitors, and gradually bring back domestic tourism to its feet again.

JOURNALIST: - Sir, how have people changed now in their outlook to tourism and what stimulus programs should the tourism industry adopt to bring back and attract domestic tourists, especially now as we move towards peak summer?

Mr. NGUYEN QUOC KY: - After the Covid-19 pandemic, visitors made very drastic changes in their plans for travel and gave more priority to destinations that offered higher standards of safety, preferred travel on personal vehicles and took short, close-distance trips to nearby locations. This time the summer will be shorter, lasting only six to seven weeks, but it will give a good opportunity for tourism to recover.

In order to best serve tourist needs, the tourism industry must determine that the first criterion is safety, such as a safe destination and safe service, therefore there is a dire need to create safe and friendly products. At the same time, the tourism industry must stay linked together very closely for all travel related activities that would also include accommodation, transportation, and visits to attraction sites. Each unit must be willing to accept losses in the first phase to help revive tourism and draw back the visitors for travel tours once again.

This is a golden time for domestic travel because many travel agencies have launched attractive products with discounts of upto 40% to 50%. This is because the airlines have launched many routes at zero VND, and accommodation services have also reduced prices by 30% to 40%, and most attraction sites are offering entry at a 70% discount. At this time no one must discuss profits but only focus on bringing back the industry to its feet, because without travelers all programs will be rendered meaningless.

- Stimulating demand and reducing tour prices are being implemented on a large scale, but will this need more breakthrough solutions to revive tourism?

- I am proposing to the Government to apply beneficial policies to support the Vietnamese people when they travel domestically. Specifically, visitors registering for a tour at a travel company will be supported with a one million dong voucher to be deducted from the tour purchase. This amount is normally accounted by businesses but the State will support it by deducting the Value Added Tax (VAT) from businesses. With this method, if the scale is of ten million tourists, the State will spend about VND 10,000 bn for this support package. However, if tourists spend VND 3 mn on a domestic tour, businesses will earn VND 30,000 bn, and under the principle of tourism spillover, tourism companies will collect three parts, society will receive seven parts and the cash flow into society will be about VND 70,000 bn. As a result, hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers, and thousands of companies will resume operations again.

The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global crisis, for which we need to do things as they have never been done before.

I think this policy will not only be effective but will also boost domestic demand, encourage people to travel, and also bring revenue to businesses and the State. If the Government has a good policy and implements an effective stimulus campaign, then the size of the domestic market from now until the end of the year will reach about 35 million visitors. In fact, the support of money incentive for travelers has been conducted in many countries before. For example, Japan has done it three times in succession during crisis times and has been very successful.

- Sir, has Vietravel shown any positive signs of recovery from the time of reopening until now, and from now till the end of the year what will be the expected scenario?

- We reopened from 13 May and until now have attracted more than 10,000 visitors, with sales of around VND 70 bn. This is also a very positive sign because we are going from a fresh new start with no visitors to visitors now coming back. However, Vietravel has three market branches in domestic, inbound and outbound visitors, and according to initial calculation this year will see losses of about 40%, but if it opens later than July the damage will be about 60%.

We also propose that the Government open some safe markets in July on the principle of offering safe travel and services under a slogan, "I am safe-you are safe-we are safe". We are now concerned about the second wave of the pandemic so we need to be selective but cannot close altogether, because we may lose the opportunity to other countries. Vietnam has succeeded in controlling the pandemic, but we also need to take quick steps to recover the economy, including bringing back the tourism industry to its former strength.

- Thank you very much.

Thanh Dung (Interviewer)
WATERLOO REGION  Waterloo Region council unanimously endorsed a resolution put forward by a local grassroots group calling for recognition of the vital role professional news media plays in a properly functioning democracy.

The resolution was brought to councils Wednesday meeting by a group called ink-stainedwretches.org that is working to promote support for local journalism in all forms, starting locally with the hope it will spread across Canada. An online petition the group started to encourage civic leaders to build a healthy ecosystem for local journalism to thrive has more than 600 signatures from across Canada.

Council agreed to urge other municipal councils to recognize the importance of a robust news media, endorse legislation and regulations to support and rejuvenate news outlets across Canada, and send letters to the Association of Municipalities Ontario and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities asking them to encourage their members to adopt similar resolutions.

Residents of 190 Canadian communities  including residents of Kitchener, Elmira and Guelph  lost 250 established news outlets due to closings or mergers between 2008 and 2018.
A man has been charged for putting his truck in reverse and hitting a firefighter who was trying to assess him with the vehicle door Wednesday morning.

Jacob Larkin White, 30, of Dallas, N.C., was charged with felony assault on emergency personnel, according to a judicial official.

Lt. Ray Thomas with Brendletown Fire and Rescue told reporters Wednesday that a call came in for a man unresponsive in his truck in the parking lot at Brendletown Fire Station 2 on Bennett Road. Thomas found White asleep in the truck, and started to check his vitals.

Thomas said when he started writing down Whites information, White told him he was going to leave. Thomas said he tried to get him to stop, but White put the vehicle in reverse and started backing up before Thomas could get out of the way, causing him to get hit by the door of the truck.

On his way out of the parking lot, Whites vehicle damaged a pole and some other property at the fire station.

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Troopers with the N.C. State Highway Patrol told reporters that sheriffs deputies were able to pull White over on U.S. 64 at Dentons Chapel United Methodist Church.
Rochester Area Call Center Sued for Back Rent During COVID-19

A Rochester, NY-area call center is being sued for nonpayment of rent amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The June 4 lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court, also states that United Call Center Solutions is attempting to break its lease, according to the Rochester Business Journal.

The lawsuit was filed by 1699 Ridge Road E., LLC, owner of the former Macy's building where the call center is housed. It alleges the call center company missed its April rent payment and told the property owner it was entitled to a rent abatement. The abatement would be based on Governor Andrew Cuomo's New York on Pause order, which ordered non-essential businesses to close to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The call center company gave the same reason for not paying its May rent, while also announcing it was terminating its lease. The property owner claims that this puts the company in breach of contract. The lawsuit states United Call Center Solutions has also not paid its June rent, yet "continues to use the Premises to operate its business." The company purportedly owes $253,490.81 in back rent and penalties.

Further complicating matters is the call center's chain of ownership. The center was first opened at the Macy's site, which is the location of a former mall, in 2017. It was then owned by Conduent, which was once a business services division of Xerox.

According to filing records from several states, Conduent acquired United along with a number of other call centers in 2019. Conduent is also named in the lawsuit for failing to seek and obtain the building owner's consent to assign the lease to United.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
100 Years Ago  1920: With Gov. William C. Sproul of Pennsylvania in the role of headliner as a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, todays session of the National Convention, now in session here, opened at 11.18 oclock (12.18 Chester time). Today delegates are knocking hard at the door of Pennsylvania. All night conferences were held and the announcement was made this morning that the stock of Gov. William C. Sproul, of the Keystone State, is still soaring. Odds of five to one are being placed that Gov. Sproul will be nominated. Two days ago the odds stood something like twenty to one.

75 Years Ago  1945: Paying tribute to the citizens, public officials and teachers of Chester, who have long suffered the domination of the corrupt McClure dictatorship, Judge E. Wallace Chadwick Friday evening called on them during a WDEL radio address to join the forces that are determined to throw off the selfish hand of a notorious political boss in order to assure a brighter future for the city. McClures attempt to depose Chadwicks Orphans Court judgeship has caused an unprecedented Republican split.

50 Years Ago  1970: The Springfield Township zoning board has rejected an appeal by nine Springfield and Swarthmore residents who opposed rezoning of 45 acres for development of a $15-million shopping mall on Baltimore Pike and Sproul Road. Attorney Edward Muller, attorney for the Stop the Mall Committee, said today he will appeal the boards decision to the Delaware County Court.

25 Years Ago  1995: At 14, William T. Kerr gave his first public address about the American Flag. And yesterday, at 126 years old, the late borough resident was honored in Yeadons grandest way  with a parade and an hour-long ceremony, welcoming Kerrs surviving family. On Aug. 3, 1949, President Harry S. Truman signed a resolution designating June 14 as Flag Day. It was a day his son Joseph Kerr, 90, will always remember. Harry S. Truman just signed the bill and he called dad, he said yesterday. The next Saturday, dad was down there (to meet Truman), he said.

10 Years Ago  2010: Upper Darby Township patrolmen will be flipping burgers and grilling hot dogs for the Upper Darby School District/Police Department picnic for fifth-graders mentored by the officers during the school year. The 400 fifth-graders enrolled at Highland Park, Bywood and Stonehurst Hills elementary schools will attend the picnic Friday at Naylors Run Park. Fifteen officers voluntarily mentored the students, meeting with them once a month in their classrooms, fielding questions and offering advice on positive behavioral choices.

 COLIN AINSWORTH
Photo credit: JONAS EKSTROMER - Getty Images

From ELLE

*We will continue to update this article

In the month since George Floyds death at the hands of the police, the world has witness some of the most engaged, passionate and determined anti-racism protests and calls-to-action in recent memory.

From Minnesota and New York to Amsterdam and London, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets and social media to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and demand governments actively put an end to police brutality and institutional racism.

Celebrities have donated millions of pounds to the movements affiliated organisations, CEOs have resigned to make way for Black leaders, brands have been called our for their lack of diversity and racist behaviour and statues of colonialists and slave traders have been toppled.

There have also been less visible changes around the globe that are harder to measure. Since Floyds passing, people have taken the chance to reflect on their own privilege and racial ignorance. Others have had uncomfortable but crucial conversations about performative allyship and social inequality in order to find out how to make a lasting change and hold themselves accountable for racial bias.

Photo credit: Win McNamee - Getty Images

In a similar vain to the Berlin Wall protests in 1989, Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech in 1963 and the Womens March in 2017, 2020s Black Lives Matter protests are historic and will hopefully continue to inspire change.

At Floyd's funeral on June 9, his brother Rodney told mourners: 'Everybody is going to remember him around the world. He is going to change the world.'

Undoubtedly, the 47-year-old's death has marked the beginning of a global call for action.

Weve rounded up a list of changes that have happened across the world in the last two weeks to show the power of protest:

What has happened in the US?

A day after Floyds death on May 25, protests began in Minneapolis, resulting in US police forces using riot control equipment, such as tear gas and rubber bullets, to deter the crowds from gathering.

Story continues

Hours later, protests spread to cities across the US including in Memphis, Los Angeles and Louisville, with anti-racists also protesting the recent deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

On Tuesday June 9, US Democrats in Congress proposed legislation to reform American police, which would facilitate the prosecution of police for misconduct, ban chokeholds, and addresses racism.

Photo credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY - Getty Images

From a cultural perspective, Gone with the Wind was temporarily taken off HBO Max following calls for it to be removed from the US streaming service for its depiction of slavery, as was the US reality show Cops.

Gone with the Wind later returned to HBO Max, with an introduction providing historical context surrounding the film. You are about to see one of the most enduringly popular films of all time, film professor Jacqueline Stewart now says in the new introduction. She goes onto explain that the film was not universally praised, adding that it can be an uncomfortable, even painful watch.



In the two weeks since Floyds death, various cities across the country have also enacted powerful measures to combat racism on a local level.

Minneapolis: On Friday 5 June, the City Council agreed to ban the use of chokeholds by police and required officers to report and intervene when they see unauthorised use of force by a colleague.

The former US police officer charged with Floyds murder in the city, Derek Chauvin, appeared in court for the first time on June 9. He is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The other three officers  Thomas Lane, J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao  were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on June 4.

Louisville: The Louisville Metro Police Department has fired one of the three officers, Brett Hankison, involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.

In a termination letter posted to the departments Twitter account, Chief Robert Schroeder accused the former officer of violating its policy on the use of deadly force. He said that hankison wantonly and blindly fired 10 shots into the victims apartment on March 13.

Buffalo, NY: Two police officers were suspended without pay and later charged with felony assault after a video showed them shoving a 75-year-old protester, who was hospitalised with a head injury.

Dallas: On June 4, Dallas Chief of Police Renee Hall implemented a new order instructing officers to either stop, or attempt to stop, another employee when force is being inappropriately applied or is no longer required.

Photo credit: CHANDAN KHANNA - Getty Images

New Jersey: A state official cited George Floyd's death as he announced the state will update guidelines to police governing the use of force for the first time in two decades.

Maryland: Days after Floyds death, Maryland lawmakers said that they were forming a workgroup to address police reform and accountability.

Los Angeles: The City Council introduce a motion to reduce the LAPDs $1.8 billion (1.4bn) operating budget for the coming year.

New York City: Members of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control board have refused to transport arrested protesters from demonstrations.

On Sunday June 21, the New York Police Department suspended a police officer who was involved in the arrest of a black man in Queens, after a video emerged showed an officer appearing to use an illegal chokehold.

What has happened in the UK?

Thousands of protesters demonstrated in cities including Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and London following Floyds death.

MPs and anti-racists have also urged the government to suspend the sale of British tear gas, rubber pellets and riot shields to the US and for ministers to clarify whether any UK-manufactured equipment is currently being used in the US during the protests.

On Tuesday June 9, London mayor Sadiq Khan launched a diversity commission to investigate which statues should be retained, which ones with slavery ties should be removed and the new status to be erected (more on this below).

Photo credit: NurPhoto - Getty Images

In addition, Little Britain has been removed from BBC iPlayer, Netflix and BritBox amid resurfaced criticism from viewers over the depiction of certain characters.

Heres what else has happened so far in the UK:

Bristol: A statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was torn down during an anti-racism protest and thrown into the harbour on June 7. The artist known as Banksy has since shared a proposal for what should replace the statue.

London: On Tuesday, June 8 a statue of slave trader Robert Milligan was covered and then removed from outside the Museum of London Docklands.

Glasgow: A statue of Sir Robert Peel was vandalised by protesters and campaigners call on all UK cities to remove all historical figures associated with slavery and racism.

Denbigh: Councillors have voted to consult the public on removing a statue honouring Victorian adventurer, Henry Morton Stanley, who opponents claim had links to slavery.

Europe

Protests have taken place across Europe since Floyds death, with demonstrators taking to the streets in Athens, Madrid, Brussels, Copenhagen and Berlin.

Amsterdam: A week after a Black Lives Matter protest in Dam Square involving as many as 14,000 people, a second has moved locations given an increase in supporters. The next demonstration will occur on Wednesday June 10, according to a Facebook event.

Germany: Following protests, graffiti artists Eme Freethinker has painted Floyds portrait on one of the last remaining sections of the Berlin Wall.

Photo credit: NurPhoto - Getty Images

Republic of Ireland: Hundreds of demonstrators fathered outside the US ambassadors residence to show solidarity with the US protests. Protests took place across Ireland in the likes of Galway, Limerick and Waterford.

Italy: On June 7, Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Rome to oppose racism in the United States and Italy. The crowds cried: Not to racism! George Floyd is here!

Poland: Hundreds have lit candles, and placed flowers and signs in front of the US embassy in Warsaw.

What has happened around the world?

Canada: Demonstrators have been protesting against police brutality and the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old black woman who recently died in Toronto after falling from her balcony during a police investigation.

New Zealand: Senior ministers denounced Donald Trump as racist over his response on Twitter to protests over the death of Floyd.

Photo credit: APU GOMES - Getty Images

Mexico: On Thursday June 4, Mexico held a candlelight vigil for Floyd and portraits of him have been hung outside the US embassy with roses and candles.

Syria: Syrian painter Aziz Asmar and his two friends created an eight-food-high mural on a bombed Idlib building to show solidarity with anti-racists in the US. It features the words: I cant breathe.

Photo credit: Anadolu Agency - Getty Images

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By Chris Canipe and Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) - Twenty-one U.S. states reported weekly increases in new cases of COVID-19, with Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posting rises of 40% or higher for the week ended June 7 compared with the prior seven days, according to a Reuters analysis.

The three southwestern states joined hot spots in the South to help push the national number of new infections in the first week of June up 3%, the first increase after five weeks of declines, according to the analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.

(Open https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser for a Reuters interactive)

In New Mexico about half of the new cases were from one prison in Otero County, state health officials said.

Utah said at least 287 of the states 2,269 new cases were tied to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in Cache County.

Arizona did not immediately respond when asked to comment.

Many states have ramped up testing for the novel coronavirus in recent weeks. Nationally, over 545,000 tests were reported in a single day last week, a new record.

In Arizona, the percentage of tests that came back positive for the new virus rose to 12% in the week ended June 7, from 7% a month ago, according to the Reuters analysis. In Utah, the positive test rate rose to 9% from 4%.

Nationally, the rate of positive tests has hovered between 4% and 7% for several weeks.

In the South, new cases of COVID-19 in Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina all rose by more than 30% in the past week.

Florida attributed the increase to more testing, while South Carolina was investigating outbreaks in three counties. The other states had no immediate comment. Positive test rates held steady in these states over the past four weeks, the analysis showed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended states wait for new COVID-19 cases to fall for 14 days before easing social distancing restrictions.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have met that criteria for the week ended June 7, compared with 13 states the prior week, the analysis showed. Pennsylvania and New York lead with eight straight weeks of declines.

(Reporting by Chris Canipe in Kansas City, Missouri, and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Editing by Tiffany Wu)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 11:01:27|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits a rural ecotourism park to learn about the development of local signature agriculture in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 9, 2020. Xi on Tuesday inspected the city of Yinchuan during his trip to Ningxia. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

YINCHUAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Tuesday stressed the need to actively develop water-conserving agriculture and refrain from water-wasting irrigation.

Xi made the remarks when visiting a rural ecotourism park in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, to learn about the integrated development of modern agriculture and leisure tourism there. Enditem
Moscow ended its strict lockdown on Tuesday ahead of a nationwide vote to extend President Vladimir Putins rule, while officials there continued to report more than 1,000 daily new coronavirus cases.

Barbershops, beauty parlors, veterinary clinics and photography studios were allowed to reopen, and digital permits for leaving ones house are no longer needed.

And the outbreak is still spreading rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean, pushing the region to the limit, the director of the Pan American Health Organization warned on Tuesday.

Bigger picture: While infection rates in the hardest-hit cities in the United States and Europe have slowed, the global peak of infection may still be months away. Without a vaccine or treatments, the only proven strategy has been limiting human contact.

In other news:

Here are the latest updates and maps of the outbreaks spread.

The Times is providing free access to much of our coronavirus coverage, and our Coronavirus Briefing newsletter  like all of our newsletters  is free. Please consider supporting our journalism with a subscription.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had said last week that the local authorities in Yazman were responsible for demolishing homes of a Hindu community.

India on Tuesday issued a strong demarche to Pakistani High Commission on the systematic and targeted demolition of houses belonging to minority Hindu community in Pakistans Punjab province, sources said. Today, India issued a strong demarche to the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi on the systematic and targeted demolition of houses belonging to minority Hindu community in Chak 52/DB, Yazman, Punjab in Pakistan, a source said.

The sources said that the members of civil society in India have expressed serious concerns and anguish at the targeted and continued persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in Pakistan. They have also strongly condemned the incident where in-state authorities targeted the minority Hindu community despite the occupants producing valid documents of ownership and legal relief granted against demolition, the sources added.

Last week, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had said that the local authorities in Yazman were responsible for demolishing homes of a Hindu community. Following an independent fact-finding mission, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has found that the local authorities in Yazman (Bahawalpur district) were responsible for demolishing the homes of a Hindu community in Chak 52/DB, the HRCP, a non-profit organisation, said in a statement.

The demolition occurred despite the fact that the Hindu community  fearing this might come to pass after being threatenedon several occasions  had filed a case petitioning a senior civil judge of the Bahawalpur bench to issue an order forbidding any such action, the statement read. It said that even though the restraining order was issued, on May 20, 2020, twenty-five houses were levelled and another 10 partly demolished, leaving their occupants  including young children  without any access to shelter.

One respondent claimed that she was dragged out of the house by her hair, the statement added. The HRCP noted with serious concern that the Hindu community, already vulnerable as a religious minority, was targeted on grounds of faith to advance the interests of the local land mafia.

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Russia should not interfere in India-China standoff as it is bilateral matter: Top Russian lawmaker

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jun 10: Russia should not interfere in disputes like the current border standoff between India and China, but its mission is to be an "honest broker" to prevent any use of military force, the chair of the Russian Upper House's foreign affairs committee said on Wednesday.

Konstantin Kosachev, the Chair of Russia's Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, also said US President Donald Trump's move to select Russia, India, Australia and South Korea for inviting to an upcoming G7 summit was aimed at targeting China.

Reduced air activity, troops disengaged, India-China move at brisk pace for long lasting peace

China says reached positive consensus with India on border issue | Oneindia News

Interacting from Moscow with a group of Indian journalists here via video conferencing, Kosachev said Russia has asked for explanations from the US over Trump's statement extending the G7 invitation to the four countries, but is yet to receive a response. Therefore, a final decision cannot be taken, he said. Hitting out at the West and the US for continuing with policies of weakening competitors, Kosachev also said the Cold War was not over yet and it was continuing with fair competition not being allowed at the global stage.

Asked about the current border standoff between Indian and Chinese militaries in Eastern Ladakh, he said Russia's official position is that it keeps these bilateral disputes bilateral. "We understand the sovereignty of India, we understand the sovereignty of China. I really believe Russia should not interfere in these kinds of disputes, but our role is well required in many other situations comparable to the one you mentioned," he said in response to a question on the ongoing standoff.

"Our mission is to be an honest broker to contribute to a dialogue and to prevent and avoid any solutions connected with the use of military force. This is what we all the time transfer as political messages both to our Chinese and Indian friends," said Kosachev, who plays an influential role in the formulation on Russia's foreign policy.

The senior Russian lawmaker also said his country's relations with China are in the "best shape ever" in the history of their relations in many decades. "We have excellent relations. I believe the anti-Russian campaign in the West has additionally contributed to closer relations between Russia and China. I would like to stress that our bilateral relations are never aimed against any other country," he said when asked about Moscow, having good relations with both Beijing and New Delhi, could play a role in the China-India standoff. He stressed that the problems between India and China are never allowed to hamper cooperation in the BRICS and SCO groupings.

"Good relations between Russia and China and good relationship between Russia and India are two factors which provide a good opportunity for finding solutions to problems that exist between China and India," he said.

Ladakh standoff: China, India reached positive consensus to 'ease' situation along borders

His remarks come a day after it emerged that Indian and Chinese armies have undertaken a "symbolic disengagement" in a few areas in eastern Ladakh in a demonstration of their intent to end the border standoff peacefully. However, sources had said both the armies remained engaged in aggressive posturing in areas such as Pangong Tso, Daulat Beg Oldie and Demchok, and there will be a series of negotiations in the next few days to explore a solution to end the confrontation.

Last week, Russian Deputy Chief of Mission Roman Babushkin had said Russia hopes that India and China will resolve the dispute soon, noting that a "constructive" relationship between the two countries was important for regional stability.

Asked about US President Trump's pitch last week for expansion of the G7 grouping by including India, Russia, Australia and South Korea, Kosachev said the US President did not hide his disappointment with the current G7 format, but the problem is that he does not have the right to extend the format.

"He (Trump) just represents a country which is hosting the coming summit G7 and in that capacity he is absolutely free to invite any additional participants to that summit but that summit will still be the summit of 7 countries," Kosachev said. "This is what raises questions. In that format, neither India, South Korea Russia, nor Australia will be able to participate in the preparatory work. There will be resolutions and documents and that is going to be done by the same seven countries," he said.

There is no possibility to influence the outcome of the discussions and decisions taken, he asserted. Kosachev said there was no unity in the position of other countries of G7 with countries such as the UK and Canada expressing reservations about Russia. The composition of countries to be invited excludes many more countries which are influential and China is a quite clear example, Kosachev said.

"Mr Trump wants to get a number of countries together in order get a kind of a joint opposition to China, this is the current strategy of the Americans. I am absolutely against building any blocs or coalitions aimed against a third country," he said.

On a question on India's participation in the Afghan peace process and the issue of involvement of the Taliban, he said in Russia, the Taliban is classified as an extremist movement, but is not prohibited and it has to be recognised that it is an important part in the ongoing peace dialogue. "India is a neighbouring state to Afghanistan and I am absolutely in favour of having India has an important participant in the ongoing dialogue. I would recommend Russia to take efforts to involve India as much as possible," he said.
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Linkedin Norman Harsono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 13:11 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd8f157 1 Business foreign-investment,pertamina,Riau-Islands,oil-refinery,Coordinating-Maritime-Affairs-Ministry,China Free

Chinese investors plan to develop a multibillion-dollar oil refinery in Batam, Riau Islands province, an official with the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister has said.

Maritime and energy sovereignty deputy Purbaya Yudhi Sadhewa told an online press conference on Tuesday that the investors had sent a letter addressed to the Coordinating Minister's Office, asking for our agreement to support an investment worth around US$5 to $6 billion.

Purbaya did not identify the investors or provide details on the refinerys installed capacity. He pointed out that foreign investors were still interested in Indonesian refineries, despite recent developments that suggested otherwise.

State-owned energy holding company Pertamina said earlier this year that two foreign companies had pulled out of two Indonesian megaprojects, with Saudi Arabias Aramco and Italys Eni withdrawing respectively from the Cilacap and Plaju refinery projects.

I am optimistic that we can [proceed with these] investments if we guard them well, said Purbaya.

The unnamed Chinese investors also sought to export some of the refinerys output, which was why they planned to develop the project in the Riau Islands, he added.

The provincial capital of Batam is just across the Singapore Strait from the island nation and is the closest point in Indonesia to Singapore.

Purbaya said it appeared that the investors may not be required "to partner with Pertamina for the refinery", but that some of the refinerys output "might need to be adsorbed domestically.
MAKESHIFA, Iraq  The assailants came at dusk, creeping on foot through the dusty palm groves near the Tigris River, armed only with a rocket-propelled grenade, a light machine gun and Kalashnikovs. They had laid roadside bombs to kill anyone who rushed to help the unsuspecting local guards, who were in their sights.

When the attack on the village last month was over, nine members of a Sunni tribe that had opposed the Islamic State were dead and four were wounded, one of them nearly burned to death.

This is the Islamic State in Iraq in 2020: low-tech, low-cost, rural, but still lethal. And while it has not carried out attacks on the scale that it did a few years ago, the number of attacks has begun to grow again.

As American and Iraqi negotiators begin a new round of strategic talks on Thursday, the question of how to respond to the Islamic States quiet resurgence  and how much American help is required to do so  will be at the center of the discussion.
Between mid-March and May, millions of Americans were forced out of work by COVID-19. But now that the country is largely reopening and jobs are getting added, it begs the question: Will unemployed Americans actually want to go back to their employers?

Ever since the CARES Act was passed, unemployed workers have been eligible for a $600 weekly boost in unemployment on top of their regular benefit. As such, some people have actually been earning more money on unemployment than they did at their previous jobs. And while that $600 weekly boost is set to expire at the end of July, lawmakers are pushing to extend it all the way into January of 2021. In fact, retaining that weekly unemployment boost is one of the most notable provisions of the HEROES Act, which also calls for a follow-up round of stimulus payments.

It's for this reason that a new bill was recently introduced to entice workers to return to their jobs and get off unemployment benefits. The Reopening America by Supporting Workers and Businesses Act of 2020 calls for a $1,200 reemployment bonus, so to speak. Workers who return to a job will be entitled to a one-time payment of $1,200, or two weekly payments of $600. But is that really such a good deal?

Is a one-time boost worth the struggle and risk?

While it's true that some Americans may be eager to stay on unemployment benefits right now because they've seen an increase in income as a result, that's not the only reason workers may be hesitant to get back to their jobs. Returning to work is, for some people, a risky prospect from a COVID-19 perspective, particularly those who are customer-facing or work in environments that don't lend to social distancing.

Then there's child care to think about. Many camp programs are closed for the summer, and for those who don't have where to put their kids in July and August, returning to work is an impossible ask. Furthermore, it's too soon to tell whether schools will reopen fully in September, and if they don't, these same child care issues could extend well into the latter part of the year. As such, it's understandable that some workers would rather collect unemployment benefits than grapple with the risks and challenges of going back to a job.

Of course, many people rely on their employers to provide health insurance, so that alone may be a motivator to get back into the workforce. But if the aforementioned problems remain unaddressed, a $1,200 payment alone won't be enough to overcome them.

Still, having too many people out of work as the economy reopens is bad for businesses, and is apt to slow our collective recovery. As such, lawmakers may need to get together to come up with a proposal that makes it more feasible and enticing for workers to return to their jobs -- and do a lot better than a single $1,200 payment.
Five unidentified terrorists were killed in the ongoing encounter at Sugoo area of Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmir Zone Police said on Wednesday. Police and security forces are carrying out the operation.

The terrorists were killed in an ongoing gunfight with government forces in Sugoo Hendhama area of South Kashmirs Shopian district on Wednesday.A senior Police officer said that two militants were killed in an ongoing operation. However, he said, the identity of the slain militants was yet to be ascertained as gunfight is still underway.

Earlier, according to the reports a joint team of Police, Armys 44RR and CRPF launched a cordon-and-search-operation in Sugoo Hendhama. As the joint team approached the suspected spot, the hiding militants fired upon them. The fire was retaliated by the joint team, triggering off an encounter.This is third encounter since last Sunday, 9 militants were killed in those two encounters.

Also Read: People need to be more disciplined as India enters Unlock 1.0 phase, says Health Minister Harsh Vardhan

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Crisis often creates opportunity. Thats the way Ron Nirenberg framed his State of the City speech last week.

The mayor told San Antonians that the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed this citys long-standing equity problem. The economic slowdown created by the virus had highlighted the way so many residents of this city were barely getting by, with little hope for economic mobility.

COVID-19 has moved the ground beneath our feet, Nirenberg said. It is changing our landscape, shifting our immediate needs, and further exposing long-term problems that have, too often, plagued us.

Nirenberg used the speech to set the table for a council vote two days later that would approve an ambitious $191 million war-on-poverty package focused on workforce training, housing assistance and expanding internet access.

Eric Gay /Associated Press

Crisis also compels sacrifice. And there was one key plank in the Nirenberg platform  in fact, his number-one priority until COVID-19 upended our world three months ago  that was sacrificed in the speech.

Nirenberg announced that he was dropping his support for a November vote to redirect a 1/8 cent sales tax from the Edwards Aquifer Protection and Linear Creekway Parks programs to rapid transit.

The sales-tax reallocation was something that Nirenberg had championed since last year. Along the way, he scrambled to find other outlets for aquifer-protection funding (such as the San Antonio Water System), because he recognized that the need to upgrade our public-transit system was too urgent to ignore.

He knew that we have the most underfunded major-city transit system in Texas and that the only way we can accommodate our explosive population growth and combat our chronic income inequality is to enhance public-transit service options.

Thats why the mayors (at least temporary) abandonment of the sales-tax boost for mobility has caused so much distress among VIA Metropolitan Transit reps.

William Luther /Staff

The night of the mayors big speech, Ezra Johnson, the secretary for the VIA Board of Trustees, tweeted this about Nirenbergs announcement: A short-sighted decision that ignores most in need of better transit options.

In another tweet, Johnson took aim at Nirenbergs economic-recovery plan.

Good luck actually getting to a physical workplace, Johnson wrote. There can be no housing assistance without transportation assistance.

Thats been a major theme of the messaging coming from VIA trustees over the past week.

Hope Andrade, the VIA board chair, was careful not to criticize Nirenberg in her prepared response to the mayors speech, but she did offer this pointed statement: We cant have economic mobility without access to basic mobility first.

At last Fridays VIA board meeting, the transit agencys staff delivered a grim presentation.

While transit use in San Antonio hasnt been decimated by COVID-19 as much as it has in many other cities, local ridership is nonetheless down by 45 percent.

The ambitious transit upgrades envisioned by ConnectSA  the non-profit tasked with creating a long-term mobility strategy for San Antonio  are not even part of the picture right now.

VIA is merely hoping to patch up its funding holes and avoid slashing services.

The stakes are high. According to last weeks staff presentation, 60 percent of riders use VIA to get to work and 58 percent have no vehicle in the household.

That means a major piece of job creation could be missing if VIA doesnt get help with its funding shortfall.

I definitely am very disappointed in the citys response to recovery planning, said Amanda Merck, a VIA trustee, in response to last weeks VIA staff presentation.

She added, This is going to be devastating for our city.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

VIA trustees emerged from the meeting united in their commitment to continue pushing for the 1/8 cent sales tax.

In a sense, Nirenberg and VIA are coming at this issue from the same angle. Theyre just reaching different conclusions.

Both sides are looking at this from a short-term perspective, realizing that our economic and budgetary problems are so urgent, we dont have the luxury of long-term thinking right now.

Direct action to ensure a healthful economic recovery means rebuilding now, Nirenberg said in his speech.

We will take the time we need to fully understand the depth of the pandemics financial damage before making new investments.

VIA trustees understand that sentiment, but for them, its less about new investments than just finding additional revenue streams in order to tread water.

Public transit means connecting people to jobs, it means improving the quality of our environment, it means closing the opportunity gap. In other words, it represents everything Nirenberg is looking to accomplish.

In times of crisis, sacrifices have to be made. But starving an already underfed transit system is a sacrifice that will really hurt.

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Gilbert, become a subscriber. ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
Syrians were unable to withdraw funds from cash machines on Monday, due to a problem with the Lebanese company that provides the service writes Sowt Al-Asima.

All private banks in Syria suddenly halted their ATM services and cards, because of a problem with the Lebanese company providing this service.

Syrians were surprised on Monday at the holdup when they tried to withdraw funds, news site Iqtissad reported. It later became clear that there was a problem from the Lebanese side, according to statements released by the banks.

Bank of Jordan-Syria said in a statement that its exchange services had halted, adding that this included all branches.

The bank noted that the reason for the issue was a problem with the company in Lebanon providing this service. There is a joint effort between the bank and the Central Bank of Syria to find a solution, the statement said.

Al-Baraka Bank-Syria, for its part, said that ATM services had stopped until further notice due to technical issues outside the banks control.

An employee in the private banking sector said that all private banks work with the Lebanese CSCGroup, which supplies ATM machines and cards, as well as electronic payment services, and was behind the surprise holdup with Syrian banks.

Most private banks recently announced that they had raised daily withdrawal limits for ATMs, with withdrawals for Al-Baraka Bank reaching 200,000 Syrian pounds.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Eoghan Mc Dermott,Deirdre OKane and Jennifer Zamparelli at the launch of RTE Does Comic Relief. Kyran OBrien Photography/kobpix

RTE will host an Irish version of the BBCs Comic Relief this month and will be joined by the two leading stars of Normal People on the night.

Actors Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones are among the big-name celebrities who have agreed to take part in the Irish version of the annual fundraiser.

Hosting proceedings on the evening of Friday June 26 will be Deirdre OKane, Nicky Byrne, Jennifer Zamparelli and Eoghan McDermott as they join forces for RTE Does Comic Relief.

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Proceeds from the event will go to some of the charities that have been struggling financially during the coronavirus pandemic.

This is the first time the event has been televised live and organiser Deirdre OKane is hoping it will drum up plenty of cash for vulnerable charities.

She previously spearheaded comedy shows in aid of Comic Relief at the 3Arena so is looking forward to seeing the event evolving.

After three years of fantastic live fundraising events, its so exciting to be bringing this to TV for the first time in Ireland with RTE, she said.

Its going to be a memory-making night thatll raise serious funds to help people who need it most as a result of Covid-19.

Also lending their support to the event will be Dara O Briain, Amy Huberman and Brian ODriscoll, Chris ODowd and Dawn OPorter, Jason Byrne, Andrew Scott, Aisling Bea and John Bishop.

Video of the Day

The cast of Derry Girls have also agreed to take part, alongside Andrew Maxwell, Ed Byrne, Jimmy Carr, Adam Hills, Risteard Cooper, Neil Delamere, Paul Howard, Dustin and Zig and Zag.

Director Richard Curtis co-founded Comic Relief, which has raised more than 1bn for charity since 1985, and said he was delighted to see such amazing Irish talent coming together.

Proceeds will be distributed via the Community Foundation for Ireland, which works with 4,000 non-profit organisations around the country.
The supposed victim of a multi-million dollar gold heist allegedly helped stage the armed robbery and bury the goods in the remote Gippsland town of Dollar.

Daniel Ede, 37 is accused of assisting Karl Kachami pull off the brazen heist that saw $3.9 million in gold bullion, cash and other valuables stolen from the Melbourne Gold Company on April 27 in one of the largest heists in Victoria's history.

The Melbourne Gold Company in the hours after the robbery. Credit:Justin McManus

Mr Ede, who was at first thought to have been a victim of the heist before being charged as a co-conspirator, is asking the court to release him on bail as he awaits trial for several offences including perjury.

Detective Senior Constable Sarah Inglese told the Magistrates Court on Wednesday that the Donvale father of three was at risk of fleeing, and had the opportunity to do so, because of his potential possession of $333,240 of unrecovered proceeds from the robbery.
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- The strike started on Tuesday, June 9, leaving many patients stranded at the hospitals

- They vowed not to give in until their demands were met by the county government of Kisumu

- Security guards in different public health facilities were spotted sending away patients

Patients at public health facilities across Kisumu county were forced to go home after a doctors' strike entered day two on Wednesday, June 10, amid the COVID-19 pandemic

The strike, which started on Tuesday, June 9, left many patients stranded at the hospitals as nobody was there to attend to them.

READ ALSO: Teenager who spent 10 hours cleaning street after protests gifted car

Security guards in different public health facilities in the region had been spotted sending away patients. Photo: Naomi Akoth

Source: Original

READ ALSO: I married a man every woman wanted - Pastor Joan Chege

The health workers had vowed not to give in until their demands were met by the county government of Kisumu.

It is said the medics had given a strike notice on Tuesday, June 2, indicating they would put down their tools the following day.

At Kombewa Sub-county hospital, the medical superintendents were the only present ones at the facility with all other health workers including doctors staying away.

READ ALSO: 10-year-old Mombasa girl awes residents with performance of educative COVID-19 song

Security guards in different public health facilities in the region were spotted sending away patients while those who could afford private hospital fees were taken there.

Mark Onyango, whose father had been admitted at the Kisumu County Hospital, said he was informed that patients were being discharged following the strike and that he should take him home.

"Because I could not afford money for a private hospital, I just had to take my dad home to Rabuor," said Onyango.

READ ALSO: Overflowing blessings: 34-year-old mother of 13 gives birth to quadruplets

He further revealed that the doctors in public health facilities in the region would continue staying at home. Photo: Naomi Akoth

Source: Original

"For the time being we will be nursing his wounds and giving him pain killers to manage the pain as we wait and see what will be done about the strike, Onyango added.

Martha Anyango, on the other hand, was forced to wheel away her father who had just had surgery a few days back.

Anyango further said she was advised to visit private facilities should her father develop any complications.

READ ALSO: Kibera residents fight against coronavirus featured on National Geographic

The chairman of Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KPDU) in Nyanza, Kevin Osuri, expressed disappointment saying the county government had ignored them.

"Despite stating in the notice that we are ready for a dialogue, we have not received any communication from the county, Osuri said

He further revealed doctors in public health facilities in the region would continue staying at home until the county agreed to address their grievances.

READ ALSO: Kericho: Dozens feared trapped after 4-storey building collapses, rescue ongoing

"We know money was allocated but payments for promotions have not been effected and nobody is taking responsibility to explain the issue, he said.

On Monday, June 8, at the county hospital, patients were issued with discharge letters with some leaving by themselves as others waited for their relatives to come and pick them.

This came a few days after Kisumu Governor Anyang' Nyong'o pleaded with the health workers not to go on strike, noting that it could jeopardise service delivery amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

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REDDING  A 70-year-old physician assistant accused of killing his wife will be allowed to attend his daughters wedding this weekend in Massachusetts, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Richard Commaille was charged Tuesday with murder following a police investigation into his wifes death in April.

His wife, Nanci Commaille, 64, was found dead from a gunshot wound in the couples Top Ledge Road home on April 6, police said. The states chief medical examiner ruled her death was a homicide.

Richard Commaille is free on $500,000 bond after he turned himself in Tuesday at the Connecticut State Police Troop A barracks in Southbury.

Supported by a cane, Commaille appeared for his arraignment Wednesday in state Superior Court in Waterbury, where Judge Corine Klatt appeared via video conference and granted his request to attend his daughters wedding Saturday in Massachusetts.

Danbury States Attorney Stephen Sedensky III did not object to Commaille leaving the state for the wedding. Commaille, who is not under electronic monitoring, was ordered to obtain permission from the bail commissioner if he has other plans to leave the state.

Defense attorney Edward Gavin said his client maintains his innocence and turned over all of his weapons and ammunition when requested by state police.

My client has been cooperative with state police and maintains his innocence. He immediately contacted 911 and made a five-page statement to police, Gavin said following the arraignment. This is a forensic case and we are anxiously waiting to get a copy of the autopsy report and related records. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner initially stated the cause of death was undetermined and we need to understand why that has changed.

Richard Commaille called 911 around 10:10 p.m. on April 6, reporting his wife died by suicide, according to police.

Redding Police Chief Mark ODonnell said the case began as an untimely death investigation. He said some things didnt make sense to first responding Redding officers and the case was then turned over to the Connecticut State Police Western District Major Crimes Squad for further investigation.

The arrest warrant affidavit has been sealed for 14 days from the Tuesday arrest.

The case was continued to June 30 when there will be a video conference between Gavin, Sedensky and the judge.

Commaille is retired after a 40-year career as a physician assistant. According to the state Department of Public Health, Commaille has had a physician assistant license since 1993. His wife had a registered nurse license since 1987.

Richard Commaille has taught at Quinnipiac University as a part-time faculty member in the physician assistant program. He is not scheduled to teach in the fall, university spokesman John Morgan said Wednesday. Morgan declined to comment on how long Commaille has taught at the university or whether he had been scheduled to teach before the arrest.

Commaille has been active in the Boy Scouts in Redding, frequently attending Eagle Scout ceremonies, First Selectwoman Julia Pemberton said.

He was in every ceremony, she said. He was obviously very involved in Boy Scouts.

She met Commaille at those ceremonies, but never met his wife.

We didn't have any personal interactions, Pemberton said of the husband. I was invited to those ceremonies as the first selectwoman and I was honored to be able to speak. We didn't have any one-on-one conversations in that regard.

My condolences go out to the family at an obviously very difficult time, she added.

Attempts to reach the couples daughters, neighbors and Nanci Commailles former co-workers at the Fairfield Surgery Center were unsuccessful on Wednesday.

Staff writer Dan Tepfer contributed to this story.

Correction: This story has been updated, following incorrect information provided to Hearst Connecticut Media Group by a source, to reflect that Richard Commaille is in fact a physician assistant.
Dana Nessel is one of seven state attorneys general accusing a pair of Texas businesses of blasting residents with billions of illegal robocalls" over the last two years.

Michigan joined six other states in filing a joint lawsuit against the companies, Rising Eagle Capital Group LLC and JSquared Telecom LLC, which are believed to be responsible for more than 42 million illegal robocalls to Michigan residents over a five-month period in 2019 alone. The Federal Communications Commission is also taking legal action against the businesses.

The illegal calls offer extended car warranties and health care services, according to the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, June 9.

"These bad actors seeking to take advantage of consumers are the exact reason we created our Robocall Crackdown Initiative, Nessel said in a prepared statement released Wednesday, June 10. We have made it clear that illegal robocalls are not welcome here and thanks to this collaborative effort, we are holding these businesses accountable for attempting to mislead and harass consumers.

According to the AGs office, the defendants illegally used prerecorded messages to make these solicitations without the consent of call recipients. Theyre accused of engaging in caller ID spoofing, and failed to provide necessary information about the caller in an effort to mislead victims.

They are also accused of targeting phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry.

The joint lawsuit was filed by attorney generals from Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Michigan. It alleges the businesses violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Michigan Home Solicitation Sales Act, the Michigan Consumer Protection Act, and various other state consumer protection laws.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Texas, seeks civil penalties and a permanent injunction to stop the companies from violating federal and state law. Texas business owner John Spiller II and his business partner, Jakob Mears, are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said spoofed robocalls are a major problem for consumers across the country.

We are making it clear that scamming consumers and  as we saw in this case  tricking them into buying products under false pretenses cannot and will not go unchecked, Pai said in a prepared statement. "That is why the FCC and state officials are standing together and taking strong action to protect the American public from the scourge of spoofed robocalls.

For residents dealing with robocalls, Nessel recommends hanging up or not answering the phone if you dont recognize the number.

If you want to file an official complaint with the AGs office about a robocall to a cellphone, include the Robocallers phone number, your phone number and service provider, the date and time of the call, and the topic of the scam.

Robocalls to landlines cannot be traced, so complaints cannot be used in the states investigations.

Nessels Robocall Crackdown Initiative began in November 2019. Michigans attorney general has encouraged the FCC to facilitate continued collaboration among states and telecom companies to coordinate tracing illegal robocalls through a single FCC-sanctioned industry group.

Legal robocalls include calls from a person or business youve signed up to get contact from, as well as calls requesting money for a charitable organization or requesting money for a political party.

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Wednesday, June 10: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan
SINGAPORE, June 10, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - AppsFlyer, the global attribution leader, today announced the launch of Zero, a free-for-life package as part of its Zero Budget Marketing initiative. The new initiative, geared towards developers, product managers, and marketers offers free, state of the art software tools and APIs, to empower their growth and leverage their earned and owned media strategy.As part of AppsFlyer's effort to enable companies of any size to better utilize their owned assets and channels, Zero includes the powerful tools of AppsFlyer's complete engagement suite, all for free: OneLink deep linking technology, smooth web-to-app & social media-to-app user journeys, Smart Banners, referrals & user invites, SMS & QR codes, cross-promotions, and more."Now more than ever, companies need to operate with a 'Zero-Budget Marketing' mindset," said Ronen Mense, APAC President, and Managing Director, AppsFlyer. "If it was not already evident, COVID-19 forced all of us to rethink our marketing strategies and go back to basics, with one certainty in mind - we live in a mobile-first world. Many companies have a 'mobile also' strategy and need to be able to better leverage their most important assets: their owned media, website, social media, and user base as they migrate their customer base to mobile. This is the time for brands to get creative and grow their business with mission-critical tools, so we are proud to provide product managers and app developers with our technology for free as open APIs they can use to delight and engage with their existing customers while also gaining new customers."New customers can easily create a free account, and start leveraging the Zero package within minutes, without providing payment information or an SDK integration. Part of AppsFlyer's broad offering, Zero includes cost-free software tools and APIs that every marketer, product manager, and developer needs to help improve user experience and acquisition with no advertising budget.About AppsFlyerAppsFlyer, the global attribution leader, empowers marketers to grow their business and innovate with a suite of comprehensive measurement and analytics solutions. Built around privacy by design, AppsFlyer takes a customer-centric approach to help 12,000+ brands and 6,000+ technology partners make better business decisions every day. To learn more, visit www.appsflyer.com.Media ContactsIshina SakhraniPRecious Communications on behalf of AppsFlyerappsflyer@preciouscomms.com+65 6303 0567Press Contact For AppsFlyer in APAC:Nico Marconico.marco@appsflyer.comSource: AppsFlyerCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.

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.
Hungaroring boss Zsolt Guylay admits the F1 race promoters got a discount on their 2020 race fee.

The circuit near Budapest is among the eight confirmed 'ghost races' on this year's initial amended calendar.

"All in all, we managed to save the Hungarian budget almost six billion forints (US $20 million)," the Magyar Tavirati Iroda news agency quoted Guylay as saying.

Liberty Media also extended the race's contract for another year, from 2026 to 2027.

"We have saved a lot for both the state and for ourselves," said Guylay.

"It's not going to be any easier than organising a traditional race though because we have to build a containment for the teams inside the circuit," he said.

Also in exchange for forgoing ticket revenues in 2020, other 'ghost race' venues Spa-Francorchamps and Monza reportedly also received contract extensions.

(GMM)
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Police are asking for witnesses to come forward after a motorist traveling on I-25 was nearly hit by a bullet while driving Tuesday evening.
India extended the hand of friendship to China but was repaid with stealth aggression in Ladakh. The Chinese incursions into strategic areas presented India with a Kargil-like challenge. The aggression is not just a wake-up call for India; it could prove to be the deciding factor in fundamentally altering the countrys approach to China.

Shrewdly timing a surprise assault has been central to Chinas repeated use of force, as several studies underscore. In 1962, China invaded India just as the Cuban missile crisis was bringing the world to the brink of a nuclear armageddon. And in April-May, as a distracted India was wrestling with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) that originated in Wuhan, China encroached on Ladakhs Galwan Valley and Hot Springs (both previously undisputed areas) and simultaneously occupied Lake Pangongs disputed long stretch between Fingers 4 and 8.

Military strategist Sun Tzus advice to plan for what is difficult while it is easy led China to strike when India was vulnerable. Indias draconian lockdown  the worlds strictest  flattened not its coronavirus curve but its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) curve, as one industrialist has noted. India now has the worst of both worlds  spiralling infection rates and a seriously-damaged economy, crimping its military options. China, which signalled a bellicose intent by conducting Himalayan military drills since the beginning of this year, seized the opening from the Indian Armys lockdown-driven deferment of its annual Ladakh exercise, which creates acclimatised troop reserves before late spring unfreezes ingress routes.

Caught off-guard, India faces difficult options while battling the pandemic. India, however, is unlikely to put up with Chinas encroachments, which explains its counterforce build-up in eastern Ladakh, despite the viral risks to troops. This weeks mutual pullback of troops at three of the four confrontation sites reduces the threat of war but doesnt diminish Chinas act of belligerence. The 2017 Doklam disengagement is a reminder that China doesnt deviate from what it has set out to achieve: No sooner had the standoff ended than China began frenzied construction of permanent military structures and occupied almost the entire Doklam.

Lets be clear. Chinas latest aggression is very different from its Ladakh intrusions in the Depsang Plains (2013) and Chumar (2014) that had narrow tactical objectives. For example, it withdrew from Chumar after making India demolish local defensive fortifications.

The latest well-planned encroachments seem strategically geared to altering the frontier by grabbing vantage locations, whose control will place the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in a commanding position. By building bunkers and other concrete structures, such as between Pangongs Fingers 4 and 8, PLA has signalled its intent to retain key land grabs.

With PLA forces already present in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir near its frontier with Ladakh, China is seeking to ramp up pressure on both Indian flanks in Ladakh. The encroachments raise the spectre of PLA in a war cutting through northern Ladakh and physically linking up with Pakistan to put India under siege.

Chinas aggression potentially signifies a geostrategic sea change. China is seeking to buy enough time through negotiations with India to consolidate its hold on key encroached areas. In this light, Beijing is seeking to string India along. If China vacates occupied land after extracting a price, it wont be vantage points overlooking enemy positions but marginal territory.

As Mao Zedong admitted, China undertakes negotiations to buttress its position and wear down the opponent. China has taken India round and round the mulberry bush for 39 years in the negotiations on resolving the larger boundary question. The negotiations began as senior-level talks in 1981 before deceptively being relabelled as joint working group talks in 1988 and then as talks between special representatives in 2003.

India also invested considerable political capital in establishing a border-management framework with China through five different agreements, each signed with great fanfare at summits between 1993 and 2013. However, by brazenly flouting the accords basic principles through its encroachments, China has gravely fractured the framework.

In the way it has profoundly changed the status quo in the South China Sea without firing a shot, China is seeking to complete its thus far bullet-less aggression against India by forestalling through negotiations an Indian counter-offensive or an Indian tit-for-tat grab of Chinese-claimed territory elsewhere. So, it is saying the two sides must ensure differences do not escalate into disputes. In plain language, China is asking India to stomach its aggression or else the situation will cease to be, in its words, stable and controllable.

With its aggression, however, China has brought its relations with India to a tipping point. By opening several international fronts, including one against India, Chinese President Xi Jinping may be biting off more than he can chew. He will discover India is no pushover. By awakening India to Chinas threat, Xis aggression eventually will prove costly for China, which is already staring at a cold war with the United States.

Far from submitting to Chinas aggression, India will make the necessary readjustments in its foreign and defence policies with the aim of imposing costs and thwarting Beijings larger hegemonic objectives. After all, how India emerges from its military stand-off with China will have an important bearing on its international standing and on Asian security.

According to a Chinese proverb, To feed the ambition in your heart is like carrying a tiger under your arm. By starting a conflict with India to advance his larger neo-imperial ambitions, Xi has increased the odds that the tiger under his arm will bite him.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist

The views expressed are personal
Tisha Elizabeth Jacob By

Online Desk

Following the death of a 55-year-old COVID patient in Telangana's Gandhi hospital on Tuesday, attendees of the deceased patient barged into the hospital and attacked a doctor on duty.

"They destroyed the plastic chairs and attacked the doctor on duty with an iron stool. He blocked the attack but was hit on his hip. Other doctors and nurses rushed to their safety and informed the police," said a doctor who is protesting amongst many others against the attack on a fellow doctor.

More than 300 PG doctors treating the COVID-19 patients at Gandhi Hospital refuse to resume their duties unless their demands are met by the government. The state health minister's office approached the protesting doctors for a negotiation so that they can resume their covid duties. The doctors refuse to get back to their duties unless the minister comes to visit the doctors to get to know the ground reality.

According to a doctor who is protesting against this brutal act the deceased 55-year-old male patient was admitted at the Gandhi Hospital with mild respiratory failure in the AMC (acute medical ward). His poor prognosis was explained to his family members. Despite his conditions, he went to the washroom by removing his CPAP mask and suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away at around 7.30 pm on Tuesday, in-spite of resuscitation. Enraged by the death, the patient attendees attacked a PG doctor on duty.

After a #COVID__19 patient in Gandhi hospital passed away, his family allegedly thrashed a doctor on duty with an iron rod. Following that, doctors have been on a protest, asking for basic security.

Express Video @XpressHyderabad pic.twitter.com/veczSHz572  The New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) June 9, 2020

" This is the second attack on doctors in Gandhi Hospital. We decided not to protest after considering the pandemic situation and the assurance we received by the police and the government. We cannot keep silent this time," said Dr Lohith, President of Gandhi Junior Doctors Association in Hyderabad.

On April 1st, relatives of a COVID-19 patient who died due to comorbidities attacked a doctor in the isolation ward of the Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad.

" We demand SPF for all doctors at all emergencies as assured earlier by the government. We want decentralization of the covid cases from Gandhi Hospital to all other hospitals like other states. The hospital is not following the ICMR guidelines and there needs to be a sense of transparency over the actions taken for such similar incidents that happened in the past through media. Unless our demands are met by the CM and the health minister, we will not resume our covid duties," said Dr Lohith.
10.06.2020 LISTEN

Former President John Dramani Mahama has stated that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will win the December general elections if the polls are allowed to be free and fair.

If the election  and I know it will  is free and fair, there can be no outcome other than the NDC emerging victorious in this election.

Mr Mahama said at a flag-raising ceremony to mark the 28th-anniversary of the NDC in Accra on Wednesday, 10 June 2020.

The NDC has been accusing its main opponent, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), of collaborating with the Electoral Commission and the National Identification Authority to rig the elections.

This is because the NPP supports the ECs decision to compile a new register of voters ahead of the polls using only the Ghana card and passport as proof of identification for eligible voters to acquire the new voter ID card.

To make sure the elections are not rigged, Mr Mahama said: All members of our grassroots, branches, we face an epic election this year and I want to salute our activists at the branch and constituency levels, adding: Our victory in this election is going to rest on your shoulders.

We are fighting at the national level even with the constraint we face as an opposition party to get the resources necessary for you to prosecute your work.

I wish to state emphatically that well support you to police the poll right from the point of voting until the final results are declared. At every single level of the election, well police the pollwell be vigilant, nothing will escape our scrutiny, no ballot box will go out of our sight until all the votes have been counted, collated, accounted for and the results declared

---classfmonline
Markets have been celebrating $US9 trillion ($12.9 trillion) of stimulus across the world but have turned a collective blind eye to the other side of the equation.

They have either forgotten why authorities are having to take wartime counter measures, or are ignoring that a V-shaped economic recovery is not in fact happening anywhere - including China where stress is mounting in the lending markets.

Global sharemarkets have rallied in recent weeks, with investors tuning out the economic uncertainty. Credit:AP

Friedmanites say money creation on a grand scale - central banks are financing the entire budget deficits of the US, eurozone, UK and Japan - must mechanically lead to an explosive surge of asset prices over the next two or three years. Consumer price inflation would follow with a lag.

The figures are certainly eye-watering. The M3 money supply has been rising at a 60 per cent rate in the US over the last three months (on an annualised basis), 20 per cent in the eurozone and 14 per cent in the UK. Monetarists argue that the stock of excess M3 will catch fire once people start spending again and "velocity" returns to normal. M3 is a measure of the entire money supply within an economy, including cash, savings deposits but also money in less-liquid financial products.
An elderly man shoved to the ground by Buffalo police denies being part of antifa after President Donald Trump suggested he was a provocateur who faked his fall.

Martin Gugino, 75, remains hospitalized with a bruise and cuts after two police officers shoved him Thursday during a protest against police brutality after the death of George Floyd. Video from NPRs Buffalo radio station, WBFO, showing Gugino on the ground and bleeding from the ear quickly went viral and outrage ensued as the Buffalo Police Department claimed in a statement he tripped & fell.

Trump claimed without evidence that Gugino could be an ANTIFA provocateur on Twitter Tuesday and pushed a conspiracy theory that "Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

Kelly Zarcone, a lawyer for Gugino, told TMZ on Tuesday that he denies being involved with the anti-fascist movement.

Martin is out of ICU but still hospitalized and truly needs to rest. Martin has always been a peaceful protestor because he cares about todays society," Zarcone said in a statement. No one from law enforcement has suggested otherwise."

Gugino "is also a typical Western New Yorker who loves his family. No one from law enforcement has even suggested anything otherwise, so we are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him.

The BBC fact-checked Trumps claims Gugino was trying to scan or block police communications, noting that some apps allow phone users to listen to police scanners -- but wouldnt be able to jam police radio signals.

In any event, even if you were attempting to scan police radios in order to jam them using a mobile phone, which is what the man appeared to be holding, this is not the equipment you would use. You would need much more sophisticated scanning equipment, Professor Alan Woodward, a cyber security expert at Surrey University told the British publication. In terms of interfering with police communications frequencies, mobile phones simply dont have components that work at those frequencies."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo criticized Trump on Tuesday for the baseless tweet.

Do you think the blood coming out of his head was staged? Is that what youre saying? the New York governor said. How reckless, how irresponsible, how mean, how crude. If there was ever a reprehensible dumb comment, and from the President of the United States. At this moment of anguish and anger, what does he do? Pours gasoline on the fire."

Just about an hour ago, police officers shove man in Niagara Square to the ground (WARNING: Graphic). Video from: @MikeDesmondWBFO pic.twitter.com/JBKQLvzfET  WBFO (@WBFO) June 5, 2020

Officers Aaron Torglaski and Robert McCabe were charged with second-degree assault Saturday and released without bail after pleading not guilty. Both officers were suspended without pay late Thursday night.

Gugino, identified as a longtime peace activist from Amherst, is a member of two nonprofits: PUSH Buffalo, which focuses on affordable housing, and the Western New York Peace Center, a human rights organization. He is also part of the Catholic Worker Movement and politically active on social media, frequently criticizing Trump.

Trump did not provide any evidence for claims that Gugino has antifa ties or that he faked his fall. His source, an OANN video, is from the conservative, far-right One America News Network known for promoting conspiracy theories.

Trump has described antifa, an anti-fascist movement, as a domestic terrorist organization and blamed the collective on violence in cities where protests have occurred since Floyd died on Memorial Day when a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The Associated Press reports more than 85% of those arrested by police during protests and riots in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., were local residents. Only a small number of the 217 people arrested in those two epicenters for civil unrest appeared to have any affiliation with organized groups, according to court records, employment histories, social media posts and other sources of information.
The outbreak of COVID-19 among agri-food employees in Essex County  many of them migrant workers  has topped 200 infections, with 38 additional cases being reported.

We need to get a better handle  on how we can support that particular group, Dr. Wajid Ahmed, medical officer for the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, told a news conference Wednesday.

The majority, 90 per cent or more of them, are temporary foreign workers, with some employees that are either nonfarm workers, maybe administrative staff and also some farm workers who are from the region.

Public health officials are keeping a close eye on agri-food outbreaks in the rich swath of southern Ontario farmland between Essex and Niagara over concerns the virus could spread more widely to the general population. Its estimated the number of infected migrant workers is approaching 500.

Under pressure from the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Ahmed said the Windsor-Essex health unit will now begin naming farms and greenhouse with two or more cases in a close period of time.

This will help the community understand better how the spread is happening, he said.

About 17 farms have had cases of COVID-19 and there are an estimated 8,000 migrant workers in the county, particularly in the southern part around Leamington on Lake Erie, where a dedicated testing centre opened this week.

The new cases have been detected mainly through investigations into the close contacts of workers with confirmed infections and not through testing centres, Ahmed said.

Many of these people  also share accommodation, which makes it very difficult to make a determination if the transmission happened at the workplace or if the transmission happened at the accommodation, he added.

Migrant workers, who live together in bunkhouses that make it easy for COVID-19 to spread, account for about one-fifth of the total cases in the area to date.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the migrants are both working and living in a perfect storm for the virus.

There hasnt been enough attention to their close living conditions, she added, calling for more government assistance in this regard and for personal protective equipment.

A Star compilation of data from health units as of 5 p.m. Wednesday found 249 more confirmed and probable cases in the previous 24 hours, increasing the total to 33,143 since COVID-19 came to the province in late January. Another 14 deaths pushed the fatality count to 2,533.

The number of people in hospital has fallen below 600 for the first time in weeks, the Ministry of Health reported, with 580 COVID-19 patients in care. Of those, 118 are in intensive care and 86 are on ventilators, down two from the previous day.

Testing numbers bounced back higher, with 19,941 processed at labs across the province on Tuesday, closer to recent highs in the 23,000 range as the government looks to get a more accurate picture of the virus.

The Ministry of Health said another 551 cases are considered to be resolved, bringing that total to 25,380.
New York, June 10 : The statue of Mahatma Gandhi that was desecrated with a vile personal attack on him and an anti-India slogan during the anti-police demonstrations in Washington is being cleaned, according to the National Parks Service (NPS).

A conservator was working with the Indian Embassy on Tuesday to restore the statue, Mike Litterst, the NPS chief of communications for memorial parks said in an email to IANS.

"Our staff spoke with embassy personnel and provided the name of a conservator, who we understand has been able to remove most of the graffiti on the stone and is continuing to work today," he said.

The statue was erected by the embassy and since it continues to maintain it, the mission made the arrangements for cleaning it, he added.

IANS was unable to reach the Indian embassy.

The statue had been vandalised with graffiti written in orange paint on June 2, according to Litterst.

US Ambassador to India Ken Juster has apologised for the statue's desecration.

The organisers of the protests as well as politicians supporting them have remained silent.

In pictures of the vandalism seen by IANS, personal attacks on Gandhi are painted on one side of the pedestal and an anti-India slogan on the other side.

This makes it appear a clear attack on Gandhi and an action targeting India because they are not like the protest graffiti elsewhere that carry slogans about protecting the rights of African Americans and against police and racism.

The nation-wide against police brutality and racism was triggered by the extra-judicial killing in Minneapolis of an African American man by a policeman who choked him by kneeling on his neck.

Image Source: IANS News

The Gandhi statue that was dedicated in 2000 by Bill Clinton, who was then the US president, and Atal Behari Vajpayee, Indian Prime Minister at that time.

The US Congress passed a bill in 1998 authorising the erection of the statue on government land.

The 2.6-metre tall statue was designed by sculptor Gautam Pal and depicts Gandhi as he led the 1930 Salt Satyagraha and bears his quote, "My life is my message." (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)

Latest updates on Gandhi Jayanti 2019

-- Syndicated from IANS
Oregonians across the state have protested against systemic racism, participating in Black Lives Matter rallies for 13 days in cities across Oregon, including Portland. The protests started following the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Floyds funeral took place Tuesday in Houston, Texas, his hometown.

Beaverton - About 300 people participated in a Black Lives Matter rally in front of the Beaverton City Library. Many of them carried signs with messages such as, WHITE SILENCE = VIOLENCE, and, NO JUSTICE. NO PEACE," KATU reported.

Protesters in Beaverton are calling for racial justice, and an end to police brutality. Posted by KATU News on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Baker City - About 100 people participated in a Black Lives Matter demonstration on Tuesday in Baker City, Oregon. The protesters held up signs with messages such as, I AM GRATEFUL TO BREATHE AND HONORED TO BE HERE FOR SOMEONE THAT COULDNT," and MUSIC WOULD SUCK WITHOUT BLACK LIVES," and waved at passing cars on Campbell Street and Grove Street. A counter-protest of about 15 people all gathered on the north side of Campbell Street, according to a Facebook post made by the Baker City Herald.

About 85 people turned out for a protest against racial inequality Tuesday evening at Campbell and Grove streets in... Posted by Baker City Herald on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Milwaukie - Hundreds gathered for a Sit-In Solidarity event organized by Black Lives Matter Milwaukie at 6 p.m. in Milwaukie, Oregon. Speakers, mainly young adults from the community, shared their experience with racism and called for the white people in the crowd to take action.

Today its a privilege for you all to learn about racism than go through it, speaker Taviana Harris said. Im scared. I shouldnt be scared at 17.

28 Milwaukie rallies for Black Lives Matter

Eugene - Hundreds of people marched on I-105 in a Black Lives matter rally honoring Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by two white men while on a jog, and Sandra Bland, who was found dead in 2015 in a jail cell three days after being arrested at traffic stop. The Eugene Police Department reported that the east and westbound on-ramps for the interstate road at Coburg road had been blocked off by those marching, KVAL reported.

People marched onto the highway Tuesday in the 12th day of Black Lives Matter protests in Eugene, Oregon. The rally was held in honor of Ahmaud Arbery and Sandra Bland. Posted by KVAL News on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Portland - The demonstrations began hours after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced plans to disband three police units and shift $12 million of city money to support communities of color. Demonstrators at the Portland protests said these changes were not enough.

Across from the Justice Center Tuesday night in Portland, June 9, 2020. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian)

- Madison Smalstig l msmalstig@oregonian.com l @madi_smals l

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At an emotionally charged school board meeting Monday, the Hamilton public board voted to review a school police liaison program.

But those who called for change say they didnt want the program reviewed  they wanted it eliminated.

The vote to review the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Boards (HWDSB) police liaison program came after a group of current and former students, called HWDSB Kids Need Help, raised concerns about the program and called on the board to remove police from schools. The calls come in the wake of anti-Black racism protests taking place in Canada, the United States and around the world.

Black students matter in our schools. Their safety matters, their dignity matters, said Ward 3 trustee Maria Felix Miller at the meeting. They deserve, like any one of our students, to be seen for who they are and supported. Im very concerned for the potential for harm within this program, specifically but not exclusively, to our Black students community.

The board voted to review the long-standing program, which sees 11 Hamilton police officers working out of schools across the four Hamilton school boards, and have staff reporting back on their findings in October 2020.

An amendment to suspend the program while the review took place, as some trustees argued is standard when reviewing programs, was voted down 6-5 with Christine Bingham, the trustee for Wards 1 and 2, abstaining. The call for a review passed unanimously  with Ward 4 trustee Ray Mulholland absent for the vote.

HWDSB Kids Need Help called the failure to terminate or suspend the program deeply concerning

They have proven what we have been saying: the trustee board does not care about the well-being of Black, Indigenous and racialized students, the anti-racism group wrote in a statement.

The group was among other Hamilton organizers who organized a joint-takeover of the Toronto-based Black Lives Matter account on Twitter on June 2 to share a series of videos with demands for systemic reforms of police, corrections and the education systems.

HWDSB Kids Need Helps demands included:

Remove police from schools and fund a review of police violence in schools;

Have the board stop calling police on students;

Collect and release data on the race and gender of students who face disciplinary action;

And implement a community-run alternative to disciplinary action with a focus on restorative justice.

Ruby Hye, a member of HWDSB Kids Need Help and a former student trustee, called the meeting outcome  a review alone  frustrating but not surprising.

To me, what happened yesterday strongly indicates that the trustees sitting around that table dont give a damn about Black students experiences, Hye said.

At the meeting, student trustees Ahona Mehdi and Cameron Prosic raised concerns about the program and police in schools.

Its far overdue for our board to cut ties with these historically racist and colonial organizations who are failing to prioritize restorative justice and de-escalation techniques, she said.

Prosic said the mandate of police in schools seems unclear, even to police.

Oftentimes, they just end up roaming around the halls with the administrative staff, he said. Are they just muscle for the principal and vice-principal?

Shawn McKillop, spokesperson for the board, said police in schools help with administrative duties, school presentations, school visits, school meetings, school investigations, restorative/diversion referrals, school lockdown drills, patrol secondment, youth referral investigations not related to school incidents, training, conferences and workshops.

Gachi Issa, another HWDSB Kids Need Help member, said the group has spoken with Black, Indigenous and racialized students who say they have been handcuffed, out in police cruisers and carded in school hallways for very mundane things.

Police spokesperson Jackie Penman said in an email police look forward to participating the review.

We are open to any feedback coming out of a review and making any necessary changes to strengthen the School Liaison Officer program, she wrote.

The HWDSB has recently spoken out against racism, just last week releasing a letter which later drew the ire of police unions.

We are outraged by the acts of anti-Black racism and violence that led to the recent deaths of members of the Black community in the United States and Canada, reads the June 1 online letter from board chair Alex Johnstone and education director Manny Figueiredo.

The deaths of George Floyd and Regis Korchinski-Paquet remind us again of the ongoing, systemic injustice, inequality and violence that target Black communities.

The Hamilton and Toronto police unions called the board irresponsible for linking the May 27 death of Toronto woman Korchinski-Paquet  who fell 24 floors while officers were in her apartment  to anti-Black racism.

In a statement, Johnstone said the conversation will continue at a board meeting June 22 when an update on the boards Equity Action Plan is being presented.
The Opportunity Zones initiative is a powerful investment tool, and with the sudden economic downturn, it is the perfect tool to lead the economic recovery.

Specialty financial administrator NES Financial, a JTC Group Company (LON: JTC), announced today that it will host its next Opportunity Zones webinar, "Navigating a New Era in Opportunity Zones," with Rachel Reilly, Director of Impact Strategy at Economic Innovation Group, Chris Montgomery, Partner of Four Points Funding, Emilio Miguel, Regional Head of Americas Private Client Group at JTC, and Erik Hayden, Founder of Urban Catalyst.

The informational webinar is scheduled for June 17 at 11 a.m. PT and will be moderated by Reid Thomas, Chief Revenue Officer and Managing Director at NES Financial. The event is free and open to public to attend.

The Opportunity Zones initiative is a powerful investment tool, and with the sudden economic downturn, it is the perfect tool to lead the economic recovery, said Thomas. There are hard-hit areas across the country in need of much-needed dollars, and our clients have Opportunity Zone Funds that can help solve the biggest challenges that this country faces in both rural and urban communities.

Opportunity Zones was enacted in 2017 and based on the bipartisan Investing in Opportunity Act, which was originally introduced in 2016 to help incentivize economic development and growth in communities previously overlooked by investors. The initiative has grown considerably, with recently released final Treasury regulations and multiple legislative proposals to provide more meaningful reporting.

In addition to discussing economic recovery and social impact, NES Financial will provide key industry insights. To RSVP and attend this webinar, please click here for more details or visit nesfinancial.com.

About NES Financial

NES Financial, a JTC Group Company, is a multi-jurisdictional provider of fund, corporate and private client services. The company administers more than $130 billion in assets and employs more than 900 people worldwide. A leader in specialty financial administration, NES Financial serves markets characterized by high administrative complexity, elevated transaction security needs and challenging compliance requirements.

As the North American division of JTC, NES Financial is the leading provider of third-party administrative solutions to US impact investment sectors, including Opportunity Zones and EB-5 visa funding, as well as to US private equity and 1031 exchanges. The companys technology-driven solutions streamline new best practices in these markets by simplifying specialized financial transactions, reducing back-office overhead, curtailing fraud and abuse, and ensuring security, transparency and regulatory compliance during each step of an investments life cycle.

For more information, visit nesfinancial.com.

About Economic Innovation Group

The Economic Innovation Group (EIG) is an ideas laboratory and advocacy organization whose mission is to advance solutions that empower entrepreneurs and investors to forge a more dynamic American economy. Headquartered in Washington, D.C. and led by an experienced, bipartisan team, EIG convenes leading experts from the public and private sectors, develops original policy research, and works to advance creative legislative proposals that will bring new jobs, investment, and economic growth to communities across the nation. For more information, visit eig.org.

About Urban Catalyst

Urban Catalyst Opportunity Fund I LLC (Urban Catalyst) is a nationally recognized real estate equity fund focused on ground-up development projects in downtown San Jose. In 2020, Forbes and the Sorenson Impact Center recognized Urban Catalyst as one of the top 10 Opportunity Zone Funds in the inaugural Forbes OZ 20. Learn more at urbancatalyst.com.

About Four Points Funding

Four Points Funding has made hundreds of real estate investments across Colorados emerging communities since 2013  well before Opportunity Zones existed. Our unique advantage is our knowledge and relationships throughout the Western Slope of Colorado, where the greatest long-term investment opportunity exists in our state. Our team strives to make Colorado a better place every day while being excellent stewards of our investors capital. For more information, please visit fourpointsfunding.com.
Madeleline McCann suspect Christian Brueckner hit and abused his 'naive' teenage girlfriend Nakscije Miftari and put her family through hell, her sister has revealed.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, elder sister Azra Miftari revealed that Nakscije, now 25, has been interviewed by German detectives about the convicted paedophile and is under the care of a social worker.

Azra recalled how Brueckner, who had an 18-month relationship with Nakscije in 2014, was repeatedly cruel: 'He hit my sister. It was horrible for her.'

The mother-of-two revealed how her then 17-year-old sister Nakscije ignored advice from her relatives not to get involved with Brueckner who is 20 years older.

Azra said the whole family now live in fear of being associated with Brueckner, who is angry at claims that he abducted Madeleine in Portugal in 2007.

It comes as Brueckner's lawyer Friedrich Fulscher told German broadcaster RTL that the serial sex offender will fight false statements made against him.

According to German politicians, Brueckner is now being held in solitary confinement in a high-security prison in north Germany for his own safety.

The revelations are likely to feed into a major row in Germany over whether Brueckner should be released from jail early - amid reports that he left jail in 2018 and was allowed to travel undisturbed in Europe for a month.

Madeleline McCann suspect Christian Brueckner hit and abused his 'naive' teenage girlfriend Nakscije Miftari and put her family through hell, her sister has revealed

Elder sister Azra Miftari revealed that Nakscije, now 25, has been interviewed by German detectives about the convicted paedophile and is under the care of a social worker

Speaking from her modest home near Braunschweig, Azra told MailOnline: 'The whole family had nothing to do with Brueckner.

'Only my sister Nakscije had anything to do with him. She was his girlfriend. But she was young and naive. We told her he was too older for her but she didn't care.

'I don't know Brueckner. I've never met him but I know that Brueckner hit my sister. It was a horrible for Nakscije. I know what he did to her.'

A former neighbour said: 'Brueckner was a violent brute. I saw him hit his young girlfriend in the kiosk. He smashed up the place and beat her with his fists.'

Azra revealed that German detectives have spoken to all members of her close-knit family, telling MailOnline: 'The police have spoken to Nakscije. The police have spoken to the whole of Miftari family.

'They have told Nakscije not to speak about Brueckner. They have told the whole Miftari family not to speak about Brueckner. There are a lot of people asking where Nakscije is and this situation is affecting the whole family.

Madeleline McCann suspect Christian Brueckner hit and abused his 'naive' teenage girlfriend Nakscije Miftari and put her family through hell, her sister has revealed

Brueckner, who is being held in Kiel, Germany, has now applied for early release after reaching the two thirds point of a drug dealing sentence on Sunday

Christian Brueckner's 17 CONVICTIONS Christian Brueckner, the new key suspect in the Madeleine McCann case Serial offender Christian Brueckner, the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, has a total 17 convictions for child sex abuse and rape, drug offences, theft and forgery. Brueckner's first burglary was in his home town of Wurzburg, Bavaria, in 1992, when he was 15. He was also given a two-year youth sentence in 1994 for sexually abusing a child when he was 17. After his 12 years in Portugal he was jailed for drug smuggling in northern Germany October 2011. In 2013 he abused another little girl and was caught with child porn, and was jailed for those offences in 2016. It was only in 2019 he was jailed for the rape in Praia da Luz after being found living on the streets in Milan. Advertisement

'But no one in the family has had anything to do with Brueckner apart from Nakscije,' she said, adding: 'We are poor but we are not criminals.'

Meanwhile, Mr Fulscher, who represents Brueckner, told RTL: 'Christian B. does not provide any information on the case at the moment and we ask for your understanding that we as defenders do not provide any information.'

Mr Fulscher angrily added: 'How can a person, who is isolated in a prison and whom half the world's population accuses of the worst crimes, be?'

Meanwhile, Interior Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Claus Christian Claussen said Brueckner has been moved to prevent attacks from other prisoners.

Mr Claussen said in a statement: 'CB [Christian Brueckner], who is a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, has moved into solitary confinement.

'We want to prevent him being attacked by other prisoners in Kiel Prison. He will only be allowed out of the cell accompanied by guards.

'He will be kept in the solitary confinement cell until further notice. The solitary confinement cells are in a separate wing of the prison.'

Brueckner is at the centre of a major row in Germany over whether he should be freed as it emerged that a judicial error meant he was released from prison in 2018 and allowed to travel undisturbed through Europe for weeks.

The serial sex offender, who has a total 17 convictions and is being held in solitary confinement in a high-security prison in north Germany allegedly for his own safety, has now applied for early release after reaching the two thirds point of a drug dealing sentence on Sunday.

He has not been charged over Madeleine's disappearance in 2007 and cannot be held for it. Prosecutors admitted they didn't have enough evidence to question him.

Brueckner was serving a prison sentence for sexually abusing a child in 2018.

Days before his expected release on August 31, German lawyers raced to keep him jailed by invoking a 21-month suspended sentence for drug dealing from 2011.

To impose this older sentence, prosecutors had to ask the judiciary in Portugal, who had extradited Brueckner to Germany in 2017, for their consent.

However, they had failed to mention the old verdict for drug dealing in their initial extradition request, meaning they could not punish him for the old offence.

German prosecutors are probably trying to find grounds to charge Brueckner with the Madeleine McCann case, Mark T Hofmann, a German crime analyst, said

Portuguese prosecutors lay out Christian Brueckner's criminal convictions Christian Brueckner was named as the chief suspect in the disappearance of Maddie McCann last week State prosecutors have confirmed Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has two convictions in Portugal. It was reported last week the 43-year-old had served two prison sentences in the country - one of two months in Evora Prison in 1999 for a minor offence and a nine-month jail term on the Algarve in 2006 for petrol theft which he completed shortly before Maddie disappeared. But Portuguese prosecutors have now taken the unusual step of publicly confirming his criminal record. Advertisement

According to local reports, German prosecutors made the approach to Portugal too late - and Brueckner walked free in September 2018.

On September 18, Brueckner travelled to The Netherlands before heading on to Italy. He was arrested by Italian authorities on September 27, 2018, meaning it had taken four weeks for Germany to obtain a European Arrest Warrant to arrest him.

German lawyers are now desperately trying to find grounds to charge him with the Maddie case to avoid a situation in which he could be freed again.

Brueckner has also been handed a seven year sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old widow in the Algarve in 2005.

He was prosecuted in Germany last year but appealed, arguing the trial was unfair because he had been extradited from Portugal in 2017 on a different matter.

Lawyers said he could only be prosecuted in Germany for the offence for which the European Arrest Warrant was issued. The case is being considered by the European Court of Justice. Under German law, sentences are not imposed until the appeal process is exhausted.

The Kiel Regional Court confirmed the public prosecutor's office had been asked to provide statements on his release and why they would oppose it. Brueckner has also given a statement.

A judge will rule on early release after interviewing the prisoner, taking into account their behaviour in prison and the crime they have been sentenced for. A spokesman for the court said this process usually took 'weeks not months'.

Brueckner's lawyer Jan-Christian Hochmann said yesterday: 'We have decided to give no comment for the time being.'
DMK MLA J Anbazhagan, a close confidante of party leader MK Stalin died at a hospital in Chennai on Wednesday (June 10) due to coronavirus COVID-19. He was 61. Unfortunately Anbazhagan's demise coincides with his 62nd birthday

He served as MLA thrice and was among the key strategists for DMK. Anbazhagan was first elected MLA in 2001.

On Tuesday, Dr Rela Hospital had declared the DMK MLA "very critical, saying his existing kidney disease pared his chances.

Anbazhagan was actively involved in MK Stalin's Ondrinaivom Va (Let's come together) initiative to provide relief materials to the people facing trouble due to coronavirus lockdown in Tamil Nadu.

Anbazhagan was admitted to hospital last week after he complained of severe acute respiratory distress. He was later tested positive for coronavirus. The DMK MLA was put on ventilator support on June 3 as his situation worsened.

Anbazhagan represented Chepauk-Triplicane constituency in the city and had undergone a liver transplant about 15 years ago.
Gold exploration could devastate Rapid City water supply

RAPID CITY  As tribal governments awaited federal consultation over proposed increases in large-scale gold prospecting on Rapid Creek upstream from here, the grassroots Black Hills Clean Water Alliance filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service for illegally withholding public information during the permitting process.

Rapid Creek, originally called Mniluzahan, is a main source of drinking water, irrigation, recreation, and spiritual renewal for residents of Rapid City and surrounding communities, and was named one of Americas Most Endangered Rivers ago on April 14, due to the threat of mining megaprojects posed by the prospecting permits.

Mining could devastate Rapid Creeks clean water, fish and wildlife and sacred cultural sites, Chris Williams, senior vice president for conservation at the national non-profit American Rivers said in announcing the designation.

Large-scale gold mining has no place in the Rapid Creek watershed. The U.S. Forest Service has an opportunity to protect Rapid Creeks irreplaceable resources by requiring a thorough landscape-scale analysis of the project. #MostEndangeredRivers https://t.co/Sf9JWweopf  American Rivers (@americanrivers) May 7, 2020

Adding that the designation is a call to action, he warned, The Forest Service must seriously consider these risks and listen to the tribal nations who have cared for the Black Hills since time immemorial.

The Clean Water Alliance submitted a formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Forest Service in December of 2018 on four Black Hills National Forest prospecting permits under consideration in the Rapid Creek Basin.

On this May 15, when the Forest Service had yet to release the information, the organization filed the lawsuit here in the Western Division of South Dakota U.S. District Court. The filing quotes FOIA and Forest service regulations requiring specific responses to such requests within 20 days.

The agency records have been withheld without justification and access denied through a variety of delaying tactics that prevent oversight and scrutiny, the suit alleges, stipulating that the information was unavailable during 2019 public comment periods.

Congress enacted the FOIA to ensure that the government remains open and accessible to the American people and is always based not upon the 'need to know' but upon the fundamental 'right to know, the complaint noted.

Lilias Jarding, founder of the Rapid-City based Clean Water Alliance, said the agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture are hiding information from the public, and noted, They are considering allowing gold exploration just upstream of Pactola Reservoir, which is Rapid Citys water supply. We have the legal right to know whats going on.

Permitting and initial project activities involving the watershed in the Forest Service Mystic Ranger District are taking place at the Jenny Gulch Project near Silver City proposed by F3 Gold and the Rochford Project adjacent to the tribal trust land of Pe Sla proposed by Mineral Mountain Resources, Ltd. of Canada.

Mining for gold poses a serious threat to our sacred water from Rapid Creek, said A. Gay Kingman, executive director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association. Our drinking water, our environment, our land and the health of hundreds of people are at stake.

Rapdi Creek, also known as Mniluzahan in the Lakota language, a main source of drinking water, irrigation, recreation, and spiritual renewal for residents of Rapid City and surrounding communities in South Dakota. Mniluzahan means fast water. Photo by Bruce Ellison / Courtesy American Rivers

Speaking at the American Rivers announcement, she said, Instead of polluting Rapid Creek, which connects to the Cheyenne River and the Missouri River, the longest river in America, we should be cleaning up our waters. We simply cannot allow greed and the quest for gold to endanger our water and our lives.

American Rivers added, Large-scale gold mining must be stopped from moving south into the Rapid Creek watershed, where it would threaten the Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation) homelands, treaty territory and present-day reservation lands and rural and ranching communities.

F3 Gold has nearly 2,500 mining claims and wants to explore above the inlet to Pactola Reservoir; its claims extend into the lake.

Did some math today. The Rapid Creek watershed, which supplies Rapid City and Ellsworth Air Force Base with water, ... Posted by Black Hills Clean Water Alliance on Monday, June 8, 2020

Mineral Mountain Resources has mining claims on over 7,500 acres and is drilling on private land near Pe Sla, a major cultural site of the Lakota people. The site is so important that the Lakota and Dakota tribes purchased a portion of Pe Sla in order to protect it, without regard to the fact that it was already their land under the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.

Water is our first medicine and we need to recognize freshwater, such as Rapid Creek, as the living entity that she is, said Lakota grandmother Carla Rae Marshall. Also speaking at the American Rivers announcement, she advocated, We must protect her as if our life and the lives of future generations of all species depend on it - because it does.

Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today

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Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, has threatened to initiate a punitive action against the District Chief Executive of Suaman, Christian Baah, and the District Police Commander, Theophilus Boateng over their alleged underhand dealings in illegal mining activities.

According to the Minister, it is hard to understand whether the DCE and the Police Commander are serving the interest of the State or the interest of illegal miners.

That, according to him, is because the DCE and the police commander conspicuously failed to ensure the protection of some nine excavators seized from illegal miners in the area.

The Minister told the press at an illegal mining site located at Tugakrom in the Suaman District on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, that, sometime in March this year, he led a team of 32 police officers and some security operatives to confiscate nine excavators from illegal miners in the area.

He said the excavators were placed in the custody of the DCE and the Police Commander for Suaman.

According to him, after some days, he returned to the area with some 10 soldiers.

Upon return, he stated, there were police officers with AK47 guarding the excavators.

However, he said major parts were missing on the excavators, making it impossible for them to transport them from Suaman.

He disclosed that at the material time of the seizures of the machines, they were all working.

Interestingly, when the Minister returned to Suaman on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, eight of the seized excavators were on illegal mining sites at Tugakrom.

Mr Asomah-Cheremah wondered how the excavators moved from the custody of the DCE and the Police Commander to the bush for illegal mining.

He says at the next national security meeting on June 17 or next cabinet meeting, he will raise the matter to President Nana Akufo-Addo for disciplinary action to be taken against the DCE and the police chief.

The minister expressed lack of trust in the DCE.

Mr Asomah-Cheremeh visibly upset upon realizing that about 100 acres of land at Tugakrom have been destroyed by the illegal miners who are believed to be Chinese.

Equipment Burnt

A number of mining equipment at some of the sites visited were burnt by national security operatives as the Minister vowed to crackdown on illegal activities in the sector.

He encouraged Ghanaians who are desirous of mining to apply for small scale license instead of conspiring with foreigners to engage in illegal activities.

---Daily Guide
WASHINGTON  The Republican National Committee is zeroing in on Jacksonville, Florida, as the new site for President Donald Trump to accept the party's nomination, according to two sources briefed on plans of RNC officials.

The RNC backed out of Charlotte, North Carolina, last week after Gov. Roy Cooper and Mayor Vi Lyles wouldn't commit to allowing a full convention amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Washington Post first reported that Republicans "tentatively settled" on Jacksonville, citing three unnamed Republican officials.

The Republican National Convention is scheduled for Aug. 24 to 27. Charlotte will still hold some of the business meetings, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said, but the committee is looking for another city for the "celebration."

Host city? Republicans close to decision on new host city for Trump acceptance speech

Donald Trump officially accepts the Republican presidential nomination on the final night of the Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, July 21, 2016.

In retreating from Charlotte, the RNC cited North Carolina's social distancing rule that prohibits gatherings of more than 10 people in a room. The law remains in effect during the state's phased approach to reopening. Republicans seek a "full convention"  one that would allow Trump to address an arena full of supporters like he did four years ago in Cleveland.

In contrast, Democrats, whose convention is set for Aug. 17 to 20 in Milwaukee, are entertaining a "virtual" convention that would limit the number of people visiting the city.

Republicans scrambled to find a replacement and looked at other cities, including Nashville; Oklahoma City; Dallas; Savannah, Georgia; Orlando, Florida; and Las Vegas for the event. RNC officials toured several locations and planned to tour others.

McDaniel called the Jacksonville news "premature" during an appearance on "The Hugh Hewitt Show" Wednesday, but she confirmed that the Florida city is the leader.

"Theres a couple more things we need to do before we can announce that, but Jacksonville is absolutely in the front-running position," McDaniel said.

Story continues

"Jacksonville is absolutely in the front-running position" for the convention at which President Donald Trump will accept his party's nomination, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel says.

Party officials also have a strong interest in Nashville, a source familiar with the RNC's search said, but they haven't gotten the needed cooperation from leaders to quickly organize the event.

Hurdles remain for Jacksonville, including an assurance of hotel capacity and a sign-off from Trump.

"That's obviously the biggest concern we have  hotels in any city," McDaniel said. "One, we need to lock them up before everybody starts jumping in and trying to get hotel rooms. We feel like they have a good allotment of hotel rooms. They're very inexpensive, which is good. They're going to be affordable. They're going to be a little further out if it ends up being there."

If chosen, Jacksonville would be the venue for Trump's acceptance speech and perhaps speeches by other top Republicans.

Im pretty sure that Jacksonville is the location," said state Sen. Joe Gruters, who chairs the Florida Republican Party, though stressing it's "not 100% confirmed."

He said McDaniel visited Jacksonville this week, along with other top party officials. You send the big dogs in to finalize it and say everything is OK, Gruters said.

Jacksonville rose to the top after the city's mayor, Republican Lenny Curry, lobbied publicly for the convention as Democratic mayors from other cities raised cost and public health concerns. Curry is the former chairman of the Florida Republican Party. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican ally of Trump, also pushed hard for the convention. Unlike some of the other states that were in the hunt, Florida is a swing state that could prove critical in the election.

Hotel rooms are a challenge for an event that could bring tens of thousands of visitors into Jacksonville. First Coast News reported some of the city's largest and most prominent hotels are "booked solid" during the convention dates, fueling more speculation about Jacksonville as the new location.

During the pandemic, Jacksonville is under an emergency order that limits businesses in how they can operate. Venues such as auditoriums, as well as bars and pubs, must operate at 50% capacity or below.

Duval County, where Jacksonville is located, has reported 1,824 confirmed coronavirus cases and 54 deaths related to the virus. The number of reported cases in Florida is on a slight uptick as testing has increased.

DeSantis press secretary Cody McCloud said the convention is an RNC event and the decision rests with it.

"Governor DeSantis has been pretty clear that Florida is open for business and we welcome the opportunity to host the Republican National Convention in August," McCloud said in a statement. "The governor has implemented a safe, smart, step-by-step approach to reopening the state and that effort is ongoing.

Tampa was the last Florida city to host a party convention, the Republicans in 2012.

Trump critics in Jacksonville slammed the possibility of their home hosting the event as rumors swirled Tuesday.

NO RNC! some chanted at a protest that Curry attended over the death of George Floyd.

Jacksonville NAACP Branch President Isaiah Rumlin warned that the RNC coming to Jacksonville would discredit the progress Currys administration made through his decision to remove a Confederate statue from a city park this week. Curry made the move before the protest.

Trump doesnt need to come to Jacksonville. We dont need him here, Rumlin said. Although the statues are gone, thats just symbolic. Racism is still going on.

Contributing: David Jackson, USA TODAY; Christopher Hong, Emily Bloch, Florida Times-Union; John Kennedy, Gannett Florida Capital Bureau

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Republican National Convention: Trump may accept nomination in Florida
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 19:11:52|Editor: huaxia

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TASHKENT, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Uzbekistan plans to achieve a 2 percent growth of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, a senior Uzbek official said Wednesday, as international financial organizations have forecasted a modest 1.5 percent growth for the country this year.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has instructed the government to achieve a 2 percent or more GDP growth this year to overcome the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Jamshid Kuchkarov.

"We were also tasked to increase industrial output by 3.5 percent and we plan to achieve it by resuming operation of the enterprises closed during the quarantine, providing them with working capital and reviewing the (credit) rates," Kuchkarov said in a televised interview.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank said earlier that Uzbekistan's GDP growth was projected at 1.5 percent in 2020, despite the global economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

So far, Uzbekistan has registered 4,547 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 18 deaths and 3,475 recoveries. Enditem
But while Harris is championed by Democratic officeholders and leaders, who see her as appealing to suburban and centrist voters, many of the activists who have helped energize the street protests warn that party figures are missing the mood of the moment. As a traditional politician and former prosecutor, they say, Harris would fail to capture the passions that are powering the protests, and her selection could dampen the excitement that is crucial to the Democrats in November.
(CNN)  Sweden has ended a 34-year investigation into the unsolved murder of the country's then-Prime Minister Olof Palme, saying the chief suspect is dead.

Palme was gunned down as he took a late-night walk after visiting a cinema in central Stockholm with his wife, Lisbet, on February 28, 1986.

The mystery over the murder of the Social Democratic leader has gripped Sweden for three decades, prompting much speculation over the assassin and their motive, as well as producing multiple conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, investigators have interviewed more than 10,000 people, and 134 possible suspects have confessed to the murder.

Sweden's Chief Prosecutor Krister Petersson told a news conference in the country's capital on Wednesday that he believed the lone perpetrator to be a man named Stig Engstrom but could do nothing more to prove it.

"As the person is deceased, I cannot bring charges against him and have decided to discontinue the investigation. In my opinion, Stig Engstrom is the prime suspect," he said.

"My assessment is that, after over 34 years, it is difficult to believe that any further investigation would provide us with any new details and therefore I believe we have come as far as one could expect."

Suspicion focuses on one man, whom investigators "cannot get around," he said. Engstrom, also known as "Skandia man" after the insurance company where he worked, died in 2000.

"To a large extent, we have been at the mercy of the police investigative work that was performed closer to the time of the crime," said Petersson.

"All in all, there are a number of circumstances that point to Engstrom. Had the current Palme investigation group been in charge 34 years ago, Engstrom would have been remanded in custody had he been unable to provide satisfactory explanations for his movements and actions. My assessment is that there would have been sufficient evidence to have him detained in custody."

False confessions, conspiracy theories

Speaking alongside Petterson, Hans Melander, head of the investigation, outlined the scale of the inquiry.

"It is by far Sweden's largest criminal investigation and is sometimes compared with the murder of JFK and [the] Lockerbie bombing. It has been ongoing since 1986 and contains 22,430 different points of interest," he said.

"Ninety-thousand people are included in the preliminary investigation, of which 40,000 are named. More than 10,000 people have been interviewed, many of them several times. More than 4,000 vehicles were investigated. And 134 people have confessed to committing the murder, including 29 directly to the police."

Analysis of the two bullets found at the scene -- one of which killed the Prime Minister, while the other injured his wife -- was carried out by laboratories in Sweden and Germany as well as by the FBI in the United States, he said.

But few traces were left on the .357 Magnum caliber metal-piercing bullets and it would be impossible now, given the passage of time, to match them to a specific weapon, Melander said.

Conspiracy theories abounded after the death of Palme, who was a prominent left-wing figure on the global scene.

One involved the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, said Melander, as that group had committed a couple of murders in Sweden at the time. About 20 people were taken in for questioning but they were released due to a lack of evidence.

Others speculated that South Africa's apartheid regime may have played a role, motivated by Palme's opposition to apartheid and support for the African National Congress.

This was "quite an interesting lead due to quite specific motives," said Melander, but unfortunately there was "no specific information" to take inquiries forward.

"We have spent a lot of time trying to map other groups, persons and events in the time prior to the assassination trying to find traces of a conspiracy ... but we haven't been able to find any support for the conspiracy theory," Petersson said.

Nonetheless, he added, "it couldn't be rejected completely that he [Engstrom] was part of a larger conspiracy."

Engstrom emerged as the main suspect in 2017 after the investigating team, which had recruited new members, reviewed all the evidence and found discrepancies between his statements and those of other witnesses, said Melander.

The 52-year-old wasn't a focal point of the investigation at the time, Petersson said, but a closer look at his background revealed that he was used to weapons, having served in the military, and belonged to a shooting club.

He was also considered by those in his circle to be "very critical of the Prime Minister" and his policies, Petersson said.

Engstrom told investigators he had been working late at his office in Sveavagen, the street where the assassination occurred, on the evening in question. But what he wore fitted the description of the killer given by some witnesses and his version of events did not quite stack up.

"How he acted was how we believe the murderer would have acted," Petersson said.

Conviction thrown out

At the time of the killing, many newspapers criticized authorities for bungling the investigation by not setting up roadblocks immediately and slowly cordoning off the scene. Two cabinet ministers, the national police force chief and the head of the national police intelligence agency were all forced to step down as the probe developed.

Convicted murderer, petty thief and drug addict Christer Pettersson -- no relation to the chief prosecutor -- was initially convicted of Palme's murder in 1988, in part due to testimony from the Prime Minister's wife, who witnessed the killing.

Pettersson was serving a life sentence for Palme's death when his conviction was thrown out in an appeals court in 1989 due to insufficient evidence. He died in 2004.

The discovery of a handgun in a central Stockholm lake in 2006 brought hopes of new developments in the inquiry but the case remained unsolved.

Krister Petersson, who is one of Sweden's most distinguished prosecutors, specializing in organized crime, was brought in to oversee the investigation in 2016. He has been involved in a number of high-profile cases during his career including the 2003 murder of Anna Lindh, the then-foreign minister.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Sweden closes 30-year murder mystery over killing of PM Olof Palme"
JACKSON, MI  Mailmen everywhere silently deliver to Americans everyday. Joshua Davis has done it since 1994.

This year, Davis son graduated from Western High School and had an unsatisfying end high school due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Davis watched his son struggling and knew many others like him felt a loss in how their final year ended, too.
Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by subscribing or contributing today.
Hsu Kun-yuan jumped from his 17th floor flat a couple of hours after Han Kuo-yu was recalled by a popular vote. There are doubts about any link between the two events. Han is the first Taiwanese mayor to lose his job before the end of his mandate. Experts blame his pro-Beijing stance.

Kaohsiung (AsiaNews)  Kaohsiung City Council Speaker Hsu Kun-yuan, a strong supporter of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, jumped to his death from his 17th floor flat on Saturday, a couple of hours after the city voted to recall the mayor.

Both Hsu and Han are members of the pro-Beijing Kuomintang (nationalist) party, now in opposition at the national level.

The police are investigating the incident but it is not yet clear whether the tragedy is linked to Hans recall.

After Han lost the recall vote, on Saturday Hsu said he respected the decision by Kaohsiung voters but said it was "regrettable" that they had lost a mayor who was dedicated to the city's improvement.

Following Hsu's death, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called on all political parties to exercise restraint, and to work towards national reconciliation. Earlier, Han had accused Tsai of orchestrating a defamatory campaign to remove him from office.

Han is the first mayor in Taiwans history to lose his job before the end of his term. More than 939,000 voters (97.4 per cent) voted in favour of his recall. He was first elected in Kaoshiung in late 2018. Until then, the city had been a stronghold of Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party.

The recall began on the initiative of WeCare, a pro-independence group. Han is accused of not keeping his promise to develop and improve the city.

Many residents have not even forgiven him for the decision to take time off as mayor to challenge Tsai in the presidential election, which he lost in January.

According to various observers, Hans fall is really due to the widespread grassroot opposition to the reunification of Taiwan with China, which the now former mayor of Kaohsiung supported.

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province, and has repeatedly threatened to take it by force.
PHOENIX  Three weeks after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey lifted his stay-at-home order, the state has seen a big spike in the number of coronavirus cases.

With nearly 1,100 dead and hospitalizations spiking rapidly, lawmakers and medical professionals are warning there might not be enough emergency room beds to handle what could be a big influx of new cases.

More than 1,500 new cases were reported along with 25 new deaths in the past 24 hours, officials said.

While Ducey has insisted this is not a crisis situation and suggested the rise in the number of cases is due to an increase in testing, critics say otherwise and accuse the Republican governor of setting a bad example by not wearing a mask while out in public.

They say that Arizona residents, who initially took the coronavirus threat seriously, have grown lax about social distancing and face coverings, and that the result is a rise in new cases.

Image: Doug Ducey (Ross D. Franklin / Pool via AP file)

Arizona is not ready for this, said State Rep. Kelli Butler, the Democrats ranking member of the states House Health Committee. Our hospitals are sounding the alarm. Were hearing that the hospitals lack the ICU capacity needed to deal with this and key equipment needed to treat people.

Marcy Flanagan, director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, echoed Butlers concern during a press conference last week.

Were starting to see some indicators that the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing in Maricopa County and we have enough information to know these increases are not due to just an increase in testing that is occurring, said Flanagan, whose county includes Phoenix, the fifth most populous city in the country.

During a June 4 press conference, Ducey was asked why Arizona was not making changes as the coronavirus case numbers were rising in the state.

"We are not in a crisis situation, he said. If that were to happen, we have available field hospital capacity ... if something were to go in a dramatically elevated position, we'd be prepared in Arizona."

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Image: Donna Ferraro cuts and styles Jan Campbell?s hair at Passions Salon during the phased reopening from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions, in Cave Creek (Nicole Neri / Reuters file)

Ducey's spokesman, Patrick Ptak, said Wednesday they had been anticipating "increased cases in June based on various modeling."

Alternate care sites are ready for activation if and when we need additional capacity, something that is not necessary at this time," he said. "We've continued to focus on protecting our most vulnerable, including those in nursing homes and long-term care settings.

Ptak also noted that they've doubled the testing capacity. The result, he said, is "there will continue to be an increase in cases."

Three days ago, though, state Department of Health Director Dr. Cara Christ sent out a letter telling hospitals to prepare for crisis care and to suspend elective surgeries if they start running short of beds. She cited an executive order from Ducey that calls for adding hospital beds first by 25 percent, then by 50 percent.

To date, some 500 patients have already been transferred out of hospitals likeliest to see the biggest influx of coronavirus patients and the state has set up a surge line to help balance the patient load at hospitals around the state, state Health Department spokesman Chris Minnick said.

Already, 11 Arizona hospitals have hit ICU capacity, Ann-Marie Alameddin, the president of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, said.

Three weeks ago, the stay-at-home order was lifted and since then, if you look at the streets of Arizona, people are conducting themselves as business-as-usual at times, she said. They are not taking the precautions that we are, being socially distanced, wearing masks, making sure they are staying at home when they are sick.

The result?

Correspondingly, weve seen an increase in cases, Alameddin said. We are concerned that this will be an increasing trend in the wrong direction, so we need to make sure Arizonans are doing everything that they can to stop the spread and really mitigate whats going on in our communities.

Arizona can do it, she added.

We flattened the curve and we can do it again, she said.

Meanwhile, Banner Health, the states largest hospital provider, has quadrupled its ventilator use for COVID-19 patients since the state ended its stay-at-home policy May 15.

The rise in coronavirus cases comes as thousands of Arizonans shed their COVID-19 concerns and took part in massive George Floyd protests against police violence where there was virtually no social distancing.

But even before that, Arizona residents had largely abandoned their masks and stopped social distancing, setting the stage for a resurgence of the deadly virus.

Everywhere you go, people are not wearing masks, not social distancing, Butler said. Over Memorial Day, we saw packed bars, packed resorts. People were not taking this seriously.

And neither is the governor, she added.

His social media is full of pictures of him meeting people without masks, without social distancing, Butler said. I do think that message has to come from the top. And its not.

Vaughn Hillyard reported from Phoenix and Corky Siemaszko reported from New Jersey.
Elizabeth Anderson is the kind of person who goes out of her way to help people in need.

Old folks stuck at home? Shell clean their bathrooms and vacuum their carpets. Neighbors with hungry kids? Shell share what she has left in her kitchen. A woman standing at a bus stop with small children late at night? Shell offer them a place to stay.

Now the 57-year-old Charleston, South Carolina, resident needs help herself. When the spread of coronavirus shut down her bed-and-breakfast cleaning business in March, she lost her income and was unable to pay the rent on her house. That put Anderson among thousands of Americans staring at the abyss of homelessness as states begin to lift moratoriums on evictions that have been in place since the start of the pandemic three months ago.

Twenty-four states are processing evictions again, and that number is likely to climb to at least 30 states by the end of June.

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Not all renters in those jurisdictions are vulnerable. Nearly 30% continue to be protected by a federal moratorium under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act that will remain in place until July 25. The rest  like Anderson  live in properties that are either not subsidized by the federal government or are owned by landlords with loans that are not federally backed.

For these unprotected renters, the threat of eviction is very real  especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Tens of millions of workers are unemployed, and the economy is likely to remain shaky until theres a vaccine and consumers feel safe enough to travel, dine out and go to theme parks and movies again. Homelessness could come at any time.

Communities of color face disproportionate risk.

Back rent is coming due, and renters are no more able to pay it now than they were at the beginning of the crisis, said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which advocates for affordable housing. We are very concerned about a wave of evictions and a spike in homelessness unless theres some sort of federal intervention.

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Yentel points to the HEROES Act, which calls for $100 billion in emergency rental assistance, as the best solution, saying the money is needed to keep people in their homes and to keep landlords from losing their investments. The $3 trillion bill, which passed the House of Representatives last month, is unlikely to win approval in the Republican-led Senate, and things could get a lot worse when the federal moratorium on evictions expires at the end of July.

Even before COVID, we were in the middle of a severe housing crisis, Yentel said. We had 8 million of our lowest-income renter households spending at least half of their income on rent. And when you have such limited income to begin with, youre always one financial emergency away from not being able to pay.

COVID is that emergency, she said.

'I know he has a plan for me'

Coronavirus was certainly that emergency for Anderson.

"I have an app that does my scheduling and it just went crazy  unbooking all my assignments due to COVID on March 17, Anderson said.

Elizabeth Anderson could lose her house in Charleston, S.C., to foreclosure.

Consistently able to generate about $500 a week from her cleaning business, Anderson made more than enough before the crisis to cover $975 a month in rent for the three-bedroom ranch house she lives in with her 29-year-old son, her granddaughter, her niece and grandniece, who were evicted from their own home a short time earlier.

After the crisis hit, Anderson had only $600 in savings. She said she blew through it pretty quickly, adding that she never expected any relief from her landlord. He told her he understood about the pandemic but still wanted his money  and as soon as the moratorium lifted, he was going to file an eviction notice.

True to his word, he filed to evict May 15.

Contacted by USA TODAY, Marvin Fuzz said Anderson owes him four months' rent, and he can't afford to let her live there for free.

"I have a mortgage to pay, homeowners insurance and taxes," he said. "If I don't collect any money, the bank will own the house, and it won't let her live there for free either."

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Anderson said she has not been able to collect unemployment insurance because of glitches in South Carolina's system. She didn't receive a coronavirus relief check in spite of having applied.

The only way her family has been able to survive, Anderson said, is thanks to the generosity of food pantries and by the grace of God.

I know he has a plan for me, Anderson said. I pray every morning, every day. I pray for God to pull me out of this, to pull us all out of this, cause its not just about me."

One eviction every 7 minutes

Rental property experts said the eviction crisis  or the affordable housing crisis  has been going on for a lot longer than three months.

It dates back to the Ronald Reagan presidency in the 1980s, when the federal government slashed funding for public housing, according to Yentel. A slight surplus of affordable housing quickly turned into a deficit.

Then came the Great Recession of 2007-2009, when millions of homeowners defaulted on their home loans and moved into rentals. Throw in baby boomers downsizing from homes to apartments and millennials too burdened by student loans to make a purchase, and soon there were too many renters chasing too few rental properties coast to coast.

Since the 1960s, rental costs have spiked 61%, while the wages of renters have stagnated  increasing by only 5%, Yentel said. Renters pay a greater percentage of their income for shelter, putting them in an increasingly precarious position. They werent able to save for a rainy day.

Before the pandemic, there was one eviction every seven minutes  300,000 every month, said Alieza Durana, who studies evictions with Princeton Universitys Eviction Lab. There were more evictions annually than there were foreclosures at the height of the Great Recession.

Before the pandemic, there was one eviction every seven minutes  300,000 every month, says Alieza Durana with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.

The heaviest concentrations of evictions were in the South and the Rust Belt, Durana said. Virginia and the Carolinas  where Anderson lives  are among the hot spots. As migration increased rapidly, communities sought to block the construction of housing for lower-income neighbors in their back yards, which kept the stock of affordable housing from growing.

According to the Eviction Lab, South Carolina has the highest eviction rate in the country. The city of Charleston evicts more people each month than some states.

If you listen to the Chamber of Commerce, we have 55 people moving to the region every day, said Otha Meadows, president and CEO of the Charleston Trident Urban League. But those who go to work here every day  teachers, policemen, firemen  cant afford to live here because of the lack of affordable housing.

Meadows said his organization tries to save as many people as it can  including Anderson  from losing their homes. "But there are not a lot of options for people who cannot afford their rent," Meadows said.

Dakota Ewing, who used to make $18 an hour at a Charleston pain management company  more than double the minimum wage in South Carolina  said his income wasnt sufficient to cover expenses. He took a job in January with a trucking company, and he spends most of his time driving from one end of the country to the other, hauling everything from bottled water to beef.

The new job didnt save him when the pandemic hit.

Ewings employer had to shut down for a couple of weeks. He got behind on his bills, and his landlord was quick to evict in May. Ewing, 26, worked it out with a phone call. His realtor set up a payment plan. The eviction got dropped, as did the late fees.

But its crazy that they didnt even wait for the 30-day mark, Ewing said. It would be one thing if I was notorious for not paying on time, but Ive never been late in my life.

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The solution to the eviction crisis, Ewing said, is to raise the minimum wage in South Carolina. It might have been enough 15 years ago, but it's not nearly enough today.

And don't be so quick to kick people out of their homes, he said. "People are going through a lot right now. It shouldn't be that we're making it harder on them."

Hardest hit by COVID-19

There's some disagreement among rental property experts about how many people might be evicted as states lift their moratoriums and how many will have to live in the streets.

Andrew Rybczynski, managing consultant with Costar Group, a commercial real estate research and analytics firm based in Washington, said there will be a spike in evictions, but it might not be as large as some people expect because a lot of renters are in good shape thanks to government pandemic aid  the additional $600 in unemployment benefits and the $1,200 relief checks.

A survey by the National Multifamily Housing Council, which advocates on behalf of the apartment industry, shows 93% of renters are making full or partial payments.

Rybczynski said he does not expect a major increase in homelessness because  as in the Great Recession  people will move in together or move back with their parents.

That said, we do anticipate American households coming under strain toward the end of the year, Rybczynski said.

Rental property analysts agree that people at the lowest end of the economic spectrum  especially people of color  will suffer the most.

The groups most at risk before COVID and the ones being hardest hit by the crisis are minority groups, said Robert Pinnegar, president and CEO of the National Apartment Association, which represents owners of apartment buildings across the USA. From an economic recovery standpoint, many were working in hotels and restaurants that were closed and are just now starting to open, but they wont return to full employment for a long time.

Pinnegar said he keeps a special watch on apartments rented to the lowest-income tenants.

"The next round of stimulus will be critical to maintain their lifestyle and their ability to buy food," Pinnegar said. His organization advocates for the $100 billion in rental assistance in the HEROES Act languishing in Congress.

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Solomon Greene, a fellow at the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank that studies cities and neighborhoods, pointed to a survey involving 133,000 participants conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Greene said, About a quarter of black and Latino renters put off paying rent in May, compared with 14% of white renters. And while nearly half of black or Latino renters were nervous about paying rent in June, only a quarter of white renters expressed similar concern.

New Data Suggest COVID-19 is Widening Housing Disparities by Race and Income

A Pew Research Center survey revealed that Hispanics and blacks were more likely to have experienced or to have known someone who experienced job loss because of coronavirus than whites. Members of the two groups were far more likely than whites to report not having enough emergency funds to cover three months of expenses.

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Joel Roberts, chief executive of PATH, a Los Angeles organization that serves homeless populations in California, said minorities are far more likely to live in the streets. African Americans represent only 6.5% of the state population but 40% of those experiencing homelessness.

Joel Roberts, chief executive of PATH, an organization that assists people experiencing homelessness in 140 cities across California, says minorities are more likely to live in the streets.

Roberts said homelessness in America had been trending slowly downward before COVID-19. The total number of people living on the streets or in homeless shelters had dropped from 650,000 to 500,000 since the Great Recession. Roberts said the ranks are poised to swell.

With unemployment at around 15%, homelessness is predicted to increase by 250,000, Roberts said.

For many Americans, that outcome is unacceptable.

This is not a time to force people out of their homes, said Gina Chiala, executive director of the Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom, an organization that advocates on behalf of low-wage workers in Kansas City, Missouri. It will deepen their poverty. It will take them two years to get back to where they were when they had a house."

Its completely immoral, said Tara Raghuveer, housing campaign director and founder of KCTenants, a tenants rights group based in Kansas City.

If COVID clarified anything, its the complete immorality of homelessness, she said. There is just no reason it needs to continue in the United States  the richest country in history  in a time of pandemic, when a home is also what we need most to stay healthy.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: Eviction worries mount as moratoriums lifted
The House of Representatives on Wednesday assented to the $5.513 billion foreign loan request by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Senate approved the loan request last week.

This means all three loan requests by the president before the National Assembly have been passed by both Houses.

Last month, both Houses approved an 850 billion borrowing request made by the President, which is to be sourced from domestic markets to fund critical capital projects in the 2020 budget.

Another $22.7 billion foreign loan which was approved by the Senate in March was, last week, approved by the House of Representatives.

The newly assented $5.513 billion foreign loans are the latest of the string of loans eyed by the federal government.

Nigerias debt profile, as of September 30, 2019, was 26.2 trillion. Of this amount, total domestic debts is about 18 trillion, or 68.45 per cent. About 8 trillion are owed to foreign lenders.

Meanwhile, the green chamber also passed the 2020 revised budget, having raised it from the proposed N10.59 trillion to N10.8 trillion.

The House, on the urging of Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, also inserted an additional N4 billion which would cater for the welfare of resident doctors in the country, who have threatened to go on strike next week.

This addition ultimately increases the N10,801,544,664,642 budget sum recommended to the House by the finance and appropriation committees.

The House also retained the budget of the National Assembly at N128 billion as contained in the original 2020 budget passed last year as against the N115 billion contained in the revised budget.
The Treatment of High and Very high riSk dyslipidaemic pAtients for the PreveNTion of CardiOvasculaR Events in Europe a MultInatioNal ObservatIonal (SANTORINI) Study will enrol 8,000 patients from 800 sites in 14 countries across Europe

The multinational, prospective, observational study will assess the treatment and management of high- and very high-risk patients with hypercholesterolaemia requiring lipid-lowering therapies in a real-world setting

Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH (hereafter, 'Daiichi Sankyo') today announced that the first patients have been enrolled in a multinational, prospective, observational study that will assess, in a real-world setting, the effectiveness of current treatment and management of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in 8,000 patients with hypercholesterolaemia at high and very high risk of cardiovascular events. The study will recruit patients from approximately 800 sites in 14 countries across Europe.

"The evidence is clear that the lower the LDL-C level achieved, the lower the risk of cardiovascular events such as ischaemic heart attack and strokes, and this is reflected in the latest European Society of Cardiology guidelines," said Professor Alberico L. Catapano, Chairperson of the guidelines Task Force and Professor of Pharmacology at the Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan and Multimedica IRCCS, Italy. "The SANTORINI study will provide important insights into how patients are currently being managed and the effectiveness of the treatments they are receiving. This in turn will help us identify opportunities to improve care in clinical practice."

"During this unprecedented time many people are avoiding clinics and hospitals for fear of contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but this prevents them accessing important treatment for cardiovascular disease. Daiichi Sankyo has been working closely with SANTORINI trial sites to ensure we follow local recommendations to progress the study in the most effective and safest way possible," said Dr. Inaam Haq, Medical Affairs Director, Antithrombotic Cardiovascular at Daiichi Sankyo Europe. "Cardiovascular disease kills over four million people in Europe every year, and up to 80% of people taking statins do not reach target LDL-C levels, which means they are at increased risk of a heart attack or stroke. Daiichi Sankyo is committed to addressing this human and economic burden and ensuring the SANTORINI study is able to go ahead and provide us with key insights to support these patients."

Daiichi Sankyo Europe has exclusive commercialisation rights to bempedoic acid, which is being developed as a first-in-class, affordable, convenient, once-daily, oral therapy for people with hypercholesterolaemia who are unable to reach LDL-C goals after optimised oral lipid-lowering therapies and remain at high risk of a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke. Bempedoic acid and the bempedoic acid ezetimibe fixed dose combination (FDC) tablet was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February 2020 and by the European Commission in March 2020.

ENDS

About SANTORINI

The SANTORINI study is a multinational, prospective, observational study that will enrol 8,000 patients from 800 sites in 14 countries across Europe. The primary objective is to document, in the real-world setting, the effectiveness of current treatment modalities in managing plasma levels of LDL-C in high- and very high-risk patients requiring lipid-lowering therapies. The study population consists of high- and very high-risk patients previously diagnosed and treated as well as newly diagnosed and requiring treatment.

Only data from routine clinical practice will be documented and physicians will not be required to perform any mandatory assessment outside the routine clinical practice. To facilitate accurate recording of data, patients can optionally fill in a memory aid to note important details. Data collection is estimated to finish in Q4 of 2021 with a final report of the study results estimated for Q4 of 2022.

Bempedoic acid

With a targeted mechanism of action, bempedoic acid is a first-in-class, oral, once-daily ATP Citrate Lyase (ACL) inhibitor that reduces cholesterol synthesis in the liver and thereby lowers circulating LDL-C levels.1,2 It is intended for patients with hypercholesterolaemia and/or at high risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) who need additional LDL-C lowering despite maximally-tolerated statin therapy.

Bempedoic acid has a unique mechanism of action which is complementary, yet distinct from other lipid-lowering therapies, such as statins.3 Due to its liver-specific mechanism, bempedoic acid has a reduced potential to induce the muscle-related side effects commonly associated with statin therapy and provide additional LDL-C lowering on top of statin monotherapy in clinical trials.

Daiichi Sankyo Europe has licensed exclusive commercialisation rights to these products in the European Economic Area and Switzerland from Esperion.

About Daiichi Sankyo

Daiichi Sankyo Group is dedicated to the creation and supply of innovative pharmaceutical therapies to improve standards of care and address diversified, unmet medical needs of people globally by leveraging our world-class science and technology. With more than 100 years of scientific expertise and a presence in more than 20 countries, Daiichi Sankyo and its 15,000 employees around the world draw upon a rich legacy of innovation and a robust pipeline of promising new medicines to help people. In addition to a strong portfolio of medicines for cardiovascular diseases, under the Group's 2025 Vision to become a "Global Pharma Innovator with Competitive Advantage in Oncology," Daiichi Sankyo is primarily focused on providing novel therapies in oncology, as well as other research areas centred around rare diseases and immune disorders. For more information, please visit: www.daiichisankyo.com.

1 Ray KK, et al. Safety and Efficacy of Bempedoic Acid to Reduce LDL Cholesterol. N Engl J Med. 2019; 380:1022-32.

2 Ballantyne CM, et al. Efficacy and safety of bempedoic acid added to ezetimibe in statin-intolerant patients with hypercholesterolemia: A randomized, placebo-controlled study. Atherosclerosis.2018;277:195-203.

3 Laufs U, et al. Efficacy and Safety of Bempedoic Acid in Patients with Hypercholesterolemia and Statin Intolerance. J Am Heart Assoc. 2019;8(7): e011662.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005045/en/

Contacts:

Wolfgang Schiessl (Europe)

Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH

Communications Product PR Europe

+49 (89) 7808498
Since the declaration of a public health emergency related to COVID-19 in February 2020, there has been an overwhelming response by the pharmaceutical industry to develop products to treat or mitigate the effects of the virus. Unfortunately, there have also been bad actors who have preyed upon peoples fears and sold products that they claim will prevent COVID-19. The United States government has tried several tactics in response to these actors, including issuing Warning Letters, seeking temporary restraining orders, suing for damages, and bringing criminal charges.

Warning Letters

From March 6, 2020, through May 31, 2020, 70 Warning Letters have been issued in response to myriad unapproved products marketed for the treatment and/or prevention of COVID-19. Some of the claims that received warning letters include:

Essential Oils to Protect Against Coronavirus . . . There are a wide range of essential oils that have been clinically proven to possess antiviral properties. March 6, 2020, Warning Letter to Quinessence Aromatherapy LTD

Coronavirus (COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has no medical treatment. Natural antiviral herbs boost immunity & decrease virus virulence to achieve herd immunity. March 26, 2020, Warning Letter to Carahealth

Arsenicum album 30 could be taken as prophylactic medicine against Corona virus infections. April 1, 2020, Warning Letter to Homeomart Indibuy

Your Coronavirus Secret Weapon  Vitamin C . . .Vitamin C can be your secret weapon against the Coronavirus! . . . The Surgeon General and other U.S. health officials have told us that masks are not very effective against the virus . . . [t]he secret weapon that is not being talked about is Vitamin C (chemically Ascorbic Acid), the good old fashioned cold fighterI take Vitamin C daily and just reordered some to be sure I dont run out before Coronavirus season does!. . .Consider it cheap insurance May 19, 2020, Warning Letter to SpiceTac

Interestingly, there is a disproportionate number of Warning Letters issued to companies that have touted the healing powers of products such as toothpaste, colloidal mixtures, and essential oils, that contain silver.

Even though there are no vaccines available to combat these coronaviruses, there is a home remedy of Colloidal Silver 100 ppm that has worked effectively on coronaviruses successfully for the last 123 years. March 6, 2020, Warning Letter to Xephyr, LLC

[I]ts actually widely acknowledged in both science and the medical industry that ionic silver kills coronaviruses. And its now known that the Chinese are employing ionic silver in their fight against the spread of the coronavirus. March 6, 2020, Warning Letter to Colloidal Vitality LLC

Colloidal Silver in a Nebulizer, the type that is commonly prescribed by medical professionals for asthmatics and those with chronic lung problems . . . provides a real prevention regimen for a number of maladies  including the Corona Virus. April 1, 2020, Warning Letter to JRB Enter. Grp. Inc.

[T]he patented Nano Silver we have, the Pentagon has come out and documented, and homeland security have said this stuff kills the whole SARS corona family, at point blank range. Well of course it does, it kills every virus. April 9, 2020, Warning Letter to Free Speech Sys. LLC d/b/a Infowars.com

The Warning Letters require the companies to respond via email within 48 hours with specific steps they will take to address the concerns outlined in the letter. If the violations are not immediately corrected, further legal action is threatened.

Temporary Restraining Orders/Injections

In the case of particularly egregious cases, the FDA can take immediate legal action. In Utah, the FDA filed a Complaint against Gordon Pedersen and two of his companies, for their alleged fraudulent promotion of their silver products for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. According to the Complaint, Pedersen, through his companies, made claims that by having silver in your bloodstream, the virus would be ushered out of your body and that it has been proven that Alkaline Structured Silver will destroy all forms of viruses, it will protect people from the Coronavirus.

The FDA also filed an ex-parte motion seeking a temporary restraining order, at least partially based on the fact that Pedersen had been fired in 2011 for making unsubstantiated promotional claims and had been ordered to stop holding himself out as a naturopathic doctor.

Criminal Charges

Then, theres the case of Richard Marshall, a naturopathic physician who was selling $140 products that could stop coronavirus. On April 30, 2020, Marshall was charged with introducing a misbranded drug into interstate commerce. Marshall has twice been convicted on distributing misbranded drugs.

More to Come?

Unfortunately, there are often people who try to take advantage of unfortunate situations. It is likely that the FDA and FTC will continue to take action against those trying to take advantage of others as we continue to make progress against the COVID-19 virus.
T he crisis besetting aviation amid the coronavirus pandemic could result in up to 124,000 jobs in the industry being lost unless the Government offers help to stem the flow of cuts, a new report has warned.

At least 70,000 of the jobs deemed to be at risk in the industry and its supply chains could be lost over the next two to three months, according to the analysis from the New Economics Foundation, the TUC, aviation unions and climate action charity Possible.

Such a sweep of cuts would match the losses experienced by the coal industry in 1980 and 1981, their report said.

Of the 70,000 jobs immediately at risk, 39,000 are in aviation, while the remaining number are likely to be lost in the supply chain, although the figures are unlikely to reflect the full extent of job losses which could unfold by the end of the financial year, it warned.

Employment in the aviation sector is unlikely to return to pre-crisis levels because of automation, the need to reduce carbon emissions, technological development and service cutbacks, said the report.

Amid mounting concern over the aviation industry's future, the report also urged ministers to transform the Government's furlough scheme into a retraining programme in order to assist people in moving into other sectors.

Alex Chapman, of the New Economics Foundation, said: The aviation industry faces job losses on a par with the worst years of the UK coal industry decline in the 1980s.

We must take lessons from that period, and the financial crisis in 07/08 and do a better job of protecting the wellbeing of workers and communities.

There are rock solid social and economic reasons for preventing the spike in unemployment which is being threatened by aviation bosses, and instead investing heavily in retraining and upskilling aviation workers to prepare them for a new normal, and the rapid decarbonisation of the UK economy.

Heathrow Boss says quarantine will "kill" aviation

The report - which came after the Government rolled out new rules requiring all people arriving in the UK to self-isolate for 14 days from the beginning of this week - also called on the aviation industry to negotiate redundancy limits with trade unions.

It argued any Government bailouts should have tough conditions attached in order to force the suspension of excessive executive pay and shareholder dividends, as well as push firms into investing into greener technology.

Frances OGrady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said: Aviation is a critical part of our economic infrastructure and it supports tens of thousands of good jobs.

The sector has already been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of the quarantine period is a further blow.

We cannot consign these workers to the despair of unemployment.

Aviation needs immediate support and not just to protect the incomes of billionaire airline owners.

Government must act now to protect workers jobs and livelihoods, to support the longer-term viability of the sector and to facilitate a just transition to lower-carbon operations.

Rolls-Royce to cut at least 9,000 jobs amid aviation crisis

Alethea Warrington, campaigner at Possible, added: At this time of crisis, we need to protect what really matters, people and the planet, not corporate profits.

The terrible impacts of Covid-19 show that we need to change course to avoid worsening the storms of tomorrow.

Airlines and airports must not be allowed to use public money to jeopardise the UKs targets to avoid catastrophic levels of damage to the climate.
- A Gombe state university (GSU) student identified as @Ayyub99 on Twitter has made a great invention

- The young man, said to be in the geology department of GSU built and invented a turbine machine which can generate electricity

- According to the inventor, the machine runs on water, making it economy friendly

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A Gombe state university (GSU) student identified as @Ayyub99 on Twitter has joined the league of extraordinary students after building and inventing a turbine engine which generates electricity.

Photos of the talented young man said to be the in the geology department of GSU were shared on Twitter through the school's social media page, identifying him as a super talented student, who against all odds has created something worth accolades.

Ayyub99 made a public presentation of his machine.at the Climate Hub Northeast held recently in Gombe. The engine is said to run on water, making it economy friendly.

Here are photos below:

The proud young man who has appreciated people who are talking about his invention also shared a clip of him making a presentation of how the machine works.

Some social media users have advised that the government empower students like Ayyub99, who without any engineering certification have managed to create remarkable machines that can generate electricity.

It is no news that Nigeria suffers a huge deficit as far as electricity is concerned.s

Just recently, YEN.com.gh reported that Asare Bright, 18, a young Ghanaian creatives passion for electronics is rapidly gaining him attention after manufacturing moving cars from discarded objects including scraps.

With no formal education in engineering or any related course, Bright has constructed moving AB Yutong and VVIP buses and a remake of Kantankas luxury open-top Bugatti.

From Berekum Kato in the Brong Ahafo in Ghana, the young creative is using his rare talent to manufacture cars and other electronic gadgets.

He taught himself how to manufacture these stunning electronics and single-handedly builds his moving cars using scraps and plastics.

Ghanaian female accounting graduate and mushroom farmer recounts her experience | #Yencomgh

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Source: YEN.com.gh
China on Wednesday refused to give details about the disengagement of border troops of the two countries along the line of actual control (LAC) in Ladakh but said both sides were trying to ease the situation following dialogue between diplomats and military officers.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks in the backdrop of reports in Indian media, which said that the armies of India and China had undertaken a limited disengagement in eastern Ladakh to demonstrate intent to end the month-long border standoff ahead of another round of military talks on Wednesday.

Asked about the reports of the troops on both sides disengaging and moving back to their previous positions, Hua only said at the regular ministry briefing that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.

Also Watch | India-China tension: Defence minister Rajnath Singhs first message on tussle

She did not specifically refer to the military talks that India and China held on Saturday to resolve the problem

Recently the diplomatic and military channels of China and India held effective communication on the situation along the border and reached positive consensus, she said.

Also read | India, China disengage in three sectors at LAC

The two sides are following this consensus to take actions to ease the situation along the borders, Hua added.

Last week, the Chinese foreign ministry had said the situation along the border was stable and controllable.

Anonymous sources in New Delhi have told the media that the two armies have begun disengagement around patrolling points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and another in the Hot Spring area, adding the Chinese side has even moved back up to 1.5 km in two areas.

The trigger for the latest round of standoff was Chinas opposition to India laying a key road near the Pangong Tso Lake besides constructing another road connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley.

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BAD HOMBURG, Germany, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MYR Pharmaceuticals, a German biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of therapeutics for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B and D, is pleased to announce the establishment of its wholly owned subsidiary MYR Pharmaceuticals France SAS, located in Paris (France).

Today, around 15-20 million people worldwide are chronically infected with the hepatitis D virus for whom no approved therapies are available. The company's lead compound Hepcludex (international nonproprietary name/INN = bulevirtide, formally known as Myrcludex B) is a first-in-class entry inhibitor for the treatment of chronic HBV and HDV infection. The technology was originally developed at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and INSERM (France). For MYR Pharmaceuticals, the creation of its first European subsidiary represents its commitment to help the French patients suffering from HBV/HDV coinfection.

"We are very pleased to announce the foundation of our French subsidiary. The subsidiary builds the backbone for providing the innovative therapy to patients in need. We are thankful for the support from authorities, regulatory bodies, physicians, patient organizations and all members of the professional medical community in France and look forward to continuing our collaboration," commented Florian Vogel, Chief Commercial Officer at MYR Pharmaceuticals.

About Hepcludex (INN = bulevirtide)

Hepcludex represents the most clinically advanced novel approach for the treatment of hepatitis B and D, and is currently in a Phase 3 study in the indication of chronic HDV. The drug inhibits the NTCP receptor on the hepatocyte surface and prevents the infection of healthy cells and viral spreading within the liver. Hepcludex has received Orphan Drug Designation for treatment of HDV infection from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). In addition, the EMA has granted PRIority MEdicines (PRIME) scheme eligibility.

The positive opinion of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of EMA regarding the Conditional Marketing Authorization (CMA) was published May 29th 2020.

About MYR Pharmaceuticals

MYR Pharmaceuticals is headquartered in Bad Homburg (Germany). The company started operations in 2011 and is supported by venture capital investors such as the High-Tech-Grunderfonds and Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund. More information available at http://myr-pharma.com/.

Contact Details

Thomas Christely, CFO

Phone: +49 (0)6172-4959811

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE MYR Pharmaceuticals

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The coronavirus lockdown has pushed Indias farmers in debt and has broken the supply chain, Congress MP and senior leader Shashi Tharoor said on Wednesday. Taking to Twitter, Tharoor said that the farmers condition is worsening due to the unplanned lockdown.

The condition of our farmers is worsening thanks to the unplanned #lockdown & completely broken supply chain. Last harvest didnt yield good monetary value since farmers unable to sell, Tharoors tweet read.

The minister also added that the economic packages provided by the government have given nothing to the farmers. They need help! he posted.

Also read: Covid-19: Number of recoveries exceed active cases for first time

The condition of our farmers is worsening thanks to the unplanned #lockdown & completely broken supply chain. Last harvest didn't yield good monetary value since farmers unable to sell. They are heavily in debt &Govt's package provides them nothing. They need help! #__  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 10, 2020

Tharoor called for the elimination of the middlemen who he said are profiting at the expense of our sweat-stained farmers.

Why should they buy the farm products and exploit both growers and consumers? he questioned.

The Congress leader said that the Food Corporation of India should purchase directly from farmers. The move will give the aam aadmi cheaper food if parasitical middlemen are eliminated! he said. Tharoors comments came on the sidelines of the Kisan Congress Kisan Ke Bol social media campaign to raise the voice of the farmers.

Last month, while announcing the details of Rs 20 lakh crore economic relief package, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman focussed on funding big-ticket reforms in the agricultural sector.

The government recently amended the Essential Commodities Act to enable better price realisation for farmers, resulting in deregulation of prices for foodstuffs including cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onions and potatoes.

Farmers can now export or store these commodities as they wish. These are our farmers demands pending for nearly 50 years now, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said while making the announcement earlier this month.

As a result of this, farmers will get good returns, the minister said, adding that farmers will now be able to sell their produce anywhere and to the highest paying party.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Dr. Conrado Bobby Gempesaw, the first lay president in the history of St. Johns University -- which has a campus on Grymes Hill -- announced Wednesday that he will retire from the position in June 2021.

Gempesaw -- who has served as the universitys 17th president since 2014 -- will retire next year, concluding a 36-year career in academia, according to a news release. An immigrant from the Philippines, he has led one of the nations largest, private and Catholic universities in the United States.

It has been the privilege of my life to serve as president of St. Johns University, and this decision was a difficult one, reached after much reflection and prayer," said Gempesaw. I am very grateful to have spent the past six years working with the St. Johns family -- including our dedicated faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, board of trustees and board of governors -- in advancing the universitys mission of providing a quality and affordable education for our students and serving those most in need.

From the beginning of his presidency, Gempesaw enlisted the participation of representatives from various sectors of the university community to develop four strategic priorities to ensure student success. Those priorities include: improving recruitment, retention, graduation and career placement rates; hiring outstanding faculty, administrators and staff; enhancing the teaching and learning environment; expanding domestic and global partnerships.

On behalf of the board of trustees, I extend my deepest appreciation to Dr. Gempesaw and his wife, Clavel, for all they do, and have done for St. Johns, said William J. Janetschek, board chair.

Janetschek added that Gempesaw has led St. Johns response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak over the last several months -- ensuring the health and safety of students, faculty, administrators and staff. The campus was closed and moved students to remote learning in early March, before extending the closure through the end of the spring semester.

Most recently, Gempesaw reaffirmed the Catholic and Vincentian values of St. Johns -- condemning all forms of racism, violence, intolerance, hate and bigotry.

Since becoming president in 2014, Dr. Gempesaw has led the universitys unwavering commitment to student success, academic excellence and living out its mission, said Janetschek.

According to the news release, St. Johns has seen impressive growth since 2014.

After five years of steady growth in incoming freshman classes, a record total enrollment was achieved last year. First-year retention rates have also increased in the last five years, according to the release.

The six-year graduation rates for the May 2019 and May 2020 graduating classes are at their highest in the last 15 years, while the four-year graduation rates for May 2019 and May 2020 graduating classes are at their highest in the last 30 years. Career placement of graduates has averaged 94% during the last four years, based on data from student survey responses.

To support access to affordable education, St. Johns provided close to $275 million in direct financial aid to students during the 2019-2020 school year -- among the largest amounts of institutional aid provided by a private college or university in the United States, according to the news release.

St. Johns is searching for its 18th president. Details about the national search process, which will include outreach to faculty, students, employees and alumni, will be announced in the near future.

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(Newser)  Two men who believe they were switched at birth nearly 80 years ago are suing a Roman Catholic diocese in West Virginia, alleging negligence and breach of duty by the hospital where they were born. John William Carr III and Jackie Lee Spencer were born Aug. 29, 1942, at St. Joseph Hospital in Buckhannon, reports the AP. The lawsuit filed Friday in Monongalia County Circuit Court against the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston says staffers at the diocese-run hospital sent them home with the wrong families, the Dominion Post reported. The switch was discovered last year when DNA tests showed Carr and Spencer had no genetic matches with the families that raised them but did match the other's family, the men say in their lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

story continues below

Spencer spent more than 50 years searching for the man listed on his birth certificate as his father, he says in the lawsuit. He had been told the man abandoned his mother prior to his birth. After finding relatives of the man, Spencer took a DNA test to see if he was related and discovered he was not, triggering the series of events that led to the men uncovering the alleged mix-up. Carr, Spencer, and their families have suffered a "lifetime of consequences" from the switch, they say in the lawsuit. Spencer, now in his twilight years, never got to know many of his family members. "He feels as though most of his family died all at once. He grieves for the loss of the life he was supposed to have, while reconciling those feeling with the love and gratitude he feels for the family he has known his whole life," reads the suit. Carr said he looks different from the family that raised him and always felt out of place.

(Read more switched at birth stories.)
Megyn Kelly rants about censorship

Syracuse native and Syracuse University alumna Megyn Kelly is ranting about censorship and political correctness in Hollywood after HBO Max temporarily pulled Gone with the Wind due to concerns about the classic films racist content. Are we going to pull all of the movies in which women are treated as sex objects too? Guess how many films well have left? Where does this end?? the former Fox News and NBC host wrote on Twitter Wednesday. Ok @hbomax- lets do this - every episode of Friends needs to go right now. If not, you hate women (& LGBTQ ppl, who also dont fare well on Friends). Obviously Game of Thrones has to go right now. Anything by John Hughes ... Woody Allen... could go on & on... & on...& on... Kelly, who was fired from the Today show in 2018 after defending the use of blackface as Halloween costumes, also suggested Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and Law & Order could be next to go after Cops was canceled by Paramount Network. For the record, you can loathe bad cops, racism, sexism, bias against the LGBTQ community, and not censor historical movies, books, music and art that dont portray those groups perfectly. Ppl understand art reflects life... as we evolve, so do our cultural touchstones, Kelly tweeted.

Are we going to pull all of the movies in which women are treated as sex objects too? Guess how many films well have left?Where does this end?? https://t.co/Bh8mqpv0l3  Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 10, 2020

For the record, Megyn Kelly has now expressed more shock and horror over a racist period film getting temporarily yanked in order to add a disclaimer than she has for an African-American man getting murdered in broad daylight by a white police officer. https://t.co/oBhLXzu4fE  Michael Ausiello (@MichaelAusiello) June 10, 2020

Vanderpump Rules stars fired for racism

Four cast members have been fired from Bravos Vanderpump Rules for over racist social media posts and claims they racially profiled a coworker. The network said Tuesday that Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni would not return to the reality show after season 8 ends next week. The Associated Press reports Stassi and Kristen reported a black coworker, Faith Stowers, for a crime she had nothing to do with, while Max and Brett used racial slurs in tweets that resurfaced earlier this year. Stassi and Kristen had been on the show since it debuted in 2013, following current and former employees of former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Vanderpumps Los Angeles restaurants.

Bravo and Evolution Media confirmed today that Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni will not be returning to Vanderpump Rules. https://t.co/7niPSG7THY  Bravo (@BravoTV) June 9, 2020

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Buzz is a daily roundup of entertainment news from movies, TV, music and celebrity gossip.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 13:37:31|Editor: huaxia

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SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Three militants were killed Wednesday in an ongoing fierce gunfight with government forces in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The gunfight broke out at village Sugan of Shopian district, about 62 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"A joint operation was launched in the early hours today on specific intelligence information suggesting the presence of militants," a police official posted in Shopian said. "No sooner the joint contingents approached the suspected area, it came under heavy fire triggering the gunfight."

Indian army spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia said three militants were killed in the stand-off.

"Joint operation was launched at 1:45 a.m. (local time) today. The firing started at 5:30 a.m. (local time) and so far three militants have been eliminated," Kalia said.

The identity of slain militants was being ascertained, police said.

Nine militants were killed in the district during two separate gunfights on Sunday and Monday.

According to police officials so far 88 militants were killed since the beginning of this year.

Militant groups opposing New Delhi's rule are engaged in a guerrilla war with Indian troops in the region since 1989. Gunfights between the two sides take place intermittently.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir. Enditem
Several advocacy groups presented their own recommendations to reform law enforcement practices in Minneapolis, a day after the majority of the City Council voiced support for abolishing the police department entirely in the wake of George Floyds death.

Minnesotas Council on American-Islamic Relations, two Black Lives Matter chapters and the Minneapolis nonprofit Communities United Against Police Brutality were among the groups that gathered the site of the burned Third Precinct station to present more than 40 recommendations.

Under the list of recommendations, officers would be required to carry their own professional liability insurance, an idea that aims to hike out-of-pocket insurance rates for officers who engage in high-risk conduct. Some of the worst offenders would become uninsurable and forbidden from working as a police officer.

The groups also are seeking an independent agency to investigate and prosecute critical incidents involving police; mandatory psychological testing for officers; and community participation in negotiating police union contracts. They would end so-called warrior training for officers and the use of no-knock warrants, while banning military equipment in community policing as well as neck restraints and chokeholds.

Were going to be out demanding that these politicians enact these common sense, evidence-based implementable solutions now, said Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. They have no further excuses.

The groups recommendations came a day after nine of the 12 members on the Minneapolis City Council said they back disbanding the department. The groups say abolishing one department without reforming police practices wont be enough.

The groups call on state lawmakers, city officials, prosecutors and the states police licensing board to institute the changes at varying levels of government to end police brutality.

Many of these recommendations are not new, the report read. Our organization has presented them many times over the years. Prior failures by leaders at the city, county and state level to adopt these evidence-based solutions are what brought us to this place.

It added: Every recommendation on this list is readily able to be implemented, the report added. All that is required is the will.

The groups list police-community relations, residency requirements and implicit bias training as methods that do not adequately address the issue of violence by law enforcement.

Alondra Cano, one of the nine council members who said they support disbanding, called impending change a process that is just beginning. She invited community input.

Nobody is saying we want to abolish health or safety, Cano said in an interview with WCCO radio. What we are saying is we have a broken system that is not producing the outcomes we want.

Mayor Jacob Frey, who was booed at a rally on June 6 outside his house when he said he does not support abolishing the department, repeated that stance on June 7. In an interview with ABCs Good Morning America, he said he looked forward to deciphering what council members mean by such talk.

He said he favors a full-on cultural shift in how our Minneapolis Police Department and departments throughout the country function.

We have difficulty both terminating and disciplining officers, and then getting that termination or discipline to stick, Frey said. Were going after the police union, the police union contract, the arbitration provisions that mandate that we have arbitration at the end of the process, and oftentimes that reverts the officer to right back where they were to begin with.

The state last week launched a civil rights investigation of the department. On June 5, the council approved a stipulated agreement that immediately banned the use of chokeholds and neck restraints and included several other changes. That investigation is ongoing.

Mohamed Ibrahim is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Mergers Law Enforcement
UNODC strengthens response to trafficking of Venezuelan migrants

Photo: UNODC

10 June 2020 - Since 2014, over five million Venezuelans have fled their country to escape political, economic and social unrest  and the numbers are continuing to rise.

These men, women and children arrive in countries throughout the region, scared, tired and in urgent need of assistance. Some walk for up to twenty days to reach their destinations.

While many are offered support and shelter, others are exploited. Migrants are at high risk of being targeted by traffickers in the countries they transit and in the places where they settle, says Carlos Perez, a Programme Officer for Latin America at the UNs Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

We know from our partner organizations and UNODC Field Offices that migrants are being trafficked for forced labour, mainly in agriculture, and sexual exploitation. Some, especially young women, even disappear en route.

Although some agencies provide victims of trafficking with humanitarian aid, more needs to be done to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators and compensate the victims, says Mr Perez.

In response, UNODC with the support of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State, has started a three-year initiative that will strengthen criminal proceedings and the delivery of justice in cases of trafficking involving Venezuelan migrants.

The project, known as TRACK4TIP, is being implemented in eight countries in South America and the Caribbean: Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao and Aruba.

The overall objective is to support the relevant authorities in these countries to identify victims and respond to human trafficking cases. We are working with police officers, prosecutors and judges, says Carlos Perez.

With the assistance of the organizations that provide shelter and counseling, the UNODC criminal justice experts will guide the victims of trafficking through the legal process.

They will facilitate cooperation between police officers and prosecutors and support them to build strong cases that adhere to international standards.

"Our key role will be to bring all parties involved in a trafficking case together to ensure the best possible outcome for the victim," says Mr Perez.

Colombia is currently the country that hosts the largest number of Venezuelan migrants.

There are nearly two million and over half of them dont have the necessary documents to enable them to remain legally in the country, says Gilberto Zuleta Ibarra, UNODCs National Project Coordinator in Colombia.

Theyre in a vulnerable situation and may accept fraudulent job offers from traffickers who then exploit them for forced labour.

In neighbouring Brazil, the desperation many migrants face is putting them at risk of exploitation.

In most cases of trafficking, we dont see the use of deception as an enticement strategy but the abuse of vulnerability, says Graziella do O Rocha from the Brazilian Association for the Defence of Women, Children and Youth (ASBRAD).

On one hand, migrants lack basic needs. Their dignity has been violated, they are hungry. Therefore, they accept any proposal for work. On the other hand, corrupt people and businesses lack empathy and see human misery as an opportunity for easy profit, she adds.

A further aim of the project is to improve the coordination between authorities who deal with trafficking cases in the transit and destination countries for Venezuelan migrants.

REDTRAM, a network of specialized human trafficking prosecutors that promotes cooperation between relevant institutes in the region, welcomes the introduction of the project.

The alliance with UNODC, through TRACK4TIP, is fundamental to achieving our objectives and will allow us to make advances in the pursuit of criminals and the protection of victims, says Alejandra Mangano, from REDTRAM.

Further information

UNODC on trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- RapidSOS , a New York-based emergency response technology company, today announced a $21 million funding round led by Transformation Capital , a leading digital health growth equity fund. The round also included participation from C5 Capital , a leader in cyber security, Laerdal Million Lives Fund , a global health fund focused on life-saving impact, and existing investors.

First responders globally are facing unprecedented challenges amidst COVID-19. RapidSOS will use the funding to extend its work with 4,700+ public safety agencies globally  providing health, connected building, wearable, telematics, and other critical data to first responders to empower faster and smarter emergency response.

"First responders are doing incredible work during this unprecedented pandemic," said Michael Martin, CEO of RapidSOS. "With this funding, we can further connect health information from the patient in need, to first responders on scene, all the way to hospital systems, driving our mission to create a safer, stronger future where technology and people work together to save lives."

RapidSOS has developed the world's first emergency response data platform, which links life-saving data from more than 350 million connected devices and mobile apps directly to 911 and first responders, sharing real-time information such as a caller's name, location, and opt-in health information. This data is critical to helping 911 centers accelerate response, especially in the millions of emergencies where it is challenging for the caller to speak.

"Prior to RapidSOS, most emergency medical treatment had to occur without even knowing the patient's name, much less any other data about the patient," said Todd Cozzens, Managing Partner at Transformation Capital. "RapidSOS has transformed the way we respond to emergencies and we are excited to help them extend that reach into healthcare."

"911 and first responder systems are critical pieces of our global infrastructure," said Admiral Michael Mullen, Operating Partner at C5 Capital and 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I'm excited by the partnership between RapidSOS and thousands of public safety agencies to digitize emergency response."

This new funding brings the company's total funding to $107 million and comes just over six months after RapidSOS announced the close of a $55 million round led by Energy Impact Partners.

Built in partnership with public safety, RapidSOS's emergency response data platform securely and automatically links life-saving data from connected devices, apps, and profiles directly to over 4,700 emergency communications centers nationwide. Public safety agencies that do not have access to RapidSOS can sign up for free at www.rapidsosportal.com .

About RapidSOS

In partnership with Public Safety, RapidSOS has created the world's first emergency response data platform that securely links life-saving data from 350M+ connected devices directly to 911 and first responders. Through the platform, RapidSOS provides intelligent data that supports over 4,700 Emergency Communications Centers, protecting 90%+ of people in the US, across 150 million emergencies annually. Together with innovative companies certified as RapidSOS Ready, RapidSOS is supporting the nation's heroic first responders in saving millions of lives annually.

To learn more about our technology that's protecting lives, visit www.rapidsos.com .

Contact

Michelle Cahn

[email protected]

347-879-0024

SOURCE RapidSOS

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A Cork man accused of making Facebook death threats in a feud appeared at Cork District Court today.

Michael Stokes appeared in person in court. He recently secured High Court bail having been refused bail previously at the district court.

Sergeant Gearoid Davis said the Director of Public Prosecutions had not yet given directions in the case and he applied for a four-week adjournment.

Defence solicitor Frank Buttimer said there was consent to the case being put back for six weeks.

Judge Olann Kelleher put the matter back for that period today.

Michael Stokes, aged 24, with an address at St Anthonys Park, Knocknaheeny, Cork, is charged with making threats to kill or seriously injure James McCarthy on April 6.

Detective Garda Pat Barry said it was alleged that Michael Stokes, posted videos on his Facebook page specifically targeting James McCarthy, in which he allegedly said, ye got bate seven days a week and youll get bate seven days again.

Next time I see you, you are going underground.

Det Garda Barry said that there was an escalating feud between the families that had in recent weeks seen a pipe bomb thrown at a house and a gunshot fired at a house.

Earlier this week, James McCarthy, aged 33, of bay 8, halting site, Spring Lane, Cork, appeared in person in court and was remanded on bail until July 6.

He was represented by Thomas Coughlan, solicitor.

It was alleged at the initial application for bail made by McCarthy at the district court that he filed a video on his Facebook page showing him allegedly making a threat directed at Michael Stokes.

McCarthy is charged with making a threat to kill or seriously injure another man Michael Stokes on April 6.

Detective Garda John Gleeson said that it was alleged that McCarthy said on the video: I will get you. I will cut you from head to toe.

I will cut you in pieces. I will cut you in bits.
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




T he coronavirus death toll in the UK would have been reduced by at least half if lockdown measures were introduced a week earlier, a former Government adviser has said.

Epidemiologist Professor Neil Ferguson told the Science and Technology Committee: The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced so - had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier - we would have reduced the death toll by at least a half.

However, he said that based on what was known about transmission and fatalities at the time, the measures were warranted.

Prof Ferguson, who originally estimated that UK deaths would unlikely exceed 20,000, was asked what had gone wrong as the Government count reached nearly 41,000.

Neil Ferguson / Parliament Live TV

He said up to 2,000 coronavirus infections had been imported from Italy and Spain before lockdown.

He said: Around about that time, just before lockdown happened, the first two weeks of March, we probably had around 1,500 to 2,000 infections imported from Italy and Spain which we just hadnt seen in the surveillance data.

The UK was put into lockdown on March 23 in an unprecedented move to try and stop the spread of coronavirus.

Prof Ferguson said when the forecasts were made at the beginning of March they thought there were fewer cases in the country than there really was.

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He added: We tried very hard to estimate what proportion of cases have been missed, obviously at the time we had a policy of trying to screen people at borders.

"We estimated then that maybe two-thirds of imported cases had been missed.

What we now know - because the epidemics had taken off in Italy and Spain - the point at which we realised was probably 90 per cent of cases imported to this country were missed by those border measures because we werent even checking people.
Four migrants tried to cross the English Channel aboard a makeshift raft made from two windsurfing boards that had been lashed together.

They sought to make the perilous journey today using shovels as oars and were spotted by the Dunkirk Seaways ferry about 5.5km off the coast of Calais.

Staff onboard the ferry then sent a warning to French authorities at about 12.25am.

Tired and suffering from mild hypothermia, the four people were rescued by the French navy at about 6.45am, authorities said.

They did not appear to be wearing any lifejackets or buoyancy aids, despite the low sea temperature and dangerous waters.

They were taken ashore at Dunkirk and handed over to border police.

More migrants are believed to have tried to cross the English Channel today.

At least two of the UK's Border Force boats, the cutter Hunter and coastal patrol vessel Speedwell, have been in operation off the UK coast.

More than 1,440 migrants have now crossed to the UK on small boats since the coronavirus lockdown was announced, according to data gathered by the PA news agency.

This is despite the continuing coronavirus crisis and repeated warnings of the dangers of crossing the English Channel in small boats.

Giving evidence to the UK's Commons home affairs committee last month, former head of the Border Force Tony Smith said he cannot see an immediate end to the crisis.
When Ko Ko Naing first migrated to Australia from Thailand with his wife Wan at the end of 2009, he wasnt sold on the idea of property investment.

With only $10,000 cash in our hands, I was very sensitive to debt  I was not a fan of any debt at all. Back then I had no idea about the difference between good and bad debt, he says.

But my wife kept on saying that if we bought a property, one day it would be ours.

The couple decided to rent a home for a few months, during which time Ko Ko began to consider becoming an investor.

We thought we would try to get into the property market without knowing anything about mortgages or property at all, he says.

We remember asking a mortgage broker how much we could borrow, and she asked us how much deposit we could contribute. After mentioning that we only had $6,000 in our savings, she told us that wed better save more to be able to buy even a very small one-bedroom unit.

We had only one income stream, so we didnt want to be negatively geared on our first purchase and get stuck with only one property in our portfolio

Ko Ko and Wan took the brokers advice to heart and continued as tenants until the end of 2012, when an unexpected kitchen incident at their rented home spurred them to take the big step.

The trigger point happened in October 2012 when my wife accidentally placed a hot pan on the kitchen benchtop, leaving a very pale burn mark. We went back and forth with the property manager and the landlord with regard to compensation and insurance, Ko Ko says.

We got quotes from multiple tradespeople to repair the damage, and it was quite a hassle for us both mentally and physically. The case was closed by paying $900 to the landlord as compensation.

The experience, he says, triggered my inner motive to get off the rental ladder and become a property owner. It finally convinced him that he and his wife needed to buy their own home, so within just two months the couple purchased their first property in the Melbourne suburb of Wantirna South.

AT A GLANCE

Years investing as a couple: 5

Current number of properties: 8

Current portfolio value: $3.3m

DIY due diligence

Their first buy opened up the floodgates, so to speak. No longer content with just having their own home, Ko Ko and his wife began educating themselves on how to build a property portfolio by frequenting online forums, as well as reading books and magazines on the subject.

We didnt know which area to invest in, what to watch out for and how to identify an investment-grade property. We didnt go to any property seminar or have anyone to guide us, so we did a lot of due diligence ourselves.

With Ko Ko being the sole breadwinner in the family, it was imperative that their investment made money from day one. This meant looking beyond a capital city for a positively geared property.

"At the time, we had only one income stream, as my wife was a stay-at-home mum looking after our younger son. We didnt want to be negatively geared on our first purchase and get stuck with only one property in our portfolio. Also, wed always wanted to invest in fully detached houses with a decent land component, so Melbourne was out of the question.

After two years of preparation, and with the equity from their home in hand, the couple bought their first investment property in Ballarat at the beginning of 2015.

It was a 100-year-old period home in Ballarat East, located very close to the city centre. To be honest, at the time we didnt know what a period home was. But people in Ballarat love and value period homes, as builders dont build them any more, he says.

To date, this investment has paid off in spades for the couple, recording considerable capital growth over the last five years, while generating a significant rental yield. Ko Kos careful personal research also led him to make what he considers his most successful investment, in 2016.

Knowing the market well and understanding the zoning of the area helped me a lot with closing the deal on our Woodridge property successfully. The agent was from another area and didnt know the property was in the townhouse precinct. Properties in those zones were selling for much higher prices than the ones that were not, because a lot of investors were looking for development potential in the Logan area, he explains.

PORTFOLIO TIMELINE

The land, which can easily fit at least three three-bedroom townhouses or four two-bedroom townhouses, according to the guidelines provided by the council, was sold to us for $335,000, while properties in the townhouse zone sold for $50,000 more.

Over the years, Ko Ko has focused on properties that generate great cash flow, while having strong growth prospects and add-value potential. He also aims to buy below market value as much as possible so he can make money on the way in [buying], rather than on the way out [selling].

To this end, Ko Ko says that knowing the motive behind the reason why the vendor is selling the property is the most successful strategy we have used.

Money is not always the most important thing. Depending on what the vendor is looking for, we found that some vendors are willing to accept a lower offer for a transaction with less hassle, such as an unconditional offer without any finance clause or building/pest clause, he says.

Minimising risk continues to be a major factor for Ko Ko, so he avoids buying in areas known as being prone to damage from weather events.

When we buy, we always check that the property is not in a bushfire or flood zone. While such properties might come at a cheaper price, potential buyers will ask for the same discount when the time comes to sell. Its not worth it to pay higher insurance premiums for many years and take a risk of experiencing hassles while dealing with insurance companies.

Beyond monetary gain

With eight properties under his belt currently valued at over $3m, Ko Ko is looking to expand into more avenues for adding value.

As all of our properties are fully detached houses with large land components, we will be looking at subdividing and developing at some point. We will also look at optimising our portfolio to maximise its capacity, he says.

Financial freedom continues to be part of Ko Kos main goal as an investor, but hes looking to leave a more intangible legacy as he continues his journey.

Our ultimate goal with investing is to have options when retirement time comes, and to be able to help others in need, he says.

Financial freedom is one goal that we would like to achieve for ourselves, but on the other hand, whats the point if one is to come into the world and pass away without doing any good to the community? So eventually we will be looking at setting up a philanthropy foundation.

Knowing the motive behind the reason why the vendor is selling the property is the most successful strategy we have used
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10) - A gym workout will no longer be the same for health buffs under the so-called new normal.

The Department of Trade and Industry recently said fitness outfits are allowed to reopen at half capacity in areas under modified general community quarantine.

Johaness Raadsama, Anytime Fitness Asia chief growth officer, said their members have to book an appointment in line with physical distancing rules.

So we are deploying a booking system to make sure we can comply, he told CNN Philippines.

We are also reconstructing our gyms to provide the relevant space and appropriate space or equipment for other activities to make sure we comply with social distancing, he added.

Raadsama said other protocols will be imposed.

We have a strict no mask, no towel, no workout policy, he said. Members will not be permissible to use the shower, so the private rooms will be there for changing and toilet use only.

All equipment and machine will be sanitized after each use.

He said the company is revamping personal training and group classes.

Businesses like beauty salons and barber shops were allowed to reopen at 30 percent capacity. Most have established a booking system to avoid crowding.
A New Jersey corrections officer has been suspended after a video purportedly showed him mocking the death of George Floyd at a recent protest.

The New Jersey Department of Corrections said it was made aware that one of its officers had participated in the "hateful and disappointing" video and that the unnamed individual has since been suspended from their post and banned from all facilities "pending a thorough and expedited investigation."

"We thank the community for bringing this issue to our attention," the department said in a statement Tuesday evening.

MORE: Family members, dignitaries honor George Floyd at funeral service in Houston

Another unnamed individual who took part in the reenactment -- a FedEx employee -- has been fired.

"FedEx holds its team members to a high standard of personal conduct, and we do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video," the company said in a statement late Tuesday. "The individual involved is no longer employed by FedEx. We stand with those who support justice and equality."

The incident was captured on video at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the New Jersey township of Franklinville on Monday. As protesters peacefully march along a road, a white man is seen kneeling on the back of another's neck, imitating the way in which Floyd was killed.

PHOTO: George Floyd is pictured in an undated photo released by the office of civil rights attorney Ben Crump. (Courtesy Ben Crump Law)

Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man, died in Minneapolis on May 25 after a white police officer was filmed kneeling on his neck as three other officers stood by. The Minneapolis Police Department fired all four officers after video of the incident surfaced.

MORE: George Floyd remembered by friends and family as hardworking 'gentle giant'

The officer who prosecutors say pinned Floyd down for nearly nine minutes, Derek Chauvin, has since been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other officers each have been charged with second-degree aiding and abetting felony murder as well as second-degree aiding and abetting manslaughter.

Story continues

Floyd's death has sparked widespread outrage, anti-racism protests and calls for police reform across the United States and around the world.

ABC News' Joshua Hoyos and Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.

New Jersey corrections officer suspended after being filmed mocking George Floyd's death originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Expanding U.S. assistance for Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) demining and re-purposing $25 million in already appropriated U.S. aid to bolster Armenias battle against the COVID-19 pandemic were among the top issues raised in the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) testimony presented to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, as this influential panel drafts its version of the Fiscal Year 2021 foreign aid bill, Asbarez reported.

In testimony submitted earlier today, ANCA Government Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan underscored the important role the U.S. can play in stemming the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Armenia. We are asking Members of this Subcommittee to encourage the Administration to reprogram at least $25 million of the current FY2020 Armenia aid package to help the Armenian government flatten the curve, care for the afflicted, and address the long-term economic impact of this crisis. Since we made this request of the State Department, on April 3rd of this year, Armenia has gone from 640 confirmed cases to more than 12,000 confirmed cases  with an alarming incidence rate of approximately 400 per 100,000 people in Armenia, according to the Johns Hopkins Universitys Coronavirus Resource Center, stated Yerimyan.

Regarding efforts to continue U.S. funding for The HALO Trusts life-saving demining in Artsakh, Yerimyan noted While the exact percentage of territory requiring clearance remains uncertain, The HALO Trusts village-by-village resurvey has already identified 1.8 million square meters of additional contamination in the highly populated Martakert region, a figure that will certainly increase as the resurvey continues. All told, 385 people have been killed or injured by landmines or other explosives in Nagorno-Karabakh since 1995, including several HALO trust employees in just the past few years.

Yerimyan reminded Subcommittee members of the broad-based, bipartisan support Artsakh demining has received so far, noting, As you may recall, in August of last year, in response to indications that the Administration was set to cut Nagorno-Karabakh funding, 22 Senators and 89 Representatives co-signed bipartisan letters defending the USAID-funded HALO Trust demining program. Copies of these letters were sent to this Subcommittee. In April of this year, 31 U.S. Senators and 75 Representatives signed a letter supporting this continued aid  with many more urging this committee to take action through their personal office requests.

The ANCA testimony also included a request for $90 million in U.S. aid to Armenia and expressed concern regarding the disparity between U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan and Artsakh.

We remain troubled that the Administrations $100 million security package to Baku adds equipment, tactical abilities, and offensive capabilities to the Azerbaijani arsenal, while freeing up its own state resources for renewed cross-border action against Artsakh and Armenia, explained Yerimyan. The Administration should either cease sending military aid to Baku or  in keeping with the principle of parity  start matching every dollar they send to Azerbaijan with another to Armenia.

The ANCA testimony also called for funding for the Royce-Engel Artsakh peace proposal, which calls the removal of snipers, placement of additional Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers along the line of contact, and the deployment of gunfire locator systems to monitor who ceasefire violations. Armenia and Artsakh have agreed to the Royce-Engel proposals; Azerbaijan has not.
The state human resource development (HRD) department on Tuesday allowed private schools which carried out online classes during lockdown period to charge only tuition fee for the months of April and May.

The decision on rest of the months of lockdown will be taken later, HRD Minister Jagarnath Mahto said after holding separate meetings with the parents body and the private school managements.

An order in this regard will be issued soon. Schools will not charge any other fees, barring tuition fees of these two months. The transport fee has also been waived for three months. The schools will also not increase any fee, the minister said.

The minister, while talking to the media, said, We talked to both the parties- school authorities and parents body- separately and reached to a consensus that schools will charge only tuition fee for April and May. However, this is not the final order. A case regarding school fees is pending with the Supreme Court. We will take final decision after the verdict comes.

Tuition fees would be realized only by those schools that conducted online classes during the lockdown period, he said.

Earlier, school authorities, who came from different districts of the state, placed their points before the minister. There was a discussion on many issues, including tuition fee. We had requested the minister to allow the schools to take tuition fees, as teachers get their salaries from it, said Ram Singh, chairman Sahodaya School Complex, a group of CBSE schools in Jharkhand.

The parents body -All School Parents Association (ASPA), however, has protested the ministers decision of allowing schools to realize tuition fees.

ASPA president Ajay Rai said, The minister himself had said that schools should waive all kinds of fees during three month of lockdown period. Today, he allowed schools to take tuition fees. Parents are feeling cheated on with the decision.

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'They have done in Eastern Ladakh what we did in Dokalam in 2017.'

"One of the reasons for the flare up is that the Chinese are trying to signal to India to hasten up the process of boundary resolution between India and China."

"Unless the two militaries have a line which they adhere to, these incidents will continue to happen," says Ambassador Gautam Bambawale, India's envoy to China during the Wuhan summit in April 2018.

At the summit, India and China agreed to avoid military standoffs like Dokalam and Ladakh. Ambassador Bambawale, an expert on India's relations with China who speaks fluent Mandarin, discusses the current standoff with Rediff.com's Archana Masih in the first of a two-part interview:

IMAGE: A ceremonial Border Personnel Meeting between the Indian Army and China's People's Liberation Army in Eastern Ladakh, January 1, 2020. Photograph: ANI Photo

The most significant outcome of Wuhan at which you were present was to avoid events like a Dokalam stand-off, where military commanders on the ground would not escalate matters on their own without reference to senior officers and governments in Beijing and New Delhi.

In your opinion, what could have led to the resolutions of Wuhan being ignored and the current standoff in Ladakh?

The current template of India-China relations was set and established in December 1988 when then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing and held discussions with China's then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping.

The template agreed to then continues till today. The basic premise of that template is that while India and China discuss the boundary question between them, the relations in other areas of interaction like political, cultural and economic will continue to move ahead.

Since 1988 -- in these 30 odd years -- the world has changed, and both India and China have changed.

There is a need for a new paradigm and template in which to conduct India-China relations.

At Wuhan the major objective was to see if we can arrive a new paradigm or template.

Unfortunately, this is still a work in progress even after the meetings in Wuhan and Mamallapuram.

Therefore, the search is on for a new paradigm with which to conduct India-China relations.

There is no doubt that some of the standard operating procedures that were established between the Indian Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army have definitely not been adhered to this time.

We will first have to de-escalate the current situation to know why that has happened.



Ambassador Gautam Bambawale. Photograph: Kind courtesy DefenceMinIndia/Twitter

What could the new template for conducting India-China relations be?

In the last 30 odd years, the Chinese military and economic power has increased tremendously.

India's economic and military strengths have also increased, but there is an asymmetry in the power differentials.

Therefore, the two countries need to come to a new template to conduct their relations.

It is for the political leadership of the two countries to work this out, and like I said, it is a work in progress and hasn't been completed after the two informal summits between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping in Wuhan 2018 and Mamallapuram 2019.

The Chinese media says the Indian Army was building military infrastructure in areas which China considers its own -- do you think this was the reason for the Chinese aggression in Ladakh?

There are several factors:

There is a bit of worry about the infrastructure development and road building that has happened on the Indian side. As a result, we are catching up with the infrastructure and road development on the Chinese side. The second element that very few have referred to is the tit-for-tat approach adopted by the Chinese. They have done in Eastern Ladakh what we did in 2017 in Dokalam. There is an aggressiveness of the Chinese military, including in the South China Sea, East China Sea and now in the India-China border areas. The Chinese are trying to signal to India their displeasure about the changes India has made in Jammu and Kashmir and the creation of the Union territories of Ladakh and J&K. One of the reasons the Chinese could have done what they have in Eastern Ladakh is to signal to India that it is extremely important to accelerate the process of the boundary resolution between India and China, which is taking place through the Special Representatives of both the countries.

All these factors have had a role in what is happening in Eastern Ladakh.

IMAGE: Indian soldiers stand guard as vehicles pass through the Zojila Pass on their way to the Ladakh frontier. Photograph: PTI Photo

Do you believe that the PLA's actions in Ladakh were the result of China wanting to assert itself post the COVID-19 pandemic, further from its actions in Hong Kong, the resolution on Taiwan and belligerence in the South China Sea?

This is one of the five factors I mentioned above. There is little doubt that global public opinion in large parts of the world has swung against China due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The image of China has taken quite a beating in the public mind in many countries across the globe and in India.

As a result, the Chinese reaction has been to go on the offensive. One example is what the Chinese call the 'Wolf Warrior' diplomacy.

The other is through military aggression like what we are seeing on the South China Sea and the India-China border.

In my opinion, the Chinese aggressiveness is not going to do them any good.

IMAGE: India and China have deployed additional troops in Eastern Ladakh. Photograph: PTI Photo

The resolution of the current standoff was assigned to senior military commanders rather than diplomats -- why do you think this happened?

Was it because the government felt that this issue was best dealt at the military level rather than by diplomats?

That is an incorrect understanding of the ongoing processes. A couple of days before the commanders met on the border, there were discussions between senior officials of the Indian ministry of external affairs and the Chinese foreign ministry which is called the 'Working mechanism on consultation and coordination for India-China border affairs'.

That process has both civilian and military officers. On one hand there is military diplomacy which is at play through meetings at the border itself, but on the other hand there are also other forms of diplomacy between New Delhi and Beijing.

Hence, discussions are taking place at several levels. Eventually the standoff in Eastern Ladakh can only be resolved to the status quo through negotiations and discussions.

IMAGE: Indian and Chinese soldiers at the India-China border. Photograph: PTI Photo

We see repeated incidences like Depsang in 2013, Dokalam in 2017 and Ladakh 2020. Is this the new normal for India-China relations where military transgressions will reoccur with greater frequency?

There have been these transgressions and they will continue to happen.

That is why I am led to believe that one of the reasons this flare up has taken place is because the Chinese are trying to signal to us that it is time to hasten or speed up the process of boundary resolution between India and China.

Unless the two militaries have a line which they adhere to these incidents will continue to happen.

IMAGE: Indian and Chinese soldiers during a 'Hand in Hand' joint military exercise involving soldiers of the Indian Army and the PLA.

The boundary between the two countries has been unresolved for decades. What is the possibility for a resolution to this very complicated issue?

We have very senior political level discussions in the Special Representatives forum between India and China on the boundary question.

Both governments need to focus very strongly on trying to resolve the boundary issue as quickly as possible.

It might take a few years, but if the process is on in a serious and continuing way, it is possible that we could accelerate the resolution of the boundary.

It is a difficult boundary to demarcate and resolve. We need to move ahead seriously in that matter.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said that India too wants an early resolution to the boundary question -- so both sides want an early boundary settlement and are working towards achieving that.

Production: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
By Charles Laiton

THE muddled fight between MDC leader Nelson Chamisa and his arch-rival MDC-T president Thokozani Khupe was yesterday put on ice after the Supreme Court reserved judgment in a case where the two are battling for control of the main opposition MDC.

The decision by Justices Paddington Garwe, Antoinette Guvava and Bharat Patel has effectively left the two protagonists hung out to dry, meaning that the matter may never be resolved any time soon.

During the Supreme Court hearing, Khupe had urged the judges bench to recognise the oppositions party structures that existed in 2014 when the opposition party was being led by the late founder Morgan Richard Tsvangirai.

Khupe made the remarks through her lawyer Lovemore Madhuku while responding to an appeal by Chamisa, who is challenging the decision by the High Court which stripped him of the MDC-T presidency.

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In her submission, Khupe said High Court judge Justice Edith Mushore did not misdirect herself when she ruled that the MDC constitution does not provide for the appointment of more than one deputy president as was done by Tsvangirai when he appointed Chamisa and Elias Mudzuri in 2016.

The High Court was correct to find that the MDC constitution does not provide for the appointment of more than one deputy president  There was no provision for more than one deputy president, hence in 2014, there was only one deputy president, being the third respondent (Thokozani Khupe), Madhuku said.

He said when Chamisa was appointed acting president during a meeting held in February 2018, it was in violation of the partys constitution because Khupe was available to act as president during the time Tsvangirai was receiving treatment in South Africa.

Khupe further urged the court to rule in her favour and allow for the holding of the congress, which is supposed to be held in accordance with the partys constitution.

In his submission, Chamisa, represented by advocate Thabani Mpofu, accused Khupe of acting scandalously by seeking a positive relief in a matter in which she did not participate at the High Court.

Chamisa insisted that the MDCs constitution provided for the appointment of more than one deputy president and that Justice Mushores determination was misdirected, adding that Khupe had since moved on by leading her own party which also held its national congress and, above all, she participated in the July 2018 general elections as MDC-T presidential candidate.

Its scandalous that she did not respond to issues raised in the High Court and yet she is now seeking a positive relief from the Supreme Court, Mpofu said, adding that the judgment of the High Court had been overtaken by events since his client was elected substantive president of the MDC during a congress that was held by the party in May 2019.

Mpofu said Khupe also violated the constitution of the MDC-T by not inviting MDCs Gokwe Sesame District secretary Elias Mashavira to her congress, him being the one who raised the issue of not having been invited to the national congress that ushered Chamisa into the office of the acting president.

He urged the Supreme Court to remit the matter to the High Court for determination, arguing that the MDC party was barred from the proceedings which led to Mashavira scoring a victory against his party.

Mpofu defended Tsvangirais appointment of Chamisa, saying the late founding party leader had the powers to do that considering that he was the leader of the national council, which in itself was a congress outside congress.

The national council has the power to authorise the president to make appointments of deputies regardless of the absence of the enabling provisions, he said.

Mashaviras lawyer Ashell Mutungura also submitted that the High Court did not err when it made a decision that Chamisa was unconstitutionally appointed.

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Protesters take a knee on Walnut Street in front of a row of police officers during a Justice For George Floyd protest on June 2, 2020. Read more

Amid protests against police brutality and systemic racism, theres a nationwide rallying cry: Defund the police. .

At a time of police violence nationwide we need to fund our communities, not police, wrote Phillys Movement Alliance Project (@mvmalliance) on Twitter under the growing #DefundThePolice hashtag.

According to supporters, defunding the police is part of a solution to fixing police brutality and racial injustice.

But what does defund the police mean?

Depending on who you ask, the answer may be different. Some supporters advocate for abolishing entire police departments. But most say its about reallocating money away from police departments and putting it toward social services, and reexamining the role police play in society.

 Public safety isnt just policing, says Bryan Mercer, executive director of the Movement Alliance Project. Meanwhile, we have cops that are effectively made to do the job that social workers, health-care professionals, and community organizations should do, without the training.

 READ MORE: Will Philly dismantle the Police Department for a new public safety system? Its unlikely.

For many, this fight is not about eliminating the police force but about reimagining it. Do all 911 calls warrant a police response? Are there times where unarmed social workers could deescalate a mental health crisis instead of using armed police officers? Instead of police, should it be housing counselors and mental health workers who help people experiencing homelessness? These are the kinds of questions advocates are pushing city government to consider.

Its about changing the way we understand which human behaviors should be targeted by police, such as robbery, rape, and murder, and which ones should be targeted by increased social services and social spending, such as homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness, and which ones should be tolerated, decriminalized, or otherwise ignored, says Matt Wray, an associate professor of sociology at Temple University.

What does this mean for crime?

Advocates want to tackle crime and mental health at their root. They want to see an increase in resources for job training to decrease the citys poverty level, and housing for those who cant afford it. They want counselors to take precedence over police in schools where budgets are tight.

Crime is not random. Its due to the lack of education, the lack of jobs, says Kevin M. Moseby, assistant teaching professor of sociology at Drexel University. If communities have the right social infrastructure, they wouldnt be getting into situations where police are serving in places where they shouldnt really be.

 READ MORE: How black Americans can practice self-care during these trying times. And how everyone else can help them.

Police arent trained social workers, nor should they be, says Moseby. Real change, he says, comes from building up the community so that to an extent, the community polices itself.

This isnt anarchy or a call to let violent activity run amok, says Moseby. This is about providing resources that will actually make us safer and healthier as a society.

Police reform efforts, like training and body cameras, arent enough, say advocates, and the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are evidence.

George Floyds violent death was a breaking point  an all-too-familiar reminder that for black people law enforcement doesnt protect or save our lives, Black Lives Matter wrote on its #DefundThePolice page. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure black people not only survive, but thrive.

Is anyone doing this?

Some are: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently agreed to slash between $100 million and $150 million from proposed police funding, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to move some police funding to youth and social services.

In April, the mayor of Chicago gave $7.5 million to local groups working to reduce violence. And in June, Portland, Ore. announced police officers will no longer serve in high schools.

 READ MORE: Camden disbanded its police department and built a new one. Can others learn from it?

Few Philly activists expect a response like Minneapolis, where city council vowed to disband the police force, whose officers were responsible for the death of George Floyd, proposing to replace it with a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention. Its now under review by the Minneapolis Charter Commission. a state agency that exercises primary oversight of the city charter.

But just over the river, Camden shows what can happen when a city dismantles its police force and starts over. In 2013, a county-run police force was created, training new officers in deescalation tactics and community policing. And since then, violent crime has dropped. Thats not to say Camdens system cant be improved. There was minimal public input, which advocates say isessential for dissolving trust issues. The county police force also remains whiter than the city it serves.

Still, some believe its a good start, and many residents say the department has improved relationships with the community. For other cities to follow Camdens model, however, it often means fighting powerful police unions and pro-police legislators.

How much does Philly spend on police?

One-sixth of the citys annual operating budget goes to the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD), the nations fourth largest force, employing more than 6,300 officers. For the 2020 fiscal year that ended June 30, the PPDs budget was $741.2 million. With cost overruns, that went up to $748.6 million. Since 2016, its increased by about $120 million.

In June, Mayor Jim Kenney announced he was scrapping a $19 million budget increase he proposed for the 2021 fiscal year, one that drew strong criticism from both activists and Council members.

The police want $760 million at the same time that the pandemic is causing major cuts for social services, our parks, rec centers, our libraries, says Kris Henderson, executive director of the Amistad Law Project.

Is Phillys police budget for next year going to go to zero dollars? No, but could there be significant cuts.

On July 1, Kenney signed the new fiscal year 2021 city budget, which excludes the initial $19 million Police Department budget increase proposal and diverts an additional $14 million of expenses from the department to others.

Its not just about money

Kenney also said he wants to review policies on gun use, discipline, and civilian oversight. Activists say the changes need to go much deeper.

We have to unwind this system we have built, and the best leverage we have to do that is in how we budget and allocate tax dollars. It will have to be accompanied by shifts in policies ... to return policing efforts to where they rightfully belong  that is in protecting all citizens from violent offenders, says Wray.

 READ MORE: How to get involved from home if you cant join the protests, according to organizers

One question for social scientists, Wray says, is: Will defunding help reduce anti-black violence by police?

We dont know and cant yet say, says Wray, but defunding is something we havent tried. Most police reforms in the past have led to increases in police budgets. Thats the irony.
Elsewhere in Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond was torn down by protesters, set on fire and thrown into a lake Tuesday. The statue was toppled less than two hours after protesters gathered in the citys Byrd Park were chanting for the statue to be taken down.
Two men who believe they were switched at birth nearly 80 years ago are suing a Roman Catholic diocese in West Virginia, alleging negligence and breach of duty by the hospital where they were born.

John William Carr III and Jackie Lee Spencer were born on August 29, 1942, at St. Joseph Hospital in Buckhannon.

The lawsuit against the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston says hospital staffers sent them home with the wrong families, The Dominion Post reported Monday.

The switch was discovered last year when DNA tests showed Carr and Spencer had no genetic matches with the families that raised them but did match the others family, the men say in their lawsuit.

Carr, Spencer and their families have suffered a lifetime of consequences from the switch and are seeking unspecified damages, they say in the lawsuit.

The diocese does not comment on pending litigation, spokesperson Tim Bishop said.

Spencer spent more than 50 years searching for the man listed on his birth certificate as his father, he says in the lawsuit. He had been told the man abandoned his mother prior to his birth.

After finding relatives of the man, Spencer took a DNA test to see if he was related and discovered he was not.

An additional DNA test also showed he wasnt related to people he had grown up thinking of as blood family.

It turned out, tests showed, he was really related to Carrs family  and further digging found that Carr had been born the same day at St. Joseph.

Spencer and his wife contacted Carr, who took a DNA test that showed he was related to the people Spencer had believed were relatives.

Spencer, now in his twilight years, never got to know many of his family members, he says in the lawsuit.

Many of the people Jack should have known his entire life are gone, according to the suit. He feels as though most of his family died all at once.

He grieves for the loss of the life he was supposed to have, while reconciling those feeling with the love and gratitude he feels for the family he has known his whole life. Carr, who has blue eyes, said he looks different from the family that raised him and always felt out of place.

Well, I never felt like I fit in here because my mother and dad had brown hair and brown eyes, and so do my brother and sister, Carr said in the lawsuit.

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Photo: BC Gov Flickr file photo

COVID-19 cases among agri-food workers in Windsor-Essex have spiked this week, the Ontario region's top doctor said Wednesday, as a provincial effort to test migrant workers for the virus ramps up.

The region's medical officer of health, Dr. Wajid Ahmed, said Tuesday that 38 additional workers had tested positive for the virus. On Tuesday, the health unit reported 34 new cases among workers.

Ahmed said more than 200 agri-food workers in the region have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

Of those cases, about 90 per cent are temporary foreign workers, he added.

"We are seeing a ... spike in our local community cases in the migrant farm or temporary foreign workers population," Ahmed said. "We need to get a better understanding of how we can support that particular group and there's a lot of community players working together outside of the public health trying to find better solution to address them."

Approximately 20,000 migrant workers come to Ontario each year to work on farms and in greenhouses. Many of the workers come from Mexico, the Caribbean and Guatemala and when they arrived this year they were required to self-isolate for 14 days.

Outbreaks that have affected dozens of migrant workers have been reported in Chatham-Kent, Niagara Region and Elgin County.

An outbreak in Norfolk County has seen 165 workers at a local farm tested positive for COVID-19, with seven of them having been admitted to hospital.

Two migrant workers have also died as a result of COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex.

Last week, in response to outbreaks on farms in Southwestern Ontario, Premier Doug Ford ordered government health officials to ramp up COVID-19 testing among migrant workers.

At the time, Ford said it was a crucial move to protect both the workers and ensure the safety of the province's food supply chain.

"I will definitely be addressing this with public health to make sure that we get all the migrant workers tested to keep them safe, to keep the supply chain and the food safe," he said at the time. "We're on this."

Ahmed said he expects that as this proactive effort by the province and the health unit continues, he expects more workers will test positive for COVID-19.
COATESVILLE, Pa. and PITTSFORD, N.Y., June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- City of London Investment Group PLC (CLIG) and Karpus Management, Inc. announce that they have entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger whereby the entire issued share capital of Karpus Management, Inc., a US based investment management business, will be purchased, on a debt-free basis, by CLIG for consideration in the form of up to 24,118,400 newly issued ordinary shares in the capital of CLIG, subject to adjustment (which aggregate share amount equates to $99.7 million based on the share price on June 8, 2020). The purchase will be structured as a merger of a wholly-owned subsidiary of CLIG into Karpus Management, Inc., with the latter becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of CLIG as a result of the merger.



In recommending the merger, the Directors of CLIG believe that it is highly complementary and represents an opportunity for significant diversification, which is in line with CLIGs strategic plan. The addition of Karpus Management, Inc. will reinforce CLIGs presence in the US where it is already established via its investment management subsidiary, City of London Investment Management Company Limited (CLIM). Karpus Management, Inc. invests predominately in closed-end funds (CEFs), which relates to CLIMs core market, is committed to active management, and has delivered strong investment performance for its clients. The Directors believe that the merger will accelerate the long-term strategy of diversification, thereby further reducing earnings volatility.

As a result of the merger, the founders and management team of Karpus Management, Inc. will become significant stakeholders in the combined business. The investment management teams at CLIM and Karpus Management, Inc. will remain physically, and from a regulatory standpoint, separate and unaltered post-merger.

Many of CLIGs operational functions are already based in the US and will remain so following completion of the merger. Tom Griffith will remain as Global Chief Executive and will be based in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and report to the CLIG Board of Directors.

Story continues

About City of London Investment Group PLC (CLIG)

City of London Investment Group PLC is the parent of City of London Investment Management Company Limited, a global fund manager which specializes in closed-end fund investment, and was founded by Barry M. Olliff in 1991, with approximately US$5.0 billion in funds under management as of May 31, 2020. CLIM is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and registered as an Investment Advisor with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

About Karpus Management, Inc.

Karpus Management, Inc. is a US SEC-registered investment management business, with its principal place of business in Pittsford, New York, that uses CEFs amongst other securities to gain exposure for its predominantly high net worth client base. Karpus Management, Inc. was founded by George Karpus in 1986, growing the business to approximately US$3.5 billion in funds under management as of May 31, 2020.

Disclaimer  This communication shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which the offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. There will be no public offer of any securities made in connection with the merger transaction described in this press release.



This release is being distributed by Pristine Advisers on behalf of CITY OF LONDON INVESTMENT GROUP PLC and KARPUS MANAGEMENT, INC.

Contacts:

Patricia Baronowski-Schneider

Pristine Advisers

pbaronowski@pristineadvisers.com



Theresa Barrows

Pristine Advisers

tbarrows@pristineadvisers.com
TDT | Manama

The Ministry of Health and the National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) confirmed in a joint-statement yesterday that there is no need to worry about pharmaceuticals for treating people with diabetes that contain Metformin, and that the decision to continue or change a patients drugs is the responsibility of the attending physician.

The NHRA had previously issued a list of the registered diabetes medicines in Bahrain (containing Metformin) that are free from the carcinogenic impurity N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), or within the acceptable limits for daily consumption.

The NHRA therefore advised all healthcare professionals neither to prescribe nor to dispense any Metformin-containing medicine not mentioned on the list. The Health Ministry and the NHRA instructed all diabetes patients to consult their doctors in case they want to change medications and select the appropriate alternatives.

The statement added that the NHRA is awaiting results of an investigation during the next few days, at which point it will issue another list of approved medicines, according to the report of the manufacturers and the results of the analysis. The pharmaceutical companies concerned have been given 72 hours to prove their medications safety.

The NHRA renewed its call to patients to review its website to see if their medications are included in the list of permitted drugs and to consult their doctors if their medicines are not mentioned. The Saudi Food and Drug Authority recently confirmed the safety of some diabetes drugs containing Metformin, while the rest of the products not in the list are not harmful but are under scrutiny
46 Chinese medical teams stationed in Africa have been committed to assisting local medical workers and ensuring the safety of local people amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

: Chinese and local doctors participate in a video conference in Angola. (Photo courtesy of Chinese Medical Team to Angola)  Stomatologist of the Chinese medical team in Burundi checks a local patient. (Photo courtesy of ChineseMedical Team to Burundi)  A doctor with the Chinese medical team in Morocco performs surgery on a local patient. (Photo courtesy of ChineseMedical Team to Morocco)  The Chinese medical team in Sudan conducts anti-epidemic training for local medical staff. (Photo courtesy of ChineseMedical Team to Sudan)

Chinese medical team in Burundi: making epidemic knowledge popular

The nineteenth batch of Chinese medical teams in Burundi has been working closely with local hospitals to improve the countrys epidemic prevention and control capabilities. One of the teams most important tasks is sharing China's anti-pandemic experience and helping locals realize the importance of scientific prevention and control.

The medical team designed and put up posters in hospitals in order to spread epidemic-related knowledge in a way that is more easily accepted by the public. At the same time, it also came up with epidemic-themed PPT and materials in French and shared them with the hospitals and even the Ministry of Public Health in Burundi to bring information to more people.

The team members also produced a 7-minute video and posted it on a local online platform to help more people gain access to epidemic prevention knowledge.

In addition, the medical team has hosted lectures on epidemic prevention and training courses on the use of protective clothing.

Chinese medical team in Morocco: Promoting epidemic prevention and control while ensuring medical assistance

The Chinese medical team in Morocco is determined to ensure epidemic prevention and control while providing routine medical assistance. 78 members from nine of the teams branches carry out their duties in hospitals, mostly in small and medium-sized cities and remote areas in Morocco, where the medical conditions are relatively backward.

Liu Huachi, head of Chinese medical team in Moroccoand leaders of the nine branches meet every day via video conference to update themselves on the development of the virus, discussing countermeasures, and then issuing a unified formula.

Meanwhile, the medical team receives online training provided by experts back home, carries out epidemic drills according to their training, and purchases materials in advance and comes up with emergency plans.

Under the medical teams suggestions, more and more local hospitals have implemented emergency measures such as setting up outpatient clinics for fever patients, strengthening the protection of medical workers and disinfecting the clinics.

Chinese medical team in Angola: Anti-epidemic measures highly valued by the local hospital

The fifth batch of Chinese medical teams in Angola, based in the Luanda General Hospital constructed with Chinas assistance, provided the hospital with the Portuguese and English versions of China's prevention, diagnosis and treatment formulas for the novel coronavirus.

Based on the hospitals actual conditions, the Chinese medical team proposed 12 measures regarding prevention and control of the epidemic, which were highly valued and actively adopted by the hospital.

"I really appreciate China sharing its anti-epidemic experience with Angola and hope to keep in touch with Chinese experts and communicate more often," said the deputy head of the hospital, who also praised China for taking effective measures and using Chinese and Western treatment methods to contain the epidemic in such a short period of time.

Chinese medical team in Sudan: Giving lectures to raise awareness among local people

After evaluating the medical and sanitary conditions in Sudan, the Chinese medical team in the country believes that the most important and urgent issue amid the pandemic is to raise the overall awareness of prevention and control and popularize epidemic-related knowledge among the local people.

The medical team visited officials from the Ministry of Health in Sudan, inspected the designated hospitals for pneumonia cases, and shared China's anti-epidemic experience with the hospitals where they were based.

The medical team also gave lectures on the epidemic via TV and provided training courses for medical workers in Sudan.

Its proposals on preventing imported cases, improving work on isolation and treatment and popularizing knowledge on the epidemic were highly valued by Sudan.Its proposals on preventing imported cases, improving work on isolation and treatment and popularizing knowledge on the epidemic were highly valued by Sudan.
YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. Defense Minister of Armenia Davit Tonoyan introduced today new Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan to the leadership staff of the ministry, the armed forces and the general staff, the ministry told Armenpress.

Highlighting Mr. Gasparyans military biography, the defense minister expressed confidence that he will make all efforts to serve his knowledge and entire professional potential for fulfilling the tasks set before the armed forces at the highest level.

Lieutenant-General Onik Gasparyan in turn thanked for the trust and stated that the structure led by him will be based on the idea of a team work which will lead to the desirable result.

Issues relating to the ongoing anti-epidemic measures in the armed forces were discussed during the meeting.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
CHESTER  Four city residents have been arrested in connection with the May 3 shooting death of 13-year-old Nyqueis Farlow-Davis.

Danielle Showell, 31, Tayvon Starkey, 23, Keyonte Watkins, 23, and Sulaymann Womack, 22, are each charged with criminal homicide, murder in the first and third degree, possession of instruments of crime, conspiracy and weapons charges.

We hope that this moment is a step toward seeking justice for Nyqueis, said Deputy District Attorney Matt Krouse at a press conference Tuesday. In addition to thanking the detectives and the police officers  that are here present, we would also like to thank the community. The community was essential in coming forward and sharing with police and detectives what they knew.

County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer noted news of the arrests came just after a particularly violent day in the city, with numerous non-fatal shootings including one involving an 11-year-old reported.

We are saddened and we are disheartened by the number of homicides that are going on, but its the same problem weve had in this city for almost 60 years now and we have to better, and we have to stop the gun violence, and that is what were here to do, said Stollsteimer. In this country, it shouldnt be true, as it is here in the City of Chester, that it is easier to get a gun than it is to get a middle-class job or it is to get a good quality education. Were going to do what we can do to restore the American dream to the people of the City of Chester and were going to start with this case right here.

Police were dispatched to 20th and Potter streets about 2:22 p.m. May 3 for a report of a shooting victim and found Farlow-Davis in the back yard of a residence in the 400 block of East 20th Street. The boy had suffered numerous gunshot wounds to his abdominal area, hand and head, according to police. Nine .45 caliber spent shell casings were found nearby, according to an affidavit of probable cause for Starkeys arrest.

Paramedics treated Farlow-Davis at the scene before he was transported to Crozer-Chester Medical Center for further treatment. He was then transferred to Alfred I. DuPont Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries the following day.

Krouse did not offer a motive for the shooting, or say who prosecutors believe pulled the trigger or triggers. He noted the defendants have all been charged identically. The investigation is continuing, he said.

Investigators spoke with a friend of the victim who said they were walking east on 20th Street when a man with a gun in his hand stepped out of a silver Acura SUV and told them to come here, according to the affidavit.

The friend said he ran east on the 400 block of 20th Street while Farlow-Davis ran behind those houses, hopping fences. He said he saw Farlow-Davis hop a fence before hearing gunfire, then ran to a church gymnasium and hid.

Another witness told Chester Detective Brian Pot and Delaware County Detective Dave Tyler that they heard gunshots and looked out their window in time to see a vehicle fleeing the area. That witness was able to get the license plate number for a Delaware registration.

These four individuals who were operating a vehicle with Delaware tags saw (Farlow-Davis), identified him and decided to target him as the one they went after, said Krouse. They circled the block, as captured by video surveillance, and then all four got out of the car  He was targeted, he was chased down and he was executed in the middle of the day.

The plates matched a 2007 Acura RDX registered to Dayonna Wilmore, who been attempting to report the vehicle stolen to Delaware authorities, according to the affidavit. Tyler and Pot interviewed Wilmore, who initially said she had last seen the car at 10 p.m. May 2.

When she was told the vehicle was possibly involved in Farlow-Daviss murder, however, she began to cry and told investigators that her boyfriend, Starkey, had borrowed the Acura at 10 a.m. May 3, the affidavit says.

Wilmore told the detectives that Starkey had contacted her later that day and told her to report the car stolen because he was involved in an incident, according to the affidavit. The vehicle was found in flames May 6 by a Chester officer in the rear of the 300 block of Pennell Street, according to the affidavit. After the flames were extinguished, a partially burned tax document bearing Starkeys name was allegedly found in the vehicle.

Investigators had meanwhile been able to trace the Acuras movements around the city on the day of the shooting and captured some surveillance photos of the occupants as they entered or exited the vehicle.

Chester officers who were shown portions of that surveillance footage identified Starkey, Womack and Showell as three of the occupants. Another witness who claimed to see people get into the Acura and drive away from the crime scene positively identified Watkins from a photo array, the affidavit says.

Video surveillance also showed Womack speaking with another person in the William Penn Homes shortly after the murder, pantomiming firing a gun and then falling over before laughing, the affidavit says.

Watkins was taken in to custody without incident by Pennsylvania State Police in the early morning hours of May 28 on a vehicle stop, according to a release from Chester police. Starkey turned himself in to authorities that same day. Both have been arraigned and remanded to the county prison in Concord without bail.

Showell was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals in Maryland June 1 and had a detainer lodged against her for homicide. She was expected to be transported Tuesday to the Delaware County Court House for arraignment.

Womack was taken into custody Tuesday morning by members of the U.S. Marshalls task force, Chester Police Detectives and Delaware County Criminal Investigations Division detectives. He was also expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

Eric Gartner, U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said he went with Chester Police Commissioner Otis Blair to meet with Farlow-Daviss father, Kyle Davis, following Womacks arrest.

Our desire was to inform Kyle of the arrest of the last subject in this investigation and to hope that it would help with both the grieving and the healing process that only a father can know in the loss of a son, said Garner. The meeting itself was deeply, deeply moving and it reinforced heavily to our deputies that were there the positive impact that we all have in the communities within which we all serve.

Blair said that it brings him great pleasure and pride to hold those accountable for this crime, but said there is still more work to be done.

This by no way, shape, or form the end, he said. We will still be holding people responsible  we are still coming after people. Those of you who feel as though you have gotten away with homicides  were not resting at this. There are still plenty of active investigations (going) forth, and I also want to say thank you to the public. You make all of this possible.

Former Chester City Chief of Police James E. Nolan IV, who now heads up the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division, said that he hopes these arrests will deter even one other person from taking up arms in the city.

Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland thanked Stollsteimer for following through on a campaign promise to put together a Gun Violence Task Force to tackle those challenges in Chester, something the mayor said he had been pushing for the last dozen or so years. Kirkland also issued both a message of hope and a warning in his comments.

A message is being sent to our young persons that you can make a decision, he said. You can choose to live and prosper and grow in our community, or you can choose to do the wrong thing like take a life and spend the rest of your life in jail. The choice is yours.
According to intelligence data, one member of Russia-led forces was killed and another four were wounded in action on June 9.

Russia's hybrid military forces on June 9 mounted 16 attacks on Ukrainian Army positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as wounded in action.

"The Russian Federation's armed formations violated the ceasefire 16 times in the past day," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation Headquarters said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on June 10. "As a result, one Ukrainian serviceman was wounded in enemy shelling."

Russian-led forces opened fire, employing proscribed 120mm and 82mm mortars, as well as grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms.

Read alsoTen Ukraine servicemen injured in Spartan vehicle blast in Avdiyivka (Photo)

Under attack came Ukrainian positions near the towns of Maryinka and Avdiyivka, and the villages of Starohnativka, Shyrokyne, Orikhove, Khutir Vilny, Shumy, Luhanske, Krymske, and Novotoshkivske.

Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy attack. According to intelligence data, one member of Russia-led forces was killed and another four were wounded in action on June 9.

"Since Wednesday midnight, Russia-led forces have engaged Ukrainian positions twice near the villages of Pavlopil and Khutir Vilny, using 120mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types and heavy machine guns," the update said.

No casualties were reported from day-start on Wednesday.
CASA, the union which exclusively represents principals, assistant principals, and other middle-level managers in the School District of Philadelphia held a silent march from their offices to the School District of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pa. on June 4, 2020. Racial justice for schools includes equitable funding, writes Mastery Charter's Scott Gordon. Read more

This is an extraordinary moment in our nations history. Black people and white people, suburban residents and city dwellers, young people and business executives, have linked arms throughout our region to call for an end to systemic racism. Our black neighbors and friends have asked white people to break their silence and fight for justice. As a white man who leads a network of public charter schools that serve black and brown communities, I have seen that the way Pennsylvania funds, engages, and operates public schools is one of the most pernicious pillars of systemic racism. Here are two ways we can act now to change it:

Demand equitable public school funding. Most public schools are funded by local property taxes. In a resulting system that has the effect of ensuring that rich people and poor people, black and white people dont educate their kids together, weve divided the commonwealth into 501 school districts. This means that even within the same county, children receive an inequitable education. A student who attends a public school in Philadelphia receives $15,000 in funding and in Norristown $17,000, while a student in Strath Haven receives over $20,000 and in Lower Merion $25,000. In fact, Pennsylvanias spending gap between rich and poor school districts is among the widest in the nation.

To secure a quality education for our own children and escape the consequences of this system, many parents have sent our children to magnet schools or private schools. In other cases, we moved to a better-funded suburban school district or gentrified areas. But to not assertively act to change this inherently inequitable funding system means we are complicit in it.

Call your legislators and superintendents to demand that all state education funds based on the state-wide equitable funding formula adopted in 2016 that provides more to the poorer rural and urban school districts that need the funds most. Currently, just 10% of state funding follows this formula. We ask our suburban neighbors to hold their elected officials and school leaders accountable  together we can change this.

Demand internet access through the pandemic. In just 12 weeks, Philadelphia and surrounding counties will reopen schools for a new academic year. We know that the COVID virus will still be with us, and schools will be delivering a blend of in-person and online instruction. All students, therefore, need internet access. For better-off students, that problem is already solved. But at some of our schools, a survey we conducted revealed that 30% of the families do not have internet access  which means our primarily black students will be systemically prevented from learning.

We call on our regions business leaders, who have publicly decried racism, to step up now  convene the communications companies, politicians, and public schools to develop a solution by August. We cannot let the color of a students skin or the wealth of their parents determine whether they have access to an education next year.

We have a once in a generation opportunity to transform the systemic racism that shapes how public education is delivered in our region. Lets turn our words into action now.

Scott Gordon is the CEO of the Mastery Charter Schools network.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 18:02 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddaf684 1 News Ancol,pandemic,COVID-19,coronavirus,travel,tourist-attraction,Taman-Impian-Jaya-Ancol Free

Taman Impian Jaya Ancol (Ancol Dreamland Park) in North Jakarta will reopen to public on June 20.

According to a press release, Ancol management is preparing health protocols for the amusement park and tourism complex to operate within the Jakarta's "transition" period into the so-called "new normal" era.

Along with new and stricter protocols, the management has also prepared specially discounted admission fees in June.

The new protocols include not allowing children younger than 5 years old, pregnant women or senior citizens to enter the recreation area. All visitors will have to undergo temperature checks prior to passing the Ancol entry gate and all recreation units. Visitors whose temperatures exceed 37.3 degrees Celsius will not be allowed to enter the premises.

Read also: Jakarta's tourist sites begin to welcome visitors

Tickets will be sold through cashless transactions only, and entry tickets will be sold online on the park's website starting on June 13.

All visitors will be required to wear facemasks at all time, carry hand sanitizers and wash their hands as often as possible at handwashing facilities that will be provided at every corner. Physical distancing is also going to be enforced in every area, to ensure visitors keep a distance of 1.5 to 2 meters from each other.

The recreation units in Ancol Dreamland Park will be opened gradually. The first ones include Ancol Beach, Allianz Ecopark, Art Market, Fantasy Land (Dufan), Ocean Dream Samudra and Sea World, as well as restaurants within the Ancol area and Putri Duyung Resort Hotel.

The units will operate under staggered opening hours. For instance, the main gate and the beach will open from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., Dufan will open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., while Ocean Dream Samudra and Seaworld will open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (gis/wng)
WASHINGTONI cant tell you the kind of pain you feel, Philonise Floyd said Wednesday, when you watch your big brother, who youve looked up to your whole entire life, die begging for his mom.

He was addressing members of Congress at the Capitol on the day after the funeral in Houston for his brother George, whose killing by a police officer in Minneapolis has led to a massive nationwide protest movement for police reform and racial justice.

Im tired of the pain. Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain, Floyd told the legislators.

His personal plea conveyed the wishes of many Americans. The movement thats risen up has seen an astonishing transformation of public opinion in favour of the kinds of changes Floyd was speaking about. Significant majorities of Americans now support the Black Lives Matter movement, and believe policing is racially biased against Black Americans and needs to be reformed.

Political leaders have been scrambling to try to meet the moment. Democrats in Congress introduced a sweeping police reform bill Monday, while Republicans are drafting their own.

But largely absent from this often emotional acknowledgment of racism in policing has been President Donald Trump. He has described George Floyds death as brutal, but avoided tying it to a larger problem of systemic racism in policing. Instead, Trump has made unsubstantiated accusations against protesters, and overseen an aggressive police response against them. Meanwhile, administration officials including Attorney General William Barr have denied that systemic racism exists in policing.

Nonetheless, word continued to circulate that the White House was considering a major address by Trump on racial issues. Its hard to see how such a speech would help, even if Trump were inclined to give it  as one anonymous Trump campaign official told CNN, A speech, lacking genuine compassion, at any point would not help. Hes just not genuinely compassionate.

That was evident when Trump was asked by Fox News last week about the documented lack of trust in police among African Americans, and how to address it. According to a transcription by CNNs Daniel Dale of Trumps response, the president said the lack of trust was a sad problem, but that he himself was doing very well with Black Americans and with the vote  with the polls and everything, citing pre-pandemic employment and economic numbers. Pressed on how to address law enforcement reforms, Trump vaguely said, You have to get better than what theyve been doing, before insisting he had spoken sensitively about Floyds death in remarks ignored by the media and then attacking the record of his likely election opponent, Joe Biden.

The partisan and adversarial approach to questions for which a statement of moral conviction might be more appropriate is standard practice for Trump. After he held up a bible at a photo-op last week, an interviewer asked him about religion: Have you grown in your faith? Do you pray often? He responded, Ive done so much for religion, before suggesting Biden would restrict the rights to bear arms and religious freedom.

And its not that Trump simply fails to display compassion  he actively shuns it, with tactics like criticizing the mayor of Minneapolis for crying while addressing the protests.

Trump is not going to feel your pain, as Bill Clinton famously did, nor summon the better angels of our nature, as did Abraham Lincoln. Hes given no sign hes inclined to support the types of reforms Philonise Floyd was talking about when Floyd asked leaders to stop the pain. Absent those things, it is hard to see how any address Trump might give would help unify or heal the country.

Biden, by contrast, is famous for expressing empathy, and in several speeches he has attempted to channel the grief and anger of the Floyd family and the protesters, while supporting the kinds of reforms congressional Democrats are proposing.

But he faces his own problems trying to associate himself with the rising movement while simultaneously distancing himself from the core demand to defund the police. In a USA Today column on Wednesday, Biden actually called for an additional $300 million in funding for police departments to reinvigorate community policing alongside other proposed reforms.

Thats an attempt to strike a balance between embracing calls for change that have broad support and distancing himself from specific policies that may not. Even as he expresses his emotions in unity, trying to put those emotions to work in policies could prove divisive. Thats a problem he has in common with legislators on Capitol Hill as they draft their own responses.

But Trump is in a different position, apparently unable or unwilling to express much sympathy, while denying the existence of the problem that a protest movement and public opinion have rallied behind.

The issue seems unlikely to go away. Al Sharpton and Floyds family are planning a protest march in Washington in August. They and other movement leaders believe something real can change, and are determined to continue to push one of the largest protest movements the country has ever seen forward.

Trump is unlikely to be able to answer that in a speech. In the months ahead, Americans will see if he has any answer to it at all.

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Women enjoy a warm and sunny day in a park in downtown Moscow on June 9, 2020, after officials lifted coronavirus restrictions

Europe's most powerful countries urged the European Union to better prepare for the next pandemic after chaotic responses to the coronavirus, as Moscow emerged from lockdown despite Russia still being in the grip of a surging epidemic.

There should be a "common European approach" to challenges like COVID-19 in future, leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in a letter and policy paper to the European Union's top official.

Europe has been the hardest-hit continent with nearly 185,000 people killed, and the leaders said a lack of coordination had left nations short of crucial medical equipment when the coronavirus arrived.

Worldwide, COVID-19 deaths have passed 407,000, with more than seven million infections.

The United States recorded 819 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing its own grisly toll to more than 111,000 out of 1.9 million casesleaving it the country hardest hit by the pandemic in terms of both the number of fatalities and the number of cases.

And the crisis continued to escalate in Latin America, which by late Tuesday had almost 1.4 million cases and nearly 70,000 deaths.

Brazil's health ministry cited figures late Tuesday indicating the death toll had risen by 1,272 to over 38,400 killed by the virusthe third highest toll in the world after the US and Britain.

World map showing official number of coronavirus cases and deaths per country, as of June 9 at 1900 GMT

Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's government had stopped publishing the total number of virus deaths on Friday, saying it was adopting new methodology.

However, the government was forced into a U-turn by a Supreme Court ruling on Monday that it must return to the old format, which government critics said is more transparent.

On Tuesday Peru, second only to Brazil as the region's worst-hit country, announced it had passed 200,000 cases of the virus, adding more than 4,000 cases in a single day.

In Nicaragua, at least eight public health doctors were sacked for criticizing the lack of a serious response to the crisis from the government of President Daniel Ortega, an independent medical body said.

Nicaragua has been criticized for an almost complete absence of measures to contain the virus.

Europe's Exit

Despite Europe's dire record, most countries on the continent continued to exit their punishing lockdowns on Tuesday, with Cyprus welcoming its first tourist flights in almost three months and French officials announcing the Eiffel Tower will reopen on June 25.

Health workers from the city of Melgaco check a woman with COVID-19 symptoms at a small riverside community in the southwest of Marajo Island, state of Para, Brazil, on June 9, 2020

Residents of the Moscow flocked to parks after officials lifted restrictions in place since March 30, even though 8,595 new cases were registered in Russia on Tuesday and the death toll passed 6,000.

"It's nice out and there are a lot of people on the streets," said marketing manager Olga Ivanova, walking in the Russian capital. "It's a beautiful day, in every sense of the word."

Russia has the third-highest number of confirmed infections in the world after the United States and Brazil, but officials say this is due to a huge testing campaign and point to a relatively low mortality rate.

However, critics say the death rate is being under-reported and accuse officials of rushing to lift restrictions for political reasons.

In further signs that a new normal is taking hold in Europe, officials in Spain said mask-wearing in public would be compulsory until an effective treatment or vaccine can be found.

Britain, which on Tuesday announced its death toll had passed 50,000, has imposed a two-week quarantine for anyone coming into the country, British nationals included.

A worker wearing a face mask as a precautionary measure against COVID-19 cleans the handrail at a store in London on June 8, 2020

Life-saving lockdowns

The World Health Organization has warned that complacency is the biggest threat in countries where the pandemic seems to have abated.

Globally, it does not appear to be abating at all: the WHO said a record number of new coronavirus cases were recorded worldwide on Monday, the majority of them in South Asia and the Americas.

Underlining the warning, deaths and infections continue to climb sharply in India even as the government lifted some curbs after a 10-week lockdown.

Authorities in the capital Delhi warned on Tuesday that cases in the city could shoot up almost 20 times to more than 500,000 in the coming weeks.

The disease emerged in China late last year before sweeping the globe, subjecting billions to some form of lockdown that paralysed economies.

Those restrictions prevented 3.1 million deaths in 11 European countries alone, according to an Imperial College London study published on Monday.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
Birmingham's housing authority, schools cut ties with Church of the Highlands over pastors social media likes Donald Trump Jr calls decision 'absolutely insane'

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The Housing Authority of the Birmingham District and the Birmingham Board of Education cut ties with Church of the Highlands due to controversy surrounding Chris Hodges, the churchs founder and pastor, liking social media posts that have been criticized as racially insensitive.

Due to a recent social media controversy involving Church of the Highlands pastor Chris Hodges, HABD Board of Commissioners voted Monday during a special called meeting to end HABDs partnership with the church," the affordable housing provider said in a statement Monday.

The decision affects a Memorandum of Understanding that has existed since October 2017 between HABD and Church of the Highlands which provided resident outreach programs and social services at its Campus of Hope, located in the Marks Village Public Housing community.

The Birmingham Board of Education also voted Tuesday night to end its leases with Church of the Highlands, which paid an average of $12,000 a month each to rent Parker High School and Woodlawn High School for Sunday worship services, AL.com reported. The megachurch has over 20 locations throughout Alabama for services.

English teacher Jasmine Faith Clisby complained in an earlier report that Hodges followed and liked several social media posts of Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk in the wake of national protests over the killing of 46-year-old African American George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department officers on Memorial Day.

One of the posts reportedly shows two photos  one featuring President Donald Trump standing next to Muhammad Ali and Rosa Parks with the caption The racist Donald Trump in the 1980s, and the other featuring Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam with two men wearing blackface and a KKK costume with the caption Progressive Leftist Ralph Northam in the 1980s.

Hodges has since apologized to his predominantly white but racially diverse congregation.

Some saw something on social media that questioned my character. And Ill own it by the way but that is not what I believe and that is not what we teach," Hodges said in a sermon two Sundays ago. "I understand how this has made you feel and I apologize. Honestly, its understandable to me. I dont take it personally. I know people are hurting right now and they want clarity. I would love for you to not just look at a microscopic zoom-in but look at the totality of 37 years of ministry and 19 years as a church.

If you look at that it will be abundantly clear that we value every person. For every person that has been marginalized, rejected or belittled, abused or even afraid because of how God made you, Tammy and I, the Church of the Highlands family, stand with you.

During an emotional prayer service the day before, Hodges called Floyd's killing "outrageous," "wrong" and "disgraceful."

"Racism, bigotry, prejudice exists; its real," he stated. "And its of the devil. White supremacy or any supremacy other than the supremacy of Christ is of the devil."

The housing authority, which has been providing affordable housing in Birmingham for more than 80 years, did not appear satisfied with Hodges apology.

Pastor Hodges recently submitted a public apology to his church members after liking social media posts that were perceived as racist and offensive to people in the African-American community. HABD Board of Commissioners agreed that Pastor Hodges views do not reflect those of HABD and its residents; and Hodges values are not in line with those of HABD residents. HABD and Campus of Hope staff will continue to work with other faith-based organizations in the community to identify resources that will replace the services that were provided by COTH, the agency said.

Church of the Highlands did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday when contacted by The Christian Post. In a statement to AL.com, however, Hodges thanked the the HABD for allowing his church to serve.

Jesus Christ teaches us to love our neighbors, Hodges said. In these complex times we want to do more than ever to listen, love and serve our city. We want to publicly thank the Birmingham Housing Authority for the opportunity they provided us to serve them over the years. We continue to support their work and encourage others to do the same.

President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., responded to the situation on Tuesday, calling the HABD decision absolutely insane.

Theyre canceling the pastor of the largest (and most racially diverse) church in Alabama just because he liked some of @charliekirk11s posts, he wrote.

According to the MOU that existed between Church of the Highlands and the housing agency, the church, which is the largest in Alabama and one of the largest congregations in America, would provide public housing residents with a number of social service activities in addition to mentoring, support groups and faith activities.

In addition, the vote to cancel the MOU with COTH will cease activities provided by The Dream Center and Christ Health Center, which are both ministries within the COTH, the agency said.

Christ Health Center CEO Dr. Robert Record, who also attends and is on staff at the Church of the Highlands, told AL.com that while the church continues to fund the clinic, the church and the clinic are separate entities, with separate boards of directors.

We are thankful to serve thousands of patients who live in these great neighborhoods," Record said in a statement. "The vast majority of this medical work is done in our clinic and grows into relationships within homes across the community. These patients are our neighbors and friends, and we will continue to provide care as we always have. We were happy to partner recently with HABD to bring free COVID-testing right into the community  our first direct patient care on HABD property. This mobile-testing opportunity may take some reworking.

In their statement on Monday, HABD noted that its decision to end its relationship with Church of the Highlands does not diminish the great work the church has done.

HABD greatly appreciates the many resources provided for our residents by COTH staff and volunteers over the years. Severing this partnership does not diminish the great work and support from COTH, which has made a difference in the lives of countless residents, the agency said.
Officials announced on Wednesday that Chad Daybell, the husband of an Idaho mother suspected in her kids' months-long disappearance, has been charged with two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

The charges were announced after police confirmed finding two sets of unidentified human remains at Daybell's property on Tuesday.

Daybell's bond was set at $1 million, and his preliminary hearing was set for July 1. His attorney, John Prior, argued for bail to be lower and said Daybell "has every intention of addressing these issues." Prior did not respond to ABC News' request for further comment.

Police said autopsy results are pending, but prosecutor Rob Wood said at Daybell's arraignment that he was "aware that those remains are the remains of children."

Wood alleges Daybell "willfully concealed and/or aided and abetted another to willfully conceal" the remains from around the time the children, Joshua "JJ" Vallow and Tylee Ryan, were last seen until Tuesday, when the remains were discovered.

PHOTO: Chad Daybell in a booking photo after being arrested on June 9, 2020, on suspicion of concealing or destroying evidence after local and federal investigators searched his property in Rexburg, Idaho. (Rexburg Police Dept.)

Kay and Larry Woodcock, grandparents of the missing children, and Colby Ryan, Vallow's eldest son, released a statement saying that the remains "are indeed our beloved JJ and Tylee." Authorities have not yet publicly said so, but the family statement said authorities would be releasing the information "soon."

"We are filled with unfathomable sadness that these two bright stars were stolen from us, and only hope that they died without pain or suffering," the family said. "We have only just been told of the loss of our loved ones and need time to process."

They also asked the public and press to respect their privacy.

MORE: Human remains found at Chad Daybell's home, husband of Lori Vallow, mom of missing Idaho kids

Daybell, 51, who was taken into custody Tuesday on an unspecified felony charge, is the husband of Lori Vallow, who's facing five charges -- two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children and one misdemeanor count each of resisting and obstructing an officer, solicitation of a crime and contempt -- in her children's disappearance. Vallow, 46, is currently in jail on $1 million bond.

Story continues

PHOTO: Lori Vallow finds out her bond has been denied by Judge Michelle Mallard during her second bond hearing at the Madison County Magistrate Court in Rexburg, Idaho, May 1, 2020. (John Roark/The Idaho Post-Register via AP, FILE)

JJ, who was 7 years old at the time he disappeared, and Tylee, who was 17, were last seen in September 2019 and were reported missing by extended family members to police in November 2019.

The case has long been shrouded in mystery. Vallow left for Hawaii in December 2019 with Daybell, whom she recently married, about three months after her children were last seen and a day after authorities conducted a welfare check on the children. She was arrested on Feb. 20 in Kauai.

Authorities learned that Tylee was last seen alive on Sept. 8, in Yellowstone National Park, prompting the FBI to ask anyone who visited the park that day to come forward with photos and videos, which can be uploaded to FBI.gov/Rexburg.

MORE: Inside the mysterious case of 3 deaths, 2 missing children and a terrified husband

JJ was last seen alive in Rexburg, where the family lived, on Sept. 23, according to authorities.

PHOTO: Missing children Joshua Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17, were last seen on Sept. 23, 2019 in Rexburg, Idaho. (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)

Daybell had previously told ABC News "the kids are safe," but did not elaborate.

Kay and Larry Woodcock, the grandparents of the missing children, issued a statement Tuesday after police said they found what were believed to be human remains.

"We got this news early this morning that Police and FBI had served a search warrant at Chad Daybell's property and have been in touch with law enforcement throughout the day," the Woodcocks said in a statement. "We were notified that law enforcement had discovered human remains on the property. This is obviously a very difficult time for our family, and we ask that you respect our privacy as we wait further news with heavy hearts."

Late Wednesday, Matt Daybell, Chad Daybell's brother, opened up about the incident in a statement.

"The events of the past 9 months have weighed heavily on our family  it has been one of the most difficult things we have ever had to go through. Some in our extended family are still struggling to accept the reality that Chad could have been involved in something so terribly wrong. On behalf of myself, my wife Heather, and our 4 children, we express our most sincere sympathies to Larry and Kay and to JJ and Tylee's entire extended families," he wrote. "We are devastated by today's news and the apparent role that Chad has played in what has transpired. Heather and I have communicated many times in person and by phone with Larry and Kay over the past several months  they have been examples of courage, strength and kindness to us throughout this difficult trial they have been forced to endure. Throughout this ordeal, we have supported one another in pursuit of the truth, and will continue to do so. They have been praying for our family, as we have prayed for them. Our heartfelt love and prayers continue to go out to them and their family at this very difficult time."

He added that he and his wife continue to pray for Daybell's adult children and their spouses, but due to the circumstances, their "relationship with them has been significantly strained."

Daybell's brother said he has had no contact with Daybell's family, or Daybell himself "for the last many months."

"We do not know where his children stand at this time," he added. "As such, we ask for patience and compassion for them and for all of our extended family as we cope with the horrific events that have come to light."

Family believes human remains found on Chad Daybell's property are missing Idaho kids originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Broad Reach Power, a Houston energy storage company, said it will install 15 utility-scale batteries at sites in Houston and Odessa as it seeks to store electricity when its cheap and sell it into wholesale power markets when prices jump.

Six sites, including five in the Houston area, are expected to be operating this summer. The other batteries will be installed in the fall

Each site will contain battery systems capable of storing and distributing up to 10 megawatts of power. One megawatt powers about 200 homes during a hot summer day in Texas.

The company, which gets funding from private equity investors, owns a 3,000-megawatt portfolio of utility scale solar and energy storage power projects in Montana, Wyoming, California, Utah and Texas.

Advancing technology and falling prices have turned what was once a science experiment into an increasingly affordable power source. Texas has become a leader in grid-scale storage, ranking fourth among states installed battery capacity.

Texas has a leg up in battery development because the state can design policies without waiting for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, where a contentious rule-making process for deploying batteries on the grid has delayed progress. The Texas power grid, which is not interconnected with other state systems, does not fall under FERC's jurisdiction.

In Texas, state officials are weighing issues such as how to regulate energy resources that both draw and generate power was well as more mundane interconnection concerns of how to effectively and efficiently link batteries from wind farms, solar farms and stand-alone storage units to the grid. At the same time, the opportunity that energy storage provides is driving up the value of renewables.

Renewables are growing so quickly that solar power is expected to generate 61 percent of new power capacity coming online in Texas between now and 2023, according to the state grid manager the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Wind represents another 27 percent of new capacity. About 7 percent will come from battery storage.

Natural gas, the backbone of the states electricity system and the source that has traditionally supplied about half the power capacity in Texas is expected to add only 5 percent of new capacity in the next three years.

Batteries are beginning to undercut one of the central features of natural gas-fired power plants: filling in for power produced by renewable generators when the sun isnt shining and the winds aren't blowing. Batteries can make renewable energy a reliable and steady source of power, something essential to its long-term growth and a potential boon for Texas, which produces more wind than any other state.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Battery storage on verge of changing Texas power grid

Broad Reachs battery systems will connect directly to the grid, rather than wind or solar farms. The company will buy and will store power during the times of the day when power its cheap, such as during evening hours when the wind is blowing and demand has dropped, said Broad Reach managing partner and CEO Steve Vavrik. Then it will sell the power during times of the day when prices typically spike  hot summer afternoons.

On HoustonChronicle.com: How will batteries plug into Texas power grid?

Growth in battery development should make Texas a prime location for data centers, manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies looking to expand operations by providing affordable, clean power, said Vavrik.

Broad Reach was formed last year and is backed by investors including the Houston private equity firm EnCap Investments and New York private equity firm Yorktown Partners.

lynn.sixel@chron.com

twitter.com/lmsixel
Asia ascending, America ailing

LONDON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global higher education analysts, released the seventeenth edition of the QS World University Rankings - the world's most-consulted, most-covered source of comparative information about university performance.[1] 26 Asian universities place among the global top-100 - the highest number ever.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is named the world's best university for a record-breaking ninth consecutive year;

is named the world's best university for a record-breaking ninth consecutive year; The top three institutions remain American: MIT is followed by Stanford University (2nd) and Harvard University (3rd);

is followed by (2nd) and (3rd); Britain's top institution is the University of Oxford , which falls to fifth. Its compatriot competitor, the University of Cambridge , remains 7 th ;

top institution is the , which falls to fifth. Its compatriot competitor, the , remains 7 ; 112 of America's 153 ranked universities fall, with only 34 recording improvements. This is primarily due to collective relative decline in QS's measures of academic standing and research impact;

Continental Europe's best university is ETH Zurich (6 th no-change);

best university is ETH Zurich (6 no-change); Asia's top university is the National University of Singapore (11 th );

top university is the (11 ); China's Tsinghua University reaches a new all-time high (15 th );

Tsinghua University reaches a new all-time high (15 ); Latin America's leader is the Universidad de Buenos Aires (66 th , up 8 places). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (100 th ) becomes the first Mexican university ever to achieve a top-100 place;

leader is the Universidad de (66 , up 8 places). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (100 ) becomes the first Mexican university ever to achieve a top-100 place; Universities in Russia and Malaysia continue to rise: Lomonosov Moscow State University (74th) and Universiti Malaya (59th) reach record highs.

Ben Sowter, QS Director of Research, said: "The American higher education hegemony continues to diminish in the face of increasing competitiveness across the world: a competitiveness driven by strategic funding, internationalization efforts, and strong links between education and industry."

QS World University Rankings 2021: Global Top 20 2021 2020



1 1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA 2 2 Stanford University USA 3 3 Harvard University USA 4 5 California Institute of Technology USA 5 4 University of Oxford UK 6 6 ETH Zurich Switzerland 7 7 University of Cambridge UK 8 9 Imperial College London UK 9 10 University of Chicago USA 10 8 University College London UK 11 11= National University of Singapore Singapore 12 13 Princeton University USA 13 11= Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore 14 18= Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) Switzerland 15 16 Tsinghua University China (Mainland) 16 15 University of Pennsylvania USA 17 17 Yale University USA 18 14 Cornell University USA 19 18= Columbia University USA 20 20 University of Edinburgh UK  QS Quacquarelli Symonds www.TopUniversities.com

Methodological details can be found here . To view the full rankings: www.TopUniversities.com

[1] 'Most-consulted according to data from independent monitoring platforms, including Google Analytics, SimilarWeb, Meltwater, and Alexa.
Manama

Head of the Shura Council Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee, lawyer Dalal Jassim Al Zayed, the Deputy Head of the Arab parliament Legislative, Legal and Human Rights Affairs Committee, participated today in the 18th meeting of the Arab Parliament committee in charge of human rights in the Arab World, which was held remotely.

Al Zayed said the meeting shed light on the situation in Yemen and violation of human rights there by Houthi militias, which is being perpetrated against the Yemeni people, women, children and sick people. She pointed out that the meeting, which convened at an invitation by the Arab Parliament Speaker, also cast light on the situation in Libya and the efforts made to achieve security and stability to the Libyan people.

Al Zayed pointed out that the committee underscored the need to back security, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yemen. She noted that the committee welcomed announcing a comprehensive ceasefire in Yemen by the coalition supporting legitimacy there so as to curb coronavirus outbreak and pave the way for a permanent ceasefire and resuming negotiations to reach a comprehensive and fair political solution.

Al Zayed said that the announcement of a ceasefire in Yemen is a major step in supporting human rights there amid the exceptional circumstances undergone by the world because of coronavirus pandemic.
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The police team posted outside the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Gandhi hospital, where family members of a Covid-19 patient attacked a doctor yesterday  left 30 minutes before their shift was to come to an end, without waiting for their colleagues to relieve them and take over  which gave the attackers a free run, multiple eye-witness accounts suggest.

The lone private security guard who tried to shield the Duty Medical Officer from the attack, was locked inside the bathroom (along with the doctor) by the two attackers, who created a ruckus after their family member died of Covid-19 last evening.

Eye witnesses and hospital sources told Deccan Chronicle that trouble was in the offing at the ICU as attendants of several patients were making regular attempts to get inside the ward. Some would get food and medicines for the patients while others said they had to take the patients to the toilet as they were unable to do so on their own.

Many attendants often complained of the poor facilities in the ward and argued that there was no one to take care of the patients needs. This was the reason why many of them often demanded access to the ward so that they could take care of their ailing family members.

But for the hospital authorities and the policemen alike, the top priority was to prevent attendants from going inside as most of the elderly patients in the ICU were Covid-19 positive.

''Over the last few days, the policemen on duty at the ICU ensured that no attendant was able to get inside as there was strict monitoring. Even the entry gate was locked and only the medical staff had access,'' sources said. But the increasing number of patients and lack of medical attention was constantly bothering the attendants.

Policemen posted in different wards including the ICU work in three shifts  6 a.m to 2 p.m is the first shift, 2 p.m to 8 p.m is the second while the third shift is from 8 p.m to 6 a.m.

Eye-witnesses said that it was around 7.30 p.m when the two police Constables and one Sub-inspector of police who were present there since 2 p.m., were no where to be seen in the ward. ''They left without waiting for their colleagues in the next shift to arrive and relieve them, which would have happened at 8 p.m.,'' they said.

Some 15 minutes after the policemen left, all hell broke loose following the death of the 55-year-old man. Emotionally charged and hurling abuses, his relatives picked up a stool, a chair and threw it at the doctors and nurses and attacked them after barging inside the ward.

It was only after frantic calls to the superiors in the hospital that policemen present elsewhere in the premises were asked to rush to the ICU, located on the third floor of the emergency block. By the time they reached, the damage was done. ''Had the police team been present at the time, the attack could have been thwarted or dealt with effectively,'' eye-witnesses said, describing the attackers as being in a ''very foul mood.''
None of Ukrainian fighters were wounded or killed in combat

82 mm mortar mine in the ground, Donbas Open source

Since small hours of June 10, pro-Kremlin mercenaries attacked positions of Ukrainian government troops six times. This is mentioned in the statement of Ukraine's Defense Ministry.

Russian occupant forces attacked positions of Ukrainain forces near Khutir Vilny (Luhansk region), using mounted anti-tank and automatic grenade launchers, as well as heavy machine guns. The enemy also opened fire in Orikhove.

82 and 120 mm mines hit the vicinities of Pavlopil, Donetsk region. Russian militants used mounted anti-tank grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

Ukrainian forces returned fire every time. Enemy casualties are being sorted out. None of Ukrainian fighters were wounded or killed in combat during the said period.

On June 9, an incident occurred near the coke plant in Avdiika, Donetsk region, as ten Ukrainian military people were wounded in a car explosion. The vehicle tripped over a landmine, causing injuries.
He was a liberal, socialist idealist who fought against perceived injustice around the world, earning him a long list of enemies, particularly in South Africa, where he was a determined foe of apartheid. At the height of the Cold War, he sought a third way between East and West, and he opposed the war in Vietnam.

Mr. Petersson said he had reached his conclusions after an exhaustive investigation that he compared to those of the Kennedy assassination and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

It was hardly a surprise, however, as the Swedish case was widely considered solved in 2018 by a freelance journalist, Thomas Pettersson, whose reporting led to Mr. Engstrom.

Mr. Pettersson, the journalist, found a link between the killer and a weapons collector, a former military man who detested Mr. Palme and his socialist ideals. Mr. Petersson, the prosecutor, said that in 2017, the police found a weapon at the collectors house matching the one that could have been used in the prime ministers killing. But officials could not establish definitively that the gun was the murder weapon.
Parents complain about a situation that did not live up to the proposed offer

MILAN, Italy, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lack of soap in the toilets, cold school dinners, frozen food, not fresh. Uniforms paid for, but never arrived. These were the accusations that, in November 2019, brought the officially recognized bilingual school of St. Louis, considered the institute of Milan's 'VIPs' to the headlines of the Milanese newspapers. LaPresse listens to and highlights parents' complaints about a situation that did not live up to the proposed offer, especially at the Colonna site. A story that ended with the admission of a certain level of disservice by the school, with uniforms that never arrived and with a return to the status quo.



Now, seven months later, and in the aftermath of a pandemic that has torn the country and families apart, a new chapter has been added to the saga: 'online' teaching that was inappropriate for young students during the first weeks of lockdown.

The children, it is claimed, are always at the centre: for their education and preparation parents are willing to pay very high fees in order to ensure a certain kind of educational standard. However, at the same time, those same parents expect - and demand - a delivery of education appropriate to the prestigious name of the school. Even during the time of coronavirus. As occurred throughout Italy with the explosion of the health crisis, the students of St. Louis, which welcomes children from the age of 2 to 18 years, have also been at home since 24 February. Since then, it has been a succession of distance learning, improvised teachers and remote lessons in front of the computer without the face-to-face support of a teacher. This is a common problem throughout the world battling against Covid-19. However, families expected much more from those who have a record of being the only international school in Milan, with excellent teaching staff in both English and Italian.

For this reason, around thirty parents have decided to demand a refund for the March tuition fees already paid, whilst appreciating the efforts made by the school to mitigate the inconvenience for students. Or, at least, that the amounts already paid be offset against next year's fees (the first instalment of which expires on 15 June). They were confronted, however, with a clear rejection.

"Parents do not believe it is fair to charge a substantially comprehensive price for a service which, albeit for exceptional reasons that cannot be attributed to the School, was certainly not comprehensive," lawyer Raffaele Cavani, who represents some of the School's student families. In fact, families have been asking for a long time to have a discussion, a negotiating table with the school, to discuss the problem, also in view of the next school year. After only one exchange opportunity, families are now complaining about the school's full closure.

for information: Barbara Sanicola - barbara.sanicola@lapresse.itT +39 02 26305578 M +39 333 3905243
AVITA Medical Limited ACN 058 466 523 (Company) is pleased to confirm that the general meeting to consider a resolution to approve the proposed scheme of arrangement to effect a redomiciliation of the Company and its subsidiaries from Australia to the United States of America (Scheme Meeting) is being held by way of live webcast at 9.00am (AEST) on Monday, 15 June 2020 (being 7.00pm (EDT) on Sunday, 14 June 2020).

The Scheme Booklet prepared in relation to the proposed scheme of arrangement was despatched (by post or electronically) to Company shareholders on 14 May 2020. A copy of the Scheme Booklet can also be found on the Company's website (https://avitamedical.com/virtual-shareholders-meeting).

The Notice of Scheme Meeting is contained in Appendix F of the Scheme Booklet.

Shareholders are reminded that due to the restrictions imposed by the Australian government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Scheme Meeting is being held exclusively as a virtual meeting by way of the live webcast.

Taking part in the live webcast will enable shareholders to listen to the Scheme Meeting live and view slides and proxy results. Shareholders who are registered as at 9.00am (AEST) on 13 June 2020 will be entitled to ask questions and cast their vote at the appropriate times whilst the Scheme Meeting is in progress. Holders of American Depositary Shares (ADS Holders) are able to listen to the live webcast, however, will not be able to ask questions or vote via the live webcast.

The Company will also provide a brief corporate update to shareholders at the conclusion of the Scheme Meeting.

Shareholders can access the live webcast by following the instructions below.

Participating in the Scheme Meeting

Shareholders are invited to participate in the Scheme Meeting by way of the live webcast on two available platforms:

Web browser visit https://web.lumiagm.com on your smartphone, tablet or computer. You will need the latest versions of Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer 11, Edge or Firefox; or Mobile app download the Lumi AGM app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store by searching for "Lumi AGM".

Once you have accessed the Lumi platform on your web browser or mobile device, you will be prompted to enter the meeting ID, which is: 316-817-384

Your username is your SRN HIN (which can be found towards the top right hand corner of your holding statement and on shareholder communications).

Your password is the postcode registered to your holding if you are a shareholder in Australia. If you are a shareholder outside of Australia, your password is your three letter country code (for example, "USA" for United States of America). A full list of country codes is provided in the attached Scheme Meeting User Guide.

ADS Holders are able to listen to the live webcast of the Scheme Meeting as a visitor by selecting the 'guest' option after entering the meeting ID.

Further details and instructions on how to participate in the Scheme Meeting are contained in the Scheme Meeting User Guide, and on the Company's website (https://avitamedical.com/virtual-shareholders-meeting).

Voting by Proxy

Shareholders who are unable to take part in the Scheme Meeting by way of the live webcast, or choose not to do so, are encouraged to submit their votes by proxy by no later than 9.00am (AEST) on 13 June 2020. Details on how to appoint a proxy are set out in section 3.8 of the Scheme Booklet.

Update details with the Company's share registry

Shareholders are encouraged to update their details with the Company's share registry, Computershare Investor Services Pty Ltd (Computershare), by accessing Computershare's website (www.computershare.com.au/easyupdate/avh) to ensure that payment instructions are up-to-date in advance of the anticipated implementation date of the proposed scheme of arrangement.

Authorised for release by the Chief Financial Officer of AVITA Medical Limited.

ABOUT AVITA MEDICAL LIMITED

AVITA Medical is a regenerative medicine company with a technology platform positioned to address unmet medical needs in burns, chronic wounds, and aesthetics indications. AVITA Medical's patented and proprietary collection and application technology provides innovative treatment solutions derived from the regenerative properties of a patient's own skin. The medical devices work by preparing a RES REGENERATIVE EPIDERMAL SUSPENSION, an autologous suspension comprised of the patient's skin cells necessary to regenerate natural healthy epidermis. This autologous suspension is then sprayed onto the areas of the patient requiring treatment.

AVITA Medical's first U.S. product, the RECELL System, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2018. The RECELL System is indicated for use in the treatment of acute thermal burns in patients 18 years and older. The RECELL System is used to prepare Spray-On Skin Cells using a small amount of a patient's own skin, providing a new way to treat severe burns, while significantly reducing the amount of donor skin required. The RECELL System is designed to be used at the point of care alone or in combination with autografts depending on the depth of the burn injury. Compelling data from randomized, controlled clinical trials conducted at major U.S. burn centers and real-world use in more than 8,000 patients globally, reinforce that the RECELL System is a significant advancement over the current standard of care for burn patients and offers benefits in clinical outcomes and cost savings. Healthcare professionals should read the

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE RECELL Autologous Cell Harvesting Device (https://recellsystem.com/) for a full description of indications for use and important safety information including contraindications, warnings and precautions.

In international markets, our products are marketed under the RECELL System brand to promote skin healing in a wide range of applications including burns, chronic wounds and aesthetics. The RECELL System is TGA-registered in Australia and received CE-mark approval in Europe.

To learn more, visit www.avitamedical.com.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This announcement includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "expect," "intend," "could," "may," "will," "believe," "estimate," "look forward," "forecast," "goal," "target," "project," "continue," "outlook," "guidance," "future," other words of similar meaning and the use of future dates. Forward-looking statements in this announcement include, but are not limited to, statements concerning, among other things, our ongoing clinical trials and product development activities, regulatory approval of our products, the potential for future growth in our business, and our ability to achieve our key strategic, operational and financial goal. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. Each forward- looking statement contained in this announcement is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statement. Applicable risks and uncertainties include, among others, the timing of regulatory approvals of our products; physician acceptance, endorsement, and use of our products; failure to achieve the anticipated benefits from approval of our products; the effect of regulatory actions; product liability claims; risks associated with international operations and expansion; and other business effects, including the effects of industry, economic or political conditions outside of the company's control. Investors should not place considerable reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this announcement. Investors are encouraged to read our publicly available filings for a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements in this announcement speak only as of the date of this release, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200609005857/en/

Contacts:

U.S. Media

Sam Brown, Inc.

Christy Curran

Phone +1 615 414 8668

christycurran@sambrown.com

O.U.S Media

Monsoon Communications

Rudi Michelson

Phone +61 (0)3 9620 3333

Mobile +61 (0)411 402 737

rudim@monsoon.com.au

Investors:

Westwicke Partners

Caroline Corner

Phone +1 415 202 5678

caroline.corner@westwicke.com

AVITA Medical Ltd

David McIntyre

Chief Financial Officer

Phone +1 661 367 9178

dmcintyre@avitamedical.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 00:13:02|Editor: huaxia

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MUMBAI, June 9 (Xinhua) -- India's western state of Maharashtra on Tuesday crossed the grim milestone of 90,000 cases with its political capital Mumbai over 50,000 COVID-19 cases after adding 2,259 and 1,015 fresh cases respectively on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Mumbai reported 58 deaths, taking the total deaths in the city to 1,758. Out of the 50,878 confirmed cases, 26,178 cases were active cases while 22,942 cases have been cured and discharged, as per the update by the city civic authority Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

India's federal health ministry Tuesday morning said that 331 new deaths due to COVID-19, besides fresh 9,987 positive cases were reported during the past 24 hours across the country, taking the number of deaths to 7,466 and total cases to 266,598. Enditem
By Express News Service

GUWAHATI: Two firefighters of the Oil India Limited (OIL) were found dead near the oil well blowout site in Assam's Tinsukia district on Wednesday morning.

The victims  Durlav Gogoi and Tikheswar Gohain  had been missing ever since a massive fire broke out at the site on Tuesday afternoon.

"We lost two of our men today (Wednesday). The cause of deaths could be drowning in the pond or suffocation," a spokesperson of the OIL said.

Quoting workers, the locals said the duo had jumped into a pond when the fire broke out. Personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) retrieved the bodies with the help of drones used by Assam's Forest Department.

Another firefighter but of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) was injured at the site on Tuesday. He was rushed to the Assam Medical College and Hospital in Dibrugarh and stated to be out of danger.

The fire has been controlled in a 1.5-km radius but it is still raging as natural gas is being fed by the well's oil.

The inferno has left a trail of devastation in nearby areas, including a famous beel (or billabong).

Environmentalists and wildlife activists are worried as the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park, known for its feral horses, is less than two km away. The blowout  or uncontrolled emission of natural gas  occurred at the OIL's Baghjan Well No 5 on May 27. Ever since then, natural gas was spewing.

Official sources said personnel from the Army, Indian Air Force, NDRF, OIL and ONGC were engaged in dousing the fire.

The OIL had on Tuesday said: "The situation demands arrangement of large quantities of water, installation of high-discharge pumps and removal of debris. All the operations will take about four weeks. Efforts will be made to reduce this timeframe as much as possible.

The OIL had on Sunday flown in three experts from Singapore-based firm, M/s Alert Disaster Control, to cap the blowout. They are at the site.


Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:12:01|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The Global Think Tanks Online Forum on International Cooperation to Combat COVID-19, held on Tuesday and Wednesday, issued a joint statement calling for international solidarity to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The statement noted that major infectious diseases are the common enemy of humanity, and only with solidarity and cooperation can the international community overcome the pandemic.

All countries should live up to their responsibilities for their people and promote global cooperation against COVID-19, said the statement.

"We share the abiding commitment of putting the people and their lives first. We salute all the countries that have taken active and effective measures and made huge sacrifices to control COVID-19 under their particular national conditions," said the statement.

"We appreciate the endeavors of those countries which have actively engaged in international cooperation, kept the international community informed of COVID-19 dynamics in their countries, shared experience in epidemic control and treatment of patients, and provided generous assistance to other countries in need," it also read.

The statement pointed out that the virus knows no borders and the pandemic does not distinguish between races.

COVID-19 has exposed weaknesses in both national public health systems and global governance, and may lead to rising global inequality. In response, the international community should work together to build a global community of health for all, jointly address challenges in a scientific and rational way, and strengthen global solidarity, the statement said.

"We support the World Health Organization in leading international cooperation to combat COVID-19," it said.

The statement also urged the international community to enhance cooperation and information sharing in disease prevention and control, treatment of patients and relevant research, ensure equal right to lives and health for all countries, races and social groups, provide more material, technical and personnel support to developing countries for improving public health emergency responses and promoting economic recovery, and oppose discrimination and prejudice in any form.

The international community should also strengthen global coordination of the research and development, mass manufacturing and equitable distribution of vaccines for COVID-19, and ensure that they are universally available, and do everything possible to minimize the impact of the pandemic on world economy, strengthen international macroeconomic policy coordination and keep the global industrial and supply chains running, read the statement.

The statement expressed the hope that think tanks across the world will play their due role in promoting global cooperation to combat COVID-19 and similar epidemics in the future, improving global public health governance and stabilizing the world economy.

"We in think tanks should encourage all research and exploration based on science, knowledge and reason, and broaden channels of knowledge-sharing and exchanges," said the statement.

"Let us join hands and contribute our share to safeguarding human health, improving human wellbeing and building a global community of shared future," said the statement. Enditem
Chennai:

MK leaders M K Stalin and Kanimozhi were among several leaders detained today while staging protests in support of a shutdown called in Tamil Nadu over the Cauvery row as the dawn to dusk bandh called by farmers, traders and supported by the opposition over the issue evoked a mixed response in the state.

A dawn-to-dusk bandh called by several farmers and traders bodies over the raging Cauvery dispute began on Friday across Tamil Nadu amid tight security with Opposition parties, including the DMK, supporting it.A As those who had given the bandh call have said a series of protests, including aroad and rail rokoa, will be held, thousands of police personnel have been deployed across the state to maintain law and order.

As it happened:

DMK & VCK party workers' 'Rail Roko' protest against #CauveryIssue in Hosur, Tamil Nadu. pic.twitter.com/4EAg0jr8r5 a ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

#DMK leader MK Stalin detained in Chennai while MDMK Chief Vaiko detained in Tiruchirappalli during protest ovr Cauvery issue

#DMK leader Kanimozhi, who was protesting along with other party workers over #Cauvery water dispute row, detained by police.

#Chennai: TN farmers' association stage 'Rail Roko' protest at Saidapet railway station over Cauvery issue

#Chennai: DMK workers stage protest over #Cauvery water dispute row, DMK leader Kanimozhi also present

#Thanjavur (TN): Tamil Nadu Bandh over Cauvery issue disrupts normal life, shops and schools remain closed

#Pudukkottai (TN): DMK workers hold 'Rail Roko' protest over Kalasa Banduri Canal issue detained by policeA

#Kanchipuram: Tamil Nadu Bandh over Cauvery issue disrupts normal life



Chennai: Koyambedu market closed today as farmers' organisations and Opposition parties call for #TamilNaduBandh pic.twitter.com/EMEd6l5lwh a ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

Attibele: Commuters forced to walk across the border after K'taka Police stops vehicular movement to TN #TNBandh pic.twitter.com/esXZIxAJr1 a ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

Police said tight vigil was being maintained and no attempts to mar public peace or disruption of free movement of transportationaon road or railawould be allowed. Several local grocery shops, which usually open by daybreak, remained shut in view of the protests.



State transport corporation-run buses besides trains are being operated as usual though autos, taxis and commercial freight operators remained off the roads.



The bandh has been called in protest against the violence targeting Tamils in Karnataka and also to seek Cauvery water for the state.



Barring the ruling AIADMK, its allies and trade unions affiliated, all other Opposition parties, including the DMK, Tamil Nadu Congress, DMDK, MDMK, Left parties and the PMK, are supporting the bandh.



Thousands of police personnel, including armed reserve forces, have been deployed in Tamil Nadu and in Chennai over 15,000 policemen are on duty.



Protection was being provided for Karnataka-related business establishments, schools, institutions and areas where Kannada speaking people live, including Krishnagiri district.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
South Africa: President Ramaphosa pays tribute to President Nkurunziza

African Union Chairperson and South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, has expressed his sadness at the untimely passing of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza.

The government of Burundi announced on Tuesday that President Nkurunziza passed away at the age of 55 following a short illness. His passing came shortly after Burundi concluded a peaceful electoral process.

President Ramaphosa expressed his sincere condolences to the government and people of Burundi at the loss of the leader, who served Burundi as the second democratically elected President and the first President after the civil war.

Burundi and all of Africa have lost a leader, who was devoted to people-centred sustainable development, self-reliance, the sovereignty of his people and country, as well as peace on the continent.

It was under the leadership of President Nkurunziza that Burundi became one of the major troop contributing countries in the African Union Mission in Somalia. Burundi also deployed troops in the Central African Republic," he said.

President Ramaphosa recalled the sound bilateral relations between South Africa and Burundi, under which South Africa played a key role in the AU-led Burundi Peace Process, which led to the signing of the Arusha Peace Accords in 2000.

A memorable last State visit undertaken by President Nkurunziza to South Africa was in November 2014, where the two countries signed a number of bilateral agreements. These covered, among others, a Joint Commission of Cooperation (JCC), cultural cooperation and a decision to establish a Joint Business Council (JBC).

President Ramaphosa called on the people of Burundi to maintain calm and peace in their country following the passing of President Nkurunziza and in the aftermath of the recently concluded presidential, legislative and municipal elections.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
WAPELLO  The Louisa County Courthouse and other county offices could be reopened, as long as the guidelines issued by the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) are followed, Louisa County Public Health Administrator Roxanne Smith told the board of supervisors during its regular meeting on Tuesday.

However, the supervisors agreed to delay until June 16 to make a final decision on reopening to ensure glass partitions and other safeguards being installed in at least one courthouse office will be completed by then.

County treasurer Vicki Frank told the board she had contacted a contractor about installing partitions in her office, but was not sure if the work would be completed by next week. She initially suggested keeping the courthouse locked until June 22, explaining the contractor was coming this Friday to work on the partitions.

However, she said regardless of when the work was completed or the board decided to reopen the building, she would probably follow a different process for her office.

I think Im going to have to keep my doors locked, she said, explaining there would likely be a big push from customers as soon as the courthouse reopened.
South Korea will fully implement a military tension-reduction agreement with North Korea despite Pyongyang's threat to scrap it, the defense ministry said Wednesday, amid heightened tensions over anti-Pyongyang leaflets.

During a meeting of top commanders presided over by Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, officers said the agreement signed in 2018 has "specifically and practically" contributed to reducing tensions between the two Koreas, according to the ministry

"Despite the recent difficulty in inter-Korean relations, our military decided to fully implement the Sept. 19 military agreement to continue efforts for realization of reduction in military tensions, and to militarily back the government's policy for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the peace process," the ministry said in a release.

Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, threatened last week to scrap the deal and to halt other cross-border projects in anger over Seoul's failure to stop North Korean defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

On Tuesday, the North cut all communication lines with South Korea, citing the activists' leaflet campaign, and said it is working on "phased plans" to now deal with the South as an "enemy."












Ericsson recently marked the 20th anniversary of its employee volunteer disaster relief programme, set up to provide connectivity to humanitarian workers in disaster areas.

We spoke to Heather Johnson, VP for sustainability and corporate responsibility at Ericsson, to discuss the programmes history and how advances in technology have enabled more effective disaster response in emerging markets. There is also a short video about the Ericsson Response programme at the end of the article.

How did the programme start, and how has it evolved to the point were at today?

The year 2000 was definitely not the digital broadband age were in now, but even then  twenty years ago  a group of Ericsson employees understood the power that the technology could deliver in disaster response, even if at that time the main intervention available was voice. In addition to this understanding, they were also able to reach out to UN partners. For us, the UN has been an important and relevant partner - Ericsson is a company with 100,000 people serving 180 markets, so a partner with that kind of scale that can help us to amplify the impact that we make.

In the wake of a disaster, getting communications up and running is now effectively the top priority as it provides a bedrock for coordinating other priorities, such as food and medicine. How has the prioritisation of communications evolved since the programme started?

I think its largely due to the criticality of communication networks in society generally; when the programme started, the primary effort was for humanitarian relief works and their efforts, which is an essential component of the response on the ground. What has evolved over these two decades is that now, every person and most sectors of society really embrace communications technology  its woven into the fabric of society. People really miss the ability to communicate in their daily lives; being totally cut off after a natural disaster such as an earthquake or typhoon creates devastation across the board. Being able to connect and run logistics is crucial, whether its from the perspective of humanitarian workers getting real-time data about what is needed and where, or from the human perspective, being able to let family and friends know that youre OK. Its an evolution of how important communication is in todays society.

How has the increasingly sophisticated technology available allowed for better-coordinated responses - not just between the volunteer team, but also perhaps with input from civilians once services are up and running?

Ericsson response volunteers go on secondments to the UN when countries request assistance with a natural disaster. We have nearly 60 missions across geographies; last year a prominent example was Cyclone Ida in Mozambique. We go together and work with partners such as the World Food Programme, which has the remit over the emergency telecom cluster. Were a vital technology partner to that effort  its about setting up connectivity and communication hubs, as well as ensuring that municipal services such as hospitals or airports have the immediate coverage they require. We also put together community hub spaces so that the affected population of the disaster has access to connectivity.

After the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, one of the UN members said that theyd never seen the logistics and capabilities enabled with this effort, to the extent that their only comparable reference point was a military operation. It was such a well-organised response from a technology perspective  deliveries can be made more effectively if we understand which remote parts of a particular geography require assistance. Having the real time data to understand which interventions have to be made really helps the response.

Were very early in  between 48 and 72 hours after a disaster strikes - and there are a multitude of NGOs on the ground that we need to serve. In Mozambique last year, there was an organisation called World Central Kitchen that worked to deliver food and meals - by virtue of the communications capabilities, they were able to reach tens of thousands of people requiring food. For an organisation like Doctors Without Borders, whether its a cholera treatment facility or an outbreak such as the Ebola crisis in West Africa, were able to have real time data collection to collate information around the disease and amplify practical advice to help stop the spread.

With that in mind, are elements of disaster response useful during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in terms of controlling outbreaks or preventing spread?

The Ebola response was a medical emergency - what was different there was that they were setting up treatment centres, which is still a hub built for a specific purpose that needs connectivity. In that instance, we were able to help keep medical staff connected to the outside world but also connect patients  people were very isolated within these units.

Whats interesting about the response to Covid-19 is that while its a totally different situation, it still highlights the importance of connectivity  whether its working productively from home or online learning, parts of the world have been able to adapt very quickly to a pretty severe lockdown situation. Its possible  of course, there are many parts of the world that are not connected, but this shows the potential of connectivity  particularly in terms of something like sustainable development, which essentially dovetails with humanitarian response in terms of resilience building. From a national perspective, considering the infrastructure or the components of an agenda vital to sustainable development, it makes commercial sense to bring these responses together.

So its now commercially viable to pursue sustainability?

It will be fundamental for governments around the world to invest in ICT technologies for their development plans. This is something weve been working on with the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development with the ITU and UNESCO, and its looking not just at establishing national broadband plans, but connecting them to the broader development agenda. Ericsson is a strong proponent of the sustainable development goals, and we have decades of research around understanding our impact and the opportunities that we have with the infrastructure that we deliver. We know how this can transform multiple sectors of society, which is now likely to be more in focus than ever as we seek to build back better [in the aftermath of Covid-19]. Technology is going to play a key role in rebuilding resilient economies.

To find out more about Ericsson Response and view a longer version of the video go to www.ericsson.com/ericsson-response
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 14:01:03|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Bees are widely known to spread pollen in order to help plants reproduce, a role which is vital for the earth's ecology -- now a world-first Australian study has found a special plant which uses ants for the same job.

PhD student Nicola Delnevo from Australia's Edith Cowan University (ECU), lead researcher on the study released Wednesday, explained that ants being used in the pollination of plants was extremely rare, largely because they secrete an antimicrobial fluid which kills pollen grain.

"So ants have traditionally been considered to be a menace -- nectar thieves whose aggression keeps other potential pollinating insects at bay," Delnevo said.

Recently the team discovered a group of plants in the Australian State of Western Australia, known as the Smokebush family (Conospermum), which have evolved their pollen grain to withstand the harmful effects from the ant's antimicrobial fluid.

"We found evidence that Conospermum plants have adapted the biochemistry of their pollen grains to cope with the antimicrobial properties of the ants," Delnevo said.

According to Delnevo, this plant is the first in the world known to scientists to have evolved such an ability.

"About 46 examples of ant pollination have been documented around the world, but these have been due to the ants producing less toxic secretions that allow them to pollinate," he said.

"This is the first plant species in the world found to have adapted traits that enables a mutually beneficial relationship with ants."

Researchers suggest the unique ability of putting both bees and ants to work in the pollination process increased the chance of survival for the plant, and plan to continue their examination of exactly how the extraordinary ability evolved. Enditem
REUTERS/Dan Riedlhuber

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is standing by its controversial monitoring suspension in the oilpatch due the COVID-19 pandemic, calling the move low-risk amid mounting criticism from First Nations, environmental groups and opposition politicians in the province.

In a bid to protect workers in accordance with public health orders, Albertas energy regulator has halted a wide range of requirements mandated by oil and gas company licences.

Those include monitoring fumes released by burning, finding and repairing methane gas leaks, and testing surface water prior to an environmental leak. In-situ oil sands sites no longer have to conduct wildlife monitoring or research. Wetland reclamation and monitoring is also suspended under the orders issued this spring in response to COVID-19.

Temporary suspensions in select environmental monitoring programs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is low-risk and should not significantly compromise the integrity of Alberta's long-term environmental information systems, Alberta's chief scientist, Fred Wrona, said in a news release on Tuesday.

The AER said the suspensions impact between two and five per cent of overall monitoring requirements, and exclude measures for emergencies.

On Wednesday, a dozen First Nations and conservation groups sent a letter to federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson calling on Ottawa to force the Alberta government to reinstate environmental monitoring.

Meanwhile, three northern Alberta First Nations are attempting to appeal the suspension, citing a lack of consultation beyond those in the industry. They argue the AER has not adequately linked COVID risk to specific environmental monitoring tasks, while daily work continues at energy sites. The AER said the decisions were based on assessments by technical experts.

Alberta opposition leader Rachel Notley has been a vocal critic of the suspension. Shes calling for AER CEO Laurie Pushors resignation over the move, suggesting Pushor lacks independence from Premier Jason Kenneys fiercely pro-energy government.

Story continues

University of Alberta wetland ecology and management professor Lee Foote has spent nearly two decades working with major energy companies including Syncrude on reclamation projects.

He expects the industry will resist reinstating the monitoring requirements given the current demand and commodity price pressures battering Canadian producers.

It appears to many of us as a gift to the oil sector in hard times, to let them off the accountability hook, he told Yahoo Finance Canada. It takes a long time to build up regulations and a short time to tear them down.

The AER plans to reassess the decision after the Alberta government issues new public health guidance under its stage 2 plan, which is expected on June 12.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
OPINION: "This should be a no-brainer, so whats the problem? Some members of the RTA board are hesitant to change the scope of the First Avenue project. They appear to want Tucson to build a six-lane roadway because it was the project scope promised in the 2006 plan and the RTA must do what was promised no matter the need or the cost. Decisions by the RTA Board should be made based on facts and data, not out of fear of public perceptions and long ago promises," write Tucsonans Ruth Reiman and Jane Evans.
Minneapolis City Councilman Steve Fletcher represents an area thats been pretty insulated from the protests in the wake of George Floyds death. Its where Mayor Jacob Frey lives. But Fletcher knew something was changing in his ward when he started getting phone calls from constituents who were worried, pleading for help, unable to reach law enforcement. As Fletcher explains: People were not getting the help that they needed for a while. Once that fell apart, they were willing to say, Is this really the system we need? That changed a lot of peoples views of our current public safety infrastructureand so they were jolted into action.

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Suddenly, his constituents werent just asking him to craft some legislation or debate the finer details of the city budget. They wanted something much more immediate. And Fletcher listened: On Sunday, he and a veto-proof majority of the City Council pledged to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Departmentcompletely.

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On Wednesdays episode of What Next, I spoke with Fletcher about how he and his fellow council members reached this point, and what they think disbanding the force will look like. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mary Harris: Youve been trying to figure out how to reform the police for years. But until now, the most youve ever tried to do is slow the growth of police spending: voting back in 2018 to take about a million dollars out of the police budget and put it toward public safety programs. This sounds like a lot, but the police were slated to get $185 million. Even with that money lopped off the top, the overall police budget was growing year after year. There was pushback on your decision: You got calls from the law-and-order types, but you also got more troubling calls.

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Steve Fletcher: We saw a lot of businesses being told by officers, Wed love to help you with that, but our hands are tied by the council. Talk to your council member.

Were these people who were reporting crimes?

Yes: businesses experiencing shoplifting or other kinds of incidents. Cops would come and say, We asked for money in the budget, but the council member didnt give it to us. And we just dont have enough people to respond to it quickly enough to address this issue.

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Your proposal back then was to do something so small, and now you and this majority of council members have proposed something much bigger. I cant imagine what youre thinking about the work ahead.

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It feels really daunting. It also feels more honest. Ive become convinced over the past two years that these reform efforts are not working. We have to do better for our community than that. And frankly, if the cops are going to treat me like Im the enemy when I cut a sliver of the increase of their budget, theres no incentive to not go big because Im going to get treated that way regardless. So I might as well go for the real change that I actually think is going to protect our community and make us safe in the long run.

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You were following the recent protests of Mayor Jacob Frey. Can you describe a little bit what happened there?

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The community was protesting in my ward in northeast Minneapolis, which has not been the epicenter of protests, typically. They somewhat strategically brought their march to the block that the mayor lives on. Frey came out to talk to them and they put him on the spot and said, We have a yes or no question for you: Will you commit to defunding the Minneapolis Police Department? And he said no, he doesnt support defunding the police. He certainly is still of a mind that he wants to try to reform this department. And the protesters asked him to leave.

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There is this video circulating of what people were calling a walk of shame. The choice was so starkan activist was saying, Its important for everyone to hear this because  hes up for reelection next year. It was dramatic.

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The next day, you had a very different rally. Can you talk about that?

We gathered in Powderhorn Park. The community came together in a very powerful way. And a veto-proof majority of the council declared our intention to pursue disbanding the police.

We are trying to undo the notion that policing is whats needed.  Steve Fletcher

Which kind of means that what the mayor said doesnt really matter.

That was, I think, part of what were signaling to everybody: that this is something thats important and the city is moving on.

I wonder what kind of constituent reaction youve gotten over the past couple days. Who are you hearing from?

The overwhelming message Ive gotten from constituents is support. But its worth talking about peoples fear because so many people have equated police with safety for so long. Thats what we were raised to think. One of the things Ive been challenging everybody to do is think about your last interaction with the police, and think about whether it aligns with that equation of police equals safety.

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What I hear from a lot of people is that they actually experienced fear or harm. But what I hear from even more people is that they just experienced nothing particularly helpful: I called the police because somebody broke into my house and they came and acted like I was inconveniencing them. They wrote a report because I needed that for insurance, but they certainly werent going to follow up and actually do anything about it. I never heard if they caught the guy, and I never heard if they recovered anything.

Weve had a department thats just not providing good service. We have other departments that strive to have very high satisfaction ratings from our residents. Thats never been a goal of the Minneapolis Police Department.

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A criticism from the outside would be, if youre abolishing the police, what are you going to do about murders or rapes or domestic violence? How are you going to ensure these crimes are solved? And theres this other issue, which is youve just created a force of about a thousand people who may feel like dead men walking.

I think that second issue is something that is really concerning, and there was no way to start this conversation without naming it out loud. And there is no way that it is good for the morale of the city staff who are hearing us talk about them this way. But we had to ultimately decide that we couldnt keep worrying about that.

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I dont think were going to have the same kind of guns-and-badge-first kind of force that people think of policing as. I think were going to be looking for social workers and psychologists, people who have a lot of other skills. And as we figure out what we need, were going to recruit for that.

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Do you think about what work theyll be doing in terms of public safety? Do you want to call it policing?

An awful lot of it, no. We are trying to undo the notion that policing is whats needed. There will be an aspect that will be close enough to policing, because there are so many guns on the street that we cant have no forceful response to that. But we have to have some way, when we hear about a dangerous call, to respond appropriately. The vast majority of calls that come in to 911 would be better responded to by conflict resolution specialists, by outreach specialists who can connect people to services, by psychologists and social workers. I think we need to get much more sophisticated about sending the right response to the right problems so we can actually be problem-solving instead of just checking the box on having done a 911 response.

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Theres a lot of moral clarity in naming the real problem thats actually bothering people, in getting down to the real question of what makes you feel safe instead of thinking we can fix this broken system. I dont think we can fix it. I think finally stepping up and letting the community lead what comes next so that we do something that people really believe in is going to feel so much better for everybody.

It could be chaos.

Its chaos now.

Listen to the full episode using the player below, or subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
OFCO custom filters The industries OFCO sells to are a vital part of the global economy and were positioned to support them for another 75 years.

With all that has happened this year in industry, there are still many bright spots for small businesses. Ohio Fabricators Company (OFCO), a custom manufacturer of filters, strainers, breathers and diffusers for a wide range of industries, is proud to announce a celebration of its 75 years in business.

Founded in 1944 in Coshocton, Ohio, halfway between Columbus and Cleveland, OFCO began by manufacturing filters for airplane motors in support of the war effort. Though much has changed since Lemuel Forman, Joseph Rokovan and Ivan MacKeiler started OFCO, the companys commitment to third-party audited quality management, exceptional delivery times and the highest level of customer service has sustained its legacy and kept customers coming back.

OFCOs products range from penny-sized metal filters to 20-inch diameter strainers. Industries supported by OFCO are just as diverse and include construction, farming and mining to oil and gas production, hydraulics, automotive/transportation and virtually any industry that needs to filter liquids.

Its our owners investment in technology and people that keep us ahead of the competition, said Chief Executive Officer Mike Shaw. The companys 70 veteran employees, housed in a 45,000 square-foot facility, are as committed today as they were during the companys wartime beginnings. Shaw said that the current ownership team acquired the company in 1964. Weve grown the business by providing U.S.-manufactured products that meet the very highest quality standards and tight delivery timelines our customers demand.

In celebration of its founding, OFCO is unveiling a new logo, website and an aggressive marketing program. According to Sales Manager Mike Smith, though our existing customers know what we stand for, were not exactly a household name in the filter business. That is largely because OFCO sells a great deal of its products to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and through private-label resellers. The new communications program will reinforce OFCOs core values, expand the OFCO brand, and increase the businesss reach.

In addition to its custom-manufacturing strength, OFCO also stocks many standard products and parts for just-in-time delivery to its customers. One of our business objectives this year is to expand and promote our line of standard products, said Smith. Its a part of our business that hasnt gotten the attention it deserves, and our customers want this from us.

With 75 years in the rear-view mirror, OFCO is looking forward to the future. According to Shaw, the industries OFCO sells to are a vital part of the global economy and were positioned to support them for another 75 years.

For more information, visit http://www.ohfab.com or call (888) 354-9326.

About Ohio Fabricators Company

Since 1945, Ohio Fabricators Company (OFCO) has been a leader in custom-manufactured filters, strainers, diffusers and screens for a wide variety of industries. In addition to custom manufacturing it also stocks many standard products for immediate delivery and parts and materials for rapid assembly.
Ireland's debt agency has canceled a regular bond auction planned for Thursday and will instead sell new 10-year debt through a syndicate of banks, a method that typically raises a far larger amount of funds.

Ireland's National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) in April revised its funding target for 2020 to 20-24 billion euros from the 10-14 billion euros envisaged at the start of the year in order to fund extra government spending to cope with the coronavirus crisis.

It has raised 12.5 billion euros so far, 10 billion of which was via syndication.

The NTMA has mandated Barclays, BNP Paribas, Danske Bank, Davy, NatWest Markets and Nomura to launch the new 10-year bond sale "in the near future," a statement provided by one of the joint lead managers said.

The NTMA regularly uses such language when kicking off a syndicated sale the next day. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Technavio has been monitoring the global biomass power generation market size and it is poised to grow by 43.37 GW during 2019-2023, progressing at a CAGR of 6% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005595/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Biomass Power Generation Market 2019-2023 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Acciona SA, Ameresco Inc., ANDRITZ AG, Babcock Wilcox Enterprises Inc., Drax Group Plc, E.ON SE, ENGIE SA, General Electric Co., John Wood Group, Plc., and Vattenfall AB are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The growing need for cleaner energy supply has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the high project and feedstock costs might hamper market growth.

Biomass Power Generation Market 2019-2023: Segmentation

Biomass Power Generation Market is segmented as below:

Product Solid Biomass Biogas Municipal Solid Waste Liquid Biomass

Geography EMEA APAC North America South America



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR32156

Biomass Power Generation Market 2019-2023: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our biomass power generation market report covers the following areas:

Biomass Power Generation Market size

Biomass Power Generation Market trends

Biomass Power Generation Market industry analysis

This study identifies adoption of biomass in fuel cell technology as one of the prime reasons driving the biomass power generation market growth during the next few years.

Biomass Power Generation Market 2019-2023: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the biomass power generation market, including some of the vendors such as Acciona SA, Ameresco Inc., ANDRITZ AG, Babcock Wilcox Enterprises Inc., Drax Group Plc, E.ON SE, ENGIE SA, General Electric Co., John Wood Group, Plc., and Vattenfall AB. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the biomass power generation market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports.

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Biomass Power Generation Market 2019-2023: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2019-2023

Detailed information on factors that will assist biomass power generation market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the biomass power generation market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the biomass power generation market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of biomass power generation market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2018-2023

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Feedstock

Market segments

Comparison by Feedstock

Solid biomass Market size and forecast 2018-2023 (GW)

Biogas Market size and forecast 2018-2023 (GW)

Municipal solid waste Market size and forecast 2018-2023 (GW)

Liquid biomass Market size and forecast 2018-2023 (GW)

Market opportunity by Feedstock

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Europe Market size and forecast 2018-2023

North America Market size and forecast 2018-2023

MEA Market size and forecast 2018-2023

South America Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Acciona SA

Ameresco Inc.

Andritz AG

Babcock Wilcox Enterprises Inc.

E.ON SE

General Electric Co.

John Wood Group Plc

Thermax Ltd.

Valmet Oyj

Vattenfall AB

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005595/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: media@technavio.com

Website: www.technavio.com/
Coun. Stephen Wright has been disciplined for his maverick fact-finding trip to New Brunswick during a COVID-19 lockdown, but that might not be the end of the story.

On Monday, Peterborough city council voted 8-3 strip Wright of his position as vice-chair of Economic Development and his seat as a city representative on the Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

Given the currently known facts and the options available to council, a limited de-frocking of Coun. Wright feels like fair punishment.

While Wright called Mayor Diane Therriens recommended punishment heavy handed, a majority of council would likely have agreed to take away even more of his public responsibilities.

To recap, Wright drove 1,200 kilometres to see how New Brunswick restaurants are faring under restricted opening rules.

At a time when all Canadians are being asked to restrict non-essential travel, he talked his way into New Brunswick despite an Emergency Act decree closing the province to outsiders.

When caught out he claimed it was just a three-day dash, later admitting hed been in the province for 10 days.

The trip showed bad judgment in the extreme. Wright ignored the community responsibility pact that has largely kept this pandemic in check and created a major inter-provincial controversy. The premier of New Brunswick is angry and an investigation is continuing.

So, some disciplinary action was necessary.

Taking away committee responsibilities was the only immediate punishment available, and it was used at medium force.

Losing the vice-chair role is fairly stiff. Council operates on a one-person committee system where the title chair generally means sole responsibility for overseeing an area of city business.

Being a chair is the most senior responsibility for councillors. Wright, a rookie, didnt have a chair position. Vice-chair of economic development was as close as he got and that role is now gone.

He will also no longer sit as a city representative on the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce.

However, he keeps his appointments to the Peterborough Utilities Commission, Fairhaven home for seniors and the Peterborough Agricultural Society.

Council appointments are reviewed annually in December. If Wright stays out of trouble until then it would reasonable for the mayor to give him back some lost responsibility.

All that, however, assumes no further damning evidence from the New Brunswick investigation. There are questions about what Wright said to authorities at the Quebec border and how much contact he had with others while in New Brunswick.

If new facts surface council might be forced to consider stiffer punishment. That could include further stripping of appointments or, under councils Code of Conduct, docking his pay.

Wright was handed one other sanction. Council will no longer support his bid for election to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities board of directors.

That decision was unanimous. Even Wrights supporters understand he has embarrassed the city and cannot be endorsed on a national platform.

Wright, who is Black, suggested council is wrong to squash the possibility of adding a person of colour to the FCM board.

Council didnt bring that result about, Wright did. He was a long-shot candidate before the trip and an unelectable one after it.

Wright defended himself as a councillor of overwhelming zeal. When he shows he can temper zeal with good judgment he might get his lost positions back.

Read more about:
Paul stands to be an unusual figure in the policing debate. He has been an outspoken opponent of the militarization of police, joining with Democrats to ban the transfer of surplus military equipment to police departments  a key part of the House Democratic bill. But he is also under fire for single-handedly blocking quick action on an anti-lynching bill that passed the House in February and enjoys wide support in the Senate.
Poroshenko earlier today refused to receive from an SBI detective a suspicion notice which the lawyer says must be handed by the prosecutor general personally.

Head of the Second Department of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) of Ukraine Vadym Pryimachok has said the motion for selecting a preventive measure against former Ukrainian President and leader of the European Solidarity parliamentary faction Petro Poroshenko will be filed with Kyiv's Pechersky district court.

He told journalists Poroshenko had refused to receive a suspicion notice, which was recorded on video, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

"Investigators are resolving the issue of applying a preventive measure to the suspect. The relevant petition will be sent to Kyiv's Pechersky district court," he said.

Read alsoUkraine's SBI serves Poroshenko with charge papers

He added that the investigative actions were being carried out by SBI operatives in coordination with the Office of the Prosecutor General.

As UNIAN reported earlier, prosecutors of the SBI served Poroshenko with charge papers in the case of the allegedly wrongful appointment of deputy chief of foreign intelligence Serhiy Semochko.
Grubhub is nearing a deal to be acquired by Just Eat Takeaway, the European meal delivery service, after talks with Uber (NYSE:UBER) fizzled out over antitrust concerns.

Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeway.com confirmed in a press release that it's in advanced talks with Grubhub about an all-stock combination. The company went on to say a that further announcement will be "made when appropriate."

Earlier Wednesday, CNBC reported that Uber was ready to walk away from Grubhub over regulatory concerns. Grubhub reportedly wanted Uber to pay a break-up fee if the deal was blocked.

Ever since news of a potential deal between Uber and Grubhub broke, lawmakers have raised concerns, arguing that the combination would create a delivery company that would stifle competition. Several lawmakers, led by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, sent a letter to antitrust officials in the U.S. calling for an inquiry. "A merger of Uber Eats and Grubhub would combine two of the three largest food delivery application providers and raise serious competition issues in many markets around the country," wrote the lawmakers which also included Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy, Richard Blumenthal, and Cory Booker.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Uber's board has scheduled a meeting for later Wednesday where they will officially pull out of talks with Grubhub.

With demand for delivery surging amid the pandemic, Uber saw an opportunity to expand further into that market as its core rides business suffered steep declines. The talks between Uber and Grubhub had been ongoing for about a year but picked up in intensity during the pandemic.
Legal experts are warning that a proposed legislation meant to modernize Ontarios justice system would actually undermine access to justice for the provinces most vulnerable people.

Community legal clinics and law professors are among those raising the alarm over Bill 161, particularly its impact on the provinces legal aid system.

Speaking Wednesday before a legislative committee weighing the bill, they said the legislation would remove access to justice from Legal Aid Ontarios mandate in favour of prioritizing cost-effectiveness.

Several also noted the legislation would weaken the ability of community legal clinics to respond to the needs of those they serve by giving the power to determine those needs to Legal Aid Ontario rather than the clinics themselves.

They said the changes, when combined with last years funding cuts to the legal aid system, would present further barriers for low-income and marginalized communities.

The Progressive Conservative government introduced the bill late last year, with Attorney General Doug Downey saying it would simplify the provinces complex and outdated justice system.

The province previously cut $133 million to legal aid but later cancelled further budget cuts that were slated to take effect this year.
To the Editor:

Sunday's edition left my head spinning!

First, in small print, the announcement that the current federal government proposes to spend $4.6 billion to protect the low-lying Miami area from the effects of climate change. What? This Republican government  the one which denies there is climate change, the one which pulled out of all the climate change treaties, the one which has succeeded in eliminating almost all laws or regulations meant to protect the environment and reduce the pollution causing climate change? Shouldn't this be front page news? Trump recognizes climate change and spends $4.6 billion to save his Miami hotel.

My second shock was to see that Mike Bost had received the "Champion of Patient Access Award" from the Alliance for Patient Access. Is this the same Bost who has voted numerous times to kill any legislation that provides access to all for medical care?

Who is the Alliance for Patient Access? A little research shows this group is funded by 26 pharmaceutical companies and the bio pharmaceutical trade group. Its "champions" are many, and include Congress members who have voted to protect their industry  not patients or citizens of Southern Illinois.

We should all be asking Mike Bost why is he a champion for "access" but not for patient rights and affordable health care for all of Southern Illinois? How much, if any, did he receive in campaign contributions from this group beyond their paid campaign ad?

Treva O'Neill

Carbondale

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The nationwide COVID-19 tally neared 2.8 lakh on Wednesday with almost one-third of the total cases getting detected in just 10 days of June.

IMAGE: A woman stands on a social distancing marker at a shopping mall after authorities allowed malls to reopen as India eases lockdown restrictions that were imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Kolkata. Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters

On the positive side, the number of recovered patients has exceeded the count of active cases for the first time.

Since June 1, nearly 90,000 cases have been added to the countrywide tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases, while nearly one-third of the overall death toll has also been reported during these 10 days.

India's first COVID-19 case was detected more than four months ago on January 30, but it took more than 100 days thereafter to reach the one-lakh mark on May 18.

However, the next one-lakh cases were added in just about a fortnight and the tally can hit the 3-lakh-mark this week itself at the current rate.

More than 9,000 new cases have been emerging every day for over a week now.

India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic at present after the Unitd States, Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom.

But the difference is narrowing fast with the UK, the fourth most affected country, which has reported nearly 1.9 lakh cases.

India is ranked 12th for the number of deaths, while it is at the 9th place for recoveries, as per the real-time global data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

IMAGE: Students wearing protective masks undergo thermal screening before appearing in the 12th class examinations of Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education, during the fifth phase of ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, in Jabalpur. Photograph: PTI Photo

In its morning 8 AM update, the Union health ministry said the number of active cases in the country has risen to 1,33,632, while the total number of people having recovered has now risen to 1,35,205.

The ministry's update showed nearly 10,000 new cases in 24 hours since Tuesday 8 AM, taking the country's cumulative caseload to over 2,76,583, while the death toll rose by 279 to reach 7,745.

This showed a recovery of nearly 49 per cent among the people who have tested positive so far. Nearly 50 lakh tests have been conducted across the country.

The Johns Hopkins University data, as of 9.40 PM, showed India's confirmed cases at over 2.8 lakh.

On the morning of June 1, India had nearly 1.9 lakh confirmed cases and less than 5,400 deaths had been reported till then. At that time, there were more than 93,000 active cases as against less than 92,000 recoveries.

Dr Neeraj Gupta, professor in the Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, said the data shows that more and more people are recovering which is as per global trends that 80 per cent are likely to have mild disease and make 100 per cent recovery.

"This should provide hope to the people of India at large who are having a mortal fear of the disease. But then this should not make them complacent and people should follow social distancing and sanitization guidelines," Gupta said.

As per global evidence, 80 per cent of COVID cases are mild cases, while only 20 per cent may develop complications which would require hospitalisation.

Globally, more than 72 lakh people have tested positive globally for the novel coronavirus ever since its emergence in China last December, while almost 34 lakh have recovered so far.

More than 4 lakh have lost their lives across the world, while recoveries are close to 34.6 lakh.

Within India, Maharashtra alone has more cases than China, which officially reported little over 83,000 confirmed cases and 4,634 deaths.

But less than 60 are now said to be undergoing treatment in China with others having been discharged upon recovery.

The number of cases in Maharashtra climbed to 94,041 on Wednesday with 3,254 new patients being detected, while the death toll rose to 3,438 with 149 new fatalities being recorded during the day.

However, more than 44,500 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the state so far.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said lockdown restrictions have been partially eased to allow resumption of business and other activities but the COVID-19 threat still persists.

He urged people to avoid crowding and maintain physical distancing post easing of the lockdown norms. He hinted the lockdown may get extended beyond June 30 if guidelines are not followed.

IMAGE: Suspected COVID-19 patients wait to be examined by medics at a government hospital, during the ongoing lockdown, in New Delhi. Photograph: Kamal Kishore/PTI Photo

In Tamil Nadu, a record number of 1,927 new cases emerged and 19 people died to push its tally to 36,841 and the death toll rose to 326.

The state government announced recruitment of more than 2,800 medical personnel including over 1,200 doctors and also proposed to double the number of beds in state government hospitals to 10,000.

Gujarat, another badly hit state, reported 510 new cases to take its tally to 21,554, while its death toll rose to 1,347.

In Delhi, the total count of cases crossed 32,000 with more than 1,500 new cases getting reported, while its death toll mounted to 984.

The national capital will need 1.5 lakh beds by July 31 once people start coming from other states for COVID-19 treatment, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, even as he declared that the Lieutenant Governor's orders overruling his government's decisions on coronavirus will be implemented as "this is not the time for disagreements and politics".

Kejriwal said his government has "unprecedented challenges" ahead as data shows that COVID-19 cases will rapidly increase in Delhi, but asserted that around 1,900 patients got beds in hospitals in the last eight days and 4,200 beds were still available, a claim that comes amidst reports of acute shortage of beds in healthcare facilities in the national capital.

Delhi's health minister Satyendar Jain said there is "transmission in the community" but only the Centre can declare whether "community transmission" was happening with regard to the virus infection in Delhi.

He had said on Tuesday that the source of infection is not known in nearly half of the fresh cases being reported in the national capital.Community transmission generally refers to a stage where contact tracing for a large number of infections is difficult to establish.

Warning of more trouble ahead, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had said on Tuesday that the number of COVID-19 cases could surge to 5.5 lakh by July 31 in the national capital itself at the current rate.

IMAGE: Migrants arrive from Rajasthan at Patna railway station by Sharamik special train during the fifth phase ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, in Patna. Photograph: ANI Photo

Several scientists said mathematical models of the progression of COVID-19 show it would be possible for Delhi to have 5.5 lakh cases by the end of July and the community transmission of the disease may have started a while ago.

"The model that I used for India found that there could be around 8-10 lakh cases in India by mid or end of July. So it won't be surprising to get to those figures (5.5 lakh) in Delhi," said Samit Bhattacharya, mathematics professor and researcher at the School of Natural Sciences at Shiv Nadar University.

Lovi Raj Gupta, executive dean of science and technology at Lovely Professional University in Punjab, also agreed that reaching the alarmingly high figure of 5.5 lakh is possible using mathematical modelling.

In the meantime, new cases continued to emerge across various states and UTs, including in Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

The Union health ministry said central teams have been deputed to assist state health officials in reviewing the public health measures being undertaken to combat COVID-19 in six cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, which are seeing a large number of cases.

These teams will provide technical support and handhold the state health departments and municipal health officials for reviewing public health measures implemented for containment and management of COVID-19 outbreak in these cities.
Dublin, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "An Evolving Ecosystem: China's Autonomous Vehicle Roadmap" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.





Despite the current sales slump, China remains the world's largest traditional light-vehicle market. It is also forecast to be the world's largest market for autonomous vehicles. Yet reports say China significantly lags the U.S. in the development of autonomous-vehicle technology. Is that true? How far along is China in its development of AV capabilities? Do Chinese firms have the technology to accomplish full autonomy or will they need to rely on foreign firms' technology as well? What are China's criteria for different levels of autonomy and how do they differ from the U.S. and Europe?

This report looks at the key characteristics of the AV market in China and automakers' game plan for deployment, including strategies to monetize AV tech on the way to Level 4. It contains a forecast for the market in China, an insightful survey of industry insiders, a scorecard on which automakers and suppliers are leading in the AV race and Q&As with high-ranking executives at several of the key players.

Addressed in this report:

How does China's AV technology stack up against the rest of the world's?

What is the market in China for various levels of autonomous technology?

What sectors will lead in AV development in China?

What are domestic automakers' AV plans?

What hurdles does China face in developing AVs?

What is China's AV infrastructure development plan?

Of special interest to:

AV component suppliers, China product planners and marketers, investors in autonomous vehicles and related companies, as well as anyone interested in China's path to AV leadership.

Highlights:

Enhance your understanding of China's strategy to achieve its AV goals.

Help clarify China's strengths and weakness in the AV sector.

Determine areas where you can add value to China's AV industry.

Identify potential areas for investment.

Better understand Chinese automakers' AV development approach.

Target segments for marketing AV technology and products

Story continues

Key Topics Covered:



1. Overview

Grading the OEMs

Grading the Suppliers

2. Market

Volume Outlook

Modern Mobility

Robot Vehicles

Smart Cities

3. Policy & Infrastructure

Strong Municipal Backing

Infrastructure Challenges

Road-Testing

Data Restrictions

China Vs. U.S.

4. Automakers

Baic Group

BMW

Byd

Byton

Changan

Chery

Daimler

Dongfeng

FAW

FCA

Ford

Gac

Geely

General Motors

Great Wall Motors

Honda

Human Horizons

Hyundai-Kia

Jaguar Land Rover

Nio

Psa Group

Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi

Saic

Toyota

Volkswagen

WM Motor

Xpeng

5. Suppliers

Alibaba

Aptiv

Autox

Banma

Bosch

Continental

Hesai

Horizon Robotics

Huawei

Kuandeng

Magna

Meituan Dianping

Momenta

Navinfo

Nvidia

Plus.Ai

Pony.Ai

Roadstar.Ai

Tencent

Tusimple

Valeo

Weride.Ai

6. Q&A

Bosch's Hao Feng

Continental's Neil Tang

Didi Chuxing's Meng Xing?

Horizon Robotics' Zhang Yufeng

Human Horizons' Mark Stanton

Inceptio's Julian Ma

Tusimple's Cheng Lu

Xpeng Motors' He Xiaopeng

Yanfeng's Steve Meszaros

7. Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/he9cso

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

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Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



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Unlike Mr. Trump, Nixon was not running as the incumbent but as a former vice president from a previous administration headed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower that had passed a civil rights law and sought to enforce desegregation orders in Southern schools. But the riots that followed Dr. Kings murder, the tumult of the antiwar movement and the violence at the Democratic convention created a great sense of unease in the country that Nixon sought to exploit.

Law and order was the No. 1 domestic issue during the campaign, even overtaking Vietnam in most polls by November, said Luke A. Nichter, a historian at Texas A&M University who along with Douglas Brinkley has published two books on Nixons tape-recorded conversations. A candidate for county dogcatcher could not run in 1968 without having a position. Even Hubert Humphrey was talking about law and order by the end of the campaign.

Patrick J. Buchanan, who later became a famous columnist, television commentator and three-time presidential candidate, wrote most of Nixons statements on law and order during the 1968 campaign and said on Tuesday that none of them were wildly controversial at the time.

Nixon came out hard against student protesters who took over the Columbia University campus that spring, and he gave anti-crime statements at most stops during a train trip through Ohio, Mr. Buchanan recalled. The candidate scoffed at the Kerner Commission report on race relations in the United States, saying that it blames everybody for the riots except the perpetrators of the riots.

In perhaps his most famous ad, Nixon showed images of screaming protesters and burning buildings as he intoned, So I pledge to you, we shall have order in the United States. But even then, historians noted, he sought to temper the message and avoid the overt racial appeals of Wallace, making sure that the faces of the protesters in the ad were white, not black.
Kathmandu, June 10 : At least 30 persons went missing after their tipper truck plunged into the Karnali river in Nepal on Wednesday morning.

The tipper was ferrying fifty Nepalis returning from India to a quarantine facility at Raskot Municipality in Kalikot district.

According to a local, Dil Bahadur Shahi, the tipper truck skidded off the road at Lalighat along the Karnali corridor and plunged into the Karnali river, the Himalayan Times reported.

Soon after the incident, police were deployed at the site for search and rescue operations.

Overloading of passengers may have been the cause of the accident, police said.
Separately, EU ambassadors on June 10 agreed to extend the bloc's investment ban on Crimea by another year.

Two top European Union officials have rejected suggestions that sanctions imposed on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine could be lifted during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the restrictive measures "do not impede Russia's capacity" to combat the epidemic, according to a letter seen by RFE/RL.

In a letter dated May 26 and addressed to a group of European lawmakers, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel wrote that the sanctions adopted in 2014 are "deliberately narrowly framed in order to limit the risks of unintended consequences or harm to the wider population," RFE/RL said.

Read alsoU.S. envoy to OSCE: Russians "simply need to leave" Ukraine (Video)

"None of the measures foresees a prohibition on the export of food or medicines, vaccines or medical equipment," they said.

The letter was addressed to 19 members of the European Parliament who had accused Russia of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to try to get sanctions reviewed or lifted.

"Russian authorities by pursuing such public relation campaigns as sending poorly applicable humanitarian aid to Italy, as well as misinterpreting the statements by the UN officials, might try to sway the position of the EU and its member states leadership regarding the sanctions," the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated April 3 and addressed to von der Leyen, Michel, and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

The move came after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed during a Group of 20 (G20) videoconference in March that a freeze be placed on economic sanctions on "humanitarian" grounds to allow countries to better combat the coronavirus.

The EU sanctions were first imposed in 2014 in response to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and Moscow's fomenting of conflict in eastern Ukraine.

In March, the EU prolonged by six months asset freezes and visa bans on 175 individuals and 44 entities that the bloc believe has undermined the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

EU leaders are also expected to agree to prolong economic sanctions against Russia, which mainly target the country's energy and banking sectors, during a videoconference scheduled for June 19.

Separately, EU ambassadors on June 10 agreed to extend the bloc's investment ban on Crimea by another year.
A mother-of-four has apologised for drunkenly lashing out at police officers during an Elton John winery concert.

Rebecca Anne Forsyth, 42, was attending the concert at Sirromet Wines, south of Brisbane, in January when she had a foul-mouthed outburst and was asked to leave.

The Cleveland Magistrates Court heard Forsyth became enraged and was slurring her words as she refused to leave the winery, The Courier Mail reported.

Rebecca Anne Forsyth, 42, appeared at The Cleveland Magistrates Court on Tuesday and apologised for lashing out at police during an Elton John (pictured) concert in January

Forsyth called officers 'f***ing dogs' when she was asked to leave Sirromet Wines (pictured), a winery south of Brisbane, after she became aggressive

Police prosecutor Senior Sergeant Duncan Blackburn said Forsyth was unsteady on her feet when officers attempted to remove her from the sold out concert.

He told the court on Tuesday that Forsyth had pointed her finger at officers and screamed in their faces they were 'f***ing dogs'.

The Gold Coast mum even clung to a fence in a desperate attempt to remain at the winery.

Senior Sergeant Blackburn said Forsyth had a similar but dated criminal history.

Forsyth's defence solicitor Tania Lacy said the mum had been set off when she was pushed by another patron at the concert.

Ms Lacy said Forsyth was deeply remorseful for her actions and the mum apologised for her 'disturbing behaviour'.

The mother-of-four pleaded guilty to committing public nuisance at a licensed venue, obstructing police and removal of person from premises.

Forsyth expressed her regret to the officers involved and put the ordeal down to her 'alcohol brain'.

Magistrate Deborah Vasta said Forsyth had missed a great concert and should speak more respectfully to police as they regularly deal with abusive behaviour.

The magistrate said Elton John had shared a 'great message' at his concert about struggling with addiction.

'The minute you start drinking it affects your behaviour and you do and say things you otherwise would never do,' Magistrate Vasta said.

Forsyth was fined $700 and no convictions were recorded.
The reverberations from Donald Trump's latest broadside against Germany have reached all the way to Moscow.

The president's decision to withdraw more than a quarter of the U.S. troops stationed in her country leaves Chancellor Angela Merkel exposed at a moment when she's facing growing pressure to get tough with Vladimir Putin and was welcomed in the Russian capital.

"It's spitting in Merkel's face," said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat who's now a foreign-policy analyst. "But it's in our interests."

After days of uncertainty, Merkel's office said Wednesday it was informed that a withdrawal was being considered. A White House press officer has repeatedly declined to confirm the deliberations. But media reports have set alarm bells ringing all the same in Berlin, where it's been taken as another sign of the cooling transatlantic relationship and the shifting priorities in Washington.

Whether or not the U.S. president intended to undermine Merkel's efforts to stand up to Russia, this is the latest example of his ability to unsettle European leaders with unpredictable policy making.

Earlier this year, as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of Italy, Trump banned flights from the European Union without warning its leaders. In the past, he's signaled his doubts about NATO's mutual defense clause, which underpins the continent's security.

Two people familiar with the matter said former U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell had talked for some time about his desire to get the U.S. to reduce its troop presence in Germany, possibly by shifting some forces to Poland or by slashing troop levels outright. But the first many senior leaders at the State Department learned that the plan had been formalized was from the news stories announcing the cut.

Peter Beyer, a senior lawmaker with Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and Germany's transatlantic coordinator, said Monday that he was still unsure whether the reports were a "trial balloon" or a Trump campaign ploy. If the president does follow through, it would mean "weakening the transatlantic alliance," he said in an interview.

"This would not be in the interest of NATO and its members, including the U.S. -- but in the interests of China and Russia," he said.

The departure of 9,500 U.S. servicemen would compound a toxic geopolitical environment for Merkel, with Trump looking to orchestrate a face-to-face meeting with the Russian president at a Group of Seven summit during the fall and pressuring Germany to take a tougher stance with China, its biggest trading partner. Russia was ejected from the G-7 in 2014 after it seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.

Putin for his part views the chancellor as a lame duck because she has declared she won't run for re-election when her fourth term ends next year, Frolov said.

Merkel, an arch-pragmatist, has a history of trying to engage with Putin and went out on a limb to sustain ties with the Kremlin since Russia was sanctioned by the EU over Crimea, pushing ahead with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline across the Baltic in the face of increasing hostility from Washington. There are now doubts as to whether the $15 billion link will ever be completed with the U.S. threatening sanctions on companies that get involved. German officials say they are frustrated they've got so little back for their investment in Putin.

Now the chancellor is coming under pressure domestically because of new revelations about the role of Russian military intelligence in a cyberattack on the Bundestag in 2015 and a gangland-style execution in Berlin last summer as well as fresh tensions in negotiations on Ukraine, according to German officials.

Merkel underscored the new chill in a foreign policy speech last month.

Russia "supports puppet regimes in parts of eastern Ukraine and attacks western democracies, including Germany, with hybrid resources," she said.

The U.S. meanwhile is sending senior officials to Vienna on June 22 for arms-control talks with their Russian counterparts. The Trump administration wants Moscow's help bringing China into broader negotiations to limit all three countries' nuclear weapons stockpiles.

Merkel's relationship with Putin, who served as a KGB officer in East Germany before the Berlin Wall collapsed, reached a low point at the end of May.

The German Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador after federal prosecutors concluded that a Russian military intelligence operative was involved in the 2015 attack on computer networks in the Bundestag.

Merkel said Russia's involvement was "outrageous" and the Foreign Ministry said Germany will deploy a new EU cybersecurity tool to impose targeted sanctions against suspects.

But the ministry had more to discuss with Ambassador Sergei Nechayev.

The Aug. 23 murder of a Georgian man in broad daylight in Kleiner Tiergarten park, a short walk from Merkel's office, triggered tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats from Berlin and Moscow at the time and Germany's Federal Prosecutor, which took over the investigation in December, says there is evidence of Russian state involvement in that attack too.

While officials await the results of the investigation, the ministry says it's "expressly prepared for further measures" against Moscow.

To cap off the problems, talks aimed at scaling back the fighting in eastern Ukraine are going nowhere with German officials complaining that Russia insists on presenting itself as a mediator in the conflict rather than a participant, according to two people familiar with the talks. The stance undermines the five-year-old Minsk process that set out a framework for negotiations, they said.

Merkel already confronted Putin over the Tiergarten killing at a summit in Paris in December, demanding the Kremlin hand over any information that could help the investigation. But she got little joy.

Putin said that the victim, who had several aliases and is thought to have fought against the Russian army in Chechnya, was "a militant, and a very tough and bloody man." Russian assistance hasn't been forthcoming, German officials say.

The Social Democrats, Merkel's junior coalition partner, have traditionally had a more conciliatory approach to Russia than her Christian Democrats. But even they now are demanding the chancellor stands up to Putin.

"We can't allow such things to happen on German soil," Nils Schmid, a senior SPD lawmaker on the Bundestag foreign affairs committee, said in an interview. "We're not going to accept that."
Stocks to watch today: Here is a list of top stocks that are likely to be in focus in Wednesday's trading session based on latest developments. Investors are also awaiting March quarter earnings that are scheduled to be released today. Companies set to announce their earnings are Mahanagar Gas, Voltamp Transformers, Shriram Transport Finance, Jindal Stainless (Hisar), Dhanuka Agritech, Century Textiles & Industries and Bansal Roofing Products among others.

Key highlights on share market; check the latest stock market news

-On a net basis, FIIs bought Rs 490.81 crore while DIIs sold Rs 733.33 crore in equities today

-On Tuesday, Sensex lost 413 points to 33.956 and Nifty fell 120 points to 10,046

Share Market LIVE: Sensex rises 70 points, Nifty at 10,071; Airtel, Adani Green, Maruti Suzuki in focus

Bharti Airtel: The company announced that Bharti International (Singapore), a whole owned subsidiary (step-down) of the company has acquired additional 6.3% stake in Robi Axiata, an entity in Bangladesh, from NTT DOCOMO & its group entities. The company currently owns 25% stake in Robi Axiata.

JM Financial: The company plans to raise Rs 770 crore or $100 million through QIP, at an indicative price at Rs 70 per share and SEBI floor price of Rs 66.72 per share.

Maruti Suzuki: Company reported a slump of 97.5% in production at 3,714 units in May 2020. The car maker had produced 1,51,188 units during the same month last year, the company informed in a regulatory filing.

GCPL: Company announced that Nisaba Godrej has been appointed as Managing Director for a period till September 30, 2022. Vivek Gambhir, GCPL's current Managing Director and CEO, has resigned for personal reasons and will step down as Managing Director and CEO on June 30, 2020.

Goodyear India: Company appointed Sandeep Mahajan as the managing director of India operations on Tuesday. Mahajan has been appointed for a period of five years or up to the date of superannuation or retirement, the company said.

Adani Green Energy: The firm said it bagged said it won a manufacturing-linked solar contract worth Rs 45,000 crore from SECI to develop 8 GW electricity generation capacity and 2 GW equipment manufacturing facility in the country.

Affle India: Company announced it would acquire 100 percent stake in Singapore based company Appnext.

Oil India Limited (OIL): Company's owned natural gas well turned into an inferno in Baghjan, Assam next to Dibru-Saikhowa National Park on Tuesday. The well had been continuously spewing out gas or undergoing a blowout since May 27 in Tinsukia district.

Axita Cotton: The company has received an order for Indian Raw Cotton valuing US $ 1992375.95 approx from various countries.

Hero MotoCorp: The company reported a 21% fall in profit at Rs 604 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against Rs 771 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income fell 20% (YoY) to Rs 6,490 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 8,120 crore in a year-ago period. The company board has approved a final dividend of Rs 25 for FY20.

Gujarat Pipavav Port: The company reported a 5.95% fall in profit at Rs 47.89 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against Rs 50.92 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income fell 9% (YoY) to Rs 173.21 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 191.23 crore in a year-ago period.

TeamLease Services: The company reported a loss at Rs 29 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against profit of Rs 26 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income rose 15% (YoY) to Rs 1,345 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 1,168 crore in a year-ago period.

eClerx Services: The company reported a drop of 20% for net profit at Rs 55.39 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against profit of Rs 69.88 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income fell 5% (YoY) to Rs 367 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 387 crore in a year-ago period.

KRBL: The company reported 5% fall in net profit at Rs 149 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against profit of Rs 159 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income fell 19% (YoY) to Rs 1,071 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 1,333 crore in a year-ago period.

PSP Projects: The company reported 14% rise in net profit at Rs 34.10 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against profit of Rs 29.89 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income rose 34% (YoY) to Rs 463 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 344 crore in a year-ago period.

Century Enka: The company reported a rise in net profit at Rs 21.88 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against profit of Rs 10.54 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income fell 18% (YoY) to Rs 359 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 439 crore in a year-ago period.

Kirloskar Ferrous Industries: The company reported a rise in net profit at Rs 21.88 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against profit of Rs 10.54 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income fell 18% (YoY) to Rs 359 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 439 crore in a year-ago period.

Graphite India: The company reported a 98% rise in net loss at Rs 7 crore during the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as against loss of Rs 353 crore, recorded in a year-ago period. Company's total income fell 8.89% (YoY) to Rs 625 crore in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 686 crore in a year-ago period.

Cupid: Company has received a repeat order from the Medical Stores Department, Government of Tanzania for supply of Male Condoms worth INR 23.61 crore.

BHEL: Company has successfully commissioned one 270 MW thermal unit at the 4x270 MW Bhadradri Thermal Power Project in Telangana.

Persistent Systems: The company board reappointed Dr Anand Deshpande as Chairman and MD.

MRPL: Company's gross revenue from operations stood at Rs 60,752 crore for the FY'20 compared to Rs 72,315 crore in FY'19. Company reported loss before tax of Rs 3,955 crore in FY20 as compared to profit before tax of Rs 581 crore in FY19.

Earnings Today: Mahanagar Gas, Voltamp Transformers, Shriram Transport Finance, Shankara Building Products, Kartik Investments Trust, Jindal Stainless (Hisar), Jamna Auto Industries, Indian Hotels, HSIL, GRP, Dhanuka Agritech, Century Textiles & Industries and Bansal Roofing Products among others will report their Q4 results today.
A throng of protesters banged into the Confederate monument in Birmingham, Alabama, covering the statue with red spray-paint and chipping away at its base with rocks. One group tried to use a thick green rope to bring down the 52-foot obelisk.

Then their mayor showed up with a megaphone.

"Allow me to finish the job for you," Randall Woodfin told the protesters on May 31.

Two days later, he made good on his promise: the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors monument, first erected more than a century ago, was gone.

Regardless of what policy changes come next, the massive protests against racial injustice across the United States have already secured tangible victories in several cities.

Government officials have taken down at least a dozen Confederate memorials, or pledged to do so in the coming days.

Work crews in Louisville and Indianapolis dismantled statues honouring members of the Confederate army.

Hours later, the University of Alabama said it would follow suit with campus plaques, and leaders in Arizona and Kentucky announced they would begin similar conversations.

"Our streets are filled with voices of anger and anguish, testament to centuries of racism directed at Black Americans," Indianapolis Democratic mayor Joe Hogsett said. "Time is up, and this grave marker will come down."

In Virginia, the former seat of the Confederacy, a monument in Alexandria came down a month early and Democratic governor Ralph Northam ordered the removal of a massive bust of Robert E Lee on horseback.

Late on Monday, a judge delayed that move for 10 days, in response to a lawsuit saying the state had promised to "affectionately protect" the statue. But other cities have moved ahead, pushing past whatever historical debates or legal questions may still be standing.

Louisville Democratic mayor Greg Fischer had long wanted to take down a bronze statue of John B Castleman, a former major in the Confederate Army considered the father of his city's parks system.

In 2019, a local arts group had sued to keep the mayor from moving the 107-year-old effigy. But after law enforcement in Louisville killed Breonna Taylor and David McAtee, Mr Fischer said it was time for Castleman's statue to go.

"The events of the past weeks have shown clearly that it's not enough just to face our history," he said. "We've got to address its impact on our present."

In Alabama, state legislators had passed a law barring cities from removing Confederate statues.

After Birmingham boarded up the towering obelisk honouring Confederate sailors and soldiers, the city was ordered to pay a $25,000 (22,000) fine for obstruction.

Mr Woodfin, the mayor, acknowledged last week while ordering the monument's removal that another lawsuit could follow. But he was willing to accept that outcome, he said, "because that is a lower cost than civil unrest in our city".

Just as the 2015 Charleston church shooting prompted a purge of Confederate relics across the south, the ongoing protests have led to a similar sort of mass removals - and seemingly, in record time.
Kroger Health will partner with the Hamilton County Health Department to facilitate a free drive-thru COVID-19 testing opportunity.



The three-day event will take place this Wednesday through Friday from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. in the parking lot of Northgate Mall, 271 Northgate Mall Dr. in Chattanooga.

People seeking a test will use a virtual screening tool based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance. Individuals who dont have symptoms and anyone with health concerns is eligible for testing.



We are grateful to Kroger Health for providing this opportunity for the citizens of our community, shared Hamilton County Health Department Administrator Becky Barnes. Increased testing opportunities are vital as we get people back to work.



Individuals must schedule an appointment via Kroger Healths online portal at www.krogerhealth.com/covidtesting. Scheduling an appointment is required to receive a test. The Chattanooga Police Department and Kroger Health associates will be present to direct traffic to the designated testing area. Make sure windows are up on all vehicles when in the testing area and individuals need to have their photo ID ready.



Kroger Health is proud to partner with the Hamilton County Health Department in this important effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, said Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health. This aligns perfectly with our vision, which is to help people live healthier lives.



This onsite testing is supported with the laboratory services provided by eTrueNorth, a contractor of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Locals protest against US-backed SDF militants in Syria's Dayr al-Zawr

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 5:30 PM

Dozens of people in Syria's eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr have staged separate rallies to denounce the presence of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and arbitrary practices of the US-backed militants, including abduction and killing, against locals there.

Syria's official news agency SANA, citing sources requesting not to be named, reported that residents of the towns of Diban and al-Hawaij in the southeastern countryside of the province demonstrated against poor living conditions in their regions, and demanded an immediate end to the militants' actions in addition to their withdrawal.

A similar protest was also held in the town of al-Safira Tahtani, where participants blocked main roads, set several tires on fire and threw stones.

On June 5, Syrians staged a protest in the neighboring province of Hasakah over the presence of Kurdish-led SDF militants.

The Arabic service of Russia's Sputnik news agency reported that the demonstrators were residents of "al-Bajdali, al-Hariri and al-Hana al-Sharqiyah villages" in the al-Shaddadi district of the province.

Security conditions are reportedly deteriorating in the areas controlled by the SDF in Hasakah and Dayr al-Zawr provinces amid ongoing raids and arrests of civilians by the US-sponsored militants.

Locals argue that the SDF's constant raids and arrest campaigns have generated a state of frustration and instability, severely affecting their businesses and livelihoods.

Residents accuse the US-backed militants of stealing crude oil and failing to spend money on service sectors.

Local councils affiliated with the SDF have also been accused of financial corruption. They are said to be embezzling funds provided by donors, neglecting services and not meeting the people's primary needs.

US military vehicles cross into Syria

Separately, a convoy of about 40 US military vehicles departed northern Iraq and headed into Syria on Tuesday.

SANA reported that the US vehicles rumbled through al-Waleed border crossing, and moved toward Kharab al-Jeer Airport near the small northeastern Syrian city of al-Malikiyah in Hasakah province.

Since late October 2019, the United States has been redeploying troops to the oil fields controlled by Kurdish forces in eastern Syria, in a reversal of President Donald Trump's earlier order to withdraw all troops there.

The Pentagon alleges that the move aims to "protect" the fields and facilities from possible attacks by Daesh, ignoring the fact that Trump had earlier suggested that Washington sought economic interests in controlling the oil fields.

Syria, which has not authorized the presence of the US military in its territory, says Washington is "plundering" the country's oil.

The presence of US forces in eastern Syria has particularly irked the civilians, and local residents have on several occasions stopped American military convoys entering the region.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mexican Gold Mining Corp. (the Company or Mexican Gold") (MEX.V) is pleased to announce that fieldwork towards completing an environmental baseline study has commenced at the Las Minas project. Drilling at Las Minas is scheduled to commence in early July.



Highlights:

Mexican Gold has engaged Consultoria y Tecnologia Ambiental (CTA), based in Zacatecas, Mexico, to begin an environmental baseline study at the Las Minas project for inclusion in Mexican Golds preliminary economic assessment study (PEA)

Further, the Company has engaged Kluane Drilling (KDL) to commence a +3,000-meter drill program at Las Minas in early July

The commencement of the environmental baseline study at Las Minas, as well as drilling, marks the re-start of our much anticipated 2020 program, stated Philip ONeill, Chief Executive Officer. With the start of resource expansion and exploration drilling in early July, we will be well on our way towards achieving a PEA at Las Minas.

Drilling Program

The Company will embark on a +3000m drill program to expand and upgrade the current resource at El Dorado which remains open in multiple directions.

A comprehensive drill program will also follow up the November 2019 discovery at Cinco Senores hole LM-19-CS-13. At 114m vertical depth, a 5.2m shallow-dipping quartz vein was intersected which assayed 8.94 g/t gold, including 21.37 g/t gold over 2m. The true widths of the intersections are estimated to be 85% of the down-hole lengths. Previous drilling at Cinco Senores had targeted the El Dorado mineralized horizon, at least 70m above this intersection. Drilling in 2020 will attempt to define the veining and intersect further strong gold values.

High grade gold assays were received in early 2020 from a historic mine in the Changarro area which had not been sampled for at least a century. Channel samples spaced 3m apart and averaging 0.65m in width returned an average of 8.82 g/t gold along the entire 52m drift. These strong results precipitated exploration work in February-March 2020 which uncovered multiple lost mine workings, all carrying similar polymetallic veining and Fe-oxide skarn within a strong, linear, mineralized structural zone. This presents the first clear drill target within the geologically complex but compelling cluster of mining at Changarro and it will be tested in 2020.

Story continues

Environmental Baseline Study

Consultoria y Tecnologia Ambiental has commenced an environmental baseline study of the resource area at the Las Minas project for inclusion in Mexican Golds forthcoming preliminary economic assessment study. CTA will study surface water quality as well as flora and fauna.

The surface water study will involve taking samples from the nearby rivers/creeks to analyze concentrations of metals and mercury (total and dissolved) and other inorganic parameters (chlorides, pH, color, sulphates, hardness, dissolved oxygen, total suspended solids, and conductivity). The flora and fauna study will make observations along transects in the projects area of influence to identify species of herpetofauna, birds, and flora, including possible protected species from these three groups. The work will be carried out by three biologists specialized in these three specific groups. The biologists who will also perform the collection of the water samples for analysis at an accredited Canadian laboratory. At the conclusion of the program, CTA will prepare and present the Company with an environmental baseline study report.

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.

The Company has implemented and adheres to a strict Quality Assurance/Quality Control program which includes inserting mineralized standards and blanks into the sample stream, about 1 for every 10 samples. The standards and blanks were obtained from CDN Resource Laboratories Ltd. of Langley, BC, Canada. Each sample bag is properly sealed and kept in a secured, restricted storage place prior to shipping to the lab. Samples are shipped directly by Mexican Gold or picked-up by the lab vehicle with chain of custody/sample submittal signed and dated. The Company sends its samples to SGS Mineral Services (ISO/IEC 17025) at Durango, Mexico, an accredited and independent laboratory.

About Consultoria y Tecnologia Ambiental

With offices in Zacatecas, Guatemala City, Santiago, and Toronto, CTA is a professional multidisciplinary environmental consulting group that complies with international standards. CTA is registered and accredited to submit reports to international environmental authorities. CTA has the support of associated companies in several countries and the endorsement of certified laboratories in the United States and Canada.

About Mexican Gold Mining Corp.

Mexican Gold Corp. is a Canadian based mineral exploration and development company committed to building long-term value through ongoing discoveries and strategic acquisitions of prospective precious metals and copper projects in the Americas. Mexican Gold is exploring and advancing 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:

Philip ONeill  CEO, President, and Director

E-mail: info@mexicangold.ca

Website at www.mexicangold.ca

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Fear, hatred, ignorance and blind violence snatched the life of my brother Patrick from all of us, Jacobs said. Every day the actions of a few are dividing us as a nation at a time when we should be coming together and uniting for the well-being of all people. We will never solve generational, systemic injustice with looting, burning, destruction of property and killing in the name of justice.
The Australian sharemarket has suffered its worst day in six weeks, shedding more than 3 per cent to dip back below 6000 and end seven straight days of gains.

The big banks and energy stocks were hit hard as the benchmark ASX 200 wiped as much as $59 billion off its market capitalisation on the way to closing 188 points, or 3.1 per cent, lower at 5960.6.

That represents a loss of $56 billion for the day.

The ASX has closed sharply lower. Credit:AAP

The index was primed for sharp early losses on Thursday after Wall Street fell on a dovish tone from the US Fed and the prospect of ultra-low interest rates for some time to come. However, any fear that the markets 35 per cent rebound rally is over is possibly overblown.

GSFM investment strategy advisor Stephen Miller said Thursdays decline should be viewed as a sharp drop from a market that has been on a bit of a tear.

I would characterise this move as the step back in a two-step forward, one step back scenario, Mr Miller said.

It just got a little bit expensive and its now taking a pause  its not a straight line and there will be more corrections like this in the future too.

Mr Miller said the frank outlook from US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell may have been a catalyst for softening global sentiment, but it wasnt the cause.

Powell on Wednesday signalled a long and slow recovery for the US economy, but vowed the Fed would do "whatever it takes" to help prop it up.

This includes keeping interest rates lower bound for some time.

Australias heavyweight financial sector was pummelled in the wake of the comments - falling by a collective 5 per cent, but perhaps from an overvalued position.

Its hard to blame the Fed, Mr Miller said. Powells message was pretty much steady as she goes.

Valuations are stretched  markets priced from a very optimistic scenario that there wont be a misstep from policymakers during this crisis.

The big four banks all shed ground on Thursday with ANZ leading the losses.

It fell by 6.21 per cent to $19.47, while Westpac dropped 6.1 per cent to $18.50, NAB shed 5.41 per cent to $19.07, and Commonwealth Bank lost 4.41 per cent to $68.44. Macquarie Group was 4.5 per cent lower at $118.45.

Atlas Fund Management's chief investment officer Hugh Dive said the market dip needed to be taken in context as the ASX was still up 4 per cent for the month. "You don't want to look and one day or two days," he said.

The value of bank stocks would be determined by the ability to pay dividends and their exposure to bad debts rather than the US central bank's decision to keep rates steady, he said.

"The interest rates aren't going to drive stocks, it'd be bad debts and dividends," Mr Dive said.

The banks had low earnings clarity, Mr Dive said, compared to other industries like healthcare and technology.

There were just 28 companies in the top 200 index that closed higher on Thursday.A good chunk of them were gold miners, as investors flocked to the precious metal.

Newcrest finished 5.7 per cent higher, while Northern Star jumped 6.8 per cent, Evolution 4.2 per cent, and Saracen 4.6 per cent.

The big lads of the materials sector did not fare as well, in part because of softening iron ore prices.

BHP dropped 2 per cent to $36.76, Rio Tinto fell 1.6 per cent to $98.86, and Fortescue Metals shed 0.7 per cent to $14.88.

Blood giant CSL closed 0.3 per cent lower but the health sector was supported by a 2.1 per cent rise for medical device maker ResMed and a 1.8 per cent climb for Fisher and Paykel.

The energy sector lost 5.4 per cent on an oil price decline following worries about slow demand growth as US crude stockpiles hit an all-time high.

Asian stocks were muted throughout the day but still managed to outperform the local index. US futures were hinting at more losses on Wall Street.
Road rage killer Kenneth Noye has sparked fury after being spotted driving to the exact place where he stabbed Stephen Cameron to death 24 years ago.

The 72-year-old gangster was released from a life sentence in June last year after stabbing Stephen, 21, to death in May 1996 and then going on the run.

However, just days after the 24th anniversary of the murder, Noye was spotted at the M25 slip-road near Swanley in Kent where he killed Stephen.

Stephen's father, Ken Cameron, 73, said he was left sickened by Noye's trip to Swanley.

He said: 'It's like Noye's walking on Stephen's grave. I feel sickened that he has gone back to the place where he took my son's life.

'It is clear he hasn't got an ounce of remorse for what he did. He's laughing in the face of authority and pouring salt on my wounds.'

Kenneth Noye, 72, was released from a life sentence in June last year after stabbing Stephen Cameron, 21, to death in May 1996

Stephen Lee Cameron (left) was stabbed to death by Noye in 1996. Stephen is pictured right with his fiancee Danielle Cable

Noye returned to the murder scene at 4pm on May 28 in his black VW Tiguan, a brand new 25,000 car he bought shortly after his release from Standford Hill.

During his trip, Noye is believed to have visited Swanley village and was spotted at an Asda store close to St Mary's Church burial ground  where Stephen's remains lie and where his mother Toni's ashes were scattered in 2016.

After leaving Asda, Noye made his way along the B2173, past the road where Stephen and his family lived before joining the A20.

It was the exact same route Stephen and his fiancee Danielle Cable took.

He then drove to the roundabout and traffic lights where he killed Stephen before heading in the direction of Surrey, where he now lives.

One witness told the Sun that they 'couldn't believe' their eyes when they spotted the killer.

It is unclear why Noye was in the Swanley area.

Retired Det Supt Nick Biddiss, who led the murder investigation, said: 'Personally, I don't think he should be allowed in Kent at all, let alone go anywhere near the scene of the murder.

'He is taking the Mick. He's saying, 'I'm Kenneth Noye and I can do what I like.'

Barry Phillips, former operational head of the Met's Flying Squad, said: 'I don't believe for one minute Noye was showing remorse. It was arrogant and disrespectful behaviour towards Stephen and his family.'

The parents of Stephen Cameron, Toni (left) and Ken Cameron outside the Old Bailey in London

A stock image of a VW 4x4 which Noye was said to have been driving when he was pictured

Noye stabbed Stephen to death on an M25 slip-road near Swanley in Kent and fled to Spain before his arrest in August 1998.

On his release from jail in June, Stephen's family branded his sentence 'not justice' and a senior detective in the case said it was 'a joke'.

Noye also served 14 years in prison for handling gold bullion stolen in the 1983 Brink's-Mat heist and he is thought to have millions hidden from the 26million robbery.

He was allowed to walk free after the Parole Board ruled he was safe for release.

But Noye's plan to return to his 2 million Spanish bolthole, a hilltop mansion, was thwarted after he was told he must live in Britain as a condition of his release.

Under the conditions of his release, Noye can only leave the country in 'extra special cases' such as a family bereavement.

Whilst on-the-run for Mr Cameron's murder, Noye lived under a fake name and hid in fishing villages near Cape Trafalgar, in Cadiz province.

He is believed to have kept hold of his four-bed villa in Atlanterra, which was looked after by his sons Brett and Kevin.
The week that Floyd was killed in front of our eyes, America had already been shaken by the viral video of Amy Cooper, a white woman in New York City, viciously threatening to make a false report to the police about bird-watcher Christian Cooper. Im going to tell them theres an African American man threatening my life, she warns him. Calling the police on a black person can mean a death sentence. In the video, Cooper weaponized her whiteness in a way that mirrored the sadistic chain of events that led to Emmett Tills gruesome lynching in Mississippi. A white woman falsely accused the 14-year-old Till of whistling at her; Till was kidnapped, tortured and killed. His attackers then threw his body into the Tallahatchie River.
Workers shout slogans during a protest outside the factory after the manufacturers of famous Atlas Cycles shut their operations due to financial constraints on Wednesday, in Ghaziabad. PTI Photo

The idea of a self-reliant economy has always been received with a melange of reactions across ideologies, social considerations, political organizations and stakeholders.

Certainly, the concept of self-reliance does invoke a sense of economic nationalism and assurance, constant use of the term by economists and politicians in contradictory circumstances has perverted the concept. On the one hand, it is placed synonymously with Swadeshi; a movement which in broad parlance has been drawing equivalence between Foreign Direct Investment and economic colonization.

On the other hand, self-reliance brings back the horrors of five-year plans, which did even have a roadmap for exports till a decade and more. Nehrus decision to operate a closed economy is often justified as a step to protect political autonomy, for which the State needed to take up the role of an entrepreneur and deepen its hold in strategic sectors. Ironically, India diluted control over its foreign policy and diplomatic alignments due to dependence for grants and aid. More than seven decades later, India has earned its stripes by the sheer talent and hard work of its citizens despite geo-political headwinds and its innate socio-economic challenges.

On 13th May, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for building an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, once again, purists, technical experts and industrialists began to speculate what did this mean for the countrys economy, industry, commerce and trade relationships. To guesstimate consequences and assess the downside of a policy is only obvious, especially when the call is given by a leader who is known to convert missions to movements. However, it is rather simplistic and misinformed to drub Aatma Nirbhar Bharat as the return of socialism and advent of protectionism 2.0.

I believe Aatma Nirbhar Bharat is a mission to reduce Indias dependency on countries that may resort to predatory tactics to fulfil long-term ulterior motives. In the past few decades, Indias ability to consume became its only identity, sharply overpowering its capacity to innovate, produce, and sell. While Make in India was the first-step in that direction, through self-reliance India seeks to be treated as an equal amongst the traditionally powerful. Also, to access Indias diverse consumer base, socio-economic contributions in the form of setting up business units, local procurement and employment generation needs to be made.

Inclusion Not Isolation

To put Indias increasing participation in globalization in perspective, trade to GDP ratio was 11.3% in 1960. This declined to 7.7% in 1970 and gradually increased to 15.2% in 1989. As India opened up its economic frontiers in 1991, trade to GDP increased to 20.1 by 1994 and almost doubled in the next decade to 37.5%. Irrespective of the political regime in power, buoyant trade volumes and value indicate that India has been enthusiastically forging trade relations and the world has been reciprocating with the same ardor.

To comprehend the clarion call for self-reliance by Prime Minister Modi as isolation would suggest that the leader is contradicting his economic vision. International investors have enjoyed Narendra Modis trust and support ever since his days as the CM of Gujarat, in contrary to Nehrus suspicion and reticence for foreign trade. His flagship scheme Make in India espoused to make India the preferred destination for investors and entrepreneurs alike

Price Discovery, Not Control

From frustrating the role of capitalism, denying free markets to contribute towards economic development and depending on deficit financing to set up industries, Nehrus idea of self-reliance was heavily dominated through an array of controls i.e. licenses, price, ownership, capital, production, wages etc.

This is in contradiction to the self-reliance PM Modi is trying to invoke. Free from controls, he has opened doors for the vibrant democracy to partake in Indias growth story.

It is a big moment for Indias agriculture sector as it attains freedom to sell its produce at a price driven by the market. Unlike the industry policy propagated by Nehru which limited private participation to the consumer sector, reforms announced in Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, 2020 have opened gates for private investment, research, innovation and employment generation in sectors like atomic energy and defence manufacturing.

If recent reforms including efforts to improve ease of doing business, increase transparency to eliminate corruption and relentless outreach with marquee incorporations are to go by, the underlying vision of building a self-reliant India is far from isolation or control. In fact, even when members of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch wanted Make in India to be renamed to Make by India just to avert the occurrence of another East India Company, the request was not acquiesced.

Self-reliance does not aim to be an impermeable membrane between India and the world. It is directed to broaden the basket of exports, which has otherwise been facing stiff competition, reduce trade imbalance, improve quality and encourage than coerce consumption of indigenous products. Admittedly, there is a lot of apprehension within the industry since achieving absolute self-reliance will be unrealistic. Trade negotiations still work on the cornerstone of barter system and therefore, if India wants the world to be its market, it will have to continue to allow the world to access its markets.
HANOI:Vietnam reported no new cases of COVID-19 infection, with its total confirmed cases remained at 332 and zero deaths so far, according to its Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, one more patient was announced to recover from the disease, bringing the total number of cured cases in the country to 317, Xinhua news agency reported.

Vietnam has recorded no local transmission for 54 straight days while there are nearly 9, 100 people being quarantined and monitored in the country, said the health ministry on Tuesday.

Speaking at a government meeting held here on Tuesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc assigned the country's National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control to announce safe areas that have recorded no COVID-19 infection in the last 30 days for the reopening of international flight routes, Vietnam News Agency reported.

The prime minister also ordered relevant authorities to work to facilitate the movement of foreign experts, investors and skilled workers to Vietnam while approving the reopening of bar and karaoke services, according to the report.
Russian investigators on Wednesday detained three staff of a power plant over a huge fuel spill in the Arctic, as response teams warned a full clean-up would take years. The spill of over 21,000 tonnes of fuel took place after a fuel reservoir collapsed last month at a power plant operated by a subsidiary of metals giant Norilsk Nickel in the city of Norilsk. It is the largest ever to have hit the Arctic, say environmentalists. Those working at the site have already seen the first effects of the spill on the local ecosystem, said Viktor Bronnikov, general director of Transneft Siberia oil and gas transportation company involved in the clean-up. They included dead muskrats and ducks, he said. The Investigative Committee looking into the accident said it had detained the director of the power station, Pavel Smirnov, and two engineers on suspicion of breaching environmental protection rules. If convicted, they would risk up to five years in prison. "The company considers this measure to be unjustifiably harsh," Norilsk Nickel said in a statement to AFP, citing vice-president Nikolai Utkin. All three "are cooperating with law enforcement authorities and now they would be much more useful at the scene of the clean-up operation", he added. - 'Years' to clean up - At the scene at a remote area in the Norilsk industrial district, Bronnikov of Transneft Siberia said that the situation was stabilising, but that the clean-up team had seen animals and birds apparently killed by the spill. "Today I myself saw dead muskrats," he told AFP, adding that workers had seen ducks killed by the fuel. "If a bird lands on the diesel fuel or a muskrat swims through it, it is condemned to death," he said. He added however that he had not seen "a huge number" of any animals dying there. Workers in waterproofs were using booms to contain the reddish-brown diesel on the surface of a river and pump it into tanks on the bank. "We will be removing diesel fuel from the Ambarnaya River for at least eight to 10 days," Bronnikov said. "We will need years to completely clean up," he added. The teams have set up tents on the river bank and are using helicopters to bring in equipment and survey the vast flat area of grass and sparse trees. After this "mechanical" stage, other methods will have to be used to absorb the rest of the diesel or cause it to break down, Bronnikov said. - Kara Sea threatened - Norilsk Nickel head Vladimir Potanin said the company would pay for clean-up efforts estimated at $146 million after President Vladimir Putin backed a state of emergency in the Arctic city. The Investigative Committee said the power plant's fuel tank had required major repairs from 2018 but the suspects "continued to use it in breach of safety rules." "As a result, the accident occurred," the investigators' statement said. Norilsk Nickel said that the fuel reservoir was built in 1985 and underwent repairs in 2017 and 2018 after which it went through a safety audit. Regional officials have said that despite efforts to contain the fuel leak using booms on the river surface, it has now reached a freshwater lake that is a major source of water for the region. The pollution could now flow into the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia, which Greenpeace Russia expert Vladimir Chuprov told AFP would be a "disaster." But in a conference call on Wednesday, Norilsk Nickel's first vice president Sergei Dyachenko denied the spill had reached the lake, saying the company had not found contamination there. The metals giant has said the accident could have been caused by global warming thawing the permafrost under the fuel reservoir. It has acknowledged it did not specifically monitor the condition of permafrost at its sites in the past and said it would do a full audit shortly. The massive clean-up involves nearly 700 people, according to the emergencies ministry. video-apo-am/as/jj Floating dams have been deployed to try to limit the spread of the fuel Workers in waterproofs were using booms to contain the reddish-brown diesel on the surface of a river and pump it into tanks on the bank The massive spill has already Ambarnaya river and according to some reports a nearby freshwater lake
A mericas top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has warned the coronavirus pandemic is far from over, calling Covid-19 his worst nightmare.

The US now has more than two million confirmed cases of the virus, with 21 states recording rising numbers of infections.

Pakistans infections have soared past 5,000 as the World Health Organisation urged the government to impose a two-week lockdown to stem the relentless spike in new cases.

Pakistan has recorded 113,702 confirmed cases and 2,255 deaths. Prime Minister Imran Khan has faced criticism for easing lockdowns despite rising numbers and little progress in tracking Covid-19 outbreaks.

Malaysia reopened nearly all economic and social activities today after a nearly three-month lockdown successfully brought down viral infections.

Malaysians can now travel for domestic holidays, get haircuts and shop at street markets. Schools and religious activities also will gradually resume.

7,325,854 infections worldwide

South Americas coronavirus crisis continued to deepen as Argentina confirmed more than 1,000 new cases of coronavirus for the first time, just days after it extended lockdown measures in the Buenos Aires.

The health ministry logged 1,141 new cases in the past 24 hours, as well as 24 deaths, pushing its totals to 24,761 cases and 717 deaths since the outbreak began in early March.

A Russian plant will recall a model of medical ventilators that was linked to two deadly hospital fires, the RIA news agency has reported.

The Urals Instrument Engineering Plant in the Sverdlovsk region where the Aventa-M ventilators were made said it would conduct additional inspections and tests.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal on Tuesday said that Delhi will require 80,000 beds by the end of July if Covid-19 cases continue to increase at this rate.

Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal on Tuesday said that the national capital will require 80,000 beds by the end of July if the surge in COVID-19 cases continues. Baijal made the comments after he chaired a meeting of all political parties to discuss the present situation of COVID-19 in the national capital. As per review in todays SDMA meeting, I was informed that Delhi will have a total number of 13,771 beds by June 15. If the current trend continues, we will be requiring 80,000 beds by the end of July. That requires a very fast ramp-up. In todays meeting, I have given directions to identify areas where we can have large makeshift facilities, for example Pragati Maidan, IGI, Thyagaraj Stadium, Jawaharlal Nehru stadium etc, Baijal told ANI.

The LG said that as chairperson of Delhi Disaster Management Authority, he has been periodically reviewing the national capitals plan to fight COVID-19. We had constituted two expert committees to forecast possible scenarios and requirements of medical infrastructure to contain the pandemic, he said.

Our plan is to utilise banquet halls, marriage halls etc to ramp up facilities. The key thing to remember that most of the patients require oxygenated beds rather than ICU. My instructions to all concerned in SDMA are to provide facility as per possible scenarios, he added.

Also Read: Frontline worker attacked in Hyderabad

Also Read: Army briefed PM Modi, cabinet members on LAC situation a day after Chinese buildup started near Ladakh

Asked about the action plan as COVID-19 cases continue to rise, Baijal said, We are also exploring additional options like linking hotels with hospitals, utilising bed capacity of private hospitals and adding more beds in government hospitals. We are working closely with the central government and its agencies and they were also present in the meeting today.

The LG said that all steps will be taken to ensure that everyone in Delhi who requires medical care would be attended to.

Baijal said that he was forced to strike down the order of the Arvind Kejriwal government, reserving hospitals in the national capital for city residents, as it violated constitutional right to equality and right to life which includes right to health.

The order violated constitutional right to equality and right to life which includes right to health. Earlier also, a similar order of Delhi government was struck down by the High Court on the ground that no citizen of India can be discriminated on the grounds of residence, he said.

Also Read: Govt trying best to control fire at gas well of Oil India Limited: Assam Minister

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By AFP

SRINAGAR: The world is heading for a shortage of the highly prized and super-soft cashmere wool as pashmina goats that live on the "roof of the world" become caught up in the fractious border dispute between nuclear neighbours India and China.

Wool from pashmina goats, reared by nomads in the inhospitable high-altitude cold desert region of Ladakh, is the most expensive and coveted cashmere in the world.

But the shaggy creatures that provide the yarn are being pushed out of their grazing lands in the tussle between the world's two most-populous nations, causing the death of tens of thousands of kids this season, locals and officials said.

"In about three years when the newborn goats would have started yielding pashmina we'll see a significant drop in production," Sonam Tsering of the All Changtang Pashmina Growers Cooperative Marketing Society told AFP.

There have been numerous face-offs and brawls between Chinese and Indian soldiers over their 3,500-kilometre (2,200-mile) frontier, which has never been properly demarcated. The latest is concentrated in the Ladakh region, just opposite Tibet, with Indian officials claiming Chinese troops encroached over the boundary in recent weeks.

The alleged movements came after military fisticuffs at the eastern part of the border near Sikkim in May.

ALSO READ| Ladakh standoff: Indian, Chinese troops disengage at three locations ahead of next military meet

'Newborns dead'

Tsering said that some traditional grazing land is lost to China each year. But this year, even the main winter grazing areas near KakJung, Tum Tselay, Chumar, Damchok and Korzok are out of bounds amid the heightened tensions, he added.

"It's devastating. The PLA (China's People's Liberation Army) used to encroach into our side by the metres, but this time they have come inside several kilometres," said Jurmet, a former elected official who has only one name.

"It was breeding season for the goats. Around 85 percent of their newborns died this year because large herds were pushed out into the cold from the grazing lands (in February)," he told AFP over the phone from Leh, the region's capital city.

Tsering said that Indian soldiers were blocking the animals from entering areas deemed as sensitive, while herders told him the Chinese army was pushing Tibetan nomads into their grazing areas.

Half a dozen residents involved with goat herding who AFP spoke to said that until a few years ago, they would cross over the frozen Indus river for grazing during the winter, but those areas were now being encroached by China.

Meanwhile, communicating with the herders -- whose satellite phones provided by Indian officials have been withdrawn in recent years -- has become difficult, said Jurmet.

ALSO READ| India, China prepare for Corps Commander level meeting amidst news of further de-escalation

Vital industry

The huge number of deaths - in the tens of thousands according to a local Indian official who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity - could devastate the sector in the coming years. The goats yield some 50 tonnes of the finest and most expensive feather-light cashmere wool each year, supporting the vital handicrafts industry in Kashmir that employs thousands of people.

Most of the wool is woven into yarn and exquisite shawls sold the world over from luxury store Harrods in London to the Dubai Mall in the United Arab Emirates, and can cost up to US$800 for one scarf.

More than 1,000 families of nomadic Changpa herders roam the vast Changtang plateau at over 5,000 metres (16,400 feet), grazing some 300,000 Pashmina goats, black yaks and horses through the summer months.

They move to the slightly lower altitude grazing lands straddling Tibet and along the mighty Indus river during harsh winter months of December to February when temperatures drop up to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit).

The military tensions are the latest blow for the herders, who are already reeling from the impact of climate change which has made winters harsher and summers drier. Some have even abandoned their generations-long way of life to migrate to towns in Ladakh in search of other sources of income.
The Delhi government might need to arrange at least 60,000 beds for coronavirus patients in the next 52 days, starting from June 10, as per the analysis based on recent statements made by Delhi CM and Deputy CM.

In recent days, the national capital has witnessed an exponential rise in the COVID-19 cases tally. Between June 1 and June 9, Delhi registered around 10,000 COVID cases. Overall, Delhi has breached 30,000-mark in a number of coronavirus cases. According to Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, the doubling rate in the capital is 12.6 days.

Sisodia, in his Tuesday's press conference, stated that mathematical models of the progression of COVID-19 showed there would around 5.5 lakh cases by the end of July in Delhi.

By this, Sisodia projected that the state government will have to arrange 80,000 beds to handle these cases.

Sisodia's estimates had come two days after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's virtual press conference, in which he said there were about 20,000 beds available in Delhi at present.

Kejriwal added that 10,000 beds were available in Delhi government hospitals and another 10,000 at hospitals run by the central government in the capital.

As a result, in just a span of 52 days, the Delhi government will need to arrange at 60,000 beds if the trend in coronavirus cases tally remains the same in Delhi in the upcoming days.

Yesterday, Sisodia also said the national capital may record 44,000 COVID-19 cases by June 15 and it would need 6,600 beds in hospitals.

"By June 30, there will be one lakh cases of coronavirus in Delhi and we will need 15,000 beds," Sisodia added.

"It is estimated that Delhi will record 2.15 lakh cases by July 15 and 33,000 beds would be required. There might be 5.5 lakh cases by July 31 and Delhi would need 80,000 beds," he said.

If Sisodia's algorithm on COVID patients and the number of beds turns out to be true, it could be a worrisome factor for the Delhi government. The additional beds are not the only challenge the Delhi government facing. The city also requires an army of health workers to be able to provide treatment to the new patients.

Also read: Delhi govt orders hospitals to display full rate list of coronavirus services

Also read: '5.5 lakh coronavirus cases by July 31': Delhi Deputy CM fears worse case scenario
The Trump administration has overturned an Obama-era rule that prohibited the baiting of bear cubs and killing wolf pups during the denning season in Alaska national preserves. The National Park Service amended its regulations for sport hunting and trapping in national preserves in Alaska, removing regulatory provisions issued in 2015 that prohibited hunting practices otherwise permitted by the State of Alaska.

President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order to speed up environment nods for several construction projects, cutting environmental reviews and other protections. While hunting advocates and state leaders of Alaska had criticised the Obama-era ban, the wildlife welfare groups and conservationists have slammed the Trump administration of the rollback.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement that the Trump administration has shockingly reached a new low in its treatment of wildlife. She said that allowing the killing of bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens is barbaric and inhumane.

The proposed regulations cast aside a primary purpose of national preserves to conserve wildlife and wild places," added Clark.

Read: US Says Alaska Man Laundered Nearly $1B For Iran Through UAE

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which is defending the Obama-era NPS in federal court, said in a blog post that the Trump administration has just delivered a one-two punch to Alaskas wildlife. Kitty Block, the president of HSUS, said that the new regulations have allowed some of the cruellest practices for killing black bears, wolves and other wildlife on national preserve lands in Alaska.

'Horribly cruel'

Block said that baiting the bears is a horribly cruel practice as trophy hunters leave out piles of junk food like doughnuts and candy to lure the animals and then shoot them. She wrote in her blog that mother bears, with their higher energy needs, are often attracted to bait piles, and when trophy hunters shoot them, they leave behind cubs who will often die of starvation, predation and exposure.

Bait piles also habituate bears to human scents and can lead to conflicts at campgrounds, picnic areas and other spots where there is food, wrote Block.

Read: Pink Bear Chases A Little Girl Across Lawn In A Hilarious Video; Watch
A TEENAGE boy was arrested and questioned about mobile phone footage which depicted another teen being assaulted, stabbed and then mocked while he was lying covered in blood on the ground.

The teenager was arrested at his home and taken to Togher Garda Station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.

He was released without charge on Tuesday evening and a file will now be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Two other teenagers - both known to the teen arrested - were also questioned under caution about the alleged incident in Carrigaline last Saturday night.

Gardai said they are "very pleased" with the response to their appeal for information about the incident which occurred at Waterpark in Carrigaline around 10.30pm on June 6.

A 17 year old boy had to be treated in Cork University Hospital (CUH) after suffering stab and slash type injuries in the incident.

Another 17 year old boy - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - has been charged before Cork District Court in relation to the matter.

He was charged with assault causing harm and robbery of a mobile phone. The footage of the incident - with the blood-covered and helpless youth being mocked while lying on the ground - sparked outrage in Cork and across Ireland.

The family of the injured teen paid tribute to the local community and emergency service personnel for the overwhelming support they had received since Saturday evening.

Both gardai and Cork civic leaders have appealed for the video footage not to be shared online. Gardai have harvested large quantities of material from social media in relation to the incident.

They have appealed for anyone who witnessed suspicious behaviour in the Waterpark area last Saturday night to contact them.

They have also appealed for any motorist whose vehicle is equipped with dash-cams and who drove through Carrigaline last Saturday night to come forward.
Patrick Neville is a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from the 45th District. He is Minority Leader of the House GOP.
Phuket airport inspected for readiness to reopen

PHUKET: Dr Suwit Thammapalo, Chief of the Ministry of Public Healths International Quarantine Division, conducted an inspection of Phuket International Airport yesterday (June 9) for its readiness to reopen.

COVID-19healthtourismtransport

By The Phuket News

Wednesday 10 June 2020, 09:53AM

Airport staff held up cards spelling out in Russian See you soon. Photo: AoT Phuket

More Russian nationals stranded in Thailand by the international flight ban were airlifted out of Phuket last night (June 9). Photo: AoT Phuket

More Russian nationals stranded in Thailand by the international flight ban were airlifted out of Phuket last night (June 9). Photo: AoT Phuket

More Russian nationals stranded in Thailand by the international flight ban were airlifted out of Phuket last night (June 9). Photo: AoT Phuket

Present to lead Dr Suwit on the tour of the facility was Phuket International Airport Deputy Director Wichit Kaewsaithiam, who showed Dr Suwit the equipment, staff and processes in place ready to allow passengers to arrive and depart Phuket via the airport.

Dr Suwits tour included an inspection of the Immigration arrivals hall, the check-in counters, baggage claim area and boarding gates.

Airport staff were given another live test last night as 78 people were reported borading Aurora Airlines Flight SHU5495, flying Phuket-Shanghai-Russia, at 9pm.

Aurora, a Russian Far East air carrier, is a subsidiary of Russian national flag-carrier Aeroflot. The airline reported 75 passengers taking the flight home.

The flight was organised by Russian embassy representatives as part of their ongoing campaign to repatriate Russian nationals stranded while the current international flight ban remains in effect until at least June 30.

As passengers made their way to the flight, they passed staff at the airport holding up cards spelling out   , Russian for See you soon.

Much expectation is pinned on Phuket airport reopening to domestic flights to help restart the islands economy amid the economic fallout from the travel restrictions imposed to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Airports of Thailand management team at Phuket airport (AoT Phuket) last week announced that they were ready to receive passengers under Phase 3 of the nationwide relaxation of the COVID-19 lockdown measures.

However, AoT Phuket made it plain in their announcement that they did not expect the airport to resume any regular operations before next Wednesday (June 16) as the current order by the Civil Aviation authority of Thailand (CAAT) to stop operations at Phuket airport is set to expire at 23:59pm on June 15, unless otherwise ordered.

Meanwhile, the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) in Bangkok, the national authority overseeing all policy changes regarding COVID-19, has already announced that it expects to announce Phase 4 of the relaxation of the COVID-19 restrictions this Friday (June 12).
The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The places that inspired Middle-Earth

By John Garth

Princeton University Press. 208 pp. $29.95

---

After months of lockdown, political unrest and the inescapable threat of environmental collapse, some of us long for a glimpse of a world other than our own. Readers can find one in John Garth's "The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien," a fascinating, gorgeously illustrated and thought-provoking examination of the landscapes, cities and architecture that inspired Tolkien during his lifelong creation of Middle-earth.

Garth is the author of "Tolkien and the Great War," a seminal work that underscored how Tolkien's fiction, far from being a bit of donnish fancy, was in many ways rooted in his experiences at the Battle of the Somme and his observations of an irrevocably damaged world in the aftermath of World War I. "If Tolkien has a message," Garth writes in his new book, "it is simple. Modern life tends to blind us to the true value of things." As Tolkien himself put it, "If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth."

That wonder and delight seems to have begun to flourish soon after Tolkien first saw England, at the age of 3. Born to English parents in what is now South Africa, his mother had brought him and his younger brother to her home country for what was to have been an extended visit. A year later, Tolkien's father, still in Africa, died, but the family remained in England.

"I loved it with an intensity of love that was a kind of nostalgia reversed," Tolkien wrote of England in his great essay "On Fairy-Stories." Tolkien's "aching love for a newfound home," Garth writes, burgeoned into a vast creative enterprise, what Tolkien termed his legendarium. It includes not just his best-known books - "The Hobbit," "The Lord of the Rings," "The Silmarillion" - but numerous others edited by his son Christopher and published posthumously, including the 12-volume "Complete History of Middle-earth," as well as maps, paintings, drawings, notes, poetry and lexicons compiled for the languages that Tolkien, a philologist, invented for the denizens of his secondary world.

Garth, a journalist as well as a Tolkien scholar, proves an exceptional guide to Middle-earth. Much has been written about the "Tolkienesque" landscapes that inspired Tolkien's work, many now co-opted by the tourism industry - long-barrows and fallen castles, British and Northern European woodlands, ruins, mountains and rivers. Garth also emphasizes those places, "real and imaginary, that Tolkien knew from his reading." The resulting palimpsest of the real and imagined, ancient and modern, urban and bucolic, mythic and historic, is what gives Middle-earth its powerful singularity - the "tremendous sense of perspective," as Garth puts it, that is so "vital in making us feel that Middle-earth was not intended for the story, but existed before it."

The first chapters in "The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien" are arranged according to geography (primarily the British Isles and Northern Europe) and topography (oceans and seashores, mountains, rivers and lakes, woodlands). The book's last four sections explore landscapes where humankind has left its physical mark, in the form of ancient ruins, industry, farmlands or warfare. Throughout, the oversize pages are filled with maps, reproductions of Tolkien's own paintings, illustrations from various editions of his books by Pauline Baynes, Alan Lee, John Howe and others, in addition to contemporary and archival photos.

As with the journeys undertaken by Bilbo, Frodo and their companions, some of the most memorable passages describe hiking through the wilderness. Garth recounts a nearly month-long walking tour in the Swiss Alps undertaken by Tolkien and his brother, Hilary, in 1911, shortly before Tolkien embarked upon his studies at Oxford. This Alpine sojourn reveals the roots of Rivendell, the Misty Mountains, Caradhras, Dunharrow and the Dwimorberg, places that readers have returned to and thrilled to countless times. Tolkien's illustration of Rivendell is reproduced, along with a photograph of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, showing a nearly identical prospect. Elsewhere, images of Oxford's Radcliffe Camera, Bruegel's "The Tower of Babel" and even Albert Speer's scale model for the Nazi's Berlin Volkshalle suggest the source of Tolkien's vision of Morgoth's Temple.

Tolkien only visited the Alps once. Yet his experience of the sublime "conveyed for him a 'sense of endless untold stories' - that same impression of potentially limitless exploration which is vital to the success of his legendarium." Garth's masterful book ends with a reminder that a profound concern for the environment and its despoliation imbues Tolkien's work. In 1954, novelist Naomi Mitchison, having read early proofs of "The Lord of the Rings," wrote Tolkien inquiring about various unresolved elements in the tale, including the fate of the Entwives. His response: "They would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult - unless experience of industrialized and militarized agriculture had made them a little more anarchic." Tolkien's hand-scrawled note alongside reads: "I hope so - I don't know."

Tolkien as feminist eco-warrior! Years after his death, his legend - and legendarium - continue to inspire and astonish.

---

Hand's 16th novel, "The Book of Lamps and Banners," will be published this fall.
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Control Valves Market Research Report by Type (Ball Valve, Butterfly Valve, Cryogenic Valve, and Globe Valve), by Size (1-6, 25- 50, 50 and Above, 6-25, and Up to 1), by Technology, by Application - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913966/?utm_source=PRN







The Global Control Valves Market is expected to grow from USD 7,522.92 Million in 2019 to USD 10,037.87 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.92%.



Market Segmentation & Coverage:

This research report categorizes the Control Valves to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:



On the basis of Type, the Control Valves Market is studied across Ball Valve, Butterfly Valve, Cryogenic Valve, and Globe Valve.



On the basis of Size, the Control Valves Market is studied across 1-6, 25- 50, 50 and Above, 6-25, and Up to 1.



On the basis of Technology, the Control Valves Market is studied across Electric Control Valve, Hydraulic Control Valve, Manual Control Valve, and Pneumatic Control Valve.



On the basis of Application, the Control Valves Market is studied across Building & Construction, Chemicals, Energy & Power, Food & Beverages, Oil & Gas, and Pharmaceuticals.



On the basis of Geography, the Control Valves Market is studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region is studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region is studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region is studied across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.



Company Usability Profiles:

The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Control Valves Market including Alfa Laval, Emerson, Flowserve Corporation, IMI PLC, Kitz Corporation, Metso, Pentair PLC, Samson AG, The Weir Group PLC, and Velan Inc.



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Control Valves Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.



Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:

COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.



The report provides insights on the following pointers:

1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on sulfuric acid offered by the key players

2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets

3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments

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5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments



The report answers questions such as:

1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Control Valves Market?

2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Control Valves Market during the forecast period?

3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Control Valves Market?

4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Control Valves Market?

5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Control Valves Market?

6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Control Valves Market?



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For 36 years, Chinas ruling Communist Party stipulated that couples could have only one child except in special circumstances, such as if they lived in a rural area and their first child was a girl or a boy with disabilities. It was part of a strategy to boost Chinas growth rate and its living standards at the same time.
Brennans Irish pub in Birmingham will host a music show this week to raise money to donate to bail funds for people in the metro area who have been arrested while protesting.

Thursday, June 11, the pub in Five Points South will host Beer, Bands, and Bail Fund a night of live music and, in lieu of a cover charge, donations will be taken at the door for the bail fund organized by Erica Star Robbins. An activist and veteran bartender, Robbins has been on the ground organizing and leading protests in downtown Birmingham and Hoover, as well as working to bail out protesters who have been arrested, often waiting for them in the lobby until they are released from jail.

In Birmingham and around the state, protesters have taken to the streets to demand police reform and justice for George Floyd, the unarmed man who was killed by Minnesota police last month, as well as past victims of police brutality.

Thursdays event starts at 6:00 p.m. and will run until about midnight. A team of people will assist with donations at the door, and patrons can make donations out to Robbins Venmo account at @STARROBB or her Cash App account at $StarRobb. The show will also be livestreamed on Facebook with a link to the donation accounts where viewers can give funds.

(Courtesy, Brennan's Irish Pub)

Danny Winter, the owner and manager of Brennans, and musician Cj Griffith have only one show planned so far, but if protests continue and enough musicians are interested in playing, they will look at planning more benefit nights.

Right now its just a one-time event, but Im more than willing and happy to host it again, said Winter.

More information about Beer, Bands, and Bail Fund is available on the event Facebook page.

In addition to organizing demonstrations, Robbins has spoken at rallies in the city and surrounding metro areas. She has also set up hydration stations with food and water for protesters around the Birmingham metro area. When muralists and volunteers set out to paint city windows covered with plywood -- boarded up after a protest to remove the Confederate monument in Linn Park devolved into an ugly aftermath as the crowd split up and groups wreaked havoc on the citys downtown -- Robbins came out with a group to hand out water and snacks.

Robbins has documented her processes on Facebook live and shes received an outpouring of support from fellow bartenders and hospitality workers around the city --gifts of whiskey, fruit, food, even treats for her dogs.

Robbins is also the founder and executive director of Be a Blessing Birmingham, a non-profit dedicated to feeding and providing services for the citys homeless. After the city started shutdowns orders in an effort to stop the spread of the COVID-19, Robbins and her team set out to make sure the homeless community had access to soap and water, setting up hand washing stations. Be a Blessing also partnered with Woke Vote to help the homeless receive the stimulus checks from the C.A.R.E.S Act.

Be a Blessing is also trying to raise money to buy mobile shower units for the homeless. As of the afternoon of June 10, the campaigns GoFundMe is at nearly $33,800 of its $60,000 goal.

Like many restaurants and bars in the city and around the state, Brennans is slowly trying to recover from the financial blow dealt by COVID-19.

In March, the Irish pub lost its two biggest venue days of the year. The annual Five Points South St. Patricks Day parade was postponed, and even though the restaurant was open on St. Patricks Day, there were far fewer customers than previous years. In April, the pub teamed up with Food For Our Journey, a nonprofit that pays restaurants to cook meals for the homeless. Winter was happy to partner with the project-- the service helped Brennans bring in a little extra revenue in addition to helping those in need.

The pub was able to reopen its doors in compliance with the states Safer at Home orders, but Winter says the business is only bringing in about 40 percent of its usual revenue.

After seeing the protests in Birmingham, Winter wanted to do something to support the efforts of activists in the city.

I can use my space and I would like to use Brennans to help however we can, said Winter.

The evening of June 1, demolition teams rolled in to start dismantling the 52-foot confederate monument in Linn Park. Mayor Randall Woodfin had kept his word to the protesters who were trying to take down the statue themselves the night before, and removed the monument legally. By Wednesday morning, the site where the monument once stood was nothing but a pile of rubble surrounded by barricades.

Winter says he was so proud of our city and our mayor at that point.

As a politician of course, you see so many politicians that will say things to try to diffuse situations and dont follow through, said Winter. So, following through with that, it was just like, thank God. Thank God right now for someone who does what they say they are going to do.

Beer, Bands, and Bail Fund is the brainchild of Griffith, who is spearheading the Thursday night event.

Like Winter, the owner of Rocket No. 9 Records and bassist in the Birmingham band Tragic City says he was watching events unfold in the city and wanted to figure out a way to help out the community. After turning the idea around in his head, he decided to pitch it to a few local musicians.

While he was walking around Five Points South, he passed Little Italy and realized all of the musicians he wanted to approach about the benefit show were gathered at the restaurant.

 A lot of them were talking about how they hadnt played in a long time and how they wanted to go out and play. So I figured it would be good to put the two together, said Griffith.

He had played venues at Brennans before, so when the group told him they were on board, he headed straight to the pub to ask Winter if he would be interested in having Brennans host the event.

When Griffith learned about Robbins and her community efforts from one of his band mates, he decided the donation money should go to her bail fund.

He showed me videos of her walking into the Hoover jail and bailing people out and then he showed me all the other stuff she was doing, said Griffith. It felt like time to do something.

This week, AL.com will publish a running list of restaurants and bars in the Birmingham area who are launching efforts to support Black Lives Matter or protests for police reform. Tips can be emailed to features reporter Shauna Stuart at sstuart@al.com.
More than 1,200 former Justice Department staffers have called for an internal review of Attorney General William Barr's role in clearing a peaceful demonstration near the White House more than a week ago in an aggressive move against protesters.

The staffers, in a letter to Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, said they were "disturbed" by Barr's involvement in the action that opened a path for President Donald Trump to stage a photograph outside nearby St. John's Church.

"Based on what we now know, these actions violated both the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and the press, and the right to assemble; and the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable seizures, to include objectively unreasonable uses of force by law enforcement officers," the group wrote. "None of us would ever have considered directing or engaging in such actions to be consistent with our oaths to support and defend the Constitution."

The attorney general, who was in Lafayette Square at the time, has repeatedly defended the federal action. While Barr has acknowledged deciding earlier that day to expand the security perimeter around the square  requiring the movement of protesters  he has since said that he did not give the specific directive setting federal authorities in motion.

President Donald Trump walks with US Attorney General William Barr (L), US Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper (C), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley (R), and others from the White House to visit St. John's Church after the area was cleared of people protesting the George Floyd's death.

After the storm: AG Barr defends clearing protest near White House, disputes claims demonstration was peaceful

To the bunker: Barr contradicts Trump's claim he went to the White House bunker to inspect it, rejects calls to defund police

The Justice Department and the inspector general declined to comment Wednesday.

As recently as Tuesday, Barr addressed the matter, claiming the federal intervention was necessary as televised images of rioting "conveyed the impression that the United States was on the brink of losing control of its capital city."

The attorney general's vivid description was contained in a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been sharply critical of the federal government's response to the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Story continues

In addition to Bowser, the federal reaction  including 5,000 National Guard troops and federal officers from at least a dozen agencies has drawn sharp criticism from lawmakers and former military officials.

A "Black Lives Matter" mural painted on the street is seen from 16th Street in Washington DC on June 5, 2020. The mural was created as protests continue across the country to demand justice for the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

"We are also disturbed by the Attorney Generals deployment of federal law enforcement officers throughout the country, and especially within the District of Columbia, to participate in quelling lawful First Amendment activity," the former Justice staffers wrote to the inspector general.

"We have profound doubts that the personnel deployed from these agencies are adequately trained in policing mass protests or protecting the constitutional rights of individuals who are not subject to arrest or have not been convicted of a crime," the staffers said. "Moreover, reports from witnesses indicate that federal officers were blocking streets, guarding buildings, and interacting with civilians without displaying or otherwise providing identification, even when asked to do so by peaceful protesters. Accountability requires law enforcement personnel to identify themselves and be identifiable."

Days after the Lafayette Square clash, the ACLU announced it was suing Trump and Barr in connection with the federal response. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matters D.C. and individual protesters.

What happened to our members... here in the nations capital, was an affront to all our rights, said April Goggans, an organizer with Black Lives Matter D.C.

barr

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bill Barr: Ex-DOJ staffers want review of AG role clearing protesters
The anarcho-socialist revolutionary dictatorship is on the move. It's currently purging people who have failed to show sufficient allegiance to the cause. When that purge ends, the survivors will turn their attention to the rest of us. In America, we've reached the stage of "speak now or forever (be forced to) hold your peace."

I'm currently enjoying watching those people who, just last week, were ostentatiously woke suddenly discovering that they're not woke enough. These are the same people who scolded conservatives who worried that "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" on college campuses would churn out twisted, paranoid minds. We were called reactionaries, fascists, racists, and worse. We were also correct.

This week, the New York Times forced out editorial page editor James Bennet and demoted deputy opinion editor Jim Dao back to the newsroom. Both had triggered Ben Rhodes's know-nothing twenty-somethings by allowing a U.S. senator to write an opinion piece stating what the majority of the country believes: that President Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act if civil disorder gets too out of control.

At the Philadelphia Inquirer, the same college-grad mob forced out a groveling Stan Wischnowski, the editor who authorized an article saying buildings matter. And at Variety, editor in chief Claudia Eller, who trumpeted LGBT correctness, failed the current wokeness test when she hurt a reporter's feelings by saying the reporter sounded "bitter." One strike, and you're out.

These purges happened at "thought leader" publications that purvey the propaganda that passes for news (the Times and the Inquirer) or shape the popular culture (Variety). The latest high-profile firing, though, is moving from thought leaders to any leaders. Adam Rapoport, who has spent almost ten years as Bon Appetit's editor in chief, felt the wrath of the mob. We've moved from news to food.

These are Rapoport's alleged sins against race:

 Rapoport paid white people for video appearances but did not pay minorities (something Conde Nast, the parent company, denies).

 Rapoport wasn't sufficiently enthusiastic about Puerto Rican food.

 Either 7 or 16 years ago (it's unclear), Rapoport dressed in "brownface."

I do not know why Adam Rapoport simply doesnt write about Puerto Rican food for @bonappetit himself!!! https://t.co/rW0k5tjMoS pic.twitter.com/odZnFLz2gd  chez tammie (@tammieetc) June 8, 2020

 Rapoport didn't believe that the magazine's readers (i.e., paying customers who fund paychecks and operating expenses) would be interested in complicated African cuisine.

When approached about his sins, Rapoport didn't fight back. Instead, in true-believer fashion, he crawled away with his tail between his legs, mewling out his confession as he went (emphasis mine):

I am stepping down as editor in chief of Bon Appetit to reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being and to allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place. From an extremely ill-conceived Halloween costume 16 years ago to my blind spots as an editor, I've not championed an inclusive vision. And ultimately, it's been at the expense of Bon Appetit and its staff, as well as our readers. They all deserve better. The staff has been working hard to evolve the brand in a positive, more diverse direction. I will do all I can to support that work, but I am not the one to lead that work. I am deeply sorry for my failings and to the position in which I put the editors of BA. Thank you.

I wanted to write that "it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at that confession," but the contrary is true. While Rapoport is still low-hanging fruit, in that he's visible and woke (but not woke enough), he's not as low-hanging as the people in the first round of purges. The revolutionaries are climbing higher up the civilizational tree, destroying as they go.

Pastor Martin Niemoller, who once supported Adolf Hitler, came to regret that decision and found himself almost dying in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. After the war, he unforgivably supported the communists, having somehow missed that fascists and communists are different branches of the same totalitarian socialist family tree. Still, he managed to utter some of the wisest words of the 20th century:

They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

It's enjoyable watching revolutionaries take out their weaker members, but don't forget that they'll be coming for you soon, too. Speak now, or they'll make sure you forever hold your peace.
Patna:

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Thursday that a three-day international Sikh convention would be held here ahead of the Prakash Utsav of Guru Gobind Singh. He launched a website to provide information on the celebration of 350th Prakash Utsav of the Sikh guru early next year.

The website has been developed by tourism department and provides information to visitors about how to reach Patna and where to stay during the function, he said at the function held on the occasion. Elaborate arrangements would be made for the mega celebration of Prakash Utsav of the 10th Sikh Guru Govind Singh and a three-day public holiday would be announced, he said.

Widespread publicity of Prakash Utsav would be made, including on TV and Bihar government would arrange accomodation for 20,000 devotees in pandals in Gandhi maidan, he said adding Proper parking facility would be provided to the vistors.

Kumar also flagged off a tourism department vehicle for publicity of Prakash utsav. Tourism minister Anita Devi, principal secretary to tourism department Harjot Kaur and development commissioner Shishir Sinha were present on the occasion.

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The total number of people who have recovered from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crossed the number of active cases in India for the first time since the start of the outbreak in March.

As of Tuesday evening, the number of recovered patients exceeded the number of active cases by 1,375, according to HTs Covid-19 dashboard.

In the last week, an average of 4,529 new active cases have been added to the national tally every day, while 5,397 patients have recovered daily. If these trajectories continue, this gap is likely to widen in the coming days.

One of key factors for the number of recoveries catching up to active cases has been Indias low case fatality rate (CFR). Since 2.8% of infected people have died so far, the number of active cases (calculated by subtracting the number of recovered patients and deaths from the total tally) has been steadily dropping, particularly from the end of May.

Active cases outnumbered the total recovered patients throughout the outbreak until Tuesday  the gap peaking on May 11, when active cases had a 23,511-case lead.

Recoveries soon picked up pace as patients, particularly the 155,668 new cases reported through May, started getting discharged. On May 29, India reported 11,707 new recoveries (highest in a single day so far), helped by Maharashtra that discharged 8,381 asymptomatic patients in one day.

In fact, from May 15, new recoveries have been regularly higher than the average daily active case.

The development also came on the same day that the total number of tests conducted in the country crossed the 5 million-mark, according the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). As of Tuesday night, India tested 5,061,332 samples.

This means India has conducted 3,797 tests for every million residents  the lowest among the 10 worst-hit countries in the world. Italy, which has over 50,000 fewer cases than India, has conducted over 71,000 tests per million population; Spain which has a few thousand more cases than India has conducted over 95,000 tests per million.

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Quarantine restrictions can be applied once again if the number of patients per 100,000 population is more than 24

Kyiv is not ready to move to the next stage of lockdown easing. This was announced by Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko during a briefing that was broadcasted on 112 Ukraine TV channel.

He added that all quarantine restrictions could be applied in Ukraine's capital once again if the number of patients per 100,000 population was more than 24.

"I want to note that the number of patients per 100,000 population has been more than 15 people over the last 5 days. According to this criterion, Kyiv, unfortunately, cannot move to the next stage of easing. Therefore, it is too early to talk about the opening of restaurants, swimming pools, children's camps and more," Klitschko said.

As we reported earlier, as of June 10, Ukrainian medics have observed 28,381 cases of coronavirus across the country. 525 new cases have been reported over the last 24 hours.

833 people have succumbed to the disease since the epidemic reached Ukraine. 12,769 have managed to recover.

Chernivtsi region, the city of Kyiv and Lviv region lead the way in terms of the number of the infected.
Nikiten Dheer recently made his digital debut with web series, Raktanchal. The actor, who shot to fame as Tangaballi from Chennai Express, plays a dreaded gangster named Waseem Khan in the crime drama. However, the 62 actor claims that against the popular belief, his physique didnt save him from bullying at school.

You play a gangster in the show. Are you not wary of being typecast as an antagonist?

All the characters are grey in Raktanchal, theres no hero or a villain. I just believe in doing good work and entertaining the audience. Almost everyone is typecast in our industry and is striving to entertain the audience.

What made you pick up the show?

I have attempted something like this for the first time. Its a MX Original, based in the heartland of India. The language used is the local tongue of Uttar Pradesh and the story is original. The show is set in 1980s and revolves around the tender mafia which was prevalent in those times. There are two heavyweights  Waseem Khan and Vijay Singh and there is a lot of bloodshed when they face each other, which is the reason behind the title, Raktanchal.

How did your life change after Chennai Express?

Chennai Express was a very positive experience for me and the love I received has been life changing. The character was physically very intimidating and I have a particular physique due to which the roles I get are different.

You played Danger Bhai in Freaky Ali. How do your near and deal ones react to your image?

I played Danger Bhai but it was a comic role. Unfortunately its a given in our society that if you have a tall and heavy physique, you are perceived as dangerous. I dont think thats the case. If you look closer, you will realise the kids who are taller or who have a different structure are the ones who are bullied the most and treated badly in school. The kids who are shorter often gang up and bully kids who are tall. I have lot of fans who are 13-14 year old and very tall for their age and are facing bullying. This mindset needs to change that a person who is tall and heavy is dangerous because thats not true.

Were you bullied during school days?

Yes I was. In fact some of my friends who are well built were bullied as well. But as you grow older, you thank God for making you the way you are, value yourself more and understand why people have a problem with you.

I want to tell my friends that its okay, you need not worry and keep your chin up. People make fun of things they dont understand.

You were about to return with Sooryavanshi but otherwise you have been more active on TV in last few years. Why did you choose to make that shift?

It wasnt intentional. I was a little caught up with other things and films took a backseat for some time. Then I did a couple of projects in the south. Besides Sooryavanshi, I have also shot for Shershaah.

Have you watched your father Pankaj Dheers Mahabharat during lockdown?

Yes I have watched it. I have watched lot more content and am obviously following the news as well. I am trying to pass my time in a positive way because all of us are stuck in the same situation. No one has ever witnessed such a crisis so we should keep a positive attitude.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Taiwan to conduct annual war games in July and September

ROC Central News Agency

06/09/2020 03:26 PM

Taipei, June 9 (CNA) Taiwan's annual Han Kuang exercises () will be conducted in July and September and will test the country's asymmetric capabilities to ward off hostile forces at sea and along its beaches, the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday.

This year's Han Kuang live-fire drill will take place July 13-17 and the computer-assisted tabletop training is scheduled for September 14-18, Lin Wen-huang (), head of the MND's operations and planning office, said at a press briefing.

The exercises will follow the Central Epidemic Command Center's (CECC's) protocols for COVID-19, such as wearing face masks while indoors and maintaining social distancing while outdoors, Lin said.

The annual Han Kuang exercises, first held in 1984, test the capabilities of all three branches of Taiwan's military -- the Army, Navy and Air Force -- in repelling a potential invasion from China.

The live-fire drills will be conducted in Taiwan's airspace, territorial waters and outlying islands. Among the activities, an anti-beach landing drill on July 16 at Jianan Beach in Taichung will be open to the media, according to Lin.

President Tsai Ing-wen () will be invited to observe the drill, Lin said, but whether she attends will depend on the Presidential Office's arrangements.

Other joint sea-air exercises will take place off Taiwan's southeastern coast, Lin said.

This year's Han Kuang exercises will primarily focus on testing Taiwan's defense strategies, which involve maintaining combat capabilities, pursuing decisive victory in coastal zones and subduing enemies in beach areas, according to a separate MND press release.

They will also test the ability to mobilize Taiwan's reserve forces, especially amid the COVID-19 outbreak, and the ability to activate backup command centers if the main command and control systems are paralyzed by the enemy, the MND said.

Meanwhile, the MND also announced the annual Wan An air raid drill () will be held across Taiwan and its islands on July 14 from 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.

(By Emerson Lim)

Enditem/ls

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What Huge US Jobs Number Means For Your Market Positions

The Huge Non-Farm Payroll number released on Friday, June 5th, shocked the market. A massive 2.5 million jobs were created in May 2020. If you were paying attention to the data, youll also understand that 1.87 million new jobless claims just last week. In fact, over the month of May 2020, a total of 12.58 million jobless claims were filed. Taken into consideration, the new jobs created in May represent less than 20% of the total job losses over the same span of time.

Our researchers believe the jobs number is representative of a phased reopening of many US states and correlates directly with the extended opportunity for further re-engagement of the US economy over time. The current social unrest taking place throughout the US will likely result in a new spike in COVID-19 cases as well as extended losses for certain businesses.

The rioting seems to be taking place in more populated states right now  which suggests some real concerns for many of these states in regards to scheduled reopening phases and the potential for a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Before you continue, be sure to opt-in to our free-market trend signals before closing this page, so you dont miss our next special report!

US MAP  STATES REOPENING STATUS

As you can see from the US map, below, the number of states that have started to reopen over the past 30+ days exceeds the number of states still shutdown or partially open. Our researchers believe the migration of the protesters from state to state as well as the continued unrest throughout the US may prompt a new spike in COVID-19 cases  particularly within states that have had the highest transmission rates and are more populated than other states.

US NON-FARM PAYROLL MONTHLY

The May 2020 Non-Farm Payroll number is a welcome positive surge after many months of negative data. Still, as we suggested near the start of this article, the 2.5 million new jobs created did not offset the 12.58 million jobs lost in May 2020. Anyone capable of doing simple accounting can figure out that we need to see more continued new job creation levels to begin to offset the massive layoffs and job losses as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown event.

The US Stock market is hungry for any positive news right now, so the markets look at this data as a very positive sign that a recovery will happen and could be a stupendous opportunity for future growth. Our researchers are still very cautious about this recovery simply because the underlying data is still very negative overall.

US JOBLESS CLAIMS  WEEKLY

As you can see from this Weekly Jobless Claims chart, below, the spike in new jobless claims happened in early April 2020 with 6.86 million new jobless. Since then, the number of new jobless has continued at levels greater than 2 million per week and have slowly been decreasing. We are aware that many states are reducing state and educational employment budgets as a result of the COVID-19 virus event. These budget cuts and layoffs may continue throughout all of 2020 and into 2021 unless a strong recovery event takes place before the end of 2020.

State budgets and the continued risks of a COVID-19 case spike present very real concerns in the minds of our researchers as we have just begun the initial reopening phases for many states. If our presumptions are correct, the social unrest and rioting may prompt a major spike in COVID-19 cases across many states and present a very real extended shutdown event that could last well into late-Summer.

PUT/CALL RATIO  DAILY

This next chart suggests there is No Fear in the markets right now as investors pile into the long trades. This Put/Call ratio chart highlights one simple fact that the market can stay irrational for much longer than many traders can handle.

The Fed intrusion into the markets on March 20, 2020, created a bullish foundation in the markets. Traders have piled into this bullish trend over the past 45+ days and this Put/Call chart highlights how extended the rally has gotten recently. Normally, the extremely low levels on the Put/Call chart would suggest a massive market top setup is about to happen  yet, traders may push the markets further into an irrational bullish phase with their exuberance.

We put together a short yet detailed video that will open your eyes to what the market data and charts are pointing to. If you are short the market of having FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) on this rally be sure to click and watch this video right after you finish this article.

Concluding Thoughts:

The reason we stay cautiously related to this bullish price trend in the US stock market is that we believe technical patterns have already set up that suggest a downward price cycle must complete before the bottom in the markets is settled. In Part II of this article, well go over additional charts and data to help you plan for and prepare for the next big move in the markets.

If the markets are able to push much higher after todays big jobs number, we urge all long/bullish traders to lock in gains with protective stops and to adopt a very cautious outlook going forward. It appears the markets have over-extended this rally and we are still very concerned that a sudden breakdown in price will happen.

As a technical analyst and trader since 1997, I have been through a few bull/bear market cycles in stocks and commodities. I believe I have a good pulse on the market and timing key turning points for investing and short-term swing traders. 2020 is an incredible year for traders and investors. Dont miss all the incredible trends and trade setups.

Subscribers of my Active ETF Swing Trading Newsletter had our trading accounts close at a new high watermark. We not only exited the equities market as it started to roll over in February, but we profited from the sell-off in a very controlled way with TLT bonds for a 20% gain. This week we closed out SPY ETF trade taking advantage of this bounce and entered a new trade with our account is at another all-time high value.

Ride my coattails as I navigate these financial markets and build wealth while others watch most of their retirement funds drop another 35-65% during the rest of this financial crisis going into late 2020 and early 2021.

Just think of this for a minute. While most of us have active trading accounts, what is even more important are our long-term investment and retirement accounts. Why? Because they are, in most cases, our largest store of wealth other than our homes, and if they are not protected during the next bear market, you could lose 25-50% or more of your net worth. The good news is we can preserve and even grow our long term capital when things get ugly like they are now and ill show you how. One of the best trades is one your financial advisor will never let you do because they do not make money from the trade/position but we do have a way for you or your advisor can take advantage of the market gyrations with our Technical Wealth Advisor investing signals.

If you have any type of retirement account and are looking for signals when to own equities, bonds, or cash, be sure to become a member of my Passive Long-Term ETF Investing Signals which we issued a new signal for subscribers.

Chris Vermeulen

www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic



Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better.



His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility.



He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The export of steel from Turkey to Kazakhstan decreased by 53.90 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $9.5 million, the Turkish Ministry of Trade told Trend on June 10.

"The export of steel from Turkey to Kazakhstan decreased by 59.37 percent in May 2020 compared to May 2019 and amounted to $1.8 million," the ministry said.

The export of steel from Turkey to the world markets decreased by 22.9 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of last year amounting to $4.8 billion.

The export of steel from Turkey amounted to 7.9 percent of the country's total export volume from January through May 2020.

Turkey exported steel worth $817.8 million to the world markets in May 2020, which is 39.7 percent less than in the same month of 2019.

The export of steel from Turkey in May 2020 amounted to 8.2 percent of the country's total export volume.

Over the past 12 months (from May 2019 through May 2020), Turkey exported steel worth $12.4 billion.

----

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
The federal government has pledged to take decisive action against rapists, especially given the upsurge in reported rape cases.

The Federal Executive Council took the decision at its meeting Wednesday following a memo presented by the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen.

Alarming trend

PREMIUM TIMES has reported several rape cases across Nigeria in the past few weeks, some leading to the death of the victims.

In some of the recent cases, a graduate undergoing the mandatory National Youth Service Corps was gang-raped in Akwa Ibom, while two underage girls were also raped in the same state.

Last week,18-year-old Barakat Bello was gang-raped and murdered by unknown assailants in the Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Ms Bello was a student of Department of Science Laboratory Technology (SLT), Federal College of Animal Health and Production in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Before that, a female undergraduate of the University of Benin, Vera Omozuwa, died in a hospital after she was allegedly raped and assaulted in a church premise in Benin, the Edo State capital.

FEC rolls out measures

At its meeting Wednesday, the FEC resolved to call on all states to domesticate the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPPA), which is currently only operational in Abuja.

Mrs Tallen said the recent rape cases across the county were discussed at the meeting presided by President Muhammad Buhari, who described the menace as as embarrassing.

She admitted that the loopholes in some of the laws against rape such as failure to domesticate the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPPA), 2015 was part of what led to the increase in rape cases. Hence, the government pushed for the domestication of the act, she said.

Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen. [PHOTO CREDIT: Photos by Tolani Alli]

Out of the 36 states of the federation, only nine states have domesticated the VAPPA law. The VAPPA defines rape as when a person intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person with any other part of his/her body or anything else without consent, or with incorrectly obtained consent.

Consent can be incorrectly obtained where it is obtained: by force/threats/intimidation; by means of false and fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act, by the use of substances capable of taking away the will of that person; by a person impersonating a married womans husband in order to have sex.

She also read the provision of Child Rights Act (CRA), which states that sex with a child is rape, and anyone who has sexual intercourse with a child is liable to imprisonment for life upon conviction.

No fewer than 80 rape cases were recorded in various parts of Anambra State during the COVID-19 lockdown between April and May. Im sure you are aware that for the past few weeks, the country has witnessed a lot of outrage and outcry because of the pandemic within the pandemic that we are facing.

I know before COVID-19, we have always had pandemic of rape cases and gender based violence. But with the lockdown due to COVID-19, women and children are locked down with their abusers and the number has escalated three times. There is no state that is an exception.

This has reached an embarrassing situation that a memo was presented in council, calling for immediate intervention, legal and prompt dispensation of justice in the cases. Because, from the statistics we have and from the meetings I had with the 36 states commissioners of women affairs, we have hundreds of cases within our courts that have not been addressed.

Unreported cases

The minister said for one case that has been reported, there are 10 others that have not been reported.

As a result, we called for aggressive media campaigns, public enlightenment for people to rise up and pick out against abuse of minors and rape cases. We also called on the judiciary for prompt dispensation of cases and the police to ensure rape cases are not treated with levity or wish away.

These are issues that were presented before council and I am happy to announce that we got the full support of Mr President and all members of council, that the government will take decisive actions at the highest level to protect women and children in this country.

Governors key in

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Speaking further on VAPPA 2015, Mrs Tallen said: That Act covers everything but our problem is lack of domestication of that Act.

She added: Out of the 36 states, only nine states. While the council was on, the Nigeria Governors Forum, also invited me to come and brief them on the same topic, because it has reached an alarming stage. I am happy to announce that the governors gave me 100 per cent, they are committed to join hands with the ministry to fight this dreaded scourge. Because, it is horrific because embossment is an understatement and it doesnt give Nigeria a good image.

We are destroying the future generation because, if you rape a child, you have destroyed that child for life and that is not acceptable.

Mrs Tallen noted that advocacy would be done by collaborating and launching a media advocacy campaign to aggressively address the issue at all levels including in rural areas.

As soon as COVID-19 is cleared, we will move out with the minister of information on advocacy round the country.

I have put in place a team, in fact a research is going on at all the state levels, while we have the national data collection at the ministry. We are also working closely with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), to find out the reasons why a man of 80, 75, 60 will rape a child of one, two years.
Terrorist recruiter sentenced to 10 years in high-security prison

 flickr.com/ meesh

15:12 10/06/2020

MOSCOW, June 10 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov)  A recruiting agent of Hizb ut-Tahrir terrorist organization banned in Russia Khokim Abdukhalimov has received 10 years in a high-security penal colony, the press service of the Federal Security Services Directorate for St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region (FSB) has told RAPSI.

The ruling has been delivered by the panel of judges of the Second West District Military Court during an offsite hearing in the First West District Military Court.

According to the FSB, the goal of Hizb ut-Tahrir is creating of the Islamic Caliphate, in particular by the violent removal of the existing government.

The court recognized Abdukhalimov as a member of the terrorist organization. Investigators claimed that the man living in the Leningrad Region recruited new members to the organization and propagated its ideology through mobile applications.
30-year old Man dies on Shramik train

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Malda, June 10: A 30-year old man died while travelling on a Shramik train from Alleppey in Kerala to Malda town on Tuesday, a government railway police official said here.

Sheikh Khatip, a resident of Chandpur village under the Pukuria police station in Malda was travelling from Alleppey in a Shramik special that was on way to New Jalpaiguri in north Bengal, police said.

He was allegedly vomiting and suffered from dysentery, according to his uncle Sheikh Mofijul, who was also travelling with him, police said.

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Withdraw cases against migrants, provide employment, SC directs Government

He died on Monday while travelling on the train, but the body was taken off after the train reached Malda, Mofijul claimed.

The body of Khatip was taken off the train here and an unnatural death case was registered at the Malda town government railway police station, the official said.

The body has been sent for a post-mortem to ascertain the reason for his death, the official said.
DENVER, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- National Jewish Health continues to increase its testing capabilities for COVID-19 antibodies, including the addition of new validated testing equipment. Ongoing testing and increased capacity will help doctors and researchers gain a better understanding of the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as meet the demand of the general public who want to know if they've had the virus. Since launching in April, National Jewish Health has performed more than 15,000 antibody tests and can now process more than 1,000 COVID-19 antibody blood samples each day.

"Reliable antibody testing provides important information about COVID-19 prevalence rates as we return to normal business and social operations," said Stephen Frankel, MD, executive vice president of Clinical Affairs at National Jewish Health. "Our ability to test more people increases our knowledge of who has been exposed and recovered from prior infection and also helps inform public health officials' understanding around the spread of the virus."

Antibody tests, also known as serology tests, detect antibodies in the blood, which indicate that a person has had COVID-19 and mounted an immune response to the virus that causes it. National Jewish Health offers serology tests for both IgM and IgG antibodies and can detect these antibodies to the virus in blood serum that is collected with a simple blood draw.

In addition to the epidemiological reasons for antibody testing, there is significant interest from the public for a reliable antibody test. Many individuals that were sick earlier this year are interested to know if their illness could have been COVID-19, and others want to know if they might have been asymptomatic carriers.

"There has been incredible demand for antibody testing since we began offering the test to the public earlier in the spring. People are really interested to know if they may have had undetected COVID-19," said Dr. Frankel.

For the general public, National Jewish Health offers the IgG antibody test which requires an appointment but not a doctor's order. The test detects IgG antibodies that, in most patients, develop 7 to 21 days after symptoms of COVID-19 begin. IgG antibodies remain in the blood after an infection has passed. They indicate that a person has had COVID-19 in the past and has developed antibodies that may protect from future infection. The extent of immunity is unknown at present and is under active investigation.

The IgM antibody test is offered through a physician order. IgM is the first antibody produced by the immune system when a virus attacks and usually develops before an IgG response. A positive IgM test indicates that a person has been infected. While IgM may be positive in a person with prior infection, it may also be positive in a person who is still infected and has just begun to have an immune response to the virus.

National Jewish Health is currently running SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests supplied by Epitope Diagnostics Inc. and Abbott. Both tests have been validated and refined at the National Jewish Health Advanced Diagnostic Laboratories, a high-complexity CLIA-approved facility. Abbott has reported a sensitivity for its IgG test of 100 percent and specificity of 99.6 percent, which has been confirmed at National Jewish Health. National Jewish Health validation studies indicate that the Epitope Diagnostics IgG test has a specificity of greater than 99 percent and a sensitivity of 95.7 percent.

National Jewish Health is the leading respiratory hospital in the nation. Founded 121 years ago as a nonprofit hospital, National Jewish Health today is the only facility in the world dedicated exclusively to groundbreaking medical research and treatment of patients with respiratory, cardiac, immune and related disorders. Patients and families come to National Jewish Health from around the world to receive cutting-edge, comprehensive, coordinated care. To learn more, visit the media resources page.

SOURCE National Jewish Health

Related Links

https://www.nationaljewish.org


ALBANY  Under an executive order signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday, New York nursing home employees must be tested for COVID-19 once a week, relaxing a previous requirement that they should be tested twice weekly.

The new rule applies to all regions in phase two of reopening, which accounts for all upstate regions and Long Island, state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said in a release. New York City, which entered phase one on Monday, must still test staffers twice a week but can ease that requirement after moving to phase two as soon as June 22.

Since Cuomo instituted the twice-a-week rule on May 10, more than 425,000 nursing home tests have been processed statewide, Zucker said. More than 6,500 of those tests have returned positive, with more than half coming from New York City facilities, he said.

Regions that entered phase two, meanwhile, have had 0.76 percent of tests come back positive within the past week, "mirroring the tremendous progress New Yorkers have made to control COVID-19 spread," the commissioner said.

"As a result of these ambitious testing operations, I believe we have successfully tracked and reduced the spread of the virus in long term care facilities," Zucker said. "The results of these tests (have) allowed facilities to take steps to ensure those residents and staff who test positive do not spread the infection."

The announcement came days after the New York Post reported that many nursing homes across the state have been waiting on test results for three weeks and had difficulty complying with the order.

Zucker also said the state completed an endeavor this weekend to test all 90,000 nursing home residents for the coronavirus. New York's nursing homes have been plagued by the pandemic, with more than 3,400 confirmed deaths and another 2,700 presumed deaths, according to state data.

Cuomo's administration has received strong backlash for its handling of the pandemic in nursing homes after issuing two controversial directives that, critics say, exacerbated the crisis among New York's most vulnerable residents.

The first allowed COVID-positive, but asymptomatic, employees to continue working in the long-term care facilities; a second directed nursing homes not to deny patients solely because they had the coronavirus. Both were later rescinded or altered, but the Cuomo administration has insisted that its actions were in line with federal recommendations, which was disputed by Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Hyderabad, June 10 : In an alleged case of 'honour' killing, a couple in Telangana strangulated their 20-year-old daughter to death as she had refused to undergo abortion and drop plans for marriage with a youth of another caste.

The shocking incident occurred in Jogulamba Gadwal district in the early hours of Sunday but came to light much later.

The girl, a first year degree student, was brutally murdered by her parents Bhaskara Shetty and Veeramma at their house in Kulukuntla village.

According to police, they used a pillow to throttle her when she was asleep. They told the villagers that she died of sudden cardiac arrest.

However, police swung into action on a tip-off and noticed injury marks on the deceased's neck. The body was shifted for autopsy, which established that she was strangulated.

"We had initially registered the case of death under suspicous circumstances but later altered the section to book the girl's parents for murder. Both have been arrested and sent to judicial custody," sub inspector of police K. Sreehari said.

Police investigations revealed that the girl was studying at a private college in Kurnool town of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. She was reportedly in love with a classmate, belonging to another caste. Her parents were against this relationship.

As she was not feeling well for the last few days, her parents took her to a hospital in Kurnool on June 6 and the examination revealed that she was 13 weeks pregnant. They asked her to go for abortion but she refused and insisted that she will marry the same youth. They returned to the village the same day.

Worried over the bad name the family may get and the impact this could have on the marriage of their two other daughters, the couple hatched a plan to kill her.

Shetty and Veeramma, who were sleeping along with two daughters in open, woke up past midnight and went into the room where their eldest daughter was asleep and executed their plan, the police official said.
AUSTIN  Since Memorial Day, Texas has seen a 36 percent increase in hospitalizations due to COVID-19, new data released Tuesday by the Department of State Health Services show.

On Tuesday, the state reported 2,056 hospitalizations  the highest number since the pandemic reached Texas in March. Gov. Greg Abbott told KSAT viewers in San Antonio that he is watching the data carefully to guide how much more the state can reopen businesses.

We are still evaluating whether or not there was any increase because of Memorial Day and now whether or not there could be an increase in the aftermath of these very large protests that have taken place, said Abbott, a Republican.

While hospitalizations are up, Texas is still reporting more than 15,000 hospital beds available and almost 6,000 ventilators available.

Every Texan who needs access to a hospital bed will have access to a hospital bed, said John Wittman, Abbotts director of communications.

The 2,056 hospitalizations reported on Tuesday were up 545 from Memorial Day. Over the past seven days, Texas has averaged 1,877 hospitalizations per day, up from the previous week when the state averaged 1,715 per day.

Hospitalizations are one of the indicators most closely watched by public health officials, especially with the coronavirus, because a significant number of those who test positive for the illness  which has no vaccine or cure  do not require intensive medical care. Hospitalizations show the severity of the spread, and the potential for it to drain medical supplies, especially potentially lifesaving ventilators.

Much of the spike in hospital patients can be attributed to the Houston region, which showed a surge in hospitalizations starting last week. COVID-19 patients occupied hospital intensive care units in the nine-county Houston area at higher levels the first three days in June than on any single day in May, according to data compiled by the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, a state group that coordinates the regions emergency response to disasters.

On Tuesday, SETRAC reported 849 hospital patients in the Houston area with confirmed coronavirus infections, up from 631 on May 31  a 34 percent increase.

San Antonio has seen its infection numbers over the last 10 days nearly double from the previous 10 days, hitting 706 per day.

But hospitalization numbers are only slightly up since Memorial Day in the state-designated trauma service area that includes Bexar County. The 22-county area stretches west to the Texas border and includes Del Rio and Eagle Pass. The regions seven-day average for lab-confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations now stands at 62 new hospitalizations per day, up from 57 on Memorial Day.

Next step in reopening

The increase in hospitalizations was not a surprise to Dr. David Lakey, the former head of the health services agency and now chief medical officer for the University of Texas System, who cited the combination of Memorial Day and the states reopening.

Its a balance of trying to open up enough to let some people go back to work while you are also doing things like wearing masks and taking steps to slow the spread, Lakey said.

But increases are not consistent around the state. In El Paso and Amarillo, which have seen past spikes, hospitalizations are at 68 total per day, down 24 percent since Memorial Day.

Amarillo and El Paso stand out as two areas in which Abbott slowed reopenings by a week because of previous spikes at prisons and meatpacking plants. Both those regions began more reopenings last week, behind most of Texas.

Abbott has been allowing businesses to reopen in phases since May 1, when he first announced retail stores, restaurants, malls and movie theaters could reopen to 25 percent of their maximum occupancy. On June 3, he allowed those types of businesses to go to 50 percent. And last week, Abbott announced that essentially all businesses in Texas can now operate at 50 percent of maximum occupancy, including bars. Amusement parks and carnivals can also operate at 50 percent of occupancy in counties where there have been less than 1,000 cases of COVID-19.

On Friday, under Abbotts reopening plan, all restaurants will be allowed to move to 75 percent capacity. And starting next Friday carnivals and amusement parks in all counties can reopen to 50 percent capacity.

Cuomo cites Texas surge

In Texas, 1,872 people have died from COVID-19, according to data compiled by Hearst Newspapers. But Wittman noted that the toll in Texas remains far less than those in other states. In New York, more than 24,000 people have died. In California, more than 4,600 people have died.

On Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, pointed to the rising hospitalizations and COVID-19 cases in Texas as a warning to New Yorkers as that state begins to reopen its economy. Cuomo said New Yorkers have to continue to be smart with social distancing to avoid spikes like those in Arizona, Texas and Florida.

New York has reported fewer new COVID-19 cases over the last seven days than Texas. New York had 6,442 new cases over the last seven days. Texas has had 10,736.

While Abbott has pushed aggressively to reopen the Texas economy, he has warned that the pandemic hasnt ended.

COVID-19 hasnt suddenly left the state of Texas or the United States, Abbott said last week. We need to continue these self-distancing practices as we await the arrival of medications that will treat people who test positive for COVID-19.

On Monday, Abbott announced he was expanding testing in underserved and minority communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the virus.

We must address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underserved and minority communities and ensure that anyone who needs a test can have one, Abbott said. As many Texans continue to gather for protests, the state is also taking steps to address potential surges in COVID-19 cases.

Jeremy Blackman contributed to this report.

jeremy.wallace@chron.com
EZULWINI  The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) has prepared a budget of over E56 million to be directed towards the reopening of schools next month.



This was confirmed by NDMAs Director Strategy and Sustainability, responsible for the resource mobilisation, Sihle Mzileni, during a meeting with Members of Parliament (MPs) held at Royal Villas yesterday.



Mzileni said they were mobilising for more resource partners to assist in raising the funds to cater for the shortfall, adding that actual figures that would be needed to facilitate the opening of schools amounted to E56 012 368.



Masks



Mzileni noted that funds would be directed towards the purchase of face masks for orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) in the various schools, thermo scanners to facilitate for temperature screening of pupils, face shields for teachers and hand washing facilities.

Other funds will also purchase sanitisers to be dispensed in the classrooms, while other funds will be directed towards water distribution in schools that do not have soap for learners to wash their hands.



Mzileni said some partners had come forward and committed the funds. Some of these budget items have commitments from certain partners, he said.

He said working closely with the Ministry of Education and Training, they had been able to come up with a comprehensive budget that will meet the immediate needs when schools open.



According to Mzileni, a broad distribution plan had already been prepared and will cover the immediate needs of the 933 public schools and 27 private schools. He said part of the budget was financed by resource partners, including UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO and PEPFAR.



Currently, he noted that the education sector was driving the programme where they were engaging head teachers, school committees, school managers and teachers in workshops on the understanding of COVID-19 and how to manage it at school level. Following the trainings, he said they were expected to develop information, education and communication material posters, which would be distributed in all the schools.



These posters will educate and sensitise the pupils on precautions they need to take to avoid COVID-19 infection.



Protect



Further, he said the Ministry of Health was running the intervention programme to protect people from contracting the virus, hence they would also be working together.



He stated that schools had their own budgets to cater for the basic necessities, which was why the budget was not much.

Mzileni said they were raising an appeal to resource partners to come forward and contribute towards the required material for schools reopening.

NDMA intervention would provide relief for most head teachers in the country, following that government had requested them to use the free primary education (FPE) and orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) funds to cater for the reopening of schools to make them ideal for learners in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.



All public primary schools get about E560 from government for each pupil under the FPE programme. Most head teachers raised concerns that they had been receiving information to the effect that they were supposed to use the money allocated to run schools to meet the COVID-19 demands.
While Sweeneys early reluctance was genuine, he understood the ramifications of inaction could be devastating.

When Murphy warned that a shortfall of as much as $10 billion in the current and forthcoming fiscal years would force massive public employee layoffs and heretofore unimaginable cuts, Sweeney heard the message.

Inaction would also touch the third rail of New Jersey politics  property tax increases in a state in which the average of nearly $9,000 per year has been and will continue to lead the nation.

Sweeney, despite his occasional bull in the china shop style, is insightful and deft at insider politics.

He recognizes that spending cuts alone will not suffice, and hes not about to lead a Democratic Party campaign in the politically charged 2021 election year saddled with a record of property tax increases, massive cuts in aid to municipalities and school districts, and the layoff of thousands of state and local government workers.

Whatever differences may exist between Sweeney and Coughlin over the bonding proposal will be resolved quickly and quietly and any perceived threat to their unity will disappear.
Celebrating the exotic and mundane in all its minutiae

An adorable lapdog looks out of a picture frame, as if weve interrupted him nibbling on some rather delicious-looking Italian biscuits. He sits attentively on top of a pink table cloth, beside a Chinese porcelain cup. In the short moment that he glances at us, two flies take the opportunity to settle on the food. This rather whimsical painting is an iconic image by Italian Baroque painter Giovanna Garzoni.

Lapdog with biscotti and a Chinese cup, circa 1648, by Giovanna Garzoni. Tempera on parchment; 10 7/8 inches by 15 1/2 inches. Palatine Gallery, The Uffizi Galleries, Florence. (The Uffizi Galleries, Florence)

This painting is one of the 100 or so works in the exhibition The Greatness of the Universe in the Art of Giovanna Garzoni, at the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy. Its the largest comprehensive monographic exhibition ever held on Garzoni and reveals new scholarship about the artist.

Garzonis charming paintings, illuminations, and drawings are on display alongside many exotic curios and decorative arts of the type she featured in her artwork, such as Renaissance bronzes, tropical shells, and porcelain and ivory pieces.

Chinese plate with artichokes, a rose, and strawberries, circa 16551662, by Giovanna Garzoni. Tempera on parchment; 9 1/2 inches by 12 5/8 inches. Palatine Gallery, The Uffizi Galleries, Florence. (The Uffizi Galleries, Florence)

Garzoni specialized in miniature portraiture, still life paintings with exotic curios, and accurate depictions of the natural world in all its minutiae.

Painting From the Heart

It would be easy to dismiss Garzonis work as pretty still life paintings and endearing portraits, yet she is an important personality in Italian painting. Incredibly successful and renowned throughout Europe, Garzoni painted still lifes at a time when the genre was just emerging in Renaissance Italy. This was around the time of the Protestant Reformation, when religious art was forced into decline.

For exhibition curator Sheila Barker, Garzonis starting point is always the heart, the fulcrum of people and things, which she then subjects to almost microscopic analysis. In particular, Garzoni focuses her attention on the exotic items in her patrons collections, organizing them in compositions that speak of the growing cosmopolitanism in the life of Europes courts and the intense circulation of goods throughout the world, she said in a press release.

Garzoni lived in the courts of Venice and Turin and frequented the courts of Rome, Paris, and London. Documents recording her as a frequent visitor to the court of King Charles I are exhibited for the first time. And Garzonis patrons were among the most prestigious in Europe, for example, the Medicis in Florence, the Barberinis in Rome, and Cardinal Richelieu in Paris, whose portrait by Garzoni is included in the exhibition.

Giovanna Garzoni Through Her Paintings

Born around 1600 in Ascoli Piceno, in the central Italian region of Marche, Garzoni is believed to have learned oil painting from her maternal uncle Pietro Gaia, in Venice, when she was a young girl. Gaia was an apprentice to Palma the Younger, one of the most notable artists of the Venetian school. Garzoni wouldve learned the great Venetian tradition of painting that included great masters such as Giorgione, Tintoretto, and Titian.

Garzonis paintings themselves can paint a picture of her artistic life and the influential circle she was part of.

At just 20 years old, she painted herself as the Greek god Apollo. In the painting, Apollos characteristic laurel leaf wreath crowns Garzonis head, and her long curly hair is loosely tied to one side. Her curls serve as a guide that brings the viewer to the stringed instrument she holds close to her chest.

Self-portrait as Apollo, circa 16181620, by Giovanna Garzoni. Tempera on parchment, laid down on linen; 16 1/2 inches by 13 inches. General Secretariat of the Republic, Quirinal Palace, Rome. (General Secretariat of the Republic, Quirinal Palace, Rome)

Apollo, as the patron of music and inventor of stringed instruments, is a fitting character for Garzoni to embody. She sang and played string instruments, even entertaining the Medici court with her music about a year prior to the paintings completion. Rather aptly, Apollo guides youths as they come of age. Perhaps Garzoni recognized that her career as an artist was being shaped by experiences such as those that shed just had at the Medici court.

Around the time of her Apollo self-portrait, Garzoni studied calligraphy in Venice and compiled Libro de Caratteri Cancellereschi Corsivi, a book containing cursive characters. Remarkably, Garzoni completed Galleon at Sea with black ink in one continuous curl of a stroke, showing her immense skill as a calligrapher.

Galleon at Sea, circa 16171622, by Giovanna Garzoni. in Libro de Caratteri Cancellereschi Corsivi, Folio 44r. Black ink on prepared paper; 11 3/8 inches by 8 1/8 inches. National Academy of San Luca, Rome. (National Academy of San Luca, Rome)

As testimony to her artistic talent, one of Garzonis first commissions was to paint one of a series of paintings of the apostles, for the church of the Hospital of the Incurable (Ospedale degli Incurabili) in Venice. Tintoretto also painted for the series. Unfortunately, the church was demolished in 1831.

In 1630, she traveled to Naples where she painted for the Duke of Alcala, a Spanish nobleman and important art collector, who served as the viceroy in Naples. Also under the dukes patronage was the prestigious painter Artemisia Gentileschi. The two ladies became good friends, with Garzoni treating Gentileschi somewhat as a role model.

In 1635, Garzoni painted a rare portrait when she was at the court of the House of Savoy in Turin. Her portrait of Zaga Christ, who claimed to be an Ethiopian prince, is the earliest known European portrait miniature of a black sitter, said Emma Rutherford, portrait miniatures specialist at the art dealers Philip Mould & Co., on a video on the companys website.

Portrait of Zaga Christ, 1635, by Giovanna Garzoni. Watercolor and bodycolor on parchment mounted on card, later silver frame; height 2 1/4 inches. Philip Mould & Co., London. (Philip Mould & Co., London)

Back of a Portrait of Zaga Christ, 1635, by Giovanna Garzoni. Parchment mounted on card, later silver frame; height 2 1/4 inches. Philip Mould & Co., London. (Philip Mould & Co., London)

In the portrait, Zaga Christ is depicted in European dress even though he hailed from Ethiopia. On the back, Garzonis signature script is written in both Italian and Amharic, an ancient Ethiopian language. Christ mustve been a fascinating sitter for Garzoni to paint, with his cocoa complexion and strong black curls. And the conversation might well have been interesting too, as he was in Europe to gain support in reclaiming the Ethiopian throne. He claimed that he was the rightful heir, after his father had been murdered.

Giovanna Garzonis Middle Age

In 1639, nearing 40 years old, Garzoni was in Paris, with Cardinal Richelieu as a patron. Her pen and watercolor drawing of a lioness with one eye open was rendered during that time with virtuosity and confidence similar to her earlier galleon calligraphy piece. The lioness is executed with relatively few brushstrokes and pen marks, resulting in a clear, crisp image.

Lioness with an open eye, circa 1639, in a book of miniatures and drawings, Folio 6, by Giovanna Garzoni. Pen and watercolor on paper; 7 1/8 inches by 10 1/2 inches. National Academy of San Luca, Rome. (National Academy of San Luca, Rome)

From 16421651, Garzoni was in Florence, mostly under the Medicis patronage and mainly working in miniatures. In 1648, she painted a miniature of Raphaels Madonna of the Chair (Madonna della Seggiola). While Raphael had painted in oils on panel, Garzoni used her favorites: tempera on parchment. She also used a lighter color palette; notably, her Mary wears a cream rather than green shawl, and her Christ Child is adorned in soft peach rather than the gold that Raphael had wrapped him in.

The Madonna of the Chair, 1649, by Giovanna Garzoni after Raphael. Tempera on parchment laid down on slate; 9 1/4 inches by 9 1/4 inches. Charles Ratton and Guy Ladriere Gallery, Paris. (Charles Ratton and Guy Ladriere Gallery, Paris)

Just a year after her painting of the Madonna, Garzoni used a similar color palette for a different subject in her Old Man of Artimino. Here, an old farmer holds two hens, and arranged in front of him are the fruits of his labors: Preserved meats, cheese, eggs, fruits, and vegetables are among his farm animals and wild birds. The rather barren rocky landscape dominates the scene, hinting at a hard rural life.

The Old Man of Artimino, circa 1648, by Giovanna Garzoni. Tempera on parchment, 15 inches by 23 5/8 inches. Palatine Gallery, The Uffizi Galleries, Florence. (The Uffizi Galleries, Florence)

Garzoni settled in Rome in 1651, although she still took commissions from the Medici in Florence. One of the particularly beautiful still lifes, painted between 1659 and 1660, which seems typical of her exotic flower paintings, is a Yixing vase full of flowers on a marble table between two shells; a butterfly flutters above.

Yixing vase containing diverse flowers on a marble table between two shells, with butterflies above, 16591660, by Giovanna Garzoni. Tempera with traces of black pencil on parchment; 26 1/8 inches by 18 7/8 inches. Cabinet of Drawings and Prints, The Uffizi Galleries, Florence. (The Uffizi Galleries)

Hexaplex ambiguus (Gmelin, 1791) specimen; collected and cataloged by Marquise Marianna Panciatichi Ximenes dAragona Paulucci. Natural History Museum of the University of Florence. (Natural History Museum of the University of Florence)

In the bold spirit of her youth, Garzoni had painted herself as Apollo, full of hope at her career ahead. In her old age, one of the leading Italian Baroque painters, Carlo Maratti (the future restorer of Raphaels art), painted her portrait as testimony to her fame.

Portrait of Giovanna Garzoni, circa 1665, by Carlo Maratti. Oil on canvas; 25 1/4 inches by 19 1/4 inches. Civic Art Gallery, Ascoli Piceno. (Civic Art Gallery, Ascoli Piceno)

Maratti was the principal of the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome, an organization intent on elevating artists (painters, sculptors, and architects) beyond artisans. Garzoni frequented the academy and left her wealthy estate to the academys Saint Martina Church on the condition that she would be buried there. Her wish was granted in 1670.

To find out more about The Greatness of the Universe in the Art of Giovanna Garzoni, exhibition, which runs until June 28, visit Uffizi.it

Inspired by Garzonis work, American organization Advancing Women Artists (AWA) launched The Garzoni Challenge to coincide with the duration of The Uffizi exhibition. AWA asked artists around the world to create art inspired by Garzonis work. To see the results, visit AdvancingWomensArtists.org
Chinese experts explained that the country's rush to save lives during the COVID-19 epidemic clearly demonstrates the shared belief that "life is paramount."

Treating severe cases has been one of the highest concerns of China's top leaders. President Xi Jinping presided over a symposium on June 2 attended by experts and scholars where he delivered an important speech.

In the medical treatment of COVID-19 patients, the Chinese government insisted on the principle that the people and life are the most important concerns. China has mobilized an unprecedented amount of national resources to carry out large-scale medical treatment, without missing any infected cases or giving up on a single patient.

Zhong Nanshan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor of respiratory medicine at Guangzhou Medical University, told Science and Technology Daily, "In fighting the epidemic, China pressed 'pause' on its economy and insisted that 'life is paramount.' Under the guidance of this belief, medical workers have endeavored to save every patient and never give up, working as meticulously as one would when embroidering."

Tong Zhaohui, vice president and chief physician of Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University, and a member of a medical team dispatched to Hubei, recalled that after listening to his report, President Xi inquired about the cost of treatment for severe and ordinary patients, and noted that the combination of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine is one of the major characteristics of China's COVID-19 response.

The whole country is fighting the epidemic as if playing a game of chess, relying on overall planning and coordination, and especially the command system, experts said.

Xue Lan, dean of Schwarzman College and professor of the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University, believes that China's command system has been very strong in fighting the COVID-19 epidemic. The Central Leading Group for Novel Coronavirus Prevention and Control and the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council have played a huge role in quickly mobilizing all forces across the country and coordinating various resources.

China has also attached great importance to popularizing laws and regulations on the safety of public health and epidemic prevention and control, as well as promoting the whole of society to act in accordance with the law.

Wang Chenguang, a professor at the School of Law of Tsinghua University, and the executive vice chairman of the Chinese Society of Health Law, said that China has raised the concept of people-centered healthcare and the strategy of Healthy China to the level of the law. It has also built a public health legal system with the Basic Healthcare and Health Promotion Law as its foundation, and multiple laws as the main body, such as the Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, the Emergency Response Law, the Frontier Health and Quarantine Law, and the Drug Administration Law. This system ensured that epidemic prevention and control is conducted in compliance with the law.

Experts attended the symposium said that President Xi has put forward a number of requirements for the construction of the national public health system. These include building a disease prevention and control system, strengthening early monitoring and early warning capabilities, further improving the abilities to treat major infectious diseases, enhancing the organization and leadership of TCM work, popularizing public health safety and epidemic prevention laws and regulations, increasing investment in science and technology in the field of healthcare, and continuing to actively fulfill international obligations. In addition, he also pointed out the direction for future work.

Content created in partnership with Science and Technology Daily.
When cops arrested Marco Antonio Lopez on allegations that he vandalized patrol cars during a protest in downtown Miami, the arrest report noted he was part of a group known as the Southern Slaves, which actively recruits people to violently protest the government.

That drew the attention of U.S. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who tweeted the arrest was evidence of extremist groups organizing to cause mayhem at protests over the death of George Floyd and police brutality.

But the Southern Slaves arent an extremist group. And they are not monitored by the FBI or listed by hate-group trackers like the Anti-Defamation League or the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Theyre a group of aspiring hip-hop musicians from Miamis Flagami neighborhood, buddies uploading their music online, doing shows at open-mic nights and spreading a message of what they consider government overreach.

Were not terrorists. We love America. What we dont love is systematic oppression and police brutality, said Alonzo Martinez, 23, whose stage name is Zo The Atlantean.

As Lopez remained in jail, his fellow members and manager spoke publicly this week to defend the group  and went on Twitter to demand an apology from Rubio, a Republican from Miami who is a prolific user of the social media platform. They say that after his tweet, they have been flooded with online venom, even threats, from his supporters.

We want Marco Rubio to retract his message, said the groups manager, Anthony Hernandez, 24. We believe if something happens to us, he will be responsible. He has 4 million followers. What can we do against 4 million followers?

Rubios press office did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday morning.

More evidence of organized agitators from a variety of extremists groups



Police arrested a self identified member of a group which actively recruits people to violently protest the government for vandalizing police cars at protests last week in Miami



https://t.co/bpZ4eIzwWV  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 8, 2020

Lopezs arrest was the first criminal case built against so-called agitators who police say turned peaceful protests into clashes on May 30 in Downtown Miami. The protest was one of the first in South Florida over the death of Floyd, the black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer drove his knee into the mans neck.

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Detectives said Lopez, 21, broke into and damaged two Miami police cruisers with his skateboard  one at South Miami Avenue and Eighth Street, and one along Northwest Third Avenue and Fourth Street, near the rear gate of the Miami police headquarters. He also spray painted Southern Slaves on a third cop car, police said.

According to an arrest report, an off-duty officer witnessed one of the car break-ins, and surveillance video captured the others. Video of one of the acts was also uploaded to Instagram, the report said.

Lopez, whose stage name is Quincy Atomz, is charged with criminal mischief, inciting a riot and resisting an officer without violence.

What drew the most attention was that Lopez allegedly told police that Southern Slaves actively recruits people to violently protest the government and walking around the city wont do anything, sooner or later you have to turn to violence, according to police. The arrest report makes no mention that Southern Slaves is a music group.

Lopez insists police misconstrued his words, according to his defense lawyer.

These kids are not terrorists. They are not affiliated with any such groups, said lawyer Mac Morey. The way they have been portrayed is very unfair. They are young people who are frustrated with the status quo and they want to see change through strong and peaceful social advocacy.

So who are the Southern Slaves?

They are mostly Hispanic  black and brown, Cuban and Nicaraguan  and have known each other since grade school. They bonded hanging out at Miamis Kinloch Park, where they listened to rap artists such as Tupac, 36 Mafia and KRS-One. Why the name?

Were all slaves to something, Martinez said. Slaves to the system. Slaves to the bank.

Marco Lopez, left, with Angel Martinez, both members of the Miami rap group called Southern Slaves.

Up until the arrest, theyve rapped mostly in obscurity, playing at open-mic nights at bars in Wynwood and Little Haiti. They also played a show at Catalyst Hip-Hop, a South Miami-Dade rap venue for at-risk youth. Their songs have names like Special EDition, USA and Psychedelic Pimps.

Members say he was arrested not long after he and the group uploaded to Instagram a music video that featured video from the protests, as well as others across the United States. The video, called Scars of Wisdom, shows clips of police brutality, heavily armed cops in tactical gear  and looting and fires set during protests.

The following day, after Miami issued a press release about the arrest, Rubios tweet echoed other elected officials across the county, who have blamed largely unnamed organized agitators from a variety of extremists groups for civil unrest.

Afterward, members say, they began receiving direct messages and comments on Twitter and Instagram accusing them of being part of Antifa, an anti-fascist movement vilified by the right and President Donald Trump. Commenters also accused them of being funded by George Soros, a frequent and debunked conspiracy theory pushed online.

We had to do research on them. We had no idea about George Soros or any of that stuff, Martinez said. We had to do research about Antifa.

Southern Slaves tweeted back, calling Rubios tweet disgusting, irresponsible, and potentially dangerous.

Theyve also started a GoFundMe page to raise money for Lopezs legal fees. Hell be arraigned on July 6.
Seoul, June 10 : South Korea recorded an unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent in May - its worst since January 2010 - due to the effects of coronavirus pandemic on the economy, according to data published by the country's statistics office on Wednesday.

The number of South Koreans employed fell to 26.93 million in May, which is 392,000 less than in the same month of the previous year and represents the third consecutive month of year-on-year decline, Efe news reported.

It is also the first time that Asia's fourth-largest economy has recorded three straight year-on-year declines in its unemployment rate since October 2009, during the height of the global financial crisis.

However, the pace of job loss appears to have slowed after the loss of 467,000 jobs in April, the biggest monthly decline in 21 years.

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said that falling exports - among the top contributors to the country's gross domestic product - have begun to affect employment in the manufacturing sector, although jobs in the wholesale and retail sectors are beginning to recover, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

South Korea has been among the countries that has been able to contain the spread of COVID-19 most efficiently despite not imposing a lockdown, which has allowed a large part of its economy to continue functioning.

Temporary workers in the country, estimated to be at around 7.48 million in 2019, have been worst hit by the pandemic.

The statistics office estimates that the number of temporary workers was reduced by approximately 501,000 in May.

Last week, the South Korean government presented a third extraordinary budget, valued at a record 35.3 trillion won (around $29.59 billion), to combat the blow dealt by COVID-19 and to cushion its impact on key industries.

Hong urged the National Assembly, the country's parliament, to approve the budget as soon as possible.

The country has recorded 11,902 confirmed COVID-19 cases so far, with 276 deaths. A total of 10,611 people have recovered from the infectious disease.

South Korea completed its phased reopening of schools on Monday marking the return of some 5.95 million school students to their classes, more than three months after their academic session was set to begin in March.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
China's national observatory on Tuesday renewed a yellow alert for rainstorms in parts of southern, southeastern and central China for the next 24 hours.

From Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning, heavy rain and rainstorms are expected in the regions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Fujian, Anhui and Henan, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said.

Some of those regions will see up to 70 mm of hourly precipitationas well as the potential for thunderstorms and strong windsthe NMC said, warning that parts of northern Guangdong will experience downpours with up to 160 mm of daily rainfall.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

The center advised local governments to remain alert for possible flooding, landslides and mudslides caused by heavy rain and recommended outdoor operations be halted in hazardous areas.

Since the beginning of June, downpours have hit large parts of south, east and central China, bringing accumulated precipitation of 100 to 300 mm in some regions. Some areas in Guangdong and Guangxi have even recorded accumulated precipitation of up to 700 mm, according to the NMC.

A level-4 emergency response, the lowest in China's emergency response system, has been activated for potential floods caused by the heavy rains in the south.

Affected by the rainstorms, 52 rivers in eight provincial-level regions, including Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi, had seen water levels exceed their warning lines, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management, which has sent a work team to Guangxi to guide flood relief.




Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, has given an assurance that an NDC government will make it natural for the Electoral Commission (EC) to register all qualified Ghana citizens and issue them with Voter Id cards.



This, he said, would be done within the 100 days of coming into power.



According to him, the NDC intends to do that by deploying acceptable electronic technology, which would work into the future of electronic voting for Ghana.



Mr Iddrisu gave the assurance when he briefed the press in Parliament House after the House had voted to accept the Report of the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation on the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) (Amendment) Regulations, 2020 (C.I 126).



The House, moments earlier, by a division, which was won by 106 to 92, adopted a motion to accept CI 126 introduced by the EC to proscribe the use of the Ghanaian Birth Certificate and the Ghanaian Voter ID Card current as valid documents to be used for the registration of a new Voter Id for the 2020 general polls.



Mr Iddrisu maintained that the NDC was persuaded to stand by the Ghanaian public, whose right to vote has remained entrenched and guaranteed under the 1992 Constitution.



He said many Ghanaians in the future would appreciate the principled position taken by the party as political opposition and Minority against the ECs exclusion of the birth certificate and voters identity card.



Many of you, going forward and into the future, would appreciate the principled position we have taken as political opposition and political minority, wary of our numbers, it is not a vote we could win or easily win, but we are persuaded to stand by the Ghanaian public whose right to vote, remain entrenched and guaranteed under the 1992 Constitution, he added.



Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Majority Leader reacting to the Minoritys press conference, explained the various processes from the time the report was laid last Friday in Parliament till the debate issues and the final voting by Majority 106 to Minority 92.



He accused the Minority NDC caucus of shifting the goalposts on the issues of the electoral register from insufficient budget allocation to the EC, and now to the birth certificate.



He went down memory lane that in 1992, and noted that when the first voter's register was being compiled, the birth certificate was never used, so was the 1995 and 2012 re-registration exercise.



Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu also explained that the remit of the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation was defined by Standing Order 166 and their task was to prove whether the CI brought by the EC infringes any constitutional law.



He said the EC officials made it known to the Committee when they debated the estimates of the ECs budget in December that they were going to compile a new voters register and that they would not use the birth certificate.

Source: GNA









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(Newser)  Joe Biden easily won the Georgia and West Virginia Democratic presidential primaries Tuesday, but, for Georgia, that's about where the word "easy" stopped applying. The word "chaos," however, was used in a number of headlines about the state's primary; the Hill and the AP describe lines taking as long as five hours, heat and rain, problems with voting machines, fewer poll workers due to coronavirus concerns, mail-in ballots failing to arrive and forcing voters to head to the polls when they hadn't planned to, and more. "It's a hot mess," the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia told the New York Times, noting that in at least one polling place, no voting machines ever arrived. There were also concerns of voting irregularities, including one report of a machine that failed to show the House election for that district.

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"The chaos in Georgia is a direct result of the reduction in the number of in-person polling places and over reliance on mail-in voting," a Trump campaign rep said. "We have a duty to protect the constitutional rights of all of our citizens to vote in person and to have their votes counted." On the other side, the Democratic National Committee Chairman said the problems didn't surprise him due to the fact that the state's elections chief is Republican. "Republicans want to ensure that it is as hard as possible for people to vote," he said. Either way, the AP notes the chaotic primary "raised the specter of a worst-case November scenario," in which a decisive state remains in dispute long after polls close. In addition to Georgia and West Virginia, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina held primaries Tuesday, but they had previously held their presidential primaries. The Washington Post has live results here. (Read more Election 2020 stories.)
I was amused to read Jerry Sebraneks letter to the editor (Sunday's Tribune).

The guy writes in to the media to complain about the media. Wonder where he derived this unique opinion. From the media?

The countrys in shambles. Were ravaged by disease and torn apart by riots. More than 23 million are unemployed. More than 100,000 deaths from the COVID-19, the highest in the world.

Im old enough to remember Vietnam and the turmoil of the '60s, and this is worse. At least the president then had the decency to resign. But we were hopeful then, believing things would get better when the young people then would assume the reins of power.

Now we have special forces guarding the White House. Republican senators, generals, every single former U.S. president and even the Pope have come against our current president. Our former allies look upon us with pity and disgust. Our enemies are dancing in the streets. Many would love to see our total collapse. You cant blame this on the media, Obama, Hillary, Soros or that mean ol deep state. Instead of leadership we get finger pointing.

I wont live long enough to see us respected again.

Media bad! At least you can take comfort in the fact that journalists are not only denigrated and disrespected, but gassed and shot at as well. Anything to distract us from the current catastrophes we face.

But we still have the media so we can holler about the media.

James Hoban, La Crosse

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:13:52|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Wednesday said the Egyptian initiative for a cease-fire in war-torn Libya is "stillborn" and any attempt for truce should be under the auspices of the United Nations.

"The call for a cease-fire made in Cairo was stillborn," the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted by daily Hurriyet as saying on Wednesday. "Ankara will not support it," he said, adding that Cairo aimed to "save Haftar."

The truce attempt, which was led by General Khalifa Haftar, was "neither convincing nor sincere," since it came after the commander's forces started losing ground in their fight with the army of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), the minister said, recalling that the commander recently declared that he seized the country's administration.

"If a truce was to be signed, it should be done together on platforms like Moscow, Berlin, where everyone came together. A cease-fire is permanent only if it is accepted by both sides. But Haftar has never approached this," the minister said, recalling that Haftar did not sign cease-fire agreements previously proposed in Berlin or Moscow meetings.

"A cease-fire will be credible and permanent if a consensus is reached on a platform, where everyone comes together under the umbrella of the United Nations," he said.

The Turkish minister noted that Ankara holds discussions with the United States and Russia separately in a bid to achieve a solution in Libya.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi announced on June 6 an initiative to end the Libyan conflict following his meeting in Cairo with Libyan eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar.

Turkey backs the GNA and provides military support to it after signing a military pact last November, which helped forces loyal to Fayez al Sarraj, prime minister of the GNA, to advance on the field against Haftar. Enditem
President Donald Trump said his administration "will not even consider" renaming military bases originally named after Confederate leaders, a day after the Army issued a statement saying top military leaders were "open" to the discussion.

"It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom," the president tweeted on Wednesday.

"The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars," Trump continued. "Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!"

...history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

...Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

In a statement on Monday, an Army spokesperson said Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy were "open to a bi-partisan discussion" about renaming the bases.

MORE: Air Force leader's impassioned tweets spark candid conversation about racism in America: "I am George Floyd"

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Asked on Wednesday about Trump's tweets, Army media relations said it had "nothing to add at this time."

There are 10 Army installations, including Fort Lee and Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, named after Confederate leaders from the Civil War. For years, critics have told the military it's long been time for change -- the names uplifting men who fought for white supremacy and the right to own slaves.

PHOTO: In this Sept. 26, 2014, file photo, a sign of Fort Bragg is seen in Fayetteville, N.C. (Chris Keane/Reuters, FILE)

But as recently as February, the Army said it had "no plans to rename any street or installation," saying it was "important to note that the naming of installations and streets was done in a spirit of reconciliation, not to demonstrate support for any particular cause or ideology."

"The Army has a tradition of naming installations and streets after historical figures of military significance, including former Union and Confederate general officers," the statement said at the time.

An official told ABC News that the death of George Floyd while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25 and the subsequent protests against police brutality and racial inequality in America have led Defense Department leaders to reverse that earlier stance and signal openness to a conversation about renaming the bases. Meanwhile, cities across the country have chosen to remove statues of Confederate figures.

PHOTO: An inspection crew from the Virginia Department of General Services takes measurements as they inspect the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue, June 8, 2020, in Richmond, Va. (Steve Helber/AP)

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters on Tuesday that he was supportive of changing the names "that carry racial connotations and imply continued racism in our society."

"The military is actually one of the most successful institutions in our nation in integrating and avoiding discrimination," Blumenthal, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said. "So renaming these bases would be very, very appropriate for the military to do, recognizing the progress it's made -- more progress than many other sectors of our society. And I hope the secretary of defense will in fact consider it."

MORE: Questions arise over Special Forces guarding Donald Trump from protests

ABC News contributor Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and retired Marine, suggested the Army could rename its bases after Medal of Honor recipients from those states. Mulroy grew up near Fort Gordon in Georgia, named after Confederate general John Brown Gordon who opposed Reconstruction and is believed to have led part of the Klu Klux Klan.

"Since the Civil War ended, there have been almost 30 Medals of Honor from Georgia by my count," Mulroy said. "I would start there, then move on to the next installation."

"Although the Civil War should be remembered as part of our history, that should be done in museums and by historians," he added. "American soldiers should serve on bases that are named after the heroes that have sacrificed and fought for our country, not against it."

But at the White House on Wednesday, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany reiterated that the president does "fervently stand against the renaming of our forts."

"Fort Bragg is known for the heroes within it that trained there, that deployed from there, and it's an insult to say to the men and women who left there, the last thing they saw on American soil before going overseas and in some cases losing their lives to tell them that what they left was inherently a racist institution because of the name," she said. "That is unacceptable to the president."

Floyd's death has also sparked a conversation about the display of Confederate paraphernalia on bases. Back in February, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger banned Confederate symbols, including the Confederate flag, from Marine Corps installations, writing they had the "power to inflame feelings of division."

MORE: US Marine Corps issues details on ban of Confederate battle flags

On Monday, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., wrote to the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and National Guard to enact a similar regulation and prohibit the display of the Confederate flag.

"Honoring the 'lost cause' of those who waged war against the United States of America, or defending the right of an individual State to allow its residents to own, sell and kill fellow Americans as property, has no place in our Nation, especially the U.S. Armed Forces which waged a deadly war to eliminate the barbaric practice of slavery," wrote Duckworth, a combat veteran.

"Critics of banning the public display of the Confederate Battle Flag may accuse me of seeking to 'erase' history," she continued. "Nothing could be further from the truth. ... Banning celebration is distinct from education."

Late Tuesday, the Navy announced they would follow the Marine Corps' lead and ban the Confederate flag.

"The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, has directed his staff to begin crafting an order that would prohibit the Confederate battle flag from all public spaces and work areas aboard Navy installations, ships, aircraft and submarines," said Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for Gilday. "The order is meant to ensure unit cohesion, preserve good order and discipline, and uphold the Navy's core values of honor, courage and commitment."

An Army official also told ABC News that their service would be "working on a plan to develop policy and procedures to exclude or prohibit the display of Confederate symbols on Army installations."

ABC News' Trish Turner and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

Trump says admin 'will not even consider' renaming bases named after Confederate leaders, after Army signals openness originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The debts incurred by enterprises in the aviation industry, due in 2020, if not payable, will have a big impact on public debt.

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, in his report to the National Assembly, mentioned the safety of public debt.





It is expected that public debt will be at 52.3 percent of GDP, within the safety line. However, the Covid-19 epidemic is believed to have impact on all business fields, thus bringing risks to the macroeconomy and finance. The epidemic has increased pressure on budget deficit targets and public debt.



For the last 1.5 years, the government has stopped acting as a guarantor for enterprises in business fields. However, much of the debt guaranteed by the government in the past was due to be paid in 2020. Because of the epidemic, many enterprises cannot pay debts.



The debts of Vietnam Airlines, where the state holds 86.19 percent of shares, are among these. It announced that debt repayment would be on time at the annual shareholders meeting, but then the Covid-19 epidemic broke out.

Vietnam Airlines Q1 business plan showed that its post-tax profit was minus VND2.589 trillion and the revenue was 43.9 percent lower than planned.

Vietnam Airlines Q1 business plan showed that its post-tax profit was minus VND2.589 trillion and the revenue was 43.9 percent lower than planned.



If the epidemic lasts until the end of June, total revenue would decrease by VND50 trillion and there would be a loss of VND15-16 trillion this year.



The business loss because of the epidemic has caused the airline to suffer from serious cash flow imbalance. The short-term debt rescheduling and payment extension would only be helpful in the short term. If the market continues to bear adverse impacts from the epidemic and international flights still cannot be reopened, Vietnam Airlines would not have money to operate, pay bank debts and make payment to partners.



Vietjet is facing the same problems. The private airline took a loss of VND989 billion in Q1 and the cash flow from business activities was minus VND2.027 trillion.



Bamboo Airways, which has just joined the aviation market with modest market share, is also meeting financial problems because of high fixed costs in the first phase of operation.



According to Thoi Bao Kinh Te Sai Gon, because of the cash flow imbalance caused by the epidemic, many loans in the past, due in 2020, to upgrade the fleets, may become unpayable for Vietnam Airlines.



The airline will have to pay $800 million worth of debts to Vietnamese and foreign banks in mid-May. The amount of money was borrowed to buy aircraft in 2009-2015 under the governments guarantee. Only if the government applies urgent measures to save airlines, including Vietnam Airlines, will creditors consider extending payments for the big loans.

Mai Lan

Why does only one airline fly to Con Dao Island? Deputy head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) Vo Huy Cuong affirmed that the watchdog agency is unbiased when licensing air routes to Con Dao Island.
WATERLOO REGION  When Janet McLaughlin heard about Bonifacio Eugenio Romero dying of COVID-19, she felt sick to her stomach.

He died 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital. He was dying alone in a hotel room without any help or anyone checking on him. No one should die like that in Canada, says McLaughlin, an associate professor of health studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Romero, 31, died of COVID 19 on May 30, and Rogelio Munoz Santo died on June 4. Both were migrant agricultural workers from Mexico, and previously healthy.

When migrant agricultural workers arrived in Canada they spent two weeks in quarantine, and according to McLaughlin this quarantine was often done with multiple migrant workers together. The quarantine period was more about protecting the Canadian public, she says. We knew in a pandemic this was a recipe for disaster says McLaughlin.

McLaughlin and another professor at WLU, Jenna Hennebry, co-ordinate the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group formed in April by academics and health professionals who have been studying and working with migrant agricultural workers for 20 years. They aim to address issues facing migrant workers by talking directly to government and public health agencies on all levels.

The main recommendation the group has is that workers need more space to live in.

Weve been saying for decades theyve been living in too tight spaces, says McLaughlin. Its not like summer camp where youre there for a week. This is where these workers are living.

Some live here for most of their adult lives, she says.

That we dont know anything about [Bonifacio and Rogelio] is the point, says Hennebry. We think of them as workers rather than people with families and interests who have sacrificed a lot to be here. Thats one of the problems with the system: theyre seen as interchangeable.

The working group has created a 30-page document detailing the issues migrant agricultural workers face and recommendations to meet them, which they have delivered to the federal government.

Measures the working group recommend include better access to protective personal equipment, measures to make sure workers can speak up about their concerns and health issues without fear of losing their jobs or being forced to leave the country, and access to health care and translation services.

The group has also launched website, migrantworker.ca, so the public can access this information. It includes a frequently asked questions page accessible in English and Spanish for migrant workers in Canada under COVID-19 conditions.

Mark Reusser, vice president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says every farmer he knows who hires migrant agriculture workers has complied with every rule from their public health officials.

In March the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association provided documents to its members outlining best practices and guidelines for the health and safety of workers, employers and the Canadian public.

Theyve followed all the rules municipalities have created. I know farmers who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to comply, Reusser said.

The level of anxiety among employers is extremely high. They dread a worker not coming into work.

Its unfortunate that we try to point fingers. Farmers want healthy employees, he said.

Hennebry says Canadas migrant worker system structures employers as mediators for too many aspects of migrant workers lives like their health, housing and access to food.

Its a role many employers do not feel comfortable with, she says.

Workers autonomy, individuality and human rights are sidelined because the employer has to mediate all that. And in the case of COVID, employers are suddenly having to do infections disease control, and thats not their expertise.

The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change released a report this week detailing the warnings that migrant workers have been making about working conditions during and before the pandemic.

The workers main concern is that they will continue to feel vulnerable until they have permanent resident status. They also detailed problems with pay they were supposed to receive while in quarantine, inadequate access to food, problems with ability to social distance, and increased workloads.

The alliance, a coalition of self-organized groups of migrant workers in Canada, says their report is based on discussions with 180 migrant workers relaying issues on behalf of 1,162 workers between March and May 2020.

People arent generally aware of the tremendous sacrifices that [migrant agricultural workers] make. Most dont think about it when they go to the grocery store, said McLaughlin.

This group is very isolated, and very scared.
A Russian Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance aircraft escorted by an F-22 after entering the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone on March 9, 2020. (NORAD/DoD)

Russian Nuclear-Capable Bombers Intercepted by US Aircraft Near Alaska

Russian nuclear-capable bombers were intercepted and escorted by American fighter jets during a flight over neutral waters close to Alaska.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed to Reuters F-22 Raptor planes accompanied four Russian Tupolev Tu-95MS nuclear-capable bombers during some periods of their flight.

The ministry said the lengthy flight complied with international law.

It was the second time its happened since April when U.S. F-22 stealth fighters intercepted two Russian patrol planes flying near their territories.

The incident was also confirmed by the commander of NORAD, Air Force General Terrence OShaughnessy, to Fox News.

Were ready 24/7, said Air Force General Terrence OShaughnessy, the commander.

An American spy plane flying over the Mediterranean Sea was intercepted by two Russian military jets, with the U.S. military calling the incident unsafe and unprofessional on May 26. The interaction between the two Russian jets was irresponsible even though the planes were operating over international waters.

We expect them to operate within international standards set to ensure safety, their statement concluded, adding that unsafe maneuvers increase the potential for midair collisions.

U.S. officials released footage showing two Russian fighter jets intercepting a Navy surveillance plane in what was described as unsafe. (US Navy)

It was the third time in about a month that Russian planes have attempted to intercept U.S. military aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, the Navy noted.

In all cases, the U.S. aircraft were operating in international airspace, consistent with international law, with due regard for safety of flight, and did not provoke this Russian activity, according to the Navys statement.

The intercept comes as the U.S. military accused Russia of deploying fighter jets in Libya to support mercenaries operating in the country, which has a lengthy Mediterranean coast.

Last month, President Donald Trump announced the United States will leave the Open Skies Treaty, which was designed to reduce the risk of military errors that could lead to a war, saying that Russian violations prompted him to make the decision.

Russia didnt adhere to the treaty, so until they adhere, we will pull out, Trump told reporters on May 21. But he added that the move will likely force Moscow to return to negotiation talks.

Theres a chance we may make a new agreement or do something to put that agreement back together, Trump added. I think whats going to happen is were going to pull out and theyre going to come back and want to make a deal.
A Bloomberg report said that Apple AAPL, which has been rumored to be making its own ARM-based chips for Macs for a while now, is finally in a position to announce them at its WWDC annual developers conference a couple of weeks later.

This doesnt mean, of course, that the chips will be immediately available. Usually, an announcement means that they are likely through with tape out. If all goes well, the chips would be in Apple devices some time next year.

And thats the crux of the matter. Nothing is expected to happen this year and even if its announced, we dont know for sure that this iteration of the chips will actually find their way into Apple devices.

While ARM designs consume less power, they havent been able to beat Intel INTC designs in performance. Not yet, anyway. So it seems extremely unlikely for Apple to go this route.

Unless, and this is a possibility worth considering, Apple is looking to make a lower-end version of its Mac running on ARM chips. Apple could be following the same strategy that it did with the iPhone SE, i.e., making products at multiple price points to target different users. This doesnt seem to be a far-fetched idea, especially considering that people are likely to be more conservative spenders in a post-COVID world.

There could also be a version using Advanced Micro Devices AMD silicon. AMD is giving some real competition to Intel on the performance front as well, so thats another possibility Apple could be considering. And since both Apple and AMD use Taiwan Semiconductor TSM as their foundry, it could all be rather smooth.

As far as Intel is concerned, its unlikely to get a bloody nose. For one, the company has been defocusing the PC side of its business as it targets the data-centric side. Theres a ton of things going on there where its doing rather well. Intel is deeply involved in the expansion of the cloud, AI, the growing interconnectedness of all things (IoT), self-driving cars and ADAS, to name a few. The companys data-centric business grew 34% year over year to contribute 51% of its revenue in the last quarter.

Story continues

Since Apples announcement wont bring any immediate changes, Intel will continue to enjoy the benefits of workloads shifting to homes, both on the PC side (as home offices are set up) and on the cloud side (as these offices connect). Theres also a ton of storage, networking and communications tech being deployed there, all of which will strengthen its business in the next few quarters. Also, having made these investments, companies/individuals are unlikely to upgrade/change the very next year. Apple is more likely to score with individual deals at enterprise customers, as has been its strategy in the past.

So this bit of news is a positive for Apple, as it will help the company to lower cost and possibly compete for some lower-end business that will add to its premium business. But it isnt something Intel investors need to be overly concerned about because Apple is not a very big customer, because it may not sift away entirely and because some share loss to AMD was already in the cards.

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T he Green Party has called for more public toilets to be opened after some London parks have become smelly with human excrement.

Since the coronavirus lockdown measures were eased to allow more people to meet outdoors, a number of London boroughs have had problems with urination in public places.

Bars, cafes and restaurants near some London parks have reopened for takeaway drinks and food but customers are not allowed inside to use the toilets.

It has led to no urinating signs being put up in Victoria Park to warn visitors they are being watched on CCTV.

Meanwhile, Tower Hamlets has sent enforcement officers and rangers to challenge anyone seen urinating in public after complaints from residents.

Green Party London Assembly Member Caroline Russell has written to the Housing and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick to argue that loos have been overlooked in the Governments plan to reopen high streets.

The Government said that it was a decision for councils to make and they have been "strongly encouraging" them to open toilets wherever possible.

Ms Russell said she had put a fully-costed plan to the Mayor that found 18 million to build new public toilets around TfL stations and urged the minister to implement it as part of TfLs rescue fund.

Green Party London Assembly Member Caroline Russell / Victoria Jones/PA

She said: "Since the lockdown, residents across London have contacted me about the problem of locked loos on high streets and in our parks.

"Take this one, for example: 'Richmond has, as Im sure other places have too, become fairly rotten and smelly with human excrement and urine dotted around town, outside my door, and in the parks our families enjoy.'

As this resident has so clearly expressed it, without public facilities, people resort to using our streets and green spaces as open toilets.

"This is worsened by the fact that coffee shops and public houses, desperate to keep their businesses afloat, have started to sell takeaway beverages.

Alcohol and coffee are both diuretics so allowing these to be available for sale, without the conveniences needed to capture their consequent outpourings, is aggravating the situation.

She welcomed the Governments 50 million fund to reopen high streets but said the issue of access to public loos had been overlooked.

She added: We are all finding ourselves constrained by loo leashes which are so much more restrictive for people with disabilities who need urgent access to facilities or proper changing places toilets.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: While decisions to reopen public toilets are for councils, we strongly encourage them to open wherever possible.

"Weve published guidance to help them ensure facilities are safe where they are open, including increasing cleaning of touch points.
T he brother of George Floyd has challenged Congress to stop the pain so that his brother's death would not just be another name on the list of black people killed in police custody.

Philonise Floyd's appearance in front of a House hearing came a day after his brothers funeral service in Houston, Texas, which was attended by some 500 guests.

George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American father, died on May 25 after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin - who has now been charged with second-degree murder - knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest.

Wearing a black mask emblazoned with his brother's picture and harrowing plea "I can't breathe," Mr Floyd fought back tears as he spoke about the "big brother" he never got a chance to say goodbye to last month.

"Im tired. Im tired of the pain Im feeling now and Im tired of the pain I feel every time another black person is killed for no reason. Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired," he said.

He added: "This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough. Be the leaders that this country, this world, needs. Do the right thing.

"The people elected you to speak for them, to make positive change. Georges name means something. You have the opportunity here to make your names mean something too," he continued.

George Floyd's death sparked ongoing global protests calling for racial ustice and robust changes in the way the police train and discipline their officers.

In the US the unrest has been heightened by outrage over other recent cases of African Americans killed by police, including Breonna Taylor, who was killed during a raid of her Kentucky apartment, and Stephon Clark, a 23-year-old man who was shot and killed in California in the backyard of his grandmothers house while he had a phone in his hand.

Some have even called for "defunding" law enforcement agencies.

Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat who chairs the Judiciary panel said today he answers the calls of millions of Americans who have been calling out "I can't breath" as a rallying cry in the streets.

Thousands of people gathered in London to stand against racism. / PA

On Monday, congressional Democrats unveiled a package of sweeping reforms as part of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

The bill calls for mandatory dashboard and body cameras, an end to police chokeholds, and the creation of a national registry to track officers with a record of misconduct.

It also would bar the use of "no-knock" warrants for drug cases and end qualified immunity for police officers, making them personally liable for constitutional violations such as excessive force.

"That moment of national anguish is being transformed into a movement of national action as Americans from across the country peacefully protest to demand an end to injustice," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday at a Capitol Hill news conference, referring to George Floyd's killing.

The bill could be passed out of committee as early as next week and brought to the floor before the end of the month, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md, told reporters Tuesday.

Republicans are also drafting their own proposal led by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, but have criticised the calls from activists and protestors across the country who want to defund the police  a catch-all term for re-imagining law enforcement.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Mr Scott said: "I basically shy away from telling local law enforcement: 'you shouldn't do that' or 'you can't do this.

"I think their bill has a tendency to be seen as perhaps a nationalization of some of the underlying issues or techniques. With 7,000-plus jurisdictions, it's really difficult for me to think that we here can figure out the best utilization though I would support some of the outcomes that [Democrats] are looking at."
The Republican National Committee is zeroing in on a new location for its August convention and has tentatively decided to host the marquee events in Jacksonville, Fla., sources told the Washington Post.

RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Tuesday that a decision will probably come within the next week on where to host the convention, which is scheduled for August 24 to August 27.

Everybody is coming to the table, McDaniel said in an appearance on Fox News. We have all types of states  Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee  that have come and said we want to host your convention. Weve been traveling. We will have to make a decision probably within the next week as to where were going to have this celebration.

In a statement, RNC spokesman Steve Guest told National Review that several cities are still being considered.

No final decision has been made, Guest said in an email. Convention officials are touring Phoenix, Savannah, Dallas, and Jacksonville this week, and we have been in conversations with several other potential locations.

The RNC backed out of its original location of Charlotte, N.C., last week, after Governor Roy Cooper would not commit to allowing the convention to be held at full capacity due to concerns about coronavirus.

Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised, President Trump tweeted. Would have showcased beautiful North Carolina to the World, and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, and jobs, for the State.

Cooper, a Democrat, responded by saying it was unfortunate they never agreed to scale down and make changes to keep people safe. Protecting public health and safety during this pandemic is a priority.

The Post cited two officials who said Charlotte would still host the conventions more routine and lower-profile meetings in order to honor the contract, with the larger events  including a speech by President Trump  to be held in Jacksonville.

Story continues

Mayor Curry has been actively and energetically pursuing this convention, and the Republican Party of Duval County has been actively promoting Jacksonville as the single best city in America to host a convention, Dean Black, the Duval County Republican chairman, told the Post.

More from National Review
[June 10, 2020] NRW.INVEST USA (North America) LLC Appoints Aryan Zandieh Chief Executive Officer

North Rhine-Westphalia's state-owned economic development agency NRW.INVEST announced today the appointment of Aryan Zandieh as Chief Executive Officer for its North American office in Chicago effective June 1, 2020. NRW.INVEST conducts international marketing for Germany's No. 1 investment location, North Rhine-Westphalia, campaigning worldwide for foreign direct investments. "We are pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Aryan Zandieh as CEO of our North America office. He is well connected to the US business community and at the same time acquainted with the German economy," says Petra Wassner, CEO of NRW.INVEST GmbH. "The USA is one of the most important investor countries in North Rhine-Westphalia. We want to intensify direct contact with companies, associations, institutions, chambers and politics and to welcome even more US investments in North Rhine-Westphalia in the future." Zandieh is an internationally recognized trade and investment executive with over 12 years of experience in transatlantic trade and foreign direct investmet projects. He previously led the North American office of the German Federal State of Niedersachsen and served as Head of Sales at the US subsidiary of Deutsche Messe AG where he played an integral role in launching its North American trade show portfolio.



"I'm energized and honored to serve in this leadership role and be part of a vibrant economic development organization such as NRW.INVEST," says Zandieh. "Our team is excited to further strengthen North Rhine-Westphalia's number 1 position as Germany's economic powerhouse and continue to grow its diverse base of hidden champions as well as global market leaders like 3M (News - Alert), Ford & Amazon." About NRW.INVEST

NRW.INVEST GmbH serves as the central contact point for settlements in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It provides potential investors from abroad with a one-stop service ranging from locational information and site searches to arranging and guidance through negotiations and approval procedures. Moreover, NRW.INVEST conducts international location marketing on behalf of the state. Today, there are already more than 20,000 foreign firms based in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's economically most important federal state. In addition to the headquarters in Dusseldorf, NRW.INVEST operates foreign offices in China, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the USA. www.nrwinvest.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005671/en/

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The warning came as E.U. countries have clashed with China on the coronavirus response. China moved aggressively to capitalize on E.U. disunity in the first weeks after the pandemic hit Europe, rushing supplies and experts to Italy and amplifying a message to Italians that Europeans were not showing solidarity with them. Later, the website of the Chinese Embassy in France made false claims that workers at homes for the elderly had abandoned their posts and left residents to die.
For more than 150 years, India Post has been an organization that kept the country together, from being a channel of communication to being instrumental in financial inclusion. It has played a crucial role in the country's socio-economic development and security. IN10 Media Network's EPIC Channel - India Ka Apna Infotainment is all set to bring a limited series about the world's largest postal service later this year.

During the lockdown, employees of India Post have once again played a significant part in keeping the country connected, and reaching out to citizens in the farthest corners of the country in these tough times.



India Post employees have been delivering medicines, food packets, pension cheques, and important documents while maintaining social distance and hygiene standards set by the World Health Organization. In the last 70 days of the lockdown, postmen have delivered Rs 2000 crore cash from different banks to people in villages across the country.

In an exclusive video produced by EPIC Channel, Mr Amitabh Bachchan, the Legend of Indian Cinema sends out a special message for these COVID Warriors.

Watch Video Here

The limited series will be available exclusively on EPIC Channel, a front runner in bringing exceptional stories about India and Indians to the fore. The series will take audiences behind the scenes of India Post, along with revealing its incredible feats and heart-warming stories.

Stay tuned to know more about the series.

Also Read: KBC's First Winner Harshvardhan Nawathe Talks About Amitabh Bachchan's Special Gesture For Him
Press Release

June 10, 2020 Rush Google-like justice system database for

fast verification of arrest warrants -- Recto Government should rush the establishment of "its own Google search-like app for arrest warrants" to spare namesakes of fugitives from being denied security clearances, held at ports or harassed by unscrupulous public officers. This was the call of Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, who said an operational "online database" of persons with arrest warrants would have led to the instantaneous verification of the pending warrants against the two arrested protesting drivers in Caloocan City. "Mabilis pa nga iyon. If it was not a high profile case, baka mas lalong natagalan ang verification. By today's standards, it was something that proceeded at warp speed," Recto said. "Another way to view it is that it is emblematic of the hassles thousands of Filipinos who share the same names with those in trouble with the law have to go through," Recto said. "In this land of popular surnames like Reyes, Cruz, Rosario and Santos, naku, ang hirap kumuha ng police o NBI clearance. Marami kang kapangalan. At dadaan ka minsan sa butas ng karayom para patunayan mong hindi ikaw 'yun," he said. Aggravating the problem, Recto said, "is that these dispersed databases independently maintained by law enforcement agencies do not have the complete details of the persons with outstanding warrants." "Kadalasan, pangalan lang. Walang edad o litrato. Minsan wala pang middle name. Kaya kung kapangalan mo ang isang taong may kaso, you have to go through the hoops by submitting many documents to prove that it is not you," Recto said. "The burden of proof lies with the person and not with the law enforcement agency. Ang daming ganitong kaso sa airport na na-block ng Immigration na sumakay ng eroplano, often based on sparse details," he said. Recto said "the organized chaos" will only end if the multi-agency National Justice Information System or NJIS will come into operation. Led by the DOJ and DICT, and participated in by the DILG and the Supreme Court, "this is the web that will facilitate data exchange among agencies." Recto said "the failure to interconnect and digitize the antiquated record system have led to jail congestion, a police force clueless on the identity of wanted persons, and border control that inconveniences many innocents." "The notorious manual carpeta system in the Bureau of Corrections was the culprit for the anomalous release of many prisoners," he said. Without a database that runs through all the pillars of the justice system, we do not know the number of detainees who have been in jail longer than the maximum time if they had been convicted, Recto said. "O kung ordinary citizen ka, malalaman mo na mayroon ka palang kaso na hindi mo alam na ilang dekada nang nakabinbin," Recto added. True and updated information is not only an instrument of justice but also of good financial management, Recto said, citing the huge taxpayer burden of running prisons. He said the annual cost of housing, feeding, guarding, and transporting one BJMP detainee would be about P101,887 this year, based on the agency's proposed 2020 budget. For the BuCor, the expense per prisoner will be around P91,407 per year, based on their original budget submissions. This year, the creation of the NJIS has a budget of P5 billion under the DOJ, Recto said. "This will eradicate the use of guesses, discretion and overreach in tagging persons in trouble with the law." "Basta ang importante, hindi ito maha-hack, hindi mako-corrupt, data privacy laws are upheld at walang 'pindot gang' na magdadagdag-bawas ng pangalan, kasama na ang mga inosente," he said.
Vadodara:

The Gujarat BJP will ensure that at-least seven lakh people download the 'Namo App', a party office bearer said on Thursday.

"This will be gift from the BJP unit in Gujarat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his 67th birthday on September 17," Gujarat BJP chief Jitu Vaghani said after addressing party workers in Vadodara,.

"The state unit of the party will ensure that at-least 7 lakh people download the 'Namo App'," he added.

Meanwhile, the party's state unit has organised week-long programmes including cleanliness drives to celebrate Modi's birthday.MP Ranjanben Bhatt and mayor Bharat Dangar were also present on the occasion.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Police in Louisville, Kentucky, are investigating allegations by at least two women that they were sexually assaulted by an officer involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.

The allegations against Officer Brett Hankison were posted on social media in the past week, and they are similar  both women say they were sexually assaulted after he gave them rides home from a bar.

Dwight Mitchell, a spokesman for the Louisville Metro Police Department, told NBC News on Wednesday: "LMPD is aware of these allegations and investigators are looking into them. If anyone has information about these cases, we encourage them to call (502) 574-7144."

Mitchell declined to comment further.

Hankison is one of three officers who have been on administrative reassignment while an investigation is conducted into the death of Taylor, 26, an African American emergency-room technician who was killed by police during a raid at her Louisville home on March 13.

A woman identified as Margo Borders, said in a June 4 Facebook post that on one occasion in April 2018, she went out to a bar with friends. When she went to call an Uber to get home, she said an officer she had interacted with on many occasions at bars in St. Matthews, a city in the Louisville metropolitan area, offered her a ride home.

"He drove me home in uniform, in his marked car, invited himself into my apartment and sexually assaulted me while I was unconscious," she wrote.

She said it took her months to process what had happened and to realize that it wasn't her fault.

She said she did not go to police because she feared retaliation.

"I had no proof of what happened and he had the upper hand because he was a police officer," she wrote. "Who do you call when the person who assaulted you is a police officer? Who were they going to believe? I knew it wouldn't be me."

Borders referenced Taylor's shooting in her post, suggesting that it was Hankison's involvement in that which prompted her to come forward.

Story continues

A second woman, Emily Terry, also gave her account on Facebook on June 4, writing that in early fall 2019, she was walking home from a bar intoxicated. She said a police officer pulled up next to her and offered her a ride home.

"I thought to myself, 'Wow. That is so nice of him,'" she wrote, adding that she willingly got into his car.

"He began making sexual advances towards me; rubbing my thigh, kissing my forehead, and calling me 'baby,'" she wrote. "Mortified, I did not move. I continued to talk about my grad school experiences and ignored him."

As soon as he pulled up to her apartment building, she said, she got out of the car and ran to the back.

"My friend reported this the next day, and of course nothing came from it," she wrote. "Flash forward, I see his face. This face. Involved with the shooting of Breonna Taylor."

It is unclear who Terry's friend reported the incident to. NBC News attempted to reach Borders and Terry at numbers listed for them and via social media but did not immediately hear back Wednesday.

Hankison, who the police spokesman said has been an officer for 17 years, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The Louisville police officers' union, which is representing Hankison, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

In addition, a lawyer who has represented Hankison in the past also did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The Louisville police department's Public Integrity Unit previously cleared Hankison on two unrelated accusations involving sexual misconduct, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. NBC News was unable to confirm this report.

The family of Taylor, who was a licensed emergency medical technician, has named Hankison along with officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove in a wrongful death lawsuit.

The fatal shooting occurred after plainclothes officers arrived at Taylor's apartment after midnight on March 13 to serve a no-knock warrant in a drug case.

Attorneys for Taylor's family say her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fearing a home invasion, called 911, grabbed a gun and fired, shooting an officer in the leg. He had a license to carry and kept firearms in the home, and Taylor was unarmed.

The lawsuit accuses the officers of "blindly firing" more than 20 shots into the apartment. Taylor was shot eight times and died.

At a March 13 news conference, police Lt. Ted Eidem said officers had knocked on the door several times and "announced their presence as police who were there with a search warrant." After forcing their way in, they were immediately met by gunfire, Eidem said.

But the lawsuit by Taylor's family says that police did not knock or identify themselves before they busted into the apartment.

Taylor and Walker had no criminal history or drug convictions, and no drugs were found in the apartment during the raid, the lawsuit states.

The FBI announced on May 21 that it was now investigating Taylor's death. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has said that he was asked to serve as a special prosecutor in the case.
DEARBORN (dpa-AFX) - Ford Motor Company (F) and Volkswagen AG (VKW.L, VLKAF.PK, VOW.BE) have signed agreements to expand their global alliance. The alliance will produce a medium pickup truck engineered and built by Ford, for sale by Volkswagen as the Amarok starting in 2022 within the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles lineup. The alliance will also produce a city delivery van based on the latest Caddy model, developed and built by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and later a 1-ton cargo van created by Ford. The alliance will lead to a Ford electric vehicle for Europe by 2023 built on Volkswagen's Modular Electric Drive, or MEB, toolkit. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Simon Property Group Inc. (SPG) said Wednesday that it has exercised its contractual rights to terminate its deal to buy Taubman Centers Inc. (TCO).



In Wednesday regular trading, TCO is currently trading at $33.89, down $11.36 or 25.10 percent.



SPG is trading at $80.65, down $5.82 or 6.73 percent.



Simon Property said that the deal gave the company the right to terminate the transaction in the event that a pandemic disproportionately hurt Taubman.



Simon noted that Taubman's significant proportion of enclosed retail properties located in densely populated major metropolitan areas, dependence on both domestic and international tourism at many of its properties, and its focus on high-end shopping have combined to impact Taubman's business disproportionately due to the COVID-19 pandemic when compared to the rest of the retail real estate industry.



In addition, Simon alleged that Taubman has breached its obligation to operate its business in the ordinary course.



Taubman has failed to take steps to mitigate the impact of the pandemic as others in the industry have, including by not making essential cuts in operating expenses and capital expenditures, Simon said.



Simon also filed an action in the Circuit Court for the 6th Judicial Circuit of Oakland County, Michigan against Taubman Centers requesting a declaration that Taubman has suffered a Material Adverse Event and has breached the covenants in the Merger Agreement governing the operation of Taubman's business.



In February 2020, Simon Property agreed to acquire all of Taubman common stock for $52.50 per share in cash.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:

As many as 2,011 people have been infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past 24 hours in Iran, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Trend reports citing the ministry.

According to Sadat Lari, 81 people have died from the coronavirus over the past day.

So far, more than 1.15 million tests have been conducted in Iran for the diagnosis of coronavirus.

Iran continues to monitor the coronavirus situation in the country. According to recent reports from the Iranian officials, over 177,900 people have been infected 8,506 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 140,500 have reportedly recovered from the disease.

The country continues to apply strict measures to contain the further spread. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease.

The Islamic Republic only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19.
WEST VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Mr. Rick Streiff, CPG, has joined Bitterroot Resources Ltd.'s (TSXV:BTT) Technical Advisory Board. Mr. Streiff is a western US-based geologist with over 35 years of experience exploring low- and intermediate-sulfidation epithermal precious metals systems. Mr. Streiff led the OceanaGold Corporation team that discovered the blind WKP low-sulfidation gold deposit in Waihi, New Zealand. Prior to working for OceanaGold, Mr. Streiff spent 18 years with Newmont Corporation and its predecessor companies. His previous roles with Newmont included managing geological activities at all of its Nevada underground mines, managing surface geology programs in the Carlin Trend, plus near-mine and regional exploration at Waihi, New Zealand. In Nevada he previously held senior geologic roles at the Twin Creeks, Midas and Post/Betze mines. Earlier in his career, he worked in geologic roles for Echo Bay Minerals Co. at the Kettle River, McCoy/Cove and Round Mountain mines.

Mr. Streiff is currently consulting for several companies, specializing in low-sulfidation epithermal systems. He will provide consulting services and advise Bitterroot Resources' management on future property acquisitions and execution of exploration programs on epithermal precious metals systems in Nevada.

Michael Carr, CEO of Bitterroot Resources Ltd. commented, "I am very pleased to have the opportunity to work with Rick and am looking forward to expanding the Company's presence in Nevada."

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Michael S. Carr

CEO and Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements under Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects" or "it is expected", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. This document contains statements about expected or anticipated future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and as a result, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, such as general economic, market and business conditions, regulatory processes and actions, technical issues, new legislation, competitive conditions, the uncertainties resulting from potential delays or changes in plans, the occurrence of unexpected events and the company's ability to execute and implement its future plans. Actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. When relying on forward-looking statements to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. For such forward-looking statements, we claim the safe harbour for forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Legislation Reform Act of 1995.

SOURCE: Bitterroot Resources Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593431/Bitterroot-Resources-Appoints-Rick-Streiff-CPG-to-Its-Technical-Advisory-Board
The latest haul from tax defaulters and other probes undertaken by the Revenue Commissioners has yielded 107m for the Exchequer, with a carer forking out almost 1.1m in tax, interest and penalties during the first quarter of the year.

The carer, Michelle Forde of Ennafort Park in Raheny, Dublin, was found to owe 375,000 in tax as a result of the non-declaration of capital acquisitions tax and income tax. She was charged 431,000 in interest and 281,000 in penalties.

It was the highest settlement on a list of defaulters published today that includes doctors, farmers, architects and publicans.

Other significant settlements included 355,000 by solicitor Denis Molloy of Bridge Street, Ballina in Co Mayo. His settlement resulted from a Revenue investigation case for the under-declaration of income tax and VAT. The settlement included 207,000 in tax, 89,000 in interest and 58,000 in penalties.

Kieran Sherry, a farmer with an address at Alkill House, Castleshane in Co Monaghan was hit with a 633,000 penalty by the courts in the period for the non-declaration of income tax.

Dental technician Thomas Holland of William Street in Galway settled for 311,000 after a Revenue audit case into the non-declaration if income tax and the under-declaration of PAYE, PRSI and USC. It included 155,000 in tax, 109,000 in interest, and 46,000 in penalties.

Earlier this year, a former Revenue Commissioners tax inspector received a two-year jail sentence for submitting an incorrect income tax return for 2005, and failing to deliver returns for 2006, 2007 and 2008. James Daly of Kinvara, Woodleigh Park, Model Farm Road in Co Cork pleaded guilty at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. He was working independently as a tax consultant and financial advisor.

The judge hearing the case said that while Mr Daly had pleaded guilty, saving a trial, there had been an absence of co-operation with Revenue and there had been no expression of remorse.

During the Revenue investigation, Mr Daly was due to meet a Revenue tax inspector for a meeting, which he then cancelled by text. He then left the jurisdiction and a European arrest warrant was obtained to bring him back from Spain.

TLC Homecare and Healthcare Ltd, which is now in liquidation and based in Dooradoyle, Co Limerick, was hit with a 635,000 settlement for the under-declaration of VAT. That included 383,000 in tax, 138,000 in interest, and 114,000 in penalties. The company, whose directors are John Morris Gordon Luke and Therese Begley Luke, entered liquidation in 2018.

The company employed about 100 people and provided homecare, nursing and social care staff to University Hospital Limerick and other clients.

Sean McKeon, a builder of Drumna, Cloone in Co Leitrim, made a 379,000 settlement related to the under-declaration of VAT.

The Revenue Commissioners said that of the 35 settlement cases in the first quarter of the year, the amount yielded was just over 6m.

In 12 of those cases, the amounts owed had not been fully paid as of the end of March.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle continue to receive massive warnings about their safety and security ever since they relocated to Los Angeles.

Although it has been months since Prince Harry and Meghan left the royal family in pursuit of providing their family safety and privacy, more royal family news surface about the challenges and dangers they are facing as they settle in Los Angeles.

In fact, even the former royal protection officer Simon Morgan shared the same sentiments and revealed that Los Angeles cannot promise the privacy that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex want.

On June 4, Morgan appeared on Us Weekly's Royally Us podcast where he explained how the royal couple's interaction with people -- both ordinary ones and celebrities -- can potentially become a threat in ensuring their family's safety and security.

"The more you withdraw, the more people want to know what you're up to. There just becomes that fascination," the former royal protection officer explained.

He added that it is up to Prince Harry and Meghan whether they will control the amount of media coverage or not. However, for Meghan who is finding her Hollywood spotlight again, seeing paparazzi around them will be a usual scene.

Morgan then mentioned how Prince Harry, considering the fact that he will always bear the British royal family's bloodline, will always draw fascination despite giving up his senior royal position.

Because of these, the Sussexes' new security team now has the burden to help them try live a normal life amid all the potential dangers surrounding them.

"They were very much [in] a secure environment where they were, you know, they had kind of a regular routine and a footprint kind of there and obviously various levels of support or be, it, kind of was a withdrawal," Morgan explained. "But then, you know, to make the move to L.A. kind of puts you very much in the spotlight."

In the end, he left another warning for the royal couple, saying that living their life in Hollywood requires them to have a 24/7 security team around them.

Even though the Sussexe do not regret relocating to LA, Morgan expressed his belief that the number of threats they are receiving surprised them. Also, he mentioned it was never an ideal choice -- from a protection's perspective -- to give up royal security for a life in America.

Unlike when they were senior members of The Firm, neither Prince Harry nor Meghan will be able to experience a 24/7 security, as their newly hired team will focus more on minimizing the risks rather than getting rid of it.

Morgan Unrolled MORE Warnings

Previously, Morgan also sat down for an interview with Insider. He acknowledged that Gavin de Becker is a well-known security for A-listers, but it does not fully guarantee the Sussexes' safety.

"They will operate slightly differently from what the Sussexes would have been previously used to. They aren't operating on an official level, and therefore they won't have all of the assistance you would usually get when protecting senior members of the royal family," Morgan explained.

Though the security team has also been reportedly handpicked by the former chief of security of President Ronald Reagan, both the team and the Sussexes will undergo massive change -- especially Prince Harry.
An ad campaign has been launched across social networks, encouraging residents of southern Ukraine, especially the area of Bessarabia, to acquire Russian, Romanian, and Moldovan citizenship.

Russian intelligence efforts are aiming at destabilizing Ukraine's southern regions, says Head of the Center for Defense Reforms, Oleksandr Danylyuk.

Locals are called for acquiring citizenship of neighboring states, which in turn creates prerequisites for the secession of a number of territories from Ukraine, Guildhall reports citing the expert.

"As part of active measures aimed at destabilizing Ukraine and further secession of its regions, Russian special services have launched an ad campaign across social networks toward encouraging residents of southern Ukraine, especially Bessarabia, to obtain Russian, Romanian and Moldovan citizenship," Danylyuk said.

"To this end, the Russians set up in Moldova a front organization, which consults and assists citizens of Ukraine in obtaining another citizenship. Most likely, the operation will be accompanied by attempts to aggravate Ukrainian-Romanian relations," he said.

"In 2014, Russian intelligence agencies already made an attempt to set up a terrorist organization 'Bessarabian People's Republic' in the west of Odesa region," Danylyuk said.

Read alsoUkraine, Bulgaria find common language on national minority issue amid ongoing administrative reform

"As reported earlier, former MP and ex-member of the Yanukovych-era Party of Regions Anton Kisse was one of the promoters of a disinformation campaign targeting Bulgarian political elite on the alleged division of territories in Ukraine's Odesa region where ethnic Bulgarians reside, which led to some tensions in Ukrainian-Bulgarian relations," Guildhall notes.

"Earlier, Anton Kisse proposed to divide Odesa region, in fact creating the prerequisites for further intensification of activity of the illegal terrorist formation "Bessarabian People's Republic," the report reads.
The way in which American big-tech companies have led global equity markets out of the stock market wipeout of the early days of the pandemic is remarkable.

Britain may not have a Tesla or an Amazon but it is reassuring that UK start-ups are attracting big inward investment and more established quoted firms are having a good war.

Ocado is among the biggest winners and its use of artificial intelligence and robotics sets it apart from other grocers.

Robogrocer: Ocado is among the biggest winners and its use of artificial intelligence and robotics sets it apart from other online supermarkets

Beneath the radar there are other tech firms which are defying gravity, providing confidence that when this crisis is over it is not all doom and gloom for UK plc.

Latest results from Oxford Instruments, an early spin-out from Oxford University, are a case in point. The year ending in March 2020 was better than expected, with profits 5 per cent) higher than forecast.

The post-lockdown order book for the first two months looks robust, with Asia up 19 per cent), offsetting the collapse in the EU (down 23 per cent) and declines in the US. Semi-conductor growth is outpacing demand for precision scientific optical products.

Also doing well is French-controlled electronics group Aveva. It is not to be confused with insurer Aviva, French nuclear experts Areva, transport outfit Arriva, Israeli cosmetics brand Ahava or Aviva Vodka.

Before-tax profits at Aveva doubled in the last year as the firm rode a digitalisation boom. No-nonsense chief executive Craig Hayman is confident that it can expand through the pandemic.

Just as encouraging is data put together by Tech Nation and other industry groups, showing that in January to May of this year, London attracted 4.2billion of new funding.

That is more than rival tech cities Paris, Stockholm, Berlin and Tel Aviv combined.

The post-financial crisis period saw an upsurge in UK start-ups and Tech Nation is expecting the sector to emerge strongly from Covid-19.

It will get some help from Whitehall initiatives such as the just-launched Future Fund of 250million of matching resources.

This will run in parallel with an initiative from the Department for International Trade to bolster digital trade with Asia-Pacific countries  less so, China!

Terrific that the Government is acting. But the sums that are involved are distinctly sub-octane.

French airlift

Picking winners is something UK governments have striven to avoid. When it comes to world-beating bits of the UK economy aerospace, the creative sector, banks (bailed-out in the financial crisis) and even research universities  there is no case for the Government to sit on its hands.

A dirigiste French government shows no hesitation in coming to the rescue of aerospace. It is piling 13.3billion into the sector.

The largest chunk is 6.25billion for Air France. This is the unfair competition which Michael O'Leary of Ryanair is belly-aching about at every opportunity.

Several carriers, including O'Leary's, BA and Easyjet, have been given access to the Bank of England's cheapo credit commercial paper facility.

More critical is the rest of the French package, which includes a fund of up to 893million, targeted at medium-sized players in the aerospace supply chain.

There is 267million to assist updating factories and a whopping 1.3billion over three years to support R&D in the sector.

If that kind of new cash were forthcoming in the UK, then Rolls-Royce might not find itself having to shed 9,000 jobs in rapid time.

Some French funding could indirectly find its way into the UK via Airbus suppliers among other things.

Britain should not look at the French interventions as unfair competition. Instead, it should regard them as a good reason to dig deep to maintain the UK's technological edge.

Tobacco road

For many investment funds British American Tobacco (BAT) is beyond the pale.

Selling killer tobacco products to emerging market countries breaks all the ethical rules even though there are claims that smokers do better with Covid-19.

The alleged benefits in the pandemic have not been enough to inoculate BAT against lockdowns and the closure of South Africa to its products.

Still, for those willing to defy the ethical and woke tendency there is nothing like a handsome dividend, maintained at 65 per cent of earnings, for cheer in a payout wasteland.
Indian and Chinese military commanders on Wednesday held "productive" talks to end the border standoff in eastern Ladakh, a day after initiating a limited disengagement of troops from a number of friction points in the high altitude region, people familiar with the development said.

In the over four-and-half-hour Major General-level dialogue, the Indian delegation pressed for total restoration of status quo ante and immediate withdrawal of thousands of Chinese troops from the areas including around Pangong Tso which India considers on its side of the Line of Actual Control, they said.

"The talks were productive as both sides exchanged views in a positive atmosphere. Both the armies are committed to end the row through talks," a senior military official said without elaborating.

The talks came a day after the two armies began a limited disengagement in a few areas in Galwan Valley and Hot Spring in a demonstration of their intent to ease tension along the LAC, the de-facto border between the two countries.

"The Indian side put across their views clearly. The Chinese side too explained their position," the official said on condition of anonymity.

It is learnt that the two sides remained engaged in an aggressive posturing in areas such as Pangong Tso, Daulat Beg Oldie and Demchok though some troops were pulled back from Galwan and Hot Spring.

Military sources on Tuesday said the two armies began "disengagement" around patrolling points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and another in the Hot Spring area, adding the Chinese side has even moved back up to 1.5 km in the two areas.

Indian and Chinese troops were in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation since May 5 following a violent clash on the bank of Pangong lake.

Asked about the disengagement, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters in Beijing that Indian and Chinese troops have started implementing the "positive consensus" reached by the senior military officials of the two countries on June 6.

"Recently the diplomatic and military channels of China and India held effective communication on the situation along the border and reached positive consensus," the spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said.

In their first serious efforts to end the row, Lt General Harinder Singh, the general officer commanding of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Commander of the Tibet Military District Maj Gen Liu Lin held a nearly seven-hour meeting on June 6.

In the next one week, the field commanders of the two sides are slated to hold a series of meetings to discuss specific measures to defuse the tension.

The Major General-level talks took place on the Indian side of the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

Saturday's talks came a day after the two countries held diplomatic parleys during which both sides agreed to handle their "differences" through peaceful discussions while respecting each other's sensitivities and concerns.

In a statement, India's external affairs ministry had on Sunday said that the the meeting took place in a "cordial and positive atmosphere" and that both sides agreed that an "early resolution" of the issue would contribute to the further development of the relationship between the two countries.

After the standoff began in early last month, Indian military leadership decided that Indian troops will adopt a firm approach in dealing with the aggressive posturing by the Chinese troops in all disputed areas of Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie.

The Chinese Army has been gradually ramping up its strategic reserves in its rear bases near the the Line of Actual Control by rushing in artillery guns, infantry combat vehicles and heavy military equipment, the sources said.

The trigger for the face-off was China's stiff opposition to India laying a key road in the Finger area around the Pangong Tso Lake besides construction of another road connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley.

The road in the Finger area in Pangong Tso is considered crucial for India to carry out patrol. India has already decided not to stall any border infrastructure projects in eastern Ladakh in view of Chinese protests.

The situation in the area deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on May 5 and 6. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it.

Both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

In their historic informal summit in Chinese city of Wuhan in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping underscored the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity in all areas of the India-China border region in the interest of the development of bilateral relations.

The summit had taken place months after a 73-day military face-off between the two armies in Doklam that raised fears of a war between the two Asian giants.

In their talks on June 6, both sides agreed to follow the broad decisions taken by Modi and Xi in the Wuhan summit to ensure peace and tranquillity along the LAC.
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Lennie Niehaus, who became well known as an alto saxophonist and arranger for the jazz bandleader Stan Kenton in the 1950s before turning to a career as a composer of film scores, notably for Clint Eastwood movies like Bird and Unforgiven, died on May 28 at his daughters home in Redlands, in Southern California. He was 90.

His son-in-law, Owen Sheeran, said the cause was probably heart-related.

Mr. Niehaus had been with the Kenton band for several months when he was drafted into the Army in 1952. He played in the base band at Fort Ord in Northern California and in a quartet that performed at noncommissioned officers clubs where Mr. Eastwood, a jazz lover, was a regular.

He returned to Kentons band in 1954 and remained until 1959, but he did not reconnect with Mr. Eastwood until the 1970s. By then, Mr. Niehaus was orchestrating scores for the composer Jerry Fielding, including some for movies starring Mr. Eastwood, including The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).

Eight years later, Mr. Niehaus wrote the score for Tightrope, a murder mystery set in New Orleans that Mr. Eastwood produced and starred in as a police officer.
[June 10, 2020] Apstra's Jeff Doyle Releases First Intent-Based Networking for Dummies Book New book provides a roadmap for companies developing an intent-based networking architectural framework, empowering organizations to transform all aspects of the network MENLO PARK, Calif., June 10, 2020 /CNW/ -- Jeff Doyle, Member of Technical Staff at Apstra , the pioneer of intent-based networking and multinational software company automating the data center network, today published his first Intent-Based Networking for Dummies book. The book provides a roadmap for companies developing an intent-based networking (IBN) architectural framework and empowers organizations to transform network architecture and operations with IBN. "In recent years, intent-based networking has become a hot buzzword that many organizations aim to implement, but that few truly understand," said Jeff Doyle, Member of Technical Staff at Apstra and author of Intent-Based Networking for Dummies. "With this book, we strive to shed light on what IBN really is, what makes a solid blueprint for implementation, and where the technology fits into one's digital transformation efforts." Intent-based networking, which Doyle describes in his book, is a key element to the success of digital transformation. However, too many organizations lack the resources to understand how to implement its architectur and leverage its benefits to support digital transformation endeavors. From specific use cases to deployment strategies, the book offers unparalleled insight into transforming and operating networks by supporting rapid, at-scale changes, making the network more autonomic throughout its life cycle, and providing up-to-date insights into the network. "Organizations that don't adjust their operational practices are three times more likely to fail in their digital business transformation," said Mansour Karam, President and Founder of Apstra. "At Apstra, we provide our customers with the support necessary to adjust operational practices and implement intent-based networking to create an agile network that promotes change. Our hope is that this book equips organizations of all types with the knowledge they need to take the first steps toward this transformation." With more than 30 years of experience specializing in IBN, IP routing protocols, complex BGP policy, SDN/NFV, and data center fabrics, Doyle has designed or assisted in the design of large-scale IP and IPv6 service provider networks in 26 countries over six continents. Doyle has served as the go-to author for software-defined networking, penning books such as CCIE Professional Development: Routing TCP/IP, Volumes I and II; OSPF and IS-IS: Choosing an IGP for Large-Scale Networks; and Software-Defined Networking: Anatomy of OpenFlow. Doyle takes readers deeper into the reality of IBN. Specific topics include:

The fundamental characteristics of intent-based networking

Planning for a successful intent-based networking architecture

Extracting actionable insights with intent-based analytics

The importance of continual automation and validation in operations

How to rapidly deploy complex architectures and ensure their success beyond the implementation phase Apstra is the leading intent-based networking company, helping customers reduce the time to reliably deliver infrastructure services while addressing the operational challenges once the infrastructure is deployed. Apstra's IBN services facilitate a more proficient, cost-effective, and agile network, freeing up valuable resources to focus on business initiatives. Apstra was built by architects and operators, for architects and operators. Download a copy of Intent-Based Networking for Dummies, https://go.apstra.com/en/intent-based-networking-for-dummies . Learn more about Apstra and how to leverage intent-based networking, visit apstra.com . About Apstra, Inc

Apstra is a multinational software company delivering a unified solution to automate the architecture and operations of the data center network. Apstra's flagship product, AOS, empowers organizations to automate all aspects of designing, building, deploying, and operating their networks, enabling them to make changes to their networks quickly and reliably, while making efficient use of human capital and ridding themselves of hardware vendor lock-in. Organizations using AOS have seen a more than 80 percent reduction in OpEx, 99 percent improvement in agility, and more than 70 percent improvements in reliability. AOS uses Apstra's advanced intent-based analytics to continually validate the network, thereby eliminating complexity, vulnerabilities, and outages resulting in a secure and resilient network. Apstra, founded in 2014 by established and proven networking industry leaders David Cheriton, Mansour Karam, and Sasha Ratkovic, is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with offices worldwide. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/apstras-jeff-doyle-releases-first-intent-based-networking-for-dummies-book-301073355.html SOURCE Apstra

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China Aviation Daily | Jun. 10, 2020

At 09:09 AM June 5 local time, a China Eastern Airlines (CEA) "passenger to cargo "flight MU7263 took off from Jinan to Milan fully loaded with over 20 tons of supplies. This is CEA's 22th flight transporting medical equipment directly from China to Italy.

CEA performed 300 cargo flights per week recently. As of May, CEA performed accumulatively 4,000 flights involved in humanitarian and relief missions, carried 23,000 medical personnel and transported 10,000 tons of medical supplies among 20 countries across the globe.

Helps Stabilize Global Supply Chain

On March 12, CEA brought 9 Chinese medical experts and 9 tons of supplies to Rome, which is the first international aiding flight received by Italy. Up to now, 3 groups of medical experts and 200 tons of medical supplies have been delivered to Italy by CEA.

CEA is leading to use "passenger to cargo" planes for global medical supplies. CEA has transformed 14 A330 passenger planes by removing seats; consequently the original 90 square meters space is doubled. As the main type of plane model on the route between Europe and China, the modified A330 planes play a more important role during the special time. CEA transported 2,000 tons of medical supplies to Europe, connecting lives between China and over 20 cities in Europe.

When it comes to stabilizing global supply chain, CEA service is not limited to transporting capacity but covers comprehensive one-stop logistics supply service, including land transportation, airport service and customs clearance.

Methodically Passenger Service and Employee Protection

Pushing the time to February, CEA Europe Marketing Center has been working around the clock to coordinate with all the European airports, refund tickets and redesign travel routes for passengers. At the busiest time, Europe call center handled more than 4,000 emails and a sea of consultation calls in just one weekend.

In terms of employee protection, CEA has timely issued guidelines on internal work environment, daily prevention requirements and care measures for 100 thousand employees, especially for the people in Europe who stand out in the busiest frontline. The preliminary preparations have played an essential role in handling the following hard time.

Resting at home, CEA 's European employees did not forget about people around. Giada Pulcinelli, an Italian flight attendant, helped neighbors with limited mobility to purchase necessary supplies; initiated a public welfare fundraising to provide food for people. She keeps online learning for the best professional status to gets ready to the sky at anytime.

Headquartered in Shanghai, CEA is one of China's three major airlines with 18 subsidiary companies and 109 sales offices worldwide. After 63 years of development, CEA 's fleet has reached more than 750 aircrafts with an average age of 6.4 years. As a SkyTeam member, CEA's route network reaches more than 170 countries and 1,036 destinations, serving more than 130 million passengers worldwide each year, and the passenger traffic ranks among the top 10 in the world. In June 2016, CEA has opened four European routes in a week consecutively.
COVID-19 infections in Africa reach 203,899, with more than 5,500 related deaths recorded across the continent.

The global economy is set to contract by 6 percent in 2020, according to the OECD.

India recorded 9,985 cases in one day and 274 deaths, as the country emerges from a two-month lockdown.

Concerns are growing about a second wave of coronavirus infections in the US, with 22 states reporting weekly increases in coronavirus cases.

China has dismissed as ridiculous a Harvard Medical School study that suggested the coronavirus could have been circulating in Wuhan as early as August. Scientists have also said it offers no convincing evidence of when the outbreak began.

Nearly 7.2 million people have now been confirmed to have the coronavirus and nearly 409,000 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil have recorded the highest death tolls. The US, Brazil and Russia have the most cases.

Here are the latest updates:

Wednesday, June 10

23:08 GMT  Brazil starts reopening even as coronavirus cases surge

Brazils most populous state Sao Paulo reported a record number of COVID-19 deaths for the second day running on Wednesday even as its homonymous metropolis allowed shops to resume business and prepared to reopen its malls.

The state, the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil, recorded 340 new deaths in the last 24 hours, raising its confirmed death toll to 9,862, a fourth of the countrys total fatalities, the governors office said.

That did not stop shoppers flocking to the 25 de Marco shopping district in Sao Paulo city, where around half of the businesses were open on Wednesday. Although stores considered essential, such as supermarkets and pharmacies, have remained open, most shops in Sao Paulo have been shut since March.

The decisions to reopen shops has been advocated by Brazils far-right President Jair Bolsonaro who has minimised the gravity of the coronavirus outbreak and dismissed warnings by public health experts that the contagion is still surging.

Brazil has 772,416 confirmed cases of infection, as the worlds worst outbreak after the United States continues to surge. At least 39,680 people have died, the third highest death toll after the United States and Britain.

20:50 GMT  Rio de Janeiro governor faces impeachment proceedings over graft investigations

A majority of the assembly members of the Rio de Janeiro state legislature voted to start impeachment proceedings against Governor Wilson Witzel for alleged graft.

Witzel faces 14 impeachment motions in the state assembly, the majority based on investigations of suspected overpricing on purchases of ventilators and other medical supplies to fight the COVID-19 outbreak.

20:44 GMT  Brazils biggest cities start reopening as COVID-19 surges

Brazils most populous state Sao Paulo reported a record number of COVID-19 deaths for the second day running even as its metropolis allowed shops to resume business and prepared to reopen its malls.

Sao Paulo, the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil, recorded 340 new deaths in the last 24 hours, raising the states confirmed death toll to 9,862, a fourth of the countrys total fatalities, the governors office said.

Brazil has 739,503 confirmed cases of infection, the worlds worst outbreak after the United States, and has suffered from at least 38,406 deaths.

A man wearing a face mask walks in front of a shuttered shop with a For Lease sign in downtown Sao Paulo during the fist day of commerce opening [Miguel Schincariol/Getty Images]

20:32 GMT  Lufthansa says up to 26,000 employees at risk of losing jobs

Lufthansa admitted that the positions of up to 26,000 employees are surplus to requirements, suggesting many more jobs will be cut at the German carrier than a figure of more than 10,000 flagged a few weeks ago.

Speaking after a meeting with trade unions, a Lufthansa spokeswoman said the airline estimates that it has a surplus of 22,000 full-time equivalent positions or 26,000 employees.

Lufthansa last week pledged a wide-ranging restructuring, from thousands of job cuts to asset sales, as it seeks to repay a 9bn euro ($10.26bn) state bailout and navigate deepening losses in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

It said then that job cuts would be significantly more than the 10,000 figure it had previously estimated.





18:10 GMT  New deaths in France sharply down, but cases rise

Frances new death toll from COVID-19 was only one-third of the tally the day before but the total of new confirmed infections rose again, one month out of a strict lockdown.

The health ministry said the death toll was up by only 23  versus an average daily increase of 53 over the previous 15 days  to 29,319, the fifth-highest total in the world. On Tuesday, 87 COVID-19 deaths were reported.

But the number of new confirmed cases was 545; that figure had stayed below the 500 threshold during the previous three days. Over the last 15 days France has reported a daily average of 639 new confirmed cases.

17:54 GMT  Italy PM says prosecutors to question him over virus response

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he will be questioned by prosecutors on Friday over the way the coronavirus outbreak was handled in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, one of the areas most badly affected by the epidemic.

I am not at all worried, Conte told reporters outside the prime ministers office in Rome. We will speak on Friday and I will pass on all the facts I am aware of, he said, adding that he was not under investigation himself.

The prosecutors are looking into why badly hit areas around Bergamo were not closed down early in the outbreak, and have already questioned the regional governor of Lombardy, which includes Bergamo, and Lombardys health chief.

16:59 GMT  UKs Johnson says lockdown led by scientific evidence after timing criticised

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the decision on the timing of the coronavirus lockdown was made on the basis of scientific evidence and it was too early to say whether restrictions were brought in too late.

Earlier on Wednesday, Neil Ferguson, a former member of the governments Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said Britains death toll from COVID-19 could have been halved if lockdown had been introduced a week earlier.

We made the decisions at the time on the guidance of SAGE, including Professor Ferguson, that we thought were right for this country, Johnson said.

Of course weve got to learn lessons, but I just think that it is at this stage premature, theres still too much that we dont know.

16:17 GMT  Impact of seasons on coronavirus unclear, WHOs Ryan says

It is unclear how the arrival of winter in the southern hemisphere will impact the novel coronavirus, the head of the World Health Organizations emergencies programme Mike Ryan said.

We dont know how the coronavirus is going to be, Ryan said during a virtual press conference. Right now, we have no data to suggest that the virus will behave more aggressively or transmit more efficiently or not, Ryan said, adding that the impact of summers arrival in the northern hemisphere was also unclear.

We cannot rely on an expectation that the season or the temperature will be the answer to (the diseases spread), he said.

16:04 GMT  Italy reports 71 deaths, 202 new cases

Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 71, against 79 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new cases fell to 202 from 283 on Tuesday.

The total death toll now stands at 34,114, the agency said, the fourth highest in the world after those of the United States, Britain and Brazil.

The number of confirmed cases amounts to 235,763, the seventh highest global tally behind those of the United States, Russia, Brazil, Spain, Britain and India.

Workers applaud to thank health workers for their battle against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) before their restaurants reopening on the waterfront in Naples, as Italy eases some of the lockdown measures [Ciro De Luca/Reuters]

15:08 GMT  Nobel winner Mukwege quits local DR Congo virus team over problems

Nobel winner Denis Mukwege said he had resigned as head of a coronavirus taskforce in an eastern province of DR Congo, blaming organisational problems, outpaced strategy and slow testing.

In a statement, he said there had been weaknesses in organisation and clarity between the various teams in charge of the response to the pandemic in South Kivu.

We are at the start of an exponential  curve [in infections] and we can no longer apply a strategy that would be purely preventive, Mukwege said.

I have decided to resign  in order to devote myself entirely to my medical duties and to treat the influx of patients at Panzi hospital.

15:07 GMT  Guatemala says returns of its nationals restarting from US

Guatemalas foreign ministry said the country will begin receiving flights of Guatemalan migrants returned from the United States twice a week after they were suspended during the coronavirus health emergency.

Were informing you that this week we will receive two flights of returned nationals. They will be smaller groups of approximately 50 people, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Patricia Letona.

14:42 GMT  Poland to open EU borders on Saturday, PM says

Poland will open its borders with fellow European Union countries on Saturday and allow international flights from next Tuesday, the prime minister said, as the country unfreezes its economy despite an increase in coronavirus cases.

Poland closed its borders to foreigners in March to stop the spread of the coronavirus. However, it has been progressively loosening restictions on public life, with shopping centres, hotels and restaurants all reopening in May.

In some countriesthis pandemic is still behaving in a very disturbing way, so for now we limit this decision [opening borders] to European Union countries, Morawiecki said.

This doctor in New Jersey made a mobile COVID-19 testing station to reach areas that have been forgotten. pic.twitter.com/JgiVivaEQd  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 10, 2020

14:39 GMT  Italian prosecutors to question PM over handling of virus: sources

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the countrys health and interior ministers are to be questioned by prosecutors looking into how the government handled the pandemic, news agencies reported.

Sources close to the probe were cited as saying Conte, Health Minister Roberto Speranza and Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese would be asked in particular about the failure to designate hotspot areas so-called red zones, allowing the virus to spread.

14:26 GMT  France to see 800,000 job losses in coming months: minister

France is likely to suffer 800,000 job losses in coming months, the finance minister warned, as the economy reels from the effects of a lockdown.

Our evaluation is that 800,000 jobs will be lost in the coming months, or 2.8 percent of total employment, Bruno Le Maire told a finance committee in parliament.

The shock is considerable and calls for massive public policies to support and accompany all those affected, Le Maire said.

Such measures include the furlough scheme, tax breaks for companies and financial incentives to hire apprentices, he said.

France has recorded over 192,000 cases with nearly 30,000 deaths [File: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters]

14:23 GMT  Major League Soccer to restart season on July 8

Major League Soccer will restart the season on July 8, after being shut down for almost three months by the outbreak, by staging a tournament without fans at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, it said.

We are pleased to team up with Disney to relaunch the 2020 MLS season and get back to playing soccer, MLS Commissioner Don Garber added in a statement.

The opportunity to have all 26 clubs in a controlled environment enables us to help protect the health of our players, coaches and staff as we return to play.

All 26 clubs will take part in what is being billed as the MLS is Back Tournament that will run until Aug. 11.

14:19 GMT  Cases in Africa top 200,000

The number of COVID-19 cases in Africa has reached 202,782, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

According to the latest data, 5,516 fatalities have been recorded in 54 countries so far, while recoveries have increased to 90,779.

The total number of active cases on the continent now stands at 106,487, Africa CDC said.

14:06 GMT  Bank of Englands Bailey sees some signs of recovery

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said he could see some early signs of an economic recovery in Britain as the governments lockdown restrictions are lifted, but warned there was still likely to be long-term damage.

If there is any such thing as a normal recession  this one will be different. There will be elements of a faster recovery, because the first stage of the recovery is literally lifting restrictions and allowing people to go out, he said.

And we see  evidence of elements of that recovery starting, he added at a panel discussion hosted by the World Economic Forum.

Hello, this is Farah Najjar taking over from my colleague Usaid Siddiqui.

12:53 GMT  Olympic Games will not be done with splendour  Tokyo 2020 CEO

Toshiro Muto, the CEO of Tokyo 2020, said the rearranged Olympics Games will not be done with grand splendour, but will be simplified.

The Games, originally scheduled to start next month, were postponed for a year in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.





12:40 GMT  Sri Lanka to hold virus-delayed polls in August

Sri Lanka will hold parliamentary elections on August 5, more than three months late because of the coronavirus, the election commission said on Wednesday after health authorities gave their approval.

The island nation has been steadily lifting lockdown restrictions, although a night-time curfew remains. Schools will reopen later this month and foreign tourists will be allowed in from August 1.

A mock election will be held this weekend to test new health measures that will be implemented at polling booths and counting centres, commission chairman Mahinda Deshapriya said.

12:20 GMT  How Afghan refugees are helping Turkey fight coronavirus

Afghan refugees are contributing to Turkeys fight against the coronavirus, producing soap and 1,000 face masks a day to protect people from the pandemic.

A group of about 12 refugees living in the Turkish city of Kayseri have teamed up with local volunteers to produce and deliver these essential supplies to state hospitals, migrant health centres and local NGOs.

Read more here.

A group of Afghan refugees working on the face masks [Photo courtesy: Afghan Refugees Solidarity Association (ARSA)]

11:59 GMT  Europe to accelerate trials of gene-engineered COVID-19 vaccines: Sources

European officials aim to speed up trials for coronavirus vaccines containing genetically modified organisms, two EU sources told Reuters News Agency, in a move that could help vaccines developed by companies like AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

The European Commission is expected to put forward the plans as early as next week. They are part of a wider EU strategy aimed at securing enough doses of a possible vaccine for the bloc as it fears lagging behind the United States and China.

The reform is expected to reduce member states power to impose extra requirements on drug companies when they conduct clinical trials on medicines and vaccines containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs), according to the sources.









11:38 GMT  Austria lifting checks at Italian border and for most EU arrivals

Austria is lifting checks at its border with Italy and ending quarantine requirements for more than 20 European countries as of June 16, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said.

The western European nation draws many of its visitors from neighbouring Germany, with which it has already reopened its border, so the move will have a greater effect on Austrians, who will be able to return from summer destinations like Italy and Croatia without having to go into quarantine or show a negative test.

11:17 GMT  UK must be able to raise Hong Kong, COVID-19 issues with China, says Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK must able to speak out about serious concerns about the origins of COVID-19, Hong Kong and the countrys critical national infrastructure with China.

We must feel absolutely free to raise those issues loud and clear with Beijing and thats what we will continue to do, Johnson told Parliament.

10:55 GMT  Virus pummels global economy, jobs  even without second wave

The virus crisis has triggered the worst global recession in nearly a century  and the pain is not over yet even if there is no second wave of infections, an international economic report has warned.

Hundreds of millions of people have lost their jobs, and the crisis is hitting the poor and young people the hardest, worsening inequalities, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in its latest analysis of global economic data.

It is probably the most uncertain and dramatic outlook since the creation of the OECD, Secretary-General Angel Gurria said, adding that OECD could not make projections as we normally do.

10:35 GMT  Decades of debt: UKs finance chief told to make gradual pay-offs

United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is being asked by members of the ruling Conservative party to take his time to pay off the record debt the country is racking up as it tries to weather the coronavirus pandemic. By that, they mean decades.

With the economy on course for its deepest recession for at least a century, the government is now paying the wages of more than 10 million workers to stave off mass unemployment.

Read more here.





10:15 GMT  Avoiding Australia: Economic pain if Chinese students stay away

Australias economy, facing its first recession in 30 years because of the coronavirus, would suffer if Chinese students heeded a warning from their government to stay away because of racist incidents, Australias trade minister said.

International education is Australias fourth-largest foreign exchange earner, worth 38 billion Australian dollars ($26bn) annually, and more critical to the economy than beef or barley, products hit with Chinese import bans and tariffs last month.

Read more here.

09:55 GMT  Pope expresses concern about children in poverty amid virus

Pope Francis has appealed for help to protect children who are being forced to work to help their families living in extreme poverty during the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking from the Papal library at the Vatican during his weekly audience, the Pope said in some circumstances this amounted to child slavery or imprisonment.

Pausing from his prepared text, the Pope added: We are all responsible for this.

There have been 12 cases of COVID-19 among the employees and residents of the small Vatican city-state.

09:40 GMT  Denmark sees no rise in COVID-19 cases after further easing of lockdown

Denmark, the first country outside Asia to ease its coronavirus lockdown, said the spread of COVID-19 has not accelerated since it entered its second phase of reopening society last month.

The Nordic country allowed restaurants, cafes and malls to resume business during May in the second phase of easing lockdown restrictions. In April, it had allowed daycare centres, schools, hairdressers and some small businesses to reopen.

The level of contagion in society is still very low, the Danish health authority said in a report on Wednesday, adding that the number of confirmed new infections had continued to fall despite more tests being carried out.





09:18 GMT  Pangolin removed from list of traditional medicines in China

China has removed the pangolin from a list of traditional medicines as it heightens protections for the endangered scale-covered mammals.

The pangolin has been excluded from the official Chinese Pharmacopoeia list this year, along with other substances including pills containing bat faeces, the state-owned publication The Paper reported on Tuesday.

The mammal is thought by some scientists to have been the intermediary host for the new coronavirus, which was first discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

08:55 GMT  Potential COVID-19 vaccine from China shows promise in animal tests

A potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Chinese researchers showed promise in trials in monkeys, triggering antibodies and raising no safety issues, researchers have said, and a human trial with more than 1,000 participants is under way.

The vaccine candidate, called BBIBP-CorV, induced high-level neutralising antibodies that can block the virus from infecting cells in monkeys, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits, researchers said in a paper published in online by the medical journal Cell on Saturday.

08:35 GMT  Malaysia to reopen schools in stages from June 24: Minister

Malaysia will begin reopening schools from June 24, its education minister said on Wednesday, as the country enters recovery mode after three months of strict curbs on movement and businesses to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Southeast Asias third-largest economy began lifting most coronavirus restrictions from Wednesday, after the government declared that the outbreak was under control.

08:15 GMT  Africas coronavirus cases have surpassed 200,000.

Coronavirus cases in Africa have topped 200,000, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 54-nation continent has 202,782 reported cases and 5,516 related deaths.

While Africa still represents a tiny percentage of the worlds total COVID-19 cases, well under 5 percent, officials in South Africa and elsewhere have expressed concern as the number of infections continues to climb.

South Africa leads the continent with 52,991 cases, with almost two-thirds of them in the Western Cape province centred on the city of Cape Town.

South Africa leads the continent with 52,991 cases [Dorion Alexander/Al Jazeera]

07:55 GMT  Turkish unemployment falls to 13.2 percent in Feb-April despite coronavirus

Turkeys unemployment rate fell to 13.2 percent in the February-April period from 13.6 percent a month earlier, data showed, falling despite an economic slowdown driven by measures to counter the coronavirus outbreak.

The government imposed a three-month ban on layoffs in April to mitigate the effect of the pandemic and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday the government had prepared a comprehensive package to boost employment.

The unemployment rate stood at 14.1 percent in the same period last year.

07:45 GMT  US says consulate in Chinas Wuhan to reopen in near future

The United States will soon resume operations at its consulate in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus outbreak began late last year, the US embassy has said.

The US ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, intends to resume operations in Wuhan in the near future, Frank Whitaker, minister counsellor for Public Affairs at the embassy, said in an email to Reuters, without giving a specific date.

The US State Department withdrew consulate staff and their families in late January after the Chinese government put the city under lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.

07:20 GMT  Bulgaria extends epidemic emergency until end of June

Bulgaria will extend the epidemic emergency until the end of June to fight the spread of the coronavirus after an increase in new registered cases, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has said.

The Balkan country has eased most of the restrictive measures it imposed in the middle of March, allowing restaurants and shopping malls to reopen.

Borissov said the government did not plan to introduce new restrictions for the time being but appealed to people to keep social distancing [File: Dimitar Kyosemarliev/Reuters]

06:50 GMT  Hairdressers, beauty salons reopen in Malaysia

Malaysia reopened nearly all economic and social activities on Wednesday after nearly three months of lockdown successfully brought down virus infections.

Malaysians can now travel for domestic holidays, get their hair cut and visit street markets, while schools and religious activities will gradually resume.

Night clubs, pubs, karaoke, theme parks and reflexology centres will stay shut during the recovery period.

Contact sports or those that involve many spectators such as football, and activities involving mass groups, are still banned.

Malaysia has recorded 8,336 infections and 117 deaths [File: Mohd Rasfan/AFP]

06:30 GMT  Applications for asylum in EU plummet during pandemic

Asylum applications in Europe fell to the lowest level in April in more than 10 years as borders closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, European Union figures show, compounding the challenges of people fleeing conflict and persecution.

The number of asylum applications declined to 8,730 during April, an 86 percent drop from 61,421 in February, according to figures obtained by Reuters from the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

The EU had shut its external borders in March and many of its 27 member states suspended the registration of applications.

06:11 GMT  India surge continues with nearly 10,000 cases

The number of coronavirus cases in India continued to rapidly increase on Wednesday, with officials reporting nearly 10,000 new cases over the past 24 hours.

The spike has come as the government moves forward with reopening restaurants, shopping malls and religious places in most of its states after a more than two-month-old lockdown.

The government has already partially restored train services and domestic flights and allowed shops and manufacturing to reopen. Subways, hotels and schools and colleges, however, remain shuttered nationwide.

The Health Ministry on Wednesday reported a 24-hour increase of 9,985 cases and 274 deaths. India has recorded 276,583 positive cases, the fifth highest in the world, and 7,745 deaths.

Hello, this is Usaid Siddiqui in Doha taking over from my colleague Kate Mayberry

06:00 GMT 

Im now handing over the blog to my colleagues in Doha. A quick update on developments over the past few hours  The US appears to be facing the risk of a second wave of infections, Brazil has restored its coronavirus data after a political storm and a court order, and Mexico and Argentina are seeing daily surges in cases.

05:45 GMT  Gone by July: Upbeat prognosis from Australia

A senior medical official in New South Wales says Australia will have largely eradicated the coronavirus by July when community sports are due to resume.

Our view has been that we had hoped that by June/July that we would see coronavirus largely disappearing from the country, so this is pretty much on track, said Bill Rawlinson, a senior medical virologist with New South Wales Health.

Australias latest data shows seven new cases  three in NSW and four in the state of Victoria.

04:45 GMT  Global Peace Index report uploaded

The IEP has now uploaded its Global Peace Index report to social media.

The Global Peace Index 2020 is now available for download In the 2020 report:  Rankings & trends

 Regional overviews

 Civil unrest

 Positive Peace & pandemics

 Ecological Threat Register Download now  https://t.co/IRRl4mLJ2i pic.twitter.com/wlZj1AZrwa  Global Peace Index (@GlobPeaceIndex) June 10, 2020

04:00 GMT  Coronavirus shock to fuel years of poverty, unrest

The Insitute for Economics and Peace (IEP) says the shock of the coronavirus will fuel poverty and unrest for years to come, undoing decades of progress in socio-economic development.

The Australian-based think tank says the countries that will suffer the most will be those that are politically-fragile whose economies are generally less robust.

The worst is still to come, said Steve Killelea, the head of the IEP at the launch of its annual Global Peace Index.

IEP says heavily-indebted countries will find it hard to get the money they need to rebuild their economies once lockdowns are relaxed, raising the risk of riots and unrest. Cuts in overseas aid could also hurt countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen and South Sudan.

03:55 GMT  Fujifilm to spend $928m to expand Danish facility for COVID-19 drug

Japans Fujifilm is to spend $928 million to expand a facility in Denmark where it plans to produce COVID-19 treatments.

Fujifilm says the investment will help expand production lines for bulk drug substances, as well as viral vaccines.

02:15 GMT  California, Arizona see coronavirus cases spike

Cases of coronavirus are spiking and leading to more hospital admissions in parts of California and Arizona, raising the risk of authorities tightening public health restrictions to curb the virus spread.

More than 18 million people in California, including residents of Los Angeles, Santa Clara and Fresno are now on a state watch list of places at risk, according to Reuters.

Many of the cases that are showing up in hospitals are linked to gatherings that are taking place in homes  birthday parties and funerals, said Olivia Kasirye, the public health director of Sacramento County.

Reuters reports 22 states across the US recorded weekly increases in coronavirus cases on Tuesday. Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all recorded rises of 40 percent or more over the week, it said.

01:20 GMT  Argentina daily coronavirus cases top 1,000 for first time

Argentina has confirmed more than 1,000 new daily cases of coronavirus for the first time.

Argentinas Health Ministry on Tuesday said it had logged 1,141 new cases in the past 24 hours, as well 24 deaths, pushing its totals to 24,761 cases and 717 deaths since the outbreak began in early March.

Latin America has become the new epicentre of the global outbreak although Argentinas caseload remains significantly lower than neighbours Chile and Brazil.

Argentina last week extended a mandatory lockdown in Buenos Aires, which accounts for the countrys highest concentration of confirmed infections. Other areas have moved to mandatory and preventive social distancing.





23:50 GMT (Tuesday)  Mexico warns peak could be weeks away

Mexicos deputy health minister says it could be weeks before the country, which has already started to reopen its economy, sees a peak in coronavirus cases.

We still havent reached the maximum point, Hugo Lopez-Gatell said at a news conference, saying numbers would continue to rise each day. The country is forecasting up to 35,000 deaths up to October.

The health ministry said 596 people died from COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the total to 14,649.

23:30 GMT (Tuesday)  Brazil restores data after court challenge to its removal

Brazil has restored data on its COVID-19 outbreak to its official national website after a Supreme Court judge ordered the government to reinstate cumulative totals and state breakdowns.

The decision to remove the data triggered an outcry and accusations that the government, under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, was trying to mask the extent of the outbreak.

On Tuesday evening, Brazil had a total of 739,503 confirmed cases with 38,406 deaths. It has the second-highest caseload in the world after the US and the third-highest death toll after the United States and the United Kingdom.

-

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeeras continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Im Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur.

Read all the updates from yesterday (June 9) here.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 22:21:36|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday rebuked U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's remarks on HSBC backing the Hong Kong national security legislation, urging the U.S. side to adopt a correct view and cease "driving a wedge" and "making inflammatory accusations."

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks when asked to comment on Pompeo's statement, in which he claimed that the "show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the bank's business in China as political leverage against London." He also said China's browbeating of HSBC should serve as a "cautionary tale," and shows why countries should avoid economic overreliance on China.

In response, Hua told a routine press briefing that it is narrow-minded and ludicrous to take people as "being threatened" just because they are not following suit with the United States in attacking China.

As "living things can flourish without injuring one another" and "roads can run in parallel without interfering with one another," Hua said that countries, parties and individuals are entitled to make independent judgments based on facts and take actions in line with their own interests.

"As we've stated on many occasions, the decision on establishing and improving the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for Hong Kong to safeguard national security and moves to safeguard its long-term stability and prosperity not only serve the fundamental interests of Hong Kong society, but also will help to protect the legitimate rights and interests of institutions and personnel of all countries stationed there," she said.

Hua said that, since the decision made by China's National People's Congress, parties including the business community have made fair and objective comments based on facts and according to their own fundamental interests.

Hong Kong-related issues are purely matters of China's internal affairs, which brook no foreign interference, Hua said.

"We urge the U.S. side to adopt a correct view on the national security legislation for Hong Kong, stop driving a wedge and making inflammatory accusations, cease meddling in China's internal affairs under the pretext of Hong Kong-related issues, and contribute more to Hong Kong's stability and prosperity," Hua added. Enditem
KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI  Oshtemo Township leaders this week signed off on plans to seek state grant funds to create a two-mile-long trail for walking and biking in the township.

The townships Board of Trustees, during a virtual meeting held Tuesday, June 9, listened to adjacent property owners with concerns about the planned trail before unanimously passing a resolution to seek grant funding from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund to purchase the necessary property.

Parks Director Karen High said the proposed 35-acre Fruit Belt Trail would more than double the parkland offered at Flesher Field, a community park off of 9th Street.

The two-mile, 150-foot-wide trail would run southwest from Flesher Field to the townships southern border. Plans call for just one street crossing, at 6th Street.

The trail would follow what was formerly the Fruit Belt rail line, which was operational from 1906-16 and ran from Kalamazoo to South Haven.

There could be room for future connections to trails in Texas Township, High said.

We may want to wait until Texas Township is ready to install their section of the trail and do it all at once, High said.

In the future, High said, the planning commission hopes to connect the proposed trail with the Kal-Haven Trail, a 33-mile-long trail linking Kalamazoo and South Haven.

Ameritech Michigan Co., or AT&T, currently owns the land along the property, and maintains underground telecommunication lines which would remain underneath the trail, High said.

High said the township attorney, Jim Porter, contacted AT&T last year to gauge interest in the sale of the property. AT&T informed the township it was interested in the selling the land after the completion of a market study, which valued the property at approximately $324,000.

Since the company will retain a permanent easement for the telecommunications line, it agreed to a tentative $40,000 purchase offer from the township, High said.

To offset the cost of that purchase, the township is seeking a Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund grant totaling $58,000  $40,000 for the purchase of the property and $18,000 for incidental costs, like closing fees and environmental assessments, High said.

Since AT&T agreed to a sale price below market value, that added value would count as a grant match from AT&T. Though the total project cost is approximately $78,000, none of those dollars are expected to have to come from township funds, High said.

If the land is acquired, Oshtemo Township will grant AT&T an easement to maintain its telecommunication lines that run along the former rail line, though High said that deal has yet to be negotiated.

Some nearby property owners, like township resident Gayle Stevens, objected to the trail plans during the public comment portion of Tuesdays meeting.

Nobody has talked to the adjacent property owners," Stevens said. Weve made it clear we do not want the public walking near out homes.

Stevens said the township should put the plan on hold.

Another concerned resident, Christopher Kurtz, echoed Stevens concern.

I worry that people will still come on our property, Kurtz said.

Township Supervisor Libby Heiny-Cogswell assured residents that, if the state grant is received and the property is acquired, the township would work with nearby property owners to address their concerns.

High said the township will find out whether the grant application is approved for funding in December 2020. The earliest the township could acquire the property would be the summer of 2021, as the state legislature must also authorize the funding, High said. Once the property is acquired, a condition of the grant is that it will be accessible to the public within 90 days.

High pointed out that the land is already used as an informal trail, and has been a high-priority item among those outlined in the townships Go Green Oshtemo Plan.

Its a well-worn path already being used by the public right now, High said.

The Go Green Oshtemo Plan was adopted by the township in February 2019 in an effort to enhance conservation and address community requests for more trails, natural features and park amenities. In forming the plan, the township called on public input in a number of study groups, public meetings, an online survey and three public hearings, according to the report.

Public participation played an integral role in the Go Green Oshtemo planning process, including study groups, open houses, an online survey, and the public hearings for adoption, the report said.

Also on MLive:

Wednesday, June 10: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Get outside with these 17 great West Michigan trails

New walking and biking trail proposed west of Kalamazoo

Cost to homeowners central to concerns over $28M township sewer project
For all our scientific advances in the field of health over the last couple of centuries, there's one large area that is still underserved: women's brain health.

"Women constitute half of the world's population, yet historically neuroscience research hasn't served the sexes equally," said UC Santa Barbara neuroscientist Emily Jacobs. "For decades, human neuroimaging studies have overlooked basic elements of a woman's life -- the menstrual cycle, oral hormonal contraceptive use, pregnancy, menopause -- and how they might shape the brain. We're excited to help correct course."

Jacobs, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences, is tackling this research blind spot head-on. With support from a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jacobs and her team will carry out a large-scale study to establish how ovarian hormones impact the structural and functional architecture of the human brain.

"I'm thrilled to see the NIH continue to support women's health research," Jacobs said of the grant. "Menopause is severely understudied within the neuroimaging world and we won't fully understand the aging brain without taking it into account."

"I congratulate Emily Jacobs on this well-deserved grant from the NIH," said Pierre Wiltzius, dean of UC Santa Barbara's division of mathematical, life and physical sciences. "The research she will undertake holds a great deal of promise in helping us understand the interplay between hormones and the human brain, and will no doubt help advance both neuroscience and women's health."

Peering Through the Brain Fog

The NIH-funded study will address longstanding questions about the endocrine basis of cognition, offering new insights into the menopausal transition.

"Most studies of the aging brain focus on adults 65 and older, more than a decade after the start of menopause," Jacobs said. "During the menopausal transition, ovarian hormone production falls by 90%, a shift that impacts multiple bodily systems, including the brain." Jacobs' previous research has demonstrated that these neuroendocrine changes shape the structure and function of two key brain regions in particular -- the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus -- which are important for learning and memory. One goal of Jacobs' research is to understand why some women sail through menopause, while others experience debilitating symptoms including brain fog and memory changes.

This study will model a core aspect of menopause -- namely the changes in hormones that occur during the menopausal transition. The longitudinal study will track a large cohort of women as they undergo treatment for endometriosis with Elagolex, a drug that dramatically suppresses ovarian hormones. Approved by the Food & Drug Administration in 2019, the drug induces a temporary menopause-like state in women.

Previous studies in animals offer powerful evidence that ovarian hormone suppression impacts the structure and function of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. However, conducting similar studies in human participants is a challenge, as the equivalent experimental manipulation of hormone levels would likely exceed the guidelines for acceptable risks.

Jacobs' study overcomes this hurdle by tracking women who are scheduled to begin a course of Elagolex, and then following them for 6 months, without altering standard clinical care. This will allow her team to establish the effects of ovarian hormone depletion on the body, teasing apart the effects of hormone suppression from the natural course of chronological aging.

The project will be carried out at UC Santa Barbara and at UC San Diego with co-principal investigator Matthew Panizzon, an assistant professor of psychiatry.

Looking ahead, Jacobs' team is hard at work building the University of California Women's Brain Initiative, a UC systemwide effort to integrate the collection of human brain imaging data across campuses to further strengthen women's health research. "This problem is bigger than any one group can handle," Jacobs said. "By joining forces with institutions across the UC, we will be in a strong position to move the needle on women's brain health."

###

Jacobs, who joined the UC Santa Barbara faculty in 2016, received her bachelor's degree from Smith College and her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

The research is supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01AG063843. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
In Colorado, Senate Bill 181 (SB19-181) is changing the way oil and gas development is regulated, and one of the main effects of the bill is a large shift towards increased local control over siting decisions.

In a first of its kind study, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded researchers in Colorado a $730,000 grant to examine the impact of the bill and whether or not shifting oil and gas decision-making to the local level will lead to fairer outcomes for marginalized communities.

Poor communities and communities of color persistently face higher risks to their health and well-being. Recent events have shown that this is true for a wide range of risks. Some of these risks are linked to policies that affect where environmental hazards like oil and gas operations are cited." Katie Dickinson, PhD, Assistant Professor, Environmental Occupational Health, University of Colarado Anschutz Medical Campus

Dickinson is also a principal investigator in the study.

The new study conducted by the Colorado School of Public Health at the Anschutz Medical Campus in partnership with the University of Colorado Denver and Colorado School of Mines will look at how the bill is impacting Colorado's towns and cities, and how its effects may differ for individuals and communities across racial and class lines.

"Disadvantaged communities are disproportionately impacted by pollution and do not have equal access to environmental goods," Dickinson adds. "Being able to contribute to a framework for decision-making around oil and gas siting, that also takes into account a community's social and environmental disadvantages, is key to protecting the health and wellbeing of our most vulnerable citizens."

More specifically, the research is aimed at answering three questions: 1) Do socially disadvantaged communities tend to be closer to oil and gas development than communities that have more resources? 2) Do these disadvantaged communities have equal access to information about the risks and benefits of oil and gas development that could affect where they choose to live and if they choose to get involved politically?

3) Will increasing local government control over oil and gas siting lead to more equitable siting decisions and broader access to those decision-making activities?

"Our innovative framework examines geographical patterns of development alongside the decision-making processes that goes into oil and gas development, bridging two main areas of environmental justice research," said Deserai Crow, PhD, associate professor at the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, and co-principal investigator.

"Our project offers methodological innovation by using multiple datasets at different spatial scales, which is especially important for rural areas where capturing proximity of people to increasingly intensive oil and gas operations has been challenging in past studies."

To answer the first question, the researchers will analyze large geospatial datasets to assess the distribution of oil and gas impacts, triangulating between multiple datasets and analyses at different levels of spatial aggregation to evaluate how these methodological choices affect results.

The second question will be addressed using a household survey in purposefully selected Colorado case study sites. To investigate the third question, the researchers will use a mixed-methods analysis of local decision maker surveys, policy documents, and in-depth interviews, focusing specifically on policy and rulemaking changes following the April 2019 passage of SB181.

"Everyone deserves equal protection from environmental risks and opportunities to participate in decision-making processes that affect local environmental and health outcomes.

In Colorado, this means that communities should be meaningfully involved in decision-making around issues that affect their local environments such as oil and gas development, especially given the far-reaching economic, social and environmental impact of the industry.

Our goal is to provide useful information for local communities, Colorado state-level policymakers, and national leaders who are engaged in oil and gas decision-making," Dickinson adds.

About the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus is a world-class medical destination at the forefront of transformative science, medicine, education, and patient care.

The campus encompasses the University of Colorado health professional schools, more than 60 centers and institutes, and two nationally ranked hospitals that treat more than 2 million adult and pediatric patients each year.

Innovative, interconnected and highly collaborative, together we deliver life-changing treatments, patient care, professional training, and conduct world-renowned research.
Six arrested in downed Ukrainian plane case, Judiciary spox says

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, June 9, IRNA -- Iran's Judiciary's spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaeili said on Tuesday that six people were arrested in the case pertaining to the crash of Ukrainian airliner that killed 176 people on board.

"The legal part of the Ukrainian airplane crash is on the Judiciary, namely the Judiciary Organization of the Armed Forces. Some orders were made immediately after the crash and a special branch of the military court was specified for the case," Esmaeili said.

He went on to elaborate that after the judiciary informed families of the victims, 70 complaints have been filed so far by the families.

Judiciary spokesman also said that six people have been arrested in this case and three of them were released on bail, but three others are still in custody.

A Ukrainian Boeing 737 passenger plane was accidentally shot down by an Iranian rocket near Tehran on January 8, 2020.

If happened after the US heightened tensions in Western Asia by assassinating Iran's Lieutenant-General Qasem Soleimani on January 3 and Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corp reacted to them by hitting the US Ain al-Assad airbase in Iraq

The commander of Aerospace Force of the IRGC Brigadier-General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh admitted full responsibility for the tragic air disaster.

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State election officials are blaming inexperienced staff and coronavirus safety concerns for severe voting delays at Georgias primary election on Tuesday.

Voters reported long delays and queues while waiting to cast their vote at polling stations and officials have labelled the setbacks in certain counties as the fault of staffing issues and coronavirus health concerns.

We have reports of poll workers not understanding setup or how to operate voting equipment, Gabriel Sterling, the states voting implementation manager said in a statement.

While these are unfortunate, they are not issues of the equipment but a function of counties engaging in poor planning, limited training, and failures of leadership. Well over 2,000 precincts are functioning normally throughout the state of Georgia.

Voters across the state have reported malfunctions in the voting process, with some criticising the lack of effective provisions in critical political times.

Voter Monica Hickman told CNN that she had to wait a substantial amount of time to vote after joining a line at about 6.45am due to the malfunction of voting machines.

It was after 7.30am when we went inside the voting area only to be told the machines were down. We had to use provisional ballots. I filled it out and left it there, Ms Hickman said.

When its time to vote, everything should work properly because were living in critical times and this is one of the ways our voices can be heard, she added.

Another voter Dan Upshaw, spoke to CNN when he was in line to vote. He had reportedly been waiting since 8am and poll workers told him they only had one functioning voting machine.

We were told Fulton County was on site working on them, he said. Last official update was that there were three machines working, but voters are saying there are only two.

Some voters are leaving early, he added.

Mr Upshaw told the outlet that he believed he had about 45 minutes longer to wait until he could vote.

Robb Pitts, the chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, told the broadcaster that some issues are due to staffing shortages out of fear of working amidst the coronavirus.

Recommended Fury as Wisconsin voters forced to risk coronavirus at polling station

We had a problem where seven people who would normally work at the polls, six of them decided they didnt want to work because of the virus, so we had to scramble at the last minute to find new workers, he said.

He also suggested that theres a lot of technology involved now and a lot of our poll workers have typically been retired people and the technology can be a challenge sometime.

On Tuesday Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released his own statement calling the voting situation in certain precincts unacceptable and stating that his office would be undertaking an investigation into the matter.

My office has opened an investigation to determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before Novembers election, he said.

Obviously, the first time a new voting system is used there is going to be a learning curve, and voting in a pandemic only increased these difficulties. But every other county faced these same issues and were significantly better prepared to respond so that voters had every opportunity to vote.

There have been more than 52,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the state of Georgia as of Tuesday, and 2,200 people have died of the disease.

Mr Sterling seemingly addressed his earlier statement on Twitter on Tuesday writing: I want to make something clear...all Poll workers are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances. Every county wants to vote every voter who wants to and we are working with all counties, including Fulton to get the lines moving. Pray for all election and poll workers.

The state is also seemingly encountering strain within its absentee voting system as a result of the high volume of ballots.

A source in the secretary of states office told CNN that some counties in the state are straining under the amount that has been received so far.

The state is said to have received more than 1.2 million absentee ballots, a primary participation record, and around 1.16 million more than the state usually sees each year.

Ninety-six percent of ballots that were requested had been recorded as delivered to voters as of last week, the secretary of states office reportedly said.

Absentee mail-in ballots must be received by county elections offices by 7pm Eastern Time on Tuesday.
As statues are toppled and defaced, a light is being shone on countries' colonial history.

Protesters in Bristol pull down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston

When anti-racism protesters in England pulled down the statue of a 17th Century slave trader and promptly dumped it in the deep waters of a harbour, the message was clear.

Edward Colston's ships are believed to have transported about 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas. But his memory has been honoured for centuries in his home city of Bristol, which benefited from his vast wealth.

While the government condemned the act on Sunday, protesters said they hoped it signified change.

"Statues are about saying: 'This was a great man who did great things.' That is not true, he was a slave trader and a murderer," historian David Olusoga told BBC News.

Global protests, like the one in Bristol, have shed a light on cities' colonial or slave-owning history - and the figures that represent it.

Henry Dundas

Henry Dundas' actions ensured slavery continued for longer Image copyright PA Media



A monument in the Scottish capital Edinburgh commemorating a politician who delayed the abolition of slavery has been spray-painted with the words "George Floyd" and "BLM" (for Black Lives Matters).



The 150ft (46m) tall Melville Monument, in Edinburgh's St Andrew Square, was erected in 1823 in memory of Henry Dundas.

Dundas was one of the country's most influential politicians in the 18th and 19th centuries and had the nickname "the uncrowned king".

He put forward an amendment to a bill which would have abolished slavery in 1792, opting for a more "gradual" approach.

This allowed the practice to continue for 15 years longer than it otherwise would have done.

Graffiti appeared on the base of the Melville Monument

Thousands of people have signed petitions calling for the monument to be taken down.



Amid protests over the monument, officials have announced that a plaque will be added to it offering "reflective" details about the city's links to slavery.

"We need to tell our story and make sure people understand Edinburgh's role in the world historically - not just the bits that we're proud of but frankly the bits we're ashamed of as well," Edinburgh City Council leader Adam McVey told BBC Scotland.

King Leopold II

A statue of King Leopold II in Antwerp was set on fire and painted red Image copyright EPA

People in Belgium are calling for statues of the country's longest-reigning king, Leopold II, to be dismantled.

Online petitions demanding their removal have garnered tens of thousands of signatures, while some anti-racism protesters have taken more direct action.

A bust of the colonial-era king in the city of Ghent was covered in red paint, with cloth over its head marked with the words "I can't breathe". The cloth evoked those last spoken by George Floyd as a white police officer knelt on his neck, leading to the recent protests.

In Antwerp, another statue of the king was set on fire by protesters and later removed by officials, who said it had been transferred to a museum. In the capital Brussels, a statue was marked with the word "assassin".

King Leopold II ruled Belgium from 1865 to 1909, but he is best remembered for his terrible legacy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Between 1885 and 1908, the monarch of one of Europe's smallest countries made the DRC, then known as the Congo Free State, his own private colony.

He turned it into a massive labour camp, making a fortune from the rubber trade. Those who resisted slave labour were often shot, and Leopold's troops were ordered to collect the hands of their victims.

Leopold reigned over the mass deaths of an estimated 10 million Congolese. He also put Congolese people into a human zoo in Belgium.

He was forced to relinquish his control of the Congo Free State in 1908, but the country did not gain independence from Belgium until 1960.

Some who are against the statues' removal say Belgium's wealth is because of its success as a trading economy under King Leopold II.

Robert E Lee

The US state of Virginia is removing a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee, which has been vandalised in the George Floyd protests.

Announcing the decision to remove the 12-ton monument erected in 1890, Governor Ralph Northam said: "We no longer preach a false version of history.

"That statue has been there a long time. But it was wrong then, and it's wrong now. So we're taking it down."

It is among five Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, in the state capital Richmond, that have been marked with graffiti during the protests, including messages to "stop white supremacy".

Robert E Lee was a commander of the pro-slavery Confederate States Army, a coalition of southern states, in the US Civil War of 1861 to 1865.

Lee also married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Virginia and took leave from the army to run the family estate following his father-in-law's death. He met resistance from slaves who expected to be freed.

Documents show that he encouraged severe beatings for those who tried to escape. He is also said to have broken up slave families.

Many in the US view Lee as a symbol of the country's history of slavery and racial oppression.

Other Confederacy statues have also been defaced by protesters.

Some of those who believe the statues of Confederate figures should remain standing argue that they are markers of US history and southern culture.

Winston Churchill

A statue of Winston Churchill in London was spray-painted with the words "was a racist" Image copyright PA Media

A statue in London of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was vandalised with graffiti declaring him a "racist".

Churchill is lauded for leading Britain to victory in World War Two.

He is described on the UK government website as "an inspirational statesman, writer, orator and leader", and was voted the greatest ever Briton in a 2002 BBC poll.

But for some he remains a deeply controversial figure, in part because of his views on race.

"It's absolutely not in doubt that Churchill was racist," said historian Richard Toye, co-author of the upcoming book The Churchill Myths. "He certainly regarded white people as being superior, he said that explicitly.

"He made unpleasant remarks about Indians who he said were a beastly people with a beastly religion, and he said unpleasant things about Chinese people. I could go on.

"One obviously needs to acknowledge that Churchill's Victorian background was certainly an influence on him, but I would say it wasn't necessarily a defining or determining influence on his racial views because they did oscillate through time," he added.

In a 2015 interview with the BBC, John Charmley, author of Churchill: The End of Glory, said the late prime minister believed in racial hierarchies, in which white protestant Christians were at the top, above white Catholics, while Indians were higher than Africans.

In 1937, Churchill told the Palestine Royal Commission: "I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Churchill has also faced criticism over his remarks on Jews and Islam, and his actions, or lack thereof, in the 1943 Bengal famine, which killed more than two million people.

Churchill's grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, has previously said his grandfather was "a child of the Edwardian age and spoke the language of [it]." BBC
Issues surrounding insurance could make it difficult for Irish businesses to re-open after the Covid-19 lockdown.

Business interruption insurance is proving to be a sticking point, with many businesses fearing they will not recoup the losses they suffered during lockdown.

Businesses have also expressed concerns that customers may take personal injury claim against the premises if they believe they contracted Covid-19 onsite.

Peter Boland of the Alliance for Insurance Reform says they are calling for immediate reform of the entire sector. "It is ultimately the policyholders who are paying the cost of this."

"We are not calling on insurers to pay out on every business interruption policy, because in many policies [Covid-19] clearly isn't covered. We are calling on the ones where it is covered to be dealt with in a fair and efficient manner."

Businesses also fear reopening due to potential Covid-19 personal injury claims.

"There are clear concerns about reopening because Ireland has such a litigative personal injury system. There are genuine fears about reopening at all. The liability could fall directly onto the business rather than being handled collectively through insurance," says Mr Boland.

"It's unique to Ireland, no place else pays out like we do, or has the type of structures built around personal injury claims like we do.

It damages the Irish hospitality sector's competitiveness, as in other countries they don't have the added cost of liability.

A recent survey carried out by the Alliance for Insurance Reform found roughly 55% of respondents were worried about Covid-19 personal injury claims.

34% of respondents said that the most reassuring measure to combat these claims would be indemnification by the state.

14% said insisting insurers vigorously contest opportunistic or exaggerated claims would be the most reassuring measure, and a further 13% said clear guidelines from the state would be their preference.

Other measures high up on the list of measures to combat Covid-19 personal injury claims were a reduction in damages awarded for personal injuries, for the judiciary to apply a more balanced duty of care to plaintiffs and defendants, and an increase in sanctions for fraudulent and exaggerated claims.

Pub and restaurant representative bodies say progress has been made in some areas, but they are worried about personal injury claims.

Adrian Cummins, Chief Executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said that progress has been made in relation to business interruption insurance.

Huge progress has happened on behalf of our membership by our legal team, who have spent the last number of weeks analysing policies. We have found 66% of policies reviewed by the legal team, we believe, have a case for business disruption.

In terms of reopening, Mr Cummins says there is concern that Ireland's 'compensation culture' will extend to Covid-19.

"There is major concern with regards to liability for Covid, and more so customers that may claim they got Covid in a business. What is needed is clarity by the government around liability and duty of care."

Brian Foley of the Vintners Federation of Ireland says there are currently a number of cases in the High Court taken by pubs in relation to business interruption insurance. "While these cases have nothing to do with VFI, we await their outcomes with interest."
MINNEAPOLIS, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Be The Match today announced the appointment of Amy Ronneberg as chief executive officer (CEO)the first female CEO for the organization. Ronneberg joined Be The Match in 2013 as chief financial officer (CFO) and chief of staff, and has served as acting CEO since February.

Be The Match is a non-profit organization that delivers cures to patients in need of life-saving blood stem cell therapy. The organization operates the national Be The Match Registry, the world's largest and most diverse listing of potential stem cell donors. As trusted leaders in advancing stem cell therapy, Be The Match also provides ground-breaking research, innovative technologies, patient support, and education so even more lives can be saved.

Around the same time Ronneberg joined Be The Match as CFO, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now cancer-free, she brings unique passion and perspective to her work.

"As a cancer survivor, I have personally felt what many other cancer patients and their loved ones encounter every day. My experience, the patients we serve, and our outstanding, dedicated employees are my motivation," Ronneberg said. "I am deeply honored to be selected to lead this organization and look forward to further advancing our commitment to providing equal outcomes for all. The recent pandemic has put a spotlight on healthcare inequalities, and we are uniquely positioned to address one glaring disparity that is affecting ethnically diverse patientsthat is the ability to find a matching donor. I look forward to leading our team in diversifying the registry and delivering more life-saving treatments to patients of all backgrounds."

After the Affordable Care Act was implemented, Ronneberg led a Be The Match budget restructure that netted a sustainable $50 million cost reduction and made marrow transplants more affordable. Those efforts and more earned her one of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal's 2016 CFO of the Year awards . Ronneberg also played a pivotal role in establishing Be The Match's operations in Mexico.

This spring, the Be The Match Board of Directors worked with an outside firm to identify the qualities needed in its next CEO and unanimously agreed that Ronneberg possesses all of them.

"Amy has the perfect blend of business experience, passion and health care expertise to lead Be The Match," said Chair of the Board David L. Porter, M.D. "She likes to say, 'patients first, employees always.' I applaud her commitment to carrying out our mission and putting people first."

Ronneberg is also responsible for Be The Match BioTherapies , which partners with global cell and gene therapy industry leaders to deliver high-quality, consistent and compliant therapies to patients in need. Under her guidance, Be The Match BioTherapies has invested in several therapeutics companies and launched an integrated supply chain platform called MatchSource .

Prior to joining Be The Match, Ronneberg spent 12 years at Capella Education Company where she served as chief accounting officer, vice president of finance and led enterprise-wide operations and customer service. She also worked for Ernst & Young as an audit manager.

Ronneberg has served on several boards and is currently on the board of Magenta Therapeutics (MGTA) and the Finance Committee for Allina Healthcare and the World Marrow Donor Association.



Ronneberg earned a Master of Business Administration from Capella University, Minneapolis, Minn. and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

"Going through treatment with my husband and young children at my side made me a much stronger person, leader and decision maker," Ronneberg said. "Cancer is an unfortunate reality that millions of people have to face, but with support, hope and the right medical tools, it can be overcome."

About Be The Match

For people with life-threatening blood cancerslike leukemia and lymphomaor other diseases, a cure exists. Be The Match connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant. People can contribute to the cure as a member of the Be The Match Registry, financial contributor or volunteer. Be The Match provides patients and their families one-on-one support, education, and guidance before, during and after transplant.



Be The Match is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), a nonprofit organization that matches patients with donors, educates health care professionals and conducts research through its research program, CIBMTR (Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research), so more lives can be saved. To learn more about the cure, visit BeTheMatch.org or call 1 (800) MARROW-2.

SOURCE Be The Match

Related Links

https://bethematch.org


NOIDA, India and BENGALURU, India, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Truechip, the Verification IP Specialist, today announced that it has shipped the commercial version of performance analyzer kit to its customer Aaroh Labs.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Girish Gaikwad, CEO at Aaroh Labs said, "Truechip's performance analyzer tool kit has helped us to avoid manual calculations of various latencies and has reduced overall time in performance calculation and optimization. Performance tool kit provides us with latencies, bus utilization, bandwidth utilization and maximum data information. We have observed accurate latency numbers for each transaction."

Speaking on the occasion, Nitin Kishore, CEO at Truechip said, "This exciting milestone is another testimony of our belief in continuous innovation. The Performance analyzer tool kit is available for all Truechip's VIPs such as PCIe, Networking, AMBA, Memory, Storage, Automotive, etc. This will be very helpful not only to verification and architecture teams, who want to check latencies and hopping latencies at different points of the chip, but also for the IP Teams and IP companies who want to optimize their IP designs for maximum bus/ bandwidth utilization."

"Truechip's Performance Analyzer tracks the transaction level information driven on the protocol interface, providing bus utilization and bandwidth utilization efficiently along with programmable options. Bus transactions are visualized in the form of flow charts for improved readability. Latency numbers are shown for each of the transactions happening over the bus," Mr. Kishore further added.

"It is a delighted moment for Truechip as we are the only IP verification company in the world providing performance analyzer tool kit, which provides latencies, bus utilization and bandwidth utilization across distinguished protocols families. Today Truechip is known in the industry for providing aggressive support and customization to our customers to augment their VIP usage," said Saurabh Agarwal, Head-Marketing & Sales at Truechip.

About Truechip:

Truechip is a leading provider of Verification IP solutions. We also provide verification, DFT and Physical design services. We aid to accelerate IP/ SOC design thus lowering the cost and the risks associated with the development of ASIC, FPGA and SOC. A privately held company with a solid and seasoned leadership, having global footprints and coverage across North America, Europe and Asia. Truechip offers Industry's first 24 x 7 technical support.

Follow us: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube

For more information:

Phone : +91-97185-92036

Email : [email protected]

Website : www.truechip.net

SOURCE Truechip
Our increasingly unsustainable use of marine resources for economic activities has hurt the health of our oceans, seas and coasts, said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, UNCTADs director of international trade, adding that the Covid-19 crisis offers an opportunity to turn this around as we rebuild sectors of the blue economy.



Our oceans resources sustain the livelihoods of 3 billon people. More than 80% of the goods we consume are transported over water. The trade in fish and seafood products generates over $150 billion annually. And coastal tourism has become a major source of revenue and jobs for many vulnerable island nations.



But the constant movement of ships has harmed our seas, mass tourism has placed huge pressure on some of the planets richest and most fragile ecosystems  like mangroves and coral reefs  and industrial fishing has left about 34% of global fish stocks below biologically sustainable levels.



The global lockdown measures used to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic have, to a certain degree, wreaked havoc on the fishing, tourism and maritime transport industries.



Fish and seafood exports could drop by about a third this year, according to UNCTAD. For international tourism, available data points to a 22% decline in the first quarter of 2020. And data from MarineTraffic shows port calls of all major vessel types have been down  especially for passenger ships, which saw a 29% fall by the first week of May.



Ambassador Rui Macieira of Portugal called on governments and businesses to rebuild in a way that ensures more responsible use and restoration of the ocean, seas and coasts.



The current pandemic has caused disturbance across all sectors of the blue economy, but we should take advantage of this moment to ensure a sustainable blue recovery, Mr. Macieira told a United Nations online meeting held ahead of World Oceans Day.



Rethink fisheries subsidies



A potentially dramatic decrease in trade of fish and seafood due to the pandemic offers governments the opportunity to rethink how they support the fisheries sector.



Overfishing has in part been possible because of government subsidies that have made it cheaper to hunt for fish further and further out at sea.



Even as oil prices hit at 25-year low in April, governments continued to pay fuel and other capacity-enhancing subsidies estimated at about $10 billion in OECD member countries and potentially above $20 billion worldwide.



The coronavirus pandemic put a new spotlight on the issue of capacity-enhancing subsidies, said Audun Lem, deputy director of fisheries and aquaculture at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.



There has not been a better time for governments to shift from subsidies that contribute to Illegal fishing activities, overfishing and overcapacity in favour of more support for responsible small-scale fishers and sustainable management.



Such a shift would help not only to assist in reversing the overexploitation of fish stocks but also to help small-scale fishers, who make up the lions share of the worlds 9.4 million fishers, 90% of whom live in developing countries.



Develop coastal tourism 2.0



Similar to the fisheries, travel and tourism are crucial economic sectors for small island developing states, generating approximately $30 billion per year. The kind of decline in international arrivals estimated by the World Tourism Organization would result in a loss of $7.4 billion for these vulnerable nations, equivalent to a 7.3% fall in GDP.



In regions such as the Easter Caribbean, serious consequences have already been felt. The Coronavirus Pandemic has decimated the travel and tourism sector in the region, said Stephen Fevrier, head of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States permanent delegation in Geneva.



Fevrier said the pandemic has already resulted in thousands of lost jobs and the total closure of the accommodation and attractions sectors in the region.



To secure the future sustainability of the sector, he said, its important for the region to redouble efforts aimed at creating a low-impact tourism product.



He called for a 2.0 approach to coastal and marine tourism, which would include showcasing best practice in environmental sustainability and paying more attention to the value of local and regional cultures and ecosystems.



Mainstreaming sustainability in the industry, he said, would also require strengthening the relationships that tourist operators, hotels and restaurants have with local communities and marine protected areas and responsible fisheries.



Digitize maritime transport procedures



The pandemic and ensuing crisis has also raised the urgency to make the maritime transport sector more sustainable.



UNCTADs chief of trade logistics, Jan Hoffmann, said this could be done through measures such as digitizing trade procedures and processes, which would help reduce CO2 emissions in the long-run and have the immediate benefit of making it easier and faster to move goods across borders.



This crisis is above all a crisis of supply, he said, unlike the financial crisis of 2008, when the downturn came from plummeting demand.



Lockdown measures aimed at curbing the spread of the disease have left factories closed and disrupted the supply of goods and thus international trade.



In response, governments and border agencies, including port authorities and customs administrations, are pushing for reforms that aim to keep trade flowing while protecting populations, transport workers and officers at the borders.



Most of these reforms are positive not only during the crisis but may also help revive our economies by facilitating trade in years to come, Hoffmann said.



UNCTAD recently released a 10-point action plan to help the transport sector in these efforts.



Sustainable Development Goal 14 calls upon us to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.



UNCTAD advocates for a sustainable blue economy, in which sectors such as fisheries, tourism and maritime transport contribute to economic growth and improved livelihoods, while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem.  TradeArabia News Service






While the nation-wide Covid-19 lockdown triggered an economic crisis, Indians in several states are now facing another scourgeinflated electricity bills.

Complaints of exorbitant electricity bills were received from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan where residents stated that the amount increased two-fold during the lockdown months.

Following the regulations of restricting movement, the power distribution companies were either unable to send staff or faced difficulty in reaching consumers homes to note the metre readings. This meant that the discoms needed to work on a way to collect electricity bills without actually reading meters, reports CNBC.

The Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSSPDCL) sent its staff members to collect meter readings after three months of lockdown. And later, the consumers were handed over bills based on cumulative consumption of the past three months.

States like Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have a graded system of tariffs, where the consumers are charged less for the first few units consumed and gradually the cost of the units consumed increases. Since the electricity providers have been using a similar method, most consumers are paying a much higher sum than they would if meter readings are done every month.

A similar situation was reported in North India where the heatwave gripped in last week of May increasing per capita electricity consumption. Residents of Rajasthan also complained of exorbitant bills during the last three months.

"I used to get a bill of up to Rs 200 to 450. I paid the bill. After that, I received a bill showing 62 units and a payable amount of Rs 2,700. I had gone to the concerned office but they said that nothing will happen this month now," Ramesh Chand, a consumer told India Today.

Consumers took to Twitter, posting pictures of inflated bills and airing grievances amid pandemic.

However, since there has been no word by the Centre or state government regarding the same, most states can face a similar issue in the coming days.
The Bombay High Court has sought details from the Maharashtra government about the health condition of HDIL promoters Rakesh Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan, arrested on charges of money laundering in the multi-crore PMC Bank fraud case. The court has also asked in which barrack of the Mumbai-based Arthur Road prison they are lodged.

Justice Bharati Dangre was on Tuesday hearing petitions filed by Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) promoters Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang Wadhawan, seeking bail on medical grounds. The petitioners also claimed that there are no proper facilities in the jail in view of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Apart from Wadhawans' medical condition and barrack details, Justice Dangre also asked the state government what steps it has taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among prisoners. The prosecution shall ascertain the position regarding the applicants (Rakesh and Sarang) with regard to their medical condition, their placement in the barracks and also steps taken to keep the prisoners free from the COVID-19 pandemic, the court said.

It has posted the bail pleas for further hearing on June 12. The fraud at the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank came to light in September 2019 after the Reserve Bank of India found that the PMC Bank had allegedly created fictitious accounts to hide over Rs 4,355 crore of loans extended to the almost-bankrupt HDIL.

According to RBI, the PMC Bank masked 44 problematic loan accounts, including of HDIL, by allegedly tampering with its core banking system, and the accounts were accessible only to limited staff members. The economic offences wing of Mumbai Police and the Enforcement Directorate later registered offences against senior officials of the bank and Wadhawans.

Also read: Madhu Kapur, family withdraw case against Yes Bank
Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane has been freed from jail on $750,000 bail, sheriffs office records show.

The police killing of George Floyd has triggered anti-racism protests around the world. A number of monuments with links to colonialism and slavery have been defaced or pulled down in Europe and the United States as protests for racial justice continue.

Floyds brother, Philonise Floyd, has testified before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, along with family lawyer Ben Crump and 10 others at the first congressional hearing to examine the social and political undercurrents that have fuelled weeks of protests nationwide and overseas.

Floyd died on May 25 after a policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. His death sparked nationwide calls for policing reforms.

Thursday, June 11

11:15 GMT  US protests trigger calls by Indias Dalits to end discrimination

Spurred on by the anti-racism protests in the United States, Dalits  a marginalised community once referred to as untouchables  have called on India to acknowledge centuries of oppression they have endured.

Dalits find themselves outside the Hindu caste hierarchy  a membership determined at birth  and have historically faced violence, segregation and been barred from even having their shadows touch those of people from more privileged castes.

Read more here.

Dalit campaigners said they supported the Black Lives Matter protests in response to the death of George Floyd [File: Divyakant Solanki/EPA]

09:55 GMT  Washington, DC volunteers preserve protest signs and posters as art

Volunteers on the scene in the nations capital are working to gather and preserve hundreds of items that were posted during days of protests over the death of George Floyd in police hands in Minnesota.

Hundreds of signs and posters that had been on the fence enclosing Lafayette Square near the White House have been moved across the street and taped to the walls of a construction site, or strung together and hung from trees lining the street.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Smithsonian have expressed an interest in preserving the artefacts.

A spokesman for the National Museum of African American History and Culture said curators from three different parts of the Smithsonian network visited the scene [File: Win McNamee/AFP]

09:35 GMT  Bristol City Council recovers Colston statue from harbour

A statue of a 17th-century slave trader that was toppled by anti-racism protesters in Bristol, England, has been fished out of the harbour by city authorities.

Bristol City Council says the bronze statue of Edward Colston was recovered to avoid drawing a crowd. The council says it has been taken to a secure location and will end up in a museum.

Colston built a fortune transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic and left most of his money to charity. His name adorns streets and buildings in Bristol, which was once the UKs biggest port for slave ships.

Anti-racism protesters had pulled down the statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston and pushed into the docks during a protest on Sunday [File: Reuters]

09:03 GMT  Mapping hundreds of Confederate statues across the US

Although many Americans recognise the immorality of historic colonialists, slave owners and anti-abolitionists, some say these symbols should be preserved as a reminder of the countrys past.

08:21 GMT  Basketball team the Knicks issues statement on George Floyds death

The New York Knicks and James Dolan, the executive chairman of the teams parent company, The Madison Square Garden Company, issued a statement about the death of George Floyd after coming under fire for their delayed response to the incident.

While most NBA organisations were quick to issue public responses, the American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan, only issued a statement 15 days after Floyds death.

Posting a statement on its social media accounts, the Knicks said: Every one of us has a role to play in creating a more just and equal society, where there is no racism, bigotry, violence or hate. We stand with all who act for positive change.

07:53 GMT  Seven officers in LA removed from field duties over excessive use of force during protests

At least seven Los Angeles police officers were removed from their field duties for using excessive force during recent protests, the police department told CNN.

The move comes as police across the US have come under attack for the use of violence in response to demonstrators protesting against police brutality.

Critics have pointed to the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and physical attacks as examples of excessive use of force.

The move comes as police across the United States condemned for violent responses to demonstrators protesting against police brutality [Flie: David McNew/AFP]

07:25 GMT  Sydney police warn Black Lives Matter protesters to stay home

The Australian police have warned people not to attend a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Sydney on Friday unless they want to risk being arrested.

Mick Willing, New South Waless assistant police commissioner, said the event is unauthorised because the organisers did not notify the police in advance.

The police would deploy significant resources to enforce COVID-19 restriction orders. People could face arrest if they choose to attend the event, Willing told reporters.

06:59 GMT  British statue of scout founder Baden-Powell to be taken down

A local authority in southern England said it would remove a statue of Robert Baden-Powell, the latest memorial to be taken down in the wake of anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

While Baden-Powell was hailed as far-sighted for setting up the scouts, critics said he held racist views and was a supporter of Adolf Hitler and fascism.

Poole council said the statue of Baden-Powell would now be moved from its location on the quayside of the seaside town where it has been for just over a decade to safe storage while there were discussions with local communities about its future.

Whilst famed for the creation of the Scouts, we also recognise that there are some aspects of Robert Baden-Powells life that are considered less worthy of commemoration, council leader Vikki Slade said.

05:25 GMT  Man injured as Confederate monument pulled down in Portsmouth

Protesters in Portsmouth, Virginia, beheaded and then pulled down four statues that were part of a Confederate monument, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported.

As the statues fell, a protester was hit on the head, causing him to lose consciousness. He was then taken to hospital.

All four have been beheaded tonight pic.twitter.com/uMRKFziPYb  Saleen Martin (@Saleen_Martin) June 11, 2020

The toppled monument sits at a site where slaves were punished on a whipping post, according to the Virginian-Pilot, and efforts to tear one of the statues down began around 8:20pm, but the rope protesters were using snapped.

They then started to dismantle the monument one piece at a time as a marching band played in the streets and other protesters danced.

05:02 GMT  Statue of Confederate president toppled in Richmond

A statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was torn down along Richmonds famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday night by protesters.

The statue in the former capital of the Confederacy was toppled shortly before 11pm and was on the ground in the middle of an intersection, news outlets reported. Richmond police were on the scene.

BREAKING: The Jefferson Davis statue on Monument Ave. has been pulled down tonight, this video is from a person in the area who tells me police are now on scene. @8NEWS

(Explicit language warning) pic.twitter.com/maZ2YxklLk  Nick Conigliaro (@NConigliaroNews) June 11, 2020

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam last week ordered the removal of an iconic statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee, which is four blocks away from where the Davis statue stood. A judge on Monday issued an injunction preventing officials from removing the monuments for the next 10 days.

Paint and protest graffiti covers the Jefferson Davis Memorial in Richmond, on June 7, 2020. Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War [J Scott Applewhite/ AP]

04:40 GMT  New probe launched into custodial death of Black man in Tacoma

Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, has ordered an independent investigation into the death of a Black man who died while in the custody of Tacoma police.

The move comes after new information emerged this week that at least one sheriffs deputy and a state trooper were at the scene when the man, Manuel Ellis, was detained and died on March 3. In a nearly nine-minute clip released by the lawyer representing Elliss family, the 33-year-old man is heard crying out I cant breathe, sir while handcuffed.

The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

A protester holds a Justice for Manny sign as fellow protesters march in Tacoma, Washington, US, on June 5, 2020 [Lindsey Wasson/ Reuters]

The Pierce County Sheriffs Department had been close to finishing an investigation, and a briefing with the prosecuting attorney was scheduled for Wednesday. Inslee said he ordered a new probe to make sure that the work is done free of conflicts of interest as officers from the sheriffs department were present at the scene.

The police department has identified the four officers involved in restraining Ellis. They were put on administrative leave last week after the autopsy results were made public.

Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards and the victims family have called for those officers to be fired and arrested.

04:12 GMT  Biden says questions about 1994 crime bill are legitimate

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, acknowledged concerns about his support for a 1994 crime bill that critics say contributed to the mass incarceration of racial minorities in recent decades.

Speaking during a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) town hall event on systemic racism, Biden said questions about his role in writing the bill are legitimate. But he insisted that people should judge him based on his current actions, not his past.

He said that while he has been told all along that young people oppose his past stances on criminal justice issues, there is no polling evidence to sustain that. Nor is there voting evidence thus far to sustain that.

Watch what I do. Judge me based on what I do, what I say and to whom I say it, he added.





04:01 GMT  Missouri paper owners resign in protest over racist cartoon

The co-owners of a family-owned Missouri newspaper resigned from their positions in protest after the publication of a racist syndicated cartoon that depicted a Black man stealing a handbag from a white woman while hailing funding cuts to police.

The cartoon published in the Washington Missourian on Wednesday shows a white woman asking for someone to call 911, but the masked Black man says, Good luck with that, lady  we defunded the police.

Washington Missourian owners and sisters Susan Miller and Jeanne Miller Wood said in an apology that the newspapers publisher  their father  made the decision to run the cartoon and did not let them know in advance.

As co-owners we believe it was racist and in no circumstance should have been published, they wrote of the cartoon. We apologize to our readers and our staff for the obvious pain and offense it caused. For the record, we abhor the sentiment and denounce ANY form of racism.

03:31 GMT  Police officer charged in Floyds death posts bail

Thomas Lane, one of four police officers charged in Floyds death, posted bail of $750,000 and was released from the Hennepin County Jail, with conditions, shortly after 4pm on Wednesday.

The other officers remain in custody.

Lane, 37, is charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter for his role in the arrest of Floyd, after another officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee to the unarmed Black mans neck.

Former Minnesota police officer Thomas Lane poses in a combination of booking photographs at Hennepin County Jail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, on June 3, 2020 [Hennepin County Sheriffs Office/Handout via Reuters]

Lanes lawyer said last week that Lane was a rookie, and that the only thing he did was hold Floyds feet so he could not kick. The criminal complaint also says that Lane expressed concern about Floyd and asked Chauvin twice if they should roll Floyd to his side, but Chauvin said no.

03:13 GMT  Buffalo adopts policing changes after protester is hurt

Buffalo will replace its police Emergency Response Team with a new public protection unit following the suspension and arrest of two ERT members seen on video shoving a 75-year-old protester who fell and cracked his head, Mayor Byron Brown said.

The city will also halt arrests for low-level, non-violent offences like marijuana possession and make it easier for the public to view police body camera video under measures Brown introduced as a critical first step in making Buffalo more inclusive and equitable.

We will shift policing in Buffalo away from enforcement and to a restorative model that promotes stronger community bonds, civic engagement and an end to young Black men, Black people, being caught in a cycle of crime and incarceration by consciously limiting their negative engagement with police, Brown said at a news conference.

03:03 GMT  Biden says US policing reforms long overdue

Speaking at a virtual NAACP town hall on systemic racism, Biden backed calls for reforms in US policing methods

This is an inflection moment in American history, a moment where we must make substantive changes now, changes the American police as the police is long overdue, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate said.

There is systemic racism not just in our law enforcement but also in housing, education, and everything we do  and we have to do the hard work to end it. pic.twitter.com/w9H77Jbuqa  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 11, 2020

Biden highlighted his proposals for additional community policing funds. But still, he avoided a major flashpoint in the conversation around such reforms  whether he would support reparations for African Americans.

Pressed multiple times on his stance, Biden said only that a study should be done and that his support for cash reparations would depend on what it was and if it will include Native Americans as well.

02:51 GMT  Amazon bans police use of its facial recognition software

Amazon banned police use of its facial-recognition technology for a year, making it the latest tech giant to step back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin.

The Seattle-based company did not say why it took action now.

Civil rights groups and Amazons own employees have pushed the company to stop selling its technology, called Rekognition, to government agencies, saying that it could be used to invade peoples privacy and target minorities.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Amazon said that it hoped Congress would put in place stronger regulations for facial recognition.

02:39 GMT  Protesters tear down Christopher Columbus statue in Saint Paul

A group of protesters pulled down a statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the latest US monument to be torn down amid nationwide demonstrations against police brutality and racial inequalities.

The 10-foot bronze statue was pulled from its granite base by several dozen people led by a Minnesota-based Native American activist, Mike Forcia, outside the state Capitol.

It was the right thing to do and it was the right time to do it, Forcia told Reuters news agency, in apparent reference to more than two weeks of protests over the police killing of Floyd, an unarmed Black man.

Native American activists have long objected to honouring Columbus, saying that his expeditions to the Americas led to the colonisation and genocide of their ancestors.

Toppled statue of Christopher Columbus is loaded onto a truck on the grounds of the State Capitol on June 10, 2020 in St Paul, Minnesota [Stephen Maturen /Getty Images via AFP]

A man kneels with his fist raised on the spot where a statue of Christopher Columbus, which was toppled by protesters, stood on the grounds of the State Capitol on June 10, 2020 in St Paul, Minnesota [Stephen Maturen/ Getty Images via AFP]

01:45 GMT  Australian officials warn of arrest, fines at BLM rallies

Australian police are warning those that attend public rallies in support of Black Lives Matter risk fines and arrest if they breach social distancing restrictions, as politicians warn the events risk spreading the disease.

Tens of thousands attended rallies last weekend, and more protests are planned on Friday.

We will start writing tickets of 1,000 Australian dollars ($700), and we can use all our powers to move people on, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told local radio station 2GB Radio. If you dont move on, youll be arrested.

The Black Lives Matter movement has refocused attention on Australias treatment of its Indigenous people and the high number of Aboriginal deaths in custody.

People in Sydney rally in solidarity on June 2 with those in the United States protesting against police brutality and the death of Indigenous Australians [Loren Elliott/Reuters]

01:10 GMT  US Soccer lifts 2017 ruling banning protests during anthem

The US Soccer Federation says it has repealed a 2017 requirement that all players stand during the national anthem.

The sports governing body introduced the policy after Megan Rapinoe, a member of the US womens team took a knee before a match in 2016 to show her solidarity with American football player Colin Kaepernick who took a knee to bring attention to racial injustice.

We apologize to our players  especially our black players  staff, fans and all who support eradicating racism, the federation said in a statement.

Sports are a powerful platform for good and we have not used our platform as effectively as we should have. We can do more on these specific issues and we will.

00:30 GMT  Owners of Minnesota Twins pledge $25m for racial justice

The Pohlad family  the owners of the Minnesota Twins baseball team  have pledged $25m for racial justice.

Black people have experienced oppression and racism for far too long in this country, Bill Pohlad, the president of the Pohlad Family Foundation, said in a statement. We condemn racism in all its forms, and we are firmly committed to helping enact meaningful change. We know this will take time and effort and we are committed to this work beyond this seminal moment in our countrys history.

The Pohlad Family Announces $25 Million Commitment to Racial Justice in the Twin Cities. https://t.co/53gbM27IWA pic.twitter.com/EGaTssIGhe  Minnesota Twins (@Twins) June 10, 2020

Wednesday, June 10

22:10 GMT  US House Speaker demands Confederacy statues removed

Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the House-Senate panel in charge of the National Statuary Hall collection in the Capitol to take down the likenesses of 11 Confederate soldiers and officials that she said pay homage to hate, not heritage.

Calling the halls of Congress the very heart of our democracy she said the statues should embody Americans highest ideals  not men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end.

The statues which fill the halls of Congress should reflect our highest ideals as Americans. Today, I am once again calling for the removal from the U.S. Capitol of the 11 statues representing Confederate soldiers and officials. These statues pay homage to hate, not heritage.  Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 10, 2020

The letter is the latest move in the wake of global protests over racism, to remove statues of those associated with perpetrating it. Across the United States and internationally, statues have been toppled, removed or covered.

21:23 GMT  NASCAR to ban Confederate flags at events

US professional stock-car racing league NASCAR says will ban Confederate flags at future events, according to a report in the Washington Post.

The presence of the Confederate flag  runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry, NASCAR said in a statement.

The decision comes two days after Bubba Wallace, the only African American driving in the NASCAR Cup Series, requested NASCAR ban the flag viewed as a symbol of hate for many.

Wallace used a #BlackLivesMatter livery on his Richard Petty Motorsport Chevrolet for a race at Martinsville Speedway on Wednesday.

I think its going to speak volumes for what I stand for, but also what the initiative that NASCAR, the whole sport, is trying to push, Wallace said before the decision.

19:15 GMT  White House says finalising proposals on police reform

The White House says it is putting the finishing touches on proposals to reform the police, and that reducing immunity for officers is a non-starter.

Speaking at a White House briefing, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said administration plans to address protester concerns about police brutality are reaching final edits, and said the proposals could be made public in the coming days.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany addressing a first press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House [Carlos Barria/Reuters]

19:00 GMT  Trump rules out renaming US bases named for Confederate leaders

President Donald Trump rejected any proposal to rename US military bases that are named for Confederate leaders from the 1860s civil war.

As many as 10 bases carry the names of Confederate leaders, including Fort Bragg in North Carolina, one of the largest in the United States, and Fort Hood in Texas. Discussions about renaming them emerged as a way of racial reconciliation.

The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations Trump wrote in a tweet.

history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

17:45 GMT  Boston to offer COVID-19 testing to protesters

Boston is offering those who joined street protests following Floyds death access to coronavirus testing.

Mayor Marty Walsh said in a news conference that his administration was reaching out to organisers of the demonstrations and is working to create a mobile pop-up testing site in a Boston neighbourhood that will be open to everyone, whether or not they are showing signs of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

There is no special screening or requirements, Walsh said. As people lift their voices to fight racism and injustice, we want to make sure that we keep them safe, as well.

16:35 GMT  Thousands attend Black Lives Matter demo in Amsterdam

Thousands of people demonstrated in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in a park in Amsterdam named for South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

It was the latest in a series of protests in Dutch cities that have taken place in recent days.

We are here to hold up a fist against the global pandemic of racism, protester Mitchell Esajas told the crowd.

Thousands of people demonstrate in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in a park in Amsterdam, the Netherlands [Peter Dejong/AP Photo]

Public debate about racism, discrimination and historical links to the slave trade have intensified in the Netherlands since Floyds death.

A Dutch human rights organisation called on the government to appoint a coordinator to help tackle what it called structural discrimination in the Netherlands.

15:45 GMT  Minneapolis police chief takes on union, promises reform

The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said as he announced the first steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency.

Arradondo said a thorough review of the contract is planned. He said the contract needs to be restructured to provide more transparency and flexibility for true reform. The review would look at matters such as critical incident protocols, use of force and disciplinary protocols, including grievances and arbitration.

He said it was debilitating for a chief when there were grounds to terminate an officer and a third-party mechanism worked to keep that person on the street.

Security forces take position during a protest against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US [Lucas Jackson/Reuters]

This work must be transformational, but I must do it right, Arradondo said of changes to the department.

He also promised new research and strategies to spot and intervene with problem officers.

We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart, he said, adding that the department has to address issues of racism head-on.

15:00 GMT  T each them what necessary force is: George Floyds brother calls for police reforms

Legislators heard urgent pleas from George Floyds brother, who called for reforms and better training for police officers.

Teach them what necessary force is, he said, Teach them that necessary force should be used rarely, and only when life is at risk.

He also reminded the panel that police were called because his brother had allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill.

George Floyds brother, Philonise Floyd giving his opening statement during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability at the US Capitol in Washington, DC [Michael Reynolds/Pool via Reuters]

George wasnt hurt anyone that day. He didnt deserve to die, over $20. Im asking you. Is that what is that what a Black man is worth  $20? This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people watching in the streets are telling you enough is enough, he said.

The judiciary panel is preparing to shepherd a sweeping Democratic package of legislation aimed at combating police violence and racial injustice to the House floor by July 4, and is expected to hold further hearings next week to prepare the bill for a full House vote.

14:40 GMT  Im tired, Im tired of the pain, George Floyds brother says

George Floyds brother testified on Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on issues of racial profiling, police brutality and lost trust between police departments and the communities they serve.

Im tired. Im tired of the pain Im feeling now, and Im tired of the pain I feel every time another Black person is killed for no reason, Philonise Floyd said during his testimony.

Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired, Floyd said. Georges calls for help were ignored. Please listen to the call Im making to you now, to the calls of our family, and to the calls ringing out in the streets across the world.

If his death ends up changing the world for the better. And I think it will. I think it has. Then he died as he lived. It is on you to make sure his death isnt in vain, he said.

Read more here.

14:35 GMT  White House defends Trumps conspiracy theory tweet on Buffalo protester

The White House on Wednesday defended President Donald Trumps promotion of an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about a 75-year-old protester injured by police in Buffalo, saying it was Trumps prerogative to raise questions about the incident.

The protester, Martin Gugino, was shoved by police and critically injured when he approached them during a march against racism and police brutality in an incident that was captured on video and led to criminal charges against the officers involved.

Trump, offering no evidence, tweeted on Tuesday that Guginos fall could be a set up with ties to the anti-fascist movement Antifa.

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2020

The president was just raising some questions, some legitimate ones, about that particular interaction. And its his prerogative to do so, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News on Wednesday.

A lawyer for Gugino called Trumps statement dark, dangerous, and untrue, according to media reports. Gugino told USA Today he had no comment other than Black Lives Matter and that he has been released from intensive care and should recover eventually.

Buffalo Police Officers Aaron Torgalski, 39, and Robert McCabe, 32, face felony assault charges over the incident.

14:30 GMT  Twitter, Square to make June 19 a holiday to support racial diversity

Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Square Inc and Twitter Inc, said June 19, popularly known as Juneteenth, would be a permanent company-wide holiday in the United States to show support for racial diversity.

Both Twitter and Square are making #Juneteenth (June 19th) a company holiday in the US, forevermore. A day for celebration, education, and connection.https://t.co/xmR3fWMiRs  jack (@jack) June 9, 2020

June 19 commemorates the US abolition of slavery by President Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation, which was belatedly announced in the state of Texas on June 19, 1865, after the end of the Civil War.

14:25 GMT  US top doctor expresses concerns about protests spreading coronavirus

The US top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, expressed concern that recent mass protests against police brutality and racism would spread the novel coronavirus because of a lack of social distancing.

Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told ABCs Good Morning America he is not surprised that members of the Washington, DC National Guard who mobilised in response to the protests had tested positive, but he called the development disturbing.

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci speaking during a Coronavirus Task Force news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington, DC [Al Drago/Pool via EPA]

The issue of physical separation is important. Masks can help, but its masks plus physical separation and when you get congregations like we saw with the demonstrations, like we have said  myself and other health officials  thats taking a risk, Fauci said. Unfortunately, what were seeing now is just an example of the kinds of things we were concerned about.

14:15 GMT  Netflix launches Black Lives Matter collection for viewers

Streaming service Netflix announced that it is promoting a new Black Lives Matter collection to US subscribers, featuring more than 45 movies, television shows and documentaries about racial injustice and the experience of Black Americans.

The collection includes Da 5 Bloods, 13th, When They See Us, Mudbound, Orange Is the New Black, Dear White People, as well as Barry Jenkins Oscar-winning Moonlight.

When we say Black Lives Matter, we also mean Black storytelling matters. With an understanding that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time  we're starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience.  Netflix (@netflix) June 10, 2020

When we say Black Lives Matter, we also mean Black storytelling matters,' Netflix said in a tweet. With an understanding that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time  were starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience.

12:50 GMT  George Floyds brother to address US House panel on police reforms

One of the brothers of George Floyd is due to speak to a Democratic-led congressional panel as legislators take on the twin issues of police violence and racial injustice.

Philonise Floyd speaking during his brothers funeral at The Fountain of Praise church in Houston, Texas, US [Godofredo A Vasquez/Pool via Reuters]

Philonise Floyd, 42, will testify before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, along with family lawyer Ben Crump and 10 others at the first congressional hearing to examine the social and political undercurrents that have fuelled weeks of protests nationwide and overseas.

The judiciary panel is preparing to shepherd a sweeping package of legislation, aimed at combating police violence and racial injustice, to the House floor by July 4, and is expected to hold further hearings next week to prepare the bill for a full House vote.

12:45 GMT  Confederate monument in Virginia covered with rubbish bags

Protesters in Portsmouth, Virginia, covered a Confederate monument in the city with rubbish bags and sheets, several hours after the citys council members had a meeting to figure out ways to relocate it.

A white sheet that read BLM  the acronym for Black Lives Matter  covered the fence in front of the monument hours after the Portsmouth city council met to discuss who owns the figure, a local TV channel reported. The question about who owns the monument has been the main roadblock in the citys years-long quest to remove it.

In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus was torn down by protesters, set on fire and then thrown into a lake on Tuesday. The statue was toppled less than two hours after protesters gathered in the citys Byrd Park chanted for the statue to be taken down, news outlets reported.

12:40 GMT  Corrections officer among group that mocked Floyds killing as protesters marched by

A white man seen in a video circulating on social media mocking George Floyds death included a corrections officer in South Jersey, local media reported.

The man  whose identity has not been verified  was filmed kneeling on another man, recreating how Floyd died on May 25, while Black Lives Matter protesters marched by.

The New Jersey Department of Corrections confirmed in a statement that the man in the video was a corrections officer at Bayside State Prison and that he has been suspended while the agency conducts an investigation.

We have been made aware that one of our officers from Bayside State Prison participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd, an NJ Department of Corrections statement said.

Catch up on Tuesdays updates here.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London  Wed, June 10, 2020 07:07 591 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd70682 2 Art & Culture Sothebys,Rembrandt,auction,painting Free

One of the last self-portraits by Rembrandt remaining in private hands is to go on sale next month with a guide price of 12-16 million ($15-20 million, 13-18 million euros), Sotheby's said on Monday.

Only three of the Dutch master's painted self-portraits remain in private hands: Sotheby's in London sold one in 2003; another is on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland.

The third, "Self-portrait wearing a ruff and black hat", is the earliest in date of the three, and goes on sale at the London auction house on July 28.

Read also: Museum starts 'live' restoration of Rembrandt masterpiece

The self-portrait is one of 80 he created during his career, and was painted towards the end of 1632, when the 26-year-old was establishing himself in Amsterdam and enjoying his first flush of commercial success.

Recognise this face?  Rembrandt's 'Self-portrait, wearing a ruff and black hat' will star in our cross-category evening sale this July 28 with an estimate of 12-16 million https://t.co/nVHmgimRyB. pic.twitter.com/ddyeuZDGQC  Sotheby's (@Sothebys) June 8, 2020

"Rembrandt's face is instantly recognizable to us at every stage of his adulthood - far more so than any other painter," said George Gordon, Sotheby's co-chairman of Old Master Paintings Worldwide.

"We know that this painting was created in a remarkably short period of time, because he laid in the background first, but when he signed it upon completion, the background was still wet, so the signature is impressed into it by his brush."

Topics : Sothebys Rembrandt auction painting
Cambodian workers sit down for lunch during a break in front of their factory in Phnom Penh, March 2, 2020.

Cambodias top human rights body said Wednesday that the country does not want to lose preferential trade status in the European Union but is unable to comply with the blocs requirements on rights reforms to retain those privileges, citing its status as a sovereign nation.

The EU in mid-February announced plans to suspend tariff-free access to its market under the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme for around one-fifth of Cambodias exports, citing rollbacks on human rightsa decision that would reinstate taxes on garments and footwear beginning Aug. 12, unless it is overturned by the blocs governments or its parliament.

The suspension, which Prime Minister Hun Sen has shrugged off and called an attack on Cambodias sovereignty, will result in a loss of around U.S. $1.1 billion of the countrys annual U.S. $5.8 billion in exports to the bloc, some 75 percent of which are made up of clothing and textiles.

On Wednesday, Cambodian Human Rights Committee Deputy President and Ministry of Justice spokesman Chhin Malin told RFAs Khmer Service that Cambodia does not want to lose EBA status and that the government is negotiating with the bloc to ensure it maintains full EBA status.

However, he said that Cambodia cannot fully comply with EUs requirements, especially those related to human rights and political issues.

Cambodia will continue to cooperate with the EU Commission to resolve the EBA issue, he said.

Cambodia will continue to maintain its position of implementing the law and maintain its sovereignty and will not exchange them for aid.

Chhin Malin said that different people have different assessments on human rights issues in Cambodia based on their political preferences, suggesting that his government would not bow to demands over how the country should be run.

He did not provide any details on negotiations or how Cambodia might expect to sway the EU on its decision to withdraw EBA status without instituting reforms.

While the coronavirus outbreak has thrown production for Cambodias key garment industry into disarray, factories and workers have endured a significant economic hit amid a decline in orders from buyers in the EU anticipating a return to tariffs on some Cambodian imports when trade status is withdrawn.

Government to blame

Ath Thon, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, told RFA that if the government of Cambodia had positively responded the EU Commissions recommendations during an earlier assessment period, they would not be in danger of losing trade preferences on 20 percent of its exports.

He acknowledged that Cambodia had improved some issuessuch as the rights of workers, the indigenous population, and land ownershipbut crucial requirements, including the status of political rights, remain unchanged.

As a union, we want the government to resolve all of the issues recommended by the EU, he said.

Among the reforms the EU has called for is the reinstatement of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which the Supreme Court banned in November 2017 for its role in an alleged plot to topple the government.

The move to ban the CNRP was part of a wider crackdown by Hun Sen on the political opposition, NGOs, and the independent media that paved the way for his ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) to win all 125 seats in parliament in the countrys July 2018 general election.

Am Sam Ath of the Cambodia-based human rights group Licadho told RFA that there had been little improvement of human rights or political rights since the EU announced its decision in February.

He expressed concern that if the situation in Cambodia continues to deteriorate, the country will lose EBA status on all of its exports to the EU.

The EU has [announced plans to] partially withdraw the EBA because of the CNRP dissolution and persecution, he said.

Currently, we have observed that arrests have resumed. I am concerned that the EU will remove full EBA status if the government does not restore democracy and respect for human rights.

Since the beginning of the year, nearly 20 CNRP opposition officials or activists have been arrested and thrown in prisonmost without arrest warrants.

During the same period, 17 former and active CNRP officials and supporters have been the victims of assault by unidentified men, and police have yet to make any arrests in the cases.

Call for postponement

Chhin Malins comments came after the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) issued an open letter to the EU Commission and other European stakeholders last week calling for a one-year postponement to the EBA withdrawal, citing the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic that has infected 126 people in Cambodia since March, according to official statistics.

GMAC said that some 250 companies making apparel, footwear, and travel goods have been forced to suspend operations because of the outbreak, while others are operating at reduced capacity, leading to layoffs for around 130,000 workersmost of whom are women.

While there was a significant drop off in orders in the first quarter of 2020, the manufacturers association said that it expects a decline in sales for the three industries to fall by 50 to 60 percent, year over year, in the second quarter, putting hundreds of thousands at risk of job loss and millions under the threat of a return to poverty.

Furthermore, it warned, a return of tariffs would encourage buyers to turn their business to other producers in the region that still benefit from the EBA scheme, while undermining improvements in labor rights and working conditions Cambodia has achieved in partnership with stakeholders such as the International Labour Organization.

China trade deal

Cambodia could find some relief from any burden that comes with withdrawal of EBA status if it inks a free trade agreement with China, which the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh said in a Tuesday statement posted on its Facebook page had reached a third round of negotiations.

The trade deal agreement to be signed between Cambodia and China will be implemented according to a consensus of the two countries leaders and will promote the joint destiny of Phnom Penh and Beijing, the statement said, without providing further details.

No date has been set for the finalization and signing of the agreement, which is expected to come later this year.

Cambodias Ministry of Commerce also issued a statement Tuesday detailing a teleconference between Minister Pan Sorasak and Yang Zhengwei, deputy director-general of the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs under Chinas commerce ministry.

Negotiations focused on opening markets for products, services, investment, and economic cooperation, while boosting imports from Cambodia and attracting more investment, the statement said, adding that the agreement is expected to boost trade between the two countries well beyond the average growth rate of 20 percent over the past three years.

Commerce ministry spokesman Seang Thai confirmed that no schedule has been set to sign the deal, adding that the two sides are negotiating to reduce taxes for certain products.

News of the negotiations came on the same day that Cambodias Ministry of Agriculture announced it had signed an agreement with China to export mangoes, which Hun Sen said in a statement posted to his Facebook account is a good sign for farmers and investors concerned over reduced demand and low prices.

Agricultural expert Yang Saing Koma told RFA that Cambodias government should be wary of signing any deals with China, particularly ones that he warned could negatively impact small and medium Cambodian enterprises and the agricultural sector.

I welcome free trade, but we must be prudent, he said, recommending that Cambodia ensure any such deal be balanced.

We must also maintain local capacity to compete in the free market.

Trade between Cambodia and China has steadily increased from U.S. $5.16 billion in 2016 to just over U.S. $6 billion in 2017 and U.S. $7.4 billion in 2018, according to government figures. The two countries aim to reach U.S. $10 billion in bilateral trade annually by 2023.

Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka

MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Monday about his idea of holding an expanded Group of Seven summit later this year with a possible invitation for Russia, the Kremlin and the White House said.

Trump said on Saturday he would postpone a G7 summit he had hoped to host next month until September or later and expand the list of invitees to include Australia, Russia, South Korea and India.

A White House statement on the call said Trump and Putin discussed "progress toward convening the G7."

Britain and Canada have since spoken out against the idea of readmitting Russia to a forum it was expelled from in 2014 after annexing the Crimea region from Ukraine.

Russia had said earlier on Monday that it was looking for more details before responding.

The two leaders also discussed the OPEC+ deal on oil output cuts, and measures to fight the coronavirus, the Kremlin said. Putin thanked Trump for a delivery of U.S. ventilators, the Kremlin said, and congratulated Trump on the first spaceflight of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil in nine years.

Trump and Putin also discussed "the need for effective arms control," the White House said.

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Alexander Marrow; and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Catherine Evans and Alistair Bell)
Midland County added nine new confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing its pandemic total to 99 cases and nine deaths.

The county has added 16 confirmed cases in the past three days, during a period when results from a May 30-31 mass test event at Dow Diamond in Midland are being released.

Five of those positive cases are from the Dow Diamond event, according to Fred Yanoski, Midland County Public Health director/health officer. The other 11 are mostly part of a cluster of infections associated with each other that the health department is currently investigating, he added.

A vast majority of the 2,435 tests administered at the Dow Diamond event are in, he said, and letters are being sent out to those who tested negative.

"We can't let our guard down," Yanoski said. "We still have disease in the community."

On Wednesday, Gladwin County and Isabella County each added one case, bringing their totals to 20 cases and one death and 79 cases and seven deaths. Saginaw County added two cases, and now stands at 1,100 cases and 112 deaths.

Bay County's Wednesday report shows a decrease in confirmed cases, and now stands at 333 cases and 26 deaths.

The state added 171 new cases and 13 deaths. Overall, Michigan is at 59,278 cases and 5,711 deaths.

Midland County Department of Public Health continues to encourage residents to take precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19:

 Continue to practice social distancing as recommended by federal, state and local officials.

 Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

 Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.

 Disinfect commonly touched surfaces.

 Stay home when you are sick.

 Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.

We cannot stress enough how important it is for our community to be diligent in their community mitigation efforts," said Fred Yanoski, Midland County Public Health director/health officer. "We know that COVID-19 is in our community, and our residents can make a huge impact on slowing the spread of disease by following the recommended precautions."

If you think you've been exposed to COVID-19 and develop a fever and symptoms such as cough or difficulty breathing, call your health care provider for medical advice. If he/she isn't available, call MidMichigan Urgent Care in Midland at 989- 633-1350 or MidMichigan Medical Center's Emergency Department in Midland at 989-839-3100.

MidMichigan Health has a COVID-19 informational hotline with a reminder of CDC guidelines and recommendations. The hotline can be reached toll-free at 800-445-7356 or 989-794-7600. Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also has a hotline number for Michigan residents for questions about COVID-19. The number is 1-888-535-6136 and is available seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Residents can also e-mail COVID19@michigan.gov. E-mails will be answered seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

If you are feeling anxious, stressed, depressed and feel you need to talk to someone, reach out to Community Mental Health for Central Michigan by calling 800-317-0708.
Moscow, June 10 : Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced concern over the escalation of hostilities in Libya and examined problems of the intra-Ukrainian conflict settlement in a phone conversation, the Kremlin has said.

"The leaders expressed concern over the escalation of hostilities in Libya. The inevitability of an early ceasefire and the launch of intra-Libyan negotiations under UN auspices were emphasized," it said in a statement on Tuesday, reported Xinhua news agency.

The Russian side gave a positive assessment of Egypt's mediation efforts to peacefully settle the Libyan crisis, following on from the decisions of the international conference on Libya held in Berlin on January 19, it added.

Putin and Merkel also exchanged views on the intra-Ukrainian conflict settlement, expressing concern over the lack of progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements signed in 2015 and resolutions of the Normandy Four summit in Paris in 2019, it said.

Key aspects of developments in Syria and issues related to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic were also discussed, according to the statement.
The Santa Rosa Police Department will immediately end the use of the carotid restraint, joining other law enforcement agencies to amend use-of-force policies under the heightened scrutiny of a country teeming with protests against police brutality.

Police Chief Rainer Navarro made the decision to ban the move, also known as the sleeper hold, after discussion with community members and city officials, according to a Tuesday news release from Santa Rosa police. Joining others across the Bay Area and U.S., protesters have demonstrated in downtown Santa Rosa for days to demand justice for George Floyd and other victims of police violence.

The decision to change this policy is the right one right now, Navarro said. Our mission at SRPD has always been to make our city a safe place to live work and play. We want to stay true to this mission and make sure our community knows that we are listening.

The carotid restraint involves applying pressure to a persons neck with the intent to render them unconscious by cutting off blood flow in the carotid artery. The move resembles a choke hold  which was previously banned in California  and can be fatal.

Late last year, a Petaluma man died after a Sonoma County sheriffs deputy administered the carotid restraint hold on David Ward through an open car window. Santa Rosa police are investigating the death.

Other law enforcement agencies in California have banned the carotid hold in recent days, including the Pittsburg Police Department in Contra Costa County.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday said he would support legislation to ban the carotid hold in California by law enforcement officials.

We train techniques on strangleholds that put peoples lives at risks, Newsom said. A carotid hold that literally is designed to stop peoples blood from flowing into their brain, that has no place any longer in 21st century practices and policing.

Demonstrations erupted across the country after Floyd died in late May when former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes despite the black mans pleas for air. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Two weeks later, massive protests have continued as people demand an end to police brutality and killings of people of color. Police in many cities have deployed tear gas, rubber bullets and batons on such crowds.

Santa Rosa police and city officials are working on a robust action plan to create change in Santa Rosa, police said.

Mayor Tom Schwedhelm said he stands by the police departments decision.

The Chief is listening to those who have been speaking up in our community and we look forward to continued discussions about how we can improve law enforcement practices in our community and across the country, Schwedhelm said.

Anna Bauman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.bauman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @abauman2
An event took place in Hanoi on June 9 to help promote the domestic consumption of tra fish products, a major foreign currency earner that has been hit hard by impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Addressing the event, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said after more than 20 years of development, the tra fish sector has reaped encouraging outcomes with 6,000ha of farming areas generating 2.5 billion USD in annual export value.

However, he noted, aside from expanding export markets, businesses also need to pay attention to the domestic market so as to boost production and ensure more stable prices for tra fish products.

Cuong explained that a strong domestic market will help ease the pressure on export, raise export prices, and stimulate production. Local consumers will also have more options to choose.

Vietnamese tra fish has been shipped to 119 markets around the world.

On November 1, 2019, the US Department of Agriculture officially recognised that Vietnams pangasius food safety control system is equivalent to the US one, which affirmed the quality of Vietnamese tra fish and helped facilitate the export to not only the US but also other demanding markets.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed production, business and export activities of many sectors, including the tra fish industry, into stagnation.

In the first five months of 2020, the tra fish output was estimated at 462,000 tonnes, down 6.3 percent year on year. Meanwhile, exports dropped 39 percent to 456 million USD, with shipments to China down 48 percent, the EU down 47 percent and the US down nearly 20 percent.

The sudden nosedive in exports has exposed businesses to numerous difficulties when a large volume of tra fish remains in warehouses due to export disruption and orders were cancelled. Meanwhile, it is forecast that this industry will have to wait until the third quarter of this year to fully recover.

Given this, to address current hardships, it is necessary to concurrently develop the domestic market and boost overseas shipments, the event heard.

The tra fish sector targets 1.42 million tonnes in output and about 2 billion USD in export revenue this year./.

VNA
Zara owner Inditex has registered its first-ever quarterly loss despite its online sales soaring 95 per cent in April following the coronavirus causing a mass shutdown of its stores.

The Spanish clothing retail giant, whose founder Amancio Ortega is one of the world's wealthiest men, said it lost 409million from February to April this year compared to a net income of 734million the previous year.

Total sales meanwhile, which also include the Bershka and Pull & Bear brands, plummeted 44 per cent year-on-year during the quarter.

Inditex's sales at its stores have been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic

Online sales did rise by 50 per cent during the quarter though, while they nearly doubled in April. The company now expects online sales to constitute around a quarter of total sales by 2022.

Inditex's quarterly loss included a 308million provision to close up to 1,200 smaller stores in 2020 and 2021, part of its shift to bigger stores.

It said it would spend an extra 2.7billion overall to upgrade technology at stores and to drive its online sales so that they made up a quarter of sales by 2022, compared to 14 per cent now.

Like the wider clothing retail sector, the firm's sales have been severely affected as a result of the coronavirus forcing the company to close most of its shops temporarily.

H&M, Gap and Primark have all seen turnover fall massively in recent months. Swedish fast-fashion group H&M warned in April that it could make its first quarterly loss in decades in the March to May period.

Just today, Monsoon Accessorize has announced it is going into administration with 545 employees expected to lose their jobs and 35 stores due to close.

Today, Monsoon Accessorize announced it is going into administration with 545 employees expected to lose their jobs and 35 stores due to close

Its founder Peter Simon said the firm was performing well prior to the Covid-19 pandemic erupting, but that it ''simply could not withstand the financial impact of having to close all its UK, franchise and joint venture stores for almost three months.''

Another fashion chain Quiz has stated it is cutting 93 jobs and putting the division that operates its standalone stores into administration.

Online retailers such as Boohoo, by contrast, have benefited from the closure of non-essential retail stores in the UK. After falling in early March, Boohoo's share price has climbed to be more than 20 per cent above where it was at the start of the year.

Inditex also owns Massimo Dutti (pictured)

Asos has also recovered its March losses, helped by its declaration at the start of April of a 200million equity raise.

Inditex is in a more financially stable position relative to its competitors though due to its high cash reserves.

Its liquidity was 5.75billion at the end of April, against 6.66billion at the same point in 2019.

Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK, also notes that even before Covid-19 started causing severe harm to the industry, Inditex had been very resilient in coping with challenges affecting the wider retail sector.

He added: 'Even with that resilience the company has been unable to insulate itself from the effects of Covid-19 and the closure of its retail outlets, as it reported a Q1 loss of 409million on sales of 3.35billion, a significant but not surprising fall from a year ago when sales came in at 5.39billion.

'The decline could have been worse but for the resilience of its online operation which has helped offset the impact of over 80 per cent of the company's stores being closed.'

Shares in Inditex were up 2 per cent by midday to 26.2p.
Scale Computing, the market leader in edge computing, virtualization and hyperconverged solutions, today announced that the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School District was able to quickly and securely have all of their administrative staff working from home with remote desktop access on their existing IT infrastructure from Scale Computing in just a few days following a one hour deployment.

The New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corporation is a public school district and has operated as a separate governmental unit since 1956. Located in Floyd County, Indiana, the districts enrollment totals approximately 12,000 students in pre-kindergarten through high school programs, and employs more than 1200 full-time personnel. When the school district needed to support immediate work from home solutions in response to COVID-19, they turned to Scale Computing.

Before this situation started we were not a work-from-home organization. Most administrative staff needed to be in the office to access critical applications. When the orders came down to close the schools, our team was tasked with finding a solution, said Chris Bowers, IT Manager at The New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corporation. Scale Computing provided the configuration, architecture and virtual machines free of charge, and offered the trial VDI licenses for free for a month during the crisis. We were so grateful our IT infrastructure partner stepped up to help during this time of need.

At the end of 2019, Bowers and IT leadership decided it was time to migrate from their existing, legacy IT infrastructure. The school district wanted improved management and efficiency, as well as an extra level of redundancy. When the new reality of the COVID-19 pandemic and workforces being mandated to work from home settled in, Bowers and team were already about 90% of the way finished with their migration to the Scale Computing HC3 platform.

When the work from home order was delivered the administrative offices needed connectivity and access, but many of the staff did not have a computer at home. Purchasing laptops was not going to happen in such a short time frame, and we did not want the security risk of opening up VPN connectivity to devices we do not manage, Bowers shared.

Luckily, we did have Chromebooks on hand and we issued those to people who needed them, but critical applications were a mix of web-based and internally-hosted applications. Scale Computing had emailed their customers with details for a fast solution, and it met our needs. The message claimed deployment would be in an hour or less, and honestly we didnt really believe it. But it was true - we timed it and we were able to finish deployment in just under an hour. We had the school staff up and running, working from home, and we havent received a single support call since. It all just works.

Leveraging virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technology, Scale Computing packaged two virtual machine images customers can download for free, and put together a how-to video and trained technical support staff to assist them in deploying the remote work technology solution. The VDI Connection Broker, Gateway, and Agent provide easy, intuitive configuration and management for the Scale Computing HC3 environment, whether using remote access, only on-premise access, or a combination of both. No additional devices or services are needed to get organizations up and running quickly.

We are proud we could create a secure, innovative and easy solution to support our customers when they needed us, said Jeff Ready, CEO and Co-founder, Scale Computing. This short-term remote solution prepares customers for future IT transformation with a true VDI deployment. Scale Computing HC3 virtualization and VDI solutions provide a simple solution with rapid deployment, ease of management and high availability.

About Scale Computing

Scale Computing is a leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions. Scale Computing HC3 software eliminates the need for traditional virtualization software, disaster recovery software, servers, and shared storage, replacing these with a fully integrated, highly available system for running applications. Using patented HyperCore technology, the HC3 self-healing platform automatically identifies, mitigates, and corrects infrastructure problems in real-time, enabling applications to achieve maximum uptime. When ease-of-use, high availability, and TCO matter, Scale Computing HC3 is the ideal infrastructure platform. Read what our customers have to say on Gartner Peer Insights, Spiceworks, TechValidate and TrustRadius.
TiO2/Au/TiO2 nanomesh on PET substrate as a kangaroo-patterned transparent and flexible circuit to light up a blue LED. Credit: Dr. Tengfei Qiu

Australian researchers have demonstrated the strong potential for a new type of flexible, recyclable electrodes to be used in creating cheaper solar cells, touchscreens, wearable 'e-skins' and next-generation responsive windows.

These materials, made using a simple, cost-effective fabrication processes, could replace traditional transparent conductive oxides such as indium tin oxide (ITO), which is a necessary component of almost all thin-film solar cells, laptop screens and smartphone displays, but which is steadily rising in price due its scarcity, and is inherently limited by its brittle nature.

In addition to cheaper, high-efficiency photovoltaic solar cells, computer displays and smartphone touch screens, household energy bills could be slashed in the long-term, with the electrodes potentially able to be used in manufacturing smart windows, which can electrically shift color and become opaque or transparent.

Contributing author Dr. Eser Akinoglu of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science said: "The performance of the material is excellent, the transmission of above 90% and high electrical conductivity rivals the ITO benchmark."

Looking ahead to the potential commercial application of the research, he added: "In principle, you should be able to integrate this technology into industrial roll-to-roll printing."

Achieved using a technique called nanosphere lithography, a deposition method which involves evaporating the desired combination of materials into a nanoscale pattern, researchers from The University of Queensland and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science have published their findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The dielectric/metal/dielectric (D/M/D) nanomesh electrodes produced through this approach boasted precisely controlled perforation size, wire width and uniform hole distribution, yielding high transmittance, low sheet resistance (which minimizes loss of voltage) and outstanding flexural endurance.

Lead author Dr. Tengfei Qiu of the University of Queensland said: "We offered a strategy to make the shadow area of the metallic nanomesh highly transparent, by integrating D/M/D structures to the nanomesh system. The nanomesh transparent films with D/M/D layered structure have not been studied before. The simple and cost-effective nanosphere lithography technique can be applied to fabricate diverse layered nanomesh materials."

And, in the case of certain flexible electrochromic applications, the electrodes even demonstrated the capacity to be recycled, enhancing the mechanism's credentials as a possible sustainable alternative to more established manufacturing materials and processes.

Dr. Akinoglu said of this recyclable characteristic: "It means that if you make a device like an electrochromic window, which may deteriorate in functionality after its life-span, you can take it apart, flush rinse the electrodes, and reuse them for another device."

One of the next steps for researchers is to explore the potential shown in this study to create similar results at a larger scale, with a long-term view to achieving similar outcomes in a commercially viable capacity.

"You want to get the transparency higher, you want to get sheet resistance lower and you want to get the endurance for mechanical stress and flexibility higher," Dr. Akinoglu said.

"And you want to be able to fabricate it on a large-scale area, at a low cost."

Senior author Prof. Lianzhou Wang added: "This work will inspire the design of transparent conductive films with novel functions such as flexibility and recyclability, providing an excellent platform for next generation eco-friendly optoelectronics."

Explore further Transparent, conductive films promising for developing flexible screens

More information: Tengfei Qiu et al. Trilayer Nanomesh Films with Tunable Wettability as Highly Transparent, Flexible, and Recyclable Electrodes, Advanced Functional Materials (2020). Journal information: Advanced Functional Materials Tengfei Qiu et al. Trilayer Nanomesh Films with Tunable Wettability as Highly Transparent, Flexible, and Recyclable Electrodes,(2020). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202002556

Provided by ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science
Nearly 200 junior resident doctors of Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad are on a strike since Tuesday night protesting attack on one of their colleagues by the relatives of a coronavirus patient who died at the hospital, also the nodal centre for Covid-19 in Telangana. The doctors boycotted work on Wednesday and squatted on the hospital premises while raising slogans demanding protection and action against the culprits.

The doctors even refused an invitation to the state secretariat for talks by Andhra health minister Eatala Rajender, following which, the minister himself arrived at the hospital in the afternoon to meet the agitating doctors.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar said the police, immediately after the incident, arrested two people for the alleged assault on the doctors at the hospital.

Under any circumstances, an attack on medical staff will not be tolerated. Most firm and stringent legal action will be taken. At this time doctors are our frontline leaders, the commissioner said.

It all began with the death of a 55-year-old corona patient at around 7.30 pm on Tuesday at the hospital. According to the president of resident doctors association G Srinivas, the patient was asked not to leave the bed because he was suffering from hypertension and was on continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine.

But the patient went to the washroom, where he collapsed and died. When the doctors informed the attendants of the patient, they got agitated and attacked a medico with a stool and an iron stand, Srinivas told reporters.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19

The attack sparked off protests from the junior resident doctors who staged a demonstration outside the hospital till past midnight. They raised slogans like we want justice and we are here to serve, not to suffer.

The doctors demanded deployment of a special protection force at the ICU and on all floors of the hospital. They also demanded that some Covid-19 cases be shifted to other hospitals to relieve pressure from Gandhi Hospital, which, they claimed, didnt have sufficient infrastructure.

Their other demands include recruitment of additional manpower, namely specialists, broad speciality doctors, nursing staff, paramedical staff, ward boys, patient care providers and others on a permanent basis. They also sought an adequate number of PPE kits and N95 masks for all healthcare workers at all public hospitals across the state while threatening to boycott work till the resolution of the issues raised.

This was the second such incident at the Gandhi Hospital and the fourth one at government-run hospitals in Telangana since the outbreak of Covid-19. A doctor at the Gandhi Hospital was assaulted on April 1 by relatives of a Covid-19 patient following his death. On April 14, another doctor was attacked by relatives of a patient at the Osmania General Hospital.

Also Read: Bihar government dismisses 11 doctors for being absent from duty

On March 24, a woman doctor was allegedly manhandled by a police official in Telanganas Khammam during lockdown. She alleged that the police official seized her ID card along with her phone and pulled her by her hair. The police department had later tendered an unconditional apology to her.

On March 29, relatives of a 62-year-old man who died of heart attack at the Government General Hospital (GGH) in Nizamabad, allegedly assaulted the hospital staff, who tried to shift him to Gandhi Hospital, Hyderabad as they suspected him to be a Covid-19 patient.

Ends//
This is a historic moment our nation is facing and together we can make a difference.

Crown Cars Tennessees GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to feed the people who have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is getting closer to its goal. The automotive group is attempting to raise $20,000 to be donated in its entirety to the Chattanooga Area Food Bank which serves Hamilton and Bradley counties. Crown kicked off the campaign with a donation of $7,500.

Every amount is a welcomed amount. Together we will make a difference. These are our friends and neighbors who need us now and were deeply committed to lend a hand. And its so simple to donate. Just go to GoFundMe.com/CrownTNFightsHunger to help your fellow neighbors in their time of need, added Lance Dowdy, General Manager of Crown Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM of Cleveland.

Were almost at $10,000 and we couldnt be happier. The generosity our communities alway display during times of trouble never ceases to amaze me. Together our community is strengthened and Crown is firmly committed to its well being, said Ken Nichols, General Manager of Crown Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM FIAT of Chattanooga.

The driving force behind the campaign is support for the neighbors, families and community members who are facing hardship due to job losses, decreased income and food supply shortages. Crown selected the Chattanooga Area Food Bank due to its capability of providing a high level of support throughout Hamilton and Bradley counties.

Thousands of people cant feed themselves or their families now. Most likely, youve seen the long lines at distribution points or youve seen images of bare shelves at area food banks. We all have a responsibility to help those less fortunate than us. This is a historic moment our nation is facing and together we can make a difference, said Jim Myers, President of the Crown Automotive Group.

About The Chattanooga Area Food Bank  The Chattanooga Area Food Bank is a non-profit organization that offers access to local and healthy food to people in need. The organization provides 15.9 million pounds of food annually to more than 140,000 people who live below the poverty line in the area.

About Crown Automotive Group  Over the last 50 years, Crown Automotive Group has grown into one of the largest privately owned dealership groups in the nation with operations in Florida, Ohio and Tennessee. Every Crown Automotive dealership features an extensive selection of new, Crown and factory certified, and meticulously inspected pre-owned vehicles with financing options for every budget. Customers can also expect superior service from a team of highly trained technicians at Crowns signature award-winning service facilities. Driven by four core values: Customer Focus, Teamwork, Integrity, and Growth, the group is committed to providing each customer with The Better Way To Buy. Visit crowncars.com for more information on Crown Automotive Group and The Better Way To Buy.
In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, Samsung is set to new heights with the launching of its four newest products this August, Forbes reported.

Over the previous month, reports of the South Korean-based tech giant and its online event in a few months from now are circulating around. One of the reports said that the company is launching both the Galaxy Fold 2 and the Galaxy Note 20 during the event.

Last week, Korean media said that this event, Unpacked, is happening on Aug. 5, with the biggest surprises.

New Samsung devices

The Korea Herald reported there are new devices to be launched during Galaxy: Unpacked. Aside from Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Fold 2, the company will also be featuring Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 5G. Now, these are a lot of the Galaxy items.

No press and fans can attend the event, as the organizers are closing it for these groups, Samsung would like to treat this online gathering like a full-scale hardware launch since it will also discuss updates to many of its popular products.

Tech leakers and insiders Jon Prosser and Ice Universe revealed a few details of the event. On Aug. 20, Note 20, Fold 2, and Z Flip 5G are going to be unveiled.





Event August 5th - my source

(corroborating



Note 20

Fold 2

ZFlip 5G



Devices will launch on August 20th Phones for the Samsung virtual Unpacked event:Event August 5th - my source(corroborating @UniverseIce Note 20Fold 2ZFlip 5GDevices will launch on August 20th  Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) June 9, 2020

Samsung does surprises

According to these reports, two models of the next-generation phablet are launching. These are the Galaxy Note 20 and the Galaxy Note 20+ or Ultra. The Note 20 will feature a 6.4-inch display, with 4,300 mAh battery. Meanwhile, the Note 20+ or Ultra will have a 6.9-inch display with 4,500 mAh battery.

Furthermore, the bigger device, Note 20 will also have a 108-megapixel camera, matching that of the Galaxy S20 Ultra, where the name of the device has been derived.

The Galaxy Fold 2 will be available in stores with major upgrades from its predecessor, featuring a 7.7-inch primary display with a larger display on the device's facade. Moreover, it will also support the S Pen at a very affordable price.

Following these details, the Z Flip 5G will constitute roughly similar designs as the 4G unit but will connect to 5G networks for this regard.

Fans have a few more weeks to wait before the Aug. 5 event, and more confirmation details will be revealed.

Samsung will hold this online event for the first time due to the threat from COVID-19, the reports confirmed on Tuesday. During the last event of the same kind in February, held in San Francisco, Samsung Mobile head Roh Tae-Moon hinted that they are working with the S Pen on the second Galaxy Fold.

Now, time goes fast, and the S Pen will be detailed in the upcoming event. Samsung issued an official statement, "The online event may take place through various platforms, including Samsung.com, Samsung Newsroom, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook."

RELATED STORY: Samsung Galaxy Note 10 vs. Galaxy S10e: Specs Comparison







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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 9, 2020) - MAX RESOURCE CORP. (TSXV: MXR) (OTC Pink: MXROF) (FSE: M1D2) ("Max" or the "Company") is pleased to report the results of a structural interpretation of the sediment hosted copper-silver stratabound mineralization at AM North's newly discovered "Herradura Zone" of the CESAR project, located approximately 420-km of Bogota, Colombia (Figure 1).

This structural analysis was conducted by Ingenieria Geologica Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellin, with the assistance of the Max field team. The on-going structural case study of the whole CESAR project is part of a geological master of science thesis study on the Structural Interpretation of the Stratabound Copper-Silver Mineralization within the Rancheria-Cesar Basin, NE Colombia.

The initial structural interpretation of the Herradura Zone concludes Kupferschiefer type stratabound copper-silver mineralization at Herradura forms a continuous mineralized zone, striking approximately 265 degrees. The copper-silver mineralization dips gently to the NNW at 15 to 21 degrees, crops out up dip and is exposed down dip in erosional "windows" along several creeks.

The structural interpretation indicates the low angle copper-silver mineralized zone at Herradura is open along strike and down dip as displayed in Figure 2 and 3. Figure 4 documents the Herradura Zone in an exposed erosional window along a creek. The Company previously reported values of 24.8% copper + 230 g/t silver from a continuous 4-metre by 1-metre rock chip channel and 10.4% copper + 88 g/t silver from a continuous 1-metre rock chip channel in the Herradura Zone (March 4, 2020). In addition, two subsequent bulk samples extracted 1.8-km apart within the Zone, returned 10.4% copper +88g/t silver and 3.5 % copper +29 g/t silver (May 21, 2020).

The field team will focus on expanding AM North's "Herradura Zone" through rock channel sampling of mineralized horizons exposed in creeks and on hillsides, continually moving out in all directions from the centre of the stratabound copper-silver zone.

Story continues

Concurrently, the field team will also focus on locating new stratabound copper-silver horizons over the whole of the CESAR project area.

CESAR Exploration Update

The technical study by Fathom Geophysics in collaboration with one of the world's leading copper producers is well underway (May 13, 2020);

Mineralogy results from the University of Science and Technology ("AGH") research study are pending. AGH is located in Krakow, Poland and has a long history of cooperation with KGHM, the largest copper producer in Europe and the world's second largest silver producer (April 21, 2020);

Assays are pending for both AM North and the AM South discovery located 40-km SSW along the same mineralized trend, consisting of open-ended mineralized horizons over 5-km of strike, returning highlight values of 5.4% copper and 63 g/t silver from 0.1 to 25-metre intervals; and

Active field work will re-commence late June.

"The structural interpretation by Ingenieria Geologica, Universidad Nacional de Colombia further justifies the Company's continuing commitment to the CESAR project, by demonstrating the district-scale potential of the stratabound copper-silver mineralization," said Brett Matich, CEO of Max.

"We look forward to releasing additional exploration results from the recently completed programs at AM North and AM South, as ALS Mineral Assay Labs works to clear the backlog resulting from COVID-19," he continued.





Figure 1. CESAR location

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://media.zenfs.com/en-us/newsfile_64/0b0bbc02091be22fd24d438c87ebb9f0





Figure 2. Plan view of surface trace of the stratabound Cu-Ag horizon at the "Herradura Zone"

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/57502_af15e6dd743b99c1_002full.jpg





Figure 3. Cross Sections A to A' and B to B' showing continuation of low angle mineralization

To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/57502_af15e6dd743b99c1_003full.jpg





Figure 4. Example of outcropping stratabound Cu-Ag mineralization at the "Herradura Zone"

To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/57502_af15e6dd743b99c1_004full.jpg

CESAR Copper-Silver Stratabound Project

The wholly-owned CESAR in north east Colombia lies within Jurassic sediments and volcaniclastics that extend the length of northern South America. These Jurassic rocks also host significant stratabound copper-silver mineralization in both Ecuador and Peru that resemble sediment hosted copper-silver mineralization of Kupferschiefer in Poland. CESAR lies along a historic 120-km copper-silver belt within a major oil-gas and coal mining district. The region has excellent infrastructure, shipping ports, airports, townships, railways and roadways.

Important highlights for the CESAR Project:

The AM North discovery (Herradura Zone), consisting of a 1.8-km horizon open along-strike and down and up dip; returned values of 24.8% copper +230 g/t silver from a continuous rock chip channel over 4-metre by 1-metre. Sampling 1.8-km along strike to the east, returned 10.4% copper +88 g/t silver from a continuous rock chip channel over 1-metre;

The AM South discovery, located 40 km SSW from AM North and along the same mineralized trend, consists of open-ended mineralized horizons over 5-km of strike, returning highlight rock channel values of 5.4% copper and 63 g/t silver from 0.1 to 25-metre intervals;

Initiation of a research program with the University of Science and Technology ("AGH") of Krakow, Poland. AGH has a long history of cooperation with KGHM, the largest copper producer in Europe and the world's second largest silver producer from the sediment hosted copper-silver Kupferschiefer type deposit (April 21, 2020);

Collaboration with the world's leading copper producer (May 13, 2020);

Completing a geophysical study conducted by Fathom (May 13, 2020); and

Participation of Ingenieria Geologica, Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellin in structural interpretation of the stratabound copper-silver mineralization of the Cesar Project.

The exploration strategy is to unlock the potential of the CESAR district as a significant copper and silver region. Max cautions investors that mineralization at Kupferscheifer is not necessarily indicative of similar mineralization at CESAR.

EBAY Palladium-Platinum Project

The EBAY palladium-platinum project, located 30-km SE of Matagami in the Abitibi Region of Quebec, Canada, is underlain by the Archean Bell River Complex, a layered mafic intrusion measuring 65-km by 15-km and 5-km thick. Max has entered into an Option Agreement pursuant to which the Company may acquire a 100% interest of EBAY (May 12, 2020).

Highlight exploration of ballast pit sampling between 2000 to 2008 returned: 4.9 g/t palladium-platinum from a 4 to 5-metre wide zone; 3 g/t palladium + 1.4 g/t platinum + 0.12 rhodium in 2005; 2.5 g/t palladium-platinum from a newly discovered 500-metre long zone in 2006. The Company cautions investors that grab samples are selected samples and are not necessarily representative of mineralization.

EBAY drilling in 2006 intersected 1.90 g/t palladium-platinum over 3-metres from 80.5 to 83.5-metres. Further drilling discovered a new zone comprising 600-metres of strike, 120-metres deep, 6.7 to 31.1-metres wide, open in all directions, with highlight values of 2.52 g/t palladium-platinum. Subsequent aero-magnetic survey extended the target zone to 4.8-km of strike (March 25, 2020).

Choco Platinum Gold Project

CHOCO gold-platinum Project (250 sq.km) is located 120-km SW of Medellin Colombia, within a district with historical production of 1.0Mozs of platinum and 1.5Mozs of gold (1906-1990) by Choco Pacific Mining. Compilation of historical records revealed the potential for related PGE's particularly palladium and rhodium. In addition, recent field work in 2019 by Max resulted in concentrate values of 114 g/t platinum and 341 g/t gold (April 16, 2019). Source: R.J. Fletcher and Associates (2011) Review of Gold and Platinum Exploration and Production in Choco Province Colombia Part 3. Private Report for Condo to Platinum NL.

About Max Resource Corp.

With its successful exploration and management team, Max Resource Corp. is advancing both its copper and precious metals landholdings in Colombia, and its EBAY palladium-platinum landholdings in Quebec, Canada. Each of these belts has potential for the discovery of large-scale mineral deposits attractive to major partners.

Tim Henneberry, P Geo (British Columbia), a member of the Max Resource Advisory Board, is the Qualified Person who has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release on behalf of the Company.

For more information visit: https://www.maxresource.com/

For additional information contact:

Max Resource Corp.

Tim McNulty

E: info@maxresource.com

T: (604) 290-8100

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

Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the TSXV. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the commercialization plans for Max Resources Corp. described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57502
The HSE has secured High Court orders preventing an IT worker from distributing highly confidential and sensitive information about hospital patients. 



It is alleged that Neill Bradley had distributed confidential information he obtained from the HSE's computer servers during the course of his now former employment with a third party contracted by the HSE to perform certain IT services.

The information includes patient's personal data and medical databases allegedly sent by Mr Bradley to Wikileaks the non-profit organisation that publishes news leaks provided by anonymous source founded by Australian internet activist Julian Assange.

The orders were granted last week by Mr Justice Tony O'Connor, who said he was satisfied that Mr Bradley had gained access to private and sensitive data through his former employment, which he threatened to facilitate the dissemination of patients details and private records.

The judge noted that the defendant in one post on social media had referred to information he obtained, which Mr Bradley knew should be kept secure, as being "stolen. "

The HSE launched proceedings against Mr Bradley following a probe it commenced after becoming aware of a potentially serious data breach from posts on social media of screenshots of the HSE's internal servers.

The HSE claims the posts appeared on three twitter accounts it says were set up and controlled by Mr Bradley.

Through those accounts Mr Bradley allegedly sent messages to a senior official at the HSE, as well as posting to the social media accounts of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Ministers Simon Harris and Pascal Donohoe, media figures and Dr Tony Holohan.

In his communications, Mr Bradley made allegations of a cover-up and a scam by the HSE and said he would make public data from over a dozen Irish hospitals, it is claimed.

It is also claimed that he used various hashtags on his posts including #covid19 #lockdown ireland #notmytaoiseach #MAGA and #mediascum.

The HSE said during previous employment as a systems administration Mr Bradley was given access to its servers and patient databases to carry out tasks his previous employer was contracted to do.

That firm's role was to maintaining and servicing a 'smart' automated system used to dispense, record and manage medication given to patients at various hospitals called Omnicell.

The system is used in many hospitals throughout the state.

Since becoming aware of the situation the HSE, in co-operation with Mr Bradley's previous employer, who terminated his employment after learning of the HSE's concerns, have taken steps to secure the servers and prevent the information from being published.

These steps include having posts on the pastebin.com site and links to the confidential material removed.

The HSE also sought and obtained court orders, including in junctions to prevent him from attempting to post more links to confidential information.

The injunction is to remain in place pending the outcome of any full hearing of the matter.

The application for the injunctions was initially heard in camera, meaning that the proceedings were in private. The Judge subsequently lifted the in camera ruling allowing the media to report on the case. 

In its action the HSE, represented by Eoin McCullough SC, Joe Jeffers Bl instructed by Philip Lee solicitors sought the orders against Mr Bradley with an address at Carrigeen Hill, Conna, Co Cork. Mr Bradley had been informed of the application against him.

However he did not attend, nor was he represented during, the court hearings. 

Mr Justice O'Connor in making the orders said Mr Bradley would be given the chance to advance a defence to the HSE's claims at a full hearing of the action.

The injunction restrains Mr Bradley and any person to whom he has communicated or may communicate the confidential information from disseminating publishing, communicating by any means, or using any of said information through specific twitter handles and email addresses attributed to him.



The order also restrains the defendant, and anyone who received the confidential information from him, from destroying or deleting the information. 

He must also deliver up all documents, records and devices containing the confidential information to the HSE's solicitors for forensic analysis. 

The court further restrained Mr Bradley from leaving Ireland until he has complied with the order to deliver up the confidential information, and hand over his passport to An Garda Siochana, who will retain it until further order.

The HSE's solicitors were given permission to notify the Department of Foreign affairs, An Garda Siochana, authorities at all points of exit from the State about the court's orders. 

Mr Justice O Connor said that Mr Bradley had said in another tweet that he had sold his house and was moving about Europe in a camper van to "ply my skills elsewhere."

The judge also noted the HSE's lawyers undertaking to give the Data Protection Commissioner, the Minister for Health and the Attorney General copies of the order and the documents put before the court during the application if requested by those parties.
Christine Chen, COO at CanAm Enterprises

CanAm Enterprises (CanAm) is excited to announce that its Chief Operating Officer, Christine Chen, will speak at the IIUSA Webinar on June 16 along with other prestigious panelists addressing the impact the worldwide COVID-19 crisis may have on the EB-5 industry. The panel will follow the live Q & A session with Charlie Oppenheim, Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the U.S. Department of State, who will provide answers related to the EB-5 visa numbers allocation and USCIS processing issues.

Since joining CanAm in 2002, Christine Chen has been shaping CanAms strategic initiatives and operational efficiencies. As Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Chens responsibilities are wide-ranging, overseeing several distinct EB-5 business functions and employee management of over 40 staff worldwide. Under Ms. Chens leadership, CanAm has recently reached yet another important milestone when its EB-5 project repayments extended to $1.4 billion and continues to expand its operations in Southeast Asia and the Middle East to better serve its investors in the regions.

Prospective investors pursuing permanent residency in the United States are invited to read CanAms EB-5 Program Overview and inquire about the EB-5 Visa options.

###

About CanAm Enterprises

With three decades of experience promoting immigration-linked investments in the United States and Canada, CanAm has a long and established track record. Basing its business on a reputation of credibility and trust, CanAm has financed over 60 projects and raised nearly $3 billion in EB-5 investments. More than $1.4 billion in EB-5 capital from over 2,800 families has been repaid by CanAm to date. CanAm exclusively operates seven USCIS-designated regional centers that are located in the city of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the metropolitan regions of New York & New Jersey, the states of California, Hawaii, Florida, and Texas.

For more information, please visit http://www.canamenterprises.com.
The phone numbers of many WhatsApp users are accessible through Google search results, according to independent cybersecurity researcher Athul Jayaram.

In a blog post published on the issue, Jayaram states that up to 30,000 WhatsApp users mobile numbers are accessible to any Internet user in plaintext through a simple Google search.

The number of exposed mobile numbers will differ depending on the Google bots most recent web crawl and the users region, he said.

Users affected are from United States, United Kingdom, India, and almost all other countries, Jayaram added.

This privacy issue stems from WhatsApps Click to Chat feature, which allows WhatsApp users to share their mobile number using a QR code or custom URL.

Other people can then scan this QR code or visit this URL to add this user as a contact.

The Click to Chat URL does not have a robots.txt file or noindex HTML meta tags, which means that Google crawls the website and indexes the pages in its search results.

Jayaram said this could result in unknown users such as cybercriminals, fraudsters, and direct marketers contacting you without permission.

Additionally, if your WhatsApp profile is set to public, they will be able to view your profile picture, name, and status.

Facebook responds

Jayaram contacted Facebook regarding this issue last month via the companys bug bounty programme, but was subsequently rejected.

He claimed that Facebook said that data abuse was covered by the bug bounty programme only for Facebook platforms and not WhatsApp.

Speaking to Threatpost, however, Facebook said that WhatsApp did fall under the companys bug bounty programme.

While we appreciate this researchers report and value the time that he took to share it with us, it did not qualify for a bounty since it merely contained a search engine index of URLs that WhatsApp users chose to make public, Facebook said.

All WhatsApp users, including businesses, can block unwanted messages with the tap of a button, he said.

Now read: WhatsApp and Twitter in the firing line over privacy
The mass movement against police brutality that has erupted in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis has exposed the reactionary and anti-working class character of racial politics.

The protests across the United States and internationally have been marked by their multi-racial and multi-ethnic character. They have demonstrated the profound commitment of the broad mass of working people and youth to the fight against racism and the defense of democratic rights. They have also evinced the popular hatred, not only of Trump, but of the entire capitalist system.

However, the sight of hundreds of thousands of young people and workers, white and black, marching side by side to demand an end to police brutality and racial discrimination has terrified Democratic Party officials and their black nationalist allies.

Protesters march across New York's Brooklyn Bridge as part of the growing international demonstrations against police brutality, Tuesday, June 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

In a particularly vile comment in the Nation, titled Theres Only One Possible Conclusion: White America Likes Its Killer Cops, Elie Mystal, the publications justice correspondent, stated on May 27: The police are never going to voluntarily stop killing black and brown people. The killings will continue until the majority of white people in this country make the killings stop.

He adds: The police work for white people, and they know it. White people know it too. Deep down, white people know exactly whom the police are supposed to protect and serve, and they damn well know its not black and brown people.

Mystal blames white people for racist police killings. It is their active or tacit support for murderous cops that is supposedly responsible for deadly police violence.

Similarly, Ibram Kendi, a professor at American University and author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, declared yesterday, We have so many Americans drenched in racist ideas and the racist ideas prevent them from knowing they are drenched, prevent them from knowing racist power is raining racist ideas on their heads.

This is not only a slander against the vast majority of white workers and youth, who oppose racism and are appalled by police killings, it also obscures the real source of racism and police violence in generalthe capitalist system and its state apparatus.

The police are not just any group of people, and they do not represent any one race. The police are an arm of the capitalist state, the special bodies of armed men that defend the property, wealth and power of the corporate-financial ruling class by suppressing the opposition of the working class to exploitation and social inequality. They are recruited from among the most backward layers of society and indoctrinated in contempt for working and poor people. Racism, long a tool of the capitalist class to divide the working class, is promoted among the armed enforcers of the oligarchs who rule society.

Statistics show that while a disproportionate number of African Americans are victims of police violence and murder, the majority of those killed by cops in the US are white. According to the online aggregator killedbypolice.net, of the 429 people shot and killed by police this year, over 170 of them are white, a plurality, while 88 are listed as black.

Others have sought to brand whites participating in protests as outside agitators. The New York Times staff journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the principal author of the discredited 1619 Project released by the Times last summer, tweeted May 30 that There are people in these uprisings taking advantage of black pain to mete out destruction. We as journalists have deeper stories to tell.

Later, Hannah-Jones specified that the people she was referring to were white. White protesters tearing up black cities is not allyship, she wrote.

The 1619 Project sought to present all of US history as the struggle of black people against racism, which is embedded in the DNA of white America. In the course of this historical falsification, Hannah-Jones portrayed the American Revolution as a conspiracy of slaveholders to preserve chattel slavery against British moves to abolish it, denounced Lincoln as a racist, and ignored the fact that slavery was abolished through a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of whites died.

At a press conference late last month, called to announce the imposition of a curfew, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Police Chief James Craig and a number of so-called activists decried the presence of suburbanites (that is, youth from predominantly white areas outside of Detroit) in multi-racial protests held over that weekend.

Speaking from the panel, Raymond Winans, the CEO of Keeping Them Alive, denounced the suburbanites who infiltrate our city to riot and loot. Decrying attempts to destroy the system and professing his love for the police department, he declared, We can never sell out but we are going to cash in.

In an interview on NBCs Meet the Press May 31, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms denounced the very diverse crowd that had shown up to protest police brutality the day before in her city. What I know in Atlanta is that this protest, even from a physical standpoint, didnt look like our normal protests, she complained.

The Democratic Party officials and black nationalists who are attacking the protests on racial grounds, often with the same language as the Trump administration, are aiding the efforts of police to repress and shut them down. Workers and young people who support the call to end police brutality should ask themselves: Whose interests are these forces serving?

The emergence of a mass multi-racial movement against police brutality and racism poses a threat to the entire political system in the United States. For the past 50 years, the ruling class, politically through the Democratic Party but also through the media and academia, has promoted racial politics in an attempt to divide the working class and obscure the more fundamental class issues that dominate capitalist society.

It has elevated a layer of blacks into the administration of cities and, with Obama, into the White House, and cultivated a narrow layer of upper-middle-class and bourgeois African Americans in positions of corporate power, in the police, the military and other institutions of the capitalist state. Racial and identity politics have become an ideological and political pillar of capitalist rule.

None of this has lessened the poverty and oppression faced by the vast majority of the African American population. On the contrary, the addition of more blacks to police departments, in the halls of Congress and on Wall Street has gone hand in hand with a worsening of the economic and social conditions of black workers and youth.

Wealth stratification between the richest and poorest members of the African American population is among the starkest in the developed world. According to statistics from 2017, the top 10 percent of the African American population controls over 75 percent of all the wealth owned by African Americans, while the bottom 50 percent of African Americans possess negative or no wealth. Inequality skyrocketed during the presidency of Barack Obama, as the top 1 percent of African Americans doubled their share of wealth from 19.4 percent to 40.5 percent.

Throughout the population, social inequality has grown explosively. America is an oligarchic society, and such a society is incompatible with democratic rights.

As inequality and poverty have become starker, the brutality of the police has increased. Over the past several decades, the police have been systematically militarized and turned into virtual death squads occupying working class communities.

The Obama administration expanded police militarization through programs such as the Department of Defenses 1033 program. This program delivers excess military-grade weaponry to police departments. As of 2015, it had delivered over $5.1 billion in weapons from the military to domestic law enforcement. This has only been expanded during Trumps presidency.

The promoters of racial politics express the interests of a wealthy and privileged layer that has benefited from the growth of social inequality and the impoverishment of the working masses. This layer, part of the richest 10 percent, has a vested interest in defending the capitalist system. It seeks merely a bigger portion of the wealth monopolized by the top five percent and one percent for itself. It is terrified of the development of a mass united movement of the working class against the capitalist system, which is why it lines up, objectively, on the opposite side of the barricades from the working class, black as well as white.
New funding will drive further expansion of the market-leading SaaS solution for P&C insurance, Duck Creek OnDemand

Boston, June 10, 2020, a provider of SaaS-delivered enterprise software to the property & casualty insurance industry, announced today that leading investment firms Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management and Whale Rock Capital Management, along with prior investors, have invested $230 million in the company.

The Duck Creek Suiteof SaaS solutions provides insurance carriers open and highly-configurable applications across core areas of their businesses, such as policy administration, billing, claims, analytics, industry content, distribution management, and reinsurance management- all key to their digital transformations. Duck Creek OnDemandis the leading SaaS core system solution for the P&C Industry.

Duck Creek will use the proceeds for continued investment into its business growth, with a focus on extending the capabilities of the company's SaaS solutions, and to repurchase equity from certain existing investors. The new commitment of capital comes as the company continues to invest heavily in product development and international expansion.

Funds advised by Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management and Whale Rock Capital Management join existing investors in Duck Creek including Dragoneer Investment Group, Insight Partners, funds and other accounts advised by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC, and Temasek. Funds advised by Apax Partners acquired a majority stake in Duck Creek in 2016 from Accenture. Accenture remains a key investor in Duck Creek.

"The partnership of these new investors with Duck Creek speaks to the momentum we have achieved as the SaaS leader in P&C core systems and the opportunities we see ahead," said Michael Jackowski, Duck Creek's Chief Executive Officer. "Our Platform'sperformance, particularly during these recent months, has shown the industry that SaaS can deliver new levels of value. We see growing opportunity for Duck Creek as more insurers accelerate their adoption of SaaS solutions for their core systems."

"Duck Creek's growth has continued throughout 2020 and we remain excited about the long-term prospects for the company and its plan to continue to invest in products and people," said Jason Wright, Partner at Apax Partners. "We are proud of our partnership with Mike Jackowski and the Duck Creek team and are pleased to welcome Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management and Whale Rock Capital Management as additional investors to support the company's growth strategy."

J.P. Morgan served as sole placement agent to Duck Creek in connection with this transaction.

This press release is for informational purposes only and shall not constitute, or form a part of, an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities.

Media Contact:

Paul Rechichi

Racepoint Global

617-624-3295

prechichi@racepointglobal.com
Jeannie Eddy, of Glens Falls, has had a lifelong passion for baking. Her mother never baked while Eddy and her siblings were growing up and learning to bake has become a form of relaxation and joy for Eddy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the kitchen has been a refuge for Eddy, where she has concocted everything from handheld pie tarts to perfectly glazed scones and cupcakes swirled high with rich chocolate frosting.

Until being home during quarantine, she has never had the nerve to practice yeasted products. Ive been a baker my whole life, but Ive never tackled yeasted bread, Eddy said. Like so many others over the last several weeks, the extended time at home has allowed her to experiment, practice and play with recipes in the kitchen. She enrolled in an online sourdough bread tutorial toward the start of quarantine and is baking a sourdough recipe about once a week. What Ive discovered with sourdough is that its so versatile and you can make so many different things, Eddy said.

Eddy views these baking endeavors as projects that she might not have attempted if not for being at home during a pandemic. According to a study of 1,005 Americans by Hunter, a marketing agency in New York City, 54% of those surveyed are cooking more since the pandemic erupted, while 46% are baking more. Half of the respondents are using the time in the kitchen to try new recipes and learn more about cooking.

The top selling cookbooks at the moment support those figures. Two of the top 10 best sellers in the cookbooks, food and wine category for Amazon include, Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza, by Ken Forkish and, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1, by Julia Child. (Both books are also trending in sales on the Barnes and Noble website.) The complex theories of baking and intimidating recipes of French cuisine are experiencing a revival as home cooks have the time to move beyond the quick-fix meals that often are staples of everyday dinnertime cooking.

Another cookbook that has spurred baking and cooking projects has been Binging with Babish, which Francesca Damico-Bailey of Delanson gave to her 11-year-old son, Santino, for Christmas. The book, by Andrew Rea, compiles recipes from Reas popular YouTube channel of the same name. Each recipe focuses on a food item from a popular television show or movie, like brisket from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and cannoli from The Godfather.

Its not really a kids cookbook, Damico-Bailey said, but the recipes were varied and expansive enough to turn cooking into a project during the downtime of quarantine. So far, Santino has made breadsticks, chocolate lava cakes, beef Wellington, boeuf bourguignon and creme brulee. Damico-Bailey and Santino plan out their cooking projects for the week and make a shopping list and try recipes together, but Santino will make recipes on his own, as well, and has mastered apple pies and macaroni salad during quarantine. The next project they plan to make is apple strudel, a recipe that they probably would not have attempted but can tackle now because of the new time together at home. We dont have weekday meals and weekend meals anymore, said Damico-Bailey, adding that any recipe can be made during the week instead of being reserved for the weekend.

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Kate Cohen, of Albany, has also found her sons have taken interest in project cooking during quarantine. As an avid home cook and columnist for the Washington Post, Cohens approach to food is often chronicled in her writing, and she is relishing having her children home each night for big family dinners. (Cohen is currently quarantining with her husband, three children ranging from college-aged to high schoolers, and a family friend.) I love to cook and I am enjoying that I am now cooking for a family of six, and that they were relying on me. I was excited for the job and it was something for me to do, Cohen said. Still, the daily slog of cooking dinner can wear on even the most dedicated cooks, and seeing her children take pleasure in learning to cook and replicating new-to-them recipes has been heartening for Cohen. Her sons recently made themselves eggs Benedict for the first time, with Cohen nearby in case support was needed.

Over quarantine weve been making a lot of eggs in the morning, usually over hard with toast and sriracha or a breakfast sandwich. We wanted a change and something special, said Jesse Cohen-Greenberg, Cohens younger son and a high school senior. Cohen-Greenberg, his older brother Noah (who is home from Williams College) and a friend of Noahs had success with the project and have also tried other recipes, like fried pickles. Cohen-Greenberg said he would like to learn some cooking basics, as well, but that, the reason we do [these recipes] is for the social feeling. If not for being in quarantine, he would not have tried to make new recipes, and he said if his brother were not home from college he probably would not try to cook or bake at all. Were a team in quarantine, he said.

Though social restrictions are loosening as New York state begins to reopen, home cooks are planning to maintain their current cooking and baking endeavors. (The Hunter survey stated that 51% of those surveyed will continue to cook more at home after the pandemic has ceased.) Eddy plans to try more historic recipes, like the 100-year-old recipe for pound cake she recently made, and is hoping to master macarons, the traditional French sandwich cookie known for being finicky and difficult to perfect. I find baking to be the way I relax, Eddy said, and knowing that social unrest and a global health crisis are near-guarantees for the future, the kitchen skills learned during this pandemic will be tools for managing whatever lies ahead.

Deanna Fox is a food journalist. www.foxonfood.com, @DeannaNFox
Indian operators arent just selling stakes it seems; theyre also buying them. A number of Indian news media outlets have reported that Bharti Airtel has now upped its stake in Bangladesh operator Robi Axiata.

More precisely, Bharti International (Singapore) Pte Ltd, which is a wholly owned arm of Bharti Airtel, has acquired the 6.3 percent stake in Robi Axiata formerly owned by NTT DoCoMo, although the price paid in this all-cash deal has not been announced.

Robi Axiata Limited is a subsidiary company of the Asian telecom giant Axiata Group Berhad, based in Malaysia. Axiata has a controlling 68.7 percent stake in Robi Axiata. Bharti now owns the remaining 31.3 percent.

The transaction has reportedly been cleared by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

Robi is the second-largest mobile network operator in Bangladesh, with a subscriber base estimated at 46.88 million subscribers at the end of December 2018. Bharti Airtel merged its Bangladesh unit with Robi in November 2016. At the time, Airtel had less than a seven per cent market share in the country and was the fourth-largest of eight players. The merger created Bangladeshs second-largest player, behind market leader Grameenphone.

Bharti has been in the news recently as an investment opportunity as well as an investor. Bharti Telecom recently sold 2.75 percent of Bharti Airtel to a group of global investors, raising an estimated $1.15 billion. This sum, however, is modest compared to the close to $13 billion raised in seven recent deals by rival Jio Platforms, which owns Bharti Airtel rival Reliance Jio Infocomm.
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WASHINGTON - Neli Latson's life changed in the same swift way the lives of so many other black people have: with a stranger's call to the police.

He was 18, sitting outside a library in his suburban Virginia neighborhood, waiting for it to open, when that call was made. It came into a sheriff's office at 8:37 a.m., and suddenly it didn't matter that Latson was a special-education student with autism who often took long walks by himself and saw the library as a social outlet.

The caller reduced him to a "suspicious male, possibly in possession of a gun." The sheriff's office would later determine the caller hadn't actually seen a gun, but by then it was too late. The news release that would contain those details would also include a mug shot of the teenager and an account of how he assaulted a deputy who responded to the call.

What followed were years spent in prison, much of it in solitary confinement, and a conditional pardon from then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D, that has left Latson in a space that is somewhere between uncaged and not yet free.

"Neli will never be the same," Latson's mom, Lisa Alexander, said on a recent afternoon. "His life was snuffed out. Although he is still alive, it was taken away from him."

Ten years have passed since that day at the library, and the now-28-year-old no longer takes long walks by himself.

He doesn't take any walks by himself.

He is too afraid to do so. His mother is too afraid to let him. And both know he can't do much on his own without getting permission from his probation officer or the group home where he has been ordered to live.

"Every aspect of his life is supervised," Alexander said. "He's not able to live in society. He's not able to get a job and have a girlfriend. He hasn't had an opportunity to learn how to drive, to get a license. . . . These are rites of passage, natural progressions you get to experience as a human being. All of those things were stripped away from him."

The protests that have grown from the police custody death of George Floyd have rightfully left people calling out the country's judicial system for proving over and over, and over and over, again that black lives don't matter. Much of the fury and passion and doneness has been directed at the police, with protesters calling on cities to overhaul, and even abolish, their forces.

But Latson's case shows that the system's brokenness doesn't end with those ranks. His case shows that while some losses occur in minutes under a uniformed knee, others take place over years in front of many types of badges and titles.

When Alexander learned of Floyd's death, she had just returned from a trip with her son. She said she sat down and cried.

"I cried for Floyd, but I also cried for Neli," she says. "That was so close to being Neli. And although he didn't die, some of his potential died that day."

I first met Alexander in 2010, shortly after her son, whose full name is Reginald Cornelius Latson, was arrested. I sat in her Stafford County home as she talked about the boy who was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome in eighth grade and the online campaign she launched to bring attention to his case.

"I have to do what I have to do to save my son's life," she told me at the time. "I'm so afraid he's going to be damaged beyond repair."

A look at documents from a civil rights lawsuit filed in Latson's name - the details of which haven't been publicly scrutinized - show that his mother's fears were not unfounded.

The family does not deny that a Stafford County deputy got hurt May 24, 2010. But the lawsuit describes Latson, who had committed no crime, trying to walk away, the deputy grabbing him several times and the teenager responding "with a fight-or-flight response, which is a common response for individuals with [autism spectrum disorder] who are faced with these types of situations."

That day, the documents says, "began a cycle of crisis, escalation, and punishment from which he has only recently escaped."

The documents describe him as being held in solitary confinement for long periods, including one stretch of more than 100 days. During much of his time in solitary, he spent at least 23 hours a day in a cell, with little to no stimulation. No radio. No television. No books. The documents also detail a physical encounter with a corrections officer that happened during a mental-health crisis for Latson and ended with a stun gun being used on him. He was then strapped to a restraint chair designed to hold people's legs, arms, waist and chest in place.

"The officers left him in the Pro-Straint chair, unable to move, eat, or use the restroom, for more than nine hours," reads one document. "When he was released from the Pro-Straint chair, he received a snack bag and milk but was given no dinner."

That document also addresses how he would leave the prison system less prepared for life than when he entered it: "Latson avers that he once showed promise of leading a relatively independent life in the least restrictive placement and maintaining employment, but it is now unlikely that he will achieve that level of independence in the foreseeable future. He relies on others to manage his heightened fear and reactivity in challenging interpersonal situations, and he is hypervigilant to signs of danger."

Attorneys for the family say that the civil rights case resulted in the Rappahannock Regional Jail, where Latson was subjected to the stun gun, paying him a settlement and agreeing to make some reforms, including limiting the use of isolation for inmates with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses.

About five years ago, Latson received a pardon from McAuliffe for the criminal charges brought against him. In January 2019, McAuliffe commemorated the moment in a tweet: "4 years ago today I pardoned Neli Latson who never should have been sent to jail. He needed medical care for his autism. Received report today that he is living in a community home in Florida and doing fine and no problems. Congrats Neli."

McAuliffe's move, which came after columns from The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, was an important step. But it was just that - a step. It was one right move that followed a whole lot of wrong ones. Much more needs to be done to prevent the next black teenager who seems "suspicious" to a stranger from losing years of his life, or more.

In an email Latson sent me, he says he feels sorry for Floyd's family.

"I hope there will finally be change and there will be equality for black people," he writes. "I understand how fortunate I am to be alive."

Alexander said she has been watching the protests and hopes to see real results come from this moment. She wants to see consequences put in place for individuals who call the police on black people who are just living their lives. She wants to see efforts made to change not only policing practices but also other aspects of the criminal-justice system.

She wants to see her son released from a conditional pardon that requires he remain under supervision for four more years.

When Latson was in prison, he called his mother often. What she remembers most from those conversations is a song he would sing her. She says that song suddenly feels "so key to what is happening right now."

She didn't realize he knew the lyrics until they flowed out of him.

"I was born by a river, in a little tent," Alexander starts to sing, remembering those calls, when her voice breaks. The next line comes out in tearful gulps. "It's been a long, a long time comin', but I know, a change is gonna come."
Former Vice President Joe Biden takes off his mask before speaking last Friday at an event in Dover, Del. (Associated Press)

Anybody remember Abolish ICE?

That was progressives impassioned cry last year after Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents imprisoned undocumented immigrant children in cages. It was a litmus test of compassion for Democrats running for president.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said yes, abolish ICE. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said shed replace the agency. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said hed restructure it.

But Joe Biden, the leading moderate in the race, refused to get near the idea. Eventually, Abolish ICE disappeared  and Biden won the nomination.

Now, after George Floyds death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, progressive groups have raised a new banner: Defund the police.

It may be the worst political slogan ever coined.

For one thing, its proponents say it doesnt mean what it sounds like  the abolition of police departments, a proposal that would be an election year gift to President Trump.

The defunders say they want to trim police budgets and redirect the money to social services, and let cops go back to solving crimes and other core functions. Even then, the idea is massively unpopular.

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll last week found only 16% of Democrats favor cuts in police funding. Republicans are even less enthusiastic.

Abolish ICE was more popular than that.

Bidens response was crisp. I dont support defunding the police," he said Monday. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency.

That's no surprise. Biden is a man of the center  the center of the Democratic Party, that is. He built his Senate career as a law and order candidate during the high-crime era, with strong support from police unions.

Hes moved left since then, but Defund the police? His 77-year-old political antennae are too well-tuned for that.

More striking were the similar reactions of most other Democrats, including leading progressives. Sanders said he wants to pay well-trained police officers more, not less. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the slogan was a distraction.

Story continues

Instead of defunding police, House Democrats plan to pass a sweeping police reform bill with a long list of sensible proposals: a ban on federal aid for police departments that use chokeholds, mandated use of body cameras for police, a change in qualified immunity laws to let people seek civil damages against abusive police, and a national misconduct registry to track bad cops.

Biden has endorsed the bill, which is similar to criminal justice proposals he has outlined.

Let us vow to make this, at last, an era of action to reverse systemic racism, he said in a passionate speech in Philadelphia last week. Bad cops should be dealt with severely and swiftly. We all need to take a hard look at the culture that allows for these senseless tragedies to keep happening.

And heres what may be the most important development: Most of the public agrees.

A series of public opinion polls found that the wave of overwhelmingly peaceful protests that followed Floyd's death crystallized a remarkable shift in public opinion  in favor of reform.

The Yahoo/YouGov poll, for example, found that fully two-thirds of Americans want to ban police from using chokeholds, including 48% of Republicans.

A Monmouth poll found that 57% of Americans believe police officers are more likely to use excessive force in a confrontation if the target is Black; four years ago, only 34% gave that answer.

What provoked the huge change in public sentiment? Ill nominate an obvious cause: ubiquitous cellphone cameras, which enable protesters and bystanders to record police misconduct and upload it to social media.

In an earlier era, the Minneapolis police could claim  as they tried to do this time  that Floyd died in a violent struggle with officers. But we know otherwise, because we watched him die after nearly nine agonizing minutes with an armed officer pressing his full weight on his neck and others holding his legs.

As the protests swelled, Trump resorted to the age-old playbook of law and order, charging that the problem was violent agitators running amok. But anyone with a smartphone could see that wasnt true.

He tweeted that a 75-year-old protester who suffered serious head injuries after being shoved by police in Buffalo, N.Y., had faked his fall and might have been an Antifa provocateur. That one didnt fly, either.

Trump normally displays a canny sense of the public mood. But he has put himself squarely on the wrong side of this issue  not only morally, but as a matter of practical politics.

He doesnt seem to have noticed that most voters think hes dead wrong.

Suddenly, thanks to the tragedy of Minneapolis, Democrats have an opportunity to build a majority  perhaps even a bipartisan majority  in favor of criminal justice reform.

It's too late for George Floyd, but just in time for the November election.
[June 10, 2020] Franklin Templeton Appoints Jed Plafker as EVP, Global Alliances and New Business Strategies

Franklin Templeton today announced that Jed Plafker has been named executive vice president of Global Alliances and New Business Strategies. In this newly created position, Plafker will be responsible for the expansion of the company's digital wealth management and distribution-related financial technology, ensuring that the firm fully harnesses these capabilities for financial advisors and clients. Plafker will continue to report to CEO Jenny Johnson and serve as a member of the firm's Executive Committee. "This is an extremely important role for our organization as we continue to develop and make investments in digital wealth and fintech - two important areas where we are actively innovating and enhancing our offerings," said Johnson. "The role will drive the firm's efforts to support financial advisors via digital servicing capabilities." Plafker will also oversee the company's ongoing strategic investments and acquisitions in the area of digital wealth. Recent examples include last month's acquisition of AdvisorEngine, Inc., a digital wealth platform and provider of technology and consulting services to financial advisory firms in the United States, an investment in Embark Group, a full-scale UK retirement solutions provider, and Franklin Templeton's investment in Bambu, a leading global provider of robo-advisory technology based in Singapore. Additionally, Franklin Templeton is a founding sponsor of EvoNexus Silicon Valley, a technology startup incubator housed in Franklin Templeton's corporate headquarters. "Our digital distribution initiatives are focused on delivering personalized investment solutions and value-added services to our advisors and investors, as evidenced by our acquisitions and investments across the globe the past several years," added Plafker. "We're also looking to capitalize on our award-winning goals-based research and goal optimization process, as well as further deepen our use of data throughout the disribution process."



In addition, with the pending acquisition of Legg Mason and its independent investment management organizations, Plafker will partner closely with Johnson to drive execution of the Legg Mason transaction to maximize coordination and operating connectivity across all aspects of the firm. Importantly, Legg Mason's independent investment management organizations will maintain their autonomy, while accessing Franklin Templeton's global infrastructure and ongoing investment in technology and innovation. Johnson added, "As we prepare to close one of the largest combinations in the asset management industry, Jed will be the crucial link for our independent investment management organizations as we look to smoothly operate the interactions across our complex business and drive growth opportunities. Jed brings a unique perspective to this new role having spent the past two decades managing all aspects of Franklin Templeton's global distribution group."

Plafker has overseen Franklin Templeton's global distribution efforts, including retail and institutional sales, and product strategy, since 2017. Prior to that, he was responsible for international distribution for the firm beginning in 2006. Since that time, the firm's international assets have tripled, making Franklin Templeton the world's top cross-border fund manager. Plafker joined Franklin Templeton as a corporate attorney in 1994 and later served as chief legal counsel - Asia. In 2001, he moved to the distribution side of the business. Plafker and Johnson will continue to co-lead the company's distribution efforts, until a new head of global advisory services is appointed. Johnson commented, "As we continue to make decisions on appointments, we are fortunate to have extremely talented people across both organizations in each of our regions. Our new distribution structure will effectively position the combined organization to access new growth opportunities in multiple geographies, while continuing to deliver an exceptional investment experience for our existing clients and relationships." Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE:BEN] is a global investment management organization operating, together with its subsidiaries, as Franklin Templeton. Franklin Templeton's goal is to deliver better outcomes by providing global and domestic investment management to retail, institutional and sovereign wealth clients in over 170 countries. Through specialized teams, the company has expertise across all asset classes, including equity, fixed income, alternatives, and custom multi-asset solutions. The company's more than 600 investment professionals are supported by its integrated, worldwide team of risk management professionals and global trading desk network. With employees in over 30 countries, the California-based company has more than 70 years of investment experience and more than $617 billion in assets under management as of May 31, 2020. For more information, please visit investors.franklinresources.com or franklintempleton.com. Forward-Looking Statements The statements contained herein may include prospects, statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements herein are made only as of the date of this press release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update any information or forward-looking statement contained herein, except as required to be disclosed by law. These and other risks, uncertainties and important factors are described in more detail in the Company's recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, in Risk Factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2019 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Those include, without limitation: our proposed acquisition of Legg Mason, Inc. remains subject to transaction-related and other risks; our business operations are subject to adverse effects from the outbreak and spread of contagious diseases, such as COVID-19, and we expect such adverse effects to continue; volatility and disruption of the capital and credit markets, and adverse changes in the global economy, may significantly affect our results of operations and may put pressure on our financial results; the amount and mix of our assets under management ("AUM") are subject to significant fluctuations; poor investment performance of our products could reduce the level of our AUM or affect our sales, and negatively impact our revenues and income; harm to our reputation may negatively impact our revenues and income; our business operations are complex and a failure to perform operational tasks properly or the misrepresentation of our services and products resulting, without limitation, in the termination of investment management agreements representing a significant portion of our AUM, could have an adverse effect on our revenues and income; we may review and pursue strategic transactions that could pose risks to our business; strong competition from numerous and sometimes larger companies with competing offerings and products could limit or reduce sales of our products, potentially resulting in a decline in our market share, revenues and income; increasing competition and other changes in the third-party distribution and sales channels on which we depend could reduce our income and hinder our growth; our ability to manage and grow our business successfully can be impeded by systems and other technological limitations; we depend on key personnel and our financial performance could be negatively affected by the loss of their services. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005544/en/

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A massive Rivercrest mansion that offers the ultimate backyard retreat is among Houston's ten most expensive homes sold in May, according to data provided by the Houston Association of Realtors.

Combined, the top ten homes sold for a total of just over $37 million. Keep scrolling for a look inside the city's priciest estates sold in May...

SEE LAST MONTH: 1930s gem, coveted River Oaks estate among Houston's most expensive homes sold in April
[June 10, 2020] National Guardian Life Insurance Company Announces Agreement to Sell Certain Closed-block Businesses

National Guardian Life Insurance Company ("NGL") today announced an agreement to sell certain closed-block businesses to Prosperity Life Assurance Limited ("Prosperity Life"). The subject businesses have combined net statutory reserves of approximately $400 million and consist of life, annuity and A&H lines. "This transaction is a significant milestone for NGL in executing our strategic capital optimization plan and is aligned with our objective of continually improving our return on surplus and risk-based capital position," said Knut A. Olson (News - Alert), NGL's President & CEO. Proceeds from the sale will be utilized consistent with NGL's strategic capital optimization program, including investing in our core preneed business and enhancing the services and products provided to our nationwide base of policyholders. "This reinsurance transaction with NGL launches Prosperity Life Assurance Limited as an emerging provider of customized and innovative reinsurance solutions to the life insurance and annuity industry," said Nicholas von Moltke, CEO of Prosperity Life. "We are very proud to work with NGL as this transaction supports its desired capital management objectives." The transaction is expected to close in mid-2020, subject to regulatory approval and the satisfaction of other closing conditions. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Foley & Lardner LLP are serving as legal counsel, and Grace Global Capital LLC as financial advisor, and Oliver Wyman (News - Alert) Actuarial Conulting, Inc. as actuarial advisor to NGL. Debevoise & Plimpton are serving as legal counsel, and Milliman, Inc. as actuarial advisor to Prosperity Life.



About National Guardian Life Insurance Company Established in 1909 National Guardian Life Insurance Company is an insurance company headquartered in Madison, Wis. Licensed to do business in 49 states and the District of Columbia, NGL markets preneed and individual life and annuities, as well as group markets products. NGL is rated A- (Excellent) (Positive Outlook) by AM Best. Information about NGL can be found at www.nglic.com; Facebook (News - Alert): Facebook.com/NGLIC and LinkedIn (News - Alert): https://www.linkedin.com/company/national-guardian-life-insurance-company.

About Prosperity Life Assurance Company Prosperity Life Assurance Limited is a newly formed Bermuda based long-term reinsurer that offers comprehensive capital and risk management solutions to its reinsurance clients. It is affiliated with the Prosperity Life group of companies, which is an A- AM Best rated U.S. life insurance platform, principally owned by funds affiliated with Elliott Management Corporation. As of December 31, 2019, Elliot managed approximately $40.2 billion in assets. Prosperity provides a broad variety of capital and risk management solutions to its reinsurance clients, in addition to providing financial security through protection, asset accumulation and supplemental products in its consumer segment. NGL rating current as of 02/28/20. National Guardian Life Insurance Company is not affiliated with The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America a/k/a The Guardian or Guardian Life. PR62020 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005793/en/

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Western politicians care about 'freedom' to undermine China's security rather than freedom of HK residents: FM spokesperson

Global Times

Source:Globaltimes.cn Published: 2020/6/9 4:57:20

The strong reactions from US politicians on the National Security law in Hong Kong had nothing to do with providing Hong Kong residents with freedom. What they care about is the "freedom" to do everything they want to sabotage China's national security, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Monday at a daily press conference.

China's National People's Congress (NPC) passed a decision to establish and improve the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) to safeguard national security.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress following the decision that the move undermined Hong Kong's autonomy and freedoms and violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Pompeo referred to Hong Kong as a "bastion of liberty" that the US hoped "would provide a model for authoritarian China."

It remains unknown if these politicians had ever bothered to read the Sino-British Joint Declaration before making their remarks, and if they're even familiar with a few clauses from the declaration, Hua speculated.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration is a vital document concerning Hong Kong's return to China and relevant arrangements during the transition period. The declaration consists of eight clauses and three accessories.

The first clause regulates that China resumes sovereignty over the Hong Kong region; the second clause calls for the UK to restore Hong Kong to China. Both clauses were fulfilled after the handover, Hua said.

The third clause and the first accessory serve as an explanation of China's principles and policies for Hong Kong. The fourth and sixth clauses, and the second and third accessories are arrangements of both sides during transitional period. The seventh and eighth clauses are about the Joint Declaration's implementation and entry into force, Hua said.

The content related to the UK was fulfilled after the handover. The legal basis for implementing "one country, two systems", including for the Hong Kong-related national security legislation, is China's Constitution and the Basic Law, not the Sino-British Joint Declaration, Hua stressed.

Pompeo said China undermines Hong Kong freedom, but does he know if the UK ever gave Hong Kong democracy and freedom when it colonized the city for 156 years? Were any of the 28 British governors of Hong Kong elected by local residents? Did the Hong Kong residents then enjoy the freedom to take to the street for demonstration? Hua asked.

Hua also noted that during British colonial rule, the British Treason Act was applied to HK.

This time, the national security law only targets four crimes - secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and foreign intervention, and does not affect the rights and freedoms of HK residents, but rather protects their rights, Hua noted.

Hua noted that in eight days after the announcement of the decision, nearly 3 million Hong Kong residents co-signed a statement supporting the law. Foreign companies like HSBC, Jardine Matheson Group, Swire Group, and Standard Chartered Bank have since voiced their support.

According to one poll, over 61 percent of companies in Hong Kong said the national security law would benefit their business in the long run. Moreover, the Hang Seng Index has increased for five consecutive days.

These serve as indicators demonstrating trust in the national security law and the 'one country, two systems' principle.

Amid strong reactions from US politicians, Hua said it was because what they really care about is not freedom for Hong Kong, but freedom for themselves to undermine China's national security. Pompeo's reference to Hong Kong as a bastion of liberty for the US to affect China revealed his true thoughts.

Hua reiterated that the national security law is in accordance with China's Constitution and Hong Kong's Basic Law. It is aimed to fill security loopholes in the city. Residents won't have anything to worry about, nor will they need to overreact to the law if they don't have any intention to conduct separatist, subversive, and terrorist activities or undermine China's national security.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on people with obesity as they struggle to manage their weight and mental health during shelter-in-place orders, according to research led by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and UT Southwestern.

The study, published today in the journal Clinical Obesity, surveyed 123 weight management patients at the UT Southwestern Weight Wellness Program and a community bariatric surgery practice.

"Everyone was told to stay home to protect themselves from infection and this was especially important for people with severe obesity, who are more likely to have serious complications and higher risk of death with the coronavirus," said Sarah Messiah, PhD, MPH, the study's senior author and professor of epidemiology, human genetics, and environmental sciences at UTHealth School of Public Health in Dallas. "But these are also patients who often have comorbidities such as heart disease and diabetes that need consistent care. This was the first assessment of this patient population to see the effects of the upheaval of their daily lives on their health behavior and well-being."

The study revealed that nearly 73% of patient experience increased anxiety and close to 84% had increased depression. Nearly 70% reported more difficulty in achieving weight loss goals, while 48% had less exercise time, and 56% had less intensity in exercise. Stockpiling of food increased in nearly half of patients and stress eating was reported in 61%.

Two of the patients tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, but nearly 15% reported symptoms of the virus. Almost 10% lost their jobs and 20% said they could not afford a balanced meal.

"You don't have to contract the virus to be adversely affected by it. The major strength of this study is that it is one of the first data-driven snapshots into how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced health behaviors for patients with obesity," said Jaime Almandoz, MD, MBA, first author and an endocrinologist and assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern. Almandoz is also medical director for the UT Southwestern Weight Wellness Program, a multidisciplinary weight management and post-bariatric care clinic.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 42% of American adults are obese. Obesity-related health conditions include heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer that are some of the leading causes of preventable, premature death.

Almandoz pointed out that many patients with obesity already struggle with access to appropriate fresh, healthy foods. Some reside in food deserts lacking grocery stores, where the only options are fast food and processed foods from convenience stores.

"Unchecked diabetes, hypertension, and other obesity-related comorbidities will create a huge backlog of needs that will come back to haunt us. When you throw in disruptions like social isolation, coupled with losing your job and insurance coverage, a potential disaster is waiting to unfold," Almandoz said.

With clinics across the country reporting a decrease in patient visits, Messiah said that people with obesity are potentially missing medical appointments, surgeries, and medications due to the pandemic. People who lost their jobs, and thus their health insurance benefits, may now experience less access to care.

"We don't yet know how many additional lives will be lost to heart disease and diabetes simply because people did not receive care during COVID-19," said Messiah, who is the director of the Center for Pediatric Population Health. "Unfortunately, many of these are ethnic minorities who are already hit hard with disease burdens."

The researchers believe their work can inform clinicians and other health professionals on effective strategies to minimize the physical and psychosocial health impacts from COVID-19 among adults with obesity.

"Those with obesity and severe obesity are already at the highest risk of death from COVID-19. We're concerned that they can be severely affected if a second wave hits in the fall," Messiah said.

The study data came from an online questionnaire conducted April 15 through May 31, 2020. The study population was racially and ethnically diverse, had a mean age of 51, and 87% were women. The mean body mass index for these patients was 40.

###

UTHealth co-authors on the study included Luyu Xie, PharmD; M. Sunil Mathew; and Ashley Ofori. Other co-authors were Jeffrey N. Schellinger, MCN, RDN, and Chellse Gazda, MD, MPH, of UT Southwestern; and Sachin Kukreja, MD, of Minimally Invasive Surgical Associates, Dallas.

The research was funded through a grant to Messiah at UTHealth School of Public Health from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R01MD011686), part of the National Institutes of Health.
More than a year of sustained protests in Hong Kong against the heavy hand of Beijing and socio-economic inequality have changed everything.

The Chinese response  its new tough security law  has placed the West and the People's Republic on a collision course which could set back commercial and financial relations by decades.

Disquiet over China's handling of the coronavirus has added to the tensions.

China's tough new Hong Kong security law has placed the West and the People's Republic on a collision course which could set back commercial and financial relations by decades

The potential for a prolonged bitter dispute between London and Beijing has left Britain's two most important financial institutions in Hong Kong, HSBC and Standard Chartered, between a rock and a hard place.

They could keep their counsel but risk holing their businesses beyond the waterline if the Chinese cut up rough.

All hell broke loose when, on May 28, China declared it would enact a security law placing the 'one country, two systems' formulation under severe stress.

The United States threatened to suspend the legal, trade and financial privileges it had granted to Hong Kong, which had been treated as a separate country to mainland China.

HSBC and Standard Chartered criticised Aviva has broken its silence to raise concerns about HSBC and Standard Chartered's position in Hong Kong. Its investment arm is a top 20 shareholder at both banks. Chief investment officer David Cumming said: 'We are uneasy at the decisions to publicly support the proposed national security law in Hong Kong without knowing the details of the law or how it will operate. 'We expect both companies to confirm that they will speak out publicly if there are any future abuses of democratic freedoms connected to this law.'

Within Boris Johnson's government deep divisions, aroused by the decision to give telecoms giant Huawei a major role in Britain's 5G networks, burst back into the open.

Britain re-engaged with its colonial legacy, promising to make it easier for 3m Hong Kongers with rights to British overseas passports, to turn them into full citizens if they move continents.

This has left London-listed banks HSBC and Standard Chartered, and insurance giant the Prudential, in a very delicate position.

HSBC's Asia Pacific chief executive Peter Wong said the bank 'respects and supports all laws that stabilise Hong Kong's social order.'

He may have felt there was little choice, given his employer is the banker to many of China's state enterprises, and earns one-third of its profits from its retail operations in Hong Kong.

Standard Chartered also felt the need to express its fealty. Cue outrage in London from all sides of the political spectrum. HSBC acknowledges it was one of the toughest decisions it has had to take in modern times.

Chairman Mark Tucker felt it had little choice but to effectively cast its vote for political stability. In HSBC's view it is not in the interest of Britain, Hong Kong or China if confidence in the territory is eroded by street mayhem.

At a time when HSBC is shrinking its operations in Continental Europe and the US, the bank believes it had to keep faith with Hong Kong for the sake of all its stakeholders.

The territory has been its home since 1865. Over the last two decades, as China has expanded to become the world's second-largest economy, the biggest manufacturing nation and the largest exporter, Hong Kong and HSBC surfed a rising tide.

The territory's financial core is the beating heart of Beijing's brand of capitalism. It is where Chinese tech entrepreneurs market their stocks and shares to American investments funds and global investors.

Britain re-engaged with its colonial legacy, promising to make it easier for 3m Hong Kongers with rights to British overseas passports, to turn them into full citizens if they move continents

Money also is raised for China's ambitious colonial project  the Belt & Road initiative. HSBC's former chairman, Douglas Flint, is Britain's special envoy to the project.

Business is conducted in US dollars, rather than the Chinese renminbi, and transactions are organised by Western outfits.

British legal firms, the Big Four accountants and most major investment banks and fund managers have operations in Hong Kong, supported by historic trust in its legal structures and regulation.

Insurers, notably the Prudential, have built out huge new Chinese and Asian operations from Hong Kong.

Big British-founded trading companies: Jardine Matheson, Hutchison and Swire (owners of Cathay Pacific) all still have a home there. But they have smartly hedged bets by moving domicile and investment offshore.

The Hong Kong stock market is now dominated by 'red chips'  the Chinese quoted companies.

The share of mainland firms traded on the Hong Kong exchange has climbed from 31 per cent to 73 per cent.

Among China's ten most valuable firms listed in Hong Kong are tech giant Tencent and the world's biggest insurer, Ping An. Alibaba, China's most valuable quoted entity, was floated in New York in 2014.

Extricating British finance from Hong Kong would be a mammoth task. HSBC remains at Canary Wharf. Standard Chartered can move Asian HQ to Singapore.

Here, the Government has huge decisions to make on Huawei's involvement in Britain's 5G phone networks.

And it must decide if it can allow China's CGN to have a big role in new nuclear plants in Suffolk and at Bradwell B in Essex.

Allowing access will be regarded by Beijing's vociferous critics in the Commons as a dangerous strategic risk.

The combination of 'revenge' for Covid-19 together with anxiety about the future of Hong Kong is the biggest threat to Sino-British relations in decades.

It could also cast a terrible pall over the Brexit vision of a Global Britain.
A luxury real estate agent was fired after he used a New York Police Department (NYPD) van on fire during George Floyd protests as a way to entice New Yorkers to move to South Florida.

Joseph Swedroe sent an email to prospective buyers titled Looking for Change? with an NYPD van on fire in the body of the message that was then compared the images of sandy beaches in Florida, The Real Deal reported.

The email asked residents if they would prefer to live in chaos or comfort, alluding to the current unrest in New York City and other parts of the country following the death of Mr Floyd at the hands of four former Minneapolis police officers.

After Mr Floyds death two weeks ago, Black Lives Matter protests launched across the country. Although a majority of the protests remained peaceful, some involved the burning of police property and looting of businesses.

Mr Swedroe, whos worked as a licensed real estate agent since 2010, told the real estate site his intention was not to be offensive and that the images he used were easily available online or through a media outlet.

It was just a marketing piece to get attention, he said. If people are going to move, let them come and contact me if theyre coming to South Florida.

Its no secret that New York has been the scene of riots and vandalism and that South Florida is a much quieter and calmer place, Mr Swedroe added.

Corcoran Group, a luxury real estate agency where Mr Swedroe worked, quickly "disassociated" itself from the man for using the Black Lives Matter protests as a way to sell properties.

A spokesperson with Corcoran Group told the real estate site it had a zero tolerance for this behaviour and that the company rejected racist and fear-based rhetoric in any form.

The Independent contacted Mr Swedroe for a comment.
Cabin crew in protective suits, health certifications for passengers, mandatory face masks, and longer check-in times. This is the new reality of mass air travel. As people dream of taking to the skies once more, they face the prospect that changes to curb the spread of coronavirus will be even more challenging than those brought in after the 2001 terror attacks in the United States. In addition to the strict security measures commonplace around the world since then, passengers will now encounter a barrage of checks for COVID-19. "Before the pandemic, we were told to arrive two hours before the flight. This time we had to be at the airport at least four hours before flying," said Indonesian Suyanto after taking a domestic route in late May. There were multiple queues and screenings before he could even check in at the airport, he added. Passengers in the country must declare a reason for flying, provide documentation proving they are virus-free, undergo multiple screenings, and offer details of their movements on arrival. "It was more tiring and expensive. With these kinds of strict rules, I think people will think twice before travelling," said the 40-year-old, who had to pay double the usual fare for his short flight as some seats were left empty for social distancing. As the aviation industry attempts to find a way forward, experts warn the impact of the pandemic will be far-reaching. "9/11 created a new environment for the entire travel industry in terms of security," explained Shukor Yusof from Malaysia-based Endau Analytics. While the fallout from the 2001 attacks could be used as an "indicator" of what to expect, the COVID-19 challenge was a "far more serious... global event", he said. - Defiant passengers - The United Nations' civil aviation agency has drawn up a set of guidelines for safe flying in the wake of the pandemic, from mandatory wearing of masks to the disinfection of areas people come in contact with. In addition, industry body the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has suggested governments collect passenger data -- including health information -- ahead of travel, and that access to airports be restricted to staff and same-day travellers. Other measures outlined in their guidelines include the redesign of gate areas to reduce congestion, faster and smoother boarding and baggage collection procedures, and even "prohibiting queues for the washrooms" to limit passenger interaction. "The COVID-19 crisis is the biggest disruption in the history of the aviation industry. The recovery is going to be long and slow," Albert Tjoeng, regional spokesman for IATA, told AFP. Implementing new regulations is already proving challenging -- and chaotic. While some US airlines require masks be worn in-flight, it has proven difficult to enforce this rule if passengers are defiant. In India, which resumed domestic flights last week, some cabin crew wore protective suits with masks, plastic visors and blue rubber gloves, but, according to media reports, had no idea if they were supposed to quarantine post-flight. Mumbai airport put in place social distancing rules but these quickly fell apart when angry travellers harangued staff after flights were cancelled last-minute. The most hotly debated measure in the industry has been whether to leave middle seats empty. Japan Airlines and Delta are among carriers doing so but Michael O'Leary, the boss of Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, has said the idea is "idiotic" and would stop his firm making money. - 'Travel bubbles' - The emergence of COVID-19, which was first reported in China last year and has since infected more than seven million people worldwide, brought air travel to an almost complete halt with entire fleets grounded and mass layoffs. IATA forecasts international carriers are in line to make a combined net loss of more than $84 billion this year. "We don't know exactly how the trajectory of this recovery will look," Singapore Airlines chief executive Goh Choon Phong said, after the carrier reported the first full-year loss in its 48-year history. There are some signs of recovery as major economies ease lockdowns -- with IATA pointing to a growth in flight numbers from April to May -- but flying looks set to struggle to return to pre-virus levels. A confusing patchwork of rules imposed by countries at different stages in tackling their outbreaks makes it tricky for consumers to plan holidays or visit family abroad. Some nations are maintaining bans on travellers from hard-hit nations or requiring people to enter quarantine on arrival, typically for a 14-day period. Countries that have kept the virus in check are looking at creating "travel bubbles", or reciprocal agreements with other places on similar outbreak curves, but these can have onerous requirements. A "fast lane" for essential business and official travel between some parts of China and Singapore has been launched, but travellers need sponsorship and have to take a virus test before departure and on arrival. Many who previously flew frequently may simply choose not to for the time being. Fazal Bahardeen, chief executive of Singapore-based Islamic travel specialist HalalTrip, told AFP: "If I have to go through all the hassle, I might as well not travel unless I really have to." burs-mba/sr/lto/axn The International Air Transport Association has suggested several measures to limit the risk of infection, including collecting passenger data ahead of travel and allowing only staff and same-day travellers into airports Passengers face the prospect of even stricter security measures than those put in place after the September 11 attacks in 2001 While there are signs of a recovery as lockdowns are eased, flying looks set to struggle to return to pre-virus levels
Back in early April I spoke with a group of restaurant and bar owners reeling from the COVID-19 shutdowns. All had applied for federal assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, the small business program initially passed in late March and then expanded in April, due to overwhelming small business demand.

All received some money from the PPP, which helped somewhat. But all have found the program restrictions difficult to navigate.

Launched during nationwide shutdowns, the PPP had three main goals:

Subsidize businesses primarily by covering an important source of their costs  up to eight weeks of payroll.

Keep employees from being fired, and off the unemployment rolls.

Be limited in scope, by limiting subsidy to mostly payroll, and only for an eight-week period.

Moving an estimated $511 billion in two months from the federal government through banks to small businesses  despite delays and frustrations  undoubtedly has helped keep many peoples finances, and many businesses finances, afloat.

We also know  and this was borne out by checking in with the folks I initially interviewed  that the PPPs design is super difficult to deal with, especially for the bar and restaurant owners devastated by shutdowns. The PPP stipulates that the loan is forgivable only if the money is spent in the 56 days following receipt of funds, and only to the extent that 75 percent of the money goes to payroll.

For Rob Martindale of craft beer purveyor Big Hops, the timing of the $30,000 PPP loan he received has been particularly unhelpful. It came about a month too late to keep his employees on payroll, and too early to rehire them.

They had all already filed for unemployment.

This situation has been devastating to our business and our industry, Martindale said, and I hope the PPP loan details will be changed so they actually help small businesses recover from this shutdown.

Martindale also laments the costs of licensing, utilities and taxes, and wonders what kind of relief could be offered for businesses like his. He is frustrated by the lack of communication from local officials.

Now, with just a few weeks remaining on his loans eight-week payroll term, employees he rehires clearly will take a pay cut versus their unemployment benefits, something nobody wants. Martindale said his employees agreed to return to work, but he needed an extension of the PPP time period for his business to get the full benefit  which is uncertain at this time.

For Damien and Lisa Watel of French-style Bistr09, the PPP funds arrived two weeks too late. They had furloughed all of their employees. Now, five weeks into their eight-week period, they have rehired everyone who was willing to come back, including some new staff, and used funds to pay bills and their landlord this month.

They received 80 percent of the funds they requested, but they too find the restrictions difficult to navigate. Because the PPP loan may be forgiven only if its spent in the 56 days following receipt, they cannot use the money for the bills that stacked up during the first month of the shutdown.

Restaurant and bar workers typically survive on tips. By law, employers may legally pay below the minimum wage, with the assumption that tips make up a significant part  even the majority  of workers take-home pay.

The PPP design, however, hits employees and employers in the bar and restaurant industry particularly hard. Since the size of loans and forgivable grants were based on payroll, and thats low because compensation is paid in customer tips, PPP will undervalue the size of employee pay.

It makes all the sense in the world therefore that unemployment benefits  bolstered by an extra $600 per week in federal stimulus funds  would be significantly larger than restaurant wages. Now, with restaurant and bar businesses operating at 50 percent of their pre-COVID capacity, both owners and employees likely will take a huge hit in pay.

Denise Aguirre is an owner of the bar, food truck, and coffee place known as The Point Park and Eats.

While the restaurant and bar scene has been allowed to reopen, Aguirre has reduced hours to Thursday through Sunday only.

After working for weeks and jumping through hoops with her local bank, she applied for a PPP loan through her payments processor Square. Square got her a loan of $2,000 within a week, after her regular bank turned her down.

That was enough to pay a few bills, but fell far short of covering the economic damage stemming from the COVID-19 shutdown.

She remains somewhere between hopeful and frustrated in applying for an SBA economic injury disaster loan  a process she started in early April  as well as looking for assistance from other local sources. Meanwhile, she says her business revenue since partially reopening has all gone to paying bills, primarily a weekly partial payment to her landlord.

One hope for owners is that Congress will extend the time period for PPP spending from eight weeks to something longer, like 16 or 24 weeks.

Congressman Chip Roy (R-District 21) authored bipartisan legislation, which passed the U.S. House on May 27, to extend the PPP time period and relax rules on how business owners could qualify for loan forgiveness.

This bill, if passed, would allow business owners like Aguiree, Martindale and the Watels to largely spend their PPP funds on employee compensation, and therefore qualify for full loan forgiveness.

Loans are nice, but outright grants are better.

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
Education Minister, Joe McHugh, has appealed to schools, teachers and education assistants to join a July school programme for special needs children.

Mr McHugh said he hoped the scheme, which usually catered for up to 10,000 special needs children, could help up to double that number. He said children with down syndrome would be included as well as those with autism and profound intellectual disabilities.

Opposition TDs  including Fianna Fails Thomas Byrne and Sinn Fein's Donnchadh O Laoghaire  raised concerns about the danger of a low uptake by schools and teachers. But Minister McHugh said everybody should wait until after this Friday when full details of the special scheme will be unveiled.

The Education Minister said that there was considerable goodwill towards the scheme from schools, teacher unions, parents and support groups. He added that initiatives under the scheme could go ahead in other community facilities besides schools.

Donnchadh O Laoghaire said that that at this point, on June 10 for a scheme due to start in July, he believed only a handful of schools and teachers were engaging. This is not surprising because of the lack of information for those who may be involved, Mr O Laoghaire said, adding there were a lot of unanswered about Covid 19 regulations.

Mr McHugh accepted the scheme could only run with the support of schools, principals, teachers, SNAs and other staff. But he said initial contact had been quite positive.

The Education Minister told TDs that last year 232 schools out of 4,000 participated and 70 per cent of the programme was home-based. Opening a two-hour Dail debate on the summer school plan the Minister said he would set out the shape of the programme at a Cabinet meeting on Friday.

Once approved by Government all schools and parents would have the guidelines and the opportunity to register and they would then establish the level of demand.

I believe that it is essential that a summer education programme runs this year for those most in need, Mr McHugh said.

It will help children to reconnect with learning and assist their return to schools in the autumn. An education programme will also help to reduce regression for those at greatest risk of this happening, the Minister added.

He said that public health guidance to schools and provision of appropriate supports would be important elements in ensuring that any summer programme could take place.

I know the positive impact that a programme will have and I want to see it happen but we must again do so in a safe way for all concerned.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Flor de Cana, a sustainably produced premium rum, has recently achieved carbon neutral certification, further reaffirming the brand's commitment to sustainability, which includes distilling its rum with 100% renewable energy, planting 50,000 trees annually since 2005 and being Fair Trade certified.

The certification was undertaken by Carbon Trust, a global leader in measuring and certifying carbon footprints to the internationally-recognised PAS 2060 standard for carbon neutrality. The standard requires that the entire lifecycle carbon footprint of Flor de Cana is measured and certified, that a carbon management plan is in place to reduce emissions, and that any remaining emissions are offset.

"The Carbon Trust is delighted to certify Flor de Cana Rum as carbon neutral and we support the work they are doing to secure ongoing reductions in carbon emissions," said Silvana Centty, Senior Manager at the Carbon Trust.

Flor de Cana is recognized as an industry leader for its sustainable practices, being the only spirit in the world to be both carbon neutral and Fair Trade certified.

Since 1913, the company school has offered free education to the children of its employees (600 students currently enrolled), and since 1958, the company hospital has offered free medical attention to employees and their families (400+ surgeries and 170 births every year).

Flor de Cana has also been the main donor of APROQUEN for nearly 30 years, a non-profit that has provided over 600,000 free medical services to child burn victims and children with cleft lip or palate.

About Flor de Cana Rum

Flor de Cana is a sustainably produced premium rum that's Carbon Neutral & Fair Trade certified. From an 1890 family estate, it's distilled with 100% renewable energy and naturally aged without sugar. It was awarded "Best Rum Producer of the Year" by the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 2017. www.flordecana.com

CONTACT: corporatecommunications@flordecana.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178058/Flor_de_Cana_Rum.jpg
A West Australian Greens senator has been accused of inciting anarchy by cheering protesters who tore down a statue of a slave trader in England, but his party says he's raising important issues.

After vision of Black Lives Matter demonstrators toppling a statue of Edward Colston into Bristol Harbour made worldwide headlines, Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John cheered them on social media.

'It's great to see these symbols of white supremacy being torn down - It's made me think a lot about how many similar statues and symbols we have here in WA,' he posted.

Greens senator Jordon Steele-John praised the toppling of a statue of a slave trader on Twitter

Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John cheered on the tearing down of slave trader statues on social media before suggesting Australians should do the same

In another tweet, he asked 'What would be the first symbol or statue you'd get rid of? I'd start with Stirling Highway', referring to WA's first governor James Stirling, who led an attack on Aboriginal people in 1834 known as the Pinjarra Massacre.

WA Liberal upper house MP Tjorn Sibma slammed the Greens senator for inciting violence

WA Liberal upper house MP Tjorn Sibma said the senator was deliberately importing stupidity and violence into the community, labelling his remarks 'an incitement to criminal behaviour, anarchy and vandalism'.

'Freedom of speech, particularly that provided by public figures, demands an equal measure of public responsibility,' Mr Sibma told parliament.

'His contribution is an absolute disgrace.

'It must be condemned by his party colleagues and by anybody who holds dear their responsibilities to this community.'

A spokesman for Senator Steele-John referred questions to Greens spokeswoman on First Nations peoples' issues, Rachel Siewert, who said Australians needed to tell the truth about the way the nation was colonised and 'unfinished business' remained.

'Many of the statues we see around Australia are of people that would have caused a lot of distress for some First Nations peoples given their involvement in the dispossession, oppression and destruction of their culture,' Senator Siewert said in a statement.

'We should also be asking why we place such significance on these figures rather than celebrating and acknowledging First Nations living cultures and traditions.'
Parle Products Pvt. Ltd, which owns the Parle-G biscuit brand, saw sales surge during the lockdown, as the firms popular cookies and value packs found favour with Indians stuck at home.

This helped the company register better-than-expected growth between March and May and expand its market share by 500 basis points, said Mayank Shah, category head, Parle Products.

It was primarily because of increase in demand. Consumption was high because people bought more during the lockdown, made new dishes and hoarded food, as a result snacking occasions in India went up.

The news was first reported by The Economic Times.

Shah said overall, biscuits as a category, did well, as families consumed more packaged snacks at home. Moreover, on-the-move migrants relied on its value packs to sustain. Parle-G has been hugely popular among middle-income households because of its affordable price points.

Even other players have done well. But we were able to get our act together and register one of the best times in the companys history, he said.

Rival Britannia Industries, too, sold more packs of biscuits in April and May, posting 20% and 28% growth in sales (year-on-year), respectively.

This was on account of increased in-home consumption for its brands during the lockdown.

Shah said Parle also registered strong growth in its premium Platina range of cookies, which includes Hide and Seek, and Milano brand of cookies. We saw good growth rates there, too. There was pantry loading happening. Because biscuits have a long shelf life, so people stocked up, he added.

Shah said the company got permissions to kickstart production within two days of the lockdown; and over the following week several of its factories resumed function.
New Delhi, June 10 : The military delegates of India and China met on Wednesday to deliberate upon the process of withdrawal of troops and the current standoff situation in Pangong Tso in Eastern Ladakh.

"The meeting ended on a positive trajectory and more similar meetings between both the countries' forces' delegates to take place," said a source.

"Major General-level talks took place at the Chushul-Moldo on Wednesday about the ongoing de-escalation and the Pangong standoff situation," said a senior government official, adding that during the meeting, discussion took place for further de-escalation in Ladakh.

The official further stated, "More talks expected at different levels in the days to come for complete de-induction and withdrawal of additional troop deployment close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC)." In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.

"Recently the diplomatic and military channels of China and India held effective communication on the situation along the border and reached positive consensus. The two sides are following this consensus to take actions to ease the situation along the borders," the spokesperson said.

China's remarks comes a day after officials in New Delhi said that Indian and Chinese troops have started the process of de-escalation at the Line of Actual Control with withdrawal of troops, guns and combat vehicles from three standoff positions in Eastern Ladakh.

India's bone of contention of Chinese troop build up at Finger 4 would be resolved eventually, source pointed out.

The withdrawal started after top military-level talks took place June 6 between India and China.

The meeting on June 6 lasted for around six hours in two phases. During the first half-an-hour, the delegation leaders had one-to-one meeting and that laid the basis for the second phase of talks.

The Indian military delegation was headed by the Commander of Leh-based 14 Corp, Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, while the Chinese side was headed by Major General Liu Lin, Commander of South Xinjiang Military Region.

For the next two hours, it was delegation-level talks where 12 members, including a translator, from the Indian side and the same number of people from the other side deliberated over the issue. After two hours, a lunch break was taken and then deliberations took place fro four more hours.

Five main issues were discussed during the meeting. They included de-escalation of soldiers from four standoff points from both the countries. The four standoff points are Finger Four of North Bank of Pangong Lake, Patrolling Point 14 near Galwan Valley, Patrolling Point 15 and Patrolling Point 17-A.

These are the four points where troop concentration happened from both the armies across the LAC of either side. "No one crossed the Line of Actual Control as perceived by each other," the source added.

The three points of standoffs -- Patrolling Point 14 near Galwan Valley at Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley, Patrolling Point 15 near Patrolling Point 14, and Patrolling Point 17-A, also known as hot springs -- would be resolved during brigadier-level talks.

During the deliberations, it was decided that after 10 days, brigadier-level talks will begin for three patrolling points -- PP 14, PP 15 and PP 17-A.

The important contention from the Indian side was Finger Four at the Pangong Tso Lake in Eastern Ladakh. This would be taken up at Lieutenant-General-level talks.

Sources said that India wanted a pre-May 8 position. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi had talks over the standoff issue on May 8.

The fifth agenda was about gradual de-escalation of military build-up near the Line of Actual Control on each side.

During the deliberations, India said that since China had started deployment of troops and big guns, and that it should start the de-escalation move to which it had agreed and started the process and accordingly India too started withdrawing its forces.

Clashes between Indian and Chinese troops happened several times between May 5 and May 8. Thereafter, the Chinese increased deployment of troops and guns while the Indian Army too deployed forces and moved guns in equal numbers.

Now, both countries have decided to de-induct and de-escalate troops and guns and move backwards.
The founder and CEO of CrossFit is stepping down after his tweet about George Floyd sparked a social media backlash and a wave of affiliated gyms cut ties with the company.

Reebok also dropped its affiliation with CrossFit this week.

Greg Glassman wrote on CrossFits website late Tuesday that he would retire. Glassman had apologized earlier for tweets that sparked online outrage by connecting Floyd, an African American man who died at the hands of the Minneapolis police, and the coronavirus pandemic. He said he had made a mistake and should have been more sensitive, but denied being racist.

On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members, Glassman said. I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQs or affiliates missions.

Glassmans exit may have been sealed after Buzzfeed posted a Zoom call he held with CrossFit affiliated gyms in which Glassman reportedly said: Were not mourning for George Floyd  I dont think me or any of my staff are. Buzzfeed said it received the recording through its anonymous tip line.

The Zoom call took place hours before Glassman made a glib response on Twitter to a post by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research group, which said, Racism is a public health issue.

 Its FLOYD-19, he replied Saturday, and in a second tweet criticized the groups failed quarantine model and accused it of attempting to model a solution to racism.

Some 1,250 gyms have now severed links with CrossFit, according to industry blog Morning Chalk Up. An anonymously-curated Google spreadsheet lists hundreds of CrossFit affiliates with links to their social media accounts, with most on the list saying they have cut ties, or are considering doing so.

In light of recent comments made by CrossFit CEO, we are deaffiliating from CrossFit, read a post on the Instagram account for CrossFit Central of Austin, Texas. We are resolute in our anti racist beliefs and stance against police police brutality. We stand in solidarity with the black community.

The post by CrossFit Central echoed the sentiments of hundreds of other gyms around the world in what has been an astonishingly swift backlash against CrossFit.

An Edelman Trust Barometer poll of 2,000 Americans, published Tuesday, found that 60% of respondents said how a brand responds to the protests will influence whether a respondent buys or boycotts their products. The poll found that younger Americans felt the strongest, with 78% of millennial respondents saying that a brand must speak out on racial injustice.

Americans want brands to step up and play a central role in addressing systemic racism, wrote Richard Edelman, CEO of the communications firm. This is a mandate for brands to act, because consumers will exercise brand democracy with their wallets.

The speed at which companies and affiliates have distanced themselves from CrossFit was accelerated by social media, and to some degree, the coronavirus pandemic, said marketing and branding expert Allen Adamson.

In the past, most companies only had to talk about: Does their product work? Adamson said. Now, younger consumers are pulling companies into this conversation because they not only want to know what their product does, but they want to know what the company stands for before they do business with them. And that pressure is exposing all sorts of challenges for companies.

According to the CrossFit website, the annual fee for affiliation for gyms or other facilities is $3,000, which allows them to use the CrossFit name, logo, and promotional materials, among other perks.

Dave Castro will take over as CEO of CrossFit, which is based in Santa Cruz, California.

Floyd died while handcuffed after a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes. His death set off protests around the U.S. and the globe.

__________________

AP writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this story.

_______

This story has been corrected to show that the Edelman poll was published Tuesday, not Wednesday.
Australian supermarket giant Coles is set to release a $79 weighted blanket as part of the company's new 'Best Buy's range on Friday June 12 - which will also feature chic bedding and tech accessories at budget prices.

The limited edition mink blanket weighs 6.5 kilograms and is said to improve sleep, reduce anxiety and make you fall asleep faster by increasing relaxation due to its weighted surface.

The sleepwear comes just a few months after Aldi released a similar weighted blanket designed to help cure insomnia.

The 'Best Buys' will be a fortnightly event and evolve with different themes in each new batch.

Australian supermarket giant Coles is set to release a $79 weighted blanket as part of the company's new 'Best Buy's range on Friday June 12 (pictured)

Compared to other weighted blankets that often retail for more than $100, the Coles product is a budget deal and priced at $79 to compete with competitors such as Aldi.

This week's Best Buys will feature more than 30 new products including quilt cover sets starting at $19.99 for a double bed, soft textured cushions and microfibre sheets for $14.99 each and glow in the dark quilt cover sets for $24.99.

The range will also include faux fur throws, a Bluetooth soundbar and wireless headphones with a charging station.

The deals will only be available in certain stores ahead of an expected national roll-out in the coming weeks.

This week's Best Buys will feature more than 30 new products including quilt cover sets starting at $19.99 for a double bed, soft textured cushions and microfibre sheets for $14.99 and glow in the dark quilt cover sets for $24.99

Earlier this month the first release of the Best Buys premium cookware range sold out within a few days, which Coles General Manager for Health and Home, Jonathan Torr, said the company was 'delighted' about.

'Coles Best Buys is all about offering our customers great value on homewares and products you normally wouldn't see sold in supermarkets,' Mr Torr said.

'While the range is designed to provide convenient and affordable options, it's also a chance for us to surprise our customers with new products and add some fun and excitement to their grocery shop at Coles.'

Australians around the country can purchase the new limited edition products at selected Coles stores.
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Linkedin (Reuters) Sydney, Australia  Wed, June 10, 2020 16:37 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdda3544 2 Environment green-turtles,environment Free

The world's largest population of nesting green turtles is nearly twice as big as previously thought, scientists said on Wednesday, after drones enabled better surveys of the animals.

Australian scientists determined that there were about 64,000 green turtles waiting to lay eggs on Raine Island - a vegetated coral cay on the outer edges of the Great Barrier Reef - significantly more than thought.

"When we compared drone counts to observer counts we found that we had under-estimated the numbers in the past by a factor 1.73," Richard Fitzpatrick, research partner at Biopixel Oceans Foundation said in an emailed statement.

Read also: Cambodian conservationists hopeful for revival of rare royal turtle

The research is good news for scientists concerned about declining numbers of green turtles.

Listed as endangered, many countries have made it illegal to collect or harm them, while nesting grounds are often also protected.

But getting an accurate picture of how the species is responding to protection efforts has been difficult.

Previously, researchers would paint a non-toxic white stripe down the turtles' shells and would count them, those with and without white stripes, from a small boat. But this way of counting proved inaccurate due to poor visibility, the researchers said.
The boss of newly ASX-listed malt producer United Malt fears some craft brewers won't survive the coronavirus shutdowns, but is confident his business will benefit from the long-term growth in craft beer around the globe once the pandemic eases.

Mark Palmquist said a survey of North American micro brewers found that more than 30 per cent said they would not be able to survive a shutdown of more than three months.

"We're hearing similar anecdotal evidence inside Australia," he said. "What we're hoping is that it won't be that bad in Australia just because you're relaxing the restrictions at a faster pace."

The coronavirus pandemic has cut demand among craft brewers for United Malt's malt products. Credit:Shutterstock

While some craft brewers could be forced out of business, their manufacturing might not be lost if their brewery was continued by another operator, he said.
(TNS)  Congressional Democrats are probing the possible use of high-tech surveillance tools by federal law enforcement agencies to monitor protesters at nationwide marches against police brutality.House Democrats have in recent days sent letters to the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, the National Guard Bureau, Customs and Border Protection and the Defense Department seeking to understand whether authorities have deployed powerful tools like facial recognition and cell phone data-tracking against protesters.And Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., on Monday sent a list of questions to Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition technology company that partners with law enforcement agencies and private companies, to ensure it will not force Americans to choose between sacrificing their rights to privacy or remaining silent in the face of injustice.In a statement to CQ Roll Call, Hoan Ton-That, Clearview AIs chief executive, said he would respond directly to Markeys letter.Clearview AIs technology is intended only for after-the-crime investigations, and not as a surveillance tool relating to protests or under any other circumstances, Ton-That said.The inquiries come amid weeks of mostly peaceful protests across the United States following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black Americans at the hands of police. As the protests have continued, concerns about surveillance have grown among civil liberties advocates who say the surveillance could have a chilling effect on those marching.Its not good for the First Amendment and its not the right response to the protests, said Neema Singh Guliani, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. The right response is to seriously consider the issues that people are raising, not to create an environment that instills further fear in people and makes them more afraid to speak out.In a letter to federal agencies on Tuesday, Reps. Anna G. Eshoo, D-Calif., and Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., questioned the use of FBI and National Guard surveillance aircraft over protests in Las Vegas and Washington D.C., and CBP drones over Minneapolis, San Antonio and Detroit.They also asked about a BuzzFeed report that said the DEA had been given authority by the Justice Department to conduct covert surveillance of protesters and a VICE report that an FBI plane may have deployed technology that imitates a cell phone tower to collect personal data.Eshoo and Rush noted recent articles on tactics protesters can use to protect themselves against invasive surveillance tactics, especially those that can be used against smartphones.Americans should not have to take proactive measures to protect themselves from government surveillance before engaging in peaceful demonstration, they wrote. The fact that the agencies you lead have created an environment in which such headlines are common is, in and of itself, an indication of the chilling effect of government surveillance on law-abiding Americans.Eshoo and Rush, backed by 33 additional House Democrats, said the agencies should cease any surveillance practices currently in place.In a separate letter, Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee asked the Homeland Security Department, which encompasses CBP, to explain why one of its drones was flying over protests in Minneapolis.Writing to Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, committee Democrats led by Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., asked whether the drone, which took off from Grand Forks Air Force Base and flew over protestors on May 29, recorded any video footage of the protest and, if so, how DHS plans to use it.They also asked whether DHS or any other law enforcement officers privy to the drones video feeds are users of facial recognition technology. The letter also questioned whether use of the drone was legal because of limitations on CBPs jurisdiction further than 100 miles from the U.S. border.This administration has undermined the First Amendment freedoms of Americans of all races who are rightfully protesting George Floyds killing, they wrote. The deployment of drones and officers to surveil protests is a gross abuse of authority and is particularly chilling when used against Americans who are protesting law enforcement brutality.The letter was co-signed by Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Stephen F. Lynch and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. The members requested answers from DHS to a detailed list of questions by Friday.Other Democrats, including House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., are probing how the Defense Department may be involved in surveillance efforts.In a letter Monday to Joseph Kernan, the Pentagons undersecretary for intelligence, Schiff said he is concerned military personnel may be asked to undertake unlawful or unethical activities that could violate civil liberties and erode even further the legitimacy of, and trust in, the military and law enforcement.We know that you share our reverence for the rights enshrined in the Constitution and are committed to your duty to protect Americans civil liberties and constitutional rights, Schiff wrote to Kernan. It is therefore imperative that (you) refrain from any activity that could infringe upon those rights, or even be perceived as doing so.Guliani, of the ACLU, said the efforts in Congress are key to understanding whether protesters are being surveilled by federal authorities. But she said Congress should curb investments in surveillance technologies that raise privacy concerns, especially in the hands of police.We have to get a handle on what has become an increasingly well-funded, out-of-control surveillance infrastructure where weve deployed a variety of technologies, often without transparency, she said. Were seeing the result of that, which is use of these technologies in contexts where theyre raising significant First Amendment concerns.
British consumers could be exposed to larger amounts of pesticides in food if the US successfully encourages the UK to ease regulations, a new report warns.

Pesticide standards could be slashed in new trade deals, threatening public health and the environment, the report, entitled Toxic Trade, states.

It comes as new YouGov polling reveals that almost three quarters (71%) of the British public want the government to resist US attempts to overturn bans on pesticides.

Authored by Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK), Sustain and trade expert Dr Emily Lydgate, the report highlights that a rise in exposure to pesticides could be unavoidable for consumers.

This is because pesticides would not be mentioned on food labels, the groups said.

The UK currently has some of the most stringent pesticide regulations in the world, meaning that many agri products produced elsewhere cannot be sold in the UK.

However, concern is mounting that in the wake of Brexit, trade deals currently under negotiation with the US would drive down pesticide standards.

And farmers could be forced to use pesticides in order to compete with cheaper imports, according to Vicki Hird, farm campaign co-ordinator at Sustain.

In an already uncertain economic climate, the lowering of pesticide standards could be catastrophic for UK farming as well as the environment.

"Sixty percent of UK agricultural exports currently go to the EU so this could finish off many farming businesses, Ms Hird said.

The YouGov poll revealed high levels of concern among consumers, with 71% of those surveyed were concerned that a US trade deal would mean larger amounts of pesticides in their food.

Meanwhile, 79% were concerned about impacts to health if the government caved to US pressure to lower pesticide standards.

Josie Cohen, head of policy at Pesticide Action Network, said attention had been paid to the dangers of chlorinated chicken, but the public were 'equally concerned' about weakening pesticide rules.

"We know that US negotiators have our pesticide standards firmly in their sights, and with the talks happening behind closed doors the public has no way of knowing if health and environmental protections are being traded away.

The campaign groups highlight that compared to UK grapes, US grapes are allowed to contain 1,000 times the amount of the controversial insecticide propargite.

American apples are also allowed to contain 400 times the level of the insecticide malathion than UK apples.

And the pesticide chlorpyrifos - shown in some studies to negatively affect cognitive development - is banned from use in the UK but is used by farmers in the US and India.

Dr Emily Lydgate, senior lecturer in environmental law at the University of Sussex, said a 'clear objective' of US negotiators was for the UK to lower its pesticide standards.

"The current picture in the UK of intense political pressure coupled with a lack of parliamentary and public scrutiny means the risk of this happening is very high.
A Lagos State High Court in Igbosere has sentenced two men, Williams Udoh and Ubong Isaiah, to death by hanging for armed robbery and rape.

Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye on Wednesday also sentenced Mr Udoh to 21 years imprisonment for raping a married woman during their robbery operation.

The duo had been arraigned by the Lagos State government on a five-count charge of conspiracy, armed robbery and rape.

Delivering judgment during virtual court proceedings, the judge found the defendants guilty as charged.

Mrs Ipaye said the prosecution, through its six witnesses, proved its case beyond reasonable doubt that the offences of rape, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery were indeed committed by the convicts.

The prosecution has successfully established that series of robberies took place on August 2, 2015 and that the robbers were armed with guns and other offensive weapons.

The failure of the state to tender the weapons does not water down the fact that the weapons were actually used.

I am satisfied with the evidence of the prosecution witnesses (PW), together with the graphic testimony of the PW1. There is no room for any mistaken identity that the defendants were actually those who participated in the armed robbery.

Also, I find the testimony of PW3 credible and detailed. Penetration, however slight, constitutes an offence of rape.

PW3 was able to establish that the first defendant (Udoh) raped her. She said that the defendants were not masked; so she was able to identify them.

The testimony of PW3 was also corroborated by PW2, which is cogent to establish that PW3 was indeed raped.

Having established the offences of rape and armed robbery, the prosecution has indeed proved its case beyond every reasonable doubt.

I, therefore, find you Williams Udoh and Ubong Isaiah guilty as charged.

You shall be hung by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy on your souls.

The first defendant, Udoh, is also sentenced to 21 years imprisonment for the offence of rape. This is the sentence of the court, Mrs Ipaye said.

Before the judge gave the sentence, counsels to the defendants, Emmanuel Ohonyon and Jumil Bashir, urged the court to temper justice with mercy.

They said the convicts were family men, whose families depended on, adding that if given a second chance, the convicts will turn a new leaf.

However, during trial, one of the victims, Ijeoma Ojiakor, narrated how the thieves robbed and raped her.

She said after raping her, the first defendant took her eight- year-old daughter to the other five gang members stationed outside to rape, adding, however, that they refused to rape her.

The victim also said that before she was raped, the first convict hit her husbands head with a gun and then tied him up.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the prosecution, led by T. K. Shitta-Bey, the Solicitor General of Lagos State, had arraigned and re-arraigned the duo on July 13, 2017, and they pleaded not guilty.

The prosecution alleged that the duo and others at large, committed the offences on Aug. 2, 2015 at two different residents at Shepherd Estate, Daramola street, Ijegun and No.8, Ologun Ijegun, Lagos.

She said the duo conspired, and while armed with guns and other offensive weapons, like sledge hammer and machetes, robbed one Ijeoma Orjiakor and Micheal Orjiakor of phones, jewellery, one laptop and N40,000 cash.

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The prosecution also said that the first defendant (Udoh) had unlawful sexual intercourse with the 39-year-old woman.

She said that the defendants entered another building at No. 8, Ologun Ijegun and robbed one Esther Adeniran of her seven handsets and N600,000 cash.

According to her, the offences contravene Sections 258(1), 295(2) and 297 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. (NAN)
Experts warn that the pandemic will throw 50 million into poverty and worsen food insecurity in Bangladesh.

By Vatican News

Since the start of a nationwide shutdown in Bangladesh on March 26, the situation of thousands of poor people including ethnic communities, especially in remote areas, has worsened. For many it has been a question of survival, with food security growing even more precarious. Many have not been able to obtain food aid from state-run schemes.

Government officials say Bangladesh has good food production and enough food stock, so a food crisis due to the pandemic is unlikely.

However, according to noted economist Mirza Azizul Islam, with the loss of income and declining purchasing power, large numbers of people cannot avail of the available food.

Many people have lost their source of earning and become temporarily jobless. So, it is the main challenge to ensure food for them by widening social safety net programmes, Islam told Dhaka Tribune newspaper.

Shamsul Alam, a member of the General Economy Department at the state-run Planning Commission, agreed that millions risk slipping into poverty due to Covid-19. We fear more than four million will become extremely poor, and we need to think about how to support them in the coming days, Alam told UCA News.

Poverty

In April, a leading economist from the World Bank warned that Covid-19 will throw some 50 million into poverty in Bangladesh.

In a report on June 7, the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a Bangladeshi think tank, said overall poverty has risen by 10 percent and could return to 40 percent of 15 years ago.

The latest study by the state-run Bureau of Statistics showed the level of poverty was 24 percent in 2016.

Due to Covid-19, the number of jobless people has increased drastically and income has fallen significantly. The poverty rate is growing fast, Mustafizur Rahman, a fellow of the CPD, told UCA News.

Food insecurity

Poverty is also most likely to hit hard the millions in Bangladesh who are already victims of food insecurity.

About a quarter of Bangladeshs more than 160 million people are already facing food insecurity. Some 11 million suffer from chronic hunger, while one in three children are afflicted by stunted growth due to acute malnutrition, according to the World Food Programme.

There are many heart-rending stories of people slipping into poverty due to the pandemic.

Maungchanu Tripura, a farmer, has been familiar with poverty and hunger for years, but the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the plight of his family. The 54-year old ethnic Catholic is a father of four in a remote village in the Lama area of hilly, forested Bandarban district in southeast Bangladesh.

He earns his livelihood selling rice, arum, mango and guavas, which he grows in his one-acre ancestral plot. Two of his daughters go to school.

Stories of pain

During the rainy season, often crops are destroyed due to flooding and landslides. People are forced to skip meals and survive with what they can find in the forests, Tripura told UCA News.

This is the fruit season but we are at a big loss. Markets are closed and traders are few, he lamented, adding prices are low and they are struggling to survive.

Tripura received no food or cash support during the crisis except for 1,600 takas (US$19) from Catholic charity Caritas Chittagong. People like us really dont have much of an option in times of crisis. The government needs to assist us so that we can overcome dire conditions, he added.

Mojnu Sarkar, 35, a Muslim father of two, was a machine operator at a machine tools factory in Dinajpur district until March. He used to support his family with a monthly wage of 7,000 takas.

There is no indication if and when the factory will start again or whether I will have a job. We have been suffering badly since I returned home, Sarkar told UCA News.

The family received 10kg of rice and 2,000 taka cash from local aid groups, which ran out fast. Sarkar borrowed 10,000 takas from neighbours to survive.

If we dont get support from the government and NGOs, and I remain unemployed, my family will be starving soon, and I will be under severe pressure to pay back the loan, he lamented.

Caritas takes on food security



Caritas runs seven food security projects that cover all of Bangladesh. In Chittagong, three projects directly related to food security cover about 20,000 people.

It is essential to ensure food aid to needy people at a time of crisis, but most important is to ensure their food security permanently, said James Gomes, Caritas Chittagong regional director.

People on the hills are among the most highly food-insecure communities, and their condition has worsened during the pandemic. Life here is largely dependent on agriculture, and people live on selling their produce twice a week, Gomes told UCA News.

Their condition will worsen further if nature turns hostile during the rainy season and triggers flooding and landslides.

Caritas has been supporting farmers with training to produce better crops and offering improved seeds. Where necessary, it provides cash incentives, he explained, adding that people on the hills and in other remote areas can overcome poverty and hunger with formal education, technical training and savings.

Education and training can help get better crop yields, technical training enables them to get alternative employment, and a savings mentality is a big support in times of need. We have been prioritizing such initiatives in our projects to make them sustainable, Gomes said. (Source: UCA News)
Tulsa Tech announced it is expanding its Windows Server Administrator program to its Owasso Campus to fit the demand for IT professionals throughout Oklahoma.

The program, which takes up to nine months to complete, is available to both high school and adult students, with certificates offered for immediate job placement. Successful students can move into careers such as systems administrators, but most start as help desk technicians.

The class is available at the Riverside Campus, but is expanding north to meet the growing needs across Green Country.

If you cant send an email or get on the internet in this world, you are not going to succeed, said David Morris, Windows Server Administrator instructor. It is our job as instructors to make sure students know how to make the servers work so that businesses can succeed.

The curriculum offers students an engaging outlet to learn how devices connect, systems are managed, and data and information are stored and move throughout the virtual world. It also focuses on developing their professional skills in the workplace.
Last week, Google postponed its Android 11 event, because, as the company rightly noted, "now is not the time to celebrate." Today, however, it went ahead and launched both the first beta of Android 11 and provided updates about a slew of tools that should make developing for Android a bit easier for developers. It's not holding a splashy celebration with live keynotes, though. Instead, the company posted a set of videos, a blog post and updated sites for the various features.

"We have cancelled the virtual launch event to allow people to focus on important discussions around racial justice in the United States," Google says in today's blog post. "Instead, we are releasing the Android 11 Beta today in a much different form, via short-form videos and web pages that you can consume at your own pace when the time is right for you."

As always, Android Studio, Google's IDE for Android development, is at the core of these updates and the company released both the beta of Android Studio 4.1 and the canary release of Android Studio 4.2 today.

When I talked to Android director Stephanie Cuthbertson, she specifically highlighted wireless debugging over ADB with Android 11 in Android Studio as a major time saver for developers (and that's something developers have asked for for a very long time). Also new is that the Android Emulator -- which itself has seen quite a few performance enhancements in recent iterations -- is now hosted directly inside the IDE, and developers can now also run on-device tests side-by-side to speed up their workflow.

The team also did quite a bit of work on making the overall build and deployment processes fast, in large part thanks to smartly using caching in Gradle, the build tool Android Studio uses, and native Kotlin annotation processing -- and it's worth remembering that Kotlin is now essentially the preferred language for Android development, so that's where Google is putting a lot of its resources even as it continues to support Java.

Story continues

No developer announcement would be complete without some machine learning part, so Google also today announced that developers can now import their ML Kit and TensorFlow Lite models directly in the IDE.

For game developers, Google is introducing a new user interface for its performance profilers and more.

It's been a while since Google announced Jetpack Compose, its new UI toolkit for Android, and while it's still not quite ready for production usage, today's update sees the introduction of Jetpack Compose Developer Preview 2, with new features like animations, constraint layouts and more. Don't get too excited yet, though, as Google's current plan is to release an alpha of Compose this summer and a 1.0 next year.

Today, about 70% of the top 1,000 apps in the Google Play store use the Kotlin language. With today's update -- and Kotlin 1.4 -- Google now supports Kotlin coroutines, which make writing concurrent calls a lot easier. Google is now making coroutines an official recommendation, and some of its own Jetpack libraries already use this technology.

On the Google Play side, the company is launching a redesigned Google Play Console today. In addition to the new design, which Google promises will make the console "clearer and easier to use," there are also now features to help you understand your performance insights better, get guidance on policy changes, and more.
C hurch of England leaders have said they are devastated following the heartbreaking news that two women found dead in a Brent park were the daughters of a respected Archdeacon.

The bodies of Nicole Smallman, 27, and her half sister Bibaa Henry, 46, were discovered by police in Fryent Country Park at the weekend.

It has now emerged that the sisters, who had attended a birthday party in the popular park that day, were both the daughters of former Chelmsford Archdeacon Wilhelmina Smallman.

The senior clergy member, who retired in 2019, was the first woman from a minority ethnic background to hold the title of Archdeacon in the Anglican church.

Acting Bishop of Chelmsford, Rt Revd Peter Hill, told the Standard: We are devastated to hear of the tragic deaths of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry in North London at the weekend.

Nicole and Bibaa were the daughters of our former Archdeacon and good friend Mina Smallman. This is heartbreaking news and the thoughts and prayers of everyone at Chelmsford Diocese are with Mina and her family.

We ask that their privacy is respected and for everyones prayers at this most difficult of times.

Both women were reported missing on Saturday, and their bodies were found by Metropolitan Police officers in the north-west London park at around 1pm on Sunday.

The sisters had met to celebrate Ms Henrys birthday in a group of around ten people from around 7pm on Friday evening, according to reports.

Their friends began leaving the party later in the evening while Ms Henry and Ms Smallman remained in the park, Scotland Yard has stated.

Ms Smallman lived in Harrow and Ms Henry lived in Brent. Ms Henry has been described as a "well liked and highly valued" senior childrens social worker Buckinghamshire council.

The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation and is appealing for information.

Earlier this week officers were trawling for any CCTV or dashcam footage from nearby roads to determine the sisters last movements.

Nearby residents have claimed they saw bodies lying in the park on Saturday, but believed they were sleeping, according to The Times.

DCI Simon Harding, the senior investigating officer, told The Guardian the womens families have been devastated by their loss and they need answers. They have asked that their privacy is respected at this time as they come to terms with this horrific incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101.
PUNE, India, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global air traffic management & consulting market is set to gain momentum from the increasing investment by public & private companies in the aviation industry. This information is given by Fortune Business Insights in a recently published report, titled, "Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market Size, Share and Covid-19 Impact Analysis, by System (Air Traffic Services, Airspace Management, Air traffic Flow Management, Aeronautical Information Management), By Component (Hardware, Software), By End Use (Commercial, Tactical), and Regional Forecast, 2020- 2027." The report further states that the air traffic management & consulting market size was USD 13.30 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 16.53 billion by 2027, thereby exhibiting a CAGR of 5.58% during the forecast period.

Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027

Browse Summary of This Research Report with Detailed Table of Content:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/air-traffic-management-market-101813

COVID-19 Impact Analysis:

The recent coronavirus outbreak has had an adverse impact on majority of the businesses across the world. Accounting to the strict measures taken by governments of major countries, it has become increasingly difficult to carry out business operations. The report will include the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global. It will also include the strategies that major companies are adopting to overcome the downfalls during this pandemic.

We are making continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future.

Get Sample PDF Brochure with "Short-Term and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19" on Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market,

Please Visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/covid19-impact/air-traffic-management-market-101813

This Report Answers the Following Questions:

What are the significant market trends, challenges, opportunities, growth drivers, and barriers?

Which region is anticipated to lead the market by generating the largest revenue?

How will the key companies cope up with the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic?

Which segment is likely to hold the highest share in the near future?

Drivers & Restraints-

Rising Adoption of AI Technology to Drive Growth

The officials of a large number of prominent agencies, such as Council of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO) are expressing their concerns regarding the high air traffic by air taxi services and unmanned aircraft. These regulatory bodies are apprehensive about the security and safety of air congestion that is occurring because of the rising usage of such services. Many of these agencies are gradually shifting towards artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the communication process. It would also help in enhancing the exchange of information between the air traffic control (ATC) authority and the aircraft in real-time. It is set to thereby boost the air traffic management & consulting market growth in the coming years.

How Will the Outbreak of Covid-19 Pandemic Affect the Market?

The global economy is falling persistently because of the spread of the deadly coronavirus worldwide.

The aviation industry is expected to suffer a heavy loss throughout the forthcoming years.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) mentioned that the global aviation industry is anticipated to experience a drop of USD 314 in 2020. It refers to a revenue loss of around -55%.

in 2020. It refers to a revenue loss of around -55%. Owing to the rapid spread of the virus, almost every country is under lockdown. It has thus, brought the industry to a standstill.

Since the past three months, there has been a tremendous decline in the number of passengers. It is also set to severely affect the investments by the key companies in developing unique air traffic management & consulting systems.

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Regional Analysis:

Segment-

Aeronautical Information Management Segment to Grow Rapidly Owing to Rising Operation of Flights

Based on system, the market is segregated into aeronautical information management, air traffic flow management, airspace management, and air traffic services. Amongst these, the air traffic flow management segment generated 21% air traffic control equipment market share in 2019. The aeronautical information management segment is expected to grow at a fast pace in the coming years backed by its ability to perform the most vital tasks efficiently. The increasing operation of numerous flights across the globe would also augment growth.

Regional Analysis-

Rising Investment in Tourism Sector to Bolster Growth in the Middle East

In 2019, North America procured USD 4.30 billion in terms of revenue stoked by the increasing number of air traffic management & consulting system manufacturers in this region. Europe would lead the market owing to the presence of industry giants, such as Saab AB, Indra Sistemas, BAE System, and Thales Group. In Asia Pacific, the market would exhibit rapid growth fueled by the rising number of airports in various countries. Airport authorities are therefore planning to upgrade and modernize the existing air traffic management & consulting systems. In addition to this, developing countries, such as China and India possess several planned airport construction projects. In the Middle East, the presence of international airports would accelerate growth. The region is likely to exhibit high CAGR backed by the growing investment in the tourism sector.

Competitive Landscape-

Key Players Focus on Introducing Innovative Air Traffic Control Equipment

The market houses various companies that are mainly following the organic or inorganic strategies of signing long-term contracts with the airport authorities, launching state-of-the-art air traffic management & consulting systems, and acquiring other start-ups companies. Below are two of the latest industry developments:

May 2018 : Harris Corporation was awarded a contract by the Airport Authority of India (AAI). It is worth USD 141 million and will enable the company in creating Futuristic Telecommunication Infrastructure. It will not only help in enhancing the performance of India's air traffic management, but also improve air safety and network operation.

: Harris Corporation was awarded a contract by the Airport Authority of (AAI). It is worth and will enable the company in creating Futuristic Telecommunication Infrastructure. It will not only help in enhancing the performance of air traffic management, but also improve air safety and network operation. October 2018 : Inverness Airport in Scotland recently operated with the help of InNOVA approach. It also included the Tower display surveillance data processing system. These were provided to the airport by Indra Navia .

Fortune Business Insights lists out the names of all the organizations providing air traffic management & consulting. They are as follows:

Thales Group

Raytheon Company

Indra Sistemas, S.A.

Harris Corporation

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Honeywell International, Inc.

BAE Systems PLC

Saab AB

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Honeywell International

Quick Buy  Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/101813

Detailed Table of Content:

Introduction

Research Scope



Market Segmentation



Research Methodology



Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics

Market Drivers



Market Restraints



Market Opportunities

Key Insights

Key Industry Developments Mergers, Acquisitions and Partnerships



Latest technological Advancements



Porters Five Forces Analysis



Supply Chain Analysis

Global Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027

Key Findings / Summary



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By System



Air Traffic Services





Air Traffic Flow Management





Airspace Management





Aeronautical Information Management



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Component



Hardware





Software



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By End-use



Commercial





Tactical



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region



North America





Europe





Asia pacific

pacific



The Middle East





Rest of the world

TOC Continued!!!

Get your Customized Research

Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/air-traffic-management-market-101813 Have a Look at Related Research Insight:

Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Traffic Information, Traffic Assignment, Traffic Optimization, Traffic Prediction) Others and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Airport Security Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, by Security Type (Access Control, Cyber security, Perimeter Security, Screening, Surveillance, and Others), By System (Metal Detectors, Fiber Optic Perimeter Intrusion, Backscatter X-Ray Systems, Cabin Baggage Screening Systems, and Others), By Airport Model (Airport 2.0, Airport 3.0, and Airport 4.0), By Airport Class (Class A, Class B, and Class C), and Regional Forecast,2020- 2027

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Aircraft Line Maintenance Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Transit Checks, and Routine Checks), By Aircraft Type (Commercial, Military), By Platform (Traditional Line Maintenance, Digital Line Maintenance), By Service (Engine and APU Service, Component Replacement and Rigging Services, Aircraft On Ground Service, and Others) and Regional Forecasts, 2020-2027

Smart Airport Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Platform (Hardware Systems, Data Management, Software Systems, and Others), Airport Model (Airport 2.0, Airport 3.0, and Airport 4.0), Airport Size (Small, Medium, and Large), Application (Airside, Landside, Terminal Side), Airport Operation (Aeronautical and Non-aeronautical), and Regional Forecasts, 2020- 2027

Aviation MRO Software Market Size, Share and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Solution [Software (ERP Solution, Point Solution,) and Service (Deployment & Integration, Consulting], By Function [Maintenance Management (Line, Base, Engine), Operation Management (Training Safety & Quality Assurance), Business Management (Accounts, Finance, HR)], By Point of Sale (Subscription, Ownership), By Deployment Type, By End-Use and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

Homeland Security and Emergency Management Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By System (Modeling And Simulation, Communication System, Rescue And Recovery Systems, Intelligence And Surveillance System, Detection And Monitoring System, Weapon System,), By End Use (Cyber Security, CBRNE Security, Aviation Security, Maritime Security, Law Enforcement and Intelligence Gathering, Critical Infrastructure Security), and Regional Forecast, 2020- 2027

Wireless Infrastructure Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Connectivity Type (5G, 4G & LTE, 3G, 2G and Satellite), By Infrastructure Type (Small Cells, Mobile Core, Macro-cell, Radio Access Networks (RAN), Distributed Antenna System (DAS), Cloud RAN, Carrier Wi-Fi, Backhaul, and SATCOM), By Platform (Government & Defense, Commercial), and Regional Forecast,2019- 2026

C5ISR Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Type (Land, Naval, Airborne, Space), By Application (Electronic Warfare, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Intelligence, Command, and Control), By Solution (Product and Services), and Regional Forecast, 2019- 2026

Satellite Communication (SATCOM) Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Component (Receiver, Transmitter/Transponder, Transceiver, Antenna, Modem/Router), By Technology (Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), SATCOM-On-The-Move (SOTM), SATCOM-On-The-Pause (SOTP), SATCOM Telemetry), By Platform (Commercial and Government & Defense), By End-Use (Portable equipment, Land equipment, Maritime equipment), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

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Nigeria refutes Christian 'genocide' claims; charity says gov't 'spinning propaganda'

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Advocacy groups are refuting a statement released Sunday by the Nigerian presidency contending that international rights groups who say there is ongoing genocide against Christians in Nigeria received funding from a separatist organization.

Garba Shehu, a spokesperson for Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari, accused the Indigenous People of Biafra of spending $85,000 per month to fund an international smear campaign through nongovernmental organizations and media outlets in the United States and Europe.

This statement from Buharis officials is to distract from their own incompetence or collusion with the perpetrators of genocide on the Christian communities in the North and Middlebelt parts of Nigeria, said Ann Buwalda, president of Jubilee Campaign USA, which advocates for ethnic and religious minorities.

The Nigerian government has been facing increased international pressure to protect its citizens as thousands have reportedly been killed in recent years by Islamic extremist groups like Boko Haram in the northeast or ethnic herdsmen radicals who have launched several attacks on sleeping farming communities in the Middle Belt.

Shehu claimed that organizations and lawmakers in both the U.S. and Europe are being duped by the IPOB into thinking that the government is implicit in the killing of Christians. He argued that IPOB is trying to drive a wedge between Nigeria and Western allies.

A very deep and wide investigation by an agency of the Nigerian government working with international partners has found that there are two interconnected campaigns being run by IPOB, Shehu said.

Both are using the cover of Christianity  and calling for a U.S. Special Envoy to be appointed to stop the genocide of Christians in Nigeria.

IPOB was founded in 2012 and seeks to restore the independent state of Biafra in eastern Nigeria. It is recognized as a terrorist organization in Nigeria.

For reasons of convenience, [the groups leadership] claims to have an interest in the welfare of Christians  but this is a ruse: the case for independence, the leader believes, is strengthened by proving the government of Nigeria is autocratic, engaged in a silent slaughter of their own citizens along religion and ethnic lines  and that therefore the only viable option for the unique religious and ethnic minority is a sovereign Biafra separate from Nigeria.

Shehu called the international media campaign divisive and said that available evidence suggests that the campaign has been funded with $85,000 in monthly spending since last October with no records of the source of this largesse.

The campaign consists of producing articles in the names of the alleged Christian NGOs leaders (of campaign groups created at the time this PR contract with a US lobbying firm was signed) and letters to and from members of Congress to the White House, he said.

Unfortunately, some Members of Congress have clearly been persuaded there is indeed a Christian persecution underway in Nigeria  and do so quoting the campaign  and they are known to be taking up the case directly with the White House to appoint the special envoy.

Shehu complained that one American charity secured a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and made presentations to members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Last December, the U.S. State Department added Nigeria for the first time to its special watch list of countries that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom.

Shehu added that there is also a European angle to the campaign that is more opaque than its US sister campaign because there is less legal requirement for public filings.

[W]hat is known of this at the moment is that their Budget is sufficient to hire four PR firms in the UK, Belgium, France and the US (the latter additional to the above), he noted, while pointing out that there was a debate held on Christian genocide in the U.K. House of Commons.

Shehu accused IPOB of misusing the issue of the welfare of Christians purely to further their own political ends and of the international community to ignore this campaign.

However, activists in the U.S. pushed back against the Buhari government's statement and assured that they have no connection with IPOB.

Among several international organizations raising awareness of Christian persecution in Nigeria is Jubilee Campaign USA, which submitted data and research to the International Criminal Court last year arguing that the standard for genocide has been reached when it comes to violence against Christians in Nigeria.

The Jubilee Campaign report focused mostly on the violence occurring in the Middle Belt of Nigeria and northern states, where thousands of Christians have been displaced by attacks from predominantly Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Islamic groups like Boko Haram. Buhari himself is an ethnic Fulani.

Jubilee Campaign's Buwalda told The Christian Post that although the Biafra movement has also raised genocide concerns relating to their community in southeast Nigeria with the ICC, the movement is in no way associated with her organization.

Jubilee Campaign USA has not had any contact with Biafra related persons, nor have we ever taken up the issue, she said. All of the Jubilee Campaign reports submitted to the ICC regarding the genocide issue has related to the Middle Belt and northern states.

No one we have advocated for has ever mentioned separatism, she added. All the people we have advocated on behalf of have been pleading for help from the government of Nigeria  their government  and asked us to go to the ICC on account of the utter failure of the federal government of Nigeria to provide protection from the gross and systematic persecution the Christian community in those states who have suffered ..."

Buwalda said that no one the Jubilee Campaign is aware of who has been advocating on the Nigeria issue has ever received a dime of funds from Biafra-related persons.

Dede Laugesen, executive director of the U.S.-based advocacy group Save the Persecuted Christians, told CP that her organization has partnered with Mission Africa International, Jubilee Campaign, the Leah Foundation, the Nazarene Fund and other groups to press for a U.S. special envoy to Nigeria to address ongoing violence.

President Buhari is spinning propaganda to suggest any of us are working with the IPOB, Laugesen stated. We support a strong, united, peaceful Nigeria  something the IPOB opposes.

We have not, and would not, coordinate with or take money from the secessionists of IPOB. We look forward to the day when all Nigerians live united in peace and security. Religious freedom and rule of law must be strengthened and defended at all levels of the Nigerian government.

Laugesen stressed that corruption and radical Islamic agendas must be rooted out.

Buhari has failed at both while the blood bath of Christians continues unabated and Islamic terrorist groups rampage, rape and murder with impunity, she stated. The overwhelming evidence is clear. Its time  past time  for the international community to intercede.

According to Open Doors USA, the Biafra separatist movement based in Southeast Nigeria has also faced persecution. However, according to USCIRF's 2020 annual report, media reports indicated that members of IPOB attacked five Christians, including a priest, for holding a mass in defiance of IPOB orders to stay at home.

Emeka Umeagbalasi, a Christian criminologist based in the southeastern Anambra state, an Igbo-dominated area that seceded as part of an independent Biafra in 1967, told CP that the presidency is obviously panicking and trivializing the ongoing genocide against Christians in Nigeria.



Umeagbalasi heads a civil society organization called the International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (Intersociety), which regularly produces statistical reports on how many Christians have been killed in different acts of violence across Nigeria.

Intersociety has estimated that over 11,500 Christians were killed between June 2015 and March 2020 in Nigeria.

In a statement Tuesday, Intersociety explained that it has received support in the form of free professional resource donations, expert advice, technical assistance and individual cash donations or cash sums that are periodically and voluntarily donated by some concerned citizens who are usually less politically exposed persons.

Other sources of income for Intersociety include periodic cash sums allocated by Umeagbalasi himself.

Intersociety stressed that the organization has never received sponsorship from a foreign body or international grant sponsorships and stated that its advocacy campaigns regarding the killing of Christians in Southern Kaduna, Plateau and Benue were done free of charge "without group sponsorship."

On the issue concerning the Presidencys allegation of international and IPOB sponsorship of Christian NGOs, we are not surprised, Intersociety said. It is a tragedy in Nigeria that those in the position of leadership are never interested in rendering leadership services, but to rapaciously enrich themselves through state coffers.

... [This] explain[s] why they see the legitimate activities and services rendered by independent bodies including rights and democracy NGOs as sponsored. Because every aspect of their public office dealings is heavily monetized or quantified in monetary terms, they see any other societal service as sponsored.'"

Intersociety noted that Nigeria has in the past engaged in a war of words with international rights groups. There have been accusations that Amnesty International is sponsored by politicians who seek to damage Nigeria's reputation or that the organization is being taken advantage of by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province.

IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu issued a statement on Facebook Sunday stating that every dime the indomitable IPOB family worldwide contribute towards our liberation goes towards the dismantling of Nigeria and restoration of Biafra, I mean every dime.

Once again, Nigerian Government has inadvertently confirmed that we spend big on our diplomatic offensive, Kanu wrote in the post.

USCIRF Commissioner Johnnie Moore, who visited Nigeria to meet with victims earlier this year in his personal capacity, told CP that Nigeria "would be totally immune to this criticism if it simply did more to protect its most vulnerable citizens."

"I believe Nigeria is absolutely capable of protecting its citizens if it chooses to do so, but so far its efforts have been inadequate," Moore said. "After all, no one  including, the government itself  denies that innocent people are dying throughout the country unnecessarily, and sometimes, daily.
The national return to school is not going to plan.

Last month the government said primary school children who have been at home under lockdown should start returning to classrooms from 1 June and that the re-opening of secondary schools could commence from 15 June.

However, the re-opening up of primary schools has been much more patchy than expected, with only half of them opening their gates to some new pupils last week.

And now ministers are suggesting a return to full normality for education may not now come until after the summer holidays in September.

Many parents were compelled by the school closures to look after their children during the daytime when they would otherwise have been working.

Some have had to quit their jobs to do so. Others have had to reduce their hours. Many are juggling their formal work with childcare, putting great strain on families and harming their productivity.

The delayed re-opening of schools will be a blow to many of those households.

But if those parents cant work, or cant work at full capacity, even as some sectors of business are being allowed to re-open, it also threatens to be a blow to the wider economy. So how large could the damage of the prolonged school shutdown be?

How many workers are affected?

There are around eight million families with dependent children in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

But not all these families will be affected equally by the school closures.

Some of those parents will have been looking after children full-time already before the lockdown and some will have older children who dont need as much direct supervision.

Samuel Tombs of the economic consultancy Pantheon estimates that the school closures will have created a major childcare problem for around 4 million families and that around 2.5 million workers7.5 per cent of the UK workforce will have had to take leave their jobs to look after young children.

How does this translate into economic harm?

If parents arent able to work as much as they otherwise would have because they have to provide more childcare this will likely have hit their income.

This reduction in the workforce also negatively impacts the businesses that parents work for, or would otherwise have worked for.

At the height of the lockdown the impact of this will have been mitigated because many firms were not operating at full capacity, or perhaps at all.

But the damage will likely grow as the wider economy opens up but schools dont and many parents find themselves unable to return to work.

Schools also contribute to UK economic output themselves in the way the GDP figures are compiled (with every pupil in school counted as economic output).

The ONS estimates that wider education sector  which includes nurseries and universities as well as schools  contributes around 6 per cent to UK national output.

6% Educations direct contribution to UK GDP

So school closures also have a direct negative impact on GDP.

Mr Tombs estimates that a combination of these two factors mean school closures probably reduced GDP by around 8 per cent in April and May.

The implication of a longer closure of schools is a longer drag on national output.

Mr Tombs estimates that if pupils are still only in school around half of the time in the autumn, GDP will be 4 per cent lower than otherwise - in cash terms that would represent damage of around 7bn a month.

Moreover, he warns that such a drag could extinguish hopes of a V-shaped recovery for the UK from the lockdown-induced recession.

Are there any longer-term impacts?

Experts are increasingly concerned about the negative impact of the school closures on the education of children, particularly those from more disadvantaged households who are less likely to be getting adequate schooling at home.

Professor Simon Burgess of the University of Bristol and Professor Anna Vignoles of the University of Cambridge note that younger children particularly benefit from formal schooling.

The earlier years of a childs life are pivotal for their development, and investment during this time is particularly valuable, in terms of improving their cognitive and non-cognitive skills, they say.

The longer the school shutdown the greater the harm to their development. By September many children will have had no formal schooling for almost six months.

-8% Estimated impact of school closures on GDP in April and May

Experts also fear that older children will get worse exam results due to school closures, harming their prospects in the labour market in the future.

Modern economies increasingly rely on the human capital of their workforces to grow. This reflects a workforces skills and capabilities acquired through education.

So, from that perspective, there is a clear danger that a longer school shutdown could inflict greater damage on the UKs long-term economic growth potential.
Though the social distancing rules have been phased out, charter, rideshare-app and taxi drivers are still suffering from a prolonged slump in riders with no visible sign of demand picking back up.

Vu Van Anh, a driver from Cau Giay District of Ha Noi, is seen cleaning his car all by himself before putting it in the parking lot.

During the halt of all taxi services because of social distancing, Anh still had to aerate the car by leaving its door open at the nearby Cau Giay Park.

As the pandemic waned and social activities were reintroduced, he found the demand for taxis stayed lower than pre-COVID.

Days of radio silence

Anh revealed that he bought his car with his accumulated savings from many years working as a taxi driver.

According to Anh, if the car used is his own asset, he only has to pay the taxi company VND1.8 million (US$77) per month for the radio fee  referring to the taxi call center, who sends drivers to passengers through mobile radio calls.

The fee would be jacked up to VND8 million ($343) if he uses a company-owned car.

Before COVID-19, he collected around VND800,000 ($34) of fare per day. During rainy days or when he got longer fares, he could make up to VND1.5 million ($64).

He even had to turn off the radio from time to time to take a break from the overwhelming drove of bookings.

Since the end of the pandemic, Anh has yet to feel that hectic feeling that comes with busy roads and scores of fares.

Nguyen Van Xuan, another veteran taxi driver, has spent 13 years in the sector.

Lately, he had been cruising around Ha Noi looking for passengers. His daily route starts from his home at Xuan Mai Town in Chuong My District to suburban Hoai Duc District and then back to the downtown of the capital city.

Xuan said he used to drive long-distance journeys for some regular customers. Two years ago, he changed his car using a bank loan to join the rideshare-app drivers.

The loan requires Xuan to pay VND7 million ($300) of interest a month. While he could easily make enough to make the payments on his loan prior to the pandemic, these days Xuan has been struggling to balance everything when he can only collect around VND600,000 ($26) in daily fares, which leaves him with VND200,000 ($8.50) after deducting costs.

If I make only VND9 million [$386] per month, that means Im in red since that is just enough to cover meals and fuel, save for other costs and asset depreciation. I contemplated selling my car and quitting this job, but the negotiated price was not at all favorable. Plus, how can I pay off the loan if I quit? Xuan said.

Meanwhile, in Ho Chi Minh City, drivers are still reminiscing about the last Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, when demands went through the roof. Right after that, the pandemic and nationwide social distancing time put all taxi affairs to a sudden halt.

Hardly anyone was as delighted as us drivers when social distancing rules were eased. We are glad to be able to hit the street and make money again after a period of financial ruin, Tran Van Linh, a 39-year-old for-hire driver in Tan Binh District of Ho Chi Minh City, recounted.

A street in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam is empty of cars in this file photo. Photo: Manh Dung / Tuoi Tre

The false hope

According to Linh, the drivers guild came out of social distancing with a fervor of excitement to grind to redeem the slack days. That excitement was short-lived as ridership numbers dropped to a staggering low.

In this time of the previous years, Linh usually signed heaps of long-distance transport contracts with pagoda-goers heading to neighboring Binh Duong or even Tay Ninh, An Giang, and Binh Thuan Provinces.

As the pagoda touring season this year unfortunately overlapped with the social distancing days, it seems highly unlikely that the frequent customers will return to Linh with a deal.

Some customers I know said that they would wait till the pandemic is gone. Now that all activities have resumed, they still turned me down after I reached out, Linh lamented.

Long-distance services are not the only thing falling out of grace, as drivers running short trips around the city are also facing hardship in picking up customers.

Nguyen Hoang Son, a ride-hail driver working with a 7-seater Isuzu in Binh Tan District, complained that his income took a nosedive: So far, his bookings this June are only half of what they were during the same period last year.

I used to make around VND700,000-800,000 [$30-34] a day, some days its easily more than VND1 million [$43]. This year, I waited all day long, yet no customers appeared, he disclosed.

The drastic change can be seen through his phone. This time last year, it was buzzing frantically to the consecutive booking notifications, yet the sound is barely heard now.

During the interview, Son had waited until 9:00 am but had not yet received any booking for the day.

The outlook is even grimmer for drivers who are on installment plans to pay for their car, one of whom is Tran Van Linh from Tan Binh District.

He made the decision to ditch his corporate job and became a taxi driver after seeing his friends raking in money with the hustle.

He spent VND400 milion ($17,150), his life savings, as a down payment for a 7-seater that costs VND900 million ($38,680).

The installment that Linh is tied to requires a VND14 million ($600) payment per month, an amount that already calls for hard work from the driver.

Yet from Tet holiday to now, I cant even work hard as there are no customers to work for, Linh said.

Though the social distancing order has been lifted for quite a while, he still couldnt afford to pay off the installments as scheduled.

Though, Linh said he was still on the luckier side for being able to keep his car: Some of his fellow drivers on installment plans are panicking and are forced to sell their cars to pay off the loan.

They lost money big time on these ventures. Yet if they dont sell fast, they would lose harder, Linh explained.

The rainy season in Saigon is approaching, so I hope the demand for car rides will pick up, Linh confesses his hope for the future, referring to the former name of Ho Chi Minh City.

Hanoi drivers are sharing the same sentiment as severe heat waves infiltrate the city.

A surge in ridership is pivotal to the survival of many independent taxi drivers in major cities of Vietnam at the moment. Whether or not the riders come, remains to be seen.

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Covid Mobile Units, like the one Pachaiyappan and Ranjani operate, were the first to kick into action after the virus started spreading in India. After all, even the first batch of suspects wouldve been driven in by these vehicles.

Editor's note: This multimedia series documents the mechanics of how 12 districts in Tamil Nadu worked during the COVID-19 lockdown; told through the stories of healthcare workers, sanitary workers, district officials, other essential workers, administrators, locals and patients. The series resulted from three weeks of travel through the state.

***

Pachaiyappan's COVID Mobile Vehicle drives into the quarantine facility at Maha Barathi Engineering College in Chinna Salem. The decorated sign at the entrance reads 'Welcome Home, District Kallakuruchi'. With him, head to toe in PPE is his colleague S Ranjani. Both of them are returning from a trip to two neighbouring villages, after accomplishing what might be crucial to isolating the imminent threat of a Covid 19 community spread.

As the ambulance approaches the officials gathered to receive the new entrants, Pacahaiyappan and Ranjani's responsibilities almost come to an end. Maybe they wont get another call, as the sun had almost set. Maybe the next batch of out-of-state returnees will only come in the next morning. Maybe they could finally take off their PPEs.

Ranjani throws a weary look at the three young men exiting the ambulance. All three of them though seem to be in high spirits, sharing an inside joke as they make their way to the entrance of the quarantine facility. Two of them had just returned from Maharashtra and one from Chennai. Upon reaching Kalakuruchi, the three went to their homes instead of showing up at the quarantine facility, which is the procedure. The responsibility of bringing them to the facility was then handed over to Ranjani and Pacahiyappan.

Two of the young men had packed up and followed Ranjani when she showed up at their door. The third one, the returnee from Chennai, had been a problem. When I informed him, he said hell come along. After making us wait for an hour, he told me that he prefers to stay at home and wont be coming with us. Ranjani had to step in after that and counsel him about why he needed to be quarantined at the designated facility. Not an easy task, she says.

The excuse that most of them give us is that they dont have any symptoms. To explain to each of them how even asymptomatic patients can be carriers of the virus is quite a task, explains Ranjani. In the two months that Ranjani has been on this duty, she has juggled many roles apart from her designated duty as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). Counselling and constant communication by far seems to have taken over as the more important role.

The fear that people had initially was very real. And we are often at the receiving end of this fear. In the first few weeks, we were the cause of fear! explains Pachaiyappan, whose role as the pilot of this Covid Mobile Vehicle entails him to steer the team out of trouble any time there is any. Ranjani and Pachaiyappan have been on duty since 26 March, when the lockdown began. Since, there have been multiple instances when they have been gheraoed by relatives of those who were to be picked up, either to be tested or to be quarantined.

The police or officials from the district administration intervene when things get out of hand, says Ranjani. But the first point of actual contact during the process of shifting from a residence to a quarantine facility are Ranjani and Pachaiyappan. Hence, the bulk of initial outbursts is on them, more than any other official. Abuses and threats were aplenty when they started off, they say.

As Pachaiyappan starts to fumigate the Covid Mobile Vehicle, Ranjani explains what a day looks like.

Before setting out on any given day, Pachaiyappan first gets the fumigation kit ready. This is by mixing Lizol and water in a proportion of 5:3. After every individual is dropped off at a facility, Ranjani and Pacahiyappan have to fumigate the vehicle completely by themselves, including the exterior, where they put the patient and the pilot section.

Ranjani, for her part, has to maintain numerous log books  the most important being the one with patient details, their travel history and their vital stats at the time of contact with the team. In addition to this, she also has to maintain a fumigation, PPE, PCR, PDR and bio-medical waste log book, all to be submitted at the end of the shift. Shifts which can stretch up to 18 hours.

Pachaiyappan feels that things are relatively better now. We are used to this PPE and can put up with the dehydration. Onlookers dont run away as much as they used to before. But the shift hours, pah. I wish that could change, he says.

Ranjani, who is in the middle of filling up one of her log books, looks up and breaks into a smile. I remember the first week. We had just finished close to 6 hours. We stopped at a food delivery outlet, parched and hungry. I got out of the van as I couldnt take the thirst anymore. People ran from us like we were the devil incarnate, says Ranjani.

Pachaiyappan used to drive private vehicles before he started his work as an ambulance driver. He says his family insisted that he takes the government job, though the pay was lesser. Ironically, they arent as keen now. The COVID-19 fear is real, more so, for those working crucial jobs like Pachaiyappans and Ranjanis.

Both Ranjani and Pachaiyappan are contract workers. This means they are not entitled to any additional benefits or medical insurance, in spite of the high risk their work entails. Both have worked more years than what is required for regularisation, but are yet to receive even an increment.

Covid Mobile Units, like the one Pachaiyappan and Ranjani operate, were the first to kick into action after the virus started spreading in India. After all, even the first batch of suspects wouldve been driven in by these vehicles. Eventually, another set of mobile units became crucial, especially in remote districts like Kallakuruchi where the inflow of workers from other states has become a constant and accessing a testing lab isnt easy. The Covid 19 Mobile Testing Units. Kallakuruchi has 9 such units.

These units move from firka to firka (block), collecting swabs of those who are returning home. The reporter met one such unit in the hilly Mel Kandikal village, located deep within the Kalrayan Hills.

Each unit usually is manned by three individuals, one pilot who drives the unit, one or two lab technicians (LT) who collect the swabs, and one sanitary worker to disinfect the unit after each swab collection. These units have a kiosk-like structure on one side, where the individual who is to be tested is sampled by the LT, through a glass window. After each swab collection, the unit is completely fumigated. On the completion of a fixed number of swabs, the LTs transfer the swabs to a portable ice container. Then, they resume the swabbing. The vehicle pilot tries to ensure that there is no crowding around the unit, and keeps track of what happens overall.

At Mel Kandikal, a four person team was collecting swabs from plantation workers who had returned from Kerala. Gopi, the LT who is leading the swab collection, has more than ten years of experience. For his colleague Nishantani, however this is the first day as a LT. What a time to start off!

The process is slow, and requires patience. Each individual as they approach the kiosk is shown what to do. Since this is new for the ones who are giving their sample, some are nervous and fearful. They seem shaky and it is on Gopi and Nishantani to reassure each of them, even if just by gestures. It seems to work. Each swab takes a couple of minutes, and the fumigation takes a few more minutes. After half a day, the unit has finished sampling all new returnees to Mel Kandikal. As they prepare to head to the next village, they step out of the unit for a sip of water.

Ramesh, who is in charge of the fumigation, talks about how family life is no longer a thing for all of them. Same is the case with Gurushankar, the unit pilot. Weve been keeping our distance since work started in March. Now that the work is piling up, we dont have time either. We dont have time to long for these moments anymore, he says.

While Nishantani still seems to be reeling from her first day experience, Gopi brushes away questions about fear of exposure. That is the case with everybody. What can we do about that?, he says. But he does point to his PPE and says, Since we are at high risk, our PPE should be fully zipped, not open like this. They are wearing wrap-around PPEs, which they say are better than what they got initially, but can be better. So can the work hours, says Gopi with a smile, as he heads back into the unit.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on June 9 asked public sector banks (PSBs) to be proactive about lending to small, medium and micro enterprises (MSMEs). Sitharaman made the statement on video while reviewing the progress of the Rs 3 lakh crore Emergency Credit Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs.

She asked banks to reduce paperwork and simplify formalities, to assist MSMEs better, state broadcaster Prasar Bharati reported.



FMs review : PSBs to continue focus on sanction & reaching out to eligible MSMEs. To also target meeting credit needs of other businesses.

 Prasar Bharati News Services (@PBNS_India) June 9, 2020

PSBs to continue focus on sanction & reaching out to eligible MSMEs. To also target meeting credit needs of other businesses, Sitharaman said.

As of June 8, under the Emergency Credit Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs, banks have disbursed Rs 1,109 crore to 17 MSMEs hubs in 12 states.

The scheme is part of the Rs 20 lakh crore fiscal stimulus package to help the economy battling the coronavirus pandemic and resultant lockdown. It provides a 100 percent guarantee for additional funding and was approved by the Cabinet on May 21.

The Centre has allocated four tranches of Rs 41,600 crore each under the scheme for the current fiscal and coming three fiscals.
The Amritsar civil surgeon on Wednesday wrote a letter to the Punjab health department demanding action against city-based private laboratories after their Covid-19 test reports were found contradicting the results of Government Medical College (GMC).

Five Amritsar residents, including a pregnant woman, who were first tested positive for the coronavirus by the private labs, were later found negative by the GMCs viral research and diagnostic laboratory (VRDL).

Civil surgeon Dr Jugal Kishore said, Recently, 18 residents of the district were tested positive for Covid-19 at the Tuli Diagnostic Centre, and the Bhasin Pathology Lab. As per protocol, the patients were immediately isolated at GMCH. The hospital authorities took their swab samples for re-testing. Of the 18, five tested negative at the GMC lab. This led to a lot of confusion and swab samples of these patients were tested again the next day only to find that the reports of the private labs were wrong. Four reports came from Tuli Diagnostic Centre and one from Bhasin Pathology Lab, he added.

REPORTS DECLARED AS PER SAMPLES: LAB OWNER

Dr Rohan Tuli, owner of the Tuli Diagnostic Centre, said, We had received the swab samples from a private hospital and test reports were declared positive accordingly. We have conducted many tests in the past days and all the results have been found matching with those of the GMC. Our lab is approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

We are ready to submit our reports to the health department, if needed, he added.
Artists have memorialized George Floyd with murals and street art along Wilmington Ave. and 105th St. in Watts. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

The day Jules Muck heard about George Floyd's death, she couldn't sleep. So at 3 a.m., the restless artist began painting an image of him on a U.S. casket flag she found in her Venice home.

An idea had gripped her mind: That murals of Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer pinned his neck down with his knee, "had to be everywhere."

Muck, who goes by MuckRock, couldn't just pick one location. So she painted more than a dozen mostly around Venice. On Abbot Kinney and Lincoln boulevards, she spray-painted Floyd's face in black and white and sometimes blue.

A mural of George Floyd in L.A.'s Melrose District. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

"I'm trying to offer comfort to people that are upset, but this is also a way to say 'We're with you. We agree this is unjust. We want justice,' " she said. "We're trying to be open and listen and show solidarity to this movement."

George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died May 25 in Minneapolis after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, had his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes. As he lay on his stomach, Floyd pleaded: "I can't breathe."

On Tuesday, Floyd was buried next to his mother, Larcenia Floyd, in Houston, where he was raised.

His death, which has now resulted in charges against four officers  including second-degree murder charges against Chauvin  sparked national outrage and widespread protests.

A Watts resident who goes by Misteralek also wanted to commemorate Floyd. Last week, as protesters peacefully marched through the streets of Hollywood and downtown L.A., Misteralek was painting a mural of Floyd outside a Watts' convenience store.

Scrawled on a wall in Venice are among George Floyd's last words before he died beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

"Every time something like this happens, I feel like I have to express myself through art," said Misteralek, 31. "I like painting portraits, and it's something that means a lot to people over here."

From morning to sundown, while he colored Floyd's face with black and white spray paint, people expressed their gratitude: Cars honked. People stopped to watch or chat or offer him a drink. They thanked him.

Story continues

"It's my way of speaking up," the artist said.

As Steven Rounnel walked out of Supreme Beauty Supply next door, he said Floyd's portrait is a reminder that major change is long overdue.



"We need equality for everybody," said the 49-year-old barber. "Not just Blacks, but everybody. Everybody is getting abused by the system."

L.A. has long been a city of street murals. Vivid portraits of Kobe Bryant, Nipsey Hussle, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., La Virgen de Guadalupe and Rosa Parks decorate buildings, alleys and busy highways.

Murals in L.A. emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as political and personal art statements in areas like Venice and South L.A. By the mid-'80s to the early 2000s, the city had become the world's mural metropolis, until a lawsuit led to a citywide ban in 2002. A decade later it was lifted, and public artwork reemerged.

Outside the boarded-up Blue Moon & Co., a jewelry shop on South Broadway in downtown L.A., was another portrait of Floyd. Nearby stood several armed National Guard troops keeping watch over the area, which had been damaged by looters days earlier during a protest.

A mural of George Floyd by artist Mario Medina, with assistance by Celos, on South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

In the piece, a halo is suspended above Floyd's crying face; his mouth is covered with red tape, which bears the words: "I can't breathe." A clenched fist rises from beneath the mural, and scrawled around him are the hash-tagged words: Freedom. Unity. Peace. Change. Black Lives Matter. Pray. Love. Justice. All Lives Matter. Hope. Faith.

Mario Medina, who created the mural with assistance from artist Celos, dropped what he was doing May 30 when the shop's owner gave him permission to paint on his storefront. Without a layout or plan, they rushed over and got to work around 4 p.m.

But they were on edge the entire time, said the 29-year-old from Maywood.

"Our backs were facing the street and we had a time frame because of the curfew," which went into effect at 8 p.m. because of ongoing protests. As the day grew darker and the clock ticked closer to curfew, they could hear sirens and chants get louder. At 7:45 p.m., they finished.

A mural of George Floyd appears on a downtown Starbucks. pic.twitter.com/ydxUMnTAwp  Steve Saldivar (@stevesaldivar) June 7, 2020

"It came together on the fly, and what you got was how we felt about the situation right in the moment," said Medina.

Walking down Broadway on a recent Thursday afternoon, Omar Gonzalez stopped to take a video of the blue mural. It took him a few days to track down its location, but when he did, he made sure to wear his "Justice for George Floyd" T-shirt.

"I think as Latinos, and me being Mexican American first generation, I think it was important for us to say 'Hey, we got you guys'" to the Black community, said the 34-year-old from Santa Fe Springs.

Gonzalez, a personal trainer, plans to do workout videos in his Floyd T-shirt with a Mexican flag tied around his waist.

A portrait of George Floyd in Venice. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

"I think it was a big responsibility for a lot of us who grew up with Black people" to show solidarity and support, he said.

Outside Broadway Snack Bar, owner Cemal Cemalk, 56, recalled the night before the mural went up. The owner of Blue Moon & Co. next door stood outside his shop with others to protect the store, guns in hand.

"The second day [of protests], the owner closed the store, put up the plywood" and the mural was painted.

"Across the street, [looters] broke windows and stole everything, but this store, nobody touched" he said, pointing at the shop with Floyd's portrait.

Back in Venice, Muck had lost count of how many portraits of Floyd she's painted since he was killed, but she knows it's more than a dozen.

Jules Muck spray painting a portrait of George Floyd on a boarded storefront in Venice today. pic.twitter.com/cEhrjoTFYC  Dorany Pineda (@DoranyPineda90) June 4, 2020

Some businesses called on her to paint him on their boarded-up store fronts, but in some cases, she sought the walls herself. Floyd is the latest Black life lost that Muck has painted: Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Breonna Taylor ("She's so gorgeous that it's a pleasure to paint her," Muck said of Taylor, who was killed in March when Louisville police, executing a search warrant, broke down her apartment's door and shot her eight times.)

In collaboration with shop owners, Muck said she's offered to give away the portraits as they come down to people who "donate substantially" to charities that benefit Black communities.

Down Abbot Kinney Boulevard, where National Guard troops stood guard along the street, messages on business walls read: "End white silence," "Black lives matter" and "We see you. We hear You. We stand w/u."

Written outside the vintage clothing store Bazar were some of the last words Floyd cried out before he died: "Please, man, I didn't do nothing serious."

A canvas painting of George Floyd on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Irma Hawkins was walking her black poodle Bodhi when she stopped to admire a colorful, unsigned canvas painting of Floyd. She stepped onto the street to have a better look.

"It's beautiful," she said beneath a red face covering. "It's just beautiful."

Hawkins, a 69-year-old Venice resident, was working on a Floyd art piece at home, too. She had just listened to former President Obama's speech calling on mayors to review police use-of-force policies and make other reforms to combat racism.

She knows how powerful art can be. "It's a sanctuary for your sorrow," she said. "It's a way to unite."
PARIS and BOSTON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Shift Technology , a provider of AI-native fraud detection and claims automation solutions for the global insurance industry, today announced that 1ST CENTRAL, a leading UK-based motor insurance provider has selected the company to support its fraud detection initiatives. As a result, 1ST CENTRAL will deploy Force , Shift's fraud detection solution, to uncover and identify suspicious behaviors in both the insurer's application and claims processes.

1ST CENTRAL's customer-centric approach to motor insurance combines affordable premiums with a focus on simplifying the overall insurance experience for policyholders. Minimizing the impact of fraud on its business has long been one of the company's driving principles. Following an exhaustive evaluation of the fraud detection solutions available, 1ST CENTRAL selected Force due to its market-leading technology.

Paul Priestley, Counter Fraud Director at 1ST CENTRAL, explained, "Identifying fraud quickly ensures we can protect our honest customers, and as fraud continues to evolve, it's extremely important that we have the technology to keep one step ahead of fraudsters."

Force uses artificial intelligence and advanced data science to identify suspicious actions which may indicate an attempt to defraud insurers. In addition, the technology can also identify the often-hidden links between seemingly unassociated individuals or networks of individuals. This insight into fraud networks, when combined with the insurer's own data and that from third-party sources, is incredibly useful when applied to the objective of spotting the potential for fraud.

"For insurers like 1ST CENTRAL, which place incredible value on delivering an exemplary customer experience, stopping fraud is of primary importance," explained Jeremy Jawish, CEO and cofounder, Shift Technology. "Identifying fraud within the claims process, and not passing those costs along to honest policyholders is one way to keep loyal customers. Mitigating the risk upfront, and not writing policies for bad actors to begin with is another."

About Shift Technology

Shift Technology delivers the only AI-native fraud detection and claims automation solutions built specifically for the global insurance industry. Our SaaS solutions identify individual and network fraud with double the accuracy of competing offerings, and provide contextual guidance to help insurers achieve faster, more accurate claim resolutions. Shift has analyzed hundreds of millions of claims to date and was presented Frost & Sullivan's 2020 Global Claims Solutions for Insurance Market Leadership Award. For more information please visit www.shift-technology.com .

About 1ST CENTRAL

1ST CENTRAL is a car insurance broker which formed in 2008 and is firmly established as a top 10 supplier in the UK motor aggregator market. It features prominently in the Insurance Times' Top 50 brokers listing and has received many coveted industry awards for its innovation, products and customer satisfaction, including being named Insurance Provider of the Year by MoneyAge for the third year running in 2019. 1ST CENTRAL has also achieved the prestigious national Servicemark award from the Institute of Customer Service and has over half a million customers.

1ST CENTRAL  the trading name of First Central Insurance Management Ltd  is the car insurance broker within First Central Group, an innovative group of companies delivering market-leading insurance, underwriting, distribution, finance, technology and legal services.

First Central Group employs around 600 employees across multiple locations, including Guernsey, Gibraltar, West Sussex, Manchester, and has contact centre services based in Glasgow.

Contacts:

Rob Morton

Corporate Communications

Shift Technology

+1.617.416.9216

[email protected]

SOURCE Shift Technology

Related Links

https://www.shift-technology.com


Ever since it became a sovereign republic, India has meticulously built its global network of 'friends' through continuous democratic practice and evolution, not least under former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who sought to build a secular and liberal country

The aggregate of India's image on the international stage is a sum of many parts. From its geographical location on the map of the world to its material capacity to fulfil specific geopolitical roles, New Delhi's diplomatic profile is built on several layers of pragmatic interests, realpolitik concerns and a strong normative tradition.

Yet, there is one core impulse that decisively defines India's relationship with the rest, or at least most, of the world: Democracy.

Ever since it became a sovereign republic, India has meticulously built its global network of "friends" through continuous democratic practice and evolution, not least under former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who sought to build a secular and liberal country. At every turn, New Delhi made sure it was seen as progressive and reformist, rather than status quoist and revisionist.

Sure, India might always have been an imperfect democracy and it even exhibited strong signs of authoritarianism and sectarianism, but none of that was significant enough to sully its image as a plural, secular, multi-party democracy that dearly values the core democratic principles of equality, justice and rule of law.

But the sands appear to be shifting now, as India gets more divided along sectarian lines. New Delhi's partners in the West have signalled shiftiness. Missives of concern and condemnation have come from unlikely quarters, which had so far embraced or at least entertained the government. Indian diplomats are scrambling to control the narrative. International organisations are using unusually coarse words. Some are even talking sanctions.

This is not an unremarkable shift. It signals a fundamental reformulation of how the world sees India within a rapidly evolving geopolitical context. However momentary it might be, it is something that New Delhi would ignore only at its own peril.

The trouble began not long after the NDA government swept to power for the second straight time in May last year. When it diluted Article 370 and subsequently put the Kashmir Valley under a near-indefinite lockdown, the world took note. From the United Nations Security Council to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, New Delhi's move was discussed with concern at many international fora.

The criticism grew when less than three months after the Kashmir lockdown was imposed, the government invited a delegation of Far-Right Members of European Parliament (MEPs) for a visit to Kashmir. As argued earlier, the visit, which was meant to fix Indias image in the West, backfired, as the European Union (EU) mission in India distanced itself from it and some of the visiting MEPs themselves expressed concern over the state of affairs in Kashmir. A fortnight later, the Kashmir issue became the centrepiece of a US Congressional hearing.

India continues to dismiss all criticism on Kashmir, insisting that it is an internal matter.

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed by Parliament in December, and the Delhi riots that followed, in February, drew criticism from international quarters, including the EU Parliament, US Department of State, Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), the UN and some foreign governments. The UN Special Advisor on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dien, raised an alarm about heightened hate speech and targeted violence against minorities after the passage of the sectarian citizenship law amendment. On 3 June, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about authoritarian restrictions on press freedom in the country.

But India has dismissed the criticism, reiterating that the CAA is an internal issue, and has called the international media coverage of the Delhi riots misleading and inaccurate. India has also dismissed this years Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which urges the US Department of State to enlist India as a Country of Particular Concern (the highest classification in their three-tier system) and impose sanctions on Indian entities for fanning religious hatred.

In June 2016, the government rejected the USCIRFs annual report. In November 2017, it rejected a statement by UN Special Rapporteur, Leo Heller, accusing the Narendra Modi governments flagship sanitation and cleanliness programmes of flouting human rights norms. In June 2018, New Delhi rejected a damning report on Kashmir by the OHCHR. In September 2019, India dismissed statements by the current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet, on the Kashmir lockdown. In March 2020, the Indian foreign minister, S Jaishankar, personally rubbished critical statements on the CAA and Northeast Delhi violence made by the OHCHR at the 43rd UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session.

Last month, when a tweet by a sitting BJP legislator quoting an objectionable and sexually-explicit opinion on Arab women resurfaced, influential voices based in the Gulf voiced displeasure: From an Emirati princess to a Kuwaiti minister, a large set of individuals took to Twitter to talk about Islamophobia in India. This was aggravated by an upsurge in anti-Muslim hate speech on social media platforms amongst Indian users based in the Gulf, following the emergence of the Nizamuddin Markaz COVID-19 cluster in New Delhi.

This triggered a frenzy in New Delhi. The Gulf, after all, had so far gladly embraced the government despite the partys historic position against Muslims. In a rare move, the Indian Ambassador in Abu Dhabi tweeted a reminder to Indian expatriates to uphold the common values of non-discrimination and rule of law shared by India and the UAE. Even the Indian foreign minister reportedly reached out to his counterparts in the Gulf to reassure them. Following the outrage, Modi personally tweeted a call for non-discrimination during the COVID-19 crisis.

It would be hasty to conclude that the NDA does not realise how the international community, particularly the "liberal West", looks at this government. Hence, it has used a tactical decoupling strategy to keep domestic politics away from foreign policy agendas. While the BJP might push its nationalist agenda at home, it has consistently maintained a largely liberal posture at international forums. This includes acts like participating in proactive multilateral initiatives and taking broad pro-migrant/pro-refugee positions at the UN (while dialling up anti-migrant rhetoric at home).

In the current context of heightened criticism, the government has drawn up a nearly Rs 1.2 billion plan to offer COVID-19 related assistance to 90 countries and revived South Asian multilateralism through a video conference. The prime minister has even participated in a NAM meeting on the pandemic, a not-so-subtle throwback to the Nehruvian way of doing foreign policy. The fact that New Delhi is using the pandemic to do some damage control is undeniable.

But the events of the past year and the reaction to them reflect the international communitys growing displeasure at domestic developments in India. This isnt something that will go away anytime soon. Hence, Indias foreign policy establishment must clearly recognise the limits of diplomatic doublespeak and engage with the international community with transparency and tolerance.

It must realise that to this day, Indias international goodwill and the attendant soft power thrust hinge primarily on its pluralistic, secular and democratic traditions. Any pushback in this regard is bound to rock the boat on the global stage.

Angshuman Choudhury is a senior researcher and coordinator of the Southeast Asia Research Programme at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi and former GIBSA Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin. He is also the founding editor of Eleventh Column, an online magazine on politics, conflict and geopolitics.

Prannv Dhawan is a student at the National Law University of India, Bangalore, where he leads the Council for International Relations and International Law and the Law and Society Committee. He is also the founding editor of Law School Policy Review, and his research interests include majoritarianism, minority rights, affirmative action policies and constitutionalism.

Views expressed are personal.


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Kathy Armstrong, who had led Luminaria since 2015, is stepping down from that post.

June 27 will be her last day, according to a press release.

The board of directors will launch a search for a new executive director in August. Candidates will need to be able to expand financial resources, maintain artistic standards, handle strategic planning and build on the organizations stability.

Luminaria is best known for its signature free arts festival, which is generally held in the fall. This years event was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

On ExpressNews.com: Kathy Sosa mural kicks off Art Everywhere program

In addition to the event, the organization administers the Corona Arts Relief Program for Bexar County artists impacted by measures put in place to arrest the spread of COVID-19; and recently launched a mural program. In January, it took over the Artist Foundations grant program, as well.

Armstrong is the first person to serve as executive director. For its first six years, Luminaria was coordinated by leaders of other arts groups in the city, including Marise McDermott, president and CEO of the Witte Museum, and Richard Rosen, then-director of Magik Theatre.

Luminaria was the brainchild of then-Mayor Phil Hardberger, who praised Armstrongs leadership in a statement.

I am most appreciative of the work done by Kathy over these past five years, Hardberger said. She has not only produced several outstanding Luminaria festivals, but she has broadened Luminaria's annual production into daily support of the arts in the entire artist community.

dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN

Deborah Martin is an arts writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Deborah, become a subscriber. dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN
Jill Duggar's husband Derick Dillard is speaking out once again about the patriarch Jim Bob iron fist, saying that they don't see Jill's siblings as much as they'd like because Jim Bob restricts their access.

The 31-year-old law student had blamed Jim Bob for a rift in the past, but confirmed in a new interview that he limits their visits to the family home, thus also limiting Jill's access to her sisters and brothers.

'We hope and pray God would restore relationships where there is brokenness. But, at the same time, we recognize that only God can change peoples hearts and bring healing,' he told The Sun.

Excluded: In a new interview, Jill Duggar's husband Derick Dillard said their 'visitation to the Duggar house has been restricted'

Sad: Because it's where most of 29-year-old Jill's siblings spend time, she doesn't see them as often as she'd like

Despot Pops; Seemingly referring to Jim Bob, Derick said, 'We hope and pray God would restore relationships where there is brokenness. But... only God can change peoples hearts'

Derick noted quite plainly that they'd like to spend more time with members of Jill's family, but Jim Bob makes it difficult.

'Because our visitation to the Duggar house has been restricted and that is where they and their spouses hang out, we have not been able to see other family as much as we would like, so that is difficult,' he said.

'We do try to invite brothers and sisters-in-law over as much as they can come.'

Jill has been notably absent from many family gatherings posted on Instagram, including holidays, baby showers, and pregnancy announcements.

She, Derick, and their two kids didn't even spend Christmas with the Duggar clan this year, instead hosting their own celebration at home.

Derick has teased that he is working on a tell-all, explaining to The Sun that he's writing a book 'inspired by our own journey' that will 'examine themes that have haunted people for ages.'

The father-of-two first made the claims against Jim Bob on Instagram just after Christmas in response to Instagram comments from fans.

Stunning accusations: Derick first made similar claims on Instagram in December

A rift? Fans noticed that they weren't at Jim Bob and Michelle's house for Christmas, even though they live nearby and most of Jill's siblings were there

The rules: Derick revealed that they're not allowed at the house when Jim Bob isn't there, and Jill needed permission from him to come over and assist in her sister Jessa's birth last May

Laying it out: He also accused Counting On network TLC of pressuring 'an abuse victim to continue filming when we tried to quit'

When a fan asked whether they ever spend time with Jill's family, Derick dropped a bombshell.

'Yes, but it's just harder now because we're not allowed at the house when JB isn't there,' he said.

'Jill even had to ask JB permission to go over to the house to help her sister when she was in labor because her sister wanted her help, but Jill couldn't provide the assistance until we got it cleared with JB.'

Derick was referring to Jill's sister Jessa, who gave birth to daughter Ivy Jane in May. Jill, a midwife, helped with the delivery  though it seems her involvement didn't come as smoothly as it seemed on camera.

Though Jill did appear on screen in Jessa's birth episode, she and Derick are otherwise absent from Counting On.

'We're not on 19 Kids and Counting anymore,' he said.

Daddy dictator? Derick has made it clear he doesn't think much of Jim Bob, accusing him of using a heavy hand in administering the lives of his adult children

Not good for the camera? Derick's reply to this commenter seems to indicate that they aren't invited over because they aren't useful for publicity

Presured: He told another commenter that he and Jill were 'made to believe' they 'didn't have a choice' when it came to filming and thought they'd be 'sued' if they refused

Controlled: He also suggested that Jill's siblings may be facing similar pressure

Greedy patriarch? Derick reiterated a past claim that only Jim Bob ever had contracts with TLC. He has previously said that only Jim Bob was paid

Who's in charge? He wrote that despite the rebranding from 19 Kids and Counting to Counting On, it's still Jim Bob and Michelle's show

'We've only made guest appearances over the years for wedding, birth, etc.,' he added. 'We've never had any contact with TLC hence not knowing there was a contract. Nobody from TLC has even mentioned to us what they would prefer we say or not say.'

But leaving the show, he said, wasn't easy.

'We were made to believe we didn't have a choice and that we would be sued if we refused [to film],' he said. 'However, once we became more enlightened, we realized that we could easily defend ourselves against a lawsuit from the family/TLC.

'We were pressured to think that we were required to and that we would get sued if we didn't.

'It's not going to look good for TLC when it's exposed that they pressured an abuse victim to continue filming when we tried to quit, just so they could continue with Jill & Jessa: Counting On after 19K&C.'

In 2015, Jill famously came out as one of the molestation victims of her older brother Josh, 31.

All's forgiven! Meanwhile, oldest son Josh  who molested four of his younger sisters  lives on the Duggar compound and appears to be allowed in the house

Trustworthy? The family was vocal about forgiving Josh for molesting his sisters, and he still spends a lot of time with everyone

No choice? After the molestation revelations, Jill came forward as one of Josh's victims  but Derick's comments indicate she may not have wanted to discuss it publicly

When Josh was a teenager, he admitted to touching the chest area and genitals of four of his younger sisters, as well as a family friend, and was subsequently sent away from counseling  though the seedy family history was buried until 2015, when inTouch unearthed an old police report.

Jill and Jessa both came forward as two of Josh's victims, submitting to an interview with Megyn Kelly on Fox News in which they defended their big brother.

But Derick's comments shed new light on that interview, indicating that Jill may not have wanted to participate but felt powerless to opt out.

Interestingly, Josh doesn't appear face similar rules governing when he can be at his parents' house, despite the fact that he once admitted to molesting his sisters.

In fact, he, Anna, and their children are said to live on the compound, and are more frequently seen in family photos and Instagram videos posted on the @DuggarFam Instagram account.

Commenting on Instagram back in December, Derick also doubled down on his previous claim that only Jim Bob ever had a contract with TLC  and only he received any payment.

Iron fist: Jim Bob and Michelle hosted nearly all of their other children for Christmas

Gang's all here! Photos show almost all of the adult children with their spouses and children

So many kids: John David poses with his little sister Josie, two nephews, and a niece

An actual grown-up: Jim Bob is pictured with his 30-year-old daughter Jana, who is unmarried  meaning she still lives at home and is subject to her dad's rules

Among the missing were Josh and Anna and their six kids, who spent Christmas with her family in Florida, and Jinger and Jeremy and their daughter, who live in Los Angeles

Young parents: Jessa poses with daughter Ivy (left) and Ben plays with his son Henry (right)

'All of the shows have been under his contract, and he is the only one with a contract,' he said.

He also speculated that Jill's siblings may continue to film because they are being 'pressured into submission with threats of lawsuits' or else they are 'too deep into it/dependent.'

Derick had previously said on Twitter that TLC wouldn't release them from a 'bogus contract,' though in his latest comments, he didn't shed more light on that claim.

There have been rumors and speculation for some time that Jill and Derick aren't getting along well with her family.

Some fans have wondered whether it's because Jill has been rebelling against some of her parents' teachings: In the past few years, the mother-of-two has gotten a nose ring, begun wearing pants and shorts, and hinted that she may be using birth control to limit her pregnancies.

She has also spoken openly about sex in a way that the rest of her family hasn't, and recently cut her hair quite short by Duggar standards.

Ready to learn! Jill and Derick have registered their son Israel for kindergarten this fall

Announcements: The enormous family gathering has some fans speculating that one or two of the women are pregnant

Sister time! It's been ages since all of the adult Duggar women came together in the same room, but this weekend Jana, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joy Anna all enjoyed some bonding time

Most recently, she and Derick enrolled their son Israel in public school  after Jill and all of her siblings were homeschooled using a bible-based curriculum.

Jill hasn't commented publicly on the family troubles.

She most recently appears to have spent time with her family as a group in early March, when sister Jinger flew in from California for a visit.

Most women and girls in the Duggar family went out for lunch to celebrate the visit  though Jill was absent from the first group outing.

She was, however, including in the next event, and was pictured enjoying lunch with her mom, sisters, and sisters-in-law, followed by a shopping trip with her adult and teenage sisters.
Former Nigerian minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has asked Nigerians to do away with statues of slave owners in Nigeria like Madame Tinubu.

Protesters in the UK, during the Black Lives Matter rallies which took off across the world, following the death of George Floyd, a Blackman at the hand of Minnesota police officer  had pulled down the statue of Edward Colston.

Colston was a 17th-century English merchant and Tory member of Parliament, who was involved in slave trade.

Fani-Kayode in a tweet via his Twitter handle on Wednesday, advised Nigerians to emulate those protesters and pull down statues of those who dealt on slave trade.

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According to him, it is insensitive and unjust for a nation to continue to honour historical figures that traded in human flesh.

Read Also: Dangote Trucks Have Killed More Than COVID-19, Malaria In Nigeria: Fani-Kayode

He wrote: Now that statues of slave owners like Edward Colston are being pulled down in the UK it is time for us to pull down the statues of slave owners like Madame Tinubu in Nigeria. A nation that continues to honor historical figures that traded in human flesh is insensitive and unjust.
Dear Editor:

Regarding Ryan wants armored vehicle removed from Ulster County sheriffs fleet, June 8, 2020:

Joining the anti-police, pro-Black Lives Matter movement is now the hallmark of all elected Democrats. I suggest that war hero Pat Ryan research the North Hollywood, Calif., bank robbery shootout of 1998, in which over 2,000 rounds were fired at police by two robbers with AK-47s. With one officer down and bleeding to death, a civilian Brinks armored car had to be used to rescue this officer because the LAPD did not have one on the scene. A private gun store had to be broken into by the cops so they could obtain weapons to match the firepower of the criminals, who had body armor from head to toe.

Ryan might also research the Great Norco, Calif., bank robbery of the early 1980s, at which the police were outgunned. While hes sitting at his computer trying to run the Ulster County Sheriffs Office, he also could look up the facts on police killings of armed and unarmed black men. He might just learn something about these incidents. I would love to see him and anti-police Kingston Mayor Steve Noble team up with a little police training and ride as partners in a two-man Alpha Car and patrol Midtown Kingston.

Hopefully my friend and fellow veteran Sheriff Juan Figueroa will, as an elected official, tell Ryan to buzz off and support the police of Ulster County.

My qualifications: I served 32 years (1969-2000) with the Santa Ana (Calif.) Police Department and also served with the 26th Marine Regiment, the defenders of Khe Sanh in Vietnam, in 1966-67.

John H. Dittus III

West Hurley, N.Y.
Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpsons office must clarify whether the removal of a Confederate monument at Royal and Government streets last week was a temporary or permanent move, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote in a letter to Stimpson on Friday.

If temporary, Marshall wants to know why the move occurred.

The letter, sent to AL.com on Tuesday, raises questions that remain unanswered over the removal of the Confederate Navy Adm. Raphael Semmes monument that had stood in downtown Mobile for 120 years. Marshall, in his two-page letter to Stimpson, indicates his office has received conflicting reports about whether the city plans to temporarily remove the monument or have it permanently relocated. Marshall, in his letter, said that Mobile could be subject to a $25,000 fine for permanently removing the statue.

The release of the letter also occurred on the same day that Marshall was criticized for pursuing a quick lawsuit against Birmingham for removing a massive Confederate monument from Linn Park while holding off on pursuing legal against against Mobile.

The Attorney Generals Office has and will enforce the law consistently against all violators, said Mike Lewis, a spokesman for Marshall. In cases where the public entity acknowledges that the law has been broken, enforcement occurs more swiftly than when fact-gathering is required to proceed. We will evaluate each case as it arises and take action in accordance with the law.

Stimpson spokesman George Talbot said the mayors office is in an active and ongoing correspondence with the Attorney Generals Office over the sudden removal of the monument sometime late Thursday or during the early morning hours of Friday. He said the statue is being stored in a secured location and is being appropriately maintained.

We have given no indication about where the statue will go from its current location, Talbot said. We will have an announcement about that in due time.

Stimpson, who was not at Tuesdays Mobile City Council meeting, authorized the statues removal less than one week after protests broke out in downtown Mobile over George Floyds fatal police encounter in Minneapolis. The sandstone base of the statue was vandalized on June 1, occurring around the same time as Birmingham paid contractors to remove its 33-ton obelisk-shaped monument to the Confederacy in Linn Park. One week ago, Mobile had red graffiti removed from the monuments base.

The 3-year-old Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017 prohibits local governments from removing a monument over 40 years old, and that cities can be fined up to $25,000 per violation. However, the state law also provides a city to temporarily relocate a monument for emergency repairs provided that the monument is returned to its prior location or condition, or both and no later than one year after the completion of repairs. There is no indication that repairs are taking place to the Semmes statue.

According to Marshall, it has been suggested that Mobile may be relying on working within the state law that allows the city to take appropriate measures to protect and preserve, care, repair or restore the monument.

Marshall, in his letter, said the Legislatures plain intent was to protect and preserve monuments such as the Semmes memorial. Permanent removal is therefore not an appropriate measure that the city may take under state law, regardless of its reasons for doing so.

The state law also says that if repairs or construction are expected to last for more than one year, the city can seek a waiver through an 11-member Committee on Alabama Monument Protection. If the committee fails to act on a completed application for a waiver within 90 days after the application is submitted to the group, then waiver is deemed granted, according to the law.

The committee has only met a few times since the law was adopted in 2017, though its website indicates the group will meet at least once annually in October. Right now, there are 10 members with the sole vacancy being either a mayor or a city council member from one of the states four largest cities  Birmingham, Montgomery, Huntsville and Mobile. Former Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange had been serving in that role, and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has not selected a replacement since he left office last November.

The committee, on April 14, adopted administrative rules for the implementation of the state law protecting the monuments, and they will become effective on June 14. Of note, a list of permissible modifications were listed for monuments that include any work intended for the protection, preservation, care, repair or restoration of a monument that includes cleaning, restoration and repairs that do not substantively affect the content or existing appearance of the monument.

At least two Mobile city officials hope the monument is moved into a museum.

I believe it will return to a public place and I hope its a museum, said Mobile City Council President Levon Manzie.

City Councilman Fred Richardson suggested the monument reappear at the History Museum of Mobile, which is located across Royal Street from where the Semmes monument stood.

I do not mind the public knowing exactly what Admiral Semmes did and what he stood for, said Richardson. From 1826-1861, he served in the U.S. Navy and took an oath of office to defend the Constitution of the United States. When the Civil War started, he joined (the Confederacy) to fight and maintain slavery.

Semmes, during the Civil War, captained the CSS Alabama and operated as a commerce raider who roamed the high seas intercepting cargo ships that might be carrying goods for the U.S. He often would scare shippers, drive up insurance rates and make the U.S. Navy scatter resources around the world in pursuit.

Mobiles statue: Who was Confederate Adm. Raphael Semmes?

He was no one to play with, said Richardson.

The removal of the Semmes statue comes as protests continue nationwide against police violence and racism. In many cities, Confederate symbols and monuments have become the target of protest groups demanding changes.

In Alabama, the removal of the Confederate monument in Linn Park was the first statue removed followed up by the Semmes monument. The University of Alabama board of trustees, on Monday, OKd the removal of three plaques located on and in front of the Gorgas Library to a more appropriate setting. The three plaques originally commemorated University of Alabama students who served in the Confederate army and members of the student cadet corps.

Efforts are underway elsewhere in the state to tackle Confederate symbols. In Florence, a group has signaled it will protest every Monday evening until the Lauderdale County Commission endorses the removal of a Confederate statute outside the county courthouse. On Wednesday, Madison County officials will consider the removal of a Confederate statue in front of their courthouse. And in Montgomery, activists are pushing to have Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Sidney Lanier high schools renamed as well as having thee Lee statue removed from its namesake school.
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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 17:08 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdda90f6 1 National haj,haj-fund,haj-pilgrims,haj-pilgrimage,haj-quota,Saudi-Arabia,Religious-Affairs-Minister Free

The Religious Affairs Ministry has announced that people who had registered for this year's haj program may request a refund of their deposit, after the government cancelled this years haj on Tuesday due to concerns over COVID-19 transmission.

However, those registered for next years haj program may not request a refund of their initial deposit, only a refund of the final balance they had paid for their haj trips.

The ministrys domestic haj services director, Muhajirin Yanis, said that at least 58 pilgrims had requested a refund, while 198,765 pilgrims from 13 "batches" had finished paying for their haj trips.

We will process their requests [for a refund] and submit them to the BPKH in accordance with the predetermined [process], Muhajirin said in a statement received by The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, referring to the Haj Fund Management Agency.

Registered pilgrims may apply for the refund by submitting an application to the heads of local haj offices in their regency or city. They must also submit the original bank receipt for their final haj payment, copies of their bank book and identity card, and an active phone number.

The haj domestic services directorate and the BPKH would process all verified applications and then transfer the refund to the registered pilgrim's bank account.

The process is expected to be completed in nine days, said Muhajirin.

Read also: 'It's impossible': Indonesia holds firm on haj cancellation

In cases in which a registered haj pilgrim has died or has a permanent health condition, the haj ticket would be transferred to the pilgrims next of kin for next years program.

Muhajirin said that the ministry would work with religious counselors and its partners on the haj and umrah (minor haj) guidance group to disseminate information on the new refund policy.

Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, sends hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Saudi Arabia to fulfill their long-awaited haj obligation. As many as 221,000 pilgrims had originally registered for the government's haj program this year.

The Saudi government has granted Indonesia the largest haj pilgrim quota among participating countries, it also has the longest waiting list, with registered pilgrims waiting an average 17 years until they actually depart on their haj.

Saudi authorities have announced that both the haj and umrah, which attract millions of Muslim pilgrims from around the world, will remain suspended until further notice.
The Electoral Commission says it will beef up security and coronavirus safety protocols for the upcoming Voters registration.

The compilation of the new register is scheduled to start on June 30, 2020.

The EC in a statement signed by its Acting Director of Public Affairs, Sylvia Annoh, assured that security will be provided by the various security agencies at all registration centers.

The Commission reiterated that safety measures, including the provision of Personal Protective Equipment and hand sanitizers as well as the compulsory wearing of face masks by all, have been put in place at all designated registration centers throughout the country to protect applicants from contracting the coronavirus.

It says all Ghanaian citizens, 18 years old and above and of sound mind are expected to register in the electoral areas where they reside or are ordinarily resident and must also not be prohibited from registering by any law in force.

---Daily Guide
A young white man who claims he was kerb-stomped by cops while being strip searched says Australians should be protesting against all police brutality.

Callum Cameron, 26, lost his two front teeth from the 2014 incident at a Perth police station that he said still haunts his nightmares.

The web developer detailed the shocking alleged assault in an official complaint to the Corruption and Crime Commission seen by Daily Mail Australia.

Having turned his life around after years of homelessness and alcoholism, he said making police violence a 'racial issue' wouldn't solve the problem.

'Black Lives Matter is necessary to stop systemic racism, but if we want to address deaths in custody and police brutality it needs to not just be about race,' he said.

'I know Aboriginals have it worse, though. If officers did that to me as white male, how would they treat a black person?'

Callum Cameron, 26, claims he was forced to open his mouth against a concrete floor before an officer stomped on his head three times after an arrest

Mr Cameron lost his two front teeth from the 2014 incident at a Perth police station that he said still haunts his nightmares

Mr Cameron was arrested after a drunken altercation in the CBD on April 9, 2014, and taken to a cell at a Perth police station.

'I was confused about why I had been locked up and I banged on my door repeatedly for help,' he wrote in the complaint to the police watchdog.

He says he was then dragged to a room with no cameras by four male auxiliary officers, a policeman, and a policewoman to be strip searched.

'I was told to strip naked - I obliged. Then, I was tripped on to my face by two of the auxiliary officers,' he claimed.

'A third auxiliary officer and the male police officer then pushed my head into the floor very firmly.

'One of them opened my bottom jaw so my two front teeth were resting on the grey concrete floor.

'The fourth auxiliary officer stomped on the back of my head with wanton force, then repeated the action three more times.

Protests like this one in Adelaide attracted tens of thousands of Australians angry with Aboriginal deaths in custody, but Mr Cameron says all police brutality should be condemned

The protests highlighted the 434 Aboriginal deaths in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission, and were sparked by the death of black man George Floyd at the hands of a white U.S. cop

'The female police officer watched the ordeal, gloating at the strength and bravery of her colleagues.

'I was curb stomped by six officers for banging on the door of my cell.'

Mr Cameron claimed a nurse at the prison he was sent to refused to give him any notes of his injuries that he could use in reporting the alleged incident.

'It was extremely demoralising being pinned down and stomped on when I was naked. I felt violated and treated unfairly by the whole system,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.

Mr Cameron was forced to have his two front teeth removed due to damage from the incident and now wears dentures.

He said the incident, along with other adolescent trauma, contributed to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder he still experienced.

WA Police has been asked for comment on Mr Cameron's complaint to the CCC.

Mr Cameron claimed that in a second incident in 2018 he was arrested for living on the street and left in the back of an overheating paddy wagon for half an hour.

Mr Cameron turned his life around after years of homelessness and alcoholism and is now a web developer and IT student

Mr Cameron admitted he had fallen afoul of the law numerous times when he was a teenager and in his early 20s while struggling with alcoholism and mental health issues, but did not deserve his alleged treatment

He alleged he was denied water despite repeated pleas, both in the car and after he was taken to hospital.

'I was so extremely dehydrated that I felt like I was going to die,' he said.

'They weren't letting me get water and it felt like life or death, so I ignored them and walked to the drink fountain. I was then punched in the throat by a male officer.'

Mr Cameron admitted he had fallen afoul of the law numerous times when he was a teenager and in his early 20s while struggling with alcoholism and mental health issues.

However, he said that did not justify or excuse the violence he claims to have been subjected to.

He has since got his life together, found love, and runs his own web development business while studying at university.

Mr Cameron said he initially felt his alleged treatment was ignored in the protests against the 434 Aboriginal deaths in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission, sparked by the death of black man George Floyd at the hands of a white U.S. cop.

'They literally almost murdered me and somehow I'm meant to feel privileged for being white because it's more common for people of colour?' he said.

Mr Cameron acknowledged his alleged treatment could have been worse if he was Aboriginal

'What makes more sense, teaching police not to bash people of colour, or enforcing that they cannot bash anyone?'

However, he realised though police brutality was an issue for all that needed addressing separately, the protests were about wider racism towards Aboriginals.

'It's horrendous the things police get away with. The scariest part for me is that the perpetrators all seem to be in it together,' he said.

Black activists have in recent days argued the issue only started getting traction when white protesters were subjected to what black people were subjected to every day.

These included viral pictures and video of police beating protesters or shooting them with rubber bullets at demonstrations across the U.S.

Australia had its own ugly scenes on Saturday when protesters were herded into Sydney's Central Station concourse and pepper sprayed along with commuters caught in the crossfire.

George Floyd was allegedly murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on his neck for eight minutes during an arrest

Aboriginals who have allegedly suffered brutality by police and prison guards also came off with worse than two missing teeth.

Cameron Doomadgee, 36, died in a cell on Palm Island, off the coast of Queensland, in 2004 after being arrested for drunk and disorderly.

The arresting officer was acquitted of his manslaughter but an inquest found Mr Doomadgee could have died as a result of a 'knee drop' by the 2.01m tall 115kg policeman, or him accidentally falling on him.

David Dungay, 26, suffocated in November 2015 when five prisoners held him down while he repeatedly told them 'I can't breathe' in a manner eerily similar to Mr Floyd's death.
The BBC has confirmed it will keep Summer Heights High on its platform despite comedian and actor Chris Lilleys use of brownface.

In the Australian sitcom, Lilley plays the character Jonah Takalua. When the show came out back in 2007 it sparked an online protest movement from young Tongans who expressed their concern over Lilleys stereotypical portrayal of the culture.

The announcement from the BBC comes after Little Britain was removed from the platform  along with Netflix and Britbox  after they all agreed that the use of blackface by Matt Lucas and David Walliams was unacceptable.

These decisions follow the widespread Black Lives Matter protests which have sparked a number of mainstream conversations about systemic racism and white privilege.

However, a spokesperson for the BBC told Metro that Lilleys show will remain on the platform for now.

The change only affects Little Britain, they said. Theres a lot of historical programming available on BBC iPlayer, which we regularly review.

This is not the first time Lilley has come under fire for his problematic comedy sketches.

In 2011, Alfred Ngaro (New Zealands Minister for Pacific Peoples) condemned Lilleys performance on Summer Heights High, saying that it perpetuated harmful images of Pacific People.

Then in 2019, Lilley faced a backlash for using blackface in Lunatics  a 10-part mockumentary where he played Jana Melhoopen-Jonks, a South African lesbian pet psychic to the stars.

Chris Lilley was criticised over his character Jana in 'Lunatics' (Netflix)

Speaking to The Australian, the 45-year-old defended his work against criticism.

Im not trying to do the thing that is trendy at the moment, he said.

Lilley added that he will continue to create what he believes to be clever, layered characters and that the premise of Lunatics is that everyone is a little bit weird.
Whats just a mild cold for a typical kid lands Lija in the I.C.U., Kinderman said. Shes pulled Lija from her usual summer program in Florida for children with movement disorders and plans to rely on virtual therapy and play dates to keep her stimulated. We have to bring the world to her, rather than let her out to experience it herself, Kinderman said.

Unfortunately, theres no way to gauge a childs risk of Covid-19, especially as were still learning so much about this disease in kids, stressed Brian Skotko, M.D., director of the Down Syndrome Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. But there are a few things parents can do to get a ballpark sense of risk.

He suggested using your childs past experience with infections as a guide for how they might experience Covid-19. If a child like Jo Jo has come down with flu or pneumonia in the past but recovered without urgent medical care or hospitalization, then you should feel more comfortable gradually re-entering the community, he said. For each step, talk it over with your pediatrician.

Jo Jo asks every day if she can go with her best friend to get her hair cut, which, technically in Connecticut, she could. My answer is still a hard no.

That doesnt mean you should neglect routine medical care, especially with underlying medical diseases that need to be monitored. In addition, the usual childhood diseases are still around, pointed out William Schaffner, M.D., a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

While some visits can be done virtually, things like blood work must be done in person. Saunders recommended calling ahead to the physicians office: many will accommodate more medically fragile kids with first-in-the-morning visits.

Social distancing can be equally tricky. Wearing masks, staying at least six feet apart from others, being able to tolerate a Covid-19 test  these may all eventually be required for kids to resume school or other activities, Skotko said. These are challenging for any child, let alone one with intellectual disabilities.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 00:20:37|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Germany would allow 243 ill and under-age migrants from Greece to enter the country, Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer announced on Wednesday.

In addition to siblings and parents, six minors who were unable to travel on the first flight with 47 unaccompanied children and young people in April, were also allowed to enter Germany.

At the moment, the development of the coronavirus crisis gives a possibility of the action, said Seehofer when presenting new border regulations on Wednesday.

To support Greece in a "difficult humanitarian situation" on the Greek islands and in particular to "improve the situation of children in the hotspots," the German government decided in March that at least 350 minors would be allowed to enter Germany, according to Germany's Ministry of the Interior.

According to Seehofer, Germany had also offered Malta and Italy to host 80 migrants each who had been rescued at sea. Enditem
By Express News Service

PUDUCHERRY: After the viral video of a dead person who died of Covid being casually flipped into a deep pit for burial sparked outrage, the Puducherry government on Tuesday roped in non-governmental organisations to conduct cremation and burial of people dying of the viral disease.

The Popular Front of India has been permitted to provide services of volunteers for the purpose. They would be provided with PPE kits by the Municipality and would have to follow the standard operating procedures issued by the Centre. The dead body will have to be buried or cremated with due regard to the dignity of the deceased, said the order. With regard to expenses required, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said that it will be provided from Chief ministers COVID relief fund.

Meanwhile, following the suspension of three employees of the Villianur Commune Panchayat for the undignified burial, their colleagues staged a protest on Tuesday demanding the withdrawal of the action. P Lakshmanaysamy, representing an employees federation, said the staff under question had no experience of conducting burials, and no instructions had been given to them on how to go about it.

While two are sanitary workers of the Commune Panchayat, one is a ward attender in Government General Hospital and another a social worker. There was no  Vettaiyan who conducts the burial in the burial ground as the post is lying vacant, said Lakshmanasamy. Neither was there a briefing given to them by the officials of Commune Panchayat or Revenue Department on how to bury the body as per the SOP.

It is the duty of the persons at the cemetery to bury the dead bodies. But out of compulsion from the senior officials, the low-level staff took the body to the cemetery, and out of fearsome mistakes happened which is not deliberate. The government should have given them some advice, said AIADMK legislature party leader Anbazhagan.
Charlevoix man denies wrongdoing despite signing illegitimate election document

Charlevoix resident John Haggard is among a group of Republicans who signed an Electoral College certificate attempting to award the states 16 votes to Donald Trump following the 2020 election  a document now under federal investigation.
After 34 years of conspiracy theories, Swedes have finally been told who killed Olof Palme, their prime minister until his violent death on a Stockholm street corner.

At a highly anticipated press briefing on Wednesday, prosecutor Krister Petersson said the assassin was Stig Engstrom, a former employee of Skandia who committed suicide two decades ago. Engstrom had worked as a graphic designer for the firm. Because he's no longer alive, the case will now be closed.

With the announcement, police hope that the mystery and intrigue surrounding Palme's 1986 murder have finally been put to rest.

"This is important for the entire country," Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said. He described the case as a national "wound."

Palme's murder was a defining moment in Swedish history. The national trauma that followed was only made worse by a botched police investigation that led nowhere. There's been no end of documentaries, conspiracy theories and articles surfacing at regular intervals as Swedes have tried to make sense of the case.

In 1989, Christer Pettersson -- a local man with a history of crime -- was convicted of Palme's murder. He was subsequently acquitted, and has since died. The episode was followed by a period of rampant speculation, including a theory that Palme -- a Social Democrat with an aristocratic background who helped build Sweden's welfare state -- was killed by right-wing extremists within the police force. Meanwhile, more than 100 people have claimed responsibility for the murder.

Engstrom had also been the focus of speculation, and even became the subject of a book written about Palme's murder. Skandia's office was close to the scene of the crime, and Engstrom -- known in Sweden as Skandia man -- later claimed to have arrived just after the shooting.

Police talked to Engstrom after the murder, but then dismissed him as an attention seeker. Instead, the authorities were more taken by the idea that Palme's murder had been part of an elaborate political plot, possibly involving Kurdish nationalists.

After Engstrom saw reports by witnesses that described a suspect matching his appearance, he contacted police to clear up what he said was a "misunderstanding." Engstrom even made media appearances himself to complain that police didn't take his witness accounts seriously.

Petersson said his team has "tried to understand" why investigators at the time didn't invite Engstrom to a reconstruction of the crime shortly after the murder. "But we haven't been able to establish that."

In the end, the body of evidence against Engstrom was overwhelming, according to Petersson. He was the "one suspect that we cannot get around," he said.

Palme's assassination took place shortly before midnight on Feb. 28, 1986. The killer approached the prime minister and his wife on a quiet street corner as they were walking home after a visit to the cinema.

"I believe this investigation has come as far as possible," Petersson said.
Wakefit.co, Indias largest online sleep and home solutions start-up, has launched a unique initiative, Wakefit Rewards, endeavouring to provide value-added benefits for its customers. The initiative is a step towards reviving consumer demand and offering useful avenues to products/services that have gained popularity in the times of the Coronavirus pandemic and aligns with the company ethos of adding genuine value to its customers lives through its products & services.

The company has partnered with over 20 popular brands such as Gaana, Cleartrip, Bombay Shaving Company, Ajio, 1MG and Parentlane among others to offer value-added coupons on the Wakefit.co website. As online shopping witnesses pivotal shifts led by changing consumer behavioural patterns, Wakefit.co expects the Rewards program to help users avail lateral and tangential products/services within the e-commerce ecosystem.

Wakefit Rewards is unique due to the nature of its collaboration with partner brands. The company has collaborated with the brands purely on goodwill without any commercial considerations. This allows partner brands to attract traffic from an engaged community of Wakefit users without incurring any marketing costs. Customers benefit from coupons to popular websites that have seen increased adoption over the last few months. The introduction of redeemable coupons across brands has already led to a surge in customer demand for Wakefit.co as well as the partner sites.

Commenting on the initiative, Parasar Sarma, VP - Product and Growth at Wakefit.co, said, The last few weeks have posed challenges to every industry across global ecosystems. With consumer trends indicating a positive long-term shift towards online shopping, we at Wakefit.co are aiming to form meaningful associations with reputed brands in order to provide superior value to our customers. We are excited to launch the Wakefit Rewards program, which is a completely non-commercial agreement based solely on trust. As a customer-centric brand, we have always believed in doing what is best for our customers and our effort to revive consumer demand has also been focused in that direction.

Prashan Agarwal, CEO - Gaana said, Music streaming has become a remarkable part of our lives as an increasing number of people are turning to music & podcasts to relax and entertain themselves at home. We are excited to partner with a leading consumer brand like Wakefit.co to offer ad-free access to Indias largest library of HD-quality music to its new users.

Wakefit.co is in the process of onboarding many more partners for its innovative Rewards program. Partnerships with Limeroad, Grabonrent and more are already in the pipeline. As companies navigate through the COVID-19 crisis, with customers becoming more conscious in their purchasing choices, brand collaborations will become the key strategy in a changing socio-economic world.
The federal government is proposing a $4.6 billion plan to protect the low-lying Miami area from the effects of climate change, including the construction of miles of sea walls.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a draft plan Friday calling for walls to protect the area from sea level rise that could reach about 13 feet (4 meters) in height.

The Miami Herald reported Saturday that the plan is designed to protect tens of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.

The plan also calls for movable barriers at the mouths of three waterways, elevating and flood-proofing thousands of buildings throughout the county and restoring mangroves in vulnerable areas.

The plan does not contain previous proposals to buy out hundreds of homes and convert them into parks or open spaces.

The Corps of Engineers plans to hold online public meetings on the proposal on Tuesday and Thursday next week.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
What Is Biodiversity?

Polar bears, honeybees, mango trees and coral reefs are all examples of the countless animal and insect species, plant life and ecosystems that comprise the planets vast biodiversity. Every living organism has a role to play in an intricate web of connectedness, no matter the size, and without them, there would be no life on Earth. Removing just one from the chain can send significant ripple effects throughout the system, even if those effects arent immediately felt. More crucially, every species lost increases the extinction risk to another connected species.

While biodiversity exists wherever there is life, there are some places on Earth that are considered biodiversity hotspots  specific areas that are teeming with native species that cant be found anywhere else in the world, from koalas in Australia to giant pandas in China. There are currently 36 areas that qualify as hotspots, but consider this: While that number comprises only 2.4 percent of the planet, those regions contain almost 43 percent of endemic species. But these hotspots are increasingly threatened by human activity and climate change.

Not only that, but a United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Report warned that about a million species currently face extinction, and for some its just a matter of decades. As it stands, a 2018 World Wildlife Fund report shared that the worlds vertebrate populations declined an average 60 percent in each category (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians) since 1970.

Why Is Biodiversity Important to Ecosystems?

Mangrove roots in Mochima, Venezuela. Humberto Ramirez / Moment / Getty Images

Think of biodiversity as acting behind the scenes of day-to-day life. Its natures way of providing clean air and water, food, resources (medicine, wood) and even climate protection. Yet consider that only 20 percent of Earths species  at most  have been identified by science. Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus began the daunting task in the 1700s, and since that time scientists have estimated that about 8.7 million unknown species exist, although only about 1.2 million species have been identified. Of that number, who knows how many critical ecosystem players have already gone extinct, or are critically endangered, before their role is even clear?

How Do Insects and Animals Impact Us?

Its impossible to discuss this without covering the sixth mass extinction. As the name indicates, there have already been five mass extinction events throughout history, with the last one wiping out the dinosaurs 67 million years ago following an asteroid strike. After each of the prior mass extinctions, which were mainly caused by environmental factors that eliminated as much as 95 percent of existing species, scientists estimated that it took millions more years before biodiversity regained pre-mass extinction numbers.

The difference today is that the current ongoing extinction threat could have been avoided since its a human-led catastrophe. A recent study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that more than 237,000 populations of 515 species have likely gone extinct since 1900, with many more not far behind; or, 100 times faster in the past 100 years compared to the more normal range of up to 10,000 years for some species. So what does that really mean?

Consequences

Without the proper number of species performing their daily tasks, the everyday aspects of life that we take for granted, including oxygen and a plentiful food supply, will worsen. For example, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed seven honeybee species as critically endangered. If all of the worlds bees were to disappear, there would be few insects left to pollinate certain plants, ultimately affecting global food supply chains and the economy. A recent study found that bees and other insect pollinators contributed 34 billion to the U.S economy in 2012 alone.

While the worst-case scenario has yet to happen regarding bees, the world is still dealing with the very likely connection between biodiversity loss and infectious diseases. Though still unproven, scientists are getting closer to linking habitat loss and the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Less land increases the likelihood of diseases spreading from animal species, such as bats, to humans. Until habitat loss is properly addressed, experts warn that pandemics will only increase in severity and frequency.

Then there are the financial costs, which are twofold. A UN report found that governments around the world allocated between $78-91 billion a year on biodiversity goals, when in fact hundreds of billions of dollars a year are needed, the report estimated. Without spending more to tackle the issues, biodiversity loss will wind up costing the world up to $140 trillion a year.

Which Species Are Most At Risk?

A Toucan feeds on fruit offered on Aug. 24 2020 at an inn at km 110 of the Transpantaneira highway whose fire consumed everything around along with the wildfires that has already burned more than 16.500 sq. km of the Brazilian Pantanal. Gustavo Basso / NurPhoto / Getty Images

The IUCN Red List identifies which species are most at risk for extinction, including their numbers, direct threats and conservation efforts. The Red List estimates that more than 37,000 known species currently face extinction, including, but not limited to, 41 percent of amphibians, 36 percent of sharks, 33 percent of coral reefs, 26 percent of mammals and 14 percent of birds. The IUCN has categorized species into Not Evaluated, Data Deficient, Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the Wild and Extinct. Among the most critically endangered are Amur leopards, vaquita porpoises, Sumatran rhinos and Cross River gorillas. In some cases, such as the vaquita porpoise, researchers believe less than a dozen exist in the wild.

Many other species, including those in the food chain such as Chilean sea bass and Atlantic bluefin tuna, are being pushed toward extinction thanks to popular consumer demand, which leads to overfishing.

Then there are the species that the world has permanently lost in the last 100 years, from the Tasmanian tiger, which was hunted to extinction (mainly for museum display purposes) to the Pinta giant tortoise, a Galapagos native that was hunted to extinction by the fishing industry. The last known survivor, Lonesome George, passed away in captivity in 2012. In more recent years, the media has been following the worlds last two remaining northern white rhinos. Both female, their kind is headed toward extinction, but scientists are attempting IVF using white rhino surrogates in the wild.

Yet the question remains, why are so many species going extinct or are threatened with extinction compared to previous centuries? As with most complex issues, theres no one explanation. Rather, a combination of population growth/overconsumption, the wildlife trade, pesticides, pollution, hunting, deforestation, wildfires, invasive species, big ag and climate change are among the larger culprits.

Habitat Loss

This category poses the largest threat to global biodiversity as rainforests to plains are cleared to make way for agriculture, housing and everything else that comes with modern-day living. Rainforests around the world especially suffered in 2020, having lost 12 percent of tree cover due in part to wildfires. Many of these wildfires in turn are caused by deforestation, with Brazil leading the way under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to raze this resource for more profitable industries involving cattle and soy. As a result, Brazils deforestation loss hit a 12-year high in 2020 according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This biodiverse hotspot is now at risk of losing endangered species such as the Amazonian jaguar, hyacinth macaw, pink dolphins and spider monkeys. Other major habitat loss threats throughout the Amazon come from gold mining and logging. Unfortunately, this scale of destruction isnt limited to the Amazon, with habitat loss taking a toll on species everywhere from Nepal and Borneo to China and Africa.

Big Ag

Ironically, the industry responsible for providing the worlds food supply is also a major contributor. Industrial agriculture is a main culprit behind habitat loss as increasing amounts of land are converted to feed growing populations. Compounding this is an overreliance on a small number of crops and animals to meet global food supply needs, placing some of these species at risk for extinction.

Population Growth

About 600 million people populated the planet in 1700 compared to 7.7 billion in 2019. Future projections put that number even higher, reaching 10.9 billion by 2021. This massive population boom has taxed Earths finite resources. While a Population Action International study has concluded that this boom is an indirect cause of biodiversity loss, its nonetheless a habitat loss driver as more land is needed every year for food and other resources, along with urban and industrial development.

Pollution

With increased land clearing and development comes increased pollution on a range of levels. This takes a toll on ecosystems in a myriad of ways: For example, chemical-laden water causes toxic algae blooms; rapidly changing climates make it difficult for many species to adapt; rising ocean temperatures bleach and kill coral reefs; oil spills kill fish, birds and other wildlife; and plastic pollution strangles or slowly kills wildlife that ingest it. Throw in noise pollution, light pollution, acid rain and pesticides, and its no wonder that many species are experiencing population declines due to decreased breeding and numbers.

Pesticides

Speaking of pesticides, these chemicals are most notably destroying bee populations. While theyre not the only reason, pesticides are a direct link. The Center for Food Safety found that some beekeepers have been reporting a complete loss of their colonies in recent years; at the same time, studies are showing a link between declining bee populations and pesticides: neonicotinoids in particular. Not only are these the most common insecticide, but neonicotinoids saturate an entire plant, not just the surface, proving especially toxic to bees. To put this in greater perspective, the United Nations Environment Programme has determined that 71 out of 100 crops are pollinated by bees, and these 100 crop varieties supply 90 percent of the global food supply.

Invasive Species

This category is another contributor to bee loss, but invasive species are increasingly threatening all manner of plant and animal life. Invasive species are non-native plants or animals that have been introduced, either intentionally or by accident, and inflict ecological damage to their new environments as they compete for resources and disrupt an established ecosystem. In fact, invasive species rank just behind habitat loss when it comes to biodiversity threats. A 2019 study revealed that out of 953 extinctions since 1500, more than 400 were attributed to invasive species. For example, simply introducing cats to New Zealand in 1769 led to the downfall of the Stephens Island wren by 1900. In more recent times, Florida has banned 16 invasive species, including popular pet iguanas, as a way to reduce ecological and economic damages.

Wildlife Trade

While some invasive species have been inadvertently introduced throughout the centuries, the billion-dollar illegal wildlife trade is another driver  both for introducing invasive species and biodiversity loss. A 2019 study predicted that the wildlife trade threatens almost 9,000 land species with extinction; this trade is the largest illegal market after drugs and weapons, with pangolin scales and elephant tusks among the markets most popular commodities.

Though not as large of a market, many plant-loving consumers are likely unaware that their latest acquisition could have been sourced via the illegal plant trade.

Hunting

Poaching (illegal hunting) fuels the wildlife trade, but legal hunting is also detrimental to species survival. During the Trump administration, many hunting regulations were scaled back, such as allowing hunters to shoot and kill bears and wolves in a wildlife refuge, along with their offspring, in their dens. Yet hunting easements arent limited to administrations. Idaho recently passed a bill giving hunters the greenlight to kill 90 percent of the states gray wolf population, which would reduce the overall number from around 1,500 to just 150. The endangered threshold is 100.

Overfishing falls into this category as well. Illegal fishing is a common practice, marine sanctuaries have opened up to commercial fishing and large numbers of marine life are getting caught up in fishing nets as unintended bycatch. Consumer demand has caused species such as beluga sturgeon, Atlantic halibut and bluefin tuna to land on the endangered list.

Climate Change

Certainly not least, this vast area encompasses enough issues for a separate discussion. In a nutshell, ever-increasing greenhouse gases are exacerbating the gamut of climate-induced events: rising seas, droughts, floods, wildfires, etc., all of which threaten plant and animal species just as much as they threaten human life.

Whats Being Done About It?

M/V Farley Mowat crew member Tomas, pilots a boat at the port of San Felipe, in the Gulf of California, northwestern Mexico, in 2018, as part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Societys operation Milagro IV to save the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. GUILLERMO ARIAS / AFP / Getty Images

Despite the many extinction threats facing species, global and local entities are working to address the problem.

Global Action

The Convention on Biological Diversity formed in 1993 to protect biodiversity, and includes 196 participating nations. In 2010, the group set 20 biodiversity goals to meet by 2020. Unfortunately none of those goals have been met, although six targets were partially achieved, such as conserving protected areas and preventing invasive species. A recent UN report determined that its not too late for global leaders to take action, but that countries need to focus on sustainability in general, from food systems and oceans to land and infrastructure. The next opportunity for countries to address biodiversity issues will occur in October 2021 in China, when the UN Biodiversity Conference convenes to troubleshoot biodiversity loss.

Biden Administration

U.S. President Joe Biden formally announced a conservation plan in 2021 to protect 30 percent of the countrys land and water by 2030. Additionally, under Biden the U.S. has rejoined the Paris Agreement, ended permitting for the Keystone XL pipeline and halted oil leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other recent biodiversity wins include Bidens plan to restore migratory bird protections, however, protecting gray wolves and monarch butterflies is still under review.

Wildlife Conservation/Tourism

There are numerous wildlife groups devoted to conserving biodiversity; some of the major players include the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, The Sierra Club, National Audubon Society and the Jane Goodall Institute. Meanwhile, conservation tourism remains a growing area, despite experiencing COVID-19 pandemic setbacks. For example, the African Wildlife Foundation has partnered with the Rwandan government to protect endangered mountain gorillas, resulting in a booming tourism industry. Elsewhere in Africa, wildlife safaris and game drives remain a critical way to bolster local economies while protecting species that are favored by poachers, such as rhinos and elephants. By no means limited to Africa, conservation tourism is helping to boost and/or protect the numbers of giant pandas in China, Bengal tigers in India, polar bears in Canada and giant tortoises in the Galapagos.

Captive Breeding

Zoos and animal facilities around the world have been participating in captive breeding programs since the 1960s, which are meant to increase populations of endangered species. While some programs breed animals that will remain in captivity, particularly zoos, others breed with the intention of introducing endangered species back into the wild. Not all attempts have been successful, but there are positive stories. Take the black-footed ferret, a North American species that was declared extinct in 1979. A captivity breeding program launched after 18 were found a couple years later; today, its estimated that 301 survive in captivity and another 340 live in the wild. The ferrets are also notable for the fact that theyre the first endangered species in the U.S. to be cloned, raising new hope for not just the ferrets, but other endangered species as well  even those that are extinct, such as the passenger pigeon.

Ocean Conservation

While theres overlap with general wildlife conservation groups, an equal number of conservation organizations are dedicated to protecting marine life: Oceana, Ocean Conservancy, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and The Cousteau Society are among those making a difference by addressing pressing issues that involve, but arent limited to, overfishing, coral reef bleaching, plastic pollution, commercial whaling and ocean acidification.

What Can We Do?

Greenpeace activists create a burnt smoldering rain-forest with a lifelike animatronic orangutan at the headquarters of Oreo cookies, in protest over their use of palm oil on November 19, 2018 in Uxbridge, England. Chris J Ratcliffe / Getty Images

Luckily, there are ways to make an impact on a smaller scale, and the more people that partake in these efforts, the greater the overall effect will be.

Support Sustainable Products and Food

Where possible, choose sustainably made goods, whether thats organic coffee from producers who eschew pesticides or furniture made from FSC-certified wood. (This designation certifies that the wood was sourced from well-managed forests.) Supporting local, organic farmers is another way to make a difference, along with understanding which types of seafood are more sustainable and being aware of eco-certification labels and what they really mean.

Avoid Palm Oil Products

Palm oil plantations have devastated large swaths of land across Asia, Latin America and Africa, although the majority of this popular vegetable oil is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia. Mass production comes at the expense of endangered species facing habitat loss: the Sumatran elephant, orangutan, rhino and tiger are now among the critically endangered as plantation land expansion continues unchecked. Consumers can fight back by avoiding products made with palm oil; however, this can prove difficult since the ingredient is prevalent in everything from makeup products and laundry detergent to chocolate and soap. Read labels closely, since many items disguise palm oil under other names, or use other names for palm oil derivatives. Vegetable oil, palmate and sodium lauryl sulfate are all clues that a product contains palm oil.

Eat a Plant-Based Diet

Another way to avoid palm oil is by switching to a plant-based diet. But this diet has much larger environmental benefits for biodiversity as it requires far less land usage and reduces reliance on a small number of animal species as a global food source. The world is currently using 80 percent of its agricultural land to raise livestock; consider how much biodiversity could be saved and preserved otherwise.

Become a Citizen Scientist

Its not uncommon for environmental organizations to seek help from average citizens to participate in all manner of projects. Whether its keeping track of cicadas, searching for penguin eggs or identifying coral reef damage, there are programs around the world that welcome assistance. Even better, its entirely possible to find projects that can be performed in your own backyard.

Takeaway

The world has reached a critical make-or-break point for preserving a million species at risk for extinction, some within the next few decades. The issue may seem overwhelming, much like climate change, but its not hopeless. As with anything related to the environment, getting involved at a local level, learning about the current issues and becoming a conscious consumer are good starting points for fighting back against biodiversity loss.

Meredith Rosenberg is a senior editor at EcoWatch. She holds a Masters from the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in NYC and a B.A. from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Kerala: Influx of TN fishermen amid lockdown, trawling ban puts officials on toes

June 10,2020 | Source: The New Indian Express

With trawling ban coming into force by Tuesday midnight, the influx of fishermen from neighbouring coastal districts in Tamil Nadu to Vizhinjam harbour amid Covid-19 vigil is a cause of concern for local fishermen and the authorities. They come by sea and road to Vizhinjam which offers the calmest landing centre in the region for safe fishing during monsoon season. We have not seen any reduction in the number of fishermen from Tamil Nadu despite the restrictions in inter-state travel, said Kerala Swatantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation general secretary Jackson Pollayil. There is concern among fishermen here as there is no effective mechanism to monitor fishermen from outside. Social distancing norms will go for a toss if the crowd could not be managed.



Apart from a calm harbour supported by the breakwater, the absence of trawlers and spawning season make it attractive for fishermen to come in large numbers for a better catch. Fishermen from Thengapattanam, Kulachal and the border villages of Pulluvila visit Vizhinjam during this time every year. The district does not have trawlers and the 52-day trawling ban period is considered a season for a good catch in Vizhinjam. The catch is likely to be better this time. The prolonged lockdown, followed by a trawling ban, ensured that the marine wealth was not overexploited, said Jackson. The Fisheries Department has started a control room and other enforcement activities in connection with the trawling ban. It includes three boats of marine enforcement and onshore presence of coastal police. But the officers acknowledge that it would be tough to prevent the fishermen from outside. It is difficult to identify people coming from neighbouring district, said an officer of Fisheries Department.
Senator Dino Melaye, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the November 16, 2019, Kogi-West senatorial election, has re...

Senator Dino Melaye, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the November 16, 2019, Kogi-West senatorial election, has reacted to the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal judgment dismissing his petition against the outcome of the Kogi West Senatorial District rerun election.





The Tribunal on Wednesday upheld the election of Senator Smart Adeyemi and dismissed Melayes petition seeking for him to be declared the winner of the election.





A three-man panel of judges in a unanimous ruling said Melaye and the PDP failed to validate their claims in the petition to warrant granting their appeal.





Reacting, Melaye, in a tweet on his official Twitter handle, said he was disappointed by the Judgment.

He explained that he never expected justices at the tribunal, adding that he will be appealing the Judgment.





The 46-year-old politician, however, called on his supporters to stay away from violence and remain law-abiding.





Melaye said in a video on Twitter with a caption: I never expected Justice at this level. But we shall laugh last.
A date has yet to be set for Jeremy Christians sentencing hearing.

Christian was scheduled to be sentenced in late March for the fatal stabbings of two men and the serious wounding of a third man on a MAX train in 2017. However, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl A. Albrecht postponed the sentencing because of coronavirus outbreak.

A tentative date was later set for June 18, but now the court is looking for a new date, according to Rachel McCarthy, a court spokesperson.

As you can imagine," she said, "the COVID-19 situation has made it very difficult to hold proceedings in which many parties want to be present.

In late February, jurors found Christian guilty of 12 crimes, including first-degree murder for the deaths of Taliesin Namkai-Meche and Ricky Best, attempted first-degree murder for the serious wounding of Micah Fletcher, and hate crimes against two teenage girls, one who was wearing a hijab.

Christian could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of release, known as true life. Or he could be sentenced to life in prison with a 30-year minimum, 60-year minimum or a term even longer than that. Oregons new first-degree murder law, passed as Senate Bill 1013 last summer, might give the judge several options. But thats up for debate among the lawyers.

Christians defense attorneys have argued the new law is unconstitutional, leaving the judge with only the option of sentencing Christian to life with a 30-year minimum.

Christian stabbed the men on a Green Line train as it pulled into Northeast Portlands Hollywood Transit Center on the eve of Memorial Day weekend in 2017.

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Straumann Holding AG raises a further CHF 200 million through the successful placement of a new five-year straight bond

Basel, 10 June 2020 - Straumann Holding AG successfully placed a new CHF 200 million straight bond today, which will mature on 3 October 2025. The issue price was fixed at 100.196% and the payment date is 15 July 2020. Proceeds from the transaction will be used for general corporate purposes. The issue was managed by UBS Investment Bank and Zurcher Kantonalbank.

Key facts:

Total amount issued: CHF 200 million

Settlement date: 15 July 2020

Maturity date: 3 October 2025

Issue price: 100.196%

Redemption: 100%

Coupon: 0.55% p.a.

Yield for investors: 0.512%

Lead Manager: UBS Investment Bank, Zurcher Kantonalbank

Security number: 55199068

ISIN/common code: CH0551990689

About Straumann

The Straumann Group (SIX: STMN) is a global leader in tooth replacement and orthodontic solutions that restore smiles and confidence. It unites global and international brands that stand for excellence, innovation and quality in replacement, corrective and digital dentistry, including Anthogyr, ClearCorrect, Dental Wings, Medentika, Neodent, Straumann and other fully/partly owned companies and partners. In collaboration with leading clinics, institutes and universities, the Group researches, develops, manufactures and supplies dental implants, instruments, CADCAM prosthetics, biomaterials and digital solutions for use in tooth replacement and restoration or to prevent tooth loss.

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, the Group currently employs approx. 7680 people worldwide and its products, solutions and services are available in more than 100 countries through a broad network of distribution subsidiaries and partners.

Straumann Holding AG, Peter Merian-Weg 12, 4002 Basel, Switzerland.

Phone: +41 (0)61 965 11 11 / Fax: +41 (0)61 965 11 01

Homepage: www.straumann-group.com

Contacts:

Corporate Communications

Mark Hill: +41 (0)61 965 13 21

Jana Erdmann: +41 (0)61 965 12 39

e-mail: corporate.communication@straumann.com

Investor Relations

Marcel Kellerhals: +41 (0)61 965 17 51

e-mail: investor.relations@straumann.com

THIS INFORMATION IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN, INTO OR FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR TO US PERSONS, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA AND THE UK OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION.

This media release does not constitute a prospectus within the meaning of articles 652a or 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus pursuant to the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. This media release is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer or invitation to subscribe for or purchase any bonds.

Disclaimer

This release contains certain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views of management. Such statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Straumann Group to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this release. Straumann is providing the information in this release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any statements contained in it as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

# # #
Visiting Israel on June 10, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed serious concern over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus intention to promote his West Bank annexation plan. Maas urged Israels government to avoid any unilateral steps and return to the two-state solution.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Maas said, I repeated here today the German position as well as our serious concerns as a special friend of Israel of the possible consequences of such a step. Maas stopped short of threatening Israel with sanctions, simply stating, I have not set up any price tags. We are in agreement in the [European Union] that we seek dialogue. Today, I am in Israel to be informed about the plans of the new government. In an effort to preserve a positive approach, Maas tweeted, "What we need now is fresh, creative impetus to revive the talks between Israel and the Palestinians. We are prepared to work towards this together with our partners in Europe and the region if this is requested."

Maas' visit comes only three weeks before Germany takes over the presidency of the EU on July 1. This role will push Germany into an uncomfortable corner, especially since July 1 is also the date set by the unity government for the deal that enables Netanyahu to bring up his annexation plan for a vote. Traditionally considered Israels most important ally within the EU, Germany would rather not be the one sanctioning Israel over implementing sovereignty over West Bank settlements.

Germany is not standing at the forefront of the countries pushing to sanction Israel in case of annexation, but it has not refrained from voicing its concerns and warning Israel of the possible implications of such a step. Already in November 2019, Chancellor Angela Merkels spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, addressed Netanyahus annexation plan, saying, We are calling on the Israeli government to refrain from actions that could hamper a two-state solution. On April 30, Germanys ambassador to Israel, Susanne Wasum-Rainer, was one of the 11 European envoys who registered a demarche with Israels Foreign Ministry, warning against the annexation plan.

Still, Berlin would rather not be caught between its alliance with Israel and the Israeli plan it considers to be a blatant breach of international law. Berlin estimates that such a dilemma would be counterproductive, leading to a breakup in the dialogue between Jerusalem and Brussels. There are also German diplomats who estimate that European sanctions wont be enough to stop Netanyahus race to annexation.

Addressing German concerns, Ashkenazi signaled that no decision has been taken so far by the government over Netanyahus plan, and he pledged that US President Donald Trumps peace plan "will be implemented responsibly, in full coordination with the United States, while maintaining Israels peace agreements and strategic interests. We intend to do it in a dialogue with our neighbors." Defense Minister and alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz related to Maas the same message in their meeting, telling him that Trumps plan would be promoted responsibly and through large international dialogue. Is that something that Maas could take with him as insurance to his meetings in Amman this evening? Not so sure.

More so, Netanyahu offered Maas little to go on. He told his German guest that the world should stop feeding the illusion of displacing people from their homes," adding that "any realistic plan must recognize the Israeli settlements in the area and not feed the illusion of displacing people from their homes."
Seattle, June 10 : Several Microsoft employees have written a letter to CEO Satya Nadella, urging the company to cancel contracts with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and other law enforcement agencies in the wake of police brutality episodes during the Black Lives Matter protests.

The internal email with the subject line "Our neighbourhood has been turned into a warzone" seen by the portal OneZero, nearly 250 Microsoft employees have asked the tech giant to formally support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and calls for the resignation of the Seattle mayor.

"Every one of us in the CC line are either firsthand witnesses or direct victims to the inhumane responses of SPD to peaceful protesting," read the letter.

"We are all in agreement that our neighbourhood has been turned into warzone escalated by SPD and that our coworkers and leaders need to know what is happening," it added.

Microsoft is not the only company that is witnessing such employee unrest.

Several current and former Facebook employees have criticized CEO Mark Zuckerberg's inaction over controversial posts from the US President Donald Trump on glorifying violence, calling him to start fact-checking world leaders and labeling harmful posts.

While Twitter put out a "public interest notice" on Trump tweet for violating the platform's policies about glorifying violence, Facebook refused to take action when the tweet was cross-posted to its platform.

According to the letter by Microsoft staff, "every passing day, we feel that our fellow coworkers, managers, and leaders who live miles away outside of Seattle are severely disconnected to the violent reality thousands of people have been facing every single day since last Saturday".

"24/7 helicopter noise, teargassing, flashbanging, rubber bullet, gun shots, and vans/buses filled with armed law enforcement. We need leaders like yourselves to help bridge this gap of disconnection, misinformation, and complacency," the letter read.

In a note to Microsoft employees earlier this month, Nadella said that every-day racism, bias and hatred in the news today is not new.

"It's far too often the experience and reality in daily lives, particularly for the Black and African American community," he said.

"I know it's not enough to just have empathy for those impacted, for the communities who are experiencing this hate, firsthand, who are scared for their safety, and for their loved ones," Nadella added.
A lot can change in a month. In early May, Connecticut residents were still mostly quarantined. Businesses, except those deemed essential, remained closed. And short of taking walks and runs, or visiting parks, there were few options to socialize or get outside.

Now, approaching the middle of June, many have returned to restaurants for outdoor dining on the cusp of the second phase of Connecticuts reopening, scheduled for June 17. And across the state line in New York City, perhaps the area most ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, a return to normalcy has also begun.

As many as 400,000 people  in construction, manufacturing and retail  returned to work Monday as the citys first of four phases of reopening took effect. After more than three months in quarantine, its likely a necessary step for the city to take. But it comes with certain risks and challenges for public officials, who now must manage a growing number of people using public transportation and occupying common spaces.

Those challenges extend to areas of Connecticut, like Fairfield County, that were hardest-hit by the virus and where the majority of cases could be traced back to New York City. And as Connecticut prepares to enter its second phase of reopening, the question lingers: Could the New York City reopening prompt a second spike here?

We are nervous. I think anytime there is a change in the behaviors of our community, we get a little concerned about what will happen, said Kerry Eaton, chief operating officer for Nuvance Health. We are hoping that our communities will continue to practice good infectious prevention procedures  hand washing, social distancing  the steps taken that seemed to have had a positive effect.

In addition to Connecticuts second-phase plans, New Yorks reopening roughly coincides with the start of summer and the large, nationwide protests of police brutality in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black men and women at the hands of law enforcement.

Nows the time that were sort of cautiously awaiting whats going to happen, said Dr. Zane Saul, chairman of infectious diseases at Bridgeport Hospital. Are people going to behave themselves, wear masks, continue to adhere to social distancing and hopefully, therefore, not see a surge of COVID cases? Or are people going to get caught up in their newfound freedoms, the summertime, and not be as careful as we need to be?

Public health officials are also concerned. Representatives from Stamford and Norwalk echoed Saul and Eaton, asking residents to continue adhering to social distancing guidelines.

Any phase of reopening  locally, regionally or nationally  brings some increased risk and requires communities to increase their vigilance, follow public health guidance, and take personal precautions, Norwalk Director of Health Deanna DAmore said. We encourage individuals to keep their physical distance, wear a cloth face covering, wash their hands often, and stay home if they feel sick.

Arthur Augustyn, communications assistant for the city of Stamford, said it was likely New York residents were already traveling to Fairfield County. But with increased exchange of bodies over state lines, wearing masks and maintaining proper hand hygiene are particularly important.

The reopening also carries with it serious implications for train conductors and engineers working for Metro-North, as ridership is expected to increase from Fairfield and other Connecticut counties as people return to work.

Metro-North employees recently refused to sign up for upcoming shifts, citing health concerns as trains have become more crowded in recent weeks and requesting a return to full service, to allow riders more options and hopefully alleviate crowding. The move has escalated a labor dispute between Metro-North management, which claims employees are merely voicing their grievances over lost pay as service has been scaled back.

Metro-North, which reported a drop in ridership as high as 92 percent, has recently increased its number of trains, but is still not running at full service.

Saul, while acknowledging the risk associated with returning to normalcy, added that continuing stringent social distancing measures is not necessarily a successful strategy to beat the pandemic. Herd immunity  in which a majority of a population has antibodies protecting against a disease  is crucial and can only be achieved through measured exposure. At this point, Connecticut is still far from achieving herd immunity, Saul said.

By safely going out and getting into the world a little bit, we will have a chance to develop some herd immunity here, which would help to protect the public, Saul said. If we can get the number of people with antibodies up to 70 percent, that would be a really positive thing and would help us get through a potential wave in the fall. Were cautiously optimistic. But I think we have no choice, we have to start opening things up.

Still, Saul and Eaton said a second wave is likely. But the severity of that wave and what effect it may have are still very much uncertain.

Were just through our first wave, so we dont know what were going to get next, Saul said. Id like to think itll be less severe. But we could be looking at COVID as something like influenza. Every season, every year, we may have a different strain.

Eaton said she and other hospital administrators have been actively preparing for a potential second wave. During the first wave, when hospitals were most stressed, she said lessons were learned as to where to reallocated staff, how to build additional intensive care units and best treat patients while keeping front-line workers safe.

She said shed been heartened by the adherence to safety guidelines  like wearing masks  that shed seen. Based on those observations, shes cautiously optimistic, even as Connecticut and New York begin to reopen and protests continue.

And Saul said similarly, that the lessons learned during the first wave will make any second round of the virus more easy to manage.

Its going to be much easier, Saul said. All the processes are in. I think a lot of the fears have been alleviated. Everybody was really frightened at the beginning. I think everybody feels a lot more comfortable with PPE (personal protective equipment)  knowing that theyre being careful. And were better clinically at identifying patients with COVID and how to treat them, though options are still extremely limited. I think weve got a better handle on it, so I think we would be much more prepared for a second wave.

justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586
Fake: Government is not offering free laptops to all

Fake: Govt has not promised a Rs 7,500 lockdown fund

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, June 10: A WhatsApp forward that promises of free Rs 7,500 in relief funds from the government as a limited time offer is fake.

The message redirects to a questionable website with many red flags which is not associated with the government in any way following statement that reads below is how to claim and get your credit instantly as I have just did now.

The message read 'FG (federal government) has finally approved and have started giving out free Rs 7,500 Relief Funds to each citizen.

Fake: CBSE has not recommended online exam through this app

The WhatsApp forward also reads that you can only claim and get credited once and its also limited so get your now instantly.

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

Citizens should be alert about the fraud link that is a Clickbait given in the message.

It is advisable to beware of such fraudulent websites and WhatsApp forwards and not to react without confirmation from the government.

Many Twitter account holders have asked the authorities about its authenticity by sharing the message.

A similar message was viral on social media offering 5,000 as lockdown benefits a few days back which too claimed to get credited instantly.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 11:28 [IST]
She is one of the most desired women on Instagram.

And one lucky man was privileged to get up close to model Tammy Hembrow during a raunchy photo shoot on Wednesday.

Male stylist Shannon James Julian Williams was seen attending to the blonde beauty as she posed on a Gold Coast beach.

Its a tough job but somebodys got to do it! A Male hair stylist helped out Tammy Hembrow during topless photo shoot on Wednesday

He was spritzing her hair with finishing product as she preened for the camera.

The 26-year-old stunner was completely topless, covering her modesty with a 'hand bra'.

She wore a pair of baggy jeans that sat low on her hips to further accentuate her sensational six-pack abs.

Tammy went for a mermaid look with her hair and makeup, sporting beachy waves and a natural beauty palette.

Shannon has often worked with Tammy on modelling projects and posts several photos of her different looks on his Instagram page.

Must be a bit nippy: The 26-year-old was completely topless, covering her modesty with a 'hand bra'

The activewear entrepreneur is known for her provocative photo shoots and sultry social media videos.

She recently claimed her raunchy dance clips are getting deleted by social media giant, Tik-Tok.

She made the claim while discussing social media on her family podcast, Hanging With The Hembrows, last week.

'Can Tik-Tok stop deleting my videos?' Tammy said with a hint of frustration in the chat with her sisters, Amy and Emilee.

'I started wearing a bra in all of my videos and they still delete them. I'm like what is it? I'm like why?'

Feeling hot, hot, hot: She wore a pair of baggy jeans that sat low on her hips to further accentuate her sensational six-pack abs

Mermaiding: Tammy went for a mermaid look with her hair and makeup, sporting beachy waves and a natural beauty palette

Tammy often goes braless on social media, and has her nipples showing through tight T-shirts as a result.

Tik-Tok's community guidelines states that videos may be removed for a series of reasons, with one relating to 'adult nudity and sexual activities'.

Within the aforementioned section, the app urges viewers to avoid posting/sharing 'content that shows human genitalia, female nipples, or buttocks'.

While on the podcast, the sisters spoke about how so many other social media stars had taken to Tik-Tok during the coronavirus pandemic.

Tammy is already a massive star on social media platforms due to her racy bikini snaps, fitness inspiration and training programs.

She has recently used her enormous following to reach out to her fans about the global Black Lives Matter protests this week.

The blonde bombshell shared a photo of herself rolling her eyes as she slammed 'ignorant' people.

'When you realise just how many ignorant people there really are out there,' Tammy wrote in the post's caption.

Tammy also addressed the #BlackLivesMatter protests which erupted in the U.S. in response to the death of George Floyd.

Instagram star: Tammy is a huge star on Instagram and has 11 million followers

The fitness mogul shared a post with her 11 million Instagram followers declaring her solidarity with anti-police brutality demonstrators.

She also acknowledged her 'privileged' position as a light-skinned woman, prompting one of her fans to point out that she'd previously identified as mixed race.

Tammy's post read in part: 'I know that I am privileged because of the colour of my skin and will never truly understand the injustices that have been going on since forever and that are still happening today.'
Wellington, New Zealand--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - New Zealand Energy Corp. (TSXV: NZ) ("NZEC" or the "Company") announced the appointment of Jenny Wells as the Company's new Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary following the departure of the former CFO, Mr Derek Gardiner. This appointment became effective on Friday 5 June 2020.

The Company takes this opportunity to thank Mr Gardiner for his service to NZEC. 

On behalf of the Board of Directors

"James Willis"

Chairman

New Zealand Energy Corp.

New Zealand Energy Contacts

Email: info@newzealandenergy.com

Website: www.newzealandenergy.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as such term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING RESERVE ESTIMATES

This document, the consolidated financial statements for the quarter ended 31 December 2017 and full financial year and the Management's Discussion and Analysis contain certain forward- looking information, forward-looking statements ("forward-looking statements"). The reader's attention is specifically drawn to the qualifications, disclosure and cautionary statements in these documents regarding forward-looking statements and reserve and resource estimates.

The Company notes that such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond NZEC's control, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, volatility of commodity prices, currency fluctuations, imprecision of reserve estimates, environmental risks, operational risks in exploration and development, competition from other industry participants, the lack of availability of qualified personnel or management, stock market volatility and the ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources. Although the Company believes that the expectations in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, they are based on factors and assumptions concerning future events which may prove to be inaccurate. Those factors and assumptions are based upon currently available information. Such statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results or events and cause actual results or events to differ materially from those stated, anticipated or implied in the forward looking information.

Story continues

As such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward looking information, as no assurance can be provided as to future results, levels of activity or achievements. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this document or the date of the documents referenced above, except as required by applicable law, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or to revise any of the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57643
June 10 : Anushka Sharma, who bounced back from her debacle film Zero, is basking in the sunshine of her successful Amazon Prime show, Paatal Lok. After a two-year break from acting, Anushka made a comeback in the industry as a producer. All this time, Anushka was involved in the production of the series Paatal Lok, which released on Amazon on May 15.

Today, the actress took to her Instagram handle and shared the first look of a film, Bulbbul, to be streamed on Netflix on June 24. The film has been produced by Anushkas Clean Slate Production. The first look video shared by the Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi actress shows us a glimpse of the film, where we can see a girl flying high in a pink sky, raising our interest. Bulbbul is about self-discovery and justice, wrapped in the cover of lore, mystery, and intrigue.

Bulbbul reportedly features Avinash Tiwary, Tripti Dimri, Rahul Bose, Paoli Dam, and Parambrata Chatterjee. The movie is set in Kolkata and revolves around old superstitions and beliefs. Bulbbul is about a man, who returns to his village after many years to find that his brothers child bride has now grown up. While the man finds the girl abandoned, he also discovers that his village has been plagued by something mystery.
As international travel seems like a far-away dream, why not explore all the wonders and beauty the United States has to offer. As a country riddled with diverse geography and awe-inspiring landscapes, state parks are a fun and quick way to explore the country. This summer get away from the big-cities and set aside hopes of jet-setting! Get outside and venture to one of the 8,565 state parks and 14,672 trails in your backyard. Its hard to know which state parks are worth a visit; complied is a list of 10 magnificent state parks that you may not have heard of!

10. Mackinac Island State Park, Michigan

One of many scenic beaches on Mackinac Island. Image credit: N8huckins/Wikimedia.org

Established in 1895, this is Michigans first state park and the United States' second. There is so much to do and see whilst exploring the Island, from historic landmarks to breathtaking natural scenery. Towering at 146 feet above the water, and spanning 50 feet at its widest point, Arch Rock is a must-see natural wonder at this Midwest state park.

9. Montana De Oro State Park, California

Breaking waves on the Pacific coast of California in Montana de Oro State Park. Image credit: Sasha Buzko/Shutterstock.com

Hike the 1,347 feet Valencia Peak to ensure you get the best panoramic views of this California coastal state park, Montana De Oro. Head to Spooners Cover for a dip in the ocean afterwards. You can explore tide pools, rock formations and even caves during low tide. Enjoy the quiet solitude of this state park and be sure to visit in the spring when the golden wildflowers are in bloominspiring the parks names Mountain of Gold.

8. Starved Rock State Park, Illinois

Waterfall flowing through LaSalle canyon on a beautiful spring morning. Starved Rock state park, Illinois. Image credit: Nicola Patterson/Shutterstock.com

Voted the #1 attraction in the state of Illinois, you cannot miss Starved Rock State Park, just 80 miles west of Chicago near LaSalle. While here, take a quick and easy hike to the Ottawa Canyon, which offers a magnificent waterfall-- if you want to truly experience all this park has to offer, its best to visit in the winter and spring months when the waterfalls are flowing. After the falls, take a trolley or boat ride around the park and be immersed in its rich history while you sit back and enjoy the ride.

7. Chimney Rock State Park, North Carolina

Chimney Rock at Chimney Rock State Park in North Carolina, USA. Image credit: Sean Pavone/Shutterstock.com

Towering at an elevation of 2,280 feet above sea level, the 535-million-year-old monument provides a 75-mile panoramic view of Hickory Nut Gorge and Lake Lure. For those looking for a bit of exercise, you are encouraged to hike up this 315-foot rock byway the Outcroppings trail. Climbing towers not your forte? You are in luck! There is an elevator that brings you 44-sets away from this amazing view. In addition to hiking, you can rock climb the estimate 1,500 bouldering problemed moutain at the world-class Rumbling Bald Climbing Access. This hidden gem is some of the best climbing terrain in the Southeast and should not be overlooked.

6. Devils Tower Country, Wyoming

Sunrise at Devils Tower, Wyoming. Image credit: Anthony Heflin

There are many legends from the Cheyenne to the Arapahoes groups as to how the Tower got its notable markings. Also referred to as Bears Lodge, this sacred site is still worshiped by many Indigenous groups in America. If you are up for the challenge, you are invited to climb this looming 1,267-foot pillar in the Black Hills. Be sure to conduct your own research regarding the potential ethical dilemmas that come into place when climbing a sacred altar. There are many hiking trails available if you decide against the climb.

5. Kachemak Bay State Park, Alaska

Ice calving at Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park. Image credit: Emperorcosar/Shutterstock.com

Another "First State Park" added to the list, Alaskas Kachemak Bay State Park cannot be missed. This park contains around 400,000 acres of mountains, forests, glaciers, and ocean. Twisted rock formations highlight the movement of the earth crust, and oceanic wildlife frequent the shores for a visithiking and camping along the shoreline is highly encouraged. Away from the shoreline you will stand in awe at the spectacular forests and mountains that surround you. As this area is undeveloped, be prepared to handle emergencies on your own.

4. Baxter State Park, Maine

Two moose in Baxter State Park. Image credit: Paul Tessier/Shutterstock.com

Boasting as a park that prioritizes wildlife over recreation, Baxter State Park is the ideal spot for anyone looking to explore Maine. Test your mountaineering skills on the Appalachian Trail at the state park. Dont forget to secure an AT Hikers Permit before your acsend. Avid and skilled hikers are encouraged to try the 8-12 hour, very strenuous climb, the Katahdin Trail. Note there is limited access to preserve the natural resources and wilderness, making this a very exclusive and alluring hike for any bucket-lister.

3. Longhorn Cavern State Park, Texas

Longhorn Cavern State Park, Texas, United States. Image credit: IrinaK/Shutterstock.com

Just 90 miles from Austin, Texas, this underground natural wonder, Longhorn Cavern, is a hidden gem that you need to visit! To protect and conserve the fragile environment, you must book a guided tour of the cave. There are two tour options: Walking Tour and Wild Cave Tour. The walking tour costs $20 for an adult and $15 for children 4-11. Feeling more adventurous? Try the Wild Cave Tour, which promises you will get wet and dirty while exploring the cave, and you get a free t-shirt whats not to love?

2. Goblin Valley State Park, Utah

Goblin Valley State Park. Image credit: Canadastock/Shutterstock.com

Goblin Valley State Park received their Dark Sky Park designation in 2016be sure to check out the vast, mysterious night sky like never seen before. In additon, Valley of Goblins notable marked trails worth exploring include: The Goblins Lair, which is a strenuous 3-mile hike. Permits are available for those who wish to rappel into the Goblins Lair at $2 per person. The Carmel Canyon Loop is a moderate hike at 1.5 milesrecommended during the evening hours, this trail requires some skill and caution is advised. Entrada Canyon is another moderate 3-mile hike, be sure to bring water with you, as there are toilet facilities without running water at the observation point. Curtis Bench Trail is an easy 3-mile hike, and The Three Sisters is a quick and easy 500 yard round-trip where you will see the three iconic goblin formations.

1. Kartchner Caverns State Park, Arizona

Kartchner Caverns State Park, Arizona, USA, ranger addresses visitors at the entrance. Image credit: Malachi Jacobs/Shutterstock.com

Voted the best cave in the nation in 2016 by USA Today 10 Best Readers Choice Award this Arizona state park also offers the worlds largest stalactite formations. Kartchner Caverns is a limestone cave and spelunkers dream! There are several tours offered for those interested in exploring this mysterious cave, catering to many different needs. Kartchner Cavern is known for having the worlds longest soda straw (long, hollow and tubular) stalactites at 21 feet 3 inches, and the first cave occurrence of bird nest needle quartz formations. There are several firsts and world-most treasures found in this renowned cave, which makes it worth a visit.
A volunteer walked up to sign-in tables in Pioneer Courthouse Square last week with a handful of trash, joking that he started cleaning before he got there. He was among a crowd eager to get started picking up litter in the downtown area Friday morning.

Some veterans of the effort brought their own gloves and trash buckets. Many of the newbies struggled to put on their brightly colored vests or pick up garbage with trash grabbers.

Thanks for coming, echoed from those stationed behind the sign-in tables.

While volunteers laughed and joked with people they knew, the feeling was also one of seriousness. They had a job to do.

Hundreds of volunteers gathered twice last week to pick up litter in areas of the city that had seen large crowds of protesters in previous nights. For many of the volunteers, this was their way of showing support for these protests and participating in their own way. The organizers plan to continue to do these events as long as there is a need.

The organizing group, SOLVE, runs clean-up efforts throughout the state, including beach clean-ups and a partnership with Portland called Keep it Pretty, Rose City. The pandemic has put many of SOLVEs recent efforts on hold, until now.

This is really us coming back out at a time of need to do what we really always have done, said program coordinator Dan Daly.

A sign-up link for Tuesdays event was sent out at 4 p.m. Monday. About 100 people signed up within the first hour, and 300 people turned out.

CEO Kris Carico said SOLVE decided to organize the first clean-up event because volunteers were reaching out to the group asking how they could help after the first weekend of protests.

It was really a great community building experience for everybody, Carico said. People were able to come together and really celebrate what was going on and feel like they were making a difference and actually doing something.

After Tuesday's response, the organization started planning one for Friday in a different part of the city.

Demi Robbins was the first volunteer to show up Friday. He said he got connected with the event through his employer, SPIN, which had a group of employees attend.

It definitely feels good, Robbins said. I love Portland. Its great to see people out here volunteering to clean up our city.

Daly said volunteers are usually a split between members of the community and those volunteering through their employer. Tuesday, many of the volunteers were Starbucks employees.

By 10 a.m., volunteers in bright-colored safety vests dotted the downtown area. When someone signed in, they were given the vest, a trash bag, gloves, a trash grabber and instructions to spread out to cover the areas where protests had occurred.

Were really bringing the people and bringing the equipment and just overcoming some of the barriers people face when they want to pick up litter and do it safely and then know what to do with it after, Daly said.

Shannon Oudinot and her two children, Sahalie, 10, and Eston, 7, showed up Friday to help. Sahalie and Eston previously have done SOLVE clean-ups through their schools.

Oudinot said she has gone to some of the recent protests herself but has not brought her children.

Ive been looking for a way to get them involved in everything thats happening here in the evenings and thought this would be a safe way to have them be involved, Oudinot said.

Toward the end of the clean-up, volunteers returned with bags full of trash, piling them up for pick-up.

Tuesdays volunteers collected 800 pounds of litter, and organizers guessed Friday would bring a similar total.

SOLVE plans to host more as needed and will start their regularly scheduled clean-ups again soon. Upcoming event information can be found at www.solveoregon.org.

Volunteer Cheis Domjan-Yuhas also helped on Tuesday with the clean-up. She said she feels like cleaning up litter is a way to do her part without attending the protests. She lives with her grandparents and doesnt want to put them at risk of COVID-19 by attending a large gathering.

I wanted to make sure the focus is on (protesters) calls for police reform and the criminal justice system and making sure that everyone cares equally rather than on all the trash, she said.

--Alex Hardgrave | ahardgrave@oregonian.com | @a_hardgrave

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HMD Global has three new Nokia smartphones in development, namely Nokia 6.3, Nokia 7.3, and the Nokia 9.3 PureView. All of these smartphones are coming later this year but their official introduction may be slightly delayed.

They were previously reported to make their debut in the latter part of Q3 2020. However, while the development is on track as of now, the uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic may force the launch to Q4 2020. The launch timings will depend on how the pandemic situation evolves from here on, Nokia Power User reports citing a source.

According to the report, HMD Global is going ahead with the testing of the prototypes of the three smartphones. The company is testing two prototypes of the Nokia 7.3, one of them with 5G connectivity.

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The testing process is reportedly progressing fine, and if all goes well, it could arrive as the most affordable 5G-ready Nokia phone later this year. The Nokia 8.3 5G, the companys first 5G smartphone, launched earlier this year starting at 599.

The Nokia 9.3 PureView, on the other hand, is a flagship offering and will arrive with 5G connectivity as standard.

This phone will succeed last years Nokia 9 PureView and is expected to be a photography powerhouse. The Nokia 6.3, meanwhile, is more of an affordable smartphone, so it misses out on 5G support.

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Nokia 6.3, Nokia 7.3, and the Nokia 9.3 PureView may still launch in Q3

HMD Global is going all-in to resurrect the Nokia phone brand. The company launched three smartphones in March this year, including the Nokia 8.3 5G.

Those launches were followed by a leadership change as the company hired former OnePlus and Samsung marketing heads to lead its smartphone business.

It is now working on three more Nokia phones with plans to launch them later this year. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic hasnt helped businesses around the world and Nokia is no exception. It has disrupted smartphone supply chains globally.

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However, the company is continuing with its bit of work. So if things dont worsen much over the coming months, we might still see the Nokia 6.3, Nokia 7.3, and the Nokia 9.3 PureView launch on their original schedule of Q3 2020.

The Nokia 9.3 PureView is already long-overdue. Since its pitched to be the direct successor to the Nokia 9 PureView, one would expect it to launch just about a year after its predecessor. The latter launched in February 2019.

The new Nokia flagship will likely feature a 120Hz display and a 108-megapixel camera with 8K video recording capabilities. More details about the handset should surface in the coming months as we move closer to its launch.
SANTA CLARA (dpa-AFX) - Apple Inc. is preparing to replace chips from Intel Corp. in Mac computers with its own Arm-based main processors, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter. The new Macs without Intel processors could be rolled out in 2021. The decision to make the shift is said to have been taken after Intel's annual chip performance gains slowed and noting that sticking to Intel's road map would delay or derail some future Macs. Cupertino, California-based Apple is using technology licensed from Arm Ltd., which is affiliated to SoftBank Group, but it is different from the underlying technology in Intel chips. As per the report, the new processors will be based on the same technology in Apple-designed iPhone and iPad chips. The company is said to be working on at least three of its own Mac processors, known as systems-on-a-chip. In 2018 as well as earlier this year, Apple had hinted at its efforts to create own chips and move away from Intel. Arm-based chips are already being used in the laptops of Microsoft, Samsung Electronics and Lenovo. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The lawyer says only a prosecutor general shall hand over suspicion papers to a member of parliament.

Prosecutors of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) has served former Ukrainian President and leader of the European Solidarity parliamentary faction Petro with charge papers.

"On behalf of the Prosecutor General, prosecutors have served Poroshenko, Petro Oleksiyiovych, with charge papers," the SBI's press service said.

According to Poroshenko's lawyer Ilya Novikov, the prosecutors "tried" to serve charge papers in the case of the appointment of First Deputy Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Serhiy Semochko, according to the Ukrainian Pravda online newspaper.

Novikov said that according to the law, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova must personally hand over the suspicion notice to a member of parliament.

Read alsoPoroshenko arrives for questioning at SBI (Photo)

Since an unauthorized person tried to hand over the suspicion, Poroshenko left the SBI HQ.

Poroshenko's interrogation at the SBI scheduled for 11:00 on June 10 didn't take place.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on June 3, the SBI summoned Poroshenko for questioning in the case of eavesdropping of international phone talks involving a Ukrainian president.

On June 4, Kyiv's Pechersky District Court authorized law enforcers to forcibly bring Poroshenko for questioning if he fails to show up on June 10.
As the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic wanes in Europe, many countries are relaxing their lockdown rules, but the advice for non-essential workers is to continue working from home if possible. The important question when lockdown should be lifted for non-essential workers in the UK and elsewhere is answered in a new study in Frontiers in Public Health.

Here, scientists from the University of Oxford and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford show that a gradual strategy with two discrete releases of subgroups of the quarantined population would be optimal for society as a whole to minimize deaths while protecting the economy.

"We find that ending quarantine for the entire population simultaneously is a high-risk strategy, and that a gradual re-integration approach would be more reliable," write the authors.

The researchers model the numbers of susceptible, exposed, infectious, and recovered (or deceased) persons in the UK, separately for those under lockdown and those working as normal. They derive the best strategy for releasing people from lockdown, requiring that the greatest number should be allowed to work as soon as possible (while maintaining social distancing), but without overwhelming the health services - estimated to happen when there are approximately 4 million infected people in the UK. The model was kept as simple as feasible, not only to make results easier to interpret, but also to allow it to be easily applied to other countries.

"Exactly what happens as lockdown eases can be hard to predict, as different people will respond in different ways. However, when a large enough group of people is considered, mathematical models like ours are able to represent the expected average behaviors across a large population. Most importantly, we are able to assume a wide range of "What if?" scenarios, such that we can explore a range of possible infection increases. Ongoing testing is then important to check that any disease increase does not surpass the predicted bounds," says Professor Michael Bonsall from the Mathematical Ecology Research Group at the University of Oxford, the study's lead author.

The researchers conclude that the optimal strategy would be to release approximately half the population 2-4 weeks from the end of an initial infection peak, and then wait another 3-4 months to allow for a potential second peak to pass before releasing everyone else. The optimal solution depends partly on the (poorly known) rate at which people sick with COVID-19 recover and the rate of viral transmission, but hardly on the death rate, the incubation period, or the effectiveness of lockdown measures. While the model itself does not prescribe which people should be released from lockdown first, the authors suggest that this should be the younger part of the population - known to be less susceptible to COVID-19 - provided that these are closely monitored with molecular tests, as they would be at increased risk.

"The take-home message for decision-makers is to act very cautiously, and to monitor any lockdown release very closely. Our model shows that second waves can occur very quickly if transmission rates end up higher than expected, or if more people relax their lockdown measures than expected. The delayed incubation period between infection and presenting symptoms means that we are constantly seeing the effect of the disease a few days late. Only by ramping up testing measures can we accurately get a sense of how the spread and control of disease is happening. This will allow us to respond quickly if an unmanageable second wave begins to appear," concludes Dr Thomas Rawson from the University of Oxford, the first author.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the Chinese government Tuesday for what he called coercive bullying tactics against the United Kingdom.

Pompeo referred to Beijings reported threats to punish the London-based bank HSBC and to break commitments to build nuclear plants in the U.K. if Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is not allowed to build the countrys 5G networks.

Free nations deal in true friendship and desire mutual prosperity, not political and corporate kowtows, he said in a statement.

He added that the Chinese Communist Partys browbeating of HSBC should serve as a cautionary tale. Last week, the banks Asia-Pacific CEO, Peter Wong, a member of Chinas top political advisory body, signed a petition supporting a controversial national security law that Beijing plans to enact in Hong Kong following a year of anti-government protests in the semiautonomous territory.

That show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the banks business in China as political leverage against London, Pompeo said.

HSBC, which is headquartered in London but has deep roots in Hong Kong, did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Pompeo said that the U.S. stands ready to help the U.K. with building nuclear plants and developing 5G solutions. Beijings aggressive behavior shows why countries should avoid economic overreliance on China, he said.

Tensions have been ratcheting up between Washington and Beijing in recent months over the coronavirus outbreak and Beijngs actions in Hong Kong. In late May, Pompeo said that Hong Kong no longer exercises the high degree of autonomy it was promised for 50 years after retroceding to China in 1997. His announcement came after Beijing decided to bypass Hong Kongs legislature to impose the sweeping new national security legislation.

In May, Washington released a major China policy document that argues 40 years of U.S. engagement with China has failed to produce the citizen-centric, free and open rules-based order the U.S. had hoped it would. The document announced that the U.S. would take a competitive approach to China based on a clear-eyed assessment of the CCPs intentions and actions.
Pittsfield Council to Meet Remotely Through July

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The City Council does not plan to meet in person until August.

At the end of Tuesday night's virtual meeting, City Council President Peter Marchetti said he plans to hold all meetings remotely until August.

"We are trying to keep up with the executive order of the governor and make everything work," he said. "Meeting remotely and giving people access ... I think is the only legal way we can do things."

Ward 4 Councilor Christopher Connell asked why wait until August when City Hall is slated to open back up to the public on July 20.

"Why are we waiting?" he said. "We are going to be past Phase 3 and Phase 4 by then so I would have thought a July meeting would have been held in the council chambers."

The state is following a four-phase plan for reopening from the novel coronavirus pandemic and is currently in step two of Phase 2 with limited retail and personal service openings.

The way the calendar shakes out, the council is only scheduled to meet on July 14, Marchetti said. This would be before the scheduled reopening of City Hall.

Connell asked more specific questions about why city councilors were not allowed in City Hall even with masks but Marchetti said he would speak with him after the meeting because the item was not on the agenda.

The rest of the meeting went by at a steady clip and the council's first order of business was to appoint Daniel Shearer as the new airport manager.

"Congratulations Mr. Shearer and welcome," Marchetti said.

The position has been filled by the assistant airport manager since Gloria Bouillon left the position in 2018.

Shearer is a Plainfield resident with a bachelor's degree in air transportation and aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a master's in safety, security and emergency management from Eastern Kentucky University. He holds a number of qualifications and certificates and had most recently been director of emergency response at Hyannis Air Service. He has also worked for air transport companies in Alaska and Florida in safety and security, flight coordination, and information technology administration.

The City Council also appointed Thomas Hardy to the Airport Commission and reappointed Marilyn Gerhard, Joseph Collins, and Mary Beth Eldridge to the Pittsfield Cultural Council.

In other business, the council:

 Accepted a $10,000 grant from the Lake Onota Preservation Association. This gift will support invasive aquatic plant control at Onota Lake.

 Accepted a $95,515 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for the city to serve as host community for the Municipal Assistance Coordinator (MAC). This coordinator will provide technical assistance to the Western Massachusetts region.

This grant represents an extension of a three-year commitment for this MAC position.

 Accepted a donation of $60,000 from the Housatonic Valley Association for the Churchill Brook Culvert Replacement Project over Churchill Street.

Ten thousand dollars of this is to be used for the acquisition of all necessary easements and up to $50,000 of the amount is to be used as contingency funding for the project.

 Accepted two more orders from the mayor related to the Churchill Street Culvert Replacement Project: The acceptance of a permanent easement at 0 Churchhill St. in exchange for $370 to the property owner and a temporary easement in the same area in exchange for $20.

 Accepted a $92,531 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs for the FY20 Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Program Grant for the Police Department.

Referred a citizen's petition to the commissioner on public services and utilities requesting the city to double or triple funding for tree cutting and trimming. The council also referred a sewer and drains ordinance amendment back to the commissioner for further work.

The Ordinance and Rules subcommittee agreed earlier this month to not strike a provision in the ordinance that would eliminate City Council approval of fee changes and regular reporting to the council.

Ricardo Morales, commissioner on public services and utilities said he would like to continue working on the ordinance and will bring a revised draft before the council at a future meeting.

 Accepted the committee reports from recent budget hearings.

The council's last action of the night was to refer a petition to the commissioner, the Public Works subcommittee, and the Police Department to explore and implement safety and traffic calming measures to improve the intersection of Lakeway Drive and Valentine Road.
Chloe Green shared a glamorous snap on Tuesday after her mystery boyfriend was revealed as Italian yacht broker Manuele Thiella.

The Topshop heiress, 29, took to Instagram to post a stylish picture of herself posing on a balcony which appeared to be overlooking the French Riviera.

Chloe looked glamorous as she wore a pair of white ripped mom jeans teamed with a black polka dot crop top.

Glamorous: Chloe Green shared a glamorous snap on Tuesday after her mystery boyfriend was revealed as Italian yacht broker Manuele Thiella

The former Made in Chelsea star styled her long brunette locks into a curly hairdo and she added a slick of make-up.

Chloe made light of the current COVID-19 lockdown as she captioned her picture with: 'Forgot whats its like to put on a pair of jeans! .'

The glamorous snap comes after MailOnline revealed that her mystery boyfriend is Italian yacht broker and and father-of-one Manuele Thiella.

Chloe was pictured passionately kissing Manuele, 34, on board her father Sir Philip Green's 118 million yacht in the South of France on Saturday.

'Chloe is very happy': The Topshop heiress has been in a relationship with Manuele, 34, (pictured left) since 2019 with sources saying the CEO has been 'accepted into her family'

But it won't have been Manuele's first voyage as he's the CEO of company Royal Yacht Brokers, which boasts celebrity clients such as Madonna, Chrissy Teigen and Alicia Vikander.

The businessman has been dating Chloe since 2019 with the pair even spending the festive period together alongside Chloe's mum Tina, 70, and other 'best friends and family.'

A source said: 'Chloe has known Manuele for months and they have always been very close friends.

'They have a lot in common; they're both parents and are from similar worlds, Chloe is very happy with him. He's very much been accepted into her family.'

Family: Chloe, who split from ex-Jeremy Meeks last year, celebrated her March birthday with boyfriend Manuele (pictured far right), as well as her brother Brandon Green (left)

The couple celebrated Chloe's birthday together in March, with Manuele pictured smiling alongside the heiress and her brother Brandon, 27.

Chloe split from ex-fiance Jeremy Meeks, 36, nicknamed Hot Felon, in June 2019, following a two-year romance.

The former Made in Chelsea star shares a two-year-old son, Jayden, with Jeremy, who this weekend was pictured at a Black Lives Protest in Beverly Hills.

Jeremy joined his eldest son Jeremy Jr., 11, in a march over the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer  at the same time Chloe was seen in a bikini on her dad's yacht.

Businessman: Manuele is the co-owner of company Royal Yacht Brokers, which boasts over 100K followers on Instagram and has celebrity clients including Madonna and Chrissy Teigen

Chloe's new boyfriend Manuele has a daughter from a previous relationship with a former partner.

In a Facebook post that shows Manuele with his young daughter, he comments: 'The only woman I will love forever.'

Manuele, who's from Milan, appears in a video alongside his business partner Tommaso Chiabra to promote their company, which has its headquarters in Monoco and boasts offices in London, Dubai, Bodrum and the United States.

His partner Tommy, 34, had a rumoured fling with Selena Gomez after the pair were pictured looking close on a yacht together in 2014.

After her split from hot felon Jeremy, Chloe briefly dated Italian polo captain Rommy Gianni, who she was also spotted kissing on board her dad's super yacht.

Chloe was photographed in Sardina with Rommy last August  just two months after reports of her split from Jeremy.

MailOnline has contacted Chloe for comment.
Hunters in Alaska will soon be able to bait hibernating grizzlies with grease-soaked doughnuts and butcher sleeping wolf pups in their dens after the Trump administration overturned a rule banning the 'inhumane' practices yesterday.

Under the new National Park Service rule, effective from 9 July, hunting on natural preserves in Alaska will be controlled by the state.

The new ruling permits the hunting of bears and wolves of any ages, even while in their dens, and during the months the mother weans her young.

Bears can also be dazzled using artificial lights or lured out of hibernation with bacon-glazed doughnuts and chased down by ferocious dogs.

The ruling will also allow hunters to shoot caribou from motorboats as they swim.

The reversal of the Obama-era ban will permit the killing of the previously-protected animals on millions of acres of Alaska's national parks.

Pictured: A file photo of two wolf cubs. The new ruling permits the hunting of bears and wolves of any ages in Alaska, even while in their dens, and during the months the mother weans her young

The change stems from 2017 orders issued by then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to provide greater recreational access for hunting and fishing in Alaksa, National Park Service spokesman Peter Christian said, acknowledging that the rule-change was unpopular.

'I would say the vast majority of people did believe this was a controversial move and were almost entirely opposed to us lifting the ban,' he said.

'The Trump administration has shockingly reached a new low in its treatment of wildlife,' added Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, in a written statement.

'Allowing the killing of bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens is barbaric and inhumane.

Pictured: File photo of a coastal brown bear eating a salmon in the Chilkoot River near Haines, Alaska. Baiting of brown and black bears will be permitted under the new National Park Service rule

'The proposed regulations cast aside a primary purpose of national preserves to conserve wildlife and wild places.'

State officials said the Obama-era rule was wrongheaded.

'From our perspective, the Park Service was infringing on our territory,' said Eddie Grasser, director of wildlife management for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, adding that some of the hunting practices now allowed in national preserves are part of indigenous culture.

Those practices are used by only a small number of people in a few places, Grasser said.

Another pending Trump administration rule, expected to be released on Wednesday, would overturn similar restrictions in Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
Bareilly : June 10 (IANS) After temples in Mathura objected to alcohol-based sanitizers, it is now a revered Muslim shrine-the Dargah Aala Hazrat in Bareilly -- that has asked its followers and mosque heads to avoid using alcohol-based sanitizers.

Mufti Nashtar Farooqi of Sunni Markaz Darul Ifta, Dargah Aala Hazrat, said on Wednesday that, "Alcohol is prohibited in Islam. Muslims should not use alcohol-based sanitizers. A mosque will become impure if alcohol-based sanitizer is used for cleaning the premises. We cannot make God's home impure. Namaaz cannot be offered at an impure place. If the mosque is made impure knowingly, it will be a sin. I have appealed to Imams of mosques and mosques' committees to refrain from using alcohol-based sanitizer." The Mufti also gave an alternative to alcohol-based sanitizers.

He said, "Instead of using alcohol-based sanitizer, Muslims should properly wash their hands and mosque campus with soap, detergent powder and shampoo." This comes just a day after priests of some prominent temples in Mathura refused to use the sanitizer with alcohol content.

Some prominent temples, including Iskcon, Banke Bihari, Mukut Mukharvind and Shri Rang Nath Ji in Mathura and Vrindavan, had decided not to open their doors for public from Monday and one of the reasons behind their decision was the government's directions for mandatory use of alcohol-based sanitizers on premises.
The Ministry of Health has announced Vietnam had reported more than 24,000 cases of dengue from the beginning of this year to early this month in 58 out of its 63 provinces and cities.

A health worker at Tan Quy Ward, Tan Phu District, HCM City looks for mosquito larvae in residential area.  VNA/VNS Photo Dinh Hang

Most of the cases were detected in southern provinces. Four people have died of the disease so far this year in Binh Thuan, Binh Phuoc and Can Tho provinces and HCM City.

The total number of cases and deaths has reduced greatly compared with the same period last year. In the first six months of 2019, nearly 50,000 people in 20 provinces/cities caught the disease and six of them died.

However, the ministry has warned that the period from June to August with more rain and hot and humid weather  a favourable condition for mosquitoes to develop - was usually the peak of dengue outbreaks.

The ministry also urged localities and people to be on the alert for the disease.

The Children's Hospital in the southern province of Can Tho reported that it had received more than 270 cases of dengue fever since the beginning of this year and the number of cases had increased in the last two weeks.

Ong Huy Thanh, vice director of the hospital, said dengue cases usually increased during the rainy season, so the hospital had prepared staff, equipment and medicine to respond.

The hospital will arrange beds to avoid the situation where two or three patients have to share a bed, Thanh said.

Doctor Nguyen Huynh Nhat Truong, acting head of the hospitals dengue department, said when children have a high fever for two or three days, headache and skin rashes, they should be tested for dengue.

Late detection could make the children get blood spots, epistaxis, bleeding gums and vomit with blood, so treatment will be longer and more difficult, Truong said.

Mosquito release

In the south-central city of Nha Trang, Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes will be released in 15 wards in the city, the municipal Health Department announced on Sunday.

Earlier, Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes were released in eight hamlets of Vinh Luong Commune in the city and proved their effectiveness.

Wolbachia is natural bacteria present in up to 60 per cent of insect species, including some mosquitoes. When implanted into mosquitoes, they have the ability to inhibit the development of the dengue virus.

The move is part of a project monitored by the Health Minister since 2013.

According to the south-central province of Khanh Hoa, nearly 2,000 cases of dengue were reported in the province since the beginning of this year, of which 150 reported in April and 285 cases in May.

Meanwhile, Hanoi recorded 137 dengue cases last month. Since March, dozens of dengue outbreaks have been detected in HCM City.

Late last month, HCM Citys Centre for Diseases Control found mosquito larvae in eight out of 117 inspected schools.

Vice director of the citys Health Department Nguyen Huu Hung said school managers should be responsible for the presence of mosquito larvae at schools, which posed risks for dengue outbreaks.

The health department plans to work with the citys Education and Training Department on the issue and ask schools to strictly follow regulations on disease prevention and control.

Last year, Vietnam reported more than 320,700 cases of dengue fever, the highest number in the last 32 years and double the total cases of 2018. As many as 53 people died of the disease last year. VNS

Deadly dengue outbreak overwhelms central Vietnam More than 62,000 people in the central provinces of Vietnam have infected with deadly dengue fever in ten months of the year, a threefold increase compared to the same period last year. Worse, eight people died of the disease.
Dalhousie University is officially launching the first ever international lab focused on restorative justice, with the support of the Donald R. Sobey Foundation.



The Restorative Research, Innovation & Education Lab (RRIELab), located in the Schulich School of Law, will be led by a fully funded chair held by Professor Jennifer Llewelyn, a distinguished global leader in restorative justice. The labs vision is to be a global centre of excellence that will accelerate the growth and development of a restorative approach to protect the health, safety and well-being of individuals and communities in Canada.



The initial focus of the RRIELab will be on accelerating the growth and development of restorative justice as a key component to transform the justice system in Canada, as well as supporting the development of restorative cities around the world and responding to institutional abuses and failures.



On behalf of our entire Dalhousie community, I would like to thank the Donald R. Sobey Foundation for its generous support of the RRIELab, and to Professor Jennifer Llewellyn for her groundbreaking work in restorative justice, says Deep Saini, Dal president. I am deeply appreciative of the work of the Donald R. Sobey Foundation and Professor Llewellyn, who is making a vital contribution here in Nova Scotia and internationally to ensure a restorative approach to protect the health and well-being of everyone in our community. This is especially true at this time as we reflect on and respond to the unjust racial tragedies experienced by Black people in North America and beyond.



A focus on individuals and communities



Restorative justice is a human-centred approach to justice that is focused on understanding and responding to impacts and needs of affected individuals and communities. This proactive and future focused approach brings people together to find meaningful and lasting justice solutions.



The need for restorative justice is not new, indeed systemic and historical injustices mark the experience of marginalized and racialized communities around the world, says Prof. Llewellyn, who is also the Yogis and Keddy Chair in Human Rights Law at the Schulich School of Law.



In this moment in our history, as we confront the pandemics of COVID-19 and anti-Black racism, we can see clearly that our current ways of doing things are not working. The urgency of a new and different way of imagining and doing justice  doing right by each other  cannot be allowed to pass by this time. We must support and sustain this new vision of justice to ensure it makes a difference throughout our systems, organizations and institutions. I am so proud and honored that we are embarking on this journey and pledge my commitment to create and support the connections and capacities leaders need in communities, governments and the private sector to work together to reimagine what justice requires and how to achieve it.



The RRIELab will build on Prof. Llewellyns extensive work and advocacy for restorative justice. She has published extensively on both the theory and practice of restorative justice, been scholar in residence with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission and was director of the Nova Scotia Restorative Justice Community University Alliance: a collaborative research partnership between university and community partners focused on the institutionalization of restorative justice. She is currently director of the International Learning Community on a Restorative Approach, an international collaboration of researchers, policy makers and practitioners supporting jurisdictions committed to being restorative communities.



The power of partnership



Some of the ways the RRIELab will support justice transformation in communities, systems, institutions and organizations across Canada and beyond include:

Strategic support for applying a Restorative Justice approach to diverse organizations

Leading research in Restorative Justice to demonstrate tangible outcomes and impact

Build capacity for growth and innovation in Restorative Justice

Design education and training in Restorative Justice to build understanding

Create a network of experts from around the world to collaborate and build knowledge

Support collaboration across sectors in government, community and the research community

Develop public education resources

Being home to the SMART JUSTICE NETWORK OF CANADA, which engages in non-partisan advocacy and knowledge mobilization for a smarter fairer justice system (smartjustice.ca)



Internationally, the RRIELab will lead the International Learning Community, a network of practitioners, policymakers and researchers supporting local communities and cities around the world committed to being restorative communities.



The establishment of the RRIELab will position Dalhousie and, indeed, Nova Scotia, to become a global centre of restorative approaches to justice, said Rob Sobey of the Donald R Sobey Foundation, which first entered into partnership with the RRIELab to fund its chair in restorative justice in 2017. Our foundation is incredibly inspired by and proud of Professor Llewellyns leadership. Advances in this field are needed now more than ever. This visionary work will now have a true home in Nova Scotia where it can be nurtured and grow to support international needs and focus areas.
Four children have been caught on camera casually playing on the triangle roof of a 32-storey residential building in south-eastern China.

The heart-stopping footage shows two of the kids trying to slide down from the surface while the other holding onto the building's lightning rods to keep balance.

They had climbed onto the high-rise block's rooftop through an emergency fire exit, according to local government.

Four children have been caught on camera casually playing on the triangle roof of a 32-storey residential building in Zunyi, Guizhou province of south-eastern China on Saturday

The four children, who were said to be aged around ten, were said to be unhurt from the event.

The incident took place on Sunday evening at a residential complex in Zunyi, Guizhou province of south-eastern China.

The terrifying scene was captured on camera by a neighbour, who initially shared the footage online. The local government released the video today in a social media post.

Officials did not specify the building's height but estimated it to be nearly 100 metres (328 feet).

The local government said that the children entered the building's rooftop through an emergency exit. The door is required to be unlocked in case a fire breaks out.

The four youngsters spent over twenty minutes there without any supervision.

The local government said that the children entered the building's rooftop through an emergency exit. The picture shows the rooftop where the children climbed onto

The terrifying scene was captured on camera by a neighbour, who initially shared the footage online. The local government released the video on Wednesday in a social media post

The compound management office said that they immediately reported to authorities after the incident.

The children's parents have received a reprimand from the local police.

Many social media users were horrified by the children's careless act while others were angered by their irresponsible parents.

One comment read: 'Omg, these kids are daredevils!'

Another wrote: 'Parents really need to look after their children better. Kids really don't understand what danger is.'

Falling from high places is one of the most common causes of accidental injury to children in China, according to Chinese media.

The issue has been heightened following the country's rapid urbanisation with high-rise residential buildings.
Four members of the US military were injured Monday when a transport plane overran the runway at Camp Taji air base in Iraq.

The US-led military coalition said an Air Force C-130 Hercules struck a wall, damaging the aircraft and causing a fire onboard that was then put out by a response team.

The four injured military personnel were treated at Camp Tajis medical facility, according to the coalition. A US military source with knowledge of the matter told Al-Monitor that the prognosis for the injured was looking good.

Three of the injured were released, an Associated Press report said. It said the plane had 26 passengers and a crew of seven Wyoming Air National Guard members, one of whom was among the injured.

The US-led military coalition against the Islamic State said in a statement Monday night that it did not suspect the accident was related to enemy activity.

US military personnel in Iraq consolidated earlier this year at larger garrisons Taji, Ain al-Asad and Erbil air base  a move hastened by the global coronavirus pandemic and repeated rocket attacks by local militias on US positions.
Washington: A former federal judge appointed to review the US Justice Department's motion to dismiss criminal charges against President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn said there was evidence of a "gross abuse" of prosecutorial power and that the request should be denied.

Former US District Judge John Gleeson said in a filing on Wednesday, local time, that the government "has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President". He urged the judge handling the case to deny the motion and argued that Flynn had committed perjury.

The Justice Department filed a motion last month to dismiss the case against Michael Flynn, pictured. Credit:AP

Gleeson was appointed by US District Judge Emmet Sullivan in a special role to weigh in on the case, but it will ultimately be up to Sullivan and potentially an appeals court whether to accept the Justice Department's motion to drop the case.

Flynn pleaded guilty, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period.
une 09, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - On June 1, President Trump threatened to deploy active-duty U.S. military forces against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in cities across America. Trump and state governors eventually deployed at least 17,000 National Guard troops across the country. In the nations capital, Trump deployed nine Blackhawk assault helicopters, thousands of National Guard troops from six states and at least 1,600 Military Police and active-duty combat troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, with written orders to pack bayonets.

After a week of conflicting orders during which Trump demanded 10,000 troops in the capital, the active-duty troops were finally ordered back to their bases in North Carolina and New York on June 5th, as the peaceful nature of the protests made the use of military force very obviously redundant, dangerous and irresponsible. But Americans were left shell-shocked by the heavily armed troops, the tear gas, the rubber bullets and the tanks that turned U.S. streets into war zones. They were also shocked to realize how easy it was for President Trump, single-handedly, to muster such a chilling array of force.

But we shouldnt be surprised. We have allowed our corrupt ruling class to build the most destructive war machine in history and to place it in the hands of an erratic and unpredictable president. As protests against police brutality flooded our nations streets, Trump felt emboldened to turn this war machine against usand may well be willing to do it again if there is a contested election in November.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Americans are getting a small taste of the fire and fury that the U.S. military and its allies inflict on people overseas on a regular basis from Iraq and Afghanistan to Yemen and Palestine, and the intimidation felt by the people of Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and other countries that have long lived under U.S. threats to bomb, attack or invade them.

For African-Americans, the latest round of fury unleashed by the police and military is only an escalation of the low-grade war that Americas rulers have waged against them for centuries. From the horrors of slavery to post-Civil War convict leasing to the apartheid Jim Crow system to today's mass criminalization, mass incarceration and militarized policing, America has always treated African-Americans as a permanent underclass to be exploited and kept in their place with as much force and brutality as that takes.

Today, Black Americans are at least four times as likely to be shot by police as white Americans and six times as likely to be thrown in prison. Black drivers are three times more likely to be searched and twice as likely to be arrested during traffic stops, even though police have better luck finding contraband in white people's cars. All of this adds up to a racist policing and prison system, with African-American men as its prime targets, even as U.S. police forces are increasingly militarized and armed by the Pentagon

Racist persecution does not end when African-Americans walk out the prison gate. In 2010, a third of African-American men had a felony conviction on their record, closing doors to jobs, housing, student aid, safety net programs like SNAP and cash assistance, and in some states the right to vote. From the first "stop and frisk" or traffic stop, African-American men face a system designed to entrap them in permanent second-class citizenship and poverty.

Liberating a neocolonial world

While the U.S. war on the black population at home is now exposed for all of Americaand the worldto see, the victims of U.S. wars abroad continue to be hidden. Trump has escalated the horrific wars he inherited from Obama, dropping more bombs and missiles in 3 years than either Bush II or Obama did in their first terms.

But Americans dont see the terrifying fireballs of the bombs. They dont see the dead and maimed bodies and rubble the bombs leave in their wake. American public discourse about war has revolved almost entirely around the experiences and sacrifices of U.S. troops, who are, after all, our family members and neighbors. Like the double standard between white and black lives in the U.S., there is a similar double standard between the lives of U.S. troops and the millions of casualties and ruined lives on the other side of the conflicts the U.S. armed forces and U.S. weapons unleash on other countries.

When retired generals speak out against Trumps desire to deploy active-duty troops on Americas streets, we should understand that they are defending precisely this double standard. Despite draining the U.S. Treasury to wreak horrific violence against people in other countries, while failing to win wars even on its own confused terms, the U.S. military has maintained a surprisingly good reputation with the U.S. public. This has largely exempted the armed forces from growing public disgust with the systemic corruption of other American institutions.

Generals Mattis and Allen , who came out against Trumps deployment of U.S. troops against peaceful protesters, understand very well that the fastest way to squander the militarys teflon public reputation would be to deploy it more widely and openly against Americans within the United States.

Just as we are exposing the rot in U.S. police forces and calling for defunding the police, so we must expose the rot in U.S. foreign policy and call for defunding the Pentagon. U.S. wars on people in other countries are driven by the same racism and ruling class economic interests as the war against African-Americans in our cities. For too long, we have let cynical politicians and business leaders divide and rule us, funding police and the Pentagon over real human needs, pitting us against each other at home and leading us off to wars against our neighbors abroad.

The double standard that sanctifies the lives of U.S. troops over those of the people whose countries they bomb and invade is as cynical and deadly as the one that values white lives over black ones in America. As we chant Black Lives Matter, we should include the lives of black and brown people dying every day from U.S. sanctions in Venezuela, the lives of black and brown people being blown up by U.S. bombs in Yemen and Afghanistan, the lives of people of color in Palestine who are tear-gassed, beaten and shot with Israeli weapons funded by U.S-taxpayers. We must be ready to show solidarity with people defending themselves against U.S.-sponsored violence whether in Minneapolis, New York and Los Angeles, or Afghanistan, Gaza and Iran.

This past week, our friends around the world have given us a magnificent example of what this kind of international solidarity looks like. From London , Copenhagen and Berlin to New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria , people have poured into the streets to show solidarity with African-Americans. They understand that the U.S. lies at the heart of a racist political and economic international order that still dominates the world 60 years after the formal end of Western colonialism. They understand that our struggle is their struggle, and we should understand that their future is also our future.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the San Francisco Bay Area continues to climb, and in some counties, the case count has accelerated or "spiked" over the past two weeks.

While the rising case numbers have been a source of worry for some, case counts alone are not the best metric for measuring spread.

"The easiest thing to look at is case counts, which is not a perfect metric since you have to factor in increased testing," UCSF epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford told SFGATE earlier this week. "We're finding more asymptomatic cases now, so it's not exactly comparable to March and April, when most detected cases were symptomatic. Now in May and June, we're catching more asymptomatic cases so it can be hard to interpret since we're finding more infections."

Rutherford believes that up to 60% of infections are either asymptomatic or so mild an individual does not think to get tested  which means that increased testing will yield more confirmed cases if you expand testing to be available to anyone regardless of symptoms. Because of enhanced testing capabilities, Rutherford believes hospitalizations and percent positivity of tests are the best metrics to use when measuring spread.

Here's where the nine Bay Area counties stand on hospitalizations and percent positive test rates when using data from May 25 to June 8. May 25 is the Monday of the week case increases started to accelerate, and there is typically a one-to-two week lag between infection and hospitalization. All data comes from individual county websites and the state's database for county-by-county hospitalizations.

San Francisco (2,809 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 56.6 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 39 patients

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on May 25: 2.9 percent

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on June 8: 1.6 percent

San Mateo (2,475 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 60.9 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 55.1 patients

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on May 25: 4.6 percent

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on June 8: 3.5 percent

Alameda (4,033 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 82.7 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 87.4 patients

NOTE: Alameda does not report the daily percent positive test rate, only cumulative testing data.

Contra Costa (1,798 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 13 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 17 patients

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on May 25: 2 percent

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on June 8: 4.7 percent

Santa Clara (3,017 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 72.9 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 65.6 patients

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on May 25: 1.2 percent

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on June 8: 1.5 percent

Marin (635 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 3.1 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 1.7 patients

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on May 25: 4.2 percent

Seven-day average for percent positive test rate on June 5*: 4.5 percent

*Marin County's testing data only goes up to June 5.

Solano (610 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 42.9 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 29.3 patients

NOTE: Solano does not report the daily percent positive test rate, only cumulative testing data.

Napa (157 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 2.1 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 2.7 patients

NOTE: Napa does not report the daily percent positive test rate, only cumulative testing data.

Sonoma (671 confirmed cases)

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on May 25: 13.4 patients

Seven-day average for hospitalizations on June 8: 13.6 patients

NOTE: Sonoma does not report the daily percent positive test rate.

The only Bay Area county that saw a confirmed increase in both hospitalizations and the percentage of positive tests is Contra Costa County, but both increases are marginal at best when compared to other areas in the country seeing a rebound in infections. One such example is Arizona, where the percent positive test rate has increased from nine percent on May 24 to 25 percent on June 7.

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Eric Ting is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting
The University of Ibadan (UI) on Wednesday confirmed that Godwin Obaseki, the Governor of Edo State, graduated from the institution.

UI in a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan said Mr Obaseki graduated from the university in 1979.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, on Tuesday, joined critics of the governor to question his educational qualification.

Someone should approach the UI and end this matter once and for all. If the certificate Obaseki parades is that of the UI, find out  how did he pass senate screening of those days? Im aware that in those days when this man never dreamt of becoming a governor, every student, no matter your status or your family name, must pass screening.

How come the UI allowed him then. Did he do a remedial? which was not unlikely. These are questions. Many (who) came in especially in education and linguistics, did remedial for one year and if the result was good, gained direct entry and graduated three years after, Mr Oshiomhole told journalists at the inauguration of the APCs screening and appeal committees.

The party chairman and the governor, who were allies, are now at daggers drawn with Mr Oshiomhole backing another aspirant for the APC governorship ticket.

National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole. [PHOTO CREDIT: ThisdayLIVE]

Mr Obaseki also seeks the APC ticket to return to office as Edo governor in the Septemeber election.

UI Speaks

The University of Ibadan has now confirmed that Mr Obaseki graduated from the university.

The Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki

UI while reacting said that Obaseki finished from the institution in 1979.

In a statement issued by its Registrar, Olubunmi Faluyi, the university, Nigerias first, noted that the Edo State Governor graduated in 1979 with a Second Class Honours, Lower Division.

Ms Faluyi in the statement entitled  Godwin Obaseki Graduated from UI noted that Mr Obasekis records of admission and graduation are intact in the archives of the University.

She said, Mr Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki, the Governor of Edo State graduated from the University of Ibadan where he studied Classics.

Mr Obaseki gained admission to the University in 1976 and graduated in 1979 with a Second Class Honours, Lower Division.

Records of his Admission and Graduation are intact in the archives of the University.

Thank you, the official said without providing further details.

Despite the clarification by the university, the fight between the Edo governor and Mr Oshiomhole suggests the issue would still drag on until the primary is concluded.

The APC primary is scheduled for June 22.
Sri Lanka's National Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya announced on Wednesday that the twice-postponed parliamentary elections will be held on August 5.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on March 2 dissolved the Parliament, six months ahead of schedule, and called for snap polls on April 25. However, the election commission in mid-April postponed the elections by nearly two months to June 20 due to the coronavirus outbreak in the island nation.

The commission last month informed the apex court that the polls cannot be held on June 20 because of the raging coronavirus pandemic.

The new date was decided following a unanimous decision reached between the members of the NEC, Deshapriya told reporters on Wednesday."We have signed the gazette (announcing the date) and sent it to the government printer," he said.

This year's election would see health guidelines such as wearing face masks and maintaining physical distance being practiced during the poll.

The election commission came under criticism from the ruling party for delaying the polls. The opposition approached the apex court to delay the elections in view of COVID-19.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rejected all petitions challenging the gazette issued by President Rajapaksa dissolving Parliament and the June 20 date of the general elections announced by the election commission.

The petitions by Opposition parties and civil society activists argued that Rajapaksa's March 2 gazette was invalid as the Parliament could not be met within the three months period stipulated in the Constitution. The three months time during which Parliament must meet expired on June 2.

Under the country's proportional representation system of elections, candidates representing political parties and independent groups vie for parliament by seeking votes against their individual number in the candidate list. The number of candidates differs from district to district in all the 22 electoral districts.

The voters can vote for three candidates after marking their vote for the party symbol of their choice.

Some 16 million people are eligible to vote in the election to choose the 225-member parliament for a 5-year term.
Three people wear protective masks while sitting on the lawn in Bryant Park in New York City, N.Y., on May 22, 2020. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

WHO Clarifies Comment About Asymptomatic CCP Virus Spread Being Very Rare

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday clarified comments made from Monday at a news briefing about asymptomatic transmission of the CCP virus being very rare.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and the WHOs technical lead on the COVID-19 pandemic, had said on Monday at a regular press briefing (pdf) that data the WHO has received suggests it is very rare to have an asymptomatic person transmit the disease.

Following an onslaught of confusion expressed from social media, including from doctors, journalists, and epidemiologists, the WHO hosted a livestream on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to clarify questions surrounding transmission of the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

Van Kerkhove noted that truly asymptomatic people are those who never show symptoms, and they are not the same as people who are presymptomaticthose who dont have symptoms at the time of testing but do experience symptoms later.

Maria Kerkhove, the World Health Organizations COVID-19 technical lead, speaks during a press conference in Geneva on Jan. 22, 2020. (Pierre Albouy/AFP via Getty Images)

She also pointed out that asymptomatic patients with COVID-19 can still spread the disease.

We do know that some people who are asymptomatic or some people who dont have symptoms can transmit the virus on, she said. What we need to better understand is how many of the people in the population dont have symptoms, and, separately, how many of those individuals go on to transmit to others.

Thats a big open question, and that remains an open question, she said.

Van Kerkhove said that she was going by data from a very few studies, some two or three studies that tried to follow asymptomatic cases over time, as well as unpublished reports from some countries to the WHO when she made the statement of asymptomatic spread being very rare.

I was responding to a question at the press conference, I wasnt stating a policy of WHO or anything like that. I was just trying to articulate what we know, she said. And in that, I used the phrase very rare, and I think that thats a misunderstanding, to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare.

What I was referring to was a subset of studies, she added.

What I didnt report yesterday  Some estimates of around 40 percent of transmission may be due to asymptomatic, but those are from models, and so I didnt include that in my answer yesterday but wanted to make sure that I covered that here, she also said.

The WHOs Executive Director of Health Emergencies Mike Ryan, who was also on the livestream on Tuesday, acknowledged that asymptomatic spread of the CCP virus still exists.

That is occurring, Im absolutely convinced that that is occurring, he said. The question is how much.

World Health Organization Health Emergencies Program Director Michael Ryan as he delivers a news briefing on COVID-19 from the WHO headquarters in Geneva on March 30, 2020. (AFP via Getty Images)

Nyka Alexander, the WHO communications officer, noted that people have associated mask-wearing with the idea that theres a lot of transmission thats happening from people who are asymptomatic.

A few people have asked, can you explain what the WHOs current guidance is on masks? she asked Kerkhove.

The WHO issued updated guidance on the use of masks on June 5, recommending that in areas with known active CCP virus transmission, the general public should wear a fabric mask in settings where they cannot practice social distancingsuch as on public transport, in shops, or in other confined or crowded environments. Kerkhove revisited the recommendations for the general public on Tuesday in response to Alexanders question.

People wearing masks travel on a subway train during morning rush hour in Beijing on June 8, 2020. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

Alexander also noted an online question that asked what are the transmission modes of [the CCP virus] from an asymptomatic patient?

When someone [symptomatic] is coughing, theyre pushing the virus out, but if a person doesnt have symptoms, how are they transmitting the virus to someone else? she added.

Any situation where youre likely to express air under pressure, Ryan responded, later acknowledging that asymptomatic spread is via the droplets carried from the body in the projected air.

He noted that observational studies suggest that singing, speaking loudly, exertionsuch as in a gym where a person is breathing very heavilyare activities that have potential to transmit the virus.

Its clear that in that situation if the virus is present in your upper respiratory mucosa, then theres every likelihood that you could project that virus, he said.

Ryan noted that certain cluster investigations that were done in Japan showed that CCP virus spread appeared to have occurred from gyms, choir, and nightclub settings.

There is a mechanical means of projecting this virus, Ryan said.

He noted that when compared to SARS and MERS, the virus in the novel coronavirus is present in the upper respiratory tract, whereas in SARS and MERS, the virus tends to be isolated in the lower respiratory tract. With SARS and MERS, therefore, its obviously much harder for that virus to get out, it has to be expelled, its harder to breathe it out, Ryan said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated in May that about 35 percent of CCP virus cases are asymptomatic, and about 40 percent of transmissions happen before people show any symptoms.

The CDC in early April cited the potential for presymptomatic transmission as something that underscores the importance of social distancing, including the avoidance of congregate settings in reducing the spread of the CCP virus.

To control the pandemic, it might not be enough for only persons with symptoms to limit their contact with others because persons without symptoms might transmit infection, the CDC said in its report at the time.
"Over 81% of Panda Expressway consists of bridges and tunnels, making it one of China's key smart transportation infrastructure projects," says Cui Jisheng, General Manager of XCMG Road Machinery. "Enhancing road quality and safety through efficient construction and reduced cost were key priorities in our collaboration to develop an autonomous road roller. Our success here shows great promise for the technology's industrialization, and will accelerate the development of smart transport infrastructure."

Before setting out and before the test began, a remote monitoring data center first identified the optimal route and process. Instructions were then transmitted to the onboard control system, enabling the road roller to operate autonomously under complex conditions, with a precision of 2-3cm.

The self-driving road roller is equipped with various safety measures and a real-time monitoring system which can sound warnings, conduct an emergency stop, enter and exit sites automatically and avoid obstacles.

In 2018, XCMG signed a strategic agreement with the Sichuan Railway Investment Group and Tsinghua University to deepen their cooperation in the field of autonomous road construction. Since then, the three parties have applied for nine domestic patents, namely three for inventions and six for utility models and technology.

With this achievement, the partnership will continue, focusing on the R&D and implementation of smart transportation development strategies and the development of mobile 5G communications base stations.

About XCMG

XCMG is a multinational heavy machinery manufacturing company with a history of 77 years. It currently ranks fourth in the world's construction machinery industry. The company exports to more than 183 countries and regions around the world.

For more information, please visit www.xcmg.com, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.

SOURCE XCMG

Related Links

www.xcmg.com


A number of NHS sites are now working with Huma's solution to support Virtual Wards to monitor and care for patients. Medopad enables the accurate exchange of health data and information between patients and their NHS care team. Healthcare teams can closely monitor a patient's symptoms to advise on appropriate care and early intervention, staying informed of symptoms and being alerted to disease progression that could avoid further complications or prompt a diagnostic procedure or a visit from a clinician or a visit to hospital  if needed.

Tara Donnelly, Chief Digital Officer, NHSX said: "This is a great example of how new technology is supporting healthcare professionals to provide the right care at the right time. With COVID-19, it's vital that we make use of digital tools that can help support patients who don't need immediate hospital care and allow close monitoring of their condition.

"The feedback we are getting from patients is that the remote monitoring with clinical oversight is really reassuring to them, and they are grateful to be at home while they recover, rather than in a hospital bed. The clinical team is finding it helps give them very rapid feedback on their patients and they are able to keep an eye on a number of people at a glance, which is working much better for them than the previous system which relied on phone calls."

The COVID-19 remote monitoring trial phase started in London and Hertfordshire in both primary and secondary care settings to support patients with COVID-19 symptoms.

The initial projects were:

Watford General Hospital, part of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, is using the COVID-19 RPM solution for patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms via a 'Virtual Ward' to support COVID-19 patients who have been discharged from hospital and also to avoid admissions whose care can be safely managed in their own homes.

part of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, is using the COVID-19 RPM solution for patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms via a 'Virtual Ward' to support COVID-19 patients who have been discharged from hospital and also to avoid admissions whose care can be safely managed in their own homes. North West London trial is in two primary care led 'hot-hubs' in Hillingdon and Soho. These 'hot-hubs' provide at-scale triage from general practice and 111 for patients who are deemed to require ongoing monitoring of COVID-19 symptoms and has extended to services in Harrow and Ealing.

Dr. Matthew Knight, Respiratory Consultant at Watford General Hospital, said: "Our teams are working to provide the best care for patients with COVID-19 symptoms around the clock. To provide the best patient care and outcomes, protect the NHS and prevent community spread, the remote patient monitoring offers a promising solution to help us scale our efforts to the growing needs of our community."

Tony Willis, Clinical Director for Diabetes at North West London Collaboration of CCGs, said: "Patients with suspected COVID-19 can deteriorate in a matter of hours. That's why it's vital that clinicians can track their symptoms and vital signs regularly so that they can intervene if there is significant deterioration. But patients do not have to be at the hospital or clinic all the time and this new solution means we can capture patient health data frequently enough to take timely action while the patient is in the comfort of their own home."

Within weeks, teams from the three initial sites, NHSX and Huma went from concept and ideation to implementation, quickly and collaboratively developing several iterations of the app to meet local requirements and work across systems. Huma's team needed only eight days to create the tech requirements to get up and running, configuring modules (such as patient questionnaires and symptom tracking) and user flows with clinicians at the trial sites to customise clinical pathways. Healthcare practitioners at the local sites were trained on using the Medopad solution on 17 April and the project has since been rolling out to patients.

Dan Vahdat, founder and CEO of Huma, said: "As a British company, we can think of no greater honour than being part of this pilot that is helping three NHS trial sites respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in this hour of need. We are proud to use the learnings we've developed with our NHS partners to provide care for many COVID-19 patients to help people support the NHS and save lives."

Aida Yousefi, Chief Commercial Officer of Huma, said: "NHS staff are working tirelessly to provide care during this crisis. It is an honour to have the opportunity to trial our technology to lessen their burden at these sites by providing the reassurance that their patients are being monitored accurately and appropriately.

"Equally, isolated and worried patients in the community can have the reassurance that they are being looked after remotely and appropriately by their healthcare teams. It has been a privilege to work with NHSX. Together we have worked at speed to implement in less than three weeks."

Huma, headquartered in London, is providing its Medopad COVID-19 RPM solution as a not-for-profit initiative.

About Huma

Huma partners with scientists, technologists and healthcare professionals to understand, treat and ultimately prevent ill health. Giving knowledge and power to those with medical conditions, while saving clinicians time, energy and valuable resources. Because, by collectively benefiting from the data we individually generate, we can all live our longest, fullest lives. www.huma.com

NOTES:

Press kit available here: https://bit.ly/HumaPressKit

[email protected]

How Huma's Medopad COVID-19 RPM platform works:

Medical staff monitor patient care via the Medopad web-based clinician portal. Healthcare teams can prioritise patients based on patient-submitted data and auto flagging, access telemedicine capabilities allowing the care team to video call the patients, and view team notes and detailed patient profiles.

Patients receive easy-to-follow instructions on how to access the service via email or text with a unique code to download and access the Medopad mobile app. With patient consent, patients use self-assessment and testing tools via the mobile patient app, including body temperature, heartbeat frequency, breathing difficulties and more. Patients may also receive an oximeter device to measure SpO2 level for oxygen saturation and heart rate without needing to connect any hardware to their mobile device.

Medopad Healthcare Practitioner telemedicine portal features:

Alerts & Thresholds: Set alerts and thresholds to ensure COVID-19 patients are seen at the right time by the right clinician

Set alerts and thresholds to ensure COVID-19 patients are seen at the right time by the right clinician Secure: Secure portal for ease of viewing on desktop or mobile

Secure portal for ease of viewing on desktop or mobile Telemedicine: Telemedicine available to engage with patients easily

Telemedicine available to engage with patients easily Data visualisation: Patient-level data analysis & visualisation

Patient-level data analysis & visualisation Rules-based triage: Opportunity for rules-based triage to promote efficiency

Opportunity for rules-based triage to promote efficiency Manage multiple patients with ease: Ability to manage multiple patients at once and divert care to the ones most in need

Ability to manage multiple patients at once and divert care to the ones most in need Instant reach out to patients: Reach out to patients directly and adjust their care plan thresholds if necessary.

Reach out to patients directly and adjust their care plan thresholds if necessary. Rich data: Rich data to enable a comprehensive review of COVID-19 patients to understand disease progression, evolution of symptoms, and adverse reactions nationally

Rich data to enable a comprehensive review of COVID-19 patients to understand disease progression, evolution of symptoms, and adverse reactions nationally Optimise time & resources: Reduce face-to-face visits for faster responses and to reduce the spread of the disease

Medopad patient app features

Medopad's COVID-19 RPM solution is configured to monitor and flag deterioration in COVID-19 patients. It supports self-management through a simple analytics dashboard. It only requires an iOS or Android smartphone, and can also be combined with other devices (such as an oximeter). Patients submit symptom ratings once per day. Each symptom is rated by the patient as mild, moderate, severe or very severe. The app is prescribed by clinicians to COVID-19 positive patients.

The Medopad patient app modules for the trial include:

Symptoms: including fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, headache, unusual chest pain or tightness, dizziness, loss of consciousness, and heart palpitations

Breathlessness: using a simple respiratory questionnaire

Temperature: measured via temperature dot or thermometer

Resting heart rate: captured via patients' smartphone camera through photoplethysmography (PPG) or pulse oximeter device

Oxygen saturation captured via pulse oximeter device

Information: COVID-19 specific learning and education content provided by NHS

Telemedicine: Ability for clinicians to speak with patients when necessary

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178959/Huma_Medopad.jpg

SOURCE Huma

Related Links

https://huma.com/


The Trump administration appears to be retreating from its commitment to quickly remove most of a new fence blocking demonstrators and other members of the public from in front of the White House.

Instead, National Park Service spokeswoman Katie Liming says only that her agency is in continuing discussions with the Secret Service about what Liming called the temporary security fencing at the front of the White House.

Officials abruptly erected the high, black metal fence last week to block demonstrators from Lafayette Square outside the White House. That was as massive crowds rallied in Washington and around the country to protest the killing of George Floyd in police custody, and other deaths of African Americans at the hands of police.

Members of the park services U.S. Park Police and other security forces lobbed chemical agents and punched and clubbed demonstrators and journalists in clearing Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1, just before crews raised the new fence. Trump administration officials have denied federal forces at the time of the forceful removal of crowds were making way for President Donald Trump to stage photos nearby.

Lafayette Square has historically been one of the countrys most prominent spots for demonstrations and other public advocacy,

Liming had said at the start of this week that officials would remove most of the fence at Lafayette Square on Wednesday.

Liming in her latest update, however, said only that fencing elsewhere, on the south side of the White House, would be removed on or about Wednesday.

She did not immediately respond to a question about why the Park Service now appeared to be moving away from its commitment to take down most of the Lafayette Square fence Wednesday.

Separately, three Democratic lawmakers asked federal watchdogs to investigate whether the Park Police broke any laws in routing demonstrators from the square.

The request was made in a letter, released Tuesday, to the Interior Department inspector general, Mark Lee Greenblatt, whose department oversees the National Park Service. Officials were in the early stages of reviewing the request, IG spokeswoman Nancy DiPaolo said.

The request for an investigation was made by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and Committee Vice Chair Rep. Debra Haaland of New Mexico.

The First Amendment rights to free speech, peaceful assembly, and free press are the building blocks of all other rights, the three lawmakers said. Any actions by the Park Police to muzzle these rights is an affront to all Americans and should be swiftly addressed.

A force of several hundred officers, the Park Police are charged with law enforcement at Lafayette Square, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and a small number of other heavily visited federal sites.

An Interior Department spokesman, Conner Swanson, called the lawmakers accusations an insult to the fine men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our citizens and defend Americas national treasures.

The suggestion that the United States Park Police would muzzle Americans rights is outrageous, Swanson said.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told Grijalva in a letter last week that the Park Police had been in a state of siege from violent attacks in the square.

Democratic lawmakers say witness and journalist accounts and photos and videos made public so far dont support allegations of that scale of protester violence.

The three lawmakers letter, sent Monday, asks Interiors internal watchdog whether the force used by Park Police was lawful and in line with rules, policies and training standards for the force.

Lawmakers also asked the investigators to determine who was giving orders to the Interior Department in the squares clearing.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has tasked the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control with making a list of safe regions for the reopening of international commercial flights.

Safe destinations are those where there have been no new cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, for at least 30 days, the prime minister said at a government meeting on the disease response in Hanoi on Tuesday.

The PM emphasized it is impossible for the country to remain completely closed to international flights, but the reopening has to be done carefully and with consideration for the disease safety level in the countries or territories involved.

Vietnam has barred entry to foreign nationals since March 22, with exceptions for those carrying diplomatic or official passports or entering for special economic projects, who must be quarantined after entry.

At Tuesdays meeting, PM Phuc also tasked the Ministry of Transport to direct the aviation sector to arrange unlimited number of flights to bring experts, businessmen, and Vietnamese citizens stranded overseas to Vietnam.

He asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue concrete criteria and open channels for Vietnamese citizens and foreign experts to register for a place on such flights.

Since April 24, Vietnamese authorities have conducted 20 special flights to repatriate 6,001 citizens stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the official VGP News.

Vietnam has confirmed 332 COVID-19 cases, including 192 imported cases immediately quarantined upon arrivals.

Over 95 percent of all patients have recovered, while six out of the 15 active patients have tested negative for the virus at least once.

As many as 8,182 people are under quarantine due to having been in close contact with COVID-19 patients or returning from foreign countries and territories, according to the national steering committee.

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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference after a meeting of The North Atlantic Council at Ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Jan. 6, 2020. (Virginia Mayo/AP Photo)

China Not an Enemy, but NATO Must Face Its Growing Military and Rise of Its Global Influence: NATO Chief

NATO does not consider China a new enemy or adversary but its rise is fundamentally changing the global balance of power and NATO has to address the consequences of it, especially to the security, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during the event on June 8 to launch NATO 2030 initiative, to make NATO capable to adapt to the changing world.

Stoltenberg was tasked by NATO leaders convened at the NATO Summit in London last year to lead the development of a proposal for strengthening NATOs political dimension. He appointed a group of ten experts to work on this project.

Among the existing trends and tensions that must be taken into consideration when shaping NATO to meet existing and emerging challenges the world faces, Stoltenberg listed military activities carried out by Russia, emboldening of ISIS and other terrorist groups, and disinformation and propaganda being disseminated by both state and non-state actors.

However, Chinas race for economic and technological supremacy poses threats to open societies and individual freedoms and challenges our values and our way of life, Stoltenberg said.

China has already the second-largest defense budget in the world and Beijing continues to invest in modern military capabilities such as missiles that can reach all NATO Allies, gains influence in cyberspace, invests in critical infrastructure in different parts of the world, tightens its cooperation with Russia, Stoltenberg said.

Adapting to Changing World

A NATO leaders group photo in Watford, England, on Dec. 4, 2019. This year marks NATOs 70th anniversary. (Steve Parsons  WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Forging NATO as a stronger political Alliance is necessary to be able to respond to these challenges, Stoltenberg said. In addition, NATO needs to expand its cooperation with non-NATO countries like partners in the Asia Pacific region, as well as like-minded countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, he said.

Stoltenberg stressed the importance of close cooperation with these countries to defend the global rules and institutions that have kept us safe for decades, to set norms and standards in space and in cyberspace, on new technologies and global arms control.

And ultimately, to stand up for a world built on freedom and democracy, not on bullying and coercion, he said.

The strength of NATO does not lie only in the strength of its 30 Allies which together represent nearly one billion people, and half of the worlds military might and economic might but it is also bolstered by the cooperation with 40 different partners around the world and international institutions like the European Union and the UN, Stoltenberg said.

One of the purposes of the NATO 2030 initiative is to strengthen the Alliance partnership in many directions so it will be able to address also non-military threats like cyber threats, disinformation, and propaganda, said Stoltenberg.

He said that the best way to counter propaganda and disinformation is to provide facts, the truth through a free and independent press. Journalists asking the difficult questions, checking their facts, checking their stories is the best way to ensure that propaganda and disinformation do not succeed, he added.

My vision for NATO 2030 is not about reinventing NATO. It is about making our strong Alliance even stronger. Strong militarily. Stronger politically. And more global, said Stoltenberg.
A store stands closed near Wall Street as the CCP virus keeps financial markets and businesses mostly closed in New York City, N.Y., on May 8, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

3 Lessons From the Pandemic and the Lockdown

Commentary

The pandemic and subsequent government-mandated lockdowns and their devastating economic effects have affected Americans differently.

The relatively affluent and financially secure have been free to engage in introspection and personal growth. While that might not have been their first choice, for most it wasnt nearly as challenging a period as it was for Americans who have been scrambling (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to keep from going broke.

Regardless of the impact of this cluster of crises, this spring has taught us (or should have taught us) three major political lessons that will affect us all going forward.

Lesson No. 1: The CCP Threat

The threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to our country and the whole world has become impossible to overlook or ignore.

With varying degrees of clarity and concern, Americans have been aware of the CCPs ruthlessness. Most of us recognized that China has been waging war against American businesses, stealing their intellectual property, and targeting them for destruction.

A smaller group of Americans know about the CCPs persecution of their Muslim Uyghur minoritythe arrest of over a million of them without trial, forcibly separating them away from their families and depositing them in re-education camps. Similarly, too few Americans have heard about the CCPs horrifying practice of killing political prisoners by harvesting vital organs from their bodies. A higher-profile example of CCP evil has been its naked attempts to trample and extinguish the rights and freedoms of the residents of Hong Kong since last summer.

But now, theres no excuse for the mass of Americans to be oblivious to the unmistakable malevolence and the clear and present danger posed by the Chinese regime. So arrogant have the Chi-coms become that they no longer even try to hide their aggressive goals. The way they have conducted themselves during this global pandemic should remove all doubts about them.

The CCP made a cold-blooded policy decision not to warn the rest of the world about the emerging coronavirus; instead, they allowed infected citizens to travel and to spread the virus around the world. What was that, if not a hostile act?

The contempt that the Chinese communists have for everyone else is unmistakable. It has gotten so blatant that the editor of The Global Times (a mouthpiece for the CCP regime) responded to Australian concerns about the Wuhan/CCP virus by publicly insulting Australia, writing that that free nation is like chewing gum stuck on the sole of Chinas shoes. Their public relations offensive against the United States has been even more offensivemaking the outrageous claim that the United States spawned the pandemic.

None of this hateful behavior should surprise us. Remember: Vladimir Lenin himself openly taught, Hatred is the basis of communism. Some naive people think all we have to do is be nice to the Chinese regime, and they will respond in kind. Sorry, but communists arent like thatits against their (atheistic) religion. American food aid averted mass starvation in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, and the Soviet regime repaid our kindness by marking us as their No. 1 enemy.

Lenin once scornfully asserted that the capitalists would sell the communists the rope with which the latter would hang the former. But communists would not be so foolish as to sell us things that we vitally need, such as crucial pharmaceutical drugs or masks needed during a pandemic.

The bottom line: We need to understand that the communist virus is many times more lethal than COVID-19, and we need to rethink every aspect of our relations with China.

Lesson No. 2: Incompetence of Socialism

The U.S. governments policy response to the pandemic illustrates the clumsy incompetence of socialism in practice. Central economic planning simply isnt viable. Unsurprisingly, then, the implementation of emergency relief measures has been a veritable comedy of errors:

1) Tax-paying Americans have been given stimulus checks, but then ordered to avoid most stores, resulting in money sitting in bank accountsunless the recipient has become unemployed and is using the checks to pay the rent and other expenses that would have been spent anyhow.

2) Unemployment benefits for many workers exceed their take-home pay. This has created massive disincentives to return to work, which, in turn, jeopardizes the survival of the small businesses (and the jobs they provide) that Congress hoped to save.

3) Thousands of loans were issued to ineligible recipients. The Small Business Administration alone issued more loans in 14 days than it had in the previous 14 years. Can you imagine how many billions of dollars were wasted and dispensed inappropriately?

4) Lending institutions were ordered to suspend collection of mortgage payments without any guidance for how they were to be made whole at some future time, and with meager protection against future prosecutions to punish them for doing what Congress ordered them to do.

5) American business owners were arrested for daring to open their businesses before getting a government green light, at the same time those governments were releasing convicts from jail to protect them from the virus.

The bottom line: Socialism is economic poison, not some mythical panacea for peoples economic needs.

Lesson No. 3: Radical Greens

Lesson No. 3 is related to No. 2. It was both stunning and appalling to hear how radical greens exulted in this springs economic slowdown.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres publicly stated in late March that the pandemic could create an opportunity to rebuild the global economy along more sustainable lines, Scientific American reported.

In other words, in the name of their destructive obsession with reducing carbon dioxide emissions (emissions that are environmentally beneficial), greens would like to slow down economic activity to an even greater extent than what we have experienced as a result of the pandemic. It doesnt concern them that economic prosperity goes hand-in-hand with fossil fuel consumption.

The bottom line: If you like living like you have the past few weeks, then vote for green politicians. But if you prefer healthy economic growth, then the greens arent for you.

The coronavirus and its aftermath have highlighted vitally important lessons about the dangers of the Chinese Communist Party, domestic socialism, and green fanaticism. These are dear-bought lessons. Lets not squander the benefits of these lessons by ignoring them after having paid so dearly for them.

Mark Hendrickson, an economist, recently retired from the faculty of Grove City College, where he remains a fellow for economic and social policy at the Institute for Faith and Freedom.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 22:34:09|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said on Wednesday the recent meeting with Sudan and Ethiopia on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) hasn't ended with "positive results."

The ministry said in a statement that the meeting on Tuesday, also attended by observers from the United States, the European Union and the African Union, has not reached any significant result, as it focused only on procedural issues like the schedule of meetings, reference for discussion, and the role of observers.

The ministers of water resources from the three countries are expected to meet again on Wednesday to continue negotiations, with international observers present, according to the statement.

Egypt demanded to reach "a comprehensive agreement on filling and operating the dam by the end of the negotiations period on June 13."

The meeting on Tuesday took place following three weeks of a Sudanese initiative to see the three countries return to the negotiating table on GERD's filling and operation.

During the meeting, Egypt has requested Ethiopia "not to take any unilateral action until reaching an agreement," the ministry said.

Sudanese Minister of Water and Irrigation Yasser Abbas said in a statement on Tuesday that "the meeting took place in a positive spirit and provided fruitful discussions."

The tripartite negotiations stalled in February after Ethiopia skipped the final round of talks held in Washington. Of the three countries, only Egypt initialed the resulting draft agreement.

Egypt and Sudan rejected an Ethiopian agreement released on April 10 proposing a "partial agreement" that would only cover the first stage of the filling.

On May 1, Egypt sent a memo to the Security Council blaming Ethiopia for trying to establish a deal without considering the interests of downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan. Enditem
Pastinfo newspaper reports that twin newborns died at St. Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center today.

The mothers sister provided Pastinfo with the details of the incident: My sister was going to give birth to her twin daughters. A month ago, the amniotic fluid of one of the daughters flowed. The mother called the doctor, and the latter said it was normal. She went to see the doctor, was under supervision, and the doctor said everything was fine. She would undergo checkups every week, her heartbeat was normal. Yesterday she felt pain, and her mother-in-law took her to the hospital. The doctor took a look at her and said everything was fine. The mother-in-law said she should lie and be under doctors supervision, but the doctor claimed that she should go home and take the required medicine. My sister went home and felt pain again. My sister gave birth through C-section a year-and-a-half ago.

She had to give birth through C-section again since she couldnt have a child on her own, if three years hadnt expired after the first C-section. However, the doctors said she had to have the children on her own. She was taken to the maternity ward and given narcosis. When we asked the doctors why narcosis was given when she had to give birth on her own, the doctor justified himself and said the first child was already dead when she was born, and the doctors had to check the second child and that is why the mother was given narcosis. The doctors say both children were dead when they were born. However, if they had checked the mother all this time and the fetuses were normal, how did this happen? the mothers sister said.

The relatives blame the doctors for this and say they must be brought to justice and will be consistent. They claim that the mother had to be under doctors supervision, but was sent home.
Huawei 5G Risk Exposes Need for Greater Five Eyes Cohesion

Canadas eventual verdict on Huawei as a 5G vendor will directly affect US national security

News Analysis

National security experts from the Five Eyes countries acknowledge the alliance has to come to terms with the risks of Huawei as a 5G vendor to ensure intelligence sharing isnt diminished.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos comments implying potentially less intelligence sharing with countries that accept Huawei were also discussed during a June 8 webinar hosted by the Ottawa-based Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) Institute.

The Five Eyes, consisting of Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada, continues to be highly valued by its members although its diversity is leading to a range of positions regarding Huawei for 5G. The views of the United States and Australia on 5G, which is to be the backbone of critical infrastructure like power grids, health care, communication, and transportation, are the most alike.

Canada has yet to make an official decision on Huawei for its 5G infrastructure, but Richard Fadden, former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), said the Five Eyes would not be hurt in the long term if it excluded the Chinese telecommunications giant from its 5G rollout.

We constantly talk about it but we never really sit down and work our way through what would be the consequences short-, medium-, and long-term if we say no to Huawei, said Fadden, a former national security adviser to two prime ministers.

Strength in numbers to limit Chinas coercion is worth pursuing, and a broader strategic view of entanglement with China would also be a wise step, said Martijn Rasser, a former intelligence officer and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Im talking more broadly than the Five Eyes, thinking about united fronts to limit the amount of economic and political coercion that China can inflict, he said.

His remarks align with those of the NATO secretary-general in a speech laying out his 2030 vision for NATO, in which he called on like-minded countries to work more closely to counter threats from China and Russia.

US Stands Firm

The two U.S. analysts at the webinar elaborated on Pompeos warning from both technical and geopolitical angles.

A complete ban of untrusted vendors on 5G networks is needed, because the core-edge risk-mitigation tactics for 4G simply wont work on 5G networks, Rasser said.

With 4G, there is a clear separation between core partsfor sensitive dataand edge parts of the network. That distinction is blurred with 5G, which attains much faster speeds for applications like autonomous vehicles and telemedicine.

Australia deserves a lot of credit for understanding this technical reality earlier than the United States, Rasser said.

He added that Huaweis relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is murky. Huawei maintains that it is privately owned, but Chinas intelligence law requires companies to cooperate with its security agencies and there is no recourse to resist doing so, as would be the case in a democratic country.

Its not a stretch to consider Beijings willingness to hold foreign critical infrastructure at risk to achieve its geopolitical goals, Rasser said.

There is strong bipartisan support for the current position on Huawei in the United States, said Tim Heath, senior international defence researcher at the RAND Corporation. And the stance needs to be viewed through the lens of Sino-U.S. competition.

There is a natural reason for the U.S. to also be concerned that China is investing so much effort to ensure it dominates this domain, Heath said.

Huawei is of paramount importance to the CCP as it aims to control technologies that will gain even greater prominence in the future. The Henry Jackson Society think tank advises the Five Eyes to solidify leadership in the area of networking and data communicationsone of its so-designated Future 9 technologies.

The interconnectedness of communications systems in North America makes Canadas decision on Huawei of paramount importance to the United States.

If we allow Huawei in, we will not only be damaging our national security, we would risk, because of its interoperability, that of the United States in a pretty direct way, Fadden said.

Heath said the United States does not want to seriously damage long-standing relationships like the Five Eyes but it is very serious about wanting its partners to think about the security implications of using Huawei for 5G.

Rasser said there will be curtailments of intelligence cooperation as a consequence, and for example, the United States will follow through on pulling the RC-135 spy planes out of the U.K.

Theres nothing that Huawei can do to change the U.S.s position on it, due to Chinas political system, he added.

The United States has sought reciprocityor fair tradefrom China, which has been reluctant to allow foreign companies to build out its own 5G network.

Australia, New Zealand, and the UK

The three non-North American Five Eyes members have taken three different approaches to Huawei as a 5G vendor, with New Zealands position appearing discordant.

New Zealand, the smallest member of the Five Eyes and most dependent on China, is in its early stages of rolling out 5G, going with Vodafone and Spark. However, Huawei has not been banned for good, explained Joe Burton, senior lecturer at the University of Waikatos New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science.

New Zealand is a net receiver of intelligencewhich comes mostly from the United Statesand Burton says it is keenly aware of its vulnerabilities to Sino-U.S. tensions and reliance on foreign vendors.

This whole dynamic  the Huawei Five Eyes debate, we dont want to be seen necessarily as taking sides, and this I think helps explain the strategic ambiguity in New Zealands approach, Burton said.

However, Britain has labelled Huawei a high-risk vendor and is excluding it from the core part of its 5G network while capping its involvement at 35 percent of non-core functions. Britain has sharpened its stance on Huawei during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and is also looking at phasing out Huawei completely from its 5G network by 2023.

In addition, the British government is moving toward being one of 10 democratic nations to develop their own 5G networksa D10 clubto reduce dependence on Huawei.

Huawei has been unsuccessful in lobbying Australia to be part of its telecommunications deployment for several years. Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was already lobbying Washington to ban the Chinese telecommunications giant before the United States toughened its position.

Capability might take the time to come  and develop, but intent can change in a heartbeat, said Patrick Walsh, associate professor of intelligence and security studies at Charles Sturt University in Australia, in describing Turnbulls advice to the United States.

Turnbulls biggest concern was Huawei technology turning against Australias best interest and jeopardizing the countrys critical infrastructure.

Chinese infiltration of Australias government, academia, and corporate sector has reached a tipping point, and Australia is battling back with foreign interference laws and strengthened examination of Beijings foreign investment there.

Australia was determined to ban Huawei, a high-risk vendor.

I dont see that decision being revisited, Walsh said.

Working on Improvements

Fadden and Walsh bemoaned their own countries not having a comprehensive China policy and winding up dealing with issues as they arrive on a piece-meal basis.

This method is then being reflected into the Five Eyes. The webinar panellists wanted to see a greater harnessing of the countries collective synergies for policy-making.

Id like to see more research and development innovation across the Five Eyes in parts of the 5G network and the technology thats going to support it, Burton said.

But in trying to get the Five Eyes to expand informallypossibly to include allies like Japan, South Korea, France, and GermanyFadden said he met with absolute total roadblocks.

Canadas large telecommunications companies are already making up their own minds, with Bell and Telus announcing on June 2 that they decided to partner with Huaweis rivalsEricsson and Nokia/Ericsson respectivelyto build their 5G offerings. Rogers was already partnering with Ericsson.

My view, to be clear, all of this is not about Huawei, but about China, Fadden said.
RAMALLAH, West Bank  Israel has been seeking to open direct communication channels with the Palestinians, in an attempt to weaken the decision of the Palestinian leadership, which President Mahmoud Abbas announced May 19, to disengage from all agreements with Israel, including the security and civil ties.

In this context, Israeli officials have created social media pages in Arabic, namely the Facebook page of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and that of the spokesman for the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee.

Israel is also attempting to communicate with Palestinian citizens through Israeli civil administration offices. It is betting on the Palestinians need for its civil and basic living services, as a bridge to communicate with them and sometimes to put pressure or blackmail them. Those needs include work permits or special permits for medical treatment in Israel, or electricity services for residential compounds and villages.

In the framework of this policy, COGAT's coordinator Kamil Abu Rukun announced on his Facebook page May 29 that his office would welcome workers from the West Bank seeking work permits, as of May 31, instead of them having to go to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee that handled this task previously.

Following the announcement, thousands of Palestinians in Hebron headed to the COGAT offices June 2 to get their work permits.

However, some Palestinians launched an online social media campaign earlier to unfollow the coordinator on social media. The campaign, dubbed Its Me or the Coordinator, received a wide response from thousands of Palestinians who unfollowed his page.

The coordinators page posts news and ads in Arabic, including the operation hours of the crossings and checkpoints, and the ways to receive entry permits to Israel for work or medical treatment. This reflects Israels interference in Palestinians lives and its control over their basic living situation.

A Palestinian government source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the Israeli authorities have started to communicate directly with some municipal councils to offer direct electricity and water services to Palestinians. The Israeli authorities are threatening whoever refuses to cooperate with blockade and deprivation of services, he added.

The source indicated that Israel wants to weaken the decision of the Palestinian leadership to withdraw from agreements with it by communicating directly with the Palestinians and showing that they do not respond to or abide by their leaderships decisions. After Abbas decision to end all agreements signed with Israel and the United States, Beit Iksa village northwest of Jerusalem faced an intensified Israeli blockade, as its municipal council abided by the Palestinian Authoritys (PA) decision to halt coordination with Israel and refused to cooperate with Israeli forces at Ras Badou checkpoint leading to the village. The municipal council team would normally be present at the checkpoint to facilitate the entry of citizens, but following Abbas decision, it withdrew. Consequently, Israel forbade citizens from entering.

Head of Beit Iksa municipal council Saada al-Khatib told Al-Monitor, After we left the checkpoint, the Israeli forces banned people from entering the town and prevented the entry of basic materials unless we returned to the checkpoint. It was a form of blackmail to force us to communicate directly with them, but we refused.

He added, The Israeli forces blockade on the town for the past few days stirred anger and objection from the 2,000 inhabitants of the village. We had to contact the Palestinian government to explain the situation, and it has allowed us to return to the checkpoint to facilitate the entry and exit of citizens since June 3.

Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities directly handed some village councils  such as Fasayel and Zubeidat in the Jordan Valley  for the first time, financial requests for the cost of increasing the electric current on May 26.

Dozens of local councils and Palestinian institutions, meanwhile, have been voicing their refusal to communicate directly with Israel and their commitment to the PAs decision. The Association of Palestinian Local Authorities announced in a May 31 press release that it would not coordinate with Israel stating that it stands by the PAs decisions. The Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce, the Union of Palestinian Industries and the Private Sector Coordinating Council shared the same opinion May 28.

The Palestinian leadership is well aware of the danger of the Israeli move to open direct communication channels with the Palestinians. This step would result in marginalization and neglect of the PA, and would bring back the powers and sovereignty of the Israeli civil administration over Palestinian areas.

Member of the PLO Executive Committee Wassel Abu Youssef told Al-Monitor that the PA is preparing itself for such scenarios and schemes. The PA realizes that Israel started to wage an open war against the Palestinians, following the decision to end all agreements. He noted that Israel is taking advantage of the Palestinians needs to open direct communication channels with them.

Abu Youssef noted that Israels measures were expected to prevent the PA from moving forward with its decision, but Israel will not succeed in imposing its conditions. He added that Israel has been seeking to create an alternative body to the PA through the civil and military administration to reimpose military rule on the Palestinians  but the Palestinians have expressed public refusal to deal directly with Israel.

Israels inclination to open direct communication channels with the Palestinians did not come as a surprise, as the Palestinians have experienced life under Israeli military rule and civil administration since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967 until the PA creation as per the Oslo Accord in 1993. With Palestinians resistance to communicate directly with Israel, the latter might impose collective sanctions on certain villages refusing this move, such as depriving them of services or imposing a blockade.
Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP), a non-government organisation for consumer protection, has written to aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri to issue fresh advisories to airlines and travel portals for air travel refunds in view of the June 4 United Nations (UN) guidelines.

Referring to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)s uniform guidelines for all UN member states, MGP on Tuesday requested the government to protect the rights of consumers by directing airlines to offer full refund on air tickets without cancellation charges on flights that did not operate due to government restrictions (even if the passengers have not applied for refund) and the ones who had to cancel their flight journey because of Covid-19.

It also asked the government to offer credit vouchers with extended validity only if it is acceptable to passengers. Currently, airlines are offering credit vouchers that are valid up to one year for the same sector. For instance, a passenger who had booked a Mumbai- Delhi flight for May 15 can fly until May 15, 2021 with no change in the destination airport along with additional ticket charges if applicable.

However, UNCTAD guidelines, issued last week, ask airlines to be fair to the consumers. MGP had earlier requested UNCTAD for the same in the interest of consumer rights. The NGO had requested UNCTAD to consider issuing uniform guidelines to UN member states to issue advisory for airlines protecting consumers right to refund and at the same time consider making the financial burden of airlines lighter by offering more flexible, transferable credit vouchers with longer validity without making it compulsory.

MGP in the letter to the minister said, We are very happy to inform you that UNCTAD secretariat has acceded our request and has issued guidelines dated 4th June 2020 for the UN member states (Copy enclosed herewith) which, in short, wants airlines to respect air passengers right to refund for flights cancelled due to lockdown and says that airlines should not deny refund of ticket amounts. Taking note of difficulties faced by airlines, UNCTAD guidelines also state that airlines may issue credit vouchers, on more attractive terms, for those passengers who are willing to accept the same.

The Union ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) had on April 16 directed airlines to refund ticket amounts to passengers without levying cancellation charges. However, the directions have not been seen to be followed by the airlines.

MGP urged Puri to refund the amount for passengers who booked the tickets not only during lockdown but also pre-lockdown and extended periods. The body has, hence, asked Puri to issue new revised guidelines for refund on air tickets for the flights which could not operate during lockdown period and also for the passengers, who had cancelled their travel plans as per governments advisories.

MGP had conducted a seven-day online survey of air passengers from India, the UAE, Kuwait, Georgia, France, the UK, the USA and Canada. The findings of the survey showed that 86% of respondents insisted on cash refund only and rejected the option of credit voucher.

The Survey has also revealed that large numbers of air travellers are contemplating to go to court of law for seeking legitimate refund. We are attaching herewith the important findings of this survey for your information, said advocate Shirish Deshpande, chairman of MGP.

MGP also suggested that the minister arrange a meeting with all the stakeholders, including all domestic and international airlines, travel agents and travel web portals by the ministry, within a week to discuss a mutually-accepted solution in the passengers interest.
The unsolved murder of former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was shot dead 34 years ago in downtown Stockholm, may be a step closer being solved.

The case's chief prosecutor, Krister Petersson, will hold a press conference Wednesday morning to present an update on the case.

Earlier this year, Petersson said he was "positive about being able to present what happened and who is responsible for it."

Palme was gunned down Feb. 28, 1986, after he and his wife Lisbeth Palme left a movie theater in Stockholm.

She was injured in the attack and later identified the shooter as criminal Christer Pettersson, who was convicted of Palme's murder.

But the sentence was later overturned, leaving the murder an unsolved mystery.

It is a coincidence that the names of the chief prosecutor and the main suspect who later died, are similar.

The murder shocked the nation and is shook the Scandinavian county's image, which until then had been that it was a nation so safe and peaceful that politicians could move around in public without protection.
Woolworths has been slapped down by Mosman Council for daring to compare the lower north shore suburb to Sydney's inner west over the supermarket giant's plans to gut boutique shops for a $5.3 million store.

Faced with community uproar over the prospect of a Woolworths Metro replacing shops on Mosman's high street, the council is scrutinising a plan residents fear will destroy the village atmosphere of Military Road.

Woolworths wants to turn existing shops on Military Road, Mosman, into a small supermarket. Credit:Louise Kennerley

Woolworths' development arm Fabcot lodged an application with the council for its plan to strip shops, including a noodle bar and a clothing boutique, for a Metro supermarket with a cafe, and 20 car spaces.

But the provision of parking is among concerns that council planners raised about the project last month, saying Woolworths must address them "to further progress the assessment of the application".
A dispute between a co-founder and managing director of the well-known Listoke Distillery and the company is to go to mediation.

Businesswoman Bronagh Conlon has brought High Court proceedings against Co Louth-based Listoke Distillery Limited, challenging her purported suspension from her position as the firm's managing director.

Ms Conlon, represented by Padraic Lyons Bl, had sought orders including an injunction lifting her suspension from duty on May 22 last. She also sought orders including a declaration her suspension, pending an investigation into the provenance of a shareholders agreement entered into in 2018, is invalid and not necessary.

Ms Conlon strongly denies any wrongdoing.

Her application for an injunction, which is opposed by the company represented by Marcus Dowling Bl, came before Mr Justice Garrett Simons yesterday.

Following discussions between the parties, Mr Lyons told the court his client's application for an injunction could be adjourned as the parties had agreed to enter mediation.

Retired Court of Appeal judge Mr Justice Michael Peart had been identified as the person to conduct the mediation, counsel said.

In addition counsel said both sides were agreeable to his client's suspension being lifted. Counsel said if the mediation does not resolve the matter, the parties will return to court later this month. Mr Dowling said his client was consenting to those steps.

Mr Justice Simons, after adjourning the matter, wished the parties every success in the mediation.

Listoke Distillery, located at Tenure, Dunleer, Co Louth, produces the Listoke 1777 brand of Irish gin and operates a gin school.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the business has stopped its regular activities and has been manufacturing hand sanitiser.
Pamukkale, a natural landmark tourist attraction in southwestern Turkey hopes to attract some 1 million tourists over the next six months after normalizing from the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Pamukkale is a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its mineral-rich thermal waters and white travertine terraces in Turkey's province of Denizli.

Gazi Murat Sen, the president of a local tourism and hotel management association, told Anadolu Agency that Pamukkale had reopened with strict measures against infection in an effort to host guests with high standards of hygiene.

Turkey began to gradually lift precautions designed to curb the spread of COVID-19 on June 1. So far, cafes, restaurants, beaches, parks and similar venues have been allowed to reopen.

Sen underlined that measures against COVID-19 in hotels were at the highest level, adding: "We don't think there will be any coronavirus cases thanks to the measures taken here."

Hotels are planning to host approximately 1 million tourists in the "white paradise" by the end of the year.

Nearly half of foreign tourists are expected to come from the Far East, Sen said, adding that ''as soon as passenger flights start flying from abroad again, these guests will come immediately.''

With the normalization process, hotels in Pamukkale expect to host approximately 600,000 guests from China, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Russia, he said.

The natural spring, situated at a close proximity to the white travertine terraces, is particularly popular with tourists. Dating from ancient Hierapolis, this pool formed naturally after the collapse of a series of columns in an earthquake in 692 AD, which caused thermal water to accumulate.

With its water temperature fixed at 36 C (96 F) year-round, the pool offers its visitors a unique experience to walk barefoot in its hot springs along the terraces, with believed healing benefits for cardiovascular diseases, rheumatism, skin and nerve diseases, as well as intestinal disorders when ingested.

Domestic flights have resumed in Turkey, where at least 137,969 patients from a total of 170,132 have recovered so far.

Turkey has conducted more than 2.33 million COVID-19 tests and the death toll in the country stands at 4,692.

Since first appearing in China last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 188 countries and regions.

The US, Brazil, Russia, and several European countries are currently the hardest hit in the world.

The pandemic has killed over 403,000 people worldwide, with more than 7.03 million confirmed cases and nearly 3.15 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University. (AA)
Its been over 24hrs and the drama surrounding Arch Bishop Duncan-Williams last born, Daniel Duncan Williams has come to an end as his family called the police on him while streaming live on Instagram.



Since yesterday, Dee Wills has been streaming on live from Twitter to Instagram and dropping shocking information about himself and family in the process. His brother Joe Duncan Williams reached out to him in of his live sessions to advice him get off social media but it fell on deaf ears.

In an update which was streamed live on his Instagram account, Police officers arrested Daniel Duncan Williams on the request of his family and explained they were taking him to the hospital for mental evaluation.

Watch the videos below.



This not funny anymore chale  pic.twitter.com/XJJdSWbR3E

 Coke MosDef  (@DefCoke) June 9, 2020









































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Chinas insects and other invertebrates are spoilt for choice with the countrys array of deserts, rainforests, mountains and tropical coastlines. The winning photographs of the Wild China Biodiversity Photography Contest hosted by Wild China Film present the countrys sweeping lands and rare plants from unexpected perspectives. Here is a pick of the crop

Jan 21, 2022 06:20 PM
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 23:28:29|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Turnover in "crafts with compulsory approval" in Germany increased by 3.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Wednesday.

The largest increase in Q1 revenues year-on-year of 14.2 percent was recorded in Germany's construction industry.

Although the construction sector had still been comparatively strong in Q1, the Central Association of German Construction Industry (ZDB) warned that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were "increasingly affecting the mood in the construction industry."

In May, activity in the construction sector was "largely unchanged" compared to the previous month, according to a ZDB company survey. Usually, the German construction industry would experience an upswing in the summer period.

On the other hand, Germany's automotive sector, which includes car dealers and mechanics, recorded a 2.5 percent loss in turnover. According to Destatis, the turnover of personal care services, such as hairdressers, declined by 3.2 percent.

Following the closure of around 80,000 hair salons this spring for around six weeks due to the COVID-19 crisis, the Central Association of the German Hairdressing Trade (ZV) welcomed the temporary reduction in value added tax, which was approved by the government last week.

The government's economic stimulus package worth 130 billion euros (148 billion U.S. dollars) is "intended to boost domestic consumption," said Joerg Mueller, general manager of ZV, adding "A good signal, also for the hairdressing trade." Enditem
Once upon a time in Pipelineistan, tales of woe were the norm. Shattered dreams littered the chessboard  from IPI vs. TAPI in the AfPak realm to the neck-twisting Nabucco opera in Europe.

In sharp contrast, whenever China entered the picture, successful completion prevailed. Beijing financed a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Xinjiang, finished in 2009, and will profit from two spectacular Power of Siberia deals with Russia.

And then theres Ukraine. Maidan was a project of the Barack Obama administration, featuring a sterling cast led by POTUS, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John McCain and last but not least, prime Kiev cookie distributor Victoria F**k the EU Nuland.

Ukraine was also supposed to prevent Russia from deepening energy ties with Germany, as well as other European destinations.

Well, it did not exactly play like that. Nord Stream was already operational. South Stream was Gazproms project to southeast Europe. Relentless pressure by the Obama administration derailed it. Yet that only worked to enable a resurrection: the already completed TurkStream, with gas starting to flow in January 2020.

The battlefield then changed to Nord Stream 2. This time relentless Donald Trump administration pressure did not derail it. On the contrary: it will be completed by the end of 2020.

Richard Grennel, the US ambassador to Germany, branded a superstar by President Trump, was furious. True to script, he threatened Nordstream 2 partners  ENGIE, OMV, Royal Dutch Shell, Uniper, and Wintershall  with new sanctions.

Worse: he stressed that Germany must stop feeding the beast at a time when it does not pay enough to NATO.

Feeding the beast is not exactly subtle code for energy trade with Russia.

Peter Altmaier, German minister of economic affairs and energy, was not impressed. Berlin does not recognize any legality in extra-territorial sanctions.

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Grennel, on top of it, is not exactly popular in Berlin. Diplomats popped the champagne when they knew he was going back home to become the head of US national intelligence.

Trump administration sanctions delayed Nordstream 2 for around one year, at best. What really matters is that in this interval Kiev had to sign a gas transit deal with Gazprom. What no one is talking about is that by 2025 no Russian gas will be transiting across Ukraine towards Europe.

So the whole Maidan project was in fact useless.

Its a running joke in Brussels that the EU never had and will never have a unified energy policy towards Russia. The EU came up with a gas directive to force the ownership of Nord Stream 2 to be separated from the gas flowing through the pipeline. German courts applied their own nein.

Nord Stream 2 is a serious matter of national energy security for Germany. And that is enough to trump whatever Brussels may concoct.

And dont forget Siberia

The moral of this fable is that now two key Pipelineistan nodes  Turk Stream and Nord Stream 2  are established as umbilical steel cords linking Russia with two NATO allies.

And true to proverbial win-win scripts, now its also time for China to look into solidifying its European relations.

Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese premier Li Keqiang had a video conference to discuss Covid-19 and China-EU economic policy.

That was a day after Merkel and President Xi had spoken, when they agreed that the China-EU summit in Leipzig on September 14 would have to be postponed.

This summit should be the climax of the German presidency of the EU, which starts on July 1. Thats when Germany would be able to present a unified policy towards China, uniting in theory the 27 EU members and not only the 17+1 from Central Europe and the Balkans  including 11 EU members  that already have a privileged relationship with Beijing and are on board for the Belt and Road Initiative.

In contrast with the Trump administration, Merkel does privilege a clear, comprehensive trade partnership with China  way beyond a mere photo op summit. Berlin is way more geoeconomically sophisticated than the vague engagement and exigence Paris approach.

Merkel as well as Xi are fully aware of the imminent fragmentation of the world economy post-Lockdown. Yet as much as Beijing is ready to abandon the global circulation strategy from which it has handsomely profited for the past two decades, the emphasis is also on refining very close trade relations with Europe.

Ray McGovern has concisely detailed the current state of US-Russia relations. The heart of the whole matter, from Moscows point of view, was summarized by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, an extremely able diplomat:

We dont believe the US in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever. So our own calculations and conclusions are less related to what America is doing . We cherish our close and friendly relations with China. We do regard this as a comprehensive strategic partnership in different areas, and we intend to develop it further.

Its all here. Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership steadily advancing. Including Power of Siberia Pipelineistan. Plus Pipelineistan linking two key NATO allies. Sanctions? What sanctions?

Pepe Escobar is correspondent-at-large at Asia Times. His latest book is 2030. Follow him on Facebook.-
Intel Lakefield are the first processors to make use of Intel's Foveros chip stacking technology to combine big mainstream cores with small power efficient ones.

Intel Lakefield, the first mobile processors from Intel to use their Foveros technology is finally here and by the looks of it, is designed to help Intel win back the crown. Foveros is a chip stacking technology that allows Intel to combine their mainstream CPU cores with some of their low-power CPU cores to produce hybrid CPUs in sort of the way ARM does with their big.LITTLE technology. Todays announcement revolves around two processors, the Core i5-L16G7 and the Core i3-L13G4 which use one 10nm Sunny Cove big core with four 10nm Tremont small cores. There isnt any information regarding any Core i7 or Core i9 variant so one could assume that the best of Lakefield is yet to come.

Lakefield was first announced by Intel at their 2019 CES keynote session and Intel set out some rather ambitious goals for Lakefield when it introduced the Foveros concept. These included a level of power efficiency that would consume 1/10th of the Standby Power of their existing architecture, get up to 50% more graphics performance while reducing the overall area occupied by 40%. That goes for the z-height (40% reduction) as well. The overall design goals in laymans terms would be to make powerful laptops that are smaller while consuming less power. Did Lakefield achieve those goals? Well have to wait for the official benchmarks but for now these are what Intel claims.

Intel Lakefield hybrid processors

Lakefield processors are the first from Intel to ship with package-on-package (PoP) memory which means the PCBs of these devices can take up less space. Moreover the standby power can go as low as 2.5 mW which is supposedly a reduction of 91% compared to Y-series processors. They also have two display pipes natively which allows dual display form factors to be built with individually addressable parameters. These will allow manufacturers to build smaller computers than before.

Chris Walker, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of Mobile Client Platform said, Intel Core processors with Intel Hybrid Technology are the touchstone of Intels vision for advancing the PC industry by taking an experience-based approach to designing silicon with a unique combination of architectures and IPs. Combined with Intels deepened co-engineering with our partners, these processors unlock the potential for innovative device categories of the future.

The two processors announced today have the following specifications:

- Core i5-L16G7, Intel Gen11 UHD Graphics with 64 Execution Units, 5 Cores, 5 Threads, 4 MB Cache, 7W TDP, 1.4 GHz Base Frequency, 3.0 GHz Max single core Turbo frequency, 1.8 GHz Max all core Turbo frequency, 0.5 GHz Max Graphics frequency, Support for LPDDR4X-4267 memory

- Core i5-L13G4, Intel Gen11 UHD Graphics with 48 Execution Units, 5 Cores, 5 Threads, 4 MB Cache, 7W TDP, 0.8 GHz Base Frequency, 2.8 GHz Max single core Turbo frequency, 1.3 GHz Max all core Turbo frequency, 0.5 GHz Max Graphics frequency, Support for LPDDR4X-4267 memory

How small are we talking?

Lakefield processors are smaller than their older counterparts by a large margin. Compared to the Amber Lake-Y Intel Core i7 8500Y, the Lakefield Core i5-L16G7 package is 56% smaller and the entire board takes 47% less space. The Core i7 8500Y is an older gen Core i7 processor thats much larger than a Core i5 processor so one could claim that its not the right processor for the comparison. However, even the Core i5 Amber Lake-Y processors have the same package size so the comparison still holds. If we were to compare a more recent Y-series processor then the space savings seem even more impressive. An apt comparison would be the Intel Core i5-10210Y. The Core i5-10210Y takes up 2.65cm x 1.85cm of space which translates to 4.9 sq. cm. The 8500Y takes up 3.3 sq cm and the Core i5-L16G7 is 56% smaller so that gives us the package area of the Lakefield Core i5-L16G7 as 1.44 sq. cm. Compared with the Core i5-10210Y, its about a ridiculous 70.6% smaller. From the perspective of thread count, this wouldnt be an apt comparison given that the 10210Y is a 4C/8T processor whereas the L16G7 is a 5C/5T processor. So we really need some proper benchmarks before we can figure out which processor to compare the new Lakefield ones against.

Early benchmarks

The Lakefield Core i5-L16G7 was spotted earlier this year on UserBench with a score of 50.3% above average. A variant, the Core i5-L15G7 popped up on GeekBench with a single threaded score of 725 points and a multi-core score of 1566 points. If we were to compare it with the Core i7-8500Y, it doesn't seem impressive given that the 8500Y scores 3990 points on the single-core and 6150 points on the multi-core benchmark. We should point out that these scores were spotted a long time ago and there would obviously have been improvements since then but not to the extent of besting the 8500Y.

Availability

Devices powered by Intel Lakefield processors will be available starting from the Galaxy Book S thats shipping in US markets June 2020 onwards to the Lenovo Thinkpad Fold X1 thats slated for release later this year.
FRANKFURT, Germany, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As business and leisure guests are steadily returning to Pentahotels, the team at Penta has implemented new 'distance proof' operational measures, guaranteeing guests a safe stay while still providing their relaxed neighbourhood lifestyle vibe. The brand used the lockdown period to prepare for a safe return of its guests, deconstructing and reassembling its entire scope of products and services to provide maximum safety. The result is an enhanced experience with many added benefits for the guests of Pentahotels.

Rogier Braakman, Managing Director of Penta Hotels Worldwide, joined the company in February and has been leading Penta through these challenging times. "Knowing that you are safe while travelling is the most important factor when making a journey," he states. "This is why our most important message to our guests is: we did not rest; we worked hard in all areas of our hotels to remain your choice for a safe and worry-free stay."

Rogier adds: "We have implemented new hygiene and safety standards without jeopardising the special Penta spirit that our guests will still enjoy. We call this new set of measures 'Between Us'. 'Between Us' represents our belief that despite the current situation, something very positive is happening among mankind. It is that special bond we have with our guests and within our teams that, while still respecting physical distance, brings us closer together and makes it work - between us."

To create 'Between Us', Penta studied the regulations and best practices in its different markets and worked together with international health and safety advisors to develop a new operating standard. The brand has already trialled these measures in some locations with much success. The past weeks have been used to forge new partnerships, such as the one with Dutch aviation supplier Foodcase International BV - for guest hygiene kits and F&B solutions; and also to introduce great tools like the an intuitive training app from Knowingo, to train and certify staff on COVID-19 containment.

All reopening dates and information on the new measures can be found at www.pentahotels.com/betweenus.

Interview with Andrew Munt, Chief of Operations at Penta

Q: Andrew, all these measures that travellers are confronted with these days it feels that travelling used to be a more fun before the COVID-19 pandemic, right?

A: Anyone who travels needs to be sure that it is safe to do so and we wanted to actively show the newly implemented safety measures. Our approach aimed to do this while still keeping the inviting, friendly, light-hearted and entertaining spirit of the brand that is Penta.

Q: How do you build the bridge between a safe stay and the Penta experience?

A: First, we deeply reviewed the entire hotel experience. We refined existing procedures and concentrated on those that make a difference to the health and safety of our guests.

All new measures are themed 'Between Us', which is much more than just a catchy phrase. 'Between Us' guides you through the entire guest journey; before arrival, during the stay and after departure.

Q: And where is the fun?

A: The fun starts even before the guest arrives. We created video briefings similar to those explaining the safety features of a plane. Mixed with our own sense of humour of course. Upon arrival, the guest receives a complimentary safety kit, and there is much more for our guests that will help to make it work 'Between Us'.

We designed new routines that appear simple and intuitive to our guests. 'Between Us' should help us reconnect. Everything 'Between Us' should turn the negative into something positive. Something fun.

Q: Is there anything you would like to add?

A: Yes. In the past month, we have seen the personal sacrifices and the uncertainty, but also the commitment, the positivity and the team spirit from everyone who has worked towards the reopening of our hotels. We all worked hard for this moment and it is a great honour welcoming our guests back to a more resilient and even better Penta than before.

To receive the full interview please get in touch with [email protected]. It features the following additional information:

The Naked Room

Recommendations for Travellers

Adjusted standards for Meeting and Events

Acceptance of Cashless Payments

New App Features

Penta represents a new generation of neighbourhood lifestyle hotels offering modern-minded individuals and business travellers comfort and style in a relaxed atmosphere. Known for its unique interior design and attitude, the lifestyle brand stands for true innovation in the industry's upper-midscale segment. With 28 operating hotels under the brand across Europe and Asia, the hallmark of the hotel chain is the Pentalounge  a combination of lounge, bar, cafe and reception  that stands out with its "living room" look and feel. For further information and bookings, please visit www.pentahotels.com. Follow us on facebook.com/pentahotels and instagram.com/pentahotels for our latest news.

- Picture available at AP Images (http://www.apimages.com) 

Global Marketing & Communications

Phone: +49 (0) 69 256699 760

E-Mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Pentahotels
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany reiterated Wednesday that President Trump considers ending qualified immunity for police officers a non-starter as discussions about police reform continue in the wake of George Floyds death.

McEnanys comments come after she said Monday that qualified immunity  which shields cops from being sued in court for violating a civilians constitutional rights, unless their actions violated clearly established federal law  was not something the president would consider.

You had AG Barr saying this weekend he was asked about reduced immunity and he said, I dont think we need to reduce immunity to go after the bad cops because that would result certainly in police pulling back, which is not advisable, McEnany said, referencing an interview Barr gave to CBS Newss Face the Nation. I dont think you need to reduce immunity to . . . to go after the bad cops, because that would result certainly in police pulling back, Barr told Margaret Brennan.

Democrats have already released a proposal for police reform that does call for ending qualified immunity, while also amending the standard of prosecution for police misconduct from willfulness to recklessness. The White House is currently reviewing a number of proposals, in consultation with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.), the lone black Republican in the Senate, has been tasked with leading the GOP effort to pass a police-reform bill before July 4, and has also ruled out reforming qualified immunity.

We are on a separate track from White House, Scott told reporters. I have been talking with folks in the White House about the track theyre on as well. Certainly there is a way for us all to work together, but weve been in discussion with them for several days.

More from National Review
GLICO GROUP, a dynamic pacesetter in the insurance and finance industry has presented essential hospital items and equipment to the Ghana Air Force as part of its efforts to stop the spread and manage the infections of COVID-19. The presentation was made at the Ghana Air Force Headquarters, Burma Camp in Accra.



Presenting the items on behalf of GLICO GROUP, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Edward Forkuo Kyei indicated that GLICO, as a Ghanaian-owned company cannot sit unconcerned when the country is going through a crisis. The security and safety of our nation is paramount now and we believe that this donation of medical equipment and hospital essentials will go a long way to support the fight against this deadly virus for the good of the Ghana Armed Forces and Ghanaians at large.



Mr. Forkuo Kyei further thanked the Ghana Air Force for the significant role they played in enforcing the lock-down policies which significantly helped in what would have been an enormous spread of the COVID-19. He also commended the Ghana Air Force for innovatively building an automatic handwashing machine to ensure adherence to the COVID-19 health protocols.



He stressed that COVID-19 has brought about opportunities for Ghanaians to innovate and recommended that the automatic handwashing machine should be made available for use by other institutions.



The Ghana Air Forces Chief of Air staff, Air Vice Marshal Frank Hanson lead a delegation to receive the items. He commented that GLICO has been one of the lifelines to the Ghana Air Force. Not only has GLICO provided insurance solutions to protect the lives of new recruits and personnel in the Ghana Air Force, but has also provided valuable support in the provision of equipment and operational essentials. We take this opportunity to say thank you to GLICO for their constant support and promise that this donation will be put to good use as we fight COVID-19 together.



The brief ceremony saw in attendance from the Ghana Air Force, other key officers such as the Air Officer in Charge of Special Duties at the Office of the President - Air Vice Marshal Fred Bekoe, the Chief of Staff - Air Commodore J. A. Ashrifie, the Acting Base Commander, Airforce Base - Group Captain Adu-Gyamfi, the Acting Base Commander, Air Force Base Tamale - Group Captain David Akrong and the Director General of the Ghana Armed Forces Medical Services - Brigadier General Ernest Saka.



Supporting the Chief Executive Officer of GLICO to make the donation to the Ghana Air Force were the Managing Director of GLICO LIFE - Mrs. Maame Dufie Achampong-Kyei Obeng, the GROUP Executive Director for Business Development - Mr. Stephen Badu, the Group head, Corporate Affairs & Digital Marketing - Nana Efua Rockson, the Chief Sales Officer for GLICO LIFE - Mr. Joseph Sefah-Duah and the Chief Business Support Manager for GLICO LIF - Mr. John Ekar Smart.



Instructively, since the detection of COVID-19 in Ghana, GLICO GROUP has made it a necessity to reduce the pain points of its various stakeholders in fighting the spread of the dreaded virus. GLICO assisted the Vice-Presidents feed a kayaye project by sending trucks of food to the Agbogloshie market area and its environs. GLICO has also provided free hospitalization benefits to all its policyholders who may be hospitalized as a result of the COVID-19 up to 31st July 2020.



Additionally, GLICO donated various essential items to the Ghana Prisons Service to assist in measures taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, GLICO partnered with the Ghana Armed Forces to fly airplanes with the inscription: #StayHome #StaySafe to educate Ghanaians to stay at home during the mandatory lockdown period.



It is worth noting, that GLICO is a group of six insurance and finance companies committed to providing insurance solutions to cushion its customers for life, especially in this unprecedented COVID-19 period.

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Beijing dismissed as ridiculous a Harvard Medical School study of hospital traffic and search engine data that suggested the new coronavirus may already have been spreading in China last August, and scientists said it offered no convincing evidence of when the outbreak began.

The research, which has not been peer-reviewed by other scientists, used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan - where the disease was first identified in late 2019 - and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as cough and diarrhoea.

The studys authors said increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the coronavirus pandemic in December 2019.

While we cannot confirm if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, our evidence supports other recent work showing that emergence happened before identification at the Huanan Seafood market (in Wuhan), they said.

Paul Digard, an expert in virology at the University of Edinburgh, said that using search engine data and satellite imagery of hospital traffic to detect disease outbreaks is an interesting idea with some validity.

But he said the data were only correlative and - as the Harvard scientists noted - cannot identify the cause.

Its an interesting piece of work, but Im not sure it takes us much further forward, said Keith Neal, a professor of the epidemiology of infectious diseases at Britains Nottingham University.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, asked about the research at a news briefing on Tuesday, said: I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume.

The Harvard research, which was posted online as a so-called preprint, showed a steep increase in hospital car park occupancy in August 2019.

In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhoea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data, it said.

Neal said the study included traffic around at least one childrens hospital and that while children do get ill with flu, they do not tend to get sick with COVID-19.

Digard cautioned that by focusing only on hospitals in Wuhan, already known to be the epicentre of the outbreak, the study forces the correlation.

It would have been interesting - and possibly much more convincing - to have seen control analyses of other Chinese cities outside of the Hubei region, he said.

Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the research method is not validated and is very indirect and imprecise.

Topol, who was not involved with the research, said he doubts the outbreak began in August, based on the evidence he has seen so far. He and others pointed to genetic evidence suggesting the virus made the leap from an animal host to humans sometime in the fall.

I dont know about the August start, said Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who was not involved in the study.

Its clear this had been spreading for some time before it was recognized and reported to the World Health Organization in December.
Honda Certified Website and Digital Marketing Provider

Dealer eProcess is proud to announce that it is now part of the Honda Certified Website and Digital Marketing programs. Honda dealers now have the ability to enjoy all the latest tools and features that Dealer eProcess has to offer and stay within their OEM program guidelines.

As part of the program, Dealer eProcess dealers get to choose from unique Honda website designs that are fully responsive and ADA compliant in addition to featuring SSL security. There are high-converting elements within each section of the websites, from the user-focused SRP (Search Results Page) and advanced VDP (Vehicle Details Page) to several different Chat options. Dealers will be able to target their unique set of customers with SEO packages and encourage online shopping with SPARC (Syndicated Payment and Rate Customizer), a tool that provides data-driven payments. Honda dealers can also utilize Dealer eProcess robust dashboard that includes in-depth reporting, lead information, website management, and customization, all in a user-friendly format.

With Honda Certified Digital marketing, capturing customers ready to take home a new vehicle, research a used vehicle, or schedule a service can be done in numerous ways. Dealer eProcess digital marketing includes Dynamic Inventory Based Search Marketing, Market Protection with Geo/Local Campaigns, and Dynamic Inventory Based Remarketing. Social Media options cover Waze, Facebook, and YouTube, along with Google Posts to increase both branding and visibility. Data transparency with tools such as CARoi are key elements that ensure dealers can monitor progress with all of their marketing campaigns and overall website strategies.

Honda Certified Website and Digital Marketing options through Dealer eProcess are available immediately. To learn more about available products and packages, please visit the program page on the Dealer eProcess website. You can also schedule a demo or contact the DEP sales team at 877-551-2555.

About Dealer eProcess

Dealer eProcess is the industry leader in automotive websites and digital marketing. Dealer eProcess has won dozens of awards and is recognized by the experts as the most technologically-superior website and digital marketing solution for automotive dealers. Along with being a recognized leader in and award-winner, Dealer eProcess has also partnered with the best in the business to offer their dealers the most complete digital solution available. Dealer eProcess is a Google Premier Partner, Yahoo/Bing Select Partner, a Reynolds & Reynolds certified provider, and has partnered with numerous other industry-leading solutions. Dealer eProcess is headquartered just outside of Chicago, IL, and has offices in Washington and Arizona. You can learn more about Dealer eProcess on their website: http://www.dealereprocess.com.
Victoria Derbyshire was involved in a robust exchange with a Tory MP on Wednesday over the reopening of schools.

The BBC journalist asked education select committee member Tom Hunt whether he felt the government had done enough in getting primary school children back to class.

Next week parents will be able to take their kids into McDonalds restaurants, said Ms Derbyshire. Next month most parents wont be able to take their children back to school in England. Does that make sense to you?

Mr Hunt said that he has been disappointed by the lack of progress on resuming lessons for primary school children, but refused to criticise his boss in Downing Street, instead blaming unions for their lack of cooperation.

Well I think that some of the largest teaching unions  such as the National Education Union  they havent been particularly productive and positive in the discussions, said Hunt.

I have to be honest with you, I think the vast majority of those involved in education are motivated by what is in the best interests of the children.

But unfortunately, Ive come to the conclusion that there does seem to be many people, particularly those involved at senior levels in teaching unions, who seem to be more motivated by scoring political points than getting as many children as possible back to school.

Asked what evidence he had to back up his claim, the MP accused the National Education Union of actively discouraging teachers from conducting online lessons.

Hunt was then asked by Derbyshire who exactly had made the comment, to which he replied: Ive got the quote... but added that it was not to hand.

Mr Hunt said that it will be children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds that suffer the most as a result of the continued closure of schools and reiterated that his passion for education.

Well do something about it then, the presenter replied.

Earlier this week, the government abandoned its pledge to get all primary school children back to class before the summer.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce on Wednesday that zoos, safari parks and drive-in cinemas in England can join non-essential shops in throwing open their doors as part of the relaxation of the coronavirus lockdown on 15 June.
What just happened? Bang & Olufsen, perhaps best known in tech circles for its partnership with HP, has joined forces with Microsoft to create new audio gear under the Designed for Xbox hardware program.

Designed for Xbox is a licensing program that was introduced with the launch of the original Xbox in 2001. Partners are given access to Xbox guidelines, specifications and IP, and gain valuable internal connections as well as prominent placing on the Xbox storefront.

Christoffer Poulsen, vice president and head of product management at Bang & Olufsen, said that by entering the gaming industry, they want to do what they do best: delivering outstanding sound performance wrapped in astonishing design and solid craftsmanship.

Poulsen added that they see big commercial potential in gaming and with Xbox, they believe they have found the ideal partner to realize that potential.

No specific Bang & Olufsen products were mentioned in the announcement although based on the language used by Matt Kesselring, head of hardware partnerships at Xbox, its possible that any new products will be reserved exclusively for the upcoming Xbox Series X.

Were excited for the launch of Xbox Series X later this year and ushering in the next generation of gaming. As we march towards release  were excited to partner with Bang & Olufsen to bring a new premium tier of gaming audio to market for Xbox and Bang & Olufsen fans around the world that travels with you everywhere you love to play Xbox.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed earlier this week that the Xbox Series X was still on track to launch later this year. That said, Covid-19 work-from-home orders could have an impact on first-party and third-party games, the executive noted.

Masthead credit: Emil O
People walk down 16th street after Mayor Muriel Bowser had "Black Lives Matter" painted on the street near the White House on June 5, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Black Lives Matter Began With Claim of Systemic Racism

News Analysis

The Black Lives Matter movement, which has come to be associated with recent race riots following the death of George Floyd, has become an influential player in U.S. politics, as it has gained a following by claiming that blacks are systematically targeted for demise.

The radical left-wing movement, which calls for defunding the police and providing blacks with reparations because their ancestors were enslaved before the Civil War, has grown so powerful that Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser had the words Black Lives Matter painted in huge yellow letters on the asphalt of 16th Street NW in front of the White House, in time for a large protest June 6. The sign has inspired imitation, with such signs planned for all five New York City boroughs.

While Black Lives Matter (BLM) commands respect for its political pull on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers are vastly more supportive of it than Republicans. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and 2016 presidential candidate, stood out on the GOP side by marching with protesters from the movement recently.

The Democratic National Committee officially endorsed Black Lives Matter in 2015 and has becoming increasingly supportive of the identity politics-driven activism that became common during the Obama years. Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama honored the movement by repeatedly inviting its leaders to the White House.

President Donald Trump, like politicians across the country, has condemned the killing of Floyd. He said June 1 that he was an ally of all peaceful protesters.

President Donald Trump delivers the commencement address at the 2020 US Military Academy Graduation Ceremony at West Point, N.Y., on June 13, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

But on the campaign trail in 2015, he made it clear he wasnt a fan of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I think theyre trouble. I think theyre looking for trouble, he said. I looked at a couple of the people that were interviewed from the group.

I saw them with hate coming down the street last week talking about cops and police, and what should be done to them. And that was not good. And I think its a disgrace that theyre getting away with it.

Black Lives Matter Founded

This movement, now at the center of often-violent protests in cities across the United States, grew out of the death of black teen Trayvon Martin.

On April 11, 2012, George Zimmerman was charged with the second-degree murder of Martin, but the case against him eventually fell apart as it became clear that Martin had been the aggressor. A jury acquitted Zimmerman in July 2013.

The case against Zimmerman was the seminal race hoax of the Obama years, said documentary filmmaker Joel Gilbert. His movie, The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud That Divided America, was released last year.

In 2013, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi drew upon outrage over the Martin case to found Black Lives Matter.

I created #BlackLivesMatter with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, two of my sisters, as a call to action for Black people after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed, Garza wrote at The Feminist Wire in 2014.

It was a response to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society, she wrote. Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.

Cullors in a recent interview says Black Live Matter has an ideological frame and describes herself and Garza as trained Marxists.

Initially created as an online platform to facilitate activism, according to Discover the Networks, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter quickly became popular on Twitter. It became a rallying cry for activists as they decried what they called the virulent anti-black racism that permeates our society.

Garza calls herself a queer and is a social-justice activist. She admires the Marxist revolutionary, former Black Panther, and convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur for her contributions to the Black Liberation Movement. Garza also reveres Angela Davis, a former Black Panther who ran for vice president in 1980 and 1984 on the Communist Party USA ticket, with Gus Hall.

Cullors calls herself an artist, organizer and freedom fighter who is trying to reform the nations supposedly racist criminal justice system. She told Vice.com that when she was 16, she came out as queer, was kicked out of home, and made close connections with a bunch of other young queer women of color who, like her, had to grapple with the challenges of poverty [and] being black and brown in the USA.

Cullors has said shes focused on combating what she terms the current system of white supremacy and anti-blackness that imposes state violence on black Americans.

As a college student, Tometi volunteered for an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) project that tracked what it characterized as vigilantes who aimed to prevent illegal aliens from coming to the United States.

In 2011, she became a national organizer for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, a George Soros-funded organization that aims to support immigrant rights and racial justice. Her bio on the groups website describes her as a Black feminist writer, communications strategist and cultural organizer.

Violence

Although Black Lives Matter portrays itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner-city frustration,  it is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded socialist/communist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades, according to Maryland-based researcher James Simpson, formerly a contributor to The Epoch Times and now a candidate for Congress.

The movement claims to be nonviolent.

The Black Lives Matter Network advocates for dignity, justice, and respect.  Black activists have raised the call for an end to violence, not an escalation of it, it states on its website, BlackLivesMatter.com.

Yet Black Lives Matter activists often urge and perpetrate violence against police.

The recent protests and the accompanying rioting and looting in hundreds of U.S. cities have caused commentators to compare 2020 to 1968, the last year that saw such widespread civil unrest, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.

Critics say that Black Lives Matter, which has been securing large donations from the corporate world in what may indicate a significant cultural shift in the country, has been violent from the outset.

In 2016, its activists shut down an interstate highway in St. Paul, Minnesota, for five hours, Simpson wrote. During the demonstration, rocks, steel pipes, and fireworks injured police. One officers spine was fractured after a concrete block was dropped on his head.

At a Minneapolis fair protest the year before, its activists shouted, Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon!

The movement grew after another black teen, Michael Brown, was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Brown was shot after he tried to grab the officers gun during an altercation.

Black Lives Matter soon adopted the slogan Hands UpDont Shoot!, which was based on a story, later proven false, that Brown had been killed after raising his hands to surrender and saying Dont shoot, according to Discover the Networks.

Officials appointed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder investigated the killing and concluded that the officer had acted in self-defense.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Black Lives Matter organization for comment, but it didnt immediately respond. Numerous professors who have expressed support for the movement also failed to respond to inquiries.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the date on which George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder. The date was April 11, 2012. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Nigerians who justify rape now run the risk of getting arrested as suspects, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has said.

Julie Okah-Donli, the agencys Director-General said this while answering questions from journalists in Abuja on Wednesday.

She queried parents for not doing enough to take care of their wards and children, explaining that 90 per cent of rape cases were committed by uncles, fathers and relations.

According to her, many careless acts by parents are responsible for rape cases across the country.

She, therefore, said that the agency would approach the Ministry of Justice to push for the establishment of special court to try rapists.

Mrs Okah-Donli also called for life imprisonment instead of capital punishment for convicted rapists, adding that there was need to educate Nigerians, especially neighbours on rape issues.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the agencys toll-free lines to call during distress, especially as it concerns rape are  07030000203, 0802255627847 and 08077225566.

The NAPTIP boss said that cases could also be reported on social media platforms such as the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, among others.

She, however, said that there was no national template of victims trauma response to share pain, adding that the duration of psychological trauma varies from individuals. (NAN)
She's been flirting up a storm with Daniel Gorringe from the moment they entered the Big Brother Australia house on Sunday.

And Talia Rycroft's secret crush is set to develop into a full-blown obsession as the series continues - according to new evictee Allan Liang.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday, Allan claimed Talia, 22, was less-than-subtle when it came to displaying her feelings for the former AFL player, 27.

Big Brother EXCLUSIVE: Evictee Allan Liang, 30, claims Talia Rycroft, 22, (left) was 'OBSESSED' with Daniel Gorringe, 27, (right) and 'cried at night because she loved him so much'

'She was obsessed with him,' the corporate salesman exclaimed.

'She came in the house on day one as a white blonde girl and turned brown. And that wasn't from the sun, it was because she was just up his ar** the whole time', he joked, adding: 'She loved him and frothed all over him.'

Allan claimed that Talia was so obsessed with Daniel that she even shed tears over him late at night.

'She was obsessed with him': Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday, Allan (pictured) claimed Talia was less-than-subtle when it came to displaying her feelings for the former AFL player

'She woke up one night and started to cry': Allan claimed that Talia was so obsessed with Daniel that she even shed tears over him late at night

'She woke up one night and started to cry because she liked some boy in the outside world and now liked Daniel. She had someone that she liked but didn't know where they were at, then she started to like Daniel,' he divulged.

Unfortunately, it seems things don't work out romantically between Talia and Daniel.

Daily Mail Australia understands that Daniel reunited with his ex-girlfriend Ana Canon reunited as soon as he returned home to Victoria once filming wrapped at the start of April.

Flirtfest: Talia has been flirting up a storm Daniel from the moment they entered the Big Brother Australia house on Sunday

Daniel made his intentions to go back to Ana clear during Sunday night's episode, when he told host Sonia Kruger he wanted to get back together with someone in Melbourne.

In an Instagram post on Monday night, Ana confirmed she had indeed reunited with Daniel since the show wrapped filming.

As she prepared to watch the first episode with Daniel, Ana wrote: 'We didn't go into this experience as a couple but we came out stronger than ever.

Love life: Daniel's on-off girlfriend, Ana Canon (right), meanwhile spoke out after he said he wanted to 'get back with her' during Monday's season premiere. Pictured together

'Nothing like enforced radio silence and a bit of help from love doctor Big Brother to sort out the relationship demons. I couldn't be more proud of you, Daniel, and I'm so excited for you to share your amazing (and often idiotic) soul with Australia.'

At the start of Monday's episode, Daniel said: 'I am single, but there's somebody on the outside that I want to try and get back with.'

'We came out stronger': In an Instagram post on Monday night, Ana confirmed she had indeed reunited with Daniel after he returned home in early April

The couple are believed to have first started dating in early 2019.

Daniel's reunion with Ana suggests that his flirty friendship with Talia on Big Brother will soon fizzle out on the show.

During Monday's season premiere, Talia discussed her connection with Daniel with Big Brother, saying she was unsure 'if he liked her' back.

Going strong: Daily Mail Australia understands that Daniel and Ana got back together as soon as he returned home to Victoria once filming wrapped in early April

'I just feel like he doesn't like me? I've done nothing wrong. He's a difficult one to read. I don't know what he's thinking. But he's a really cool dude, and I'd like to get to know him more,' said the Adelaide tradie.

Talia later confronted Daniel about his feelings towards her, asking: 'This is awkward. You make me feel confused. I'm like, "Does this guy like me?"'

Daniel responded: 'No, I like you. I like you more than most in here already. Don't stress, it's all good.'

Big Brother continues Wednesday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven
TDT | Manama

Export Bahrain, a key initiative of the Kingdoms national SME Development Board, has facilitated local exporters to go global and expand into international export markets. It has reported that in the span of 18 months, via its export-focused solutions, Export Bahrain has facilitated over $32million worth of exports across more than 26 various product and service categories to over 32 markets worldwide.

The initiative reinforced and increased export opportunities for current and potential exporters, which included over 25 per cent of exporters entering new markets and over 30 per cent being first-time exporters, where over 15 per cent represented service exports.

In line with Export Bahrains commitment to ensure that Bahraini companies embrace world markets, multiple sectors were assisted to export various product and service categories. The initiative played a critical role in extending Bahraini local products and services to other markets and positioning them as future competitors among other global brands.

To date, Export Bahrain has helped exporters reach global markets including the GCC, Europe, Asia, MENA, Africa as well as North and South America. Exporters can tap into substantial export opportunities and access global markets quickly and efficiently through Export Bahrains solutions, which simplifies the entire exporting process.

The solutions and channels provided are designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses interested in expanding their products, services, and even presence beyond Bahrain. Export Bahrain is continuing to expand and diversify its suite of export provision solutions to create an enabling environment for current and potential exporters.

Furthermore, Export Bahrain provides resources and solutions that are accessible to all businesses seeking to grow their activities internationally and enables exporters throughout their entire export journey. Amidst these challenging times, Export Bahrain continues to create opportunities for SMEs and local businesses to maximise their success.

Additionally, it will continue to create new outlets, while building the right partnerships with key strategic entities and business partners. Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and national SME Development Board chairman Zayed R. Alzayani stressed: During the past five months alone, Export Bahrain has facilitated over 40 exports worth over $16million to eight markets, surpassing 2019s export services figures and facilitating over $32million in exports over the past 18 months.

Complementing the success, drive and energy of businesses entering global markets, Export Bahrain will continue to work with national businesses and SMEs in particular to achieve significantly greater growth prospects, more resilience, and increased profitability.

A key objective of Export Bahrain is to promote and encourage the export of Bahrain-based products and services with national content as we showcase our national offerings to a global audience. We are proud of our internationalised businesses and exporters where we will extend every effort through Export Bahrain to promote the commercial brand of Bahrains offerings globally, and continue to assist both new and existing exporters.

We believe the majority of businesses in Bahrain can be product or service-based exporters or build their commercial presence in other markets using Bahrain as their hub, thereby creating continued economic growth and creating new jobs and opportunities for the economy.

Export Bahrain chief executive Dr. Nasser Qaedi commented: As we continue to aggressively grow Export Bahrainis export assistance to businesses in the country and celebrate their success, our 100 per cent growth in export values during the first few months of the year compared to the previous year represents a key milestone, which we will continue to build upon.

Despite the challenges that many businesses are facing globally, Export Bahrain has facilitated over $16million over the past few months where our key mission is to assist businesses navigate around the many potential international opportunities available to them, and thus reinforcing the Kingdoms position as a highly competitive export hub of products and services to markets across the globe.

We are continuing to ensure that our solutions cover all critical areas for businesses looking to go global by providing export solutions in insurance, shipping, logistics, deal facilitation, e-commerce, internationalisation, market information, and many others that can assist all businesses extend their reach beyond the local market.

Export Bahrain will continue to ensure that product and services exporters in Bahrain gain every competitive advantage to succeed. Especially during this time, to achieve their international growth. We customise our solutions for every business to assist them and navigate towards target internationalisation opportunities.

Our services are designed to add tangible value to exporters and internationalising businesses by lowering costs, building effective relationships with international buyers, and assisting them with access to new markets and new audiences for their products and services.

We have spent a significant amount of energy building fruitful international partnerships that can assist businesses in almost every market across all continents, in order to assist companies build effective long-term commercial links that now positions Bahrains products and services in the hands of consumers in over 32 markets and growing.

We are keen to showcase the ample opportunities available to all businesses in Bahrain that exporting is a necessity to fuel growth, and for companies across all sectors to take advantage of our services and solutions to access new opportunities and accelerate their growth.

Dr. Qaedi added: Export Bahrain will be announcing numerous new partnerships and solutions that will further provide expanding opportunities and solutions to SMEs in the weeks and months ahead, and we welcome all businesses who are interested in expanding their global reach to contact us.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - At a congressional hearing where civil rights leaders and the brother of police brutality victim George Floyd testified about the need for police reform, New Spirit Revival Center Pastor Darrell Scott of Cleveland Heights decried calls to defund the police. And he argued that cuts to Clevelands police department transformed the city from being relatively safe to unbelievably unsafe."

Scott, a prominent African American ally of President Donald Trump, told the House Judiciary Committee that racial profiling and harsh police treatment of minorities should be immediately eliminated, but he doesnt recommend throwing the baby out with the bathwater by labeling all police officers as bad cops."

Great new book by @PastorDScott called Nothing to Lose. The Pastor is a winner and a great guy. Much can be learned from him. Buy the book. Make him a Big Deal Author!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2020

He argued that inner city communities across the United States need an increased police presence to enforce the law. Citing cuts to Clevelands police budget since 2004 that eliminated or reduced its narcotics, strike force and SWAT units, Scott said that defunding of police departments ... has actually made conditions much worse.

Cleveland has went from a relatively safe city per capita to an unbelievably unsafe city, continued Scott, who recently was the subject of a Trump tweet that urged followers to buy Scotts book. Defunding or disbanding police departments is a horrible idea. Community policing is a very viable option to address the needs of inner city communities. Having police in communities to actually get to know the residents is the best way to obtain the results that we all want.

After the hearing, Scott met with Trump at the White House.

As Congress discusses police reform legislation in the wake of Floyds death at the hands of Minneapolis police, Scott was among a dozen witnesses to advise the House Judiciary Committee on what to do.

Floyds younger brother, Philonise, described his chagrin at watching the video of his brother dying with a police officers knee across his neck.

Georges calls for help were ignored, Philonise Floyd told the committee. Please listen to the call Im making to you now, to the calls of our family, and to the calls ringing out in the streets across the world. People of all backgrounds, genders and race have come together to demand change. Honor them, honor George, and make the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution  and not the problem. Hold them accountable when they do something wrong. Teach them what it means to treat people with empathy and respect. Teach them what necessary force is. Teach them that deadly force should be used rarely and only when life is at risk.

Democrats who control the House of Representatives have introduced a bill called the Justice in Policing Act, which would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants at the federal level and limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement. Among other reforms intended to increase police accountability and transparency, it would establish a national police misconduct registry to prevent problematic officers from moving to different police departments, require use of dashboard and body cameras by federal officers, and improve law enforcement training programs. All of Ohios Democratic members of Congress have signed onto the bill.

California Democratic Rep. Karen Bass, who chairs the a Judiciary subcommittee on crime, said that if the Democrats proposal were law, Floyd would be alive because chokeholds would be banned, and Clevelands Tamir Rice would have graduated high school this May, because the officer who shot him, Timothy Loehmann, wouldnt have been hired after leaving Independences police department under a cloud.

"We've worked on criminal justice reform. We've worked on urban revitalization, prison reform, [and] HBCUs," Pastor Darrell Scott said.



"We're facing another challenge. We're going to come up with some great solutions to these problems that are confronting this country." pic.twitter.com/eYLxR9Isrp  The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 10, 2020

This legislation calls for a national registry so that would not have happened, Bass said of Rices killing.

Republicans in Congress are drafting their their own police reform legislation, led by the Judiciary Committees top Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan of Champaign County. At the hearing, Jordan said that Floyds killing was as wrong as wrong can be," and called for real solutions" to address police mistreatment of African Americans. He said most police officers are responsible, hard working, heroic first-responders, and denounced calls by demonstrators and some politicians to defund the police.

We must ensure accountability for police misconduct, not defund or dismantle police departments, agreed Cincinnati Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican Judiciary Committee member. Hopefully, we can have both parties working together to actually accomplish something here and not just point fingers and blame the other side.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown told reporters on Wednesday that calls to defund the police dont mean disbanding police departments or refusing to spend money on law enforcement. He said it refers to a move to start thinking more about training police, about discipline, about making sure that mental health services are available in communities and some things arent police work that have been defined that way.

He said Trump and his Republican allies are portraying the defund the police slogan as a move to disband police departments as a way to distract.

Instead of actually moving forward in this really, really, important bill to finally deal with structural racism in this country and deal with police in our communities, the president continues to play race, continues to divide, and continues to demagogue these issues, said Brown.

Brown, who lives in Cleveland, disputed Scotts claim that Cleveland is dangerous. He said he believes some of the citys problems stem from structural racism. Clevelands police budget has increased every year since 2017. It went from $185 million last year to $217 million this year.

A lot of it is underpinned by the fact that our city is poorer than it was, said Brown. There are fewer jobs and fewer good paying jobs and fewer people living in Cleveland.

Ohios other U.S. Senator, Cincinnati Republican Rob Portman, says he believes Republicans and Democrats will be able to find common ground on issues like modernizing police, providing more training to officers, and restoring community trust in the police. He says hes told his Republican colleagues drafting a Senate bill about a collaborative agreement that Cinncinnati reached in 2002 to address community-police relations. He hopes it might be used as a model for their legislation.

I think its an example of where the federal government can play a role of being supportive, providing grant funding, training reforms, more accountability, leading to improved relationships with communities of color, Portman said Wednesday.

Cleveland.com reporter Adam Ferrise contributed to this report.

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Sen. Sherrod Brown denounces President Trumps handling of protests, Sen. Rob Portman calls for a national commission on race

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Annie Glenn, widow of former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn, dies at age 100

Canadian border with U.S. likely to remain closed until June 21

Mismarked COVID-19 testing swabs from Clevelands U.S. Cotton confused state officials

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New Delhi, June 10 : In a relief for embattled home buyers, who are yet to claim possession of their houses in the stalled Amrapali Group projects, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the banks to release loans given to the home buyers, which were declared as non-performing assets (NPAs).

A bench, headed by Justice Arun Mishra and comprising Justice U.U. Lalit, pointed out that banks have certain reservations regarding the funding of NPA accounts. "In view of current social and economic conditions, the court may direct the RBI to keep its circulars/guidelines relating to NPA in abeyance and permit all banking and financial institutions, etc. to disburse loans to home buyers notwithstanding the status of accounts as NPA," said the top court in its 36-page judgement.

The bench noted the restructuring of the loans should be done as per the RBI's present norms. It directed the banks and financial institutions to release loans to home buyers, whose loans have been sanctioned, notwithstanding the fact that their accounts are declared as NPAs.

"Let there be restructuring of the loan amount. It may be released under the current norms of the RBI for releasing loans and the rates fixed by the RBI," added the bench.

The top court observed that banks and financial institutions be directed to work out a long-term restructuring of all home buyers' loans in Amrapali projects as well as any charges on the Amrapali projects held by banks and financial institutions.

Counsel appearing for the banks pointed out that they are ready to release the loan to the home buyers. However, they would release the loan to a particular home buyer in a phased manner and as per the stage of construction.

Homebuyers' counsel Kumar Mihir said: "The judgement clarifies a lot of issues regarding funding and once banks implement this order, the work can start on all the projects." The top court-appointed receiver submitted that the RBI may be directed to advise all banks and financial institutions such as insurance companies, and employers of the establishments which have sanctioned home loans to home buyers to disburse all balance loan amounts to the home buyers whose accounts are regular, and that they will abide by instructions issued by the receiver in this regard.

The court said: "The disbursement of further loans may be based on the present rate of interest fixed by the RBI; this we order in the peculiar facts of the case. It may be released stage-wise and long-term restructuring of the loans may be done so that construction is completed and buyers are able to repay the loan." The top court also provided relief to the real estate companies which have not completed many housing projects in Noida and Greater Noida. The court said that Noida Authority should not charge heavy rate of interest from the real estate companies for the delay in the payment, and the rate should be kept at 8 per cent.

"We direct that rate of interest on the outstanding premium and other dues to be realised in all such cases at the rate of 8 per cent per annum and let the Noida and Greater Noida Authorities do a restructuring of the repayment schedule so that amount is paid and Noida and Greater Noida Authorities are able to realise the same," said the top court.

Last week, the apex court had reserved orders on the aspect of generating funds to complete the unfinished Amrapali housing projects. The court-appointed receiver managing the progress of completion of these housing projects had informed the court that due to shortage of funds, the construction work has been held up.
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Free West Papua Political Prisoners





West Papua Update

June 10, 2020 -The anti-racism movement is sweeping across the globe, inspired by Black Lives Matter in the United States. The activism has resonated in Indonesia with the emergence of the Papuan Lives Matter movement. Both the current uprising in Minneapolis and in West Papua last year were triggered by recorded incidents of racist police violence.

Last week Indonesian prosecutors demanded outrageous sentences of five to 17 years for seven high-profile West Papuan political prisoners detained in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan (Borneo). These activists were arrested during the West Papua Uprising last year when tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against racism and for self-determination. In contrast, the Indonesian military and police which committed the racist attacks against West Papuan students, triggering the Uprising, were not punished at all. Only three Indonesian civilians were sentenced to 5 to 10 months jail.

It has become known as the West Papua Uprising, marking the most significant mass movement opposing Indonesian rule in West Papua in more than a decade. The Uprising is notable for the involvement of Indonesians across the country protesting in support of West Papuans. This is yet another display of systemic racism that West Papuans have to endure under Indonesian rule. President Joko Widodo released five West Papuan political prisoners at the beginning of his first term, but now, in his second term, there are still 46 indigenous West Papuan political prisoners who have been detained on treason charges. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of these political prisoners, particularly the seven currently detained in Balikpapan.

The 2019 West Papua Uprising



An unprecedented protest movement swept across West Papua and Indonesia in 2019, from 19 August to 23 September, with tens of thousands taking to the streets to protest against racism and for self-determination. It has become known as the West Papua Uprising, marking the most significant mass movement opposing Indonesian rule in West Papua in more than a decade. The Uprising is notable for the involvement of Indonesians across the country protesting in support of West Papuans.

The protests were sparked by Indonesian military personnel and ultra-nationalist groups racially abusing indigenous West Papuan students outside their dormitory in Surabaya on 17 August 2019. Monkey has since been reclaimed and used as a resistance symbol by the movement. The video of the harassment was shared widely on social media, and led to demonstrations in at least 30 cities across Indonesia and West Papua. The protests called for an end to racism and for the independence of West Papua, with demonstrators waving the banned Morning Star Flag across cities, towns and villages.

Despite the vast majority of the protests being peaceful, some turned violent with damage to public facilities, government buildings, stores and homes.

In response to this, the Indonesian government implemented an extreme crackdown, blocking internet access and deploying more than 10,000 security personnel to West Papua. Human rights groups have found that at least 61 residents, demonstrators and police were killed during the Uprising. In addition, more than 100 indigenous West Papuans were arbitrarily arrested. Last week, the State Administrative Court in Jakarta ruled that the governments internet shutdown was unlawful.

West Papuan political prisoners

The Indonesian government implemented an extreme crackdown, blocking internet access and deploying more than 10,000 security personnel to West Papua. At least 61 residents, demonstrators and police were killed during the Uprising. In addition, more than 100 indigenous West Papuans were arbitrarily arrested. Last week, the State Administrative Court in Jakarta ruled that the governments internet shutdown was unlawful. In the wake of the West Papua Uprising, 56 people were arbitrarily detained on treason charges. Ten of them have since been released after serving their full sentences, ranging from eight to nine months jail.

All are peaceful activists who have been detained for political expression -- simply carrying flags, organizing or participating in peaceful protests, posting opinions on social media, or merely for being members of political organizations.

Prosecutors are now seeking extreme jail time against seven key leaders of the movement, due to be sentenced next week. In violation of Indonesian law, they were transferred from West Papua to Borneo on the basis of security reasons in October 2019. They were all arrested without any warrants.

Buchtar Tabuni: 17 years

Member of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) Council Committee and the current Chair of the National Parliament of West Papua. This is his third time being imprisoned for his political beliefs.

Agus Kossay: 15 years

Chair of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), the largest grassroots political movement in West Papua.

Stevanus Itlay: 15 years

Chair of KNPB in Timika, this is his third time being imprisoned for his political beliefs.

Ferry Gombo: 10 years

Head of the student association of UNCEN, the biggest public university in West Papua.

Alexander Gobai: 10 years

Head of the university student association of USTJ.

Hengky Hilapok: 5 years

A university student, his role in the protest was monitoring security.

Irwanus Uropmabin: 5 years

A university student, was responsible for hiring the sound system and cars used for the protest.

For more information see:
(Photo : Alvaro Reyes/Unsplash) Person playing Nintendo Switch

Nintendo revealed on Tuesday, June 9, that the number of compromised Nintendo accounts has reached a total of 300,000 since April as hackers used others' Nintendo Network IDs (NNID) without permission.

An NNID is a unique username and password used mainly for older Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles while newer Nintendo Switch only requires users to create an account using an email address. However, users may link the account to their NNID.

Rumors of the hack first surfaced as early as March while Nintendo made announcements on April 24. The company released a statement saying there were 160,000 hacked accounts. However, Nintendo found an additional compromised account bringing the total to 300,000 as noted in the earlier statement, according to Tech Crunch.

Nintendo hacked accounts reaches 300,000; Here's how to set-up two-factor authentication

In the statement written in Japanese on its website, Nintendo said their continuous investigation on the matter led to finding more hacked accounts.

"We posted a report on unauthorized login on April 24th, but as a result of continuing the investigation after that, there were approximately 140,000 additional NNIDs that may have been accessed maliciously," Nintendo said in its statement.

The company said it has already contacted the affected customers and "reset the passwords for these 140,000 NNIDs and the Nintendo accounts that were linked with them."

Also, the processing of refunds on some breached accounts that were used to make unauthorized purchases is still on-going for each country, but most customers have been refunded already. The company also promised to add measures to strengthen its security.

It was only 160,000 breached NNID logins in April

In April, Nintendo users began complaining on social media about missing funds from their Nintendo accounts. Some users claimed their money was used to buy V-Bucks, the virtual currency for Fortnite.

Aside from logging in to play other users' games, hackers were also able to see the users' personal information like date of birth, country, or region as well as their email addresses. While no credit card information has been viewed, hackers could also access payment services linked to these accounts such as PayPal accounts or credit cards to purchase items or virtual money on Nintendo's platform.

"We sincerely apologize to our customers and related parties for any inconvenience and concern. In the future, we will make further efforts to strengthen security and ensure safety so that similar events do not occur," the company said in an April announcement.

Due to this breach, Nintendo also abolished the logging in function to a Nintendo account via NNID. Those who used NNID to log in were advised to use their Nintendo account email address instead.

Also, the company has performed sequential password resets for NNIDs and Nintendo accounts that may have been compromised. Affected users were sent emails and urged to change their passwords. They are also advised to check their accounts for any unauthorized purchases and request for a refund.

Meanwhile, Nintendo also advised users to set up two-factor authentication for an extra layer of security. This would require a second method of verification such as linking to another app that will generate a code for each login.





For more details, visit: pic.twitter.com/hZ1PnFWZQw You can help secure your Nintendo Account by enabling 2-Step Verification.For more details, visit: https://t.co/kqxbp8TobD  Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) April 9, 2020

How to set-up two-factor authentication

Sign in to your Nintendo Account. Choose Sign-in and security settings, then select 2-Step Verification. Click Edit. Click 2-Step Verification settings, then click Send email to have a verification code sent to the email address on file. Make sure the email address is correct. If not, click User Info and click Email address on the menu setting to change it. Enter the verification code from the email received and click Submit. Download and install the Google Authenticator app. Use the app to scan the QR code displayed on the Nintendo Account screen. A 6-digit verification code will appear on the device. Enter the verification code into the field under step 3 on the Nintendo Account screen, then Submit. Click Copy to copy all the codes that will appear and keep it in a safe place. This backup code will be required to log in when the user cannot access using the Google Authenticator app. Click I have saved the backup codes, then click OK.

Read also: PS5 Event News: Newest UI Features Leaked, Details Here

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Pune, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As per a recent report, organizations have reported more than 15% of endpoint attacks as compared to the last year. Fortune Business Insights in a report, titled  Endpoint Security Market Size, Share and Global Trend By Component (Software, Services), By Deployment (On-Premise, Cloud), By Enterprise Size (Large Enterprises, Small & Medium Enterprises), By End-Use Industry (BFSI, Telecom & IT, Retail, Healthcare, Government & Public Sector, Transportation, and Others) and Geography Forecast till 2026 predicts that the market is anticipated to exhibit a CAGR of 8.4% through the forecast years. The market was valued at US$ 5,304.5 MN in 2018 and is projected to reach US$ 10,026.9 MN by 2026. Increasing number of data breaches in organizations is propelling growth in the market. Moreover, rising number of unknown and new attacks regarding endpoint networks is compelling organizations to adopt endpoint security systems, thus increasing the endpoint security market share.





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The emergence of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. We understand that this health crisis has brought an unprecedented impact on businesses across industries. However, this too shall pass. Rising support from governments and several companies can help in the fight against this highly contagious disease. There are some industries that are struggling and some are thriving. Overall, almost every sector is anticipated to be impacted by the pandemic.

We are taking continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future.





Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this market.

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Increasing Deployment of IoT Devices to Enable Growth in North America

Among regions, North America is anticipated to lead the global endpoint security market during the forecast period. The market was valued at US$ 2,121.2 Mn in 2018. This increasing growth is attributable to the presence of well-recognized players in the region. In addition to this, the increasing deployment of internet of things (IoT) devices across several industries is a potential growth contributor. The rising support from the U.S. federal government manages cybersecurity policies to support agencies improve the resiliency and safety of governments networks and systems.

Following North America, Europe is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR during the forecast years. Majority of the endpoint security market revenue is expected to come from Germany, France, and the U.K. as these countries are increasingly adopting endpoint security solutions. The market in Asia Pacific is estimated to grow at a rapid pace owing to the rising adoption of endpoint security devices across organizations. The rising awareness about endpoint security software in small and medium scale enterprises is propelling the endpoint security market growth.

Healthcare Institutions to Install Endpoint Security Systems to Counter Increasing Cyberattacks

Several organizations are allowing their employees to bring their own devices. The increasing trend of BYOD is creating threat to security in work areas and creating a risk to security. Considering this, endpoint security tools play a crucial role by eliminating the risk of security threat. This, together with rising adoption of IoT and escalating demand for smart devices, is likely to increase the endpoint security market size by 2026.





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At 7.4%, retail sector is likely to expand in the global endpoint security market. However, some industries such as government and public sector, BFSI, and telecom and IT are projected to cover half of the share in the market, said a lead analyst at Fortune Business Insights. Also, healthcare industry is witnessing demand for endpoint security software owing to the increasing number of threats from cybercriminals, he added. These cybercriminals have put patients lives at risk by installing malware and hijacking important data. Hence, the sector needs deployment of robust endpoint security systems to ensure a safe and secure IT ecosystem. Moreover, in healthcare sector there has been a persistent increase in the communication among stakeholders. This, in turn, has increased the pace of information flow, thereby rising the risk of malwares in the system. The rising demand for endpoint security solutions among sectors is expected to foster the endpoint security market revenue in the forthcoming years.

Majority of the Key Players Headquartered in North America

With the emergence of technologies such as Industry 4.0, big data, AI, and others, the concerns associated with data security and privacy are increasing. There are high chances of data breach, which fuels demand for endpoint security systems.

Majority of the leading players are headquartered in North America. These players are continuously upgrading their applications to offer security for endpoint security attacks. On 2018, Symantec develops a new IT management suite called ITMS 8.5. This suite offers a flexible, customized, and real-time solutions to manage endpoint security.





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Detailed Table of Content

Introduction Definition, By Segment Research Approach Sources

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Drivers, Restraints and Opportunities Emerging Trends

Key Insights Macro and Micro Economic Indicators Consolidated SWOT Analysis of Key Players Porters Five Forces Analysis

Global Endpoint Security Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2015-2026 Key Findings / Summary Market Size Estimates and Forecasts By Component (Value) Software Services By Deployment (Value) On-Premise Cloud By Enterprise Size (Value) Large Enterprises Small & Medium Enterprises By Deployment (Value) BFSI Telecom & IT Retail Healthcare Government & Public Sector Transportation Others (Education, Automotive, etc.) By Geography (Value) North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa Latin America



TOC Continued..!!!







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Cyber Security Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Solution (Network Security, Cloud Application Security, End-point Security, Secure Web Gateway, Internet Security), By Deployment Type (Cloud and On Premise), By Enterprise Size (Small & Medium Enterprise and Large Enterprise), By End-Use (BFSI, IT and Telecommunications, Retail, Healthcare, Government, Manufacturing) and Region Forecast, 2020-2027



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San Francisco, 10 June 2020: The Report Lager Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Standard, Premium), By Distribution Channel (On-trade, Off-trade), By Region (North America, Europe, APAC, CSA, MEA), And Segment Forecasts, 2019 - 2025

The global lager market size is expected to reach USD 492.69 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 4.3% over the forecast period. Consumption of premium beer in developed economies including Germany, U.K., and France is projected to exhibit significant growth owing to rising importance of bar culture on a domestic level. Moreover, consumers are changing their consumption habits and looking for innovative products with enhanced nutritional properties, which is expected to prompt the utility of lager.

Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness substantial growth on account of improving standard of living and increasing number of alcohol consumers, especially in India and China. According to a report of World Health Organization (WHO), over the decade ending 2016, the annual alcohol consumption in India reached 5.7 liters per person, which is almost double as compared to the consumption in 2006. Furthermore, alcohol consumption in China stood up to 7 liters per person in 2016. These factors are expected to open up new avenues over the next few years.

Major manufacturers are launching new products to cater to the increasing consumption in the market. For instance, in October 2018, Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC launched an Italian craft lager in U.K. The product is sold at premium pubs, nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. In addition, in March 2016, Steinlager Tokyo Dry, a dry premium lager, was launched in New Zealand. The product has a combination of Japanese brewing mastery with quality raw ingredients of New Zealand. This premium beer immediately took the market by storm owing to its high quality and taste. These new product launches are expected to expand the scope of the lager in the foreseeable future.

Access Research Report of Lager Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/lager-market

Further key findings from the study suggest:

In terms of revenue, the premium product segment is likely to expand at a CAGR of 4.5% from 2019 to 2025. Standard product dominated the global market, accounting for a revenue share of over 55.0% in 2018

Europe dominated the global lager market in 2018 and constituted 41.3% share of the total revenue. Rising importance of craft beer in developed economies including Germany, France, Italy, and Russia is projected to have a positive impact on the market growth over the next few years

Key players operating in the market include Heineken N.V., Carlsberg Group, Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC, China Resources Snow Breweries Limited, Diageo, Molson Coors Brewing Company, Tsingtao Brewery Company Limited, ASAHI BREWERIES, LTD., Castel Group, and Kirin Brewery Company

Product innovation is expected to remain a critical success factor among industry participants over the next few years.

Browse more reports of this category by Grand View Research at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry/alcohol-and-tobacco

Grand View Research has segmented the global lager market on the basis of product, distribution channel, and region:

Lager Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2015 - 2025)

Standard

Premium

Lager Distribution Channel Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2015 - 2025)

On-trade

Off-trade

Lager Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2015 - 2025)

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Central & South America

Middle East & Africa

Access Press Release of Lager Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-lager-market

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.

For More Information:www.grandviewresearch.com
WASHINGTON, DC - The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), in conjunction with Wiley Publishing, today are excited to release the first issue of Restoration Ecology - Arid Lands (RE-AL). This new thematic series will focus on the restoration of drylands, including arid and semi-arid areas, one of the most challenging ecosystems in the restoration arena. Just a week ahead of the UN World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought (June 17, 2020), the first issue of RE-AL addresses the urgent need to better disseminate and apply research breakthroughs, innovative technologies, and best practices to restoration ecology as a discipline and to the issues and challenges in large-scale restoration of arid land ecosystems.

Restoring degraded arid lands is essential to mitigate climate change, reverse desertification, and secure the livelihoods for the 2 billion people who live in these areas. "The world's arid lands cover 40% of the global land area and they make up a significant yet fragile ecological system that supports a third of the world's population," said Dr. Kingsley Dixon, John Curtin Distinguished Professor and Director of the ARC Centre for Mine Site Restoration at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. "This first thematic series of Restoration Ecology is dedicated to ecological restoration of arid lands, providing a critical focus for all practitioners and communities engaged in restoring the natural capital of these economically and socially important ecosystems."

Meeting the urgent need for restoration in arid lands requires increasing access to information on current science and best practices for practitioners in these ecosystems. The first issue of RE-AL shares diverse and inspiring voices from around the world focused on all aspects of restoration in arid environments. "Although it is too early to know the impact of coronavirus pandemic on biodiversity, it is expected that research and ecological restoration activities will be disrupted, especially in arid regions with limited capacity, and may not resume soon, " said Dr. Samira A.S. Omar, Director General of KISR. "Concerted efforts are needed to respond to the changed circumstances and transfer knowledge on innovative technologies for restoration of arid land ecosystems in the post COVID19 pandemic period. This dedicated thematic series will enable us to do just that, including, during this crisis, reminding people of the links between functional, resilient ecosystems and human well-being."

These areas pose unique restoration challenges due to limited water availability, an issue that will be exacerbated by climate change. "Rapid population growth and the effects of climate change are projected to increase water stress in these expanding arid and semi-arid regions, which already experience high levels of poverty, food insecurity, transboundary conflict and forced migration" said Dr. Barron Orr, Lead Scientists for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. He continued, "The new thematic series RE-AL is timely and will be a much-needed contribution to the scientific literature. It will be relevant for policy development and will lead to advances in approaches taken by natural resource manager working on the ground to reverse land degradation in drylands."

SER plans to use RE-AL to help expand the global community of practice surrounding ecological restoration in arid lands through print, virtual, and in person knowledge sharing. "The establishment of RE-AL is very timely and relevant as it helps connect and support scientists, practitioners, and partners within Africa and across other dryland regions to share knowledge, experience, expertise and lessons learnt and achieve restoration countries commitments under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration," said Nora Berrahmouni, FAO's Senior Forestry Officer in Africa.

The first issue includes articles about arid land restoration in Argentina, China, Australia, and the United States. Research focuses on a range of topics including restoration interventions, tree survival, soil amendments, arid grassland bee communities, and soil reconstruction after mining. All articles include practical information to facilitate their applied use to restoration projects, and the full list of articles can be found here.

SER and KISR have entered into a five-year partnership to develop RE-AL, with the expectation of publishing up to two issues per year for the next four years. All articles will go through the same rigorous scientific review process already in place for Restoration Ecology. Those wishing to discuss ideas or submit manuscripts should contact the Editor-in-Chief, Stephen Murphy (stephen.murphy@uwaterloo.ca).

###

SER advances the science, practice and policy of ecological restoration to sustain biodiversity, improve resilience in a changing climate, and re-establish an ecologically healthy relationship between nature and culture. An international non-profit organization with over 3,000 members in more than 70 countries, we actively promote participatory, knowledge-based approaches to restoration. Learn more about our work at http://www.ser.org.
A multibillion-dollar proposal from a superannuation consortium to build Melbourne's airport rail link is likely to be rejected despite Treasurer Josh Frydenberg calling for retirement funds to back infrastructure projects to generate jobs.

A proposal from a private consortium including IFM Investors, Melbourne Airport, Metro Trains Australia and Southern Cross Station to build the rail link using a seven kilometre tunnel is expected to be rejected by the Victorian and federal government in favour of a cheaper option. Both the state and federal government are providing $5 billion each for the project, and IFM has offered $7 billion as part of its proposal.

The Morrison government was supportive of the consortium's airport rail tunnel while the Andrews government has not ruled out the option. Credit:AAP

The Morrison government in November was supportive of the consortium's airport rail tunnel while the Andrews government has not ruled out the option. But a Victorian government source confirmed the state would prefer to have greater control of a less costly airport link involving the suburban rail network and connecting with the existing Metro Tunnel project.

Victorian transport minister Jacinta Allan is, according to industry sources, frustrated with cost blowouts and legal action associated with other projects managed by some private investors. A months-long dispute between toll road giant Transurban, its builders and the state government over the West Gate Tunnel project has resulted in legal action this year.
On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump, whose unsurprising character defects still never fail to surprise, tweeted a Russian-sourced conspiracy theory claiming that the 75-year-old peace activist who remains hospitalized after his head was smashed open by Buffalo, New York, law enforcement officers was in fact a tech-savvy ANTIFA provocateur who fell harder than was pushed. The president also linked to a report from a conservative cable news outlet, One America News Network, for support. That report claimed, with no supporting evidence, that the man was attempting to capture the radio communications signature of Buffalo police officers.

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The problem for Trumpbut actually the problem for all the rest of usis that we all saw the video. We all saw a peaceful 75-year-old approach the Buffalo police officers, who then push him to the pavement and walk past his bleeding body. In fact, the existence and wide circulation of that video are what forced the Buffalo Police Department, which originally claimed that a person was injured when he tripped & fell during a skirmish involving protestors, to suspend the two officers. The existence of the video, for all intents and purposes, closed the case, at least in the court of most sentient public opinion.

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But closed cases are actually Donald Trumps specialty. And the more compelling the evidence of a closed case is, the more apt he is to relitigate it. Its no accident that some of Donald Trumps most incendiary claims require his true believers to accept that their own eyes cannot be believed. Whether its photographic evidence of his lackluster inaugural crowds or hand-altered meteorological maps, almost every Trumpian fictionalized tour de force starts with a false claimalso known as a liethat is readily disproven or even obviously wrong to the naked eye, and then subverts it. The more overtly false, the better.

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But casual lies alone are for amateurs; the real authoritarian move is to construct an entire false realityan unrealityaround those lies.

Indeed, Trump himself has made the Orwellian claim that, among the many entities he insists lie constantlythe media, the FBI, the intelligence community, the entire House of Representatives now that its Democrat-led, the nameless and faceless deep state conspiratorsthe lyingest liars out there are our own eyes and ears. In July 2018, Trump, while addressing a Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City, told those assembled that they shouldnt trust their eyes and ears at all and should instead get their facts from Trump alone. Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not whats happening, Trump said. Just stick with us, dont believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. In some ways its an old play, presaged by George Orwell in 1984 when he warned that the Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. Its a double whammy that demonizes and delegitimizes the media as a whole while alsoas Tyler Cowen has arguedwringing loyalty from all those who must then repeat the lie and cover for it. Every repetition of a lie deepens their loyalty.

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But casual lies alone are for amateurs; the real authoritarian move is to construct an entire false realityan unrealityaround those lies. Thats what were now seeing from Trump and his loyalists. On Wednesday morning, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany made just this move on Fox & Friends. Speaking about the peaceful protester pushed to the ground in Buffalo, host Brian Kilmeade asked, Does the president think that this guy is part of antifa? McEnany replied that the president was raising questions based on a report that he saw, questions that need to be asked, and [in] every case we cant jump on one side without looking at all of the facts at play. Trumps press secretary added, This individual has some very questionable tweets, some profanity-laden tweets about police officers, going on to suggest darkly, if baselessly, that there are a lot of questions in that case.

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By later on Wednesday morning, Miami Beach Commissioner Ricky Arriola was doubling down. He tweeted: What part of having a guy who is trying to steal police frequency so he can sabotage them is offensive to you? He flopped better than Michael Jordan trying to get a charge foul. Seriouslybe objective. This guy is no angel. Even gravity itself, it seems, is a deep-state actor now. Asked on television to explain how precisely none of what Arriola described was apparent in the video footage we all laid eyes on, Arriola acknowledged that, apparently, he was pushed by the police.  That was caught on video, so thats clear, but whats not clear is the motivation that the gentleman had in even confronting the police, and so I called into question, Whats the real story? 

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See what he did there? Arriola claimed that people who saw what they saw were part of a rush to judgment and that everything that is being videotaped nowadays makes it to social media, and right now, theres a rush to judgment of the police, and I think that is very dangerous. The act of recontextualizing that which happens clearly in plain sight is dressed up as subtlety and nuanceor, in McEnanys parlance, as asking questions. But whats actually happening is an effort to persuade the public that they didnt see what they themselves have seenor at least that they didnt understand what they saw, or thought they saw. And most Senate Republicans, caught between amplifying Trumps lie or calling it out, opted for door No. 3, pretending they were too busy to have seen Trumps reprehensible tweet, or at least too busy to care. That may not be loyalty per se, but it is certainly complicity.

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Trump has already spent years telling Americans to distrust their media, their intelligence community, their law enforcement, their judges, their health professionals, and at least some of their legislators, mayors, and governors. And hes long told Americans to distrust their own eyesgoing right back to his first day as president and his outlandish claims about inaugural crowd size. But now hes building whole new unrealities, ones in which seeing isnt believingever. We dont even need to await the era of easily created deepfakes, in which altered images foster fakes that look as real as reality. Donald Trump builds deepfakes in the mind; and, for some audiences, they prove just as durable.

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When authoritarians construct their own unreality, they try to stop actual reality from intruding. Trumps now trying that, too. Recall that the Trump campaign has been suing news organizations for publishing op-eds the campaign finds too critical of Trumpdespite the statements targeted in those op-eds actually being truefor a while now. On Wednesday afternoon, the Trump campaign went further. It sent a cease-and-desist letter to CNN demanding that the network retract and apologize for a poll that CNN aired, showing Trump trailing Joe Biden badly in the polls. Never mind that CNNs poll was quite similar to polling from other leading media platforms and universities. Never mind that the Trump campaign failed to identify what made CNNs purportedly defective. Never mind any of that. As Trump increasingly concocts his own unreality, he seeks to banish the unwanted intrusion of actual reality. He also sends the message that none of us can trust ourselves to make judgments; his word is reality, instead.

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Its like the slow act of pushing out the fenced perimeter around the White House: Trump is increasingly holding reality at a distance, and trying to move it further and further away. Reality isnt looking good for Trumpthats what CNNs real poll showedand, more importantly, the reality of Trumps presidency isnt looking good for most Americans. Thats why Trumps latest authoritarian turn is to build, lie by insane lie, a different America, and to demand that his supporters see only that America. Its why hes lying about fraud in mail-in balloting and lying about his polling numbers. If Donald Trump has his way, by November, his supporters may not believe the vote tallies or even their election officials. This long into Trumps presidency, it can become easy to dismiss the crazy little lies, but we are being trained to accept the really big ones. Theyre coming at us faster than we may believe.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has told the US Congress that the technology giant is no longer offering its facial recognition or analysis software and "firmly opposes technology that is used for mass surveillance, racial profiling and violations of basic human rights and freedoms.

Krishna on Monday sent the letter to Congress outlining detailed policy proposals to advance racial equality in America, which has seen widespread protests and demonstrations against the spate of recent killing of African-Americans, including that of George Floyd by a white police officer and also against repeated police brutality against the Black community.

Floyd, the 46-year-old victim from Houston, was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by the white police officer who kneeled on his neck as he gasped for breath on May 25 in Minneapolis. Floyd's death triggered nationwide violent protests with a section of the protesters resorting to looting and rioting across the country, leaving behind a trail of destruction.

"In September 1953, more than a decade before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, IBM took a bold stand in favour of equal opportunity Yet nearly seven decades later, the horrible and tragic deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and too many others remind us that the fight against racism is as urgent as ever, Krishna said in the letter.

The Indian-origin CEO told US lawmakers that IBM no longer offers the general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software. IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency, he said.

Krishna added that IBM believes now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies. "Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that can help law enforcement keep citizens safe. But vendors and users of Al systems have a shared responsibility to ensure that Al is tested for bias, particularity when used in law enforcement, and that such bias testing is audited and reported, he said.

Krishna also stressed that the national policy also should encourage and advance uses of technology that bring greater transparency and accountability to policing, such as body cameras and modern data analytics techniques. He noted that IBM would like to work with Congress in pursuit of justice and racial equity, focused initially in three key policy areas of police reform, responsible use of technology, and broadening skills and educational opportunities.

On police reform, he said Congress should bring more police misconduct cases under federal court purview and should make modifications to the qualified immunity doctrine that prevents individuals from seeking damages when police violate their constitutional rights. He said Congress should also establish a federal registry of police misconduct and adopt measures to encourage or compel states and localities to review and update use-of-force policies.

He also urged Congress to consider legislation such as the Walter Scott Notification Act, sponsored by Sen Tim Scott of South Carolina, which would require that states receiving federal funding report more details on the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers to the Department of Justice so that an accurate picture of such incidents is available for public scrutiny and analysis.

Krishna also highlighted the need to create more open and equitable pathways for all Americans to acquire marketable skills and training, and the need is particularly acute in communities of colour. At IBM, we see an urgent demand for what we call new collar' jobs, which require specialized skills but not necessarily a traditional 4-year college degree. Such jobs can still be found today in fast-growing fields from cybersecurity to cloud computing.

Also read: George Floyd death: Mark Zuckerberg promises review of content policies after backlash
When my wife calculated that there were 300 boxes of books stacked precariously in our basement, I was sure she exaggerated. To my eyes, the stacks werent really that precarious. The overall book situation, however, was much worse than her estimate: The basement only accounts for half of my, ahem, collection. Bookcases line three walls of my living room. The attic holds a small library of late Victorian and early modern popular fiction. For years I even rented a storage unit until a kindly neighbor agreed to let me transfer its contents  all books  to a disused greenhouse in her backyard. I doubt the author of Caring for Your Books a small paperback I wrote years ago  would approve of keeping first editions in a greenhouse.
HOUSTON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Direct Energy will donate $180,000 in additional funds to support customers, communities and frontline workers through the Neighbor-to-Neighbor program and Children's Miracle Network Hospitals (CMN Hospitals).

Given the widespread impact of coronavirus, Direct Energy pledged to make a donation to COVID-relief programs on behalf of each new customer that joined the Direct Energy family during the month of May. For Texas customers, donations were designated for the Neighbor-to-Neighbor program to help those experiencing energy poverty as a result of the economic impact of COVID. For those in other states, funds will support those on the frontlines at 39 CMN Hospitals. Direct Energy also matched donations made to CMN Hospitals' COVID-19 Impact Fund. More than $110,000 will be donated to Neighbor-to-Neighbor, and $70,000 will go to CMN Hospitals.

"We have seen the pandemic shift our entire world, and it has presented everyone with new challenges. The programs we created in April and May were our way of giving back to vulnerable customers, our communities and those on the frontlines of the pandemic that are working to keep children healthy at more than 170 Children's Miracle Network Hospitals in North America," said Bruce Stewart, President of Direct Energy. "I am so proud of our teams who have worked tirelessly to serve our customers through the pandemic, and our customers who have shown an outpouring of care for the community. While things have begun to normalize, we will still see the effects of the pandemic for many months and years to come. We will continue to support our customers and communities as we begin to navigate in the new world because we're all in this together."

With this donation, Direct Energy has donated $710,000 this year to the Neighbor-to-Neighbor program that helps Texans pay their electricity bills. In January, Direct Energy donated $500,000 to the fund, and contributed an additional $100,000 in March to provide even more support to those in need.

Children's hospitals are on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis, providing high-quality, compassionate care that sick children need. The funds donated by Direct Energy will support research and training, purchase equipment, and pay for uncompensated care. In the past five years, Direct Energy has donated more than $5 million to CMN Hospitals, with the majority benefitting Texas Children's Hospital to help expand the Texas Children's Heart Center.

In addition to monetary donations, Direct Energy's Airtron and Home Warranty of America have continued to provide support to customers. Airtron, one of the leading providers of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in the US, has had hundreds of technicians in customers' homes to make sure they are prepared for the summer months.

About Direct Energy

Direct Energy is one of North America's largest retail providers of electricity, natural gas, and home and business energy-related services with over four million customers. Direct Energy gives customers choice, simplicity, and innovation where energy, data, and technology meet. A subsidiary of Centrica plc (LSE: CNA), an international energy and services company, Direct Energy, its subsidiaries and/or affiliates, operate in 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia and 8 provinces in Canada. To learn more about Direct Energy, please visit www.directenergy.com.

SOURCE Direct Energy

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One-in-a-Million Twins: One Born With Down Syndrome, and the Other Without
VALLEY FORGE, Pa., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanguard's 2020 edition of How America Saves, the industry's definitive report on Americans' retirement saving habits, found that automatic plan features helped millions of 401(k) participants adhere to their financial goals, even amid severe market volatility resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

"Participants remained unflappable and focused throughout the recent market volatility," said Martha King, managing director and head of Vanguard Institutional Investor Group. "This tremendous display of discipline in the wake of uncertainty is a testament to the effectiveness of world-class plan design championed by Vanguard and our plan sponsor partners."

A premier source of 401(k) retirement savings data, How America Saves serves as an annual benchmarking tool and blueprint for best practices in defined contribution (DC) plan design for plan sponsors. As part of the continued evolution of the How America Saves series, this year, Vanguard introduced two supplemental reports that provide further insight into the defined contribution landscape. The first supplement, Insights to Action, an ongoing series within the How America Saves franchise, combines nearly two decades of 401(k) plan data with practical advice from Vanguard Strategic Retirement Consulting. The series delivers expert recommendations shown to improve plan efficacy and employee participation. Vanguard also published a companion piece, How America Saves 2020: An Update, which examines plan design and participant behavior during the first four months of 2020.

Automatic plan features encourage optimal savings behavior

Over the last two decades, innovations in default investment options, automatic enrollment, and savings rates drove higher participation and savings rates, along with declines in extreme allocations and reactive trading behavior. Drawing from nearly two decades of defined contribution data, Vanguard found that prudent plan design can help withstand a host of market conditions. Key findings from the 2020 edition of How America Saves report include:

Target-date funds reduce extreme allocations: Since 2006 i , increasing adoption of target-date funds reduced participants' extreme portfolio allocations ii by three-quarters. As a result, more participants are invested in enduring, risk-appropriate investment solutions.

Since 2006 , increasing adoption of target-date funds reduced participants' extreme portfolio allocations by three-quarters. As a result, more participants are invested in enduring, risk-appropriate investment solutions. Automatic enrollment leads to greater employee participation and higher savings: Automatically enrolled employees are about 30% more likely to participate in their employer's plan than employees hired under a voluntary enrollment design. Employee total savings ratesinclusive of both participant and employer contributionsfor automatically enrolled plans average 10.3%, compared to 6.6% for voluntary enrollment plans. Plans with automatic enrollment also have higher participation rates across all demographic variables.

Automatically enrolled employees are about 30% more likely to participate in their employer's plan than employees hired under a voluntary enrollment design. Employee total savings ratesinclusive of both participant and employer contributionsfor automatically enrolled plans average 10.3%, compared to 6.6% for voluntary enrollment plans. Plans with automatic enrollment also have higher participation rates across all demographic variables. Higher default rates can bridge the savings gap: In 2019, automatically enrolled participants' deferral rates were equal to participants in voluntary enrollment plans. This indicates that automatic annual increases and higher default deferral rates can help participants in automatic enrollment plans save more. Vanguard's research also indicated that enrolling participants at higher default rates have no impact on individuals opting out of 401(k) plans. Currently, 55% of automatic enrollment plans start participants at a savings rate of 4% or higher, with 24% of plans selecting a default savings rate of 6% or higher.

Participants staying the course

Automatic plan features and professionally managed allocations helped nearly 95% of participants stay the course during unprecedented financial uncertainty, according to data from How America Saves 2020: An Update. Among the highlights from this supplementiii:

Target-date fund investors were less apt to react to pronounced market swings: Less than 2% of target-date investors traded during the recent market volatility, a rate five times lower than other Vanguard investors.

Less than 2% of target-date investors traded during the recent market volatility, a rate five times lower than other Vanguard investors. Participants' portfolio allocations remained consistent throughout the market turmoil: Less than 1% of participants abandoned equities through a trade. This is partially attributed to participants' increasing adoption of target-date funds and other professionally managed solutions.

Less than 1% of participants abandoned equities through a trade. This is partially attributed to participants' increasing adoption of target-date funds and other professionally managed solutions. Participants continued to save for their long-term retirement goals: Both participant and deferral rates held steady during the first four months of 2020, and two-thirds of contributing participants saw their account balances rise. Underscoring the long-term importance of continued participation in 401(k) plans, the median account balance increased 71% among participants with a 401(k) account between April 2015 and April 2020 .

Vanguard: A destination for retirement

Vanguard is a bellwether in the defined contribution space and leads the industry in assets under managementiv. As of March 31, 2020, Vanguard oversaw $1.3 trillion in DC assets under management on behalf of more than 5 million participants.

As a strategic partner to more than 1,500 plan sponsors, Vanguard Strategic Retirement Consultingcomprised of attorneys, actuaries, behavioral finance experts, and certified benefit plan professionalsworks closely with sponsors to develop customized, holistic solutions that help drive better outcomes for employer plans and their participants. The team combines their expertise with advanced analytical technology and data to develop innovative solutions and proprietary tools, such as Vanguard Plan Assessment for Retirement Readiness and Plan Design Cost Estimator, designed to maximize the effectiveness of companies' retirement plans.

Plan sponsors and retirement investors also benefit from Vanguard's world-class investment lineup overseen by the firm's Investment Management Group and top external fund advisors. The Vanguard funds' history of superior fund performance is driven by rigorous fund oversight, access to world-class talent, and the firm's ability to keep costs low through Vanguard's mutual ownership structurev. Retirement investors continue to gravitate to Vanguard's enduring investment solutions, particularly the Vanguard Target Retirement Series which leads the industry more than $722 billion in assets under managementvi.

Vanguard also serves as an advocate and thought leader, working tirelessly to ensure that policymakers keep savers' best interests in mind. Over the past few years, Vanguard has advocated for electronic delivery of ERISA-required communications, the Public Service Retirement Fairness Act, and other key policy changes poised to meaningfully improve the retirement industry.

About Vanguard

Vanguard is one of the world's largest investment management companies. As of April 30, 2020, Vanguard managed $5.7 trillion in global assets. The firm, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, offers 425 funds to its more than 30 million investors worldwide. For more information, visit vanguard.com.

Asset figures as of April 30, 2020 unless otherwise noted.

For more information about Vanguard funds, visit institutional.vanguard.com or call 800-523-7064 to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information about a fund are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.

Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss.

Investments in Target Retirement Funds are subject to the risks of their underlying funds. The year in the fund name refers to the approximate year (the target date) when an investor in the fund would retire and leave the workforce. The fund will gradually shift its emphasis from more aggressive investments to more conservative ones based on its target date. An investment in a Target Retirement Fund is not guaranteed at any time, including on or after the target date.

Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.

i In 2006 the Pension Protection Act (PPA), permitted target-date funds to be qualified default investment alternatives (QDIA) in defined contribution plans, leading to increased participant adoption of target-date funds.

ii Extreme portfolio allocations are defined as portfolios holding zero equities or all equities.

iii Covers participant behavior between January 1, 2020 and April 30, 2020

iv Source: Pensions & Investments, as of Dec. 31, 2019

v Vanguard is client-owned. As a client owner, you own the funds that own Vanguard.

vi Morningstar, as of March 31, 2020

SOURCE The Vanguard Group Inc

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As calls to defund police departments intensify across the country, Jersey City officials say they dont plan on cutting police spending anytime soon.

Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop said he is listening to the communitys calls for the end of police brutality, but reducing the police departments $111 million budget would mean laying off newer officers who have helped diversify the citys police force.

Since Fulop took office in 2013, approximately 70% of new police hires have been minorities, city officials have said.

I am thankful in Jersey City, while not perfect, we have one of the best police departments in the country," Fulop said Monday. It is a diverse department and we have invested a lot in training to make sure that we have synergy with the community.

I would highlight the fact that we have seen historic decreases in crime because we invested in young officers that live in the community and reflect the diversity of the community.

Demonstrations have swept the nation in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, with protesters calling for the end of police brutality and systemic racism. A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council has indicated it intends to dismantle the citys police department, citing longstanding issues that include disproportionate police use of force on minorities.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced last week he is scrapping plans to increase police spending for 2020-2021.

Pamela Johnson, a prominent community leader and executive director of the Jersey City Anti-Violence Coalition Movement, said she would love to see municipal funds rerouted to help communities of color in Jersey City. The criminal justice system is a multi-billion-dollar operation that has seen heavy investments throughout American history, she said, money that could be spent elsewhere.

We have seen an investment and the building of a system to incarcerate humans and disproportionately those humans have been black, Johnson said. We need to start reversing that thought process. Lets invest in a new system that helps build community not break it down.

Johnson along with fellow organizers Nevin Perkins and Adreana Williams are calling for a 25% cut to the citys police budget.

Jersey City Council President Joyce Watterman said she would like to see more funding for city departments, like health and human services and recreation, but needs to understand what people mean when they say defund the police  a sentiment echoed by Councilwoman Mira Prinz-Arey.

I would like to have more conversation on defunded because what do they mean by defunded? Watterman said. I want to see the plan to be perfectly honest.

According to the Jersey Citys 2020 budget introduced in February, the police departments budget primarily consists of salary and wages at a total of $109,883,303. Another $1.5 million is earmarked for other expenses.

Ward F Councilman Jermaine Robinson said 90 percent of the murder in Hudson County occurs in his ward. Most of the policing needs are in his part of the city and he doesnt think it is wise to defund or disband the police.

Robinson said newer officers, who are are mostly minorities, would be the ones most affected by budget cuts, as it is last in, first out. He said a lot of the police budget ensures there are officers on streets like Wilkinson Avenue and Ocean Avenue.

If you dont have police officers, crime rises immediately, Robinson said. "If you are talking about disbanding, you really talking about moving out essential police officers that are here to catch the crime before it happens.

But Councilman At-Large Rolando Lavarro seemed more willing to reexamine police spending. He said he would push for more investments to be made in communities of color as part of the 2020 budget.

Calls to defund the police are, in my opinion, pleas for politicians to step up and reprioritize our budget to reimagine our approach to public safety and to restart the relationship between police and communities of color, particularly the Black community, Lavarro said in a statement.

I have heard that call and have been advocating for such change for several years now.
Australia's coronavirus tracing app has been used less than 30 times since its launch almost two months ago.

The software, which was hailed by government officials as the nation's ticket out of strict lockdown restrictions, has been downloaded by 6.5 million Australians. It cost taxpayers $1.5 million to design and rollout.

Despite 600 new patients testing positive for the deadly virus since its launch in April, only two states have used it.

Victoria has used the app 21 times to contact trace potential patients, while New South Wales has used it less than 10 times.

Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT have not had to use to app once.

Australia's coronavirus tracing app has been used less than 30 times since its launch almost two months ago

The software, which was hailed by government officials as the nation's ticket out of strict lockdown restrictions, has been downloaded by 6.5 million Australians (pictured: Australians wear masks to go shopping in Sydney)

A spokeswoman from South Australia Health told Daily Mail Australia they have had two positive cases since the app launched and both cases had been in hotel quarantine after returning to the United Kingdom.

A NSW Health spokeswoman said the app had not been used in the past two weeks as their new cases were predominantly people in hotel quarantine.

A Victoria Health spokeswoman said with only a small number of cases being reported each day, they had not needed to use the app as much.

However, he did stress the importance of the app to stop a possible spike in cases as restrictions continue to be eased.

A federal Health Department spokesman told The Australian the app was still an important tool for domestic cases.

'While we continue to have very few cases, we need every tool we can to continue to protect Australians from any potential outbreak.'

The app uses Bluetooth technology to track users who come in close contact with people who have tested positive to coronavirus

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly spoke about the importance of the app following the Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in cities across Australia to show solidarity with the movement and demand an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Mr Kelly told reporters on Monday the COVIDSafe app 'would be absolutely critical and crucial in this type of setting'.

'It's exactly what it is designed to do, is to pick up cases when you don't know the people around you.

'We've had a very good uptake of the COVIDSafe app, but the majority of people that have mobile phones have not downloaded the app so far. So, I certainly would encourage people to reconsider that because this is exactly how it would be helpful.'
Maternity services at Wrexham Maelor Hospital receive clean bill of health in latest inspection report

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Jun 10th, 2020

Maternity services at Wrexham Maelor Hospital have received a clean bill of health following a positive inspection report.

Health Inspectorate Wales (HIW), the national regulator for health services, made an unannounced visit to several wards at the district general hospital earlier this year.

It included, the antenatal, postnatal and midwifery led units, as well as the labour ward itself.

Whilst officials identified a small number of areas for improvement, overall they found the service provided respectful, dignified, safe and effective care to patients.

It followed glowing feedback from mothers and families at the hospital.

In their report, the inspectors said: During the inspection, we distributed HIW questionnaires to patients, families and carers to obtain their views on the standard of care provided.

A total of nine questionnaires were completed. We also spoke with four patients during the inspection.

The majority of patients who completed questionnaires rated the care and treatment provided during their stay in the maternity unit as excellent (scores were detailed as nine out of ten and above).

Patients and their families who we spoke with also said they had a good experience in the whole of the unit.

The feedback quoted one new mother as saying: The staff have been excellent could not have asked for better care for myself and my baby boy.

The health board helps to deliver approximately 6,602 births per year, with around 2,577 of those occurring at the Maelor.

Women have the choice of four birth settings, including at home, midwifery led units and obstetric units.

As well as praising the care provided by staff, HIW also spoke positively about the safety of treatment given.

Officials said: Overall, there were good processes in place within the unit to support the delivery of safe and effective care.

We found there were robust processes in place for the management of medicines, pain assessment and clinical incidents, ensuring that information and learning is shared across the service.

Recommendations made for improvement, include ensuring the availability of an on-call anaesthetist out of hours, reviewing medical job plans, delivering pool evacuation training and enhancing signs and directions to the unit.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board will now be required to draw up a plan to address the points raised.

By Liam Randall  BBC Local Democracy Reporter (more here on the LDR scheme)
Christmas has come early for Big Brother housemate Garth Saville.

The 50-year-old looked unexpectedly merry as he returned to work in Sydney on Wednesday, dressed as flamboyantly as ever in a festive snowman jumper.

After the reality show wrapped at the start of April and coronavirus restrictions lifted, Garth has re-opened his CBD office once again.

Has Christmas come early? Big Brother Australia housemate Garth Saville (pictured) looked unexpectedly merry as he returned to work in Sydney on Wednesday

Garth is the director of a successful recruitment agency.

He looked more like the office joker than the big boss as he arrived at his Pitt Street headquarters in the very loud Christmas sweater, ready to greet his employees.

The star styled the merry look with a pair of equally festive red sneakers.

Ho ho ho! The 50-year-old dressed as flamboyantly as ever in a festive snowman jumper

Big boss or office joker? Garth is the director of a successful recruitment agency in Sydney

Garth entered the Big Brother house as a latecomer on Tuesday's episode.

He joined the original 12 housemates alongside Sophie Budack, Chad Hurst and Sarah McDougal. They received a less-than-warm welcome.

After winning the ice block 'endurance challenge' that day, Garth nominated Kieran Richardson, Angela Clancy and Allan Liang for eviction.

Newcomer: Garth entered the Big Brother house as a latecomer on Tuesday. He nominated Allan Liang, who was then evicted, after winning the ice block 'endurance challenge'

Allan later became the second person to be evicted from the reality show.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia afterwards, Allan said: 'Garth was threatened. I was a big threat from the get go. Every eviction they go for the strongest player.

'Everyone is fake and everyone is playing a game. The concept has changed so much with the reboot. It was literally just Survivor in a warehouse. Or, as I would say, Survivor in a shoe box because it was so bloody small.'
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The 75-year-old man who police pushed to the ground amid protests in Buffalo, New York, last week has said that Black Lives Matter when pressed to comment on Donald Trumps claim that he could be an Antifa provocateur.

Martin Gugino, who police knocked unconscious in an unprovoked attack on Thursday night, told USA Today on Tuesday that Black Lives Matter.

He wrote: No comment other than Black lives matter. Just out of the ICU. Should recover eventually. Thx.

The US president had suggested earlier on Tuesday, without evidence, that Mr Gugino could have been an Antifa provocateur.

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an Antifa provocateur, wrote Mr Trump on Twitter, before accusing the 75-year-old of staging the incident, and defending police actions.

He added: 75-year-old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment.

The president then tagged the conservative news outlet, One America News, and commented: I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

Video showing Mr Guginos encounter with police in Buffalos Niagara Square last week was otherwise condemned.

The Buffalo resident had approached police alone when he was shoved to the ground with an audible thud, causing blood to pour from his neck.

Two cops were later suspended without pay over the incident, as politicians and commentators criticised police actions.

Mr Trumps comments on Tuesday also attracted widespread condemnation, with New York governor Andrew Cuomo calling on the president to apologise over his conspiracies.

What do you think, you think it was staged?, said Mr Cuomo on Tuesday night. You think the blood coming out of his head was staged?

How reckless, how irresponsible, how mean crude, he continued.

Mr Guginos lawyer, Kelly Zarcone, told The Washington Post that the presidents tweet was a dark, dangerous and untrue accusation.

Martin has always been a PEACEFUL protester because he cares about todays society, said Ms Zarcone.

Republican senator Mitt Romney added that the tweet was shocking and that he would not dignify it with any further comment.

The US presidents comments come as Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police violence continued for another week after George Floyds killing in Minneapolis police custody on 25 May.
You are here: Business

China's airline industry showed signs of recovery in May with the decline in key indicators significantly narrowing from a month ago, the country's top aviation authority said Wednesday.

Airlines flew a total of 25.83 million passengers last month, down 52.6 percent year on year. The decline narrowed 15.9 percentage points from April, Xiong Jie, spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), told a press briefing.

Air cargo volume fell 12 percent year on year to 549,000 tonnes, compared with a 19.5-percent decrease registered in April.

The punctuality rate of Chinese airlines reached 94.8 percent in May, Xiong added.

China has been boosting the opening-up of the air transport industry.

The CAAC on Tuesday unveiled a plan to trial the Seventh Freedom of the Air in the Hainan Free Trade Port to implement one aspect of a broader master plan, which was made public on June 1, to build the southern island province into a high-level free trade port.

The Seventh Freedom allows a carrier to operate flights between two foreign countries without the need to touch down in the airline's home country.

The trial of the Seventh Freedom in Hainan means that some international routes in Hainan are now open to the operation of foreign airlines. The number of Hainan's international routes reached 103 in 2020, up from five in 2003, according to the CAAC.

Last week, the CAAC adjusted policies for international passenger flights, allowing more foreign carriers to resume flights to China on a once-a-week basis starting from June 8.

Foreign airlines that have been unable to operate flights to China over the past few months due to the novel coronavirus pandemic can choose a qualified Chinese city for entry starting Monday.

Airlines can file their pre-flight plans for the period to Oct. 24, 2020 to the CAAC.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

Uzbekistan introduced a new drug reducing the impact of the new coronavirus, Trend reports citing the Ministry of Innovation of Uzbekistan.

The batch of drug called 'Rutan' (19,500 packs) was handed over to the Ministry of Health of Uzbekistan. It is based on compounds derived from Central Asian growing cotton (gosipol and its derivatives), totum (sumac), pomegranate, plantain.

"The medicine was produced in China-Uzbekistan Medicine Technical Park. Initially, the drug was manufactured by the Institute of Bio-Organic Chemistry of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences (in 2015) and used in the fight against influenza (flu). Now it has been tested by Chinese scientists against coronavirus. As a result, it showed excellent results - a 78.3 percent reduction in the impact of coronavirus SARS CoV-2," the message said.

Previously, 11,000 packs of the Rutan were sent to Iran as humanitarian aid to combat coronavirus and successfully passed laboratory tests there.

Over $20 million was invested in China-Uzbekistan Medicine Technical Park and 300 jobs were created. Today there is a pharmaceutical factory that produces eight types of medicines (tablets, capsules and liquids).

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

The first case of coronavirus infection in Uzbekistan was detected on March 15 in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Virology; it was an Uzbek woman who returned from France. The Ministry of Health later announced that her son, daughter, husband and grandson also tested coronavirus-positive.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
CIA, Mossad spy sentenced to death, Iran's Judiciary spox says

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, June 9, IRNA -- Iran's Judiciary's spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaeili Mahmoud Mousavi Majd who was linked with CIA and Mossad and has provided them with intelligence from security bodies, especially armed forces like IRGC was sentenced to death.

Esmaeili stated that Mousavi Majd had disclosed information on the location of martyred Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani.

In response to a question regarding releasing Michael White and the role of Judiciary, he said releasing the American national was a humane measure which was taken in the framework of judicial regulations and based on public interests.

Our assistance helped free our nationals from the US prisons, so the Judiciary agreed to release the American citizen in coordination with all branches of power and expert opinions of the Supreme Secretariat of the National Security Council.

Due to his HIV infection and some other diseases was released upon showing leniency.

Earlier, Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that White compensated the plaintiffs and was released with Islamic kindness and left Iran on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said: "We achieved humanitarian swap *despite* your subordinates' efforts, @realDonaldTrump."

"And we had a deal when you entered office. Iran & other JCPOA participants never left the table," he added.

"Your advisorsmost fired by nowmade a dumb bet."

"Up to you to decide *when* you want to fix it," Zarif noted.

9376**2050

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The move is meant to avoid disrupting operations if US blacklists more ships for trading with Caracas, Reuters reports.

Chinese oil companies may soon decline to charter any tanker that has visited Venezuela in the past year to avoid disruption to operations if the United States blacklists more ships for trading with Caracas, four shipping sources told Reuters News Agency on Tuesday.

The US government is seeking to choke Venezuelan oil exports to starve the government of socialist President Nicolas Maduro of its main source of revenue. Existing sanctions have cut Venezuelan exports sharply, but Maduro has held on.

Washington may tighten sanctions by adding dozens more tankers to an existing blacklist, US sources told Reuters on Friday.

That has prompted Chinese oil firms to consider dropping the use of tankers that have called at Venezuelan ports at any time during the last 12 months, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

There is a sense of growing risk now with such tankers, one of the sources said.

Leading Chinese oil companies Unipec, PetroChina and CNPC could not immediately be reached for comment.

Unipec last year banned the use of vessels linked to Venezuelan oil exports, although it is unclear how strictly that was enforced. US major Exxon Mobil Corp imposed a similar ban.

Oil companies and merchants worldwide  not just in China  are becoming more wary of vessels that have recently transported Venezuelan oil, sources said.

Anything on the potential sanctions list will just become toxic, a source at a top oil trading company said. No one will touch it until its clear what the rules will be.

Broker Clarksons Platou Securities estimated that 77 tankers had called at Venezuelas main oil ports since December alone, more than 2 percent of the global fleet, and so were potentially at risk of sanctions.

Increased sanctions would have a knock-on effect on the rest of the oil tanker market as oil companies and merchants scramble to swap out sanctioned vessels for others.

A decision late last year by the US government to sanction two units of the Chinese tanker company COSCO caused freight rates to hit record highs and roiled global oil trade.
She said she and Starmer had been "reaching out to our Democratic counterparts to make sure that the UK doesn't find itself isolated at precisely the moment when we need to be playing a global leadership role". Nandy also said Prime Minister Boris Johnson should use his "special relationship" with Trump to get him to return to the global negotiating table, after the US President vowed to exit the World Trade Organisation, NATO and other global bodies. Boris Johnson shakes hands with US President Donald Trump during the annual NATO heads of government summit last year. Credit:Getty Images Nandy, the daughter of an Indian father and British mother, represents a constituency in Manchester, in England's north, where she was born and raised. She ran for the Labour leadership earlier this year, urging a complete rethink of left politics after the Tories smashed the so-called red wall stronghold of previously Labour-held seats. Nandy said the pandemic had amplified the breakdown in multilateralism and interim solutions were urgently needed.

Loading "The G7 isn't meeting, the G20 isn't meeting, the UN Security Council is stalled and not to overstate it, but there are tensions within the European Union as well," Nandy said. "We can't afford to allow this to drift any longer. "The world is breaking apart and there is a pressing need for democratic countries to come together and show a level of global leadership now." She said the challenge of dealing with an "increasingly aggressive" China had unified even Britain's bitterly divided MPs for the first time in years.

The Conservatives' "ideological block" against maintaining home-grown manufacturing had put the country's national security at risk, with Chinese firms Huawei invited to build the 5G network and CGN to own a major stake in Britain's new nuclear plant. "It's essentially been a growth and trade policy," Nandy said of the foreign policy pursued by the Conservative British government over the past decade. "That's how we ended up in a situation where we were still talking about the golden era of Sino-British relations even as late as last year. "There is a recognition now that that lack of foreign policy has been a real problem for Britain we've got to restate a values-based approach to our alliances around the world." Nandy said there was an emerging consensus growing among MPs, who have spent the past four years bitterly divided over Brexit, that they needed a unified approach towards China.

Such a cross-party approach is similar to the bipartisanship that exists in Australia for most aspects of China policy, something she said was recognition of the scale of the problem the West faced. "And so having that level of constructive engagement and dialogue alongside a robust approach to defending human rights and democracy  that is a really difficult thing to achieve. "All of us in democratic countries are grappling with that  probably Australian more than most  but it's something that cuts well across party lines in Britain and the dialogue between Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP and Conservative benches is pretty good now," she said. Keir Starmer, left, is expected to move the British Labour Party more to the centre, away from the leftist policies of his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, right. Credit:AP She said with the Conservative government under pressure from an increasingly hawkish wing of the Tory backbench over China since the pandemic, a cross-party approach would be critical.

"There may be differences in emphasis, in detail, but in terms of the overall direction of travel that cross-party work is going to become even more important," she said. Nandy revealed that since the dramatic transition from the hard-left Jeremy Corbyn to the more moderate Starmer, the pair have been "working their way around the globe" in holding Zoom "catch-ups" with fellow progressive party leaders, in a bid to restore the UK party's reputation abroad. "We had a meeting with Albo  I know him already but I love the fact that you all call him 'Albo'  and with [NZ Prime Minister] Jacinda Ardern as well," she said. "We started with the progressive leaders in our sister parties, it's incredibly important to us that we restate our commitment to maintaining those relationships."
After struggling to find her place in the sport, race car driver Renee Gracie switched careers to try something totally different from what she had been doing for years.

Gracie had earlier reportedly collaborated with the organisation Supercars who have said that they do not see the race car driver returning to work anytime soon. Her change of career was not welcomed by the organisation and hence in an official statement, they claimed that this is it for them and Gracie.

Today, Gracie has her own website where she reportedly sells pictures and videos to clients for a monthly subscription fee.

AFP

When asked about the switch, Gracie said that she did thorough research before entering the adult industry. She said her income for seven years as a race car driver didn't bring in much money but now she is able to earn as much as $25,000 a week.

She also mentioned she was well-aware of the repercussions of joining the adult industry given how some found it 'controversial' and how her content could be leaked. However, the money really helped her and she said, In my first six days, I made $24,000 and that is when I realised I could really do something with this.

Gracie said that more than 5,000 people have bought the subscription to her website ever since her career switch and she ended up earning up to $65,000 in just three days.

News

Gracie told News Corp Australia, It has put me in a financial position I could never have dreamt of and I really enjoy it. I am fine with whatever they want to call me. I am earning good money and I am comfortable with where I am at.



Gracie got her chance at fame when she partnered with Swiss driver Simona de Silvestro at Bathurst in 2015. The duo participated at Bathurst in 2016 and ended up getting the 14th position.

AFP

It's takes a lot of courage to go after what you want in life, and Gracie has proved if it's something that makes you happy then it's worth it.
Palestinian Leadership Threatens to Declare a State

By Linda Gradstein June 09, 2020

Palestinian officials are stepping up pressure on Israel to cancel its planned annexation of part of the West Bank next month, saying that if Israel proceeds, they will immediately declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Leaders say they have given up on the peace process with Israel, and will now seek international recognition.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Stayyeh said Israel will be making a mistake if it proceeds with plans to annex the Jordan Valley and lands along the northern Dead Sea in the West Bank. The Jordan Valley, he said, which runs along the eastern border of the West Bank along the border with Jordan, is crucial for a future Palestinian state.

"This is the vegetable basket for Palestine. The Jordan Valley is 1622 square kilometers. The Jordan valley makes 28 percent of the west bank. The Jordan Valley is our border with Jordan, and so this annexation for us it is seriously an existential threat (tahdid wujd)," he said.

According to U.S. President Donald Trump's Mideast peace plan, Israel can annex 30 percent of the West Bank including all of the Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley. Dr. Stayyeh said carrying that out would mean the end of any kind of viable Palestinian state and he said that would have consequences.

"We are waiting and pushing for Israel not to annex. If Israel is going to annex after July 1, we are going to go from the interim period of the Palestinian Authority into a manifestation of a state on the ground. That is where we will be heading in the next phase," he said.

He described what that next phase would look like to create a Palestinian state in the pre 1967 borders, meaning a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.

"It means there will be a founding council, there will be a constitutional declaration, and Palestine will be on the borders of 67 with Jerusalem as its capital and we will call on the international community to recognize this fact. That is where we are and as it has been said, I think the world and us we have to face the moment of truth," said Dr. Stayyeh.

Shtayyeh's proposed state faces several obstacles. The Gaza Strip is controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement, a long-time rival to Shtayyeh's Fatah movement. East Jerusalem has been annexed by Israel and the U.S. has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved its embassy there.

Last month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would end security cooperation with Israel. That move has raised concerns that Palestinians could attack Israeli soldiers and civilians if the annexation goes ahead as scheduled on July 1.

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America Protests Confederate Monuments An inspection crew from the Virginia Department of General Services inspect the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue Monday June. 8, 2020, in Richmond, Va. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered the removal of the statue. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP)  A judge in Richmond has issued an injunction preventing Virginia Gov. Ralph Northams administration from removing an iconic statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee for 10 days.

The temporary injunction order issued Monday says the state is a party to a deed recorded in March 1890 in which it accepted the statue, pedestal and ground they sit on and agreed to faithfully guard" and affectionately protect them.

It is in the public interest to await resolution of the case on the merits prior to removal of the statue, the order says.

The lawsuit was filed by William C. Gregory, who is described in the complaint as a descendant of two signatories to the deed. Named as defendants are Northam and the director of the Department of General Services, the agency tasked with handling the removal.

(Gregory's) family has taken pride for 130 years in this statue resting upon land belonging to his family and transferred to the Commonwealth in consideration of the Commonwealth contractually guaranteeing to perpetually care for and protect the Lee Monument, the lawsuit says.

Northam's spokeswoman, Alena Yarmosky, said in a statement that the governor's administration is still reviewing the order.

Governor Northam remains committed to removing this divisive symbol from Virginia's capital city, and we're confident in his authority to do so," she said.

Northam last week ordered the statue of Lee taken down, citing the pain felt across the country over the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck.

Motivated by a bystanders video of Floyds agony, demonstrators around the world have vowed to sustain a movement focused on addressing racial injustice and police brutality. In the American South, theyre also advocating for the swift removal of Confederate monuments, with or without the approval of authorities.

Opponents of the monuments say they celebrate white supremacy and gloss over the nations history of slavery. Others who advocate for keeping them say they have historical or artistic value and their removal amounts to erasing history.

Story continues

Authorities have removed other symbols since protests erupted two weeks ago, including a massive obelisk in Birmingham, Alabama, and a bronze likeness of Admiral Raphael Semmes that had stood in a middle of a downtown street near the Mobile, Alabama, waterfront for 120 years. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, a 176-year-old slave auction block was removed from the citys downtown, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy removed its statue from Old Town, Alexandria.

In other cases, protesters arent waiting: In Richmond over the weekend, protesters toppled a statue of Gen. Williams Carter Wickham in a park near downtown, and in Bristol, England, a statue of slave trader Edward Colston met a watery end.

Northam has said the enormous Lee statue would be removed as soon as possible and his administration would seek public input about its future.

Crews inspected the statue earlier Monday as part of the planning for its removal.

The massive statue weighs approximately 12 tons, stands 21 feet tall, and has been on a 40-foot pedestal for 130 years. Meticulous planning is required to remove an aging monument of this size and scale safely, the Department of General Services said in a statement.

Four other Confederate monuments dot Monument Avenue, a prestigious residential street in Richmond, which was also the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Richmonds city council has affirmed unanimous support for removing the other four, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Together, they are among the nations most prominent collection of tributes to the Confederacy, and their planned removal has been widely praised by black leaders and activists.

___

Associated Press photographer Steve Helber contributed to this report.
A kitchen that can stand the heat has proven itself to those who have cooked and baked their way through the pandemic.

Bonus points if it looks and feels as good as it works.

Here are three kitchen remodels, completed before lockdown, that amplified minimal space for maximum effect.

1. A kitchen fit for a family. When youve got three boys under eight years old, you need a kitchen thats as wipe-cleanable as it is beautiful.

That was the working theory behind interior designer Carly Nemteans vision of a Leaside renovation project for a nature-loving family. Nemtean, co-owner of Carriage Lane Design Build Inc., transformed a dark, cramped space into a Scandinavian-style hub that provides ample room for cooking, dining and hanging out.

The familys No. 1 priority was cleanliness and durability, so we created a simple and streamlined look thats easy to manage, said Nemtean.

The white cabinetry and quartz countertops are light, a snap to wipe down and better at masking fingerprints than dark finishes, she noted. The white oak floors have a light varnish, which will form a patina over time, hiding dust pileup and gouges that come from the boys running around.

In keeping with the familys outdoorsy nature, Nemtean included earth and sky elements in the finishings. We wanted to keep it very neutral and create a room that feels like youre bringing the outside in.

The effect is subtle but unmistakable. Walnut at the base of the island and in the cabinetry details, along with maple chair bases add an earthy warmth. A raw wood table with live edges brings in Canadiana, which is set off by an edgy stainless steel base for a mid-century richness. Sky-blue stools provide a pop of colour that is mirrored in the four-by-four-inch backsplash tiles that give off a softer, more natural look.

In less than 500 square feet, Nemtean even worked in a tiny mudroom-like nook where the boys can shrug off their backpacks or plunk down to put on their shoes. In keeping with the mission of the kitchen design, its practical.

The bench seat can come off and be dry cleaned, the wallpaper is washable and inside the cabinets are hooks so the boys can hang their coats. Its also a little area for the boys to sit, play, read and hang out while their parents are cooking.

The fuss-free kitchen fulfils its mission of higher-order functioning and a calming design.

2. Elegance extends to the kitchen. When a single mom of two university students wants to remodel her kitchen, its to her own specifications.

More light, sturdiness that can stand up to heavy-duty cooking and an elegant finish for entertaining were the design marching orders for Orsi Panos, of Orsi Panos Interiors, in a Forest Hill kitchen that will stand the test of time.

An arresting marble herringbone backsplash, plus inset-patterned tile floor, and combination brass-and-black accents make a dramatic first impression. The floor tile is imported from Spain and the pattern is a connector to a lot of finishes in the house. It provides a nice contrast with the dark kitchen cabinetry that sits on it.

Its also wipeable and if you drop something on it, you wont damage it, said Panos.

A small pantry is cleverly tucked behind reeded glass doors with brass latch pulls. This is where the homeowner stores all her small appliances, but it also doubles as a bar area when shes entertaining. The lower cabinetry is actually a fridge, so its easy to create a drinks station.

The main kitchen cabinetry features grey MDF uppers and black-stained ash on the bottom. The fridge is tucked away behind a panel. In an open-concept home, I like to make a kitchen feel less utilitarian and warmer, like a living room.

Counter stools are perched at the island for everyday eating while an adjacent dining room is where larger parties dine.

The final touch was turning a tiny nook into a built-in workspace with storage to stash everyday clutter and a flip-down desk. When not in use, it disappears behind panel doors. An elegant solution for a sophisticated kitchen.

3. A modern, clean look for a small space

A place for everything and everything in its place, is interior designer Stephanie Lees motto when she reconfigures kitchens for her client.

The owner of Stephanie Lees Design met a homeowner who matched her meticulous nature during a recent Leslieville kitchen makeover project.

She sent us a list of everything she needed to store in the kitchen before construction started, so we had a plan where things were going to go. She needed to know there was room for everything, down to the cans of beans she typically stores, said Lees.

This was helpful information considering the squeeze of 140 square feet, and the desire for a warm, modern design  with an island. The challenging thing with a lot of these semi-detached kitchens is that theyre barely wide enough to get in an island. I could always use two or three more feet to do it.

Light was also an issue. The sun that came in from a door on an exterior wall went no further than the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining room.

Lees got to work creating a space that feels open, airy and organized. The door was enlarged to a sliding door with working window for air flow. The dining room wall was removed. And both interior walls were devoted to storage and cooking function.

Because Ive worked with (the homeowner) before, I know her taste really well. Shes warm-modern, so we went with a dark oak cabinetry with a thin profile. We really worked at it to get the colour right. We wanted the grain to feel open as opposed to a lot of modern kitchens.

One full wall is a pantry that features a little spot by the door where she can store her purse and shoes. To brighten up the look, Lees added an inset with lighter wood. It makes a kitchen feel special when youre able to mix different materials  make them balance each other and be harmonious in the same space, said Lees.

A marble-topped island with waterfall wrapping provides a sculptural element and serves as functional workplace. Its also home to the dishwasher. On the working side of the kitchen, a forgiving, affordable Caesarstone countertop and backsplash blends into the background so the island can keep the spotlight.

Lees says she still gets messages out of the blue from the homeowner, who is so pleased with her kitchen. With the pandemic keeping her and her boys home more, she says she loves her space more and more every day.
A rushed and premature withdrawal would also risk losing the gains we have achieved in Afghanistan, not only in counterterrorism but also in building Afghan governance and military forces, they wrote. Our nations intelligence professionals have spent nearly two decades establishing security arrangements with our Afghan partners. Now it is incumbent upon our government to give them the time and space to prepare for an orderly, conditions-based drawdown, in conjunction with military and diplomatic counterparts.
Crude oil futures slipped to Rs 2,866 per barrel on June 10 as participants increased their short positions. Oil prices retreated after hitting $40/bbl levels as market players assess the possibility of recovery in US crude production and uneven economic recovery.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that US crude inventories rose by 8.42 million barrels for the week ended June 5.

Sunilkumar Katke, Head of Commodities and Currency, Axis Securities, said ahead of data on US crude oil inventories scheduled for June 10, prices have opened flat and stayed in a range around Rs 2,880 per barrel. "OPEC+ decision to extend the output cut till July-end supported prices. However, demand concerns due to the pandemic over a period of time may discount the output cut and keep prices under pressure."

Tapan Patel, Senior Analyst (Commodities), HDFC Securities, said oil prices traded down on fears of supply glut after Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations opted out from the voluntary output cuts post July.

Expectations of a rise in weekly inventories also pressured oil prices to trade down on June 10.

In the futures market, crude oil for June delivery touched an intraday high of Rs 2,902 and an intraday low of Rs 2,861 per barrel on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX). So far in the current series, black gold has touched a low of Rs 1,361 and a high of Rs 4,415.

Crude oil futures for June delivery slipped Rs 22, or 0.76 percent, to Rs 2,866 per barrel at 14:40 hours IST on a business turnover of 6,193 lots.

The same for July delivery was down Rs 22, or 0.75 percent, to Rs 2,898 per barrel on a business volume of 305 lots.

The value of June and July contracts traded so far is Rs 1,035.45 crore and Rs 6.91 crore, respectively.

Katke expects WTI to trade near $35 again in a weeks time and hence suggest a selling MCX crude oil futures around Rs 2,900 with a stop loss around Rs 2,950 and a target of Rs 2,800 for the day.

West Texas Intermediate crude declined 2.47 percent at $37.98 per barrel, while Brent crude, the London-based international benchmark, was down 2.06 percent to $40.33 per barrel.
(CNN) -- Protesters have taken to the streets in cities across Nigeria to demand urgent action to combat rape and sexual violence against women.

In Lagos on Monday a coalition of rights groups marched to the state parliament calling for it to declare a state of emergency on rape and sexual violence. The march followed the gruesome death of 22-year-old student Uwaila Vera Omozuwa -- and the rape and killing less than a week later of another student, Barakat Bello.

University student Omozuwa died after she was attacked in a church in Benin City where she had gone to study on May 27, while Bello was raped and killed during a robbery in her home in the southwestern city of Ibadan on June 1, according to Amnesty International.

The students' killings, which happened as citizens were still reckoning with a spate of violence against teenage girls in May, have sparked calls for government action on gender-based violence in the country.

"These unfortunate events are not a standalone, rather they are a culmination of unhealthy cultural practices," the Women Against Rape in Nigeria group said in a petition submitted to lawmakers on Monday.

WARN is pushing for all states in Nigeria to have a sex offenders list -- and for it to be made public -- as well as other measures to name and shame perpetrators of sexual violence.

Activists from the women-led movement wore symbolic black outfits and carried "End Rape" placards to demand government action against sexual violence Monday.

Sexual survivors silenced

Ebele Molua, an activist and one of the conveners of the protest, said Nigerian women have long been violated and harassed because authorities still perceive rape as a "women issue" leaving women vulnerable to their abusers.

"In Nigeria, you see men catcalling, and groping women in the market and they become violent once they don't respond to their advances. You find men dismissing the accounts of sexual violence. This has to stop," Molua told CNN.

Nigerian celebrities have also denounced the latest sexual violence cases on social media and citizens continue to gather in several cities, demanding law enforcement bring the women's killers to justice.

Nollywood actress Hilda Dokubo joined a women's group demonstration to the police headquarters in Lagos on Friday in the wake of the killings and a group of students protested in Benin City on June 1.

Efforts to combat violence

One in four girls in Nigeria has experienced some form of sexual violence, according to UNICEF.

Meanwhile Amnesty International, which has launched petition demanding justice over the killings, said femicide and rape cases go under-reported in the country, allowing perpetrators to go unpunished.

However the latest cases have forced authorities to reckon with the scale of the problem.

Nigeria's Human Rights Commission has launched a social media campaign to educate men about consent and the country's police force, whose officers have been accused of gender violence in the past, has announced plans to allocate more officers to tackle cases across the country.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Nigerian women are taking to the streets in protests against rape and sexual violence"
An announcement from Horse Racing Alberta indicates that live harness racing will be returning to the province.

HRA issued the following statement on Tuesday (June 9).

On behalf of the Alberta horse racing and breeding industry, Horse Racing Alberta is pleased to announce the return of live horse racing in Alberta.

Horse Racing Alberta, in conjunction with all industry stakeholders and the Government of Alberta, is pleased to see live racing return to the province! Live Standardbred racing begins this Sunday, June 14 at The Track On 2 in Lacombe.

Live thoroughbred racing will load the gate on Sunday, June 21 in Edmonton at Century Mile Racetrack and Casino, and live Standardbred racing will resume on Monday, June 22 at Century Downs Racetrack and Casino in Calgary.

Numerous safety precautions will be put in place to protect all industry participants following the Covid 19 guidelines set forth by Alberta Health and the Canadian Pari Mutuel Agency (CPMA). Racing will take place with strict physical distancing measures in place. Fans can wager live in person or in the comfort of their own homes on HPI.com.

Gill Hermanns, Chair of Horse Racing Alberta emphasized, "We are thrilled to announce the re-opening of live horse racing across Alberta with strict protective safeguards in place to protect the well-being of everyone. The industry employs over 4,800 Albertans and contributes $312 million annually to the province in economic impact."

HRA would like to thank all industry stakeholders for their co-operation, patience, and understanding during this challenging time. The Horse Racing and Breeding Industry would also like to thank the Government of Alberta for their concern and guidance during the pandemic.

A complete list of live race dates can be found at this link or at the Horse Racing Alberta website.

(HRA)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 10:20:34|Editor: huaxia

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CAPE TOWN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Alcohol abuse is straining the healthcare system in the Western Cape province, South Africa's epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, which is already under pressure due to the virus, authorities warned on Tuesday.

A number of hospitals in the province have seen a significant spike in trauma cases linked to alcohol abuse since the government lifted a ban on alcohol on June 1, Western Cape Governor Allan Winde said.

"This is extremely concerning to us as the healthcare system is already under pressure as a result of COVID-19," Winde added.

As of Tuesday, the province had reported 34,819 confirmed cases and 890 deaths, in comparison with 52,991 cases and 1,162 deaths nationwide.

As part of a hard lockdown, the ban on alcohol had been enforced to curb the spread of COVID-19 since March 27, but the government lifted the ban on June 1 with a further easing of some lockdown restrictions.

The country's long-standing alcohol abuse problem reemerged a day after the ban was lifted, leading to an increase in trauma cases and domestic violence.

There have been calls for reinstating the ban, as some hospitals are complaining that their attention has been shifted from treating COVID-19 patients to dealing with trauma cases linked to alcohol abuse.

However, Winde said the Western Cape has not received any indication of reinstating the ban from the national government.

"Alcohol abuse is taking away hospital beds and care from people who need them during this very serious pandemic," said Winde, urging people to drink responsibly. Enditem
President Donald Trump is getting skewered by late-night TV hosts after he pushed a conspiracy theory suggesting an elderly man shoved to the ground by Buffalo police could be an ANTIFA provocateur and faked his fall.

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up? Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning.

Backlash was swift, including from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who said there was no proof whatsoever to Trumps reprehensible dumb comment.

The Daily Show host Trevor Noah, The Late Show host Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon and Late Night host Seth Meyers frequently roast Trump on their television shows, but they mixed comedy with some serious criticisms on Tuesday night.

Trump is so desperate to defend the police that instead of admitting that maybe they used excessive force and that none of them helped a person who was bleeding out on the ground, he turns around and blames the old man from that video for being an Antifa provocateur who busted his head open on purpose? I cant believe I actually have to say but, like, that is some batsh-- crazy theory, Noah said.

I feel like Trump is the kind of person who watched the movie Up and he thinks its a story about an elderly terrorist who hijacks a balloon house.

"Let me get this straight. This 75-year-old man is an anti-fascist, which you somehow consider suspicious. He was somehow able to fall harder than he was pushed, fake a fractured skull, and spontaneously bleed from his ears all the while operating a secret scanning device in order to black out all police equipment. Man, those Jitterbug phones are getting really sophisticated. This big button is 911 and that one with the smiley face calls my grandson. And the one with the hammer and sickle on it is Start Populist Revolution, Colbert joked, acting like an elderly man using a low-tech phone.

Trump is trying to demonize the man because he has to convince all the old, white voters he needs to get re-elected not to sympathize with Gugino... Maybe most damning to these conspiracy theories is that Gugino is also a member of a group called the Catholic Worker Movement. Formed in the 1930s, the movement describes itself as committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, and the Works of Mercy as a way of life, Colbert continued before doing an impression of President Trump: "'Hey, what do you expect, Jesus was a radical lefty. No shoes, no property, redistributed all the loaves and the fishes. And I heard he was crucified harder than he was nailed. Antifa?'

Colbert also aired a fake warning video about senior citizens who infiltrated our bingo parlors, our weddings and are slowly coming for us all.

Just to recap, the theory here is a 75-year-old man was using his cell phone to scan police communication equipment in order to black it out. I feel like anyone whos tried to Zoom with their grandparents knows theres no possible way thats true, Kimmel said. But our president, it takes a special kind of monster to see a peaceful 75-year-old man shoved to the ground by police so hard he bleeds from the ears and take the side of the concrete but he does  our unfounding father.

Its pretty interesting that this guy is giving a lesson on gravity, from a man who stands like this, Fallon said, showing a picture of Trump leaning forward while he speaks to reporters at the White House. Its almost like hes free falling. Like one of those flying squirrel guys. Defying gravity

Oh my God, you tweeted that? Thats not for Twitter. That kind of insanity clearly belongs on Facebook, Meyers joked. For the next few days, all 52 Republican senators are gonna be hiding in Trumps bunker: Oh we cant see tweets down here. Too dark I didnt see it!

Gugino, identified as a longtime peace activist from Amherst, remains hospitalized with a bruise and cuts after two police officers shoved him Thursday during a protest against police brutality after the death of George Floyd. Video from NPRs Buffalo radio station, WBFO, quickly went viral and outrage ensued as the Buffalo Police Department claimed in a statement he tripped & fell.

Officers Aaron Torglaski and Robert McCabe were charged with second-degree assault Saturday and released without bail after pleading not guilty. Both officers were suspended without pay late Thursday night.

According to the Washington Post, Gugino is a member of two nonprofits: PUSH Buffalo, which focuses on affordable housing, and the Western New York Peace Center, a human rights organization. He is also part of the Catholic Worker Movement and politically active on social media, frequently criticizing Trump.

Trump did not provide any evidence for claims that Gugino has Antifa ties or that he faked his fall. His source, an OANN video, is from the conservative, far-right One America News Network known for promoting conspiracy theories.

Trump has described Antifa, an anti-fascist movement, as a domestic terrorist organization and blamed the collective on violence in cities where protests have occurred since Floyd died on Memorial Day when a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The Associated Press reports more than 85% of those arrested by police during protests and riots in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., were local residents. Only a small number of the 217 people arrested in those two epicenters for civil unrest appeared to have any affiliation with organized groups, according to court records, employment histories, social media posts and other sources of information.
President Donald Trump accused a protester injured by police officers in Buffalo, New York, of violating the law of gravity today, tweeting, I watched, he fell harder than was pushed.

The protester, 75-year-old Martin Gugino, remains hospitalized but is out of intensive care after suffering a head injury when he fell backwards and hit his head on a concrete sidewalk.

Trumps tweet was apparently prompted by a conspiracy theory he saw on right-wing One America News. The tweet read, Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

Neither One America News nor the president has provided any evidence that Gugino is associated with AntiFa, or had or aimed any type of scanner, or could black out police communications equipment, or has the ability to violate the law of gravity.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh MacEnany suggested that Mr. Gugino could have avoided injury if hed fallen softer than he was pushed. Or worn a tin foil hat, like the president.
Fidelis Insurance Holdings Ltd. announced it has raised $500 million of equity capital from existing investor relationships.

On top of the $300 million raised by the company in February, Fidelis has now secured $800 million of additional equity during 2020.

The Bermuda-based re/insurer will have capital for underwriting in excess of $2 billion. Fidelis said this will give the company the ability to broaden relationships with existing and new clients in the classes it already writes, as well as expand into new lines of business, allowing the company to take advantage of the attractive and hardening rating environment.

We are seeing a broad-based hardening of rates and improvements to terms and conditions in multiple lines of business, said Richard Brindle, chairman and CEO of Fidelis, in a statement.

Fidelis joins other insurers that have moved to raise capital, including Lloyds insurers Lancashire, Beazley and Hiscox. Lancashire this week announced an equity capital raise, while Beazley and Hiscox raised money last month.

This is due not just to the effects of COVID-19, but to multiple factors from ILS retrenchment to the increasing realization that underwriting profits are the only sustainable basis for re/insurers to build long-term business success, he added.

The $800 million of equity capital we have raised over the last six months demonstrates the confidence that our investors have in us to thrive in the current rating environment and over the longer term, he affirmed.

Following on from the announcement of the rating upgrade from AM Best to A, it is clear that we are well positioned for the current market conditions as we continue our development of a quality underwriting franchise, Brindle went on to say

Fidelis was advised on the transaction by Evercore and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

About Fidelis Insurance

Fidelis Insurance Holdings Ltd. is a privately owned Bermuda-based holding company, which, through its subsidiaries, is a global provider of property, bespoke and specialty insurance and reinsurance products.

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Our television screens have been overwhelmed with terrible images in the past fortnight as protests across America over the death of George Floyd, a black man from Minneapolis who was killed by a white police officer who knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, drew a brutal and disproportionate response from a host of police departments. Baton charges, volleys of rubber bullets, and unprovoked assaults by often masked and ID-free officers, resulted in a raft of viral clips and headline stories.

As countries around the world, including Australia, followed the United States in grappling with the deep, enduring divides of racism, television began to struggle too. The medium wasn't just broadcasting on-the-spot coverage of chaos and mistreatment, it was challenging its own foundations.

Seven cameraman Tim Myers and reporter Amelia Brace were assaulted by police officers while covering protests outside the White House on June 2. Credit:AAP/ABC 7 News via Twitter

The cop show has been integral to television since its earliest days, and those endless hours have shaped how we view policing and those who undertake it. It's hard to imagine that the relationship hasn't been fractured.

Many of us, across generations, have been raised on a diet rich in depictions of police. The catchphrases and dramatic arcs of your 42-minute network standard are so familiar that they're comforting to some viewers; "book 'em, Danno" from Hawaii Five-0 and the instrumental hooks from Law & Order are cultural touchstones.
BRADY ANDERSON, Chariho, Wrestling, Sophomore; Anderson finished first in the 152-pound weight class at the Griswold Midseason Invitational tournament. Anderson went 3-0 in the tournament, pinning all of his opponents in the first period. Anderson is 10-4.

LYDIA LASKEY, Stonington, Gymnastics, Senior; Laskey finished first in all four events in meets against NFA and Westerly. Laskey had an all-around score of 33.75 against NFA and 34.60 against Westerly.

RILEY PELOQUIN, Westerly, Girls Basketball, Sophomore; Peloquin scored 22 points and had 19 rebounds in two games. Peloquin is averaging 7.6 points and 7.5 rebounds a game for the Bulldogs.

DEONDRE BRANSFORD, Wheeler, Boys Basketball, Sophomore; Bransford scored 25 points and had 28 rebounds in a pair of Wheeler victories. Bransford is averaging 10.6 points and 12.1 rebounds per contest for the Lions.

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The Iraqi Health Ministry reported 787 new COVID-19 cases today after days of recording more 1,000 infections daily. Still, the virus continues to spread rapidly in the country, prompting fears the situation will spiral out of control.

There were 1,115 cases Monday, 1,268 Sunday and 1,252 Saturday. On Friday, authorities registered more than 1,000 cases for the first time with 1,006 cases, making Friday, Saturday and Sunday all record-breaking days.

For comparison, Iraq reimposed a lockdown in the country late last month following days of registering only around 400 cases daily.

One reason for the jump in cases could be increased testing. The ministry said there were more than 10,000 samples collected today. There were some days last month where only around 2,500 samples were collected.

It is also possible that behavior by some among the public is responsible for the rise. The World Health Organizations Iraq branch has noted a lack of adherence to health guidelines. also, protests are continuing in the country, as they are throughout the region, despite the virus.

Ali al-Bayati, a medical doctor and member of the quasi-governmental Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, said there are several reasons for the increase in cases, including testing and economic reasons.

The number of cases is increasing now, of course, because there is more testing, Bayati told Al-Monitor.

Bayati also said some people are not following health guidelines. He said this is due to the poor economic situation in Iraq, where many have lost their income during the closures.

It is characterized by economic status. There is a difficulty involved in staying home and leaving the main source of livelihood, said Bayati. There is a failure of the government to support those families.

Bayati added that medical workers who show symptoms are not being given adequate opportunities to isolate and he criticized a prohibition by the Health Ministry on medical personnel talking to the media.

People are worried throughout the country, including in hot spots such as the capital, Baghdad, and Sulaimaniyah in the Kurdistan Region. The health minister for the Kurdistan Region has warned of a catastrophe amid the rising cases.

Iraqs health care system has been hurt by years of sectarian violence following the US invasion in 2003 as well as the subsequent war with the Islamic State and its aftermath.
To the issues creating a partisan divide in state legislatures across the U.S., add this one: masks.

Many Democratic lawmakers are wearing them amid the coronavirus outbreak while many Republicans refuse.

Public health has become partisan, bemoaned South Carolina state Rep. Kambrell Garvin, a Democrat who recently became ill from COVID-19.

As legislatures around the country resume work following coronavirus suspensions, Democrats and Republicans also have split over social distancing, remote voting and the extension of emergency powers for governors who had ordered businesses to close and residents to remain home.

Lawmakers have become ill from the coronavirus in nearly half the states, with Democrats accounting for about two-thirds of the 40 confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to an Associated Press tally. Three lawmakers died of the virus  a Michigan Democrat in late March and Republicans in Louisiana and South Dakota in early April.

Partisan divisions appear to have grown since then, particularly in the South and Midwest, as some Republicans pushed to reopen the economy faster than some Democrats.

While there have been bipartisan exceptions, mask-wearing divisions among Democrats and Republicans have been evident during recent legislative sessions in Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee.

In Illinois, Republican Rep. Darren Bailey was removed from a convention center functioning as the House floor last month for refusing to wear a mask. His ejection came just moments after the Democratic-led chamber approved a mask mandate with support from some Republicans in a move Bailey considered a show.

The mask is not about health. Its about more bureaucracy and more government control, of which the liberal Democrat thrives on, Bailey told the AP.

When Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Andrew Lewis announced through a news release that he had self-isolated and recovered from COVID-19, Democratic colleagues expressed outrage that his diagnosis had been kept secret from them for a week. Democrats demanded changes requiring lawmakers to wear masks in the Republican-controlled legislature, but GOP legislative leaders have not acted on the request.

In Ohio, a Democratic proposal to require masks at House sessions and committee meetings was defeated on a party-line vote last month in the Republican-led chamber. A Republican lawmaker then filed legislation to bar mask requirements statewide unless approved by two-thirds of lawmakers. That measure is pending.

Some trace the partisan divergence on coronavirus precautions to the very top of American politics. Republican President Donald Trump hasnt publicly worn masks, not even while announcing federal recommendations that Americans wear face coverings in public to help fight the spread of the virus.

I think that when our president, from a national standpoint, signals that masks arent politically expedient, then I think that trickles down to the local and state level, said Garvin, the South Carolina Democrat who has worn masks both before and after his coronavirus illness.

Several recent studies using polling and smartphone GPS data have shown that Democrats are more apt than Republicans to embrace social distancing in public, wear masks and stay at home because of the coronavirus.

Virus precautions have started to become an ideological means of group identification, similar to partisan divisions over abortion or other hot-button issues, said psychology professor Hank Rothgerber of Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky.

Democrats now have identified themselves as the party thats taking this more seriously and is more concerned about public health, Rothgerber said, and Republicans are identifying themselves as a party that is focused on opening the economy back up and not overreacting to this crisis.

When the Missouri House met in early April to pass a coronavirus budget bill, Republican leadership imposed strict social distancing. Lawmakers listened to proceedings over the internet in offices until summoned to the chamber in small groups to vote. Nearly everyone wore masks.

Yet those precautions were abandoned as the House finished its session in May. Lawmakers sat packed together at desks and few Republicans wore masks, though numerous Democrats still did.

Democratic Rep. Joe Runions, who had been out for six weeks with COVID-19, was aghast at what he described as inconsiderate and selfish behavior.

To me, leadership starts with, you put that mask on. I dont care who you are  the president, the governor, the pope, whoever, Runions said.
A Los Angeles city councilwoman was exposed as a hypocrite for introducing a bill to cut $150 million from the Los Angeles Police Department budget, while maintaining an LAPD private detail at her home for herself.

Security for me, but not for thee, see. The leftist political elites always gets their takings first.

Guess who else is just as hypocritical.

Sure enough, Kamala Harris, Democratic vice presidential frontrunner, who's loudly endorsed these $150-million police defundings, supporting the idea, along with her political ally, Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was last seen calling the LAPD "killers."

Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California on Tuesday said she applauds Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti for his move to cut about $150 million from a planned increase to the city's police budget but that the ongoing push for law enforcement reform "doesn't mean we get rid of police." "I support investing in communities so that they become more healthy and therefore more safe," Ms. Harris said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I applaud Eric Garcetti for doing what he's done."

Like Martinez, she also helped herself to some LAPD police resources for private purposes. She did the same thing as Martinez, except on a more sprawling scale. Remember this?

Armed, plain-clothes LAPD officers were dispatched to California cities outside of Los Angeles at least a dozen times to provide security for U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris at public events, media appearances, and a party. LA taxpayers paid for airline tickets, hotel stays, car rentals, and meals, according to detailed expense reports obtained by NBC News. The total cost of the trips, not including the officers' overtime, topped $28,000.

As I noted at the time:

The $28K was just a starting point in the cost extravaganza  overtime and other expenses made the total close to $50K. A new police chief found out about the unprecedented freebie from the people of Los Angeles and put a stop to it. The mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, says he never heard of it and laid the blame squarely on recently retired LAPD chief Charlie Beck. One thing is certain: it's never been done before. But this being Harris, it's not surprising it happened.

Now she's saying this:

We've got to re-examine what we're doing with American taxpayer dollars and ask the question: are we getting the right return on our investment?

I think we know what they were doing with LAPD police resources  using it to succor themselves and, as I argued earlier, benefit themselves of un-declared campaign contributions to their own advantage against their competitors. Who needs to budget for security at campaign rallies and parties with supporters when the cops will do that for them, free of charge, likely in exchange for not prosecuting them for police brutality or corruption or whatever? One hand washes the other.

Beck and Harris go way back, at least until 2012, when they were spotted at a big University of Southern California conference together. Harris covered up for Beck's assorted corner-cuttings, and he started spewing the Democratic Party's party line  on illegals, gun control, and supporting Black Lives Matter  as early as 2015. Harris herself cut a lot of corners as state attorney general. In this piece here, I noted:

She falsified a confession transcript of a defendant and then, when she was caught, defended it. She's been caught making phony charges of racism about her Berkeley upbringing, as if Berkeley in the 1970s were a den of Klansmen. She has an army of fake Twitter followers in an obvious bid to make herself look more influential than she really is. Lately, she put out a deceptively edited video to smear [Supreme Court nominee Brett] Kavanaugh.

Throw on top of that her refusal to admit exonerating evidence against some sad sack in a death penalty case, and keeping people in prison beyond their terms so she could order them to fight wildfires, as outlined by former presidential contender Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, and we have one corrupt prosecutor, who helps herself to the goodies.

But it's worse, way worse than that, now that she's touting the cutting of funds from the Los Angeles Police Department, money that won't go toward cutting private security budgets for politicians, but policing of inner-city neighborhoods.

Harris is all in for that, cutting policing of poor neighborhoods beset by gangs and thugs and handing it over to community organizers. Policing is all fine if it's to benefit herself, but too bad about that inner-city shopkeeper with no political connections, who now gets no police response when some gangster shakes out his cash register at the end of his 12-hour day. That's the least of it.

Bottom line is, poor neighborhoods are going to be on the sharp end of this great defunding for community organizers, and Harris is right there helping herself to police benefits while demanding they be cut for the poor.

Is this disgusting? It sure is, especially because she is now at the front of the line to be Joe Biden's vice presidential candidate. She's vowed to be the ' prosecutor president.' She's calling to cut policing funds for inner city neighborhoods while using the LAPD as her own personal security detail. It's always 'me first' with these elitists. The person she should prosecute is herself.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.
She previously said no law firms would ever give her a job because she has two children at home to look after.

But Married At First Sight's Stacey Hampton, 26, now claims that she's actually made the decision not to pursue a legal career - despite recently receiving a job offer.

While addressing her fans during a Q&A session on Tuesday, the single mother was asked the question: 'Why didn't you pursue a career in law?'

'It's just a personal choice. I got offered a position today [by] a friend, like a lawyer - a senior lawyer - that deals with defamation and stuff,' the blonde legal graduate boasted.

'Basically, they were like, 'Lets get you a job. And I was like, 'Oh I've got so much going on right now!'' she continued.

Stacey, is in the process of establishing a postnatal depression charity, continued: 'The charity's so time consuming you wouldn't understand! '

'I've got so much going on right now!' Married At First Sight' Stacey Hampton, 26, has claimed she turns down job offers from law firms because she's 'too busy working on her charity'

'It's crazy!' Addressing her fans during a Q&A session on Tuesday, the single mother said she was too busy working on her charity and activewear line

'And then my active line, coming out. It's crazy!' Stacey added, referring to her exercise clothing range, which is yet to launch.

Fans have questioned the source of Stacey's financial income in recent months.

The blonde often flaunts her expensive lifestyle online despite appearing not to have a lucrative job.

Cha-ching! The blonde often flaunts her expensive lifestyle online despite appearing not to have a lucrative job

Stacey however cleared up the confusion on Tuesday, when she told fans on Instagram stories that she earns a living from promoting brands on Instagram.

'I make money from social media, and my collaborations,' she said, adding that she's 'got investments and stuff like that.'

Last month, Stacey was forced to defend her recent interstate business trips to Melbourne after police stopped her at Adelaide Airport and told her she 'wasn't an essential worker'.

All business: During her trips to Melbourne earlier this year, Stacey visited a hair salon and went car shopping with her friend Anthony Hess (left) - but she insists these activities were all business related

At the time, non-essential workers were banned from international travel due to the spread of coronavirus.

During her trips to Melbourne, Stacey had visited a hair salon and went car shopping with her friend Anthony Hess - but she has insisted that these activities were all business related.

Stacey told Daily Mail Australia that she was doing 'essential' legal and accounting work for a travel company in Melbourne, and also setting up her charity in the Victorian capital.

She won't see you in court! Stacey was first awarded a Bachelor of Laws from the University of South Australia in August 2017. Pictured: Stacey with her law degree in May 2019

Stacey was first awarded a Bachelor of Laws from the University of South Australia in August 2017.

She went on to receive a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practise from The College of Law in April 2019.

A month later, she was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of South Australia.
On 3 June, three men  two from Siddi community and another from Laghumati community  were tied to a bench and beaten up by a mob in Veraval, a hub of fishing industries in Gujarat's Gir Somnath district

On 3 June, three men were tied together and beaten up by a mob in Gujarat's Veraval, a hub of fishing industries in the Gir Somnath district. The incident took place near Bhidia port where Samir Majgul (21) and Mustaq Bhalaya (20) from the Siddi community and Kanji (20) from the Laghumati community had gone looking for work.

"We were all standing near a galla and having tea. After some time, a fight between two groups broke out and the place became crowded. The other group, which was involved in the fight, ran away. Suddenly, the mob turned to us. They alleged that we were members of the other group and started attacking us, said Samir while speaking with Firstpost.

In a video of the incident, which has gone viral on social media, Samir, Mustaq and Kanji are seen tied to a concrete bench while four-five people slap them continuously.

Other people in the crowd can be heard supporting the act. "Thrash them in such a way that they bleed, people can be heard yelling in the video.

The victims were rescued by the police after receiving a complaint by Hasambhai, vice-president, Junagadh Jilla Adivasi Vikas Parishad.

"I got a call about the boys being tied and beaten up. I immediately called the police and informed them. A police vehicle was sent to the spot and our boys were saved," Hasambhai told Firstpost.

The three survivors were admitted to the Rajkot Civil Hospital by the police with severe injuries. They have been discharged now.

The police said that a case has been registered and four accused have been arrested till now. The survivors have been provided with police security as well.

"We have arrested four people in that case and they have been sent to judicial custody. An inquiry is going on, if more people are found guilty then we will take legal action against them too, Rahul Tripathi, Superintendent of Police, Gir Somnath District told Firstpost.

The accused, one of whom is reportedly a member of Veraval Boats Association, have been booked under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and under Section 325 (voluntarily causing hurt) and Section 326 (causing hurt using dangerous weapons) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

While the police and the survivors' accounts suggest that the three men were randomly targeted, the accused in the case have also filed a counter complaint.

Siddis are an Indo-African tribal community. Members of the community say that they are descendants from the Bantu people of Eastern Africa. They settled in India in the Seventh century in Gujarat, Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh.

The Central Government classified Siddis as Scheduled Tribes in 2003. They have also been accorded with ST status in Goa, in Amreli, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Rajkot and Surendranagar districts of Gujarat, the Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu.

Speaking with Firstpost, Farida K Al-Mubrik, a leader from the Siddi community said, "This incident cannot happen again. People who have committed such a heinous crime should be severely punished. This has happened for the first time and there is evident prejudice which led to this. The boys went there just for some work. They were attacked because they belonged to a particular community, and looked a certain way. That is just wrong."
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Attorney General Hector Balderas on Tuesday called for legislation that would require police officers in New Mexico to wear cameras on the job and ban the use of chokeholds during arrests.

His announcement comes as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and lawmakers prepare for a special legislative session June 18  dedicated to budget adjustments and other measures to address the coronavirus pandemic.

Protests against police brutality and racial injustice, meanwhile, have erupted in cities across New Mexico since the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer put a knee on his neck for, prosecutors say, 8 minutes, 46 seconds.

Just Monday, attorneys and staff in the states Law Offices of the Public Defender participated in marches throughout the state and called for Bernalillo County sheriffs deputies to wear cameras.

Increased transparency and accountability protects the community, as well as law enforcement, Balderas, a Democrat, said in a written statement Tuesday. I am asking that the Legislature immediately create uniform use of force policies that ban deadly tactics and ensure both officer and community safety statewide.

Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, controls the agenda for the special session. She hasnt revealed the full scope of what she will authorize legislators to take up.

Albuquerque police already wear body cameras. Video from officers cameras, in fact, played a role in 2014 protests after it showed police firing on a homeless camper as he turned away from them.

An autopsy revealed James Boyd was shot in the back.

Shaun Willoughby, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association, said legislators should understand that on-body cameras are expensive.

Officers deserve to have a high-quality piece of equipment that works, Willoughby told the Journal.

Law enforcement agencies, he said, would also have to pay for software, electronic storage and other expenses to support the cameras. He also noted that the cameras take video in one direction, not capturing the entire scene that may unfold out of their view.

The public needs to understand that its not the end-all, be-all, Willoughby said. The worst thing that can happen is they put a mandate on these without a funding source.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales has repeatedly resisted calls to require deputies to wear cameras. He says that he has no proof they would be beneficial and that there are more effective ways to spend county money.

Deputy Connor Otero, a spokesman for the Sheriffs Office, said Tuesday that sheriffs enforce and follow the rule of law, and if the New Mexico Legislature enacts new legislation, BCSO will follow that law, if deemed constitutional.

Balderas said Tuesday that lawmakers should also prohibit officers from using chokeholds during any arrest.

A Las Cruces police officer, meanwhile, has been charged in the death of Antonio Valenzuela, who died after an officer used a vascular neck restraint following a foot chase in February, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News.

Willoughby said Albuquerque police arent allowed to use chokeholds.

Balderas said Tuesday that his office is investigating the death of Rodney Lynch last summer for possible illegal use of force by members of the Gallup Police Department.

Rep. Gail Chasey, an Albuquerque Democrat and chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that she supports requiring body cameras and prohibiting chokeholds. She said that she is working on broader legislation for the regular session but that the special session might be a good time to get a few things into law quickly.

There are so many things that need to be done  probably not all of which could be done in the short session, Chasey said. But perhaps while theyre ironing out the budget, we could get some other really good things like that done.
Panaji:

A yoga training textbook prepared by Baba Ramdevs Patanjali Yog Peeth would be taught in the primary schools in Goa, a senior official said.

The (yoga training) scheme would be implemented by Goa Educational Development Corporation (GEDC) for a period of six years commencing from the ongoing academic year, Director of Education G P Bhat told reporters.

The government also intends to constitute a state-level yoga cell of yoga experts.

A healthy approach towards education and life can be developed right from a young age via the most powerful yogic practises. Yoga at primary level will definitely help develop an effective system to create healthy citizens for the nation, Bhat said.

Khel-Khel Me, a yoga training book based on NCERT syllabus and prepared by Patanjali Yog Peeth will be taught from std I to std IV.

The problems which school children face, such as stress, depression, lack of concentration, exam phobia, behavioural problems, relationship issues and drug addiction can be tackled through this course, Bhat said.

As per the scheme, 15 government primary schools in each tehsil will be selected for introducing yoga education. A teacher from each school will be selected as a trainer.

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Photo credit: Ana Davila - Hearst Owned

From Esquire

On a humid, cloudy day last May, on the leafy outskirts of Ghana's capital city, Accra, Roland Obeng opened one of his two Grindr accounts. Surrounded by wood-carved penises in his otherwise ordinary office, the healthcare manager set to work replying to messages in the LGBTQ+ dating app. Obeng  who identifies as gay and requested I change his name for safety reasons  works at the West Africa Aids Foundation-International Health Care Center (WAAF-IHCC). I have two profiles, he explained. One of them is for my personal profile, and then one is for work  to help my community members to get tested.

Obengs work profile, called Menz Corner, reads: A good life starts with good health. Contact me for free HIV testing and STI screening with utmost confidentiality n lots of freebies, and lists a phone number. Sometimes people write and ask how to use a condom; some send photos of their genital infections or want free flavoured condoms and lubricant. Others ask, is the place discreet? Can I come? Obeng said.

Photo credit: Hearst Owned

At first, many people have concerns about visiting the clinic, where Obeng works as a case manager, which nestles off the main road of a bustling residential area and is sheltered by palm trees. Public facilities in Ghana, Obeng explained, sometimes stigmatise or can be hostile to the LGBT community, and people dont always feel safe exposing themselves in front of the general population. If the doctor can identify an infection and offer a prescription through social media, they will, but Obeng encourages his clients to come into the clinic to test for sexually transmitted infections and HIV. To assuage peoples fears, Obeng and other clinic workers and volunteers will personally accompany them.

Obeng, who is in his mid-30s, softly-spoken with warm eyes and a wide smile, said roughly five people per day reach out to him through Grindr. According to the clinics data, between October 2018 and May 2019, 48 clients visited through social media referrals. Of those, 23 (48 per cent) tested positive for HIV, which, in comparison to other outreach activities, is a very high yield.

Story continues

Photo credit: Hearst Owned

LGBT people in Ghana face widespread discrimination and abuse  including mob or family violence, sexual abuse, extortion, and blackmail. Due to lack of economic and educational opportunities, some resort to sex work. Stigmatisation and discrimination make it impossible for [LGBT] individuals to become productive members of the community when disclosure of their sexual orientation is likely to lead to them being thrown out of their jobs, schools, homes, and even their communities, Phillip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said in a 2018 Human Rights Council report on Ghana. Nearly half of the discrimination cases filed since 2013 with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice were filed by LGBT people. Last year, the local press reported that a man who supported homosexuality and same-sex marriage had gone into hiding after his community in southern Ghana tried to kill him.

Before social media, gay men would meet up through word-of-mouth in whats known as hotspots  clubs, food joints, or shops, where they can gather safely, and whose location changes frequently. Such meet-ups, though, are not without risk. Guro Sorensen, the head nurse at WAAF-IHCC, met someone recently who is gender fluid, whom I'll call Tomas. Tomas told Sorensen hed spent time at a gay friends noodle shop, which had become a hotspot. One afternoon, in the light of day, Tomas went to the beach, where a group of men recognised him from the hotspot. We know you are gay, they told him. Then they attacked him.

Obeng and others at the clinic began to implement this social media-driven strategy in 2017 when they realised that large sectors of the population living on the margins of Ghanaian society  particularly LGBT people  are often the most vulnerable to HIV but remain hidden. I am someone who uses Grindr a lot, and I was actually introducing a lot of people from Grindr and social media to this place, so we came up with such an approach, Obeng said. A lot of men who have sex with men come to social media because they want to be discreet, and people wouldnt always want to show their face, he said.



According to Dr Henry Nagai, who leads Ghanas USAID Strengthening the Care Continuum Project, whose primary goal is to connect vulnerable populations with HIV services, social media has played a pivotal role in his teams work, as well. It helps you to be able to get into the network, he said. For example, the transgender community in Ghana is very small, hidden, discreet, and they have the highest transmission rate. In the past seven months, Care Continuums digital health platform has had 98,972 interactions, through which theyve received messages and offered referrals for services including HIV testing and STI treatment; nine per cent of all those who received HIV testing services in the program during this period were referred through social media platforms. This is important because this percentage are those who are hidden and discreet and hard to reach through traditional outreach services, Dr Nagai said.



Dr Naa Ashiley Vanderpuye-Donton, the director at the WAAF-IHCC clinic, shared a similar perspective. Its a very sensitive group because its criminalised in Ghana, and you cant go about doing things openly," she said. For them to come to us or for us to reach them, its complicated, and theyre not out in the open."

An archaic, colonial-era law  the Criminal Offences Act of 1960  prohibiting and punishing unnatural carnal knowledge  interpreted as penile penetration of anything other than the vagina  criminalises same-sex activity in Ghana. While the law is seldom invoked to prosecute people, it can be used to arrest and extort people based on their real or imputed sexual orientation or gender identity. Having a law on the books that criminalises adult consensual same-sex conduct contributes to a climate in which LGBT people are frequently victims of violence and discrimination, Wendy Isaack, the author of a 2018 Human Rights Watch report, said at the time of its release. Homophobic statements by local and national government officials, traditional elders, and senior religious leaders foment discrimination and in some cases, incite violence.

The effect of the law, as well as the states failure to address violence and discrimination, the Human Rights Watch report found, effectively relegates LGBT Ghanaians to second-class citizens. The result is that those who exhibit health problems or HIV symptoms are afraid of the double stigma that will attach to them once they know their HIV status and disclose they are an LGBT person. All of these factors are a complete disincentive to accessing health care and are detrimental for providing adequate care both to affected populations and to the population at large because it becomes a public health issue, Graeme Reid, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, told me. Many, therefore, choose not to seek health care. And for a long time, Obeng was one of them.

Recent historical works suggest that pre-colonisation, dating back to at least the 16th century, many African societies were recorded as freely expressing a range of sexualities and gender relations  from male-to-male sex in Congo; transvestism in Ethiopia; and the men of the Nzima of Ghana traditionally marrying each other. But, beginning in the 19th century, the British Empire began its quest to conquer swaths of African territory, and in so doing, it imported Victorian laws, spread fundamentalist Christian values, and homophobia, intending to abolish sodomy and savagery in the region. These colonial-era penal codes and homophobic sentiments persist in Ghana and most former colonies.

A lot of these laws were imposed on a kind of racist assumption of rampant sexuality. Like unbridled sexuality was taking place, including same-sex sexuality that needed to be regulated and controlled by the colonial authorities, so in a way, same-sex relations was seen as a sign of the primitive that needed to be regulated and controlled, Reid of Human Rights Watch, whose organisation published a 2008 report about the proliferation and harm of such laws in former British colonies, told me. Now, fast-forward 100 years, where embracing same-sex relations is seen as a kind of marker of modernity, and governments are pressured by former colonial powers  who imposed those laws in the first place  to repeal them, and theyre saying, I dont think so, Reid said.



In 1957, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence. Early in its independence, Ghana was crippled by famine, economic instability, and a series of military coups between the Sixties and early Eighties. But Ghana has held peaceful elections since 1992, and, in recent years, has been among the worlds fastest-growing economies. Ghana is the worlds second-largest producer of cocoa and Africas second-largest producer of gold; its expanding oil sector, since offshore deposits were discovered more than a decade ago, has also led to an economic uptick. But, according to Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Ghanas inequality is at an all-time high; one person in five lives in poverty and one in eight lives in extreme poverty. While new infections of HIV have decreased significantly over the last two decades, sectors of the population  like men who have sex with men and female sex workers  remain disproportionately affected.



In June, Botswanas High Court overturned sections of its colonial-era penal law, which criminalised homosexuality with up to seven years in prison. Judge Michael Leburu, one of the three ruling judges on the panel, said, the anti-sodomy laws are a British import, created without the consultation of local peoples. Leburus proclamation contrasts that of leaders in other former colonies in the region, where sodomy laws are said to reflect the countrys cultural values.

In April 2018, Theresa May said she deeply regrets Britains historical legacy of anti-gay laws across the Commonwealth and urged nations to repeal these outdated laws that criminalise more than 100 million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people throughout member countries. Nobody should face persecution or discrimination because of who they are or who they love, the former Prime Minister said in a speech at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Today, homosexuality is illegal in 34 of Africas 54 countries, four of which employ the death penalty. Political and religious leaders and government officials across the continent, including in Ghana, regularly proclaim nocuous anti-LGBT sentiments. In June 2018, Kofi Tawiah, the head pastor of Osu Church of Christ, said, homosexuality is considered as a capital offence which is abominable and is accompanied by capital punishment. Professor Mike Oquaye, Ghanas speaker of parliament, has called for harsher laws against same-sex conduct and conflated homosexuality with bestiality, while Moses Foh-Amoaning, a lawyer and lecturer at The Ghana School of Law, has announced plans to cure people of homosexuality with gay conversion therapy.

Ghana is a deeply religious society  predominantly Christian  and pastors sometimes preach that theyve found a cure for HIV. Others, who adhere to Indigenous religions, which believe in the supernatural, may believe HIV infection is caused by curses and spirits and can be cured by herbal concoctions. Spiritual therapy from traditional priests, pastors, and healers is sometimes used as a substitution for antiretroviral therapy. Such beliefs present, a major challenge to our work; its obvious that a pastors voice and a promised cure by herbalists sounds better in the ears of our clients than our lifelong treatment, unfortunately, Sorenson told me.

Photo credit: Hearst Owned

Over the last 20 years, much of the LGBT-rights organising has been enabled and expanded through HIV and AIDS prevention activities, Reid explained. Programmes aimed at men who have sex with men have found a niche in which LGBT groups can push for their rights, while also recognising that effective public health care cant take place in an environment in which there are restrictive laws and negative social attitudes, Reid said. The two go hand-in-hand.

Ghanas climate of homophobia has not only led to mob attacks, physical and sexual assault, and domestic violence but also health inequality. Compared with the prevalence of 1.3 per cent of HIV among the general population of Ghana, 18 per cent of men who have sex with men have HIV, but only 3.7 per cent are covered by antiretroviral therapy, according to UNAIDS figures. A 2019 study by the Local Burden of Disease Project at the Institute for Health Metrics found that, since 2000, HIV/AIDS is still the most common cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa and was responsible for 13,878 deaths in Ghana in 2017.

Photo credit: Hearst Owned

Recently, I spoke with Wisdom, the Executive Director of an LGBT rights organisation in Accra called Solace Initiative and the Executive Secretary of the Alliance for Equality and Diversity, who asked me to use his first name only. The situation on the ground in Ghana, according to Wisdom, is neither good nor bad: I can say we are making progress in terms of attacks and abuses against gay men  we can go to the police station to seek redress, he said. But, he said, We still face stigma and discrimination when gay men access health services or health care. Much of the HIV prevention and treatment programming has targeted men who have sex with men, so theres nothing targeted to bi women and lesbians, he said, who addresses trans needs? He asked. They are not part of the programming, he said.

Sarah, the Executive Director of Courageous Sisters, an LBQT rights organisation, who asked only to use her first name, echoed the same sentiment. As LBQ women, weve been left out of every health intervention, she said. One of the challenges currently facing the community with whom Sarah works is corrective rape, forced marriages, and physical attacks. Still, often, those people do not seek help due to the stigma. No health intervention or nothing is going on; we dont know the HIV prevalence, Sarah said. There must be an implementation of HIV activities in Ghana targeting this population  if you dont know your status, you dont know what youre doing, she said. Courageous Sisters also uses social media to target marginalised women, using what Sarah called the snowball technique. Using Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, we reach out to someone we know, and they help us get in touch with target populations, and it keeps going, she said. We let them know where you can go for health care and seek help.

In the late Eighties, when AIDS was first discovered in Ghana, Obeng was a child. Even then, he knew who he was. He preferred to play with males and began to explore his sexuality as a teenager. It was very natural, and I never learned it from anyone that this is how I should feel or anything, Obeng said. But back then, he said, people in Ghana didnt have the vocabulary to express what these sexual preferences and gender identities meant. It didnt matter, though: Obeng knew that what he felt wasnt accepted in Ghanaian society. People called him feminine names, and he understood that to survive, he had to be very discreet; Obeng didnt invite his friends to his home, so as not to arouse suspicions in his community and family.



Growing up, Obeng described receiving a general education around HIV/AIDS but said, we were not educated that HIV was really linked with men who have sex with other men or gay men, he said. Because I was aware of HIV as soon as it came to Ghana, if they had told us HIV was high among men who have sex with men, I would have been very careful. I didnt know, so I was doing my thing as a man who has sex with men. I was having sex with my friends and hook-ups and all that, he said.

Obengs life continued as usual until, eight years ago, he got a severe case of shingles that mercilessly spread across his body. He went to a public facility where a nurse suggested he get an HIV test. Why should I go for HIV testing? Obeng asked. When she suggested it, I was a little scared because of my activities." The test came back positive, and Obeng now credits that moment with saving his life.

The problem, though, is that Obeng didnt know where to turn at first: the public facilities in Ghana, he said, regularly stigmatise against gay men. Upon learning a person is LGBT, healthcare workers have been known to take out the bible and begin preaching, the implication being that such a lifestyle is a sin; doctors sometimes advise their gay patients who are HIV positive to discontinue having sex. They are asked to stop basically being who they are, Sorensen told me. Knowing this reality, Obeng didnt feel safe disclosing his identity and status. Ghanaian society, in general, he said, think its taboo, that weve been cursed and all that. A friend soon introduced him to WAAF-IHCC, whose staff is trained to offer services to men who have sex with men. There, he received counselling and met a doctor who told him he needed to start antiretroviral medication. The first time that I came here, I said, OK, this is the place where I want to start. I had been to public places, but then this was different." The team of doctors and nurses there soon became a family to him, and he began working as a caseworker to reach other gay men.

Photo credit: Hearst Owned

Today, Obeng supports gay men to get HIV testing and regularly brings medication to several clients at their home or workplace; his role involves educating people on safe condom use and providing psychological support. Someone might not even take his antiretroviral medication because he thinks that Im taking the drugs to kill him  he believed this myth that theyre trying to take all the people living with HIV/AIDS away from the society by giving them drugs, Obeng said. Sometimes, you just have to use yourself as an example. Ive been living with HIV, Ive been taking my drugs for years, and Im doing well, so why wont you take yours?

Still, Obeng has disclosed to no one in his family that he is gay or HIV positive. His mother, he said, constantly pressures him to marry. I would love to let them know that this is who I am, but being in Ghana, and then the society does not accept that I come out, I just need to be discreet, he said. Ive been living with this my whole life."

First-time visitors of the clinic, which is surrounded by homes in a developing suburb of Accra, sometimes mistake the clinic for a house and drive by it. Unlike the sterile environment typical of medical facilities, whether by design or accident, to many, the laughter and friendly chatter emitting from the facility makes this place feels like home. There, as the clinic buzzes with new patients, Obeng and his colleagues regularly gather to strategise about how to use social media most effectively to reach high-risk people. Its very difficult, especially in an environment where being LGBT is illegal, Phinehas, a field officer, told me. The team has created a Facebook group, Health Desk 4 Men, through which people can ask questions and connect with the facility. We use other platforms like Grindr, Blued, Romeo, Adam4Adam, and all other social media platforms that are mainly for gay men to link to the clinic, Phinehas explained. One of Phinehass profiles, called Mens Corner, says, contact me for all your health needs, and lists a number. Phinehas uses the apps to locate where people are publicly gathered, for instance, at a bar or the mall, and will try to engage them in person.

Photo credit: Hearst Owned

A peer educator at the facility, whom Ill call Michael, randomly reaches out to people on dating apps when they are online. His Grindr profile contains a picture of a handsome man and lures people with the following description: flavoured [condom] water base lube and lotion lube very effective for a sexual life, and from there, the conversation starts. Michael also uses the location services on Grindr to locate high concentrations of people and tries to reach people in public spaces.

The approach, though, is not without risk. Recently, someone reached out to Michael on Grindr expressing interest in the lube, expecting Michael to use it with him. There are some guys like that who will come and beat you up, Michael said. The person can send you fake pictures, and you can try to meet the person, and its not the real person youre meeting, and there are some people there if you go to meet the person they can beat you, take your telephone, and take your money, and they can rape you. You have to be so careful, smart, professional, and intelligent." he said, are anti-LGBT and spew insults or aim to cause physical harm. The work, honestly, is not easy, Michael told me. There are people there who let me smile and let me be happy, and I try to focus on those people."

One day, in July 2017, a young man whom Ill call James opened his Grindr app. A mutual friend had written him a message. How are you doing, where do you live, lets get to know each other, the person said. The conversation was friendly and continued for a few days. The men exchanged numbers, and one evening James got a call from the man. We were talking about what we do for fun, and he just asked me out of the blue, have I been tested before and do I know my status? At first, James described being taken aback. Its not like we agreed to be in a relationship. I felt as if he was imposing. But he was my friend." The man on the other line continued: Its important to know your status, he said.

Im afraid, James told him. The man reassured him. He knew a friendly clinic in Accra. There wont be any stigma, he said to James. At the time, James described having little education around HIV transmission. People just meet, and then they just do it without protection, he said. Sometimes you ask, have you been tested, and they liesome dont know if they have it or not. People are not really educated in that aspect. Only a few."

They agreed to meet the next morning at Jamess home and go to the clinic together, where the man was a peer educator. I was so nervous, James said. That was the first time I ever did any test, especially for HIV." A few years earlier, James had visited a public clinic where he tested positive for gonorrhoea. The doctors there told him to bring the lady so they can test her, he recalled. I cant even tell them it was a guy. If you have a partner, you cant really go to the clinic together and get good advice; you have to shield yourself. Its frustrating.

When James arrived at the WAAF-IHCC clinic with the peer educator, who turned out to be one of Obengs colleagues, he recalled feeling shaky. Sorensen, the head nurse, tried to calm and reassure him. He began to open up about his identity. I was so free and relaxed, and for a moment I didnt feel like I was in Ghana, he told me. I didnt know what the outcome would be." When the results came back positive, James said he wasnt prepared. He told Sorensen, I have to get my mind, my body, and my soul prepared for this. James, who is now 25 years old, began treatment in early 2018. The first few days I started the treatment, it was hell, he said. I had symptoms and side-effects, and I couldnt concentrate." Sorensen helped him through it and continues to check in on him.

Photo credit: Hearst Owned

James then decided that he no longer wanted to live a lie. He told his family he is gay. They hated me at first and told me I should turn to God, he said. Now Im alone and going to school, he told me. As for his HIV status, he uses his experience to educate others. Stigma, he said, continues to be rampant: some people, he said, believe that HIV is a virus through sharing of toilets. It would be great one day if people in Ghana and Africa would stop the stigma and understand this is not so bad, he said. In the meantime, he is waiting for the day when two guys can go to a clinic and get tested together and just be free.

This story was reported through a 2019 International Aids Society fellowship

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In a bid to help the Information Technology (IT) professionals who have returned home during the COVID-19 crisis, the West Bengal government has launched a web portal for providing them jobs in the states IT companies.

Information about the portal, karmabhumi.nltr.org, was shared by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee through her official Twitter handle on Tuesday.

Banerjee urged all professionals from the state who are seeking a job to visit the portal.

The COVID-19 crisis, and the lockdown imposed to prevent its further spread, had led to thousands of workers, students, professionals returning to their hometowns due to lack of jobs, health concerns, or to be with their family in these testing times.

West Bengal, along with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, is one of the states which has witnessed a mass influx of people.
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Rajasthan issues SOPs for inter-state travel

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Jaipur, Jun 10: The Rajasthan government on Wednesday issued directions for regulating the inter-state movement of persons - movement of people by international flights into the state to be in accordance with MHA's SOP. People coming to state by scheduled domestic commercial flights/trains/buses to be screened on arrival.

People coming into Rajasthan by road (private bus, taxi, personal transport) to be screened at check post to be established on borders, personal IDs to also be checked.

''All persons moving outside Rajasthan required to obtain a pass from concerned authorities. Those travelling by scheduled flights/trains/RSRTC buses today, & personal emergency cases (death, accident in the immediate family, hospitalization) exempted'', an order issued by the Home Department said.

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Director General of Police (Law and order) M L Lather earlier issued an order saying no person will be allowed to enter Rajasthan without a 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from the state government or leave it without a pass.

The Home Department later issued a detailed order for the regulation of interstate movement.

As per the Home Department's order, on spot passes will be provided by the district administration through a counter set up at airports, railway stations and bus stands after verification of IDs. Persons applying for passes at such counters will have to reach there well in advance before the time of departure.

Rajasthan to seal its borders amid spike in COVID-19 cases

Those travelling by scheduled flights, trains, state roadways buses with prior reservations on Wednesday and personal emergency cases like deaths or accidents in the immediate family or immediate need for hospitalisation, have been exempted from passes for travelling out of the state.

The passes will be issued by collectors, SDMs, police commissioners, deputy police commissioners, SPs, deputy SPs and local police stations.

"There has been an unprecedented upsurge recently in COVID-19 positive cases in the state since the phased opening of the lockdown with effect from June 1, 2020. "It has also come the state government's notice that under the prevailing system of free movement, certain persons from hot spots and other restricted areas have travelled outside the state after COVID testing and before their report was received, which turned out positive subsequently, posing a threat to wherever they go," the order issued by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Rajeeva Swarup said.

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"Keeping in view the efforts of the state government till date for preventing the spread of COVID-19, and in the interest of public safety, it has become necessary to regulate the interstate movement of persons," the order said, adding that these directions shall remain effective till further orders and till such time that the present situation is reviewed.

The number of coronavirus positive cases in the state has gone up to 11,368, with 123 fresh cases reported on Wednesday morning The state reported 369 cases on Tuesday, its highest single-day spike so far. Rajasthan has reported 256 COVID-19 fatalities till date.
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 9)  Another 518 coronavirus cases were added by the Department of Health to the national tally, which rose to 22,992 on Tuesday.

The DOH said 280 of the new cases are fresh cases or those whose test results were validated in the last three days, while 238 are late cases or were part of the agencys validation backlogs.

Another 99 patients have also beaten the virus, as recoveries climbed to 4,736. The death toll is now at 1,017, with six new deaths.

The Tuesday bulletin showed that Central Visayas registered the highest number of fresh cases with 82. Including late cases, the region had 86 new infections.

Meanwhile, Metro Manila logged 61 fresh and 89 late cases for a total of 150. Other regions nationwide recorded a cumulative number of 257 new cases, while the remaining 25 are returning overseas Filipinos.

Among Filipinos abroad, the coronavirus tally reached 5,401, after the Department of Foreign Affairs announced 12 more infections. There are also 64 new COVID-19 survivors and nine more deaths, bringing total recoveries to 2,295 and fatalities to 380.

While the DOH continues to report hundreds of new cases daily, infectious disease expert Dr. Benjamin Co said the recent coronavirus figures looked encouraging for the country's capital region.

In an interview on CNN Philippines The Final Word, he noted that Metro Manila logged a much lower number of around 70 to 100 fresh cases per day over the last week, and compared this to the more than 200 daily infections registered weeks before. This was when the DOH had not yet separated fresh from late cases.

Co believes that given these data, returning to a modified enhanced community quarantine is no longer an option for Metro Manila. Its either the general community quarantine is extended for another 15 days, or the region steps into a modified GCQ, he said.

He added that although the government failed to reach its 30,000 daily testing capacity target by the end of May, the current 10,000 tests per day is already good enough.

If you look at the data that we have, we only have a 7% positivity rate, which is very good, he said. The WHO (World Health Organization) puts a positivity rate of 10% and below. When you say that you have 10% and below positivity rate, that means youre testing enough.

As for the coronavirus vaccine, however, Co is skeptical it can be developed within the year due to its complicated process.

Nations across the world are currently conducting their own clinical trials to find a vaccine for the viral illness, which so far has infected over 7.1 million people and killed some 406,000 globally.
By Gleb Stolyarov and Anton Zverev

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians are using Belarus as a springboard to travel abroad as their country's international borders remain largely closed as part of efforts to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, transport sector sources say.

Russia and Belarus form a customs union and their shared frontier is relatively porous, making it easier to avoid border guards by taking certain routes.

Unlike Russia, President Alexander Lukashenko has refused to impose a lockdown in Belarus, which also borders Ukraine and European Union member states Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. He has suggested vodka and saunas as remedies for the coronavirus.

Dozens of car and mini-van drivers still advertise cross-border shuttle services for both Russian and Belarusian citizens despite Russia's formal closure of its borders in March.

Several drivers who declined to be named said they regularly crossed the border with passengers lacking clearance to do so.

"At around 70-80kms (43-50 miles) from Belarus we start driving through country roads to get round the border guards," one driver said, adding it was a 10-12 hour trip from Moscow to the Belarusian capital Minsk, costing 10,000 roubles ($146).

Another who identified himself only as Andrey said "hundreds" of Russians had flown onwards after reaching Belarus.

"Many people write afterwards that they made it over and flew out," he said.

Belarus's Belavia airline offers flights to various European destinations including Germany and France as well as elsewhere.

The Russian border guard service did not respond to requests for comment. The Belarusian border guard service said it did not seek to control movement across its border with Russian.

Russia's Federal Security Service has reported catching more than 250 people crossing the border since April, local media reports said. These people as well as the drivers involved were each fined 2,000 roubles.

Story continues

One Russian woman said she had used the route and that it had not seemed untoward: "It's just a normal, good road and after driving it you end up in Belarus."

Russia, with 145 million people, has reported nearly half a million coronavirus cases with 6,358 deaths. Belarus, with 9.5 million people, has reported 50,000 cases and 282 deaths.

(Additional reporting by Andrei Makhovsky and Rinat Sagdiev; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Trinidad and Tobago Permanent Representative to the United Nations and nominee for the Arima seat, Pennelope Beckles, will be flying in to Trinidad and Tobago early on Sunday morning.

This was confirmed by sources yesterday.

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Greg Glassman acknowledged having caused a "rift" after joking about the dead Minneapolis man.

The chief executive of CrossFit has quit after causing offence with remarks about the death of George Floyd and the resulting protests.

Greg Glassman stepped down after athletes, gyms and sportswear firms cut ties with his $4bn (3.1bn) brand.

Mr Glassman acknowledged having caused a "rift" in the CrossFit community.

His exit came on the day of Floyd's funeral in Texas. The unarmed black man died last month after a policeman in Minneapolis knelt on his neck.

What was the controversy?

In reply to a public health body saying racism was a public health issue, Greg Glassman tweeted on Saturday night: "It's FLOYD-19", an apparent reference to Covid-19.

He followed it up with a second tweet saying: "Your failed model quarantined us and now you're going to model a solution to racism? George Floyd's brutal murder sparked riots nationally."

He also called an affiliate "delusional" for questioning why CrossFit had been silent on the killing in Minneapolis.

According to Buzzfeed, hours before posting the fateful tweets, Mr Glassman had told gym owners on a private Zoom call: "We're not mourning for George Floyd - I don't think me or any of my staff are.

"Can you tell me why I should mourn for him? Other than that it's the white thing to do."

How did Glassman resign?

In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Glassman said: "I'm stepping down as CEO of CrossFit, Inc, and I have decided to retire.

"On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members."

He added: "I cannot let my behaviour stand in the way of HQ's or affiliates' missions. They are too important to jeopardise."

His statement was followed by another from Dave Castro, his successor at the helm of the company.

The incoming CEO said: "CrossFit is a community - one that is global, diverse, and tough."

He added: "Our community is hurt, though. Our shared bond brings together millions of people with differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences."

Mr Glassman conceived the company as a high school gymnast in his parents' garage in California. It is now affiliated with an estimated 13,000 gyms worldwide.

What was the response to his remarks?

Hundreds of affiliate gyms have removed CrossFit from their branding.

One of these gyms, Petworth Fitness in Washington DC - formerly CrossFit Petworth - wrote on Instagram: "For a brand that has preached about being 'for all', the deafening silence on current and past issues of racism tells us all we need to know."

It added that it would donate its annual affiliate fee - $3,000 - to the Black Lives Matter DC and Know Your Rights anti-racist campaign groups.

Adidas AG, which owns Reebok, also issued a statement confirming it was ending its relationship with CrossFit.

"Recently, we have been in discussions regarding a new agreement, however, in light of recent events, we have made the decision to end our partnership with CrossFit HQ," the company said in a statement to AFP news agency.

Several CrossFit athletes also criticised the company.

Four-time CrossFit Games champion Matthew Fraser praised a colleague for disaffiliating from the company, while Olympian and three-time CrossFit Games champion Tia-Clair Toomey said she was "incredibly saddened, disappointed and frustrated" with Mr Glassman's comments.

Icelandic CrossFit athlete Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir also posted screenshots of Mr Glassman's tweet and email, and said she was "ashamed, disappointed and angry". BBC
The coronavirus has spread across a lot of countries across the world thus, being referred to as a pandemic.

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

The virus hit some countries like America, Spain, and Italy so badly that some of the nations recorded over 2,000 deaths in a day.

Despite having high mortality in some countries like the aforementioned ones, some other countries have, fortunately, recorded little deaths.

YEN.com.gh has however decided to highlight the countries that have so far been declared as COVID-19-free as well as countries with few cases.

Coronavirus disease under a microscope Source: UGC

Source: UGC

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1. Tanzania

The President of Tanzania, John Magufuli, on Monday, June 8, 2020, declared his country COVID-19-free. According to the president, the cases were no longer going up because of the grace of God.

President Magufuli also added that the disease had been exaggerated by the various stakeholders

"I want to thank Tanzanians of all faiths. We have been praying and fasting for God to save us from the pandemic that has afflicted our country and the world. But God has answered us", he is quoted to have said.

2. New Zealand

A similar thing has happened in New Zealand where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, declared the country coronavirus free.

According to reports, the country has reported no new COVID-19 cases for more than two weeks.

Due to this, New Zealand has lifted almost all of its restrictions as social distancing is not required and there are no limits on public gatherings.

3. Vietnam

Even though Vietnam is not totally coronavirus-free, it is amazing how the country has been able to keep its confirmed cases below 500 with absolutely no recorded deaths.

Several people have praised Vietnam's response, comparing it to the success in 2003 when it became the first country to be cleared of the SARS outbreak.

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4. Taiwan

Taiwan's handling of the outbreak has received international praise for its effectiveness in quarantining people.

As of 16 May, a total of 69,201 tests had been conducted in Taiwan with the vast majority not confirming a COVID-19 diagnosis.

5. Ghana

Our own country Ghana cannot be left out as President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo put a lot of measures in place to help curtail the spread of the disease.

A ban was put on social gathering, travelers who got into the country were mandatorily quarantined, mass testings were carried out, as well as a lockdown being enforced in certain areas.

Even though the country's total confirmed cases have reached 10,201, it could be said that the deaths recorded are relatively low.

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Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 00:06:39|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China expressed deep condolences over the passing of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday.

"China expresses its deep condolences and sincere sympathies to the government and people of Burundi and the family of President Nkurunziza," spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press briefing.

Nkurunziza died of a heart attack in a hospital in east-central Burundi, according to a Burundian government statement issued on Tuesday.

Hua said President Nkurunziza, a strong champion of national sovereignty and independence against foreign interference, played an active role in helping his country find a development path that suits its national conditions, and was deeply respected and adored by his people.

Nkurunziza was also a good friend to the Chinese people as he was devoted to the cause of China-Burundi friendship and contributed greatly to deepening bilateral all-weather partnership, Hua said.

"At this moment of grief, the Chinese people's hearts are with our friends in Burundi," she said.

Nkurunziza was elected the president of Burundi in 2005, and was re-elected in 2010 and in 2015. Enditem
There is no doubt that the Royal family is steeped in tradition and that it observes protocols like no other. If Queen Elizabeth abdicates or steps down, the next-in-line would be Prince Charles, or at least that is what most would think. A recent analysis showed however, if it is going to be based on qualities and competencies, then Prince Charles would not.

Prince Harry is even more qualified to the throne than Prince Charles!

An analysis by the Royal Vegas Casino revealed that based on royal CVs, which included all the royals around the world, Prince Charles should not be taking on the monarch if the Queen steps down. If and when this decision is going to be mainly based on competencies.

The analysis revealed that Queen Elizabeth II tops the list of the most qualified royals to date. The CVs revealed important information such as length of reign, net worth, educational background, palace size, among others. Queen Elizabeth has a total score of 748, placing her on the top.

The British royal members top the list though. After the Queen, Prince William is the most qualified based on his education, work engagements, and even achievements to date. It should be Prince Charles, some would say. But since this Prince William anyway, that can be forgiven.

But, analysis showed that next to Prince William still is not Prince Charles! Instead, Prince Harry seems more competent. Prince Charles ranked only fourth.

This means that Prince Harry is more educated, has better work placements, and more achievements so far.

Of course, the analysis essentially meant nothing since there are rules in deciding who gets the throne once Queen Elizabeth steps down.

Rumors have been going around that despite being very healthy, Queen Elizabeth is already planning to step down. But one could doubt the veracity of these rumors. Some of them are too controversial to take in just like that after all.

For example, according to In Touch, the Queen is not sure if she can ever return to the Palace due to the coronavirus and is all but ready to surrender the reins to Prince William and Kate Middleton asap. The story added that as a result of feeling bypassed and overlooked, Prince Charles is bitter. The magazine even had a source dishing out all these incredulous stories.

"He's prepared his whole life to be king, and Camilla was dying to be queen - she's always dreamed of having the $660 million crown jewels at her disposal and is upset they'll now be going to Kate," the source said.

Believable? It's a wait-and-see situation, but for now, it sounds like a lot of hogwash.

In fact, Gossip Cop dismantled the said report and claimed it a pile of nonsense. Queen Elizabeth reportedly said she would remain the reigning monarch until the day she dies so she is unlikely to pass anything to anyone. Plus. the Queen cannot just break the line of succession just like that.

She cannot skip Prince Charles without the parliament saying so. In fact, she has no power to name anyone king or queen because this power is with the parliament.

READ MORE: Queen Elizabeth Thinks THIS is Why Prince Charles, Princess Diana's Marriage Failed
European Central Bank officials are drawing up a scheme to cope with potentially hundreds of billions of euros of unpaid loans in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The project, which comes as Europe mobilizes trillions of euros to bolster the region's economy, is aimed at shielding commercial banks from any second fallout from the crisis, if rising unemployment chokes off the income needed to repay loans.

One of the people familiar with the plan said the ECB had set up a task force to look at the idea of a "bad bank" to warehouse unpaid euro debt and that work on the scheme had accelerated in recent weeks.

The ECB declined to comment on whether it was working on a bad bank scheme.

The amount of debt in the euro zone that is considered unlikely to ever be fully repaid already stands at more than half a trillion euros, including credit cards, car loans and mortgages, according to official statistics.

That is set to rise as the COVID-19 outbreak squeezes borrowers and could even double to one trillion euros, weighing on already fragile banks and hindering new lending, the people familiar with the ECB plans said.

While the idea for a euro zone bad bank was discussed and shelved over two years ago, the ECB, under its new President Christine Lagarde, has consulted banks and EU officials about a scheme in recent weeks, one of the people said.

As the euro zone's most powerful institution, ECB backing for the project is critical but it would also require the blessing of Germany, the bloc's biggest economy.

Berlin has long opposed schemes that accept shared responsibility for debts in other countries although it recently had an unexpected change of heart, agreeing to pool EU borrowing for a coronavirus recovery fund.

One blueprint under discussion would involve the European Stability Mechanism, an EU institution which can provide financial assistance to euro zone countries or lenders, standing in as guarantor for the bad bank, the people said.

The bad bank would then issue bonds which commercial banks would buy in exchange for portfolios of unpaid loans, neutralizing the virus shock for Europe's lenders. The banks could then lodge those bonds with the ECB as collateral for central bank funding, one of the people said.

Major European commercial banks could be called on to join forces to underpin the scheme, the second person said.

While European countries are now focused on launching a 750 billion euro plan to help economies hit by COVID-19, the idea of a bad bank, and the ECB blueprint, could come up for discussion among central bank governors and ministers later this year.

Asked on Tuesday about bad banks, Andrea Enria, the ECB's chief bank supervisor, said while he supported the concept, it was "premature" to discuss one now because it was not clear how severe the impact of the coronavirus outbreak would be.

"I have been very supportive of asset management companies. I think they are useful," he told reporters, highlighting the success of bad banks in Spain and Ireland in the aftermath of the financial crisis. "Many of these schemes have ended up in the black, making profits."

Enria said the ECB was studying how banks could cope were the crisis to worsen. He said banks had more than 600 billion euros of capital and this would probably be enough, unless there were a second wave of infections.

Still, any pan-European scheme to tackle the problem of bad loans would likely face political objections from Germany, which has long resisted attempts to support banks in weaker countries for fear it could get lumbered with unpaid bills.

Markus Ferber, a German member of the European Parliament, said Berlin remained opposed to taking on such mutual guarantees. "National bad banks could be a first step," he said.

Marco Zanni, an Italian lawmaker in the parliament, said the EU decision making process was too complicated and too slow.

"Looking at the past crises, the experience is that European solutions come too late," he said. "When you're facing a crisis ... you need to act in days or weeks, not months or years."

Banks in Italy and Greece, for example, were still recuperating from the fallout from the financial crisis more than a decade earlier when the pandemic struck.

But while the problem of unpaid loans has been concentrated chiefly in poorer EU countries since the 2008 crash, the widespread impact of the coronavirus, which has hit Germany hard, could see borrowers everywhere struggle.

The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, said it had outlined how bad bank schemes could function but no "formal work" was underway. It said banks had been given more regulatory leeway but could "explore all relevant possibilities" if needed.

"European banks are already preparing for another wave of bad debts," said Andrew Orr of accountancy firm Deloitte.

"Having a European bad bank would help. For the bad debt itself, nothing changes. The debts still need to be worked through and the money still has to be paid back." (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
World Health Organization's COVID-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, on Tuesday (June 9) clarified her remarks that transmission of coronavirus COVID-19 from asymptomatic carriers was "very rare", asserting that it was a "misunderstanding".

"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's very rare," she had said a virtual press conference on Monday.

Van Kerkhove's remarks sparked huge reaction scientists across the globe.

"Contrary to what the WHO announced, it is not scientifically possible to affirm that asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2 are not very infectious," professor Gilbert Deray of the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris said on Twitter.

Van Kerkhove later took to Twitter to post a WHO summary on transmission.

"Comprehensive studies on transmission from asymptomatic individuals are difficult to conduct, but the available evidence from contact tracing reported by member states suggests that asymptomatically-infected individuals are much less likely to transmit the virus than those who develop symptoms," it said.

During a discussion, which was rebroadcast on Tuesday, Van Kerkhove said she wanted to clarify a misunderstanding.

"I was referring to very few studies, some two or three, and answering a question. I was not stating a policy of WHO," she said.

"I used the phrase 'very rare', and I think that is a misunderstanding to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare. What I was referring to was the subset of studies," she added.
Germany's foreign minister urged Israel on Wednesday to pursue a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians rather than unilaterally annex West Bank land, as European officials step up their opposition to a proposed move they see ending Palestinian hopes for an independent state.

With Israel vowing to begin the annexing process next month, Heiko Maas set aside concerns that prohibited travel since the coronavirus pandemic broke out to meet with his newly installed Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi. He'll hold virtual talks with Palestinian officials.

"Annexation would not be compatible with international law. Therefore we continue to support a negotiated, consensual solution," Maas said at a press conference in Jerusalem. "We will need new creative impulses for the restart of talks."

Ashkenazi, a former military chief, has said the government intends to advance President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan, which endorses Israel extending its sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank, in "a responsible manner" that fits with the country's strategic interests. But the plan to formally carve off territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 Mideast war, an idea long just a pipe-dream for the Israeli right, is an outrage for the Palestinians, who rejected the Trump plan outright and pared back security and economic cooperation with Israel.

The EU has said it would discourage annexation, though sanctions on Israel are unlikely in the short term as that would require unanimity among member states and, according to Brussels-based officials, at least Hungary would veto such a step. Maas said he "didn't come here with a price tag," in response to a question about measures Germany would take against Israeli annexation. Germany takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union on July 1.

But as well as the political fallout, continued economic access to the EU, Israel's largest trading partner, could suffer as a result.

The EU would have a lower threshold to exclude Israel from the research and development funding program called Horizon 2020, whose terms will be renewed at the end of the year, European officials say. Israel has received over 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in grants since joining the program in 2013. The EU could also withdraw Israel's duty-free access to the European market without requiring the unanimous support of the bloc's national governments.

Tony Blair, the former U.K. prime minister and ex-head of the Quartet group that tried unsuccessfully to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, said pursuing the annexation plan "will create a significant source of tension between the European Union and the State of Israel, even amongst those states that are traditionally very supportive of Israel."

Conceding Israeli annexation would weaken the EU's claim to champion international law by rejecting, for example, Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus, analysts say.

Other European foreign ministers are considering a trip to Jerusalem to discuss Israel's annexation plans, though the timing remains uncertain because of the coronavirus, according to an Israeli official, who asked to remain anonymous because the deliberations are private. The official didn't specify the countries eyeing a visit.

Israel and the Palestinians negotiated for more than 20 years before the last round of talks collapsed in 2014, and had identified core issues including the future borders of Israel and a Palestinian state, the status of contested Jerusalem and resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue.

While expanding his country's borders would cement Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's place in history for the country's nationalist right, it's unclear what cost he's willing to bear. A number of Arab states have also signaled that the gains in bilateral ties of recent years could be undone.

"The peace process has reached a serious impasse," Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Tuesday. If Israel pushed ahead with annexation, the Palestinians would declare an independent state over all territory within the 1967 borders and ask the international community to recognize it, he said.
Turns out, Drakeo has been recording the calls, too  and if youre interested in hearing what the most flamboyant California rapper since Suga Free has to say about sitting in jail for a murder hes already been acquitted of, feel free to eavesdrop. The rococo rhymes on this momentous new album, Thank You for Using GTL, were recorded entirely over the phone. Its an extraordinary gesture, and it arrives at an extraordinary moment in American history, when millions are raising their voices against racist policing, from the streets of downtown L.A. to the barricades surrounding the White House.
Kudelski Security Launches Additional Services

for the Microsoft Modern Workplace

New offering enables Microsoft clients to simplify their security and compliance strategy and improve cybersecurity posture in the cloud.

Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland, and Phoenix (AZ), USA, June 3rd 2020 -Kudelski Security, the cybersecurity division within the Kudelski Group (SIX:KUD.S), announced today the launch of its dedicated Microsoft Security services, enabling clients to effectively consume and configure Microsoft security capabilities and add additional monitoring to their Microsoft 365 and Azure environments.

This represents the latest expansion of a rapidly growing, cloud-first cybersecurity portfolio that supports digital transformation initiatives of global enterprises using private and public cloud services. In addition to providing a dedicated Microsoft focus, Kudelski Security offers clients a combination of proprietary, native cloud security monitoring capabilities as well as teams of experienced engineers to help deploy, operate, and maintain comprehensive cybersecurity programs.

The caliber of Microsoft 365 security capabilities is increasing, allowing organizations to monitor and manage security across their Microsoft identities, data, devices, apps, and infrastructure. As part of their new services, Kudelski Security will help Microsoft clients simplify their security and compliance strategy by effectively leveraging their existing investments in Microsoft 365 and Azure. Kudelski Security's Microsoft Security services leverage native security features from Microsoft 365 and Azure, such as Azure Active Directory and Azure Information Protection. They combine these features with expert guidance, proprietary solutions, and continuous threat monitoring to deliver end-to end security capabilities at any stage of the client journey.

"For thousands of enterprises around the world, Microsoft 365 is the guardian of business-critical data," said Andrew Howard, CEO, Kudelski Security. "This makes Microsoft 365 an attractive target for attackers. It's essential for security teams to understand Microsoft 365 security capabilities and ensure they are properly implemented."

Ann Johnson, CVP Cybersecurity Solutions Group, Microsoft Corp. said, "Our clients are increasingly looking for firms that can help them leverage their existing Microsoft security investments more effectively. The capabilities of Kudelski Security aid in monitoring data in Microsoft environments, and are complemented by broader services to secure the modern workplace."

Kudelski Security's core Microsoft Security Solutions services include the following:

Security Posture Assessments provide visibility on maturity levels, identify gaps, and deliver a prioritized security control roadmap to significantly improve an organization's security posture.

provide visibility on maturity levels, identify gaps, and deliver a prioritized security control roadmap to significantly improve an organization's security posture. Azure Active Directory Identity Access Management services safeguard organizations from unauthorized access and identity-related threats while maintaining an integrated, straightforward user experience.

safeguard organizations from unauthorized access and identity-related threats while maintaining an integrated, straightforward user experience. Azure Information Protection services safeguard client data automatically while enabling user productivity and secure collaboration across devices and locations.

safeguard client data automatically while enabling user productivity and secure collaboration across devices and locations. Cloud Security Monitoring services enable threat monitoring and hunting for Microsoft 365 and Azure environments without the need for additional technology purchases.

Driving the practice forward is Chris Goosen, who joins Kudelski Security with 20 years of experience helping clients securely and effectively deploy Microsoft solutions at scale. Chris is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE). Goosen and his team will leverage their expertise to help protect the modern digital workspace and ensure clients understand, optimally configure and leverage the capabilities offered by their existing and future Microsoft ecosystem investments.

About Kudelski Security

Kudelski Security is the premier advisor and cybersecurity innovator for today's most security-conscious organizations. Our long-term approach to client partnerships enables us to continuously evaluate their security posture to recommend solutions that reduce business risk, maintain compliance and increase overall security effectiveness. With clients that include Fortune 500 enterprises and government organizations in Europe and across the United States, we address the most complex environments through an unparalleled set of solution capabilities including consulting, technology, managed security services and custom innovation. For more information, visit www.kudelskisecurity.com

Media Contact

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A petition on change.org seeking to reinstate Michael Handler as New Canaans director of Emergency Management nearly reached its goal 19 hours after being started.

As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 9, 404 people had signed. The goal was 500. Before 9 p.m. the count was up to 490 signatures, and the goal had been increased to 1,000. After 6 a.m. Wednesday, June 10, the count was up to 600. After 8 a..m. Wednesday, it was 642. After 9 a.m. Wednesday, it was 686.

I am tourched and humbled by the support, Handler said.

The count was 728 after 10 a.m. Wednesday.

There were 747 signatures after 11 a.m. Wednesday.

After 12 p.m. Wednesday, 771 people had signed.

There were 790 people signed after 1 p.m., Wednesday.

At 2 p.m. Wednesday, the count was 809 people.

The count was 826 after 3 p.m. Wednesday.

There were 841 people signed after 4 p.m. Wednesday.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, the count was 868.

The count was 892 after 6 p.m. Wednesday.

There were 913 people signed after 7 p.m. Wednesday.

After 8 p.m. Wednesday, the count was 927.

After 9 p.m. Wednesday, there were 949 people signed.

After 12 a.m. Thursday, 984 people had signed.

There were 995 people signed after 2 a.m. Thursday.

The number of signatures has surpassed 1,000. The goal for the number of signatures to be reached has also increased to 1,500. After 4 a.m. Thursday, 1,002 people had signed.

After 3 p.m. Friday, 1,288 people had signed.

Absent Handler being reinstated, the petition calls for a vote to determine who is the best person to properly lead the Office of Emergency Management.

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan asked for Handlers resignation Wednesday, June 3, citing disagreements about coronavirus testing.

Moynihan later issued a statement about Handlers resignation, saying that the smooth appearance of the towns response to the virus pandemic may not have given the full picture.

While all of this coordination may have appeared seamless to the greater community, regretably, recent circumstances have required me to make this change in staffing, Moynihan wrote.

At his twice-monthly press meeting Thursday, Moynihan said he had received complaints against Handler during the pandemic.

Handler, who Thursday said he would make only one statement, challenged Moynihans claims Friday.

While my family and I are saddened by Mr. Moynihans hurtful and baseless allegations, I trust that my 20 years of public service to our town stand on their own and speak louder than his lies. I cannot thank you all enough for your support, but I will not engage at Mr. Moynihans level. The good of the town must come first. We must not forget that we are in the midst of a monumental human rights movement, a pandemic, and unprecedented unemployment, Handler wrote.

The petition also cites Handlers more than 20 years serving the town as a volunteer, the last nine as director of Emergency Management, and his phone calls that updated New Canaan residents each night during the pandemic.

His calm, intelligent, and measured approach has steered our town through many emergencies, including hurricanes, power outages, and storms, the petition reads. During the current COVID-19 crisis, New Canaan has become a proactive leader and model in communication, testing, and reporting thanks to Mike.

The petition said Handlers departure could erode public trust.

With the uncertain path of this pandemic, we are deeply concerned that his absence in our town's emergency response will not only cause anxiety and erode public trust, but will derail our town's ability to respond to changing information and data with the necessary flexibility and agility, the petition reads.

Moynihan said last week that a team remains in place to oversee the continuing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which as of Thursday saw little presence in New Canaan. Fire Chief Jack Hennessey, who was deputy director of Emergency Management, has stepped into the role on an interim basis.

Handler and previous directors had handled the role as volunteers. Moynihan said the director could be paid.

While the petition seeks a vote if Handler is not reinstated, previous directors have been appointed.

For more than two decades, including many years as captain, Handler was a member of the New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps, now New Canaan Emergency Medical Services.

Handler recently left his role as chief financial officer for the Stamford mayors office.

In 2018 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Open Letter to the Black Community - Part 1 NEWS PROVIDED BY NEWS PROVIDED BY Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr. June 10, 2020 RICHMOND, Va., June 10, 2020 / Christian Newswire / -- The following is submitted by Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr.: Dear Fellow Americans (of African descent):



I write to you with great concern for the future of our country and the black community. Like most Americans, I too am angry over the killing of George Floyd. His death was a monstrous act, and former police officer Derek Chauvin deserves to have the full weight of the law brought against him. If the video we witnessed is accurate, Mr. Chauvin must be imprisoned for a long time.



However, my sadness reaches well beyond this single tragedy. The riots, looting and violence which have occurred in cities across the country will not reform, heal, unify or improve the lives and safety of black Americans. In fact, these actions are radically regressive and self-destructive.



Black businesses are burned down, the owners are assaulted and essential grocery stores and pharmacies are destroyed. Cops and innocent bystanders are victimized and killed. The irony is that the victims are primarily those for whom the rioters claim to be seeking justice. History teaches us that communities wracked by riots and looting do not recover easily, if at all. They tend to become more impoverished and dangerous than they were before the upheaval.



The Proverb says, "where there is no vision, the people perish." The last time curfews were necessary to quell violence across the country was fifty-two years ago in 1968. A half a century later, we face the same destructive reaction to racial grievance. It will not lead to one black child getting a better education. Not one black worker will get a better job, and not one inner city family will live in a safer community. If police departments are defunded, as Black Lives Matter is demanding, look for an outbreak of crime and violence in the inner city like nothing we have ever witnessed before.



The purpose of peaceful protests should be to secure a better life for those trapped by inner-city violence, drugs, gangs, and lack of educational and economic opportunity. If we are having the same violent protests over the same issues with the same negative consequences as 50 years ago, something is wrong with our approach.



There is a way out of this vicious cycle, but it is hard medicine. Black citizens must stop voting for a political party that espouses nothing more than racial demagoguery. Al Sharpton, a proven charlatan with zero credibility, is trotted out to speak for the victims. No solutions are offered and no long term progress is ever made. Social and racial justice are popular slogans, but they are not a strategy for improving the lives of people.



Education has been used to uplift every demographic group that has come to America. However, inner city children whose ancestors are among the earliest to arrive on this continent, are trapped in failing schools. Educational choice offers a real solution, but black Democratic politicians block it at every turn. They send their children to the finest schools available while leaving the children of their constituents trapped in dead-end institutions.



Their betrayal doesn't end with education. These black politicians go to church every Sunday, and some of them are pastors. Yet they disregard the sin of abortion and its impact on the black community. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a rabid racist who admired Adolph Hitler and consorted with the Ku Klux Klan. She would have liked to exterminate black people, but satisfied herself with suppressing the growth of the black population through abortion. When eugenics proved unmarketable, she changed her brand to "planned parenthood" which sounds benign unless you know the truth. With the full cooperation of many black leaders, Sanger's genocide against the black community continues to this day.



Finally, the single greatest social problem facing the black community is the destruction of the nuclear family. The out-of-wedlock birth rate has exploded to 72%. In some cities such as Richmond, Virginia it is 80%. The young men, born to single mothers, unwanted by their fathers, grow up with anger and abandonment issues. Desperately wanting to be wanted, they are easy recruits into a brotherhood of gangs, crime and violence. The streets are an outlet for their anger.



Leftists complain that the criminal justice system tracks young black men from the school house to the jail house. But the "progressive" welfare policies of the Democrat Party put them on that track. Instead of encouraging stable, two-parent families, they incentivize single, female-headed households. They've been doing this since the 1960s, with horrific results.



Where is the plan for reversing the crisis of these communities? Where is the vision for a better future? Democratic leaders have led the black community to the brink of destruction with no hope for a better life. The black Democrat elites on the other hand experience the best America has to offer while leaving their fellow black citizens utterly hopeless.



Living posh lives, these so called black leaders and their white leftist counterparts tell black voters to hate and fear Donald Trump because he is their problem. He is the enemy. His rhetoric does at times make it easy for them to mischaracterize him. Nevertheless, Donald Trump has accomplished some remarkable things to benefit the black community. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's) have faced financial hardship for decades, and he is the first president to provide a permanent funding solution.



He established Opportunity Zones for the inner cities to help spur economic development. He presided over an economy that saw the lowest unemployment rates ever for black and Hispanic Americans. He shepherded the Criminal Justice Reform Bill through Congress, correcting the legacy of the Clinton era overreaction to the crack cocaine epidemic.



President Trump is actually doing something about the problems the black community faces while Democrats do nothing.



Democrats hope that if they can keep black voters fixated on hating Donald Trump and the boogey man of racism, they won't notice that the leaders they elected and the party they support are doing nothing. The voters won't notice that over 7000 young black people die in inner city violence every year. They won't notice the failing schools or the dropout rates. They won't notice the continuing decimation of the nuclear family, once the bedrock of the black community. The black Democrat politicians do not want black voters to notice that they are enriching themselves with blood money from Planned Parenthood. That organization kills around 400,000 black babies every year. The black population would be double what it is today were it not for the abortion industry and the Democrats they pay to keep quiet about the genocide.



It is time for black citizens to turn away from such corrupt leaders. It is time to denounce the rioting, violence and the anti-Christian philosophy of the Democratic Party which is only destroying black people.



We must come together with other citizens around a vision for the future of our community and our country that is rooted and grounded in faith. We've come this far by faith, but Democrats would have us burn the bridge that brought us over. That is suicide.



As America goes, so goes the black community. Black veterans fought under the same American Flag and took the same oath to the Constitution. While they did not always receive the respect and gratitude they were due, it is nonetheless true that no people of African heritage anywhere on earth are more free or better off than we who are blessed to be Americans. America is still the last best hope for all of us, regardless of race.



We cannot change the past. However, we can change the future. It is time to come together across all racial and cultural lines to renew the American vision of "one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all." It is within our grasp if we do not allow the radical elements among us to destroy it forever. We are at the precipice. There are those who would like to push us over the cliff into chaos. They think they will be there to pick up the pieces and create a socialist utopia, but history proves it will be a totalitarian nightmare.



Let us, as free black Americans, pull back from the precipice, push back against the anarchists and embrace the legacy of freedom, justice and hope for ourselves and the generations to follow.



Restoring America's Vision,



Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr. Bishop E.W. Jackson is the President and Founder of STAND - Staying True to America's National Destiny; Presiding Bishop of The Called Church and host of The Awakening on American Family Radio.



SOURCE Bishop E.W. Jackson



CONTACT: 757-375-6444, vanity@ewjackson.com



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At least three people died during a protest by hundreds of demonstrators in the DR Congo capital against the coronavirus lockdown closure of the city's main market, officials and witnesses said.

Police said they fired warning shots to disperse the protesters who gathered at the site on Tuesday to demand the reopening of the Kinshasa market, AFP reporters said.

Several of the demonstrators said at least one person was killed by gunfire.

A spokesman for the Kinshasa provincial government said two people were electrocuted while another was crushed to death by the fleeing crowd after "trouble by people pretending to be trade unionists" from the market.

"We deplore the deaths of three people," the spokesman, Charles Mbuta Muntu, said following a meeting to discuss the unrest.

The demonstrators blocked a road with barricades at the Kinshasa Grand market. By ARSENE MPIANA (AFP)

"Those responsible for these riots have been arrested" for having violated state of emergency measures imposed to combat the virus.

Demonstrators had stood their ground behind barriers that have since early April cut off the Gombe area housing the market as part of the fight against the spread of the coronavirus.

The protesters hurled insults at the Kinshasa governor, Gentiny Ngobila, calling him a "thief."

Belise Okonda, a governorate spokesperson, denied rumours the market was being knocked down.

In a letter seen by AFP, Interior Minister Gilbert Kankonde ordered Ngobila to reopen the market.

However, the governor first wants work undertaken by the city authorities to improve health and sanitation at the market.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered 90 deaths from the new coronavirus from 4,359 cases, including 3,864 in Kinshasa.

Police said they fired warning shots to disperse the protesters. By ARSENE MPIANA (AFP)

DRC President Felix Tshisekedi ordered the state of emergency on March 24, which has been extended several times by a vote in parliament.

Under the measure, borders, schools, places of worship, bars and restaurants are all closed, and gatherings of more than 20 people are banned.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Auto dealers in Greater Cleveland got hints in May that sales were restarting, but if could be some time before they recover from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sales were up about 10% in May in the region covered by the Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association, said Lou Vitantonio, the organizations president. But April sales were so flat that the uptick was just a start.

May was still off 22% (from May 2019), Vitantonio said. His organization represents about 280 dealerships from 23 counties in northern Ohio.

We are trending toward a slow recovery, Vitantonio said. May was better. I think June will be better  Weve still got a lot of work to do.

Auto dealers across the country were hammered by stay at home orders and shutdowns that were put in place in March and shut down much of the economy in April.

In Greater Cleveland, March traditionally is the auto industrys top selling month, coming on the heels of the Cleveland Auto Show.

Auto title revenue in Cuyahoga County, a barometer of automobile sales, was down nearly 30% from March 2019. April was worse, down nearly 40% from last year.

May was off about 57% from 2019, but title fees were up about 10% from April.

Nationally, Toyota Motor, Honda Motor and Hyundai Motor were among the automakers to report double-digit sales declines in May compared to May 2019, CNBC reported. Smaller automakers such as Mazda and Volvo reported slight declines.

But still, as state loosened restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus, there were some signs of improvement in data from industry analysts, CNBC reported.

An analyst for Edmunds told Car and Driver that April clearly was the bottom for sales during the pandemic. May offered some hope, said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds executive director of insights.

Expiring leases could help, Vitantonio said.

Vehicles are coming due on lease. I couldnt do a lease in April. I wasnt ready to do one in May, he said. Now in June, the hope is people will return to the dealerships.

Its about having a comfort level with customers, Vitantonio said.

If not, the industry could change, too, with dealerships are going to the buyers.

Industry analysists have suggested that as a result of the pandemic, auto dealers could adopt strategies that could allow buyers to handle more of their purchases online and spend less time in showrooms.

Perhaps, Vitantonio said, dealers will deliver cars to homes.

Its customer preference. Its adjusting to the times, Vitantonio said. Dealers are good at adapting.
The Daily Beast

Reuters/Arnd WiegmannTheatrical rock superstar Meat Loaf, whose Bat Out of Hell is one of the bestselling albums of all time, has died at the age of 74. Reports say the singer and actor had recently fallen sick with COVID-19.In an emotional statement posted to Facebook early Friday, the performers family said he was with his wife when he died and had said his final goodbyes to his two daughters in the past 24 hours. The star sold 100 million albums in his five-decade career and starred in movie


By Jung Min-ho





A Korean citizen kidnapped off the coast of Gabon last month has been released unharmed.





The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday that the man in his 50s, whose identity is being withheld, was among six crew members released Monday evening (Gabon time) by pirates.





The other five are Indonesian and Senegalese citizens and appear to be in good health, the ministry said.





The man remains in a "secure place" offered by the ministry in Nigeria, an official said. After having a medical checkup at a local hospital, he is expected to return to Korea soon.





The pirates attacked their fishing boats and abducted the men in the early hours of May 3 near the Gabonese capital of Libreville in West Africa.





It is unclear whether the pirates received the ransom they demanded before releasing the six.
New Delhi, June 10 : The indicators of asset quality, new businesses and profitability of affordable housing finance companies (AHFC) are likely to decline in financial year 2020-21 due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, said an ICRA statement.

It noted that debt servicing ability of these entities have been impacted off late as target borrowers are mostly self-employed and belong to the middle-to-low-income group whose income have taken a hit during the lockdown.

"According to estimates, the asset quality indicators of these entities could deteriorate by 50-100 per cent in FY2021, though the reported numbers would start showing up only from results of Q3 FY2021," it said.

Due to the pandemic, the RBI first allowed a moratorium on term loans from March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020, which was further extended till August 31, 2020. Following this, most of the HFCs have also extended a moratorium to their borrowers for this period.

As per estimates, 40-45 per cent of the portfolio of AHFCs is currently under moratorium. At the same time, many of these HFCs have not requested a moratorium from their lenders.

"Thus, their ability to service the debt in a timely manner would depend upon the extent of on-balance sheet (on-b/s) liquidity available and their ability to draw down the sanctioned but unutilised bank lines," it said.

Manushree Saggar, Vice President, Financial Sector Ratings, ICRA said: "Given the expected impact of the pandemic on both new business and the asset quality, the profitability indicators of these entities could decline in FY2021. In our estimates, gross NPA per cent for these AHFCs could increase from 4.1 per cent as on December 31, 2019 to 5.5-6.5 per cent by end of FY2021."
Lynch moderated a discussion with Mascola and former Hutch President and Director Dr. Larry Corey, who will head operations based at the Seattle research institute to carry out massive clinical trials, involving 30,000 volunteers each, on at least five vaccine candidates starting as early as this summer.



Tapping the Hutch-headquartered HVTN

The hourlong discussion covered a wide range of topics about the prospects for a COVID-19 vaccine, the first of which might be available by year-end. Corey and Mascola are working under the direction of Dr. Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Corey emphasized the global scope of the clinical trial effort, which will take advantage of the international network of vaccine testing sites that were set up  including the Hutch-headquartered HIV Vaccine Trials Network  to carry out trials of potential HIV vaccines.

Despite what is happening on the outside with the U.S. government and the WHO, we are fish who swim deep underneath those waters and view that what we are doing is a global program., said Corey, an acclaimed virologist who has worked on HIV drugs and vaccines with Fauci since the 1980s.

We are people of the globe, and our plans are to be able to extrapolate all the data that we have in the United States internationally, Corey said. And, in some areas we may get more data internationally  which we can extrapolate back to the United States.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-09 22:39:26|Editor: huaxia

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A Foton electric bus is seen in Salam City, east of Cairo, capital of Egypt, on Oct. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

There is "no alternative" to China's investments over the years in many countries in the region, "so if you had to take them away, Middle Eastern or African countries would be in great trouble," said a Turkish expert.

ISTANBUL, June 9 (Xinhua) -- "China offered some good deals in these countries where other nations wouldn't or couldn't, so according to international competition rules and regulations, there's nothing to be surprised about," Selcuk Colakoglu, director of the Ankara-based Turkish Center for Asia-Pacific Studies, told Xinhua in an interview.

In recent years, several Gulf nations have deepened their relations with China and embraced more Chinese investments and contracts. The United Arab Emirates, for example, has signed contracts with Chinese telecommunications company Huawei.

Visitors are seen at the booth of Huawei at the first AI Everything Summit in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, on May 1, 2019. (Xinhua/Mahmoud Khaled)

Last week, David Schenker, a top official from the U.S. State Department overseeing U.S. policy in the Middle East, warned countries in the region against accepting Chinese "investment, major contracts and infrastructure projects," during an interview with Washington-based think tank the Middle East Institute.

Colakoglu said there is "no alternative" to China's investments over the years in many countries in the region, "so if you had to take them away, Middle Eastern or African countries would be in great trouble."

"Western nations, including the U.S., feel threatened by the rise of the Chinese economy and its progress in the technological field," he said.

Hu Xiaojun (R), general manager of Ningbo A Plus Import and Export Co., Ltd. of China, instructs a worker to produce masks at a factory in the free industrial zone of Cairo, capital of Egypt, April 14, 2020. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)

"Cautioning countries about Chinese investment will not help solve the problem," Colakoglu said, calling on China and Western nations to negotiate their differences within the G20 group, warning that otherwise, the global economy would be affected in the post-coronavirus era.

"Washington is afraid of losing influence there (in the Middle East), but on the other hand the U.S. does not offer an alternative economic relationship with these nations, considering the matter from a political competition perspective," he stressed.

Photo taken on Dec. 4, 2018 shows the pavilion of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) at Egypt Defence Expo (EDEX) 2018 in Cairo, Egypt. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

Noting that China has grown to be an economic juggernaut over the last five years, leading several key manufacturing sectors worldwide, Colakoglu said technological progress was at the core of the strategy China pursues.

"It is only normal that China wants to engage in a strategy to export its technological products overseas. Japan and South Korea did the same thing in the past. There's nothing to be alarmed about by this," he said. 
Facebook aided the FBI in catching a child predator who blackmailed and threatened young girls over several years, it has been revealed.

Buster Hernandez, 28, known online as 'Brian Kil', was arrested in 2017 for a string of abuses against young girls including sending them graphic rape threats, threatening to blow up their schools and kill them, and blackmailing them into sending explicit photographs and videos.

He told his victims that he 'wants to be the worst cyberterrorist who ever lived' and taunted the FBI for their inability to track him down.

It has now emerged that social media giant Facebook was involved in his downfall in what is considered to be the first case of a tech firm aiding law enforcement in hacking a criminal.

Facebook aided the FBI in compiling evidence that led to the arrest of Buster Hernandez for charges of threats to kill, kidnap and injure and the production of child pornography in 2017. Pictured, the entrance to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California

In February 2020 Hernandez pleaded guilty to 41 charges, including production of child pornography, coercion and enticement of a minor, and threats to kill, kidnap and injure.

He is awaiting sentencing and will likely spend years in prison after targeting hundreds of minors in the United States and one foreign county.

In the years leading up to his arrest and as a result of Hernadez' numerous offenses in using Facebook's platforms to target victims, the company tried to act in putting a halt to his abuse.

According to Motherboard, they designated an employee to track him for two years before he was arrested to try to detect any new account he created.

It has now emerged, however, that after Facebook's security team, then headed by Alex Stamos, realized they had to do more, the company went one step further and made the decision to help the FBI gather evidence that eventually led to Hernandez' conviction.

Motherboard reports that Facebook paid a cybersecurity firm six figures to identify Hernandez and put and end to his reign of terror that involved abusing young girls over the course of several years.

'The only acceptable outcome to us was Buster Hernandez facing accountability for his abuse of young girls,' a Facebook spokesperson told Vice.

'This was a unique case, because he was using such sophisticated methods to hide his identity, that we took the extraordinary steps of working with security experts to help the FBI bring him to justice.'

Motherboard states that Facebook worked with a third-party to develop an exploit in Hernandez' concealment technique. The third-party company than handed this over to the FBI.

It is unclear whether the FBI knew that Facebook was involved.

Using different social media accounts, Hernandez would send the victims messages, according to his criminal complaint, with things like, 'Hi _______, I have to ask you something. Kinda important. How many guys have you sent dirty pics to cause I have some of you?'

Facebook's security team, then headed by Alex Stamos, pictured, felt more had to be done to end Buster Hernandez' reign of terror in abusing and blackmailing young girls and so they paid a third-party company a six-figure fee to work on an exploit that would identify the suspect

He would then coerce the young girls into sending him pornographic pictures to stop him releasing the pictures he only claimed to have of them in the first place.

It opened up a cycle of blackmail, extortion and threats.

His threats included killing his victims and he sent them graphic descriptions of rape.

'I want to leave a trail of death and fire [at your high school],' he wrote in 2015. 'I will simply WALK RIGHT IN UNDETECTED TOMORROW  I will slaughter your entire class and save you for last. I will lean over you as you scream and cry and beg for mercy before I slit your f*****g throat from ear to ear.'

Throughout it all, Hernandez believed he would never be caught and told his victims that the police would never find him.

'You thought the police would find me by now, but they didn't. they have no clue. The police are useless,' he wrote. 'Everyone please pray for the FBI; they are never solving this case lmao  I'm above the law and always will be.'

Facebook has said that this is the first time that the company has aided law enforcement in hacking a criminal and that it does not set a precedent that it will be done again in the future. Pictured are Facebook Inc.'s headquarters in California

The revelation of Facebook's involvement in Hernandez' capture shows the extent to which the company has the abilities to hack citizens if they make a decision to aid law enforcement but does raise ethical questions for the company if they do so.

The exploit, called a zero-day exploit, that was developed for Hernandez was used through the privacy-focused operating system Tails, which he was using to mask his real IP address and evade capture.

A Facebook engineer worked with the third-party company to take advantage of a flaw in Tails' video player to reveal the real IP address of the person viewing the video and informed the FBI so Hernandez could be caught.

The operating system is also used by journalists, activists, and dissidents who are under threat of being surveilled by police or governments, however, leaving concerns that it could have been used by the FBI for other reasons.

Generally, security researchers will inform a company if they come across a vulnerability such as the video-playing flaw in Tails but that was not done in this case as the FBI intended to use it for their own purposes.

Facebook's security team has said, however, that they were aware that an upcoming version of Tails was due to fix this flaw and that they would have alerted the company to the problem when the investigation was over if it hadn't.

This was not enough for some Facebook employees, however.

'The precedent of a private company buying a zero-day to go after a criminal. That entire concept is f****d up [...] it's sketchy as hell,' one employee said.

A former Facebook employee told Motherboard, however, that in the case of Hernandez, the company felt it had to act.

Some employees at Facebook, pictured here at their headquarters, felt that it was right to get involved in the Buster Hernandez case while others felt it was beyond a private company

'In this case, there was absolutely no risk to users other than this one person for which there was much more than probable cause. We never would have made a change that affected anybody else, like an encryption backdoor,' they said.

'Since there were no other privacy risks, and the human impact was so large, I don't feel like we had another choice.'

'I think they totally did the right thing here. They put a lot of effort into child safety,' another former employee said.

'It's hard to think of another company spending the amount of time and resources to try to limit damage caused by one evil guy.'

While this is the first time that Facebook has directly aided the FBI in going after a criminal in this manner, it does have a team in its headquarters in Menlo Park that investigate criminals on their site.

The company said that it was not setting a precedent for further collaboration with law enforcement with the Hernandez case and that it had only engaged the third party to develop the exploit when they felt they had used up all other options.

Hernandez' spree of crimes began when a Plainfield, Indiana girl was threatened via Facebook in December 2015 after she refused to send sexually explicit photos of herself over the internet.

An FBI agent said in an affidavit that he also threatened girl in Michigan if she didn't send pornographic images and videos of herself.

Hernandez then told a second Indiana girl to attend and take notes at a January 2016 community meeting at which his threats were discussed.

The threats saw two schools, Plainfield and Danville High, close in December 2015 along with a shopping center.

Earlier that week, threatening emails were sent to other school districts across the country while schools in Los Angeles were also closed for a day.

The investigation to find Hernandez was complex requiring more than 100 state and federal search warrants along with electronic surveillance, wiretapping and sophistic computer forensics techniques.

Detectives found that Hernandez opened and closed as many as 24 different Facebook accounts to cover his tracks.

Investigators probed the threats for months. Their big break, however, didn't come until June 2017 when a judge authorized the use of the technique that had been handed over by Facebook and the third-party company.

It sent a booby-trapped video to Hernandez that allowed investigators to trace the IP address of 'Brian Kil' after his interactions with a victim in Michigan.

Kil demanded videos be sent to a Dropbox and then sent a demand from a telephone. The phone number proved key, leading investigators to an address in Bakersfield where they found Hernandez.

Hernandez was finally arrested after online communications were traced to his computer.
Where Trump is likely to hold his self-celebration. Photo: Paul Harris/Getty Images

After North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told the president he could not fete himself in Charlotte with a packed hall of sweating, cheering MAGA enthusiasts during a pandemic, Trump instructed the Republican National Committee to look for another place to hold the 2020 convention, or at least the celebratory parts of it  like POTUSs acceptance speech. Its not official yet, but the Washington Post is reporting that the RNC has settled on the northeast Florida city of Jacksonville as the alternative site.

The details of the arrangement are still in flux and RNC aides are scrambling to determine whether the northern Florida city has enough hotel rooms to accommodate the quadrennial event, which typically kicks off the final stretch of the presidential campaign 

The conventions more routine and lower-profile meetings still would take place in Charlotte, the original host site for the convention, according to two officials. Those smaller meetings are intended to honor the RNCs contractual obligation to hold its convention in North Carolina and shield the party from lawsuits for moving the large events elsewhere.

Jacksonvilles appeal to Republicans is twofold: Its a Republican-governed city in a Republican-governed state, which presumably means no hassles over mask or social-distancing requirements, and its not too far (382 miles) from Charlotte, in case delegates and party officials have to spend some time in both cities.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a big buddy of the presidents, and Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry have both lobbied for a chunk of the convention. Thats not to say there arent some local jitters, as WFAE reports:

Jacksonville Republican City Council member Matt Carlucci said Wednesday the city hasnt taken any votes on hosting. He said hes concerned about the possible negative health impacts of bringing 50,000 people to the city.

It has also been noted that the final day of the convention, which normally concludes with the big moment of the presidents acceptance speech, is on August 27, which will be the 60th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday, when a white mob attacked peaceful African-American sit-in demonstrators at a lunch counter in Jacksonville and then ran wild, attacking every black person in sight.

Hotel space could be a problem. The Florida Times-Union reports that one option is to anchor cruise ships in the citys harbor (on a river near the Atlantic Ocean), but its unclear whether Republican revelers will be happy to bunk down in a floating petri dish. The big events would be held in the VyStar Arena, which seats 15,000, a bit smaller than the venue in Charlotte but certainly capable of giving Trump the mass-adulation experience he craves.

Jacksonville has a consolidated government with surrounding Duval County, making it the largest city in Florida, with a population just under a million. Trump carried Duval narrowly in 2016. A local boost in November might help Republicans carry this must-win state. But only if Trumps party doesnt become a COVID-19 super-spreader event. The official decision on convention location should come this week.
People have been clapping for essential workers and making cute memes and adding extra tips to Instacart, Green said. If we don't protect where they live and their ability to live in Chicago, folks are going to end up homeless.  We don't want to look like San Francisco and Oakland. We don't want to be at the end of the battle and then decide to fight.
Photo credit: Caliope Yiannos

From Redbook

In times of hardship battling the pandemic and fighting for justice for George Floyd, the world feels really heavy. Amidst the chaos, Id like to bring to light stories of people doing good and having each others backs. From interviewing these small town heroes, I hope you find optimism and hope in their words. Here are reminders that there is a lot of good in the world...

Communities come together to clean up after protests for George Floyd.

After protests for George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, downtown Los Angeles was left with shattered windows and graffiti from looters acting independently from the peaceful protesters. Ms. Rothberg was out on the sidewalk by 9 AM with her broom and small dustpan. By the afternoon she had more than 100 people helping from her Facebook post and just people passing by. The power of teamwork even led to a pedestrian bringing them 10 pizzas.

Photo credit: Al Seib - Getty Images

In San Jose, California, Mayor Sam Liccardo handed out cleaning kits -- including a bucket, a scraper, some rags and Goo Gone while offering guidance in graffiti removal. These citizens wanted to clean up because they didnt want the vandalism to outshine the importance of the protest.

11 year-old Jorja Boller and her sister bring joy to senior citizens with their pony Little Peanut.

11 year-old Jorja Boller, 2019 Nebraska State Honoree in the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, created Horsing Around Nursing Homes to help her community. With her little sister and their pony, Little Peanut, they help bring smiles to the faces of elderly people living in nursing homes in Nebraska. This team of three has been making socially distant visits at three nursing homes in her hometown by going window-to-window to keep lonely nursing home residents company.

Photo credit: Jorja Bolla

Jorja says, The senior citizens love seeing my pony! The smiles on their faces were so neat! Some of them didn't want to stop seeing him so they would go into other people's rooms just to see him again. I just really miss volunteering with my people but this lets me try to make them happy because I know some of them don't get any visitors.

Story continues

Therabody has donated over 300 percussive therapy devices to hospital break rooms around the world.

The device Theragun has been changing peoples lives with its percussive therapy technology to combat muscle soreness from a long day at work or after working out. Their mission is to empower people to take their health and wellbeing into their own hands with natural, whole-body wellness solutions.

Photo credit: Therabody

Since the pandemic, Theragun has donated over 300 new devices to hospital break rooms, offering healthcare providers relief and recovery in over 60 hospitals around the globe and counting. Theyve also donated thousands of masks to local healthcare facilities worldwide and have pledged to donate 100 meals for every device sold through their website with Feeding America. They already surpassed 250,000 meals!

This high school held a jet ski graduation for seniors on the water.

12 graduates of Somerset Island Prep, a charter high school in Key West, Florida, didnt get a traditional graduation ceremony due to COVID-19. Instead, after taking a free three-hour jet ski training course, each graduate coasted on the water to pick up their diplomas. One at a time and abiding by social distancing, students met their principal who was standing on a docked boat and used a grabber pole to give each student their diploma without any contact.

Somerset Island Prep in Key West, FL found a unique way to honor the Class of 2020 with a jet ski graduation!



In graduation caps, gowns and masks, the students jet skied to their principal who presented them with high school diplomas.#SomersetAcademy #Academica pic.twitter.com/qQtff89FMD  Academica (@Academica) May 27, 2020

While it was more fun than a traditional ceremony, principal Tom Rompella drove home the message that through creativity and hard work you can overcome any challenge.

Police officers kneel and hold hands with protesters in peaceful protest for Black Lives Matter.

Caliope Yiannos and her family joined protesters for the Black Lives Matter movement in Ocean City, New Jersey. Working toward a common goal, officers and protestors united in a peaceful gathering -- police officers were not in riot gear. Officers stood with protestors, guiding them across the bridge and set up roadblocks.

Photo credit: Caliope Yiannos

The Ocean City cops in the photo are Officer Tyrone Rolls and Lt. Pat Randles. These cops knelt with us and spoke out about the BLM movement, making clear that they support us and were there with us. Officer Rolls spoke about his experience with racism in and out of uniform, and about the love he felt being surrounded by people who were protesting on behalf of BLM. Lt. Randles thanked us all for being there and creating a peaceful and open environment and welcomed us to the city, Caliope explains.

Over 25 libraries and community centers are converted into childcare hubs for essential workers.

In wake of the pandemic, a partnership quickly formed between the YMCA and the City of Memphis Parks Department with the local government to create a massive meal distribution and childcare program to help the community. The economic impact of COVID-19 has left many families without meals and without childcare. Memphis and many vital partners have acted quickly to plan, strategize, organize and mobilize --resulting in over 400,000 meals distributed in the last two months from 80 meal distribution sites across the city.

Photo credit: Kat Johnson

The program also includes childcare. Many essential workers do not have someone to watch their child as schools have closed. Community centers are unable to run their typical summer camps this year, so this partnership has converted over 25 libraries and community centers into childcare resource hubs for essential workers across the city. There is no income requirement, and the broad definition of 'essential worker means eligibility is vast for local residents.

These senior living associates gave residents a horse race of their own after the 145th Preakness Stakes was postponed.

Many residents at Brightview Avondell were disappointed when the 145th Preakness Stakes horse race was postponed. Senior Concierge Bre Mastromarino tells me, Since the Preakness was postponed, we jumped at the chance to give our residents something back that they were excited for - its such a tradition here in Maryland. It was an excuse for the residents to go all out, showing off their Preakness and Maryland attire.

Photo credit: Caitlin Wolf

Associates gave residents a reason to cheer with their own live "horse" race. Department heads at Brightview wore inflatable horse (flamingo and dinosaur too) costumes and ran their own race outside on the senior community grounds. Abiding by social distancing on balconies and on the ground six feet apart, residents were able to cheer on their favorite staff members.

Microsoft associates have organized over 3,000 virtual graduations for graduates and families.

We all know that graduation ceremonies have looked a lot different this year. Over the past few months, schools, teachers and students have been finding inspiring ways to commemorate 2020 graduates virtually. To help celebrate this important moment, Microsoft has been bringing graduation ceremonies to students homes by offering virtual graduations for up to 20,000 people via Teams.



Photo credit: Microsoft

This simply isnt just a video conference graduation. From virtual diplomas to recreating the school virtually in Minecraft, these Microsoft Store associates are organizing more than 3,000 virtual graduations for school across the country.

Magical Lunch Lady makes 1,000 emergency meals a day for kids with themed pickups.

When Patties school in Michigan closed for COVID-19, her team started making over 1,000 emergency meals a day for the kids who used to rely on the lunch they got at school. N early 50% of children are experiencing food insecurity. But what makes Pattie Guck so incredible is how she can take families' minds off their troubles, even for a moment, through a magical experience at meal pick-up sites.

Photo credit: Pattie Guck

"We have theme days every day, some favorites being Disney, Superheroes, Pajamas, and Christmas day. The Dream Team, children, and parents dress up and decorate their cars, buses, and sidewalks to have fun with the themes. The reactions we receive from families - thanking our team for feeding them, telling us that seeing us decked out is the best part of their day - are so heartwarming. All it takes is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust. Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. The BPS Chartwells Dream Team is a family and to them the community is family. Our Ohana makes it all worth it," Pattie says.

This GM engineer went from working on vehicles to making emergency ventilators for hospitals.

Tony Vittorini, Engineering Director at General Motors, leads the development of battery and body structures for new vehicles, including electric vehicles. In early March, Tony was tapped to help with a special project -- making ventilators to combat the shortage of them around the country.

Photo credit: Tony Vittorini

Tony says, When I was offered the opportunity to help GM and Ventec make ventilators, I jumped at the chance. I knew my team and I could help get the project off the ground and that our engineering skills would save lives. With every challenge that arose and the hours that seemed to never end, I always kept in mind that it was worth it and that we were going to help people who needed a ventilator to survive. Seeing the first ventilators delivered to doctors and nurses in Chicago area hospitals made it real. I was helping real people in our country and we were making a difference.

Shipt Shopper completed his 100th order to a familiar face...the local ICU nurse who saved his life 8 years ago.

Shipt is a company where someone shops for you and then delivers your groceries or products right to your doorstep. Christopher Rothstein is a Shipt Shopper who completed his 100th order to a familiar face - the local ICU nurse who saved his life 8 years ago after suffering from a heart attack.

Years without seeing each other, Christopher instantly recognized his ICU nurse when he opened his front door. Saving Christoper in 2012 was not forgotten -- the nurse told him that he put the anniversary of Christophers heart attack on his calendar so he gets a reminder every year that there is a guy somewhere out there and we mattered to each other.

Photo credit: Christopher Rothstein

Throughout these stories, I was reminded of a quote that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Continue to find the good -- sometimes it might be hard to find, but its always there.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 06:10:41|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday welcomed Libya's warring parties to engage in talks, calling it a positive step.

In a state department press briefing, Pompeo called the agreement between the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) to re-enter UN security talks a very positive good step.

"Quick and good faith negotiations are now required to implement a ceasefire and relaunch the UN-led intra-Libyan political talks," he said, urging "all Libyans on all sides to act" to avoid foreign intervention.

Later in the day, the White House said in a statement that President Donald Trump had held a phone conversation on Libya with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, in which Trump praised Sisi's efforts to promote political reconciliation and de-escalation in the Libyan conflict.

"The two leaders discussed ways to resume the United Nations' 5+5 ceasefire talks and the departure of all foreign forces from Libya," the statement added.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said on Wednesday that it convened meetings with delegations of LNA and GNA on June 3 and 9 respectively, calling both meetings productive.

Libya has been locked in a civil war since the ouster and killing of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The situation escalated in 2014, splitting power between two rival governments: the UN-backed GNA based in the capital Tripoli and a government in the northeastern city of Tobruk allied with the Khalifa Haftar-led LNA.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, France and Russia support Haftar's LNA, while the GNA is backed by Turkey and Qatar as well as Italy. Enditem
Vanderbilt, AstraZeneca sign new COVID-19 antibody agreement

Details Category: Antibodies Published on Wednesday, 10 June 2020 10:45 Hits: 3406

June 09, 2020 I Vanderbilt University and the global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have signed a new agreement that will enable AstraZeneca to advance two coronavirus-neutralizing antibodies discovered by the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center (VVC) into clinical development as a potential combination therapy for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

The agreement announced today builds on the recent collaboration between AstraZeneca, Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). The VVC is part of VUMC, while ownership of inventions by VUMCs employees is assigned to Vanderbilt University (VU) under an intellectual property and associated technology transfer agreement between VU and VUMC.

After evaluating the ability of more than 1,500 monoclonal antibodies to bind and neutralize the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, in the laboratory, AstraZeneca signed an exclusive license to six candidate antibodies in Vanderbilts portfolio. The company plans to progress two of these antibodies into clinical evaluation as a combination approach within the next two months.

The antibodies target two distinct parts of the surface spike protein that enables the virus to bind to and fuse with the host cell membrane. The goal is to neutralize the virus and to limit its ability to infect healthy cells.

By combining two monoclonal antibodies that bind to distinct parts of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into what potentially could be a single preventative therapy, we hope to improve its effectiveness in neutralizing the virus, said Mene Pangalos, AstraZenecas Executive Vice President for BioPharmaceuticals R&D.

This collaboration helps ensure potential medicines that can prevent or treat COVID-19 are accelerated as quickly and safely as possible, he said.

AstraZeneca is a great partner to take some of our lead antibodies into the clinic rapidly and safely because of their deep experience in developing antibodies for human use, said VVC Director James Crowe, Jr., MD. Their robust manufacturing and testing capacity are just what is needed in this moment of global crisis.

Currently there is no effective treatment or vaccine to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which as of today had infected nearly 7 million people worldwide and caused more than 400,000 deaths, 113,000 of them in the United States.

VVC researchers have developed techniques for rapidly isolating clones of white blood cells that make antibodies targeting specific viral proteins. In the laboratory, these monoclonal antibodies are then comprehensively examined to identify those rare antibodies with a laser-like focus for finding  and neutralizing  a specific virus.

For the past three months Crowe, Associate VVC Director Robert Carnahan, PhD, and their colleagues have been working around the clock with an international team of academic, governmental and industry partners to identify and analyze antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Last month the Vanderbilt researchers reported preliminary findings that potent neutralizing antibodies recognizing unique sites of the spike protein protected mice from consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection, preventing severe weight loss and reducing viral burden and inflammation in the lung.

The report, which was posted online by the preprint server bioRxiv and which has not yet been peer-reviewed, notes that because the virus can mutate, antibody-based treatments will need to target multiple sites on the spike protein.

We strongly believe the future of infectious disease treatment will increasingly involve rationally designed therapeutic antibody cocktails like those we have designed with our partners for SARS-CoV-2, Carnahan said. It has never been more important to both rapidly provide a treatment option and to ensure that it also has future utility as the virus evolves.

In theory, these antibodies could be given as injections to prevent infection, and also to treat and prevent disease progression in people who have already been exposed or infected.

AstraZeneca has stated that the aim of giving two monoclonal antibodies in combination is to increase the efficacy of treatment and reduce the impact of any mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The Vanderbilt antibodies will be engineered using AstraZeneca proprietary technology to extend their longevity in the body.

Major funding sources for the VVC include the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund at Vanderbilt.

Crowe holds the Ann Scott Carell Chair in the Departments of Pediatrics and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Carnahan is an associate professor of Pediatrics.

Other Vanderbilt co-authors were Seth Zost, PhD, Pavlo Gilchuk, PhD, Elad Binshtein, PhD, Joseph Reidy, Andrew Trivette, Rachel Nargi, Rachel Sutton, Naveen Suryadevara, PhD, Taylor Jones, Samuel Day and Luke Myers.

SOURCE: Vanderbilt University
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Members of the Austin Police kneel in solidarity with George Floyd protesters on June 6, 2020. This force is not mentioned in this story.

Eric Gay/AP

Black police officers have found themselves in the middle of renewed tensions between the Black community and the police in the wake of George Floyd's death.

Insider spoke to two Black police officers about Floyd's death and how they think policing can be changed.

Other officers around the country echoed these thoughts, saying they were disgusted by Floyd's death and largely supportive of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The police-involved killing of George Floyd has renewed tensions between the Black community and police across the US.

Demonstrations have swept the country, some turning violent  with concerning videos of protesters being exposed to tear gas and pepper spray, and reports of attacks against officers.

Nobody has been more caught in the middle of these flare-ups than Black police officers, some of whom have publicly shown support for the very protests they're ordered to police.

Insider spoke to two Black police officers  one from Massachusetts and the other from Texas  to hear their perspectives, as well as collected testimonies from others across the country.

'Disgusted' by what happened

Brian Morrison, a 49-year-old police officer in Barnstable, Massachusetts, said he felt "angry, disgusted, and just hurt" after watching footage of Floyd's fatal arrest.

He said he felt that ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin "for all intents and purposes murdered another human being" and it left him "a little embarrassed to wear a uniform."

Barnstable, Massachusetts police officer Brian Morrison.

Facebook

Another 30-year-old Black officer, who works in a precinct outside Austin, Texas, told Insider he would have intervened if he were on the scene. This officer asked to remain anonymous to avoid retribution, but his identity is known to Insider.

He said what happened was "heartbreaking," and it was "shocking" to see an officer hold a man down by his neck  a technique he says his department has never trained him or his colleagues to do.

Story continues

"If I was any of the officers on the scene, if I would have seen that, I would have stepped in," the Texas officer said. "I probably would have pushed the officer off of him."

Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck, has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. The three other officers involved in the arrest  Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane  were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

#HumanizingTheBadge

Other police officers have spoken out on Floyd's death on TikTok, some under the hashtag #HumanizingTheBadge.

And they echo many of the points made by the officers that Insider spoke with.

Like Morrison, Officer J.D. Williams of New Jersey said he was "disgusted with the things that happened in Minneapolis."

"Guy is laying on the ground, he's laying on his stomach, he has handcuffs on," Williams said in his video, which was published May 27, two days after Floyd's death.

"It's four of y'all, one of him," he said. "Who has control of the situation? There's not much one person can do against four people."

Williams also called out the officers for not rendering aid when Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe, and for none of the officers interceding and making Chauvin take his knee off of Floyd's neck.

'I stand by the protesters'

Both of the officers that Insider spoke with were supportive of the protests that have swept the nation after Floyd's death, and said they agreed with the charges filed against Chauvin and the three other officers involved.

"I agree with the protests," the Texas officer said. "I don't think that you can go so long, and have so much history with the Black community and not expect people to be upset and hurt."

"The protests, they're needed," Morrison said. "There needs to be change, absolutely ... I stand by the protesters."

Morrison said there's been about seven or eight Black Lives Matter demonstrations on Cape Cod, where he works. He said he gave a speech at one recently, alongside Barnstable's chief of police.

TikTok user @ejaymoon, who identified herself as a police officer in Indiana, also said she stood by the protesters.

"We're mad too ... It takes one officer to just throw away everything that good officers have worked hard for," she said.

She added: "Never in my life would I let someone experience what George Floyd went through in front of me, never in my life. And I know a lot of officers feel the same, so we stand with you. We stand with George Floyd. Be safe."

But not all were comfortable with the violence that has seeped into a few of the demonstrations, namely the looting and destruction of businesses.

Williams, the New Jersey officer, in a separate video called the destruction of communities "backwards" and said the looters were short-sighted and selfish.

"We need to stand up better," he said. "Are we playing chess or are we playing checkers?"

Protesters pray for a Black policeman during the City Collective Prayer March on June 7, 2020, in Norfolk, Virginia.

Annette Holloway/Icon Sportswire

Allen Poythress, another officer on TikTok, said in one video that he worries the violence will detract from the protest movement's message. He works on Indiana University's campus, according to his LinkedIn.

"We're trying to back you guys up, but we also have a job to do, and we don't want to prevent you guys from having [your] voices heard," he said in the video.

Caught in the middle

Unlike Morrison, the Texas officer has not policed any demonstrations in his area yet.

He said he was somewhat glad he hasn't done so yet, as he fears he would be caught in the middle.

"I don't think I would do well with it," he said.

"I'm a Black police officer and if I see an officer yelling at a protester, I'm going to be like: 'Dude, you need to chill out.' But I'll also want to get the protester to chill out," he said.

"I would end up being caught right in the middle, leaning more towards the protesters' side just because I'm empathetic to what's going on."

'If I'm there, I'm able to stop it'

The Texas police officer said he was so disturbed by what happened to Floyd that he initially considered quitting the force.

"I guess I didn't want to be viewed as somebody who was part of this culture of getting people killed for really minor offenses," he said.

But he decided to stay because he believes there needs to be people of color in law enforcement "who understand the struggles of other minorities."

"The reason I didn't quit was because if I quit, who's going to stop the next George Floyd incident from happening?" he said.

"I can't be everywhere at once, but if I'm there, I'm able to stop it," he said.

Others agreed. Morrison said it's "way too important for men of color" to become police officers.

"We should encourage them to become police officers and try to make a change," he said.

Poythress also said in one of his TikTok videos that the lack of diversity among the police is part of the reason he became an officer in the first place.

"I'm a Black man that grew up in one of the most segregated places in the United States, and that's Birmingham, Alabama," he said. "One of the reasons that I became a police officer was because I wanted to bring diversity to the police force in the South."

"I wanted to do it because I wanted to make a difference and show the kids that there's actually good people around them," he said.

Defund the police?

In recent days, Black Lives Matter protesters have been advocating for radical change to policing in the US, including abolishing or defunding the police.

The former would involve getting rid of the police force altogether, while the latter is about redistributing police funding to other areas like education and social programs.

A protester wears a face mask reading "defund police" during a demonstration in Brooklyn, New York, on June 7, 2020.

Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty

The Texas police officer said he's "all for" reallocating parts of the police budget to education, housing, and social work, because he believes that will make less of a need for police officers in the future.

He said, however, that some departments  like the ones that handle violent crime  will likely always be needed.

"For violent crime, people dealing major drugs ... I think officers should stay and be involved in that," he said.

"But there should be a lot of investigation before they even get involved, so we don't have incidents where you go into a house and it's the wrong house and someone gets shot and it's on the news."

He appeared to be referencing the death of Breonna Taylor, a Louisville woman who was shot to death in March when police raided her home. Her family said the officers had entered the wrong address.

A protest sign saying Black Lives Matter.

Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The Texas officer said a lot of his fellow officers "are closed off to" the idea of defunding the police, because they're worried about their jobs and not thinking about the bigger picture.

"I think our officers need to open up to the idea that everything is not going to be the same as it was three years ago," he said.

"Things are going to be different and if defunding the police means a better future for everybody as a whole, then we're going to have to be defunded and learn to live with less."

Meanwhile, Morrison said he doesn't think abolishing or defunding the police is the answer. In fact, he feels they need more money to educate officers and recruit good cops.

"It's only going to make matters worse," Morrison said of defunding the police. "Without the money, you can't hire the people to do the right things, to make the changes."

Read the original article on Insider
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CNBC's Jim Cramer warned new investors Tuesday about the serious risk of buying the stock of companies that filed for bankruptcy such as Hertz.

"You may think a stock like Hertz or Chesapeake looks like a steal at these levels, but the only people being robbed here are you the buyers," the "Mad Money" host said, referencing Chesapeake Energy amid reports it is preparing its own filing.

Shares of car rental company Hertz ended Tuesday's session at $4.18 after falling 24%. But the stock had surged Monday and continues to trade higher than when it filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in late May, Cramer noted.

Cramer said it is "highly unlikely" that Hertz, as a business, goes away in its bankruptcy. But the company's bondholders will be the first in line to get a piece of the post-bankruptcy Hertz. Owners of the common stock, on the other hand, "are at the bottom of the bankruptcy pecking order," Cramer said.

"If you Hertz here at $4, you're buying the old Hertz with $19 billion in debt that it can't repay," Cramer explained. "Since the creditors can't collect, they're going to seize the collateral, which is the business. So this $4 stock will most likely just be cancelled."

That is a reality well-known by people like legendary activist investor Carl Icahn, Cramer said. Icahn held a nearly 39% stake in Hertz but dumped it last month after the company filed for bankruptcy.

"Believe me, if there was a real chance the common stock would be worth anything, Icahn would've stuck around. He didn't," Cramer said.

Cramer also said if he were running the bankruptcy court, he would prevent shares of Hertz from being traded, helping "keep inexperienced investors from losing money on it."

"Instead this darn thing traded 530 million shares yesterday and 295 million today," Cramer said. "The whole float is only 140 million. That's insane."

Cramer, a former hedge fund manager, said he has personal experience about buying stocks that have a risk of being wiped out. He recalled years ago buying stock in a reorganized company, Memorex-Telex, in hopes it had emerged from bankruptcy proceedings stronger than before.

"But it didn't. It filed for bankruptcy again. We lost the whole investment," Cramer said. "Taught me a valuable lesson: it doesn't matter how little you pay for a stock, when it goes to zero, you lose everything. At least it stopped at zero."
IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business, saying it's concerned about how the technology can be used for mass surveillance and racial profiling.

Ongoing protests responding to the death of George Floyd have sparked a broader reckoning over racial injustice and a closer look at the use of police technology to track demonstrators and monitor American neighborhoods.

IBM is one of several big tech firms that had earlier sought to improve the accuracy of their face-scanning software after research found racial and gender disparities.

IBM announced on Monday that it was ending its development of facial recognition technology, amid concern about how the information could be used by police. Pictured is a demonstration of the technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2019

But its new CEO is now questioning whether it should be used by police at all.

'We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,' wrote CEO Arvind Krishna in a letter sent Monday to U.S. lawmakers.

IBM's decision to stop building and selling facial recognition software is unlikely to affect its bottom line, since the tech giant is increasingly focused on cloud computing while an array of lesser-known firms have cornered the market for government facial recognition contracts.

'But the symbolic nature of this is important,' said Mutale Nkonde, a research fellow at Harvard and Stanford universities who directs the nonprofit AI For the People.

Nkonde said IBM shutting down a business 'under the guise of advancing anti-racist business practices' shows that it can be done and makes it 'socially unacceptable for companies who tweet Black Lives Matter to do so while contracting with the police.'

IBM says it is getting out of the facial recognition business amid concern over its use

Krishna's letter was addressed to a group of Democrats who have been working on police reform legislation in Congress fueled by the mass protests over Floyd's death. The sweeping reform package could include restrictions on police use of facial recognition.

The practice of using a form of artificial intelligence to identify individuals in photo databases or video feeds has come under heightened scrutiny after researchers found racial and gender disparities in systems built by companies including IBM, Microsoft and Amazon.

IBM had previously tested its facial recognition software with the New York Police Department, although the department has more recently used other vendors. It's not clear if IBM has existing contracts with other government agencies.

Many U.S. law enforcement agencies rely on facial recognition software built by companies less well known to the public, such as Tokyo-based NEC or the European companies Idemia and Cognitec, according to Clare Garvie, a researcher at Georgetown University's Center on Privacy and Technology.

Facial recognition technology is being increasingly used by police departments nationwide

A smaller number have partnered with Amazon, which has attracted the most opposition from privacy advocates since it introduced its Rekognition software in 2016.

Krishna's letter called for police reforms and noted that 'IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling' and human rights violations.

Civil liberties advocates have raised concerns in recent weeks about the use of surveillance technology to monitor protesters or to enforce rules set to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

Even before the protests, U.S. senators this year had been scrutinizing New York facial recognition startup Clearview AI following investigative reports about its practice of harvesting billions of photos from social media and other internet services to identify people.

Joy Buolamwini, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose research on facial recognition bias helped spur IBM's re-examination of the technology, said Tuesday she commends the congressional police reform package for seeking restrictions on the use of police body cameras to scan people's faces in real time.

But she said lawmakers can go further to protect people from having governments scan their faces on social media posts or in public spaces without their knowledge.

'Regardless of the accuracy of these systems, mass surveillance enabled by facial recognition can lead to chilling effects and the silencing of dissent,' Buolamwini wrote in an email sent from Boston's city hall, where she was testifying in support of a proposed ban on facial recognition use by municipal agencies.

San Francisco and several other U.S. cities have enacted similar bans over the past year.
Collinson, a global leader in travel experience and loyalty, has announced a trio of new initiatives to boost health and safety for airport lounge staff and guests and pioneer the new era of contactless journey for the airport.

The initiatives include a new set of global health and safety standards for airport lounges within the Priority Pass network, a new digital solution to enable more socially-distant and touch-free food and beverage ordering in the lounge, and a further digital enhancement to enable a more contact-free entrance.

Andy Besant, Director of Travel Experiences at Collinson, said: Covid-19 has radically altered what travellers need and expect from the airport journey. As a global leader in airport lounges and the travel journey, and operator of the market-leading airport experiences programme Priority Pass as well as our own airport lounges under The Club and Club Aspire brands, we at Collinson are dedicated to developing new initiatives that ensure travellers feel safe and comfortable at the airport. We are now putting our unique passion and experience in travel towards developing robust solutions for airport wellbeing, which we believe is the best way to help drive a safe and effective recovery for the travel sector.

Collinsons global airport lounge standards

As the world recovers from Covid-19, health and safety at the airport will be key to rebuilding traveller confidence and championing the travel sector recovery. In service to this, Collinson is now launching a set of global health and safety standards for airport lounges. The standards comprise a number of recommended steps, including:

 Provision of PPE and increased health and safety training for staff

 Floor markers for social distancing in queues or other areas where people congregate

 New evaluation of furniture layout to adhere to social distancing guidelines while maximising space and allowing traveller groups to sit together

 Increased cleaning and disinfection using health authority-recommended products

 Switching air filtration systems to 100% outside air where possible

 Contact-free solutions where possible, including collection point options for F&B

 Removing print media and replacing with digital where possible

Collinsons airport lounge standards were developed with input from the companys in-house Global Medical Director, Dr. Simon Worrell, a specialist expert in virus management, immunology and communicable diseases, with over 20 years of experience in the delivery of international medical assistance and emergency care. The standards will be implemented in all Collinson-owned lounges and recommended for use in all partner lounges across the Collinson airport lounge network, which comprises over 1,200 airport lounges in the market-leading programmes Priority Pass, LoungeKey and Lounge Pass. With the first set of global standards for airport lounges, Collinson encourages lounges around the world to use its standards as a robust foundation for an effective and safe travel recovery.

Contactless Digital Innovation

Collinson is spearheading the contactless airport journey via digital innovation to introduce safer, touch-free experiences into the airport lounge.

Collinson is partnering with Grab, the airport e-commerce platform and largest marketplace for contactless order and pay at airport restaurants, to launch a new pilot solution that will enable airport lounges to introduce a digital food and beverage (F&B) ordering solution. The Collinson solution enables travellers to use their own smartphone or tablet to place their order for F&B available within the lounge and receive it via safe to-table delivery by a staff member or collect it from a dedicated collection point. This will help airport lounges to continue offering a range of options to travellers in a more convenient and controlled manner.

Further evolving the contactless airport experience, contact-free entry is now possible at Collinson lounges, removing the need for members to touch the device to process their transaction. Those using a digital membership card in the Priority Pass, LoungeKey or Mastercard Airport Experiences apps will have an entirely contact-free experience, while those using a physical Priority Pass or payment card will need to insert it into the device, but not touch the device in any other way.

Besant added: Collinson fully supports getting the world safely travelling again to unlock the value that travel brings, both to the economy, as well as to society at large. At the same time, theres no denying that the coronavirus pandemic has indelibly changed how we think about health and safety at the airport. Via Collinsons airport lounge standards and our new digital innovation for a contact-free experience, we look forward to championing the travel recovery while making health and wellbeing a priority. - TradeArabia News Service
Over 95% of COVID Deaths recorded in England and Wales had potentially serious comorbidities, according to statistics released by NHS England.

The latest figures make for pretty stark reading. Or, rather, they would make for stark readingif they didnt follow the exact same pattern already shown in other nations around the world.

You can read the full report here. Were going to focus on the comorbidity stats. Here are the number of deaths where Covid19 was listed as the only cause, split by age:

Ages 0-19: 3

Ages 20-39: 32

Ages 40-59: 255

Ages 60-79: 551

Ages 80+: 477

These are across all of England and Wales since the beginning of the pandemic.

Simply put: Of the 27045 deaths with Covid19 in English hospitals (up to June 3rd), only 1318 had no pre-existing conditions. Thats less than 5%.

This mirrors, almost exactly, the statistics reported in Italy back in March.

Christopher Bowyer has made some great graphs for the figures at Hector Drummond Magazine, none more impactful than this this:

Those big green bars are all the people who died with Covid19 AND some other serious disease. The little yellow bars are the people who died with Covid19 and nothing else.

In fact, the 25,727 other cases were listed as having over 42,000 comorbidities. Thats almost 2 each (the report itself points out that many patients had multiple conditions). This, again, aligns completely with the Italian figures which said over 80% of fatalities had at least 2 comorbidities.

What are these comorbidities? We dont know. Not entirely specifically. The report lists ischemic heart disease, chronic kidney disease, asthma and dementia among others. But it also lists nearly 19,000 other conditions, presumably including liver failure, emphysema, AIDS, ALL forms of cancers and literally potentially thousands of other diseases.

Implicit in this is the possibility that these diseases were the actual cause of death, and that Covid19 played no direct role at all.

Further, the PCR test for coronavirus can return false positives in up to 80% of cases, so its entirely possible the majority of these deaths never even had the virus.

This isnt breaking news. We have covered this numerous times. No matter how you switch them around the Covid numbers, as they currently stand, will never add up.
New York  UNDP and Denmark today entered a new multi-year funding agreement that increases Denmarks core and soft-earmarked contributions to UNDP, amounting to 350 million kroner for 2020.

Predictable and flexible funding enables UNDP to respond with speed and agility to the needs of countries to fulfil its mission to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and build resilience in poor countries and vulnerable communities. This is particularly critical at a time when COVID-19 presents an unprecedented humanitarian and development crisis that calls upon all international partners to fight the pandemic, mitigate its consequences and speed up socio-economic recovery.

The Strategic Partnership Agreement for 2020-2022 was signed by the Danish Development Minister Rasmus Prehn and UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner during a virtual signing ceremony earlier today.

Denmark has been with us at the very cutting edge of development, investing in innovation and making UNDP a stronger, more agile organization, and in turn, better equipped to deliver a timely, effective response to the current COVID-19 crisis, said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.

Denmark has long been an engaged and active partner and we greatly value their commitment to strengthen democratic governance and resilience building, climate action and addressing the root causes of conflicts for sustainable peace, Steiner added.

Denmarks Minister for Development Cooperation, Rasmus Prehn, views the Strategic Partnership Agreement with UNDP as an important basis for the close partnership between Denmark and UNDP in advancing the 2030 Agenda.

The current Covid-19 pandemic is a global disrupter. It carries significant potential to roll back some of the important development gains we have achieved in recent years. We need to respond to this swiftly and effectively. It is time to demonstrate international solidarity. Our task is to build back better and greener. UNDP is front and center on the ground in for instance Africa and has unique expertise in establishing the basis for rule of law and good governance. UNDP also has the capability and the network to help countries and communities recover quickly when a crisis hit. This is why UNDP is an important partner for Denmark, he said.

Denmarks total contribution under the new Partnership Agreement comprises fully flexible core funding together with soft-earmarked contributions to UNDPs Funding Window for Governance, Peacebuilding, Crisis and Resilience, and specific support to UNDPs Innovation Facility and human resource capacity.

Core and flexible funding from Denmark and other partners bolster institutional effectiveness, strengthens UNDPs thought leadership, and drive innovation and quality assurance.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  Former ambassador and current Republican candidate for Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr. said Wednesday he has tested positive for COVID-19.

Huntsman said he has classic symptoms of the illness caused by the coronavirus, and will isolate himself while his campaign pushes through with less than three weeks before Election Day. Five staffers also have been infected.

Like so many others, my goal is to keep my family safe, he said in a tweet. Though isolated temporarily, weve never been more energized in this important race for governor. The work goes on!

Huntsman previously served as Utah governor until 2009, when he left to be the U.S. ambassador to China under then-President Barack Obama. Following a brief presidential run during the 2012 cycle, he served as ambassador to Russia under President Donald Trump before resigning and mounting his campaign for governor.

Huntsman, 60, is one of four Republicans on the June 30 primary ballot. He is considered a front-runner, but is running neck-in-neck with a lieutenant governor with a higher profile during the pandemic response and a candidate gaining on the right with calls to reopen the economy more quickly.

Meanwhile, another staffer on a competing campaign also caught the virus and is in self-quarantine along with two others that person came into contact with.

Primary ballots began going out this week in the election being conducted entirely by mail. It's the first wide-open governor's race in Utah in more than a decade. Polls indicate many voters remain undecided and it's hard to say how the virus news could affect the outcome, said Brigham Young University political-science professor Chris Karpowitz.

It significantly complicates efforts by the campaign to make that last push toward Election Day, he said. Still, many voters will be likely be empathetic as the pandemic continues, he said.

Huntsman's running mate, Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi, could represent the campaign in person, since she has had less contact with the affected staffers.

Story continues

His daughter Abby Huntsman left her role as a host on the TV show The View" to join the campaign. It was not immediately clear if she had been affected by the virus. Members of the Huntsman family are still awaiting test results, including one who is at a higher risk, the candidate said in his video message.

The family is among the most well-known in Utah. Jon Huntsman Sr. was a billionaire businessman and philanthropist.

Huntsman went into quarantine last week, canceled all his public appearances and ordered his office cleaned after learning of the staff members positive test. The staffers and their positions have not been identified.

He attended a campaign event in the small northern Utah city of Logan shortly before getting the news. It was held outside to allow for social distancing, though a number of people did not wear masks, the Herald Journal newspaper reported. A photo shows Huntsman shaking hands with an attendee, neither wearing a mask.

The number of coronavirus cases has been trending upward as the state moves toward re-opening the economy under pressure from conservatives who cite the heavy economic toll of business shutdowns.

Huntsman's positive test came after a previous incorrect negative result.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.

His other opponents are Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox state House Speaker Greg Hughes and former state GOP chair Thomas Wright.

An unidentified Wright staffer also tested positive for the virus on Monday after being exposed through his father, who is a first responder, campaign officials said. The staffer had come into contact with one colleague and a volunteer over the previous week.

Cox, who has been criticized for the state's pandemic-response, tweeted he was devastated to hear about the diagnosis and praying for the Huntsman family.

Hughes, a conservative who has called for scaling back coronavirus rules and considers Huntsman a friend, tweeted his hopes for a quick recovery.
A day after testing negative for COVID-19, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that L-G Anil Baijals order on hospitals accessible to everyone living in Delhi would be implemented amid a political slugfest in the national capital even as coronavirus cases continue to rise.

Kejriwal said, "L-G's directives will be implemented in letter and spirit, this is not the time for disagreements or arguments.

In SDMAs meeting yesterday, the numbers that were presented showed that by June 15 will be having 44,000 coronavirus cases, June 30  1 lakh, July 15  2.15 lakh cases. For everyones safety, promoting social distancing and usage of masks has to be a jan andolan (peoples movement), just like the odd-even scheme, he said.

Kejriwal added that Delhi needs about 1.5 lakh beds by July and added that he will personally oversee stadiums being turned into quarantine centres.

BCCL

In normal times, 50 per cent of patients come from outside Delhi for treatments. So going by that calculation, we need about 1.5 lakh beds by July. I will personally oversee stadiums being turned into quarantine centres. In the last eight days, Delhi hospitals admitted 1,900 people. Around 4,200 beds are vacant in hospitals, Kejriwal said.

After officials from the Centre said that there is no community transmission in India, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia reiterated that the AAP government is prepared for the worst and was preparing to minimise the damage.

The deputy CM had earlier said that he estimated there might be 5.5 lakh coronavirus cases in the city by July 31.

Earlier, Kejriwal courted controversy for saying that Delhi hospitals will be reserved for Delhi residents only. His statement was severely criticised.

Later, LG Baijal cited a Delhi High Court ruling and said, The Delhi High Court in a writ petition Social Jurist, a Civil Rights Group versus GNCTD and Another after examining constitutional provisions in details, especially Article 14 and 21, after looking at jurisprudence in this regard, has held that denying patients medical treatment on ground of not being resident of NCT of Delhi is impermissible.

BCCL

Baijal, also the Chairman of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, made it clear that the Supreme Court has invariably held in several successive judgements that Right to Health is an integral part of Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution.

In exercise of powers conferred under Section 18(3) of the Disaster Management Act, the undersigned in his capacity as the Chairperson of the DDMA, hereby directs all departments and authorities concerned of NCT of Delhi, to ensure that monitoring / treatment is not denied to any patient on the ground of not being a resident of NCT of Delhi, the order said.

Baijal had also overruled the AAP governments order allowing COVID-19 test for only symptomatic patients.
A top US official has blasted HSBC for its 'corporate kowtows' to Beijing.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - the chief foreign affairs adviser to President Donald Trump - joined British politicians in criticising the bank for its stance on Hong Kong.

HSBC and other UK firms operating in Hong Kong such as Standard Chartered have faced a backlash after publicly backing draconian new security laws imposed on the former British territory by China.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - the chief foreign affairs adviser to President Donald Trump - accused HSBC of a 'show of fealty' in the face of 'bullying'

Critics including the UK and US governments say the legislation will erode freedoms and human rights in Hong Kong and tighten Beijing's grip on the territory.

In a sign of the difficulties HSBC and others face navigating stormy political waters, Pompeo accused the bank of a 'show of fealty' in the face of 'bullying'.

And he said the US stood ready to help Britain with crucial projects such as nuclear power plants and 5G.

The comments came after Beijing allegedly threatened to punish HSBC and backtrack on commitments to fund nuclear power projects in the UK, in retaliation for Boris Johnson's decision to limit the role of Chinese telecoms firm Huawei in Britain's 5G network.

Pompeo said: 'The United States stands with our allies and partners against the Chinese Communist Party's coercive bullying tactics.'

He added: 'Beijing's aggressive behaviour shows why countries should avoid economic over-reliance on China and should guard their critical infrastructure from Chinese Communist Party influence.

HSBC was set up in Hong Kong in 1865 but moved its HQ to London in the 1990s following the takeover of Midland Bank

The US stands ready to assist our friends in the UK with any needs they have, from building secure and reliable nuclear power plants to developing trusted 5G solutions that protect their citizens' privacy.

'Free nations deal in true friendship and desire mutual prosperity, not political and corporate kowtows.'

The intervention turns up the heat on HSBC, which last week backed the controversial law China is imposing on Hong Kong.

'That show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the bank's business in China as political leverage against London,' Pompeo said.

HSBC was set up in Hong Kong in 1865 but moved its HQ to London in the 1990s following the takeover of Midland Bank. But the bank needs to keep China on-side, as it makes the vast majority of its money in Asia.

Chairman Mark Tucker and chief executive Noel Quinn this year outlined their plans to expand in mainland China.

But it must be wary of alienating the West, as it is listed in London and many investors are in Europe and the US.

Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the bank may be 'more closely aligned to the Chinese government than Her Majesty's Government'.

Standard Chartered faces a similar dilemma to HSBC. Just this week, shareholder Aviva Investors criticised both banks for their stance on Hong Kong.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Hua Chunying called Pompeo 'narrow-minded' for assuming HSBC had been coerced. She said: 'The world is diverse and everyone should have the right to make independent decisions.'
Mumbai, June 10 : The suspense drama "Chehre" starring Amitabh Bachchan is ready for release, and meanwhile the film's producer Anand Pandit is out exploring the genre with a couple of fresh scripts.

"I love scripts that have uncertainty and are not predictable, because there is so much one can do with those (stories). I like it when my viewers are kept thinking of what's going to happen next. To keep the audience guessing is an art and I love that challenge," said Pandit.

The producer is looking at a two-month deadline to finish scripting and start working on both the movies.

"The movies are for theatre but will suit an OTT audience as well. After all, suspense thrillers are a big draw on OTT," he said.

"I am looking forward to working with a brand new set of actors. New talent should be given a chance and the hunt is on, including online auditions from across the country," said Pandit.
EAST HAMPTON  The Police Department has issued a statement condemning the actions of the Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd.

The statement, which Chief Dennis Woessner wrote and posted on Facebook, also said, The Department will continue to serve residents and visitors to East Hampton with honor and integrity and at all times conduct themselves with the highest ethical standards to foster and maintain the trust of our community.

The department is reviewing its policies and procedures that govern officers actions and which prohibit the actions that led to Floyds death on May 25, he added.

Woessner also said the department will review its existing policies to ensure they do not contain racial or other biases in the departments work.

In issuing the statement, Woessner said it reflected both the Departments and the Officers anger and upset related to the actions and inactions of the officers involved in the incident.

Floyd, 46, died after being pinned to the ground by a police officer who knelt on Floyds neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

His death, which was recorded on several cell phones, has generated a wave of disgust and an uncounted number of protest marches.

East Hampton residents have scheduled a march of solidarity for Floyd Saturday.

Three other Minneapolis officers present a the scene also have been charged.

All four officers have been fired.

Woessner said he composed the statement based on conversations he had with uniformed officers.

We routinely discuss how events that take place nationally and even globally can affect us, he said.

I want to make it perfectly clear: the members of the East Hampton Police Department were appalled and disgusted with what occurred with Mr. Floyd, the chief said.

Woessner said he was glad his officers had stepped forward to condemn the actions that led to Floyds death.

It shows that they care  and that they are not racist, he said with passion in his voice.

Town Manager David E. Cox said he was equally pleased that they were willing to make that statement, adding that he hoped it would serve as a balm for residents.

During the Town Councils regular meeting Tuesday, several residents, and both a present and former town councilor, called for greater transparency in the negotiations now taking place between the town and the police union.

Councilor Derek Johnson called for a thorough analysis of the departments use-of-force policies as well as indemnification of officers.

He also called for language to be added to the contract prohibiting officers from membership in any group that promotes racism and/or bias.

A veteran East Hampton officer retired last year after a Washington-based civil rights group revealed he had been a dues-paying member of the Proud Boys, which has been identified by the FBI as a far-right group with ties to white nationalists.

An in-house investigation conducted by Woessner found the officers membership in the group  which ended after eight months  did not violate any departmental regulations.

Cox said Wednesday that the town is in the very beginning stages of negotiating new contracts with the police union.

Contract negotiations with the police union generally involve wages, hours and benefits, while the department has policies and procedures that are separate from contract negotiations, Cox said.

Woessner said those policies and procedures are regularly reviewed.

The policies governing the use of force are set by the Connecticut Police Officers Standards and Training Council, Cox said.

The state sets the bar there, and as far as I can tell, it sets the bar fairly high, Cox told Johnson.

In an email Wednesday, Woessner said, On Nov. 13, 2018, POST came out with General Notice 18-05 which adopted Compliance to 16 Law Enforcement Standards, one of which is Use of Force.

All municipal police agencies in CT were required to abide by these standards. Our Use of Force General Order was reviewed by POST and found to be in compliance.

Given the circumstances right now, former councilor Kyle Dostaler said, the Police Department needs to be looked at to provide services in a 21st century way while its still stuck in the 20th century.

jmill@middletownpress.com
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts say better data on marijuana use in the United States is needed to support critical public health research and response.

In particular, Kimberley Geissler and Jennifer Whitehill cited gaps in data regarding adolescent use. They said that a better overall examination of trends and impact does not need new surveys, but that current surveys can be put to better use by asking better, more specific and detailed questions.

Simple yes-or-no questions dont provide the depth of information needed to draw informed conclusions, they said.

Eleven states, including Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., have legalized the adult recreational use of marijuana. About 12 others are actively considering it. Yet understanding the associations between state and federal policy changes and cannabis use remains somewhat elusive, said Geissler and Whitehill, who are assistant professors of health policy and management at UMass Amherst.

Geissler and Whitehill said significant variation in data availability related to cannabis use creates challenges in analysis. These include behaviors and perceptions across and within states and over time, including the availability of pre-legalization versus post-legalization data, they said.

Their report was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open.

If we have good statewide data, we can understand the impact of legalization better, Geissler wrote.

Geissler and Whitehill evaluated the availability of eight key indicators over time: lifetime cannabis use, age of initiation, frequency, location and method of use, source of cannabis, perceptions of cannabis and reason for use. The last category distinguished medical from nonmedical use.

The most basic of these indicators in thinking about cannabis legalization is, how much do people use cannabis and are people changing the way in which they use  are they using more edibles versus smoking? Are there changes in how often theyre using it?" Geissler wrote.

"One thing thats important from a public health perspective (is) who is using and how is that changing? For example, are adolescents using cannabis more frequently? We found a lot of gaps for monitoring adolescent use.

The surveys that go beyond yes-or-no questions provide better data for public health strategies to prevent harmful consequences, Whitehill wrote.

We may be missing key details that could inform policy and efforts to prevent harm, said Whitehill, an injury prevention researcher

The researchers said creation of new surveys is unnecessary. They said existing surveys can be modified to ask better questions, which would be especially useful for states that are still compiling data as they consider legalization.
Indigenous leader Tom Calma has slammed political leaders for taking years to reach a deal that could reduce the number of First Australians in jail as the federal government vows to act on black deaths in custody.

More than a decade after he first called for targets to reduce Indigenous incarceration, Professor Calma blamed disputes between federal and state governments for wasting a chance to secure change.

Professor Tom Calma wants action on reducing the number of Indigenous Australians in custody. Credit:AAP

The former co-chair of Reconciliation Australia said the Black Lives Matter protests showed the cost of the inaction on calls from RA and other groups for a national agreement on incarceration rates and Indigenous justice.

"They all can share the responsibility  including the federal government, which says it's a state and territory jurisdiction," he said.
- Erika Asimonee has flooded her social media handle with graduation photos

- The proud lady celebrated her claim that she graduated university with a degree in a B.S in Psychology & a Minor in Sociology

- Erika Asimonee graduated from the University of Georgia

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Erika Asimonee of the United States has every reason to celebrate after she earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia.

After several hours, days and months of hard work, Erica revealed via her Twitter handle, @erika asimonee, that she graduated with distinction.

Proud @erika asimonee indicated that she completed her first degree with a B.S in Psychology & a Minor in Sociology with distinction from the University of Georgia.

In spite of the raging coronavirus pandemic that has compelled some schools across the world to be closed while final year students have had to resort to virtual graduations, Erika, found joy amid the gloom.

READ ALSO: Video of John Dumelo directing traffic to reduce congestion on street in his constituency pops up

Excited by her remarkable accomplishment, Erika shared admirable graduation photos to celebrate her eventful day on social media.

''University of Georgia graduate B.S in Psychology & a Minor in Sociology 'Com' Laude,'' her post read.

Determined Erika Asimonee revealed that she plans to pursue her ''UGAs Master of Social Work program with a Certificate in Marriage & Family Therapy.''

In other news, YEN.com.gh reported that the Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam Nartey George, has celebrated his mother with stunning images as she recently turned a new age.

While amplifying the love and bond between him and his mom, the Ghanaian MP acknowledged his mom's burden of carrying him for nine months in her womb.

''Love like ours is unreal. But it is the real deal. A bond formed by blood. You carried me in your womb and gave me life,'' his post read.

The honourable Member of Parliament continued to shower endearing accolades on his mom for having ''nurtured and groomed'' him to become the man he is today.

READ ALSO: Photo of mother carrying heavy pears with baby strapped to her back and another in her arm causes stir

Ghanaian female accounting graduate and mushroom farmer recounts her experience | #Yencomgh

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New Delhi:

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday blamed internal dissent in Congress for the political turmoil in Arunachal Pradesh, where Chief Minister Pema Khandu and 42 MLAs have joined a regional outfit PPA.

Rijiju, who hails from Arunachal Pradesh, said his party BJP has no role in the latest political development in the state and the Congress MLAs were "angry with their own leadership" leading to their joining of People's Party of Arunachal Pradesh. It is the second time this year that the Congress has been hit hard by rebellion.



"Congress MLAs including the Chief Minister in Arunachal are angry with their own central leadership. They have to wait in Delhi for 4-5 days to meet their own leaders. This has eventually led to MLAs joining a regional party. There is no more Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh," the minister told reporters here. The Minister of State for Home said "if the MLAs don't want to stay with Congress, what can the others do".



"The Supreme Court also reinstated the Congress government but ultimately the MLAs' decision is final. Congress tried to blame BJP unnecessarily," he said.



In a shocker for Congress, all but one of its MLAs, including the Chief Minister, on Friday joined the PPA and the party faces the prospect of losing its government. Sources said Khandu, who two months ago became chief minister in a development that restored the Congress government, along with 42 Congress MLAs joined the PPA and virtually converted it into a PPA government.

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BEIJING (PTI): China's new army commander Lt Gen Xu Qiling, who will head the Western Theatre Command ground forces responsible for the Sino-India border, is a rising star in the PLA specially handpicked by President Xi Jinping to handle troops along the challenging border, a media report said.



Gen Xu's appointment was announced on June 5 in the midst of the current standoff between Indian and Chinese troops long the Line of Actual Control (LAC).



Xi, who heads the ruling Communist Party of China besides Presidency, is also the Chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission which is People's Liberation Army's high command.



Gen Xu, the rising star of the PLA, has been sent to oversee the ground forces of the Western Theatre Command, where tensions are rising between China and India over border dispute, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.



"As tensions with India are escalating over border disputes, the Western Theatre Command needs a younger commander to lead frontier soldiers and officers in this current sensitive period, the Post quoted a military insider as saying.



Xu is 57 years old, five years younger than his predecessor, He (Weidong). The working environment in the Western high altitude is very tough and even young people age prematurely there , the official said.



Xu was one of the young generals promoted by Xi after he took the helm of the PLA in late 2012. Xu has experience at four of the PLA's five theatre commands.



He was promoted to the lieutenant general last year, one year after being sent to the head the ground forces in the Eastern Theatre Command, which oversees the security of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, as well as the East China Sea.



"Xu's new position in the Western Theatre Command is also a new test for him, the official said.



If he can handle the China-India border disputes properly, he is very likely to be further promoted to grab a seat in the PLA's ground force headquarters, or even more senior, in the future, he said.



Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping said the latest border tensions meant the Western Theatre Command required someone familiar with joint operations between ground and air forces.



"All the fighting forces Beijing sends to the frontiers were trained for air-to-ground battles, which need a capable commander like Xu to lead them.



Xu was the chief of staff at the former 54th Army Corps, an elite PLA fighting force known for its involvement in the crackdown on a Tibetan uprising in 1959 and the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.



The Army Corps was merged into the 83rd Army Corps in a military overhaul by Xi in 2015, the Post said.


GOVERNMENT has ordered the National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm) to cancel all contracts for the supply and delivery of medicines and surgical sundries by Drax Consulting SAGL.

In a letter dated 5 June 2020, addressed to NatPharm managing director Mrs Flora Sifeku, acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Gibson Mhlanga advised that the cancellation must be done with immediate effect.

He said NatPharm must, by this Friday, be able to prove that the cancellation had been effected accordingly.

You are being directed to cancel all contracts that you had with Drax SAGL with immediate effect. Please be advised that this process needs to be completed by latest Friday 12th June 2020 and all documentation showing cancellation of the same to be submitted in my office by then. Please treat this issue with the urgency that it requires, wrote Dr Mhlanga.

Contacted for comment, Dr Mhlanga confirmed the latest position adding that he was following instructions from Treasury.

He could, however, not be drawn into providing more details.

Mrs Sifeku also confirmed having received the letter, but could not comment.
On World Ocean Day, celebrated on June 8th every year, Ulysse Nardin announces its partnership with The Explorers, a French initiative with global ambitions. The Explorers brings a new approach to educating and raising awareness of our planet. This very first collaborative global media platform is present in 170 countries and is in the process of compiling an inventory of the Earth's heritage in 17 languages. The goal is complex and dynamic: raising awareness of the planet's wealth, beauty and fragility.

As part of the Kering group, Ulysse Nardin has an ambitious roadmap to reduce our environmental footprint by 2025. We have fully integrated this target in our corporate and business strategy, says Patrick Pruniaux, CEO of Ulysse Nardin. Protecting our planet is part of our top priorities and we will make every effort we can to support those who nobly endeavor to achieve the same goal.

 Ulysse Nardin

The surface of the Earth is similar to the human body: 70% water and 30% solid mass," says Olivier Chiabodo, co-founder of THE EXPLORERS. "I want to perform a visual check-up of the planet just as I performed medical check-ups on my patients. The Explorers will create a new inventory - an archive of the worlds natural diversity whose main strength lies in the emotion generated by its beauty.

The Explorers Foundation, founded by Olivier Chiabodo and Jean-Pierre Morel, counts six specific preservation programs already supported by the initiative: lemurs in Madagascar, turtles in Polynesia, red macaws in Honduras, radiated tortoises in Madagascar, crocodiles in Jamaica and humpback whales in Polynesia. The team includes scientists, filmmakers, cameramen, reporters, photographers, artists, designers, pilots, technicians, editors, musicians, programmers and community managers.

In 2019, Ben Thouard joined the family of Ulysse Nardins explorers. Connected more than ever to the elements, the ocean and nature, Bens photographic work is captivating. He produces images, emotions and stunning graphic compositions.

 Ulysse Nardin

Im more than proud to be part of the explorers community, and also to be one of contributors to THE EXPLORERS while carrying the flag for Ulysse Nardin," says Thouard. "I feel like Ulysses; reporter, explorer, documentarian and journalist all in one. I am proud to give my soul in order to aliment our Earths inventory with my photos.

As the expeditions take place, subscribers can discover documentary films that highlight the undisputed beauty of the Earth as well as the lives of local people. The team of The Explorers has designed a groundbreaking app to support the community of adventurers, scientists and artists. They all work together toward the common goal of creating a comprehensive visual inventory of the natural world, illustrated through photos and videos. The Explorers+ is an introductory offer available for a fee of 2.99 per month that gives users unlimited and free access.
Archaeologists believe they have discovered the location of London's first Elizabethan playhouse, the Red Lion, in the East End.

The Red Lion, considered the earliest known purpose-built theatre of Shakespeare's era, is thought to be have been built around 1567, but its exact location has long been debated.

Now excavations at a site destined for luxury flats have yielded convincing evidence - including timber structures and artefacts - that the Red Lion was in Whitechapel.

The Red Lion is thought to have closed after just one year, with just one play known to have been performed there, The Story of Sampson.

But its creator, John Brayne, went on to build The Theatre in Shoreditch, which staged Shakespeare's plays in the 1590s.

The earliest playhouse in London may have been discovered at a site in Whitechapel, by a team of archaeologists from UCL. The elusive remains of what is thought to be the earliest Elizabethan playhouse, known as the Red Lion, were discovered

Pictured, a map of where the Red Lion was in the 16th century in Whitechapel

Archaeologists found the playhouse while excavating the site of a former SafeStore self-storage company in Stepney Way which was due to be built upon for a new block of luxury flats. Left, map of where the Red Lion was in the 16th century and right, its location in modern London

Importance of the Red Lion in London's theatre history The Red Lion playhouse is thought to be the earliest known purpose-built theatre of the Elizabethan era, built around 1567. The theatre is thought to have closed after just one year and only one play is recorded as having been put on at the Red Lion, The Story of Sampson. It is said the outdoor theatre ushered in the era of Elizabethan theatre. The Red Lion playhouse was set up by John Brayne, who went on to construct The Theatre in Shoreditch with his brother-in-law, famed actor James Burbage, father of Elizabethan actor Richard Burbage. The Theatre, unlike its predecessor, was a success, becoming the first permanent home for theatre troupes and a venue that staged Shakespeare's plays in the 1590s. When The Theatre was demolished in December 1598, its timbers were taken to build one of the most famous of Elizabethan theatres, the Globe theatre. Advertisement

The Theatre, which Brayne built with his brother-in-law, famed actor James Burbage, father of Elizabethan actor Richard Burbage, was also the first permanent home for theatre troupes.

Stephen White, who directed the excavation of the Red Lion for Archaeology South-East, part of UCL's Institute of Archaeology, said the site is 'one of the most extraordinary' he has worked on.

'After nearly 500 years, the remains of the Red Lion playhouse, which marked the dawn of Elizabethan theatre, may have finally been found,' he said.

'The strength of the combined evidence - archaeological remains of buildings, in the right location, of the right period, seem to match up with characteristics of the playhouse recorded in early documents.

'It is a privilege to be able to add to our understanding of this exciting period of history.'

Experts have long suspected the site of the theatre was in Whitechapel due to records from two lawsuits filed in the 16th century.

The first details 'scaffolds', or galleries, around the stage.

The second lawsuit includes dimensions of the stage, revealing it to be 40ft (12.2m) north to south and 30ft (9.1m) east to west. It also claims the height of the outdoor stage was 5ft (1.5m).

Archaeologists at UCL's Archaeology South-East were excavating the site as it is due to be built upon for a new block of luxury flats.

They found timber structures, artefacts and buildings on the former SafeStore self-storage site in Stepney Way.

A total of 144 timbers were unearthed which had survived half a millennium.

They found that the stage measured 40.25ft (12.27m) north-south and 30.4ft (9.27m) east-west, almost exactly the same as described in the 1569 lawsuit.

Th Red Lion paved the way for William Shakespeare and 'marked the dawn of Elizabethan theatre'. Pictured: The 'Cobbe Portrait', thought to be the only portrait of Shakespeare painted during his lifetime, circa 1612

Postholes around the timber structure were also found and appear to correspond with the 'scaffolds', or gallery seating.

The dig also uncovered what the archaeologists think were beer cellars, according to UCL Archaeology South-East's historic buildings specialist Dr Michael Shapland.

'Tudor period inns needed somewhere cool and secure to store their drink, as beer would have gone off much more rapidly than it does today,' he explains.

A range of beakers, drinking glasses and cups, bottles and tankards have also been found at the site.

One complete late-17th century tavern mug has a royalist medallion of Charles II, and other tankards feature tavern or landlord names.

In the north-east corner of the site, excavations revealed 15th or 16th century buildings that developed into a sprawling complex in the 17th century, which could be the Red Lion inn itself.

Excavations at a site in Whitechapel in central London yielded convincing evidence that the Red Lion has been discovered. Pictured, Shakespearean-era playhouses in London

A range of beakers, drinking glasses and cups, bottles and tankards have been found at the site. One complete late-17th century tavern mug has a royalist medallion of Charles II (pictured), and other tankards feature tavern or landlord names

Pictured, archaeologists excavating inside one of the beer cellars at a site in Whitechapel, which a team from UCL believe may have been the earliest playhouse in London

After the Red Lion shut, John Brayne and James Burbage went on to construct The Theatre in Shoreditch which, unlike its predecessor, was a success.

The Theatre was the first permanent home for acting troupes and oversaw the flourishing of drama in Elizabethan London.

When The Theatre was demolished in December 1598, its timbers were taken to build one of the most famous Elizabethan theatres, the Globe theatre.

In recent years, a flurry of construction activity in London's East End has uncovered several previously lost theatres in what was something of a theatre district.

In 2012, the remains of the Curtain Theatre, which opened in 1577, were found behind a pub in Shoreditch.

And in 2019, the Boar's Head theatre, which dates to 1598, was uncovered during construction of a block for student accommodation.

Emily Gee, from government heritage agency Historic England, said: 'This tantalising find follows the exciting recent discoveries of The Theatre and The Curtain playhouses in Shoreditch, and of the Boar's Head in Aldgate, which together have immensely improved our understanding of the beginnings of English theatre.

'We will continue to work closely with the developer to interpret these archaeological remains and display them so the public will be able to understand them within the finished development and appreciate the rich history of this site.'
In the wake of George Floyd's killing at the hands of police, nationwide charges of systemic racism in law enforcement and congressional Democrats introducing a sweeping reform bill, Republican senators in Washington are grappling with how to respond.

The Democrats' bill -- introduced Monday -- would ban choke-holds, create a national misconduct registry for cops, limit qualified immunity for police officers, make lynching a federal hate crime and restrict the transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments.

Many GOP senators appeared skeptical of broad federal mandates on police departments, which are run at the local level. Still, the momentum for change across the country has clearly been felt by lawmakers of every stripe, though Republicans also appeared painfully aware of how difficult a needle this will be to thread.

The chamber's only African American Republican, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, is taking on that challenge, leading a group of six GOP senators who intend to unveil a bill by week's end.

MORE: Democrats push to remove Confederate statues from US Capitol after George Floyd's death

Scott has been crafting a policing reform bill for weeks, spoken with the White House on multiple occasions and on Tuesday -- at the weekly GOP policy lunch -- laid out what his group hopes to do and listened to input from colleagues.

"I think we have an opportunity to see something happen, because I think time is of the essence," said Scott after the GOP lunch. "I think it's important for this nation to take a very powerful stand and position that says we're listening, we're hearing, and we're reacting. We're responding in a positive, constructive manner that doesn't create a binary choice between supporting law enforcement and supporting communities of color. I think you can actually do both. And we're going to make sure that that is at least one of the opportunities on the table."

Story continues

MORE: Democrats, seizing the moment, unveil sweeping policing reform bill

The Republican proposal, according to Scott, is expected to include language making lynching a federal hate crime, a notification requirement for no-knock warrants which would collect the number of times these are used for future analysis, incentivize police departments to report use of force that causes serious harm or death, increase funding for body cameras with penalties for failure to use them and deescalation and bias training.

"I have been talking with folks in the White House about the track that they're on as well," Scott said, noting that the administration is working on a different proposal and adding that there is a chance that the two proposals might ultimately be merged with what Democrats have pitched, a prospect that appeared highly ambitious in the current environment.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump shakes hands with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) during a working session regarding the Opportunity Zones provided by tax reform in the Oval Office of the White House, Feb. 14, 2018. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

"I think there is some synergy between all three tracks to be honest with you, and certainly there's a way for us all to work together, but we've been in discussion with them for several days," said Scott, who met Tuesday evening for a half hour with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and Ja'Ron Smith, deputy assistant to the president and most senior African American in the West Wing.

The Senate GOP working group includes Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, as well as, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Oklahoma's James Lankford, John Cornyn of Texas -- who is a close ally of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- and West Virginia's Shelley Capito.

Graham, R-S.C., has scheduled a hearing next week on policing reform, telling reporters that he has told his members to "think big" in terms of witnesses.

MORE: Family, friends honor George Floyd at funeral service in Houston

The ideological tug-of-war between wanting to enact change now -- particularly in the face of a national uproar against police abuses -- and staying true to a bedrock GOP philosophy of a smaller federal government footprint and respect for state and local rights was apparent among Republicans on Tuesday.

McConnell, R-Ky., did not commit to putting a proposal on the Senate floor, telling reporters Tuesday, "I've asked Sen. Tim Scott to lead a group that is working on a proposal to allow us to respond to the obvious racial discrimination that we've seen on full display on our television screens over the last two weeks and what is the appropriate response by the federal government."

The majority leader added, "We'll all have more to say about that in the future."

Still, Republicans remained divided on many issues surrounding policing reform, from a federal ban on choke-holds to stripping officers of legal immunity in use-of-force situations.

Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., an ally of President Donald Trump, said emphatically that he supports such a ban.

"I think those ought to be gone. Period," Braun told reporters, though he insisted that Congress needs to be "a little careful" when it comes to federal mandates, adding, "To me, it's more effective when it comes from the grassroots up."

Scott said that he did not see a need to include such a ban in his legislation; rather, effective training is the answer.

"We certainly think that there are ways to provide resources for training from a deescalation perspective that would perhaps eliminate the use of choke-holds. I think the House's approach has been to eliminate it altogether," Scott said.

"Once again, I think while I might support the elimination of all choke-holds, I think the way to get there is to provide more training and more resources so that local jurisdiction has the ability to make that decision themselves," he added. "And from my understanding, that's the wave of the future and it's happening now and, frankly, by the time we get this legislation up I think we'll have fewer options, fewer opportunities to ban it because I think it'll be gone."

But Capito, R-W.Va., a member of the Scott group, did not rule out adding such a prohibition, saying it's not in the proposal now "but we're still working."

Trump has not indicated where he stands on choke-holds, but his attorney general said in an interview Monday that he supports a ban though it was not clear if that meant doing so on a federal level.

"I think we should ban chokeholds, lateral chokeholds," Attorney General Bill Barr told Fox News' Brett Baier, "unless police officers are confronted with potentially lethal force."

PHOTO: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuuck Schumer kneel with Congressional Democrats during a moment of silence at the Capitol in Washington, June 8, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

And though Democrats have called for an end to the legal doctrine -- created by the courts -- known as "qualified immunity," which shields government officials, including police officers, from civil lawsuits as long as "clearly established law" is not violated, only a handful of Republicans have expressed support.

"So I'm actually thinking seriously about the qualified immunity," Braun told reporters. "Most in our conference don't want to go that far, but I think that'd be the one thing that we show them -- that in our conference, we mean business. You never know, this might be a watershed moment."

MORE: 'Qualified immunity' for police getting fresh look by Supreme Court after George Floyd death

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has joined Democrats on numerous criminal justice reform bills but is currently the lone senator holding up anti-lynching legislation, said he is looking at the immunity issue.

"We're studying that and seeing if there's something we can come up that we're for," Paul said. "It's my understanding -- it's not really a legislative thing -- it's a judicial precedent. We're going to have to see if Congress can try to overturn judicial precedent."

But Scott was less supportive.

"We haven't socialized that issue. I mean I certainly think it's an interesting issue and it depends on how you look at the issue. I know the House has it in their legislation. I would not include it in my legislation, but that's an issue you'd have to ask each individual member," said Scott.

And the Senate's number two Republican -- John Thune -- indicated that the issue was not on the GOP agenda.

"That is, that's a tough issue," Thune told reporters before walking away.

MORE: Emotional Senate debate as Rand Paul blocks bill to make lynching a federal crime

Scott and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who marched with protesters over the weekend and expressed interest in policing reform, are beginning to talk to their Democratic colleagues, but it remains unclear if Republicans and Democrats can come together amid the heated rhetoric and passions of the moment -- particularly in a pivotal election year with the Senate's majority at stake and a bitterly partisan presidential election underway.

Paul blamed Democrats for the current problems in policing.

"You know, the finger needs to be pointed where it needs to be pointed, and that's cities run by Democrats for 50 years. Police chiefs, all Democrats, all these people from the Democrat Party, they need to do a better job in their cities. I've been advocating for this, I spoke out when Ferguson happened. I spoke out when Eric Garner happened," said Paul, referencing other instances where black men were killed by police.

Some Republicans dug in and insisted that any legislation that implied criticism of police was a nonstarter.

"Anything that would reflect and impose on the law enforcement officers in America that they're not doing their job or they're somehow -- it's all negative as the Democrats are trying to declare -- is wrong, and I would oppose anything that they propose," said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.

But Scott expressed hope for action soon, despite the deep divide in his conference.

"I'm very optimistic that it will get to the finish line," said Scott.

And Sen. Thune appeared to agree, telling reporters, "When you get away from the edges, I think there's a lot of common ground on legislation, things that we can do to respond in the near term and then obviously continue the discussion about some of the more structural changes that might be more long term."

GOP senators aim to propose policing reforms but conference is divided originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
SPRINGFIELD  In the wake of nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd, Chicago-area Rep. Emanuel Chris Welch is calling for a statewide response to hold police accountable for excessive use of force and to address what he sees as institutional racism that has devastated many black communities in Illinois.

We need a statewide system where bad police officers can be held accountable for the deaths of our black men and women in Illinois and across this country, he said during a recent interview. We cant have police officers fired from one department and then bouncedto another department. We have to hold them accountable. But we also have to address poverty. We have to create a pipeline to advance black students at community colleges, state colleges and private universities.

Welch, a Democrat from the western Chicago suburb of Hillside, spoke during a podcast interview as part of Capitol News Illinois Perspectives on Progress series, a collection of conversations with black leaders in Illinois about their views on the current state of unrest in the United States and how they believe the state can move forward.

The protests erupted in the days after George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis, died as a result of a white police officer holding him on the ground with his knee on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes while three other officers stood by and did not intervene. Floyds death was captured on cell phone and security camera video, and the footage immediately went viral on the internet.

I watched the video a couple of times and I was just in disbelief that that was actually happening, or that it actually happened, Welch said. To see that officers knee on his neck as he basically pled for his life, and the officer completely indifferent, was just unbelievable. I mean, I was really left speechless by the disbelief.

But that video was just one of the latest in a long succession of such killings of unarmed people of color, reminding people of Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager shot and killed by a neighborhood watch captain in 2012; Michael Brown, the black teenager whose shooting death by police sparked riots in Ferguson, Mo., in 2004; and Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was shot and killed by police in her own home in Louisville, Kentucky in March of this year.

Together, those deaths and many others have exposed the extent to which African Americans and other people of color are treated differently by law enforcement agencies, the result, many say, of a pattern of systemic racism that has existed in America for more than four centuries.

All four officers involved in Floyds death have since been fired. One is charged with second-degree murder while the other three are charged with aiding and abetting in the crime.

But even that has not been enough to quiet the anger of people who have taken to the streets, including the streets of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, where peaceful protests last week escalated into violence and looting.

I do not under any circumstances  condone the violence and the looting, Welch said. I dont think its ever right to break into businesses, burn police cars, damage reporters equipment and hurt reporters, people that are just doing their jobs. I dont condone that.

But you have to understand, he continued, why that behavior is happening. Some of it is happening just because you have provocateurs and opportunists out trying to make that happen. Some of it is happening because you literally have fringe groups out there trying to make those things happen. But a lot of the looting and things are happening because of poverty and institutional racism.

To address poverty and racism in Illinois, Welch said, the state should first make higher education more accessible to people of color.

We have some of the top institutions of higher learning in our state, but the representation of black students is pathetic, he said.

He also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed how African American communities lack adequate access to health care.

When hospitals are closing across the state, where are they closing? Theyre closing in black and brown communities like Westlake Hospital did in mine, Welch said. Were the first ones on the chopping block.

He also said Illinois should also make sure that high-paying jobs being created through the states new capital plan, Rebuild Illinois, are available to African Americans.

When I drive through construction zones all over the place. I dont see anyone that looks like me. Those jobs pay at least $45 an hour and time and a half at 60-$70 an hour, he said. You address poverty by inclusion, and we need to be part of those capital projects all over the state. Health care.

Finally, Welch urged Gov. JB Pritzker to begin releasing federal funds the state is receiving through the stimulus packages that Congress approved for COVID-19 recovery and focus that money on communities of color that have been hit by both the business closures caused the pandemic as well as the rioting and looting that have taken place in recent days.

Businesses are struggling and weve got to address it right away, he said. Poverty is real. People are already at home for the last three months. You know, many of them unemployed and cant get through to our flooded (Illinois Department of Employment Security) system. They didnt get a stimulus check. People are acting out. We need immediate stimulus checks so that people can be fed and clothed.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
Elijah McClain, an unarmed 23-year-old black man, was walking home when Aurora police put him in a chokehold and forced him on the ground for 15 minutes. Paramedics then injected him with the sedative ketamine. McClain apparently suffered a heart attack, fell into a coma and died once taken off life support Aug. 30, six days after his encounter with officers.


Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying Photo: fmprc.gov.cn

China and India have taken steps to reduce tensions along the border in accordance with the consensus they reached, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press conference on Wednesday, in responds to questions on the withdrawal of troops along the border, where a standoff had reportedly taken place in recent days.

Through diplomatic and military channels, China and India had effective communications and reached consensus on dealing with relevant matters on the west section of the China-India border, Hua told the Wednesday press conference.

The Indian Express reported that Indian and Chinese troops have gradually started moving back from "standoff positions." It added that the move happened after military commanders from both sides met on June 6.

Division-level commanders of the two armies were scheduled to meet Wednesday, the Indian Express reported. No details of the meeting have been revealed as of press time on Wednesday.
Cannabis Career Institute Online BudTender Certification "Our goal to instill public trust in Cannabis through effective courses and resulting professional certifications." - Robert Calkin

The Cannabis Career Institute today announced its new training platform called CCI Online and the release of its first course, a professional certification for Budtenders. Designed to address a chronic shortage of a skilled workforce in the booming Cannabis industry, CCI is overcoming todays limitations on in-person training by bringing engaging and relevant courses through its new CCI Online venture. CCI Online will be including skills certification for each of its courses, designed to become the industry standard for growing, harvesting and commercializing this once controversial plant.

Cannabis Career Institute was founded in 2009 and has been helping the once fledgling industry through workshops, seminars and consulting services. Founder, Robert F. Calkin is a lifelong advocate of cannabis legalization and medical marijuana and envisions CCI Online as a powerful force in normalizing the industry. In announcing CCI Online, Calkin says, Weve come a long way from the Smoke-Ins of the 70s and are now starting to see the widespread benefits of this amazing plant be realized. Ive spent my career advocating for mainstream acceptance of Cannabis and now that this is occurring, I want to see those in the business start to act like an industry and focus on quality and responsible conduct. Calkin founded Cannabis Career Institute to provide a support system for people trying to start their own medical marijuana businesses, creating a curriculum focusing specifically on compliance and how to create and market brands. This vision of CCI Online is to move these enterprises into commercial scale.

To produce the courses, assessments and credentials, CCI has turned to AgTechEDGE, a pioneer in the use of adaptive learning for the all types of indoor growing. According to Dr. Sue Raftery, the founder and CEO of AgTechEDGE, the partnership to develop credible assessments for the Cannabis industry is critically needed today. Regulators have rushed to license people and companies, but these licenses are more focused on integrity than they are about competency. The Cannabis industry is flooded with newcomers, many who have never grown, packaged or sold a plant-based product. Regulation implies that product is inspected and meets agricultural quality standards, yet none exist today. AgTechEDGE is happy to begin the process of having qualified, skilled workforce behind the myriad of products being developed from Cannabis and Hemp plants."

The announcement of the CCI Online partnership includes the release of their first course and a certification for Budtender. A Budtender works within a retail outlet/dispensary in which cannabis products are sold. As the salesperson Budtenders answer questions, showcase products and offer suggestions to customers. Graduates of CCI Onlines Budtender course will be expected to master learning objectives tied to Cannabis Products, Cannabis Chemistry and Therapeutic Effects. According to CCI Onlines Calkin it is our goal to instill public trust in Cannabis through effective courses and resulting professional certifications and the Budtender is the most logical place to start. From here, we expect a series of courses, assessments and certifications to expend into the growing facilities.

To register, visit the Cannabis Career Institute Online.

About Cannabis Career Institute

Cannabis Career Institute (CCI) is Americas first and premier marijuana business training center, creating the content and methodology employed across this burgeoning industry. Former CCI students are now Captains of this flourishing industry thanks to tireless advocacy of founder Robert F. Calkin. Hundreds of marijuana related businesses have grown with the help of Cannabis Career Institute and its sister companies Cannajobs.com employment registry and Cannaworx. See more about the Cannabis Career Institute.

About AgTechEDGE

With a vision of Building Skills to Feed the World online education pioneer Dr. Sue Raftery started AgTechEDGE, personalized learning at large scale powered by Area9 Lyceums adaptive learning platform. Now part of TechEGE, a learning platform that adapts to what students already know, the company is designed to help vocational and technical training serve todays learners. AgTechEDGE fills the need for skilled agriculture workers globally and supports their on-going training needs with a library of existing course material or the ability to adapt customer material to their innovative, engaging and adaptive learning environment. See more about AgTechEDGE.
Mikhail Yefremov, a well-known Russian actor who in recent years has criticized Kremlin politics in his stand-up performances, has been put under house arrest and faces up to 12 years in prison for killing a person in an accident while he was driving under the influence of alcohol.

A spokeswoman at the Moscow prosecutor's office, Lyudmila Nefyodova, said on June 10 that Yefremov was barred from leaving his home, using the telephone, the Internet, regular mail, and communicating with the media and individuals with the exception of close relatives, lawyers, and investigators.

Moscow police officials said on June 9 that Yefremov was drunk when he drove his Jeep Grand Cherokee at a high speed into an oncoming lane in central Moscow the previous evening, hitting another car.

Yefremov did not suffer any injuries in the accident, while the driver of the other vehicle, identified as 57-year-old Sergei Zakharov, was rushed to hospital with multiple injuries and died hours later.

After Zakharov was pronounced dead, Yefremov was charged with "causing a deadly traffic accident while driving under the influence" and ordered not leave Moscow.

Later on June 9, a Moscow court ruled that the actor must be held under house arrest until August 9. If found guilty, Yefremov faces up to 12 years in prison.

Stand-ups by the 56-year-old Yefremov challenging President Vladimir Putin and his politics have been very popular in recent years.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Russian parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, on June 9 called for a parliamentary commission on anti-corruption efforts to watch the case in order to prevent "possible pressure on the investigation."

"The law is the same for all. Driving under the influence of alcohol is unacceptable. If it causes a death, no matter who was driving, the punishment must be the same -- up to 12 years in prison," Volodin said.

The widow of Sergei Zakharov said on a television program late on June 9 that she would like to see Yefremov sent to prison for the accident.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax
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The global polysilicon market size is estimated to reach USD 9.68 billion by 2026 says a new report published by Polaris Market Research. The report Polysilicon Market Share, Size, Trends, Industry Analysis Report By Application (Photovoltaics {Monocrystalline Solar Panel and Multicrystalline Solar Panel} and Electronics), By Regions, Segments & Forecast, 2019  2026 gives an accurate analysis of current market indices and taps future market trends.

Polysilicon is a high-purity silicon grade and a major raw material for the electronics and photovoltaic (PV) industries. Silicon has profuse abilities from which it is manufactured. The three commercial processes for extracting it from silicon are quite lucrative. Polysilicon finds itself useful in production of PV wafers which is another strong growth factor for global market.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/polysilicon-market/request-for-sample

The product is characteristically identified by two grades. One is electronics and the other solar. The electronics grade is used to manufacture microelectromechanical systems, optics, power conversion devices and Integrated Circuits. The solar grade is used in manufacturing photovoltaic cell.

The global solar installations surpassed 100 GW for the first time in 2017. This phenomenon has raised the ranking of polysilicon and wafers that are manufactured. Though the solar installation has grown prolifically on a global basis, the market witnessed less supply in 2017. The weak demand came about due to China with feed-in-tariff deadline and lack of transmission line that occurred in West China form sunnier regions.

Globally, solar energy has been actively adopted for different end-use industries in various applications. This has resulted in increased consumption of polysilicon in photovoltaic industry. An improvement in emerging countries of the world with rising disposable incomes has been major parameters for success of these end-use sectors. The demand for consumer electronics has also risen due to such economic and social factors.

Polysilicon is extensively used in electrical and electronics industry for manufacture of electrical components such as integrated circuits, which are an integral component in all electronics circuits and assemblies. A rising demand for smart phones, personal computers and data storage devices has given industry wide traction in the electrical and electronics industry globally.

Complete Summary with TOC Available @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/polysilicon-market

China is a major consumer and also the largest PV module-manufacturing base which are factors responsible for growth of market in the country. However, there are minor obstacles in market on account of feed-in-tariff and ongoing trade disputes between China and United States. The situation in China has worsened the financial leg of US because US has lost access to Chinas PV manufacturing industry, leaving a huge financial loss in its wake.

Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the largest and fast-growing regional market due to industrial growth of its countries, especially the emerging countries. China, India, South Korea and Japan have significantly contributed to growth in region. The global polysilicon market comprises large multinational and domestic companies. The industry is moderately consolidated and highly competitive.

The key industrial players in global polysilicon market include REC Silicon, Wacker Chemie, LDK Solar Company Ltd., Tokuyama Corporation, CSG holdings Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Materials Corporation and GCL Poly Energy Holdings Ltd.

Polaris Market research has segmented the polysilicon market on the basis of application and region.

Polysilicon Application Outlook (Revenue USD Millions, 2015  2026) Photovoltaics Monocrystalline Solar Panel Multicrystalline Solar Panel Electronics

Polysilicon Regional Outlook (Revenue USD Millions, 2015  2026) North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany UK France Italy Spain Belgium Russia Netherlands Asia Pacific China Japan India Australia Korea Singapore Malaysia Indonesia Thailand Philippines Latin America Mexico Brazil Argentina MEA UAE Saudi Arabia South Africa



Avail discount on this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/polysilicon-market/request-for-discount-pricing

About Polaris Market Research

Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities.

Contact us-

Polaris Market Research

Phone: 1-646-568-9980

Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.com

Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com
Back in the days when I used to be part of marches, all the marchers were black. But now there are white people who know the story, and there are Hispanics who know the story, and there are Asians who know the story, Lawson said. All of the cultures, all the races throughout the world, all of the nations throughout the world, all the continents throughout the world, they know the name of this man.
The fate of the Transit Police Division, the Portland metro areas collective comprised of officials from a dozen different law enforcement agencies that patrol transit lines, grew murkier Tuesday.

Deborah Kafoury, the chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, said decisions regarding the county sheriffs department, which was expected to take command of the tri-county transit law enforcement arm July 1, are now on hold."

Any decisions about MCSO taking over the administration of the transit police have been placed on hold as our community continues to rethink public safety, Kafoury said in response to a question from The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Her comments came the same day Mayor Ted Wheeler officially announced his plans to remove Portland Police Bureau officials from the transit division as part of a set of reform initiatives. And they added further intrigue -- and confusion -- to just exactly how many officers would be in the transit division next month, let alone in the future, as protests against police brutality continue on Portland streets and Wheeler and City Council members pledged additional reforms.

Wheeler said the city would not renew its agreement with TriMet once it expires at the end of 2020. However, Portland Police Bureaus leadership and administrative positions assigned to TriMet will be removed within a few weeks. All of the PPB professional staff will be removed from the Transit Division no later than June 25, 2020, Chris Davis, the bureaus deputy chief, wrote May 29 in response to an auditors report on the transit divisions operations.

TriMet officials said that represents six administrative positions, but the transit agency expects the remaining officers to stay assigned to the transit service until the end of 2020.

Regardless, the force is already dwindling.

Portland has 32 sworn officers assigned to the transit division. According to TriMet, there are 76 budgeted positions on the force, including commanders, but there are also 22 vacancies.

"I do not believe that will lead to less safety on the transit system, Wheeler said in a news conference of removing those officers from dedicated duties on or around transit lines. People will still call 911, Wheeler said, and officers will respond.

Davis told The Oregonian/OregonLive last week that Multnomah County Sheriffs would take control of the division July 1. That discussion had been under way since former Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw led the Police Bureau, Davis said.

Chris Liedle, Multnomah County Sheriffs spokesman, would only say on Friday: "We are having ongoing discussions about these details with TriMet and our law enforcement partners, to include staffing and the future policing model of the Transit Police Division, but we are not in a position to release any further information at this time.''

TriMet said Tuesday it has not talked to the county. However, no change in command of Transit Police is currently scheduled, and as Mayor Wheeler said, the existing IGA with the city of Portland for management of the Transit Police Division expires in December of this year, Roberta Altstadt, TriMets spokeswoman, said in an email.

The Transit Police Divisions annual budget is $16.2 million. Per the agreements, the law enforcement agencies pay for the officers who serve on Transit Police, as well as their equipment. The agencies then submit a bill to TriMet for the full costs of the officers and their equipment, and TriMet then reimburses the agencies the full costs. So, Portland would now be responsible for the current transit officers salaries, which amounted to $7.6 million this year.

Altstadt said TriMet is reviewing Wheelers announcements and will be evaluating how best to continue to ensure the safety of our customers and employees and that all are treated equitably."

The City Auditors Offices Independent Police Review released a report Tuesday calling into question some of the Transit Divisions management. The police watchdogs said it can be difficult for the public to understand the transit enforcement division because they are unaware officers could be from a dozen different agencies.

If transit riders have a complaint regarding an officer, they cant file with the IPR unless its a Portland Police Bureau official. The police review group then "refers those complaints to the officers jurisdiction, but most police departments do not have equivalent independent investigators like Portland does, the report stated.

The police watchdogs recommend the Transit Division create a formal complaint tracking process and provide guidance to the agencys commanders on how to address these challenges.

Altstadt said TriMet is already employing some of the recommendations and will look for other opportunities to develop additional actions to respond to the remaining issues.

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.

Staff writer Maxine Bernstein contributed to this story
Hong Kong, June 10 : The Hong Kong police on Wednesday arrested 53 people for participating in unlawful assemblies in Central area of the city.

As the night fell on Tuesday, a large group of protesters gathered in the Central district, blocked roads repeatedly and behaved in a disorderly manner. They spilled over onto roads in the business hub and built barricades with traffic cones and other objects to paralyze traffic, the police said.

Police officers have taken steps to enforce the law and disperse the crowd, but some protesters ignored police warnings and re-blocked the transport routes, Xinhua news agency reported.

Up to midnight, 36 males and 17 females were arrested for offenses including participating in unlawful and unauthorized assemblies.

During the unlawful assemblies, police officers found a big can of paint thinner, glass bottles and several umbrellas on a flyover in the area.

Given that there were protesters hurling objects from flyovers in the past, the possibility that these objects may be used for the same purpose cannot be ruled out, the police said.

The police reiterated that they will not condone any violent or illegal acts, and will spare no effort in bringing perpetrators to justice.
~Company reports 16% year over year net revenue growth and significant improvement in bottom line compared to the same period last year~

TORONTO, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Namaste Technologies Inc. ("Namaste" or the "Company") (TSXV: N) (FRANKFURT: M5BQ) (OTCMKTS: NXTTF), an online platform for cannabis products, accessories, and responsible education, today reported its financial results for the first quarter ended February 29, 2020. All financial figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.

Revenue Shifting towards Cannabis (CNW Group/Namaste Technologies Inc.)

Namaste's first quarter results reflect the work begun in 2019 and the Company's transition to a more strategic position within the value chain. On a year over year basis for the quarter ended February 29, 2020, revenue increased and net loss decreased significantly. On a sequential basis, revenue, gross margin and the bottom line significantly improved. Equally as important to note on the revenue growth is the fact that it was accomplished while revenue-generating, but non-core, business assets were exited during 2019.

CannMart Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Namaste Technologies, ("CannMart") continues to attract premium brands, value added suppliers, and provincial agencies thanks to its expertise in e-commerce, production, packaging, and distribution in this highly competitive and regulated industry. As reflected in the Q1 2020 results, CannMart's expanded product catalogue grew in both its business to business ("B2B") and business to consumer ("B2C") channels. CannMart continues to strengthen its competitive position in the Cannabis 2.0 marketplace as the industry shifts into consumer packaged goods.

First quarter highlights:

Recorded Net Revenues of $5.3 million , a 16% increase over the same period ended February 28, 2019 , and the highest quarterly revenue in two years.

, a 16% increase over the same period ended , and the highest quarterly revenue in two years. CannMart, Namaste's core growth engine, net segment revenue increased by approximately 798% to $1.3 million , excluding excise tax, over the comparable period in 2019.

, excluding excise tax, over the comparable period in 2019. On a sequential basis, CannMart's revenue increased 258% from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020

Reported Net loss of $7.4 million compared to $10.3 million in the same quarter last year. The improvement reflects the restructuring efforts in 2019 and resulting business improvements in 2020.

compared to in the same quarter last year. The improvement reflects the restructuring efforts in 2019 and resulting business improvements in 2020. CannMart continues to increase the number and variety of products carried on the CannMart website and available through its B2B channels such as:

Premium craft cannabis brand Kief , a pure craft cannabis company in which Namaste holds a minority position and certain product purchasing rights, and

, a pure craft cannabis company in which Namaste holds a minority position and certain product purchasing rights, and

Award winning Phyto Extractions, an established legacy brand in the Canadian marketplace offering unique products such as cannabis vaporizing pen cartridges and batteries; cannabis capsules; and cannabis tincture bottles and jars.

an established legacy brand in the Canadian marketplace offering unique products such as cannabis vaporizing pen cartridges and batteries; cannabis capsules; and cannabis tincture bottles and jars. CannMart signed a new supply agreement with Alberta Gaming, Liquor & Cannabis (AGLC), representing the fifth provincial government customer for Namaste. According to the AGLC there are 465 retail locations in the province, more licensed retailers than in any other province.

"The changes in strategy and corporate structure made during 2019 are starting to reflect a positive impact in our financial results," said Meni Morim, CEO of Namaste. "Namaste's revenues jumped this quarter to the highest level since the first quarter of 2018 with a significant contribution from CannMart, an impressive feat taking into account some exits from non-core businesses during 2019. We are gaining traction in the B2B segment with one early customer, with whom we passed the Proof of Concept stage, driving the majority of CannMart's revenue growth. These are initial, yet strong signals of traction, as CannMart generated in this quarter alone, 164% of the revenue generated by CannMart in the entire year of 2019. CannMart is seeing significant growth in its operations as we enter new markets with new and well-known brands and a growing number of distribution channels."

"We firmly believe in the future of the legal cannabis industry and our value proposition as a leader in development, manufacturing and distribution of consumer packaged goods. As manufacturers of cannabis products continue to expand, brands will become the major driver for product differentiation and ultimately sales. As evidenced by the strategic relationships with brands like IGNITE and Phyto Extractions, we are aligning with major brands to help build their customer base within the legal Canadian cannabis market."

"The Cannabis 2.0 market is still in its infancy. However, we expect this market to gain momentum as new and innovative products and brands are introduced. This market features higher gross margins and a larger addressable customer base than leaf-based products and is an important addition to our product offerings. Major brands understand the value that we offer and trust us to represent them."

Summary of Consolidated Financial Results

Net revenue for the first quarter ended February 29, 2020 was $5.3 million, an improvement of 16% compared to $4.6 million for the first quarter of 2019. Gross margin as a percentage of net revenue (before inventory adjustment) for the quarter ended February 29, 2020 was 14% compared to 17% for the previous period. As illustrated on the chart below, cannabis revenue is demonstrating strong growth and becoming a major component of total revenues.

https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178766/Revenue_Shifting_towards_Cannabis.jpg?p=original

Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter ended February 29, 2020 was a loss of $6.0 million, compared to a loss of $5.1 million for the first quarter ended February 28, 2019. Net loss for the first quarter ended February 29, 2020 was $7.4 million compared to $10.3 million in the same period last year. The improvement in the net loss is primarily attributed to decreases in share-based compensation and restructuring and other non-recurring expenses.

The Company has taken a conservative approach and made provisions against financial assets including but not limited to accounts receivable and deposits. These non-cash, conservative measures represent approximately $0.9 million of the $7.4 million loss.

For further details, the complete Financial Statements for the first quarter ended February 29, 2020 and the related Management's Discussion & Analysis can be accessed on the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com .

COVID-19 UPDATE

Covid-19 is an unprecedented challenge for the global community. In response to this serious health risk, management employed procedures to mitigate its effects on the business and ensure the health and safety of its employees, vendors, partners and customers as the first quarter was coming to a close. Although these challenges still persist, management believes that appropriate actions have been taken and the business is well positioned to operate with limited disruption.

NON IFRS FINANCIAL MEASURES

Management evaluates the Company's performance using a variety of measures, including "EBITDA" and "Adjusted EBITDA". The non-IFRS measures discussed below should not be construed as an alternative to other financial measures determined in accordance with IFRS. These measures do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS and therefore they may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other publicly traded companies.

The Company believes these non-IFRS financial measures provide useful information to both management and investors in measuring the financial performance and financial condition of the Company.

Management uses these and other non-IFRS financial measures to exclude the impact of certain expenses recognized under IFRS when analyzing underlying operating performance and cash impact. From time to time, the Company may exclude additional items if it believes doing so would result in a more effective analysis. The exclusion of certain items does not imply they are non-recurring.





Q1, 2020

Q1, 2019 Net loss $ (7,391,664) $ (10,278,966) Income tax

24,568

(93,293) Depreciation and amortization

726,281

666,213 EBITDA

(6,640,815)

(9,706,046) Other income

160,073

424,288 Restructuring and other costs

-

(3,579,500) Impairment of investment in associate

(578,267)

- Share of associates' loss, net of tax

(189,244)

- Share-based compensation

(35,811)

(1,403,536) Adjusted EBITDA $ (5,997,566) $ (5,147,298)

(i) Current and deferred income taxes, depreciation and amortization, and share-based compensation were excluded from the Adjusted EBITDA calculation as they do not represent cash expenditures.

(ii) Other income consisting of gain on disposal of subsidiary, interest income, realized gain on disposition of AFS investments, unrealized gain on derivatives and other miscellaneous non-recurring income were excluded from Adjusted EBITDA calculation.

(iii) Non-recurring costs related to restructuring and legacy issues were excluded from Adjusted EBITDA calculation.

(iv) Share of associates loss, net of tax, is excluded due to lack of control.

About Namaste Technologies Inc.

With headquarters in Toronto, ON, and offices in both B.C. and around the globe, Namaste Technologies is a leading online platform for cannabis products, accessories, and responsible education. The company's 'everything cannabis store', CannMart.com, provides customers with a diverse selection of hand-picked products from a multitude of federally-licensed cultivators, all on one convenient site. Namaste's global technology and continuous innovation address local needs in a burgeoning cannabis industry requiring smart solutions.

Information on the Company and its many products can be accessed through the links below:

NamasteTechnologies.com

NamasteMD.com

Cannmart.com

NamasteVapes.ca

Everyonedoesit.ca

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION  This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements contained herein that are not historical in nature contain forward-looking information. Forward-looking information can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "expect", "likely", "should", "would", "plan", "anticipate", "intend", "potential", "proposed", "estimate", "believe" or the negative of these terms, or other similar words, expressions and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" happen. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date of this press release and is based on assumptions management believed to be reasonable at the time such statements were made, including management's perceptions of Namaste's standing in the online marketplace for cannabis products, the Company's transition into a growth phase with a focus on increasing revenues and gross margins while reducing costs, the Company's goal of becoming a leading procurement, processing and distribution company focusing on the Canadian cannabis market, Namaste's beliefs regarding the quality of its management, the strides the Company has taken in its operations and the quality of the brands offered by CannMart, the Company's focus on growing the business profitably, reducing operational burn and continuing to master the mechanism of moving cannabis into the market, safely and reliably and the results of operations, operational matters, historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other considerations that are believed to be appropriate in the circumstances. While we consider these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to management, there is no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. By their nature, forward-looking information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond our control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information in this press release. Such factors include, without limitation: risks relating to the Company's ability to execute its business strategy and the benefits realizable therefrom, risks specifically related to the Company's international operations, and risks relating to the market price of Namaste common shares. Additional risk factors can also be found in the Company's current MD&A which has been filed under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release or has in any way approved or disapproved of the contents of this press release.

SOURCE Namaste Technologies Inc.
Jenna Swartz, home delivery manager, pulling together an order for a member at Weavers Way Co-op in Mount Airy. The grocery store has shifted several store policies during the coronavirus pandemic. Read more

If any industry seems bulletproof during a pandemic, it might be grocery stores. But consider some bygone supermarkets of Philadelphia past: Genuardis, Pathmark, Super Fresh, and Clemens, not to mention one-offs like Green Aisle Grocery, Perks Family Market, and Creekside Co-op (the successor to Ashbourne Market).

Its a tough business, says Jon Roesser, general manager of Weavers Way Co-op, the community-owned grocery store with locations in Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill, and Ambler. We dont operate as for-profit, thank goodness, because the for-profit guys, theyre killing each other over a 1% return on sales.

Roesser, an alum of Super Fresh, admits that Weavers Way cant compete with the pricing at large supermarket chains. On the flip side, the co-ops supply chain is more elastic.

He recalls restocking Super Fresh stores with a nightly shipment of supplies delivered by one tractor trailer. That was it, thats all you had.

In contrast, Weavers Way receives dozens of deliveries every day. When its bagel supplier, Jenkintowns Fill-A-Bagel, temporarily shut down during the pandemic, the co-op tapped other local bakeries  Rolings in Elkins Park, Metropolitan, and LeBus  to offset the shortage.

We talked with Roesser about how the pandemic has changed business, and what changes might be here to stay.

How have you been weathering this so far?

Were fine, its nerve-racking. We have moved well beyond the stockpiling phase, and now were in a new, not desirable but necessary normal, where people are shopping as a matter of routine. Before the pandemic, we prided ourselves as being that community third place, where people come together to feel plugged into the community. It was basically our fundamental model that, as a cooperative owned by the neighborhood, this is Mount Airys living room, and same with our stores in Chestnut Hill and Ambler.

And now we have to operate under very different rules. Everyones got face masks on and we discourage long conversations in the aisles, which before we encouraged. So yeah, people do see each other, but its weird: All day long, you greet people more so with waves and head nods and that sort of thing  these are people that you would normally hug, and now youre staying at least six feet apart. You wave and maybe say hello, but thats it. It sucks. Its just not who we are, its not who we want to be.

Instead of shopping every day  which was, again, part of our culture: You shop the co-op four or five times a week  people are shopping less. But when they do shop, its a much larger shop. Thats more like the typical suburban supermarket model.

 READ MORE: Amid stockpiling frenzy, Phillys independent grocery stores are staying supplied

Have you seen an increase in membership?

We have, quite a bit. I believe thats largely because we decided early on to try to keep high-risk members out of the store. So we ramped up our home-delivery and curbside pickup capabilities. Before all this happened, we were delivering to like 10 or 12 members a week, mostly elderly members who can no longer get to the store. Were now doing about 700 deliveries a week.

Weve tried to make it mostly about if youre high-risk. So if youre 60 years old or older or have a member of the household who is, or if youre otherwise high-risk, please dont even come to the store. Just place your order and either come pick it up at the curb or well deliver it to your house. And because that benefit is a member-only benefit, weve seen this really dramatic increase in membership. I think four or 500 members joined since the middle of March.

Whats the radius for home delivery?

Five miles from each of our stores. So with stores in Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill, and Ambler, that covers basically Northwest Philadelphia and the immediate suburbs just north of here.

How does the pandemic affect the bottom line for a store like Weavers Way?

The third week in March was our highest sales week ever. And the fourth week in March was our second highest sales week ever. So yes, we did have record sales those two weeks. And we did have considerable expenses during those two weeks. We had a lot of overtime. And we, like most grocers, are paying our employees $2 an hour more since the middle of March. Weve hired a bunch of extra personnel for home-delivery and curbside pickup, and thats labor-intensive stuff. It can take one employee an hour and 15 minutes to shop for one curbside-pickup order.

But its absolutely true that those two weeks and even beyond gave us a little shot in the arm in terms of extra cash in the bank. Not a tremendous amount more, and we are nervous about what happens next. Thats the big thing: We along with everybody else are staring at the worst economy since the Great Depression. And how long is that going to last? Its really hard for me to predict profitability over the course of the pandemic. Im anxious about it, because theres so much that can disrupt things going forward.

When you have so many people that are out of work, they have to be very, very careful about what they spend their money on. This gets back to the competitive advantages of larger chains when it comes to pricing. Consumers will respond to that. We couldnt possibly sell a box of Cheerios or a half-gallon of Breyers ice cream for the same price as an outfit of like Walmart.

 READ MORE: Whole Foods and other retailers have ended hazard pay for workers even as coronavirus remains a threat

Youve made a lot of changes  some you really dont want to make. Which do you think are here to stay?

I attend a weekly call that the CDC does for grocery stores; its a nationwide call every Monday afternoon. And in a past call, one of the scientists was from the FDA, and he hinted that some of the self-service sub-departments might be gone for good, things like hot bars and salad bars and soup stations. The FDA might develop guidelines that says those things arent happening any longer. Wed figure it out, but that would be a big permanent change.

I believe that in the near term, at least for the next six months  or really either until theres a vaccine or some other way that the virus is no longer a general threat  were going to have to maintain the six-foot social distance. Which is going to be problematic for a place like us, because were going to have to continue with strict customer restrictions. We only let 12 people at a time in our Mount Airy store; were used to having 30 or 40 people. Thats not only counter to our culture, but it also suppresses sales.

And curbside pickup and delivery, do you think thats going to last even after a vaccine?

I think so. Home delivery of groceries was already a growing industry. Instacart, Amazon Prime, and all that, they were already experiencing double-digit growth. I think that will only accelerate. So smaller outfits like the co-op, we need to figure out how to do those things in a sustainable way.

I do home deliveries every day, and when I drop off food, the first thing you do is call the person. And invariably they say, Oh, thank you so much. I cant wait to shop again. I cant wait to get back into the co-op. And I believe that thats a true sentiment for a lot of people, but I also think that a lot of other people are thinking, This is pretty damn convenient. I have a busy life, and if I can get my groceries delivered for a minimum charge, Im going to.' 

 READ MORE: Did you eat your two-week food supply? Heres why you need to restock it. Now.
T he London scientist leading one of two UK bids to develop a coronavirus vaccine hopes to have his ready within a year.

Professor Robin Shattock, of Imperial College London, said his teams vaccine would not be available by Christmas but in the first two quarters of next year if things go extraordinarily well.

Teams at Imperial and Oxford universities have both received millions in Government funding for their research and are using different scientific approaches.

Professor Shattock said the two universities were not rivals but collaborating very closely in a bid to find a vaccine as quickly as possible.

Professor Shattock, speaking in a Royal Society of Medicine webinar, said: We are often pitted against each other or seen to be in a race against each other, but actually we are collaborating very closely together, exchanging material, and the two approaches may well be able to be used together, in a prime/boost [primary and booster jab] approach.

We are not actually trying to beat each other. We are trying to work together and make a vaccine available in the fastest possible time.

Safety tests in humans have been carried out by the Oxford team and last month its research moved to recruit 10,000 people, including adults over 56 and children aged five to 12.

More than 150 potential vaccines for Covid-19 are in development worldwide but the Oxford team is thought to be among those leading the field.

A globally-available vaccine is seen as the key to ending the pandemic. Asked when his vaccine might be ready, Professor Shattock said: We hope next year but there is no guarantee or certainty (a) that any individual vaccine will work and (b) that the data will be reliable or robust enough for it to be licenced.

At the moment there is a lot of speculation and we really need to deal with facts and data rather than overpromising and under-delivering.

The Imperial approach involves using the RNA - or blueprint  of the virus protein to trigger the bodys immune system into making antibodies.

The advantage is that we can make a lot of vaccine very quickly, Professor Shattock said. In the equivalent of a litre bottle of lemonade we can make up to two million doses.

That is very different to conventional approaches that might need 10,000 litres or more to make the same number of vaccines.

He said the first vaccines to emerge may be less than ideal and be unable to offer full protection -but may at least reduce the severity of the illness.

The ideal vaccine would be one that prevented infection and prevented transmission. That would be the kind of Holy Grail, he said.

In the absence of that, a vaccine that just reduces illness, so people dont have time off work, or even a vaccine that only reduces severity of disease [so that] we dont see fatalities would be really useful at this stage.

I suspect we may see that some vaccines may be less than ideal but may be useful initially and may be replaced by more potent vaccines as we get increasing clinical data and efficacy data.

The most important thig at this stage is to see the data  for people to be transparent and show results rather than press releases, so we can make a comparison of these different approaches.

Due to the Government funding, the UK population will be first in the queue if either the Oxford or Imperial vaccine is proved effective.

Professor Shattock said: There is every intention to make them available globally. But we need to remember that making billions of doses is very different to making a few million.

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One problem was the lack of available volunteers in the UK on whom to test the vaccine. This is because of falling infection rates. As a result, teams may have to conduct tests in countries such as Brazil, where infection rates are high.

A second potential problem was the lack of uncertainty over how long immunity would last. Professor Shattock said that if a vaccine was rushed into production after only several months of tests, doctors could only be sure immunity would last for a period equal to the length of the trial.

There is a danger of moving too fast, he said, adding that there may be the need to develop capacity for annual boosting.

The Oxford trials, which are being done in collaboration with drugs firm AstraZeneca, involve volunteers being given either the test vaccine or an already approved meningitis vaccine.

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Professor Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said last month that the trials were progressing very well.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The export of cement from Turkey to Russia increased by 37.32 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, amounting $31.2 million, Turkeys Ministry of Trade told Trend on June 10.

Turkeys export of cement to Russia decreased by 23.40 percent in May 2020 compared to May 2019 and amounted to $3.6 million.

Turkeys export of cement to the world markets decreased by 6.9 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019 and reached $1.4 billion.

The export of cement from Turkey amounted to 2.3 percent of the countrys total export volume over the reporting period.

Turkeys export of cement to the world markets amounted to $250.4 million in May 2020, which is 29.3 percent less compared to the same month of 2019.

The export of cement from Turkey amounted to 2.5 percent of the countrys total export volume in May 2020.

Turkeys export of cement amounted to $3.4 billion from May 2019 through May 2020.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
WESTPORT  The Schools Reopening Steering Committee presented its latest scenarios for reopening schools, but noted Governor Lamonts future executive orders will play a larger role in whats enacted.

The goals are really to develop plans that work well for Westport, Anthony Buono, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, said at a Board of Education meeting Monday.

Buono, who co-chairs the steering committee, said it will be important to develop a more robust distance learning program in case schools are closed in the fall. A blended learning plan and transition plans from one learning model to another is also in the works.

Buono said a lot of early planning was based on guidelines from the state on how face-to-face summer school would be conducted.

Thats the best and most current information we have, Buono said.

The blended learning plan is currently being developed in case schools reopen on time in September, he said. The distance learning plan comes into play if the reopening is delayed in September.

Buono said the first transition plan will include a scenario if schools reopen on time in September but close because of COVID-19. The second transition plan involves schools facing a delayed reopening and then moving to a traditional or blended learning model.

These are really the scenarios that all of the work groups are thinking about as they do their work and are planning for, Buono said.

Several members of the steering committee also outlined other preparations, which ranged from new classroom cleaning procedures to best practices for meals outside of the cafeteria.

Suzanne Levasseur, steering committee member and district supervisor of health services, said strategies are also in development to support social and physical distancing throughout the school day including during transportation, lunch and recess.

A lot of the items that are currently under development are really based on the Governors rules for returning to classroom learning, Levasseur said, adding the current summer school guidelines could be a preview of whats to come.

The steering committee is also looking at ways to monitor staff and student absences and illness if symptoms are consistent with COVID-19. Levasseur said monitoring would be important in identifying trends.

So we know if our absenteeism went from 2 percent to 5 percent in one day were going to be able to look at that, report it to the health department and identify that more easily, she said.

Board members discussed how different age groups could be affected by distance learning and the feasibility of implementing any model.

Thats the work that is occurring, Buono said. We are going to come to you with these are the things that have to take place in order for us to provide a blended learning model and meet all these safety and health requirements for our students and staff, and then well have an estimated cost for doing that.

dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com
North West Simon Community has responded to the latest emergency accommodation figures saying its deeply disappointing to see that the number of people in emergency accommodation in the North West is growing faster than in any other region across Ireland.

According to the new figures from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, the number of people in emergency accommodation in Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal in April grew by 19% to 83 people including 12 children, compared to April 2019. This was the highest increase recorded across the regions in Ireland. Nationally there was a decrease of 10% in the overall numbers.

The charity also expressed concern about the growing number of single adults in emergency accommodation, which grew by 48% to 68 people compared to 35 people in April the previous year.

The number of single adults in emergency accommodation has increased month on month for the past year, and North West Simon Community has seen a similar trend in its own services.

"The number of single people supported in 2019 increased to 101 from 77 in 2018. In Leitrim for example, where there is no emergency accommodation centre we supported 30 single men in 2019, a 200% increase from the 10 single men supported in 2018 said Noel Daly, General Manager of North West Simon Community.

The government statistics record that only 3 families with children were in emergency accommodation during April. However, North West Simon Community believe that the reason the number is so low is the ban on evictions introduced at the onset of the COVID-19 restrictions.

We are currently supporting 5 households across the region who are under threat of immediate eviction from their homes, as soon as the ban is lifted, and it is likely that the number of families in emergency accommodation will quickly rise once more. Noel said.

Official statistics illustrate clearly that homelessness is growing across Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim but North West Simon Community warns that the scale of the homelessness crisis in the North West is much bigger than the current statistics suggest.

According to Noel Daly, homelessness is still very much on the increase in our community and services are being stretched to the limits to support those seeking support. Quarterly Local Authority Homelessness Performance Reports published by the Department, record that the total number of unique individuals offered emergency accommodation in the region in 2017 was 169. By the end of 2018 the number had risen to 189, and in 2019 a new high of 219 was recorded. With the number of Emergency beds available in the region remaining constant at 57 throughout the three years, services are struggling to support all those in need of help.

North West Simon Community points out that the number of people accessing emergency accommodation is only one aspect of a complex problem. The figures released by the Government, dont include families in refuges, direct provision, people sharing with family and friends in overcrowded circumstances, or living in cars, vans, or sleeping rough.

The Social Housing Assessment published in December 2019, identified 594 households eligible for social housing whose current tenure was listed as either living with parents, or living with relatives/ friends. These statistics show that there are a far higher number of people living in insecure housing in the North West Region than the monthly homeless statistics suggest", Noel Daly said.

North West Simon Communitys services have continued to operate throughout the Coronavirus crisis.

According to Noel, the outbreak of Covid-19 has had a huge impact on those at risk of or experiencing homelessness and has put so many already vulnerable people at increased risk. Far too many women, men, young people and children are experiencing the trauma of homelessness.

"Our committed staff on the frontline are doing whatever we can to ensure that people can remain safe, and in their own homes where possible, during this difficult time.
Seattle has been making big news in the last couple of days. The first major story emerged Tuesday, when police ceded an entire neighborhood to Antifa and Black Lives Matter, representatives of which barricaded a large segment of the Capitol Hill neighborhood and declared the area an "autonomous" community, separate from Seattle itself. The second newsworthy story occurred when thousands of leftist protesters led by Black Lives Matter and Antifa entered City Hall shortly after midnight on Wednesday, demanding that Mayor Jenny Durkan (a Democrat) resign.

On Tuesday, the police in Seattle's Eastern District had initially battled with the rioters, using tear gas and flashbangs. Eventually, recognizing that anything short of a military-style defense was a waste of police time and put police lives at risk, the police abandoned the Eastern Precinct. They shredded important and confidential documents, boarded up the windows, and walked away, leaving the people whom they serve to the mob's mercy.

The mob set up barricades around the streets and announced a new independent community called the "Capitol Hill autonomous zone" or "Free Capitol Hill." Because this is Seattle, residents of the city, rather than looking at the probably and imminent end of a comfortable life predicated on the smooth functioning of modern civil services (law enforcement, food delivery, garbage pick-ups, street cleaning, etc.), immediately donated huge amounts of food, water, and medical supplies to allow the anarchists to settle in for a long siege.

Currently, people are boasting about how Utopian the whole thing is.

When police retreated from Seattles Capitol Hill, some people expected chaos.



Instead the new autonomous zone has speeches, free food, and people helping one another.



Heres a look inside the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone #CHAZ



pic.twitter.com/ksByr5bTDg  Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) June 10, 2020

That will not last. Utopia never does. If this "utopian" community is allowed to remain there, it's a good bet that anarchy will become the norm and that the revolutionaries will start turning on each other. If the people want anarchy, perhaps it's time to give it to them good and hard. Here are some more scenes from life in Antifa-land (language alert):

Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle. 6 blocks retaken back for the people. You are now leaving the USA when you enter. Long live the fucking revolution.  pic.twitter.com/xgFVjA33mx  Armani (@historyofarmani) June 9, 2020

Good morning to the Seattle Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone!  pic.twitter.com/6UTD8FSv1y  Black Rose/Rosa Negra (@BRRN_Fed) June 9, 2020

One of the Antifa extremists who created the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone was just ousted as a sex offender. They tried to manipulate everyone by pretending to be suicidal on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/pojLBhZrxO  Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 10, 2020

This is one of the individuals running the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" in Seattle. No additional commentary from me needed, lol pic.twitter.com/eDYfFQOQLU  Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 9, 2020

Protesters have put on the barricades that those coming into the area are now leaving the USA and entering the Cap Hill autonomous zone or Free Capitol Hill. pic.twitter.com/zGNBYAyLOg  Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) June 9, 2020

Here's the second big story out of the People's Republic of Seattle: while Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other anarcho-socialists were making a new world on Capitol Hill, another battalion successfully invaded Seattle's City Hall. The mob didn't even have to break in. Seattle councilmember Kshama Sawant, an Indian-born member of the Socialist Alternative Party, unlocked the door for them with her key:

Councilmember Sawant has a key to City Hall, allowing protesters to enter and chant for the mayors removal. #seattleprotest pic.twitter.com/EyC7GdT4Xh  Jake Goldstein-Street (@GoldsteinStreet) June 10, 2020

Once in, the mob demanded that Mayor Jenny Durkan resign, claiming that her refusal to defund the police means she supports the apparent orgy of police brutality in Seattle. (Seattle, of course, is an entirely Democrat-run city.) Hotep Jesus noted something interesting about the mob:

I'd like to add a note to the record...



These are caucasians and there are no black people living in Seattle.



So, BLM must be a white org now. https://t.co/Qqt8bklc52  Hotep Jesus (@HotepJesus) June 10, 2020

Here's another video giving you a sense of what's going on there, and it is indeed an almost completely white mob:

Thousands of protestors take over Seattle city hall; demand the mayor steps down after failing to control the brutality of the police. "Hey hey, ho ho, Jenny Durkan has got to go!" #blacklivesmatter pic.twitter.com/AK7WC3l0yc  Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) June 10, 2020

There's a saying that America's 50 states are each laboratories of democracy. The same can be said for its many cities and towns. Seattle is embarking on a grand experiment that sees white leftists virtue-signal themselves into turning their rather lovely city into an anarchist experiment. This should be interesting.
Indian, Chinese Armies Disengage at Multiple Points in Ladakh, Ending Weeks-Long Standoff - Report

Sputnik News

13:04 GMT 09.06.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): The armies of India and China have stood face to face at several locations along the Line of Actual Control that separates both the countries in the Ladakh region over the past several weeks. There have also been unverified media reports of skirmishes, which both sides have denied.

India and China have reportedly decided to disengage at multiple points in eastern Ladakh, where troops on either side were reinforced during the past several weeks of standoff. The face-off began after India started the construction of a key road along the loosely-demarcated Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

The news agency ANI, quoting top government sources, reported that "troops and infantry combat vehicles moved back by 2.5 km by People's Liberation Army in Galwan area, Patrolling Point 15 and Hot Springs area. India has also moved some of its troops back".

The move comes after New Delhi and Beijing engaged in commander-level and diplomatic discussions to de-escalate tensions along the border.

"The sides have reached an agreement on how to implement the important consensus of two countries' leaders and prevent turning disagreement into a conflict, maintain peace and tranquillity in the border regions as well as create a favourable environment for healthy and stable development of the bilateral relations", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Monday, 8 June.

India and China share a border from Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast to Sikkim in the centre and Ladakh in the northern region. While the border passes through land in most regions, in Pangong Tso it passes through water. India controls a 45km long lake in the western portion, while the rest is under Chinese control. Most of the clashes between the Indian and Chinese armies have taken place near the disputed portion of the lake.

 Sputnik

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Me Joseph Mbah Ndam Archives

The late Legal Adviser of the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), Hon. Joseph Njang Mbah Ndam will be buried in Yaounde on Saturday, June 27, the party has said.

65-year-old Mbah Ndam, former long-serving Member of the National Assembly died Monday, April 13, 2020, in Yaounde shortly after he was rushed to the hospital for medical care. His remains have since been preserved at a morgue in Yaounde pending funeral arrangements. He will now be buried 19 days after the interment of his fellow SDF Legal Adviser, Barrister Sama Francis Asanga who passed away on Monday.

The funeral ceremonies and burial of Hon. Mbah Ndam Joseph will take place on the 26 and 27 of June 2020 in Yaounde, Senator Jean Tsomelou, Secretary-General of the SDF said in a statement Tuesday night. Details of this program shall be made known to you in the days ahead.

The delay in the burial of the deceased SDF strongman may not be unconnected to the coronavirus pandemic that restricts gatherings and travels, as well as the conflict in the North West and South West regions which has greatly affected his native Batibo.

Mbah Ndam became Member of Parliament for Momo West Constituency (Batibo) following the May 17, 1997 Parliamentary Elections in Cameroon that saw the SDF win 47 of the 180 seats at the National Assembly. He was voted out on March 22, 2020, after close to 23 years of service.

He was born on February 28, 1955, in Batibo, Momo Division of the then North West province. He was a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the SDF since 1991.

Besides being a politician, he was a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Yaounde from 1988-92. Until his death, he was the adviser on legal and judicial matters of National Financial Credit Bank and chair of Union of Cultural and Development Association of Momo Division. He was a practicing Protestant Christian; he was married and a father of many children.

His house in Batibo was burnt down to ashes by armed separatist fighters on Sunday, December 15, 2019. The events from 2016 till April 13, 2020, may have contributed to bringing more frustrations to Hon. Mbah Ndams last days. His demise is no doubt a painful end for a man who invested his life to social change, showed a lot of loyalty to the Social Democratic Front and its National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi. Although he had debatable positions, he died a staunch member of the SDF.

He was also an adviser on legal and judicial issues for the National Financial Credit, NFC bank. He was also the President of the Momo Cultural and Development Association. Married and a father of children, he was a faithful member of the Christian Men Fellowship, CMF, of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, PCC.

Just like was the case with Late Barrister Sama, Hon. Mbah Ndam will be buried in the absence of SDF National Chairman, Ni John Fru Ndi. The opposition leader is currently on a medical visit in the United States of America.
Lakayana Drury, Marcia Perez and Elliott Young

Drury, Perez and Young are members of the racial equity subcommittee of the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing.

Police need to stop killing black people. Despite more training, more dialogue with the public and other reforms adopted over the years, police continue to murder black people with no consequences from a legal system that provides officers almost total immunity. The time has come to stop talking about reform and begin to think about transforming policing as we know it.

That starts by cutting funding.

The nationwide movement to defund the police is spreading from Minneapolis to New York City to Portland as people tire of the unfulfilled promises that reforms will curb police violence. The answer instead is to shrink the scope of activities in which police engage. While for some, the idea of a society with fewer police is scary, for others, especially black, indigenous, communities of color and other marginalized people, the reduction of police officers in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and streets is a long-overdue change.

The Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, which was created to provide police oversight as part of a federal justice settlement over excessive force allegations, stands with those advocating for a better solution. The committee, of which we are members, voted on Sunday to recommend that the city defund the police and refund our communities.

What does that look like?

We can begin by institutionalizing community accountability, redirecting funds and focusing on public health needs.

We need to invest in our communities. Over the past 40 years, Oregons investment in schools, housing and health care has not kept up with the publics need. Meanwhile, as the general fund has grown over the past decade, the city has continued to devote about a third to the police budget alone. Portland spends a higher percentage of its general fund on police than Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York City, according to the Center for Popular Democracy.

As police budgets have grown, police have been increasingly outfitted like soldiers going to war rather than as community safety officers. At the same time, the role police have been asked to play in society has expanded. Today, police are the first-responders for the houseless, people with mental illness, those suffering from addiction and misbehaving schoolchildren. All of these functions can best be handled by trained social workers, public health professionals, and educators rather than armed police. The removal of police from Portland schools is a positive step to ending the school-to-prison pipeline, but more money is needed to hire counselors in the schools to address the root causes that lead to inequitable student outcomes.

Shrinking the police also means decriminalizing a range of activities including drug possession and use. In its place, we should adopt harm reduction strategies, such as safe injection sites and drug and alcohol addiction counseling. Drug task forces should be ended and raids banned. Similarly, vice units that criminalize adult consensual sex work should be ended and support services should be offered to those sex workers who want them.

The police model must shift from a focus on petty-offenses and more investment should be made to support those in need. We can resolve discriminatory fare-evasion policing by making mass transit free. Police disproportionately target black and brown youth for low-level, victimless crimes and these interactions too often end in violence or death. Eric Garner was killed for allegedly selling cigarettes and George Floyd was killed for passing a fake $20 bill. The police should never be involved in these situations in the first place.

Shrinking police does not mean getting rid of all police. Police will still be needed to investigate homicides, rapes, and other violent crimes. But the goal would be to bring perpetrators into a restorative justice process rather than incarceration and trying to remediate the causes of such social ills. However, given that violent crime has declined dramatically in Portland since the mid-1980s, and today such crime stands at about one-fifth of where it was, the need for police has diminished. After reducing the scope of policing, there will need to be a small group of community safety officers who can respond to active-shooters, but, in reality, these situations are extremely rare.

Defunding the police does not mean chaos and anarchy. It means reinvesting in our communities, especially the black community and other communities of color, the poor, and the disenfranchised. We can spend the next 50 years talking about police reform or we can begin to build a better world in which police are not the answer to everything. The lives of so many depend on which we choose.

Subscribe to our weekly opinion newsletter with links to editorials, op-eds and letters to the editor at oregonlive.com/newsletters.
Four months earlier, Wang Guangfa, a respiratory specialist at Peking University, was infected by the coronavirus after coming into contact with patients in the Chinese city of Wuhan, with a mask covering his mouth and nose but without eye protection.

All of which begs the question: Are we putting ourselves at risk by leaving our eyes exposed? Can we actually catch the coronavirus through our eyes? It may be possible, says John Brooks, M.D., chief medical officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 response. The virus could enter the body through mucous membranes that cover the white parts of our eyes, says Brooks, but it would be very hard to prove.

To be sure, infectious diseases, in general, can be transmitted through various routes, the eyes included. When a person who is infected coughs, sneezes or talks, the virus can travel in tiny particles from their mouth or nose into another person's face. These droplets are most likely to be inhaled through your nose or mouth, but they can also enter the body through the eyes, says Viral Juthani, M.D., assistant professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. You can also become infected if you touch a contaminated surface that has coronavirus on it, like a handle or doorknob, and then touch your eyes.

What's more, says Sonal Tuli, M.D., associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Florida, and a clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, We know that many other viruses, such as the influenza virus, can cause both respiratory symptoms and ocular symptoms. You can be coinfected.

This is not all that surprising, since our eyes, nose and throat are connected by a nifty bit of plumbing, known as the nasolacrimal system, that carries tears from the ocular surface to the nasal cavity and down the back of the throat. When we cry, our nose runs; put medicine in your eyes and you'll often feel and taste it in the back of the throat.

For the most part, however, health experts believe we're probably more likely to become infected via our nose and mouth, than through our eyes, in part, says Tuli, because our nose and mouth provide a direct passageway to the lungs, whereas infectious particles that enter through our eyes have to take a more roundabout route.

Also, notes James Cherry, M.D., a distinguished research professor and infectious disease expert at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, our tears contain antibodies that can help detect and latch onto unfriendly antigens, such as bacteria and viruses, and destroy them.
A WA Greens senator who praised UK protesters for destroying a historical monument and encouraged his social media followers to tear down Perth's "symbols of white supremacy" has been accused of inciting criminal behaviour, anarchy and vandalism in Parliament.

Liberal MLC Tjorn Sibma delivered an excoriating speech on Tuesday night about a series of tweets by Senator Jordon Steele-John which he said left him feeling "somewhere between anger and contempt".

WA Liberal MP Tjorn Sibma has delivered an excoriating speech in Parliament, accusing Greens senator Jordon Steele-John of inciting criminal behaviour.

Senator Steele-John celebrated images of protesters in Bristol pulling a statue of 16th century slave trader Edward Colston off its plinth and dragging it into the city's harbour on Monday.

"It's great to see these symbols of white supremacy being torn down," he said.
T he world's largest aircraft landed safely in Ireland today, carrying with it the single largest consignment of personal protective equipment to be flown into the country on a single flight.

The six-engine Antonov An-225 Mriya jet features a wide wingspan of 88 metres and is also used to carry large equipment such as military tanks, trains and smaller aircraft.

After technical issues caused a delay for its intended arrival on Tuesday, the jet touched down safely at Shannon Airport on Wednesday.

Director of Operations at the airport Niall Maloney told Irish radio station RTE Radio One, the An-225 was a "fantastical feat of aeronautical engineering".

He said: "It's a 640-tonne beast of an aircraft. If I managed to put nine 737s together, it's the same weight as nine 737s.

"The most important part is it is bringing PPE into Ireland. It's got nearly 900,000 surgical gowns and other medical equipment on board."

The jet flew from China to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan before landing safely in Shannon at 1.45pm.

The AN-225 took 20 men, on shift rotation, 15 hours to hand load 6,249 boxes weighing 18 kgs each / Arthur Ellis

Shannon Airport features the longest runway in Ireland at 3,199m, making it the only airport capable of accommodating the massive aircraft.

Mr Maloney shared how the plane was designed in the 1980s as part of the Soviet rule, but it is now owned by Ukraine and was part of the space programme.

"It really lost its way," said the Director of Operations. "It was a moth ball for about eight years but it came back in the late 1990s as a commercial plane and literally has just been flying the longest pieces ever flown in an aircraft, the heaviest pieces ever flown in an aircraft."

The large aircraft is known as the Mriya the Russian word for dream / Arthur Ellis

The Anton-225 is the second plane carrying medical gowns to arrive in Shannon this week after a Boeing 737 landed in Shannon on Monday.

West Coast Aviation and its partner Metistechnicall on behalf of HSE managed the consignments of more than one million medical gowns between the two flights.

Mr Maloney added: "With a wing span wider than the Croke Park pitch and, from nose to tail, over one and a half times the length of an Olympic swimming pool, the Antonov 225 stands alone as the largest and most powerful planes ever made.

Our airport staff have been working on the front line ensuring the safe arrival of PPE cargo flights since the start of the crisis. We love having the Antonov here.

"Its an incredible aircraft and when you see it on the taxiway here, it dwarfs anything else on the airfield. When you take its enormous size into perspective, its almost unbelievable that it can get up into the skies, let alone be as graceful when its up there."
To An has spent the last decade reliant on feminizing hormones smuggled to Vietnam after her gender reassignment surgery (GRS).

"I consulted several hospitals in Saigon, but was rejected due to a lack of professionalism. I was stuck and considered suicide," To An recalled.

In 2009, a gay man from Thailand told her about a medicine that could give users smoother skin, develop their breasts, and stop facial hair from growing. After receiving her order, To An asked a friend to help her with the injection, not considering the side effects.

According to the Center for Supporting Community Development Initiatives (SCDI), there are around 300,000 to 500,000 transgender Vietnamese, with 70 percent using hormones purchased from acquaintances, the Internet, or, like To An, the black market.

To An after GRS. Photo courtesy of Nguyen Huynh To An.

There is no pharmacy or medical facility providing hormone therapy to transgender Vietnamese, who have to rely on unprescribed hormones that often cause a host of side-effects.

Most "miracle effect" testosterone and estrogen hormones are imported illegally from Thailand, Germany, and India, their origins completely unknown.

In the past three months, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen international flights to Vietnam halted, leaving transgender Vietnamese in the lurch.

According to To An, many of her friends, who seldom stockpile hormones, are currently reliant on birth control pills.

The lack of supply is only one dilemma.

For many years, To Ans friends have helped her inject hormones, mostly on a trial-and-error basis.

Once, following an injection in her buttock that caught infection, she had to be rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery, leaving her body permanently scarred.

After a near bleed-out, Truc Quan, 21, has been self-injecting estrogen bought online for eight months, extremely conscious of the many risks involved.

Fortune, however, is not on everyones side, with two of To An's friends having succumbed to period hormone injection.

According to Doctor Nguyen Van Phung, plastic surgery lecturer at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam has no laws governing hormone therapy or GRS for its transgender populace.

Common side-effects of hormone injection include embolism, osteoporosis, hypertension, and allergy. Using unprescribed medication can be even more dangerous.

Phung maintained civil law is steadily recognizing the rights of transgender Vietnamese and several hospitals have opened treatment clinics aimed toward the LGBTQ community.

"If facing complications related to hormone treatment or GRS, transgender citizens should immediately attend hospital," the doctor stressed.

Quan, having learnt her lesson, now periodically visits a clinic to receive a hormone injection.

"I hope my friends learn about the side-effects of hormone treatment, find a doctor, or someone with a medical background to assist them," she said.
By Jan Murphy and Charles Thompson of PennLive and Cynthia Fernandez of Spotlight PA

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and PennLive/Patriot-News. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter.

HARRISBURG  The most powerful Republican in the Pennsylvania House, Mike Turzai, is expected to announce Wednesday he will resign from his post before the end of his final term, according to multiple legislative sources with knowledge of his plans.

Turzai (R., Allegheny), the House speaker, announced in January he would not seek reelection this fall and would instead pursue a job in the private sector. Sources, who requested anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the speakers plans, said its not clear exactly when Turzai will depart, though hes expected to outline a timetable Wednesday.

Lawmakers on Tuesday said Turzai told members his family is coming to the Capitol this week for an announcement. In a brief interview, Turzai said he wants to have his family present when he shares some remarks with the House, though he declined to provide more details.

Its an opportunity to speak to the members who have been my colleagues and friends from both sides of the aisle and share some heartfelt recollections and lessons I think we learned in working together to make Pennsylvania better, Turzai said early Tuesday evening.

Several media reports and sources have speculated that Turzai will take an executive position inside Essential Utilities, Inc., a Bryn Mawr-based company that this year acquired Peoples Gas of Pittsburgh. That company was formerly known as Aqua America Inc., a major Turzai donor whose CEO, Chris Franklin, is a close friend of the lawmaker.

A lawyer who served as an assistant district attorney in Allegheny County, Turzai was first elected to the state House in 2001 in a special election. He rose to majority leader in 2010 before being chosen to serve as speaker in 2015.

Turzai is a staunch supporter of limited government, pushing for legislation that would privatize the states liquor stores and increase taxpayer support for private and religious schools. He vehemently opposes abortion access and championed several bills that were met with Gov. Tom Wolfs veto pen.

The two men have repeatedly found themselves at odds over Wolfs proposals to raise the minimum wage or institute a shale tax.

Turzai has also raised substantive funds for Republican candidates and made a few attempts at higher office himself over the years. That includes a bid for governor in 2018 abandoned after the Republican party endorsed another candidate, then-state Sen. Scott Wagner (R., York).

In January, Turzai said he was retiring after consulting with his family about the future.

Its time for someone else to run in this particular seat, and shortly, it will be time for some of my colleagues to take the mantles of leadership in the House Republican Caucus, he said.

He soon endorsed veteran Rob Mercuri to take his Western Pennsylvania seat, largely considered to be a suburban battleground for Democrats this fall. With some ballots left to be counted, Mercuri will likely face Democrat Emily Skopov, who unsuccessfully challenged Turzai in 2018, this November.

Mike Turzai is unquestionably one of the giants in the 40 years that Ive been in Harrisburg, said lobbyist and former Senate leadership staffer Mike Long. He is one of the few people that was both the political leader and the legislative leader of their caucus.

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(TNS)  Daviess County is slowly crawling back toward normal. Businesses began reopening over the last couple of weeks. Offices that sent many workers to their homes to carry out their jobs have begun to call them back in to the businesses. One little piece at a time the area has begun to try and go back to where they were before the coronavirus pandemic swept the country.One of the things that allowed the county to keep in business was technology. From school kids doing e-Learning to their parents running the business from the living room, the county saw the importance of being connected with the rest of the world.This pandemic has created challenges in virtually every aspect of our lives, said Daviess County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Bryant Niehoff. It has really exacerbated the need for broadband accessibility for everyone.Many rural areas of Indiana have struggled to get broadband accessibility. Major companies have concentrated their efforts on Indianas more metropolitan areas.In my viewpoint companies are going to be looking for more opportunities to have people work remotely and away from the office in the future, said Daviess County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Joe Morris. This is going to become the new normal and that is going to make Internet access a big deal.During the pandemic with schools closed, the students relied on access to online sources to do their e-Learning assignments. Barr-Reeve has a local Internet provider that has reached out into many of the rural areas to provide service but it still isnt in every corner of the district.Every one of our students had a device, said Barr-Reeve Superintendent Dr. Travis Madison. But we had about 15 or 20 percent that worked offline. We hope we dont ever have to do this again, but it is part of the future and the way kids are going to learn. Some people have referred to education this spring as the haves (those with broadband) and the have nots (without broadband). I dont believe it is that pronounced but I do know that internet access and connectivity is something all of Indianas small rural schools struggle with.The expansion of technology and the opportunity to work remotely could well be a key in helping Daviess County to grow in the future.Business, education, health care, its all tied to broadband and access is important, said Morris. As a community we need to look at every opportunity, every grant to find a way to expand it. I think this pandemic has shown that broadband is not a luxury. Its a necessity. It simply is part of our new normal.One of the things that happened during the pandemic was that as businesses looked to spread out and limit potential virus exposure to employees, they found that some employees did not have access to the Internet at home. Some of those companies instead wound up renting office space in the community for those workers.Others reported that if they had the kids doing school work and the family trying to do business at the same time that the system wasnt robust enough to handle the demand and slowed down dramatically.This has shown us from an economic standpoint we have to focus on broadband accessibility for everyone, said Niehoff. Even before the pandemic there was a shift across the state to more broadband accessibility, so that we can market communities to people who are working remotely.The Economic Development Corporation has an action plan of things it wants to see done in the community. The priority for getting broadband into every corner of the county just went up.We had it as part of our organizational agenda, but after going through this it has to go up the priority list, said Niehoff.We need to get the key stakeholders throughout Daviess County to together and build toward this, added Morris.
The 1925 Geneva Protocol  an addition to the Geneva Convention  categorized tear gas as a chemical warfare agent and banned its use shortly after World War I. Under this protocol, the United States can still use tear gas on rioting prisoners of war and in rescue missions to recover isolated personnel. However, the protocol dictates civilian casualties must be avoided.

So why then, many community members are asking, did the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) deploy tear gas on protesters during the weekend of May 29?

For nearly three weeks, local activist Cambria York offered medical assistance at nearly every demonstration in Indianapolis. Usually, York and others known as protest medics usually treat dehydration or rolled ankles. But on May 29 and May 30, they treated protesters and bystanders  one as young as six months old  for exposure to tear gas. Others needed treatment for wounds caused by rubber bullets and pepper balls. To make matters worse, those on the scene say IMPD officers confiscated medical supplies, including inhalers, water bottles and general first aid kits.

In a press conference June 5, however, IMPD Chief Randal Taylor said those supplies ceased to be medical supplies when protesters began using them to counteract the effects of the tear gas.

Some of my concern initially was things were being projected towards officers, Taylor said, citing frozen water bottles that were allegedly thrown at IMPD officers May 30. The hope with tear gas is that it will move people along.  Im concerned whenever someone has something to try and negate that for fear of its going to continue what happened before.

While tear gas may be an effective way of clearing out a crowd, there is also the possibility of harming bystanders, which is why the chemical compound is banned in war under the Geneva Convention.

When gas was deployed on a crowd at Monument Circle on May 29, IMPD Sgt. Stephen Fippen said later only five people were directly hit, but admitted it is impossible to target tear gas as it lingers in the air.

Beyond the inability to target tear gas, York takes issue with medical supplies saying the supplies are no longer for medical use just because they are being used to treat injuries relating to tear gas.

To set that kind of precedence is extremely dangerous, York said. Then you can say an asthmatics inhaler, or water, or milk of magnesia is no longer medicine. Saying that anything that is straight up medical but happens to counteract tear gas is no longer medical is not only unscientific, but a calculated way to delegitimize our role as non-combative support staff.

While Taylor said IMPD had a reason  such as violence from the crowd or destruction of property  to deploy tear gas, York said the actions of IMPD are nothing short of a war crime, citing the Geneva Convention.

According to the Geneva Convention, York said, it is unlawful to use against enemy actors in wartime, and it should be illegal to use against civilians. The fact that they are not only using tear gas as, according to their own verbiage, a less than lethal method of crowd control, the phrase less than lethal is far from the truth.

According to IMPD, however, tear gas is an acceptable and relatively safe method to disperse a crowd in a dangerous setting.

While our preference would be to work with our community members to prevent large-scale violent events, once riots have begun, law enforcement officers need tools to quickly disperse violent individuals in a way that does not cause harm, IMPD officials said in a statement. According to the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], the effects of exposure to a riot control agent are usually short-lived.

Throughout the country, there have been instances of tear gas resulting in miscarriages and menstrual disruptions, as well as death from asthma attacks or other breathing problems.

York, who is CPR and rescue certified, had enough medical equipment in a backpack to assist people after IMPD seized supplies. However, York and other medics had to use the inhalers they had on their person to reverse asthma attacks after tear gas was used.

Beyond the seizure of supplies, York and Jes Cochran, who trains protest medics to work at demonstrations, said they and other medics had negative interactions with IMPD and state police.

I personally have no expectation of being treated fairly by the police, York said. Not only as an indigenous person, but as a transgender and gay person.  I have been followed by Indiana State Police multiple times. I have definitely been profiled and so have most of the other medics I work with. On Saturday, there were multiple instances of police and National Guard singling out medics and playing it off like theyre trying to coordinate. Theres a lot of not subtle efforts to intimidate.

Cochran said when a Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital ambulance arrived on May 30 to treat gunshot victims, an armed guard got off the ambulance and began pointing a gun into the crowd.

York described whats referred to as a tactical medic, who was wearing IMPD-branded gear.

However, Brian Van Bokkelen, public affairs manager for Indianapolis EMS (IEMS), said the person seen in photos from the protests was an EMS not an officer  and the standard, bulletproof uniform is provided by IMPD.

There were no cops on our ambulances, Van Bokkelen said. And there was not a gun pointed at the crowd, not as far as IEMS is concerned.

Van Bokkelen also refutes the claim that officers were using ambulances to break through the crowds, differing from information York provided.

There are multiple eyewitnesses of EMS vehicles being used as Trojan horses to get through crowds of demonstrators, York said. Its Hoosier hospitality  its in our nature  to make room for ambulances so they can help those who need it. To have our trust betrayed in that fashion is unforgivable.

Update: The information provided from IEMS came after publication of this article. Originally, the statement provided from Sidney and Lois Eskanazi Hospital read: Indianapolis EMS has a tactical EMS program with medics and physicians who are specifically trained to support and care for individuals in high-risk situations. The EMS medics and physicians on this team use special protective gear to support their ability to provide care quickly and safely. This team was in place downtown over the weekend to provide extra safety for protesters and preserve the ability of our caregivers to provide medical aid to those in need.

Contact staff writer Breanna Cooper at 317-762-7848. Follow her on Twitter @BreannaNCooper.

Protest medics say the seizure of medical supplies by IMPD put lives at risk. (Photo/Breanna Cooper)
America has become a crucible of civil unrest over the past few weeks. Demonstrations against police brutality have erupted across the United States following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after he was placed in a chokehold by police. The US is in turmoil over Floyd's killing, exposing the reality of America's abject racism and its predominant culture of white supremacy.

The epidemic of systemic racism and discrimination against people of color has long poisoned the US political atmosphere under the patronage of white supremacists and with their tacit connivance. They have perpetuated discriminatory laws and legitimized racial segregation by giving immunity to convicted police officers. An African American is far more likely to be arrested or killed by police than a white man in the United States. This rings terrifying alarm bells of a deep-seated hate. America has been in chaos for decades. From Martin Luther King to Eric Garner and George Floyd, racist killings are an echo of the past. The pattern of racial discrimination is chiseled into its political creed and laws. Police in the US intentionally use lethal force such as chokeholds when arresting black people - much of it is based on the incorrect assumptions that come from the same racist patterns. As police brutality is rarely subjected to scrutiny, racial violence continues to abound.

Racial discrimination and subjugation are the antithesis of all that humanity stands for, and now, millions of the oppressed are countering that racist rhetoric in America . The fight for racial and social equality is interwoven in recent American history. George Floyd is the latest of a string of victims of racial violence. In 2018, another black man, Stephon Clark, was shot 20 times by police in Sacramento, igniting a wave of protests all over the country. Incidents of murder perpetrated by police and the ensuing unrest before and after such incidents create a tragic vicious cycle.

The US administrations response to civil unrest has been terrifyingly chaotic and utterly totalitarian. Donald Trump has responded to demonstrations against police brutality with more brutality. There have also been assaults against journalists, with dozens arrested and some even having projectiles and tear gas shot at them by police in the ongoing protests. These are clear violations of human rights.

This wave of anti-government feeling seems insurmountable. The chaos on US streets is the outcome of a crippling anxiety over the senseless tragedies and violations of civil rights that continue to happen, and which need to be rectified, not abetted and exacerbated. Tens of millions of people who live under the curse of injustice are now frustrated and upset at the tyranny of the police and the countrys leadership.

But xenophobic alienation and racial discrimination in the US goes beyond police brutality. Segregation has its roots in history. American leaders have continuously turned a blind eye to racism and partly fuelled it by allowing rampant segregation in the legal, economic and social systems to thrive. The entire system subjugates Americans of African descent. The legal system is plagued by racial injustice. The healthcare system is rigged against African-Americans. The state-regimented economic system marginalizes minorities, and deliberately hinders upward social mobility. Once again, the sanctimonious guardians of human rights have destroyed the tenets of civil liberty and freedom.

Americans want justice, just like any 21st century human being who is living under the tentacles of the United States' intrusion, deadly expansionism, proxy wars and cold wars that have unleashed destruction upon millions.

US governments have seldom been reticent in giving condescending advice to other governments on how to deal with dissidents. The Trump administration, and the entire American political apparatus, have been the agitators of terrible conflicts in the Middle East, Latin America, South Asia and many other tumultuous regions for decades. Their destructive interference all over the world has bred misery and death to an unfathomable degree. All the countries that have been at the receiving end of the USs atrociously pompous homilies about democracy and freedom are suffering under their imperialist and expansionist whims - which have caused wars and conflicts. The turmoil in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China was a result of the direct interference of the United States. Unrest in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya and other countries is happening only because of US interference and its pursuit of global hegemony.

American leaders seldom remember the principles of human rights in dealing with lawful demonstrations on their own soil. They are committing similar atrocities by trying to deprive millions of their right to seek social equality. Indignant protests and civil unrest are creating a revolution that has embedded itself in Americas narrative. This all signals an urgent need for structural administrative and police reforms. US policymakers should quickly end the pattern of police violence and unconstitutional acts by reforming laws and bringing an end to police impunity. Legal justice is needed as desperately as economic justice. Long overdue economic and health reforms are also needed to raise up minorities. Racial inequalities should be rectified. Violent police behavior should be outlawed. This must be an era of change and action for civil rights, and of an end to Americas interventions overseas.

The opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to People's Daily Online.

Seddiq Hussainy is a sub-editor with Afghanistan Times.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:07:45|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed new governors in 41 provinces, according to a presidential decree published on the Official Gazette on Wednesday.

As part of the decision, 23 governors were shuffled between provinces and 18 were newly appointed, while 17 former governors were appointed as chief civil inspectors at the headquarters.

Former Mugla Governor Esengul Civelek was appointed as a top advisor to Erdogan, as part of the decree.

Former Mardin Governor Mustafa Yaman and Diyarbakir Governor Hasan Basri Guzeloglu, who had been appointed as trustees to replace heads of these provinces, were recalled to the headquarters.

Turkey has a total of 81 provinces. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 05:10:30|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China's experience of fighting against COVID-19 is of great help and value for global efforts in combating the pandemic, a leading medicine expert told Xinhua in an interview on Tuesday.

"China has accumulated valuable experience in virological research as well as clinical diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19, as the country's anti-pandemic efforts started earlier than the rest of the world," said Zhaoping Li, a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Clinical Nutrition at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Chinese government on Sunday issued a white paper, titled "Fighting COVID-19: China in Action," to keep a record of the country's efforts in fighting the virus, to share its experience with the rest of the world, and to clarify its ideas on the global battle.

"The white paper has stressed China's call for building a global community of health for all. China has vigorously carried out cooperation with the international community in jointly containing the spread of the virus," Li told Xinhua.

"The virus knows no borders. The novel coronavirus is highly infectious and has a high lethal rate. In face of this brand-new pathogen, it is particularly important to strengthen international exchanges and cooperation," Li said.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has taken effective measures to control the spread of infection in a timely manner, and accumulated invaluable experience, she said.

Chinese scientists published papers in leading international journals to share experience, and Chinese doctors also introduced their clinical treatment experience on various occasions, Li said, adding she had participated in several video seminars to learn from her Chinese counterparts.

China's white paper on the country's battle against COVID-19 is an invaluable scientific and medical resource, she said.

As the novel coronavirus is likely to exist for a long period of time, countries around the world should support each other and cooperate in the development and popularization of COVID-19 therapies and vaccines, Li said. Enditem
Representatives shake hands on stage at a summit between China and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) on the COVID-19 coronavirus in Vientiane, Feb. 20, 2020.

The United States is struggling to compete with Chinas growing influence in Southeast Asia, according to a new survey of the region's experts, even though there is strong support among them for democratic values.

China already has far more economic influence than the U.S., and slightly more political power, in Southeast Asia, and the gap is expected to widen in the next decade, the survey by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank found.

The survey by the respected Washington-based think tank targeted strategic elites  nongovernmental experts or former officials from six Southeast Asian countries. There were 188 respondents from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Another 13 people in Fiji responded to the survey.

The survey was conducted in November and December 2019, so it does not factor in how the COVID-19 pandemic may have shaped perceptions of the two powers. The coronavirus originated in China, which has been accused of initially trying to cover up the outbreak. As the virus has spread across the globe, the U.S. has recorded the most deaths.

The results of this survey paint a picture of clearly ascendant Chinese influence in Southeast Asia, complex and diverging views of China, and deep concerns over U.S.-China strategic competition and its impact on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the report describing the surveys findings says.

Respondents were asked to select up to three countries that hold the most political influence in Southeast Asia. China came up top with 94.5 percent, followed by the U.S. with 92 percent.

But the margin of difference between the two powers grew significantly when the question shifted to who will be the most influential in 10 years time, with 94.5 percent choosing China, and 77 percent the U.S. For both questions, Japan and Indonesia came in a distant third and fourth place respectively.

Pat Buchan, director of the U.S. Alliances Project at CSIS and a co-author of the study, said Chinas efforts to gain influence in the region have accelerated significantly in the past five years, and the survey results reflect that trend. He said this should serve as a wake-up call for the U.S. as it seeks to compete with China.

From a historical perspective, the United States has not focused on Southeast Asia largely since the fall of Saigon, Buchan said in an interview, referring to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

Its efforts in Asia have always been focused on East Asia and Northeast Asia. So that does reflect that there is a sort of lost generation of American influence and American expertise on Southeast Asia, he said.

When it comes to economic influence, there was virtual unanimity in the survey that China is already the frontrunner by a large measure and will continue to be so in a decade.

Asked which three countries now have the most economic power, some 98 percent named China, 70.6 percent said the U.S. and 66.7 percent said Japan. In 10 years, 96 percent say it will be China, 56.7 percent say the U.S. and 56.2 percent say Japan.

Buchan attributed that outcome to the relative lack of U.S. involvement in multilateral trade deals and institutions like the Trans-Pacific Partnership  which was negotiated by the Obama administration as part of its strategic pivot to Asia, but then dropped by President Donald Trump.

Despite the recognition of CCP-governed Chinas rising influence, and the authoritarian tendencies of many Southeast Asian governments, respondents voiced near support for democratic values.

Some 85 percent of strategic elites said they were confident democratic values were beneficial to their countries stability and prosperity. This was most pronounced from respondents in Thailand and the Philippines  which have seen an erosion of democracy in recent years  and Indonesia, where it has proved more robust.

That definitely ran through the whole thing, this desire for democratic norms and values, Buchan said. If we had ran this poll 30 years ago you wouldve gotten a very, very different answer.

The soft power influence of the United States is now showing through two generations later as the accepted norm, he said.

Some 53 percent of respondents considered Chinas role to be beneficial for the region, while 46 percent called it detrimental. The negative views were most pronounced in Vietnam and the Philippines  two nations which also expressed the most concern about the situation in the disputed South China Sea, which China claims in its entirety.

Respondents identified the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as the most important institution for regional order.

Vietnam, however, was an outlier on this, which may be attributed to its frustration over ASEANs failure to reach consensus on the South China Sea issue, with pro-China members such as Cambodia foiling attempts at consensus.

Nearly half of respondents identified external pressure from great powers as the biggest threat to ASEANs unity, followed by concern that member states were not giving sufficient priority to the 10-nation bloc.
Calls to defund and dismantle police departments are echoing across the country following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

"I don't know of anyone who thinks we should zero out public safety entirely, "said Christy Lopez, Georgetown Law expert on innovative policing.

Lopez says this dialogue may be alarming to some but, for activists, it's long overdue as many communities have grown to "over-rely" on police officers.

"It's impossible for any human to be a mental health worker, a social worker, and investigate a homicide. It makes sense to shift that responsibility to other parts of government and shift resources as well," said Lopez.

In Washington, it appears lawmakers from both sides of the isle agree general action is needed.

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) says she does not support defunding or dismantling law enforcement agencies. However, she says she is signing on to the 'Justice in Policing Act.' Smith says it's a bill backed by democrats in both the House and Senate that would create a ban on chokeholds, create a national police misconduct registry, and add some restrictions on the transfer of military grade equipment to local law enforcement.

"It's designed to get at the deep need we have in Minnesota and around this country for more accountability in police departments and more transparency in police departments," said Smith.

Senate republicans are also drafting proposals calling for greater accountability for uses of force.

In Southern Minnesota, Rep Jim Hagedorn (R-MN) says he doubts the dialogue will drift into his district.

"We are not talking about Mankato or Rochester police; we're talking about big cities," said Hagedorn.

Hagedorn says local governments should take the reins and Congress's involvement should be minimal.

"I would defer to officers who have protected and served out community. The vast majority have done heroic work," said Hagedorn.
ECB doesn't need to expand shopping list yet, Schnabel says FILE PHOTO: The European Central Bank (ECB) logo is pictured before a news conference in Frankfurt

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - European Central Bank board member Isabel Schnabel played down an imminent expansion of the ECB's crisis-fighting tools on Wednesday, pouring cold water on the notion of buying bonds issued by banks or by junk-rated companies.

The ECB boosted its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme to 1.35 trillion euros (1.20 trillion) last week and investors have been speculating over whether it will add new assets to its shopping list, which is mostly comprised of government and corporate bonds.

Schnabel said the central bank was open to that prospect if needed but the time hadn't come yet.

"We don't necessarily have to extend our toolbox already right now, but according to how the crisis develops there may be a time when this becomes necessary," Schnabel said during an online panel discussion.

ECB staff have been working on the possibility of including bonds issued by companies that have been downgraded to junk during the coronavirus outbreak, such as German airline Lufthansa <LHAG.DE> and French car-maker Renault <RENA.PA>.

While the Federal Reserve is already doing so, Schnabel noted the Fed could count on the U.S. Treasury to bear the first losses on such bonds, something that may be difficult to replicate in the euro zone.

Asked by UniCredit's <CRDI.MI> chief executive Jean-Pierre Mustier whether the ECB could buy bank bonds, Schnabel said this may raise a conflict of interest because of the central bank's role as the sector's supervisor.

The ECB scooped up all of Italy's new debt in April and May, setting aside its prescribed national quotas to cap borrowing costs for the indebted, virus-stricken country.

It also bought 35 billion euros of commercial paper to help euro zone companies navigate a liquidity squeeze.

Schnabel said the ECB would continue focusing its bond purchases on the countries and markets where they are most needed for the whole duration of the PEPP.

Estonian central bank governor Madis Muller said earlier the ECB should limit how much its bond purchases deviate from each country's shareholding in the bank, while Slovakia's Peter Kazimir wished they could end "as soon as possible".

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa in Frankfurt, Tarmo Virki in Tallinn and Robert Muller in Bratislava; Editing by Alison Williams and Giles Elgood)
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

The wireless charging market is anticipated to reach around USD 95.6 billion by 2026 according to a new research published by Polaris Market Research. In 2017, the consumer electronics segment dominated the global market in terms of revenue. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the leading contributor to the global wireless charging market revenue during the forecast period.

The wireless charging market has substantial potential for the present and future applications, owing to the rise in the mobile phone usage across the world, especially emerging regions such as India, China and South-East Asia. The growing demand for mobile devices and consumer goods drives the growth of the market during the forecast period.

Request For Sample Copy & All Related Graphs & Charts @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/wireless-charging-market/request-for-sample

The wireless charging market is expected to grow significantly during the forecast period owing to increasing popularity of electric vehicles. Wireless charging has multiple applications in the EV technology including fuel supply, and in-car electronics. However, factors such as lack of standardization of mobile devices and their charging potentials, longer charging duration, and limited portability hamper the market growth to a certain extent. Growing demand from emerging economies, increasing adoption of IoT and smart devices are expected to provide numerous growth opportunities in the coming years.

Asia-Pacific generated the highest revenue in the market in 2017, and is expected to lead the global wireless charging market throughout the forecast period. The economic growth in countries such as China and India, leading to rising living standards and high disposable income has increased the penetration of smart phones and other mobile devices in the region, thereby increasing the demand for wireless charging. The increasing environmental concerns and depletion of traditional fuel sources have encouraged consumers to use electric vehicles in the region. China exhibits the highest penetration of electric vehicles, which supports market growth of wireless charging.

Browse for full research summary: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/wireless-charging-market

The key players operating in the market include Integrated Device Technology, Mojo Mobility, Powercast Corp., Texas Instruments, Energizer Holdings, Leggett & Platt, Incorporated, Qualcomm Incorporated, Powermat Technologies Ltd., ConvenientPower, and Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. These companies launch new products and collaborate with other market leaders to innovate and launch new products to meet the increasing needs and requirements of consumers.

Wireless Charging Market Size and Forecast by Technology, 2018-2026

Inductive Radio Frequency Resonant Others



Wireless Charging Market Size and Forecast by End-User, 2018-2026

Consumer Electronics Automotive Healthcare Defense Industrial Others



Wireless Charging Market Size and Forecast by Region, 2018-2026

North America US. Canada Mexico Europe Germany UK France Italy Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific China India Japan Rest of Asia-Pacific Latin America Brazil Middle East & Africa



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China's new army commander Lt Gen Xu Qiling, who will head the Western Theatre Command ground forces responsible for the Sino-India border, is a rising star in the PLA specially handpicked by President Xi Jinping to handle troops along the challenging border, a media report said.

Gen Xu's appointment was announced on June 5 in the midst of the current standoff between Indian and Chinese troops long the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Xi, who heads the ruling Communist Party of China besides Presidency, is also the Chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission which is People's Liberation Army's high command.

Gen Xu, the rising star of the PLA, has been sent to oversee the ground forces of the Western Theatre Command, where tensions are rising between China and India over border dispute, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. "As tensions with India are escalating over border disputes, the Western Theatre Command needs a younger commander to lead frontier soldiers and officers in this current sensitive period, the Post quoted a military insider as saying.

Xu is 57 years old, five years younger than his predecessor, He (Weidong). The working environment in the Western high altitude is very tough and even young people age prematurely there , the official said. Xu was one of the young generals promoted by Xi after he took the helm of the PLA in late 2012. Xu has experience at four of the PLA's five theatre commands.

He was promoted to the lieutenant general last year, one year after being sent to the head the ground forces in the Eastern Theatre Command, which oversees the security of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, as well as the East China Sea. "Xu's new position in the Western Theatre Command is also a new test for him, the official said.

If he can handle the China-India border disputes properly, he is very likely to be further promoted to grab a seat in the PLA's ground force headquarters, or even more senior, in the future, he said. Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping said the latest border tensions meant the Western Theatre Command required someone familiar with joint operations between ground and air forces.

"All the fighting forces Beijing sends to the frontiers were trained for air-to-ground battles, which need a capable commander like Xu to lead them. Xu was the chief of staff at the former 54th Army Corps, an elite PLA fighting force known for its involvement in the crackdown on a Tibetan uprising in 1959 and the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

The Army Corps was merged into the 83rd Army Corps in a military overhaul by Xi in 2015, the Post said.

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: Private hospitals launch home care packages for mild cases
New Delhi, June 11 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted more time to the Delhi Police to file its response in connection with a petition filed by former JNU student Sharjeel Imam, challenging the trial court's order allowing police more time to complete its probe and also seeking default bail in a case pertaining to allegedly giving a inflammatory speech during the anti-CAA protests.

A single judge bench of Justice V Kameshwar Rao, who was hearing the matter through video conferencing, posted the matter for hearing on June 25 after Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, appearing for the prosecution, requested for 10 days time to file a response.

Sharjeel Imam, in his plea filed through senior advocate Rebecca John and advocates Bhavook Chauhan, Surabhi Dhar and Ahmed Ibrahim, had also sought court's direction to release him on default bail under section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The plea also challenged trial court order by which the court had granted more time to the Delhi Police's Crime Branch for filing the charge sheet in the case.

Delhi's Patiala House Court dismissed the bail application filed by Imam in which he had claimed that the police did not complete the investigation within the statutory 90-day period following his arrest.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana, however, noted that extension of time period to conclude the investigation was already given before the expiry of the statutory period on April 25. In his plea before the Delhi High Court, Imam has challenged the said order too.

On June 5, the Delhi Police filed its response before the high court opposing the present petition filed by the former JNU scholar.

In its affidavit, the police claimed, that Imam, "by way of his speeches was addressing a particular religious section of the society and creating disaffection towards government established by the law by creating unfounded fears in their minds regarding CAA and the process of NRC, which is yet to be implemented in any manner throughout the country barring Assam".

"The accused by way of his speeches was also spreading falsehood about genocide in Assam. He, through his speeches, was instigating a particular religious section of the society to disrupt/block the access to Northeast region of India from rest of India," the affidavit read.

Imam came into focus for giving an "inflammatory" speech in Delhi's Jamia over Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) on December 13 and subsequently on January 16 at Aligarh Muslim University, where he allegedly threatened to "cut off" Assam and the rest of the northeast from the country.
Almost 100 protesters gathered at the Bexar County Courthouse on Tuesday, the day after District Attorney Joe Gonzales said there is no new evidence to warrant reopening investigations of the killings of three black men by San Antonio police officers.

As some held signs urging Defund the Police and Smash Cop Unions, demonstrators voiced their fervor with chants of Black Lives Matter and Police are violent  we will not be silent.

The group later marched downtown and made its way to Travis Park with some demonstrators holding their fists in the air.

It was the 11th consecutive day of protests in San Antonio since the death of George Floyd, a black man killed in Minneapolis police custody two weeks ago, and the day of his funeral in Houston. An officer who kneeled on Floyds neck as bystanders pleaded for his life and took video has been charged with murder.

Tuesdays protest here sought to make Gonzales the focus for declining to reopen the cases of Marquise Jones, Charles Chop Chop Roundtree Jr. and Antronie Scott, all killed by San Antonio police officers in separate incidents in the past six years. Kimiya Factory, a local community activist, said she helped organize the gathering to demand justice for the three mens families.

Josie Norris /Staff Photographer

Her remarks exposed tensions with other movement organizers about the best way to address issues of police brutality, police misconduct and systemic racism. At several points, Factory called them out, asking why they invited police officers to recent protests and accusing them of infiltrating the Black Lives Matter movement and working with police.

Gonzales said Tuesday he supports the communitys right to protest, though discussion of the SAPD killings on social media included a threat to his own life, causing him to increase his security detail.

WATCH Editorial Board Interviews YouTube Playlist

Im on their side, Gonzales said. I am a reformer, and I am doing everything I can to run this office in a just order.

Gonzales said he has examined the Roundtree, Scott and Jones cases and thinks each was handled properly, including two from before he took office. There is no new information that leads him to believe that reopening and refiling those cases would lead to a different outcome, he said.

On ExpressNews.com: Texas to require all police officers to receive implicit bias training

These three other cases are very different from Floyds death, Gonzales said. Officers had to make a split-second decision when they fired, and in a situation where they believed they had to use deadly force.

Iliana Arizpe, 35, attending her fourth protest, said the loss of a human life moved her to join the demonstration and to support reopening the cases.

She stood on the curb of Nueva Street watching as protesters shouted they would not be silenced.

I feel there are a lot of good cops, Arizpe said. But a lot need psychological training to use a weapon.

Josie Norris /Staff Photographer

Jackson Mosqueda, 20, sat away from the crowd, holding a flag bearing the words Disarm, Defund and Dismantle. He and his brother Griffin, 18, said Tuesdays protest was the seventh theyve attended.

The call for change and reform keeps them coming back, they said. Jackson Mosqueda said the system has never worked.

You have to abolish it and start over, he said. I cannot continue to live in this system that does not value me as a person.

Protesters are calling for the police department budget to be reallocated for better training of officers and evaluating their mental health, said activist Roger Mortensen, 28.

We should be able to elect these officers into their positions. We shouldnt be out here hiring these officers like its a fast food place, he said.

On ExpressNews.com: Podcast: Nirenbergs big moment at a downtown San Antonio protest against police brutality

Roundtree, 18, was unarmed when he was shot and killed by an officer at a West Side home early on Oct. 17, 2018. A police report said officers were investigating an assault.

A pending lawsuit filed by Roundtrees family claimed the young man and two friends werent breaking any laws when an SAPD officer showed up at the house without any warning and without a no knock warrant. The officer opened the door, shined a bright light and opened fire, the lawsuit said. Roundtree was fatally shot in the chest as he sat on a couch.

The officer was not charged.

Scott, 36, was killed Feb. 4, 2016 when he stepped out of his car holding a cell phone as San Antonio police were attempting to arrest him on two felony warrants. An officer shot Scott because he thought Scott was holding a gun. No charges resulted.

Josie Norris /Staff Photographer

Jones, 23, was killed in February 2014 by an SAPD officer working an off-duty job as a security guard at a Northeast Side restaurant. Jones car had rear-ended another car in the drive-through, and the officer said he approached the vehicle.

In testimony related to an unsuccessful lawsuit, the officer said Jones jumped out of the passenger side of the car and began running, at one point looking over his shoulder and pointing a gun. But Jones family and a few witnesses said he didnt have a gun. The officer fired eight shots, one of which killed Jones.

A Bexar County grand jury declined to return indictments in that case.

After marching past Travis Park, the Alamo and along the Riverwalk, Tuesdays crowd of protesters returned to the courthouse, where they lined a fence and faced a phalanx of law enforcement officers before breaking up for the evening.

The chants for justice continued as demonstrators shouted at the unmoving police officers.

Whose streets? Factory shouted.

Our streets! the crowd answered.

Elizabeth Zavala covers county and state courts in San Antonio. To read more from Elizabeth, become a subscriber. ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863

Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Vincent, become a subscriber. vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis
Rachel Adedeji has quit Hollyoaks after four years, days after accusing the show of racism behind the scenes and slamming its response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The actress, 28, who has played Lisa Loveday in the Channel 4 soap since 2016, will bow out later this year, in exit scenes filmed shortly before lockdown began.

Rachel made the decision to leave the show last year, with a Hollyoaks spokesman saying the show was 'saddened' by her departure.

Exit: Rachel Adedeji has quit Hollyoaks after four years, days after accusing the show of racism behind the scenes and slamming its response to the Black Lives Matter movement (pictured 2019)

They told MailOnline: 'Rachel made the decision to leave Hollyoaks to pursue other opportunities earlier last year which saddened us at Hollyoaks as she is one of the leading cast members in the show.

'However, the notice period did allow the writers time to give Lisa Loveday an extremely gripping exit storyline.

'Viewers will see this story play out later this year as her final scenes were filmed shortly before lockdown.'

Rachel's spokesman also added to MailOnline: 'It had always been our intention for Rachel to leave the show after a period of time.

'She loved her time on Hollyoaks and the exit storyline was openly discussed with the producers and her together, in a collaborative format'

Popular: The actress, 28, who has played Lisa Loveday in the Channel 4 soap since 2016, will bow out later this year, in exit scenes filmed shortly before lockdown began

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Rachel and Channel 4 for comment.

The announcement comes one day after Hollyoaks released a statement in response to Rachel's accusations of racism while working on the show.

They penned: 'Hollyoaks has been deeply shocked and saddened by issues that have been brought to our attention over the weekend.

'Lime Pictures strives to have zero tolerance of racism or any form of discrimination across all of its shows but it is clear we have further work to do.

Farewell: The Sun reports Rachel made the decision to leave the show last year, with a Hollyoaks spokesman saying the show was 'saddened' by her departure (pictured June 2019)

'We must stamp out implicit bias which means calling out racism wherever and whenever we see it.

'We will continue to add to our action plan as we continue and broaden our dialogue with cast and staff.'

The show detailed a series of steps they have launched in order to 'stamp out discrimination.'

They wrote: 'We are reaching out to all of our cast and staff that have raised matters to make sure that we address individual issues and concerns.

'We have asked all cast, staff and freelancers to share with us any further issues of concern or instances of unacceptable behaviour that they have not previously raised.

'We are conscious we need to do more': The announcement comes one day after Hollyoaks released a statement in response to Rachel's accusations of racism while working on the show

'We are working with unconscious bias trainers to augment Lime's all staff training to help address concerns raised by cast and staff.

'All BAME staff, freelancers and cast will be offered mentoring from Lime's senior management.'

They continued: 'We will build on our work towards making Lime as diverse and inclusive as possible across all aspects of recruitment and talent retention, on and off screen.

Changes: The show detailed a series of steps they have launched in order to 'stamp out discrimination' in a statement

'Lime's BAME writers and directors schemes will be reviewed and augmented to drive greater inclusivity within the industry.

'We are undertaking an immediate and in depth review of company and cast liaison across Lime.

'We will be producing a Hollyoaks podcast where our black cast will share their experiences on racism to their audience.

'We are very conscious that we need to do more and are committed to making changes that we need to make.

HOLLYOAKS' STATEMENT IN FULL 'Hollyoaks has been deeply shocked and saddened by issues that have been brought to our attention over the weekend. 'Lime Pictures strives to have zero tolerance of racism or any form of discrimination across all of its shows but it is clear we have further work to do. 'We must stamp out implicit bias which means calling out racism wherever and whenever we see it. 'We will continue to add to our action plan as we continue and broaden our dialogue with cast and staff. 'We are reaching out to all of our cast and staff that have raised matters to make sure that we address individual issues and concerns. 'We have asked all cast, staff and freelancers to share with us any further issues of concern or instances of unacceptable behaviour that they have not previously raised. 'We are working with unconscious bias trainers to augment Lime's all staff training to help address concerns raised by cast and staff. 'All BAME staff, freelancers and cast will be offered mentoring from Lime's senior management. 'We will build on our work towards making Lime as diverse and inclusive as possible across all aspects of recruitment and talent retention, on and off screen. 'Lime's BAME writers and directors schemes will be reviewed and augmented to drive greater inclusivity within the industry. 'We are undertaking an immediate and in depth review of company and cast liaison across Lime. 'We will be producing a Hollyoaks podcast where our black cast will share their experiences on racism to their audience. 'We are very conscious that we need to do more and are committed to making changes that we need to make. 'The onus is upon our company collectively and us all as individuals within our community to tackle racism, and it is a responsibility which all of us here at Hollyoaks are taking on fully.' Advertisement

'The onus is upon our company collectively and us all as individuals within our community to tackle racism, and it is a responsibility which all of us here at Hollyoaks are taking on fully.'

The statement comes after Rachel slammed the show's response to the recent furore over the Black Lives Matter movement.

The star took to her Twitter to say she doesn't agree with Hollyoaks' recent post addressing the movement.

Rachel said their response wasn't progressive before revealing she was aware of racial slurs and injustices happening on set.

Hollyoaks uploaded a video of actress Kelle Bryan, who plays Martine Deveraux, discussing the movement's issues.

A recent surge in interest of the Black Lives Matter movement was kickstarted by the senseless killing of George Floyd, who died after a white policeman, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

Chauvin has now been charged with second-degree murder. Floyd was initially arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit 20-dollar bill.

Slammed: The star took to her Twitter to say she doesn't agree with Hollyoaks' previous post addressing the BLM movement (pictured last year)

Kelle, 45, said: 'As you may have noticed, we have been silent across all our social media platforms in direct response to the horrendous atrocities that have taken place in the USA with the loss of George Floyd.

'Black lives really do matter but don't take our silence as inaction. We have been busy behind the scenes having lots of really important conversations.

'We will be kickstarting with a podcast all about racism - how we tackle it, how we face it and most importantly, how we overcome it.'

But Kelle revealed on Monday's Loose Women that she has received racial abuse from trolls since speaking about measures.

The Eternal star, 45, detailed how she has been working with Hollyoaks bosses to launch a new forum for the black cast to report any racism they have been subjected to on set, which she announced in the video.

Racism: Rachel said their response wasn't progressive before revealing a slew of times she was aware of racial slurs and injustices happening on set

Saying she had received racist remarks from trolls over the weekend since taking part in a video for the soap, Kelle said: 'It's been really difficult. I've been seen as an Uncle Tom, a coconut, a clown, a puppet to be used.

It's been a difficult weekend, and for the whole of the black cast of Hollyoaks, we've been dealing with our own personal journey and with the tragedy of George Floyd. It's hurtful and I'm a real person.'

Of her own experience on set of the soap, she said: 'Way before the Black Lives Matter movement took place I was able to articulate my grievances and concerns within Hollyoaks.

'I had taken them through the HR procedures, and said what my feeling were and making sure those changes are implemented, not just heard but implemented.'

Discussing how cast members can discuss their grievances, Kelle said: 'There are changes that are happening. I'm really grateful that our voices are finally being heard.

'There are changes in terms of influence over scripts, the direction of storylines, and also having a podcast, which will give black cast members the opportunity to speak from the heart about their own experiences and help to educate our audience.

Discussion: Hollyoaks uploaded a video of actress Kelle Bryan, who plays Martine Deveraux, discussing the issues

'I've been seen as a puppet': But on Monday's Loose Women, she said that she has received 'hurtful' racist abuse from trolls since launching the forum for her black co-stars on Hollyoaks

'It's really important. It's a series of podcasts that are going to happen over the next few weeks. It's a slow and steady process but I also want to make sure that it's consistent systemic changes.

'In order for that to happen, these conversations, which are very difficult, have to happen first,' she concluded.

Meanwhile, Rachel has said she is 'disappointed' and directly called the show out over racist incidents she says happened.

She wrote: 'Did Black Lives Matter when I was told ''You're all the same'' by a makeup artist you employed, and remains in employment till this day?

'Did Black Lives Matter when a number of female black actors were forced to drastically change their hair because if not, the viewers ''would not be able to tell them apart''?

'Do Black Lives Matter when my fellow black cast mates are deemed angry, aggressive and too vocal?

'Did Black Lives Matter when we were referred to as ''b****ies'' by a senior member of the production team?

'Do Black Lives really matter to you if over the last four years at Hollyoaks, I have only worked with ONE black director?

'Honestly, the list goes on. Having a black cast member speak on behalf of Hollyoaks to show that the work is being done is not as progressive as you think.

Forum: Kelle (pictured with co-star Imran Adams) has been working with Hollyoaks bosses to launch a new way for the black cast to report any racism they have been subjected to on set

'As a matter of fact, very little is being done behind the scenes. Unfortunately Hollyoaks' response seems to me performative and disingenuous.

'It starts within the work place. Systemic changes must be put into practice. Working at Hollyoaks is mostly positive but the experiences I have encountered are a constant reminder of how difficult it is being a black woman in the industry.

'I am no longer standing for it. Putting out a podcast on racism and asking your black cast members to teach you how to tackle these issues is the bare minimum.

'THINK. DO BETTER.

'I hope Hollyoaks delivers the same energy when #BlackLivesMatter is no longer trending.'

Angry: Rachel has said: 'Did Black Lives Matter when I was told ''You're all the same'' by a makeup artist you employed, and remains in employment till this day?' (pictured last year)

Support: Actress Mandip Gill, who played Phoebe McQuee in Hollyoaks until she left in 2015, replied to Rachel's statement with a series of clapping emojis

Actress Mandip Gill, who played Phoebe McQuee in Hollyoaks until she left in 2015, replied to Rachel's statement with a series of clapping emojis.

And Karl Collins, who played Rachel's onscreen father Louis Loveday in Hollyoaks until 2019, showed his support and praised her 'bravery'.

He wrote: 'Well..... it will come as no surprise that I love this woman who I affectionately call 'darta!' 'I am so proud of her bravery!'

Hollyoaks' Amanda Clapham has hit out the show's bosses for showing 'no empathy' after co-star Rachel spoke out about experiencing racism on the set.

Amanda, who portrayed Holly Cunningham on the show from 2013 to 2019, took to Twitter and Instagram on Sunday to implore her former colleagues to put forth a more concerted effort, amid protests over racial injustice sweeping the globe.

Missive: Former Hollyoaks castmember Amanda Clapham took to Twitter and Instagram on Sunday to implore her former colleagues to put forth a more concerted effort

Addressing executive producer Bryan Kirkwood and 'senior members of staff' the 29-year-old actress also shared examples of the 'many microaggressions' she'd allegedly witnessed during her time on on set:

She started her missive: 'I loved my time at Hollyoaks. It was an amazing experience for me; I learnt a lot, I made great friends and it changed my life. I'm a blonde, blue eyed, white girl.

'I have a lot of love for Hollyoaks and plenty of friends that still work there, which is why I want you to do the right thing and why I am saying this. On your response to Rachel Adedeji on Instagram, I saw no empathy at all.

'You could have taken less time to respond if that's what you needed but this really does not sit right. She has told you about many encounters that will have been traumatising for her and you refer to her messages as 'comments''.

'Let me be clear, I have learnt a lot this week, like I'm sure many of us have. I thought I was anti-racist when in fact I wasn't quite there. It's true, we all need to change.

'Please know this is coming from the heart. I hope you respond by apologising to Rachel.

Response: After she posted her letter, Rachel tweeted in response, 'I love you! Thank you for speaking out xx'

'I want you to say that you are going to improve by proactively making changes within the building in each department. It's the conversation that needs to be had.'

She continued: 'I was on set with Rachel not long after she joined the show and a makeup artist brought out a face powder for her. The powder had 'dark' written on it and it was 2 shades darker than Rachel's skin complexion.

'When she asked if she could have the correct powder to match her skin tone she was told, no and that that was all they had. I remember saying to Rachel at the time that it didn't look right at all and I could tell Rachel felt she had no choice.

'This shouldn't have been the case, and I knew then, what I know now, I would have raised my voice in support.'

Giving another alleged example, she said: 'There were other black cast members that had to suffer this too. I worked with an actor and friend who was in my opinion, disproportionately 'told off' especially when he first joined the show.

'For example, a group of us would be talking or messing about and he would get picked out. I remember correcting the members of staff, saying we were all involved and my friend used to just take it and say, 'Don't worry about it Amanda.'

Role: Amanda portrayed Holly Cunningham on the show from 2013 to 2019. Pictured in 2013

'There were many microaggressions like this and I couldn't believe how well he handled them... The examples given are a snapshot of the behaviours I witnessed on a regular basis.

'Whilst I'm not in a position to assign blame on any individual, change is systemically needed for the company as a whole to grow as an inclusive example for its viewers and community at large.

'The future for Hollyoaks can be and should be better for all people of colour, as a company you can all work on that together.'

'You do so much good with your storylines and I was lucky to be a part of that,' she concluded. 'So please listen to those that have spoken up, so that Hollyoaks can be a positive experience for everyone.'

After she posted her letter, 28-year-old Rachel, who plays Lisa Loveday on the Channel 4 soap, tweeted in response: 'I love you! Thank you for speaking out xx.'

A Hollyoaks spokesperson previously said: 'We are really concerned to read Rachel's comments on social media about Hollyoaks this evening. We will be in touch with Rachel directly.'

Earlier in the week, Hollyoaks bosses announced production crew will return to the set in Liverpool this week and filming will resume in full from July.

Production on the soap was stopped at the end of March just before the UK went into lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Channel 4 show, which is currently airing two nights a week, will then increase its output to four episodes a week from September with an aim to return to its full five episodes a week in 2021.
Two sisters found dead in a London beauty spot two days after a birthday party were stabbed 'multiple times', police said today.

Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were found in Fryent Country Park in Wembley, north-west London, on Sunday afternoon.

A post-mortem yesterday gave the cause of death for both women as stab wounds. No arrests have yet been made and detectives are following 'a number of active lines of enquiry'.

The sisters are believed to have been amongst a group of around 10 people who gathered in the park on Friday evening to celebrate Bibaa's birthday. Police claim that while the rest of the group left by midnight, the two women stayed behind.

Bibaa Henry (left), 46, and Nicole Smallman (right), 27, were found dead in Fryent Country Park in Wembley, on Sunday afternoon after being stabbed 'multiple times', police said today

A crime scene is still in place after the Met announced on Monday that the deaths were being treated as 'suspicious' with a murder investigation underway.

Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding, said: 'Both these women were stabbed multiple times and we are working tirelessly to find who is responsible.

'Their families have been devastated by their loss and they need and deserve answers.'

It has now emerged that sisters Bibaa and Nicole were the daughters of Wilhelmina Smallman, the former archdeacon of Southend, in the diocese of Chelmsford, who was appointed in 2013. She retired for health reasons in 2016.

Known as Mina, she was the C of E's first female archdeacon from a minority ethnic background and was described as a 'pioneer' and 'role model.'

Following news of the deaths, acting Bishop of Chelmsford, Rt Revd Peter Hill said in a statement: 'We are devastated to hear of the tragic deaths of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry in North London at the weekend.

'Nicole and Bibaa were the daughters of our former Archdeacon and good friend Mina Smallman. This is heart breaking news and the thoughts and prayers of everyone at Chelmsford Diocese are with Mina and her family.

'We ask that their privacy is respected and for everyone's prayers at this most difficult of times.'

Forensic tents pictured at Fryent County Park in Wembley. Police were called to the scene after reports of the pair being found unresponsive shortly after 1pm on Sunday

It has now emerged that sisters Bibaa and Nicole were the daughters of Wilhelmina Smallman, pictured, the former archdeacon of Southend, in the diocese of Chelmsford

The sisters were reported missing late on Saturday. Bibba was a senior social worker in children's services at Buckinghamshire council. Nicole was a photographer who graduated from the University of Westminster.

Forensic teams continue to comb Fryent Country Park and Bibaa's home in Wembley, north-west London. Searches have also taken place at Nicole's home in nearby Harrow.

Bouquets of flowers have been laid at the entrance to the park, including one from Monet, Bibaa's daughter and only child, which simply reads: 'Mum I miss you so. Love Monet.'

Bibaa was described as being in 'high spirits' on the way to her birthday picnic when she was last seen on Friday, according to shocked neighbours.

Andrea, who lives next door to Bibaa told MailOnline: 'She was a very positive, cheerful person, even through the lockdown.

'I was invited to the party but couldn't attend because I had to go and see my mother. Her flat is quite small and she told me that because of social distancing, it would be better to hold it in the park.'

Friends revealed that Nicole previously worked at The Castle pub in Harrow and was well liked by colleagues.

Police forensics at Fryent Country Park. The Met Police announced on Monday that they are treating the deaths as 'suspicious' and a murder investigation had been launched

Police forensics at Fryent Country Park. Prior to the two women being discovered, their bodies are believed to have been spotted a day earlier by a woman who believed they were asleep

'She was very creative and really had a good energy. She was a very sociable person and liked to party. It's a total mystery what's happened,' said one.

Residents living close to Fryent Country Park revealed that a number of people had been staying there in tents during the lockdown.

Dinesh Patel, 45 said: 'All of us are worried because we use this park a lot. The police haven't given us any information and we need to know if they are looking for anybody, have these women been attacked or has something else happened?

'Until we know what has caused their deaths, it's left all of us feeling very scared and nervous.'

Prior to the two women being discovered, their bodies are believed to have been spotted a day earlier on Saturday.

A 66-year-old retired shopkeeper said he spotted a group, though to be Bibaa's party, on Friday. She added a neighbour saw two bodies in the park the following day, assuming they were asleep.

She said: 'I go running at the top of the hill every evening. On Friday, there were about three groups of people at around 9pm.

A police cordon at an entrance to Fryent Country Park. It has now emerged that sisters Bibaa and Nicole were the daughters of Wilhelmina Smallman, the former archdeacon of Southend

A police officer at an entrance to Fryent Country Park in Wembley. A post-mortem yesterday gave the cause of death for both women as stab wounds. No arrests have yet been made

Flowers an an entrance to Freyent Country Park in a tribute to the two sisters. Residents living close to the area said a number of people had been staying there in tents during lockdown

'There was a group of men, a group of two women with a dog. Then there was a larger group of around eight or so people which could have been them, but I don't remember seeing either of the women specifically.

'Everybody just seemed to be relaxing and enjoying the view. Every night when the weather is okay there are always groups of young men and women up there drinking and smoking, especially since the lockdown.

'My neighbour saw the two girls on Saturday, but she thought they were rough sleepers.'

She added: 'It was not clear they were injured or anything. She said she just saw the two girls lying on the floor and there was a backpack next to them.

'If I ever see people sleeping up there, I usually go up to them and say, 'are you okay?'

'Sometimes there are people lying up there who might look dead, but they are sleeping.'

In an appeal for information, DCI Harding said: 'I need to hear from anyone who was in Fryent Country Park on the evening of Friday, 5 June, or early into Saturday, 6 June.

'The area the group were situated in is around a five minute walk from the Valley Drive entrance of the park, leading to a hill area. The area the group were in would be a well-known spot to sit and look over London.

'If you were in that area of the park from the evening of 5 June through to Sunday lunchtime, noticed the group, or saw anything or anyone suspicious, please contact us immediately.

'I also want to hear from people who regularly use the park, you may have seen a person acting suspiciously in the days leading up to the attack, you may not think your information is relevant, but it may be vital, so call and tell us what you know.

'You may also have stumbled upon items of property, but not realised the significance of them. If you did, you may well have information that could assist us hugely. No matter how insignificant it may seem, please contact us via the incident room on 020 8721 4205, or via 101.'
Attorney General William Barr said the US Secret Service told Donald Trump to go to a secure part of the White House as large protests unfolded outside, contradicting the president's account of what happened.

"Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended that the president go down to the bunker," Mr Barr said in an interview on Fox News. "We can't have that in our country."

The opposing versions of what occurred centre on the night of May 31, as demonstrations over the death of George Floyd had spread to the capital.

Mr Trump last week denied going to the bunker for his safety.

"Well, that was a false report," Mr Trump said last Wednesday on Brian Kilmeade's Fox News Radio show.

"I was there for a tiny, little short period of time. It was much more for an inspection."

On the previous Friday night, demonstrators skirmished with the US Secret Service in Lafayette Square outside the White House.

Mr Floyd, a black Minneapolis man, had died in police custody on May 25.

The clashes occurred next to an outer ring of temporary fencing set up along the edge of the park, leading to six arrests and "multiple" injuries among the agency's personnel, the Secret Service said.

Mr Barr said that when a crowd of protesters was forcibly cleared from the park on June 1 to make way for Mr Trump to pose for photos outside St John's Church, "we were reacting to three days of extremely violent demonstrations right across from the White House. A lot of injuries to police officers. Arson".

The attorney general, a long-time advocate of a muscular presidency, played a key role in the removal of the protesters, who were demonstrating peacefully.

He stood in the square as police in riot gear prepared to move against them.

He said some of the demonstrators were throwing rocks and bottles, though that wasn't seen on video.

He has given conflicting accounts of how the order to disperse the demonstrators came about.

During a news conference last Thursday, Mr Barr said he made the decision to expand the perimeter of Lafayette Square.

But during his interview with Fox News on Monday, Mr Barr said the Park Police made the decision.
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High-profile Philippine journalist Maria Ressa says the libel charge that could see her jailed next week is a government ploy to intimidate all critical voices, but she refuses to be silenced and still holds out hope of winning. In an exclusive video interview with AFP ahead of Monday's verdict that could see her sentenced for up to 12 years, Ressa admitted being scared but also continued to speak defiantly. "I've been the cautionary tale: be quiet or you're next... that's part of the reason why I have been targeted," said Ressa, 56, the co-founder of news site Rappler and a former CNN journalist. "It's a chilling effect... not just to me and to Rappler, but to journalists and to anyone who asks critical questions." Monday's verdict will decide a case that stems from a businessman's complaint in 2017 over a Rappler story five years earlier about his alleged ties to a then-judge on the nation's top court. Government investigators initially dismissed the businessman's allegation. But state prosecutors later revived the case using a controversial cyber crime statute aimed at online offences ranging from stalking to child pornography. Authorities say they have not targeted Ressa for her work and are simply enforcing the law. But press and media watchdogs say the case against Ressa is in retaliation for Rappler's independent reporting on President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration. The website's journalists have cast a harsh light on Duterte's anti-drugs crackdown, which has killed thousands and drawn international censure despite being backed by many Filipinos. Another one of the most prominent critics of Duterte's narco war, Senator Leila de Lima, has been in jail for three years over drug allegations that she says are trumped up. Ressa's libel case is among a string of criminal charges that have hit her and Rappler since last year, many of which stem from allegations over how the site raised investment money. - 'Embracing my fear' - The multiple moves against Rappler have drawn international concern and made Ressa a cause celebre globally for people standing up against authoritarian governments. Time magazine named Ressa a Person of the Year in 2018. Rights watchdogs say the Duterte government has in recent weeks stepped up its campaign to silence dissent in other ways, with the nation's top broadcaster -- ABS-CBN -- shutdown. Lawmkers also this month passed the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, which allows warrantless arrests, weeks of detention without charge and other measures that critics fear could be used to crack down on peaceful government opponents. Ressa said Duterte had cemented himself as the most powerful Filipino leader since dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose two decades in power ended in a famous "people power" uprising in 1986. "We could even say more powerful than Marcos because he (Duterte) was able to declare martial law without even declaring martial law," Ressa said, referring to the Anti-Terrorism Act. Ressa, who served as CNN's bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta during a nearly 35-year career, said waiting for Monday's verdict was proving an emotional challenge. "I am going to embrace my fear. I have to be ready and that starts in my head. That starts with my ability to be okay with the worst-case scenario," she said from her Manila home. "I don't want to be surprised." The independence of the judicial system in the Philippines, which has long had a reputation for corruption, has been further eroded during Duterte's four years in power, according to rights groups. But Ressa said individual people who make up the court system and their desire "to be guided by the spirit of the law" still give her reason for optimism. Regardless of the pressure from the highest levels of power to convict, it is up to the judge to make the final decision. "I'm hoping. All I can do is hope," Ressa said. Maria Ressa outside court in 2018 Factfile on editor of Philippine news outlet Rappler, on trial for libel in Manila Ressa (C) speaks during a 2019 protest on press freedom along with fellow journalists in Manila
Gains from the lockdown period in the battle against COVID-19 have possibly been lost in the unlock phase, a public health care expert warned on Wednesday, calling for protecting the population in rural areas ill-prepared to tackle any explosion in infection cases.

IMAGE: A security guard wearing protective gear uses thermal screening on people at a shopping mall after the authorities permitted the opening of shopping marts after two months lockdown at Gour city mall in Greater Noida. Photograph: ANI Photo

Professor, Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad, Public Health Foundation of India, V Ramana Dhara, said the unlock has resulted in a return to old habits of indiscipline in physical distancing and improper mask use.

"Migrant labour has to be taken care of and quarantined close to their homes in rural areas so the rural population is protected without stigmatisation of the migrant labour. Unfortunately, there aren't enough testing and medical care facilities in the vast rural areas in the event the cases explode there," Ramana Dhara said.

On the handling of the novel coronovirus pandemic by the government in terms of lockdown and unlock now, he said the variability in the response by different states highlighted the weak public health infrastructure in the country.



" The government initially did not want to test and later had to play catch-up. Any gains from the lockdown have been possibly lost now with the unlock," claimed Ramana Dhara.



Dhara is an occupational/environmental medicine physician board-certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in Occupational Medicine and the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners.



The COVID-19 toll rose to 7,745 and the number of cases climbed to 2,76,583 in the country after it registered 279 fatalities and 9,985 new infections within a period of 24 hours till Wednesday 8 am, the Union health ministry said.



Asked when he expects the cases to peak in India, Ramana Dhara, the former Medical Director of the Occupational Health Clinics, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Atlanta, the US, said, "This is difficult to predict. We will be able to tell the peak only after we cross it."

He said India has to keep testing aggressively to know the true spread of the disease in the population, and test criteria and methodology have to be standardised all over the country.



"Syndromic surveillance should be done systematically. Areas which were previously considered recovered are now showing a rise in cases. This is being observed elsewhere in the world too," pointed out Ramana Dhara, who as a member of the International Medical Commission on Bhopal disaster, has designed and published the long-term health effects studies on the exposed community.



To a question on how India can keep the mortality low, he said it is only by vigorously doing the contact tracing, isolation of positive cases, quarantine of contacts, and keeping hospitals ready for care of the

severely affected.

"India's death rate is lower than other countries even if we consider undercounts from rural and non-hospital deaths. Our lower senior citizen fraction may also be a factor but there may be other unknown factors," Dhara said.



"India should concomitantly prevent deforestation and protect wildlife habitat so a recurrence of other epidemics does not occur," he added.
Alex Wong

At least three black Liberty University employees have resigned directly as a result of President Jerry Falwell Jr.s tweet in which he declared he would only wear a COVID-19 mask if it were one depicting the 1984 photo of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam allegedly wearing blackface.

Falwell, the long-time head of the evangelical Virginia school founded in 1971 by his father, tweeted the infamous photo of a person in Ku Klux Klan robe and another in blackface on May 27, attempting to mock the Democratic governors mask requirement amid the coronavirus pandemic. He apologized on Monday, but questions about his schools racial issues have arisen as staffers resign or speak out against Falwell.

LeeQuan McLaurin, a former Liberty student who became the schools director of diversity detention, quit last week, saying he had no other alternative.

I can not just be a window dressing on what is clearly an institution that struggles with a history of racism, prejudice, and discrimination, McLaurin wrote, according to The Washington Post.

Alleging that Falwells tweet was merely the tip of a larger racial problem at the school, McLaurin highlighted in an email obtained by The News & Advance that Libertys undergraduate black population dropped six percent to a staggering four percent between 2007 and 2018.

Some draw a direct line between the start of President Falwells divisive, insensitive, and unapologetic approach to politics and that drop, he wrote, seemingly noting Falwells ongoing surrogacy for President Donald Trump as one of his leading evangelical boosters.

McLaurin sentiments echoed nearly three-dozen black alumni who denounced Falwell last week in a letter declaring that his rhetoric has repeatedly violated and misrepresented Christian ideals. The letter, which was signed by 35 faith leaders and former Liberty students, also said that if Falwell does not alter his conduct, members would urge prospective students not to attend the school; and fellow members of the religious community to not donate to or speak at future Liberty functions.

Story continues

You have belittled staff, students and parents, you have defended inappropriate behaviors of politicians, encouraged violence, and disrespected people of other faiths, read the letter, further telling Falwell that his heart is in politics more than Christian academia or ministry.

Christopher House, an online instructor for Libertys school of communications and the arts, also resigned on Monday amid the fallout over Falwells conduct.

What concrete action will we see to help the recruitment and retention and valuing of black faculty members? said House, who is black, according to The Washington Post. What development of courses or programs will aid in understanding the construction of race and these hurtful images?

The Post also noted that another black staffer, Thomas Starchia, resigned in recent days, but that his exit was not explained. Additionally, the paper spoke with a different black Liberty staffer who, speaking anonymously out of fear of losing her job, said that Falwells tweet was just a cherry on top of the schools race-related issues. She likened staffers fears of losing their jobs and benefits for speaking out against Falwell to slaves fearing getting beaten for disobeying their masters.

Twelve days after his offending tweet, on Monday, Falwell apologized, claiming that after listening to African American LU leaders and alumni, he now understands his tweet refreshed the trauma that image had caused and offended some by using the image to make a political point.

Based on our long relationships, they uniformly understood this was not my intent, but because it was the result. I have deleted the tweet and apologize for any hurt my effort caused, especially within the African American community, Falwell added.

But the damage had already long been done. Hours before Falwells apology, another black Liberty staffer, Keyvon Scott, also resigned as the schools online admissions counselor. I cannot in good faith encourage people to attend a school with racially insensitive leadership and culture, he wrote. It is a poor reflection of what Jesus Christ requires of us.

In a statement, the chairman of Libertys board of trustees said some members had met with Falwell and are satisfied with the President's explanation of his purpose and intentions.

We understand these images have been hurtful for a number of our friends to see. We also know him and know him not to be a racist, Jerry Prevo, Chairman of Liberty Universitys Board of Trustees, said in the statement. Nor do we believe that he has been running Liberty University in a way that discriminates against African Americans.

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The German government on Wednesday extended a travel ban for countries outside the European Union until August 31 over ongoing concerns linked to the coronavirus pandemic, in a blow to top summer destinations like Turkey.

Germany introduced an unprecedented warning against all foreign travel in mid-March at the height of the coronavirus outbreak.

But from Monday, Germans will be able to travel freely again to EU member states as well Britain, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the decision to extend the travel ban for so-called third countries -- those outside the EU and the no-passport Schengen zone -- was necessary because of a lack of "shared criteria and coordination processes" with those countries in case of a virus flare-up.

"We cannot and will not risk that Germans become stranded all over the world this summer or that those returning from holiday bring the virus back to Germany," Maas said in a statement.

Turkey will be among those hardest hit by the extended travel ban, as the Mediterranean country is Germans' third favourite destination after Spain and Italy.

Thailand and Egypt are also popular holiday spots for Germans during the European summer holiday period.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet however also agreed that exceptions could be made to lift travel warnings on a case-by-case basis, depending on "a positive development in the pandemic" and other criteria such as a country's health system and clear rules on social distancing and mask-wearing.

Likewise, Germany can decide to reimpose travel bans on EU countries that report a spike in COVID-19 cases.

In a separate press conference, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer welcomed the end of Germany's border checks with its neighbours from Monday as EU countries gradually return to pre-pandemic, frictionless travel.

"Freedom of movement is being restored in the European Union," Seehofer said.

European governments are under pressure to reopen their economies and ease lockdown restrictions now that the coronavirus is deemed under control in many countries on the continent.

With the tourism industry particularly badly damaged by the border closures, flight cancellations and hotel shutdowns of the past months, businesses are hoping that a busy summer season will make up for some of the losses.

The first German holidaymakers are already expected to arrive in the Balearic Islands on Monday, as a test before Spain fully reopens its international borders.

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The Michigan legislature appears poised to allow bars and restaurants to sell to-go and delivery cocktails as the industry struggles to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, Michigan residents can order an unopened bottle of wine or a growler of beer with their dinner via takeout or delivery. Thats not the case with cocktails, however, meaning to-go margaritas or Bloody Marys have been off the table for bars and restaurants while their in-person operations were shuttered under the stay-at-home order.

On Wednesday, the Michigan Senate approved legislation that would lift that restriction, as well as temporarily lower the cost of liquor prices from the states Liquor Control Commission. Through 2021, liquor licensees would get a 30 percent discount from the state.

Local governments would also be allowed to create designated social districts where people of legal drinking age could purchase to-go drinks from adjacent bars and drink them off-premises as long as they remain in the designated area.

Senate Bill 942 passed the chamber 37-1 and now heads to the House, where there appears to be bipartisan support for the concept. Similar legislation, House Bills 5781 and 5811, was approved by the Michigan House Regulatory Reform Committee last week.

Bar and restaurant owners have said the measures could help them pick up the pieces after the coronavirus put them out of business for months.

Starting this week, bars and restaurants across the state have been allowed to reopen for in-person dining - but at 50 percent capacity and with strict guidelines for cleanliness, worker safety and social distancing. Theres also concern many customers wont want to return to restaurants until COVID-19 is more contained.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Related coverage:

Cocktails to go? Bar, restaurant owners push Michigan to allow it during coronavirus

Cocktails to go, outdoor drinking districts earn support from Michigan House panel

Outdoor drinking districts proposed in state House to help Michigan bars and restaurants

Alcohol home delivery possible in proposed legislation to help Michigan bars and restaurants hurt by coronavirus
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Apple on Sunday said it has reopened nearly 100 of its retail outlets around the world.

The company will be opening an additional 25 stores in the United States and 12 more in Canada this week, according to a Bloomberg report.

Apple previously had closed all its retail stores due to the spread of COVID-19.

Our commitment is to only move forward with a reopening once were confident we can safely return to serving customers from our stores, Apple Senior Vice President of Retail Deirdre OBrien wrote in an open letter to companys customers.

We look at every available piece of data  including local cases, near and long-term trends, and guidance from national and local health officials, she continued. These are not decisions we rush into  and a store opening in no way means that we wont take the preventative step of closing it again should local conditions warrant.

Apple Stores set to reopen in the United States are in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Oklahoma and Washington state, Bloomberg noted.

Taking Precautions

Apple has instituted measures to make their stores safe for employees and customers, OBrien noted, including the following:

Limiting occupancy to enable social distancing;

Requiring employees and customers to wear masks. Apple will provide a mask to any customer who doesnt have one;

Taking the temperature of customers before they enter a store and asking them whether they have symptoms of COVID-19 or recently were exposed to someone infected with the virus; and

Performing enhanced deep cleanings that place special emphasis on all surfaces, display products, and highly trafficked areas.

The response to COVID-19 is still ongoing, and we recognize that the road back will have its twists and turns. But whatever challenges lie ahead, COVID-19 has only reinforced our faith in people  in our teams, in our customers, in our communities, OBrien wrote.

Down the road, when we reflect on COVID-19, she continued, we should always remember how so many people around the world put the well-being of others at the center of their daily lives.

Kudos for Plan

Apples approach to reopening its stores received praise from some quarters.

Apples reopening plan appears to follow local rules and restrictions that are designed to lower or minimize risk, said Charles King, principal analyst atPund-IT, a technology advisory firm in Hayward, California.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Its hard to find any fault with the plan, he told TechNewsWorld.

However, the pace of Apples reopening is surprising, observed Sucharita Kodali, analyst at Forrester Research, a market research company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Frankly, Im surprised they didnt open when all their malls reopened, she told TechNewsWorld.

They were one of the first to close, if you recall, even though malls have continuous operating clauses for their tenants. This was even before local ordinances forced stay-at-home orders, Kodali pointed out.

Other brands, like Louis Vuitton and Saks, have reopened very safely, and I expect Apple will do the same, she added.

Risky Doing Business

Apples pace of store reopenings is right if its precautions prevent people from transmitting infections, said Greg Sterling, vice president of market insights at Uberall, maker of location marketing solutions based in Berlin, Germany.

Since testing remains inadequate and theres no vaccine until at least 2021  if then  theyre taking a very careful, thoughtful approach, he told TechNewsWorld.

While Apple is being careful, its in the same boat as any retailer opening up for business during the COVID-19 crisis, noted Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Oregon.

With a pandemic, where you dont know who is infected and who isnt, any resumption of business comes with risk, he told TechNewsWorld.

Playing It Safe

Those risks should be reduced by the safety measures the company has adopted, noted Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a technology advisory firm inCampbell, California.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The guidelines are very proactive and should do the job of keeping Apples staff and customers safe, he told TechNewsWorld.

By proactively checking shoppers temperatures before they enter and requiring both workers and customers to be masked at all times, Apple should be able to minimize risk to both consumers and employees, King added.

Given the uncertainty about how COVID-19 is transmitted, Apple is being diligent, Sterling said.

Theyre doing all the things that one would expect  limiting capacity, requiring face masks  and giving consumers multiple options, including curbside pickup, he observed.

Those measures should make consumers comfortable returning to Apples stores, Kodali added.

They seem to be doing the same things as grocers and other essential retailers, and people seem perfectly fine going to those locations, she said.

Influential Brand

Because of its powerful brand, Apples approach to reopening its stores could influence other retailers.

Apple has always been one of the companies that others look to for best practices and, as in the past, will set an example for other companies to follow, Bajarin said.

Apple is a retail leader and will be a model for others to varying degrees, Sterling noted. Best Buy is doing similar things.

Apple is a bellwether thats watched by other retailers, Enderle remarked. Its also averse to litigation, which may be another reason some retailers will be watching the company closely.

A lot of retailers dont understand the litigation risk should someone come into their store and catch the virus, he pointed out. Apple will make every effort to make sure it isnt one of those retailers. That implies that Apple will be safer than most other retailers.

Rebel Without a Mask

While Apple may feel its safety measures are needed to keep its customers and employees safe, not everyone may agree.

This is like bringing up politics at the familys Thanksgiving dinner, observed Michael Arrigo, a HIPAA expert witness with No World Borders.

There are very polarized opinions about this, he told TechNewsWorld. Sometimes theres violence when people are told to wear masks.

Forcing people to wear masks could irritate some folks, Kovali acknowledged, but added, people who would not comply probably dont index as strongly with being Apple customers, anyway.

The situation is made worse for retailers by the signals people are getting from the nations capital, Enderle suggested.

With the mixed guidance from the administration, it makes things unusually dangerous for retailers, he said, because as they try to enforce the rules, it sounds like theyre speaking out against the president.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (BAY.V)(ATBHF) ("Aston Bay" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it will resume drilling at its Buckingham Gold Property located in Central Virginia, USA, on June 15th, 2020. In addition, the Company announces that all core samples from the initial (March 2020) phase of the current drill program have been shipped to the laboratory for analysis, with results anticipated in the coming weeks. Samples will be analyzed by standard fire assay techniques, which will include metallic screen assaying of selected intervals with visible alteration and mineralization (including visible gold). Funding is in place to complete the remaining ~800 metres (m) of the current drill program and to conduct additional follow-up drilling.

A total of 1,218 m was drilled in ten diamond drill holes at the Buckingham Main Zone in March 2020 prior to the suspension of the current program due to Covid-19 virus restrictions (see March 24, 2020 Aston Bay press release). Logging of the core confirmed that the 2020 drilling has intersected veining and alteration similar to that encountered in the 2019 drilling of the zone, which included core-length intercepts of up to 35.6 g/t Au over 2.03m and 24.7 g/t Au over 3.57m in gold-bearing quartz veins, as well as 2.2 g/t Au over 18.1m and 1.9 g/t Au over 22.2m in adjacent but separate sericite-quartz-pyrite alteration zones (see June 5, 2019 Aston Bay release).

QUALIFIED PERSON

As per National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Andrew Turner, P.Geol., a consultant to Aston Bay, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The Company strictly adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines in conducting, documenting, and reporting its exploration activities.

About Aston Bay Holdings

Aston Bay is a publicly traded mineral exploration company exploring for gold and base metal deposits in Virginia, USA, and Nunavut, Canada. The Company is led by CEO Thomas Ullrich with exploration in Virginia directed by the Company's advisor, Don Taylor, the 2018 Thayer Lindsley Award winner for his discovery of the Taylor Pb-Zn-Ag Deposit in Arizona.

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The Company has acquired the exclusive rights to an integrated dataset over certain prospective private lands and has signed agreements with timber and land companies which grants the company the option to lease the mineral rights to 11,065 acres of land located in central Virginia. These lands are located within a gold-copper-lead-zinc mineralized belt prospective for Carolina slate belt gold deposits and Virginia gold-pyrite belt deposits, as well as sedimentary VMS, exhalative (SEDEX) and Broken Hill (BHT) type base metal deposits. Don Taylor, who led the predecessor company to Blue Ridge and assembled the dataset, has joined the Company's Advisory Board and will be directing the Company's exploration activities for the Blue Ridge Project. The Company is actively exploring the Buckingham Gold Project in Virginia and is in advanced stages of negotiation on other lands in the area.

The Company is also 100% owner of the Aston Bay Property located on western Somerset Island, Nunavut, which neighbours Teck's profitable, past-producing Polaris (Pb-Zn) Mine just 200km to the north. The Aston Bay Property hosts the Storm Copper Project and the Seal Zinc Deposit with drill-confirmed presence of sediment-hosted copper and zinc mineralization.

The Company's public disclosure documents are available on www.sedar.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements made in this press release, including those regarding the closing and the use of proceeds of the private placement, management objectives, forecasts, estimates, expectations, or predictions of the future may constitute "forward-looking statement", which can be identified by the use of conditional or future tenses or by the use of such verbs as "believe", "expect", "may", "will", "should", "estimate", "anticipate", "project", "plan", and words of similar import, including variations thereof and negative forms. This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect, as of the date of this press release, Aston Bay's expectations, estimates and projections about its operations, the mining industry and the economic environment in which it operates. Statements in this press release that are not supported by historical fact are forward-looking statements, meaning they involve risk, uncertainty and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although Aston Bay believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which apply only at the time of writing of this press release. Aston Bay disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by securities legislation. We seek safe harbour.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

Thomas Ullrich, Chief Executive Officer

thomas.ullrich@astonbayholdings.com

(416) 456-3516

Sofia Harquail, IR and Corporate Development

sofia.harquail@astonbayholdings.com

(647) 821-1337

SOURCE: Aston Bay Holdings Ltd.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/593346/Aston-Bay-Holdings-to-Resume-Drilling-at-Buckingham-Gold-Project-Virginia-USA




- Organic Revenue Growth of 5% -

- Gross Margin Improved to 51% -

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Digerati Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: DTGI ) ("Digerati" or the "Company"), a provider of cloud services specializing in UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) solutions for the small to medium-sized business (SMB) market, announced today financial results for the three months ended April 30, 2020, the Companys third quarter for FY2020.

Key Financial Highlights for the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2020 (Ended April 30, 2020)

Revenue increased to $1.566 million compared to $1.485 for the third quarter of FY2019, driven by organic growth.

Gross profit increased to $802,000 compared to $715,000 for the third quarter of FY2019.

Gross margin increased to 51% compared to 48% for the third quarter of FY2019.

Adjusted EBITDA improved to a loss of $13,000, excluding all non-cash items and one-time transactional expenses, compared to an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $117,000 for the third quarter of FY2019.

Average monthly revenue per customer (ARPU) was $715.

Net customer count increased to 731 compared to 688 for the third quarter of FY2019.

During the third quarter, the Company secured FCC approval of its acquisition of Nexogy, Inc. and entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) on its 4th acquisition. The combined business (Nexogy and fourth (4th) acquisition) will triple the Companys business user base and in the aggregate total over $14 million in annual revenue with improved EBITDA from further consolidation savings derived from the additional acquisitions. The Company reported during the quarter that it plans to close these transactions under a larger and lower cost financing facility. It has continued to work closely with its lenders during the COVID-19 Pandemic to establish funding availability beyond what is required for the current transactions, thus allowing for acceleration of its acquisition strategy in the future. The Company and Nexogy have extended the outside date for closing the transaction to June 30, 2020. The Companys fourth (4th) acquisition under LOI has also been extended.

Chief Executive Officer Arthur L. Smith, commented, It is exciting to management that even during the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic, we produced positive financial results. We were pleased to have provided business continuity solutions to our customers during this time of accelerated adoption of UCaaS service offerings created by the need for businesses to implement teleworking environments. During the quarter, we also launched TeamsConnect that integrates Microsoft Teams into our UCaaS service. This reveals and affirms that we are providing the proper communication solutions for the small to medium-sized business market, that are highly useful to customers during challenging and disruptive times.

Chief Financial Officer Antonio Estrada, Jr., stated, We are most pleased to have achieved these results during the third quarter, especially when the country has been going through a very difficult time. Despite the ongoing external challenges like the Pandemic, we continually look for and take actions toward improving our financial picture as relating to our income statement and our balance sheet. Among other things, we strive to deliver good old fashion customer service and reliable, cost-effective telecom products that small to medium-sized businesses need to excel in their market segments. As always, we will continue to report these financially-targeted activities to our shareholders as they materialize.

Three Months ended April 30, 2020 Compared to Three Months ended April 30, 2019

Revenue for the third quarter ended April 30, 2020 was $1.566 million, an increase of $81,000 or approximately 5% compared to $1.485 million for the third quarter ended April 30, 2019. This increase in UCaaS and service revenue was attributable to the increase in total customers between periods.

The total number of customers increased from 688 at the end of the three months ended April 30, 2019 to 731 customers at the end of the three months ended April 30, 2020.

Gross profit for the three months ending April 30, 2020 was $0.802 million, resulting in a gross margin of 51%, compared to $0.715 million and 48% for the three months ending April 30, 2019.

Selling, General and Administrative expenses for the three months ended April 30, 2020 decreased by $0.170 million, or 13%, to $1.145 million compared to $1.315 for the three months ended April 30, 2019.

Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended April 30, 2020, was a loss of $0.013 million, an improvement of $0.104 million, compared to a loss of $0.117 million for the same period in FY2019.

Operating loss for the three months ended April 30, 2020, was $0.472 million compared to $0.767 million for the same period in FY2019.



Of note, the following non-cash expenses associated with the three months ended April 30, 2020, were Company recognition of stock-based compensation and warrant expense of $298,000 and depreciation and amortization expense of $148,000. Loss on derivative instruments was $249,000 and non-cash interest expense was $394,000 for the three months ended April 30, 2020.

Net loss for the three months ended April 30, 2020, was $1.107 million as compared to $0.223 million, for the same period in FY2019. The resulting EPS for the three months period ended April 30, 2020 was a loss of ($0.02), as compared to a loss of ($0.01) for the same period in FY2019.

At January 31, 2020, Digerati had $0.445 million of cash.

Further details about the Companys Q3 for FY2020 financial results are available in its report on Form 10Q, which will be available in the Financials section of the Companys website at www.digerati-inc.com .

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measurements

The Company believes that EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) is useful to investors because it is commonly used in the cloud communications industry to evaluate companies on the basis of operating performance and leverage. Adjusted EBITDA provides an adjusted view of EBITDA that takes into account certain significant non-recurring transactions, if any, such as impairment losses and expenses associated with pending acquisitions, which vary significantly between periods and are not recurring in nature, as well as certain recurring non-cash charges such as changes in fair value of the Companys derivative liabilities and stock-based compensation. The Company also believes that Adjusted EBITDA provides investors with a measure of the Companys operational and financial progress that corresponds with the measurements used by management as a basis for allocating resources and making other operating decisions. Although the Company uses Adjusted EBITDA as one of several financial measures to assess its operating performance, its use is limited as it excludes certain significant operating expenses. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are not intended to represent cash flows for the periods presented, nor have they been presented as an alternative to operating income or as an indicator of operating performance and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (GAAP).

About Digerati Technologies, Inc .

Digerati Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: DTGI ) is a provider of cloud services specializing in UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) solutions for the business market. Through its subsidiary T3 Communications (www.T3com.com), the Company is meeting the global needs of businesses seeking simple, flexible, reliable, and cost-effective communication and network solutions, including cloud PBX, cloud mobile, Internet broadband, SD-WAN, SIP trunking, and customized VoIP services, all delivered on its carrier-grade network and Only in the Cloud. For more information about Digerati Technologies, please visit www.digerati-inc.com .

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this news release includes certain forward-looking statements that are based upon assumptions that in the future may prove not to have been accurate and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including statements related to the future financial performance of the Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any of its forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Factors that could cause results to differ include, but are not limited to, successful execution of growth strategies, product development and acceptance, the impact of competitive services and pricing, general economic conditions, and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has provided guidance to issuers regarding the use of social media to disclose material non-public information. In this regard, investors and others should note that we announce material financial information on the website of our investor relations company, www.TheWaypointRefinery.com , in addition to SEC filings, press releases, public conference calls and webcasts. We use these channels as well as social media to communicate with the public about our Company, our services and other issues. It is possible that the information we post on social media could be deemed to be material information. Therefore, in light of the SECs guidance, we encourage investors, the media, and others interested in our Company to review the information we post on the following U.S. social media channels:

Facebook: Digerati Technologies, Inc.

Twitter: @DIGERATI_IR

LinkedIn: Digerati Technologies, Inc.

The Waypoint Refinery, LLC

(973) 303-9649

www.thewaypointrefinery.com



Investors:

IR@digerati-inc.com

The Eversull Group

Jack Eversull

jack@theeversullgroup.com

(972) 571-1624
UNHCR initiative sees Afghans in Kayseri produce 1,000 face masks a day and soap to aid hospitals and local community.

Afghan refugees are contributing to Turkeys fight against the coronavirus, producing soap and 1,000 face masks a day to protect people from the pandemic.

A group of about 12 refugees living in the Turkish city of Kayseri have teamed up with local volunteers to produce and deliver these essential supplies to state hospitals, migrant health centres and local NGOs. The initiative is funded by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

Within the first two weeks of mask production, 15,000 were produced, Selin Unal, UNHCR Turkey spokesperson, told Al Jazeera. Another 15,000 masks are projected to be produced and delivered.

Some 2,600 soaps will also be distributed among the refugee community and locals.

COVID-19 is a global and fast-evolving health situation, Unal said. It affects everyone without discrimination, reminding us that we are all in this together, and every action counts.

Turkey, which has so far recorded more than 172,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 5,000 deaths, has started easing lockdown restrictions.

Restaurants and cafes around the country, as well as Istanbuls iconic 15th-century Grand Bazaar market, reopened earlier this month.

Officials say the pandemic is now under control, but it is still mandatory to wear masks when shopping or visiting crowded public places.

A group of Afghan refugees working on the face masks [Photo courtesy: Afghan Refugees Solidarity Association (ARSA)]

Ali Hekmat, who moved to Kayseri from the city of Ghazni, Afghanistan, in 2009, said he decided to take part in the volunteer work as a way to give back to Turkey and its people during the health crisis.

We were so warmly welcomed by the Turkish government and local people, we found shelter, we have jobs, our children can go to school, and it is time for us to give something back, the 35-year-old, who works as an architect, told Al Jazeera.

The refugees, some of them tailors, are using five sets of sewing machines to prepare the cloth masks. They are aiming to produce 30,000 masks by the end of the 30-day programme.

There was a shortage of masks. I wanted to use the refugees talent and locally available fabric to show that we, refugees, can also contribute to the response of the pandemic and not just rely on assistance, Hekmat said.

Among the volunteers is Roshan Ghafori, a 26-year-old dentistry student who recently left Herat along with her mother and three siblings to escape the threat of the Taliban group.

She said the coronavirus has impacted people across the world. In this situation its our duty to help the people in any way, Ghafori told Al Jazeera.

Nearly 3,000 soaps will be distributed among the refugees and the local community [Photo courtesy: Zakira Hekmat/ARSA]

Economic effect

Turkey is home to almost 3.6 million Syrian refugees and close to 330,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers of other nationalities, including Afghans and Pakistanis, according to the UNHCR.

The coronavirus pandemic has affected all sectors of the society in the country.

The closure of businesses and economic slowdown due to the lockdown has left the refugee population, many working informally, particularly vulnerable.

The economic and social impacts of COVID-19 on refugees and international protection applicants in Turkey are equally concerning, UNHCRs Unal said.

While the mask and soap-making is voluntary work and not a source of income for the refugees, Unal believes it can help foster social cohesion.

Such solidarity and cooperation at the local level are also important, she said.

Follow Saba Aziz on Twitter: @saba_aziz
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:01:59|Editor: huaxia

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YANGON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar authorities seized a large amount of sodium cyanide in Shan state, according to a release from the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Wednesday.

Acting on a tip-off, the joint police force searched four trucks in Kalaw township on Monday, and 18,000 kilograms of sodium cyanide worth 108 million kyats (77,142 U.S. dollars) were confiscated from the trucks along with seven suspects.

The township police filed a case against the suspects under the country's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, the release said. Enditem
[June 09, 2020] INVESTOR ALERT: Law Offices of Howard G. Smith Announces Investigation of Townsquare Media, Inc. (TSQ) on Behalf of Investors

Law Offices of Howard G. Smith announces an investigation on behalf of Townsquare Media, Inc. ("Townsquare Media" or the "Company") (NYSE: TSQ) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws. On June 9, 2020, Townsquare Media disclosed that it would report an impairment charge of approximately $39.4 million for its licenses and an impairment charge of approximately $69.0 million for its goodwill. The Company also announced that certain financial statements for fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019 should nolonger be relied upon and would be restated due to an error "in the projected cash flows that were utilized in [its] valuation model."



On this news, the Company's share price fell $1.20, or nearly 19%, to close at $5.28 per share on June 9, 2020, thereby injuring investors. If you purchased Townsquare Media securities, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Howard G. Smith, Esquire, of Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, 3070 Bristol Pike, Suite 112, Bensalem, Pennsylvania 19020 by telephone at (215) 638-4847, toll-free at (888) 638-4847, or by email to [email protected], or visit our website at www.howardsmithlaw.com.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200609005856/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Women were found to be more likely to suffer than men. (Getty Images)

Two in five adults worldwide suffer from some form of gastrointestinal condition, research suggests.

Scientists from the University of Gothenburg asked more than 73,000 people across 33 countries about gut issues, with more than half complaining of everything from heartburn to irritable bowel syndrome.

The team stressed the negative impact these conditions can have on a persons quality of life, and called for more testing to help treat those suffering in silence.

Read more: Walnuts boost heart health by feeding gut bacteria

Gut conditions can strike anywhere in the gastrointestinal tract, leading to bloating, indigestion or constipation.

For some the discomfort is mild, while others suffer severe pain.

To learn more, the Gothenburg scientists had participants in 24 countries  including the US  complete an online survey.

Seven nations, including India and Indonesia, took part in-person interviews.

Results, which will be published in the journal Gastroenterology, revealed just how common gut disorders are.

Its striking how similar the findings are between countries, said study author Dr Magnus Simren.

We can see some variations but, in general, these disorders are equally common whatever the country or continent.

Read more: Crohns could one day be treated with 'freeze-dried faeces capsules'

Two in five (40%) of those taking part in the online survey reported symptoms, versus one in five (20%) of the participants who were interviewed.

We dont know why were seeing this difference, but one reason might be that people think its embarrassing to talk about stomach and bowel symptoms to someone sitting in front of them, said Dr Simren.

Women were up to 70% more likely to report symptoms than the male participants.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, participants who had a gastro condition reported going to their doctor more often than those without.

Gastrointestinal conditions can affect the oesophagus down to the intestines. (Getty Images)

This comes after scientists from the University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, found that our emotions may influence our risk of gastrointestinal infections.

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Serotonin, the happiness hormone, is largely produced in the gut.

Results published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe show that when the dangerous bacterium E.coli was exposed to serotonin in the laboratory, its genetic expression broke down.

Read more: Womans bladder brewed alcohol in bizarre condition

When mice were infected with a similar pathogen, those that produced higher levels of the hormone were less likely to have their gut colonised by the bacteria or become seriously ill.

The scientists plan to investigate whether a persons serotonin levels can be manipulated to fight off infections like E.coli, which can be difficult to treat.
QAWRA, Malta, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SUN x Malta , in collaboration with the World Travel & Tourism Council ( WTTC ) today launched a Climate Resilience campaign called  BEND OUR TREND .



Led by a 90-second animated video , the campaign is designed to encourage Travel & Tourism companies and communities to:

Adopt Climate Friendly Travel  Low carbon, linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and consistent with the Paris 1.5 trajectory. Create Climate Neutral Ambition Plans and file these on the SUNx Malta UNFCCC-linked Registry.

With the support of Maltas Minister for Tourism and Consumer Protection, Hon. Julia Farrugia Portelli, who has declared her country to be a global center of Climate Friendly Travel, we are deploying tools to help the entire Travel & Tourism sector in its essential transformation to a 2050 Paris 1.5 trajectory.

Minister Farrugia Portelli said, Our commitment to Climate Friendly Travel is even more important in a world where we need to plan our post-COVID19 future to also respond to the existential Climate Crisis  the effects of which are already upon us. Malta is a strong supporter of the Paris Climate Agreement and the EU Green Deal: through our work with SUNx Malta we will help bring Travel & Tourism to the table.

Gloria Guevarra, President & CEO, WTTC said, This is another important step, working with SUNx Malta to encourage the Travel & Tourism sector to support the Paris Climate Agreement, in line with our long-standing engagement with UNFCCC to achieve Climate Neutrality by 2050. The present COVID-19 crisis has highlighted more than ever, the importance of ensuring sustainable Travel & Tourism as a key enabler to future recovery and growth. WTTC members are committed to play a leadership role.

For SUNx Malta Professor Geoffrey Lipman, its President, and Leslie Vella, Chairman, We will provide support tools, underpinning the Registry and train young smart graduates, together with the Institute of Tourism Studies, Malta (ITS), to assist in strategic low carbon transformation. We are proud to work with a growing number of SDG-17 Partners to share innovation, strategic planning, visibility, education and training.

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In addition to WTTC, other partners included in the launch include the Ministry for Tourism and Consumer Protection, Malta Tourism Authority, Institute of Tourism Studies, Sustainable First, Green Travel Maps, Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office, and LUX* Hotels & Resorts.

For more details please see: https://www.thesunprogram.com/registry

The Strong Universal Network SUNx is a program of the EU-based, not for profit Green Growth and Travelism Institute, and a legacy to the late Maurice Strong - Sustainable Development Pioneer. Its goal is to promote Climate Friendly Travel with good & bad effects measured and managed coherently: with Green Growth at the core and, 2050-proof in line with the Paris Accords, and the W.E.F. 4th Industrial Revolution.
It was only a matter of time before the protests came for Paw Patrol.

Paw Patrol is a childrens cartoon about a squad of canine helpers. It is basically a pretense for placing household pets in a variety of cool trucks. The team includes Marshall, a firefighting Dalmatian; Rubble, a bulldog construction worker; and Chase, a German shepherd who is also a cop. In the world of Paw Patrol, Chase is drawn to be a very good boy who barks stuff like Chase is on the case! and All in a police pups day! as he rescues kittens in his tricked-out S.U.V.

But last week, when the shows official Twitter account put out a bland call for Black voices to be heard, commenters came after Chase. Euthanize the police dog, they said. Defund the paw patrol. All dogs go to heaven, except the class traitors in the Paw Patrol.

Its a joke, but its also not. As the protests against racist police violence enter their third week, the charges are mounting against fictional cops, too. Even big-hearted cartoon police dogs  or maybe especially big-hearted cartoon police dogs  are on notice. The effort to publicize police brutality also means banishing the good-cop archetype, which reigns on both television and in viral videos of the protests themselves. Paw Patrol seems harmless enough, and thats the point: The movement rests on understanding that cops do plenty of harm.

The protests arrived in the midst of a pandemic that has alienated Americans from their social ties, family lives and workplaces. New and intense relationships with content have filled the gap, and now our quarantine consumptions are being reviewed with an urgently political eye. The reckoning has come for newspapers, food magazines, Bravo reality shows and police procedurals.
The Kerala governments decision to renew a no-objection certificate to the Athirapally hydro-electric project in Thrissur district has kicked off a fresh debate on the project with the state government and green activists at loggerheads. With the government saying it will not succumb to green activism, environmentalists have retorted that the state government is yet to learn a lesson from the last two floods.

The proposed project across Chalakudy River has triggered fresh protests with even the junior partner in the ruling Left Democratic Front, the CPI, saying it will not allow the power project to be implemented. However, state power minister M M Mani clarified that renewing the NOC was a natural process and it doesnt mean the project will be commissioned overnight.

At the same time, Mani made it clear the government really wants to implement the project but nature-lovers are against it. We are not in a tearing hurry. All stakeholders will be taken into confidence. Activism is fine but it should not be at the cost of the states development, said the minister. When asked about the opposition to the project from the CPI, he said the media had better ask the partys leaders about this.

The hydel project along the famous Athirapally Waterfalls, a favourite getaway and sought after shooting location of Bollywood, was conceived in the early 1980s when the state was reeling under a severe power crisis but got shelved due to stiff opposition from conservationists. In 2010, then environment minister Jairam Ramesh said no to the project adding Athirapally was another Silent Valley and the project was a sure recipe for disaster.

There was a demand to build a similar dam in the Silent Valley rain forests in Palakkad also but former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had scuttled it after scientist M G K Menon submitted a report saying it will destroy the rich biosphere. Today Silent Valley National Park is one of the largest tropical rain forests in the Western Ghat mountain ranges, a favourite habitat of lion-tailed macaque and elephants.

Athirapally project with an installed capacity of 163 mw was planned along Chalakudy River - it will spread to 6.7 km upstream from Athirappilly Waterfall to Vazhachal Waterfall, both well known tourist destinations. Votaries of the project argue it will be built without disturbing the course of the waterfall and surrounding lush green areas but opponents say it will deliver a death blow to the picturesque landscape and submerge large tracts of forests and displace many tribal families.

The 145-km long Chalakudy River that flows through three districts - Palakkad, Thrissur and Ernakulam -- before joining the Arabian Sea has many small and big dams and it cannot withstand more, green activists claim.

It seems the state has failed to learn a lesson from two consecutive floods that claimed many lives -- its greed is not on the decline. It has kept its eyes peeled on some of the remaining green cover. Votaries of the new dam should think about the upcoming generation also, said Dr V S Vijayan, an environmental scientist who was in the team of Madhav Gadgil, who had prepared a report to save the fragile ecology of the Western Ghats.

Besides the green landscape many tribal families are living along the fringes of the forests and they also face evacuation if the dam is built. They will have to kill us before building the dam. It is a ploy to plunder green cover and destroy the serene waterfall, said Kadar tribe leader P Kaliappan. The thunderous waterfall has in the past featured in many Hindi films like Raavan, Bahubali and Dil Se among others.

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Jeff Baumbach and his wife, Karen, had been nurses for three decades. When covid-19 arrived in California, they thought it was just another outbreak they would get through together.

Instead, Jeff Baumbach, 57, became one of the victims.

Karen Baumbach said her husband started his career as a paramedic, but when they started having children, he went back to school to become a nurse.

"He was just the very best," she said. "He was a hard worker, and he was compassionate with his patients and their families." With four kids, she said, "he was a family guy. When he wasn't working, he was with us." He loved Disney, puzzles and the San Francisco Giants.

Because she was in quarantine when her husband died, their daughter had to leave the home, unable to comfort her mother.

"We can't even really console her," Kaila Baumbach told KCRA-TV. So, she organized neighbors to drive down the street with lights, a vigil on wheels.

More News Coronavirus hospitalizations rise sharply in several states following Memorial Day

Jeff Baumbach developed a cough in mid-March, but at the time they attributed it to allergies. They had taken a couple of days off to clean their home, and a lot of dust and chemicals hung in the air.

Family photo.

There were no known covid-19 patients at the hospital where he worked in emergency room case management, St. Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton, California, which is managed in partnership with Kaiser. At the time, nurses were wearing masks only when with patients, not in their workspace outside examining rooms. Her husband didn't complain about lack of protective equipment; at the time, Karen Baumbach said; they didn't realize how much they would need it. A spokeswoman for Kaiser Permanente said Baumbach would have been following policies set by the hospital, which did not return requests for comment.

The weekend of March 16, the couple went to New York to see their son. When they came back, the hospital had just begun setting up tents outside for covid-19 patients. Even after he was told on March 20 that he was exposed and must wear a mask at work at all times, Baumbach didn't think he actually had the virus. A few days later, he developed a fever. He left work and both he and his wife were tested; both were positive and went into quarantine.

Baumbach went to the ER for a chest X-ray and was diagnosed with pneumonia. Now, a patient such as her husband would be hospitalized, Karen said. But at that time, doctors thought because his condition did not appear to be deteriorating, he was safe to go home.

"All of a sudden, on the fifth day, he collapsed in the bathroom and was unresponsive," Karen said. When she took him to the hospital his lungs were "completely whited out." That means on an X-ray, the organs appeared white and opaque, a sign of severe damage. She never saw him conscious again, and could say goodbye only through protective gear. He died that day, March 31.

"Things were evolving every day," she said. "It's just a freaky virus that no one can quite figure out. "Unfortunately, it happened to Jeff, and he died from it."
We are all witnesses to the recent human rights violations and racial discrimination in the United States. Most of these discrimination have been subtle and the black community have gone ahead to tolerate it on several occasions. The recent killings of some key members of the black society has led to protests amid police brutality in the country.

Permit me to let in my two cents opinion on the matter at hand. You see, the over 400 years of slavery and migration of black ancestors into Europe may have been no fault of theirs. What matters now is how most people are moving in to the US and other European countries in search for better opportunities.

This is becoming a growing trend. I must say that the US, UK, and other countries which see many travelers coming in on a daily basis is not a wrong thing to do. However, many people who travel into those countries through illegal ways are half of the problem which we are currently dealing with.

The many skilled personnel who troop into 'well developed' countries are the reason why we are at this crossroads. If you ask me, it is about time we try and rethink how the black community relate with their white counterparts for mutual benefits and not for war.

Several meetings and partnerships from cross-cultural relations has greatly benefited the world at large. Major inventions have seen different groups of people from different backgrounds working on teams to bring about major changes in some sectors of the global economy.

Dr. Benjamin Carson, one of the world's greatest neurosurgeons, is a typical black man who rose through the ranks by working throughout some of the most hateful racial discriminations one could ever think of. Perhaps what set him apart was he looking beyond whatever discrimination laid before him and channeling his frustrations into becoming one of the best scientists.

In our quest to maintain a positive balance within several nations both developed and underdeveloped, Africans must be able to stand up for themselves and not give in to any forms of violations on their rights. We should start with fostering healthy conversations through global dialogues and maintaining a positive world outlook for the world to admire. We must be black and proud even with our dealings with other foreign nationals.

Veteran journalist, Elizabeth Ohene, puts it in a better perspective in a recent article titled, I Can Breathe Here, when she wrote, "All those young couple who go to such lengths to make sure that their babies are born in the US, so their children will have better opportunities, will now recognize that maybe these children are George Floyd's who 'can't breathe' under the knee of Officer Derek Chauvin."
Portland technology news site Digital Trends is facing an outcry from current and former employees over accusations of a hostile workplace, racial insensitivity and a lack of diversity among employees.

Those broader concerns are epitomized by a 2018 party, described either as a Hip Hop Party or a Gin and Juice party. Photos and videos from the event show the companys chief operating officer dressed in a black hat, bandanna and white T-shirt, standing before a poster of graffiti while holding a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.

Corey Gaskin, who worked as an editor in Digital Trends New York office, said he left the company in March because of a toxic culture." Gaskin said he witnessed sexual harassment, homophobia and racist comments. He said the company retaliated against those who raised concerns, chasing out him and others.

Its clear that Digital Trends does not have representation of women, of people of color, and the reasons why is this toxic culture has proliferated to the point where those people had to leave," Gaskin said Wednesday.

The Portland company acknowledges the racially insensitive party took place and sent employees an email apologizing at the time. After tweets highlighted the event again last week, Digital Trends sent another email expressing regret.

It identified some weaknesses in the company, clearly, that we needed to work on, CEO Ian Bell said in an interview Tuesday. He said Digital Trends plans an all-hands meeting Wednesday to address the issues raised by the 2018 party and by this months tweets.

Its about listening, understanding and healing. For us right now its about listening to our employees, Bell said. They mean the world to us and they feel horrible. And thats not good.

What a joke. @DigitalTrends if you stand with black people start by making an environment where they'd like to work. Speaking from experience.



Pictured below, your COO dressed as a racial stereotype at the "Gin and Juice" party you threw.



He mocked black culture the whole night pic.twitter.com/HY1qCSDtom  Corey Gaskin (@real_gaskin) June 5, 2020

Digital Trends posts technology news and online electronics viewers and guides. From its headquarters in the U.S. Bancorp Tower (Big Pink) in downtown Portland, the company has built a huge following among gearheads and technology enthusiasts. The company has offices in several cities and 130 employees altogether.

The global outrage triggered by George Floyds death last month at the hands of Minneapolis police has rocked the media industry, along with nearly every element of American society. There is a broad reckoning underway.

The editor of Bon Appetit magazine quit Monday after a brownface photo of him resurfaced. The editor of womens lifestyle publisher Refinery29 quit Monday, too, following accusations of discrimination by former employees.

Digital Trends chose to retain COO Chris Carlson, whom it had hired just three months before the 2018 party and remains with the company.

Im not a proponent of cancel culture, Bell said Tuesday. Good people have flaws and make mistakes. I would rather put these individuals into D&I (diversity and inclusion) and sensitivity training so theyre better individuals.

Digital Trends said Carlson will not comment before speaking to employees at Wednesdays all-hands meeting.

Bell said he shut down the 2018 party as soon as he learned of it, 45 minutes after it began. He said he sent the employees who attended to diversity and training afterwards and said hes committed to making the company more welcoming and inclusive.

Weve got some work to do, Bell said. It think thats what this comes back to. Were committed to doing that.

Current and former Digital Trends employees who spoke with The Oregonian/OregonLive, who asked not to be identified speaking about the company, said they saw repeated instances of bullying by top executives and described a workplace where leadership would ostracize those who fell out of favor or stepped out of line.

The employees described a shocking absence of diversity among their colleagues, a fact Digital Trends acknowledged in last weeks email to employees, who are working remotely due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The lack of diversity filling our Zoom windows is not lost on us and it falls on the executive team to create an inclusive environment for every employee and to work toward fostering more diverse voices that represent the full spectrum of our culture, Bell wrote in the email to employees Friday. While we have come a long way in our diversity and inclusion initiatives, we know we have a long way to go and weve made mistakes.

Digital Trends mistakes became public last week when Gaskin, the former editor, highlighted the 2018 party and other issues in a series of tweets last week. Gaskin, who now writes for the prominent technology publication Ars Technica, contrasted the companys record on inclusion with a Digital Trends post on Instagram in which the company proclaimed, We stand with those who are grieving from systemic violence and impression.

What a joke, Gaskin wrote in one tweet, which included a photo of Carlson at the party. @DigitalTrends if you stand with black people start by making an environment where theyd like to work. Speaking from experience.

This article has been updated with additional comment.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699

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WASHINGTON  The sister of David Patrick Underwood, the federal security guard shot and killed last month in Oakland, remembered him before Congress on Wednesday as a kind soul who protected others and urged that lawmakers take action to make a change in his honor.

Patrick was a good man who only wanted to help others and keep his community safe. He had an infectious laugh and a corny sense of humor, Angela Underwood Jacobs told a House hearing on racial profiling and police brutality. He would go out of his way to help family, friends and strangers. He did not deserve to die in such a horrendously inhumane way.

Jacobs testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing paving the way for legislation to reform policing in the U.S. in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Jacobs, who was introduced and invited by House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, testified alongside Floyds brother, Philonise Floyd.

Underwood, 53, of Pinole, was killed May 29 while working as a contract security officer for the Department of Homeland Security guarding the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland. A colleague was also shot and injured.

The shooting took place while protests over Floyds death and police brutality were happening blocks away. Officials say the shooter fired from a vehicle in a targeted attack. They are looking for a white van in connection with the shooting.

Jacobs said her brother set an example Americans should follow.

How my brother died was wrong, and Im praying that we learn something about how he lived, Jacobs said. When our mother fell to the ground as she was dying, he picked her lifeless body up as her spirit was leaving to place her upon her bed because thats where she wanted to die. My question is: Who will pick up Patrick and carry his legacy?

Her emotional testimony followed that of Philonise Floyd, who also remembered his brothers legacy. George Floyd, a black man, died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes. That officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with murder, and three fellow officers who did not intervene have been charged with aiding and abetting the death. Floyds killing spurred weeks of international protest over racism and police brutality.

The man who took his life, who suffocated him for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, he still called him sir as he begged for his life, Philonise Floyd said of his brother. I cant tell you the kind of pain you feel when you watch something like that. When you watch your big brother, who you looked up to your entire life, begging for his mom?

Im tired. Im tired of the pain Im feeling now, and Im tired of the pain I feel every time another black person is killed for no reason.

Philonise Floyd and Jacobs both implored members of Congress to take action that might give their brothers deaths meaning.

Noting that Minneapolis police were arresting his brother for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill, Philonise Floyd said, George wasnt hurting anyone that day. He didnt deserve to die over $20. Im asking you, is that what a black mans worth, $20? Today is 2020.

He added, I couldnt take care of George the day he was killed, but maybe by speaking with you today, I can help make sure that his death isnt in vain. To make sure that he is more than another face on a T-shirt. More than another name on a list that wont stop growing.

House Democrats convened the hearing to build support for legislation to reform policing that they have proposed. It would encourage local governments to conduct independent investigations of police abuse, remove some civil-liability immunity for officers who commit misconduct, set higher standards for police before they use deadly force, and ban choke holds and carotid holds, among other elements.

Republicans have criticized Democrats for not consulting with them before introducing the package, though some of the bills were bipartisan when they were crafted.

Jacobs was one of the witnesses invited to testify by Republicans. She is a former Republican candidate for Congress and former member of Lancaster City Council in Los Angeles County. She suggested several policy prescriptions, arguing that inequalities in housing, jobs and education are the key to root causes of injustice in America.

She also criticized looting and rioting, and urged Americans to resolve conflict with kindness and love.

Later in the hearing, a lawmaker gave Jacobs time to share what shed been thinking as she listened to proceedings. She said she has had the talk with her son  a reference to the conversation black parents have with their children about how to safely interact with police. She noted that she sat at somewhat opposite ends of the spectrum from Philonise Floyd, but also had so much commonality with him. And she urged Congress to act.

My brother wore a uniform, and he wore that uniform proudly. Im wondering, where is the outrage for a fallen officer that also happens to be African American? Jacobs said. I truly hope that you take your positions, your offices so seriously that you want to go back and really work together and collaborate, because if you cant get it right, theres no hope for the rest of us.

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan
In May of last year, more than 100 ships were noticed by Lauren Sung and Lucas Kuo crowding in the waters near Haeju, North Korea.

Sung and Kuo, analysts of the Washington-based Center or Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), the one investigating and analyzing the security issues with the use of large data, keep track of the North Korean waters traffic and other places or areas of Northeast Asia.

According to CNN, Since Pyongyang has been inculpated of selling coal and other valuable goods, sometimes in extremely large amount, on the high seas to avoid the custom officers, who must impose sanctions of United Nations on North Korea, keeping an eye on this matter has been a part of their work. North Koreans reportedly move from one ship to another their goods at sea and fabricate about their true origins, instead of moving the goods into a port before bartering.

They are designated to be both discreet and fast, and usually include a small quantity of ships. But dozens of mysterious ships are seen by Sung and Kuo sailing to North Korea.

Allegedly, millions of dollar worth massive operation involving 279 ships are seen skirting international sanctions on North Korea.

But these ships were reportedly not being used for dealing drugs, offloading counterfeit cash, running guns, or even trafficking of endangered species, which North Korea is known for. Apparently, the ships were not carrying coal, which is known to be the most profitable export of Pyongyang.

Read also: Kim Jong-Un Mysteries About Previous Disappearance Remain: Did the North Korean Leader Undergo Surgery?

The ships were being utilized for dredging and transporting of sand. It seemed safe, but under the United Nations sanctions passed in December 2017, North Korea is prohibited from exporting earth and stone. It is a violation of international law to trade sand coming from North Korea.

Risk Screen reported that UN investigators stated that using a substantial sand-export operation, North Korea was able to rake last year at least $22 million. The panel of experts on North Korea was provided by an unnamed country, as the investigators of the case are known, with intelligence arguing that one million tons of sand were sent by Pyongyang abroad from May 2019 until the end of the year.

The strategy was included in the annual report of the panel. According to Alastair Morgan, the coordinator of the UN panel that keeps track of the sanctions on North Korea, the authors of the reports decided the significance and the large scale of the operation warranted top billing.

C4ADS' data were not cited by the UN report. Morgan claimed that in February his team submitted their draft before Sung and Kuo published their research in March.

Sung and Kuo observed the ships for a number of weeks before they noticed a pattern. All of those appearing in the waters of North Korea had a connection to China. Some have Chinese flags while the others had Chinese names.

Sung uttered plenty of reports that were found from the early 90s to present indicating that North Korea has always been exporting sand to a lot of its neighboring countries.

Moreover, Sung said it now appeared there was an alert effort to do this under the radar.

Related article: North and South Korean at Risk of Losing Reduced Military Tensions After Anti-DPRK Leaflets Spread

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Japanese automaker Honda has reportedly halted operations in India and Brazil after a cyberattack affected its various production units globally. The company said that the cyberattack has impacted its ability to access computer servers, use email and otherwise make use of its internal systems. Honda Two Wheelers India said that the sales mapping tool had to be closed as a precautionary measure. However, the software was soon restored, it added

"Honda can confirm that a cyber-attack has taken place on the Honda network. There is also an impact on production systems outside of Japan. Work is being undertaken to minimise the impact and to restore full functionality of production, sales and development activities," company said in a statement.

In total, 11 Honda plants have been affected including five in the US, according to media reports. Motorcycle plants in India and Brazil have still not resumed operations after the cyberattack at the starting of the week. A four-wheel vehicle plant in Turkey resumed operations on Wednesday.

"A company-wide network outage has been reported by Honda companies globally. While the cause of the problem is currently under investigation, the recovery process is underway. The disruption in the network has impacted some business operations leading to a temporary adjustment in the production schedule. There is no effect on the invoicing process at our dealership network," it added.

Global automakers including Honda have already been hit hard by a slump in sales because of the coronavirus pandemic.

"At this time Honda Customer Service and Honda Financial Services are experiencing technical difficulties and are unavailable. We are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and understanding," the company tweeted on Monday.

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: India sees 9,985 new COVID-19 cases, 279 deaths in 24 hours; tally surges to 2.76 lakh

Also read: Coronavirus effect: Availed EMI moratorium? Be ready for hiccups in future loans
Too many policymakers merely throw around the concept of virtual education, without acknowledging the real challenges faced by districts to enact such a transition. The pace in which our schools and districts moved during this COVID-19 crisis was unprecedented in American education history. We have not even begun to understand what has worked and what has failed, and still, we are being told to keep pushing in that direction. The question to ask is: Are we building on solid ground or are we tilting at windmills?

The promise of virtual education is not clearly understood. It will likely never be a replacement for traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Virtual education probably works best when utilized in conjunction with traditional schools, not in place of such schools. This is of course assuming that the lack of broadband access in Tennessee communities would not be a serious factor. The digital divide must be addressed and should be a serious concern to policymakers. It is not just a problem in education. The digital divide hurts small businesses, limits the opportunity for our citizens, makes it harder for those in agriculture to take advantage of technology, and also prevents access to advancements in telemedicine.

A March 2020 survey by the National 4 H Council and Microsoft found that: Twenty-one million people living in the United States, including 17 million living in rural communities, do not have access to broadband Internet, according to the Federal Communications Commission. This makes a challenge for everyday tasks such as looking for jobs, applying to college, and connecting with peers. The survey examines what this lack of high-speed Internet means for young people, and the results indicate these challenges create barriers to opportunity and can have a long-lasting impact on a young persons self-confidence, belief in their career prospects and the likelihood of attaining financial success  all traditional aspects of the American dream.

Karen Cator, who led the Office of Education Technology at the United States Department of Education for President Barack Obama, stated that the department does not collect data on community connectivity. If schools and districts proceed with virtual education this could develop into more complications.

Troy Kilzer, superintendent of Schools in Chester County Schools, stated, [Betsy DeVos] assumption is that everybody sits with the same opportunities with the internet, with all the resources supporting technology, and thinks everyone is well supported with access, then he added, And that is just so narrow-minded to think that everybody is in that same shape. Kilzer is correct, and even if we were all equal with the same technology and access, problems would persist. Solutions such as hotspots, higher speeds, and discounted rates still do not put an end to the bigger problem of supporting remote learning for all students.

Karen Sobel Lojeski and Richard Reilly coined the term Virtual Distance to describe the psychological distance created between people by an over-reliance on electronic communications. They point out such items as loss of project success, innovation, satisfaction, trust, goal clarity, and leader effectiveness. We are creating psychological gulfs when we lose human interaction.

Lojeski and Reilly suggest the greater the Virtual Distance the more problems - miscommunication, lack of clearly defined roles, even personal and cultural conflicts can develop. While they were studying the business application, it is clear that the research is limited in an education setting and will need further analysis before policies are firmly established and become entrenched in education policy. The three major issues for states to address in virtual education are academic performance, lack of equity and access, and privacy concerns.

The Tennessee Department of Education has finally issued a framework for the potential paths a district might select for reopening schools. The guide was created by a few superintendents of schools and lacked input from parents, teachers, and educators, as well as school boards. While the document recognized the need that stakeholders should be meaningfully involved in conversations about schools, the lack of inclusion in preparing the document is surprising. However, it is a start and we encourage districts to review the guide with building-level educators, parents, and school boards and develop a plan that meets the needs of all students in your community and district.

The Digital Age of Virtual Education can complement schools, but will never be a replacement for traditional brick-and-mortar schools. There is just no way to completely replace in-person teaching, social interaction, and emotional care and support - for most students. Districts will need time to address effective online teaching models, particularly concerning evaluating and supporting teachers and promoting best practices. If another pandemic arises, or should COVID-19 continue to impact our public education system, we have much work left to address before virtual education is seen as a viable solution to educate vast numbers of children across the state. Too many challenges remain.

JC Bowman

Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee
George P. Bush gives a eulogy during the funeral for former President George H.W. Bush at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, in Houston, Texas, on Dec. 6, 2018. (David J. Phillip-Pool/Getty Images)

George P. Bush Says Hell Vote for Trump in 2020 Election

George P. Bush, Texass General Land Commissioner and nephew and grandson to U.S. presidents, said on June 9 that he will be voting for President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election.

Trump is the only thing standing between America and socialism, Bush told The Dallas Morning News in a statement provided by his office.

Even in a global pandemic where we have had to take unprecedented measures to protect public health, the economy is already returning, he told the news outlet. Its clear, America and Texas will continue to be stronger than ever.

Bush, 44, a Republican, is the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush, who died last year, the nephew of former President George W. Bush, and the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was a presidential candidate in 2016. He was first elected land commissioner in 2014.

I endorsed President Trump in the 2016 election cycle and plan to do so again in 2020, he said, without providing further details on when he will endorse the president.

In response, Trump thanked Bush on social media for supporting his reelection bid this year.

Thank you George, great honor! the president said on Twitter Tuesday.

Thank you George, great honor! https://t.co/1WzkcvLpnR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

The announcement followed reports published in The New York Times on Sunday that claimed two-term former president George W. Bush will not be voting for the president in December. The publication cited people close to George W. Bush who said they were familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for the former president later told The Texas Tribune in a statement that the report was completely made up.

He is retired from presidential politics and has not indicated how he will vote, spokesman Freddy Ford said.

The report from The New York Times also stated that other members of the Republican establishment, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, would not be endorsing the president. Powell, a Republican, told CNN Sunday that he wouldnt in any way support the presidents reelection bid in November.

Powell, a retired general who served in George W. Bushs administration, said that Trump lies all the time, has drifted away from the U.S. Constitution, and poses a danger to American democracy, as he joined a number of Republicans and former military leaders criticizing the president amid nationwide protests in response to the May 25 death of George Floyd.

George P. Bush last voiced his support for the president in 2018 when he was campaigning for reelection. Trump, meanwhile, described him in April 2019 as the only Bush that likes me.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leading Health Plan Transitions Initiatives to Inovalons Integrated Platform

BOWIE, Md., June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Inovalon (INOV), a leading provider of cloud-based platforms empowering data-driven healthcare, today announced a multi-year engagement with Priority Health, a leading Michigan health plan with more than one million members, to provide a configuration of the Inovalon ONE Platform in support of superior member insights and economic performance for its commercial and Medicare Advantage memberships.



Under this engagement, Inovalon will implement Modules of the Inovalon ONE Platform empowering healthcare ecosystem connectivity, data integration, clinical data extraction, natural language processing, predictive analytics, data visualization, and a number of additional capabilities within an integrated offering for Priority Health. Leveraging Inovalons platform, empowered by more than 55 billion medical events within Inovalons MORE2 Registry, one of the largest and most comprehensive datasets in the nation, the implementation will benefit Priority Healths focus on achieving superior insight and improvement regarding member conditions, care outcomes, clinical quality, risk score accuracy, and reporting.

This multi-year engagement replaces an incumbent solution utilized by Priority Health with implementation of Inovalons capabilities to begin in the second half of 2020.

Priority Healths provider network is the largest in Michigan with approximately 97% of all primary care physicians in the state. This impressive achievement of Priority Health lends itself wonderfully to Inovalons unique combination of health plan and member-focused analytics combined with our platforms broad provider connectivity and reach, said Bob Wychulis, president of Inovalon. Were proud to be partnering with Priority Health and are excited to support their commitment to bring superior quality and affordability of healthcare to their members.

Story continues

At Priority Health, we have always had a strong focus on innovation and quality of performance, said Tamara Hibbitts, vice president, Senior Markets at Priority Health. We are pleased to have selected Inovalon as our partner and the implementation of their platform approach as we look to deliver on our promise to our members across Michigan.

About the Inovalon ONE Platform

The Inovalon ONE Platform is an integrated cloud-based platform of nearly 100 individual proprietary technology toolsets and deep data assets able to be rapidly configured to empower the operationalization of large-scale, data-driven healthcare initiatives. Each proprietary technology toolset, referred to as a Module, is informed by the data of billions of medical events within Inovalons proprietary datasets. Combinations of Modules are configured to empower highly differentiated solutions for client needs quickly and in a highly scalable fashion. The flexibility of the Platforms modular design enables clients to integrate the Platform capabilities with their own internal capabilities or other third-party solutions. The Platform brings to the marketplace a highly extensible, national-scale capability to interconnect with the healthcare ecosystem on a massive scale, aggregate and analyze data in petabyte volumes, arrive at sophisticated insights in real time, and drive meaningful impact wherever it is analytically identified best to intervene, and intuitively visualize data and information to inform business strategy and execution.

About Priority Health

With over 30 years in business, Priority Health is the second largest health plan in Michigan, offering a broad portfolio of health benefits options for employer groups and individuals, including Medicare and Medicaid plans. Serving more than a million members each year, and offering a network that includes 97 percent of primary care physicians in Michigan, Priority Health continues to be recognized as a leader for quality, customer service, transparency and product innovation. Priority Health is the smart choice for people seeking affordable, quality health coverage.

About Inovalon

Inovalon is a leading provider of cloud-based platforms empowering data-driven healthcare. Through the Inovalon ONE Platform, Inovalon brings to the marketplace a national-scale capability to interconnect with the healthcare ecosystem, aggregate and analyze data in real time, and empower the application of resulting insights to drive meaningful impact at the point of care. Leveraging its Platform, unparalleled proprietary datasets, and industry-leading subject matter expertise, Inovalon enables better care, efficiency, and financial performance across the healthcare ecosystem. From health plans and provider organizations, to pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics companies, Inovalons unique achievement of value is delivered through the effective progression of Turning Data into Insight, and Insight into Action. Supporting thousands of clients, including 24 of the top 25 U.S. health plans, 22 of the top 25 global pharma companies, 19 of the top 25 U.S. healthcare provider systems, and many of the leading pharmacy organizations, device manufacturers, and other healthcare industry constituents, Inovalons technology platforms and analytics are informed by data pertaining to more than 994,000 physicians, 558,000 clinical facilities, 315 million Americans, and 55 billion medical events. For more information, visit www.inovalon.com.

Contact:

Kim E. Collins

Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications

kcollins@inovalon.com

301-809-4000 x1473

Hulus Alpay

Vice President, Investor Relations

halpay@inovalon.com

301-809-4000 x1237
[June 10, 2020] The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz Announces Investigation on Behalf of Townsquare Media, Inc. Investors (TSQ)

The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz announces an investigation on behalf of Townsquare Media, Inc. ("Townsquare Media" or the "Company") (NYSE: TSQ) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws. If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here toparticipate.



On June 9, 2020, Townsquare Media disclosed that it would report an impairment charge of approximately $39.4 million for its licenses and an impairment charge of approximately $69.0 million for its goodwill. The Company also announced that certain financial statements for fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019 should no longer be relied upon and would be restated due to an error "in the projected cash flows that were utilized in [its] valuation model." On this news, the Company's share price fell $1.20, or nearly 19%, to close at $5.28 per share on June 9, 2020, thereby injuring investors.

Follow us for updates on Twitter (News - Alert): twitter.com/FRC_LAW. If you purchased Townsquare Media 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 Frank R. Cruz, of The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz, 1999 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1100, Los Angeles, California 90067 at 310-914-5007, by email to [email protected], or visit our website at www.frankcruzlaw.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. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005676/en/

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President Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials Monday at the White House. (Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)

President Trump's reelection campaign is struggling to convince voters to back a second term despite nearly 112,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19, the second-worst unemployment level since the Great Depression and a historic surge of national protests against police brutality and systemic racism.

And he may be digging himself into deeper trouble.

Even as polls show sliding support for the president among older voters, Trump suggested Tuesday that a 75-year-old protester who fell and hit his head on the sidewalk  drawing blood  after being shoved by a pair of armed police officers may have deliberately provoked police or faked his injuries.

"I watched, he fell harder than he was pushed," Trump tweeted, seeming to defend the two Buffalo, N.Y., officers who were charged with felony assault on local peace activist Martin Gugino, who remains hospitalized after the incident Thursday. "Could be a set-up?" Trump asked.

Just about an hour ago, police officers shove man in Niagara Square to the ground (WARNING: Graphic). Video from: @MikeDesmondWBFO pic.twitter.com/JBKQLvzfET  WBFO (@WBFO) June 5, 2020

Even some Republicans who typically defend Trump were aghast.

"The Presidents penchant for trafficking in conspiracy theories is, politically speaking, going to ruin him," tweeted Ari Fleischer, who was President George W. Bush's press secretary. "This is reckless. He doesnt know when to stop."

Trump's tweet, which spread an unfounded theory he had seen on a right-wing cable TV channel, provided the latest example of the lack of discipline and empathy that has worsened the president's political plight five months before election day.

The commotion erupted days after six former secretaries of defense, among others, condemned Trump's threat to deploy military troops to put down the overwhelmingly peaceful protests that have erupted around the country since George Floyd died May 25 in Minneapolis after a police officer held a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Story continues

For now, polls suggest Trump is the weakest incumbent since President George H. W. Bush, beset by economic woes, lost his reelection bid in 1992. The Trump campaigns internal polling is just as dismal as a raft of public surveys that show presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden building a significant lead.

Biden is up roughly 10 points in an average of the most recent national polls and holds a 25-point edge with women. More worrying for the president, Trump has seen eroding support from white men, the bedrock of his base, in internal polling, according to a person familiar with the data who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Trump's aides hope to regain ground before November by trumpeting any signs of recovery for an economy that officially entered a deep recession in February, at the start of the coronavirus crisis, and by touting a tough "law and order" response to the civil unrest, including unstinting support for police.

Trump is desperate to re-energize his base and get back on TV by restarting the raucous campaign rallies that he was forced to stop in mid-March, after coronavirus guidelines limited public gatherings.

Rallies could resume this month, although plans for keeping attendees safe from the virus remain in flux. Trump's campaign also wants to conduct in-person voter registration, beefing up the largely shoestring 2016 operation.

The president's insistence on receiving his party's nomination with the pomp and pageantry of a capacity crowd is diverting attention and resources from the campaign as it seeks to reboot.

Party officials are scrambling to find a new city to host the Republican National Convention after Trump last week scotched the planned late-August event in Charlotte, complaining that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper would not promise to lift all restrictions on large gatherings. Officials have focused on Jacksonville, Fla., as a likely replacement.

Theres been a lot of dust that's happened over the last 90 days, so the outlook and the vision of the remainder of this year, with what weve gone through already in 2020, you just never know, said Immanuel Jarvis, the Republican chairman for Durham County in North Carolina, a key battleground state.

Jarvis, who is Black, finds fault with Trump's response to the racial protests around the country, wishing the president had shown more empathy. He cringed at Tuesday's tweet. But he believes voters will forgive Trump.

"The reason there are so many Americans who cant wait to run to the ballot box on election day and to circle his name is because they believe hes really standing up for them," he said.

Increasingly unnerved by the polling data, Trump has approved hiring several staffers who were part of his 2016 campaign. The most prominent is Jason Miller, an acolyte of former strategist Steve Bannon, who promoted Trump's embrace of right-wing nationalism.

Miller has spoken to Trump "several times a day" of late, according to a person involved in the reelection effort. Several aides view his hire as evidence that Trump has lost some trust in campaign manager Brad Parscale and his close ally, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior advisor.

Further staff changes are likely in coming days, according to a person close to the campaign.

I dont think its an overreaction to polling as much as kind of doldrums that I think [Trump] wants to shake things up, the person said.

At the moment, the campaign's road map for a successful reboot relies less on strategy than on external factors: hopes of a dramatic economic upswing before November, Biden's inability to parry blows and the ardent enthusiasm of Trump's base. In a word, luck.

"We have high confidence that the economy will continue to return," said Tim Murtaugh, the campaign communications director. "Joe Biden is left to the proposition of clinging to bad news  to actively have to root against Americans for your own political fortune."

In a sign of the campaign's nervousness, however, it has aired television ads in Ohio and Iowa, working-class battleground states that Trump won easily in 2016 but now look more competitive.

The main super PAC backing Trump is also running anti-Biden ads, primarily in three battleground states that were key to Trump's 2016 win: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Polls show Trump trailing Biden in all three.

Trump's campaign will try to portray him as the outsider and brand Biden as the establishment choice, given his decades of service in Washington, Murtaugh said. But there is internal disagreement about which attacks will be effective against the former vice president.

For instance, Trump has slammed Biden for supporting the 1994 crime bill, which put 100,000 additional police officers on America's streets, and simultaneously has accused him of seeking to "defund" law enforcement in league with "radical Democrats."

Biden's campaign this week said he doesn't support calls to defund police, a key demand of some protesters.

"Democrats are completely playing into our hands by talking about firing cops instead of the 40 million Americans out of work," said one operative involved in the president's reelection, who sees the issue as one that can help Trump win back some of the white suburban voters he has lost.

"Nothing motivates quite like fear," the operative said.

But playing on voters' anxieties is harder for the incumbent. And much of the president's incendiary comments and tweets could contribute to an "exhaustion factor," the operative acknowledged, in which voters opt for a safe, establishment choice after years of tumult.

"When you're the incumbent, you want to run on peace, prosperity and 'let me finish what I started,'" said Ed Rogers, a former top White House aide to President George H. W. Bush. "What's the job Trump wants voters to let him finish?"
A $900,000 grant from the state Growing Alabama program will enable the Enterprise Industrial Development Board to install infrastructure improvements on about 240 acres of city industrial property.

The Industrial Development Board, headed by President Whit Armstrong, announced the awarding of the grant Wednesday afternoon. The Growing Alabama grant is based upon a state law providing for a tax credit to Alabama income taxpayers who make contributions to Economic Development Organizations for approved qualifying projects.

This grant shows the pro-growth attitude of our City and State, and illustrates that when business and government partner together, the City of Enterprise and our businesses can truly benefit, said Enterprise Mayor Bill Cooper Wednesday after the announcement.

The Mayor expressed his gratitude to the state Secretary of the Department of Commerce Greg Canfield and his staff, the Alabama Renewal Commission and others who partnered with Enterprise to make this grant happen.

We are very pleased about this grant, Cooper said. It will help fund the necessary infrastructure for the next phase of Industrial Development in the City of Enterprise.
LONDON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks the launch of the 14th edition of the Global Peace Index from the international think-tank the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP).

Key results

Civil unrest has doubled since 2011 - 96 countries recorded a violent demonstration in 2019, as citizens protest against a range of issues, from economic hardship and police brutality to political instability.

Although peacefulness has deteriorated in the last decade, militarisation is improving overall, and 100 countries have decreased their military expenditure since 2008.

The economic impact of violence in 2019 improved due to lessening of the intensity of internal conflict, however violence cost the global economy $14.5 trillion or 10.6% of global GDP.

or 10.6% of global GDP. Deaths from terrorism falls for fourth consecutive year, down by 75%.

COVID-19 highlights

The economic impact of COVID-19 will negatively affect political stability, international relations, conflict, civil rights and violence, undoing many years of socio-economic development.

As economic volatility increases, nations expected to divide into those that stabilise or deteriorate in peace and prosperity - those dependent on aid or with high debts particularly likely to suffer.

Italy , Greece , Latvia and Poland amongst countries least likely to weather COVID-19 well due to economic challenges and poor performance on 'social resilience,' while Norway , Australia and New Zealand best placed to handle the future.

, , and amongst countries least likely to weather COVID-19 well due to economic challenges and poor performance on 'social resilience,' while , and best placed to handle the future. Economic downturn likely to lead to decreased support for UN peacekeeping operations, making peacebuilding more difficult, although it could also prompt fall in proxy wars.

The 14th edition of the annual Global Peace Index (GPI) report, the world's leading measure of global peacefulness, reveals that in 2020 the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated for the ninth time in twelve years. Overall, 81 countries improved in peacefulness in the 2020 report, whilst 80 deteriorated.

Rising civil unrest is emerging as a key future risk factor, with riots, general strikes and anti-government demonstrations increasing substantially since 2011. This year, new research into COVID-19 from the IEP also provides insight into a world facing heightened risks across most measures of the GPI, due to the emerging economic downturn, which is set be the worst since WWII.

Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position that it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, and Denmark. Afghanistan remains as the least peaceful country, a position it has held for two years, followed by Syria, Iraq and South Sudan.

The greatest improvement in peacefulness occurred in the Russia and Eurasia region, which saw progress in the IEP's research domains of Ongoing Conflict and Safety and Security - with Armenia recording the largest improvement of any country, rising 15 places to rank 99th.

South America recorded the largest deterioration in peacefulness due to issues in Militarisation and Safety and Security. However, the Middle East and North Africa remains the least peaceful region. Benin experienced the biggest deterioration of any country in the world, falling 34 places.

Steve Killelea comments: "The fundamental tensions of the past decade around conflict, environmental pressures and socio-economic strife remain. It's likely that the economic impact of COVID-19 will magnify these tensions by increasing unemployment, widening inequality and worsening labour conditions - creating alienation from the political system and increasing civil unrest. We therefore find ourselves at a critical juncture."

Civil unrest, militarisation and terrorism

A key trend identified in this year's report is the growing level of civil unrest across the world. At least 58% of GPI countries experienced violent protests in 2019, notably in Chile and Hong Kong, as citizens protested a range of issues including economic inequality, police brutality, political leadership and rising prices for key resources.

This reflects a longer-term trend, with riots around the world increasing by 282% in the last decade, while general strikes are up by 821%. Europe experienced the most protests, riots and strikes - however only 35% of the approximate 1,600 total were recorded as violent; the lowest percent in the world.

The report identifies a 4.4% improvement in 'Militarisation' since 2008, with increases in funding for UN peacekeeping in 2019. The number of countries importing and exporting weapons has also fallen to levels not seen since 2009. However, the improvements in peacekeeping contributions are likely to be short lived as governments direct funds towards propping up their economies.

The death toll from terrorism also continues to decline, with total deaths from terrorism falling to just over 8,000 in 2019, down from a peak of 33,555 in 2015. Similarly, the homicide rate indicator has continued its decade long improvement, as 57 countries improve, while 42 decline. In El Salvador, the country with the highest number of homicides per 100,000 people, the homicide rate fell by 25%.

Overall, the economic impact of violence in 2019 fell to $14.5 trillion, or 10.6%, of global GDP due to fewer deaths caused by conflict.

Environmental pressures

Environmental pressures continue to negatively impact peace. The IEP's Ecological Threat Register indicates that 27 per cent of countries will face catastrophic water stress and 22 per cent catastrophic food stress by 2050.

The report also indicates that there were an estimated 2.26 billion people living in areas with high or very high exposure to climate hazards in 2019, with 1.24 billion of these people already living in countries with low levels of peace. By 2050 climate change is expected to create up to 143 million migrants globally, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa (86m), South Asia (40m) and Latin America (17m).

The impact of COVID-19

Special research by the IEP shows that COVID-19 is negatively impacting peace across the world, with nations expected to become increasingly polarised in their ability to maintain peace and security. This reflects the virus's potential to undo years of socio-economic development, exacerbate humanitarian crises and aggravate and encourage unrest and conflict.

The IEP identifies the economic impact of lockdowns as a significant threat to peace. Reductions in international aid are expected as OEDC economies contract, further destabilising fragile and conflict-affected countries including Liberia, Afghanistan and South Sudan.

Countries with poor credit ratings, like Brazil, Pakistan and Argentina, may also struggle to borrow, repay debt and sustain their economies, leading to increased risk of political instability, riots and violence.

However, economically stable countries are also witnessing major disruption, as leaders come under increasing pressure over their COVID-19 response, with the US, Germany and France already experiencing protests. Rising political instability is expected in Europe, with riots and general strikes set to increase.

That said, the economic impact of the virus may have a more positive impact on proxy wars, as they become harder to finance amid economic decline and falling oil prices. Saudi Arabia's activity in Yemen, Russian and Turkish intervention in Syria and Iran's support for Militias, such as Hezbollah will all be notable examples to track in the year ahead.

Amid this burgeoning turmoil, US-China tensions and friction within multilateral organisations like the WHO, WTO and the UN Security Council are also increasing.

Regional overview:

Only two of nine regions in the world improved in peacefulness in 2019: North America and Russia and Eurasia

and South America experienced the largest fall and was the only region to record deteriorations across all three GPI domains: Safety and Security, Militarisation and Ongoing Conflict.

experienced the largest fall and was the only region to record deteriorations across all three GPI domains: Safety and Security, Militarisation and Ongoing Conflict. Europe remains the most peaceful region in the world. Greece and Belgium had the biggest improvement in peacefulness. Greece because of a better score on the political terror scale, Belgium because of fewer deaths from internal conflict and both improved their homicide rates.

remains the most peaceful region in the world. and had the biggest improvement in peacefulness. because of a better score on the political terror scale, because of fewer deaths from internal conflict and both improved their homicide rates. Five countries in Asia-Pacific continue to rank in the top 25 of the GPI. New Zealand ranks first in the region and second overall in the 2020 GPI, despite its score falling 2.3% due to the Christchurch attack on March 15, 2019 .

continue to rank in the top 25 of the GPI. ranks first in the region and second overall in the 2020 GPI, despite its score falling 2.3% due to the attack on . Peacefulness in Central America and The Caribbean has fallen, with increasing deaths from external conflict and declining scores on the political terror scale. Mexico is again the least peaceful country in the region - experiencing a 2.3% deterioration in peacefulness. Its homicide rate increased by 29%.

has fallen, with increasing deaths from external conflict and declining scores on the political terror scale. is again the least peaceful country in the region - experiencing a 2.3% deterioration in peacefulness. Its homicide rate increased by 29%. The Middle East and North Africa remains the world's least peaceful region. Bahrain had the biggest improvement in its score at 4.8% - the third largest improvement of any nation overall.

remains the world's least peaceful region. had the biggest improvement in its score at 4.8% - the third largest improvement of any nation overall. The 2020 GPI marks the first time since 2016 that North America has seen an average improvement in peacefulness.

has seen an average improvement in peacefulness. Peacefulness in South Asia deteriorated on the 2020 GPI, owing to falls in peacefulness in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka . Bhutan is the most peaceful country in South Asia and is the only country outside of Europe and Asia-Pacific to be ranked in the top 20 of the GPI.

deteriorated on the 2020 GPI, owing to falls in peacefulness in and . is the most peaceful country in and is the only country outside of and to be ranked in the top 20 of the GPI. Sub-Saharan Africa recorded a fall of 0.5% in its peacefulness score. Twenty countries in the region improved in peacefulness while 24 deteriorated. Benin experienced the biggest deterioration of any country in the world, falling 34 places in the ranking to 106th on the 2020 GPI.

For more information, visit visionofhumanity.org and economicsandpeace.org.

NOTES TO EDITORS

The GPI report, articles and interactive maps are available at: visionofhumanity.org

Twitter: @globpeaceindex / twitter.com/globpeaceindex

Facebook: @globalpeaceindex facebook.com/globalpeaceindex

About the Global Peace Index (GPI)

Produced by the international think-tank the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the GPI report presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to date on peace, its economic value, trends, and how to develop peaceful societies. The report covers 99.7% of the world's population and uses 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources to compile the index. These indicators are grouped into three key domains: Ongoing Conflict, Safety and Security, and Militarisation.

About the Institute for Economics and Peace

IEP is an international and independent think tank dedicated to shifting the world's focus to peace as a positive, achievable and tangible measure of human well-being and progress. It has offices in Sydney, Brussels, New York, The Hague, Mexico City and Harare.

Global Media Contacts

Hill+Knowlton Strategies: IEP@hkstrategies.com
Ukraine's Ambassador to Iran Serhiy Burdyliak has held a meeting with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for International and Legal Affairs Mohsen Baharvand during which the Iranian side stated its readiness to hold talks with Kyiv to resolve issues related to black box flight recorders from a downed Ukrainian passenger plane, according to Tasnim News Agency.

"In the meeting, the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister emphasized that he is prepared to hold talks with Ukrainian officials at any time and any place determined by Ukrainians at the earliest possible moment in order to immediately resolve the issues about the black boxes of the plane, paying compensation to families of the victims, and other issues relating to the tragic incident," the report reads.

The Ukrainian ambassador, in turn, said that he would immediately relay the idea to the relevant Ukrainian authorities and later inform the Iranian side about the results.

The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane (flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after it took off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on January 8. There were 176 people on board  nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK). They all died.

Iran's official in the International Civil Aviation Organization agreed in March to hand over the black box flight recorders to France or Ukraine for analysis, but this has not been done so far.

Iran has currently detained six people charged with the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752.

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By Jin Xin

BEIJING, June 9 -- The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and the Peoples Armed Police (PAP) Force play important roles in the nations poverty alleviation campaign. For a long time, they have been carrying out poverty alleviation efforts in designated villages extensively, and explored several practical approaches based on local conditions, such as alleviating poverty through the development of characteristic industries, consumption, education, and medical assistance. As of the end of May 2020, all the 4,100 impoverished villages that the military was designated to help and support had been lifted out of poverty, involving 924,000 poor villagers in 293,000 low-income families.

Industrial development holds the key to poverty alleviation in the real sense.

The General Office of the Central Military Commission (CMC) helped the Fushankou Village of Laishui County, Hebei Province develop the red culture industry.

The CMC Defense Mobilization Department helped build a deep processing plant with the annual output of 200,000 tons in Dianfang Village of Hebeis Fuping County that abounds in jujubes.

The CMC Political Work Department helped plant 10,000 mu (about1,647 acres) of crisp and red plums in Hongxin Village of Zunyi, Guizhou Province.

The CMC Equipment Development Department used the donations from officers and soldiers to build a greenhouse of edible fungus in Jingui Village of Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, Sichuan Province.

The PLA Eastern Theater Command helped develop ecological breeding projects in Dupi Village of Aoli Township in Jinggangshan, Jiangxi Province.

The whole military has supported 8,351 industrial projects, covering breeding and planting, processing of agricultural products, rural tourism, and PV power generation, lifting the people out of poverty and propelling them to increase income.

To help those poor villages develop industries, the military also resorted to consumption to help the fledgling industries grow and realize circular development.

Relevant departments of the CMC established the mechanisms for poor villages to sell their agricultural and sideline products to barracks and provided the policy basis for the troops to give priority to those villages in procurement.

The goods from mountains to barracks program initiated by the Guizhou Provincial Military Command directly benefited more than 1,100 poor households.

Education is the fundamental way to eradicate poverty at root, and providing better education to children in impoverished areas is a significant means of cutting the inter-generational transmission of poverty.

The military has paid close attention to education in its poverty alleviation work. It has helped build 156 Schools along the route of the Long March and 1,544 primary schools in designated villages, and also fostered several branding programs for poverty alleviation through education, such as the Bayi student aid program at old revolutionary bases, fostering children in the new era initiated by the PLA Army, the Naval Aimin Primary School, Lantian Chunlei Program and Lijian student aid program by the PLA Rocket Force.

Apart from industrial and educational development, medical assistance is another important part of the PLA and PAP forces poverty alleviation efforts.

The 113 hospitals in poor counties paired with 74 military hospitals have all reached or surpassed the standard for level-2 hospitals.

The troops have also helped build 1,458 clinics in impoverished villages, some of which are installed with long-distance medical systems so that the villagers can enjoy quality medical service without traveling.

The Joint Logistic Support Force launched the military doctors to revolutionary bases program, whereby 1,028 experts provided medical services in 106 districts and counties, including Yanan city in Chinas Shaanxi Province and Ruijin city in Jiangxi Province. The 5th Medical Center of the Chinese PLA General Hospital initiated a program to treat echinococcosis in Xizang autonomous region under which 11 groups of 77 experts, overcoming anoxia and other plateau-related difficulties, treated the local residents on pastures and in yurts. They stayed in the stationary point for more than three months every time, and screened 7,520 patients and cured 657 ones cumulatively.
Suspended Jammu and Kashmir DSP Davinder Singh, arrested in a case relating to a plan to execute terror attacks in the national capital and other parts of the country, Wednesday withdrew his bail application from a Delhi Court.

He was arrested while ferrying two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists in a vehicle on the Srinagar-Jammu Highway earlier this year.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana allowed the withdrawal of bail application after Singh's advocate, M S Khan, said he has to make certain changes in the application and file some additional documents.

Singh and two other accused - Irfan Shafi Mir and Sayed Naveed Mushtaq - had moved their applications on Tuesday, claiming they were not required for further custodial interrogation.

All the three accused withdrew their applications.

I will be filing fresh application on their behalf soon, Khan said.

The three accused -- Singh, Mir and Mushtaq were arrested on March 14, 19 and 27 respectively and are currently lodged in Tihar jail.

Singh was suspended from the Jammu and Kashmir Police in January this year. The Special Cell had brought him to Delhi from Hira Nagar Jail in Jammu and Kashmir.

He was arrested in a case related to planning to execute terror attacks in Delhi and other parts of the country.

According to Police, the accused used to chat with other co-accused and militants of Hizbul Mujahideen through various internet platforms.

Earlier, the police had told the court that Syed Naveed Mushtaq and others were planning to execute terror attacks in Delhi and other parts of the country as well as targeted killings of protected persons.

The police said Mushtaq, the commander of Shopian district of Hizbul Mujahideen, used to chat with the other co-accused and militants through various internet platforms, including dark net chat.

The Delhi Police has filed an FIR under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The FIR said the youths of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab are being trained for carrying out terrorist activities
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

ALBANY  A Washington County man faces federal charges after, the U.S. Attorney's office said, he distributed child pornography.

Scott Eckrote, age 36, of Granville appeared in court this week to answer allegations he disseminated child pornography through a messaging application on his phone. Federal prosecutors said a search of Eckrote's phone revealed he possessed numerous files depicting such images.
Much of our nation is struggling with the grief and rage spurred by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. We need to reject sound bites that fail to deeply interrogate the roots of the chasm between those marching for their lives, and stop the calls for law and order that are code for white supremacist actions committed against black and brown people.

The gulf of understanding  the empathy gap  is why we see scenes reminiscent of 1919s Red Summer and 1992s uprisings in Los Angeles. Amid the pain and suffering, more of us need to recommit to listen, empathize and act, structurally and individually, so that nobody is abandoned, ignored or marginalized.

The mounting examples of black and brown people being dehumanized during interactions with law enforcement officers and those purporting to uphold order, juxtaposed with white people responding to requests for safety with entitlement and fragility, are more difficult to process at a time of massive inequality. When a black man bird-watching in Central Park finds himself labeled a threat for asking a white woman to leash her dog, it clearly shows how black people are not afforded the same presumption of innocence and legitimacy for simply existing.

In the cases of George Floyd, Eric Garner and the rising toll of other black people who have died in interactions with law enforcement officers, there is a social order that condemns law-abiding protests of prominent black people  and wields military force toward the thousands justifiably stating through protest, You dont hear us. Langston Hughes asked, What happens to a dream deferred? in 1951. Its evident in 2020 that it explodes.

Floyd did nothing justifying the use of deadly force. Nor did Garner in 2014. Both uttered the same words as they expired: I cant breathe. Now it seems protesters cannot exercise constitutional rights without being linked to those attempting to hijack a movement of righteous, passionate anger and pain.

If only there were a call for love and restoration.

The connection between Floyd and the situation that bird-watcher Christian Cooper encountered in Central Park may not be obvious to some. But for me, as a black man and father of black children, it recalls what happened in Mississippi in 1955 when Carolyn Bryant Donhams lie led to the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till. Her false claim that Till dared to talk to her, a white woman, set in motion the brutal extrajudicial murder of the teenager. Acquitted by the jury, the self-admitted murderers never served time. Years later, ignoring that the threat of state-sanctioned action can kill black men reminds us some have forgotten this horror. Or worse, it is used for control, to weaponize race and invoke violence by leveraging irrational fright.

Black lives are wedged in the cogs of white fear and state-sanctioned violence, sometimes executed by police, sometimes by others. Even during the COVID-19 crisis, we have had to add the names of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and Floyd to the roster that includes Till, Trayvon Martin and many others.

Racial fear shouldnt justify the invocation of violence. Leveraging it to silence black people is a hateful act. While we have another undeniable example of how white fear ensconced in white privilege creates a no-win situation for black citizens, a critical need for dialogue on social advantage emerges. How does racial privilege advance white agendas while simultaneously oppressing the lives and life opportunities of black people? How are schools, workplaces and communities educating about structures and social schema that equate to surveillance and the specter of death for people of color?

Ensuring media, law enforcement, educators and elected officials reflect our diverse population  and that they have power to enact policies to dismantle structures that oppress  is the only way to unearth and eradicate biases that have the power to end lives.

Richard J. Reddick is an associate professor and associate dean for equity, community engagement and outreach in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin.
The family of a woman shot dead by police while allegedly fleeing a shoplifting in South Jersey two years ago has filed a $10 million federal lawsuit.

LaShanda Anderson, 36, of Philadelphia, and two others were suspected of stealing items from a Marshalls store in Deptford Township on June 9, 2018, when store security summoned local police.

Investigators said Anderson tried to run down Sgt. Kevin A. Clements with an SUV as the trio fled. Clements fired three shots at the vehicle, killing Anderson.

The family says Clements use of deadly force was unjustified, that the officer wasnt in danger of being struck and that officers lied about what really happened that day.

Deptford officials have not responded to a request for comment.

When a loss prevention officer at Marshalls called 911 about the alleged shoplifters, he was told by a dispatcher that store personnel were responsible for stopping shoplifters, according to the suit.

In an apparent attempt to have the police respond to the scene, the Marshalls employee falsely stated that there was a manslaughter warrant for one of the suspected shoplifters, the suit states, which prompted Clements and Capt. William Bittner to respond.

Deptford Police Sgt. Kevin A. Clements

Authorities later confirmed that the manslaughter warrant claim was false.

After telling Anderson and Chanel L. Barnes, 40, of Philadelphia, to stop, the women ignored the officers, got into their SUV and began to drive off. The third shoplifting suspect, Raoul A. Gadson, 45, of Philly, ran from the scene and was later arrested.

Bittner pulled his gun and ordered Anderson out of the vehicle, according to a Gloucester County Prosecutors Office investigation of the case, but she accelerated and hit him with the door.

He ran after the vehicle and threw his expandable baton at the rear window, shattering the glass, in hopes of making the vehicle easier to identify after the driver fled, according to investigators.

Clements was standing between 12 and 25 feet in front of the SUV and drew his firearm as he ordered Anderson to stop. The SUV accelerated toward him and fearing for his life, he fired three shots in rapid succession, striking Anderson twice, prosecutors said.

Deptford officers do not have body cameras.

The prosecutors investigation cleared Clements of any wrongdoing, but officials confirmed last year that a federal review of the shooting was underway. The status of that review is unclear.

Some eyewitnesses at the scene claimed that neither officer was in danger of being run over by the SUV, according to the suit, which accuses the officers of fabricating statements about what happened, filing false reports and advising eyewitnesses to the event to leave the scene of the incident before obtaining statements or contact information from those witnesses.

Anderson, Barnes and Gadson were known to Marshalls from prior shoplifting incidents, and Anderson was wanted by Delaware police following thefts from Marshalls stores in that state.

Andersons criminal history included an attempted murder charge in 2015 following a shooting at a Philadelphia laundromat. The attempted murder and weapons charges against her were dismissed after a mistrial.

Gloria Black-Meadows, Andersons sister and administrator of her estate, filed the suit on behalf of Andersons three children. Claims include excessive force, conspiracy to violate civil rights, violation of the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, assault, negligence and wrongful death. Under the negligence claim, the family claims Marshalls exposed Anderson to danger by falsely claiming one of the suspects was sought for manslaughter.

The suit, which names Deptford Township, former township police chief William Hanstein, Clements, Bittner and the operators of the Marshalls store, seeks $10 million in compensatory damages, along with unspecified punitive damages. Hanstein, Clements and Bitter have since retired.

The suit goes on to accuse Deptford of failing to train and supervise officers, and failing to properly investigate citizen claims of officer misconduct. Out of 59 complaints of excessive force lodged against Deptford cops between 2011 and 2018, none were sustained, the suit notes.

Two of those cases involved Clements. He was sued by a woman who claimed he punched her in the nose and caused serious injuries in March 2018. In a separate incident from 2013, a 70-year-old woman sued over claims that he slammed her to the ground unprovoked during a traffic stop. The first case is ongoing, but the second was settled for $20,000.

LaShanda Anderson was shot to death when she allegedly tried to run down a Deptford Township police officer in 2018.

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Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday discussed with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu the potential areas in which the two countries can expand cooperation in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, including research and development efforts in the field of vaccines.

During their telephonic conversation, Modi also congratulated Netanyahu on assuming the prime ministerial office for a record fifth time.

"Had an excellent conversation with my friend PM @netanyahu about how India-Israel can collaborate in the post-COVID world," Modi tweeted.

"India-Israel partnership will grow ever stronger in the days to come," he said.

Had an excellent conversation with my friend PM @netanyahu about how India-Israel can collaborate in the post-COVID world. Also congratulated him for assuming the Prime Ministerial office for a record 5th time! India-Israel partnership will grow ever stronger in the days to come.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 10, 2020

An official statement later said the leaders discussed the potential areas in which India and Israel could expand their cooperation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, including research and development efforts in the fields of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

They agreed to maintain the ongoing exchanges between expert teams of both countries and also concurred that the fruits of such collaboration should be made available for the wider benefit of humanity.

They reviewed other important topics on the bilateral agenda and agreed that the post-COVID world would create further avenues for mutually beneficial partnerships in many areas.

"In particular, they assessed tremendous scope for expanding the already robust India-Israel collaboration in areas like health technology, agricultural innovation, defense-cooperation, and information technology," the statement said.

Both leaders agreed to remain in regular touch to share assessments and consult each other on the emerging opportunities and challenges in the changing global scenario.
More than 500 killed by wild animals in Bengal since 2015, govt to give jobs to their kin

Elephants to turn crorepatis as Bihar man transfers property to elephants

India

oi-Deepika S

Patna, June 10: Amid the disturbing news of pregnant elephant death in Kerala, a man in Bihar has transferred his entire landed property to his two elephants, after one of them foiled an attempt on his life by a pistol-totting criminal.

His two pet elephants, named Moti (20) and Rani (15) stay with him at his Patna residence.

Akhtar Imam, chief manager of the Asian Elephant Rehabilitation and Wildlife Animal Trust (AERAWAT), said he has been looking after elephants since the age of 12. He treats the elephants like his children and cannot live without them.

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

"Once, there was an attempt of murder made against me. At that time the elephants saved me. When some miscreants armed with pistols tried to enter my room my elephant started trumpeting. It woke me up and I was able to shout and raise an alarm due to which the miscreants ran away," Imam said.

Elephants or Wild Boars: Cruel practice of trapping animals with explosive fruit should stop

"Animals are faithful, unlike humans. I've worked for the conservation of elephants for many years. I don't want that after my death my elephants are orphaned," Akhtar Imam told news agency ANI.

Such has been his love for his elephants that he willed half of his property to his wife and his share of property worth Rs 5 crore to elephants. If the jumbos die then the money would go to AERAWAT organisation.

The moving story comes amid continuing grief over the ghastly death of a pregnant wild elephant in Kerala after eating explosive-stuffed fruit in Palakkad.

The elephant wandered around with severe mouth injuries and died standing in the Velliyar River a week later on May 27.

Amid nationwide anger, the Kerala government launched a probe and a man allegedly involved in making explosives has been arrested, so far.
Three days after George Floyds murder, I received a text message from a loved one. Do you have the bandwidth to convene this weekend? I need the collective healing.

My first response was no. There was too much to make sense of. My senses had been compromised and I was in emotional freefall. Then another message came in. And then another, still.

We would gather to talk about death and dying.

Im part of a black community based in the Bay Area, people who found one another in spite of where we live. San Franciscos black population has been declining for decades, due to the ever-increasing cost of living, systemic racism and the tech and real estate booms, among other causes.

For years we met every two months. After the coronavirus pandemic spurred shelter-in-place orders, our gatherings moved online and became more frequent: a robust email thread, a Black Zoom Brunch convergence of beautiful faces, a medical resource list. We knew that COVID-19 would disproportionately attack black people; we had the historical context to understand why we needed to gird ourselves for the worst. And so we became an Underground Railroad of information  necessary because many of us mistrusted what our media sources were telling us, because we lacked faith in our federal and local governments.

But over our network we have also attended to our spiritual and celebratory needs. We shared playlists of house music and deep cut rhythm and blues, poems by Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill, and songs that spoke to our souls. We have had only ourselves and each other to rely on.

For most of the spring, our conversations focused on our collective and individual futures. How we would live in six months. Where we would live. How we would be having sex. What media, food, books, vitamins and wine we would be consuming. What dating would be like. How the hiring practices of the companies we worked for would affect our livelihoods. What the second spiking wave of coronavirus in the fall would portend for our community. We had an innate understanding that whatever changes came, we would feel the brunt first and would need to plan for it. Plan for the safety and sanctity of our lives.

As May wore on, our conversations shifted. We talked about Ahmaud Arbery. And Breonna Taylor and Skhylur Davis and Kaleemah Rozier and Gaynor Hall. And Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper. We talked about the twisted joke of American history that would allow an aggressor and victim to share the same last name. And then we talked about George Floyd.

Some of us couldnt talk. The grief was overwhelming, and the conversations were draining. So we chose to sit with our disorienting array of emotions, and to write, to cry, to commune with ourselves.

But while processing my own grief and anger, I became aware of a parallel thread of expression: I was deluged by the white people all around me, loved ones and strangers alike, awakening to their individual roles in creating and maintaining a society that they suddenly realized was corrupt and rotting at the root. There were calls and emails and texts and letters  of concern, yes, but also of raw need and a desire for validation.

And there were promises: to be better, to be more aware, to be more present. So many promises.

Illustration by George McCalman

It wasnt just me. My black friends here and around the world, were similarly besieged. Rose in Berlin. Tunde in New Orleans. Kenesha in Los Angeles. Chuva in Sweden. Amanda in Copenhagen. Wed all been collectively assaulted with an urgent and aggressive desire by our white contemporaries to begin a conversation that should have been in place long before George Floyd was murdered in front of us.

It was a mile-high tidal wave of need, shame and guilt. Like Moses, we held the waters back with our hands, willing it away from us before it drowned us. It enraged me. It enraged us. Osayi in New York received an unprompted Venmo donation for things a former associate ... said in the past that came off the wrong way or upset you, once upon a time. Oriana in Los Angeles also received an insulting and unsolicited donation for suggested self care that sent them reeling with rage. We were each hearing personal and similar stories of the wild manifestations of this planetary response. I felt like Wonder Woman deflecting white guilt with reinforced metal bracelets, and yet the bullets kept flying.

I didnt call it White Guilt. I called it White Temerity.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Its a privilege to learn about racism instead of experiencing it in real life. A white woman said that to me last week, unironically. Yes, I responded. Its Emotional Colonialism. This discovery of something that was already there is known to us black people. Weve watched it for 400 years, shifting its shape and changing its tenor while never losing its essence. We watched as Europeans discovered places and people and cultures that predated their arrival by millennia. We watch it, currently, as white culture hungrily consumes our culture, co-opts our mannerisms, manages our perspectives and then discards whatever it appropriated when it no longer serves their rapacious needs. That is true privilege.

I began collecting my thoughts for this essay before George Floyd was murdered in front of the world. Back in the relatively simpler days of this pandemic. We would gather on video calls and discuss self-care with Ph.D. precision. Stay hydrated and moisturized, we would say with urgency and mirth: a COVID-19 counterbalance. A message in a bottle, passed down through the DNA of our generations, to combat a racism we already knew existed. A delicate and devastating pressure under our skin that has warped our collective sense of existence. It wasnt enough to stay alive, to survive. We had to come out better on the other side: looking better, sounding better, being better. Our ancestors sacrifices demanded It. That was our language with one other.

After George Floyds lynching, we continue talking, but the under-layer of our speech patterns were coated with action. The discussions were always urgent and aware, but now of a more definitive tone. Migration. Reparations. Land. Asylum. And the coming, looming election. The stakes are laid bare, and we must make decisions to preserve the sanctity of our lives. Again.

My language might seem strange to some of you as youre reading my words. Ive shared my experience as an individual and, also, as a collective. My syntax has switched back and forth, without warning. It can be confusing if you dont understand. We, as a black community, live in a continual state of the past, the present and the future existing in the same frequency, at the same time. The past that haunts and informs us, the present that we are defiantly joyful in, and our speculative futures. Our joy is loud and clanging because we know it is tenuous. We see each other filled with the same trauma, the same obstacles, the same grace, the same self-education about the world around us. It leads us to understand that we are, horribly, not alone. We are a collective. We have only each other.

It is a hard thing to hold an awareness for someone who is unaware. Parents do it for their children, policing the edges of the infantile. At least that is biologically predetermined. I have no desire to parent anyones racial awareness, but thats what I, and we, are being asked to do. Black people have been burdened with a racial, political, cultural and emotional awareness of how this country is structured, on top of living that awareness on a daily basis. White people have created a myth for themselves that has allowed them to remain blissfully clueless to those same constructs.

This  burdens on one end, blitheness on the other  is one of the greatest tragedies of the United States. We see you clearly. We also clearly see that you dont.

George McCalman is an artist and creative director in S.F. His Observed column appears in The Chronicle. Email: culture@sfchronicle.com
For Hamiltonians, patio season is on hold, dog clippers are still the next best thing and those pesky nail beds will have to be put on the back-burner.

On Monday, Premier Doug Ford announced current pandemic restrictions will remain largely in place in hot spots like Hamilton and Halton as most of Ontario moves on to the next stage of reopening on June 12.

The Hamilton Spectator spoke to three businesses that are impacted by the reopening date that remains a mystery.

Defeating the purpose

Carmen Cifani says the provinces lack of restrictions on travelling amid the reopening of the province sounds like an oxymoron to her.

An esthetician by profession, Cifani operates her own spa and wellness centre inside her Hamilton Mountain home.

She is one of many small business owners that will have to wait to reopen as neighbouring cities such as Brantford can begin to welcome visitors.

Youre defeating the purpose, said Cifani. Youre basically telling them to go ahead and spread.

Working in the industry for 37 years, Cifani said prior to COVID-19, she already wore a mask day-to-day, everything was sanitized and no more than one client was in the same room.

In preparation of reopening, shes ordered additional hand sanitizer, face masks for clients as well as a thermometer for temperature checks.

I dont know where everybody else has been, said Cifani.

Double-edged sword

Peter Mokrycke says the news of a delayed reopening date for barbershops in Hamilton allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief.

His Barton Street East shop, Hendrys Barbershop, has been closed since mid-March due to the provincial lockdown.

Getting prepared for reopening has been a process that started since the day they closed their doors, said Mokrycke. As of Tuesday, they werent quite ready, so a delay has allowed them to get to where they need to be as a shop, he added.

Its retraining your staff, re-educating your customers and literally changing the physical makeup of your shop, said Mokrycke. Its like opening a new business all over again.

But, the news didnt come without the pain of considering what a further delay will cost them financially  the shop has been without its main revenue source for nearly three months.

Its not been easy to keep the doors open or keep the doors there at all, he said. Its a bit of a double-edged sword.

Extend the pain

Radius president Ian Ladd says he and his staff will have more time to prepare as Hamilton waits for its reopening date.

The James Street South restaurant is one of hundreds waiting to reopen its patio. But before they can welcome diners, Ladd said they are reconfiguring their patios to suit current physical-distancing measures.

Their double-decker patio  with a capacity of 200 people  will be cut in half, seating only 100 people at one time.

We have quite a large restaurant so that should help us, said Ladd.

Like Cifani, Ladd said the idea that folks can leave town for a bite to eat on a patio in Brantford does kind of contradict the reasoning for not opening up Hamilton.

Hamilton has been noted as a hot spot for infection in the province, joining the ranks of Toronto and Windsor-Essex.

It does kind of make you wonder why youd be allowed to do that, he said.

Ladd said the restaurant has felt the loss of 85 per cent of its normal revenue even with takeout offerings. Those margins  dominating their books since March  arent getting any easier to take, he added.

Were eager to open, said Ladd. (The delay) will extend the pain of that.
Apple AAPL has long been speculated to shift from Intel INTCbased chips to its own designed processors for Mac computers.



Per Bloomberg, the iPhone-maker is now expected to announce the shift, codenamed Kalamata, at its first-ever virtual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), scheduled to be held in the week ending Jun 22.



Markedly, as Arm-based architecture differs from Intel, Apples timely announcement will help third-party software developers get their apps ready before new Mac computers roll out in 2021.



Apple will use the technology it licenses from Arm, a subsidiary of Japans SoftBank Group. Notably, the same technology is used in Apples own designed iPhone and iPad chips. Other notable PC-makers like Microsoft, Lenovo and Samsung also launched notebooks supported by Arm-based chips.



Apples transition from Intel to Arm-based architecture is primarily driven by the speed factor. In internal tests, Arm-based Macs reportedly did better over Intel-based versions in terms of handling graphics and AI-propelled apps. Arm-based chips are also power efficient, expected to aid Apple to develop slimmer and lighter Mac laptops in the long haul.



Apple Inc. Price and Consensus

Apple Inc. Price and Consensus

Apple Inc. price-consensus-chart | Apple Inc. Quote

Apple Planning to Refresh iMac



Per 9TO5 Mac, Apple is planning to revamp iMacs external design, which is expected to feature slender bezels, much similar in appearance to Apple Pro Display XDR.



The new, redefined iMac is also expected to carry SSDs instead of hard drives. The device will be supported by Apple T2 coprocessor for the first time and is likely to feature new Navi GPUs from AMD.



Moreover, Apple is set to launch a Mac trade-in program at its retail stores in the United States (on Jun 15) and Canada (on Jun 18), per Bloomberg. Notably, Apple allowed Mac trade-ins on its website but never accepted Mac trade-ins in its retail store locations previously.



Importantly, Apple is offering Apple Card customers the option to buy Macs and Mac XDR Display monitor with 12 monthly interest-free payments. (Read More: Apple Prepping Monthly Payment Plans for Apple Card)



Initiatives to Strengthen Sales, Competitive Edge



Apple undoubtedly lags Lenovo, HP HPQ and Dell Technologies DELL in the PC space in terms of market share. Notably, in coronavirus-hit first-quarter 2020, the company registered its steepest decline in shipments, which fell 20.7% year on year, per IDC data. (Read More: PC Shipments Slide in Q1 as Coronavirus Disrupts Supply Chain)



Dell was the only PC vendor reporting shipment improvement in the quarter. While its shipment inched up 1.1%, HP, Acer and Lenovo reported a shipment decline of 13.8%, 9.9% and 4.3%, respectively.



Further, Apple reported lower Mac sales in second-quarter fiscal 2020, which totalled $5.35 billion, down 2.9% year over year, accounting for 9.2% of total sales. However, this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company expects Mac sales to improve in third-quarter fiscal 2020. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:44:48|Editor: huaxia

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Gao Zhiyong drives a harvester in Yangzhuang Village of Xingtai, north China's Hebei Province, June 10, 2020. During the wheat harvest season, many people travel to Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other major wheat producing areas to help local farmers harvest. Gao Zhiyong and his wife Wu Suge, who are from Nanhe County of Hebei Province, have been in this business for years. Starting in mid-May every year, they would spend about a month travelling to various places and helping farmers harvest. The husband drives the harvester, while the wife is responsible for contacting the farmer clients, measuring the wheat fields and keeping accounts. The couple usually starts their day at 5 o'clock in the morning. "Although it is hard work, the income is considerable. With a daily harvest of about 90 mu (about 6 hectares), our net income can be over 50,000 yuan (about 7,000 U.S. dollars) for a harvest season." Gao says. (Xinhua/Zhu Xudong)
The duo are said to have committed the offences during an Instagram live session on 3 June.

SINGAPORE  A 19-year-old boy and his 53-year-old mother are being investigated for allegedly uttering racial slurs and vulgarities during an Instagram live session.

The actions by the duo  who are both Malay and Singaporean  were committed with the deliberate intent to wound the racial feelings of others, said the police in a media release on Wednesday (10 June).

The police said they had received several reports between 3 and 5 June regarding a live Instagram session involving the duo on 3 June.

They had allegedly done so in response to viewers comments about a video he had made in 2016 and re-posted on his social media account, in which he had used a racial slur, the release said.

In a video clip of the session seen on Twitter, the pair repeatedly use a derogatory term for African-Americans while chatting with another youth. At one point, the mother defends the use of the term as just a figure of speech.

The clip has sparked outrage among many netizens.

Police investigations into the case are ongoing. Any person convicted of uttering words with deliberate intent to wound the racial or religious feelings of another person faces a jail term of up to three years, a fine, or both.

Any person who makes remarks that can cause ill-will and hostility between the different races and religions will be dealt with swiftly and firmly, said the police.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

More Singapore stories:

Man who allegedly incited PMD users to commit violence to be charged

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To celebrate culture and natural heritage in China, the Seoul Tourism Association and Anhui Provincial Culture and Tourism Bureau put on an online exhibition to introduce the major attractions in East China's Anhui province.

Home of three UNESCO heritage sites, including Huangshan Mountain, Hongcun and Xidi ancient villages and the Grand Canal, Anhui is also the birthplace of Huizhou architecture, Xuan paper and the Chinese abacus.

The exhibition, through 60 photos and videos, leads visitors across the amazing landscapes of Anhui.

In 2019, over 1 million people travelled to Anhui from South Korea. The country has grown to be the Anhui's largest tourist source country.




Tracee Ellis Ross shared some great news with her followers, that her longtime friend Samira Nasr has been named the editor-in-chief at Harper's Bazaar.

The 47-year-old Black-ish star took to Instagram on Tuesday night, sharing a recent photo of her and Nasr plus a throwback snap as well.

The news was officially announced by Harper's Bazaar on Tuesday morning, with Nasr becoming the first black editor-in-chief in the publication's 153-year history.

Great news: Tracee Ellis Ross shared some great news with her followers, that her longtime friend Samira Nasr has been named the editor-in-chief at Harper's Bazaar

'CONGRATULATIONS @samiranasr on being named the new EDITOR IN CHIEF OF @harpersbazaar!!!' Ellis Ross gushed.

'Please go to her page and listen to her beautiful words. My heart is bursting. I am so proud,' she added.

'Ive never been shy about my love for this woman. I could not do this life thing without her,' Ross concluded.

All love: 'Ive never been shy about my love for this woman. I could not do this life thing without her,' Ross concluded

Nasr herself posted a video on Instagram, which Ellis Ross shared on her Instagram story, stating, 'My heart bursts!'

'At this particular moment in our nation's history, I am honored to be at the helm of such an iconic brand,' Nasr said in the video.

Nasr added that she is the 'proud daughter of a Lebanese father and Trinidadian mother' and that her worldview is 'expansive' and 'rooted in the belief that representation matters.'

Bursts: Nasr herself posted a video on Instagram, which Ellis Ross shared on her Instagram story, stating, 'My heart bursts!'

Nasr previously served as the executive fashion director at Vanity Fair, and she will start her new position on July 6.

Ellis Ross most recently took part in the YouTube special Dear Class of 2020, which offered graduates a chance to celebrate at home due to COVID-19.

She most recently starred in the new movie The High Note, which debuted on digital formats in late May, starring with Ice Cube and Dakota Johnson.

Participation: Ellis Ross most recently took part in the YouTube special Dear Class of 2020, which offered graduates a chance to celebrate at home due to COVID-19

She has also signed on to voice the title character in MTV's Daria spin-off Jodie, playing an adult version of Jodie Landon from the original series.

The show will follow Landon, 'as she comes into her own and enters the workplace in her first post-college job in tech,' with other characters from the original show appearing as well.

Ellis Ross also just wrapped up the sixth season of ABC's Black-ish, which has been renewed for a seventh season.
Two TMC leaders were killed in separate incidents of violence in West Bengal on Wednesday, police said.

While one killing took place in South 24 Parganas another happened in the Burdwan district, they said.

According to the opposition parties, both the killings were the result of factional feuds in the TMC's youth wing to control the area.

The Trinamool Congress, however, denied the allegations of factional fight and accused the opposition parties for the attacks.

In South 24 Parganas the incident happened when 56-year-old Amir Ali Khan was out for morning walk in Basanti area of the district, a police officer said.

Three others were also injured when the assailants hurled crude bombs before escaping from the scene, he said.

After the incident, several locals ransacked the house of a youth TMC leader.

Police have recovered several crude bombs from the ransacked house, the sources said.

In another incident, a youth was beaten to death during a clash between two groups of TMC at Lakhipur area of East Burdwan district.

The youth identified as Gautam Das was a member of the TMC youth wing.

According to the police, clashes broke out between two groups of TMC in the morning.

"It was during the clashes, perpetrators lynched Das. We have started an investigation into the case. A huge police contingent has been rushed to the spot," a police official said.

BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, said the killings prove the lawlessness prevailing in the state.
A well-known farmer has died after an incident on his farm in Londonerry, Northern Ireland, the Health and Safety Executive has confirmed.

David Crockett died on the family farm, located on Coshquin Road near the border with the Republic of Ireland, on Monday (8 June).

According to media reports, Mr Crockett died after he fell through the roof on an outbuilding. His son, Gordon, was also injured in this incident.

Mr Crockett, whose family have farmed the land near the border of County Donegal for generations, was a familiar voice on radio.

He often appeared on BBC Radio Royle, giving commentary on rural life in Northern Ireland.

He recently featured in a BBC Radio 4 documentary exploring Brexit and its impact on cross-border workers.

Radio presenter Mark Patterson, who collaborated with Mr Crockett at BBC Radio Royle, expressed his sympathies on Twitter.

I'm deeply saddened to learn of the passing of local farmer David Crockett. Davy had a tragic farming accident last night. Down the years, he had become part of the @BBCRadioFoyle family. A warm, generous man with a huge personality. My deepest condolences to the Crockett family. pic.twitter.com/2tqzstTDnS  Mark Patterson (@markyptweets) June 9, 2020

The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) confirmed that an investigation is underway looking at the circumstances surrounding the death.

HSENI is aware of the incident on a farm on the Coshquin Road, Londonderry and is making enquires.

"Our thoughts are with the deceaseds family at this tragic time, the spokesperson said.

A spokesman for the PSNI added: "Police attended the scene of the sudden death of a man at a property in the Coshquin Road area of Derry/Londonderry shortly before 5pm on Monday June 8.

"The death is not being treated as suspicious and Health and Safety Executive have been informed."

Mr Crockett's death follows numerous fatal farm-related incidents in Northern Ireland that have occurred recently.

A young man in his 30s was killed in an accident reportedly involving machinery on a farm in Co Armagh, on Saturday 6 June.

It comes just over two weeks after a dairy farmer from Co Antrim was killed following an accident on his farm.

And in early May, a mother and her young daughter were killed in a crash involving a tractor and a quad bike outside their farm in County Antrim.
City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved Mayor Sylvester Turners $5.1 billion budget for the next fiscal year, slightly increasing funds for the Houston Police Department even as some cities are under pressure to cut law enforcement spending amid nationwide protest over police violence and the death of George Floyd.

As the council took up budget, chants of Black lives matter and No justice, no peace could be heard from protesters outside City Hall. Dozens of police reform advocates had asked city council the day before to divert funding from HPDs massive budget to other services, such as health care and affordable housing.

Instead, the $965 million approved for HPD represents a 2 percent, or $19 million, increase over the current year. The overall city budget is up 1 percent.

The police department takes up more than a third of the tax- and fee-supported general fund, which pays for most of the citys day-to-day operations. Much of the HPD increase is due to a 3 percent raise for officers under a 2018 labor contract that expires in December.

Turner, who later Wednesday signed an executive order on police reform, offered a passionate defense of the HPD budget, arguing that Houston has a shortage of police officers compared to other large cities. He often has pointed out that Houston, with a population of 2.3 million people and an area of more than 650 square miles, has 5,300 officers; Chicago, with a population of 2.7 million and 275 square miles, has about 12,000.

The mayor also said he has spent his five years in office advocating for under-served communities, contending that an increased police department budget does not mean he is ignoring those areas of the city. He pointed to a new multi-service center in Alief, more parks in the south central neighborhoods that make up District D, and an unspecified push for more grocery stores in east and southwest Houston.

The point that Im making is that investing in communities that have been under-served and under-resourced has been a mainstay of this administration since I have been here, Turner said. It is not secondary. Its been at the top of the list. So this is not a new cry for us... It didnt take a police shooting for that to be on our list.

Turner last week announced he would appoint a task force to review HPD policies with an emphasis on accountability and transparency.

At-Large Council member Letitia Plummer proposed an amendment that would cut 199 vacant positions in the police department and redirect that money toward a slew of reforms, including giving the Independent Police Oversight Board subpoena power and boosting funds for mental health units and re-entry programs. Plummers amendments failed without the support of any other council member.

At one point, Plummer held up a heavily redacted HPD use-of-force policy, which she said the department gave her office when it requested a copy.

We started the conversation on police reform. Not one of my amendments passed but I know that I stand on the right side of history, said Plummer, who addressed the protesters outside after the vote. That is the most important takeaway. I answer to the people who elected me. I will be holding the (mayors) task force accountable.

The mayor did support an amendment from Councilmember Ed Pollard that would set up a public website where residents could browse complaints about police misconduct. The mayor said the site could work alongside the executive order he signed later Wednesday, and Pollards amendment was referred to the legal department for implementation.

Turners executive order requires Houston police to use de-escalation techniques, give a verbal warning and exhaust all other options before using deadly force. The order also mandates that officers intervene when they witness misconduct; forbids choke-holds and bars police from firing at moving vehicles. It also requires the department to report uses of force to the citys Independent Police Oversight Board.

Several of the requirements  the duty-to-intervene requirement, ban on chokeholds, and prohibition on firing at moving vehicles  already were HPD policies, and some experts have cast doubt on whether such reforms have resulted in measurable progress in the cities that have adopted them.

Chief Art Acevedo said the reforms were meaningful in that they now are codified at City Hall, meaning that a new chief cannot undo the policies without going through the mayors office.

The approved budget also avoided dire cuts originally envisioned by Turner, whose original plan called for spending cuts, the furlough of 3,000 city workers, and would have exhausted the citys $15 million rainy day fund. Those measures were needed, the mayor said, to fill an upcoming $169 million budget shortfall caused in part by a sharp downturn in sales taxes from the COVID-19 pandemic and plummeting oil prices.

Millions in federal coronavirus relief dollars helped the city avoid that fate. Turner said the city used $56 million of those funds to pay for employees that were redeployed to help manage the pandemic, freeing up some space in the budget. Officials are covering the remaining gap largely by drawing from the citys reserves, which are separate from the rainy day fund devoted solely to storm recovery.

The overall budget marked a 1 percent increase from the previous year. The general fund, at $2.7 billion, was down 2 percent.

The council considered dozens of budget amendments beyond the police reforms, most of which called for various studies or spending cuts and were withdrawn or sent to committees for review. At Large Councilmember Sallie Alcorn won approval of an amendment that sets up a working group to study how Houston and Harris County can consolidate duplicate services. That was a key recommendation from the PFM Report, a city-commissioned study from 2018 on how to structurally balance its books.

The benefit Im looking for is to save some money, Alcorn said.

Turner applauded Alcorns amendment, but was less receptive when she suggested about $356,000 in cuts from his spending plan. The proposal would have trimmed several departments budgets for travel, printing, food and other line items, which Turner interpreted as an effort to micromanage the city.

You are now reaching into my territory as the CEO and manager of this city, Turner said to Alcorn. He suggested that he would vet the council members own budgets if they passed the amendment, adding that respect goes both ways.

Alcorn defended the proposal, arguing that it is customary for council members to suggest ways of cutting spending, even though it is the mayors job to assemble the annual city budget. District G Councilmember Greg Travis, meanwhile, noted that Turner already requires council members to get spending approval from his chief of staff on their own budgets.

After the budget passed, Turner said he did not intend to suggest Alcorns amendment was disrespectful.

City council approved several other amendments, including one from Councilmember Abbie Kamin that set up a vote on whether to give tax incentives to businesses that build so-called green infrastructure, which is aimed at reducing stormwater runoff.

dylan.mcguinness@chron.com

jasper.scherer@chron.com
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration will not even consider changing the name of any of the 10 Army bases that are named for Confederate Army officers. Two days earlier, Defense Secretary Mark Esper indicated that he was open to a broad discussion of such changes.

These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom, Trump wrote. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.

Name changes have not been proposed by the Army or the Pentagon, but on Monday, Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy indicated in response to questions from reporters that they were open to a bipartisan discussion of renaming bases such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Benning in Georgia.

Supporters of disassociating military bases from Confederate Army officers argue that they represent the racism and divisiveness of the Civil War era and glorify men who fought against the United States.

To amplify Trumps view, his press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, read his tweets to reporters in the White House briefing room. She said he is fervently opposed to changing the base names and believes that doing so would amount to complete disrespect for soldiers who trained there over the years.

The possibility of renaming the bases, McEnany said, is an absolute non-starter for Trump.

If Congress were to pass legislation requiring name changes, he would not sign it, she said.

The U.S. military recently began rethinking its traditional connection to Confederate Army symbols, including the Army base names, mindful of their divisiveness at a time the nation is wrestling with questions of race after the death of George Floyd in police hands. The Navy and the Marine Corps are now banning public displays of the Confederate Army battle flag on their installations, casting their decision as necessary to preserve cohesion within the ranks.

Ten major Army installations are named for Confederate Army officers, mostly senior generals, including Robert E. Lee. Among the 10 is Fort Benning, the namesake of Confederate Army Gen. Henry L. Benning, who was a leader of Georgias secessionist movement and an advocate of preserving slavery. Others are in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana. The naming was done mostly after World War I and in the 1940s, in some cases as gestures of conciliation to the South.

Few voices in the military are openly defending the link to Confederate symbols, but some of the bases named for Confederate officers are legendary in their own right. Fort Bragg, for example, is home to some of the Armys most elite forces. Any decision to change the name at Bragg or other bases likely would involve consulting with officials from the affected states and localities.

Paul Eaton, a retired two-star Army general and a former commanding general of Fort Benning, said Trumps statements go against ideals the Army stands for.

Today, Donald Trump made it official. Rather than move this nation further away from institutionalized racism, he believes we should cling to it and its heritage, by keeping the names of racist traitors on the gates of our military bases, Eaton said.

Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and veteran of the Iraq war, said in an email exchange that renaming these bases is long overdue.

Most serving soldiers know little about the history behind the Confederate leaders for whom these bases are named, or the political deals that caused them to be honored in this fashion, he said. There might be some pushback from a small segment of soldiers from the South, but this is what we like to call a teachable moment. Now is the time to finally bring about a change that will speak volumes as to what the U.S. Army stands for.

David Petraeus, a retired four-star Army general, said the renaming move, which he supports, amounts to a war of memory, and that before deciding to rename bases like Fort Bragg, where he served with the 82nd Airborne Division, the Army must be ready to follow its own procedures for such change.

The irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention, Petraeus wrote in an essay published Tuesday by The Atlantic. Now, belatedly, is the moment for us to pay such attention.

Fort Bragg was named for Braxton Bragg, a native North Carolinian and Confederate general with a reputation for bravery and mediocre leadership. His forces were defeated at the Battle of Chattanooga in November 1863.
Top EU diplomat: EU: US no longer party to Iran deal, can't invoke JCPOA

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 4:30 PM

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says the US has already pulled out of an international 2015 nuclear agreement signed between Iran and major world powers and cannot currently use its former membership of the deal to seek a permanent arms embargo on Tehran.

Speaking to reporters after talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday, the EU's top diplomat said that the US can no longer claim to have a role in the nuclear deal  officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) since it has withdrawn from the pact.

"The United States has withdrawn from the JCPOA, and now they cannot claim that they are still part of the JCPOA in order to deal with this issue from the JCPOA agreement. They withdraw. It's clear. They withdraw," Borrell said.

The EU believes that the JCPOA plays a key role in maintaining regional and international security and has made efforts to keep the pact alive despite US pressure.

Borrell is tasked with supervising the circumstances surrounding the implementation of the nuclear deal so he can help resolve disputes between its signatories.

The landmark nuclear deal had been reached between Iran and the P5+1 group -- the US, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany -- in 2015. However, in May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the JCPOA and later re-imposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran and began unleashing the "toughest ever" fresh sanctions.

Although the US is not a party to the JCPOA any more, it has recently launched a campaign to renew the Iran arms ban  in place since 2006/2007 -- through a resolution at the Security Council. Russia and China are against the push, and most likely to veto it.

To circumvent the veto, the US says it will argue that it legally remains a "participant state" in the nuclear pact only to trigger the snapback that would restore the UN sanctions, which had been in place against Iran prior to the JCPOA inking.

Tehran says Washington, through its unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, has forfeited all rights to have a say in the agreement.

In a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council circulated on Monday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the administration of President Trump is pursuing a politically motivated campaign against Iran, calling for "universal condemnation" of Washington's attempts to get the UN Security Council to impose a permanent arms embargo against the Islamic Republic.

Lavrov said the US withdrew from the JCPOA and now has no legal right to try to use the UN Resolution 2231, which endorses the deal, to indefinitely continue the arms embargo against Tehran.

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There was a wild scramble when Gracie threw an orange from a presentation basket of fruit into the audience. The sailor who caught it called out. "I will never eat it, but will keep it as long as I can. In the afternoon Gracie spent more than an hour with sick and wounded Servicemen at the Prince of Wales Repatriation Hospital, sang more than twenty songs, many of them request numbers, and kissed a young sailor with his leg in plaster who looked dazed and said his heart "sort of jumped up and down." Entertainer Gracie Fields singing at her concert at the Sydney Showground on 13 August 1945 Credit:Sydney Morning Herald Archives At 4.30 pm. she was mobbed by a crowd outside the Town Hall, and had her hat nearly knocked off by an outsized bunch of celery clutched by a woman who tried to grab her as she arrived to attend a reception given by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, Alderman and Mrs. Neville Harding.

SANG 18 SONGS After being cut off from the rest of the party by a crowd of women - mostly relatives and friends of Service-men -at the Prince of Wales Hospital Gracie Fields eventually reached the Red Cross recreation hall. She hopped on to a chair from which she sang 18 songs, pausing only to crack a joke or to tell of the last time she sang the song. She said that the last time she had sung "When a Boy from Alabama meets a Girl from Gundagai" it had beep to a gathering of R.A.A.F. boys in Australia House, who were intrigued by her pronunciation of "Goondagai." She went from one song to another, whether her accompanist had the music of not. "Ave Maria" and "Sally"were by far the most popular. In the naval ward she took off her shoes and stood on a bed so that the men could see her. She sang four or five songs, and danced up and down the ward.

A first A.I.F veteran, Sergeant J.Roberts. D.S.C.. M.M.. presented a scarf which he had woven for her and timidly asked for her autograph. "Of course, as many as you want. Line up on the right boys." she said and sat at a table to sign. In the audience she discovered a man to whom she had sung during the last war-Sergeant Patrick O'Hara, who heard her sing at the Portsmouth submarine depot in 1918. MERRY BLUE EYES To those who have seen Gracie Fields only on the screen she looks slimmer, shorter, and younger, though none the less vivacious. Her fresh pink and white complexion, her merry blue eyes which, off-guard, look wistful and sad, and her soft fair hair with its blue ribbon bow on the roll at the nape of then neck all combine to give a picture which is lost in th black and white of the screen.

Nor does she speak all the time in Lancashire dialect. Her English, some-times Loading clipped, dropping h's and g's, sometimes broad with lengthened vowels, is always good. She lapses into her native idiom only to point a phrase or suggest a character. She moves her hands a great deal in gestures to act out a story. Her alert mind is reflected in her quick tongue, and her eyes miss nothing of what goes on around her. The whistle which she uses with such tremendous effect in her stage work is characteristic of her: she uses it almost as other people use a spoken commentary. At her Press interview Miss Fields said she arrived in Sydney feeling like "a dead dook" but she didn't look it. She told how she had been trying to come to Australia for 10 years, and had been keeping in practice until she could get here. Once having made up her mind, she told her representative in America, "Turn down everything, we'll make a proper job of it."

Loading Miss Stewart -"the boss" - told how Gracie had turned down concert offers, film offers, radio offers, and a 7,500-dollar-a-week Broadway contract. "Silly, isn't it?" said Miss Fields, cupping her laughter behind her hand. Her new film, "Molly and Me," with Monty Woolley-"he's good to work with" - she described as light and charming. Asked her opinion of the ban on the broadcasting of records by English comedians such as Ronald Frankau. Miss Fields said she hadn't heard of it, but asked: "Why? Because they're mucky?"
Hospitalisations in Delhi during third Covid wave significantly lower than second

Isolation facility not mandatory for flyers testing positive on arrival from at-risk countries: Check guidelin

Rajasthan to seal its borders amid spike in COVID-19 cases

India

oi-Deepika S

Jaipur, June 10: Rajasthan government has decided to seal its borders for a week due to a rise in Covid-19 cases. Only those with valid passes will be allowed to cross state borders.

Following the decision, permits will be needed for inter-state movement, news agency PTI reported quoting an official.

No person can enter Rajasthan without a 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from the state or leave without a pass, Director General Of Police, Law and Order, M L Lather said in an order. Directions were issued to all range IGs, SPs, commissioners and deputy commissioners in this regard, officials said.

Rajasthan issues SOPs for inter-state travel

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

They were asked to put up check posts along state borders with immediate effect and the arrangements would be in place for the next seven days.

Apart from inter-state routes, check posts will be put up at railway stations and airports as well, the order said.

District collectors and superintendents of police will be the authorities for issuing passes and only emergency cases like hospitalisation or death may be exempted, it said.

Rajasthan registered a total of 11,368 confirmed coronavirus cases after 123 more people tested positive for COVID-19 till 10.30 am on Wednesday, said the state health department.

As many as 256 patients have lost their lives to the viral disease in the state.
Robert K. Seolas "I'm excited to join the board of directors at Plingo and look forward to sharing my experience scaling companies and in-depth knowledge of Marketing-Technology to help them succeed.

Plingo Media Inc. welcomes Robert Seolas to its Board of Directors as its newest board member.

Mr. Seolas has been the CEO and is a Co-founder of ObservePoint. He currently serves on their Board of Directors. ObservePoint is an automated platform built to validate and optimize digital marketing technologies. Robert has been responsible for setting vision, strategy, go-to-market efforts, and leading the tactical execution necessary to achieve consistent year over year growth at ObservePoint. Robert led the creation and strategic development of the company. While CEO, the company under his leadership, was repeatedly named to the Deloitte Fast 500, the Inc 5000 and Mountain West Capital fastest-growing companies in Utah award lists. He co-facilitated the acquisition of a network of 50 global partners, creating a wholly new and award-winning technology, that has led to 11 patents.

Mr. Seolas noted: "I'm excited to join the board of directors at Plingo and look forward to sharing my experience scaling companies and in-depth knowledge of Marketing-Technology to help them grow. The company's innovative approach and unique go to market strategy were of great appeal."

Rich Gutzky CEO added: "We are pleased to welcome Robert to our board at an exciting time as we continue to revolutionize communications and drive our strategy forward. Robert complements our board of directors' skills and experiences, and we are confident his expertise will provide valuable perspectives as we continue to execute our plans, drive profitability and enhance value to all our shareholders."

At Plingo, we are continuing to work through these challenging times with COVID-19, delivering our unique customer experience and content creation solutions on both our Web Tool and our Mobile App based products. Plingo is positioned to help marketers genuinely provide Rich Media Content Messaging, improve their customer journeys, increase product penetration, and drive higher conversion rates. These unique messages can be easily created, personalized and sent individually, automatically through website triggers or posted within existing website promotions.

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On Monday Spains Public Prosecutor announced the penalties he will be asking for in the court case against the top brass of the Catalan police force during the 2017 independence bid: Major Josep Lluis Trapero, Superintendent Teresa Laplana and the ministrys top political appointees (Cesar Puig and Pere Soler). As was expected in the case of Trapero, Puig and Soler, the Prosecutor has dropped the counts of rebellion and, following the Supreme Courts ruling in the recent case against the political leadership, he has chosen to press charges of sedition instead. However, the prison sentences being asked for are sill hefty: ten years, down from eleven. Nevertheless, the novelty is that the Prosecutors Office is now open to the possibility of convicting Trapero, Laplana and the top officials merely for a crime of disobedience, which does not carry a prison sentence. Trapero and Laplana would be suspended for a year and eight months and would be given a 60,000 fine.

It is worth remembering that at the start of the trial prosecutors Miguel Angel Carballo and Pedro Rubira refused to change the rebellion charge for sedition and, therefore, the entire court case was centered around that. So what is the problem now? During the trial it has been clearly established that Trapero obeyed the Spanish law at all times during the failed independence bid. So much so that he even had a plan to detain Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and his entire cabinet. This has left the prosecution with egg all over their face and they have had to resort to an alternative plan to ensure that the former leader of the Mossos dEsquadra is not fully exonerated.

They can try to present it any way they like, but accusing someone of rebellion an extremely serious offence only to accept that the whole thing my boil down to an act of disobedience is totally outrageous. The contrast is so enormous that it exposes a blatant lack of professionalism which shouldnt go unpunished in the Prosecutors Office. The reputational damage inflicted on Trapero cannot be repaired. Even in the unlikely event that he should be found non guilty of disobedience, nothing could remedy the damage done. A non-guilty verdict is the only course of action, judging by the evidence presented alone. Still, the precedent of the trial against the independence leaders does not invite optimism: there is a great deal of pressure in Madrid for Trapero to be made an example of.

However, if Trapero were convicted only for disobedience, what would happen with the Catalan leaders who have been sentenced to long years in prison? It should be emphasised that their conviction for sedition was largely based on the role played by the Mossos dEsquadra on September 20 and October 1, 2017. How can the convictions still stand, if it turns out that the chief of the Catalan police played no part in the alleged separatist conspiracy? How could you justify the conviction of Joaquim Forn, then Catalan minister of the interior and Traperos boss?

To sum up, Traperos trial has exposed how flimsy the evidence which got the political leadership convicted was and the narrative that was built to support their convictions. Of course, whether that will have any actual consequences in Spain is a different matter altogether.
After nearly three months of working from home arrangements, WAs peak landlord body has urged tenants to return office staff to the city to help struggling CBD businesses.

Despite WA entering loosened phase 3 restrictions on June 6, Perths streets remain noticeably bare as major companies opt for caution in returning their huge workforces back to city offices.

Perth companies have been urged to return staff to the CBD to help struggling businesses. Credit:Photo: Louie Douvis

Public transport patronage, a good indicator of activity in the city, is still down between 40 and 50 per cent compared to pre-COVID-19 levels.

The Property Council of WA said its members were reporting about 25 per cent occupancy.
Some of the more than 14,600 mail ballots that arrived after the state deadline in Philadelphia. Read more

Tens of thousands of Pennsylvania voters were almost disenfranchised last week. Thousands of others actually were.

And things could be even worse in November.

Thats the clear takeaway from a review of state data on mail ballots, along with interviews with elections officials in several of Pennsylvanias largest counties: Tens of thousands of ballots arrived in the week after the June 2 primary election, and thousands more voters who applied to vote by mail ended up using provisional ballots at the polls instead.

Most of those votes will be counted after orders from Gov. Tom Wolf and judges extending ballot deadlines for specific counties. But that leaves thousands of votes in the rest of the state uncounted. And those orders applied only to this election, leaving in place what many election officials say are problematic deadlines that will continue to ensnare voters in November and future elections.

These deadlines have real consequences, said Delaware County Council Member Christine Reuther. And one of them is, people are going to be disenfranchised.

Its a problem that Reuther and other elections officials across the state had warned about. A new state law allowing anyone to vote by mail and coronavirus fears of voting in person led to a massive volume of mail ballots. The pandemic also made the mail ballot process slower than normal, they said, in part because of unpredictable delivery times. Officials warned that thousands or even tens of thousands of voters would receive their ballots too late to return them.

 READ MORE: (From before the election) Thousands of Pennsylvania voters might not get their mail ballots in time to actually vote

They were right.

In Philadelphia alone, officials said, more than 14,600 ballots arrived after the deadline. Allegheny County had 9,400. Montgomery County had more than 5,800, Delaware County had 2,500, and Bucks County had more than 1,200. Those were among the counties that received extensions and will have most of those late ballots counted.

Others received no extension, including Chester County, which had 1,600 ballots arrive late. The numbers are much lower in the rest of the states smaller counties, such as Northampton with its 300 late ballots. But those numbers likely add up to thousands of rejected votes.

The number could be as high as 75,700 late ballots statewide, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections. But that data did not align with what some counties reported and is based on a system that for technical reasons overstates the numbers. That data showed 8,680 late ballots in counties that did not have extensions.

Donald Trumps 2016 margin of victory in the state was 44,000 votes, or about 0.7%.

Weve been saying what was going to happen, and nobody was listening to us, and it happened, said Deborah Olivieri, elections director for Berks County, which had a couple hundred ballots arrive after the deadline. I hope theyll listen to us now.

The struggle to count the flood of mail ballots has left numerous races without a clear winner a week after election day.

 READ MORE: Pennsylvania held an election. We wont know the results for days. Heres what that means for November.

The counties also saw a significant spike in provisional ballots, which are paper ballots used at polling places when a voters status has to be confirmed after election day. Elections officials said most of the provisional ballots were used by voters who had applied for mail ballots and were unable to return them in time, a sign the deadlines were too tight. Bucks County, for example, had about 2,500 provisional ballots, far surpassing the previous record of 400. Almost 1,600 of them were from people who had requested mail ballots.

Its also impossible to know how many voters simply didnt cast a ballot, choosing to sit out the election because they could not meet the mail deadline.

There are always some voters who turn in their ballots too late, and not every late arrival means a voter was silenced. Some people who sent mail ballots too late may have also voted using provisional ballots. Wolf ordered late-arriving ballots to be counted in six counties, including Philadelphia, if they were postmarked by election day.

And as always, some voters sent their ballots in after election day itself, which isnt allowed. Out of Allegheny Countys 9,400 or so late-arriving mail ballots, about 6,800 were postmarked by election day and will be counted under Wolfs order. But 2,600 were not.

No matter what the deadline is, there are always going to be late ones; people wait until the last minute, said Tim Benyo, the chief elections clerk for Lehigh County. Its going to happen every time. I dont know what the fix is.

Hes not the only one whos unsure of a solution. Some elections officials and lawmakers want an earlier deadline for requesting a ballot. Others suggest a later deadline for returning them, and multiple lawsuits have sought such an extension. Others propose a combination of the two or some other method.

 READ MORE: The Pennsylvania primary wasnt a disaster. But it showed theres work to do before November

Whatever the fix, elections administrators generally agree on one thing: The current timeline shuts out some voters.

Voters can apply for mail ballots up to one week before election day, and the ballots must be returned to county elections officials by 8 p.m. on election day. For voters who apply at the deadline, that leaves just one week for elections officials to process and approve applications, print and prepare ballots, and mail them to voters  then for voters to fill out the ballot and mail it back.

But some of those steps can take a day or two if not more, and the pandemic exacerbated that.

Its insufficient and unrealistic that anyone could ever apply for a ballot on or, frankly, near the deadline and have any faith that it would be returned by 8 p.m." one week later, said Lee Soltysiak, Montgomery Countys chief operating officer and the clerk of its elections board. Its not realistic. Its disingenuous to suggest its even possible.

State lawmakers should change the deadlines, county officials said.

They should have introduced something the day after the election. It was so obvious, said Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia, chair of the Bucks County commissioners.

Olivieri was hopeful that evidence of the problem will spur a change.

Were not just talking [about change] because we dont want to deal with it, were talking because we know whats going to come down the road, she said. I just hope they listen to us now. Were not crying wolf or the sky is falling for no reason.
TORRINGTON  Its not as if the guy in the blue-striped Oxford shirt wasnt qualified, but when Gov. Ned Lamont started loading boxes of fruits and vegetables into cars at a Torrington middle school Wednesday morning, he added some distinction to the weekly food giveaway program sponsored by the Friendly Hands Food Bank.

Hello, Im your governor, Lamont said to driver after driver during the free, no-questions-asked event that attracted more than 450 vehicles, from pricey Mercedes and Volvos to rusty pickup trucks and everything in between.

Youre doing a good job, Lamont, shouted a woman driving off with a box of cantaloupe, oranges, apples and onions.

Lamont joined local volunteers, the American Red Cross and emergency responders in helping give away 1,650 boxes of produce trucked overnight from Missouri, as part of a national $40 million federal Farmers to Families Food Box Program that partially solves food insecurity problems here each week, while giving Midwestern growers a market for their crops.

Using the image of a hungry Connecticut to continue his campaign to achieve more concessions from state unions, Lamont said he was disappointed that while thousands of people throughout the state are having trouble paying bills, public employee unions remain opposed to his request to rescind August raises that will total about $350 million.

The raises total 3.5 percent, plus step increases of 2 percent for many state employees  but they follow several years of zero increases under a 2017 concession agreement.

The State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition is in the middle of an online petition drive to lobby lawmakers to raise income taxes on the states wealthiest after years of union concessions dating back to 2011.

Over time, Connecticut has become one of the most unequal states in the country, which has slowed economic growth, and denied opportunities for millions of working- and middle-class families, the coalitions petition says, stressing that large corporations dodge taxes while paying low wages to employees, and online retailers are not paying state sales taxes.

On Tuesday, Lamont said he was powerless to stop the raises and the backdrop of the food bank effort Wednesday illustrated his argument.

I didnt think this was the time to have a pay increase for everybody across the board, not when you see people lined up here behind me, desperate for food, just to make sure they can get through for another day, Lamont said.

He has had conversations with union leaders but formal negotiations have not happened because the contract is not open.

Our state employees did extraordinary work throughout this pandemic and a lot of them couldnt telecommute, Lamont told reporters after his 20 minutes of lifting cardboard boxes of produce into trucks, hatchbacks and passenger seats of cars from throughout northwestern Connecticut. Theyre on the front lines. They are social-service workers, they were correction officers, at risk, and we gave the nurses combat-pay increases. We have proposals to give others combat pay for those on the front lines making a difference.

The state Department of Public Health on Wednesday reported 23 new fatalities in the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the latest death toll to 4,120.

A net decrease of 23 hospitalizations brought the total patient census to 270, the fewest since March 28.

SEBAC posted a statement and a video produced by New England Healthcare Employees Union, District 1199/SEIU.

Despite all that union members have done to provide crucial public services during the pandemic, and the billions we have saved through SEBAC agreements, anti-worker special interests are attempting to undermine state employees collective bargaining rights, the statement says. To preserve past gains and make future progress for working and middle-class families in these challenging times, we need to remind elected officials that there are better choices.

Hundreds of thousands of state residents sought unemployment benefits when the state shut down in mid-March and while the Phase 2 reopening may get close to 95 percent of the economy back on track next week, itll take months to recoup the economic losses, Lamont said.

These are not long-term unemployed, Lamont said, looking over his shoulder at the steady, slow procession of vehicles. These are folks who were fully employed up until 90 days ago and this is a lifeline until we get our economy back up at full throttle. The volunteerism is just amazing.

Cars started lining up at the Torrington Middle School at about 6:30, in advance of the 8 a.m. opening of the weekly food giveaway. Volunteers under the supervision of police and Fire Chief Peter Towey, who is the citys emergency management director, put the vehicles into two lanes, then directed them to a line of pallets stacked with boxes.

At exactly 10 a.m., the boxes were gone, with dozens of others saved for delivery later in the day to senior housing complexes. The boxes included information on the four local food pantries, and the states 2-1-1 phone line.

Karen Thomas, executive director of the food bank, said the month-old produce program will continue weekly through the end of August.

I think people really need this, Thomas said. Its not only fighting food insecurity, but its supporting our town, our surrounding towns and its giving people a way to access free, nutritious food that is so needed.

She said that the food bank has tripled its client base since March. She wants to expand the program to Waterbury and Hartford, as well.

I think last month we did 23,518 meals, Thomas said.

Twenty three thousand? Lamont said when he met Thomas. Wow. A new-looking, orange Hummer drove up to a pallet piled with boxes. Isnt that a $50,000 car? Lamont asked.

Thomas has said that many new clients are shocked at their circumstances.

Theyve said to me with tears in their eyes Ive not been working. I have a choice to make: Do I pay the mortgage, how do I feed my kids? And I just need a little extra help and thats what were here for.

Driving off with his box of fruit and vegetables, Mitch, an unemployed worker who lives about a mile away, said the food is helping him make ends meet. All these programs are wonderful, he said.

In a vehicle behind his, Frank Gangloff, Sr. a retired Army veteran from Thomaston and his wife said it was their first visit to the weekly event. We love it, he said. Its just a tough situation. People are starving and nobodys got any money. Its tough.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
The Rocket City is well on its way to becoming the largest city, as Huntsvilles population is set to surpass Birminghams within the next three years, if not faster. Meanwhile, Alabamas other large cities have each seen their populations shrink.

Population estimates released last month by the U.S. Census Bureau show Huntsville has added thousands of people a year since 2010, leaping from a population of 180,000 in 2010 to over 200,000 in 2019. That 20,000 person increase is the largest of any city in the state over that time period.

Huntsville started last decade as the fourth largest city in Alabama. It passed Mobile in 2015 and last year it officially passed Montgomery, the state capital, to become the second-largest city in the state.

[Cant see the chart? Click here.]

Birmingham, meanwhile, has lost population in seven of the last nine years. And the pace is picking up.

The Magic City lost more than 1,000 people in 2018 and 2019. Since 2010, its lost nearly 3,000 total people, a decrease of 1.3 percent. Its total population in 2019 was 209,400, according to the Census. Birmingham has fewer people now than its had at any time in the last 100 years.

Montgomery and Mobile, the third and fourth most populous cities in Alabama, respectively, have lost population at an even faster rate.

Montgomery had more than 205,000 people in 2010. The city has seen its population fall by more than 7,000, a four percent decrease since 2010. Montgomerys estimated population in 2019 was 198,500.

Mobile hasnt faired much better. The Port Citys population fell from 195,000 in 2010 to 188,000 in 2019, a decrease of more than 6,000 people, or around 3 percent.

Both Montgomery and Mobile are among the fastest shrinking U.S. cities with at least 50,000 people - Montgomery is 30th and Mobile 35th on that list.

Huntsvilles breakneck growth and Birminghams steady population loss means Huntsville is likely to pass Birmingham within three years. Depending on what happens in each city, it could be sooner. Birmingham has seen its population loss accelerate over the last few years, while Huntsvilles growth has been fairly steady. If Birmingham shrinks at the same rate it has over the last five years, Huntsville will be larger in 2022. If Birminghams population loss slows back down toward where its been for most of the last decade, it will still get passed by Huntsville, but just a year later, in 2023.

[Cant see the chart? Click here.]

But Birminghams metro area, which includes several fast-growing cities like Chelsea, Hoover and others, is still by far the largest metro area in Alabama. The Birmingham metro consists of seven counties and is home to more than 1 million people. Despite Birmingham citys population loss, the metro area has grown steadily since 2010, especially in the suburbs of Shelby County. Huntsvilles metro area, meanwhile, consists of just two counties, and is home to just over 471,000 people, the second largest metro area in the state.

Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.
ROME - The foreign ministers of France, Germany and Italy as well as the bloc's foreign policy chief have signed a letter calling for Libyan parties at conflict and all international bodies involved to cease military operations in the country immediately. The joint statement was signed by Luigi Di Maio, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Heiko Maas and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell.

''In the aftermath of the constructive commitments to halt fighting, resume dialogue and reach a ceasefire within the framework of the 5+5 joint military committee, taken in Cairo on June 6, the High Representative of the EU and the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Italy urge all Libyan and International parties to effectively and immediately stop all military operations and engage constructively in the 5+5 negotiations, based upon the draft agreement of 23 February,'' the letter noted.

''These efforts must lead all parties to swiftly agree on a ceasefire agreement in the 5+5 framework, including the withdrawal of all foreign forces, mercenaries and military equipment supplied in violation of the UN arms embargo from all regions of Libya, and to engage constructively in all strands of the UN-led intra-Libyan dialogue in order to pave the way for a comprehensive political agreement in accordance with the parameters agreed upon in Berlin,'' it added.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 16:04:24|Editor: huaxia

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Members of a Chinese anti-epidemic medical expert team to Palestine attend a departure ceremony at Jiangbei International Airport in Chongqing, southwest China, June 10, 2020. The medical expert team, organized by China's National Health Commission and formed by Chongqing municipal government, left Chongqing on Wednesday for Palestine to help its fight against COVID-19. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)
The Blockchain Box is a sophisticated piece of hardware that allows physical or cloud servers to "upload" or save information directly to the Blockchain Box. As an easy to use, plug and play device, organizations can immediately unlock the power and authenticating properties of Blockchain without the extensive technical setup that would be required without the solution.

Addressing the Universal Problem of Data Ownership

The rapid digitization of our world has made many aspects of life more convenient and trouble-free but has also given rise to several complex problems. Of the more than 20,000 civil cases that were disputed in China in 2018, 73% involved the use of electronic evidence, including chat logs, emails, mobile phone messages, and Weibo and blog content.

This reliance on electronic evidence raises a severe issue of legitimacy and credibility; as was reflected by findings from the Chinese Document Judgement Network that only 7.2% of this submitted evidence made a clear case.

As the problem develops, authorities, especially in China, are pouring more and more resources into finding potential solutions. Head of Eastern China Ningbo's Internet Court, Zhang Jingshu notes that "the Ningbo Internet Court attaches great importance to the quality of electronic data. As the first Internet Court to utilize blockchain technology supported electronic evidence in the country, we have seen a satisfactory increase in the quality of this evidence and believe it also maximizes the impact of the judicial system."

Creating Something Unique AND Digital

Looking past the hype of cryptocurrencies as investment vehicles, both VRV and Ancun understand the true value of Blockchain to lie in the ability for people and organizations to create something that is both unique and digital - something that was impossible to do before now.

This incredible breakthrough sees its greatest use case in protecting intellectual property rights and creating transparent and untamperable electronic evidence. With direct reference to VRV and Ancun's blockchain box, Jiang Renshuang, Vice President of North-East China Qingdao's Internet Court, also notes that "the deployment and use of blockchain box can further improve the performance of court cases."

In China, given the favourable position of government and judicial forces, blockchain adoption in the field of intellectual property rights and electronic evidence will contribute to creating a fairer and more just society. VRV and Ancun's blockchain box is primed to lower the barrier to entry and help bring this power of Blockchain to more people and organizations.

For more information on the world's first plug and play blockchain solution, visit www.vrv.com.cn.

About Beijing Beixinyuan

Beijing Beixinyuan Software Co., Ltd. (VRV) was founded in 1996 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange GEM in 2012 (Code: 300352). Beixinyuan is one of the leading enterprises focused on information security in China; specifically in the areas of big data security, communication security and general applications. The company is divided into three core business segments: information security and localization credibility, mobile office and secure communications, community support and health care, and is committed to its role as a comprehensive solution provider of smart security in the era of 5G.

For media enquiries, please contact [email protected].

SOURCE Beijing Beixinyuan Software Co., Ltd. (VRV)

Related Links

http://www.vrv.com.cn


An 89-year-old British woman has been killed in a gas explosion at her Costa del Sol home.

Firefighters who scrambled to the scene this morning at 7am discovered the woman's body crushed under rubble as they desperately tried in vain to resuscitate her.

The pensioner's husband was also injured in the blast at the couple's second-floor apartment in Torre del Mar, to the east of Malaga.

He was found sitting in a chair surrounded by debris from the explosion and was rushed to hospital, but is not thought to have been seriously injured.

Mounds of debris and rubble from inside the flat reveal the devastation caused by the blast

Car roofs were caved in by debris from this morning's explosion as shocked neighbours stood outside their homes in disbelief at the explosion wreckage

Close to an entire wall was demolished in the gas explosion, which happened this morning at around 7am

Astonishing pictures from the scene of the devastation showed firefighters trying to clear some of the bricks and other debris from the apartment and make sure it was made as safe as possible so there was minimal risk of further structural collapse

The flat was wrecked by the explosion, which caused colossal damage to cars parked outside and other properties in the four-storey block and led to residents being evacuated.

Astonishing pictures from the scene of the devastation showed firefighters trying to clear bricks and other debris from the apartment and ensure it was made safe to reduce the risk of further structural collapse.

Cars can be seen with smothered in and with roofs caved in from debris in the blast.

Authorities confirmed the survivor is an 88-year-old Brit and sources said the dead woman, who has not been named, was a British national.

Neighbour Jose Manuel Garcia described how he was sleeping when he was woken by the explosion, which happened just after 7am.

Shattered glass and debris is strewn on the ground below the second-floor apartment. A balcony was ripped from its hinges in the explosion which left an 89-year-old British pensioner dead

Cars were damaged in the blast and authorities remain at the scene as they try to ensure the flat is structurally secure

Firefighters survey the damage from the explosion, that left one woman dead and her husband injured

Neighbour Jose Manuel Garcia said he was sleeping when he was woken by the huge explosion, which happened just after 7am this morning

An entire wall was ripped apart in the blast exposing this morning

He said: 'I was in bed still and found myself surrounded by debris and dust. I didn't know what had happened at first.'

The building is understood to have been the scene of a previous explosion around 30 years ago.

That blast occurred in a ground-floor premises being used at the time as a fruit and veg shop. It was not immediately clear this morning if anyone had died.

Torre del Mar is one of the main tourist resorts east of Malaga on the Costa del Sol and part of the municipal district of Velez-Malaga, capital of the Axarquia region.

Police forensic experts are currently at the scene and a fall investigation will take place into the cause of the blast.
CLEVELAND -- Theyre trying to kill my son.

With eyes overwhelmed by tears, a mother cried to me with these words. What made it harder was that I could not embrace her because these difficult times call for social distancing. As protests against police brutality ramp up across the country and uncertainty rises in the streets, surely I wanted to tell her: Your son wasnt sent to a prison to die. But there are a number of children within youth prisons in Ohio, and across the United States who are at extreme risk of contracting COVID-19.
Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty ImagesSurfaces was planning to release a new single featuring Elton John a little while ago, but they've delayed the release until this Friday, given everything that's been happening in the world.

On Instagram, the "Sunday Best" duo writes, "We decided to hold this song back to create room for the much needed information being shared on social media right now... from the beginning we just wanted this song to be a breath of optimism for those who need it... and from the bottom of our hearts we hope this song will be a source of encouragement now more than ever."

"If you are broken, hurting, lost, or just going through it... this ones for you," they continue. "Our new song 'learn to fly' with @eltonjohn comes out this friday."

Elton, meanwhile, took to Instagram to explain how the song came about.

"I heard their song 'Sunday Best' for the first time in Australia and liked it so much," he writes. "Then @surfacesmusic reached out to me to ask if I would sing and play some piano on their new track, 'Learn to Fly.' I loved the song and the production, so couldnt say no!"

"It was a unique experience to collaborate remotely over Zoom but these guys are terrific and we had a blast" he adds. "The track is out this Friday and I cant wait for you to hear it."

The duo first teased the song on May 29 when they posted a shot of a Zoom session featuring themselves and the legendary musician.

By Andrea DresdaleCopyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
In an incredible discovery, a team of explorers found a wondrous natural blue pool which may have never been seen by humans, until now. The Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico recently took to Facebook to inform about the pristine cave pool which was found in Lechuguilla Cave. In the post, the national park authorities shared a picture of the sight and said that the pool contains milky aquamarine liquid, surrounded by white frosted rock.

The Carlsbad Caverns authorities said that they found the pristine pool when the explorers ventures out beyond a body of water known as the Lake of Liquid Sky, which was discovered back in 1993. Furthermore, the officials also explained that the edges beneath the pool appear to be pool fingers, which are believed to be bacterial colonies. The team of explorers also took special precautions to ensure that there were no contaminants introduced to the natural pool.

READ: Video: 'Copycat' Kitten Imitates Soldier, Marches Along With Him

The caption of the post read, "This cave pool, found in Lechuguilla Cave, appears to be completely pristine. The edges beneath this pool appear to be pool fingers, which could be bacterial colonies that have evolved entirely without human presence.

It further said, The goals of this expedition have been a long time in the making since the Lake of the Liquid Sky was first encountered in 1993. Rest assured The team took special precautions to ensure there were no contaminants introduced to these pools of water!

READ: 'Parle-G Is An Emotion' Say Netizens As The Biscuit Brand Registers Record-high Sales

Netizens call it breathtaking

Since shared, the breathtaking view has left netizens in amazed. With hundreds of likes and comments, the post has also been re-shared nearly 1,000 times. While one internet user called it beautiful, others said, Amazing view, and amazing discovery!! Hopefully, National Park will keep it that way, pristine. Wonderful. Hopefully one day I can visit him. Cross my fingers!. Beautiful creation of God. The bad thing would be that it would start being visited by humans, that would be the sad ending, added another.

READ: Video: Man Brilliantly Skateboards On Wheelchair, Leaves Netizens In Disbelief

READ: Nagpur Police Share 'Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah' Inspired Meme To Raise Awareness
New Vector Evaluations+ App Provides Live Skill Demonstrations, Allowing Agencies to Record, Assess and Track Employee Competencies and Goals

TAMPA, FL, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vector Solutions, a leader in eLearning and performance support solutions for public safety agencies and other critical industries, is releasing an all-new application for assessing live skill demonstrations.

Now available through Vectors TargetSolutions brand, Vector Evaluations+ allows public safety agencies to document an individuals skill assessment and take in-app videos to accurately record proficiencies and review them as learning aids. In addition to video evidence of personnels competencies, evaluators can custom-build skill sheets with a variety of answer field options and verify the evaluation via eSignatures.

The ability to not only evaluate live skill demonstrations but also review ones performance via videos is an invaluable learning tool, said Alex Berry, Executive Vice President of Vector Solutions. Vector Evaluations+ is a total talent management solution for public safety agencies to identify areas of improvement, enhance skill sets, and determine readiness for career growth.

Integrated with TargetSolutions learning management system (LMS), Vector Evaluations+ can assist in the fulfillment of task books and management of training progress. The ability to track and analyze hands-on skill demonstrations creates another metric for monitoring performance and reduces liability.

To learn more about this exciting new product, please check online at https://www.targetsolutions.com/vector-evaluations-live-skill-demonstrations/

About TargetSolutions

TargetSolutions, a Vector Solutions brand, delivers award-winning, real-time training and record-keeping solutions to the fire services, emergency medical services, risk pools, cities and municipalities, law enforcement and public works industries. The company provides engaging, accredited online training courses, cutting-edge software applications, and dynamic performance management solutions to help make organizations safer, more capable, and more compliant. For more information, visit www.targetsolutions.com. Follow us on Twitter @TargetSolutions and on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TargetSolutions.

Story continues

About Vector Solutions

Vector Solutions, a leader in eLearning and performance support, provides award-winning SaaS solutions for the architecture, engineering, construction (AEC), industrial, facilities management, public safety, IT, and education industries. Its brands, RedVector-Convergence Training, TargetSolutions, and SafeSchools, deliver continuing education (CE), training, technology and performance management solutions using the latest innovations in learning and technology to create safer, more capable, more compliant organizations. Its extensive online and mobile learning library offers over 9,000 courses written by over 280 subject matter experts and reaches more than 10 million professionals worldwide. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. For more information, visit www.vectorsolutions.com. Follow us on twitter @VectorPerform and on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/VectorPerformance.

Kara Schafer

Vector Solutions

8138642664

kara.schafer@vectorsolutions.com


Covina, CA, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global covid-19 sample collection kits market accounted for US$ 2.4 billion in 2020 and is estimated to be US$ 3.5 billion by 2029 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 4.2%.

Key market players, such as Becton Dickinson, COPAN Diagnostics, Thermo Fisher, and Puritan Medical Products are constantly improving the production of these kits.

The report "Global Covid-19 Sample Collection Kits Market, By Product (Swabs (Nasopharyngeal (NP) Swabs, Oropharyngeal (OP) Swabs, and Others), Viral Transport Media, Blood Collection Kits, and Other Consumables), By Site of Collection (Hospitals & Clinics and Home Test), By Application (Diagnostics and Research), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa) - Trends, Analysis and Forecast till 2029.

Key Highlights:

On April 2020, Thermo Fisher Scientific declared that it is speeding up its efforts with vaccine development technologies and diagnostic testing to effectively manage COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The company has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the US Food and Drug Administration for its TaqPathCOVID-19 Combo Kit for the qualitative detection of nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal aspirate, nasopharyngeal swab, and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). The company also received the CE mark in the European Union (EU) for its diagnostic test to detect COVID-19.

On April 2020, Puritan Medical Products, a privately held Maine-based medical equipment manufacturer, was tapped by the White House to ramp up much-needed coronavirus testing supply production. It is a partnership between Puritan and the government to supply a minimum of 20 million swabs per month and up to almost 50 million swabs per month.

On March 2020, Fitchburg-based Promega Corp. has ramp up its production of lab materials used in tests for the new coronavirus which has spread globally. Promega manufactures reagents and other lab equipment and materials for companies across the globe, including Utah-based Co-Diagnostics which developed a test for the coronavirus.

Story continues

Request Sample Copy of the Business Report here, https://www.prophecymarketinsights.com/market_insight/Insight/request-sample/4279

Analyst View:

Rising initiatives by government bodies

The COVID-19 outbreak has severely affected various domains, one of such is Viral Transport Media (VTM) owing to high demand for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing across the world. Various companies as well as governments of several countries are rapidly scaling-up VTM production to meet the challenges in coronavirus testing. For instance, COPAN Diagnostics has recently enhanced its production line to fulfill the large volumes of orders. Furthermore, FDA and the Federal Emergency Management are working with various suppliers to meet the demand for VTM.

Growth in business operations by emerging and small sized players

A considerable number of key players from other sectors are involved in helping the government to overcome the shortage of medical sterile swabs. According to the data reported on May 2020, by Royal DSM, a nutrition, health, and materials company, entered the swab manufacturing market to combat the shortage of specimen collection products in the Netherlands. The company is first time generating swabs to fulfill the nations testing needs. Further, they are also donating 11 tons of material required for swab production in the country.

Browse 60 market data tables* and 35 figures* through 140 slides and in-depth TOC on Global Covid-19 Sample Collection Kits Market, By Product (Swabs (Nasopharyngeal (NP) Swabs, Oropharyngeal (OP) Swabs, and Others), Viral Transport Media, Blood Collection Kits, and Other Consumables), By Site of Collection (Hospitals & Clinics and Home Test), By Application (Diagnostics and Research), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa) - Trends, Analysis and Forecast till 2029

Request Customization here, https://www.prophecymarketinsights.com/market_insight/Insight/request-customization/4279

Key Market Insights from the report:

The global Covid-19 sample collection kits market accounted for US$ 2.4 billion in 2020 and is estimated to be US$ 3.5 billion by 2029 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 4.2%. The market report has been segmented on the basis of product, site of collection, application, and region.

By product, the swabs segment is expected to dominate the COVID-19 sample collection kits market and estimates for about 40.0% share in terms of revenue in 2020. Prominent players have undertaken several strategic plans to expand the production and supply of swabs for COVID-19 testing, which boosts the segment at a lucrative rate. For instance, in May 2020, Puritan Medical Group partnered with Bath Iron Works, the U.S. shipyard, to expand its swab production capacity by twofold.

By site of collection, hospitals and clinics segment is accounted for the highest revenue share in 2020 owing to improved need for testing of coronavirus infection in communities. Local and government regulatory firms are involved in enhancing patient admission capacities at hospitals, growing the number of medical professionals, and making ventilators and diagnostic tests available for management of COVID-19 crisis. This is projected to have high sales volume of specimen collection solutions for hospital and clinical settings.

By application, the diagnostic application segment is projected to estimate highest revenue share in 2020, owing to continuous approvals of molecular diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2.

By region, Europe is expected to lead the market and estimate for about 35% revenue share in 2020. This is mainly attributed due to large number of coronavirus cases in the European region coupled with high volume of swabs tested in Germany.

To know the upcoming trends and insights prevalent in this market, click the link below:

https://www.prophecymarketinsights.com/market_insight/Global-Covid-19-Sample-Collection-Kits-Market-4279

Competitive Landscape:

The prominent player operating in the global covid-19 sample collection kits market includes Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, Puritan Medical Products, Becton, Dickinson and Company, COPAN Diagnostics, Lucence Diagnostics Pte Ltd., Hardy Diagnostics, HiMedia Laboratories, VIRCELL S.L., and BNTX Inc.

The market provides detailed information regarding industrial base, productivity, strengths, manufacturers, and recent trends which will help companies enlarge the businesses and promote financial growth. Furthermore, the report exhibits dynamic factors including segments, sub-segments, regional marketplaces, competition, dominant key players, and market forecasts. In addition, the market includes recent collaborations, mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships along with regulatory framework across different regions impacting the market trajectory. Recent technological advances and innovations influencing the global market are included into the report.

About Prophecy Market Insights

Prophecy Market Insights is specialized market research, analytics, marketing/business strategy, and solutions that offers strategic and tactical support to clients for making well-informed business decisions and to identify and achieve high-value opportunities in the target business area. We also help our clients to address business challenges and provide the best possible solutions to overcome them and transform their business.

Some Important Points Answered in this Market Report Are Given Below:

COVID-19 impact on the market, detailed analysis on economic, health and financial structure.

Explains an overview of the product portfolio, including product development, planning, and positioning

Explains details about key operational strategies with focus on R&D strategies, corporate structure, localization strategies, production capabilities, and financial performance of various companies.

Detailed analysis of the market revenue over the forecasted period.

Examining various outlooks of the market with the help of Porters five forces Analysis, PEST & SWOT Analysis.

Study on the segments that are anticipated to dominate the market.

Study on the regional analysis that is expected to register the highest growth over the forecast period

Key Topics Covered

Introduction

Study Deliverables

Study Assumptions

Scope of the Study

Research Methodology Executive Summary

Opportunity Map Analysis

Market at Glance

Market Share (%) and BPS Analysis, by Region

Competitive Landscape

Heat Map Analysis

Market Presence and Specificity Analysis

Investment Analysis Competitive Analysis

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You guys with all your masks, you look very different than you used to, he said, not wearing one himself.

Were just trying not to die, replied Jake Sherman, a reporter for Politico.

Dr. Deborah L. Birx still coordinates the task force from her office in the West Wing, regularly updates senior staff members and still meets often with Vice President Mike Pence, according to one official, but appears only occasionally to present and discuss new virus data with reporters. Mr. Pence met Wednesday with Trump campaign workers, who posed for a photo, huddling together, thumbs up, their faces bare.

And Adm. Brett P. Giroir, who has been the administrations point person overseeing coronavirus testing, told colleagues in an email that he was resuming his regular duties as the assistant secretary for health.

While I remain committed to the fight against Covid-19, and will spend a portion of my time in direct support of the pandemic response, he wrote, I feel personally compelled to continue our offices leadership in childhood vaccination, combating substance misuse, ending the H.I.V. epidemic in America, and improving the lives of all living with sickle cell disease.

For nearly two weeks now, the nation has been convulsed by the twin crises of the coronavirus and the civil unrest that followed the death of Mr. Floyd, a black man who gasped for air with his neck under the knee of a police officer. Congress continues to address the coronavirus crisis  in addition to Wednesdays health committee hearing, Mr. Mnuchin appeared before the Senate Small Business Committee, where he defended the administrations decision to reopen the economy.

But the big news on Capitol Hill on Wednesday was the testimony of Mr. Floyds brother, Philonise Floyd, before the House Judiciary Committee. Im here to ask you to make it stop, he said, asking lawmakers to make sure that his brother is more than another face on a T-shirt.

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, convened a virtual hearing Wednesday on how to overcome obstacles  like creating social distance and a mask-wearing culture  to getting children back to school.
A radical decarbonization of the U.S. power grid is no longer a clean energy utopia dreamed up by overreaching environmentalists: Now, it could actually help lower customer bills and add millions of new jobs to the economy in less than two decades. That is the finding by a new report from the University of California, Berkeley, that says that rapidly plummeting solar, wind, and storage prices make it entirely feasible for the U.S. to deliver 90 percent of power needs from carbon-free sources by 2035 with zero increases in customer costs from today's levels. Additional perks include 10 percent lower wholesale power costs and a 27 percent reduction in CO2 emissions.

Another important finding: Coal and oil can be eliminated from the U.S. energy mix over the next 15 years with natural gas providing the remaining 10 percent of annual electricity production.

Source: GridLab

In case you are wondering why not just go the whole hog and completely do away with fossil fuels in the power grid, it's because of the intermittent nature of solar and wind power.

UC Berkeley found that setting the target at 90 percent clean energy allows vendors to burn a little gas when necessary, which proved feasible for meeting power demands under all conditions and weather variations over the seven years on which the study was modeled.

Cost Crossover

The report also says that building out the clean energy infrastructure to achieve this ambitious target could add more than 500,000 jobs per year and pump $1.7 trillion into the U.S. economy.

Related: The True Impact Of COVID-19 On Natural Gas Demand To ease the minds of power vendors, the report says utilities can retire their fossil fuel power plants in an orderly fashion that will allow them to recover their fixed costs. Since no new fossil fuel power plants will need to be constructed, the operating fleet would have ample time to fully depreciate by the end of the forecast period, thus limiting the stranded-asset problem and lowering overall cost.

Further, by generating 90 percent of their power supply from renewables, the vendors will be able to lower wholesale power costs by 10 percent compared to today's levels, meaning new opportunities for margin expansion.

On the government side of things, all it will take are technology-neutral policies for renewables to gain the ascendancy through organic means as this companion piece by think-tank Energy Innovation suggests.

In other words, just do away with those generous fossil fuel subsidies and renewables will start giving them a run for their money.

If that sounds a bit over the top, consider that the report says we have already reached a cost crossover with clean energy resources beginning to become cheaper than existing fossil fuel resources.

Indeed, UC Berkeley is not alone in these findings.

Last year, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) - an organization dedicated to promoting global adoption of renewable energy and facilitating sustainable use - reported that renewables would begin to outprice oil and gas beginning 2020, with renewable electricity becoming consistently cheaper than the cheapest fossil fuel alternatives - minus subsidies.

According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), the United States Government provides numerous energy subsidies through the U.S. tax code to promote or subsidize cheap energy production. EESI has a conservative estimate that the U.S. fossil fuel industry receives roughly $20 billion per year in direct subsidies, with 80 percent of that going to natural gas and crude oil and the rest to coal. EU subsidies are estimated at ~55 billion euros annually.

The energy and environmental watchdog says that rather than being phased out in pursuant of the Paris 2015 Climate Agreement, governments the world over have actually been increasing their fossil fuel subsidies. The IMF estimates that $5.2 trillion, or 6.5 percent of global GDP, was spent on fossil fuel subsidies (both direct and indirect) in 2017, representing a $500M increase since 2015. The largest subsidizers in 2015 were China ($1.4 trillion), the United States ($649 billion), and Russia ($551 billion).

A Clean Energy Nation by 2035?

For these targets to become a reality by 2035, the report says that the U.S. would have to build 1,100 gigawatts of new wind and solar capacity over the next 15 years.

Related: Worlds Largest Oil Trader Sees Profits Plunge 70%

That sounds more than a tad ambitious, considering it calls for ~70 gigawatts' worth of deployments per year, or more than 3x the combined wind and solar additions the country has completed in any single year. However, here again, it comes down to not having our priorities right since the same study notes that the country added 65 gigawatts of gas capacity in 2002 alone.

The Covid-19 crisis is further proving the resilience of the clean energy industry. At a time when the fossil fuel industry is experiencing its worst recession in decades, renewables have been bucking the trend by continuing to expand.

The IEA has reported that renewable electricity generation increased 3 percent during the first quarter, with its share in the global electricity generation mix climbing to 28 percent - mainly at the expense of coal and gas - from 26 percent by the end of 2019.

In a nutshell, the UC Berkeley report boils down to this: Put the right federal policy action in place, and the economy, the U.S. consumer, and the environment will thank you for it.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The incoming government must ring-fence funding to deliver 60,000 social housing units under a new housing stability programme, the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) has said.

The Council, which represents 270 non-profit housing associations, delivered 41% of all social housing units in 2019 and said the sector was ready to work with local authorities to deliver more into the future.

In its 2019 activity report, published on Wednesday, ICSH confirmed that the sector provided 4,127 out a total of 10,007 new social rented homes last year.

ICSH Chief Executive Dr Donal McManus said output in 2019 was the highest ever number for the sector.

In the face of a looming Covid-19 related recession, it is important that social and affordable housing delivery is prioritised in any economic stimulus measures put in place to protect the economy and accelerate the national recovery, Dr McManus said.

Austerity measures have a lasting and damaging impact on housing delivery. In 2013 we delivered just 211 homes. We cannot repeat this mistake again.

The Housing Alliance also called on the incoming government to establish a rental scheme to provide affordable and secure housing for long-term renters at up to 75% of market rents.

Meanwhile concerns have been raised over the privatisation of emergency homeless services in Dublin after it emerged there are now 19 private operators compared to 15 charitable providers.

Independent Cllr Anthony Flynn, who is also CEO of Inner City Helping Homeless, warned that the sector was being sold out to private operators, which would result in the demise of services.

Private operators are now outweighing NGOs (Non Government Organisations) and what were going to see is the demise of homeless services. Were going to see people not being afforded the same level of comfort, respect, and wrap-around supports that they require, Cllr Flynn said.

Dublin City Council last week said it intends to review private and charity run emergency facilities after the Covid-19 crisis. Two housing support officers have been assigned to private emergency units in the meantime.
Major digital freight forwarders Everoad and sennder merge (Photo: Shutterstock)

Berlin-based digital freight forwarder sennder is merging with Paris-based Everoad. This strategic alliance will make the companies one of the largest digital freight forwarding platforms for trucking in Europe. Both sennder and Everoad have similar technology powering their platforms and help large enterprise businesses connect with small trucking firms.

Maxime Legardez, the CEO and founder of Everoad, explained that the company was always looking to continue its expansion across Europe, and was open to consolidate with players that had matching synergies. Legardez was associated with David Nothacker, the CEO and co-founder of sennder, when both the startups were founded a few years ago.

The companies now command a sizable market share in their respective countries. Consolidation between sennder and Everoad is expected to help the combined company to rapidly scale up operations across neighboring markets.

"Both our companies have strong R&D and IT teams, which has translated into great features and automation compared to other players," said Legardez. "With very similar DNA in terms of organization, values, and future mindset, this will be a great new chapter for both sennder and Everoad."

Apart from having a strong presence in Germany and France, the companies also have offices across Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Nordic region. Legardez mentioned that the company would continue hiring people in the technology and design segments in France and Germany.

Currently, the companies complete over 35,000 loads per month combined. sennder and newly formed Everoad by sennder' have a total of 350 employees, with their combined platform accounting for a network of 10,000 carrier partners and large enterprise customers. The companies have raised a combined 120 million in venture capital investment  with lead investors including Accel and Lakestar. The combined companies seek to achieve revenues of 1 billion by 2024.

Story continues

"Our objective was the same  to create a European industry champion within the freight forwarding and logistics industry. By merging with sennder, we achieved this target and can

also contribute to reducing the environmental impact of the industry. By becoming Everoad by sennder,' we will share our expertise and experience acquired over more than four years of a pan-European vision," said Legardez.

Both companies have been passionate about reducing the carbon footprint associated with road freight movement, which currently accounts for 6% of the European Union's total CO2 emissions. The companies plan to reduce the deadhead miles related to trucking (roughly 20% of all the miles traveled), by optimizing the capacity allocation and continuing to provide greener services.

"In the midst of this international crisis caused by COVID-19, road freight has demonstrated its inimitable, strategic role in transporting essential goods. It now makes more sense than ever to join forces and integrate Everoad into the sennder group. In that way, we can jointly invest resources and know how to tackle the new challenges and opportunities emerging out of the crisis," said Nothacker.

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Sony's The Broken Hearts Gallery will be one of the first wide releases of the summer.

The romantic comedy from executive producer Selena Gomez hits theaters on July 10  a week before Christopher Nolan's Tenet opens.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions' Stage 6 Films acquired worldwide rights to Natalie Krinsky's directorial debut from producer and financier No Trace Camping.

Coming soon: The Broken Hearts Gallery, a new romantic comedy executive produced by Selena Gomez, will be one of the first major studio release in theaters this summer

Solstice Studios thriller Unhinged, starring Russell Crowe, opens nationwide on July 1, but Broken Hearts Gallery is the first major studio release.

Movie theaters have been closed nationwide since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

There were 554 locations open in the U.S. last weekend, including 243 drive-in theaters. About 500 of the nation's 5,400 theaters are located in California, which is allowing cinemas to reopen on June 12.

The Broken Hearts Gallery stars Blockers' Geraldine Viswanathan, Dacre Montgomery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Molly Gordon, Hamilton's Phillipa Soo, Suki Waterhouse, Arturo Castro, Saturday Night Live's Ego Nwodim, Taylor Hill and theater legend Bernadette Peters.

Safety first: 'I hope everyone will listen to scientists' recommendations and consider others' health and safety while enjoying the movie theater experience,' Gomez said of the movie, which opens July 10; shown in January

Stacked cast: The film stars Blockers' Geraldine Viswanathan, Dacre Montgomery, Hamilton's Phillipa Soo, Suki Waterhouse, Arturo Castro, Saturday Night Live's Ego Nwodim and Broadway legend Bernadette Peters; pictured in January

'Hearing from more female writers and directors is very much needed. Natalie is a wonderful talent and I am happy to be a part of her debut film,' Gomez said of the production.

'I understand people's concerns regarding returning to activities we all loved prior to COVID-19. I hope everyone will listen to scientists' recommendations and consider others' health and safety while enjoying the movie theater experience,' she said.

Sony's Motion Picture Group president Josh Greenstein added, 'Now more than ever, The Broken Hearts Gallery will resonate with audiences ready for a feel-good moviegoing experience this summer.

'We have faith in a theatrical rebound, and we look forward to being there right out of the gate with our exhibition partners' anticipated reemergence, as  and when  state-by-state safety guidelines are met.'

The rush to push Broken Hearts Gallery into theaters comes after Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described the coronavirus pandemic as his 'worst nightmare' and warned that 'it isnt over yet,' according to The New York Times.

Behind the camera: Selena has been expanding into producing in recent years. She executive producer Netflix's 13 Reasons Why and will be the star and EP of a new cooking show for HBO Max; shown in February

Though Gomez is best known for her acting and musical talents, she has begun to expand to creative roles behind the camera as well.

After producing a Wizards Of Waverly Place TV movie in 2013, she returned to producing with the 2019 docuseries Living Undocumented.

She followed that up by executive producing the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why.

Last month, HBO Max announced that Selena would be leading her own cooking show, which she'll executive producer.

Each episode will feature a professional chef joining her remotely to help improve her amateur skills in the kitchen.

Signal boosting: Despite her upcoming projects, Gomez has kept a low profile in recent days as she's attempted to let other voices be heard on her social media pages; pictured in January

Fighting for change: Inspired by the killing of George Floyd last month and the protests that have cropped up across the United States, the Spring Breakers star has dedicated her Instagram account to supporting Black Lives Matter

Despite her upcoming projects, Gomez has kept a low profile in recent days as she's attempted to let other voices be heard on her social media pages.

Inspired by the killing of George Floyd last month and the protests that have cropped up across the United States, the Spring Breakers star has dedicated her Instagram account to supporting Black Lives Matter and has let one of the movements co-founders, Alicia Garza, take over her account on Friday.

She also turned over her online voice to the lawyer and scholar Kimberle Crenshaw, New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb and the historian Ibram X. Kendi.
[June 10, 2020] Howmet Aerospace to Host Virtual Webcast of Annual Meeting of Shareholders

Howmet Aerospace Inc. (NYSE:HWM) will host its 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders on Monday, June 15, 2020, at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The annual meeting will be held in a virtual meeting format only, via webcast at www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/HWM2020 or can be accessed via the company website at www.howmet.com under "Investors - Annual Meeting." A replay of the webcast will be available on the company website from 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, June 16, 2020 until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on March 16, 2021. As described in the proxy materials for the Annual Meeting previously distributed, shareholders of record of Howmet Aerospace common stock as of the close of business on April 2, 2020, the record date, are entitled to vote at the Annual Meeting. To vote or submit questions during the virtual meeting, shareholders must enter the 16-digit control number included on the proxy card, voting instruction form, notice or email that they previously received. Online access to the webcast will open shortly prior to the start of the 2020 Annual Meeting. Guests without a control number may also attend the meeting, but will not have the option to vote shares or ask questions.



About Howmet Aerospace Howmet Aerospace, Inc., headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a leading global provider of advanced engineered solutions for the aerospace and transportation industries. The Company's primary businesses focus on jet engine components, aerospace fastening systems, and titanium structural parts necessary for mission-critical performance and efficiency in aerospace and defense applications, as well as forged wheels for commercial transportation. With nearly 1,300 granted and pending patents, the Company's differentiated technologies enable lighter, more fuel-efficient aircraft to operate with a lower carbon footprint. In 2019, the businesses of Howmet Aerospace reported annual revenue of over $7 billion. For more information, visit www.howmet.com. Follow @howmet: LinkedIn (News - Alert), Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Dissemination of Company Information Howmet Aerospace intends to make future announcements regarding Company developments and financial performance through its website at www.howmet.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005879/en/

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Disgruntled Nissan workers marched Tuesday in Barcelona in their latest protest against the Japanese company's decision to shut its manufacturing plants in northeastern Spain. Nissan is suffering like many other automakers from a sharp drop in demand for vehicles amid the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. The closures will bring some 3,000 job losses, which unions say will impact some 20,000 families in the Catalonia region.

Several thousand demonstrators wearing masks gathered for the protest on Tuesday evening.

Spain's government has criticised the company's decision, the Catalan regional government says it is seeking options to keep the plants open, and local Catholic church leaders have added their voice to pleas for a future to be found for those poised to lose their job.

But the Japanese giant's head of European operations, Gianluca de Ficchy, said in an interview with El Pais that the closure was unavoidable as it redraws its global business strategy.
According to a new report from Korea, Samsung probably wont use displays from BOE for the Galaxy S21. This goes against a report from April, which claimed that the Galaxy S21 series will use OLED panels from BOE.

So, what went wrong? Well, it seems like BOE displays did not pass Samsung Electronics quality tests. That is the reason why Samsung plans to use Samsung Display panels yet again.

This information does come from Korea, but it has been relayed by Ice Universe, a well-known tipster. BOE, for those of you who dont know, is a well-known Chinese OLED display manufacturer.

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Samsung seemingly gave up on using BOE displays for the Galaxy S21

The earlier report claimed that at least one of the upcoming Galaxy S21 series devices will use BOE displays. Well, that wont happen, if this report is to be believed.

The Galaxy S21+ was supposed to utilize a 6.67-inch OLED display from BOE. The report also claims that the Galaxy A91 may also feature one of BOEs panels.

The agreement between the two companies was supposed to be reached in June. Well, it seems like things went sideways, and the agreement will not be reached at all, at least not anytime soon.

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The initial report was quite surprising to begin with. Many people were wondering why would Samsung use BOEs panels when it has its own. Well, the answer to that, is probably to cut costs where it can.

BOEs panels are quite good, and Samsung probably saw an opportunity there. We dont know what exactly went wrong in Samsungs testing, but there you go.

BOE is the worlds biggest LCD display supplier, for those of you who dont know, This is a huge company, and it is looking to shift away from LCD displays, as OLEDs are taking over.

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The Galaxy S21 series is expected to arrive in Q1 2021

The Galaxy S21 series launch is still far away. Those devices are expected to make an appearance in February next year. Samsung will probably use its own displays for all devices in the series, but well see.

The companys focus, at the moment, is definitely not the Galaxy S21 series. The Galaxy Note 20 series is expected to arrive in August, along with the Galaxy Fold 2. The Galaxy Z Flip 5G variant is also coming.

Considering that Samsung is, allegedly, planning to release three Galaxy Note 20 devices, well see five devices from the company in August. Well, at least it seems like it at the moment.
Dealing with British Airways

Dealing with Kulula

Dealing with Mango

Turbulent times

Computer says no

Winners and losers

Questionable practices

Looking to the future

Reckoning with the long-term

Update

Unfortunately, even though the government has opened the skies and the airports have opened their doors , airlines arent making it easy for passengers to fly. Just how much do they hate thee? Let me count the ways.The first ticket I purchased was for British Airways. At that stage, when the lockdown first began, I figured Id be flying home in less than a month. Obviously that didnt happen given the lockdown extension, but I took comfort in the fact that the airline (like many others) had updated its cancellation and change policies . All I had to do was complete an online form and everything would be sorted. Or so I thought.I received a confirmation email telling me Id get my voucher within seven days. After more than a month of waiting, I contacted their call centre in London, which was so overwhelmed with enquiries that I only got through on a Sunday morning. I spoke to a customer service guy who sounded so exhausted and so defeated, perhaps because he was facing the prospect of the airlines massive job cuts According to him, there was zero record of my booking. He suggested I speak to my travel agent  never mind that I didnt use one. I tried to explain this, but he said there was nothing he could do. That was the end of our call.I didnt have time to fight for a refund, because I still had to make arrangements to get back home. So I booked a new flight with Kulula, which was quite affordable at the time. Unfortunately, when the government announced that domestic travel wouldnt resume under the Level 4 lockdown for May, the flight was cancelled.And yet I wasnt too worried thanks to Kululas amazing customer service. For example, when my initial flight was cancelled, I was immediately booked onto another one, with no hassles or extra fees. I was even able to communicate directly with a friendly customer service agent, who once again changed my flight to a later date without any fuss. But then Comair went into business rescue and my ticket was cancelled again.Despite somewhat empty assurances from Discovery that Vitality bookings are 'safe' , I was reluctant to request yet another voucher since, like British Airways, it wouldnt be valid until the airlines are flying again at the end of the year (assuming they fly again at all). So I filled out the Comair claim form, which was only sent to me three weeks after I enquired. Now I have to wait and see whether Ill recover what Ive spent.After two failed tickets, I was hoping to get lucky on my third attempt. So I went with Mango, the last option that turned out to be the worst.The airline initially had flights back to Cape Town scheduled from the beginning of June, with plenty of seats at the bargain price of R599. But I was hesitant to make a purchase right away in case, yet another "My fellow South Africans" speech  its our countrys new trigger for PTSD  changed the rules for the umpteenth time. Instead, I simply made a note to check the website every day, ready to pounce as soon as the price went up and/or the availability went down.Eventually, when it became clear that the Level 3 restrictions would allow limited travel, I bought my ticket. And its clear that I did so just in time. I say this because Mango engaged in an extreme price increase by almost quadrupling the cost (to around R2,200) in the space of an hour. I was absolutely stunned (but also unbelievably relieved), which I imagine is the same feeling cryptocurrency traders experience when they get out of the market right before they get burned playing a dangerous game they dont understand.Unfortunately, that wasnt the end of it. A week after I purchased my ticket, and with my flight so close I could feel it, I got an email informing me that it was cancelled (any company that sends you an automated "Dear Valued Guest" message clearly doesnt value you enough if they cant figure out how to address you by name). There was no explanation or apology  all I got was a voucher code.Yes, I was impressed that this happened so quickly compared to British Airways, but I wasnt impressed at all to realise that this wasnt a voucher to rebook a ticket for another date. Instead of booking me onto the next available flight (like Kulula did without me even asking), Mango wants me to use the voucher as credit for a future purchase  that means I have to pay the difference (because I havent spent thousands on plane tickets already?!) if I want to travel as planned.The experience got me wondering: did Mango deliberately book out more flights than it planned to operate, only to cancel them so that passengers would have to pay extra to get on new ones? I dont know. But at this stage, I wouldnt be surprised if thats the case.At the time of writing this, I still havent heard back about getting booked onto another flight. But Im not holding my breath, given how slow Mango has been in the past (its been more than a year since the airline promised to compensate me for badly damaging my suitcase on a flight  the level of indifference, incompetence, and downright rudeness Ive experienced from a dozen different customer service agents and baggage claim employees could make for an entire article on its own).Meanwhile, Allianz Travel Insurance (who covered the Mango flight) is much like Chubb Travel Insurance (who dealt with the Comair claims) in being totally unhelpful. All I get are prompt, but somewhat generic responses that they wont be paying out. Yes, theres a clause in the contract that says they dont cover pandemics, but there are some situations right now where claims might be valid and not automatically out of the question 'because, corona'.In the meantime, Im still stuck, seriously out of pocket, and facing the prospect of booking yet another flight to get home. Fortunately, there are options, including CEM Air (flying from 5 June), Airlink (flying from 8 June), and FlySafair (flying from 15 June), but all three are charging prices that are more than double what I paid on Mango.Clearly, the rules that companies shouldnt take advantage of the coronavirus through excessive prices dont apply to airlines. Right now it seems like many are happy to charge a fortune (even with in-flight meals off the menu and oil prices at record lows ), since the people allowed to travel are mostly those doing so for business purposes, in which case its the employer who pays.But thats not right. Indeed, as was clear from the chaos at the airport when I first came to Johannesburg, there must be plenty of passengers who are desperate to get back home, not just corporate executives who need a face-to-face meeting because theyre suffering from 'Zoom fatigue' (yes, its a real thing).Then again, maybe the pricing is fair. Maybe its all about algorithms adjusting to shifting travel demand and other factors that I dont pretend to understand. But airlines are still not treating passengers well.Indeed, one of the things that you need to know about air travel and Covid-19 (in accordance with Section 69 of South Africas Consumer Protection Act) is that youre legally entitled to a refund and just not a voucher for future travel  Section 133 of South Africas Companies Act forbids legal action while a company is in business rescue, which might be why Comair took its sweet time in responding to my query, happy to delay until it was 'protected'.Travel editor Rory Boland sums it up well in a recent National Geographic guide to cancelled trips: "We know the industry is under an immense amount of pressure as a result of the pandemic, and do not want to see it suffer further. But it cannot be on consumers to prop up airlines and travel firms through this period as companies openly break the law and effectively use customer money as an interest-free loan, especially when so many people waiting for their money will be in difficult financial situations of their own."How will this end? Nobody knows. My sincere hope is that airlines will survive.Its not just because Ive written for all six of the local inflight magazines (seven, if you include South African Airways) and have even been on sponsored trips with many of the airlines in the past (for which Im always grateful). Its because a healthy industry with healthy competition (as opposed to one with just a few providers and fewer available seats ) is a good thing. For example, Mango only reduced its prices when FlySafair offered lower fares.Unfortunately, many airlines are doing themselves a massive disservice right now. I get that Covid-19 is a stressful situation for everyone and that its going to be devastating for the travel industry (especially if the government continues to insist that our borders will only open next year , never mind some of the countries that suffered far worse from the pandemic are already welcoming tourists)  but they need to think beyond just the short term.Indeed, even though it might not feel like it when every day is some combination of a nightmare written by Franz Kafka and George Orwell, there will come a time when Covid-19 is behind us and more of us realise that its safe to fly again. At that point, there will be a moment of reckoning as people stop to remember who treated them well and who did not.This applies to all industries and all relationships  friends, family, employees, employers, colleagues, neighbours, and brands. Those who were there for us when we needed them most are those who will get our love and support. But those who just wanted to exploit us financially or emotionally when we were at our most vulnerable are those who will be cut from our lives.So let this be a warning to the companies that act like they can do whatever they want, never mind that the majority of passengers didnt trust airlines even before the pandemic: enjoy your short-term pleasure but, like anyone who spent lockdown eating too much banana bread, get ready to suffer in the long-term pain. When passengers have better options in the future , you will be grounded for good. I was finally able to fly back home on Thursday 11 June. The process was smoother than I expected; perhaps a bit too smooth given that nobody at OR Tambo screened my temperature or checked my travel permit. Mango Airlines confirmed via email that they endeavoured to resume flying initially on the 11th of June hence flights were made available for sale but only started flying on the 15th June due to operational reasons. Theyve refused to honour the cash refund so Im still sitting on a flight voucher that I have no idea when Ill use. (Allianz Insurance agreed to refund the policy premium.) Comair (operator of Kulula and British Airways) sent an email to all creditors asking for an extension in publishing its business rescue plan. Anyone who wanted to lodge a dispute had less than four hours to do so, which means that people who dont check their email all the time probably didnt know about it until it was too late. (Chubb Insurance refused to refund the policy premium, saying it only does so when the policy is cancelled before the flight is due to take place.)
Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman has released guidance to Pennsylvania businesses damaged during the civil unrest across the state. The information is intended to assist business owners identify what is generally covered by understanding the terms in their policies and how and when to file claims.

Damages caused by looting, vandalism or riots can be overwhelming and stressful, especially during this financially stressful time when so many businesses have been closed due to COVID-19, Altman said in a Pennsylvania Insurance Department press release. Businesses with damages should review their policies and file claims immediately.

Standard commercial insurance policies typically include coverage for physical loss or damage to the insured business resulting from looting, vandalism and riots. Whether a specific loss will be covered depends on the actual language in the applicable policy and any coverage exclusions that may apply. The department recommends business owners familiarize themselves with the types of coverage that may be present in their policies, including benefits and coverage related to property losses, glass breakage, business and liability, the release stated.

The department has worked closely with insurers throughout the COVID crisis, and we appreciate the flexibility that they have provided to Pennsylvania policyholders, Altman said in the release. Today, I am calling on carriers to again step up for the commonwealth and expedite claims processes to the extent possible to help businesses and communities in need.

Source: Pennsylvania Insurance Department

Topics Pennsylvania
Several Australian gym owners are cutting ties with CrossFit amid an intensifying furore sparked when the fitness brand's US founder, Greg Glassman, wrote an offensive tweet about the killing of George Floyd.

The turmoil has resulted in Mr Glassman announcing on Wednesday morning AEST that he has "decided to retire" and step down as chief executive, with long-standing senior staffer Dave Castro stepping into the position.

Ezra Poyas has decided to drop the CrossFit brand from him gym. Credit:Simon Schluter

"I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members," Mr Glassman said in a statement.

On Saturday, he wrote "It's FLOYD-19" in response to a tweet that said: "Racism and discrimination are critical public health issues that demand an urgent response."
Bodycam footage has captured the moment a police officer in New Mexico put a man he was trying to arrest in a choke-hold and said he was going to 'choke him out' before the suspect died gasping for air.

Las Cruces police officer Christopher Smelser was charged with involuntary manslaughter on Friday after 40-year-old Antonio Valenzuela died back on February 29.

Police say Smelser used a vascular neck restraint, or choke hold, on Valenzuela during his arrest.

Valenzuela, who had a warrant for parole violation, had fled during a traffic stop in the early hours of February 29.

Police say two officers unsuccessfully tried to taser Valenzuela twice before Smelser put him in the choke hold.

Bodycam video captured Las Cruces police officer Christopher Smelser using a vascular neck restraint, or choke hold, on Christopher Smelser in the moments before he died during an arrest in February

Bodycam footage obtained by La Cruces Sun News showed Smelser struggling with Valenzuela for about four minutes.

'I'm going to f***ing choke you out bro,' Smelser could be heard telling the suspect.

Valenzuela could be heard gasping for air soon after.

The father of four fell unconscious and died at the scene. Paramedics were called but they were unable to revive him.

Smelser, who joined the force in 2016, was put on administrative leave immediately following the February 29 incident, pending the results of Valenzuela's autopsy.

The autopsy, which only came back on June 4, showed that Valenzuela died from asphyxial injuries caused by the choke hold.

Smelser was fired and charged on Friday with involuntary manslaughter in Valenzuela's death.

He was released without bond following an initial court appearance on Monday.

'Words are insufficient to bring comfort to Antonio Valenzuela's family, but I extend my sincere condolences for their loss,' said Las Cruces police Chief Patrick Gallagher.

'It is a tragic day for everyone involved when there is an in-custody death or a death as a result of a police apprehension. Once we learned of the findings in the Medical Investigator's report, we felt in necessary to immediate initiate termination proceedings.'

Las Cruces police officer Christopher Smelser was charged with involuntary manslaughter on Friday after 40-year-old Antonio Valenzuela died back on February 29

Valenzuela, who had a warrant for parole violation, had fled during a traffic stop in the early hours of February 29. Police say two officers unsuccessfully tried to taser Valenzuela twice before Smelser put him in the choke hold

The charges against Smelser come as police forces across the country are reviewing their tactics and policies in light of George Floyd's death at the hands of police.

Floyd died in Minneapolis on May 25 after officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes.

Chauvin has been charged with murder.

Minneapolis police are now banning the use of what is known as the 'knee to neck maneuver' - a tactic that many forces already ban.

Valenzuela lived with his grandparents and worked a painter and mechanic. He had a history of felony drug possession charges and minor traffic violations

The vascular neck maneuver has since been banned by the Las Cruces Police Department in the wake of Valenzuela's death.

Valenzuela's autopsy report found he had petechial, or pinpoint, hemorrhaging in his eyes and eyelids, which is indicative of asphyxiation and may occur when the neck or chest is compressed.

His neck had a deep muscle hemorrhage, his Adam's apple was crushed and his ribs were fractured.

The report states methamphetamine also played a role in his death because the drug likely placed stress on his cardiovascular system.

Valenzuela lived with his grandparents and worked a painter and mechanic.

He had a history of felony drug possession charges and minor traffic violations.

Valenzuela's aunt, Sylvia Montoya, told the Sun News that their family just wants justice over his death.

'I don't want another person to get hurt,' she said.

'I don't want to see another family go through our pain and I don't want to hear of another death at the hands of an officer. It's not right.'

'All we want is justice.'


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Tesla's some employees working at its Fremont facility in California tested positive for Covid-19, multiple reports said. The luxury electric car maker reopened its plant in May after months of closure amid the coronavirus spread, despite ongoing battle with local authorities.



At least two employees at seat-assembly plant facility in Fremont were positive for the coronavirus, according to a report by Washington Post. Further, Electrek reported, citing a Tesla employee with knowledge of the situation, that four workers on the company's main Model S/X assembly line tested positive for the virus.



At the seat-assembly facility, both affected employees were said to be working on different shifts -in morning and evening. The workers have not returned to the assembly line, the report said.



Further, at the main Model S/X assembly line, the affected production associates worked on the same part of the assembly line.



At the plant, workers are said to be wearing masks, hand sanitizer available and temperatures taken while entering the factory, while they are not able to observe social distancing.



Tesla had temporarily suspended operations at its California and New York factories in March, following many days of stand-off with local authorities amid the stay-at-home orders. The company was ordered by the Sheriff's Office in Alameda County, where Tesla is based, to shut down its Fremont plant, stating that it was not an essential business.



In May, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Alameda County, alleging that the county order directly contradicts California Governor Gavin Newsom's order. CEO Elon Musk also threatened to move Tesla operations out of California.



Workers at many other automakers including Ford and GM reported to have tested positive for the virus.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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(Natural News) Both mainstream and social media are pushing false narratives about the riot that occurred recently at Lafayette Square, according to United States Attorney General William Barr.

Barr, in an interview with CBS News Face the Nation that was broadcast Sunday, noted that the media is perpetuating big lies about the peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square who, according to reports, were dispersed violently  just minutes before President Donald Trump and several officials posed for photos in front of St. Johns Episcopal Church.

They were not peaceful protesters. And thats one of the big lies that the media seems to be perpetuating at this point, Barr said, after being asked by Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan if the use of violent force was necessary in order to disperse protesters in Washington, D.C.

There were three warnings given, Barr said, insisting that the crowd, whom he described as rioters and looters, were getting violent and belligerent towards authorities.

All I heard was comments about how peaceful protesters were. I didnt hear about the fact that there were 150 law enforcement officers injured and many taken to the hospital with concussions, Barr said, stressing that the scenario does not fit with the description being painted by both mainstream and social media and that he saw the protesters lobbing projectiles at authorities. (Related: Trump repeats calls for the National Guard to help control NYC rioting.)

The officers were pummeled with bricks. Crowbars were used to pry up the pavers at the park and they were hurled at police. There were fires set in not only St. Johns Church, but a historic building at Lafayette was burned down, Barr said.

Barr, during his interview, also denied that tear gas was used on the protesters, and that only pepper balls were used. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) however, defines pepper balls  a projectile munition that lofts irritant powder into the air  as a type of tear gas or riot control agent.

Barr, in a separate press conference, also denied any correlation between his order to forcibly remove the protesters from Lafayette Square and the Presidents subsequent visit to St. Johns Episcopal Church.

The Lafayette Square protest is part of a series of protests staged across the country in memory of George Floyd, the latest victim of police brutality in America.

Despite the onslaught of criticism regarding the events that day, the White House is still standing by Barrs decision at the Square to use chemical agents on the protesters, noting that it was the appropriate response to the situation unfolding before them.

Theres no regrets on the part of this White House, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a briefing Monday afternoon, adding that Park Police, under Barrs orders, acted as they felt they needed to at that time in response.

We stand by those actions, McEnany said.

Trump also praised the actions of the law enforcement team at the Lafayette Square protest, stating that the situation was handled very well.

Following the riot and violence that unfolded at the venue, all entrances to Lafayette Square, the Ellipse and other open spaces around the White House that have hosted First Amendment protests for more than 100 years, have since been closed off to the public.

As a response to the violent dispersal at Lafayette, several civil rights advocates have filed a lawsuit Thursday, accusing Trump, Barr and other federal officials of violating the constitutional rights of the protesters that night.

As reported by the New York Post, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter D.C. (BLM D.C.) and individual protesters.

What happened to our members Monday evening, here in the nations capital, was an affront to all our rights, said April Goggans, lead organizer of BLM D.C.  the lead plaintiff in the case. We wont be silenced by tear gas and rubber bullets. Now is our time to be heard, Goggans said.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

Newsweek.com

BusinessInsider.com

Emergency.CDC.gov

TheHill.com

NPR.org

NYPost.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday endorsed former Richmond County Assistant District Attorney Michael Tannousis in the Republican Party primary race for Nicole Malliotakis seat in the State Assembly.

Tannousis has previously received support from Malliotakis, local Republican elected officials, the Island Republican Partys executive committee, the Brooklyn Republican Partys executive committee, Donald Trump Jr., local law enforcement unions, as well as Brooklyn and Staten Islands Conservative Parties over his GOP primary rival Marko Kepi.

"Staten Island and Bay Ridge Republicans have a clear choice for State Assembly in Michael Tannousis, said Giuliani. Michael actually put violent criminals behind bars and knows what it takes to keep our communities safe. He will always have the backs of our men and women in uniform, and that is why I am proud to endorse him to be the next assemblyman for Staten Island and Bay Ridge.

Giulianis endorsement comes only two weeks before the Republican Primary, which will be held on June 23.

Kepi, who has close ties to former Rep. Michael Grimm, downplayed the significance of the endorsement in the race and linked it to the Republican establishment.

I have nothing but love for Mayor Giuliani which is why I worked so hard for his presidential campaign and I respect that he finally agreed to endorse my opponent after being begged by the establishment for months because they dont want to be embarrassed when they lose," Kepi said. "They should have backed this Marine with the experience to get the job done in Albany and to really fight back against all this liberal lunacy.

Tannousis offered a gracious tone toward Giulianis endorsement.

I am honored to receive the support of Americas Mayor, said Tannousis. As a kid growing up in Staten Island in the 90s, I knew Rudy was a champion for our city. He had fought corruption as a federal prosecutor and made our streets safe for us again.

A Dongan Hills Republican and lifelong Staten Islander, Tannousis previously said he wanted to represent the 64th Assembly District to push back against policies enacted in the Democratically-controlled state legislature.
[June 10, 2020] Largest Collection of Business and Legal Documents now Available on 'Smart Business Box'

MUMBAI, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- After serving over 4000+ customers with StartupHR Toolkit over the past 1 year, Sutra Services Private limited has launched 'Smart Business Box'. It includes 400+ business & legal agreements, pitch- decks, presentations, & reports. Smart Business Box helps businesses grow in a structured manner. The idea is to help business owners save lacs of legal and business consultant fees, at the same time protect their businesses from any legal hassle. All the templates and presentations are customizable, professionally designed, and easy to use, helping them save countless hours. The company is known to expand and diversify whenever it can. It has launched two versions of Smart Business Box, SBB India and SBB global. With this product, the company aims to target over 100 million small businesses across the globe. It is a known fact that making any Business Doc is a time-consuming process. Imagine wasting precious time in writing and drafting documents, which in itself would not be an affordable thing to do. This has generated great demand for a product like Smart Business Box, which is here to solve all business documentation problems. Having worked with thousands of Small businesses and Startups for over the decade helped the team understand the need for a product that makes the whole documentation process hassle-free. Smart Business Box is majorly targeted towards SMEs, young entrepreneurs, business consultants, lawyers etc. They aim to be the go-to product when it comes to the busiess and legal documentation process. The box contains 200+ Business Agreements, 30+ Pitch-decks, 30+ Legal Notices & Reports and much more. All these documents are available in mostly used formats such as Word, Excel & PDF. It also contains 25+ COVID-19 documents and safety signages.



The company provides all of the above through Smart Business box for a fraction of the amount that would otherwise be spent in making such documents through a Lawyer. Even if there is a designated Legal department, Smart business box makes them more efficient. It is designed to save both time and money. Mr Waqar Azmi, Founder & CEO, Sutra Services Private Limited, the company behind Smart Business Box said, "Our experience of over a decade in dealing with Startups and SMEs has made us aware of the many problems faced by them in their day-to-day life. Business Agreements and documentation is definitely one on top. Official documents create credibility among stakeholders by showing that whether it's a client or vendor, they are treated in a fair and consistent manner. The Business and Legal documents from some of the most experienced Business professionals and Entrepreneurs in the industry. All of the documents are legally compliant and are up to date. Our vision is to be the go-to destination for any Business or legal documentation for any business owner across the globe." The documents are created from scratch by experienced lawyers and business consultants.

The Smart Business box Indian version is available for Rs. 5,999. The Global version is available for USD 99.00 only. In the wake of current COVID crisis, the company has added over 25+ COVID-19 documents & 20+ Safety Signages to make workplace safe. Smart Business Box has recently started an affiliate program wherein members can become an affiliate and earn Rs. 1500/- per Business Box that's sold through their reference. The Smart Business Box can be bought now to protect businesses from the Corona Crisis. Click here to view the product: https://www.smartbusinessbox.in & https://www.smartbusinessbox.com About SutraHR: SutraHR is one of Asia's fastest-growing HR companies that aspire to be amongst the top three HR companies based out of India in the next two years. The aim is to become a highly experiential and inspiring HR brand. SutraHR works with companies in the e-commerce, mobile, and new-age technology space, where companies go from zero to billion dollars in less than five years. As a market leader, the company has a massive advantage of revolutionizing HR practices in India. SutraHR is a multi-million dollar enterprise having the strength of 100+ employees and gunning for 250+ employees in a year's time. Media Contact :

Waqar Azmi

[email protected]

+91-92222-14187

Sutra Services Private Limited

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Born in Paris in 1963, Frank Huyghe has always had an alternative approach to business, an approach based on following his passions. A professional diver since the age of 20, Franck created RALF TECH in 1996, producing scuba-diving equipment for military and commercial divers. In 2008, 12 years later, he gave his brand a new direction in designing watches, allowing him to unite his two passions  diving and horology  under a single pursuit.

Frank Huyghe  RALF TECH

What first interested made you interested in the watchmaking business?

I developed this passion in my adolescence and it has never left me since. Theres no explanation, just a connecting thread. I had 30-something watches before creating RALF TECH. The thing that remained constant was the emotion I had for them; falling in love.

What unique quality do you think you bring to your brand?

A unique quality? It is, without doubt, presumptuous to answer this question on my own behalf Perhaps we might say its authenticity, or the quest for alternative solutions. I am of the principle that I would rather create than copy, to invent rather than to take the easy way. This is my vision of what I call authenticity.

WRV Chronographe Automatique Tachymetre Panda  RALF TECH

Tell us about an experience that defines your leadership style

My buddies and I were in Bolivia for work some twenty-plus years ago. We were supposed to finish training the naval divers of Bolivia at Lake Titicaca, 4000m above sea-level. The day we arrived at La Paz, the Bolivian capital, there was a climactic event, a major natural disaster. In my view, our priorities had changed from carrying out our professional mission to taking a humanitarian one  to help the local population. I thus decided to redefine our objectives in Bolivia, transforming our group into a force of humanitarian support. We saved 74 lives, and were later decorated by the Bolivian government and the United Nations. The important point of this story is that we were able to evaluate the situation, to unite the group around a new project and, of course, to be useful. In short, we adapted. In my opinion, a leader who cant adapt does not belong in our current world.

What watch do you wear most often, and why?

Thats a difficult question. I mostly wear the WRX collection. Very often, its a WRX Millenium, because it reminds me of my personal story. For more formal occasions, I wear a WRV automatic or a WRV Automatic Chronograph, the new Tachymeter model, for example.

WRX Millenium  RALF TECH

What have you achieved as CEO that you are most proud of?

The initial project, which I started from zero in 2008, has become an innovative and recognised business. We are today a highly credible option in dive watches. That said, my greatest pride is definitely the fact that we are independent  and we want to stay that way!

What is the biggest misconception that people have about RALF TECH?

I dont know if people have misconceptions about RALF TECH. What would perturb me, on the other hand, is to observe people group us together with existing traditional brands. We pride ourselves on being different; I wouldnt want the public to miss this fact.

WRB  First Edition Black   RALF TECH

On the other hand, what is the one thing about RALF TECH that is not well known, but highly important, in your view?

First of all, two important facts  firstly, we have held since July 2005 the world record for the deepest autonomous scuba dive, which is to say, an unassisted diver. Were talking about a dive close to 10 hours at a depth of 330m, which took place in the Mediterranean. The diver was wearing the first RALF TECH watch on his wrist. Secondly, we supply the majority of special forces across the world. The Swiss, the French, the British, the Americans etc. Over 12 countries and more than 60 dive units, to be precise. This gives us a big advantage in terms of gathering experiential information about our products, and thus boosting our savoir-faire in this area. Above all else, we are all about the real thing; we dont go for false marketing.

Academie  Veteran  Black  RALF TECH

Give us a one-word (or one-phrase) hint about your future plans for the brand.

Some of our models are already more than 10 years old. Very soon, it will be time to give them a little injection of youth; a little facelift. And we have a new, very important project coming out in 2021 or 2022, but well have time to speak again about it in the future
If my sample is at all representative, the airlines and airports falling well short of their promises to make travel safe, most of all by doing a poor job with face mask discipline. Not only is that a risk in and of itself, above all to the workers, it sends a poor message to the general public. If airlines, whose business has collapsed to the degree that Hubert Horan estimates the US big four will have $65 billion in losses even after allowing for their bailout, cant shape up, why should we expect more from mere travelers?

And what I saw from passengers was even more discouraging. My sightings suggest that the US wont have much success in combatting coronavirus absent a treatment, a vaccine, or a massive PR campaign to change attitudes about masks (along with requirement to have employers supply them or reimburse the cost to all but at-home workers).

It isnt just that too many people had no mask. What is worse is that we have mask theater: people who wear masks in such a way that it reduces or vitiates their value, like wearing them below their chins even though they are in a public place and have no excuse (eating or drinking) for having taken them off, or pulling them down when talking (!!!) or wearing them well below their noses.1

Before readers chide me for traveling at all, both trips were medical, and I was masked and gloved up, and carrying my trusty alcohol spray bottle. On this trip, I even have some n95 masks thanks to the generosity of a reader, which I deploy as needed.2

The first trip was at the end of March to the West Coast. This was before there was much contagion in Alabama. This was also a week when the airlines were slashing their schedules. I flew in the front of the bus to minimize risk, which due to the dearth of passengers, was very affordable. However, as an aside, the hassle was considerable. I had to switch from American to Delta because American got rid of all direct flights to Dallas the week I was traveling (they since restored some) and the alternate routes were horrific. My trip back was rescheduled twice, and because Delta cut itself back to only one flight daily from Atlanta to Birmingham, I had a four hour layover (which was vastly less terrible than it might have been. Due to the emptiness of the airport, I found a row of seats with no arms and got a pretty good nap).

Ill belabor the March flights less because that was while the airlines were only starting to cope with coronavirus (although Delta had taken even then to sending regular messages to customers stressing how theyd become cleaning freaks) and outside New York City and Washington State, the infection levels had not yet moves into the red zone. Of all four flights, only one had one attendant wearing a mask, and that was on the last short leg, from Atlanta to Birmingham. However, the planes had very few passengers. The airlines flight-cutting had not caught up with the level of cancellations and no-shows. The only flight with as high as a 40% load factor (again that final leg) about half the passengers in my area wore masks, so the risk was not as bad as it might seem. In fact, in California, about 60% of the passengers in the waiting area had face coverings and were wearing them properly.

And the airports were ghost towns. I was the only passenger at TSA the times I went through. The TSA employees were all masked and gloved. It was creepy to see about 90% of the airport shops closed in Atlanta, the highest passenger traffic airport in the world, and only one or two other people in the terminal corridors.

But what was disconcerting was the behavior of the flight crew. In one of the long coastal flights, I was on an international plane with only three seats sold in a 30 seat first class (and the other paying passengers were a couple). There were two attendants and another four Delta employees hitching a ride in the section.

I was appalled to see the Delta types, unmasked, sitting close together and gabbing. I even had to shoo one of the unmasked attendants away from me when she got involved in the gossip-fest for getting closer than six feet (the Delta flight attendants did have gloves).

When I flew on the final leg, the one flight attendant wearing a mask tried to stop me from cleaning my seat area with alcohol, I assume because she didnt like me demonstrating that I didnt trust Deltas housekeeping.

This was a pale comparison of what I saw today, when everyone in the travel business is touting how much they are doing to make things safe for customers. What I cant fathom is why they arent doing a better job for the benefit of their co-workers, who are even more at risk.

Today I flew American and American has a lot to answer for.

In Birmingham, the cab driver disconcertingly was not wearing a mask so I talked up the importance of masks while trying not to sound accusatory.

Inside, all of the TSA staff were masked and gloved, and the wheelchair attendant wore his mask properly. However, TSA does not clean its bins, which are the dirtiest things in the airport.3 Moreover, the Birmingham airport does not require masks, so fewer than 25% of the passengers had them on. And the gate attendant didnt have a mask, but offered hand sanitizer when I removed my gloves4 and thanked me for flying since it helped keep him employed.

On the first flight, American did seem successful in getting everyone to keep their masks onexcept its own crew. One of the two stewardesses wore hers only when the flight was landing in Charlotte. The second had hers off her face when she asked me what I wanted to drink while we were on the ground, and did have it on for most of the flight. But towards the end, she sat with her unmasked colleague in the empty first row, and pulled her mask off to talk to her. I was less than six feet away and very pissed off.

But the big horrorshow was the Charlotte airport. It was a precursor to see the pilot of my inbound plane strip his mask when he stepped off, meaning he entered the terminal bare-faced.

Admittedly, current passengers no doubt skew towards those who are skeptical about virus risk, so I should have been prepared for the sight of the overwhelming majority of people in the surprisingly busy Charlotte airport not have masks on or have them pulled below their chins. Mask wearing, as opposed to mask display, was worse than in the quiet Birmingham airport.

In addition, that attitude seemed to be widely shared by airport employees. Staff in most stores were not wearing masks or not wearing them properly. My wheelchair attendant had hers below her nose, and when I asked her to pull it up, she didnt. One of her colleagues came by, with his mask similarly at half mast. I had to tell him to move away because he had gotten too close, and I was downwind from him and the air conditioners to boot.

About half way through my trek across the terminal, I decided to count just the people wearing badges, meaning they were airline or terminal employees, and classify them as mask complaint or not. I got more than 25 in total, with about 60% non-compliant.

Oh, and the airport had me sign for the ride and rate the wheelchair person using a touch screen. I wound up giving her a green because anything less might have required me to interact even more with that microbe vector.

On the next flight, the flight attendants kept their masks on throughout the flight. However, my section was full this time. A deadheading pilot who sat next to me had his mask firmly on when he took his seat, but pulled it off his face after the flight started. I thought to say something and decided to do so when I was on the way back from the loo (I figured standing above him and having him feel at risk of other passengers hearing me call him out would increase the shame factor and thus the odds of cooperation) but he put it back on when I asked him to let me get past him.

On the Birmingham to Charlotte flight, the crew successfully instructed passengers to get off a few at a time to allow for some distancing. That did not happen in New York, even though the flight to Charlotte had come in when there were many connecting flights (like mine) while this second flight arrived when only three flights were departing after its arrival, and they all looked to be too close to be viable connections. In other words, Laguardia looked pretty sure to be everyones final destination, so there would be no real hardship in making passengers wait at most four minutes in the interest of safety.

At Laguardia, my wheelchair attendant was properly masked up. But the attendants for the other two chairs waiting werent, and they were way too close to each other for their and their charges good.

So if you are risk averse, and in particular, if you cant justify paying for a first class seat, flying still looks like a bad idea. And the airlines and airports are a big part of the problem.

___

1 These nose refusniks very rarely are wearing glasses; surgical masks can steam up glasses, but the cloth/filter ones seem much less prone to do so.

2 I would have done mask +f ace shield, and I even got some good shields, but you cant read through them, nor do better googles work with glasses.

3 This is not an exaggeration. A study found that everything in the bathrooms was cleaner. I am too lazy to fight with search engines to provide the link.

4 The best bad solution I can come up with to the TSA dirty bins problem is to don gloves before I get into the cab and wear them though the TSA checkpoint, and then strip them off.
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Eriksen is the lead author of the article that has been published in JASN.There is still variation as to how quickly this happens, and we still do not have good answers as to why this variation occurs. We have examined many factors that can play a part as to why some of us experience larger loss of kidney function than others, he adds.One of the groups that have participated in the study consists of over 1600 people and stems from The Troms Study, which is Norway's most comprehensive and best participated population study throughout 40 years. This group has been through the different examinations three times; between 2007 to 2009, 2013 to 2015, and 2018 to 2020. The last iteration of the study is still ongoing at The University Hospital of North Norway (UNN) and is lead by Associate Professor Toralf Melsom. No other study has done these kinds of examinations on a part of the normal population. That is why this study is so unique, Eriksen says.The researchers use a precise method of measuring kidney function. They inject a substance into the blood veins that only separates into the kidneys, and let a few hours pass before they measure how much of the substance remains in the blood. This gives a measure of the kidney's ability to remove toxins and waste products. Eriksen explains that more people may experience loss of kidney function as it becomes more common to survive diseases like cancer and heart and vascular diseases.For those who experience loss of kidney function at a high age, this is a considerable burden. That is why this is an area that needs further research to find more answers. We are still looking for the fountain of youth, Eriksen says.Source: Eurekalert
Mumbai, June 10 : Model-turned-actress Mandana Karimi, who plays the female protagonist in the upcoming web series "The Casino", says shooting of intimate scenes post COVID-19 will change keeping social distancing in mind. However, she adds that such practice has been happening on Iranian films for ages.

"I think post COVID-19 the projection of intimate scenes on-screen and the shooting of such scenes is going to change. We all know the new rules and how social distancing is going to be a part of our culture. It is also true that even if we get the assurance that all is safe, it is going to stay in our mind for long," Mandana told IANS.

"Having said that, me being an Iranian, I have seen so many Iranian films where intimacy in a relationship has been shown without any skin showing. As an artiste, as a storyteller, we always find a way to tell a story, show things that we would like to show. So I think, in the coming times, we will find our way to project intimacy on-screen, and following social distancing. We have a reference in Iranian cinema," she smiled.

Mandana's new show "The Casino" revolves around a rich yet humble boy Vicky who is the heir to his father's multi-billion-dollar casino. It is set to unfold a world of mystery and conspiracy in high society. In the show, she plays a power-hungry woman named Rehana.

On her character, she said: "It is quite interesting that she is not a dark or a pure character, she is grey. She is real. She has a soft corner for one man but she is power-hungry. She knows the human mind so well that whenever she needs something, she presses the right button to get her things done. At one point of time in the story, she is even shown as someone who is interested in women. You really have to watch her!" The show is very special because it marks her debut in the digital space.

"I never had such a body of work in the past so I am very thankful to (director) Hardik (Gajjar) sir for trusting me," said Mandana who made her Bollywood debut with 'Bhaag Johnny' in 2015.

As the show has several intimate scenes, Mandana said: "The only question that I was asked was if I had inhibitions in doing intimate scenes. Honestly, I put my points on the table. I said, 'sir, are you showing sex and intimacy onscreen to attack the audience or there is a logical explanation to the action, to establish the character?' When I went through the script and understood the importance of it, I agreed to do it." The show also features Karanvir Bohra, Sudhanshu Pandey, Aindrita Ray, and Dhanveer Singh. Directed by Hardik Gajjar 'The Casino' releases on Zee5 on June 12.

(Arundhuti Banerjee can be contacted at arundhuti.b@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Grubhub is finalizing a deal to merge with European food delivery company Just Eat Takeaway in a deal that could be announced as soon as today, according to people familiar with the matter.

Uber, which had been in on-and-off deal talks with Grubhub for more than a year, is likely to pull out of merger talks with Grubhub over antitrust concerns raised with the potential deal, said two of the people, who asked not to named because the talks are private.

Grubhub's board is expected to vote on the deal imminently, said the people. Just Eat's offer is at a small premium to where Grubhub is currently trading, one of the people said. Grubhub was trading at just under $58 per share at 11:45 a.m. New York time, giving it an equity value of around $5.3 billion.

In a filing following the report, Takeaway.com confirmed it is in "advanced discussions" with Grubhub about an all-share agreement.

The news comes after several Democratic lawmakers expressed concerns over Grubhub's potential deal with Uber, which would create a new market leader in the U.S. online delivery space over rival DoorDash. In a letter to top antitrust officials last month, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., urged the agencies to investigate the deal if it closed.

In a statement following the news, Klobuchar said, "I have repeatedly raised concerns and advocated against a potential merger between Uber and GrubHub. During this pandemic, when millions are out of work and many small businesses are struggling to stay afloat, our country does not need another merger that could squelch competition. News that the Uber/Grubhub deal may not materialize would be good for both consumers and restaurants."

A deal with a European company is likely to garner far less antitrust scrutiny than a transaction with Uber, which would have combined two of the three largest U.S. food delivery services.

Just Eat shares fell more than 13% on the news Wednesday. Shares of Uber were down 4.4%.

Representatives from Uber and Grubhub were not immediately available for comment.

Uber and Grubhub had agreed to a stock ratio of 1.925 Uber shares per share of Grubhub weeks ago, CNBC's David Faber reported, but had not yet agreed on how to deal with the regulatory challenges and ways Uber would support Grubhub through the likely scrutiny.

The abandonment of the deal would likely be welcome news for several politicians and restaurant owners who were wary of further consolidation in the online delivery market. Restaurant owners have complained for years of hefty fees from services like Grubhub but say their prevalence in the market makes the service difficult to abandon. As restaurants have been forced to move to a delivery- and pickup-only model during the pandemic, city councils in several cities across the U.S. have placed delivery caps on platforms such as Grubhub.

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United Nations human rights experts have urged the Zimbabwean government to immediately end a reported pattern of disappearances and torture that appear aimed at suppressing protests and dissent.

In statement, the United Nations experts condemned the abduction, torture and sexual abuse of three female oppotion activists  Harare West Member of Parliament Joanna Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova  who were seized at a checkpoint by suspected state security agents on May 13th while they were taking part in a Movement for Democratic Change Alliance protest over food shortages in the country under a nationwide coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown.

The statement read in part, After almost 48 hours, the three women were dumped in a marketplace. They were immediately hospitalised to be treated for the injuries they sustained while they were abducted. A few days later, they were charged with violating COVID-19 regulations on public gatherings and for purportedly intending to promote public violence and breach of peace.

The United Nations experts said, The charges against the three women should be dropped. Targeting peaceful dissidents, including youth leaders, in direct retaliation for the exercise of their freedom of association, peaceful assembly and freedom of expression is a serious violation of human rights law.

They called on the Zimbabwean authorities to urgently prosecute and punish the perpetrators of this outrageous crime, and to immediately enforce a policy of zero tolerance for abductions and torture throughout the country to ensure the effective protection of women against sexual violence, and to bring those responsible to account.

The experts expressed grave alarm over such abductions, saying this was not an isolated incident.

They said in 2019 alone, 49 cases of abductions and torture were reported in Zimbabwe, without investigations leading to perpetrators being held to account.

Enforced disappearances of women often involve sexual violence, and even forced impregnation, with enormous harm inflicted not only on their physical health and integrity, but also in terms of the resulting psychological damage, social stigma and disruption of family structures.

Under the absolute and non-derogable prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, which includes enforced disappearance and violence against women, Zimbabwe must take all measures in its power to prevent such abuse, to investigate suspected violations, and to bring any perpetrators to justice.

They also urged the government to allow official visits of UN human rights experts with a view to assessing the human rights situation in the country.

Responding to the UN experts remarks, Zanu PF member, Dr. Masimba Mavaza, said. Its not true that the ruling party and government abduct opponents. All this is a creation of the opposition whose members are abducting each other all the time and then claim that they have been brutalized by the government.

Information permanent secretary, Nick Mangwana, was unavailable for comment as he was not responding to calls on his mobile phone.
Darbys leadership will be of great benefit to our members by helping them elevate their status, credentials, and esteem within the community.

BizWorth is pleased to announce that managing director Shelia Darby, MBA, CVA, MAFF, is the newly appointed President of the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA) Houston State Chapter. Shelia is a longstanding member of NACVA and currently serves as BizWorths managing director of the southwest region, based in Houston, Texas. During Shelias tenure, BizWorth has experienced accelerating innovation and growth.

NACVA has seen a steady increase in demand for business valuation and financial litigation advisory services in the greater Houston area. To further serve the needs of our members, we are pleased to appoint Shelia Darby to lead our Houston State Chapter, says Jonathan Jackson, Executive Director at NACVA. Darbys leadership will be of great benefit to our members by helping them elevate their status, credentials, and esteem within the community.

It is a tremendous honor to be named as President of NACVA - Houston State Chapter and I am thrilled to be able to work alongside other leading business valuation and financial litigation experts to continue making progress towards our chapters goals, said Darby.

The NACVA Houston State Chapter provides valuable resources for members to enhance their status, credentials, and esteem in the field of performing valuations, financial litigation, and other related advisory services. To further this purpose, NACVA offers these services by establishing standards for membership in the Association, providing professional education and research, fostering practice development, upholding ethical and professional practices, enhancing public awareness of the Association and its members, and promoting working relationships with other organizations.

State Chapter events provide NACVA members valuable opportunities to: (1) promote CVAs, MAFFs, and NACVA within the community; (2) create an opportunity to network and develop mentoring relationships with other members; (3) deliver relevant, industry-related information, and educate members on the range of support services available as benefits of membership; and (4) receive CPE on timely and relevant topics pertinent to valuation and litigation forensic services.

About BizWorth

Headquartered in Houston, TX, BizWorth helps business owners and professionals across industries value ownership interests. From business acquisitions and divestitures to partner buyouts and litigation, BizWorth provides certified valuation reports that deliver the insight and credibility needed to facilitate deal making and successful resolutions. BizWorth certified appraisals are conducted by certified valuators who adhere to the high standards set forth by well-recognized, accredited organizations. To learn more, visit http://www.bizworth.com.

About NACVA

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT, the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA) is a global, professional association that delivers training from the nations leading experts in consulting fields such as business valuation, financial litigation forensics, expert witnessing, forensic accounting, risk fraud management, mergers and acquisitions, business and intellectual property damages, fair value, healthcare consulting, and exit strategies. Along with its training and certification programs, NACVA offers a range of support services, reference materials, software, and customized databases to enhance the professional capabilities and capacities of its members. The Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) is the only business valuation credential accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). To learn more, visit http://www.NACVA.com.
The head of state violated quarantine measures during his working visit to Khmelnytskyi region last week

President of Ukraine faces a fine of 17,000 hryvnias (635 dollars) for visiting a cafe in Khmelnytskyi Office of the President of Ukraine

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky was fined for the violation of quarantine restrictions during his working visit to Khmelnytskyi region. The president stated this during a conversation with journalists in Chernihiv, a Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"You can take off the mask, it is better to hear, or it will be like in Khmelnytskyi region, I will be fined, and, in principle, they did it right," he told reporters.

As we reported earlier, on June 3, the President and his delegation arrived on an official visit to Khmelnytskyi, where they took a walk through the central part of the city and tasted coffee in a local coffee shop, which, according to the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, had to be quarantined.

It was not the first time when the police had to fine Zelensky.

"When Volodymyr Zelensky showed his ballot in April 2019, he was fined for violation of the confidentiality of voting. Therefore, the competent police bodies will examine this issue," Ukraine's Deputy Interior Minister Anton Herashchenko stated.
The City of Midland Health Department is currently conducting their investigation on 8 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Midland County, bringing the overall case count to 177.

The 170th confirmed case is a female in her 30s who was tested by a private provider. The female is currently self-isolating at home. The confirmed case is an employee at Chick-Fil-A on Wall Street, who last worked on June 6, 2020. The female was not in a customer facing role. The source of exposure is travel to Lubbock.

The 171st confirmed case is a male in his 20s who was tested by Midland Health. The male is currently self-isolating at home. The confirmed case is an employee at McCoys, who last worked on June 4, 2020. The male was not in a customer facing role. The source of exposure is household contact to known case.

The 172nd confirmed case is a male in his 30s who was tested by Midland Health. The male is currently self-isolating at home. The source of exposure is household contact to known case.

The 173rd confirmed case is a female in her 30s who was tested by Midland Health. The female is currently self-isolating at home. The confirmed case is an employee at Crestview Church, who last worked on May 29, 2020. The source of exposure is household contact to known case.

The 174th confirmed case is an adolescent male (10-19) who was tested by Midland Health. The male is currently self-isolating at home. The source of exposure is household contact to known case.

The 175th confirmed case is an adolescent male (10-19) who was tested by Midland Health. The male is currently self-isolating at home. The source of exposure is household contact to known case.

The 176th confirmed case is an adolescent female (10-19) who was tested by Midland Health. The female is currently self-isolating at home. The source of exposure is household contact to known case.

The 177th confirmed case is a female in her 20s who was tested by a private provider. The female is currently self-isolating at home. She is an employee of McDonalds on Loop 250 and last worked on 6/6. The source of exposure is contact to known case.

The City of Midland Health Department will continue to monitor the individuals in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last weekend, Mosul archbishop, along with Muslim leaders and tribal dignitaries, visited the old city. The al-Nouri Mosque and the Al-Saea Church are two of the iconic buildings to be rebuilt. Fr Paul calls on those who fled to come back. But infrastructures must be rebuilt, corruption eradicated and services boosted.

Mosul (AsiaNews) - Six years after the Islamic State (IS) group took Mosul, the archbishops visit to the city is a way to bear witness to the presence of Christians" and show that "they did not abandon the city and intend to contribute to its rebirth, said Fr Thabit Mekko, head of the Christian community in Karemlash, Nineveh Plain.

The Chaldean clergyman spoke to AsiaNews about the visit by Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa in Iraqs northern metropolis, together with Muslim religious leaders and local tribal dignitaries.

By rebuilding churches [and mosques] and resuming business activities, we are sending a strong message to all the Christians who left that they can return and be present.

The prelates visit to the right side of the city, home to the most important historic buildings and places of worship, took place last Saturday to coincide with the anniversary of its fall to IS Jihadi forces in 2014.

The Islamic State, which ruled through violence and terror, was routed in the summer of 2017 after devastating some of the citys most iconic places of worship, like the al-Nouri Mosque and the Al-Saea (Our Lady of the Hour) Church.

The two places of worship, one Muslim and one Christian, today symbolise Mosuls rebirth thanks to a reconstruction project financed by UNESCO and the United Arab Emirates, part of a programme called Reviving the spirit of Mosul by rebuilding its historical monuments.

For months we heard stories about rebuilding the mosque, the minaret and the Dominican church with the clock tower. Funds have been allocated and many are pushing to rebuild these important places, symbol of the old city wounded by jihadists.

For many years, the Chaldean priest has been caring for thousands of families who fled in the summer of 2014 following the rise of the Islamic State group. He can report that we are just at the beginning".

The governor, he adds, is fighting to rebuild the city, an all-out battle against corruption which is a serious problem. Infrastructures must be rebuilt, starting from the hospitals and services that are still inadequate.

This is essential for a country that is currently struggling, like much of the world, to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Mosul is under curfew but people can move within the city, and Nineveh province has been spared from the virus, said Fr Paul. We managed to limit the spread of the virus by closing the borders with other provinces and Kurdistan, and by imposing quarantine measures for those arriving from outside.

The presence of the archbishop "is a source of encouragement" for Christians and for the whole city, and represents a message that "invites us to go forward, to rebuild people first as the foundation of the new Mosul and then brick and mortar.

From this perspective, it is crucial "to further coexistence between different religions. Christians must return but the situation is still not right for their return.

Security, development, guarantees of stability and trust are needed because Christians "feel betrayed by [some] Muslims who collaborated with the Islamic State in expulsions and violence."

Even today there is an "open wound at a psychological level" that needs to be "healed". Giving the city a new, modern face has become crucial to counter extremism. For Fr Paul, We are still at the beginning but this goal is needed to achieve real change.

* Photos by the Chaldean patriarchate
DECATUR  Tevin C.S. Bradford appeared in court Wednesday, pleading not guilty to charges he attempted to shoot to death a man he found in the apartment of his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

Bradford, 24, is accused of chasing the 27-year-old man and firing off three or four rounds at him, hitting him twice in the abdomen and lower back, police said.

In addition to attempted murder, Bradford also told Macon County Circuit Court Judge Phoebe Bowers that he was pleading not guilty to further charges of aggravated battery involving discharge of a weapon, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and being a felon in possession of a weapon. He also denies a charge of home invasion involving great bodily harm.

Sworn Decatur Police affidavits about the case say the violence began on May 21 when Bradford used a step ladder to climb through the bedroom window of his ex-girlfriends home in the 900 block of North Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at 1:45 a.m.

The affidavits described his former girlfriend, who had dated him for three years and was more than seven months pregnant with his child, suddenly hearing a loud crash as he came in through a bedroom window. She told police she had asked her friend, the 27-year-old gunshot victim, to stay with her because she came to fear Bradford, who would not leave her alone, since they broke up seven months earlier.

The affidavits describe Bradford as ordering the other man to leave but, when he opened the front door for him to go, the ex-girlfriend took the opportunity to shove Bradford out the door first and lock it.

The woman then called police and, while she was on the phone to the dispatch center, Bradford fired one or two shots through the door in an attempt to blast it open, the affidavit said. When that failed, he rushed outside and used the 8-foot ladder to come in through the bedroom window again.

Detective Barry Hitchens, giving the affidavit evidence in court under questioning by Macon County States Attorney Jay Scott, said that is when Bradford opened fire once more, shooting the other man.

Hitchens said patrol officer Jordan Jinks, who heard two gunshots as he approached the apartment, saw a man jump from a second story of the apartment building and take off running. He was caught after a short foot chase and later identified as Bradford. He was unarmed but Hitchens said he pointed police to a revolver lying nearby which had multiple spent cartridges still in its chambers.

Defending, Dave Ellison asked Hitchens if the approaching patrol officer only heard two shots. Hitchens said that was correct. And was there any other shots heard by anyone? Ellison asked.

By the officers? Not that I am aware of, Hitchens replied.

Ellison also wanted to know about evidence of gunfire found in the apartment. Hitchens said police noted five bullet holes and recovered two spent bullets. He confirmed no gun had been found in the apartment itself.

Judge Bowers ruled there was probable cause to try Bradford on all charges and scheduled a pretrial hearing for July 1. Bradford remains held in the Macon County Jail with bail set at $600,000, which means he must post $60,000 to bond out.

Mug shots from the Herald & Review

Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid

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If there is a second wave of coronavirus, the OECD predicts a 14% contraction in economic output. (Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images)

The UKs economy will be one of the most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned on Wednesday, with the plunge in economic output set to be worse than that experienced by France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the US.

If there is no second wave of the virus, the OECD said that the countrys economy will contract by 11.5% in 2020, the sharpest decline due to be experienced by any of the 37 members of the organisation.

As a service-based economy, the United Kingdom is heavily affected by the crisis, the OECD said on Wednesday in its latest economic projections. Trade, tourism, real estate and hospitality are all hard hit by confinement restrictions.

Noting that policymakers around the world continue to walk on a tightrope until a coronavirus vaccine or treatment becomes widely available, the OECD warned that even a comprehensive testing regime may not be enough to prevent a second outbreak of the virus.

READ MORE: 3,000 jobs at risk as 125 restaurants shut down

If there is a second wave of rapid contagion later in 2020, the OECD predicts that UK gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by 14%.

While the UK will be the worst-affected without a second wave, Spain and France will suffer a larger decline in such a double-hit scenario, according to the economic outlook.

In such a scenario, the UKs unemployment rate is set to more than double to 10% and remain elevated for the entirety of 2021, the OECD said, warning that the governments furlough scheme is unlikely to be able to fully offset the long-term blow to jobs.

In the double-hit scenario, a second wave of the virus and new restrictions would put an abrupt halt to the pickup in economic growth in the fourth quarter this year, the OECD said.

Commending the countrys economic response, the OECD said that the UK government swiftly put in place a fiscal support package, arguing that its measures should be kept in place as long as they are needed.

Story continues

The comprehensive measures will see the UKs fiscal deficit climb to at least 14% of GDP this year, however.

Higher unemployment benefits should be extended into the next financial year, it said, noting that a temporary extension of the Brexit transition period would help reduce uncertainty.

The United Kingdom should make a temporary arrangement to stay in the EU Single Market beyond 31 December 2020 given the pressures firms already face from COVID-19, it advised.

Pointing to the somewhat later implementation of lockdown measures, the OECD said that the UK had been relatively hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis.

It nonetheless noted that the health situation remained under control, in part thanks to a rapid scaling up of National Health Service capacity.

READ MORE: Stocks climb ahead of closely watched US Fed meeting

In the double-hit scenario, the OECD said that UK economic growth is expected to recover to 5% in 2021.

But high unemployment will dampen wage growth and subdue consumption, in part because limited unemployment benefits may encourage jobseekers to take on lower-paid jobs, it said.

Without an extension to the Brexit transition period, trade costs will increase and exports will fall in 2021, according to the projection.

Higher unemployment benefits could support demand during the recovery, while the government should consider extending its furlough scheme in the event of a second lockdown, the OECD advised.

But it said that the government should consider temporarily postponing increases to the National Living Wage to support labour demand and boost sectors that could face labour shortages.

Noting that the crisis will likely result in permanent structural shifts in the economy, the organisation said that policy should support a more sustainable and more inclusive recovery.

This could entail adjusting plans for public investment in line with digital, sustainable and inclusive growth targets, it said.
The tenth edition of the Art of Neuroscience competition is won by Lidija Kononenko, a student from the Royal Academy of Arts in London, who, with her artwork '31-3594' explores the nervous system in an interactive way.

The artwork, which is integrated in a website, is a microscope specimen, a map of symptoms, and an investigation of the unknown. As the web page is loaded, a small pink speck appears with a magnification function. With each click a scan of peripheral nerve reveals more of itself, filling the screen with text layered over it.

To read the text the piece demands the viewer to search the specimen closely, finding the other's symptoms. As sleep is still largely an uncharted territory for science, the writing utilizes the contradictions in linguistic analysis, and thus asking - what can a picture of a cross-sectioned nerve tell us about falling asleep?

The jury praises the interactivity and playful combination of imagery of a human peripheral nerve with a text-based story that unfolds at various scales and highlights the role of the nervous system in the human condition.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Sanja Budisavljevic, connected to the University of St. Andrews, receives an honorable mention for her piece 'Motor white matter networks of the human brain', in which human white matter pathways, important for sensory-motor processing are visualized using diffusion MR technology. The jury loved the combination of the 19th century anatomical drawing with modern day computer rendered tractography.

Nicki Covena, from the University of Amsterdam, was praised for his submission 'Red Haze'. He submitted an image expressing TBR1, a transcription factor protein important in vertebrate embryo development. The jury was reminded of scenes from the book Solaris, the science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, or the visual renditions by Tarkovsky. The out-of-focus view makes one guess at what details are hidden below.

'Psychoetry', a dynamic interactive poem based on auditory verbal hallucinations by Frank Gerritse and Janne de Boer from the UMC Utrecht, impressed the jury by its originality. The lines of the poems contain actual hallucinations as reported by forty people who hear voices on a regular basis. "The associated website astutely emulates the feeling of loss of control during auditory hallucinations with frantic background chatter and the ability to use the voice and mouse cursor to control the chatter and hallucinogenic poetry", the jury said.

Pamela Simard was awarded for the submission 'Bdl', in which she created various installations from fluorescent microscopy images representing the visual system of the fruit fly brain. Through the analysis of these images, the project aims to recreate the materialized process with sculpture. Every piece of the installation was made by hand. The jury was intrigued by the alien and organic shapes. "The artist made objects that are beautiful to look at while also reflecting actual synaptic configurations in the nervous system of an insect", the jury said.

Competition

Art of Neuroscience started in 2011 at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience as a competition for inspiring and provocative imagery from neuroscience labs. The goal has been to make the research from neuroscience labs more tangible, but also aims for scientists to evaluate their own work from a different perspective. In previous editions it has welcomed artists to also submit work inspired by the brain to stimulate the cross-over between neuroscience and art.

More submissions can be found on the website of the Art of Neuroscience.

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The Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (Epca) on Wednesday conducted a video meeting with the state pollution control boards and municipalities of Delhi-NCR asking them for a detailed report on the quantity of biomedical waste generated by hospitals and quarantine centres since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The body has also asked for details on whether this hazardous waste was being disposed of safely.

Epca chairperson Bhure Lal said that representatives from Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan attended Wednesdays meeting. The states have been asked to submit the required information in the next three days, after which a detailed report on the generation and handling of biomedical waste from Covid-designated treatment centres will be submitted before the apex court.

Between March 16 and March 22, we had started inspecting hospitals around Meerut, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Bhiwadi to see how they were segregating biomedical waste and how it was being disposed of. But after such a massive outbreak of Covid-19, we are dealing with more hazardous biomedical waste and we need to know if the states are handling this waste safely, Lal said after the meeting.

He also said that along with data on waste generation and disposal, the SC-mandated body is inspecting whether the garbage collection trucks are fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers to ensure that the collectors are picking up waste from hospitals, quarantine centres and houses of those under home isolation and are not dumping it midway before reaching the waste treatment centres.

We have found that 90% of these vans are fitted with GPS trackers, but we have asked states to also collect garbage from small clinics in their areas because a lot of asymptomatic patients carry the virus, Lal said.

He added, We have also asked states to maintain a complete record of the final disposal delivery of biomedical waste. This will ensure that this waste is not recycled and reused.

Epcas final report will be submitted before the SC within a week.

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Oxford High's class of 2020 has been through the wringer. Eastern equine encephalitis, Australian wildfires, COVID19, virtual learning and now the rallies for equality were just some of the obstacles thrown at this year's students.

But on Tuesday night, 132 Oxford High seniors celebrated the first of the area's pandemic graduations. While they missed spring sports, senior nights and the annual prom, they were treated to a police-led parade of cars through town taking them past their middle school and to their high school.

WATCH: Oxford High School graduation day 2020

"I think this is going to be a lot more memorable for us," said Melissa Cabezos, who will be attending the University of Connecticut in the fall for pre-med. "This afternoon started with a parade and people were lined on the sidewalks."
Loans support nearly 500,000 jobs; New online resource hub launches with financial guidance and tools tailored for business owners

CHICAGO, IL, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - BMO Harris Bank has secured $5.1 billion in total funding for more than 20,000 borrowers to date through the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

The loans approved by BMO represent a wide range of clients:

Half of the loans were for $35,000 or less

or less 78 percent of the loans were for less than $150,000

23 percent of loans, totaling $1.2 billion in funding, went to borrowers in low or moderate income areas

in funding, went to borrowers in low or moderate income areas In total, the loans have the potential to support nearly 500,000 jobs

"Businesses need access to capital more than ever, and it's our responsibility to help them keep commerce flowing," said David Casper, U.S. CEO, BMO Financial Group. "It's been our goal to secure funding for as many businesses as possible and to ensure every client received personalized service. We mobilized over 600 BMO employees to ensure that every PPP loan application was handled by a dedicated BMO employee, and every business client had a direct contact number."

BMO employees from across the organization came together to process PPP loan applications since the first round of funding was approved by Congress as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

BMO will continue to process PPP loan applications until program funds are exhausted.

The bank also added new crisis-related resources to BMO's online resource hub to help business clients navigate challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The hub contains financial guidance and tools tailored for business owners, including information on emergency financing that supports business continuity, workbooks and calculators to help pivot operations, advice on sourcing alternate suppliers and best practices for supporting employee health and remote work needs. To access BMO's resource hub, visit BMOHarris.com/businessinsights.

The latest information, including relief program resources and the status of branch operations, can be found on the bank's COVID-19 webpage.

About BMO Harris Bank

BMO Harris Bank provides a broad range of personal banking products and solutions through more than 500 branches and fee-free access to over 40,000 ATMs across the United States. BMO Harris Bank's commercial banking team provides a combination of sector expertise, local knowledge and mid-market focus throughout the United States. For more information about BMO Harris Bank, visit the company fact sheet. Accounts are subject to approval. BMO Harris Bank N.A. Member FDIC. BMO Harris Bank is part of BMO Financial Group, a highly diversified financial services provider with total assets of CDN$987 billion as of April 30, 2020.

SOURCE BMO Harris Bank
B ritish Airways is quietly selling off millions of pounds of its art collection as it battles to survive the coronavirus crisis, the Evening Standard has learned.

The airline has a large art collection by mostly British artists including works by Damien Hirst and Peter Doig, of which one is known to be well over 1 million and have been displayed in its lounges for 30 or 40 years. The collection has increased in value significantly over the years.

Artworld sources say valuers from Sothebys have been brought in by the airline to value a host of works with a view to selling them imminently.

One piece, by renowned painter Bridget Riley, currently hanging at a Heathrow executive lounge, is among those earmarked for sale with a price tag one expert said was well into seven figures.

At least 10 artworks out of BAs collection will be going under the hammer, with selections coming from its business lounges and the walls of its Waterside headquarters near Heathrow.

The airline declined to comment on the sale but sources there said the idea of selling the works had come from staff for ideas about how to save money.

BA is in the middle of bad-tempered negotiations with unions over cutting 12,000 jobs, which it says is vital to keep the airline solvent at a time when traffic numbers, particularly on long-haul, are not expected to return to pre-covid levels until 2024.

Talks with unions over cabin crew cuts have been going badly although discussions with pilots appear to have been more constructive.

We are in a very dark place. We are doing things we have never done before, said one BA source when asked about the art sale. When the ship is going down we cant hold on to all these things.

BA is thought to be considering replacing the art that gets sold by borrowing art from galleries rather than owning its own collection.

Airlines such as BA have been cutting costs wherever they can, from cancelling orders for spare parts for planes no longer flying to renegotiating airport charges. BA previously announced sale and leasebacks of aircraft that it owns to raise 750 million.

The company has announced it increased its revolving credit facility with banks and raised 300 million in government loans under the covid commercial paper loan scheme. EasyJet was given 600 million, leading analysts to question why BA did not get more. The airline is expected to seek further funding under the programme.
Afghan authorities are opening prison doors for thousands of Taliban inmates in a high-risk gambit to ensure the insurgent group begins peace talks with Kabul. Security concerns are mounting as several of the newly liberated fighters say they are ready to resume their holy war. "If the Americans do not pull out, we will continue our jihad, because they have killed many Afghans in their operations," said Mohamed Daud, who was freed from Bagram jail north of Kabul last month. "We do not want foreign forces in our country anymore," he told AFP, dressed in a traditional shalwar kameez, before taking a taxi back to his village with a cash handout from authorities worth $65. US forces arrested Daud, 28, in the northwest province of Faryab nine years ago. Afghan authorities accelerated the planned release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, including Daud, as a "goodwill gesture" after the insurgents called a three-day ceasefire to mark the Eid holiday. A security official said those flagged by the Taliban for release include aspiring suicide bombers, suicide vest makers, kidnappers and even foreign fighters. The move is part of a larger prisoner swap agreed as a precursor to the start of peace talks. Before their release, inmates were required to sign a pledge that they would not pick up arms again. It is increasingly clear such commitments mean little. A Taliban commander in Pakistan told AFP there should be "no ambiguity" that the released men will eventually be deployed to Afghanistan's front lines. "It's an ongoing jihad, and will continue until and unless we reach some sort of agreement with the Kabul government," he said. A Taliban spokesman who represents insurgent fighting forces did not respond to a request for comment, but the group's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen rejected claims prisoners would rejoin the fight, saying the Taliban had enough "active and reserve forces". "We do not need any manpower in the battlefield, because we are entering the intra-Afghan negotiations," Shaheen told AFP. - Win-win situation? - Several freed insurgents say they remain angry at US troops, but under a US-Taliban deal signed in February, the insurgents committed to stop attacking American and foreign forces as they withdraw from the country by next year. The immediate enemy is instead the struggling Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF), with whom no such pledge has been made. A key concession Washington extracted from the Taliban during negotiations was the requirement to begin peace talks with Kabul. In return, the Afghan government must release 5,000 insurgent inmates while the Taliban pledged to free 1,000 security force prisoners. Since the swap started, Afghan authorities have freed 3,000 Taliban inmates while the insurgents have released more than 750 government prisoners, officials said. It could represent a boost of up to 10 percent for the Taliban, with estimates on the number of insurgents ranging between 50,000 and 100,000. Afghan security officials said the US did not consult them before Washington and the Taliban finalised the prisoner swap. More than the fighters, "those that worry us are the brains", a senior security official said, adding that one of the freed Taliban inmates had already joined the insurgents' military squad while another had committed a murder. The Taliban heralded the US deal as proof they had defeated America in its longest war, and the bluster has only grown in recent months. "Politics and negotiations should not be taken to mean that we will neglect jihadi affairs and the strengthening and development of our jihadi military force," Taliban deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani said in a recent broadcast. The Taliban now find themselves in a win-win situation -- even if peace talks with Kabul fail. With its key donor calling the shots, the Afghan government had no choice but to yield to Washington's demand to proceed with the exchange. Still, some observers hold out hope for successful peace talks that would bring an end to Afghanistan's 19-year-old war. "These talks hold a better hope for a lasting ceasefire than any other current approach," said Andrew Watkins, an analyst with International Crisis Group. "Swift initiation of talks is the best way to eliminate that threat." No start date has been set for the talks. eb-mam-sjd-jds/wat/sst Afghan authorities have so far freed 3,000 Taliban inmates while the insurgents have released more than 750 government prisoners Taliban prisoners prepare for their release from Bagram prison in Afghanistan
A Lagos State Magistrate Court in Yaba on Wednesday acquitted a teenager who was accused of killing a man who wanted to rape her.

The 15-year old girl was acquitted two months after allegedly committing the crime and remanded in a correctional centre.

In a statement by Mamud Hassan, the spokesperson of the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender (OPD), the 15-year old was acquitted based on the legal advice of the Director of Public Prosecution on the basis that the case lacked ingredients of murder.

PREMIUM TIMES reported in March how the teenager (name withheld) at Aboru High School, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos was accused of killing a 51-year old man who tried to rape her.

The deceased, Babatunde Ishola, was allegedly killed on March 7, at his residence at Nwadolu Street, Aboru after a rape attempt.

Mr Ishola was a security guard at the Aboru High school and a friend to the acquitteds father.

According to the police, the teenager went to the deceaseds house to help him fetch water on a Saturday and while she was helping out with the water, he attempted raping her and she picked a knife from the room and stabbed him.

The case was investigated by the State Criminal Investigation Department, Yaba. The teenager was thereafter remanded at the Correctional Home for Girls, Idi-Araba, while the case was adjourned for legal advice of the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions.

Mr Hassan on Wednesday said the teenager was acquitted and released of murder charge due to lack of facts and evidence.

While delivering the judgment, Philip Ojo, the magistrate said that the case file after due consideration of facts, it was duly decided that there were insufficient facts to establish a prima facie case of murder against the suspect contrary to Section 222 of the Criminal Law, Cap. C17, Vol.3 Laws of Lagos State.

The court, therefore, ruled that ingredients required to prove the offence of Murder against the suspect were not all present from the facts of this case, also clearly intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to the deceased cannot be established,  the statement read.

Mr Ojo subsequently discharged and acquitted the suspect of the murder charge.

Babajide Martins, the Director of Lagos Office of the Public Defender (OPD), expressed satisfaction with the decision of the court to release the girl.

Mr Martins said the diligence and timely advice of the Director of Public Prosecution on the matter made it possible for girl to be released because no prima facie case was established against her.

He assured other indigent people being represented in various cases that OPD has been re-organised and re-engineered to deliver first class free legal services in line with the current administration philosophy of better security and governance to all residents irrespective of gender and religion.

The Director therefore appealed to those that have suffered any form of rights denial, abuse and violence to visit any of the office of OPD nearest to them for free legal service. Martins assured members of the public that the office is still attending to the public during the lockdown within the governor`s directive,  the statement reads.

The Office of the Public Defender (OPD) is an institution established by the Lagos State Government to provide free legal services to indigents and low-income households in the state and enable them get justice.
Russians bypass coronavirus travel ban via Belarus, say transport sources FILE PHOTO: Passengers wait for their luggage at an airport in Minsk

By Gleb Stolyarov and Anton Zverev

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians are using Belarus as a springboard to travel abroad as their country's international borders remain largely closed as part of efforts to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, transport sector sources say.

Russia and Belarus form a customs union and their shared frontier is relatively porous, making it easier to avoid border guards by taking certain routes.

Unlike Russia, President Alexander Lukashenko has refused to impose a lockdown in Belarus, which also borders Ukraine and European Union member states Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. He has suggested vodka and saunas as remedies for the coronavirus.

Dozens of car and mini-van drivers still advertise cross-border shuttle services for both Russian and Belarusian citizens despite Russia's formal closure of its borders in March.

Several drivers who declined to be named said they regularly crossed the border with passengers lacking clearance to do so.

"At around 70-80kms (43-50 miles) from Belarus we start driving through country roads to get round the border guards," one driver said, adding it was a 10-12 hour trip from Moscow to the Belarusian capital Minsk, costing 10,000 roubles ($146).

Another who identified himself only as Andrey said "hundreds" of Russians had flown onwards after reaching Belarus.

"Many people write afterwards that they made it over and flew out," he said.

Belarus's Belavia airline offers flights to various European destinations including Germany and France as well as elsewhere.

The Russian border guard service did not respond to requests for comment. The Belarusian border guard service said it did not seek to control movement across its border with Russian.

Russia's Federal Security Service has reported catching more than 250 people crossing the border since April, local media reports said. These people as well as the drivers involved were each fined 2,000 roubles.

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One Russian woman said she had used the route and that it had not seemed untoward: "It's just a normal, good road and after driving it you end up in Belarus."

Russia, with 145 million people, has reported nearly half a million coronavirus cases with 6,358 deaths. Belarus, with 9.5 million people, has reported 50,000 cases and 282 deaths.

(Additional reporting by Andrei Makhovsky and Rinat Sagdiev; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Almost all of us have studied elementary geometry in school and are acquainted with the theorem of Pythagoras. It is elegant and elementary while also being important since it has many applications. What many of us may not be aware of is that this theorem had been discovered in India a few hundred years before Pythagoras.

What is even less well-known is that Pythagoras had visited India. There are documents from Greece dating back to before the start of the Christian era as well as just after the Christian era that describe his visit to the country. Whilst in India, it seems Pythagoras was deeply influenced by Jain philosophy and he became a vegetarian. Unfortunately, these facts are not mentioned at all in most schools when the subject is taught. And even in the schools where teachers mention it, they do so only in passing. It is a no brainer that it would make the teaching of geometry far more interesting if we could include some of these facts from history when teaching mathematics. Actually, it would make the teaching of mathematics far more interesting if we could incorporate into the content some of the applications and historical context that led to profound mathematical discoveries in India from since several hundred years before the time of Christ.

The roots of Math

I shall attempt to create a description by way of a modest sample of what could be taken from Indias history in a practical manner that could manifestly increase the appreciation of the subject by students. So, in the context of the theorem of Pythagoras, it is important to note that the theorem is recorded in ancient Indian texts that go under the collective name the Sulbasutras. The word sulba means a piece of cord or string and sutra stands for a formula or an aphorism.

The ancient Indian theorem under the name Sulbasutras (R) predates the theorem by Pythagoras (L) by a few hundred years. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons and Facebook/ International Bulletin of Mathematical Research)

It so happens that during the Vedic age in ancient India, all Vedic rituals were centred around performing sacrifices at fire altars. Each of these sacrifices demanded specific shapes for the fire altars.

Blazing a trail

These altars were geometrically intricate in shape and had to be constructed to precise requirements of the area. Thus sophisticated geometry grew in India around the construction of these fire altars. This happened much before the time it developed in Greece. Most historians agree that the sulbasutras were created and recorded orally several hundred years before the time of Christ.

My concern is, if our policy and curriculum makers take a little more interest, much of the learning of mathematics in a trans-disciplinary manner can happen around the sulbasutras and other such discoveries from ancient India. I use the word trans-disciplinary since these topics can be taught in a hands-on and practical manner and the students can gain insights into history and architecture through the geometry of the sulbasutras. Interestingly, each of the these has been authored by a solitary mathematician, and each of them was palpably good architects. The important lesson we, in India, must imbibe from these powerful knowledge traditions of the past is, it was always trans-disciplinary and hands-on in nature.

Our young students could gain much insight into how geometry can be put to practical use and how it was discovered by our ancients if we were to bring a little bit of the prescriptions and mathematics of the sulbasutras into play. Incidentally, the oldest of the sulbasutras was authored by the mathematician Baudhayana in 800 BCE. We must remember that Pythagoras was around 500 BCE. Baudhayanas sulbasutra clearly mentions in great detail this theorem. There are indications of an algorithmic method to construct the proof. This algorithmic method for providing proofs is one of Indias greatest contributions. Of course, there have been other instances of extraordinary mathematics created in India before and after the time of Christ and which is outside the realm of the sulbasutras.

All of this profound mathematics happened well before the rest of the world discovered it. It can do a world of good to our pedagogical practices if we could apply our minds to bring it in creative fashion into our curriculum. In around 200 BCE, an Indian prosodist by the name of Pingala was working on creating new metres in Sanskrit poetry. Pingala was attempting to create these new metres by combining long and short sounds of existing metres. He was dabbling in permutations and combinations. The Greeks and Europe had not even heard of permutations and combinations then. While doing so, Pingala discovered a very important mathematical tool that was rediscovered in Europe about 1,800 years later as Pascals triangle.

Gradual decay

The disappointing part of this story is that we teach permutations and combinations to our school students but fail to mention Pingalas discovery and the practical applications he made with it in poetry. Doing this, especially with the advent of computers is easy and interesting. Additionally, it creates greater curiosity and inventiveness in young minds. I can vouch for this since I have experimented with these for several years. What we also imbibe from such stories is that knowledge and skills are two sides of the same coin and when put into play through a trans-disciplinary approach, it brings all-round benefits. Our ancients knew this well but we have forgotten it. Judge for yourself by looking at our school curriculum.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Also read: What modern education can learn from the Vedas
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New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft emphasized the importance of being sensitive and empathizing with others after the horrible death of George Floyd.

Kraft spoke about Floyds death during a video tribute to honor safety Devin McCourty as the Boston Uncornered 2020 Champion of the Year. He also announced he will donate $100,000 in McCourtys name to Boston Uncornered.

For those of us who live our daily life a certain way and dont really connect, thats a real problem, Kraft said during the video tribute. And I think what happened with George Floyd is just horrible. Its something in the old testament, theres no bad that happens that doesnt have good associated with it if you manage it properly. And I think this has all of a sudden brought things into focus and sensitized all people that we have to work harder and connect better and try to make our great country better than it really is.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man from Minnesota, died after former police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck until he passed out. Floyd was seen in the video yelling I cant breathe before he passed out. Chauvin was charged with murder. Three other offices also were charged.

If we look at the times were in right now, being a good listener (is important) and empathizing and trying to understand whats going on right now is really very fragile, Kraft said.

The Patriots released a lengthy statement on Floyds death, saying We are horrified by the acts of racism we have witnessed.

The Krafts already announced this past Friday they will donate $100,000 monthly for 10 months to 10 different organizations that are fighting for equality, working to end systematic racism and creating meaningful change in our community. Boston Uncornered  an organization that is using education to end systemic generational urban poverty and violence through its Uncornered solution"  will receive the first $100,000 donation in McCourtys name.

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What a relief to submit to the whole six episodes of The Beach (SBS On Demand). Thank heaven to SBS, NITV, Warwick Thornton and crew to take us away from this mad world and calm the mind with this escape. The setting and Warwick's portrayal in it gently fire all our senses. Superb!

Operation Buffalo (ABC) is yet another local production resorting to lazy and unimaginative national stereotyping. Australians are portrayed as no-nonsense, laconic larrikins while the British are all Colonel Blimp nincompoops spouting ridiculous lines like "tickety boo". When will the Australian film industry grow up?

Greg Hardy, Upper Ferntree Gully

Speaking out

I am continually puzzled about one thing on The Voice  why is it that all the judges wear the same outfits in each session of The Blinds? Is this because they were all recorded on the same day? Or, is it because the show has a limited budget? Contrast this with MasterChef where the judges are dressed differently every session.

Andrew Wong, Ivanhoe
This year's UN General Assembly will be held virtually for the first time in history because of the coronavirus pandemic, its president announced Wednesday.

The meeting is still scheduled for September 22-29 but will be carried out with previously recorded speeches by world leaders, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, who is from Nigeria, said in a letter to UN member countries.

"I surmise that the limitations on international travel and convening of large in-person meetings as a result of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, may, in varying degrees, still be in effect in September 2020," Muhammad-Bande wrote.

Member states must send the UN an embargoed speech of up to 15 minutes by their president, prime minister, some government minister or UN ambassador at least five days before the assembly, he said.

And a diplomat from each mission can attend a real life session during which the speeches will be broadcast or read aloud from the podium of the UN assembly hall.

Last month UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said it was unlikely that world leaders could meet in September as planned, because of the global health crisis.

The General Assembly is the world's largest diplomatic gathering, and entails hundreds of side events and bilateral or multilateral meetings of world leaders.

It has never been cancelled since the United Nations was founded in 1945.

But it has been postponed twice: in 2001 because of the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in 1964 because of a financial crisis.

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In April, Michael Ramos was shot by an officer with a bean bag round as he stood next to his car, hands in the air shouting that he was unarmed, the Austin Chronicle reported. Ramos ducked into the car and started to drive away when he was shot to death by an officer with a rifle. Last year, Atatiana Jefferson was shot by a white police officer through a bedroom window in her Fort Worth home. The man didnt identify himself as a police officer before yelling at her twice to put her hands up and then shooting, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. In 2018, a white Dallas police officer shot Botham Jean, who was sitting on his couch eating a bowl of ice cream. The officer said she mistook Jeans apartment for her own and thought he was a burglar. During her trial, she admitted she intended to kill Jean when she shot, The Dallas Morning News reported.
PHOENIX  Arizona has asked a court to block the Citizens Clean Elections Commission from enforcing certain laws that regulate how much candidates and others can spend on campaigns and what has to be disclosed.

An attorney for the state, Tim Berg, told Court of Appeals judges Wednesday that the Republican-controlled Legislature was within its power in 2016 when it created exceptions to campaign finance laws.

He said the changes were not directly part of the Clean Elections Act voters enacted in 1998.

But commission attorney Joseph Roth said the 2016 alterations violated the Voter Protection Act, which bars legislators from tinkering with laws voters enacted. He said the Legislature unconstitutionally undermined the intent of the 1998 Clean Elections Act, which was designed to reduce the influence of money on politics.

The appellate judges gave no indication when they will rule.

One of the changes legislators made in 2016 allows supporters to effectively provide unlimited amounts of money to get candidates elected without having to disclose who they are. The 2016 law was championed by then-House Speaker J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler.
Decades of intensive cocoa farming led to rapid economic development in the Ivory Coast, and turned the country into the world's top producer of the chocolate ingredient.

But clearing land for farming all but wiped out the Ivory Coast's forests.

An ambitious new forestry policy could reverse that.

It aims to take back control of government-managed parks and forest reserves.

Amourlaye Toure works for the campaign group Mighty Earth.

"We need to act, it is an emergency today. Because if we don't act quickly we risk losing the entirety of our forests. Already 90% of our primary forests in Ivory Coast have been lost between 1960, when we gained independence, until 2000, so in the space of half a century."

Armed personnel oversees the protection of land, checking up on loggers to make sure they're not working for illegal cocoa plantations.

But resources are limited.

Lieutenant Olivier Nogbo leads a team of five overseeing 130,000 hectares of land, with a fuel budget of around 340 U.S. dollars a month.

There is a cost to those who live on the farms, however.

This illegal settlement - nicknamed Bandit Town - was home to 10,000 people.

By March, the government had taken it down and reduced the area to rubble.

The forest strategy allows any illegal farmers to remain on their land - at least temporarily, but on the condition they plant trees that will re-establish the forest canopy.

They are not allowed to plant new cocoa trees.

Local residents here admitted they had refused the government's requirement to plant 100 tree seedlings per hectare on their plantations.

The Ivory Coast wants to expand forest cover to 20% of its national territory by 2030. Right now, it's at 11%.

The government estimates they will have to plant three billion trees over the coming years.
Indian Army personnel keep vigilance at Bumla pass at the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh on Oct. 21, 2012. (Biju Boro/AFP via Getty Images)

Scenarios for a China-India Himalayan War

Commentary

Everyone who wants to prevent nuclear war and expand economic opportunity should demand Chinas dictatorship answer this question: Why is nuclear-armed mainland China militarily and diplomatically escalating its Himalayan border dispute with nuclear-armed India?

On June 8, the South China Morning Postonce an independent voice but increasingly a Beijing agitprop outletpublished an article touting the Peoples Liberation Armys Himalayan reinforcement operation.

I enjoyed the photo of PLA infantrymen seated on a jet transport while wearing surgical masks. Obviously, the troops regard the COVID-19/Wuhan virus as a threat.

Now, dont make the mistake of caving to the pro-communist propagandists who damn the name Wuhan as racist and a provocation. Whats in a name? Place, not race. Place of origin, not ethnicity. Evidence: Rocky Mountain spotted fever (Rocky Mountains), West Nile virus (Uganda) and Lyme disease (Connecticut). Our global plague first erupted in Wuhan.

The Hong Kong papers photo caption said the troops were flying from the Hubei province. Wuhan is Hubeis capital. Did the paper provide an intel indicator that the pandemic once again rages?

As for war between the Asian giants China and India? We have a five-decade cycle of tit-for-tat Chinese and Indian Himalayan border chest-pounding episodes followed by tentative reconciliation.

Yet the 1962 Sino-Indian War isnt ancient history. Optimists note the 1962 Sino-Indian ceasefire has produced a kind of stability, but it is not a ratified peace treaty. Indeed, since 1962, frozen war has persisted at a literal level, with soldiers in snowfields. Frozen conflicts have the veneer of stability, but in fact, they are slow wars waged by diplomatic, economic and cultural means, and military buildups.

Nationalists in Beijing and New Delhi continue to use different names for disputed territories. For example, the Chinese refer to one disputed area as Southern Tibet. Indians call it the northern frontier of the Arunachal Pradesh state. The dispute involves water as well. China and India compete for Himalayan hydropower and water resources. Check the map. Call it the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River water war.

Armed conflict becomes more likely when Chinese and Indian leaders see their Himalayan disputes as either a convenient squabble serving domestic political ends or, much worse for planet Earth, a window of opportunity to gain a significant advantage over a major strategic adversary. Prospect No. 1 produces war by miscalculation. Prospect No. 2 produces war when one side decides to deny the aggressor a bloodless strategic advantage.

Chinas dramatic economic contraction matters. I doubt China knows the exact percentage points, but thanks to its COVID-19/Wuhan virus cover-up, Beijings tendency to put lipstick on ugly numbers has become a global reputation for bald-faced lying.

Add this reasonable assumption: Chinas economy will not see its 1990-to-2017 growth rates. The U.S. decision to decouple supply chains, Western Europes slow but similar response, and an understandable though little analyzed anti-Beijing reaction in Africa and southwest Asia support this assumption. Some economists argue that in 2019, the United States surpassed China as Indias largest trading partner.

The Chinese Communist Party feels threatened by economic decline, Hong Kongs resistance and pandemic pushback. In the 20th century, the CCP attracted domestic political support by demanding the return of treaty ports like Hong Kong. Beijings current South China Sea expansion and pursuit of traditionalist claims on Himalayan territory repeat this motif. Hence the most likely scenario: Beijing is chest pounding to gain domestic support.

However, if someone on a glacier starts shooting, a brief Sino-Indian War 2020 (the War for Southern Tibet) where China launches a limited invasion with the goal of pushing the border 20 miles south in either the eastern or western sectors cannot be totally dismissed. After the territorial bite, China would call for a ceasefire to avoid escalation to nuclear war and offer to negotiate a permanent border. This fact argues against a significant Chinese advance. In 1962, Beijing acclimated its infantry to high altitudes. New Delhi did not. In 2020, both sides front-line forces are acclimated. The boys from Hubei? Not yet.

Austin Bay is a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Army Reserve, author, syndicated columnist, and a teacher in strategy and strategic theory at the University of Texas. His latest book is Cocktails from Hell: Five Wars Shaping the 21st Century.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Voters in Georgia were ensnared in chaos Tuesday after ballot shortages and mechanical malfunctions left residents stranded in scorching heat and pouring rain across the state for as long as five hours.

A confluence of events disrupted primary elections for president, U.S. Senate and dozens of other contests in largely minority counties.

Voters stood in line for hours without being able to cast a ballot as a shortage of poll workers and social-distancing precautions caused by the coronavirus exacerbated wait times.

Some precincts were closed due to lack of election officials available to work and others limited the number of people allowed in to prevent the virus from spreading.

Officials even ran out of provisional ballots to give to voters in some cases. One polling place in Atlanta only had 20 provisional ballots to distribute.

Democrats and election watchers said voting issues in a state that has a history of similar issues, combined with allegations of racial bias, doesn't bode well for the November presidential election, where Georgia could emerge as a battleground state.

A confluence of events disrupted primary elections for president, U.S. Senate and dozens of other contests - raising questions about the emerging battleground states ability to manage elections for the White House in November

Voters waited in line for hours without being able to cast a ballot as a shortage of poll workers and social-distancing precautions caused by the coronavirus exacerbated the problem

Some precincts were closed due to lack of election officials available to work and others limited the number of people allowed in to prevent the virus from spreading

One state lawmaker, Rep. William Boddie of Atlanta, said there was 'a complete meltdown' in the state's biggest city.

Its really disheartening to see a line like this in an area with predominantly black residents, said Benaiah Shaw, a 25-year-old African American, as he cast a ballot in Atlanta.

Some voters waited in line over five hours and still hadn't been able to cast their vote. Others had to leave without voting or obtaining a provision ballot. Some voters said they joined the lines after requesting mail-in ballots that never arrived.

Volunteers handed out bags of popcorn, chips and candy. People in line smoked cigarettes and cursed the wait. Some said theyd tried to vote earlier in the day but left because the line wrapped around the block.

Too many people died for me to have this opportunity, said Stephanie Bush, a 49-year-old black independent voter in Atlanta. So for me not to stick it out would be a dishonor to them.

The reports out of the state don't bode well for November, when the state will be in play during the presidential election between President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Biden and President Trump are expected to fiercely compete in this rapidly changing state. That leaves officials, who have already been criticized for attempting to suppress the vote, with less than five months to turn things around.

Some voters waited in line over five hours and still hadn't been able to cast their vote. Others had to leave without voting or obtaining a provision ballot. Some voters said they joined the lines after requesting mail-in ballots that never arrived

Voters line up at Christian City, an assisted living home, to cast their ballots after Democratic and Republican primaries

The reports out of the state don't bode well for November, when the state will be in play during the presidential election between President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden

Biden and President Trump are expected to fiercely compete in this rapidly changing state. That leaves officials, who have already been criticized for attempting to suppress the vote, with less than five months to turn things around

Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, told The New York Times she had 84 text messages reporting voting problems within 10 minutes of the polls opening at 7 a.m.

Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, a Republican, called for an investigation into the voting problems.

'The legislative branch of government has an obligation to go beyond the mutual finger-pointing and get to the truth and the real reasons underlying these frustrations and concerns,' he said.

Georgia's Secretary of State Office blamed poorly trained poll workers on the delays.

'We have reports of poll workers not understanding setup or how to operate voting equipment. While these are unfortunate, they are not issues of the equipment but a function of counties engaging in poor planning, limited training and failure of leadership,' Statewide Voting Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling said in a statement.

But some precinct workers said the voter check-in tablets used to scan voter identifications weren't working. Additionally, many poll workers were hired and trained at the last minute due to a shortage of workers because of the coronavirus.

'This was supposed to be seamless, and today nothing is working,' Marilyn McGuire, a precinct manager at an Atlanta voting station, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 'Today's been a disaster. People are mad. They've been waiting for hours. It's hard to talk about it's so frustrating. But at least people are staying  they're not going anywhere.'

Steve Bradshaw, a presiding officer in DeKalb county which is east of Atlanta, called voting issues 'a disgrace' and slammed the secretary of state's office for blaming counties.

'It's astounding to me what an abdication of leadership that is, to push the ownership down to the counties. I was raised that if you mess up, fess up,' he told The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts speaks to reporters about voting problems in his county

Voters wait inside a polling location to cast their ballots after Democratic and Republican primaries in Atlanta

Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, told The New York Times she had 84 text messages reporting voting problems within 10 minutes of the polls opening at 7 a.m

Officials even ran out of provisional ballots to give to voters. One polling place in Atlanta only had 20 provisional ballots to distribute

A voter reads a book while waiting in line to vote in a line stretched around the Metropolitan Library in Atlanta

Even before Georgia voters ran into problems Tuesday, the state's chief election officer warned that results may be slow to come in as poll closures and virus restrictions complicate in-person voting and counties work to process a huge increase in ballots received by mail.

Former Vice President Joe Biden easily won the states Democratic presidential primary. He was facing no real opposition but hoped to post a strong showing among Georgias diverse electorate to show his strength heading into the general election.

But the developments were troubling heading into the fall presidential campaign, which will attract even more voters.

Republican leaders blamed the meltdowns on officials in Fulton and DeKalb counties, which are Democratic strongholds with significant black populations.

When these things arise, and its really specifically in one or two counties ... it leads us back to the failure of the management of the county election directors in those counties, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told The Associated Press. It has nothing to do with what were doing in the rest of Georgia.

The Trump campaign seized on the problems to amplify the presidents broader opposition to expanded mail voting this fall.

The chaos in Georgia is a direct result of the reduction in the number of in-person polling places and over reliance on mail-in voting, said Trump campaign senior counsel Justin Clark. We have a duty to protect the constitutional rights of all of our citizens to vote in person and to have their votes counted.

The Biden campaign called the voting problems in Georgia completely unacceptable and a threat to free and fair elections.

We only have a few months left until voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian -- and every American -- is able to safely exercise their right to vote, said Rachana Desai Martin, the campaigns national director for voter protection and senior counsel.

One Georgia Republican has already called for an investigation into Tuesday's voting problems

Presidential campaigns are watching Georgia's voting for problems as the state is seen as competitive between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden in November

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms encouraged voters to remain in line and let their vote be counted

Americans also voted in primaries in West Virginia, South Carolina and Nevada. Long lines also plagued voting in Las Vegas, where voters told the AP that they been waiting four and five hours in some cases even as state election officials suggested wait times reached three hours only in one location.

But the tumult in Georgia garnered much of the attention, reinforcing concerns about managing elections amid the coronavirus.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said voters in line at one of Atlantas largest precincts reported all the machines were down. She encouraged voters not to give up.

If you are in line, PLEASE do not allow your vote to be suppressed, the Democratic mayor tweeted.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said he wasnt surprised that Georgia had voting problems given that the states elections chief is a Republican. He noted that GOP Gov. Brian Kemp faced allegations of suppressing votes when he oversaw the 2018 elections as secretary of state.

Republicans want to ensure that it is as hard as possible for people to vote, Perez said.

Some voters reported waiting in line for more than three hours and still not being able to cast a ballot

Voters took to twitter to share how long the vote lines were in Georgia on Tuesday

People vote at voting booths in the Georgia's primary election at Park Tavern in Atlanta

Kemp was largely silent about the voting problems on Tuesday, aside from retweeting a message from his wife urging people to vote.

Georgia hasnt voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, but the state is being closely watched by Trump and Biden. The former vice president, in particular, hopes to emerge as the prime beneficiary of energy from the African American community and its white allies, who have held massive protests for more than a week.

His path to the presidency was already focused on maximizing black turnout and expanding his alliance with white suburbanites and city dwellers, young voters, Asian Americans and Latinos. Trump, meanwhile, hoped to demonstrate strength among his base of white voters in small towns while holding his own in metro areas.

Trump, meanwhile, has virtually no path to reelection without victory in Georgia.

A nearly four-hour wait outside an Atlanta polling site shook Ross Wakefields faith in the upcoming elections and peoples ability to participate.

It doesnt give me a lot of confidence in the future, said Wakefield, a 28-year-old white software engineer. Personally, I feel like were struggling as a country right now to hear people who really need to be heard, and this does not give me a lot of confidence that were doing that.
One hundred days into the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont became reflective on Tuesday and eagerly pointed to the Phase 2 reopening next week that could get 95 percent of the economy working again.

A lot is getting opened next week, Lamont said during a morning news conference outside the Connecticut Science Center, along with its director, Matt Fleury. I dont think we opened too early and I think weve opened cautiously and I think we kept things moving in the right direction. Thats why June 17 will be such an important change for us going forward.

He said that state officials have learned a lot since mid-March, when he ordered a shutdown that resulted in hundreds of thousands of people unemployed. He is also worried about a second wave of the pandemic later this year.

The state Department of Public Health on Tuesday reported 13 new fatalities in the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the total to 4,097. There was also a net decrease of 31 patients, bringing the statewide total to 293, the fewest since March 28.

Our infection rate was the lowest weve seen in a long time, down around 2 percent or less, Lamont said. Thats incredibly important. Hospitalization are two-thirds below where they were when we opened up on Phase 1, May 20.

He said that one of the pieces of progress is the inter-agency cooperation that has emerged through the leadership of Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe, who also heads the state Department of Administrative Services. He said that while such teamwork is routine in the private sector, it had been less likely in state government.

We were having a unified command meeting virtually every day for 60 days, Lamont said. We realized, my god, Public Health has a lot to say to Corrections, and everybody wanted to hear from the Department of Administrative Services, because they were tracking the flight from China, bringing the next supply of gowns and masks that were in such short supply back then. So we learned how we could work together better as a state.

Unifying hospitals in the crisis was another key.

Hospitals were at the table early on and they worked together as one, he said. When the hospitals in the southern part of the state were getting overwhelmed, our hospitals here in Hartford were able to help out. Then it was southern Connecticuts turn to help out as well.

Lamont said that his relationship with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, which started during a fishing trip last summer, became closer as they and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker agreed to close bars and restaurants at the same time.

We saw them as places where infection could spread and spread quickly, and we did that, Lamont said. Its very helpful for us to be speaking with one voice.

He was disappointed that there was pushback against his business-dominated Reopen CT Advisory Group, and the now-disbanded public private partnership with hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio.

I know the hesitancy of not having everything decided here, within this Hartford ecosystem, but I think were better when we keep open on this, Lamont said.

He said the Partnership for Connecticut, with the Dalio Philanthropies investing $100 million with the promise of $100 million from the state and $100 million from outside donations for at-risk kids, was a little more complicated but doomed by sniping and criticism over its lack of transparency.

Within a week or two of us announcing the Partnership and someone went to the floor of the state House of Representatives and said who are all these corporate board guys dropping dollars on we peasants? Lamont said. That was an attitude that killed any opportunity for us to do much fundraising. Ive got to figure out how we can do better to put together a structure that is transparent, that gives you confidence that theyre acting in the public interest, and we can leverage their amazing resources, their intellectual resources and their financial resources.

He wants Republican and Democratic leaders of the legislature to develop guidelines to encourage future public-private partnerships. So we dont stiff arm people that want to be helpful in any way, but we welcome them to the table where we can tap their expertise, tap their incredible sense of citizenship, to participate and make a difference, he said.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
A sick family of a mom and two adult children were accused of maltreating and killing their disable relative until she was suffocated to death.

The unfortunate death prompted the police to arrest them in Florida on Monday. The deceased was living with them before she was found dead in the woods, as reported by WFTV.

Before the arrest, the body of their relative was discovered in the woods, which led then police to suspect her relatives of foul play.

Mom and children reported victim 'missing'

Police in the Orange County said that the relatives of Gladys Ambert were suspects in their investigation of her disappearance.

Those charged by the police were her aunt and two cousins. They were identified as Nellie Ambert, aged 55, her daughter Jasmine, aged 32, lastly her son, Matias, aged- 8, who were responsible for Gladys Ambert's horrific death and torture.

Identified by the police was the victim and deceased, Gladys Ambert, aged 27, who was sick with cerebral palsy, deaf and mute, and her mental age was that of 5-year-old. Last April, her corpse was discovered with a pink blanket over her at Valencia College Lane, as reported by WFTV.

Police got a call from Gladys' family members, to inform them that she went missing, and added that their disabled relative had left home without their knowledge. When the police got a call from the Amberts, a search was initiated to look for the missing cousin, as reported.

Her body was found when a security guard discovered her corpse, in a location that was near the place of her relative's apartment.

Victim's body was covered in marks

Her relatives lied about everything and the evidence was appalling, revealing the family's sick motives.

According to Orange County Sheriff's Office Detective Sergeant Joe Cavelli, when the body was examined, several marks were found on her.

Also read: Stepmom Who Tortured, Starved Little Girl Attempts to Fool Court to be Freed From Jail

They noted that the dead woman had bruises all over her, and indications of getting bound with either cord or rope, with a cut lip as well.

Further examination of the corpse, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel, reveals more than what the relatives were telling about. The autopsy found of evidence that Gladys died by suffocation by compressing the belly, while tied up.

When interrogated by the police, the aunt and cousin were adamant about their story that she ran away. Later they alleged that she was found dead, bound in the bathroom last April 6.

Investigators say that the mother of Gladys Ambert left her when a child. Her main guardian was her paternal grandmother in New York but she died in July and she came to live in Florida with her aunt and cousins.

Findings of the police

Findings of the detectives revealed the victim suffered from constant beatings. They suspected she has been tied up and beaten October 2019 to until her death in 2020. The deranged relatives reveal that she soiled herself when all tied up.

Her aunt Nellie was paid $700 to care for Gladys. Cavelli, when asked for a comment said that they just threw her like trash, as mentioned in Kentucky.

More charges were prepared against the aunt and two adult children, and Cavelli claimed the case will continue.

Related topic: Mom Goes Home Seeing Her Child and Estranged Husband Dead, While 8-Year Old is Seriously Injured

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
INDIANAPOLIS  Purdue University Global has officially launched its professional flight program and will begin training students through its flight training affiliate, Sterling Flight Training LLC, this fall. Students may apply to enroll in the online Bachelor of Science in Professional Flight program beginning Wednesday (June 10).

Those accepted into the School of Aviation program will complete their Bachelor of Science degree courses online through Purdue Global, which includes aviation and general education classes, while completing professional flight training at Sterling Flight Training in Jacksonville, Florida.

The program is a collaboration between Purdue Global and Purdue Universitys School of Aviation and Transportation Technology  announced in June 2019  and a partnership between Purdue Global and Sterling  announced in February 2020.

We are excited to see this program take off, said Frank Dooley, Purdue Global chancellor. It is a wonderful association among Purdue Global, Purdue West Lafayette and Sterling, utilizing the strengths of each entity, all with students best interests in mind and aimed at addressing an anticipated pilot shortfall in the coming years.

Purdues School of Aviation and Transportation Technology, one of six departments and schools in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, is recognized worldwide as a leader in aviation education and has provided its expertise in curriculum development, faculty hiring and accreditation by the Aviation Accreditation Board International.

This collaboration represents a significant step in the expansion of Purdues world-class professional flight program and an exciting new opportunity as we persist in addressing challenges in the aviation industry, said Gary R. Bertoline, dean of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute and a Distinguished Professor of Computer Graphics Technology and Computer and Information Technology at Purdue University.

This has been a rewarding process, said Tom Frooninckx, interim head of the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology. Our faculty have enjoyed collaborating with Purdue Global colleagues to develop the coursework. Theyre ready for program launch.

This program is designed to get students flying immediately, shortening the timeline to becoming a professional pilot in order to meet an anticipated industry demand. As United States airline pilots approach the federally mandated retirement age of 65, the industry faces a shortage of pilots. Reports forecast a need for more than 800,000 pilots over the next 20 years.

Progressing from private pilot to certified flight instructor, graduates will have the foundation essential to serve as flight instructors and accrue additional flight experience required by airlines to get hired as an airline pilot. Upon reaching CFI status, participants enrolled in the program can begin teaching fellow students and earn compensation for their work in addition to flight hours, which can help with education costs and living expenses.

Those wishing to be part of the initial class should apply quickly, as space is limited. More information is available at purdueglobal.edu.

About Purdue University Global

Purdue University Global is the extreme personalization online university, providing students the competitive edge to advance in their chosen careers. It offers a hyper-tailored path for students to earn an associate, bachelors, masters or doctoral degree, based on their work experience, desired pace, military service, previous college credits and other considerations  no matter where they are in their life journey. Purdue Global serves more than 31,000 students (as of March 2020), most of whom earn their degree online. It also operates several regional locations nationwide. Purdue Global is a nonprofit, public university accredited by The Higher Learning Commission. It is affiliated with Purdue Universitys flagship institution, a highly ranked public research university located in West Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue University also operates two regional campuses in Fort Wayne and Northwest, Indiana, as well as serving close to 6,000 science, engineering and technology students at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus. For more information, please visit purdueglobal.edu.

About Sterling Flight Training

Sterling Flight Training LLC, a portfolio company of Wexford Capital LP, is Jacksonvilles premiere flight school, offering programs from private pilot to professional pilot. Backed by a team of airline industry veterans with more than 100 years of combined aviation experience, the Sterling team has led the training initiatives for thousands of airline pilots across the United States. Students receive training they can trust with safety top of mind. The school is FAA and VA approved, and offers degrees through both in-house training programs and university affiliations. For more information, visit sterlingflight.com.

Media Contact, Purdue: Tom Schott, 765-494-9318, tschott@purdue.edu

Media Contact, Sterling: Ashley Roy, 904-639-4898, aroy@sterlingflight.com

Sources: Frank Dooley, frank.dooley@purdueglobal.edu

Gary Bertoline, bertoline@purdue.edu

Tom Frooninckx, tfroonin@purdue.edu

Related Releases:

Purdue Global, Sterling Flight Training partner on aviation degree program

Purdue Global, West Lafayette partner on new programs to meet market needs
Former national security adviser John Bolton plans to move ahead with publication of his memoir about working in the Trump White House despite a new warning from the administration that it contains classified material and needs to be further revised, his lawyer said.

The letter Wednesday from a White House lawyer arrived just two weeks before "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir" is set to go on sale and as Bolton is negotiating media appearances to promote the book.

The letter said Bolton would be provided with a redacted manuscript by June 19, four days before the book is to go on sale.

In response, Bolton's lawyer, Charles Cooper, said he has scrupulously complied with national security requirements and expects his book will be available to the public as planned on June 23.

The book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, has already shipped copies to warehouses around the country in preparation.

"Simon & Schuster is fully supportive of Ambassador Bolton's First Amendment right to tell the story of his time in the Trump White House," said Julia Prosser, vice president and director of publicity for the publishing house.

Bolton is considering some prime-time network media opportunities, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations.

In an interview, Cooper confirmed that he received a letter Wednesday from John A. Eisenberg, a deputy White House counsel, describing need for further changes to the manuscript.

The Eisenberg letter, which was first reported by the New York Times, noted that the former national security adviser signed a nondisclosure agreement when he began his White House service.

"The unauthorized disclosure of classified information could be exploited by a foreign power, thereby causing significant harm to the national security of the United States," Eisenberg wrote.

Bolton has said that he does not think his manuscript contains classified material.

Cooper said Wednesday that he had sent the White House "a lengthy response to Eisenberg's letter."

"As the publisher has just confirmed, the publication date is unchanged," he said.

Simon & Schuster said in a statement Wednesday that Bolton took care to make sure the book, which was originally scheduled to be published in March, did not endanger national security.

"In the months leading up to the publication of 'The Room Where It Happened,' Bolton worked in cooperation with the National Security Council to incorporate changes to the text that addressed NSC concerns," wrote Prosser, the publicity director for the publishing house. "The final, published version of this book reflects those changes."

The 592-page book is expected to provide a caustic account of life inside the White House from the national security adviser's perspective. It is expected to describe the president's decision-making process, his warring advisers and some foreign policy topics, from Ukraine and Venezuela to North Korea and Iran.

Cooper initially submitted the manuscript to the NSC for review in December. Bolton, who served as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, worked with the White House to vet the manuscript for national security concerns, Cooper said.

President Donald Trump has said that Bolton should not publish his tell-all until after the election and called him a "traitor" in private. He remains angry that Bolton wants to publish the book, a White House official said.

Media outlets previously reported that an early draft of Bolton's book said Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine as a way to pressure Ukraine's newly elected president to launch an inquiry of Democrats, including the activities of former vice president Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden. That news broke just as the Senate was considering articles of impeachment against the president.
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Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, June 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Jun, 2020 ) :In Equatorial Guinea, a country ruled with an iron fist for four decades, the strain of living under one of Africa's toughest coronavirus confinements is starting to tell.

Nearly two months ago, 78-year-old President Teodoro Obiang Nguema imposed lockdowns on the two largest cities -- Bata and the capital Malabo.

Restaurants and bars are closed and only food stores and pharmacies are open, from 7am until 3pm.

Leaving one's home is only permissible to buy food or for medical reasons, and requires prior authorisation from the neighbourhood leader, who is a member of the ruling party.

The precious document can be requested at any moment by police or the military.

Pinto, a once-bustling trading district of Malabo, has become a ghost town with multi-coloured facades.

Most of its hawkers are West Africans and Cameroonians who sell or repair mobile phones.

Today, their lives have been reduced to a game of cat and mouse.

Storeholders have a lookout who keeps an eye out for police patrols, and doors are whisked open and swiftly shut when a client comes along.

Getting caught can lead to a beating or a demand for a kickback -- or both.

Videos alleging police or military violence during the lockdown have spread quickly on social media.

In one of them, a woman in Bata is brutally thrown into a vehicle by five police officers, one of whom gives a heavy slap.

Another shows truncheon-wielding soldiers violently beating a man behind the knees.

Several people, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that they had been assaulted.

"Policemen slapped me three times because I was out of my home at midnight and I wasn't wearing a mask," said Susan, a 30-year-old chamber maid.

"I received six strokes to the buttocks with nightsticks because I didn't have the authorisation to go out, but all I had done was to go out to buy food at the grocer's shop," said Fulgencio, 50.

The country's only significant opposition party, the Convergence for Social Democracy, has urged those responsible for police brutality to be "brought to justice".

- Pressure on poor - Equatorial Guinea is awash in oil, but more than half of its population live below the threshold of poverty.

In other African countries, curfews, travel restrictions and other measures are starting to be eased, partly to help people who depend on day-to-day jobs to survive.

But in this central African state, the lockdown is grinding on and in the absence of government aid some say the harsh policies are no long justified.

"I am only earning 20,000 CFA francs ($34 / 30 Euros) a day compared with 50,000 francs before," said Jony, a taxi driver.

In its defence, the government says the lockdown is a crucial weapon.

"The government cannot do any easing at the moment as long as the level of the infection curve is not known for sure," President Obiang said on May 15, as he ordered a one-month extension.

According to official figures, there have been just over 2,000 cases of coronavirus in a population of 1.3 million.

But this figure is no longer updated on a daily basis, and the national tally of deaths -- 12 -- has remained unchanged since May 25.

"If the toll is no longer issued each day as the health ministry used to do, that's because an order has come from higher up," a member of the technical committee to fight coronavirus told AFP.

"By hiding the infection figures, the government runs the risk of a boomerang effect -- it's not a political problem, it's a question of health and human lives," said sociologist Pablo Odeng.

The tightly controlled national media have rarely questioned the government's measures.

In contrast, the issue of police violence was aired in an opinion programme on Television Asonga, the country's only privately run channel, which belongs to the president's son, Teodorin Obiang.

The following day, on May 1, the programme and the seven journalists on it were suspended without explanation.

"Not even coronavirus escapes Equatorial Guinea's extreme censorship," said Reporters Without Borders (RSF), whose annual index for press freedom rated the country 165th out of 179 states.
A rundown Sydney home with missing floorboards and a completely broken ceiling has raised some eyebrows after its listing was shared online.

The five bedroom home in Sydneys inner suburb of Darlinghurst is definitely what you would call a fixer upper and has a buyers guide of $3.6 million.

A dilapidated terrace just off Victoria Street, this home is 7.5m wide on 280sqm of land, its listing from agent BresicWhitney reads.

With five to six bedrooms, the sprawling residence is a rare chance to craft your dream home from a piece of Inner Sydney history.

This Darlinghurst home is a renovator's dream. Source: BresicWhitney

But some people on social media were aghast as to how a rundown house could possibly sell for multiple millions, with some suggesting it was an example of the problem with Sydneys expensive housing market.

F*** you, Sydney, one woman posted, alongside the listing.

One woman jokingly suggested theres gold under the floorboards.

The backyard of the home. Source: BresicWhitney

On Reddit, one user wrote its crazy how many old beaten up million dollar houses there are in Sydneys city.

It shocks me how many run down places in Sydney there are, they wrote.

Another man added the listing shows how f***** Sydney's housing market is.

There are objectively better buildings in objectively better cities that cost a fraction of this, he wrote.

The price guide is $3.6 million. Source: BresicWhitney

According to the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, released in January, Sydney ranked the third least affordable city in the world.

The study looked at 309 metropolitan housing markets Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong Only), Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In fact, the median affordability of Australian houses was found to be severely unaffordable.

Some people believe the price guide is fair. Source: BresicWhitney

While some people were shocked by the price of the Darlinghurst home others thought the buyer guide price was about right.

Story continues

Yeah its bloody expensive, one Reddit user wrote.

But what do you expect to pay in the centre of the biggest city just a few minutes walk from the CBD, with 5m people in a massive sprawl over 60km from where this is? People are paying that much for houses of that size in the burbs.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.
Chinese authorities have been trying for three years to reverse the devastating imbalances of their one-child policy and coax couples to have more children.

They've told couples that it's their patriotic duty to have two babies. They've dangled tax breaks and housing subsidies. They've offered to make education cheaper and parental leave longer. They've tried to make it more difficult to get an abortion or a divorce.

None of this has worked. China's birthrate remains stubbornly low, creating a demographic crisis that could hinder economic growth for decades to come.

But now, an economics professor at Fudan University in Shanghai has come up with another - and, unsurprisingly, controversial - solution: allow women to have multiple husbands, and they'll have multiple babies.

"I wouldn't suggest polyandry if the gender ratio was not so severely imbalanced," Yew-Kwang Ng, who is Malaysian, wrote in his regular column on a Chinese business website this month. The headline asked: "Is polyandry really a ridiculous idea?"

"I'm not advocating for polyandry, I'm just suggesting that we should consider the option in the face of an imbalanced gender ratio," he continued.

For 36 years, China's ruling Communist Party stipulated that couples could have only one child except in special circumstances, like if they lived in a rural area and their first child was a girl or a disabled boy. It was part of a strategy to boost China's growth rate and its living standards at the same time.

The policy worked too well. In China today, home to 1.4 billion people, there are 100 million only-children under the age of 40. But the traditional preference for sons - and the associated practice of aborting girls - means that there are about 34 million more men than women.

That in itself is a big problem. But add into the mix a tendency among millennial women to delay marriage and having even one baby - or none at all - and it's a demographic time-bomb.

China's population is forecast to peak at 1.45 billion as soon as 2027, then start a long decline. About one-third of the population will be over the age of 65 by 2050.

In 2015, the Communist Party started unwinding the one-child policy, but it has had almost no impact. Women increasingly want careers of their own, and many would rather channel their energy into giving just one child a good start in life than splitting their resources between two.

Enter Professor Ng.

His suggestion to solve the oversupply of men is to allow involuntary bachelors - known as "bare branches" in Chinese because they can't bear fruit for their family tree - to share the relatively scarce supply of women.

"If two men are willing to marry the same wife and the woman is willing too, what reason does society have to stop them sharing a wife?" Ng asked, citing polygamy as a common custom in ancient times and a continuing practice in some strains of Islam.

"I'm not denying the advantages of monogamy here, such as how exclusive long-term relationships can benefit kids' growth and education," Ng wrote in his column, according to the website SupChina, which first reported in English about the controversial remarks. "But given China's skewed sex ratio, it's necessary to consider allowing polyandry legally."

Plus, it would just be more efficient, he continued, suggesting that women would have no trouble meeting the physical needs of multiple husbands.

"It's common for prostitutes to serve more than 10 clients in a day," Ng wrote, before taking off on another offensive tangent. "Making meals for three husbands won't take much more time than for two husbands," he added.

Ng's column went viral on the Chinese Internet. And many women on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, were unimpressed.

"It made me throw up," wrote a woman calling herself Keely, asking why Ng didn't put himself in the woman's shoes.

"I'm shocked by what he says. Is it 2020 now?" asked Fuduoduo.

"Let me translate what he means: he wants to legalize sex slaves," said another.

Ng is steeling for a fight. He wrote that his next column aimed at redressing gender imbalances would be about legalizing brothels.

Because China's gender mismatch has caused a fierce competition among men looking for wives, "a man's right to achieving sexual satisfaction is being severely violated if legal sex work is not allowed."

Legalizing sex work and building more brothels would allow men to attend to their "urgent needs," he wrote.

Stand by for more outrage on Weibo, and beyond.

- - -

The Washington Post's Wang Yuan in Beijing contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 23:35:06|Editor: huaxia

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HONG KONG, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The government of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has spent over 66 million Hong Kong dollars (around 8.5 million U.S. dollars) to repair public facilities including traffic lights vandalized during social unrest last year, Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan said Wednesday.

Chan said in a written reply to HKSAR Legislative Council lawmakers that from June last year to May this year, a total of 740 sets of traffic lights were vandalized to different extent, some 60 km of railings were removed, at least 177 CCTV cameras installed in government facilities and public places were damaged, some 22,000 square meters of paving blocks of footpaths were removed, and about 1,320 litter bins and 130 recyclables collection bins were sabotaged.

To guard against vandalism, Chan said relevant government departments have already implemented protective measures for traffic lights at some major road junctions which cost around 40 million Hong Kong dollars (5.1 million U.S. dollars).

Chan said the government also temporarily put up plastic chains to alert road users at locations where the railings have been removed, restored the damaged pavements, and provided new litter bins and recyclables collection bins.

To safeguard public safety, the government has installed temporary protective fencing on some of the public footbridges to prevent throwing of objects onto the nearby roads, especially trunk roads, Chan said.

Chan said if there is any illegal or violent act to harm public safety and order, the police will not tolerate and definitely enforce the law resolutely. The police will deploy suitable manpower to take all feasible and legitimate measures to prevent and detect crimes, especially serious violent crimes and cases of recklessly causing serious casualties.

Apart from enhancing intelligence gathering and conducting patrols at high risk locations, the police will also make timely arrest actions with a view to curbing the culprits, thereby averting incidents of serious casualties, Chan added. Enditem
State security forces have dismissed reports that the Zimbabwe Defence Force is planning to topple President Emmerson Mnangagwa in conjunction with some opposition parties and former members of the ruling party, who left the country when the late former president Robert Mugabe was ousted in a defacto military coup.

In a statement, the Working Committee of the National Security Council, which convened a high-level security meeting in Harare on Wednesday, dismissed the reports, saying such rumours were meant to derail President Mnangagwas government efforts in implementing tangible social and economic reforms in the southern African nation.

The government of the Republic of Zimbabwe has noted, with grave concern, a recent upsurge in rumours suggesting an imminent military coup detat in the country. Government would therefore like, through the agency of the Working Committee of the National Security Council (WCNCS) as convened here in terms of Section 209 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No.23) Act 2013, to unequivocally debunk and dismiss these rumours with the contempt they deserve.

The purveyors of the false coup narrative claim that former members of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) who fell by the wayside and largely went into self-imposed exile at the advent of the New Dispensation in November 2017, are coming together in a united front with some named senior government leaders, some members of the Security Forces of Zimbabwe and elements of the opposition formations. This in a bid to taint the image of His Excellency the president, to undermine the legitimacy of government and to render the country ungovernable.

The National Security Council further claimed that indications are that the country would be run by a National Transitional Authority, which will exclude Zanu PF, if Mnangagwa is toppled.

Of course, nothing could be further from the true reality of Zimbabwes security situation now and for the foreseeable future. Indeed both, claims of a military coup and a National Transitional Authority in the making, amount to mere agenda setting by merchants of discord amongst our people, with the support of their foreign handlers. They are completely unfounded.

For the avoidance of doubt, there is no coup in the making, nor is there any form of Transitional Authority of Inclusive Government that is contemplated by the New Dispensation, except in the fertile imagination of the purveyors of this false narrative.

The National Security Council warned the purveyors of this medley falsehood, who include such characters as Saviour Kasukuwere, Job Sikhala and a coterie of their accomplices who were are aware of, not to cry foul when the long arm of the Zimbabwean law catches up with them in due course.

The Council claimed that the coup detat reports were being peddled through which it called opposition-aligned print and electronic media, including non-attributable internet-based platforms like Gambakwe Media, Nehanda Radio, Zimeye, various antigovernment hashtags and thousands of trolls.

It also claimed that there are several non-governmental organizations and certain diplomatic missions accredited in Harare involved in dissemination the coup reports.

This narrative, which also set an agenda for and promotes negative political activism, including coordinated fake abductions and media campaigns, has of late rope in several self-proclaimed local and international prophets. These include one US-based Nathan Humbryd of the so-called Miracle Ministries, Talent Chiwenga, a self-styled rabid anti-government Harare First Street preacher, Simon Chiloh of the so-called Deeds of Christ Ministries and a few others.

The National Security Council noted that some accredited foreign missions engaged in spreading the coup rumours were now aligning themselves with opposition parties.

 They also have, in the process, brazenly jettisoned any semblance of diplomatic impartiality and finesse in blatant violation of the peremptory norms of International Law. This has resulted in the quite surprising adversarial stands and policies that some of the big powers are then projecting and unashamedly pronouncing against Zimbabwe. Some foreign capitals have also tried to arrogate unto themselves, based on these false narratives, the choice of nations that Zimbabwe should relate with.

Some opposition parties and non-state actors dismissed the National Security Councils claims as baseless while others noted that there is no smoke without fire.

The late former president Robert Mugabe was toppled by the Zimbabwe Defence Force in conjunction with the ruling party, parliament, Mnangagwa, and public protesters. He died a disappointed man in Singapore last year.

The National Security Council consists of the president, vice presidents, some ministers and members of the security services and other persons as may be determined in an act of parliament.

Section 209 of the Constitution stipulates that the functions of the National Security Council are to develop the national security policy for Zimbabwe; to inform and advise the president on matters relating to national security; and to exercise any other functions that may be prescribed in an Act of Parliament.

The commanders of the security services must provide the National Security Council with such reports on the security situation in Zimbabwe as the Council may reasonably require.
On Monday, the Fountain of Praise church in Houston held a public, open-casket viewing of the body of George Floyd, the Black Houston man whose killing by a white police officer in Minneapolis two weeks ago has invigorated a worldwide movement for racial justice. More than 6,000 people lined up to pay their respects. Among them was Bryan Washington, an essayist and fiction writer from Houston. He reflected on the viewing in a piece for the New Yorker. Its strange to know as much about someone as we know about George Floyd, a man who isnt our kin, and then to stand before him, never having known him. The feeling escapes words, Washington wrote. Above all, what I felt was cold. Not despair, exactly. But here was a man who had actually changed the world. He had done it. It happened because he was murdered by the state, and now he was not here to see it.

Yesterday, from noon, the world was invited in to witness Floyds funeral, which was broadcast live from the same church. The service was by turns personal and electrifyingly political, and was highly poignant. There was art and music, as well as speeches from Floyds family, members of the local community, and local and national public figures. Joe Biden spoke by video. Sylvester Turner, the mayor of Houston, announced a ban on police chokeholds. The Reverend Al Sharpton, the veteran civil-rights leader and commentator, gave a eulogy; at one point, he asked relatives of other victims of racist brutalitythe mothers of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, the fathers of Michael Brown and Ahmaud Arbery, the sister of Botham Jean, and the family of Pamela Turner, all of whom were in attendanceto stand. Brooke Williams, Floyds niece, asked from the podium, Why must this system be corrupt and broken? She added, Someone said Make America Great Again. But when has America ever been great?

Related: The Story Has Gotten Away from Us

MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News carried the funeral live, as did ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, BET, and C-SPAN. Major print outlets streamed it live on their websites. It led the nightly network newscasts; on cable, reflections on the funeral continued into the evening. On CNN, Anderson Cooper choked up during a moving interview with Cornel West. Thats what we saw today: we saw the humanity, West said of the service. They were ascribing significance to this precious person, made in the image of God, whose body was now undergoing extinction, and his soul ascending. Later, Don Lemon quoted a line from Sharptons eulogy, about the unequal value of white and Black life in America. It has to be said that racism is killing us, keeps killing us, Lemon said. Its not a problem for African Americans to solve; its a problem for all Americans to solve. And if that makes you uncomfortable He paused. It is the reality of racism. Over on MSNBC, Lawrence ODonnell called Floyds funeral fit for a president, and interviewed Sharpton, who was still traveling home from Houston. Sharpton said he was feeling hopeful about this moment. I think this movement has too much energy and vigor that legislators are not going to have any choice but to pass new laws, he said.

Its not unusual for several major networks to cut to the same external programming at oncethink Congressional hearings, presidential press conferences, and other affairs of state. And their motives for doing so are never pure public service; ratings always count. Still, the simulcast of Floyds funeral was a powerful and cathartic momenta chance to cut away from the daily babble of ceaseless punditry, to reflect, to be moved. In a media landscape that has come to be defined by its balkanization, it was a moment of shared realitya communal viewing experience rooted in the value of human life. Clearly, not all viewers interpreted it through a reality-based prism; a glance at social media will show you that. Sometimes, though, the most affecting news material comes when we step back, take ourselves out of the story for a while, and allow the world to watch.

It remains the medias job, of course, to tie Floyds life and death to the much broader issues his death has illuminated, the range and reach of which seem to grow each day. Away from the funeral, racial justice was at the center of many of yesterdays other big stories, including in Georgia, where many voters in the Atlanta area faced long lines and technical glitches with voting equipment. (Restrictions linked to the pandemic didnt help matters.) The story, like Floyds funeral, was a chance to look both backward and forwardto the history of Black voter suppression, including during Georgias 2018 gubernatorial election, and the certainty, as yet undercovered, that it will be an issue again in November.

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Speaking with Jake Tapper on CNN, the commentator Bakari Sellers laid out the stakes. If we learned anything from the juxtaposition of us in Georgia trying to vote and us laying George Floyd to rest with his family, surrounded by all of those other families hurt from racial violence, by god, Jake: weve got so far to go in this country, he said. So weve got to get to work today.

Below, more on this moment:



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: How the right-wing response to Iran set the stage for 2020s misinformation campaign

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.
Stockholm: Swedes may finally get an answer to the mystery of who shot Social Democrat prime minister Olof Palme when the Swedish prosecutor in charge of the case presents his conclusions to an investigation that has lasted 34 years.

Palme was shot dead in central Stockholm in 1986 after a visit to the cinema with his wife and son. The murder sparked a massive manhunt and a plethora of conspiracy theories involving shadowy forces ranging from the CIA and Kurdish separatists to the South African security services.

Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated after going to the movies. Credit:Reuter/File

While a petty criminal was convicted of Palme's killing, the judgement was later overturned and the police's failure to identify the culprit has left a scar on the psyche of a country that still prides itself on how safe it is to walk its streets.

Palme was prime minister between 1969 and 1976 and between 1982 and 1986. Some hail him as the architect of modern Sweden, but conservatives hated his anti-colonial views and criticism of the United States.
Boris Johnson has refused to condemn Donald Trump for his controversial response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The prime minister instead praised the US as a bastion of peace and freedom.

Johnson was pressed by SNP MP Kirsty Blackman to address the presidents horrendous handling of the anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

Trumps response has included threatening to deploy the army to deal with protesters.

Black Lives Matter protesters in New York City on Sunday. (Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, his administration has said it has no regrets over tear gassing demonstrators outside the White House so Trump could take part in a photo opportunity at a church.

Johnson, who once said Trump has many, many good qualities, refused to condemn Trump on Wednesday, though unlike the president he said he supports the Black Lives Matter movement.

He told MPs at Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs): I renew what I have said many times, its important for the House to hear it again. Yes, black lives matter and yes, the death of George Floyd was absolutely appalling.

As for the qualities of Mr Trump, let me say amongst many other things, he is president of the US which is our most important ally in the world today.

Boris Johnson refused to condemn Donald Trump at PMQs on Wednesday. (Parliamentlive.tv/Getty Images)

Johnsons utterance of Trumps name was barely audible.

He added: Whatever people may say about it, whatever those on the left may say about it, the US is a bastion of peace and freedom  and has been for most of my lifetime.

Johnson was later thanked for his comments by Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, who tweeted: The Special Relationship is alive and well!

Largely peaceful anti-racism protests have been sparked by the killing of Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last month.

Since becoming PM in July last year, Johnson has regularly been accused of failing to stand up to Trumps controversial actions.

During the general election campaign, Johnson is thought to have avoided Trump when the president was in London for the NATO summit  out of fear of the president damaging his electoral prospects.

Meanwhile, addressing the anti-racism protests in the UK following Floyds killing, Johnson said at PMQs: I understand the very strong and legitimate feelings of people in this country about the death of George Floyd, and of course I agree black lives matter.

I must stress... it is absolutely vital that we keep our streets safe and we back our police.
South Africa: Nkoana-Mashabane condemns GBV murders

The Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, has expressed shock at the brutal killing of two women in Cape Town and Johannesburg at the weekend.

Eight-month pregnant Tshegofatso Pule, 28, from Soweto was on Monday found hanging from a tree in Roodepoort after she was last seen alive on Thursday, 4 June. In Cape Town, Naledi Phangindawo, 25, was at the weekend allegedly heinously hacked to death by a man close to her. The suspect has since been arrested.

According to a relative, it is alleged that Tshegofatso was last seen entering a cab called for her by her boyfriend last Thursday night. That was the last time she was seen alive.



This is just saddening, and is a shame on our society. We should never allow gender-based violence to become a norm in our communities. How many more women, young girls and children must live with this constant fear of being attacked and violated? Women should not have to protect themselves from men. They have the right to feel safe, said Nkoana-Mashabane.

The ministry said the continuous brutal killing of women and children at the hands of those they love is despicable and deplorable.

This calls for heightened responsiveness, greater awareness and practical measures to assist women who find themselves in vulnerable situations, the ministry said.

As part of governments constant intervention to fight GBV, the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) held its 2nd virtual meeting on 4 June 2020.

The main purpose of this meeting was to deliberate on processes for the establishment of the National Council for Gender Based Violence & Femicide, and will support the IMC to fast-track this work, the ministry said.

The IMC comprises the Ministers of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Police; Finance; Justice and Correctional Services; Social Development, and Public Service and Administration.

The Minister said it is incumbent for the IMC to move with speed and urgently establish the National Council for Gender-Based Violence & Femicide, which will be tasked with the implementation of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) and take recommendations made at the 2018 Presidential Summit against GBVF forward.

The National Council will be an independent and non-partisan advisory body and will provide strategic leadership in implementing the NSP, facilitate resourcing, coordination and accountability in responding to GBVF.

The NSP is government and civil society's multi-sectoral strategic framework to realise a South Africa free from gender-based violence and femicide. It recognises all violence against women  across age, location, disability, sexual orientation, sexual and gender identity, nationality and other diversities  as well as violence against children.

Government will do everything possible to ensure justice is served and calls upon men in our society to stand up against GBV. Violence against women and children is unacceptable and we should not allow vile tendencies to continue during such a difficult time for the country, or ever, said Nkoana-Mashabane.

She called for swift action on the part of SAPS to ensure the perpetrators are arrested, and for the Department of Justice and Correctional Services to ensure any person convicted on charges of gender-based violence is shown no leniency.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
During the course of two defiant but ultimately unsuccessful presidential bids, Bernie Sanders has become famous for the passion of his speeches and the finger he frequently jabbed in the air to make his point.

But the man who helped craft a number of those addresses, and who advised his campaign with a fervour that matched that of the candidate, says there is a softer, more human side to the Vermont senator the public may not always see.

Bernie is one of the most human  and humane  political figures of the modern era, says David Sirota. His whole agenda is motivated by the most human emotions.

In an interview with The Independent, Mr Sirota, a former journalist who was accused by some critics of being the senators social media attack dog, a charge he denies, says even though Joe Biden has emerged as the Democrats presidential candidate, the lesson of the success enjoyed by the campaign of the veteran progressive is that the partys base needs to be energised if it is to defeat Donald Trump in November.

Before joining Mr Sanders campaign, which promoted the kinds of socialist policies the 78-year-old senator has pursued for decades, Mr Sirota, 44, worked as a journalist.

Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Show all 18 1 /18 Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Jessica Canicosa, a precinct captain for Bernie Sanders, waits to greet caucus voters at Liberty High School in Henderson, Nevada REUTERS Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Hotel workers at the Bellagio in Las Vegas get to grips with voting papers during the Nevada caucuses AFP via Getty Images Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures A caricature of Bernie Sanders is projected on to a tree during a rally in Las Vegas EPA Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures A woman waits to have a photo taken with Elizabeth Warren during a town hall meeting in Las Vegas REUTERS Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures The threat of coronavirus and other germ-borne illnesses was on some voters' minds at the Democratic caucuses in Henderson, Nevada Getty Images Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Former vice-president Joe Biden takes a selfie with a voter in Las Vegas ahead of the Nevada caucuses REUTERS Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Amy Klobuchar changes her shoes backstage after giving a speech in Exeter, New Hampshire AFP/Getty Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures A warmly-wrapped-up dog attends an Elizabeth Warren event at Amherst Elementary School in Nashua, New Hampshire AFP/Getty Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Bernie Sanders, who romped to victory in New Hampshire against Hillary Clinton in 2016, talks to the media in Manchester Getty Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Joe Biden was hoping to improve on his poor showing in Iowa in the New Hampshire primary Reuters Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Elizabeth Warren, renowned for giving time to supporters for selfies, works the crowd at the University of New Hampshire in Durham Getty Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Joe Biden takes a selfie with a supporter and his child outside a campaign event in Somersworth, New Hampshire on 5 February Reuters Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders quarrel after a confrontation in a TV debate in which Sanders claimed that Warren was not telling the truth about a conversation in which she claimed he had said a woman could not win the presidency on 14 January AP Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Supporter Pat Provencher listens to Pete Buttigieg in Laconia, New Hampshire on 4 February Getty Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Concord, New Hampshire while awaiting the results of the Iowa caucus Reuters Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures Elizabeth Warren is presented with a balloon effigy of herself at a campaign event in Nashua, New Hampshire on 5 February Reuters Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures A Trump supporter rides past a rally for Amy Klobuchar in Des Moines, Iowa on 14 January AP Democratic candidates compete on the campaign trail: In pictures A man holds up a sign criticising billionaires in the presidential race in front of Michael Bloomberg in Compton, Califronia. The former New York mayor skipped the first caucus in Iowa and instead campaigned in California on 3 February Reuters

That is a role he has since returned to, with the establishment of a new media venture and newsletter, Too Much Information (TMI), which seeks to counter what he terms information overload, by providing insights and analysis, along with genuine scoops.

See below for the full interview.

Q1 : How would you describe your time as adviser and speech writer for Mr Sanders? What lessons did you draw from it.

A: Ive known Bernie Sanders for more than two decades, and getting to work with him has been one of the great honours of my life. This past campaign was a tough slog against steep odds. There were a lot of ups and downs on the campaign, and I was glad to have contributed to the direction and message of the campaign.

Q2: What was the process for preparing a speech? How much did the senator contribute? What percentage was your input? It was said he preferred to write his own stuff. How did the two of you juggle that?

A: I was as much a speech researcher as a speech writer. By that I mean, I did a fair amount of original research on facts, statistics, etc and put it together in speech form, but Bernie always made all of his speeches his own. At times there was a vigorous back and forth, at other times I wouldnt know when he might use the stuff I gave him. But all in all, it was a collaborative process.

Q3: Your hiring triggered quite a backlash from some quarters, including the offices of The Atlantic. (The magazine asserted, among other claims, that Mr Sirota was working for the Sanders campaign while still on books of The Guardian, something he and the newspaper have denied.) While the original article was largely debunked, what do you think that episode said about the state of debate within the party and among those on the left?

A: I was disappointed that The Atlantic chose to just fabricate parts of a story. I have a ton of respect for good journalists, and I do not like Trump-style attacks on fake news. However, this was the first time I ever remember dealing with an outlet that was insistent on manufacturing a story, and refused to issue a correction even when presented with facts. I think especially in this era of disinformation, honest news outlets need to be going out of their way to be fair and accurate. [The Atlantic did not respond to enquiries from The Independent.]

 Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders to form six policy working groups

Q4: Do you accept you sometimes acted as Mr Sanders Twitter attack dog?

A: I dont accept the term attack dog. Elections are supposed to make clear what the choices are for voters. That includes making clear the policy differences between candidates.

Tweeting out links to C-Span videos of Joe Biden bragging about his work trying to cut social security is not an attack. That is basic information that voters deserve to know. Facts are not attacks. They are just facts. The people who call them attacks are really just mad that someone has surfaced facts that are inconvenient to their preferred politician.

Q5: How much of a struggle was it to write in somebody elses voice? How do you go about achieving such a craft? Did you have to listen to his speeches going back historically, or was it simply enough to be around him?

A: Ive known Bernie a long time, so his voice is one I am very familiar with. I didnt find it difficult to give him speech material that was in his own voice. And to be clear, his voice is very different from my own voice and style.

Q6: Is it something you think would transfer easily to another candidate? Could you write speeches for Mr Biden? What about Donald Trump?

A: If youre working as a speech writer, the job is to try to echo the style, character and rhetoric of the principal you are working for. That takes study. I think I could write speeches for other candidates  but I think it would take a bit of time to study their cadence and their style.

There was a backlash to Mr Sirotas hiring by the campaign (Getty)

Q7: While people remember people like Barack Obama for various historic speeches, with the exception of his 2010 attempted filibuster, Mr Sanders appears better known for his style and general message, rather individual addresses? Is this fair? Were there similarly significant speeches by the senator that did not get recognised?

A: To my mind, there were five or six Bernie speeches that really broke the mould of his more traditional rally speeches. His two launch speeches  one in Brooklyn, the other in Chicago  were far more personal in rhetoric, tone and storytelling than hed ever been in the past. His speech on democratic socialism was a speech that I believe will stand the test of time, because it laid out such a sweeping forward-looking vision for a better country and society.

He also gave two separate speeches at the California Democratic Party that really articulated the core case for his candidacy  one was about not accepting a middle ground, the other was about honouring and embodying the tradition of the best moments of the Democratic Party. And then of course there was his first post-heart-attack speech in New York city, about fighting for someone you dont know  again, I think that will be one for the history books.

Q8: Perhaps because of his speeches, Mr Sanders is best known for his energy, drive and passion. What important things about Mr Sanders do not come over in his speeches?

A: In his two launch speeches  and then a few times during town hall meetings  the more personal, emotional Bernie Sanders was on display. I think often times his stump speeches keep the audience at arms length from the human side of Bernie. But the thing is, Bernie is one of the most human  and humane  political figures of the modern era. His whole agenda is motivated by the most human emotions  compassion, solidarity and love.

Q9: While your candidate ultimately conceded to Mr Biden, he remains part of the primary process to an extent that is perhaps unprecedented. What lesson should we take from that?

A: In these fast-changing times, I think the major takeaway from Bernie continuing to collect convention delegates is that the progressive movement needs to be represented at that convention, in whatever form it takes. The more Bernie delegates are represented at the convention, the more likely the partys platform will reflect progressive values.

Q10: How do you see things playing out in November? Can Mr Biden defeat Mr Trump? What are the most important things he could do to make sure that happens?

A: Yes, Joe Biden can defeat Donald Trump. And yes, Donald Trump must be defeated. The most important thing Joe Biden can do to maximise our ability to defeat Trump is to not be the triangulating, corporate-appeasing Joe Biden of the past. Rather than portraying himself against the progressive base of the Democratic Party  as he did for many years as a senator  Biden needs to be focused on unifying and energising the Democratic Party. And to do that, he needs to try to channel the tradition of FDR.

Q11: What can you tell me about your plans for TMI?

A: I believe that corporate- and billionaire-owned media will never consistently challenge the power of corporations and billionaires. I also believe the ad and click-based business model of journalism is dying. So what TMI is trying to do is build an independent journalism outlet that is grassroots-funded by subscribers. I think that kind of model is the future  and I really hope people will subscribe to help us expand the work we are doing.

Q12: I suspect many would agree we live amid information overload. But is another newsletter going to solve that? How is your project different?

A: I agree we live in information overload  and it is difficult to detect the signal in the noise. The newsletter project isnt a singular answer to that  but I hope it is one of many contributions to an answer to that problem. What Im trying to do is both break original news, and also connect dots in all the information and news that is out there. I hope readers come away from the newsletter with more of a sense of context about all the news they are being exposed to.
Siddhanta Mishra By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday launched an all-out attack against the BJP accusing it of putting several lives at risk. BJP has put entire Delhi at risk. After a lot of thought and planning a decision was taken by the government to reserve the healthcare facilities but BJP because of its politics changed that decision. This is a very unfortunate and the decision by the L-G is anti-public interest, said AAP senior leader Sanjay Singh.

Last week, when Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sealed the Delhi borders, the government held a survey on whether to open the border which was sealed and received around 7,00,000 WhatsApp messages, 5,000 emails, and 53,000 calls.

The government said most people wanted private and local government-run hospitals to be reserved just for residents. AAP officials said that based on this finding, a cabinet decision was made implementing the same. But citing right to health as a fundamental right under the Indian constitution, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal overruled the decision.

Other neighbouring cities like Noida and Haryana have not allowed outsiders to enter into the areas, I want to ask where the residents of Delhi will go for treatment? added Singh.

Kejriwal had earlier said that people from all over the country will come to Delhi in search of better medical treatment as a result of which he said that beds in the national capital will be occupied in just two-three days.L-G Baijal though overruled this decision stating it to be unconstituitonal.

Financial aid for families



Delhi Congress Anil Kumar Chaudhary said that at the all-party meet he had proposed to issue a grant of Rs 10,000 to families affected by the coronavirus to help them to overcome the financial crisis being faced by them during the pandemic. Chaudhary also raised the issue of less testing in the national capital and added that it might lead to a dangerous situation.
Bonnie Storbakken and Scott Miller are headed for a general election battle to fill a judgeship vacancy in the South Central District being created by the departure of Judge Thomas Schneider.

With all 94 precincts reporting Tuesday, Storbakken had 45% of the vote and Miller 32% in the primary, beating Gabrielle Goter, who had 23%.

Voters will choose between Storbakken and Miller in November.

Schneider has served since the 1980s and announced late last year that he would not seek reelection in 2020.

Storbakken holds a juris doctorate from the University of North Dakota. She has served as the executive secretary of the North Dakota Board of Medicine since 2017. She was Gov. Jack Dalrymple's senior policy adviser and has served as a North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights commissioner. She worked in private practice from 2005-13, prior to which she was staff attorney and program director for the State Bar Association of North Dakota.

Miller has served as a deputy Burleigh County state's attorney since April 2019. He earned a law degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1993 and holds master's degrees in business and accounting. He served as a judicial extern in U.S. District Court and as a law clerk in state trial courts. Miller also has worked in private practice and in the banking industry.

Goter has served as assistant Morton County state's attorney since 2010. She earned bachelors degrees in chemistry and Spanish at UND in 2005, and a juris doctorate in 2009. Shes worked as an intern or extern at the Morton County State's Attorney's Office, U.S. Attorney's Office in Bismarck, and the Grand Forks Public Defenders Office. She also has served as a special assistant states attorney for Emmons, Burleigh, Grant, Sioux and Kidder counties.

The South Central Judicial District comprises Burleigh, Emmons, Grant, McLean, Mercer, Morton, Oliver, Sheridan and Sioux counties. The district is the busiest in the state, based on weighted caseload studies.

Three incumbent judges are running unopposed for the seats they hold: Judges David Reich, Douglas Bahr and James Hill.

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Survive: Continue Providing Services for the Most Vulnerable

Adapt: Build Creative Partnerships and Redeploy Staff

Grow: Reimagining Libraries' New Role

As the doors of public libraries have been shuttered in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, library leaders are finding new ways to continue serving their communities. From shifting how they provide traditional core services to reimagining ways they connect with residents to redeploying staff to serve in emergency-management roles, libraries are displaying the qualities of a resilient system.Urban resilience, as defined by the 100 Resilient Cities coalition, means "the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience." Library leaders are proving that their institutions are up to the challenge. FUSE Corps , a national nonprofit executive fellowship program, brought together library staff and leadership from around the country in a virtual session to discuss strategies for resiliency. They shared how they're taking action to survive, adapt and grow in the face of the ever-changing needs of their communities:"Libraries are part of the critical social infrastructure in our communities," said Michael Lambert, San Francisco's city librarian. The San Antonio, Texas, Public Library, for example, is developing multilingual handouts with information on unemployment benefits and rental assistance that librarians will distribute as part of a curbside pickup model. In California's Alameda County, library branches have kept public Wi-Fi access open and maintained power to exterior outlets. The Seattle Public Library has kept five branches open strictly for restroom use . And when heat waves hit, key Los Angeles County libraries are being repurposed as cooling stations As jobless rates have soared toward Great Depression levels, libraries are also pivoting to meet their communities' employment-support needs. The King County, Wash., Library System instituted a personalized financial assistance hotline for small businesses and individuals, and is collaborating with the Seattle library to provide digital-literacy and other career-related training for job seekers. As the San Francisco Public Library suspended in-person services, its buildings have been repurposed into day-care facilities for children of parents on the front lines of COVID-19 and low-income families.The San Francisco library is working with the city's Department of Emergency Management to develop a model to redeploy librarians as contact tracers, with others tasked to distribute information about face coverings and social distancing. San Francisco librarians have also staffed food pantries, while in Los Angeles some librarians now operate call centers to help coordinate meal delivery to seniors.In Houston, the Public Library partnered with the city's Health Department to repurpose library parking lots as COVID-19 testing sites in the city's most vulnerable neighborhoods. With the support of library staff, more than 20,000 COVID-19 tests were scheduled. The partnership with the Health Department also included libraries supporting COVID-19 hotlines.The Boston Public Library worked with the city's Public Health Commission to identify residential recovery and treatment centers that lacked Internet access and distributed portable Wi-Fi hot spots to bring quarantined community members online. The Alameda County Library plans to deliver materials via bookmobiles, and the San Jose, Calif., Public Library will offer curbside pickup at some central locations, combined with a free summer food program.Up until the pandemic hit, libraries were focused on keeping doors open and filling those hours with programming and content. Now leaders are considering how they might use their resources differently."For the next 12 months or more, the need to promote ongoing social distancing gives us an opportunity to actually work on content in favor of having to just keep our buildings open 15 or 20 hours a day," said Richard Reyes-Gavilan, executive director of the Washington, D.C., Public Library. The D.C. library, like many others, is considering how it can continue to offer services that patrons have come to enjoy, such as online programming and other virtual services. D.C. is also looking into how it can redirect its services to help unemployed people get back on their feet and potentially consider a career change.These are the kinds of questions libraries across the country are asking themselves in their ongoing efforts to survive, adapt and grow. That self-examination, and the steps they are already taking, bode well for libraries coming out on the other side of the pandemic as even more vital and resilient community institutions than they already are.GoverningGoverning
A teenager woke to find a friend raping her after she asked to stay with him following a fight with her boyfriend.

The man, now 20, fronted Brisbane District Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to two counts of rape.

The court heard in February 2018 the 17-year-old girl and had gone to stay with the man, then 18-years-old, and woke up just before midnight to find him on top of her.

The girl pushed the man off her and rushed out of the Beaudesert, Queensland house following the attack, according to The Courier Mail.

A teenager woke up to find a friend raping her after she asked to stay with him following a fight with her boyfriend (stock image)

The court heard that after the attack the girl fell pregnant, but did not have the child.

Judge Vicky Loury said the victim still does not know if it was the attack that led to the pregnancy.

'She feels sick by what you did to her and has nightmares,' Judge Loury said.

Prosecutor Malcolm Harrison said the man had disturbingly 'boasted' to his friends that he had digitally raped the girl and then raped her while she slept, but later denied it.

The man's defence barrister said this was the man's first offence and said he had a difficult upbringing.

He also said it was his client's first sexual experience - which Judge Lowry noted was 'concerning' that he had chosen someone who had not given consent.

The man was sentenced to five-and-a-half years jail but will be eligible for parole in February 2022.
The coronavirus pandemic advanced steadily Wednesday through Latin America, where the death toll passed the grim milestone of 70,000 fatalities even as Europe planned to reopen its external borders to foreigners in July. The Americas -- North and South -- remained the epicenter of the global health crisis, accounting for almost half the 412,926 deaths and 7.3 million infections worldwide, based on an AFP tally of figures released by national health ministries by 1900 GMT. Brazil accounts for almost 40,000 -- or more than half -- of Latin America's total deaths, registering 1,274 fatalities in the last 24 hours. Even as the virus continued to cut a swath through the country, economic capital Sao Paulo began reopening shops on Wednesday as part of a gradual resumption of activity. Shopping malls were set to reopen in a slew of cities on Thursday, the day before Brazilians celebrate Valentine's Day. Mexico, with nearly 15,000 COVID-19 deaths, and Peru, with almost 6,000 deaths from 208,000 cases, are also battling a deep surge. However lawmakers in Bolivia, with a relatively small toll of 487 coronavirus deaths, Wednesday approved the date of September 6 for the country's virus-delayed general elections. Elsewhere, tourism-dependent Miami reopened its beaches for the first time in three months amid evidence that despite nearly two million cases and 112,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the US, that the worst may have passed for the economy. "I almost started crying as soon as I came out onto the beach," said travel agent Julie Isaacson, 63. The US Federal Reserve projected a solid rebound for the US economy next year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell however cautioned that the outlook remains highly uncertain, and both the central bank and Congress may have to do more to boost the recovery. - 'Gradual and partial' reopening - Across the Atlantic, the European Union said it hoped to reopen its external borders to foreigners in July, as leaders look to loosen the economic stranglehold of virus lockdowns that are triggering a steep global downturn. Meanwhile the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in a grim warning that the world economy is on course to contract by at least six percent this year due to virus shutdowns. By the end of next year, the loss of income should surpass that of "any previous recession over the last 100 years outside wartime", the forecast warned. EU member states have the final say on border measures. But Brussels is suggesting a "gradual and partial" reopening of external frontiers to travellers outside the bloc from July 1, diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday. Greece, whose economy depends heavily on tourism, has already announced it will reopen its skies from June 15 to a list of countries including non-EU states such as Australia, China and South Korea. Austria and Germany also announced they were easing travel restrictions, though Germany extended a warning against travel outside the EU until August 31. In Spain, where more than 27,000 people have died from COVID-19, La Liga soccer championships are set to resume on Thursday for the first time in three months. Meanwhile in Britain, which has the highest death toll in Europe, Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended what he described as the country's "astonishing" efforts to tackle the virus. But one top scientist there said the number of fatalities could have been halved had lockdown measures been introduced a week sooner. Italian prosecutors said they wanted to question Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the health and interior ministers over how the government handled the pandemic. - Second wave fears - Elsewhere around the globe, clusters of infection were growing as governments relaxed restrictions. Earlier this week, the WHO warned against complacency. The WHO's regional arm, the Pan American Health Organization, has warned that the upcoming hurricane season could further hamper the fight against the virus. Iran announced more than 2,000 new cases Wednesday, part of a recent surge the government attributes to increased testing. Indonesia also posted a record number of 1,241 new coronavirus cases, sparking calls from health experts for the world's fourth most populous country to slow down the easing of its lockdown measures. In India's capital New Delhi, authorities say they expect half a million COVID-19 cases that will need 150,000 hospital beds by mid-July. burs-db/st A COVID-19 patient who has already spent five days in hospital prepares to be transfered by ambulance boat to another hospital in Breves city, Para state, in Brazil on June 10, 2020 The pandemic is gaining ground in Latin America, including in Mexico where this mural was painted World toll of coronavirus infections and deaths as of June 10 at 1900 GMT
The next 6 months will be very busy for Farm Buildings

Applications under the latest tranche of the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS), operated by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, closed last Friday 5th June. The level of interest among farmers and the number of applications was the highest to date.

The next 6 months will be very busy for Farm Buildings

Tom Fallon Teagasc Farm Buildings Specialist said; Farm Building Contractors are likely to be very busy for the rest of the year due to the loss of valuable time during the Covid-19 related restrictions, and the pending closure of TAMS at year end.

Teagasc is providing valuable information on Farm Buildings to the industry on its public website. In particular farmers will find the two page document titled Farm Buildings Project Delivery very useful. Tom Fallon reminds farmers that the Health & Safety requirement to appoint Project Supervisors needs to be fulfilled. https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/farm-management/farm-buildings/animal-housing/housing-design-information/

The one page document Cubicle Design Fact Sheet has invaluable information and is an effort to bring Irish Standards up to International best practise. Tom Fallon encourages farmers to move beyond the 2.1 metre (7 foot) cubicle because it is just too small. Farmers expect new farm buildings to last at least 40 years so it is important that they are done to a high standard. He also advised that farmers building slurry storage facilities need to provide extra capacity as a buffer over and above meeting minimum requirements.

Tom Fallon argues that just because Farm Building Contractors are likely to be very busy, should not necessarily mean that construction costs will increase:
Death totals in Porter County included: Portage Township, 14; Center Township, 12; Westchester Township, four; Liberty Township, one.

One new case was reported in LaPorte County, bringing the total to 463, according to the state.

The Westville Correctional Facility reported Tuesday a total of six deaths among inmates, 179 positive cases among inmates and 107 cases among staff. A total of 172 inmates and 94 staff members have recovered from the disease.

Jasper County reported two new cases, for a total of 82.

Newton County reported one new case, for a total of 82.

The Indiana State Department of Health will host a drive-thru clinic from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday at the Merrillville Municipal Complex, 7820 Broadway, Merrillville.

Hoosiers who have symptoms of COVID-19 and those who have been exposed and need a test to return to work are encouraged to visit a state-sponsored testing site for free testing.
TORONTO, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FrontFundr , Canadas leading online investment platform for the private markets, recently announced the launch of Ontario Instrument 45-505 . This new legislation allows FrontFundr to provide extensive, nationwide coverage for its platform, and opens up the private markets for all investors and entrepreneurs throughout Canada. It means that, for the first time, there is a clear and concise path for raising start-up capital across the country.



The rule, designed and implemented in collaboration with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), applies regardless of where entrepreneurs are or where they do business. Key features of 45-505 include that:

The head office for the company is located in Canada (currently NL, PEI and the territories are not participating jurisdictions)

Companies may raise up to $250,000 during a 90 day campaign, with a maximum of two campaigns per calendar year (in other words $500,000 total per year)

The company raises no more than twice in a calendar year

Each investor invests no more than $1,500, or $5,000, if deemed suitable

FrontFundr operates as Exempt Market Dealer so can also use all other prospectus exemptions (such as the Accredited Investor exemption), concurrently with the 45-505, so companies can raise amounts greater than $250,000 per raise through the platform

FrontFundr has been continuously innovating and advancing the private markets in Canada, says Peter-Paul Van Hoeken, Founder & CEO of FrontFundr. The 45-505 is another important step towards democratizing the private markets, providing companies better access to capital and enabling the public access to investment opportunities in promising companies.

Entrepreneurs looking to raise capital can find out more on FrontFundrs website , and investors keen to explore current investment opportunities can check out current listings on the platform.

About FrontFundr

FrontFundr is Canadas leading online private markets investing platform and an exempt market dealer. It provides startups and growth companies access to capital, and gives investors access to private companies they believe in and want to support. It provides a community of over 17,000 retail investors with the ability to review and complete private placements on one digital platform. The companys revolutionary technology allows users across Canada to invest in innovative growth businesses in under 12 minutes, starting from as little as $250. To date it has helped more than 54 companies raise over $35 million.
Representative image: Reuters

Over and over, Seema Munda kept refusing her parents pleas to get married. She wanted to be a nurse, not a housewife  and why was employment all right for her brother but not her?

So last summer, Munda lied about where she was going and slipped out of her conservative village in northern India. She traveled 1,000 miles south, to the city of Bengaluru, where she found work stitching shirts at a factory.

This job liberated me, she said.

But when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Mundas life of independence shattered. In March, India instituted one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. In April, more than 120 million Indians lost their jobs, including Munda, 21.

As the world takes stock of staggering losses from the coronavirus, economists predict especially dire setbacks for women in the workforce. The United Nations warned in a recent report that the pandemic has not only exacerbated inequalities between the sexes but threatened to undo decades of gains in the workplace.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

The International Labour Organization found that 41% of women were employed in sectors at high risk for job or working-hour losses from the pandemic, compared with 35% of men.

The global slowdown could have especially stark consequences in developing economies, where around 70% of working women are employed in the informal economy with few protections.

After Ebola quarantine measures were lifted in West Africa, for instance, women were slower than men to recover their livelihoods and had a harder time securing loans to rebuild businesses.

In India, a nation of 1.3 billion, the coronavirus lockdown, which was imposed in late March, has only added to the setbacks for women, who were already being shaken out of the workforce in greater numbers in recent years.

One national employment study conducted in May found that a higher proportion of women reported losing their jobs than men. Among Indians who remained employed, women were more likely to report anxiety about their futures.

Out of the economic wreckage, arranged marriages may also increase, experts say, with families seeing these unions as a way to secure their daughters futures. Since the lockdown went into effect, Indias leading matrimony websites have reported 30% surges in new registrations.

In India, marriage does not necessarily translate into a loss of employment. But it often constrains womens autonomy, making it difficult for them to leave secluded villages where policing of their choices is common, patriarchal values are ironclad and job opportunities are scarce.

Rohini Pande, an economics professor at Yale who researches womens employment patterns in India, said female migrant workers could face steep challenges recovering work. Many women struggle to persuade their parents to let them defer marriage and leave their villages for jobs.

The pipeline was already extremely leaky, said Pande, who directs the Economic Growth Center at Yale. Its just going to get leakier.

Employment figures for Indias women have been a cause of concern for years.

From 2005 to 2018, female labor participation in India declined to 21% from about 32%, one of the lowest rates in the world. The rate for men also fell  India is experiencing a youth boom and has not been able to create enough new jobs to keep up  but not nearly as far as for women.

Economists have offered several explanations for the slide, including a cultural one: As Indias economy expanded, families that could afford to keep women at home did so, thinking it afforded them a degree of social status.

Domestic duties cut into the time women can search for jobs. In India, women perform 9.6 times more unpaid care work than men, about three times the global average. The pandemic has increased that burden for many women, according to the International Labour Organization.

Swarna Rajagopalan, a political scientist and founder of Prajnya Trust, an organization focusing on gender equality in India, said job scarcity could make it harder for women to enter or reenter the workforce  at least in the short term.

Indias economy may contract by 5% this year, according to some estimates, representing perhaps the worst slump since the country became independent from the British.

I really worry about this, Rajagopalan said. We still think of men as being the primary breadwinners of our families, and if we have to make choices about letting people go, women will lose their jobs. It doesnt matter how desperately they need them or how hard they work.

Many of the hardest-hit industries have been those with a high proportion of female workers, including hospitality and manufacturing, where women are often employed without contracts, making it easier to let them go.

Although India recently lifted most of its lockdown measures in an effort to ease pressure on the economy, many women fear that even a limited degree of economic freedom will be difficult to regain.

Seema Munda said she had found the key to unlocking my dreams when she moved to Bengaluru in July to work at Pearl Global, a garment factory that employs women from poorer states like Odisha and Jharkhand, where she is from.

Her parents were initially furious when they realized she had left their village, Laujoda, for a city at the other end of India. Munda calmed them down when she offered to send some of her earnings home.

I said, Whenever I ask you for money for my studies, you always turn me down,  she recalled. So if you let me go and work, not only will I have money for myself but also to spare for you.

Munda started fresh. She moved into a hostel with dozens of other young women from the factory. They slept on straw mats on the ground.

When Munda received her first paycheck, about $112, she went to a clothing store with a handful of crisp notes.

I bought my favorite dress, she said. It was exhilarating.

But when India went under lockdown, the factory closed, and the women found themselves in a precarious situation. Around the country, businesses shut down. Trains and buses suspended their services, stranding millions of migrant workers in cities.

Within a few weeks, Munda said, Pearl Global stopped paying her. She was forced to leave the hostel and take shelter in a school.

By the end of May, as Indias travel restrictions eased further, Munda made a wrenching decision and joined others in boarding trains home. With little money left, she said she had no other choice but to return to Jharkhand.

My family will never let me come back now, she said by telephone. I dont want to get married.

Munda stopped answering calls from a reporter. Friends from Bengaluru were also unable to reach her. They worried that her parents had taken her phone.

One factory worker who traveled with Munda said she hid her face with a stole and sobbed during the three-day trip to Jharkhand.

Hemant Kumar, chairman of Ashankura Trust, a nongovernmental organization that helps migrant workers in Bengaluru, said only a few women had picked up his calls after reaching their villages.

Some told him that their families had forbidden them from venturing back out for jobs.

In one of her last conversations with a reporter, Munda expressed anger that parents value sons more than daughters. She said returning home could mean the end of my economic activity and hence my life.

I dread to think of that possibility, she said. Our future is in darkness.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
Iran rejects Turkey excuse with warning, expects gas flow to resume

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 10:40 AM

An Iranian energy official says he expects Turkey to resume gas imports from Iran by mid-July, putting an end to a relatively long gap which raised many eyebrows.

The gas flow has stopped since March 31 when an explosion blew up the pipeline through which Iran sells about 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year of gas to Turkey under a 25-year supply deal signed in 1996.

The pipeline has been the target of frequent attacks by PKK terrorists, but Turkey's apparent vacillation on repairing the damaged section has surprised Iran.

Interim caretaker of the Iranian Gas Transmission Company Mehdi Jamshidi-Dana said on Monday Turkey is not receptive to Iran's readiness to repair the pipeline.

Jamshidi-Dana, who was the former director for dispatching at state-owned National Iranian Gas Company, also dismissed Turkey's characterization of the pipeline explosion as a force majeure event which excused the country from paying for gas not taken during the halt.

"Iran has announced in writing that it does not accept this is a force majeure event. In several correspondences, we said Iran is ready to repair this pipeline within eight days but the Turkish side didn't welcome that," he said.

Jamshidi-Dana hoped Ankara would not go to such lengths which might force Tehran to take the issue to international arbitration  mirroring Turkey's own action in 2016 when it secured discounts for the gas supplied by Iran after going to a court of arbitration.

The official said "friendly relationship and professional acting by Turkey" would hopefully do away with such a need.

"We predict that the repair of the Iran-Turkey gas pipeline will end in the month of Tir (June 21-July 21) and gas flow will resume," he said.

Turkey is Iran's biggest gas client and a major trade partner, which has balked at the United States' unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic, but it also knows which side of its bread is buttered.

Iran's Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh has confirmed that Turkey was not showing interest despite the Islamic Republic's offer of help to repair the damaged section inside Turkish land.

According to S&P Global Platts, Turkey is delaying the completion of repairs to the gas pipeline in an apparent attempt both to curry favor with Washington and to pressure Tehran to further reduce its prices.

Turkey has taken 23 cargoes of US LNG already in 2020, compared with 13 for the whole of 2019 and just four in 2018, the commodity pricing agency said.

It imported 7.7 bcm of gas from Iran in 2019 or some 17% of its total gas imports, while their long-term contract allows Ankara to buy 9.6 bcm a year, the agency added.

Turkey's deputy energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar left nothing to the imagination when he told a conference in Istanbul in February that Ankara planned to use the availability of US spot LNG to persuade its long-term gas suppliers to lower their prices.

Turkey's other major gas suppliers are Russia and Azerbaijan. Because of their cultural and linguistic closeness, Azerbaijan provides the cheapest gas among the suppliers, piping 6.6 bcm of gas annually from the Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea.

Russian gas supplies to Turkey declined by 35.3% to 15.51 bcm last year, Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom said in February.

US inroads are in line with President Donald Trump's "energy dominance" agenda that seeks to advance diplomatic and policy objectives through rapidly expanding American oil and gas exports.

Turkey's relations with the US have been at a historic low for the past two years, but Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan have spoken by telephone at least three times this year with the aim of patching up their divisions.

A key plank of their discussions is reportedly Trump's offer to sign a $100 billion trade agreement with Turkey, making US LNG a potential threat to piped gas from Iran and Russia.

Nevertheless, Iran's supply contract with Turkey runs until July 2026 and much of the knee-jerk reaction relates to long-term ramifications, including the prospect of losing an important regional market.

Iran may lose its biggest gas market to rivals, which could cost the country $150 million-$200 million in lost revenues a month, Fars news agency warned in an analysis last month.

Jamshidi-Dana said talks for an extension of the contract are underway, though progress is being impacted by the global pandemic situation.

"Negotiations to sign new contract are being carried out slowly because of the coronavirus outbreak. But our examinations show that imports of Iran's gas have advantages for them. It's still not clear what a new contract would be. But Turkey undoubtedly needs to import gas from Iran," he said.

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Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed with US president Donald Trump in a telephone call on Wednesday the latest developments in Libya as well as the talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the Egyptian presidency said.

El-Sisi and Trump exchanged views about the developments in Libya following the launch of the Declaration of Cairo initiative.

President Trump welcomed the Egyptian efforts to achieve a political settlement to the Libyan crisis and to end the violence by supporting a ceasefire in Libya.

The two leaders also discussed the recent developments concerning the GERD issue and the tripartite talks between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

Trump and El-Sisi also discussed Egyptian-US bilateral relations.

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(Bloomberg Opinion) -- On July 1, Israel intends to begin the annexation of the Jordan Valley and the Jewish towns and cities of the West Bank. The problem is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing this while distancing himself from other parts of the Mideast plan that the Trump administration put together. Without the whole package, it will likely fail badly.

The annexation was meant to be an early down-payment to Israel in the broader context of the American vision for peace in the Middle East. That plan has many parts, but at its heart is the creation of a Palestinian state, with limited sovereignty, in roughly 70% percent of the West Bank and, eventually, all of Gaza.

Netanyahu was well aware of this when he enthusiastically embraced the plan back in January. He had been touting a state-minus solution for years exactly like the proposed state in the Trump plan. Ramallah can raise a flag, but not an army. It can have a capital in the outskirts of Jerusalem, but not downtown. Palestinian police can keep the peace on their own streets as long as they protect the streets of Israel. Palestinian civilians living abroad would be welcome to enter, but not hostile armies.

These limitations would amount to a Palestinian declaration of Israels legitimacy as a Jewish state, and a quit-claim on the territory beyond the new states borders. For Israel, a limited Palestinian state is a feature, not a bug.

The elderly Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and the Hamas regime in Gaza bitterly oppose the deal. But while it is not even-handed (reflecting the existing imbalance of power), it is also not nothing. There has never been a Palestinian state of any size or shape. A younger generation might feel that a Palestinian country aligned with Israel and the U.S., and backed billions in start-up money, would be preferable to another 50 years of Israeli occupation and Palestinian stonewalling.

Like the Palestinian leaders, Israeli Jews on the far right hate the deal. They oppose a Palestinian state as a matter of ideology and principle. They fear that the American plan might actually work. This hard core is not politically numerous, but it is influential among Likud voters that Netanyahu relies on. They aim to convince the public that the deal is poisonous, and that Donald Trump is an enemy in disguise.

Story continues

Netanyahu has stood up for Trump, but he is clearly distancing himself from the plan. Last week he told a right-wing newspaper that if the Palestinians fulfill the conditions of the Trump plan, "then they will have an entity that President Trump defines as a state.

That dismissive language was a first salvo. A few days later, Minister of Energy Yuval Steinitz, was more explicit. We didnt announce that were adopting the Trump plan, he said, just parts of it. Those parts include annexing the settlements and the Jordan Valley. As for the rest, its no longer clear what Israel is planning.

This approach amounts to a gratuitous land grab (Israeli control of the Valley and the settlements is already a fact of life). And it empties the plan of its promise.

Benny Gantz, the coalitions number two and Netanyahus presumptive successor, understands this. The center-left faction he leads supports the American plan in its entirety. Gantz is already under fire from his center-left voters for breaking his campaign vow not to serve in a Netanyahu-led government. If he acquiesces to Bibis annexation game, it could very well destroy his remaining credibility and his political ambitions.

If, on the other hand, Gantz opposes Netanyahu, it would likely bring down the government. To stay in power, the prime minister would then need the same right-wing hardliners, currently in the opposition, whose price would be rejection of the American plan.

The Middle East is not presently at the top of the Trump administrations to-do list. Restoring racial calm, dealing with Covid-19 and its economic consequences and waging cold war against China all have more urgent claims on the Presidents attention.

But the Trump administration is not exactly overflowing with foreign policy successes. The plan is worth defending. Trump (or, more probably, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo) needs to tell Netanyahu in clear terms that he cant chip away at the American plan for his own political convenience. The U.S. should assure Gantz that the administration will back him up if he opposes the premature annexation.

The Trump plan, perhaps improbably given its provenance, reflects the realities of todays West Bank demography and the balance of power between Israel and its neighbors. The two-state solution of 2020 cannot be the same as the one envisioned 50 years ago. Even so, its success is a long shot. A necessary condition is the belief of young Palestinians in the good faith of Israel and the United States. An unnecessary and provocative annexation right now is a mistake.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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The three projects he mentioned  the wind farms off Ocean City and in the mountains of Allegany County, and the solar farms on Marylands Eastern Shore  have met with opposition by citizens groups or by local politicians. Heres guessing that, after holding perfunctory public hearings, the Maryland Public Service Commission will approve them all. A clear majority of Marylands delegates have repeatedly made clear their bias for green energy, i.e., wind and solar. And the director of the Power Plant Research Program not only extols wind and solar but also denigrates nuclear power in his annual reports. One gets the feeling that if he had his way, he would close the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant tomorrow. Calvert Cliffs remains by far the states largest electricity provider (34 percent), and when it is decommissioned in the mid-2030s as planned, Maryland will have to import much more electricity than it currently does  and at greater expense.
 Flash

The number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases across the African continent surpassed 195,875, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Tuesday.

The death toll from the pandemic rose to 5,334 as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the Africa CDC.

The continental disease control and prevention agency, which noted that the virus had spread into 54 African countries, also said that some 86,068 people who were infected with COVID-19 had recovered across the continent so far.

Amid the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the African continent, the highly affected African countries include South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, and Ghana, it was noted.

The Africa CDC also said that the Northern African region is the most affected area across the continent both in terms of positive COVID-19 cases, as well as the number of deaths.
The Rule of Law has been a much discussed topic in the pandemic year of 2020. During the attempted Trump impeachment, every Democrat ended his diatribe against the president with the words, "no one is above the law."

Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jerry Nadler, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, just to name a few, repeatedly use it as a catchphrase when whining about all the wrongs Trump has committed.

On June 8, 2020, Ankush Khardori of Slate penned "The Judge in the Michael Flynn Case Is Botching His Effort to Defend the Rule of Law." It is an article about Judge Sullivan and his crusade against Michael Flynn. He wrote, "Sullivan's lawyers missed the opportunity to position Sullivan as an institutionalist guarding the prerogatives of the judicial branch and performing his part to promote the rule of law  the collection of principles that includes the proposition that the law should operate neutrally and without favoring people based on their social status or political connections."

I say huzzah to Mr. Khardori and all of my woke Democrat friends, for the nation hasn't always had one rule of law for everyone.

When our nation was founded, we had at least four separate rules of law. We had one for free men, one for free women, one for slaves, and one for native people. There might have been more.

Now Benjamin Crump, a major participant in the Trayvon Hoax, is championing the Rule of Law. On June 3, standing on the streets of Minneapolis with George Floyd's son, he said:

Because we cannot have two justice systems in America, one for black America and one for white America, we must have equal justice for the United States of America.

Mr. Crump, Mr. Khardori, and the members of the Democrat party are all advocating for the end of Affirmative Action. What else could they possibly mean?
Anthony Brennan III, 60, of Kensington, Maryland, poses after he was charged with three counts of second-degree assault by the Maryland-National Capital Park Police in Silver Spring, Md., on June 5, 2020. (Maryland-National Capital Park Police/Handout via Reuters)

Internet Vigilantes Falsely Link Ex-Officer to Teens Attack

SILVER SPRING, Md.John Damskeys nightmare began with his wife getting emails from strangers telling her she should be ashamed of her husband, a retired police officer. Their phones wouldnt stop ringing with calls from unfamiliar numbers. Some even called his 74-year-old mother.

Baffled by the barrage of hate on June 4, Damskey plugged his name into the internet and made a horrifying discovery: Mobs of Twitter users were falsely accusing him of being the bicyclist on a Maryland trail who accosted three young adults posting flyers protesting the death of George Floyd.

Millions of users have viewed a video of last Mondays encounter on the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of Washington. One of them was Damskey, who knew he wasnt the culprit and did nothing to provoke the death threats and angry messages directed at him.

This undated photo provided by the Damskey family shows John Damskey. (Courtesy of the Damskey family via AP)

Damskey, 53, was one of at least two men who were falsely accused by internet vigilantes who posted their photos and personal information on Twitter before police on Friday arrested and charged another man, 60-year-old Anthony Brennan III, with assaulting the three protest supporters.

Damskey, who served as a Montgomery County police officer for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2016, described the experience as surreal and terrifying.

Ive got a wife who is in tears. My mom is scared to death, he told The Associated Press on Monday in his first interview about his ordeal. Its sad. Its scary. Its something that I dont ever want to go through again.

Brennan, a Kensington, Maryland, resident, issued a statement through his lawyers in which he said he was sick with remorse for the pain and fear I caused the victims on the trail.

The Maryland-National Capital Park Police said it received hundreds of tips from the public before detectives arrested Brennan on three counts of second-degree assault. Brennan grabbed the flyers from one of the young women and pushed his bicycle toward a man, knocking him to the ground, the department said in a news release.

George Floyd in a file photograph. (Christopher Harris via AP)

The three victims, who ranged from 18 and 19 years old, said they were posting flyers promoting justice for George Floyd, the black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on the neck for nearly 9 minutes.

After Brennans arrest, the company that apparently employed him tweeted a statement that it had fired an employee who had engaged in disturbing, wrongful, and completely unacceptable behavior directed towards peaceful demonstrators.

Before Brennans arrest, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh tweeted that another Twitter user, Peter Weinberg, wasnt a suspect in the assault investigation. A day earlier, Frosh had tweeted a link to the viral video and asked the public to contact him or a county prosecutor if they recognized the cyclist.

Police clash with protesters during a demonstration in Washington on June 1, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)

Weinberg posted a police report to prove that detectives had cleared him of any involvement.

We must align in the fight for justice and equalitybut not at the cost of due process and the right to privacy and safety. Lets use Twitter to amplify the positive wave, Weinberg later tweeted.

Rene Sandler, an attorney and longtime friend of Damskey, offered to help him. She contacted Twitters legal department Friday and reported as many dangerous, harassing, targeted tweets as she could find. She said Twitter has removed many if not all of those tweets.

They responded swiftly and took it incredibly seriously, she said.

However, Sandler said she has talked with Damskey about possibly pursuing slander, libel, or defamation claims against Twitter users and others who harassed him and his family.

Demonstrators vandalize a car as they protest the death of George Floyd, near the White House in Washington on May 31, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

We continue to monitor social media and we will not hesitate to take action against any person who is publishing false information about John and his family, she said.

Damskey said he saw tweets that endangered his son, Michael, a police officer, and other relatives who have served as police officers and firefighters.

Damskey didnt have a Twitter account, but he and his wife deleted their Facebook accounts after the abuse started last week.

I dont know who has seen it and who hasnt, but my reputation is shot. Once they see something like this, theres always going to be that question, he said.

Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said the social media platform takes enforcement action when tweets violate its private information or abusive behavior policies. The company also has rules against creating accounts to target and harass other users, she said.

By Michael Kunzelman
STORY LINK GBP to CAD Exchange Rate Testing Nearer Monthly Highs as Oil Prices Weigh on CAD

GBP Exchange Rates Lacks Drive as Brexit Jitters Continue to Rise

Without such an agreement, trade would then be conducted according to WTO rules from next year onwards, which would be a bitter blow for both sides in real economic terms, but above all for the British economy, for which the EU is by far the largest trading partner,



...



For this reason we are forecasting a weaker Pound in the short term and only a very moderate recovery later in the year,

CAD Exchange Rates Kept Under Pressure amid Oil Price Slide

The global economy is still in a precarious position. The dip in oil prices in recent days most likely reflects the end of the price boost that came from the initial economic re-opening.



The global economy is now settling in for a long, slow recovery process, which we only expect to pick up in late 2021, assuming a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available then.

GBP/CAD Exchange Rate Forecast: Federal Reserve News and Oil Prices Could Influence CAD

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Despite a lack of drive in the Pound today, the British Pound to Canadian Dollar (GBP/CAD) exchange rate is continuing to edge higher. Global market uncertainty is weighing slightly on the Canadian Dollar, as investors await major developments regarding the Federal Reserve and developments in oil prices.GBP/CAD has seen more limited movement in recent weeks, and last week the pair didnt move far from the level of 1.7000 all week.This weeks movement has been a little more bullish so far though. GBP/CAD has gained over a cent and currently trends near the level of 1.7127.This puts it not far below todays best level of 1.7137, which is the best level for GBP/CAD in almost a month since the 15th of May.Looking ahead, Pound and Canadian Dollar investors will continue to react to developments regarding the coronavirus, as well potential economic recoveries from the pandemic.While the Pound has benefitted from market risk-sentiment in recent weeks, the British currency has been struggling to keep capitalising on this mood.This is because while other major economies show more signs of recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, Britains mixed recovery signs combined with returning Brexit fears are keeping investors anxious.Britains coronavirus death toll continues to spook, and the British governments exit strategies from quarantine have not been able to impress critics.Some analysts are saying that the combination of coronavirus and Brexit on Britains economy could prove dire for the outlook.With no notable developments in UK-EU Brexit negotiations and time running out for an extension to the Brexit transition period, Brexit fears only seem likely to worsen. According to Thu Lan Nguyen, Forex Analyst at Commerzbank:Despite the lack of strength in the Pound, investors were hesitant to buy the Canadian Dollar either.The Canadian Dollar found a little strength in US Dollar (USD) weakness ahead of this evenings Federal Reserve news. However, ultimately, this demand was limited, with Fed uncertainty keeping CAD from moving too much either.Meanwhile, the Canadian Dollars correlation to oil prices is pushing the currency a little lower.Oil is Canadas most lucrative commodity, so the recent volatility in oil has played a big part in CAD strength lately. According to Cailin Birch, global economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit:Both the Pound and Canadian Dollar are lacking in drive this week, but that could change in the coming days depending on global developments.Global markets are keeping a close eye on the Federal Reserve , which holds its June policy decision this evening. If the Fed takes a more cautious tone on the US economic outlook amid the coronavirus crisis and mass protests, the US Dollar (USD) could weaken.This may boost the Canadian Dollar more than the Pound.On top of this, the Pounds appeal is likely to remain limited due to Britains own mixed outlook.Unless Britains coronavirus outlook improves, or there are some optimistic Brexit developments, investors may not see much reason to buy the Pound any time soon.In fact, the Pound could weaken even further as these concerns rise, which would put fresh pressure on the Pound to Canadian Dollar exchange rate.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

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Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

The global fund manager City of London Investment Group (CLIG) has agreed on an all-share takeover of US fund manager Karpus Management Inc.

CLIG's money management subsidiary, City of London Investment Management Co., has $5 billion in assets under management. Karpus Management is a U.S.-based investment manager with $3.5 billion in AUM.

According to a press release, the acquisition of Karpus is in line with CLIG's strategic plan to expand its U.S. presence. Karpus's closed-end specialty is also a new segment for the UK group, it added.

"The consideration is GBP78.4mln based on a share price of 325p and will boost the investment group's US presence and diversify it away from the volatile emerging markets segment," CLIG said.

As a result of the merger, the founders and management team of Karpus Management, Inc. will become significant stakeholders in the combined business. The investment management teams at CLIM and Karpus Management, Inc. will remain physically, and from a regulatory standpoint, separate and unaltered post-merger.

The investment management teams at CLIM and Karpus Management will remain separate and unaltered entities, the release noted.

Many of CLIG's operational functions are already based in the US and will remain so following completion of the merger. Tom Griffith will remain as Global Chief Executive and will be based in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and report to the CLIG Board of Directors.

......................

To view our full article Click here
New Delhi, June 10 : In a relief for embattled homebuyers who are yet to get possession of their houses in the stalled Amrapali Group projects, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the banks to release the loans given to the Amrapali homebuyers, which were declared as non-performing assets (NPAs).

The apex court said the restructuring of the loans should be done as per the RBI's present guidelines, and also provided relief to the real estate companies which have not completed many housing projects in Noida and Greater Noida.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra noted that Noida Authority should not charge heavy rate of interest from the real estate companies for the delay in the payment, and the rate of interest should be kept below 8 per cent.

The counsel for the homebuyers, advocate M.L. Lahoty, said, "This direction will generate substantial funds and expedite the completion of projects by the NBCC." The top court observed that Noida and Greater Noida authorities need to work out a schedule on how much money they want to collect from the real estate companies, and they should do it at one go.

Last week, the apex court had reserved its orders on the aspect of generating funds to complete the unfinished Amrapali housing projects. The court-appointed receiver managing the progress of completion of these housing projects had informed the court that due to shortage of funds, construction work has been held up.
Actors Sushant Singh Rajput and Varun Sharmas former manager Disha Salian allegedly committed suicide on Monday night. Salian had jumped off the 14th floor of a building in the Jankalyan area of Mumbais Malad. Many Bollywood actors including Sushant, Varun, Richa Chadha and Nushrat Bharucha took to social media to condole her demise.

Taking to Instagram, Sushant wrote: Its such devastating news. My deepest condolences to Dishas family and friends. May your soul rest in peace.

Varun posted a picture with Disha and wrote: Am at a loss of words . Speechless. Numb . It all looks unreal .So many memories. Such a lovely person and a dear friend . You always wore that smile everyday , and with such kindness you dealt with everything that came your way . You will be deeply missed.Prayers and Strength to the Family. I still cant believe Disha youre gone. Gone too Soon. Actor Sonakshi Sinha posted a message on his post and wrote: RIP. Actor Mouni Roy too expressed her grief and wrote in the comments section, Still in shock. May her soul rest in peace. Richa Chadha too dropped a note and wrote: tragic. Unreal. Varuns Fukrey co-star Manjot to dropped a sad face emoji.

Richa Chadha, Sonakshi Sinha, Mouni Roy reacted to the news.

Shaken. Just sunk hearing this really.. Dont know how to believe you are gone..My thoughts and prayers with your family, whose grief I cannot even begin to fathom.. May you rest in peace Disha. Lots of love, wrote actor Nushrat Bharucha on Disha.

Nushrat Bharucha and Sushant SIngh Rajput wrote on Disha Salian.

A close friend of the deceased had informed Mumbai Police about the demise of the former celebrity manager following which the police rushed to the spot and sent the body for postmortem.

On the basis of the police interrogation of the close friend, Mumbai Police said that Disha was suffering from depression for the last few days. The exact reason behind the alleged suicide has not yet been ascertained and the police is conducting a further inquiry into the matter.

(With ANI inputs)

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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 Huge congratulations to our very own Di who was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for Service to the Visual Arts in today's Queen's Birthday Honours list  #GoggleboxAU pic.twitter.com/in5imCpv3r  Gogglebox Australia (@GoggleboxAU) June 8, 2020

A further entry to the Queens Birthday Honours list

Goggleboxs Di Kershaw received an Order of Australia Medal in the Queens Birthday Honours for service to the visual arts.

Kershaw is an Ambassador and Guide for the Museum of Contemporary Art, a Consultant to the Australian Art Network, Mentor to Women in the Arts and has donated artworks through the Australian Governments Cultural Gifts Program.

And shes pretty blunt with a TV review as well.

Congrats, Di!
H ollyoaks star Rachel Adedeji has quit the soap opera after four years.

Representatives for the actress have said Adedeji, who played Lisa Loveday, decided to quit the show last year, and her exit was taped before lockdown.

Last week, Adedeji revealed she had experienced racial slurs and micro-aggressions on the set of Hollyoaks, prompting the show to launch an internal investigation.

A Hollyoaks spokesperson The Sun: "Rachel made the decision to leave Hollyoaks to pursue other opportunities earlier last year which saddened us at Hollyoaks as she is one of the leading cast members in the show.

PA

"However, the notice period did allow the writers time to give Lisa Loveday an extremely gripping exit storyline.

"Viewers will see this story play out later this year as her final scenes were filmed shortly before lockdown.

A representative for Adedeji told the publication: "It had always been our intention for Rachel to leave the show after a period of time.

"She loved her time on Hollyoaks and the exit storyline was openly discussed with the producers and her together, in a collaborative format."

London: Black Lives Matter George Floyd protest - In pictures 1 /33 London: Black Lives Matter George Floyd protest - In pictures People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally march on Vauxhall Bridge Road PA Demonstrators hold placards backdropped by the Victoria Memorial, outside Buckingham Palace AP People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally march on Vauxhall Bridge Road PA A protester shouts slogans in front of a line of police officers AFP via Getty Images People are seen wearing protective face masks as they demonstrate in a car REUTERS A demonstrator is seen during a Black Lives Matter protest in Parliament Square REUTERS Demonstrators wearing protective face masks and face coverings hold placard REUTERS Demonstrators are seen kneeling during a Black Lives Matter protest in Parliament Square REUTERS Demonstrators are seen during a Black Lives Matter protest in London REUTERS Demonstrators are seen during a Black Lives Matter protest in London REUTERS Demonstrators are seen during a Black Lives Matter protest in London AFP via Getty Images Protesters march towards the US Embassy AFP via Getty Images People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally march on Vauxhall Bridge Road PA People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally march on Vauxhall Bridge Road PA People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally march on Vauxhall Bridge Road PA Demonstrators block traffic outside Victoria Station AP Demonstrators hold placards backdropped by the Victoria Memorial, outside Buckingham Palace AP Demonstrators block traffic outside Victoria Station AP Youngsters shout slogans during a Black Lives Matter march AP People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Parliament Square PA Youngsters shout slogans during a Black Lives Matter march AP Protesters hold placards as they attend a demonstration in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images Protesters hold placards as they attend a demonstration in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images Protesters hold placards as they attend a demonstration in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images Protesters hold placards as they attend a demonstration in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Images

On June 5, Adedeji posted on Twitter saying she found Hollyoaks solidarity with Black Lives Matter performative and disingenuous.

She went on to share multiple allegations of racist behaviour that she and other black cast members had experienced on set.

I am disappointed with Hollyoaks approach to showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement yesterday, she wrote.

Did Black Lives Matter when I was told Youre all the same by a make-up artist you employed, and remains in employment till this day?

Did Black Lives Matter when we were referred to as blackies by a senior member of the production team?

She noted that she had only worked with one black director during four years on the show, and said: The list goes on.

Having a black cast member speak on behalf of Hollyoaks to show that the work is being done is not as progressive as you think.

Very little is being done behind the scenes. Unfortunately Hollyoaks response seems to me performative and disingenuous.

Working at Hollyoaks is mostly positive, but the experiences I have encountered are a constant reminder of how difficult it is being a black woman in the industry. I am no longer standing for it.

In response to Adedejis comments, a statement from the show read: Hollyoaks has zero tolerance on racism. We are taking Rachel Adedejis comments extremely seriously and are investigating."
PHOENIX, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Best Western Hotels & Resorts (BWHR) announced today the launch of its latest campaign: Hit the Road with Best Western, which alleviates the strain of travel costs and helps guests hit the road for a much-needed summer break.

Through the campaign, Best Western Rewards (BWR) members are given the opportunity to put some money back in their pockets and rediscover the power of travel this summer. By tapping into three exciting rewards promotions, guests can get back out on the open road while enjoying a safe stay at Best Western-branded properties. The three Hit the Road with Best Western promotions include:

Purchase Best Western gift cards and receive a bonus. For every individual $100 Best Western gift card purchased, customers will receive a $20 bonus gift card. No registration is required and the offer can be accessed at the following link between June 1 and September 30, 2020 : https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/offers/travel-card.html





Best Western gift card purchased, customers will receive a bonus gift card. No registration is required and the offer can be accessed at the following link between : https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/offers/travel-card.html Travel by car and Best Western will cover your gas. Valid from June 15 to August 31, 2020 , any member staying at a Best Western-branded hotel and visiting by car during the promotional period will receive a $25 Best Western Travel Card (gift card). Registration will be required.





, any member staying at a Best Western-branded hotel and visiting by car during the promotional period will receive a Best Western Travel Card (gift card). Registration will be required. Stay with Best Western this summer and earn a $25 gift card. BWR members who stay one eligible night between June 22 and September 7, 2020 at any Best Western-branded hotel in the U.S. or Canada will earn a $25 Best Western gift card. Registration will be required.

"The world of travel has changed in 2020 and while there's no denying that our travel plans will look a little different in the months ahead, we believe people will always find a way to explore the world around them," said Dorothy Dowling, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for BWHR. "As the pent-up demand for travel begins to unleash, we know that many people will choose to hit the road this summer, opting for short-haul getaways, road trips and staycations. Hit the Road with Best Western is a powerful campaign that delivers tremendous value and instant gratification to our valued guests and we're proud to play a small part in helping them rekindle their love for travel this summer."

This announcement is the latest example of BWHR's commitment to supporting its guests through the COVID-19 health crisis. BWHR was the first in the industry to extend loyalty status to its BWR members whose travel plans have been greatly impacted by travel restrictions and cancellations resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also implemented an updated cancellation policy offering enhanced flexibility to its travelers. Additionally, BWHR launched an industry-leading cleaning program, We Care Clean, which delivers an enhanced commitment to keeping guests safe and healthy when staying at Best Western-branded hotels across North America.

BWHR has transformed into a vibrant hospitality company with 18 distinct brand offerings across every market segment from economy to luxury. In recent years, BWHR has revitalized its properties across North America as owners invested a staggering $2 billion in property improvements and renovations. BWHR's commitment to innovation and improvement has enabled the company to achieve record RevPAR Index, unrivaled industry recognition and unprecedented guest satisfaction.

For more information on BWR or to sign up, please visit BestWestern.com/Rewards. Visit travelcard.bestwestern.com for complete Best Western Travel Card terms and conditions.

About Best Western Hotels & Resorts:

Best Western Hotels & Resorts headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, is a privately held hotel brand within the BWH Hotel Group global network. With 18 brands and approximately 4,700 hotels in over 100 countries and territories worldwide*, BWH Hotel Group suits the needs of developers and guests in every market. Brands include Best Western, Best Western Plus, Best Western Premier, Executive Residency by Best Western, Vib, GLo, Aiden, Sadie, BW Premier Collection and BW Signature Collection. Through acquisition, WorldHotelsTM Luxury, WorldHotels Elite, WorldHotels Distinctive and WorldHotels Crafted collections are also offered. Completing the portfolio is SureStay, SureStay Plus, SureStay Collection and SureStay StudioSM franchises**. For more information visit www.bestwestern.com, www.bestwesterndevelopers.com, www.worldhotels.com and www.surestay.com.

* Numbers are approximate, may fluctuate, and include hotels currently in the development pipeline.

**All Best Western, WorldHotels and SureStay branded hotels are independently owned and operated.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Katie Ray

Senior PR Manager

602.957.5526

[email protected]

SOURCE Best Western Hotels & Resorts

Related Links

http://www.bestwestern.com


Canada and the United States are set to extend a ban on non-essential travel to late July as both countries seek to control the spread of the coronavirus, according to three sources familiar with the matter, Trend reports citing Reuters.

Washington and Ottawa introduced month-long restrictions in March and renewed them in April and May. The ban, currently due to expire on June 21, does not affect trade.

Canadian and U.S. sources said although the governments had not yet taken a final decision, a further extension was highly likely.

Its going to be a clean rollover on June 21, said a U.S. source who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. We will want to look at it again in July.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was not immediately available for comment.

Data show that while the outbreak is slowing across the 10 Canadian provinces, new cases show little sign of abating in Toronto and Montreal, the countrys two largest cities.

A majority of provinces have privately told Ottawa they are reluctant to resume non-essential travel, said a second source.

Several provinces have clamped down on travel within Canada, and a third Canadian source said these inter-provincial restrictions would make it hard to lift the ban on non-essential travel with the United States.

More than 110,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the United States, one of the worlds worst-hit nations. Canada reported 7,835 deaths, and 96,244 coronavirus cases on June 9.

A spokeswoman for Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who has overall responsibility for ties with the United States, said both sides agreed the ban had worked well.

Extending the measures would hurt Canadian airlines and the tourism industry.

Carriers, including Air Canada, have been among the worst hit as travel bans resulted in thousands of flight cancellations, forcing carriers to cut jobs and costs.

There is a push from some sectors for reopening (the border), like Air Canada, a Canadian government source said.

Asked about reopening the border, Air Canada said in a statement that governments around the world are relaxing restrictions and said it was working with tourism and industry groups to streamline and clarify rules around travel.
A small bird carving--the oldest instance of East Asian three-dimensional art ever discovered--is described in a study published June 10, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Zhanyang Li from Shandong University, China, and colleagues.

European animal and human mammoth ivory carvings dated to 40-38 ka are our earliest examples of prehistoric humans three-dimensionally representing the world around them--though due to a lack of evidence, it's unclear when this type of three-dimensional representation became part of the cultural repertoire of prehistoric groups around the rest of the world. In this study, Li and colleagues describe the remarkable discovery of a small standing bird carving from the Paleolithic site of Lingjing, in Henan, China, that sheds further light on humanity's earliest three-dimensional art.

During Li's initial excavation at Lingjing in 2005, he uncovered eleven distinct stratified layers ranging in age from 120,000 years ago to the Bronze Age --and found that most of the fifth layer had been removed during a well-digging operation in 1958. However, the refuse heap from the well's creation was still intact and remained nearby. After sifting through the sediment in the refuse heap, the authors discovered black flint identical to (and only found in) what remained of Layer 5 at the dig site. They also uncovered several artifacts, including pottery sherds, burned animal remains, and the bird figurine, which is carved from bone and shaped like a songbird on a pedestal.

Using radiocarbon dating on the uncovered burned animal remains (including one bone with anthropogenic gouging marks also observed on the bird carving), the authors were able to estimate the age of the bird figurine and associated bone material to be approximately 13.4-13.2 ka cal BP. Based on evidence from other Northern Chinese sites of similar age, this suggests that hunter-gatherers with stone tool technologies occupied Lingjing and created the bird carving during this time.

Bird representations are a theme in Chinese Neolithic art, with the oldest example a jade songbird dated to approximately 5 ka BP. This Paleolithic bone bird figurine from Lingjing predates previously known instances from this region by almost 8,500 years, and has several technological and stylistic elements distinguishing it from contemporaneous representations of birdlike creatures from Western Europe and Siberia (such as the pedestal on which the Lingjing bird is perched). Though more examples of Paleolithic carving art are needed to confirm this possibility, the Lingjing bird figurine suggests the presence of a longstanding artistic tradition specific to East Asia, with origins much earlier in the Paleolithic.

The authors add: "This discovery identifies an original artistic tradition and pushes back by more than 8,500 years the representation of birds in Chinese art. The figurine differs technologically and stylistically from other specimens found in Western Europe and Siberia, and it could be the missing link tracing the origin of Chinese statuary back to the Palaeolithic period."

###

Citation: Li Z, Doyon L, Fang H, Ledevin R, Queffelec A, Raguin E, et al. (2020) A Paleolithic bird figurine from the Lingjing site, Henan, China. PLoS ONE 15(6): e0233370. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233370

Funding: This research was supported by grants given to ZL by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 41630102 and 41672020; http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/site_1/index.html), and to HF by the Shandong University 111 Project (grant number: 111-2-09; https://en.sdu.edu.cn/). Funding was also provided to LD and FD by the Sino-French PHC Cai Yuanpei program (grant number: 36707NF; https://cn.ambafrance.org/-Le-programme-Cai-Yuanpei-1628-), the Programme Investissements d'Avenir IdEx of the Bordeaux University (https://idex.u-bordeaux.fr/fr/), and the Research Council of Norway through its Centre's of Excellence funding scheme, SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), project number 262618 (https://www.forskningsradet.no/en/). L.D. was granted financial support from the China/Shandong University International Postdoctoral Exchange Program (http://www.chinapostdoctor.org.cn/) and the Sino-French PHC Xu Guangqi (grant number: 41230RB; https://cn.ambafrance.org/-Le-programme-XU-Guangqi-). PACEA (UMR5199 CNRS) is a Partner team of the Labex LaScArBx-ANR n ANR-10-LABX-52 (https://lascarbx.labex.u-bordeaux.fr/). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233370
A one-time AFL player who dated weatherman Steve Jacobs' ex-wife, Rosie, fronted court accused of domestic violence after he allegedly broke into her home.

Matthew Andrew Shir, 38, is accused of breaking into Ms Jacobs' Bronte home, in Sydney's ritzy eastern suburbs, assaulting her and damaging property at about midnight January 10.

The former Adelaide Crows player fronted Downing Centre Local Court last week after he was charged with aggravated break and enter and common assault.

Police also allege he was stalking and intimidating Ms Jacobs' following their separation, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The pair were first linked in 2018 after Ms Jacobs separated from Today show weatherman Steve Jacobs earlier that year.

Matthew Andrew Shir (right), 38, was first linked to Rosie Jacobs in 22018 after she separated from her husband

In 2019, Ms Jacobs often posted about her new relationship on Instagram, and the pair celebrated her 40th birthday together

They had tried to save their marriage by moving to Vanuatu a year earlier, but it was too little too late.

They share two daughters: Isabella, seven, and Francesca, five.

Following their separation, Ms Jacobs began dating a Canadian man named Dylan Nash, but the relationship didn't last long.

In 2019, Ms Jacobs often posted about her new relationship on Instagram, and the pair celebrated her 40th birthday together.

A friend confirmed the relationship and said the couple were 'super happy', while Ms Jacobs boasted about her 'viking' boyfriend.

'Me and my Ragnar,' Rosie captioned one Instagram image of herself and Shir, referencing the renowned Danish and Swedish Viking ruler Ragnar Lodbrok.

But the relationship has since come to an end.

Police have reportedly applied for an AVO against Shir on Ms Jacobs' behalf.

Shir, who currently lives in Manly, was granted bail to appear again in court on July 30.

Ms Jacobs separated from Today show weatherman Steve Jacobs in early 2018. They had tried to save their marriage by moving to Vanuatu a year earlier, but it was too little too late

In January, Ms Jacobs revealed she reached out to Michelle Bridges following her separation from Steve 'Commando' Willis and the drink-driving saga.

She told Kidspot earlier this year Bridges' experience struck a chord because she knows what it's like to feel 'emotionally desperate' following a relationship breakdown.

'I understand that a split from your partner and the father of your child can leave you feeling emotionally desperate and a glass of wine can seem like a great band-aid solution at the time,' she said.

'If it wasn't Michelle behind that wheel, it could have been your sister, your neighbour, your best friend or even your mum.'

Ms Jacobs added 'marriages fail' and 'life gets hard sometimes', but it's up to women - and mothers in particular - to be more responsible when it comes to drinking.

She chose to quit alcohol after splitting from the weather presenter, admitting to friends she had a 'strong dependency on drinking', according to The Daily Telegraph.
Washington: Total US coronavirus cases surpassed 2 million on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as health officials urge anyone who took part in massive protests for racial justice to get tested.

Nationally, new infections are rising slightly after five weeks of declines, according to a Reuters analysis. Part of the increase is due to more testing, which hit a record high on June 5 of 545,690 tests in a single day but has since fallen, according to the COVID-Tracking Project.

Salt Lake County Health Department public health nurse Lee Cherie Booth performs a coronavirus test outside the Salt Lake County Health Department in Salt Lake City. Credit:AP

Recent increases in cases are likely a result of more people moving about and resuming some business and pleasure activities as all 50 states gradually reopen.

Huge nationwide protests with no social distancing after the May 25 the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police could lead to another spike in cases in coming weeks.
The EU's chief negotiator has called for an extension to the Brexit transition period in a bid to save stalling trade talks and prevent a no-deal.

Michel Barnier told a committee in Brussels that the European Commission supported an extension beyond the end of the year to give negotiators more time, with scant progress so far.

The EU has previously said it is open to an extension but has shied away from actively calling for one. But as the deadline to extend looms at the end of this month, Mr Barnier's position has shifted.

"We are in favour of an extension, particularly given the current circumstances," Mr Barnier told a meeting of the European Economic and Social Committee.

Boris Johnson's government has steadfastly said it will not extend the transition period, stating that it wants to get talks resolved by the end of the year.

Mr Barnier's call is likely to receive limited support in the UK. While some opposition parties like the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens have called for a further delay, Labour has shied away from backing a longer transition.

Opposition leader Keir Starmer has said he is not calling for one because he wants to see how the government does and hold them to their promise to negotiate a deal by December.

Mr Barnier told the committee that the UK was being unreasonable in aspects of the talks.

"Britain is demanding a lot more from the EU than Canada, Japan or other partners," he said. "We cannot and we will not allow this cherry picking."

He added: "During the past negotiating round UK must have taken note of the EUs willingness to search for compromises.

"What we now need to make progress are clear and concrete signals the UK too is open to work on an agreement."

Last Friday after a further round of talks conducted by video link he said there had been no significant progress in important areas.

Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty

His UK counterpart David Frost called on both sides to "intensify and accelerate" the discussions, with Mr Barnier suggesting a return to face-to-face meetings.

Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen are to hold a high-level discussion later this month to stake out a way forward, with proceedings expected to be held via video link.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: Throughout the negotiations weve been clear that we will not extend the transition period and, if offered an extension from the EU, we wont accept it.

An extension would bind us into future EU legislation, without us having any say in designing it. We would still have to make large-scale payments to the EU. We would still be constrained by state aid rules meaning we need EU approval for support measures to our industry. And overall we would be bound to follow the EUs decisions, which reasonably enough will be made in the interest of the 27 not the 28.

Brexit is about economic independence and we gain more by being able to design our own rules to suit the best interests of our businesses and people in future.
The Greater Worcester Community Foundation has announced a grant program to support nonprofits and others in our community who commit to anti-racism work.

The program comes as people and institutions across the country are examining racism following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Many people are working to amplify black voices and some organizations are promising to diversify leadership.

The Greater Worcester Community Foundation said the grant program is a starting point for dialogue, learning, collaborative action and healing, designed to help organizations take next steps in the journey to becoming more equitable in practice, policy, leadership, and impact.

Those eligible for the program include nonprofit organizations, community organizers and houses of worship. Up to $2,000 will be awarded, according to the Foundation website.

The Foundation said the scope of the grant should be to support the work and voices of black leaders as well as nonprofits in anti-racism learning and work. Examples could be advocacy and policy change initiatives, events that engage in dialogue with the broader community or the purchase of educational material centered on anti-racism work for staff.

This grant program is one small concrete action. There are many different actions the Foundation will consider as we work to build a race equity strategy; however, we felt it was important to start with this action now, reads the Foundation website. Our hope is that it empowers work to happen in our community and starts much-need critical conversations.

The deadline to apply is June 26 at midnight. Those who want to apply are asked to send an email to grants@greaterworcester.org with the following information:

Demonstrated evidence that you are committed to anti-racism work ( This could include a board endorsed statement, mission statement, plan, past work)

Requested amount

A brief paragraph covering what you plan to do, who you will engage, how you plan to implement it, and how you will determine the impact

More information on the grant program is online. The Foundation said grant decisions will be made by July 10.

On May 25, Floyd, a black man, was pinned down by a now-former police officer, who is white, in Minneapolis. A video showed the officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyds neck for nearly 9 minutes as Floyd cried out that he could not breathe.

Chauvin and three other former officers involved in the arrest are now facing charges.

As the nation has watched the senseless killing of George Floyd and racist-fueled violence of the last few weeks in Minneapolis, Louisville and across the country, we are facing the painful realization that we have failed  again  to be worthy of the high ideals upon which our nation was founded. And from coast to coast there are demands for action. These events are an indictment of our troubled past and a clear call for change that can no longer be ignored, the Greater Worcester Community Foundation wrote in a statement.

At the Greater Worcester Community Foundation (GWCF) we stand in solidarity with those protesting systemic racism. More specifically, we stand in solidarity with the Black community. The fight for justice is a challenge that demands something from each of us, the foundation continued, writing that it is committed to building a community that has justice and equity and equality for all.

Over the last few months, the Foundation has been working with the United Way of Central Massachusetts on the Worcester Together Fund, raising money to support the short- and long-term needs of the community during the coronavirus pandemic.

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PARIS (AP)  Frances government is pumping 15 billion euros ($16.9 billion) in rescue money into the pandemic-battered aerospace industry, in hopes of saving its hundreds of thousands of jobs and keeping plane maker Airbus and national airline Air France globally competitive.

In exchange for aid, companies will be required to invest more and faster in electric, hydrogen or other lower-emission aircraft, as France aims to make its aviation industry the cleanest in the world.

The deal was negotiated with unions, who said they would stay vigilant about job guarantees. Some environmental activists expressed skepticism about green ambitions for such a high-emission industry.

We will do everything to support this French industry that is so critical for our sovereignty, our jobs and our economy, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, unveiling the plan alongside the ministers of transport, defense and environment - a sign of how important the aeronautic sector is in France.

As travel restrictions grounded most flights to keep the virus contained, the fallout cascaded across the industry, from airlines to airports to engine makers, maintenance contracts and spare parts suppliers. Airlines around the world are forecast to lose $84 billion this year, with revenue halved. Some have filed for bankruptcy or sought bailouts to survive the near-shutdown in their activity, and officials predict the industry will take years to recover.

Financially, 2020 will go down as the worst year in the history of aviation", said Alexandre de Juniac, head of the International Air Transport Association, which represents 290 airlines. "Thats why government financial relief was and remains crucial as airlines burn through cash.

The French aid money includes direct government investment, subsidies, loans and loan guarantees. It also includes a special fund jointly financed by the government, Airbus and other big manufacturers to support small suppliers.

Story continues

It includes 7 billion euros in loans and loan guarantees that the government had already promised to Air France, whose planes were almost entirely grounded by the virus.

And like a similar multibillion-euro plan to save the French car industry announced last month, the aviation bailout requires more investment in clean energy - and puts pressure on manufacturers to avoid layoffs.

It will aim at modernizing the production chain and preserving European aviation know-how, Le Maire said.

We must save our aeronautical industry. We must avoid any decline in the coming months with regard to the American giant Boeing and the Chinese giant Comac," he said. "We wont let the world aeronautical market be shared between China and the United States. France and Europe will retain their position.

The government will help Air France buy Airbus planes, and pledged to order 600 million euros worth of refueling tankers, drones and helicopters from Airbus' defense arm. In addition to dominating the global passenger aircraft market alongside Boeing, Airbus is also a major supplier of military aircraft to European governments.

The rescue plan includes investment in developing the successor to Airbus' widely used mid-range A320, a new hybrid or hydrogen regional plane, and a new light helicopter.

The government is also working with unions on a long-term, short-work scheme that would allow the industry to preserve jobs as it slowly ramps production back up.

As a result of the virus lockdown, Airbus said it is cutting production by 35% to 40%, and Boeing announced that it would cut 10% of its 161,000-person work force through attrition, early-out offers and layoffs.

"The recovery will be long, Le Maire warned. The government predicted it will be 2023 before the industry reaches pre-crisis levels.

Among bailouts elsewhere, major U.S. airlines reached agreements with the Treasury Department for billions of dollars in grants and loans, Lufthansa won a $10 billion German government rescue and Cathay Pacific announced Tuesday its seeking $5 billion from the Hong Kong government to survive.

___

Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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If the industry partners and Parliament agree, St, Maarten could well become a global trendsetter with its institution of rapid antigen testing for visitors to the island based on a proposal by Minister of Health the Honourable Richard Panneflek.





His goal is to test expeditiously all visitors as a means of protecting both guests and the population and reducing the spread and contamination of COVID-19. Minister Panneflek, whose portfolio includes Social Welfare and Labour, issued a press release on Sunday saying we will have to use rapid testing if we want to reopen St. Maarten responsibly.





St. Maarten's ports of entry closed on March 17, bringing a significant portion of the island's economic activity to a halt. Thousands of people are still without work, while others have suffered through having up to 50 per cent of their salaries cut because the companies they work for had to close their doors.





The Ministry of VSA is giving food baskets support to residents, but Minister Panneflek says that will not be enough. He said the fact that the hotels, restaurants and other businesses on the island remain closed means that many residents are still unable to earn a living. The island did its best in the past few months to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and keep the population safe. However, the time has come for the hard decision on reopening and restoring some sense of normalcy amid the global pandemic.





He said he will also be seeking the support of the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) along with the hotel industry and other public sector partners to get the process completed.





"It is time for the difficult decision to restore the economic pillar of the island healthily and responsibly so our residents can earn a living," said Minister Panneflek. He said consideration must be given to making it easy for visitors to come to St. Maarten and taking innovative steps to do so is the right approach. "We need to do what we can and it shouldnt stop here. We must also have the discussion on lifting entry requirements for US Citizens and it will propel us into the future as leaders of the tourism industry."





Elsewhere in the Caribbean, some islands including Antigua and Barbuda, are considering requesting their visitors to test themselves 48-hours before arrival. Some islands have also indicated that they have a mandatory curfew and will restrict group gatherings up to 25 people. "St. Maarten is in competition with others whether we want to admit it or not. We also have a responsibility to our neighbouring islands who use our Airport as a hub. If we can protect the passengers transiting to their destinations then we will be adding value to them and as Minister of Health it is imperative that I take action to avoid rather than repair after."





He said another option would be asking guests to provide us with a test done 48-hours prior, but the risk is that these guests can still contract the Corona Virus within that two-day window. We can consider options such as testing only people with symptoms, but science shows that persons can carry the virus without showing signs. "If we take that approach, it puts our residents at higher risk, which is why we must test everyone."





Minister Panneflek will ask Parliament to approve a nominal fee, which will be added to visitors' airfare to covers the cost of administering the Rapid Antigen Test. The idea is also to seek the support of his colleague Minister in the TEATT Ministry to dialogue with industry partners such as airlines and travel agencies to request that they inform visitors of the non-invasive rapid antigen test on arrival.





On May 9, the US Food and Drug Administration approved its first set of Rapid Antigen Test kits. The process is easy to administer, reasonably accurate and gives results almost immediately. Minister Panneflek said within 15 minutes guests will receive a welcome drink and a St. Maarten style reception while they get the rapid test. They can also go through immigration processing at the same time. "In this new normal we believe that this approach will also help the visitors who are anxiously waiting to return to beautiful beaches and sun in the sea, to be comfortable choosing our destination."





"I think we can set the standard in the industry for the way economies can re-open while still maintaining a safe environment," said Panneflek.





Research shows bookings coming out of Miami and Philadelphia to St. Maarten for the major airlines are between 82 to 93 percent, which indicates a high interest from visitors to return.





To address the question of which countries to allow or restrict based on their number of COVID-19 cases, Minister Panneflek said at present, the US with a population of 328 million people shows 0.06 percent of its population have contracted the Corona Virus. Holland and France have a combined population of 84 million people, and their combined COVID-19 cases amounts to 0.02 percent. However, the majority of visitors come from the USA where based on their population they have a larger number of COVID-free people who we want to accept to our shores just as much as we wish to welcome the European visitor. "Our goal must therefore be to responsibly and safely open for all," said Minister Panneflek.





Panneflek said that the concept to safeguard residents while increasing their potential to earn a living through increased economic activity from our main economic pillow includes possibly putting a staging area on the Airport Ramp where guests can be quickly tested.




Mercedes-Benz returns to double-digit growth in China

From:ChinaDaily | 2020-06-10 13:21

BERLIN - Mercedes-Benz sold more than 70,000 passenger cars in May and achieved a double-digit growth in China, German carmaker Daimler announced on Tuesday.

"The retail sales in our biggest market China provide us with optimism," said Britta Seeger, member of the board of management of Daimler and Mercedes Benz, responsible for sales and marketing.

Daimler's core brand would get "step by step back to normality." After a production suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mercedes-Benz car plants had successfully restarted production.

From June onwards, all Mercedes-Benz plants worldwide would be gradually restarted, according to Daimler.

Last week, the German carmaker announced that global deliveries to car dealers in May were down 28.6 percent compared with the same month last year, with almost 135,000 passenger cars of the Mercedes-Benz brand sold worldwide.
DPRK to cut off inter-Korean communication

Global Times

Source:Xinhua Published: 2020/6/9 17:38:40

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will cut off all inter-Korean communication lines at noon Tuesday, the Korean Central News Agency reported on Tuesday morning.

The relevant field of DPRK side will "completely cut off and shut down the liaison line between the authorities of the north and the south, which has been maintained through the north-south joint liaison office" starting from 12:00 (0300 GMT) on Tuesday, the report said.

Other communications will also be cut off, which includes the East and West Seas communication lines between the military of the North and the South, the inter-Korean trial communication line and the hot line between the office building of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and South Korean presidential office Chongwadae, according to the KCNA.

The development is apparent follow-up action of DPRK after its top officials have recently threatened to shut down the inter-Korean liaison office or even withdraw from the military cooperation agreement signed in 2018 in protest at anti-DPRK propaganda leaflets that defectors from the North fly across the border.

On Thursday, Kim Yo-jong, sister of top DPRK leader Kim Jong-un, issued a statement threatening to close the liaison office or even completely dismantle a now-shuttered joint industrial park in the North's border city of Kaesong unless Seoul stops defector groups from sending leaflets into the North.

"The South Korean authorities connived with the hostile acts against the DPRK by the riff-raff, while trying to dodge heavy responsibility with nasty excuses. This has driven the inter-Korean relations into a catastrophe," the KCNA said.

It went on to say that "the disgusting riff-raff have committed hostile acts against the DPRK by taking advantage of the South Korean authorities' irresponsible stance and with their connivance."

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Gabrielle Lurie / Special to The Chronicle

Before a pandemic and police protests, San Francisco was staring at a more localized problem: a City Hall scandal that dangled cash for an inside track on government business. The trail led right up to the mayors office, and now another legal step is reminding the public of the serious charges.

Federal prosecutors running the investigation are charging Sandra Zuniga, head of the Mayors Office of Neighborhood Services, with money laundering connected with handling six-figure cash sums and taking a lavish Southern American trip with former public works director Mohammed Nuru. Two others were also named on charges they sought to land city contracts in exchange for gifts to Nuru, who was charged with attempted bribery in January.
Bond set at $10K for man accused of stealing vehicle, breaking into home

Bond has been set at $10,000 cash for an Aberdeen man who is facing a host of charges in connection to Wednesday's incident with law enforcement.
A disability support service in Melbourne's south-east has been sent into lockdown after one client tested positive for COVID-19.

Victoria recorded a total of four new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, including one staff member from Rydges Hotel in Carlton who was already quarantining as part of the management of that outbreak, which now includes 14 cases.

Health Minister Jenny Mikakos reminded Victorians to keep seeking their regular medical check-ups. Credit:Eddie Jim

The other two cases were picked up via routine testing and their source is being investigated. One new patient was admitted to intensive care overnight, taking the state's ICU patients to two, with nine people in total in hospital.

A client from Scope Disability Services in Chelsea was diagnosed with COVID-19 late on Tuesday, resulting in thirty people going into self-isolation. The client lives at home and it is unclear if they contracted the coronavirus at the centre, which has been closed until at least Thursday for deep cleaning.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 14:39 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd98a19 1 National COVID-19,coronavirus,COVID-19-infection,hospitals,development,infectious-diseases,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,Bangka-Belitung Free

The national COVID-19 task force has secured a 5-hectare plot of land in Bangka Belitung Islands for the construction of the countrys third COVID-19 hospital.

The hospital building might only need 1 hectare, but there are 5 hectares of land available to the west of Ir Soekarno General Hospital, Bangka Belitung Islands COVID-19 task force chief Armayani Rusli said on Wednesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

He said the construction of the hospital would commence in July and was expected to be completed in one month.

The hospital will be a one-story building comprising service rooms and patient rooms. A total of 100 beds will be provided, with 25 beds for intensive care and 75 beds for mild cases.

In the future, the facility can be used for the treatment of infectious diseases or infections other than COVID-19, said Armayani.

The Bangka Belitung Islands COVID-19 Hospital is the third project by the central government after the COVID-19 hospital in Galang Island, Riau Islands and the one facility that is currently under construction in Lamongan regency, East Java.

Bangka Belitung Islands has recorded 121 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday, with one death and 41 recoveries. (aly)
Hannah Ward, a health and safety officer at Sisk in Cherrywood raising the Irish tricolour watched (L to R) by Donal McCarthy, COO (Ireland and Europe) John Sisk & Son, Brian Moran, Senior MD, Hines and Gary Corrigan, MD at Hines.

Hines has today officially capped off its first major apartment block at Cherrywood in south Dublin.

The first tenants will begin moving into the new development early next year.

International real estate firm Hines and its partner in the project, APG, along with building contractor Sisk, commenced construction work on the 431-unit complex 18 months ago.

The complex is the first set of new apartment blocks to be built in the new town - located directly adjacent to the Cherrywood Luas Green Line stop.

Hines MD Gary Corrigan said the recent recommencement of works has gone very smoothly, notwithstanding the changed economic backdrop, the demand for quality residential housing remains high throughout Dublin, and Cherrywood will make a significant contribution in that regard over the coming years.

We are firmly back on track post-Covid and now expect to see our first new units coming on stream by Q2 of next year.

Building work is also progressing well on the neighbouring Phase 2 block, which will add a further 520 apartments.

This, combined with additional units under development in the new Town Centre area, will see a total of 1,326 apartments coming on stream at Cherrywood over the next three years.

Almost 400 people are working on the Cherrywood site currently across construction, design, engineering and project management.
Home Off beat Google Maps Get New Features Aimed At Keeping Users Safe Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic oi-Rahul Jaswal

Google Maps has added new features that help users stay safe amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The new features are available across multiple regions and countries including India. The new features makes Google Maps more efficient to users across the world considering countries are slowly re-opening for business.

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Jacksonville is the most populous city in Florida, where Ron DeSantis, a Republican and an ally of Mr. Trump, is the governor. Jacksonvilles mayor, Lenny Curry, is a longtime Republican official.

Once they decided to uproot the convention, Mr. Trumps aides and Republican officials had wanted to relocate to a state, and a city, controlled by Republicans. Jacksonville also may have enough hotel rooms to accommodate the gathering, people familiar with the discussions said, and it is a comparatively easy drive from Charlotte.

New reported cases of the coronavirus are on the rise in both North Carolina and Florida.

What exactly the event will look like remains unclear. Conventions normally last for four days, with thousands of party officials, delegates, donors, members of the news media and others coming together for speeches and votes.

Aides to Mr. Curry declined to comment.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Joe Gruters, said, While no final decision has been made by the RNC we understand Jacksonville is a frontrunner. This certainly has been generating a lot of attention and excitement. We continue to believe that Florida would be the best place for the convention.

Officials have said some party business will still be conducted in North Carolina, even with the move, but that the presidents nomination will be celebrated at the new site. Whether any additional business is conducted there remains to be seen.
Turkey issues arrest warrants for 63 over Gulen links After hundreds arrested in past two days, including police

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JUNE 10 - Turkish prosecutors issued arrest warrants Wednesday for 63 suspects over alleged links to the ''Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO)'', the group accused of being behind the 2016 failed coup attempt, said security sources. Authorities in the southern Adana province are seeking the detention of the suspects, including several dismissed police personnel in Adana, Mersin and Istanbul.



''FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured,'' Turkish news agency Anadolu reported. ''Turkey accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.'' Those wanted by the authorities are accused of providing money and other assistance to the network to foster its reorganisation. (ANSAmed).




Two people died and three others were missing after a tipper, carrying people who returned from India to a quarantine facility in Nepal, plunged into a river in Kalikot district when its driver exited the moving vehicle after an altercation with the passengers on Wednesday, according to media reports.

The district authorities have been able to establish contact with 27 missing people on board the vehicle. Four among them are critically injured and have been shifted to a hospital, The Kathmandu Post reported.

The tipper was taking returnees from India to a quarantine facility in Raskot municipality in the district, the report said.

Karnali Province Police Spokesperson Rajib Bahadur Basnet said the driver Ranganath Dhamala, exited the moving vehicle after a heated argument with the passengers who were complaining of overloading the vehicle.

Following the altercation, the tipper swerved off the road and plunged into the Karnali River in Lalighat at 10:40am today, said Basnet, adding that the driver has been arrested.

According to The Himalayan Times, a team of police has been deployed to the site for search and rescue operations. Some of the passengers were rescued from the river by the local people, it said.
District Attorney Joe D. Gonzales said he supports the communitys right to protest, despite having his life threatened on social media regarding three high profile San Antonio cases where African American men were killed by San Antonio police.

Im on their side, Gonzales said Tuesday regarding the protest against the DAs office. I am a reformer, and I am doing everything I can to run this office in a just order.

About 100 demonstrators braved Tuesdays heat, protesting in front of the Bexar County Courthouse against police brutality, racism and against Gonzales decision not to reopen the cases of Marquise Jones, Charles Roundtree Jr. and Antronie Scott.

On ExpressNews.com: Floyds death renews outrage over Jones, Roundtree deaths

Gonzales, who was elected in 2018, wasnt in office during the Jones or Scott cases.

He said he has reviewed each of the cases and they were handled properly by his predecessors. His office handled the Roundtree case, where a grand jury declined to indict the officer. That, too, he said, was handled properly.

Theres no new evidence in any of the cases, Gonzales said, and he sees no reason to reopen any of them at this time.

These three other cases are very different, he said, in comparison to the Minneapolis case of George Floyd that have sparked nearly two weeks of protests in San Antonio. Officers had to make a split-second decision when they fired, and in a situation where they believed they had to use deadly force.

The district attorney said hes had to strengthen his security detail at home and at work since he received a death threat on a social media thread Monday night. That comment was posted by someone who was upset that hes not reopening the cases.

That doesnt solve anything, the district attorney said. People have the right to protest, but we have to do it the right way.

Officer Robert Encina, who was working off-duty as a security guard at Chachos and Challucis restaurant on the Northeast Side, shot and killed Jones, 23, after a crash in the drive-thru in February 2014.

Testimony in the familys unsuccessful civil lawsuit established that Encina shot Jones after Jones began running and pointed a gun at the officer from over his shoulder. Other witnesses and family said Jones did not have a gun.

On ExpressNews.com: Judge denies family request for new trial in Marquise Jones case

Officer John Lee was one of several officers trying to arrest Scott, 36, on two felony warrants Feb. 4, 2016. Lee fired at Scott as he got out of his car and turned to face the officers, holding what Lee said he thought was a gun but turned out to be a cell phone. No charges were filed against Lee.

Officer Steve Casanova shot and killed Roundtree, 18, in the fall of 2018. Casanova was responding to a criminal complaint when he approached a house where Roundtree and Davante Snowden were staying to search for a suspect. Casanova shot Snowden, whom he said he believed was reaching for a gun, and the bullet went through Snowden and fatally hit Roundtree in the chest as he sat on a couch.

Both the Jones and Roundtree cases were taken to grand juries, Gonzales said, adding that neither panel indicted the officers involved. Jones was under the administration of Susan Reed.

In Scotts case, which was handled under the administration of Nicholas Nico La Hood, there wasnt enough evidence to present to a grand jury, Gonzales said.

He said grand juries offer a fresh set of eyes to see if there is probable cause to bring charges, and the panels did not find anything.

On ExpressNews.com: Grand jury wont indict officer in killing of unarmed bystander

Those offices did everything they were supposed to do, regarding their cases, Gonzales said, referring to the previous administrations.

Gonzales office handled the Roundtree case.

He said if new evidence were to surface, however, he would look into a case anew.

My heart goes out to the families of the three individuals whose families lost lives, but I dont see any indication this was about race, that this was about a black individual or person of color, Gonzales said.
If we are left here like this, we will be in the sea of a Palestinian state, an enemy state, said Damri, who has watched Otniel grow from a cluster of dusty trailers about 40 years ago to more than 1,000 residents with red-roofed villas and creeping bougainvillea. This is not Canada. We all know there are Arabs who want to kill us. They will do everything they can to hurt us and force us off this land.
El kion es muy util en resfriados y gripes, ademas es antioxidante y antiinflamatorio. Lo consumes seguido? ??



Lee mas: https://t.co/DhzwkbnqLx pic.twitter.com/XcT20Hyv4A
The University of Health and Allied Science's (UHAS) and all other tertiary institutions in Hohoe in the Volta region are said to be prepared for the continuation of academic activities.



The Ghana News Agency gathered that the institutions- School of Public Health, Hohoe Midwifery Training School, St. Francis College of Education (FRANCO) and the St. Teresas College of Education (TERESCO), have put measures in place to enable final year undergraduate and post-graduate students return to school on Monday, June 15, 2020, for lessons and their final examinations in the wake of COVID-19.



Professor Paul Amuna, Dean of School of Public Health, UHAS told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Hohoe, that the University had put in place all precautionary measures to enable students to have a conducive teaching and learning environment.



He said lecture halls and laboratories had been fumigated to accommodate students in respect of social distancing protocols.



Prof. Amuna said veronica buckets, soaps, alcohol-based sanitizers, and nose masks had all been provided to ensure that students were protected.



The Dean said though the University was carrying out some of its academic activities online, it needed limited congregational classes for effective teaching and learning.



Professor Amuna said the temperature of students would be checked daily and they would be made to observe handwashing protocols before they accessed offices and facilities of the University.



He said since students would return from all parts of the country and neighbouring countries, the University would put in measures to monitor them for a 14-day period when it reopened.



Madam Peace Ivy Ananga, Principal of the Hohoe Midwifery Training School said the School was putting in place all precautionary measures and safety protocols as directed by the Ministry of Health.



She said lecture halls and hostels would be fumigated as part of measures before final year students returned for academic activities.



However, the Ghana News Agency was told that the June 15, 2020 resumption date does not apply to Colleges of Education nationwide because the final years are on "Out Programmes" and would be re-opening in July for just a week to enable them to write their final examinations.



Mr. Raphael Kodzo Kwashie, Principal of St. Francis College of Education (FRANCO) told the GNA that all classrooms and halls of residence of the College were fumigated as it prepared for students to return.



He said a total of 394 students comprising of 116 females and 278 males were in the final year and would be shared in five halls for male students and two for female students in adherence to social distancing protocols.



Mr. Kwashie said students would also go to dinning in batches when they resumed, adding that, the School had acquired handwashing stations to be placed at vantage points.



Ms. Sophia Adjoa Micah, Principal of the St. Teresas College of Education (TERESCO) said a fumigation exercise would soon be carried out as the College awaited the arrival of students.

Source: GNA









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The latest ideas are too little, too late, and still hamstrung by institutional barriers that block genuine economic recovery. They do not represent a Hamiltonian moment.





by Marshall Auerback





On May 5, Germanys constitutional court ruled that parts of the European Central Banks bond buying operations to avert a mounting economic depression were illegal. In the wake of that decision, many new proposals have surfaced. First, the European Central Bank (ECB) added a further 600 billion to its earlier announced pandemic emergency purchase program (PEPP) to support Europes rapidly faltering economy. This brings the total bond buying up to 1.35 trillion. Additionally, a 500 billion Next Generation recovery fund was introduced by the governments of France and Germany, a figure that was later increased to 750 billion by European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen.





Future of Europe?

The numbers behind these programs sound impressive, but taken in aggregate, the proposals simply tweak the legal and fiscal status quo. The ECB proposals blithely ignore the problematic legal issues raised by the May 5 German constitutional court decision. And the Next Generation fund, although on the surface not suffering the same legal deficiencies as the ECBs actions, is insufficiently large to yank the EU out of its COVID-19 depression, which will require trillions of euros to compensate for the lost economic output, not billions. Almost daily, the continent is experiencing record collapses in economic outputeven powerhouses like Germany, as well as the periphery nations of the south. The problem is that at this stage, the EU can ill afford any more baby steps if it wants the European Union to survive as a workable political construct, or the euro to survive as a viable currency.





The Franco-German proposal in particular has been described as Europes Hamiltonian moment, which is about as accurate a characterization as comparing the dabbling of a five-year-old finger painter with the works of Claude Monet. Both activities might be crudely characterized as painting, but thats about as far as the comparison goes. The original Hamiltonian moment was a historic constitutional compromise forged by the first U.S. Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson in 1790. The parties accepted the concept of debt mutualization by agreeing that the newly constituted federal Treasury would assume all the existing debt incurred by the U.S. states during the War of Independence. In exchange for the acquiescence of the Virginians, Jefferson and Madison, Hamilton agreed to move the nations permanent capital from the north to Washington, D.C. Until that compromise was reached, Congress had been at a political impasse.





Breaking the logjam made possible the passage of the Residence and Funding (Assumption) Acts in July and August 1790 that allowed the state debts to be federalized. But the compromise did not create a new Treasury or governing structure. That spadework had already been done. The Constitutional Convention gathered in 1787, and the delegates handiwork in the form of a new constitution was ratified in 1789. This laid the foundations for a true fiscal transfer union as it gave the national government substantially greater fiscal powers than had existed under the old Articles of Confederation.





By contrast, the Treaty on European Union (aka the Maastricht Treaty) is a framework that more closely approximates Americas discarded Articles of Confederation. Much like the former American colonies, under the Maastricht Treaty, fiscal powers largely remain the provenance of the state governments; minimal centralized taxation and spending powers exist for the EU as a whole. The European Commission (which will manage the recovery fund) still needs unanimous approval from the EU member states to carry out its functions under the new proposals. And the composition of grants relative to loans is still yet to be determined. Four of the smaller member state governments in the northAustria, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmarkhave all indicated a preference for the funding to be allocated in the form of loans, rather than outright grants. But piling debt on top of existing heavily debt-laden southern countries such as Italy or Spain effectively diminishes any tangible benefits these countries stand to receive, as the bulk of their fiscal efforts will be devoted toward debt repayment, as opposed to economic reconstruction. This has been effectively another lever of power of the EUs northern states over the southern ones, as well as a huge growth constraint.





The Next Generation fund would empower the EC to borrow on its account, which has led the proposals supporters, notably global investment research firm Gavekals Anatole Kaletsky, to claim that it creates a new class of eurobonds, and therefore, might be remembered as the moment when Europe became a genuine political federation. A closer look at the details tells a different tale. As Sony Kapoor, managing director of the think tank Re-Define, points out: The European Commission already has 52 billion of bonds outstanding. In other words, its not a new class of bonds, just a bigger amount. Kapoor also rightly notes that:





the recovery fund does not make provisions for a permanent increase in the EUs meager budget or give the Commission the ability to raise its own funds. Nor will existing debt be subsumed into a fiscal union as Hamilton did. Not even the responsibility for the new debt being created will be shared jointly among all EU countries, as the now-abandoned initiative for coronabonds proposed.





In other words, there is no mutualization, no new fiscal treasury, but rather a temporary augmentation of the ECs existing budget and, even then, one that is not big enough to engender economic recovery. The proposal envisages raising the European Commissions budget to 2 percent of EU gross national income, hardly sufficient given that Italy, Spain and France are all likely to sustain double-digit contractions in GDP this year. And the proposal would be hardly an exercise in nation building, as all of the countries will be battling each other for the few scraps available on the table.





Unlike the latest ECB announcement, the Next Generation proposal at least has the virtue of being structured with a view toward avoiding potential future legal challenges, precisely because it does not mutualize existing national debts. And the fact that it has Germanys backing is not insignificant. Jorg Kukies, Germanys deputy finance minister (and one of the architects of the initiative), explicitly acknowledged that true European sovereignty could not evolve as long as fiscal union remains incomplete. But the fact remains that this particular structure does not really advance that cause (even Kukies himself acknowledges that the Next Generation fund does not mutualize national debts). The new initiative likely passes legal muster but at a cost of failed economic effectiveness.





In regard to the ECB, the central banks proposed increase to its previously announced PEPP program ignores the fact that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has yet to deal with the problematic issues raised by the May 5 constitutional court ruling in Germany. Absent clarification from the ECJ, the central banks ability to carry on its bond buying activities is therefore constrained. The implications of that judgment are simply being ignored, even though, in the words of Deutsche Banks former chief economist Thomas Mayer:





The ECB has no legal or democratic mandate for what it is doing, and it is giving the false impression that there is a free lunch. We are heading for a constitutional crisis in the European Union and there are no means for diffusing it. The euro is simply not viable and the next couple of years are going to determine whether it all breaks apart. The markets dont understand what is happening.





The markets might soon wake up, however, given that the Bundesbank (which purchases German government bonds on behalf of the ECB) will be prohibited from taking part in bond buying operations from August onward unless the ECB can meet the German constitutional courts objections.





Perhaps the ECB assumes that by August the issue will be resolved by the European Court of Justice. However, the questions raised by the German court will almost certainly be pursued in future challenges, if for no other reason than there are other legitimate grounds to challenge the activities of the ECB.





The recent German court decision contested the ECBs sovereign bond buying operations on the basis that they breached the treatys proportionality principle (i.e., the ECBs actions were not commensurate with its stated monetary policy objectives), as opposed to making the argument that the central banks actions violated its no bailout clause. On the face of it, however, the latter is an even stronger basis on which to challenge the ECBs actions. It is hard to look at the ECBs bond buying activities under any objective basis and suggest that they do not violate the no bailout provisions of the Maastricht Treaty, because in the absence of the ECBs purchases, these countries would certainly go bust.





Herein lies the paradox: In economic terms, as the sole issuer of the currency, the ECB is the only entity keeping the single-currency member states solvent. However, as Wolfgang Munchau has highlighted, the monetary union owes its survival to successful rule-bending. It was a masterpiece of legal engineering in the last crisis to set fire to a no-bailout clause in European treaties, and then create a bailout umbrella on its ashes. Calling these actions daily liquidity management or reserve maintenance procedures does not disguise their underlying illegality.





At some point down the line, a direct legal challenge will be framed in these terms, whether from Germany or some other member state. In the meantime, the legal ambiguity of the ECBs status restricts its ability to respond to a crisis with appropriate size and timeliness, as Kapoor concludes. That is a huge problem, given the ECBs unique currency-issuing function and its effectiveness hitherto in staving off mass insolvency and a likely evaporation of the euro.





Ultimately, what is required is a proposal that operates in accord with existing EU institutional arrangements, and which also are consistent with the recent German court ruling. Per capita distributions to the various nation-states via ECB would fulfill this requirement, as this activity is aligned with existing treaty provisions and, most importantly, is consistent with the proportionality principle.





Why? As I have argued before:





[Germanys] fundamentally strong position vis a vis other member states wouldnt change, much as per capita distributions from Washington dont fundamentally alter the relative economic positions of California versus, say, Arkansas. The distributions would effectively amount to swaps of national debt for reserves, which in turn would immediately adjust national government debt ratios downward (because as an accounting matter, reserves are not counted as national debt). This goal would be to dramatically ease credit tensions and thereby foster normal functioning of the credit markets for the national government debt issues. The governments in turn could use this newfound fiscal relief to pursue fiscal packages that revive their domestic economies (as opposed to using the mechanism for covert bank bailouts).





The EUs Big Need





What is required is a bit of creativity and real statesmanship to ensure that policy is not perpetually subject to irrational austerity constraints, or endless court challenges because of monetary improvisations that mask illegal activities. Per capita distributions from the ECB may not sound as groundbreaking as a Hamiltonian moment, but thats the whole point: they are consistent with pre-existing Maastricht Treaty provisions, and they dont ride roughshod over them. Hence, they avoid time-consuming legal wrangles that would constitute the equivalent of fiddling while Rome (or Berlin, Madrid, Paris) burns. These ECB-led per capita distributions provide the sole possible, reasonable and prudent basis to save the euro, as well as laying a more realistic foundation for a viable fiscal transfer union.





The sooner this is realized by Europes main policymakers, the better, because if the courts do ultimately decide to pull the plug on the ECBs current activities, there will be no safety net left.





This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.





Marshall Auerback is a market analyst and commentator.
A U.S. reference dictionary, Merriam-Webster, will update the meaning of the word racism after being contacted by a Missouri Afric...

A U.S. reference dictionary, Merriam-Webster, will update the meaning of the word racism after being contacted by a Missouri African-American woman. A U.S. reference dictionary, Merriam-Webster, will update the meaning of the word racism after being contacted by a Missouri African-American woman.





Kennedy Mitchum, a recent law graduate of Drake University, Iowa, wrote the dictionary to complain the current definition fell short of including the systematic oppression of people of colour.





Mitchum, 22, emailed the dictionary, following the death of African American George Floyd in the custody of four Minneapolis white police officers.





She was surprised when the dictionary editors agreed with her.





A revision to the entry for racism is now being drafted to be added to the dictionary soon, and we are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations, a spokesman for the 189-year-old dictionary replied.





The statement was shared by Mitchum on her Facebook.





I kept having to tell them that definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world, Mitchum told CNN.





The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice, its the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans.





Merriam-Websters first definition of racism is a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.





Its not just disliking someone because of their race, Mitchum wrote in a Facebook post on Friday.





This current fight we are in is evidence of that, lives are at stake because of the systems of oppression that go hand-in-hand with racism.





She said it all started when people would argue with her about the definition of racism and she realized the problem was in the pages of Merriam Websters dictionary.





With everything going on, I think its important everyone is on the same page, said Mitchum.





Now read Merriam-Websters full response to Mitchum:
Building of nearly 70,000 kilometres of rural roads and five million houses for the poor are employment avenues lined up for migrants returning to their villages as an overwhelming number of them are construction workers, officials familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The officials said the rural development ministry asked states to engage the large number of construction workersestimated to be more than two-thirds of the total returning workersin these two types of work to provide opportunities to match their skills.

The availability of additional workforce would also help the government meet its annual target of building roads and PMAY (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana) houses in time and avoid the rush to only grab MGNREGS jobs.

According to an official, under the third phase of the PMs rural road scheme, about 14,000 kilometres of new roads are left to be constructed while there is also pending work from the previous year and an ambitious target of upgrading old roads.

A senior official said funding for constructing houses was already budgeted for. He pointed out construction workers could also get 90/95 days of wages for building houses under the PMAY.

With so many houses yet to be built, the construction sector workers who have returned to their villages can find a job of their choice instead of digging earth under MGNREGS, said an official.

According to official data on the rural road scheme or PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana), of the 174,000 road works approved, 157,000 have been completed. This includes both new roads and upgraded existing ones.

Similarly, in the housing project, PMAY, a target was set for 6.15 million houses in this financial year. So far, 195,000 houses have been sanctioned. According to data available with the ministry, not a single house has been completed so far. Experts pointed out the lockdown and related issues resulted in the delay and in the month of April, hardly any work was taken up as states were not prepared to roll out the requirements.

Both these projectsroads and housesare key to rural development. While the housing scheme provides the rural poor with their own homes, the road network makes it easier to commute and helps farmers reach mandis with their produce.

The rural housing project, along with the Ujjwala cooking gas connection scheme and the Saubhagya power programme, is a vital pivot of the governments focus on creating individual assets.

Another official, however, added that road and housing schemes would only be a part of the larger aim of the government to accommodate millions of jobless migrant workers. The government is also weighing other options including horticulture, animal husbandry and a programme to upgrade their skills during this period.

An employment generation and skill upgrade programme, which includes district-wise mapping of workers and identifying their skill-sets, is being designed by the Prime Ministers Office with the help of the rural development, agriculture, animal husbandry, skill development and road transport ministries.

The initiative for migrant workers will not entail any additional financial support from the exchequer, but existing centrally sponsored and central sector schemessuch as MGNREGS, PMAY and PMGSYwill be used to address a situation the officials cited above described as extraordinary.

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Half-Empty Classrooms, Hybrid Teaching Models Mulled in Mount Greylock District

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Much is unknown about how the start of school will look in the fall, but the Education Subcommittee of the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee got one definite piece of information on Monday morning.

"Is it possible that we might be in a guidance situation where we could have a full classroom of students?" Chair Steven Miller asked Superintendent Kimberley Grady.

"No," Grady answered.

"Its going to be reduced class sizes."

How schools go about reducing numbers in the classroom is yet to be determined, and districts like Mount Greylock are waiting for further guidance from the commonwealths commissioner of education that is due to come out some time next week, Grady said. Social distancing because of the COVID-19 pandemic is a certainty.

"Theyre not talking about a full opening with 100 percent of the students in any of the conversations that they are having at this point," she said.

"If we stay all remote [learning], it will look differently than it looks now. Well begin to have conversations with [the local teachers union] about what remote learning will look like in the fall.  The hybrid model is what it would look like if we had a partial opening of a percentage of students and faculty and we had alternating days and weeks of when students would be getting remote versus in-person presentations."

The state has asked local districts to begin preliminary planning for operations in either of those scenarios.

Mount Greylock has designated seven planning teams to begin looking at various issues within those scenarios: governance, instruction, technology, facilities, operations, wellness and parent/community/student. On Monday, Grady discussed with the subcommittee who will be leading each of those working groups.

"With instructional components, [union head Marty Walter] had reached out to the teachers for us, so we do have a building-based rep just to have them in the ground level conversations," she said. "Then we will have smaller groups, and we will need additional teachers to be covering things within our roadmap of what reopening looks like.

"We do have one teacher from each building to be on the instructional conversation as well as Pat [Blackman] on tech, [Lanesborough Elementarys Juliann Haskins and Williamstown Elementarys Rebecca Leonard] potentially on tech, social workers, psychologists, guidance counsellors and nurses on wellness. Our parent/community/student group, we have eight or nine parents, a representative from each of the three schools, and at the middle/high school, Mary [MacDonald] has reached out to some students to participate in that component. Theyll be assisting with getting some feedback from the communities as well as a survey that well be sending out."

As for the districts first foray into the world of remote learning, the Education Subcommittee members were struck by the results of a late April survey of teachers about student engagement with classwork since the closure of the school buildings.

According to data presented to the committee on Monday, a little less than 30 percent of the students at all three schools were completed more than 75 percent of their assigned work (based on 75 teacher responses).

"Just over half of the students were participating in virtual classrooms at least 75 percent of the time, and not even 30 percent were completing three quarters or more of the assigned work," Alison Carter said. "The numbers could go up, they could go down. Ive seen in my childrens classrooms, one of them seems to be pretty consistent in terms of participation, and one seems to be just a few kids dialing in now.

"Im sure there are a lot of conversations going on about how to get these numbers up. It might be interesting to hear some reflections on what the thoughts are around engagement and how we can -- for those days that likely will be remote -- how to make sure students arent just falling off."

WES Assistant Principal Elea Kaatz talked about the steps teachers and administrators take to reach out to families when pupils are not engaging in their remote classrooms. If emails or phone calls to a family are not answered or returned, Kaatz said she will visit a childs home or even ask the police to do a wellness check.

But she noted it can be difficult for parents to step into the role of teacher.

"In a lot of cases, parents are in touch with us and say, 'Im working from 8 to 4, and Im doing my very best to get dinner on the table and do schoolwork at 7 oclock, but then I have to get my student to bed, " Kaatz said. "So well work on a strategy to say, 'OK, right now, theyre not doing any work. Lets get them back on track doing an assignment.

"Were making sure we can give families supports to get re-engaged because sometimes its really hard. Of course, we want 100 percent work completion. We would love that. But in reality, we know we have to support parents in developing those strategies at home, giving them checklists.

"The rate of work completion is something we have to think about and evaluate, but I also know we have a lot of families who are doing their very, very best to balance. Supporting them in every way we can has really been our mission since we closed."

WES Principal Joelle Brookner noted that as late as last week she was still distributing Chromebooks to families. Sometimes families began the remote learning process thinking they had adequate devices only to realize later that they needed school-issued hardware.

"Any plan we have for remote learning [in the fall], we will be right away giving people devices," Brookner said.

MacDonald, the Mount Greylock principal, said that from her conversations with teachers, the lack of engagement has led educators to re-evaluate "not just how theyre teaching but what theyre teaching."

"I think we went into this really full force saying, What are the most important components of our curriculum? How do I turn that into digital lessons and get students engaged and give them the opportunity to address and achieve the standards? " MacDonald said. "You hear these conversations at all levels of education. Now were stepping back and saying, What is the pedagogy? Lets not worry so much about replicating what we do in class because the critical teacher isnt there in the same way.

"So youre beginning to say, what are the standards, how can I do it? I may not be able to do something thats been beloved by the students and successful in the past in a face-to-face model. Were going to have to spend a lot of time thinking about how do I reorganize that curriculum."

Looking to the 2020-21 academic year, School Committee Chair Christina Conry asked whether too much of a burden was going to be put on teachers who will have to plan for both in-person and remote instruction simultaneously.

"As for teachers having to do two sets of lessons, thats not necessarily the case," Grady said. "Theres a lot that has to come out in the commissioners guidelines before we start thinking. All the what ifs create a lot of uncertainty and a lot of anxiety for faculty and staff. That is why were talking regularly with the [union] so as were learning things, they learn things.

"I dont want them thinking they will have twice the amount of work to do. They may just be an in-person teacher and have a colleague in a co-taught model who is doing the week that the students arent here in a remote platform. Theres a lot of conversations that have to happen before we make people think their caseload has doubled or tripled."
PHASE 1 PHASE 1/2 PHASE 2 PHASE 2/3 PHASE 3 AUTHORIZED APPROVED ABANDONED 29 21 17 11 36 19 9 10 Vaccines testing safety and dosage Vaccines in expanded safety trials Vaccines in large-scale efficacy tests Vaccines in early or limited use Vaccines approved for full use Vaccines abandoned after trials Combined trials Combined trials PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 AUTHORIZED APPROVED ABANDONED 50 49 47 19 9 10 Vaccines testing safety and dosage Vaccines in expanded safety trials Vaccines in large-scale efficacy tests Vaccines in early or limited use Vaccines approved for full use Vaccines abandoned after trials PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 50 49 47 Vaccines testing safety and dosage Vaccines in expanded safety trials Vaccines in large-scale efficacy tests AUTHORIZED APPROVED ABANDONED 19 9 10 Vaccines in early or limited use Vaccines approved for full use Vaccines abandoned after trials PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 50 49 47 Vaccines testing safety and dosage Vaccines in expanded safety trials Vaccines in large-scale efficacy tests AUTHORIZED APPROVED ABANDONED 19 9 10 Vaccines in early or limited use Vaccines approved for full use Vaccines abandoned after trials

Vaccines typically require years of research and testing before reaching the clinic, but in 2020, scientists embarked on a race to produce safe and effective coronavirus vaccines in record time. Researchers are currently testing 114 vaccines in clinical trials on humans, and 47 have reached the final stages of testing. More than 75 preclinical vaccines are under active investigation in animals.

New additions and recent updates Jan. 12 Gritstone bios RNA-based vaccine enters Phase 1. Jan. 12 Irans Baqiyatallah University moves to Phase 3. Jan. 12 Chinas Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology moves to Phase 2/3. Jan. 12 Japans Shionogi moves to Phase 3. Jan. 12 Japans Daiichi Sankyo moves to Phase 2/3.

Below is a list of all vaccines that have reached trials in humans, along with a selection of promising vaccines being tested in animals. For an explanation of virus variants and mutations, see our Coronavirus Variant Tracker. For treatments for Covid-19, see our Coronavirus Drug and Treatment Tracker. For an explanation of leading vaccines, see How Nine Covid-19 Vaccines Work.

The Vaccine Testing Process

The development cycle of a vaccine, from lab to clinic.



PRECLINICAL TESTING: Scientists test a new vaccine on cells and then give it to animals such as mice or monkeys to see if it produces an immune response. PHASE 1 SAFETY TRIALS: Scientists give the vaccine to a small number of people to test safety and dosage, as well as to confirm that it stimulates the immune system. PHASE 2 EXPANDED TRIALS: Scientists give the vaccine to hundreds of people split into groups, such as children and the elderly, to see if the vaccine acts differently in them. These trials further test the vaccines safety. PHASE 3 EFFICACY TRIALS: Scientists give the vaccine to thousands of people and wait to see how many become infected, compared with volunteers who received a placebo. These trials can determine if the vaccine protects against the coronavirus, measuring whats known as the efficacy rate. Phase 3 trials are also large enough to reveal evidence of relatively rare side effects. EARLY OR LIMITED APPROVAL: Many countries have procedures for providing emergency authorizations for vaccines, based on preliminary evidence that they are safe and effective. In addition, some countries such as China and Russia began administering vaccines before detailed Phase 3 trial data was made public. Experts have warned of serious risks from jumping ahead of these results. APPROVAL: Regulators review the complete trial results and plans for a vaccines manufacturing, and decide whether to give it full approval. COMBINED PHASES: One way to accelerate vaccine development is to combine phases. Some vaccines are now in Phase 1/2 trials, for example, which this tracker would count as both Phase 1 and Phase 2. PAUSED or ABANDONED: If investigators observe worrying symptoms in volunteers, they can pause the trial. After an investigation, the trial may resume or be abandoned. Trials may also be abandoned if they indicate a vaccine isnt effective against Covid-19.

Filter the list of vaccines:

All vaccines Phase 1 2 3 Authorized Abandoned

Preclinical Vaccines

Phase 1 Vaccines

Phase 2 Vaccines

Phase 3 Vaccines

Authorized or Approved Vaccines

Abandoned Vaccines

Genetic Vaccines

Vaccines that deliver one or more of the coronaviruss own genes into our cells to provoke an immune response.

RNA vaccine DNA vaccine RNA vaccine DNA vaccine RNA vaccine DNA vaccine

PHASE 3

APPROVED IN U.S., ELSEWHERE EMERGENCY USE IN OTHER COUNTRIES



Vaccine name: Comirnaty (also known as tozinameran or BNT162b2)

Efficacy: 91%

Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: Freezer storage only at 13F to 5F (25C to 15C)



On Nov. 9, 2020, New York-based Pfizer and the German company BioNTech made history by announcing that their coronavirus vaccine had an efficacy rate of over 90 percent, far surpassing expectations. It was the first time anyone had found such evidence. Just over a month later, on Dec. 11, the Food and Drug Administration granted the vaccine, known as Comirnaty, the first emergency use authorization ever given by the United States to a coronavirus vaccine. On Aug. 23, 2021, the F.D.A. granted full approval to Comirnaty, for people 16 and older, and it now has an emergency authorization for children as young as five. On Sep. 22, the F.D.A. authorized a third dose as a booster for people age 65 and older, and other populations at high risk. It expanded the authorization for adolescents 12 through 15 on Jan. 3, 2022. On Nov. 2, Pfizer predicted that the companies would make roughly 3 billion doses in 2021.



VACCINE DEVELOPMENT The work on Comirnaty began in January 2020, when BioNTech researchers started fashioning a genetic molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA). They created the genetic instructions for building a coronavirus protein, known as spike. When injected into cells, the vaccine causes them to make spike proteins, which then get released into the body and provoke a response from the immune system. In March, BioNTech partnered with Pfizer to scale up the research, launching a clinical trial in May.



TRIAL RESULTS The Phase 1 trials showed that Comirnaty caused volunteers to produce antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, as well as immune cells called T cells that respond to the virus. On July 27, the companies announced the launch of a Phase 2/3 trial with 30,000 volunteers. On Sept. 12, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they would seek to expand the trial to 44,000 participants.



Through the summer and into the fall, the world closely followed the Pfizer-BioNTech trial. In September, Dr. Albert Bourla, the chief executive of Pfizer, said that as soon as October the Phase 3 trial would deliver enough results to show if the vaccine worked or not. President Trump touted their progress, hinting that a vaccine would be available before the election. But on Oct. 27, Dr. Bourla announced that the volunteers in the trial had yet to experience enough cases of Covid-19 to determine if the vaccines work. Finally, on Nov. 9, Pfizer and BioNTech released their preliminary analysis of the first 94 cases of Covid-19 in their volunteers.



Over the next month, Pfizer and BioNTech released more data on more cases. On Dec. 8 the FDA released their independent analysis of the clinical trials. They determined that Comirnaty has an efficacy rate of 95 percent. While Comirnaty caused no serious side effects, it frequently caused short-lived fatigue, fever, and muscle aches.



In Israel, which took the lead in mass vaccination, researchers found that the vaccine was as effective in the real world as the trials had indicated. A study published by the Centers for Disease Control in March found that the vaccine is 91.3% effective after the second dose.



In June 2020, researchers at Oxford announced preliminary results suggesting that a combination of AstraZenecas vaccine followed by Comirnaty produces strong levels of antibodies. Another study from South Korea suggested that the antibody levels generated from the same combination were six times higher than two AstraZeneca doses.



Subsequent trials showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was safe and effective for children as young as five. But in children aged 2 to 5, the dosage did not produce high levels of antibodies, and so Pfizer announced on Dec. 17 that it will try again in a trial using three doses instead of two. Results from that trial could come by April. AUTHORIZATION On Dec. 2, 2020, the United Kingdom became the first country to give Comirnaty emergency authorization, followed by many more countries. On Dec. 31, the World Health Organization gave the vaccine an Emergency Use Listing, which will speed up its authorization across the world. On May 7, 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech announced they would seek full F.D.A. approval for their vaccine, which was granted at the end of August.



On May 10, 2021, the F.D.A. expanded their emergency use authorization for Comirnaty to children as young as 12, and later to children as young as 5.



DISTRIBUTION As their clinical trials progressed, Pfizer and BioNTech also scaled up factories to produce Comirnaty. To secure a supply in advance, the Trump administration awarded Pfizer and BioNTech a $1.9 billion contract in July 2020 for 100 million doses. By July 2021, the companies had reached agreements with the United States government for a total of a billion doses: half for domestic use and half for donations to other countries. In April 2021, the European Union negotiated an option to purchase 1.8 billion doses, which they exercised in December in response to the Omicron variant.



While Comirnaty has proven highly effective, it was initially a challenging vaccine to distribute because it had to be kept frozen at 94F (70C). On Feb. 19, 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they could keep the vaccine stable at 25C to 15C (13F to 5F).



VARIANTS In January 2021, scientists grew concerned about the emergence of fast-spreading variants that might be able to evade antibodies. A study published in May demonstrated that Comirnaty was somewhat less effective against some variants, but still provided strong protection. A British study showed that Comirnaty had an effectiveness of 88 percent against infection with Delta, the variant first identified in India. Its effectiveness against hospitalization from Delta was 96 percent.



On Dec. 8, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that the Omicron variant greatly reduced the ability of vaccine antibodies to neutralize the coronavirus. However, they concluded that a third dose of Comirnaty still provided strong protection.



Pfizer and BioNTech have also developed experimental boosters for the Beta and Delta variants.



BOOSTERS In April 2021, Dr. Bourla, the chief executive, said people would likely need an additional shot of its vaccine within a year of receiving two doses. Over the summer, evidence began to emerge that Comirnatys effectiveness against infection was waning. Researchers in Israel, which got an early start on mass vaccination in January, observed that the vaccine was also becoming less effective in people over 65 at preventing hospitalization. A Phase 3 trial on 10,000 volunteers found that a Pfizer-BioNTech booster has an efficacy of 95.6 percent against disease, at a time when the Delta variant was dominant.



As the Delta variant fueled a new surge of cases in Israel, the country began providing a third dose of Comirnaty as a booster. Other countries followed suit. Early results from Israels recent efforts to provide a fourth dose of the vaccine to health workers suggest that the additional booster sparks a sharp rise in antibodies.



The F.D.A. expanded its emergency authorization to include a third dose of Comirnaty in certain immunocompromised adults on Aug. 13. On Sept. 17, an advisory board recommended that the F.D.A. approve a Comirnaty booster for people over 65. In November 2021, the F.D.A. authorized the Comirnaty booster for all adults 18 and older. Health officials expanded that authorization to 16- and 17-year olds the following month, and then to children 12 and older in January.



For more details, see How the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Works and How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine.



Approved for use in: Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, United States.

Emergency use in: Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brunei, Cabo Verde, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, European Union, Faroe Islands, French Polynesia, Georgia, Ghana, Greenland, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan NEW, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Martinique, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, New Caledonia, Nicaragua NEW, Nigeria, Norway, North Macedonia, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Serbia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, South Korea, St. Maarten, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turks and Caicos, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Vatican, Vietnam, West Bank. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization. Recommended for emergency use by the Caribbean Regulatory System.



Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine BRITAIN AND THE E.U. SWITZERLAND CANADA JAPAN MONGOLIA TUNISIA U.S. PHILIPPINES IRAQ BAHRAIN SAUDI ARABIA NIGERIA MEXICO OMAN BRAZIL ECUADOR BOTSWANA SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA PERU NEW ZEALAND SOUTH AFRICA ARGENTINA CHILE Approved Early, limited or emergency use Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine BRITAIN AND THE E.U. CANADA MONGOLIA JAPAN IRAQ LIBYA U.S. PHILIPPINES BAHRAIN SAUDI ARABIA NIGERIA MEXICO BRAZIL BOTSWANA SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA PERU NEW ZEALAND ARGENTINA SOUTH AFRICA CHILE Approved Early, limited or emergency use Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine BRITAIN AND THE E.U. CANADA JAPAN TUNISIA IRAQ U.S. PHILIPPINES BAHRAIN SAUDI ARABIA MEXICO BRAZIL BOTSWANA SINGAPORE PERU NEW ZEALAND AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA ARGENTINA CHILE Approved Early, limited or emergency use Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine CANADA U.S. MEXICO BRAZIL PERU ARGENTINA NEW ZEALAND CHILE BRITAIN AND THE E.U. MONGOLIA JAPAN TUNISIA IRAQ PHILIPPINES BAHRAIN SAUDI ARABIA BOTSWANA SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA Approved Early, limited or emergency use

PHASE 3

APPROVED IN SWITZERLAND EMERGENCY USE IN U.S., ELSEWHERE



Vaccine name: mRNA-1273 or Spikevax

Efficacy: Preventing Covid-19 illness: 93.2%. Preventing severe disease: 98.2%.

Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: 30 days with refrigeration, 6 months at 4F (20C)



On Dec. 18., 2020, the F.D.A. gave emergency use authorization for a vaccine made by the Boston-based company Moderna. The Moderna vaccine, known as Spikevax or mRNA-1273, was the second to be authorized by the F.D.A., coming a week after Comirnaty, the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech. In 2021, Moderna shipped over 800 million doses worldwide.



VACCINE DEVELOPMENT Like Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna makes its vaccine from mRNA. In recent years, the company has tested mRNA vaccines for a number of diseases, but they have yet to bring one to market. Last January, they began developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.



The United States government bankrolled Modernas efforts, providing nearly $1 billion in support. In partnership with the National Institutes of Health, they found that Spikevax protects monkeys from the coronavirus.



TRIAL RESULTS In March 2020, Moderna launched the first clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine. After those studies yielded promising results, Phase 3 testing on 30,000 volunteers began on July 27.



On Nov. 16, Moderna announced that the first preliminary data demonstrated that the vaccine provided strong protection against Covid-19. In a paper published in September 2021, researchers reported that the efficacy of the vaccine at preventing Covid-19 illness was 93.2 percent. The efficacy of the vaccine in preventing severe disease was 98.2 percent.



On May 25, 2021, Moderna announced that the vaccine safely provided strong protection to children as young as 12. The company is currently testing the vaccine in babies and young children. On Sept. 22, an NYU study suggested that Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses which were administered to pregnant women later brought about a high amount of antibodies in their newborns. And on Oct. 25, Moderna said that the vaccine produced a powerful immune response in children aged 6 through 11, and that it would submit the results to the F.D.A. soon.



AUTHORIZATION The United States currently authorizes the use of Spikevax for people 18 and older. In June, Moderna applied to expand the authorization to children as young as 12. The Europe Medicines Agency authorized giving Spikevax to adolescents in July. On June 1, 2021, Moderna announced it would seek a full licence for their vaccine. Moderna applied to expand its authorization in the European Union to include children aged six to 11 on Nov. 9, and did the same for Canada on Nov. 17.



DISTRIBUTION While Modernas clinical trials were still underway in the summer of 2020, the company entered deals with several countries to supply the vaccine pending its approval. On Aug. 11, the United States government awarded the company $1.5 billion in exchange for 100 million doses if the vaccine proves safe and effective. Additional negotiations have increased the agreement to 500 million doses. The European Commission secured 460 million doses. Moderna has made similar deals with other countries including Canada, Japan, Qatar and South Korea. The company has also pledged 650 million doses to COVAX, a global vaccine initiative, to supply vaccines to low-income countries. On April 29, Moderna announced they would produce 800 million to 1 billion doses in 2021, and planned to manufacture 3 billion doses in 2022.



VARIANTS Tests on the Moderna vaccine indicate that it provides strong protection against dominant variants like Beta and Delta.



BOOSTERS In March 2021, Moderna began a Phase 1 trial of a new mRNA vaccine made specifically for the Beta variant. A variant-specific booster shot of the Moderna vaccine has yielded positive results in humans and mice.



Later, the company ran trials in which they used a third dose of the original vaccine as a booster. Results from a trial of a third Moderna shot in adults who have received an organ transplant suggested that the booster improved their immune response  a finding that led the F.D.A. to authorize the booster shot in that population. The company then ran a trial on healthy volunteers and found that a booster raised their production of antibodies against all major variants. Combining the Moderna booster with Sanofis flu vaccine produced positive results in adults aged 65 years and older, the companies announced on Oct. 7.



On Aug. 2, 2021, Germany announced that in September it would begin delivering boosters made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The European Medicines Agency authorized a third dose of Comirnaty for people with severely weakened immune systems on Oct. 4, 2021. On Oct. 20, the F.D.A. authorized Moderna boosters for people over the age of 65 and those with weakened immune systems or greater risk of infection due to their work. In November 2021, the F.D.A. authorized the Moderna booster for all adults 18 and older.



For more details, see How Modernas Vaccine Works.



Approved for use in: Canada, Switzerland.

Emergency use in: Andorra, Argentina NEW, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Canada, Colombia, Curacao, Egypt, European Union, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Ghana, Greenland, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Libya, Liechtenstein, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Paraguay, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saba, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Martin, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sint Eustatius, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, West Bank. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization.



Moderna vaccine U.K. AND E.U. SWITZERLAND CANADA JAPAN MONGOLIA U.S. EGYPT NIGERIA VIETNAM INDIA GUATEMALA SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA BOTSWANA ARGENTINA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Moderna vaccine U.K. AND E.U. SWITZERLAND CANADA MONGOLIA U.S. EGYPT NIGERIA VIETNAM INDIA GUATEMALA AUSTRALIA BOTSWANA ARGENTINA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Moderna vaccine U.K. AND E.U. SWITZERLAND CANADA MONGOLIA U.S. EGYPT INDIA GUATEMALA BOTSWANA AUSTRALIA ARGENTINA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Moderna vaccine CANADA U.S. ARGENTINA U.K. AND E.U. SWITZERLAND MONGOLIA EGYPT INDIA BOTSWANA AUSTRALIA Approved Early, limited or emergency use

PHASE 3 EMERGENCY USE IN INDIA



Vaccine name: ZyCoV-D

Efficacy: 66.6%

Dose: 3 doses, 4 weeks apart

Type: Skin injection

Storage: Stable at room temperature for three months



In July 2020, the Indian vaccine-maker Zydus Cadila began testing a DNA-based vaccine delivered by a skin patch. After getting promising results in their Phase 1 trial, they launched a Phase 2 trial on ZyCoV-D on Aug. 6. On Jan. 3, 2021 the Indian government gave Zydus Cadila permission to advance to a Phase 3 trial with 30,000 volunteers.



The company announced on July 1 that the vaccine had an efficacy of 66.6% and that none of the vaccinated volunteers in the trial developed severe disease or died, making ZyCoV-D the first DNA-based vaccine shown to work against Covid-19. Zydus Cadila received emergency authorization from the Indian government on Aug. 20. The authorization was later expanded to include adolescents 12 and older.



Emergency use in: India.



Zydus Cadila vaccine INDIA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Zydus Cadila vaccine INDIA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Zydus Cadila vaccine INDIA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Zydus Cadila vaccine INDIA Approved Early, limited or emergency use

PHASE 3



In June 2020, Chinese researchers at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and Walvax Biotechnology announced they would start their countrys first safety trials on an mRNA-based vaccine, called ARCoV. Earlier studies on monkeys reportedly showed protective effects, and in the Phase 1 trial indicated it was safe in people. On Dec. 21, Xinhua reported that China was building a factory to produce 120 million doses per year.



Researchers launched a Phase 2 trial for the vaccine in January 2021, and registered a Phase 3 trial in April. In September, Bloomberg reported that the trial would soon be launched in Indonesia and Mexico. Researchers registered another Phase 3 trial on Nov. 24 to assess the vaccines effectiveness as a booster shot.



PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES



The California-based company Arcturus Therapeutics and Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore have developed an mRNA vaccine called ARCT-021. It has a self-replicating design that leads to a greater production of viral proteins. Tests on animals showed that it protected them against infection. In August, Arcturus launched a Phase 1/2 trial at Singapore General Hospital. On Nov. 9, the company announced that an interim analysis of the trial showed that the vaccine produced an immune response thats in the range of responses seen in people who recovered from Covid-19. On Jan. 6 Arcturus announced that they had permission to start the Phase 2 portion of the trial in both Singapore and the United States. Singapore reached an agreement with Arcturus to spend up to $175 million to acquire vaccines when theyre ready.



In August, Arcturus received approval to begin testing its next-generation mRNA vaccine in Vietnam. The company registered a Phase 2/3 trial of the vaccine, called ARCT-154. The researchers registered a Phase 1/2 trial evaluating the two vaccines head-to-head with another candidate, called ARCT-165, on Sept. 8. Preliminary results suggest that both candidates were able to stimulate the production of antibodies. Arcturus said it plans to file a request for emergency use authorization in the United States and in Vietnam in the coming months.



PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES



The South Korean company Genexine started testing the safety of a DNA-based vaccine in June 2020. In December, the Korea Biomedical Review reported that Genexine got disappointing results from their initial formulation and decided to restart their trials with a modified vaccine. On Jan. 20, 2021, the company registered a Phase 1/2 trial, and in June they registered a Phase 1 trial for elderly volunteers.



The Indonesian pharmaceutical company Kalbe Farma pledged in April to buy 10 million doses of Genexines vaccine if it is proven to be safe and effective. In July, Indonesian regulators gave the green light for a late-stage clinical trial. Genexine registered a Phase 2/3 clinical trial in October to test their vaccine as a booster for other vaccines.



PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES



Japan-based researchers at Daiichi Sankyo have developed an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus in collaboration with the University of Tokyo. They launched a Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine, named DS-5670, on March 22, 2021. In an Oct. 21 press release, Daiichi Sankyo said that the vaccine produced no relevant safety concerns in the trial. The company began Phase 2 trials on Nov. 17, and registered a Phase 2/3 trial of the vaccine as a booster on Dec. 28.



PHASE 2



Vaccine name: INO-4800

Efficacy: Unknown

Dose: To be determined

Type: Skin injection

Storage: Over a year at room temperature



Before the pandemic, the Pennsylvania-based company Inovio developed DNA-based vaccines that are delivered into the skin with electric pulses from a hand-held device. They are running clinical trials for vaccines against a number of diseases, including HIV, Zika, and several forms of cancer. At the start of the pandemic, Inovio developed a DNA vaccine against the spike protein on the coronavirus. A Phase 1 trial, published in December, did not uncover any serious adverse effects, and measured an immune response in all 38 volunteers.



Inovio became embroiled in several lawsuits with stockholders and a company partner. On Sept. 28, 2020, the F.D.A. put the vaccine on a partial hold due to questions about the delivery device. On Nov. 16, Inovio said that the F.D.A. had given them permission to move forward.



Inovio went on to run Phase 2 trials in the United States as well as in China and South Korea, and posted results of the studies online on May 7, 2021. They also began testing versions of their vaccine tailored against new variants.



After losing government funding for Phase 3 trials, Inovio said it would proceed with testing its vaccine outside of the United States. On June 8, the company announced that it would run its Phase 3 trials in Latin America and Asia, in a partnership with the Chinese company Advaccine Biopharmaceuticals. On Aug. 26, Inovio announced that Brazilian regulators authorized their Phase 3 trial, and in September they announced that they had received approval for another Phase 3 trial in the Philippines and in Mexico. The F.D.A. authorized a Phase 3 trial in the U.S. on Nov. 9. Inovios vaccine is also part of a Chinese mixed trial combined with Sinovacs vaccine.



PHASE 2



Canadas Providence Therapeutics specializes in messenger RNA vaccines to treat cancer. In response to the pandemic, they developed an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus. They launched a Phase 1 study of an RNA vaccine in late January 2021, and in May announced that the vaccine appeared safe and produced promising levels of antibodies. In August, Providence Therapeutics launched a Phase 2 trial comparing the vaccine to Comirnaty.



In June, the company reached an agreement with the Indian vaccine maker Biological E to carry out further trials in India. Biological E agreed to purchase up to 30 million doses and planned to scale their production of the vaccine to as many as a billion doses in 2022. In September, Providence also reached an agreement with Everest Medicines to produce and market the vaccine in China.



PHASE 2



Researchers at Thailands Chulalongkorn University have been developing several potential vaccines for the coronavirus. The furthest along is an mRNA-based vaccine known as ChulaCov19. In September 2020, the Chula Vaccine Research Center registered a Phase 1 trial to test it in humans. Delays in funding and manufacturing slowed the studys launch until June 2021. In an interview with the Bangkok Post, the leader of the project said that up to 30 million doses might be produced for Thailand and six other Asian countries if the vaccine proved to be safe and effective. Citing positive preliminary results, the researchers said in August that the vaccine would soon advance to the next phase of clinical trials.



In a November conference at Chulalongkorn University, the scientists behind the vaccine said that Phase 2 trials have been completed with satisfactory results, and that the Thai government has approved Phase 3 trials, which could begin in early 2022.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Vaccine name: AG0302-COVID19

Efficacy: Unknown

Dose: 2 doses, 2 weeks apart

Type: Skin injection

Storage: Over a year at room temperature



On June 30, 2020, the Japanese biotechnology company AnGes launched a Phase 1 trial to test a DNA-based vaccine, developed in partnership with Osaka University and Takara Bio. The company moved on to a Phase 2/3 trial in December. On Aug. 6, 2021, the researchers registered a new Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine at a higher dose after preliminary results suggested the efficacy of the original dose schedule was insufficient. On Nov. 25, AnGes released a statement rebutting reports that it had abandoned progress on the vaccine. Even though the candidates ability to generate antibodies has been disappointing, it said, the trials will continue.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Gennova Biopharmaceuticals in India and Seattle-based HDT Bio partnered to develop a vaccine based on self-amplifying RNA. The vaccine, known as HGC019, was able to safely provoke animals to make antibodies to the coronavirus, leading India to grant the companies approval in December 2020 to start Phase 1/2 trials.



Along with India, the companies also launched clinical trials in South Korea and Brazil. In January 2022, Indian newspapers reported that Gennova and HDT had finished their Phase 2 trial in India and were preparing to launch Phase 3 trials. The companies are also reportedly creating a version of the RNA vaccine tailored for the Omicron variant.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



GeneOne Life Science, a South Korean biotech company, developed a DNA-based vaccine that encodes two proteins from the coronavirus. In December 2020, they launched a Phase 1/2 trial with 345 participants. After receiving positive interim results from the trial, GeneOne announced on July 8, 2021 that it would begin Phase 2.



GeneOne is also experimenting with different vaccine delivery techniques. On Oct. 20, the company registered a Phase 1 trial to gauge how well their candidate works when injected into a patients arm and delivered as a nasal spray. In the study, the researchers will also see if a skin suction device will improve outcomes. In January 2022, GeneOne registered a new trial to test their vaccine as a booster.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Takis Biotech and Rottapharm Biotech, two vaccine companies in Italy, developed a vaccine called COVID-eVax. A special device uses a tiny electric pulse to deliver DNA through the skin. The DNA enters cells, which use the genetic instructions to make spike protein fragments. In February 2021, Takis and Rottapharm launched a Phase 1/2 trial in Italy. COVID-eVax can remain stable at room temperature. In September, the companies issued a press release stating that the Phase 1 trial delivered promising results. By then, Italys vaccination rate had climbed so far that the companies said it would be difficult to recruit enough volunteers to move to the Phase 2 trial.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Researchers at Baltimore-based Elixirgen Therapeutics have created an RNA vaccine, named EXG-5003, that targets a small part of the coronavirus spike protein. In May 2021 they launched a Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine in Japan. On Oct. 8, Elixirgen announced that it has licensed its vaccine to an undisclosed company for worldwide marketing, excluding Japan.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Researchers at Korean biotechnology company Eyegene have developed an mRNA vaccine that uses a delivery system slightly different from other genetic vaccines. Instead of using a lipid nanoparticle, their vaccine uses liposomes  tiny fat bubbles  to bring the genetic material to the cell. Korean regulators approved a Phase 1/2 trial in August 2021 for the vaccine, called EG-COVID. Eyegenes C.E.O., Wonil Yoo, told a Korean television station that the trial began in September. But in December, Eyegene said that it will receive help from the Korean government in recruiting patients for the trial, after experiencing difficulties finding enough eligible participants. In January 2022, Eyegene registered the trial in Australia.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Chinese researchers at Stemirna Therapeutics have developed an mRNA vaccine in collaboration with Shanghai East Hospital. They registered a Phase 1 trial on May 1, 2021. The scientists registered another Phase 1/2 trial on Dec. 3.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Norwegian biopharmaceutical company Nykode Therapeutics have developed two DNA vaccine candidates to protect against coronavirus variants. On Oct. 6, the researchers registered a Phase 1/2 trial. They will test the two vaccines head-to-head in the first part of the study and then select one for further trials. Formerly called Vaccibody, the company changed its name on Nov. 23. Nykode and needle-free injection technology company PharmaJet announced a new Phase 1/2 trial to address variants on Dec. 14.



PHASE 1



The Canadian company Entos Pharmaceuticals has created a DNA vaccine for the coronavirus. Most other genetic vaccines carry the gene for the spike protein on the surface of the virus. Entos instead chose the gene for a protein called nucleocapsid that sits inside the viruss membrane. The company is betting it can offer long-lasting immunity.



In October 2020, Entos launched a Phase 1 trial in Canada for their vaccine, called Covigenix VAX-001. They began dosing participants on April 15. Entos C.E.O. John Lewis told Canadian media on Aug. 4 that the vaccine produced a sufficient immune response without adverse reactions. Lewis later told the Owen Sound Sun Times in December 2021 that a Phase 2 trial would begin in South Africa in early 2022. Entos is also one of four vaccine makers that received a portion of an $81.2 million commitment from the Alberta government to develop their candidates.



PHASE 1



On Nov. 2, 2020, the Canadian company Symvivo announced they had administered a DNA vaccine to their first volunteer in a Phase 1 trial. The DNA is inserted into harmless bacteria, which volunteers swallow in a frozen liquid (the company is working on putting the bacteria into a pill). When the bacteria reach the intestines, the DNA slips into cells in the gut lining, which then make viral proteins. Symvivo announced on July 19 that it received nearly $5 million in funding from the National Research Council of Canadas Industrial Research Assistance Program to continue developing its vaccine. Results from the trial are expected in late February 2022, according to the trial registry.



PHASE 1



Using a delivery system from PharmaJet, researchers at BioNet-Asia and Australia-based Technovalia have developed a DNA vaccine called COVIGEN that can be pushed through the skin without a needle. Instead, the dose is loaded into a handheld device and shot directly into cell tissue through a jet spray of fluid. Vaccines for the flu already use the device, which PharmaJet says is a safer alternative to needle injections. The researchers registered a Phase 1 trial in Australia on Feb. 8, 2021, and began the ongoing study in late June, according to a new change in the trial record made on Jan. 11, 2022.



PHASE 1



Scancell, a British company that develops treatments for cancer, has created two DNA vaccine candidates against the coronavirus. Their first vaccine, called SCOV1, targets the original virus and its early variants. SCOV2 is intended to act as a booster shot. Scancell is using a needle-free injection technology made by Colorado-based PharmaJet to administer the vaccines into the skin through a concentrated jet of fluid. On Sept. 17, Scancell registered a Phase 1 trial in South Africa. Participants will receive two doses of SCOV1 four weeks apart, and then two doses of SCOV2 after 12 weeks.



PHASE 1



Gritstone bio has developed experimental vaccines in recent years that teach the immune system to attack tumors. The company is currently testing two types of vaccines for Covid-19, one of which encodes viral proteins in RNA.



While other RNA-based vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech only encode the spike protein, Gritstone bios vaccine also included genetic instructions for building parts of other viral proteins. These additional molecules enable T cells to recognize infected cells and kill them. The Gritstone bio vaccine uses self-amplifying RNA, which makes copies of itself once it enters a cell. That approach may make it possible to use a lower dose to deliver effective protection from Covid.



On Sept. 20, Gritstone dosed the first volunteer in a Phase 1 trial to gauge the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccine as a booster shot in older adults who have already received the Astrazeneca vaccine. In January 2022, the company announced promising initial results from the trial, along with plans to expand it.



PHASE 1



Researchers at the University of Hong Kong are testing a DNA vaccine against the coronavirus. In a Phase 1 trial, which was registered on Nov. 1., the researchers plan to deliver a dose into the participants muscles and then use high-voltage electric shocks to induce cells into receiving the vaccine. They wrote in the trial record that this strategy could improve vaccine uptake.



PHASE 1



VLP Therapeutics Japan, a subsidiary of Maryland-based company VLP Therapeutics, won funding in August 2020 from the Japanese government to develop a self-amplifying RNA vaccine against the coronavirus. In October 2020, it announced a partnership with FUJIFILM to help manufacture their candidate, called VLPCOV-01. The researchers registered a Phase 1 clinical trial in Japan a year later.



PHASE 1



Researchers at DIOSynVax, led by a professor at the University of Cambridge, have developed a genetic vaccine that targets specific parts of the coronavirus that they say are common across all known variants. They have partnered with PharmaJet to administer the vaccine, called DIOS-CoVax, through the skin without using needles. On Dec. 14, the BBC reported that a Phase 1 trial began in the United Kingdom to assess DIOS-CoVaxs effectiveness as a booster in participants who have already received two doses of another vaccine.



ABANDONED



In early 2020, Imperial College London researchers developed a self-amplifying RNA vaccine for Covid-19, which boosted production of a viral protein to stimulate the immune system. They began Phase 1/2 trials on June 15, partnering with Morningside Ventures to manufacture and distribute the vaccine through a new company called VacEquity Global Health. On Dec. 18, the researchers announced a collaboration with Enesi Pharma to formulate a solid version of the vaccine that can be implanted in the skin without a needle.



On Jan. 27, 2021, Robin Shattuck, the leader of the project, announced that it is not the right time to start a new efficacy trial for a further vaccine in the U.K. Instead of competing with authorized vaccines, they are turning their efforts to making candidates that will work well against emerging variants of the coronavirus.



ABANDONED



The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi collaborated with Massachusetts-based Translate Bio to develop an mRNA vaccine for Covid-19. In 2020, they reported that the vaccine, MRT5500, produced a strong antibody response in mice and monkeys, and protected hamsters against coronavirus infections. They followed up on that research with a Phase 1/2 trial in March 2021. Over the summer, Sanofi acquired Translate Bio for $3 billion. On Sept. 28, the company announced that the trial had yielded encouraging results. By then, however, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were widely available, and so Sanofi decided to pull the plug on its own mRNA Covid-19 vaccine program. Meanwhile, it is continuing a Phase 3 trial on a protein-based vaccine that could serve as a booster against Covid-19.



ABANDONED



Vaccine name: CVnCoV

Efficacy: 48%

Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: Stable at least 3 months at 3646F (28C)



The German company CureVac generated a lot of hope for its mRNA vaccine for Covid-19 in 2020, only to see it deliver disappointing results in clinical trials the following year.



The company, founded in 2001, had years of experience developing experimental mRNA vaccines for a host of diseases. In early 2020, they began work on a Covid-19 vaccine, called CVnCoV. In March, the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried to entice CureVac to move its research on their mRNA vaccine from Germany to the United States.



The company plowed ahead with its work in Germany, seeing responses to the vaccine in mice and monkeys before launching clinical trials in July. CVnCoV showed promise in several respects: it could remain stable in a refrigerator rather than a freezer, and preliminary studies suggested it would work well at a low dose, reducing its cost.



In December, CureVac launched a Phase 3 trial, recruiting up to 36,500 volunteers in Germany. The European Union began a rolling review in February, intended to speed up approval if the Phase 3 trial delivers positive results.



Meanwhile, CureVac prepared for mass production of the vaccine. The company negotiated a deal to provide the European Union with up to 400 million doses of their vaccine. They projected manufacturing up to 300 million doses in 2021 and up to a billion doses the following year. Starting in January 2021, CureVac forged a series of partnerships with pharmaceutical giants Bayer, Celonic, GSK, and Novartis, to support the production of their vaccine and develop new ones against coronavirus variants.



In June 2021, CureVac reported disappointing results from their Phase 3 trial. Overall, CVnCoV had an efficacy of just 48 percent against Covid-19. It proved somewhat better for younger volunteers: For those between the ages of 18 and 60, the efficacy rose to 53 percent. In that group, the researchers also found the vaccine provided 100 percent protection against hospitalization and death. Researchers later pointed to the vaccine dosage along with the rise of new variants as potential reasons for the low efficacy. On Sept. 14, CureVac announced that it had cancelled its manufacturing deals with Celonic and German company Wacker, citing a decline in demand for CVnCoV.



Despite the disappointing results, the company moved ahead with preparing an application to the European Union for emergency authorization for the use of the vaccine in people 60 and under. But European regulators gave no indication they would continue speeding along their review. As a result, on Oct. 12, CureVac announced that it would withdraw CVnCoV from the regulatory approval process.



Instead, CureVac is focusing its efforts on a next-generation vaccine for Covid-19, called CV2CoV, that it is developing with GSK. This updated version produces more spike proteins, and thus a stronger immune response. In November, researchers at Harvard published a study in the journal Nature showing that monkeys given CV2CoV produced antibodies to the coronavirus at a level comparable to the Comirnaty vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech. Reuters reported in November that CureVac was planning on starting a Phase 1 trial on CV2nCoV within the next few months.



ABANDONED



New Jersey-based OncoSec Immunotherapies has developed experimental cancer treatments that deliver genes into tumors. There, the injected genes produce a natural signalling molecule called IL-12, which attracts the attention of immune cells that attack the cancer. In the spring of 2020, OncoSec began adapting their technology to make a vaccine for the coronavirus. The vaccine, called CORVax12, consists of a loop of DNA that encodes both the spike protein and IL-12. Causing the body to make extra IL-12 could potentially enhance the immune systems ability to make antibodies to the spike protein. On Jan. 27, 2021, the company began dosing participants in its Phase 1 trial to test the safety of CORVax12. In November, a spokeswoman said that OncoSec was no longer investigating the vaccine.



PRECLINICAL



Other genetic vaccines in active preclinical development include vaccines from: Batavia Biosciences and RocketVax; CureVac and GSK; Defence Therapeutics; Doherty Institute and Monash University; ETheRNA; EyeGene; Globe Biotech; Greenlight Biosciences and Samsung Biologics; HIPRA and Hospital Clinic de Barcelona; Infectious Disease Research Institute and Amyris; Inovio; National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan; the OPENCORONA Consortia; the Spanish National Center for Biotechnology and the Spanish National Research Council.



Viral Vector Vaccines

Vaccines that contain viruses engineered to carry coronavirus genes. Some viral vector vaccines enter cells and cause them to make viral proteins. Other viral vectors slowly replicate, carrying coronavirus proteins on their surface.

PHASE 3 EMERGENCY USE IN RUSSIA, ELSEWHERE



Vaccine name: Sputnik V (also known as Gam-Covid-Vac)

Efficacy: 91.6% against Alpha Variant, 75% against Omicron.

Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: Freezer storage. Developing an alternative formulation that can be refrigerated.



The Gamaleya Research Institute, part of Russias Ministry of Health, has created a vaccine with an efficacy rate of 91.6 percent. Russia began distributing the vaccine, known as Sputnik V, in fall 2020, and it is now widely used around the world.



VACCINE DEVELOPMENT Gamaleya produced the vaccine, initially called Gam-Covid-Vac, from a combination of two adenoviruses called Ad5 and Ad26. Both kinds have been tested as vaccines over a number of years. By combining them, the Russian researchers hoped to avoid a situation in which the immune system could learn to recognize the vaccine as a foreign object that needed to be destroyed.



TRIAL RESULTS The researchers launched clinical trials in June 2020, and by the end of the summer, the trial became bogged down in controversy. On Aug. 11, President Vladimir V. Putin announced that a Russian health care regulator had approved the vaccine, renamed Sputnik V. Yet the Phase 3 trials had not even begun. Vaccine experts decried the move as risky, and Russia later walked back the announcement, saying that the approval was a conditional registration certificate, which would depend on positive results from Phase 3 trials.



In addition to Russia, volunteers for the trial were recruited in Belarus, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. On Oct. 17, a Phase 2/3 trial was launched in India.



On Sept. 4, three weeks after Putins announcement, Gamaleya researchers published the results of their Phase 1/2 trial. They found that Sputnik V yielded antibodies to the coronavirus and mild side effects. On Nov. 11, the Russian Direct Investment Fund announced the first preliminary evidence from their Phase 3 trial indicating that the vaccine is effective. Based on 20 cases of Covid-19 among the trial participants, Russian scientists estimated that the vaccine demonstrated 92 percent efficacy.



By December, the trial had reached its final total of 78 cases. The creators of the vaccine published the results of their Phase 3 trial on Feb. 2, 2021 in the Lancet. The study demonstrated a high efficacy after two doses, and did not uncover serious side effects. No one who got the vaccine experienced a serious case of Covid-19.



When other countries began using Sputnik V, they ran studies of their own to measure the effectiveness of the vaccine. On Nov. 1, 2021, a team of researchers in Argentina published a paper showing that the vaccine reduces infection by 88.1 percent and Covid-19-related deaths by 98.3 percent in people over 60.



In January 2021, Gamaleya researchers started a trial in which they gave people only the first dose of Ad26 adenoviruses, the same adenovirus in Johnson & Johnsons single-dose vaccine. They dubbed this one-dose version Sputnik Light. A Phase 1 / 2 trial showed that a single dose produced antibodies and was safe; the details were eventually published in the Lancet in Nov. 2021.



Russia announced on May 6 that Sputnik Light provided an efficacy of 79.4 percent but did not publish the details of the study or say how long the efficacy would last. After the single-dose version of the vaccine was rolled out in Argentina, a study found that its effectiveness there was between 78.6 and 83.7 percent.



In December 2020, the Gamaleya Institute joined forces with the drugmaker AstraZeneca, which makes a vaccine based on a chimpanzee adenovirus. The two teams combined their vaccines to see if the mixture can increase the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The trial was registered in February, and on July 30, Russian officials announced that mixing Sputnik V with the AstraZeneca shot did not cause adverse effects or new Covid-19 cases. They announced similar results on Aug. 20 after mixing Sputnik Light with the Astrazeneca shot in a trial in Azerbaijan. Mixing Sputnik Light with the AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Moderna vaccines was also found to be safe, Russian officials announced on Aug. 4. Chinese officials announced on July 30, 2021, that Sputnik V is part of a new trial assessing its effectiveness when combined with the CanSino vaccine. Preclinical trials for an intranasal version of Sputnik V have completed, and Phase 2 human trials have begun, Tass reported on Dec. 20.



Russian researchers are also working on modifying the vaccine for use in teenagers. Called Sputnik M, the candidate is a fractional dose of Sputnik V. They have recruited 3,000 adolescents for the ongoing clinical trials. On Nov. 24, Tass reported that Russia has authorized the vaccine for use in teenagers. But a vaccine trial for children has faced delays, Tass reported on Dec. 15. Gamelayas deputy director told Tass that testing could begin in 2022. Preliminary results from the trial in teenagers suggest that the vaccine has an efficacy of 93 percent.



AUTHORIZATION In November 2020, the Russian government began offering Sputnik V within Russia in a mass vaccination campaign. But worry that the vaccine was rushed to approval led to widespread hesitancy. On Dec. 22, Belarus became the first country outside of Russia to register Sputnik V, and since then a number of other countries have followed suit. Sputnik Light received authorization for use in Russia on May 6, 2021.



In Europe, regulators began a rolling review of Sputnik V on March 4. If the European Medicines Agency approved it, many European countries might take up the vaccine. But their review has taken much longer than expected, reportedly due to concerns about the manufacturing of Sputnik V.



In April, Brazils vaccine regulator rejected Sputnik V, based on a number of concerns, including the possibility that the adenoviruses in the vaccines hadnt been properly disabled. After weeks of tense confrontation, Brazil gave Sputnk V the green light in June, but with some conditions  including limiting it only to healthy adults. Concerns over the vaccines effectiveness have also pushed India to deny permission for Phase 3 trials to be conducted in the country.



VARIANTS A study published in July found that Sputnik antibodies can neutralize the Delta variant, although not as effectively as they worked against the original version of the virus. The Gamaleya Institute announced on Oct. 13 that Sputnik Light demonstrated a 70 percent efficacy against the Delta variant, although the study has yet to be published in a scientific journal. Tass reported on Jan. 18, 2022 that the Gamelaya Institute director said Sputnik V demonstrates around 75 percent efficacy against the Omicron variant, but the data has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.



For more details, see How Gamaleyas Vaccine Works.



Emergency use in: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia (including Sputnik Light), Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus (including Sputnik Light), Bolivia, Bosnian Serb Republic, Brazil, Cambodia (including Sputnik Light), Cameroon, Chile, Congo Republic (including Sputnik Light), Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt (including Sputnik Light), Honduras, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran (including Sputnik Light), Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan (including Sputnik Light), Kenya, Kyrgyzstan (including Sputnik Light), Laos (including Sputnik Light), Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Mauritius (including Sputnik Light), Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia (including Sputnik Light), Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua (including Sputnik Light), Nigeria, North Macedonia, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority (including Sputnik Light), Panama, Paraguay, Philippines (including Sputnik Light), Russia (including Sputnik Light and Sputnik M), Rwanda, San Marino (including Sputnik Light), Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates (including Sputnik Light), Uzbekistan, Venezuela (including Sputnik Light), Vietnam, West Bank, Zimbabwe.



Gamaleyas Sputnik V vaccine RUSSIA HUNGARY ALGERIA MONGOLIA GUINEA MALI IRAN PAKISTAN BAHRAIN GABON U.A.E. MEXICO INDIA ANGOLA BRAZIL INDONESIA KENYA PARAGUAY ARGENTINA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Gamaleyas Sputnik V vaccine HUNGARY RUSSIA ALGERIA MONGOLIA GUINEA PAKISTAN IRAN BAHRAIN GABON MEXICO INDIA U.A.E. BRAZIL ANGOLA KENYA PARAGUAY ARGENTINA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Gamaleyas Sputnik V vaccine RUSSIA HUNGARY MONGOLIA ALGERIA IRAN PAKISTAN GABON MEXICO INDIA BRAZIL KENYA PARAGUAY ARGENTINA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Gamaleyas Sputnik V vaccine MEXICO BRAZIL PARAGUAY ARGENTINA RUSSIA HUNGARY ALGERIA MONGOLIA PAKISTAN IRAN BAHRAIN GABON INDIA ANGOLA KENYA Approved Early, limited or emergency use

PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES

APPROVED IN BRAZIL EMERGENCY USE IN E.U., ELSEWHERE



Vaccine name: Vaxzevria (also known as AZD1222, or Covishield in India)

Efficacy: 74% against symptomatic Covid19; 100% against severe or critical Covid-19.

Dose: 2 doses

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: Stable in refrigerator for at least 6 months



A vaccine designed by the University of Oxford and produced by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca has emerged as a key element in the effort to meet the global demand for Covid-19 vaccines. With an efficacy of 76 percent, the vaccine  now known as Vaxzevria  is being produced in vast quantities at a low price. Because it only needs to be refrigerated rather than frozen, it can be used far more widely than mRNA vaccines. But Vaxzevrias journey has been turbulent, jolted by confusing messages from AstraZeneca, high-profile worries about safety, and difficulties with manufacturing. On Nov. 16, 2021, AstraZeneca announced that it has supplied two billion doses of Vaxzevria worldwide.



VACCINE DEVELOPMENT Vaxvezria was based on a vaccine platform that Oxford researchers had been developing for years for other diseases. They began with an adenovirus that normally infects chimpanzees and genetically engineered it to carry viral genes. In early 2020, the scientists developed Vaxvezria by endowing the adenovirus with the spike gene from the coronavirus. When they gave the vaccine to monkeys, they found that it protected the animals from the disease.



TRIAL RESULTS The United States supported the development of Vaxvezria in May 2020, with $1.2 billion provided as part of Operation Warp Speed. The money helped AstraZeneca and Oxford embark on large late-stage trials in the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, and elsewhere. But the researchers ran the trials independently, making it difficult to combine their results into a single clear picture of how well the vaccine worked. Making matters murkier, they gave different amounts of the vaccine to different people and also waited anywhere from four to twelve weeks to deliver the second dose.



On Dec. 8, 2020, AstraZeneca and Oxford published the first scientific paper on a Phase 3 clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The trial demonstrated that the vaccine can protect people from Covid-19, but it left many questions unresolved about the results. Nevertheless, the vaccines low cost and ease of storage made it attractive to countries looking for a way out of the pandemic.



On Feb. 14, 2021, AstraZeneca announced they would start trials on children as young as six. Researchers at Oxford reported preliminary results suggesting that a combination of AstraZenecas vaccine followed by Comirnaty produces strong levels of antibodies. AstraZeneca also launched a similar trial with Russias Sputnik V vaccine. Results from that study suggest that the combination yielded at least a four-fold increase in antibodies in 85 percent of participants. In September 2021, Imperial College London launched a trial of an inhaled form of the vaccine. Brazilian researchers registered a Phase 2/3 trial on Sept. 28 to evaluate the effectiveness of a half dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine compared to the normal dosing scheme.



AUTHORIZATION The United Kingdom and Argentina were the first countries to give the vaccine emergency authorization, on Dec. 30, 2020. On Jan. 3, India approved a version called Covishield, made by the Serum Institute of India. On Feb. 16 the World Health Organization recommended the vaccine for emergency use in adults 18 or older. Brazil gave full approval to the vaccine on March 13.



In the summer of 2020, Astrazeneca promised it would distribute Vaxzevria in the United States as soon as that October. But a concern about the health of a volunteer in the U.S. clinical trial stalled the study for seven weeks. AstraZeneca did not deliver the results of the trial until March 2021  only to be rebuked by its expert advisors for cherry-picking data. These speed bumps slowed the company down, while other vaccines were getting authorized and meeting the demand in the United States. The year 2021 ended without an application to the F.D.A.



DISTRIBUTION Vaxzexria promised at first to be a cheap, robust vaccine that would go a long way to meeting the worlds need for protection from Covid-19. But it has suffered a number of setbacks.



Even while it was running clinical trials in 2020, AstraZeneca reached agreements with a number of manufacturers in order to produce billions of doses of Vaxzevria. But in January 2021, it admitted that it would fall short of its promised delivery of vaccines to the European Union. Its shortfall grew only worse in March when India, facing an explosion of new cases, blocked export of the vaccine from its factories. On April 26, the European Commission filed a lawsuit against the company for breach of contract. The court ordered AstraZeneca on June 18 to deliver 50 million additional doses of Vaxzevria, substantially less than the 90 million the European Commission had demanded. AstraZeneca met the revised deadline on July 26. In September, AstraZeneca and the European Commission settled their dispute, with an agreement for the company to supply 200 million doses by March 2022.



In the spring of 2021, as other countries struggled with devastating new waves of Covid-19, the United States came under intense criticism for holding back raw materials India needed to make its own supply of Covishield. On April 25, the Biden administration announced it would partially lift its ban. Later, it promised to distribute AstraZeneca vaccines to other countries. But due to concerns about the facility where the vaccines were made in Baltimore, the vaccines have yet to be released.



In South Africa, a small trial failed to demonstrate that it protected people against the Beta variant, which has become predominant in the country. On Feb. 7, 2021, South Africa halted plans for a rollout of 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and switched to Johnson & Johnson.



In March 2021, Covax began delivering doses of the vaccine to low- and middle-income countries. But manufacturing bottlenecks have slowed the pipeline. Declining demand for the vaccine has pushed the Serum Institute of India to halve its production of new Vaxzevria shots, Reuters reported on Dec. 8.



VARIANTS A British study found that the AstraZeneca vaccine provides 67 percent effectiveness against infection with the Delta variant. A Canadian study found that it had an effectiveness of 87 percent against hospitalization and death from the variant.



AstraZeneca and Oxford are working on a new version of the vaccine tailored to the Beta variant and are testing a version that can be delivered as a nasal spray. On June 28, participants received doses of the Beta variant vaccine, called AZD2816, in a new Phase 2/3 trial.



BOOSTERS In June, Oxford researchers reported that a third booster of the AstraZeneca vaccine generated strong immune responses in volunteers. On Dec. 3, Bloomberg reported that AstraZeneca was scrapping its plans for a booster trial in the United States, and encouraged trial participants to seek a different vaccine for their third shot.



SIDE EFFECTS In March 2021, European medical regulators became concerned about a small number of cases of blood clots in younger people who received Vaxzevria. The European Medicines Agency concluded that the vaccine had a very rare side effect in which people suffered blood clots in large veins combined with low platelets. The regulators emphasized that the vaccine is effective and the benefits it provided outweighed the small risk of its side effects. In response some countries chose to minimize the risk by restricting the vaccine to older people. In May, Norway permanently removed Vaxzevria from their vaccination program. In August, a team of British researchers reported that the risk of blood clots is far higher from Covid-19 than from the Vaxzevria vaccine.



For more details, see How the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Works.



Approved for use in: Brazil.

Stopped use in: Denmark, Norway.

Emergency use in: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Barbuda, Belize, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eswatini, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kuwait, KyrgyzstanLebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, MontenegroMontserrat, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, San Martin, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Sudan, Suriname, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Virgin Islands, Yemen, Zambia. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization. Endorsed by the Africa Regulatory Taskforce. Recommended for emergency use by the Caribbean Regulatory System.



Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine NORWAY BRITAIN AND THE E.U. MOROCCO CANADA MONGOLIA SOUTH KOREA ALGERIA BAHAMAS EGYPT PHILIPPINES IRAN PAKISTAN NIGERIA INDIA MEXICO BRAZIL INDONESIA COSTA RICA KENYA AUSTRALIA NAMIBIA MALDIVES SEYCHELLES CHILE SOUTH AFRICA ARGENTINA Approved Stopped use in favor of other vaccines Early, limited or emergency use Oxford- AstraZeneca vaccine NORWAY BRITAIN AND THE E.U. CANADA MOROCCO MONGOLIA SOUTH KOREA ALGERIA IRAN BAHAMAS PHILIPPINES EGYPT PAKISTAN NIGERIA MEXICO INDIA BRAZIL KENYA COSTA RICA AUSTRALIA NAMIBIA MALDIVES SEYCHELLES CHILE ARGENTINA SOUTH AFRICA Approved Stopped use in favor of other vaccines Early, limited or emergency use Oxford- AstraZeneca vaccine BRITAIN AND THE E.U. NORWAY MONGOLIA CANADA MOROCCO ALGERIA SOUTH KOREA BAHAMAS EGYPT PHILIPPINES IRAN NIGERIA MEXICO INDIA BRAZIL KENYA COSTA RICA NAMIBIA MALDIVES SEYCHELLES ARGENTINA AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA CHILE Approved Stopped use in favor of other vaccines Early, limited or emergency use Oxford- AstraZeneca vaccine CANADA BAHAMAS MEXICO BRAZIL COSTA RICA CHILE ARGENTINA BRITAIN AND THE E.U. NORWAY MONGOLIA ALGERIA SOUTH KOREA EGYPT PHILIPPINES IRAN INDIA NAMIBIA KENYA MALDIVES SEYCHELLES AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Stopped use

PHASE 3

APPROVED IN CHINA EMERGENCY USE IN OTHER COUNTRIES



Vaccine name: Convidecia (also known as Ad5-nCoV)

Efficacy: 57.5% against symptomatic Covid, 91.7% against severe disease.

Dose: Single dose

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: Refrigerated



The Chinese company CanSino Biologics developed Convidecia in partnership with the Institute of Biology at the countrys Academy of Military Medical Sciences. The one-shot vaccine is based on an adenovirus called Ad5. Last May, researchers published promising results from a Phase 1 safety trial on Convidecia, and in July they reported that their Phase 2 trials demonstrated the vaccine produced a strong immune response. In an unprecedented move, the Chinese military approved the vaccine on June 25 for a year as a specially needed drug. On Nov. 28, the Chief Executive of CanSino Biologics said in an interview that about 40,000 to 50,000 people had received Convidecia.



Starting in August 2020, CanSino began running Phase 3 trials in a number of countries, including Pakistan, Russia, Mexico and Chile. On Feb. 25, 2021, China announced the approval of the CanSino vaccine for general use.



Results from the Phase 3 trial, published in The Lancet in December 2021 showed that Convidecia had an efficacy against Covid-19 of 57.5 percent. Against severe disease, its efficacy was 91.7 percent.



As time passed, it became clear that Convidecias effectiveness was waning, and researchers began testing boosters. In January 2022, Chinese researchers reported that an inhaled booster of Convidecia was safe and produced very high levels of antibodies against the coronavirus when administered in individuals who originally received a different vaccine.



Approved for use in: China.

Emergency use in: Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Pakistan.



CanSino vaccine HUNGARY CHINA PAKISTAN MEXICO ECUADOR INDONESIA ARGENTINA CHILE Approved Early, limited or emergency use CanSino vaccine HUNGARY CHINA PAKISTAN MEXICO ECUADOR INDONESIA ARGENTINA CHILE Approved Early, limited or emergency use CanSino vaccine HUNGARY CHINA PAKISTAN MEXICO ECUADOR INDONESIA ARGENTINA CHILE Approved Early, limited or emergency use CanSino vaccine MEXICO ARGENTINA ECUADOR CHILE HUNGARY CHINA INDONESIA Approved Early, limited or emergency use

PHASE 3

APPROVED IN CANADA EMERGENCY USE IN U.S., ELSEWHERE



Vaccine name: Ad26.COV2.S

Efficacy: 72% in United States, 68% in Brazil and 64% in South Africa

Dose: 1 dose

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: Up to two years frozen at 4 F (20 C), and up to 6 months refrigerated at 3646 F (28 C).



On Feb. 27, 2021, the F.D.A. issued an emergency use authorization for Johnson & Johnsons vaccine, making it the third coronavirus vaccine available in the United States. It was also the first to be shown to be safe and effective with just one dose rather than two. But the vaccine has not lived up to its initial promise, with only 16 million Americans having received it. The company was bedeviled by manufacturing problems, and side effects from the vaccine led the U.S. government to recommend that the two authorized mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech should be preferred over Johnson & Johnsons.



VACCINE DEVELOPMENT The work that led to the vaccine started a decade ago at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where researchers developed a method for making vaccines out of a virus called Adenovirus 26, or Ad26 for short. Johnson & Johnson used Ad26 to develop vaccines for Ebola and other diseases with Ad26. In January 2020, the company and Beth Israel researchers collaborated on creating a coronavirus vaccine. In March they received $456 million from the United States government to support their move towards production. That spring, researchers found that the vaccine provided protection in experiments on monkeys.



TRIAL RESULTS Johnson & Johnson began Phase 1/2 trials in July 2020. Based on promising results in these studies, Johnson & Johnson launched a Phase 3 trial in September using just one dose rather than two. Although Johnson & Johnson initially set out to recruit 60,000 volunteers, it capped the trial at 45,000 in December as cases rose.



On Jan. 29, 2021, Johnson & Johnson announced that the trial had proven that the vaccine was safe and effective, and the F.D.A. released a similar analysis on Feb. 24. Johnson & Johnson published a paper on the trial in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 21, 2021. With a single shot, the vaccine had an efficacy of 66 percent, although it varied from country to country, likely due to variants and other factors. Efficacy against severe disease was higher, at 76 percent.



Results from a trial in which the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was given six months after a two-dose regimen of Comirnaty showed that the mix-and-match approach significantly boosted immune responses. AUTHORIZATION Bahrain became the first country to authorize the vaccine for emergency use on Feb. 25. Two days later, the United States followed suit. South Africa dropped plans to use AstraZenecas vaccine for their health care workers after a small trial failed to show it was effective against the Beta variant that had grown dominant across the country. They began using Johnson & Johnsons instead. On Oct. 15, an F.D.A. panel unanimously voted to recommend a second dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for all adults who received a first dose, and authorization came on Oct. 20. On Nov. 24, Canada became the first country to give full approval to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for adults.



DISTRIBUTION In August 2020, the federal government agreed to pay Johnson & Johnson $1 billion for 100 million doses if the vaccine was authorized. Most of the U.S. supply was supposed to be made by Baltimore-based Emergent Solutions. But the company struggled to get the vaccines complex manufacturing up and running. In April 2021, the F.D.A. issued a scathing report about the companys lax standards. At least 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnsons vaccine were contaminated at the factory. As a result, the company only delivered 4 million doses to the United States after authorization, shipping them from its factory in the Netherlands. On June 11, the New York Times reported that the F.D.A. told the company to throw out 60 million doses. The following month, Emergent announced that it would resume production of the vaccines from its Baltimore plant after it receives authorization from the F.D.A. On March 2, Merck announced it would assist Johnson & Johnson with manufacturing the vaccine, but it will take several months to spin up its production.



The European Union reached a deal on Oct. 8, 2020 for 200 million doses. But after concerns about rare blood clots emerged, reports surfaced that the E.U. might not renew its contract with the company.



A coalition of African countries announced on March 29, 2021, that it had secured up to 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine through 2022. COVAX, an international collaboration to deliver the vaccine equitably across the world, announced a separate deal for 500 million doses. But manufacturing problems slowed these deliveries. By September, COVAX had lowered its 2021 forecast of Johnson & Johnson vaccines to only 180 million doses. On Nov. 30, South African company Aspen Pharmacare announced that it was finalizing a deal with Johnson & Johnson to market and distribute the vaccine in Africa.



VARIANTS Johnson & Johnson found that its vaccine only had an efficacy of 52 percent in South Africa, where the Beta variant was dominant during the trial. As the Delta variant emerged in the summer of 2021, Johnson & Johnson released results of experiments indicating that their vaccine provided durable protection against it. But another study from outside scientists suggested that the vaccine only weakly protects against Delta. Preliminary experiments found that Johnson & Johnsons vaccine does not produce neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant.



BOOSTERS On Oct. 5, Johnson & Johnson applied for emergency authorization for a booster. Over the following few weeks, the F.D.A. reviewed the results of two studies that suggest a second dose of the vaccine might provide an effective boost to immunity.



In one study, the company gave 17 trial volunteers a booster shot six months after their initial vaccination. On Aug. 25, the company announced that the boosters lifted levels of antibodies against the coronavirus nine times higher than their initial peak. Later, those levels rose twelvefold.



In a second study, Johnson & Johnson ran a Phase 3 trial in which 32,000 volunteers received either a placebo or two doses of the vaccine, separated by eight weeks. On Sept. 21, the company reported that the pair of shots provided much higher efficacy than just one. In the United States, efficacy against mild to severe Covid-19 rose from 74 percent to 94 percent. Efficacy against severe disease worldwide rose to 100 percent. On Oct. 20, the F.D.A. authorized Johnson & Johnson boosters.



SIDE EFFECTS On April 13 the U.S. government recommended a pause in using the vaccine while it investigated reports of rare blood clots. Ten days later, C.D.C. researchers reported 15 cases of the unusual clots in nearly 8 million people who received the vaccine. The government decided to lift the pause and add a warning to the vaccine that younger women may run a slight risk of the severe side effect. But as cases continued to accrue, the C.D.C.s advisory committee voted on Dec. 16., 2021, to recommend that other vaccines be preferred over Johnson & Johnsons.



For more details, see How the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Works.



Approved for use in: Canada.

Stopped use in: Denmark, Finland, Slovenia.

Emergency use in: Andorra, Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, European Union, Ghana, Greenland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Kuwait, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, South Korea, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization. Endorsed by the Africa Regulatory Taskforce.



Johnson & Johnson vaccine EUROPEAN UNION FINLAND CANADA SOUTH KOREA U.S. LIBYA BAHRAIN MEXICO INDIA BRAZIL ZAMBIA AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA CHILE Stopped use in favor of other vaccines Approved Early, limited or emergency use Johnson & Johnson vaccine EUROPEAN UNION FINLAND CANADA SOUTH KOREA LIBYA U.S. BAHRAIN NIGERIA MEXICO INDIA BRAZIL ZAMBIA AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA CHILE Approved Stopped use in favor of other vaccines Early, limited or emergency use Johnson & Johnson vaccine EUROPEAN UNION FINLAND CANADA SOUTH KOREA LIBYA U.S. NIGERIA MEXICO INDIA BRAZIL ZAMBIA AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA CHILE Stopped use in favor of other vaccines Approved Early, limited or emergency use Johnson & Johnson vaccine CANADA U.S. MEXICO BRAZIL CHILE EUROPEAN UNION FINLAND SOUTH KOREA LIBYA BAHRAIN NIGERIA INDIA ZAMBIA AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA Approved Early, limited or emergency use Stopped use

PHASE 3



In 2019, researchers at the University of Hong Kong and Xiamen University created a nasal-spray vaccine for the flu based on a genetically weakened form of the influenza virus. In early 2020, they engineered the vaccine to produce part of the coronavirus spike protein as well. On Sept. 9, they received approval to start clinical trials in partnership with Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy. They registered a Phase 1 trial on March 22, 2021. At a June 11 press conference, a researcher for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that this vaccine has completed Phase 2 trials. And on Sept. 22, the researchers registered a Phase 3 trial. The researchers are receiving $5.4 million in support from CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.



PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES



The Italian biotechnology company ReiThera has developed a Covid-19 vaccine, called GRAd-COV2, that is based on an adenovirus that infects gorillas. Working in collaboration with the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome, they found that it produced strong levels of antibodies in mice and monkeys. In July 2020, they launched a Phase 1 clinical trial. In November, they announced that the vaccine was well tolerated and produced antibodies, and released a report on the trial.



In March 2021, researchers launched a Phase 2 trial of the vaccine, which delivered encouraging results in July. But it remained unclear if ReiThera would be able to advance to a final Phase 3 trial.



In May, Reuters reported, a court in Italy struck down the governments plan to fund the Phase 3 trial. The government later said it was ready to support the vaccine trial, but has yet to offer up the funds. In November 2021, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded ReiThera a grant of $1.4 million to continue to develop the vaccine.



PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES



In the spring of 2020, the Israel Institute for Biological Research started work on a coronavirus vaccine based on vesicular stomatitis viruses. They engineered the viruses to carry the gene for the coronavirus spike protein. On Oct. 25, the Israeli government announced that the vaccine, called Brilife, would be going into a Phase 1 trial. In January 2021, the vaccine moved on to a Phase 2 trial. In July, Israel formed a partnership with the American company NRx Pharmaceuticals to advance research on Brilife in studies to be conducted in Israel, Georgia, and the Ukraine. The following month, NRx registered a Phase 2/3 trial, with plans to recruit 550 volunteers. NRx is planning to run other trials in the coming months assessing Brilifes effectiveness as a booster and as a shot administered through a microneedle system.



PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES



Researchers at Washington University designed a nasal spray vaccine that can produce high levels of coronavirus antibodies in mice with just a single dose. It contains a chimpanzee adenovirus engineered to carry the spike protein gene. The Indian drug maker Bharat Biotech licensed the technology, and in February 2021 they won approval to launch a Phase 1 trial of a vaccine, which they named BBV154. On Sept. 21, the chairman of Bharat announced that the Phase 2/3 trial was set to begin in a matter of days. Government officials announced on Aug. 11 that they will allow Bharat to perform a trial that mixes BBV154 with Covaxin. On Jan. 6, 2022, Bharat won approval to begin a Phase 3 trial for the vaccine as a booster shot in 5,000 people who have already received Covaxin or Covishield.



PHASE 2



Researchers at City of Hope, a California biomedical research institute, created a vaccine based on a weakened form of a virus called Modified Vaccinia Ankara, or MVA for short. They added two coronavirus genes to the MVA virus  one for the spike protein, and one for another protein called nucleocapsid. They are testing the vaccine specifically for people with immune systems impaired by cancer and other disorders. Many of them do not produce a strong immune response to authorized vaccines based on mRNA. The City of Hope researchers hope their MVA vaccine works better. On Nov. 24, 2020, City of Hope announced the start of a Phase 1 trial. In September 2021, researchers launched a Phase 2 trial, giving the vaccine to volunteers with blood cancer who have received a bone marrow transplant or a form of immunotherapy called CAR-T. On Nov. 9, GeoVax announced that it has been granted exclusive rights to develop the vaccine, called COH04S1, and market it worldwide. GeoVax dosed the first participant in a Phase 2 booster trial in December.



PHASE 2





In 2020, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York developed a Covid-19 vaccine based on a virus called Newcastle Disease Virus, or NDV for short. NDV is a bird pathogen and does not cause symptoms in humans. The researchers engineered NDV to carry the gene for a modified version of the coronavirus spike protein called HexaPro, developed at the University of Texas. They then grew the modified virus in chicken eggs. The researchers inactivated the NDVs with chemicals and combined them with immune-boosting chemicals called adjuvants. The researchers found that the vaccine, called NDV-HXP-S, produced high levels of coronavirus antibodies in mice and hamsters. They published the results of their experiments in November.



NDV-HXP-S could potentially help low- to middle-income countries secure their own supplies of Covid-19 vaccines. The Newcastle Disease Virus can be safely grown in large quantities in chicken eggs, the same way influenza vaccines have been produced since the 1950s. As a result, the vaccine could be very cheap to make.



Those advantages attracted interest from four countries, all of which licensed the vaccine and launched trials. In Thailand, Mahidol University and the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, a state-run drug manufacturer licensed the vaccine and launched clinical trials in February 2021. The Phase 1 trial results showed that the vaccine showed an acceptable safety profile and produced promising levels of antibodies. A Phase 2 trial started in August.



Avi-Mex in Mexico also licensed NDV-HXP-S under the name Patria. Their version of the vaccine is delivered as a nasal spray, which they are testing in a Phase 1 trial. In June, Brazils Butantan Institute launched a Phase 1 trial of the vaccine, known there as Butanvac. In November 2021, the Brazilian magazine O Globo reported that Butanvac was expected to be distributed in Brazil in 2022.



Meanwhile, the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals in Vietnam launched trials of its own, dubbing the vaccine Covivac. In August they advanced to Phase 2 trials. But on Nov. 30, Vietnamese news outlets reported that the researchers suspended a Phase 3 trial indefinitely over difficulties with finding volunteers.



In January 2022, researchers at Mount Sinai launched a trial of the vaccine as a booster, given either intramuscularly or intranasally, or both.



PHASE 2



While many vaccines are given as injections, some vaccines can be taken as a pill. Oral vaccines have been approved for diseases including polio, cholera, and typhoid fever. The small San Francisco company Vaxart specializes in developing oral vaccines. They have created and tested pills for influenza and other diseases. Last spring Vaxart began work on an oral vaccine for Covid-19. It contains an adenovirus called Ad5 (the same viral vector in CanSinoBios vaccine and in Russias Sputnik V).



When Vaxart gave the pill to mice, they produced antibodies against the coronavirus. Mice dont suffer symptoms of Covid-19, however, so the researchers then switched to hamsters, which do. They found that the vaccine pill not only dramatically reduced the amount of coronavirus in sick hamsters, but also protected them from two important symptoms of the disease: weight loss and swollen lungs.



The companys stock price increased 3,600 percent in the first half of 2020. In June, The New York Times reported, a hedge fund that partly controlled the company sold off most of its shares, netting over $200 million in profits. In the wake of that reporting, the Department of Justice began investigating the company, while a number of shareholder lawsuits were brought against Vaxart, its executives and its board.



In October 2020, the company began giving the pill to volunteers in a Phase 1 clinical trial. On Feb. 3, 2021, Vaxart announced that the trial revealed no serious safety concerns. While the pill produced a response from T cells, it didnt produce encouraging neutralizing antibodies. Its stock price plunged 60 percent on the news.



On Feb. 25, the company announced it would advance to a Phase 2 trial in the second quarter of 2021, but manufacturing problems forced them to delay the launch. On Oct. 5, Vaxart registered a Phase 2 trial. In the new study, the company will test its pill as a primary vaccine on unvaccinated volunteers, and as a booster for people who have already received an authorized vaccine. The researchers dosed their first participant on Oct. 26.



PHASE 2



The California-based company ImmunityBio created a vaccine using the Ad5 adenovirus, the same one used by CanSinoBio and the Gamaleya Institute in Russia. ImmunityBio engineered the Ad5 virus to carry genes for two genes from the coronavirus. In addition to the spike protein, it also carries the gene for a protein called nucleocapsid. The company hopes that this combination will provoke a strong immune response.



The company found that the vaccine protects monkeys from the coronavirus. ImmunityBio launched a Phase 1 trial of a Covid-19 vaccine in October 2020 in the United States and another in South Africa in January. In February 2021, the company registered a Phase 1 trial of an oral version of the vaccine.



On May 25, the company announced that it would study how well their candidate works as a booster shot for those who already received other vaccines. It said on Dec. 20 that Phase 2 trials of the booster are ongoing, and serious adverse effects have not been reported. Phase 3 trials could begin in early 2022. They are also testing a nasal spray version.



The chairman, C.E.O. and Global Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of ImmunityBio is billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



In April 2020, the South Korean biotech company Cellid began to develop a vaccine for Covid-19. The vaccine, called AdCLD-CoV19, was based on a combination of two strains of adenoviruses, called Ad5 and Ad35. After testing the vaccine on monkeys, Cellid entered into a partnership with the South Korean chemical manufacturer LG Chem to manufacture the vaccine.



In December 2020, Cellid registered a Phase 1 trial for AdCLD-CoV19, and a Phase 2 trial launched in June 2021. But the results were disappointing, leading the company to reformulate a new version of the vaccine, called AdCLD-CoV19-1. Cellid expects to finish the Phase 1 trial of the updated vaccine in October 2021 and plans on getting final safety and efficacy results in the second quarter of 2022. The company plans to run the Phase 3 trial as a comparison between Cellids vaccine and Johnson & Johnsons, but it is having difficulty securing enough J&J doses to run the study.



PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES



Russian biotechnology company BIOCAD has developed a vaccine that uses a type of virus known as an adenovirus-associated virus as a vector. The virus, called AAV-5, carries a gene encoding part of the spike protein from the coronavirus. They registered a Phase 1/2 trial for the vaccine, called BCD-250, on Sept. 8, 2021.



PHASE 1



Three decades ago, the German Center for Infection Research developed a smallpox vaccine from a harmless virus called Modified Vaccinia Ankara, or MVA for short. In recent years, they adapted it to create a vaccine for MERS, a disease caused by another coronavirus.



In the spring of 2020, they made an MVA-based vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that is causing the Covid-19 pandemic. It carries the gene for the spike protein, which is produced inside cells that it invades. On Sept. 29, 2020, the center and a consortium of German universities registered a Phase 1 trial. In January 2021, the center announced that their initial formulation provided disappointing results and had postponed the trial until they updated it. They said that they resumed the trial with an updated version of the vaccine on July 16, 2021, and completed the trial that August.



The researchers announced in November that they are evaluating an MVA-based vaccine in Phase 1 trials as a booster and in unvaccinated individuals.



PHASE 1



Gritstone bio has developed experimental vaccines in recent years that teach the immune system to attack tumors. In 2020, they constructed a vaccine for Covid-19 that presents a number of targets in the coronavirus for the immune system to attack.



The researchers constructed a piece of DNA that encodes the entire spike protein of the coronavirus. In addition, it encodes instructions for building small pieces of other viral proteins called nucleocapsid and ORF3a. They then inserted this cassette into the genes of a chimpanzee adenovirus. The spike protein provokes the body to make antibodies, while the pieces of other proteins train the immune system to recognize infected cells and kill them.



In addition, the researchers created an RNA molecule with the same genetic instructions, which they put in a shell. Once the shell slips into a cell, the RNA molecule can make copies of itself, and the cell then makes proteins from those copies.



In a Phase 1 trial launched in March 2021, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is testing how well these two vaccines work together, with the chimpanzee adenovirus serving as the first dose and the self-amplifying mRNA as the second. The researchers hope that this combination will produce a better immune response than two doses of either vaccine.



PHASE 1



Meissa Vaccines has developed a vaccine that can be delivered as a spray or drops into the nose. To make the vaccine, researchers started off with another virus, called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV for short). The researchers introduced mutations into the RSV viruss genes so that it replicated too slowly to cause disease. Then they added a gene for the coronavirus spike protein, so that the weakened RSV viruses could present it to the immune system. A study on monkeys released in July 2021 showed that the vaccine could produce antibodies in the noses of the animals and protect them from Covid-19. The initial data from a Phase 1 trial, announced Oct. 28, indicate that the vaccine can also produce high levels of antibodies against the coronavirus in peoples noses. The full results of the trial will be released in 2022.



PHASE 1



Researchers at Oklahoma-based Tetherex Pharmaceuticals have created a vaccine that uses genetically engineered viruses to develop immunity. They registered a Phase 1 trial in Australia on April 9, 2021. Mayo Clinic announced a deal to develop and market the vaccine technology worldwide on July 6.



PHASE 1



Scientists at the University of Georgia and the University of Iowa have developed a vaccine based on canine parainfluenza virus, which has never been found to cause disease in humans. They engineered it to carry proteins from the coronavirus. The vaccine, called CVXGA1, is administered as a nasal spray. In July 2021, the researchers published a study showing that a single dose of the vaccine could protect mice and ferrets against Covid-19. A spin-off company called CyanVac took the intranasal vaccine, called CVXGA1, to Phase 1 trials the same month, and enrolled the first participant in late September.



PHASE 1



Researchers at Australian biotechnology company EnGeneIC have modified their cancer treatment platform to carry a molecular payload that targets the coronavirus. They are producing the vaccine, known as COVID-19-EDV, primarily for people with compromised immune systems. On Sept. 7, EnGeneIC announced that it had begun a Phase 1 trial in Australia.



PHASE 1



Canadian researchers at McMaster University are testing the effectiveness of two viral vector vaccines as a booster in adults who have already received two doses of an mRNA vaccine. They plan to administer the candidates into the lungs using a nebulizer. On Oct. 26, the researchers registered a Phase 1 trial.



ABANDONED



The American company Merck acquired the Austrian firm Themis Bioscience in June to develop their vaccine, which had been originally developed at Institut Pasteur. The vaccine used a weakened measles virus that carries a gene for the coronavirus spike protein. Researchers launched a Phase 1 trial in August 2020. On Jan. 25, Merck announced it was abandoning the effort, because the vaccine provoked a response that was weaker than a natural infection. In March they entered into a partnership with Johnson & Johnson to help produce their vaccine instead.



ABANDONED



In addition to its project with Themis, Merck partnered with IAVI on a second viral vector vaccine. It was based on vesicular stomatitis viruses, the same approach Merck successfully used to produce the first approved vaccine for Ebola. They designed their coronavirus vaccine as a pill, which could have made it easier to distribute than syringes for injections. Merck and IAVI received $38 million from the United States government to support their research, and on September 30, 2020, they registered a Phase 1 trial. But on Jan. 25, 2021, they announced they were abandoning the effort because the vaccine failed to trigger an immune system comparable to what happens in a natural infection of Covid-19.



ABANDONED



Vaccine name: AdCOVID

Efficacy: Unknown

Dose: 1 dose

Type: Nasal spray

Storage: Refrigerated



Maryland-based Altimmune is a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on developing vaccines delivered by nasal spray. They developed a nasal spray vaccine for Covid-19, delivering the Ad5 adenovirus to the airway. Studies on the immune system suggests that a nasal spray could be more effective for blocking the transmission of the virus than vaccines given by injection. In a study on mice, Altimmune researchers found that a single dose of the vaccine gave complete protection from a lethal infection of coronaviruses. On Dec. 22, 2020, the company registered a Phase 1 clinical trial of a single dose of the vaccine.



But on June 29, 2021, Altimmune announced they were abandoning their Covid-19 vaccine. In their Phase 1 trial, they gave the spray to 80 volunteers and found that they produced substantially lower levels of antibodies than produced by Covid-19 vaccines that have already been authorized.



PRECLINICAL



Other viral vector vaccines in active preclinical development include vaccines from: ID Pharma; KU Leuven and Batavia Biosciences; Smorodintsev Flu Research Institute; the Spanish National Center for Biotechnology and the Spanish National Research Council; Thomas Jefferson University and Bharat Biotech; Tonix Pharmaceuticals; University of Helsinki, University of Eastern Finland, and Rokote Laboratories Finland; University of Pittsburgh; University of Western Ontario; Valo Therapeutics and University of Helsinki; Vivaldi Biosciences; Walvax Biotechnology, Tsinghua University, and Tianjin Medical University; Zydus Cadila.



Protein-Based Vaccines

Vaccines that contain coronavirus proteins but no genetic material. Some vaccines contain whole proteins, and some contain fragments of them. Some pack many of these molecules on nanoparticles.

PHASE 3

APPROVED IN TURKMENISTAN EARLY USE IN RUSSIA



Vaccine name: EpiVacCorona, Aurora-CoV

Efficacy: Unknown

Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart

Type: Muscle injection

Storage: Stable in refrigerator for up to two years



On Aug. 26, 2020, the Vector Institute, a Russian biological research center, registered a Phase 1/2 trial for a coronavirus vaccine they call EpiVacCorona. The vaccine contains small portions of viral proteins, known as peptides. Results from EpiVacCoronas Phase 1/2 trial were published in an obscure Russian journal in late March 2021, but the data has concerned outside experts, who have pointed out serious flaws in the study.



Less than two months after the launch of the trial, on Oct. 14, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has granted regulatory approval to the vaccine, making it the second one to receive that designation after the Gamaleya Institutes Sputnik V vaccine. The following month, a Phase 3 trial began. In January 2021, without any results yet from the trial, Russia launched a mass vaccination campaign that included EpiVacCorona. Critics in Russia asked the government there to stop administering the vaccine until the Phase 3 trial results are published, to no avail. On July 5, Tass reported that the Vector Institute is registering the vaccine under the name Aurora-CoV.



In February, Tass reported that the immune response from EpiVacCorona lasted for approximately a year, but the vaccines creators did not publish the scientific details behind this claim. On March 3, the Vector Institute registered their Phase 3 trial on an international registry, indicating that they expected to deliver preliminary results by September 2021. But they have yet to share that data in a scientific journal.



Approved for use in: Turkmenistan.

Early use in: Russia.



Vector Institute vaccine RUSSIA TURKMENISTAN Approved Early, limi
Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday it was completely unacceptable and reprehensible" for a New Jersey state corrections officer to be part of a group caught on video taunting Black Lives Matter protesters in Gloucester County by reenacting the police killing of George Floyd.

But the Democratic governor stopped short of saying whether the man should lose his state job or his pension because of the incident, which took place in Franklin Township on Monday.

The corrections officer was suspended and rightfully so," Murphy said during his daily coronavirus briefing in Trenton.

He added theres a process underway regarding disciplining the officer.

And beyond that, lets let the process play out," Murphy said. "But completely unacceptable and reprehensible.

The video posted on social media showed a group of men, including the corrections officer, mocking protesters in Franklin Township on Monday, with man kneeling on another mans neck.

Officials said Tuesday the officer was suspended. Online commentators and state employment records identify him as Joseph DeMarco.

A second person who participated in the taunting was fired from their job at FedEx, the company said.

Murphy took to Twitter on Tuesday to condemn the incident.

Mocking George Floyds murder in effort to belittle the calls for justice from our Black and Brown communities is repugnant. I condemn this behavior in the strongest terms possible," the governor wrote. "We wont let the actions of a few distract from our progress toward dismantling systemic racism.

Mocking George Floyds murder in effort to belittle the calls for justice from our Black and Brown communities is repugnant. I condemn this behavior in the strongest terms possible.



We wont let the actions of a few distract from our progress toward dismantling systemic racism. https://t.co/Rb1RUsST5I  Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) June 10, 2020

Murphy, a Democrat, has repeatedly said Floyd should still be alive and America needs to do more work to remove the stain" of systemic racism that continues to plague the country.

The governor on Sunday also marched in a pair of Black Lives Matter protests inspired by Floyds killing while in police custody in Minneapolis earlier this month.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Rodrigo Torrejon contributed to this report.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.
Ukrainian security forces have long charged the Russian actor with terrorism after his controversial appearance in the Donbas warzone in 2014.

Many Ukrainians shared their resentment across social networks after reports emerged claiming a French-based dairy giant Danone released a video commercial featuring Russian movie star Mikhail Porechenkov.

The thing is, Ukrainian security forces have long charged the Russian actor with terrorism after his controversial appearance in the Donbas warzone in 2014.

A Russian propaganda video captured him shooting a massive Utious machine gun at the positions of Ukrainian troops defending the Donetsk airport before it was eventually destroyed and seized by Russian-controlled forces.

An EU Observer author Roman Sohn echoed the outrage on Twitter: "If a Western actor so much as makes a racist or xenophobic comment, it's enough to end their career. But if you're a Russian who participated in a bloody war of aggression, you suffer no damage to your reputation or career. In fact, it gets you hired by @Danone."

If a Western actor so much as makes a racist or xenophobic comment, it's enough to end their career. But if you're a Russian who participated in a bloody war of aggression, you suffer no damage to your reputation or career. In fact, it gets you hired by @Danone.#BoycottDanonehttps://t.co/z5lUMGJiNE  Roman Sohn (@RomanSohn) June 9, 2020

Danone's Ukraine office has commented on the reverberating issue, noting that they cannot stand aside and find the situation sad, adding, however, that they exercise no control over the "shaping of commercial, advertising, and communication policies in other countries, including in Russia". The company's local officers function independently, the statement adds, addressing challenges arising in the respective markers, "driven by demand of local consumers".
India is inching towards the Covid-19 tally on the United Kingdom, with record daily cases. India has been recording close to 10,000 cases for eight days and its tally reached 2,76,583 on Wednesday, according to the Union health ministry.

The number of Covid-19 cases in the UK is 2,87,403, according to the World Health Organisation dashboard.

However, India is far behind the UK in terms of fatalities. According to WHO, 40,597 people have succumbed to the coronavirus disease in the UK. In India, the number of fatalities reached 7,745 on Wednesday.

The number of cases in the UK have been steadily falling. On Tuesday, it recorded a little over 1,300 cases. In India, the daily increase on June 9 was over 9,500.

Britain has allowed some relaxation in the coronavirus enforced lockdown. British business minister Alok Sharma said on Tuesday that retailers will be allowed to reopen on June 15, subject to social distancing guidelines.

The announcement, which will only apply in England because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own policy on lockdown restrictions, had previously been announced, subject to sufficient progress against the coronavirus being made.

This is the latest step in the careful restarting of our economy and will enable high streets up and down the country to spring back to life, Sharma told reporters.

India too announced relaxations to restart the economy after many sectors were shuttered due to the lockdown announced by the government in March to check the spread of the disease.

The first of the three-phased lockdown came into effect on Monday (June 8) after which religious places, malls, restaurants etc reopened. Cinema halla, gymnasiums, schools and colleges are still closed and the government will take a call on it in July.

India, meanwhile, saw another record addition of nearly 10,000 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday. The country recorded 9,985 cases in the last 24 hours.

According to Union health ministry update at 8 am, the number of active cases in the country are 1,33,632, while those cured or discharged are 1,35,205.
Nairobi County assembly has suspended majority leader Abdi Guyo for a year after missing house sittings amounting to one year.

In a report tabled on Tuesday, Nairobi County Assembly Select Committee on Powers and Privileges found that the Spring Valley/Matopeni Ward MCA had missed 11 consecutive plenary sittings between January 2020 and March 2020.

The committee further noted that Abdi Guyo did not have justifiable reasons for missing the sittings.

That there is nothing written on record by Abdi Hassan explaining to the speaker why he missed the aforementioned sittings That Hon Abdi Hassan by failing to attend eleven sittings without any justifiable reason, he is in breach of standing order 242 and Article 194 whose consequences is the declaration of a vacancy in the seat of the member for Matopeni, the report reads in part.

According to the committee, Guyo was given a fair hearing to respond to the allegations but he instead rubbished the committee as a kangaroo court.

Assembly speaker Beatrice Elachi on Tuesday ordered Guyo not to set foot at the assembly precincts until the suspension elapses.

Hon Abdi Hassan shall not be allowed in the assembly precincts for the next assembly sittings and cease to enjoy all the privileges entitled to him as a member of the county assembly. Office of the clerk together with sergeant at arms are required to fully enforce these decisions, she said.
EL PASO, Texas, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- DATAMARK, a leading business process outsourcing (BPO) company, recently released "Should You Outsource Finance and Accounting?" The narrative breaks down red flags that signify it's time to start exploring BPO, some of the benefits of outsourcing, and a few considerations to keep in mind when deciding to move forward. Those interested in reading it in its entirety can do so at DATAMARK.net now.

DATAMARK Inc.

The spotlight on outsourced finance and accounting functions is part of DATAMARK Insights, a virtual library with articles, whitepapers, videos, and other media, covering topics like efficiency, service, and profitability. Helpful for any business, but designed for large enterprises and government agencies, the series offers practical tips, and actionable steps leaders can take to strengthen and grow their organizations.

"Should You Outsource Finance and Accounting?" notes that a multitude of benefits ranging from business continuity through error reduction can be attained through bringing in a third party. In this sense, the decision to outsource finance or accounting functions can save companies money through risk mitigation in addition to efficiency.

"Companies often think that it's an all-or-nothing deal when it comes to outsourcing," explains DATAMARK President, Bill Randag. "The reality is, you don't have to outsource all accounting functions or all finance functions in one package. If you know which areas you need the most help with, you can outsource specific tasks, or our process engineers can evaluate what's happening and make recommendations."

He says that sometimes companies are struggling with aspects of receivables, such as invoice and collections processes, or portions of accounts payable, such as purchase order management or employee expense processing. These individual components can be addressed through outsourcing on their own. Companies can outsource the whole department or add in more services, such as creating a digital mailroom to expedite the processing of all incoming items.

"It's about finding the right fit for the organization," Randag expands. "DATAMARK has been in the business for more than 30 years, so our team knows how to uncover hidden opportunities to increase efficiency while building a company's value and attaining its key objectives."

Randag adds that DATAMARK has facilities all over the world and resources like state-of-the-art tech, which enable the BPO company to fine-tune processes even further. Those interested in learning more about how BPO works or want to explore outsourcing some or all their finance and accounting functions are encouraged to visit DATAMARK.net.

Chelsea Hill

915-242-6117

[email protected]

www.DATAMARK.net

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Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel's government must stop using its domestic security agency to tackle the novel coronavirus by tracking mobile phone data, the head of a parliamentary committee said Wednesday.

The government had controversially approved Shin Bet's use of surveillance as an emergency measure in mid-March as mounting numbers of Israelis tested positive for the Covid-19 illness.

The specifics were kept secret, but security officials said the agency tracked the movements of virus carriers through their phones.

The measure was challenged in Israel's top court, which ruled that the government must get the law changed if it wanted to continue with the policy.

A parliamentary oversight committee on Monday granted the government another 48 hours to start the legislative progress.

But by Wednesday it became apparent the government did not intend to go down that path.

"As of midnight today, it will not be legal to use the Shin Bet to locate phones as part of the battle against the coronavirus," said Zvi Hauser, chairman of the parliamentary foreign and defence committee.

"The fact the government has decided at this point to not go ahead with (such) legislation... proves that our committee's insistence on using alternatives was taken into account," he said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his decision to bypass parliament at the time, arguing lives could be lost while lawmakers debated legislation.

Hauser said he hoped that the government would find other solutions, turning to legislation only in case of "a crucial need that cannot be answered by civilian means."

Israel, which has a population of around nine million, announced its first coronavirus patient on February 21.

Since then it has confirmed more than 18,180 cases, including 299 deaths.

Earlier this week, Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman told members of a ministerial committee he was against his agency being involved in coronavirus tracking, a security official said.

Story continues

The spy agency's surveillance programme had raised concerns about patient privacy and Israel's adherence to democratic norms.

Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, from the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank, said falling infection rates had "proven that it is possible to use epidemiological investigations" to tackle the virus.

She called for alternatives which could better ensure privacy, such as the voluntary use of mobile phone apps which have been introduced in other countries.
A 32-year-old Wisconsin Dells man faces up to six years in prison for allegedly threatening to shoot a police officer in the face at Divine Savior hospital in Portage.

Dennis B. Lloyd also faces two misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct.

According to the criminal complaint, Wisconsin Dells police responded to a disturbance at Nigs Bar at about 11:15 p.m. Thursday where they found Lloyd laying on the sidewalk outside. A bar employee told police Lloyd had been trying to start fights with patrons, and when the employees then removed him from the bar, Lloyd charged at them. The employees at one point needed to hold the door shut to prevent Lloyd from re-entering the bar.

The complaint states Lloyd later got into a fight outside the bar with unknown males who had left the area before police arrived at the scene. Police called an ambulance for Lloyds injuries and then Lloyd directed several expletives at police and emergency personnel before being arrested, restrained on a stretcher and taken to Divine Savior.
A federal appeals court has refused to free the former president of a nonprofit mental health clinic from an order to pay more than $2.3 million in restitution for stealing from the agency.

In doing so, the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit rejected Renee Tartagliones claims that she didnt receive a fair trial.

It also discounted her argument that she shouldnt have to pay over $2 million of the restitution to the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office, which will hold it in trust for a successor charitable agency to Tartagliones defunct Juniata Community Mental Health Clinic.

The circuit court ruling that leaves the 64-year-old Philadelphia woman on the hook for the restitution and a nearly 7-year federal prison term was outlined in an opinion by Judge Peter J. Phipps.

Phipps rejected Tartagliones contention that her July 2017 trial was tainted when Chief Deputy Attorney General Mark Pacella was allowed to testify for the prosecution regarding the clinics charitable status and the applicable law. That was informative for the jury, not prejudicial to Tartaglione, Phipps found.

He also gave no credence to her argument that $959,100 of her ordered restitution should be stricken because she never actually received that misappropriated money. It went directly to contractors who were working on a property she owned, Tartaglione said.

Prosecutors said Tartaglione committed her crimes between 2007 and 2015. They said she raised the clinics rent for a building she owned by more than 500 percent then had the clinic pay to rehab a building she owned and was to rent to the clinic for a cost that was wildly in excess of the market rate.

All this time, the clinic was receiving millions of dollars in federal funding to provide mental health care to economically disadvantaged people.

Tartaglione, a prominent Philadelphia Democrat whose mother was Philadelphias election chief and whose sister is state Sen. Christine Tartaglione, was convicted on 53 charges, including conspiracy, fraud, theft and tax offenses. More than $250,00 of her restitution must be paid to the IRS.
UN expert urges reconsideration of sanctions on North Korea amid pandemic

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 3:29 PM

A United Nations (UN) human rights expert has called on the UN Security Council to "reconsider [the] sanctions" imposed on North Korea as they are worsening an alleged humanitarian crisis in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, warned in a statement on Tuesday that the sanctions, imposed on Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as the country's closure of its borders following the coronavirus pandemic had interrupted food supplies and subsequently precipitated a humanitarian crisis in the Asian country.

Quintana voiced alarm at what he called "widespread food shortages and malnutrition" in North Korea after a nearly five-month closure of the country's borders with China and strict quarantine measures against the viral outbreak. He said Pyongyang's decision to shut down its borders since January had led to a 90-percent reduction in trade with China and the loss of revenues in March and April.

"The crisis highlights the economic hardships facing North Koreans, and the detrimental impact of sanctions on the fulfillment of basic economic and social rights," Quintana said.

The UN human rights expert said that "prospects of a further deepening of food shortages and widespread food insecurity are alarming," as he claimed there had been reports of an increase in the number of homeless people in large cities and a sharp rise in the prices of medicine.

Pyongyang has in recent years been subject to multiple Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs. The US has spearheaded those sanctions and has imposed rounds of its own.

Moreover, Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), told a news briefing in Geneva that the humanitarian situation in North Korea "remains bleak."

More than 10 million people, or 40 percent of the North Korean population, need humanitarian aid, she said.

"Malnutrition has been persistent and widespread, causing long-term damage to the health and development of children, as well as pregnant and nursing mothers," Byrs said.

The new coronavirus, which causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19, first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year.

The pandemic has so far infected over 7.13 people across the world and claimed the lives of over 406,000 others, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

North Korea has introduced intense measures against the coronavirus disease outbreak even though it has reported no cases. The country has banned almost all cross-border travel and puts foreigners in quarantine as a precautionary measure.

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Antifa Investigations Will Take Time to Be Effective, Former FBI Agent Says

While Attorney General William Barr revealed that there are multiple investigations into the anarcho-communist group Antifa underway, that doesnt necessarily mean arrests are imminent. These kinds of investigations, if done right, usually take a long time, according to a former FBI special agent.

Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray singled out Antifa as one of the culprits behind the instigation of violence during recent protests sparked by the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis.

According to Marc Ruskin, a 27-year FBI veteran and contributor to The Epoch Times, it isnt the FBIs place to go from city to city arresting people for arson or lootingthose are local matters. When it comes to Antifa and similar groups, the FBI would likely pursue an organized crime investigation or, if the group will be so designated, a domestic terrorism probe.

Yet, for such an investigation, in order to be effective, it has to be long-term, Ruskin told The Epoch Times.

Barr told Fox News on June 8 that federal authorities are conducting investigations into certain individuals tied to Antifa.

We have some investigations underway and very focused investigations on certain individuals that relate to Antifa, Barr said. It isnt clear when those investigations began.

The advantage of a thorough, long-term investigation is that the organization can essentially be dismantled, Ruskin said.

If theres a two-year investigation or one-year investigation and results in the arrest of 30 members or high-level members, then it can  really be very effective, he said.

One particular approach that came to mind, he said, was charging Antifa members under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which allows for longer sentences for people involved in a criminal organization.

RICO penalties are significant. People go to jail for decades for RICO violations, Ruskin said.

Putting important members behind bars for decades not only cripples the organization, but also deters others who may have thought it was a lot of fun to destroy the system, but may reconsider when they see that their buddies are now serving 28-year prison terms.

Barr acknowledged that Antifa is very loosely organized, but said there are people who can be characterized as leaders in any given situation.

At least some parts of the group are highly organized, including initiation procedures, security protocols, and lectures on violent action, according to an undercover reporter who infiltrated the Antifa cell in Portland, Oregon, on behalf of Project Veritas, an investigative journalism nonprofit.

The reporter said the Portland cell, called Rose City Antifa, seems much more structured, almost like a company or like a business, so I feel like there is some type of outside funding, influence, or resources being used.

There appear to be sources of funding, and we are looking into the sources of funding, Barr said. Theres clearly some high degree of organization involved at some of these events and coordinated tactics that were seeing, and were looking into that as well.

The FBI would likely be following the money, Ruskin said.

They have to be getting funding from somewhere.  If its getting down to the cell, then theres got to be a way to trace it back up somewhere, he said.

The FBI would likely send undercover agents and informants to infiltrate Antifa or to befriend its members, Ruskin said. The infiltrators could even be authorized to commit crimes in order to gain credibility with the members, he said.

Other major tools would include electronic intercepts and physical surveillance.

FBIs putting a tail on somebody is not like in the movies, Ruskin said.

The surveillance team would have multiple members, and each would only share a part of the task, so the subject cant tell whether hes being watched and by whom.

The technique is very sophisticated and almost impossible to detect, he said.

They become like ghosts.

The decentralized nature of Antifa wouldnt be enough to derail such an investigation, in Ruskins view.

They may be able to make it harder, but at the end of the day, the resources of the FBI are pretty impressive, he said.
While Telangana and Tamil Nadu have cancelled the 10th class exams because of the COVID-19 situation, Andhra Pradesh education minister Adimulapu Suresh has said that the exams in the state would be held as per the revised schedule from July 10.

The exams that were to be held from March 23 were deferred because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, exams are planned from July 10 to 15, with six instead of the regular 11 papers. Suresh said that all precautions would be taken to ensure safety of the students, including compulsory face masks and safe distancing between the candidates.

Telangana, which was keen to conduct the exams scheduled from June 8, had to cancel them following the state high court order disallowing exams in Hyderabad area, which is reporting an alarming number of cases daily. Chief minister Chandrasekhar Rao decided to promote all the 5.35 lakh SSC students in Telangana with grades based on internal assessment marks.

Students and teachers are demanding the same system in AP too for this year, to save the children from possibility of contacting the virus at the examination centres.

Andhra Pradesh is also reporting a high number of fresh cases. The state has till now recorded a total of 5,247 cases, with 218 of them reported on Wednesday. A total of 78 deaths are registered as because of COVID-19 and comorbidities.
Atlanta

Voters waited as long as five hours to cast ballots in some Georgia precincts on Tuesday amid reports of voting machine malfunctions and high turnout in a state that President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden are expected to hotly contest in the fall.

The state's chief elections officer, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, announced plans to investigate voting problems that plagued Fulton and Dekalb counties, where roughly half the population is black.

Widespread problems included trouble with Georgia's new voting system that combines touchscreens with scanned paper ballots in races for president, U.S. Senate and dozens of other contests. Some voters said they joined the lines after requesting mail-in ballots that never arrived. One state lawmaker, Democratic Rep. William Boddie of Atlanta, said there was a "complete meltdown."

Americans were also voting Tuesday in primaries in West Virginia, Nevada and South Carolina following months of social restrictions to guard against the spread of COVID-19 and a week of massive protests against police brutality that energized the African American community and its white allies.

But the tumult in Georgia garnered much of the attention and served as a test of how to conduct elections in the era of coronavirus. The pandemic kept some poll workers at home, forced the consolidation of some voting precincts and prompted a sometimes confusing shift to absentee ballots. Some voters said they were determined to participate in the democratic process after the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing demonstrations that swept cities across the nation, including Atlanta.

Benaiah Shaw, who joined the protests against police brutality after Floyd's death, said he votes in every election but had never waited as long as he did on Tuesday  five hours.

"It's really disheartening to see a line like this in an area with predominantly black residents," said Shaw, a 25-year-old African-American.

Voters were also forced to wait hours to cast ballots in recent primary contests across Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. While there were no reports of machine malfunctions in other states, the number of voting places was dramatically reduced in virtually every state that has held in-person voting in recent weeks to accommodate a drop in poll workers.

The consolidation has disproportionately affected urban minority communities, although long lines were reported on Tuesday in whiter suburban areas as well.
A group of migrants seeking asylum in the US have issued a plea for help, writing in a letter that they have been forced to work in unsanitary conditions while detained amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In the letter published on Wednesday, the migrants claimed they were made to work without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) in areas considered hot spots for spreading the novel coronavirus, including the kitchen and medical facilities.

The migrants said there were no social distancing measures in place at the La Palma Correction Centre near Phoenix, Arizona, a detention facility overseen by CoreCivic, the largest private prison corporation in the country.

Other allegations included forced work cleaning units where sick patients were treated by nurses, a lack of hygienic products like toilet paper and poor quality face masks that were only issued to migrants after they begged for PPE. If migrants refused to comply with work orders from guards, the letter said they were threatened with indefinite lock-ins or being sent to solitary confinement, otherwise called the hole.

We are fleeing the dictatorships in our countries, and came to this country seeking political asylum, the letter began. What we have received is the deprivation of our freedom and the violation of our rights, which we want to repeat and make public through this document.

'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities Show all 6 1 /6 'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities 'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities Photos of detained migrants crowded into cells at the US border - with one holding up a sign reading simply "help" - have been released as part of a new report warning of "dangerous" overcrowding. The memo was sent to the Department of Homeland Security by its Inspector General, containing photos taken at border facilities in the Rio Grande Valley over a week in June DHS/OIG 'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities Eighty-eight adult males held in a cell with a maximum capacity of 41, some signalling prolonged detention to OIG Staff on June 12 DHS/OIG 'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities Overcrowding of families observed by OIG on June 11, at a border patrol facility in Weslaco, Texas DHS/OIG 'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities Migrant families overcrowding a border patrol facility on June 11 in McAllen, Texas DHS/OIG 'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities Fifty-one adult females held in a cell designated for male juveniles with a capacity for 40 at Border Patrols Fort Brown Station DHS/OIG 'Dangerous' overcrowding of migrants in US border facilities Migrant families overcrowding a border patrol facility on June 11 in McAllen, Texas DHS/OIG

The migrants went on to say their families were worried about the spread of Covid-19 within the detention centre. At least 78 detains at La Palma have tested positive for the virus, according to US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

We have been locked up at times for periods of three days without being able to shower or communicate with our families, the letter read. The guards continue to come in and out of the tank and they are not wearing basic protective equipment necessary for prevention.

Migrants also alleged they were receiving poor nutrition inside of the detention centre, writing: For dinner we were given two [slices] of rotten ham and two portions of bread, we protested and all 98 of the detainees returned our meals and that day there was no dinner even though we showed them the rotted ham.

The letter was sent to the Florence Immigrants & Refugees Rights Project, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of the migrants, along with the American Civil Liberties Union.

The federal lawsuit, filed earlier this week, argues that the migrants were being unlawfully detained in the detention facility, which the groups described as tinderboxes on the verge of explosion. Lawyers for the migrants demanded their release from detainment, citing a delay in immigration cases due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Laura Belous, an attorney for the legal advocacy group, said in a statement to NBC News: Our clients have told us over and over again it's impossible to practice social distancing in detention.

She added: It's impossible to maintain that six feet of distance when the telephone you're sitting on to talk to your lawyer is one to three feet from the other guy on the phone. When you're in communal showers. When 40 to 50 guys are touching the same door. That disease is going to spread like wildfire. And the fact is, it has."

More than 1,300 migrants previously detained in the US have been released amid the pandemic due to court orders, as well as reviews conducted by ICE.

The agency declined to comment on the letter, but told NBC News the health, welfare and safety of detained migrants are one of ICEs highest priorities.
Hundreds of protesters in Oxford rallied outside the universitys Oriel College on Tuesday (local time) to demand the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, reported CNN.

The long-running campaign to remove the statue has been reinvigorated after the recent Black Lives Matter protests across the world following the death of George Floyd, the report said.

This comes a day after anti-racism protesters in the UK pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol on Monday.

The death of George Floyd on May 25 in the US has sparked a worldwide movement against police brutality, racism and social injustice, as a video showing a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyds neck after the latter had been arrested, was widely circulated online on the next day.

CNN reported that members of the Oxford crowd on Tuesday took a knee, put their fists in the air and kept silent for 8 minutes and 46 seconds the amount of time Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyds neck.

According to CNN report, Cecil Rhodes was one of the leading figures in British imperialism at the end of the 19th Century, pushing the empire to seize control over vast areas of southern Africa, first as a businessman and later as prime minister of Cape Colony in what is now South Africa.

Meanwhile, nearly, two weeks after his death in Police Custody, Family and friends honoured George Floyd at a private funeral in the US city of Houston. Floyds casket was rolled into the church by six men wearing black suits and masks.
Heiko Maas warns Israel that the plan to begin annexing parts of the occupied West Bank would violate international law.

Germanys Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has warned Israel that its plan to begin annexing parts of the occupied West Bank would violate international law, but he declined to say how Germany or Europe would respond.

Maas made the remarks during his visit to Jerusalem on Wednesday, just weeks before Israel intends to seize the areas of the Palestinian territory where illegal Israeli settlements are located, in line with a proposal by US President Donald Trumps that he dubbed a Middle East plan.

Maas said Germany and the European Union seek dialogue with Israel. But he made clear that Europe considers annexation incompatible with international law.

I have not set up any price tags. We are in agreement in the EU that we seek dialogue. Today, I am in Israel to be informed about the plans of the new government, Maas said.

Redrawing the map

The annexation plan has come under harsh criticism from some of Israels closest allies, including Germany, who say that unilaterally redrawing the Middle East map would destroy any lingering hopes for establishing a Palestinian state and reaching a two-state peace agreement.

Many people in Israel  and also in the European Union  are preoccupied with the current developments in the Middle East peace process and the possible annexation plans, Maas said prior to his departure.





Germany remains committed to the goal of a negotiated two-state solution. We will also talk about this, and I will underline that we are ready to support all initiatives to revive talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Germany, already a key European power broker, will be taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union and assuming the presidency of the UN Security Council next month.

After meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Maas is also scheduled to consult with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

Later in the day, he will travel to neighbouring Jordan to meet his counterpart there and hold a conference call with Palestinian leaders.

The US proposal envisions bringing about one-third of the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967, under permanent Israeli control, while granting the Palestinians expanded autonomy in the remainder of the territory.

The Palestinians, who seek all of the West Bank as part of an independent state, have rejected the plan, saying it overwhelmingly favours Israel.

In response, they have cut off key security ties with Israel and say they are no longer bound to agreements signed.
The concept of theranostics revolves around the stratification of patients into specific groups based on their response to different treatments and their disease risks. Radioactive drugs are used in combination to diagnose a disease and deliver the complementary drug to a molecular target. The main purpose of theranostics is to create an all-in-one package to treat and diagnose at the same time. Some of the latest drug delivery systems used to treat severe diseases, usually different types of cancers, are based on personalized medicine models with novel therapeutic approaches involving the direct targeting of macromolecules to biochemical sites of action. The use of nanotechnology in drug design has led to the creation of nanotheranostics. Molecular mechanisms and nanotechnology provide valuable information for therapy and innovative design for treatment that are integrated by nanotheranostic approach. The significance of nanotheranostic design is in the ability to perform controlled drug release and distribution, leading to increased bioavailability. Targeting sites with nanotheranostic carriers provide specific delivery to regions such as the cancer microenvironment, which is useful for treating cancer.

The highlights of the book include an overview in cancer nanotheranostics with information about the function and mechanism of the non-cellular components in cancer. The improvements of cancer immunotherapies through this biological strategy are also discussed in addition to different gene delivery vectors and platforms at the nanoscale. Methodology and applications of the techniques used in the development of therapeutic nanoparticles are explained. The role of non-coding RNAs as biopharmaceutical tools in cancer are reviewed. Practical clinical applications in chemotherapy and nuclear medicine that offer diagnosis and treatment effectiveness in real-time are discussed as well.

Since targeting small organic molecules are common, this book mainly focuses on the use of DNA, protein and immunotherapy for cancer treatment. Different applications for cancer treatment are in progress but the basic strategies are similar. The authors hope this book will help both early career scientists and experienced researchers environment to understand current trends and challenges in cancer treatment, in turn, enabling them to widen the scope of their projects.

###

About the Editor:

Dr. Yusuf TUTAR obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Oregon State University and Texas Tech University, respectively. He pursued his postdoctoral study at the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIDDK), USA. His research focuses on biochemistry, biophysics, genetics, and molecular biology with specialization in the fields of protein structure-function, protein folding, prion, microRNA, pseudogenes, molecular cancer, proteomics, genomics, protein expression and characterization by spectroscopic and calorimetric methods. Dr. Tutar is currently continuing his research on drug design at the University of Health Sciences, Turkey. He is the head of biochemistry division at the Hamidiye Faculty of Pharmacy and the head of molecular medicine division at Hamidiye Health Science Institutes.

Dr. Tutar received 15 awards, including the National Young Scientists Award-Turkey, FEBS-EU, Teach Academy-USA, the Honor Society Membership-Texas. He is the author of 80 articles, 24 book/book-sections and EBM of Bentham Medical Books, Anticancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry, and Medicinal Chemistry journals.

Keywords:

Nanotheranostics, Radioactive drugs, cancer, nanotechnology, Molecular mechanisms, immunotherapies, drug delivery systems, chemotherapy, nuclear medicine

For further information, please visit:

https://benthambooks.com/book/9789811456916/
The Sudanese irrigation ministry announced on Wednesday that the Ethiopian delegation participating in the online tripartite talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has promised to submit a comprehensive proposal for future GERD meetings.

In a statement on the ongoing talks between the Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopias irrigation ministers over the GERD, the Sudanese irrigation ministry said that Egypt held the Washington and World Bank-brokered document on the dam on 21 February as the basis for the meeting.

Egypt is the only country that initialed the document. Washington failed to secure the signatures of Ethiopia and Sudan.

Egypt demanded on Tuesday that Ethiopia to present a time frame for the talks to avoid stalling.

According to the Sudanese irrigation ministry, the online tripartite talks over the GERD will continue on Thursday and will be hosted by Ethiopia.

This is the first round of talks between the three sides since February, when Ethiopia pulled out of the Washington meeting.

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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

The European Commission will recommend EU member states begin to reopen their external frontiers to travellers from outside the bloc from July 1, diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday.

The decision on easing restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus rests with national capitals, but Borrell said Brussels would suggest "a gradual and partial lifting" of the ban.

EU member states have begun to ease temporary restrictions on non-essential crossing of the borders within the bloc, with a goal of June 15 for restoring free travel.

At the weekend, the interior ministers of the 27 member states agreed to coordinate a gradual reopening to travellers from outside the Schengen area, Britain and the EU.

But Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said last week that not all countries agreed on the criteria for reopening, with some in more of a hurry than others.

Greece, for example, whose economy depends heavily on tourism, has already announced it will reopen its skies from June 15 to a list of countries, including non-EU states such as Australia, China and South Korea.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
By Laman Ismayilova

A documentary "Stalin's Dark Past" has won Top Award at People of Color: The International Cultural Exchange International Film Festival (US).

Shot by Jalaladdin Gasimov, the film is based on real stories from archives. Bolsheviks of Stalin were gathering money from banks in Tbilisi, Baku, Baku`s oil millionaires each month, and the Nobel brothers were one of those millionaires. Stalin was captured by Tsardom guardians 7 times, he managed to run out of jail in Siberia.

The film was edited by Akbar Goshaly. The documentary was narrated by Eldost Bayram.

The first People of Color: The International Cultural Exchange International Film Festival (2020) celebrated City College of New Yorks 100th anniversary of founding the oldest continuing documentary film school in the United States.

This year the festival received 3,047 films from 47 countries.

The main goal of the festival is to generate an association with filmmakers, universities and special screening houses worldwide to highlight the challenges and support a common struggle against gender and color segregation.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
On May 25, the Astravets Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), in Belarus, finished receiving nuclear fuel for the initial load of its first reactor (Belta, May 25). These nuclear rods, delivered in batches since May 6, are now ready to be loaded into the reactor, after careful inspection. If all continues to proceed according to plan, the first reactor will be started up in July, with initial output expected in September/October, and the second reactor will start operating in 2021.



For roughly a decade, the Astravets NPP has been a tangible focus of the bitter breakdown in relations between Belarus and Lithuania (see Jamestown.org, May 29). Lithuania argues the Belarusian plant is a threat to its national security, public health, and environment, primarily due to it being constructed just 28 miles from its capital of Vilnius. Lithuania also maintains that the Astravets NPP violates various international safety standards and lacks transparency. Belarus sees the NPP as a vital means for loosening its energy dependence on Russian natural gas. Moreover, Minsk has argued it has more interest than most in ensuring the nuclear plant is safe considering the tragic legacy of the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown on Belarus (Gov.by, May 11). This dispute has also impacted Belaruss wider relations with the European Union, as Vilnius has vetoed the signing of partnership priorities between Minsk and the EU, citing safety concerns over the nuclear power facility.

The Astravets NPP will be a 2,400-megawatt-electric (MWe) plant, with two VVER-1200 reactors. It is being built by Atomstroyexport, an affiliate of Russias state-owned Rosatom. The plant is being financed by Russia with a state loan of up to $10 billion for 25 years, and Moscow is footing 90 percent of the contract. This NPP is not the first of its kind proposed in Belarus: during the 1980s, there were plans to build a nuclear power plant in Rudensk, 50 kilometers south of Minsk, but following the Chernobyl disaster, the project was abandoned.

Related: Wind Energy Investment To Overtake Oil & Gas In 2022 In Europe



The Belarusian Security Council made the decision to construct a nuclear power plant in January 2008, following a bilateral energy dispute with Russia in 2007, just one of a number of oil and gas disagreements between Moscow and Minsk since then (see Jamestown.org, January 31, 2020). The plant is expected to reduce gas imports from Russia by 5 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year (from around 20 bcm today). Belarus has also proposed constructing an additional 1,000 MW coal-fired plant, four hydropower stations with 120 MW capacities, and wind projects that can produce 300 MW, which could reduce dependence on Russian gas even further. However, given that, in 2011, Rosatom, a Russian state-owned nuclear energy company, won the contract to build Astravets, coupled with the Russian state loan to fund the construction, this appears to be dependence in another guise. Notably, Belarus will strongly depend on the contractor for fuel and eventual decommissioning of the plant (World-nuclear.org, May 2020).

At the same time, the NPP will generate a huge power surplus, far oversupplying domestic consumption; but Astravets has yet to secure sufficient export markets. The NPP could eventually power around 2.5 million Belarusian households. In April 2020, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka began to discuss new measures to stimulate domestic residential electricity consumption (Gov.by, April 10). Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine have ruled out importing electricity from the NPP (lrt, May 8), while Latvia and Estonia are reportedly still considering. Moreover, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are currently working to desynchronize their electricity grid from Belarus and Russia and synchronize with the continental European grid, which will eventually present a small but additional technical/investment hurdle for Minsk if it wishes to sell power to its Baltic neighbors. According to the Lithuanian 2019 National Threat Assessment, the Astravets NPP project enhances Russias position in the region, potentially undermining Baltic resynchronization (Vsd.lt, February 2019).

Lithuania has long tried to prevent Astravets construction by seeking to unite the EU in opposition, approaching German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker, the former president of the European Commission, for support. Lithuania also unsuccessfully asked the United States to back its position on the NPP (Baltic Times, April 29, 2020), and even suggested the nuclear plant should be converted to natural gas (BNN, March 5, 2019).

However, in an interview on May 14, 2020, Lithuanian President Gitanas Naus?da conceded that the NPP is effectively an irreversible reality and that Lithuania should instead focus on pressing Minsk to implement proper safety requirements (lrt.lt, May 14). Earlier this year, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevi?ius also noted that dialogue with Minsk had been more constructive, after Belarus agreed to allow European Commission experts to tour the plant (Baltic Times, February 5). This was a marked change of tone from previous Lithuanian attempts to prevent the NPP from going ahead and could signal small steps toward a constructive middle ground, thus opening the door for closer EU-Belarusian relations.

Related: Bahrain To Speed Up Development Of Huge 80 Billion Barrel Oil Reserves

Lithuania has genuine concerns about transparency regarding accidents and safety at the plant. The reactor vessel has already been involved in two known health and safety events. In July 2016, it was dropped from a crane during installation, and the Belarusian authorities did not admit the incident for weeks. The replacement reactor vessel then collided with a railway pylon while being transported (Independent, January 19, 2020). Belarus has attempted to quell some of these concerns by allowing in international organizations to assess the plant, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group. On May 26, there were further concerns when Rosatom announced that 100 workers from the plant are currently infected with the novel coronavirus (Rosatom.ru, May 26).

Many issues are left to address before Lithuania accepts the Astravets NPP, and it will likely never fully approve of the plant due to its location. Lithuanians seem wary of nuclear power in general, defeating a government proposal to open an NPP in Visaginas, Lithuania, by 65 percent in a 2012 referendum. In October 2019, the Lithuanian authorities ran a major emergency preparedness operation imitating a disaster response to a nuclear meltdown. The government also purchased four million iodine pills to be distributed to its citizens. These moves to warn a population about the dangers of Astravets will be difficult to backpedal from. However, reluctant acceptance that the NPP is now nearly complete, and the encouraging signs of dialogue between Minsk and Vilnius, could signal a warming of relations, in turn creating fresh possibilities for boosting Belaruss relations with the EU.

By The Jamestown Foundation

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
One month after promising to impose warning labels on misleading tweets about coronavirus, Twitter is still failing to accurately distinguish factual information from fake news.

Starting in early May, the company has been using artificial intelligence to identify misinformation and apply mild or strong warnings depending on how "dangerous" it is, aiming to expand them to other topics in future.

The policy is part of an ongoing attempt to clean up Twitter's service, which has already entangled both it and its rivals Facebook and Snapchat in a furious row with Donald Trump.

Trump is feuding with his favourite platform, Twitter. Credit:AP

But since then, Twitter's misinformation labels have frequently lapsed into farce, wrongly catching obscene jokes, factual news headlines and complaints about false claims while leaving diehard conspiracy theorists untouched.
The WHO traditionally has taken a cautious approach to evaluating scientific evidence. But the pace of research has changed - now scientists are rushing to publish preliminary research, even before their results can be thoroughly vetted by other experts. The avalanche of findings may bring advances - such as a vaccine - in record time. But the onslaught also has led to confusion, even retractions of high-profile results. "On the one hand, I do want to cut the WHO some slack, because it is hard to do this in an evolving pandemic," said Dr Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. "At the same time, we do rely on the WHO to give us the best scientific data and evidence." The WHO's thinking on asymptomatic transmission does not appear to have changed much since February, when the WHO China Joint Mission reported that "the proportion of truly asymptomatic infections is unclear, but appears to be relatively rare and does not appear to be a major driver of transmission".

Studies later estimated this number could be as high as 40 per cent, the current best estimate from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is 35 per cent. The research prompted many countries to endorse use of masks by everyone. But Monday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead for coronavirus response, said that "it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual". Her statement provoked an immediate backlash from scientists, who noted that study after study had shown transmission of the virus from people before they ever felt symptoms. The reaction prompted the WHO to clarify its position in a live session hosted on Facebook and Twitter. Van Kerkhove said her comment had been based on only two or three studies. "I was just responding to a question; I wasn't stating a policy of WHO or anything like that," she said. Van Kerkhove said her statement was also based on unpublished evidence that some countries have shared with the WHO.

But critics, including its own officials, said the organisation should be transparent about its sources. "WHO's first and foremost responsibility is to be the science leader," said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on National and Global Health Law. "And when they come out with things that are clearly contradicted by the scientific establishment without any justification or citing studies, it significantly reduces their credibility." Loading A key point of confusion is the difference between people who are "pre-symptomatic" and will go on to develop symptoms and those who are "asymptomatic" and never feel sick. Van Kerkhove suggested that her comments were about people who are truly asymptomatic. A widely cited paper published in April suggested that people are most infectious up to two days before the onset of symptoms and estimated that 44 per cent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms.

WHO refers to such people as pre-symptomatic. "OK, technically fine," Jha said. "But for all intents and purposes, they are asymptomatic  they are without symptoms." Van Kerkhove said that by using the two terms, WHO officials are in fact trying to be clear about the group of people they are referring to. "Unfortunately, that's not how everybody uses it," she said. "I didn't intend that to make things more complicated." The WHO continues to maintain that large respiratory droplets expelled by sneezing or coughing are the main route of transmission and to downplay a possible role for aerosols, smaller particles that may linger in the air.

"To date, there has been no demonstration of transmission by this type of aerosol route," said Dr Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO's technical lead on the coronavirus. Loading But the WHO defines airborne transmission too narrowly, some scientists said. Airborne transmission also includes the possibility that the virus is aloft for shorter distances, then inhaled. "They have a very early 20th century, very unsophisticated view of what aerosols and airborne transmission are," said Dr Don Milton, an expert on public health aerobiology at the University of Maryland. Up until the 1950s, Milton said, tuberculosis was thought to be spread by prolonged close contact. "We now know that it's only transmitted by aerosols," he said.
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Protesters take a knee in front of LAPD officers as they close Sunset Boulevard at Vine Street in Hollywood. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Plenty of well-known artists have released up-to-the-minute protest singles in the wake of George Floyd's killing by a Minneapolis cop  YG, Terrace Martin and Trey Songz among them. But none has captured the present mood of defiance quite like "Lose Yo Job."

The viral hit remixed the irresistible audio from a homemade video featuring a 27-year-old South Carolina woman, Johnniqua Charles, as a security guard held her outside a local strip club in February. While the guard detained her, Charles pushed back on his reasons for doing so and then struck up a small dance and chanted "You about to lose yo job" in a delightfully singsongy cadence. "Get this dance! You about to lose yo job, 'cause you are detaining me for nothing!"

The moment was a relatable and extremely meme-able bit of resistance in the face of uniformed authority. Even the guard who posted the video, Julius Locklear, admitted, "Im posting it cause that rap was lit  like I wish I could put a beat to it lol."

But the moment got a second wind when someone actually did. DJ iMarkkeyz, who previously went viral with his remix of Cardi B's prognostications for life under coronavirus, and DJ Suede the Remix God, looped it into a trap beat that blew up the insouciance that made Charles' chant so appealing. DJ Suede has produced for Megan Thee Stallion and YoungBoy Never Broke Again, and turned Charles' small moment of pushback into its own 2020 hip-hop anthem. It's available on every major streaming platform and has already soundtracked giddy moments at local protests.

That You About to Lose Your Job is ringin off in the streets. pic.twitter.com/X2pa6jM6nv  JaValle (@JaValle) June 9, 2020

Remixing amusing viral moments from marginalized people is dicey terrain though, and Locklear stressed he was "NOT POSTING THIS TO BE FUNNY TOWARDS THIS SUBJECT. Turns out, the song ended up doing a lot of good in Charles' life. She had struggled with homelessness before the video, and her 3-year-old child had been in the care of family members. But a GoFundMe campaign riding the song's virality raised $50,000 to help get her back on her feet.

"You cant hear me? Then Im going to sing it to you, Charles told Pitchfork in an interview. "The words just came. And I already know, if this went to your supervisor, you about to lose your job. I know my rights and I know the law."

That, even more than her knack for an impromptu slogan, is likely what fans are responding to. Music has been an undercurrent at big protests  just watch YG's set on the streets of Hollywood. Locklear did not, in fact, lose his job. But after so much pent-up frustration about COVID-19, collapse of faith in government and generations of abuse at the hands of the police, someone stood up with a taunt that the tides were changing.
Italy continues to seek truth on Regeni case, FM 'Sale of frigates to Egypt not yet agreed'

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 10 - Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Wednesday that Italy was continuing to demand ''meaningful progress in the investigation into the case of the brutal murder'' of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Egypt. ''The Italian government and institutions are continuing to demand the truth from Egyptian authorities'' through cooperation, he added in response to a question during a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies. Meanwhile, ''concern remains high on the case of Patrick Zaky, an Egyptian researcher of the University of Bologna who was arrested on February 7, 2020,'' he continued. ''Our embassy will continue to monitor the hearings and Italy will continue to follow the case both through coordination with its international partners and through other channels''. On the sale of Freem (Fincantieri) frigates to Egypt, Di Maio said that the procedure to authorise the end of the talks ''is still underway''. On supplies for Egypt's defense sector, Di Maio said that ''authorisation is subject to strict application'' of legal criteria and that the government examines the cases individually, and that ''in addition to the technical-legal evaluation, the government has obviously decided to conduct a political assessment''. The foreign minister went on to say that Egypt ''remains one of the most important interlocutors in the Mediterranean sector as part of important issues such as the conflict in Libya, the fight against terrorism and illegal trade, as well as migration flows and cooperation in the energy sector.''(ANSAmed).




Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow are among the many celebrity friendships in Hollywood. Theyve known each other for years and thanks to working together in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Paltrow and Susan Downey, the Iron Man actors wife, have become close. Keep reading to learn about the actors first meeting and what Downey Jr. has to say about his wifes friendship with Paltrow.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. meet

RELATED: Robert Downey Jr. Reveals How Gwyneth Paltrow Impacted the Creation of Iron Man

At a film festival in the 1990s is where Paltrow and Downey Jr. first crossed paths. The duo recalled their meeting in a 2013 interview with the Associated Press, according to Oregon Live. After they met, Downey remembers a mutual friend telling him Paltrow had called asking about him.

She was like, What is wrong with him? Who is this guy? Downey Jr. said. She called him up asking, like, if it was going to be essentially bad for her reputation to be hanging out with me.

Paltrow insisted thats not how the conversation went. Downey Jr. explained hed been wild back then. In those days the Doolittle actor made headlines for his drug use.

He was really wild, and I was very naive, Paltrow said. I immediately took a shine to him.  Then he went off the radar for a little while.

As Downey Jr. described it, Paltrow was out there banging out one hit after the next, and I was locked in a bathroom somewhere. So be it. Life is beautiful.

RELATED: How Robert Downey Jr.s Wife, Susan, Developed a Really Great Relationship With Stepson Indio

Stopped by police for speeding in 1996, Downey Jr. got arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, and a gun. In 1999, he was sentenced to three years in prison after violating his probation. But then came along the MCU and the role that would change his status in Hollywood.

They play love interests in Iron Man movies

When Iron Man hit theaters in 2008, Downey Jr. played billionaire inventor Tony Stark aka Iron Man. By his side through it all? His trusty personal assistant and love interest, Pepper Potts, played by Paltrow.

Iron Man kicked off what would become one of the biggest and most profitable movie franchises in history. Throughout the movies that culminated in 2019s Avengers: Endgame Downey Jr. and Paltrows on-screen romance remained. Today, even though their time in the MCU seems to have come to an end, Paltrow and Downey Jr. are still close friends. And their characters relationship is as popular as ever among fans.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Susan Downey keep our doors open to each other, Robert Downey Jr. says

After years of Paltrow and Downey working together in the MCU, a friendship blossomed between the Goop founder and Susan Downey. According to the Sherlock Holmes actor, its his wife and Paltrow who make sure their families see each other despite their busy schedules.

Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Susan Downey attend the premiere of Iron Man 2 | Manfred Segerer/ullstein bild via Getty Images

RELATED: Robert Downey Jr.s Staggering Avengers: Endgame Payday Finally Confirmed

Theyre both, like, type-A, organized, and so Susan and Gwyneth organize our ability to stay close and keep our doors open to each other and be current with each others lives and each others kids, he said.

Paltrow is a mother of two. She and her ex-husband Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, are parents to a daughter, Apple, and a son, Moses. Downey Jr. and his wife have two kids of their own; a daughter named Avri and a son named Exton. Plus, Downey Jr. has a son, Indio, from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer.

Coordinating schedules to see each other is fun for Paltrow. We make an effort, because life can just get so busy and complicated, and we really go out of our way to carve out little pockets of time.

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Introducing new standards, the operational measures of 'Between Us' and interview with the Chief of Operations, Andrew Munt

FRANKFURT, Germany, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As business and leisure guests are steadily returning to Pentahotels, the team at Penta has implemented new 'distance proof' operational measures, guaranteeing guests a safe stay while still providing their relaxed neighbourhood lifestyle vibe. The brand used the lockdown period to prepare for a safe return of its guests, deconstructing and reassembling its entire scope of products and services to provide maximum safety. The result is an enhanced experience with many added benefits for the guests of Pentahotels.

Rogier Braakman, Managing Director of Penta Hotels Worldwide, joined the company in February and has been leading Penta through these challenging times. "Knowing that you are safe while travelling is the most important factor when making a journey," he states. "This is why our most important message to our guests is: we did not rest; we worked hard in all areas of our hotels to remain your choice for a safe and worry-free stay."

Rogier adds: "We have implemented new hygiene and safety standards without jeopardising the special Penta spirit that our guests will still enjoy. We call this new set of measures 'Between Us'. 'Between Us' represents our belief that despite the current situation, something very positive is happening among mankind. It is that special bond we have with our guests and within our teams that, while still respecting physical distance, brings us closer together and makes it work - between us."

To create 'Between Us', Penta studied the regulations and best practices in its different markets and worked together with international health and safety advisors to develop a new operating standard. The brand has already trialled these measures in some locations with much success. The past weeks have been used to forge new partnerships, such as the one with Dutch aviation supplier Foodcase International BV - for guest hygiene kits and F&B solutions; and also to introduce great tools like the an intuitive training app from Knowingo, to train and certify staff on COVID-19 containment.

All reopening dates and information on the new measures can be found at www.pentahotels.com/betweenus.

Interview with Andrew Munt, Chief of Operations at Penta

Q: Andrew, all these measures that travellers are confronted with these days it feels that travelling used to be a more fun before the COVID-19 pandemic, right?

A: Anyone who travels needs to be sure that it is safe to do so and we wanted to actively show the newly implemented safety measures. Our approach aimed to do this while still keeping the inviting, friendly, light-hearted and entertaining spirit of the brand that is Penta.

Q: How do you build the bridge between a safe stay and the Penta experience?

A: First, we deeply reviewed the entire hotel experience. We refined existing procedures and concentrated on those that make a difference to the health and safety of our guests.

All new measures are themed 'Between Us', which is much more than just a catchy phrase. 'Between Us' guides you through the entire guest journey; before arrival, during the stay and after departure.

Q: And where is the fun?

A: The fun starts even before the guest arrives. We created video briefings similar to those explaining the safety features of a plane. Mixed with our own sense of humour of course. Upon arrival, the guest receives a complimentary safety kit, and there is much more for our guests that will help to make it work 'Between Us'.

We designed new routines that appear simple and intuitive to our guests. 'Between Us' should help us reconnect. Everything 'Between Us' should turn the negative into something positive. Something fun.

Q: Is there anything you would like to add?

A: Yes. In the past month, we have seen the personal sacrifices and the uncertainty, but also the commitment, the positivity and the team spirit from everyone who has worked towards the reopening of our hotels. We all worked hard for this moment and it is a great honour welcoming our guests back to a more resilient and even better Penta than before.

To receive the full interview please get in touch with public.relations@pentahotels.com. It features the following additional information:

The Naked Room

Recommendations for Travellers

Adjusted standards for Meeting and Events

Acceptance of Cashless Payments

New App Features

Penta represents a new generation of neighbourhood lifestyle hotels offering modern-minded individuals and business travellers comfort and style in a relaxed atmosphere. Known for its unique interior design and attitude, the lifestyle brand stands for true innovation in the industry's upper-midscale segment. With 28 operating hotels under the brand across Europe and Asia, the hallmark of the hotel chain is the Pentalounge - a combination of lounge, bar, cafe and reception - that stands out with its "living room" look and feel. For further information and bookings, please visit www.pentahotels.com. Follow us on facebook.com/pentahotels and instagram.com/pentahotels for our latest news.

- Picture available at AP Images (http://www.apimages.com) -

Global Marketing & Communications

Phone: +49 (0) 69 256699 760

E-Mail: public.relations@pentahotels.com
Photo taken on June 1 shows a night market in Kaifeng, Central Chinas Henan Province. (Photo/Xinhua)

Dozens of vendors gathered along a 100-meter-long street in the Longquanyi District of Chengdu, southwest Chinas Sichuan province, on the evening of May 29, standing behind booths or stalls and selling everything from clothes and shoes to fruits and local snacks.

Among them, twenty-something Liu Hao and his girlfriend were selling icy jelly, or bingfen, an iconic Chengdu summer snack. A few months ago, they were both laid off from a barbershop and beauty salon due to the coronavirus outbreak. Buoyed by the governments loosened restrictions on roadside business, they decided to start running a street stall, as it was simple and low-cost.

In Chengdu, more than 100,000 people like Liu have started running similar businesses amid the economic downturn caused by coronavirus, thanks to new regulations released by local authorities that allow people to operate stalls on designated areas on streets. For those who have seen their income fall in recent months, the policy is a timely blessing.

So far, at least 27 cities around the country have given the green light to street vendors and business owners to operate businesses outdoors in a bid to ensure people can stay employed. The policy is a good way out for those who were temporarily finding it difficult to make a living, Liu said.

The return of street vendors is a people-oriented policy aimed at increasing the incomes of ordinary people and making peoples lives easier, said Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times.

Survive and thrive

Premier Li Keqiang talks with a street vendor during his recent inspection tour to Yantai, Shandong province. (Photo/gov.cn)

Street stalls have existed in China since ancient times. The early days of Chinas reform and opening-up was a time when they flourished, as the opening of roadside tea stands allowed many young people from the countryside to work in cities. But recent years have seen a drive to build civilized cities, which has resulted in roadside businesses gradually fading away, as they were usually considered an eyesore, dirty and disorganized.

However, in the face of the ongoing impact of the coronavirus epidemic and this years challenging unemployment situation, outdoor businesses have seen a new lease of life in China. While benefiting from the advantages of the street stall economy, namely a low entry threshold, low business risks and low commodity prices, it has also adopted an upgraded and standardized model.

The street stalls in the early days of the reform and opening up were somewhat outdated, but its spirit of entrepreneurship and freedom of consumption is not. Today, we are bringing back the emphasis on this kind of spirit, said Hu Xijin.

Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, has taken the lead in encouraging the return of outdoor businesses. On March 15, the local government rolled out new regulations that allowed people to set up temporary roadside stalls and booths, shops located near streets to temporarily operate in roadside areas, shopping malls to hold promotions in roadside areas, and shop owners to sell goods outside their stores. The city set up 36,000 mobile stalls, creating some 100,000 new jobs overnight.

This move attracted the attention of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who praised Chengdus initiative during this years two sessions. During his recent inspection tour in Yantai in east Chinas Shandong province, he once again brought up the subject of outdoor businesses, saying that the government will provide support for stalls and small stores, which are an important source of job creation.

When enterprises and self-employed businesses on the Chinese market survive and thrive, the country will build a better future, said Premier Li.

With COVID-19 subsiding and economic and social life gradually returning to normal, more and more cities have begun loosening restrictions on roadside stalls and self-employed businesses in order to boost consumption and increase peoples incomes.

For a considerable number of low-income people who have neither capital nor skills, the policy no doubt offers them an opportunity to change their status through their own efforts, said Fu Yifu, director of the Consumer Finance Research Center of Suning Financial Research Institute.

New times, new trends

A bartender performs at a night fair at Sinan Mansions in Shanghai, east China, May 24, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)

As an upgraded version of the street stall economy, outdoor businesses have more scientific, refined and intelligent standards, Zhou Shen, a researcher from the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University, told Peoples Daily Online. In a bid to regulate outdoor business, many places across the country have issued new regulations, such as stipulating specific operating hours and areas for booth and stall vendors.

Wuhou district in Chengdu has issued green cards with serial numbers, business locations, and operating hours and distributed plastic carpets to stall owners for free to encourage them to keep their spots clean. Zhengzhou, capital of central Chinas Henan province, has implemented an odd-even policy for outdoor businesses, allowing vendors with odd number plates to operate on odd dates, and those with even number plates to run on even dates.

On May 27, the Office of the Central Spiritual Civilization Development Steering Commission said that from this year onward, roadside booths, street markets and mobile vendors will no longer be included in the assessment criteria for the title of National Civilized City.

Meanwhile, the support of e-commerce has also brought outdoor businesses more in tune with the times, with Meituan, Alibaba, Tencent and other e-commerce giants announcing measures to support street stalls and small shops.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has released an assistance plan for outdoor businesses, providing more than 70 billion yuan (10 billion US dollars) of interest-free credit purchase to provide goods and financial security to street stall owners. JD.com, Chinas leading e-commerce platform, said it would connect nearly 10,000 brand manufacturers with more than 4,000 joint stores to provide quality goods worth more than 50 billion yuan (7 billion US dollars) for offline retail merchants, so that they can easily obtain low-cost and high-quality goods.

Automobile companies are also giving vendors a leg up. SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile, a joint venture of SAIC Motor, General Motors and Liuzhou Wuling Motors Co. Ltd., launched on June 2 a new microvan with a pair of falcon-wing doors that can be converted into a mobile stall or booth.

Outdoor businesses are not backward, but an important part of the modern economic system, said Liu Gang, director of the Economic Research Institute of Nankai University, adding that the greatest value of outdoor businesses comes from their ability to promote employment through entrepreneurship.

Stopgap or permanent?

Customers visit a toy booth at a night market near Hainan University in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, June 1, 2020. (Photo/Xinhua)

The return of outdoor businesses didnt happen out of the blue. With the COVID-19 epidemic being brought under control, stabilizing employment and ensuring living standards have become the most important issue for authorities to tackle. As a result, the promotion of outdoor businesses is seen as a much-needed move to cope with job losses and boost the economy.

The outbreak pushed Chinas economy into its first contraction in decades last quarter, with GDP shrinking 6.8% from a year ago. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the surveyed urban unemployment rate in February stood at 6.2 percent, up by one percentage point from January, with small- and medium-sized companies suffering the most.

China has 600 million people with a monthly income of 1,000 yuan (USD$140), Premier Li said last month at a press conference following the annual session of the countrys top legislature. We should put the protection of the basic living conditions of these disadvantaged groups in an extremely prominent position, he said.

The Premiers remarks send a signal that a large number of ordinary people currently face employment and income problems, Li Shi, a professor at Beijing Normal University and executive head of the China Institute for Income Distribution, told China Banking News.

For many, bringing back outdoor businesses is only intended as a stopgap, a special policy for a special period of time, while there are still many who see it as a long-term strategy that could boost the domestic economy in the long term.

Cai Fang, deputy dean of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, took an optimistic view of the future of outdoor businesses. In the long run, we believe that cities should be more flexible in their policies. Everyone should be allowed to improve their living standards by working according to their abilities.

Outdoor businesses make up just a small part of innovative urban governance, said Hu Xijin. In making our cities more dynamic and giving our people more options to start businesses and consume, our cities have a great deal of potential to make a difference, he added.
Quarantined Florida residents worried about their laugh lines and crows' feet need frown no longer  Botox is back, and it's being offered at a drive-through.

On May 4, the state allowed a partial relaxing of restrictions imposed to slow the coronavirus pandemic. That means certain elective medical procedures can resume, including Botox injections and cosmetic surgery.

Michael Salzhauer, a plastic surgeon who has starred in a reality television show and is known as 'Dr. Miami', has been conducting drive-through Botox injections in the garage of his building in the posh Miami neighborhood of Bal Harbour.

Pump and go: Plastic surgeon Michael Salzhauer is giving Botox to patients in their cars in Miami Beach

New rules: On May 4, the state allowed certain elective medical procedures to resume, including Botox injections and cosmetic surgery

Creative: Dr. Salzhauer said the idea came to him as he was sitting in his car waiting for a blood test for COVID-19 antibodies

Salzhauer said the idea came to him as he was sitting in his car waiting for a blood test for COVID-19 antibodies.

'The areas that we inject Botox are the upper face  exactly the parts of the face that aren't covered by the mask so it's really ideal,' he told Reuters.

All he had to do was make a few changes as to how he does business. Speaking to Insider, her explained that patients would normally fill out medical paperwork and consent forms in the office.

They'd also pay in person, at the time of the appointment, with fees at about $300 per treatment area.

Now, though, it's all done online: Patients make their appointments via a web portal, fill out necessary forms, and pay beforehand.

When their appointment comes around, they drive behind his Miami Beach office and pull into a pull-in garage.

Running a fever? Patients fill out forms online and get their temperature checked when they arrive. The doctor regularly monitors his temperature, too

Protective gear: They pull into the garage behind his office, where he is waiting in a mask, face shield, and gown

Safety first: He expects patients to also wear masks and stay in their cars

Salzhauer is there waiting in a mask, a face shield, gloves, and a surgical gown, and he has a full cart of necessary medical supplies.

He expects patients to also wear masks and stay in their cars, and he will take each person's temperature before the procedure.

Then he gives each one an ice pack to numb the area before giving injections. All in all, it takes about five minutes per person.

'Just wear a mask, put your head out the car window,' he told the Miami New Times. 'Pull right on up. Five minutes. Boom, boom, Botox, and they're on their way.'

Arman Ohevshalom, 36, was enthusiastic as he waited in line with his wife in their car, although it was their first time receiving the injections.

'It's very creative, and after seeing how they're running it I feel just as comfortable as I would in the office,' he told Reuters.

'The areas that we inject Botox are the upper face  exactly the parts of the face that aren't covered by the mask so it's really ideal,' he said

'It's very creative, and after seeing how they're running it I feel just as comfortable as I would in the office,' added a patient

Florida's tattoo artists, however, are frustrated. Shuttered since March, they asking why they cannot open, too.

Botox injections are 'kind of like tattooing, he's injecting stuff into the skin,' said tattoo shop owner Chico Cortez. Florida is home to about 10,000 working tattoo artists, according to the Florida Professional Tattoo Artist Guild.

An e-mailed statement from a Miami-Dade County spokesperson said Mayor Carlos Gimenez has yet to set a date for reopening tattoo shops.

'He is working with industry members and the medical experts to come up with the best way to reopen safely,' it said.
Some people may be guilty of sharing an article online without reading it and Twitter aims to put a stop to it.

The social media site is testing a new feature that warns users attempting to retweet an article without clicking on it as a way to 'help promote informed discussion.'

'We're testing a new prompt on Android, when you retweet an article that you haven't opened on Twitter, we may ask if you'd like to open it first,' the firm shared in an announcement on Twitter.

Twitter has come under fire over the past months for allowing misinformation to run rampant on its platform, but is now taking a more aggressive approach when it comes to fact-checking tweets and other content shared on the site.

Scroll down for video

Some people may be guilty of sharing an article online without reading it and Twitter aims to put a stop to it. The social media site is testing a new feature that warns users attempting to retweet an article without clicking on it as a way to 'help promote informed discussion'

'Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it,' reads the announcement.

News of the feature comes the same day the European Union wants Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, to provide monthly reports on how they are combating fake news on their sites.

Unveiling a plan to fight disinformation linked to the coronavirus, European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said she wants online tech companies to provide far more detailed reports each month than currently on the actions they are taking to prevent a fake news 'infodemic.'

The EU commission said that 'foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China' are flooding Europe with 'targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns.'

Twitter has come under fire over the past months for allowing misinformation to run rampant on its platform, but is now taking a more aggressive approach when it comes to fact-checking tweets and other content shared on the site

It cited dangerous misinformation like claims that drinking bleach can cure the disease and that washing hands does not help prevent its spread.

'I'm afraid the disinformation flow will continue,' Jourova said, adding that vaccination seems to be the next big topic subject to misinformation.

Jourova praised those U.S. digital giants that agreed to extra scrutiny under a voluntary code of practice aimed at halting the spread of disinformation linked to the virus, but she told reporters that this is just a first step and that 'there is room for improvement.'

'I support the Twitter reaction to tweets of President Trump,' Jourova told reporters. 'They did not delete it. We all can see it. They provided fact checked information and promoted facts.'

Twitter rolled out another feature in May to address the misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic - it warns users when a tweet contains disputed or misleading information about the coronavirus.

News of the feature comes the same day the European Union wants Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, to provide monthly reports on how they are combating fake news on their sites. European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova (pictured) said she wants online tech companies to provide far more detailed reports each month than currently on the action they are taking to prevent a fake news 'infodemic'

The social media firm will take a case-by-case approach to how it decides which tweets are labeled and will only remove posts that are harmful, company leaders said in May.

Some tweets will run with a label underneath that directs users to a link with additional information about COVID-19.

Other tweets might be covered entirely by a warning label alerting users that 'some or all of the content shared

The new rule is the latest in a wave of stricter policies that tech companies are rolling out to confront an outbreak of virus-related misinformation on their sites.

Twitter won't directly fact check or call tweets false on the site, said Nick Pickles, the company's global senior strategist for public policy.

The warning labels might direct users to curated tweets, public health websites or news articles.

'People don't want us to play the role of deciding for them what's true and what's not true but they do want people to play a much stronger role providing context,' Pickles said.

The feature comes just a month after Twitter said it will warn users when a tweet contains disputed or misleading information about the coronavirus. (pictured) The social media firm will take a case-by-case approach to how it decides which tweets are labeled and will only remove posts that are harmful

One example of a disputed tweet that might be labeled on its site includes claims about the origin of COVID-19, which remains unknown.

Conspiracy theories about how the virus started and if it is man-made have swirled around social media for months.

Twitter will continue to take down COVID-19 tweets that pose a threat to the safety of a person or group, along with attempts to incite mass violence or widespread civil unrest.

The company has already been removing bogus coronavirus cures and claims that social distancing or face masks do not curb the virus' spread.

Twitter has also rolled out a new process for tweets that contain misleading or disputed information about the coronavirus

Twitter announced in February a similar initiative to label doctored or manipulated photos or images on its site after a video of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was slowed down to make it appear as if she slurred her words.

Since then, Twitter has only applied the label twice to manipulated media.

Although Twitter says it is rolling out the new rules, the firm has allowed videos recommended President Donald Trump's suggestion of injecting cleaning agents in the body and using ultraviolet lights as a coronavirus treatment stay on the platform  even though many experts have disputed the claims.

A Twitter spokeswoman told Reuters in an email that the company considered Trump's remarks a wish for a COVID-19 treatment, rather than a literal call for people to inject disinfectant.

The social media site exploded with discussion of the president's comments, made at his daily media briefing on Thursday, with such trending terms as 'Lysol', '#disinfectant' and 'DontDrinkBleach' and '#InjectDisinfectant.'

The site's COVID-19 misinformation policy states that it has broadened its definition of harm to address content that goes against guidance from authoritative sources of public health information.

After Trump spoke, doctors and health experts urged people not to drink or inject cleaning agents.

Lysol and Dettol maker Reckitt Benckiser warned against internal usage of disinfectants, saying it had been asked about it due to recent speculation and social media activity.
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander on Tuesday said legislation the Senate is considering this week  the Great American Outdoors Act  is the biggest boost to our national parks in 50 years. The legislation fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanently, a goal of Congress since it was first passed in 1964, and includes Senator Alexanders bill to restore the countrys national parks and cut in half the parks $12 billion deferred maintenance backlog.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has about 12 million visitors a year," said Senator Alexander. "That's three or four times as many as Yellowstone or any of the Western parks. It has $224 million of deferred maintenance and an annual budget of $20 million a year. So you don't have to have gone too far in mathematics in the Maryville public school system to understand that it would probably take 15, 20, 25 years, or never, to be able to get rid of the deferred maintenance in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park  our most visited national park. Now that's a massive disappointment to people who consider our national parks as our greatest treasures  who go to our parks and find a campground closed, a bathroom not working, a bridge that's closed, a road with potholes, a trail thats worn out or a visitor center that could be dilapidated.

This is what we're talking about. We're talking about deferred maintenance  things that are broken and don't work and interfere with the ability of the American people to go outdoors.

Of all the times in our recent history that people would like to go outdoors, it would be right now, just to get out of the house and get away. And of all the times when weve needed some extra jobs, it would be right now, when 14 percent of the people in Tennessee are out of work,. As the bill has made its way through the Senate, we've also added support for other public lands, including the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Education.

On fully funding the LWCF permanently, Senator Alexander said, I've always thought taking an environmental burden - drilling offshore for oil and gas - and creating an environmental benefit is a good idea.  The number one recommendation for President Reagan's Commission on Americans Outdoors was to permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This bill does that.

Senator Alexander concluded, I hope we have great success with this bill. I know that the people of Tennessee are looking forward to it. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that in the Cherokee National Forest  which is the largest piece of public land in Tennessee  will get help with their $27 million maintenance backlog to make sure their access roads are kept open for the three million visitors each year, which is about as many visitors as most of our western parks have, and the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge will get help with their $8.4 million maintenance backlog to make sure the hunters and fishers can safely use the boats docks and boat ramps. So we'll never get these backlogs fixed if we don't pass a bill like this.

The Great American Outdoors Act will fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanently. The LWCF has played a large role in protecting the outdoors. In Tennessee, the LWCF has provided about $221.4 million for conservation and outdoor recreation efforts since the 1960s. This legislation also includes the Restore Our Parks Act, legislation Senator Alexander introduced that would be the single biggest help to the National Park System in 50 years. It would cut in half the maintenance backlog at national parks, making $6.5 billion available over the next five years to fix roads, campsites and hiking trails so Americans can enjoy them. The bill also provides funding for four other federal land management agencies maintenance backlogs: The U.S. Forest Service; The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; The Bureau of Land Management; The Bureau of Indian Education.

The U.S. Senate voted Monday to consider the Great American Outdoors Act by a vote of 80-17.
[June 10, 2020] Strategic Partnership Officially Announced Between Acclaimed China Internal Furniture Fair (Shanghai) and Giga Cloud Logistics

CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 2nd, the world-renowned China International Furniture Fair (Shanghai) (CIFF) and Giga Cloud Logistics came together in the walls of the Shanghai International Convention Center to sign an agreement that marked the advent of the official strategic partnership between the two business entities with Giga Cloud Logistics becoming the sole Business-to-Business marketplace backed by CIFF. CIFF(Shanghai), a widely known international exhibition dedicated to the furniture industry is hosted by the China Foreign Trade Centre (Group), China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products and Arts-Crafts, China Furniture & Decoration Chamber of Commerce and other highly acclaimed government institutions. With a prominent reputation both at home and abroad, the 46th annual CIFF(Shanghai) event will be held at the National Exhibition & Convention Center, Hongqiao, Shanghai in Summer 2020 from September 7-10. Roughly 1,500 domestic and overseas furniture brands that make up a majority of the industry chain flock to the CIFF(Shanghai) exhibition annually, with the event being known to garner a guest list of over 150,000 professionals from around the world. One of the latest ventures of CIFF(Shanghai) is to play a role in the collective upgrade of the widespread 'Made in China' narrative that has been a hallmark within the development of the industry and overall consumer market, in favor of a shift towards phrases such as 'Designed in China' and 'Innovated in China'. Giga Cloud Logistics is making its mark as a multinational big and bulky goods trade marketplace with a strong financial backing which include investments from industry giants such as DCM and Red Star Macalline. Giga Cloud Logistics positions itself as a key resource in helping connect China based wholesalers with retailers utilizing a new cutting edge digital commerce model. Currently, Giga Cloud Logistics operates in the United States, UnitedKingdom, Germany and Japan and has attracted over 2,500 resellers around the world. Accumulating a high volume of consumer interest within just 16 months after its initial launch, Giga Cloud Logistics now amasses over 14 million dollars in turnover in a single month. The company continues to thrive despite the worldwide pandemic that has impacted the global economy, with its Giga Cloud Marketplace experiencing consistent and rapid growth in site transactions, most notably in its first quarter.



With manufacturing costs steadily rising in China, over the recent years an increasing amount of home goods companies are beginning to explore the idea of venturing beyond simply manufacturing, through upgrading their business models with market research and the creation of their own brands. These aspirations however are met with a series of challenges including longer production cycles, high volumes of product categories and expensive fulfillment costs, causing suppliers to struggle with navigating sales channels and meeting industry fulfillment capacity requirements. Concerning CIFF's stance in this dilemma, Huawei Yang, director at CIFF states "Within this current environment with the pandemic impacting the global economy, almost all exhibitions have been canceled. Warehousing and logistics networks in the overseas market are experiencing high levels of uncertainty, while manufacturers in China are facing challenges that they never have before. CIFF at this time has taken on the role of being a safe space for all Chinese home goods manufacturers to gather and face these newfound challenges together. CIFF will provide solutions for these home goods companies that can help them find a way to survive these challenging times and further develop during this unique period."

Having now partnered with CIFF, Giga Cloud has high hopes in working towards setting a new standard for Chinese manufacturers doing business overseas, with Giga Cloud Logistics CEO Larry Wu commenting, "The strategic corporation with CIFF at this time is aiming to build an efficient and seamless international trading bridge for Chinese home goods companies. Its primary goal is to offer more up-to-date market resources, transaction tools and fulfillment services for companies that are expanding abroad. Giga Cloud provides our signature 'Cloud Wholesale Fulfillment', 'Cloud Warehousing' and 'Flat Rate Delivery' services, all of which solve the fundamental pain points that are experienced by these manufacturing companies during cross-border transactions. Giga Cloud Logistics provides an all-in-one inventory system and flat rate logistics network that allows companies to obtain accurate and clear information, helping them drastically improve their overall efficiency and capabilities. In the current environment with the epidemic that is impacting the market, Giga Cloud Logistics is offering a highly beneficial marketplace that is allowing Chinese companies to do business overseas and getting the benefits of attending tradeshows without having to leave home. We believe that our corporation at this time will without a doubt set a new industry benchmark for Chinese home goods enterprises exploring overseas markets." Media Contact:

Scott Chorna

626-626-4228 ext. 125

[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/strategic-partnership-officially-announced-between-acclaimed-china-internal-furniture-fair-shanghai-and-giga-cloud-logistics-301073460.html SOURCE Giga Cloud Logistics

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Criminals are using the novel coronavirus pandemic to steal vulnerable populations' identities and money through stimulus payment schemes and other COVID-19-related scams, including fake cures and vaccines, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Over the last few months, the IRS has seen a variety of scams related to the Economic Impact Payments millions of Americans are still waiting to receive, according to a June 8 news release.

NOT A SCAM: Don't throw away that debit card you got in the mail. It may be your stimulus payment

"Criminals seize on every opportunity to exploit bad situations, and this pandemic is no exception," IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in the release. "The IRS is fully focused on protecting Americans while delivering Economic Impact Payments in record time. The pursuit of those who participate in COVID-19 related scams, intentionally abusing the programs intended to help millions of Americans during these uncertain times, will long remain a significant priority of both the IRS and IRS-CI.

Other scams being reported include people selling fake at-home test kits, COVID-19 cures, vaccines, pills and medical supplies via online forums; fake charities requesting donations for people affected by COVID-19 and offers known as "research reports" to invest in fake companies working to develop a vaccine.

Phishing schemes via emails, letters, texts and website links that are sent to large numbers of people to get personal and financial information are also increasing. According to the IRS, "most of these new schemes are actively playing on the fear and unknown of the virus and the stimulus payments."

ON HOUSTON CHRONICLE.COM: Texas issues unemployment benefit guidance to contractors, gig, self-employed workers

Officials with the IRS said these scams are being investigated across the globe since the pandemic is a global health crisis and vulnerable populations everywhere are at risk.

Anyone who spots or becomes victim to a COVID-19-related scam should report it to the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 1-866-720-5721 or submit an NCDF Web Complaint Form. Fraud or theft of a stimulus payment can be reported to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) online at TIPS.TIGTA.GOV. Phishing attempts may be reported to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov or the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS).

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
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Mawson Resources Limited ("Mawson") or (the "Company") (TSX:MAW(Frankfurt:MXR)(OTC PINK:MWSNF) is pleased to announce results from the final 9 holes from the recent 37 hole, 14.1 kilometre winter drill program at the Company's 100%-owned Rajapalot project in Finland.

Highlights:

In the thickest mineralized intersection drilled on the Rajapalot project to date, PAL0227, located in an interpreted fold hinge intersected (uncut) 44.6 metres @ 1.4 g/t gold, 452 ppm cobalt, 1.6 g/t gold equivalent ("AuEq") from 294.2 metres which includes 5.0 metres @ 5.9 g/t Au, 679 ppm Co, 6.3 g/t AuEq from 294.2 metres (Tables 1-4, Figures 1-3).

drilled on the Rajapalot project to date, PAL0227, located in an interpreted fold hinge intersected (uncut) from 294.2 metres which includes metres (Tables 1-4, Figures 1-3). PAL0227 is located between 40 to 70 metres west of previously reported drill hole PAL0222 which intersected 7.2 metres @ 21.7 g/t gold from 267.9 metres. Intersections within PAL0227 include: PAL0227: 5.0 metres @ 5.9 g/t Au, 679 ppm Co, 6.3 g/t AuEq from 294.2 metres; PAL0227: 7.8 metres @ 1.3 g/t Au, 516 ppm Co, 1.6 g/t AuEq from 308.0 metres; PAL0227: 9.2 metres @ 0.7 g/t Au, 840 ppm Co, 1.2 g/t AuEq from 321.8 metres, and; PAL0227: 4.7 metres @ 2.6 g/t Au, 56 ppm Co, 2.7 g/t AuEq from 334.0 metres

PAL0223 intersected 16.2 m @ 1.5 g/t gold, 407 ppm cobalt, 1.8 g/t AuEq or including 1.0 metre @ 12.8 g/t gold, 286 ppm Co, 13.0 g/t AuEq and was drilled 30 metres west of previously reported drill hole PAL0213 which intersected 17.7 metres @ 3.8 g/t gold, 880 ppm cobalt, 4.3 g/t AuEq" from 293.0 metres and 6.0 metres @ 9.2 g/t Au, 1,364 ppm Co, 10.0 g/t AuEq from 317.0 metres.

or including and was drilled 30 metres west of previously reported drill hole PAL0213 which intersected 17.7 metres @ 3.8 g/t gold, 880 ppm cobalt, 4.3 g/t AuEq" from 293.0 metres and 6.0 metres @ 9.2 g/t Au, 1,364 ppm Co, 10.0 g/t AuEq from 317.0 metres. PAL0230 at the Raja prospect intersected 4.0 metres @ 2.5 g/t gold from 551.0 metres including 1 metre @ 6.9 g/t gold , 204 ppm cobalt, 7.0 g/t AuEq; PAL0230 is 300 metre step-out from the 2018 resource and is 550 metres vertically and 900 metres down plunge from surface, making it the deepest mineralized intersection on the project and demonstrating the Raja system remakes and continues at depth;

from 551.0 metres including , 204 ppm cobalt, 7.0 g/t AuEq; An updated resource estimate is planned for Q3 2020; As the 2020 winter program winds up, we note 19 of the top 40 high-grade drill intersections by grade-width AuEq, including 9 holes from the 37 drilled this year were drilled after the last resource update (2 g/t AuEq lower cut-off), indicating the significant depth potential of the Rajapalot project (Figure 1). Since the December 2018 maiden resource, 80 holes have been drilled at Rajapalot, which include 19 of the top 40 high-grade drill intersections by grade-width AuEq (2 g/t AuEq lower cut); The 2018 resource comprised 119 holes, of which 21 intersections are contained in the current top 40 drill hole intersections. These 21 intersections averaged 72 metres down-hole depth with an average 76 AuEq grade * metres; A total of 9 intersections from the 37 holes drilled this year fall in the current top 40 drill hole intersections average a down-hole depth of 282 metres with an average of 80 AuEq grade * metres , indicating the continuity and increasing grade with depth of mineralization at the Rajapalot project (Figure 1).



Mr. Hudson, Chairman and CEO, states, "The last batch of drill results from our 14.1 kilometre winter program continues to deliver with the thickest as well as the deepest intersections found to date on the project. Geological modelling based on core logging and assaying remains on schedule to deliver an updated resource at Rajapalot at the start of Q3 2020. We are also pleased that exploration programs will recommence shortly in Finland and Australia, with further information to be soon released."

Gold and cobalt assay results from the final nine drill holes from 2020 winter drill program which consisted of 37 drill holes for 14,132 metres (including one wedged drill hole and deepening an existing hole). Specifically, holes released here are from South Palokas prospect (PAL0209, 0219, 0223, 0224, 0229 and 0235), Palokas prospect (PAL0227, 0232) and the Raja prospect (PAL0230). A plan view of the completed drill holes and the locations of drill holes reported here are shown in Figures 1-3 with corresponding collar and assay data in Tables 1-3. Intersections in the plan view (Figure 2) and oblique section in Figure 3 are coloured by AuEq grade to show the higher-grade zones at Palokas and South Palokas. Further results reported here from the South Palokas prospect include PAL0224 which intersected 2.0 metres @ 1.7 g/t gold from 432.0 metres and PAL0229 intersected 0.8 metres @ 1.5 g/t gold, from 537.3 metres.

Assuming a predominant stratabound control, the true thickness of the mineralized interval is interpreted to be approximately 90% of the sampled thickness. Gold-only intersections are reported with a lower-cut of 0.5 g/t gold over a 1 metre width. No upper cut-off was applied. Where cobalt data becomes available, a lower cut of 0.3 g/t AuEq is used, based on modifying the open pit WhittleTM optimized open pit lower cut-off grade of 0.37 g/t AuEq developed for the 2018 resource recalculated to a dollar value per tonne against current averaged gold and cobalt prices (and therefore the 2018 resource cutoff 0.37 g/t AuEq is the same value per tonne as 0.30 g/t AuEq today). Where gold is below detection limit, half the cutoff grade is used in calculating the average grade for an interval and in determining the gold equivalent value.

Technical and Environmental Background

Up to five diamond drill rigs from the Arctic Drilling Company OY ("ADC") and Kati OY ("Kati") all with water recirculation and drill cuttings collection systems are used in the drill program. Core diameter is NQ2 (50.7 mm). Core recoveries are excellent and average close to 100% in fresh rock. After photographing and logging in Mawson's Rovaniemi facilities, core intervals averaging 1 metre for mineralized samples and 2 metres for barren samples are cut in half at the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) core facilities in Rovaniemi, Finland. The remaining half core is retained for verification and reference purposes. Analytical samples are transported by commercial transport from site to the CRS Minlab Oy facility in Kempele, Finland. Samples were prepared and analyzed for gold using the PAL1000 technique which involves grinding the sample in steel pots with abrasive media in the presence of cyanide, followed by measuring the gold in solution with flame AAS equipment. Samples for multi-element analysis (including cobalt) are pulped at CRS Minlab, then transported by air to the MSA labs in Vancouver, Canada and analyzed using four acid digest ICP-MS methods. The QA/QC program of Mawson consists of the systematic insertion of certified standards of known gold content, duplicate samples by quartering the core, and blanks the within interpreted mineralized rock. In addition, CRS inserts blanks and standards into the analytical process.

Three-month average gold and cobalt prices have been used to calculate AuEq values according to the following:

Average gold price $1,580 per oz

Average cobalt price $14.50 per pound

Resulting in gold equivalent formula of AuEq g/t = Au g/t + (Co ppm/1,589).

The host rocks to the gold and cobalt mineralization comprise sulphides (pyrrhotite>>pyrite) with biotite-muscovite-chlorite schists at South Palokas and Mg-Fe amphibole-biotite-chlorite rocks at Palokas. Veining and fracture fill minerals include pyrrhotite, magnetite and magnetite-pyrrhotite (+/- quartz, tourmaline). Retrograde chlorite after biotite, generations of secondary muscovite ("sericite") and vein-controlled chlorite+/- tourmaline and magnetite are also present. Preliminary hand-held XRF analysis confirms the presence of associated scheelite and molybdenite, the former visible under UV light as tiny veinlets and disseminations. The minerals associated with the gold are clearly post-metamorphic, reduced, and most likely driven by hydrothermal fluids from nearby granitoid intrusions. Chlorite and fine muscovite are regarded as the lowest temperature silicate minerals with gold, structurally controlled in apparent spatial association with quartz and/or K-feldspar veins. Altered rocks enclosing the mineralized package contain locally abundant talc and tourmaline.

All maps have been created within the KKJ3/Finland Uniform Coordinate System (EPSG:2393).

The qualified person for Mawson's Finnish projects, Dr. Nick Cook, President for Mawson and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining Metallurgy has reviewed and verified the contents of this release.

NI 43-101 Technical Report:

On December 19, 2018, Mawson filed an independent National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report (the "NI 43-101 Technical Report") on the Mineral Resource Estimate for the Raja and Palokas Prospects, at the 100% owned Rajapalot Project in Finland, (the "NI 43-101 Technical Report"), in support of the Company's news release dated December 17, 2018. The NI 43-101 Technical Report was authorized by Mr. Rod Webster of AMC Consultants Pty Ltd ("AMC") of Melbourne, Australia, and Dr. Kurt Simon Forrester of Arn Perspective of Surrey, England. Each of Mr. Webster and Dr. Forrester are independent "qualified persons" as defined by National Instrument 43-101. The NI 43-101 Technical Report may be found on the Company's website at www.mawsonresources.com or under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. For the 2018 resource, the gold equivalent ("AuEq") value was calculated using averaged prices of the time, resulting in the following formula: AuEq g/t = Au g/t + (Co ppm/608) with assumed prices of Co $30/lb; and Au $1,250/oz. AuEq varies with Au and Co prices.

About Mawson Resources Limited (TSX:MAW, FRANKFURT:MXR, PINKSHEETS:MWSNF)

Mawson Resources Limited is an exploration and development company. Mawson has distinguished itself as a leading Nordic Arctic exploration company with a focus on the flagship Rajapalot gold project in Finland.

On behalf of the Board,

"Michael Hudson"

Michael Hudson, Chairman & CEO Further Information

www.mawsonresources.com

1305 - 1090 West Georgia St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V7

Mariana Bermudez (Canada), Corporate Secretary, +1 (604) 685 9316,

info@mawsonresources.com



Forward-Looking Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Although Mawson believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate, and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Mawson cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, capital and other costs varying significantly from estimates, changes in world metal markets, changes in equity markets, planned drill programs and results varying from expectations, delays in obtaining results, equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions, local community relations, dealings with non-governmental organizations, delays in operations due to permit grants, environmental and safety risks, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in Mawson's most recent Annual Information Form filed on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Mawson disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

Figure 1: Plan of Rajapalot showing historic drilling and high-grade intersections using a lower cut-off grade of 2 g/t gold. The plan view of the 2018 NI43-101 resource is also indicated using a 0.37 g/t AuEq lower cut. Note the modelled ground TEM plates that not associated with the 2018 NI43-101 resource are virtually untested by drilling, and form potential new target areas. Intersections reported here are shown with bold text (see Figure 2 for more detail of drilling at Palokas and South Palokas prospects).

Figure 2: Plan view of coloured dots representing high-grade intersections using a 2.0 g/t AuEq cutoff for Palokas and South Palokas prospects. Only drill intersections reported in the recent 2020 drill campaign are included here (surface projection of these resources shown here are 0.37 g/t AuEq lower-cut). Drill holes in bold text represent those reported in this release.

Figure 3: Long section showing outline of 2018 resource (>2 g/t AuEq lower-cut) and significant grade-width intersections (coloured dots) showing new results from holes released here are from South Palokas (PAL0223) and Palokas (PAL0227) prospects extending mineralization beyond the current resource areas (red dashed outlines). The view is looking onto mineralized surface at Palokas and South Palokas (this view is looking at 60 degrees towards 120). The pale shaded area represents the current estimated limits to mineralized rocks, although testing between Palokas and South Palokas is restricted to just four shallow drill holes and there is no testing of the southwestern margin of South Palokas.

Table 1: Collar Information from 2019-20 Winter drilling at the Rajapalot Project (Finnish Grid, Projection KKJ3; the "A" postscript refers to a daughter hole off the primary hole and the depth range of the drill hole is indicated)

HoleID East North Azimuth Dip RL Depth

(m) Prospect Comment PAL0201D, extended 3408545.6 7372603.2 56.0 -67.2 179.3 392.2 to 524.6 Raja Au & Co

reported 20 Apr, 2020 PAL0202 3408978.0 7374402.6 229 -45 175.9 769.6 Palokas No significant assays

28 Feb, 2020 PAL0202A 3408978.0 7374402.6 229 -45 175.9 451.0 to 826.7 Palokas Au reported 5 Feb, 2020,

Co 28 Feb, 2020 PAL0203 3408272.5 7373630.5 058 -63 173.6 415.5 South Palokas Au reported 5 Feb, 2020,

Co 28 Feb, 2020 PAL0204 3408522.0 7373604.3 235 -85 173.4 149.2 South Palokas Au reported 20 Jan, 2020;

Co Feb 28, 2020 PAL0205 3408586.2 7373802.7 058 -49 173.5 191.5 Palokas Au reported 20 Jan, 2020;

Co Feb 28, 2020 PAL0206 3408463.5 7373917.2 063 -57 173.7 326.2 Palokas Au reported 5 Feb, 2020,

Co 28 Feb, 2020 PAL0207 3408609.8 7373894.5 057 -76 173.7 200.2 Palokas Au reported 5 Feb, 2020,

Co 28 Feb, 2020 PAL0208 3408540.7 7372692.8 052 -75 179.1 555.4 Raja No significant assays

20 Apr, 2020 PAL0209 3408471.1 7373638.3 058 -82 173.5 200.8 South Palokas No significant assays,

reported here PAL0210 3408609.8 7373894.5 054 -86 173.7 198.0 Palokas Au & Co

reported 28 Feb 2020 PAL0211 3408463.5 7373917.2 063 -50 173.7 232.2 Palokas Au & Co

reported 09 Mar 2020 PAL0212 3408255.2 7373708.2 059 -75.5 172.5 492.6 South Palokas No significant assays

20 Apr, 2020 PAL0213 3408272.5 7373630.5 060 -73.5 173.6 509.3 South Palokas Au & Co

reported 28 Feb 2020 PAL0214 3408609.8 7373894.5 057 -52 173.7 154.3 Palokas Au & Co

reported 09 Mar 2020 PAL0215 3408676.1 7374105.0 237 -77.5 173.8 395.5 Palokas Au & Co

reported 27 May 2020 PAL0216 3408463.5 7373917.2 062 -65 173.7 344.6 Palokas Au & Co

reported 27 May 2020 PAL0217 3408540.7 7372692.8 052 -79.5 179.1 519.2 Raja No significant assays.

20 Apr, 2020 PAL0218 3408310.5 7373979.7 075 -58 173.8 469.4 Palokas Au & Co

reported 20 Apr, 2020 PAL0219 3408272.5 7373630.5 059 -57.9 173.6 419.7 South Palokas No significant assays,

reported here PAL0220 3408255.2 7373708.2 062 -80 172.5 501.1 South Palokas Au & Co

reported 20 Apr, 2020 PAL0221 3408463.5 7373917.2 096 -53.5 173.7 280.4 Palokas Au reported 09 Mar 2020,

Co 27 May 2020 PAL0222 3408463.5 7373917.2 066 -71.5 173.7 355.1 Palokas Au reported 09 Mar 2020,

Co 27 May 2020 PAL0223 3408272.5 7373630.5 061 -79 173.6 404.1 South Palokas Results reported here PAL0224 3408168.5 7373753.6 063 -78.5 171.4 560.6 South Palokas Results reported here PAL0225 3408255.2 7373708.2 070 -85 172.5 490.9 South Palokas Au & Co

reported 20 Apr, 2020 PAL0226 3408540.7 7372692.8 053 -83.5 179.1 487.8 Raja Au & Co

reported 20 Apr, 2020 PAL0227 3408463.5 7373917.2 069 -77.5 173.7 359.4 Palokas Results reported here PAL0228 3408463.5 7373917.2 110 -67 173.7 311.4 Palokas Au & Co

reported 20 Apr, 2020 PAL0229 3408168.5 7373753.6 056 -81.2 171.4 635.5 South Palokas Results reported here PAL0230 3408486.6 7372775.8 047 -82 177.0 631.4 Raja Results reported here PAL0231 3408463.5 7373917.2 073 -82.7 173.7 395.6 Palokas Au & Co

reported 27 May 2020 PAL0232 3408270.3 7373875.9 057 -60 173.8 524.0 Palokas No significant assays,

reported here PAL0233 3408585.8 7373802.5 058 -70 173.5 167.5 Palokas No significant assays,

reported 27 May 2020 PAL0234 3408270.3 7373875.9 054 -56 173.8 178.7 Palokas Hole aborted PAL0235 3408207.9 7373667.6 047 -81 173.0 176.9 South Palokas No significant assays,

reported here PAL0236 3408270.3 7373875.9 049 -56 173.8 530.0 Palokas Au & Co

reported 27 May 2020



Table 2: Intersections from the 2019-20 Winter Drill Program. Intersections are reported with a lower cut of 0.3g/t AuEq (using updated gold and cobalt prices of $1,580 per ounce and 14.50 per pound respectively) over 1 metre lower cut. No upper cut-off was applied.

Prospect HoleID From

(m) To

(m) Width

(m) Au g/t Co ppm AuEq

g/t Raja PAL0201D1 450.75 451.85 1.10 3.82 2041 5.1 Raja PAL0201D 451.85 453.00 1.15 0.23 23 0.2 Palokas PAL0202A 771.4 781.5 10.1 0.6 317 0.8 South Palokas PAL0203 303.0 315.0 12.0 5.4 2221 6.8 including 303.0 311.0 8.0 7.9 2672 9.6 South Palokas PAL0204 88.2 89.1 0.9 1.7 881 2.3 South Palokas PAL0204 93.7 104.0 10.3 5.7 961 6.3 including 97.0 103.0 6.0 8.4 901 8.9 Palokas PAL0205 95.0 107.9 12.9 1.8 590 2.2 including 101.0 104.0 3.0 6.4 606 6.8 Palokas PAL0205 114.0 118.0 4.0 <0.05 820 0.5 Palokas PAL0206 249.8 255.2 5.4 0.1 1189 0.8 Palokas PAL0206 262.2 264.2 2.0 14.1 370 14.4 Palokas PAL0206 296.4 299.2 2.8 0.8 880 1.3 Palokas PAL0206 305.3 308.3 3.0 <0.05 2324 1.5 Palokas PAL0207 117.3 119.3 2.0 <0.05 678 0.4 Palokas PAL0207 121.6 125.6 4.0 0.3 383 0.6 Palokas PAL0207 145.2 148.6 3.4 0.7 552 1.1 Palokas PAL0207 150.8 158.4 7.6 1.6 506 2.0 Palokas PAL0207 164.0 166.0 2.0 <0.05 578 0.4 Palokas PAL0207 170.8 172.0 1.2 <0.05 1398 0.9 Palokas PAL0210 128.3 151.7 23.4 1.0 565 1.4 Palokas PAL0210 153.6 158.1 4.5 3.9 302 4.1 Palokas PAL0211 246.4 254.3 7.9 0.1 1482 1.0 Palokas PAL0211 293.9 296.8 2.9 0.9 159 1.0 South Palokas PAL0213 250.2 252.0 1.8 2.8 150 2.9 South Palokas PAL0213 256.0 257.0 1.0 2.2 222 2.3 South Palokas PAL0213 261.0 263.0 2.0 0.8 257 1.0 South Palokas PAL0213 293.0 310.7 17.7 3.8 880 4.3 including 294.0 304.0 10.0 6.5 1012 7.2 South Palokas PAL0213 317.0 323.0 6.0 9.2 1364 10.0 Palokas PAL0214 119.9 124.7 4.8 2.4 894 2.9 including 122.0 123.7 1.7 6.4 761 6.8 Palokas PAL0215 294.9 298.6 3.7 0.7 194 0.9 Palokas PAL0216 259.0 266.0 7.0 3.5 731 3.9 including 262.0 266.0 4.0 6.0 456 6.3 Palokas PAL0216 273.9 274.9 1.0 3.2 99 3.2 Palokas PAL0216 319.0 321.0 2.0 7.4 3 7.4 Palokas PAL0218 403.0 410.0 7.0 0.2 504 0.5 Palokas PAL0218 432.4 433.4 1.0 4.0 378 4.2 Palokas PAL0218 448.3 450.3 2.0 0.0 908 0.6 South Palokas PAL0220 366.0 367.0 1.0 0.4 76 0.4 South Palokas PAL0220 370.0 371.0 1.0 0.3 189 0.5 South Palokas PAL0220 376.0 376.7 0.7 3.9 189 4.0 Palokas PAL0221 213.0 216.0 3.0 1.0 304 1.2 Palokas PAL0221 234.3 236.9 2.6 6.2 304 6.4 Palokas PAL0222 262.8 264.8 2.0 0.0 798 0.5 Palokas PAL0222 266.9 279.1 12.2 13.2 1326 14.0 including 266.9 275.1 8.2 19.1 1572 20.1 South Palokas PAL0223 291.0 307.2 16.2 1.5 407 1.8 including 292.0 294.0 2.0 2.3 580 2.7 including 296.0 297.0 1.0 12.8 286 13.0 South Palokas PAL0224 432.0 434.0 2.0 1.7 50 1.7 South Palokas PAL0225 344.0 359.0 15.0 0.9 246 1.1 South Palokas PAL0225 415.8 420.8 5.0 1.3 363 1.5 Raja PAL0226 450.6 455.6 5.0 0.4 694 0.8 Palokas PAL0227 294.2 299.2 5.0 5.9 679 6.3 including 296.2 299.2 3.0 9.3 604 9.7 Palokas PAL0227 301.1 305.0 3.8 0.5 756 1.0 Palokas PAL0227 308.0 315.7 7.8 1.3 516 1.6 Palokas PAL0227 321.8 331.0 9.2 0.7 840 1.2 Palokas PAL0227 334.0 338.7 4.7 2.6 56 2.7 Palokas PAL0228 241.8 261.3 19.5 7.1 1006 7.8 including 251.4 258.4 7.0 17.0 2168 18.4 South Palokas PAL0229 537.3 538.1 0.8 1.5 78 1.5 Raja PAL0230 551.0 555.0 4.0 2.5 142 2.6 Palokas PAL0231 342.0 344.3 2.3 3.1 272 3.1 Palokas PAL0236 449.7 454.6 4.9 18.0 1317 18.8



Table 3: Individual assay data from drill holes reported in this press release.

HoleID From

(m) To

(m) Width

(m) Au g/t Co ppm AuEq PAL0223 291.0 292.0 1.0 0.64 445 0.9 PAL0223 292.0 293.0 1.0 2.69 870 3.2 PAL0223 293.0 294.0 1.0 1.95 291 2.1 PAL0223 294.0 295.0 1.0 0.4 414 0.7 PAL0223 295.0 296.0 1.0 0.79 70 0.8 PAL0223 296.0 297.0 1.0 12.8 286 13.0 PAL0223 297.0 298.0 1.0 0.67 433 0.9 PAL0223 298.0 298.9 0.9 0.06 336 0.3 PAL0223 298.9 300.0 1.1 0.17 384 0.4 PAL0223 300.0 301.0 1.0 0.15 463 0.4 PAL0223 301.0 302.0 1.0 0.12 309 0.3 PAL0223 302.0 303.0 1.0 0.45 368 0.7 PAL0223 303.0 304.0 1.0 0.24 204 0.4 PAL0223 304.0 305.0 1.0 0.39 283 0.6 PAL0223 305.0 306.0 1.0 0.88 895 1.4 PAL0223 306.0 307.2 1.2 1.8 445 2.1 PAL0224 432.0 433.0 1.0 0.5 35 0.5 PAL0224 433.0 434.0 1.0 2.8 66 2.8 PAL0224 434.0 435.0 1.0 0.1 39 0.1 PAL0224 435.0 436.0 1.0 0.2 57 0.2 PAL0224 436.0 437.0 1.0 1.1 103 1.1 PAL0224 437.0 438.0 1.0 1.2 641 1.6 PAL0224 438.0 438.9 0.9 0.3 131 0.4 PAL0227 294.2 295.2 1.0 0.8 961 1.4 PAL0227 295.2 296.2 1.0 0.7 619 1.1 PAL0227 296.2 297.2 1.0 8.4 894 8.9 PAL0227 297.2 298.2 1.0 13.6 740 14.1 PAL0227 298.2 299.1 1.0 5.8 157 5.9 PAL0227 299.1 300.1 1.0 <0.05 136 0.1 PAL0227 300.1 301.1 1.0 0.1 381 0.2 PAL0227 301.1 302.1 1.0 0.1 976 0.7 PAL0227 302.1 304.0 1.9 1.0 799 1.5 PAL0227 304.0 305.0 1.0 0.1 457 0.4 PAL0227 305.0 306.0 1.0 <0.05 149 0.1 PAL0227 306.0 307.0 1.0 <0.05 41 <0.05 PAL0227 307.0 308.0 1.0 0.1 343 0.3 PAL0227 308.0 309.2 1.2 0.1 284 0.3 PAL0227 309.2 310.7 1.6 0.2 228 0.4 PAL0227 310.7 311.7 1.0 0.2 276 0.4 PAL0227 311.7 312.7 1.0 4.2 658 4.6 PAL0227 312.7 313.7 1.0 3.6 1840 4.8 PAL0227 313.7 314.7 1.0 1.2 166 1.8 PAL0227 314.7 315.7 1.0 0.4 368 0.6 PAL0227 315.7 317.7 2.0 <0.05 21 <0.05 PAL0227 317.7 319.7 2.0 <0.05 14 <0.05 PAL0227 319.7 320.5 0.8 <0.05 96 0.1 PAL0227 320.5 321.8 1.4 <0.05 358 0.3 PAL0227 321.8 323.3 1.5 0.4 689 0.8 PAL0227 323.3 324.3 1.0 0.1 1273 0.9 PAL0227 324.3 325.3 1.0 0.2 905 0.8 PAL0227 325.3 326.9 1.7 0.2 243 0.9 PAL0227 326.9 328.0 1.1 0.5 1946 1.7 PAL0227 328.0 329.0 1.0 1.1 434 1.4 PAL0227 329.0 330.0 1.0 1.0 1276 1.8 PAL0227 330.0 331.0 1.0 2.4 299 2.6 PAL0227 331.0 332.0 1.0 <0.05 53 <0.05 PAL0227 332.0 333.0 1.0 <0.05 54 <0.05 PAL0227 333.0 334.0 1.0 <0.05 92 <0.05 PAL0227 334.0 335.4 1.4 1.5 46 1.6 PAL0227 335.4 336.4 1.0 2.3 29 2.3 PAL0227 336.4 337.4 1.0 6.8 68 6.8 PAL0227 337.4 338.7 1.3 0.9 77 1.0 PAL0229 537.3 538.1 0.8 1.5 78 1.5 PAL0229 538.0 539.0 1.0 0.1 62 0.1 PAL0229 539.0 540.0 1.0 <0.05 70 <0.05 PAL0229 540.0 541.0 1.0 0.4 265 0.6 PAL0229 541.0 542.0 1.0 0.7 275 0.9 PAL0230 551.0 552.0 1.0 1.5 84 1.5 PAL0230 552.0 553.0 1.0 1.2 63 1.3 PAL0230 553.0 554.0 1.0 6.9 204 7.0 PAL0230 554.0 555.0 1.0 0.3 216 0.4 PAL0230 555.0 556.0 1.0 0.1 147 0.2 PAL0230 556.0 557.0 1.0 <0.05 172 0.1 PAL0230 557.0 558.0 1.0 0.1 532 0.5



Table 4: The top 40 high-grade intersections from the Rajapalot project. Note that 19 of these intersections (in bold) were not included in the 2018 Inferred Resource. Intersections are reported with a lower cut of 2.0 g/t AuEq (using updated gold and cobalt prices of $1,580 per ounce and 14.50 per pound respectively) over 1 metre lower cut. No upper cut-off was applied. Note that 19 of the top 40 intersections by grade-width for the Rajapalot project were drilled in the most recent program.

HoleID Fro

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Au g/t Co ppm AuEq AuEq

g*w PAL0093 252.2 261.8 9.7 23.1 1080 23.7 229.2 PRAJ0009 5.9 7.9 2.0 99.9 1196 100.6 201.2 PAL0222 266.9 275.1 8.2 19.1 1572 20.1 165.0 PRAJ0006 1.3 16.3 15.0 9.2 769 9.7 144.9 PAL0228 251.4 258.4 7.0 17.0 2168 18.4 128.8 PRAJ0107 26.7 32.7 6.0 20.4 705 20.8 125.1 PAL0030 110.2 120.2 10.0 9.7 562 10.1 101.0 PAL0027 34.4 41.2 6.8 14.1 659 14.5 98.7 PAL0236 449.7 454.7 5.0 18.0 1317 18.8 94.2 PAL0188 321.6 328.6 7.0 11.9 1641 12.9 90.6 PRAJ0003 0.0 3.0 3.0 27.5 851 28.0 84.1 PAL0203 303.0 311.0 8.0 7.9 2672 9.6 76.7 PAL0190 381.8 387.8 6.0 11.8 949 12.4 74.6 PAL0075 82.2 91.0 8.8 7.5 1229 8.3 73.0 PAL0092 246.0 249.0 3.0 23.3 1413 24.2 72.7 PAL0213 294.0 304.0 10.0 6.5 1008 7.1 71.1 PAL0204 93.7 103.0 9.3 6.3 1018 6.9 64.2 PAL0194 425.1 432.9 7.8 5.1 4454 7.9 61.7 PAL0118 381.0 382.6 1.6 37.3 1143 38.0 60.8 PAL0213 317.0 323.0 6.0 9.0 1364 9.9 59.4 PAL0188 307.7 315.6 8.0 5.9 1840 7.0 55.8 PRAJ0114 61.1 68.1 7.0 7.1 947 7.7 53.8 PRAJ0004 2.0 10.3 8.3 5.9 454 6.2 51.4 PAL0190 374.0 378.0 4.0 11.2 1758 12.3 49.3 PRAJ0022 10.0 24.0 14.0 3.0 580 3.4 47.7 PAL0198 171.2 178.8 7.6 5.0 1484 6.0 45.3 PRAJ0109 42.7 49.7 7.0 6.0 494 6.3 44.1 PAL0085 125.1 131.9 6.8 5.5 850 6.0 40.7 PAL0016 211.0 214.4 3.4 11.0 475 11.3 38.4 PRAJ0109 38.7 39.7 1.0 34.9 574 35.3 35.3 PRAJ0111 42.1 44.9 2.8 11.7 1218 12.5 35.0 PAL0062 186.5 192.5 6.0 5.3 369 5.5 33.2 PRAJ0025 16.9 22.8 5.9 5.4 339 5.6 33.1 PAL0227 296.2 299.2 3.0 9.3 607 9.7 29.1 PRAJ0005 10.7 19.2 8.6 3.1 474 3.4 28.8 PAL0173 276.1 281.0 4.9 4.6 1805 5.8 28.5 PAL0206 262.2 263.2 1.0 28.0 377 28.2 28.2 PAL0182 87.0 93.2 6.2 4.0 553 4.3 26.7 PAL0197 303.5 312.2 8.8 1.5 2341 3.0 26.2 PAL0119 16.0 19.0 3.0 8.6 68 8.7 26.0



SOURCE: Mawson Resources Limited

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593489/Mawson-Drills-50-metres-at-59-gt-gold-Within-Thickest-Intercept-to-Date-at-Palokas-Finland
She described the man as tall with tattoos, with blood gushing from his head

Neighbour Emma Hull called police after she heard gunshots and screaming

A man, 28, and a woman, 27, are both in an induced coma in intensive care

A Comanchero bikie is dead after opening fire on his girlfriend and turning the gun on himself in an attempted murder-suicide.

Career criminal Steffan Bourke was facing drug possession and distribution charges when he shot himself at his mother's house in Waikiki, Perth, on Monday night.

He died in the intensive care unit at Royal Perth Hospital on Wednesday, some 38 hours after the incident.

His girlfriend, who has not been identified, remains in intensive care after undergoing emergency surgery.

Bourke was due to appear in Perth District Court on December 7 accused of possessing cocaine meant for distribution and possessing stolen property, the West Australian reported.

Steffan Bourke, a Comanchero bikie, was facing drug possession and distribution charges when he shot himself at his mothers house in Waikiki, Perth, on Monday night (stock image)

Emergency services were called to the scene following reports of a 'long, blood-curdling scream'

A week later, he was scheduled in Perth Magistrate's Court for two more charges - possessing a prohibited drug and weapon.

All four charges relate to a police raid on Bourkes home in 2018, where they found 10g of cocaine hidden in a sock.

Emma Hull, who lives next door to Bourke, said she heard shouting and yelling coming from the Hayeswater Circuit home earlier that night.

She decided to call triple-0 after hearing a 'long, blood-curdling scream'.

A man, 28, and a woman, 27, were found by police at Hayeswater Circuit (crime scene pictured) in the suburb of Waikiki at about 11.25 on Monday night

'[I was] in disbelief... I really didn't want it to be what I thought I heard,' she told The West.

'I think the only reason I heard them was because I think it happened sort of directly opposite where my wall is and their wall is... at the front of the house.'

She said a tall man with tattoos, now identified as Bourke, had blood streaming from his mouth and head when he was carried out by paramedics.

His girlfriend was conscious and sat on a stretcher waiting for medical attention, asking for her brother.

Bourke's mother was reportedly inside home at the time of the shooting.

Lifeline: 13 11 14

Police believe the incident is isolated and there is no concern for public safety. Pictured: Police at the crime scene
FORT WORTH, Texas, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SourceHOV Tax, a leading specialized tax consulting firm providing R&D Tax Credit, Cost Segregation, LIFO inventory, 179D and 45L solutions for more than 37 years, has rebranded as Source Advisors after management partnered with private equity firm, Gainline Capital Partners, in a carve out transaction earlier this year.

The new name, Source Advisors, strengthens their commitment to partnering with companies and CPA firms as a trusted advisor in maximizing government-sponsored tax credits, deductions, and incentives to help save money and create cash flow that stimulate businesses and drive overall growth.

"We're excited to reintroduce our technical experts and best-in-class service to the market as a stronger, more tax focused stand-alone entity," said Chris Henderson, President of Source Advisors. "The Source Advisors name truly captures who we are and what we do for our partners and clients providing a single advisory point of contact for tax centered value creation."

Source Advisors' consultative approach remains a consistent differentiator among their competitors and allows the team of experienced professionals to help CPA firms and their clients navigate the evolving laws that govern tax incentives.

For more information, visit www.sourceadvisors.com or call 817.732.5494.

About Source Advisors

Headquartered in Fort Worth, TX, Source Advisors has helped CPA firms and their clients maximize specialized federal and state tax incentives for more than three decades. The Company collaborates with accounting firms throughout the country to bring R&D tax credit, Cost Segregation, LIFO, 179D, and 45L solutions to their clients. With a team of more than 75 professionals including experienced CPAs, attorneys, engineers, and technology experts throughout the country, Source Advisors serves many of the nation's most prominent accounting firms, associations, and Fortune 1000 companies. https://www.sourceadvisors.com

About Gainline Capital Partners

Gainline Capital Partners is a private equity firm that invests in U.S. based middle market companies. The firm invests in profitable companies with enterprise values of up to $250 million. Gainline partners with management teams to help execute their vision, drive sustainable growth, and create long term value. http://www.gainlinecapital.com

SOURCE Source Advisors

Related Links

https://sourceadvisors.com


GRAND JUNCTION, Colo., June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NetworkWire  Bullfrog Gold Corp. (CSE:BFG) (BFGC) (11B.F) (Bullfrog, BFGC or the Company) today announces completion of a 25-hole drill program at its Bullfrog Project (the Project). The Project comprises 5,250 acres of strategic lands, established 43-101 compliant resources and prospective exploration potential in the Bullfrog Gold District, located 125 miles northwest of Las Vegas.



The Company drilled a total of 12,520 feet (3,816 meters) and will release assay results as they become available in the coming weeks. With a focus on resource expansions, further defining pit limits and testing a new exploration target, the program was designed with the following objectives:

Fulfill a final work commitment before September 2020 by drilling most of the holes on lands leased from Barrick Bullfrog Inc. (Barrick) and thereby allow BFGC to exercise its option to purchase these Barrick lands.



Seventeen holes were drilled in the Mystery Hill area immediately adjacent at the northeast section of the Bullfrog pit.



Six holes in and around the Montgomery-Shoshone (M-S) pit were drilled.



The additional drill holes in both pits were also needed to optimize pit plans and Project financial performance in a subsequent preliminary economic analysis.



With increased and exciting activity in the surrounding mining districts, the Company drilled two initial holes at its new Paradise Ridge target, located 1 mile east of the Bullfrog pit, and plans to further test this target as well as several other exploration targets identified on its land position.

Bullfrog Gold District

In addition to the drilling and metallurgical testing completed by the Company, AngloGold Ashanti, Kinross Gold, Coeur Mining and Corvus Gold are aggressively pursuing significant acquisitions, exploration drilling and project development activities in the area surrounding Beatty, Nevada. These activities are set to reestablish the Bullfrog Gold District as a potential new, major gold production center in Nevada. The map in Figure 1 shows the land positions held by these companies as well as Waterton and the remaining lands owned by Barrick.

Story continues

Our objectives focus on expanding known resources and limits of the M-S and Bullfrog pits while starting drill testing of our new Paradise Ridge exploration target, which is a highly compelling geological analogue to the Bullfrog deposit, said BFGC CEO and President David Beling. We are fully funded and timely completed this U.S.$500,000+ drill program, having raised C$2,000,000 in January 2020. We anticipate the receipt of assays from 18 holes by June 12, 2020, and intend to release them soon thereafter.

The exploration and development potential of our strategic land position is strongly supported by a large database obtained from Barrick, including detailed information on 155 miles of drilling in 1,262 holes in the Bullfrog mine area, Mr. Beling continued. This information was vetted in detail and supported an independent National Instrument 43-101 compliant report with resource estimates in 2017.

Figure 1 Major land positions around Beatty, Nevada:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2d302dc0-8468-4bda-88ae-e8febd2d7e2c

Table 1 summarizes resources remaining in the M-S and Bullfrog deposits on the Companys controlled lands. In this regard, the Bullfrog estimates include the well-drilled northern extension, as well as minor resources from the wide-spaced drilling in the Mystery Hill (MH) area. The estimates were based on a $1,200 gold price and a 72% gold heap leach recovery, both of which have since been significantly enhanced. Leach tests on four bulk samples achieved an average 86% recovery using high pressure grinding rolls to produce a very fine column feed size of -1/16-inch while creating many more micro-fractures than conventional crushing equipment. Recovery from the conventional crushed -3/8-inch column feeds averaged 71%.



Table 1

BFGC Mineralization Estimates * Mineral T Gold Gold Oz Silver Silver Oz Deposit millions g/t 000's g/t 000's Measured and Indicated Bullfrog 14.9 1.02 489 2.50 1,198 M-S 1.1 1.00 36 4.02 146 Total/Avg. 16.0 1.02 525 2.61 1,344 Inferred Bullfrog 2.80 1.20 108.50 2.59 235.00 M-S 0.04 1.17 1.70 5.53 8.00 Total/Avg. 2.84 1.20 110.20 2.64 243.00 Estimated by Tetra Tech Inc. in August 2017 as resources per Canadian 43-101 standards and re-stated herein as mineralization to satisfy US SEC Guideline 7, which also does not recognize the term "inferred". Based on a $1200 gold price, a 72% heap leach gold recovery and a gold cutoff grade of 0.36 g/t.

Figure 2 shows the location of the 25 drill holes, the Bullfrog and M-S proposed pit expansions, the Companys new Paradise Ridge exploration target, the nearby town of Beatty, the paved highway to the Project, a power line on-site, and the location of two cross sections described herein. Most of the Companys resources are located in the north Bullfrog deposit within the dashed green line on Figure 2 and the north end of the pit.

Figure 2 Drill hole locations, pit expansions and cross section index:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/659cfe29-8cae-4158-a788-0edee91eaa86

Paradise Ridge Target

The Paradise Ridge target was developed by the Company after extensive study of surface sampling and the recognition that 1) the host rocks are identical to those in the BF deposit; 2) significant structural features are present; 3) surface samples contained gold; and 4) the existing drill holes are too far east and west to test this new target. Figure 3 is a geologic cross section through the Bullfrog pit and the south zone of the Paradise Ridge target with projections of the central and north zones. This section shows that a Bullfrog-type deposit could fit within and possibly occur in the Paradise Ridge target, but there are no assurances expressed or implied that any resources might be discovered therein.

Figure 3: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d6b321d6-3832-4912-95f4-7009785f1c8e

About Bullfrog Gold Corp.

Bullfrog Gold Corp. is a Delaware corporation that controls the commanding land and mineral positions in the Bullfrog Mine area. In this area, Barrick produced 2.3 million ounces of gold through conventional milling beginning in 1989 and ending in 1999. Additional technical and corporate information may be sourced at www.BullfrogGold.com .

Qualified Person

David Beling, P.E. has 55 years of project and corporate experience in the mining industry and is a qualified person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure or Mineral Projects. Mr. Beling has prepared, supervised the preparation of, or approved the technical information that forms the basis of the Companys disclosures but is not independent of Bullfrog Gold Corp. For further information, please contact CEO and President David Beling at (970) 628-1670.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including those with respect to the objectives, plans and strategies of the Company and those preceded by or that include the words "believes," "expects," "given," "targets," "intends," "anticipates," "plans," "projects," "forecasts" or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties.

Such forward-looking information and statements are based on numerous assumptions, including among others, the Company's ability to successfully maintain its listings, the stability of industry and market costs and trends and the Company's ability to obtain all regulatory approvals required for its planned objectives. Furthermore, by their very nature, forward-looking information involves a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual plans, intentions, events, results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, without limitation, those related to: (a) adverse regulatory or legislative changes (b) market conditions, volatility and global economic conditions (c) industry-wide risks (d) the Company's inability to maintain or improve its competitive position and (e) the ability to obtain financing needed to fund the continued development of the Company's business.

The Company is presently an exploration stage company. Exploration is highly speculative in nature, involves many risks, requires substantial expenditures, and may not result in the discovery of mineral deposits that can be mined profitably. Furthermore, the Company currently has no reserves on any of its properties. As a result, there can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Additional information regarding important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations is disclosed in the Company's documents filed with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission or on www.sedar.com . Investors are urged to consider closely the disclosures in our Form 10-K and other SEC filings, which can be obtained from the SECs website at http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml.

Company Contact:

David Beling

CEO and President

970.628.1670



Corporate Communications:

InvestorBrandNetwork (IBN)

Los Angeles, California

www.InvestorBrandNetwork.com

310.299.1717 Office

Editor@InvestorBrandNetwork.com






Republican voters appear to have lifted Thomas Beadle over Dan Johnston in the race for treasurer nominee between the two state representatives.

With all 422 precincts reporting in Tuesday's primary, Beadle, of Fargo, had 52% to 47% for Johnston, of Kathryn. More than 96,700 people voted.

Beadle is a real estate broker and a business development manager for Super Studio who has served in the House since 2010. Johnston was first elected in 2016 and runs a small farm with his family.

Beadle appears to move on to Novembers general election, though about 41,000 mail-in ballots had yet to be returned on Tuesday from about 196,000 sent out statewide, according to Deputy Secretary of State Jim Silrum. County canvassing boards meet Monday to certify election results.

"I'm encouraged by the results last night and very grateful for the support from all across North Dakota!" Beadle told the Tribune in a text message Wednesday. "We still have some ballots trickling in but I'm optimistic and hopeful that our lead will hold over the next few days and allow us to pivot to November and continue fighting to improve our state and protect taxpayer dollars in the Treasurer's office."

Johnston did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With Republicans' state endorsing convention canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Beadle and Johnston both proceeded to the June election to vie for their party's nomination from voters.

Treasurer is the only statewide race without an incumbent. Republican Treasurer Kelly Schmidt, the state's longest-serving treasurer, didn't seek a fifth term.

Democrat Mark Haugen, who has had three unsuccessful legislative bids, faced no opposition on Tuesday and advances to November. A Democrat last won the treasurer's office in 2000. Republicans hold all statewide and congressional seats in North Dakota, and control the Legislature.

The Republican treasurer's race drew attention for President Donald Trump's May 24 tweet endorsing Johnston, stemming from a nudge by U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D, a longtime Trump ally. Gov. Doug Burgum gave $25,000 to Beadle's campaign.

North Dakota's treasurer is custodian of the state's funds and heads a seven-person office, one of the smallest in state government. The treasurer also sits on a number of boards, including the State Canvassing Board, the State Historical Board and the Board of University and School Lands.

The next state treasurer takes office Jan. 1, at a salary of $110,582.

Reach Jack Dura at 701-250-8225 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com.

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MBABANE  The Federation of Eswatini Business Community (FESBC) says working mothers are now doing an extra job during the period of the partial lockdown, and they need some form of relief.



The relief, as suggested by the federation, would be leave of absence given to the working mothers.

This is according to a report from a survey done by the business community themed; Supporting Working Mothers and Parents during COVID-19 and beyond. It was done by FESBC business experts.



However, the report does not clearly stipulate whether the leave of absence should be on full pay or not.

In fact, the report reads that parents, in particular mothers, now spend an additional 27 hours each week on household chores, childcare and educationnearly the equivalent of a second job on top of their household responsibilities before the coronavirus crisis.



Highlights



The study highlights that the COVID-19 crisis was turning many lives around, bringing grave concerns about health, welfare and a long list of other stresses and uncertainties in the kingdom.



Moreover, it was stipulated that working women with school-going children were often at a critical stage in their career, potentially serving as middle managers and on their way to leadership and executive positions.



These are roles that, around the world, are still more often filled by men. However, as these women navigate the COVID-19 crisis plus their career path; their employers decision on gender equality, female promotion and advancement of women will certainly be put to the test, it was stated.

It was mentioned that both mothers and fathers were stepping up, but women continued to bear a disproportionate share of the burden.



The report highlighted that on average, women currently spend 15 hours more on domestic labour each week than men in the country.

In addition, it was stated that women in the kingdom were 10 times more likely than men to take days off from work to care for a sick child, even though over half of them were not paid for that time.



It was observed that childcare changes, such as school and day care closures, were among the most difficult day-to-day challenges.

These disruptions are not just an inconvenience, they are serious problems for those who dont have the option of working from home, who may lose income from reduced hours, or whose children depend on school for meals and safety, reads the report in part.



In the surveys findings, it was also revealed that 60 per cent of respondents had no outside help in caring for and educating their children. It was added that another 10 per cent had less help than before the pandemic.

FESBC observed that even among parents with middle-class white collar jobs that offered some flexibility, managing children during this crisis was extremely difficult, especially for women who were 60 per cent more likely than men to take on childcare responsibilities.



In fact, small, micro, medium enterprises-SMMEs and private company leaders and CEOs are facing a hard moment of truth, as they make decisions about how to respond to the needs of working mothers and fathers during this difficult time, further reads the report.

It was further mentioned that the way organisations handled the challenges today had the potential to affect their pipeline (supply) of workers down the road, and the gender balance of their future leaders in Eswatini.



The report contained that close to half of the respondents felt that their performance at work had decreased as a result of managing these additional responsibilities.

Meanwhile, the report suggests that leave of absence could be an option that could be given to working mothers to keep them in their jobs.



Suggestions



This is one of the suggestions contained in the report by FESBC as a solution to the challenges faced by working mothers. The business community provided the solutions to employers of working mothers and requested that they should implement them to ease the burden of their employers.



In addition, the report highlighted that FESBC was aware that for regular sick days, forward-looking SMMEs and companies already had helpful policies in place, such as paid sick days, backup childcare options and flexible work opportunities. It was mentioned that these were all extremely important tools that helped women balance work and family when its business as usual.



But these are not usual circumstances right now. Even if a leave of absence is necessary, work hard to find a way to make that happen. Its the right thing to do both for public health and for the bottom line, as termination turnover costs are estimated to be 33 per cent of an employees annual salary, the report reads.

It was further suggested that employers should communicate and be flexible with their employees. The report stipulated that employers should not assume that employees working from home will be at their regular performance and capacity or on their regular schedule.



Moreover, it was suggested that managers should lay out a plan that accounts for the impact of childcare (supposedly by mothers) in the annual review process. This included the notation of that impact, adjustment of annual goals, and protection against retaliation if, for example, childcare issues affect the work that should get done.



Another suggestion was that mothers and fathers should have open and regular conversations about how to better share family responsibilities, so that the default was not always for women to take on the extra work. However, at the same time, SMMEs and organisations were advised to seize this moment to make sure that women were not opting out of their careers if they did not have to.

Also, SMMEs and company leaders were informed that they needed to step up and make sure they did not backtrack on the shaky progress that had been made in advancing women into business leadership in the kingdom.



On the other hand, some employers were not keen on the recommendations that were brought by FESBC. An employer, who requested to comment on condition of anonymity, said as much as the recommendations were for the advancement of women, they did not make sense.

Yes, it is a critical time, but people need to learn to adapt to situations and navigate around them, the employer said.



Strategies



However, he stated that there could be open communication among employers and employees to devise strategies on how to work effectively.

Meanwhile, some working mothers appreciated the survey done by the business community.

Tema Dlamini, an employee in one of the prominent banks in the country, agreed with its findings, stating that it was true that many working women had a lot on their plate with the advent of the coronavirus.



I am a single parent who has a Grade VII child. I tackle work, home chores and my childs schoolwork all at once, the doting mother said.

Although she stated that she was not complaining, she pointed out that there were times when she felt she needed some time out.
During Mauritius' Covid-19 lockdown, the government passed tough quarantine legislation that has given the police extensive powers. Officials say the law is necessary to protect the population of the small Indian Ocean island. Rights groups and lawyers have criticised what they describe as a controversial law, which they fear may lead to police abuse.

The quarantine law was passed by Parliament in Mauritius on 15 May to address the Covid-19 pandemic which has led to ten deaths on the island.

The Quarantine Act 2020 repeals and replaces the Quarantine Act from 1954, which was voted when Mauritius was still a British colony.

The government says that the new quarantine law is necessary to protect the small islands population of 1.3 million against the highly contagious coronavirus.

Activist Ashok Subron says that the government took advantage of a situation when the country was under strict lockdown to pass a controversial bill in just three days, without proper democratic debate.

One of the provisions of the law allows police to enter premises without a warrant. Another allows the police to arrest a person without warrant.

The Quarantine Act, under article 11, gives unfettered power to police officers at a time when rogue elements within the police force raised a lot of criticisms among the population, says the leader of the opposition, Arvin Boolell.

Precedent of police abuse

For human rights lawyer, Erickson Mooneapillay, the deaths of five men in police custody, as well as the numerous cases of police brutality reported during the two-and-a-half months of confinement, suggest that it is dangerous to give more power to the forces of law and order.

The lack of safeguards within the quarantine law is quite alarming, Mooneapillay told RFI.

He added that lawyers and activists in Mauritius have been calling for the introduction of laws similar to the United Kingdoms Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) which balances the powers of the police and the rights and freedoms of the public.

Story continues

I cannot understand how the Quarantine Act was introduced in a matter of days while it is taking forever to present even the idea of a PACE in our parliament, said Mooneapillay, the Mauritius director of Human Rights Indian Ocean.

But then no government has had the guts to table such a bill at the National Assembly.

Reza Uteem, barrister and member of parliament for the opposition Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM), says that during parliamentary debates on the bill, he suggested a safeguard to mitigate the power now given to all police officers.

Regarding police powers, I suggested adding that the consent of a high-ranking police officer, not below the rank of an assistant commissioner of police, be required. This is already the case for drug offences, he told RFI. But the government did not pay heed.

Lying to doctor is a crime

This law also gives a wide range of power to the Prime Minister.

I cannot see the need to transfer more power onto the Prime Minister who already holds most of the executive powers, Subron told RFI.

The provisions of the law apply not only to the Covid-19 virus but include other communicable diseases like measles and yellow fever. Spitting in a public place is now a criminal offence.

Under Article 12 (a), it is an offence to refuse to answer or give a misleading answer.

Mooneapillay points out that the right to remain silent is a time-hallowed tradition in criminal law and cannot be taken away.

The Attorney-General, Maneesh Gobin, explained that misinformation or refusing to disclose accurate information to the health authorities in Mauritius could have dramatic consequences and put the lives of others in danger.

We had a patient who did not tell the doctor he had coronavirus symptoms and was given treatment for a different disease, said Gobin.

Another one did not disclose that he stayed in a country affected by Covid-19. All this led to unnecessary deaths.

Subron declares that some aspects of the new law are a copy and paste of the 1925 Public Health Act, from almost a century ago.

Penalties for breaching the Quarantine Act includes a fine of up to 500,000 rupees (over 11,000 euros) and a jail sentence of up to five years.

Not unconstitutional

For Subron, the law enables an abuse of both police and political power.

It is a derogation of our civil rights and liberties, framed under the guise of a public health emergency, he said. This cannot be accepted, even in this current Covid situation.

Responding to concerns that the law may infringe civil liberties, barrister Mushtaq Namdarkhan says that Section 9 of the Constitution of Mauritius permits legislation to protect public health.

Unless a citizen manages to prove to the Supreme Court that the new Quarantine Act is not reasonably justifiable, then the law has been passed in accordance with the Constitution, explains Namdarkhan.

Under the new law, it will be up to the Minister of Health to declare the end of the epidemic and lift the quarantine. But neither Subron nor Mooneapillay believe the quarantine will be lifted when Mauritius is eventually Covid-free.
Donald Trump last night celebrated a rare endorsement from the Bush family after its youngest political heir George P. Bush backed him for re-election.

The president declared it a 'great honor' after the 44-year-old Texas land commissioner said Trump was the 'only thing standing between America and socialism'.

Trump has feuded with the Bush clan on numerous occasions since he entered the 2016 presidential race and defeated Jeb Bush in the Republican primary.

Reports have claimed that George W. Bush - the uncle of George P. Bush - will not vote for Trump in November, although the 43rd president's spokesman has played these rumors down.

Endorsement: Texas land commissioner George P. Bush (pictured), the 44-year-old heir to the Bush dynasty, has backed President Trump for re-election

Donald Trump last night declared it a 'great honor' after receiving rare public support from a member of the Bush family

George P. Bush made his endorsement in a statement to Texas newspapers including the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday.

'Its clear, America and Texas will continue to be stronger than ever,' he said in support of Trump.

'Even in a global pandemic where we have had to take unprecedented measures to protect public health, the economy is already returning.'

Bush, the son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush and grandson of former President George H.W. Bush, is the only family member who still holds public office.

Another grandson, Pierce Bush, launched a Texas congressional campaign in December but was defeated in the primaries earlier this year.

George P. Bush took office as Texas land commissioner in 2015 and has sometimes been the subject of speculation about running for higher office.

He previously endorsed Trump in 2016 despite Jeb Bush's primary defeat, telling voters to 'make sure that we stop Hillary Clinton'.

In his re-election campaign for land commissioner in 2018 he received an endorsement from the president's son, Donald Trump Jr.

George W. Bush reportedly voted 'none of the above' in the 2016 election and has not yet commented on how he will vote in 2020.

His spokesman has played down reports that Bush will once again refuse to support Trump, saying the 43rd president 'has not indicated' how he will vote.

Donald Trump (pictured at the White House on Monday) has feuded with the Bush family on numerous occasions

Reports have claimed that George W. Bush (pictured) will not vote for Trump in November, although the former president's spokesman has played these rumours down

Bush last week called on the US to 'examine our tragic failures' after the death of George Floyd, striking a contrast with Trump's more combative tone.

While not mentioning Trump by name, Bush said that 'the heroes of America are heroes of unity' and urged people to 'listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving'.

'Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America - or how it becomes a better place,' he said.

The elder George Bush - who died in 2018 - voted for Hillary Clinton four years ago, according to the author of a book about the two Presidents Bush.

Jeb Bush openly admitted that he could not support Trump in 2016, saying he would not vote for either Trump or Clinton.

The former Florida governor raised more than $150million before the primaries even started but was powerless to stop Trump surging to the nomination.

Trump repeatedly belittled Bush as 'Low Energy Jeb' and Bush later berated his rival's lack of 'temperament or strength of character'.

The president did not attend Barbara Bush's funeral in 2018, although he did go to George H.W. Bush's funeral later that year.

Last month he criticized George W. Bush for being 'nowhere to be found' during the impeachment process against Trump.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 04:53:14|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, June 10 (Xinhua) -- More than 70 civilians have been killed, an untold number wounded and more than 1,000 head of cattle stolen in a raid on a village in northeast Nigeria, UN humanitarians said on Wednesday.

"A motorized armed group" staged the attack in the Gubio area of Borno State over five hours Tuesday, killing some of the victims by setting them ablaze in their own homes, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Many were shot as they tried to escape.

Preliminary reports said funerals for the victims were targeted by gunmen Wednesday, OCHA said.

"Vigilantes and local hunters were deployed to protect the town and nearby areas, in support of military action, in response to persistent and escalating levels of violence by armed groups active in Nigeria's northeast," the office said.

The latest attacks are the deadliest in north-central Borno State since July 2019, OCHA said.

Gubio is about 80 km from Maiduguri, capital of Borno State. Enditem
Representative image

Did you wonder why calls from banks related to loan offers have receded in the past two months?

No, it's not that the banks don't want to do business anymore. But the call centres that place those calls have been out of action due to coronavirus-induced lockdown restrictions.

Call centres have either shut down temporarily or were working with minimal capacity as the demand dropped amidst the lockdown that ensued because of the pandemic. With slump in demand, and supply constraints due to lockdown, these firms are struggling to stay afloat.

Though these firms are slowly limping back to normalcy, call centre executives pointed out that it would take another quarter for business to pick up.

Call centre landscape in India

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

According to experts and human resource executives, call centre business in India is pegged at $1 billion and employs over 1 lakh people. These call centres handle both inbound and outbound calls, which include customer support, telemarketing and cold calling.

Also Read | COVID-19 impact | As workers return, attendance systems at offices set for radical changes

Cold calling refers to calling customers without having them sign up for it. Telemarketing is direct selling of products and services primarily through phones.

The best example could be the calls you get for credit cards or those calling you to ask for feedback for a particular support a company offered. In terms of business, they are typically B2B services.

COVID-19 impact

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, these firms have been the worst hit. Pareekh Jain, founder, Pareekh Consulting, said these firms were adversely affected as they lack the infrastructure for making voice calls from home and hence have not been able to function properly.

"Smaller firms are the most impacted since they would have cash flow issues," he said.

Take for instance, this call centre owner from tier 2 city in Tamil Nadu.

"I have done nothing but sleep and eat in the last two months," said Murali, who runs a call centre in Coimbatore. His company offers technical support to retail and logistics clients and employs close to 30 people.

Also Read | Coronavirus impact | French BPO firm Teleperformance terminates 3,000 employees in India

With the demand down due to COVID-19, Murali had to shut down 75 percent of his operations. For instance, if the company made 120 calls per day, it had come down to 20-30. The company is yet to receive customer payment since March.

"My monthly turnover is Rs 15 lakh and about 50 percent account for salaries. Small portion of it goes into maintenance, equipment and rentals," he said. His March turnover was nil.

With no cash flow, he has been paying employees minimal salary and rent out of his pocket.

Another call centre in Bengaluru is in a similar position. The firms offers telemarketing services for e-commerce firms and employs 200 people. The executive of the call centre said the company's business came down by 60 percent.

Track this blog for latest updates on the coronavirus crisis

These firms are facing pricing pressure such as discounts and deferrals in payments as its customers have been adversely impacted. Some of them have discontinued the service and these firms are not in a position to recover the fees since they were not billed.

"Right now, we are discussing with customers about payments terms," said Murali.

Employee concerns

While companies can now work at 100 percent capacity as per the recent Ministry of External Affairs order, frequency of public transport is limited across India and hence crowded. In Bengaluru, metro is not operational and public transport is yet to resume in Chennai.

Since these employees are dependent on public transport, even with lockdown easing, most of its employees are unable to come of work. Unless public transport is completely restored the supply constraint will continue, he added.

What will change for them post- COVID-19?

Given the circumstances, some firms are now looking to automate basic customer support function. Customer support could be classified into three levels, L1, L2 and L3.

In L1 support, the primary function is to guide customer to register a ticket. Since it is a basic customer support, freshers and trainees are mostly employed in this role. For L2, the position requires 2-4 years of experience as they need to do technical and voice support whereas L3 purely technical support.

Executives pointed out that L1 role will be automated and more bots are likely to be deployed. This is hardly new as recent times have seen call centres deploy chat bots for this function. However, the pandemic as accelerated the adoption across.

"The process of automation has been accelerated in many call centres. As a result, the headcount fall has also been accelerated. Though we cannot attribute it to COVID-19 entirely, the fact is that many people would be redundant," said Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR Services.

Firms will reskill these employees in L1 to handle more nuanced L2 and L3 roles. However, job losses are inevitable. Mishra pegs that automation is likely to reduce manpower requirement in call centres by 10 percent over the next one year.

Other changes would be inclusion of work from home clause in contracts. The Bengaluru call centre executive said that the company is looking to include 25 percent WFH in the clause. Mishra explained that this move gives cost advantage to companies and also opportunities to people who couldn't work earlier.

Follow our coverage of the coronavirus crisis
Iranian Medical Students To Be Required To Study Traditional Medicine

06/10/20

Source: RFE/RL

Iran's Health Ministry has announced that students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacology will be required to take two courses in traditional medicine, Iranian media reported on June 8.

|

History of Iran's traditional medicine



The decision comes amid an outbreak of the coronavirus that has killed nearly 8,500 people and infected more than 175,000, according to official figures. Real numbers are believed to be significantly higher.



In recent weeks, a number of self-proclaimed experts in Islamic medicine created controversy by promoting unproven and potentially dangerous coronavirus treatments.

Health officials have warned about fake coronavirus remedies, including illegal herbal products sold online.



Last month, authorities detained a man who had claimed in a video posted online that drinking camel urine prevents and cures COVID-19.
New Delhi, June 10 (IANS) A massive negative impact on income due to the lockdown is driving households to a flight to safety towards public sector banks while a large number of Indians now feel their hopes of purchasing a home of their own would remain a dream, as per the latest IANS CVoter Economic Battery Wave survey.

As the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown severely dented businesses across sectors, impacting the income of the common Indians for over two months, people are uncertain about their financial prospects.

The sample date is first week of June and the sample size is 1,397 and covers more than 500 Lok Sabha seats across the country. Every week a 1,000 plus new respondents are added to the tracker model.

There is a massive negative impact on household income since the lockdown was implemented, with more than half of the respondents indicating it.

As per the survey, 53.2 per cent of males said there is a negative impact on income. So either people are laid off, getting reduced salaries, forced for leave without pay or working only part time now. As many as 56.4 per cent females are earning less than before the lockdown.

The situation is grim in terms of survival without incomes and jobs. Almost half of India's population will not be able to survive more than a month without any job or income with the help of savings or family support.

With a protracted lockdown and dismal economy, job losses are mounting and concerns are going up for families on how long they can hold out.

As per the IANS CVoter Economic Battery Wave, 28.2 per cent of males said they would survive less than a month without income while 20.7 per cent said they could survive for a month. At the more comfortable end of the spectrum, 10.7 per cent said they could survive without income for more than a year.

Also, a large number of Indians now feel their hopes of purchasing a home of their own would remain a dream.

The survey showed that around 24.6 per people in the middle-income group and 18.3 per cent in the low-income group feel a home of their own is beyond their reach now.

Interestingly, the despair persists despite the government's latest announcement of extending the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) for middle-income groups to buy affordable housing units for one more year till March 31, 2021.

This very feeling of incapability of purchasing a house is not limited to the low and middle-income groups, as the survey showed that nearly 7 per cent respondents from the higher-income group feel their plans of buying a home have been derailed.

Indicating a flight to safety, the survey shows that the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown has truly tested the preference of people for the banking system that provides safety for their savings with good service and better returns.

In this regard, the survey shows that public sector banks have got a thumbs-up from majority of the account holders who feel that their hard-earned money is safe there in comparison to private sector banks.

Private banks seem to be out of favour for the general public as account holders from across age and income groups, residing both in rural and urban areas, largely said that their trust on these banks have come down.

Even cooperative banks fared better in terms of the trust factor compared to the private lenders.

Around 12.7 per cent of the people aged above 60 years, who currently hold accounts in private banks, want to shift their accounts, out of which 12 per cent want to shift to cooperative banks and the rest 0.7 per cent are willing to shift to public banks.

However, a majority of the respondents do not plan to cut down on domestic services.

As per the survey, 60.9 per cent of the respondents across categories said they will continue to avail these services.

They were responding to a question on whether or not they planned to cut down on the services availed.

These services include domestic help, driver and cook, among others.

A total of 39.1 per cent of the respondents planned to cut down on these services.

Meanwhile,

most people believe that normalcy will be restored after the lockdown is lifted. However, they will still maintain precautionary measures to mitigate the risk of the Covid-19 infection.

The tracker showed that 55.6 per cent of respondents across categories said that normalcy will come back once lockdown is lifted.

They were responding to a question on whether or not they "think life will come back to normal once lockdown is removed?"

As many as 44.4 per cent of the respondents were either unsure or felt that it will take some months for things to normalise.

--IANS

san/arm
By Chijioke Ohuocha

ABUJA, June 10 (Reuters) - The Nigerian naira for five-year settlement was quoted at 578.37 to the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, just off a record low of 584.11 last week, as a shortage of dollars piled on pressure, while the central bank seeks to bolster the Nigerian currency.

The naira has been hitting new lows on the black and over-the-counter spot markets since March after the central bank adjusted its official rate, implying a 15% devaluation.

Meanwhile, a crash in oil prices in April, triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, worsened shortages of dollars in the oil-producing nation.

The bank strengthened the naira on the futures market for May 2025 settlement by six naira, traders said on Wednesday.

Introduced in February, 5-year naira futures traded above 550 last month on the derivatives market as dollars ran short on the spot market.

Bankers say the central bank has been intervening in liquidity on the interbank market around the time when the bank plans currency auctions.

A central bank spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Friday, the bank withdrew around 460 billion naira from the banking system, banking sources said.

The bank has resumed dollar sales to local clients, selling around $100 million per week, but has yet to sell to offshore investors, traders say, after it scrapped a planned auction because of lockdown measures to slow the coronavirus.

Importers been left scrambling for hard currency while providers of foreign exchange, such as offshore investors, have exited.

Liquidity on the over-the-counter spot market touched a low of around $31 million on Wednesday from around $300 million a day last year, traders said.

The naira closed at 387.08 on the spot market, while the two-week currency futures settlement quoted the naira at 389.84. The currency was quoted at 361 on the official market, backed by the central bank. (Reporting by Chijioke Ohuocha; editing by Barbara Lewis)
Seen above are passenger jets of Asiana Airlines at Incheon International Airport on June 10. Yonhap



Creditors pressure HDC to offer specific demands



By Lee Min-hyung




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Linkedin Jan Hennop (Agence France-Presse) The Hague, Netherlands  Wed, June 10, 2020 10:15 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd7fb33 2 World Darfur,war-fugitive,ICC,international-criminal-court,war-crime Free

Longtime fugitive militiaman Ali Kushayb has turned himself in to the International Criminal Court where he faces war crimes charges for his role in Sudan's brutal Darfur conflict, the ICC said Tuesday.

Kushayb, also known as Ali Muhammad Ali AbdAl-Rahman, is wanted on 50 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between 2003-2004 in the western Darfur region.

"Ali Kushayb is in the custody of the ICC after surrendering himself voluntarily in the Central African Republic on account of an ICC arrest warrant issued on 27 April 2007," the Hague court said in a statement.

ICC prosecutors say Kushayb, believed to be around 63 years old, was a senior commander in the notorious Janjaweed militia during the fighting, which erupted in 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Khartoum's then Arab-dominated government, led by the now-ousted Omar al-Bashir.

The rebels say they suffered racial discrimination, marginalization and exclusion in one of the country's poorest regions.

But Khartoum responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, a group of mostly Arab raiding nomads, recruited and armed to create a militia of gunmen who often mounted horses or camels.

They have been accused of applying a scorched earth policy against ethnic groups suspected of supporting the rebels, raping, killing, looting and burning villages.

Terror campaign

Their terror campaign saw the ICC issue arrest warrants against Kushayb in 2007 and Bashir in 2009 and 2010.

"Ali Kushayb is alleged to have personally participated in some of the attacks against civilians... between August 2003 and March 2004, where the killing of civilians, rape, torture and other cruel treatments occurred," the ICC said.

A senior Sudanese official told AFP he had been transferred following surrender. "We have been officially notified of Kushayb's arrival to the ICC headquarters in The Hague," he said.

ICC spokesman Fadi El-Abdallah confirmed that Kushayb arrived at the ICC's high security detention facility in a Hague suburb around 1700 GMT.

An initial appearance would take place "in due course", the ICC said.

Landmark for justice

Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for three decades, was deposed in April last year following months of protests in Sudan.

Kushayb fled to the Central African Republic in February when the new Sudanese government announced its intention to cooperate with the ICC's investigation, a researcher at the Washington-based war crimes and corruption-busting organisation The Sentry said.

Kushayb and around 100 militiamen fled Sudan "hoping he could find a haven amidst the conflict and chaos of the Central African Republic," Nathalia Dukhan said in a statement.

Wanted on charges including genocide, Bashir still remains on the run from the Hague-based court, having thumbed his nose at the institution while travelling with impunity across Africa, including to some ICC member states.

Arrest warrants had also been issued for others including Ahmad Harun, Sudan's former interior minister who was charged with coordinating counter-insurgency forces including the Janjaweed in operations against the rebels.

Human rights groups hailed Kushayb's surrender to the court as "extremely significant" and a "landmark for justice for Darfur's victims."

"For too long those responsible for the large-scale international crimes committed in the western Sudanese region of Darfur have escaped prosecution," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet said.

"The world watched in horror as Sudan's government carried out brutal attacks on Darfur civilians, killing, raping, burning and looting villages, starting in 2003," Human Rights Watch associate director Elise Keppler added.

"But after 13 years justice has finally caught up with one major fugitive of the crimes," she said.

Genocide

About 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in the conflict, the United Nations says.

Thousands of peacekeeping troops from a joint UN-African Union mission were deployed in 2007 to curb the conflict, but their numbers have been gradually reduced since mid-2018 as the conflict has subsided.

An independent tribunal, the ICC was set up in 2002 to deal with the world's worst crimes including genocide.
(Bloomberg) --

China and Russia were blamed for spewing out false and misleading online information about Covid-19 in a European Union report that seeks to stem the unprecedented spread of fake news amid the pandemic.

The two nations are among foreign actors that sought to undermine democratic debate and enhance their own image through targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns around Covid-19 in the EU, the blocs executive authority said in the report published on Wednesday.

It would be too dangerous not to act, European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova told reporters in Brussels. She said the pandemic showed us that false information could do serious harm, could kill citizens even and could undermine the public authorities response and therefore also weaken the measures taken.

The commission has in recent months stepped up pressure on platforms such as Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. to help stem the flow of misleading content about the virus, vaccines or alleged cures on their sites. Its part of a broader goal to fight hate speech and disinformation online that could lead to new EU regulation to make tech giants more accountable and responsible.

The EU said in the report theres been an unprecedented infodemic that has fed on peoples most basic anxieties as most of them were forced to stay socially confined and revert to an increased use of social media to access information. Given the novelty of the virus, gaps in knowledge have proven to be an ideal breeding ground for false or misleading narratives to spread.

Propaganda Campaign

The EUs findings on China and Russia are based on a separate study by the commissions foreign and diplomatic wing, which said it had evidence of a coordinated push by official Chinese sources to deflect blame for the coronavirus pandemic and promote its response to the virus. EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell, who heads the service, has worked with Jourova over the last few weeks on the latest plans.

Story continues

The accusations against Russia and China reflect EU efforts to find an external enemy to paper over European divisions exposed by the pandemic, Leonid Slutsky, head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian lower house of parliament, said according to state news service RIA Novosti. Chinas foreign ministry didnt respond to a request for comment.

State-sponsored foreign propaganda preys on peoples fears and doubts, said Jourova. A geopolitical EU can only materialize if we are assertive and name the issues we face. But we also have to put our own house in order and beef up our own strategic communication to prevent others from claiming this space online.

Online platforms will have a key role to play by being more transparent about whats happening online and where misleading information is coming from. A code of conduct on disinformation that five tech giants, including Twitter, Facebook and Google, signed up to so far, is only a first step, said Jourova, adding that ByteDance Ltd.s social media app TikTok said they also plan to sign up to the code, and that the EU is in negotiations with Facebooks WhatsApp too.

Not Good Enough

We only know as much as platforms tell us and this is not good enough; platforms have to open up, she said.

Companies that are part of the code will have to publish monthly reports that include data on policies aimed at limiting ad placements related to Covid-19 disinformation, both on their own sites and on third-party websites, the EU said. While the commission is unlikely to propose hard legislation to regulate harmful disinformation, its working on a more balanced proposal, Jourova said.

The report comes as Hungary -- an EU member state -- faces criticism for preparing a national survey that includes a question on a coronavirus crisis proposal by investor George Soros that experts say will force nations into debt slavery.

In the national consultation due to be mailed to all Hungarian citizens, the government asks whether people should reject George Soross plan, which would in-debt our homeland for an unforeseeable long time.

(Updates with Russian response in seventh paragraph)

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Universities should further lower their A-level offers to disadvantaged students, MPs were told yesterday.

Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility, said the pandemic meant institutions and employers would have to be more creative and radical in judging talent.

He called for a review of teacher-assessed GCSE and A-level results this summer to look at fairness among different groups.

'The worry is that unintentionally teachers will underestimate, sometimes, the academic potential of poorer pupils, potentially those from black backgrounds, and potentially boys as well,' he said.

Universities should further lower their A-level offers to disadvantaged students, MPs were told yesterday (file photo)

'Universities are going to have to think about lowering grades further for those students that can show that they have been particularly disrupted by this.'

The Exeter University professor told MPs that students who left their revision to the last minute might lose out most, especially less mature summer-born children.

He told the Commons education committee that a 'tsunami of anxiety' faced Year 10 and Year 12 pupils who are due to sit GCSEs and A-levels next year.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, called for grade boundaries to be adjusted this summer. He acknowledged the move was controversial but insisted it was needed to ensure pupils were not unfairly disadvantaged.

Sally Collier, the chief regulator at the watchdog Ofqual, said the Government was considering the impact of lost teaching on grading next year's exams

'There needs to be more children getting all of the higher grades,' he told the MPs. 'Where there is doubt, somebody should move up a grade rather than moving down a grade.

'That will mean the exams will be regarded as not having the same rigour as the previous exam series, but I don't see how else we're going to get through this.'

Sally Collier, the chief regulator at the watchdog Ofqual, said the Government was considering the impact of lost teaching on grading next year's exams.

Secondary school pupils could face a rota system of two weeks on and two weeks off in September, according to Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. He said it was unlikely all students would return full time after the summer holidays.
There are more than 30,000 people now on a waiting list for skin rejuvenation procedures like Botox  proving that its their faces and not just restrictions that people are desperate to lift in the post-lockdown era.

Figures supplied to the Irish Independent by Therapie clinic, which has 26 branches nationwide, have revealed that massive numbers of women and men are clamouring to freshen up their appearance after the stress of the past three months.

Unfortunately, they will all have to wait until July 20 when salons can re-open under phase four of the Government roadmap.

Bulk

Therapies CEO Philip McGlade said the bulk of their waiting list was appointments for skin rejuvenation.

That figure of 30,000 would be mainly for Botox and laser treatments.

Obviously, we cant wait to re-open again, the sooner the better for everyone, he said.

We have half a million customers on our books in total so theres a massive demand for this and I think there will be an even bigger increase due to lockdown.

Botox usually lasts an average of three to six months so with a treatment like that, people are desperate now to get it done again.

Mr McGlade said that the Covid-19 crisis has been devastating for their business, which also has 16 branches in the UK.




Viewers were left shocked by a 'sensational' claim that murdered British backpacker Peter Falconio 'faked his own death' to commit insurance fraud in last night's episode of Channel 4's Murder in the Outback.

The documentary series looks back at Peter's disappearance on a Northern Territory roadside in 2001 while on holiday in Australia with his girlfriend Joanne Lees.

The 28-year-old - whose body was never found - was shot after travelling on the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the outback, while his partner, then 27, escaped abduction when rescued by a lorry driver.

In last night's episode, a former defence lawyer revealed a shocking claim from one of Peter's friends who said the backpacker was 'capable of faking his own death and committing life insurance fraud' - leaving some viewers wondering if he was still alive.

However, others were left disgusted by the 'sensational nonsense' and 'shoddy', 'awful' portrayal of the murdered tourist, and quickly shared their best wishes to his family.

Australian police discounted suggestions that Peter faked his own death. Bradley John Murdoch, 62, was convicted of the execution-style murder of Peter and sentenced to life behind bars in 2005, following a DNA match found on Joanne's T-shirt.

Viewers have suggested murdered British backpacker Peter Falconio (pictured right) 'faked his own death after taking out a life insurance policy', after witnesses claim they spotted him just days after he went missing

Channel 4's Murder in the Outback: The Falconio and Lees Mystery looks back at Peter's disappearance on a Northern Territory roadside in 2001 while on holiday in Australia with his girlfriend Joanne Lees. Pictured: Robert Brown, who claims to have seen Peter shortly after he went missing

In last night's episode, a former defence lawyer said a friend of Peter's claimed the backpacker was 'capable of faking his own death and committing life insurance fraud'. Pictured: A statement from the anonymous friend

Some viewers (above) were left disgusted by the 'sensational nonesene' and 'shoddy', 'awful' portrayal of the murdered tourist

Following the claim from Peter's friend, shocked viewers took to Twitter to reveal their 'disgust' at the 'awful' suggestions.

'Not sure what's going on with Channel 4 but #MurderInTheOutback is a new low. Sensationalist nonsense with unfounded allegations,' one viewer wrote.

A spokesperson for the documentary said: 'That theory, along with others, are considered by contributors to the programme. The programme is duly impartial and makes clear that Bradley Murdoch has been tried and convicted and his appeal dismissed.'

Elsewhere, other social media users speculated that Peter could still be alive, since police have never discovered a body.

One person wrote: 'They need to explore the fact he may still be alive and actually he was in on it,' while another said: 'I believe Falconio is still alive... did he take out a life insurance policy?'

A third added: 'I reckon Falconio faked his own death and he's alive somewhere... Took out insurance before his own death? Hmmmm.'

During the documentary's third episode, which aired last night at 9pm, witnesses Robert Brown and his partner Melissa Kendall claimed they saw Peter shortly after he went missing.

They say they spotted the backpacker in the remote town of Bourke in New South Wales, which is more than 1,200 miles from the site where Peter was last seen, days after his death was reported in the newspaper.

Some social media users (above) were then quick to suggest that Peter may have 'faked his own death and that he's still alive'

Robert told the documentary: 'I was reading the race results in the paper and I heard the door squeak, and Melissa was on the other side and she's yelling out to me.

'She yelled at me again and then the next minute she turned the paper over and on the front page there was a picture of a gentleman down in the bottom right-hand corner and she tapped it.

'I put the paper down and walked around the corner and then bang I am looking straight at this bloke I saw in the paper. I was sort of in shock.'

He added: 'I didn't go to the police straight away because it was none of my business. I am 200 per cent it was Peter Falconio, I will go under any lie detector test. I was a metres away from him.' Melissa added: 'I personally believe he is alive, where he is I don't know.'

Peter (pictured with his girlfriend) was shot after travelling on the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the outback, while his partner, then 27, escaped abduction when rescued by a lorry driver

During the documentary's third episode, which aired last night at 9pm, witnesses Robert Brown (pictured ) and his partner Melissa Kendall claimed they saw Peter shortly after he went missing

Their statement followed former defence lawyer Andrew Fraser's revelation that a person claiming to be a friend of Peter's suggested he had committed life insurance fraud.

He told the cameras: 'One such theory that came to our attention is that Peter Falconio may have faked his own disappearance.

'It's a statement that comes from somebody who describes himself as a mate of Peter's. And that statement paints a picture of Peter Falconio that many people may find surprising.'

The anonymous friend - who was working three nights a week for an insurance company - told Australian authorities that the backpacker was known as 'dodgy Pete' because he was always known for scamming.

He explained that he'd chatted to Peter about how people were taking out life insurance policy cover for a couple of months before going to a foreign country and putting in a false claim.

Their statement followed former defence lawyer Andrew Fraser's (pictured) revelation that a person claiming to be a friend of Peter's suggested he had committed life insurance fraud

In a statement, the person said: 'There is no doubt in my mind that Peter Falconio is capable of carrying out the scam.

'I would not be in the least bit surprised if he attempted to defraud a life insurance policy just for the money. Before he went away he told me he had taken out a policy.'

However, Australian police discounted those suggestions, with a former journalist telling the documentary: 'There's no way a son could of faked his own death and maintained his absence for so long knowing that his family were so upset.

'That proves to me that the insurance scam allegation was perhaps unfounded.'

Several social media users were quick to agree with the former correspondent, insisting that Peter didn't fake his own death.

One person wrote: 'If he did fake his own death, where's he been for the past 20 years?' as another questioned: 'If Peter is still alive, how come he hasn't been spotted more then?'

Reaction: Several social media users were quick to insist that Peter didn't fake his own death

Australia's infamous 'backpacker killer' Bradley John Murdoch, 62, is surrounded by police as he arrives at Darwin airport following his arrest in 2003

Murdoch, 62, was convicted of the execution-style murder of Peter and also found guilty of assaulting Joanne in 2005. He pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence ever since.

A body was never discovered but Murdoch was found guilty largely due to a DNA match on Joanne's T-shirt.

Last year, he was diagnosed with cancer, triggering a last-ditch attempt from police to elicit a confession in exchange for moving him to a prison closer to his family.

The murderer is being held in the Darwin Correctional Centre where he spends his days in the kitchen as a pastry chef and has become known for his desserts.

He was diagnosed with cancer in 2019, according to the NT News.

Police hope the 'backpacker killer' will reveal where he buried the body in exchange for being transferred from his Northern Territory jail to a Western Australian prison to be closer to his family as he battles cancer.

Murdoch can apply for parole from 2033 but unless he reveals the location of Mr Falconio's body, the application will be denied.
She was once known for her party animal habits and all-night ragers.

But Kate Moss has admitted she now insists on being in bed by 11pm and needs eight hours sleep or she feels groggy.

The supermodel, 46, who has been sober for two years, was reportedly once nicknamed The Tank for her ability to drink copious amounts of liquor.

New routine: Reformed party animal Kate Moss has admitted she now insists on being in bed by 11pm and needs eight hours sleep or she feels groggy (pictured in January)

In an interview with Elle magazine, she said of new routine: 'I hit the sack at 11pm-ish and watch Netflix before I go to sleep.

'Ive just finished Sex Education  its so funny.'

She added: 'I wake up at around 8am. I'm a bit groggy in the afternoon if I don't get eight hours sleep.'

The Tank: The supermodel, 46, who has been sober for two years, was once nicknamed The Tank for her ability to drink copious amounts of liquor

Kate's new vice is a daily dose of yoga which is how she starts her mornings. She added that she also has a Peloton bike but admits she doesn't use it very often.

She added: 'I deal with stress by doing yoga. It helps me concentrate on the here and now.'

Her longtime friend, DJ Fat Tony, has revealed she is now clean, with the pair having more fun now than ever before.

Wild: Kate was a member of The Primrose Hill Set - a name given to the all-star group of edgy residents who were known in their heyday for their raucous behaviour (pictured in April 2007)

Her producer pal, 54 - who himself has been sober for 13 years - said in a new interview: 'Kate's been clean for over two years. Me and my sober mates now have a better time than we ever did when we used to drink and take drugs.'

Kate was a member of The Primrose Hill Set - a name given to the all-star group of edgy residents of the leafy London neighbourhood, who were known in their heyday for their raucous behaviour with stories of their antics becoming the stuff of legend.

After attending a week-long detox in Turkey back in June 2015, the runway sensation wound up being escorted off an easyJet flight home after her airport drinking session took a heavy turn.

U-turn: The catwalk queen recently admitted she's tried to cut down on caffeine and nicotine, and enjoys having more quiet nights in (pictured in September 2019)

The turnaround may come as a shock given that Kate's love of boozing, which reportedly extended to flutes of prosecco at 8am and glasses of wine and vodka at lunch, saw friends coin her the nickname 'The Tank'.

The catwalk queen recently admitted she's tried to cut down on caffeine and nicotine, and enjoys having more quiet nights in.

Speaking to NBC's Megyn Kelly in 2018, the fashion icon revealed: 'I go to bed, I drink lots of water, not too much coffee, and I'm trying to cut down on cigarettes.'

Kate - who shares 17-year-old daughter Lila with former partner Jefferson Hack - has also credited her friends for keeping her 'sane'.

The media personality told told Selfridges.com in 2017: 'I keep sane with my friends, all of them I've known for 20 years, so they know me very well, and I know them very well.'
In a way, Dickeys new home, which she planned to settle into this month, exemplifies the nations rental market during the ongoing health crisis. Renters still move because their leases are up, because they want to, because they can. But many more than usual are looking for cheaper places to live because of what the pandemic has done to their incomes.
Dibrugarh/Guwahati: At least fire-fighters have died and over 50 houses have been gutted in the massive fire that erupted at the gas well of Oil India Ltd at Baghjan in Assams Tinsukia district nearly two weeks after a major blowout there.

According to Zee Media sources, the dead bodies of the two fire-fighters have been recovered and the fire-fighting operation continues at the spot.

The blaze at the Oil India Ltd's well is so massive that it can be seen from a distance of more than 30 kilometres with thick black smoke going up several metres high, endangering the local biodiversities which were already ravaged following the major blowout that happened on May 27.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and SDRF teams are present at the spot and trying to douse the fire, which continues to erupt from the gas well. The OIL-owned Baghjan well has been spewing gas uncontrollably for the last 15 days in Assam's Tinsukia district.

''The two firefighters had gone missing after the well-caught fire on Tuesday and their bodies were recovered by an NDRF team this morning,'' Oil India Spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika said.

"Their bodies were recovered from a wetland near the site. Prima facie it looks that they jumped in the water and got drowned as there is no mark of burn injury. The exact cause will be ascertained only after a post-mortem," he said.

The duo has been identified as Durlov Gogoi and Tikeswar Gohain, both assistant operators of the fire service department of the company, the official said. A firefighter of the state-owned ONGC suffered minor injuries during efforts to control the blaze, which Oil India said could take as long as four weeks to be put out.

Assam government has said that it is trying its best to control the fire which broke out at gas well of Oil India Limited at Baghjan in Tinsukia district.

Parimal Suklabaidya, State Environment and Forest Minister, said, "The situation is uncontrolled as of now. Our Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has talked to Central Government ministers. Assam government is trying its best to control the fire and authorities are working to control the situation."

Suklabaidya said that fire has spread in the nearby villages.

"Around 6 people have been injured. The fire that broke out at gas well of Oil India Limited at Baghjan in Tinsukiahas spread in the nearby villages. We are worried. Oil India Limited is saying that the situation will be controlled in 6-7 days. We are doing our best to control the situation," he added.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal also spoke to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and urged them to take urgent steps to douse the fire that broke out when clearing operations were on at the site.

Sonowal was assured of all kinds of central assistance and told even the Air Force was on standby to deal with the emerging situation. There were protests in the area as the fire broke out, threatening the lives and livelihood of the people already facing the impact of the blowout for the last two weeks amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Following the gas leak, thousands of people were moved out of the area and provided shelter at different camps where following coronavirus guidelines, such as maintaining social distancing, remain difficult.

In a statement, Oil India said in view of the protests by people around the site, the chief Secretary and Tinsukia district administration were requested for maintaining law and order so that experts were allowed to enter the site and start the well control operations.

The staff of Oil India and ONGC are being shifted from the nearby areas and once the situation is normal, experts from Singaporean firm Alert Disaster Control and the state-owned companies will move to the site, it said.

The three experts from the Singaporean firm who started working at the site on Monday to stop the gas leak are confident that the situation can be controlled and the well can be capped safely, the statement said.

CM Sonowal while expressing his apprehension on the impact of the fire on the environment and people living in the fringe areas, stressed the need for putting out the fire at the earliest to ensure a conducive living condition for the people.

Environmental Impact Assessment is in progress and a team from the Assam Agricultural University in Jorhat has reached Duliajan, the Oil India said.
QUEBEC CITY, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Stelmine Canada ( Stelmine ) (STH-TSXV) is pleased to announce the results of its last exploration work producing 80 m to 260 m ENE and north-oriented extensions of the Joubert property gold-bearing zone, thus increasing the possibility of further expanding the gold mineralization. Several grab and channel samples yielded gold values ranging from 0.3 to 0.6 g/t accompanied by As concentrations of 1,300 ppm to > 1%. The new results confirm the initial gold discovery made by Virginia Gold made in 2007 (4.69 g/t and 0.48 g/t Au) and the values obtained by Stelmine in 2018 (0.83 g/t on 1.5 m and 1.10 g/t on 0.25 m). The hosting quartz veins and paragneiss contain garnet, arsenopyrite (traces-10%), pyrrhotite/pyrite and small amount of tourmaline.



Work completed during the last exploration campaign includes :

A more detailed geological/structural mapping of three main gold-bearing sites and of zones showing anomalous precious and base metal content.



The collection of 60 grab samples, mainly from the three main showings, but also from other high-gold potential zones.



Channel samples coming from six trench sites related to the principal gold mineralization (SE showing; Virginia Gold) yielding 22 samples on 21 linear m of channels.



A till collection campaign of 13, 10-15 kg samples form which heavy minerals were extracted to produce a concentrate analyzed for precious and base metals.

Isabelle Proulx, President and CEO of Stelmine declares: The exploration work of Stelmine confirms the strong gold potential of the Joubert property. The gold-arsenic association found in grab and channel samples collected from quartz veins-rich sheared paragneiss rocks extending for several kilometers bodes well for future discoveries. The area surrounding the Joubert property, located within the La Grande Sub-province, sparks a renewed interest from junior mining companies.

QA/QC Protocol

Stelmine implemented a strict QA/QC protocol in processing all rock and till samples collected from the Joubert property. The protocol included the insertion and monitoring of appropriate reference materials, in this case high concentration (OREAS-210) and low concentration (OREAS-252) certified gold standards, blanks and duplicates, to validate the accuracy and precision of the assay results. 10-15 kg samples of basal till were gathered with a clean steel shovel. All collected rock and till samples were put in sturdy plastic bags, tagged and sealed in the field. under the supervision of geologists in training. A professional geologist then visited the different sampling sites. All sample bags were then put in rice pouches and kept securely at the base camp established at the Mirage outfitter on the Trans Taiga road. Transport to Actlabs laboratories in Ancaster, Ontario for rock samples or to the ADM laboratory in Ottawa, On, for mineral separation was made by truck from a reliable transport company. Gold was analyzed by fire assay method for the rock samples (1A2_ICP_50 g). Gold and other trace elements content in mineral concentrate samples were determined via INAA+ICP_OES (1H).

Story continues

The technical contents of this release were approved by Michel Boily, PhD, geo; a Qualified Person (QP) as defined by National Instrument 43-101.



Follow us on www.Stelmine.com and on our Facebook page (Stelmine Canada) where we uploaded pictures of the Courcy camp and of our crew at work.

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.



About Stelmine

Stelmine is a junior mining exploration company which concentrates its activities in the Province of Quebec. Stelmine holds 843 claims spanning 438 km2 on the eastern part of the Opinaca metasedimentary basin, which contains zones with a high potential for gold deposit discovery in geological contexts similar to the one leading to discovery of the Eleonore Mine. Its capital stock consists of 37,324,046 issued and outstanding shares.

Forward-looking statements

Certain information contained herein may constitute forward-looking information under Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as, will be, expected or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results will occur. Forward-looking statements regarding the listing and trading of the Corporations common shares on the CSE and the availability of a listing statement on the CSEs website and on SEDAR are based on the Companys estimates and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Corporation to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Corporation will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws.

For more information :
MOSUL, Iraq - The Islamic State group will never again overrun Iraqi territory, Iraqs prime minister vowed Wednesday in an official visit to northern Iraq.

The visit by Mustafa al-Kadhimi came amid a recent increase in militant attacks and the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces in a planned drawdown.

In Baghdad, a rocket struck a few hundred meters (yards) from the U.S. Embassy inside the capitals fortified Green Zone, according to a military statement, hours before the U.S. and Iraq are to hold highly anticipated talks focusing on the presence of American troops in Iraq. No casualties were reported.

One month into office, al-Kadhimi visited the gamut of lives touched by IS rule  from tribal leaders to the internally displaced  to mark the sixth anniversary of the groups onslaught against Iraq. IS controlled a third of the country at the height of its power in 2014.

Al-Kadhimi was accompanied by the ministers of housing, migration and displacement, commerce and culture, as well as military officials.

Our visit to Mosul is to send a message to IS: What happened will not be repeated, he told reporters accompanying him.

Al-Kadhimi inspected the iconic al-Nuri Mosque, from where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi first announced the IS caliphate. He was also present to re-open the citys Al-Hurriya Bridge and a museum.

A military campaign dislodged ISs territorial hold in Iraq by 2017, but reconstruction efforts have been slow and often upended by local political dynamics.

Al-Kadhimi was inaugurated as premier last month amid a severe economic crisis brought on by low oil prices. Recently, his administration has been dealing with a flare-up in coronavirus cases.

The streets of Mosul were empty and shops shuttered due to a curfew aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

The World Bank recently offered to restructure loans earmarked for reconstruction to help the country combat the viral pandemic.

A study released Wednesday by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative found that the two most pressing concerns of Mosul residents were employment and the need to improve security. IS is still capable of launching attacks across a band of territory across northern Iraq.

A recent increase in attacks coincided with the withdrawal of coalition forces in a planned drawdown to consolidate troop presence in Baghdad and Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province.

Al-Kadhimi also met with local officials and lambasted past corruption and mismanagement that led to the rise of IS.

I will supervise construction contracts myself to prevent any corruption, he said.

The rocket attack on the Green Zone was launched from nearby al-Shaab stadium east of the capital, the military statement said.

It was the second record attack this week. Late Monday, a rocket landed on the periphery of the Baghdad airport near a military base frequented by U.S. troops.

The perpetrators were not immediately known. The U.S. has blamed Iran-backed militias for similar attacks in the past.
The case of William H. Love, the Albany bishop at odds with the national Episcopal church over his prohibition of gay marriage, will be argued in a virtual public hearing set for 9 a.m. Friday on Facebook.

At issue in the case is Loves pointed defiance of a 2018 Episcopal resolution ordering individual bishops not to stand in the way of same-sex unions, which the national church first allowed in 2015.

The Albany bishop articulated his stance in a long, strongly worded November 2018 pastoral letter that characterized gay marriage as against Gods plan and called on gay Episcopalians to "repent and seek God's love and healing grace. He added that those who disagree "have been deceived into believing a lie that has been planted in the Church by the 'great deceiver'  Satan.

The letter widened the schism between Love and the national church and fanned division within the diocese, with more liberal congregations supporting same-sex rites and objecting to the bishops missive. Parishioners at St. Andrews in Albany burned copies of it on the church steps. In response to the letter, the Episcopal Church issued a "Partial Restriction on Ministry" in January of 2019 that banned Love from penalizing diocesan clergy for participating in same-sex rites while his conduct was being reviewed.

In September, the church announced it would hold a disciplinary hearing. In January, before the onset of COVID-19 and the accompanying shutdowns, an in-person hearing was set for April 21, and Love released a letter saying both sides had agreed that there are no contested facts regarding my actions and neither side will be presenting witnesses.

Instead, at the hearing due to take place virtually on Friday, attorneys for both the church and Love will be making arguments based on canon law. In a tentative agenda outlined in a media advisory on episcopalchurch.org, it notes a 45-minute allotment for each side following a welcome, an opening prayer and an overview of the proceeding.

The advisory also includes a preliminary statement on the Rules of Order and Decorum. It says the proceedings involve matters of high seriousness and great importance to the church and Love, and asks all present to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects the seriousness of the hearing.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Nancy Davidge, public affairs officer for the Episcopal Church, said in an email that the hearing will likely take about three hours, possibly longer, depending on how it proceeds.

She also said it is unknown when the final decision will be made on the motion but had been told that it would be weeks at least, possibly the rest of the summer, depending on the nature of the decision.

In a September 2018 interview with the Times Union, the bishop said hed prayed for guidance on gay marriage for a dozen years, asking God to correct him if hes wrong. And he hasn't," Love said. "He's only reinforced."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 04:16:49|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The first airstrikes on northwest Syria since the March 5 ceasefire have raised the concern of the United Nations and its humanitarian colleagues for the 4 million civilians in the area, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said several communities in southern Idlib Governorate reportedly were hit by airstrikes earlier Tuesday, following reported airstrikes Monday in southern Idlib Governorate and a community in northern Hama Governorate.

"There are no reports of casualties, but civilians have reportedly left the areas that were impacted," Dujarric told correspondents at a regular briefing. "The scale of the displacement remains unclear."

He said the reported airstrikes add to the ongoing reports of artillery shelling, which in the last day also affected communities in the two governorates.

"We also continue to remind all parties of their obligation to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure as required by International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law," the spokesman said.

The secretary-general and UN special envoy Geir Pedersen renewed calls for a full ceasefire, as an essential measure to enable communities to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, Dujarric said. Enditem
Egypt records 1,365 new COVID-19 cases, 35,444 in total

From:Xinhua | 2020-06-09 04:35

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CAIRO June 8 (Xinhua) -- Egypt reported 1,365 COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the total infections in the North African country to 35,444.

Egypt registered 34 more fatalities from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll in the country to 1,271, said Khaled Megahed, the health ministry's spokesman, in a statement.

Meanwhile, the total recoveries increased to 9,375 after 414 new ones were added, he added.

It is the 12th day in a row for Egypt's daily new COVID-19 infections to go beyond 1,000.

Egypt, which announced its first confirmed COVID-19 case on Feb. 14, is working on increasing the number of hospitals treating coronavirus patients from 340 to 376.

As a key precautionary measure, the Egyptian government has been imposing a nighttime curfew since March 25.

The current nine-hour curfew will continue until mid-June, when the government will consider easing relevant restrictions amid a coexistence plan to maintain anti-coronavirus precautionary measures while resuming economic activities.

The government has already started gradual reopening of services and offices, and allowed reopening of about 100 hotels for local tourists with a 50-percent capacity after they were given official hygiene safety certificates.

Egypt and China have been cooperating closely in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic through exchanging medical aid and expertise.

In early February, Egypt provided aid to China in its fight against the coronavirus outbreak. China returned favor by sending three batches of medical aid to Egypt.

Since mid-April, Chinese doctors have held three video conferences with Egyptian counterparts to share their experience in the prevention and treatment of the novel coronavirus. Enditem
As massive social-justice demonstrations continue after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, students in cities around the country are organizing to demand that their school and district leaders provide them with anti-racist curricula and instruction.

A petition posted recently on Facebook, aimed at the schools in Frederick County, Md ., is a prime example. It was inspired by demand letters drafted by the alumni of Xavier College Preparatory School in Arizona and the Morris County School of Technology in New Jersey. Similar letters and petitions have been making their way around the internet, and are cropping up in a number of cities.

The Maryland letter calls on the district to reexamine how we honor Black lives in our education system in elementary, middle, and high school curriculanot simply as a reactionary means, but in direct ways that critically challenge how we frame our nations history.

It demands that the district conduct a third-party, holistic review of its curriculum, hiring, and student body administration, among other things, and that it hold implicit-bias trainings for district faculty and staff. Students want the district to invite speakers to address the student body on racial justice and white privilege. And they want the district to require classes to take field trips to places that can teach students about the Black experience, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

In the area of curriculum and instruction, the students dive into specifics, demanding that the district expand its curricula with articles, books, documentaries, and podcasts centered on anti-racism and racial justice, and facilitate in-class conversations about race, privilege, allyship, and justice. And they provide a list of suggested reading that spans K-12, broken down by subject area. Here are a few highlights:

Science:

Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, Diedre Cooper Owens

Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination, Alondra Nelson

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans, Harriet Washington

Literature:

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler

The Street, Ann Petry

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin



History

The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and Alex Haley

Aint I A Woman?: Black women and feminism, bell hooks

A Taste of Power: A Black Womans Story, Elaine Brown

This petition, by students from Iona Preparatory School in New Rochelle, New York , includes its own reading list.

Students in the Monmouth County Vocational school district in New Jersey are circulating this five-page letter , which respectfully insists that the board adopt a comprehensive four-year curriculum that addresses systemic racism and police brutality. It lists seven action steps, including revising the English and history curricula to cover the perspectives and stories of people of color and training faculty to be leaders in anti-racism.

In Newtown, Conn., two 2017 graduates are circulating a petition that takes the district to task for failing to provide an adequate multicultural education.

We have taken the time to reflect on our experience and education in Newtown schools, it says. Although we learned about slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and we read To Kill a Mockingbird, the formal teachings of modern-day systemic and institutionalized racism, police brutality, or white privilege were next to none.

The Newtown students asked their school board to make sure curriculum includes discussion of current events related to race when they happen, and to fostering safe open dialogue about them. They want the district to include books on current, institutionalized racism and white privilege, add a course specifically designed to teach students about systemic racism, and end the notion of teaching students to be colorblind.

In California, students in Yorba Linda, Calif., are circulating their own letter , inspired by another, written by students 45 miles to the north, in Glendale, Calif. The Glendale petition, launched online June 2, has collected more than 4,300 signatures. The Yorba Linda letter, launched online June 4, has more than 2,000 signatures.

Demonstrators pray during a march on Sunday, May 31, in Atlanta. Protests continued following the death of George Floyd, who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Islamabad, Pakistan  Wed, June 10, 2020 11:15 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd84462 2 World WHO,Pakistan,coronavirus,COVID-19,coronavirus-restrictions,coronavirus-prevention,COVID-19-lockdown,COVID-19-infection,pandemic Free

The World Health Organization has told Pakistan it should implement "intermittent" lockdowns to counter a surge in coronavirus infections that has come as the country loosens restrictions, an official said Tuesday.

Since the start of Pakistan's outbreak in March, Prime Minister Imran Khan opposed a nationwide lockdown of the sort seen elsewhere, arguing the impoverished country could not afford it.

Instead, Pakistan's four provinces ordered a patchwork of closures, but last week Khan said most of these restrictions would be lifted.

That decision came as Pakistan's infection rate is worsening, as it is across all of South Asia, which until recently had lagged Western nations in virus tolls.

Health officials said Tuesday they had recorded a total of 108,317 cases and 2,172 deaths -- though with testing still limited, real rates are thought to be much higher.

"As of today, Pakistan does not meet any of the pre-requisite conditions for opening the lockdown", the WHO said in a letter to Punjab's provincial health minister Yasmin Rashid.

Because much of the population hasn't adopted behavioral changes such as social distancing and frequent hand-washing, "difficult" decisions will be required including "intermittent lockdowns" in targeted areas, the letter states.

The health body recommended an intermittent lockdown cycle of two weeks on, two weeks off.

"The WHO letter has highlighted the importance of following the SOPs (standard operating procedures), and the Punjab government has already given out orders to take strict action against those violating SOPs", Rashid told reporters Tuesday while confirming receipt of the June 7 letter.

Some 25 percent of tests in Pakistan come back positive for COVID-19, the WHO said, indicating high levels of infection in the general population.

Hospitals across the country say they are at or near capacity, and some are turning COVID-19 patients away.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that 136,000 cases had been reported in the previous 24 hours, "the most in a single day so far", with the majority of them in South Asia and the Americas.
A Christopher Columbus statue was beheaded in Boston overnight while another was torn down and thrown in a lake in Richmond in the latest protests to target a symbol of racial oppression.

The statue on the North End's waterfront in Boston was found beheaded last night, with authorities investigating after finding 'pieces' of the statue near Atlantic Avenue.

Elsewhere on the same night protesters in Richmond's Byrd Park in Virginia pulled another Columbus monument down with ropes, set it on fire and rolled it into a lake to cheers from the assembled crowd.

The sculpture was brought down less than two hours after protesters in the state's capital gathered and chanted for the statue to go.

The empty pedestal was spray-painted and covered with a sign saying 'Columbus Represents Genocide' after the statue was taken down.

Columbus's arrival in the Americas in 1492 unleashed centuries of European colonisation, making him a symbol of conquest and violence to Native Americans.

A @7News photographer was the first one to discover the head had been knocked off the Christopher Columbus statue along the waterfront in the North End. Boston Police were on scene investigating later overnight. pic.twitter.com/YIIHUiPua9  Korey O'Brien (@koreyobrienTV) June 10, 2020

Overnight in Boston on the North End's waterfront another statue of Christopher Columbus was beheaded

Protesters gathered around in city's Byrd Park as drums were played before an American flag was burnt on the Christopher Columbus statue

There was no police presence in the park, but a police helicopter was seen circling the area after the city-owned figure was torn down, local media said.

Activist Chelsea Higgs-Wise was among the protesters who spoke to a crowd in Byrd Park about the struggles of indigenous people and African-Americans.

'We have to start where it all began,' Higgs-Wise said during her speech. 'We have to start with the people who stood first on this land.'

Vanessa Bolin of the Richmond Indigenous Society told the crowd she had come to 'stand in solidarity' with those protesting against police brutality.

Another speaker, Joseph Rogers, declared the area 'Powhatan land,' saying that racism has impacted both African-Americans and Native Americans.

The statue of Christopher Columbus is seen on the ground after it was pulled down by protesters,Richmond, Virginia, U.S., June 9, 2020

Toppled: A Christopher Columbus statue was torn down and thrown in a lake in Richmond last night in the latest protest to tear down a symbol of racial oppression

The empty plinth had a poster placed on it saying: 'Columbus Represents Genocide'

Another poster left next to the toppled statue imagined a gravestone for racism with the message: 'You will not be missed'

The statue was dedicated in Richmond in December 1927, becoming the first Columbus statue in the South, reports said.

It comes several days after a statue of Confederate general Williams Carter Wickham was pulled from its pedestal in another Richmond park, Monroe Park.

Virginia governor Ralph Northam has also ordered the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue on Richmond's Monument Avenue, although a judge has stalled those plans.

'In Virginia, we no longer preach a false version of history. One that pretends the Civil War was about state rights and not the evils of slavery. No one believes that any longer,' Northam said.

'And in 2020, we can no longer honor a system that was based on the buying and selling of enslaved people.'

Pictured left: the Columbus statue in a file photo; right: a portrait of Columbus, who protesters say was responsible for unleashing genocide in the Americas

Today protesters in Portsmouth, Virginia, covered a Confederate monument in the city with trash bags and sheets, several hours after the city's council members had a meeting to figure out ways to relocate it.

A white sheet that read 'BLM' covered the fence in front of the monument hours after the Portsmouth city council met Tuesday to discuss who owns the figure, WVEC-TV reported. The question about who owns the monument has been the main roadblock in the city's years-long quest to remove it.

During the councils meeting Tuesday, Mayor John Rowe asked the city attorney if Portsmouth has the right to move the 127-year-old memorial. In 2018, a judge denied the citys claim to own the monument because no one else had tried to claim it.

Katelyn Burns joked that people could still remember Christopher Columbus without the statue as a whole district is named after him

While another Twitter user by the name of Ghosting Pie said he believed erasing the past would cause history to repeat itself

The local chapter of the NAACP and protesters have called for the 54-foot monument to be taken down, but some council members oppose removing the statue without a city wide vote, WAVY reported.

'Removing history is something I associate with bad government, communist government, fascist government,' Councilman Bill Moody said during the meeting. He said the monuments and museums exist 'to remind us to never let this happen again.'

A new law in Virginia that allows cities to move or alter Confederate monuments they own goes into effect July 1.

On Saturday a century-old statue commemorating women in the Confederacy was defaced in a Jacksonville park, Florida.

The Florida Times-Union reported that the 'Women of the Southland' statue in Jacksonville was splattered with red paint and tagged with the letters BLM, an abbreviation for the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Confederate monument is covered in shoots and bags in Downtown Portsmouth, Virginia, early Wednesday, June 10, 2020

The statue is among others in the city's Confederate Park, a place activists have been pushing for removal of the monuments. The park and the women's statute have been there since 1915. It's not clear who defaced the statue.

Other statues to have been defaced in the last week include Mahatma Gandhi's statue at the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C.

A statue of former mayor of Philadelphia and police commissioner Frank Rizzo was also burned at the base on Saturday, causing authorities to remove the statue today.

Rizzo was accused of discriminating against minorities during his term as mayor, 1972 to 1980.

Demonstrators at Linn Park in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday attempted to remove a statue of Confederate sailor Charles Linn but were unsuccessful.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin told protesters he would 'finish the job for them', reports CNN.

In Nashville, Tennessee a statue of Edward Carnack, a former US senator and newspaper owner who was known for attacking civil rights advocates was pulled down on Sunday and has since been removed.

The statues are the latest to be targeted amid worldwide anti-racism protests after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis two weeks ago.

Protesters cheered as they forced the Edward Colston monument into the water at Bristol Harbor, UK

Along with monuments in the US, statues of slave traders and colonialists have come down in Britain and Belgium in recent days as the movement spreads worldwide.

An almost identical incident to the toppling in Byrd Park, Richmond, also took place in Bristol, UK, over the weekend as protesters pulled down a statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston and threw it into the city's harbor.

Native American groups have long asked for Columbus Day to be changed to Indigenous Peoples Day, arguing that Columbus unleashed centuries of genocide against indigenous populations in the Americas.

Columbus Day marks the Italian explorer's arrival in the New World in 1492 but campaigners say it should commemorate the victims of European colonisation rather than the conquerors.

While Europe has long thought of Columbus as the 'discoverer' of America, Native Americans regard his arrival as an invasion.

Indigenous people were robbed of most of their land and 500 years later they are still among the poorest Americans.
American shale peaked in February of this year, and is on glide path lower as the drilling decline takes its toll on legacy production. As shown in the chart below, as a result of well shut-ins and drilling declines shale production reversed its trend upward, has begun a decline that we think will reduce shale production by half as we exit 2020. The dotted red line is the EIAs estimate for the amount of the drop in June. I think they are a bit optimistic, although the current restart of legacy wells may be included in this calculation. It wont matter as the year ages, shale is going to decline majorly as we exit this year. I will have some calculations later in this article to validate that position.

EIA-Chart by author We are now moving into a time that I have forecast in a number of previous OilPrice articles, where certain key factors will mean the difference between survival, and value destruction as the industry consolidates. Here is a quote from the most recent, Supermajors Are On The Prowl For Fresh Deals In The Permian.

Rock quality

Scale

Logistics

Low costs of production

Technology

Article

In this article we are going to circle back to focus on rock quality as being a driver for growth as the Permian begins to restart. This is what the rivalry between Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and Occidental (NYSE:OXY) back in 2019 was all about from the start. Who would be the lowest cost domestic producer? The stakes were always high, OXY won the battle, and it almost killed the company. It still could as OXY looks to reschedule ~$40 bn in debt. We think much of the danger has passed for this operator however and will discuss in this article why as oil prices rise, OXY could benefit out of proportion to other shale players.

The Permian is the King of Oilfields

A little over a year ago I published an article in OilPrice in which I made a case for the Occidental Petroleum, (NYSE:OXY) takeover of Anadarko would payout in the long run due to quality of reservoirs in the acreage. It was appropriately entitled, What The Market Is Overlooking In The Occidental Deal, and is worth going back reading for the technical detail it contained on the rock quality in this section of the Permian.

WSJ

The Prize both CVX and OXY coveted

If you look closely at the graphic below you can see what the Anadarko acreage (shown in blue) meant to both companies. It is located right in the heart of the deepest part of the Permian, and is what yields the most prolific wells.

Related: Why Oil Prices Didnt Rally After The OPEC+ Extension



WSJ

It is simply among the best rock on the planet for producing oil. If you refer back to my 5-point thesis, you see rock quality is number one.

What that means is the wells that are drilled will respond more fully, and for a longer time period than well drilled and completed in more marginal rock. This will improve EURs, and provide more cash flow per foot of interval through lower decline rates. Essentially this adds up to more oil from fewer wells, with associated cost savings to the operator, and value to shareholders!

What is most likely path for oil over the next couple of quarters?

As I noted in the first graphic showing the sharp decline in shale production, we are headed in an almost parabolic direction for this commodity. The harsh realities of lack of investment through the capital discipline that began in early 2018, are finally beginning to affect the markets ability to obtain new supplies. The Rystad graphic below shows the effect of the well shut-ins to this point, although with estimates for a staged recovery that has just begun.

Rystad

We find no basis to challenge the Rystad numbers above as they are presented, but dont think they give an accurate picture of the total situation affecting oil availability going forward. Where we part company from Rystad is accounting for "lost" new production from drilling.

Shale wells are in factory-mode these days. Sink a well, frac it, and hook it up to a flowline, and you've got production. There's plenty of takeaway infrastructure these days, thanks to the Energy Transfer's (NYSE: ET), and Kinder Morgan's (NYSE:KMI) of this world. What we don't have is the drilling part of this equation.

Related: U.S. Gas Drillers Face A Major Problem



Rystad figures as noted in the chart above project that we will exit 2020 with global demand at ~84 mm BOPD (I think they're light), and supply at about ~70 mm BOPD. That's a gap of ~5-mm BOPD.

What's the number with lost production from drilling?

Using EIA numbers of new production per rig from the most recent Drilling Productivity Report, DPR you have 745K new bbls per active rig. As of last Friday, Baker Hughes tells us that there are 284 rotary rigs punching holes in the ground. That's ~210 K bbls per day of incremental production, or ~77 mm BBLs total for the year. That may sound like a lot, but remember what the decline rate is for shale...it's 60% (a conservative figure) per annum. Using the same EIA forecast we see the expectation is that we will produce 7,822 mm BOPD from shale in June, 2020. So let's do some ciphering!

7822 X (.60 / 12 X 6) = ~5.4 mm BOPD +(350 X 800) = ~5.7-mm BOPD, or a decline of about 37% from the Feb, 2020's high of ~9 mm BOPD.

Note- I was generous in my calculation and assumed that rigs and bbls per rig would rise through the year. So, if you take this admittedly over-simplified calculated number and subtract it from the 11.2 mm BOPD Rystad shows from all sources in the graphic above... you could see U.S. production falling below 8 mm BOPD as we exit 2020. The world isn't ready for this. Note-These calculations are very simple and attempt to approximate the outcome of some way more complex influencing factors.

OXY-Your takeaway

OXY has suffered along with the general market malaise in Q-1, with shares dropping almost 80% at their lows. The company has staged a resounding recovery in recent weeks, attaining over half their pre-crash valuation. This rise hasnt escaped the analysts attention at BoA, moving the company to a Buy, today from neutral, citing the potential for the company to generate as much as $7 bn in Free Cash flow over the next year and a half.

Raymond James, an energy securities analyst has reiterated a Strong Buy, on the company citing a 9% Free cash flow yield.

If you accept my argument that oil prices are headed higher an investment in OXY could be a good way to play this bet. OXY currently is the Permians largest producer with daily liftings of 442K BOPD, with its lowest cost at $6.25 per BOE. As prices for oil continue to rise the company will benefit from an aggressive hedging program and higher overall production.

Company filings

Improved cash flow as the analysts mentioned above should drive the stock price higher. Currently trading at roughly 2X Q-1s estimate of ($9.14 FCF per share), the company has traded at more than 5X this metric in the past year. We think this gives a lot of room for shares to appreciate as liquidity fears from low oil prices fade in the coming quarters.

The company is trading down today off $1.84 from a recent high seen yesterday, on weakness in the oil price. We think this is very transitory, and the company can be safely bought at this level, subject to readers own due diligence and risk tolerance.

By David Messler for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
SPRINGFIELD  State officials have distributed more than 450,000 cloth face masks to private sector businesses that support critical infrastructure sectors.

As some employees begin to return to the workplace in Phase 3 of Gov. J.B. Pritzkers Restore Illinois plan, face coverings will be a key tool to keeping workers healthy and safe.

Many of these industries were among the first companies to donate their existing supplies of PPE to protect healthcare workers and frontline staff in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, said IEMA Director Alicia Tate-Nadeau. These companies provide key services that enable the continuous operation of business and government functions which is crucial to the health, safety and economic security of our state.

State officials said another key element of returning employees to the workplace will be safe, available childcare. In the coming days, the state plans to distribute more than 18,000 thermometers to licensed daycares in Illinois to help facilitate temperature checks and health screenings, as recommended by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The health and well-being of children, families and our childcare providers is crucial to restoring our economy, said Deputy Gov. Jesse Ruiz. As working parents begin to transition back to the office, our child care providers are being asked to implement new protocols, such as temperature checks, to protect the children, families and staff from the virus.
The defense will have 1.5 weeks to prepare.

Court hearings in the Netherlands on the MH17 case probing into the downing of a Malaysian passenger plane over Russia-occupied Donbas in July 2014 will continue on June 22.

The second block of the hearings has been paused, the Ukrainian-registered European Pravda news outlet reported, citing a Dutch media portal.

Read alsoU.S. may have photos of MH17 missile, court hears

The prosecutors have completed the legal justification for bringing criminal charges and are ready to consider the case per se.

The defense will have 1.5 weeks to present its evidence and respond to the charges brought by the prosecutors.

UNIAN memo. Malaysia Airlines' MH17 Boeing 777 heading from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Russia-occupied territory in Donetsk region. All 298 people on board who were citizens of 10 countries were killed in the crash. The majority of the victims, 196, were citizens of the Netherlands.

The Dutch Safety Board October 13, 2015, issued a report on the causes of the accident. It was revealed that the plane had been shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft missile system. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in its report published on September 28, 2016, confirmed that the plane had been downed by a Russian-made Buk brought to Ukraine from Russia.

On June 19, 2019, JIT investigators accused four Russia-controlled military intelligence officers of involvement in a missile attack that shot down MH17. The first four suspects in the MH17 case are Russian terrorist Igor Girkin (AKA "Strelkov"), who in the summer of 2014 was the so-called "Minister of Defense of the Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR"); Russian General Sergei Dubinsky (nom de guerre "Khmuryi"), who led the "DPR intelligence;" Oleg Pulatov (nom de guerre "Gyurza"), who in 2014 headed of "the 2nd division of the GRU of the DPR;" as well as Leonid Kharchenko (nom de guerre "Krot"), who was a leader of the "reconnaissance battalion" of Russia-led forces.
Two projects designed to preserve San Antonio stories  one aimed at documenting the coronavirus pandemic through the eyes of the citys arts community, the other devoted to the history of the Carver Community Cultural Center  are underway.

Contributions are being sought for both.

Both are community archives, which are built by the community, for the community and overseen by the community over time, said Melissa Gohlke, assistant archivist in special collections at the University of Texas at San Antonio. So its truly a very grass-roots movement.

The pandemic archive is the brainchild of Leslie Straus, archivist and registrars assistant at the McNay Art Museum, where the items will be housed.

I want to get a better picture of what this particular community has gone through during this pandemic and the quarantine, Straus said. I think that its important, first off, to make sure were documenting things as theyre happening, and for me personally, Im a little biased, but I love art and the arts, and I just feel like we have people that are incredibly, incredibly important.

So far, she has gotten a lot of documentary photographs, including images of first responders and volunteers, as well as written accounts of personal experiences. She is not limiting the archive to artists.

Its for anybody who works in the art industry, whether they are people who work in an art museum, whether they are sponsors or donors for a gallery; it could be students, professionals, anybody who is part of the community in some way, she said.

Straus said she would consider artwork specifically related to the pandemic, but she wanted to make clear that submissions will not become part of the McNays art collection.

Among the contributors to the archive is Lyle Williams, curator of collections at the McNay. He has written up a few experiences, including detailing the virtual cocktail hours he now holds every Friday night with some long-time donors.

We take care of a little bit of business at the beginning, and then we talk about how everyone is coping, Williams said. Its just interesting how we sort of adapt to not only take care of ourselves, but to nurture these relationships that are personal and professional.

On ExpressNews.com: Carver Community Cultural Center has evolved over time

As he sees it, such stories need to be preserved.

I think its really important that we document how we are all dealing with things right now, not only in terms of how its effecting us professionally, but as a record of how are surviving or in some cases, thriving despite the shutdown, he said. I feel that there are probably a lot of stories that will be lost just because people arent taking the time  theyre so busy living their quarantine life that theyre not reflecting on whats going to be important in the future.

Thats the takeaway  what are you going to learn from all of this?

Straus said she eventually would like to create an online exhibit sharing items in the archive. She might be able to have something up some time next month, she added.

People can peruse it, and maybe get to learn a little bit more about other peoples experiences, she said. I think its good to see where different people are coming from, but in addition to that, what I would like to do is, in the same way that we look back at the 1918 influenza pandemic, and we have all this information on what was happening back then and we can see how arts and culture was influenced at the time, I think that we need to make sure were focusing on things right now, and how people look back at this period of time.

Im hoping this can be something that, in a small way, contributes to that.

The pandemic archive is a little farther along than the Carvers project, which is a bit of a salvage operation. When Cassandra Parker-Nowicki stepped into the executive director role last summer, one of her goals was to create a formal archive documenting the Carvers history. The center  known now for both its community programs and for performances by local, national and international touring artists  dates back to 1905, when it opened as the Colored Community House. Thats a lot of history thats important to document.

We really recognize the fact that, being an institution of color, there wasnt a lot of emphasis, in the earliest days and certainly, during segregation, on archiving, not just here internally, but in the larger context, Parker-Nowicki said.

The project is a little trickier than it might otherwise have been because a lot of material has been lost. The historic venue closed in 2000 for a renovation project that was slated to take a year but ended up taking four  largely because of funding issues. A lot of items were removed from the building and placed in what was intended to be temporary storage.

The long and short of it is that a lot of that, almost of all of it, was destroyed. So, again, not thinking it was going to be long-term, it wasnt stored anywhere that was climatized properly, Parker-Nowicki said. We went to retrieve some of the stuff. It was unsalvageable. We dont even know what was lost. We dont know if there were photos or documents.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio Symphony musicians are eager to play live

So even though there are some materials in boxes stashed here and there on the Carver campus, the archive is starting almost from scratch.

David Lonergan, who is a few weeks into a summer internship at the Carver, is getting the project rolling. Among other things, he plans to interview patrons and other folks about their experiences at the Carver. And hes also hoping to track down programs, ticket stubs and other ephemera.

What Id like to do is rebuild the archive through the voices of our patrons, said Lonergan, a senior at Trinity University majoring in Spanish with minors in history and economics. I think especially now, when the majority of the elderly community is kind of, for lack of a better word, cooped up inside, this would be a great opportunity for them to interact with someone safely outside of their house and relive some memories of the Carver.

The project likely will take a long time to build. Parker-Nowicki thinks that working on it might be a regular part of future interns responsibilities. The ultimate goal is that it will be housed at a university or some other institution where it can be maintained.

The hope it that, at the end, were able to have this really robust archive of our history, she said. Of course, well retain some things here locally, but we want to make sure that generations down the line can access it.

One of the chief values of community archives is that they tell stories that might otherwise be lost, said Gohlke, the UTSA archivist.

Community archives, when theyre able, can provide access to local histories that are probably not going to be found anywhere else, she said.

Gohlke has first-hand experience with that. She interned at the Happy Foundation Archives, which artist and activist Gene Elder maintained at the Bonham Exchange nightclub to preserve the stories of the citys LGBTQ community. Elder died last spring, and Gohlke is part of a committee that is developing a plan to make sure that the archive continues.

She is keeping tabs on the McNay and Carver projects, and is looking forward to checking them out when theyre complete.

These things are really important and essential to preserving history, she said.

dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN

Information on contributing to the COVID-19 archive at the McNay Art Museum can be obtained by emailing Leslie Straus at leslie.straus@mcnayart.org. To arrange an interview about the Carver Community Cultural Center, email David Lonergan at david.lonergan@thecarver.org.

Deborah Martin is an arts writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Deborah, become a subscriber. dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN
Hopes to return to Senate has been shattered for Dino Melaye as an election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja has on Wednesday affirmed Smart Adeyemi as the senator representing Kogi west district.

Adeyemi of the All Progressive Congress (APC) had polled 88,373 votes to defeat Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who secured 62,133 votes during the rerun poll of November 16.

However, Melaye challenged Adeyemis victory through the tribunal by praying the court to nullify the latters victory and declare him winner.

Delivering judgment on Wednesday, the three-man panel unanimously dismissed the petitioners prayers.

Advertisement

Read Also: Banks Are Offering Me Loan Because I Am Now A Senator: Smart Adeyemi

Meanwhile, Melaye has said he will appeal the verdict of the tribunal.
Courtesy SeaWorld /

SeaWorld San Antonio will reopen on June 19 with safety measures, the amusement park announced in a news release on Wednesday.

The amusement park closed in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The reopening of the local attraction comes after Gov. Greg Abbott announced phase three of his plan last week to reopen Texas, allowing amusement parks with more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases in its county to reopen on June 19 at 50 percent capacity.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 16:03:28|Editor: huaxia

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BISHKEK, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan's health ministry reported on Wednesday 38 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections to 2,093.

Nurbolot Usenbaev, the country's deputy health minister, told a news briefing that 89 patients have been discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours. In all, 1,572 have fully recovered from the infection, he added.

At the same time, the deputy minister reported two new virus-related deaths, raising the total number of fatalities to 26.

Currently, 495 people remained hospitalized, and two patients are in intensive care.

In total, 1,671 people who have had contact with infected patients are under medical observation and another 8,558 people are in home quarantine under the supervision of doctors.

The official noted that of the newly confirmed 38 cases 24 are contact persons, seven are unknown sources and seven are imported cases.

Usenbaev also said lately the most cases of COVID-19 are detected among contact persons. There are a lot of family and other events of mass gatherings in spite of a ban on such events by the ministry, he noted, calling on citizens to comply with sanitary standards.

The deputy minister added that the epidemiological situation remains tense in the country.

Non-compliance with sanitary requirements exacerbates the whole situation, he said. Enditem
Swedish police have named the man they say fatally shot Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, but have closed the case without charge because the suspect is dead.

Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer, is the man responsible for killing Palme as he left a cinema in central Stockholm with his wife on the night of February 28, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Engstrom was known to be among 20 people at the scene of the shooting and was initially treated as a witness by police, before being deemed a potential suspect after changing his story several times.

He was interviewed extensively about the killing - at one point claiming to have tried to revive Palme - but was never charged. He died in 2000 of a suspected overdose.

Popularly known as 'Skandia Man', Engstrom worked for the Skandia financial services company which had offices near the murder scene.

Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer popularly known as 'Skandia Man' (left), has been named by investigators as the man who fatally shot Prime Minister Olof Palme (right) in 1986

Flowers left at the site the day after Palme was assassinated, at a Stockholm crime scene which was not properly cordoned off at the time

Security guards said they spoke with him as he left the offices shortly before the killing, and then again afterwards when he returned to tell them what happened.

It is thought Engstrom was motivated to kill Palme because he disagreed with the Prime Minister's left-wing views.

Two Swedish writers had previously named Engstrom as the man most likely to be responsible for the murder.

A 2018 book by an investigative journalist brought to light a range of previously overlooked evidence, including time stamps showing Engstrom had left his office earlier than he had told police, in time to commit the crime.

Outlining their suspicions about Engstrom on Wednesday, prosecutors said he had a military background, was member of a shooting club, often worked late and had drinking problems.

He was named after an extensive review of the case - the largest murder investigation in Swedish history - which began in 2017.

Prosecutors said they began working on the theory that Engstrom was the man responsible in the autumn of that year after reviewing the evidence.

Investigators say that evidence includes 22,000 reports identifying roughly 90,000 people directly - along with 40,000 on the periphery of the investigation.

Some 10,000 people gave statements to investigators, including 134 people who 'admitted' to the murder - with 29 directly claiming to police that they did it.

Prior to Wednesday's announcement, it was thought police were about to reveal they had found the weapon used to kill Palme - but admitted they have not.

The bullets which killed Palme have been tested against 788 weapons, investigators said, but none have proved a conclusive match.

The murder weapon may be among those tested, officers said, but the bullets have so few traces on them that it has been impossible to conclusively prove which gun fired them.

Christer Pettersson was jailed for the murder of Palme after being picked out of a lineup by Palme's wife, but was subsequently released after the evidence was dismissed

The life and death of Olof Palme Palme was born into a wealthy family in Stockholm in 1927. He was elected to parliament in 1958, rising though the ranks of the left-wing Social Democrat party despite his patrician roots. He became prime minister in 1969 and led the expansion of Sweden's welfare state, but higher taxes and stronger unions put him at odds with the business community and the right. His condemnation of the US bombing of Hanoi during the Vietnam war strained ties with Washington, and Sweden hosted US citizens fleeing the draft. Palme also advocated sanctions against apartheid South Africa. After a period out of power, he served as PM again from 1982 until his death. On the night of February 28, 1986, Palme was shot once in the back at close range as he walked with his wife Lisbeth along a busy Stockholm street. The bullet severed Palme's spinal cord, killing him instantly. He was 59 years old. A second bullet grazed Lisbeth. Several witnesses glimpsed an assailant clad in a dark jacket or coat, who fled the scene into a dark alley and up a flight of steps to a road above. The murder weapon, believed to a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver or similar weapon, was not recovered. A suspect with links to right-wing groups was taken into custody 17 days later but was quickly released. The lead investigator resigned after no evidence was found in a 1987 raid on a bookshop linked to the Kurdish separatist group PKK, which had recently been named a terrorist organisation by Palme's government. Christer Pettersson, who had a previous murder conviction, was convicted of the crime in 1989 but freed by a higher court amid doubts over the process by which Lisbeth identified him from a police line-up. Since his acquittal, no suspects have been arrested and the case has frustrated four lead investigators. Swedish police visited South Africa in 1996 after a former police commander there alleged the murder had been directed by apartheid-era security forces seeking to silence critics. Crime author Stieg Larsson was working on a theory connected to South Africa's security apparatus until his death in 2004. Other theories have fingered diverse groups ranging from right-wing elements in Sweden's police to Croatian separatists. Advertisement

Palme was killed on February 28, 1986, after leaving a Stockholm cinema with his wife Lisbet to walk home, having dismissed his bodyguards for the evening.

An unidentified attacker shot Palme - a critic of apartheid - in the back and fled, leaving the 59-year-old dying in a pool of blood on the pavement.

More than 10,000 people have been questioned over the years, which became a national obsession, with an army of amateur sleuths chasing the culprit and the 50million kronor (4.3million) reward.

Christer Pettersson - a petty criminal and drug addict who in a bizarre coincidence shares a nearly identical name with the current chief prosecutor - was convicted of the crime in 1989 after Palme's widow identified him in a widely-criticised line-up.

But he was freed months later by an appeals court which dismissed her testimony on a technicality.

Pettersson died in 2004, while Palme's widow passed away in 2018.

Engstrom was born in colonised India in 1934 to a father who worked as a senior manager in the Swedish Match Company - which makes matches and tobacco products - and a home-maker mother.

He moved back to Sweden without his parents aged 12 and lived with relatives for several years until his parents returned.

He then attended an elite boarding school, describing his upbringing in a 1982 interview as very formal and traditional.

He admitted to being painfully shy as a youngster, a fault he claimed to have overcome as an adult, though his first wife said otherwise.

Discussing his work for Skandia, where he was a graphic designer in the advertising department, she said he would ask her over and over again to assess his work - always feeling that it was not good enough.

The pair married in 1964, but had divorced just a few years later and he remarried in 1968, Swedish newspaper Expressen reported.

Along with his second wife he was known to be active in political circles that were critical of Palme, with friends including ex-colonels and diplomats.

He helped produce advertising material for a political group called Moderaterna.

Among those friends was a neighbour who was a weapons collector and had a large amount of firearms that Engstrom would have had access to.

Those who have put him forward as a suspect in the past say this is likely where he got the murder weapon from.

The news that their charismatic leader had been brutally killed shocked Swedes, and their open and peaceful society is said to have 'lost its innocence' that day.

Among the leads investigated over the decades have been Turkey's Kurdish rebel group the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Swedish military and police, and the South African secret service. Palme was highly critical of apartheid.

Crowds line the route of Palme's funeral procession in March 1986, two weeks after he was shot dead after leaving a cinema with his wife

People lay flowers the day after the killing in Stockholm. A petty criminal was found guilty of the murder in 1989 but the conviction was later overturned

Palme was prime minister between 1969 and 1976, and again from 1982 to his death in 1986.

A Social Democrat known as a great orator, Palme was a controversial figure who infuriated Washington with his vocal opposition to the US war in Vietnam.

He also backed communist governments in Cuba and Nicaragua.

At home, he laid the foundation for Sweden's modern-day gender equality, but was at odds with the country's business leaders and military, and spoke out against nuclear power.
"June is National Safety Month, and while it looks quite a bit different this year, safety should always be a top priority for every business." - Bill Stoller, Express CEO

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, according to experts, 41% of workers say companies arent doing enough to protect them from the virus.

In a May 2020 survey from Express Employment Professionals, 90% of decision makers said their businesses have taken steps to improve overall safety in response to COVID-19.

New safety protocols reported include:



Monitoring employees temperatures

Masks

Plexiglass dividers between workstations

6-foot social distancing markers on floors

Monthly virus safety training

Increased building disinfecting

Continued remote work for employees

Staggered shifts

Health screenings

Despite these safety improvements, an Express survey of employees during the same time frame found that only 59% believe their employers have done enough to improve workplace safety.

One job seeker said their company was allowing an infected co-worker to continue working at the facility, but only at night. Another said Lysol had been removed from the building and hand sanitizer dispensers had not been refilled.

My company has done nothing, added one respondent. They do not believe the virus is actually happening, so it's not taken seriously.

In one retirement community, an employee said they were only required to wear masks recently, well after the start of the pandemic.

But several other employees praised their companys efforts to keep workers safe:

Our office has never been so clean. We allow as much work-from-home as possible, but also maintain a very clean environment at the workplace and with our clients.

At-risk employees were supported with additional paid leave during this time. Our hours were changed to minimize customer contact, as well as allowing only so many customers in at a time to help control distance between customers. I commend my company on taking care of their associates, as well as the customers.

Providing masks for us. Making sure we are all doing okay during these uncertain times. My company rocks!

The company immediately packed up everyone's computer equipment, let us pick it up, and set us up to work remotely in our homes. Awesome company!

There is nothing worth more to a company than the health and reassurance of a safe environment for its workers, Express CEO Bill Stoller said. June is National Safety Month, and while it looks quite a bit different this year, safety should always be a top priority for every business.

The survey of 297 business leaders and decision makers was conducted in May 2020 through the Express Refresh Leadership blog. The survey of 344 job seekers and employees was conducted in May 2020 through the Express Job Journey blog.

***

If you would like to arrange for an interview with Bill Stoller to discuss this topic, please contact Sheena Karami, Director of Corporate Communications and PR, at (405) 717-5966.

About Bill Stoller

William H. "Bill" Stoller is chairman and chief executive officer of Express Employment Professionals. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, the international staffing company has more than 825 franchises in the U.S., Canada and South Africa, and beginning in 2020 will expand to Australia and New Zealand. Since its inception, Express has put more than 8 million people to work worldwide.

About Express Employment Professionals

At Express Employment Professionals, were in the business of people. From job seekers to client companies, Express helps people thrive and businesses grow. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, our international network of franchises offer localized staffing solutions to the communities they serve, employing 552,000 people across North America in 2019. For more information, visit http://www.ExpressPros.com.
While the COVID-19 pandemic continues, so does the effort of staff at Selwyn Public Library to move programs online for families and children.

Kathleen Charlton, childrens programming co-ordinator at the library, said that since the pandemic began, shes had to make some different choices in regards to programming.

To encourage families to stay home at the beginning of the pandemic, she developed the Selwyn Stay Home Scavenger Hunt. A total of 288 individuals registered.

Theyve also established a Harry Potter Family Trivia Night event that now runs once a month.

We had so many adults wanting to take part without children, that we had to create a separate Adult Potter Online Trivia event, Charlton said.

Seniors in the township reached out to their children to ask them to participate with them, Charlton said.

We had 23 adult-family teams. Some people were calling in with relatives in different provinces or in different parts of Ontario to participate with their children who are now older, she said.

During the event, online programs Zoom and Kahoot are used. Trivia questions are displayed on the screen over Zoom.

And then on a second device they go on Kahoot and they can answer the question, Charlton said.

The librarys Online Storytime has also been a hit, as well as their Lego Builds and Silver Birch and Blue Spruce Online Reading Clubs, Charlton said.

Similar to their previous scavenger hunt, Charlton said they are creating a Canada Day scavenger hunt.

I actually just got an email from a municipality in Jasper asking if they could also do it too, which is exciting. They saw it online and were excited about it, she said.

According to Charlton, participants enjoy having something fun to do with their families.

They appreciate all the effort and time thats put into it. I think for us, its just been a way to support the community during this time, she said.

Charlton thinks these online programs and events have made the pandemic more enjoyable.

And I think it will continue to do so. When schools are closed and teachers arent offering activities for the children  because I know a lot of parents do rely on something from the teacher in the morning  I think it will fill that gap and it will also keep them involved and reading through the summer, and keep them engaged in activities that are fun, but also educational.

Funded by the Government of Canada/Finance par le Gouvernement du Canada.
India ended Tuesday, June 9, with 131,253 active cases of the coronavirus disease, 134,657 recoveries and 7,748 deaths.

This is the first time recoveries have exceeded active cases. I have explained previously that the spate of infections seen in May  India added 155,668 new cases of Covid-19 in May, 56% of its total  means that we will see, equally, a spate of recoveries in June. After all, with a case fatality rate of 2.8%, a little over 151,000 of those whose infections were reported in May will recover (some of them already would have).

Still, even a mathematical certainty is worth celebrating at a time when everything looks uncertain, especially in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. All three cities seem to be set for a torrid period of high caseloads that will put immense pressure on their infrastructure. Delhi has added an average of 1,218 cases a day between Sunday and Tuesday, Mumbai, 1,249, and Chennai, 1,184. The Delhi government expects the Capital to have 550,000 cases by the end of July. Mumbais administrators expect infections to peak in the next fortnight. And Chennais numbers continue to rise (the doubling rate of the citys cases is 12.4 days).

Some of those who test positive in the three cities will be asymptomatic; others may have a mild infection and recover in a few days; but some will require hospitalisation. A few may require critical care. Even the current case loads in these three cities are straining their health care infrastructure to the point that it isnt easy to find a hospital with a free bed, even for the well-connected.

Which is why I cant understand why everyone wants to go everywhere, and all at once  malls, restaurants, markets, and places of worship.

It is widely acknowledged that India enforced amongst the most stringent and lengthiest lockdowns in the world to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease. The 68-day lockdown till June 1  we are now in what the government calls Unlock 1.0, with many of the restrictions imposed during the lockdown having been eased  may have slowed the pandemics spread in India, and delayed the peak of infections, but it did not crush the viral disease the way New Zealands lockdown did (yes, I am aware New Zealands population is lower than Chennais).

We may be better prepared now  actually, and controversially, and contradictorily, anecdotes from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai seem to suggest that isnt the case, but we will let that be  but the number of Covid-19 cases is on the rise.

This isnt true of these cities alone. An HT analysis, published on Wednesday, pointed out that six states in the hinterland that have seen the return of migrant workers are witnessing a sharp rise in the number of cases this month.

India, then, is exiting the lockdown at a time when cases are beginning to peak  and Im hoping it will be a short-lived peak  but we now know what works against the disease. Not hydroxychloroquine or Remdesivir  the jury is still out on both  but a technique that dates back to the middle of the 19th century, washing with soap, and masks, and social distancing, and, for those who can live with it, isolation. Research led by scientists from the UKs Cambridge and Greenwich Universities, and reported by Reuters on Wednesday said that immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public can reduce infection rates to manageable levels.

While the risk of infection appears to be at its highest now, we know how to stay safe, so, why wouldnt we do it?

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Ontarios next election is only two years away  is Doug Ford beatable?

Although the last few weeks have been rocky, most Ontarians appear pleased with our premier. Like the citizens of Whoville on Christmas morning, we celebrate how a pandemic has caused the heart of the man  who once joyfully cancelled a minimum wage hike  to grow three times in size. How does an opposition politician compete?

I think of my former colleague Steven Del Duca, who became leader of the Ontario Liberals in early March. Although extremely capable, COVID-19 stole his 15 minutes of fame.

How should he and the Liberals respond? Let me offer some practical advice to the party I once represented at Queens Park.

Start with the current situation  the statesmanlike treatment of the premier and the fact that nobody seems to remember the governments grim pre-pandemic record  from autism to licence plates.

Hold the government to account, but dont become sniping partisans, second-guessing every move. Before criticizing, ask yourself: Would you have done anything differently?

Remember, as the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions continues to encounter problems, the premiers lustre will fade.

Liberals should also accept Ontarios collective amnesia about the early Ford years  dredging up old battles will appear petty  be happy that voters wont remember past Liberal mistakes.

Instead of worrying about today, look ahead two years. What will be the main issues as Ontarians head to the polls? Pandemic planning and long-term care are obvious candidates.

Although Liberals need to address these issues, they should not try to contrast themselves dramatically with the government in these areas  there are no easy solutions and the Liberal record is far from perfect.

Liberals should also avoid new programs like basic income  they are simply too complicated and expensive to try to sell to voters preoccupied with one major concern. And what will that concern be  jobs.

COVID-19 has seen Ontario go from virtually full employment to an economy that has lost thousands of jobs.

Here, Liberals have an edge: education and training is their thing and they have a solid track record, from full-day kindergarten to the Second Career Program for laid off workers.

As well as training people for jobs, the Liberals should also take a look at the jobs themselves.

One of the big take-aways from this crisis is the dire circumstances faced by precarious workers.

One of the cornerstones of any job program should be an assurance that those on the lowest rung of the job scale will be guaranteed the pay, benefits and protection that they deserve. Here again the Liberals have credibility. They increased the minimum wage, strengthened worker protections and legislated mandatory sick days  moves that seem quite prescient in the light of current events.

With all that is happening in the world, advice to focus on only one policy area may appear strange. Elections, however, are usually won by whichever party offers the most hope. And Ontarians desire for hope will revolve around one thing  jobs.

Liberals are in an unenviable position at the moment, but by focusing on the future they can position themselves to take on Ford. Just remember, theres never been a successful sequel to The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

John Milloy, a former Liberal MPP and cabinet minister, serves as the director of the Centre for Public Ethics at Martin Luther University College. This first appeared at QP Briefing.

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Seeking a city willing to allow a large-scale event amid the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans have tentatively settled on Jacksonville, Fla., as the new destination for the premier festivities of the Republican National Convention in August, according to three Republican officials briefed on the plans.

The details of the arrangement are still in flux and RNC aides are scrambling to determine whether the northern Florida city has enough hotel rooms to accommodate the quadrennial event, which typically kicks off the final stretch of the presidential campaign.

Republican officials were in Jacksonville on Monday looking at the city and the surrounding areas.

The convention's more routine and lower-profile meetings still would take place in Charlotte, the original host site for the convention, according to two officials. Those smaller meetings are intended to honor the RNC's contractual obligation to hold its convention in North Carolina and shield the party from lawsuits for moving the large events elsewhere.

The highly unusual decision to seek an alternative location for the convention's marquee events - including speeches by President Donald Trump and others - stems from Trump's desire to accept his party's nomination before an enormous crowd.

North Carolina officials have declined to promise a packed arena for the Aug. 24-27 event, as public health officials are urging Americans to avoid big gatherings, wear face coverings and practice social distancing. The coronavirus epidemic has killed more than 110,000 Americans so far.

The president was dissatisfied with North Carolina's position, given his desire to address a large, enthusiastic crowd. "I don't want to be sitting in a place that's 50% empty," Trump told Gov. Roy Cooper (D) late last month in a phone conversation about the convention, according to two people familiar with the call, who, like others for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personal conversations and planning.

"We can't do social distancing," Trump said on the call.

Cooper pushed back, asking Trump whether that wasn't a risk to the health of the convention's attendees, who could number close to 20,000. The president responded that he was not worried about an outbreak at the convention, because the biggest impact of the coronavirus is on those who are older or have underlying conditions.

Cooper, a Democrat who is up for reelection this year, has asked Republican officials to provide a plan for maintaining safety protocols at the convention. Party leaders have said they would use testing and would aggressively sanitize rooms and buses used to transport officials, but they have not offered specifics.

The Republican governors of Georgia and Florida, meanwhile, a have been courting GOP and White House officials since it became clear that North Carolina and the party were not seeing eye to eye. Trump has spoken to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about putting the event in Florida.

Aides to Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Curry previously served as Florida's Republican Party chairman.

"Mayor Curry has been actively and energetically pursuing this convention, and the Republican Party of Duval County has been actively promoting Jacksonville as the single best city in America to host a convention," said Dean Black, the Duval County Republican chairman.

Republican officials have also been considering several other locations for the convention, including Orlando, Nashville, Dallas and Savannah, Ga.

Jacksonville remains under an emergency order that restricts some businesses from opening. Bars, restaurants and movie theaters can operate at 50% capacity, according to the city's website. Retail stories, gyms and fitness centers can reopen completely as long as social distancing protocols are followed, according to the website.

---

The Washington Post's Micheal Scherer contributed to this report.




By Ko Dong-hwan







The country's nine cement producers agreed with the Ministry of Environment on Wednesday to work together to lower nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, the industry's main air pollutant.







Representatives of companies including Ssangyong Cement Industrial, Sungshin Cement and Hanil Cement and officials from the ministry and the National Institute of Environmental Research gathered at Ssangyong Cement's factory in Donghae, Gangwon Province, to sign a partnership that brings together the private firms, the government and state researchers.







Cement production generates Korea's second-highest nitrogen oxide emissions  62,546 tons, or 32 percent of the overall NOx produced in 2019  which contributes to air pollution particulate matter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5). The figures, released by the ministry in May, showed that local power plants generated the most  68,324 tons  followed by steelmakers (31,434 tons) and petrochemical manufactures (19,569 tons).







Cement producers have been reining in NOx emissions by installing filtering devices to their furnaces, but their efficiency is low. They said they couldn't upgrade the filters because of space limitations and high maintenance fees.







The tripartite agreement stated that the stakeholders will reduce NOx emissions by all means necessary, including installing high-efficiency filters or upgrading existing filters, or improving the factories' cement-making processes.







They also agreed that companies should set NOx reduction goals so the necessary funding can be allocated.







NOx-reducing technologies  including selective catalytic reduction (SCR) or selective none-catalytic reduction (SNCR)  will be developed and tested under the Korea Environmental Industry Technology Institute, with 3.5 billion won ($2.93 million) devoted to this.







The ministry believes NOx reduction technologies could cut emissions by 40,000 tons across the country. This is based on the average concentration level falling below 81 parts per million (ppm)  30 percent of the country's maximum cap of allowed NOx of 270 ppm.


LAS VEGAS, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Jamie Leigh Klingler, the co-founder of Smith Rosen Gaming Partitions, a small Nevada company that manufactures UVC Slot Machine Partitions, is now starting a movement to change the Nevada Gaming Control Board's stance on not requiring casino guests to wear masks while indoors.

https://www.causes.com/campaigns/928001-make-it-mandatory-that-guests-wear-masks-in-nevada-casinos
The recently unveiled Egyptian initiative to resolve the Libyan crisis, known as the Cairo Declaration, once again draws international attention to the need to revive the political track. The political process is not a mere option; it is vital at this time of Turkish military escalation in Libya. Ankara has thrown its military weight behind the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and against the Libyan National Army (LNA) and large swathes of the Libyan people that oppose what they regard as another Turkish occupation of their country. The repercussions of Libyan warfare spill across its borders, affecting Libyas neighbours first and foremost, as President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi noted in his speech announcing the Cairo Declaration.

This initiative seeks to accomplish a number of strategic aims that are fully consistent with the outputs of the Berlin Conference on Libya that was held in January. Although the international community rallied behind these outputs as the central process for resolving the Libyan crisis, the process ground to a halt in part due to the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, but in greater part due to the machinations of international and regional powers that rushed to take advantage of these repercussions in order to engineer a shift in the strategic balances and rules of engagement on the ground.

Towards this end, and despite the UN arms embargo and pledges undertaken in Berlin, these repercussions cleared the way for Turkey to broaden its engagement in Libya. Turkey leapt at the chance to pour in more advisors, advanced weaponry and vast numbers of jihadist mercenaries. This has been accompanied by a significant shift in the US position motivated by what Washington perceives as a Russian bid to broaden its influence in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Cairo initiative calls for a ceasefire starting Monday, 8 June, which gives the other side 48 hours to reciprocate, and for a resumption of the 5+5 Joint Military Commission, which opens an avenue for the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) to resume the UN-sponsored peace process in Geneva. The initiative further calls for the removal of all foreign mercenaries from Libya, the dismantlement of militias and the handover of their weapons in order to enable the LNA to perform its security functions in collaboration with other Libyan security agencies.

Cairo has reached out to all Libyan parties, including the GNA. It has appealed to all local, regional and international stakeholders to assume their responsibility to restore stability to that country that has been torn by war for nearly a decade. Cairo has never been a party to military escalation in Libya. It never encouraged the Tripoli offensive. As always, it is keen to end hostilities with whatever means possible because it proceeds from an essential premise: military solutions aggravate crises. Experiences throughout the region as a whole drive this lesson home again and again.

Unfortunately, the Tripoli based High Council of State, an unelected advisory body that marches to Ankaras tune, has rejected the Egyptian initiative. In so doing, it is swimming against the international current which fears the reproduction of another regional disaster precipitated by the impetuous policies of such regional powers as Turkey and by the self-serving calculations of other parties who are indifferent to the welfare of the Libyan people who continue to suffer the attrition wrought by conflict.

In its reaffirmation of the need to return to the Libyan political process, Egypt places itself on the side of stability in Libya and in the region as a whole. It is a position that has won the appreciation and support of many countries in the Arab region and elsewhere in the world. The task now is to transform this positive response into concrete action to halt the war in Libya and restart the political process. There is no alternative, because if the violence and instability persist, all will pay the price.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 11 June, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  President Rodrigo Duterte's scheduled meeting with the COVID-19 task force set this week has been postponed, his spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Duterte was supposed to meet with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Thursday in Davao City, where they were expected to present their recommendations for the next phase of community quarantine. But Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the meeting and Duterte's subsequent address to the nation will be held in Manila on June 15.

June 15 is also the date when Duterte's order to impose community quarantine in the country will expire.

The President is currently in his home in Davao City, where he last held the IATF meeting.

CNN Philippines correspondent Triciah Terada contributed to this report.
- Real estate developers in Ghana have expressed fears over the current state of their industry

- Reports show that the developers are currently operating at an average of 30% of their output

- It has been revealed that the national housing deficit stands at 2 million units

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Real estate developers in Ghana are facing a myriad of challenges due to the economic impact of COVID-19.

Reports reveal that sales have fallen to a record low and firms are now operating at an average of 30%.

It has been further disclosed that servicing of mortgages are falling and developers are in the process of cutting down on costs.

READ ALSO: Government intends to borrow almost GHC18 billion in 3 months - Report

Information available places the national housing deficit at 2 million units and the current situation has led to a spike in challenges in attempts to access affordable housing.

A report by graphic.com.gh shows that officials from the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), as well as mortgage financiers, revealed that the collapse in the industry followed the outbreak of the coronavirus.

They explained that the pandemic has compelled players in the industry to operate at a maximum capacity of 30%.

More than 50% of potential mortgage deals have also been canceled or are pending, while there is a distortion in existing ones.

They further indicated that the situation has affected both domestic and non-resident mortgage clients and had led to a credible threat to the creditworthiness of the real estate companies and the individuals whose mortgages were now facing delinquency.

In other news, about 9,000 employees of hotels and guest houses in Ghana have laid-off workers.

According to the Ghana Progressive Hoteliers Association (GPHA), the workers were sacked due to a lack of patronage of services offered.

A number of facilities, it has been gathered, are either completely shut down or now operate at a minimal capacity.

READ ALSO: Defunct fund managers: Almost GHC2 billion worth of claims are full of lies - SEC

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Newly-built Tema Motorway Interchange opened to traffic | #Yencomgh

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Source: YEN.com.gh
An Austrian court has sentenced a retired army colonel to three years in prison after convicting him of spying for Russia's military intelligence service (GRU) for more than 25 years.

But the 71-year-old officer, who has not been named and whose trial was held behind closed doors, was released for time served.

A jury in Salzburg on June 9 found the retired colonel guilty of disclosing state secrets. Specifically, the court found the man guilty of operating a secret intelligence operation against Austria, betraying state secrets, and the crime of deliberately revealing military secrets.

The charges carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison but he was sentenced to just three and released for time served since his arrest in November 2018.

According to the indictment, from 1992 to September 2018 the defendant provided military secrets to Russia in exchange for 280,000 euros ($317,000).

Defense lawyers argued he had not revealed any government or military secrets. Instead, they said he only passed on publicly available information. They said the amount he received was 220,000 euros.

"The court took into account the recognition of the facts, the [defendant's] advanced years and the absence of previous convictions as mitigating factors. The court came to the conclusion that the defendant no longer poses a threat," a court spokesman said.

At the time of the man's arrest, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that he knew "nothing about the issue."

Austria is one of the few European countries that has maintained close diplomatic contacts with Moscow despite Russia's actions in Ukraine and the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain, which London has blamed on the Kremlin.

Austria's capital, Vienna, home to multiple international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and a branch of the United Nations, is known as a European espionage hub.

The city also used to be a gateway to communist countries during the Cold War because of its proximity to Eastern Europe.

With reporting by dpa, Reuters, Der Standard, and Krone Zeitung
Myanmar military spokesmen Major General Tun Tun Nyi (L) and Major General Soe Naing Oo (2nd from L), Major General Thaung Naing (2nd from R), the deputy judge advocate general, and military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun (R) attend a monthly military press briefing in Naypyidaw, Jan. 23, 2020.

UPDATED at 10:00 A.M. ET on 2020-06-11

Myanmars military has resurfaced on Facebook nearly two years after the social media giant removed numerous army accounts for spreading hatred following a United Nations fact-finding report that accused the armed forces of war crimes for its expulsion of 740,000 Rohingya Muslims.

The armys reappearance on the popular platform in Myanmar, which was condemned by human rights groups, came as authorities extended until August a controversial internet shutdown in parts of conflict-affected Rakhine and Chin states, citing security reasons.

The military has opened two Burmese-language Facebook accounts called Tatmadaw True News Information Team and Zaw Min Tun, military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told RFA on Wednesday.

The military opened the accounts on Facebook  the most popular social media platform in the country, with 33 million users  to counter what he called misinformation and fake news, he said, adding that the army would follow Facebooks community standards.

No agreements were made between the military and Facebook prior to the creation of the two new accounts, he said.

Facebook is popular in Myanmar, [and] media and civil society groups release information via Facebook, Zaw Min Tun said. We decided to use Facebook to provide timely and accurate information related to the Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] because real and fake news are being mixed together on Facebook.

A Facebook spokesperson responded by email late Wednesday to RFA's request for comment, saying that the company banned about 20 individuals and organizations in Myanmar from the platform in 2018 to prevent the spread of hate and misinformation on Facebook."

"This was part of several steps we took to keep the platform safe. If content on any Facebook page or account violates our policies, we will remove it, Facebook's statement said.

Facebook also said that it has made significant investments in Myanmar and updated its technology, teams, partnerships, and policies during the past two years to address the issue and to prevent the abuse of its services.

In August 2018, Facebook removed the 20 accounts and more than 50 pages associated with the military, including the account of defense forces chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, accused of war crimes for being the architect of a brutal military-led crackdown in 2017 that left thousands of Rohingya dead and drove hundreds of thousands of others out of the country.

At the time, Facebook had been criticized for allowing posts that spread hatred against the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.

The Myanmar military turned to Russian social media service VK, available in multiple languages, following Facebooks ban on its accounts. The army also continued to maintain websites for the military chief and its information team, as well as the defense forces-owned Myawaddy television network.

'Propaganda pages'

Rights activists have raised concern over the militarys reappearance on Facebook, saying that the top brass will use the platform to try to sway public opinion as it faces international war crimes charges.

This is more about trying to get back into the information stream that Burmese people are looking at to try to influence their opinions about what is happening in Rakhine state, Kachin state, and Shan state, and other areas where the Tatmadaw is involved in conflicts with armed insurgency groups, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, said the military set up the two new propaganda pages to spread lies as it faces legal action on genocide-related charges in three international courts, including the U.N.s International Court of Justice (ICJ).

They are under pressure, and obviously they want to convince people in Myanmar that the evidence against them is not true, he said. They want to build more support for their actions.

On Wednesday, attorneys bringing a case before the ICJ accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingyas asked a U.S. district court to order Facebook to release posts and communications of the countrys military and police, Reuters news agency reported.

Nickey Diamond, a Myanmar human rights specialist with the Southeast Asia-based NGO Fortify Rights, said the Myanmar military can issue information to the public via other means such as news conferences.

Using Facebook to release information appears to be a move to counter news reported by the media rather than to provide accurate information, he said.

We cant trust the military and its capacity to provide genuine information, he added.

Internet shutdown extended

The Myanmar government, meanwhile, has extended the suspension of mobile data network services in eight townships in northern Rakhine state and in Paletwa township of neighboring Chin state until the beginning of August, said Soe Thein, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, on Tuesday.

Since we have imposed the internet shutdown because of a situation that can harm the public interest, as defined in the Telecommunications Law, we will reopen once we are certain that it will not harm the public interest, he told reporters at a news conference in Naypyidaw.

The shutdown will continue until Aug. 1, he said. We will lift the shutdown depending on the situation with conflicts on the ground.

Rights groups have criticized the move, saying that the communications shutdown places civilians at risk by preventing them from accessing coronavirus information and from contacting humanitarian aid organizations amid intensified fighting between the Myanmar military and AA soldiers during the past 17 months.

The government-ordered shutdown of mobile internet traffic affects roughly 1 million people, according to HRW.

Khin Saw Wai, a lawmaker from Rathedaung township, urged the government to end the internet service block so people can use their cell phones to receive information about the COVID-19 pandemic and how to prevent its spread.

It is not acceptable that the internet shutdown will be lifted only when the conflicts are over, she said.

We would like to appeal to the authorities to end the internet shutdown for the sake of the local people, so they can have access to information about COVID-19 and the latest news about the armed conflicts, she said.

Reported by Thiha Tun, Thet Su Aung, and Nandar Chann for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung and Nandar Chann. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
A medical staffer removes protective clothing after finishing her shift at a public health center in Seoul's Yangcheon District, Wednesday. Daytime temperature in Seoul reached over 30 degrees Celsius on that day. / Yonhap



By Jun Ji-hye



An early heat wave here, with daytime temperatures reaching over 30 degrees Celsius, is causing medical staff to struggle as they have to wear full-body protective clothing, goggles and masks to carry out COVID-19 tests and take care of patients.



Teachers and students who are required to wear face masks at all times at schools, and citizens who are asked to do so while using public transportation are also grappling with maintaining safety measures in scorching temperatures amid the prolonged pandemic.



Medical staff who have been fighting on the front lines against the virus are now in an even tougher situation as protective suits make it difficult for them to withstand the fiery heat.



This is raising concerns about the health of medical personnel at a time when sporadic infection clusters have continued.



There has already been a report that three medical staff collapsed in exhaustion in Incheon, Tuesday.



The three were officials from a public health center in Michuhol District, and were carrying out coronavirus tests in the playground of a middle school in the region as one of the students there had been confirmed to have COVID-19.



The region's daytime temperature reached 31 degrees Celsius on that day.






The Duke of Edinburgh has been remembered as a 'people's person' by the Queen's former press secretary as the royal celebrates his 99th birthday today.

Prince Philip is marking the day privately with the Queen, 94, at Windsor Castle, where they have been isolating since the start of the pandemic, although they are expected to video call other members of the family.

Now royal expert Dickie Arbiter, who was the Queen's press secretary from 1988 to 2000, has revealed how 'terrific' Prince Philip was to work with.

According to Australian site 9Honey, he told the Today programme: 'If you heard raucous laughter [on a walkabout], it was a whole crowd of women around him, behind a barrier, and he'd be talking to them and joking with them.'

Prince Philip, who is celebrating his 99th birthday with the Queen, 94, at Windsor Castle today, has been praised as 'a people person', according to a royal expert

The royal expert went on to say that the Duke always went the extra-mile to make children feel involved during royal engagements.

He recalled how Prince Philip would often walk 50 metres behind the Queen at engagements.

He explained: 'He'd lift the children over the barrier, take their hands, walk them down to the Queen so they could hand over their flowers, and then take them back to their mothers.'

The Queen and Prince Philip have been in isolation at Windsor Castle since the start of lockdown, allowing them to spend more time together than they have done in 'many years', one expert noted.

The former royal press secretary said Prince Philip would leave crowds in 'raucous laughter' during appearances

Buckingham Palace last night released a new photograph of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to mark the milestone birthday.

The couple, who have been married for 73 years, were photographed last week standing side-by-side in the quadrangle at their residence.

The Duke of Edinburgh has spent much of his retirement at his cottage, Wood Farm, in the sanctuary of the Sandringham estate, more than 100 miles away from the Queen, who was usually at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor.

But they were reunited at the Berkshire castle three months ago for their safety after Philip was flown there by helicopter on March 19 ahead of lockdown.

The royal expert revealed how the Duke of Edinburgh would go the extra mile to include children at walk-abouts (pictured, in March 2013)

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, said: 'This must be the longest they've been under the same roof for many years, I would say. But it's an opportunity for them in their later years to reconnect.'

He added: 'It is the perfect royal cocooning.'

Royal expert Camilla Tominey agreed it is 'arguably' the most amount of time the Queen has spent with her husband in recent years. Speaking on This Morning today she said: 'They're there for the foreseeable future. It's quite nice in a way that they are together when they wouldn't have normally been this time of year.'

The royal is set to spend his birthday with the Queen at Windsor Castle, where they are currently in isolation together

She added that next year the Queen will send Prince Philip a telegram for his 100th birthday. 'They are planning tentatively the 100th birthday celebration, of course, she'll give him a telegram that's what she does when people turn 100,' Camilla said.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are staying with a reduced household of around 20 staff, dubbed Operation HMS Bubble, and Mr Little said the monarch and Philip most likely have lunch or dinner together each day while spending other time on their separate interests.

Philip keeps himself busy reading, writing and painting, and even released a rare public statement in April - his first since his retirement - praising key workers and those making sure that essential services are kept running during the coronavirus pandemic.
By Josh Horwitz and Stephen Nellis

SHANGHAI/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp-owned Arm Ltd and its Chinese joint venture on Wednesday publicly disagreed over whether the unit's chief executive officer had been fired, disclosing an internal spat at one of the global chip industry's major suppliers.

Arm Ltd had earlier in the day said that it had replaced Allen Wu, who had served as the venture's chairman and CEO, with interim co-CEOs Ken Phua and Phil Tang.

Arm China, a Shanghai-based joint venture between British chip designer Arm Ltd and Chinese private equity firm Hopu Investments, later said that Wu continued to be its CEO and that its operations were carrying on as normal in a statement published on its official WeChat account.

Arm Ltd and Hopu disputed that, saying that Wu was removed on June 4 after complaints from a whistleblower and from current and former employees prompted an investigation.

Wu did not immediately respond to messages sent to his LinkedIn account and email address. An employee who gave his surname as Chen and said he worked in the public relations department at Arm China's Shanghai office said the WeChat post was valid but declined to answer further questions.

"Mr. Wu, a US citizen, was putting at risk the progress of Arm China and the interests of the company's shareholders and stakeholders," Arm and Hopu said in a statement.

"Evidence received from multiple sources found serious irregularities, including failing to disclose conflicts of interest and violations of the employee handbook.".

Arm Ltd added that it was working to transition to new local leadership.

Arm China, which generates revenue by licensing chip architecture to Chinese companies, was established in 2018 when SoftBank sold a 51% stake in Arm Ltd's Chinese subsidiary, Arm Technology (China) Co Ltd, to a group of Chinese investors. SoftBank had acquired Arm in 2016 for $32 billion.

The spat comes at a tricky time for Arm as it tries to navigate rising tensions between the United States and China over technology. Last month, the Department of Commerce placed additional restrictions on smartphone maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] that would prevent certain U.S. companies from supplying to it.

Last October, Arm Ltd said it would continue to supply its designs to Huawei after ruling they did not breach U.S. rules.

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz in Shanghai and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Additional Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom and Brenda Goh Editing by Tom Hogue, Stephen Coates and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
To the Editor:

Re Trump Smears a Protester, 75, Hurt in Buffalo (front page, June 10):

A quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln goes, I would rather be a little nobody than to be an evil somebody. When President Trump falsely accused 75-year-old Martin Gugino of being an antifa member and staging his own fall, he hit an all-time low and embodied the worst kind of bully. Not only did he hit a man when he was down  a man recovering from a head wound in the hospital  he attacked a white protester who was injured risking his life in the name of justice for black men and women.

At 75, Mr. Gugino is in the high-risk population for Covid-19. His friends and neighbors describe him as gentle and kind; had he witnessed somebody bleeding on the ground, he would have rushed to their aid. He absolutely would not have disparaged them on Twitter with sinuous lies to tarnish their name. Only an evil somebody would do that.

Andrew Ginsburg

Southport, Conn.

The Protesters Know the Future Is Bleak
The president considers such a punishment to be appropriate.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has been fined for violating COVID-19 lockdown rules while visiting a cafe in the city of Khmelnytsky.

"We could take off the [face] mask to hear better ... It will be just as was the case in Khmelnytsky region  I will be fined. In fact, they did it the right way," he told journalists in the city of Chernihiv on June 10.

Read alsoZelensky ready to pay fine for indoor meeting at cafe amid quarantine

As UNIAN reported earlier, on June 3, the President Office's Telegram channel posted a photo showing Zelensky sitting at one table with other officials, including President's Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, First Deputy Head of the President's Office Serhiy Trofimov, Khmelnytsky Governor Dmytro Gabinet, and Khmelnytsky Mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn.

"President Volodymyr Zelensky had a walk around the central part of the city of Khmelnytsky and tried coffee at a local cafe," the president's press service said.

"Nice coffee in Khmelnytsky! Fragrant and delicious! The first cafes are exiting from quarantine, we are rebounding from the coronavirus epidemic," as reported on the president's Instagram account under another similar photo taken in the same cafe.

The government's ban on catering services indoors until June 5 was in effect as of June 3. Only outdoor seating outlets under awnings were allowed to render services, with no more than four visitors at the table at the same time.

On June 4, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said police would consider the possible violation of quarantine rules by Zelensky and the officials who accompanied him in Khmelnytsky, and bring them to justice.

Later, Zelensky said he was ready to pay a fine if his indoor meeting at the cafe in Khmelnytsky was considered a violation of the quarantine rules.

However, Ukraine's Chief Medical Officer, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Liashko, who sat at another table in the same cafe, said there were no breaches of the quarantine, as it was an inspection visit.
An online trade exchange conference on consumer goods between Vietnam and Japan will be held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade on June 30 to help domestic producers gain broader access to the Japanese market.

It will provide the first-ever online platform for Vietnamese exporters in agriculture, foods, consumer goods, medical products to directly connect with Japanese importers.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnams agricultural and food products are gaining stronger footholds on the global market, with an abundant supply of various products.

Both Vietnam and Japan are members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in which Japan agrees to immediately eliminate import duties for many of Vietnams key agricultural products, such as coffee, pepper, cashew nuts, fresh vegetables, and processed and canned fruit products, once the deal takes effect, the ministry said.

It will pave the way for the two countries to boost bilateral trade; increase investment and technology transfers; and enhance experience sharing and cooperation in vocational training for rural workers in the coming time.

Additionally, Japan has high demand for medical supplies to contain the COVID-19 pandemic while Vietnam has about 200 producers of protective products like face masks, medical gloves and goggles, and personal protective equipment.

It would be a good opportunity for these Vietnamese firms to learn more about the Japanese market and seek buyers./.VNA
More than half the residents tested in Italy's northern province of Bergamo have COVID-19 antibodies, amid an ongoing debate into what protection they provide from the virus.

The city was hit hard by the pandemic that was first detected in February and prompted a strict lockdown that has devastated the economy.

Just last week the country moved into the final stages in easing its lockdown restrictions after almost 34,000 coronavirus deaths, with some 235,000 confirmed cases.

Blood tests of 9,965 residents between April 23 and June 3, showed that 57 per cent had antibodies indicating they had come into contact with the coronavirus, the survey showed.

FMedical staff member are seen next to patients suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the intensive care unit at the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, in May this year

Health authorities in Bergamo said the results were based on a 'random' sample which was 'sufficiently broad' to be a reliable indicator of how many people had been infected in the province, which became the epicentre of Italy's outbreak.

In a separate statement issued later, the Bergamo health agency said that most of those in the sample were residents of the worst-hit areas. Many had already been put under quarantine, the statement added.

The study also suggests the area may be approaching 'herd immunity', that experts believe could be at around 60-65 per cent.

Herd immunity is when enough people become resistant to a disease - through vaccination or previous exposure - that it can no longer significantly spread among the rest of the population.

However, scientific experts cannot say for certain if having antibodies means that you are immune from getting the disease again.

Antibodies were found in just over 30% of the 10,404 health operators tested although they are generally considered more at risk than other people.

Graves of people who recently died due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are seen at the cemetery of Nembro, near Bergamo, on May 13

In a report released in early May, national statistics institute ISTAT said the number of deaths in Bergamo was up 568% in March compared with the 2015-2019 average, making it Italy's worst-hit city in terms of deaths.

Its hospitals were overwhelmed by infected people and, with morgues unable to keep up, convoys of army trucks carrying away the dead became a chilling symbol of the global pandemic.

Bergamo province has reported 13,609 coronavirus cases, official data showed on Monday.

ISTAT and the health ministry have launched a nationwide blood testing campaign, aiming to test a representative sample of some 150,000 people to understand the extent of Italy's COVID-19 epidemic.

Italy has reported almost 34,000 coronavirus deaths, with some 235,000 confirmed cases.

The Lombardy region, which includes Bergamo, has registered over 16,000 deaths.
Hong Kong will retain its status as an international financial hub despite economic challenges from months of anti-government street protests, the coronavirus pandemic and concerns about a controversial national security law, according to a senior executive at AXA Investment Managers.

Terence Lam, head of sales and trading for Asia and a Hong Kong native, said the city has faced crises before " and rivals who want to steal its crown " but he remains confident the city will remain competitive against the likes of Singapore and other markets as an investment and fundraising centre for international business.

"I think people talk about Hong Kong being replaced by somewhere else as one of the key financial centres," Lam said. "If you really want to replace Hong Kong, it will take a long time and a lot of effort. I'm still very very bullish on how Hong Kong will survive through this."

Questions have arisen about whether capital would flee the city since the protests began last year and only intensified after the national security law was approved last month by China's legislature, the National People's Congress.

Hong Kong's monetary authority intervened twice on Friday to rein in the city's currency against the US dollar as so-called hot money flowed into the city ahead of upcoming blockbuster secondary listings by Chinese tech giants NetEase and JD.com. The Hong Kong dollar has been pegged against the US currency since 1983.

Singapore's monetary authority on Sunday also said media reports that large flows of deposits had moved from Hong Kong to Singapore in April were "incorrect". It said total foreign currency non-bank deposits in the city state's banking system rose 20 per cent year-over-year, but "no single region or country source dominates".

For AXA Investment Managers, the asset management arm of the French insurer AXA Group, Hong Kong remains one of its biggest markets in Asia.

Story continues

The investment management arm had 804 billion (US$906 billion) in assets under management (AUM) at the end of March, with about 14 per cent of that AUM from its joint venture partners and wholly owned business in Asia, excluding Australia and Japan.

"I'm not thinking, do we need to leave Hong Kong?" Lam said.

Other fund managers likewise remain bullish on the city, particularly as a gateway to mainland China, according to a new survey by KPMG and the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association (HKIFA).

More than half of fund managers surveyed expect their AUM in the city to increase between 11 per cent and 30 per cent by 2025, the study found. The online survey was conducted between November and January.

Hong Kong had gross retail fund sales of US$89.9 billion in 2019, a 3 per cent increase over US$87.3 billion in 2018, according to the HKIFA.

"Hong Kong continues to be viewed as a leading asset management centre," Andrew Weir, global head of asset management at KPMG China.

Despite the uncertain economic outlook, AXA Investment Managers, which has more than 570 employees in Asia, has set ambitious targets for expansion in the region this year, including increasing the number of staff looking after clients, strengthening its investment capabilities and increasing its penetration in southeast Asia and Taiwan, Lam said.

Part of that expansion has included creating teams in its client group focused around private banks and retail customers, he said.

AXA Investment Managers recently signed a new master agent agreement to expand its distribution in Taiwan and is awaiting regulatory approval. Lam said he would like to AUM "double or triple" in the market in the next one to two years. AXA Investment Managers does not break out the size of its AUM for Taiwan.

"Taiwan has always been a very nice place for the asset management business. I feel we had exposure in Taiwan before. We have clients. We have done a bit in Taiwan. We need to do more," Lam said.

The move to expand the company's Asia footprint this year comes against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, which has weighed heavily on the global economy and forced lockdowns from Singapore to New York.

Lam said AXA's business is slowly returning to normal " all of its employees are back to the office in Hong Kong, and the company is getting more requests from investors, even if the level of business meetings is about 20 per cent of the norm.

"In terms of clients' appetite, they're very very eager to invest," Lam said. "They're looking for opportunities."

A survey of 250 investment professionals released on Tuesday by State Street found that institutional investors in Asia are more confident about meeting their short- and long-term investment goals against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic than their counterparts globally. The survey was conducted in April.

Lam said they have seen investors trying to "catch the low point" for quality companies and others focusing on investment strategies around the digital economy.

"A lot of people, they have gone through the Covid, the lockdown. Everybody starts to realise the importance of these new themes," Lam said.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
New Delhi [India], June 10 (ANI/NewsVoir): QAD and Quistem have teamed up to develop specific guidelines to help automotive manufacturers prepare for the restart of their operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

These guidelines feature 13 key topics that automotive suppliers will need to address in order to align their operational restart with their customers in the automotive supply chain.

"With our focus on automotive manufacturing customers, we teamed up with Cathy Fisher, president of Quistem, a global expert in automotive management systems, to put together specific guidelines to help automotive suppliers get their facilities up and running during the COVID-19 pandemic," said QAD Director, Automotive Terry Onica.

"We recognize organizations are currently receiving a lot of guidance about protecting their employees from the COVID-19 virus. However, for quality product and delivery to their customers, additional detailed focus on 13 key aspects of their business will contribute to a successful restart."

The Operational Restart Readiness Checklist covers the following topics and provides detailed checkpoints related to each:

Contingency Plans

Inventory

Immediate customer delivery requirements

Immediate delivery plan including transportation

Supplier inventory and near-term delivery plan

Availability of outsourced processes

Temporary process changes due to virus risk reduction actions

Product/process requalification plan

Accuracy of work instructions

Workforce availability and training

Equipment, tooling and gauging restart risks and maintenance

Facility infrastructure

Communication plans to all stakeholders

OEMs and suppliers interested in learning more can access the checklist

In addition to offering the Operational Restart Readiness checklist, QAD and Quistem recorded a webinar in conjunction with the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) outlining a three-step plan for automotive suppliers to follow when preparing to restart their operations.

This plan includes 1) managing the COVID-19 virus at the facility; 2) restarting manufacturing operations, and 3) recovering operational stability.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)

DISCLAIMER

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Editor's note: Richard Toye is a professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is the co-author, with Steven Fielding and Bill Schwarz, of The Churchill Myths, which will be published by Oxford University Press in August. His other books include Churchill's Empire and Winston Churchill: A Life in the News. The opinions expressed here are his own. Read more opinion articles at CNN.

(CNN)  Last weekend, during a Black Lives Matter protest in London, a piece of graffiti was added to the base of the statue of Winston Churchill that stands in Parliament Square. "Churchill was a racist," the slogan declared.

The activist who wrote this  or sprayed it  was factually correct. However, there is much more that can be said, of course, to explain and contextualize the former British prime minister's views.

Presenting an informed historical understanding of those opinions should not be misread as an attempt to justify them. Nor should mentioning the other parts of Churchill's record, notably his resistance to the Nazis and leadership during World War II, be seen as an attempt to argue that his racism pales into insignificance beside it.

But unless we make an effort to understand the origins and particularities of his white supremacism, we shall fail to understand the structure of racialized thinking as it still exists today.

Churchill is often the subject of false or exaggerated allegations. But in truth, he said enough horrifying things that there is no need to invent more. He said that he hated people with "slit eyes and pig tails." To him, people from India were "the beastliest people in the world next to the Germans." He admitted that he "did not really think that black people were as capable or as efficient as white people."

In 1943, US Vice President Henry Wallace challenged his notion of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Churchill, who drank "quite a bit of whiskey" (as Wallace wrote), gave a blunt reply. According to Wallace's diary: "He said why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority, that we were superior, that we had the common heritage which had been worked out over the centuries in England and had been perfected by our constitution."

It is not enough to say that all this is explained by Churchill's background. Of course, as he himself emphasized, he was a child of the Victorian age - an era when Britons tended to take their own national and moral superiority for granted. Yet other people of similar vintage, including fellow Conservative imperialists, felt that his views were old-fashioned or even downright shocking. Lord Archibald Wavell, the last-Viceroy-of-India-but-one, observed that Churchill "has still at heart his cavalry subaltern's idea of India; just as his military tactics are inclined to date from the Boer War."

We need to recognize, though, that Churchill's worldview was far from static, and his ideas did not simply freeze in time when the 20th Century dawned. He started his parliamentary career as a Conservative but in 1904 crossed the floor of the House of Commons and spent the next two decades as a Liberal. His first taste of office was as a junior minister at the Colonial Office and at first he was seen by some as a (left-wing) radical, as a Little Englander, and as a threat to the Empire. Ramsay MacDonald, later Britain's first Labour Party Prime Minister, criticized Churchill's modest efforts to rein in local colonial governments' mistreatment of their non-white populations. "I do not think I am an over-cautious man," wrote MacDonald. Nor did he consider himself short of sympathy for "oppressed black and yellow men" in South Africa. "But I am bound to say that, unless the Cabinet muzzle Mr. Winston Churchill, they will bring themselves into a disastrous conflict with the Colonies."

Churchill quickly changed tack, which suggests that, although many of his beliefs were deeply held, there was an opportunistic element in the way that he deployed them. In the 1930s, having rejoined the Conservative Party, he chose to ally himself with diehard imperialists against reform in India in part because he believed that it would help further his career. This is why I argue, in my book Churchill's Empire, that it was during the years between the two world wars that Churchill "decided to become a Victorian."

In other words, his expressions of imperialism and racism were partly self-conscious attempts at image making. It seems natural to condemn this, but we should be cautious, when trying to understand societal racism, about putting too much weight on prominent individuals, however famous or notorious.

Portraying Churchill as the root of all wickedness, as some of the more extreme social media comments appear to do, is as problematic as viewing him as the single-handed savior of freedom and democracy. By elevating him to a place of supreme importance -- albeit by presenting him as uniquely wicked rather than splendidly virtuous -- it reinforces Churchill's own theory of history as driven by great white men. That is a vision from which, surely, we urgently need to break free.

This story was first published on CNN.com Yes, Churchill was a racist. It's time to break free of his 'great white men' view of history
ALBANY  As the state Legislature passes a package of sweeping criminal justice reforms this week, additional bills are in the works that further aim to change policy and procedures for law enforcement officers.

Democratic senators Jessica Ramos and Alessandra Biaggi, of Queens and the Bronx, respectively, have additional legislation aimed at "demilitarizing" police departments across New York.

The bills would ban the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray and other chemical agents used to control crowds, as well as prohibit police departments from receiving or purchasing from a military-equipment surplus program operated by the federal government.

The series of criminal justice reforms were prompted by the recent protests against police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes as he was handcuffed on the ground.

Ramos' bill would also prohibit police agencies from using chemical weapons on civilian populations or stockpiling any munitions. The bill also would require departments to destroy any of that existing equipment.

Police officers have unleashed life-threatening tear gas and rubber bullets upon New Yorkers using their First Amendment right to protest police brutality against black Americans in recent weeks. By cutting off their ability to senselessly attack crowds using chemical weapons, and other military equipment, we will encourage law enforcement to find other peaceful ways of doing their jobs while protecting our communities in times of disarray, Ramos said in a news release. As we await on New York City to defund the (New York Police Department) and for the state to repeal 50-A, it is crucial that we limit New York law enforcements ability to needlessly hurt New Yorkers who are making their voices heard.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Biaggi also has a bill that would prohibit police agencies from purchasing military equipment, including weaponized drones, grenade launchers, silencers and armored vehicles.

Federal surplus programs have allowed police to receive military-grade equipment like tanks, armored drones, and grenades, which they have disproportionately deployed in black and brown communities," she said in a news release. "The use of military equipment in U.S. localities does nothing to advance public safety or even protect police officers  it only incites violence and terror in our neighborhoods."
PARIS (Reuters) - Paris police banned on Tuesday a demonstration planned in memory of Adama Traore, a 24-year old black Frenchman who died in a 2016 police operation which some have likened to the death of George Floyd in the United States.

The Paris police department said in a statement that there were risks of social disorder and health dangers from large gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The demonstration had drawn attention on social media in France from those supporting the "Black Lives Matter" movement and backing protests in the United States.

Unrest has broken out across the United States after the killing of Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died after a white policeman pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25.

Violent demonstrations broke out in France in 2016 after Traore died https://reut.rs/2ZVH1NM while being driven to a police station following his arrest over an altercation in the Val dOise area north of the French capital.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Love them, hate them ignore them at national peril, is the babu guarantee and Dilips belief. Share significant babu escapades dilipcherian@hotmail.com

Turns out that at least six states have witnessed a rather quick turnover of principal health secretaries during the lockdown

The Police Academy chief in Telangana and senior IPS officer V.K. Singh has threatened to resign from service if he is denied promotion.

Mr Singh has reportedly written to state chief secretary Somesh Kumar that though he was empanelled for the post of director general of police (DGP) three months ago, the government had still not taken up the matter of his promotion.

Sources say that Mr Singh is expecting to be promoted in the rank of DGP but the government has yet to decide, even though there is a vacancy following the retirement of Tejdeep Kaur Menon, DG, Special Protection Force, in April, and T. Krishna Prasad, DG, Road Safety Authority, in March.

Mr Singh is a 1987-batch IPS officer and has alleged that officers of 1986 batch of regular recruits of Telangana cadre were promoted three years ago without clear vacancies.

Similarly, IAS officers of 1989 batch of Telangana cadre were also promoted without clear vacancies. IPS officers of 1989 batch of many states, including Andhra Pradesh, were promoted long back.

Will the miffed senior cop act on this threat?

High sacrifice

Babu watchers observed a curious detail about the Indian governments fightback against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Turns out that at least six states have witnessed a rather quick turnover of principal health secretaries during the lockdown.

Most recently, the Uttarakhand government removed principal health secretary Nitesh Jha and moved him to the irrigation department.

Other babus who met a similar fate are Sanjay Kumar in Bihar, Vivek Kumar in West Bengal, Jayanti Ravi in Gujarat, N.B. Dhal in Odisha, and Pallavi Jain Govil in Madhya Pradesh.

Clearly, they lost their posts on account of their handling of the Covid-19 crisis. Interestingly, all these officials were known to be close to their respective political masters before the pandemic struck.

The question many are asking is whether these babus lost their job for mishandling the crisis or to deflect public criticism of the respective state chief ministers.

Each of these states is among the worst-affected in the country and is struggling to cope with the pandemic even as the number of positive cases and deaths continues to rise.

Perhaps it is easier for netas to avoid criticism by making scapegoats and sending a message to the public that it is they who call the shots. Not very reassuring, though, for babus.

CVCs directive

New chief vigilance commissioner (CVC) Sanjay Kothari has reportedly instructed all ministries and government departments to conduct internal inquiries and departmental proceedings against public servants much before they retire.

Mr Kothari has directed all chief vigilance officers (CVOs) and other administrative authorities to send requests for inquiries in the first week of the month when the concerned officer is retiring.

This is the first major decision taken by Mr Kothari since he was appointed CVC last month. Actually, since 2007, many CVCs have written to government departments on the issue to ensure that the accused babus are brought to justice in time.

Clearly, that has not happened. There have been many cases of alleged corruption by babus that were not dealt with even until the retirement of the accused officials.

In his missive, Mr Kothari has urged the CVOs and other authorities to prioritise cases against officers who are on the verge of retirement. Further, action will be taken against CVOs who delay inquiries and disciplinary proceedings against public servants.

Mr Kothari clearly wants to see some progress on this longstanding issue, but will the system respond?

Share a babu experience! Follow dilipthecherian@twitter.com. Lets multiply the effect.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 17:28:14|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping inspected northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region from Monday to Wednesday, with poverty relief high on the agenda.

Xi attaches great importance to poverty alleviation. He has addressed the issue on many occasions. The following are some highlights of his quotes.

-- All ethnic groups are part of the big family of the Chinese nation and no ethnic group should be left behind in the country's fight against poverty, in its building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and in its drive toward modernization.

-- It is an essential requirement of socialism to eradicate poverty, improve people's living standards and achieve common prosperity among the people.

-- No single poor area or individual shall be left behind.

-- Genuinely poor people are to genuinely shake off poverty. Poverty must be truly eliminated.

-- The measurement for moderate prosperity lies in rural areas.

-- Cadres play a key role in helping people shake off poverty.

-- Eradicating poverty is a common mission of human beings.

-- It will be the first time in the millennia-old history of the Chinese nation that absolute poverty is comprehensively eliminated.

-- Being lifted out of poverty is not an end in itself but the starting point of a new life and a new pursuit.

-- It is imperative to try all possible means to consolidate achievements in poverty alleviation, and then focus on rural vitalization to ensure a better life for rural residents. Enditem
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO / ACCESSWIRE / June 9, 2020 / Although the world is working towards a carbon-free energy future, it is still overwhelmingly dependent on oil, and this is likely to remain the case for decades. Given its crucial importance, this commodity has long been closely intertwined with the global economy, affecting not only markets but also national and international policies. "The oil industry has known many ups and downs, but what it is experiencing at the moment is unprecedented," comments renowned forex broker Pablo Soria de Lachica. "The global pandemic has all but annihilated crude demand, further upsetting a market that was already struggling in the face of an oil glut. The world economy will inevitably recover from the current slump, but a return to the previous normal remains in doubt, and the latest oil industry shock is likely to have a longer-term effect on energy markets."

The very importance of the 'black gold' has led to its price being "disproportionately hit" by the pandemic and the resulting collapse in economic and social activities, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a recent research note. Looking at the broader picture ahead, they added, "Not only is this the largest economic shock of our lifetimes, but carbon-based industries like oil sit in the cross-hairs as they have historically served as the cornerstone of social interactions and globalization, the prevention of which are the main defense against the virus. [] The ultimate magnitude of these shut-ins, which is still unknown, will likely permanently alter the energy industry and its geopolitics, restrict demand as economic activity normalizes and shift the debate around climate change." The oil industry is accustomed to upheavals, but it has never experienced such a staggering drop in demand, which has undermined its ability to adjust and triggered a spill-over effect on the broader energy sector, Pablo Soria de Lachica says. He goes on to explain, "In response to reduced consumption and shrinking revenues, energy producers and distributors are mothballing investment projects and various efficiency initiatives to conserve funds. This may help them weather the crisis, but it raises concerns over future capacity and infrastructure, including renewable power programs."

In a recent publication, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said, "The oil world has seen many shocks over the years, but none has hit the industry with quite the ferocity we are witnessing today." The IEA also expects the oil price crash to reverberate throughout the energy sector, citing natural gas as particularly vulnerable due to the close ties between the two commodities. In summarizing the situation, the agency wrote, "Changes in oil markets ripple across all parts of the energy sector, with implications for a range of different fuels and technologies. A sustained period of low oil prices would affect the prospects for clean energy transitions, easing some aspects of this transformation - such as the removal of fossil fuel consumption subsidies - while complicating others."

Pablo Soria de Lachica graduated from Universidad Tecnologico de Mexico (UNITEC) with an MBA, going on to specialize in international trading and ultimately become one of the most prominent forex experts globally. His extensive experience allows him to maximize profits for his clients by combining professional guidance and educational projects. He is currently collaborating with Kartoshka - a company bringing the latest technologies in sales, telemarketing, and customer support.

Pablo Soria de Lachica - Foreign Exchange Specialist: http://PabloSoriaDeLachicaNews.com

Pablo Soria de Lachica Comments on the Possibility of a New Financial Crisis due to Oil Collapse: https://news.yahoo.com/pablo-soria-lachica-comments-possibility-200000177.html

Pablo Soria de Lachica Explores the Potential Impact of 2020 Oil Crisis on the Global Economy: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pablo-soria-lachica-explores-potential-141500846.html

Contact Information:



Pablo Soria de Lachica

Kartoshka

http://kartoshka.global

Pablo@kartoshka.global

(800) 588-3618

SOURCE: Pablo Soria de Lachica

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593357/Pablo-Soria-de-Lachica-Shares-Insights-on-the-Longer-Term-Impact-of-Current-Oil-Industry-Shock-on-Energy-Markets
Washington

The coronavirus pandemic, a severe economic downturn and the widespread demonstrations in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody would pose a serious political challenge to any president seeking reelection. They are certainly posing one to President Donald Trump.

His approval rating is 42 percent among registered or likely voters, which is 13.8 percentage points below his disapproval rating  roughly double its margin from April 15  according to FiveThirtyEight estimates. And now a wave of new polls shows Joe Biden with a significant national lead, placing him in a stronger position to oust an incumbent president than any challenger since Bill Clinton in the summer of 1992.

Biden leads the president by around 10 percentage points in an average of recent live-interview telephone surveys of registered voters. It's a 4-point improvement from a similar series of polls in late March and early April. Since then, Bernie Sanders has left the Democratic race, the severity of the coronavirus pandemic has become fully evident and the president's standing has gradually eroded.

The erosion has been fairly broad, spanning virtually all demographic groups. But in a longer-term context, the president's weakness is most stark in one respect: his deficit among women.

Women were supposed to carry the first female major-party nominee to victory four years ago, as many assumed that Trump's treatment of women, including allegations of sexual assault, would prove to be his undoing. But women might be his undoing this time. Trump trails Biden by 25 points among them. He still leads among men by 6 points in the most recent polls, about the same margin as he led by in the final polls of registered voters in 2016.

Over the shorter term, the decline in the president's standing has been particularly pronounced among white voters without a college degree, helping to explain why the Trump campaign has felt compelled to air advertisements in Ohio and Iowa, two mostly white working-class battleground states where Trump won by nearly 10 points in 2016.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

In the most recent polls, white voters without a college degree back the president by 21 points, down from 31 points in March and April and down from the 29-point lead Trump held in the final polls of registered voters in 2016.

Trump didn't just lose support to the undecided column; Biden ticked up to an average of 37 percent among white voters without a degree. The figure would be enough to assure Biden the presidency, given his considerable strength among white college graduates. In the most recent polls, white college graduates back Biden by a 20-point margin, up 4 points since the spring. It's also an 8-point improvement for the Democratic nominee since 2016, and a 26-point improvement since 2012.

Biden has also made some progress toward redressing his weakness among younger voters. Voters ages 18-34 now back Biden by a 22-point margin, up 6 points from the spring.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Domestic air communication in Azerbaijan will be resumed from June 15, press secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers Ibrahim Mammadov said at a briefing on June 9.

Air communication with Nakhchivan will be first to be resumed.

"From June 15, flights to Nakhchivan will be allowed. For now, these flights will be operated twice a week. At the next stage, the number of flights may be increased," Mammadov said.

Moreover, it was decided to extend ban on entry and exit from the country until July 1.

"This decision was taken in connection with the growing number of infected with coronavirus. As it used to be, cargo transportation and charter flights are an exception," he added.

Furthermore, he noted that at present, resumption of entry and exit to the regions of Azerbaijan is not subject to discussion.

Repatiration of citizens

Additionally, he touched upon an issue of repatriating Azerbaijani citizens from abroad, who could not return in time, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the closing of countrys borders.

The process of return of citizens from abroad will continue in stages, and a schedule for it is currently being developed.

Mammadov noted that, first of all the citizens who are in the CIS and Middle Eastern countries will be returned.

"Later, citizens who are in Europe will be repatirated. In the course of flights, the relevant rules will be observed. Flights to Azerbaijan from abroad will be continued. All returned citizens will be quarantined. Today, 130 people were repatriated from Dagestan and placed under quarantine. On June 10, some 210 people will be brought from New York to Baku. The process of return of citizens will continue in stages," Mammadov emphasized.

Azerbaijan has so far repatriated over 20,000 citizens from different countries over COVID-19 pandemic.

Azerbaijan first introduced special quarantine regime on March 24 and the fourth stage of quarantine regime easing came into force May 31.

On June 9, a decision was taken to impose a two-day nationwide quarantine regime in Baku, Ganja, Lankaran, Sumgayit, Absheron, Yevlakh, Ismailli, Kurdamir and Salyan regions, that will be effective from 00:00 on June 14 to 06:00 on June 16.

As of June 10, Azerbaijan has registered 8,191 COVID-19 cases and 98 coronavirus- related deaths. The total number of recovered patients is 4,606.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
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Global Travel Insurance Market was valued US$2.6Bn in 2017 and is expected to reach US$9.6Bn by 2026 at a CAGR of about 17.34% during a forecast.



Global Travel Insurance Market is segmented into by Product Type, by Industry, By Channel, and by region. Based on Product Type, Travel Insurance Market is classified into Medical expense, Trip Cancellation, Trip Delay, Property Damage & Other. Industry type is divided into Domestic Tourism & Oversea Tourism. By Channel section are into Direct Sales & Distributor. Geographically into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. Global Industry Analysis and forecast 2018-2026.



Driving factors for the travel insurance market is Travelers are more likely to travel with an assurance of financial protection during the trip, rise of low-cost airlines, an increase in the number of airport passengers, travelers can easily check out the benefits conditions applicable to the same, and even compare the premiums of various travel insurance policies and provides an extensive range of benefits for events, such as trip cancellation due to a medical emergency, loss of baggage, evacuation due to a medical condition or hijack, and loss of travel documents these factors can create more opportunity in the travel insurance market.

Huge expenses and lengthy process of claiming the bill can hamper the growth of Travel Insurance Market.

Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/10350



In terms of Industry, Oversea Tourism segment share the highest market during the forecast period. Rise in disposal income, changing lifestyle, rising better options for tours and travels, connecting the world via cheaper flight and better facilities, rising business standard at world level and the travel insurance policy of nature also compensates against passport or baggage loss, flight delays, and cancellations will open more opportunity in the travel insurance market.



In terms of Channel, Direct Sales segment share the fastest growing market during the forecast period. Direct sales via online platform in travel insurance is a cost-effective way and less time consume to book, targeting a specific audience, helps to build relationships with new customers and offer customers with compelling content they can share with potential customers.



Among region, Asia Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Advances in technology, holiday entitlement, increased disposable incomes, an effect of media and easy availability of holiday packages, the governmentas scheme visa on arrival scheme, rising population and emerging economies. The World Tourism Organization has predicted international tourist arrivals to reach 10 billion to reach 2030

Generali, AXA, Allianz, Munich RE, Hanse Merkur, AIG, CSA Travel Insurance, Groupama, Mapfre Asistencia, USI Affinity, Seven Corners, MH Ross, Tokio Marine, Sompo Japan, Pingan Baoxian, STARR, InsureandGo, Aviva PLC, American Express Company, MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, China Pacific Life Insurance Co., Ltd, Atlas Travel Insurance Services Ltd.

Scope of the report for Global Travel Insurance Market:

Request for Report Discount: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/10350



Global Travel Insurance Market: By Product Type

Medical expense

Trip Cancellation

Trip Delay

Property Damage

Other

Global Travel Insurance Market: By Industry

Domestic Tourism

Oversea Tourism

Global Travel Insurance Market: By Sales Channel

Direct Sales

Distributor

Global Travel Insurance Market: By region

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

Latin America



Key Player analyzed in the Global Travel Insurance Market:



Generali

AXA

Allianz

Munich RE

Hanse Merkur

AIG

CSA Travel Insurance

Groupama

Mapfre Asistencia

USI Affinity

Seven Corners

MH Ross

Tokio Marine

Sompo Japan

Pingan Baoxian

STARR

InsureandGo

Aviva PLC

American Express Company

Ping An Insurance Company of China

MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings

China Pacific Life Insurance Co., Ltd

Atlas Travel Insurance Services Ltd

More Info of Impact Covid19@ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/10350
A 37-year-old man wanted on a murder charge in Ohio has been arrested in Massachusetts, officials said Wednesday.

Police in Columbus, Ohio, announced in January that Troy D. Capers II had been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Joseph Fisher.

On Wednesday morning, Capers was arrested in Fall River in a joint operation by the Massachusetts State Police, the United States Marshals Service and Fall River Police, state police said.

Capers was taken into custody at an apartment at 19 Cook St. around 6:20 a.m. Wednesday, according to a statement from state police.

U.S. Marshals in Ohio received information that Capers had fled to Massachusetts. After authorities in Massachusetts developed leads on where Capers could have been staying, they set up surveillance on three addresses, state police said.

Capers was allegedly involved in a fight at a bar in Columbus on Jan. 4. After the fight, Capers left the bar, returned with a gun and shot Fisher, authorities said.

State police said Capers is expected to be arraigned in Bristol County as a fugitive from justice. Prosecutors will arrange Capers rendition to appear before a judge in Ohio on the murder charge.
Its been a quiet few months for royal fans all over the world, with the royals scrapping public engagements as soon as the coronavirus hit.

But in news that is sure to come as music to royal enthusiasts ears, Princess Mary has stepped out for her first official engagement since lockdown began.

Princess Mary made her first public appearance after lockdown today. Photo: Getty Images

The 48-year-old looked stunning in a floral skirt and long-sleeved silk blouse as she visited Holmegaard Vrk, a new design museum, in Denmark.

The Tassie-born princess beamed from ear-to-ear for waiting photographers, clearly happy to back into the thick of things with her royal work.

At the event, Mary made sure to practice social distancing, however she did forgo a face mask for the visit.

The Tassie-born princess smiled from ear-to-ear, looking happy to be back at work. Photo: Getty Images

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark view artworks on June 8, 2020, while attending the opening of the designer museum Holmegaard Vaerk in Naestved some 75km south of the Danish capital Copenhagen. (Photo by Niels Christian Vilmann / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT (Photo by NIELS CHRISTIAN VILMANN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

According to Danish authorities wearing a face mask isnt necessary when people are moving around the community.

Last week, Princess Mary attended a private meeting at the World Health Organisation's European office, however todays was her first public engagement.

Back in March, the Danish royal family decided to cancel all official appearances, with Princess Mary and her family returning home from Switzerland to stand with the Danes.

In a statement released by the palace, it was revealed that Princess Mary, her four children and her husband, Prince Frederik, would all return from Switzerland, where theyve been enjoying a 12-week school stay.

In March, Princess Mary, her children and Prince Frederik returned to Denmark from Switzerland, where they had been on a 12-week stint. Photo: Getty Images

"In light of the worsening situation in Denmark in connection with the handling of the spread of COVID-19, the Crown Prince couple has decided that the family will leave home from Switzerland, the statement read.

The Crown Prince couple find it most natural to return home and stand with the Danes in a time that requires a lot of everyone and where there is a shared responsibility for looking after each other."

The palace went on to clarify that the childrens education will continue in Denmark, once public institutions open again.

Got a story tip or just want to get in touch? Email us at lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com.
[June 10, 2020] M4Sonic Spins on Bigo Live to EDM Fans' Delight

SYDNEY, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- M4Sonic found it hard to believe he could reach up to 180,000 viewers in an hour, across the Pan Pacific, during his first livestream. The young DJ was also pleasantly surprised when he saw the number of fans sending him virtual gifts through the global livestreaming platform Bigo Live. "It is unprecedented," He shook his head with a smile referring to his debut stream. "I never thought that livestreaming could open up a new untapped community for me. It was real time interaction with my fans. Unlike playing in a club where you hope that the listeners are enjoying; here, I know that they are actually enjoying my music through the feedback and comments I receive." M4Sonic also expressed his thanks to Bigo Live and Razer, the leading lifestyle brand for gamers, for "making it happen" for him. Both of whom he feels resonate with his personal brand and persona. He has recently signed a partnership agreement with Bigo Live following the successful livestreaming sessions he held over the past month, to bring the relationship to the next level. He feels that this unique collaboration will only serve to open up more markets and opportunities for people to enjoy his music. "It's not often that a DJ is signed up by a social media platform. This collaboration is one of a kind. I'm confident that it will be nothing short of successful," M4Sonic added. The homegrown Australian electronic music producer and the world's number one Launchpad artist, who has played for global audiences at music festivals including Tomorrowworld and Stereosonic will be playing weekly on Thursdays and Fridays, under Bigo Live ID: M4Snic.



M4Sonic believes that the current situation around the globe shouldn't keep him from creating great music for his fans and is thankful that technology is here to help him "share the joy". Send Virtual Gifts through Bigo Live with Razer Gold

This partnership will leverage on one of the world's largest virtual credits platforms for games and digital content, Razer Gold. The virtual credit's offline-to-online payment platform provides a touchpoint for consumers to connect. During the stream, partygoers are able to purchase Razer Gold and utilize it to send virtual gifts and stickers. Razer will also be giving away coveted prizes like their gaming headsets and Razer Gold. To enjoy the stream, please download Bigo Live, and follow the BIGO ID: M4Sonic every Thursdays and Fridays, from 9pm to 11pm SYD time. To mark the start of this partnership, M4Sonic will play his well-known piece "Weapon" viewed over 47 million times on Launchpad, on Thursday 11 June. Updates will be posted on Instagram ID:BIGOLIVEANZ. ABOUT BIGO LIVE Bigo Live is one of the world's fastest-growing livestreaming social communities where users broadcast in real-time to share life moments, showcase their talents and interact with people from around the world. Bigo Live has 400 million users in over 150 countries and is currently the market leader in the livestreaming industry. Launched in March 2016, Bigo Live is owned by BIGO Technology which is based in Singapore. Download the Bigo Live app here: https://bigolive.onelink.me/sG8X/bigoliveth ABOUT RAZER Razer is the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers. The triple-headed snake trademark of Razer is one of the most recognized logos in the global gaming and esports communities. With a fan base that spans every continent, the company has designed and built the world's largest gamer-focused ecosystem of hardware, software and services. Razer's award-winning hardware includes high-performance gaming peripherals and Blade gaming laptops. Razer's software platform, with over 80 million users, includes Razer Synapse (an Internet of Things platform), Razer Chroma (a proprietary RGB lighting technology system), and Razer Cortex (a game optimizer and launcher). In services, Razer Gold is one of the world's largest virtual credit services for gamers, and Razer Fintech is one of the largest offline-to-online digital payment networks in SE Asia. Founded in 2005 and dual-headquartered in Irvine and Singapore, Razer has 16 offices worldwide and is recognized as the leading brand for gamers in the USA, Europe and China. Razer is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Stock Code: 1337). About M4Sonic M4Sonic is an electronic musician and is considered the world's number one Launchpad artist. His first single "Weapon" released on YouTube in 2012 reached 1m views in a few weeks. His subsequent tracks enjoyed similar success and his career took flight from there. He has since played for a global audience at music festivals including Tomorrowworld, Stereosonic and Vans Warped Tour. His most prominent global hit "The Fox" has raked in over 900m views on YouTube and the number continues to grow. He has recently launched his own record label, Global League and spends time teaching his fans the method behind his button pushing madness. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube under M4Sonic. Media contact: Amanda Chan

[email protected]

+65-6351-9330 Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200610/2825964-1 SOURCE Bigo Live

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Tesla's stock jumped above $US1000 ($1422) a share after chief executive Elon Musk told his staff it was time to bring the Tesla Semi commercial truck to "volume production."

Musk, in an email seen by Reuters, did not specify a time frame for ramping up production of the Semi. Musk on Wednesday tweeted "Yes" to a question on Twitter about whether the report of the leaked Semi truck production email was accurate.

Tesla unveiled the prototype of the futuristic, battery-powered Semi in 2017. Credit:Tesla

Tesla's shares rose by 6 per cent to hit $US1,000 on Wednesday after Reuters reported Musk's email, making the Silicon Valley company the second-most valuable automaker in the world, behind Japan's Toyota. Tesla's share surge could position Musk for another payout from a stock compensation plan tied to the company's market capitalisation.

The stock also got a boost from a bullish call by Wedbush, which lifted its target price for the automaker to $US1,000 and said Tesla could have "more room to run."
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Open Enquiry: Ex-Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh yet to appear before ACB

Will schools in Maharashtra reopen next week amid rising Omicron cases? Proposal sent to CM

Schools in Mumbai to reopen with rest of Maharashtra on Monday

Lonar Lake in Maharashtra mysteriously turns red; Forest officials puzzled

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Buldhana, June 10: The water of Maharashtra's famous Lonar crater lake in Buldhana has mysteriously changed its colour to red, sparking concerns and theories alike. On the normal days, the lake appears to be in greenish.

Meanwhile, the forest department has been asked to collect the sample of the water and dig out the reason behind the changing colour of the lake.

With nearly 86,000 cases, Maharashtra has more coronavirus patients than China

"Since the past two-three days, the colour of the lake's water seems to have changed colour. Forest department has been asked to collect a sample for analysis and find out the reason," Lonar tehsildar Saifan Nadaf told news agency ANI.

Maharashtra: Water of Lonar crater lake in Buldhana district has turned red. Saifan Nadaf, Lonar tehsildar says, "In the last 2-3 days we have noticed that the colour of lake's water has changed. Forest Dept has been asked to collect a sample for analysis & find out the reason". pic.twitter.com/c19zPRIZpS  ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2020

China says reached positive consensus with India on border issue | Oneindia News

However, the colour change could be due to growth of Halobacteria and fungus salina.

Lonar Lake, also known as Lonar crater, is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument, saline, soda lake, located at Lonar in Buldhana district, Maharashtra, India. Lonar Lake was created by an asteroid collision with earth impact during the Pleistocene Epoch.
Mayor Brian Bowman is reluctant to use the term "defunding," but he is willing to talk about a future that involves a reduction and a redirection of money now flowing to the Winnipeg Police Service.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 9/6/2020 (591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mayor Brian Bowman is reluctant to use the term "defunding," but he is willing to talk about a future that involves a reduction and a redirection of money now flowing to the Winnipeg Police Service.

Like municipal leaders across North America, Bowman acknowledged that many people in his city are looking for dramatic changes in the structure and culture of policing, particularly as it relates to the interaction of police and people of colour. However, to achieve many of the goals of the defunding movement, Bowman said Winnipeg will need major help from the provincial and federal governments.

Bowman said up to 60 per cent of calls that come into the Winnipeg Police Service through the 911 system would be better addressed by services in the areas of mental health, addictions, housing and families, all of which fall under provincial and federal jurisdiction.

Without the support of senior levels of government, it will be very difficult to reduce funding to the Winnipeg police, he added.

"If provincial and federal governments were more effective at addressing areas of need within their jurisdictions, then ... yes, the police budget could and should be reduced substantially," Bowman said in an interview Tuesday.

That is a bold statement for a mayor of a city that has long given the police whatever it wants to combat crime and criminals. It certainly leaves him open to political blowback from a number of different quarters.

Bowman's critics, which include a good number of governing Tory politicians at the Manitoba legislature, will characterize these comments as the latest in a long string of asks from a mayor who would rather put his hand out than devise his own solutions.

Mayor Brian Bowman says up to 60 per cent of 911 police calls would be better addressed by services in the areas of mental health, addictions, housing and families, all of which fall under provincial and federal jurisdiction. (Daniel Crump / Winnipeg Free Press files)

True to form, Premier Brian Pallister made it clear he had neither the inclination or the interest to get involved in a defunding debate.

In a news conference to announce additional COVID-19 programs, Pallister dismissed the whole idea of police defunding as "illogical" and contrary to the goal of public safety.

"Dont let your frustration lose your common sense," he said.

But he also noted that policing is fully the domain of "the mayor and council.... I'll let (the city) address city issues."

Pallister is essentially wrong on both principal points.

As many other cities are showing, defunding is not illogical or impractical. Steps are being taken all over the continent to channel money from police budgets into other avenues of intervention.

And second, the challenge of re-inventing policing, which more and more Canadians support, is something that must involve all levels of government.

Political leaders such as Pallister have trouble seeing the logic in defunding because they cannot imagine what would replace traditional policing. Unfortunately, in the absence of an old-fashioned police service, we don't have many examples of what next generation public safety looks like. That makes demands for abolition  one extreme in the defunding debate  seem unrealistic.

Bowman says both he and Winnipeg police leadership are concerned that police are asked too often to respond to events involving someone with a mental-health issue, or family crisis, or concern that a neighbour, friend or family member is unresponsive. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press files)

But there are issues of consensus within the broader defunding debate, such as the need to stop dispatching police to every call that comes through the 911 system.

Bowman noted both he and leadership of the WPS are concerned that police are asked too often to respond to events involving someone with a mental-health issue, or family crisis, or a report of an intoxicated person in a public place, or concern that a neighbour, friend or family member is unresponsive.

Police are asked to respond to these calls because they are, depending on the time of day or day of the week, the only ones available. Family support and mental-health or addiction services do not keep 24-7 hours. That means police are merely collecting people and shuttling them to the services they really need.

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This creates two problems. First, it is a waste of time and money because police are, in no uncertain terms, the most expensive option for these types of calls. And second, it's also a source of stress and frustration for police, who often feel frustrated because they are being asked to do things for which they are not really equipped.

Even without adopting the rhetoric of the defunding movement, Pallister should be able to agree that police are not the best option for the majority of calls that come in through 911. He should also be willing to acknowledge that his government, and not the city, bears the greatest burden in enhancing the services to help divert calls away from the WPS.

The problem for Bowman and Winnipeg city councillors is that the Pallister government has made a concerted effort to cut support to municipalities in almost every conceivable form. Winnipeg has had its general operating grant frozen, and other funding to things such as Winnipeg Transit cut significantly.

It seems unlikely bordering on impossible to imagine that help is going to come from a premier who thinks police defunding is "illogical" and who has already decided it's not his issue to deal with.

As leader of the level of government that is directly responsible for policing, Bowman will no doubt feel the pressure from citizens hungry for change. With a little luck, those citizens will save some of their energy to let the premier know that he needs to be part of the solution as well.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Facing Israels plethora of political parties with different agendas, and with a narrow timeline before U.S. elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to pass a historic annexation of areas in the West Bank. It would reverse more than 50 years of Israeli policy and potentially damage Israels relations with European countries and the few Middle Eastern states it has relations with. Netanyahu is gambling on a symbolic move for his legacy  and taking a huge risk.

On June 8, Netanyahu met with leaders of Israeli communities in the West Bank and tried to spell out what his annexation plan looked like. There were no final maps, and a rushed schedule awaits before the July dates when the governing coalition wants to move forward. How did it come to this? How did Netanyahu, the Mr. Security of Israel, heralded as King Bibi, lead the country for ten years only to end up scrambling for this legacy?

Israel has annexed before. In 1980, it effectively annexed what was once Jordanian East Jerusalem, as a new law gave hundreds of thousands of Palestinians municipal residency but not citizenship. Israel also extended its laws to the Golan Heights in 1981, enabling members of the Druze minority who live there but are Syrian citizens to get Israeli citizenship. In the West Bank, however, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis live, Israel has been cautious to upset the status quo. Peace accords signed with the Palestinians in the 1990s were supposed to be a road map to a Palestinian statehood. But that never happened. Instead, wars followed and the Palestinians were divided between their institutions in the West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza.

For decades Netanyahu has warned of the dangers of a Palestinian state that does not renounce terror. During the Obama administration, he worked to slow Washingtons drive for yet another round of peace talks. Team Obama got revenge in 2016, just before leaving office, when it enabled passage of a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements. The Trump administration vowed to reverse that policy on Israel and has recognized Israels control of the Golan Heights and moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Story continues

Despite the Trump administrations pro-Israel policies, it was the Israeli government that ran into troubles with the latest U.S. peace plan. While the Trump administration wanted to roll it out after moving the embassy in 2018, it hit a snag, as Netanyahu was facing new elections. Its difficult to roll a peace plan when Israel lacks a coalition government and is in the midst of an election cycle. Netanyahu called elections in December 2018. His Likud party couldnt form a coalition, either in April 2019, after a first round of elections, or in September, after another round. Trump announced the plan in January 2020, hoping to prod Netanyahu and his rival Benny Gantz, to set aside their differences. It wasnt until mid May of this year that a unity government, in which Gantz and Netanyahu alternate as prime minister, was finally formed.

Now Netanyahu, facing a trial for corruption, has to work with parts of the Trump peace plan, hoping that Trump wins the November election so that the plan can be carried through. The problem is that Israel would effectively change 50 years of policy by rushing annexation of a few parts of the West Bank while ignoring the peace-plan provisions that would lead toward the creation of a Palestinian state. Most European countries, as well as Egypt and Jordan, have warned Israel against extending its laws to the West Bank. Even U.S. officials appear to hint that Israel should take it slow.

What do Netanyahu and Israel stand to gain from annexation? Annexation changes the status quo forever and chisels away at the decreasing size of a potential Palestinian state. That state is already unlikely to be created, but the illusion of it drives polices of the EU and Arab states. Israel has much to risk, including the possibility of some new clashes in the West Bank and a a further scarring of already depressed relations with neighboring Jordan. Israel also faces condemnation from 19 U.S. senators, dozens of former Canadian diplomats, leading members of the British Jewish community, China, Russia, Israeli centrists and leftists, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab League. Netanyahu has indicated that Palestinians in West Bank areas annexed to Israel would not get Israeli citizenship. That means that annexation would not change what things look like on the ground, but it could change Israels foreign relationships for years to come.

Militarily, Israel is at its strongest point in history. It enjoys unprecedented diplomatic relations with countries such as India and even with Russia, which were once sour on Israel. The annexation gamble, which even Israelis who support annexation think is too meager, seems to be intended for Netanyahus domestic legacy and based on the assumption that a future U.S. Democratic administration would oppose it but not be able to undo it. Thats a huge short-term gamble for a country that wants long-term peace and prosperity and is still weathering the COVID-19 crisis and an Iranian threat. Netanyahu never liked bold gambles, he was always a pragmatic incrementalist. Now, with the clock ticking as the U.S. election approaches, he must rush and try to avoid hurting Israels relations too much in the process.

More from National Review
Tony Banks told Amazon.com Inc. right away when he tested positive for Covid-19. More than a month later, hes on the mend, but struggling with fatigue and shortness of breath that makes most physical activity feel like hes just sprinted up a hill. Banks says hes in no shape to return to work at the Indiana warehouse where he walks miles every shift.

Yet somewhere in an Amazon human-resources operation that already extended his medical leave once, Banks is seen as an employee abandoning his job. The company has twice in recent weeks initiated automatic termination proceedings against him for missing shifts.

I understand that its overwhelming right now, Banks says. But for all the resources they have, its almost like a mom-and-pop operation.

After suffering delivery delays and mass absenteeism during the early weeks of the pandemic, Amazon has hit another snag: a human resources department ill prepared to handle the thousands of requests pouring in from sick employees and those who need to stay home to care for their children or elderly relatives.

Its unclear how many employees are stuck in limbo, but Bloomberg spoke with six such workers, who work in facilities from New Jersey to Indiana. They say theyre owed back pay for time spent on sick leave or in quarantine, have been scheduled for shifts while sick, or were denied leave despite providing documentation of conditions Amazon says should make them eligible to stay home without pay.

Amazons HR department is heavily automated, which helps Amazon grow quickly and restrain costs but these days leaves employees hitting dead ends with chatbots, smartphone apps and phone trees.

Many companies would struggle with this unprecedented emergency, made harder by the federal governments largely ineffective response to a pandemic that has sickened more than 1.8 million people and killed more than 100,000. Meanwhile, state governments have grappled with an influx of unemployment claims.

But the design of Amazons HR department reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the companys culture. Its heavily automated, which helps Amazon grow quickly and restrain costs but these days leaves employees hitting dead ends with chatbots, smartphone apps and phone trees.

Three people with experience in the companys human resources group say the unit has been weighed down by competing priorities. HR is expected to offer workers the same speedy customer service as Amazons customers, while practicing a level of frugality that Amazon sometimes takes to extremes, the employees say.

HR is always struggling to automate and keep pace with the scale of the company, says one of the people, who all requested anonymity because they signed confidentiality agreements. The horror stories happen because [HR] people are overwhelmed. And they dont have the resources and the mental capacity to deal with [workers] because theyre pulled in so many different directions. Its bound to have negative, real-life human impacts.

Amazon says Banks, the employee threatened with termination, shouldnt have received those notices and that they were sent after Banks failed to submit proof of his condition when applying to extend the leave.

These are unprecedented times, and were working fast to support our employees, partners and provide critical services to communities in need, Lisa Levandowski, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in an email. Weve created 175,000 jobs across America, increased wages, adjusted time-off options, just to name a few, to support the hundreds of thousands of employees who work in our sites. Like all companies were rapidly adjusting to support our teams.

Adding Employees

Amazon has added some 2,500 full-time and temporary staffers to the human-resources teams that support its logistics group since the beginning of the year, she said.

The pandemic has created one of the biggest challenges in Amazons quarter-century history. While the company has benefited from a surge in online orders from home-bound shoppers, Covid-19 has sickened more than 1,100 employees and killed nine, according media reports and internal information gathered by workers. Amazon, which declines to disclose how many employees have caught the virus, has kept its operations running without widespread closures thanks in part to a hiring spree and new safety measures designed to adapt the companys logistical prowess to public health guidelines.

Behind the scenes, however, the hiring binge and health crisis have put enormous pressure on a human-resources operation that was already struggling to keep up with Amazons growth. The company in the last half-decade has added an average of 130,000 workers a year. Then, during a six-week period beginning in March, Amazon recruited a mind-boggling 175,000 people to help it keep up with surging orders and plug warehouse slots abandoned by workers too afraid to show up.

Amazon has worked for years to minimize the human effort behind administrative work. Its part of a company-wide mandate to deploy automation and advanced software, a bet that Amazon can invent the systems of the future and keep a lid on costs at the same time. Automatic processes are a necessity for an HR department that deals with many millions of employee inquiries a year. But those systems can be of little help to an overwhelmed staffer who needs time to sift through Amazon policies and government leave laws on behalf of an employee.

For a time, Amazon outsourced some of the worksending employees seeking family or medical leave to ReedGroup, a provider of outsourced leave management services. But issues cropped up, including missed return dates and employees coming back from leave to find their paychecks hadnt resumed. (ReedGroup didnt immediately provide comment.)

In-House HR

Amazon began shifting the work back in-house late last year, completing the transfer on March 2, two weeks before the first Covid-19 case was confirmed among the companys U.S. workers. Many employees stopped showing up or cut shifts short, moves Amazon supported with an offer of unlimited unpaid time off without risk of termination.

Andre Goodin, who works in an Amazon warehouse outside Baltimore, fell ill in April and was ordered into quarantine while he waited for a Covid-19 test that ultimately proved to be negative. Back at work, he had a second scare. A colleague he works with closely tested positive, days after a team meal during which a small group ate pizza together. Goodin, told by on-site HR to wait for Amazon to contact him if they determined he was at risk of exposure, decided to quarantine anyway.

The company said people suffering from Covid-19, those in quarantine and people who needed time to care for loved ones or shelter with at-risk family members, would be eligible for leave. But the deluge of requests overwhelmed Amazons ability to respond.

Amazon says it has no record of Goodin coming into contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19. The company says it uses video footage to determine such exposure and defines contact for the purposes of its contact-tracing program, as more than 15 minutes of exposure within six feet of a person.

By then, Amazons offer of unpaid time off had expired. The company said people suffering from Covid-19, those in quarantine and people who needed time to care for loved ones or shelter with at-risk family members, would be eligible for leave. But the deluge of requests overwhelmed Amazons ability to respond.

Goodin, still trying to get the pay he believes hes eligible for his first quarantine, isnt optimistic about ever getting paid for his second. He has hit dead ends when trying to use Amazons self-service options and says he has spent hours on hold waiting to speak to representatives of Amazons Employee Resource Center. It went from being able to call and talk to a person, to now, they automatically redirect you to the website and hang up on you, he says.

Goodin and other hourly warehouse employees typically use a smartphone app for most workplace issues. They can also ask for help from on-site human resources teams. For many tasks more complicated than requesting time off or fixing a missed time card punch, though, they must open a case with centralized HR teams in the U.S., Costa Rica and India.

Call Volume Struggle

Staff at an employee call center in San Jose, Costa Rica, were used to the occasional call from frustrated employees worried that delayed responses from HR would mean termination or a missed paycheck, according to someone familiar with the operation. Amazon was already struggling to manage call volume as it took back management of leave services from ReedGroup, the person said. Then the virus struck, and the phones began ringing incessantly. Obviously, no one saw that this was going to happen, the person says. Amazon was, and is still not ready for the volume of cases they have.

For some employees, being left in limbo has made them reconsider their choice of employer.

One worker at a warehouse on the East Coast, who toiled on weekends to help Amazon deal with the surge in orders, sometimes putting in 20 hours of overtime a week, was burned out. In April, she asked for unpaid leave to catch her breath. She made sure to put in the request early, giving Amazon almost three weeks to respond. Human resources never did.

Ive been their biggest supporter, she says of Amazon. I went from feeling 100% on them, to, Im at zero. Its like were replaceable.

Another employee, who recovered from a case of Covid-19 caught early in the pandemic and had her illness confirmed by an antibody test, asked HR to compensate her for that sick time. The company misinterpreted the request, she says, and put her on unpaid leave, a sequence of events Amazon says its system shouldnt allow. After days of trying to contact someone to fix it, and hours spent on hold, the worker says she was patched through to a call center employee in India, who couldnt help her.

They only opened a ticket, she says. The department I needed doesnt work weekends.

Top photo: Chris Smalls, a fired Amazon fulfillment center employee, center, speaks during a protest outside an Amazon.com facility in the Staten Island borough of New York, U.S., on Friday, May 1, 2020. Workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, Walmart, FedEx, Target, and Shipt said they would walk off the job to protest their employers failure to provide basic protections for employees who are risking their lives at work.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
The skill mapping of 2.5 lakh out of the five lakh migrant workers who returned to Jharkhand from different states has revealed that most are skilled and majority of them were engaged in construction, automotive and electronics sectors, government officials said on Wednesday.

The exercise is being carried out on the instructions of chief minister Hemant Soren so that workers could be provided employment opportunities according to their skills. But economists are skeptical that the government would be able to provide jobs to all of them.

In the first round of skill mapping, Jharkhand government has mapped the skills of 2,50,056 inbound migrant workers till now. Of those surveyed, 1,77,186 or 70% returnees are skilled labourers, while the rest 72,871 are unskilled workers, according to the state governments assessment.

According to the Jharkhand government records, about seven lakh workers, stranded outside the state had registered with the government to return home. Till now, over five lakh migrant workers have returned to Jharkhand since May 1.

Jharkhand is among several states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, which have carried out skill mapping of migrant workers in a bid to provide them work within their respective states after their return.

The skill of labourers was mapped by dividing them into 52 trades which were further subdivided into 14 sectors. According to first round mapping, a total of 49,942 workers were engaged in various construction works and included painters, masons and carpenters.

As many as 34,757 workers have experience in the automotive sector, 22,238 workers in logistics, 21,054 in electronics, 17,291 in apparel, 15,692 in tourism and hospitality and 11,511 in the healthcare sector. Besides, 17,768 workers have experience in beauty wellness, capital goods, financial services, information technology, plumbing, retail and security.

But providing job opportunities to such a large scale of migrant returnees will be a major big challenge for the Jharkhand government, said Belgium-born economist Jean Dreze.

I dont expect the Jharkhand government to provide much employment to skilled workers from its own funds. If it has no money to pay its own employees, how is it going to employ large numbers of extra workers? Dreze said.

Dreze said, A fair amount of skilled work could be generated under MGNREGS in the form of gram rozgar sevaks, assistant engineers, field assistants, social auditors, computer operators and others. This could also include skilled work for masons and others at worksites. This will also have multiplier effects in the form of helping to increase the overall scale of MGNREGS.

Migrant workers who returned, have already started pleading for jobs for survival. The workers said they would not go back to their workplaces if the Jharkhand government provides them employment.

Guddu Yadav, who returned from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu to Jharkhands Palamu district said, I used to work in a tyre company there and earn Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 a month. We migrated to other states only to earn livelihood for family members. If I get a job here, I would not like to move out of the state, he said.

Another migrant worker, Etoram Tudu, who returned from Kerala, said he has experience in fabrication work. But, I am ready to work even in MGNREGS. I do not want to go outside leaving my mother alone here, said Tudu, a resident of Gomia in Bokaro district.

Aradhana Patnaik, secretary of the Jharkhand rural development department which carried out the skill mapping said most of the workers would be accommodated in rural development schemes.

The department has chalked out some short and long-term plans for these migrant workers. Bulk workers would be accommodated in various rural development schemes such as MGNREGS and national rural livelihood mission.

She said work demand in MGNREGS has increased more than double in the past fortnight. On an average, 3-3.5-lakh workers work in MGNREGS per day. However, the workers count reached 6.6-lakh on Tuesday. More than one lakh migrant workers who have completed 14-day quarantine have been engaged in MGNREGS jobs. Many skilled labourers are willing to work in MGNREGS.

Patnaik said the mapping data would be shared with other departments including industry, urban development and information technology and they would also create job opportunities according to the skill of the workers.

However, Harishwar Dayal, a Jharkhand- based economist, said, Providing jobs to all the migrant workers is not an easy task for the government. MGNREGS jobs are not permanent and remuneration is also very poor. Private players will have to pitch in to accommodate skilled workers.

He expects entrepreneurs to make the most of cheap labour in Jharkhand.

I think private players and entrepreneurs would come to Jharkhand to cash in on the opportunity, as they would get labour at a cheap price right now. Industries would also try to pick the skilled workers for their needs.
India has added 58 more flights to evacuate stranded and distressed nationals from Gulf countries between now and June 30, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Wednesday. He informed that staring immediately, the number of flights from Gulf under phase-3 of the 'Vande Bharat Mission' has now increased from originally planned 107 to 165.

58 more flights added to evacuate stranded & distressed Indian citizens from Gulf countries between now & 30th June 2020.



Starting immediately, number of flights from Gulf under phase-3 of Vande Bharat Mission now increased from originally planned 107 to 165. pic.twitter.com/gJ3Wyze3we  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 10, 2020

READ | Vande Bharat Mission Tickets Reasonable As Compared To Other Countries: Aviation Minister

More flights to the West

The minister further said that Phase 3 of VBM will have 80 flights to Europe, including two daily flights to London and two to other European destinations, between now and 30 June. Moreover, 10 additional flights to the United States and Canada will be flown apart from 70 that have already been announced.

State-run carrier Air India had previously announced that it will operate around 300 flights to Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK and Africa between June 10 and July 1 during phase 3 of Vande Bharat Mission.

READ | AI Opens Bookings For Phase-3 Flights Under Vande Bharat Mission, Faces Overwhelming Demand

'Mission of hope'

In an earlier tweet, Hardeep Singh Puri had said that the Vande Bharat Mission, started in early May to repatriate stranded Indians across the globe amid the COVID-19 pandemic, "is proving to be a mission of hope for stranded and distressed Indians" around the world.

Vande Bharat is proving to be a mission of hope for stranded & distressed Indians around the world.



2441 Indians returned from Newark, Istanbul, New York, Stockholm, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Doha, Muscat, Dubai & Kuala Lumpur on 9 June.



We continue to add more flights.@MoCA_GoI pic.twitter.com/ZgGkf9Hu8S  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 10, 2020

Smooth & steady domestic operations.



On 9 June 2020 (Day 16) till 2359 hrs.

Departures 655

60,845 passengers handled.

Arrivals 655

61,344 passengers handled.



Total movements 1310

Footfalls at airports 1,22,189

Total number of flyers 60,845 pic.twitter.com/UnTPzSqJwT  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 10, 2020

READ | Over 1.07 Lakh Indians Returned To India After Launch Of Vande Bharat Mission: MEA

VBM phases

The first phase of the mission saw the repatriation of Indians from over 11 countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Maldives, Singapore, and the US. In the second phase of the mission, the Indian government brought back Indians from around 31 countries from May 16. The second phase was to end on May 22, however, the Indian government extended it to June 13, while adding more countries to the list such as Finland, South Korea, Belgium, New Zealand, Netherlands, Kenya, Mauritius, Spain, Myanmar, Egypt, and Sri Lanka.

READ | Vande Bharat Mission: Air India To Operate 5 Flights From London To Bring 1,200 Indians
Moscow:

Russia on Thursday, accused Washington of failing to meet its obligations under the Syria ceasefire agreement, while criticising US officials for voicing scepticism over cooperation with Moscow.

Russian military spokesman Igor Konashenkov slammed the US for what he called rhetorical fog intended to hide the fact that it is not fulfilling its part of the obligations.

In a statement, he defined the US role as first and foremost to separate moderate opposition groups from terrorists.

As of the third day (of the truce), only the Syrian army is observing the regime of silence. At the same time, the moderate opposition led by the US is increasing the amount of attacks on residential districts, Konashenkov said.

He insisted: Russia has respected its obligations to fulfil the ceasefire regime in Syria from the first minute.

US officials have voiced scepticism that Russia will fulfil its part of the agreement struck last week between the two former Cold War adversaries after years of bad blood over Moscows Ukraine and Syria policies.

Under the agreement, US and Russia said they will establish a Joint Implementation Centre to share targeting information for air strikes in Syria if the truce that went into effect on Monday holds for one week.

Several Pentagon officials have told AFP of their deep unease over the Syria truce, with one saying: The timeframe is short, but theres a gulf of trust thats larger than the timeframe.

State department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday that weve seen violations on both sides in Syria, although the ceasefire is broadly holding.

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Barnaby Joyce has criticised Black Lives Matter protesters who flouted coronavirus restrictions to gather in their thousands at the weekend.

The former deputy prime minister said the protesters put Aboriginal people at risk because they are more vulnerable to the deadly virus.

'The consequence of those protests could be the deaths of people in remote aboriginal communities,' he said on Wednesday.

Barnaby Joyce (pictured) has criticised Black Lives Matter protesters who flouted coronavirus restrictions to gather in their thousands at the weekend

Ignoring the rules: Protesters kneel and salute at Belmore Park on in Sydney on Saturday

The former deputy prime minister said the protesters put Aboriginal people at risk because they are more vulnerable to the deadly virus

'Don't those black lives matter as much of the other ones?'

He added: 'A lot of people are making a statement to create further dissent without properly thinking through the consequences of what they're doing and one of the most vulnerable groups are the people they were apparently protesting for.'

'How can you have a Black Lives Matter protest about the Aboriginal community, knowing the most vulnerable people for coronavirus are remote Aboriginal communities. What happens if one person gets the coronavirus?'

Mr Joyce also said it was hard to justify why churches in his New England electorate were only allowed 20 people at service when thousands of people were allowed to gather in cities.

'An outdoor service where people are 1.5m apart, surely that's safer than a rally with 12,000 people?' he said.

Mr Joyce also said it was hard to justify why churches in his New England electorate were only allowed 20 people at service when thousands of people were allowed to gather in cities

Black rights protests sprung up around the western world in response to American demonstrations following the death of black security guard George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

Thousands of aboriginal rights activists attended rallies in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide on Saturday despite health officials warning they could cause COVID-19 outbreaks.

The Australian newspaper today reported that the protests will cost the economy $1billion because restrictions will be relaxed less quickly while officials wait to see if they cause a spike in cases.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Indonesia posted a record number of coronavirus infections Wednesday, sparking calls from health experts for the world's fourth most populous country to slam the brakes on easing restrictions.

Last week, the capital Jakarta opened mosques for the first time in nearly three months, as its governor announced the gradual reopening of shuttered offices, restaurants, shopping malls and tourist attractions.

Similar easing measures are happening across the vast archipelago, home to nearly 270 million people, as the government rolled out a "new normal" policy aimed at heading off a collapse in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

But the moves come as Indonesia records a surge in coronavirus cases, with the one-day toll jumping to a new record of 1,241 infections on Wednesday.

The country's COVID-19 task force chalked up the rise to more effective monitoring.

"The increase in new infections is the result of aggressive tracing," task force spokesman Achmad Yurianto told reporters.

"This proves that (tracing) is revealing more confirmed cases," he added.

Officially, Indonesia has more than 34,000 cases of COVID-19 and 1,959 deaths. But with one of the world's lowest testing rates, the country's real toll is widely believed to be much higher.

The surge in infections comes after authorities in Muslim majority Indonesia struggled to contain a mass movement of travellers at the end of Ramadan last month.

Health experts warned that the country could see a spike in infections after the holy fasting month, and called for a reversal of easing policies.

"Regions that are planning to lift restrictions, or are already doing so, should revisit that decision," said Panji Fortuna Hadisoemarto, an epidemiologist at Padjadjaran University.

"If the number of cases keep increasing in Jakarta for the next few days, I think the administration has to pull the emergency brake and bring back restrictions," he added.

Henry Surendra, a Jakarta-based epidemiologist, acknowledged that better monitoring could be playing a role in the rise of confirmed cases.

But Indonesia had yet to meet WHO guidelines on prerequisites for easing measures, including getting infections under control, Surendra said.

"It's a bit premature to lift restrictions," he said.

"Indonesia should wait a little longer."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
Press Release

June 10, 2020 GORDON RENEWS CALL FOR BLOOD DONORS, AS WORLD BLOOD DONORS' DAY APPROACHES With the world commemorating World Blood Donors' Day this weekend, Senator Richard J. Gordon, chairman and CEO of the Philippine Red Cross, renewed his call for more blood donors, reiterating that the need for blood has not abated amid the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 pandemic. Gordon stressed the need for blood donors because the country faces a shortage of blood supply, which could place the lives of patients, including accident victims, at risk. "We need your help. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in our country, there are persons in hospitals now who are badly in need of blood transfusions like cancer patients, accident victims, people with blood disorders, mothers who are giving birth, and so many others, and with a limited supply of blood nationwide, we are in danger of running out," he said. The Red Cross chairman pointed out that more blood donors would ensure that the country's blood supply would be replenished adequately. "We don't want to get to the point where surgeries have to get cancelled or other similar dire incidents that could arise. That's why we are asking everyone to come out and volunteer to donate blood and save lives." he said. Gordon said those who wish to donate blood may call the PRC's 143 hotline or (+632) 8790-2300. Donors would be screened first to check if they are qualified. Those with recent travel history abroad would not be allowed to give blood until 14 days after their arrival. The PRC would follow guidelines to ensure the safety of the blood donation procedure, such as physical distancing. "Your spirit of volunteerism and resilience will help out many in need," Gordon said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The export of cement from Turkey to Iraq dropped by 11.60 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, amounting $37.3 million, Turkeys Ministry of Trade told Trend on June 10.

Turkeys export of cement to Iraq decreased by 5.79 percent in May 2020 compared to May 2019 and amounted to $9.7 million.

Turkeys export of cement to the world markets decreased by 6.9 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019 and reached $1.4 billion.

The export of cement from Turkey amounted to 2.3 percent of the countrys total export volume over the reporting period.

Turkeys export of cement to the world markets amounted to $250.4 million in May 2020, which is 29.3 percent less compared to the same month of 2019.

The export of cement from Turkey amounted to 2.5 percent of the countrys total export volume in May 2020.

Turkeys export of cement amounted to $3.4 billion from May 2019 through May 2020.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
America is at a racial and political crossroads. Protests over the past two weeks in response to an interrelated set of issues and events  the killing of George Floyd, police brutality, the Covid pandemic, a nation in lockdown, joblessness, a devastated economy and a presidential election  give rise to a key question. Will the Democratic coalition of minorities and liberal whites emerge empowered?

Current polling reveals a shift to the left in the publics position on key race-related issues. But there are also some potential warning signs for Democrats.

The split reactions to the protests are represented by the contrasting comments of Opal Tometi, a founder of Black Lives Matter, and Ted Cruz, the Republican Senator from Texas.

In an interview in The New Yorker last week, Tometi said:

My view of these protests is that they are different because they are marked by a period that has been deeply personal to millions of Americans and residents of the United States, and that has them more tender or sensitive to what is going on. People who would normally have been at work now have time to go to a protest or a rally, and have time to think about why they have been struggling so much, and they are thinking, This actually isnt right and I want to make time, and I have the ability to make time now and make my concerns heard. So I think it is markedly differently in terms of the volume of demands we are hearing.

On June 3, Cruz spoke on the Senate floor. Careful to note that there are zero legitimate law enforcement justifications for what happened to George Floyd, Cruz continued:

What for some was legitimate First Amendment speech speaking out for justice became co-opted, became taken over by violent, criminal radicals . There are radicals who cynically took advantage of these protests to sow division, to sow fear, to engage in murder, to engage in violent assaults, to engage in looting, to engage in theft, to engage in intimidation, to engage in fear . None of us have a right to burn the cars of police officers, to shatter the shop windows of shops throughout this country, to engage in acts of terror, threatening the lives of our fellow Americans.

Lets look at some of the contradictory narratives in American race relations, starting with Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at the University of Maryland.

Mason posted a seven-part Twitter thread in which she makes a strong case that the United States is in the midst of a major transformation:

For decades we have been worried about the terrible power of an entire political party dedicated to maintaining the historical racial (and gender) hierarchy that has oppressed and denied justice to so many Americans.

While attention has focused on Trump and the Republican Party, Mason continued,

What we havent focused on as much is the potential power of the other political party that has been amassing a coalition of those who would like to upend that social hierarchy.

Now, she writes, the other party, the Democrats, has begun to flex its muscles:

As white supremacy concentrates its power in the G.O.P., it fosters an alliance of those that oppose it in the Democratic Party. The U.S. has never seen this kind of coalition. But it is showing its power now. This is one cause for hope  that we may be at the beginning of an overdue national reckoning with our legacy of white supremacy. If it were ever to happen, the first major step would probably look a lot like this.

And in her Twitter feed, Mason posts a photo of a mass demonstration in Washington D.C.
Ms La Torre takes over from Keith Morgan, who helped set up the British Business Bank (BBB/PA)

The bank that is overseeing the Governments multibillion-pound effort to support small companies through the coronavirus pandemic has appointed a new boss.

Catherine Lewis La Torre was announced as interim chief executive of the Government-backed British Business Bank.

She will take over from current boss Keith Morgan in September.

The appointment will see Ms La Torre step up from her job as chief executive of the banks subsidiaries British Patient Capital and British Business Investments.

Catherine is a highly respected industry leader, with more than 30 years investment management experience and a strong track record of success. Lord Smith

In those jobs she has been responsible for loans to businesses that need long-term funding, and the banks commercial investments.

Her appointment follows Mr Morgans announcement in October last year that he is set to leave the British Business Bank, which he helped set up.

The search for a permanent successor was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms La Torre will take over at a bank which has been at the centre of the UKs economic response to coronavirus.

So far around 35 billion has been lent to businesses through three schemes launched by the Government, administered by the British Business Bank, and footed by the high street lenders.

More than one million businesses have applied for loans under the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) and the bounce back loan scheme.

British Business Bank chairman Lord Smith said: Catherine is a highly respected industry leader, with more than 30 years investment management experience and a strong track record of success.

She has successfully led the banks commercial subsidiaries, British Patient Capital and British Business Investments and has made a considerable contribution to the bank since she joined in 2016.

I am delighted that she has agreed to take on the role of interim CEO and look forward to working with her as we support the UKs economic recovery.
- George Floyd's family has expressed their appreciation to Nana Akufo-Addo and Ghana for the ceremony held in honour of him

- This was during a funeral service held at the Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, Texas on Tuesday, June 9, 2020

- Attendees were taken by surprise when they heard that George Floyds name had been permanently mounted on the historic Sankofa wall of the Diaspora African Forum at the W.E. Duboise Centre in Accra

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

The family of George Floyd has expressed immense gratitude to Ghanaians under the leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the funeral held for their late son.

Citinewsroom reports that the appreciation was given by the family at a funeral service held at the Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, Texas on Tuesday, June 9, 2020.

Ivy McGregor, a social impact leader read the resolution at the service in which it was said that the family of George Floyd will like to acknowledge the message of solidarity resolution and virtual tribute from His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana."

READ ALSO: Meet Joel, Archbishop Duncan-Williams' son who is also a head pastor of his church

It further read that, "yesterday, during the memorial, a video produced by the people of Ghana was broadcast for thousands of mourners as they paid their final respects to Mr Floyd".

What took all hundreds of people gathered at the event by surprise was when Ivy McGregor mentioned that George Floyd had been immortalized in Ghana.

She told the crowd that George Floyds name had been permanently mounted on the historic Sankofa wall of the Diaspora African Forum at the W.E. Duboise Centre in Accra and they just couldn't stop applauding.

READ ALSO: 'My boyfriend gets angry with me for not asking him for money' - Ghanaian lady

In another report, head pastor for the Alabaster International Ministries, Prophet Kofi Oduro, has finally revealed why he preaches with so much aggression, relating it to his past life.

Prophet Oduro indicated that his confrontational mode of preaching stemmed from his past experience as a member of a gang.

According to the prophet who is popularly known for his 'tieee' signature word, he grew up in a place where he never imagined becoming a man of God one day.

Enjoy reading our stories? Download YEN's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

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The Chief-Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' (IRGC) Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said on Tuesday, June 9, that the IRGC will transfer its research experiences to the automotive industry.

In January 2018, Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khmenei had ordered the IRGC to reduce its role in the countrys economy. Similar pronouncements were also made in 2019. The IRGC has a sprawling economic empire in Iran, controlling or having a stake in more than half of all businesses by some accounts.

At the end of the meeting with the caretaker of the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade (MIMT) and managing directors of the local automotive industry on Tuesday, Hajizadeh maintained that the IRGC's aim is to transfer its knowhow and experience in research activities to Iran's auto-making industry.

The caretaker of MIMT, Hossein Modarres Khiabani, for his part said at the end of the meeting that the IRGC's automotive industry-related technology and facilities in the field of missiles would be used in the local auto manufacturing.

While referring to the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader's (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) recent comments on defense and auto-making industries, Hajizadeh insisted that such remarks make the IRGC duty-bound to act.

On May 6, Ayatollah Khamenei had stated, "The mind and thought that can produce a satellite" can also produce a "vehicle using five liters (about 1.3 US gallons) of gasoline per hundred kilometers (approximately 62 miles)."

Irans auto industry, already suffering from outdated technology, mismanagement and corruption, has been crippled by U.S. sanctions that have stopped collaboration with French and other automakers. The car makers owe government banks billion of dollars.

The IRGC so far has not had any activity in the field of manufacturing vehicles. In recent years, however, there have been suggestions for the elite military to step in the automotive industry.

Manouchehr Manteghi, the former CEO of Iran Khodro Company, the largest Iranian auto manufacturer, proposed in October 2009 that the shares of auto-makers SAIPA and Iran Khodro companies be transferred to the Sepah IRGC Cooperative Foundation.

Hajizadeh also said in October last year: "Given the [poor] quality of domestic cars, many people expect the IRGC to enter the industry and build quality vehicles."

"We (IRGC) own technological industries and are ready to transfer it to the automotive industry of the country. Relying on Iranian technical know-how and knowledge, we can manage the most complicated and sophisticated technologies," Hajizadeh maintained on the sidelines of his visit to Iran Khodro Industrial Group [IKCO] on Friday, May 29.

The IRGC's plans and inclination to enter the automotive industry comes at a time when there have been reports of the military forces withdrawing from the country's economic sector.

On January 20, 2018, Irans Defense Minister, Amir Hatami, said that Khamenei had ordered the countrys powerful IRGC to curtail its growing business empire and divest its commercial assets that are not relevant to its domain of work.

Furthermore, on May 19 a parliamentary investigation revealed that the involvement of the country's fearsome intelligence organs in Iran Khodro and SAIPA had increased corruption in the corporations, turning them into loss-making companies.

Therefore, it is not yet known why the parliament's warnings have been ignored, and the IRGC is set to dominate the country's auto industry, as well.

Based on the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers' data, Iran's annual car production in 2019 decreased by 25% compared with the previous year, dropping to 821,000 units, of which 770,000 units were sedans.

Despite the sharp decline in car production in Iran, the car market, valued at $ 12 billion to $ 15 billion a year, is still one of the country's most important and attractive sectors.
WASHINGTON  The Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as the Air Forces chief of staff, elevating a four-star general who is the first black man to hold the position and who recently spoke out about his experience with racism in America.

Vice President Mike Pence made a rare appearance on the Senate floor to preside over General Browns confirmation, which was approved by a vote of 98 to 0, and President Trump celebrated it on Twitter. It came a week after General Brown released a video in which he spoke in starkly personal terms about his experience as a black man in America, his unequal treatment in the armed forces and the protests that have gripped the country after the killing of George Floyd in an encounter with Minneapolis police officers.

Im thinking about how full I am with emotion not just for George Floyd, but the many African-Americans that have suffered the same fate as George Floyd, General Brown said in the video, an unusually public statement by a high-ranking military leader about a sensitive and politically charged issue.

Im thinking about protests in my country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, the equality expressed in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that I have sworn my adult life to support and defend. Im thinking about a history of racial issues and my own experiences that didnt always sing of liberty and equality.
The Goa governments decision to go ahead with the work on the samadhi for former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, despite the state facing a severe fund crunch and needs money for tackling the Covid19 pandemic.

At the forefront of the campaign is the local unit of the Aam Aadmi Party, which has questioned the governments decision and approached the Goa governor demanding that the project be postponed.

AAP spokesperson Valmiki Naik questioned the governments claim that there is no money to offer monetary relief to sections of society affected by the lockdown but continues spending on the large projects.

Work appears to be going on in full swing on this memorial in Miramar. The amount of money you are blowing on this project can buy 50,000 more Covid-19 tests. What is more important for us Goans today?

Because of the states empty coffers, you have refused to give any financial help to suffering Goans. You are continuing to borrow money in our names for even the most basic expenses, and you havent prepared adequately to fight the Covid crisis, but you have crores to waste on such non-critical projects? Naik asked.

The foundation stone for a samadhi of former chief minister and defence minister Manohar Parrikar, who passed away in March 2019, was laid in December last year. Being built at an estimated cost of 10 crore, the project has been criticized for its cost, necessity and on account of environmental damage to the ecosystem at the Miramar beach in Panaji.

Naik also petitioned the governor against the proposal.

It is very likely that there are many such projects which could be postponed or even scrapped, thereby saving the government hundreds of crores of rupees which it doesnt even have the luxury of spending at the moment, he said in his letter to the Governor.

A case filed against the construction of the samadhi is pending before the Bombay High Court at Goa.

The state cabinet in a decision taken on Wednesday has decided not to sanction any new projects involving capital expenditure until December 2020.
KITCHENER  The judge who sentenced former Waterloo Region financial adviser Daniel P. Reeve for fraud over $5,000 was wrong to punish him for a lack of remorse, Ontarios top court says.

Reeve, 60, was sentenced in 2018 to the maximum  14 years in prison. The Ontario Court of Appeal last month cut it to 10 years and Reeve was released from prison. The court gave its reasons for reducing the sentence on Wednesday.

Reeve made an apology before being sentenced but the sentencing judge, Justice Toni Skarica, called it hollow.

The Court of Appeal ruled Skarica was allowed to make that finding but erred in using a lack of remorse as an aggravating factor to increase the sentence.

While a genuine expression of remorse can serve to mitigate a sentence, the opposite is not true, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal ruled. An offender cannot be punished for a lack of remorse.

Even after a guilty verdict, an accused is entitled to maintain his or her innocence and cannot be punished for maintaining that stance. Punishing a person for maintaining their innocence ... could do serious harm to the criminal justice system.

Reeve defrauded 41 people out of $10 million. His six years of harsh pretrial custody were counted as 10 years.

The Court of Appeal said the range of sentences for large-scale frauds is eight to 12 years. A 14-year sentence had never been handed out before, even in cases where the facts were more egregious than the ones here, the court said.

The Crown tabled evidence at the appeal suggesting Reeve still poses a danger.

In violation of his parole officers direction, he pursued the publication and sale of a book that is described as containing strategies on becoming financially secure, the Court of Appeal said.

(He) also met with a person who is described as being financially vulnerable and suggested an arrangement to lend her money to buy into a series of informational courses. She would then assist him in soliciting others to buy the book and take the courses at a cost of $5,000 per person.

No criminal charges were laid.

It is important to start with the observation that the appellant can only be punished for the conduct that he was convicted of, the Court of Appeal said. He cannot be punished, or be seen to be punished, for conduct that is alleged to have occurred a year after his sentence was imposed.

Although he is out of prison, Reeve must reimburse the victims within 10 years or face another decade behind bars.
Tokyo: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants Japan to set the course for a Group of Seven nations statement on Hong Kong, in the wake of Chinese government moves that have raised concerns about the city's future autonomy.

"I would like Japan to take the lead within the G7, based on the idea that a statement should be issued," Abe told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Credit:AP

Abe's government has repeatedly expressed deep concern about China's plan to enact sweeping national security legislation in Hong Kong, which many see as eroding the "one country, two systems" framework that underpins the administration of the former British colony.

The legislation has reignited demonstrations in the city, following months of pro-democracy protests last year triggered by opposition to a since-scrapped bill that would have allowed extraditions to the mainland.
India and Bangladesh: Mangrove forests could be wiped out by rising sea levels in 30 years: Study

June 10,2020 | Source: Hindustan Times

Mangrove forests could disappear under rising sea levels by 2050 if the greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, according a new study. Examining sediment data from 78 mangrove ecosystems from the last 10,000 years, a team of researchers from Rutgers University found that if the sea level rises by more than six millimetres or 0.23 inches per year, the mangroves would be in danger of dying in just 30 years. They are more likely to survive when sea-level rise is less than 5 millimeters (about 0.2 inches) per year, which is projected for low-emissions scenarios this century.



These ecosystems, such as the worlds largest mangrove delta Sunderban spread across India and Bangladesh, are vital to storing planet-heating carbon dioxide. They act as buffers protecting coastlines from tropical storms and soil erosion. They are also very rich in biodiversity as they provide habitat to many species of tropical fish, providing livelihoods to coastal communities. If they disappear, theres going to be imbalances in the number of fish and other species that rely on them, co-author Erica Ashe, a postdoctoral scientist at Rutgers University, told Earther, according to a report in foxnews dot com. And that could have effects on other species, even ones that actually arent sheltered by these mangroves, because when the levels of different species change, that can affect the entire system, Ashe added.



Benjamin Horton, chair of the Asian School of the Environment at Singapores Nanyang Technologoical University, told Thomson Reuters Foundation that losing mangroves would mean there is even more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, causing even higher temperatures and even higher rates of sea level rise. We are very worried of a knock-on effect, he said.



But they are being destroyed at rates three to five times higher than the average for forests and more than a quarter of the worlds mangroves have already disappeared, according to the United Nations, says the Thomson Reuters Foundation reports. Around one-third of the Sunderban has been damaged by Cyclone Amphan which left a trail of destruction to life and property in West Bengal and Odisha last month , according to a preliminary assessment of the West Bengal forest department. Around 1500 sq km of forest area has suffered massive damage in the cyclone. The nylon net fencing that was set up to prevent tigers from straying into villages has also been damaged. There are no reports of any animals killed so far in the storm, said Ravi Kant Sinha, chief wildlife warden of West Bengal. However, there is still hope and it is not too late to save the mangrove forests.



If we keep to the Paris Agreement and control emissions, it is not too late to save the worlds mangrove forestsbecause the lower emissions scenarios do not suggest sea-level rise to exceed 5 millimeters per year. However, under the mid- to high-emissions scenarios, we expect these thresholds to be exceeded, says Neil Saintilan from Macquarie University in Australia, who led the study published in the journal Science. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, most world governments have pledged to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times and to strive for a lower limit of 1.5C.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday held a telephonic conversation with his Cambodian counterpart Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen and discussed the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said the two leaders agreed to continue the ongoing cooperation for helping each others expatriates and facilitating their evacuation.

Discussed the COVID-19 pandemic with Prime Minister Hun Sen. India shares deep cultural and historical links with Cambodia - an important partner in our extended neighbourhood. I conveyed India's commitment to further strengthening its relationship with Cambodia in all areas.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 10, 2020

READ | PM Modi Lauds Upbeat Population Figures Of Asiatic Lions; Cheers Gujarat People

PM Modi conveyed Indias commitment to further strengthening its relationship with Cambodia, a member of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and noted the two countries' shared civilizational and cultural ties. The MEA said the leaders reviewed the robust development partnership between both countries, including capacity building programmes under the ITEC scheme and Quick Impact Projects under the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation framework

The Cambodian PM emphasised the importance that Cambodia attaches to relations with India while PM Modi reciprocated the sentiment and stressed Cambodias valued role in Indias Act East policy, the MEA said.

READ | PM Modi Dials US President Donald Trump; COVID-19 Pandemic, G-7 & Other Issues Discussed

Diplomacy amid COVID

India has assured its friendly neighbours and other allies of cooperation and has continued assisting foreign nations in a show of solidarity amid the pandemic that has infected over 7.3 million people worldwide. Recently, India contributed towards medical and food supplies to several nations and has exported vast sums of most-sought drugs like Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and paracetamol as well as essential medical kits. PM Modi has consistently stayed in touch with many world leaders, especially of those countries' which host a significant Indian diaspora.

(PTI Photo)

READ | PM Modi Dials Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina To Discuss COVID Response; Greets On Ramzan

READ | PM Modi Reviews Kedarnath Project; Stresses On The Need For 'eco-friendly' Development
You will now see some construction cladding go up around the hall, she said. Serious work can be done in the next six months, so were going to proceed. We are looking at options for the future, how things might roll out, because who knows when well be back in the hall?
LOBAMBA  A statue depicting Jesus Christ wearing a mask has raised concerns among Christians.

The statue has been placed next to the public road adjacent to the traffic circle in Lobamba.



It has car tyres placed around it, possibly depicting that its private property.

The statue depicts Jesus Christ wearing a brown mask while carrying a Bible on the right hand. It is similar to pictures which depict Jesus Christ in books found in various places of worship.



Residents of the area believe that the statue depicted Jesus. The residents stated that according to their understanding, the statue was used to sensitise the public about the seriousness of COVID-19.



Campaigns



I think this is part of the COVID-19 campaigns which are aimed at sensitising the nation about the seriousness of the virus and that they should take all the necessary precautions, said a resident who preferred anonymity.

Another resident stated that the statue was there without the mask before the COVID-19 outbreak. He claimed that the mask was put after the outbreak of the virus.



He said the statue was an intellectual work of Dumisani Mnisi, who owns Master Artworks shop in the area.

Mnisi was visited at his homestead at Nkanini in Lobamba yesterday. He confirmed ownership of the statute which resembles Jesus in the area. The artist said the statue was there before the COVID-19 outbreak as stated by some residents of the area.

Asked how he arrived at making the statue, Mnisi said it was during the Easter holidays when he felt like making a sculpture that depicted Jesus Christ and place it next to the road for all to see.



I spent a lot of time trying to set up this sculpture. I dont even recall how many times I had to start from scratch after it fell, he said.

He added that the statue was not the only one as another was almost complete.

Mnisi was asked how he arrived at putting the mask on the statue. In response, he said the idea came after the COVID-19 outbreak. He said his sole intention was to sensitise the public about the seriousness of the virus.



COVID-19 has troubled the whole world so I felt duty-bound to join the fight by putting the mask on the statue. This is to remind the nation about the importance of wearing a mask as they pass next to the sculpture. I think the heavens are not pleased to see people dying from the virus, he said.

Mnisi stated that having the sculpture depicting Jesus Christ wearing a mask did not mean He had failed to save the nation. He said he believed that Jesus had the power over all diseases and viruses as stated in the Bible.



Asked about his place of worship, Mnisi stated that he was not affiliated to any church but used to visit the Revival Church.

I sometimes pray in the mountains if led by Holy Spirit, he said.



Inscription



When informed about the statue, President of Conference of Churches, Bishop Stephen Masilela asked for the exact location of the sculpture. He also asked if there was any inscription depicting that it symbolises Jesus Christ.



The bishop said as far as he was concerned, nobody had an opportunity to photograph Jesus Christ. As a result, he said nobody knew how He looked like.

I think the statue depicts a Caucasian man wearing a mask and carrying a Bible. There is no statue that can meet the qualities of Jesus, he opined.

Bongani Kunene, a pastor of a Jericho Church said it could be devastating to Jesus Christs followers if the statue was meant to symbolise Him wearing a mask during these trying times.



Kungasidvumata kakhulu uma singeva kutsi lomfanekiso wa Jesu kulesikhatsi lesimatima kangaka. Sidzinga kumkhonta Jesu hhayi kumenta unmfanekiso, said Kunene in vernacular loosely translating to: It would be upsetting to hear that the statue symbolises Jesus Christ at these trying times. We need to worship Him instead of reducing Him in to a statue.
A man holds a sign in support of Black Lives Matter during a protest on King Street in Shippensburg, PA, June 9, 2020. Read more

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa.  An unlikely sound is rising from Americas vast flyover country, from the small towns between forest and farmland, places where change often marches at a glacial pace. In this town of 5,578 straddling Franklin and Cumberland Counties, that sound on Tuesday afternoon was 200 protesters chanting in unison in a picturesque, tree-lined public park.

No justice! No peace! Prosecute the police! they shouted.

The crowd was young and old, and reflective of Shippensburgs largely white population. The protesters held signs saying they would no longer be silent. One was supporting both the Second Amendment and Black Lives Matter. Between speakers at the three-hour event, they pressed against barricades on King Street and chanted at passing cars, dozens of which beeped for the cause.

Among the throng was a baby goat bleating on a leash.

Shippensburg, just about halfway between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, was the site of one of the many protests and vigils popping up in small towns, medium-size cities like Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, and more rural areas of Pennsylvania since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25.

Thats how you know this is different, said Cole Goodman, a member of the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee.

 READ MORE: Will Philly dismantle the Police Department for a new public safety system? Its unlikely.

Sharree Clark said Wilkes-Barre, a city of 40,800 people in Luzerne County, has seen multiple protests, and more are in the works.

For here, this is unprecedented, Clark, an organizer of protests in Wilkes-Barre, said. I just think that the George Floyd situation set off an alarm, and it woke people up to racism and injustice. Weve had several alarms, but this particular instance, it just forced it to a head. I am super-excited to know small towns everywhere are being awakened.

Goodman, 26, attended a protest in Carlisle on Saturday and was pepper sprayed at a protest in Harrisburg last week. He spoke to the crowd in Shippensburg on Tuesday with Police Chief Meredith Dominick beside him.

I know we havent seen a movement like this since the civil rights movement, Goodman said.

One of Tuesdays organizers was Taya Jenkins, 22. Having grown up in Shippensburg, where the populace is 85% white, she was accustomed to just a handful of people of color in her classes. She often saw Confederate flags in the area.

Racism does exist here, said Jenkins, who spoke to the crowd.

Nationwide, protesters have marched in states like Montana and Idaho, even in Kotzebue, a town of 3,266 in Alaska. Emily Best, a former Democratic state Senate candidate who lives in McConnellsburg, Fulton County, said she was proud to see a protest coming to her town this weekend.

Ive never seen a protest in McConnellsburg, Best said in Shippensburg on Tuesday. The protests are showing that were not all the same in rural areas. Were willing to stand up for what we believe in even if the majority feels differently.

Best, who has Elect Women tattooed on her shoulder, said theres already evidence the protests are effecting change, and cited a recent letter released by Matt Fogal, the Republican district attorney of Franklin County.

Black Lives Matter. Period. Full stop, Fogal wrote. I confess, when I first heard the phrase, my immediate reaction was that All Lives Matter. I was wrong, and part of the problem.

 READ MORE: Petition against militarized policing at Penn reaches 10,000 signatures

Most maps of voter turnout for the 2016 presidential election are deeply red in rural America, but zooming into some areas of Pennsylvania often reveals blue pinpricks of Democratic voters, including Shippensburg. Like many of the other blue dots, Shippensburg is home to a university. Others include Kutztown, Edinboro, and Bucknell in Lewisburg. In Clarion County, Isaac Leonard, 30, attended Clarion University and now lives in town. Hes helping to organize a protest there on Thursday.

A university brings diversity into an area, Leonard, a Bensalem native, said. Were just hoping its a step forward for the town and the university. We want people to know change isnt a hashtag, its a movement.

Many protesters at Tuesdays event wore Shippensburg University shirts. The school, with about 5,500 undergraduates, sits just a half-mile from the park. Ace Walker, 22, came to the university from Southwest Philly, and said it took some time to get used to the culture in the area.

I was hopeful something like this would happen, he said of Tuesdays protest.

Jenkins held a solo protest last week in Shippensburg that eventually attracted dozens of people. She said many of the protesters on Tuesday were unaffiliated with the college.

Schools not in right now, so a lot of these people just decided to come out, Jenkins said. Thats really encouraging."
Lawyers for the Queensland government will argue financial hardship suffered by the state's floundering tourism industry may have been caused by the national border lockdown.

A High Court challenge mounted by a group of tourism operators, including Brisbane travel agent Travel Essence (trading as Helloworld Mount Ommaney), argues that the closure of Queensland's state borders during the COVID-19 pandemic has imposed financial hardship on their businesses.

Queensland government lawyers will argue financial hardship to the tourism industry may have come from national border closures. Credit:Jason O'Brien/AAP

The legal challenge has hit a snag on Wednesday.

In Brisbane, the High Court has refused an application from lawyers for the Travel Essence challenge to access the documents used by the government when it decided to close the border.
Chief Justice David Maraga has hogged the limelight for all manner of reasons during his stint as head of the Judiciary.

From invalidating the 2017 presidential election results to frustrating the war on corruption, the man from Bonyamatuta, Nyamira county, has divided public opinion in a manner none of his predecessors could.

READ ALSO: William Ruto's allies hatch new plot to frustrate Uhuru, Raila's BBI referendum

Opinion: Maraga failed to pass basic law test, its lowest a serving CJ can sink

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Stop insulting us when we visit State House, respect elders - Oscar Sudi tells Uhuru

But it is his endless public rants, mainly targeting the Executive, that has put him in a different league altogether.

Maraga has gained notoriety for using press briefings to blame anyone and anything imaginable for his failures as CJ, a weird tendency that has even attracted the ridicule of the judicial officers he is supposedly fighting for.

He was the laughing stock when he came out to publicly grumble about the lack of a Mercedes Benz S500, and left Kenyans scratching their heads after summoning the media to explain how clean judicial officers are.

READ ALSO: Kiama wa Mutemi: Court frees activist who's published book entitled Uhuru Kenyatta, My Life, My Crime

President Uhuru and Maraga in a past function. The two have been on a warpath over judges' appointment. Photo: State House Kenya.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Video of Zimbabwean preacher Ian Ndlovu sending prophetic warning to President Pierre Nkurunziza emerges

While all these antics are widely seen as part of his strategy to survive at the helm of a grossly under-performing institution, his demeanor during this weeks media briefing was simply distasteful and unacceptable.

Not merely because he launched what was unarguably a personal attack on President Uhuru Kenyatta, but over the manner in which he dramatically failed one of the most basic tests of law.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus update: Record 175 patients discharged, as 105 more test positive

In what must go down as the lowest level a serving CJ can stoop, he blatantly disregarded his legal experience and publicly violated the law while ironically lecturing and declaring others to be out of order for doing what is right.

Most first or second-year law students understand the sub judice rule and contempt of court, which shield a matter that is pending before the court and which the court has not yet made a decision on from undue interference.

To avoid influencing the outcome of the case, one of the provisions of this rule prohibits judges from making any public statements that might reasonably be expected to affect the outcome or impair the fairness of the matter, or making any non-public statement that might substantially interfere with a fair trial or hearing.

But that is exactly what Maraga did when he accused Uhuru of disobeying two court orders on the appointment of 41 judges, totally disregarding the fact that the matter is still pending before the court.

When the High Court ruled in February that the president has no power to reject the judges appointed by the Judicial Service Commission, Attorney General Paul Kihara appealed the decision.

But the CJ has taken absolutely no step to prosecute the appeals, nearly four months after notices of appeal were filed, only to ventilate his grievances over the pending appointment through the media.

The CJ directly interfered with the decisional independence of judges who will handle the case. Even worse, he made a prejudicial, pre-emptive and conclusive statement on a matter that raises a fundamental constitutional question, and which could end up before him at the Supreme Court where he is the president.

This was a grave error of judgment on the part of the CJ, a lesson for the ages on how not to manage the Judiciary.

While the CJ accused Uhuru of violating the law by not complying with court orders, facts show that the Head of state has on the contrary totally complied with the law in regard to the judges saga.

By appealing the High Court ruling and submitting his grievances before the courts, Uhuru as showcased his endeavor to abide by the law despite his powers as president.

He has also made it clear for some time now that appointing some of the nominees on the JSC list would amount to a violation of the Constitution.

This is justifiably so, as credible reports have questioned the suitability of some of the judges to hold judicial office. Some have been linked to the Akashas drugs trade while others are accused of sexual misdemeanor.

When he was inaugurated for the second term on November 28, 2017, Uhuru swore to uphold the Constitution and the laws of Kenya. It is exactly what he is doing by refusing to be arm-twisted into endorsing the promotion of rogue individuals to higher courts as custodians of justice.

Maraga must thus stop insulting the intelligence of Kenyans and declare his interest as far as his spat with the Executive is concerned.

The CJ should at the same time do some serious soul-searching and decide if he would, for once, work cordially with the other arms of government.

For the bitter lone ranger has sunk to the lowest depth possible, and orchestrated the irreversible soiling of the Judiciarys image.

The writer is Sammy Kwinga, a regular commentator on social, economic and political affairs.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are his and do not necessarily represent the position of TUKO Media Ltd in any way.

We welcome writers, bloggers, photographers and all sorts of noise makers to become a part of our Blog network Send your opinion, story or both to news@tuko.co.ke.

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I married a man every woman wanted - Pastor Joan Chege | Tuko Talks | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
LOBAMBA - Government is not ready to reopen schools. This was the view of a majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) yesterday when they tossed out a report which had been tabled by the Minister of Education and Training, Lady Mabuza.



During a debate which lasted more than four hours, the MPs said the government plan on the reopening of schools was vague.



The debate started off with the minister stating that they had tried to respond to the COVID-19 fight by introducing home learning, although she said it was not possible to conduct all lessons, particularly the practical ones. She highlighted, however, that as the Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini had announced the reopening of schools in particular Form Vs on July 1, 2020, all teachers were expected to be in school.



All teachers will be on the ground doing several duties, she said.

The MPs said it was clear that there were no PPEs, which were needed for the safety of both pupils and teachers.

First to have the floor was Lubombo Region MP Lorraine Nxumalo who wondered what would happen with the lower grades, particularly in primary schools, when the lessons resumed.



Syllabus



MP Nxumalo said before the external classes resumed, the ministry needed to have a comprehensive syllabus because there was no way that the initially planned one would be covered.



She wondered why the content could not be altered at this stage as submitted by the minister.

I strongly feel that it is possible to alter the examinations, especially because a lot of learning time has been lost in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, submitted Nxumalo.



She added that they were also prepared as parents to take their children to school, just to fetch the lessons especially for the lower grades.

Mangcongco MP Oneboy Zikalala said he was also against the ministers report, especially on the part of the payment of school fees by parents.



He wondered why parents were being made to pay for time lost, in particular those who had also lost their jobs due to the coronavirus outbreak.

MP Zikalala said it was clear that the ministry had not involved all stakeholders when coming up with the new solutions. MP Musa Kunene also asked why all the teachers were also expected to be at school especially those who did not teach external classes.



Bayokwentani?, he asked in venarcular. MP Kunene further said the ministry needed to engage institutions like Cambridge for the alteration of the examinations, especially because this was an abnormal situation. He also said the syllabus must be altered. Meanwhile, Siphofaneni MP Mduduzi Simelane said government needed to focus as this was a war against COVID-19.



He said perhaps government was ready to focus on the external classes (Form V, Form III and Grade VII), but not all the other grades.

He said it would be an insult to the nation if the pupils were graded on what had been taught through the media for the past two months.

What is currently happening on radio and social media is not effective teaching, said MP Simelane.



The legislator said he was disappointed that Minister Mabuza was only speaking of engaging MPs now when even her portfolio committee was also not invited to make its contributions. He said teaching was a technical field and also specialised.

This was in reference to the minister stating that all teachers would be expected to be at school.



Asihlakuli la (we are not weeding fields), but we are teaching, he said.

Siphocosini MP Mduduzi Matsebula said he was disappointed by the ministers report as he had expected a proper action plan for the opening of schools.



Disappointed



I am disappointed, this report should have had a risk assessment and timelines on the opening of schools, he said. MP Matsebula said transport operators known as bomalume, who transported pupils to schools, should have also been engaged on the safety of the pupils. He added that some parents with pupils attending boarding schools had already paid their annual fees and asked if there would be any refund for them.

He said there was no clear strategy on what government planned to do towards the reopening of schools. MP Matsebula said the minister should also pay attention to private schools and not be seen as just a minister for public schools. He asked the ministry to also engage the mobile companies on data charges, which he said were high. He said the ministry needed to give a clear direction on the matter.



Maseyisini MP Mduduzi Dlamini also expressed his disappointment at the ministrys report and that the portfolio committee had not been engaged. He also said the radio, TV and print media lessons had also not been effective. The MP also questioned why parents were being made to pay examination fees when there were no lessons.



Further, why are all teachers being instructed to go back to school, what will the Grade I or Grade II teachers be doing there? he asked. He said the roles needed to be fully defined. The MP also asked if the Education and Training minister had liased with the Ministry of Health on the supply of personal protective equipment because the latter always stated that the country was in short supply.



He expressed concern that the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) had withdrawn from talks with the Ministry of Education and Training. Are we even engaging other SADC countries in this regard? he wondered.



Meanwhile, MP Derrick Jele said in one school there were 150 pupils in Grade VII who had only one English Language teacher. He said if the classes were separated into groups of 20, the teacher would end up being tired.

He said government could not then use a Grade I teacher to teach other grades.



On the other hand, Madlangempisi MP Sibusiso Scorpion Nxumalo questioned the opening of schools in July, as it would be cold and the coronavirus may thrive. He said government always had bad timing for opening things, such as the sale of alcohol which would happen on a Monday instead of a Friday.

The minister was requested to return with a comprehensive plan next Wednesday.
'The Indian Army is fully prepared for a long and permanent deployment if the PLA does not retreat.'

Ajai Shukla reports.

Top Army sources on Tuesday, June 9, said, based on a decision taken at the meeting between Indian and Chinese generals in Ladakh on Saturday, June 6, lower-ranked officers from both sides will meet over the coming 10 days to discuss conflicts in their respective areas of responsibility.

The sources said that in this series of 'higher military commander level' (HMCL) meetings, the first will be held on Wednesday, June 10, at Patrolling Point 14 (PP14), near the Pangong Tso lake.

The sources also claimed that both sides have 'retreated a bit' after the Saturday meeting.

Describing the meeting between Indian and Chinese corps commanders on Saturday, Indian Army sources said they met one-to-one for almost three hours before engaging further at delegate-level talks.

The sources said the two sides 'mutually agreed and identified five locations of conflicts' between the People's Liberation Army and Indian troops.

These conflict locations are PP14, PP15, PP17, the north bank of Pangong Tso and Chushul.

Countering criticism that the PLA intrusions took the army by surprise, the sources claimed "there has not been any intelligence failure" and that the "Indian Army has stopped the PLA quickly and strongly".

They claimed the army "has matched (the PLA) in terms of men and machinery at every location."

"The Indian side has conveyed that construction will not stop, including on the DSDBO road, as it is well within the Indian boundary," they said.

Denying that any heads would roll, the sources expressed full satisfaction with the way the Leh Corps Commander and the Northern Army Commander had handled the intrusions.

In a statement of resolve, they said the Indian Army "is fully prepared for a long and permanent deployment if the PLA does not retreat."

Portraying a coherent Indian military-political response, the sources stated: "All three services, the chief of defence staff, the national security advisor, the defence minister and the ministry of external affairs are coordinating well amongst themselves."

On the broader military-political perspective, the sources said: "The core issue is the undecided Line of Actual Control=. Until that is solved, these episodes and issues will continue to happen."

The sources criticised the PLA's militarisation of the border areas.

"China has deployed fighter bombers, rocket forces, air defence radars, jammers, etc. India has deployed all its major assets along the LAC just a few kilometres away from the frontline," the sources said.

"India will continue to have major build up until China withdraws the build up (it has) done there," the sources added.

The sources indicated that it was proposed during the corps commanders's meeting on Saturday that such meetings should be held "once or twice every year for better interaction between the two armies at a higher level."
This is the final article in our series Being Black in America. The first article ran in print on June 3, and the second ran on June 7.

In the aftermath of George Floyds death, local residents emphasized that theyre not just fearful and outraged because of this tragedy but also because of the many other ways the black community faces discrimination on a daily basis.

The bigger issue is that this incident is not new to African Americans, said metro Detroit resident Cur Smith.

Nationwide, predominantly non-white school districts receive about $23 billion less than white districts each year, despite serving the same number of students, according to research by the organization EdBuild. The underfunding of schools creates a Domino effect for black students. Studies show that unemployment rates are systemically higher for the black population, and many who are employed struggle with low pay, inadequate benefits and greater job insecurity.

We are being unjustifiably slaughtered in the streets and in our homes. The disparities in access to and resources for health care, education and residential environments are egregious. But leaders continue to support archaic systems that intentionally reinforce these atrocities, said Raquelle Harris, Southfield resident and host of the podcast Rockis Reality.

Harris talked about American educator and activist Jane Elliott  who asked a room of white people if they would be happy to be treated the way this society, in general, treats black citizens.

No one stood up, said Harris. This is why Black Lives Matter is necessary.  Its sickening that we had to come up with a statement like Black Lives Matter to fight the constant covert and overt assault on our lives.

Dr. Ebone Jordan, a periodontal specialist in Metro Detroit, said many of her close friends have experienced at least one blatant racial prejudice in their lives  being called a racial slur, having their cars searched by police for no reason, or being told by a white counselor that they should aim for community college or trade school instead of the university they actually wanted to attend. She urges those who dont know what its like to be judged solely for the color of their skin to ask themselves: What if these things were happening to me? Or my brother? Or my aunt?

The first step is to educate yourself. This education can come from listening to and believing black stories of systematic racism (both subtle and obvious), learning about and searching oneself to identify unconscious biases, reading books specifically dedicated to explaining and illustrating the pervasiveness of racism in our society, or watching documentaries that demonstrate how this country was assembled to perpetuate racism, said Jordan.

The second step is to take this education and use it in actionable allyship. Pay attention and be aware of instances of racism, prejudices and injustices around you. Speak up and speak out against it.

Aalayna Green, Clarkston native and MSU student, said she hopes the movement that started with George Floyds death wont just be a social media hashtag that people forget about in a few weeks or months.

My hope with this new wave of wanting to understand and to correct systemic racism is that it will instead end with revolutionary change for minority communities, she said. Having been a neighbor to racism and prejudice, few of these stories are new to me. These stories have been from friends, from family, from colleagues, from strangers. These black stories are necessary to tell.
B usiness travellers could be given rapid virus tests to allow them to avoid a two-week quarantine on returning to the UK, under industry plans being lobbied to Government.

Bosses in the business travel agency industry today wrote to home secretary Priti Patel and transport secretary Grant Shapps outlining the proposals.

The British Travel Associations plan would see travellers between any UK airport and Europes three biggest business travel destination  Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam  book PCR infection tests ahead of arriving in Britain.

The results take an hour to come back, and the BTA said the scheme could be up and running in seven days. It estimates business travel contributes 600 million a day to the UKs GDP.

The Governments requirement for travellers coming into the UK to self-isolate for 14 days came in on Monday and has been blasted by bosses across the travel industry.

On Monday, Ryanair chief executive Michael OLeary labelled the rules rubbish and said travellers were ignoring it.

BTA chief executive Clive Wratten said: This pilot can restore confidence across the business community that there is a practical, safe and immediate alternative to the stranglehold of quarantine

Without this scheme and under current quarantine measures, tens of thousands of jobs across the business travel supply chain are at risk of being lost forever.
Recipe for success: Drop hopes to become a digital platform that all kitchen appliances connect to.

The Dublin-based smart kitchen software firm Drop has raised 11.8m in a new funding round to back its plan to become 'the Android' of kitchen appliances.

It brings Ben Harris's company to around 20m in funding, following a 7m round in 2018 and 1.5m in 2015.

The company's financial backers in its latest round are led by Californian venture capital firms Alpha Edison and Morpheus Ventures with participation from Irish venture firm ACT Venture Capital, as well as existing investors Alsop Louie Partners, Richmond Market Ventures and Digital Irish Angels.

While the company started out with a smart weighing scales that connected to an iPad, it now wants to become a digital platform that all kitchen appliances connect to.

To this end, the head of the engineering team that created Android, Steve Horowitz, has joined Drop's board of directors. Mr Horowitz is a partner at Alpha Edison.

"In the same way Android armed an industry to compete in the smartphone game, Drop is primed to be the platform that all brands operate on, fundamentally changing the way we use technology in the kitchen," said Mr Horowitz.

Drop has developed partnerships with Bosch, Electrolux, GE Appliances, Panasonic, Kenwood and LG Electronics.

It says that more than 100 different appliance models from brands like these can now be controlled from its Drop Kitchen OS platform and the Drop Recipes app.

"Kitchens are a mix of motors, sensors and heating elements, with wildly different interfaces," said Ben Harris, CEO and co-founder at Drop.

"Drop's platform brings software and hardware together harmoniously, allowing our partners to get to market faster, bypassing the cost of developing the robust infrastructure needed to deliver a UX that delights and makes perfect cooking simple."

Mr Harris's mother, Elaine O'Hora, founded the Munchies chain of outlets in Dublin. His father, Peter Harris, also set up restaurants as well as the courier company Pony Express.

Drop has offices in Dublin, San Francisco and Zaragoza, Spain.

While 'the connected home' has been touted for many years, manufacturers have tried to create their own product ecosystems, leading to stunted growth of digital or online operations for devices such as kitchen appliances.

"Consumers are looking for ease of use, less friction, and security," said Ray Musci, managing director at Morpheus Ventures.

"The brands working with Drop drive engagement through a rich UX with data that informs better product development.

"Demonstrating value like that for both the consumer and manufacturer is how the connected kitchen will thrive," he added.

Drop's 12m round comes amid a flurry of fundraising announcements and acquisitions relating to Irish tech firms this month.

Yesterday, the Dublin City University spinout company Iconic Translation Machines announced that it has been acquired by RWS Holdings, a UK-based provider of translation and localisation, intellectual property support solutions and life sciences language services.

Last week, Cork-based Keelvar, a strategic sourcing software company, raised 15m in a Series A funding round.

What does Drop do?

Suppose you're cooking something for the first time and aren't sure at what temperature the cooker needs to be. Drop's Kitchen OS platform is supposed to take lots of the guesswork away.

At a certain point within the recipe, it will kick in to set advanced settings to the cooker (or oven or other appliance) so that your dish isn't burned or undercooked.

Kitchen appliance manufacturers have been promising this sort of functionality for years. But Ben Harris's software platform may be on the cusp of delivering it.

Drop started out as a physical smart weighing scales and recipe app in 2014 to simplify cooking and baking. The iPad-connected weighing scale linked to an online recipe platform. Users chose a recipe, placing a mixing bowl on top of the scale. It had some success. But after striking up positive relationships with some major kitchen appliance manufacturers, Mr Harris decided that the company's future lay more with creating a software platform that could connect all of them.
Seamless coordination ensured that there are just 38 local terrorists active in Kashmir

Since Sunday, 3 encounters have claimed lives of 14 terrorists

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Srinagar, June 10: Five terrorists have been killed in an encounter at Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district.

The gun fight is the third in Shopian since Sunday. The encounter erupted during a cordon and search operation that took place at the Sugoo Hendhama village.

The identity of the terrorists is being ascertained. Five terrorists were trapped in the area and the search operation was launched following specific intelligence.

Terrorist trying to infiltrate from Pakistan killed by Indian Army

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

It may be recalled that nine terrorists were killed in the earlier two encounters that took place.

On June 8, four terrorists were killed in the Pinjora area of Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir. The security forces launched a cordon and search operation after receiving specific information about the presence of terrorists in the area.

The search operation turned into an encounter after the terrorists opened fire on the search party. It may be recalled that on Sunday five terrorists were killed in an encounter at the Reban village. Two houses were damaged during the operation.

The operation was launched by the Army, CRPF and police following a tip off. About the presence of the terrorists in the Reban village. The encounter went on for 12 hours, before the terrorists were finally shot dead.
Digitalization and the modernization of all subsystems have been going on in Azerbaijan for a long time, Regional Sales Manager of the world famous CISCO company Vladimir Orlov told local media.

At the same time, he said that there are a number of nuances that prevent the full introduction of the Smart City system.

Smart City is a tool for integrating several information and communication technologies through the Internet to manage urban property and comfortable living of citizens in the city

"There is an information infrastructure and a single platform among them that show the status of all subsystems in the city, allowing them to interact with each other. But in general, the problem that impedes installing the system is not technological, but organizational," Orlov said.

"For example, in Baku, Azerishig OJSC is responsible for the light, Azersu OJSC - for water, State Agency of Azerbaijan Automobile Roads, Baku Transport Agency (BTA), BakuBus - for roads (transport), and so on. So, there's no need to build a lot of additional infrastructure for the Smart City system and spend a lot of money, he explained.

"The existing infrastructure allows the development of IoT technology. We use LoRaWaN to connect IoT to one common network of Azerbaijan," Orlov said.

He added that CISCO's proposal is to build one single system for connecting all IoT devices to one infrastructure, as well as platform that will collect all this data in one place and, if necessary, will be able to transfer information from one subsystem to another this data to manage a particular subsystem.

Orlov also said that for effective work on implementation and functioning of the system, close cooperation of all organizations, structures and support from the government is necessary.

Let's say everyone is building separate data centers. Why do this if it is possible to build one data center for the government and deliver it to all government agencies from a single source? This is the whole point of digitalization, which will lead to budget savings, he said.
Shares in Shaftesbury tumbled after the West End landlord reported a 287million loss.

The firm's dive into the red during the six months to March 31 came after the values of its properties dropped by 300million.

Just a year ago, it had reported a profit of 38.7million. But the coronavirus crisis has hammered its portfolio, with lockdown measures forcing stores to close and leaving some tenants unable to pay rent.

Landlord Shaftesbury, which owns large parts of London's Chinatown (pictured), managed to collect just 27.6 per cent of quarterly rents due for properties from March

It sent its shares falling 5.1 per cent, or 33p, to 615p yesterday.

Shaftesbury, which owns shops, restaurants and offices in central London, said its Chinatown properties had been affected by the pandemic from February and the rest of the West End from March.

It managed to collect just 27.6 per cent of quarterly rents due for properties it owns completely and has predicted it will only collect 50 per cent of those due from April to September.

Brian Bickell, the chief executive, said the landlord would have to support many tenants 'not just through lockdown but through recovery as well', which could last 'well into next year'.

Stock Watch - Global Ports Holdings Shares in Global Ports Holdings cruised higher despite first-quarter losses widening. The ports operator said losses grew from 12.6million to 18.8million in the three months to March 31, as revenue grew from 20.7million to 21.4million. But passenger numbers rose from 500,000 to 1.3m, after a major expansion into the Caribbean. It said it was well-placed to survive the Covid-19 crisis, and would not need to raise cash until 2022. Shares rose 0.2 per cent, or 0.2p, to 95p.

'The traditional lease model is falling apart,' he added.

Shaftesbury said the value of its 15.2-acre portfolio had fallen from 3.8billion to 3.5billion.

It announced the suspension of the dividend in March, although bosses said they hoped to resume payouts 'as soon as the board considers prudent'.

The turmoil on the High Street was underlined by a separate announcement from the owner of Frankie & Benny's, which said it was closing 125 outlets across the UK.

Shares in The Restaurant Group dipped 0.8 per cent, or 0.55p, to 70p after it said it was seeking approval from landlords for a deal that would let it reduce the number of restaurants it runs, and negotiate lower rents for many of those left over.

Those affected are principally Frankie & Benny's restaurants, it added. The company also owns the pan-Asian chain Wagamama, Mexican chain Chiquito, and runs several pubs and concessions in airports.

If landlords approve the proposals, known as a company voluntary arrangement, it will leave the company's leisure arm with about 160 sites.

Photobooth operator Photo-Me plans to restructure its UK business because of the pandemic.

Shares slumped 3.7 per cent, or 2.1p, to 55.2p after it warned that expected revenues for March and April 'did not materialise' because falling international travel meant fewer customers used its booths to take pictures for documents.

Premier Inn hotels owner Whitbread has raised 900million from shareholders to help it grapple with the pandemic, but shares fell 5.7 per cent, or 152p, to 2501p.

Whitbread, which also owns the Beefeater restaurant chain, said the money would give it more flexibility after it had to shut sites.

Boss Alison Brittain said the move means that the firm is in 'a position of strength to continue to invest, increase market share, support our colleagues and guests and create significant value for shareholders'.

Whitbread has 18 open hotels in Germany and 49 open hotels in the UK.

It is now ready to reopen the rest of its UK hotels as soon as it is given the go-ahead to do so by the Government.

But the broader picture was still gloomy after Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said there were some signs of a recovery as lockdown measures lifted but warned it was 'reasonable' to expect some long-term damage to the economy.

Britain's FTSE 100 stayed underwater after the announcement, dipping 0.1 per cent, or 6.59 points, to 6329.13, while the FTSE 250 fell 0.8 per cent, or 149.79 points, to 17605.46.
Few things are as natural and as necessary as eating food. However, if food producers, food processors, food handlers and consumers do not follow good food safety practices, food can become contaminated and rather than nourishing us and bringing us pleasure it can make us sick or even kill us. According to World Health Organization (WHO) Statistics, the public health burden of unsafe food is very high: in 2015 they estimated that over 600 million people fall ill and 420 000 die every year from foodborne diseases. It was at the launching of the WHO 2015 Report on the Burden of Foodborne disease that Awilo Ochieng Pernet, the then Chairperson of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the global body responsible for developing food safety and food quality standards, made a call for the establishment of a World Food Safety Day (WFSD). She recognized the need for broader ownership of food safety responsibilities and a regular reminder throughout society that food safety is everyones business. That call was heeded and here we are

This year, the second annual celebration of WFSD, in the midst of the COVID, the message of WFSD takes on a particular resonance in the Caribbean.

Firstly, the vulnerability of several Caribbean countries to disruptions in global supply chains has led to re-energized calls for attention to resilient food systems and a regional approach to food security. We will not have efficient regional trade of food if countries do not have confidence in the each others ability to reliably produce and market food safely. No government wants to be bring sub-standard food into its country. Facilitating intra-regional trade requires that CARICOM countries have transparent, robust and science-based systems of food control. There is considerable work that Caribbean countries still need to do to achieve this: it requires careful planning and appropriate investment. Many countries have weak legal frameworks for assuring food safety, weak and poorly coordinated institutions and under-equipped food safety laboratories. These are the basic elements of national food safety systems.

Several CARICOM countries have launched COVID-19 response and recovery plans to mitigate impacts on food security and agriculture. These plans involve the introduction of new techniques and technologies that enable more competitive and sustainable production systems. Innovations in food production necessarily requires vigilance and proactivity in terms of identifying new patterns of food safety risk and controlling them to ensure that the publics health is protected. This celebration of WFSD should serve as an instigation for a reflection on the adequacy of current food safety monitoring and surveillance.

Finally, a word about markets. For this years WFSD, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and WHO, have put a focus on the theme Safe food in markets. I would like to state out front, that there have been no cases of COVID-19 being transmitted by food. It is not a foodborne disease. However, in the context of COVID-19, food businesses and food markets need to re-inforce hygiene practices and enable safe physical distances during all operations. Traditional markets and farmers markets play an important social function both in terms of providing food and in terms of providing income. With loss of jobs in the tourism and service sectors, in some Caribbean countries we have seen upsurge in street vending of food. Very often the management and the infrastructure of the markets do not allow adequate bio-safety and food safety. Repeated incidents of the emergence of zoonotic diseases (caused by germs spread between humans and animals) that are linked to poor sanitation and hygiene in markets demonstrate clearly that we cannot be complacent about hygiene management in markets. Another very visible change in food marketing in the Caribbean during the COVID-19 Pandemic has been the expansion of various forms of on-line food sales. E-commerce has long been considered a potential growth area, particularly in many developing countries. However, it is important for food safety regulators to consider whether legislative frameworks need to be updated to ensure that food chain actors involved in e-commerce have the same responsibilities for food safety as do food businesses operating traditionally.

Dynamism of food systems is going to increase. Caribbean countries must invest in their capacities for effective food control as an essential contribution to building resilience in effort to reduce food security.
OTTAWAEarly runs of Stuart sockeye and chinook salmon were devastated last year because they couldnt make it past a massive landslide on British Columbias Fraser River, government officials said Tuesday.

The officials with Fisheries and Oceans Canada told a Commons committee that 99 per cent of early Stuart and 89 per cent of early chinook salmon were lost.

Rebecca Reid, the departments regional director for the Pacific region, said salmon survival improved later in the summer when work started to transport fish past the slide, helping them reach their spawning grounds.

Mortality during the salmons long journey inland is already high and its hard to say what exactly causes their deaths, Eric Taylor, a zoology professor and fish expert at the University of British Columbia, said in an interview.

But he said its clear that the landslide near Big Bar is the culprit behind last years elevated mortality rate.

Its believed the massive landslide north of Lillooet occurred in late October or early November 2018, but it wasnt discovered until last June after fish had already begun arriving.

Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan told the committee the volume of the slide was equivalent to a building 33 storeys high by 17 storeys wide.

About 60,000 fish were helped over the slide last year, she said, while 220,000 made it past on their own once water volume dropped.

Jordan said so far just two chinook have been observed arriving this year.

Plans are in place to significantly increase the number of fish that survive and reach spawning grounds this year including using a pneumatic fish pump  a so-called salmon cannon  and building a series of boulders to create a fish ladder.

The ultimate goal would be to clear it enough so that its a natural passageway for the fish, so that its not something that we have to continually monitor or maintain, Jordan said.

But in the meantime, we are making sure that there are measures in place to get the fish through.

Jordan said another small slide of about two cubic metres happened last month while no workers were present, an indication of the dangerous terrain at the remote site.

The committee heard that Fisheries and Oceans is also exploring how hatcheries could be used to restore runs affected by the landslide. That means some salmon would be captured and their offspring reared before being reintroduced into the wild.

We know that theres going to be a poor state for many of the upper Fraser River salmon, so were looking at emergency conservation enhancement measures, including the hatchery component, Jordan said.

A holding facility went into operation last week, she said, although she acknowledged concerns that large-scale use of hatcheries could affect the genetic diversity of wild salmon stocks.

New Democrat MP Gord Johns, who represents Courtenay-Alberni on Vancouver Island, told the committee that B.C. needs a bigger financial commitment from Ottawa through a joint salmon restoration and innovation fund.

The fund is worth up to $142.85 million over five years until the end of March 2024, and Reid said the total value of applications under the program has so far been $340 million.

Clearly, this program isnt adequate to service the needs of coastal people, Johns said.

One thing that there is consensus on, with Indigenous communities, local governments, recreation fishers, commercial, is that we need more money (for) restoration and habitat protection.

Johns said there are thousands of volunteers who want to help, but they need resources. Mobilizing such a workforce could be part of B.C.s COVID-19 pandemic recovery plans while helping to save an iconic coastal species, he added.

The Big Bar landslide is the latest threat to the survival of wild salmon, Taylor said, along with climate change, lost habitat and the poor monitoring of bycatch by different fisheries.

Big Bar is just one of the most recent incidents that are harming Pacific salmon that are already in a vulnerable position.

The landslide show the importance of implementing other measures to restore wild salmon runs to ensure their long-term survival, Taylor said.

The failure to list Pacific salmon under the Species at Risk Act now has even more seriousness because we cant control these things like rock slides.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. (CSE: MYCO) (OTC: NLBIF) (FSE:0NF) ("Mydecine" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce it has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent ("LOI") dated June 9, 2020 to acquire NeuroPharm Inc., ("NeuroPharm") a Canadian-based healthcare company working to deploy the power of nature's medicine for the wellness of veterans, EMS and front line personnel in North America and globally (the "Acquisition").

"The exceptional roles and responsibilities Canada's military and veterans, EMS and front-line personnel undertake on a daily basis, contribute to these professional's underlying mental health challenges" said Josh Bartch, CEO, Mydecine Innovations Group. "I look forward to working with NeuroPharm's talented clinicians, scientists, academics and industry leaders focused on responding to these individual's mental health and wellness needs in the years to come."

"Our mission is to build a capability that will truly have a focus on veterans, EMS and other front-line personnel. This new capability will bring to the table unique skillsets to meet this enormous challenge of building veterans, EMS and front-line staff confidence and restoring their overall wellness. With our experienced team, we understand their unique circumstances related to service that may have contributed to operational stress injuries namely post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or anxiety" added Colonel (Ret'd) Pucci, Chairman and CEO NeuroPharm Inc.

Mydecine and NeuroPharm will combine to focus on an integrated health and wellness research strategy and the development of products underpinned by therapies to assist veterans with mental health issues. NeuroPharm is focused on developing unique pharmaceutical and natural health products for veteran wellness , with a specific focus on the use of psilocybin. Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of mushrooms, collectively known as psilocybin mushrooms. Once ingested, psilocybin is rapidly metabolized to psilocin, which then acts on serotonin receptors in the brain. NeuroPharm has developed unique and proprietary technology to treat various mental health conditions that are frequently experienced by veterans such as PTSD, depression, addiction, anxiety, and panic disorders as well as migraine and cluster headaches. Preliminary studies from institutions including the Imperial College of London, University of Zurich, Johns Hopkins, NYU, and UCLA suggest that psilocybin-assisted therapy could be a revolutionary treatment for depression and addiction.

NeuroPharm  Executive Management

The key to NeuroPharm's unique position is its stewardship, which has extensive established relationships with global military organizations, as well as an experienced cross-functional team poised to oversee all areas of the product life cycle, from medical mushroom cultivation, drug delivery system development, clinical trial execution, through to product commercialization and marketing:

President and Chief Executive Officer, Colonel (Ret'd) Richard Pucci, OMM, CD, BSc, MDS, served as the Deputy Commander of the Canadian Forces Health Services, during which time he oversaw a team of approximately 6,400 active members and 500 contractors; during his tenure he was responsible for over watching via the chain of command 43 units and 82 detachments, including clinics, mobile medical units, field hospital, schools, research establishment, and a medical equipment depot. He also held the position of Chief of Staff of the Health Services Group, with the overall responsibility for a financial and business planning cycle of $462 million, and an infrastructure budget of $600 million. Colonel (Ret'd) Pucci's knowledge and affiliations within the military community provide additional pathways to unique funding sources and facilitate the development of psilocybin-based treatments for the veterans population.

NeuroPharm  Medical and Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Rakesh Jetly, OMM, CD, MD, FRCPC, part of the Company's Medical & Scientific Advisory Board, is currently the Head of the Centre of Excellence on Mental Health in Ottawa, Ontario, and an associate professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University (Halifax); and the University of Ottawa. He has published numerous articles in professional journals and presents nationally and internationally on such topics as PTSD and operational psychiatry.

Dr. Mohyuddin Mirza, PhD, P.Ag, Chief Science Officer, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta and served as an adjunct professor at his alma matter. He was inducted into the Alberta Agriculture Hall of Fame and, subsequently, the Alberta Greenhouse Growers Association created the "Dr. Mohyuddin Mirza Educational and Scholarship Foundation". Dr. Mirza brings with him his vast knowledge of greenhouse technologies, infrastructure, feasibility, research, and development to the NeuroPharm team.

Prof. dr. H.G.J.M. (Eric) Vermetten MD, PhD, is professor Medical-Biological and Psychiatric Aspects of Psych trauma, LUMC/University of Leiden. Eric Vermetten is psychiatrist at the MGGZ in Utrecht (Military Mental Health care). From 1991 he has been linked to several universities as a researcher, including Stanford University, California, Yale Univ, New Haven CT, Emory Univ, Atlanta, and studied at the University of Maastricht and followed several postgraduate courses. In 2003, Eric was promoted on Posttraumatic Stress Disorders: Neurobiological Studies in the Aftermath of Traumatic Stress at the University of Utrecht. Vermetten considers PTSD a heterogeneous disorder, with different contributions of neurobiological systems and circuits. He is convinced that longitudinal cohort studies, more than research with cross-sectional designs, is important to obtain knowledge breakthroughs. And assumes that in the psych traumatology computer-assisted technology, the patient can give more influence on therapeutic - and care processes.

Terms of the LOI

Pursuant to terms of the LOI, the Company will purchase all of the issued and outstanding shares in the capital of NeuroPharm for $6,000,000, payable in common shares in the capital of the Company at a deemed price per share of $0.90. The Company will pay a finder's fee on the Acquisition.

The completion of the Acquisition is subject to a number of conditions, including, but not limited to, the execution of a definitive agreement, completion of satisfactory due diligence, and receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that the Acquisition will be completed as proposed, or at all.

About Mydecine Innovations Group Inc.

Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. is the parent company operating innovative product divisions in the Naturally Sourced Therapies (NST) space. While controlling a variety of Psilocybin and hemp-derived CBD brands that design, manufacture, and distribute cutting edge products, Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. further enhances its portfolio with numerous cultivation properties, retail locations, and other land assets.

Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. is the progressive and innovative Naturally Sourced Therapies (NST) lifestyle group known around the globe. Focusing on the rapidly emerging psilocybin and psychedelic medicines market, the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary 1220611 B.C. Ltd. (operating as Mydecine Group) ("Mydecine") is a vertically integrated company engaged to utilize the vast medicinal, health and wellness capabilities of the various compounds found in mycology as a whole. Established to parallel the early emergence of the industry, Mydecine aims to be a pioneer in the cultivation, processing, product development, and research and development of mycology's exciting compounds through its three divisions, "Mydecine Farms," "Mydecine Wellness" and "Mydecine Labs." Furthermore, the Company's wholly owned subsidiaries in the hemp-derived CBD space, We are Kured LLC, Drink Fresh Water LLC, Relyfe Brand LLC, Fresh Water CBD LLC and TeaLief Brand LLC have quickly developed into market leaders and maintain extensive retail and cultivation land investments in the United States.

About NeuroPharm Inc.

NeuroPharm Inc. (NPI) is a Canadian based healthcare company developing a unique set of pharmaceutical and natural health products addressing mental wellness in vulnerable populations such as Veterans and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel. We are committed to bringing to market adaptive plant-based therapies for use as an adjunct to clinical therapy to treat traumatic disorders specifically observed in the Veteran and EMS space. NPI was founded by a dedicated group of former military personnel motivated to seek alternative treatments addressing these traumatic disorders experienced by many Veterans following active service. The NPI team is proud to include contributions and advisory from esteemed scientific, academic, clinical and product development specialists.

For further information about Mydecine Innovations Group Inc., please consult the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or visit the Company's website at http://mydecine.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

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 management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected 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 Company's 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.

For Further Information Contact

Corporate Communications

250-488-6728

SOURCE Mydecine Innovations Group Inc.

Related Links

http://mydecine.com/


Normally, Google would work with developers at Google I/O for the next version of Android, but since that was canceled, Google is doing online community meetups.

So youll be able to find a meetup near you to discuss whats new in Android 11, and how to make your app compatible. You can find the list of Android 11 Meetups by clicking here. Google is doing these meetups through August, and it will be adding more meetups throughout the summer.

Currently, there are only two meetups in the US, both taking place in Fresno, CA.

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These meetups are taking the place of I/O office hours

On the surface, it looks like these online community meetups are taking the place of the office hours that are a staple at Google I/O every year. Thats where developers can speak with Googlers  in this case, those on the Android team  on how to improve their app, use the new APIs and get it ready for the launch of Android 11.

These are in-person meetups  so its a good thing that the country and the world is starting to open up. But according to Google, it is supporting the health and safety of communities and enabling organizers to continue to host events for developers in their communities. However, if they are in a community that cant gather in person, Google does support organizers utilizing online methods to allow them to offer engaging experiences for remote attendees.

More meetups are being added throughout the summer

Google says that it will be adding more meetups for discussing Android 11 through August. That could also hint at when Google plans to launch Android 11, towards the end of August or early September. Which would put it inline with previous versions of Android too.

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These meetups are going to be important for developers as they prepare to get their apps and games updated to support all of the new features and APIs in Android 11. The first meetups begin this Saturday. And the majority of them are happening on the weekends. This is likely so that many developers dont need to take time off of work to attend these meetups.

You can check out the meetups map here and then RSVP to the meetup that youd like to attend. The meetups are all free to attend, and the majority of them do have a way to watch and join online, which is going to be very helpful.
Emirates, one of the world's biggest long-haul airlines, laid off hundreds of pilots and thousands of cabin crew on Tuesday as it manages a cash crunch caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and more job cuts are planned, five company sources said. Aviation is one of the industries worst hit by the fallout from the virus outbreak, with airlines forced to lay off staff and seek government bailouts.

More redundancies were expected at Emirates this week including both Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 pilots, the sources said on the condition of anonymity. The workforce of 4,300 pilots and nearly 22,000 cabin crew could shrink by almost a third from its pre-coronavirus levels, three of the sources said.

Without giving further details, an airline spokeswoman told Reuters some employees had been laid off. "Given the significant impact that the pandemic has had on our business, we simply cannot sustain excess resources and have to right size our workforce in line with our reduced operations," she said.

A promise by the Dubai government to provide Emirates with new equity would allow it to "preserve its skilled workforce," the state airline said on May 10. It has since laid off employees, which sources previously told Reuters were trainee pilots and cabin crew.

Outgoing President Tim Clark has said it could take four years for the airline to resume flying to all of the 157 international destinations it served before the pandemic. It has a fleet of 270 A380 and 777 jets. The airline has operated limited, mostly outbound services from the United Arab Emirates since grounding passenger flights in March but is due to restart some connecting flights after the UAE last week lifted a suspension.

Emirates has also extended pay cuts until September, and in some cases deepened the reduction to 50%, according to an internal email on Sunday.

Also read: Airlines set to lose $84 billion this year as coronavirus clips aviation industry
Chinese education agents say they will not recommend studying in Australia and have threatened to divert thousands of students to the UK as the sector reels from a dispute between Australia and its largest trading partner.

The comments are the first sign that a warning delivered by China's Ministry of Education on Tuesday will trickle down to consumers, as education agents accuse Australia of discriminating against their students and using them as a cash cow.

Universities face major losses if Chinese students stop coming to Australia. Credit:Louise Kennerley

China is the largest source of overseas students at Australian universities and any decline would put at risk an estimated $3.1 billion of revenue paid by Chinese nationals to the Group of Eight elite research universities alongside RMIT and the University of Technology Sydney.

Austlink chairwoman Amy Mo, a Beijing education agent who has operated in the Australian market for 15 years, said the deteriorating relationship would bring "immeasurable economic losses to Australia".
Facebook has released the message below announcing the launch of Messenger Kids, an app that allows parents supervise their childrens online activity.

Messenger Kids has been designed for children between the ages of 6 to 12 years, Facebook said in the statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES.

Read the full statement below.

Today, Facebook (www.facebook.com) is rolling out Messenger Kids, a video chat and messaging app that helps children connect with friends and family in a fun, parent-controlled space. Available to download from the Apple App and Google Play Stores, Messenger Kids has been designed for children between the ages of 6 to 12 years, with the app including two new features aimed at helping kids connect with their friends and family.

Helping to shape the Messenger Kids app, Facebook has worked closely with Youth Advisors (https://bit.ly/2MJAm19) over the years, made up of experts in online safety, child development and media. Ahead of its launch, Facebook also consulted with child safety advocates and educators across Africa to ensure that its providing a service that balances parental control with features that help kids learn how to connect responsibly online.

Messenger Kids is made for Kids but controlled by parents, the app is full of features for kids to connect with the people they love. Once their account is set up by a parent, kids can start a one-on-one or group video chat. The home screen shows them at a glance who they are connected to, and when those contacts are online. Some fun features available in the app, include:

Playful masks, emojis and sound effects bring conversations to life.

In addition to video chat, kids can send photos, videos or text messages to their parent-approved friends and adult relatives, who will receive the messages via their regular Messenger app.

A library of kid-appropriate and specially chosen GIFs, frames, stickers, masks and drawing tools to let them decorate content and express their personalities.

Commenting on the launch, Kojo Boakye, Facebook Public Policy Director, Africa said: We know that parents are turning to technology more than ever to help their kids connect with friends and family online. With privacy, security and parental control at the heart of the app, Messenger Kids provides a safe, fun space, controlled by parents to do exactly that.

Safety expert Evelyn Kasina, Family IT Consultant, Eveminet, added: It is our responsibility to ensure online safety for our children. The greatest sign of success is when our children display responsible independence during their online interaction. The launch of Facebook Messenger Kids is an amazing stride toward child online safety because our young children will enjoy and participate on social media on child developed platforms that have safety parameters to keep them safe.

Through the Parent Dashboard, parents can control and monitor their childs activity enabling them to:

Monitor recent contacts, chat history, and reported and blocked contacts: including who your child is chatting with, whether they are video chatting or sending messages and how frequently those conversations happened over the past 30 days. Youll also see a list of the contacts your child has blocked and/or unblocked, if they have reported any messages as well as any contacts theyve reported and the reason for their action. Parents will continue to be notified via Messenger if their child blocks or reports someone.

including who your child is chatting with, whether they are video chatting or sending messages and how frequently those conversations happened over the past 30 days. Youll also see a list of the contacts your child has blocked and/or unblocked, if they have reported any messages as well as any contacts theyve reported and the reason for their action. Parents will continue to be notified via Messenger if their child blocks or reports someone. See a log of images and videos in chats: See the most recent photos and videos your child has sent and received in their inbox. If you believe an image or video is not appropriate for your child, you can remove it from your childs message thread and report it.

See the most recent photos and videos your child has sent and received in their inbox. If you believe an image or video is not appropriate for your child, you can remove it from your childs message thread and report it. Enable Supervised Friending: This feature will enable parents to choose to allow their kids to also accept, reject, add or remove contacts, while maintaining the ability to override any new contact approvals from the Parent Dashboard. When a kid takes a friending action, parents will be notified through Messenger and can override any new connections made by going to the Parent Dashboard, where they will also be able to see a log of recent activities.

This feature will enable parents to choose to allow their kids to also accept, reject, add or remove contacts, while maintaining the ability to override any new contact approvals from the Parent Dashboard. When a kid takes a friending action, parents will be notified through Messenger and can override any new connections made by going to the Parent Dashboard, where they will also be able to see a log of recent activities. Remote Device Logout: See all devices where your child is logged in to Messenger Kids and log out of the app on any device through the Parent Dashboard

See all devices where your child is logged in to Messenger Kids and log out of the app on any device through the Parent Dashboard Download your childs information: Request a copy of your childs Messenger Kids information, similar to how you can download your own information within the Facebook app. The download will include a list of your childs contacts as well as the messages, images and videos they have sent and received. Your child will be notified through the Messenger Kids app when you request this information.

More Information on Messenger Kids

There are no ads in Messenger Kids and your childs information isnt used for ads.

It is free to download and there are no in-app purchases.

It is free to download and there are no in-app purchases. Messenger Kids is also designed to be compliant with the Childrens Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA).

Facebook continues to work with parents, safety and security experts to improve Messenger Kids and have also announced new ways to help parents connect kids with their friends.

For more specific information about the app, visit MessengerKids.com .

For the latest on how to use Messenger Kids, visit our Help Center (https://bit.ly/3f8fblI)
The snow is gone, the sea ice has melted, and mosquitoes are voyaging north of the Arctic Circle in greater numbers. In the normally snow-bound landscape, white Arctic hares now hop among green bushes.

Amid the warmth, the record wildfires that tore across the tundra last summer are returning: the European Unions Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service is now watching these fires via satellite.

The service said parts of the Arctic were more than 10 degrees warmer than usual during May.

It is thought many of the fires erupting are zombie fires, so-called because despite the cold, wet winter, they have nonetheless continued to smoulder, often in peatlands, and then reignite when warmer drier weather arrives.

This can then lead to large new fires, which threaten the existence of the peatlands  a major carbon sink.

Peatlands in the northern hemisphere store more carbon than all the worlds rainforests combined. If they were to burn, the massive amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere would immediately render all efforts to control emissions futile.

Thomas Smith, assistant professor in environmental geography at LSE told The Independent: The fires spotted in the Siberian Arctic Circle might be zombie fires. They are occurring in places that burnt last summer.

Some of them overlap with last years burn scars, and some of them are burning on areas with carbon-rich peat soils, [which provides] good fuel for an overwintering fire.

However, this region is also known for having lots of human ignitions for various traditional agricultural practices, so its very difficult to confirm overwintering fires just from looking at the satellite images. With wildfires, a good rule of thumb is that they are most likely to have had a human ignition.

Although fires are recognised as playing an essential role in the Arctic, there are concerns the increasing number and size of the fires could bring major changes to the environment with global implications.

Dr Smith said: Fires are quite normal in Arctic ecosystems. They often play an important role in tree reproduction and regeneration. The carbon emitted from wildfires is re-sequestered when the vegetation grows back. However, an increasing frequency and severity of fires might lead to permanent changes in these ecosystems where we could see the replacement of forests with shrubs or grasses.

This has important implications for carbon emissions, because the carbon lost in the fires may not be re-sequestered in the near future. Further, if the fires have ignited peat soils, the carbon lost from these fires has taken thousands of years to accumulate, something that cannot be reversed within timescales of concern for climate change.

While satellite monitoring of the region has improved in recent decades, scientists say the evidence, from areas including Alaska and Siberia indicate the phenomenon is becoming more common.

Dr Smith said: Its not surprising  increasing fire activity coupled with permafrost melting associated with global warming can only increase the likelihood of deep seated fires as more fuel  soil and vegetation  is made available to burn.

Writing at the end of May, Copernicus senior scientist Mark Parrington explained why the service monitors the fires.

We incorporate satellite observations of active fires into our Global Fire Assimilation System to monitor them and estimate the associated emission of pollutants so that we can then predict the transport of the resulting smoke in the atmosphere, he said.

Such forecasts are used in air quality apps to help people limit their exposure to pollution, as well as by policymakers and local authorities to manage the impact of fires.

As well as the highly visible fires, the rapidly warming Arctic ecosystem is alarming those who remember significantly different seasonal variations.

Recommended Why veteran environmentalist Jonathon Porritt is so hopeful right now

This spring the nature at the Taymyr Peninsula broke all climate records and really surprised old-timers, geographer Vasily Sarana, a researcher at the scientific team of the Putoransky Nature Reserve in northern Russia, told the Siberian Times.

He added: Snow at the spurs of the Putorana mountains melted long ago, unusually for this time of year. There is not a snowflake left in the tundra, so white hares are hopping about the bushes looking clearly bewildered. They were obviously not ready for such an early spring  just like the rest of our nature.

Meanwhile, orca whales have been seen hunting seals in bays normally bound by ice.

This lack of snow and ice over land and sea helps form part of a vicious feedback cycle where the uncovered earth and oceans absorb more heat than when theyre under their highly-reflective winter cloak.

This exacerbates warming, which can have unexpected consequences: One reason the number of fires in Arctic environments may be increasing is that the warming climate is leading to more frequent lightning strikes. This provides the ignition which is then fuelled by the warmer, drier material on the ground.
(CNN)  Disneyland and Disney California Adventure  Disney's flagship theme parks in California  are reopening after months of being closed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The original Disney resort  which is located in Anaheim, California  plans to begin a phased reopening on July 17, the company said Wednesday, pending state and local government approvals. July 17 is the 65th anniversary of the opening day of Disneyland park.

The reopening of the Disneyland resort follows the announcement that Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, will begin a phased reopening next month.

Disney also announced that Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel, two hotels that are a part of the Disneyland resort, plan to reopen on July 23.

The Downtown Disney district, which includes shops and restaurants, will begin reopening on July 9.

As in Orlando, Disney says the Disneyland resort will reopen with "enhanced health and safety measures." The company said that theme park capacity will be "significantly limited to comply with governmental requirements and promote physical distancing."

The company added that additional information on the reopenings will "be shared soon."

Disney said last month that it was implementing several measures to reopen safely and prevent the spread of the coronavirus at its Disney World resort. Employees and guests will be required to wear face coverings and undergo temperature screenings before entering the parks. It will also temporarily suspend parades, fireworks and other events that create crowds.

Disneyland has more than 30,000 employees.

All 12 of Disney's parks in North America, Asia and Europe closed because of the outbreak on different dates this year. Shanghai Disneyland, the company's largest international park, reopened on May 11 after being closed since January 24.

The Parks and Experiences unit is crucial to Disney's bottom line, and the parks closures were a huge hit to the company.

The segment's operating profit last quarter fell 58% compared to the prior year  shedding a billion dollars in profit only weeks into the global shutdown.

Robert Niles, editor of ThemeParkInsider.com, noted that Disneyland's reopening should be easier than Disney World because the California parks are "not as reliant on international and out-of-market travel as Walt Disney World is."

"Disneyland should be able to recover its attendance more quickly than the parks in Florida," Niles told CNN Business. "The trouble is... is Disneyland ready to handle that?"

The Disneyland theme parks are "tiny in physical size compared to the Orlando-area parks," Niles said.

"Maintaining social distancing is going to be much tougher for Disney in California," he added. "It's going to require some creativity and a lot of the experience that Disney has learned from getting its parks ready to go in Shanghai and Orlando."

Bob Chapek, Disney's CEO, told CNN Business that he believes it's safe for guests to return to the company's parks even as the pandemic continues.

"We've done everything we can to open up responsibly," Chapek said last month regarding the opening of Disney World. "Taking the guidance of local health officials, state health officials, national health officials, plus our own well-qualified doctors on staff to create an environment to create new operating procedures, to create new policies, to do new training, new standards of hygiene."
The family of black Frenchman Adama Traore who died in police custody, have turned down talks with the justice minister and urged that the officers involved in his death be held accountable.

"The Traore family reiterates that it wants legal action, and not an invitation to talks which won't lead anywhere," the campaign group, "Truth for Adama", said in a statement.

Traore's sister Assa, who has been leading the campaign, told reporters on Tuesday that "words are no longer enough" and that it was time for action.

We're demanding acts of justice, not discussions she said. "We'll protest in the streets, every week, if necessary.

She has called for a nationwide protest in central Paris on Saturday 13 June, after thousands marched in several French cities last week to denounce police brutality and demand justice for Adama.

The 24-year-old died in police custody on 19 July, 2016 in circumstances similar to the killing of George Floyd in the United States.

Police ethics

Medical experts differ on whether Traore died because of the weight of three police officers as they tried to restrain him or because of an underlying medical condition.

The Traore family, who have long claimed the police was responsible for Adama's death, have been galvanised by global anger at police brutality sparked by Floyd's murder at the hands of a white police officer.

It has rekindled allegations of police brutality in a society divided after months of Yellow Vest protests.

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron urged his government to accelerate steps to improve police ethics.

Macron also asked his Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet to address the Traore case, sparking outcry from their lawyer Yassine Bouzrou who accused the government of meddling in legal affairs.

"The separation of powers" stipulated by the law "prevents the justice minister from getting involved in individual cases," Bouzrou tweeted.

No meddling

The justice ministry denied claims it was meddling, saying its intention was to reassure the Traore family about the investigation and clarify any questions they might have.

Critics have tried to spin the Traore family's refusal to meet with the justice minister as a new embarrassment for the government.

In 2013, Macron's predecessor Francois Hollande saw his offer of return to a 15-year-old Roma girl who was controversially deported from France to Kosovo, rejected.

Hollande's handling of the deportation of Leonarda Dibrani equally raised concerns about government interference.
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Marny Xiong, the chair of the school board in St. Paul, Minn., was just getting started. She was 31, the child of Hmong refugees. She talked about going to law school or into politics  maybe becoming the citys first Hmong mayor.

When her father had trouble breathing in early May but was afraid to go to the hospital, Ms. Xiong offered to accompany him. But then the virus leveled her.

On May 7, they went to separate hospitals, both going on ventilators in intensive care.

Her father, Zahoua Xiong, returned home on Memorial Day, just as the city was about to erupt in protests over the killing of George Floyd. Ms. Xiong never came off the ventilator, never spoke to her family again. She died on June 7, her sister Amee said.
Representative image

Ramesh Warrier's* plight had been documented before. He and his mother had gone to the US in February to visit his sister. In April, he as wondering, "Why can't the Indian government arrange a flight for us?"

Soon after, the government started flights  branded as Vande Bharat Mission in customary pomp  to repatriate Indians like Warrier. But Warrier and his mother are stuck in the US more than a month after the largest repatriation exercise in the world took off.

"It's the fare. I will need to pay over Rs 1 lakh for just one ticket. The flight to the US had cost Rs 84,000 for two tickets. Given my financial condition, I don't have any option but to wait out till government allows all the airlines to start operating international flights and fares get adjusted," said Warrier.

The Vande Bharat flights are almost exclusively run by government-owned Air India.

The Indian government suspended international flights in March, just before bringing to a halt all domestic operations. While domestic flights resumed on May 25, international flights may not restart before August or September.

Armaan Ahuja* is in a similar position as Warrier. He has been stranded in Lisbon for two months. He could take the Vande Bharat Mission flight from Amsterdam and get back to India. But he too finds the flight, back to Delhi, too expensive at 500 euro.

"The return tickets had cost me Rs 50,000. The flights were via Dubai. Now for just one way on the Air India flight, I have to pay that much," said Ahuja, who has already overshot his budget for the stay in Lisbon and is looking to save money.

Scores of Indians like Warrier and Ahuja have taken to Twitter to recount similar tales, with all them asking the government to resume international flights. Their accounts paint a vastly different picture from government claims that the Vande Bharat flights are affordable and all is hunky dory with the entire exercise. High fares apart, several passengers have complained about the awful experience of booking tickets on these flights.

In an earlier article, Moneycontrol had highlighted the debate that had erupted on Twitter over the fares. While some wondered why the fares were high and said Air India was twice charging for fuel costs, others had pointed out that the ticket rates were lower than that of charter flights, and were thus justified.

On June 8, Minister for Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri himself joined the debate and strongly defended decision to fix the fares. In a series of tweets, Puri emphasised that nearly one lakh Indians had benefited from the Vande Bharat flights. Moreover, he pointed out, some of the fares charged by Air India were one-third of that on charter flights.

Who is speaking the truth here? The issue with Air India flights concerns thousands of Indians who are marooned for months abroad. Away from their families, they are anxiously trying to return home. Moneycontrol reached out to several players in the industry, including a scrum of passengers such as Warrier and Ahuja, executives of Air India and other airlines as well as travel agents to make sense of the situation.

No one wanted to be named.

This is what we found out.

All the industry sources agreed with Puri that flights to destinations in the Middle-East were indeed fairly priced.

"Vande Bharat Mission charges Rs 13,000 per passenger on Gulf routes and planes fly empty on one leg. According to information in public domain private carriers/charters are charging upwards of Rs 20,000 for the same," Puri had tweeted.



On flights between India & Canada, our citizens pay 1.07 lakhs as compared to 1.62 lakhs to Toronto & 1.84 lakhs to Vancouver charged by charters organised by the concerned embassy. pic.twitter.com/YEYcmAKynb

 Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 8, 2020

He had shared this:

A senior industry executive pointed out that the lower fares have especially helped those Indians involved in blue-collar jobs, but had been laid off and were keen to get back home.

On the flights to Tel Aviv, Puri said, "Travelers paid Rs 82,500 on charters organised by the embassy concerned while Indian citizens paid Rs 51,938 on flights under Vande Bharat Mission."

The following is a fare table shared by travel firm Ixigo. The average one-way fare from India to Israel was over Rs 78,000 in January, much higher than the rate on Vande Bharat flights.

Executives at Air India told Moneycontrol that flights to these destinations in the Middle-East were indeed 'near empty.' One executive said: "Flights to the Gulf are going almost empty with just few passengers. The return flights are full."

But the picture radically changes when one looks at flights to the US, Canada and the UK. "Flights to these countries, from India, are almost full," said the Air India executive cited above.

Other executives from the industry said demand was high for tickets on these routes, with many non-resident Indians (NRIs) stuck in India looking to fly out. "Flights to London, Toronto and Chicago went light only in the initial days as they were opened for outbound sale only one day in advance," another industry executive pointed out.

If indeed the outbound flights had good passenger loads, is there a need to have a fare that was fixed  by the mandarins at aviation ministry on the hypothesis that one leg of the journey will be empty?

While flights to the US and Canada cost over a lakh, those to the UK are fixed at Rs 50,000. These fares are actually much higher (see table above) when compared to the rates in January, or in November 2019.

For instance, an India-US one way flight cost about Rs 53,000 in November, and Rs 61,555 in January. Similarly, a Delhi-Toronto flight cost Rs 40,917 and Rs 66, 581, respectively.

In many cases, the actual fares were even higher than those fixed by Air India, passengers pointed out.

One Twitter user pointed out:



Not true, when I called AirIndia a few days back fares for Mumbai-London flight, I was told approx Rs.1,19,000 for 12th May, and Rs.3,99,000 for 14th May for Economy Class Fare, how can these ridiculous fares be One-Third....please explain. BA charged 591 for same in April....  Eliza Martin (@eliza_martin44) June 4, 2020



Another passenger pointed out that the Toronto-Delhi flight cost Rs 1.3 lakh.

Also, countering the argument that other countries arranged repatriation flights at higher fares than those charged under Vande Bharat Mission, some pointed out that the British government had charged 600 pounds, or Rs 57,000 for its flights from India to London. "Air India fares had gone up to 1,350 pounds," countered another user.

Industry executives point out that fares charged by foreign carriers undertaking repatriation flights will be lower if they are allowed to carry passengers both ways. "If they flights are allowed to bring back Indians, then the market itself will determine the fare," says a senior executive from an airline.

Executives also pointed out to the high fuel surcharge of over Rs 26,000 that Air India was charging on tickets. This despite aviation turbine fuel (ATF) rates falling by one-third by May from February levels.

A person familiar with the rationale behind the fares said that they were fixed to possibly dissuade a large number of people returning to India and potentially infecting people. The number of coronavirus cases in India has been steadily increasing.

In an earlier analysis , Moneycontrol found out that Air India was earning up to Rs 40 lakh on a single flight from Delhi to Dubai.

Another analysis shows that the cash profit made by the national carrier increases to over Rs 2 crore on a single flight between Delhi and San Francisco. And that's just one-way.

The third phase of Vande Bharat, beginning June 10, will have 75 additional flights to the US and Canada, each standing to gain at least Rs 2 crore. "This means that just through these flights alone, Air India could make up to Rs 300 crore," said a senior executive from the industry.

"The most pertinent question," he said, "is this: why not allow other international carriers on these longer routes? This will not only reduce the fares for customers, but will also ensure bookings and easier and better access to tickets."

In aviation, as it happens in other industries, fares are a function of demand and supply. In this instance, one airline has near monopoly, dictated by the government. Once all airlines are allowed, say industry executives, the market dynamics of demand and supply will automatically bear on fares.

*Names changed to protect identity
An infection with Chagas disease is only possible in Latin America since the insect species that spread the disease only occur there. Scientists at Goethe University and the Senckenberg Society for Natural Research have now used ecological niche models to calculate the extent to which habitats outside of the Americas may also be suitable for the bugs. The result: climatically suitable conditions can be found in southern Europe for two kissing bug species; along the coasts of Africa and Southeast Asia the conditions are suitable for yet another species. The Frankfurt scientists therefore call for careful monitoring of the current distribution of triatomine bugs. (eLife DOI: 10.7554/eLife.52072)

The acute phase of the tropical Chagas disease (American Trypanosomiasis) is usually symptom-free: only in every third case does the infecting parasite (Trypanosoma cruzi) cause any symptoms at all, and these are often unspecific, such as fever, hives and swollen lymph glands. But the parasites remain in the body, and many years later chronic Chagas disease can become life-threatening with pathological enlargement of the heart and progressive paralysis of the gastrointestinal tract. There is no vaccine for Chagas disease. The WHO estimates that 6 to 7 million people are infected worldwide, with the majority living in Latin America (about 4.6 million), followed by the USA with more than 300,000 and Europe with approximately 80,000 infected people.

Chagas parasites are transmitted by predatory blood-sucking bugs that ingest the pathogen along with the blood. After a development period in the intestinal tract of the bugs, the parasites are shed in the bug's faeces. The highly infectious faeces are unintentionally rubbed into the wound by the extreme itching caused by the bug bite. Oral transmission by eating food contaminated with triatomine bug faeces is also possible.

Researchers led by the Frankfurt parasitologists and infection biologists Fanny Eberhard and Professor Sven Klimpel have used niche models to investigate which climatic conditions in the world are suitable for Latin American kissing bugs. In particular, temperature and precipitation patterns were incorporated into the calculations on the climatic suitability of a region. The researchers were able to show that currently in addition to Latin America, Central Africa and Southeast Asia also have suitable habitats for triatomines. Two of the triatomine species, Triatoma sordida and Triatoma infestans, are now finding suitable habitats in temperate regions of southern Europe such as Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. Both triatomine species frequently transmit the dangerous parasites in Latin America and can be found inside or near houses and stables, where they get their nightly blood meals preferably from dogs, chickens and humans.

Another triatomine species, Triatoma rubrofasciata, has already been detected outside Latin America. The model calculations by the Frankfurt scientists identify suitable habitats along large areas of the African and Southeast Asian coasts.

Professor Sven Kimpel explains: "There are people living in Europe who were infected with Chagas in Latin America and are unknowingly carriers of Trypanosoma cruzi. However, the parasite can currently only be transmitted to other people through untested blood preservations or by a mother to her unborn child. Otherwise, Trypanosoma cruzi requires triatomine bugs as intermediate hosts. And these bugs are increasingly finding suitable climatic conditions outside Latin America. Based on our data, monitoring programmes on the distribution and spreading of triatomine bugs would therefore be feasible. Mandatory reporting of Chagas disease cases could also be helpful."

###

Publication: Fanny E. Eberhard, Sarah Cunze, Judith Kochmann, Sven Klimpel. Modelling the climatic suitability of Chagas disease vectors on a global scale. eLife 2020;9:e52072 doi: 10.7554/eLife.52072, https://elifesciences.org/articles/52072

Images may be downloaded here: http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/88953890

Caption: The triatomine or "kissing" bug Triatoma infestans. Credit: Dorian D. Dorge for Goethe University Frankfurt

Further information:

Prof. Dr. Sven Klimpel

Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University

& Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre

Tel. +49 69 798 42237

E-Mail: Klimpel@bio.uni-frankfurt.de

https://www.bio.uni-frankfurt.de/43925886/Abt__Klimpel

http://www.bik-f.de/root/index.php?page_id=1224

Current news about science, teaching, and society can be found on GOETHE-UNI online (http://www.aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de)

Goethe University is a research-oriented university in the European financial centre Frankfurt am Main. The university was founded in 1914 through private funding, primarily from Jewish sponsors, and has since produced pioneering achievements in the areas of social sciences, sociology and economics, medicine, quantum physics, brain research, and labour law. It gained a unique level of autonomy on 1 January 2008 by returning to its historic roots as a "foundation university". Today, it is one of the three largest universities in Germany. Together with the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Mainz, it is a partner in the inter-state strategic Rhine-Main University Alliance. Internet: http://www.goethe-universitaet.de

Publisher: The President of Goethe University Editor: Dr. Markus Bernards, Science Editor, PR & Communication Department, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Tel: -49 (0) 69 798-12498, Fax: +49 (0) 69 798-763 12531, bernards@em.uni-frankfurt.de
From The Scrap Heap to Salvation  A Sabre is Reborn

by Phil Buckley

Tucked away in Western Australia is a growing list of famous warbird types, which also includes jets these days. One of the latter which is fortunate to have survived is a Canadair CL13B Sabre Mk.6 jet fighter which has literally travelled around the world before arriving at its present home down under in Australia. The aircraft is a Canadian-built variant of the North American F-86 Sabre, with construction number 1492 and RCAF serial 23702. She was one of a batch of 34 examples which Canadair produced for the South African Air Force (SAAF) in 1956.

So just how does an ex-SAAF Sabre jet end up down under, you might ask? In the early 1950s, No.2 Squadron SAAF was operating P-51 Mustangs in South Korea as fighter bombers. But after exhaustive operations in the Korean War, these Mustangs were worn out and essentially obsolete given the advances of the jet age then in full swing. The SAAF was able to replace these Mustangs with a small number of F-86 Sabres which they received on loan from the USAF jets, but had to hand them back once the war ended. But their brief period of using these Sabres during the Korean conflict gave the SAAF a keen interest in acquiring some of their own.

In 1955, the South African Air Force purchased a small fleet of Canadair Sabre Mk.6 (RCAF serials 23669 through 23702), roughly enough to equip two squadrons. The first of them arrived in South Africa during 1956, and the 34 Sabres received SAAF serial numbers 350 to 383; the subject aircraft being SAAF 383, seen in service HERE. Intriguingly, being an officially bilingual country at the time, half of the Sabres were assigned to No.1 Squadron with Afrikaans markings, while the others joined No. 2 Squadron with English markings.

The Sabre had a relatively brief life in front-line SAAF service, with the next generation of jet fighters, in the form of French Dassault Mirage IIICZ, arriving to re-equip No.1 Squadron in 1964. Interestingly though, No.2 Squadron kept their Sabres until 1976, when the Dassault Mirage F.1Az ground attack aircraft replaced them.

Following retirement, the subject aircraft spent time as an instructional airframe at the Kempton Park Technical Collage, before a South African in Lanseria purchased the fighter. At some point, the aircraft moved to New Zealand, as it was noted in dismantled state at Ardmore in March 2008, but it was likely only a brief stay, as she moved to Australia soon after as the property of Bill Whyllie, who stored the aircraft at Panama Jacks Aircraft Restoration at Jandakot Airport in Western Australia. It was part of his collection until the early 2010s. Sadly Bill died in 2013 and, somehow, this Sabre ended up in a scrap yard, which is where members of the Royal Australian Air Force Associations Bull Creek Museum found her. With a short timeframe before the scrapper was due to demolish the aircraft, the museum managed to acquire her for AU$2,000, which seems an extremely affordable price for such a legendary aircraft! It was an intriguing misfit, to be honest, as it didnt fit their collection priorities, but they simply had to save the airframe. Having no space for the Sabre indoors, they stored the dismantled airframe under tarpaulins outdoors, as seen in the photos from 2016 below.

A NEW LIFE

While at RAAFA Bull Creek, the Sabre sat outdoors between the two museum hangars; museum staff indicated that it was perhaps too difficult to restore. Enter Wayne Henderson; he has been restoring vintage military vehicles and artillery pieces for over 30 years, but has always wanted an aircraft to own and restore. In 2019, one of Hendersons friends told him about the Sabre jet languishing in pieces at the local RAAFA museum. Henderson visited the museum soon after, and entered into discussions to acquire the unwanted Sabre. After several meetings, the two parties came to an agreement, and Henderson had the fighter delivered to his workshop as pictured in the image below.

RESTORATION WORK

Interestingly, this is the only Sabre currently in Australia which wasnt originally manufactured there; all other examples in the nation originally rolled off the production line at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) factory at Fishermans Bend in Melbourne, Victoria. CAC-built aircraft used the Rolls-Royce Avon to power them, which necessitated significant structural changes, but there are several other important differences in the Orenda-engined Canadair Sabre. The point being that the spares-source for Canadair-specific Sabres isnt particularly bountiful in Australia.

Even so, Henderson set to work on the restoration soon after it arrived at his facility. By May, 2020, he had stripped the fuselage paint and was working on sheet metal repairs in the rear section. The wings are currently stored separately and awaiting attention at a future date.

Henderson noted that, This Sabre jet aircraft is quite complete for display purposes, but is missing several panels. There is a fair bit of damage to the rear fuselage section and one wing requires some work. The rear section is on a rotisserie, and panel work is progressing. He further indicated that, Most of the missing panels are not interchangeable [with CAC-built examples], except the tail feathers. I have a lot of work to do in the cockpit with the instrument panel frame, throttle grip, joystick grip needing to be acquired to finalize this area.

Looking around the airframe Henderson stated, I am looking for more parts which include the tail feathers, both gun bay doors, both gun muzzle doors, a radio compartment door and wing tip assemblies. He is keen to get hold of Sabre blueprints so he can make his own panels if necessary. The forward fuselage area, cockpit and T-4E-1 ejection seat also need restoring.

Once the airframe is fully rebuilt, Henderson is considering finishing the Sabre in a bare, unpolished metal condition, and applying the checker-tail markings of the U.S. Air Forces 51st FIW. He is keen to hear from anyone who can help him locate the afore-mentioned spare parts, and can be contacted at highlandhendos@westnet.com.au.

Many thanks indeed to Phil Buckley for sharing this story and photographs with us. We wish Wayne Henderson well with the restoration of this interesting airframe!
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The report on aGlobal C4ISR Market is segmented by Platform, by Components and by region. Based on Platform C4ISR market is divided into Airborne, Naval, and Land. Based on Components C4ISR market is bifurcated into Surveillance & Reconnaissance, Tactical Communication, Electronic Warfare, Computer, Command and Control, and Others. Regionally into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America.



Factors like increasing Use of Geospatial Intelligence, increasing Need for Short Mission Cycle Time, Increasing Requirement for Situational Awareness (SA) in Military Operations and Increasing Incidences of Asymmetric Warfare are driver of the C4ISR market. Development of Secured Networks to Combat Cyber attacks and Rising Demand for Next-Generation Ip Systems will expected to grow many Opportunities in C4ISR market. Integration of C4ISR Systems Used by Different Military Arms for Increasing Interoperability creates a Challenge for market growth.



Airborne segment is dominating the C4ISR market and further followed by land and naval. According to 2017, India and France fuel by airborne market that frequent terror attacks. Thus in forecasting period border protection and surveillance are major aspect to boost the market growth. Increasing adoption of C4ISR systems in naval applications such as marine navigation systems, naval tactical command support systems, and others, is also predicted to accelerate the demand for C4ISR in the forecasting period.

Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/10354



Surveillance & reconnaissance segment is dominating the C4ISR market and further followed by command & control and tactical communication. Demand for electronic warfare increases due to cross-border tensions and warfare & fights between the countries. The role of surveillance and reconnaissance has become crucial to military due to the need to counter increasingly stealthy threats more efficiently and within a timeline. However government fund use for modernization of electronic warfare to boost the global C4ISR market growth.



North America holds major share of C4ISR. North America is expected to grow at high CAGR and approximately share 47% of the total market in a forecast period. The manufacture and development of EW attack devices and sensors systems for changing the landscape of warfare will lead to the strong growth of this region. Asia Pacific region is attributed to the increased military spending in countries such as India, China and South Korea. Also there will be an increment in investment for enhanced C4ISR capabilities in countries like Canada, Brazil, and Argentina during the estimated period, which will turn to drive the marketas growth during the forecast period.



L-3 Communications Holdings, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Inc., Harris Corporation, Elba Systems Ltd, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Collins, BAE Systems, The Raytheon Company, Rockwell Collins, Inc., General Dynamics Corporation , Thales Group, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Rockwell Thales, Leonardo.

Scope of theA Global C4ISR Market

Request for Report Discount: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/10354



Global C4ISR Market by Components:

Surveillance & Reconnaissance

Tactical Communication

Electronic Warfare

Computer

Command and Control

Others

Global C4ISR Market by Platform:

Airborne

Naval

Land

Global C4ISR Market by Region:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

Latin America

Key Players analyzed in the Global C4ISR Market

L-3 Communications Holdings

Northrop Grumman Corporation, Inc.

Harris Corporation

Elbit Systems Ltd

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Collins

BAE Systems

The Raytheon Company

Rockwell Collins, Inc.

General Dynamics Corporation

Thales Grou

Lockheed Martin,

Raytheon

Rockwell Thales

Leonardo.

More Info of Impact Covid19@ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/10354
More than 1,000 doves have died of starvation in Afghanistan after the nations blue-tiled mosque shut down due to coronavirus, international media reported citing caretakers. Afghanistan, which imposed a lockdown in March has reported 22142 Coronavirus cases and 405 fatalities as of now, the latest tally from John Hopkins University revealed.

Speaking to international media reporters, a caretaker for the mosque said that hundreds of snow-white doves would flock outside the 12th-century mosque where they would be fed by visitors. However, after the authorities shut for the mosque in the Balkh province, the birds had little to eat and started dying.

'We are ready to feed them'

Qayum Ansari, head of Cultural Affairs at the mosque, revealed that on an average, 30 doves die every day, which are then buried inside the shrine. He revealed that till now more than 1000 of them have died. According to reports, the birds are a centre of attraction with many visitors even considering them sacred. After the news of their death broke, authorities in the province said that they were ready to feed them every day if mosque managers allow.

Read: Afghanistan: Roadside Bombing In The Country Leaves 9 Killed

Read: UN Report Claims 6,500 Pakistanis Among Foreign Terrorists In Afghanistan

This comes as the pandemic situation in Afghanistan is worsening day by day, with experts claiming that overwhelming hospital facilities would not be able to battle it for long. Recently, Health Minister Ahmad Jawad Osmani revealed that hospitals in the nation were nearing capacity and that they will soon run out of beds and space if the number of new coronavirus cases keeps increasing. The Afghan capital of Kabul is currently the countrys coronavirus epicentre and has many more coronavirus cases than was expected. "There is a disaster coming," said the Kabul Governor.

The governor of Kabul, Mohammad Yakub Haidary, during a press conference said that he fears there may be a possibility that Kabul alone could have a million coronavirus cases. He further said that there are reports of people burying dead bodies at night making it hard to get an official count of the deaths caused by the coronavirus. The governor even claimed that the city "fills 10-15 ambulances of dead people every day".

Read: Pak Army Chief Makes Unannounced Visit To Afghanistan

Read: 'Disaster Is Coming': Kabul Guv Over Shortage Of Covid Beds As Cases Rise In Afghanistan

File photo, Credits: Steve McCurry
Night and weekend curfew in Jammu and Kashmir 2022: Know guidelines, rules: What is allowed, what is not

28 CRPF personnel posted in Kashmir test COVID positive

India

pti-PTI

Srinagar, Jun 10: As many as 28 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel posted in Kashmir tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, officials said.

They said the personnel were found infected during a contact-tracing exercise after the death of a 44-year-old constable on June 6 when he succumbed to the disease.

CRPF gets 40k bullet proof jackets, 170 armoured troop carriers

China says reached positive consensus with India on border issue | Oneindia News

Twenty-eight personnel in Kashmir have tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, the officials said, adding they belong to the 90th battalion of the force where the deceased constable, a nursing assistant, was posted. All the affected personnel have been isolated and some results are awaited, they said.

The troops have been asked to immediately report if they feel any illness of COVID-19 like symptoms, a senior official said.

There have been four deaths in the country's largest paramilitary force having 3.25 lakh personnel. It has 516 coronavirus cases till now out of which 353 personnel have recovered, as per latest data.

Seven other positive coronavirus cases were also reported from various other units of the force on Wednesday.
More than 30 per cent of West Australian tourism businesses say they will go under unless the hard border with the eastern states is lifted.

The Tourism Council surveyed thousands of operators as the McGowan government refuses to give a date for allowing tourists back into WA.

There are 34 per cent of businesses saying they are not viable with interstate restrictions, the survey found.

Only 26 per cent agreed their business could replace out-of-state visitors with WA visitors.
Ethiopian lawmakers on Wednesday approved a plan to keep Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in power beyond his current mandate, state media reported, after the coronavirus pandemic forced authorities to postpone elections planned for August.

The move by the House of Federation, the upper house of parliament, drew a rebuke from opposition leaders who have accused Abiy of using the pandemic to artificially extend his time in office, and analysts warned of possible protests and boycotts.

"The House of Federation has approved a decision to extend the term of all assemblies until international health institutions have deemed the threat from coronavirus to be over," the Ethiopian News Agency reported.

The lawmakers did not specify when exactly elections should happen.

But their vote was an endorsement of recommendations submitted by the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, an advisory body that called for "elections to be held nine to 12 months after the coronavirus is deemed not to be a public health concern".

Abiy, the winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize who was appointed to his position in 2018, is seeking a popular mandate for wide-ranging political and economic reforms.

But Ethiopia's election board announced in March that it would be impossible to organise the polls on time because of the pandemic.

That meant elections would not happen before lawmakers' terms end in October -- a dilemma for which the constitution does not provide a clear answer.

The Council of Constitutional Inquiry held public hearings last month on possible next steps, though critics said these were insufficiently inclusive of opposition voices.

Some opposition leaders have called for a caretaker or transitional government to guide the country to elections, a suggestion Abiy dismissed as unworkable during a question-and-answer session on Monday with lawmakers.

'Illegal and illegitimate'

The mandate extension was widely expected, and opposition politicians and government critics have been speaking out against it for weeks.

On Monday, House of Federation speaker Keria Ibrahim resigned from her position, saying she was "not willing to work with a group that violates the constitution and exercises dictatorship".

Keria is a member of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which dominated the ruling coalition before Abiy came to power in 2018 but has since been sidelined and officially parted ways with him last year.

On Wednesday night, two major opposition parties with power bases in Abiy's home Oromia region issued a joint statement rejecting Wednesday's vote as "an illegal and illegitimate act".

The parties, the Oromo Federalist Congress and the Oromo Liberation Front, also warned that it "endangers the peace and stability of the country".

"We would like to express our concern that large-scale mass uprisings which could transform into violence may arise, and this will not only take us back to square one, it will also be difficult to contain for a government already dealing with multiple socioeconomic and public health challenges," the parties said.

If major opposition parties refuse to accept the recommendations from the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, "protests or election boycotts could become a reality, reducing the chances of successful competitive polls in 2021," said William Davison of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a conflict-prevention organisation.

"That would mean more political instability and undermine the planned democratic transition," he said.

Ethiopia recorded its first case of COVID-19 in mid-March.

So far, its official figures are relatively low, with 2,506 cases and 35 deaths.

But more than half of those cases have been recorded in the past 10 days, and the health ministry said last week that cases were "increasing rapidly due to the presence of community transmission".
Description

GIS - 10 June, 2020: Budget 2020-2021 will steer the country in the right direction towards bringing hope and salvation to our people during the Post-Covid challenging time and ensure that our current difficulties will be faced with vigour and resilience.

The Minister of Gender Equality and Family Welfare, Mrs Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah, made this statement, yesterday afternoon, in the National Assembly, during her intervention on debates on the National Budget 2020-2021.

The Minister highlighted the damaging consequences that the Covid-19 pandemic had globally, that is, the deaths of thousands of people and the negative impacts on the socioeconomic front.

She lauded the proactive and bold measures of the Government to provide assistance to those who have been most affected by the pandemic, namely, the monthly Rs 5,100 allowance to the unemployed for the next six months; measures to promote agricultural activities and protect local farmers and the Rs 15,000 bonus given to frontliners.

Budget 2020-2021, she said, highlights Governments will to invest intelligently in human capital for the socio -economic reconstruction of the country and integrate gender in its development planning. Women constitute a significant part of the countrys human capital , hence, my Ministry is determined to provide them with the necessary opportunities to develop their potentials to contribute to the economic progress of the country, added the Minister.

On that note, she dwelt on a series of projects in the pipeline, all geared towards this aim, namely :a revised National Gender Policy; hosting an Assise de LEntreprenariat Feminin; implementing the  Atelier des Me tiers project; provisions for all-inclusive infrastructures namely at the levels of Community Centers, Women Empowerment Centers, Social Welfare Centers, across the country ; setting up a Virtual Learning and Dialogue Forum ; and explore market opportunities that the Indian Ocean Rim Association.

Moreover, Minister Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah expressed satisfaction as regards the budgetary provision of Rs 200 million for loans to women entrepreneurs at a concessional rate of 0.5 percent per annum, which she emphasised will help stimulate economic empowerment and entrepreneurship of women. This measure will, undoubtedly, enable many existing women entrepreneurs to adopt innovative ways and means to develop and maintain their businesses, she added.

Speaking about Gender Based Violence, the Minister indicated that her Ministry is committed to provide the optimum support and protection to victims and has offered its services during the Covid-19 curfew, with 349 cases addressed from 20 March to 13 May 2020. She indicated that the Ministry has elaborated key projects in order to scale up efforts to address this social scourge, including the setting up of an Observatory on Gender Based Violence with the support of the UNDP to strengthen the data capture, launching of the Accompagnement des Familles Programme , the launching of the InterFaith Forum, and the setting up of a government-owned shelter.

Furthermore, Mrs. Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah underlined her Ministrys priority as regards protecting the Rights of children and catering for their needs and welfare.

Key projects supported by the budgetary provisions to enhance childrens well-being include: Introduction of a new Childrens Bill ; financing facilities to households for acquisition of IT equipment for educational purpose through the DBM as well as the distribution of some 2,570 tablets to students of Grades 10 to 13 for families in the existing SRM; provision of free broadband internet facilities to an additional 5,000 families under the existing SRM including 2,000 families in Rodrigues; and the setting-up of Child Protection Services in the Districts of Grand-Port, Moka, Pamplemousses and Plaine-Wilhems.

Additionally, Budget 2020-2021 makes provisions for further investments in infrastructure at a boys shelter in Cap Malheureux and converting the Notre Dame Women Empowerment Centre into a relay shelter for girls; licensing the RCIs as Places of Safety (POS) to ensure the high quality of care across the system and implementation of Support to Child Day Care Centres Scheme for which Rs 6M has been earmarked.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder's Soft Materials Research Center (SMRC) have discovered an elusive phase of matter, first proposed more than 100 years ago and sought after ever since.

The team describes the discovery of what scientists call a "ferroelectric nematic" phase of liquid crystal in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery opens a door to a new universe of materials, said co-author Matt Glaser, a professor in the Department of Physics.

Nematic liquid crystals have been a hot topic in materials research since the 1970s. These materials exhibit a curious mix of fluid- and solid-like behaviors, which allow them to control light. Engineers have used them extensively to make the liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in many laptops, TVs and cellphones.

Think of nematic liquid crystals like dropping a handful of pins on a table. The pins in this case are rod-shaped molecules that are "polar"--with heads (the blunt ends) that carry a positive charge and tails (the pointy ends) that are negatively charged. In a traditional nematic liquid crystal, half of the pins point left and the other half point right, with the direction chosen at random.

A ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal phase, however, is much more disciplined. In such a liquid crystal, patches or "domains" form in the sample in which the molecules all point in the same direction, either right or left. In physics parlance, these materials have polar ordering.

Noel Clark, a professor of physics and director of the SMRC, said that his team's discovery of one such liquid crystal could open up a wealth of technological innovations--from new types of display screens to reimagined computer memory.

"There are 40,000 research papers on nematics, and in almost any one of them you see interesting new possibilities if the nematic had been ferroelectric," Clark said.

Under the microscope

The discovery is years in the making.

Nobel Laureates Peter Debye and Max Born first suggested in the 1910s that, if you designed a liquid crystal correctly, its molecules could spontaneously fall into a polar ordered state. Not long after that, researchers began to discover solid crystals that did something similar: Their molecules pointed in uniform directions. They could also be reversed, flipping from right to left or vice versa under an applied electric field. These solid crystals were called "ferroelectrics" because of their similarities to magnets. (Ferrum is Latin for "iron").

In the decades since, however, scientists struggled to find a liquid crystal phase that behaved in the same way. That is, until Clark and his colleagues began examining RM734, an organic molecule created by a group of British scientists several years ago.

That same British group, plus a second team of Slovenian scientists, reported that RM734 exhibited a conventional nematic liquid crystal phase at higher temperatures. At lower temperatures, another unusual phase appeared.

When Clark's team tried to observe that strange phase under the microscope they noticed something new. Under a weak electric field, a palette of striking colors developed toward the edges of the cell containing the liquid crystal.

"It was like connecting a light bulb to voltage to test it but finding the socket and hookup wires glowing much more brightly instead," Clark said.

Stunning results

So, what was happening?

The researchers ran more tests and discovered that this phase of RM734 was 100 to 1,000 times more responsive to electric fields than the usual nematic liquid crystals. This suggested that the molecules that make up the liquid crystal demonstrated strong polar order.

"When the molecules are all pointing to the left, and they all see a field that says, 'go right,' the response is dramatic," Clark said.

The team also discovered that distinct domains seemed to form spontaneously in the liquid crystal when it cooled from higher temperature. There were, in other words, patches within their sample in which the molecules seemed to be aligned.

"That confirmed that this phase was, indeed, a ferroelectric nematic fluid," Clark said.

That alignment was also more uniform than the team was expecting.

"Entropy reigns in a fluid," said Joe MacLennan, a study coauthor and a professor of physics at CU Boulder. "Everything is wiggling around, so we expected a lot of disorder."

When the researchers examined how well aligned the molecules were inside a single domain, "we were stunned by the result," MacLennan said. The molecules were nearly all pointing in the same direction.

The team's next goal is to discover how RM734 achieves this rare feat. Glaser and SMRC researcher Dmitry Bedrov of the University of Utah, are currently using computer simulation to tackle this question.

"This work suggests that there are other ferroelectric fluids hiding in plain sight," Clark said. "It is exciting that right now techniques like artificial intelligence are emerging that will enable an efficient search for them."

###

Coauthors on the new paper include CU Boulder researchers Leo Radzihovsky, professor of physics; David Walba, professor of chemistry; and Xi Chen, Eva Korblova and Renfan Shao. Dengpan Dong and Xiaoyu Wei of the University of Utah were also coauthors.
We will make the idea of systemic or institutional racism even more explicit in the wording of the definition, he said. One way to do that, he said, would be to use more examples, such as describing the system of apartheid in South Africa. (Because of space issues, he said, the print entry will probably not have as many examples.)
The following was updated after the Houston City Council meeting on Wednesday. The original op-ed is below.

The current protests across the nation and our city  in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor  are just the latest signs of this nations crisis in policing. And it is a crisis that we are all too familiar with in Houston. I proposed several first steps Houston City Council can take to support our community, increase transparency and make us all safer.

Council has the unique power to reimagine public safety solutions that will protect all members of our community. To that end, I urged them to eliminate 199 vacant civilian positions on the police force and to reallocate $11.7 million from a $964 million police budget to fund a police oversight board and fund emergency first responders who are specially trained in mental health.

Funding the independent police oversight board is critical in this moment to promote police accountability, community trust and public safety. This board would provide the authority to conduct its own misconduct investigations rather than reviewing ones performed by the Houston Police Department. It also called for $1 million toward an online complaint portal and $3 million for enhanced de-escalation training.

But prior to the vote on Wednesday, Mayor Sylvester Turner stated that he did not support my amendment, and the amendment did not gain enough support to pass.

I also asked that the council fund emergency first responders who have specialized training in mental health issues to respond to nonviolent emergencies. In the best of times, local communities struggle to meet the health needs of highly vulnerable people, including those who struggle with mental health or substance use disorder, poverty, housing insecurity or otherwise lack access to traditional health care resources.

Because most communities do not have the kind of services necessary to assist someone experiencing a crisis borne of behavioral health issues, homelessness or poverty, law enforcement by default has served as the first responder. But police officers are not drug counselors, social workers or health care professionals and their involvement all too often leads to the unnecessary arrest and incarceration of these individuals and fails to address public safety concerns exacerbated by the lack of housing, health care or substance use treatment.

I suggested Houstons first responder program be modeled after a program in Eugene, Ore., called the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) program. This is a mobile crisis intervention team that responds to calls related to behavioral health. Teams consist of a medic and a crisis worker and provide immediate stabilization in case of urgent medical need or psychological crisis, assessment, information, referral, advocacy and (in some cases) transportation to the next step in treatment.

Mayor Turner expressed his support for the idea but stated this was a policy discussion and not appropriate for the budgetary process. He invited other council members to offer comment but made it clear the amendment was either going to committee or would be voted out of order. Council Member Abbie Kamin expressed her strong support for the program and offered to partner with me. Other council members also expressed their support but ultimately all agreed with the mayor that the program should be sent to committee for further exploration.

I tried my best to get the voices of the people who elected me, the voices of the people who are demanding reform, the voices of my sons, heard. While my amendments did not pass, I along with the public, will be ensuring the process is accountable to the public. We serve the people, and that's who we are all accountable to.

We must do much more and that includes evaluating and implementing solutions like violence interruption programs. Reducing violent crime, particularly gun violence, in Houston is not going to be achieved by overreliance on the police but, instead, by implementing bold and creative solutions that will prevent violence before it occurs.

I have been studying the violence interruption model of violence prevention. This is a public health approach to violence prevention that stops lethal violence before it occurs and stops its spread by interrupting ongoing conflicts, working to change behavior related to violence and changing community norms. Violence interruption is based on proven public health techniques and is designed to change the entire community outcome by reducing shootings and killings. It is not only a more compassionate way to prevent violence in our communities than policing, but it is also more effective. This model has been evaluated many times and has consistently shown significant reductions in violence in a number of cities.

The world is watching. The mayor and city council should enact real change by committing to the long, hard but important work of looking at other ways to reform policing in Houston. There is much, much more we can do and must do to build our city into a place where all of us feel safe.

Plummer represents At-Large Position 4 on the Houston City Council.

Original op-ed, published Wednesday morning.

The current protests across the nation and our city  in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor  are just the latest signs of this nations crisis in policing. And it is a crisis that we are all too familiar with in Houston. I have proposed several first steps Houston City Council can take to support our community, increase transparency and make us all safer.

City council has the unique power to reimagine public safety solutions that will protect all members of our community. To that end, I am urging them to eliminate 199 vacant civilian positions on the police force and to reallocate $11.7 million from a $964 million police budget to fund a police oversight board and fund emergency first responders who are specially trained in mental health.

Funding the independent police oversight board is critical in this moment to promote police accountability, community trust and public safety. This board would provide the authority to conduct its own misconduct investigations rather than reviewing ones performed by the Houston Police Department. It also calls for $1 million toward an online complaint portal and $3 million for enhanced de-escalation training.

I am also asking that the city council fund emergency first responders who have specialized training in mental health issues to respond to nonviolent emergencies. In the best of times, local communities struggle to meet the health needs of highly vulnerable people, including those who struggle with mental health or substance use disorder, poverty, housing insecurity or otherwise lack access to traditional health care resources.

Because most communities do not have the kind of services necessary to assist someone experiencing a crisis borne of behavioral health issues, homelessness or poverty, law enforcement by default has served as the first responder. But police officers are not drug counselors, social workers or health care professionals and their involvement all too often leads to the unnecessary arrest and incarceration of these individuals and fails to address public safety concerns exacerbated by the lack of housing, health care or substance use treatment.

I have suggested Houstons first responder program be modeled after a program in Eugene, Oregon called The Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) program. This is a mobile crisis intervention team that responds to calls related to behavioral health. Teams consist of a medic and a crisis worker and provide immediate stabilization in case of urgent medical need or psychological crisis, assessment, information, referral, advocacy and (in some cases) transportation to the next step in treatment.

These actions  reallocating resources to fund an oversight board and first responder programs  are an important first step for Houston to show its commitment to meaningful and lasting reform at this critical time.

However, should the council and the mayor adopt my proposals, it will just be the beginning of the conversation. We must do much more and that includes evaluating and implementing solutions like violence interruption programs. Reducing violent crime, particularly gun violence, in Houston is not going to be achieved by overreliance on the police but, instead, by implementing bold and creative solutions that will prevent violence before it occurs. This can be achieved by funding programs which interrupt the cycles of violence that devastate our communities and prevent future violence from occurring.

I have been studying the violence interruption model of violence prevention. This is a public health approach to violence prevention that stops lethal violence before it occurs and stops its spread by interrupting ongoing conflicts, working to change behavior related to violence and changing community norms. Violence interruption is based on proven public health techniques and is designed to change the entire community outcome by reducing shootings and killings. It is not only a more compassionate way to prevent violence in our communities than policing, but it is also more effective. This model has been evaluated many times and has consistently shown significant reductions in violence in a number of cities.

The world is watching. Now is the time for the mayor and city council to enact real change by adopting my proposed amendments and committing to the long, hard but important work of looking at other ways to reform policing in Houston. Emergency first responder programs and violence interruption models are only two creative solutions. There is much, much more we can do and must do to build our city into a place where all of us feel safe.

Plummer represents At-Large Position 4 of the Houston City Council.
Trump May Issue Executive Order on Police Reform, White House Says

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Donald Trump may take action on police reform via an executive order in the wake of protests, arson incidents, and riots following the death of George Floyd.

In an interview on Wednesday, she said Trump has been reviewing proposals on reform since he and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is black, met to discuss the issue. Some activists and leftists have called for defunding or abolishing police forces, sparking concerns about what might replace them.

They had a very positive meeting with Senator Scott, McEnany told Fox & Friends. It was very productive and we do believe that we will have proactive policy prescriptions, whether that means legislation or an executive order.

She added that tremendous work is being done on the matter, offering no specific policies.

Floyd died in police custody last month, sparking mass protests, four funerals, and has led to the destruction of monuments in the United States and European countries.

House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled sweeping police reform measures, which place a ban on chokeholds, limit the qualified immunity policy that shields officers from lawsuits, make body cameras mandatory, and establishes a database for officers that have negative marks on their records.

Protesters stand on top of a burned vehicle during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 30, 2020. (Christian Monterrosa/AP Photo)

The vandalized Lake Street/Midtown metro station after a night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

McEnany told reporters on Monday that the end to qualified immunity has no chance of passing Congress. Trump hasnt yet reviewed the legislation, she added.

Some states and cities have also passed similar pieces of legislation, including in New York. The measures were criticized by top NYPD union officials, who alleged Democratic officials and Gov. Andrew Cuomo didnt consult with them first.

In response to the defund the police calls from the city council, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo told reporters on Wednesday that his officers are obligated to [ensure] the public safety of [the citys] residents.

I will not abandon that, he said. Until there is a robust plan that will protect the residents of Minneapolis, I will not leave them behind, Arradondo said, according to a live stream of his press conference.

It came after City Council President Lisa Bender drew criticism when she said that calling the police when ones home is broken into comes from a place of privilege. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he doesnt support abolishing the police force, and a now-viral video from earlier this week showed him being berated by a group of protesters who told him to leave.

Trump is expected to partake in a roundtable on Thursday in Texas to discuss the matter.
jSonar, a Boston, MA-based Modern Database Security platform provider, received a $50m investment from Goldman Sachs in its first institutional round of funding.

As part of the transaction, David Campbell, a Managing Director in the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs, will join the jSonar Board.

Led by Ron Bennatan, Co-founder & Chief Technologist, and Ury Segal, Co-founder & R&D Leader, jSonar allows companies to address database security and compliance needs, simplifying the process of establishing database protection while reducing cost.

Over the last few years, the company jSonar has seen rapid platform adoption by marquee enterprise customers in the financial services, healthcare and insurance industries within the Fortune 500, including 5 out of 10 of the worlds largest banks.

The platform has grown to support over 60 database platforms out-of-the-box, spanning Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, Snowflake, MongoDB, Cassandra, Hadoop, Teradata and more.

FinSMEs

10/06/2020
The supposed victim of a multi-million dollar Melbourne gold heist allegedly helped stage the armed robbery and hide the goods in a place called Dollar.

Melbourne Gold Company employee Daniel Ede is accused of helping customer Karl Kachami steal more than $3.9 million in gold bullion, cash and other valuables from the CBD business in April.

Ede, 37, was initially believed to be Kachami's victim before being charged with offences including perjury.

Daniel Ede, the supposed victim of a multi-million dollar Melbourne gold heist allegedly helped stage the armed robbery with customer Karl Kachami (pictured)

He wants to be released on bail, but police want Ede to remain locked up.

More than half of $600,000 stolen from the gold company on April 27 is still missing.

The business owner also fears for his safety after being told his mutual friend was contacted by a solicitor seeking a character reference for Ede, police told Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

They were asked for a reference along the lines of 'he (the owner) would trust him (Ede) with his life,' the court was told.

Ede is alleged to have let Kachami, 48, clad in a high visibility vest and surgical mask, into the gold business just before it opened for the day.

'This is a robbery. This is a hold-up,' Kachami allegedly said, pulling out a black handgun, according to CCTV footage.

The 48-year-old had been a customer dating back to 2004, the court was told.

Kachami is accused of telling Ede to unplug the CCTV hard drive. It kept recording on backup power.

Ede then allegedly took Kachami to various safes and helped unload more than $2.4 million of gold and $600,000 in cash.

He went to the floor while Kachami bound him with cable ties before leaving, police allege.

Karl Kachami allegedly stole more than $3.9 million in gold bullion, cash and other valuables from the CBD business in April (pictured)

When two customers entered the store, Ede allegedly told them 'don't be alarmed but we've been robbed'.

Kachami was arrested hours later and told police he didn't commit the robbery, but knew where the gold was buried.

A large box of gold with Melbourne Gold Company invoices on them, as well as jewellery, were found buried at a Gippsland property called Dollar.

Days later, Ede was allegedly spotted by a woman at Leongatha, about half-an-hour away from the property, reading a Melways street directory.

She thought he looked confused and asked if he needed help.

'I'm looking for a place called Dollar,' Ede is said to have replied.

When asked why, he allegedly said: 'I'm just going to do some digging around'.

Ede was later arrested and charged with seven offences including knowingly making a false statement about the incident.

His barrister, Theo Alexander, suggested there could be other explanations for what's alleged to have occurred.

The bail application continues.

Kachami is also expected to apply for bail on Thursday.
Drone footage has captured images of 64,000 green turtles coming ashore in Far North Queensland to lay eggs.

The green sea turtles are coming ashore on Raine Island, which is about 620 kilometres north-west of Cairns in the Great Barrier Reef, and is the worlds largest green sea turtle rookery.

Thanks to drone technology, the number of green turtles laying eggs at Raine Island is almost twice as many as previously estimated. Credit:Christian Miller

Green sea turtles - which must come to the surface to breathe - are a vulnerable species in Queensland because they are hunted for their flesh and eggs, and are often caught in trawler nets and choke on plastic bags.

Researchers used the drone footage as a new way of conducting population surveys of the turtles, as part of the Raine Island Recovery Project.
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. lawmakers proposed an estimated $25 billion in funding and tax credits to strengthen domestic semiconductor production and counter rising technological competition from China.The effort would support companies building plants in the U.S. and buying chipmaking equipment, while sponsoring research and development into cutting edge semiconductor production, according to information provided by the office of Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican.

Versions of bills to be introduced in the House and Senate are sponsored by members of both parties, including Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a top Senate Republican. The $25 billion is an estimate of funds from state and federal sources over a five-year period, according to a congressional aide.The proposal is aimed at maintaining U.S. leadership in a $400 billion industry thats become central to President Donald Trumps trade war against China. U.S. companies such as Intel Corp. have complained for years that overseas rivals benefit unfairly from government support.The bills call for the State and Commerce departments to create a federal program that would match state incentives offered to companies that build foundries -- facilities that make chips for other businesses. That could provide as much as $10 billion in direct funds, according to the congressional aide, who asked not to be identified because the amounts are still being negotiated. The Department of Defense will contribute by prioritizing research, development and testing of chip technology, according to the proposals.

A semiconductor manufacturing plant costs an estimated $15 billion to construct.

This is pretty urgent. Weve seen how vulnerable we are, Cornyn said. And obviously you have to take the first step. This is going to be a multiyear project.Direct government support for the chip business would represent a rare foray into industrial policy by the U.S., especially for Republican politicians. Concerns that Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies Co. represent a threat to U.S. national security have spurred moves by the Trump administration to curb the Asian countrys access to American technology. China is the biggest market for chips.

Story continues

Ensuring our leadership in the future design, manufacturing, and assembly of cutting edge semiconductors will be vital to United States national security and economic competitiveness, McCaul said in a statement. As the Chinese Communist Party aims to dominate the entire semiconductor supply chain, it is critical that we supercharge our industry here at home.

The chip industry is the U.S.s fifth-largest exporter, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. The sector spent almost $40 billion on research and development last year, about a fifth of its revenue. However, federal funding for semiconductor research has been flat as a percentage of gross domestic product for many years, while China and other countries have increased their spending in this field, the SIA said.

Semiconductors were invented in America and U.S. companies still lead the world in chip technology today, but as a result of substantial government investments from global competitors, the U.S. today accounts for only 12% of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity, SIA Chairman Keith Jackson said in a statement.

(Updates with comment from SIA in final paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
The Attorney-General (AG) Kihara Kariuki has faulted Chief Justice David Maraga over his public attack on President Uhuru Kenyatta during a press briefing on Monday.

The CJ accused the Head of State of violating court orders and refusing to appoint 41 judges proposed to him by the Judicial Service Commission. Maraga also claimed that efforts to get an audience with the President over the appointments had failed.

CJ Maraga also accused AG Kihara Kariuki of not seeking a stay of execution and only filing notices of appeal on court orders demanding that President Uhuru Kenyatta appoints the judges.

In a rejoinder, AG Kihara accused Maraga of grandstanding and playing to the gallery; he noted that the CJs attack on Kenyatta was shocking and personal.

The AG accused CJ Maraga of expressing extra-judicial opinions on matters that are pending before courts and that may eventually end up in the Supreme Court.

The Chief Justice is openly commenting on merits and demerits of cases. It creates a perception that he is seeking to influence cases outcomes, Kihara said.

He added the Executive will continue communicating with the other arms of the government through established channels of communication.

The Executive declines to comment on the merits and demerits of the issues raised by the Honourable Chief Justice in his media briefing, said Kihara.

We shall respond to him directly with respect to issues which are not subject to ongoing cases. The Executive will not discuss cases before the court, he added.

The AG also noted that President Kenyatta will not abdicate his role to appoint persons tainted with integrity issues.

I invite the CJ to focus on reopening of courts and address the backlog, as well as address complaints on delayed cases. There is only one government, Kenyans want public service, not self-service, he said.

The Executive is committed to deliver on the Kenyan dream.
What is left of the rule of the Fatimid Dynasty that built this city back in the 10th century is essentially the buildings where religion was either observed or taught, such as mosques and madrasas [schools] as they would have been practically impossible for any Muslim leader to demolish whatever their political squabbles, said Youssef Osama, a historian and the creator of a website designed to inform readers about the history of Islamic Cairo.

Osama was stepping through Bab Al-Fotouh, one of eight gates in the city walls that Gawhar Al-Siqilli had built to protect the imperial city he had built and to which Fatimid rule was transferred from North Africa.

The Fatimid walls also stayed almost intact with their gates, and in fact they were even strengthened some decades later. Unfortunately, however, almost nothing remains of the houses and palaces of the Fatimids even though they were said to have been very impressive with a great deal of the artworks that the Fatimids are known for, Osama said as he walked down Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street in Islamic Cairo.

What is left of the Fatimid period are just a few parts of wooden windows and some pottery work on display in the Islamic Arts Museum in Cairo. Historians agree that under the Fatimid Dynasty the crafts reached a very high level, woodwork and pottery in particular.

Throughout the history of the Islamic dynasties, the high level of artisans and crafts was always a sign of flourishing rule. The Fatimids were no exception to this rule, Osama said. He added that since the Fatimid Dynasty was established in Cairo in parallel to the Abbasid Dynasty in Baghdad, the Fatimids tried very hard to excel not just in art but also in the sciences.

Of course, they also acted to expand their rule within the Muslim countries by annexing parts of the east of the Arab world that had previously been under Abbasid rule, he added.

The Abbasid Dynasty was established in the eighth century CE, with Kufa, now in Iraq, as its capital, in the wake of the ouster of the Ummayid Dynasty because of the latters economic failures and obvious social bias. Egypt was under the rule of the Abbasids until it was taken over by the Fatimids in the 10th century.

By that point, and for the first time since it became part of the Islamic Empire, Egypt was the centre of rule and not an annex to a centre elsewhere. I guess this is one of the most significant things that could be attributed to the rule of the Fatimids, Osama said as he walked further along the roads that used to be used by lemon and onion markets and had earlier been a meat market.

With his back to a relatively new Syrian fast-food restaurant, the Syrian Star, Osama stopped before one of the most significant places associated with the Fatimids: the Al-Hakim Mosque. Al-Hakim was the third of the Fatimid rulers, and the mosque that carries his name is at the very far end of Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street. Al-Aziz, Al-Hakims father, initiated the construction of the mosque, which was outside the Cairo walls.

There was no space big enough inside the walls, and Al-Aziz felt that Al-Azhar was becoming too small to serve as an all-inclusive place for prayer and a school to promote Shia thinking. Later, the mosque was brought inside the walls when these were expanded by Badr Al-Jamali, Osama said.

Al-Jamali was a military commander and one of the ministers of the fifth Fatimid ruler Al-Mustansir.

According to Osama, the Al-Hakim Mosque was the first in Egypt to have a facade made of brick. Its minarets, like those of other Fatimid mosques influenced by the North African style of architecture, have square bases. However, very little is left of the original construction today.

According to the historical narratives, the mosque was neglected after the ouster of the Fatimids by Salaheddin Al-Ayoubi (Saladin), who practically turned it into a prison and in some accounts used it partially as stables.

It was damaged by earthquakes, though also renovated by non-Fatimid rulers, and also later by the Bohras, the ancestors of Indian traders who came to Egypt during Fatimid rule and who followed the Shia sect of the Fatimids.

Today, their presence in Egypt, increasing since the rule of late president Anwar Al-Sadat, is in limited clusters of the city away from Islamic Cairo. However, they continue to frequent the mosques of the Fatimids, especially that of Al-Hakim.

The Bohras, based in India, Pakistan and Yemen, would walk in parades, all dressed in white and chanting in praise of members of the family of the Prophet Mohamed, especially his daughter Fatemah and her husband Ali, two of the most sacred figures for the Shias.

They would smile or nod their heads, but they often do not wish to communicate much. This might be because they see their march towards the mosque as a sort of pilgrimage, or because they do not wish to be seen by the authorities as trying to promote their faith, said Israa, a painter who at times works in this part of the city.

The Bohras are perhaps the most-tolerated Shia presence in Cairo today, as has been the case since Salaheddin orchestrated his coup against the Fatimids in the mediaeval period.

He was a firm defender of the Sunni faith, with Al-Azhar later being at the forefront of the counter-offensive against any possible infiltration by Shiism.

Todays tolerance of the Bohras is based on the fact that they are not Egyptians and their activities do not aim at attracting anyone to their faith.

According to Osama, there is a resemblance between the Bohras pilgrimage towards the Al-Hakim Mosque today and the parades that used to be held by the caliph during religious occasions like the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the days of the feast, and the days celebrated by Shias like Ashoura, the 10th day of the first month of the Hijra calendar of Moharram, that marks the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Mohamed, Al-Hussein, at the battle of Karbala in Iraq.

For the most part, the parades were jubilees marked by the considerable festivities that the Fatimids brought to Egypt, some of which are still observed today in the celebration of Ramadan and the birthday of the Prophet Mohamed. But other parades related to the martyrdom of members of the family of the Prophet Mohamed, especially Ali and his son Al-Hussein, he added as he stepped into the large courtyard of the Al-Hakim Mosque.

Sunni Practices

Upon his ascent to power, Salaheddin did not ban the colourful festivities that were introduced to Egypt by the Fatimids. Instead, he acted to give a Sunni face to these practices and to redefine the love of the members of the family of the Prophet Mohamed in a way remote from the Shia faith.

I guess this was why he encouraged Sufis to come to Egypt, and at least 300 of them were to find their way to the country, essentially from Iraq. They too would walk to the mosques in their immaculate white clothes, and they would sing songs to the love of God, the prophet, and the members of his family, Osama said.

They were soon to capture the hearts of all Egyptians, and it was only a matter of time before the Sufi schools established a stronghold in Egypt in parallel to the rule of successive Muslim caliphs, he added.

The Sufis association with the countrys rulers has not diminished over the centuries. Even today some leading Sufi figures choose to be closely associated with the powers-that-be, the executive branch of government, for example, seeing this as giving them protection. However, this is not to say that all the followers of the many Sufi orders are in line with the state, Amina, a follower of one of the Sufi orders, said.

Osama said that Salaheddin had acted to replace the parades of martyrdom associated with the Fatimids with days of joy.

One obvious example would be the Ashoura celebrations. Salaheddin decided that this would be a day when a sweet pudding made of grains and pistachio paste would be served, he said.

The historical accounts of the celebrations of Ashoura vary, but for the most part they seem to relate to the belief of Sunni Muslims that it was on that day that God reached out to help his prophets in distress.

Whether it was the heritage of the Fatimids, or of the subsequent Sunni rulers, the art of inshad (singing in the love of God and in praise of the prophet and his family) found its way to Egypt and had been associated with legendary names like Sayed Al-Nakshabandi and Yassine Al-Tohami.

Whatever is left of the legacy of Al-Hakim, more is associated with the eccentric accounts of this Fatimid ruler than anything about his rule, including the construction of the mosque, Osama said.

The accounts are certainly odd, including a decree to prevent people from cooking one of the most admired dishes of Egyptian cuisine and another to ban the planting of specific crops.

Al-Hakims rule is also associated with a wide range of anti-Coptic practices, which some Coptic historians have suggested to be either exaggerated or fabricated by subsequent rulers. However, the most eccentric account of all was Al-Hakims apparent assumption of divinity.

It is a very confused account, given the complexities of the original assumption of the Fatimid rulers that they were God-selected and ordained. It was debated during the life of the Dynasty, especially as Al-Hakim was said to have suffered from psychological problems and the details of his mysterious death, allegedly at the hands of his own sister, were never confirmed, Osama said.

He moved down the street, passing the many Mameluke monuments that have taken the place of what were once Fatimid houses. The Al-Hakim and Al-Aqmar Mosques are the only two remaining Fatimid monuments on this side of todays Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street that intersects with Al-Azhar Street.

The most prominent Mameluke monument here is the Qalawan Complex of a hospital, school and mausoleum that has truly impressive architecture. It was built in the 13th century on the site of the Western Palace of the Fatimids.

The palaces were already neglected under the rule of Salaheddin. He did not wish to live in them, and he divided them into apartments for his aides. Eventually Qalawan, one of the strongest of the Mameluke rulers who took over from the Ayoubids, decided to use the area for his complex, of which the great hospital building is the most significant, Osama said.

He added that of all the monuments that all the Islamic dynasties have left in Cairo, the Mameluke buildings are the unchallenged jewels of Islamic Cairo.

On this street there were the schools built by the Ayoubids on the ruins of the Fatimid Eastern Palace to teach the Four Schools of Sunni Islam. But the most significant monument that the Ayoubids left is obviously the citadel, Osama said.

Later Monuments

The construction of the citadel, away from Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street, or rather next to Al-Qahira Al-Mahroussa, (the city of Cairo), as indicated in an inscription on its walls, was a deliberate choice by Salaheddin to disassociate his rule from that of the Fatimids.

Ironically, while Salaheddin ordered the construction of the citadel he died before the fortress was completed, and it was his brother who was the first to rule from there.

According to Osama, Salaheddin did not dislike Cairo because of its association with the followers of the Shia faith. Instead, he was a puritan with no taste for a lavish lifestyle, he said.

While admitting that Salaheddin made a deliberate effort to destroy the library of the Eastern Palace of the Fatimids, whose books needed an entire decade to sell, Osama said that the founder of the Ayoubid Dynasty also made a deliberate effort to give Cairo its urban character and to connect it to the older capitals of Arab Egypt, including Al-Fustat, Al-Askar and Al-Qataei.

He renovated and enlarged the first mosque in Egypt that was built by Amr Ibn Al-Aas, the Arab conqueror of Egypt, and that now carries his name, and he led prayers there, he added.

Osama stopped by a plaque carrying the name of the late novelist Gamal Al-Ghitani in a street that had previously carried the name of Al-Dabiba (the lock-makers). This is the point of intersection of Al-Gammaliya, built by Jamaleddin Mahmoud Al-Istidar, one of the Mameluke emirs, he added. Al-Ghitani spent a good part of his youth in Al-Gammaliya, where he found inspiration for his works of historic fiction, among them the novel Al-Zayni Barakat.

The works of prominent writers like Al-Ghitani and Naguib Mahfouz are set in the streets and alleys of this very layered city. Their works keep the history of the city alive, just like the many monuments on this street, Osama said as he went towards the cafe carrying the name of Naguib Mahfouz, one of the most popular in Islamic Cairo, at the entrance to the Khan Al-Khalili Bazaar.

This part of the city is yet further testimony of its layered history marked by the power of successive dynasties. This was originally the area of the tombs of the Fatimids, the Torbet Al-Zaafran (Saffron Mausoleums). It was in the 14th century that Jaharkis Al-Khalili, one of the emirs serving the Mameluke sultan Barqouk, demolished the tombs to build this bazaar, Osama said.

Al-Khalili did not bother to remove the remains of the founders of Cairo to a decent cemetery. He just assembled them and threw them next to a dump further east. What we see today is not the original construction of the Khan. It is on the original site, but it is not the original construction, Osama noted, just like the case of Al-Hakims Mosque.

Moving through the poorly attended stores of the Khan whose vendors have complained about declining revenues with significantly less tourism than a decade ago, Osama heads towards Midan Al-Hussein, the main square.

This is where legend says that the head of Al-Hussein was buried shortly after his martyrdom at Karbala. There are many accounts, and many carry a clear mystical imprint. There is no way of knowing whether the head of the grandson of the prophet is buried here or not, Osama said.

The present mosque and square of Al-Hussein, standing opposite the Al-Azhar Mosque, were built in the 19th century by the khedive Ismail. This is not a Fatimid monument. In fact, the mosque is not registered as a monument at all, and the area is simply a historic intersection of Cairo, Osama said.

It was during the rule of the Fatimids that the head of Al-Hussein was supposedly buried in Cairo after having been brought to the city and placed in a mausoleum outside the gates next to Bab Zuweila. The latter saw many heads hanging from it, of men executed after political fallings out.

It was then the wish of the ruler Al-Faiz to remove the head for burial inside the walls of the Eastern Fatimid Palace, exactly where the mosque is now, Osama said.

He added that the burial was ordered next to one of the gates of the palace, now the site of the green door (al-bab al-akhdar), which is registered as a monument. The Ayoubids then built the minaret standing almost atop of the mausoleum. This too is registered as a monument.

At The Mosque of Al-Hussein

I am here to ask Al-Hussein for help. I have been leading a very difficult life since my husband died three years ago, and now I have to provide for my four children. I am weak, but with the help and support of Al-Hussein and the will of God I shall be strong, said Aziza, a woman in her early 40s, at the mosque.

The sight of people coming to the Mausoleum of Al-Hussein to ask for benediction from the grandson of the prophet is perfectly customary.

It is also the case with many other mausoleums across the old city that are associated with the members of the Prophet Mohameds family. These might have been buried where they are said to have been buried or might not at all.

Historians are sure that Al-Sayeda Nafisa, the great granddaughter of Ali and Fatemah, came to live and die in Egypt some 150 years before the rule of the Fatimids.

The current mosque that bears her name south of Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street where her mausoleum was originally built, is the construction of the khedive Abbas Helmi II who ruled Egypt from the late 19th century to the early decades of the 20th.

Crossing the street from Al-Hussein, Osama walks next to the walls of the Al-Azhar Mosque, where he stops by the Mosque of Mohamed Bek Abul-Dahab, an 18th-century building.

It stands between Al-Azhar, built by the Fatimids but enlarged and renovated over the centuries, and the Complex of Al-Ghouri, another jewel of Mameluke architecture in Egypt.

Mameluke rule started with the fall of the Ayoubid Dynasty in the 13th century only a few years before the Mongol conquest of Baghdad and, as Osama said, it ultimately saved Egypt from being taken over by the Mongols just like the rule of Salaheddin saved Egypt from falling to the Crusaders.

Throughout Mameluke rule, there were many challenging time, including plagues, earthquakes and palace intrigues. However, it was stable rule in the sense that the borders of the country were preserved, the army was strong, and above all art and architecture flourished, Osama said.

He added that after the Ottoman take-over, Egypt was again an annex and not the centre of power as it had been in the days prior to Fatimid rule. The interest in art and architecture receded, and there is even evidence that during the conquest the Citadel and many palaces and madrasas were plundered by the invaders.

The Ottoman sultan Selim I conquered Egypt in 1516, killing anyone who dared to resist him. He is said by historians to have had the opposing Mamelukes heads cut off and hung on Bab Zuweila.

This is why there are not many Ottoman monuments in Cairo today and why the Mosque of Mohamed Bek Abul-Dahab is so significant, Osama said.

Abul-Dahab, a brutal ruler who ruled after a coup against Ali Bek Al-Kebir, started the construction of the mosque in the 18th century. It was built to be a madrasa and to assist Al-Azhar in accommodating students.

It eventually evolved into being a madrasa and a mosque with an annexed sabil, or water fountain.

The building has an untraditional square-shaped minaret, an uncommon feature of Ottoman architecture and a reminder of Fatimid architecture and the original minaret of Al-Azhar. Passing behind it, Osama stops next to another impressive manifestation of Mameluke architecture, the Al-Ghouri Complex.

Built in the 16th century on both sides of the street, the complex contains a mosque, a madrasa, a mausoleum, a residence for Sufis and a sabil. It was fully renovated prior to the 25 January Revolution, though there were debates on the quality of the renovation.

To Bab Zuweila

The quality of the renovation is an issue in most parts of historic Cairo, where work can damage the authenticity of the buildings. However, renovation saves structures from decay, said historian Hossam Ismail.

The road from the Complex of Al-Ghouri leads to Bab Zuweila and then Al-Remila Square, another perfect spot for grand architecture.

Standing practically at the feet of the citadel, this square has four impressive Mameluke and Ottoman architectural gems overlooking it: the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan that was built in the 14th century, the Mosque of Qani Bey Al-Rammah built in the 16th century, the Mosque of Mohamed Ali, built in the 19th century, and the Al-Rifaai Mosque that was built in the 20th century, Osama said.

It was the beauty of these mosques that has granted them a place on the Egyptian currency: the Sultan Hassan Mosque appears on the LE100 note; the Mosque of Qani Bey Al-Rammah on the LE200 note; and the mosques of Mohamed Ali and Al-Rifaai on the LE5 and LE10 notes, respectively.

All the Egyptian notes have an Islamic monument on one side and a Pharaonic monument on the other, but it is not clear how the selection was made, Osama said as he walked into the grandeur of the Sultan Hassan Mosque.

This mosque could be safely said as one of the most impressive, if not the most impressive, of all the Mameluke architecture in Egypt, Osama said.

It stands as testimony to the grandeur of the architecture of this era that was never influenced by the fortune or fate of any particular ruler, Sultan Hassan included, he added.

Sultan Hassan came to power as a child, and his rule was interrupted by palace intrigues. He died, or was killed, before the construction of the mosque was completed.

One of his aides continued the construction and left an inscription that testifies that it was built upon the order and waqf (endowment) of the late sultan.

It was the wish of the sultan to have magnificent architecture associated with his name. He wanted it to be in the most important part of the city, so he bought two palaces and had them demolished to allow for the construction of his mosque. It is breath-taking, even though that its interior decoration is less than other monuments in Islamic Cairo, Osama said.

Historians say that the rule of Mamelukes was marked by a genuine dedication to the construction of madrasas in keeping with a practice that the Ayoubids had introduced. The tradition was originally introduced in the 11th century by the Seljuq Turks from what was then predominantly Sunni Persia.

There was a leading Sunni presence there at the time, and ulamas [religious scholars] from Persia made significant contributions to the collection and editing of the Prophet Mohameds sayings and some interpretations of the Quran, Osama said.

According to Ismail, during the rule of the Mamelukes, Cairo had madrasas that attracted students from all over the Muslim world, especially after the fall of Baghdad, their previous destination, at the hands of the Mongols in the 13th century.

Until the practice was suspended in the past few years, the Sultan Hassan Mosque still served as a madrasa, with prominent scholars volunteering evening readings and discussions.

I used to frequent some of the dorrousse [lectures/seminars] here, especially after the 25 January Revolution. We used to debate the role of religion in politics and the definition of religion in the Islamic sense, said Nada, a student of Arabic literature.

But as always throughout the history of this city, sometimes debate is allowed, and at other times it comes to a stop. History goes in cycles, at least the history of Cairo, she added.

History does go in cycles. The rule of Sultan Hassan, who was removed in the middle of his rule only to be re-instituted and then eliminated, is a very telling example, Osama said as he stepped out of the mosque to the opposite Mosque of Al-Rifaai.

This is one of the monuments whose construction was ordered by a woman, in this case the mother of the khedive Ismail Hoshiar Kadinefendi. She wanted a mosque-mausoleum for the ruling family, Osama said.

She picked this particular spot for the mosque next to a small mausoleum of one of the ancestors associated with the Sufi school of Ahmed Al-Rifaai who established his tariqa (seminary) in the 12th century in Iraq.

This is the reason, Osama explained, that the mosque carries the name of this grand Sufi figure.

The construction of the mosque started in 1869, but it was only completed, after an interruption, in 1911 by the khedive Abbas Helmi II whose name is engraved along with Hoshiars on the pulpit.

Hoshiar was the first of the family to have been buried there, even before the construction was fully completed.

The Al-Rifaai Mosque is one of the major architectural statements of the rule of the Mohamed Ali Dynasty that started in the 19th century and that gave Egypt a state of semi-independence from the Ottoman sultans.

With this regained significance, Cairo regained its architectural glamour, at least gradually, but by the rule of the khedive Ismail later in the 19th century this glamour had taken a European curve, and slowly but surely the legend of Islamic Cairo came to an end, Osama concluded as he stepped outside the Al-Rifaai Mosque down to Mohamed Ali Street in the direction of the Islamic Arts Museum.

This was opened in 1903 to bear witness to the art and history of Cairo.

* All photos by Sherif Sonbol

*A version of this article appears in print in the 31 May 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The city victorious  the story of Al-Qahira

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European investors are calling for economic openings and liberalization. 43% of EU entrepreneurs feel oppressed; they criticize Chinese efforts to strengthen state-owned enterprises. The European Union wants greater reciprocity of treatment, but remains cautious about Hong Kong's status. Individual European countries align with Washington and distance themselves from Beijing.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - European companies in China believe the country's economy has become increasingly politicized and dominated by the state. This is what emerges from the annual survey carried out by the European Union Chamber of Commerce, which calls for economic openings and liberalization to overcome the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic  on the model of what Deng Xiaoping and Zhu Rongji did in the past.

About 43% of businesses surveyed felt oppressed by government policy. Sometimes under threat of retaliation, European companies are asked to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative (which aims to strengthen China's commercial role in the world); to avoid commenting on issues other than their field of work; to specify in their documents and websites that Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang are part of the People's Republic of China.

The European investors primary concern is equal access to the Chinese market. Their reference is to the fact that state-owned businesses, especially after the resumption of Covid-19 post-emergency activities, are "stronger, better and bigger"; this despite the eternal promises of a sector reform that gives more space to private initiative.

EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell expressed the same concerns yesterday, stressing that Chinese companies do not enjoy any discrimination in Europe and that, without reciprocal treatment in China for European entrepreneurs, it will be difficult for the Union to conclude a comprehensive investment agreement with Beijing by the end of 2020. Borrell spoke at the end of a web meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The European bloc is in the midst of an all-out conflict between China and the United States. The two superpowers are engaged in a tug of war over international trade rules, leadership in the development of new technologies, territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the status of Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The US government has threatened sanctions over China's decision to impose a draconian security law in Hong Kong. The EU has condemned Beijing's move, arguing that it violates the "one country, two systems" principle, the basis of the territorys autonomy from the motherland, but has distanced itself from the bellicose approach of the United States.

That said, some individual European countries have aligned with the US in showing greater opposition to Chinese policies. In recent days, the Romanian government vetoed the construction of two nuclear reactors by China General Nuclear: the project was part of the Belt and Road scheme.

Milos Vystrcil, president of the Senate of the Czech Republic, said yesterday that he would visit Taiwan in late August. He pointed out that China's threats had strengthened his intention to make the journey. Chinese leaders are against the Czech politician's initiative, as it represents an indirect recognition of what they consider a rebel province.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a commencement speech to 2020 university graduates at Carleton University in Ottawa on Wednesday, beginning by saying this day is nothing like they imagined it would be.

The world is a much different place than anyone would have predicted, even a year ago, Trudeau said. No student gets to choose the world into which they graduate but if you could, and lets be honest here, you probably wouldnt have chosen the world of 2020.

The prime minister listed off a number of tragedies that have occurred around the world in the first six months of the year, including the Australian bush fires, the worst mass shooting in Canadas history in Nova Scotia, and of course the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020 has also exposed the limitations and flaws of our world, the world that you are set to inherit, Trudeau said, adding it is a wake up call that the younger generation is needed.

Make no mistake, getting a degree is a momentous achievement but you never needed a piece of paper to call out injustice, the prime minister said. You didnt wait for this day to demand change, to create change.

Trudeau equated the 2020 graduating class to the graduates of 1939, the greatest generation who went through the Great Depression and into World War II.

They built the institutions that carried us through the second half of the 20th century, the prime minister said. They set the world on a path of more solidarity, more compassion, more understanding.

Trudeau told the graduating class of 2020 the choices they make in the future will decide the future of our country and of our world.

Related to COVID-19, the prime minister said the younger generation have stepped up to help fight the health crisis and protect more vulnerable Canadians.

Its time that we reclaim the idea of community, of being a good neighbour, of being a good friend, the prime minister said. You understand not just the value but the power of community, better than most, and thats why I trust that you will be the 21st centurys greatest generation.

Story continues

You know what is wrong with the world and how to fix it. Your job is not only to challenge people like me but to bring us along.

Trudeau went on to say Canada is still a work in progress and these younger Canadians have enthusiastically embraced the truth that the country needs to continue improving.

No one gets to choose the world into which they graduate but you do get to choose the world that will be your legacy, the prime minister said. You, the class of 2020, are different, you were always different...you care about what happens next.
A worshipper wears gloves to prevent the spread of Covid-19 as mosques reopened across Saudi Arabia (Amr Nabil/AP)

A Yemeni sanitation worker, wearing protective gear, sprays disinfectant in a neighbourhood in the northern Hajjah province during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by ESSA AHMED/AFP via Getty Images)

A private security guard stands beside a banner with at entrance gate of the English and Foreign Languages University (EFL) in Secunderabad. (Photo by NOAH SEELAM/AFP via Getty Images)

An employee at reception desk protected by plexiglass mesasures the temperature of hotel staff at the lobby of the Athens Palace hotel, on the first day of the opening of hotels in Greece (Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)

Members of the Irish Defence forces at a Covid-19 testing facility at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

A person wearing a facemask on the Ha'penny bridge during the Covid 19 pandemic in Dublin's City Centre. Photo:Gareth Chaney/Collins

Members of the Irish Defence Forces at a Covid-19 testing facility at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA)

Hug: A man is reunited with his daughter at Rome airport as she comes back with his wife from Colombia after Italy reopened its borders this week. Photo: Reuters

A nurse assists a Covid-19 patient at the Doctors Without Borders Drouillard Hospital in Cite Soleil, Haiti. (Photo by Pierre Michel Jean / AFP) (Photo by PIERRE MICHEL JEAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Two women wearing face masks make their way to the shops on an almost deserted Henry Street in Dublins city centre (Brian Lawless/PA)

FILE PHOTO: View of a warning message, that customers cannot stand at the bar and must sit at tables to be served during the coronavirus outbreak, at a pub in Stockholm, Sweden, March 26, 2020. REUTERS/Colm Fulton/File Photo

Bacteriologist Diana Carolina Galvan from the Hospital de La Primavera using protection elements carries a box with samples of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that will be processed in Bogota, in La Primavera, Colombia June 4, 2020. Picture taken June 4, 2020. REUTERS/Javier Andres Rojas

ICI said that it had arranged to fly home 67 healthcare workers in total. Photo: Getty Images Stock

Health professionals take care of a patient at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ward in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images)

Social distancing reminders are on display in Brighton, United Kingdom. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Marcela Benetti, a cleaner at one of the temporary public toilet facilities installed by Dublin City Council, on the streets in Dublin. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Follow the latest coronavirus news in Ireland and across the world on the Independent.ie live blog.

22.32 10/06/2020

Thousands of holidaymakers to join tourism trial in Majorca, Ibiza and Menorca

Spain's Balearic Islands are to allow thousands of holidaymakers to fly in for a two-week trial to test how to balance the needs of Spain's vital tourism industry with new regulations to curb coronavirus.

The trial begins on June 15, before the archipelago and the rest of the country reopen to international tourism on July 1.

The Spanish government is under heavy pressure to reactivate an industry that generates 12pc of Spain's GDP and provides 2.6 million jobs.

Read More

Los Angeles County to allow movie and TV production to resume

Reuters

Los Angeles County officials said on Wednesday that movie and TV production can resume on Friday, but movie theaters must remain closed because of the coronavirus epidemic.

California state officials said earlier this week that movie theaters could reopen as early as Friday, pending approval from local officials. Los Angeles County is the biggest movie market in the United States.

Movie theaters closed their doors around the world in mid-March to help curb the coronavirus pandemic, and movie and television production also ground to a halt.

21.38 10/06/2020

Harvard research suggests China had virus since August

Expand Close Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. Photo: Ng Han Guan/AP / Facebook

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The coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August last year, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data, but China dismissed the report as "ridiculous".

The research used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan - where the disease was first identified in late 2019 - and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as "cough" and "diarrhoea".

"Increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019," according to the research.

Read More

20.47 10/06/2020

US coronavirus cases now over 2 million, highest in the world

Lisa Shumaker, Reuters

Total US coronavirus cases surpassed 2 million on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as health officials urge anyone who took part in massive protests for racial justice to get tested.

Nationally, new infections are rising slightly after five weeks of declines, according to a Reuters analysis. Part of the increase is due to more testing, which hit a record high on June 5 of 545,690 tests in a single day but has since fallen, according to the COVID-Tracking Project.

Recent increases in cases are likely a result of more people moving about and resuming some business and pleasure activities as all 50 states gradually reopen. Huge nationwide protests with no social distancing after the May 25 the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police could lead to another spike in cases in coming weeks.

Health officials believe the first US coronavirus cases appeared in January, and the nation recorded 1 million cases by April 28. So far in June, there have been an average of 21,000 new cases a day compared with an average of 30,000 a day in April and 23,000 a day in May, according to a Reuters tally.

Total U.S. coronavirus-related deaths have surpassed 112,000, also the most in the world.

On May 12, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised governments that before reopening, the rate of people testing positive for the coronavirus should remain at 5pc or lower for at least 14 days.

U.S. rates of positive test results have fluctuated between 4pc and 7pc nationally and have not met those guidelines, although many individual states have.

Some states were still reporting positive rates above the WHO threshold last week, with Maryland at 8pc, Utah at 9pc, Nebraska at 9pc, Virginia at 9pc, Massachusetts at 11pc and Arizona at 12pc.

At the peak of the outbreak in April, 25pc to 50pc of tests came back positive.

Foreigners allowed into Ukraine to collect surrogate-born babies

Associated Press Reporter

Authorities have allowed foreign parents into Ukraine to collect babies who were born to surrogate mothers and stranded in the eastern European country due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ukraine's human rights ombudswoman said that 31 couples had arrived and been united with their children.

"It is a special day. All government bodies have reacted quickly and helped... I have already met parents from Spain, whose daughter was born five weeks ago," said Lyudmila Denisova on her Facebook page.

Andrea Diez, of Argentina, who got to see her child for the first time, echoed Ms Denisova's sentiment.

"It's a very good ending of the story, unbelievable," Ms Diez said.

A total of 125 babies around Ukraine were awaiting parents from abroad. Ms Denisova said 88 more families have received entry permits and will come to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

The infants were stranded in Ukraine after the country closed its borders to prevent virus infections.

The newborns attracted wide attention after Biotexcom, the country's largest surrogacy operation, posted a video showing dozens of babies in two large rooms of the hotel where the clinic puts up clients.

The company sought to reassure parents in 12 countries: China, the United States, Italy, Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Mexico and Portugal - that their children were receiving good care, showing nurses bathing and caressing them.

20.10 10/06/2020

'I am grateful my family survived the storm, but I'm so exhausted, every bone aches,' family carer on life in lockdown

Expand Close Home work: Jane Johnstone with her children Daniel and Ciara (22) / Facebook

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Many people have experienced difficulties while looking after their families during the current crisis, but for Jane Johnstone, keeping her family safe and well is harder than most, writes Arlene Harris.

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19.06 10/06/2020

Virus recovery rate rises to 92pc in the republic



Reports Gabija Gataveckaite

The coronavirus recovery rate in the Republic has risen to 92pc.

In a statement this evening, Dr Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Department of Health, said: While it is very welcome that the vast majority of people who contracted Covid-19 have recovered from the acute phase of their illness, there are many who continue to experience longer term effects including fatigue and decreased exercise capacity.

"Avoid contracting this new and unpredictable disease by following public health advice  regular hand washing, physical distancing and cough/sneeze etiquette," he added.

There are currently a total of 102 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospital. Of these, 29 cases are currently in ICU.

Todays data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, as of midnight, Monday 8 June (25,212 cases), reveals:

 57pc are female and 43pc are male

 the median age of confirmed cases is 48 years

 3,321 cases (13pc) have been hospitalised

 Of those hospitalised, 411 cases have been admitted to ICU

 8,099 cases are associated with healthcare workers

 Dublin has the highest number of cases at 12,163 (48pc of all cases) followed by Cork with 1,531 cases (6pc) and then Kildare with 1,424 cases (6pc)

 Of those for whom transmission status is known: community transmission accounts for 38pc, close contact accounts for 60pc, travel abroad accounts for 2pc.





18.56 10/06/2020

30,000 Irish people on post-lockdown Botox wait list

There are more than 30,000 people now on a waiting list for skin rejuvenation procedures like Botox  proving that its their faces and not just restrictions that people are desperate to lift in the post-lockdown era.

Figures supplied to the Irish Independent by Therapie clinic, which has 26 branches nationwide, have revealed that massive numbers of women and men are clamouring to freshen up their appearance after the stress of the past three months.

Unfortunately, they will all have to wait until July 20 when salons can re-open under phase four of the Government roadmap.

Read More

17.55 10/06/2020

Five new deaths and 19 further virus cases

Reports Gabija Gataveckaite

The coronavirus death toll in Ireland has risen to 1,695 after a further five people have died, with the department of health announcing a further 19 new cases.

In total, there have been 25,231 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

There is currently a total of 102 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in hospital. Of these, 29 cases are currently in ICU.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; The National Public Health Emergency Team will meet again tomorrow (Thursday 11th June) to review Irelands ongoing response and preparedness to Covid-19.

"NPHET will also review updated World Health Organisation guidance on face coverings and consider communications regarding appropriate use of face coverings in community settings.





16.48 10/06/2020

Priests to wear face coverings during communion as part of guidelines

Priests and ministers of the Eucharist will wear face coverings while distributing communion.

Catholic bishops have issued their formal guidance to priests on the return to public sacraments, and the health protocols parishes must put in place to ensure people can worship safely.

The prescriptions contained in the 'Framework Document for a return to the public celebration of Mass and the Sacraments' issued yesterday recommend priests and ministers of the Eucharist "should wear a face covering while distributing communion".

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World's largest aircraft lands at Shannon Airport with PPE equipment

Expand Close Eight-year-old Colin Slattery from Lissycasey Co Clare, gets a close-up view of the Antonov AN-225 at Shannon Airport today. Photo: Arthur Ellis. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Eight-year-old Colin Slattery from Lissycasey Co Clare, gets a close-up view of the Antonov AN-225 at Shannon Airport today. Photo: Arthur Ellis.

With 32 wheels, six engines and an 88.4-metre wingspan, the Antonov AN-225 is a beast of an aircraft, and today it touched down at Shannon Airport.

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16.10/06/2020

WATCH: World's largest airplane lands in Shannon with PPE equipment

15.39 10/06/2020

Anxious about the end of lockdown? You're not the only one

Expand Close Daunting: Photographer Andraya Tighe feels under pressure to resume normal life. Photo: Andrew Downes / Facebook

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As normal life resumes, many people are feeling it is too much, too soon, writes Julia Molony.

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15.15 10/06/2020

'I took the day off work' - hordes of shoppers at Brown Thomas and Arnotts as they reopen

HUNDREDS of shoppers filed into Brown Thomas and Arnotts on the department stores first day of business since the pandemic.

Very few shoppers wore face masks today in either Brown Thomas on Grafton Street, or Arnotts on Henry Street in Dublin but a large number of staff in both stores wore masks and some in Arnotts even donned visors.

Social distancing queues formed outside both stores as they opened this morning and there was a steady trade.

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WATCH: Eager shoppers arrive for reopening of Arnotts and Brown Thomas

Warning of 'no robust economic recovery' unless pandemic brought under control

Associated Press

The coronavirus crisis has triggered the worst global recession in nearly a century - and the pain is not over yet even if there is no second wave of infections, an international economic report has warned.

Hundreds of millions of people have lost their jobs, and the crisis is hitting the poor and young people the hardest, worsening inequalities, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

"It is probably the most uncertain and dramatic outlook since the creation of the OECD," secretary general Angel Gurria said. "We cannot make projections as we normally do."

In the best-case scenario, if there is no second wave of infections, the agency forecast a global drop in economic output of 6% this year, and a rise of 2.8% next year.

If the coronavirus re-emerges later in the year, however, the global economy could shrink 7.6%, the OECD said.

"With or without a second outbreak, the consequences will be severe and long-lasting," the report says.

Mr Gurria argued that "presenting the problem as the choice between lives and livelihoods, meaning a choice between health and the economy, is a false dilemma"

He added: "If the pandemic is not brought under control, there will be no robust economic recovery."

In case of a second wave of contagions, the OECD forecast that the average unemployment rate across the 37 developed countries that it represents would double this year to 10% and see "little recovery" in 2021. In the more optimistic scenario, the figure would be 9.2%.

2:30 10/06/2020

'It's not on' - Varadkar warns low up-take of flu vaccine among health workers 'has to change'

Cormac McQuinn

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has warned that the low up-take of the flu vaccine among health workers saying it's "not on" and "has to change".

It comes amid fears that there could be a second wave of coronavirus outbreaks during the winter flu season.

Mr Varadkar said that such a scenario would be "very difficult" and the government is stepping up the annual flu vaccine programme as a result including expanding free vaccination for children.

He also said efforts are being made to get health workers to be vaccinated.

Speaking 2FM Breakfast with Doireann & Eoghan, he said: "People who work in healthcare are amazing people"

But he added: "Less than half of them got the flu vaccine last year. Thats not on. That has to change."

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1:30 10/06/2020

Road users urged to exercise caution amid fears of spike in traffic accidents as lockdown eases

Ralph Riegel

ROAD safety chiefs have pleaded for maximum safety from motorists, cyclists and pedestrians as the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown gradually eases.

The Road Safety Authority, Gardai and Transport Minister Shane Ross united to launch a new safety campaign dubbed "We're back on the road - make it a safe one."

It is hoped the campaign will reinforce the safe travel message as traffic volumes on Irish roads soar as pandemic restrictions are eased to allow travel within counties and within a 20km radius.

Major concern is focused on the fact a significantly larger number of cyclists are now on Irish roads following a surge in bike sales during the pandemic.

Motorists have also been urged to conduct detailed safety and roadworthiness tests on vehicles which may have been parked up for three months.

"People have done so much over the last three months to tackle the coronavirus, save lives and protect public health," Mr Ross said.

"The commitment we have seen across the country has been extraordinary. But road safety is also a public health issue and we need to see the same commitment from all road users to saving lives on our roads."

Read More

11:50 10/06/2020

Government to announce 75m childcare package to prevent providers charging higher fees

Anne-Marie Walsh

A 75m childcare support package that aims to stop providers from charging higher fees will be announced today.

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone is expected to acknowledge that a reduced number of children are likely to attend services in the initial weeks after services reopen on June 29.

The support package is designed to enable providers to operate with less parental income, while the costs of providing childcare are likely to increase.

Around 1,800 services normally open during the summer of the total 4,500 childcare services in the state.

The support package includes:

A Revenue-run wage subsidy scheme that will operate until the end of August for services that reopen on June 29.

It will provide up to 85pc of the cost of wages.

There will be also be:

A once off reopening grant of 18m for centre-based providers opening on June 29 and late August. It will be based on the number of children on department schemes pre-Covid-19.

A once off capital grant of 14.2m.

Childminder reopening grants.

More to follow..





10:15 10/06/2020

Information campaign on face masks to be stepped up  Taoiseach

Aine McMahon PA

The Government will step up its campaign to show the public how to wear face masks properly but they will not be made mandatory, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

The current advice states face coverings should be worn on public transport, while visiting older people and in spaces where it is difficult to social distance.

Mr Varadkar told RTE 2FM on Wednesday: We recommend people wear them on public transport or shops but it is not an alternative to hand washing and hygiene measures. Masks are not a magic shield  it is not an alternative to the measures.

It is really important that people wear masks correctly so were going to step up the information campaign around that. We are forever seeing people being interviewed wearing the mask around their neck  that is exactly what you do not do.

You wash your hands, put on the mask which covers your nose and mouth, and if you need to take it off to eat or smoke, you take off the mask and you dont put it back on again.

You need to wash your hands and put on a new clean mask, so we have a job, work to do around the dos and donts of wearing a mask. If you dont do it correctly it is not beneficial, it is potentially harmful.

Read More

9:30 10/06/2020

Government expert backs call to send every home a bundle of reusable face masks

Eilish O'Regan

Calls to send every household in the country a bundle of reusable face masks to reduce Covid-19 transmission are being supported by Dr Cillian de Gascun, chair of the Government's expert advisory group on the virus.

Dr de Gascun said there is a current inequity where people cannot afford to buy them or make their own homemade masks.

He was responding to a suggestion by Labour TD Duncan Smith at the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response who said there was precedent for this measure.

He pointed to the distribution of iodine tablets by former Fianna Fail energy minister Joe Jacob in 2002 as part of a plan in the event of a major nuclear accident.

Mr Smith said: "In the past in this country we have mass provided preventative products in the form of iodine tablets to each household. Providing proper reusable face masks and clear instructions on how and when to use them is something we need to strongly consider."

Read More

08:30 10/06/2020

Thousands of holidaymakers to join tourism trial in Majorca, Ibiza and Menorca

Spain's Balearic Islands are to allow thousands of holidaymakers to fly in for a two-week trial to test how to balance the needs of Spain's vital tourism industry with new regulations to curb coronavirus.

The trial begins on June 15, before the archipelago and the rest of the country reopen to international tourism on July 1.

The Spanish government is under heavy pressure to reactivate an industry that generates 12pc of Spain's GDP and provides 2.6 million jobs.

Through an agreement with German tour group Tui, other tour operators and several airlines, up to 10,900 Germans will be allowed into the archipelago, its president Francina Armengol said.

Read More

08:20 10/06/2020

'Keep up the public health measures and more lives will be saved' - Health Minister Simon Harris

Health Minister Simon Harris has asked the public to continue to adhere to public health guidelines as the number of patients with Covid-19 in hospital has fallen.

There are now 105 people hospitalised with the virus.

Mr Harris took to Twitter this morning to tell followers that "real progress" has been made.

He said: "Morning. Some positive news to start the day. The number of patients with #Covid19 in hospital has fallen again. Down to 105.

"We are making real progress. Important message for us all: keep up the public health measures & this number will keep falling & more lives will be saved."

Morning. Some positive news to start the day. The number of patients with #Covid19 in hospital has fallen again. Down to 105. We are making real progress. Important message for us all: keep up the public health measures & this number will keep falling & more lives will be saved pic.twitter.com/eUTmYTp5or  Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) June 10, 2020

HSE chief executive Paul Reid also asked the public to continue to do "the simple things well."

"99% of people last week tested negative. Just 9 cases in each of last two days .105 confirmed cases in hospital, down 88% on peak.

"12 hospitals with no cases. These are strong trends we want to protect. Please keep doing the simple things well," he said.

Latest figures from the Department of Health show that there are nine new confirmed cases, and nine further deaths lined to Covid -19.





07:15 10/06/2020

Harvard research suggests China had virus since August

Catherine Le Nouvelle

The coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August last year, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data, but China dismissed the report as "ridiculous".

The research used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan - where the disease was first identified in late 2019 - and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as "cough" and "diarrhoea".

"Increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019," according to the research.

"While we cannot confirm if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, our evidence supports other recent work showing that emergence happened before identification at the Huanan Seafood market (in Wuhan).

"These findings also corroborate the hypothesis that the virus emerged naturally in southern China and was potentially already circulating at the time of the Wuhan cluster."

It showed a steep increase in hospital car park occupancy in August 2019.

Read More

07:10 10/06/2020

Nurses and healthcare assistants account for half of cases of Covid-19

Anne-Marie Walsh and Eilish O'Regan

Nurses and healthcare assistants account for more than half the health workers who have caught the coronavirus, new figures reveal.

Out of 8,018 health workers who tested positive at the end of May some 2,591 were nurses and 2,056 were healthcare assistants.

Therapists and other allied health professional made up a quarter of confirmed or probable cases.

The figures provided to health unions by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre show 483 doctors were infected, 6pc of the total, followed by 90 porters.

Read More

07:00 10/06/2020

Ireland is at risk of significant virus resurgence, expert warns

Eilish O'Regan

Ireland is at risk of a significant resurgence of the coronavirus and care must be taken to avoid the infection being brought by people from one county to another post-lockdown, the expert tracking the disease here warned yesterday.

Prof Philip Nolan of Maynooth University also revealed that for every one person detected with the virus, there is at least one other person with the infection but without symptoms.

There is a chance we could see "small second waves".

The warning comes as another nine deaths were confirmed yesterday, bringing the death toll to 1,691.
1. Yes. Too many kids are staying home. They need a virtual learning option to keep up.

2. Yes. Teachers are out sick and subs cant handle the load. Online learning is needed.

3. No. Its too late in the school year to make a wholesale switch in teaching platforms.

4.No. Many parents arent in a position to stay home while their kids learn virtually.

5. Unsure. It may seem like a good idea from a health standpoint, but it has shortcomings.

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michael barbaro

From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

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Today: Long before the world understood that seemingly healthy people could spread the coronavirus, a doctor in Germany tried to sound the alarm. Matt Apuzzo on why that warning was so unwelcome. Its Thursday, July 9.

michael barbaro Good. OK, so were going to get started. camilla rothe Very good, OK. michael barbaro So youre recording, right? camilla rothe Yep. michael barbaro You are recording, and Im recording. So I think we can 

michael barbaro

Matt, tell me about this doctor in Germany, Dr. Camilla Rothe.

matt apuzzo

Yeah, she is a tropical medicine specialist, basically an infectious disease specialist. Shes at the Munich University Hospital. Shes at the infectious disease clinic there. And shes part of this network of doctors around the world that serve as kind of like an early detection system.

camilla rothe We mainly work with returned travelers, as well as with migrants from tropical destinations and who may import even novel pathogens.

matt apuzzo

They kind of report back to major health organizations, like, hey, Im seeing a weird virus over here, or Ebola case pops up over here, or heres a weird thing.

camilla rothe In Germany, we are responsible for anything exotic.

michael barbaro

And so what prompted you to begin talking to her?

matt apuzzo

So January 27, this patient in Munich  33-year-old employee from an auto parts company  walks into her clinic. And right away its pretty clear something weird is going on.

camilla rothe He informed us that when he came to work in the morning, hed been told by his boss that a business partner whod visited the company the week before, coming from China, had just phoned. And shed said that on the weekend back home in China, shed been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus infection. And hed actually been ill over the weekend himself. And hed asked us whether he could be checked for this new virus at our institution. michael barbaro And this was January 27, so had the coronavirus been detected in Germany? camilla rothe No, not yet. michael barbaro So what were you thinking when this man came into your office? camilla rothe Well, it was January. It was a time of year when there are lots of respiratory infections circulating. In fact, its the peak of the influenza season. And hed been very unspectacularly ill over the weekend, so it could have been anything. In contrast, the pictures that we received from China by then were pictures of a very serious disease  people being on ventilators, et cetera. So I thought, well, I mean, interesting story, but this could be anything. And we took a swab from his nasal pharynx and sent it to the lab. And a few hours later, I was phoned by the lab and informed that, in fact, the test tested positive for the novel virus. michael barbaro Huh. So at this point, you have just been told that you have the first confirmed case of the coronavirus in Germany. And based on what you knew about the contact that had brought him to you in the first place, what were you thinking about that? camilla rothe That was quite a puzzle, because Id obviously grilled him on the fact whether the Chinese business colleague appeared in any way ill. Had she coughed, or did she have a runny nose, or did she look ill in any way? And actually, he said she had held quite intense business workshops and meetings without showing any obvious signs of illness. And then on day two, which was the Tuesday, more employees of the company came to our clinic. And another three, all of them with very minor mild symptoms, were tested positive. That was the point when I thought, we need to spread the news to get this out to the world. And we contacted The New England Journal of Medicine, and they were interested. And it was very rapidly accepted and put online for people to read it.

michael barbaro

Matt, this paper that Dr. Rothe publishes, what does it find?

matt apuzzo

On the surface, its a really simple straightforward paper. It just says, we had this weird case with this guy who tested positive for the coronavirus, and the person he caught it from didnt appear to have any symptoms. And thats kind of weird because thats not what we think is supposed to happen with this disease. So we thought it was important to just put it out there, and this could have serious ramifications. Just telling the world. In a nutshell, thats all it really says.

michael barbaro

Well, help me understand that. For people who dont work in the world of infectious diseases, what is the significance of this mans diagnosis?

matt apuzzo

Its funny. You look back now at the end of January, and its sort of like youre looking at another time, another world. Were still trying to find out what this disease is. And so the assumption kind of was, well, this is probably going to behave like SARS, because their genetic cousins. So good chance its going to spread like that. And the thing about SARS is, you dont spread it until you are sick. Until you have symptoms, you are not really contagious.

camilla rothe So if a disease behaves like that, it is much more easy to control. Its easy to define what a case is, who is a suspect case, someone who has symptoms. And if you ask these people to stay at home, you have already a good means to contain the virus. Now, if you have a virus that behaves differently, like what we had observed, which spreads before it even causes symptoms, this is much more difficult to control because people would never go for a test. They are not aware they are infected. They are mixing with people in the same way that they normally do  with colleagues, with friends, with loved ones. So its far more difficult to contain an infection like that. michael barbaro So this just flew in the face of the common understanding of the virus at that point. camilla rothe Absolutely. And then something strange happened that I personally dont fully understand until today.

matt apuzzo

What Dr. Rothe didnt know was that around 20 minutes away, in this sort of suburb of Munich, in the regional health office, they were starting up a command center basically to do all the tracking and the tracing and all of the stuff that needed to be done. And the doctors there were working on their own paper that they were going to get published in a different journal. And so now youve got two separate groups of scientists writing on the same case for different journals.

michael barbaro

And what did this group 20 minutes away, what did they find in their paper?

matt apuzzo

Its really, really similar. So whereas Dr. Rothe says, this woman is not symptomatic  and she says that because this woman is leading two days of business meetings and shes not sneezing, shes not coughing. Shes not showing any signs of being fatigued or feverish or in any way sick. The government doctors, after extensive interviews, they come back and say, yeah, but we dont think the Chinese patient had no symptoms. We think she was probably experiencing some symptoms that were so mild that even she didnt recognize them. And so this dispute became, does she have no symptoms, or does she have such mild symptoms that even she doesnt recognize that shes sick?

michael barbaro

OK, so Dr. Rothe has published a paper saying that the patient had no symptoms. This government agency has now published a paper saying that she had early, essentially undetectable symptoms. So whats the significance of that distinction?

matt apuzzo

So this has been the story of my life for the past however many months. The amount of time Ive spent in conversations about the word asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic or oligosymptomatic or any of these words, right? What does it mean? If you are somebody who studies diseases, and you are somebody who really wants to understand the characteristics of this new virus, well, then obviously you want to know what exactly needs to happen before you can become contagious. Can you be just a passive carrier? Can you just walk around spreading this thing and youll never get sick? Is that a real thing that happens? Or does it only spread after you get symptoms? Or does it only spread when you have mild symptoms? That is a real distinction in the scientific world.

michael barbaro

Right.

matt apuzzo

However, from a practical standpoint of what youre going to tell the public and how youre going to control this disease, if you wake up in the morning and youre like, aw man, my neck is kind of stiff, I probably just slept wrong. And then you go into work and you infect people, what does it matter whether you are pre-symptomatic, whether that neck ache was actually an early sign that you were getting sick and you just didnt recognize it? If your strategy is, if you are sick, stay home, that all falls apart if you can spread this disease before you even know youre sick.

michael barbaro

In other words, any version of not feeling sick is a huge danger when it comes to this virus.

matt apuzzo

Absolutely. Because it means, I dont recognize that Im a danger to you. And you dont recognize that youre a danger to me. And I dont recognize that youre a danger to me. And we all walk around and we dont know that we can make each other sick.

camilla rothe Whether this person is ever going to be symptomatic or not doesnt really matter. What the key message is, you can infect other people without knowing that youre infected. I think the somehow sad thing is that this semantic debate  which is OK between scientists and so on, but its slightly splitting hairs  this debate somehow obscured the message we wanted to send out. And was somehow misleading, because its led us away from the core message to say, guys, keep your eyes open. This virus may spread without people knowing.

matt apuzzo

So this all would have been a kind of academic discussion between two groups of doctors in Germany. But at the beginning of February, a couple of days after Dr. Rothes paper came out, this thing completely escalated.

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And what happened was, Science Magazine, a very respected journal, wrote a story in which the German national health official said, Dr. Rothes paper is flawed. She never interviewed the woman. We dont think she was asymptomatic. We do think she had symptoms. And now suddenly, this issue that might have otherwise been a very academic debate is now front and center in the national discussion over what exactly are the characteristics of this new virus.

camilla rothe We were accused of, how can you claim someone is asymptomatic when you havent talked to him? So if you like, this is formally a correct accusation, so the correct title could have been pre-symptomatic because the patient then developed symptoms at some point. But that was a slightly misguiding debate we were somehow sucked into then.

michael barbaro

And Matt, as best you can tell, is there validity to this critique from the government scientists of Dr. Rothes paper and her findings?

matt apuzzo

Yeah, I mean, I think theres definitely a fair critique that she should have interviewed the Chinese patient before asserting that she had no symptoms.

camilla rothe Which, by the way, wouldnt have been our role because we are physicians. Its none of our business if anyone should have spoken to her, then the public health authorities of Bavaria. And they did. And they kind of summarized their phone call to say, she didnt have any symptoms while she was in Munich. All she had was what she already knew as a feeling of jet lag and, well, the way you feel after a long distance flight. And she herself had not noticed anything abnormal to the situation until the Thursday when shed returned to Shanghai and she fell ill, when she had chills and fever and cough and all that.

matt apuzzo

So as if this debate couldnt get any bigger, its now going to go totally global because the worlds leading health organization, the W.H.O., is about to weigh in.

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michael barbaro

Well be right back.

matt apuzzo

So the morning of February 4, Dr. Sylvie Briand from the World Health Organization tweets the science article, and she says, It is important to differentiate asymptomatic from pre-symptomatic transition. 2019-nCoV study claiming new coronavirus can be transmitted by people without symptoms was flawed. And so now everybody whos on the frontlines of this discussion is now basically saying Dr. Rothe got it wrong.

camilla rothe And that, of course, was disappointing in a way to see that even the highest-ranking somehow health authority didnt get a very simple clinical message, but also got lost in semantics.

michael barbaro

Matt, why did the W.H.O. take the step of publicly disputing and criticizing Dr. Rothes finding?

matt apuzzo

I think theres a couple ways to look at it. And one is that if you are the World Health Organization, and you jump in with two feet into this idea that this disease can spread without symptoms, it is a seismic change in the way we think about Covid-19, and has massive ramifications for public health policy in every country in the world. So of course, they need to be cautious. They cant just go, oh my god, heres an observation by one doctor with one patient, and were going to change the worlds policies based on that. Thats unrealistic. But whats really confusing about all this is it didnt take very long until it wasnt just Dr. Rothe in Munich. Because the Bavarian health authorities get genetic information back, and they find genetic proof that it did spread before symptom onset in two other patients. And so now its not just Dr. Rothe saying, hey, I saw something weird. Now we have mounting evidence from this cluster saying, its pretty darn clear this is happening. And so now you really do wonder, why was the response from the World Health Organization, we dont think this is a big deal? And not, boy, the evidence is growing, were not there yet, but were taking this really seriously. And we should maybe be start thinking about how we would adapt our policies if this really catches on.

camilla rothe I would have expected a very neutral and curious way and an open way, and to at least take into consideration that this virus might behave different than the other SARS virus that we knew. And that somehow didnt happen. I dont understand why it wasnt. I still dont understand. Maybe one day someone will be able to explain to me. I dont know.

matt apuzzo

I talked to a lot of doctors about this. And there are many who say that you have to look at this from kind of a stark public policy standpoint. This is early to mid February. If you tell the world that this thing can spread before people are symptomatic, before they even know theyre sick, then the next question is, OK, so what do we do about it? We dont have enough testing. We dont have a contact tracing capability to handle this, and we dont have P.P.E. for everybody. What do we do? Weve talked to public health officials in other countries who said, yeah, looking back, we probably could have said, this is looking more and more like a possibility. But thats a scary place to be if you dont have an answer for what youre supposed to do next, and thats kind of where we found ourselves.

michael barbaro

I mean, I just want to wrap my head around this. Because what you seem to be saying is that theres a possibility that embracing this finding is just too frightening for the people of the W.H.O., because of what it would mean for policymakers in every country of the world. But isnt that the job of the World Health Organization to sometimes scare the crap out of people, even if theres no logical solution to the scare, because they need to know?

matt apuzzo

So the W.H.O. says they definitely did not do that. That is not what happened. But this issue of should the World Health Organization or other public health officials be scaring the crap out of people, I mean, I get that. But I think most people would tell you no. Because theres a huge danger in telling people, this is the big one, this is it. Because the vast majority of alerts arent the big one. You need people to take their advice seriously and rationally and not feel like, oh, here comes another alert. And so its like they got to constantly straddle this line between, I need you to hear me and take this seriously, but I cant also get crazy and say, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, this is the one, tbjs is the one. Because if its not the one  and most arent  then the next time, youre just not going to listen.

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michael barbaro

Matt, what is the implication on the ground of organizations like the W.H.O. resisting this idea that there is symptomless spread? What does that actually mean throughout the world?

matt apuzzo

Well, I mean, so Im in Belgium. And heres a practical example. Belgium locked down nursing homes and said, you cant visit if youre sick. And thousands of people in nursing homes died. And they think that symptomless visitors and symptomless care workers brought the disease in, and they just had no idea that was even a possibility. We had the Diamond Princess cruise off the coast of Japan, where one of the reasons that people were allowed to mix and mingle and go to the buffet, even after a former passenger tested positive, was because, well, we dont think he was symptomatic when he was on board. And then February 29, we get a tweet from the U.S. surgeon general, all caps: Seriously, people, stop buying masks. They are not effective in preventing the general public from catching coronavirus. And its hard to imagine the surgeon general weighing in like that if there was kind of a growing acceptance in the medical community that, boy, this might actually be spreading before symptoms.

michael barbaro

And of course, now we know that symptomless spread can be curbed, and a primary way to curb it is masks.

matt apuzzo

Yeah, and now good luck messaging that when youve been telling the public, in all caps, masks dont help. As you look at these moments, it just cost us time. And thats kind of the story of Covid right now. We lost time.

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michael barbaro

So, Matt, where does this debate stand at the moment? I mean, is there a settled understanding of whether or not, and how frequently, someone without symptoms can spread the coronavirus?

matt apuzzo

I think the best science now is people without symptoms are contributing to the spread of this pandemic. Its significant. We dont know exactly how significant it is.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm. But it is clearly something that happens. And because its symptomless, it represents a special danger in this pandemic.

matt apuzzo

Exactly right.

michael barbaro

So thats the public health consensus. But given everything that you have just told us, do you think that the public has reached that same conclusion? Has that message convincingly reached the world?

matt apuzzo

Well, the message is still a mess, right? I mean, we saw in early June, the W.H.O. came out and said, oh, symptomless spreading is really rare. And then they walked it back the next day. And part of what the W.H.O. is still doing is trying to draw this distinction between asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic, and it feels like were right back in February.

michael barbaro

Right. Were making distinctions that dont mean all that much to people who are trying to decide whether to go to work, whether to go to a restaurant, whether to see friends.

matt apuzzo

Yeah, and those are life and death situations right now. If I wake up in the morning and I believe that Im not sick, and if the whole policy comes down to me understanding the difference between asymptomatic and oligosymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission, then the important message is lost. Im putting other peoples lives in danger with my decisions.

michael barbaro

Matt, thank you very much.

matt apuzzo

Good to be with you.

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michael barbaro Doctor, if German authorities and European health officials and the W.H.O. had taken your findings seriously back in January, despite the fact that it was a single patient, despite the fact that there was a semantic debate around the title of the paper, how do you think it would have made a difference in the state of the pandemic today? camilla rothe Ha. That is very difficult to tell. It would be too easy, even though I would like to say that that could have saved hundred thousands of lives. Had authorities been stricter at an earlier point in time, well, would have people accepted it? This may sound strange, but maybe we needed the drastic pictures that we saw in Italy, when the military had to basically bury the coffins because nobody else could, or the dramatic pictures from New York City. Maybe that we needed, all of us needed that shock to take it seriously and really to pull up our socks to fight the virus. So its very difficult to tell what would have happened had we taken this onboard early on. matt apuzzo Has this experience changed how you see the global health community, your colleagues essentially? camilla rothe Oh, yes, definitely. Definitely. It was a very sobering experience. I still dont know what to make of it. What I really hope is that someone is going to somehow work this up in a, again, in a scientific way to say, what happened? What happened in the heads of people? Why was this unwelcome news? Why was this dismissed? Can we learn from this? Is this, if you like, a cognitive error on the side of decision makers? And what can we do to prevent this from happening again? And I was, to be honest, deeply disappointed by it. But more so, I really wish to understand what was behind it. Im really hoping that one day someone will come and explain to me what the issue really was.

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michael barbaro Well, Doctor, we really appreciate your time, and we wish you the best of luck. camilla rothe Thank you so much. Thank you.

michael barbaro

Well be right back. Heres what else you need to know today. Amid intense pressure from President Trump to reopen schools, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would issue new guidelines to local school districts. In tweets on Wednesday morning, Trump described the original C.D.C. guidelines, which call for masks, social distancing, staggered arrival times and no meals in cafeterias, as, quote, tough, expensive and impractical.

archived recording (robert redfield) But I want to make it very clear that what is not the intent of C.D.C.s guidelines is to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed.

michael barbaro

A few hours later during a briefing at the White House, the C.D.C.s director emphasized that those guidelines are suggestions, not requirements, and said that he did not want the guidelines to prevent schools from reopening. And in a major ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld a regulation from the Trump administration that lets companies with religious or moral objections to birth control limit coverage of them under the Affordable Care Act. The 7-to-2 ruling could result in as many as 126,000 women losing coverage for contraceptives from their employers. It was the latest case involving the relationship between church and state, in which the courts majority has sided with religious groups.

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Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Partly cloudy and very cold. Near or below zero wind chills again late at night towards sunrise. .

Tonight

Partly cloudy and very cold. Near or below zero wind chills again late at night towards sunrise.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), a Hyderabad-based construction company, has brought back about 1,000 workers, who had returned to their villages in Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh during the lockdown enforced on March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

The builder paid the workers train fare to resume construction work on the Polavaram multi-purpose project on the Godavari river in Andhra Pradeshs West Godavari district, company officials said on Tuesday. Some 1,800 more workers will be brought back soon, they said.

Over 3,000 migrant workers had left the company and returned to their home states in the exodus of workers that followed the lockdown, MEIL general manager Satish Angana said.

Till now, around 1,000 workers had been ferried back to Andhra Pradesh through Shramik Special trains at the companys expense. Another 1,800 workers are expected to be brought back shortly, said another company executive, who didnt want to be named.

Angana said all the returnees had been tested at special medical camps for Covid-19 and before returning to work

As the central and state governments battle to revive a stalled national economy and restart industrial activity, companies like Megha Engineering are being proactive in bringing back workers who had returned to their home states fearing a loss of work and wages.The Centre informed the Supreme Court last week that close to 10 million workers had been sent back to their homes on Shramik Special trains that started from May 1.

Employers need the workers, especially the skilled ones, to restart work, and havent stinted from offering them higher wages, better working conditions and paying their train -- even flight -- fares to bring them back.

The trend, backed by anecdotal evidence of workers returning to cities like Mumbai, illustrates, too, the vital role played by migrant labour from states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal in keeping the economy running in economically better-off states in southern and western India.

Bangalore-based real estate developer Prestige Group has flown 10 carpenters from Patna to Hyderabad where it has launched a big real estate project.

One of our contractors booked flight tickets for these 10 carpenters from Patna to Hyderabad. We have to complete the projects before the deadline fixed by the Real Estate Regulatory Authority and deliver the flats to the customers, a senior vice-president of Prestige Group told a news agency.

Bobby Jindal, owner of Balaji Processors, a blanket maker based in Punjabs Ludhiana, brought back seven of his master craftsmen by flights from Patna.

I was left with less than 50 workers at my unit which adversely affected production. I booked air tickets for seven master workers who took a flight from Patna to Delhi and then from Delhi to Sahnewal Airport in Ludhiana last week, Jindal said, adding that he had also arranged two taxis and booked train tickets for some other workers who left Balaji Processors. I have spent Rs 2 lakh on bringing 50 workers back in the last few days.

Rahul Verma, who runs a manufacturing unit Ludhiana, brought back five skilled workers back from Bihar who were needed in the casting unit. For some other workers, I have booked their tickets and paid them to return, he said.

In Rajasthan, from where workers go to other states looking for work, some industry owners have offered to arrange transport for workers to return.

Sunil Jain, president of the Rajasthan chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI), said the real estate and construction sector had been hit with a 30 to 40% shortage of workers because of the exodus. Most workers have returned to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand.

I know of some real estate firms that are trying to get labourers back through contractors. Contractors are in touch with the workers and are convincing them to return, assuring them that they will get full work and wages. A few have even sent vehicles to ferry workers back and promised higher wages, he said.

Garment exporters in Rajasthan have been confronting a 70% shortage of labourers and problems in meeting the delivery deadlines, said Aseem Kumar, general secretary of the Garment Exporters Association of Rajasthan.

Some units have offered a 50% increase in wages to deliver pending orders. They are offering higher wages, accommodation and even promising work for the whole year but labourers are not ready to return, he said. Most of the garment exports from Rajasthan are destined for Japan, the US, Europe and South America.

Charanjit Singh Vishwakarma, former president of United Cycle Parts Manufacturers Association (UCPMA) in Ludhiana, said he had already sent money to three of his labour contractors in Bihar to bring back workers. )

As trains have not fully resumed, the workers are finding it difficult to get confirmed tickets to come via train. The government should restart Shramik trains to bring them back, he said.

Some factory owners have also offered a higher salary for workers returning immediately. They are also paying for their train tickets, Tarsem Jodhan, president of the Punjab Mazdoor Union.

To revive industrial production in the state, the Punjab government last week sent two buses to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to bring back workers. I have arranged buses to bring back workers to industrial towns, said Punjab industries minister Sham Sunder Arora after a meeting with industrialists in Ludhiana last Friday.

The Rajasthan government has offered to help industry in getting workers back from other states, provided employers bear the cost of their transport. Labour secretary Niraj K Pawan said, If industry provides us details of districts from which they want the labourers back, we will coordinate with those states and facilitate the transport of the workers.
LAHORE, Pakistan, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MGH Logistics Pakistan completed two charter operations from Lahore to Frankfurt, Germany within a span of 2 weeks. Charters carried over 10 Million pieces of masks to a German client.

Berlin based Digital Logistics start-up Forto had reached out to MGH Group, the global logistics service provider to Global Fashion, and Automotive Brands has delivered over 1,000 tons of vital supplies including medicines and PPEs, perishables since March.

"Despite these unprecedented circumstances, MGH has been able to efficiently carve out an on demand solution from Pakistan as well as within whole of South, South East Asia, and Middle East, flying hundreds of Chartered flights of Masks, PPEs, Ventilators, and Fresh Foods on simply day's notices," said Anis Ahmed, MGH Group's Founder and Group CEO.

"We've also started offering our clients multimodal transport as the air freight capacity has been highly affected. MGH Pakistan is currently operating Sea-Air shipments from its own UAE hub with a transit time of 8 days ex Pakistan to European gateways. The multi-modal solution is over 50% cost effective as compared to Air Freight and 70% faster than sea freight," Rashedul Chowdhury, Country Head - MGH Pakistan & Sri Lanka mentioned.

Andreas Kayser, Head of Global Air Freight, Forto, said, "We worked with MGH on getting much needed medical supply from Pakistan to Germany. The collaboration was extremely efficient, and partnering with MGH was a great experience. Their creativity, flexibility, and sheer commitment to the task at hand allowed us to fulfill our customer's needs in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. We hope to continue the partnership with MGH."

Since March, MGH has operated multiple freighters to and from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai, Mumbai, Hanoi, Jeddah, Riyadh and now Lahore.

About MGH Logistics

MGH Logistics is a Singapore headquartered, Bangladesh born sprawling diversified Conglomerate with presence in 18 emerging Markets over 13 years. The company has a major stronghold in Asia, Middle East and Africa, and is rapidly expanding into Europe. It encompasses a variety of services such as - Supply Chain Management for Major fast fashion retailers, Automotive, and healthcare brands to Total Cargo management for Low cost carriers etc.

About MGH Logistics Pakistan (Pvt.) Ltd

MGH Logistics is operational in Pakistan since 2005, with 3 key offices - Karachi, Lahore & Sialkot.

Media Contacts-

Fatin Khandoker

+880-1730080849

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Shishir Ghildiyal

+91-9730191648

shishir.ghildiyal@mgh-logistics.com

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Volodymyr Zelensky and Olena Zelenska, headquarters of Zelensky's team on March 31, 2019 Open source

President Zelensky said he plans to develop a bill that would regulate the responsibilities of the first lady. During a working trip to Khmelnytsky, he confessed to Ukrainian Truth reporters that people often treat the first lady unfairly, behave unethically, and that his wife often comes up against groundless criticism.



In support of his words Zelensky told the following story.

"Where is my 300 percent benefit?"



We had a story that we didnt want to talk about. She (first lady, - ed.) wrote letters of support to all doctors who became ill with coronavirus. And even to all those who did not treat patients with coronavirus but simply fell ill. She wrote letters, but didnt want to make PR on that. "



"An anti PR was made by a man who answered: what kind of letters are these? Where are my 300 percent (of allowances - ed.)?" said the president.



At the same time, he clarified that this doctor could not receive this 300% allowance because he did not save people from coronavirus.



"This allowance can only be received by doctors who fought with coronavirus, who risked their lives," Zelensky explained.



In his opinion, this man behaved unethically and insultingly, because the allowances and salary do not depend on the first lady.



After this incident, I realized that the problem is that there is no legislation that governs the institution of the first lady. I am sure of it now. The first lady, at least in the future, should have responsibilities. I think so. Im talking seriously ... Then people, choosing a president, will understand what the first lady will do," the president said.



Zelensky stated that together with his wife Olena and her assistants, he plans to develop a bill that will regulate the status of the first lady. He emphasized: "No budget funding is needed here."

The idea is not new



Paris 2017. French President Emmanuel Macron proposed the adoption of the charter of the First Lady, which would allow the official establishment of this post and allocate funds for it from the budget.

First Lady is informal position



In the United States, where the term First Lady was first used, this post is also not official. And nowhere in the world is has the official status.



The first woman to be called First Lady was Harriet Lane, the niece of 15th US President James Buchanan (the only lifelong bachelor among US Presidents).



However, this term received universal recognition only after almost 30 years - in 1877, when Lucy Webb Hayes was named so in the report on the inauguration of the 19th President Rutherford Hayes.



In countries where a woman holds a leadership position, there is a male equivalent to this title - First Gentleman.



Such a title, for example, received Edgar Preca, husband of former President of Malta Marie-Louise Coleiro Preka, as well as husband of the first female President of Ireland Mary Robinson.
At the height of the lockdown, as even the most affluent schools faced a grim financial outlook, one Perth businessman made a rare bequest of $2 million to his former school to help families struck down financially due to the pandemic.

Wesley College headmaster Ross Barron said the school had already made the decision to keep on all staff, despite the huge impact to its budget, and offer a 20 per cent rebate for online learning and no fees to boarders when he took tea with an Old Boy on a quiet Wednesday afternoon in April.

Wesley College headmaster Ron Barron feared families faced huge financial constraints due to the pandemic but a generous benefactor came to the rescue.

[He] made a significant donation because he said hes been successful in life because of the values and the friendships he made here, Mr Barron said.

He knew that financially this was really going to be an impact for a lot of our families and he didnt want our students to miss out on an opportunity at Wesley because of COVID[-19].
By Kang Seung-woo



North Korea's decision to sever all official communication channels with South Korea is further weighing on President Moon Jae-in, who was already frustrated by Pyongyang's lack of response to his inter-Korean peace initiative.





President Moon Jae-in speaks during a meeting with his senior secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. / Yonhap

Experts advise Seoul to take a "timeout" from repeatedly offering something to engage the Kim Jong-un regime, while bracing for any possible fallout from increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula.



On Tuesday, the North cut off all cross-border communication lines, including the hotline between Moon and Kim, due to its apparent anger over the South's "failure" to prevent North Korean defectors and activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border tethered to balloons. In addition, the North said "the work toward the South should thoroughly turn into the one against an enemy."



At the start of the year, the Moon administration emphasized the importance of inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation. In March, the President offered cross-border healthcare cooperation and made another proposal last month to deal with inter-Korean projects that could be carried out separately from the North's denuclearization negotiations with the United States.



In addition, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's landslide victory in the general election in April fueled expectations that his North Korea policy would gain momentum. Also, the unification ministry said the South's own economic sanctions on the North have virtually lost their effect as it allowed the construction of a railway line from the coastal city of Gangneung to the border town of Jeji  a project agreed upon during the 2018 inter-Korean summit  to begin the same month.



Such continuous extension of olive branches was made amid a deadlock in Pyongyang-Washington talks on denuclearization, as Moon believed inter-Korean projects could, if carried out well, facilitate the talks.



Even when Kim Yo-jong, the North Korea leader's sister and first vice department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party, complained of the leaflet campaign last week, the government said it would legislate a ban on this to keep agreements alive.





Legal complaint against leaflet-sending defector groups still in process Unification ministry to file legal complaint against leaflet-sending defector groups Main opposition party presses for realignment of Seoul's N. Korea policy S. Korea vows to fully implement inter-Korean military deal despite NK threats However, along with the severed communication lines, the North warned of additional steps such as withdrawing from the suspended Gaeseong Industrial Complex and shutting down the joint liaison office there, further throwing cold water on Moon's inter-Korean initiatives, which the North is unlikely to respond to anytime soon.



"The North Korean denuclearization issue and Moon's Korean Peninsula peace process could be in jeopardy as the North is expected to take further steps as it has promised," said Park Won-gon, a professor of international politics at Handong Global University.



Members of the ruling party are making suggestions that the government should make an "attractive" offer to the North for inter-Korean reconciliation.



However, Park said the government needs to develop a crisis management plan.



"As the North's is highly anticipated to take military provocative actions, we need to maintain a strong alliance with the United States. Also, rather than constantly offering things to the North, a wait-and-see attitude can also be a policy option to take," he said.



Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University, said, "Engagement won't change the relationship with North Korea overnight, so it's unfair to say such efforts have failed. But it also doesn't make sense to get frustrated and blame sanctions, the United States or the U.N. Command, when the fundamental problem is the Kim regime's lack of reciprocity."



He added, "Seoul should not give in to coercion or give away taxpayer money as a sign of goodwill, but rather test various initiatives to see where Pyongyang is willing to engage in reciprocal cooperation."



The U.S. is also unlikely to actively work on the denuclearization talks for the time being, with the country entering a presidential election period and still coping with the COVID-19 crisis.



Regarding the North's cutting of communication channels with the South, a spokesman at the U.S. State Department told Yonhap News Agency, Tuesday, "The United States has always supported progress in inter-Korean relations, and we are disappointed in the DPRK's recent actions."




YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. With the support of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Armenias State Revenue Committee gathered the worlds leading technological companies around a negotiation table to find solutions for taxing the electronic trade, the SRC said in a statement today.

After a long-lasting negotiations a video conference was held in the State Revenue Committee with the representatives of leading international companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Booking.com, Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, KPMG, etc.

Armenia today has a unique opportunity to offer a favorable environment to the world leaders of the e-services to self-declare and pay the value added tax to the countrys budget for the services provided to the Armenian consumers. Moreover, the price for the online services provided to the citizens of Armenia already involves the VAT. The introduction of such self-declaration system will bring additional revenues to the state budget which will not lead to change in prices of these services.

The taxation of online trade is a great challenge around the world. Our country, in the person of the State Revenue Committee, is on the way of finding the best solution. The experience of digitization field will allow the Committee to create a convenient platform for the submission of reports and tax payment, SRC deputy chair Mikayel Pashayan said. The companies providing online services will be able to register and present the necessary reports within several minutes.

The State Revenue Committee will soon come up with a legislative initiative in order to introduce taxation regulations of online trade services by VAT in accordance with the best international practice.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
In recent weeks, American cities, suburbs, and small towns have seen an explosion of protests reacting to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Even as many have commented on the racial diversity of the demonstrators, many of those organizing the marches are young African Americans activists.

But while black pastors have organized several marches in major cities like Chicago and Washington DC, they have not been at the forefront of a movement that arguably began back in Ferguson in 2014.

While you may have had many black pastors and clergy who may have shown up at events, and you may have had a lot of people from black churches who were at these marches and protests, from 2014 to the present, by and large, this has not been a theological movement, said Watson Jones III, the senior pastor of Compassion Baptist Church in Chicago. It hasn't been a movement that has started in the basements of churches, in prayer meetings, and altars that flooded out into the streets.

Despite this, Watson believes that some of what is fueling many of the young black activist leaders ties back to this institution.

Much of how they do what they do are examples of things that early clergy and faithful Christians did in the 50s, 60s, and even 70s, but there is an absence of clergy leading this movement, he said.

Watson joined digital media producer Morgan Lee and editorial director Ted Olsen to discuss why the black churchs approach to activism has never been a monolith, how the communitys preaching is speaking to current events, and the extent to which the black church is struggling to keep young people engaged.

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland official on Wednesday called on Taiwan business people to seize opportunities on the mainland for better development.

Liu Jieyi, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks in Beijing while attending a members' congress of the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland.

Noting the stable development and resilience of the mainland economy, Liu expected more opportunities to be brought to Taiwan business people and their enterprises on the mainland by various development plans and pro-business policies such as tax and fee cuts.

He called on Taiwan compatriots to firmly oppose "Taiwan independence" and make further contributions to the peaceful development of cross-Strait ties and the peaceful reunification of the motherland. Enditem
Massive industrial growth in the Middle East & Africa and Asia-Pacific, adoption of stringent regulatory policies combined with increasing awareness about workplace safety are the main factors driving growth in Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE) market.

New York, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global Respiratory Protective Equipment market is forecast to reach USD 10.37 Billion by 2027, according to a new report by Reports and Data. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is sure to boost the respiratory protective equipment market growth. Increasing incidences of mesothelioma, which affects the protective lining of internal organs, including abdominal cavity, lungs, and heart, is expected to further fuel the market. Continuous exposure to asbestos in various occupations such as power plants, shipyards, construction, and industries causes this cancer.

In various industries, increasing concerns regarding fatalities due to high risks involving confined spaces is expected to drive the country's market growth over the coming few years. COVID19 has become a global havoc, which has led to an increase in demand for RPE from healthcare professionals.

The Respiratory protective equipment represented almost 11% of the global revenue for the protective gear market in 2019. Moreover, to fight against this corona pandemic, even the healthcare workers require these masks designed according to OSHAs recommendation. The growing transportation, along with increasing construction spending and oil and gas industries in the Asia Pacific, particularly in Indonesia, China, Vietnam, and India, is likely to augment the product demand. The market in this region will spur owing to rising infrastructure spending, high industrial production output, and high consumerism in these economies.

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The COVID-19 impact:

The demand for respirators, masks, gloves, and protective clothing, have increased significantly as the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the market positively. The employees of many sectors like aerospace, manufacturing, have been supplied RPE to protect them from the widespread outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to this, the manufacturers are working in no full strength to supply RPE across the regions because of the increasing demand-supply gap. Therefore, the demand for RPE is anticipated to witness growth over the coming few years.

Further key findings from the report suggest

Among the end-user segment, oil and gas are dominating the market presently. According to reports, the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector will register the highest CAGR of 8.0% during the forecasted period. Moreover, as this corona pandemic has spurred an unprecedented demand for personal protective equipment globally, healthcare and pharmaceutical are expected to witness an increase in market share in the coming few years.

Among the distribution channel segment of this market, retail sales lead the market, and it continues to dominate with an estimate to register a CAGR of 7.7% during the forecasted period. For the procurement of RPE, one new trend in the market is the integration of e-commerce channels. In India, the B2B e-commerce market is still at an early stage and shows an excellent opportunity for growth. By the end of 2020, experts predict the market to reach USD 700 billion. In India, the procurement of RPE through e-commerce channels is gaining momentum.

Among the type segment of this market, Air Purifying Respirators (APRs) led in 2019 and will continue to dominate with an estimated CAGR of 7.7% during the forecasted period. This APRs are used against particulates like smoke or fumes to protect the workers against harmful gases and vapors. Moreover, in Southeast Asia and Africa, the growing construction industry is anticipated to have a positive influence on the product demand over the coming few years.

In Europe, the rising number of investments in riot control and military activities will propel market growth. Moreover, with increasing aerospace equipment, demand for machinery, agricultural products, and pharmaceutical products are estimated to boost the regional RPE market growth.

With rising investments in defense, agriculture and healthcare industries are expecting a boost in their economy in various countries, including Colombia, Mexico, and Chile, in South and Central America. An increasing number of oil and gas exploration activities and automotive projects in Brazil and Ecuador may drive growth over the forecasted period.

Key participants include 3M, MSA Safety, Honeywell International, Dragerwerk, Alpha Pro Tech, Kimberly-Clark, Avon Protection Systems, Bullard, Gentex, Jayco Safety Products, among others.

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For the purpose of this report, Reports and Data have segmented into the respiratory protective equipment market on the basis of type, distribution channel, end-users, and region:

Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Air-Purifying Respirators

Supplied-Air Respirators

End- User Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals

Defense & Public Safety Services

Oil & Gas

Mining

Construction

Others

Distribution channel Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Direct/Institutional Sales

Retail Sales

To identify the key trends in the industry, click on the link below: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/respiratory-protective-equipment-rpe-market

Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

North America U.S

Europe U.K France

Asia Pacific China India Japan

MEA

Latin America Brazil



Take a Look at our Related Reports:

E-Prescribing Market: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/e-prescribing-market

Mobile Health (mHealth) Market: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/mobile-health-mhealth-market

Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery Market: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/artificial-intelligence-in-drug-discovery-market

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Recent tensions between India and China along the unmarked border in Indias northeastern region of Ladakh demonstrate Beijings continued intention to annex disputed areas and expand its influence in South Asia, the head of Tibets India-based exile government said this week.



Thousands of troops from the nuclear-armed neighbors have faced off since May near Ladakhs Pangong Lake, with Chinese troops rushing artillery and combat vehicles into the area after India was seen building a road nearby, according to Indian media reports.



Both sides have now pulled back ahead of a new round of talks aimed at reducing tensions, Indian government sources said on Tuesday, with Chinas foreign ministry saying on Wednesday that discussions between commanders in the two armies have already moved the issue toward a peaceful resolution.



Indian media reported that Chinese and Indian armies have shifted forces back from three flash points high in eastern Ladakh, a part of India with a large Tibetan Buddhist population.



The current face-off in Ladakh is only the latest in a series of flare-ups along Chinas and Indias 2,200-mile-long undemarcated border, or Line of Actual Control, with Indian soldiers using their fists to block an attempt by Chinese troops on May 9 to cross into Indian territory at the Nakula pass in northern Sikkim.



Meanwhile, in June 2017, India sent hundreds of troops into Bhutan to defend its ally against efforts by China to build a road southward into Doklam, an area claimed by both China and Bhutan. The stand-off continued for over two months and ended when both sides withdrew.



Watching Chinas repeated probes of Indian territory and defenses, India and the international community should remember the experience of Tibet, which was invaded by China in 1950 and finally taken over by force, Lobsang Sangaypresident of Tibets India-based exile government, the Central Tibetan Administrationsaid in interviews this week.



Promises by China of withdrawal from contested areas are often temporary and must be continually verified, Sangay said, speaking to Arnab Goswami of Indias Republic TV.



It is quite difficult to trust the Chinese regime. They say something and then do exactly the opposite, Sangay said, adding, They came [to Tibet] in the name of peace and prosperity for the Tibetan people, but ultimately the Chinese took away our country and independence, and we were driven into exile.



India and the world should learn from Tibets experience with China, Sangay said.



'Tibet has been militarized'



When the Chinese government said they would build a road connecting China to Tibet, they promised us prosperity and stability, Sangay said, speaking in an interview on Tuesday with Rahul Kanwal of India Today.



But that road was used to bring trucks of guns and tanks to occupy Tibet, and since that time that one road has become a hundred roads reaching all over the Tibetan plateau [right up to] the borders of India.



Six military airfields have now been built near Ladakh and the disputed northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and military-grade rail lines now connect Tibets Shigatse prefecture with the borders of Nepal, Sangay said.



So the whole Tibetan plateau has been militarized, he said.



Until Tibets status as a genuinely free and autonomous region is resolved, there will be even more border incursions by China into Ladakh, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Arunachal Pradesh, Sangay said.



Until the border changes from India-China back to India-Tibet, all of this will continue, Sangay said. The Indian government should say that for the security of India, Tibet needs to be free.



Origin of the problem



The establishment of Chinese control over Tibet is the origin of the problem, agreed Manoj Joshi, a defense analyst at Indias Observer Reserve Foundation, speaking to RFA in an interview in May.



Recalling a war fought on the border between India and China in 1962 in which hundreds were killed or wounded on both sides, Joshi said, The Chinese have it much easier now that they have built roads and railways into Tibet.



They can bring large numbers of troops up to the border now in a very short time, he said.



The installation by China of 5G wireless telecommunications equipment on Mount Everest, bordering Nepal, has meanwhile strengthened Chinas ability to monitor and disrupt military communications in neighboring states, said S.N. Ravichandranjoint secretary of the Cyber Society of Indiaalso speaking to RFA.



Not only India but other countries should be wary as well, Ravichandran said.



What happens if military units in Sikkim and Ladakh are disrupted, and thats where the concentrations [of forces] are building up?, he asked.



This is of great strategic importance, and yes, India is aware of it. I think that the Indian military is aware of it and is taking measures, he said.



Reported by RFA's Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Irish universities have regained some of the ground lost following years of decline in new world university rankings, but it comes at a time of unprecedented challenges for the sector.

The latest QS World University Rankings sees five of Irelands universities rise within the top 1,000 institutions internationally, reversing downward trends seen in recent years.

Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin ended two consecutive years of declines in the rankings for 2021, while University College Cork has risen 52 places since 2019 placing it within the global top 300 universities for the first time since 2018.

Its upgraded ranking is due to its improvement in academic reputation as well as employer recognition and institutional teaching capacity.

The University of Limerick also regained the ground it lost in last year's rankings, rising from a ranking somewhere between 521 to 530, to somewhere between 511 - 520 for 2021. NUI Galway moved up 21 places to 238th in the worlds top 1,000 institutions.

University College Cork

However, Ireland remains outside the top 100. Trinity increased its position by seven places, TCD remains just outside of the top 100, coming in at joint-101st. UCD rose from 185th to 177th.

Professor Linda Doyle, Trinitys Dean of Research praised Irish institutions' performance considering "under-investment and significant challenges we face in competing with other universities around the globe that are more robustly supported by government".

Significant and sustained improvements in the sector will only be achieved if there is long-term increases in investment, Prof Doyle added.

This is even more urgent in light of the unprecedented challenges we face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The top three institutions, according to QS, remain Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, and Harvard.
Virtual celebrations held by RBC Capital Markets employees in Canada , the U.S., the U.K., Europe , Japan , Hong Kong , Australia , Barbados and Bahamas

Donated US $4 million to 45+ charities worldwide

19 U.S. based charities: Autism Society of Texas ; Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area; Biotech Partners; Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago ; Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson County; Capital for Kids; Children of Fallen Patriots; Christopher House ; Comer Children's Hospital; Cookies for Kids' Cancer; Franciscan Children's Hospital; Jersey City Medical Center Foundation; Memorial Sloan Kettering; New York Presbyterian Hospital; Ronald McDonald House Charities Upper Midwest; Ronald McDonald House New York; Summer Search ; Turn 2 Foundation; Youth INC.

NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - RBC Capital Markets hosted its annual RBC Trade for the Kids @Home, donating US $4 million to more than 45 youth-focused charities around the globe and bringing a day of philanthropy and volunteerism celebrations directly to employees' homes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a significant strain on charities globally with many experiencing funding shortfalls. Now more than ever, it is important to come together and lend a hand to those supporting our communities. As such, RBC has already donated over US $6 million to charities related to COVID-19, including those focused on youth mental health and well-being, and food security. Moreover, to help fight systemic anti-Black racism and to provide support directly to Black communities, RBC has committed CAD $1.5 million to support Black youth, the economic development of Black communities, and social and racial justice reform.

To date, RBC Trade for the Kids has donated more than US $11 million to youth-focused charity partners around the world since starting the global event in 2015. This year's RBC Trade for the Kids @Home global charity day was held through a series of creative videos shared with employees in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Barbados and Bahamas, celebrating RBC's culture of giving and philanthropy.

In the United States, where RBC Trade for the Kids celebrated its sixth year, former patients, families and staff from 19 of the nation's leading youth charities (see full list of charities here) also joined in on the day's excitement by sharing their heart-warming, surprise webcam reactions towards the reveal of the RBC Trade for the Kids' donation announcements with RBC staff globally.

"During times of need, RBC recognizes that charities and non-profit organizations are particularly vulnerable," said Mike Bowick, Head of Global Markets and President, RBC Capital Markets. "As one of the largest banks globally, it's very important for RBC to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to helping our communities heal and grow stronger. Through RBC Trade for the Kids, our employees and clients have the opportunity to directly engage with our charity partners, and learn of their involvement in our communities and how they can help make a difference. We are thankful for the invaluable work and immeasurable efforts our charity partners continue to put in, especially during this pandemic, and are also thankful to our employees and clients for their tremendous ongoing support."

In 2019, RBC donated C$130 million to over 5,000 charitable organizations globally.

For more on RBC Trade for the Kids and the benefitting charities, click here .

About RBC

Royal Bank of Canada is a global financial institution with a purpose-driven, principles-led approach to delivering leading performance. Our success comes from the 84,000+ employees who bring our vision, values and strategy to life so we can help our clients thrive and communities prosper. As Canada's biggest bank, and one of the largest in the world based on market capitalization, we have a diversified business model with a focus on innovation and providing exceptional experiences to our 17 million clients in Canada, the U.S. and 34 other countries. Learn more at rbc.com.

We are proud to support a broad range of community initiatives through donations, community investments and employee volunteer activities. See how at rbc.com/community-social-impact.

About RBC Capital Markets

RBC Capital Markets is recognized by the most significant corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, private equity firms, and governments around the globe as an innovative, trusted partner with an in-depth expertise in capital markets, banking, and finance. We are well-established in the largest, most mature capital markets with over 7,300 employees across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region in 70 offices and 15 countries, collectively encompassing more than 80% of global investment banking activity each year.

About RBC Trade for the Kids around the world

Originally launched in the U.S. in 2015, RBC Trade for the Kids is a day focused on raising money and awareness of some of RBC's longstanding charitable partnerships aimed at supporting children and young people. In 2020, RBC Trade for the Kids was held for the third time globally across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Caribbean, donating to over 45 charities.

To date, Trade for the Kids has seen over US $11 million in total donations.

For more on RBC Trade for the Kids and the benefitting charities, click here.

SOURCE RBC

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PHILADELPHIA, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund, Inc. (NYSE American: FAX) (the "Fund") held its adjourned Special Meeting of Shareholders (the "Meeting").

At the Meeting, shareholders of the Fund voted to approve amendments to, or the elimination of the Fund's fundamental investment policies.

As of the record date, March 5, 2020, there were 247,695,769 shares of common stock and 2,000,000 shares of preferred stock issued and outstanding. 50.980% of the outstanding shares were voted at the Meeting representing a quorum.

The description of the proposal and number of shares voted at the Meeting are as follows:

Proposal 1: To approve the amendments to, or the elimination of, the Fund's fundamental investment policies as follows:

Proposal 1a : To amend the fundamental policy regarding investment of up to 80% in Asian Debt securities so that the Fund would normally invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes, in "Asia-Pacific debt" securities and to define "Asia-Pacific debt".

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 117,134,483 5,269,943 4,889,604

Proposal 1b: To eliminate the Fund's fundamental investment policy that the maximum country exposure to any one Asian Country (other than Korea) is limited to 20% of the Fund's total assets.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 100,836,336 21,934,615 4,523,080

Proposal 1c: To eliminate the Fund's fundamental investment policy that at least 20% of the Fund's total assets will be invested in "Australian debt securities."

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 114,879,352 7,930,407 4,484,271

Proposal 1d: To eliminate the Fund's fundamental investment policy that the maximum country exposure for Korea is limited to 40% of the Fund's total assets.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 100,789,866 21,957,273 4,546,892

Proposal 1e: To eliminate the Fund's fundamental investment policy that the maximum country exposure for New Zealand is limited to 35% of the Fund's total assets.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 114,916,293 7,841,358 4,536,380

Proposal 1f: To eliminate the Fund's fundamental investment policy that the maximum currency exposure to any one Asian currency (other than Korea) is limited to 10% of total assets.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 101,189,739 21,611,127 4,493,164

Proposal 1g: To eliminate the Fund's fundamental investment policy that the maximum currency exposure for Korea is 25% of the Fund's total assets.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 113,847,671 8,860,293 4,586,066

Proposal 1h: To eliminate the Fund's fundamental investment policy that the maximum currency exposure for New Zealand is 35% of the Fund's total assets.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 114,641,103 8,183,815 4,469,113

Proposal 1i:To make the Fund's fundamental temporary defensive investment policy with respect to temporarily investing 100% of its assets in U.S. debt securities a non-fundamental policy but to include U.S. cash as well.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 116,033,809 6,396,554 4,863,667

Proposal 1j: To make the Fund's fundamental investment policy to invest up to 35% of its total assets in Asian debt securities rated below BBB- or Baa3 a non-fundamental policy  but with respect to Asia-Pacific debt securities instead of Asian debt securities.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 100,659,956 21,446,583 5,187,491

Proposal 1k: To make the Fund's fundamental investment policy with respect to entering into repurchase agreements a non-fundamental investment policy.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 115,846,347 6,561,290 4,886,394

Proposal 1l: To make the Fund's fundamental investment policy with respect to investing up to 10% of its total assets in securities rated below B- at the time of investment a non-fundamental investment policy.

Votes For Votes Against Abstained 101,547,578 20,993,964 4,752,489

The changes to the fundamental investment policies approved at today's Meeting will go into effect on or before June 24, 2020.

In the United States, Aberdeen Standard Investments is the marketing name for the following affiliated, registered investment advisers: Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc., Aberdeen Asset Managers Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Ltd., Aberdeen Capital Management, LLC, Aberdeen Standard Investments ETFs Advisors LLC and Standard Life Investments (Corporate Funds) Ltd.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeenfax.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund, Inc.

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File photo shows Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 29, 2019. [Xinhua/Pang Xinglei]

China and the Philippines are good neighbors with profound traditional friendship, Xi said, noting that over the past 45 years of diplomatic relations, China-Philippines ties have made remarkable progress.

"I attach great importance to the development of China-Philippines ties," Xi said.

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua)  Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that he is willing to work with his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte to continuously lift their countries' relationship of comprehensive strategic cooperation to new levels.

"I attach great importance to the development of China-Philippines ties," Xi said when exchanging congratulatory messages with Duterte to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Both China and the Philippines are at a critical moment for development, Xi stressed in his message, noting that the two countries share broad prospects for cooperation.

People line up for a grocery store in Manila, the Philippines on June 4, 2020. [Xinhua/Rouelle Umali]



Xi said China feels empathy for the Philippines amid the COVID-19 epidemic, and is ready to work with the Philippine side to overcome the difficulties together.

China and the Philippines are good neighbors with profound traditional friendship, Xi said, noting that over the past 45 years of diplomatic relations, China-Philippines ties have made remarkable progress.

In recent years, in particular, Xi said, the two countries have deepened their political mutual trust, continuously expanded cooperation in various areas, and achieved fruitful results in Belt and Road cooperation, bringing concrete benefits to the two peoples and contributing to regional stability and development.

In his message, Duterte said friendship and kinship between the Philippine and Chinese people have been lasting for a thousand years. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1975, the friendship between the two countries has developed steadily.

Vehicles are stuck in a traffic jam in Manila, the Philippines, June 1, 2020. [Xinhua/Rouelle Umali]



Currently, global security and stability continue to face challenges and non-traditional security threats such as the COVID-19 epidemic have become increasingly prominent, he said, noting that it is of great importance to further consolidate Philippines-China partnership.

Duterte said the Philippine side takes China as a close neighbor and an important partner, and is ready to deepen bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperation and facilitate peace, development and prosperity of the two countries by upholding the principle of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.

(Source: Xinhua)
Tiffany amends debt pacts for financial leeway amid pandemic, slump in sales The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Singapore

By Melissa Fares and Silvia Aloisi

NEW YORK/MILAN (Reuters) - U.S. luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co <TIF.N>, which is being bought by France's LVMH for $16 billion, said on Tuesday it had amended some of its debt agreements to gain more financial leeway amid the coronavirus pandemic after its quarterly sales sank 44%.

The amendments included raising the maximum leverage ratio, which assesses the ability of a company to meet its financial obligations, to 4.5 from 3.5. Some analysts had warned that Tiffany was at breaching its debt covenants in the second quarter.

Tiffany shares were up more than 2 percent in early trading.

Sources have told Reuters that LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault has been exploring ways to potentially pressure Tiffany to lower the agreed price of $135 per share, including by examining its compliance with its debt covenants.

However, Arnault has decided not to renegotiate the agreed price for now, sources told Reuters on Friday.

The acquisition, scheduled to be completed in mid-2020, has yet to receive some of the necessary regulatory approvals, and LVMH could revisit the issue before the deal closes, especially if Tiffany's financial condition deteriorates..

Tiffany's new debt covenants should lower the risk of breach that could disrupt the LVMH acquisition, Credit Suisse analyst Michael Binetti said.

An LVMH spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Tiffany, which also drew $500 million from one of its credit facilities during the first quarter, said it had ample cash on hand and was in compliance with all debt covenants as of April 30.

"I am confident that Tiffany's best days remain ahead of us and I am excited we will be taking that journey with LVMH by our side," Tiffany CEO Alessandro Bogliolo said in a statement.

The company's comparable sales, which strip out the effects of currency exchange rates, tumbled in the three months to April 30, as the pandemic gutted demand for its jewelry and forced it to shut the bulk of its 300 stores across the globe.

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Based in New York and best known for its diamond engagement rings, Tiffany faces further headwinds in the next few months as the health emergency has plunged major economies into recession and brought international tourism to a halt.

"The biggest challenge will be getting past the absence of events like weddings that have been lost or postponed," said NPD Chief Analyst Marshal Cohen. "These gift-driving events are hard to lose as a retailer."

Those problems have been compounded in recent weeks by widespread U.S. protests that included some incidents of shop looting following the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.

Net sales nearly halved to $555.5 million in the first quarter, while it posted a loss of $64.6 million compared with a profit of $125.2 million a year earlier.

Tiffany said sales were on a recovery path in the key Chinese market, which began emerging from the coronavirus lockdown earlier than the United States and Europe, although revenues were still down 40% globally in May.

(Reporting by Melissa Fares in New York, Silvia Aloisi in Milan and Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Bernadette Baum)
Twenty-two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee called on President Donald Trump Tuesday to reverse his decision to pull 9,500 U.S. troops out of Germany, warning that a withdrawal would send the wrong signal to Russia.

"In Europe, the threats posed by Russia have not lessened, and we believe that signs of a weakened U.S. commitment to NATO will encourage further Russian aggression and opportunism," the Republicans said in a letter to Trump.

Read Next: Military Pay Raise for 2021 Moves Forward in Senate

"We strongly believe that NATO allies, such as Germany, should do more to contribute to our joint defense efforts," the letter said, "[but] we also know that the forward stationing of American troops since the end of World War II has helped to prevent another world war and, most importantly, has helped make America safer."

The lead signature on the letter was that of Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the committee's ranking member and usually a staunch supporter of Trump.

Democrats have also criticized the withdrawal decision, first reported by the Wall Street Journal June 5.

In a June 5 statement, Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said "this order is petty and preposterous."

He said Trump's move amounted to "another favor" for Russian President Vladimir Putin "and another leadership failure by this administration that further strains relations with our allies."

In a Twitter post, retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commander of U.S. Army Europe, said withdrawing troops from Germany would be a "colossal mistake" that was "not tied to any strategy."

Such a move would be a "gift for Putin," Hodges said. "the Kremlin has done nothing to earn/warrant a US drawdown."

The White House has yet to give the reasoning behind the planned drawdown from Germany, which would reduce the number of U.S. troops there to about 25,000.

At the White House Monday, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany sidestepped questions on troop withdrawals from Germany.

First, we have no announcements at this time, McEnany said. I know theres reporting out there, but, as of this moment, there are no announcements.

The president is continually reassessing the best posture for the United States military forces and our presence overseas. I mean, we remain committed to working with our strong allies, she added.

When asked if Trump would consult with German Chancellor Angela Merkel before making any announcements, McEnany said, Again, no announcements at this time.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Trump Directs Pentagon to Pull 9,500 Troops from Germany
As the global pandemic Coronavirus, known as COVID-19, has already triggered scores of layoffs across the country, Bilsir, a job search engine is proving to be a boon to a number of jobless in various sectors at a time when the job market is witnessing churning. It has been witnessed that despite the hit, many sectors such as IT, BPO/ITES, BFSI, accounting/finance, etc keep hiring people for remote work. Meanwhile, a number of job seekers turned up on Bilsir.com for the same.

Talking about the Bilsir, Pratik Singh, one of the founders and partner of Green Arrowhead LLP said, It is an indigenous vertical search engine focused on job search and provide listings for all categories of corporate and non-corporate job positions. It indexes web pages based on the quality/relevance of page content and page source. This approach is more relevant, in the context of job search, in comparison to the indexing approaches of most of the prominent generic search engines.

Pratik Singh further said that Green Arrowhead LLP, the owner of Bilsir, is focused on indigenous technological innovations for solving problems currently being served by foreign technology companies. To hasten the development process, Green Arrowhead uses a combination of open source and close source technologies. The ultimate aim of Green Arrowhead is to provide more localised and more innovative alternates to Indian consumers.

Established in 2010, Green Arrowhead LLP was created to develop indigenous software solutions, long before terms like Make in India, Technology Independence, Indigenous Technologies became popular. At the time of establishment, founders were in the US. However, they soon realize that for the idea of indigenous technology to materialize their presence was required in India. So, the founders shifted back to India in 2013.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)

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France spent billions on temporary unemployment benefits but contract workers in the food and special events industry were left out

A contract worker from the food, catering and events industry in France, left out of Covid-19 budget measures, put her sign in a coffin during a flash mob on Place de La Concorde in Paris Wednesday June 10, 2020, to call attention to the impact the sanitary crisis is having on their lives. (AP)

Paris: Contract workers from Frances all-important food, catering and events industry have held a protest between the Louvre Museum and Champs-Elysees to spread the message that the virus pandemic is killing their jobs.

The flash mob-style demonstration included about 30 people dressed in black simulating strangulation with their ties and putting signs reading sentenced to death into a coffin.

Frances government spent billions on temporary unemployment benefits for workers, but contract workers in the food, catering and special events industry were not included.

Anne-Laure Boggio is a maitre dhotel in Paris and isnt sure how she and her family will make it through the year.

Boggio said: I gave birth last year, using up parts of my unemployment benefits, now with COVID, I used the rest of my benefits. ...In September, I dont know if Ill receive welfare allowances, and I have two mouths to feed.

Although restaurants and national borders are gradually reopening in France, tourism is expected to remain muted. Large gatherings are banned until at least the end of the summer, making it difficult for people like Boggio to find employment.
Inflexible system prompts young engineers to leave



By Park Jae-hyuk



Shinhan, KB, Hana and Woori financial groups are facing difficulties in attracting young engineers equipped with digital skills, due to their rigid corporate culture and tough financial regulations.



Despite the nation's four largest banking groups' efforts to find such people to engineer their digital transformation as the trend for contactless transactions grows due to the COVID-19 pandemic, IT experts are choosing to work for tech firms, rather than becoming bank employees.



According to industry sources, hundreds of experienced engineers and designers rushed to visit Naver Financial's website between May 11 and 15 to apply for about 30 positions available at the IT giant's financial subsidiary.



In contrast, all 15 KB employees sent to KakaoBank in 2016 refused to return to their previous workplace late last year, despite attractive incentives from their previous employer.



These cases may seem weird to those who remember when banks were popular workplaces here because of their stability and high salaries.



Korean students, however, are choosing not to work for conventional financial firms anymore.



A survey of 1,045 university students done by Incruit in June showed Kakao was their most-favored company, followed by Samsung Electronics, Naver and CJ ENM.



The local job market information provider said the respondents mentioned Kakao's growth potential and work-life balance as the biggest reasons they want to work for the IT firm.



In the survey, none of financial firms were among the top 10.



Up until of 2017 when the Export-Import Bank of Korea ranked 10th, financial firms had regularly been in the top 10.



KB Kookmin Bank was on the list from 2006 to 2015, and Shinhan Bank was placed ninth in the same survey done in 2011.



However, their corporate cultures and regulations have led talented jobseekers to turn away from them.



"I had to do what bank employees ordered, and had to apologize when they had complaints, so I became withdrawn and suffered from an excessive workload," an engineer who moved to a foreign company from a financial group's IT subsidiary said on condition of anonymity.



Some engineers complained of the strict network separation policy imposed on banks, because it has barred them from telecommuting or working on a flexitime basis, despite the work-from-home trend amid the COVID-19 pandemic.



Efforts of foreign banks



According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), the proportion of IT experts at Korean banks dropped to 3.8 percent in 2018 from 5.7 percent in 2005.



"As there is a certain limit to banks hiring IT experts from outside, it seems their digital transformations have been stymied," Kim Hoon, who directs analysis of financial systems at the BOK's financial stability department, said in a report in April.



He advised Korean banks to take into account global banking giants' efforts to change their organizational structure and train their employees.



"DBS is operating a department composed of over 10,000 IT and sales experts, and Lloyds Banking Group established a digital job family to minimize idle manpower by inducing employees to manage their careers for the long term," he said.



"Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Citi have increased their investment in fintech firms to realize their digital transformation in a short period of time. These banks have also increased their acquisition of stakes in fintech firms beyond mere business collaboration."



The central bank official also suggested banks extend the terms of their management, saying long-term tasks such as digital transformation require consistent and strong determination.



Investments in digitization



Against this backdrop, Shinhan said June 8 it aims to hire 6,700 new employees over the next five years and ensure digital experts account for more than half of them.



KB has taught its employees technologies needed for chatbot, robo-adviser and fraud detection systems at the financial artificial intelligence research center it opened at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).



Hana launched an intensive digital training program, "DT (Digital Transformation) University," June 5 to upgrade the digital capabilities of group staff to offer better services.



"We will upgrade the digital capabilities of our employees through DT University's customized courses, and continue to make investments so that the group can offer new user experiences with upgraded capabilities," Hana Chairman Kim Jung-tai said during a ceremony marking the launch of the program.



Woori mentioned fostering digital talent as one of its 10 tasks when it launched its committee on pushing forward digitization in May.



Chairman Son Tae-seung said at that time that the company would enroll its employees on training programs offered by ICT firms.


For related developments, see: RCMP commissioner acknowledges 'unconscious bias' in the RCMP, vows to review use of controversial neck hold restraint

The RCMP's commanding officer in Alberta denies there is systemic racism in policing in Canada, amid allegations his members used excessive force against an Indigenous chief during an arrest.

"I don't believe that racism is systemic through Canadian policing. I don't believe it's systemic through policing in Alberta," Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki told a news conference in Edmonton on Monday, when asked about unfolding protests in the United States over the death of George Floyd and debates over police violence around the world.

Zablocki's comments came just a day after Alberta's Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) said it would investigate claims of racism and police brutality brought forward by Chief Allan Adam of the Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta.

Over the weekend, Chief Adam alleged that he was beaten by RCMP officers and his wife was manhandled back in March when police stopped him for an expired licence plate in Fort McMurray. That arrest is now under review.

Black Lives Matter activist and comedian Adora Nwofor said she disagrees with Zablocki.

Nwofor said she has personally experienced two traumatic incidents of racism by police in Alberta and has heard many accounts from Black, Indigenous and other people of colour about racism during contact with police.

"He's wrong. That's plain and simple. He's wrong," Nwofor told CBC News on Tuesday.

WATCH | No systemic racism in policing, Zablocki says:

"If a white man is denying systemic racism, that is systemic racism. Because he is denying that he knows and that's really how systemic racism continues."

When contacted by CBC News about his comments, Zablocki issued a statement saying: "We all acknowledge that racist individuals can be anywhere throughout our society and institutions  and we have acknowledged that organizationally in the RCMP."

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Initial statement unchanged

Zablocki added it is the duty of police organizations to "keep listening, learning and working with the citizens we serve  and we are committed to continuing to challenge ourselves to deliver police services in a way that best meets the expectations of Albertans."

But he did not change his initial statement.

"I feel issues of racism and relationships with our diverse communities in Canada differ from our U.S. counterparts," his statement added.

Zablocki's messaging appeared to contradict the policy of Public Safety Canada, which oversees the RCMP.

As well, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was asked Wednesday about Zablocki's suitability for the RCMP job in Alberta. She replied by reiterating the views of both Prime MInister Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair that systemic racism exists and it must be dealt with.

Freeland stresses problem

Trudeau and Blair have both spoken with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki about systemic racism, Freeland said.

"It is very important for all federal government institutions, including the police, to operate from an understanding that systemic racism is a problem for us here in Canada, to not be complacent about that, and we have to work together against it," she said.

Lucki said Wednesday that she has since spoken to Zablocki and said he misinterpreted the term "systemic racism."

"His intention was to simply say that, you know, if there is racism, he didn't believe it in his thoughts that it was rampant across the organization," she said.

When asked if there is systemic racism in policing in Canada, Lucki said she believes there is "unconscious bias."

In response to the incident involving Adam, Blair said Indigenous people and communities "still face systemic barriers in Canada, and the racism they face often takes form in interactions with law enforcement."

Blair further denounced racism in the criminal justice system on Tuesday.

"Discrimination on the basis of race or any other form of bias is not only abhorrent and not acceptable, it's unlawful," the minister said.

'We expect more'

Before coming to Alberta, Zablocki worked with the RCMP in Saskatchewan in the time period after 22-year-old Colten Boushie was shot and killed on the farm of Gerald Stanley.

Eleanore Sunchild, the Boushie family's lawyer, said Zablocki's latest comments indicate he did not learn from the events following Boushie's death.

"Zablocki speaks about listening and learning. Yet he doesn't seem to be doing either," Sunchild said. "If he was listening to the voices of the Indigenous people, of the leaders, of the advocates, he would have learned about systemic racism in the justice system."

Sunchild said she wasn't shocked to hear the comments, saying similar arguments have been made for hundreds of years.

"We've been hearing this  since colonization, since the RCMP came onto our lands to take the children away," Sunchild said. "It's been the same old problem."

'Very troubling'

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said she was "shocked and surprised" to hear the deputy commissioner's comments.

"It's very troubling. This is someone who, in his role, would be one of the people who would be leading the efforts to combat systemic racism within the force," Notley told CBC Calgary News at 6. "So if there's a thought that it's not an issue, then clearly the work we assume ought to be going on is, at the very least, not a priority."

Nathan Gross/CBC

Notley said she hoped the deputy commissioner would make a "very authentic and genuine apology" with a clear commitment of combating racism within Alberta police forces.

"I think, if one message that has come through loud and clear, certainly to me and to many folks, we need to begin by listening," she said. "We need to provide a forum for the people themselves who feel this sense of unease, or people who have been victims."

'Many types' of oppression

Nwofor said denying systemic racism is simply an obstacle to changing it.

"There are many types of systemic oppression that are happening in Canada and Alberta's police forces," she said. "To deny it means you want to silence it."

This is not the first time Zablocki has made headlines for comments about race and policing.

In 2017, while deputy commissioner in Saskatchewan, he denied that relationships between police and Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan were "deeply fractured" after a Human Rights Watch Canada report found evidence to the contrary.

ASIRT investigates cases of serious injury or death that may have been caused by police, and "serious or sensitive" allegations of police misconduct.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / BTU METALS CORP. ("BTU" or the "Company") (TSXV:BTU) is pleased to announce that further to its press releases dated June 8th, 2020 the Company has closed the non-brokered private placement. The Company issued 2.6 million common share units (the "Units") at a price of $0.20 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of $520,000. Each Unit consists of one common share and one-half warrant. Each full warrant entitles the subscriber to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of $0.30 for a period of 3 years from the date of closing.

Proceeds raised will be used for advancing the Company's Dixie Halo Property in Red Lake, Ontario where drilling is currently underway at the TNT VMS target and for general working capital.

Finders' fees of $4,800 were paid to an arm's length party.

The shares and warrants comprising the units and the finder's warrants are subject to a 4 month hold period expiring October 10th, 2020.

The Private Placement is subject to TSX Venture Exchange final approval.

BTU Metals Corp. is a publicly traded junior, mining exploration company focused in the Red Lake district of Ontario, Canada. BTU currently holds or has under option approximately 200 sqkm of exploration properties continuous to Great Bear Resources in the Red Lake, Ontario area. BTU is actively exploring two key targets; the Dixie Creek prospect, a high-grade gold target immediately south of GBR and the TNT prospect, a very large potential-VMS systems towards the south on the properties. For more information please visit www.BTUMetals.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Paul Wood"

Paul Wood, CEO, Director

pwood@btumetals.com

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Andreas Curkovic, Investor Relations

+1 416-577-9927

BTU Metals Corp.

Telephone: 1-604-683-3995

Toll Free: 1-888-945-4770

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and using information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and they are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. These forward -looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. All forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in our filings with SEDAR in Canada (available at WWW.SEDAR.COM).

SOURCE: BTU Metals Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593501/BTU-Closes-Financing
- Anne Curtis and Erwan Heussaff are celebrating their tenth anniversary as a couple on June 10

- The Kapamilya actress then took to social media to pen a sweet message to Erwan

- She shared as well some throwback photos displaying how long they have been together

- Annes followers on Instagram also commented on her post to greet her and Erwan

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Anne Curtis took to social media to pen a sweet message to Erwan Heussaff as they celebrate their tenth anniversary as a couple.

In an Instagram post on June 10, Anne shared as well their first photos together.

Happy 10th Anniversary Mon amour. A decades gone by just like that. Who wouldve thought that the pair in the last photo would end up where we are today - with a mini version of you and I. Wouldnt change a thing. Je taime Mon amour (I love you my love)! the Its Showtime host captioned.

She further added that, I know we said we would stop celebrating our original anniversary when we got married BUT I couldnt help it, because this one is still special. From here on, well celebrate just our wedding anniv. Hope you like the pics. Took me the whole day to search for our first few pics together.

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Annes followers on Instagram also commented on her post to greet the couple:

Happy 10th Anniversary you two @Erwan The love and appreciation you show for each other never ceases to amaze me. Dont ever change. My fav pic is the one in queens town.

Happy 10th anniversary to the both of you my idol anne.. happy po ako na mkita kapong masaya with your loving husband with your little cute angel dahlia Amelie.

Happy anniversary to you both. Stay happy and in love forever. God bless your family.

Happy decade of love Mr. & Mrs. Heussaff!

See Anne and Erwan's throwback photo's below. Swipe right to see their "first" pictures:

POPULAR: Read more news about Anne Curtis

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In a previous report by KAMI, Anne Curtis posted an adorable photo of her ray of sunshine, baby Dahlia Amelie, who just turned three months old.

Anne Curtis is one of the most admired celebrities in the Philippines. She is one of the main hosts of the ABS-CBN noontime variety show Its Showtime.

Erwan Heussaff is a famous YouTube content creator and restaurateur in the Philippines. He married Anne in November 2017. Both of them are in Australia to focus on their duties as new parents.

Please like and share our amazing Facebook posts to support the KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinions about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts and views on different matters!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
A Sierra Leone minister started a conversation around gender roles after joining a Zoom meeting with his 10-month-old daughter. Last month, David Moinina Sengeh shared a photo of his daughter tied to his back on Twitter and it has now taken the internet by storm. In the post, he also invited others to share with the world how they worked from home as a leader.

Sengeh has now become dad goals as his post has received more than 7,000 likes. While speaking to an international media outlet, the Sierra Leone minister said that he wanted to set an example for other men by sharing the photograph. He reportedly added that many women do this daily, however, it has been so normalised that the world no longer talks about it at all. He also said that if his wife had done the same thing, but the tweet wouldnt have gone viral.

READ: Italians Head To Beauty Salons As Restrictions Ease

The caption of the post read, "Working from home? How did u join your last zoom call? As Minister, I started my last call feeding my 10-month-old, then carried her on my back for the rest of the call. The presentations helped her sleep. I invite you to share with the world how you worked from home as a leader.

Working from home? How did u join your last zoom call? As Minister, I started my last call feeding my 10 month old, then carried her on my back for the rest of the call. The presentations helped her sleep. I invite you to share with the world how you worked from home as a leader. pic.twitter.com/wrkDwu58B5  David Moinina Sengeh (@dsengeh) April 28, 2020

READ: French Finance Minister: Renault Future Is Uncertain

While speaking to the media outlet, Sengeh, who is the education minister of Sierra Leone, explained that it was rare to see a child on its fathers back in the West African country, but the sight of a woman carrying a baby on her back would be taken as normal. With several fathers sharing their own pictures with their baby, internet users appreciated the ministers post and praised him for raising the issue of gender roles.

Sengeh 'inspires hope'

While one Twitter user wrote, This is great! I think we men in SL should not only be fathers by name but should contribute to the daily upbringing of our kids. It's fascinating seeing a minister displaying equality!!! I look forward to having my own kids and sharing their daily lives. Another user said, I commend your practical & sensible approach during these trying times. As usual, please remain focus & be mindful that your Ministry & innovation, is the key to project Sierra Leone to higher heights. Stay Safe & Stay home.

Great picture @dsengeh ! I hope I can portray you with your daughter one day for the photo project I've started in 2018 called "Peres" that is touring around the globe to break the stereotypes and prejudices about paternity in Africa. Check it out here: https://t.co/ZetbWSsbd9 pic.twitter.com/8UQlUpNptx  marta (@martamoreiras) April 29, 2020

My daughter HAMSAT has been my personal secretary. Na d ambug normor  pic.twitter.com/m3y824fyDc  Mohamed Jah Ayuba (@Ayubajnr) April 28, 2020

READ: Virus Surge In Indonesia Raises Questions About Battle Plan

Love it - modern day father and political leader   Jasandra Nyker (@nykerj) April 28, 2020

Your example inspires hope. Salone will have a better future with leaders like you!  Boris Eichenberger (@gedankenwirren) May 15, 2020

READ: Syria Bars Assad's Cousin From Travel Amid Financial Dispute
Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

The Federal Communications Commission announced a record $225 million fine against a Texas-based insurance telemarketing firm for making as many as 1 billion illegal robocalls, but two FCC commissioners wondered whether the agency will actually collect that massive fine.

The FCC alleges that John C. Spiller and Jakob Mears, through companies including Rising Eagle Capital and JSquared Telecom, made 1 billion robocalls across the country during the first four-and-a-half months of 2019 on behalf of clients that sell short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans.

Spiller admitted to the USTelecom Industry Traceback Group, a private industry group that frequently works with the FCC on robocall enforcement, that he knowingly called consumers on the Do Not Call list because he believed that it was more profitable to target those consumers. According to the FCC, Spiller also admitted that he made millions of calls per day using spoofed numbers that resembled numbers belonging to the call recipients friends or family members.

The robocalls falsely claimed to offer health insurance plans from well-known health insurance companies such as Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and UnitedHealth Group, but consumers would instead be transferred to a call center with no affiliation with the companies named. Representatives would then attempt to persuade the consumer to buy insurance from one of Rising Eagles clients.

Consumer Reports contacted Spiller and Mears for comment through Rising Eagle but did not get a response before publication.

The $225 million amount was the largest proposed fine in the FCCs 86-year history. Spiller and Mears can respond to the allegations and the FCC may reduce, but not increase, the fines if the case moves forward.

Its important to hold robocallers accountable, so were glad that the FCC has proposed a historic fine for these apparent robocall violations, says CR policy analyst Maureen Mahoney. But historically, enforcement hasnt been enough to rein in robocallers, especially since its difficult to recover the penalties.

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But Will the FCC Collect?

While applauding the enforcement action, Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the FCCs five commissioners, also wondered whether the huge fine would actually be collected.

Over the last several years the FCC has levied hundreds of millions in fines against robocallers just like the folks we have here today. But so far collections on these eye-popping fines have netted next to nothing, she said in a statement.

Rosenworcel went on to cite a 2019 Wall Street Journal article that reported that while the agency had levied $208 million in fines against robocallers, it collected only $6,790.

Why? Well, one reason is that the FCC looks to the Department of Justice to collect on the agencys fines against robocallers. . . . When they dont get involvedas herethats not a good sign, Rosenworcel continued.

Fellow commissioner Geoffrey Starks echoed her sentiments.

The threat of large fines as a deterrent means nothing if we systematically fail to actually collect on them, he said in a statement. We must work harder to ensure on the back end that our enforcement efforts reap actual, measurable results, and then be transparent about how were going to put violators on notice that we mean business.

This proposed fine differs from previous actions against robocallers in that it names Spiller and Mears individually. By piercing the so-called corporate shield of Rising Eagle, JSquared Telecom, and other companies, the FCCs action potentially exposes them to having their personal assets seized.

In a related action, state attorneys general from Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas sued Spiller and Mears and their companies for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the federal law governing telemarketing. The companies could be subject to a fine of up to $500 for each individual violation with the possibility of triple damages if the violations are found to be willful.



The FCC enforcement action comes in the wake of the agencys approval in April of new guidelines that would require all U.S. phone companies to install new consumer protections against robocalls.

The guidelines, which are in line with a recent federal anti-robocall law, require telecommunications providers to implement so-called Shaken/Stir authentication technology that will help customers identify whos actually calling. The new safeguards will be free to consumers and go into effect by the end of June 2021.



The FCC should continue to work to ensure that phone companies implement anti-robocall technology to help stop unwanted robocalls before they reach consumers, says CRs Mahoney.

The technology protects consumers from spoofed numbers by using digital fingerprints or tokens to help determine whether the number from which a call is placed is the same as the number that shows up on caller ID. Scammers use spoof calls to mask their identity by changing the number displayed on a caller ID.

How to Protect Yourself From Robocalls

Looking for help in keeping robocalls at bay? Here are some tips from the experts.

Use the Do Not Call Registry. If you list your landline or cell number with the DNC Registry, it will be removed from the call lists used by legitimate telemarketing companies. However, it doesnt stop illegal robocallers, like the ones in the FCC complaint, who simply ignore the list. And the DNC registry doesnt cover calls from organizations like political parties, nonprofits, and companies with which you have already established a business relationship.

File a complaint with the FTC and the FCC. The Federal Trade Commission maintains a database of rogue robocallers. This list is used by the call-blocking industry and phone companies to update their call-blocking lists. Also, with the stronger enforcement provisions, the authorities will be able to go after repeat offenders more aggressively than they have in the past. You can file your complaint with the FTC and with the FCC.

Consider using additional robocall-blocking protection. While the major wireless carriers now offer services that can block calls and alert you about incoming calls from potential scammers or spammers at no additional charge, you may be able to beef up your defenses with additional protections offered by carriers or third-party app providers. But keep in mind that some of these apps require you to share a lot of personal information.

Update your contacts list. This is especially important if you choose to enable white-listing, which blocks calls from numbers not stored in your phone. But if you have the feature enabled, you are likely to miss legitimate calls from people not on your contact list.

Dont interact with robocallers. No technology is perfect, and some robocalls are likely to get through despite your best efforts. If you do answer a robocall, hang up immediately. While it may be tempting to give the robocaller a piece of your mind, dont engage. If you do, youre just encouraging robocallers to keep calling.





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Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples





Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright  2020, Consumer Reports, Inc.
Image from video posted on Instagram showing one man kneeling on the neck of another man mocking the death of George Floyd while a Black Lives Matter march was passing by on Monday in Franklin Township, Gloucester County. Read more

A New Jersey corrections officer has been suspended after video was posted online of two men  one kneeling on the others neck, apparently mocking the death of George Floyd  at a Black Lives Matter protest march on Monday in Gloucester County.

The other man involved in the incident was an employee of FedEx, the company confirmed. On Tuesday night, FedEx said in a statement that he no longer worked there because of the video. Earlier in the day, the company said the employee, who was not identified, had been removed from all work duties and the incident was under internal investigation.

FedEx holds its team members to a high standard of personal conduct, and we do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video. The individual involved is no longer employed by FedEx. A diverse and inclusive workforce is at the heart of our business, and we stand with those who support justice and equality, the company said.

During the march, a small group of counterprotesters are seen on the side of the road in Franklin Township with a Trump campaign banner, several American flags and a variation known as the thin blue line flag, and a sign that reads: All Lives Matter. In a video shared on Instagram, the man kneeling is seen yelling at the protesters as they pass.

The New Jersey Department of Corrections said in a Facebook post on Tuesday: 'We have been made aware that one of our officers participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd. The individual has been suspended from their post and banned from NJDOC facilities pending a thorough and expedited investigation. We thank the community for bringing this to our attention."

The department did not name the officer.

Gov. Phil Murphy addressed the matter in a tweet Tuesday night, calling the incident repugnant.

The Franklin Township Committee and Police Department also posted a statement on the incident: The Franklin Township Committee and the Franklin Township Police Department are appalled and saddened by the revolting actions of certain individuals after Mondays locally organized peaceful march. This is not who we are as a Community. We support the goal of this march, which is to spread awareness and to ensure a better future for all of us. Without an understanding and mutual respect for all individuals, we can never aspire to create a united community based upon the idea of human respect and dignity for all.
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Wednesday (this file will be updated throughout the day). Web links to longer stories if available.

9 p.m.: Is Ontario ready for double bubbles? Thats when households expand their circles to one other mutually exclusive household. Some provinces have expanded household bubbles post-COVID lockdown, but even with Ontarians ready to burst out of isolation, were not quite there yet.

Read the full story from the Stars Katie Daubs.

8:40 p.m.: British Columbia health officials are reporting no new deaths due to COVID-19 for the fifth day in a row.

Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry say in a joint statement issued Wednesday that the provinces death toll remains at 167.

Twelve more people have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total confirmed cases to 2,680.

Dix and Henry say 185 of those cases are active and 12 people are in hospital, four of whom are in intensive care.

They say there have been no new community outbreaks, though surveillance and testing recently identified two clusters of COVID-19 associated with large family connections.

This tells us that our public health teams are quickly identifying new cases. It also tells us that while our overall provincial cases may be low, COVID-19 is active and spreading in our communities, Dix and Henry said.

When you bring households together, regardless of how many people that may include, everyone brings their own risk with them and the potential for spreading COVID-19 increases.

6:40 p.m.: Inspectors are probing neglect at a Woodbridge nursing home as Premier Doug Fords government faces questions about an elderly resident who reportedly died from a lack of food before the troubled facility was taken over by the province.

The Ministry of Long-Term Care confirmed its investigators are at the Woodbridge Vista Care Community as a military medical team begins a mission of mercy  the second at a nursing home owned by parent company Sienna Senior Living.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath accused the province of waiting too long before issuing a takeover order last Thursday for the nursing home, which has had at least 21 residents die from the new coronavirus.

Read the full story from the Stars Rob Ferguson.

6:33 p.m.: The Saskatchewan Health Authority says it will be increasing surgical capacity as the provinces COVID-19 case numbers remain low.

It says urgent, emergent and some elective procedures will be increased, as well as some more medical imaging services.

Officials also reported two new cases of COVID-19. One person is in the Saskatoon area and the other is in the provinces most southern region.

Of Saskatchewans 658 total COVID-19 cases, 624 people have recovered.

There are 21 active cases and one person remains in hospital. So far 13 people have died.

6:20 p.m.: Ontarios regional health units are reporting the fewest new COVID-19 cases in a day since late March in a sign that new infections are slowing across the province and even in the hard-hit GTA, according to the Stars latest count.

As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, the health units had reported a total of 33,143 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,533 deaths, up a total of just 249 new cases since Tuesday evening.

That one-day total was the provinces lowest since March 29, when the health units reported 204 cases amid a period of rapid, exponential, growth before cases first peaked in mid-April.

Since last Wednesday, Ontario has seen an average of 334 cases reported each day, the lowest for any seven-day period since April 1.

As has been the case this month, the overwhelming majority of new infections reported since Tuesday evening came in the GTA. The regions five health units saw a total of 189 new cases; the rest of Ontario reported 60.

But the slowdown is also being felt in the Toronto-area; the GTA total was itself the lowest since early April.

Meanwhile, the 14 new fatal cases reported since Tuesday evening were also down from recent trends and considerably below from the height of the pandemic from late April to early May, when the province saw as many as 90 deaths in a day.

Earlier Wednesday, the province also reported that 580 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 118 in intensive care, of whom 86 are on a ventilator  numbers that have fallen sharply since early May.

The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day. The province also cautions its latest count of total deaths  2,475  may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system, saying that in the event of a discrepancy, data reported by (the health units) should be considered the most up to date.

The Stars count includes some patients reported as probable COVID-19 cases, meaning they have symptoms and contacts or travel history that indicate they very likely have the disease, but have not yet received a positive lab test.

6:03 p.m.: Alberta is reporting 47 new cases of COVID-19 as it prepares to move into Phase 2 of its reopening plan later this week.

The province says out of a total of 7,276 cases, 371 remain active.

The provinces death toll remains at 151.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, chief medical health officer, says there is an outbreak at Alberta Hospital Edmonton, where four staff members have tested positive.

She says proactive testing is a cornerstone of the provinces plan to reopen spas, pools, casinos, churches, movie theatres and other businesses on Friday.

About 310,000 tests have been completed so far.

4:48 p.m.: Although Nova Scotias long-term care homes have borne the brunt of the provinces COVID-19 outbreak, the province announced Wednesday that it would lift some visitor restrictions beginning next week.

Premier Stephen McNeil said outdoor visits will be allowed beginning Monday, adding that the change would also apply to homes for people with disabilities.

We understand you are craving for that long-awaited hug, McNeil said to families with relatives in the facilities. Were not there yet, but sitting in the fresh air and a visit with your loved one is a good first step.

The announcement came as the province added one case to its total  reaching 1,061  to reflect newly captured data.

4:34 p.m.: The federal government says it will continue helping Quebec manage COVID-19 outbreaks in the provinces long-term care homes until the end of the summer, but what that help will look like remains unclear.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault had asked Ottawa to keep hundreds of soldiers deployed in the hard-hit seniors residences until mid-September, when 10,000 newly trained orderlies are expected to begin working in the facilities.

Public Security Minister Bill Blair told the House of Commons Wednesday that federal assistance could take various forms, including the involvement of the Canadian Red Cross.

Quebec reported an additional 52 deaths linked to COVID-19 Wednesday, but continued to see the number of new cases drop, with 156 in the past 24 hours for a total of 53,341. Of the deaths reported, 27 occurred prior to June 2.

Hospitalizations continued to drop, down by 47 to 914, while the number of patients in intensive care held steady at 117. Quebec reported that 19,841 people have recovered from the virus.

Nearly half the number of confirmed cases in Quebec and more than 60 per cent of the fatalities attributed to the novel coronavirus have been reported in the Montreal area. Most of those deaths have occurred at long-term care homes and other residences for seniors.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that troops in nursing homes were a stop-gap measure and not intended to be long-term solution.

As of Tuesday, 933 Canadian Forces personnel were deployed to 14 long-term care homes in the greater Montreal-area, while their mission has been completed at 14 other facilities in the region.

4:20 p.m.: Toronto medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa says it looks like the highest rates of new infections are people in their 50s, not Torontonians in their 20s. Main risk of new cases is close contact with somebody known to be infected, usually in household or at work.

4 p.m. (updated): De Villa reports that there are 121 new COVID-19 infections in Toronto and that 403 patients have been deemed recovered since yesterday.

In total, there have been 12,949 cases in the city with 10,310 recovered and 956 deaths.

With respect to contact tracing, de Villa says since first COVID-19 case in the city in January, Toronto Public Health has investigated almost 13,000 infections. Calls it unprecedented outbreak for the agency, never before having to deal with so many cases so rapidly while learning about the disease.

3:55 p.m.: Mayor John Tory announces CampTO and SwimTo plans being launched so all Torontonians can safely access programs and outdoor spaces to cool down. Swim pools, splash pads, beaches wont be open until Toronto joins Stage 2, but says permission could come as early as June 19.

CampTO will see city summer camps start July 13 for kids aged 6 to 12. Downized, shortened version of normal camps. 32,000 spaces. Details wil be posted on weekend at http://toronto.ca/camps  registration will be next week.

City staff readying pools, filling them, turning on mechanical systems, hiring staff etc. Within a week of provincial permission, splash pads will open followed by pools. Beaches open now but lifeguards not in place yet.

Tory notes that lifeguards do water testing at beaches and change flags to show ability to swim. City is getting everything ready to resume services as soon as province says its ok.

3:45 p.m.: A livestream of the news conference held by Mayor John Tory and medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa is available at thestar.com

3:42 p.m.: Authorities in Zimbabwe have started publicly naming people who have escaped from quarantine centres and urging the public to report them to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Zimbabwe has seen a rise in confirmed cases of COVID-19 in recent days, with most recorded at quarantine centres.

More than 3,700 people are being kept in the quarantine centres after entering the country, mostly from neighbouring South Africa and Botswana, but dozens are fleeing the confinement complaining of filthy, unhygienic conditions and charging infections are spread at the quarantine areas.

3:30 p.m.: The outbreak of COVID-19 among agri-food employees in Essex County  many of them migrant workers  has topped 200 infections, with 38 additional cases being reported.

We need to get a better handle  on how we can support that particular group, Dr. Wajid Ahmed, medical officer for the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, told a news conference Wednesday.

The majority, 90 per cent or more of them, are temporary foreign workers, with some employees that are either nonfarm workers, maybe administrative staff and also some farm workers who are from the region.

Public health officials are keeping a close eye on agri-food outbreaks in the rich swath of southern Ontario farmland between Essex and Niagara over concerns the virus could spread more widely to the general population. Its estimated the number of infected migrant workers is approaching 500.

Read the full story from the Stars Rob Ferguson.

2:49 p.m. Retail shops reopened Wednesday after a two-month pandemic shutdown in Brazils biggest city, leading to crowded buses and subways from early in the day  and with many people ignoring social distancing rules. Sao Paulo Mayor Bruno Covas authorized the restart of commerce between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. as long as shops require customers to use masks and limit those allowed inside. Stores in malls, however, remain closed until Thursday.

Brazil is among the Latin American countries hit hardest by the pandemic, with about 38,000 deaths according to official figures. Sao Paulo state is approaching 10,000 deaths from COVID-19, with about half of those in the metropolis of 12 million residents. On Wednesday, the state reported a record 24-hour increase to its death toll, 340 people  surpassing a record set just the previous day.

2:34 p.m. Health officials in Nova Scotia say the province has recorded no new cases of COVID-19 on its territory in the past 24 hours.

But officials said today one Nova Scotian who is currently out of the province has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

That case has been added to the official number of confirmed cases in the province, which is now at 1,061.

2:33 p.m. Dr. Bonnie Henry announced no new deaths related to COVID-19 in B.C. on Tuesday, marking the fourth straight day without a death from the virus.

The news comes with an additional nine test-positive COVID-19 cases and one epidemiologically-linked case, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 2,699.

There are no new community or health-care related outbreaks and only 10 ongoing.

With no new deaths over the last four days, the total number of people fully recovered from COVID-19 in B.C. is now 2,319.

2:33 p.m. The City of Toronto officially reopened the Ashbridges Bay public parking lot this week, but the Woodbine Beach Park parking lot remains closed until further notice. Both parking lots had been closed by the city on March 30 as part of the restrictions on people gathering in parks and at park amenities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2:22 p.m. New Brunswick is reporting four new cases of COVID-19  all in the Campbellton area in the north of the province.

Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Jennifer Russell, said today there are now 29 active cases in New Brunswick.

The province has a total of 151 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including one death, with 121 cases considered recovered.

2:17 p.m. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it will keep buying bonds to maintain low borrowing rates and support a U.S. economy mired in a deep recession with high unemployment. And it said nearly all its policymakers foresee no rate hike through 2022.

The Fed has cut its benchmark short-term rate to near zero. Keeping its rate ultra-low for more than two more years could make it easier for consumers and businesses to borrow and spend enough to sustain an economy depressed by still-widespread business shutdowns.

Stock prices rallied modestly on the news after having been mainly lower before the Fed issued its latest policy statement at 2 p.m. ET.

1:49 p.m. Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott are being tested for COVID-19 after Education Minister Stephen Lecce came into contact with someone with the virus.

I have been tested and Ive been in isolation since, working from home. I was informed minutes ago that my COVID-19 test results have come back negative, Lecce said Wednesday.

The premier and Minister Elliott have been extremely clear: if you feel you need a test, you should get tested. We all have a role to play in combating this virus, he said.

Thank you to the incredible team at UHN who offered their support and care to me yesterday. I also want to thank all Ontarians who are working together to fight COVID-19.

Read the full story from the Stars Robert Benzie here.

1:37 p.m. The Stars Queens Park Bureau Chief Robert Benzie reports that Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott cancelled their press conference today after Education Minister Stephen Lecce came in contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19. More to come.

1:35 p.m. A scientist whose modelling helped set Britains coronavirus strategy said Wednesday that the countrys death toll in the pandemic could have been cut in half if lockdown had been introduced a week earlier.

Britain has the worlds second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths, at more than 41,000. Including cases where the coronavirus was suspected but not confirmed by a test, the total is over 50,000 people dead.

Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, told lawmakers that when key decisions were being made in March, scientists underestimated how widely the virus had spread in the U.K.

He told Parliaments Science and Technology Committee that the epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced, rather than the five to six days estimated at the time.

Ferguson said that had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half.

1:34 p.m. The top doctor in Windsor-Essex says the region has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases among agri-food workers in recent days.

The medical officer of health reported today that 38 additional workers had tested positive for the virus.

On Tuesday, the health unit reported 34 new cases among workers.

Dr. Wajid Ahmed says more than 200 agri-food workers in the region have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

He says that of those cases, about 90 per cent are temporary foreign workers.

Ahmed says the health unit is working with the province to address the spike in cases.

1:24 p.m. In a news conference at Queens Park, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and provincial cabinet ministers Christine Elliott and Ross Romano provide an update on the governments response to COVID-19. Watch below.

12:11 p.m. Ontarios regional health units are reporting 32,939 confirmed or positive COVID-19 cases, including 2,520 deaths, according to the Stars latest count.

With 321 new cases reported since the same time Tuesday morning, Ontario continues to see a falling rate of new infections.

Since last Tuesday, Ontario has seen an average of 348 confirmed cases reported each day, the lowest for any seven-day period since April 2, a time when case counts were still growing rapidly ahead of the pandemics worst weeks in the province.

The rate of new cases has fallen even including nearly 300 old but previously unreported infections that were added to the tally this week several days after not being initially reported to Toronto Public Health.

Meantime, in its morning update, the province reported Ontarios testing labs had once again completed nearly 20,000 tests Tuesday, up from just 13,917 Monday.

As has been the case since the beginning of the pandemic, lab activity in Ontario continues to follow a weekly cycle that has seen far fewer patients samples collected and added to the testing queue on weekends, with the lowest testing totals generally coming the following Monday followed by increasing activity through the week.

The 13 new fatal cases reported since Tuesday morning were also down from recent trends and considerably below from the height of the pandemic from late April to early May, when the province saw as many as 90 deaths in a day.

The province also reports that 580 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 118 in intensive care, of whom 86 are on a ventilator  numbers that have fallen sharply since early May.

The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day. The province also cautions its latest count of total deaths  2,475  may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system, saying that in the event of a discrepancy, data reported by (the health units) should be considered the most up to date.

The Stars count includes some patients reported as probable COVID-19 cases, meaning they have symptoms and contacts or travel history that indicate they very likely have the disease, but have not yet received a positive lab test.

12:03 p.m. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed faith in the young people of today to face the myriad challenges facing Canada and world, comparing them to the generation who came of age during the Second World War.

The comments came in a speech delivered Wednesday at Carleton University and carried live to graduates across the country whose graduation ceremonies have been affected by COVID-19.

The world is facing an unprecedented number of challenges, including climate change, racism and the pandemic, all of which have caused levels of upheaval not seen in generations, Trudeau said.

No student gets to choose the world into which they graduate, but if you could  and lets be honest here  you probably wouldnt have chosen the world of 2020, Trudeau said, according to prepared remarks.

The Australian bushfires linked to climate change. The horrific plane crash in Iran. The worst mass shooting in our countrys history. Horrifying scenes of police violence against Black and Indigenous people. And of course, the reason why were gathered here virtually and not in person  COVID-19, which has triggered the greatest health and economic crisis in generations.

11:51 a.m. Effective July 2, wearing a non-medical mask or face covering will be mandatory when travelling on Mississaugas MiWay, at stops and transit terminals to reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19. Children under the age of two, people with disabilities or other medical conditions that prevent them from wearing any mask will not be required to wear one. Fare collection and front door boarding for all customers will also resume on July 2.

To help keep our riders and drivers safe and following the strong recommendation of Peel Public Health and the Governments of Ontario and Canada, we will be mandating transit riders to wear masks while riding MiWay, said Mayor Bonnie Crombie. Additional safety measures, including the installation of plexiglass barriers, will enable us to resume fare collection and front door boarding next month. These measures will help our City recover much-needed revenue as a result of this crisis while ensuring the safety of riders.

Steve Cornwell of Mississauga News has the full story.

11:05 a.m. In a time of social distancing, Fridays remembrance of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre will be different from years past, but church bells will still sound, rainbow flags will still wave, and the 49 individuals who lost their lives will not be forgotten.

The onePULSE Foundation, which has organized a remembrance ceremony each year and is raising money for a permanent memorial and museum, will close the interim memorial site on South Orange Avenue on Friday to allow family members of the 49 victims, survivors and first responders to pay tribute privately.

At 7 p.m. Friday, the onePULSE Foundation will stream a pre-taped ceremony on its Facebook page and YouTube channel. The program includes the reading of the 49 names by family members and remarks from Barbara Poma, the nightclubs former owner and now CEO of onePULSE Foundation, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and onePULSE Foundation board chairman Earl Crittenden.

10:57 a.m. The U.S.s largest owner of malls is backing out of a $3.6 billion deal to buy a major rival as the coronavirus pandemic shakes the retail economy.

It is the second major retail deal that was signed just before the pandemic hit the U.S. to crumble. The sale of Victorias Secret to a private equity group fell apart last month.

In early February, Simon Property Group said it would buy Taubman Centers, just weeks before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that a California patient was being treated for coronavirus, the first known case in the U.S.

The plunge in sales for retailers since then has been unprecedented. J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J.Crew, have all filed for bankruptcy protection this year.

10:55 a.m. An 18-year-old from Mississauga behind a crowdsourcing website that maps COVID-19 hot spots in Canada is now helping Somalia gather information about the virus.

Shrey Jain, who with fellow U of T students created the flatten.ca virus-tracking website in March, is part of a team that has developed a similar Internet-based survey tool rolled out Monday in Mogadishu.

More than 400 volunteers began going door to door in the capital, asking questions not only to gauge knowledge about the virus and symptoms, but also to collect mobility data as well as socio-economic and demographic information about households.

Read full story from the Stars Patty Winsa here.

10:22 a.m. Ethiopias prime minister faces an extra year or more in office after lawmakers voted Wednesday to extend their mandates and hold the national election nine to 12 months after health authorities determine its safe.

Some in the opposition have objected to delaying the vote for the coronavirus as no one knows when the pandemic will end or whether the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will seek further postponements.

10:06 a.m. The top U.S. infectious disease specialist called the coronavirus pandemic his worst nightmare and warned that the deadly outbreak is far from over.

In just a few months, COVID-19 has devastated countries around the world, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday in online comments to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry group.

Societies, businesses and economies have all suffered as people have sequestered themselves to prevent the spread of the virus and inundation of health systems with severely ill patients. Now that some nations and states are emerging from lockdowns, theres still a risk that the virus will also return, Fauci said.

The infection wont burn itself out with mere public health measures, he said. Were going to need a vaccine for the entire world, billions and billions of doses.

9:49 a.m. Major League Soccer will return to action July 8 with a World Cup-style tournament that will run through Aug. 11 in the Orlando area.

All 26 teams will take part in the MLS is Back Tournament at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

The NBA is also looking to resume play at the Disney complex.

The 54-match MLS tournament, which will be played before empty stands, marks a resumption to the leagues 25th season, which was halted March 12 after two rounds due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read full story here.

9:47 a.m. The Liberals are pushing forward with a contentious piece of emergency legislation that would extend COVID-19 aid programs even though Opposition parties appear unlikely to allow it to move forward quickly.

Government House leader Pablo Rodriguez says the bill is the quickest and most efficient way to get help to some of the most vulnerable Canadians impacted by the pandemic, and he hopes the other parties will give unanimous consent to allow the bill to be debated today.

The bill would bring in a number of promised measures, including benefits for Canadians with disabilities and expansion of the wage-subsidy program to include seasonal workers and some additional businesses.

But it would also impose penalties for fraudulently claiming the Canada Emergency Response Benefit  a move that appears to have no support among the main opposition parties.

9:37 a.m. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. governments top infectious-disease expert, says the World Health Organization had to backtrack on its statement about asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus being rare because that simply was not correct.

WHOs technical lead on the pandemic has tried to clear up misunderstandings about comments she made that were widely understood to suggest that people without COVID-19 symptoms rarely transmit the virus. Maria Van Kerkhove insisted Tuesday that she was referring only to a few studies, not a complete picture.

Weighing in on Wednesday, Fauci said the range of ways symptoms manifest is extraordinary in that some infected people have no or barely noticeable symptoms while others have more severe symptoms that require them to be hospitalized in intensive care.

9:15 a.m. COVID-19 infections in younger people are on the rise in certain hotspots across the GTA and Hamilton, according to provincial data, medical officers and researchers  especially in Toronto and Peel, both of which have seen a recent increase in reported cases among 20-somethings in recent weeks.

Public health units are now investigating this emerging trend to better understand whats driving this apparent demographic shift in the provinces COVID epidemic, which is now largely centred in the GTA.

While some suspect it could reflect a change in testing patterns, medical officers and health workers are pointing to other factors like workplace outbreaks, housing arrangements and lockdown fatigue coupled with an invincible attitude amongst younger people who might feel insulated from COVIDs worst effects  even though deaths and severe outcomes have been reported in these age groups across the province.

Read the full story from the Stars Jennifer Yang, Megan Ogilvie, May Warren and Andrew Bailey

8:18 a.m. Parliaments spending watchdog will detail today the possible costs associated with extending and changing the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

Budget officer Yves Girouxs report scheduled to be released this morning comes as the House of Commons is set to discuss proposed changes to the COVID-19 pandemic-related aid.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that his government wants to rework how it doles out the $2,000-a-month benefit and get more people back to work, while also cracking down on fraud.

The most recent federal figures show 8.41 million people have applied for the CERB, with $43.51 billion in payments made as of June 4.

7:08 a.m. Manchester United abruptly cancelled one of its friendly matches ahead of the resumption of the Premier League after the opposing teams manager tested positive for the coronavirus.

Michael ONeill, the manager of second-tier Stoke City, had tested negative in five previous rounds of COVID-19 checks before a positive result came from a test administered on Monday.

Stoke had been scheduled to play United in a friendly at the Premier League teams Carrington training centre on Tuesday, the day ONeill learned of the positive test. The game was immediately called off.

ONeill was never on site at Uniteds training centre. Players and staff of Stoke had arrived and were located in a separate building to their United counterparts, in accordance with protocol, when news of the positive test came through.

The two squads reportedly had not interacted or come into contact with each other by the time Stoke left.

6:15 a.m.: The number of coronavirus cases in India continued to rapidly increase Wednesday, with officials reporting nearly 10,000 new cases over the past 24 hours.

The spike has come as the government moves forward with reopening restaurants, shopping malls and religious places in most of its states after a more than two-month-old lockdown.

The government has already partially restored train services and domestic flights and allowed shops and manufacturing to reopen. Subways, hotels and schools and colleges, however, remain shuttered nationwide.

The Health Ministry on Wednesday reported an 24-hour increase of 9,985 cases and 274 deaths. India has recorded 276,583 positive cases, the fifth highest in the world, and 7,745 deaths.

The actual numbers, like elsewhere in the world, are thought to be fair higher due to a number of reasons such as limited testing.

6:11 a.m.: Africas coronavirus cases have surpassed 200,000. Thats according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 54-nation continent has 202,782 cases and 5,516 deaths.

While Africa still represents a tiny percentage of the worlds total COVID-19 cases, well under 5%, officials in South Africa and elsewhere have expressed concern as the number of infections continues to climb.

South Africa leads the continent with 52,991 cases, with almost two-thirds of them in the Western Cape province centred on the city of Cape Town.

Egypt has 36,829 cases and Nigeria has 13,464.

6:10 a.m.: Germany is prolonging its travel warning for more than 160 countries outside Europe until the end of August.

The government agreed Wednesday to extend the guidance introduced on March 17 due to the coronavirus pandemic to almost all non-EU countries, with the exception of some that have successfully contained the outbreak.

Last week, Germany downgraded its travel warning for the rest of the 27-nation EU, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Iceland and Britain.

4 a.m.: The non-partisan spirit that has allowed Parliament to swiftly pass emergency legislation during the COVID-19 pandemic seems likely to come to an abrupt end today.

And that could leave in limbo a number of promised measures, including benefits for disabled Canadians and expansion of the wage subsidy program to include seasonal workers and some additional businesses.

The Trudeau governments latest bill  which would also impose penalties for fraudulently claiming the Canada Emergency Response Benefit  appears to have no support among the main opposition parties.

Without unanimous consent, the government will not be able to pass the bill this afternoon after just a few hours of debate, as it has done with four previous pandemic-related bills.

Tuesday 7:15 p.m.: Michael Ford is the first Toronto city councillor to test positive for COVID-19.

The 26-year-old Ward 1 Etobicoke North representative, a nephew of Premier Doug Ford, confirmed his diagnosis in a statement Tuesday.

This morning I was made aware that I have tested positive for COVID-19, he wrote. I have been self-isolating and will continue to do so over the next 14 days as I work from home to participate virtually in city business and committee meetings, and to continue serving the residents of Etobicoke North.

I am feeling well and will continue to remain in constant contact with Toronto Public Health.

Ford did not say what prompted the test or if he knows how he was infected. He did not immediately return a call from the Star on Tuesday evening.

The youngest member of council, he was elected at age 22 in 2016 and the ward that was previously held by his late uncle Rob Ford.

Read the full story from the Stars David Rider.

Tuesday 6:20 p.m.: Ontarios regional health units reported fewer than 300 new COVID-19 infections Tuesday as the provinces average for daily reported cases has fallen to the lowest level since before the epidemic first peaked in April, according to the Stars latest count.

Since last Tuesday, Ontario has seen an average of 348 cases reported each day, the lowest for any seven-day period since April 2, a time when case counts were still growing rapidly ahead of the pandemics worst weeks in the province.

The rate of new cases has fallen even including nearly 300 old but previously unreported infections that were added to the tally this week several days after not being initially reported to Toronto Public Health.

As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, the health units had reported a total of 32,894 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,519 deaths, up a total of 282 new cases since Monday evening  a relatively low one-day total.

And, as has been the case this month, the overwhelming majority of new infections came in the GTA. The regions five health units saw a total of 214 new cases; the rest of Ontario reported 68.

The 12 new fatal cases reported Monday were also down from recent trends and considerably below from the height of the pandemic from late April to early May, when the province saw as many as 90 deaths in a day.

Earlier Tuesday, the province also reported that 600 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 116 in intensive care, of whom 88 are on a ventilator  numbers that have fallen sharply since early May.

The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day. The province also cautions its latest count of total deaths  2,464  may be incomplete or out of date due to delays in the reporting system, saying that in the event of a discrepancy, data reported by (the health units) should be considered the most up to date.

The Stars count includes some patients reported as probable COVID-19 cases, meaning they have symptoms and contacts or travel history that indicate they very likely have the disease, but have not yet received a positive lab test.

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Carole Baskin will be taking over the Greater Wynnewood Zoo, formerly owned by Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic and featured in Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. Baskin won her court case against Maldonado-Passage for trademark infringement of her Big Cat Rescue logo. Her award is ownership of the zoo, but when she takes over, she will have some competition from other zookeepers featured in Tiger King.

Carole Baskin | Netflix

RELATED: Tiger King: Jeff Lowe Thinks Carole Baskin Would Have Lost Her Case If Joe Exotic Had Defended Himself

Jeff Lowe currently runs the G.W. Zoo while Maldonao-Passage serves time for hiring a hitman to kill Baskin. He has 120 days to vacate, which he will to move his tigers to a new zoo in Thackerville, Oklahoma. Lowe gave an interview with ET Online on June 2 and said hes ready for the public to decide who has a better zoo.

Carole Baskin wont have the only Tiger King zoo in Oklahoma anymore

Tiger King fans will still be able to visit the original G.W. zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. They can also choose to see Maldonado-Passages former tigers in the new Thackerville zoo.

In the end, well let the public decide who takes better care of their animals and who is more genuine in their concern for the care of the animals, Lowe said. The simple fact that we let people touch a baby tiger does not make us evil people. Thats what she wants us to believe but we have 1000s of people who show up here every year who disagree with her completely.

Jeff Lowe defends petting baby tigers against Carole Baskins accusations

Tiger King began as a documentary about the controversial practice of keeping big cats in captivity. It only became true crime when Maldonado-Passage committed crimes. Baskin still scolds his practice of breeding baby tigers for customers to pet. Lowe defends the petting zoo part of his business as a component of conservation.

Joe Exotic | Netflix

RELATED: Jeff Lowe Confirms Tiger King Season 2 Is In the Works But He Has a Better Idea

The only way that people are really going to care about the survival of a species is if they actually experience what that species is like. We truly believe that. We dont make a lot of money doing the cub petting. I promise you we dont but we get a lot of people here and it changes their lives. It truly changes these lives. Most of our people who come here are very students or in the animal industry or in animal school for some type of animal care. Theyre truly here to experience something they cant experience anywhere else. Jeff Lowe, interview with ET Online, 6/2/2020

Joe Exotics tigers are going to a better zoo than Carole Baskins

Baskin is inheriting Maldonado-Passages zoo with all of its problems. Lowe outlined all the shortcomings she is going to face.

Joe built this as a speed breeding facility. It wasnt built for the long care life of a tiger. The cages are too small. The cages are kind of barren. Some of these guys have been locked in 20 x 20 cages for 10 and 15 years. He just didnt care.

Carole Baskin vs. Jeff Lowe: Whoever wins, the tigers win

When Lowes Thackerville opens and Baskin reopens the G.W. Zoo, the public can see for themselves who is taking better care of the tigers. Lowe is confident theyll decide in his favor, but ultimately he doesnt care about any rivalry.

Jeff Lowe | Netflix

RELATED: Tiger King: Why Nicolas Cage Is Perfect For the Role of Joe Exotic

Our philosophy is we dont care about the TV show, Lowe said. We dont care about Carole Baskin. We care that these animals finally get the life they deserve. Thats why were anxious to get down to Thackerville.
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Three more Russian coronavirus patients have plunged to their deaths from hospital windows, bringing the number of cases of seven.

Nadezhda Salkova, age 74, fell this week from a fourth floor window of Semashko Hospital in Moscow where she was undergoing treatment for coronavirus.

She had been alone in a hospital room where she had been undergoing treatment for nearly three weeks, and the circumstances of her 40ft fall are under investigation by police.

Family members of other victims have suggested coronavirus sufferers are experiencing suicidal thoughts from drugs used to treat them, causing them to try and kill themselves.

Relatives say Mrs Shcherbakova - a police forensic officer who fell sick at work - was not suicidal and suspect an antibiotic she was given is to blame

Ten days earlier, a 68-year-old man suffering from Covid-19 plunged to his death from a window in the intensive care ward of Veterans' Hospital in Yaroslavl.

It has also emerged that a man, 49, with confirmed coronavirus fell 60ft from the window of a Moscow perinatal hospital which was reassigned to treat pandemic victims.

The cases bring the number of coronavirus-linked hospital window falls in Russia to seven, all but one of them fatal.

The family of police lieutenant-colonel Natalya Shcherbakova, 45, who died after a 50ft fall on 30 May, believe that drugs used to treat her coronavirus may have altered her state of mind.

She and her widower Konstantin were both senior police forensic experts, and her distraught family have called for checks on the medicines and their mind-changing impact.

Mrs Shcherbakova fell from the fifth floor of this hospital, crashing through mosquito netting before suffering fatal injuries as she hit the ground

Her death comes after two coronavirus medics - Yelena Nepomnyashchaya (left) and Natalya Lebedeva (right) - also fell to their deaths from hospital windows

What is levofloxacin? Levofloxacin is an antibiotic that is used to treat infections of bones, joints, ears and airways. The drug has common side-effects that are often seen with antibiotics - including diarrhea, rashes, dizziness and heartburn. However, it can also interfere with the nervous system of patients and cause a range of rare but mind-altering effects. These include hallucinations, anxiety, paranoia and suicidal thoughts or behaviours. Patients with a history of mental illness are considered more likely to suffer from these effects. People with a history of seizures are also asked to inform their doctor, because the medication could also put them at risk of suffering more. Advertisement

Shcherbakova had told a family member she was horrified about earlier Covid-19 hospital fall cases - all involving medics - and could not understand why they were happening.

Then she plunged to her death in exactly the same way.

Her family - including widower Konstantin, 61, and their twin daughters, 19 - are now seeking urgent answers about her death, which they say may have been caused by antibiotic levofloxacin that she was given before her fall.

The forensic expert began feeling 'anxious that she could die' and in phone calls to her family 'her mood was going downhill'.

Yet a doctor told one of her daughters, who expressed concern at her mood swings, that she was not in danger.

'She is completely fine, are you mad?' said the medic.

On May 31, shortly before falling from the window, she had made herself a cup of tea and managed to eat, she told one of her daughters.

At 7.44pm she informed her family she was being put on a drip, a procedure which should have taken two hours. She was briefly online at 8.37pm.

At 11pm her husband and one daughter took a call from the hospital saying: 'You know, she jumped from the fifth floor.'

She died soon afterwards despite attempts to save her.

She was 'happily married', close to her daughters, and a respected forensic specialist consulted by experts from across Russia.

Natalya Shcherbakova, 45, fell 50ft to her death from a hospital window in Moscow on May 31 while being treated for coronavirus

The family have been told that she was being treated with antibiotic Levofloxacin.

The powerful antibiotic can be used to treat pneumonia, but in rare cases can interfere with the nervous system and cause serious psychological side effects.

These can include hallucinations, paranoia, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

It is not known if other hospital window victims were treated with this same drug.

Dr Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, 47, a mother of two from a medical family, sustained fatal injuries after falling 50ft from a window at her Krasnoyarsk hospital.

She fell soon after complaining of an 'acute shortage' of PPE and died on 1 May, the only one of the victims who was not known to be suffering from coronavirus.

Dr Natalya Lebedeva, 48, was hospitalised with Covid-19 when she plunged 60ft to her death on 24 April after she was 'unfairly blamed' for the spread of coronavirus at her clinic in Star City, near Moscow, the training centre for cosmonauts.

The Moscow State Clinical Hospital where Natalya Shcherbakova was treated for Covid-19

Dr Alexander Shulepov, 37, remains in hospital with head injuries after plunging from a second floor window sustaining skull fractures.

He was diagnosed with Covid-19 and had complained about PPE shortages and being made to work despite suffering from the virus.

His wife Maria Shulepova was banned from speaking to the media over the incident.

Lt Col Shcherbakova had been treated for coronavirus with antibiotic Levofloxacin, a drug which can trigger 'suicidal thoughts and attempts' as rare side effects, according to Russian sources.

Her family were told there were also traces of an unnamed antidepressant in her blood.

Close medical observation for two hours after taking this drug was recommended, her relatives were informed, but she had not been put under any supervision, say sources.

She is known to have been on a drip shortly before her fall.
Ukraine's MP claims oligarch Akhmetov stands behind acting energy minister

16:40, 10.06.20 4527

Buslavets lobbies the interests of the monopolist, destroying the county's nuclear power industry in favor of thermal generation, Geo Leros says.
Whether its his 1986 indie breakthrough Shes Gotta Have It, 1992s historical Malcolm X or the six-time Oscar-nominated BlackKklansman, from 2018, Spike Lee brings us into often overlooked corners of history, some of which otherwise wouldnt make it to the big screen.

Now, at 63, Lee is turning his lens to the Vietnam War with his latest film Da 5 Bloods, premiering on Netflix this Friday. The film follows four African American war veterans, including Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther) and Delroy Lindo (Crooklyn), who both served in the army as teenagers.

Set in modern Trump-era America, the four vets make a reunion trip to Vietnam to find the remains of their fallen squad leader (played by Boseman) while hunting for buried treasure. In the process, Lee unearths a wealth of detailed black war history, from Crispus Attucks (the African American docker who was the first casualty of the American Revolution) to interviews with Muhammad Ali to the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., all of it revisited from the POV of Black soldiers, a group that has been broadly underrepresented in cinemas considerable Vietnam canon.

The film is as fun as it is informative: shot in Thailand and Vietnam, its set to a Marvin Gaye score, with poetic interludes and trademark Lee moments (still photography with narration, musical interludes, personal history backstories, flashbacks shot in 16mm). It plays with the timeline of past and present to show how the soldiers recovered from post-war unemployment, homelessness and post-traumatic stress disorder. We knew that we had not seen brothers like this in a Vietnam film, Lee tells InsideHook.

While Bloods was a brotherly term between African American soldiers, a casual term of camaraderie, it shows another way they were bound together, how Black soldiers, which made up a disproportionate number of Vietnam deployments and casualties, dealt with systemic racial discrimination. Its what Lee says, robbed them of respect and economic mobility.

On the phone from his home on the Upper East Side, the filmmaker spoke to InsideHook about the magic of Marvin Gaye, family vets and why he calls Donald Trump Agent Orange.

InsideHook: What can you say about the state of the world right now?

Spike Lee: Well, the fact that our young generation of white people join their Black and brown brothers and sisters to march all across America, in the big cities and the towns, even where there are no Black or brown people at all, is encouraging. For example, Salt Lake City, Utah, or Des Moines, Iowa, where these marches go down, gives me hope. I havent seen this since I was a kid, in the mid-1960s in Brooklyn, when I was 10 years old. I was 11 when Dr. Martin Luther King got assassinated. I remember it.

How do you feel New York City is being handled?

New York is represented, no doubt. Queens is represented, the peoples republic of Brooklyn is represented. Theyre all represented, all the boroughs.

People are saying your new film, Da 5 Bloods, is arriving just when America needs it. Can you see why?

Yeah, Black people are still being murdered. No disrespect to any film thats been done before about the Vietnam War, but we wanted to do this through the perspective of the Black soldiers. [Spikes writing partner] Kevin Willmott and I felt that the premise was fantastic. We knew that we had not seen brothers like this in a Vietnam film.

As a historian, youre bringing to light a piece of overlooked history with the Vietnam War 

Im a big historian. I was taught that African Americans fought for this country from day one, that Black soldiers fought in the Vietnam War. Crispus Attucks, born 1723, who died in 1770, was an African American Man killed during the Boston Massacre, and was the first victim of the American Revolution. Black infantrymen were known as Buffalo Soldiers during the Second World War. Were still fighting for this country today.

The characters in the film talk about a reality TV president. Is that a call for change?

Well, Agent Orange  who I dont call by his name, and I have to give love to my brother Busta Rhymes, who came up with that nickname  made a cameo at the end of BlacKkKlansman, and hes making another cameo at the end of this film, too.

Did you have to be careful with that?

Careful how? Like hes going to sue me?

Youre not someone who censors yourself, so I wouldnt imagine you doing that 

I had no second thoughts about putting Agent Orange in BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods, because Im not going to get an actor to try and play him. Hes just doing what he does.

But it still has an impact, emotionally, with a MAGA hat appearing in the film.

Yes, if you put that hat anywhere, youre going to get one of two reactions to it. To put it on a character in the film, who drank the orange Kool-Aid, it just has his other brothers in arms. By the end of the film, the audience is going to really empathize with him, and see that the mans not in his right mind.

Do you have an opinion on African Americans who do vote for Trump? Like Diamond and Silk?

They drank the orange Kool-Aid and theyre a very small number.

What message do you hope this film will deliver to people?

I hope that people are moved by this film, I hope they learn from this film, and understand that is not just a film about the Vietnam War, its a film about what is happening today. Its about black, red, brown and white all marching today.

Despite the protests, youve said the George Floyd incident is nothing new.

Not new at all, weve been here 400 years. On August 20, 1619, the first ship arrived with enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia, and weve been going through hell since then. Holy hell.

There are musical interludes featuring Marvin Gaye in Da 5 Bloods. What does he mean to you as an artist?

The 11th Studio Album from Marvin Gaye, Whats Going On, was the films musical underpinning. Its one of the greatest albums ever made. Marvin is a saint. He is godlike. That album spoke to us as the record of the time. I knew that this music would help the narrative. Marvin has made some of the greatest albums of all time, hes a poet. That was the album, what Da 5 Bloods were listening to, that was their anthem. Whats Going On? and Inner City Blues was what those cats at war were listening to back then.

Where was the film shot?

Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Do you know anyone who fought in the Vietnam War?

Not firsthand, but before I showed the film to Netflix, I had four screenings for Black and Puerto Rican vets and they loved it. Ive had the pleasure and the honor to screen this film for a lot of Black Vietnam Vets in the New York City area. For me, that was a thumbs up. It was very moving to hear them talk about the film and their experience. Many of them were teenagers when they got shipped away to kill people. For me, this is who I made the film for. They are our heroes, they put their life on the line at a very young age, getting drafted, to fight for a country that didnt love them. And still some.

Do you think the George Floyd protests will encourage real lasting change, like police reform?

Ask me that on November 4.

Fatherhood is also a prominent theme in your new film. Is it about your relationship to your own dad?

My father wasnt drafted in to the Second World War, but his two brothers, my uncle Clarence and Arnold, they were in WWII. They drove the trucks for General Pattons army.

Did you hear any stories from them firsthand?

No, they never talked about it. I wouldnt have known about it unless my father told me.

Maybe they wanted to forget it?

Rarely do these guys come back from war and talk about it. You have to really drag it out of them, theyre trying to forget it.

What are your plans for the summer?

I dont know what Im going to do tomorrow. Thats the attitude Ive taken in this pandemic, day by day.

Do you go to the protests in New York?

I have my bike, I ride around.

With a face mask on, do people still recognize you?

People still seek me out. Even with a mask.

Do you have to stop and take selfies with the protesters?

Im not there to be Spike Lee, Im to be there amongst the people. Im trying to be incognito. Wait  incog-negro. Ha!

The post Spike Lee Talks Trump, BLM and the Vietnam Movie America Needs Right Now appeared first on InsideHook.
By Bill Hughes Jun. 09, 2020 | 07:23 PM | PADUCAH

While the first couple of days of in-person voting has gone pretty smoothly, McCracken County Clerk Julie Griggs said her office has been inundated with phone calls regarding the voting process and absentee ballots.Regarding in-person voting, Griggs said, "We never had a lot of people standing in line, it was more of a steady flow through the day."She said they currently have ten voting stations and two scanners set up, and on June 23 they will have between 75-100 voting stations throughout the courthouse.West Kentucky Star has heard of callers who were unable to speak to someone at the clerk's office, and other times when they couldn't leave voicemail messages. In response to these complaints, Griggs said her phones lines have been, "overwhelmed," by the volume of calls.She believes voters have just recently received postcards about absentee ballots that were supposed to be sent to all Kentucky voters by May 22. Some people who call need clarification about the process, while others are trying to get their ballot requests made before the June 16 deadline.Griggs said there have been times when her staff has been on the phone while others are calling and leaving messages, and the voicemail box gets full.She said, "We have been swamped with phone calls about it. As soon as we try to listen to all the messages and write down names and phone numbers of who we need to call back, people are still calling and leaving messages so we can't keep it cleared off."Griggs said the issue is not the number of phone lines, it's more an issue of staffing, and she has every available employee working the phones. In fact, she hired extra workers with state funding that was provided when officials knew the primary would be affected by the pandemic.On Tuesday, Griggs spoke to the county's phone system contractor about their issues and she hopes some changes will enable them to better handle the number of calls.She said her communication with other county clerks indicates they are experiencing the same issues.Griggs said, "I've seen lots of emails from other clerks. We're all experiencing the same kind of problems - overwhelmed with phone calls and processing mail-in ballots. It's all the same problems in just about every office."She received a call Tuesday from the Secretary of State's office, telling her if they need more money to hire more people, it can be provided.She added, "I don't want people to think we're down here and not answering the phone and not getting these messages, because we are returning every phone call. It's just overwhelming, that's the only word I can use to describe it."IN-PERSON VOTING:Through June 22, voters can come to the County Clerk's office on Monday through Saturday to vote between 8:30 am and 4:30 pm. No appointment is necessary.On Election Day, June 23, most offices in the courthouse will be closed to focus on the election, and multiple voting stations will be available between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm. There could be as many as 100 voting stations on multiple floors in the building. Anyone who chooses to vote in this way should remember that local precincts will be closed, and if they come to the courthouse, there could be long lines.ABSENTEE VOTING:To avoid potential lines for in-person voting, Griggs suggests using GoVoteKY.com to request a ballot by June 15. The ballot will be mailed to the voter's home. Once completed, the ballot can be mailed back and must be postmarked June 23 or before. A locked drop box is available in the courthouse lobby for those who don't want to mail their ballot.The state board of elections is requiring all county clerks to report their vote totals by 6:00 pm on June 27.

On the Net:
She was recently linked to American ski lodge entrepreneur, Brett Leve.

But it seems that Aussie model Ashley Hart has moved on and has a new love in her life.

The 31-year-old beauty was spotted kissing and snuggling up to a mystery man in Los Angeles, last weekend.

Abs-olutely: Ashley Hart was spotted kissing a new mystery man in Los Angeles last weekend

Stunning: The younger sister of former Victoria's Secret star Jess Hart, showed off her incredible figure in a purple bikini top and a pair of denim cut-off shorts

Ashley appeared smitten with her beau, beaming as the pair canoodled when he greeted her in the street.

The younger sister of former Victoria's Secret star Jess Hart, flaunted her incredible figure in a purple bikini top and a pair of denim cut-off shorts.

She finished the ensemble with a Spell and the Gypsy Collective kimono and sneakers.

Ripped: The blonde beauty flaunted her incredibly toned abs

Happy: Ashley appeared smitten with her new beau, beaming as the pair canoodled when he greeted her in the street

The Swisse vitamin ambassador showed off her natural beauty by going makeup free for the casual date, and wore her blonde locks styled in beachy waves.

Daily Mail Australia has approached Ashley Hart's representatives for comment.

Ashley was last in a relationship with ski lodge entrepreneur, Brett Leve.

Tall, dark and handsome: Ashley's new beau looked handsome in his own casual wear

She had confirmed the couple's romance back in October by sharing a series of romantic snaps with Brett at a luxury Utah resort.

'The hills are alive with the sound of infinite possibility, community, abundant creativity and true beauty,' she captioned her post, making sure to tag Brett alongside a love heart and butterfly emoji.

Brett penned a sweet comment underneath the professional images, which showed them dancing and giggling together atop a grassy mountain.

Boho beauty: Ashley finished off her cute ensemble with a Spell and the Gypsy Collective kimono

Ashley and Brett hinted at a romance back in May last year when she shared a photo of the couple holding hands while in Cancun, Mexico.

Meanwhile, Brett shared the same photos to his Instagram page, alongside the caption: 'My favourite person in my favourite place', while tagging Ashley.

In a comment beneath his post, Ashley cooed: 'My favourite arms and place to be held in'.

What a gentleman! Ashley's new man helped her with her belongings as she climb

Always whipping something in your ear to make u laugh,' he wrote.

Ashley replied: 'Endlessly [laughing emoji]. 'Can you just be serious for a second' hahaha

Before her relationship with Brett, Ashley was married to Buck Palmer.

Natural beauty: The Aussie stunner showed off her natural beauty by going makeup free

Barefoot and fancy free: She put her sneakers on and driving in the car barefoot

The couple had had dated for seven years and married in Los Angeles back in 2015, before announcing their shock split two years later.

Interestingly, they announced their breakup by appearing in bohemian photo shoot that showed them dancing on a hilltop - a concept strikingly similar to that of the photos Ashley posted of herself and Brett.

In the caption, she penned an emotional poem about her ex, writing in part: 'Forever infinitely dancing, like us now, on this hill top.'

Beachy: Ashley's blonde locks were styled in beachy waves

Last year, Ashley spoke about her breakup with Buck, and claimed the 'hard times' and heartache she experienced have helped to now shape her as a person.

'I [didnt] think that would be my life  having that experience before 30,' she told Women's Health Magazine in May.

'Relationships are so often a mirror - when they're tough, I think that's some of the best material for self-growth,' she added.

Over: Ashley was last in a relationship with ski lodge entrepreneur, Brett Leve
PSU moves forward with new Phuket hospital, clinic to open in October

PHUKET: The Prince of Songkla University (PSU) Phuket campus is moving ahead with its Andaman International Health Center medical facility, with the hospitals clinic currently scheduled to open in October.

health

By The Phuket News

Wednesday 10 June 2020, 06:12PM

Assoc Prof Pun Thongchumnum PhD, PSU Phuket Campus Vice President, said the hospital was expected to open within three years, with 150 inpatient beds and serving some 600 outpatients a day. Photo: PSU Phuket

The hospital, to be built on 17 rai at the PSU Phuket campus in Kathu, is expected to be operational within three years with 150 beds capacity and serve approximately 600 outpatients a day.

The PSU Phuket Hospital is just one part of the health center to be built at the site, which is also to include the Andaman International College of Health and a Wellness Center.

Assoc Prof Pun Thongchumnum PhD, PSU Phuket Campus Vice President, explained at a recent meeting of the PSU Phuket Campus Promotion Committee that the Andaman International College of Health will provide short-term and long-term courses for students.

The college will begin accepting nursing students in academic year 2020 and both dentistry and medical technology students in academic year 2022, he said.

The college is to produce medical personnel, including doctors, nurses, dentists, medical technicians and even traditional Thai medicine practitioners.

Last year alone saw some 5,820 patients at hospitals located in Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi transferred to receive medical treatment at the Songklanagarind Hospital at the PSU Hat Yai main campus, Prof Pun explained.

From there, some patients had to be referred to see specialists in Bangkok, he added, pointing out the number of patients in the area who needed to seek treatment elsewhere.

To solve the problems and lighten the cost for patients having to travel [to other hospitals], PSU will establish the Andaman International Health Center, he said.

The health centre project and its hospital have been some time coming, Prof Pun noted. The project was added to the universitys strategic plan for the years 2018-2022, and approved by the University Council on Jan 12 last year.

Construction of the PSU Phuket Hospital, which is currently also being called the Songklanagarind Hospital Phuket Campus, in deference to the main Songklanagarind Hospital at the PSU main campus in Hat Yai, is to be rolled out in three phases, explained Assoc Prof Dr Phuttisak Phuttiwiboon, head of the university committee overseeing the project.

Phase one is the hospitals medical clinic, open to PSU staff and local people, which is expected to open in October.

The second phase will see the completion of the main hospital with 100-150 beds, Prof Phuttisak said.

The third phase of the hospitals construction will see the number of inpatient beds at the facility expanded to 300, he added.
Michael Becce, CEO of MRB Public Relations As COVID-19 has changed the marketing and advertising calculus for every vendor, the value of finding a strong channel-focused PR person (or firm) is more important than ever.

MRB Public Relations, Inc., one of the nations preeminent technology focused public relations firms, announced today that it was recognized as one of the worlds top channel-focused public relations (PR) firms by research and advisory firm Forrester Research, Inc. MRBs clients in cloud, cybersecurity, enterprise software, human resources technology, information technology, and telecom have generated more than one billion dollars in funding and acquisitions over the past 2 years alone.

One of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, Forrester works with business and technology leaders to drive customer-obsessed vision, strategy and execution that accelerate growth. The firm's unique insights are grounded in annual surveys of more than 690,000 consumers and business leaders worldwide, rigorous and objective methodologies and the shared wisdom of its most innovative clients. Through proprietary research, data and analytics, custom consulting, exclusive peer groups, certifications and events, Forrester is revolutionizing how businesses grow in the age of the customer.

At Forrester, we research around 10,000 global technology vendors that utilize indirect sales and often get asked about the value of PR in the channel. The communications industry is facing a perfect storm of converging forces, from COVID-19 to the rise of influencer marketing and even AI, explained Forresters Jay McBain, principal analyst, channel partnerships and alliances. As COVID-19 has changed the marketing and advertising calculus for every vendor, the value of finding a strong channel-focused PR person (or firm) is more important than ever.

MRB Public Relations, Inc. was named among an elite group of only 85 global firms, and one of only 44 located in the U.S. to earn the Top Channel-Focused Public Relations Firms distinction. The list was evaluated based on direct input from media companies as well as channel consultants working with public relations professionals on a regular basis.

Our entire team of professionals have deep roots in the IT channel and have delivered client public relations successes spanning nearly three decades, said Michael Becce, CEO of MRB Public Relations, Inc. We have represented some of the worlds largest channel partners and service providers and know the ins-and-outs that help resellers, integrators and service providers and partnering vendors establish more meaningful relationships.

To read the full report feature, Do Channel Vendors Need Public Relations Anymore?, click here.

To learn more about MRB Public Relations. Inc., visit https://mrbpr.com/

About MRB Public Relations, Inc.

Founded in 1992, MRB Public Relations started as a media research firm, helping leading business, broadcast and technology trade media develop stories they planned on covering. With a focus on information technology and cybersecurity, MRB has led its clients to numerous lucrative acquisitions, and over a half billion dollars in funding. Our media research techniques and ideals lead to an impressive prowess in media relations. We are able to generate widespread media coverage in influential media for companies looking to gain more exposure. We increase media placements exponentially and clients see these results immediately and continuously. MRB also manages TechJournalists.com, a consortium of more than 80 widely published technology journalists.
Reuters

A little-known Indian IT firm offered its hacking services to help clients spy on more than 10,000 email accounts over a period of seven years.

New Delhi-based BellTroX InfoTech Services targeted government officials in Europe, gambling tycoons in the Bahamas, and well-known investors in the United States including private equity giant KKR and short-seller Muddy Waters, according to three former employees, outside researchers, and a trail of online evidence.

Aspects of BellTroXs hacking spree aimed at American targets are currently under investigation by US law enforcement, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The US Department of Justice declined to comment.

Reuters does not know the identity of BellTroXs clients. In a telephone interview, the companys owner, Sumit Gupta, declined to disclose who had hired him and denied any wrongdoing.

Muddy Waters founder Carson Block said he was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that we were likely targeted for hacking by a client of BellTroX. KKR declined to comment.

Researchers at internet watchdog group Citizen Lab, who spent more than two years mapping out the infrastructure used by the hackers, released a report on Tuesday saying they had "high confidence" that BellTroX employees were behind the espionage campaign.

This is one of the largest spy-for-hire operations ever exposed, said Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton.

Although they receive a fraction of the attention devoted to state-sponsored espionage groups or headline-grabbing heists, cyber mercenary services are widely used, he said. Our investigation found that no sector is immune.

A cache of data reviewed by Reuters provides insight into the operation, detailing tens of thousands of malicious messages designed to trick victims into giving up their passwords that were sent by BellTroX between 2013 and 2020. The data was supplied on condition of anonymity by online service providers used by the hackers after Reuters alerted the firms to unusual patterns of activity on their platforms.

The data is effectively a digital hit list showing who was targeted and when. Reuters validated the data by checking it against emails received by the targets.

On the list: judges in South Africa, politicians in Mexico, lawyers in France and environmental groups in the United States. These dozens of people, among the thousands targeted by BellTroX, did not respond to messages or declined comment.

Reuters was not able to establish how many of the hacking attempts were successful.

BellTroXs Gupta was charged in a 2015 hacking case in which two US private investigators admitted to paying him to hack the accounts of marketing executives. Gupta was declared a fugitive in 2017, although the US Justice Department declined to comment on the current status of the case or whether an extradition request had been issued.

Speaking by phone from his home in New Delhi, Gupta denied hacking and said he had never been contacted by law enforcement. He said he had only ever helped private investigators download messages from email inboxes after they provided him with login details.

I didnt help them access anything, I just helped them with downloading the mails and they provided me all the details, he told Reuters. I am not aware how they got these details but I was just helping them with the technical support.

Reuters could not determine why the private investigators might need Gupta to download emails. Gupta did not return follow-up messages. Spokesmen for Delhi police and Indias foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Horoscope and pornography

Operating from a small room above a shuttered tea stall in a west-Delhi retail complex, BellTroX bombarded its targets with tens of thousands of malicious emails, according to the data reviewed by Reuters. Some messages would imitate colleagues or relatives; others posed as Facebook login requests or graphic notifications to unsubscribe from pornography websites.

Fahmi Quadirs New York-based short-selling firm Safkhet Capital was among 17 investment companies targeted by BellTroX between 2017 and 2019. She said she noticed a surge in suspicious emails in early 2018, shortly after she launched her fund.

Initially it didnt seem necessarily malicious, Quadir said. It was just horoscopes; then it escalated to pornography.

Eventually, the hackers upped their game, sending her credible-sounding messages that looked like they came from her co-workers, other short-sellers or members of her family. They were even trying to emulate my sister, Quadir said, adding that she believes the attacks were unsuccessful.

US advocacy groups were also repeatedly targeted. Among them were digital rights organizations Free Press and Fight for the Future, both of whom have lobbied for net neutrality. The groups said a small number of employee accounts were compromised, but the wider organizations' networks were untouched. The spying on those groups was detailed in a report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2017, but has not been publicly tied to BellTroX until now.

Timothy Karr, a director at Free Press, said his organization sees an uptick in breach attempts whenever were engaged in heated and high-profile public policy debates. Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, said: When corporations and politicians can hire digital mercenaries to target civil society advocates, it undermines our democratic process.

While Reuters was not able to establish who hired BellTroX to carry out the hacking, two former employees said the company and others like it were usually contracted by private investigators on behalf of business rivals or political opponents.

Bart Santos of San Diego-based Bulldog Investigations was one of a dozen private detectives in the United States and Europe who told Reuters they had received unsolicited advertisements for hacking services out of India - including one from a person who described himself as a former BellTroX employee. The pitch offered to carry out data penetration and email penetration.

Santos said he ignored those overtures, but could understand why some people didnt. The Indian guys have a reputation for customer service, he said.
Minnesotas Farmer-Labor Party merged with the state Democratic Party in April 1944. Thus was the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party born.

Working from inside the Democratic Party, Hubert Humphrey helped engineer the merger. The Farmer-Labor Party was riddled with Communists. Humphrey knew it, but he had no trouble working with them. At the time he was a Popular Front kind of guy with no enemies to the left.

Packing the 1946 party caucuses, Communists promptly took over the DFL in Hennepin County (including all of Minneapolis) and in the state. Then Minneapolis Mayor Humphrey could not even get elected a delegate to the state convention. Communists picked up no fewer than 120 of the 160 Hennepin County delegates. In Minneapoliss Second Ward, both Humphrey and his ally Arthur Naftalin (future Minneapolis mayor and father of Paul Butterfield Blues Band keyboardist Mark Naftalin) went down to defeat.

Humphrey was nevertheless named a delegate at large to the state party convention, where he was to serve as keynote speaker. As Humphrey rose to speak, however, he was shouted down as a fascist and warmonger. In his meticulous 1984 biography of Humphrey, Carl Solberg records: A beefy sergeant at arms shouted at him, Sit down, you son of a bitch, or Ill knock you down. He was not allowed to finish his speech. Solberg comments: It was an outright coup.

Solberg adds: The totally organized left wing took command of the DFL convention.They passed resolutions excoriating Winston Churchill for his iron curtain speech Talk about history rhyming.

The partys rising star, Humphrey had been elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945. He organized a successful counterattack on the Communists to throw them out of the party. By 1948, the task was more or less complete and Humphrey was on his way to national prominence. Mister, we could use a man like Hubert Humphrey again.

Orville Freeman, by the way, was one of Humphreys right-hand men in the counterattack. Freeman went on to be elected Minnesotas first DFL governor and to serve as Secretary of Agriculture in the Kennedy administration. Freemans son Mike is the Hennepin County Attorney who is the object of scorn among the radicals who rule the roost in Minneapolis today.

Now Minneapolis appears to be ground zero of the revolution fomented by the radical left and its shock troops among the Antifa/Black Lives Matter gang. They are idiot Marxists who substitute the categories of race for the categories of class in the service of the revolution.

Their local supporters are already embedded in our political institutions: Fifth District Rep. Ilhan Omar sits in Congress and comes to town occasionally to rouse the rabble, Keith Ellison burrows from the inside as Minnesota Attorney General, and Ellisons son Jeremiah sits on the Minneapolis city council as an avowed supporter of Antifa (I hereby declare, officially, my support for ANTIFA).

If you have any doubt what Antifa is all about, please check out Kyle Shidelers American Mind backgrounder, The real history of Antifa. The Communists may be gone, but their successors have arrived. In line with the goal of the shadowy Black Visions Collective and the Antifa crowd, Jeremiah Ellison and his colleagues on the Minneapolis city council have pledged to abolish the police. Ilhan Omar urges them on. Former Nation of Islam hustler Keith Ellison sits on a perch as Minnesotas chief law enforcement officer, the position from which he has taken control of the Floyd case.

Not entirely on board with the program, Mayor Frey has been subject to the treatment formerly accorded Mayor Humphrey by the 1946 DFL convention sergeant at arms. Shut up, they explained.

They have served up some highly illuminating revolutionary theater. It is sound and fury signifying something. The city council pledge to abolish the police, however, will meet the city charters requirement that the city maintain and fund a police force (of at least 0.0017 employees per resident). Any move to abolish the police would have to be submitted to Minneapolis voters in the form of a proposed charter amendment.

By contrast with the Democrats who confronted the Communists in the post-1946 battle, however, every Democrat in town is afraid of our gang of radicals. There is no pushback. The Star Tribune should be the voice of civic responsibility at this moment of crisis, yet the editors are giving eunuchs a bad name. Governor Walz serves as a front man for the gang (below). Forgive me for repeating myself  I can only conclude that we could use a man like Hubert Humphrey again.
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For many citizens, their first  and sometimes only  interaction with their government is a call to a citizen engagement center. Think about that: A citizen needs help and is asking, by virtue of picking up the phone, for their government to assist them. From that single interaction, a government agency can signal to its citizens how it values their time, how empathetic it is to their needs, and how prepared it is to help.The key to sending the right message? The citizen engagement center employee.The key to making sure that employee is able to do that? An effective employee engagement strategy.Government agencies and their private sector partners that operate citizen engagement centers must ensure that they are building a workforce and an infrastructure that empowers agents to deliver the help citizens need.This is not your run-of-the-mill retail engagement center set up. It requires an overall employee engagement strategy that is more holistic and intentional than most. And, it must enable the people on the citizen engagement center frontlines to be more empowered and effective than ever.At Maximus, there are three very important ways we make that happen.Your employees are there to solve problems for citizens. So, be sure youre dedicating ample time and resources to training that addresses citizen engagement center technology, agency-specific policies, and soft skills that demonstrate care and compassion.At Maximus, we have established learning-centric environments that deliver capable and effective employees and place an increased priority on recognition. Be sure to celebrate top performers and demonstrate your investment in employees success and development. And, set clear and transparent career paths, and then groom staff in kind  making sure you have a bench of talent that allows you to staff-up when needed. Its also crucial to allow for temporary management roles during surges so agents can test out positions and envision themselves in bigger roles. Most of all, be good to your people and theyll be good to you and the public you serve.Engaged employees who feel valued by their company deliver better performance. Its been proven time and again  but it isnt rocket science. Were all happier at our jobs when we feel like were making a difference. A citizen engagement center employee who feels that they are effective  because theyve been trained well and given tools to succeed  will be happier at work and better at what they do there. An investment in employee engagement and training will absolutely lead to better outcomes.In Maximus citizen engagement centers, we aim for one-call issue resolutions. As a result, our handle time is six to seven minutes longer  but thats ok with us. We know that citizens are calling to resolve a problem, schedule a medical appointment, or look for something as critical as help with basic needs following a disaster. They need someone on the other end of the line who has the ability and the information necessary to solve their problem and not someone who is trying to quickly wrap-up the call to meet an unimportant metric.Incentivizing employees on the number of calls they take or how quickly they can get callers off the line is counterproductive. When employees are going the extra mile  which is what we want them to do  they are being more effective for citizens and will be happier employees as a result of that efficacy. It also means that the citizen doesnt have to keep calling back in to solve their problem, which wastes their time and the agents time.When Maximus establishes a new citizen engagement center in an area, we intend to be part of the local community for many years. So, we hire our employees from the immediate surrounding area and focus our recruitment efforts on the ways that a position with (and a relationship with) Maximus helps their communities thrive.We consider it a business imperative to build relationships with employees and engage with the community at large. In the past, we've even held job fairs and invited employees to "bring a friend to work" to recruit staff from their communities. We want to be the place where people want to work and a place they'd recommend their friends and families to work.This transparent and intentional approach to recruitment really makes us a trusted partner and an employer of choice in these areas  something that allows us to respond quickly to surges and to be competitive in our quest for new work.A holistic employee engagement approach, where the focus is on training, employee success, and communities, will continuously improve the citizens' experiences within government agencies. Our experience has proven that time and again, and our approach has enabled us to become the largest provider of citizen engagement services to the federal government.Learn more at maximus.com/citizen-journey
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India has issued notices to the Delhi government and the union government on a complaint by senior Congress leader Ajay Maken alleging 70% of beds in Delhi hospitals are lying unused while coronavirus patients are being turned away in the city.

The NHRC says that Ajay Maken has provided data along with his complaint to cite the difficulties faced by Covid-19 patients in Delhi, which if true, highlights the inappropriate behavior of the authorities. The national rights body, therefore, has directed the central and the Delhi government officials to consult and file a comprehensive report within 10 days.

An official press statement from NHRC cites the complaint filed by Maken on Tuesday to raise concern over reports of suspected coronavirus patients running from one hospital to another for admission without luck.

The chart provided by the complainant indicates that the NCT of Delhi has a robust hospital infrastructure of 57,194 beds. It has a significant presence of Central government Hospitals also but it is painful to see that only 12% of the Delhi Government, 8% of the Central Government institutions and 7% of the Private Hospital beds are presently occupied and are being used to treat Covid patients, said the official statement from NHRC.

It further highlights that the Congress leader has demanded for setting aside 70% of all hospital beds in Delhi for Covid patients.

It is further stated that in Delhi around 70% dedicated beds are still lying vacant. While the residents of Delhi are struggling hard to fetch a bed in times of Corona crises, the Delhi government, despite confirming availability of beds, is not providing the same to the patients who need them to save their lives, the statement says.

Makens complaint to the human rights body adds that 33 out of the 38 health institutions under the Delhi government are not accepting Covid patients as only 5 hospitals have been designated as Covid Hospitals making people run from pillar to post in search of treatment for Covid-19, says NHRC statement.

Also Read: Delhi L-G Baijals orders to be implemented: CM Kejriwal on hospitals row

The human rights body adds that Maken has also alleged that an adequate number of tests to identify coronavirus patients are not being done by the Delhi government. The complaint has also alleged that cremations of Coved-19 positive patients are being delayed leading to a crisis.

The Complainant has further stated that cremations are taking upto 5-6 days after death and relatives of the deceased have been found struggling to find slots, the NHRC release says

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The human rights body has also sought to know the governments response to allegations that it has tweaked the definition of containment zones which is proving to be counter-productive to disease containment goals.

On 29th April, when there were just 3439 COVID positive patients, Delhi had 102 containment zones. At a time when Delhi has around 30,000 positive cases, the containment zones are merely 183, NHRC says quoting Makens complaint.

It adds that according to the complainant, opening up areas affected with the virus, is a dangerous practice which will increase the outspread of the coronavirus endangering human lives across the national capital.
Neural network software is used to simulate, research, develop, and apply artificial neural networks, software concepts adapted from biological neural networks, and in some cases, a wider array of adaptive systems such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.Global Neural Network Software Market is expected to grow in the forecasted period, in 2017 market size of the Neural Network Softwarewas XX million and in 2027 is expected to reach at XX million with growing CAGR of XX%.

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Market Dynamics:

The Neural Network Software market is significantly concentrated due to the presence of few key vendors and several prominent vendors operating competitively. Neural network software market is currently driven by growth in demand for predictive solutions, increasing adoption of big data analytics and various technological advancements. Predictive solutions are witnessing traction, with an increasing demand from end-use industries such as BFSI, health care, energy & utilities, and media. Exponential increase in the volume of data, increasing digitization, stringent regulations, and financial losses due to the rise in fraudulent practices are some fundamental factors responsible for rising demand for predictive solutions.

Key Players:

The Neural Network Software market consists global and regional players including Alyuda Research, LLC., Intel Corporation, SAP SE, Microsoft Corporation, IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Google Inc., QUALCOMM Incorporated, Afiniti, and Neural Technologies Limitedand other.

Market Segmentation:

Neural Network Software market is segmented based on Software Type, Industry verticaland geography. On the the basis of software type, the market has been divided into analytical software, data mining and archiving, optimization software and visualization software.

Neural Network Software Module by region segmented into North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa. In 2017, North America held highest revenue share of global neural network software market with the U.S contributing the maximum revenue and it is expected that the region will show significant growth over the forecast period. In Europe, highest revenue contributing countries includes the U.K., France and Germany. The high adoption rate across the countries namely China, India and Japan in the region is expected to drive the

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Market segmented on the basis of industry vertical:

 BFSI

 Government & Utilities

 Healthcare

 Oil & Gas

 Manufacturing

 Telecom and IT

 Retail & E-commerce

 Others

Market segmented on the basis of software type:

 Data Mining and Archiving

 Analytical Software

 Optimization Software

 Visualization Software

Market segmented based on region:

 North America

 US

 Canada

 Mexico

 Europe

 UK

 Germany

 France

 Rest of Europe

 Asia-Pacific

 China

 Japan

 India

 Australia

 Rest of Asia-Pacific

 Latin America

 Brazil

 Rest of Latin America

 Middle East and Africa (MEA)

 South Africa

 Saudi Arabia

 Rest of MEA

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Republic TVs editor-in-chief and prime-time anchor Arnab Goswami on Wednesday afternoon reached Mumbais NM Joshi Marg police station for interrogation in connection with the case registered against him at Pydhonie police station for allegedly instigating hatred against the Muslim community while anchoring a programme on April 29 on the protests by stranded migrants outside the Bandra railway station on April 14.

On Tuesday, the Bombay high court (HC) had asked Goswami to be present at Pydhonie police station while hearing his application seeking the first information (FIR) against him be quashed.

Pranay Ashok, Mumbai police spokesperson and deputy commissioner of police (DCP), said, Arnab Goswami reached NM Joshi police station at around 2.15pm on Wednesday while responding to the summons issued by Pydhonie police station authorities a day before.

Suresh Gaikwad, the investigating officer in the case and an inspector with Pydhonie police station, along with his team arrived before Goswami reached NM Joshi Marg police station.

Initially, Pydhonie police station authorities will question Goswami. Later, the NM Joshi Marg personnel may also quiz him related to another case registered against him, where he had made a derogatory statement about Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in connection with the lynching of two Hindu seers in Palghar on April 16, said a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) official, requesting anonymity.

Goswami was summoned to Pydhonie police station on the basis of a complaint by Irfan Abubakar Shaikh, secretary, Raza Education Welfare Society.

Sheikh had alleged in his FIR that Goswami tried to create hatred against the Muslim community and targeted a Bandra-based mosque that had no links to a protest by stranded migrant workers, who wanted to go back to their native places on April 14, when lockdown 1.0, which was imposed to contain the spread of the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, restrictions were slated to be lifted.

Shaikh had alleged that Goswami on his April 29 show tried to spread hatred against Muslims.

The mosque near the Bandra railway station is not linked to the stranded migrant workers protest. The workers had only gathered in an open space near the mosque. But Goswami deliberately highlighted the mosque on his show on April 29 to create communal disturbances in Mumbai, Shaikh alleged.

The raging debate on the Republic TV was aimed at blaming the Muslim community for spreading Covid-19 in Mumbai. Earlier, too, he made hate-filled comments, targeting the community, he further alleged.

The FIR was registered under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, and language), 295A (deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any citizen) 500 (defamation), 505 (2) (spreading rumour or alarming news with intent to create or promote feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Lawyers from Phoenix Legal, who are representing Goswami in the cases, couldnt be contacted, despite HTs attempts.
A Versace dress held together with gold safety pins has become one of her most famous fashion moments.

Actress and model Liz Hurley, who turns 55 on June 10, wore the designer dress while accompanying then-boyfriend Hugh Grant to the Four Weddings And A Funeral premiere in 1994.

As she celebrates the birthday milestone, we look at her career and highlights through the years.

Expand Close This Versace dress grabbed headlines as Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant arrived for the charity premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral in 1994 (PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp This Versace dress grabbed headlines as Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant arrived for the charity premiere of Four Weddings And A Funeral in 1994 (PA)

Expand Close Hurley and actor Hugh Grant dated from 1987 to 2000 and Grant is godfather to her son Damian with Steve Bing (Dave Cheskin/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Hurley and actor Hugh Grant dated from 1987 to 2000 and Grant is godfather to her son Damian with Steve Bing (Dave Cheskin/PA)

Hurley also recently recycled another Versace dress she wore 21 years ago, and posted a photograph of her wearing it on her Instagram account.

She launched her own range of swimwear and beachwear in 2005, and often models it herself.

Her son Damian, whose father is American businessman Steve Bing, recently turned 18 and is following in his mothers modelling footsteps.

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Expand Close Hurley also dated cricketer Shane Warne and they were engaged from 2011 to 2013 (PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Hurley also dated cricketer Shane Warne and they were engaged from 2011 to 2013 (PA)

Hurleys acting career has included her playing the role of Queen Helena, the scheming matriarch of a hedonistic fictional British royal family, in the E! series The Royals.

Expand Close Hurley was married to Arun Nayar, but the couple divorced after four years in 2011 (PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Hurley was married to Arun Nayar, but the couple divorced after four years in 2011 (PA)

Expand Close Hurley told the Mail On Sundays You magazine in 2017 that she is on good terms with her former flames (PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Hurley told the Mail On Sundays You magazine in 2017 that she is on good terms with her former flames (PA)

Her film roles include appearing in two Austin Powers films, as well as a leading role in the 2000 US comedy, Bedazzled.

Cosmetics giant Estee Lauder is often credited with having given Hurley her break into the modelling world in her late 20s, and she has since had a long-standing relationship working with them.
France's government said Tuesday part of its funding to help the air industry recover from Covid-19 would go to developing cleaner technology, but environmental groups were left wanting clearer objectives for reducing air traffic.

France's industry was not spared when the coronavirus pandemic grounded aircraft around the world, with flag carrier Air France calling off most flights and and European giant Airbus, based in Toulouse, shutting down production as orders were suspended or cancelled.

The health crisis brought the growth of our aeronautic sector to a halt, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire tweeted as he and four other ministers presented the measures.

We must do whatever it takes to stop our industry from failing faced with China and the United States. The government's response: a massive support package worth 15 billion euros.

Ministers in the environment, economy and defence departments laid out a rescue package with the triple objective of remaining competitive, saving an industry that represents an estimated 300,000 jobs in France and responding to climate concerns presented by a high-emissions industry.

The package includes a 500-million-euro public-private investment fund for small companies, a 1.5-billion-euro fund for research and development towards building a carbon-neutral plane by 2035, state guarantees on exports and 7 billion euros in loans and guarantees for Air France.

Minimal measures to reduce air traffic

Le Maire said the package would oblige companies to invest in developing electric, hydrogen and lower-emission technologies to make France's industry the cleanest in the world.

But environmental groups said the government was not doing enough to do what they claim is the only way to improve the industry's environmental performance: reducing the amount of air traffic.

For instance, the package allows Air France to update its fleet with more fuel efficient and lower carbon emitting Airbus A220 and A350 planes, on the condition that it discontinue some domestic direct flights.

However, this only applies to destinations reachable by train in no more than 2.5 hours, which only represents five of 108 flights.

Five-hundred fifty students preparing for careers in aeronautics published an open letter in newspaper Le Monde claiming that new technology isn't enough and that reducing emissions means reducing air traffic.

The government continues to hide its head in the sand, tweeted the French office of environmental NGO Greenpeace. Bruno Le Maire wants to return air traffic to December 2019 levels even though the climate crisis means reducing traffic.

Shift from growth-based air industry

Romain Grandjean, project manager with environmental think tank The Shift Project, which produced a report on the air industry after the coronavirus epidemic, also expressed doubt about the plan's green ambitions.

"It's missing global coherence, Grandjean says, doubting it was realistic that electric and hydrogen technology would be operational by 2035.

There are technological options to explore, but even if they're used to their maximum capacity, they're not enough to reduce CO2 emissions linked to air traffic in the respect of the engagements of the Paris Deal, he says.

The report recommends shifting the aeronautic industry away from a model based on constant growth and find other ways to stimulate economic activity.

There's a pivot that the industry could do, from expanding the number of flights to renewing its equipment with more energy efficient equipment, which needs to be manufactured and installed, he says.

Right now, the post-Covid period is difficult, but this could be a way out, and the aeronautic industry could emerge with much work in the years to come.
PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)an alliance of leading cancer centershosted a Virtual NCCN Policy Summit titled Accelerating Advances in Cancer Care Research: A Lookback at the 21st Century Cures Act in 2020. The program included a conversation between the bipartisan sponsors of the landmark legislation, Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Fred Upton (R-MI), who discussed their plans for Cures 2.0. Amy Abernethy, MD, PhD, Principal Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drugs, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a fireside chat on clinical trials, data, and how real world evidence is changing the research landscape. Don Rucker, MD, MBA, MS, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) spoke about increasing the use of electronic medical records.

"The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule will give patients unprecedented access and control over their medical records," said Dr. Rucker. "For patients and caregivers affected by cancer, the Rule, when fully implemented, will improve care coordination by allowing patients to aggregate and share records across clinicians, increasing a patient's agency to take their records and seek further opinion. The Rule will also allow new opportunities for patients to participate in clinical trials and contribute data to researchers working on new treatments and cures."

The need for improving patient access to medical records was also a key theme for the panel discussion moderated by Clifford Goodman, PhD, Senior Vice President of The Lewin Group and featuring Jenny Ahlstrom, Founder, CrowdCare Foundation and Multiple Myeloma Patient; Clay Alspach, JD, Principal, Leavitt Partners; Anobel Odisho, MD, MPH, Urologist, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Clinical Informatics Lead, UCSF Center for Digital Health Innovation; and Susan Stiles, MHA, MBA, FACHE, Executive, Oncology Business Unit, Cerner Corporation.

"Today, it takes an extraordinary effort for patients to access their records at multiple facilities in order to share it so it is correlative with other patients and relevant for research," explained Ahlstrom. "Our current process and lack of data makes it difficult for patients to make life and death decisions around their care. Easing this process will enable the generation of faster new hypotheses from the research community which will in turn save patient lives. Many forget that patients are not just data sets, they can and should be active participants in this interoperability process."

The speakers examined the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on medicine as a whole and cancer care in particular. They discussed how the 21st Century Cures Act laid groundwork that can be helpful in the global fight against the pandemic, and also looked at new lessons to be taken from the fight against COVID-19 and applied toward improving cancer care in the future.

"The dramatic and rapid uptake of telehealth has shown great promise for patient care but also exposed deficiencies in the existing software solutions for providing remote care," said Dr. Odisho. "Providers have been able to transition to video visits and telehealth, but the field is immature and there are significant opportunities to improve the quality of care and efficiency of care delivery. Now that the Cures Act rule has been finalized, allowing patients to access their own data, provisions against information blocking, and clear timelines, health information technology (HIT) developers are empowered to develop solutions for improving remote patient caresuch as video visits, automated workflows, and asynchronous virtual care. We will have to keep a close on eye on utilization of information blocking exemptions to ensure they are having the intended effect and are not being exploited outside of the intended scope."

The summit also included a presentation by Jeff Allen, PhD, President & CEO, Friends of Cancer Research and Ronald S. Walters, MD, MBA, MHA, MS, NCCN Board Chair & Breast Medical Oncologist, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Drs. Allen and Walters presented recommendations for future policy improvements according to an NCCN working group of multidisciplinary experts from across the country. The group's recommendations include:

Provide robust, sustained, and predictable annual funding increases to guarantee continued clinical advancements and clinical trial success

Encourage increased interagency collaboration and communication to enhance the oncology product approval process and benefit future coverage processes

Establish parameters for the use of real-world data including patient reported outcomes, post-market analysis and the representation of diverse population groups to leverage the use of real-world evidence

Encourage and incentivize widespread patient participation in clinical trials to increase diverse study populations

Build upon the regulations of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to expand available standardized data elements in a manner that is actionable to the patient and the provider

Promote policies and reimbursement mechanisms that support interoperability and encourage the aggregation of patient data that will promote shared decision-making and increase understanding between patients, providers, and payers

Maintain and increase advancements made during the COVID-19 pandemic to enhance patient access to telehealth services and increase access to tumor boards to improve patient care

For more information and background on these policy recommendations, plus a look at upcoming NCCN Policy Summits, visit NCCN.org/policy. Join the conversation online with the hashtag #NCCNPolicy.

About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is a not-for-profit alliance of leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education. NCCN is dedicated to improving and facilitating quality, effective, efficient, and accessible cancer care so patients can live better lives. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) provide transparent, evidence-based, expert consensus recommendations for cancer treatment, prevention, and supportive services; they are the recognized standard for clinical direction and policy in cancer management and the most thorough and frequently-updated clinical practice guidelines available in any area of medicine. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients provide expert cancer treatment information to inform and empower patients and caregivers, through support from the NCCN Foundation. NCCN also advances continuing education, global initiatives, policy, and research collaboration and publication in oncology. Visit NCCN.org for more information and follow NCCN on Facebook @NCCNorg, Instagram @NCCNorg, and Twitter @NCCN.

Media Contact:

Rachel Darwin

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SOURCE National Comprehensive Cancer Network

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R2L  chef Daniel Sterns splashy restaurant and lounge with the million-dollar view from the 37th floor of Two Liberty Place  has closed permanently, staff was told Tuesday. It was a victim of the coronavirus pandemic that has shuttered dining rooms and thrown the restaurant industry into a tailspin.

Staff, which was idled on March 16, had been paid for eight weeks through the governments Paycheck Protection Program, said a former manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Stern and partner Sue Mahoney did not reply to text messages Tuesday and Wednesday, and a representative of the buildings operator, Coretrust Management, declined to comment.

The self-taught, Cherry Hill-bred Stern burst onto the Center City scene in 2002 as the executive chef at Le Bec-Fin  the first American hired to run the kitchen at Georges Perriers landmark restaurant at 1523 Walnut St., now a Warby Parker eyeglass store.

Perrier was in great distress at the time, after Mobil Travel Guide (now Forbes Travel Guide) had demoted Le Bec-Fin from five stars to four. Perrier dismissed Stern 20 months later, after Stern had helped the restaurant regain the fifth star.

Stern went on to open a boutique restaurant in Queen Village called Gayle, as well as Rae, an American bistro, in the lobby of the Cira Centre in University City. Both closed in 2009. Around the time of R2Ls debut, Stern opened MidAtlantic, billed as a tavern, in the Science Center at 3711 Market St. It closed in 2012.

R2L, which replaced the old mailroom of building tenant Cigna Corp., was Philadelphias loftiest public restaurant until the Four Seasons Philadelphia opened last year, offering views to Philadelphia diners not seen since the nearby Top of Centre Square closed in 1993. (The Pyramid Club, which offers some public dining, is on the 52nd floor of the BNY Mellon Center.)

R2Ls first event was a New Years party ushering in 2010.

Simply getting there is part of the allure, Inquirer critic Craig LaBan wrote in his first review of R2L in 2010. Diners pass through a discreet hallway in the Liberty Two lobby [off 16th Street near Market], step into a dedicated elevator, then  whoosh! The doors open onto Snazzyville. Jazz fills the air. The swelling buzz of a crowd leads you around the corner, where white-clad chefs hustle inside the glassed-in kitchen beside the corridor. And then the room opens up onto the lounge, where a hive of slinky party dresses and pinstripe suits sip classic cocktails while the setting sun melts like a maraschino cherry over the western horizon.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Automakers in China sold roughly 70,200 locally-produced new energy PVs (NEPVs) in May, posting a year-on-year decline of 25.8%, while gaining a 19.5% growth compared to a month ago, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

The wholesale volume of all-electric PVs (BEV for short) reached 55,829 units in May, tumbling 27% from a year earlier. The decrease stemmed from the downturn in car and SUV volumes, which slid 21% and 41% respectively to 41,529 units and 14,036 units. Although the MPV wholesales skyrocketed 3,671% to 264 units, it merely affected the result due to the small quantity.

Among BEVs sold in May, 54% of sales were contributed by China's self-owned brands. Besides, the foreign-invested brands, the startups and the mainstream joint-venture brands accounted for 20%, 15% and 11% of the May BEV wholesales respectively, according to Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the CPCA.

(NIO ES6, photo source: NIO)



The startups have gradually become an important player in the country's NEV market with such EV makers as NIO, WM Motor, Xpeng Motors and HOZON Auto engaged in mass production.

With 2,685 units delivered, the NIO ES6 was honored the hottest-selling NEV model made by Chinese startups in May. The automaker also sold 751 ES8s during the same period.

We are pleased to see the strong monthly deliveries despite fewer working days due to the public holiday in May. We expect to achieve the delivery goal for the second quarter 2020, said Steven Feng, chief financial officer of NIO.

After confronted with a sharp decline in April, Tesla's China-built Model 3 was once again crowned the best-selling NEPV model with a sales volume of 11,095 units in May, which skyrocketed 205% from April.

(China-made Model 3, photo source: Tesla's WeChat account)

Mr. Cui said it is normal to see Tesla record over 10,000 units in both monthly outputs and sales. Aside from the stable growth in orders, the production of the China-made Model 3 is being conducted in an orderly manner. In spite of the influence led by its changeable prices, Tesla is still well received by Chinese consumers by virtue of its powerful product competitiveness.

The robust growth in Model 3 sales manifested the catfish effect stemming from the government's introduction of Tesla, which gives impetus to the development of China's NEV industry and makes NEVs better received by Chinese consumers, Mr. Cui added.

During the same month, a total of 14,370 plug-in hybrid PVs (PHEV for short) were sold across China, representing a year-on-year plunge of 31%.

Due to the weakness in brand familiarity and supply chain, China's indigenous brands are losing the majority share in PHEV market, said Mr. Cui. In May, the percentage belonging to joint-venture and China's self-owned PHEVs stood at 33% and 30% respectively.

Regarding retail performance, there were around 65,700 consumers taking delivery of the China-made NEPVs. The delivery volume was projected to drop last month after the newest NEV subsidy policy was issued in April, while it eventually outnumbered that of the previous month as the overall market was resilient with the coronavirus abating.
The common perception is that the Covid-19 fatality rate in India is probably the lowest in the world. At first glance, it seems broadly valid in the sense that Indias rate, at 2.8% is much lower than, say, Italys at 14.3%, and its concurrent cumulative case fatality rate (CCCFR) certainly looks to be much lower than that of many countries, as seen in Figure 1. The CCCFR is the ratio of cumulative deaths to cumulative cases on a given date. Since death, if it occurs, happens days after a case is detected, CCCFR understates the probability of dying, given that one is infected, especially if the number of cases is rising. Ideally, the fatality should be calculated for every cohort, i.e., people grouped by when the infection was detected. But this is difficult to measure and so CCCFR is globally used as a summary measure of deaths due to Covid-19.

One can make some adjustment for this by taking the lagged CCFR (LCCFR), which is the ratio of cumulative deaths on a given date to cumulative cases on a prior date (in this case, 15 days earlier). This will increase the CCCFR, by a lot, if cases have been rising rapidly, as in Indias case or a little, if they have stabilised, as in Italys case. But even by this measure, India comes out looking good, with India at 5.9% still much below many others, and certainly much below Italys 14.9%.

However, one of the few certainties about Covid-19 is that it is more likely to be fatal as the age of the infected patient increases. Age-specific CCCFRs are not easy to find, but are now being published, e.g., in Onder, et. al. (2020) for Italy and China. Table 1 presents key numbers from the two countries. In India, we do not have published national age-specific CCFRs, but the government of Maharashtra, in a display of remarkable transparency in the face of the rising impact of the pandemic, provided age-specific cases and deaths from which age specific CCFR could be calculated (the age classes are off by one year, i.e., 31- 40 instead of 30-39, compared to the data for Italy and China) until May 8.

India does, however, have the age-specific number of cases for April 30, published in a recent article authored, inter alia, by the director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This provides the number of cases in India by the same age-class as the data for Italy and China in Onder, et. al. (2020) and the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CDC). This allows us to estimate the number of deaths that should have occurred in India, if the same age-specific CFRs seen in China and Italy prevailed in India. If the actual number of deaths in India is less than these estimates, then India is doing better than these countries, and vice versa. However, given the fact that China carried out a one-time readjustment of its Covid-19 deaths in mid-April, we use only Italys numbers, though the Chinese age-specific CCCFR is provided for comparative information.

In Table 1, the critical number is in column (8). This is calculated by multiplying Italys age-specific CFR in column (3) to the age-specific number of cases in India in column (7). The estimated numbers of death that should have occurred, if the age-specific death rates of Italy were to prevail in India, is 535. The official number of deaths in India as of April 30 was actually twice that number, at 1074.

It is possible to reconcile the fact that Indias CCCFR is lower than Italys in Figure 1 with the deaths in India being twice the expected number, if one examines the distribution of cases by age. It can be seen, Figure 2a, that more than half the patients in India and Maharashtra are under 40 years, while Italy (the total case figures are estimated using the CCCFR and the number of deaths) has less than one-seventh of cases in this age group, and 56% in the age group above 60, where India has less than one-seventh. Indian Covid patients are much younger and thus, would have been less likely to die in Italy or China, which, as seen in Table 1, have very low CCCFR for patients below 60.

This is seen more clearly in Maharashtra, the only state to release age-specific CCCFR. Maharashtras CFR for those below 60 is well over four times higher than Italy, as seen in Figure 2b, even though Italys aggregate CFR of 7.2% is much higher than Maharashtras 3.8%. If it had Italys age-specific CCCFR, Maharashtra would have reduced its deaths by two-thirds and applying Maharashtras CCCFR to India would increase the national number of deaths by 50%.

The bottom line is our aggregate CFR is low because we have more young patients than other countries who are not expected to die. However, in India, they are dying at a rate much higher than expected, which means that India has a much higher CCCFR than it should given the experience of other countries. Instead of being among the lowest, Indias age-adjusted death rate is actually higher than Italys, which, as seen in Figure 1, has among the highest aggregate CCCFRs.

Why is this so? Is it because our hospital system is not equipped for managing (there is no consensus on treatment for Covid-19, only supporting the patient, while his or her immune system tries to fight the infection) Covid? Or because we lack facilities like oxygen support, etc. Or because our immune system is compromised by lack of nourishment and bad water and air, or because of numerous comorbidities?

It will be difficult to disentangle these factors, but without recognising our problem, we wont even start asking such questions, and continue to believe we got a lucky break. States can begin this discussion by releasing age-specific CCCFRs in the public domain. ICMR too needs to release age-specific case loads. Only then can we take corrective action in time.
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Perry Aston

From Popular Mechanics

The U.S. Air Force will stage a dogfight between a human fighter pilot and an AI-controlled drone in the summer of 2021.

The competition will test the viability of a drone fighter jet, one of the last missions currently not performed by drone aircraft.

U.S. military pilots engaged drones in the 1970s, but the drones were remotely controlled.

The U.S. Air Force will square off an AI-powered drone against a fighter jet flown by a real, live human being. The service wants to know if AI powered by machine learning can beat a human pilot with actual cockpit experience. The result will help the Air Force determine if AI-powered fighters are a viable alternative to human-powered fighters, the results of which could have far-reaching consequences for aerial warfare.

Air Force Magazine reports Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Pentagons Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, stated that the fly off would take place in 2021. Shanahan was speaking at a virtual event of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Earlier reports stated that the fly-off would likely involve an older plane such as the F-16 before progressing to more advanced jets like the F-35 and F-22. If thats the case, the Air Force will probably fly an unmanned F-16 versus a manned F-16, to make sure the human pilot and AI have as level a playing field as possible. The Air Force has already developed a remote flying mechanism, converting the F-16 to QF-16 target drones (see above), and presumably the AI would control that mechanism.

Photo credit: NASA

The Pentagon has flown fighters against drones before. In 1971, spy drone manufacturer Teledyne Ryan modified their BFM-34 reconnaissance drone with the Maneuverability Augmentation System for Tactical Air Combat Simulation, or MASTACS. The result was the BFM-34E unmanned fighter jet. Fast, maneuverable, and with a low radar cross section, the BFM-34E was a difficult opponent for a human fighter pilot to fly against. A paper prepared for the U.S. Air Forces Air University described the drone:

Story continues

Both the USAF and USN used this UAV to train their best pilots in simulated air combat. At Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, the BGM-34F was used as a target in the annual William Tell air combat competition. This UAV routinely outmaneuvered manned F-15 and F-16 aircraft; one named Old Red survived eighty-two dogfights. The USN used the MASTACS as a graduation exercise at their Top Gun Weapons School.

Despite the BGM-34Fs unexpected success the Navy and Air Force had no interest in an unmanned fighter, and the program was never pursued.

Photo credit: Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Derek Davis

The Air Forces idealized AI will reportedly have the benefit of millions of hours of flight training time to bank on, and how the AI uses those hours will be critical. AI might size up an engagement against an enemy fighter, reach back into its memory, and analyze a similar engagement, and then make its move.

The question is: can a machine that learns from millions of hours of flight time beat a pilot with thousands of hours in the actual cockpit? The results of this duel between man and machine could change aerial warfare forever.



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Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, Chairman of the Ashanti Regional NPP constituency chairmen, has appealed to all Party members and supporters to abide by the decisions of the national leadership of the Party.

He said the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Party had been mandated to take firm and appropriate decisions for the entire good of the Party and it was important for all to respect its decision or follow the due process to seek redress.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in reaction to the current wrangling and protestations going on in some constituencies over the disqualification of some parliamentary aspirants, Odeneho Appiah called for peace to prevail.

He said it was important for Party members to learn a lesson from the bitter experience they had in the run-up to the 2008 general elections and put their acts in order, to prevent the reoccurrence of such painful experience.

Some Party members in some constituencies in the Ashanti Region had in the past week, resorted to mass protests and invoking curses on constituency, regional and national executives of the Party for their alleged roles in the disqualification of their preferred candidates contesting the upcoming primaries.

Offinso South, Asokwa, Dormaa East and Juaben for instance, had series of demonstrations by some aggrieved Party members over the disqualification of their candidates in the upcoming parliamentary primaries of the Party.

The aggrieved Party members have also resorted to invoking curses on their Party leaders for their alleged complicity in the disqualifications.

The unfolding events is creating a lot of tension in the Ashanti Region, which is considered as the stronghold of the NPP.

It is to help address the issues and reduce tension to help the Party concentrate on its campaign towards the upcoming general elections that was why some leading members were coming out to calm nerves.

Odeneho Appiah, who is also the Afigya-Kwabre South Constituency Chairman, said instead of Party members concentrating on telling Ghanaians the good works of the government, they were channeling energy to address internal wrangling and confusions.

He said not every decision by the leadership of the Party would be palatable to everybody.

In every judgement, there will be winners and losers. But in the interest of the Party, we should accept whatever, comes out and move forward, he stated.

Odeneho Appiah said if care was not taken, the Party would pay dearly for it.

He appealed to those supporting the ongoing wrangling to desist from that act since it was going to affect the Party in future.

---GNA
Entrepreneurs are constantly seeking an edge or an advantage. In fact, most entrepreneurs are wired to look at the world from an opportunists perspective and are regularly working an angle, an approach, or a way of attacking a business opportunity that others have missed or have left exposed.

Business consultants get paid big bucks to help organizations identify, create and maintain a competitive advantage. A competitive advantage is the million-dollar term business textbooks use to describe an entrepreneurial edge. A competitive advantage is defined as the ability of an organization to provide its products or services with either: 1) a higher value to their customers than a competitor but at a similar cost; or, 2) the same value but at a lower cost. A competitive advantage that is sustained should provide a business with the ability to realize consistently higher profits than its competitors.

Related: Rebuild Your Website Fast and Cheaply

Higher profits, the goal of many organizations and entrepreneurs (and the successful competitive advantages they build) can be reinvested in things like:

Growth by acquiring market share, entering new markets, or developing new products Brand enhancement programs or product improvements that increase value Capital improvements that reduce costs or increase quality Compensation that attracts or retains top talent who will perpetuate the advantages Legal maneuvers that protect business investments

Establishing an entrepreneurial edge after the Great Shutdown

The most obvious competitive advantage for the period immediately following Covid-19 will be speed. As the economies of the world rebound from the Great Shutdown, there will be a huge land grab for market share. The best time to enter a market is during a growth phase when there is typically more demand than supply. The markets, post-Covid-19, will offer huge economic opportunities for entrepreneurs that will see large unmet demands and weakened incumbents too slow or unable to respond. Entrepreneurs should look to freelancers and flex labor sources as a way to respond to the huge opportunity that is about to unfold.

Related: Find a Social Media Manager to Expand Your Audience

Entrepreneurs, however, should not limit their focus to timing the perfect entry or gathering resources for rapid growth. They should also seek valuable competitive advantages in those markets that can be built and sustained. These efforts should be undertaken knowing that the market will have shifted, with consumers seeking more comfort (and security), more convenience and more community. They should also align with transformative forces at work in both local and global economies.

These forces include three pushing a massive transformation (1. Globalization; 2. Knowledge Growth; and 3. Technology Adoption); three pulling the same transition (1. Consumer Demand; 2. Demographic Shift, from Boomers to Millennials; and 3. A Cultural Revolution--Millenials have different ideas); and, three enablers that are greasing the wheels of change (1. Digital Communication; 2. Marketplaces and Co-working Spaces; and 3. Social Supports, like access to healthcare). Together, these forces will drive rapid transitions on a local and a global scale. Entrepreneurs need to see, catch and ride these massive waves of change as they will lift a few and crush many. I'll write more about these trends soon.

Creating and sustaining an entrepreneurial edge

When considering what advantage to create and sustain, market research must be undertaken. The goal of the research and the related analyses should be to determine how the target market is segmented and what each of those segments value. Mature markets typically segment into three relatively distinct groups of consumers. Those that are motivated primarily by:

The best brand. This group always wants to be associated with the hottest trend. They tend to be image-conscious shoppers. The best product or service. This group cares about quality and performance. They will often research the possible choices thoroughly. The lowest price. This group shops like its on a budget, seeking the product or service that meets most of their needs for the lowest price available.

The goal of every entrepreneur should be to focus on a segment of the market that:

Is large enough to sustain their business. Will need and value the product or service they will offer. Is aligned with a sustainable competitive advantage that they can create and maintain.

Said in a more direct way: You want to be the best provider in the best market segment for you.

Related: Expand Your Sales Offering

A competitive advantage can come in many forms. The following is a list of just some of the ways an entrepreneurial edge could be realized after the Great Shutdown:

Market Share  The dominant player in a market may be able to control market pricing, vendors and supply, advertising channels or location, and labor. Many companies seek to be #1 or #2 in their market(s). Find a market you can enter and establish your business as one of the top dogs during the rebound. Brand Name  The company with the best reputation for a product or service within a market segment should be able to charge a premium. Brands are tricky to cultivate, but many old standbys will become available during and after the Great Shutdown. Consider purchasing or licensing a stellar brand to enhance your market positioning. Technology  Developing or licensing a new technology, process or recipe can make a big difference to the success of a business. Development can take a lot of time, however, many patents or licenses to intellectual property may become available freed up by struggling businesses. And many other agreements with volume commitments may see those requirements breached and become available. Location  For many service businesses, the location of a physical or digital space can make a huge difference to their success. The very best locations are also scarce, making the advantage significant and defensible. Consider approaching landlords with the goal of taking over leases from struggling businesses (but at a negotiated, reduced price). Supply  Owning exclusive rights to a suppliers products or services can be a significant advantage. If you own the exclusive rights to a valued product or service in an area, you may have a very valuable business while that product or service is in high demand. Like licenses for intellectual property, many supply agreements with volume commitments may have been breached and become available. Customer Loyalty  This is one of the hardest advantages to build, but it can also be very valuable. Loyalty will be increasingly important in the post-Covid-19 era when people are seeking comfort, convenience and community. Building this will take time. Consider purchasing (and nurturing) a struggling business that has a sizeable group of consumers who are rabid fans of their product or service. Barriers to Entry  Walls make for good neighbors and even better markets. Protected markets are much more valuable than unprotected ones because new competitors are kept at bay. Many walls will be lowered for a period of time after the Great Shutdown, but make sure to find a market or an opportunity that will see these rebuilt over time.

Related:

How to Establish an Entrepreneurial Edge After the Great Shutdown

Are You Willing to Face the Tiger? How Entrepreneurs Continually Rise to the Challenge.

An Entrepreneur's Guide to Thriving as the World Reopens



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
The Crown's Freddie Fox is dating Sex Education star Tanya Reynolds.

The actor, 31, and fellow thespian Tanya, 28, forged a friendship after playing young couple Thomas and Rebecca in period drama Fanny Lye Deliver'd last year, but insiders claim their on-screen romance has since turned into a real-life relationship.

The new couple are said to have been spending time together throughout the coronavirus lockdown as they isolate at Freddie's London home.

New romance: The Crown's Freddie Fox is dating Sex Education star Tanya Reynolds (pictured together while promoting Fanny Lye Deliver'd in October 2019)

A source told The Sun: 'It's early days but the pair are infatuated with each other. Their pals think they make such a cute couple.'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for both for further comment.

In Fanny Lye Deliver'd, the couple's respective characters seek refuge in a puritan family's isolated farm in Shropshire, after claiming they've been robbed of their possessions and are being targeted by a sheriff and his deputy.

The period drama, set in 1657, was directed by Thomas Clay and also starred Maxine Peake and Charles Dance.

From on-screen to real-life: The actor, 31, and fellow thespian Tanya, 28, forged a friendship after playing young couple Thomas and Rebecca in period drama Fanny Lye Deliver'd last year

Freddie is a member of the Fox family acting dynasty and his elder sister is Silent Witness star Emilia Fox, 45.

The actor is best known for his roles as Marilyn in 2010 Boy George biopic Worried About the Boy, and is set to portray the troubled son of Margaret Thatcher, Mark, in series four of The Crown.

Tanya, meanwhile, is widely recognised as Lily - a teen obsessed with alien erotica - in Netflix's Sex Education.

Screen star Freddie's last reported relationship was with Pride & Prejudice actress Tamzin Merchant, which ended in 2013 following two years of dating.

In 2015, the Cucumber actor said he's never put a label on his sexuality and could easily fall in love with a man.

Best known: TV and theatre star Tanya is widely recognised as Lily - a teen obsessed with alien erotica - in Netflix's Sex Education (pictured in character with Patricia Allison as Ola)

The handsome Brit has had girlfriends in the past, but claimed he is attracted to someone's personality and not their sex.

Freddie told The Telegraph at the time: 'I wouldnt wish to go "I am this or I am that" because at some time in my life, yes I've had girlfriends, but I might fall in love with a man.

'Because I would hope to say that I am the type of person that would fall in love with people as opposed to sexes necessarily, although the majority of my life to date has been as a straight man.'

The media personality said he also resents the stigma that people who are bisexual are in denial about being gay.

'I would strongly suggest that's probably not the case for a lot of people and that appreciation of both sexes ... is something people can do throughout an entire lifetime and can have hugely meaningful relationships with people as opposed to sexes,' he added.
REUTERS

Congress first hearing about police brutality in the wake of George Floyds murder was marked by raw and emotional testimony from his brother and some well-meaning words from members of both parties about working together to reform law enforcement in the U.S.

"The people elected you to speak for them, to make positive change. Georges name means something. You have the opportunity here to make your names mean something, too, said Floyds brother, Philonise, in his opening remarks. Later, weeping, he said "Justice has to be served. Those officers, they have to be convicted His life mattered. All our lives matter. Black lives matter. I just wish I could get him back."

But despite Floyds appeal, much of the House Judiciary Committees lengthy hearing on Wednesday was overshadowed by a proposal that Congress isnt seriously considering, or even has the power to do: defunding the police.

Over the last week, those protesting police brutality have injected the idea of dramatically reducing police funding into the national debate about law enforcement. President Trump and his supporters have seized on the idea as a tool to attack Democrats and needle the partys politicians over whether they support the radical proposal.

The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), began his remarks in the Judiciary hearing by saying the death of George Floyd never should have happened but then went off on those advocating to defund the police. His rant was echoed by nearly all of his Republican colleagues on the committeeand tweeted approvingly by the presidentmaking it clear that, for some, this was as much an opportunity to score political points as anything else. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asked all the witnesses to raise their hand if they supported defunding the police, while Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) used her remarks to read tweets from progressives who have said favorable things about it.

Those on the left can try to minimize this, said Rep. Guy Reshcenthaler (R-PA). I think that if anything, the murder of George Floyd demonstrates the need to invest more in our police departments.

Story continues

Trevor Noah Roasts Nancy Pelosi and Dems for Kente Cloth Fiasco

One GOP-called witness, Pastor Darrell Scott, an advisor to President Trumps campaign, spent nearly his entire opening remarks warning about defunding the police, saying it would lead to domestic terrorism, mob rule, gang rule, vigilantism. Another GOP witness, former cop and conservative pundit Dan Bongino, was invited by lawmakers multiple times to tee off on defunding the police.

The ideas popularity, however, is limited to the most left-wing corners of the Democratic Party: Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, have backed it, and the very left-leaning governments in cities like Minneapolis are exploring the idea.

But in Washington, Democratic leaders have dismissed it as a distractionthe partys presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has voiced support for more funding for policeand the idea is nowhere in Democrats police reform legislation that was introduced on Monday.

The relentless focus from Republicans on Wednesday on an issue thats certain to go nowhere at the federal level obscured one of the more remarkable developments in Washington over the last week: that both parties have a good deal of common ground on police reforms.

Floyds death, and the protests it sparked, have fomented a moment where Republicans are talking about the need to rein in police and considering proposals to reform thema sight that would have been far-fetched even a few years ago. The day after Democrats introduced their bill, Republicans quickly got to work on a proposal of their own, which is being led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). The path for a bipartisan compromise doesnt seem totally unlikely.

Indeed, on Wednesday, GOP witnesses and lawmakers expressed support for several of the ideas Democrats have put forth in their package: creating a national database of cops with histories of misconduct, ending the style of chokehold that killed Floyd, andeven among some Republicansloosening liability protections that make it harder for people to sue police for damages.

Gaetz, for example, told the sponsor of that billRep. Karen Bass (D-CA)that Republicans stand ready to work with her on the legislation. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) made a similar point, telling Democrats they can and should work together on police reform and even additional measures aimed at the criminal justice systems disparate impact on people of color.

Against that backdrop, Democratic lawmakers seemed largely content to ignore the frequent GOP refrains on defunding the police. There were few direct or even indirect rebukes from the majority: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), for example, gently pointed out that "it is the local communities that organize their public safety response, not the federal government.

But Wednesdays hearing wasnt solely filled with paeans to bipartisanship, powerful testimony from those affected by violence, and trial runs of election-season attacks. There were some genuine fireworks between the two sides that indicated the deep divisions that do exist on issues of race and policing.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, needled Bongino by listing examples of armed white menlike the 2012 Colorado shooter James Holmeswho were taken alive by police, a stark contrast to unarmed black men like Floyd who have died by police hands. I dont know why youre bringing this up, said Bongino.

Because black lives matter, Jeffries fired back. All lives matter, sir, interjected Bongino.

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Construction workers in Paris dangled from ropes and used saws to cut through the charred tangled remains of metal scaffolding as they resumed restoration work on Notre Dame cathedral.

Fire nearly destroyed the centuries-old structure in April 2019. The coronavirus outbreak suspended work rebuilding the church in March.

Huge towers of metal scaffolding erected before the fire -- as part of a renovation -- melted into a maze of tubes and pipes and must be cut away before any more work on the building can continue -- 40,000 pieces of metal weighing as much as 200 tons must be carefully lifted out, which is expected to take three months.


Thousands are demanding the removal of an Odessa school board member after a newspaper article from the Odessa American put the spotlight on his racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic sentiments shared on Facebook.

Ector County ISD School Board member Doyle Woodall spoke to the American in depth Friday, offering no remorse for his comments and instead doubling down on some sentiments, such as calling Islam not a religion but a "geopolitical hate group."

He also claimed the noose was a pleasant thought to him, saying he would not cow to the politically correct.

Mike Atkins, the attorney for the district, told the American Woodall was exercising his right to free speech and could not be censured or removed from the board, unless voted off.

A petition to remove Doyle from the board had more than 4,000 supporters as of early Tuesday afternoon. The American reported that a group of Odessans also planned to express their feelings about the posts in person at a board workshop set to take place 6 p.m. Tuesday at the ECISD administration building at 802 N. Sam Houston Ave.

On Saturday, the ECISD superintendent and school board president issued a letter calling Woodall's Facebook posts offensive and demeaning.

Superintendent Scott Muri and board President Donna Smith said Woodall's views do not represent the views of the district.

Woodalls comments, according to the American, included:

If we want to make America great again we will have to make evil people fear punishment again. The comments appeared with an image of a hangmans noose, according to the newspaper. Its not murder" and Jews arent actually people with a picture of Nazi officers.

Spill a few gallons of bacon grease on that street and it would clear out fast. The caption was followed by three American flags with a picture of large groups of Muslims in prayer. A comment below, according to the newspaper, also said, This is not Saudi Arabia  This is Sweet Home Birmingham, Alabama! Nervous yet?

"We embrace and serve a diverse staff and student body as well as a diverse community," Muri and Smith said in their letter. "Mr. Woodalls posts cut across many of those diverse groups. We cannot tolerate this kind of insensitivity. Images and words that hurt our kids and families, hurt us, too. We have spoken with Mr. Woodall about this. We understand his perspective, and his right to express his opinions through his personal platforms. But, we cannot accept messages that offend or marginalize members of our community or distract from the work we do to educate the communitys children.

On Tuesday, Woodall issued an apology in the Midland Reporter-Telegram for the posts, calling them offensive and a result of his personal "blinders."

"I am truly sorry for my offensive Facebook posts," Woodall wrote. "I am committed to earning back your trust. I have blinders. There are things I dont see and understand because of my culture and personal experiences."

Woodall's apology goes on to explain that after his interview with the American, reporter Ruth Campbell spoke to him about how his posts made her feel as a Jewish woman. Woodall claims the conversation rid him of a blinder, and goes on to speak about a similar experience with A.J. Crabill, the former deputy commissioner for education in Texas, who is a black man.

"Today, I understand why my posts were offensive," Woodall wrote. "I will remove them from my page. I have a lot to learn about cultural differences and I will dedicate a great deal of time learning by attending cultural awareness and sensitivity training."

Numerous community posts on the ECISD Facebook page call for Woodall's removal from the board, with some showcasing his Facebook posts in screenshots.
[June 10, 2020] Ameriprise Study Reveals Vast Majority of Investors Who Have Experienced a Major Financial Setback Have Overcome It

As many Americans find themselves evaluating their financial picture as a result of COVID-19, the road to recovery may seem daunting - or even impossible. However, the way investors have dealt with financial challenges in the past may shed light on how investors may be able to handle the financial repercussions of COVID-19. A new study by Ameriprise Financial (NYSE: AMP) found that nearly three-quarters of people have experienced at least one major financial setback - often costing more than $50,000, and in some cases more than $100,000. But those investors have also staged a comeback and managed to put their finances back in order. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005208/en/ The Financial Comebacks study from Ameriprise found that most investors have experienced at least one major financial setback, but have also staged a comeback. (Graphic: Business Wire) What obstacles did they face and how did they overcome them? Those were key questions Ameriprise set out to explore in its newly released Financial Comebacks study. The study, which surveyed more than 3,000 U.S. investors ages 30-70 with at least $100,000 in investable assets in January 2020, identified unexpected life events that took a major financial toll on investors' finances - and uncovered how 89% of respondents who experienced a setback bounced back or are on the path to recovery. Survey participants said the number one financial setback they experienced historically was market losses (26%). Other financial hurdles they most often cited included earning less money than expected (23%), job loss (20%), supporting family members financially (17%), bad financial decisions (16%), divorce (12%) and illness (12%). More than half (52%) of respondents said their setback cost them $50,000 or more - of these investors a third (34%) said it cost $100,000 or more. "Unfortunately, as we've seen in recent months, everyone - regardless of their income or assets - is susceptible to financial setbacks," said Marcy Keckler, Vice President of Financial Advice Strategy at Ameriprise. "Though it's hard to predict exactly when and how an event will impact your finances, we an anticipate that there will be ups and downs along the road to financial security. As investors grapple with the impact of the current crisis and look for ways to get their finances back on track, we can learn useful lessons from people who've previously experienced financial setbacks, and eventually made a comeback."



Road to recovery Regardless of the event, one thing about bouncing back was consistent - it took time. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of investors said it took them one to five years to get their finances back on track, while some respondents (19%) said it took six to ten years, and 8% said it took more than 10 years. Only 9% of respondents said it took less than one year to make a comeback.

In addition to time, the study revealed investors took deliberate actions to make a comeback. The most common steps they took included adjusting their spending habits (50%), followed by changing their saving behavior (37%), working more or longer (26%), and using their emergency savings (24%). When it comes to planning for their future, setting aside emergency savings was the number one way respondents said they were preparing for the unforeseen. In fact, as of January, almost all who'd previously experienced a financial setback (97%) had created an emergency savings fund and the majority (64%) said their cash reserve could cover six months or more of expenses. Further, four in 10 respondents said they had $50,000 or more stashed away for an unexpected event. Silver lining Though investors most commonly said they felt "stressed" (39%) during their financial setback, 56% of investors said they now feel stronger as a result of having experienced a financial setback. Nearly nine in ten (89%) respondents have made at least a partial comeback and about two in ten (21%) say they were doing better money-wise at the time of the survey compared to how they were doing before their setback. "We're halfway into the year and have seen millions of people's finances upended overnight," said Keckler. "No one knows what lies ahead, but it's important for investors to stay calm and focused on their financial goals. With time and patience, they may be able to bounce back from financial hardships. Also, meeting with a financial advisor may help investors navigate the current climate and prepare for whatever the future may bring." For more information about the study, please visit www.ameriprise.com/comebacks. About the survey The Financial Comebacks study was created by Ameriprise Financial, Inc. and conducted online by Artemis Strategy Group January 2-20, 2020 among 3,042 Americans ages 30-70 with $100,000 or more in investable assets. For further information and details about the study, including verification of data that may not be published as part of this report, please contact Ameriprise Financial or go to www.ameriprise.com/comebacks. About Artemis Strategy Group Artemis Strategy Group (www.Artemissg.com) is a communications strategy research firm specializing in brand positioning, thought leadership and policy issues. About Ameriprise Financial At Ameriprise Financial, we have been helping people feel confident about their financial future for more than 125 years. With extensive advisory, asset management and insurance capabilities and a nationwide network of approximately 10,000 financial advisors, we have the strength and expertise to serve the full range of individual and institutional investors' financial needs. For more information, or to find an Ameriprise financial advisor, visit ameriprise.com. Artemis Strategy Group is not affiliated with Ameriprise Financial, Inc. Investment Advisory products and services are made available through Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC a registered investment advisor. Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC. Member FINRA and SIPC.  2020 Ameriprise Financial, Inc. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005208/en/

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We are pleased to recognize Dr. Michael Cunningham as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson

NeoTract, a wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX) focused on addressing unmet needs in the field of urology, today announced that Michael Cunningham M.D., Central Ohio Urology Group in Worthington, OH, has been designated as a UroLift Center of Excellence. The designation recognizes that Dr. Cunningham has achieved a high level of training and experience with the UroLift System and demonstrated a commitment to exemplary care for men suffering from symptoms associated with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), also known as enlarged prostate.

Recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines, the FDA-cleared Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to BPH. The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue.

The UroLift Center of Excellence program is designed to highlight urologists who are committed to educating their patients on BPH and the UroLift System as a treatment option and consistently seek to deliver excellent patient outcomes and experiences.

We are pleased to recognize Dr. Michael Cunningham as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson, president of the Teleflex Interventional Urology business unit. This achievement has helped many patients experience durable, long- term relief from the burdensome symptoms of BPH while preserving sexual function*1,2.

Over 40 million men in the United States are affected by BPH, a condition that occurs when the prostate gland that surrounds the male urethra becomes enlarged with advancing age and begins to obstruct the urinary system. Symptoms of BPH often include interrupted sleep and urinary problems and can cause loss of productivity, depression and decreased quality of life.

Medication is often the first-line therapy for enlarged prostate, but relief can be inadequate and temporary. Side effects of medication treatment can include sexual dysfunction, dizziness and headaches, prompting many patients to quit using the drugs. For these patients, the classic alternative is surgery that cuts, heats or removes prostate tissue to open the blocked urethra. While current surgical options can be very effective in relieving symptoms, they can also leave patients with permanent side effects such as urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and retrograde ejaculation.

About the UroLift System

The FDA-cleared UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a minimally invasive transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue. Clinical data from a pivotal 206-patient randomized controlled study showed that patients with enlarged prostate receiving UroLift implants reported rapid and durable symptomatic and urinary flow rate improvement without compromising sexual function*1,2. Patients also experienced a significant improvement in quality of life. Over 100,000 men have been treated with the UroLift System in the U.S. Most common adverse events reported include hematuria, dysuria, micturition urgency, pelvic pain, and urge incontinence. Most symptoms were mild to moderate in severity and resolved within two to four weeks after the procedure. The Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines. The UroLift System is available in the U.S., Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico and South Korea. Learn more at http://www.UroLift.com.

About NeoTract | Teleflex Interventional Urology

A wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated, the Interventional Urology Business Unit is dedicated to developing innovative, minimally invasive and clinically effective devices that address unmet needs in the field of urology. Our initial focus is on improving the standard of care for patients with BPH using the UroLift System, a minimally invasive permanent implant system that treats symptoms while preserving normal sexual function*1,2. Learn more at http://www.NeoTract.com.

About Teleflex Incorporated

Teleflex is a global provider of medical technologies designed to improve the health and quality of peoples lives. We apply purpose driven innovation  a relentless pursuit of identifying unmet clinical needs  to benefit patients and healthcare providers. Our portfolio is diverse, with solutions in the fields of vascular and interventional access, surgical, anesthesia, cardiac care, urology, emergency medicine and respiratory care. Teleflex employees worldwide are united in the understanding that what we do every day makes a difference. For more information, please visit http://www.teleflex.com.

Teleflex is the home of Arrow, Deknatel, Hudson RCI, LMA, Pilling, Rusch, UroLift and Weck  trusted brands united by a common sense of purpose

# # #

For Teleflex Incorporated: Jake Elguicze, 610.948.2836

Treasurer and Vice President, Investor Relations

Media:

Nicole Osmer, 650.454.0504

nicole@healthandcommerce.com

*No instances of new, sustained erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction

1. Roehrborn, J Urology 2013 LIFT Study

2. McVary, J Sex Med 2016

MAC00968-01 Rev A
The pandemic and ensuing lockdown may have delayed the tax season, but its not getting delayed again. You still have to pay your taxes by September 1. If you havent made the necessary arrangements yet, you need to start working on that and make sure you can pay your dues before September 1.

Since you mightve already filed your taxes, its too late to say that you should file for every deduction or credit you are eligible for, so you can field a lighter tax bill. If you have received CERB payouts, you will need to report them on your next years tax returns, so make sure to keep them in mind.

Other things you should keep in mind are your investment and its allocation, since that has an impact on your tax bill as well.

A lighter tax bill later

The TFSA is a great place to store decent growth stocks. It may not give you any tax benefit now, but your TFSA nest egg can help you manage your taxable income later, especially in your retirement years. You can draw from your TFSA coffer instead of taking out taxable income from your RRIF, at least nothing more than what you have to withdraw.

One of the stocks you can consider for your TFSA is Interrent REIT (TSX:IIP.UN), a decent growth stock and a Dividend Aristocrat with eight years of dividend growth under its belt.

Interrents dividend yield of 2.15% is passable at best, and the dividend-growth rate is also not too high to bank on. But its payout ratio is highly stable at 8.9%. The best thing that the company offers is capital growth opportunities. Its historical growth has been impressive, to say the least, and even during its relatively static period (the past five years), the company yielded a CAGR of over 20%.

It has a well-diversified portfolio of over 10,000 suites across 15 cities in two provinces (Ontario and Quebec). According to the first-quarter result, the occupancy rate was 95.3% for the whole portfolio, thanks to which the companys net income was $37.9 million for the first quarter ($24 million more than Q1 2019), and FFO increased by 24.7% for the quarter.

Story continues

The companys dependable cash flows can ensure the relative safety of the dividends, and its strong management might help the stock keep going up, increasing your capital.

A lighter tax bill now

Your RRSP can help lighten your tax burden a bit. Since RRSP contributions are tax deductible, you can save thousands of dollars in taxes by contributing the allowed maximum of your RRSP. For someone earning $100,000 a year, that would be about $18,000. If you invest it in a dividend stock with a 7% yield, you will be accumulating about $105 in dividends every month. Currently, at least five Aristocrats are offering a 7% or higher yield.

Foolish takeaway

Having multiple income streams and a few nest eggs can help you in times like these. Investing in the right stocks, especially now when a lot of them are trading at a discount, can help you build those nest eggs. Even the investments outside your registered accounts (though we highly recommend filling them to the brim first) are treated preferentially for taxes.

The post CRA: You Still Have Until September 1 to Pay Your Taxes appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Adam Othman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020
OTTAWA  The federal Liberals will not be compensating farmers in Western Canada over a part of the carbon tax that has fuelled months of criticism across the Prairies.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  The federal Liberals will not be compensating farmers in Western Canada over a part of the carbon tax that has fuelled months of criticism across the Prairies.

Fuel used to dry grain is one of the few agricultural tasks that isnt exempted under the carbon levy, which has multiple carve-outs in order to avoid advantaging American farmers.

"The impact is a very small percentage of (farm) operation costs, so this is why we are not moving forward with more specific relief," Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau told the Free Press Tuesday.

Fuel used for agriculture is generally exempt from the carbon tax, because there are few environmentally friendly alternatives.

Officials decided it would be counterproductive to apply the levy in cases where customers would likely shift to cheaper foreign products, resulting in a minimal reduction of carbon emissions.

The 2019 harvest was already troubled by a CN Rail strike and Chinas canola boycott when a wet autumn required farmers to use fuel to dry out their grain, just as the carbon tax took effect.

Back in December, agriculture ministers from the Prairie provinces agreed to tally and send Ottawa data on how much the federal carbon tax added to farmers costs that year, specifically for drying grain.

Alberta published its $2.7-million estimate in February; its unclear whether the Manitoba or Saskatchewan governments ever submitted their own estimates.

Bibeau said Monday her department instead analyzed filings to the federal Agricultural Tax Data Program, and found the average farm paid $210 to $819 last year, amounting to between 0.05 and 0.42 per cent of total operating expenses.

Her office also provided Tuesday a 2018 analysis  from before the tax came into effect  which projected a 0.2 per cent drop in Manitoba farms operating incomes.

The head of Keystone Agricultural Producers, which represents Manitoba farmers, dismissed both as creative mathematics.

"For her to suggest that that this is an insignificant cost is extremely frustrating," said KAP President Bill Campbell. "Its become apparent that this is a political position taken by the federal government."

His group estimates Manitoba corn farmers paid roughly $1.7 million in carbon tax for grain-drying in 2019, but doesnt have data on other crops.

"It does put us at a competitive disadvantage," Campbell said, though he wasnt sure if it will mean more expensive food at the grocery store.

Last December, Manitoba Agriculture Minister Blaine Pedersen pledged the province would tabulate the cost per bushel, which could be used to tally the cost of the carbon tax for drying grains.

Pedersen was unavailable Tuesday for an interview. His office did not say whether it had followed through on tallying the data.

Instead, his staff provided a statement attributed to Pedersen saying he was "disappointed" in Ottawas decision.

The Pallister government has tried to put the province back onto its own carbon levy, which exempts more agricultural tasks, but those talks have slowed as officials focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bibeau noted Monday that the carbon tax doesnt apply to activities such as greenhouse heating, where it would raise costs by as much a seven per cent, or cardlock gas.

"Where the impact is significant, exemptions have been given," she said. "This pollution-pricing policy is an important part for a greener economy, and for more sustainable development."

Conservative MP Dan Mazier, who represents the Dauphin area, disagrees.

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"That somewhat misses the whole premise of why we dry grain," said Mazier.

Changing weather patterns make it more likely that grain will need to be dried, and it has to be the right moisture to stay in bins during rail disruptions and ice storms, Mazier said.

Technology to dry grain using electricity is costly and hard to procure, said Mazier, who used to lead KAP. "I dont understand that policy at all."

He noted that farm groups have tallied much higher cumulative costs when accounting for the added costs for transportation. He questioned why Ottawa had asked provinces to tally costs in the first place.

"Farmers knew exactly what they were paying for a carbon tax," said Mazier. "There was no need to re-invent the wheel there."

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
A museum facing financial difficulties because of COVID-19 restrictions has received a surprise gift meant to honor people who died of the disease.

The gift is a 16th century artwork by the Dutch painter Bartholomeus Spranger. It is called Body of Christ Supported by Angels.

The painting is now part of Amsterdams Rijksmuseum in The Netherlands.

Taco Dibbits, general director at the museum, had long sought to buy the painting to add to its collection. But he missed out on getting the work earlier this year and thought he might not get another chance.

Dibbits felt like he was in the perfect position to buy the oil-on-copper painting in early March at an art sale in the southern Netherlands. We were standing there with our curators around the painting and saying how wonderful it was, he told The Associated Press.

What the group did not know, however, was that the picture had been sold soon after it arrived at the art sale.

So Dibbits returned to Amsterdam. There, he dealt with the museums financial losses resulting from the coronavirus health crisis. With visitors no longer permitted, Dibbits said the museum was losing about 1 million euros a week. The money represents a big part of the museums operating budget.

Dibbits said he was caught by surprise when he got a telephone call from Bob Haboldt, an international dealer and art collector. He owned the painting, and earlier said he had sold it.

Haboldt, a Dutch citizen, explained that the coronavirus crisis had resulted in the sale being canceled. The collector, who lives in France and Italy and has offices in Amsterdam, Paris, and New York, was unable to travel, just like everyone else.

In isolation, I took the step that I would not think about its financial value, he told the AP in a phone interview from Italy. Only its emotional value.

Haboldt did not want to say how much the painting could sell for. It is a big gift, no matter how you look at it, he said. He added that he decided to donate the painting in memory of the victims of COVID-19, not only those who died but also those who suffered.

The collector said he also hoped his act might lead others to support the arts as well. Haboldt, who is a native of Amsterdam, said he wanted the painting to go before a very big audience, and the Rijksmuseum seemed like the perfect choice.

The painting itself could be seen to represent both the current times we are experiencing and the future the world is looking to. In it, a dead Jesus Christ is lifted from the ground by three angels and taken skyward.

The picture represents a big message, Haboldt said. I hope people will stop in front of it for a moment and realize that although they look at a religious painting, they are looking at something timeless, full of compassion, mercy and hope.

Museums around the world have been struggling during the COVID-19 health crisis. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that one out of eight museums might not survive.

Dibbits said he welcomes Haboldts act of kindness in the current unsettling environment. That a dealer decides to donate a work when he doesnt know where his future is going, I think thats something very special, he said.

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

museum  n. a building in which interesting and valuable things (such as paintings and sculptures or scientific or historical objects) are collected and shown to the public

curator  n. a person who helps run a museum

isolation  n. the state of being separate from other people, places or things

audience  n. people who sit and watch performances like plays, movies, etc.

angel  n. a spiritual being that serves especially as a messenger from God or as a guardian of human beings

compassion n. a feeling of sympathy for people who are suffering

mercy  n. forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government extended a travel warning for nations outside Europe until Aug. 31, as the country begins removing temporary checks on some of its borders.

Germany will maintain a three-month-old warning against non-essential travel to countries outside the European Union, the passport-free Schengen area and the U.K., Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Wednesday in an emailed statement after the cabinet approved the measure.

At the same time, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that police will immediately begin scaling back checks on arrivals from Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy, introduced to stem the spread of the coronavirus, and that they will be lifted completely by June 15. Controls on flight arrivals from Spain will be maintained until June 21, he said.

"With this decision, there is no longer a general requirement for a compelling reason to enter Germany from other EU states," Seehofer's ministry said in an emailed statement, adding that this also includes non-EU members Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland and the U.K.

"I am very pleased that the evolution of the virus allows us to do without these border controls," Seehofer told reporters in Berlin. "If a large majority of the population here, and also internationally, respects distancing rules then I'm optimistic that we won't have to reinstate them."

European nations are attempting to revive travel and commerce on the continent after lockdowns brought economic activity to an almost complete halt.

Other countries are also easing back on virus-related restrictions. Austria is lifting the requirement to have tested negative or undergo a two-week, self-isolation for 31 more countries on June 16, leaving them in place only for Sweden, Spain, Portugal and the U.K., Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told reporters in Vienna Wednesday.

Among the borders to be opened next week is that with Italy, the only Austrian neighbor to which they were still closed. A travel warning for the Lombardy region, the epicenter of the Italian outbreak, remains in place.

Schallenberg cautioned that despite the border openings, the fight against the virus isn't over and travelers still need to be careful. "When you pack your bags, don't forget your common sense," he said.

Merkel's cabinet on Wednesday approved last week's decision to replace the broad travel warning in Europe with individual travel advisories based on the spread of the virus. Further decisions, including how long to extend restrictions on travelers from outside Europe, will be put on hold pending directives from the European Commission.

The EU plans a "gradual and partial" easing of a ban on most travel to the bloc as of July 1, a top official said Wednesday.

Germany's shift away from an across-the-board travel warning, put in place in March as the pandemic was sweeping across Europe, was part of an attempt to move back toward normality even as authorities continue to urge caution and warn of a second wave of infections.

Maas said that conditions are not yet in place for "unlimited travel without incalculable risks."

"We cannot and will not risk Germans becoming stranded abroad again or that returning tourists bring the virus to Germany undetected," Maas said. His ministry oversaw the return of thousands of Germans stranded abroad as borders began to close in March.

It will depend on the evolution of the virus outbreak when travel to nations like Turkey, and destinations including Africa, South East Asia and the Americas will be possible again, Maas added.

"That's why we will continually reassess the travel warning between now and September, always with the safety of travelers as the central criteria," he said.
The third party appointed by the federal judge presiding over the Michael Flynn case said in a Wednesday filing that the DOJs decision to drop its case against Flynn amounted to clear evidence of gross prosecutorial abuse.

John Gleeson, a retired New York federal district court judge, said in an 82-page filing that the reversal reveals an unconvincing effort to disguise as legitimate a decision to dismiss that is based solely on the fact that Flynn is a political ally of President Trump.

The Government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President. The facts of this case overcome the presumption of regularity, Gleeson argues. The Court should therefore deny the Governments motion to dismiss, adjudicate any remaining motions, and then sentence the Defendant.

Gleeson was appointed by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in May to present arguments in opposition to the DOJs motion to withdraw, after he published an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing that the DOJs move reeks of improper political influence.

Gleeson wrote the op-ed with two other lawyers, David ONeil and Marshall Miller, both of whom are listed on the brief. ONeil represented former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to multiple reports and the recently-declassified testimony Yates gave to the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017 about the Trump-Russia investigation.

Yates told the FBI in September 2017 that she first heard of Flynns conversations with the Russian ambassador from President Obama in a January 5, 2017 Oval Office briefing, according to exhibits filed last month.

The exhibits were filed along with the DOJs motion to dismiss the case against Flynn, who was indicted for lying to federal investigators in December 2016. Yates said she was so surprised to hear Obama asking about Flynns call with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that she was having a hard time processing it and listening to the conversation at the same time.

Story continues

The D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments Friday on whether Sullivan has to comply with the DOJs request to dismiss the case against Flynn.

More from National Review
It was at lunchtime on Wednesday that whispers began to filter among searchers gathered in bushland on Melbourne's fringe. The missing boy may have been spotted.

For two days and two nights, hundreds had battled their way through dense vegetation on foot, bike and horseback, calling out for 14-year-old Will Callaghan.

SES volunteers searching thick bushland for Will Callaghan on Tuesday. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Temperatures overnight at Mount Disappointment had been life-threateningly cold and authorities were getting more and more concerned by the hour. Will went missing after walking off ahead of his father during a trek to the summit.

Despite the cold, the autistic teens mother, Penny Callaghan, told journalists early on Wednesday that she was hoping for the best  and refused to let herself think the worst.
Transcontinental Inc. says a gradual recovery in printing volumes has allowed it to recall more than one third of the employees laid off because of the impact of COVID-19.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Transcontinental Inc. says its net earnings attributable to shareholders grew 15 per cent in the second quarter despite lower revenues resulting from the sale of its paper packaging operations. A TC Transcontinental sign is pictured at the company's annual general meeting in Montreal, Tuesday, March 11, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Transcontinental Inc. says a gradual recovery in printing volumes has allowed it to recall more than one third of the employees laid off because of the impact of COVID-19.

The Montreal-based printer and packaging company says about 600 of the 1,600 temporarily laid-off employees have returned in recent weeks.

"Obviously, things are improving as many businesses are back to business, they're back advertising," chief financial officer Donald LeCavalier said in a conference call Wednesday afternoon.

About half of its operations were idled as printed volumes dropped 45 per cent in April.

LeCavalier doesn't think the printing business will fully recover by early fall but could reach 80 per cent by that time if there isn't a second wave of infections.

"We're very dependent on business staying open and businesses in Canada going back to the most normal level of businesses that they could," he told analysts.

Many retail customers that remained open during the crisis used flyers to communicate COVID-related information and to help build brand loyalty, added chief executive Francois Olivier.

"This crisis has shown that the print flyers remain a relevant and effective marketing tool. It will continue to be very relevant to drive people to stores and help Canadians save money in a challenging economic environment with higher unemployment rate and food price inflation."

While its printing business has been affected by lower demand for flyers and other products, Transcontinental's packaging division has been helped by food retailers seeing increased demand during the pandemic.

"Packaging performed very well during the crisis. In a difficult operating environment, we managed to meet increased demand from customers and market-related to food and other essential consumer products, which represents over 80 per cent of our portfolio in this sector," said Olivier.

The company said Wednesday it earned $25.7 million or 30 cents per share for the period ending April 26, up from $22.3 million or 26 cents per share a year earlier. The improvement resulted from lower financial expenses as its net debt decreased.

Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings fell 17 per cent to $43.6 million or 50 cents per share from $52.6 million or 60 cents per share in the second quarter of 2019.

Revenue fell 18.5 per cent to $625.1 million from $767.4 million in the year-ago period.

Transcontinental was expected to report 36 cents per share in adjusted profits on $607.9 million in revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

The results beat expectations on a solid quarter for packaging, with EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) growing 8.8 per cent to $57 million despite lower revenues, analyst Drew McReynolds of RBC Capital Markets said.

"Consistent with previous management commentary, increased demand from food retailers more than offset volume declines in other verticals," he wrote in a report.

Printing had a "choppy quarter" as expected with revenues decreasing 20.5 per cent to $265 million and EBITDA down 19.7 per cent to $54 million.

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Transcontinental said the sector will face a continued decline in demand for most of its printing businesses that has been amplified by the pandemic, whose future impact remains unpredictable.

"Operational efficiency and cost reduction initiatives taken since the beginning of the fiscal year will help mitigate the impact of volume declines on our operating earnings," it said.

In addition, it has been helped by pandemic-related products such as signage for physical distancing, Plexiglas panels for several large Canadian retailers and protective visors for local community organizations.

Meanwhile, it expects increased packaging profit markets as a result of synergies, efficiency initiatives and organic growth in the second half of the year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2020.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TCL.A).
She's used to wearing her heart on her sleeve, but for now Ruby Rose is letting her hair do the talking.

On Saturday, the 34-year-old actress revealed the powerful meaningful behind new hairstyle - a buzz cut featuring a love heart and lightning bolt running through it.

Ruby explained she met with actress and rapper Bre-Z for a 'meeting of minds' to discuss how they could use their 'platforms' to 'create unity and change' earlier in the day.

Meaningful: Actress Ruby Rose (left) debuted her stunning new hairdo, given to her by Rapper Bre-Z (right) to Instagram on Saturday, and revealed the powerful message of 'unity and love' behind it

During the meeting, the Empire star offered to give Ruby's buzz cut a fresh shave, before surprising her with the heartfelt design.

'We brainstormed, we discussed where the world is at right now, what needs to change and how we can use our platforms and create initiatives to make an ongoing impact of spreading love through unity and change,' Ruby shared.

'She gave me a little trim and completely surprised me with this on the back. Love and love and love,' she added.

Important meeting: Ruby and Bre-Z met to discuss how they could use their platforms to promote 'unity and change' following a week of protests in the US when the rapper offered to give her a trim

Cuddle time! Ruby was relaxed during the haircut, sitting on a chair outside with beloved chihuahua Chance resting on her lap

The former Batwoman star shared several images and a video to her Instagram of her getting the cut.

Ruby relaxed on a chair outside with her beloved chihuahua Chance resting on her lap.

The Melbourne-born actress dressed in a casual ensemble including coral-coloured chinos and a printed top.

'She gave me a little trim and completely surprised me with this on the back. Love and love and love' Ruby said of the design

Letting her hair do the talking! Ruby is used to wearing her heart on her sleeve, but is letting her hair do the talking with her new do which features a heart and lightning bolt

It comes after Ruby revealed her touching tribute to George Floyd, after he died in police custody on May 25.

Ruby revealed on Instagram last Thursday that she had stood in her backyard in Los Angeles with a torch for eight minutes and 46 seconds - the amount of time it took for Floyd to die while a police officer knelt on his neck.

'Tonight I took to my backyard and put my torch to the sky for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor George Floyd,' she wrote, sharing a photo of her torchlight shining up into the sky.

Shining a light: On Thursday, Ruby revealed her touching tribute to George Floyd after the African American man was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25

'I started crying minutes in because the realisation of how long 8 minutes and 46 seconds truly is once again broke my heart.

'And as I stood praying to God for his peace and justice I was reminded again of the changes that need to happen and just how horrific that crime was and just how scared he must have been and just how broken the system is...'

But Ruby added she was left with 'hope' after noticing her surrounding neighbours all doing the same thing.

Paying tribute: In a post on Instagram on Thursday, the actress revealed she had stood in her backyard in Los Angeles with a torch for eight minutes and 46 seconds - the amount of time it took for Floyd to die while a police officer knelt on his neck

'I looked to my left and saw my neighbours doing the same, to the right - the same and across the way I saw every house in view with lights shining up to God for George and everyone else who has been killed over the colour of their skin,' she continued.

'Suddenly I felt overcome with emotion once again but this time it was because I could see hope and empathy and acknowledgement and the desire and want for change. The desperate longing for unity.'

Floyd's death at the hands of a white police officer has prompted protests across the United States.

All four police officers involved in the incident have since been arrested, with Derek Chauvin, the officer directly responsible for Floyd's death, charged with second-degree murder.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 04:56:18|Editor: huaxia

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BUENOS AIRES, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Argentina is ready and willing to reach an agreement with private debtholders on restructuring its hulking 66.2 billion U.S. dollars in foreign debt, President Alberto Fernandez said on Tuesday.

"We made an offer in good faith and our creditors rejected it. They said it was too low, they explained their reasons, and we reconsidered our offer. We are going to make a new counter offer to try to bring us closer to a deal," he told a local radio station.

His administration aims to reach a compromise with bondholders and avoid defaulting on its debt payments so it can sustainably manage its foreign debt, said Fernandez.

"It is a difficult negotiation, but we have clearly expressed our willingness and our disposition to reach an agreement. I am confident that we will be able to reach an agreement in the end," Fernandez said.

Last week, the government extended the negotiation deadline again, this time until June 12.

In April, the government presented a debt restructuring plan that includes a three-year grace period that allows the country to begin servicing its debt starting in 2023, shaves 5.4 percent (3.6 billion U.S. dollars) off the capital payments, and cuts 62 percent (37.9 billion U.S. dollars) off the interest payments.

Debtholders rejected that initial offer. Enditem
The Oregon Health Authority on Tuesday reported five new deaths from the novel coronavirus, bringing the toll to 169, as known cases climbed to 4,988.

Three Marion County men  ages 60, 70 and 96  as well as a 78-year-old Multnomah County man and 96-year-old Clackamas County man were the latest people to succumb to the illness, health officials said. All had underlying medical conditions.

In the last 24 hours, the state recorded 70 new confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases.

They were in 10 of Oregons 36 counties: Benton (1), Clackamas (16), Columbia (1), Hood River (6), Lincoln (2), Marion (8), Multnomah (27), Polk (1), Union (1), Washington (7).

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County case totals: Two counties -- Multnomah and Marion -- have more than 1,000 coronavirus cases each. Seven counties -- Washington, Clackamas, Deschutes, Lincoln, Linn, Umatilla and Polk -- have reported 100 coronavirus cases or more. Gilliam and Wheeler have reported none.

Heres the overall count -- confirmed and presumptive cases -- by county: Baker (1), Benton (63), Clackamas (393), Clatsop (45), Columbia (17), Coos (32), Crook (6), Curry (7), Deschutes (134), Douglas (29), Grant (1), Harney (1), Hood River, (65), Jackson (71), Jefferson (58), Josephine (23), Klamath (46), Lake (2), Lane (81), Lincoln (157), Linn (124), Malheur (33), Marion (1,066), Morrow (13), Multnomah (1,329), Polk (104), Sherman (1), Tillamook (6), Umatilla (144), Union (7), Wallowa (3), Wasco (34), Washington (807) and Yamhill (85).

Death toll: At least 169 people have died from the virus. They are from 13 counties -- 66 people from Multnomah, 30 from Marion, 18 from Washington, 13 from Clackamas, 12 from Polk, nine from Linn, seven from Yamhill, five from Benton, three from Umatilla, three from Lane, one each from Josephine, Malheur and Wasco.

Their ages ranged from 36 to 100. Among them, 99 men have died and 70 women have died. All but three had underlying medical conditions.

The breakdown of deaths by age: ages 30-39 (1), ages 40-49 (3), ages 50-59 (8), ages 60-69 (35), ages 70-79 (48), ages 80-plus (74).

[Read about Oregon coronavirus deaths. Help us learn more.]

Senior care homes: More than half of all coronavirus deaths in Oregon  90  are associated with a care center, a newsroom analysis of state data shows. Nearly 600 senior care home residents, staff and close contacts from at least 69 nursing, assisted and retirement homes have contracted COVID-19.

Testing: Another 3,738 people received coronavirus test results in the last day, according to figures published on the Oregon Health Authoritys website.

So far, 153,470 Oregonians have been tested for the illness since the state confirmed its first case on Feb. 28.

Ages: Cases are so far spread evenly among people in their 20s (17%), people in their 30s (17%), people in their 40s (17%) and people in their 50s (16%).

The breakdown: 0-9 (96), ages 10-19 (228), ages 20-29 (866), ages 30-39 (863), ages 40-49 (855), ages 50-59 (815), ages 60-69 (600), ages 70-79 (384), ages 80-plus (275).

Gender: 2,564 cases are among women, or 52%, and 2,417, or 48%, are among men.

Hospitalizations: At least 851 of the states COVID-19 patients, or 17%, have been hospitalized at some point during their illness, according to the health authority.

Most -- at least 633 -- have been 50 or older.

The hospitalizations breakdown by age: 0-9 (7), ages 10-19 (4), ages 20-29 (41), ages 30-39 (63), ages 40-49 (102), ages 50-59 (148), ages 60-69 (185), ages 70-79 (174), ages 80-plus (126).

Currently, 63 people with confirmed coronavirus cases are hospitalized, including 30 in intensive care and 16 on ventilators.

Recoveries: At least 2,332 COVID-19 patients have recovered from the illness, or 47%, the health authority said.

Nationwide: Confirmed coronavirus cases stood at nearly 2 million. The death toll climbed past 111,000.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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Turkey issues arrest warrants for 275 military personnel over 'links to coup mastermind'

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 10:25 AM

Turkey has issued arrest warrants for 275 more people, mostly military staff members, over their suspected linked to of US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, who stands accused of having masterminded a failed coup in 2016.

The Anadolu news agency reported Tuesday that 145 of the suspects had already been taken into custody during police operations, which were coordinated from the western city of Ezmir and targeted 22 provinces across the country.

The suspects, the report added, are accused of having contacted other Gulen loyalists through payphones as well as having received advantages in admission to military schools.

Turkish security sources said law enforcement forces had detained 16 military personnel in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir over the weekend.

Istanbul's police also reported they had court orders to arrest 44 military personnel, including a major and three lieutenants, as well as doctors and teachers.

It said 33 people had already been detained in the operation that spread over eight provinces.

A separate police operation also led to the detention 25 out of 32 suspects from the Turkish Air Force, according to Anadolu.

The report added that authorities have ordered the detention of eight people in the gendarmerie forces, including a colonel.

During the 2016 botched putsch, a faction of the Turkish military declared that it had seized control of the country and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was no more in charge.

The attempt was, however, suppressed a few hours later.

Ankara has since accused Gulen, Erdogan's ally-turned-foe, of having orchestrated the coup.

Gulen denies any involvement. He has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999.

Since the coup attempt, about 80,000 people have been held pending trial and some 150,000 civil servants, military personnel and others sacked or suspended.

Ankara's post-coup mass arrests have drawn criticism from human rights organizations and Turkey's Western allies.

Rejecting that criticism, the Turkish government defends the crackdown as a necessary response to a national security threat.

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday some of Canadas mining firms were behind on their tax payments and urged the Canadian government to lean on them to avoid the dispute reaching international tribunals.

There are a few Canadian mining companies that are not up-to-date, they want to go to international tribunals, Lopez Obrador told a regular government news conference.

The president then urged Canadas ambassador to prevail on the companies that there was no need to seek legal redress because its very clear that they have these debts with the tax authority, and that (Canada) help us to convince them.

He did not name any specific companies.

A spokeswoman for Canadas embassy in Mexico said the embassy does not comment on or confirm private interactions between governments.

Last month Canadas First Majestic Silver Corp said it had served notice to Mexicos government under its North American trade treaty obligations to begin talks to resolve taxation disputes.

First Majestic did not return a call seeking comment.

Nearly 70% of foreign-owned mining companies operating in Mexico are based in Canada, according to Global Affairs Canada. The value of Canadian mining assets in Mexico totaled C$18.4 billion in 2017, according to the Mining Association of Canada.

Lopez Obrador has made cracking down on tax breaks a priority. A number of major companies, including the Mexican unit of U.S. retailer Walmart Inc and Mexican conglomerate Femsa have recently agreed to make tax payments to Mexico.

Lopez Obrador also said Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp is in the process of doing the same thing. Representatives for Toyota in Mexico had no immediate comment.

The presidents comments come as Mexico and the private sector have also been having a major dispute on energy policy.

Lopez Obrador has allowed officials to call into question contracts worth billions of dollars signed by companies from Canada, the United States and Europe under the previous administration, setting up a potentially messy legal scrap.
Ethiopia's parliament approved on Wednesday an extra year in office for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed after August elections were postponed, two days after a leading opposition politician resigned as speaker of its upper house in apparent protest at the delay.

The upper house voted for a resolution that extends the terms of federal and regional lawmakers and the executive branch of the government for between nine and 12 months, house spokesman Gebru Gebreslassie told Reuters.

The elections will go ahead within that period, once health authorities determine that the coronavirus is no longer a threat to public health, Gebru said. Ethiopia had recorded a total of 2,336 cases of COVID-19 and 32 deaths by Wednesday.

Keria Ibrahim, who quit as speaker on Monday, is a top official of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which opposed the decision taken in March to delay the elections due to the pandemic.

The extension of Abiy's term beyond September is likely to escalate a growing rift between his government and the TPLF, which has threatened to hold its own elections in the Tigray region, home to one of Ethiopia's most influential ethnic groups.

"If they (TPLF) reject this plan ... protests or election boycotts could become a reality, reducing the chances of successful competitive polls in 2021," said William Davison, senior analyst for Ethiopia at the International Crisis Group think-tank.

"That would mean more political instability and undermine the planned democratic transition."

Abiy took power in Africa's second most populous country in 2018 and has since rolled out a series of reforms allowing greater freedoms in what had long been one of the continent's most repressive states. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

But the changes have made it possible for long-held grievances against decades of harsh rule to resurface, and emboldened regional power-brokers such as the TPLF to seek more power for their ethnic groups.

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Armed gunmen stormed communities in Faskari Local Government of Katsina State on Tuesday, killing scores of residents. For hours...





Armed gunmen stormed communities in Faskari Local Government of Katsina State on Tuesday, killing scores of residents.





For hours, the residents were at the mercy of the bandits.





More than 40 people, mostly the elderly, women and children, were killed.





Also, a number of young females were raped.





A source told PRNigeria on Wednesday that communities affected include Kadisau, Maigora, Kabalawa, Kwakware, Raudama and Unguwar Wahabi.





The source said the bandits stormed the communities on several motorcycles.





They abused some young girls and married women while setting houses and food stores on fire.





He added that the assailants also robbed the villagers before they rustled domestic animals, especially cows and sheep.





However, the bandits have threatened more attacks.





The attackers sent words that they would return after Wednesdays funeral service (Janaizah) for the victims.





But Police spokesman in Katsina State, SP Gambo Isah, has assured the people of safety.





The Area Commander in Funtua, DPOs and military personnel are currently in the area to ensure maximum security during the burial and afterwards, he said.
GHENT, Belgium and RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Biotalys NV , a transformative food and crop protection company, today announced the expansion of its executive team and establishment of its new U.S. headquarters for Biotalys, Inc., which will be located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Appointing Diego Angelo to the newly created role of Chief Business Officer (CBO) and Head of the U.S. subsidiary, Biotalys Inc., Biotalys is preparing for the commercial launch of its lead biofungicide BioFun-1  the first from its breakthrough platform of biocontrol solutions for safe and sustainable crop protection and food waste reduction.



Reporting to the CEO, Patrice Selles, and working with the executive team, Angelo will focus on putting a strong team in place while leading global business development, go-to-market activities, competitive intelligence and alliance management for the companys protein-based biocontrol solutions. In the United States, Angelo will manage operations for Biotalys Inc., as well as the corporate development strategy and execution.

As part of its global expansion, Biotalys will continue recruiting efforts to strengthen its presence beyond North Carolina in multiple states with strong fruit and vegetable businesses. Earlier this year, Carlos Reyes joined Biotalys to lead the field development program of BioFun-1. Reyes is based in Sacramento, CA. While the company actively builds its U.S. team and Research Triangle Park office, it will continue to apply COVID-19-related physical distancing standards and remote work guidelines to ensure the safety of its growing U.S. team.

Our new U.S. headquarters puts us at the center of the ag and foodtech ecosystem. Research Triangle Park offers an incredible talent pool of experts in the ag and biotech communities, while serving as an ideal bridge between our European and North American teams as we bring our breakthrough biocontrol solutions to farmers around the globe, said Selles. Angelo brings tremendous expertise, a significant international network and strong business track record. He will be charged with fully exploring potential growth opportunities for our technology platform around the globe.

Following the recent closing of the Series C round , Biotalys is finalizing its next field trial program and preparing to submit the regulatory dossier for its lead biofungicide. Biotalys aims to deliver a broad lineup of products that safely and reliably address key crop pests and diseases across the ag and food value chain.

Diego Angelo, CBO of Biotalys, added, I am passionate about innovation and utilizing breakthrough technologies to address global food and environmental challenges, while helping growers improve crop yields and farming practices. Biotalyss disruptive technology and lead biofungicide, BioFun-1, are uniquely positioned to address unmet needs of the food value chain, from efficacy to residue control and shelf-life management. I look forward to working with the team on the launch of our multiple mode-of-action pipeline, starting with the 2022 launch of BioFun-1 in the United States.

Prior to joining Biotalys, Angelo served as Chief Commercial Officer at Sound Agriculture, where he successfully engineered the launch of its first commercial product and secured multiple deals in the Crop Enhancement and Epigenetics spaces. Before that, he held multiple commercial leadership roles at BASF, Bayer and Monsanto, where he built a broad network in all major agricultural markets, including the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Europe, and developed expertise in the crop protection, and seeds and traits businesses. He led the growth of the Bayer Soybean Seeds and Traits business, making it a global franchise, and played a key role in its seamless integration into BASF. Notably, in the United States, he was instrumental in the launch of the LibertyLink technology, which is now a foundational technology for weed control. Angelo earned a BSc in Ag Management from U.A.D.E. and an MBA from CEMA University, both in Argentina.

About Biotalys

Biotalys is a rapidly growing and transformative food and crop protection company developing a new generation of protein-based biocontrol solutions, shaping the future of sustainable and safe food supply.

Based on its groundbreaking technology platform, Biotalys has developed a broad pipeline of effective and safe products that address key crop pests and diseases across the whole value chain, from soil to plate. Combining the high-performance characteristics and consistency of chemicals with the clean safety profile of biologicals, Biotalys provides ideal crop protection agents for both pre- and post-harvest applications. Biotalys lead biofungicide, BioFun-1, has demonstrated consistent, high efficacy against major pests, such as Botrytis cinerea and powdery mildew, in a global fruit and vegetables field trial. The Company is on track to submit the registration dossiers later in 2020 and expects to launch BioFun-1 in the U.S. in 2022, followed by global market introductions.

Biotalys was founded in 2013 as a spin-off from the VIB (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) and has raised 61 million ($66m USD) to date from specialist international investors. The Company is based in the biotech cluster in Ghent, Belgium. More information can be found on www.biotalys.com.
Manju, a cancer patient, and her husband Tara Chand from Jhansi city of India's Uttar Pradesh wipe away their tears as they wait to get a date for her chemotheraphy in a tent outside a hospital, as nationwide lockdown continues over the highly contagious coronavirus (COVID-19) on April 1 in New Delhi. (Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)
The Ukrainian parliamentary faction of the European Solidarity party is urging fellow deputies from the factions of the Holos and Batkivschyna parties, as well as the For the Future and Trust parliamentary groups to join in the signature collection campaign and jointly express no confidence to the current government led by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

"The first step is taken; the signature lists have already been received to express no confidence to the current government. The second step is that we together should collect 150 signatures in order to dismiss the government, which is stalling the country's development. Already more than 70 deputies signed the document regarding the dismissal," European Solidarity said in an address to the parliamentary factions and groups, which was published on the party's website on Tuesday.

"A dramatic situation in the country aggravated by the total incapacity of the government and the parliamentary majority to confront current challenges require the urgent consolidation of the opposition forces," the address reads. The party added that the crisis, "which was caused by the first government under Zelensky," has only deteriorated over the past three months with the current government.

"The government does not understand that the end to the quarantine will not put an end to an economic crisis in Ukraine, because it is not coronavirus, but the incompetence of the state authorities that brought about the crisis. To tackle the coming disaster, the Verkhovna Rada initiated the procedure of the government's dismissal [...] The sooner this government steps down, the lesser harm they will do to the domestic economy and the less disastrous the consequences of their activity will be!" the address said.
She is proudly 'outrageous' and has admitted she is 'very aware of herself' when it comes to commanding attention with her daring ensembles.

And Amanda Holden was up to her old tricks once again as she left the Heart FM studios in central London on Wednesday morning after presenting her breakfast show.

The TV and radio presenter, 49, caught the eye as she went braless in a clinging dusk pink maxi dress from Zara, but fell victim to the elements in the skin-tight number.

Bold: Amanda Holden was up to her old tricks once again as she left the Heart FM studios in central London on Wednesday morning after presenting her breakfast show

Highlighting her sensational figure, the media personality's blush ensemble featured a clingy bodice, which was balanced with a pleated hemline.

The mother-of-two upped the style ante as she strutted her stuff in a pair of pointed nude heels with criss-cross detailing.

Amanda kept out the rain with the rainbow umbrella which was featured heavily in promo images for her single Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

The broadcaster completed her look with a small Louis Vuitton clutch bag as she headed home for the day.

Eye-popping: The TV and radio presenter, 49, caught the eye as she went braless in a clinging dusk pink maxi dress from Zara, but fell victim to the elements in the skin-tight number

Chic: Highlighting her sensational figure, the media personality's blush ensemble featured a clingy bodice, which was balanced with a pleated hemline

Chilly: Amanda kept out the rain with the rainbow umbrella which was featured heavily in promo images for her single Somewhere Over The Rainbow

A matte, neutral-toned make-up look accentuated her youthful-looking appearance, while lightly curled locks framed her face.

Amanda's eye-popping display comes after she admitted that she 'flashes her boobs' on purpose and pretends to be 'outrageous' on Britain's Got Talent.

The judge confessed that she is 'very aware' of herself and what she should say next on the ITV family show.

Amanda has made several headlines over the years for her 'inappropriate' dresses with one look even sparking 663 Ofcom complaints and another causing her an embarrassing nip-slip live on air.

Dressed to impress: The mother-of-two strutted her stuff in a pair of pointed nude heels with criss-cross detailing, and carried a Louis Vuitton clutch bag

Beauty: A matte, neutral-toned make-up look accentuated her youthful-looking appearance, while lightly curled locks framed her face

The radio presenter, who has also come under fire for her past swearing on BGT live shows, has now admitted that it is all part of her stunt.

Speaking in an interview with The Sun, Amanda said: 'Even though I am really open and very much myself most of the time, it's a fake circumstance when you're sitting on a panel and judging.

'I'm very aware of myself and what I should say next.

'Sometimes I pretend I'm not and I'm outrageous, and I'm like, "Oh I had no idea I was going to say that", or my boob pops out, "I had no idea that was going to happen!"

'Outrageous': The judge previously confessed she is 'very aware' of herself and likes to purposefully flash the flesh on Britain's Got Talent (pictured in 2017)

'You have circumstances where you know what you're doing and the situation is always ongoing, so you are always aware.'

Amanda recently revealed her husband Chris Hughes helps to keep her 'sane' when she is targeted by trolls on social media.

The Britain's Got Talent judge has learned to cope with the nasty comments over time and has hailed the influence of record producer Chris.

Amanda - who is mother to Alexa, 14, and Hollie, eight, with Chris - told the Daily Star: 'I'm so lucky that when I started out, social media wasn't invented because I might not have got through it.

In her element: Earlier in the day, Amanda shared a fun video from inside the office

'It's difficult but I am very lucky because I've got a very strong relationship.

'I've got a very strong husband who is very sensible and not like me in any way. He cuts through all the bull***t and keeps me sane.'

In fact, the television star said their relationship can help her to overcome any problem.

Amanda and Chris have been married since December 2008 when the couple tied the knot at Babington House in Somerset.

Family first: Amanda recently revealed husband Chris Hughes helps keep her 'sane' when she is targeted by trolls (pictured with their daughters Alexa, 14, and Hollie, eight, last year)

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, Amanda recreated an adorable family photo alongside Chris and the girls.

The clip first showed the family huddled on a sofa as they are now - before jumping back in time to a heartwarming throwback pic.

Amanda uploaded the poignant snippet alongside a series of hashtags that read: '#allgrownup #family #love #lockdown.'

Now: Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, Amanda recreated an adorable family photo alongside Chris and the girls. The clip first showed the family huddled on a sofa as they are now
The sanctions against Russia, imposed for the illegal annexation of the peninsula, will expire on June 23, 2020

The ambassadors of the European Union have supported the decision to extend the "Crimean package of sanctions against Russia for another year. This was announced by the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the European Union Mykola Tochynskyi on Twitter.

It should be noted that the "Crimean" sanctions against Russia, imposed for the illegal annexation of the peninsula, will expire on June 23, 2020.

"EU unity and solidarity destroyed Russias desperate efforts to use COVID-19 for lifting sanctions imposed on RF (the Russian Federation - 112 International) for ongoing aggression against Ukraine. Crimean package will be prolonged for another year. Grateful to our European partners for their unwavering support of Ukraine," Tochynskyi wrote.

It is worth noting that these restrictive measures were introduced in June 2014, and they proceed for a year. The last such decision was made on June 12, 2019.

As we reported earlier, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell stated that lawmakers of the U.S. Congress are considering introducing new sanctions against the companies involved in servicing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Chirality is a fundamental property of many organic molecules and means that chemical compounds can appear in not only one form, but in two mirror-image forms as well (symbolic image).

Chirality is a fundamental property of many organic molecules and means that chemical compounds can appear in not only one form, but in two mirror-image forms as well. Chemists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg have now found a way to spontaneously induce chirality in crystalline, liquid-crystalline and liquid substances, without requiring any external influence. The findings could be significant for the development of new active substances and for materials science.

Chirality is found in almost all molecules occurring in nature. "Molecules are spatial arrangements of interconnected atoms. Many molecules, however, have not only one form, but at least two," explains Professor Carsten Tschierske, a chemist at MLU. When these forms are mirror images of each other it is called chirality.

Both mirror-image forms are produced in equal numbers during normal chemical reactions in the laboratory. "However, things occur differently in nature: carbohydrates, amino acids and nucleic acids only have one dominant form," explains Tschierske. And with good reason: for example, nucleic acids carry information about our DNA. Even the slightest changes to our genetic material can lead to serious diseases. "If each nucleic acid had two forms, the structure of our DNA would be chaotic because there would be too many possible variations. Life as we know it would be impossible," states Tschierske.

The exact process that once created the uniform chirality in these molecules is still unknown. Furthermore, it was long assumed that mixtures of mirror-image molecules can only separate spontaneously in crystalline materials. However, in a study published in "Nature Chemistry" in 2014, Tschierskes team was able to show that this phenomenon of chiral cleavage can also be observed in liquids. "This is significant because the origins of life are found in liquid aqueous systems," explains the chemist.

In this new study, his team went one step further. The researchers found a way to not only generate chirality in liquids, but also to specifically transfer it to liquid-crystalline and crystalline materials without incurring any losses. To do this, the scientists used benzil, a molecule that is normally achiral, in other words, has no mirror image, but can be twisted in such a way to make it chiral. "We already knew that benzil could crystallize in a uniform chiral shape," says Tschierske. By modifying this molecule, the researchers were able to spontaneously generate molecules with uniform chirality even in a liquid state - and to maintain this state during conversions. "These findings contribute to our understanding of the formation of uniform biochirality. At the same time, our approach can also be used to synthesize chiral molecules and materials - without requiring expensive chiral precursors," explains Tschierske.

The study conducted in Halle contributes to our understanding of how uniform biochirality might have developed millions of years ago. At the same time, it provides new insights into how chirality can be spontaneously generated. There is a broad range of applications: for example, chiral substances can be used as active ingredients in medicine. The research findings could also be used in a wide variety of materials, for example in optical information processing.
SPRINGFIELD  Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a state budget for fiscal year 2021 on Wednesday, but there is no more financial clarity now than there was when lawmakers passed the measure last month.

The $42.9 billion operating budget relies upon borrowing up to $5 billion from the federal government, which would be necessary if Congress does not pass any laws providing extra funding for states amid revenue shortfalls stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic. The budget includes repayment of $1.6 billion in borrowing to cover shortfalls in the current fiscal year budget due to the pandemic.

According to the May report of the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, or CoGFA, the revenue estimates for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1 are $37.6 billion if a graduated income tax constitutional amendment passes. That figure drops to $36.4 billion if voters do not approve the change to Illinois tax structure.

If voters approve the graduated income tax amendment in November, the rates  which would shift to charge those earning more than $250,000 annually a higher income tax rate  are estimated to generate about $1.2 billion, according to CoGFA. If the public health crisis had not hit, that number would be $286 million higher.

Sales tax estimates were revised downward from March to May by nearly $1.5 billion, to $7.5 billion total for fiscal year 2021.

In a press release, the governors office emphasized that the spending plan maintains funding for critical programs, such as education, health care and human services.

Funding will remain level from the current year for K-12 education, community colleges and public universities.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the enormous role government plays in keeping communities safe and providing the tools people need to build better lives, Pritzker said in a statement Wednesday. While the pandemic has had a devastating impact on our state revenues, investing in our people will allow the state to rebound and recover from this pandemic as we safely re-open. I will continue to advocate for a national program to support state and local governments to make up the difference in the revenues that fund vital services like hospitals and salaries for teachers and first responders.

According to the governors office, more than $5 billion in federal aid  including funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act  will be directed to public health, social services, small businesses, local governments and households, including funding earmarked for communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

That includes $270 million in CARES Act funding to supporting child care providers, the governor said at an event in Moline Wednesday.

And here's the best part, Pritzker said at the event. Because there's no blueprint for this kind of program, we're asking providers to tell us how to design the approach that best helps them reopen safely with smaller group sizes, without imposing large tuition increases on families.

Illinois Coronavirus Urgent Remediation Emergency, or CURE, Fund distributes CARES Act dollars, including Business Interruption Grants specifically designed to support businesses that endure lost revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, in partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Services, is charged with developing the grant program for licensed childcare providers. The Child Care Restoration Grants will be administered by the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, or INCCRRA.

An Intent to Apply survey also launched Wednesday to gather information for the development of the grants program, and money is to be released in July. Providers are asked to respond to the survey by 5 p.m. June 19. More information is available at inccrra.org or by clicking here.

Other CARES Act disbursements from the CURE Fund and Local CURE Fund for local governments include: $636 million for small business/child care centers assistance; $458 million for household and community support programs; $830 million for health care providers for pandemic-related stability payments; $250 million to local governments for reimbursements of COVID-19 related costs; and $1.5 billion for state agency COVID-19 related expenses.

The governors office also said the budget includes reductions of operations appropriations of $200 million and another $140 million in transportation funds at the Department of Transportation from the governors introduced levels. Some of those savings is the result of a continued partial hiring freeze and restricted operations expenditures, according to the office.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

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The Upper West Regional Command of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has intercepted 13 Burkina Faso migrants at the Babile Inland Checkpoint in the Lawra Municipality for flouting the border closure directive.



That was after the GIS arrested 13 Burkinabes on June 1, 2020, for sneaking into Ghana through unapproved routes at Hamile and one other at Tumu on June 6, 2020, for illegally entering into Ghana.



A statement signed by Mr Ibn Yussif Duranah Abdul-Mumin Seidu, the Upper West Regional Public Affairs Officer of the GIS, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Wa, said the illegal migrants comprised of nine males and four females, aged between 15 and 57 years.



"They were ceased onboard a commercial vehicle with registration number BA 29-12 journeying from Hamile to Techiman", the statement said.



The statement added that the GIS officials, in a separate operation on Monday, also arrested five other nationals of Burkina Faso at Beat two, an unapproved route bordering the Burkina Faso at the Hamile sector command of the GIS in the Lambussie District.



It said the illegal migrants were destined for Kumasi, Sunyani, and Techiman to engage in diverse activities including trading, farming and construction works among others.



"The irregular migrants were screened by the health personnel before being handed over to the Burkina Faso authorities on the other side of the border at about 1535 hours", the statement added.



The Upper West Regional GIS had given the assurance that it would not relent on its efforts to strictly enforce the President's directive on the closure of the national borders as part of measures to contain the (COVID-19) pandemic.



It entreated the general public to support the security agencies to safeguard the borders and to protect the lives of the people.



The GIS warned that any individual or group of persons caught aiding the entry or exit of people would be dealt with according to the law.

Source: GNA









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Russia Attempts To Freeze The Conflict In Libya By Moon Of Alabama June 09, 2020 " Information Clearing House " -The war in Libya has become a proxy conflict between many international players. The Government of National Accord (GNA) under Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. Its main political and financial sponsor is Qatar and its main military ally is Turkey. Italy is also supporting Sarraj. The GNA controls the capital Tripoli and Misrata in the west of the country. On the other side is the (former?) CIA asset Khalifa Haftar with his Libyan National Army. He controls Libya's east and most of its oil resources. He is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece and France. Russia sees its involvement in the conflict as an adjudicator. It wants to reestablish its long term business interests in Libya which had fallen to the wayside after the war the U.S., UK and France waged against country in 2011. It has sold weapons to Hafter through the UAE and has allowed Russian mercenaries to take part in the war on the side of Haftar's LNA. Since April 2019 Haftar attempted to take Tripoli and to evict the GNA. The fight was more difficult and went on much longer than he had hoped for. The economic situation of both sides is interwoven and makes the war complicated. In January Russia called on Hafter to stop it. It held a peace conference in Moscow and urged him to sign a ceasefire agreement: After hours of negotiations brokered by Russia and Turkey, Haftar on Monday evening asked until Tuesday morning to look over the agreement already signed by Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the United Nations-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). But Haftar, whose eastern-based forces launched an offensive to seize the GNA's base of Tripoli in April, left Moscow without signing the deal drafted at the indirect talks, Russia's foreign ministry was quoted as saying by TASS news agency on Tuesday. The snub towards Russia was not forgotten. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Before the meeting in Moscow Turkey had promised military support to the GNA. In exchange the GNA had signed an agreement with Turkey that supposedly demarcates a sea border between Turkey and Libya. That agreed border ignores the rights of Greece and Cyprus and will never be internationally recognized. But Turkey uses the agreement to claim extensive rights in the eastern Mediterranean sea. A week after the failed talks in Moscow another attempt for ceasefire negotiations, this one in Berlin, also failed. Germany again tried to talk sense into Hafter during a visit in March but without results. Meanwhile the conflict escalated with Turkish supplies of drones and artillery and with 13,000 'Syrian rebels' hired by Turkey as mercenaries to strengthen the GNA. The Turkish operation is financed by Qatar which recently also intervened to stop the drop of the Turkish Lira. The UAE countered that Turkish buildup with more supplies of Russian made Pantsyr air defense systems to the LNA and more mercenaries hired from Russia and Sudan. Confronted with the Pantsyr's Turkish drones dropped by the dozens and the front lines hardly moved. On May 17 the picture changed. Turkish drones were suddenly able to hit the Pantsyrs and within a day destroyed at least six of them. At the same time the Russian mercenaries received orders to pull back from the frontline. Left without protection from air defenses Haftar's forces mostly fled and the GNA pushed forward. The maps show the recent changes. May 8, 2020



bigger June 8, 2020



bigger There have been no leaks of what has happened behind the scene. It is possible that Turkey was able to electronically jam the radar of the Pantsyrs so that its drones could take them out. But if it had that capability why did it not use it earlier? Others believe that Russia had had enough of Haftar's escapades and thought it necessary to punish him for his naughtiness. But Russia did not completely drop him. Shortly after the Pantsyr massacre Russian fighter planes were ferried from Russia to Libya and set up at the Al-Jufra air base which is under LNA control. They will allow Russia to keep a balance between the feuding sides. So far that plan worked well. On Saturday Egypt announced a new ceasefire in Libya starting today and Haftar has finally agreed to it: The conference in Cairo was attended by Hifter and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives. Several foreign diplomats, including U.S., Russian, French and Italian envoys attended. Hifter and Saleh are allies. There were no representatives of the Tripoli-based administration, or of its main backers, Turkey and Qatar, at the conference. On Friday the GNA took Tarhuna, a city 40 miles southeast of Tripoli. The 'Syrian rebels' immediately started to loot the city. The move finally ends the siege of Tripoli Hafter had held for 15 months. Russia allegedly told the GNA to not move further to the east and to stick to the ceasefire Haftar agreed to. It wants Haftar to stay in control of the east. Russia drew a line on Sirte, a city that covers the eastern oil fields that will also create profit for Moscow. The Al-Jufra Air Base, 150 miles south of Sirte, is also supposed to stay under Haftar's control. The country would thereby be partitioned in two halves. But after the May 17 breakthrough the GNA and its sponsors were felling empowered and were themselves getting naughty ideas. Turkey suddenly changed its war aims: In light of the most recent developments, Turkey identified a new objective in Libya. Ankara no longer seeks to force Haftar to participate in diplomatic negotiations. Instead, the new mission is to put this source of instability, this murderer of Tripolis civilian population, out of business. The GNA government conditioned its acceptance of the ceasefire: Tripoli-based Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha said the government side would engage in political talks only after taking Sirte and also the inland Jufra air base, to the south. The U.S. last month accused Russia of deploying at least 14 aircraft at the base to support Russian mercenaries backing Hifter, a claim dismissed by Moscow. Taking Sirte would open the gate for the Tripoli-allied militias to press even farther eastward, to potentially seize control of vital oil installations, terminals and oil fields that tribes allied with Hifter shut down earlier this year, cutting off Libyas major source of income. Since Friday 'Syrian rebels' under Turkish command are trying to take the LNA held Sirte. But suddenly the airplanes recently delivered by Russia sprang into action. Several GNA convoys which were moving towards Sirte got smashed. Turkish drones are again dropping from the sky. Egypt has started to position heavy military equipment on its western border. It does not want a Muslim Brotherhood controlled Libya as its neighbor. The buffer Haftar's LNA provides is a priority for its own security. Egypt together with France, Greece, Cyprus and the UAE also rejected the Turkish aspirations in the eastern Mediterranean. If Russia would pull back its support and completely give up on Haftar Egypt would see a necessity to intervene in Libya. A Turkish-Egyptian war on Libyan grounds would then become likely. The U.S. has mostly stayed out of the current game. But while it earlier seemed to lean towards Haftar it recently voiced concern about the Russian role in Libya and made some positive noises towards the GNA. Europe is split on the issue with France and Greece on the LNA's side while Italy leans towards the GNA. This makes it impossible for the EU to play a bigger role. Russia is trying to achieve in Libya the same situation that it achieved in Syria (and Ukraine). It wants to freeze the active conflict by pressing both parties to stick to a line and by intervening only when that line is crossed by either side. It will continue to push for negotiations between the two conflict parties and their sponsors. - " Source " - Post your comment below See also
In three consecutive years from 2018 to 2020, Tongwei Group has undertaken charitable donations to build photovoltaic power generation systems in uninhabited areas in Qinghai and Tibet. With true dedication to social responsibility, Tongwei Group has conquered the inclement conditions of cold high-altitude areas and endeavored in uninhabited areas in Qinghai and Tibet three times, setting an excellent example for photovoltaic power generation efforts and contributing to infrastructure construction and environmental protection in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
While renewing calls for a political solution in Libya, Egypt is warning against escalation that could threaten regional peace. But as the balance shifts on the ground, resolution might be more difficult than ever.

The self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) under the command of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar retreated in the last three weeks from its positions around Tripoli and lost control of the largest airbase in the western part of Libya, Al-Watiya. Last Thursday, 4 June, his forces retreated from another stronghold after the city of Tarhuna fell to the forces of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). The official spokesman of the Tripoli government said that with the fall of Tarhuna, the forces of the GNA liberated all of the western part of Libya from the forces loyal to Haftar.

Moreover, Fayez Al-Sarraj, president of the government in Tripoli, promised that the intention of his government is to retake control of all of Libya, implying that their next move is to advance towards the east where the seat of the interim Libyan government is located in Benghazi. In other words, his forces will get nearer to Egyptian borders, and probably in the presence of Turkish military advisers. If this happens, it would constitute a major escalation in the conflict with uncalculated regional consequences.

On Thursday, 4 June, Al-Sarraj was in Turkey where he conferred with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish government promised that it would continue providing assistance and aid to the government in Tripoli to safeguard recent successes achieved by its forces in the war against the LNA. Furthermore, it announced that it would start exploration for gas and oil in the territorial waters of Libya in conformity with the agreement it signed last November with the GNA in Tripoli on the delimitation of an exclusive Libyan economic zone in the Mediterranean.

While Al-Sarraj was in Turkey, Haftar and the speaker of the Libyan parliament were conferring with senior Egyptian officials in Cairo. After two days of talks, the Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, announced in a joint press conference in their presence that the talks held by the Egyptian government had led to agreement, translated to a document dubbed the Cairo Declaration that dealt with an initiative aiming at reaching a political solution for the Libyan conflict in accordance with the Security Council resolutions and the decisions and conclusions of various international meetings on the situation in Libya, namely, the Berlin Summit and other meetings in Paris, Palermo and the United Arab Emirates.

The major highlights of the initiative include the reunification of the economic, financial and political institutions in Libya, the fair and transparent distribution of national wealth, and the demobilisation of the various militias operating in Libya, in addition to the exit of foreign mercenaries brought by Turkey, principally from Syria, to fight with the forces of the GNA. The Egyptian president said that the two Libyan officials have called for a ceasefire in Libya to become effective at 6:00am on Monday, 8 June. There is talk of setting up a presidential council, representative of the three Libyan regions, coupled with the drafting of a constitutional declaration that sets forth the next steps in the smooth transition towards a stable national government, representative of the Libyan people.

In a nod to the Berlin Declaration of 19 January, the Egyptian president emphasised the importance of complementarity among the three tracks that had been incorporated in this declaration; namely, the economic/financial, the military/security and the political tracks. In this context, he called on Libyan parties to discuss the military aspects of the conflict and how to secure a total ceasefire in the context of United Nations-sponsored 5+5 talks. Furthermore, he proposed an international meeting in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations and attended by the European Union, the Arab League, as well as the African Union, to provide an international framework for the political process whereby the Libyan parties would reach a political solution for the Libyan conflict.

What was striking in the joint press conference was the insistence of the Egyptian president on how dangerous the present situation in Libya is from the standpoint of the national security interests of Egypt. He warned against any attempts to settle the Libyan conflict through the use of military force, stressing that Egypt is closely watching developments on the battlefields in Libya. Some observers would interpret this as a warning to the Tripoli government not to get nearer Egyptian borders with Libya. Similarly, the warning is also addressed, without naming it, to Turkey. Still, I firmly believe that Egypt should never get involved militarily in the Libyan quagmire. Our absolute priority should be to defend our western borders against intrusions and infiltrations from the Libyan side of the border.

The Egyptian president was right, of course, in sending out a warning, so that neither the Tripoli government nor the Turkish government misread Egyptian intentions.

The New York Times in its edition dated Saturday, 6 June, quoted Emadeddin Badi, who is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, as saying that there is clearly more conflict still to come, but everybody  domestically and externally  is going to recalculate their position.

I tend to agree with this assessment. Needless to say, everyone hopes that the warring parties in Libya would reason that there could never be a military solution in Libya and, consequently, they opt for a political solution that would guarantee the territorial integrity and independence of Libya. However, the recent military gains by forces loyal to the Tripoli government could encourage these forces to push for launching a major attack against the forces of Haftar throughout Libya. The open question is whether Turkey would oblige or not. The Egyptian warning against military escalation in Libya could, hopefully, be a wake-up call for both the Tripoli and the Turkish governments, in this respect, against such a grave miscalculation. Maybe Russia could play the role of a buffer between the two Mediterranean powers, if need be.

The day the Cairo Declaration was out, the spokesman of the forces of the Tripoli government announced that these forces are advancing towards Sirte, a major stronghold for Haftar forces, as well as Gafra Airbase. Going to press, indications are that the defences of the forces loyal to Haftar would be overpowered.

The balance of power on the Libyan battlefields has shifted dramatically to the advantage of the Tripoli forces, a development that would make it difficult to persuade the Tripoli government to negotiate with the defeated party  at least for the time being.

*The writer is former assistant foreign minister.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 11 June, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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A tourism expert whose family owned a string of venues on the north coast has warned the Northern Ireland industry risks "handing over its silver" by reopening hotels three weeks after the Republic.

Hotels and other accommodation here are due to open on July 20.

The date was chosen to coordinate with the Republic. However, last week Taoiseach Leo Varadkar fast-forwarded his country's lockdown exit plan by announcing that hotels, restaurants and bars serving food could open on June 29.

It has prompted calls for Northern Ireland to move at a faster pace.

Lyn Fawcett said a three-week gap was akin to handing the Republic an open goal.

With the Executive under pressure to move more quickly, the issue is high on the agenda when it meets tomorrow.

First Minister Arlene Foster has said she "very much" hopes the date for hotels to reopen could be brought forward.

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Health Minister Robin Swann said there were "strategic and creative ways" in which the hospitality sector could reopen, including using outdoor space where the virus was less likely to spread.

He said reopening had to be done "in a managed, respectful, measured approach so that it doesn't help the spread of the virus".

But Mr Fawcett, whose family owned Northern Counties, Fawcetts Royal and The Lismara Hotels in Portrush and The Strand Hotel in Portstewart, said Northern Ireland would lose three key weeks of holiday business to the Republic if it waits until July 20.

The former Ulster University hospitality and tourism lecturer, who owns self-catering cottages on the Causeway Coast, said there was pent-up demand among people for a holiday.

"I expect that people are so cabin-crazy that first opportunity they have, they will go somewhere. Those three weeks up until July 20 will capture a very large proportion of the money that would be spent in NI.

"I've written to my MP Sammy Wilson to say 'you really need to keep an eye on this'," he said.

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"Otherwise, you're giving the Republic our silver and allowing them to eat our lunch off it too.

"Basically the summer season is about eight to 10 weeks... As it stands, we're losing about 30% of that season and you can't recapture that.

"I'm not suggesting we should blindly follow the Republic as they have different statistics to us but Stormont needs to look at the figures on a daily basis and revise their opening dates accordingly.

"It's too much of an open goal to allow a holiday location in a country so close to us to get all our holiday spending."

Mr Fawcett said that if he is unable to open his holiday cottages before July 20, he will have lost 50% of a year's typical turnover.

He said key holiday dates have already been lost, adding: "Portrush usually does very well at Easter, and the North West 200; the Portrush Raft Race does a lot of business.

"And with the double-May bank holiday, including the VE Day holiday on May 8, that would have been a significant amount of business, and that's all lost."

He said the loss of the Airwaves Portrush Airshow, which usually takes place at the end of August but has been cancelled this year due to a lack of council funding, would not be a major deterrent to tourists.

In addition, he said the absence of amusement park Barry's, which is on the market and is not expected to be open during the summer, was also unlikely to detract from the draw of the north coast to holidaymakers.

"We have tremendous strength in terms of our beaches, the local environment, the harbour, all those things are beautiful and unspoilt.

"We have a cluster of amazing restaurants like the Ramore Complex, Bushmills Inn, Amici in Portstewart - it really is a cultural delight for food.

"The owners of Barry's have made a fantastic contribution to Portrush and I gather they're doing their best to ensure it continues as a going concern and that I believe to be their wish and desire, as it would be for all of us."

Mr Fawcett said he believed people would embrace staycations but would shy away from air travel in the short-term.

He added: "I think it will take people a while to get the confidence to travel by air. Some people will wait and see just how safe it is to travel by air on international and continental holidays. I don't think it will make a dramatic difference to people's propensity to travel internationally in the long-term but people will look at staycations in the short-term."

Mr Fawcett said the summer season could be extended into September and October as people aim to get their usual allotment of breaks, but added: "Northern Ireland just doesn't have the capacity to take everyone who wants a staycation during the last week in July into August.

"I think the window of breaks will extend into autumn. In my cottages, I would say September and October this year are looking slightly stronger than they were this time last year."

He urged the Executive to reopen the accommodation sector in phases, as it has with the retail sector.

"They need to consider phasing in different types of accommodation, like caravan parks, self-catering accommodation, as they're all very capable of very high levels of social-distancing."
By Melanie Mark

Hli Haykwhl Wii Xsgaak

Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training

In 2011, two youth in care organized to combat stereotypes and stigma about youth in care by celebrating the talents and achievements of their peers. For too many years, former youth in care were set up to fail. For too many years, their voices werent heard. The fact is, youth in care are overlooked for their potential. There is often a culture of systemic complacency that sets the bar of expectations too low for these young people.

Many youth in care face a lot of adversity. I grew up in the projects of East Vancouver with a single mom who struggled with mental health and addictions. I went to six high schools and was placed in government care. I advocated for my siblings while they were in care and eventually took over guardianship of my youngest brother, all while holding onto hope that one day my mom would sober up and leave her death sentence on the Downtown Eastside. I was groomed for hopelessness but managed to become the first in my family to graduate from high school, college and university. Later in life I learned that my grandparents attended residential school. Many things saved my life, but education was key.

I know first-hand the resiliency of former youth in care and their ambition for change.

After working in the Office of B.C.s Representative for Children and Youth for almost a decade with Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, I couldnt bear to hear any more tragedies. I entered politics in 2016 to disrupt the status quo and drive change for young people who need and deserve a fighting chance at success.

On July 18, 2017, Premier John Horgan appointed me as minister of advanced education, skills, and training. I became the first First Nations woman to serve in B.C.s cabinet, I am Nisgaa Gitxsan, Cree and Ojibway. On Sept. 1, 2017, we announced the Provincial Tuition Waiver Program (PTWP) for former youth in care to attend any of the 25 public post-secondary institutions in B.C. and Native Education College, tuition-free. Within six weeks, our government delivered on a key mandate commitment and a promise to improve the educational success of former youth in care. It was simply the right thing to do and one of the proudest moments of my life.

Today, almost 1,300 former youth in care are walking through the doors of post-secondary education institutions around B.C. Theyre attending some of the best colleges and universities in the country: places like Thompson Rivers University, Douglas College and the University of British Columbia. Theyre writing a new chapter in their lives. They proudly tell me that they now have a new identity and sense of purpose.

Our government will continue to improve conditions for former youth in care to succeed once they leave care, the same way that many parents support their children past the age of 19. Weve partnered with the United Way to help post-secondary students with living expenses through the Youth Futures Education Fund. My colleague, the Minister of Children and Family Development, Katrine Conroy, has also championed significant changes to the Agreements with Young Adults program to continue opening doors to opportunity.

Its not a coincidence the minister responsible for the PTWP has lived experience as a former youth in care. This progressive public policy was driven by values and advocacy from people who believe in reconciliation in action. The PTWP is about investing in young people who deserve a chance to thrive.

Make no mistake, this programs success relies on young people doing the heavy lifting to succeed in the classroom. Theyre smart and ambitious. For the first time in my memory, we are hearing stories of success about former youth in care. They are studying to become teachers, business managers, nurses, web designers, early childhood educators and heavy-duty mechanics.

This provincial program was long overdue. We all know that it takes a village to raise a child to reach their full potential. This program is hitting the mark but there is more to do to empower former youth in care.

As we the 10th BC Child and Youth in Care Week, children and youth in care need to know that they are loved. We need to show up for them and support the organizations that help them overcome hurdles and support their aspirations. As the saying goes: A rising tide lifts all canoes.

When we lift up and empower children and youth in care, we are helping to heal the wounds and end the cycle that brought them into care in the first place. To all current and former youth in care: Keep defying all odds.
Photograph: Alamy

A triple threat of Brexit, tightening budgets and unchecked expansion has seen the rankings of UK universities in an international league table slump for the fourth year in a row.

Nearly three-quarters of the countrys universities slipped down the rankings in the UKs worst-ever performance in the table compiled by data and research group QS.

Imperial College London climbed one spot to reach eighth, making it the only UK university in the top 20 to improve. Oxford University slipped from fourth to fifth place and University College London fell two places to 10th, while Cambridge University held on to seventh place and the University of Edinburgh the 20th spot.

The compilers attributed the falls to poor teaching and declining research impact. Of the UKs 84 ranked universities, 66 saw their staff to student ratio decline while 59 had a drop in research citations. International student numbers at 51 universities also fell.

Ben Sowter, director of research at QS, said the falls at UK universities mirror those in North American and European countries as a result of increasing investment in higher education elsewhere in the world. However, this has been compounded by Brexit, the hostile environment, financial uncertainty and rapid expansion, he said.

Investment in teaching capacity would serve the British higher education sector well, and help it to regain lost ground. So, too, would concerted efforts to ensure that Britain continues to remain an attractive place for talented academics and students to study in the future, and a national desire to continue collaborating with our European and global partners on transformative research projects.

Universities finances are likely to further deteriorate this academic year as they contend with falling domestic and international student numbers due to the coronavirus pandemic. Recent British Council research predicted that 14,000 fewer international students will enrol in September, resulting in 460m losses for universities, while an equivalent survey of UK applicants suggested one in five were considering deferring.

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Sowter said that although it is difficult to pinpoint the exact impact of Brexit, the UKs performance has trended consistently downwards since the Brexit vote in 2016. Numerous sources  from Ucas to the Higher Education Policy Institute  have drawn the same connection between Brexit and lower British appeal among the global international student community, he said.

He added that top UK universities may have expanded too quickly since the government lifted the numbers cap in 2013. Increases in student numbers need to come alongside sufficient increases in teaching capacity, without which there is an increased likelihood that teaching quality will suffer, he said.

The University of Bristol, which has come under fire from its local council for rapid expansion, slipped outside the top 50 for the first time, falling nine places to 58th. The remaining UK universities in the top 50 include the London School of Economics, which fell five places to 49th, Kings College London, which rose to 31st, and the University of Manchester, in 27th.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) retained the top spot for the ninth year, ahead of Stanford University in second and Harvard University in third, whose ranks remained unchanged. Their success runs counter to the overall US performance, which has seen the countrys share of the top 100 universities fall from 32 to 27 over five years.

Meanwhile, Asian universities enjoyed their best-ever showing. Twenty-six universities in China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan now feature in the top 100.

The QS world rankings methodology is based on employer and academic reputation, class sizes, research output and international staff and student numbers. It is one of the most highly regarded international league tables.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK
China said on Wednesday that Indian and Chinese troops have started implementing the "positive consensus" reached by the senior military officials of the two countries on June 6 aimed at "easing" the situation along the borders.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson's remarks came a day after officials in New Delhi suggested that armies of India and China have undertaken a "limited disengagement" in few areas in eastern Ladakh in a demonstration of their intent to end the border standoff peacefully ahead of another round of military talks on Wednesday.

Asked about the reports of the troops on both sides disengaging and moving back to their previous positions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.

"Recently the diplomatic and military channels of China and India held effective communication on the situation along the border and reached positive consensus," she said.

"The two sides are following this consensus to take actions to ease the situation along the borders, the spokesperson said.

Military sources in New Delhi said the two armies have begun "disengagement" around patrolling points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and another in the Hot Spring area, adding the Chinese side has even moved back up to 1.5km in two areas.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged since May 5 following a violent clash in Pangong Tso. The trigger for the face-off was China's stiff opposition to India laying a key road in the Finger area around the Pangong Tso Lake besides construction of another road connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley.

During their military-level talks on June 6, India and China agreed to follow the broad decisions taken by their leaders in the Wuhan summit in 2018 to ensure peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control.

On June 6, Lt General Harinder Singh, the general officer commanding of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Commander of the Tibet Military District Maj Gen Liu Lin held an extensive meeting.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it.
A call to send every household in the country a bundle of reusable face masks has been supported by Dr Cillian de Gascun, chair of the Government's expert advisory group on Covid-19.

Dr de Gascun said there is an inequity where people cannot afford to buy masks or make their own at home.

He was responding to a suggestion by Labour TD Duncan Smith, at the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response, who said there was precedent.

He pointed to the distribution of iodine tablets by former Fianna Fail energy minister Joe Jacob in 2002 as part of a plan in the event of a major nuclear accident.

"In the past in this country we have mass provided preventative products in the form of iodine tablets to each household," Mr Smith said.

"Providing proper reusable face masks and clear instructions on how and when to use them is something we need to strongly consider, especially as there is a concern that there could be a seasonal element to the Covid-19 virus, with prevalence in the winter months more likely."

Dr de Gascun described it as a "very good suggestion" and said now is the time to scale up the manufacture of masks.

A packet of 10 standard masks costs around 10 in a supermarket, and a medical grade mask - which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said people over 60 and those with underlying health conditions should wear - costs 130 for a pack of 200.

The WHO's revised advice is to be reviewed by the National Public Health Emergency Team.

However, Dr de Gascun said the evidence around how effective cloth masks are is not fantastic.

Barrier

He added that masks or cloths should be seen as only an add-on to physical distancing, handwashing and respiratory etiquette.

There is good evidence that medical-grade face masks work in healthcare settings.

They act as a barrier when people cough or sneeze but studies have not shown if the virus is not transmitted, he said.

Australia is in its winter, and in May it saw its mildest flu outbreak in a decade, which could be down to physical distancing and other measures in place to protect against the coronavirus, Dr de Gascun said.

He told Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty that there is no huge evidence around the one- to two-metre rule.

He said it all comes down to virus particles or droplets which emit from people who cough, sneeze, laugh or even speak. "Large ones drop quickly to the ground, typically in one to two metres," Dr de Gascun added.

Smaller particles take a longer time to drop. They can stay in the air for a couple of hours and be moved around by wind currents.
[June 10, 2020] LOGIX Fiber Networks Shares Key Business Internet Reliability Guidelines as Texas Businesses Return to Work

LOGIX Fiber Networks, a Texas-based business connectivity company with more than 265,000 miles of fiber statewide, recently published a new report about how to obtain reliable business internet as Texans begin returning to offices and other job sites. For more than 35 years, LOGIX has provided fast and flexible connectivity options to businesses of all sizes and industries across Texas. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005171/en/ Review LOGIX's Business Internet Reliability Guidelines to be sure your Internet infrastructure is ready to ramp up as your employees return to work. (Photo: Business Wire) "The reopening of Texas is underway, and employees are beginning to return to their desks," said Scott Brueggeman, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer of LOGIX. "Now is a great time for employers to ensure offices and employees are equipped with the best technology and internet infrastructure so staff can quickly reach peak efficiency." <> In this increasingly mobile and connected world, LOGIX is helping many forward-thinking businesses obtain high-quality, fiber-based connectivity for their offices, as well as implement cloud-based communication platforms for their mobile and remote employees.



As companies re-evaluate their IT needs, it is more important than ever to focus on reliability, connectivity, and accessibility. The report explores these important issues in detail and also provides guidance to help businesses examine their current internet infrastructure. Four Key Factors for Internet Reliability:

The report covers the following key factors that should be examined to ensure leaders have the right internet infrastructure and IT solutions for their businesses: Reliability and uptime

Speed and bandwidth

Synchronous upload and download

Local, high-quality customer service With more than 10,000 businesses choosing LOGIX as their preferred business internet and phone provider, LOGIX solutions help businesses excel across these four key factors. Throughout Texas, LOGIX connects more than 3,000 enterprise buildings and 100 data centers across more than 265,000 miles of built-for-business fiber. To learn about the benefits of switching to LOGIX Fiber Networks, download the free executive report from the LOGIX Resource Center found on the LOGIX website. The LOGIX Resource Center is a free resource available to all business leaders. Additional executive reports and informative articles are continuously being added. For more information about LOGIX, call 281-688-6231 or visit www.logix.com. Connect with LOGIX on LinkedIn and Facebook. About LOGIX Fiber Networks LOGIX Fiber Networks is an established fiber-based network infrastructure operator in Texas. LOGIX provides highly secure fiber-based data and voice services as well as data center access to over 10,000 enterprise and carrier customers. Known for its outstanding Texas-based customer service, flexible connectivity options, and best-in-class reliability, LOGIX's built-for-business fiber network delivers the dependability customers need so that they can focus on their business. LOGIX's affordable solutions leverage expertise accumulated over its 35-year history. As a nimble, regional player, LOGIX efficiently develops and deploys large-, medium- or small-scale footprints to support its customers' current and future business requirements. LOGIX offers a broad range of business voice and data options for simple and complex configurations including Business Voice, Business Internet, Business Ethernet, Business Wavelength, Business Voice Cloud, Business Voice Trunks, Data Centers and Cloud Connect. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005171/en/

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Photograph and 3D -CT reconstitution of the miniature bird figurine discovered at Lingjing (Henan Province, China), dated to 13 500 years ago. Credit: Francesco d'Errico and Luc Doyon

A small bird carvingthe oldest instance of East Asian three-dimensional art ever discoveredis described in a study published June 10, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Zhanyang Li from Shandong University, China, and colleagues.

European animal and human mammoth ivory carvings dated to 40-38 ka are our earliest examples of prehistoric humans three-dimensionally representing the world around themthough due to a lack of evidence, it's unclear when this type of three-dimensional representation became part of the cultural repertoire of prehistoric groups around the rest of the world. In this study, Li and colleagues describe the remarkable discovery of a small standing bird carving from the Paleolithic site of Lingjing, in Henan, China, that sheds further light on humanity's earliest three-dimensional art.

During Li's initial excavation at Lingjing in 2005, he uncovered eleven distinct stratified layers ranging in age from 120,000 years ago to the Bronze Age and found that most of the fifth layer had been removed during a well-digging operation in 1958. However, the refuse heap from the well's creation was still intact and remained nearby. After sifting through the sediment in the refuse heap, the authors discovered black flint identical to (and only found in) what remained of Layer 5 at the dig site. They also uncovered several artifacts, including pottery sherds, burned animal remains, and the bird figurine, which is carved from bone and shaped like a songbird on a pedestal.

Using radiocarbon dating on the uncovered burned animal remains (including one bone with anthropogenic gouging marks also observed on the bird carving), the authors were able to estimate the age of the bird figurine and associated bone material to be approximately 13.4-13.2 ka cal BP. Based on evidence from other Northern Chinese sites of similar age, this suggests that hunter-gatherers with stone tool technologies occupied Lingjing and created the bird carving during this time.

The carving was found among burnt animal remains and fragments of ceramics at a site in north central Henan province

Bird representations are a theme in Chinese Neolithic art, with the oldest example a jade songbird dated to approximately 5 ka BP. This Paleolithic bone bird figurine from Lingjing predates previously known instances from this region by almost 8,500 years, and has several technological and stylistic elements distinguishing it from contemporaneous representations of birdlike creatures from Western Europe and Siberia (such as the pedestal on which the Lingjing bird is perched). Though more examples of Paleolithic carving art are needed to confirm this possibility, the Lingjing bird figurine suggests the presence of a longstanding artistic tradition specific to East Asia, with origins much earlier in the Paleolithic.

The authors add: "This discovery identifies an original artistic tradition and pushes back by more than 8,500 years the representation of birds in Chinese art. The figurine differs technologically and stylistically from other specimens found in Western Europe and Siberia, and it could be the missing link tracing the origin of Chinese statuary back to the Palaeolithic period."

Explore further Initial Upper Paleolithic technology reached North China by around 41,000 years ago

More information: Li Z, Doyon L, Fang H, Ledevin R, Queffelec A, Raguin E, et al. (2020) A Paleolithic bird figurine from the Lingjing site, Henan, China. PLoS ONE 15(6): e0233370. Journal information: PLoS ONE Li Z, Doyon L, Fang H, Ledevin R, Queffelec A, Raguin E, et al. (2020) A Paleolithic bird figurine from the Lingjing site, Henan, China.15(6): e0233370. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233370
The spokesperson to Edo State governor, Crusoe Osagie, has alleged the All Progressives Congress (APC)seven-member screening committee deliberately exempted his boss, Godwin Obaseki, from the screening process.

The governor arrived early but the screening committee was not ready. He was given the options to either wait for one hour or if he had an appointment to keep, he could go and call them to know if (when) they were ready.

The governor, who had a Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) meeting, went for the meeting and called when he was done, but the members of the screening committee did not pick their phones, Mr Osagie alleged in a statement sent to this newspaper Wednesday evening.

PREMIUM TIMES gathered from different sources present at the secretariat that Mr Obaseki barely spent up to 15 minutes after his arrival at the partys secretariat before he left the premises.

Mr Obaseki, shortly after his arrival, reportedly met with the screening committee and asked for permission to attend the NGF meeting but never came back to the venue.

According to the APCs released order of events, the screening is to span June 10 to 11. This means Mr Obaseki now has only Thursday to attend the partys screening process or risk being disqualified from the race.

APC reacts

Speaking to this newspaper, the partys national spokesperson, Lanre Issa-Onilu, said he was unaware of what transpired between Mr Obaseki and the screening committee.

They didnt screen him? But he was there today. Well, we (APC) dont have anything to say to it because we dont know what the committee is doing, we dont have any information; the committee is independent. Im sure the committee can say whatever happened after they (members) finish, but I sincerely dont know anything about it, he told this reporter.

The University of Ibadan (UI), earlier on Wednesday confirmed that Mr Obaseki indeed graduated from the institution after days of speculation over his academic qualifications.

The controversies started Monday after the party posted Mr Obasekis credentials, alongside that of other five aspirants battling for the Edo APC governorship ticket at the partys secretariat for public scrutiny.

The party has slated June 22 for its direct mode of primary in the state while Nigerias electoral body, INEC, has fixed September 19 for the Edo 2020 Governorship election.

Governor Obaseki and his predecessor in office, Adams Oshiomhole, who now leads the ruling APC, have been engaged in a protracted political battle which now threatens the partys chances at the polls.
Tehran said Tuesday it will execute an Iranian for spying for the United States and Israel after his conviction was upheld for helping the US to locate a top Iranian general killed in a drone strike. Mahmoud Mousavi Majd was convicted of spying on Iran's armed forces, "especially the Quds Force and on the whereabouts and movements of martyr General Qasem Soleimani", judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said in a news conference. Majd had been found guilty of receiving large sums of money from both the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Mossad, Esmaili said. His sentence was upheld by Iran's supreme court and would be "carried out soon," the spokesman added. Soleimani headed the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and was killed in January in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport. Iran retaliated by firing a volley of ballistic missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq, but US President Donald Trump opted against responding militarily. While the attack on the western Iraqi base of Ain Al-Asad left no US soldiers dead, dozens suffered brain trauma. Majd "will face the consequences of his actions and his masters will also witness the determination, might and intelligence reach of the Islamic republic," Esmaili said. Iran in February handed down a similar sentence for Amir Rahimpour, another man convicted of spying for the US and conspiring to sell information on Iran's nuclear programme. Tehran announced in December it had arrested eight people "linked to the CIA" and involved in nationwide street protests that erupted the previous month over a surprise petrol price hike. It also said in July 2019 that it had dismantled a CIA spy ring, arresting 17 suspects between March 2018 and March 2019, and sentencing some of them to death. Trump at the time dismissed the claim as "totally false". - Prisoner swaps - Iran-US tensions have soared in recent years as Trump has pursued a campaign of "maximum pressure" against America's sworn enemy. Since unilaterally withdrawing the US from a key nuclear deal with Tehran in May 2018, Trump has hit it with sweeping sanctions. The two sides have appeared to come to the brink of a direct conflict multiple times in the past two years. Yet despite the tensions and having no formal diplomatic relations since 1980, Tehran and Washington have engaged in several prisoner swaps. The latest was on Monday when Iranian scientist Majid Taheri returned home as Iran released US Navy veteran Michael White, who had been detained in the country since his arrest in July 2018. Taheri -- an Iranian-American who had been working at a clinic in Tampa, Florida -- had been held in the US for 16 months over violating US sanctions by sending a technical item to Iran. Tehran had also exchanged Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian in January 2016 for seven Iranians held in the US, on the day the nuclear agreement entered into force. In December, Iran freed Xiyue Wang, a US academic, in exchange for scientist Massoud Soleimani. Americans and dual nationals currently known to be held by Iran include Siamak Namazi, his father Baquer and Morad Tahbaz. Two others -- Gholam Reza Shahini and Karan Vafadari -- have reportedly been released on bail. Most of the Iranians held in the US are dual nationals charged with evading sanctions by either exporting goods to Iran or using the US financial system.
WATERLOO REGION  An online fundraiser for the Black community has raised almost $125,000 this week in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations across North America.

The Black Community Solidarity Fund is raising money to provide support to ongoing Black-led anti-racist projects and organizations in the region. The fundraiser was launched by Black Lives Matter Waterloo Region.

It will also raise money for groups run by Black youth in Waterloo Region. Some of these youth-led groups include Young City Growers, an urban agricultural initiative, and Africa Camp, a summer camp opportunity for children of African descent.

These funds will also go toward supporting local post-secondary and high school Black student associations.

The Black Community Solidarity Fund will also support community groups dedicated to the wellness and care of Black individuals in the region. These groups include Woke Women and Woke Men, African Community Wellness Initiative and Bring on the Sunshine Waterloo Region.

This week, thousands of people marched in solidarity with Black Lives Matter groups across the province, including marches in Kitchener, Guelph and Cambridge.

Organizers of the Kitchener march say 36,000 people marched with them in downtown Kitchener on Wednesday.

Marches, protests and demonstrations have cropped up across North America to protest police brutality against Black individuals after the death of George Floyd on May 25.

Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

A small portion of the local Black Community Solidarity Fund, 20 per cent, will provide support and relief to organizers and activists on the ground in Minnesota and in Louisville, Kentucky.

The local chapter of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation donated $5,000 to the local fund. The union represents public high school teachers in Waterloo Region.

Other large donations have come from The Walper Hotel and Abels on Queen Barbershop, who donated $1,000 each.
NEW YORK and WUPPERTAL, Germany, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Royalty Pharma and AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH, a leading company in the discovery and development of drugs against infectious diseases, announced today that they have entered into an agreement whereby Royalty Pharma has acquired a partial royalty interest on Prevymis (letermovir) from AiCuris for a one-time payment of $220 million. Prevymis is licensed by MSD, the tradename of Merck & Co. Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA.



The product was approved by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017 and by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Japans Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) in 2018 for prophylaxis (prevention) of CMV infection and disease in adult CMV-seropositive recipients [R+] of an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) who are at high risk for CMV reactivation. CMV infection is a complication in these patients, and early CMV reactivation after transplant is associated with increased mortality.

The agreement with Royalty Pharma reflects the major medical need for innovative anti-infective drugs and their commercial potential, and enables us to further advance our proprietary pipeline of novel treatments against infectious diseases without losing the possibility to participate on future revenues from Prevymis, said Dr. Holger Zimmermann, CEO of AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH.

We are excited to add a royalty interest in this important therapy to our portfolio, said Pablo Legorreta, Founder and CEO of Royalty Pharma.

About Royalty Pharma

Founded in 1996, Royalty Pharma is the industry leader in acquiring pharmaceutical royalties. Royalty Pharma funds innovation in life sciences both directly and indirectly: directly when it partners with life sciences companies to co-develop and co-fund products in late-stage clinical trials, and indirectly when it acquires existing royalty interests from the original innovators (academic institutions, research hospitals, foundations and inventors). The companys portfolio includes royalty interests in over 45 products including AbbVie and J&Js Imbruvica, Astellas and Pfizers Xtandi, Biogens Tysabri, Gileads HIV franchise, Mercks Januvia, Novartis Promacta, and Vertexs Kalydeco, Symdeko and Trikafta. Royalty Pharma is also a leading investor in pre-approval royalties, having since 2011 invested over $5.6 billion in royalties on pre-approval products and committed over $1.2 billion to direct R&D funding in exchange for royalties. For more information, visit www.royaltypharma.com

Story continues

About AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH

AiCuris was founded in 2006 as a spin-off from Bayer and focuses on the discovery and development of drugs targeting infectious diseases. SANTO Holding is the Companys majority investor. PREVYMIS (Letermovir), a first-in-class non-nucleoside cytomegalovirus (CMV) inhibitor acting via a novel mechanism of action, was licensed to MSD in 2012 and is approved in the EU, the USA, Japan and other parts of the world for use in bone marrow transplants for the prevention of HCMV infections in adults who receive an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant. The Company is developing drugs for the treatment of viruses such as human CMV, herpes simplex virus (HSV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and adenoviruses. In the field of antibacterials, AiCuris seeks to develop innovative treatment options for life-threatening, multidrug-resistant, hospital-treated pathogens.

In 2018 Prof. Dr. Helga Rubsamen-Schaeff, Founding CEO, and Dr. Holger Zimmermann, CEO of AiCuris, were awarded the German Future Prize 2018 (German President's Award for Innovation in Science and Technology) for the development of Letermovir and their project, "Protection in the Absence of the Immune System - a Life-Saving Innovation against Dangerous Viruses" (original title: Schutz bei fehlendem Immunsystem - die lebensrettende Innovation gegen gefahrliche Viren"). For more information, please visit www.aicuris.com. Follow us on LinkedIn

Royalty Pharma Investor Relations and Communications:

+1 (212) 883-0200

ir@royaltypharma.com

AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH

Katja Woestenhemke

+49 202 317 63 0

press@aicuris.com




Coral reef islands across the world could naturally adapt to survive the impact of rising sea levels, according to new research.

The increased flooding caused by the changing global climate has been predicted to render such communities - where sandy or gravel islands sit on top of coral reef platforms - uninhabitable within decades.

However, an international study led by the University of Plymouth (UK) suggests that perceived fate is far from a foregone conclusion.

The research, published in Science Advances, for the first time uses numerical modelling of island morphology alongside physical model experiments to simulate how reef islands - which provide the only habitable land in atoll nations - can respond when sea levels rise.

The results show that islands composed of gravel material can evolve in the face of overtopping waves, with sediment from the beach face being transferred to the island's surface.

This means the island's crest is being raised as sea level rises, with scientists saying such natural adaptation may provide an alternative future that can potentially support near-term habitability, albeit with additional management challenges, possibly involving sediment nourishment, mobile infrastructure and flood-proof housing.

The research was led by Gerd Masselink, Professor of Coastal Geomorphology in Plymouth, working with colleagues at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and Simon Fraser University (Canada).

Professor Masselink, who heads Plymouth's Coastal Processes Research Group, said: "In the face of climate change and sea level rise, coral reef islands are among the most vulnerable coastal environments on the planet. Previous research into the future habitability of these islands typically considers them inert structures unable to adjust to rising sea level. Invariably, these studies predict significantly increased risk of coastal flooding and island inundation, and the concept of 'island loss' has become entrenched in discourses regarding the future of coral reef island communities. In turn, this has led to attention being focused on either building structural coastal defences or the exodus of island communities, with limited consideration of alternative adaptation strategies.

"It is important to realise that these coral reef islands have developed over hundreds to thousands of years as a result of energetic wave conditions removing material from the reef structure and depositing the material towards the back of reef platforms, thereby creating islands. The height of their surface is actually determined by the most energetic wave conditions, therefore overtopping, flooding and island inundation are necessary, albeit inconvenient and sometime hazardous, processes required for island maintenance."

Co-author Professor Paul Kench, currently Dean of Science at Simon Fraser University, Canada, said: "The model provides a step-change in our ability to simulate future island responses to sea level rise and better resolve what the on-ground transformations will look like for island communities. Importantly, our results suggest that island drowning within the next few decades is not universally inevitable. Understanding how islands will physically change due to sea level rise provides alternative options for island communities to deal with the consequences of climate change. It is important to stress there is no one-size-fits-all strategy that will be viable for all island communities - but neither are all islands doomed."

For the research, scientists created a scale model of Fatato Island, part of the Funafuti Atoll in Tuvalu, and placed it in the Coastal Ocean and Sediment Transport (COAST) Lab at the University of Plymouth.

It was then subjected to a series of experiments designed to simulate predicted sea level rises with the results showing that the island's crest rose with the rising sea level, while retreating inland, as a result of water overwashing the island and depositing sediment on the island's surface.

A numerical model was validated using these laboratory experiments, and three numerical modelling scenarios were then used to assess how the island adjusted to a sea level rise of 0.75m, the global average increase predicted for 2100 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

During the numerical simulations, the island crest rose by just under 0.7m, showing that islands can keep up with rising level and confirming the laboratory experiments, although the precise future rate of sea level rise will be critical in determining their future.

###
An unprecedented flurry of reverse sexism raised its head in Turkeys lively Twittersphere last week. I am a modern woman, so I help my husband with housework, said a tweet, whilst another declared, The greatest gift a man can offer his wife is his virginity. Simply by switching the word woman with man and wife with husband, Turkish women  and some men  of all walks of life mocked misogynist or chauvinistic expressions, idioms, maxims and particularly political statements that discriminate against women.

Thousands of tweets under the hashtag #menshouldknowtheirplace were witty and impactful, Meltem Agduk, gender programme coordinator at the United Nations Population Fund in Turkey told Al-Monitor. No wonder that some [conservative or chauvinistic] groups felt threatened by it and tried to counter it with another hashtag  #womenshouldknowtheirplace  or criticize it with media declarations. But these attempts have been futile; even after a week, the online campaign is still going strong.

The spontaneous campaign started June 3 with a single, punchy tweet, My husband can work if he wants  an allusion to an often heard saying by men who try to drive home the point that they allow their wives to work. A 2001 legal amendment gave married women in Turkey the right to work without seeking spousal consent. But traditions, mentality and a host of legal and structural obstacles  such as the absence of child care centers and gender pay gap  prevent many women from joining the workforce. Only 34.5% of women in Turkey work, which is nearly half of the European Union average (61.4 %).

Replies to the tweet by Ruq, who now has more than 95,000 followers, poured in, repeating all-too-familiar sentences with the roles reversed: I would never allow my husband to work, his job is to take care of my kids and Since we both work, I lend a hand to my husband while he does the housework. I even load and unload the dishwasher or shop on the weekends. Whats the big deal with housework anyway?

But it was only after Gaye Su Akyol, a singer, activist and wit, started the hashtag #menshouldknowtheirplace that this initiative snowballed into a trending topic. Retweeting Ruqs tweet, Akyol commented, Men should be chaste. They should not laugh out loud in public. This was a reference to a comment in 2014 by Bulent Arinc, one of the heavyweights of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) then and a notorious anti-feminist, who said that women should be chaste, act with modesty and refrain from laughing out loud in public.

Within hours, many womens rights activists and Twitter users joined in creating a chronicle of headline-grabbing sexist statements by government officials or acts of violence against women. One said that a man wearing shorts on public transport is asking to be harassed, which alluded to a nurse who was kicked for wearing shorts on a bus in Istanbul in 2016. Why would a decent man be out on the streets in the early hours of the morning? joined in a male tweeter, referring to some of the statements made when a 19-year-old was threatened with a knife and raped in Istanbuls posh Bagdat Caddesi four years ago.

Most of the political satire targeted AKP officials whose statements often border on chauvinistic and misogynist. Many users switched around President Recep Tayyip Erdogans remarks that motherhood was the highest honor bestowed upon women and that women who rejected motherhood were deficient. Others mocked the words of an ex-minister who said that family values were threatened if men did not know how to bake a good traditional borek.

Opposition politicians joined in the campaign. We are going to put up men from each constituency [in key posts] so that men can start being actors in politics, not mere accessories, tweeted Canan Kaftancioglu, the Istanbul chair of the Republican People's Party (CHP). Some CHP municipalities started tweeting that they were considering the launch of blue buses so that men can commute without harassment, mocking the AKP initiative of women-only pink buses.

Ruq was surprised by her newly-found fame. I posted a [similar] tweet last year but nothing happened then, she tweeted. Akyol explained that the campaign had snowballed because women have become tired of femicides, domestic violence and daily demonstrations of sexism. We are tired of this nauseating system where the name of the murder suspect is disguised, but the morality, life and choices of the victim are questioned.  It is 2020 and we want to do something about this.

The initiative showed us plainly how sexism exists in the everyday life in word and deed, Agduk noted. It compliments, motivates and encourages other  more formal and structured  gender equality campaigns that international organizations and private groups carry out in Turkey.

One of those groups  Koc  launched in 2017 a Manual for Gender Mainstreaming in Communications, proposing alternatives for sexist forms of speech.

From a communicators point of view, this was a brilliant campaign, agreed Zehra Gungor, a communications expert and an activist for womens entrepreneurship. The tweets were spontaneous, intelligent and very, very funny. She told Al-Monitor that she had also joined with a tweet that read, We support our male colleagues who want quotas for men in political parties.

Not everyone was amused. While most womens groups, such as Stop Femicides Association, applauded the campaign, Women and Democracy Association (KADEM), vice-chaired by the presidents daughter Sumeyye Erdogan Bayraktar, lambasted it, saying it was against the values of society. On June 9, Ismail Kilicaslan, a columnist of Yeni Safak, also blasted the initiative, saying what started innocently had turned into offending religion by paraphrasing certain words of the prophet. This is a dark project, he wrote, comparing it to the attempted coup against the government on July 15, 2016.

A feisty Akyol retorted with a tweet saying she was surely on the right path if her tweets irked conservative and chauvinistic groups. Posting an image of herself on a sunbed, she said she was toasting to bury bigots who are disturbed [even] by the f of freedom and the w of woman in the dusty pages of history.
Former national security adviser John Bolton plans to move ahead with publication of his memoir about working in the Trump White House despite a new warning from the administration that it contains classified material and needs to be further revised, his lawyer said.
SPRINGFIELD - Testing at the Western Massachusetts Recovery and Wellness Center on Mill Street found no cases of Covid-19 among the 67 residents, according the Hampden Sheriffs Department.

The announcement on Wednesday follows previous testing results that showed no cases at the Western Massachusetts Regional Womens Correctional Center in Chicopee, and 13 total cases at the Western Massachusetts Correctional Center in Ludlow. Of the 12 active cases of 614 inmates tested at the mens facility, all are nearly fully recovered and are expected to return to the general population by the end of the week, officials said.

Hampden Sheriff Nick Cocchi hailed the result as good news, and demonstrates the commitment of his medical team and correctional staff to keep facilities and inmates safe. He called precautions enacted in March some of the strictest in Massachusetts.

"All of the changes weve made department-wide since March have been designed to keep our facilities free from infection, and its working, Sheriff Cocchi said. Were proud that after several months and after testing everyone in our care, we only found a dozen cases of COVID-19 out of more than 700 people. We will continue to stay on top of things going forward and continue to provide excellent care for the people in our custody.

Since the COVID-19 emergency began in March, Cocchi has instituted a number of protocols to limit its spread among the inmate population. New inmates are kept separate from the regular population for 14 days, staff are screened before coming to work, and required to wear masks while on the job.

Cocchi said no part of any of the facilities is under lockdown.

In addition, testing has found a total of 19 employees with COVID-19. Four remain out of work, but 14 others have since recovered and have been medically cleared to return to work.
After returning under highly restrictive pandemic conditions, members of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Class of 2020 are already U.S. Army officers as they await Saturday's mandatory graduation ceremony.

The graduating seniors were officially commissioned as second lieutenants May 23, the date on which their graduation ceremony was originally scheduled before the COVID-19 pandemic prevented them from returning after spring break, according to a recent Army news release. Some students arrived back on academy grounds by May 28 in advance of the commencement ceremony.

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The class is finishing up a 14-day monitoring period before the ceremony to watch for symptoms of the virus. The members of the class are divided into different cohorts to allow for social distancing, but each tested negative upon return to the academy, the release states.

In late April, senior Army leaders defended the decision to have seniors return for graduation, where President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver the commencement speech, maintaining that the class had to complete final medical checks and other administrative requirements before moving to their first duty assignments.

The U.S. Naval Academy took the opposite approach by holding its first-ever virtual graduation and commissioning ceremony May 22 after conducting five separate, live swearing-in ceremonies for the midshipmen between May 12 and May 20. The event featured pre-recorded remarks by Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy also held a virtual graduation ceremony May 20, which featured a pre-recorded keynote address by Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The class of roughly 1,000 West Point seniors has been turning in equipment, getting second lieutenant identification cards, receiving orders and packing up their rooms.

For class members, physical training now means practicing social distancing, said 2nd Lt. Mac Viljac.

"For PT, everyone knows to distance the entire time," Viljac said in the release. "We move in different groups to wherever we're doing our PT. ... It's a little different, but I think everyone's adapted to it pretty well."

In addition to out-processing tasks, each cohort eats meals together.

"Normally, there are 12 people at a table, but they're having us be with only two other people [in the mess hall]," 2nd Lt. Maddie Miller said in the release. "The food is already set for us at the mess hall, so there's no one coming around and bringing us trays of food, like they did during the school year. It's different, but it makes sense."

Miller and her roommate, 2nd Lt. Emma Powless, have also used the time to reconnect since they will soon be spread out across the Army.

"It's actually been awesome to be back, in the sense of seeing people and to get closure on our four-year experience here," Powless said in the release. "I think if West Point had said, 'Alright, we're going to ship your stuff to you. Now go have a nice Army career,' that would have been a really interesting way to enter the Army, and I don't think we would have gotten the closure on this crazy four-year experience that we would have liked to have."

Miller will begin her career at the field artillery Basic Officer Leaders Course (BOLC) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, at the end of July. Powless will report to engineer BOLC at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in mid-August, according to the release.

For health protection reasons, Saturday's ceremony will take place on the Plain at West Point instead of Michie Stadium and will be closed to families and other guests, the release adds.

But Viljac, who is heading to aviation BOLC at Fort Rucker, Alabama, said he is thankful West Point is holding the graduation ceremony.

"I know a lot of other schools didn't do it, but I think it's a good opportunity to really just tie the knot on West Point and move on," he said. "I think it's a very good thing. It will give everyone some closure. I'll enjoy sharing the experience with everyone, regardless of how we do it."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Related: Army Defends Decision to Have West Point Graduation
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Weeks after counties and companies took it upon themselves to test senior care home residents and staff for the coronavirus, Gov. Kate Brown has promised to test everyone in every large care home in the state.

From the beginning of this pandemic, it has been one of my top priorities to protect the residents and staff of long-term care facilities, Brown said in Tuesday evening statement announcing the testing plan.

Brown has tasked the two chief state agencies overseeing the coronavirus response in senior care homes to devise a concrete plan to test all 60,000 workers and residents in nursing and assisted living homes.

The broad testing will be key to figuring out how to reopen long-term care facilities to visitors, the governors office said.

The plan, which Browns office said will be released later this week, does not include adult foster homes -- smaller settings that house no more than five residents for a total of about 5,300 in the state, along with about 2,750 workers.

Unlicensed homes for elderly people also are not part of the plan. They account for eight of the states 90 senior care home deaths, a newsroom analysis of Oregon Health Authority data shows.

Browns announcement brings Oregon into the company of many other states that have previously ordered or started planning for broad testing, including Washington, California, New Jersey and New York. The federal government has said that broad and regular testing is key to reopening nursing homes as the rest of society eases back into normalcy.

While short on specifics, the states current proposal is to prioritize testing at nursing homes with medically fragile people, including those that serve people with dementia.

Nursing homes generally are intended for people with greater medical needs, face stricter regulations and must employ certified caregivers. The facilities account for about seven in 10 deaths associated with large licensed care homes, a newsroom analysis shows.

The states testing strategy will focus on facilities in cities and counties where most of the outbreaks have occurred, the governors office said: those in the tri-county Portland metro area as well as Yamhill, Marion and Polk counties.

Long-term care ombudsman Fred Steele, who has advocated for broad testing in senior care homes, said Browns plan is a welcome decision and, in combination with plans to prevent further spread of the virus, a very positive development for Oregonians" in large senior care homes.

Some senior care home companies and counties had already taken the initiative to offer tests to all staff and residents in their facilities, including Yamhill and Linn counties as well as the senior care home company Avamere Family of Companies.

Oregons coronavirus epidemic in senior care homes started around mid-March with infections at the state veterans home in Lebanon and blew up around mid-April, when The Oregonian/OregonLive reported that 10 residents from the Southeast Portland nursing home Healthcare at Foster Creek had died. Another 20 people connected to that home have since died.

The scope of Oregons senior care home outbreaks has since subsided, with currently 16 nursing and assisted living homes reporting one or more coronavirus cases, according to a state Department of Human Services list published Tuesday. The list of nursing and assisted living homes with outbreaks  meaning more than two cases or at least one death  peaked at 27 facilities.

But new outbreaks continue to appear, with at least 31 of 38 residents at a Canby rehabilitation center diagnosed with the disease as of Monday.

The plan to work through all the large long-term care facilities does come with a hitch: the federal governments ability to send Oregon the necessary supplies.

Citing federal guidelines recommending that all nursing home residents and workers get at least one test, Brown on Tuesday asked federal health officials for deliveries of test swabs and the substance used to transport test samples.

In her letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Brown wrote that while Oregon has a plan to test all residents and workers in long-term care, the state is hampered by its uneven and limited supply of the materials.

Actions speak louder than words," Brown said in her Tuesday announcement. Its far past time for the federal government to step up and send Oregon the testing supplies we need.

-- Fedor Zarkhin

fzarkhin@oregonian.com

desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin
In a major relief to Amrapali homebuyers, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed banks to release balance amount of sanctioned loans to them, even those which have been declared Non-Performing Assets or NPA.

The bench of Justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit passed the order keeping in view the current situation where the housing projects have come to a standstill due to lack of funds. The bench has kept the next hearing of the case on Wednesday, June 17, for passing further directions with regard to additional suggestions received from court appointed receiver and senior advocate R Venkatramani who is helping with the execution of projects.

After the court order, the banks need to restructure the loans.

At the last hearing on June 3, SBICAP Ventures, which manages the government sponsored stress fund for the real estate sector, had told the Supreme Court that it was ready to fund the stalled projects of embattled real estate firm.

The SBICAP Ventures told the top court that it would create a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with court receiver on board and would appoint a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to take over the construction of seven stalled projects.

Currently, the construction of stalled projects of Amrapali is being handled by National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC).

In December last year, the top court had asked the Centre to inform it as to how much time it will take to decide on application for financing Amrapalis stalled projects from the newly launched Rs 25,000 crore stress fund for the real estate sector.

The Centre has submitted that the State Bank of India has been appointed as a fund manager and it will disburse the amount based on certain norms after an application is made by a real estate entity.

The apex court in its July 23, last year verdict had cracked its whip on errant builders for breaching the trust reposed by home buyers and ordered cancellation of the registration of the Amrapali Group under real estate law RERA, and ousted it from prime properties in the NCR by nixing the land leases.

It had directed the state-run NBCC to complete the stalled projects of the Amrapali Group, whose directors Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar are behind bars on the top courts order.

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New Delhi:

At least 25 people, including five children, were killed and 30 others injured when a suicide bomber shouting Allahu Akbar blew himself up inside a mosque packed with worshippers for Friday prayers in Mohmand Agency in Pakistans restive northwest tribal region.



The attacker blew himself when the prayers were in progress at the mosque in the Anbar tehsil of the agency bordering Afghanistan.



A suicide bomber was in the mosque. He shouted Allahu Akbar and blew himself up, Assistant Political Agent Naveed Akbar told reporters.



He said that Friday prayers were being offered around 2 PM when the powerful blast took place.



At least 25 people, including five children, were killed in the attack and 30 others injured, Pakistani media reported, citing officials.



Many people were gathered inside the mosque when a suicide bomber blew himself up, an eyewitness said.



Rescue teams and police rushed to the spot. The bodies and the injured are being shifted to local hospitals for medical treatment.



Injured were also taken to hospitals in Bajaur Agency, Charsadda and Peshawar for treatment.



There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Pakistani Taliban routinely targets courts, schools and mosques.



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed his grief over the loss of lives in the blast.



The cowardly attacks by terrorists cannot shatter the governments resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country, he said in a statement.



The attack came on a day when Sharif vowed to continue the war against militancy and terrorism till elimination of the last terrorist.



During a meeting with Army chief General Raheel Sharif today, the prime minister expressed the resolve to continue the war against terrorism and militancy.



The army had launched operation Zarb-e-Azb in June 2014 to flush out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas.

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You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers eye. Matthew 7:5

Plainly stated, for it is plain to see, we in America have a plank in our eye with regard to racism. This is a tough but necessary reality to confront, because we cannot address a problem until we acknowledge it. This includes us as members of the Catholic Church.

The senseless and unacceptable circumstances that led to George Floyds killing have confirmed in a graphic way that racism still exists in this country  and we have to confront it with thoughtful and intentional reforms.

Many in our society have been protesting in a show of solidarity with our brothers and sisters of color to push forward reforms to change our society. The vast majority of the protesters have done so peacefully, while insisting  with determination and courage  that our nation change for the better. Unfortunately, the use of violence by a small minority dilutes our focus away from the urgency of the reforms.

In the past, leaders of the church frequently refrained from speaking out when acts of racial violence or other injustices have come to light. No more.

As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) declared in their important and inspiring work Open Wide Our Hearts in November of 2018:

There have been many times when the Church has failed to live as Christ taught  to love our brothers and sisters. Acts of racism have been committed by leaders and members of the Catholic Church  by bishops, clergy, religious, and laity  and her institutions. Consequently, we all need to take responsibility for correcting the injustices of racism and healing the harms it has caused.

For Catholics, this is particularly an issue of faith because of our principles of social justice. The sin of racism is a pro-life issue. All human life is made in the image and likeness of God without regard to race, national origin, culture or religion.

Since 2018, the USCCB has been conducting listening sessions; providing resources about racism to dioceses and parishes to begin important conversations about this evil. We too in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston have been engaged. For more than a year, our Archdiocesan Pastoral Council has been working on goals and objectives, which essentially include the overcoming of racism.

Like many of you, in these recent days filled with anguish and pain, I have also been moved by the acts of kindness and good from persons of all races and faiths  who have responded to this fundamental, genuine tragedy with the best in the human spirit. I think especially of the grace demonstrated by the Floyd family, insisting that their loved ones killing inspire positive change.

Jesus, our Lord and Savior, calls us to reform and invites us to a new life. To love your neighbor as yourself is part of the great commandment that Jesus proclaimed. To forget self and serve others is part of our creed.

We must remember whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever views or holds themselves as superior to others has substituted their judgment for that of the Lord. That is a sin against God and humanity. And it must end.

But we need more than words. We need action.

Quoting again from Open Wide Our Hearts:

The Christian community should draw from this central, ongoing encounter with Christ and seek to combat racism with love, recalling the insight of Pope Francis that if we have received the love which restores meaning to our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others?With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this wellspring of strength and courage must move us to act. Consequently, we all need to take responsibility for correcting the injustices of racism and healing the harms it has caused.

Floyd, like Eric Garner before him, died after pleading, I cant breathe. We can only breathe again rightly with the help of the Holy Spirit, if we make it our constant work to eliminate the sin of racism in our society.

DiNardo is the metropolitan archbishop of Galveston-Houston.
The father of Stephen Lawrence has said black people are still treated as second-class citizens not only in this country but all over the world.

Neville Lawrence said he believed British police remained institutionally racist despite promising reform following a 1999 inquiry into failures in the investigation into his sons murder six years prior.

Its not been done, I dont know when it will be done  we should not be talking about it 21 years later, he told The Guardian. They have fallen way, way short. Twenty-one years short.

The first police investigation into 18-year-old Stephens killing was hampered by prejudice, incompetence and alleged corruption, and the subsequent inquiry concluded the Metropolitan Police was guilty of institutional racism.

Commissioner Cressida Dick last year declared this was no longer the case and insisted her force was an utterly different Metropolitan Police.

But Mr Lawrence told The Guardian: I totally disagree with her. Citing the disproportionate use of stop and search tactics on black people, he added: Yes, the police are institutionally racist.

Mr Lawrences comments came as the Mets assistant commissioner urged his fellow officers to stand up to racists, to inequality and injustice.

In an open letter to his UK colleagues, Neil Basu wrote: Despite how far we have come we must confront the fact that with many of our communities  especially the black community  we still have a long way to go.
Bold Checkout Bold Commerce is committed to extending the functionality of the WooCommerce platform to help retailers build the digital experiences their customers demand, especially during this rapidly changing time in ecommerce.

Bold Commerce, a leading provider of modular ecommerce solutions, today announced the private beta launch of Bold Checkout for WooCommerce at the WP Engine Virtual Summit 2020 (#WPESummit). In partnership with Crowd Favorite, a leading digital solutions provider, the private beta is an invite-only program designed for high growth retailers that require a highly performant and customizable checkout experience.

Bold Commerce is committed to extending the functionality of the WooCommerce platform to help retailers build the digital experiences their customers demand, especially during this rapidly changing time in ecommerce. We are thrilled to launch Bold Checkout with Crowd Favorite  an agency committed to delivering innovative and versatile digital experiences. Together, we will boost performance and deliver unmatched flexibility for high-growth retailers, said Mike Sanchez, Chief Revenue Officer, Bold Commerce.

Crowd Favorite brings their many decades of experience to the table to support the Bold Checkout beta. Their team of talented engineers and developers will work side by side with our team to deliver a high-quality, solution oriented, beta.

We are excited to work with Bold around bringing our experience in high quality scaling, and advanced enterprise features into woo checkout experience, noted Karim Marucchi, CEO, Crowd Favorite. Our client experience is a priority and we chose our technology partnerships with that in mind. We are always looking to drive technology forward and Bold is at the forefront of eCommerce today.

The private beta minimizes risk, cost, and technical complexity by using Bolds modular checkout framework and robust APIs, while improving performance through Bolds back-end infrastructure. Further, beta users will have access to Bolds pre-built integrations, ideal for scaling quickly: including payment gateways, tax, fraud, shipping, and marketing plug-ins

Retailers interested in participating in the private beta can apply at BoldCommerce.com/checkout-beta.

About Bold Commerce

Bold Commerce offers customizable commerce solutions for retailers of all sizes. With over 90,000 customers worldwide and 2,000 agency and technology partners, Bold is committed to continuous innovation and world-class customer service to lead the way in modular commerce. Bold is headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with an office in Austin, Texas.

About Crowd Favorite

Founded in 2007 by Alex King, one of the first contributors to the original WordPress release, Crowd Favorite was the first digital agency focused primarily on the WordPress platform. Over a decade later, Crowd Favorite is a client services firm specializing in enterprise-grade digital strategy and elite Open Source development, empowering organizations to achieve their fullest potential. Through years of experience working on complex digital problems, Crowd Favorite has set the bar for world-class web engineering, systems integration, and heavily customized content management, and continues today by focusing on the future of technology with Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) for the enterprise. For more information visit CrowdFavorite.com.
Drew Kamp will be the next president and CEO of the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce.

Kamp, 32, is an Omaha native wholl come to Council Bluffs from the Ames Chamber of Commerce, where hes currently vice president.

Familiar with Council Bluffs through Omaha-area ties, Kamp said that familiarity also includes work between the Ames and Council Bluffs chambers during his time in north-central Iowa.

I know theres so much opportunity and potential in the Council Bluffs community, Kamp said.

Kamp will replace interim president and CEO Tom Hanafan.

Kamp was promoted to vice president in Ames in January and his role there has included work on rural community and economic development, business retention and expansion, and public policy.

Thats my passion, Kamp said of public policy, an area the Council Bluffs chamber has increased focus on in recent years.

Kamp studied political science with a focus on public policy at Creighton University in Omaha and received a Masters of Public Administration  with a focus on local government  from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He worked for Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson before moving to Ames to join the chamber and take on a contracted role as the director of Story County community outreach in 2013. Hes served as director of public policy for the chamber since April of 2014 and was named director of business retention and expansion in March of 2017.

Additionally, Kamp has served as the executive director of Ames Main Street and worked on business development for the City of Ames, both also contracted jobs. He noted Ames Main Street is among the roles hes had that involved fundraising. He also raised funds for the Miracle Field and All-Inclusive Playground in Ames, which offers recreation amenities to residents of all abilities.

Anytime youre in a position like this, he said of becoming president and CEO in Council Bluffs, you need to be able to fund-raise.

And while he has a passion for public policy, Kamp was energetic in discussing every role hes played with the Ames chamber  and what thatll mean in his new position in Council Bluffs.

I like to call myself a Swiss Army tool. I try to do a little bit of everything, Kamp said. I want to bring that to Council Bluffs. Im able to adapt, to do a lot of different roles. Ive done them in the past and plan to in the future.

Kamp said he plans to hit the ground running when he takes over the Council Bluffs chamber on Aug. 1. He said getting to know staff, businesses that are chamber members and the various public and private partners in the city at the top of his to-do list.

Touching on the existing industry focus of the job, he noted anywhere from 70-85% of a citys growth comes in that sector.

The significant majority of your growth is found there, he said. How you get those opportunities is through your retention visits.

Meeting with company decision-makers, building a rapport, finding out what their needs and wants are help build those relationships, he said.

Thats how you get those people to want to be on your board. Help them see the value the chamber offers, he said. Help them address any issues they have.

Kamp said in working with both private and public partners in the city the goal will be to make sure were pulling in the same direction moving the community forward.

Drew brings a valuable and varied skillset to our chamber along with the energy needed to take our organization to the next level, Judd Knipsel, Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors president and local State Farm agent, said in announcing the hire. Drew stood out from a strong list of candidates because of his strong background in public policy, workforce, and economic development. We are excited to welcome him to Council Bluffs.

Kamp is a Creighton Prep High School grad and will be moving to Council Bluffs with his wife, Sunni, and their 10-week-old son Liam. He said his parents, brother and sister-in-law and their three children live in Omaha. Another brother is currently teaching English in South Korea.
New Delhi: As many as 22 private hospitals in the national capital have been ordered to increase the number of dedicated COVID-19 beds by more than 20 per cent, from 1,441 to 3,456.

In an official order issued by Vikram Dev Dutt Principal Secretary, Health on Tuesday (June 9, 2020), the hospitals have been directed to admit COVID-19 patients as per "revised allocation of beds" and to "update on Delhi corona app immediately".

The hospitals include Apollo, Fortis, Max, Holy Family, Batra, Mata Chanan Devi and BLK.

The Delhi government informed Lt. Governor Anil Baijal that currently, there were 8,821 hospital beds, 582 ICU beds, 468 ventilators beds in COVID-19 hospitals.

Also, atleast 500 additional beds in government hospitals too have been also reserved for COVID-19 patients.

Baijal observed that if the surge in COVID-19 cases continues unabated then the national capital will require atleast 80,000 beds by the end of July. The L-G assured that as the chairperson of Delhi Disaster Management Authority, he has been periodically reviewing Delhi's plans to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Baijal said that he was forced to strike down the order of the Arvind Kejriwal government, reserving hospitals in the national capital for city residents, as it violated constitutional right to equality and right to life which includes right to health.
Last week, an oil spill occurred in Norilsk City, Siberia at the Arctic Circle due to melting permafrost, which endangers Russia's gas and oil network and worsens climate change. A storage tank containing diesel oil amounting to 21,000 liters collapsed, spilling 6,000 tons on the ground and spilling 15,000 tons on a river and other bodies of water. The red-dye oil processed for use in heating houses and other structures caused a large part of Ambarnaya River to run red.

Majority of the oil network in Russia had been built on hard permafrost. Unfortunately, it is now rapidly melting during the last ten years, which threatens to collapse the network. Due to the melting permafrost foundation, production of the gas and oil facilities declined from 2-20% since the '90s. It has also endangered the current facilities and development plans being constructed intended to supply China with gas and oil.

According to the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company, the spill occurred because the supporting posts of the storage tank basement suddenly sank. Permafrost is composed of frozen soil, gravel, and sand. It is a layer made of mostly ice, which maintains its structure and serves to trap carbon dioxide and methane.

The two major kinds of permafrost are contiguous & discontiguous permafrost. The former has been frozen for millennia and even millions of years; meanwhile, the latter is classified into two categories, the scattered and seasonal permafrost. The former is constantly in a mountain's shadow, while the latter typically melts during summer.

READ: Protected Areas All Over the World Vulnerable to Invasive Alien Species

So far, the cleanup of the spill already cost 1.5 billion dollars and counting. The contiguous or year-round permafrost has been found to melt for the first time. The foundation, which used to be as reliable as concrete, is now slowly warming and melting.

During the past century, the permafrost of the planet warmed by 6 C. If before, the top permafrost layer that melted during summer would freeze again during winter, the situation is now different. The layer that melted during summer does not freeze anymore during winter, so that when summer again comes, an additional lower layer melts, since the layer above it did not freeze during the past winter.

Majority of the gas and oil fields in Russia are under permafrost, while majority of their pipelines run over it. The pipelines slated for construction intended for the Chinese market are the most vulnerable.

This is the first oil spill of this kind. No tanker ship leaked it, nor did any pressure cause an oil head explosion. Instead, the building's foundation literally melted away. All infrastructures constructed on permafrost now have this risk. Permafrost is now rapidly melting, reaching a level of melting that scientists did not expect to happen for at least another 30 to 80 years.

Furthermore, the melting permafrost layer releases greenhouse gases, exacerbating global warming and climate change and melting even more permafrost layers, which releases even more gas, on and on in a dangerous positive feedback cycle. Unfortunately, the permafrost threat is currently poorly understood, and is more difficult to access and study.

READ: Mangroves May Disappear Beneath Rising Sea Levels by 2050
For several weeks, our weekly things to do list has been an all virtual one due to social distancing to help slow down the coronavirus pandemic. As we look ahead to phase three beginning of reopening the economy and organizations have figured out how to offer creative new experiences, our event list is now a mix of outdoor activities and virtual happenings.

If you know of a virtual or outdoor event happening, let us know at features@syracuse.com.

Abbott Farms Strawberry Festival

Saturday starts of early with the annual Shortcake 4K at 8:30 a.m. and the festival will extend through Saturday to Sunday. Find strawberry ice cream, shortcake, baked goods, slushies, and more. Pre-Registration is required for entrance to several areas of the festival and all guests will be required to reserve timed tickets for each member of their party. Registration is not required for The Market or U-Pick strawberries. More details on safety requirements can be found in the Facebook event.

Where: Abbott Farms, 3275 Cold Springs Rd., Baldwinsville, NY 13027

When: June 13-14 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Shortcake 4k at 8:30 a.m. on June 13

How much: $5 per family for festival which can be applied to a purchase at farm

Baldwinsville Haiku Contest

Baldwinsville Center for the Arts is sponsoring its first ever haiku contest. Traditional and non-traditional haiku will be accepted on the theme of summer. Individuals of all ages and locations may submit up to 3 entries. All entries will be reviewed and judged by members of the BCA board, as well as the community on baldwinsville.org Winning poems will be seen on colorful lawn signs along Baldwinsville streets.

Where: baldwinsvillearts.org

When: Entries can be submitted from now through June 20

How much: Free to enter. First place award will be a $100 Gift Basket including local gift certificates. Second prize will be a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant.

Taste of Syracuse

While the weekend of social media activities on Taste of Syracuses social media accounts has ended, participating restaurants are still offering Taste of Syracuse takeout specials throughout the weekend.

Where: See full list of participating restaurants

When: June 5-11 for Taste takeout specials

Runners start the CNY Gay 5k at Long Branch Park, Geddes, NY, Saturday June 15, 2019. Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.com Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.comScott Schild | sschild@syracuse.com

CNY Gay Virtual 5K

The CNY Gay 5K is a community-run, family-friendly event designed to celebrate our Central New York community and raise funds for local LGBT non-profits. Run, walk, skip, dance or sashay this virtual 5k in a location you choose on a date you choose.

Where: cnygay5k.org

When: Complete any time between June 13-30

How much: $20

Food Truck Drive Thru

Members of the Syracuse Food Truck Association will be in the New York State Fairgrounds Gray Lot offering delicious local foods. This weekend you will find Toss & Fire Wood-Fired Pizza, Saritas Food Truck, Byblos Street Grill, Cue Dogs and Ma & Pas Quarantine Concessions.

Where: Gray Lot, Gate 7 at the NYS Fairgrounds

When: June 13 from noon-8 p.m.

How much: Free to attend

Carrie Manolakos: Unplugged and Online

CNY native, actor and songstress Carrie Manolakos will perform an informal concert featuring some of her favorite songs with accompaniment on piano.

Where: carriemanolakos.com

When: June 11 from 8-9 p.m.

How much: $10, tickets available on Eventbrite

The Wild Drive Thru Safari

The Wild Animal Park has opened a new attraction on their adjacent farm. The safari drive is a little over a mile long featuring a variety of animals. Some of which you can feed from the car.

Where: 7621 Lakeport Rd, Chittenango, NY 13037

When: Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m.- 6 p.m.

How much: $12 for adults, $10 for kids, and 2 and under are free, season passes and any pre-purchased day passes can be used at this time

Summer Solstice: An Evening of Gratitude

Symphorias in-person gala fundraiser has been converted into a virtual event. Hosted by Music Director Lawrence Loh and Executive Director Pam Murchison, with special appearances by Principal Pops Conductor Sean OLoughlin and Symphoria Board President Mary Ann Tyszko, you will be treated to multiple chamber music performances by Symphoria musicians.

Where: experiencesymphoria.org

When: June 11 at 6:30 p.m.

How much: $25-$100

Heritage Hill Brewhouse Drive-In

Heritage Hill Brewhouse is hosting a sunset drive-in experience with live music along with food and drink from The Brewhouse. The next event will feature music from Slow Train. All interested participants are encouraged to review the details and rules posted within each Facebook event.

Where: 3149 Sweet Road Pompey, NY 13138

When: 6:30 p.m. on June 12

How much: $5

Together for Stage: an evening of gratitude and hope

Syracuse Stages gala is a virtual event this year. Together for Stage honors outgoing Syracuse Stage Board of Trustees President Bea Gonzalez and features exclusive video of beloved artists who have walked the boards at Syracuse Stage. The event also includes a online silent auction and includes a wide variety of unique items and priceless experiences.

Where: www.syracusestage.org/togetherforstage.php

When: June 12

How much: $125-$350

ONE New York Virtual 500k and 1000k

Travel the length of New York state virtually and compete with the nationwide leaderboard and earn custom OneNY SWAG like hoodies, gaiters and medals. Interested participants can register for $60 at onenychallenge.com.

Where: onenychallenge.com

When: Now until Aug. 31

How much: $60

Mario & The Dancing Princesses

Hangar Theatre Company will be presenting several virtual plays and musical performances for children as part of their KIDDSTUFF programming. They include Mario & The Dancing Princesses on June 13, The Emperors New Clothes on June 20, The Magic Paintbrush" on July 18, and The Velveteen Rabbit on July 25. Hangar Theatres seasons have gone virtual with performances for both kids and adults.

Where: hangartheatre.org

When: June 13, 20; July 18, 25 at 10:30 a.m.

How much: Free

Virtual Treefrogs and Peepers

Baltimore Woods Nature Center Naturalist Tom Meier takes you on a video excursion to witness the wildest pond party of spring. Special guests include gray treefrogs, spring peepers, green frogs, bull frogs, American toads and more.

Where: Baltimore Woods website

When: June 6 at noon to June 20 at noon

How much: Free, registration is required

Classic Broadway Cabaret

CNY Playhouse presents a virtual cabaret filled with local performers via their YouTube channel.

Where: CNY Playhouse YouTube

When: June 13 at 3 p.m.

How much: Free, but donations are appreciated at cnyplayhouse.org/donation

Loves Labours Lost

In a Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park first, director Basil Allen brings an adaptation of one of Shakespeares early comedies to the screen  in your own home. Loves Labors Lost tells the story of a king and his three friends who give up the company of women to pursue a scholarly life. Their plans turn hilariously upside-down when they fall in love with a visiting princess and her ladies.

Where: ssitp.ticketleap.com/ssitps-loves-labors-lost/

When: June 12, 13 at 5:30 p.m., June 14 at 2 p.m.

How much: General admission free, a premium ticket for $25 includes $12 worth of food from Beer Belly Deli, a cold bottle of water, a color copy of the playbill and a Gannons Ice Cream token to redeem at your leisure. Food can be for delivery or pickup.

Adaptive Design Goes Live! - 3D Printing Adaptive Devices Demo

Join ARISE Adaptive Designs program coordinator Connor McGough for a live event discussing the benefits of using 3D printing to create uniquely customized and affordable adaptive devices. 3D printing has been one way AAD can still offer adaptive equipment that can make life more accessible and enjoyable.

Where: Arise Adaptive Design Facebook page

When: June 11 at 12:30 p.m.

How much: Free

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I am

WCNY will host a virtual screening and discussion of the new American Masters documentary, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I am." The film examines Morrisons life, the powerful themes that inspired her literary career, and her impact on American culture and society. The virtual screening event will feature guest speaker, Professor Farrah Jasmine Griffin who will host a Q&A with guests after the film.

Where: wcny.org/events

When: June 16 from 4-6:30 p.m.

How much: Free
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 02:43:59|Editor: huaxia

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GENEVA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Rights experts from UN and the Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday issued a joint statement condemning the use of force against journalists covering protests.

The experts, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye and his OAS counterpart Edison Lanza, said in the statement that they have received numerous reports of journalists attacked, harassed, arrested and detained in the course of their work covering protests in the United States.

They highlighted that the protests are taking place against "systemic racism and police brutality in the United States."

"Law enforcement has the duty to ensure the safety of journalists who are covering protests and to guarantee the right of the public to seek and receive information about these social mobilizations," the statement said.

The statement urged the U.S. federal, state and local authorities to afford media workers the highest degree of protection, condemn attacks against journalists and avoid limiting the ability of the press to cover protests. Enditem
(HealthDay)A new synthetic opioid as powerful as fentanyl is causing overdose deaths at an ever-increasing rate, experts warn.

What's worse, the designer drug is legal in most places in the United States.

Isotonitazene commonly referred to as "iso"is causing around 40 to 50 overdose deaths a month in the United States, compared with about six per month last summer, said Dr. Antonio De Filippo, an addiction specialist and medical director at Delphi Behavioral Health Group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"The numbers are going up as it becomes more popular and widespread," De Filippo explained.

Iso is a synthetic version of etonitazene, an opioid first reported in 1957 but not approved for medical use because it is highly addictive and very dangerous.

Iso appears to be slightly more potent than fentanyl, which itself is as much as 100 times more powerful than morphine, according an analysis of the new drug published last year in the journal Drug Testing and Analysis.

"The emergence of this novel synthetic opioid is a major public health concern," said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "The fact that it has similar potency to fentanyl makes it ripe for abuse and misuse, leading to respiratory depression, along with increased risk for death."

Etonitazene is a controlled substance in the United States, but iso remains legal at the national level because its chemical structure differs slightly, said Pat Aussem, director of clinical content and development at the Center on Addiction in New York City.

Ohio issued notice in May that it intends to place isotonitazene on the state's list of Schedule I controlled substances.

"From a purchasing standpoint, a lot of it is being sold online legally by Chinese suppliers offering bulk deals," Aussem said. "The U.S. challenged China to crack down on fentanyl. Chemists there are looking for other ways to fill the demand."

China banned fentanyl and all of its derivatives in April 2019. Within months, Chinese chemists turned to iso and other members of its opioid family, a class of drugs called benzimidazoles.

Iso was first reported in August 2019 based on analysis of seized drugs in Europe and Canada, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy said.

Iso comes in a yellow or off-white powder that can be cut into other drugs, Aussem said. Iso has been detected in the blood of overdose victims in Illinois and Indiana, who took it mixed with cocaine.

The drug also is being pressed into counterfeit pills. Canadian police seized 1,900 pills in March that bore the markings of dilaudid, but proved to be iso in lab tests, Aussem said.

Aussem suspects that iso already is more widespread in the United States than current estimates.

"My suspicion is because it's not on the on the radar of many people doing toxicology reports, the more it becomes on their radar we'll see those numbers increase," Aussem said of iso-related overdose deaths.

Iso is raising concern among experts for a couple of reasons.

First, iso might not trigger the test strips that drug users utilize to test for the presence of fentanyl in other illicit substances, since it's not a widely used opioid, Aussem said.

"Users think they're doing the safe thing by testing the substances they're getting, but it may not show up," Aussem said.

Second, police have indicated that iso will respond to the lifesaving overdose drug naloxone, but that someone might need several doses for it to be effective, Aussem continued.

"A single dose of naloxone may not do the job, so that's another risk factor," Aussem said.

Iso is the latest example of "whack-a-mole" efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, Aussem said, in which chemists come up with new and highly potent synthetic opioids to replace whatever drugs have been outlawed.

"It's always going to be something else," Aussem said. "We can keep trying to go after these different variants of opioids, but at the end of the day we just need a comprehensive strategy."

Such a strategy would include public education and awareness campaigns, drug use screening and early intervention, overdose prevention through the widespread availability of naloxone, and expanded access to drug treatment and mental health programs, the Center on Addiction says.

Explore further One region is being hit hardest by US opioid crisis

More information: The Ohio Board of Pharmacy has more about Journal information: Drug Testing and Analysis The Ohio Board of Pharmacy has more about isotonitazene

Copyright  2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
[June 10, 2020] Vansary to Facilitate Guided Virtual Networking and Brand Connectivity with Customers and Employees

Founded by fintech veteran Liang Zhao, Vansary is a marketing consultancy helping brands grow their network and adapt to a digital economy. Amidst the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the firm is helping brands build virtual events and facilitating guided interactions that foster deeper connections formerly generated in-person. In an effort to support local minority-owned businesses, a special emphasis is placed on helping companies connect with their employees and customers through creative partnerships with local businesses. The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) reported that out of all U.S. B2B exhibitions polled, 34% of 2020 events affected by COVID-19 are postponed to 2021 and 41% of events are postponed to late August through November 2020. Out of the 164 executives polled for the study, 69% of them are experimenting with virtual options.



"In-person meetings and conferences represented an integral part of a company's marketing and sales strategy, now they have to rethink how to stay connected with employees and clients," explained Liang Zhao, CEO of Vansary. "The efficacy and efficiency of virtual meetings will have lasting power given its ease of use and economical price points. We are guiding businesses through a changing marketplace and building bridges where none existed before." Vansary works with companies to find creative ways to keep their network, teams and clients engaged in a virtual setting. Bringing decades of experience to the table, the team produces opportunities for engagement through webinars, guided virtual networking sessions, experiential events and original content along the way. Special emphasis is placed on leveraging local and minority-owned small business vendors for products and services.

On a mission to establish a hub for global entrepreneurs and trailblazers, Vansary's team of marketing specialists emboldens clients to reach new frontiers through authentic messaging, inclusive connectivity, engaging digital, social and podcast content. About Vansary, LLC Vansary is a marketing consultancy helping individuals and businesses adapt to an ever-changing digital marketplace. We grow our clients through business pivots, creative partnerships, branding, media presence and community relations, with an integrative technology approach. Our team's diverse background across sales, marketing, public relations, education and design holds the keys to tailored solutions for our clients. For more information, visit www.vansary.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005392/en/

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BENZIE COUNTY -- The sixth grade science and social studies fair has long been one of the highlights of the spring at Frankfort-Elberta Area Schools.

While students where not able to invite the community to their school to view and learn more about their projects, as had become the tradition in years past, Frankfort's sixth grade students in Sue Hammon and Amy Somero's classrooms nonetheless worked hard to complete their research projects this spring.

"This project, being the culminating sixth grade assignment, was complex, and our students rose to the challenge and did an amazing job," Hammon said. "We are so proud of them."

Hammon said that she and Somero met with students several times a week to discuss the project and other classroom learning. They were also available every day for homework help via Google Meet.

Additionally, Stacy Pasche from the Benzie Shores District Library joined one of these Google Meet sessions in early May to teach students about effective and safe online research strategies. In particular, Pache introduced students to the Michigan Electronic Libary (Mel.org), which was of great help to them for their projects.

"It is a perfect resource for students because the site offers thousands of articles and eBooks at various reading levels," Hammon said. "The students found their own research from home, which is pretty amazing for sixth graders. We connected some of them with professionals from the area, and they were able to do email interviews which was great for them to have that personal contact with someone who is an expert in the field of study."

Hammon added that some organizations, like the Friends of the Point Betsie Lighthouse, even offered up printed materials through the mail or delivery.

"It was so inspiring to see, once again, people from our beautiful community reach out and help our students. It's incredibly important for my students to see that there is a true support system around them, not just in school but also in our county," Hammon said. "This has been a very challenging time for educators and especially our students. We've seen incredible stories of success throughout this online teaching experience."
A senior member of the notorious Hells Angels motorcycle gang was one of four men arrested as part of a major police operation on the New South Wales South Coast, which seized guns, drugs and cash.

Wads of $50 notes, a homemade gun, an air rifle, another unregistered firearm, ammunition, steroids and knuckle dusters were uncovered at suburban homes in Sanctuary Point and Old Erowal Bay on Wednesday.

Men aged 32, 27, and two aged 24, were arrested and taken to Nowra Police Station by heavily-armed officers from the South Coast Police District and State Crime Command's Criminal Groups Squad.

Police are pictured carrying out searches on the New South Wales South Coast targeting 'criminal networks'

A heavily tattooed man is pictured on the footpath in handcuffs as two officers stand by

A man is pictured at the front door of a property as police move in to search the house

The officers were executing nine Firearms Prohibition Orders targeting 'criminal networks' in the Bay and Basin area.

'We are alleging these men have been the perpetrators of a number of violent crimes and incidents in recent months in the Bay and Basin area,' South Coast Police District Crime Manager, Detective Inspector Scott Nelson, said.

The raids allegedly uncovered evidence linked to a number ongoing investigations including a home invasion in Basinview on May 3 which left a man in critical condition.

Police say the 32-year-old Sanctuary Point man is a senior figure within the Hells Angels.

A man is pictured against a tree being placed under arrest by police officers on the New South Wales South Coast

Two men have been placed under arrest by police and are detained on the porch of a property

A man is pictured being arrested by officers during the police operation carried out across Sanctuary Point and Old Erowal Bay

He was later charged with affray, armed with intent to commit indictable offence and possession of a prohibited drug.

The bikie was granted strict conditional bail and will face Nowra Local Court on July 27.

The 27-year-old Old Erowal Bay man was charged with outstanding domestic violence-related offences and refused bail.

He appeared in Wollongong Local Court today.

One of the 24-year-old from Old Erowal Bay was charged with affray, assault and possession of a prohibited drug.

A large sum of money was seized during the targeted police search on the New South Wales South Coast

Prohibited weapons including an unregistered firearm, a homemade gun and an air rifle were found in the raids

Knuckle dusters were seized during the targeted police search on the New South Wales South Coast

Police charged the second 24-year-old, also from Old Erowal Bay, with weapons and driving offences.

Both were granted bail and are set to appear before Nowra Local Court on July 27.

The investigations also led to two other men being stopped in a vehicle on Paradise Beach Road at about 11am.

Both occupants fled the scene but were detained shortly after.

Officers allegedly found ice in the vehicle.

A hand gun was seized during the targeted police search on the New South Wales South Coast

Investigators from the South Coast Police District were assisted by the State Crime Command's Criminal Groups Squad

The two men have been released pending further inquiries.

'We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour in our South Coast community,' Detective Inspector Nelson said.

'We will continue to target those who choose to engage in this kind of criminal activity and rest assured they will face the full brunt of the law.

'I urge anyone who has information about this kind of behaviour to contact South Coast police or Crime Stoppers.'

All items seized during the operation will undergo forensic examination.
Ed Cordes and his wife Gail had just sat down for lunch at 12:30 p.m. at their Steuben County home when they looked out the window and saw it in their backyard.

A young black bear was cleaning out their suet feeder. It then moved on their bird feeder.

Ed Cordes, an avid nature photographer, took a few pictures of the bear through the kitchen window and then got outside on his elevated back porch for a few more, getting about 30 feet away.

It was a young bear and he just looked at me like it was saying, What do you want? And then it just turned and wandered down to the other neighbors yard, he said.

Ed Cordes said he stood on his back porch and got with 30 feet of this black bear dining at his bird feeder. Ed Cordes photo.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation, responding to a query from NYup.com, said the DEC has noted a recent increase in reports of bear conflicts and bears in urban areas in such places as Cheetowaga, Hudson, Hastings on the Hudson and other locations.

So far in Region 5 (the Adirondacks), DEC has had 26 nuisance bear complaints, most of which have been related to bird feeders.

Statewide, no nuisance bears have been dispatched recently by DEC staff.

This isn't altogether unusual.

As bears approach breeding season in June, yearling bears disperse and adult male bears increase their movements in search of mates, according to the DEC. Inevitably some of these bears, particularly the yearlings, end up in places where they'd probably prefer not to be (urban areas) or where people inadvertently set the dinner table for bears by leaving their bird feeders in place and storing garbage outside.

The key to reducing human/bear interactions, DEC said, is for people to remove possible food sources near homes and camps; take down bird feeders, store garbage in a secure building until the morning of collection, dont feed pets outside, clean barbecue grills and ask neighbors to do the same.

The leading cause of bear complaints in New York is bears getting into residential garbage and birdfeeders, DEC said.

Never approach or corner a bear. Theyre large and powerful animals that act and react out of instinct.

In the past, negative human/bear interactions have risen statewide during drought conditions because natural foods are scarce. Although the spring has been a bit on the dry side, the state at this point is not experiencing a drought, DEC said.

The Cordes, who live in a rural area a few miles outside of Corning in Steuben County, have had bear sightings in the past. This time of year, the husband said, they take their bird feeders down each day at 8:30 p.m. and put them out again at 9:30 a.m. the following morning.

Late last month, the city of Corning put out a press release following reports of black bears wandering around in city neighborhoods. According to the Corning Police Department, sightings in the community began early this year, with reports coming in in February and March. In past years, sightings typically began in May, according to weny.com.

A police officer might not always be able to respond to a bear sighting, but residents should still call the Corning Police Department so that we will have accurate data to share with DEC officials," said Corning Police Chief Jeff Spaulding.

Ed Cordes said he's seen black bears in his backyard four times so far this year. Ed Cordes photo.

Cordes and his wife are well aware of the fact that bears have to be treated with respect. They have traveled and photographed several species of bears in different parts of the Western Hemisphere. Pictures of bears and other wildlife can be seen on his website, ecordesphotography.com.

Weve photographed brown bears in Alaska, grizzlies in British Columbia and polar bears in Manatoba, Canada, he said. We know that bears are unpredictable and were very cautious around them.

Cordes said there seems to be more bears around Steuben County recently. This was the fourth sighting of one in his yard this year.

The (most recent episode) took place at 12:30 p.m. with neighbors cutting grass and us just having been out front doing some chores, he said.

Cordes relishes the opportunity to photograph wildlife and in the past has taken pictures of a bobcat in his backyard. He doesnt see the presence of bears as a problem.

Animals are a bonus for us living here. The bears are not out to get you, he said. Theyre out there being themselves. If you treat them with respect we can all live happily ever after.

We and the bear will have to change our behaviors, he added.

MORE:

Update: NYS Parks campgrounds opening June 22, no date yet on DEC sites

DEC: Controversial $44.8 million Rails to Trails project will be finished by 2023

Outdoors oddity: Upstate NY wildlife photographer finds nearly all-white, red-tailed hawk
Latest News Westpac makes first fixed rate move of 2022 New year, same rate action as major lenders continue rate hikes

Inside the property market explosion in regional Australia Regional broker explains just how crazy the property market has been in one NSW town

The second edition of Australia's only virtual event dedicated exclusively to mortgage professionals is set to take place next week.

On 19 June, lenders, aggregators and brokers will once again gather in real-time to network, learn and together tackle the industrys biggest questions.

A keynote panel of top brokers will kick off the event, giving insight into how they have managed to adapt their businesses to find stability and success, even amidst a pandemic.

Following on from the preview provided by panellists Otto Dargan and Vishal Gupta, director of SMS Finance Colin Mason also shared a sneak peak into what he will discuss on the day.

According to Mason, the four key pillars that support a successful business are:

Constant communication  Mason and his team are committed to keeping referral partners informed around key policy changes and lender updates Seasoned stability  each member of the more than 25 strong SMS Finance team has been with the business for at least three years, creating the strong base necessary to consistently meet client expectations Encouraging all enquiries  SMS Finance practices a client for life strategy through inviting customers to reach out with any finance related matters, even if the problem seems too large or too insignificant; if the group cannot help directly, it can point them in the right direction while cultivating the contact and getting an indication of what the client is up to Networking, networking and more networking  the company's staff are constantly attending sessions and meeting potential referral partners, an approach which has been gold for the group over the years

The team and I are constantly thinking of ways to improve our offering to the market, Mason added.

What we do is not rocket science; staying in touch with our referral partners, returning phone calls in a timely manner and over-servicing our clients expectations allows us to deliver a brand that is known in households across the Sunshine Coast and beyond.

To hear more from Mason, Dargan and Gupta, make sure not to miss the second Broker Connect event.

Register for free here.
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- Polin Waterparks has advanced its role as a leading waterpark designer and supplier in Australia with the opening of the Australia's biggest theme park WhiteWater World's

KOCAELI, Turkey, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- WhiteWater World, located on the Gold Coast right next to Dreamworld, continues to release new water rides and slides that are suitable for kids of all ages and those that are kids at heart. Inspired by the big waves and tubes of the Gold Coast surf, the 'fully sick' slides are the Gold Coast's first waterpark attractions to be built in five years, boasting the only tower in Australia with six body slides, each offering unique experiences. Guests can now take the plunge across five unique adrenalin experiences which are guaranteed to make a splash. Not only will the slides be exciting to ride but they'll also provide a unique visual experience as they are decked out with multi-colored natural light effects.

The opening comes at the perfect time as WhiteWater World's multi-million-dollar makeover wraps up with parkwide refurbishments set to be complete shortly. These improvements include freshly painted slides and attractions to restore them to 'as new' condition and other works to make the entire waterpark look brand new. A team of more than 40 local contractors behind the development of Fully 6, including the creator Swimplex-Polin Australia, have been working hard since construction started in July.

Paul Callander, Dreamworld Chief Strategy Officer, said, "It was an exciting time for the theme park, which is excited to be launching the new attraction to the public in time for the summer school holidays."

Murray Booth from Swimplex-Polin Australia added, "It's great to be a part of a new era here at Dreamworld and WhiteWater World.

"As a waterslide supplier, we are not only doing waterslides; rather, we are able to offer a complete guest experience package," says Sohret Pakis, Polin Waterparks Director of Marketing and Communications. "We are in a position to offer more to our clients by integrating different parties, products and technologies to benefit them and delight their customers, the park guests."

As part of a $7-million investment into WhiteWater World, Fully 6 featured six body slides with five unique 'splashtacular' experiences and multi-coloured natural light effects. Work is also currently underway on refurbishing the waterpark's existing slides and attractions, including fresh paint which will restore the slides to 'as new' condition. Polin's attractions fulfill guests' expectations for sure. The newest of these waterslides is the Fully 6, six individual body slides which offer varying thrill levels

More on Polin Waterparks

Polin was founded in Istanbul in 1976 and has since grown into a leading company in the waterparks industry. Today Polin is a world leader in the design, production and installation of water parks and water-play attractions. Polin has completed 3,500 waterpark projects in 108 countries around the world and is the biggest waterslide supplier in Eurasia. Working with a wide variety of clients has helped Polin reach several milestones including installing the first waterparks in many countries and many other award-winning rides at parks with world-renowned reputations.

For more info, visit www.polin.com.tr or

Media contact:

Sohret Pakis

+90-262-656-64-67

sohret.pakis@polin.com.tr

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178859/WhiteWater_World.jpg
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:49:38|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Uganda on Wednesday said it is preparing to take on a looming invasion of desert locusts from neighboring Kenya where they are already causing havoc.

Vincent Ssempijja, minister of agriculture, said that scientists warned that the country would be invaded by billions of the migratory inserts that are hatching in Kenya.

The country, according to the ministry of agriculture, has already faced three waves of the destructive insects' invasion since this year started. The swarms have spread to 26 districts in the country.

Ssempijja, when receiving a donation from China to boost the country's efforts to contain the insects, said the country is already building up its defense line to limit the impact of the locusts.

China is the latest country to boost Uganda's effort in fighting the desert locusts. The Asian country flew in about 20,000 liters of chemicals that would be used for both aerial and ground spraying.

The donation also included an assortment of equipment which includes 500 back pack mist dusters, 500 hand-held ULV sprayers, 2,000 medical coveralls, 2,000 medical protective masks and 2,000 pairs of gloves.

Zheng Zhuqiang, Chinese ambassador to Uganda, who handed over the donation on Wednesday is optimistic that the donations will minimize the impact of the destructive insects.

Russia on June 8 also donated to Uganda 3 million U.S. dollars through the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to boost the desert locust response. The money, according to FAO, will be used to enhance surveillance, impact monitoring, and supporting livelihood activities in the most affected regions.

"Our contribution will be used for the purchase of pesticides, fuel, vehicles and sprayers, as well as for the employment and training of personnel for the pest's elimination," said Alexander Polyakov, Russian ambassador to Uganda.

Antonio Querido, FAO's Country Representative in Uganda, said the contribution will greatly boost ongoing efforts to stop the spread of the locusts and safeguard the livelihoods of farmers and their families.

"The invasion could have severe consequences for agriculture-based livelihoods and also severely threaten food and nutrition security for about 1.3 million people in Karamoja and Teso regions alone," Querido said. Karamoja and Teso are in the north eastern and eastern part of the country respectively.

"FAO recently renewed its commitment to addressing this crisis and will revise the appeal for Uganda to include cash assistance to 10,000 households, supplementary livestock feed for 19,000 households and comprehensive re-engagement farming packages for 22,000 households in order to protect and recover livelihoods," he added.

According to ministry of agriculture, the country's ongoing efforts have started paying off.

Uganda already deployed over 2,000 soldiers and 835 civilian personnel, including agriculture extension officers. Both aerial and ground spraying is ongoing.

The ministry said efforts to control the pests have averted a potential loss worth about 800 million dollars arising from protection of food and cash crops in the affected areas. Enditem
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Linkedin Yunindita Prasidya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 09:38 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd7c3ff 1 Business Indofood,instant-noodle,acquisition,Pinehill,stocks,Indonesia-Stock-Exchange Free

Investors have dumped shares of processed food giant PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur following the companys decision to acquire instant noodle manufacturer Pinehill Company. The move is viewed as detrimental to Indofoods financial condition despite the potential boost to its global market outreach, analysts have said.

Indofood CBPs shares, trading under ICBP on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), have dropped 7.3 percent since the company announced the acquisition plans on May 22, to Rp 8,900 (64 US cents) apiece on Tuesday. Parent company PT Indofood Sukses Makmur saw its shares, trading under INDF, drop 3.44 percent to Rp 6,300 during the same period.

Judging from the share price movement, the impact of the [acquisition] is not very favorable as statements have surfaced that the acquisition is mostly financed by debt. Hence, investors are worried about the companys future finances, Jasa Utama Capital analyst Chris Apriliony told The Jakarta Post by text message on Monday.

On May 22, Indofood CBP signed an agreement worth US$2.99 billion with Pinehill Corpora Limited and Steele Lake, which own 51 percent and 49 percent of the acquired company, respectively. The former will receive $1.53 billion, and the latter, $1.47 billion.

The financing of the acquisition and its fees will be derived primarily from bank loans of around $2.05 billion, according to Indofood CBPs information memorandum published on Monday. Meanwhile, the remaining $950 million will come from other long-term liabilities and cash.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Indofood CBP will be the 100 percent owner of Pinehill Company.

Anugerah Mega Investama director Hans Kwee said the large chunk of debt securities could potentially reduce future dividends.

That is what has led to the negative sentiment, he added.

On the other hand, Mimi Halimin, analyst of Mirae Asset Sekuritas Indonesia, one of Indonesias top brokerage houses, wrote that the potential acquisition of Pinehill Company was short-term pain, long-term gain.

We think that this announcement will draw a negative reaction from investors. We believe that amid these uncertain conditions and the slackening economy, investors will prefer to invest in a company which has a strong balance sheet, Mimi wrote in a report published on May 28.

However, on the operational side of the company, we believe that the acquisition could leverage ICBPs position in the global market, which may potentially boost its volume.

Indofood CBP announced that Pinehill Companys business in the manufacturing and distribution of instant noodles in eight countries in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Europe, was in line with the development and expansion of the companys core business.

Therefore, with the proposed transaction, the company will join an elite group of international food companies and become one of the largest producers of instant noodles in the world with a strong market share globally, the companys public statement reads.

Pinehill Company has 12 instant noodle-manufacturing facilities located in eight countries with a combined population of approximately 550 million people, and has the capacity to produce approximately 10 billion packs of instant noodles per year.

In addition to that, the company has distribution networks in 33 countries with a total population of around 885 million people.

These markets, which cover a total population of more than three times the population of Indonesia, are growing very rapidly, yet currently have a very low average consumption of instant noodles per capita.

Thus, the acquisition of the target group is expected to contribute greatly to the future growth of the company, the company wrote.

Despite the falling share prices, analysts are of the view that the business prospects of the acquisition in the longer term remain attractive.

Hans of Anugerah Mega Investama even noted that the acquisition, which is valued at 23 times price-earnings (PE), was not that expensive and fair value for such a prospective company.

Indofood CBP and its parent companys president director, billionaire Anthoni Salim, own 49 percent of Pinehill Corpora shares, making the acquisition an affiliate transaction, as reported by kontan.co.id.

The acquisition will be finalized after it receives approval from shareholders during an extraordinary shareholders meeting (RUPSLB) that will be held on July 15.
Dr. Maitaria Brings Valuable Coastal and Floodplain Modeling Expertise to the Fenstermaker Firm

Lafayette, LA, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- C. H. Fenstermaker & Associates, L.L.C. is pleased to welcome Scientist Kazungu Maitaria, Ph.D., whose extensive resume of academic and professional achievements spans the globe. Joining the firm as a Subject Matter Expert, Dr. Maitaria brings valuable knowledge and experience to our hydrology and modeling projects. His high level of expertise in the areas of coastal and floodplain modeling enhance Fenstermakers capabilities, better positioning the firm to serve the needs of a growing client base.

Engineering Director Jeanne Arceneaux Hornsby, MS, P.E., C.F.M. offered these words regarding Dr. Maitarias recent contributions, Were excited about the addition of Dr. Kazungu Maitaria to our water resources team. His expertise in hydrology and hydraulics have proven to be instrumental on many of our ongoing projects in South Louisiana. Dr. Maitaria offers a unique skill set in the hydrologic model coupling of inland and coastal systems. His expertise is a vital component of the Louisiana Watershed Initiative modeling project currently underway. We welcome Dr. Maitaria to the Fenstermaker family and look forward to the many great things that he will bring to our team.

Before joining Fenstermaker, Dr. Maitaria was a Scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) at the NOAA/NWS/OWP National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, AL. While in this position, he collaborated with other scientists on the National Water Model Hydraulic Modeling Capacity Building and Integration Project to develop comprehensive integration strategies for coastal hydrodynamic models in the coastal-estuary zone.

From 2012 to 2015, Dr. Maitaria held the position of Senior Civil Design and Planning Engineer and Associate Partner at S. R. Manga and Associates Engineers and Environmental Specialists in Kenya. During this time, he was also a Senior Lecturer and Research Scientist with the Civil Engineering Department at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

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Dr. Maitaria holds a Ph.D. of Hydrology with a minor in Civil Engineering from The University of Arizona and a Master Science in Water Resources Engineering from the Institute of Land and Water Resources, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering a postgraduate degree in Computer Science from The University of Nairobi, Kenya.

During his academic career, Dr. Maitaria was a recipient of the International Fulbright Science and Technology Award for Ph.D. studies and postdoctoral assignments. This prestigious international scholarship is part of the Fulbright Foreign Student Program, which supports doctoral study at leading U.S. institutions in science, technology, engineering or related fields for outstanding foreign students.

Attachment

Kathryn Fenstermaker

Fenstermaker

(337) 704-1528

kathryn@fenstermaker.com


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J. D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, becomes emotional while talking about sexual abuse within the SBC on the second day of the SBC's annual meeting on Wednesday, June 12, 2019, in J. D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, becomes emotional while talking about sexual abuse within the SBC on the second day of the SBC's annual meeting on Wednesday, June 12, 2019, in Birmingham. Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Dwight McKissic speaks during a rally on the first day of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting on Tuesday, June 11, 2019, in Birmingham. Jon Shapley, Staff Photographer Paige Patterson on December 1, 2011. A woman who said she was threatened and humiliated after reporting multiple rapes to Patterson, has filed a lawsuit against the former Southern Baptist Convention president. Paige Patterson on December 1, 2011. A woman who said she was threatened and humiliated after reporting multiple rapes to Patterson, has filed a lawsuit against the former Southern Baptist Convention president. (Joyce Marshall/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/TNS) Joyce Marshall, FILE / TNS In this Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013 photo, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler speaks at the school's convocation ceremony to open another academic year, in Louisville, Ky. (AP In this Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013 photo, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler speaks at the school's convocation ceremony to open another academic year, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Bruce Schreiner) Bruce Schreiner, STF / Associated Press

Its been a busy week for those concerned with racism and diversity in the nations second-largest faith group.

On Tuesday, Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear grabbed national headlines by saying that black lives matter.

Of course black lives matter, our black brothers and sisters were made in the image of God, Greear said in a Facebook Live video. Black lives matter because Jesus died for them. Black lives are a beautiful part of Gods creation, and they make up an essential and beautiful part of his body. We would be poorer as a people without them and other minorities in our midst.

Greear was quick to clarify in the video that he does not support the organization Black Lives Matter and criticized some of its policies.

He elevated the debate even more the next day, saying the denominations annual meeting should no longer feature a gavel that honors John Broadus, a slaveholder who was instrumental to the early faith group.

Then, on Thursday, the Chronicle reported that a black pastor may soon become the first African American to hold one of the SBCs most powerful positions.

Watch highlights of the Rev. Al Sharpton's tribute to George Floyd at the June 9, 2020, funeral service for the former Houston resident whose death in police custoidy prompted protests around the world. Media: Houston Chronicle

The trio of events have surprised many because of the SBCs historic support for slavery and its alignment with conservative politics in more-recent decades.

Its almost surreal to me that it would come off the lips of a president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dwight McKissic, pastor of an African American SBC church in Arlington, said of Greears comments. Its true, its right and it should have been said 50 years ago.

Others are concerned about empty gestures and that the statements  which came amid widespread protests over the death of George Floyd and other black Americans  will not be followed by concrete action.

The SBC has a problem regarding ethnic harmony, and it seems truly split regarding whether it wants to move forward in repentance toward the black community and be an ally, or whether it wants to remain relatively silent and merely produce statements, Kyle J. Howard, a Baptist counselor and theologian who often writes about race issues, said of Greears comments. Personally, I grieve a video like this even has to be made, but based on my experiences within the SBC, I completely understand why it had to be.

Unlike in the Catholic Church, SBC presidents do not have the power to institute sweeping changes across the 47,000-church collective. But while they dont speak for the convention writ large, it matters what they choose  or dont choose  to prioritize while in office.

Greear, for his part, has made diversity and inclusion focal points during his two years as president. Ahead of the denominations annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala., last year, he preached about Christianitys horrible history of racism at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, a congregation linked closely to the civil rights movement.

Days later, he nominated a historic number of African Americans to positions within the SBC. He committed to continuing those efforts in an interview Thursday.

Our convention is one of the most diverse religious bodies in the country but yet sadly, we do not see that reflected in our entities and boards, he told the Chronicle. Leadership of color is a necessity for lasting forward progress.

He also acknowledged that the SBC needs to do much more to make amends for its historic support of racism and inequality.

While we know our conventions horrific beginnings and wrong side during the civil rights movement, most Southern Baptists want to see this changed, he said. Racial reconciliation is inherent in the gospel. The gospel teaches us the equality and fundamental unity of all people.  The gospel teaches us to consider the needs of others as more important than our own and bear each others burdens as our own.

Greears comments follow years of debates and infighting in the SBC over race and, more recently, how or if the faith group should make amends for its historic support for slavery. Those fights bubbled over this year, leading to the formation of a small network of conservative churches opposed to the stances of SBC leaders on things such as critical race theory, among other things.

Over the same period, two prominent SBC figures have faced backlash regarding earlier remarks on race.

Paige Patterson, the former SBC leader who was ousted as president of a Fort Worth seminary for his handling of sex abuses, recently faced criticism over a 2012 letter in which he questioned whether many of the ethnic groups understood theological issues affecting the SBC. Patterson wrote the letter after the election of the SBCs first black president, under whom Patterson feared the SBC could slide a long way back.

Meanwhile the Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the SBCs flagship seminary and one of evangelicalisms most prominent voices, apologized for saying in a 1998 interview that people who were enslaved  including Harriet Tubman  should obey their captors even though the Bible denounces slavery.

Mohler also faced some criticism for recently saying that hed support the re-election of President Donald Trump, whom he had heavily criticized during the 2016 election.

Mohler is also the longtime president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., the seminary where Broadus was a founding faculty member.

In an interview Thursday, Mohler said he understood what Greear was trying to accomplish by changing the name of the SBCs famous Broadus gavel.

He disagreed with the approach, saying that it would be more beneficial to discuss Broadus legacy honestly and in its totality than it would to engage in symbolic acts such as renaming a gavel.

We have to avoid trying to unwrite history and instead tell the story the best we know it and as honestly as we can, he said.

Mohler has grappled with those questions before. In 2018, his seminary produced a report detailing the schools  and by extension, the SBCs  involvement with slavery and racism.

The reports conclusion? The seminary and the SBC must face a reckoning of our own.

What is true of the Convention was and is true of her mother seminary, the report read. We share the same history, serve the same churches, cherish the same gospel, confess the same doctrine, and bear the same burdens.

Some have been critical of Mohler and the seminarys response to the report, saying that more needs to be done to address its findings.

He addressed those concerns on Thursday, saying that he never expected the report to end the conversation about how the seminary could improve.

Were determined to respectfully work through these issues, but honestly, he said. Theyre not conversations Im afraid of, and they are not conversations that any Christian should be afraid of.  We are living at a crucial time in history, but we want to do the right things, in the right way.

robert.downen@chron.com
Kabul, June 10 : At least 16 workers were killed in a coal mine blast at Dara-e-Suf Bala district of Afghanistan's northern Samangan province, police said on Wednesday.

Provincial Police Chief Safiullah told Xinhua: "The tragic incident happened on Tuesday afternoon and so far six bodies have been recovered and operations for the recovery of the remaining 10 have been in continuation." Meanwhile, locals said that more than 30 workers were present during the explosion.

However, Deputy Provincial Governor Sifatullah Samangani blamed illegal digging, lack of safety measures and necessary instruments to the workers for tragic incidents inside the coal mines.

Overlooking safety measures and illegal digging in the past years also claimed the lives of miners, the official said.
A group of Chinese warplanes flew into the Taiwan Strait and briefly approached Taiwan, just hours after a US transport plane passed over the island on Tuesday.

Taiwan scrambled its warplanes to warn off the Peoples Liberation Army fighter jets which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday morning, the islands defence ministry said in a statement.

The military detected multiple numbers of Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets flying southwest into Taiwan briefly this morning, it said, adding the air force immediately scrambled jets to shadow, intercept and disperse them through radio warnings.

The military has full surveillance and control of all activities in the sea and air that surround Taiwan, and the public can rest assured of our capability to uphold security for our national territory.

The incursion came just several hours after a US C-40A transport plane made a rare flight into Taiwan over the southwest coast early in the morning.

The US plane took off from the US airbase in Okinawa, flying over Taiwans Keelung, New Taipei, Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung, Changhua, Chiayi, Tainan and into the Taiwan Strait towards the Bashi Channel, according to AirNav, which provides air traffic control information.

Taiwanese military spokesman Shih Shun-wen confirmed that the US plane had flown across Taiwan. The military has full control of the activities around Taiwan and the present condition is normal, Shih said.

In a separate statement, the ministry said the plane did not land on Taiwan, dismissing some local news media speculations that the US plane was on a special mission.

The fly-bys come at a time when the PLA is stepping up drills aimed at the self-ruled Taiwan. Last Wednesday, Chinas state broadcaster CCTV reported that the PLA 73rd Group Army had conducted live-fire and landing drills, showing amphibious tanks storming beaches in a coordinated attack under rough sea conditions.

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On May 14, the PLA started a two-and-a-half month exercise at Jingtang in the northern province of Hebei, which observers interpreted as a piece of sabre-rattling aimed at Taiwan and the US.

Beijing considers Taiwan a wayward province that must be returned to the mainland fold by force if necessary and has tried in vain to force President Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party to accept the one-China principle.

It has also warned Washington against supplying arms for Taiwan and is infuriated by the firm support for the island from the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Also on Tuesday, Taiwan announced that the islands annual Han Kuang war games would start on July 13.

The drills will involve the three forces and will be held in the sea, air and Taiwan proper as well as its offshore islands for five days and four nights between July 13 and July 17, Major General Lin Wen-huang said in Taipei.

Lin said a live-fire anti-landing drill would be held in Taichung on the west coast of the island on July 16 and would be open to the media.

The annual Wan An air raid drills will take place two days earlier across Taiwan, to test Taiwans combat strength and preparedness against missile strikes.

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Building on an earlier report on per adult off-trade sales, Public Health Scotland today published an analysis showing a decline in population alcohol consumption following the introduction of minimum unit pricing (MUP). The work was done in collaboration with the University of Glasgow.

Public Health Scotland today published data showing a decline in population alcohol consumption following the introduction of Minimum Unit Pricing. Carried out in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, this study shows a net reduction, when compared to England & wales, in per adult sales of alcohol from supermarkets and off-licences of between 4 and 5% in the 12 months following the implementation of MUP.

This work builds on an earlier report which described a fall in per adult off-trade sales in the year following MUP implementation. This new analysis strengthens these findings, by estimating the impact of MUP on off-trade alcohol sales, whilst controlling for underlying trends, seasonal fluctuations in consumption and other potentially important factors.

The analyses compared and controlled for changes in alcohol sales in England and Waleswhere MUP had not been implemented. It also controlled for underlying trends and factors such as household income. As such, it is reasonable to conclude that the reductions in volume of alcohol sold were due to the introduction of MUP.

Jim Lewsey, Professor of Medical Statistics at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, said:

"The methods used in this study allow us to be much more confident that the reduction we have seen in per adult off-trade sales is as a result of the introduction of MUP, rather than some other factor. Incorporating data from England & Wales into our analysis controls for any changes in sales in a neighbouring region where the legislation was not introduced. We've also been able to adjust for other factors, such as household income, sales of alcohol through pubs and clubs and of other drink types.

"This statistical method also allows us to take into consideration any existing trends and seasonal variation in the data, which may have existed independently of MUP, but which could have impacted on off-trade alcohol sales following its introduction. Alongside a range of additional analyses accounting for various other factors, we have demonstrated that the introduction of MUP was associated with a fall in population consumption of off-trade alcohol of between 4 and 5%."

Lucie Giles, Public Health Intelligence Principal at Public Health Scotland, said:

"The greatest relative net reductions were seen in sales of cider and perry, where the greatest increases in average price were also seen. There were smaller relative reductions in sales of spirits and beerbut as they account for a considerable share of the off-trade market, they make an important contribution to the reduction overall. These reductions were partly offset by off-trade sales of wine, fortified wine and ready-to-drink beverages, which this analysis found to have increased in the year post-MUP. Over the same period in England and Wales, per adult alcohol sales increased.

"This analysis of alcohol sales in the off-trade is one of several in our evaluation examining the impact of MUP on population alcohol consumption. A further statistical analysis considering sales in the three years following the implementation of MUP will be published in 2022".

Explore further Minimum pricing policy appears to have cut spending on alcohol in Scotland
Pune: A 33-year-old man was arrested on Monday night after the grandmother of an 11-year-old girl accused him of molesting the minor.

The arrested man has been identified as Somnath alias Sonya Raghuji Kale, 33, a resident of Nanoli, Maval. A complaint in the matter has been lodged by the grandmother of the minor girl.

The incident allegedly occurred on Sunday around 11am in the arrested mans house where he took the minor, and molested her, according to the complaint.

The complainant claims to have caught the man in the act as she walked into the room. She submitted to the police that he ran away as he saw her enter the house. The woman called the childs parents and told them what had happened. The next morning, the family approached the local police and lodged a complaint.

It is a case of molestation. He is in police custody till June 11. The complainant, as well as the accused, come from poor families, said assistant commissioner of police Sanjay Naik Patil of Dehuroad division of Pimpri-Chinchwad police who is investigating the case.

A case under Sections 354(b) (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of Indian Penal Code along with Section 8 and 12 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) Act, 2012, and Sections 3(1)(w)(i), 3(2), 3(v), 3(2)(va) of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was registered at Talegaon Dabhade police station.
Da Silva lost her restaurant job in March. Within weeks, she could no longer afford to feed her children, ages 2 and 5. She was staring at her pantry one afternoon in April, down to her last scoop of beans, when a neighbor rang her doorbell to beg for flour to tide over her own children for one more day.
House Democrats, prompted by demonstrations against racism and police brutality across the country, are renewing a push to expel Confederate statues from the halls of Congress.

As cities and states have started taking down their own Confederate statues after the death of George Floyd in police custody, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, plans to reintroduce legislation on Thursday to do the same on Capitol Hill, removing the roughly 10 statues associated with the Confederacy from the National Statuary Hall Collection.

"Americans in all 50 states and millions of people around the world are marching to protest racism and police violence directed at people of color, and yet across the country, Confederate statues and monuments still pay tribute to white supremacy and slavery in public spaces," Lee said in a statement to ABC News. "It is time to tell the truth about what these statues are: hateful symbols that have no place in our society and certainly should not be enshrined in the U.S. Capitol."

MORE: Statues of Confederate figures, slave owners come down amid protests

States contribute two statues to the Capitol, which are on display around the complex. Statues of Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, the president and vice president of the Confederate States of America, stand in Statuary Hall, just steps away from the Capitol Rotunda and House chamber. A statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, donated by Virginia, stands on the first floor of the building, in the Capitol Crypt.

PHOTO: A statue of Confederate States president Jefferson Davis is seen in Statuary Hall of the Capitol in Washington, DC, Aug 24, 2017. (AFP via Getty Images)

Each state commissions their own statues before sending them to Congress, where a joint House-Senate committee determines where to place them. Under current law, states can either request to replace older statues or vote on a change in their legislatures. Lee's proposal would remove all Confederate statues from the Capitol within 120 days of being signed into law. States would have the opportunity to reclaim the statues or turn them over to the Smithsonian.

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"It's something whose time has obviously has come in the minds of the majority of people in this country, especially in light of what's happening in Minneapolis, Louisville and a bunch of other places," Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., a member of the. caucus and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told ABC News in an interview.

Thompson, who is working with Lee on the issue, suggested that his home state replace statues of Davis and Zachariah George, a Confederate colonel, with monuments of civil rights leaders Fannie Lou Hamer and Medgar Evers.

"Are we going to continue to live in the past and glorify individuals who history was about nullification and racism?" he said. "Or are we going to take a step and listen to the drumbeat of the people who are out here now, saying we want America to represent all people?"

Democrats pushed to remove Confederate statues and images from the Capitol in 2015 and 2017, prompted by the mass shooting in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one woman dead. But those campaigns largely fizzled out in the GOP-led House and Senate, though Republican House leaders did replace a display of state flags with pictures of commemorative quarters, after Thompson and other lawmakers objected to the display of Southern flags that included Confederate imagery.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment on Tuesday. In 2015, the Kentucky Republican called for the removal of a statue of Davis, the Confederate leader, from the Kentucky statehouse, suggesting that a museum would be a "better place" for it.

President Donald Trump previously opposed calls in 2017 to take down Confederate statues and monuments and called the effort "foolish."

Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

...can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

...the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

While it's not clear how quickly the chamber might take action on the statues, House Majority Steny Hoyer signaled Tuesday that he supported their removal -- reaffirming the position of Democratic leaders since the last attempt to do so.

"The effort to remove symbols of oppression, slavery and segregation and hate and bigotry, I think are appropriate," Hoyer, D-Md., told ABC News during a conference call with reporters.

MORE: US Marine Corps issues details on ban of Confederate battle flags

But Floyd's death in police custody and the resulting protests in America and around the world have reenergized efforts to tear down statues and other figures representing the Confederacy, slavery and racism.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, responded to protests with plans to take down a prominent statue of Lee in Richmond, the state capitol. A judge has issued an injunction, preventing the move for now.

PHOTO: A tour guide talks about the Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that is located inside the Capitol, Aug.17, 2017, in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Jacksonville, Florida, has dismantled a Confederate monument in the city center. The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has also dismantled a statue of John Breckenridge Castleman, a Confederate soldier-turned U.S. general and prominent local businessman.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy earlier this week said he would be willing to begin bipartisan discussions over re-naming installations named after Confederate leaders, such at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Following the Marine Corps decision in February, Navy leadership is also readying an order to prohibit the display of the Confederate flag in public spaces and on any aircraft, ships or submarines.

MORE: In a reversal, Army now 'open' to conversation about renaming bases named after Confederate leaders

In Bristol, England, protesters took down a statue of a 17th-century slave trader, dumping it in the city harbor. In Antwerp, Belgium, the city took down a statue of King Leopold II, known for his brutal rule of Belgium's African colonies in the late 19th century, that had been defaced by protesters.

Thompson said he is optimistic about the latest effort and the message it could send to Americans.

"Moving those symbols to the Smithsonian, and not allow them places of honor in the Capitol, would be a seminal moment for this country," he said. "If we don't take this moment in time, and heal our wounds, then I don't think it will ever happen."

ABC News' John Parkinson, Luis Martinez and Elizabeth McLaughlin contributed to this report.

Democrats push to remove Confederate statues from US Capitol after George Floyd's death originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
D-Tech International USA By bringing even more of our product manufacturing to the USA, and to Cape May County specifically, not only will our customers be assured of quality products built in-house by our American employees, D-Tech is able to make a significant investment in the local area

D-Tech International USA has announced its new home, in the heart of Cape May Countys new innovation hub for tech businesses.

Since opening its US headquarters in the area business has been booming for D-Tech, which has enjoyed a 100% expansion since 2016. So, when the company was offered the opportunity to become an economic development partner of Cape May County, they were delighted to accept.

In 2019, developers broke ground on the project labelled by Cape May County Freeholder Will Morey as, the start of a reimagining of Cape May Countys economic future. Fast forward to June 2020 and D-Tech has just completed its move into a 7,000-square-foot purpose-built manufacturing facility.

Made in the USA

This increase in D-Techs manufacturing capacity was one of the driving factors behind the move. D-Tech had already transferred all manufacturing of PCBs from China to Cape May County, and moving to the new facility will enable the company to start manufacturing its holdIT self-service pickup locker solution in the region.

Speaking about the move, Marvin Crisp, Founder and CEO of D-Tech International USA, said: By bringing even more of our product manufacturing to the USA, and to Cape May County specifically, not only will our customers be assured of quality products built in-house by our American employees, D-Tech is able to make a significant investment in the local area, creating new jobs for Cape May County residents, from service positions to manufacturing opportunities."

D-Tech has expanded 100% since 2016, and therefore to meet the increased demand for our products, we will be employing from the local community.

Committed to Cape May County

Beachgoers and birdwatchers alike flock from states near and far to enjoy the golden sandy beaches, warm weather and incredible wildlife Cape May County has to offer. Alongside a tremendous variety of migrating birds, some lucky visitors even manage to glimpse wild dolphins, which are spotted frequently from the shore.

However, while the beautiful region is popular with tourists during the summer months, the decision was made that the county should create more economic opportunities outside of tourism. This goal was stated by Will Morey at the groundbreaking in 2019, We need to find new ways to diversify and create jobs that attract top talent, which will enable our young folks to find great opportunities within the county.

Today, the first step on that journey is complete as the project has its first residents. D-Tech is joined at the Cape May Tech Village by Cellular Tracking Technologies, a leader in wildlife telemetry and IoT solutions.

About D-Tech

D-Tech has been delivering high performance technology solutions for public spaces for almost 20 years. Having built its initial success in the library sector, D-Tech has continually seen an increase in cross-sector demand for its range of technologies, which include self-service solutions, privacy-protecting people counting and now even app technology.

To find out more about D-Tech USAs range of products and services, contact us today on (609) 435-5846 or visit d-techinternational.com/us
One of the nation's top medical advisers on the U.S. response to the novel coronavirus pandemic said seeing troops test positive for COVID-19 after responding to protests is a likely sign more cases will emerge.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that news of National Guard members in Washington, D.C., getting infected with the illness caused by the coronavirus while activated to respond to massive protests in the city in recent weeks is "disturbing, but is not surprising."

Read next: Hundreds of Sailors Participated in a COVID-19 Antibodies Study. Here's What Was Learned

An undisclosed number of the roughly 1,200 D.C. Guard members sent to respond to the sometimes-violent protests now have COVID-19, McClatchy reported Tuesday. Two members of the Nebraska National Guard, who assisted police in their state capital, have also tested positive for the illness, the Lincoln Journal Star reported.

Fauci said he expects to see more infections as people continue gathering for large protests across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in Minneapolis last month after a police officer was seen pressing his knee into Floyd's neck for several minutes. There were more than 10,000 protesters in Washington, D.C., on Saturday before National Guard members responding in that city began to leave.

"That's taking a risk," Fauci said of the crowd sizes on "Good Morning America," "and unfortunately what we're seeing now is just an example of the kinds of things we were concerned about."

Fauci this week called the coronavirus pandemic his "worst nightmare" when speaking during the Biotechnology Innovation Organization's international convention. In a period of just four months, he added, the disease has devastated the world.

"It just took over the planet," he said in a video address to the conference. "And it isn't over yet."

Fauci stressed that people must continue wearing masks, keeping their distance from others, and washing their hands as often as they can. The pandemic has infected more than 7 million people globally and killed about 112,000 Americans.

Navy leaders said Tuesday that a study conducted in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed face coverings and social distancing proved to help lower infection rates on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. There were more than 1,200 COVID-19 cases on that ship.

Photos of National Guard members' response to the recent protests showed not all personnel have been wearing face coverings. Their duties in some cases also left them in close contact with protesters.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: DC Guard Members Test Positive for COVID After Protests
Randolph Public School District, located in a working-class area in the Greater Boston, Massachusetts region, has sent reduction in force (RIF) or nonrenewal notices to all of their arts, music, and physical education (PE) teachers, along with five social workers and six K-8 guidance counselors. These cuts, overseen by Superintendent Thea Stovell, have provoked a mass outcry. A petition to save the threatened programs has quickly amassed over 35,000 signatures, reaching its goal in only a week.

A petition signer wrote, This decision will have long term ramifications for the school, the culture of the community, and the quality of education will diminish greatly. By cutting these programs you are massively and irreparably destroying your students life experiences and learning opportunities.

A student who signed the petition wrote, I want my art teacher back because I want to learn about art and how it could help me in the future. I also want to learn how to draw better and paint more creations, I always wanted to become an artist in the future.

Empty classroom (credit: Flickr)

The petition, addressed to Massachusetts State Senator Walter Timilty, describes the poor social conditions facing the town: Randolph is a low-income district where funding has always been an issue, but the pandemic has made this far worse and allowed for the district to justify these extreme losses. The students of Randolph deserve a quality and well-rounded education, which would be impossible to give them without these essential parts of the curriculum The Legislature is exploring a 10% or 20% local aid reduction for FY 21, which would be a drastic cut for Randolph.

State budgets across the US are facing massive cuts due to the economic crisis produced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the totally inadequate financial assistance given to states by the federal government, which stands in sharp contrast to the skyrocketing of the stock market back to its pre-pandemic heights.

Learning of the situation in Randolph through social media, on May 30 the World Socialist Web Site broke the news to the public on the firing of all arts, PE and music teachers. This article, which interviewed a laid-off art teacher in the district, has now been read nearly half a million times, and has been shared tens of thousands of times on Facebook, with thousands of readers in nearly every state.

The devastating cuts are not just limited to Massachusetts, but are happening across the US and internationally. Many comments on social media in response to our viral article point to the various ways school districts are cutting back education spending, with one stating, my district is trying for pay freeze for all. Another comment says, special teachers are turned into aides if they keep their jobs.

The teacher interviewed in the May 30 article said the following about the article going viral: I love the outpouring of support for our students and staff. I am humbled by everyone who has shared their testimonials of how we as departments and teachers have impacted our students while they were in school and beyond. I am hopeful our cries for help for our students will reach beyond the walls of Randolph, to the state and federal level, so that Randolph isnt forever in this cycle of building up programs, making progress with really supporting our students only to have it knocked out from under us every 10-20 years."

Attempts have been made to delegitimize the widely shared WSWS article, with School Committee Chairman Andrea Nixon describing the situation as not as bleak as social media would lead you to believe, shortly before the news of the cuts was officially confirmed. Stovell bemoaned that misinformation has created anxiety for students, staff, and the community and has exacerbated an already difficult situation, as if it were not the cuts themselves causing the uproar.

Only 30 minutes away, the Public Schools of Brookline face a similar situation, with over half of their entire educator workforce being recently handed pink slips. On June 3, it was announced that the number of teachers receiving pink slips had increased from 300 to 362 (out of a total of 645 teachers in the district), while up to 300 paraprofessionals would also be receiving pink slips. In Brookline and Randolph, massive cuts predominantly impacted the arts, music, and PE, and official statements totally contradicted the actual pink slips given, which were only later officially confirmed.

The WSWS spoke with a Brookline paraprofessional, who wished to remain anonymous because job cuts for paraprofessionals have not yet been distributed in the district. The paraprofessional stated, From what Ive heard, at my school theyve completely gotten rid of all our PE teachers. Our music teacher is gone, our art teacher is still there, but theyve gotten rid of so many other teachers. They initially said they wouldnt completely get rid of entire departments, but they did.

Speaking to the impact on the cuts to their specific role, our interviewee explained, Im a 1:1 para, Im assigned to one particular student with special needs. Whats going to happen to these kids who have 1:1 paras, or those with literacy aides? The kids with special needs will suffer the most. They wont understand why this is happening, and without anyone there to guide them theyll regress. What we taught them will slowly disappear if theyre automatically thrown back into the general education class.

The paraprofessional noted that the resources exist to give all students the support they need to thrive, but only a select few people in America have tremendous wealth, and the bottom 99 percent is fighting for survival while theyre sitting on more wealth than any of us could fathom in our lifetime.

I think its absolutely disgusting that theyve given so much money to these big corporations, yet the kids who are going to grow up and go into the world, theyre giving them nothing. We have to teach these kids on a shoestring budget, its one of the worst things I can think of. If you dont have educated people you cant change the future. I think its intentional, they dont want kids to change the world.

Speaking on the crisis in Randolph, the paraeducator stated, Its appalling what theyre doing at Randolph. The kids do need the arts, that interaction, that creative outlet. Otherwise it will feel like you wont have any creativity. In our union, I suggested reaching out to Randolph Public Schools. We support other districts that are going through the same thing and are more than willing to reach out and lend a hand if needed.

With public education facing unprecedented budget cuts, educators must join the developing global protest movement en masse, incorporating their demands into this broad-based, multiracial movement of the working class and youth. The WSWS Educators Newsletter fights to unify teachers, paraprofessionals, office staff, custodians, librarians, and all educators in a broad movement to defend public education. We urge you to sign up for our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, and contact us today to begin organizing the opposition to budget cuts at your school and across the US.
Law Offices of Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP For more information about the class action lawsuit against Torrance Health Association, Inc., or if you would like to know if you qualify to make a claim, please contact attorney Nicholas J. De Blouw today by calling (800) 568-8020.

The Los Angeles labor law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP filed a class action lawsuit against Torrance Health Association, Inc., alleging the company failed to pay accurate wages, failed to provide required meal and rest breaks, and was, among other things, in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Torrance Health Association, Inc. lawsuit, Case No. 20STCV18424, is currently pending in the Los Angeles County Superior Court for the State of California. A copy of the complaint can be accessed by clicking here.

According to the class action complaint's allegations, Torrance Health Association, Inc. failed and continues to fail to accurately calculate and pay PLAINTIFF and the other members of the CALIFORNIA CLASS for their overtime worked. DEFENDANT also failed to record and pay employees for the actual amount of time worked, meaning the time during which an employee was subject to the control of an employer. Additionally, as a result of their rigorous work schedules, PLAINTIFF and other CALIFORNIA CLASS Members were from time to time unable to take of duty meal breaks and were not fully relieved of duty for meal periods. The lawsuit also alleges DEFENDANT failed to reimburse for required business expenses incurred by PLAINTIFF. Under California Labor Code Section 2802, employers are required to indemnify employees for all expenses incurred in the course and scope of their employment.

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges Torrance Health Association, Inc. was in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act for failure to make proper disclosures and failure to obtain proper authorization. Allegedly, "in violation of 15 U.S.C.  1681b(b)(2)(A)(ii) , Cal. Civ. Code  1786.16(a)(2), and Cal. Civ. Code  1785.20.5(a), DEFENDANT has obtained consumer reports without proper authorization because the authorization and disclosure form signed by PLAINTIFF...failed to comply with the requirements of the FRCA, ICRAA, and CCRAA."

For more information about the class action lawsuit against Torrance Health Association, Inc., or if you would like to know if you qualify to make a claim, please contact attorney Nicholas J. De Blouw today by calling (800) 568-8020.

Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP is a labor law firm with law offices located in San Diego County, Riverside County, Los Angeles County, Sacramento County, and San Francisco County. The firm has a statewide practice of representing employees on a contingency basis for violations involving unpaid wages, overtime pay, discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination and other types of illegal workplace conduct.
President Muhammadu Buharis nomination of a former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, for the position of the director-general of the World Trade Organisation puts Nigeria in a precarious position in the African regional and international politics. This decision may make it difficult for Nigeria to secure pan-African endorsements for its candidates for positions in transnational bodies for five years. It may also affect the countrys diplomatic communication links.

This is because Mrs Okonjo-Iweala may not get AUs endorsement for the position as she is joining the race after the bodys stipulated period for nominations. Her belated nomination by Mr Buhari also means she will be contesting the election against candidates already endorsed by the AU, which will be in violation of the bodys rules on candidature for positions in international organisations.

Such a violation comes with risks of sanctions on a nominating country.

By Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas nomination, another Nigerian, Yonov Agah, whose candidacy was already approved by AU Executive Council, was withdrawn in what appears to be a breach of AUs agreed terms on candidature for the WTOs top job. Mr Agah is currently one of the four deputy DGs and Nigerias representative at the Geneva-based global trade body.

And there are concerns among Nigerians in the diplomatic and international development circle that Western interests may be pushing the Okonjo-Iweala candidacy to assuage Nigeria in the circumstance the moves to stop Akinwumi Adesinas re-election at the African Development Bank are successful.

But Paul Nwabuikwu, Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas media adviser, told PREMIUM TIMES, Theres absolutely no connection between Dr Adesinas campaign for a second term at the African Development Bank and Dr Okonjo-Iwealas nomination for Director-General of WTO.

Substitution

In a diplomatic note through Nigerias mission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which hosts the AU headquarters, Mr Buhari last Thursday announced Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, formerly Nigerias finance minister and World Banks managing director, as the countrys candidate for the WTO job.

Mr Agah was already shortlisted alongside two other African candidates for the WTOs DG position by the Executive Council of the AU before Mr Buharis decision to replace him with Mrs Okonjo-Iweala on Thursday.

The two other African candidates shortlisted by the AU, alongside Mr Agah, are Egypts Hamid Mamdouh, a trade lawyer, member of the WTO Secretariat, and trade negotiator for Egypt; and Beninoise Eloi Laourou, the ambassador and permanent representative of Benin to the United Nations and other organisations in Geneva.

Despite the withdrawal of his candidacy for the position of DG, Mr Agah will remain at the WTO as a deputy DG until October 2021 when his second tenure expires. So, if Mrs Okonjo-Iweala succeeds, the world would have two Nigerians, for some time, at the highest level of the WTO.

Mr Agah, who has about 30 years in international trade, has spent 15 years at the WTO, starting as Nigerian Permanent Representative to WTO in 2005 before becoming the organisations deputy DG in 2013.

Mr Agahs nomination was seen as backing him to the zenith of the organisation, having already held a senior leadership role there. He oversees the organisations, development division, institute for training and technical cooperation and trade policies review division.

Mr Buhari did not give reasons for withdrawing Mr Agahs candidacy. But the president mentioned Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas record of accomplishments in international development and finance, including her 2010 role as chair of the World Banks successful drive to raise $49.3 billion in grants and low-interest credits for poorest countries of the world, and presently as Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Nigerias foreign affairs ministry did not comment when its spokesperson, Ferdinand Nwonye, was contacted on Sunday.

AUs endorsement process

The endorsement of the three from Benin, Egypt and Nigeria was documented as EX.CL/Dec. 1090(XXXVI) and is contained in the official record of the Executive Councils decisions at its February 6-7 2020 36th ordinary session in Addis Ababa. PREMIUM TIMES has seen the record, which also indicates a request to the committee on candidatures within the international system for further consideration of the three candidates with a view to eventually having a single African candidate.

The AUs Executive Council, comprising foreign affairs ministers of member states, has standing rules to promote African candidatures within the international system. Its ministerial committee on candidatures consider nominations from member states and makes recommendations to the Executive Council.

So, while African member states of transnational bodies are free to nominate their nationals for positions at such bodies, they have agreed to cooperate on presenting common candidatures for positions in the international system.

This protocol helped to ensure Mr Adesina was the only candidate for the AfDBs election this year. His endorsement by the AU Executive Council was sealed the same day the council approved the nominations of Mr Agah, Egypts Mr Mamdouh, and Benins Mr Laourouin for the WTO job. These were during the February 2020 26th ordinary session of the Executive Council in Addis Ababa.

Decisions of the Executive Council on the recommendations of the Committee on a particular candidature shall be binding on all Member States, provides the Rule 15 of the Rules of Procedure of the Ministerial Committee on Candidatures within the International System.

In July 2019, the Executive Council of the AU had, as recorded in EX.CL/Dec. 1072 seen by PREMIUM TIMES, requested member states to nominate candidates for the WTOs DG position by November 30 of 2019. The Council, in that decision of July 2019, reckoned that since the GATT (1948), the WTOs predecessor, no African has held the post of Director-General at the WTO, and strongly recommends that the next DG be African.

Pursuant to that Decision, (Nigerias) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) obtained the approval of His Excellency, Mr. President for the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (FMITI) to nominate a competent Nigerian candidate for approval and submission to the AU Committee on Candidatures within the International System before the closing date of 30th November 2019, explained a source with inside knowledge.

In response to the approval and directive by His Excellency, Mr. President, the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, CON, submitted the name of Ambassador Yonov Frederick Agah, PhD, for approval and submission to the AU Committee on Candidatures within the International as Nigerias candidate for the position of WTO DG.

At the end of the closing date of 30th November 2019 only three countries, namely, Benin, Egypt and Nigeria were able to submit candidates to the AU Committee on Candidatures within the International System, as stipulated in its Decision No. EX1072 of July 2019.

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There is just about one month before the window for nominations by member states of WTO closes ahead of the final selection or election. But AUs deadline to receive nominations to choose a candidate it would commonly back ended on November 30, 2019. Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas nomination was only made last Thursday.

Egypt against Okonjo-Iweala

Egypt is opposing Nigerias substitution and seeking the countrys disqualification from the AU endorsement process. The Egyptian government argued that the new nomination of Mrs Okonjo-Iweala came well after the due dates and that she was not one of the three candidates considered and shortlisted in the period stipulated.

Egypt, in a memo circulated in Addis Ababa on Friday, requested the AU to officially inform the African Group that Nigeria has no candidate and so Abdulhameed Mamdouh of the Arab Republic of Egypt and Eloi Laourou of the Republic of Benin are currently the only two endorsed African candidates in the race.

The north African country also hinted at consultations with Benin towards a consensus candidate.

Cairo feels shortchanged by the nomination (of Okonjo-Iweala), since she (Egypt) had her eyes on the WTO position, after rallying African support in favour of Nigerias Adesina (for re-election at AfDB); in spite of an obvious bad case that weve tried to paper over with blackmail sentiments, analysed a source, who asked not to be named.

However, Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas media aide, Mr Nwabuikwu said, Its clear that Egypt is rattled by her emergence as Nigerias candidate and is desperately grabbing at straws. Did you notice that they said they want to quickly convince the Benin Republic candidate to step down for them so that their candidate becomes Africas only candidate?

Risks

Meanwhile, as it is unlikely that the AU will endorse Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO rules, however, allow Nigeria to directly nominate a candidate for the election without any regional endorsement. But doing so, that is running against a candidate endorsed by the AU, presents risks of sanctions.

Member states that fail to comply with the decisions of the Executive Council on candidatures for elective posts within the International system, in addition to the sanctions provided for in Article 23 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union may also be subject to a suspension of endorsement of their candidatures for a period of five (5) years, provides Rule 16 of the Rules of Procedure of the AUs ministerial committee on candidatures within international system.

Further, the Article 23 of the AUs Constitutive Act mentioned in the rule provides that: Furthermore, any Member State that fails to comply with the decisions and policies of the Union may be subjected to other sanctions, such as the denial of transport and communications links with other Member States, and other measures of a political and economic nature to be determined by the Assembly.

Mr Nwonye, spokesperson for Nigerias foreign affairs ministry, did not comment when contacted on Sunday over the possible risks involved in Nigerias nomination of Mrs Okonjo-Iweala. I cant make any statement now, he said, but assured Abuja would make a statement during the week certainly.

But Mr Nwabuikwu, Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas media adviser, said, It is not accurate to say that AU has concluded the process.

Thats not true at all. AU has a practice of encouraging countries which have nominated candidates for an international position to talk and, if possible, come up with one candidate. But this is not cast in stone and it has not always happened. Im not aware of the sanction you are talking about and Im not sure it has ever been applied.

Seun Kolade, international development expert at the UKs De Montfort University, Leicester, said it is possible for Mrs Okonjo-Iweala to win without AUs support and despite the risks.

I think its possible for the West to rally behind Okonjo-Iweala, he said. But he fears the possibility of Mr Adesinas failure at AfDB. This is amid concerns Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas WTO candidacy has the backing of AfDBs non-African shareholders, mainly the U.S., opposing Mr Adesina.

AfDB is an organisation where Africans have the best opportunity to directly influence the economic and development trajectory of the continent, said Mr Kolade. AfDB is also of great strategic importance because it offers an alternative that can further expose the lacklustre impact of other financial institutions, make more Africans look differently at them in retrospect. More importantly.

It can practically drive these other institutions out of business. I believe this is one of the main reasons why the US is heavily invested in taking control of AfDB (by installing their own puppet). It takes this alternative source of finance out of the way for African countries.

Mr Nwabuikwu did not directly respond to a question on the interests backing Mrs Okonjo-Iweala but he dismissed as unhealthy speculation any alleged connection between her WTO bid and Mr Adesinas AfDB re-election ambition.

He said, We should focus on supporting our two strong candidates for both positions and not help those working against Nigerias interests. Nothing wrong with Nigerians heading both organisations.

We should be happy that Nigeria has a chance to produce the heads of two critical international institutions. Citizens of smaller and less influential countries like Senegal have been heading different international organisations at the same time for years. Why not Nigeria?

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala is an AUs special envoy to mobilise international support for the continents response to the coronavirus pandemic.

There is limit to impunity

Commenting, the lawyer, Femi Falana, told PREMIUM TIMES that: President Buhari must have been made to believe that elections to positions in international bodies can be handled like appointments in Nigeria which defy the provisions of extant laws and official policies.

Egypt is out to humiliate Nigeria for failure to realise that there is limit to impunity in respect of international appointments. Unless the belated nomination of another candidate is immediately withdrawn Nigeria may be disqualified from contesting the election. It will be so sad because out of the three candidates nominated by the African Union the credentials of Ambassador Yonov Frederick Agah tower above those of the other contestants for the post.

By the way, why should Dr. Agah with 30 years experience in the area of international trade including service in the World Trade Organisation and (who) has done the country proud, be so humiliated at the apogee of his ambassadorial carrier?

On May 14, the Director-General of the WTO, Roberto Azevedo, announced his decision to step down on August 31, one year before his term would expire, saying it was the best way to avert more chaos at the organisation in the face of attacks from American President Donald Trump and threats of a global recession.
As part of an ongoing service equity strategy shared by SFMTA in response to nationwide demonstrations against police brutality, Muni will no longer transport police officers to protests. This decision didn't appear to sit well with the San Francisco Police Officers Association, who replied to the transit agency on Wednesday morning.

"Hey Muni," wrote the SFPOA. "Lose our number next time you need officers for fare evasion enforcement or removing problem passengers from your buses and trains. Shouldn't be a San Francisco Police Department officer's job anyway. Chief should stop using us for this."

In the weeks following the police killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests, Muni was criticized on social media as people shared videos of buses transporting officers in riot gear to marches in downtown San Francisco. At the time, Muni said it would continue to provide service "for everyone," but later reconsidered their strategy.

"Weve been engaged in conversations with our staff, and that has given us the opportunity to reflect on what we can do to support our staff and black and brown community, and turn words into action," Erica Kato, a spokesperson for the transit agency told SFGATE on Tuesday.

Muni halted service at noon Tuesday for eight minutes and 36 seconds to symbolically memorialize Floyd, per the suggestion of a transportation controller working for SFMTA. The organization said it is also advancing its efforts to provide staff with implicit bias training, in addition to improving upon service in San Francisco neighborhoods with high percentages of people of color in low-income households.

"We respect and honor the actions SFMTA is taking to advance the cause of racial justice and equity," officer Robert Rueca told SFGATE on Wednesday. "SFPD's commitment to the safety and First Amendment rights of those we serve remains undiminished, of course, and we've adjusted our transportation and operations accordingly. We recognize we are all in the midst of a difficult, emotionally charged time as we come to terms with painful truths about the kind of policing that took George Floyd's life in Minneapolis."

But the police union appears to be uncertain regarding how they will be utilized by city agencies like Muni in the future.

"As city leaders demand cuts to SFPD, it needs to be clear what SFPD will no longer do," the SFPOA tweeted at 11:51 a.m. "If a ride on an out-of-service bus to ensure peaceful protests is too offensive, then dont send us in to provide 'security' services to catch fare jumpers."

This is a developing story and will be updated with more information.

MORE COVERAGE ON THE GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on Bay Area protest coverage here.

Amanda Bartlett is an SFGATE Culture Reporter. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfgate.com | Twitter: @byabartlett
Tracye Ulstad, of the Federal Public Defenders Office, puts an arm on Walter Ogrod, who started crying while being interviewed on last week at Wawa on Skippack Pike in Schwanksville. Ogrod has been on death row for 23 years and incarcerated for 28 years and was exonerated on June 5. Read more

Walter Ogrod is officially exonerated.

Five days after a Philadelphia judge agreed to overturn Ogrods conviction in the 1988 killing of 4-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, another judge on Wednesday agreed to let prosecutors withdraw all outstanding charges against him  the final step in Ogrods two-decade fight to clear his name.

One of Ogrods attorneys, Andrew Gallo, said Common Pleas Court Judge Leon W. Tucker allowed the District Attorneys Office to formally drop the case without a hearing. Though Ogrod, 55, had been released from prison last week, he still technically faced a new trial in the case  something prosecutors made clear they had no intention of pursuing because they believe him to be innocent.

Tuckers actions on Wednesday closed the door on the case.

Gallo said he was happy that [the issue] was resolved quickly, and that Ogrod was "very pleased to have this chapter of his life behind him.

Ogrod has insisted since his 1992 arrest that he did not kill Barbara Jean, whose remains had been found four years earlier inside a cardboard box on the 1400 block of St. Vincent Street in Northeast Philadelphia.

His arrest was based in part on a confession he allegedly gave to two detectives, Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell. Earlier this year, the District Attorneys Office said it believed Ogrods statement had been coerced. Prosecutors have accused the two detectives of coercing statements from defendants in other cases, and said they are reviewing an unspecified number of other convictions tied to them.

Prosecutors said Ogrods conviction was fundamentally flawed due to a host of other issues, including key evidence that was withheld by police and prosecutors at trial, and unreliable testimony from jailhouse informants.

During a hearing last week, Assistant District Attorney Carrie Wood apologized to Ogrod, Barbara Jeans family members, and the city, saying the prosecutors office had previously concealed the truth about the case and "threatened to execute [Ogrod] based on falsehoods.

Barbara Jeans mother, Sharon Fahy, has said that she, too, now believes in Ogrods innocence, and that she supported his release from prison.

The exoneration marks the 13th murder conviction that District Attorney Larry Krasners Conviction Integrity Unit has helped overturn since he was sworn into office in 2018.

Krasner, in a statement, said Ogrods case was not a feel-good story; what he suffered is beyond measure, and can never be undone.
PLA Su-30 fighter jets edge near Taiwan as US military aircraft flies through the island

Global Times

By Liu Xuanzun Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/9 18:13:40 Last Updated: 2020/6/10 0:16:14

The island of Taiwan's defense authority said fighter jets of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) approached the island on Tuesday, the day a US military aircraft flew over the island that's bound to further raise cross-Straits tensions following a series of US arms sales to the island, and a US warship transit through the Taiwan Straits.

The US warplane's rare flight over Taiwan showed the increasing collaboration between the US military and Taiwan secessionists, and the Chinese mainland's fighter jet sorties and approaches sent them a powerful warning and demonstrated how much the PLA was determined and prepared for war, Chinese mainland experts said on Tuesday.

A US C-40 military transport aircraft was identified flying over the west coastline of Taiwan on Tuesday morning, Taiwan media reported, citing the island's defense authority.

Taiwan's defense authority later on Tuesday said the US aircraft's flight over the island "was approved and it did not land," Taiwan media reported.

Around the same time on Tuesday morning, multiple PLA Su-30 fighter jets on Tuesday morning briefly entered the southwestern "airspace" of Taiwan island, according to a separate report by Taiwan media, also citing the island's defense authority.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the PLA's fighter jet sorties and approaches to Taiwan is likely a counter to the provocative move by the US military aircraft.

The US C-40's flight was approved by Taiwan's defense authority, and this was a straight-up provocation hatched by the Taiwan and US militaries, signifying the increasing military cooperation between them, Song said, noting that this can also be seen as a de facto joint military drill, indicating the US could lend Taiwan support in a war and give Taiwan secessionists courage to fight the mainland.

Beijing-based military expert Wei Dongxu told the Global Times on Tuesday that the deployment of the Su-30 fighter jets amid the US operation showed the PLA is always on high combat alert, and it can react very fast when intruders approach Taiwan.

The PLA is capable of covering the entire Taiwan and nearby airspace, and weave dense defense positions, and US aircraft could be identified and locked on by PLA fighter jets, Wei said.

Wei noted that the Su-30 is fighter jet with long endurance, advanced radar systems and can carry medium-range air-to-air missile that can shoot down targets from afar. Sending the Su-30s also showed the PLA's capability to seize air superiority.

Rising tensions

The US has been frequently interacting with the island of Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen was reelected as the island's regional leader and made her "inaugural speech" on May 20.

On that day, the US State Department approved the sale of 18 MK-48 Mod6 advanced technology heavy weight torpedoes and related equipment for an estimated $180 million to the island. Soon after, Taiwan's defense authority said it is procuring land-based Harpoon missiles from the US.

US Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Russell on Thursday made a transit through the Taiwan Straits in the seventh such passage in 2020, Taiwan media reported.

Song said that the latest PLA Su-30 sorties were also required by the demands of enhancing war preparedness in a potential military conflict in the Taiwan Straits as tensions rise.

PLA aircraft usually exercise restraints when conducting missions related to Taiwan, like flying on the Chinese mainland side of the "middle line" of the Straits. But this time, they flew to the southwestern "airspace" of the island, which showed the determination and capability of the PLA, and this will become more frequent and routine, Song said.

Prior to the Su-30 sorties, the PLA also frequently sent warplanes, including H-6 bombers, KJ-500 early warning aircraft and J-11 fighter jets near Taiwan this year in missions, with some also featured warships.

The PLA recently has also been holding intensive landing and naval drills including some featuring amphibious tanks storming the beaches and civilian ships transporting tanks and armored vehicles across the sea, which experts say sends a warning to Taiwan secessionists.

Wu Qian, a spokesperson for the PLA and People's Armed Police Force delegation to the 3rd session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), told media on the sidelines of the NPC session in May that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and that the Taiwan question is China's internal affair, and China will not accept any foreign interference.

China will not allow anyone, any organization or political party to separate any part of Chinese territory from the nation at any time, in any way. The PLA has the firm will, full confidence and enough capability to thwart any kind of secessionist attempt by foreign forces, and will take any necessary measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity and maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, Wu said.

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Sabrina Korreck

Berlin is Germanys primary hub for startups. The city has the highest rate of founding activity (i.e. 16.1 percent of German startups are located there), its startups participate in 37 percent of financial rounds and receive 59 percent of Euros invested. In fact, Berlin stands among the top three entrepreneurial hotspots in Europe (together with London and Paris) in terms of number of financing rounds and volume.

However, COVID-19 has had a wide-spread effect: a survey found that 91.1 percent of German startups business activities have been affected and among those, 69.7 percent foresee their existence threatened within the next six months unless measures are taken. Given the tremendous potential of startups for fostering innovation and generating employment, it is imperative that actors in the startup ecosystem and the government find smart ways to help them navigate successfully through the crisis.

In the wake of the pandemic, startups shall need to reshuffle their business activities and daily working routines to comply with measures by the government and health authorities. These, combined with a fall in consumer demand due to high economic uncertainty, are expected to lead to a decline in revenue. Startups, especially early-stage ones, tend to have low financial reserves and find it hard to secure loans from banks. Professional venture capital investors play an important role in financing startups, but the volatile economic environment has led them to focus on supporting their current portfolio companies. They are taking a very selective approach towards new investments, leading to an expected 46 percent drop in the number of deals in the second quarter of 2020. Therefore, the pandemic can plunge even competitive start-up enterprises into an existential crisis.

How shall they survive? First, it is clear that only the fittest and most resilient  those which are flexible and find ways to adapt to the new circumstances  shall make it. This will require startups to reflect on their business models, evaluate where changes are necessary, and act accordingly. Cutting expenses will be inevitable in many cases, but they can also be proactive by, for instance, extending their offering or finding new channels of distribution.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Further support must come from other actors in the ecosystem. The provision of office space or rooms to host events is one key element of startup support, but less relevant in a time when most are working from home. However, startup-support organisations, such as incubators and accelerators, can reach out to their clients and organise virtual get-togethers. These can facilitate peer-to-peer learning between startups, which is crucial in a time of unprecedented challenges. A second key element of startup support is business advice. To that end, support organisations and investors can gather and share relevant information and best practices, or connect them to external experts. Startups can be mentored through calls and webinars. A third element of startup support is the provision of funding and assistance with fundraising, but this is currently insufficient, due to cautious investor sentiment.

Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted policy responses from German federal and state governments. In April, the federal government announced a 2 billion Euro relief package specifically targeted to startups, resting on two pillars. The first pillar is called the Corona Matching Facility, whereby investment subsidiaries of State-owned development banks (i.e. KfW Capital, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft) and the European Investment Bank offer venture capital investors the opportunity to co-invest. In order to ensure continued funding for promising startups, investments are topped up with public funding by up to 70 percent of the value of a financial round. The instrument is based on the idea that investors, based on their in-depth market expertise, can best determine which investments are worthwhile. In return, public investment bodies receive convertible loans (Wandeldarlehen), whereby they can benefit from expected increases in value later.

The second pillar addresses startups which are not financed through venture capital and thus have no access to the matching facility. In collaboration with State institutions (in particular, State-owned development banks), the federal government provides money via loans to expand existing initiatives such as Berlins GrundungsBONUS and Start-up Stipend programmes. The eligibility criteria of the first programme have been relaxed and startups are granted advance payments and an additional Corona bonus of 5,000 Euro. The latter programme allocates funding to startups centres and incubators to extend their business support. Both focus on startups with technological innovations as well as those that promote ecological and charitable goals.

In addition to the major package introduced by the federal government, Berlin has two further emergency aid programmes in place, which are also open to startups. They are administered through the State-owned Investitionsbank Berlin and their aim is to help companies overcome liquidity shortages caused by the pandemic. One programme provides SMEs with Corona rescue loans that have a maximum value of 500,000 Euro and help them pay their rent, personnel expenses and other liabilities. The second programme allocates Corona grants to self-employed people and smaller businesses. The amount of the grant, which aim to cover personnel costs and salaries as well as operational expenses, depends on the number of employees and lies in the range between 9,000 and 25,000 Euro.

In addition to the policy responses injecting liquidity, many startups are using the short-time working instrument (Kurzarbeit) whereby employee working hours are reduced, while the government replaces some of the employees lost incomes. This is to avoid companies having to lay off their employees during the economic downturn.

To sum up, the exchange of information and best practices, as well as the provision of liquidity are the most crucial elements of startup support during this time. Financial support must be tailored to the needs of different startups in order to be effective, and public funds should be provided in a targeted manner to help startups with promising business models. Thereby, the situation can be taken as an opportunity to specifically support startups, which develop social innovations and innovations that promote climate protection and sustainability.

Ultimately, startups also have potential to contribute to fighting the pandemic, as the initiative Startups against Corona (a crowdsourcing platform that connects incumbent firms as solution-seekers for Corona-related problems and startups as solution-providers) demonstrates.

(This article appeared in the ORF)
With barely ten days to go before the Rajya Sabha elections for four seats in Karnataka, Congress nominee Mallikarjun Kharge and his son Priyank have complained to the state police about threat calls made to them.

In his complaint letter addressed to Karnataka DGP Praveen Sood, Priyank Kharge says the family received a call on June 7 on its landline number, which was received by his father. The person on the other end threatened him for contesting the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.

Priyank Kharge also said that around the same time, he got at least 10 missed calls on his cell phone from an unknown number between 12:36am and 12:53am. When the calls persisted, he received one at 1am and the person again threatened the family. The person on the other end is said to have spoken in Hindi and English. The letter requests the police to trace the unknown numbers and take strict action against the perpetrators.

Kharge, 77, submitted his nomination papers on Monday. After winning 10 consecutive elections since 1972, the former union minister lost the 2019 lok sabha polls from his home seat of Kalaburgi.

Meanwhile, the Congress party has urged CM BS Yediyurappa to set up a special investigation team to look into the matter.
Ky. megachurch shuts down again after 18 members test positive for coronavirus

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A Kentucky megachurch pastor who clashed with Gov. Andy Beshear over restrictions on in-person services imposed during the coronavirus pandemic, says he's suspended in-person worship services again after 18 members of his church tested positive for the virus since he resumed in-person services a month after closing.

Clay Mills Baptist Church on Brannon Road in Nicholasville, just south of the Lexington city limits, held in-person services on May 17 and May 24, Jeff Fugate, pastor of the 2,500-member church, told the Courier Journal. Since then, he said, at least 18 members of his church have tested positive for the new coronavirus. He stressed that there's "no indication" they were infected at church.

Randy Gooch, executive director of the Jessamine County Health Department, told the publication, however, that evidence reviewed by his office suggests the infections were linked to the church.

Our disease investigation is indicative of these cases tracing back to their contact with other cases at Clays Mill Baptist, Gooch said. Our initial case was confirmed symptomatic when they attended church, so this gives us good reason to believe they are connected.

In an extended post on Wednesday morning, Fugate, who's also president of the Commonwealth Baptist College, slammed Kentuckys governor and the health department for targeting his church in an extended statement on Facebook.

The contact tracing work seemed to stop with our church. Did the virus come from someones place of work, the mall, a grocery store or big box store? Why did Governor Beshear and the Health Department single out by name, me and our church? Why not reveal the names and places where the virus came from before coming to our church. This sounds like contact targeting rather than contact tracing, Fugate argued.

Our church did not produce the virus, someone had to have picked up the virus somewhere before we opened church to the public for just two weeks. We had not had in-person church services since March 15. However, to prevent anyone else from getting the virus I suspended in-person services until June 21. I have said from the beginning that the health and safety of our people is most important to me, he continued.

Fugate noted that his church is now meeting online only and said that Beshear did not like that he stood with Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron in April and called for him to lift restrictions on in-person worship.

The governor is disappointed that I stood with Attorney General Daniel Cameron for the constitutional right of churches to hold in-person services, the pastor said.

A May 8 ruling from U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, in a case involving Tabernacle Baptist Church, allowed churches in Kentucky to resume in-person gatherings ahead of the May 20 timeline when Beshear said he would lift his ban on church gatherings.

Judge Van Tatenhove ruled against Governor Beshears restrictions on churches revealing in the judges decision the bias of the governor against churches. (Read the ruling). The truth is, and it is obvious that Governor Beshear is guilty of bias toward churches. He does not practice what he has preached every day since early March about wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding gatherings. He says one thing and does another, Fugate said.

We will continue to work to keep our people safe and healthy while attending church. Governor Beshear can continue to promote large gatherings at protests (except those that disagree with him) or wherever he deems is appropriate and at the same time limit our Kentucky businesses and single out churches. That is his business  but, his bias is showing!

Fugate told the Courier Journal that on June 21, the church will resume in-person services in a new outdoor tent that can fit 400 people.

"Folks can park all the way around the new tent and listen on the radio if they want to stay in their cars outside of the tent," he said, noting that those who are sick should stay home.

Addressing the coronavirus in a recent briefing, Beshear said, I hope that everybody (who) tested positive from services at Clays Mill has seen or talked to a doctor. We want all of you to be OK."

Beshear then mentioned how Fugate stood with Cameron in April and said, "Governor, we can do this safely."

"Well, he couldnt," Beshear argued.


Daughter of fitness expert Deanne Panday and actress Ananya Pandays cousin Alanna Panday has been making the headlines lately. The model recently called out a woman on social media who thought she deserves to be gang raped because she posts pictures in swimwear. Alanna captioned her post as, "This happened months ago, I wish I had spoken about it sooner, but waking up and reading things like this just became normal to me-its an everyday part of my life. Heres 1% of what I have to wake up and read everyday."







The post read,"Ive had a women comment on my post saying I deserve to be gang raped because I posted a picture in a bikini.She then tagged my mother and father in the comment to make sure that they saw it too. I wish I had a screenshot but I was so shaken when I saw it I blocked her immediately and Instagram deleted the comment. When I went to her profile to block her I saw that she was married and had a daughter a little younger than me. I dont understand how you can wish that upon someone elses child."



Alanna Pandays mom Deanne Panday also took to social media to comment on the same post. She wrote, "This is the same person who sent me messages saying I am bringing up my daughter in the wrong way and I should be ashamed .. that you are influenced by Bollywood so thats why you wear less clothes.She also said you have no assets .. so you wear these clothes for attention.She said a lot more as its all on your previous Instagram post .. her nasty comments."




More support for local manufacturing could be on the way as the Morrison government examines ways to help companies out of the economic slump, while backbench MPs call for options to replace imports.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison signalled the options in remarks to the Coalition party room on Tuesday after several MPs aired their support for Australian manufacturers but stopped short of calls for subsidies.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has flagged more support for Australian manufacturing. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Morrison told his colleagues they were helping to "generate hope" because Australians could see the government had a plan for an economic recovery, but he also hinted at measures that would not fit easily with Liberal Party philosophy.

The Prime Minister told them the government would have to go "out of our comfort zone" because of the economic pressures, a remark that could signal more spending in the wake of a $190 billion fiscal stimulus.
Matt Chandler: Church has mostly refused to participate on race, 'turned over' inheritance

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Texas megachurch Pastor Matt Chandler had harsh words for the American Church on Sunday, saying that since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Church has, for the most part, refused to participate on issues of race.

Chandler, pastor of the multicampus Village Church in Flower Mound, got heated when he took time from his sermon on Ephesians 1:15-23 to address the racial issues facing the U.S.

His sermon comes as the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody has sparked weeks of nationwide protests and riots, and increased attention on racial inequalities.

The 45-year-old pastor said the second chapter of Apostle Pauls letter to the Ephesians is all about reconciliation between Jew and Gentile and God doing something through Jesus Christ that takes two and makes them one.

This will preach to this moment, he said. Our inheritance and what we are being robbed of as believers in Jesus Christ right now in this moment is the unity of spirit between all ethnicities born of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what this passage [Ephesians 1:18] says: That our inheritance in the saints is that men and women from every tribe tongue and nation on Earth are part of our family.

Chandler told the audience that if they study the civil rights movement of the 1960s led by Martin Luther King Jr., theyll find that a pattern emerges.

They would meet. They would pray. They would worship. They would kind of go over the rules of protest. And then, they would march, Chandler, who often speaks out about racial injustice, said. This was a rhythm that was established by King so that it was rooted in the Church, that the Church let out in a very real way on the civil rights movement in the '60s.

And now one of the things that has happened is the Church, by and large, has refused to participate, which means that we have turned over  God help us  we have turned over what is our inheritance to dark ideologies, Chandler continued.

Chandler criticized churches and pastors who dont want to get involved when it comes to issues of race but would rather preach the Gospel to that. He said he finds such responses, hypocritical.

You dont just preach the Gospel on sex trafficking. You dont just preach the Gospel on the issue of life and abortion. No, you act, he said as he got riled up. Its like this brain-broke disjoint thats got us acting absurd and then critiquing this movement as being evil and dark when we have given up our inheritance!

Chandler seemingly challenged those who want to point out all the flaws in this current movement while you have abandoned the place that we were meant to play!

You cannot point out all the well, this means this, and this believes this, and thats this, and thats this, and ignore the sorrow and lament of 12 to 13 million image-bearers in our country! Chandler exclaimed. You cant do that!

We mourn with those who mourn. And yes, there are demonic and evil ideologies at play, he continued. But thats where the people of God are meant to run with light and the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not to sit back and snipe via social media.

Chandler then apologized for getting a little hot. He calmed down and encouraged Christians to grow in the hope that God will heal the wounds of racism, and what were watching on our TV unfold again will one day cease.

Look at me  this is our inheritance, he stressed. This is mine. This is yours. What youre seeing play out right now in violent riot and in murder  that is a robbing of our inheritance. Im talking to the Church. Im talking to followers of Jesus Christ. Its mine bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. We are to grow and hope that this is possible.

In 2018, Chandler, who leads a Southern Baptist congregation, said that he would often be accused of being a Marxist or being influenced by liberal media if he dared to preach on issues of race. But in instances in which he spoke out on issues like abortion, he would be cheered as courageous or a ferocious man of God.

He has encouraged white pastors to help fight what he considers the miseducation of whites when it comes to black America.

"I think there is a cascading effect and it starts with ignorance, Chandler said at the 2018 "MLK50: Gospel Reflections From the Mountaintop" summit sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and The Gospel Coalition.

They don't know what they don't know and they are part of a system that encourages their not knowing.

In 2014, amid riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting death of African American Michael Brown in a physical altercation with a police officer, Chandler spoke about white privilege in a tweet that drew some pushback.

In a follow-up statement, Chandler said that white privilege is not like blatant racism and that folks who live through it may never have a racist bone in their body.

"What is so deceptive about white privilege is that it is different from blatant racism or bias," Chandler said. A privileged person's heart may be free from racist thoughts or biased attitudes, but may still fail to see how the very privilege afforded to him or her shapes how he or she interprets and understands the situations and circumstances of people without privilege."
Dev Bishwo Karma waited for hours by the side of a remote mountain road in the northwestern Nepali district of Karnali in late May, hoping to somehow find a way home.

The 20-year-old, formerly employed as a hotel worker in the Indian city of Pune, said it took him four days of travel by bus to get there, a harrowing journey with little clarity on what would happen once he arrived in Nepal.

We didnt get food or water when we needed it the most, Karma said. There were no vehicles for transport.

Karma is one of tens of thousands of Nepali migrant workers who have flooded back home by land after losing their jobs following Indias lockdown to try and contain the coronavirus, creating a humanitarian crisis that now also threatens the stability of Nepals fragile economy. Remittances from overseas Nepali workers like Karma have long propped up the countrys income.

The BlinkNow Foundation, a nongovernmental organisation based in Nepal that is helping migrant workers in Karnali, interviewed several of the returning Nepalis for Al Jazeera.

Many of Karmas fellow migrants say they travelled for days without food or water, and now that they are back in their own country, do not have faith in the governments quarantine facilities.

Public health officials warn that the return of Nepali migrants, if mismanaged, could lead to an exponential spread of the coronavirus in the poor South Asian country.

Last year, overseas Nepali workers sent home more than $8.1bn to their families. Remittances make up more than 25 percent of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP), according to World Bank data.

In all, about 7.4 percent of Nepals 28 million people work abroad, more than twice the global average, according to the World Bank.

But with the coronavirus curtailing employment opportunities, many of those migrant workers are being forced to return home. Neighbouring India has the largest proportion of overseas Nepalis, with an estimated two million people.

Walked for five days

On March 25, India imposed a strict lockdown in an attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus, freezing the economy and placing strict restrictions on movement, leaving many migrant workers  both Indian citizens and those working in the country on visas  stranded.

At first, Nepali migrants say, it was impossible to go anywhere.

About 7.4 percent of Nepals 28 million people work abroad, more than twice the global average, according to the World Bank [Maggie Doyne via Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera]

Shaktiru Khatka, a labourer who was working in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, said he and a group of other Nepalis walked for five days to find a bus to get home.

Our friends took our bags and went ahead. We dont have anything [but the clothes we are wearing], said Khatka.

Once the Indian government loosened restrictions to allow migrant workers to return home, Nepalis flooded towards the border, travelling by bus, van, or in the back of trucks carrying commercial goods.

But Nepal had sealed its border with India on March 22, three days before India shut down, and it only started allowing people to cross the porous 1,800km (1,118-mile) border late in May.

At Nepalgunj, one of the main border crossings between the countries, the situation is dire.

There are about two thousand people coming through every single day, says Dr Nitesh Kumar Kanodia, assistant director of the Nepalgunj Medical College. It takes about three or four days to get there, and they have not eaten for two or three days.

Kanodia said many migrants spoke of being denied service at roadside restaurants in India, out of suspicion that they may have been carrying the coronavirus.

Even if they stop at a restaurant or something in India, because of the stigma, people may not want to serve them or sell them goods, he said.

Returning migrants waiting to go back to their villages in the northwestern Karnali district  one of Nepals poorest  said they continued to be harassed even after they crossed the border.

Yesterday, the police came and told us you will not get food or water, just stay in the bus, said one man who did not offer his name. They said whether you eat or not, we dont care.

Sachyam Sharma, an aid worker with the BlinkNow Foundation, said the government did not appear to have systems in place to deal with the flood of migrants.

It was very hot [and] they were so angry, because they had not had water to drink, they had had no food to eat, Sharma told Al Jazeera, describing conditions at the entrance to Karnali district. It had been a day since they had come to Nepal and they were just lying there in the bus, because the test kits were not ready for them.

Maggie Doyne, cofounder of BlinkNow, works with Nepali partners to provide food and water to those flooding into Karnali.

Returning Nepali migrants at the Nepal-India border [Maggie Doyne via Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera]

They are sleeping in the jungle, there are no bathrooms, they cant leave the buses, Doyne told Al Jazeera.

Nepals government policy on incoming migrants has been to transport them to their home districts, where they are expected to be quarantined in camps run by local authorities until they complete 14 days in isolation.

We are making arrangements for vehicles to transport returnee migrants to their native places where they have to first stay in quarantine, Suman Ghimire, joint secretary at the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, told Nepals Himalayan Times newspaper.

Observers, however, say the facilities are simply not adequate.

The quarantines are not up to standard, said BlinkNows Sharma. If I was to stay in quarantine, looking at the situation, I think I would have run. [] They dont have proper water, they dont have food, no bathrooms. 

Health, economic crises ahead

As of June 9, Nepal had registered at least 3,762 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University, with 14 deaths recorded. Nepals Health Ministry says more than 166,660 people are in quarantine.

In the case of Nepal, what we have seen is that there has been a large influx of people into the country in recent weeks, and the authorities have struggled to find sufficient accommodation for them in a very short time, the World Health Organisations (WHO) Nepal office told Al Jazeera via email. This has led in some locations to suboptimal conditions when it comes to quarantine sites.

Remittances make up more than 25 percent of Nepals gross domestic product, according to World Bank data, but with thousands of migrants flooding back into the country, a lot of those inflows are drying up [Maggie Doyne via Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera]

The WHO says that Nepals outbreak currently appears to stem mainly from infections from travellers, rather than local transmission of the virus.

How much local transmission we will see will depend on several factors, such as: how well is the quarantine working [], how well do people adhere to the basic protection rules [], how long will the lockdown last and how effective will it be, the WHOs statement said.

Nepals Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has publicly blamed returning migrants for causing the spread of the virus in Nepal.

People returning home from neighbouring India have been flouting the rules and returning home while facing many difficulties to get across the border without proper tests, he said in a televised address to the nation on May 25.

On the economic front, Nepali authorities and international financial organisations are bracing for a significant shock.

A reduction in remittances [due to the pandemic] will increase the risk of individuals falling into poverty, Kene Ezemenari, the World Banks senior country economist for Nepal, told Al Jazeera.

About 31.2 percent of the population estimated to live just above the poverty line risk falling into extreme poverty, primarily due to lower remittances, foregone earnings of potential migrants, job losses in the informal sector, and higher prices for essential commodities due to the lockdowns, Ezemenari said.

Nepali central bank data shows that remittances have fallen by 4.7 percent in the first nine months of the 2019-2020 financial year, with economic growth expected to decelerate substantially.

Current projections for Nepals GDP growth this fiscal year have been cut to 2.28 percent, as compared to an average growth rate of 7.3 percent in the last three years, according to the central bank.

The World Banks Ezemenari said overall remittances are expected to drop from an average of 25 percent of GDP between 2017 to 2019, to 18 percent in the coming years.

In April alone, month-on-month remittances fell by more than 56 percent, according to central bank data.

Protecting the vulnerable

The government has, however, announced plans to adjust the economy to absorb the large numbers of returnees.

The Nepali government has announced plans to help the large numbers of returning migrants, but analysts say more needs to be done [Maggie Doyne via Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera]

According to Sharad Bhandari, the Asian Development Banks (ADB) principal economist in Nepal, these include deploying returnees to development projects and programmes to build peoples skills and match them to employment opportunities. The government is also providing relief measures to businesses and small-scale farmers so that they can hire returning migrants.

Effective social protection systems are crucial to safeguarding the poor and vulnerable during this crisis, Bhandari told Al Jazeera.

But the government will also need to take steps to control its ballooning trade deficit in the wake of slowing growth, Bhandari warned.

So far, the ADB has approved a $250m concessional loan to aid the Nepali government in its COVID-19 response, while the World Bank has offered a $29m emergency support project. Overseas development assistance contributes about six percent to the GDP of Nepal.

For migrants still struggling to get home, many waiting on the side of the road for transport to an uncertain future, questions of macroeconomic stability must feel distant.

Birendra Bahadur Shahi, 45, spent all night camped out by the side of the road in the town of Babai.

Please send this message: We are ready to sit in quarantine for 15 days in our own districts and our own places, but tell them [to] just get us there.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the Andhra Pradesh High Court order reinstating N Ramesh Kumar as State Election Commissioner.

A division bench headed by chief justice S A Babde issued notices to respondents and gave two weeks time to reply. The Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy goverment filed Special Leave Petition in the apex court challengiing the HC order removing Justice (retd) V Kanagaraj as SEC and reinstating Mr Ramesh Kumar who tenure was cut down to three years by the government following his decision to postpone local body elections.

The Supreme Court Wednesday issued notice to State Election Commission (SEC) and others on an appeal of the Andhra Pradesh government against the recent high court order striking down an ordinance curtailing the tenure of the state poll panel chief from five years to three.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy refused to stay the order and sought response from the SEC and Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, who was restored as state poll panel chief.

On May 29, the high court had struck down the Ordinance promulgated on April 10 by the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government, curtailing the tenure of the SEC from five to three years.

It also quashed a Government Order appointing retired judge V Kanagaraj as the new chief and restored retired bureaucrat Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar as chief of the state poll panel.

Justice V Kanagaraj, a retired judge of the Madras High Court, had assumed charge as the SEC on April 11, replacing Ramesh Kumar.

The High Court had delivered the judgment on a batch of writ petitions, including the one by Ramesh Kumar, challenging the Ordinance and the appointment of a new SEC.

The YSR Congress government had on April 10 abruptly removed Ramesh Kumar from the post by promulgating the ordinance, amending the AP Panchayat Raj Act, 1994, curtailing the tenure of the SEC to three years from five.
All major hospitals, clinics and nursing homes in Delhi will have to display the number of available beds, and room charges at their entry gates on a real-time basis from now on, the Lieutenant Governors office said on Wednesday.

In a directive issued to chief secretary Vijay Dev on Wednesday, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal also asked him to deploy officials to conduct random inspections across all hospitals to check malpractices such as overcharging or false refusal of beds.

The L-G is the chairperson of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is its vice-chairperson.

The order read, In order to increase transparency and to facilitate the public, all major hospitals, clinics and nursing homes of Delhi should be directed to display on LED boards in large letters outside their establishments, at the entry point itself, the availability of beds (both Covid and non-Covid, wherever applicable), along with charges including for rooms/beds and details of the contact person for admission.

Baijal also asked the Delhi health department to ensure the data displayed on the boards is reconciled with data on the Delhi Corona app and delhifightscorona.in web portal.

Further, periodic surprise checks may also be conducted by the officers deputed by the DDMA to ensure that correct data is displayed by hospitals/clinics/nursing homes concerned and no eligible/genuine patient is denied admission or is overcharged, Baijals order further read.

The L-Gs order will stand alongside a similar order issued by the state health department on Tuesday, in which the Delhi government had asked all hospitals with 50 beds or more to put up a 12x10-feet flexboard at the entry gate.

At the same time, the order issued by the Delhi government on Tuesday stated that the flexboard has to say: Important Notice. 1) For latest information on vacant beds in this hospital: Download Delhi Corona mobile app. Go to www.delhifightscorona.in/beds. Call 1031. If a hospital refuses a bed even though the app shows there are vacant beds in the hospital, you can call 1031 to file a complaint.

The message further reads, 2) If you have tested positive for corona and your symptoms are mild, then you can recover at home though home isolation. If you do not have sufficient facilities at home to undergo home isolation, you can be admitted to our Covid Care Centre. Only Patients with severe symptoms need to be admitted to the hospital. 3) If you have severe symptoms of corona but have not been tested yet, or if the results are pending, do not panic. Hospitals cannot refuse to admit a patient with severe symptoms of corona. If a hospital refuses to admit you, call 1031 and file a complaint.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign.

Putting up dozens of new signs will be among the tasks staff at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights will be working on in the next week. Officials announced today the six-year-old museum and its boutique will reopen on June 17; the ERA Bistro will remain closed for the time being.

"It will certainly look a little different compared to before the pandemic," says Jacques Lavergne, the museums vice-president for visitor experience.

The CMHR was forced to close on March 14 after the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading quickly across Canada. As of June 17, the museum will be open five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and will become Canadas first national museum to reopen since the coronavirus outbreak, owing to Manitobas few COVID-19 cases.

The province allowed museums to open on May 4 as part of the first phase of reopening after the pandemic. The Winnipeg Art Gallery opened with new safety measures on May 5 and the Manitoba Museum will open its doors to the public on weekends starting Saturday (see sidebar).

To meet with social-distancing guidelines, though, human rights museum officials knew staff and visitors would have to adapt to the new normal and that would take time to find solutions to COVID-19 problems.

One of the problems CMHR staff foresaw was the museums entrance, where visitors often congregate while purchasing tickets. The solution they chose is a new online timed-entry ticketing system that can be accessed through the museums website, humanrights.ca. Visitors will have a choice of three daily time slots to begin their self-guided tour, says museum spokeswoman Maureen Fitzhenry.

Once inside, however, one of CMHRs hallmarks  its size  is a social-distancing plus, Lavergne says. The giant six-year-old tourist landmark is spacious and allows visitors to enjoy the exhibits while keeping two metres apart from each other.

"Theres a lot of real estate here," he says of the museums seven levels, 24,155 square metres of interior space and 4,366 square metres of exhibition space. "Distancing is available with effective signage to tell people where they can go."

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Lavergne sets up a plexiglass shield to show some of the COVID-19 related measures the museum will be taking.

Some of those signs will indicate the museums innovative touchscreen exhibits are closed. The coronavirus can linger for days on certain surfaces and provincial regulations say they must be turned off, Lavergne says.

The Israel Asper Tower of Hope, a popular attraction that provides a view of The Forks and Winnipegs downtown skyline from atop the museum, will also be closed.

"Its not that large of a space," Lavergne says, adding visitors will have to wait until restrictions ease further before ascending to the museums highest point.

What will be open are new exhibits focusing on the rights to health. The pandemic has put health issues at the top of peoples minds since the CMHR closed in March, and new exhibits focusing on health-care issues and on Canadian politician Tommy Douglas, who many call the father of medicare in Canada, will add insight, Fitzhenry says.

"This is a place where you can find hope and see the good that people have done for others," she says.

Most other permanent exhibits, such as one focusing on Viola Desmond, the Black civil rights activist who challenged the segregation of a Nova Scotia cinema in 1946, and a 360-degree surround film about Indigenous worldviews, remain, says CMHR president and chief executive officer John Young.

The human rights museum is also taking over outdoor spaces at The Forks on July 15 with a new exhibition, ARTiculate Our Rights, which will feature 13 installations of 26 works of art created by young Manitobans, says Fitzhenry. The project, which considers the future of human rights, was to be part of Manitoba 150 celebrations; an indoor component has been postponed to 2021.

The CMHR will also offer #FrontlineFridays, free tickets every Friday to essential workers such as health-care personnel, firefighters, police, janitors and grocery store workers.

"Were showing our appreciation for those who went above and beyond," says Fitzhenry.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@AlanDSmall

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A looter in Chicago who used the George Floyd protests as an excuse to raid stores has been found offering the stolen goods for sale on Facebook.

The Illinois city was, like many others across America, the scene of a frenzy of theft in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, amid the peaceful protests.

The looting peaked last Sunday, with the smashing of shop windows across the city and thieves carrying away armfuls of stolen goods.

CBS found a woman boasting about stolen goods on Facebook Live and offering them for sale

A week later an investigation by CBS Chicago found a woman in Chicago selling the stolen goods online.

The woman filmed a shopping mall with people running out the door carrying swag.

She showed her car full of crates of Remy Martin cognac and boxes of unopened goods.

The woman, who CBS did not name, showed off her car filled with stolen goods

Her car was filled with what appeared to be boxes of sneakers, amid other stolen goods

In a second video, she said: 'Yeah, I looted. I took all my s***.'

When people watching her post began to condemn her behavior, she replied: 'I don't give no f****. This ain't the first time.'

The information was handed over by CBS to the Chicago police department and the FBI.

The FBI said they were investigating all tips, and urged members of the public to come forward if they had information.

'The FBI is currently reviewing all tips to help us identify actors who are actively instigating violence in the wake of George Floyds death.

'If you witness an unlawful, violent encounter, you can help by submitting photos or video.'

Looters are seen breaking into a store in downtown Chicago on the night of May 30

A Starbucks store in downtown Chicago is smashed up and robbed during the night of May 30

A Best Buy store is raided by looters in Chicago on June 1, as protests in the city got out of hand

The entrance to the Best Buy store on June 1, with a looter seen running out the front entrance

On Monday the chief of Chicago police, David Brown, said there had been over the last nine days 788 arrests for looting.

On the worst day of looting, May 31, the city had 15 homicide deaths - the most in at least 36 years, according to analysis by the local NPR affiliate, WBEZ.

Over the last nine days there were also 2,665 arrests in Chicago for 'civil unrest and disorderly conduct,' and the recovery of 529 guns.

New York City was also heavily looted during the unrest.

Fausto Pichardo, NYPD Chief of Patrol, told CNN on Saturday that more than 50 commercial establishments in the SoHo district of Manhattan were burglarized.

One car seized by the NYPD had more than $17,000 worth of products inside, he said.

'The first night was complete chaos,' he said. 'People walking past us with laundry bags full of things, four or five sneaker boxes.

'There was definitely organization, lots of cars here. A lot of people with a lot of bags.'

The NYPD had made 1,049 arrests as of Saturday morning.

And in Los Angeles, 150 people were arrested for looting during the weekend of May 31, when dozens of businesses were vandalized, ransacked, and some burned in LAs Fairfax District.
Fake currency notes with possible face value of crores of rupees were on Wednesday seized in Pune and six persons, including an Army personnel, were arrested in this connection, a police official said.

The action was taken in a joint operation carried out by the Pune Police and the Military Intelligence (MI), he said.

"Two days back, we had received information from the MI, based on which we carried out a joint operation. We arrested six people today, from whom fake Indian as well as foreign currency notes of multiple denominations were recovered," Bacchan Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime, said.

"Six of the arrested accused include a serving Army personnel, who is the main accused in the case," he said.

The notes were being counted and their face value may run into crores of rupees, he added.
Louisville restaurant owner David McAtee was killed last month after he was fatally shot in the chest by a member of the National Guard, state officials have revealed.

The 53-year-old died on May 31 during a fatal exchange with police and National Guard soldiers who were attempting to enforce a curfew in the city amid ongoing protests against the death of George Floyd.

Investigators had been trying to determine who had fired the fatal shot after police officers Katie Crews and Austin Allen had their body cameras turned off during the incident.

Kentucky Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown revealed during a press conference on Tuesday that shrapnel found in McAtee's body matched the green bullets from rifles carried by the National Guard.

David McAtee (above) was shot dead during the early hours of May 31 after Louisville officers and the National Guard 'returned fire' into a group gathering in a parking lot, next to where McAtee's business is located

Neither Officer Katie Crews (left) nor Officer Austin Allen (right) had their body cameras switched on during the fatal shooting. Investigators recovered shell casings from shots fired by Louisville police and the findings excluded those officers from firing the fatal shot, officials said on Tuesday

Two guard members had been in the vicinity where shell casings were found, but the remnants recovered from McAtee's body were too twisted to match it to a specific rifle.

'So it's clear, the fatal shot came from the National Guard,' Brown said. 'We have no doubt about that.'

Officers had been seen on a video distributed by Louisville Metro Police shooting pepper balls into the area where McAtee was cooking outdoors, but Brown said there's evidence to suggest McAtee fired first.

Two shell casings belonging to a gun inside McAtee's business were found. It is believed McAtee fired once, paused and then shot a second round.

National Guard members then returned fire, which he said was 'part of the engagement and what any law enforcement would do in that case.'

Investigators also recovered shell casings from shots fired by Louisville police and the findings excluded those officers from firing the fatal shot, Brown said.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said officials are 'committed to getting that truth out - good, bad or ugly.'

The video of the incident appeared to show McAtee firing a gun from the door of his restaurant as officers shot projectiles.

At one stage, McAtee (dressed in red) is seen leaning out of the door of the building, raising his arm upward out of frame

McAtee, who owned Yaya's BBQ, was shot on May 31 amid waves of protests in Louisville. But witnesses said the crowd gathering at his eatery had nothing to do with the demonstrations

Video from a different camera posted outside the building shows a beverage container on a table outside the door exploding and falling to the ground just before smoke emerges from inside the building where McAtee was standing.

A lawyer for McAtee's family, Steve Romines, said Monday that investigators should release all video linked to the shooting.

Romines also said Louisville officials and police should accept responsibility and apologize for violating use of force policies the night of the shooting.

He said McAtee's niece was hit multiple times with pepper balls as she stood at the door of his business.

Louisville police are conducting their own investigation of the shooting. As part of its own ongoing investigation, state police will review available video, frame by frame, Brown said.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer fired the city's police chief after the shooting because Louisville officers did not have body cameras running during the incident.

The chief, Steve Conrad, announced his retirement last month but was going to stay on until the end of June.
The Odys Boutique Hotel awaits visitors with a stately yet homely Vietnamese experience

Located near the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts, The Odys Boutique Hotel was designed by Huong Hoai Nguyen, a well-known artist and interior designer whose touch has graced many Vietnam-inspired architectural constructs.

With the elegant image of the national lotus flower gracing all corners, The Odys emanates the soul of Vietnam and the beauty of Ho Chi Minh City known as the Pearl of the Far East.

Entering the doors of The Odys, one will catch a whiff of the aromatic cedar-wood scent blended with a touch of patchouli, embracing The Odys Boutique Hotels lotus pond with tranquillity and inner peace.

Wooden furniture adorned by elegant blue and noble gold decor reminds guests of the affluent Vietnamese wooden estates of the olden days. At the same time, the highlights are inspired by the colours and lighting of the interiors of old Western houses to give residents a feeling of familiarity away from home.

Well-appointed rooms at The Odys Boutique Hotel offer royal luxury and elegant simplicity

Each corridor is framed with wooden panels, leading visitors towards their rooms, providing a sense of space yet still oozing comfort and welcoming warmth.

Long lotus-embroidered draped curtains, which are reminiscent of the dust covers used by the old Vietnamese nobility, are hung above each bed.

However, The Odys Boutique Hotels journey is not only about beauty. The Odys restaurant serves a selection of Asian and European fusion dishes, prepared to the guests taste.

Moreover, the walls in each room are decorated with signature French colonial patterned tiles. Since the end of the 19th century, these patterned tiles, along with the French, have been part of the memories of entire Vietnamese generations. It is also a way The Odys Boutique Hotel commemorates Ho Chi MInh City's past, when it was touted as The Pearl of the Far East.

From now until July 31, The Odys Boutique Hotel offers an exclusive discount of more than 50 per cent on room rates. With the superior room, guests will enjoy a night of stay for VND800,000 ($35) instead of the original VND2.345 million ($100), while a one-night stay at Junior Deluxe if offered for only VND1 million ($45  originally VND2.545 [$110]). Those who wish for a higher-class experience can now enjoy Deluxe or The Odys Premium rooms for only VND1.2 million ($50) and VND1.5 million ($65) , respectively.
North 6th Agency has launched N6A Enterprise Value Services, a dedicated services unit specializing in investor relations, financial communications and shareholder value optimization. The unit is designed to help clients achieve such financial outcomes as defining and reaching valuation targets, IPO preparation, public company investor relations consulting, shareholder communications and outcome-driven liquidity events. It will be led by Berlin Group chairman Lawrence Delaney, Jr., who has served as an embedded investor relations advisor for such public, private and pre-IPO companies as Titan Corporation; NCI, Inc.; Stanley, Inc and SAIC. N6A Enterprise Value Services will be integrated into the agencys Outcome Relations offering, which combines earned media, amplification and KPI alignment.

Philadelphia-based Flackable has launched an automated campaign status reporting system. The system automatically generates PDF reports that are distributed to clients via email on a monthly basis. The reports display media relations activity for a given period, including the status of pending interviews and opportunities. They also map out the status of content projects, award nominations and speaking opportunities. Several additional features and integrations are in development. This feature is the latest enhancement to Flackables All-Access Client Portal, a platform providing real-time, on demand campaign metrics and status reporting, which was unveiled earlier this year.

Terraboost Media, an out-of-home media company, is donating more than 100 of the hand sanitizing billboards it operates at the front doors of supermarket and drugstore chains across the U.S. to Feeding America, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization with a network of 200 food banks across the US. This three-month campaign (valued at more than $120,000) is expected to generate an estimated 36 million engagements and heightened awareness for the organization. The billboards will encourage consumers to donate food that they can buy in the stores for needy families during the COVID-19 crisis. Additionally, Feeding America will be able to raise cash donations via a QR code. "This opportunity opens up a new vehicle for us to get our message out at a critical time when more and more of our neighbors are turning to food banks for help," said Feeding America vice president, brand & content marketing Christine Greeley.
Samsung has finally released the One UI 2.1 update for the Galaxy Note 9. The update is currently rolling out to users in Germany with the firmware version N960FXXU5ETF5. This update also brings the June 2020 Android security patch to the 2018 Galaxy Note flagship.

There was a lot of confusion early on about whether or not the Galaxy Note 9 will get One UI 2.1. Representatives at Samsungs official forums in South Korea have been responding to user queries with conflicting statements. While some claim the software is in development, others say there are no such plans.

It was eventually confirmed in late April that both Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9 phones will get One UI 2.1. The former is now getting it in Germany. Interestingly, the One UI 2.1 update was expected to hit both the 2018 flagships in South Korea first, but that wasnt to be. At least not in the case of the Galaxy Note 9.

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The Galaxy S9 and S9+ should also start getting One UI 2.1 in the coming weeks.

Galaxy Note 9 gets One UI 2.1

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 arrived in 2018 running the Android 8.1 Ore0 based Samsung Experience 9.5.

Samsung revamped its custom Android skin starting with Android 9 Pie and named it One UI. This S Pen-wielding smartphone has since received both One UI 1.0 and One UI 2.0 updates. It received the Android 10 based One UI 2.0 a few months ago.

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Now, it is getting the One UI 2.1 update as well, bringing in a few additional features. Of course, this two-year-old phone does not get all the One UI 2.1 features that debuted with the Galaxy S20 series. However, a handful of them has still made the cut.

Firstly, youre getting both Quick Share and Music Share features. The former is essentially Samsungs alternative to the AirDrop feature on iPhones, which lets users share files instantly with people nearby. The latter, meanwhile, lets users share their Bluetooth connection to an audio device with other devices around.

The Galaxy Note 9 also gets Single Take and Pro Video modes in the camera. Pro Video mode, if you recall, was removed from the Samsung flagship with the One UI 1.0 update. It is now making a return with One UI 2.1. This mode lets you control the shutter speed as well as several other parameters, including ISO and white balance, so that you can capture a scene as you like it.

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Features like AR Zone and Custom Filters, are also now available on the Galaxy Note 9. It misses out on some other One UI 2.1 features though, including Night Hyperlapse.

Since the Galaxy Note 9 has already received two major Android OS updates, this could be the last feature update for this phone. Its unlikely to get One UI 2.5, which should debut on the Galaxy Note 20 series later this year.

As for the One UI 2.1 update, it is rolling out in batches in Germany and may take some time before hitting all eligible units. The OTA (over the air) file size weighs in at 1252.18 MB for the German version. The global rollout shouldnt be too far away now.
Though he led in national polls for much of the campaign, Bidens candidacy stalled in early states. He finished fourth in Iowa, behind Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). Then he dropped to fifth in New Hampshire  with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) joining the group of candidates with better finishes. No Democratic candidate had ever gone on to become the nominee after finishing below second in the Granite State.
Photograph: Kevin Hagen/EPA

Protesters in New York have been unnecessarily arrested and detained for as long as 48 hours in abysmal conditions without access to masks, food and water, according to legal experts.

Since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis just over two weeks ago, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of New York City in protest over police brutality.

More than 2,000 people had been arrested in the city as of Thursday  around a fifth of the total of over 10,000 arrested nationally  on charges such as resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and violating the now cancelled city-wide curfew. New York Police Department (NYPD) declined a request for updated arrest figures, saying they will be available in the near future.

Lawyers say the NYPD is also denying many of those arrested their right to a phone call, leaving their friends and families fearful for their lives. Details of arrests are not publicly available, but anecdotally, lawyers said protesters are facing charges for disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration and for violating the curfew, which was considered a Class B misdemeanour, carrying a maximum sentence of up to three months imprisonment.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, they said most police officers do not wear masks and in some cases confiscate those of protesters who are being packed into cells with no regard for social distancing.

Corey Stoughton, head of the special litigation unit at the Legal Aid Society, said: We have heard from our clients who have been arrested that the conditions in the holding cells that they are held in, in many cases for 10-20 hours, are abysmal. Especially following some of the larger demonstrations and mass arrests, that there are extremely crowded conditions, that the cells are dirty and unsanitary and unsafe.

New York City police officers and protesters clash during a demonstration in Brooklyn on 30 May. Photograph: Kevin Hagen/EPA

Police officers, she added, rarely wear masks. So really an arrest is a decision by the police department to put protesters into a situation that is dangerous for their health and safety.

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Most protesters that are arrested are taken to a police station and held before being released on a summons ordering them to appear in court at a later date. The protesters the Guardian spoke to had received summonses for September. If they face higher charges, they are arraigned, which means they are detained until they have seen a judge  who either sets bail or releases them.

Rigodis Appling, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, where she is a founding member of the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid caucus, said some protesters were held for 48 hours. Ordinarily this would be illegal under New York states 24-hour arrest-to-arraignment rule but it was suspended as a result of the crisis and upheld by a Manhattan supreme court judge.

The people I saw had been sitting in the Tombs [the nickname for where people are detained underneath the courthouse in Manhattan] for 48 hours  in New York, typically youre supposed to see a judge within 24 hours, said Appling. She said of those who were arraigned, were majority, almost all, black and Latino and that many were over-charged with higher crimes. She has also seen multiple essential workers who were not necessarily a part of the protests in arraignments.

Describing the conditions in the Tombs, she said: Filthy would be an understatement. While she said it is always like that, Covid-19 makes it even scarier for her clients.

Protesters clash with New York City police during a march in Manhattan on 31 May. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Porsha-Shafon Venable, a supervising attorney public defender in New York and an attorney for Good Call, a hotline offering 24-hour free legal support to people who have been arrested in the city and their friends and family, said police treatment of protesters is tantamount to an act of terror.

She added: People are scared  And if there was any confidence, if there was any modicum of confidence in the NYPD before, they have successfully diminished that. It is gone. And you can hear it in every mothers voice that calls the hotline.

Good Call has been flooded with close to 2,000 calls since the protests started and expanded its team of lawyers, who Venable said are working around the clock.

On Thursday night, when protesters in the Bronx were zip-tied, she said they were taken to another borough, Queens.

Some of them were ultimately released, but it was still during curfew time with no way to get back home and with real fear of being arrested again for violating the curfew.

Many of the arrests are unnecessary, said Jared Trujillo, defence attorney and president of the association of Legal Aid Attorneys.

Ultimately someone whos just out there protesting there is no reason that police officers cant issue an appearance ticket  if they have to arrest them at all.

New York City police officers arrest a protester in Brooklyn on 30 May Photograph: Kevin Hagen/EPA

Rather than scaring off protesters, police treatment of those arrested is in some ways emboldening people to demonstrate, he said.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, announced on Friday that he will not prosecute protesters for low-level offenses.

However, Trujillo said there was no guarantee. Something to note about the Manhattan DA is oftentimes they say theyre not going to prosecute certain things and they do it anyway.

Student Kellen Gold, 22, was arrested for violating the curfew on Wednesday night at a march in Manhattan. Gold, who uses they/them pronouns, said they were charged by police on bikes so they ran and kneeled before being thrown to the ground and then cuffed and taken to a police station in Brooklyn.

Ive been arrested a bunch of times [for activism]  this is the first arrest where Ive been violently handled, said Gold, who was released at around 1.15am and given a court date in September.

Almost all of the officers were not wearing masks, said Gold, and protesters were required to share water cups.

Johnathan, 35, a videographer from Brooklyn who did not want to give his last name, said he was arrested for trespassing at the Barclays Centre on 29 May after walking up the sloping grass-covered roof of the train station to get a better vantage point to film.

At One Police Plaza, NYPDs headquarters in Manhattan, he claims it was chaos. He said he was not given a phone call and officers were not wearing masks or social distancing. In a holding area of about 50 people, he said he was the only one wearing a mask.

He said he has been summoned to appear in September but that officers told him they will not charge him with trespassing. I dont know whats in store, he added.

The experience has changed him, he said, and he believes the police should be defunded. He added: If theyre messing that up, what else are they messing up?  The fire that has now been lit under me is to hold the police accountable.

The NYPD, which Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday would have its $6bn budget cut following pressure from protesters, said it supports and respects the rights of protesters to express their views and that they are given numerous warnings to disperse if officers decide to clear the street. It said if directions are ignored, a person may be subject to an arrest or summons.

Sergeant Mary Frances ODonnell, a spokeswoman for the deputy commissioner, public information, said: While the majority of the protests have been peaceful, our officers have encountered agitators with different agendas who have used the guise of the protests to commit criminal acts and violence.

Since May 25, our officers have been shot at, stabbed, assaulted with rocks, bricks and other debris, have been struck by vehicles and have even had molotov cocktails thrown inside their vehicle. This behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
China urges U.S. to honor commitment of suspending nuclear tests: spokesperson

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:46, June 09, 2020

BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China urges the United States to meet its due obligations and honor its commitment of suspending nuclear tests under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday.

Spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks at a press briefing in response to a recent announcement by the Group of Eminent Persons for the CTBT, expressing concern on discussions by U.S. officials on the possibility of resuming nuclear tests and stressing that if the U.S. side do this, it would seriously undermine the global norm of "suspending nuclear tests" and damage the CTBT's mechanism. The Group also called on all states to reaffirm their support for the treaty and take concrete measures to ensure that the treaty will go into force at an early date.

"China supports the Group of Eminent Persons' announcement," Hua said. "As an important pillar underpinning the international regime of nuclear arms control, the CTBT has established the nuclear test ban as an international norm."

The treaty is of great significance in advancing nuclear disarmament, preventing nuclear proliferation, and safeguarding world peace and security, she added.

China urges the U.S. to meet its due obligations, honor its commitment of suspending nuclear tests and safeguard the Treaty's purposes and objectives, Hua said.

"We also hope the U.S. will earnestly heed the appeal of the international community and do more things that are conducive to international nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation," Hua said.

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UVA Health and UVA Children's are increasing access to the latest food allergy clinical trials and expanding their cutting-edge food-allergy research, following their selection to a national food-allergy clinical network.

FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education), a leading food-allergy research, advocacy and education organization, has named UVA as a Discovery Center of Distinction as part of the FARE Clinical Network. This is the highest level of distinction from FARE, and UVA is the only Virginia hospital named to the network. The selection follows a rigorous evaluation of both UVA's food-allergy patient care and research capabilities.

Thirty-two million Americans have food allergies. The clinical network's goal, according to FARE, is to "bring top institutions together to ensure that patients with food allergies have access to state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment, short-term and long-term care, and research that addresses factors from discovery to application along the entire clinical and translational spectrum."

Joining the network will give people across the state more opportunities to participate in food allergy research, said Jonathan Hemler, MD, a pediatric allergist at UVA specializing in food allergies.

"As a part of the new FARE network, we will be asked to be a site for multi-center clinical and translational research, and give patients in Central Virginia, and the state as a whole, access to the newest and most advanced therapies undergoing clinical trials," he said.

This designation also recognizes UVA's top-notch care for patients with food allergies and food allergic diseases, Hemler said.

Connecting with the research network will help UVA build on its pioneering food-allergy research, which includes several projects examining a red meat allergy caused by tick bites that was first discovered by UVA's Thomas Platts-Mills, MD. UVA also has a clinical trial examining a potential medication for eosinophilic esophagitis, an allergic inflammation of the esophagus. In addition, UVA researchers are working with colleagues at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to use antibodies from patients with food allergies to create better diagnostic tools as well as potentially block food allergic reactions from occurring.

"The collaborations with other centers are the most exciting aspect of being a part of the clinical network, as it will give patients in Virginia access to cutting-edge research opportunities in this field," Hemler said.

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Rachel Adedeji attends The British Soap Awards at The Lowry Theatre on June 3, 2017 in Manchester, England. The Soap Awards will be aired on June 6 on ITV at 8pm. (Photo by Mike Marsland/Mike Marsland/WireImage)

It has been announced that Rachel Adedeji will be leaving Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks.

The news comes after the actor publicly criticised the shows response to the Black Lives Matter movement as she said she and other black cast members had been subject to racial micro-aggressions and slurs behind the scenes.

However, the programme said the decision to exit was made by Adedeji last year, with her final scenes shot before lockdown.

Read more: Keisha Buchanan speaks on 'trauma' of being only black member in Sugababes

A Hollyoaks spokesperson said: Rachel made the decision to leave Hollyoaks to pursue other opportunities earlier last year which saddened us at Hollyoaks as she is one of the leading cast members in the show.

However, the notice period did allow the writers time to give Lisa Loveday an extremely gripping exit storyline. Viewers will see this story play out later this year as her final scenes were filmed shortly before lockdown.

Rachel Adedeji poses for photographers upon arrival for a the Royal Television Society Awards in central London, Tuesday, Mar 19, 2019. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

The 28-year-old, who previously competed on the X Factor, joined the soap in 2016.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the actor added: It had always been our intention for Rachel to leave the show after a period of time. She loved her time on Hollyoaks and the exit storyline was openly discussed with the producers and her together, in a collaborative format.

Adedeji said Hollyoaks response to Black Lives Matter was performative and disingenuous as she disclosed her experiences of being witness and subjected to racism including being told youre all the same by a make-up artist, and claimed black cast members were referred to as blackies by a member of the production team.

My thoughts on the Hollyoaks response to Black Lives Matter pic.twitter.com/jvOxzCQkl0  Rachel Adedeji (@RachelASongs) June 5, 2020

The Lisa Loveday star received support from colleague Amanda Clapham who said she had also witnessed instances of racism on set.

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This week, the shows production company Lime Pictures outlined a plan of action which will see cast and crew undergo training on unconscious bias.

Read more: Leigh-Anne Pinnock feared shed lose career by speaking out on racism

The statement from the company also read: All BAME staff, freelancers and cast will be offered mentoring from Limes senior management.

An open letter that I have sent to the senior members of staff at Hollyoaks in support of Black Lives Matter, friends and colleagues. pic.twitter.com/ff1gBVypae  Amanda Clapham (@amandaclapham) June 7, 2020

We will build on our work towards making Lime as diverse and inclusive as possible across all aspects of recruitment and talent retention, on and off screen.

Limes BAME writers and directors schemes will be reviewed and augmented to drive greater inclusivity within the industry.

We are undertaking an immediate and in depth review of company and cast liaison across Lime.
Chief executives in the real estate, consumer products, automobiles, construction, and textile sectors said they were all expecting workers to re-join in the next 45-60 days, which would help them ramp-up production from July.

Facing acute labour shortage, Indian companies are setting up hostel and health facilities, and offering insurance cover to blue-collar workers at their plants/construction sites.

The return of workers is important for firms to get production back on track, which fell to record lows in April and May.

Chief executives in the real estate, consumer products, automobiles, construction, and textile sectors said they were all expecting workers to re-join in the next 45-60 days, which would help them ramp-up production from July.

Labour is among the biggest problem faced by vendors and, as a result, our supply chain is getting impacted.

"If vendors dont produce, we too cannot produce as every component is critical to assemble a car, said R C Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki India.

S N Subrahmanyan, MD and CEO of L&T, said the labour force had reduced to 70,000 in May.

In the last 15 days or so, we have brought the workforce back to 120,000-levels, and are adding 2,500-3,000 labourers each day, he said.

The company has also posted staff and other senior executives at multiple locations such as Ranchi, Howrah, and Darbangha to onboard workers again, offering incentives.

Many of them know L&T provides good labour camps and transportation.

"The psychology of fear is acting as a hindrance, which we need to overcome, he added.

The firm has made videos, apps, and taken measures to showcase what they are offering in terms of security.

Subrahmanyan is hopeful of having his workforce back to 230,000 in the next 40 days.

Some consumer products makers such as Dabur, Parle Products, and PepsiCo have turned to local people in the absence of migrant labourers.

Dabur, for instance, has transportation service for workers to and from its 11 manufacturing sites.

Housing has been provided for some workers near manufacturing plants.

In addition, Dabur is also providing medical cover to all employees on its rolls, so they can feel protected in the event of a health concern, says Mohit Malhotra, CEO of Dabur India.

Most firms, such as Nestle, Marico, and HUL have also extended health benefits to workers, over the last two months.

Companies like Parle Products turned to local workers whenever it faced any shortage.

Things have started improving after May 20. Labourers are returning by themselves, because of social security schemes, and as such we arent facing any problem, said Mayank Shah, category head at Parle Products.

CEOs of realty firms are making special efforts to get labourers back to work sites.

Our workers already have separate facilities as housing, and we follow the best practices within the industry.

"We intend to improve living conditions of these labourers significantly, said Vikas Oberoi, chairman of Oberoi Realty.

Kamal Khetan, chairman and MD of Suntech Realty, said the company usually employs 2,000 workers at its plants, of which 800 have left for home.

Our labour contractors are talking to our workers who left and we expect them to be back within 45 days, he said.

CEOs of textile companies said that post-COVID, they will fast localise their labour workforce.

Sivaramakrishnan Ganapathi, MD of Gokaldas Exports, said the firm is not dependent on migrant labourers.

Migrant workers need hostel facilities to stay, and when they go to their hometowns for some function, they dont return for a month.

"We have focused on people who live in and around the factory. To that extent, we are dependent on local labour, he said.

The company, which employs 26,000 people, is working with the Karnataka government for arranging passes to bring them back to Bengaluru.

We are getting 40-45 per cent attendance at present. Once the cap is lifted, we will struggle to get workers unless and until transportation is in place, he added.

Gokaldas performance is closely dependent on its key customers in North America and Europe.

An early recovery in sentiment will minimise the impact.

Daimler India (DICV) is also gradually ramping up operations, in line with government guidelines and market demand.

During the lockdown, DICV ensured all employees, including line workers, received full salary.

"Thanks to this and our comprehensive health and safety support, most of our workforce remained in Tamil Nadu.

"For the few that had to leave, we have offered full transportation support for returning employees, said a company spokesperson.

Photograph: PTI Photo

Dev Chatterjee with Viveat Susan Pinto, Avishek Rakshit, Amritha Pillay, T E Narasimhan, Raghavendra Kamath and Surajeet Das Gupta
100 years ago

Roadsters creating havoc in city

Watervliet Mayor M.J. Walsh declared war on reckless automobile drivers within the city, who, he said, appeared to think the streets of Watervliet were "speedways and the citizens nothing more than like pins in a bowling alley to be knocked down if they happen to be in the way." His newly proposed fines included: $25 for any driver who passed a trolley car while it was standing still to take on or let off passengers; $5 for any driver who passed a trolley car on the left side, whether the trolley car was standing still or moving; $2 for any driver who parked their car for more than a half hour on any city street, particularly Broadway; and $2 for any driver who stopped their car within 10 feet of a fire plug. Acknowledging that it would be impossible for the police force to keep tabs on all drivers who violated traffic laws, Walsh called on the citizens of Watervliet to take down the license numbers of drivers they witness committing infractions.

 Times Union, June 11, 1920

50 years ago

Order: Bring back your state car

The Rockefeller administration had issued a directive ordering the recall of more than 500 state-owned automobiles assigned on a full time basis to individual state employees and departments in the Albany area. A spokesman for the governor's administration said the move would not affect department and agency heads who would continue keeping the vehicles assigned to them. Under the order, cars assigned as pool cars had to be returned to the Office of General Services by July 1. While privately admitting that the move was partly a crackdown on use of state cars for private purposes, state officials insisted it was necessitated by recent developments in the Legislature.

 Times Union, June 11, 1970

Looking Back is compiled by C.J. Lais Jr. and Azra Haqqie. For questions about this feature, contact tblydenburgh@timesunion.com
HEFEI, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Qian Chaoshan, a 54-year-old chicken farmer, had to discard over 6,000 rotten eggs as sales plummeted during the COVID-19 epidemic. "We collect about 400 free-range eggs every day. But I couldn't go out to sell them because of the traffic control during the epidemic," recalled Qian, who raises nearly 1,500 chicken in Shanhou Township, Hexian County of east China's Anhui Province. Qian's family, which was earlier registered as a low-income one, cast off poverty through chicken-raising in 2019 when the birds brought them an annual income of more than 40,000 yuan (about 5,600 U.S. dollars). However, the epidemic has thrown up new challenges for him and his wife. Qian suffers from a chronic kidney condition while his wife has stomach disease. The turning point came on May 8 when a training program was held in the township to help poor residents sell products through e-commerce. Qian was at first not sure if eggs could be sold online, but desperate as he was, he decided to give it a shot. An e-commerce company purchased samples from him and about a week later, it brought good news. "We will order the first batch of 6,000 eggs from you and there will be more orders if the customers are satisfied," Zhu Ping, the company's general manager told him over phone. In addition to eggs, the e-commerce platform has helped impoverished households sell sesame oil, grapes and crayfish for free. A slew of measures taken by local government has helped poor households sell agricultural products worth more than 1.12 million yuan. Chen Xingyou, a migrant worker from Hexian, was jobless after the Spring Festival. As the family's only potential breadwinner, he was anxious to find work. Thanks to the pairing-up project initiated by the government, Chen got a job at a local marble processing plant. To increase the income of poor families, local government paired up poor families with factories after assessing their skills and demands. "I got the job in April. I'm so grateful that I can have a job without leaving home," said Chen, who needs to take care of his critically-ill wife and son, a junior high school student. China aims to eradicate absolute poverty by 2020, which means that around 5.51 million people who remained poor at the end of 2019 will be lifted out of poverty by the end of this year. Hexian County is just a small example of the measures that have been taken across China to minimize the effect of COVID-19 on impoverished families. Various measures have been rolled out to boost sales of products in poorer regions, support employment and facilitate the revival of local industries and projects. "It's been a tough year. But I now have a job from which I can make more than 3,000 yuan a month. I'm satisfied," said Chen.


STAMFORD  A family of six were forced to move out of their Newfield home after improperly disposed of fireworks reignited and started a blaze that damaged the basement and exterior of the home Tuesday night, fire officials said.

The house fire at 76 Turner Road was called in at 9:40 p.m. Chief Fire Marshal Walter Seely said the fire has been ruled accidental.

Even though the homeowners said they wetted down the used fireworks, which were sparklers that had been set off that same night, that precaution was not enough, Seely said. The remains of the sparklers were put into a trash can, which was placed next to a basement window on the side of the house, he said.

When the trash can erupted in flames, it broke the window and some of the basement floor joists caught fire along with the area around the furnace, Seely said. The fire also crept up the wall and extended to the exterior of the home, he said.

Firefighters were able to knock down the fire quickly and limit its spread, but it still caused fire, heat and smoke damage to the cellar and a little smoke damage to the rest of the home, he said.

When people are using fireworks, they need to ensure they wet them down completely before disposing of them, Seely said. They get very hot, and as we can see here, the last ember left in them can cause a fire. Put them in a bucket of water.

Seely said the family of two adults and four children were receiving help from the Connecticut Red Cross to find temporary accommodations.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
DALLAS, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA) was honored for its efforts in positively impacting local communities, as the bank was named to The Civic 50 by Points of Light, the world's largest organization dedicated to volunteer service.

The award recognizes Comerica as one of the 50 most community-minded companies in the United States. The Civic 50 provides a national standard for superior corporate citizenship and showcases how companies use their time, skills and resources to impact their communities.

"Comerica's success as a relationship bank starts with our commitment to the communities we serve," said Curt Farmer, chairman and chief executive officer of Comerica. "This recognition truly reflects the efforts of our Comerica colleagues who help emphasize that commitment. From financial education events to volunteer opportunities with nonprofit partners, Comerica colleagues strengthen our dedication to serving the needs of our local communities."

The Civic 50 honorees are public and private companies with U.S. operations and revenues of $1 billion or more and are selected based on four dimensions of their U.S. community engagement program including investment, integration, institutionalization and impact. This marks the fifth consecutive year Comerica has received the honor, and sixth time overall since its inception in 2012.

In 2019, Comerica employees combined to volunteer more than 71,300 hours to nonprofit organizations. Comerica also donated over $8.4 million to charitable organizations via more than 1,400 grants and sponsorships. Just this year, Comerica and the Comerica Charitable Foundation committed $8 million to local nonprofit organization for COVID-19 relief efforts and launched an online financial education platform  the Comerica Financial Education Center  for consumers.

The Civic 50 survey was administered by True Impact, a company specializing in helping organizations maximize and measure their social and business value. The survey instrument consists of quantitative and multiple-choice questions that inform The Civic 50 scoring process. The Civic 50 is the only survey and ranking system that exclusively measures corporate involvement in communities. To learn more about The Civic 50 and a complete list of the 2020 honorees, visit www.Civic50.org.

Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA) is a financial services company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and strategically aligned by three business segments: The Commercial Bank, The Retail Bank, and Wealth Management. Comerica focuses on relationships, and helping people and businesses be successful. In addition to Texas, Comerica Bank locations can be found in Arizona, California, Florida and Michigan, with select businesses operating in several other states, as well as in Canada and Mexico. Comerica reported total assets of $76.3 billion at March 31, 2020 and celebrated its 170th anniversary in August 2019.

About Points of Light

Points of Light is a global nonprofit organization that inspires, equips and mobilizes millions of people to take action that changes the world. We envision a world in which every individual discovers the power to make a difference, creating healthy communities in vibrant, participatory societies. Through affiliates in 250 cities across 37 countries, and in partnership with thousands of nonprofits and corporations, Points of Light engages 5 million volunteers in 14 million hours of service each year. We bring the power of people to bear where it's needed most. For more information, visit: www.pointsoflight.org .

SOURCE Comerica Bank

Related Links

http://www.comerica.com


Samsung will be using its own OLEDs for the Galaxy S21 lineup after all

More than a month ago, a report came out claiming that Samsung is in talks with BOE about the production of OLED panels for some of the Korean company's smartphones including the upcoming Galaxy S21 or S30 or whatever else it is named. However, according to the latest rumors in the field, BOE's OLEDs didn't pass Samsung's internal testing so they won't be used.

Reportedly Samsung isn't happy with the quality and therefore will continue using its in-house OLEDs. In fact, BOE was looking for a way to get into Apple's supply chain but also failed the initial tests for the iPhone 12 screen production. This would explain why Samsung holds 80% of the OLED supply for this year's iPhones.

Source
What followed was possibly the most insane international manhunt in history, involving Swiss arms dealers, the Black Panther government-in-exile, an ill-advised publicity tour of Yasser Arafat's secret Jordanian training camp, and an attempt to bribe a US presidential candidate with the greatest Rolling Stones tour never staged. And just a ton of LSD, of course. It's hard to even know where to begin, so let's just start with the acid cult and work up to the disembodied voice of Charles Manson.

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The "acid cult" in question was the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, also widely known as "the hippie mafia," because literally every group in America gets their own mafia. The Brotherhood believed that LSD offered "a key to unlock the doors of perception" and that they had a calling from God to lead humanity into a new era by distributing it as widely as possible. To fund this, the ragtag collection of SoCal surfers and petty crooks transformed themselves into a massive international drug smuggling ring. It genuinely might be the most impressive thing a bunch of completely stoned people have managed to pull off, not counting that time Seth Rogen accidentally founded the Sinaloa Cartel.

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The Brotherhood had a particularly lucrative line smuggling Afghan hashish inside hollowed-out surfboards, musical instruments and even VW vans. Basically, if it looked like a background prop in a screwball comedy, the Brotherhood were moving hash in it, which worked in the glorious era when customs agents saw nothing odd about taking a quick surfing holiday in Afghanistan. They used the profits to fund their true goal of flooding America with LSD, producing vast quantities in California labs and shipping it out across the nation, basically for free. The high point was probably Christmas 1970, when they dumped 25,000 tabs of acid out of a plane onto a cheering crowd partying in Laguna Beach. The one-day concert in question ended up lasting three days, at which point the cops dragged everyone out, dumped all the debris in a giant hole, and then set it on fire.
Fox News says

graphic insensitive

Fox News has apologized for how it displayed a chart correlating the stock markets performance with the aftermath of the deaths of George Floyd, Martin Luther King Jr. and Michael Brown.

The graphic that aired Friday to illustrate market reactions to historic periods of civil unrest should have never aired on television without full context. We apologize for the insensitivity of the image and take this issue seriously, the cable channel said in a statement.

The chart included on Special Report with Bret Baier illustrated gains made by the S&P 500 index after Kings assassination in 1968; the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014, and the May 25 death of Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody. It also measured the financial yardstick against the 1991 acquittal of Los Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King.

It was shown as part of a segment with Fox News and Fox Business reporter Susan Li focusing on the market rally that followed an unexpectedly lower number of jobless claims.

Other business publications and TV channels in recent days have compared the markets performance to current and historic social upheaval, but with significant background and explanation.

Baier retweeted Foxs apology without further comment. Later, on Foxs Americas News HQ telecast, anchor and senior correspondent Eric Shawn said the graphic should not have been used.

CEO is out

over claims

Andrew Alexander, the CEO and co-owner of famed The Second City improv theater, said he is stepping down after a former performer leveled accusations of racism against the comedy institution.

In a lengthy letter posted on the companys website, Alexander said he failed to create an anti-racist environment wherein artists of color might thrive. I am so deeply and inexpressibly sorry,

He vowed that he will be replaced by a person of color.

The originally Chicago- and Toronto-based Second City was an early training ground for Saturday Night Live players including John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and Chris Redd, among other comedy stars such as Keegan Michael-Key and the company produced SCTV TV series in the 1970s and 80s.

Alexanders announcement Friday followed online criticism from Second City alumnus Dewayne Perkins, an actor, comedian and writer (Brooklyn Nine-Nine). Perkins said the company had refused to hold a benefit show for Black Lives Matter unless half of the proceeds also went to the Chicago Police Department, and it also created obstacles for performers of color.

 Associated Press
OTTAWA - Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is urging developing island nations to use the upcoming United Nations Security Council election as leverage to push Canada and Norway to step up their games on climate change.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadian Prime Minister and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau speaks Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg in Montreal on September 27, 2019. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is urging developing island nations to use the upcoming United Nations Security Council election to push Canada and Norway to step up their games on climate change. Thunberg is one of four youth activists and 22 climate scientists who signed a letter Tuesday to the ambassadors of countries within the UN's group of small island developing states. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

OTTAWA - Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is urging developing island nations to use the upcoming United Nations Security Council election as leverage to push Canada and Norway to step up their games on climate change.

The 17-year-old from Sweden has become one of the most recognized climate activists in the world with her climate strike movement growing into a global phenomenon last year.

She is the headline signatory on a letter to UN ambassadors of small island states, which says that Canada and Norway both give lip service to climate action but remain steadfast in their commitments to both expand fossil-fuel production and subsidize oil companies.

"For the young generation who will inherit the consequences of these decisions, it is critical that those who claim to be leading on climate action are held to account for decisions they are making back at home," the letter reads.

Three other youth climate activists and 22 global climate scientists also signed the letter, including Eddy Carmack, a recently retired Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist who was awarded the Order of Canada this year for his work on climate change.

The letter asks the ambassadors to raise the issue with Canada and Norway "and demand that they unite behind the science" of climate change, commit to no new oil and gas exploration or production, and phase out their existing production.

Canada is going up against Norway and Ireland for the two seats available in next week's election to the prestigious UN body. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has devoted a lot of political capital to trying to win the spot.

With most European nations expected to side with their continental neighbours, Canada has put its effort into wooing countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, including most of the more than three dozen island nations targeted by Wednesday's letter. Trudeau has spoken or met directly with the leaders of nearly one-third of those countries since February.

Norway and Canada both have economies heavily based on oil and gas. Ireland has very little fossil-fuel production and last year committed to ending oil and gas exploration altogether.

Thunberg first expressed her discontent with Canada's climate policies directly to Trudeau last September, when the two met in Montreal on the same day hundreds of thousands of Canadians took to the streets as part of a global climate strike.

In their letter, Thunberg and the others say Canada is nowhere close to hitting its Paris climate agreement targets. They also say Canada is the second-biggest supplier of fossil-fuel subsidies among the world's wealthiest 20 countries and has opened up billions of dollars in loans to fossil-fuel companies as part of its COVID-19 economic aid.

Oil companies have been particularly hard hit from a combination of plummeting demand for oil products and a production war between Saudi Arabia and Russia that flooded the world with more oil at a time it was already using less.

For major oil companies, and other big corporations, to qualify for the loans, Canada does require them to show climate plans and how their businesses are helping Canada meet its emissions targets.

The letter-writers said if Canada was serious about implementing the Paris agreement it would make permanent its temporary ban on extracting oil and gas in the Arctic, cancel both the Trans Mountain and Keystone XL pipeline projects, and end all subsidies to the oil and gas industry.

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They give Canada credit for promising to make climate change a regular part of the Security Council's discussions, and push for it to create a new special representative for climate security.

Moira Kelly, spokeswoman for Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, said Canada has made a commitment to phase out fossil -subsidies by 2025, and also contributed $2 billion to global climate-change action, including a $60-million renewable-energy fund for small island developing states.

She said Canada's national commitments include enshrining into law the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050  where any emissions produced are absorbed rather than left to linger in the atmosphere. Legislation for that and five-year targets for emissions reductions, were promised in the election campaign but Wilkinson said recently will likely be delayed because of COVID-19.

Kelly said Canada's national climate plan "will see the biggest emissions reductions in Canadian history."

The letter-writers are also critical of Norway for continuing to increase oil and gas exports, saying Norway now exports 10 times as many emissions as it produces domestically. They point out there is a vote on June 12 in the Norwegian parliament that could increase tax benefits for oil companies as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter says Norway should eliminate, rather than expand, those tax benefits.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2020.
The Eastern Mediterranean epitomizes the shifts in the global order: American retrenchment, coupled with the continuing ineffectiveness of the European Union, has created space for local actors to engage in hard-power politics. This has worked in Turkey's favor-for now.

Faced with a consortium of rival countries-Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt-all intent on capitalizing on the off-shore energy resources in Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey last year launched a strong counteroffensive. On the diplomatic front, Ankara signed an agreement in November with the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, to demarcate bilateral maritime borders. The agreement underscored Ankara's desire for an extensive continental shelf in Eastern Mediterranean. It clashed with the partitioning planned by the rival group of countries.

In return, Turkey promised military assistance to the GNA in its fight against the forces of Gen. Khalifa Haftar. This was delivered in the shape of sophisticated weapons, such as armed drones, as well as Turkish military advisors, special ops troops and Syrian proxies.

That gambit appears to have paid off handsomely. Turkey's backing has allowed the GNA to inflict a string of battlefield defeats on Haftar, who is backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and France. The rebel commander has been forced to accept a ceasefire.

Turkey also acted decisively off-shore, by obstructing the exploration of gas by private companies in the contested zones of the Mediterranean and launching its own exploration missions. The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won popular support at home for this posture, which is part of its "Blue Homeland" doctrine calling for a more aggressive defense of Turkey's off-shore sovereign rights.

By obstructing developments inimical to its national interest, Turkey has demonstrated its ability to be a "veto" power in the Eastern Mediterranean. But to capitalize on its strategic gains Ankara should now prioritize multilateral diplomacy, or risk being mired in regional conflicts. The danger is that Erdogan, buoyed by these early gains, will invest even more resources in hard-power tactics, at the expense of coalition-building and diplomacy. This would only harden anti-Turkey alliances, on land and off-shore.

Resolving those conflicts will also require the EU to re-assess its dysfunctional approach to Turkey. As things stand, the Europeans have no real leverage over Erdogan; on the contrary, it is Turkey that can pressure the EU over the refugee issue.

The EU's predicament is the result of its stalling of Turkey's accession process and the failure of Brussels to come up with a new constructive engagement with Ankara. The confrontation in Eastern Mediterranean provides an entry point for the Europeans to re-engage with Ankara.

A good start would be for the EU to appoint a special representative for the Eastern Mediterranean, just as it has for the Middle East peace process and for the Horn of Africa. They would be tasked with conducting shuttle diplomacy between Ankara, Brussels, Athens and Nicosia to work toward a deal on sharing off-shore resources. This would allow the EU to address its differences with Turkey over the Eastern Mediterranean without being hindered by the toxicity of other bilateral disputes.

The EU should combine this initiative with additional trust-building measures. The most realistic step would be to finally approve the start of negotiations for the modernization of the Turkey-EU customs union, which has been held up since December 2016 by the Europeans, ostensibly because of Turkey's democratic backsliding. A second option would be to offer sizeable financial assistance for the EU's neighbours, including Turkey, to mitigate the negative economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Turkey will need to reciprocate with steps of its own, perhaps starting with improvements in the rule of law, including the independence of the judiciary. A direct benefit for the EU would be better compliance with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, including the symbolic case of the businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala.

Ultimately, for a virtuous cycle of EU engagement and Turkish reforms to work, the European offer needs to be seen in Ankara as one of real substance and credibility. Likewise, Turkey's reform agenda needs to be genuine and consequential. The rising tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean could possibly provide the missing impetus for Ankara and Brussels to finally re-structure their relationship toward a more constructive future.

- - -

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Ulgen is the executive chairman of Istanbul-based think tank EDAM and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels.
An ex-cop has shared an emotional plea to end abuse of police, detailing the trauma he suffered during his three years in the force.

Matt Bennett said he had to speak out after protests against police brutality erupted across the world in the wake of George Floyd's death - with many calling for police forces to be disbanded and defunded.

In a post shared on Tuesday, the ex-cop urged Australians to consider who else would perform policing duties.

Mr Bennett said his time in the force included dealing with out-of-control drug users, teenagers wanting to take their own lives, shocking cases of domestic violence and plenty of tragic deaths.

He made his comments after being saddened by some protesters in Australia chanting 'f**k the police' as they called for an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Former Australian policeman, Matt Bennett, (pictured) has urged Australians to consider the role police play before hurling abuse at them

'I've bitten my tongue a lot lately, but with the anti-police rhetoric showing no signs of abating and now calls to defund/disband the police, enough is enough,' he said.

'Who else will use their own hands to push someones intestines back inside them after theyve been run over by a semi-trailer and killed?

'Who else will stand between a husband and the wife he just mercilessly beat?

'Who else will hold towels on the self-inflicted wounds of a middle aged woman whos had enough and tried to end it, cutting herself all the way down to the bone?'

Mr Bennett said these jobs didn't just apply to him but all of his colleagues had experienced the same.

He said that only few arrests were made during these moments and bystanders who witnessed them unfold did 'very little or absolutely nothing to help'.

In a Facebook post shared on Tuesday, Mr Bennett said he dealt with horrific tasks daily during three years in the police force

'So I ask you again, who else if not the police?' he said.

'Who else will investigate and prosecute when a woman of colour is hit, kicked and spat on by a group of youths purely because of her ethnicity?

'Who else will tell a mother that shell never see her son again? And that you really recommend she doesnt view the body because of its condition?

'Who else will pull a passenger out of a high speed car wreck with the vehicle fully involved in flames?

'Who else will then try everything in their power to free the three others trapped, and have to live with the memory of one of them screaming as the fuel tank exploded and killed them all?'

One protestor has an intense stand off with a police officer during the protest in Sydney on Saturday (pictured at Central Station)

A protestor is seen jumping onto the top of a police car in Melbourne following rallies for the Black Lives Matter movement

Mr Bennett said police were 'misunderstood' and while they weren't 'perfect', they deserved respect.

'Calling for the defunding/disbandment of the police because youve been lucky enough to have never needed their help is like calling for the defunding and disbandment of hospitals because youve been fortunate enough to have never needed treatment in one,' he said.

His post has since been shared more than 6,000 times.

Mr Bennett's plea follows Black Lives Matter protests across Australia demanding racial equality for the Indigenous, calling on police to end deaths in custody.

Many screamed abuse into the faces of police while others held signs scrawled in offensive messages.

'F**k you you f***kg pigs. Go die, every last one of you,' one angry protester was heard shouting at NSW officers.

The protests came in the wake of unarmed African American, George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis after a police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes.

The marches also focused on the death of Aboriginal man, David Dungay, who died in a Sydney jail in 2015, telling officers who were pinning him down 'I can't breathe'.
Leaders of the 8,500-member Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals praised state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine and the Wolf administration as they issued a new order to hospitals that will protect workers and patients.

Since March, PASNAP has been fighting to hold hospitals accountable for their lack of PPE and policies that have left dedicated front line health care employees and their patients vulnerable to COVID-19. At the insistence of PASNAP, the Wolf administration is, through this new order, forcing hospitals to be accountable to their employees and ensure that they, and therefore their patients, are safe.

Effective at 12:01 a.m. June 10, the new order will require:

 Notifying hospital staff members who have been in close-contact with a confirmed or probable COVID-19 case within 24 hours of the known contact and provide instruction for quarantine and work exclusion;

 Testing symptomatic and asymptomatic hospital staff members who have received notice of close contact with a confirmed or probable COVID-19 case upon request;

 Procuring and distributing nationally approved masks to the hospital staff member when the staff member determines the mask is soiled, damaged or otherwise ineffective;

 And requiring universal masking for all individuals entering the hospital facility except for people for whom wearing a mask would create a further health risk or individuals under age 2.

Nurses and healthcare professionals have selflessly sacrificed during this pandemic at great personal risk to themselves, said PASNAP President Maureen May. Over 5,000 health care workers have tested positive for COVID-19 in Pennsylvania. The new rules will protect Healthcare workers now, and ensure that hospitals are not caught flat-footed with unsafe practices and insufficient PPE in the event of a predicted second wave of COVID-19. We thank Secretary Levine and Gov. Wolf for taking the steps needed to protect nurses, healthcare professionals, and patients.

The Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals represents 8,500 nurses and healthcare professionals across the commonwealth.
ALTON  The Illinois Municipal Treasurers Association recently presented Alton City Treasurer Cameo C. Holland with her Certified Illinois Municipal Treasurer Certificate.

Holland completed the requirements necessary to obtain certification through continuing education, work experience and participation in IMTA.

The IMTA was established to promote the general and professional interest of municipal treasurers in the State of Illinois and their respective municipalities: to obtain a higher standard of efficiency, to improve service and relations with allied intuitions and to inspire friendly and fraternal feelings among its members. All members have one thing in common  the desire to better serve their communities by lifting the office of the treasurer towards a high standard of efficiency and commitment.

Holland received her B.B.A and M.B.A from Fontbonne University during her career with the city of Alton. She was elected city treasurer in April 2017. She also is president of the YWCA Board of Directors, the third vice president of the National Council of Negro Women, president-elect of Rotary of Riverbend, a member of the Illinois Municipal Treasurers Association Board of Directors and the Great Rivers and Routes Tourism Bureaus Board of Directors.
When Marg Downey returned to a rehearsal room last week, back in action after the long lockdown, there were a few changes: "everyone was appropriately distanced and sanitised".

It was a big table in the middle of the Melbourne Theatre Company studio, and actors and directors kept carefully apart and handled their scripts with almost obsessive care, alcohol gel at the ready.

Actor Marg Downey.

But it was a return, of sorts. A theatre company doing as much as it can, under current restrictions.

"It was so lovely," Downey said. "We were all saying that half the fun of performing is the cameraderie, working together and developing ideas. It was so nice to be back."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:19:29|Editor: huaxia

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GUIYANG, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China's leading liquor producer, Kweichow Moutai, set its revenue growth target for 2020 at around 10 percent compared with last year, the chairman of the company said on Wednesday.

"The COVID-19 epidemic has had a huge impact on China's liquor industry, but we will make efforts to minimize the impact and achieve this year's target," said Gao Weidong at the company's 2019 annual general meeting of shareholders.

The liquor brand saw its revenue rise by 12.76 percent year on year to over 24.4 billion yuan (about 3.46 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2020.

In 2019, Moutai's revenue was at around 88.85 billion yuan, up about 15.1 percent year on year. Over the same period, the group saw its operating profit rise by 14.99 percent from the previous year to about 59 billion yuan.

The liquor producer, which is based in southwest China's Guizhou Province, produced about 75,000 tonnes of base liquor for its Moutai brand and series brands in 2019, up 6.88 percent year on year. Enditem
Ranjani Madhavan By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: On June 8, Karnataka revised its testing protocol and removed one crucial testing category that was in place earlier - testing suspected COVID-19 deaths who had ILI/SARI symptoms within six hours of their demise.

Experts feel that this could lead to under-reporting of deaths caused by coronavirus, thereby showing a better mortality rate to the public. Deaths have off-lately been a cause of concern for the state government with COVID-19 deaths being reported every other day across various districts.

Sources said that the decision to drop this category was not recommended to the government by the technical advisory committee. What follows after a suspected death turns out to be positive is, contact

tracing of primary and secondary contacts, testing and quarantining them.

However, when the death is not considered a COVID-19 one, the above activities will not follow, leaving room for more undetected cases, sources said, adding that this category should not have been deleted.

A source from the health department said that there might be slight under-reporting with removal of this category but even ICMR testing protocol does not include testing suspected deaths. Karnataka was doing it on its volition earlier until it decided to drop it.

There have been cases in Karnataka's health bulletins, where a person who was tested after they died, turned out to be positive for coronavirus.

Dr John Jacob, a virologist at Christian Medical College, Vellore said,'' The government is embarrassed and has hence removed the death category. This will lead to under reporting of COVID-19 deaths and

will not work in the long run. It is a sign of giving up the battle. If you do not want to know about a death, it is because you suspect it might be COVID-19 but want to show good news. We will not gain anything by under-reporting and do not need to keep changing the testing protocol."

Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey said, "Yesterday we had a video conference with Government of India and Ministry of Health where they said we should not draw swab from dead persons. Based on that we removed that category, although until now we have been testing suspected deceased persons. We have written to them again, to clarify on the issue."
The rain radar on Mt. Yebong in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, is the latest addition to the country's rain radar network. Courtesy of Ministry of Environment



By Ko Dong-hwan



With the 22.5 billion won ($18.8 million), 40 meter-high rain radar completed on Mt. Yebong in the Gyeonggi provincial city of Namyangju last June, the country's "complete" nationwide rain radar network is now online, ready to forecast floods that frequently occur in summer.



The network consists of seven large rain radars in the provinces of North Gyeongsang, North and South Chungcheong, South Jeolla, Gangwon, Gyeonggi and the city of Incheon. The earliest was built in 2001 on Incheon's Ganghwa Island; the latest on Mt. Yebong began operation last October.



Before the addition of the Mt. Yebong radar to the network, the atmosphere above Seoul and surrounding metropolitan areas in Gyeonggi Province were "basically left unchecked," Hwang Chun-cho, the Ministry of Environment's Water Resources Management Division official, told The Korea Times.




University of Agriculture Faisalabad's Finance and Planning Committee has approved Rs10.965 billion budget for the financial year 2020-21

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Jun, 2020 ) :University of Agriculture Faisalabad's Finance and Planning Committee has approved Rs10.965 billion budget for the financial year 2020-21.

Under which, HEC recurring budget was Rs 5.293 billion while Rs 3 billion has been earmarked as development budget from the Federal and Punjab governments and Rs 2.373 billion for research.

The meeting was chaired by UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf in which Treasurer/ Registrar Umar Saeed Qadri presented the agenda here Wednesday.

Unveiling the further details of the budget, the meeting okayed Rs 45 million for the Water Management Research Center, Rs 19.882 million for Office of Research Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC), Rs11.28 million for Financial Assistance, and Rs 12.78 million for sports.

He hoped that the projects of Pak Korea Agriculture Center and Nutrition Center would likely be approved by the federal government.

The locust cell and small implement project was expected to be given nod by the Punjab government.

He said that the 7,000 students out of 30,000 were awarded scholarship to continue their studies.

He said that under the current situation of COVID-19, the number of the scholarships could be enhanced to help out the student from under privileged background.

He was of the view that USDA Endowment Fund that was set up from Rs 650 million had stretched to Rs 931 million that was paving a way for tangible research and technology transfer.

Treasurer Umar Saeed presented the budget that was approved.

He said the university was bringing the revolutionary steps to address the issues of the campus community as well as farming community.

He said that in the modern era, only knowledge based economies are excelling across the globe.

HEC Director Account Samar Sabstain, Finance Department Punjab Director Audit Gul Faraz Minhas;, Deputy Secretary Agriculture Rana Naeem Khalid, Dr Nasir Awan, Dr Mehmood Ahmad Randhawa, Irfan Abbas, Dr Abdul Wahid and Dr Isa Khan attended the meeting.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Donors are pushing Kansas' higher education board to fire Wichita State University's president after he canceled a virtual speech by Ivanka Trump for its technical school's graduation.

The Kansas Board of Regents had a special Zoom meeting Wednesday, only two days after a former board member from Wichita said the regents should ask for President Jay Goldens resignation. Golden was present for at least part of the four-hour closed meeting.

Afterward, the board issued a short statement that didn't mention him or Wichita State, expressing its commitment to "support and promote freedom of speech and diversity and inclusion."

Golden canceled Trump's speech after students and faculty protested. Students staged an impromptu rally Wednesday for Golden, and nearly 7,200 people had signed a petition supporting him by Wednesday night.

The board's statement asked for "patience and understanding" in "unprecedented times."

"We look forward to strengthening relationships with students, alumni and friends," the statement said.

In this Dec. 6, 2019 photo Wichita State University's President Jay Golden poses for a photo on campus in Wichita, Ks. Donors are calling for Golden to be fired after its technical school canceled a virtual commencement speech by Ivanka Trump. The Board of Regents scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday, June 10, 2020. (Jamie Green/The Wichita Eagle via AP)

Steve Clark, the former regent seeking Golden's ouster, sent a letter Monday to board members saying Golden's decision to cancel the speech by President Donald Trump's daughter threatens a multimillion-dollar relationship with Koch Industries, the vast conglomerate led by billionaire and conservative political donor Charles Koch, The Wichita Eagle reports. He did not return a telephone message Wednesday from The Associated Press.

Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican and Wichita State graduate, said she was "deeply disappointed," adding that when she was a student in the 1970s, "free speech was a fundamental right on campus."

"I fear that may no longer be the case," she said.

A Koch Industries spokeswoman said Wednesday that financial commitments to the university are being honored and, while it opposes canceling speakers, it doesn't tie funding to university employment actions.

Clark is the chairman and CEO of a Wichita investment firm who served as chairman of search committees for both Golden and his predecessor, John Bardo. Golden became president in January, after Bardo died in March 2019.

Clark told the regents that officials from Koch Industries and several longtime donors and supporters are "very upset and quite vocal in their decisions to disavow any further support." He said canceling Trump's speech damaged the schools reputation with high-profile donors and relationships can be restored only if Golden leaves.

Steve Feilmeier, Koch Industries' executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in an email that he's been asked to serve on the Wichita State Foundation board and how the speech controversy is resolved will "weigh heavily" on his decision.

The university has said Koch Industries and its associated foundations have spent or pledged to spend more than $15 million there in the past seven years. The university's basketball arena is named for Charles Koch.

Company spokeswoman Jessica Koehn said it respects "the university's independence" in making employment decisions.

But she also said Koch Industries believes canceling speakers "cuts off the chance to engage, debate, and criticize."

Wichita State has 14,000 students, including some 3,000 at its technical school and is home to a national institute on aviation research. Parts of Wichita and its suburbs are politically conservative, and Donald Trump carried the county in 2016 by 18 percentage points. Ivanka Trump visited WSU Tech last fall to promote its training programs.

The university announced Thursday that she would give a virtual speech for WSU Tech's graduation and canceled it hours later after a professor's open letter of protest garnered nearly 500 signatures. The letter said allowing the speech would show that the WSU Tech "does not take diversity seriously."

Days earlier, police under federal command in Washington used tear gas to force back peaceful protesters of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis while detained by police. The police action allowed the president to walk to a church near the White House and pose with a Bible, accompanied by his daughter. The president also threatened to use the military to quell violence.

WSU Tech President Sheree Utash later apologized, calling the timing of the announcement of Ivanka Trump's speech "insensitive." Golden has said the university is committed to diversity and that he canceled the speech to avoid a distraction from celebrating the students.

Ivanka Trump responded by tweeting a link to her remarks and saying universities should be "bastions of free speech."

"Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia," she said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former Wichita-area congressman, called the cancellation "shameful."

____

Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, contributed to this report.

___

Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna
COVID-19 (C-19) event is posing serious challenges for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2020. But Vietnam, as current ASEAN chair, is trying to make the best of the situation and demonstrate leadership. As 2020 marks a mid-term review of the implementation of the ASEAN Community Building Blueprints 201525, Vietnam chose Cohesive and Responsive ASEAN as the theme for its chairmanship.

The theme is supported by five priorities identified by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in his keynote speech on 6 January. The priorities include contributing to regional peace, security and stability by strengthening ASEANs solidarity and unity; intensifying regional connectivity through the use of digital and novel technologies; promoting ASEAN identities and shared values; strengthening global partnerships for peace and sustainable development; and improving ASEANs responsiveness and operational effectiveness.

Despite the goal of intensifying regional connectivity, the C-19 event is disturbing global and regional supply chains. Vietnam had planned to organize more than 300 different conferences and activities during its term to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its ASEAN membership and to promote regional interactions. But the pandemic is causing numerous events to be postponed or even cancelled.

Many countries are in total or partial lockdown to flatten the transmission curve. Still, social distancing is increasing the use of telecommunication technologies used for teleworking and online teaching and learning. This trend, in line with the priority of promoting digital technologies, is enabling Vietnam to carry out its chair responsibilities by holding virtual meetings with ASEAN members and external partners.

Although division among ASEAN on how to respond to China in the South China Sea has undermined unity in recent years, Vietnam as chair of ASEAN is unifying member states in the fight against C-19. Since the beginning of the outbreak, Vietnam has worked closely with ASEAN members to help cope with the complex developments of the disease. On 14 February, Vietnam issued the Chairman's Statement on ASEAN Collective Response to the Outbreak of C-19, which stressed the importance of ASEAN solidarity and promoted cooperation on multiple levels.

On 31 March, Hanoi held the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group on Public Health Emergencies teleconference for member states to share information about their situations and the implementation of control measures.

At the ministerial level, Vietnam chaired two sessions of the ASEAN Coordinating Council on 20 March and 9 April, comprised of ASEAN foreign ministers, to discuss ways to strengthen collaboration between the group and its partners.

In the spirit of a Cohesive and Responsive ASEAN, Vietnam organized the Special ASEAN Summit on Coronavirus Disease 2019 on 14 April to urge member states to remain united and to act decisively in response to the pandemic. The leaders agreed to create a C-19 ASEAN Response Fund and regional reserves of medical supplies.

Non-Aligned Movement for the betterment of Multilateralism

Vietnam is also using the ASEAN chair to advance the organizations cooperation with countries around the world. It was primarily within the universal organization of the United Nations (OUN).

As ambassador Hasmi Agam and prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic recently noted in their policy paper on the UN: what presents itself as an imperative is universal participation through intergovernmental mechanisms. That very approach has been clearly demonstrated by UN member states, as shown by the active roles played by Indonesia (in the SC, along with another ASEAN and NAM member, VietNam; and on behalf of the general membership of the UN General Assembly), Azerbaijan (on behalf of NAM) and France (on behalf of the P5 and the EU) reaching out to Tunisia  a member of the Arab League (LAS), AU, OIC and NAM. Same line has been also endorsed by the UN Members States on 18 May 2020 in relation to the independent inquiry request over the WHO conduct.  this is well recognised by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres himself, who recently stated that With two thirds of UN Member States, the Non-Aligned Movement has a critical role to play in forging global solidarity. (https://www.ifimes.org/en/9819)

But the list of Vietnams regional and bilateral activities is extensive too: At the ASEANChina Foreign Ministers Meeting on cooperation in responding to C-19 in Laos on 20 February, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi informed ASEAN of the situation in Wuhan and other parts of China. The bloc confirmed its support for China in combating the disease.

On 20 March, Vietnam chaired the ASEANEU ministerial teleconference on cooperation in fighting the pandemic. The two sides agreed to heighten information sharing, experience exchange, and policy consultation in diagnosis, treatment and vaccine production.

As chair of ASEAN, Vietnam was invited to the G-20 emergency online summit on C-19 on 26 March. Besides sharing Vietnams C-19 control experience, Prime Minster Phuc stressed the importance of solidarity, cooperation and collaboration at global and regional levels. He added that fighting the pandemic should accompany facilitating trade and investment cooperation.

Vietnam also chaired the Special ASEAN+3 Summit on C-19 on 14 April. ASEAN members and their dialogue partners China, Japan and South Korea acknowledged the significance of ASEAN+3 cooperation and its existing mechanisms in addressing public health challenges.

Although the USASEAN Summit  initially scheduled for mid-March  was postponed, Vietnam held the ASEANUnited States High-Level Interagency Video Conference on Cooperation to Counter C-19, a senior officials-level meeting, on 1 April. The two sides reiterated the value of the ASEANUS Strategic Partnership in facing the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.

The success of this meeting led to the Special ASEANUS Ministerial Videoconference on C-19 on 23 April with the participation of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh thanked the United States for its US$19 million for financial support to regional countries in combating the disease. Foreign Minister Pham also proposed further ASEANUS public health cooperation by sharing information, experience and best practices.

Despite a rough start, Vietnam is demonstrating its leadership through quick responses and proactiveness in coordinating member states and external partners. Still, the accusations between the United States and China over the diseases origin and their handling of the pandemic are putting Southeast Asia in a complicated situation. As both powers are important partners of ASEAN, growing strategic competition between the two will again put ASEAN unity to the test in the post-C-19 era.

About the author:

Bich T Tran is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Antwerp and a Researcher at the Global Affairs Research Center, Ryukoku University.

An earlier version of this text appeared with the East Asia Forum.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:23:31|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- New COVID-19 infections in Germany remained under last week's average and rose by 318 within one day to 184,861, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Wednesday.

The number of people currently infected with COVID-19 in Germany amounted to around 14,160 on Wednesday as the estimated number of recoveries increased by around 500 within one day to 170,700, according to the RKI.

Death toll from the novel coronavirus went up by 18 to 8,729 by Wednesday in the country.

Thuringia has become the first federal state in Germany to end the legally binding contact restrictions for social and private life as of June 13. The new regulation would allow citizens to meet with more than one other household or ten other people.

Health Minister in Thuringia Heike Werner said it was important that "people's private living environment should also be normalized as far as possible."

However, wearing a mouth and nose protection in public transport and in shops in Thuringia remained mandatory and wherever "possible and reasonable," a minimum distance of at least 1.5 meters should be maintained, according to the new regulations.

Both at the global and the national level, the RKI stressed that the situation remained "very dynamic" although the number of newly reported cases was decreasing. The risk to the health of the German population was still high and even very high for people in risk groups. Enditem
Preparations for making protective face masks are underway at household equipment maker Iris Ohyama Inc.'s factory in Kakuda, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan

By Naomi Tajitsu, Makiko Yamazaki and Ritsuko Shimizu

TOKYO (Reuters) - When Japanese firm Iris Ohyama agreed in April to begin producing much-needed face masks in Japan, it marked a win for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who wants to bring manufacturing back from China.

Spooked by coronavirus-induced factory shutdowns in China, Abe's government has earmarked $2 billion to help companies shift production home. The policy, part of a massive stimulus package to cope with the pandemic, has even been termed by some bureaucrats as a matter of national security.

"We have become dependent on China," Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters last week. "We need to make supply chains more robust and diverse, broadening our supply sources and increasing domestic production."

Japanese production of masks, for which domestic demand has skyrocketed, makes sense. But Iris Ohyama, which until this month had only made face masks in China, is so far the only large firm known to be taking advantage of the subsidies.

Many other Japanese firms say shifting output back home is simply impractical and uneconomical. They need to be physically present in China because much of what they are making is ultimately for the Chinese consumer, and to meet the demands of 'just-in-time' production which prioritises short delivery times for efficient manufacturing.

"The parts we make are so big that we need to be near our customers to control our costs," said Chikara Haruta, a spokesman at Yorozu Corp <7294.T>, which makes suspension and other auto components.

Its plant in Wuhan, China is located just seven kilometres from a Honda Motor Co Ltd <7267.T> assembly factory.

For Japan's car makers, reliance on Chinese suppliers in the world's biggest auto market is also just good business.

"Even if we wanted to, it would be difficult to lower our exposure to China-made parts," an executive at a Japanese automaker told Reuters, declining to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Story continues

He added that over the past decade, Chinese suppliers had upped their game and now provide a vast range of quality, low-cost parts.

Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T>, Nissan Motor Co Ltd <7201.T> and Honda also have at least three R&D centres each in China, and their suppliers are following suit.

"Where the software is developed dictates where the hardware is developed and made," said an official at a Japanese parts supplier, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The new government incentive is misguided if it only focuses on bringing manufacturing back, while overlooking R&D functions."

OVERLY DEPENDENT?

Japanese politicians have increasingly fretted over Japan's dependence on China as a production hub.

Since the early 2000s as Chinese labour costs rose, there has been talk of a "China Plus One" strategy  a policy of managing risk by locating plants and facilities in China and one other Asian nation. It gained more traction in 2012 when bilateral tensions flared and many Japanese firms have sought to diversify with operations in Southeast Asia.

The near total shutdown of China's factories in February as the world's No. 2 economy sought to stamp out the coronavirus has, however, rammed Japan's China dependence home.

The government's 220 billion yen ($2 billion) allocation is the first time it has offered subsidies for bringing back manufacturing. It is also offering 23.5 billion yen to Japanese firms to strengthen and diversify supply chains in Southeast Asia.

Japanese firms had at least 7,400 affiliates in China as of March 2018, according to a trade ministry survey, up 60% from 2008. In the same year, Japanese manufacturing affiliates in China sold $252 billion in goods, with 73% of that sold in China and 17% exported back home, a separate survey by the ministry shows.

For a graphic on Japanese companies in China, please click https://tmsnrt.rs/2Ubu7aP

CHOOSING CHINA

Electronics makers too say they would struggle to sever ties with China's supply chains.

Nidec Corp <6594.T>, which produces motors for electronic goods, even said in April it needed to improve its supply chain in China. It was unable to procure supplies of a basic part this year which it had believed was sourced locally but was in fact being shipped from Europe.

"We need to strengthen sourcing capabilities at our Chinese plants. We should be producing these sorts of parts in-house," CEO Shigenobu Nagamori told reporters.

Japan Display Inc <6740.T> and chipmaker Rohm Co Ltd <6963.T> say potential shifts to full automation for labour-intensive back-end processes done overseas could lead to new assembly lines being built at home where more advanced manufacturing takes place.

But for many others, China remains the cheaper option.

Display panel and television maker Sharp Corp <6753.T> produces ultra-thin panel cells in Japan, which are shipped to China where backlights, connectors and other parts are added - a process that requires constant manual testing and machinery adjustments.

"The back-end process has long been done in China because it's labour intensive," said a spokesman at Sharp, which was acquired by Taiwan's Foxconn <2317.TW> in 2016.

"It would be expensive to bring it back home."

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu, Ritsuko Shimizu and Makiko Yamazaki; Additional reporting by Maki Shiraki, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Linda Sieg; Editing by David Dolan and Edwina Gibbs)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-09 19:33:43|Editor: huaxia

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File photo shows an Airbus A330 NEO performing during a flight display at the 53rd International Paris Air Show held at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France, June 17, 2019. French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire on Tuesday announced a 15-billion-euro (16.9 billion U.S. dollars) support plan for the country's aerospace industry which has been ravaged by the collapse in air travel demand due to the coronavirus crisis. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

PARIS, June 9 (Xinhua) -- French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire on Tuesday announced a 15-billion-euro (16.9 billion U.S. dollars) support plan for the country's aerospace industry which has been ravaged by the collapse in air travel demand due to the coronavirus crisis.

"For three decades, the aeronautical industry has reported continued growth. However, the (coronavirus) crisis has brutally halted this growth," Le Maire told a press conference.

"There is an urgent need to intervene. We have to save our aeronautical industry," he said, adding that 100,000 jobs in the sector were at stake due to airport closing, unprecedented reduction in air traffic and drop in orders.

The minister declared a state of emergency to save the sector via a support package of 15 billion euros of aid, investment, loans and guarantees "to allow it to be more competitive and more decarbonized" by producing the "green plane" of tomorrow.

Some 1.5 billion euros in public funding will be spent over the next three years, of which 300 million euros will be available in 2020, on research and development with the aim of "achieving a carbon-neutral aircraft in 2035," he said.

An investment fund starting at 500 million euros with a target of 1 billion will be set up to bolster the development of medium-sized suppliers and reinforce their equities. A second fund worth 300 million euros will help aerospace sub-contractors modernize plants.

The plan also reinforces export credit guarantees and includes 7 billion euros of aid already announced for Air France and an acceleration of existing orders for Airbus tankers.

"We must avoid at all costs a stall in our industry," Le Maire said. "The recovery will be gradual, most likely very slow." (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars)
Moscow: Floating barriers hastily laid across rivers in the far north of Russia have failed to contain a major diesel fuel spill that has now spread to a lake near the Arctic Ocean and is threatening a nature reserve.

The environmental disaster is unfolding far to the north of the Arctic Circle, in a marshy wilderness near the isolated mining city of Norilsk.

Diesel fuel spilled from a tank that burst last week after settling into permafrost that had stood firm for years but gave way during a warm spring, Russian officials said.

Oil started spilling into the arctic lakes near Norilsk when a tank burst in thawing permafrost. Credit:AP

The accident, which environmental groups have compared to the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska in 1989, has highlighted the risks of industrial development in the thawing Arctic, where climate change is warming the environment at a rate about twice as fast as the rest of the Earth.
Residents of Kaza in Lahaul Spiti area of Himachal Pradesh protested against the entry of the state's agriculture minister Ram Lal Markanda, saying that if people entering the state had to be quarantined, then why were ministers being given a free pass.

Lahaul Spiti is the only area in Himachal untouched by the coronavirus pandemic.

The women raised slogans against the minister's entry into the area, forcing him and his convoy of vehicles to retreat. Residents say they are unhappy at the different set of rules for locals and VIPs.

The protesters accused the minister of trying to visit the area without any check even as people wanting to return to the area were being stopped in the name of elaborate coronavirus checks.

They said that while locals are immediately quarantined, the ministers are not. They demanded that the same set of rules be applied to the minister as well.

Heavy deployment of the police force was seen at the spot.

The protesters were also upset that work of a road project in the area was being taken away from Border Roads Organisation (BRO) and handed over to the Public Works Department (PWD) as they fear it would lead to loss of jobs for the locals.

They demanded that the construction work of the Kaza to Granfo road not be handed over to the PWD as it would jeopardise the local economy, with many residents, engaged in the construction project, losing their jobs.

Markanda, however, claimed that locals will be employed in the project under the PWD as well.

The minister, who was travelling with a long convoy of cars, sat back in his Fortuner-make SUV when the convoy was greeted with loud slogans asking them to return.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Fidan Babayeva  Trend:

Azerbaijan has launched implementation of the project on accelerating effective and sustainable development in the field of hazelnut production within the Partnership Program between Azerbaijan and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Trend reports.

Azerbaijani government officials, specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture and representatives of FAO took part in the online presentation of the project on June 10.

The main objective of the project is to increase the production of hazelnuts and ensure sustainable development of the industry and thus, to increase the income of small farmers, ensure food and nutrition security, help to reduce poverty in rural areas by creating jobs and self-employment opportunities in the regions.

Following the project, initiatives will be launched to ensure sustainable production, marketing chain will be assessed, and knowledge and skills of farmers in the sustainable cultivation of hazelnuts, processing and safe storage after harvesting will be enhanced.

Azerbaijan is among the top-5 countries producing hazelnuts in the world along with Turkey, Italy, the US and Georgia.

The government provides farmers with significant support via benefits. The area planted with hazelnuts is increasing every year. According to statistical data, in 2018, the total production of hazelnuts in Azerbaijan amounted to 52,000 tons.

In November 2016, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the government of Azerbaijan signed a partnership program for 2016-2020.

Azerbaijan has been a member of the FAO since 1995. The organizations office in the country has been operating since 2007.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: Fidan_Babaeva
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Squire Technologies, a NYC-based barbershop management and point of sale system software platform, raised $34m in Series B funding.

This Series B includes $27m in equity financing and $7m in debt financing, bringing the total raised to $46.2 million for the tech startup.

The round was led by CRV, with participation from Tiger Global, San Francisco 49ers organization, and the former CEO and Chairman of Infor, Charles Phillips, and existing investors Trinity Ventures, 645 Ventures, Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund and Y Combinator.

The company intends to use the funds to add financial services to its functional digital platform; to assist and educate barbershops; and to equip them with the necessary tools to function in a post-pandemic society.

Led by Songe LaRon, co-founder and CEO, and Dave Salvant, co-founder and President, Squire provides barbers and shop owners with the ability to operate their businesses with cashless and contactless pay transactions, thereby streamlining service interaction and helping them earn and retain loyal clientele as a result. Tools include Point of Sale, Scheduling, Payroll, CRM, and a host of other features. Squire is a Y Combinator-backed company with offices in New York City and Buffalo, NY, and operations in 35 major cities across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company has also launched www.helpbarbershops.com, a one-stop informational website for shop owners, which outlines eligibility standards for both federal and international relief programs.

FinSMEs

10/06/2020
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A Cleveland City Councilman publicly broached the idea Wednesday of defunding the citys police department as a means of pressuring the city and police unions to adopt needed reforms.

Participating in a virtual form at the City Club of Cleveland, Councilman Basheer Jones stopped short of calling for such a move but said the threat of police budget cuts might be an effective motivator.

Im not sure Im for the total defunding of police, Jones said, describing himself as pro justice rather than anti-police.

That means I support the police when theyre right, he said. Im going to get on them when theyre wrong.

The forum, entitled A Conversation with Councilman Basheer Jones and live-streamed on the City Club website, involved club CEO Dan Moulthrop remotely interviewing the first-term councilman.

Defunding police has become a catch phrase for some critics of law enforcement in Ohio and elsewhere in the nation but has not been formally proposed in Cleveland.

Want more? Get insider texts about Cleveland City Hall on your phone from Robert Higgs, cleveland.coms City Hall reporter. Sign up here. It costs less than 15 cents a day.

Contacted about Jones remarks, Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley told cleveland.com that he doubts efforts would be made to defund Clevelands police.

But Kelley acknowledged that the city must follow through on initiatives to make policing better and to better address inequity in neighborhoods.

Mayor Frank Jackson was not immediately available to respond to Jones remarks.

In a recent interview with cleveland.com, however, Jackson said policing has improved under an agreement the city signed with the federal Justice Department in 2015. He cited a reduction in the use of force by officers and improved community policing methods.

And there have been efforts to improve diversity as the city has sought to expand the police force. A recruitment team launched in 2018 has used community spaces such as neighborhood barber shops to find candidates. In the most recent police class, which graduated in May, 35% of the new officers were minority candidates and 23% were women.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced earlier this week that he has directed a state task force to develop new minimum standards for how police should respond to mass protests.

DeWine also has said he supports working with state lawmakers to increase oversight over law-enforcement agencies in the state. But he dismissed the idea of defunding police as frankly absurd.:

Jones, who was a key sponsor of a recent resolution to declare racism in Cleveland a public health crisis, also used the hour-long forum to call for the city to take aggressive steps toward addressing inequity.

Among those steps:

Expanding diversity in city departments, including the police department where a majority of officers are white men though the city is majority African American.

Addressing inequities such as the digital divide that hampers efforts to teach Cleveland children remotely during the coronavirus pandemic because they lack internet access at home.

Holding the business community accountable, demanding greater diversity among its leadership and greater access to jobs for minorities.

"Give us some tangible steps that you plan to make to show us that youre serious about eliminating institutional racism, Jones said. We, as a community, have to make sure that people do what they say theyre going to do.

More from Cleveland City Hall

Declaring racism a health crisis in Cleveland labeled a start; the real work will be finding the solutions

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says he hopes curfew will end Friday but warns it will return if theres trouble

Cleveland City Council OKs seating in streets, parking lots to help restaurants, bars rebound from coronavirus shutdowns

Rentable scooters returning to Cleveland with a bit more speed and later hours for operation
[June 10, 2020] R&M Celebrates Opening of New U.S. East Coast Office and Network Cabling Production Facility with Virtual Open House Ceremony

WETZIKON, Switzerland and ELKRIDGE, Md., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- R&M, an innovative developer and manufacturer of high-quality network infrastructures, celebrated the opening of its new U.S. East Coast office and production facility in Elkridge, Maryland with a virtual open house on June 4. The video of the open house webcast, which includes a company introduction by R&M CEO Michel Riva, and executive presentations of the Elkridge facility, market trends and R&M solutions, is available here for review. R&M presented the open house webcast in place of an in-person event to follow COVID-19 social-distancing rules. R&M is planning an in-person open house for later this year after COVID-19 social-distancing rules are relaxed or no longer in effect. "R&M is a global company with over 10 production facilities in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, China, India, and Brazil. We are excited to continue our growth journey with the addition of the Elkridge production facility to provide a new level of service to our customers in the Eastern, Southern and Midwestern United States. With production facilities on the United States East and West Coasts, R&M now has the necessary resources to serve customers throughout the United States, which is by far the largest market for network connectivity and cabling," said R&M CEO Michel Riva. The opening of the R&M office and production facility in Elkridge follows R&M's acquisition of Elkridge-based Optimum Fiberoptics Inc. in 2019. The Optimum Fiberoptics acquisition and the new Elkridge facility mark an important milestone in R&M's expansion from Switzerland to the United States, which began in 2016 with the acquisition of REALM Communications Group, Inc. in Milpitas, California.



The 10,000-square-foot office and production facility in Elkridge will serve R&M's existing Eastern, Southern and Midwestern customer base, the fast-growing data center markets in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia, and all military branches with military-grade assemblies such as TFOCA connectors, MIL-DTL-38999 connectors, and AN/MQJ switch box assemblies. The Elkridge facility can design for any needs and is fully equipped with R&M's high-quality fiber and copper cabling products, ample production space and equipment to serve customer connectivity requirements including large orders and quick turnaround. Standardized production processes and integrated quality management guarantee the high quality of R&M's solutions. "While R&M's new office and production facility in Elkridge will serve our Eastern, Southern and Midwestern customers, we'll maintain one line for customer service and technical sales support for customers throughout the United States," said R&M USA President Christopher Stratas. "The Elkridge facility will enhance our mixture of global and local products for local area networks, data centers and public networks, and our unique ability to provide tailor-made, customized solutions for our customers."

R&M's East Coast open house video is available to view here and includes: "R&M company introduction," by R&M CEO Michel Riva

"The capabilities of R&M's Elkridge facility," with a tour by Jay Megan , founder of Optimum Fiberoptics Inc. and business manager at R&M

facility," with a tour by , founder of Optimum Fiberoptics Inc. and business manager at R&M "Market trends outlook with a U.S. focus," by R&M CMO Andreas Ruesseler

"Integration strategy for Optimum Fiberoptics and R&M's position in the U.S. market today," by R&M USA President Christopher Stratas R&M later will announce and provide details for its in-person East Coast open house event planned for later this year pending the lifting of COVID-19 social-distancing rules. About R&M

R&M (Reichle & De-Massari AG) is a leading global producer of future-proof products and systems for communication and data networks. The company's close collaboration with certified partners results in pioneering work in the sectors LAN, Public and Telecom Networks as well as Data Centers. The Swiss family company stands for innovation, quality, and customer orientation. Thanks to the innovative strength of the company, R&M now covers the entire connectivity range. For more information: www.rdm.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rm-celebrates-opening-of-new-us-east-coast-office-and-network-cabling-production-facility-with-virtual-open-house-ceremony-301073630.html SOURCE R&M

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LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles police officer has been charged with assault for punching an unarmed trespassing suspect more than a dozen times in an encounter caught on video by a bystander, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Officer Frank Hernandez was charged with assault under colour of authority.

Video from a bystander and cameras worn by officers shows Hernandez pummeling the man on April 27 as he stood with his hands behind his back, as if he was going to be handcuffed.

The charge comes less than a week after thousands of protesters galvanized by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis called for the ouster of District Attorney Jackie Lacey for doing little to prosecute police officers for shootings and other violence on the job.

Black Lives Matter and other groups have criticized Lacey, who is Black, for not bringing charges in hundreds of police shootings during her more than seven years running the largest local prosecutors office in the U.S.

Lacey has said she has done the best she can but is up against laws that allow officers to use deadly force and make it difficult to bring charges. She said shes prosecuted more than 20 police officers for use of force and has the only pending case in the state for an officer-involved shooting.

Lacey is up for re-election in a campaign that has focused on prosecuting police brutality and criminal justice reforms.

Hernandez, 49, could face up to three years in county jail if convicted of the felony.

The union representing Hernandez issued a rare statement condemning what was portrayed in the videos.

While we have a fiduciary responsibility to provide our members with assistance through the internal affairs administrative process, what we saw on that video was unacceptable and is not what we are trained to do the Los Angeles Police Protective League Board of Directors said.

It was not immediately clear if Hernandez had a defence lawyer who could provide comment.

The incident occurred when police were called about a man trespassing in a vacant lot in the Boyle Heights neighbourhood.

Hernandez and a female partner arrived, crouched through a hole in a chain link fence and approached the suspect, telling him to leave, according to videos provided by police. The man, who was wearing a Los Angeles Rams jersey, cursed at the officers but grabbed his bicycle and left the grassy plot.

The female officer told him to be on his way, but after walking down a sidewalk past a church, the suspect told the officers he lived there.

You dont live here anymore, Hernandez said. Bye.

The suspect then asked what Hernandez was going to do and said he wasnt afraid of him. Hernandez approached the man and told him to turn around.

Aint nobody acting defiant, the man said, as he continued to curse at the officer. Aint nobody getting crazy but you.

After a brief scuffle when the man initially refused to put his hands behind his back, the suspect faced a fence and appeared to comply with the order. Hernandez grabbed the mans hands as if he was going to cuff him and then took a wild swing and punched the man in the right side of the head.

Hernandez then delivered a series of blows to the mans head, neck and body, cursing at him the entire time.

This is a disturbing case of the illegal use of force at the hands of a police officer, Lacey said in a statement. In this case, we believe the force was neither legally necessary nor reasonable.

Hernandez has been stripped of police powers and assigned to home, the police department said.

___

Associated Press journalist Stefanie Dazio contributed to this report.
The announcement follows a key milestone in the hospitalization data watched by Hogan and his advisers, who are monitoring the scope of infections and the states ability to treat those who become sick. The number of patients this week hospitalized with covid-19, the disease the novel coronavirus causes, dropped below 1,000 in Maryland for the first time since April 10.
Photo credit: Hearst Owned

From Town & Country

We've all seen the news. George Floyd, a black man, was murdered in broad daylight by a white Minneapolis police officer, who slowly suffocated him by pressing his knee into his neck while three other officers watched without intervening. In another incident, Christian Cooper, a black man who was bird-watching in Central Park's Ramble area, could have potentially lost his life after simply requesting that Amy Cooper, a white woman, abide by the park's policy of keeping her dog on a leash. Once Cooper refused to refrain from recording her, she leveraged her white privilege to call the police, accusing him of threatening her life. In Louisville, Kentucky, police bolted into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, an emergency room technician, firing several bullets, which resulted in her death. Then there's the case of Ahmaud Arbery. The unarmed black man was jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, when a white father and son followed him in a pickup truck and shot him to death.



Photo credit: Courtesy of Dr. Robin DiAngelo

Such heinous acts of racial injustice against black men and women aren't new in the U.S. Discrimination against and police brutality on black people has now become the norm, compounded with the lasting effects of slavery, and many are protesting around the world, demanding change. To make sense of it all, Good Housekeeping invited Dr. Robin DiAngelo, a white woman and the author of White Fragility, to explore why she believes racism is a white problem. Dr. DiAngelo also reveals actionable steps white people can take to help effect change in society.



Good Housekeeping: How have you processed the recent news involving racial injustice, from the killing of black men and women, including George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, to Amy Cooper's use of her white privilege?

Dr. Robin DiAngelo: I'm very clear that the situation with Amy Cooper and George Floyd were not the exception. They were not aberrations. They've been happening all along on a consistent basis. The difference is that today we can videotape these situations and prove that they happened.



Story continues

Amy Cooper's phone call could very easily have resulted in Mr. Cooper's death. It did not, but I think it's very representative of the kinds of interactions black Americans encounter on a daily basis. And I don't see these protests letting up or people giving up in the way they may have in the past, so I'm slightly hopeful, even with a very heavy heart.



Where does your sense of hope come from? Because it's fair to say many people have lost it at this point.

I am a white person who speaks primarily to white people about racism and what it means to be white, and I have done so for the past 20 years. I definitely struggle with hopelessness. I know that racism will not end in my lifetime. It's not a simple formula of being nice people. It's not as simple as "What's in our hearts is all that counts." I also recognize that, as a white person, I cannot be hopeless. I cannot succumb to the temptation of hopelessness, because that only serves me and my position within this structure. If, as a white person, I feel hopeless and give up, I'm going to be passive and inadvertently colluding.



I can only speak as a white American. How black Americans navigate hope is a whole other issue and not my business. It's not for me to tell you whether you should feel hopeful or how the impact of racism comes at you, from me. We're going to have different relationships to the concept of hope and what kind of action that sparks in us.

You've spoken a lot about believing white people aren't concerned with racial injusticethat there's this notion of white defensiveness. What do you mean by this?

I don't think most white people care about racial injustice if it requires anything that is remotely inconvenient or uncomfortable for us. It's evident in the state of our society right now. It's also been my observation that because most white people don't even understand what racism is, we think that niceness is all it takes to be certified as not racist. So we carry on doing nothing, which ultimately upholds the status quo. Until white people literally remove the phrase "I'm not racist" from our vocabulary, and we remove it because we understand that that's not possible, we're going to uphold racism.



Essentially, you're saying that acknowledgment is the first step, right?

Yes, that's a very provocative claim for most white people, because we've been taught that racists are individuals who consciously don't like people and are intentionally mean to them based on race. That simplistic formula powerfully upholds the system we're in, because it exempts virtually all white people from the system. What happens is that being a nice person, being a good person, and being complicit with racism become mutually exclusive. That's the root of most white defensiveness.

How can a white person shift their thinking and alter their actions if they're willing to do so?

Start with self-awareness and self-reflection, and then begin to educate yourself. I would recommend that white people take out a piece of paper and put down their answers to why they don't know what to do about racism. How, in 2020, they have managed to not know what to do about racism when the information is everywhere and when people have been telling us for decades, if not centuries.

They might respond with: "I wasn't educated on racism. I don't talk about racism with my white friends. I don't talk about racism with my friends of color. I don't have friends of color. I live a segregated life. I haven't cared enough to find out. I don't want to feel guilty."



Whatever is on that list is your map and can be addressednot easily, not quickly, not simply, but all of it can be addressed. I also highly recommend Dr. Eddie Moore's 21-day challenge and Layla Saad's white supremacy workbook. Those two things would significantly point white people toward the right path.

What else should white people consider if they're eager to become more educated about racism?

Figure out how to put some support in place so that when this news cycle dies down, you're still working toward racial justice. Every moment you seek to challenge your racist conditioning, that conditioning is coming back at you. You can never be complacent; this is lifelong. Giving money is great, but it also doesn't take that much from us to fill out that form on the Internet. I recommend the workbooks I mentionedthat's active engagement.

How would you address a white person who is fearful of taking on this challenge?



We as white people are going to make mistakes. Try not to fear that you're making a mistake because that will incapacitate you. You cannot learn and grow without making mistakes. You can't use your mistakes or uncomfortable feedback as an excuse to disengage. We have been getting away with this kind of behavior for forever, for as long as we've had this society, and with (my book) White Fragility, I want to make it harder for white people to practice this nonsense with no accountability. There are so many people, even white people, who recognize white fragility now because they have language for it.

In addition to following the above steps, Dr. Robin DiAngelo recommends donating to any of the below organizations:



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In one era, we had to fight slavery, Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, has said. Another era we had to fight Jim Crow, another era we dealt with voting rights. This is the era to deal with policing and criminal justice. We need to go back to Washington and stand up  black, white, Latino, Arab  in the shadows of Lincoln and tell them this is the time to stop this.
(Natural News) President Trump is taking a hard stance against the looting and rioting that have erupted across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for close to nine minutes.

While no one condones the officers behavior and those who are protesting peacefully deserve to have their voices heard, there is an even louder and angrier subset of people who are taking advantage of the unrest to try to destabilize the country and cause chaos by whatever means possible.

Last Tuesday, Trump tweeted NYC, CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD. The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast!

After a particularly bad looting spree in New York City, he tweeted: Macys at 34th. Street, long the largest single department store anywhere in the world, & a point of pride in NYC, was devastated yesterday when hoodlums and thieves vandalized it, breaking almost all of its large panels of storefront glass. What a shame. Bring in National Guard!

But this is about far more than a department store having its windows broken. Its about violence that is escalating every day and leaving people dead in its wake  people who had nothing to do with the original incident that set off the violence. And thats why its clear that we are dealing with something far, far darker than people who are angry about a white cop killing a black man.

Although Mayor Bill de Blasio has already said the National Guards presence would only add fuel to the fire, the NYPD has not been able to keep the rioting from spreading. In Herald Square, videos showed hundreds of looters going into the Macys store on 34th street despite its windows being boarded up, while the Urban Outfitters at 35th Street and Broadway had its windows smashed and clothing cleared out by looters. The Nintendo store at Rockefeller Center, a Midtown Microsoft store and a slew of Times Square retail shops were ransacked.

An 11:00pm curfew in New York City did little stop the night of destruction, and the President called for it to be moved forward to 7:00pm.

Former NYC Police Commissioner says NYPD officers are under assault, exhausted

On Thursday, former NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told Fox News Sean Hannity that although he didnt initially believe the National Guard was necessary, given the 38,000-officer-strong NYPD force, he now thinks they may indeed be needed if the situation doesnt improve. He said officers are being assaulted in every possible way and are exhausted from extended shifts.

Its a message the President reiterated in an address at the White House, where he encouraged states to deploy the National Guard to help with protests getting out of hand throughout the nation. He praised them for the good work they do, mentioning how successful they were in Minnesota. Trump told governors not to be proud and to get the job done, telling them they need to dominate the streets and not just let this type of behavior continue.

Nearly half of the country has already activated the National Guard. As of June 2, at least 23 states and the District of Columbia had activated the guard. Some of the states include California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois. All told, more than 17,000 members of the National Guard are prepared to support local police, a number that is roughly equal to the active duty troops that are deployed in Afghanistan, Iran and Syria.

In addition, around 45,000 further National Guard members are on hand to support the coronavirus response in the country.

Sources for this article include:

FoxBusiness.com

NYPost.com

Edition.CNN.com

News.Yahoo.com

FoxNews.com
Demonstrators flooded Seattle City Hall on June 9 to protest police brutality and racism and to call for action on tax avoidance by Amazon and other major corporations, as seen in this footage from the Tax Amazon movement.

In the video, protesters can be heard chanting Tax, tax, tax Amazon." The NGO Fair Tax Mark named Amazon as the business with the poorest tax conduct in a report from December 2019. The protesters also called for the resignation of Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Durkan had been criticized for her leadership during ongoing protests for racial justice in the city. City council members voiced frustrations with the police response to protests on Monday, local media reported. Credit: Tax Amazon via Storyful
Five suspected rebels were killed Wednesday in a dawn firefight with hundreds of troops in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said, as New Delhi escalates counter-insurgency efforts in the disputed territory. The fatalities pushed the death toll during the current escalation -- which has ramped up since India's nationwide coronavirus lockdown started in late March -- to 14 alleged militants in four days. The men, who were in an underground hideout at an apple orchard near Sugoo village south of the main city of Srinagar, were surrounded by the troops before daybreak, a local police officer told AFP. "Five militants were killed in the firefight that ensued. Their bodies and five weapons were retrieved from the site," army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia told AFP. Indian-administered Kashmir has been in turmoil since last August when New Delhi revoked its semi-autonomous status and imposed a communications blackout that has not been fully lifted. At least 93 rebels, including six top commanders, have been killed by Indian forces since January. The 14 deaths in three firefights have taken place in the picturesque southern Kashmir valley region, known for its vast apple orchards. The shootouts have also sparked clashes between government forces and angry villagers who support the militants. Two civilians have also been shot dead by unknown gunmen in recent days, including a village official from India's main opposition Congress party. Police blamed the killings on rebels. Last month, Riyaz Naikoo, commander of the region's main militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, was killed. Rebel groups have fought for decades for the region's independence or its merger with Pakistan and enjoy broad popular support. New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for fuelling the insurgency, which Pakistan has denied. The fighting has left tens of thousands dead, mostly civilians, since 1989. The latest clashes have come just over a week after two Pakistan embassy officials were expelled by New Delhi over spying allegations. Indian paramilitary troops stand guard in front of closed shops in Srinagar
WATERLOO  The city has banned pedestrians from standing in narrow medians and ramp noses.

Waterloo City Council members voted 5-2 Monday to approve the final reading of an ordinance drafted to deal with concerns about people panhandling in potentially dangerous locations in the Crossroads Center retail area.

Councilmen Jonathan Grieder and Pat Morrissey, who opposed the measure, voiced concern about violators being charged with a simple misdemeanor.

Such violations are punishable by fines of $65 to $625 and possible jail time, while Morrissey said the penalty should be a municipal infraction with a first offense starting around $10.

Grieder said he planned to submit proposed amendments to the ordinance next week, including a move to change the violation to a municipal infraction.

The ordinance, spearheaded by Councilwoman Margaret Klein, had been heavily debated during its first two appearances before the council but moved through quickly this week.

Supporters say it is dangerous for people to be standing in narrow medians, especially among heavy traffic on San Marnan Drive, Flammang Drive and La Porte Road. Some noted the practice causes traffic problems when motorists stop to give money to panhandlers.

Opponents said there was no record of pedestrian fatalities or injuries near Crossroads and painted the measure as a heartless crackdown on desperate or mentally ill individuals seeking money. Panhandling has been upheld by federal courts as a First Amendment right.

The ordinance applies to anyone standing in a median less than six feet wide anywhere in the city but includes wider medians around Crossroads. It applies to any activity  panhandling, handing out handbills, holding advertising signs, etc.  except for those standing in median waiting to cross the street.

Panhandling is still legal in the city at other locations.

This ordinance does not prohibit standing on the side of the street, said City Attorney Martin Petersen.

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(Photo : REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw) A woman donates blood plasma, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at Sanquin blood bank in Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 19, 2020. (Photo : REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw) A medical worker wearing a face mask checks a blood plasma donation, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at Sanquin blood bank in Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 19, 2020.

Injecting survivors' blood boosts the recovery of COVID-19 patients and reduces their symptoms, according to the Daily Mail report.

This was according to a review of scientific literature that found convalescent immune plasma cleared the disease on adults under 60 years old in less than a week. Elderly patients will recover from the illness after 10 to 30 days after receiving plasma.

Scientists in Sweden and Finland said various studies worldwide indicate the therapy 'is safe and effective.' However, none of the reviewed research compared patients receiving plasma to a control group, which is the gold standard of scientific research.

In the first randomized control study in China, early results suggest the treatment makes no difference.

Injecting Survivors' Plasma May Boost Recovery of COVID-19 Patients

Hundreds of COVID-19 patients in London's Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals are currently being treated with convalescent plasma. They are part of a trial whether antibodies in survivors' blood can bolster the currently affected patients' struggling immune system.

In 1918, the treatment used the liquid part of the blood, known as convalescent plasma. This is then injected into COVID-19 patients who struggle to produce their antibodies.

The donation process takes around 45 minutes, and then the medical staff filters the blood through a machine to remove the plasma using the plasmapheresis process.

Donors who have tested positive for the coronavirus should have recovered already for at least three to four weeks, or ideally 29 days.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland have recently reviewed 10 studies on convalescent plasma (CP) therapy. A total of 61 coronavirus patients who volunteered in various trials in China, South Korea, and the US were aged between 19 and 100.

According to the reviews, half of the patients recovered within the first week, while 40% cleared the disease between eight and 29 days after receiving CP transfusion. Meanwhile, recovery data was unavailable for the remaining patients.

While the analysis is not yet peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, it showed that patients over 60 years old recovered after twice as much time as younger patients. However, there was no indicative disparity in recovery time between genders.

"The results reviewed here suggest that CP therapy for COVID-19 is safe and effective.... and created an immediate recovery response in about half of the patients reviewed," said researchers of Karolinska Institute, which is led by Ville Pimenoff. They also noted that the recovery was significantly faster for patients aged under 60.

Also, the scientists acknowledged that early results of the Chinese study showed the therapy does not affect COVID-19 patients.

"Accordingly, we argue that older patients may need a significantly longer time for recovery. Further randomized clinical trial data for COVID-19 with rigorous ethical standards are urgently needed," they wrote on the academics.

As of this writing, no cure is yet found for the coronavirus, which has already taken the lives of more than 400,000 patients worldwide.

However, convalescent plasma therapy is immediately available and relies only on drawing blood from a former patient. This is significantly cheaper than developing a new drug, which costs millions and a longer time to take through trials and regulation before mass-produced.

Read also: Google Maps to Help Commuters Learn More About COVID-19-Related Travel Restrictions

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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Linkedin Dana Moukhallati (Agence France-Presse) Dubai, United Arab Emirates  Wed, June 10, 2020 07:58 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd72754 2 World Mars,Mars-mission,Arab,space,science-and-technology,scientific-development,UAE Free

The first Arab space mission to Mars, armed with probes to study the Red Planet's atmosphere, is designed to inspire the region's youth and pave the way for scientific breakthroughs, officials said Tuesday.

The unmanned probe Al-Amal -- Hope in Arabic -- is to blast off from a Japanese space centre on July 15, with preparations now in their final stages.

The project is the next giant step for the United Arab Emirates, whose colossal skyscrapers and mega-projects have put it on the world map.

The UAE sent its first astronaut into space last year and is also planning to build a "Science City" to replicate conditions on Mars, where it hopes to build a human settlement by 2117.

Omran Sharaf, the mission's project manager, said that apart from the ambitious scientific goals, the mission was designed to hark back to the region's golden age of cultural and scientific achievements.

"The UAE wanted to send a strong message to the Arab youth and to remind them of the past, that we used to be generators of knowledge," he told AFP.

"People of different backgrounds and religion coexisted and shared a similar identity," he said of the Arab world, where many countries are today wracked by sectarian conflicts and economic crises.

"Put your differences aside, focus on building the region, you have a rich history and you can do much more."

Narrow window

Sarah al-Amiri, the mission's deputy project manager, said it was imperative that the project have a long-term scientific impact.

"It is not a short-lived mission, but rather one that continues throughout the years and produces valuable scientific findings -- be it by researchers in the UAE or globally," she told AFP.

She said that the probe will provide a comprehensive image of the weather dynamics in Mars' atmosphere with the use of three scientific instruments.

The first is an infrared spectrometer to measure the planet's lower atmosphere and analyze the temperature structure.

The second, a high-resolution imager that will provide information about the ozone; and a third, an ultraviolet spectrometer to measure oxygen and hydrogen levels from a distance of up to 43,000 kilometers from the surface.

The three tools will allow researchers to observe the Red Planet "at all times of the day and observe all of Mars during those different times", Amiri said.

"Something we want to better understand, and that's important for planetary dynamics overall, is the reasons for the loss of the atmosphere and if the weather system on Mars actually has an impact on loss of hydrogen and oxygen," she said, referring to the two components that make up water.

Sharaf said that fuelling of the probe is to begin next week.

It is scheduled to launch on July 15 from Japan's Tanegashima Space Centre and return to Earth in February 2021, depending on many variables including the weather.

"If we miss the launch opportunity, which is between mid-July and early August, then we'd have to wait for two years for another window," Sharaf said.

But hopes are high that the mission will take place as scheduled, and not be derailed by the coronavirus pandemic.

In a new sign of warming ties between Israel and Gulf Arab nations, the Jewish state Tuesday wished the UAE success with the mission.

We "hope this step will contribute towards deeper cooperation between all countries in the region," its foreign ministry's "Israel in the Gulf" Twitter account wrote in Arabic.
[Photo/IC]

The major task for authorities in charge of veteran affairs this year is to help military retirees land civilian jobs and improve their standard of living, according to a senior official.

Sun Shaocheng, China's minister of veterans affairs, said in a ministry meeting last week that President Xi Jinping and other top leaders talked about veteran affairs and gave specific instructions during the third sessions of the 13th National People's Congress and the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, both of which were held in late May in Beijing.

The minister urged officials to learn from the attention and care Xi gives to veterans and fully implement the president's instructions. They should focus on improving veterans' employment and boosting their overall well-being, he said at the meeting, which was held to brief ministry officials about the two sessions.

The government must ensure veterans' employment and improve their treatment, according to this year's Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang to the NPC.

The premier also urged government departments to take concrete measures to fulfill policies on retirees' treatment when he met reporters after the NPC annual session last month.

Zhang Jun, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said in the annual report of the top procuratorate delivered to the NPC that prosecutors will establish a "green channel" across the country to offer expedited and prioritized services to veterans.

Meanwhile, Wu Changde and Wei Changjin, national political advisers from the military, called for better vocational training and increased pensions for retirees during the recent session of the CPPCC National Committee.

China has taken a host of measures over the past two years to improve benefits for veterans and military members' families.

In March 2018, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs was established. The National Veterans Service Center was set up in February 2019, and since then, veteran service centers or stations have been established at every administrative level, from community to provincial.

Guidelines listed in a document published by the government in January cover almost all elements of daily life, ranging from medical care, housing and education to transportation and leisure activities.

Under the guidelines, members of the armed forces, military retirees and other qualified people should be given priority and favorable policies at designated elderly-care centers or hospitals. They should also be given free admission or discounts at museums, parks and other tourism sites.

Currently, each veteran is eligible for two years of free vocational training and will receive a living allowance during the training period.

Employers are urged to give preference to veterans in recruitment, set lower requirements for job applicants who have served in the military and arrange periodic training for any veteran they hire.

Enterprises that hire veterans can be eligible for tax benefits if they meet certain criteria.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, more than 58 million military personnel have re-entered civilian life, according to official statistics.
An elderly man shoved to the ground by Buffalo police denies being part of Antifa after President Donald Trump suggested he was a provocateur who faked his fall.

Martin Gugino, 75, remains hospitalized with a bruise and cuts after two police officers shoved him Thursday during a protest against police brutality after the death of George Floyd. Video from NPRs Buffalo radio station, WBFO, showing Gugino on the ground and bleeding from the ear quickly went viral and outrage ensued as the Buffalo Police Department claimed in a statement he tripped & fell.

Trump claimed without evidence that Gugino could be an ANTIFA provocateur on Twitter Tuesday and pushed a conspiracy theory that "Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

Kelly Zarcone, a lawyer for Gugino, told TMZ on Tuesday that he denies being involved with the anti-fascist movement.

Martin is out of ICU but still hospitalized and truly needs to rest. Martin has always been a peaceful protestor because he cares about todays society," Zarcone said in a statement. No one from law enforcement has suggested otherwise."

Gugino "is also a typical Western New Yorker who loves his family. No one from law enforcement has even suggested anything otherwise, so we are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him.

The BBC fact-checked Trumps claims Gugino was trying to scan or block police communications, noting that some apps allow phone users to listen to police scanners -- but wouldnt be able to jam police radio signals.

In any event, even if you were attempting to scan police radios in order to jam them using a mobile phone, which is what the man appeared to be holding, this is not the equipment you would use. You would need much more sophisticated scanning equipment, Professor Alan Woodward, a cyber security expert at Surrey University told the British publication. In terms of interfering with police communications frequencies, mobile phones simply dont have components that work at those frequencies."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo criticized Trump on Tuesday for the baseless tweet.

Do you think the blood coming out of his head was staged? Is that what youre saying? the New York governor said. How reckless, how irresponsible, how mean, how crude. If there was ever a reprehensible dumb comment, and from the President of the United States. At this moment of anguish and anger, what does he do? Pours gasoline on the fire."

Officers Aaron Torglaski and Robert McCabe were charged with second-degree assault Saturday and released without bail after pleading not guilty. Both officers were suspended without pay late Thursday night.

Gugino, identified as a longtime peace activist from Amherst, is a member of two nonprofits: PUSH Buffalo, which focuses on affordable housing, and the Western New York Peace Center, a human rights organization. He is also part of the Catholic Worker Movement and politically active on social media, frequently criticizing Trump.

Trump did not provide any evidence for claims that Gugino has antifa ties or that he faked his fall. His source, an OANN video, is from the conservative, far-right One America News Network known for promoting conspiracy theories.

Trump has described antifa, an anti-fascist movement, as a domestic terrorist organization and blamed the collective on violence in cities where protests have occurred since Floyd died on Memorial Day when a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The Associated Press reports more than 85% of those arrested by police during protests and riots in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., were local residents. Only a small number of the 217 people arrested in those two epicenters for civil unrest appeared to have any affiliation with organized groups, according to court records, employment histories, social media posts and other sources of information.

WATCH: Late-night TV hosts skewer Trump over Buffalo protester conspiracy theory
With uncertainty looming over when schools will reopen due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has decided to conduct online classes for its school students from June 15.

In PCMC, there are 105 primary and 18 high schools. The civic body decided to begin online classes with a view that PCMC school students should not miss out on education. The private schools in PCMC have already begun online classes.

The decision to conduct classes was taken after a survey done by PCMC education department regarding the availability of internet with all students.

In our survey, we found out that 50 per cent students from PCMC schools have Android mobile phones. For other students, we have arranged 6,000 volunteers who will visit students homes and follow up, said Jyotsna Shinde, administration officer, education department, PCMC.

Books distribution has begun in various PCMC schools from Wednesday.

We have given books to respective schools so that parents and teachers can collect books as classes will start from June 15. At the moment, the education department has no fixed time table for conducting classes and teachers are allowed to conduct sessions at any time of the day, explained Shinde.

The classes will be conducted via WhatsApp, YouTube channels, and blogs. The education department is also planning to deliver lectures via radio community channels. The channels will be operated internally by teachers to conduct audio classes. The PCMC education department has asked for its approval to the state government. If required, the PCMC education department will also use cable channels to deliver lectures.

For teachers guidance, the PCMC education department has created WhatsAapp groups and teachers are being guided on how to conduct online classes.

Students will definitely benefit from online classes. Education cannot take a backseat due to Covid-19 pandemic, added Shinde.
Infrastructure constraints and low environmental standards could diminish the competitiveness of Vietnams industrial parks in attracting foreign investors exiting China, industry insiders say.

Le Trong Hieu, CBRE director for industrial and logistics services, said that one reason for the slow increase in the supply of industrial land in the country was limited infrastructure connecting industrial parks with ports.

It takes at least two years for developers to expand their existing parks to serve more companies, and even longer for a brand new park, he told VnExpress.

"It costs a developer of industrial parks in Vietnam more money and time than their counterparts in Thailand, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and the Philippines," Hieu said.

A recent CBRE report said that there were concerns about Vietnams capability to absorb the new wave of manufacturing relocation from China, including infrastructure capacity constraints and the lack of an equipment manufacturer ecosystem.

Su Ngoc Khuong, senior director of real estate service firm Savills Vietnam, said that infrastructure and storage capacity are key factors in attracting multinationals.

Major ports in Ho Chi Minh City, the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Hai Phong in the north have become busier in recent years thanks to increasing trade, but this has also led to congestion due to limited infrastructure, he said.

"It might be convenient to travel from Hanoi to Hai Phong City, but not so from Hai Phong City to its ports."

Vietnam in recent years has been developing infrastructure for housing and office needs, but not for industrial needs, he said.

Higher transport and storage costs make Vietnam less competitive than Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India in attracting foreign companies, he added.

Pollution is another concern. Economist Dinh The Hien said most industrial parks in Vietnam, apart from factories of major manufacturers such as Honda and Samsung, fail to meet standards in dealing with solid waste and providing a safe environment to workers.

Companies shifting from China require high environmental standards to make their products able to be exported to developed countries, while many industrial parks in Vietnam are ignoring these standards, he said.

"Existing industrial parks are suitable only for assembling, not manufacturing, due to failing to meet these standards," he stressed

Vietnam has become a promising manufacturing destination for multinationals post-pandemic thanks to its early and effective efforts to contain the novel coronavirus. The countrys close proximity with China also makes moving the supply chain easy, while its many trade pacts, such as one with the E.U., allow more opportunities for trade.

One of the countrys largest companies, conglomerate Vingroup, has jumped on to the industrial land bandwagon by announcing a plan to pour over $400 million into developing an industrial park in Hai Phong, seeking to host suppliers for its automaking business.

It is expected that the countrys 260 operating industrial parks, with another 75 under construction, will benefit from rising demand among foreign direct investment companies.

But industry insiders have warned that increasing the quantity of parks is not as important as improving the quality and the infrastructure that comes with it.

Trinh Van Quyet, chairman of property developer FLC, said that many have seen the potential of industrial parks as supply chains shift, but a park needs to have more than just factories. An infrastructure ecosystem determines the value of the park, he said.

Ha Thu Thanh, chairwoman of tax service firm Deloitte Vietnam, said that tax and land fees incentives are not enough to attracting foreign firms. The country needs a holistic development of logistics, labor productivity and supporting industry, she said.
Global bodys support mission in the country says two sides fully engaged in talks aimed at ending fighting.

The United Nations has said Libyas warring sides were fully engaged in military talks aimed at ending the fighting in the country, calling the virtual meetings productive.

The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said on Wednesday that it had convened a meeting with a delegation from renegade military commander Khalifa Haftars eastern-based forces on June 3, and another on Tuesday with a delegation from the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

Both meetings  which were conducted virtually  were productive and enabled UNSMIL to discuss with the delegations the latest developments on the ground, the mission said.

The North African country, a major oil producer, has been mired in turmoil since 2011, when longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in a NATO-backed uprising.

It is now split between two rival administrations: the GNA in Tripoli and the eastern-based House of Representatives allied with Haftar.

UNSMIL is pleased to announce that both, Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA) delegations, are fully engaged in the third round of talks of the (5+5) Joint Military Commission (JMC). https://t.co/C134zriaT9 pic.twitter.com/7ulZnwSr5U  UNSMIL (@UNSMILibya) June 10, 2020

The latest round of talks came after the collapse of a 14-month offensive by Haftars Libyan National Army (LNA) to capture Tripoli and its retreat from most of its territory in northwest Libya following a series of military setbacks.

A GNA effort from Monday to push further east and capture the central city of Sirte, effectively wiping out all the LNAs gains since the start of its Tripoli campaign in April 2019, was repulsed with air raids, an LNA military source was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Between June 5 and 8, the mission said it documented at least 19 civilian deaths, including those of three women and five children as well as 12 injuries in three locations outside Sirte as a result of heavy shelling.

The GNA is backed by Turkey while Haftars self-styled LNA is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Egypt.

Separately, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday said his country has rejected a ceasefire proposal by Egypt, claiming the plan was aimed at saving Haftar.

The ceasefire effort in Cairo was stillborn. If a ceasefire is to be signed, it should be done at a platform that brings everyone together, Cavusoglu told the Hurriyet Daily News.

The ceasefire call to save Haftar does not seem sincere or believable to us.
CBHI and UAMS Collaborative Research While we have had amazing recovery cases of patients with multiple myeloma undergoing SAC therapy, the collaborative research will help us to gain a deeper understanding of the healing pathways of SAC for multiple myeloma and erythropoietin-induced osteoporosis.

Calcium & Bone Health Institute (CBHI) and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute announced that they are engaged in collaborative research to study the efficacy of Sigma Anti-bonding Calcium (SAC) as a treatment option for patients with multiple myeloma and erythropoietin-included osteoporosis.

We are truly excited to work with the University of Arkansas, which has the most comprehensive center in the world of research and clinical care related to multiple myeloma, said Dr. Paul Lee, the president of CBHI. While we have had amazing recovery cases of patients with multiple myeloma undergoing SAC therapy, the collaborative research will help us to gain a deeper understanding of the healing pathways of SAC for multiple myeloma and erythropoietin-induced osteoporosis.

Multiple myeloma is the second most common hematological malignancy. It mostly occurs at older ages and remains an incurable disease. It is a B cell cancer mainly characterized by the proliferation of malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow, the presence of monoclonal serum immunoglobulin, and osteolytic lesions. Multiple myeloma is highly associated with bone destruction, where osteoclasts are more active than osteoblasts. Studies have found that myeloma progresses with osteoclast induced bone resorption while osteoblast enhanced bone formation inhibits the progression. This evidence indicates that SAC's effect on regulating the activities of osteoclasts and osteoblasts poses itself as a good candidate for myeloma therapy.

SAC (Sigma Anti-Bonding Calcium) calcium was invented by Dr. Paul Lee of CBHI in 2009. Utilizing unstable sigma-antibonding in calcium carbonate molecules, SAC readily releases calcium to be absorbed directly in ionic form without the help of vitamin D and peptides. A small amount of this physiologically active form of calcium triggers hormonal responses to restore calcium homeostasis, a crucial balance responsible for healthy mitochondrial function and correct cellular signaling in activating natural healing mechanisms. SAC's healing pathways are natural without side effects.

This two-year collaborative research focuses on pharmacokinetics study of SAC, biological safety of SAC, and in vivo effects of SAC in multiple myeloma and erythropoietin-induced osteoporosis.

About CBHI

Calcium and Bone Health Institute (CBHI) is a nonprofit scientific research organization based in Canada. With the invention of novel SAC ionic calcium carbonate, its primary research focuses on the role of ionic calcium in treating over 150 calcium-related chronic degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis, Alzheimer's, metabolic diseases, etc. By conducting laboratory and clinical research, CBHI endeavors to find effective prevention and treatment methods. CBHI collaborates with many other research centers such as SFU, UBC, UC Davis, NSERC Canada, and BC Government to combine the research with fundamental sciences such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology. It held the first International Sigma Anti-Bonding Calcium Symposium (ISACS) 2019 in Vancouver, Canada to discuss and share the knowledge of the various measures to develop healthy bone and to prevent calcium-related diseases. This year, CBHI plans to hold ISACS in Manila, Philippines, which is not confirmed yet due to COVID-19 pandemic.
PHILADELPHIA  A Southwest Philadelphia woman has been charged with attempted murder for running over a police officer with her car during looting sparked by protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, District Attorney Larry Krasner said Tuesday.

Angela Hall, 41, was attempting to flee the 700 block of Chestnut Street in Old City on May 30 when she stuck Officer Antonio Nieves, who was on bike patrol and attempted to stop her vehicle, Krasner said.

This individuals criminal actions are egregious and resulted in serious, possibly permanent injuries to a police officer who was responding to a situation that was already dangerous, the district attorney said.

Hall also was charged with burglary of a beauty supply store and conspiracy to commit burglary. Video evidence shows people carrying items out of the store while Hall waited outside in a vehicle, Krasners office said in a statement.

In the incident involving the police officer, Hall is accused of causing severe bodily injury to Nieves by running him down with her car. Shes charged with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, two counts of aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, simple assault, possessing an instrument of crime and related offenses.

Additionally, Hall is alleged to have falsely reported as stolen the rental car she allegedly drove into the officer. Video evidence shows Hall abandoning the vehicle on Eastwick Street later on the night of the incident, Krasners office said.

For reporting the car stolen, Hall has been charged with obstruction of justice and false reports to law enforcement authorities.

This office intends to hold Angela Hall accountable for the severe harm she has caused Officer Nieves, Krasner said. A preliminary hearing for Hall has been tentatively scheduled for June 24.



Mensah Dean of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote this story.

2020 The Philadelphia Inquirer

Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.inquirer.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Even as COVID-19 sweeps the world ravaging economy after economy, opeds have started emerging on Prime Minister Narendra Modis apparent failure to spearhead reforms and handle bureaucracy, as well as his alleged personality traits like megalomania, suspicion of experts, reluctance to share credit, and his inability to transcend sectarian ideology

The storm hasnt ended, but blaming the tree for the fallen fruits has begun. Even as COVID-19 sweeps the world ravaging economy after economy, opeds have started emerging on Prime Minister Narendra Modis apparent failure to spearhead reforms and handle bureaucracy, as well as his alleged personality traits like megalomania, suspicion of experts, reluctance to share credit, and his inability to transcend sectarian ideology.

The timing of these pieces is important. India seems to be emerging from a crippling pandemic situation largely unscathed, compared to other major democracies. Its death rate of 2.8 per 100 confirmed cases is less than half of the world average of 5.74. Economic activity is limping back. Public opinion has not turned against the government. In fact, after one year of his second term and despite a global slowdown combined with viral devastation, his rankings are higher than other world leaders and trust in him is intact.

There have of course been inadequacies in handling a massive migrant workers homecoming crisis. Relief measures announced and implemented so far have a strong whiff of window-dressing and may not be enough.

But the prime ministers haters expected far more devastation and chaos. They have been let down.

So, while there is frustration among his opponents that such a momentous calamity is going to waste, they also have a creeping fear that a second wave of civilisational course corrections like the scrapping of Article 370 and the Citizenship Amendment Act will be unleashed as the disease ebbs, lockdown opens and Parliament meets for the Monsoon Session.

The accusation of Modi's megalomania, excessive self-projection and making every event a public relations spectacle is not new. But one has to understand that he is up against the relentless image-building  to the point of hijacking the Gandhi surname  of the Nehru family.

To stand a chance against the Nehru-Gandhis, Modi had to launch an image exercise to counter seven decades of 'mai-baap sarkar' superbranding. The poorest in the remotest corners of the country remained poor, but knew only one symbol to stamp on: The Hand.

Modi had to change that. His ruthless self-projection is well thought out and deliberate.

It is also facile to say the prime minister is suspicious of bright minds and experts. This is a man who handpicked the likes of Ajit Doval, S Jaishankar, Suresh Prabhu, Hardeep Puri and Syed Akbaruddin. He went with Raghuram Rajan for long despite Rajan being a UPA appointee. He built robustly on Aadhaar, coopting its creator, technocrat and 2014 Congress candidate Nandan Nilekani.

He is right in mistrusting part of the bureaucracy addled by Congress patronage for decades and still loyal to its old masters. If at all, it has been the prime minister's failure to weed out that ecosystem that throws a spanner in almost every well-intentioned move.

The Modi government deserves criticism for stymieing investor sentiment and making taxation a whole lot more punishing and complicated, but one cannot dismiss the reformist instincts of a person who had the courage to carry out demonetisation and bring in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the Goods and Services Tax. Even during the COVID-19 outbreak, disallowing global tenders up to Rs 200 crore for the benefit of local companies and proposing deep changes in the APMC Act to help farmers freely sell their produce anywhere are big steps.

Modi is among rare leaders who start a speech thanking a long list of local leaders, many of them too obscure for national media to recognise. He let Amit Shah have a trailblasing run with entire spotlight in the first six months of the second term, repeatedly backed Nirmala Sitharaman in public despite trenchant attacks by critics.

In contrast, recall the towering icons that Jawaharlal Nehru had pushed out of limelight and sidelined mercilessly. How many leaders have Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi shared credit with? Rahul Gandhi did not even give his partys own serving prime minister due respect, tearing up in public an ordinance passed by the Cabinet while Manmohan Singh was on a foreign tour.

The charge of Modi being communal is dead meat. He has been unapologetically against the politics of appeasement and minority-ism and in that lies his appeal. The secular intelligentsia will never talk about the slew of schemes, loans for traditional crafts, educational scholarships and other measures Modis minority affairs ministry has taken.

The prime minister's biggest challenge now is to fix the economy, not listen to habitual whiners who would go to any length, even ally with sinister forces, to restore the old order. A sure way for the prime minister to snatch political downfall from the jaws of unassailability would be to listen to his self-appointed secular and liberal critics.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:59:28|Editor: huaxia

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GUANGZHOU, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Guangzhou Opera House said Wednesday that it will reopen on June 25 after a hiatus due to the COVID-19 outbreak, restaging "Marco Polo" as its first show.

"The show was highly-anticipated, and the tickets were sold out in a few minutes," said Chen Rui, assistant to the general manager of the opera house.

According to Chen, strict anti-virus measures have been imposed for the reopening.

The attendance rate will be brought under 30 percent for the sake of social distancing. Employees have taken nucleic-acid tests and infrared temperature detection devices have been installed.

The show, combining the legend of Marco Polo with an original Chinese-written opera, was produced by Guangzhou Opera House in 2018. Enditem
As the number of Covid-19 cases surge in India, it is likely to overtake UK and Spain in the next couple of days and reach number four on the overall confirmed infections. However, to measure the number of cases in isolation and judge the spread of the pandemic in any country is a futile, incomplete and inaccurate exercise.

One of the best measures to judge the outbreak of Covid-19 is the Tests Per Case Ratio. Countries which report a high ratio are conducting a high number of tests per case.

This in turn would suggest that there is a lesser difference between the confirmed cases and the actual number of cases in these countries. This would imply that they were either able to monitor the outbreak efficiently from the start or took adequate measures after the initial outbreak and eventually brought the curve for new cases to move downwards while increasing the ratio of tests per case consistently.

Conversely, countries which report a low tests per case ratio are conducting a low number of tests per case which would suggest that there is a huge population which is going untested. These countries will generally see a big outbreak which they would find difficult to contain, especially if the tests per case ratio goes down with time.

Indias Cumulative Tests Per Case ratio currently stands at 18.44  that is a significant drop from 25.95 on May 5. More worryingly, there seems to be a direct correlation between the lifting of certain stringent lockdown restrictions and a rise in Indias Daily Positivity Ratio (The percentage number of cases per tests daily). After registering a dip from April 25 to May 3 and reaching its lowest of 3.2% since the lockdown was imposed on March 25, it has steadily been on an upward trajectory and more than doubled to 6.90% on June 7.

This suggests that the number of cases have risen at a proportionately higher rate than the number of tests since May 3 when a number of curbs were eased after the end of Lockdown 2.

According to Our World in Data, India was clubbed in the 20-40 range with countries like Burma, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Austria and Paraguay according to the 7-day rolling average of Daily Tests Per Confirmed Case as on the 15th of April. While India remained in the same range on May 1, they had new company  Russia, Spain, South Africa, Germany and Italy amongst other countries.

India remained in this range till May 20. 21st of May was the first day Indias Tests per Case Ratio went under 20. It was in the same cluster as USA. On June 1, when India conducted just 15.55 Tests per Case, it was clubbed together along with Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and South Africa.

The creative below shows the ratio on June 7.

At 14.41 tests per confirmed case, India is in the same range as South Africa, Philippines and Singapore. Countries which are faring poorly than India include Argentina, Columbia, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia and Bangladesh, all in the 5-10 Tests per Case range.

Chile (3.9), Bolivia (2), Mexico (1.05), Panama (3.22), Pakistan (4.64) and Qatar (2.65) have the worst Tests per Case ratio, all in the below 5 cluster. Brazil, in all likelihood, is also in this cluster but their latest testing data is not available. These are alarming numbers. Basically it implies that every 5th person who is being tested in Pakistan, on an average, is positive.

Mexico is almost facing an emergency. Its Tests per Case ratio of 1.05 on June 5 means that almost everyone who was tested that day was positive. Coupled with that, Mexico has a higher number of cases (1,20,102) and a very high Mortality Rate of 11.7%.

New Zealand, which hasnt reported a new case in 17 days and declared the nation virus-free, is marked in dark blue  it tested 25,606 cases on May 28 without registering any new case. Australia, which has reported just 7,267 cases thus far and done a remarkable job in containing the virus given its size, conducted 2,017 tests per case as on June 5. The corresponding number for Taiwan was 1,274 on June 6  another country hailed for its model of containment. Croatia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Iceland are the other countries in the same club (more than 1,000 tests per case).

Some European nations who are now conducting between 100-1000 Tests per Case have finally managed to bend the curve - these include Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece and Switzerland. Other prominent nations in this club include South Korea and Thailand.

Italy is one of the worst affected Covid-19 countries. They were overwhelmed and unable to control the pandemic initially  not surprisingly they conducted 3.91 Tests per Confirmed Case on March 23  basically, one in every 4th person being tested was positive. They increased this ratio to 18.11 in a month on April 23 to 93.51 on May 23. The number stands at 158.76 on June 6.

France and Spain have a similar story. They are amongst the worst-hit nations in the world but have now managed to control the outbreak and are on a downward curve. They are clustered together in the 40-100 club with Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Malaysia and Canada amongst others.

UK, USA and Russia are conducting 20-40 tests per confirmed case. Russias curve dipped from 116 tests per day on April 1 to 17.38 on May 9. Since then, though the number of daily new cases continue to be high, Russia seems to have passed its peak, and the ratio has risen and doubled to 33.46.

All nations who are now reporting a high Tests per Case ratio have already seen a downward spiral in their Daily New Cases. This suggests that adequate testing has met the challenge of the outbreak. Germanys initial curve is red suggesting that they were not testing enough in that period but they changed that fantastically from May. South Korea has recently reported a new spike but the numbers are not alarming.

It is interesting that Sweden who did not go for a strict lockdown and were initially praised for their model of containment and then were subsequently criticised, have tested very poorly and seen a surge in their number of cases along with a high Mortality Rate.

The concern for India is that not only is their Daily Tests per Case ratio going down, the cases are surging, the peak is far away and the Tests per Death ratio is doing down (from 793.72 on May 5 to 651.41 on June 9).

So far, the silver lining for the country has been the remarkably low Mortality Rate but with most lockdown restrictions lifted, and the pressure on hospitals and the health infrastructure increasing, the situation can get out of control in no time.
Mohammad Shahid Islam has been in jail since 6 June. His bail request was denied. The Bangladesh embassy sent a letter to Kuwaiti authorities asking for clarification, with no reply so far. The accused owns a company involved in engineering, contracting, logistics and management.

Kuwait City (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Kuwait authorities on Saturday arrested Mohammad Shahid Islam, a Bangladeshi lawmaker, at his home in Mushrif, a residential area of Kuwait City, on charges of human trafficking and money laundering.

Kuwaits residence investigation department carried out the arrest. The Public Prosecution remanded him in custody the next day, but information about the case became public only after the Bangladeshi embassy was informed.

Mr Islam has been denied bail, but Bangladeshi diplomatic sources note that he has not been formally indicted.

Bangladeshi Ambassador Abul Kalam said he received news of the arrest from one of the brothers of Mr Islam and that we are yet to receive any reply to the letter he sent to Kuwaiti authorities for clarification.

According to al-Qabas, a local newspaper, Islam is suspected of involvement in human trafficking and money laundering.

The lawmaker, an MP from Laxmipur, owns Marafie Kuwaitia Group, a company active in the Gulf region in engineering, contracting, logistics and management.

He is said to have profited from his status as a lawmaker to exploit his compatriots, using them for illegal gain.

The accusations are based on the testimony of five Bangladeshi migrant workers, who said that they had to pay 3,000 dinars to come to Kuwait to work, plus annual sums paid to renew their residency visas.

The lawmaker is managing director and CEO of Marafie Kuwaitia Group, which operates in Kuwait, Oman and Jordan.

A foreign ministry official in Dhaka told Arab News that Islam was in Kuwait on an ordinary passport instead of a red passport, which is a privilege for the lawmakers of the country.

In February, Islam, also known as Kazi Papul, dismissed as false and imaginary allegations that he trafficked humans to Kuwait.
A stolen Banksy tribute to victims of the Paris terror attack in 2015 has been discovered in an abandoned farmhouse in Italy.

The artwork, which depicted a sorrowful girl in mourning painted on emergency doors of the famous Bataclan concert hall in Paris, was cut out and snatched in January 2019.

The mural was a tribute to the 90 people who were murdered at the venue by Islamist extremists in November 2015 in a series of terror attacks across the city.

A joint raid between Italian and French police led to the discovery of the work today, in Italy's Abruzzo region, to the east of Rome.

The artwork showed a sorrowful girl in mourning and had been painted on one of the emergency doors of the famous Bataclan concert hall in Paris

The Banksy art was painted in June 2018 on the door in the passage of Saint-Pierre Amelot, as a tribute to those killed during the Eagles of Death Metal concert.

At the time a police source said that 'hooded villains came to steal the work before taking it to a truck', which could have been sold for millions.

The famous Parisian venue was the site of a terror attack that took place on 13 November 2015

An alarm triggered inside the theatre at around 4.25am and police discovered a screwdriver close to where the painting was snatched. The work had been cut out using an angle grinder, authorities said at the time.

One witness reported seeing a white pick-up truck and three suspicious people nearby.

The mayor of Paris' 11th district Francois Vauglin told French media site LCI at the time: 'This silhouette was made by the artist for free, it was an altruistic gesture to pay tribute to the victims of the terrorist attack and their loved ones, and I find it very sad that people have grabbed it without thinking about it all represents.'

A senior police officer from Teramo confirmed today: 'We have recovered the door stolen in the Bataclan with a Banksy work portraying a sad young girl.'

l'Aquila prosecutor said further details would be provided at a press conference tomorrow.
The Ghana Railways Company has begun re-fixing works on some parts of the Achimota-Nsawam railways following a heavy downpour that caused damages earlier this week.

Speaking on the issue Ing. Dr. Michael Adjei Anyetei, Deputy Managing Director in charge of engineering, Ghana Railway Company Limited, blamed the destruction of the track on poor drainage networks, calling on the Ministry of Works and Housing to consider fixing the drainage system along the line.

He reiterated that the rehabilitation earlier started from the Accra rail station before the Covid-19 outbreak which forced them to go on a break.

As they resumed, the rains set in, which caused destruction to the track, hence the repair works on the section of the track, he added.

What caused the destruction is not a failed track but rather a failed storm wall, he said.

He complained about the impact of the storm drain on the health of the track.

He expressed the belief that the channel should have been continued so that the water can flow properly into the sea.

Thus, the Ghana Railways Company Limited is now laying rock beds along the track to prevent water from flowing on the track.

The exercise is expected to be completed in a weeks time, the Deputy Managing Director said.

---Daily Guide
Nearly 100 protestors gathered at the Bexar County Courthouse Tuesday, the day after District Attorney Joe Gonzales said there is no new evidence to warrant reopening the cases of three black men killed by San Antonio police officers, residents will take to the street.

The second week of protests against police brutality falls in line with the private funeral of George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25.

Follow below for live updates throughout the event.

6:30 p.m. | The crowd lined the fence and faced the line of law enforcement officers after a march downtown, past Travis Park, The Alamo and along the Riverwalk.

There were chants for justice as the protesters shouted at the unmoving police officers.

Several minutes later, the protest ended with the crowd shouting, Whos streets? The crowd answered, Our streets!

5:49 p.m. | Iliana Arizpe, 35, attended her fourth protest in support of reopening cases involving black men who died in police custody.

She stood on the curb of Nueva Street, at the edge of the crowd, watching as they shouted they would not be silenced.

Arizpe said the loss of a human life moved her to join the protest.

I feel there are a lot of good cops she said, but a lot need psychological training to use a weapon.

5:12 p.m. | Jackson Mosqueda sat away from the crowd, holding a flag bearing the words, "Disarm, Defund and Dismantle," in solidarity with Pride Month and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mosqueda, 20, and his brother, Griffin, 18, said Tuesdays protest was the seventh rally theyve attended.

Both fans of history, the brothers said theyve been reading books about social unrest by black activists who fought on the frontline for decades.

They said the call for change and reform keeps them coming to the protests.

However Mosqueda said the system isnt broken, it never worked.

You have to abolish it and start over, Mosqueda said. I cannot continue to live in this system that does not value me as a person.

5:08 p.m. | The demonstrators spent around one hour at the Bexar County Courthouse speaking and chanting. They then began marching downtown before making their way to Travis Park.

Along the way, the demonstrators played songs by Michael Jackson including Man In The Mirror and We Are The World. Some chanted. Others held their fists in the air.

At Travis Park, the group took a quick break before indicating that they planned to march along Broadway.

4:30 p.m. | Throughout the afternoon, several of the speakers emphasized the need for demonstrators to register to vote.

Valerie Reiffert, a local activist, set up a cardboard table outside the courthouse. On it was a sign: Vote All Racists Out of Office.

I dont care how you vote, one woman told the crowd. I just want you to vote.

3:15 p.m. | Around 60 people gathered at the Bexar County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon, one day after District Attorney Joe Gonzales said he had no plans to reopen the cases of three Black men killed by San Antonio police officers.

The demonstrators  some holding signs that said Defund the Police and Smash Cop Unions  started the demonstration with chants of Black Lives Matter and Police are Violent. We will not be silent.

Kimiya Factory, a local community activist, said she helped organize the protest to demand justice for the families of Marquise Jones, Antronie Scott and Charles Roundtree, all Black men killed by SAPD officers.

Others echoed the same sentiment.

Everyone here will make sure you, the San Antonio Police Department, are held accountable, Oliv Ryan, a local demonstrator, told the crowd over a loudspeaker.
The El Feel oilfield in Libya is shut down again, days after restarting production following months of blockade amid Libyas civil war, engineers at the oilfield and the National Oil Corporation (NOC) told Reuters on Wednesday.

Libyas oil industry has been in total disarray after a group of paramilitary formations affiliated with the Libyan National Army (LNA) of eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar occupied Libyas oil export terminals in January along with pipelines and fields. The blockade came amid continued fighting between the LNA, which is loyal to the eastern Libyan government, and the forces loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognized by the United Nations.

Last week, the GNA said it had taken full control of Tripoli from Haftars LNA.

NOC said on Sunday that production at the 300,000-bpd Sharara oilfield had resumed after negotiating the opening of an oilfield valve that had been closed since January. The first production phase at Sharara was set to begin at a capacity of 30,000 bpd, while production was expected to return to full capacity within 90 days due to the damages caused by the long shutdown.

On Sunday and Monday, the force majeure on crude oil exports from the Sharara and El Feel fields was lifted, NOC said on Monday, confirming the return of production at El Feel, which is linked to Sharara.

But just a day later, Sharara was shut down again, after an armed force had told the workers on the field to stop working.

Related: OPEC+ Deal Fails To Give Prices Major Boost

NOC declared force majeure on Sharara oilfield crude exports, two days after it had lifted the previous force majeure.

The armed group, which came from Sebha, stormed the Sharara oilfield and pulled their guns on civilian unarmed workers, coercing them to stop production at the field at dawn on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, only three days after production was resumed. NOC confirms the shutdown of production and declares force majeure on the Sharara field crude oil exports, Libyas oil firm said.

Libyas fragile security situation may not give OPEC+ a headache in the coming days, while the group of producers is reducing collective output to rebalance and market and prop up oil prices.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
You've probably seen the hype these past few days about the actors who have been on newly released K-dramas. Now, we narrowed it down to seven lead actors who have been making huge comebacks on the small screen.

First on the list is Ju Ji Hoon from the series "Hyena." This K-drama is about the rivalry of two elite attorneys, in which one is from a well-known law firm and the other is from a small town. This instantly sparked intrigue because viewers spilled (spoiler alert!) that even in the first episode, there is already a plot twist. Not only is the storyline fascinating, but the visuals of the series are also aesthetically pleasing.

Second is Hyun Bin from the hit "Crash Landing on You." It seems that this male actor does not age as time passes. The plot of this drama is when an heiress (Son Ye Jin) was paragliding but had an accidental landing in North Korea, and there, she met the handsome North Korean soldier, portrayed by Hyun Bin. He protected the heiress, and as the story progressed, they develop romantic feelings for each other.

Third on our list of male leads is Lee Min Ho from "The King: Eternal Monarch." This is his first K-drama after his mandatory military service. He earned his breakthrough in the hit romantic-comedy series "Boys Over Flowers," where he starred together with Kim Hyun Joong, Ku Hye Sun, and Kim Bum. He never disappoints in his projects like "City Hunter," "The Heirs," and "The Legend of Blue Sea."

Fourth is the star in "Itaewon Class" lead actor, Park Seo Joon. This series revolves around a man and his friends aiming for retribution by working hard and establishing his own restaurant in the busy streets of Itaewon in Seoul.

Park Seo Joon also starred in "She Was Pretty" (2015) and "What's Wrong With Secretary Kim" (2018), which received reviews.

The fifth is Ji Chang Wook, starring in "Backstreet Rookie" that is set to air on June 12. He was able to showcase himself last 2014 in the drama "Healer," which he showed diverse acting skills and made him widely known in Korea.

Sixth on the list is Kim Soo Hyun in the forthcoming "It's Okay To Not be Okay," premiering on June 20. His participation in "Dream High" in 2011, "Moon Embracing the Sun" in 2012, and "My Love From the Star" in 2013 are among his notable works. Kim Soo Hyun is also an endorser of several products.

And to conclude the list is the forthcoming "The Story of Gumiho" star Lee Dong Wook. It does not have a definite date on when it will be aired later this year. He also starred in "Goblin" as the Grim Reaper.

Do you know other actors who will be returning to the small screens this year? Comment below!
Nine civilians, five of them children, were killed late Tuesday in the eastern DR Congo province of Ituri, where some 1,000 civilians have been massacred since late 2017, local sources said.

The killing was the latest attributed to an ethnic militia called CODECO, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, in the restive province.

They raided the village of Lenga in Djugu territory where they killed nine civilians and wounded another, Charite Banza, the local civil society president, told AFP.

Among those killed were three men, a woman and five children under the age of 13, said community leader Richard Dhedda Kondo.

At least 150 houses were burned down and some residents fled after the dead were buried, he said.

Army spokesman Jules Ngongo confirmed the attack.

Ituri is one of several provinces gripped by militia violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a country the size of continental western Europe.

The army said it had killed eight CODECO militiamen and made a series of arrests including that of a commander.

Between October 2019 and April 2020, at least 296 people were killed, 151 others wounded and 38 people raped, including many women and children in Ituri, according to the United Nations.

In January, the UN estimated that 701 people have been killed since December 2017.

These acts could constitute crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda warned last week.

CODECO claims to defend the interests of the Lendu ethnic group, who are predominantly farmers and clash repeatedly with the Hema community of traders and herders.

Tens of thousands of people were killed in Hema-Lendu fighting between 1999 and 2003 and violence resumed for unclear reasons at the end of 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 12:42:38|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Economic distancing from China or self-isolation will worsen the economic conditions and prolong the path toward recovery, Shiro Armstrong, director of the Asian Bureau of Economic Research at the Australian National University, has said.

As the world is going through both health and economic crises from the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing economic interdependence or decoupling from the Chinese economy will impede global recovery, Armstrong cautioned in an analysis published in the East Asia Forum on Sunday.

A country that gets more economically self-centered by moving its supply chains back home will find itself vulnerable to shocks, as a natural disaster or home-grown crisis could wipe out whole industries, Armstrong wrote in the article. "The key is to manage supply chain risk, not to avoid it."

Meanwhile, "there is no substitute for a large Chinese economy that is open to trade, as a market or supplier," given that China is "the low-cost 'factory of the world' at scale" with more supply chains running through the country than any others, he said.

"Had it not made and largely abided by the commitments it gave to the WTO in 2001, it could never have become the dynamic, globally interconnected economy it is today," Armstrong added.

He warned that it would be "a huge mistake" to risk undoing the accomplishments by turning away from the multilateral order.

"High trade shares with China are not a liability but evidence of success," he said, suggesting that government policy should aim to ensure international governance is maintained rather than diversify away from that success.

Noting some governments have acted to reduce dependence on the Chinese economy, the economist said "policies that might be effective in reducing interdependence will come at a much higher cost to national budgets and, more importantly, to growth."

"It will be even more costly to try to impede economic engagement with China when countries emerge from the health crisis and try to reboot their economies," he said. Enditem
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 09, 2020 | 03:58 PM | MARSHALL COUNTY





On Tuesday, Marshall County deputies and detectives were sent to the home of 76-year-old Reid Metcalf after a report of a shooting.







Deputies say Metcalf was involved in a fight with a friend named Shawn Dittman, which allegedly resulted in Metcalf shooting Dittman in the leg. Dittman was taken to the hospital for treatment of his injuries.







Metcalf was arrested for violating the conditions of a release from a prior wanton endangerment charge. Detectives then obtained a search warrant for Metcalf's home which led to drug charges.







The investigation is ongoing. Deputies want to reassure the community that the Cambridge Shores area is safe, and this is considered an isolated incident.

A Gilbertsville man is facing numerous charges after a shooting in Marshall County.
Major epidemics have in the past fundamentally changed the course of history. The Justinian plague" marked the end of the high noon of the Byzantine Empire. The extraordinarily high mortality of the Black Death altered the relative prices of factors of production, driving the technological and Industrial revolution in Western Europe.

It is still unclear how the covid-19 pandemic will play out. Will it be halted in its tracks by a vaccine or herd immunity? Will the economic recovery be Z, V or U-shaped? Be that as it may, policymakers are now alert to deadly public health black swan events.

Current indications are that the demographic havoc of covid will be nowhere near the levels of the Plague and Spanish Flu pandemics, where mortality was measured in tens of millions. Caution is also needed while extrapolating lessons from a localized low-tech era to a globalized post-industrial world. Despite high mortality, both the third plague epidemic and the Spanish Flu had a transient economic and social impact.

One persuasive argument is that the covid pandemic might accelerate the creative destruction already afoot. The decline of offices, greater use of information technology, artificial intelligence, and remote interpersonal transactions, particularly in the commercial, educational and medical spheres, all pre-date covid. These trends could accelerate. If alternative ways of doing things work, the transition to a greener economy might be advanced.

Globalization was in retreat in the wake of a resurgent nationalism. Might public health concerns and the covid shock to global supply chains hasten the localization of product and labour markets?

It is hard to see globalization declining alongside an accelerated shift to digital platforms. Countries would still need to cope with demographic transitions and market failures in labour markets, with the supply of blue-collar workers constrained in some, and skilled workers in others. Greater self-reliance in strategic areas like food and diversification in sourcing could reduce the vulnerability to disruptions of global supply chains. But nobody disputes the welfare claims of trade made long ago by David Ricardo. These were tested by the cascading Smoot Hawley Tariffs of the 1930s, only to transform a major recession into the Great Depression. Globalization resumed its long-term triumphal march after World War II. Greater diversification of supply chains might actually intensify globalization.

Countries have much more to gain through cooperation, and nowhere is this in greater evidence than in public health. The dangers of underinvestment in public health systems have been exposed in a stark manner. But even countries with robust systems have not covered themselves with glory, making the race for a covid vaccine a global enterprise.

The crisis has ignited a light at the end of a long tunnel of a fragmenting European Union, with new prospects of the mutualization of public debt. Could this be a pointer to which way the battle between globalization and nation states is tilting? Transnational corporations were increasingly at odds with nationalistic governments. The legitimacy of the latter could be enhanced in the developing world, which is struggling to keep the flag of globalization flying even as the West seems disenchanted with it.

The most dramatic short-run changes could be political. Feudalism was dismantled by the plague, as it was too labour-intensive to survive high labour mortality. Fast forward, the rise of right-wing leaders in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis was a response to the failure of neo-liberalism to provide correctives for growing socio-economic disparities. These leaders, however, have not been able to shield the poorest in a major crisis. The seductive populistic charm of power-centralizing right-wing democratic leaders has also lost some sheen on account of their apparent contempt for science, resulting in a bumbling response to covid-19. Relatively decentralized responses have shown greater effectiveness in this crisis with so many uncertainties.

Liberalism has not escaped unscathed either. The crisis has underscored the importance of state capacity on one hand, and laid bare new tools to curtail democratic freedoms on the other. Women leaders have fared better, drawing attention to the value of good, compassionate leadership over muscular nationalism. This could shatter the glass ceiling in politics. A swing of the political pendulum back towards the centre-left, greater decentralization, and renewed focus on state capacity might well be the most enduring political impact of the pandemic in the West. The American election later this year should be an interesting pointer.

Pre-covid, growth in advanced countries was slowing even as it accelerated in Asia, with this tipped to be an Asian" or Pacific" century. The shift in economic weight was not matched by a shift in soft power because of a democratic deficit. The G7 countries were considered the fountainhead of global best practices. This has been belied by the better handling of the health crisis by countries like South Korea, Singapore, and even China. From a geopolitical perspective, the covid crisis, aided by the realization that democracies can elect autocrats, might lead to greater parity in soft power between Pacific and Atlantic nations, strengthening authoritarian tendencies in the former even as they weaken in the latter.

Alok Sheel is RBI chair professor at ICRIER

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A teenage boy with Asperger's who dreams of holding the world record for the largest keyring collection has been helped by thousands of kind strangers.

Lorraine Mackay said she wanted to surprise her son Jacob with thousands of key rings on his 16th birthday in September so he can break the record.

'He said jokingly two months ago, "It would be cool to break the record one day," and I wanted to help,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Mackay published a social media post last month asking people to send spare keyrings to their home on Queensland's Gold Coast, expecting to get a handful from family and friends - but then her plea gained worldwide attention.

Thousands of kind strangers donated keyrings to Joshua Mackay when they found out about his dream to get into the Guinness Book of World Records

'This is my son Jacob,' she said sharing a rare picture of her son smiling.

'He is keyring-obsessed and one day would like to break the world record for key-rings and key chains (Only 62,200 to go),' she wrote.

'If you would like to send him a key ring from wherever you are in the world [that] would be amazing.'

Ms Mackay said she was shocked that her small Facebook group has gained thousands of supporters from all over the world in just a few weeks.

'I've been contacted from people from the States, Canada, England, Ireland, Wales, Singapore, Dubai Sweden, South Africa, New Zealand and heaps from within Australia,' she said.

'It has just touched my heart so much, I can never ever thank everybody enough.'

Lorraine Mackay said she wanted to surprise her son Jacob (pictured), who has Aspergers, with thousands of keyrings on his 16th birthday in September to break the record

Ms Mackay said she was shocked that her small Facebook group has gained thousands of supporters from around the world in just a few weeks

Ms Mackay said while keyrings meant nothing to most people they were Jacob's passion.

'One lady said to me her dad died and he passed away and he had a huge collection which she didn't know what to do with them and then she came across my post and it just touched her heart,' she said.

The current record is held by a man in Spain who has amassed a collection of 62,257 keyrings.

Ms Mackay (pictured) said while keyrings meant next to nothing to most people, they are Jacob's passion

Ms Mackay admits Jacob has a bit of a way to go with his collection starting at just 57 but the number has since skyrocketed past 500 in just a few weeks and many more are coming.

With three months to go before her son's 16th birthday, Ms Mackay is doing her best to keep building the collection while keeping it a secret.

'He knows I'm up to something but he doesn't know what it is or just how much support there has been behind it,' she said.

If you would like to help Jacob out with his collection please contact Ms Mackay through their Facebook page.
T he statue of Edward Colston which was thrown Bristol's harbour during an anti-racism protest will be fished out and put in one of the city's museums, the mayor has confirmed.

Marvin Rees said the statue of the slave trader will be displayed alongside Black Lives Matter placards from the recent protest "so the 300-year-story of slavery through to todays fight for racial equality can be learned about".

A commission of historians and other experts will also research and share Bristols true history following the removal of the statue, Mr Rees said.

The events over the last few days have really highlighted that as a city we all have very different understandings of our past," Mr Rees said in a statement.

"The only way we can work together on our future is by learning the truth of our beginnings, embracing the facts, and sharing those stories with others. This is why this commission is so important."

Protesters throw statue of Edward Colston into Bristol harbour 1 /13 Protesters throw statue of Edward Colston into Bristol harbour PA Keir Gravil via Reuters PA PA PA PA PA PA PA PA

Mr Rees, the UKs first directly elected black mayor, added: Education of our history has often been flawed.

"More accuracy of our citys history which is accessible to all will help us understand each other, our differences, our contradictions and our complexities.

Any decision on the future of the plinth on which the statue stood will be decided democratically through consultation, the mayor said.

TODO: define component type apester

Mr Rees previously described the tearing down of the statue as an iconic moment after it was pulled down and dragged through the streets, before being thrown in the harbour.

A long-running campaign in the city has argued that Colston's "toxic" legacy should not be commemorated, and his statue should be removed.

Starmer: Edward Colston statue should've been properly taken down a long time ago

Campaigners have also called for University of Bristol halls of residence named after the trader to be renamed.

Protest organiser Liza Bilal, a 21-year-old student, told the Standard her team had not originally planned for the statue to be torn down - but welcomed it.

"This was long overdue," she said. "The council not listening to the people of Bristol resulted in this - the people themselves tearing the statue down."

Ms Bilal said the inclusion of protesters' placards in any museum exhibit would be "a good reflection on the fact that the people of Bristol have a voice and have the power to change this city".

She also insisted any museum placing for Colston's statue would "only be acceptable if the description attached acknowledged his past as a slave trader, for the purpose of educating people".

Home Secretary Priti Patel has called the tearing down of the statue "utterly disgraceful" and called for a full investigation.

She is reported to have had a firm discussion with Andy Marsh, chief constable of Avon and Somerset Police, about why officers did not intervene when the statue was torn down.

But Mr Marsh has insisted there was no lack of courage when his officers made the tactical decision, describing how the bronze memorial was pulled down in just two minutes.

He told a Facebook Live event with Sue Mountstevens, Avon and Somersets police and crime commissioner, that intervening risked a violent confrontation.

The statue was pulled down with ropes and dragged through the streets to the harbour / PA

He said: Had they intervened, I think the consequences could have been incredibly serious and we might have become the epicentre of a new wave of protests around the whole world, never mind what would have happened in Bristol.

They decided not to. We have got massive amounts of CCTV and social media footage of who is responsible.

They made the decision that post-incident, the long arm of the law, so to speak, could catch up with those people and bring them to justice and our objectives, protecting life and property, were better served by not intervening.

I think they acted with common sense, sound judgement. There was no lack of courage.

Mr Marsh said the force would carry out a painstaking review of the footage, interview suspects and present a case to the Crown Prosecution Service as quickly as possible.
As tens of thousands of people across the United States protest against racism and police brutality, the nation's leading infectious disease expert expressed concern from a health perspective on how the demonstrations may hinder the fight against the novel coronavirus.

Although many protesters have been wearing masks and distributing hand sanitizer, it's virtually impossible to maintain any social distancing at a mass demonstration. That issue of physical separation "is important," according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force.

"Masks can help, but it's masks plus physical separation," Fauci said in an interview on "Good Morning America" Wednesday.

"When you get congregations like we saw with the demonstrations," he continued, "that's taking a risk."

PHOTO: Members of the U.S. National Guard stand next to their vehicle during a protest against racism and police brutality near the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 2020. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Fauci's comments come as members of the District of Columbia National Guard have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19, following mass protests across the nation's capital last week. National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Brooke Davis told The Associated Press they will not release the exact total of infected troops but that they believe it is not a large number, at least so far. Thousands of National Guard troops were on duty in Washington, D.C. for the civil unrest.

MORE: Mass protests could lead to another wave of coronavirus infections

Fauci said on "GMA" that the report "is certainly disturbing but is not surprising." He added that he "wouldn't be surprised" if some of the people who were there demonstrating were also infected.

"Many of them would then go back to where they were [from] because not everyone was demonstrating in the city where they live," he said. "So it's the kind of things that we were concerned about and, unfortunately, we're seeing it come true right now."

Story continues

PHOTO: Members of the U.S. National Guard stand near the White House as people protest against racism and police brutality in Washington, D.C., on June 7, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

While there's lower risk for the virus to be spread outdoors, especially in a moving crowd, many of the recent demonstrations have culminated in police officers shooting tear gas and using pepper spray and protesters lighting fire to cars and buildings. Smoke, pepper spray and tear gas cause coughing, and coughing aerosolizes the virus, increasing the risk that it will spread, according to Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

MORE: A guide to COVID-19 vaccines, reopening schools safely and more to know

Meanwhile, an ABC News analysis has found that at least eight states across the country -- including Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah -- are experiencing an increase in coronavirus-related hospitalizations since May 25. Some states are seeing more significant spikes than others, but in many of the states, public health officials or local experts told ABC News they consider the increases to be related to a reopening of the economy or a disregard of social distancing guidelines, including not wearing masks.

The increases in hospitalizations also come nearly two weeks after Memorial Day weekend, when some people were seen flouting social distancing rules at crowded bars and packed pool parties, which experts said is most likely contributing to the spikes. It is likely too early to gauge the impact of nationwide protests, according to experts.

PHOTO: Dr. Fauci appears on 'Good Morning America,' June 10, 2020. (ABC News)

Arkansas is seeing the highest increase since May 25, when there were a little over 80 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the state. As of June 7, that number is up to 173 -- a nearly 65.8% jump. Tennessee isn't far behind with a 65.1% increase.

Jodiane Tritt, executive vice president of the Arkansas Hospital Association, said some hospitals are starting to get "nervous."

"We are starting to see some hospitals being nervous about capacity," Tritt told ABC News, "but we feel pretty confident that the collegiality and the collaboration among the hospitals around the state can meet the demands of patients."

As the country moves toward fully reopening, Fauci cautioned that it doesn't mean "all bets are off."

"You still should be wearing a mask. You still should be trying as best as possible to have that physical distancing. You still need to wash your hands as often as you possibly can," he said. "And avoid congregation in large numbers."

ABC News' Alexandra Dukakis, Soorin Kim, Laura Romero, Olivia Rubin and Erin Schumaker contributed to this report.

Dr. Fauci voices concerns about coronavirus spreading amid nationwide protests originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
PARMA HEIGHTS, Ohio -- A judge sentenced a 34-year-old woman to nine months in prison for hiding in the attic of a home after the landlord called Parma Heights police to send a SWAT team to get her out because she was evicted.

Alisia Reindl pleaded guilty Tuesday to obstructing official business and inducing panic, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court records say.

She also pleaded guilty to telecommunications fraud and aggravated theft in an unrelated Strongsville case. That plea resulted in an additional 18 months that she will serve consecutively to the nine months.

Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams ordered Reindl to report Aug. 3 to the Cuyahoga County Sheriffs Department to begin her prison sentence at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, records say.

The incident happened about 3 p.m. Jan. 25 on Queens Highway near Snow Road, police said.

Police arrived after the landlord requested police to speak with Reindl and to check on the home after he served an eviction notice, documents say. Two men and a 7-year-old child were also in the house when police got there.

Investigators found several guns and ammunition in the home while they were looking for Reindl in the house, Parma Heights Police Chief Steve Scharschmidt previously said. The officers requested a SWAT team as backup when they discovered she holed up in the attic.

Reindl walked out of the home after officers shot tear gas inside.

The department sent the SWAT team into the home because Reindl refused to come out after several requests from officers, Scharschmidt previously said.

Reindl also has a history of not being compliant with her lease, Scharschmidt noted.

Parma Heights did not immediately have how much it had cost for the SWAT team to come out or other resources needed in the incident.

Read more crime stories on cleveland.com:

Parma Heights sends SWAT team to help landlord evict woman found hiding in the attic

Laser, radar can be admitted in court to convict speeders, without testimony about their science: Ohio Supreme Court

About 30% of cities Clevelands size or larger had only one night of violence associated with protests of George Floyds death, review finds

Video released of Cleveland Police commanders dispersal order during George Floyd protests criticized by attorneys

Highway Patrol trooper seriously hurt after being struck by SUV in Lorain County
[June 10, 2020] Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP, a National Class Action Law Firm, Announces Investigation of Townsquare Media, Inc. (TSQ) on Behalf of Investors

Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM"), a national investor rights law firm, today announced that it has commenced an investigation on behalf of Townsquare Media, Inc. ("Townsquare Media" or the "Company") (NYSE: TSQ) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of the federal securities laws. If you suffered a loss on your Townsquare Media investments or would like to inquire about potentially pursuing claims to recover your loss under the federal securities laws, you can submit your contact information at https://www.glancylaw.com/cases/townsquare-media-inc/.You can also contact Charles H. Linehan, of GPM at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9224, or via email at [email protected] to learn more about your rights. On June 9, 2020, Townsquare Media disclosed that it would report an impairment charge of approximately $39.4 million for its licenses and an impairment charge of approximately $69.0million for its goodwill. The Company also announced that certain financial statements for fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019 should no longer be relied upon and would be restated due to an error "in the projected cash flows that were utilized in [its] valuation model."



On this news, the Company's share price fell $1.20, or nearly 19%, to close at $5.28 per share on June 9, 2020, thereby injuring investors. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

Whistleblower Notice: Persons with non-public information regarding Townsquare Media should consider their options to aid the investigation or take advantage of the SEC (News - Alert) Whistleblower Program. Under the program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Charles H. Linehan at 310-201-9150 or 888-773-9224 or email [email protected]. About GPM Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP is a premier law firm representing investors and consumers in securities litigation and other complex class action litigation. ISS Securities Class Action Services has consistently ranked GPM in its annual SCAS Top 50 Report. In 2018, GPM was ranked a top five law firm in number of securities class action settlements, and a top six law firm for total dollar size of settlements. With four offices across the country, GPM's nearly 40 attorneys have won groundbreaking rulings and recovered billions of dollars for investors and consumers in securities, antitrust, consumer, and employment class actions. GPM's lawyers have handled cases covering a wide spectrum of corporate misconduct including cases involving financial restatements, internal control weaknesses, earnings management, fraudulent earnings guidance and forward looking statements, auditor misconduct, insider trading, violations of FDA regulations, actions resulting in FDA and DOJ investigations, and many other forms of corporate misconduct. GPM's attorneys have worked on securities cases relating to nearly all industries and sectors in the financial markets, including, energy, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, real estate and REITs, financial, insurance, information technology, health care, biotech, cryptocurrency, medical devices, and many more. GPM's past successes have been widely covered by leading news and industry publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Reuters, the Associated Press (News - Alert), Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Forbes, and Money. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005213/en/

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WASHINGTON -- On their fifth day of demonstrations, the thousands gathered to protest George Floyd's killing literally hit a wall. A tall metal fence had gone up almost overnight to keep them out of Lafayette Square, and away from President Donald Trump.

They spent the next few days rattling the fence and the next few nights lobbing water bottles and shouting at law enforcement officers arranged in untouchable rows inside the park. The fence became a symbol of frustration about living unheard in America. Far beyond the metal links was a president they couldn't see and who won election promising a different kind of wall.

But as the historic demonstrations in the nation's capital stretched into their eighth and ninth and 10th days, something changed. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, the fence filled with posters and flowers and paintings and photos, all meant to honor black men, women and children who have lost their lives at the hands of police.

Instead of serving as an obstacle to their message, the wall had become the message.

"Black people tend to take things meant to hold them back and turn them into things that make us stronger," said Dayna Crawmer, who is black, shortly after tying her own sign to the fence on Sunday. "And that's what happened here."

Some protesters painted elaborate scenes on canvas, some printed neat slogans on stiff paper, some just scrawled three words on cardboard - often, "I CAN'T BREATHE," the collective cry of protest since Floyd died beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. Some used tape, some used zip ties, some wedged cardboard corners into small gaps in the fencing and crossed their fingers.

Ashley Aakesson, a 48-year-old nutritionist from Falls Church, Va., hung her poster - "BLACK LIVES > WHITE FEELINGS" - because she wanted to help Washington residents reclaim their city. Justin Holliday and Douglas Sentz, two friends in their 20s from Dundalk, Md., affixed their signs to the wall to prove that the United States is still a democracy, and that they are still Americans.

"He put this out here to push us away, to divide us," Pete Brennan said of Trump, shortly after adding his own poster. "But the people made it beautiful."

For a time, the city reveled in that beauty. Mothers began using the wall to teach their children about racism, and police brutality, and what it means to be "complicit." Someone slung a large "Black Lives Matter" banner across the fence so it blocked the White House from view, and black fathers hoisted young children on their shoulders to pose for pictures.

Strangers, staring at the same posters, struck up conversations. They shared names and thoughts and fears and, sometimes, hope.

But it was not to last.

The National Park Service announced this week that it would take down the fencing in front of Lafayette Square by Wednesday. Officials at Washington museums - including the African American Museum of History and Culture - launched a last-minute rescue mission when they heard, vowing to would gather mementos from the wall for the historical record. And as the sun rose Wednesday morning, demonstrators removed most of the signs from the fence to protect them - hanging some on a wall across the street, saving some for the museums and taking some home for safekeeping.

Twenty-four hours earlier, on the wall's last full day of existence, people wandering by had prepared for what they felt was a loss to the city. In the middle of a work day, in a town famous for its frenetic pace, many adopted a hip-rolling stroll, stopping every few feet to take or pose for photos. Joggers and bicyclists stopped, wiping sweaty brows and peering closer at the words on display.

Many lingered by certain signs:

A poster with Floyd's final 84 words, including "Mama" twice and "Please" 12 times.

A sign that said, "If you think your mask makes it hard to breathe, imagine being black in America."

Another that said, "Even the old white suburban guys are angry now!"

And still another: "Until now, I didn't try to understand. Not really. I'M SORRY."

A few days before, Crawmer, a 34-year-old dance studio owner from Frederick, Md., had stood feet away from that sign, adjusting her own two slices of cardboard so they hung straight. Her posters made musical references: "Come together right now over me" and "Raging against the machine."

Crouching on the ground to her left, her husband, Stephen Crawmer, an air conditioning technician, put the finishing touches on his sign, which declared, "2020 Vision." He fumbled with the zip ties stuck in his pocket. He always kept a few on hand for his job, and now they'd proved unexpectedly useful.

It was late afternoon on Sunday. The couple had arrived at Lafayette Square a few hours earlier for their first day of protesting, expecting to find a barren and forbidding metal fence blocking their path to the White House.

They'd watched the wall go up on CNN, shaking their heads. Dayna Crawmer wondered why the president wanted to protect himself from the people he was supposed to lead. Stephen Crawmer joked that Trump must feel triumphant: He'd finally erected his long-promised wall, even if it was in the nation's capital, not along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Crawmers decided to add their own posters to the fence without any discussion. It was the first thing they said to each other, simultaneously - "We're gonna put our signs there" - when they arrived at Lafayette Square and spotted what looked like an impromptu art gallery from afar.

The couple agreed to spend a few hours marching around first, hoisting their signs into the air and chanting. But soon, they grew worried that there would be no space left if they waited any longer.

Brennan and his younger brother, Liam, also strolled the streets for a while before adding a poster to the collection. But unlike the Crawmers, they weren't chanting or marching: The two, who are black, just wanted to walk and look.

It had been a tough couple of months. First, Pete Brennan, a 24-year-old web developer, was forced to move back in with his parents and 16-year-old brother to ride out the pandemic in the family's home in McLean, Va. Then George Floyd died in police custody, the nation erupted in rage and pain and rioting, and Pete Brennan's white friends began messaging him to ask about "the black experience."

Pete Brennan didn't want to talk about that. He'd rather discuss the underlying structural problems and policy issues referenced in the slogan scrawled across his black-and-white paper poster: "Invest in community resources," it read, "not militant law enforcement."

And sometimes he didn't want to talk at all.

Now, he walked slowly beside Liam Brennan, gripping his sign and searching for a spot. They did not discuss what they were seeing. They were saving that conversation, Pete Brennan said, for when they got home.

The brothers had already made one full circuit of the wall, and the sun was starting to go down. Pete Brennan knew he had to leave soon, but he didn't have anything to hang the poster with - and then he had an idea.

He knelt and slipped one edge between two poles that divided two segments of fence. The sign stuck out at a right angle, seemingly ready to blow away, its message visible only if you walked toward it from the east.

"That's a bit janky," he told his brother, "but hopefully it will hold."

By the next day, someone else had affixed it tightly to the fence with clear tape.

- - -

The Washington Post's Matt McClain contributed to this report.
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Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 19:40 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddb24be 1 National #village,village,COVID-19,#COVID19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia Free

Village administrations need to play a bigger role in containing the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak so they can carry out more effective preventive measures and provide social safety nets, a watchdog has said.

Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD) executive director Robert Endi Jaweng said on Tuesday that contradictory regulations, conflicting data and inadequate authority had hindered village officials in enforcing quarantines, imposing social distancing and disbursing aid.

As a result, many village heads, neighborhood unit (RT) heads and community unit (RW) heads have been forced to take their own measures, he said, which violates the 2020 presidential decree instructing regional authorities to refer to the central governments policies in making their own decisions and giving the COVID-19 task force the authority to mitigate the impact of the virus.

Village officials are the real commanders in the field. They are told to go to war [against COVID-19] but they lack any authority to do so. They have to wait for everything from higher-ups, Robert said.

Giving village officials a bigger role in handling the outbreak would improve the governments COVID-19 measures, he said, as they were on the frontline and knew peoples mobility and could distribute aid. The central government should also create an integrated database that was regularly updated and sourced from village administrations to improve its village aid distribution, he said.

In contrast, Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Abdul Halim Iskandar said villages were relatively more effective in preventing COVID-19 compared with the national effort.

He cited data that showed that villages had about 186,000 people under monitoring (ODPs) in village-funded isolation rooms, nearly five times more than the national scale, and had many fewer patients under surveillance (PDPs) or those who have tested positive for the coronavirus. These ODPs, he said, also included outsiders from other regions who traveled to the villages during the pandemic.

This is because, from the very beginning [...] we put the villages in the position of preventing COVID-19, Abdul said in a teleconference on Tuesday. This is a very strategic position for the new normal.

The ministry also mobilized 1.82 million volunteers to raise public awareness about the pandemic, collect data on people exhibiting symptoms of infection and enforce social-distancing rules.

To help with economic aid, Abdul said that 87 percent of the total 74,953 villages nationwide had channeled some Rp 3.9 trillion (US$278.12 million) in cash assistance to nearly 6.6 million families as of June 8.

The assistance entails a Rp 600,000 grant per month for three months to families that meet certain criteria, such as having a family member who has lost their job during the pandemic and not having received assistance via the Family Hope Program (PKH) or the staple-food card program. An additional Rp 300,000 may be provided to families for another three months.

But Abdul acknowledged that several problems -- like those related to data synchronization, village status or bank transfers  had either prevented the aid from being transferred to the village accounts or delayed the funds from being channeled to beneficiaries.

Read also: Five years on, village funds program still problematic

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), meanwhile, warned that cash assistance and similar aid were prone to misallocation of funds and corruption as a result of the government's lack of transparency, an obsolete database and weak supervision of such disbursement.

ICW cited the misuse of BLT Dana Desa (village funds unconditional cash transfers) in Banpres village, Musi Rawas regency, South Sumatra, last month as one such example.

Even though the village officials roles are important, it is even more important for us to improve transparency and respond to complaints about social safety nets, ICW's Almas Sjafrina said on Wednesday.

Last year, ICW recorded 181 corruption cases in villages across the country since the inception of the village funds in 2015 until January last year, with around 30 percent of the cases related to village funds.

University of Indonesia (UI) epidemiologist Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono said, however, the number of PDPs and ODPs did not reflect the effectiveness of government measures as the figures showed that the COVID-19 contact rate -- the number of contacts an infected carrier has with others -- remained high.

He advised sub-districts and regencies to reach out to their villages for testing and educate the public on measures they have to take if they have COVID-19 symptoms to prevent a further spread.

Nevertheless, Abdul said his office planned to conclude its new normal protocols for villages by this week, which are aimed at preventing the virus spread and changing peoples behavior with regard to hygiene and discipline in maintaining social distancing.

COVID-19 presents us with an opportunity to become wiser by changing and improving the all-new situation in villages, he concluded.
WASHINGTON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out a decade of economic progress in a matter of months, placing some of the heaviest burdens on the nation's most vulnerable populations. As businesses across the country reopen their doors and Americans start to return to work and school, how can we ensure a sustainable and inclusive recovery? On Monday, June 15, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary C. Daly will deliver a live national address on the lessons to be learned from the Great Depression and the Great Recession as the nation and the world chart a path forward from COVID-19.
Celebrated Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, has revealed how she fell into depression after writing her book, Half of a Yellow Sun.

The 42-year-old writer revealed this in a recent interview with Sahara TV, published on YouTube.

I sank into one of the deepest and darkest depressions that I have ever experienced, she revealed.

Ms Adichie said the book, which tells the story of the Biafran war, was based on the experiences of her family during the war that claimed her grandfathers lives.

She narrated how she struggled while writing the book due to the traumatic events that took place in Biafra that she had to describe in her book.

Because this novel was so much about my family, what my parents went through, what that generation went through. During research, I will read about a refugee camp and I will just stop and cry because it could be very well, where my grandfather died because my grandfathers died in different refugee camps in Biafra.

So, looking at pictures was often time quite difficult because I will look at them and be like these are my cousins, the children who are suffering from kwashiorkor, whose bellies were extended, whose hair had turned red. Looking at pictures, original photographs taken by journalists in Biafra will just make me cry, she noted.

Depression

Ms Adichie also said she was so engrossed with writing the book that she did not live her own life and when she finally finished, she didnt know what to do and she fell into depression.

Speaking about the process of writing the book, she said she found it easier to share details of the war mostly because she did not experience it.

My fathers generation, so many of them did not talk about Biafra at all. I have met so many people who read Half of a Yellow Sun and said that only after they read it did they then go back to their parents and then ask their parents about their story, what happened to you in Biafra, where were you?

They did not know and their parents did not talk about it because it is difficult. I cannot imagine being able to write a novel about Biafra if I have lived through Biafra. Obviously, some writers have done marvellous work who lived through the war, like Chinua Achebe, who has a really good story collection called Girls at War, Chukwuemeka Ike wrote about it, Flora Nwapa wrote about it, Buchi Emecheta wrote about it.

But I think there will be more stories that are yet to be told by generations that will come after them because there is a certain privilege in distance when it comes to creativity, she said.

Half of a Yellow Sun

Half of a Yellow Sun, published in 2006 is Adichies second book and the most intense as it revolves around war, life in post-colonial Africa, politics, academia and marriage.

The award-winning novel was listed in the 100 most influential novels by BBC news in 2019.

Ms Adichies recent revelation has given credence to experiences of established authors who have struggled with depression, despite having successful careers.

The creator of the Harry Potter series, JK Rowlings, said she suffered depression as a single, broke mother.

Ms Rawlings said she built on her dark emotions to create the dementors, the creations that plagued the heroes in her series.

Other notable authors who have suffered depression include late American novelists, James Baldwin, Scott Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Yamada Takio (Photo: VNA)

During a reception in Hanoi on June 9 for the new Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Yamada Takio, PM Phuc highlighted that the two countries have maintained exchange channels within both bilateral and multilateral frameworks despite the impacts of COVID-19, as well as worked closely together to successfully hold the online meeting of ASEAN 3 leaders on COVID-19 response.

The new Japanese Ambassador, for his part, congratulated Vietnam on successfully fighting the pandemic. He expressed his belief that once COVID-19 is under control worldwide, Vietnam will become an attractive business destination.

He added that he has also received the Vietnamese Governments support to bring Japanese experts to Vietnam.

The diplomat wished that the two nations would further boost medical cooperation programme and facilitate Vietnamese trainees entry into Japan, thus tightening bilateral bonds.

PM Phuc informed the guest that the control of the pandemic has helped Vietnam restore its socio-economic development in the new normal condition.

He proposed that both sides step up bilateral cooperation in the post-COVID-19 period, including loosening immigration regulations.

Vietnam stays ready to welcome Japanese experts and investors to the country as well as send its trainees to Japan, with suitable quarantine measures, he said.

Noting that the Vietnamese legislature ratified the European Union  Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA), the PM said Vietnam supports the promotion of high-quality capital flows to carry its economy forward.

He asked the ambassador to encourage Japanese firms to expand operations in Vietnam, especially in high-tech agriculture, processing and support industries, and technological transfer.

Vietnam will continue improving its business climate and create favourable conditions for Japanese enterprises to do business in the country, he said.

In order to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from hurting bilateral economic ties, the leader proposed further accelerating coordination.

About official development assistance (ODA), Phuc wished that the ambassador would work to accelerate the effective implementation of joint projects, continue assisting Vietnam in high-quality personnel training, administrative reform and e-government.

The PM suggested Japan continue working closely with Vietnam at regional and global forums, and back Vietnams stance on the East Sea issue.

Ambassador Yamada Takio voiced his hope that the two nations will accelerate the progress of Japanese-invested projects in Vietnam, and pledged to do his best to further bolster bilateral relations.
The National Park Service announced this week that it would take down the fencing in front of Lafayette Square by Wednesday. Officials at District museums  including the African American Museum of History and Culture  launched a last-minute rescue mission when they heard, vowing to gather mementos from the wall for the historical record. And as the sun rose Wednesday morning, demonstrators removed most of the signs from the fence to protect them  hanging some on a wall across the street, saving some for the museums and taking some home for safekeeping.
Tills began ringing again this week across County Kildare as Phase Two of the plan to kickstart the local economy after Covid-19 began.

The shopping experience was very different, with restrictions on the number of people in a store, hygiene measures and browsing discouraged.

County Kildare Chamber urged people to shop locally to support businesses in their community.

In Newbridge, the long-established Farrell & Nephew bookshop was welcoming back loyal customers to its new-look premises.

Director Dermot Finnegan, who took over from his uncle Michael Farrell and his wife Kitty, has seen many changes in three decades of trade.Dermot said: We were delighted to see customers come in the door today  in our 64th year of business.

We have taken every possible precaution due to Covid-19 and customers and staff have been following all the guidelines.

The bookstore installed a perspex screen at the checkout and implemented a one-way system to navigate through the store. Ample hand sanitiser is available on entry and exit.

People are urged to drop in school book-lists and they will be contacted when theyre ready.

Dermot also said he is hoping that a planned expansion to the store  a ground floor extension to the rear of the existing premises  will go ahead in the autumn.

He continued: We would appreciate if customers be patient with these changes and of course every customer and their business is always welcome.

I learned many years ago in the US that if you provide a good service, everything else will look after itself!

Dermot also said that the bookstore is willing to accommodate vulnerable customers outside opening hours if required.

The operator also paid tribute to his staff for their hard work and loyalty during the Covid-19 restrictions.

Conor Diffney of Brownes Menswear, Naas, was wearing a mask on Monday along with his colleagues, and said that it does get uncomfortable in the warm weather. However, he is reporting a strong appetite from people in Naas to get back into shopping again.

He said: We have not been doing online. There is a good buzz, the weather has helped. We will be looking at going online, but we plan to keep the shop open.

The shop will open from 10.30am to six pm, with appointments available between 5pm to 6pm.

He said: We still have the same amount of staff, two full-time and one part-time.

Hand sanitisers for customers, entry and exit points, staying two metres apart, are all part of the new Brownes, but he hopes that the two metre rule wont be long-term.

The staff wear cloth masks which are reusable, and are he says, stifling and very uncomfortable.

At Brownes, cash and card are being accepted, and customers can try on clothes, but due to the two metres rule, measurements for clothing cant be provided.

Barker & Jones bookstore, which re-opened in Naas, is encouraging customers to only touch books they intend to buy.

A maximum number of people are allowed on the premises at any one time and hand sanitiser is available at the entrance.

The store reported a brisk trade in sales of Normal People by Sally Rooney  the book that inspired the runaway TV hit starring Kildare native Paul Mescal.

Store manager Kate Hayes said the bookstores regular customers were adjusting to the Covid-19 guidelines after it opened its doors after nearly three months shut.

She told the Leader: People really missed going into their local bookstores during the lockdown.

Customers must santise their hands at the entrance and were encouraging them to only touch books that they want to buy if possible.

Kate hopes that if people are holidaying at home that they might buy their holiday reading in local bookstores rather than at airports.

She explained: The important thing is that people shop local for whatever they want because we all have to support each other in our communities at this time.

Kate said another popular title is Where the Crawdads Sing, a 2018 novel by Delia Owens which topped The New York Times Best Sellers list.

At Lips & Ps, Naas, two customers per time are being allowed into the store, and there are two staff available. There are gloves and masks available for customers who wish to avail of them.

Martina Swan said on Monday that business has been brisk, and people can use the changing room in the store. She said: We have a loyal customer base who are coming in.

Paul Matthews of the long-established The Mans Shop, Newbridge, said that staff are now wearing gloves, and that masks and gloves are available for customers who wish to wear them.

He says that once clothes are handled, they have to be steamed and go into quarantine for 72 hours.

Mr Matthews said on Monday that there has been a lot of interest since the store reopened. He added that it is great to see people in Newbridge again, browsing or buying.

He said: We have a summer sale, Fathers Day is coming up. It is fantastic to see shops reopening, we hope to see it continue.

Kim Kelleher, of Jingles, Naas, has had to put her renowned hat business on hold, due to there being no Ladies Days at the races now held behind closed doors  and the majority of weddings being put on hold until next year. She is optimistic that Naas can return to the pre Covid-19 days and get its economy strong again.

With Jingles now selling clothes, particularly casual wear, she has been operating a service of dropping clothes to people around Naas, over the lockdown, and it has been very successful.

Ms Kelleher first closed her doors on March 14, and now only two customers are allowed into the premises at once, and screens, sanitisers and gloves are in place.

She says that there is a real desire for people to try on clothing before buying and they can do this in the store.

Ms Kelleher said: I am gutted that I have lost my hat business, I have 2,000 head pieces in stock and no hope of selling them this year  no Punchestown, Curragh, Galway races, weddings. We need people to support the town.

She hopes that her two part-time staff can return, and says personally that she does not understand why the social distancing cant be reduced to one metre.

Cash is being accepted in the store and face masks are optional.

Ann Woods of Maybell Lady Plus on Newbridges Cutlery Road says that reopening is absolutely scary, especially as an inspection can just be random. The store is employing three staff currently, but pre-Covid, there were eight working in the shop.

Ms Woods says that, because of the restrictions on people travelling from other counties to Kildare, she fears that the store will lose a lot of business.

She said: We had customers from all over the country. We do post-outs, but people want to try on. We will take this a day at a time.

County Kildare Chamber has called for the government inject more cash into businesses to help them re-open and stay viable.

CEO Allan Shine told the Leader: Its all very to say retail is back but many businesses decided not to open yesterday because theyre being forced to weigh up their options.

They may be afraid to turn the key on the door as there could be outstanding bills waiting for them or if staff come off the Covid payment, it could trigger redundancy payments if the work isnt there for them.

He added: Its no good opening up if sales arent being made and money isnt coming in and thats why the government needs to put more cash directly into businesses with targeted grants.

Mr Shine said more pro-business measures were needed and the said the new government needed to hit the ground running in this area.

He added: Covid-19 has been extremely challenging for the Kildare economy.
The two officials agreed on further contacts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during which he "emphasized the relevance of establishing a direct dialogue" between Kyiv and Russia's proxies.

The two leaders continued to exchange views on the state of affairs in Donbas and "expressed concern about the lack of progress in implementing the 2015 Minsk agreements and the decisions taken following the Normandy summit in Paris in 2019. The importance of stepping up the negotiation process in the Contact Group and in the Normandy format was noted. The Russian President again emphasized the relevance of establishing a direct dialogue between Kyiv and the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, aimed at, among other things, agreeing on steps for the consistent implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures," the Kremlin's press service said in a readout.

Read alsoZelensky says doesn't care much about Putin's human qualities

The two officials agreed on further contacts.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Merkel had a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on May 5.

During the conversation she pledged to support the changes initiated by Ukraine in the work of the Trilateral Contact Group to resolve the situation in Donbas, the east of Ukraine, Zelensky's press service said then.

The Ukrainian president also updated the German Chancellor on the then security situation in Donbas, noting problems that required increased attention from international partners.
A group of attorneys general from US states and territories sued 26 manufacturers of dermatology drugs on Wednesday, accusing them of price fixing and other violations of antitrust law, the third such lawsuit since 2016.

This lawsuit focuses on 80 topical generic drugs, including creams, gels and ointments, which have billions in dollars of US sales. It accuses Novartis unit Sandoz, Teva generic unit Actavis, Mylan Inc, Pfizer and other companies of breaking antitrust law by dividing up markets and rigging bids, according to statements from the attorneys general.

The group is made up of attorneys general from 46 states, the District of Columbia and four territories.

"Through phone calls, text messages, emails, corporate conventions, and cozy dinner parties, generic pharmaceutical executives were in constant communication, colluding to fix prices and restrain competition as though it were a standard course of business," Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. "They took steps to evade accountability, using code words and warning each other to avoid email and detection."

Novartis, which owns Sandoz, said it already settled with the U.S. Justice Department over "misconduct" and would defend itself from the lawsuit.

"The individual instances of misconduct at the core of the resolution we reached with the U.S. Department of Justice in March do not support the vast, systemic conspiracy the states allege," Novartis spokesman Eric Althoff said in a statement.

Teva unit Actavis, Mylan Inc and Pfizer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Groups of state attorneys general filed lawsuits regarding generic drug prices in 2016 and 2019. These lawsuits are pending.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has been served with a class action by customers who claim they were sold insurance they were never eligible to collect on.

Law firm Slater and Gordon lodged the suit in the Federal Court on Wednesday and said it would be funded on a no-win, no-fee basis. Senior lawyer Andrew Paull said it was an open class, meaning hundreds of thousands of customers could sign up.

CBA has been hit with a class action over allegedly selling customers insurance they were not eligible for. Credit: The Age

Kristy Fordham, who was sold insurance on a personal loan in mid-2017 after meeting with a banker at CBA's Coomera branch, is the lead claimant on the case. Ms Fordham had been unemployed since 2014 and according to the claim this meant she would have been ineligible for any payments from the insurance.

"She was told the insurance will cover you if you lose your child support payments or any income you have," Mr Paull said. "They never told her that as someone who wasn't working, she was excluded from the benefits."
June Momentum for Climate Change held

June 10,2020 | Source: IISD

The June Momentum for Climate Change, a series of virtual events organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, continued Tuesday.



Where do we stand with NDCs: Enhancing action on climate change in 2020

Shyla Raghav, Conservation International, moderated the event, aimed to share experiences with new and updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs). UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa stressed the importance of submitting new or updated NDCs in 2020 and suggested combining climate change actions with COVID-19 recovery.



Carolina Schmidt, Minister of Environment, Chile, and COP 25 President, encouraged parties to present enhanced NDCs in 2020 and said the Race to Zero campaign launched last week demonstrates commitment by non-party stakeholders.



Panel: Support for the preparation of updated/new NDCs in 2020

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, NDC Partnership, reported that 41 partners are providing USD 40 million to support 65 countries with enhancing the quality and ambition of their NDCs, mainstreaming NDCs into national plans, and preparing investment plans.



Yannick Glemarec, Executive Director, Green Climate Fund (GCF), outlined the Funds current priorities: ensuring continuation of the USD 5.6 billion portfolio; leveraging the Readiness Programme to enable development of green, resilient economic measures; facilitating access to the Project Preparation Facility; and delivering on the existing project pipeline.



Cassie Flynn, UN Development Programme, said the Programmes Climate Promise has supported 111 countries in NDC enhancement, noting that NDCs are increasingly seen as building blocks for green recovery.



In the discussion, panelists explained how international support can drive more ambitious NDCs, including through: generating quantitative data on the economic benefits of climate actions; demonstrating synergies with economic resilience; and using innovative financing.



Panel: Preparation of updated/new NDCs in 2020

Three parties that have submitted updated or revised NDCs in 2020 shared lessons. Carolina Urmeneta (Chile) reported that Chiles NDC contains an absolute carbon budget for 2020-2030 and a just transition strategy. She highlighted dialogue and inputs from state and non-state actors, engaging the Ministry of Finance in a cost-effectiveness analysis, and political commitment.



Henrik Hallgrim Eriksen (Norway) said Norway raised its mitigation target to 50-55% from 1990 levels by 2030 and followed the guidance from Katowice. He called for taking the Paris Agreement ambition cycle and science seriously and noted that expectations of cooperation with the EU and Iceland informed preparations.



Juliet Kabera (Rwanda) said her countrys NDC revision, which contains a 38% emissions reduction by 2030 compared to business-as-usual, was enabled by political will. She emphasized embedding NDCs in national strategies, clear targets on adaptation and resilience, and continued sectoral dialogue.



Carlos Fuller, for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), reported that, despite COVID-19, AOSIS members will submit ambitious NDCs in 2020. He identified the need for further support for developing and implementing NDCs.



Visnja Grgasovic and Jacob Werksman (EU) said the EU has submitted its long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategy and will update the EUs NDC in 2020, proposing an NDC with an emissions target 50-55% below 1990 levels by 2030 and a strong social pillar.



In the discussion, panelists shared plans to mobilize domestic finance for NDC implementation, including green bonds, green funds, leveraging private financing, and mainstreaming climate change into all development projects.



Closing

John Murton (UK), COP 26 Climate Envoy, said the UK will be an unapologetic cheerleader regarding ambition, noting the UK has doubled its international climate finance commitment. He encouraged countries that have submitted unambitious NDCs in recent months to resubmit more ambitious NDCs before COP 26.



Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform Facilitative Working Group stakeholder dialogue

Roberto Mukaro Borrero, Taino, opened the event with a traditional song. The Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) Facilitative Working Group (FWG) Co-Chair Pasang Dolma Sherpa moderated the event, which delivered updates on activities conducted under the LCIPP workplan and heard suggestions.



Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) Chair Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu (Democratic Republic of the Congo) said COVID-19 has accelerated the need to transform our interactions with nature and increased the LCIPPs relevance. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Espinosa stressed there is a need to address climate change holistically and said the LCIPP ensures the inclusion of local and indigenous voices, which is now more important than ever.



FWG update on the implementation of the LCIPP workplan

Dolma Sherpa reported that the implementation of the workplan is progressing despite COVID-19. FWG members reported on progress on various activities.



Andrea Carmen identified challenges in organizing regional meetings with traditional knowledge holders, which often need to take place face-to-face, and reported on a proposal to delay implementation by one year.



Dalee Sambo Dorough said preparations for a training workshop on individual and collective human rights of indigenous peoples are underway.



On a mapping of good practices on participation in climate change-related bodies, Elias Abourizk said submissions (due in September 2020) will inform the development of a technical paper.



On a mapping of UNFCCC policies relevant for indigenous peoples and local communities, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim shared plans to generate an exhaustive inventory based on, inter alia, a digital survey and a call for submissions.



Rodion Sulyandziga explained plans to deliver a synthesis document and an online tool on funding opportunities within the UN system on the LCIPP web platform.



Discussion

Event participants then shared information and suggestions with the FWG, including on: relevant work under the Convention on Biological Diversity, including a draft decision on the future participation of indigenous peoples; and ensuring accessibility to documentation.



Participants also highlighted: recognition of indigenous peoples rights; mobilizing indigenous communities to protect ecosystems; community-based natural resource management systems; and an emphasis on eliminating racism and discrimination.



They lamented the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed an increase in extractive industry activities and deforestation in some countries, and that indigenous communities are impacted by various crises.



Dolma Sherpa thanked participants and called for maintaining momentum to enable the LCIPP to make positive contributions and implement its workplan.

 e International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

Theme(s): Others.
Maybe it was all those TV commercials, or the large number of contested races, or the sense of civic duty. One pollster says maybe all those mailed-out absentee ballot applications reminded voters of the primary and the ease of voting from the comfort of home. Whatever it was, there was one clear winner in last weeks primary  voter turnout.

The unofficial 42% turnout for the June 2 primary eclipsed historical averages and was the highest this century, exceeding the 2016 primary by 6 percentage points and the 2012 primary by 15 points. A record 422,000 New Mexicans cast ballots, over 250,000 of them absentee  quite a feat considering the parameters of voting werent established until a state Supreme Court ruling in April.

Political pollster Brian Sanderoff says it was no coincidence, as one of the lessons learned here is that when you give voters an easier way of voting, they will take advantage of it. But despite the impressive display of democracy in action, not every voice was heard, meaning theres work to do heading into the November general election.

All absentee ballots were due by 7 p.m. election night, but at least 1,300 absentee ballots arrived too late to be counted. That figure is expected to grow to over 3,000 as absentee ballots continue arriving by mail. While state lawmakers and elected officials cant be blamed for voters who think they can pop their ballot in the mail Election Day morning, they absolutely can adjust the deadline for voters to request an absentee ballot, put deadlines in big, bold type on ballots along with where to drop them off in person and revisit state law to allow all county clerks to start feeding them into tabulators before Election Day.

While Bernalillo County was one of the few counties allowed to start counting early, Clerk Linda Stover told dozens of absentee ballot processors to go home at 11 on election night  understandable, as they had been working since 7 a.m. In Taos County, overwrought members of an absentee balloting board walked out on election night and had to be replaced the next morning. A lack of staff due to the pandemic slowed the process in Santa Fe County, and Santa Fe and Taos counties had to petition a state District Court to extend the initial 24-hour deadline for vote tabulation.

In addition to a larger tabulation window, why not recruit and train more workers and run shifts? Make the ballot bar codes even smarter so clerks can see if a batch is sitting at the post office? And address voter concerns that too much personal information is exposed on the envelopes, including party affiliation and birthdays?

Now back to the good news. Fears that Republican voters wouldnt warm up to absentee balloting proved unfounded. The total number of Democratic votes climbed 5% in this years primary compared with 2016, while Republican votes shot up 44%.

While Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver had petitioned for a primarily mail-in election and the state Republican Party and a few county clerks warned of fraud due to outdated voter registration addresses, New Mexico justices found the sweet spot, ordering county clerks to send every voter an absentee ballot application while keeping polling sites open. It worked.

As for those claims of fraud, SOS spokesman Alex Curtas says multiple measures  including routine removal of those who have not responded to a notice after not voting in two general elections; monthly checks of vital statistics reports; address checks with the Postal Service; updates from Corrections on felony convictions as well as completed sentences; collaboration with the Motor Vehicle Division, the Social Security Administration and other states; and unique identifiers that prevent double-voting and allow ballot tracking  mean the states voter rolls are significantly more accurate than ever before.

Its hard to argue with this mode of voting without evidence of wrongdoing. The more who vote, the more who are invested in the results and in the democratic process. Increased voter participation is the bottom line, especially in a primary in which so many races are decided.

Election officials need more staff to count and more time to do it, and voters need clear guidance to get their ballots in so they are heard. Nov. 3, here we come!

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.
Turns Out It Was a Good Time to Quit Smoking After All

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- So, perhaps reassuringly, it turned out tobacco wasnt so defensive during this global health crisis after all.

After indications early in the pandemic that tobacco may hold up, British American Tobacco Plc on Tuesday reduced its forecasts for full-year sales growth as Covid-19 lockdowns hurt business in emerging markets. The maker of Dunhill, Lucky Strike and Rothmans cigarettes depends on developing nations for one-quarter of its revenue.

South Africa has banned sales of tobacco products as part of a strict lockdown policy that BAT and other companies are fighting. Cigarette consumption has been disrupted by curfews in some markets, such as Bangladesh. In addition, smoking in markets such as Vietnam often takes place in bars and restaurants. With establishments closed, or consumers reluctant to venture out, there was less temptation to light up.

This slowdown provides good reason for pause for investors in BAT, led by the relatively new Chief Executive Officer Jack Bowles. With higher smoking rates, and the potential for consumers to trade up to more expensive brands as average incomes grow, these regions are supposed to offset the deterioration in developed markets as people there quit smoking. But now, because of the coronavirus hit, BAT expects a 7% decline in global industry sales volumes of cigarettes and heated-tobacco devices this year, more than the previously anticipated 5% fall.

This scenario has implications for competitors such as Philip Morris International Inc. and Japan Tobacco Inc., which produces Winston and Benson & Hedges cigarettes. Japan Tobacco has been using its strong balance sheet to buy emerging-market brands over the past few years.

As the contagion spread and shined a spotlight on potential risks related to smoking, lockdowns meant BAT had to delay launches of new devices that heat rather than burn tobacco and electronic cigarettes, because the stores where theyre sold were shut. The U.S. market, the worlds biggest for electronic cigarettes, was already struggling to recover after a spate of illnesses and deaths last year related to vaping.

Story continues

Consequently, BAT expects to reach its target of annual sales of 5 billion pounds ($6.4 billion) from tobacco alternatives a year later than planned, in 2025. The dislocation across cigarettes and newer products will lead to lower underlying earnings growth this year than previously forecast, as well as a slower reduction in debt.

However, its still too early to throw out the thesis that people will reach for cigarettes no matter whats happening. In developed markets, consumption is holding up. In the U.S., for example, industry volumes could now fall by only about 4% this year, compared with the 5% previously anticipated, amid signs pointing to BAT gaining market share and few consumers are switching to cheaper brands.

Vaping as a category is still reeling, but BAT is making headway with its Vuse and Vype brands. And it continues to invest in its tobacco heating device Glo, as well as in oral tobacco Velo. The strategy of having a balanced portfolio of new-generation products is wise. Its not yet clear which of these categories will be the winner as traditional cigarette sales decline.

True, BAT had to lower its outlook and there is a risk that smokers will seek out cheaper brands in a recession, but at least the company is updating investors regularly. It also remains committed to its policy of paying out 65% of underlying earnings per share. Rival Imperial Brands Plc cut its dividend last month.

BAT has not been immune from the pandemic, but the company is positioning itself well for the future. And who knows, its biotech subsidiary might even come up with a Covid-19 vaccine.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andrea Felsted is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the consumer and retail industries. She previously worked at the Financial Times.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
The question of who shot Palme in the back as he walked home from the movies with his wife on a frigid Stockholm evening has stumped police and occupied Swedish imaginations ever since February 1986. Speculation about who was behind the crime included the apartheid-era South African government, which resented Palme for his outspoken left-wing views, and the Kurdish militant group the PKK. A Swedish man was sentenced to life for the crime in 1988, but his conviction was thrown out the following year on appeal.
Karriem Allah draws attention to the Honorable Louis Farrakhans statement that President Donald Trump is written in the Biblical Prophecies. Karriem Allah references the narratives of Nebuchadnezzar and the prophecy

Karriem Allah opens his Message by answering the question that some have raised regarding the whereabouts of the Nation of Islam amidst the civil protests that have saturated the United States. He reinforces the definition of the Nation of Islam, according to The Supreme Wisdom Lessons by Master Fard Muhammad, the Supreme Being.

Karriem Allah draws attention to the Honorable Louis Farrakhans statement that President Donald Trump is written in the Biblical Prophecies. Karriem Allah references the narratives of Nebuchadnezzar and the prophecy of the Lords hand against this king of Babylon, with the aim of breaking his hold on the nations of the Earth.

Karriem Allah, citing the Honorable Louis Farrakhans statement that President Trump will be the last U.S. President, raises several possibilities that may contribute to President Trumps continuation as U.S. President beyond the Presidential Election in November 2020.

Karriem Allah, referencing the Biblical and Quranic narratives of Joseph, establishes the premise of the fulfillment of this narrative in the Presence and Work of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan. Karriem Allah explains how properly understanding this narrative is essential to our acceptance of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan, as the Messiah and predestined ruler of the Earth.

Karriem Allah continues paralleling events in the prophetic narrative of Joseph to their fulfillment in the history of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam and in the life of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan, the Messiah.

Karriem Allah lays aspects of the prophetic narrative of Joseph atop the Honorable Louis Farrakhans reestablishment of the Muslim Girls Training Class (MGT), which is earmarked for all women in North America, and not only Black women as many people may presume. Karriem Allah further shows how the Honorable Louis Farrakhans reinstitution of the MGT Class is also intrinsic to the Domestic Life of the Messiah.

This lecture, Honorable Louis Farrakhans Fulfillment of Biblical & Quranic Narratives of Josephs Domestic Life - Part 1, is part of the Series on the Domestic Life of the Messiah, the Honorable Louis Farrakhan and is available on Karriem Allahs Vimeo and Youtube channels, and his website.
African Americans who smoke are nearly 2.5 times more likely to have a stroke than those who never smoked, while former smokers show a similarly lower risk as never smokers, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The findings from the Jackson Heart Study suggests that even after years of smoking, African Americans--who as a group are twice as likely as whites to have a stroke and die from it--could significantly reduce their risk if they kicked the habit. The study's findings, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), both part of NIH, will appear online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Numerous studies have shown the link between smoking and stroke, but few have directly assessed the relationship solely in African Americans. This new study did that and also analyzed traditional risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and inflammation.

"This study provides further strong evidence of the link between cigarette smoking and stroke in African Americans," said David Goff, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at NHLBI. "We know that quitting smoking is one way to lower the risk for stroke, which is particularly important for the most vulnerable populations during this pandemic."

The study included 4,410 black men and women without a history of stroke and who were enrolled in the Jackson Heart Study, the largest study of cardiovascular disease in African Americans. Researchers classified the participants, who were 54 on average, into three groups based on their self-reported smoking history: current smokers, past smokers who smoked at least 400 cigarettes in their lifetimes, and never smokers.

The researchers further classified current smokers based on smoking intensity. One group included participants who smoked up to 19 cigarettes a day; another included those who smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day. Researchers followed participants from their initial evaluations beginning in 2000 through 2015.

At its start, the study included 781 past smokers, 546 current smokers, and 3,083 never smokers. By 2015, 5.2% of past smokers, 6.6% of those were smoking up to 19 cigarettes a day, and 7.2% of those smokers smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day had experienced a stroke, compared to 3.4% of never smokers.

After accounting for multiple risk factors for stroke, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high "bad" cholesterol levels, and older age, researchers calculated that current smokers carried a risk for stroke that was more than double the risk for never smokers. And, the risk nearly tripled for those smoking 20 or more cigarettes each day. But past smokers showed an almost identical risk as never smokers.

"The bottom line is the more a person smokes, the greater their chance is of having a stroke," said Adebamike A. Oshunbade, M.D., M.P.H., the lead study author and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. "It's important to communicate this risk to vulnerable populations, especially with the growing popularity of new tobacco products."

Michael E. Hall, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, and corresponding study author, agreed. He noted that while smoking has been shown in major studies to raise the risk of stroke 1.5 times for the general population, "these adverse health effects seem to be magnified in African Americans." 1In their analysis, the researchers also looked more closely at the already-established link between inflammation and atherosclerosis and smoking. They measured for C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation, and carotid intima-media thickness, or CIMT, to assess the buildup of fatty plaques in the carotid arteries that supply blood to the brain. 1The researchers found that African American smokers who smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day had higher CIMT compared to never smokers. Researchers said this suggests that the buildup of plaque in the major blood vessels of the brains of African American smokers could play a role in the development of stroke.

###

The Jackson Heart Study is supported and conducted in collaboration with Jackson State University (HHSN268201800013I), Tougaloo College (HHSN268201800014I), the Mississippi State Department of Health (HHSN268201800015I/HHSN26800001) and the University of Mississippi Medical Center (HHSN268201800010I, HHSN268201800011I, and HHSN268201800012I) contracts from the NHLBI and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Study: Cigarette Smoking and Incident Stroke in African Americans of the Jackson Heart Study.

DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.119.014990

About the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): NHLBI is the global leader in conducting and supporting research in heart, lung, and blood diseases and sleep disorders that advances scientific knowledge, improves public health, and saves lives. For more information, visit http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD): NIMHD leads scientific research to improve minority health and eliminate health disparities by conducting and supporting research; planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating all minority health and health disparities research at NIH; promoting and supporting the training of a diverse research workforce; translating and disseminating research information; and fostering collaborations and partnerships. For more information about NIMHD, visit https://www.nimhd.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIH... Turning Discovery Into Health
Residents of Afghanistan's Kunar province have alleged that Pakistani forces have advanced towards the Afghan part of the Durand Line.

The Durand Line serves as the de facto border between the two countries.

The residents even claimed that most of the encroachments have occurred in the Khas Kunar and Sarkano districts of Kunar.

The residents of the two districts said that in some areas the Pakistani forces have built fences along the line, reports Tolo News.

They (Pakistani forces) entered on our soli and built their installations and fences under the pretext of building joint bases here for Afghan, US and Pakistani forces to chase enemies and conduct joint operations against them, Din Mohammad Safi, a member of Kunar's provincial council, told the news portal based in Afghanistan.

Nawa village in Sarkano district is one of the areas, according to residents, where Pakistani forces have advanced towards the Afghan side of the Durand Line, reported the news portal.

The residents of the regions told Tolo News about 10 parts in Sarkano district where, according to them, Pakistani forces have built fences, leaving families stranded on the two sides of the line.

Abdul Wadood, a resident of Sarkano district, told the news portal: "My uncles are here. We used to meet each other before the fence was built, but after that we havent met since."

Documents show that a delegation from military and civilian institutions in a 2016 paper reported the advancement of Pakistani forces along the Durand Line, reported the news portal.
A black business owner armed with a gun was mistaken for a robbery suspect when a police officer punched him in the face, Decatur police Chief Nate Allen said today.

The situation happened nearly three months ago on March 15 but has become public now because of a surveillance video clip released on social media over the weekend. The video shows a police officer walk into Star Spirits & Beverages, a liquor store on Sixth Avenue in Decatur in north Alabama, and immediately punch the owner, 47-year-old Kevin Penn.

Penn says he called police that day to report his store had been robbed and that he was holding the suspect at gunpoint.

Hear the story behind a Decatur business owner being punched by a police officer Why was a black business owner in Decatur punched by a police officer when he called the cops to report a robbery? AL.com's Ashley Remkus talks about the latest developments in the case. Posted by al.com on Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Allen said because police were called to investigate a robbery and Penn was armed, they believed he might have been the suspect.

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, Decatur police played body camera video, in which an officer can be heard telling Penn to put down his gun and Penn refusing to do so.

Police did not release copies of the footage but let news reporters watch and record a screen on which the footage was aired. The footage, which was edited with captions and delayed at some points, doesnt appear to clearly show what happened.

Penn moved his hand over a gun lying on a counter next to him, said Allen. The chief said the man was holding a magazine in his other hand, which police at the time may have believed to be a gun.

As Penn appears to be refusing to put down a gun, an officer walks in and immediately punches him in the face, the body camera video shows. The officers name hasnt been released, but the chief said he is on desk duty pending an internal investigation. The police department has been investigating the incident since the day after it happened, nearly three months ago.

Asked today whether the punch amounted to excessive force, Allen said officers should use the least amount of force necessary to get the job done.

Many cases involving an armed suspect end with police shooting the person, he said.

I would much rather have a punch than an officer-involved shooting, the chief said.

As a result of the punch, Penn suffered a broken jaw and some of his teeth were knocked out, his lawyer, Carl Cole, told AL.com. Penn underwent several weeks of treatment, including having his mouth wired shut, his lawyer said.

Penn was taken to the ground, handcuffed and arrested on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing governmental operations. Police accused him of obstructing their investigation of the robbery, according to court records.

But police today said rather than a robbery, a simple shoplifting had taken place at Penns store. Body camera video appeared to show the suspected shoplifter lying on the ground inside the store. Police say a shoplifting suspect was arrested that day, but they havent released the persons name or charges.

Penn himself called police that day, according to his lawyer, and had already solved the case, as he was armed and holding the suspect for police.

In the surveillance video posted on social media, Penn is seen carrying a gun and later appears to motion toward the officers just before they enter the store. The surveillance video posted online doesnt include any audio.

Cole said Penn showed the gun to the officers to make sure they knew he was armed, then took out the clip and ejected the bullet from the chamber.

In court records obtained by AL.com, Decatur police Officer J. Rippen wrote that Penn refused to obey lawful commands to put down and back away from a firearm while officers were attempting to investigate a robbery.

When AL.com spoke with Penn by phone this morning, he referred questions to his lawyer, citing the ongoing criminal case. Cole said Penn will make a public statement in the coming days.

Penn has filed an internal affairs complaint with the police department and handed over surveillance video from his store, Cole said, but the city hasnt responded to his request for information about the status of the investigation.

Allen said today that he doesnt know when the ongoing investigation will be finished.

AL.com has requested police reports and other records related to the case, including the personnel files of the officer who punched Penn and all unedited body camera video of the incident.

The chief said he chose to show a portion of body camera footage today in an effort to be transparent with the public.

We wanted to show that because one thing I strive to do is build relationships with this community, Allen said. We need to be very transparent; we need to be very open. But most of all, we need our citizens to respect the police department and we need the police department to respect the citizens.
An Iranian national convicted of spying for the US and Israel by helping target top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani will be executed, Irans judiciary said on Tuesday.

Mahmoud Mousavi Majd was convicted of spying on Irans armed forces, which led to the killing of Soleimani, the head of Irans elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike in Iraq.

Mahmoud Mousavi Majd was convicted of spying on Irans armed forces especially the Quds Force and on the whereabouts and movements of martyr General Qassem Soleimani for large sums of money from both Israels Mossad and the CIA, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told a televised news conference.



Esmaili offered little information about the convicted man.

The decision immediately raised questions about how Majd would have had access to Soleimanis travel information. The Iranian judiciary spokesman did not say when Majd would be executed, other than that it would be soon.

He also stopped short of directly linking the information allegedly offered by Majd to Soleimanis death.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Roadside bombing kills two, wounds eight in Turkey's Van

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 2:23 AM

A roadside bomb planted by PKK terrorists has detonated in eastern Turkey, killing two and wounding eight others aboard a personnel shuttle.

The explosion occurred on a road near the Narl neighborhood at around 6 pm local time, authorities said, adding that the van was carrying road workers back home when it was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED), Turkish media reported Monday.

Numerous security forces and emergency personnel were dispatched to the scene. Two of the passengers were declared dead on the scene while eight were transferred to nearby hospitals, some of them with critical injuries.

The office of the Van Governorate issued a statement shortly after the incident and said that a large-scale anti-terror operation was launched in the area following the explosion.

Turkey building wall at Iran border to stop PKK 'infiltration'

Turkey's plans to complete the construction of its border wall with Iran by the end of this year to stop the infiltration of "terrorists" into the country, have almost been realized.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who reportedly inspected the construction works in the border area, told Anadolu Agency that the wall is 75 per cent complete.

Soylu added that the wall is being established for Turkey's security.

He added that every military operation carried out by Turkey in northern Iraq to tighten the screws on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, pushed them from Turkey's southeastern border area to its eastern border.

He claimed that there are around 100 "terrorists" in Iran's Dambat, near Turkey, which "constitutes a real danger."

Turkey, along with the European Union and the United States, has declared the PKK a terrorist group and banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few years, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.

More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.

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A top Russian diplomat says Russia, the United States, and Afghanistan will hold video consultations to try and jump-start intra-Afghan peace talks.

Zamir Kabulov, who is Russia's presidential envoy on issues related to Afghanistan and the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's second department of Asia, told Russian media on June 10 that the trilateral video talks will be held on June 15.

According to Kabulov, the talks will involve the U.S. special peace envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Afghanistan's acting foreign minister, Mohammad Haneef Atmar.

Kabulov's announcement comes two days after Khalilzad held a new round of talks in Qatar with the political chief of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

In February, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement aimed at ending the 18-year war -- the longest military conflict in U.S. history.

The deal lays out a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in return for security commitments from the Taliban.

Based on reporting by Interfax and TASS
In the midst of the ongoing border standoff in Eastern Ladakh, the Indian Army won a rare public compliment from a Chinese military expert who said India has the world's largest and experienced plateau and mountain troops equipped with some of the best weapons suited for such terrain in the Tibetan border.

"At present, the worlds largest and experienced country with plateau and mountain troops is neither the US, Russia, nor any European powerhouse, but India," Huang Guozhi, senior editor of Modern Weaponry magazine, wrote in an article published by Chinas thepaper.cn on Tuesday.

His remarks have come after Indian and Chinese armies undertook a "symbolic disengagement" in a few areas in eastern Ladakh in a demonstration of their intent to end the border standoff peacefully ahead of another round of military talks on Wednesday. Both the armies remained engaged in aggressive posturing in areas such as Pangong Tso, Daulat Beg Oldie and Demchok.

Especially meant for Chinese border

Mountain brigades being raised by India are mostly meant for the Chinese border, especially the Tibetan plateau, and it is perhaps the first time a Chinese military expert publicly complimented their strength and strategic importance.

"With more than 200,000 troops in 12 divisions, the Indian mountain force is the largest mountain fighting force in the world," Huang wrote.

Huang said that since the 1970s, the Indian military has established and expanded the size and personnel of the mountain troops on a large-scale, and also plans to create a mountain strike force of more than 50,000 troops.

"Mountaineering is an essential skill for almost every member of the Indian mountain army. To this end, India even recruited a large number of professional mountaineers and amateur mountaineers from the private sector," he said.

Siachen Glacier

Referring to the Indian Armys presence in the Siachen glacier, he said "the Indian Army has set up hundreds of outposts in the Siachen Glacier area with an altitude of more than 5,000 metres, with 6,000 to 7,000 fighters stationed. The highest post has reached 6,749 metres."

The Indian military is equipped with a large number of weapons adapted to the highland and mountain operating environment through procurement and domestic research and development, he said.

Indian advanced military

The Indian military has also spent heavily on advanced heavy equipment from the United States, including the M777, the worlds lightest 155mm towed howitzer, and the Chinook heavy transport helicopter that lifts the gun, to boost its fire support and anti-armour capabilities", he said.

"In addition, there are many conflicts and differences between the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force. This has also led the Indian Army to decide to equip its own US-made AH-64E Longbow Apache attack helicopters instead of relying entirely on airfield support from the air force," Huang wrote.

Plateau mountain region

Highlighting the difficulties for the troops, Huang said the mountain region, especially the plateau mountain region, is the most severe and difficult operational environment recognised by all countries in the world.

In this environment, combatants must not only do their own warm protection, but also prevent acute altitude sickness such as cerebral pulmonary edema due to low pressure and hypoxia, he said.

What's the disadvantage

About the shortcomings" of the Indian armed forces, he said the Indian military, for example, is not yet fully self-sufficient in weaponry. Especially when India procures large quantities of advanced light weapons using Western calibre, ammunition supply becomes a big problem", he wrote.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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Topics
Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged since 5 May following a violent clash in Pangong Tso.

Beijing: China said on Wednesday that Indian and Chinese troops have started implementing the "positive consensus" reached by the senior military officials of the two countries on 6 June aimed at "easing" the situation along the borders.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson's remarks came a day after officials in New Delhi suggested that armies of India and China have undertaken a "limited disengagement" in few areas in eastern Ladakh in a demonstration of their intent to end the border standoff peacefully ahead of another round of military talks on Wednesday.

Asked about the reports of the troops on both sides disengaging and moving back to their previous positions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing in Beijing that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.

"Recently the diplomatic and military channels of China and India held effective communication on the situation along the border and reached positive consensus," she said. "The two sides are following this consensus to take actions to ease the situation along the borders," the spokesperson said.

Military sources in New Delhi said the two armies have begun "disengagement" around patrolling points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and another in the Hot Spring area, adding the Chinese side has even moved back up to 1.5 km in two areas.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged since 5 May following a violent clash in Pangong Tso.

The trigger for the face-off was China's stiff opposition to India laying a key road in the Finger area around the Pangong Tso Lake besides construction of another road connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley.

During their military-level talks on 6 June, India and China agreed to follow the broad decisions taken by their leaders in the Wuhan summit in 2018 to ensure peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

On 6 June, Lt General Harinder Singh, the general officer commanding of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Commander of the Tibet Military District Maj Gen Liu Lin held an extensive meeting.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it.
Hollard Insurance launches the first virtual insurance chatbot in Ghana with the goal to make insurance more accessible to Ghanaians via popular messaging channels such as WhatsApp.



The innovative product, called Hollard ChatInsure is currently hosted on WhatsApp, by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot, called Araba Hollard. Araba is the first virtual insurer in the country offering end-to-end insurance services all within the messaging application and without human intervention. Users simply save her number, 0242 426 412 and message her on WhatsApp to access her services.



At launch, Araba offers renters and homeowners, Home and Home Contents insurance. They can initiate, process, pay and receive policy documents on WhatsApp covering burglary, fire and allied perils to their possessions and physical building structure.



The initiative is being innovatively launched virtually with a live show at the companys head-office, streamed from its Facebook and Instagram pages, and on Joy and Citi FM Facebook pages. The launch is anchored by ace TV and radio personality Naa Ashokor Mensah-Doku.



We are living in an increasingly digital world, driven by the constraints of COVID-19. At Hollard, we constantly seek ways to make it easier for Ghanaians to access insurance, so this digital insurance product aligns perfectly. Ghanaians love using WhatsApp, so our product makes it easier for them to do what they love while creating and securing a better future for themselves. Insurance right in their palms, no paperwork!



Araba Hollard is a true Hollardite. She is sharp, helpful, and professional but embodies the vibrant and unconventional virtues of Hollard. She understands that your home and household possessions mean the world to you. You want to live free without worrying about the unexpected. Shes your personal virtual insurer and shes got you covered. Meet Araba Hollard on WhatsApp 0242 426 412. Group Head of Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Cynthia Ofori-Dwumfuo describes the virtual insurer.



About Hollard Ghana



The countrys favourite insurance group Hollard Ghana, with subsidiaries Hollard Insurance and Hollard Life Assurance combines its deep local knowledge of the market with the world-class expertise of an international insurance brand. With feet firmly planted on Ghanaian soil but Headquartered in South Africa, Hollard delivers innovative insurance solutions customized to the unique risks Ghanaians face. Hollard was previously Metropolitan Insurance which operated in Ghana for over 25 years.

Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/[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 band of thieves faked the identity of an American soldier to offer big rewards or investment opportunities, luring Vietnamese victims into paying up-front fees.

Police of the north-central province Thua Thien-Hue have arrested eleven people in a series of actions to take down the multinational fraud scheme, said Col. Pham Van Toan, director of the Criminal Investigation Department of the force.

The arrests were made following a complaint from the Hue City resident C.T.N.H. about one foreign man who stole VND3.9 billion (US$169,300) from her.

Tracing the money down using clues from N.H.s report, the police found out that the sum had been divided into multiple bank accounts and withdrawn on a few ATM units scattered around Ho Chi Minh City.

These fraudsters have banded together and created multiple fake IDs with the same photo identity to open accounts at a variety of banks, which are used to transfer scammed money. We have established the case and sent officers to Ho Chi Minh City for further inspection, Toan said.

After 15 days of investigation, the police have mapped out eight individuals with ties to the scheme.

Four of them  Ugochukwu Samuel Nnaemeka, Stanley Chidiebere Umed, Nnaka Chibuzor Frankline; Chimezie Ebuka Samuel  are identified as Nigerian, while the other four  Ngo Hai Nghi, Vu Ai Linh, Dao Dang Vu, Pham Ngoc Duy  are Vietnamese.

During an extensive investigation, three other Nigerians were arrested as accomplices to the crime: Chukwugekwe Godwin Ajearo, Ugochukuwu Okechukwu James and Ogo Emeka Donal.

Forged IDs, once used by the fraud ring to set up bank accounts, are seen in this photo. Photo: Thuong Hien / Tuoi Tre

According to statements made by members of the gang during interrogation, they are led by Dalaxy Dave, a Nigerian currently living in Cambodia.

The scam involves impersonating an American soldier to get in touch with targeted Vietnamese victims through Facebook, Zalo, Whatsapp and other messaging platforms.

The victims would then be promised a valuable item or asked to invest in a joint venture, to which they need to reply by transferring money to designated bank accounts.

Dalaxy also ran other illegitimate businesses, one of which is obtaining personal payment information to steal money using hijacked Facebook accounts.

Another ploy of the group is posing as police officers, prosecutors or other government agents and threatening victims into sending money to their bank accounts.

Police forces seized multiple relevant items from searching the groups apartment, including 71 bank accounts, some 53 forged identity documentation, together with mobile phones, motorbikes and Facebook accounts utilized to run the scams.

The case is undergoing further investigation in accordance with Vietnamese law.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
By partnering with ID90 Travel, we can provide our employees with valuable benefits utilizing the most modern, customer-friendly technologies that help them make the most of their leisure time.

ID90 Travel delivers ancillary travel products and services to the staff at unifi (formerly DAL Global Services (DGS)). As part of the agreement, ID90 Travel extends its full suite of discounted ancillary travel services to unifi including hotels, all-inclusive resorts, car rentals, ground transportation, travel insurance and cruises. Additionally, employees have access to the ID90 Travel top-rated mobile booking app, desktop platform and expert customer service. A subset of unifi Aviation Services employees assigned to Alaska Airlines can utilize ID90 Travels online booking tool for employee non-revenue air travel.

Unifi provides a full scope of aviation services with expertise in ramp and passenger handling, cabin and cargo services, operations and load control, aircraft and ground support equipment maintenance, crew transportation, security services, wheelchair and skycap services, flight control and operations consulting for domestic and international carriers in the U.S. By partnering with ID90 Travel, we can provide our employees with valuable benefits utilizing the most modern, customer friendly technologies that help them make the most of their leisure travel time, said Adam Taylor, President of unifi.

"We strive to keep improving and upgrading the tools and services we provide to airlines and aviation support companies like unifi, said Mike Stacy, CEO of ID90 Travel. Were offering our customers ways to realize substantial cost savings while retaining and motivating staff during this difficult time.

Unifi Aviation Services employees will benefit from access to key features of the ID90 Travel integrated solution:



Exclusive Rate Hotel Pricing: Search and book close to 1 million hotels, resorts and vacation rentals around the world with exclusive discounts of up to 70% off prices youd find on popular consumer travel sites.

Discounted Cruises: Get some of the best interline cruise deals exclusive to airline employees on cruise lines like Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Celebrity and others.

Destination Activities: Choose from ready-made itineraries of 30,000 things to do and see across the globe.

Exclusive Rate Travel Insurance: Purchase low cost trip-interruption insurance and be covered for out-of-pocket expenses that come with being stuck in a destination.

Gold Standard Customer Care: unifi employees get quick answers to their questions with 24/7 multi-lingual customer service support.

All-in-One Mobile App: Everything comes together in a fast, easy-to-use mobile booking app.

About unifi Service

Unifi is the largest comprehensive aviation services provider in North America, and one of the largest in the world. They support nearly one million flights a year for all of the major airlines at 170 different airports. Unifi is unique in that they are the only aviation services company in the United States to be recognized by OSHA with VPP STAR status. In addition to running the largest airplane cabin cleaning operation in the world, some of their other services include ramp and passenger assistance, ticketing, cargo handling, operations and load control, ground support equipment (GSE) maintenance, and club room services.

About ID90 Travel

ID90 Travel provides airlines around the globe a SaaS platform that automates and reduces costs associated with airline employee travel programs. It is a one-stop, comprehensive solution for airlines' employee travel needs. With more than 1 million airline segments booked annually, ID90 Travel provides Online and Interline ticketing for employees to fly for leisure or company business on their own carrier or partner airlines. In addition, with more than 1,000,000 hotels in inventory across the world, and the largest selection of rental cars and cruise lines available to non-revenue travelers, ID90 Travel is the first company in the airline industry to provide employee pass-travel programs with the ability to seamlessly book discounted hotels, rental cars and cruises. ID90 Travel also offers a trip insurance policy tailored to the needs of these travelers. ID90 Travel clients include some of the largest carriers in the world, including United Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Spirit, Czech Airlines and Aeroflot, to name a few. For more information, visit http://www.ID90travel.com.
Wednesday, June 10th, 2020 (8:40 am) - Score 43,474

New ISP Swish Fibre, which last year began work to extend their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 250,000 premises across the Home Counties (i.e. just outside London), has today unveiled a full list of 33 poorly served towns (22 new additions) where their service is due to be rolled out next.

Just to recap. Swish Fibre was acquired by Fern Trading (they also own Jurassic Fibre in the South West of England) at the end of 2019, which formed part of a long-term funding deal that they said would enable them to unlock 250m of investment (here). At around the same time the provider began building their new full fibre network in parts of Buckinghamshire (here).

NOTE: The term Home Counties refers to the counties that surround London, including Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

The initial 11 locations announced at the end of last year reflected roughly 50,000 premises and the first customers are due to go live on that network in Marlow from July 2020, which will soon be followed by Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield. Surveying and planning is complete for these towns and work is already underway in Gerrards Cross, with Beaconsfield due to start in Autumn 2020.

As things stand, Swish Fibre will be active in at least 10 of the towns in its roadmap by June 2021. On top of that theyve today expanded their roll-out list to total 33 locations (mostly towns) across the Home Counties of England, which once completed should achieve their initial target of 250,000 premises.

Swishs 33 Rollout Locations First 11 Locations (December 2019)

Marlow (live soon)

Gerrards Cross (live soon)

Beaconsfield (live soon)

Flackwell Heath

Wooburn Green and Bourne End

Hazlemere

Great Missenden

Thame

Chinnor

Princes Risborough

Haddenham Next 22 Locations (June 2020)

Alton

Ascot

Banbury

Bagshot

Bordon

Buckingham

Corsham

Cranleigh

Crawley Down

Crowborough

East Grinstead

Farnham

Godalming

Haywards Heath

Heathfield

Liphook

Lindford

Marlborough

Penn

Sevenoaks

Southwater

Uckfield

As previously indicated, the ISP is primarily aiming to tackle underserved towns and villages where broadband availability is poor and there is strong demand for ultrafast broadband services. Admittedly some of the aforementioned locations already have some degree of full fibre coverage (e.g. Gigaclear in Sevenoaks and Virgin Media in East Grinstead), which could make for an interesting clash of commercial rivals.

According to Swish the new towns have been carefully selected as commercially viable, following an extensive evaluation process undertaken by Swish Fibre and independent analysts.

Brice Yharrassarry, CEO of Swish Fibre, said: Were thrilled to announce our wider rollout plans today, which brings the first phase of fullfibre rollout up to a quarter of a million properties covered in the Home Counties. Construction works on the ground are progressing extremely well and the early signs of interest within Marlow has exceeded our expectations. Were excited to have started civils work in Gerrards Cross and are on track to be active in at least ten towns by June 2021.

The accelerated construction work has apparently not come at the expense of any lag-time in engaging with the local community in Marlow. Adapting quickly to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swish Fibre team have already engaged with hundreds of Marlow residents via regular video call sessions and Q&As, as well as one-to-one customer engagement by telephone and email.

Despite being one of the youngest providers in this market, Swish is already making better progress than some of their more established peers in the alternative network space. Obviously it doesnt hurt when youre backed by plenty of funding and have a senior management team with lots of previous experience via the likes of Gigaclear, RM, BT, SSE (Enterprise Telecoms) and UK Power Networks.

We look forward to seeing their progress over the next few years and its also refreshing to see another ISP that is clear about their future roll-out plans.
In the 1970s, Anne Stephansky was working at a community clinic in Washington when a teenage boy came in, saying he was depressed and suicidal. In the course of counseling him, Stephansky learned he had no way of getting home. The boy lived near her, so she offered him a lift. On the way, her brakes failed, but they made it thanks to some creative use of a parking brake. When the teenager got out of her car, she told a colleague later, he said he was no longer feeling suicidal. The harrowing ride had made him realize that he valued his life after all.
MIAMI, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Boatim Inc.

Boatim Inc., a globally operating online marketplace for boats and yachts, today announced the appointment of Patrick Burkert to the position of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), effective 1st of June 2020. Burkert will be the first to manage this newly created position in the Company. He will operate from the subsidiary Boatim Europe SL, based in Barcelona, Spain, and report directly to the Boatim Board and CEO Wolfgang Tippner.

"Patrick is highly experienced, a much-admired marketing leader with a proven track record of building global brands, making him a natural addition to our leadership team." said Tippner. "Boatim has made strong progress over the past several months to prepare the rollout of our global online marketplace and other digital products and services for the maritime industry. Patrick's experience and vision will optimize internal processes and help propel Boatim forward during our next phase of growth."

As Boatim CMO, Burkert will lead the Strategic Marketing Team for Boatim around the world, building on the transformational work already accomplished.

"We are at the forefront of transforming a whole industry towards digital, that hasn't seen any significant innovation in decades," said Burkert. "I was an early convert to Boatim's vision of tech- and social-driven services, forging the next generation of online marketplaces that will reinvent a global billion-dollar industry. As a Co-Founder and early-stage contractor I'm thrilled and proud to now have the opportunity to lead this transformation in a C-Level position and with a remarkable team. We will accelerate Boatim's growth in the market as we continue to define and shape the future of maritime innovations every day here in Barcelona and back in the USA."

Burkert brings more than two decades of marketing experience to Boatim. Specialized in growth marketing, effective sales and purpose-driven communications in startups, he holds a B.Sc. in Online Media from FH Furtwangen, an M.A in Digital Media from HdM Stuttgart. From starting a PhD-Program in Experience Design at TU Berlin with Telekom Innovation Laboratories he moved into the Tech Industry very quickly. As a serial entrepreneur, he founded, amongst others, the global short-term real estate marketplace GoPopUp, in which he oversaw an exit in 2017. After holding different C-level, director, and management positions in ventures such as Travelperk in Barcelona, he founded OGNC, an entrepreneurial consulting co-creagency for growth marketing strategies for clients like LAMY and GoCardless.

About Boatim Inc.

Boatim Inc. is a globally operating online marketplace and special interest social network for both the boating industry and boat users.

Boatim was founded in 2014 and now employs 21 people in Miami (USA) and Barcelona (Spain). The technology startup provides industry-specific software, aimed at facilitating the process of buying and selling boats online.

On www.boatim.com the boating industry can sell and promote products and connect with a fast-growing potential customer base, while boat users can explore and buy boats, connect with like-minded and brands. The platform that can be accessed through mobile devices and desktop, generates revenues through listing placements and subscription plans, as well as on-platform ads. Thanks to the great business model scalability, more revenue streams are planned to be added soon.

Since August 2019 the privately funded startup has become a publicly listed entity, trading at the OTC Venture Market under the trading symbol BTIM.

Contact

Verena Nyc (Corporate Communications) // [email protected]

https://boatim.com/investor-relations

www.otcmarkets.com/stock/BTIM

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including: our ability to retain or increase users and engagement levels; our reliance on advertising revenue; our dependency on mobile operating systems, networks, and standards that we do not control; risks associated with new product development and their introduction as well as other new business initiatives; our emphasis on user growth and engagement and the user experience over short-term financial results; competition; litigation; privacy and regulatory concerns; risks associated with acquisitions; security breaches; and our ability to manage growth and geographically-dispersed operations. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on January 31, 2020, which is available via the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Additional information has also been set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended August 31, 2019. In addition, please note that the date of this press release is June 10, 2020, and any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

SOURCE Boatim, Inc.
His international reputation and commitment to the betterment of others align closely with the mission of the Women of Global Change to empower communities around the world through sustainable service projects and entrepreneurship training.

The Women of Global Change (WGC), an international nonprofit organization that empowers women in business and philanthropy, is honored to announce its appointment of their new international ambassador, Clinton Swaine. Clinton Swaine is the founder, owner, and lead trainer of Frontier Trainings  The World Leader in Experiential Business Trainings. Along with running and operating his own training company for the past 9 years, he has taught on many of the top stages around the globe with world-renowned speakers including T. Harv Eker, Brian Tracy, Bob Allen, Mark Victor Hansen, Bill Bartmann, and many others. He has expanded his global reach by teaching in places such as The United Kingdom, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, South Africa, Egypt, Costa Rica, and Portugal. His international reputation and commitment to the betterment of others align closely with the mission of the Women of Global Change to empower communities around the world through sustainable service projects and entrepreneurship training.

The Women of Global Change (WGC) is a multiple White House award-winning 501(c) 3 organization. The main focus of the WGC local Chapters is to expand collaboration amongst. like-minded leaders. The Women of Global Change impacts communities with educational training, networks, and local community social impact activism, to create a better world for ourselves, other women, children, and all humankind.

Our international ambassador program aims to empower influential servant leaders to bring the mission of The Women of Global Change to communities around the world. "I have first-hand experience with Clinton's passion for philanthropy. He's served alongside us all over the world. Combine his heart for change with his unmistakably quirky and engaging style of leadership, and there is no doubt that he will bring something totally unique to our organization." - Cheyenne Hunt-Majer, Board Member of The Women of Global Change.

The Women of Global Change currently has national US Chapters in Atlanta, GA, Denver, CO, Las Vegas, NV, Orlando, FL, & Atlanta Perimeter, GA, Austin TX, Chicago & Springfield Ill, Vancouver BC, Seattle WA, Toronto, ON, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Les Brown, one of the WGC Ambassadors stated, "The Women of Global Change organization has managed over the years to create an environment where people can find the tools, the nurturing, the support and the encouragement to make a difference on this planet."

For more information about Clinton Swaine, please visit https://frontiertrainings.com/.

For more information on the impact of the Women of Global Change and information about the next International Adventure Summit and how you can be a part of the journey, you can go to http://www.womenofglobalchange.com/.
The shots that killed Olof Palme left behind not just a body and a pool of blood but a murder mystery that would endure for more than 30 years.

It was shortly after 11pm on Friday, February 28, 1986 and Sweden's colourful but divisive prime minister was walking through the freezing streets of Stockholm with his wife Lisbet.

The couple were without their bodyguard, having sent him home earlier that day before deciding to visit a local cinema, which was showing a well-reviewed new film called The Brothers Mozart.

After leaving the auditorium, they had said goodbye to their son Marten and his girlfriend, who had come along too, and started walking back to their apartment.

At 11.21pm, the killer struck.

The shots that killed Olof Palme left behind not just a body and a pool of blood but a murder mystery that would endure for more than 30 years

It was shortly after 11pm on Friday, February 28, 1986 and Sweden's colourful but divisive prime minister was walking through the freezing streets of Stockholm with his wife Lisbet. Pictured: The aftermath of the shooting

A man emerged from the shadows, wandered calmly up behind Palme, pulled a Smith & Wesson Magnum revolver from his pocket and fired two rounds.

One grazed Lisbet, causing minor injuries. The other entered the back of Palme's neck and severed his carotid artery, killing him almost instantly.

The assailant, who wore a dark jacket, was seen jogging away down an alley. He went up a flight of steps towards a busy road and effectively disappeared.

His victim was taken to hospital and pronounced dead on arrival shortly after midnight.

That was more than 34 years ago.

Over the intervening decades, police have dedicated hundreds of thousands of hours and more than 600 million krone [51.2 million] to tracking down the killer, filling a warehouse with 250 shelves full of case files, 11 of them dedicated to audio and video recordings.

More than 130 people have falsely confessed to being the mysterious killer in black.

And as recently as last month, the five detectives still working full-time on the investigation were receiving between three and four tip-offs a week.

One of the many colourful lines of inquiry was the subject of extensive research by the late Stieg Larsson, Swedish author of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, who spent years researching claims that Palme was murdered in an elaborate plot orchestrated by South African spies.

One of the many colourful lines of inquiry was the subject of extensive research by the late Stieg Larsson, Swedish author of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Indeed, the dramatic circumstances of this grisly assassination on the streets of Stockholm could have leapt straight from the script of one of the so-called Scandi Noir dramas  such as The Killing, The Bridge and Wallander  that have so captivated British audiences in recent years.

But now, finally, the police's work is done. And they do not believe Stieg Larsson's theory.

Instead, at a press conference yesterday morning, Krister Petersson, the prosecutor leading the inquiry, identified Palme's likely assassin as one Stig Engstrom, a former soldier and member of a Stockholm gun club.

There is, Petersson said, 'reasonable evidence' Engstrom carried out the crime because he detested the prime minister's socialist beliefs.

At a press conference yesterday morning, Krister Petersson, the prosecutor leading the inquiry, identified Palme's likely assassin as one Stig Engstrom, a former soldier and member of a Stockholm gun club

'We can't get around one person as the perpetrator: he is Stig Engstrom,' declared Petersson.

'How he acted is how we believe the murderer would have acted... he was also part of a circle that was very strongly critical of Olof Palme and his politics.'

Engstrom worked in a nearby office and was one of about 20 witnesses who came forward to say they were present at the murder scene.

However, only a court can pronounce him definitively guilty, Petersson added. And because the suspect killed himself in 2000 at the age of 66, no proper trial can now take place.

With this in mind, police chiefs have decided there is little point in continuing their costly inquiries, so one of the world's longest murder investigations has been closed.

Stig Engstrom had first emerged as a major suspect two years ago, after a Swedish journalist contacted police with evidence that Engstrom might have borrowed the murder weapon from a firearms dealer he had met at a gun club.

The journalist described the man as a loner with few prospects whose career had stalled, resulting in a 'drive to be recognised, to make something of himself'.

Police took DNA samples from Engstrom's relatives, while the Press promptly dubbed him 'Skandia man' because he worked at the head office of the Skandia insurance company close to the murder scene.

Palme's son Marten announced that Engstrom's description matched that of a man seen loitering outside the cinema, while a pedestrian who witnessed the shots being fired said he thought it 'very possible' that Engstrom was the killer.

Stig Engstrom had first emerged as a major suspect two years ago, after a Swedish journalist contacted police with evidence that Engstrom might have borrowed the murder weapon from a firearms dealer he had met at a gun club

The conflicting witness statements Engstrom gave led detectives to conclude his story didn't add up.

That it should have taken so long to identify him as the killer is due partly to appalling flaws in the initial police investigation, in which vital clues were missed.

The crime scene was not secured, which led to the wrongful arrest of one innocent man and the wrongful conviction of another.

Then there were the many enemies Palme made in his political career.

The son of a rich industrialist, Palme (whose name is pronounced 'Ulof Palmer') was born in 1927 and had a privileged upbringing before embracing socialism after World War II.

Elected to the Swedish parliament in 1957 for the Left-wing Social Democratic Party, he became prime minister in 1969 and began a rapid expansion of his country's welfare state, increasing taxes, strengthening trade unions, extending free childcare and giving tub-thumping speeches about inequality.

But if his domestic policies riled opponents at home, it was Palme's pronouncements on foreign affairs  at the time of the Cold War  that made headlines elsewhere.

Attacked for his perceived support of Moscow and endorsement of communist regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua, he vigorously opposed the war in Vietnam, once comparing the U.S. bombing of Hanoi to the Nazi construction of the Treblinka death camp.

Palme was also a leading opponent of apartheid-era South Africa, calling for sanctions against the white government in both his first term as PM, which continued until 1976, and a second that stretched from 1982 until his death.

His stances on these and other issues were why his assassination gave rise to so many conspiracy theories linking the killing to vested interests.

Grieving citizens laid hundreds of flowers at the site of Palme's murder

The first suspect to be arrested, just 17 days into the investigation, was drug addict Victor Gunnarsson, who was allegedly linked to far-Right groups.

Several witnesses claimed he had made hateful comments about Palme in the run-up to the shooting.

Particles found on Gunnarsson's clothing also suggested he had recently fired a gun  but this was not proven to be the murder weapon and he was soon released, though he was kept under observation by a secret task force.

They failed to turn up any new evidence and Gunnarsson later emigrated to the U.S., where  to the excitement of conspiracy theorists  his body was found in 1994 in woods in North Carolina, with two gunshot wounds to the head.

Indeed, the dramatic circumstances of this grisly assassination on the streets of Stockholm could have leapt straight from the script of one of the so-called Scandi Noir dramas. Pictured: Palme's funeral

Next in the police's sights was the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a group that in the early 1980s had murdered several of its former members, leading Palme to classify it as a terrorist organisation.

But although 22 arrests were made in January 1987 after police raids on the homes of several suspected members and at a bookshop linked to the group, no one was ever charged with the crime.

Fast forward two years and the focus shifted to petty criminal Christer Pettersson (no relation to the prosecutor), who bore a strong resemblance to e-fit pictures of the suspect that had just been made public.

He was then identified by both Palme's widow Lisbet and his son Marten at a police ID parade, and jailed for life for the assassination, in 1989, after a trial in which the judges were split.

Pettersson was freed on appeal later that year, after it emerged that police had 'contaminated' the line-up by telling the witnesses he was an alcoholic.

By then, other wild theories about the killing were doing the rounds. Some blamed a cohort of Swedish police officers with far-Right views (who were rumoured to have celebrated Palme's murder by drinking champagne), while others pointed the finger at Sweden's own security services.

Naturally, the KGB was also blamed: at a secret meeting in Switzerland, Soviet agents had supposedly entertained the idea of having Palme 'swept away' for refusing to follow the orders of Kremlin handlers.

A 2005 book called Blood On The Snow linked the murder to claims that Palme intended to block a lucrative deal for the Swedish arms firm Bofors to supply the Indian government with artillery.

The son of a rich industrialist, Palme (whose name is pronounced 'Ulof Palmer') was born in 1927 and had a privileged upbringing before embracing socialism after World War II. Pictured: The bloody scene of his murder

Palme was also a leading opponent of apartheid-era South Africa, calling for sanctions against the white government

It was suggested that on the day of Palme's assassination he had held a meeting with the Iraqi ambassador to Sweden, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (who found fame during the second Gulf War as Saddam Hussein's PR man 'Comical Ali'), at which he had been told vast bribes had been paid to secure the contract, in what became known as the 'Bofors Scandal'.

The book claimed this led Palme to contact a senior Bofors figure to ask about the allegation, leading in turn to his murder.

But perhaps the most widespread conspiracy theory revolved around South Africa, where the authorities were upset by Palme's financial and diplomatic support for the anti-apartheid campaign.

After the collapse of apartheid in 1990, a white former security officer, Colonel Eugene De Kock, said the South African government had murdered Palme because of his anti-apartheid stance, which had made headlines just a week before the shooting when he had delivered a high-profile speech against segregation.

But although Swedish detectives travelled to South Africa in 1996 to research the claim, no arrests were ever made.

Which leads us back to Stieg Larsson, the bestselling crime author and journalist who was investigating potential South African links to the crime in the run-up to his own death from a heart attack in 2005.

If his domestic policies riled opponents at home, it was Palme's pronouncements on foreign affairs  at the time of the Cold War  that made headlines elsewhere

Notes compiled by Larsson claimed the apartheid regime had used a middleman in Cyprus and far-Right activists in Sweden to carry out the murder.

After Larsson posthumously achieved fame, his notes were turned into a book called The Man Who Played With Fire by fellow journalist and colleague Jan Stocklassa.

At the time of the book's publication, Stocklassa said: 'When I found his archive, I decided to meet these people [those Larsson suspected] and have added quite a lot of information to the puzzle and handed it over to police.'

Yesterday, despite the prosecutor's announcement, Stocklassa was still insisting that claims Engstrom was the murderer were 'not at all credible' and he remained 'completely convinced' that South Africa was to blame.

Engstrom's ex-wife, whom he divorced in 1999, also insists he is innocent. 'It is out of the question,' she said. 'He was too much of a coward. He wouldn't harm a fly.'

So whatever the authorities say, those conspiracy theories may still have some way to run.
President Donald Trump walks to St. John's Church for a photo opportunity during protests over racial inequality in Washington, DC.

REUTERS/Tom Brenner

A new study based on interviews with hundreds of protesters at recent demonstrations in multiple cities found nearly total opposition to President Donald Trump and strong support for former Vice President Joe Biden.

To the surprise of one of the study's coordinators, sociologist Dana Fisher, every respondent said they would support Biden in the 2020 election.

The findings show how the demonstrations against police violence against Black Americans have transformed into an anti-Trump movement.

The president has done little more than tweet in response to the demands of protesters.

The study also showed white people made up a majority of participants across all protest events.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Researchers studying the massive protests catalyzed by the brutal death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police uncovered surprising findings on the 2020 presidential race  unanimous support for former Vice President Joe Biden among protesters who responded when asked who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow.

"I never have a survey question where every single person answers the same way," Dana Fisher, a University of Maryland sociologist who specializes in researching activism, told Insider. Fisher coordinated the study alongside University of Michigan political scientist Michael Heaney.

Respondents in the US (255 in total) were asked if they would vote for Biden, Trump, or neither of these candidates. Every person questioned said they would support Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. These were people on the street, not necessarily registered voters, but the results  and the fact that none of those who responded cited a third-party candidate or said they wouldn't vote at all  still shocked Fisher.

"Of those who responded to this question, 100% reported that they would be supporting Joe Biden in the election. ZERO respondents said that they would support Donald Trump or opt not to vote in the election," the researchers said of their findings.

Story continues

The findings show how the protests against police brutality and racism have transformed into an anti-Trump movement. The president has done little to nothing to address the demands of protesters, and earlier this month, he threatened to deploy combat troops to counter unrest without the request of state governors (whom he lambasted as "a bunch of jerks"). Meanwhile, peaceful protesters were recently subjected to tear gas by law enforcement in Washington to pave the way for a Trump photo op.

The researchers, who collected data at weekend protests on June 6 and 7 in Washington, DC, New York City, Los Angeles, and London, interviewed hundreds of people. (They also collected data at a separate demonstration in Washington on June 4.)

It's the first data of its kind available on the protests spurred by the killing of Floyd.

Most white Americans now say racism is a 'big problem' in their country

The study found that people consistently reported being motivated to participate in the protests because of issues regarding police brutality, racial justice, and equity. But the findings also showed that Trump was a key factor in motivating people to take to the streets. In Washington over the weekend, for example, 45% of respondents cited Trump as their motivation for participating in the demonstrations.

The president, who has a well-documented record of racist statements, took a negative tone toward protesters even before he took office. Though the recent protests over police brutality have largely been peaceful, Trump has focused heavily on instances of violence, rioting, and looting. He's blamed these incidents on antifa, a loosely affiliated group of left-wing anti-fascist activists. But there's little evidence to support this.

Trump walks with US Attorney General William Barr, left, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, center, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to visit St. John's Church.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

The protests, which some have characterized as a "revolution," have already inspired congressional lawmakers to put forward policy proposals directed at reforming policing in the US. Localities have moved to defund and even disband police forces. Polling has shown that most Americans support the protests and indicated a seismic shift in the perception of the pervasiveness of racism in the US. Multiple polls have shown that a strong majority of white Americans respondents now say racism is a "big problem" in their country.

Fisher and Heaney's study found that white people made up a majority of participants across all protest events. In the nation's capital over the weekend, 65% of the respondents were white. Similarly, 61% of the respondents in New York City were white, as were 53% of the respondents in Los Angeles.

Protesters are extremely dissatisfied with the state of democracy

Earlier this month, peaceful protesters were violently dispersed by law enforcement outside the White House to clear a path for Trump to take a photo with a Bible at a nearby church. Trump was widely condemned over the incident, which drew comparisons to the tactics of authoritarian regimes and warnings from experts on the erosion of democratic norms under the president.

Based on the findings of this new study, people participating in the recent protests are extremely dissatisfied with the state of democracy. Just 4% of the respondents in Washington said they were "satisfied with democracy," which Fisher said represented a drastic decline from views expressed by respondents questioned during previous demonstrations. At the March for Racial Justice in Washington in September 2017, for example, 28% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the state of democracy.

Respondents were also asked whether they believed some level of violence was justified in the pursuit of political goals. In Washington, 65% said they believed it was justified. Sixty-nine percent said the same in New York City, along with 58% in Los Angeles. Comparatively, just 41% of respondents in Washington in September 2017 said some level violence was justified in the pursuit of political goals. This suggests there could be a correlation between politically inspired violence and dissatisfaction with democracy.

"If voting, running for office, and demonstrating do not work, some people may think that violence is the only way to be heard," Heaney wrote in a recent blog post. "Challengers may reason that power-holders will pay attention to burning buildings, thus forcing concessions from them."

'We are already starting to see policy change'

Separate from Fisher and Heaney's work, University of Connecticut political scientist Jeremy Pressman and his colleague Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard, have been tracking protests in the Trump era and documenting their size and scope.

Pressman told Insider the US was experiencing a "watershed moment."

"The Black Lives Matter movement laid the groundwork for this in terms of the ideas, messages, and policy demands. Now it appears a wide swathe of American society, often led by teens, has taken up those ideas and been willing to publicly take them up, not just privately support," Pressman said. "We are already starting to see policy change, or at least vigorous discussions, about police funding, police militarization, Confederate statues, voter registration, civilian oversight boards, etc."

The protests are "large, sustained, broad in geographic scope and local," Pressman said, and that's "very important," with the related demonstrations in all 50 states, the nation's capital, and the US territories of Guam and Puerto Rico.

"In combing through social media, I've seen variations of, 'We've never had a protest this big here,' or, 'We never have protests,' many times. All over the place, even in right-leaning states," Pressman added. "I'd also note the frequency. In many places, these are sustained protests."

The protests have been so large that Pressman and his colleagues are still processing reports on their size, and he was unable to offer specific size estimates. But he did note that it was possible the June 6 protest in Washington was the largest, as up to 200,000 people attended, according to officials' estimates, Politico reported.

Demonstrators walk toward the White House on June 6.

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

'This isn't going away'

With Fisher's findings suggesting about one-fifth of the participants at the Washington and New York City events were first-time protesters, and over one-quarter of respondents in Los Angeles saying the same, it seems there's a lot of new energy behind this movement and that the demonstrations will not end in the near future. But there could also be a decline in the days to come because of the response from politicians and the fact the protests appear to be working.

"I predict that we're going to see a dip now, just because we do see some progress," Fisher said, adding that it's tough to sustain protests of this size in hot summer weather.

But Fisher said there have also been calls for a big protest on the National Mall on Juneteenth (June 19  a holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the US), and there is an effort in New York City to mobilize 1 million people for the same day.

"This isn't going away," Fisher said, adding that people appear to be transitioning away from spontaneous protests in multiple locations in the same city, and they're moving toward a traditional format that involves more organization, fostering larger turnout. Fisher said the US would likely continue to see protests of this variety up until Election Day.

Read the original article on Business Insider
NYPD Officers spray mace into the crowd of protesters gathered at Barclays Center to protest the recent killing of George Floyd on May 29, 2020 in Brooklyn, New York. Demonstrations are being held across the US after Floyd died in police custody on May 25th.

Russia has said that protests and civil unrest in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd are a "domestic issue," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman told CNBC, although it has concerns for any abuses of human rights there, and anywhere else in the world.

"We consider it to be a domestic affair of the United States and we don't want to interfere," Dmitry Peskov, a top Russian official and President Putin's spokesman, told CNBC on Tuesday.

"At the same time we are concerned about respect for human rights in every corner of the world and that's applicable for the United States as well," he said, adding that the febrile mood in the U.S. had appeared to contribute to "Russophobia," with some high-profile commentators (most notably by President Obama's former national security adviser, Susan Rice) insinuating that Russia had helped to stoke unrest in the U.S.

Russian officials were outraged at the accusations that Russia might be responsible for the social unrest that followed the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in late May and whose death sparked mass protests across America against racism and police brutality.

"When we first saw the outbreaks of those riots in the U.S. the first thing we heard is one of the voices saying 'well, probably, Russia is staying behind those riots'. It's very hard for us to understand these comments and the reason for them," Peskov said.

"What is going on in the States with these riots and protests is America's domestic affair. We hate it when someone is trying to interfere in our domestic affairs and we never do it ourselves," he added, saying Russia's "concern about human rights, our concern about respect for human rights in every country in the world is quite natural."
Vogue Editor-in-Chief Dame Anna Wintour has admitted to letting 'hurtful and intolerant behavior' go unchecked during her 32-year reign at the fashion magazine, as well as not doing enough to champion black staffers and designers.

The admissions came as part of a company-wide memo Wintour authored to her staff last Thursday amid nationwide unrest and protests calling for racial equality, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on Memorial Day.

'I want to start by acknowledging your feelings and expressing my empathy towards what so many of you are going through: sadness, hurt, and anger too,' Wintour began.

'I want to say this especially to the Black members of our team  I can only imagine what these days have been like. But I also know that the hurt, and violence, and injustice we're seeing and talking about have been around for a long time. Recognizing it and doing something about it is overdue.'

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Vogue Editor-in-Chief Dame Anna Wintour has admitted to letting 'hurtful and intolerant behavior' go unchecked during her 32-year reign at the fashion magazine, as well as not doing enough to champion black staffers and designers

Anna Wintour's message to her staff 'I want to start by acknowledging your feelings and expressing my empathy towards what so many of you are going through: sadness, hurt, and anger too. 'I want to say this especially to the Black members of our team  I can only imagine what these days have been like. But I also know that the hurt, and violence, and injustice were seeing and talking about have been around for a long time. Recognizing it and doing something about it is overdue. 'I want to say plainly that I know Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators. We have made mistakes too, publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. 'I take full responsibility for those mistakes. It cant be easy to be a Black employee at Vogue, and there are too few of you. I know that it is not enough to say we will do better, but we will  and please know that I value your voices and responses as we move forward. I am listening and would like to hear your feedback and your advice if you would like to share either. 'I am proud of the content we have published on our site over these past few days but I also know that there is much more work to do. Please dont hesitate to be in touch with me directly. I am arranging ways we can discuss these issues together candidly, but in the meantime, I welcome your thoughts or reactions. 'This is a historic and heartbreaking moment for our country and it should be a time of listening, reflection, and humility for those of us in positions of privilege and authority. It should also be a time of action and commitments. On a corporate level, work is being done to support organizations in a real way. These actions will be announced as soon as possible.' Advertisement

First reported by Page Six, the note was sent out to staffers three days before Adam Rapoport, the editor-in-chief of another Conde Nast publication, Bon Appetit, resigned from his post after a photo surfaced of him in brownface, exacerbating a race-based controversy regarding pay equity in the outlet's video department.

'I want to say plainly that I know Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators ,' Wintour, who's also Conde Nast's artistic director, continued.

'We have made mistakes too, publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I take full responsibility for those mistakes.

'It can't be easy to be a Black employee at Vogue, and there are too few of you. I know that it is not enough to say we will do better, but we will  and please know that I value your voices and responses as we move forward. I am listening and would like to hear your feedback and your advice if you would like to share either.

'I am proud of the content we have published on our site over these past few days but I also know that there is much more work to do. Please don't hesitate to be in touch with me directly. I am arranging ways we can discuss these issues together candidly, but in the meantime, I welcome your thoughts or reactions.'

Andre Leon Talley, a former editor-at-large for the publication and former close friend of Wintour, has painted a scathing picture of the famously icy doyenne, insisting in his upcoming memoir that she is 'not capable of human kindness'.

Talley says he has 'huge emotional and psychological scars' from his decades long friendship with Wintour, which he claims came to a tumultuous end when she allegedly severed ties with him because he'd become 'too old, too overweight and too uncool'.

Talley claims there is an 'endless' list of writers, stylists and models who she has cast onto a 'frayed and tattered heap during her powerful rule'.

He also said she failed to thank him for writing an op-ed for the Washington Post praising her September 2018 cover featuring Beyonce as culturally significant for the black community.

'Not one quick email from Anna Wintour,' he wrote. 'Editors I've worked with for decades didn't understand the immense importance of this occasion simply because they are not capable of understanding. None of my contemporaries have seen the world through black eyes.'

Andre Leon Talley, a former editor-at-large for the publication and former close friend of Wintour, has painted a scathing picture of the famously icy doyenne, insisting in his upcoming memoir that she is 'not capable of human kindness'

How 'Nuclear Wintour' rules with an iron fist 'DEVIL WEARS PRADA' BAN The 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada is widely seen as a satire of Wintour, but she apparently did not approve. Reports at the time claimed Wintour had threatened to blacklist designers who took up cameos in the film - although she denied this. STAFF FEAR HER WRATH One of Wintour's former assistants recalled that 'you definitely did not ride the elevator with her, and you definitely couldn't say anything to her'. A biographer said she would 'drag staff back from lunch' to redo their work and rule with an iron fist at 'horribly tense editorial meetings'. TRASH ASSIGNMENT One anecdote says that Wintour would not be denied when a photographer failed to give her a piece of film - assigning a junior reporter to go through trash bags and recover it. MET GALA MICRO-MANAGEMENT Vogue organizes the glitzy annual Met Gala in New York City but the high-society bash is subject to Wintour's strict rules - including a ban on taking selfies, a ban on serving onions to prevent bad breath, and tight control over the seating plan. EDITOR 'FROZEN OUT' Former Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley claims in a new memoir that he was dropped from Wintour's circle because he 'suddenly became too old, overweight, and uncool' for her. He nonetheless says the book is 'in many ways a love letter' to her. DRESS CODE Fashion writer Plum Sykes once told a BBC documentary that the clothes that Vogue staffers would wear at work 'are clothes that most people would wear on their most glamorous night out of the year', saying that if she went into Wintour's office 'I would need to wear high heels and look groomed'. INSURANCE BILL In 2004, Wintour was ordered to pay $140,000 to a New York state compensation board after allegedly failing to provide insurance coverage to an employee, according to reports at the time. CAREER ADVICE Wintour was quoted in Alastair Campbell's 2015 book Winners And How They Succeed as saying that 'everyone should be sacked at least once in their career because perfection doesn't exist'. Advertisement

Wintour's long-held reputation for ruling with an iron fist has earned her the nickname 'Nuclear Wintour'.

But addressing her staff last Thursday, Wintour tried to assure Vogue workers that she is listening and learning from past mistakes now.

'This is a historic and heartbreaking moment for our country and it should be a time of listening, reflection, and humility for those of us in positions of privilege and authority. It should also be a time of action and commitments,' she wrote.

'On a corporate level, work is being done to support organizations in a real way. These actions will be announced as soon as possible.'

In 2019 Wintour said there was 'much more of an awareness of inclusivity and diversity' in the fashion industry, 'not only in terms of race but also in terms of body positivity and health'.

'I think that we are seeing a lot of change, I don't think maybe as much as everybody would like but it's definitely moving in the right direction,' she said at the time.

But she also said: 'Until there is truly a voice at the table things will not change the way that they should. I feel we have long way to go.'

While the extent of the corporate shake-up at Conde Nast is yet to be seen, Adam Rapoport, the long-time editor in chief of Bon Appetit magazine, resigned Monday hours after a photograph showing him in brownface surfaced online.

The image in question was originally posted on Instagram by Rapoport's wife Simone Shubuck in 2013, and shows the couple dressed up as derogatory Puerto Rican stereotypes at an apparent Halloween costume party in 2004.

'Me and my papi,' Shubuck had captioned the image, followed by the hashtag 'boricua', a term often used by Puerto Ricans to identify themselves.

The photo prompted a widespread backlash and led to dozens of current and former Bon Appetit staffers calling for Rapoport to step down.

In a statement posted to his Instagram page on Monday evening, Rapoport confirmed he would indeed resign from his post, saying he will now take time to 'reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being and to allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place'.

Rapoport also conceded that he hadn't 'championed an inclusive vision' during his 10 years in charge at the magazine, which has come 'at the expense of Bon Appetit and its staff, as well as our readers'.

'They all deserve better,' Rapoport continued. 'The staff has been working hard to evolve the brand in a positive, more diverse direction.

'I will do all I can to support that work, but I am not the one to lead the work. I am deeply sorry for my failings and to the position in which I put the editors of BA. Thank you.'

Adam Rapoport, the long-time editor in chief of Bon Appetit magazine, resigned on Monday hours after a photograph surfaced online showing him in brownface

The image in question was originally posted on Instagram by Rapoport's wife Simone Shubuck in 2013, and shows the couple dressed up as derogatory Puerto Rican stereotypes at an apparent Halloween costume party

In a statement posted to his Instagram page on Monday evening, Rapoport confirmed he would indeed resign from his post, saying he will take time to reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being and to allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place.'

The admissions came as part of a company-wide memo Wintour authored to her staff last Thursday amid nationwide unrest and protests calling for racial equality, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on Memorial Day (pictured: Vogue's June 2020 issue)

Anti-racism protests have been raging in America for more than two weeks since Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

Floyd, an unarmed black man, was pinned down on the neck for nearly nine minutes by a white police officer despite his pleas that he could not breathe.

After footage of the arrest came to light, the Minneapolis police officers were fired and the cop kneeling on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with murder.

Days of Black Lives Matter protests led to looting in many cities, prompting a combative response from President Trump who threatened to send troops.

Wintour recently took aim at Trump for his bizarre suggestion that people could be injected with cleaning products to treat coronavirus.

'I think we've all gotten past the idea that life will simply snap back to normal. Except our president, who thinks we should try drinking disinfectant mixed with sunshine. To which I say, you first,' she said.

Writing in her magazine, she said she would support Joe Biden in the 2020 race after his 'decisive victories' in the primaries.

'He is unmistakably a man of character and has so many qualities that we are in desperately short supply of in Washington right now: decency, honor, compassion, trustworthiness, and best of all experience,' she said.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Blue, the state's leading health insurer, announced today additional actions being taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic:

For Commercial Fully Insured Employer Group Health Plans:

One-Month Reduction in Premium: Fully insured employer group customers will be provided a 15% reduction in premium costs to be applied to the billing statement issued in June for their July invoices.

Fully insured employer group customers will be provided a 15% reduction in premium costs to be applied to the billing statement issued in June for their July invoices. Extension of Waiting Period Waiver through Sept. 30 : Employees of fully insured employer group who have been furloughed, had hours reduced or lost employment will have the re-enrollment waiting period waived upon returning as full-time employees.

Employees of fully insured employer group who have been furloughed, had hours reduced or lost employment will have the re-enrollment waiting period waived upon returning as full-time employees. Lower-Cost Group Plan Option: Fully insured employer group customers that do not already offer the maximum number of health plans allowed will have the option to add a lower-cost Florida Blue health plan to their current offering. This will give employers more coverage options, and their employees can then choose whether to move into this new plan or stay in their current plan.

These efforts are expected to provide at least $50 million in health care cost relief to Florida Blue's commercial fully insured employer group customers. This follows the announcement last month of $100 million in health care cost relief to members of its Individual, commercial fully insured employer group and Medicare Advantage plans.

"The combined health, wellness and financial impacts of COVID-19 are unprecedented and deeply widespread across Florida," said Pat Geraghty, president and CEO of Florida Blue. "As we come together to navigate the difficult road ahead, it is critical that our members have access to their health care services. We want to lessen the financial burden for our employer groups and their employees that could create a barrier to obtaining much-needed care."

Florida Blue is implementing additional plan and policy changes to help its members stay healthy and its employer groups cope financially during COVID-19.

Extended COVID-19 Coverage :

Waive COVID-19 Cost-Sharing Through Aug. 1 .: Florida Blue will waive cost-sharing for its members who must undergo treatment for COVID-19, including in-patient hospital admissions. This applies to all Florida Blue members with Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare Advantage (excluding Part D drug plans) and other Individual plans, as well as all fully insured employer group health plans.

Increased Access to Virtual Health Care Services:

Expanded No-Cost Access to Teladoc for Most Plans: Florida Blue is extending virtual health access for its members in response to COVID-19. In March, no-cost access to Teladoc, our telehealth partner, was added for Medicare Advantage members and any cost shares waived for ACA/Individual members and many employer group health plan members. Those services are being extended, as Teladoc will continue to provide 24/7 bilingual virtual health care via phone, video or mobile app for non-emergency medical concerns. Sanitas Medical Centers, which exclusively serve thousands of Florida Blue members at locations across Florida, continues to offer bilingual virtual care at a $0 cost share to its current patients via its mySanitas Chat app.

Florida Blue is extending virtual health access for its members in response to COVID-19. In March, no-cost access to Teladoc, our telehealth partner, was added for Medicare Advantage members and any cost shares waived for ACA/Individual members and many employer group health plan members. Those services are being extended, as Teladoc will continue to provide 24/7 bilingual virtual health care via phone, video or mobile app for non-emergency medical concerns. Sanitas Medical Centers, which exclusively serve thousands of members at locations across Florida, continues to offer bilingual virtual care at a cost share to its current patients via its mySanitas Chat app. Waive cost share for Behavioral Health Virtual Visits through Aug. 1 : Florida Blue is waiving the member's cost share for virtual behavioral health office and outpatient services for Individual plans, as well as all fully insured employer group health plans.

Florida Blue is waiving the member's cost share for virtual behavioral health office and outpatient services for Individual plans, as well as all fully insured employer group health plans. Virtual Member Support Expanded at Florida Blue Centers: The Florida Blue Centers are furthering efforts to provide virtual support to members, or members of the community who have recently lost health coverage due to job loss or experienced other financial hardships due to COVID-19. Neighborhood nurses, community specialists and local sales and service consultants are available to help with answering questions about COVID-19, finding testing site locations and referring individuals to food, utility, rent, and many other types of relief programs. Assistance is also available for navigating the health care system, finding virtual care options, checking enrollment eligibility and other concerns by calling 877-352-5830, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time, Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday .

Increased Access to Primary Care and Behavioral Health for Medicare Advantage:

Expanded No-Cost Access to Primary Care and Behavioral Health Visits through End of Year: Florida Blue has extended $0 cost share access through Dec. 31 for primary care and behavioral health office visits and outpatient services. This applies to Medicare Advantage plans.

Increased Dental Access and Support:

One-Month Reduction of 50% for Commercial Fully Insured Employer Dental Plan Premiums: Fully insured employer group customers will be provided the reduction in dental premium cost to be applied to the billing statement issued in June for their July invoices.

Fully insured employer group customers will be provided the reduction in dental premium cost to be applied to the billing statement issued in June for their July invoices. Expanded No-Cost Access to Emergency Tele-Dentistry Through September: Florida Blue Dental has made special arrangements with its in-network dentists to provide emergency virtual dental assistance. The virtual visit will be $0 cost-share, and this service is available through Sept. 30 for members with Florida Blue dental coverage.

Florida Blue Dental has made special arrangements with its in-network dentists to provide emergency virtual dental assistance. The virtual visit will be cost-share, and this service is available through for members with Florida Blue dental coverage. 0% Dental Rates Increases Through September: Any dental rate changes for Florida Blue Dental members will be on hold through Sept. 30 . This 0% dental rate increase applies for all ACA/Individual members and fully insured small and mid-market employer groups.

Any dental rate changes for Florida Blue Dental members will be on hold through . This 0% dental rate increase applies for all ACA/Individual members and fully insured small and mid-market employer groups. New PPE Reimbursement for Dentists for Remainder of Year: Florida Blue Dental contracted network dentists will be reimbursed on a per member visit to assist with the costs of personal protective equipment (PPE) and office sterilization. This reimbursement will be in effect through Dec. 31, 2020 . This means members will not be billed for these charges.

Free Access to Bilingual Behavioral Health Helpline for all Floridians:

Florida Blue continues its partnership with New Directions Behavioral Health to offer a bilingual helpline to assist all Floridians with the stress they may feel during the COVID-19 health crisis. The toll-free helpline connects individuals with specially trained behavioral health counselors who can assist anyone experiencing feelings of stress, anxiety, trauma and grief due to the health crisis. Any Floridian, whether or not they have Florida Blue insurance, can call the 24-hour helpline at 833-848-1762.

All Floridians and Florida Blue members can visit floridablue.com/COVID19 for the latest information on coronavirus. Florida Blue members with specific coverage questions can call the phone number on the back of their member ID card or 1-800-352-2583. Medicare members can call 1-800-926-6565 or visit floridablue.com/Medicare/COVID19.

About Florida Blue

Florida Blue, Florida's Blue Cross and Blue Shield company, has been providing health insurance to residents of Florida for more than 75 years. Driven by its mission of helping people and communities achieve better health, the company serves more than 5 million health care members across the state. In total, Florida Blue and its affiliated companies serve 27 million people in 35 states. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., it is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

SOURCE Florida Blue

Related Links

https://www.floridablue.com


Yes Bank rose 1.51% to Rs 30.35 after the bank on Tuesday (9 June) said that Madhu Kapur and other family members have withdrawn a case filed against the bank in 2013.

The families of the founders of Yes Bank, Ashok Kapur (died in the November 2008) and Rana Kapoor, were locked in a dispute over the nomination of people to the board of the bank.

Madhu Kapur, wife of the bank's late co-founder Ashok Kapur, had filed a petition in the Bombay high court seeking various reliefs including recognition of the family's right to participate in the management of the bank. The suit also sought to restrain individual directors from acting as such or holding themselves out as directors of the bank, and restrain the bank from making or continuing with any application to any regulator/authorities for reclassifying the Kapur familys shareholding into a non- promoter shareholding.

Yes Bank announced on Tuesday (9 June) that Kapur family has agreed to reclassify its shareholding as "non-promoter" as per an intimation on 30 May. The suit was withdrawn following reclassification of the familys holding and the Bombay High Court allowed the withdrawal. As on 31 March 2020, Madhu Kapur and Rana Kapoor held 1.12% each in Yes Bank.

Yes Bank was under moratorium for 13 days in March 2020. It resumed full-fledged banking operations from 18 March 2020. This came after a consortium of eight public and private banks, led by State Bank of India, agreed to infuse capital into Yes Bank to rescue it from the brink of a collapse. These financial institutions had together pooled in Rs 10,000 crore as investment at Rs 10 per share in Yes Bank when it faced pressure from depositors.

Yes Bank reported a net profit of Rs 2628.61 crore in Q4 March 2020 as against a net loss of Rs 1506.64 crore in Q4 March 2019. Total income rose 44.4% to Rs 12,115.53 crore in Q4 March 2020 over the corresponding period last year.

The bank generated an extraordinary income (net of tax) of Rs 6,296.94 crore during the quarter on account of writing down of certain Basel III additional tier-1 (AT-1) bonds amounting to Rs 8,415 crore.

Excluding this extraordinary item, Yes Bank reported a net loss from ordinary activities of Rs 3,668.33 crore in Q4 March 2020 compared with a net loss from ordinary activities of Rs 1,506.64 crore in Q4 March 2019.

Yes Bank is a full service commercial bank' providing a complete range of products, services and technology driven digital offerings, catering to corporate, MSME & retail customers.

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In another of today's many ironies, the angry left is essentially invoking the concept of states' rights, something normally anathema to the left's ideals.

These ideologues of the left, to whom the passion du jour also ironically dictates their ever-changing moral absolutes, have concluded that a laissez-faire approach to civic order suddenly makes sense. Abolish the police. What could go wrong?

We will set aside the legal question of whether municipal authorities have the authority to place their constituents at risk. Courts no doubt will hash it out, for better or worse. But for now the fever swamp that is the far left is fully embracing the concept of local control to a degree that would startle their Marxist forefathers.

Three cheers for local control. It is the concept that allows individual states to experiment with different approaches to governance to see what works best.

We are about to undergo a potentially massive test of what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called "a laboratory" of "social and economic experiments" to see what works. The beauty of it, according to Brandeis, is that whatever the outcome for the experimenters, the experiment can be performed "without risk to the rest of the country."

Brandeis did not say such experimentation would be without risk to the experimenters. Much of the nation will be unaffected by the experiments about to begin in places like Minnesota, where the state's largest city, Minneapolis, is on the verge of "dismantling" its police department.

Despite the insistence of SJWs that government must have a hand in every realm of personal activity from educating children to removing gallstones, our nation's Founders were more in tune with what the Bible had in mind: a limited government. Indisputably, God ordains government to suppress evil and punish evildoers (Romans 13:17 and 1 Peter 2:1314). In short, police and military actions. But you will be hard pressed to find any biblical justification for government's meddling in activities best left to the church, families, and individuals.

Ironically, the one thing the left's latest mania would remove from government is the one thing government exists to perform.

About 300 New York police officers were injured in the recent rioting, which the mainstream press intentionally and misleadingly described as "protests." Subsequently, former police commissioner Bernard Kerik said 600 New York cops may soon resign, having seen the writing on the wall. If Minneapolis goes ahead with its threat to do away with the police department, add another 900 police officers to the list.

Even if Minneapolis doesn't completely eliminate its police force and goes the way of Chicago and L.A. and any of the other municipalities in the grip of leftist politicians considering cuts in funding or reductions in staffing, how many police officers do you guess will be willing to stay on those jobs once their civilian bosses have shown they will not have their backs?

What caliber of cop would be attracted to work for such cop-hating people?

If Minneapolis and similar cities think their cops aren't good now, just wait until only the most desperate for a job will be willing to risk their lives on the thin blue line in any capacity once these purges are completed.

The exodus won't be limited to police. Expect similar flight from businesses and residents who face being left to the mercy of enforcers of political correctness instead of the protection from harm by sworn, armed police. A Minneapolis manufacturer whose business was destroyed by rioting arsonists has announced the decision to relocate. "They didn't protect our people," the owner of 7-Sigma said of city officials. And that was when the city still had cops.

What law-abiding family will choose to subject its children to the chaos certain to follow once criminals understand armed police cannot be summoned? What loony logic dictates the president of the Minneapolis City Council to conclude with a straight face that calling for the police in an emergency "comes from a place of privilege."

In another irony, another anathema of SJWs may come to pass because of their own experimentation in foolishness: the rich will get richer and the poor poorer  the rich being those police departments that value police work unimpeded by racial political correctness, the poor being those departments that value identity politics above public safety.

Let the experiments begin.

Mark Landsbaum is a retired journalist, former investigative reporter, editorial writer, and columnist. He also is a Christian, husband, father, and grandfather. mlandsbaum@gmailcom.
We feel privileged to start this collaboration with Catalent, which we consider the best partner for the development of a novel COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Together, our two experienced teams will work toward finding a safe and efficacious solution to prevent COVID-19 as soon as possible.

Catalent, the leading global provider of advanced delivery technologies, development, and manufacturing solutions for drugs, biologics, cell and gene therapies, and consumer health products, today announced that it has signed an agreement with Spicona, Inc. to develop a virus-like protein (VLP)-based vaccine against COVID-19. Under the terms of the agreement, Catalent will use its proprietary GPEx cell line development technology to develop a cell line expressing the recombinant VLP at its Madison, Wisconsin facility.

Spicona is focused on research and development in the field of immunology and vaccinology. Its pipeline is being built around novel compounds for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, with an immediate focus on the development of a novel, safe and protective COVID-19 vaccine. Spicona is led by a team of experienced vaccine experts headed by Dr. Kaspar Banziger, Dr. Reinhard Gluck, and Dr. Gaurav Gupta, together with a prestigious international advisory board, whose members have been involved in the development of several vaccines, including the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) vaccine in 2003. Today, millions of children and adults are safely immunized with vaccines developed and brought to market by the experts who make up the Spicona team.

Catalents GPEx technology creates stable, high-yielding mammalian cell lines with high speed and efficiency. The advantages of applying GPEx technology span from early feasibility studies to clinical manufacturing, through to commercial-scale production. GPEx technology is used with therapeutic candidates in more than 120 ongoing clinical trials.

We feel privileged to start this collaboration with Catalent, which we consider the best partner for the development of a novel COVID-19 vaccine candidate, commented Kaspar Banziger, CEO, President, Spicona, Inc. Together, our two experienced teams will work toward finding a safe and efficacious solution to prevent COVID-19 as soon as possible.

Catalents GPEx technology and the Madison facility provide proven technology and expertise that are a perfect fit for Spiconas unique vaccine approach to address COVID-19. commented Mike Riley, Region President, Catalent Biologics, North America. He added, We are pleased to be working with Spicona and other partners on all major classes of COVID-19 vaccines in development.

Catalents Madison facility provides mammalian cell line development, process development, process validation, formulation development and drug substance manufacturing ranging from pre-clinical to commercial stage. The site recently commenced an expansion to provide additional clinical and commercial production capacity at the 2,000 or 4,000-liter batch scale.

About Spicona

Spicona is focused on research and development in the field of immunology and vaccinology and is currently building a pipeline of novel compounds for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. The company is led by a team of experienced vaccine experts headed by Dr. Kaspar Banziger, Dr. Reinhard Gluck and Dr. Gaurav Gupta, who have developed several new vaccines, including a SARS vaccine in 2003, and brought multiple successfully to the market. Today, millions of children and adults are immunized with these vaccines. Spiconas immediate focus is the research and development of a novel, safe and protective COVID-19 vaccine. Spicona is headquartered in New York City, NY. For more information, visit http://www.spicona.com

About Catalent Biologics

Catalent Biologics is a global leader in development, manufacturing and analytical services for new biological entities, cell and gene therapies, biosimilars, sterile injectables, and antibody-drug conjugates. With over 20 years of proven expertise, Catalent Biologics has worked with 600+ mAbs and 80+ proteins, produced 13 biopharmaceutical drugs using GPEx cell line development technology, and manufactured 35+ commercially approved products. Catalent has recently acquired MaSTherCell, a technology-focused cell therapy development and manufacturing partner with expertise in autologous and allogeneic cell therapy that complements Catalents industry-leading expertise and commercial success in gene therapy development, manufacturing and adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector production. Together, Paragon Gene Therapy and MaSTherCell have produced over 100 GMP batches across 60+ clinical and commercial programs. For more information on Catalent Biologics, visit http://www.catalent.com/biologics

About Catalent

Catalent is the leading global provider of advanced delivery technologies, development, and manufacturing solutions for drugs, biologics, gene therapies, and consumer health products. With over 85 years serving the industry, Catalent has proven expertise in bringing more customer products to market faster, enhancing product performance and ensuring reliable global clinical and commercial product supply. Catalent employs over 13,500 people, including over 2,400 scientists and technicians, at more than 40 facilities, and in fiscal year 2019 generated over $2.5 billion in annual revenue. Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey. For more information, visit http://www.catalent.com

More products. Better treatments. Reliably supplied.


New York  Governments must step up to lead the fight against a growing tide of false, inflammatory and misleading information that threatens to worsen the already severe impacts of the virus, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

By standing with their people to build a trusted relationship, national governments can mitigate the worst threats of misinformation, and in turn more loss of lives and livelihoods. UNDP is working closely with national institutions, as well as with media and civic actors, to help the fight against the spread of disinformation and misinformation, including supporting initiatives to use social media and websites to spread accurate information on COVID-19.

Advice about COVID-19 changes swiftly as medical understanding evolves, and this rapid evolution and the crippling impact on lives and livelihoods have led to a public thirst for information. Social media, informal news sources and fringe journalism have filled the void, often sowing fear, stigmatization, discrimination and confusion.

The tsunami of fake cures, scapegoating, conspiracy theories, and false news stories that has flooded media in general and online platforms in particular has created a chaotic information environment  one that is not only undermining the effectiveness of public health measures, but also leading to real life violence and discrimination, confusion, fear and, arguably, long-term societal harm, said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.

Learning the lessons from HIV and Ebola, we must join forces to reject misinformation and stigma, anchoring our responses and advocacy in science, evidence, human rights and solidarity. While many actors bear a responsibility to counter misinformation, real progress will not be achieved without government leadership, Steiner added.

Tools and tactics

The challenge today is that disinformation and misinformation tools and tactics are now literally at the fingertips of anyone who wants to co-opt COVID-19 for their own agenda, including government agencies. For example, researchers at the Bruno Kessler Foundation analysed 112 million public social media posts related to the pandemic and found that 40 per cent came from unreliable sources, and that almost 42 per cent of over 178 million tweets related to COVID-19 were by bots. Meanwhile, Reuters Institute found that around a third of social media users have reported seeing false or misleading information about the coronavirus, while research by Pew suggests that people who receive their news primarily through social media are more likely to be exposed to false content.

In Somalia, where some of the most influential voices are sheikhs and imams (religious leaders), UNDP joined with the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs for a three-day campaign in Mogadishu, led by Shekih Ali Dheere and other senior figures. Videos and social media graphics have reached around a million people on social media and are being used for TV and radio spots.

UNDP is also supporting Somalias Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs to set up a website that will provide guidelines for safe burial techniques and help mobilize the religious community to donate and deliver supplies like masks and soap and to host various information resources. UNDP set up the first Somali coronavirus website and partnered with Somalias biggest telecom provider, Hormuud, to deliver a recorded message on millions of phones with useful COVID-19 info and directions to the site.

In Lebanon, UNDP, in partnership with the Ministry of Information, WHO and UNICEF, launched a national campaign to counter the spread of false information, to reduce public vulnerability to information pollution and to build government capacity to counter it. A fact-checking site is being developed and an awareness campaign was launched to encourage the public to stop and think before sharing information.

In Guinea-Bissau, UNDP and the Ministry of Health supported the development of a fact-checking site (www.nobaschecker.org), which helps Lusophone citizens access trustworthy information on COVID-19. By building a wide community of fact-checking journalists, doctors, and economists from Guinea-Bissau and around the world, the site aims to fight disinformation around the pandemic by providing facts and verified news.

Transparency and collaboration

The best weapons any government can deploy now are transparency, diplomacy and collaboration. Governments can lead by example, demonstrating how to use technology with integrity. They can negotiate with big tech companies, promote national digital literacy campaigns, sponsor fact-checking efforts and allow journalists to do their jobs. This investment will pay off many times over in the form of inclusive and informed societies and engaged citizens, said Malin Herwig, Director, ai, of UNDPs Oslo Governance Centre.

There is very little to gain for governments that conceal information, suppress opinion or sow divisions around COVID-19. In the immediate future, it will lead to overwhelmed health systems, angry and befuddled citizens, overstretched security forces and deepening divisions and inequalities. In the long term, it will continue to erode democratic values and principles, human rights and social cohesion, Herwig added.

Last month, the United Nations launched Verified, an initiative to combat the growing scourge of COVID-19 misinformation by increasing the volume and reach of trusted, accurate information. It will provide information around three themes: science  to save lives; solidarity  to promote local and global cooperation; and solutions  to advocate for support to impacted populations. It will also promote recovery packages that tackle the climate crisis and address the root causes of poverty, inequality and hunger. In partnership with UNDP, other UN agencies, UN country teams, influencers, civil society, business and media organizations, the initiative will distribute accurate content and work with social media platforms to root out hate and harmful assertions about COVID-19.
[June 10, 2020] Three Americaneagle.com Clients Win Progress Sitefinity Website of the Year Awards

CHICAGO, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Progress Titanium Partner, Americaneagle.com, is pleased to announce that three of its customers have been named 2020 Progress Sitefinity Website of the Year Award winners. Established in 2011, the awards recognize websites powered by Progress Sitefinity for their creativity, design, user experience, and overall website presentation. This year, 39 websites were nominated as finalists across 13 categories. With more than 11,000 votes cast, the following Americaneagle.com clients took home the top prize in their respective categories. The Association for Institutional Research (AIR) received the Website of the Year Award in the Associations & Non-Profit category. The site features an integration with the association accreditation software, ACGI to support a seamless user journey.

Winning the award for the Ecommerce category, electrical supply distributor, Kirby Risk was recognized for achieving B2B and B2C operational efficiency through multiple partner integrations.

was recognized for achieving B2B and B2C operational efficiency through multiple partner integrations. Arizona financial institution, Hughes Federal Credit Union won the award in the Financial category. The site boasts a responsive, intuitive design with Spanish versions for 85% of the pages.



"We couldn't be more thrilled to be recognized across three categories for the Sitefinity Website of the Year Awards," Americaneagle.com President, Michael Svanascini said. "We're excited to continue this momentum and keep pushing the boundaries of the solutions we can build with this platform."

"We'd like to congratulate Americaneagle.com and all of this year's Sitefinity Website of the Year winners on this incredible accomplishment," said Gary Quinn, SVP, Core Field Operations, Progress. "Progress values its partnership with Americaneagle.com and this achievement shows how their team has continued to develop innovative digital experiences on the Sitefinity platform." To explore all of the winning websites, visit the Sitefinity Website of the Year Awards page. About Americaneagle.com Americaneagle.com is a full-service, global digital agency based in Des Plaines, Illinois that provides best-in-class web design, development, hosting, post-launch support and digital marketing services. Currently, Americaneagle.com employs 500+ professionals in offices around the world including Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, London, Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Washington DC, Switzerland, and Bulgaria. Some of their 2,000+ clients include Dairy Queen, FASTSIGNS, Soletrader, Stuart Weitzman, WeatherTech, and the American Management Association. For additional information, visit www.americaneagle.com Contact:

Michael Svanascini, President

[email protected]

847-699-0300 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/three-americaneaglecom-clients-win-progress-sitefinity-website-of-the-year-awards-301073445.html SOURCE Americaneagle.com

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Propzy, a Vietnam-based startup that guides consumers through the entire process of a real estate transaction, has raised a $25 million Series A led by Gaw Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asia, the early-stage venture arm of SoftBank Group. Other investors included Next Billion Ventures, RHL Ventures, Breeze, FEBE Ventures, RSquare and Insignia.

Instead of proptech, Propzy founder and CEO John Le prefers the term "firetech" to describe the startup, using "fire" as an acronym for financial, insurance and real estate technology. Founded in 2016, Propzys technology covers almost every stage of a real estate transaction, from brick-and-mortar sales centers to an online marketplace for listings, financial products like mortgage lending and, finally, enterprise software for property managers and tenants.

The companys Series A will be used to grow its product line and provide a balance sheet for its expansion into direct mortgage financing. Most of Propzys current operations are in Ho Chi Minh City. It plans to expand into Hanoi through the rest of this year and 2021, before exploring other Southeast Asian markets, including potentially Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Propzy currently has 30 brick-and-mortar sales centers, with a total of 400 sales staff. Over the next 18 months, it expects to increase those numbers to 70 sales centers and 1,300 sales staff.

The sales centers complement Propzys online marketplace, with tens of thousands of properties pre-screened by its staff before they are entered into listings. Le said Propzy has handled more than $1 billion in property transactions since its launch, making it the largest offline-to-online real estate network in Vietnam.

Le is a serial entrepreneur and his past startups include LoanTrader, a mortgage trading platform that was backed by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and GE Capital. In 2009, he went to Vietnam to launch an international credit bureau with TransUnion. During that time, he realized how burdensome the process of renting or buying property there can be.

Story continues

In the United States, consumers benefit from listing platforms like Zillow and Trulia, licensed real estate agents and escrow offices. In Vietnam, however, Le said many listings are on classified sites, similar to Craigslist, and are often not handled by licensed agents. There is also no standardized listing data, which makes comparing multiple properties difficult for consumers.

To replicate the U.S. experience in Vietnam, "you cant just launch a website and put properties on it," Le said. "We built an offline agency, but you need to utilize tech to increase its efficiency and performance, so we are an offline-to-online platform. That high-touch customer service needs to go all the way, not just for property matchmaking but to help both parties successfully close and settle transactions.

Propzy built an automated valuation model using data it has gathered over the last four years to assess homes, help recommend prices and show customers comparable properties. On the financing side, the model is also used by Propzys partner banks to help customers get pre-approved for loans based on property value.

After buyers move into an apartment unit, they can use Propzys tenant software to report issues or book maintenance services and amenities. If they decide to sell or rent the property, they can also do so through the platform.

The pandemic has put downward pressure on Vietnams real estate market, with a 70% reduction in Propzys business during the countrys nationwide lockdown in April. On the other hand, more people were doing searches online and inquiring about selling property, Le said.

"Were carrying an all-time high pipeline of deals, as consumers start to have more confidence and know where the market will be in two to three months," Le added. "People still need houses, so deals in the pipeline are three times over the fourth-quarter average. We expect them to close quickly, so we are on a good path to hitting our numbers at the end of the year."

In a press statement about the investment, Gaw Capital managing partner Humbert Pang said, "Given the favorable macroeconomics exhibited by Vietnam and Gaw's conviction in offline-to-online business models in real estate, we are excited by our investment into Propzy. We see the value proposition and steadfast vision that Propzy and its management team brings to the table and are therefore very optimistic in Propzys business and the market within which it operates."
SPRINGFIELD - Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, head of the Springfield Diocese since 2014, has been named archbishop for the St. Louis Diocese, the diocese announced Wednesday morning.

Rozanski has been tapped by Pope Francis to succeed Most Reverend Robert J. Carlson who is retiring. His installation is planned for August 25.

Rozanski is scheduled to be introduced to St. Louis at 11 a.m. Wednesday in a news conference that will be carried live over the Archdiocese of St. Louis page on Facebook.

He is scheduled to return to Springfield Thursday to meet with local media.

Rozanski, 62, was ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in 1984. He was named auxiliary bishop Archdiocese of Baltimore in 2004, which at the time made him the youngest bishop in the United States.

He also served on the College of Consultors for the Archdiocese and as the Vicar for Hispanics. At the time of his ordination as a bishop in 2004, he was the youngest bishop in the United States. He also served on the College of Consultors for the Archdiocese and as the Vicar for Hispanics.

Bishop Rozanski serves as the Roman Catholic Co-Chair of the Polish National Catholic/Roman Catholic Dialogue since November 2017. Since October 1, 2012 he has served as the Episcopal Moderator of the National Association of Holy Name Societies. He also serves on the Advisory Council of the National Association of Catholic Chaplains, and the National Catholic Partnership on Disability.

Bishop Rozanski served on the National Committee for the Protection of Youth and Young People from January 2007 until June 2014. From 2012 until March, 2015, Bishop served on the National Advisory Council of the USCCB for a 3 year term. He also served on and chaired the Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs Committee of the USCCB.

In his time in Springfield, Rozanski has addressed the issue of sexual abuse by the clergy.

He has entered agreements with area district attorneys pledging to report all cases where clergy are accused of sexual misconduct, and in March announced the formation of a 10-member independent task force to advise the bishop on how to address the issue.

This is a developing story and more information will be added later.
The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) will not declare Maharashtra HSC result 2020 for 12th class on Wednesday (June 10), according to latest update. It is learnt that the announcement of result has been delayed because the evaluation work of the exam papers is still incomplete due to coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier, the High Court had directed the Maharashtra government to announce Maharashtra HSC, SSC Results 2020 by June 10. The state government had earlier agreed to release the result on June 10 but according to reports, Maharashtra Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad hinted a delay in the declaration of Maharashtra HSC Result 2020. The minister hinted that it is likely that the result will be announced in July.

According to Gaikwad, the answer sheets were collected from post offices and the centres to be sent to the teachers for evaluation and the government is monitoring the process since May 18, 2020. The Maharashtra Board has recently cancelled the Geography Exam and announced that the students will be awarded average marks.

The Maharashtra class 12 board examinations for 2019-20 were conducted from February 18 to March 20 across nine divisions of the state - Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Mumbai, Kolhapur, Amravati, Nashik, Latur and Konkan. Around 1.5 million students sat for the examination.

Maharashtra government has also cancelled the Final year university exams in the state due to the rising coronavirus COVID-19 cases in the state.
Chronic bone and joint diseases, such as osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis, affect millions of people worldwide, particularly the elderly, degrading their quality of life. An important factor in both of these diseases is the excessive activity of bone-dissolving cells called osteoclasts. Osteoclasts are formed through differentiation from a certain type of immune cell called macrophage, after which they acquire their new role in the maintenance of bones and joints: breaking down bone tissue to allow osteoblasts-another type of cell-to repair and remodel the skeletal system.

Broadly, two intracellular processes are involved in this differentiation: first, transcription-in which a messenger RNA (mRNA) is created from the genetic information in DNA-and then, translation-in which the information in the mRNA is decoded to produce proteins that perform specific functions in the cell. Since the discovery of the role of a particular protein called RANKL in osteoclast formation, scientists have solved a considerable portion of the puzzle of which cell signaling pathways and transcription networks regulate osteoclast generation. Yet, the post-transcription cellular processes involved remain to be understood.

Now, in a new study published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, scientists at Tokyo University of Science, Japan, unraveled the role of a protein called Cpeb4 in this complex process. Cpeb4 is part of the "cytoplasmic polyadenylation element binding (CPEB)" family of proteins, which bind to RNA and regulate translational activation and repression, as well as "alternative splicing" mechanisms that produce protein variants. Dr Tadayoshi Hayata, who led the study, explains: "CPEB proteins are implicated in various biological processes and diseases, such as autism, cancer, and red blood cell differentiation. However, their functions in osteoclast differentiation are not clearly known. Therefore, we conducted a series of experiments to characterize a protein from this family, Cpeb4, using cell cultures of mouse macrophages."

In the various cell culture experiments conducted, mouse macrophages were stimulated with RANKL to trigger osteoclast differentiation and the evolution of the culture was monitored. First, the scientists found that Cpeb4 gene expression, and consequently the amount of Cpeb4 protein, increased during osteoclast differentiation. Then, through immunofluorescence microscopy, they visualized the changes in the location of Cpeb4 within the cells. They found that Cpeb4 moves from the cytoplasm into nuclei, while presenting specific shapes (osteoclasts tend to fuse together and form cells with multiple nuclei). This indicates that the function of Cpeb4 associated with osteoclast differentiation is likely carried out inside the nuclei.

To understand how RANKL stimulation causes this Cpeb4 relocalization, the scientists selectively "inhibited" or represses some of the proteins that become involved "downstream" in the intracellular signaling pathways triggered by the stimulation. They identified two pathways as necessary for the process. Nonetheless, further experiments will be required to fully learn about the sequence of events that takes place and all the proteins involved.

Finally, Dr Hayata and his team demonstrated that Cpeb4 is absolutely necessary for osteoclast formation using macrophage cultures in which Cpeb4 was actively depleted. The cells in these cultures did not undergo further differentiation to become osteoclasts.

Taken together, the results are a stepping stone to understanding the cellular mechanisms involved in osteoclast formation. Dr Hayata remarks: "Our study sheds light on the important role of the RNA-binding protein Cpeb4 as a positive "influencer" of osteoclast differentiation. This gives us a better understanding of the pathological conditions of bone and joint diseases and may contribute to the development of therapeutic strategies for major diseases like osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis." Hopefully, the deeper level of understanding of osteoclast generation facilitated by this study will ultimately translate into improved quality of life for people living with painful bone and joint diseases.
He is best known for starring in Top Gear and then later, The Grand Tour.

And James May showed his charitable side as he helped to distribute food to a community centre in West London on Wednesday.

The star, 57, has been serving as a delivery driver for charity The Felix Project amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen cash-strapped families struggle to feed their families.

Helping out: James May, 57,showed his charitable side as he helped to distribute food to a community centre in West London on Wednesday

James cut a casual figure for the day, sporting a grey T-shirt and a pair of matching trousers with red-lace trainers.

The TV presenter also sported a hi-vis jacket and put safety first with a face mask as he arrived at the centre.

James was joined by several other volunteers as he helped to unload the delivery truck.

The Felix Project's website states: 'The Felix Project collects fresh, nutritious food that cannot be sold.

Support: The star has been serving as a delivery driver for charity The Felix Project amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen cash-strapped families struggle to feed their families

Low profile: James cut a casual figure for the day, sporting a grey T-shirt and a pair of matching trousers with red-lace trainers

Low profile: James also sported a hi-vis jacket and put safety first with a face mask as he arrived at the centre

'We deliver this surplus food to charities and schools so they can provide healthy meals and help the most vulnerable in our society.

'We delivered food for 1.63 million meals in April, to help people in need during lockdown.'

James shot to fame as a co-presenter of iconic programme Top Gear, which he starred in alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond from 2003-2015.

He now hosts The Grand Tour alongside Hammond and Clarkson.

Packages: James was joined by several other volunteers as he helped to unload the delivery truck

Charity: The Felix Project's website states: 'The Felix Project collects fresh, nutritious food that cannot be sold

It also says: 'We deliver this surplus food to charities and schools so they can provide healthy meals and help the most vulnerable in our society'

In December they appeared in the first of a series of specials called The Grand Tour Presents: Seamen.

The feature-length episode saw the captivating trio head off on an adventure across the waters of Vietnam and Cambodia, where they will captain three very different types of vessels.

In the special, Jeremy, James and Richard headed out on a 800km journey through Vietnam and Cambodia that begins Tonle Sap Lake.

Support: 'We delivered food for 1.63 million meals in April, to help people in need during lockdown'

Career: James shot to fame as a co-presenter of iconic programme Top Gear, which he starred in alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond from 2003-2015

Current: James now hosts The Grand Tour alongside Hammond and Clarkson

During their trip, the trio had to weave their way through a series of challenges and unexpected mishaps as they make their way to the Mekong Delta.

To go on this epic adventure, Jeremy headed out on a Vietnam-era PBR (Patrol Boat River), which most famously appeared in Apocalypse Now.

And Richard channelled his inner Don Johnson by setting off on a Miami Vice style speedboat, while James headed out on a classic 1939 wooden river cruiser.
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SIOUX CITY -- The Woodbury County Sheriff's Office is bracing for a potential influx of COVID-19 cases after seven inmates tested positive for the respiratory illness over the weekend.

The seven inmates were all asymptomatic and had been around other inmates prior to being tested. The seven are now in isolation. The remaining 140 inmates have been tested, Sheriff Dave Drew said he expected to receive more results this week.

With the daily totals of new cases in Woodbury County slowing recently, Drew said he had hoped the jail might avoid the coronavirus pandemic. That was not to be the case.

"I'm surprised it took this long to get to this point, so here we are," Drew said Tuesday at a press conference.

Given the close confines inside the facility, jail staff expect to see more inmates test positive.

"I would be shocked if we didn't have more," Chief Deputy Sheriff Tony Wingert said.

Wingert said two jail officers had tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two weeks. It's believed that they contracted the virus outside the jail, Wingert said. About 25-50 percent of the jail staff has been tested for the virus, he said. Arrangements are being made to have the whole staff tested.

Once jail officers know how many positive cases they're dealing with, inmates will be reassigned to new units to isolate those who have tested positive. Wingert said the limited space in the jail is a concern.

"We just don't have enough room," he said. "We don't know how to juggle them yet."

Infected inmates were awaiting transfer to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Oakdale to begin serving their prison sentences. The Iowa Department of Corrections requires new inmates to test negative for COVID-19 before accepting them. Wingert said Woodbury County had tested 10 inmates who were scheduled to be transferred to prison. The county received two of the positive results Saturday, another on Sunday, and four more on Tuesday afternoon.

It has yet to be determined how the inmates, who all had been in custody for some time, contracted the virus. Wingert said all new inmates have their temperatures taken and are questioned by a nurse before they are admitted into the jail's booking area. New inmates spend a day or two in isolation after booking before they're assigned to a cell block.

Wingert said all inmates have been given masks to wear over their noses and mouths, and inmates also help wipe down their cells with antibacterial solutions. Since the pandemic began, Wingert said staff has increased cleaning procedures. The facility is wiped down daily and a mister that sprays antibacterial solution is used throughout common areas in the jail. Inmates also can request that it be used in their cells.

Drew said nurses are on duty around the clock and help monitor inmates and staff for COVID-19 symptoms.

As the coronavirus began to spread across the country this spring, the sheriff's office began decreasing the jail population in hopes of limiting inmate exposure by delaying jail sentences or allowing some inmates to serve their time on electronic monitoring devices. Daily inmate counts averaged about 234 prior to the pandemic. The jail population was about 150 on Monday, Drew said.

Drew said his staff developed a plan to handle a COVID-19 outbreak weeks ago and has begun to implement it in hopes of getting through the present situation in a couple weeks.

"We're kind of in new territory here," he said.

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MINNEAPOLIS - The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said Wednesday, as he announced initial steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency in the wake of George Floyd's death.

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This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this May 28, 2020, file photo, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, center, listens as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey becomes emotional during a news conference in Minneapolis, Minn. George FloydAos death and the protests it ignited nationwide over racial injustice and police brutality have raised questions about whether Arradondo Ai or any chief Ai can fix a department that's now facing a civil rights investigation. (Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via AP, File)

MINNEAPOLIS - The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said Wednesday, as he announced initial steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency in the wake of George Floyd's death.

Faced with calls from activists and a majority of City Council members to dismantle or defund the department, Arradondo also said he would use a new system to identify problem officers early and intervene.

"We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart," he said at a news conference more than two weeks after Floyd died after a white officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man's neck even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.

Activists have pointed to racial inequities and brutality, as well as a system that rarely disciplines problem officers. The officer who had his knee on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, had 17 complaints against him and had been disciplined only once.

Arradondo said "taking a deliberate pause" to review the union contract is the first step toward change. He said its debilitating for a chief when an officer does something that calls for termination, but the union works to keep that person on the job.

Advisers will look for ways to restructure the contract to provide more transparency and flexibility, he said. The review will look at critical incident protocols, use of force, and disciplinary protocols, including grievances and arbitration, among other things.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo listens to a question from the media where he discussed police reforms, Wednesday, June 10, 2020 in Minneapolis. The meeting follows the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in police custody after video shared online by a bystander showed former officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck during his arrest as he pleaded that he couldn't breathe. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

"This work must be transformational, but I must do it right," Arradondo said.

The union's contract expired on Dec. 31 but remains in effect until there is a new one. Talks began in October and eventually included a state mediator; the last discussion was in early March, when the coronavirus led to talks breaking off.

Union President Bob Kroll didn't immediately return messages.

Arradondo sidestepped a question about whether he thought Kroll, often seen as an obstacle to changes, should step down. He also didnt directly answer a question about whether residents should worry about a slowdown in police response time as a pushback against attempts to transform the department. Some City Council members have said in the past that their wards saw such slowdowns when they complained about police action.

In an interview later, Arradondo said it's up to the union's members to decide whether Kroll should resign. But he said he hopes the union leadership takes to heart "the fierce urgency of now." He said he doesn't believe rank-and-file officers are an obstacle to change. He also said citizens "should not be concerned or worried" about any slowdown in service.

"Our men and women continue to show up," he said. "They're showing up on their shifts. They're showing up out there in the community. They're answering the calls."

Arradondo fired the four officers who were at the scene of the encounter with Floyd the day after his death. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter, and the other three officers are charged with aiding and abetting.

One of those officers, Thomas Lane, posted bail of $750,000 and was released Wednesday with conditions. Chauvin, J. Kueng and Tou Thao remained in custody.

Arradondos predecessor, Janee Harteau, and Mayor Jacob Frey are among those who have complained that the police union is a roadblock to change. Frey, who praised Arradondo's announcement, said this week that the city has difficulty terminating and disciplining officers because of the union. Bob Bennett, an attorney who has sued the department many times over police misconduct allegations, has said that the union has more sway over police conduct than chiefs do.

While a majority of City Council members called for dismantling the department, they provided no clear plan on how that would happen. Frey has said he would not support abolishing the department.

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is prosecuting the four officers, told The Associated Press in an interview earlier Wednesday that hes not calling for dismantling or defunding the department but that the people who are "should be listened to rather than dismissed."

He said it was fair to question whether community groups that fight against gun violence should get more money, for example, and whether schools with officers should also have more nurses and counsellors.

"Nobodys saying defund safety," Ellison said. "What theyre doing is theyre challenging the 19th, 20th century model of how we deliver safety ... how its not really working very well and coming up with alternatives."

Arradondo, the citys first African American police chief, joined the Minneapolis Police Department in 1989 as a patrol officer, working his way up to precinct inspector and head of the Internal Affairs Unit, which investigates officer misconduct allegations. Along the way, he and four other black officers successfully sued the department for discrimination in promotions, pay and discipline.

He was promoted to assistant chief in early 2017, then became chief later that year, after Harteau was fired for the way she handled the fatal police shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian native who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home.

Many hoped Arradondo could alter the culture of a department that critics said too frequently used excessive force and discriminated against people of colour. Arradondo made some quick changes, including toughening the departments policy on use of body cameras. But critics have said more needs to be done.
In the latest round of military contact between India and China, army delegations from both sides on Wednesday held talks in eastern Ladakh to ease tensions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) where rival soldiers have been locked in a stand-off for more than five weeks, two senior officers familiar with the development said.

The Indian and Chinese delegations, led by major general-ranked officers, met at Patrolling Point 14 near the Galwan area as part continuing efforts to resolve the confrontation that has eased slightly with limited disengagement of forces at some LAC hotspots, said one of the two officers, both of whom requested anonymity.

The discussions between the military commanders of the two armies, Major General Abhijit Bapat, commander of the Karu-based HQs 3 Infantry Division and his Chinese counterpart were positive and frank, said the second officer cited above. It was, however, unclear what progress the border talks made.

This was the fourth round of talks between the two-star generals to break the stalemate that began with a violent confrontation between rival patrols near Pangong Tso on the night of May 5-6.

China has begun withdrawing its soldiers from three hot spots along the LAC, with India reciprocating by pulling back its forces deployed in those pockets, as reported by Hindustan Times on Wednesday.

The focus is now on resolving the situation on the northern bank of Pangong Tso, which has been at the centre of the ongoing border scrap and where troops are still locked in a face-off.

More military talks are planned in the coming days to ease border tensions. Limited military disengagement has taken place at the Galwan valley, Patrolling Point 15 and the Hot Springs area where Chinese soldiers have pulled back two to three km along with their infantry combat vehicles.

HT first reported on Monday that activity at the three sites declined after a seven-hour meeting between the military commanders of the two armies, Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps and Major General Liu Lin, commander of the PLA in the South Xinjiang region, at Moldo on the Chinese side of the LAC.

While the disengagement of forces along the LAC is a positive move, the army remains concerned about the Chinese military build-up in so-called depth areas or areas within the Chinese side of the LAC, the officers said, stressing that India had matched Chinas military moves.

The Chinese build-up involves the deployment of more than 8,000 troops, tanks, artillery guns, fighter bombers, rocket forces and air defence radars, and full de-escalation would require the soldiers and the weapons systems being pulled back to their original locations, the officers said.

Around 250 soldiers of the two armies clashed near Pangong Tso last month with the scuffle leaving scores of troops injured. While an immediate flare-up was avoided as both armies stuck to protocols to resolve the situation, tensions swiftly spread to other pockets along the LAC.

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Egyptian expatriates in Kuwait are feeling wary after Kuwait's parliament proposed a draft law that would reduce the number of foreign workers in order to preserve the demographics of the country. Kuwaiti citizens are currently a minority in their country.

The proposal was presented by parliament member Badr al-Mulla, who said in televised remarks on May 27 that the draft law not only addresses how Kuwaiti citizens feel about being a minority in their own country, but it also adjusts the percentage of nationalities so that each nationality does not exceed a certain percentage as determined by the proposed law.

Mullas proposal set the percentage of nationalities compared to the number of Kuwaiti citizens so that the percentage of Egyptians stands at 10% of the overall Kuwaiti population.

Egypt has the second highest number of expatriate workers in Kuwait at 510,000, or 20.8% of the total expatriate workforce in the country and about 17.9% of the total employment in Kuwait, according to statistics released by Alshall Consulting Company.

Alshall data revealed that India has the highest number of expatriate workers in Kuwait at 917,000, or 32.2% of the total employment and about 37.3% of the total expatriate workforce.

According to the draft law, the percentage of Indian workers would stand at 15%, Filipinos at 10%, Sri Lankans at 10%, Bangladeshis at 5%, Nepalese at 5%, Vietnamese at 5% and Pakistanis at 5%. The remaining nationalities would not exceed 3%.

The draft demographics law prohibits government agencies from renewing the residence of foreign workers, in addition to preventing the change of residence permits from domestic to private or converting visiting characteristics to work residency or joining a family.

The draft law exempts citizens of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the spouse and children of a Kuwaiti citizen, domestic workers and workers recruited from government contracts, heads and members of diplomatic missions dispatched to Kuwait and their spouses and children under the condition of reciprocity, heads of state and members of their families, and members of military missions of countries with which Kuwait has security agreements.

Mulla believes the new legislation helps Kuwait avoid the repeated procrastination of countries in the evacuation of their nationals for fear of exacerbating the unemployment crisis in their homelands.

Once the draft law is approved, the Kuwaiti government would commence working to reduce the number of other nationalities, according to the legislative proposal.

The proposed legislation prohibits the recruitment of any worker whose nationality exceeds the specified percentage; this remains in effect until the foreign nationality falls below the legal percentage.

The legislation also enacted a set of penalties for its violators, including 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of no more than 100,000 dinars ($325,000), or the application of one of the two penalties to every public employee who ordered or agreed to bring in a worker if the nationality to which the worker belonged exceeded the stipulated percentage.

This is in addition to five years of imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 dinars ($162,000) for each public employee who contributed to converting a person's visit to a work residence or renewing it in a different way, in addition to dismissal from the job.

According to data of the Central Administration for Statistics issued in January 2019, the population of Kuwait reached 4,420,110  1,335,712 were Kuwaitis, while the number of foreign workers and residents reached 3,084,398.

Egyptian expatriates in Kuwait are feeling cautious after the announcement of the draft law; some fear an uncertain future in their own country.

I have been living here for 30 years and I do not know [if] when I come back to Egypt I will find a job or not, one Egyptian expatriate told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

Hanafi Mahmoud, an expatriate who works as a physician, said Kuwait relies heavily on foreign workers in various businesses and sectors, and losing them would harm the Kuwaiti economy and businesses.

It is both detrimental to the Kuwaiti economy and the Egyptian expats who have been working there for years, he told Al-Monitor.

Egyptian parliamentarians have welcomed the new legislation, saying Egyptian workers returning from Kuwait would contribute to boosting Egypt's economy.

[In] parliament, we have agreed to distribute the coming workforce from Kuwait among different sectors in accordance with their specializations, Bassant Fahmy, member of the parliaments economic committee and an economist, told Al-Monitor.

About 4,000 illegal Egyptian expatriates out of 6,000 in Kuwait have returned home over the past few weeks in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Fahmy said the parliament has agreed to provide jobs for these employees whether through the small- and medium-sized enterprises law or through the public-private partnership law.

We are happy with the return of the Egyptian expatriates from Kuwait, and we hope this will contribute to our national economy, she told Al-Monitor.

But some economists say that many of the workers coming from Kuwait would be considered irregular workers, or workers who are paid daily and work without health insurance or social security. Irregular workers in Egypt are already suffering due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Hassan el-Haywan, an economics professor at Ain Shams University, said that many irregular workers are suffering amid the coronavirus pandemic, and with the arrival of the workers repatriated from Kuwait, the problem will be exacerbated.

The government has already given a grant of 500 Egyptian pounds (about $31) to irregular workers already present in Egypt.

Several economic sectors, in particular trade and tourism, have already been devastated by the coronavirus lockdown. Egyptian officials say billions of dollars are being lost monthly because of suspended trade and tourism.

Unemployment rates will soar, and more and more people will not be able to afford their needs amid the economic crisis now taking place in Egypt, Haywan told Al-Monitor.
Members of the DC National Guard have tested positive for COVID-19 after many were called in during the series of mass protests across the nation's capital last week.

Spokeswoman Lt. Col. Brooke Davis said the Guard would not release the exact total, but U.S. officials said they believe it is not a large number, at least so far.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information publicly, according to McClatchy news.

While some Guard troops responding to the protests wore protective equipment, most were not wearing masks and it was largely impossible to maintain any social distancing.

National Guard members deploy near the White House as peaceful protests are scheduled against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 6, 2020 in Washington, DC. An unspecified number of National Guard members have tested positive for the coronavirus. Most members attending the protests were seen without face masks and it was difficult to maintain social distancing

In a statement, Davis said unit commanders were responsible for ensuring their troops adhered to guidelines calling for Guard members to wear protective equipment and maintain social distancing where practical.

She said personnel were medically screened for the coronavirus prior to their arrival, and will be screened before they leave.

According to officials, about 5,000 Guard members were in D.C. for the civil unrest, including as many as 1,200 from the D.C. Guard.

The remainder came from 11 states: Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah.

According to officials, Guard members returning to their home states may remain on duty status and continue to be paid for two additional weeks so that they can be in quarantine if they were at risk for coronavirus infections.

Aaron Covington of St. Louis, greets National Guard soldiers and DEA police as they protest on Saturday, in Chinatown, Washington

The federal Bureau of Prisons, which dispatched dozens of officers from its riot teams to the streets of Washington, is now offering coronavirus tests for those officers in Washington, an agency spokesman said Tuesday.

The agency has also been making arrangements for officers to be tested when they return to the community where they regularly work, if they don't want to be tested in Washington, the spokesman, Justin Long, said. The agency can't compel its employees to be tested.

A spokeswoman for the FBI - which has had agents questioning people arrested at protests across the U.S. and also deployed its elite Hostage Rescue Team in Washington - would not answer questions about whether the agents would be tested or whether they were instructed to wear masks while working in the field.

The agency would only say it was working with other officials to "continue to ensure measures are in place to protect the FBI workforce," but did not provide any specific information.
The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, has retrieved eight excavators and mining-related equipment at some illegal mining sites in Tugakrom in the Suaman District of the Western North Region.

The Minister was accompanied by some military personnel for the exercise.

The team observed that about 100 acres of land had been destroyed by the illegal miners at Tugakrom and its environs.

Mr Asomah-Cheremeh urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to prioritise the fight against illegal mining to help sanitise the small-scale mining sector.

The Minister encouraged indigenes who wanted to venture into small-scale mining to apply for licenses, instead of conspiring with foreigners to undertake illegal mining to destroy the environment.

Meanwhile, Mr Asomah-Cheremeh questioned the competence of the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Suaman, Mr Christian Baah, and the District Police Commander, Theophilus Boateng, for their failure to protect the State's interest against illegal mining.

According to the Minister, the DCE and the Police Commander conspicuously failed to protect some nine excavators seized from illegal miners in the area in March, this year.

The Minister told the media that the seized excavators were placed in the custody of the DCE and the Police Commander for Suaman.

However, when the Minister returned later, some major parts of the excavators were missing, thus, making it impossible to transport them.

Interestingly, when the Minister and some security personnel visited Suaman on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, eight of the seized excavators were on illegal mining sites at Tugakrom.

Mr Asomah-Cheremeh wondered how the excavators moved from the custody of the DCE and the Police Commander to the bush for illegal mining.

The visibly angry Minister indicated that he would report the ineptitude of the DCE and the Police Commander to the President at the next Cabinet meeting for disciplinary actions to be taken against them.

A number of mining equipment at some of the sites visited were burnt by the national security operatives as the Minister vowed to crack down on illegal mining.

---GNA
New Delhi, June 10 : Two persons were arrested for allegedly killing a woman and dumping her body in New Usmanpur area of the national capital's north east district, the police said on Wednesday.

The two accused persons have been identified as Nazir (32), a resident of Shastri Park and Anil Singh (22), a resident of New Seelampur.

"At 5.21 p.m. on Monday, an information was received regarding a body which was lying on the footpath, dropped in a coffin," a senior police officer said.

After reaching the spot, the police team found the body, which was of a woman who was in her late twenties.

"The body was wrapped around in a dupatta," the police said.

Following this, a probe was launched and while scanning the CCTV footage of the nearby areas, two men riding a motorcycle were seen dumping a box at the spot in one of the videos.

From the CCTV footage, the police identified Nazir as he had a criminal history. "We conducted extensive raids in various places in order to nab the accused persons. Later, both the men were arrested from New Seelampur's CPJ block," said DCP North East, Ved Prakash Surya.

The mobile phone of the woman was recovered at the instance of Nazir from a drain in front of a government school at Shastri Park, the DCP said.

During the interrogation of the two accused persons, it was revealed that accused Nazir and the deceased woman were known to each other.

"On the day of the incident, the woman came to his shop at Shastri Park and an altercation took place between them, following which, Nazir got angry and strangulated the woman with her own dupatta and packed her body in a carton," police said.

Later, he called his friend to dispose off the dead body.
Nearly 86 per cent cases of coronavirus disease have been reported in the last 40 days, according to Hindustan Times Hindi language publication Hindustan.

Also, 84 per cent of the patients died between May and June, Hindustan further reported.

May was the worst month for India as far as spread of the disease is concerned. One lakh fifty three thousand cases were reported in the 31 days of May, according to Hindustan.

The government issued orders to ease restrictions in the country and restart economic activities from June 1. In these nine days, the country has seen more than 76,000 cases of Covid-19, Hindustan further reported.

Under the latest phase of unlocking, malls, religious places and restaurants also reopened on Monday in various states. Offices and several other establishments have also reopened, except in containment areas with high caseloads.

Indias Covid-19 tally saw a record addition of nearly 10,000 cases on Tuesday to cross 2.6 lakh as hundreds more tested positive for the dreaded virus in several states and union territories (UTs).

The Union health ministry said that central teams have been deployed in 15 states and UTs with districts or municipal bodies witnessing major spurt in cases to assist the local administrations in containment and management of the outbreak.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said India is better positioned in the Covid-19 fight in comparison to many countries but cautioned against any complacency.

Let us also not forget the social vaccine against Covid-19 through strict adherence of norms of physical distancing, hand hygiene and mask/face covers, he said.

India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK, according to the Johns Hopkins University data. Globally, more than 71.5 lakh people have tested positive for the virus ever since its emergence in China last December, while more than 4 lakh have lost their lives.
In record time, the program has already overtaken many of its competitors and other prominent brands on sales velocity and other key performance measures.

Just three short months into a relaunch, following acquisition by Idle Group LLC, IDLE Sleeps affiliate program has become one of the Top 50 programs on ShareASale, zooming past Claire's, Deluxe, FICO, Sears PartsDirect, Nolah Sleep, and more than 6,000 other affiliate programs on the affiliate network.

Idle Group is headed by e-commerce veteran, Craig Schmeizer, who previously co-founded Nectar and parent company Resident, which during his time building the company was named the fastest growing e-commerce company in North America in by Digital Commerce 360.

AM Navigator serves as IDLE's affiliate management agency. Geno Prussakov, leading the agency commented: "IDLE's affiliate program is designed to partner powerfully with affiliates. In record time, the program has already overtaken many of its competitors and other prominent brands on sales velocity and other key performance measures, and more successes are soon to follow."

Converting at nearly 3% across the board, IDLE is yielding a staggering $520+ EPC (Earnings Per Click) to the affiliates that partner with the brand. In fact, IDLE now holds the number one rank among all ShareASale mattress affiliate programs for Earnings Per Click.

"We are very pleased to see IDLE's progress and strong growth, and are enthusiastic about the potential we see for this brand and other brands which have joined the portfolio. The team deserves credit for delivering products being recognized by consumers as being truly top notch," says Schmeizer.

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Vandals who tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol before dumping it in a harbour are likely to escape prosecution due to a legal loophole, experts said last night.

The monument was toppled during a Black Lives Matter protest on Sunday, but police have not made any arrests  despite the moment being recorded on film.

The protesters involved may never be prosecuted as it is unclear who the statue belongs to and there has so far been no complaint from the owner to police.

Under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 prosecutors must prove the statue 'belonged to another'.

Vandals who tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol before dumping it in a harbour are likely to escape prosecution due to a legal loophole, experts said on Wednesday

The monument was toppled during a Black Lives Matter protest on Sunday, but police have not made any arrests  despite the moment being recorded on film

Without an owner coming forward to confirm they did not consent to the damage, the law protects defendants who are able to argue they had an 'honest belief' that the owner would have consented.

Bristol City Council is investigating whether it owns the statue, but even if it does local politicians appear unwilling to prosecute.

Matthew Scott, who runs the BarristerBlogger legal blog, said: 'Normally the owner of damaged property will provide a statement to the police saying 'I did not consent to the damage to my property'.

The protesters involved may never be prosecuted as it is unclear who the statue belongs to and there has so far been no complaint from the owner to police

Protesters tied ropes around the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol city centre, before tearing it to the ground on Sunday

'A prosecution for criminal damage without one would be highly unusual.'

It had been widely assumed that the Colston statue, which had stood in place for 125 years, was owned by the council.

But yesterday Bristol's mayor Marvin Rees admitted ownership had not been '100 per cent established' and the council's legal team were trying to resolve the situation.

Bristol's Society of Merchant Venturers built the monument in 1895, but last night it said it would not be staking a claim for it or making a complaint to police.

Mr Rees previously said: 'As an elected politician, I cannot condone criminal damage... but I am of Jamaican heritage and I cannot pretend that... it was anything other than a personal affront to me to have it in the middle of Bristol.'

One senior barrister said: 'I think the Bristol case with the Colston statue case is dead in the water.'

Under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 prosecutors must prove the statue 'belonged to another'

Last night Avon and Somerset Police confirmed they had made no arrests in relation to the toppling of Colstons statue.

A spokesman added: 'Were in the early stage of our investigation and are currently collating statements and reviewing the large amount of footage available to us.

'Were seeking early investigative advice from the Crown Prosecution Service and will continue to liaise with them as the inquiry progresses.'

Toppled statue of slaver Edward Colston WILL be fished out of Bristol docks and placed in a museum, city's mayor says

Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees said statue will be fished out and put on display

Colston monument will be placed alongside placards from the recent protests

Historians and local experts will be commissioned to 'look into the city's past'

By Amie Gordon for MailOnline

The statue of Edward Colston is to be fished out of a river and put on display in a museum, it was confirmed on Wednesday.

The monument, which had stood in the city centre since 1895, was pulled down and hurled in the River Avon during Black Lives Matter protests on Sunday.

As some 10,000 protesters gathered in the city, footage showed demonstrators heaving the monument down with ropes before cheering and dancing around it.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees confirmed the bust will be fished out and put on display locally, though did not say when this would happen.

The statue will be placed alongside placards from the recent protests to help educate about the story of slavery and the fight for racial equality.

The monument, which had stood in the city centre since 1895, was pulled down and dumped in the River Avon during Black Lives Matter protests

A protester stands atop the fallen statue of Bristol-born English merchant, slave trader, and Member of Parliament Edward Colston

Crowds packed side by side at Bristol's harbour this afternoon to watch the statue as it was thrown into the water

Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees has now confirmed the bust will be fished out and put on display

The statue had been a hotly contested subject of controversy and the most recent petition to remove it garnered more than 11,000 signatures.

Along with the tobacco trade, Colston's wealth helped to develop Bristol in the 17th century. He used a lot of his riches, accrued from his extensive slave trading, to build schools and almshouses in his home city.

The Mayor also revealed that historians and local experts will be commissioned to 'look into the city's past'.

Mr Rees said 'Bristol's true history will be researched by a new commission so the city can better understand its story'.

The members of the commission who will spend time delving in Bristol's history will be announced at a later date.

The future of the plinth the statue stood on will be decided by a democratic consultation, Bristol City Council also confirmed.

The council said it had received numerous suggestions including tributes to local icons and revolving artworks.

The future of the plinth the statue stood on will be decided by a democratic consultation

Protesters tied ropes around the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol city centre, before tearing it to the ground on Sunday

Once the statue was on the ground, protesters began to pose next to it, placing their knees on its neck in protest over the death of George Floyd

The statue will be placed alongside placards from the recent protests to help educate about the story of slavery and the fight for racial equality

This comes as former pupils of a school named after Edward Colston have written an open letter slamming its headteacher for 'defending' the 17th century slave trader in an email to worried parents.

Alumni of Colston's School in Bristol condemned the message to parents by head Jeremy McCullough for appearing to show 'support' for Colston.

The email was sent hours after the controversial figure's statue was pulled down and dumped it in the River Avon by Black Lives Matter protesters on Sunday.

Mr McCullough's email begins by acknowledging social media posts that could have been interpreted as 'threats' against the school, before questioning the extent of criticism Colston is facing.

He argues that, while there is 'no doubt' Colston was responsible for 'many deaths', during his own time his 'business interests' would not have been thought of 'so negatively'.

Alumni of Colston's School in Bristol condemned the note to parents penned by head Jeremy McCullough for appearing to show 'support' for Colston

He adds: 'Indeed, a great many people in Bristol, around the UK and all over the world, profited from this dreadful business. So why is Edward Colston perceived to be such a terrible figure.'

An open letter that was circulated on social media, which gave former pupils the chance to sign it and submit it themselves, condemned the headteacher's email.

Their letter accused Mr McCullough of using a 'racist argument' to defend the school's name and Colston's behaviour - and called on the school to rename themselves to show support for BAME students in a 'very racist world'.

Mr McCullouch has since said a name change is something they are 'looking into'.
WASHINGTON  The former State Department inspector general fired by President Donald Trump told lawmakers that two top officials tried to discourage his investigation into a U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia, according to congressional testimony released Wednesday.

The ousted inspector general, Steve Linick, said Under Secretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao told him that we shouldn't be doing the work because it was a policy matter not within the IG's jurisdiction, according to a transcript of his June 3 testimony.

The State Departments acting legal advisor, Marik String, also questioned the probe, arguing it was outside the scope of the inspector general and purely a policy matter, Linick said.

Image: State Department Inspector Genreal Steve Linick departs the Capitol on Oct. 2, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst / Reuters file)

But according to Linick, he refused to drop the investigation, saying his offices mission was to evaluate whether policies are being implemented effectively and in accordance with the law.

We don't assess whether a policy is good or bad, but we assess how a policy  whether it's efficiently and effectively implemented and whether rules are followed. And we continued to do that, Linick said.

Bulatao, who graduated in the same West Point class as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is a long-time confidant of the secretary. The two were in business together and when Pompeo was CIA director, he named Bulatao as chief operating officer at the agency.

Pompeo invoked a rarely used provision in federal law in May 2019 to declare an emergency and push through the $7 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates without having to secure congressional approval. Democrats in Congress questioned the legality of the move and requested the inspector generals office look into the decision.

The inspector generals office had opened the investigation into the controversial arms sale last November.

Linicks testimony comes amid accusations from Democrats that Pompeo sought to have the inspector general fired in retaliation for investigations of his role in the Saudi arms sale and over the possible misuse of public resources by the secretary and his wife.

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Linick told lawmakers that he informed two senior officials, Bulatao, Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun and Pompeos executive assistant about the investigations. I wanted to make sure everybody was aware so that they wouldn't be surprised, Linick said.

Despite the ex-inspector generals account, Pompeo has said Linick's firing couldn't have been retaliation because he had "no sense of what investigations were taking place inside the inspector general's office."

A few hours after the transcript of Linicks testimony was released on Wednesday, Pompeo renewed his defense of how he handled the issue, saying Linick should have been fired earlier.

Related: Congressional officials are trying to determine whether other investigations into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were underway.

Steve Linick was a bad actor, Pompeo told a news conference. [Inspectors General] work for the agency head, that's me, and they're supposed to deliver and help make that organization better. That's not what Mr. Linick did.

He added: My mistake was letting Mr Linick stay here as long as he did.

Pompeo was not asked, nor did he address, Linicks account that three senior officials in his office were aware of the IG investigations before he recommended the watchdogs dismissal.

In his interview with lawmakers, Linick said at one point the State Department's legal adviser appeared open to arranging a one-on-one interview with Pompeo on the Saudi arms sale decision. But when Linick proposed bringing an additional colleague with him as a witness, the legal adviser dropped the idea. Pompeo later provided written answers to the inspector generals office.

More recently, Linick said he again requested an interview with Pompeo on the Saudi arms sale once the COVID-19 crisis passed. The inspector general said he never heard back either way, according to the transcript.

Linick also said there were disagreements with Bulatao over other issues.

"I would say that sometimes the relationship was professional; at other times, he tried to bully me," Linick said.

Apart from other probes into the Saudi arms deal and Pompeo's use of government resources, Linick told lawmakers about other previously undisclosed investigations pending before he was sacked. Linick said his office had been conducting a review of the State Departments protocol office, how special visas were being handled for former Afghan and Iraqi interpreters who served with U.S. troops, and the circumstances surrounding a Global Women of Courage award that was scrapped.

NBC News first reported that before he was fired, Linick had been looking at whether Pompeo made a State Department staffer walk his dog, pick up his dry cleaning and make dinner reservations for Pompeo and his wife, among other personal errands.

Linick, who was abruptly sacked late on May 15, is one of five internal watchdogs that President Trump fired in April and May. The inspector general offices are meant to conduct independent investigations of federal agencies and hold the executive branch accountable.

Linick told lawmakers that he had no advance warning about his firing, that had not been told previously about any problems with his performance, and that no reason was given when he was informed he would be sacked.

"I was in a state of shock because I had no advance notice of anything like that," Linick said.

Pompeo and his allies have said Linick was removed partly because of the alleged leak of a report by his office into accusations that Trumps political appointees retaliated against career officials at the State Department.

Linick has denied his office was the source of the leak reported in The Daily Beast. He said an investigation into the alleged leak by the Defense Department inspector general cleared him and his office.

Linick told lawmakers in his interview that he shared his findings on political reprisals with State Department officials before the article appeared in The Daily Beast, so the source of the leak could have been outside the inspector general's office, according to the transcript of his testimony.

But at the State Department press briefing on Wednesday, Pompeo said Linick failed to properly investigate the leak of the report.

We asked him to investigate in a certain way, he refused to do that. And that's inappropriate. And we still don't as a result of that know the answer for precisely how that information got out, Pompeo said.

The leak involved a report from Linicks office that was later released publicly. The report faulted the departments top diplomat on Iran, Brian Hook, for sidelining a career employee after her loyalty was questioned by officials who cited her Iranian-American heritage and her work under the previous administration.

The inspector generals report recommended that Pompeo consider disciplinary action against Hook or others who failed to comply with rules that require career civil servants to be assessed only on merit. Pompeo did not take any punitive measures against Hook, who strongly rejected the inspector generals findings.

Linick was appointed as State Department inspector general in 2013 by President Barack Obama. He came under fire in 2016 from some Democrats over his critical report on former Hillary Clintons use of a private server during her tenure as secretary of state.
The International Monetary Fund has approved a $5 billion aid package for Ukraine aimed at helping the country "to cope with COVID-19 pandemic challenges," with an immediate release of $2.1 billion, the institution announced in a statement on Tuesday.

The new 18-month program is geared towards "providing balance of payments and budget support, while safeguarding achievements to date and advancing a small set of key structural reforms, to ensure that Ukraine is well-poised to return to growth when the crisis ends," the Fund said in a statement published on its website.

The program was agreed in principle on May 21 but has now received the green light from the body's board of directors.

The Washington-based institution said Ukraine's track record in stabilizing the economy over the last five years has been "strong."

"However, more reforms efforts are needed to ensure robust and inclusive growth," it added in the statement.

The COVID-19 outbreak has "significantly worsened" the country's outlook, it said, forcing authorities to focus primarily on virus containment measures.

"Uncertainty is large, and the economy is projected to contract sharply in 2020 as strict containment measures -- in Ukraine and globally -- led to sizable falls in domestic and external demand," the IMF warned.

The 2020 budget is "expected to be hit hard, with a sharp decline in revenues and large emergency spending needs to address the crisis," it continued.

The agreement was reached under what the Fund calls a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), the technical term for one of the financing instruments most commonly used by the Fund, usually in exchange for a reform program.

It succeeds the previous 14-month $3.9 billion program approved in December 2018 to maintain stability during the election year, the Fund said.

At the end of March, the Ukrainian parliament lifted a long-standing ban on the sale of farmland, a crucial and controversial piece of legislation needed to unlock support from the IMF.

In May, Kiev also adopted a law targeting owners of banks that go bankrupt, preventing them from regaining their assets.

Under the previous plan, Ukraine, one of the poorest countries in Europe, received a single payment of $1.4 billion due to insufficient reforms and corruption.

Separately Tuesday the IMF approved $363.6 million in emergency aid for Papua New Guinea, for use in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The support "provides resources to the authorities to maintain macroeconomic stability with the aim of assisting the private sector adversely affected by COVID-19," the IMF said.

The Fund said it welcomed measures the country had taken to support businesses, workers and households.

However due to export losses and the cost of measures put in place to mitigate spread of the virus, Papua New Guinea is expected to be in recession this year.
Beijing, June 10 : Xiaomi in a post on Weibo has confirmed that its upcoming smart band Mi band 5 will feature 1.2-inch OLED screen, 20 per cent bigger than its predecessor Mi Band 4.

Mi Band 5 will also support Near Field Communication (NFC), both inside and outside of the domestic market.

Earlier this year, the company launched Mi Band 4 in China, which came with NFC and microphone support. For markets outside China, these features were missing, Xiaomi is also adding magnetic charging to Mi Band 5. It means that users will get magnetic charger with the device.

It has already been confirmed that the 5th generation fitness tracker was being developed in collaboration with Huami.

Earlier, Huami CEO Wang Huang said that his company was co-working on multiple projects in a partnership with Xiaomi.

The report also suggested that the Mi Band 5 would be more "advanced and durable" than the previous model.
Detailed methods on how to perform research on SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, including procedures that effectively inactivate the virus to enable the safe study of infected cells have been identified by virologists in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

The peer-reviewed paper on the novel coronavirus, published in the journal Viruses, is a resource for newcomers in the field.

"Importantly, the study defines specific methods that fully inactivate the virus, that is make it non-infectious, in ways compatible with further scientific analysis," said Dr. Christopher Basler, a professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences, director of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Microbial Pathogenesis.

This allows researchers to study the proteins and genes of the virus and how the infected host responds to infection outside of high containment. Confirming that such analyses can be done safely, with no risk of infection, will increase the rate of discovery about the virus and COVID-19." Dr. Christopher Basler, Professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences and Director of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis

When the disease COVID-19 appeared in humans, virologists in Basler's lab, who study emerging pathogens, wanted to contribute to the effort to understand SARS-CoV-2 and develop medical countermeasures for the virus.

Because the new pathogen causes serious disease for which there are no definitive treatments, biosafety level 3 (BSL3) facilities are required. It was also necessary to handle the virus with extra care because so little was known about it.

To ensure the safety of the researchers and public, Basler and his team relied on biosafety experts who oversee the high-containment core at Georgia State.

The experts created a plan that identified the optimal BSL3 facility on the university's Atlanta Campus for the work, developed rigorous training for the researchers (who were already experienced with high-containment work), and implemented procedures to enable safe and efficient work on SARS-CoV-2.
As part of Ghaya Grand Hotels rebuilding initiative, the hotel has launched a new offer to help small and medium size businesses to operate within their means by giving them competitive and flexible private office options to continue doing their businesses in style and comfort.

With this, The hotel has launched Work At Ghaya Grand private work spaces packages, starting as low as AED99 ($26.9). There are a variety of flexible options to rent the private offices on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis and includes an array of complimentary extras and added values such as tea and coffee, freshly baked breads and sandwiches, breakfast at the hotels all-day dining, a lunch/dinner set menu and many more.

Ghaya Grand Hotel is here to help small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs to cope up with the unfortunate business challenges we all have been through for the last couple of months. Ghaya Grand Hotel has been known as an active advocate of uplifting the community by assisting several causes whether environmental, health, safety or anything that directly concerns our community. This is the perfect time to help each other and build the nation one step at a time. said Olwin Dsouza, General Manager, Ghaya Grand Hotel.

The private office offer allows guests to access the rooms between 9 am to 8 pm to use as their day office.

Work At Ghaya Grand Offer Details:

AED99 ($26.9) - Three hours for private room access with complimentary tea and coffee

AED179 ($48.7) - Eight hours for private room access with complimentary tea and coffee, croissants/sandwiches or a Lunch Set Menu

AED299 ($81.3) - 24 hours for private room access with complimentary tea and coffee, and a 3 set of Set Menu meals (Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner)

AED4,499 ($1,224.6) - 30 Days (Monthly) for private room access with complimentary tea and coffee, croissants/sandwiches or a Lunch Set Menu daily. The private office offer allows guests to access the rooms between 9 am to 6 pm only.

A complimentary upgrade to the next best available room for monthly bookings with early and late check out upto two hours.

The above rates are inclusive of all taxes and Tourism Dirham Fee. - TradeArabia News Service
Deputy National Organizer of the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Chief Biney Nixon has said officials of the National Security are now seen working based on a set agenda, a conduct opposite to their profession by law.



He said National Security officers in the country now work according to the agenda set up for them by members of the ruling government.



He wondered why Security Officers will ask the arrested 'Man of God' if he is an NDC member or not.



He said this action alone should send signals of the kind of security officers we have in the country currently.



Speaking on UTV's 'Adekye Nsroma' newspaper discussion programme, the NDC officer attributed the circumstances surrounding the arrest of the 'Man of God' as unfair since he never caused any harm for expressing his feelings on the decision taken by the EC to compile a new voters' register.



"Is the National Security in this country telling us we don't have the right to expression any longer? Because I don't understand why a citizen should be arrested for speaking his mind on a national issue which has created lots of controversy . . . " he said.



On his part, Yaw Adomako Baafi, a Communications team member of the ruling NPP insisted that they acted rightly per the laws of the state.



He said if the NDC did not find reasons enough to punish citizens who go contrary to the laws of the land when they were in power, the NPP with a law-abiding and principled leader leading the country will not sit aloof and watch unconcerned.





A self-styled preacher, Prophet Kwabena Owusu Agyei who was seen in a viral video threatening and castigating President Akufo-Addo and the Electoral Commission Chairperson, Jean Mensa has been arrested.The preacher was reportedly arrested by plain cloth security men during a live interview with Accra-based Hot FM Tuesday morning.The pastor at a Church Service on Facebook live via NDC TV on Sunday served a strong warning to the EC boss to stop the compilation of the new voters' register.He arrogantly displayed that if the voters register is allowed to be changed, the Electoral Commissioner will die, adding that Ghana will not allow a small family to dictate to the nation.

Source: Elizabeth Semiheva Bedi, peacefmonline.com









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Jackson County sheriff proposes police misconduct registry The Jackson County, Missouri, sheriff is now pushing for a new system to hold officers accountable for their actions.After weeks of protests across the nation, Sheriff Darryl Forte said he connects with the message."Racial profiling is real in Kansas City, and I have been a victim of it," Forte said.

As Kansas City, Missouri's Homicide Total Climbs, Jackson County's Sheriff Has Started Showing Up At Crime Scenes Kansas City counted its 79th homicide of the year Monday night. That is 20 more than the same time a year ago. But as the killings continue to mount, an unusual person has started showing up at more and more homicide scenes: Jackson County Sheriff Darryl Forte.

This controversial local lawman has been one of the few voices from within law enforcement to champion reform.Here's the roundup of his latest efforts . . .Developing . . .
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The Health Department in Eastern Visayas expressed concern on Wednesday as the region hit its highest single-day surge in COVID-19 cases, listing 19 new infections.

Regional health director Minerva Molon said the news is "alarming" since most of the patients were returning residents from areas outside the region.

"In a way talagang masasabi nating alarming...kasi two weeks ago, nakafocus lang tayo sa isang lugar," said Molon in a press conference. "Eto naman, galing ito sa labas. Kung hindi tayo handa talagang masasabi nating alarming.

[Translation: In a way we can say it is alarming...because two weeks ago we were only focused on one area. This came from outside the region. If we are not prepared we can say this is alarming.]

On Tuesday, San Isidro town in Northern Samar recorded six new patients, all of whom arrived in the region on May 28 from Metro Manila where they work as construction workers. They arrived through the national government's "Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa" program, she noted.

The Balik Probinsya program signed last month was intended for "reverse migration" from the National Capital Region and to promote development and opportunities in the countryside.

The workers underwent swab testing upon arrival due to the request of Governor Edwin Ongchuan since they were exposed to a confirmed case from Jaro, Leyte.

Six others in Baybay City, Leyte also tested positive, the Department of Health said. Mayor Jose Carlos said five of them came from Cebu City and arrived on June 7 while one is also a Balik Probinsya beneficiary. The province's Ormoc City also reported five newly-arrived residents from Cebu City who were confirmed with coronavirus.

The other two cases were in Pastran and Calubian towns, the department said. This brings the region's cases of infections to 72.

However, Molon noted that local governments were able to follow health protocols.

"The good thing ang ating mga LGU, sa pagsunod sa mga protocols na pinapalabas ng ibat-ibang ahensiya, nakapaghanda sila, pero sana hindi ganito kabiglaan," she said.

[Translation: The good thing is our local government units were able to prepare by following protocols from different agencies but I hope it won't be this sudden.]

Local officials in San Isidro and Baybay City had assured that the newly-infected patients were immediately brought to their cities' isolation centers.

Tacloban-based journalist Wilmark Amazona contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 22:32:48|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Djibouti's Ministry of Health on Wednesday announced 42 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Horn of Africa nation to 4,373 as of Wednesday afternoon.

The Djibouti Ministry of Health in a statement issued on Wednesday said that from a total of 745 people who were tested for COVID-19 during the past 24-hours period, some 42 of them were tested positive for the virus.

The ministry also announced that some 2,260 people who have been infected with the COVID-19 have recovered as of Wednesday afternoon.

Djibouti reported its first COVID-19 case on March 18 and has so far conducted a total of 38,240 COVID-19 tests, according to the ministry.

The Djibouti Ministry of Health has previously reported 34 deaths related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Red Sea nation, which lies on a key location connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, hosts a number of foreign military bases. Enditem
Court fight: Financier Amanda Stavely

The head of Britain's biggest banking lobby group is preparing to express regret over sexist comments he made about financier Amanda Staveley.

Stephen Jones, the chief executive of UK Finance, faced embarrassment after being accused in court this week of 'deeply unpleasant personal comments' about Staveley while at Barclays between 2002 and 2011.

When he appears, Jones is expected to express his regret at the language he used in emails to his colleagues. The 55-year-old will place his comments in the context of the brash culture at banks before the 2008 financial crisis.

Jones is understood to see in hindsight that the emails were unacceptable.

But Gwen Rhys, chief executive of Women in the City, said: 'The financial sector is well known for its testosterone-fuelled culture.

'I hope he agrees his remarks were unacceptable and makes an apology. If not, his position may no longer be tenable.'

Conservative MP Harriett Baldwin added: 'Examples of sexist behaviour and comments always need to be called out.'

Stephen Jones, the chief executive of UK Finance, faced embarrassment after being accused in court this week of 'deeply unpleasant personal comments' about Staveley

The comments came to light during a blockbuster court case between Staveley's firm PCP Capital Partners and Barclays, which began this week.

An opening statement made by Staveley's barrister Joe Smouha flagged up 'deeply unpleasant personal comments' about her by some senior staff, adding 'See, for example, Mr Jones' thoroughly unpleasant comments.'

The court had not yet heard the detail of Jones's emails.
Police clear the area around Lafayette Park and the White House on June 1 before Donald Trump walked through the area to have his photo taken in front of a church (Alex Brandon/AP)

Three Democratic lawmakers are asking federal watchdogs to investigate whether US Park Police broke any laws in clearing demonstrators from the square in front of the White House last week.

The request was made in a letter to Interior Department inspector general Mark Lee Greenblatt. Officials were in the early stages of reviewing the request, said department spokeswoman Nancy DiPaolo.

Park Police and other security forces lobbed chemical agents and punched and clubbed demonstrators and journalists in clearing Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1, as protests surged around the country following the killing of George Floyd in police custody.

Expand Close Donald Trump in his now infamous photo opportunity in front of St Johns church (Patrick Semansky/AP) / Facebook

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Trump administration officials have denied federal forces were making way for President Donald Trump to stage photos in front of a church nearby.

The request for an investigation was made by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and Committee Vice Chair, Representative Debra Haaland of New Mexico.

The First Amendment rights to free speech, peaceful assembly, and free press are the building blocks of all other rights, the three lawmakers said. Any actions by the Park Police to muzzle these rights is an affront to all Americans and should be swiftly addressed.

US Park Police  a force of several hundred officers under the Interior Departments National Park Service  is responsible for law enforcement at Lafayette Square, at the Statue of Liberty in New York, and at a small number of other heavily visited federal sites.

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An Interior Department spokesman, Conner Swanson, called the lawmakers accusations an insult to the fine men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our citizens and defend Americas national treasures.

Meanwhile, members of the DC National Guard have tested positive for Covid-19 in the wake of the mass protests across the nations capital last week, according to Guard spokeswoman Brooke Davis.

She said the Guard would not release the exact total but US officials said they believed it was not a large number, at least so far.

While some Guard troops responding to the protests wore protective equipment, most were not wearing masks and it was largely impossible to maintain any social distancing.

According to officials, about 5,000 Guard members were in Washington for the civil unrest, including as many as 1,200 from the DC Guard. The remainder came from 11 states.
[June 10, 2020] Innoviti Raises Funds to Fuel its March Towards Profitability

Sharp focus on use of technology to design exceptional payment experiences multiplies volumes, revenue, and margins BENGALURU, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Series C funding led by FMO: Entrepreneurial Development Bank, Netherlands and Bessemer Venture Partners, USA. Innoviti is designing intelligent payment solutions that help every merchant extract the full power of digital payments, not possible with stand-alone terminals and QR stickers. Using the power of data and user-centric design, Innoviti's solutions are thoughtfully crafted to not only simplify lives by releasing time and reducing anxiety, but to also inspire merchants to think of extra sales, extra savings, and extra customers through digital partnerships with brands and banks. Architected as a network of networks, Innoviti uses data intelligence to bring together merchants with brand and bank networks, helping them connect, collaborate, and create new and unique offers for their common customers. This helps networks use the power of modern technology to intelligently target customers, create superior offers, and grow their sales faster with unmatched efficiency. Processing over 6.5B$ of annualized offline merchant payment volume (~5% of India's offline merchant volume, based on RBI data), Innoviti is transforming digital payments at scale. The product strategy has translated into a 250% revenue growth over a 180% merchant volume growth since Series B, underlining the increase in value and margins from every $ of volume added. An obsessive focus on customer-centric design has led to a 2X inrease in usage from every installation over this period. Use of technology to relentlessly drive reliability and automate processes has further fueled gross margins, making Innoviti the most capital efficient company in this space (based on publicly available data). The funds raised will be used for a) furthering the customer-centric intelligent payments strategy by crafting new solutions for new market segments, and b) building specialized distribution models that can support these solutions at scale while delivering high quality service. With this funding Innoviti aims to become cash positive by March 2021 .



Quotes: "Innoviti has been using payments technology to find new and unique ways of helping small businesses grow efficiently. In a fast-developing economy like India, use of technology is critical to make MSME's competitive in the marketplace and provide them with efficient and sustainable access to financial services. We are excited about partnering with Innoviti through our recently established Ventures Program." - Jaap Reinking, Director Private Equity (FMO).

"We are excited to continue to back Innoviti given their leadership and innovations on payment software platforms for merchants and MSME's." - Vishal Gupta, Managing Director, Bessemer Venture Partners. "Digital payments can do far more for businesses than move money. The usefulness of vanilla terminals and QR stickers is limited as businesses demand more from payment solution providers, more intelligence, more reliability, and more savings. A key differentiator for us has been developing sophisticated technology and delivering it through simple, exceptionally crafted payment experiences. This is hard, very hard to put together. We are proud to have done that. This customer centricity and a relentless focus on excellence has helped us become the most capital efficient company in this space. The current funding is a huge endorsement of our strategy and we look forward to achieving our goal of becoming self-sustainable with this funding." - said Mr. Rajeev Agrawal, CEO, Innoviti. About Innoviti Payment Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Innoviti Payment Solutions Pvt. Ltd. has been a pioneer in the use of technology to add intelligence to payment transactions, helping merchants, banks and brands utilize the full power of digital payments to drive business growth. The company processes over 6.5B$ of offline merchant payments (~5% of India's offline merchant payments volume as per RBI data), from over 1000+ cities with a volume throughput per installation that is 2X of the country's average. Catamaran Ventures, SBI Capital, Bessemer Ventures and FMO are investors in the company. The company has several patents filed for with two awarded. Innoviti is the winner of Mastercard's Innovation Wizards Award for its instant onboarding innovation, and Reliance's Most Promising Growth Consumer Finance Award for its #KuchBhiOnEMI innovation in 2019. For more information, please visit - http://www.innoviti.com Media Contact:

Sarath Chandra Nerella

[email protected]

Associate Vice President - Marketing

Innoviti Payment Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1041869/Innoviti_Logo.jpg

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Amid COVID-19 pandemic, US Marines deploy to Norway, successfully integrate with Norwegian allies

US Marine Corps News

9 Jun 2020 | Lance Cpl. Chase Drayer Marine Corps Forces Europe

SETERMOEN, Norway -- Whether in the face of the enemy or a deadly global pandemic, the U.S. Marine Corps not only stays ahead of the curve but also flattens it.

World War I destroyed numerous lives across the globe during the 1910 era but only claimed second place for deadliest disturbance. The 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic killed millions more, taking with it military personnel who intermingled with other countries without proper health protocol.

A century later, the Marine Corps learned from the past, and the Marines and Sailors with 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, successfully deployed to Norway in May 2020 as Marine Rotational Force-Europe 20.2, Marine Forces Europe and Africa, which focuses on cold-weather and mountain-warfare training and military-to military engagements to enhance interoperability with allies and partners.

"COVID-19 was certainly a challenge to readiness," said Lt. Col. Brian Donlon, battalion commander of MRF-E. "It imposed conditions on the battalion's ability to train that were new and challenging, but COVID did not erase the requirement to be ready to deploy, to be expeditionary, and be prepared to execute our mission essential tasks."

During the deployment process, the battalion mandated strict social distancing, hygiene protocol, and mask donning, and U.S. Navy Corpsmen continuously screened Marines and Sailors for any symptoms of the virus. Once in Norway, a 14-day quarantine was executed.

"We treated quarantine a lot like being on ship, and when we were in quarantine we did our prep for combat in the limited spaces available to us, and we created a battle rhythm that was essentially ship-board living," added Donlon.

After a successful 14-day quarantine where the battalion saw zero COVID cases, Marines and Sailors immediately transitioned into the annual interoperability exercise, Thunder Reindeer, located in Norway's Arctic Circle. The exercise included opportunities to practice live-fire and combined arms training as well as air integration.

On the ground, the Marines found themselves setting up camp in snowy, rocky terrain, much different than the humid, swamp land they were used to at their home station in North Carolina. In the morning the Marines tactically integrated with the Norwegians and provide support by fire.

Marine scout snipers maneuvered through forests across mountainous terrain to practice stealthy link up procedures with their Norwegian counterparts without giving away a position.

"This shows the flexibility of each country and our ability to quickly integrate after coming out of quarantine," said Sgt. Stephen Michaels, a Marine scout sniper.

Marines also integrated with a Norwegian artillery battalion and learned how their NATO counterpart conducts a call-for-fire, an exercise held each year.

The Norwegians were able to integrate air, land, and naval assets to include F-35s in a joint setting at the battalion-level for the first time.

The Norwegian government announced its support for purchasing F-35s in 2008, and the first round of jets became operational in late 2019. According to Norway's Chief of Defense, bringing capability to communicate with the jets is still a work in progress for the different army, navy, and air force units.

To assist in that progress, the Marines stepped in. During Thunder Reindeer, simulated air support was conducted with Norway's 2nd Army Battalion, and it integrated Marine forward air controllers.

While out in the arctic climate and mountainous terrain of northern Norway, contact with participating F-35 jets was reached, a milestone previously unattained by 2nd Battalion. As a result, troops on the ground received the simulated support needed.

"It's a personal feat for the Norwegians as they continue to progress with that sort of technology and being able to use them not only as air assets but air-to-ground," said Capt. Sage Santangelo, a Marine forward air controller.

Lt. Col. Erling Nervik, commander of Norway's 2nd Battalion, said making contact and having air support was an important asset to bring into the training and was very satisfied with his experience with the Marines.

"We are in many ways like-minded, and we have been good allies for many years and working together with the USMC is always a pleasure," Nervik said. "After being at Quantico in America for a year at the Command and Staff College, I know the Marines, know the attitude, the mentality. I'm looking forward to the cooperation between two good allies."

The Marines are expected to operate in Norway until the fall, and they and the Norwegians plan to hold various exercises during that time for continued inoperability and arctic training.

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Mr. Glassman had been hosting such calls for the last several months, to check in with gym owners whose businesses have been temporarily closed by government-ordered shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This particular conference call came while many were asking Mr. Glassman on social media to make a statement in support of Black Lives Matter, and several hours before Mr. Glassman responded to a tweet that said Racism is a public health issue with the sentence, Its FLOYD-19.

That tweet set off a public outcry and prompted an apology statement from Mr. Glassman the next day. I made a mistake by the words I chose yesterday, the statement said. My heart is deeply saddened by the pain it has caused. It was a mistake, not racist but a mistake. By Tuesday, nearly 1,200 gyms said they planned to disaffiliate from CrossFit.

But before the tweet came the Zoom call, which was held with more than a dozen people, including gym owners and employees of the corporate office, known as HQ. The event devolved into expletive-filled rants by Mr. Glassman, in which he referenced conspiracy theories and fought with a gym owner on the topics of race, racism and the responsibility of white business owners to show support for the black community amid a national time of reckoning.

CrossFit is very popular with first-responders, military and law enforcement. It has very close ties to those communities, said Justin LoFranco, the founder of Morning Chalk Up, a six-days-a-week newsletter devoted to CrossFit news, who also has heard the recording of the Zoom call. But I dont think Greg Glassman said these things because he feels a need to defend those communities. I think this is what Greg Glassman thinks.

On the call, Mr. Glassman said he didnt trust a member of the CrossFit community who had already begun to complain publicly about the fitness companys relative lack of response to Mr. Floyds death and protests that resulted.
Photo: Tony Webster/Flickr

Here's the most recent top news you may have missed in Minneapolis. Lawyer says rookie cop charged in George Floyds death was following the directions of a training officer Read the full story on New York Daily News. Video evidence increasingly disproves police narratives Read the full story on AP. Ex-Minneapolis police officer Chauvin was in talks to plead guilty before arrest Read the full story on FOX 29. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.

The rookie cop who questioned the use of force in George Floyd's deadly arrest, but didn't act on his concern, is continuing his effort to blame senior officer Derek Chauvin.

Minneapolis police initially told the public that George Floyd died after a "medical incident during a police interaction." The Buffalo, New York, department said a protester "tripped and fell."
On Wednesday morning Joe Biden published an op-ed in USA Today about police violence that reiterated the relatively modest proposals that were already part of his platform before George Floyd was killed, like reinstating Obama-era Department of Justice supervision of rogue departments and spending $300 million (a very small amount, by federal government standards) on community policing. Advocates of reform were unimpressed.

This is not necessarily a problem for Biden, who leads Donald Trump by an average of 8 points in recent polls and doesnt yet have any incentive to jeopardize that lead by embracing as-of-now radical ideas about dissolving the NYPD. But that doesnt mean the protests across the country are not exerting any leverage over elected Democrats, and a low-key but contextually dramatic moment in the Capitol basement Tuesday night showed how.

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The setting was a press conference given by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono. The official content of the event was apparently so perfunctory that I cant find any articles about it on Google News; the real action took place when Schumer was asked about the Democratic primary in New Yorks 16th District, which includes parts of the Bronx and some New York suburbs.

The incumbent in the 16th is Rep. Eliot Engel, whos been in Congress since 1989. Engel, who is of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry, grew up in New York City, attended New York public schools, and began his political career in the New York State Assembly in 1977. He is relatively liberal, though he has taken hawkish positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Iraq war. Hes also a 73-year-old white man in a district that is more than half black and Hispanic; his challenger, Jamaal Bowman, is a former middle school principal in his mid-30s who said on a candidate survey that his top priority is pursuing racial and economic equality and who has discussed the way his own interactions with police officers as a black American have informed his candidacy.

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Engel has caused problems for himself by being largely absent from his own district during the coronavirus crisis and by getting caught on a live microphone telling another elected official that he wouldnt need to speak at an event in the Bronx if he werent facing a primary challenge. Whether because of those events, Bowmans strengths as a candidate, or the intersection of both with an increased public focus on criminal justice, Bowman has in recent weeks gotten a surge of endorsementsfrom Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, most prominentlyand media buzz.

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This is the context in which a reporter asked Schumer whether he was endorsing Engel for reelection, as Eliots website claimed. Schumer, a graduate of New York City public schools with Ukrainian Jewish ancestry, began his political career in the New York Assembly two years before Engel, in 1975; they have been working together for 43 years. And when Schumer was asked about Engel on Tuesday, his response was, essentially, who?

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Eliot Engel listed Senator Chuck Schumer as one of his endorsements.



Asked about Engel's primary against @JamaalBowmanNY in #NY16 just now, Schumer said "I haven't endorsed in that race. I'm busy with Senate races." pic.twitter.com/lJo1MD23t0  Ideas That Are Lying Around (@_waleedshahid) June 9, 2020

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Welp! Engel has taken Schumers name off his website but not after accidentally creating another news cycle about how shaky his own campaign is.

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Theres no public polling on the NY-16 race, but if Jamaal Bowman does get elected to Congress, he will do so not just as one of 200-some Democrats in the House, but as an AOC-style figure with the potential to have outsize influence on public debate and voter expectations. Hed be part of a next-generation group that includes presumptive incoming Illinois Rep. Marie Newman, a progressive who also beat a longtime member of the Democratic caucus, and potentially a number of new state legislators who won similar races. This class of Democrats would be in position to push a hypothetical President Joe Biden to the left on criminal justice and education the way representatives like Ocasio-Cortez and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal have pushed candidate Biden left on health care and environmental policy.

Joe Biden is not yet, despite what Donald Trump would like you to believe, an antifa foot soldier. But that doesnt mean individual districts wont be pushed past crucial tipping points by viral brutality videos, protests, demographic changes, and the increasing race consciousness of white liberals. The winds of change may blow in unpredictable gusts, but even Chuck Schumer believes that right now theyre at Jamaal Bowmans back rather than Eliot Engels.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
The US Navy has announced it is banning the display of the Confederate battle flag, as pressure mounts to remove symbols associated with racism and white supremacy from the military and public places across America.

The Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday announced the upcoming ban on the flag in all public and work areas on Navy bases, ships, aircraft and submarines in a tweet Tuesday afternoon.

Gilday said the order will 'ensure unit cohesion' and 'uphold the Navys core values'.

This came just days after the US Marine Corps officially barred the use of the flag and as officials across southern states announced the removal of Confederate statues and displays, amid widespread protests calling for an end to systemic racism following the death of black man George Floyd at the hands of a white cop.

The US Navy has announced it is banning the display of the Confederate battle flag, as pressure mounts to remove symbols associated with racism and white supremacy from the military and public places across America

'Today, I directed my staff to begin crafting an order that would prohibit the Confederate battle flag from all public spaces and work areas aboard Navy installations, ships, aircraft and submarines,' Gilday tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

'The order is meant to ensure unit cohesion, preserve good order and discipline, and uphold the Navys core values of honor, courage and commitment.'

It is not yet clear how the order will be implemented in private spaces such as individual barracks rooms, desk drawers or lockers or whether such spaces will be exempt from the rules.

The Marine Corps had announced its own order officially barring displays of the Confederate flag in a social media post Friday, citing the flag's links to extremist and racist groups.

The Confederate battle flag has all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and racist groups whose divisive beliefs have no place in our Corps, the Marine Corps tweeted.

It is not yet clear how the order will be implemented in private spaces such as individual barracks rooms, desk drawers or lockers or whether such spaces will be exempt from the rules but it will be banned in all public and work areas on Navy bases, ships, aircraft, and submarines

The Confederate battle flag (pictured) has ties to racism and white supremacy

This presents a threat to our core values, unit cohesion, security, and good order and discipline. This must be addressed.

The Corps issued a MARADMIN, or a Marine Administrative Message, to all of its commanders ordering the removal of the flag as depicted on bumper stickers, clothing, coffee mugs, flags, and posters.

Some exceptions have been made including to works of art or historical displays where the flag is depicted but is not the main focus of the work, state flags where the Confederate flag is part of the symbol, state license plates that include the image of the flag, and grave sites of soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Public spaces that will be subject to inspection include office buildings, open-bay barracks and shipboard berthing, commissaries, schoolhouses, and front yards of military housing.

But commanders will not inspect assigned individual barracks rooms or living quarters. They will also not be inspecting assigned desk drawers, cabinets, or lockers.

The Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday (pictured) announced the upcoming ban in a Tweet Tuesday afternoon

Gilday said the order will 'ensure unit cohesion' and 'uphold the Navys core values'

Marine Corps soldiers can still display the flag inside their individual backpacks, private vehicles, and in their homes.

The debate in the US military over Confederate flags and statues as a hate symbol has been amplified in recent years after several high-profile incidents in which troops were found to be engaging in white supremacy.

Lance Corporal Vasillios Pistolis was kicked out of the Marine Corps in 2018 and sentenced to 28 days confinement after it was revealed he attended the 2017 white supremacist 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, at which a counter-protester was killed.

Pistolis was identified in photos from the rally on August 12, 2017, violently smashing a Confederate flag onto a counter-protester.

Protesters gather at the J.E.B. Stuart Monument in Richmond, Virginia, last week. Outrage over George Floyd's death on Memorial Day has also reignited calls for the removal of racist and Confederate statues in public places across America

The toppled statue of Charles Linn, a city founder who was in the Confederate Navy, in Birmingham, Alabama

A judge in Virginia halted the removal of this statue depicting the Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond

In 2016, 18-year-old Anthony Bauswell was also turned away from the Marines for a Confederate flag tattoo reading 'Southern Pride'.

A 2019 survey of active-duty troops also sparked fresh concerns of racism in the US military, with 36 percent saying they had witnessed white supremacy and racism in their ranks.

THE FLAG OF THE CONFEDERACY The Civil War-era Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia is today known as the symbol of the Confederacy What is today considered the Confederate flag was never the official national flag of the 13 states which made up the Confederate States of America from 1861 until 1865. The banner that is often hoisted at rallies today is a version of the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. Also known as the 'Dixie flag,' 'rebel flag', or 'battle flag,' the design has come to be associated with the racial history of the South. The Confederate States of America were formed in 1861 when 11 states seceded from the union in order to protect the institution of slavery. The North eventually defeated the South in the Civil War, resulting in the abolition of slavery. But racial injustices continued, particularly in the South, where blacks were subject to systematic discrimination and violence at the hands of whites. While the flag is often flown by non-extremists who cite Southern pride and heritage, the symbol has also been adopted by extremist groups like neo-Nazis and other white supremacist organizations, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The use of the Confederate battle flag by extremist groups has prompted widespread calls for the banner to be banned and for statues and monuments honoring Civil War-era figures from the South to be taken down. Advertisement

It also found as many of half of minority service members were personal witnesses to racism with enlisted members more likely to see it than officers.

Troops also cited white supremacy as a greater national security threat than domestic terrorism with a connection to Islam or immigration.

'The majority of my co-workers were absolutely outstanding regarding race and work-relations and I credit military service for that,' one participant said.

'Nevertheless, somehow more racists are slipping through the cracks into the military.'

Outrage over Floyd's death on Memorial Day has also reignited calls for the removal of racist and Confederate statues and symbols in public places across America.

In Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus was torn down by protesters at Byrd Park in Richmond and thrown into the lake Tuesday night.

This came after a judge in Virginia halted the removal of a statue depicting the Confederate General Robert E. Lee over in Richmond.

Preparations were already underway to tear down the statue of Lee before the judge passed a temporary injunction Monday night.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam on Tuesday said he would fight the injunction and Mayor Levar Stoney has likened the importance of the statue's removal to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

On Friday, another Virginia city, Fredericksburg, removed a 176-year-old slave auction block from its downtown area.

The stone was pulled from the ground on a street corner where African Americans were once displayed and sold as slaves, after it was sprayed with graffiti twice last week during protests.

The site will be turned into a landmark recognizing the city's painful past, officials said.

Over in Birmingham, Alabama, protesters toppled the statue of Charles Linn, a city founder who was in the Confederate Navy, last week.

Officials in states including Virginia, Alabama and Florida have backed the removal of other Confederate statues.

There are still 776 Confederate monuments across the US, according to Southern Poverty Law Center.
The WHO-World Health Organization said on Monday that the Covid-19 pandemic situation was worsening across the globe, as it warned against self approval. The WHO said it had recorded its highest daily tally of new infections with coronavirus in Americans.

AFP

And WHO suggests that as mass protests are going on in the United States and the UN health agency has urged everyone to demonstrate or protest to do it safely. It is important to be safe even while you are protesting against the government.

This deadly virus has killed over 403,000 people out of at least seven million who got infected since the outbreak has begun in China in December 2019 according to official sources by AFP.

After the outbreak of East Asia, now Europe has become the epicenter of the disease but has also been overtaken by the Americans.

"Although the situation in Europe is improving, globally it is worsening," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva.

He also mentioned that 75 per cent of the cases reported on Sunday were from Americas and South Asia.

Protest - But with safety

AFP

WHO chief Tedros said that in countries where the situation was improving, now the huge threat is complacency adding that most people globally are still susceptible to infection.

"More than six months into this pandemic, this is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal," he said.



The wave that was sparked by the killing of George Flyod on May 25, Tedros has suggested active surveillance of the virus to make sure that the virus does not rebound, especially in the context of mass gatherings.

"WHO fully supports equality and the global movement against racism. We reject discrimination of all kinds," he said.

"We encourage all those protesting around the world to do it safely.

"As much as possible, keep at least one metre from others, clean your hands, cover your cough and wear a mask if you attend a protest."

"Stay home if you are sick and contact a health care provider," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 15:43:48|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, June 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's employment fell for three straight months through May as companies led employees to go on an unpaid leave or be laid off amid an economic fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak, statistical office data showed Wednesday.

The number of those employed stood at 26,930,000 in May, down 392,000 from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea. The employment declined 195,000 in March and 476,000 in April each.

It marked the first time since December 2009 that the employment continued to slide for three straight months.

Amid worry about the coronavirus pandemic, people refrained from outside activities such as shopping, traveling and eating out, hitting hardest the services industry.

The number of jobs in the wholesale and retail sector dived 189,000 in May from a year earlier, keeping a downward trend for the 12th consecutive month.

Employment in the eatery and lodging sector dipped 183,000 last month, and the reading for the services industry declined 70,000 in the month.

The COVID-19 fallout extended beyond the services industry. The number of employees in the manufacturing sector reduced 57,000 in May after shrinking 23,000 in March and 44,000 in April each.

The number of irregular workers nosedived 501,000 in May from a year earlier, and the figure for day laborers fell 183,000. The number of regular workers increased 393,000.

The number of those who took a leave of absence was 1,020,000 in May, up 685,000 from a year earlier. It topped 1 million for the third straight month.

The hiring rate for those aged 15 or higher retreated 1.3 percentage points over the year to 60.2 percent in May.

The OECD-method employment rate for those aged between 15 and 64 lost 1.3 percentage points to 65.8 percent.

The employment rate gauges the percentage of working people to the working-age population, or those aged 15 or above. Given the aging population, it is used as an alternative to show the labor market conditions more precisely.

The number of those unemployed was 1,278,000 in May, up 133,000 from a year earlier. Unemployment rate gained 0.5 percentage points to 4.5 percent last month.

Both the number and the rate marked the highest May figure since relevant data began to be compiled in 1999.

The expanded jobless rate, which reflects labor market conditions more accurately, increased 2.4 percentage points from a year earlier to 14.5 percent in May.

The expanded unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 29 went up 2.1 percentage points to 26.3 percent.

The official unemployment rate refers to those who are immediately available for work but fail to get a job for the past four weeks despite efforts to actively seek a job.

The expanded jobless rate adds those who are discouraged from searching a job, those who work part-time against their will to work full-time, and those who prepare to get a job after college graduation, to the official jobless rate.

The number of economically inactive population, who had no willingness to seek a job and remained unemployed, was 16,548,000 in May, up 555,000 from a year earlier.

The so-called "take-a-rest" group, which replied that they took a rest during a job survey period, expanded 323,000 from a year earlier to 2,286,000 in May.

It is considered important as the group can include those who are unemployed or too discouraged to search for work for an extended period of time.

Discouraged job-seekers, who gave up efforts to seek a job because of the worsened labor market conditions, rose 39,000 over the year to 578,000 in May. Enditem
The Woodlands Checkpoint building. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE  A Singaporean woman was charged on Wednesday (10 June) with breaching her Stay-Home Notice (SHN), after she left her facility for nine days.

Rameswari Devi Jairaj Singh, 34, was issued the SHN after she arrived in Singapore from Johor Bahru on 30 April. According to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, the order was to last from 30 April to 14 May.

Upon clearing immigration, Rameswari was brought to the Ibis Singapore Novena hotel along Irrawaddy Road  a dedicated facility  to serve her 14-day SHN.

However, she supposedly left her accommodation on 4 May and returned only on 12 May, according to her charge sheet.

She allegedly visited locations in Toa Payoh, Redhill, Lengkok Bahru, Siglap and Tiong Bahru after leaving her hotel room.

Rameswari, who had a lawyer in court, will return to court on 1 July.

The government had announced that with effect from 11.59pm on 9 April, all residents, long-term pass holders and short-term visitors entering Singapore are required to serve their 14-day SHN at dedicated facilities.

For breaching her SHN requirements, an individual can be jailed up to six months and/or fined up to $10,000.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

Other Singapore stories:

Every Singaporean who needs COVID-19 vaccine will get it at affordable price: Lawrence Wong

No plan currently for mandatory use of wearable devices for COVID-19 contact tracing: Balakrishnan

HPB to set up more regional screening centres for COVID-19 testing: MOH
EDMONTON - A dozen conservation and Indigenous groups have written federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson asking him to force the Alberta government to reinstate environmental monitoring in the province's oilpatch.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A dozen First Nations and conservation groups are asking Ottawa to step in and force the Alberta government to reinstate environmental monitoring in the province's oilpatch. Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons, in Ottawa, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

EDMONTON - A dozen conservation and Indigenous groups have written federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson asking him to force the Alberta government to reinstate environmental monitoring in the province's oilpatch.

"We feel the federal government does have something at risk here," said Gillian Chow-Fraser of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, one of the groups that signed the letter sent Tuesday.

The province's energy regulator decided earlier this spring that companies no longer have to live up to a wide array of environmental monitoring requirements that are a condition of their licences.

The suspensions include air, water, land and wildlife measures. Most have no end date.

The regulator says the decision was made to protect workers and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chow-Fraser said the suspensions will affect Wood Buffalo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site downstream from Alberta's oilsands. Federal assessments have already acknowledged the park is under threat and UNESCO has warned that the park's status could be endangered if environmental problems aren't addressed in a federal action plan.

"That action plan references all these provincial regulations and regulatory bodies that the plan said should protect the park," Chow-Fraser said. "Those are the exact regulations that have been unilaterally suspended."

The signatories want Wilkinson to urge Alberta to end the suspensions and find out how they may have affected ongoing work at Wood Buffalo. They also want him to withhold any pandemic-related aid to the province's energy industry until the suspensions end.

The groups include the Fort Chipewyan Metis Association, the Northwest Territory Metis Nation and the Smiths Landing First Nation. Environmental groups include the Alberta Wilderness Association. The mayor of Fort Resolution, N.W.T., has also signed.

Other area First Nations are in favour of the letter.

"We do support it," said Melody Lepine of the Mikisew Cree.

Wilkinson's office wasn't immediately available for comment.

In an email sent Tuesday, the Alberta Energy Regulator said the suspensions could come off as early as Aug. 15 if two ministerial orders from the province's energy and environment departments are left to expire.

It said that figures supplied by industry suggest that between 95 and 98 per cent of environmental regulations remain in place.

It also said Alberta's chief scientist, Fred Wrona, believes the suspensions won't harm the long-term quality of the province's monitoring data.

Chow-Fraser said waiting for the United Conservative government to decide when monitoring will resume isn't good enough.

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"That's nice to hear, but we still don't have any certainty on that.

"They are very vague suspensions. There are no deadlines. We don't have any certainty that it won't be several months, half a year, a year."

Earlier this week, three different northern Alberta First Nations filed a request to appeal the regulator's decision to suspend monitoring. Their request points out First Nations weren't consulted, despite the decision's impacts on their treaty rights.

It also says the suspensions were made without any rationale linking specific activities to COVID-19 risks and despite work continuing at energy facilities. It adds the hold on monitoring came weeks after the province declared a state of emergency over the pandemic and just as Alberta was starting to ease its lockdown.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2020

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FAIRFIELD  After a month of planning and revising, the Board of Education approved plans for graduation ceremonies for the two high schools: in-person ceremonies at Jennings Beach with activities projected on two large screens while most kids stay in their cars until their homeroom is called.

Masks will be required; students lining up will stand at least six feet apart.

In the Tuesday night meeting, Superintendent of Schools Mike Cummings said the end result represents the best of the ideas that came forward. He said the process was a great example of the town pulling together for a common goal.

Paul Cavanna, the headmaster at Warde High School, said he, Ludlowe High School Headmaster Greg Hatzis, the town and their schools graduation committees put a lot of work into the planning.

In a two high school town, you always have a friendly rivalry, Cavanna said. But when the stakes are high and we come together, it is a beautiful thing. Im really looking forward to good weather and a great ceremony.

Through the teleconference call, board member Jennifer Jacobsen cried as she thanked the headmasters for the work they had done to put the ceremonies together.

Now were all going to start crying... its been such an emotional journey on this topic, board Chairman Christine Vitale said.

The board voted unanimously to support the plans, which came after multiple iterations as school and town officials tried to strike a balance between tradition and safety in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

The complete plans the Warde High School and Ludlowe High School graduations were put out in letters to students and their families late last week.

Ludlowe High School Headmaster Greg Hatzis said both graduations will be hosted at Jennings Beach, with Ludlowes ceremony taking place on June 16 and Wardes on June 17. The rain date for both ceremonies is June 18.

Hatzis said the graduations will be styled after a drive-in movie theater, with the activities taking place on stage being projected onto two large screens. He said names and speeches will be broadcast using an FM radio transmitter and asked that attendees bring battery powered radios to listen.

The headmaster said the ceremonies will be held at 8 p.m. to allow better viewing on the 40-foot jumbo screens. He said students will be called by homeroom and stand six feet apart before walking across the stage to collect a diploma envelope.

Hatzis said students will only be allowed out of their cars when they are called up, adding that all those in attendance must wear face masks.

Board member Jennifer Maxon Kennelly said there was excitement in the community for what the ceremonies could turn out to be.

For you to have achieved that, not just compliance but excitement, I thank you so much for partnering with all the people that you did, she said.

Board member Jennifer Leeper asked the headmasters if neighbors in the area were going to be notified about the events. Hatzis said they would send out a phone notification to neighbors close to the dates of the ceremonies.

Board member Jeff Peterson asked how much the commencements would cost compared with what was budgeted for them. He said Wardes and Ludlowes ceremonies were budgeted for $17,000 and $24,000, respectively, asking if there was a possibility the school system would see a net savings.

Hatzis said because the schools were renting the equipment on such short notice and asking the vendors to keep it on site for multiple days, it would be more expensive.

I know we all want to be fiscally responsible and thats important, but our seniors have lost so much and we worked so hard with them... that this is just an important event, Hatzis said. We are so close to the finish line that we just need to do it to the best of our ability.
Nearly 100 colleagues recently joined an online celebration to honor Professor Hava T. Siegelmann of the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) as she received the rarely awarded Meritorious Public Service Medal from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense (DoD).

It is the third-highest honor the Department of the Army can bestow on a private citizen. "The distinctive accomplishments of Dr. Siegelmann reflect great credit upon herself, DARPA and the Department of Defense," reads the citation in part.

I didn't know that anyone was noticing what I do. It was so touching, and a complete surprise. I feel honored to be contributing. I think UMass should get credit for supporting me to run a very advanced AI lab such that the government wanted to invite me, and for allowing me to join what is literally the world's most advanced and sophisticated AI initiative." Hava T. Siegelmann, Professor, College of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst

CICS Dean Laura Haas says of the honor, "I am extremely proud of Hava's service to DARPA and the nation. Our college is dedicated to a vision of Computing for the Common Good, and Hava's work at DARPA has helped to advance AI for us all."

Siegelmann went to DARPA as a program manager in July 2016, where her charge included "that the United States needs to stay on top in AI," she recalls.

Her citation says, "She created and managed some of DARPA's largest and most advanced AI programs including L2M - developing next-generation advanced AI systems capable of learning in real time and applying learning to environments and circumstances not specifically trained for."

Siegelmann, whose career is characterized by thinking outside the box, created a different atmosphere for the L2M project than is usual at DARPA. With its support, she insisted that the large, diverse teams of scientists she chose from the nation's top university and industry research organizations must actively collaborate.

She says, "Such a large leap in AI technology can only be achieved when we top researchers all put our strengths together and learn from each other."

The medal cites another major DARPA program Siegelmann created called GARD - Guaranteeing AI Robustness against Deception.

It is "to establish the theoretical machine learning system vulnerabilities, characterize properties that will enhance system robustness and encourage the creation of effective defenses."

As systems become more advanced, these advancements open new avenues by which they can be attacked. GARD identifies often obscure, technically complex vulnerabilities and builds new-generation defenses for them, she adds.

DARPA also points out that Siegelmann's "exceptionally productive" term included developing a system that administers insulin plus dextrose to maintain glucose at safe levels for patients in critical care and those with diabetes; sensors to identify dangerous chemicals from a safe distance; collaborative, secure learning systems that allow group collaboration without revealing sensitive data; and methods to identify attacks by reverse engineering to secure the system and find the attacker.

Siegelmann says, "L2M has had major success in creating systems capable of learning and improving in real time." Current AI systems use, in DARPA terminology, both first and second generation AI. In the first, to create medical expert systems of the 1980s, for example,

She says, "The system attempts to imitate the way an 'expert' thinks or approaches a task through coding. In the 1990s, second generation neural network-based machine learning matured and outperformed first-gen systems."

This means that instead of coding information as before, the process adds a 'learning/training algorithm. The network then trains repeatedly on a large set of examples and creates its own responses.

Today's AI, a combination of the two generations, works very well in relatively static environments, but when embedded in real-world systems, where changing conditions are the norm, "the AI fails when it encounters conditions outside its training.

To correct for failures, the network must be taken out of service and go through a lengthy retraining process," she notes.

New L2M systems being developed through her DARPA program represent "a fundamental change in machine learning," Siegelmann says. L2M systems can successfully apply experience and adapt lessons learned to new data or situations.

"Self-driving cars, for instance, represent the current pinnacle of AI systems. All major auto-driving vehicle systems rely on extremely sophisticated first and second generation AI, and demonstrate how far this technology can take us using increasingly clever programming, and an ever-growing collection of data incorporated into the training set."

In this way, L2M systems actually become better the more they experience, so an L2M system becomes ever safer driving in icy conditions each time it encounters them, she adds. But, "it is very hard for a machine to learn actively; there is still much to be done."

The AI expert says, "We made a huge amount of progress, demonstrated actual learning - something never done before, and we set the foundation for the next generation of expert, autonomous systems." Some L2M improvements are now being incorporated into real-world systems, she says, so in five years, AI systems will mainly be the L2M variety.

Overall, "DARPA was a wonderful, highly productive experience," Siegelmann says. "I can't say enough about my DARPA colleagues and the truly bright and far-seeing researchers I worked with. My goal now is to continue my research - advancing AI learning and, equally as important, to start teaching the next generation of computer scientists, giving them the new skills they'll need, skills not yet taught in current AI programs, to create and advance the systems that will increasingly be part of our infrastructure."
Oregon voters by the hundreds of thousands are receiving letters asking them to help get an independent redistricting proposal on the November ballot, as coronavirus social distancing guidelines largely rule out traditional signature gathering strategies.

Initiative Petition 57 would transfer the once-a-decade job of redrawing Oregons legislative and congressional district lines from the state Legislature to a new 12-member commission.

Nationally, former President Barack Obama and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder are leading Democratic efforts to end partisan gerrymandering in states where it benefits Republicans.

In blue Oregon, where Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and most statewide elected offices, civic and good government groups are spearheading the proposal with financial support from businesses.

Norman Turrill, a retired software engineer from Portland and former president of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Oregon, is a chief petitioner on the initiative. He said supporters sent the initiative petition mailers, which include return envelopes with postage, to 500,000 households with multiple registered voters at each household, so they represent altogether maybe 1 million registered voters.

Supporters must gather 149,360 valid signatures by July 2 to qualify the initiative for the ballot. We think that we have a good shot at success, Turrill said.

Turrill said overhauling Oregons redistricting process could hand voters more power to hold their elected representatives accountable, by potentially decreasing the number of districts where incumbents can easily win re-election.

If they dont have competitive districts or districts that represent their community of interest, then (voters) dont have as much ability to choose their representation, Turrill said. If districts are gerrymandered, that means they are safe districts.

A 2012 report by the City Club of Portland summarizing the groups yearlong examination of Oregons redistricting process pointed out that allowing legislators to draw legislative lines leaves them open to conflict of interest charges  that they are able to choose their voters instead of vice-versa.

According to the report, the Legislatures 2011 update to the electoral map marked the first time in a century that lawmakers successfully completed the job, without deferring to the secretary of state or having changes mandated by the courts. Oregons partisan secretary of state handles redistricting if the Legislature fails to pass a plan, an arrangement the City Club said can lead to charges of bias.

Groups supporting the independent commission proposal include NAACP branches of Oregon, the conservative Taxpayer Association of Oregon, consumer watchdog group OSPIRG, the American Association of University Women of Oregon and Oregons Progressive Party.

At the same time, the initiative faces opposition from some of the states political heavyweights. A lawyer for Becca Uherbelau, executive director of the nonprofit Our Oregon, repeatedly weighed in with detailed explanations why Secretary of State Bev Clarno should not allow the initiative to proceed or should change the ballot language. Our Oregon receives much of its financial support from the states powerful public employee unions.

After the state Supreme Court on March 26 upheld the ballot title written by Attorney General Ellen Rosenblums administration, Uherbelau and Emily McLain, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the redistricting commission initiative from proceeding.

Through their lawyer, Uherbelau and McLain argued it violates a procedural requirement in the Oregon Constitution that initiatives only amend one provision of the constitution at a time. For example, they claim the initiative would not only switch redistricting from the Legislature to the independent commission, it would also restrict Oregonians constitutional rights to free speech by barring political insiders including elected officials, lobbyists and political party leaders from serving on the commission.

The secretary of state has not yet responded to the lawsuit. A spokeswoman for Clarno said the secretary of states staff consulted with the Oregon Department of Justice as part of processing the initiative.

In an interview Monday, Uherbelau said the initiatives requirement for commission applicants to have lived in Oregon for three years and been registered during that time with the same political party  or registered as unaffiliated with any party  is problematic because it could prevent the states youngest voters and recently naturalized citizens from serving. The proposal would also require applicants to have voted in two of the three most recent general elections. A lot of these Oregonians have been historically shut out of our democracy, Uherbelau said.

Uherbelau declined to comment on public employee unions positions on the initiative, saying those questions should be directed to the unions.

The unions and Planned Parenthood provided key support for Sen. Shemia Fagan in the Democratic secretary of state primary this year, with unions providing around 80% of her campaign money and both groups pitching in on get-out-the-vote efforts that secured her narrow victory. With $878,000 in fundraising, Fagan far outpaced her primary competitors; she now faces Republican Sen. Kim Thatcher in November.

As for the pro-independent redistricting commission People Not Politicians campaign, it reported nearly $316,000 in contributions as of Tuesday with $61,000 of that in the form of in-kind donations of campaign management by the watchdog group Common Cause, according to state campaign finance records. The second largest contributor is The Standard insurance company at $40,000, followed by the League of Women Voters with nearly $37,000 in donated campaign management work. Oregons largest business lobbying organization, Oregon Business and Industry, gave $35,000 to the campaign.

Its not unusual for Oregon initiatives to spend even more just to gather signatures pre-pandemic. For example in 2018, Our Oregons political action committee spent $500,000 to qualify a corporate tax transparency measure for the ballot, only to drop it as part of a deal with Gov. Kate Brown and Nike. The same year, grocery and beverage companies poured $2 million into qualifying a ban on food taxes for the ballot.

Julie Parrish, a former state representative who is not involved in the redistricting initiative campaign, said a couple of initiatives she was working on this year just got knocked out of the water by coronavirus. But she has also had success in the past gathering signatures by mail and said the redistricting initiative campaign mailers are really well put together. Will that be enough for organizers to gather the necessary signatures? Its possible, Parrish said.

-- Hillary Borrud: hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud

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Businessman, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, has asked his critics to direct questions relating to his famous judgement debt saga to the Government of Ghana.

According to Mr. Woyome, the Government of Ghana and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) should come out to explain to Ghanaians how the GHS51 million was disbursed.

The Government of Ghana is in a better position to tell you how much money has gone to who and who.

They had EOCO take all the accounts. They know and have all the evidence. They know where this went to and where that went to. They should come out and tell the people [of Ghana], he said on Face to Face on Citi TV.

Mr. Woyome has been engaged in a legal tussle with the government since 2013, after the Supreme Court on June 14, 2013, ordered him to refund all monies wrongfully paid him in the form of the judgment debt.

The businessman has since maintained that he is innocent in the matter and has tried unsuccessfully to seek redress at different courts.

It is also erroneous to say that when a new Government came, I run to court. This matter was there, together with the security forces and the AG until there was a change of power.

---citinewsroom
Last Friday, the state police in Jalisco, Mexico, carried out the forced disappearance of dozens of youth in the city of Guadalajara, in the context of demonstrations involving thousands and centered around the police killings last month of George Floyd in the United States and Giovanni Lopez in Jalisco.

Men in plainclothes, some wearing bulletproof vests, descended from unmarked pickup trucks and even a fake bakery truck, armed with rifles, clubs, bats and stun guns, and intercepted, blindfolded and kidnapped groups of youth as they approached the demonstration against police violence in front of the attorney generals office.

The Jalisco human rights ombudsman, Eduardo Sosa Marquez, told Aristegui Noticias Monday that his office received 35 complaints related to the repression, including registered cases of forced disappearances against people who sought to protest peacefully, people passing by on their way home.

He described the kidnappings: The state deprives them of their liberty; denies having detained them; there is no official list of detainees; they took them and let them go 6, 7, 10 kilometers away, took away their belongings so that they couldnt get back or contact their families.

He claimed that all those reported missing are now accounted for, based on a few home visits and social media publications by those reported missing, family members and friends.

The operation and the complicit silence of the federal government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are a violent threat against growing social opposition across Mexico. As demonstrated by the militant protests against police brutality in Mexico and internationally, class tensions are on a hair trigger due to extreme levels of social inequality and the criminal response of the governments to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already overwhelmed hospitals and morgues and led to 12 million job losses in Mexico.

The incident has recalled the forced disappearance and killing of 43 teaching students of Ayotzinapa, who were kidnapped on their way to a protest in Mexico City against a regressive education reform in 2014, which involved the collaboration of local and federal police, the military, and a drug cartel.

The scale of the operation was much larger than that recognized by Sosa. One victim, David Mendoza, relates how they had us in large pens and separate rooms, easily 6 of these and with 30 people in each of them. They constantly took people in and out, so what I saw was not the total of kidnapped people. He added that there were at least 50 police officials there on top of those doing the rounds. The Guardian counted some 80 people from reports held incommunicado in the operation.

It has been established that they were held captive inside of the police precinct five km away.

According to social media publications and interviews by the victims, the kidnappers repeatedly announced that they would be disappeared. Mendoza cites the threat: Look at what you did to your parents; now theyll have to look to one body after the other to try to find you. The protesters were constantly beaten up.

Police officials demanded that the detainees give them access to their cellphones, messaging and social media groups. Medicines were also among the belongings taken away.

One youth, Violeta, told Animal Politico that police asked if they belonged to any association, group or movement, or in coordination with anyone to attack them. An independent journalist who was also kidnapped, Luis Antonio Maldonado, also described similar inquiries.

Once they were being gradually freed, the police threatened to disappear them for good if they saw them protesting again and that they would find their homes to check on them. One detainee described being given ten seconds to run away when dropped off, while reports on social media indicate that the officials used the confiscated cellphones to call contacts of the victims requesting their addresses.

While the kidnappings occurred on Friday, state authorities confirmed that they had arrested 26 demonstrators during the protests a day earlier. Police officials used beatings and tear gas against the demonstrators, while several were recorded inside the precinct on a cellphone crying out we are going to kill them.

On Saturday, hundreds marched peacefully across downtown Guadalajara to protest the police repression and demand the liberation of those kidnapped. Six demonstrators were arbitrarily arrested and were transferred near midnight on Monday to the Puente Grande maximum security prison without their lawyers or families having been informed. These protesters were freed as demonstrations grew on Tuesday morning.

On Sunday night, a peaceful demonstration in Torreon, Coahuila, against the killings of Giovanni Lopez and George Floyd, was broken up by police, who arrested seven youth, including two minors who have been freed since.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico denounced on Twitter the incidents in Jalisco. Forced disappearances and the disappearance of individuals are crimes in MX [Mexico], the agency declared.

Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has exploited the accusations by the Jalisco governor, Enrique Alfaro Ramirez that the ruling party Morena was behind the spontaneous demonstrations to justify the federal governments neglect and effective sanctioning of the month-long cover-up by local authorities of the murder of Giovanni Lopez, as well as the violence and kidnappings last week. I dont get involved in partisanship; I dont have any intention of affecting the local authorities.  we have no interest in affecting the Jalisco government, he said.

Alfaro has also suggested that the kidnappings were tied to organized crime and that the police defied his orders not to act violently. However, Alfaro himself is widely suspected of having facilitated the rise of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel into the largest in the country. The specialist and journalist Anabel Hernandez confirmed documents in 2018 that both the US Treasury Department and Mexican Navy had carried out investigations into the ties between Alfaro and the Cartel.

Lopez Obrador addressed the protests again on Tuesday, but continued to dismiss the disappearances in Tijuana, insisting that, we are not repressive. He then blamed demonstrators for abuses, beating reporters, provoking, provoking and provoking, though these were unsubstantiated by any facts.

The opposition to the measures by the Jalisco police among the ruling Morena party has been limited to the following flippant tweet by Marti Batres, the former president of the Senate, on Saturday night: By the way, speaking of basements: to which basements in Guadalajara did they take the missing youth yesterday?

The international character of the protests against police brutality is an indication that workers and youth are being pushed by the logic of events to find firmer ground upon which to take a stand against social inequality and the increasingly dictatorial forms of rule used to protect the Mexican oligarchy and US imperialism.

Workers and youth must join forces with their class brothers and sisters in the United States and beyond. However, this struggle also requires the development of a new leadership in the working class under a socialist and internationalist program against capitalism, the source of inequality and police violence.
Washington called for a ceasefire in Libya and urged warring parties to protect its oil sector Wednesday as the unity government said landmines had killed at least seven people in the capital. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's call came as the UN said it had held "productive" talks separately with officers from the unity government and rival forces backing military strongman Khalifa Haftar. The deadly explosions in Tripoli took place days after the Government of National Accord (GNA) declared itself back in full control of the capital and its suburbs after fending off Haftar's year-long offensive to seize it. "Seven people were killed in landmine explosions in several locations in the south of Tripoli, and 10 others were wounded," ministry spokesman Amin al-Hashemi told AFP. Those killed were four civilians and three mine-clearing experts, he said, adding that the blasts took place in the Ain Zara and Wadi Rabi districts on the southern edges of Tripoli, controlled by forces backing Haftar until May. Human Rights Watch earlier this month accused pro-Haftar forces of laying Russian and Soviet-era landmines as they withdrew from Tripoli's southern districts. Pro-Haftar forces, which are backed by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, had been battling since April last year to seize Tripoli from the UN-recognised government. In recent weeks GNA forces, reinforced with Turkish drones and air defences, have staged a withering fightback to regain control of the whole of the country's northwest. - Counteroffensive - The GNA's counter-assault is the latest round of fighting in years of violence following the 2011 toppling and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a Western-backed uprising. GNA forces are hoping now to take back the strategic city of Sirte, the gateway to Libya's oil fields. But Pompeo on Wednesday backed calls for a ceasefire, urging the warring parties to keep out Russian influence and preserve the country's vast crude oil reserves. "Quick and in-good-faith negotiations are now required to implement a ceasefire and relaunch the UN-led intra-Libyan political talks," Pompeo told reporters. He was speaking shortly after European leaders also backed a truce and talks in a joint military commission made up of officers from both sides. "It's time for all Libyans on all sides to act so that neither Russia nor any other country can interfere in Libya's sovereignty for its own gain," Pompeo said. A UN report found that Haftar has enjoyed support from a shadowy Russian mercenary group, with Washington charging the sophisticated equipment on the ground could only come from Moscow. - GNA vows to push on - Like the US and the EU, Haftar's backer Egypt has called for a ceasefire following his losses in Tripoli. But the resurgent GNA has vowed to push on for Sirte, Kadhafi's hometown and the last major settlement before the traditional boundary between western Libya and Haftar's stronghold in the east. The UN's Libya mission said Wednesday it had held talks with both sides as part of the joint military commission, set up following a January peace conference. UNSMIL said it had met virtually last week with Haftar's forces and on Tuesday with GNA officers, commending "the seriousness and the commitment of both parties". But, it added in a statement, "it calls on them to de-escalate to avoid further civilian casualties and new waves of displacement." Neither of the warring sides has commented on the latest talks. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his country, which hosted the January conference in Berlin, was "extremely concerned" by the hostilities and welcomed the latest push to end them. The fighting for Tripoli has left hundreds dead and forced 200,000 to flee their homes. Almost a decade of violence has also caused repeated shutdowns of Libyan oil installations, vital in a country where almost all state revenues come from crude exports. The National Oil Company in recent days resumed production at two oil fields including the country's largest after Haftar's forces were driven out.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 17:51:28|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits a rural ecotourism park to learn about the development of local signature agriculture in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

YINCHUAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Xi underscored fully implementing the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, working hard to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and giving priority to ensuring stable employment and people's livelihood.

Efforts are needed to continue building a beautiful new Ningxia with economic prosperity, ethnic unity, beautiful environment and well-off residents, he said.

During his inspection trip from Monday to Wednesday, Xi visited places including the cities of Wuzhong and Yinchuan to learn about efforts to coordinate regular epidemic containment with economic and social development, consolidate achievements in poverty alleviation, strengthen ecological and environmental protection, and promote ethnic unity and progress. 
A 55-year-old Deputy Municipal Commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) who had tested positive for coronavirus died on Tuesday, sources in the civic body said.

The deceased, who was attached to the water supply project department, is the first high-ranking BMC official who has died after contracting the viral infection. He had tested positive only the day before.

BMC sources, however, said the exact cause of death was not known yet, and the official was not involved in any field work related to the pandemic. The officer worked at the BMC headquarters in South Mumbai, the sources added.

He was instrumental in pushing the Gargai dam project and also in the successful completion of a 15 km water tunnel between Gundawali and Bhandup, a senior official said. The BMC recently announced that families of the employees who die after testing positive for the virus would get compensation of Rs 50 lakh.

Also read: Migrant crisis: NAREDCO approaches 2.85 lakh displaced workers for real estate projects in UP
Former Corona resident Daniel Alberto Valenzuela was detained by Corona police on a traffic stop and eventually deported to Mexico. (File Art)

Victory for former Corona resident Daniel Alberto Valenzuela came with a steep cost nearly 18 months after the 35-year-old man was pulled over for speeding.

Valenzuela, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, was awarded $35,000 by Corona as part of a settlement against the city, it was announced Tuesday afternoon.

We certainly believe that this demonstrates and provides some measure of vindication, said attorney Eva Bitran of the ACLU Southern California branch. We want to make sure the city of Corona doesnt do this again to someone else.

The money will be sent to Valenzuela, who was deported in early 2019 to Mexico and has remained away from his Corona family since. He has spent his time between Tijuana and the Mexican state of Sinaloa, where hes been working with other family members and trying to raise money to obtain a visa, according to Bitran.

Valenzuela was pulled over Jan. 31, 2019, while dropping his daughters off at school; Corona police say he was driving 70 mph in a 45 mph zone.

Valenzuela, a Mexican national, presented his foreign drivers license. Corona police said he was not the owner of the vehicle he was driving, which Bitran said belonged to a family member.

Corona police said they contacted the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to verify if Valenzuela, who lived in Corona with his wife and daughters, was qualified to drive under a foreign license, according to a Corona news release.

Corona police say the Border Patrol told them Valenzuela had overstayed his visa and would need to be brought to a checkpoint. Corona police refused to transport him to a border patrol facility, but detained him for an hour until customs agents arrived, investigated and took Valenzuela into custody.

He was eventually deported.

The ACLU maintains that if Valenzuela had been speeding, he should have been issued a citation and his legal status should never have been questioned.

The city of Corona says its officers were in the process of writing a ticket and impounding the car when customs agents arrived, so they terminated both events.

Story continues

The ACLU said the actions of Corona police violated Californias sanctuary state law, or SB 54, which acts to prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies from using money or personnel to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes  in connection with immigration enforcement by law enforcement agencies.

The ACLU added that Corona police violated Valenzuelas due process and other constitutional rights.

Bitran said she was happy that the Corona Police Department has made two reforms since Valenzuelas detainment, including issuing a memo to all staffers to speak with supervisors before contacting customs agents.

The city disagrees that the officers actions violated federal or state law, an official statement said. The officer was handling a traffic stop, not immigration enforcement. Because the unusual facts of this situation may cause people of goodwill to view it differently, and because of the high costs and disruption of litigation, the city decided to settle this singular and isolated claim.

A call to a Corona police spokesman was not immediately returned.

The $35,000 payment is a settlement of an original $1-million claim for damages made by the ACLU in June 2019.
Austria has announced it will open its borders to most European neighbors beginning June 16 with the exceptions of Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Britain.

Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg also said Wednesday that the border with Italy to the south would be open without conditions, but that a travel warning for Austrian citizens is in place for Lombardy. The northern Italian region has been the epicenter of Italys epidemic, showing triple-digit growth in daily infections while much of the rest of the country counts a handful or fewer.

While Italy opened its borders on June 3, Austrias reluctance to open the shared border has been a sore spot between the neighbors, especially as the summer tourism season gets under way.

Austrias opening means that visitors from 31 countries no longer are required to undergo a two-week quarantine.

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JINAN, June 9 (Xinhua) -- East China's Shandong Province plans to launch two new China-Europe freight train routes within this year. This will raise the total number of its "Qilu" trains departing for Europe and Central Asia from 800 to 1,200 for 2020.

The province will also increase the frequency and service quality of existing lines, according to Xu Chenggang of the China Railway Jinan Group.

Shandong had resumed its China-Europe and China-Asia freight train services by the middle of February despite the COVID-19 epidemic. As of now, more than 500 freight trains have departed from the province, up 40 percent compared with the same period last year, Xu said.

The province is now operating 33 international freight train routes, linking cities in Shandong with more than 40 cities in Europe and Central Asia.
ANKARA, June 9 (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday the Syrian government was increasing provocations in northwest Syria's Idlib region and that Turkey would not allow it to become a conflict zone again.

On Monday jets bombed several villages in the rebel-held region in the first such air strikes since a Turkish-Russian ceasefire deal over three months ago that halted major fighting. Erdogan was speaking after a cabinet meeting. (Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen and Ezgi Erkoyun Editing by Daren Butler)
By Carolyn Jones

EdSource

Schools are facing a complicated array of health considerations as they decide whether and how to reopen this fall.

On one end, groups of pediatricians have recently urged districts to open schools to meet the important needs of children, as it relates to their socialization, nutrition, physical activity and mental health.

At the other end are parents who fear their children - particularly those who are medically vulnerable - will become ill or contract the coronavirus and sicken other family members.

Because so much is unknown about the coronavirus and a new syndrome, called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, schools need to take extra precautions to ensure students, teachers and staff remain healthy, according to an article signed by 17 pediatricians and researchers published last month in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"It's a very challenging situation. We've never been through a virus like this before, and we don't know how it's going to act," said Dr. Dan Cooper, a pediatrics professor and researcher at UC Irvine and one of the lead authors of the article. "There are issues schools need to address before they can plan for what school will look like on Day One."

The authors raise several considerations schools need to address as they plan to reopen, and suggest they consult with public health experts to solve some of the challenges:

How realistic is social distancing?

What if students are asymptomatic carriers of the virus and bring it home to their families?

How will teachers and school staff be affected, especially those who are older or have underlying health conditions?

If schools decide to monitor students' contacts as a way to trace the virus spread, how will families react to the perceived violation of privacy?

What are the equity implications, considering some students live in small quarters with many people - conditions where the virus could spread easily?

What will happen to students who are medically fragile? Will districts allow parents to keep those children and their siblings at home?

The Southern California chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics also issued a statement last week, saying many students - particularly those who rely on school for meals and other services - would suffer more from continued school closures than from the risk of contracting the coronavirus.

"Children rely on schools for multiple needs, including but not limited to education, nutrition, physical activity, socialization and mental health," according to the organization. "Prolonging a meaningful return to in-person education would result in hundreds of thousands of children in Los Angeles County being at risk for worsening academic, developmental and health outcomes."

The organization urged a balanced approach to re-opening schools, allowing schools flexibility to create different protocols for students of varying ages and needs.

Throughout the state, districts are navigating these and other issues with guidance from county health departments, the California Department of Education, teachers' unions, the Centers for Disease Control and other groups. But conditions are changing daily and so far, few districts have devised concrete plans.

"The challenges of schools reopening are many and myriad," said Dr. Nathan Kuppermann, a pediatrician and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at UC Davis who signed the article. "The idea of returning to school is a major challenge, but so far it hasn't been investigated well."

The good news, researchers said, is that Covid-19, the illness caused by coronavirus, is rare among children. Fewer than 2% of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. have been among people under age 18, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

But, as with adults, children with underlying health conditions such as obesity or a compromised immune system are more susceptible to getting sick. And some children are contracting MIS-C, a rare but serious illness related to Covid-19.

Similar to Kawasaki disease, MIS-C causes a rash, fever and organ inflammation that can result in patients spending days in intensive care or on a ventilator. Symptoms begin appearing six to eight weeks after infection by the coronavirus, although in many cases the children had few, if any, symptoms of Covid-19.

And unlike Covid-19, most of the children who've contracted MIS-C so far have not had underlying health conditions.

MIS-C was first noticed by physicians in Britain and Italy in April, and since then it has been spreading. Hundreds of children in the United States have contracted the illness and some have died (exact numbers are unavailable because some cases and deaths may have been classified as related to Covid-19). In May, the Centers for Disease Control began tracking the illness and posted recommendations for parents and an advisory for clinicians.

"It's still evolving. It's hard to say what will happen," said Dr. Behnoosh Afghani, a pediatrician and associate professor at UC Irvine who specializes in infectious disease. "We're still studying it. As lockdowns end, there's a potential the rate will increase. We should know more in a few weeks."

Some parents of medically vulnerable children aren't waiting for more research about MIS-C or Covid-19. They've already decided to keep their children - even the healthy ones - home from school this fall. Too much is unknown and too much is at stake, they said.

One of those parents is Aimee Ramos-Martinez, who's opted to keep her 6-year-old daughter Alivia, who has a rare genetic disorder, and Alivia's older sister home from their elementary school near Monterey if it reopens this fall. No matter how vigilant the school is about social distancing and disinfecting classrooms, the risk is too high, she said.

Born with Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, Alivia has intellectual and developmental delays, as well as a compromised immune system that leaves her highly susceptible to illness. Last year, she was in the hospital three times for breathing problems, and would have been there more if she wasn't at risk of picking up more infections in the hospital environment, her mother said.

"I worry about her constantly," Ramos-Martinez said. "A common cold for Alivia turns into pneumonia. ... Personally, I can't even think of sending a medically fragile kid like her back to school. Until there's a vaccine, I don't know how safe they can make it, realistically. And a vaccine is only the starting point."

The decision was hard on Alivia and her sister, both of whom love school and miss their friends and teachers. Alivia's older sister, who is 7, was especially upset.

"At first they had a hard time, but they've gotten better," she said. "My older daughter is sad, but she understands the severity of the situation. She understands that she could be healthy but bring something home to Alivia."

County health departments contacted by EdSource and the California Department of Public Health said the risk of MIS-C is among the many factors they're considering in deciding whether to re-open schools this fall.

About 800,000 children in California public schools are classified as disabled, which includes those with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and other disorders that may affect a child's immune system.

But even some parents of healthy children are hesitant about sending their children back to school. Kathleen Cervone, an elementary teacher near Santa Rosa who has two sons in local public schools, said she knows first-hand the difficulty schools will have sanitizing classrooms, especially amid budget cuts.

"I know how hard custodians work already. But with funding cuts, it's sort of the elephant in the room - if they cut custodial services, how are these classrooms going to magically get cleaned?" she said. "The bathrooms alone are a huge concern."

Still, her sons miss school and miss their friends, so Cervone feels OK about sending them back if they agree to social distance on campus.

"I can teach them to be careful," she said. "But I hope the schools can meet people halfway and provide realistic guidelines."

The National Down Syndrome Society, among other groups, has issued advice and resources for parents who are weighing whether to send children to school.

"My biggest fear is that schools aren't going to take the needs of disabled students into account when they decide whether to reopen," said Kandi Pickard, the group's chief executive. "Disabled students are so often overlooked."

Especially concerning is that some parents might not have the resources to continue home-schooling their children in the fall, or the time to advocate for their children's safety at school, she said.

"It's a real equity issue," she said.

Pickard and her husband have decided to keep their 8-year-old son, Mason, who has Down syndrome, as well as his three siblings, home from school in the fall. Even though distance learning has been a struggle, Pickard feels they have no choice.

"We can't tell Mason, 'You can't hug this person,' or 'You can't go down the slide with your friend.' He wouldn't understand," she said. "We've had some really tough conversations with the whole family about what could happen, how one of them could accidentally infect their brother. It's just too soon. We don't know enough yet."

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WATERLOO REGION  Masks will not be mandatory while visiting newly reopened businesses in Waterloo Region, unlike neighbouring Guelph.

However, face coverings are strongly encouraged by the regions public health department.

I continue to recommend that our residents wear a mask in all places where physical distancing cannot be guaranteed, including on public transit, acting medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said in a statement. Lets continue to make mask wearing in such settings a part of our new normal.

The Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Health Unit announced on Wednesday that face coverings would be mandatory inside any commercial establishment starting on Friday, when Guelph and Waterloo Region are among the Ontario municipalities allowed to move into Phase 2 of the provincial reopening plan.

While Wang stopped short of making face coverings a requirement on Friday when a variety of businesses will again be open to the public, she was pleased that many residents have already adopted the habit.

Many of our residents have been following public health advice, including wearing masks in situations where physical distancing is not possible. Some of us cannot wear masks. I encourage all of us who can, to do so.

Wang said public health will continue to support the business community to put in place the appropriate precautions to reduce risk and be able to reopen safely.

For businesses that have been permitted to reopen, they need to put in place appropriate precautions, such as physical distancing and mask wearing may be appropriate to their specific setting and services, she said. I know businesses will want to do whats recommended to protect their patrons and staff.

The Guelph health unit said anyone not wearing a face covering  which includes a medical mask, non-medical mask or other face coverings such as a bandana, a scarf or cloth that covers the mouth, nose and chin  will be prohibited from entering by the owner or operator.

The only people exempt are children under two or if there is a medical reason a person cannot safely wear a face covering or if it would inhibit the ability to breathe in any way.

Otherwise, a face covering must be worn at all times while in an establishment unless it is reasonably required to temporarily remove it for services provided, such as while eating in a restaurant or receiving a personal service that requires access to the covered portion of the face. Patios of a restaurant are not included in the order.

Alcohol-based hand rub must also be available at all entrances and exits.

The order by medical officer of health Dr. Nicola Mercer  issued under the Health Protection and Promotion Act  states that reopening commercial establishments will increase the frequency of contact and limit opportunities for physical distancing and without preventive measures will increase the number of COVID-19 cases.

Mercer said in a release that moving into Phase 2 is an important next step, but the regions economic needs must be balanced with the health and safety of the public.

The best available evidence indicates face coverings reduce the possibility of transmission of COVID-19, Mercer said. By ensuring we can move to Phase 2 in the safest way possible, we are all making an investment in a safer community.
During its 40th year, Crime Stoppers of Houston is hosting free virtual programming this summer for children, students, parents, teachers and the community at large.

CEO Rania Mankarious said the nonprofits team had been expecting to celebrate its banner anniversary this year, but that has taken a back seat to all that has been going on. When COVID-19 struck during spring break, they realized Houston-area students probably would not be going back to school for a while and took all their programming virtual quickly.

Student art: Katy students art encourages front-line workers

We were very creative in updating material, changing material, making it fit sort of this new world. And it took off, Mankarious said. And we reached thousands and thousands and thousands of people, parents, kids, teachers, school programs.

Summer programs are running on Mondays through Thursdays through July 30 (except June 30 through July 2, due to the Fourth of July holiday). Times vary.

All programs are over Zoom and completely free of charge. They include the Safe School Institute Summer Camp for children kindergarten and up, students and parents; the SAVE (Safety Actions, Valuable Education) program, which emphasizes the importance of reporting crimes and tips; and the Safe Community Program, which shares about everything from childcare during COVID-19 to storing a gun safely.

The Safe School Institute began in 1997. Mankarious, who has been with Crime Stoppers since 2006, said the institute has since reached nearly 1.3 million Houston-area children and students in their classrooms.

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Now Im talking from kindergarten to 12th grade, about everything related to the protection of these kids, whether its online, through gaming, through social media; or whether its on the playground or you know, just walking in the park. You name it, were touching it, Mankarious said.

Safe School Institute Manager Jenna Fondren said the programming is trying to educate that audience that is staying close to home this summer because of the virus.

So offering not only presentations in person but virtually is so important to us. And we can reach people in Houston, outside of Houston. One person could hear about what were doing in the city and tell five friends, and it grows from there, Fondren said.

She helped design the summer programs and is glad to be covering some topics that they normally would not. Fondren added that Crime Stoppers has tried to teach them in such a way that they are very relevant currently, such as being safe when students are online much more than they might usually be.

New principals: Katy ISD head appoints two new principals

She said the goal of the Safe School Institute is to inform students well enough to make good decisions later.

Mankarious said it is an interesting time in the United States right now, where some are calling on defunding police and putting more resources into crime prevention programming.

We are the biggest crime prevention program in the area. We do not want to see the defunding of police by any means at all, but we love the fact that people are understanding the value of crime prevention programming. And this is what weve been doing all along, Mankarious said.

She explained the Houston program is the only Crime Stoppers in the world that has a brick-and-mortar building and that other programs look to them for leadership. She said over the years, thousands of have used the space for press conferences, media interviews, self-defense classes, public safety training school and more.

Its been incredible, Mankarious added.

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Although the past few months have not gone as expected, Crime Stoppers of Houston is still working at its mission of solving and preventing crime, like it has done for the past 40 years. This summer, it is just using a different channel.

Mankarious emphasized that while some of the programming is geared for children, parents of younger ones should supervise them, as they would during other online activity. Some classes are available in Spanish. To learn more about Crime Stoppers, its summer programming or to donate, visit https://crime-stoppers.org. To report a tip, call 713-222-TIPS.

tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
Two years after the City Council made a controversial decision not to bid on this years Republican National Convention, San Antonio business leaders flirted with reviving the idea as party officials looked for a new home for the convention.

Visit San Antonio, the public-private group that markets the city to event planners, had already begun looking into whether the city could host the convention, the agencys CEO Casandra Matej told City Manager Erik Walsh over the weekend.

Matej pitched the Alamodome as a roomy spot to host the conventions estimated 20,000 attendees. With its capacity for 70,000, the Alamodome would have allowed for plenty of room for social distancing.

But by Tuesday afternoon, the potential political maelstrom  arriving amid the coronavirus pandemic and widespread unrest over police treatment of African Americans  seemed to have broken up before making landfall.

On ExpressNews.com: Texas voters will decide for themselves if they need mail-in ballots for July runoffs

Visit San Antonio got word that RNC officials have already picked a new city, Matej told Walsh along with several city officials and business leaders in a memo Tuesday. And since San Antonio hasnt had a chance to make a bid, its not likely to be the Alamo City.

Jacksonville, Fla., is the likely favorite for the convention, sources said.

Councils decision in 2018 not to bid on the convention roiled San Antonio conservatives, hoteliers and restaurant owners. At the time, Mayor Ron Nirenberg cited public safety and traffic concerns after council members decided against competing for the convention in a closed session.

Republican officials eventually landed on Charlotte, N.C., as the host city. But President Donald Trump threatened to uproot the convention after a spat with N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper over social distancing requirements.

RNC officials hadnt approached Visit San Antonio to bid on the convention, agency spokesman Richard Oliver said Tuesday.

But at the behest of business leaders, Matej pitched a new bid as a way to jump-start the citys tourism industry after the coronavirus pandemic virtually wiped it out, spurring convention planners to pull their events and visitors to cancel their hotel bookings.

The city lost 36 conventions, estimated to spur $140 million in local spending, to the disease.

The three-day Republican convention set for August  with a projected 20,000 attendees and $50 million in local economic impact  would be a boon in terms of getting the local hospitality industry back on its feet, Matej told Walsh in a letter sent Saturday sounding out whether the city wanted to reverse course and pursue the convention.

Charlotte would still host the drier aspects of the convention, such as meetings to nail down the Republican Party platform. Another city will get the more television-ready events, including Trumps acceptance speech.

This is a new day and a new environment, Matej wrote. Pursuing significant meeting opportunities like this will play a large role in that revitalization.

Local conservatives seized on the promise of economic windfall as reason to pursue the convention  for real, this time. District 10 Councilman Clayton Perry called the convention a potential shot-in-the-arm for our business community.

San Antonio real estate appraiser John Austin, vying to replace Cynthia Brehm as head of the Bexar County Republican Party, agreed.

I think its just good business sense, Austin said.

But Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff quickly dismissed the idea.

I see no signs that this is a serious possibility, Nirenberg said in a statement. If we get a real proposal, Ill let you know.

Trump made it clear that he doesnt want to abide by social distancing guidelines, thus risking an outbreak of COVID-19 should the convention land in San Antonio, Wolff said.

I think its a bad idea, Wolff said at the city-county coronavirus briefing later Tuesday.

And Trumps push for police to violently crack down on protesters demonstrating police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd  who died in the custody of a Minneapolis police officer, now charged with murder in Floyds death  would only inflame protests here, he said.

Texas Take: Get the latest news on Texas politics sent directly to your inbox every weekday

I wouldnt want to see it whether it was Republican or Democratic, Wolff said.

The city should be careful about going after any convention or large gathering given the pandemic, said District 1 Councilman Roberto Trevino, who sits on the Visit San Antonio board.

Were in a very, very precarious time, Trevino said. We need to be very careful and mindful of the impacts of any convention, for that matter.

Joshua Fechter is a staff writer covering San Antonio government and politics. To read more from Joshua, become a subscriber. jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports
Their relationship has been getting serious since they began isolating together amid the coronavirus pandemic.

And Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas seemed loved up while running errands in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

For their casual outing the Knives Out actress Ana looked chic in a black lace dress with a high slit while Ben repped his hometown Boston on his T-shirt.

Shopping trip: Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas seemed loved up while running errands in Los Angeles on Tuesday

Ana, 32, looked fashionable adding gold layered necklaces, thin gold bracelets on each arm and dark sunglasses.

Though, she toned down her sultry black dress, with a v-neckline and cap sleeves, by teaming it with white lace up sneakers.

Meanwhile, Ben, 47, looked casual and cool adding black jeans and sneakers maroon Boston tee.

The couple were sure to follow local rules requiring face masks in public as Ana donned a black reusable mask from brand Tessa James, that retails for $15, and Ben opted for a blue disposable covering.

Her look: For their casual outing the Knives Out actress Ana looked chic in a black lace dress with a high slit, paired with white sneakers and gold jewelry

After a trip to CVS, they headed for groceries at Whole Foods and Ben was sure to have a large Dunkin Donuts coffee in hand.

Ben shares daughters Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11, and son Samuel, eight, with ex-wife Jennifer Garner, 48, to whom he was married from 2005 to 2018.

A source told E! News last week: 'Ana loves kids and couldn't wait to meet them and spend time with them. She knows how much they mean to Ben and so she was anxious to be a part of that.

Big trip: They went from CVS to Whole Foods and left with two carts worth of food

'She is very sweet and kind to the kids. They immediately warmed up to her and like her a lot. They are all comfortable together and she's very nurturing. Everything has worked out very well.'

Affleck and the Bond girl were first romantically linked in March, after they filmed their upcoming movie Deep Water in the fall.

They were spotted vacationing together in Costa Rica and her home country of Cuba, before returning to Los Angeles to quarantine together.
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(Natural News) Theres a lot of flip-flopping going on when it comes to advice about socializing as America reopens after the coronavirus crisis, especially when it comes to the Left.

Going to church? Thats a bad idea because you could get infected.

Protesting the killing of a black man by a white police officer? The more, the merrier  no virus to worry about here!

For example, Zero Hedge shared some Twitter posts from the director of the CDC during the Obama administration, Tom Frieden. In a tweet last week, he said, The threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust. People can protest peacefully AND work together to stop Covid. Violence harms public health.

Compare this to one of his tweets from last month, when he wrote, Gatherings  such as the one at this rural Arkansas church  can be fatal and social distancing life-saving before sharing a graphic entitled, Covid-19 spreads easily in group gatherings and shows how two people at church events spread the virus throughout the community. So the virus only spreads through people who attend church and not protestors?

In another tweet that defies logic, Johns Hopkins University Associate Professor Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo said: We should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus. In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.

A few months earlier, she had been saying that she supports social distancing and that we were definitely not overreacting to the threat of the pandemic.

If these people really felt that black lives mattered, they wouldnt encourage people to be packing into protests in close vicinity of one another. After all, the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. has been disproportionately affecting minorities, especially those living in crowded urban areas. And many of these people are the same ones were seeing packed like sardines into squares shouting their protest mantras without wearing masks.

We all know by now that the virus can be transmitted by talking or even breathing, and carriers can be contagious even when they dont display any symptoms. Take a look at any photo of the protests in American cities, and youll see just how little social distancing is actually occurring.

Local leaders urging protestors to take precautions

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said that protesters should be tested for the virus, saying that he thinks these protests could be seeding events, especially in urban areas. NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, has urged protestors to wear masks and practice social distancing.

The mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance-Bottoms, has said she is extremely concerned about the virus spreading and said the protests were distracting her from dealing with the pandemic. At a press conference, she told people who had attended protests they probably need to get tested, and she later pointed out to CNN that people of color are getting hit harder. In Georgia, more African Americans have contracted the virus in the state than any other race.

Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has said that she is concerned about what the mass gatherings in city streets could mean for the spikes in COVID-19 cases later. She said that everyone should consider whether they need to self-isolate and get tested after all the hard work theyve done to try to keep the virus under control there.

As America emerges from lockdown, 22 states are seeing new coronavirus cases climbing once again, with eight holding steady. In Florida, the number of new cases reported daily has risen by an average of 46 percent during the past week as the state headed into its second phase of reopening.

Its clear that social gatherings of any type are risky in the current environment, but the Left never misses an opportunity to twist the facts to suit their narrative.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

TheGuardian.com
Alex Wong/Getty

Former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick told Congress that he was shocked to find out President Trump decided to remove him from his post last month and said that senior officials in the State Department had consistently told him they were satisfied with the offices work.

I can tell you that I've been given no valid reason that would justify my removal, Linick said, according to his interview transcripts released by multiple congressional committees Capitol Hill Wednesday. I had a number of other contacts within the department, senior level, who always commented that we treated people fairly, that we were a productive office, and that we were doing a great job.

Linick was fired in May by President Trump after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had requested his removal for allegedly not adhering to the departments ethos statement, which includes phrases such as I am a champion of American diplomacy, and for supposedly engaging in a pattern of unauthorized leaks. Linick told Congress during his interview on Capitol Hill that Pompeos explanations for why he was terminated are either misplaced or unfounded.

State IG Set to Recommend Discipline for Trumps Top Iran Hand

I received a call from the State Department operations center. The only thing they said was the President has decided to exercise his power to remove you, Linick said. I've been a dedicated public servant for 28 years. I've conducted my work with honor, integrity, and without regard to politics. Numerous senior officials in the department whowith whom I've interacted have commented that they thought our work was fair, objective, that we accomplished our mission, and that was my understanding.

Linicks firing came during an aggressive campaign by President Trump to oust inspectors general from their positions. So far the president has removed or replaced five of them from various parts of the administration, including the intelligence community and the transportation department.

Story continues

But the State Department case raised eyebrows almost immediately when Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a release that hed been told Linick was investigating Pompeo on several different matters before his ousting. Earlier, reports had surfaced that Pompeo and his wife were under investigation for having asked staffers to walk their dog and run errands. But Engel said Linick was also investigating Pompeo and the department for its decision to use an emergency declaration to send arms to Saudi Arabia. That investigation came at the request of members of Congress after they attempted to block the sale last summer. Linicks testimony on Capitol Hill raises questions about the motivations by Secretary Pompeo in requesting President Trump fire the former inspector general and shows the extent to which the secretary and others in the department sought to pressure the IG office to drop the Saudi probe.

Linick confirmed with congressional investigators that his office was working on two separate inquiries related to Pompeo before his ousting. Those probes focused on the departments decision to use an emergency declaration to sell $8 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia and a misuse of government resources by the secretary and his wife, Linick said.

According to the interview transcripts, the State Departments IG office is still working on the Saudi investigation and has requested documents related to the misuse of resources from Pompeos executive secretary.

Linick said his office was also involved in other probes before his removal, including a review of the International Women of Courage Award, an audit of special immigrant visas and a review of individuals in the departments Office of the Protocol.

Pompeos Unproven COVID-19 Claims Have Officials Freaked Out

Pompeo previously made claims that his decision to remove Linick from his post was not an act of retaliation because he did not know the IGs office was investigating allegations he had an aide run personal errands for him. He told The Washington Post in an interview he only knew of a case that involved a national security matter and became aware of that investigation right before the report was released to the public.

But Linick said his office reached out to Pompeo directly and asked for an interview on the Saudi matter.

Before I was removed our team asked for an interview with the Secretary. I did not talk to the Secretary personally, so I cant tell you what he understood or what he didnt understand. But what I can tell you is that I told Undersecretary Bulatao, Deputy Secretary Steve Biegun and the Legal Advisor about the request, Linick said. [Secretary Pompeo] ultimately submitted some written answers to topic areas that we provided in advance of requesting our interview.

The secretary refused a sit-down after the IGs office suggested a witness from his office be present, Linick said.

You asked for an interview, it looked like they would do an interview if it was just you and the Secretary, and then you asked for a witness, and then all of a sudden the interview didnt happen? asked the House Foreign Affairs Committees Democratic Counsel.

Thats correct, Linick said, adding that Under Secretary for State Management Brian Bulatao attempted to bully him on several occasions, including during the Saudi probe.

In connection with our work on... the emergency certification on the arms control, he told me that it wasn't an appropriate review because it was a review of policy. And I told him that it was within the IG purview to review how policy is implemented, Linick said. And I was trying to draw that distinction that, while we don't engage in policymaking, we look at how policy is carried out as we are required to by law. He just continued to push back.

In the hours following Linicks removal, Secretary Pompeo attempted to rationalize his decision to remove Linick. In an interview with The Washington Post, Bulatao said Linick had been fired because of a pattern of unauthorized disclosures, or leaks. In the article, Bulatao pointed to a story published by this reporter in The Daily Beast as an example of one of those leaks.

That report summarized one of the main findings of a forthcoming IG report that in part looked at Brian Hook, the administrations top Iran hand. He and other senior members of the State Department were under investigation by Linicks office for a series of incidents that took place under former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The IG investigation focused on Hook and other officials involvement in layoffs and other personnel decisions that impacted individuals who were thought to have perceived loyalty to the Obama administration. Several whistleblowers raised allegations against Hook and others, prompting the inspector general to analyze emails and other documents as part of the probe.

The Daily Beast reported that the IGs office had decided to recommend disciplinary action for Hook. According to the report that was released several weeks later, Linicks office found that Hook, among other officials, retaliated against an agency employee in part because of her Iranian-American background.

Linick said he had gone to the secretarys office to discuss the forthcoming IG report two weeks before the publishing of The Daily Beast article. The former inspector general said he met with Pompeo about the article after its publication.

The Secretary was concerned about a possible leak. It was very upsetting to me, the thought of a leak coming from the IG's Office, because that is not something that I would tolerate. And it would certainly undermine the integrity of our report and our office, and the report was due to come out in a few weeks, Linick said. At that meeting, I told him that. I told him I certainly did not leak it or have any communication with The Daily Beast or any periodical. I told him that, to the best of my knowledge, no one in my office leaked it, and if they did, they would be subject to swift action, including removal.

Linick added: I also told him that information about that report could have been leaked from a variety of sources, including the fact that the Department already had the report.

According to Linicks testimony, he conferred with Bulatao and others about the leak allegations and sought out an outside investigation, first going to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE)which did not have jurisdiction for such an investigationthen two other inspectors general. The Pentagon IG agreed to pick up the investigation and later cleared Linicks office.

In the sit-down conversation with Linick, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) repeatedly questioned the former inspector general about whether he knew who had leaked to The Daily Beast and cast doubt on Linick going to the Department of Defense to request an inquiry into the leak allegation.

Trump Fires Inspectors General as He Grows Insular and Paranoid in His Coronavirus Response

Who do you think leaked it? Jordan asked.

I don't know who leaked it. I can't speculate. I know that a number of people touched the report. The report was in the Department's hands, Linick said.  I really don't know who leaked that report or who leaked information from the report. It's not even clear to me that the report was leaked.

According to a report by ABC News, a top adviser to Secretary Pompeo has requested the States IG office conduct another review of the leak allegations. Linicks acting replacement is Stephen Akard, who will keep his job as the head of the departments Office of Foreign Missions.

Obviously, neither I nor anyone else at The Daily Beast is going to comment on our sources. But I will note that the Department of Defense Inspector General looked into whether Steve Linicks office had leaked to the mediaand found no evidence to support the accusation, Noah Shachtman, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, said in a statement. We stand by our reporting. More importantly, stand against any politician or public official who tries to break the sacrosanct bonds of confidentiality between reporters and their sources.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Education Minister Peter Weir has set a target date of August 17 for some pupils to return to school in Northern Ireland.

Mr Weir gave the date during an online meeting hosted by the National Association of Head Teachers.

He said: "On August 17 there will be particular cohorts there.

"Whatever provisions are put in place to prepare for that will be done."

"The intention would be that in the third week of August for three key cohorts of Primary Seven, years 12 and 14 - which are essentially the GCSE and A-Level years - that we would see a restart to teaching then."

Mr Weir had previously said that some pupils would return to school by late August, but had not revealed a date.

It comes as the Department of Health reveal there has been no Covid-19 related deaths in Northern Ireland for a fourth day.

The death toll from Covid-19 in Northern Ireland remains at 537.

There were 13 new confirmed cases of the virus in Northern Ireland in the past 24 hours bringing the total number of cases to 4,818 since the outbreak began.

Northern Ireland's hospitals are currently home to 443 suspected or confirmed Covid-19 patients, with nine in intensive care units.

There are currently 59 active Covid-19 outbreaks in the region's care homes, while 84 have been closed after the virus was found to no longer be present.

Read More

See how today's developments unfolded:
President Trump announced on Monday that he will not be defunding, disbanding, nor dismantling the police force.

"We won't be defunding our police, we won't be dismantling our police, we won't be disbanding our police, we won't be ending our police force in a city,"

President Trump shared at a White House roundtable with law enforcement members.

This White House roundtable announcement came immediately after the Sunday announcement of Minneapolis City Council saying it would disband the city's police force as a result of the protests against police brutality especially towards African Americans.

President Trump praised the police force in a statement, "People do a tremendous job at protecting citizens of our country," and added later, "The police are doing an incredible job--as I said--their records are being broken in terms of lack of crime."

In the midst of police brutality protests, Trump acknowledged the tragic events that shouldn't have happened but also reaffirmed his decision to not defund the police force.

"Plenty of things shouldn't have happened. But we can't give up the finest law enforcement anywhere in the world--there's nothing like it," Trump said.

Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany held a briefing on the same day and shared that the "President is appalled by the 'defund the police' movement."

"This is rolling back the protective layers that protect Americans in their homes and in their places of business," McEnany commented. "As for solutions, he's talking through a number of proposals. No announcements on that," McEnany said.
Black students and alumni of a prestigious all-girls school in Manhattan's Upper East SIde have been sharing their stories of racism, prompting response from school administrators.

In an Instagram account called @Blackatbrearle, several posts detail instances where both peers and students at Brearley either participated in a microagression or were outright racist towards them.

Brearley is a prestigious private school located in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. The school has around 700 students, of which approximately 6.4 per cent are black. Tuition for the 2019-2020 school year was above $50,000, according to their website, but the school does offer financial aid.

Notable alumni include actresses Kyra Sedgwick and Alexandra Daddario and prominent Kennedy family member, Caroline Kennedy.

In an Instagram account called @Blackatbrearle, several posts detail instances where both peers and students at Brearley either participated in a microagression or were outright racist towards them

Brearley is a prestigious private school located in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. The school has around 700 students

The Instagram page was created after similar stories were shared by alums of The Chapin School, another UES prestigious school.

Included in the post are mostly complaints from alumni of the school but there are some parents who have submitted on behalf of their children and current students of the school.

'In 5th grade, to help kids understand slavery, I was asked to be the slave,' one alum shared. 'A white girl was chosen to be my master.'

Another shared: 'On a class trip in 10th grade, I had my hair in crochet braids. When I walked into school, my classmates asked to touch my hair. Even after I said no, they continued to touch my hair the whole trip.'

Another shared: 'On a class trip in 10th grade, I had my hair in crochet braids. When I walked into school, my classmates asked to touch my hair. Even after I said no, they continued to touch my hair the whole trip'

One alum described having a teacher barge into her bathroom stall to see if she was 'doing what I was supposed to be doing'

One alum described having a teacher barge into her bathroom stall to see if she was 'doing what I was supposed to be doing.'

Numerous involved white students commenting on their peers' skin tones, with one person recalling being told that she was dark because she 'didn't clean' herself while another shared that a girl told her they could not play together because she was 'brown.'

Several alum share moments when teachers told them that they would not make it far at the rigorous school, only for them to be proven wrong when the student eventually graduated and went on to college.

Numerous involved white students commenting on their peers skin tones, with one person recalling being told that she was dark because she 'didn't clean' herself while another shared that a girl told her they could not play together because was 'brown'

While few of the post actually name faculty, students did decry the departure of Dr. Stephanie Hull, the school's first and only head of school. The administrator resigned suddenly in 2011.

'The school forced Dr. Hull, Brearley's first and only black head of school, to resign,' one alum alleged. 'When I asked teachers why she left, since was so sudden. They would imply that something about her just wasn't very likeable. Specifically, I remember a white history teacher saying she was so serious and never smiled. '

Another faculty member - identified as only 'Ms. Clark' - was alleged as having a 'history of discouraging black students from applying to competitive school.'

Several Instagram users took to that post to call for her to be fired.

While few of the post actually name faculty, students did decry the departure of Dr. Stephanie Hull, the school's first and only head of school. The administrator resigned suddenly in 2011

Another faculty member named - identified as only 'Ms. Clark' - was alleged as having a 'history of discouraging black students from applying to competitive school'

In a statement to PageSix.com, Head of School Jane Foley Fried said that administrators are reading and listening to all the comments.

'We greatly respect and appreciate the courage and candor of our Black alumnae and students who are sharing their experiences. The racist behavior they have described is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in any part of our community. We are deeply sorry for the pain they have experienced at Brearley. We are already engaged in conversations with the community about what we will do differently beginning this summer,' they said on

'Following the heart-wrenching death of George Floyd and the ensuing calls for justice around the world, we met by grade in Classes V-XII and by homeroom in Lower School. We have convened faculty and staff to discuss anti-Black racism. We also have met with parents of students of color to hear their concerns and are planning a follow-up meeting with them as well. We have widely distributed to the faculty and staff our students' concerns and the link to the Black at Brearley site. We have also reached out to the creators of the Instagram account to speak directly with them.

'We are dedicated to working with our entire community to create an anti-racist environment.'

The Instagram page has said that administrators have not reached out to them to discuss any action as of June 8.

The page and many like it come as institutions across America face the harsh realities of how they enforce systemic racism, following days of mass protests across the country for the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
Camper fire claims the life of two people in Marshall County
India: No water or work: Climate stress pushes Indian delta-dwellers to the edge

June 10,2020 | Source: Reuters

Since a powerful cyclone tore through Indias Sundarbans delta region last month, Radha Naskar has been forced to cycle half an hour each day to collect clean drinking water for her family. Even then, the water she draws from the hand-pump has floating sediment and must be filtered before being consumed. To save time and energy, the mother-of-two has been trying to strike a deal with a neighbour to use his pond for 100 rupees ($1.33) per month. All this when we have very little money to spend anyway, said Naskar, whose husband lost his job as a construction worker after India enforced a coronavirus lockdown in late March. You can fight one problem. But now they are multiple - no drinking water, no food, no roof over our heads or earnings, she said.



Ensuring enough water for everyone at home, including her brother and parents, was a major challenge, she added. It is so frustrating to carry on like this, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the Sundarbans district of South 24 Parganas in West Bengal state. Naskar is one of millions of Sundarbans villagers grappling with acute water shortages after the most ferocious storm in more than a decade. Cyclone Amphan swept away mud-and-thatch homes, breached embankments and swamped farms with salt water, making the land unfit for cultivation. Floods also contaminated ponds and groundwater - locals main sources of water.



Villagers said hand-pumps were now spewing brackish water and ponds had turned black, reeking of dead fish and filth. Kanai Haldar of the West Bengal Farm Labourer Committee said the ponds had previously been used for drinking water, washing clothes and utensils, taking baths and breeding fish. The Sundarbans  meaning beautiful forest in local Bengali dialect - is a delta on the Bay of Bengal and the largest mangrove forest in the world, shared by India and Bangladesh. Home to more than 4.5 million people, it is regarded as a climate-change hotspot, vulnerable to rising sea levels and fiercer storms as the planet warms. The Sundarbans fell directly in the path of Cyclone Amphan, which struck on May 20 with heavy rains and wind gusts of up to 190 km per hour (120 mph).



In another part of the Sundarbans, villagers on the tiny island of Ghoramara have been scrambling not only for clean water but also a roof over their heads.Amphan - the worst of three major cyclones to hit the island in a year - destroyed much of its drinking-water supply network, which was mostly hand-pumps drawing from aquifers. Locals say the pumps were rendered unusable after salt water seeped into the ground. Now they trek for up to an hour to a hand-pump that draws water from a tube well. Wind and rain also blew off most thatch and asbestos roofs. The state government and charities sent food and tarpaulin sheets to locals, but without a solid roof, they fear it may be hard to weather the monsoon downpours expected in a few weeks.



One of 102 low-lying islands in the Sundarbans, Ghoramara - like several others - has been shrinking as seas rise. Now measuring 4.6 sq km (1.8 sq miles), it has nearly halved in size over the past two decades, according to village elders. The population has dropped to 4,900 from about 9,000 a decade ago. Cyclone Amphan washed away more than 160 km of river embankments across the Sundarbans, officials said. Residents say flooding has been getting worse, threatening their homes and livelihoods. Sugato Hazra, a professor at the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University, attributed the rising frequency and intensity of storms to climate change. A cyclone in 2009 left similar destruction, triggering mass migration of people to cities seeking steady work and shelter.



The islanders lives are tied to a vulnerable ecosystem. They have only a few job opportunities, from farming and fishing to betel-leaf growing and tourism - all of which have become harder to sustain with more extreme and erratic weather. We are still clinging to this place but certainly pushed to the edge, said Sanjib Sagar, a Ghoramara village council member. Eventually, this island will be an abandoned one. Indias nationwide coronavirus lockdown has shut many businesses and limited movement, complicating recovery from the cyclones damage. The Farm Labourer Committee staged a state-wide protest on June 1, with hundreds of members banging empty tin plates to denote hunger and carrying placards saying: We want to stay in our villages. We want jobs. We want food.



West Bengals chief minister announced an initial aid allocation of 10 billion rupees to rebuild houses, river embankments and water supply networks, and to clean ponds. The federal government announced another 10 billion rupees to help repair the cyclone damage. West Bengal state has also promised a minimum 100 days of work a year to villagers under a government jobs scheme. Bankim Hazra, a state legislator who represents Ghoramara, said the coronavirus and cyclone were a double blow to local livelihoods. Every household exhausted whatever little savings they had, he said. The storm damaged valuable betel leaf crops that many islanders depend on for a living, he added. The leaf is mostly used in paan - wrapped around a mixture of areca nut, spices and tobacco - to aid digestion and refresh palates. Authorities have announced financial aid of 5,000 rupees for each betel leaf-growing family.



Agriculture officials said advance cyclone warning allowed farmers to harvest about 60% of their standing crops, but the rest were submerged or flattened by gusting winds. Altogether, the storm damaged more than 1 million hectares (2.4 million acres) planted with crops and vegetables. S.P. Sinha Ray, head of the Centre for Ground Water Studies in Kolkata, said sustainable development and water management were major challenges in the Sundarbans. Freshwater aquifers were too deep to access at 400 metres and rooftop rainwater harvesting was impossible since most houses have asbestos, tin or thatched roofs, he said.



But desalinisation of shallow groundwater sources and cleaning of ponds and water bodies with safe-to-use chemicals could help locals get water for daily needs, he added. Authorities are also looking into solar-powered water pumps across North 24 Parganas district. But for Ankan Mondal, a villager on Kumirmari island in the Sundarbans, those ideas sound like a pipedream while his community needs more water right now, despite the local council delivering some in barrels and pouches. With so many hand-pumps not working and ponds contaminated, we are facing acute hardships, he said.
Monsoon Accessorize was almost immediately bought by Adena Brands, owned by Monsoons founder Peter Simon, after falling into administration. (Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

More than 500 staff and dozens of stores face the axe at Monsoon Accessorize, despite the company being swiftly bought after collapsing into administration this week.

The owner of the two high street fashion chains had been struggling before the pandemic, but the forced closure of its sites during the lockdown has exacerbated its troubles.

Now 545 staff face redundancy and 35 stores currently shuttered by the coronavirus in the UK and Ireland will close for good.

FRP confirmed they were appointed administrators on Tuesday, but said the company was then almost immediately bought by Adena Brands, owned by Monsoons founder Peter Simon.

It said Simon would try to negotiate better deals with landlords on the remaining 162 stores. But it said he expected to only be able to save up to 100 stores and 2,300 jobs, including in warehouse and head office roles.

Adena Brands will inject 15m ($19m) into the business to allow stores to trade. Around 450 jobs will be safeguarded through a transfer to Simons business, and more could follow.

READ MORE: 3,000 jobs at risk as Frankie and Bennys owner axes 125 restaurants

Ever since I opened the first Monsoon store in Beauchamp Place in 1973, this business has been my passion and my life, and I did not want to see it fall victim to this unprecedented crisis, said Simon, previously a majority owner of the business.

Both Monsoon and Accessorize were trading well before the coronavirus pandemic but the business simply could not withstand the financial impact of having to close all its UK, franchise and joint venture stores for almost three months, added Simon.

He also thanked landlords for their helpfulness and enormous forbearance so far, but warned many more stores future depended on further negotiations.

Tony Wright, joint administrator and partner at FRP, said: We had to move quickly and decisively to secure the future of Monsoon and Accessorize, as many jobs as possible and the presence of these two iconic brands on the UK high street.

Story continues

After assessing a range of options this deal achieves those goals with least disruption to the business in an already challenging retail environment.

Monsoon Accessorize was reported to have warned landlords in late May they had a week to offer rent waivers or permanent store closures would follow.

Full list of Monsoon Accessorize stores facing closure

Basildon

Bexleyheath

Burton-on-Trent

Camberley

Canterbury

Carlisle

Chelmsford

Cork, Patrick Street x 2

Crawley

Derby

Dublin

Hereford

Hitchin

Huddersfield

Kilkenny

Lancaster

Lincoln

Liverpool Airport

Maidenhead

Maidstone

Middlesbrough

Newark

Newtownabbey

Northampton

Southend

St Albans

Staines

Sutton Coldfield

Taunton

Telford

Trowbridge

Truro

Tunbridge Wells

York (Davygate)
Most cannabis poisoning incidents involving children resulted from the intentional use of cannabis combined with alcohol, illicit drugs and/or medication, new research suggests.

Researchers studied incidents of cannabis poisonings among children and youth from BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver for the three-year-period prior to recreational cannabis legalization in Canada.

The findings, published today in Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada: Research, Policy and Practice, are important for informing cannabis safety guidelines and helping keep children safe.

"We need to know how the legalization of recreational cannabis impacts children's health," says the study's senior author Dr. Shelina Babul, an investigator at BC Children's, clinical associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia (UBC), associate director of the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit (BCIRPU) and director of the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting & Prevention Program (CHIRPP). "This is especially important now that cookies, chocolates and gummies containing cannabis have been legalized in Canada. We need to do whatever we can to keep kids safe."

Common signs of cannabis poisoning include vomiting, dizziness, slurred speech and an altered level of consciousness. Although cannabis poisoning does not often result in long-term harm, these symptoms can require emergency department care.

For the study, researchers from BC Children's and UBC extracted records from the CHIRPP database specific to cannabis poisonings treated in the emergency department at BC Children's between Jan. 1, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2018. Scientists studied medical reports and health records to review patients' characteristics and determine where and when the consumption of cannabis, and any other substances, had occurred.

They found that, of the 911 poisonings treated at BC Children's over three years, 12.5 per cent, or 114, were a result of cannabis consumed intentionally. The majority of cannabis-related poisonings resulted from the intentional use of cannabis combined with alcohol, illicit drugs and/or medication (71.1 per cent). The proportion of poisonings from intentional cannabis use only was 28.9 per cent. The median patient age was 15.

Cannabis poisonings were reported most often on weekdays. In most cases, youth smoked cannabis and drank alcohol in private residences with their friends. Nearly half of cannabis-only poisonings were reported by the patient's family or friends, whereas poisonings resulting from the ingestion of cannabis along with other psychoactive substances were most often reported by bystanders (39.5 per cent).

Fewer than 10 poisonings resulted from inadvertent ingestions by children with a median age of three. All inadvertent ingestions occurred at home and involved cannabis belonging to the patient's parents or siblings. Products inadvertently ingested by the patient included edibles, topicals and cannabis cigarettes. The researchers say these lower numbers should be taken seriously, as early research suggests that children of this age group are at greater risk of more serious side effects.

In Canada, the federal government legalized the use of recreational cannabis in October 2018 and edibles, topicals and extracts in October 2019.

The researchers are continuing to examine the incidence of cannabis poisoning now that recreational cannabis has been legallized. They will be using this study's findings as a baseline for future research.

###
CRAWFORDSVILLE  The owners of 108 acres near Crawfordsville have appealed a decision by the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals that overturns county approval for rezoning the property from farm/forest to non-resource 5 acre minimum sites and would negate a potential housing development.

In August, the Linn County Planning Commission and Linn County Board of Commissioners approved the rezone application by owners Ron and Virginia Henthorne, who are selling the property to Lynn Merrill.

But 1000 Friends of Oregon filed an appeal of that decision, and last month LUBA ruled the property is within a big game habitat zone, which is part of Linn Countys overall land use goals. LUBA also challenged whether the propertys soil types were such that the site would not sustain productive tree habitat.

In June 2019, Ron and Virginia Henthorne and Merrill of Acreage Land Solutions, asked the Linn County Planning Commission to allow the rezoning because they said the soils on the property will not support a development of a forest-like area.

Merrill was a consultant on the project, with the intent of purchasing the property, which he now controls, although the Henthornes still retain the propertys title.

Several neighbors had opposed the rezoning, citing the narrowness of Crawfordsville Drive, the lack of water in the event of fire and the development of a subdivision in a rural area. Some neighbors were also concerned about how drilling several wells might affect their own potable water supplies.

The Henthornes and Merrill were asking for the rezone so they could proceed with determining how many septic tanks and potable water wells could be developed and, therefore, how many lots could be platted. They were shooting for about 20 sites of 5 acres each.

Weve elected to appeal LUBAs decision to the Oregon Court of Appeals, Merrill said. Regardless of how many years it takes, well keep chipping away at this until we get there. Our opponents arent fighting for wildlife, they are fighting to control surrounding landowners and make sure theyre the last to build.

Merrill said the Henthornes spent decades trying to turn the property from sparsely forested oak savanna to a productive tree farm, going well beyond the efforts a commercial tree farmer would attempt with intent to see any profit.

Merrill said the plan concerning the big game habitat overlay is to set aside permanent wildlife easements that would be managed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. There would be setbacks of up to 300 feet from adjoining lands, clustering of homesites and improvements on about 1 acre of each tract, with the balance of the property managed as oak savanna for wildlife.

Merrill said Oregon oak savanna was cultivated by Native Americans to reduce brush and encourage grass forage growth, but since the arrival of Europeans to the Willamette Valley, about 95% of it has disappeared.

With roughly 15 homes as patrons of the habitat, each occupying 1 acre, more than 90 acres of unfenced oak savanna could be established and maintained, Merrill said. Without the use of fire the lands would need to be mowed annually to encourage new native grasses and suppress brush. Tree would be thinned periodically.

Merrill said soil types on most of the property are primarily shallow and have high water tables, and better soils make up only about 50 cubic feet per acre, not enough to make the property commercially viable for tree production.

The sites would be served with high-speed fiber-optic lines, which would allow homeowners to work locally while surrounded by nature.

Merrill believes LUBA exceeded its authority.

LUBA didnt even remand the case to the county to clarify how their code was applied or intended; they just reversed the decision, Merrill said. The implication of this veto power extend to all cities and counties across the state  it rips from the hands of local government the right to interpret their own rules.

Philip Callaway owns a 38-acre tree farm near the proposed project.

The LUBA ruling is a major victory for the citizens of Linn County to stop the loss of forestland and big game habitat to unregulated development, Callaway said. Many thanks to 1000 Friends of Oregon for their legal representation at the Land Use Board of Appeals.

Callaway added, The rezoning of the Henthorne property was such an egregious violation of Linn County code that LUBA reversed the countys decision, which only happens in about 5% of LUBA appeals.

"LUBA ruled that big game habitat must remain zoned as F/F (farm/forest), EFU (exclusive farm use) or FCM (forest conservation management) to be preserved under Linn County code.

Callaway also said soil surveys show the property could be a productive forest site.

The developers proposal to create big game habitat by developing a subdivision is patently ridiculous and, we now know, was not supported by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Callaway said.

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Out of the 654 people criminally charged during the Black Lives Matter protests demanding justice for George Floyd in Houston last week, only 52 remain charged with active cases after the Harris County District Attorney's Office moved to dismiss hundreds of cases following a week-long review.

Charges for the 52 people with remaining active cases include 35 misdemeanor charges and 19 felony charges related to weapons offenses and aggravated assault of a peace officer, according to a release from the DA's office.

CLASHES WITH POLICE: Houston PD arrests more than 200 after downtown rally for George Floyd

"While probable cause existed for the arrests of those people who refused to disperse after being ordered to do so by police, our young prosecutors worked hard to identify the few offenders who came to inflict harm on others and intentional damage to property," Harris County DA Kim Ogg said.

Several rallies were held in Houston demanding justice for Floyd, a former Third Ward resident who died while in police custody on Memorial Day. A city-sanctioned protest organized by Houston rappers Trae Tha Truth and Bun B and where Floyd's family was in attendance drew more than 60,000 protesters to downtown. The protest was mostly peaceful until later on in the night when police attempted to detain people who refused to leave the area.

In total, 796 criminal cases were dismissed. Cases that were dismissed were mostly for non-violent misdemeanor offenses, such as obstructing a highway and trespassing.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Tens of thousands march on downtown Houston to memorialize George Floyd

People who have had their case dismissed may also be able to have the charges expunged from their records.



With so many professionals wanting to contribute, I am confident that the criminal defense bar will volunteer their services to clean up the criminal records of all involved, Ogg said. We will always protect the First Amendment rights of peaceful protestors. The only people I will be prosecuting are those who intentionally hurt others and intentionally destroy property.

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
Lee Elementary received the Exemplary Program Award for the Western District for MassDOT's Safe Routes to School Program. PreviousNext

Safe Routes School Honors North Adams Coordinator, 2 Schools



Emily Schiavoni is this year's recipient of the Nikki Tishler Memorial Award for the work she's done in North Adams to promote safe walking and biking. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Berkshire County was well represented at the state's Safe Routes to School award program on Monday, including the presentation of the Nikki Tishler Memorial Award to North Adams Public Schools' Emily Schiavoni.

Lee Elementary won the Exemplary Program Award for the Western District and Clarksburg School received an honorable mention. Additionally, both schools along with Brayton, Greylock and Colegrove Park in North Adams were named Gold Level winners and Williamstown Elementary a Bronze Level winner.

The state Department of Transportation program has partnered with more than 900 schools in 237 communities during its 15 years. It offers training, signage, information, and infrastructure grants to encourage walking and biking safely to school.

"Each year it's our goal to make our partner sustainable partners, meaning that we give them the tools to run a secrets program on their own," said MassDOT Project Manager Cassandra Gascon Bligh during the virtual ceremony. "In order for us to keep partnering with new schools, it's really critical that the school district and the community realized the importance of see fruits and making a regular part of their call season sustain the program year over year."

The Tishler Award, previously the Super Hero Award, was renamed for the late transportation planner and Safe Routes to School coordinator last year and was presented by her father, Gary Tishler.

"Nikki was one of mascots fiercest advocates for social justice, and when I thought about her this morning I could only imagine what she would be up to right now in the current social justice environment, and she'd be fierce inside the organization and outside on the streets," said Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack. "As Nicky would remind us if she were here, the work we do in the Safe Routes to School program is even more important, because of the pandemic but it's also even more important, because of the reminders that we have all been given sadly in these last couple weeks about the importance of being intentional about social equity, and about making sure that the things that we do benefit everyone and every community."

The award is given to the individual who has shown commitment and extra effort in making SRTS successful within their community.

Schiavoni is community outreach coordinator for the North Adams Public Schools. Her efforts include working on pedestrian projects, such as creating small parklets ariound the city, and leading a team that includes Amanda Chilson of Mass in Motion and Patrick Higgins, SRTS Western region coordinator.

The team has mapped out all the city's streets for bikeability, hosted trainings for teachers on bike and pedestrian safety that they could transmit to their students, won an SRTS infrastructure grant from Brayton Elementary, and integrated the program's Appalachian Trail lesson into some classes. She also did an analysis of how weather affected walkability.

"Emily is constantly finding new ways to improve the North Adams community," said Higgins. "When she is not improving student help with safe routes, you can catch her serving the community through contributing to the revitalization of North Adams downtown business district. ...

"Her colleagues and friends would describe her as someone committed to finding meaningful ways to improve students lives. Nikki Tishler shared this commitment, which is why MassDOT selected her as the winner for this year's award."

Higgins also announced the awards for Lee and Clarksburg. Lee Elementary is located far back from the road on a a hill with one road as access that creates logistical issues for biking and walking.

"Inspired by some award winners last year, the school created a monthly walk to school day," he said. "The community involvement component is particularly noteworthy as each month, the walk is sponsored or hosted with a different community organization."

Lee has partnered with organizations such as the Police Department and Lions Club. It also conducted an analysis to see how arrivals and dismissals could be improved. The result was the idea for a "park and walk" that was supposed to be piloted in June. Instead, it created a walk-to-school video with students and community members sending videos and pictures of themselves walking.

Clarksburg got an honorable mention for planning a regular bike-to-school event. The school is also on a hill and had to address traffic concerns for arrival and departure that also takes into account traffic to the connected town library.

"In addition to participating in safe routes flagship events, Clarksburg focused its 2019-2020 efforts on reducing the number of cars traveling to and from school, he said. "It planned on launching a regular bike-to-school event, and also began exploring a safe trails to school idea for those living near a trail that serves the school. This is particularly noteworthy as outdoor recreation is popular amongst the Berkshire community."

Clarksburg also had been exploring the idea of a "park and walk" that would encourage students by rewarding the more mature with independence.

The awards program had to be held remotely because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which had also forced school closures and prevent some of the plans from reaching fruition this spring.

"It was an easy decision for us to keep this event scheduled because we knew it was important to celebrate now and honor the schools and community stakeholders that have changed everything about what they do, our educators are reinventing the way they teach communicate and interact with their students," said Program Coordinator Diane Hanson. "We also know that with more kids at home during the day, they're getting outside to walk and bike, more than ever, our goal is Safe Routes to School remains the same, to promote safe and active student transportation, wherever school may be."
An alleged victim of Australia's notorious 'incest family' was raped by her uncle and only escaped when her grandmother gave her a chilling warning, a court has heard.

Petra Colt, 27, told Sydney District Court her uncle and brother Frank Colt, 50, raped her at a rural property in southern New South Wales when she was 17 years old.

Police found almost 40 relatives living at the farm in July 2012 and took a dozen of the inbred and malnourished children into care, The Daily Telegraph reported.

However, Petra was left behind and only escaped when her grandmother told her: 'If you could, just get out of here.'

Petra Colt, 27, (pictured far left with two cousins) told Sydney District Court she was raped by her uncle and brother Frank Colt, 50, on a rural property in NSW when she was 17-years-old

The court heard that Petra, Frank and her mother Betty (pictured) all shared a biological father and that Petra's grandmother warned her to 'get out' of the incest cult

The court heard a recording of Petra telling police in 2018 that she, Frank and her mother Betty shared a biological father - Tim Colt.

Frank pleaded not guilty to raping his niece Petra, both pseudonyms, in the back of his car in February 2010.

The court heard Petra had a fight with her mother and passed Frank's car when she went for a walk.

'He grabbed me from behind and he threw me headfirst into the car,' Petra said, detailing how she was held down as he forced her knees open.

'I tried to fight him off but he wouldn't listen,' Petra told the court on Tuesday.

'I was kicking and punching him, pulling his hair.'

The incident lasted 10 to 15 minutes before Frank threw her and her clothes out of the car and called her an 'ungrateful b***h and a pig', Petra said.

Frank Colt, a pseudonym, pleaded not guilty to raping his then 17-year-old niece. Pictured: A member of the Colt family at Sydney Domestic Airport in 2018

Under cross-examination, Petra said Tuesday was the first time she'd mentioned the specific slurs.

She denied making up the allegation that Frank raped her.

The court heard Petra told Victorian police in 2013 she was living in 'a cult'.

'I live in a cult, I never went to school,' she told police during a visit alone to Swan Hill.

'All my aunts, uncles, cousins have all been sleeping together.'

Petra was allegedly assaulted by another uncle while living with the cult and was told to keep her mouth shut. Pictured: Cult members lived in caravans and tents with no toilet or showers

In August 2018, three years after breaking away from her family, she told police Frank raped her.

The Crown alleges another uncle began sexually assaulting her when she was a child.

'This was not a secret in the family,' crown prosecutor Katharine Jeffreys said.

'The complainant's parents knew and ... told her to keep her mouth shut.'

The Colt family moved across the country on several occasions, staying in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia at times, Ms Jeffreys said.

Caravans and tents were the living quarters and no toilet or shower facilities were available.

Children spent the vast majority of their time on the property but some older adults including Frank would come and go, the court was told.

The trial is ongoing.
Earth observation spacecraft, capable of photographing features on the planet 20inches wide, will hitch a lift into orbit with the next spacex Starlink satellites.

The observation satellites are operated byPlanet, who say the three new spacecraft being launched on the Falcon rocket will bring their constellation up to 18.

Planet's SkySat network orbit 279 miles above the Earth, allowing them to see any feature larger than 20inches and photograph it in detail up to 12 times per day.

The three SkySat satellites and the next 60 Starlink spacecrafts will be launched by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida on June 12.

This image shows the Edenville Dam in Michigan, captured by SkySat on May 20, 2020. The observation satellites are operated byPlanet, who say the three new spacecraft being launched on the Falcon rocket will bring their constellation up to 18

The San Francisco company already has a much larger constellation of satellites it calls Doves, which pictures the entire Earth surface at a lower resolution once a day.

The Doves constellation satellites are much smaller, cubesats like the SpaceX Starlink crafts and can photograph objects on the Earth 12ft across.

Doves is the second largest constellation after Starlink, with 150 orbiting satellites compared to the 450 SpaceX have above the Earth.

Unlike SpaceX, which is focusing on providing internet to rural communities, Planet is focused on photographing the planet and tracking topological changes.

The new SkySat network will eventually comprise 21 satellites, with three going up this week and another three due to launch in a months time.

The three SkySat satellites and the next 60 Starlink spacecrafts will be launched by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida on June 12

When complete the network will allow Planet to observe anywhere on Earth up to 12 times per day in very high resolution - with objects as small as 20inches.

This will give Planet more detailed and regular coverage of the planet than any other network, and will be particularly impressive over mid-latitudes like the UK.

British CEO and co-founder of Planet, Will Marshall, told the BBC that both Doves and SkySat were 'cool systems' that serve different purposes.

'The Doves scan the Earth and are used to monitor large-scale phenomena, such as for agriculture and deforestation,' he said.

'The SkySats are for pointing and tasking, where you need higher resolution imagery for things like making maps, hence our partnership with Google.'

Part of the Google partnership includes the ability for someone who spots an out of date map on the Google Maps site to trigger a SkySat to go and collect a new image.

This then automatically recognises buildings and roads to bring the map up to date.

The partnership with SpaceX has been an efficient one, according to Marshall, who said both companies work at a fast pace and do a lot of development in house.

'One of the things that was really nice about working with SpaceX is that they work at a very similar pace as Planet,' Mike Safyan, VP of launch at Planet told The Verge.

'We both go fast, and we do a lot of stuff in house which helps enable us to go faster than the typical aerospace project.'

It took six months from signing the contract with SpaceX to the first launch.

For the launch on June 12 the three SkySat's will be sat on top of a stack of 60 Starlink satellites inside the nose cone of a Falcon 9 rocket.

This is a 20inch SkySat image of the Mundra Power Plant in Gujarat, India, on April 4, 2020. The company are launching three new satellites on the next SpaceX mission luanch

It's being launched as part of the SpaceX ride share programme, that allows other satellite firms to piggy back on existing planned launches.

The launch costs $500 (391) per kilogram, according to Planet, who say this is a game changer in terms of cost-to-orbit for small satellites.

'If we can find a ride-share opportunity that has good pricing and it's going towards a desired orbit  and we have a pretty good confidence in the schedule  then that's typically our port of call,' the firm said.

It's a period of major change for Planet, who also recently improved the resolution of SkySat by putting them in a slightly lower orbit - from 310 miles to 279 miles.

This allowed them to go from photograph objects 31inches across to even smaller 20inch objects on the planet's surface - cloud dependant.

Planets current SkySat constellation captured four images in a single day of ships docking at a steel mill in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. With the upcoming addition of six new satellites in the coming months, they will be able to view some areas up to 12 times per day

Planet is also updating its Doves network with newer, higher resolution capable spacecraft known as SuperDoves - with 20 launching on the next European Vega rocket mission.

The firm say they are working on exploiting the latest processors, sensors, radios and any other technology that let them capture the Earth in greater detail.

'Just as you don't what a smartphone in your pocket that's older than three years, we don't want spacecraft in orbit older than three years,' Marshall told the BBC.

'I definitely think this is Earth observation's moment,' he added. 'We're moving towards this concept of a queryable Earth.'

He said their technology is used by farmers to optimise and reduce the amount of fertiliser on their land, by governments to monitor regulation and enforcement of land use and even by coastguards to stop illegal fishing.

'We're trying to make EO easier and easier... to democratise its use and get benefit from it,' said Marshall.
Rajesh Asnani By

Express News Service

JAIPUR: The politics in Rajasthan has intensified with just 10 days to go before the elections on three Rajya Sabha seats in the state.



Rajasthan Assembly's Chief Whip , Mahesh Joshi , has written a letter to the DG of the ACB complaining that attempts are being made to destabilize the elected government by luring Congress MLAs and other independents.



He has requested that legal action be taken against those found guilty of doing so. Fearing horse trading, Congress has shifted its own and independent MLAs to a hotel on Jaipur-Delhi Road before the polling on June 19.



Mahesh Joshi has written to Director General (Anti-Corruption Bureau) about alleged poaching attempts.



The letter states, "I have come to know through reliable sources that attempts are being made to lure our MLAs & independent MLAs who support us, in order to destabilise the government".



ALSO READ | All four candidates set to be elected unopposed from Karnataka in upcoming Rajya Sabha polls



The Rajasthan governments chief whip Mahesh Joshi also wrote, It has come to my knowledge that like Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, attempts are being made to destabilise the government in Rajasthan and there should be an investigation. 'Money power' is being used to destabilise the Ashok Gehlot-led government as Rajya Sabha elections that are due on June 19 near in which three seats of the state are up for election."



The letter however, did not specify which forces are making such attempts.

But BJP has felt violated. State Spokesperson of BJP, Laxmikant Bhardwaj reacted to the letter asking the basis of the contents of Mahesh Joshi's letter.



"These are baseless allegations on the world's largest democratic party. Congress should provide some evidence otherwise they should be ready for legal action.By doing so, they are not only provoking public sentiment but are trying to stamp out their failures", he remarked.

The Congress has nominated its National General Secretary, KC Venugopal and Rajasthan State General Secretary, Neeraj Dangi for two seats. The party claims that they have 125 votes, including independents while BJP has only 73 MLAs and has the support of 2 RLP MLAs.



ALSO READ | Rajya Sabha polls: BJP picks surprise candidates



But the saffron party has made the contest complex with fielding 2 candidates Rajendra Gehlot and Onkaar Singh Lakhawat.



According to the number game BJP will be able to win only one seat. But political sources say that the party is trying to bring independents and some Congress MLAs from anti Gehlot Camp.



In this Rajendra Gehlot's victory is certain, but for Lakhawat, at least 25 votes will be required. The ruling Congress and the opposition BJP, along with keeping their MLAs united, have stepped up efforts to break into each other's camps.



Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot, is resorting to dinner politics to prevent cross voting and keep his legislators united.These MLAs met Gehlot and following his direction, these MLAs were sent to the hotel Shiv Vilas Resort on Delhi Road via buses. After this, CM Gehlot and Deputy CM Pilot also left for the hotel.

The Congress alleges that its MLAs and Independent MLAs have information about calls from top BJP leaders from Delhi. Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot has justified the move by Mahesh Joshi and attacked BJP for attempting horse trading of MLA's.

Rajasthan: Congress Chief Whip & MLA Mahesh Joshi writes to Director General (Anti-Corruption Bureau). Letter states, "I have come to know through reliable sources that attempts are being made to lure our MLAs & independent MLAs who support us, in order to destabilise the govt". pic.twitter.com/rFdUD9pOpB  ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2020

"Even before the anti-defection bill came, and after many amendments, they manage to find a way. There are crores and billions of rupees being offered. I am hearing that cash transfers are happening in Jaipur, who is sending it? Advance is given and offers are made to the tune of 10 crores. They say that later 10 more will be given and then 5 more. What is happening? This is openly horse trading. That is why today Mahesh Joshi has filed a report. If caught, these people will have to face the law..," said Gehlot while talking to media.

On the allegations of the Congress, BJP State President, Satish Poonia said that the people of Delhi do not have such free time. He accused the state government of having failed on every front and added that politically and internally, the state government was weak.

Number Game in 200 Member Assembly: Of the three seats in the Rajya Sabha, two seats are scheduled to go to the Congress account in terms of strength. Two seats require 51 votes each.



The number of Congress MLAs is 106 in the assembly, BJP had 72 MLA's there are 13 Independents, 2 BTP ( Bhartiya Tribal Party), 1 from RLD, 2 from CPM, 3 MLAs of RLP.
WASHINGTON  Philonise Floyd, whose brothers death in police custody has inspired two weeks of sprawling protests across the country, made an impassioned plea to Congress on Wednesday to enact sweeping changes to law enforcement in America to address police brutality and systemic racism.

In wrenching testimony on Capitol Hill, Mr. Floyd described to the House Judiciary Committee the agony he felt as he watched the video of George Floyd, his older brother, dying while pinned under the knee of a white police officer for nearly nine minutes, gasping that he could not breathe. The elder Mr. Floyd was arrested over a complaint that he had bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.

I am asking you, is that what a black mans life is worth? Twenty dollars? Mr. Floyd asked. This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough.

Mr. Floyd was the first witness and marquee voice among more than a half-dozen civil rights experts and activists at a hearing called to consider the most expansive federal intervention into law enforcement that lawmakers have proposed in recent memory, which was put forth by Democrats this week. His remarks came a day after his brother was laid to rest in Houston, amid a groundswell of public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, widespread protests that have convulsed big cities and small towns alike, and a rapidly unfolding national conversation on race in the United States.
President Trump lashed out on Twitter after watching Fox News Channel cut away from Republican witnesses Wednesday testifying about policing on Capitol Hill.

'Incredible! @FoxNews just took Congressional Hearing off the air just prior to important witness statements. More like CNN!!! Fox is lost!!!' the president wrote.

Fox News Channel opted not to show the opening statement of Dan Bongino, a former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent who, more recently, became a conservative pundit and failed Republican Congressional candidate.

President Trump lashed out at Fox News Channel for cutting away from Republican witnesses testifying about policing before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday

Republican witness Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who is now a conservative radio host who has interviewed President Trump, used his testimony to plead with lawmakers not to defund police

Angela Underwood Jacobs, a Republican witness, and Philonise Floyd, a brother of George Floyd, are sworn in during a House Judiciary Committee hearing

It cut away as House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy was introducing Angela Underwood-Jacobs, a former Republican candidate for Congress whose brother Patrick was killed May 29 in Oakland, California.

'Pat' Jacobs was working as a contract security officer for the Department of Homeland Security, guarding the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building, when he was shot during the riots following the death of George Floyd.

Bongino and Underwood-Jacobs were witnesses called to testify by House Republicans.

They were testifying alongside Democratic witnesses that included Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, who was put to rest in Houston Tuesday after inspiring two weeks of 'Black Lives Matter' protests around the globe.

President Trump made no mentioni of Philonise Floyd's testimony.

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, a prominent Capitol Hill ally of President Donald Trump, attacked Democrats for the 'defund the police' movement

President Trump was clearly tuned in to the hearing, as he testified his approval of Rep. Jim Jordan's testimony

But he tweeted about statement's made by Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and the ranking member of the Democratic-led Judiciary committee.

'Great statement to Congress by @Jim_Jordan concerning Defunding (not!) our great Police,' Trump tweeted at 10:33 a.m. 'This Radical Left agenda is not going to happen. Sleepy Joe Biden will be (already is) pulled all the way Left. Many, like Minneapolis, want to close their Police Departments. Crazy!,' Trump tweeted

Jordan had attacked Democrats for the recent emergence of the 'defund police' movement. Progressives have backed the idea not to scrap policing, but move funds from police departments to social programs. Calling it a 'defund'-ing initiative, however, has allowed conservatives to quickly criticize it.

'It is pure insanity to defund the police,' Jordan said in his opening statement. 'The fact that my Democratic colleagues won't speak out against this crazy policy is just as frightening.'

The Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden has said he's against 'defunding' the police, though would be open to using federal dollars to reward and punish police departments.

At 10:56 a.m., Trump sent out his tweet complaining that Fox News Channel had cut away.
By Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS: The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said Wednesday, as he announced initial steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency in the wake of George Floyd's death.

Faced with calls from activists and a majority of City Council members to dismantle or defund the department, Arradondo also said he would use a new system to identify problem officers and intervene if there are early warning signs of trouble.

"We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart, he told reporters during a news conference more than two weeks after Floyd died after a white officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man's neck even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.

Activists have pointed to racial inequities and brutality, as well as a system that refuses to discipline problem officers. The officer who had his knee on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, had 17 complaints against him and had been disciplined only once.

Arradondo said issued of racism need to be addressed head on and that a first step in making changes would be a thorough review of the union contract. He said its debilitating for a chief when an officer does something that calls for termination, but the union works to keep that person on the job, and on the street.

Advisers will look for ways to restructure the contract to provide more transparency and flexibility, he said. The review will look at critical incident protocols, use of force, and disciplinary protocols, including grievances and arbitration, among other things.

This work must be transformational, but I must do it right, Arradondo said.

The current police union contract expired on Dec. 31 but remains in effect until there is a new one, according to the citys website.

Messages left with union President Bob Kroll were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey supported the chief's decisions.

Additional accountability between the people and the police needs to be matched with internal ability to closely monitor police behavior and intervene early to prevent more tragedy," Frey said in a statement.

Arradondo sidestepped a question about whether he thought Kroll, often seen as an obstacle to changes, should step down. He also didnt directly answer a question about whether citizens should worry about a slowdown in police response time as a pushback against attempts to transform the department. Some City Council members have said in the past that their wards saw such slowdowns when they complained about police action.

Arradondo fired the four officers who were at the scene of the encounter with Floyd even before they were criminally charged. Chauvin faces charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. The three other officers were charged with aiding and abetting the second-degree murder and manslaughter counts.

While a majority of City Council members called for dismantling the department, they provided no clear plan on how that would happen. Frey has said he would not support abolishing the department.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is prosecuting the four officers, told The Associated Press in an interview earlier Wednesday that hes not calling for dismantling or defunding the department. But he said the people who are should be listened to rather than dismissed.

He said it was fair to question whether community groups that fight against gun violence should get more money, for example, and whether schools with officers should also have more nurses and counselors.

Nobodys saying defund safety, Ellison said. What theyre doing is theyre challenging the 19th, 20th century model of how we deliver safety ... how its not really working very well and coming up with alternatives.

Frey and Arradondo's predecessor, Janee Harteau, are among those who have complained that the police union is a roadblock to change. Frey told Good Morning America this week that the city has difficulty terminating and disciplining officers because of the union.

Bob Bennett, an attorney who said he has sued the department hundreds of times over police misconduct allegations, has said that the union has more sway over police conduct than chiefs do.

Arradondo, the citys first African American police chief, joined the Minneapolis Police Department in 1989 as a patrol officer, working his way up to precinct inspector and head of the Internal Affairs Unit, which investigates officer misconduct allegations. Along the way, he and four other black officers successfully sued the department for discrimination in promotions, pay and discipline.

He was promoted to assistant chief in early 2017, then became chief later that year, after Harteau was fired for the way she handled the fatal police shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian native who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home.

Many hoped Arradondo could alter the culture of a department that critics said too frequently used excessive force and discriminated against people of color. Arradondo made some quick changes, including toughening the departments policy on use of body cameras. But critics have said more needs to be done.
John Gleeson: The government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the president.

A retired judge on Wednesday urged a federal court in Washington, DC not to allow the Justice Department to dismiss its criminal case against President Donald Trumps former adviser, Michael Flynn, citing evidence of gross abuse of prosecutorial power.

The US district judge hearing the case, Emmet Sullivan, last month tapped John Gleeson to serve as a friend of the court after the Justice Department abruptly asked the court to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn, a former national security adviser.

Gleeson was appointed by Sullivan in a special role to weigh in on the case, but it will ultimately be up to Sullivan and potentially an appeals court whether to accept the Justice Departments motion to drop the case.

The stunning move by the Justice Department followed a pressure campaign by Trump and his conservative allies and came even though Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations with the former Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Gleeson was tasked with arguing against the governments motion, and Sullivan also asked him to make a recommendation on whether to hold Flynn in contempt for perjury.

The government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the president. The facts of this case overcome the presumption of regularity, Gleeson wrote, noting that Sullivan should proceed with sentencing Flynn.





Flynn was one of several former Trump aides charged under former Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation that detailed Moscows interference in the 2016 US presidential election. He was Trumps national security adviser briefly in early 2017.

Gleeson also said there was ample evidence in the record that Flynn committed perjury, or lying under oath.

But he recommended that Sullivan take Flynns perjury into account when sentencing him for lying to the FBI, rather than commencing a follow-on prosecution.
Bouncers ask patrons to scan QR codes on their smartphones before allowing them into Nightclub Seven in Daejeon, South Korea. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

It had been more than a decade since Choi Kun last set foot in a nightclub.

There are things you don't do as a married man with children, the 42-year-old said  and going to a nightclub, which in South Korea often entails waiters bringing over female patrons to tables of men, is most certainly one. But on a recent night, his friend had dragged him to a club in Daejeon, a city an hour south of Seoul.

When they arrived at Nightclub Seven, though, they were in for a surprise. To enter, bouncers explained, they would have to scan a QR code  a "quick response" code of dots and squares on smartphones  containing the patrons' personal information.

How do you safely resume nights of dancing, drinking or karaoke at a time when the threat of a deadly, highly contagious virus still lingers? South Korea, which saw a possible end to its coronavirus outbreak derailed when an uptick in infections last month was blamed on clubbing, is trying out a mandatory high-tech registry for nightlife establishments.

A server walks through the sparsely occupied tables inside Nightclub Seven in Daejeon, South Korea. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Beginning Wednesday, everyone visiting high-risk places including clubs and noraebang, as popular private-room karaokes are known, will be required to scan a QR code that will log their information into government databases. The measure is also being rolled out for certain gyms, concert spaces and restaurants. In all, more than 80,000 businesses across the country were being mandated to implement QR code scans.

Other governments around the world, including Singapore and New Zealand, have also turned to QR codes as part of their coronavirus control efforts. In the U.S., Apple and Google joined forces to create an anonymous, voluntary notification app allowing health authorities to alert those who may have been exposed to the virus.

In South Korea, the data  visitor's name, phone number, the establishment visited and time of entry  will be encrypted and stored on two separate servers, only to be combined and accessed in the event of an outbreak, authorities said. The information will be deleted after four weeks.

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Patrons mingle on the dance floor inside Nightclub Seven in Daejeon, South Korea. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Choi, who had happened upon a club that had implemented the QR code system a week early on a trial basis, had his misgivings.

"I'm not so sure it's a good thing. What if the information gets out?" he said. "If you're of a certain age and with a family, you're not exactly proud coming to a place like this."

He and his friend nonetheless stumbled through the process of loading the QR code on their phones and scanned them on tablets installed at the entrance before entering the club. They had, after all, taken a 40-minute cab ride to get there.

The rollout comes after a cluster of cases emerged in bars and clubs in Itaewon, a nightlife district in Seoul. Chains of infections radiated throughout the capital's metropolitan area of 25 million people. The clubs had kept written logs of customer information, but when health officials looked through them to track down potential infections, they discovered much of the information was inaccurate or incomplete.

Bouncers check customers; QR codes on their smartphones before allowing them into Nightclub Seven in Daejeon, South Korea. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Detailed contact tracing, based on cell tower information, credit card data and CCTV video, has been at the center of South Korea's coronavirus response, which has been held up as a successful model around the world. But in the case of the club outbreak, of the nearly 5,000 who'd written down their names and phone numbers, authorities were able to track down only about 40%.

In recent days, South Korea has reported 30 to 60 new cases daily, mostly in Seoul and surrounding areas, keeping the country vigilant as it struggles to track and stamp out new clusters. As of Wednesday, about 1,000 people were still actively battling the virus, of about 12,000 total reported cases.

Choi and most of the dozens of others who arrived at the Daejeon club on Friday night, the first weekend the QR code scans were being used, were unaware of the new requirement. Most were confused about downloading the app and signing into it.

"Can I do it next time?" a woman asked before begrudgingly complying. "It's taking too long," her friend complained. The two plodded through the process for about five minutes before making it into the club.

A line stretches outside Nightclub Seven in Daejeon, South Korea, as customers figure out the new QR code registry. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Still, most customers appeared willing to subject themselves to the scan for a night of fun. A pair of men  co-workers who said were in town on a construction project  headed elsewhere, because one of them had forgotten to bring his phone.

Inside, a few customers wearing masks bopped around in the glow of disco lights on a largely empty dance floor. Fewer than one-tenth of the club's couple of hundred tables were occupied. The DJ, nodding along to the beat, occasionally bellowed into the mic reminding revelers they were required to keep their masks on.

The club's manager, who gave only his last name, Kim, said that over the first few days, 30 to 40 customers left at the door rather than comply with the scan. The measures, he said, were adding to the business' woes. The club lost about $100,000 in revenue in May, and some of its 80 or so employees were having to pick up work at nearby construction sites to make ends meet.

Business was similarly scant at Ahn Jong-suk's karaoke in Seoul, another of the establishments on an early trial of the QR code system.

Owner Ahn Jong-Suk flips through the handwritten entry log for his karaoke establishment, Juke, in Seoul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

About 10 p.m. on a Thursday night  usually the peak time for his noraebang, when office workers come stumbling in, buzzed, after a few drinks over dinner  only one of his dozen or so rooms was occupied. Ahn had invested his own money in a $1,100 thermal imaging camera and a $600 disinfecting fog machine, hoping that would assuage customers' virus fears, but few were showing up to sing.

As for the QR code scans, older patrons less versed in using their smartphone struggled, and some turned around and left, he said. Even so, he said he believed it was a necessary step to return to something like normal city life.

"It's for you and for me and for everybody," he said. "It's a good thing,"
Scientists say that Saturns largest moon Titan is moving away from the ringed planet must faster than previously believed. In fact, it is drifting away a hundred times faster.

The fact was discovered using data collected during NASAs Cassini spacecraft to study Saturn and some of its moons which revealed that Titan, one of Saturns 80 moons, is moving away from the planet at a rate of about four inches per year.

Moons moving away from their planet is a common phenomenon. Earths own Moon, for instance, moves about 1.5 inches away every year, according to American space agency NASA. It wont just leave us  at least not for a very, very long time.

The movement away is caused by the moons gravity tugging on the planet, which creates a temporary bulge in the planet. That energy pushes the moon further away.

In the case of Titan, the discovery is significant. While scientists know that Saturn formed around 4.6 billion years ago in the early days of the solar system, they are less certain about when the planets signature rings and moons formed.

At the moment, Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury, orbits Saturn at a distance of 759,000 miles or 1.2 million kilometres away. And if its been moving away from the planet at a rapid rate each year, Titan was likely much closer to Saturn in the beginning billions of years ago before migrating. This implies that Saturns entire planetary system also expanded quickly.

This result brings an important new piece of the puzzle for the highly debated question of the age of the Saturn system and how its moons formed, said the studys lead author, Valery Lainey, who previously worked at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in a statement.

The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Scientists have for long been fascinated by Titan.

Its the only known moon with a considerable atmosphere and the only planetary body in addition to Earth with liquid rivers and lakes on its surface, according to a report in cnn dot com.

In 2026, NASA will send the Dragonfly mission to further investigate Titan. It will arrive at the moon by 2034. The Mars rover-size drone will be able to fly through Titans thick atmosphere for about two and a half years.

The ultimate goal is for Dragonfly to visit an impact crater, where they believe that important ingredients for life mixed together when something hit Titan in the past, possibly tens of thousands of years ago.

Titan has the key ingredients for life, said Lori Glaze, director of NASAs Planetary Science Division, when the mission was announced in 2019.

It has complex organic molecules and the energy required for life. We will have the opportunity to observe processes similar to what happened on early Earth when life formed and potentially conditions that could harbor life today, the CNN article quoted Glaze as saying.
LAPD officer watches for people tossing debris from tall buildings as dozens of protesters are arrested for curfew violations on Broadway. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

It was the morning after Los Angeles Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez and other officials had proposed cutting up to $150 million from the Police Department and she was facing a dismayed crowd at a command post in Panorama City.

One officer said that if the city needed to cut, it should start with protection details at council members' homes. Another accused Rodriguez of "pandering" to protesters and said that if it weren't for the police, the city would have burned down.

"I promise you, this union will go to our grave fighting. ... We're gonna fight," said Jerretta Sandoz, a board member with the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

"At the ballot box," another person chimed in.

The LAPPL, which represents rank-and-file officers, has been a significant force in local elections. In the past decade, the union has given more than $100,000 directly to city candidates. Its independent expenditure committees, which cannot legally be controlled by candidates and do not have the same limits on donations, have spent millions of dollars more.

Now that money is under scrutiny by Angelenos supporting a national movement against police brutality  and some local politicians say they won't accept it anymore. It is the latest sign of the push against longstanding practices at City Hall as Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and other activist groups have pushed to defund and overhaul the Police Department.

When Rodriguez ran for office three years ago, the LAPPL backed her candidacy with more than $100,000 in mailers and telephone calls. The league also spent more than $220,000 to support Councilman Joe Buscaino when he first ran nine years ago. And when Garcetti first ran for mayor, the union sponsored committees that spent more than $1.5 million backing his opponent. It has successfully pushed to rework officer discipline and advocated for higher pay.

More recently, the LAPPL spent $150,000 to back Councilman John Lee, who narrowly kept his seat earlier this year; gave $50,000 to another committee supporting Councilman Herb Wesson as he campaigns to become a county supervisor; and spent nearly $45,000 in support of Councilman David Ryu, who is facing off against nonprofit leader Nithya Raman.

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Raman argued that politicians should disavow such spending, saying that it distorts decisions when every elected official in the city has been bolstered by political donations from the LAPPL.

As protesters have faced batons and other violent tactics, "the reluctance of our local officials to speak out against even clearly documented harms is a sign of the power of the police union," said Raman, who wants to reassess the LAPD budget.

Ryu said Tuesday that he had returned a campaign donation from the LAPPL and was disavowing any future independent spending by the police union on his behalf. The councilman said he had opposed increasing the LAPD budget while other city services were being cut and argued that the city needs to reexamine the use of force.

L.A. also needs "a visionary, long-term plan to replace the use of police officers to address chronic social issues," Ryu said.

Councilman Mike Bonin also said Tuesday that he was rejecting any future contributions from the police union, which has donated directly to the councilman and whose independent committees have spent over $45,000 backing his candidacy.

Bonin, who has raised concerns about police tactics during protests, said he was making a personal donation in the amount he had received directly in the past  more than $4,000 for his campaigns and office holder accounts  to organizations working to oppose racism and reform policing, including Black Lives Matter. He also said he would disavow independent spending by the union.

"Angelenos are demanding a new approach to how we keep our neighborhoods safe, and they want to know that their public representatives are accountable to the people," Bonin said.

And there has been an especially concerted push for elected prosecutors to forgo money from police unions. George Gascon, who is running to unseat Los Angeles County D.A. Jackie Lacey, recently joined other prosecutors in lobbying to prohibit district attorneys from accepting support from police unions, which Gascon said he would no longer do.

Lacey has shunned that idea, arguing that "any proposal that prevents a union from actively engaging their members in the democratic process is an extremely dangerous path to go down."In a statement, she contended that "silencing the voices of labor unions sets a bad precedent" that could hurt unions representing teachers and nurses.

Lee, the councilman representing the northwest San Fernando Valley, said he was honored to have LAPPL support for his campaigns. Wesson said that "direct or independent donations to me or my opponent carry zero weight when I vote."

And City Atty. Mike Feuer, who is running for mayor, "strongly believes any past donations do not in any way undermine his ability to exercise independent judgment with regard to LAPD," his campaign consultant John Shallman said. Such arguments were echoed by council members Rodriguez, Bob Blumenfield, Mitch O'Farrell and Paul Koretz and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is running for a council seat against attorney Grace Yoo.

LAPPL spokesperson Dustin DeRollo said "there is no expectation or belief that there is a connection between a contribution and an official action," pointing out that Wesson had signed on to the proposal to reduce LAPD funding.

That has not persuaded Wesson's opponent, State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), whose campaign manager Lenee Richards called Wesson "the candidate of the police unions" and said Mitchell would not accept such donations, stating that "it is time for leadership that is free from corruption and influence."

Progressive activists have also been skeptical. If the spending didn't affect politicians, "it wouldn't be done in the first place," said Chris Roth, an organizer with the activist group Ground Game LA, which wants to cut the police budget.

Roth argued that the political clout of the LAPPL "has basically prevented any discussion about reducing the size of the police budget" until now.

The San Fernando Valley Young Democrats recently made disavowing contributions from law enforcement groups a condition for its endorsement. Swearing off that money "would show Angelenos that these L.A. elected officials are not beholden to police and police unions first and the people second," its legislative director Andrew Lewis said.

Lewis pointed to the budget  which allocates more than half of "unrestricted" revenues in the general fund to the LAPD  as a key indication of how the police union had commanded influence over City Hall. The police union has argued that pay needs to be high enough to prevent the city from losing officers to other agencies.

Wesson, Garcetti and other city officials also championed Charter Amendment C, a successful 2017 ballot measure backed by the police union that allowed disciplinary panels to be made up entirely of civilians. Opponents including BLM and other local activists had opposed the change and argued that civilians tend to be more lenient toward officers.

DeRollo argued that voters value the political voice of police officers. The union has been especially outspoken over the past week: After Garcetti joined the calls to cut police funding and made a remark about "killers" that the union saw as a smear against officers, the LAPPL called him "unstable."

"Eric, do you really believe that Los Angeles police officers are killers?" LAPPL board member Jamie McBride said last week. "The same officers that provide you 24-hour security at your residence 365 days a year?"

Garcetti said his remarks were misconstrued and that he wasn't referring to police. McBride later appeared on a Spectrum News 1 report about police providing security at Council President Nury Martinez's home, calling it a "disgusting" use of taxpayer money and "ironic" in light of her call to reduce the police budget.

Martinez spokesman Rick Coca said the LAPD had suggested a security detail in response to threats, which was called off after it was "compromised." The department has also provided security at the home of Councilman O'Farrell, whose spokesman said it had also been recommended by the LAPD following threats.

Martinez, asked about past donations from the LAPPL, said in a statement that she answers to her constituents, "who are calling out for justice and change and to root out racism in all aspects of our lives."

L.A. isn't alone: In New York City, some politicians have pledged to redistribute political donations they received from law enforcement groups to organizations helping communities of color. In San Francisco, both state Sen. Scott Wiener and his opponent, Jackie Fielder, have sworn off such donations.

Some L.A. officials argued that the push against police union donations was counterproductive. Blumenfield said that "political gestures like this would only deepen the divide and reduce our potential for substantive negotiations."

Buscaino spokesman Branimir Kvartuc said the councilman wasn't "picking sides" and hadn't considered the issue. Several other officials did not promptly respond to questionsabout political spending by the police union; a Garcetti aide said the mayor is not currently a candidate for office.

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
June 09, 2020





Workplace discrimination has been a hot topic in recent years, and that topic is only getting hotter as time passes. Unfortunately, you cant control how every employee acts, or else this wouldnt still be an issue. Luckily, there are some steps you can take to ensure your company avoids taking any missteps.







Carefully Vet Employees

This would be easier to do if the process was started at the time the company was started- but in moving forward its important to keep it in mind. When contacting previous employers, ask about how the employee interacted with other employees. Pay attention to anything troubling on their background check, and take the time needed so that your employees will be protected with any new staff thats brought in.

Open The Door To Discussion

Tell the employees that their voices are heard, and let them know youre open to any discussion. Dont talk over them, dont try to just ignore them because its easier- listen to these employees and take the time you need to resolve any current tensions. If there are employees that already are showing a track record, it might not be time for them to still be with your company.

If someone has a complaint, its your companys job to listen and enforce a proper status quo.

Make Clear Rules

Although we all get a different clear image of what discrimination is, there are multiple kinds that affect multiple types of people. From sexism and racism, to the hating on elderly people that causes horrible age discrimination stats, a lot of people are disrespected in highly inappropriate ways. These people deserve respect.

Make clear rules, send these in emails, post them in the break room, and hold meetings if your company has the resources.



The more you spread these rules and guidelines, the fewer excuses your employees will have to break them. You may get some push back initially, which is why you need to move into the next step.

Layout Clear Punishments

Nobody will abide by the rules if they seem empty. Make clear punishments for those who dont follow the rules. This can mean losing bonuses, taking away perks, or even demoting people for their first or second mistake. Firing should happen after more than one rule breakage- or if their act was so severe that theres no way to retrain the employee. Let your employees know they will be held accountable for their actions.

Follow Through

Actually dole out the punishments that you laid out to your employees. If they break a rule, lay out a punishment. Dont let people get off free the first time, and dont let them try to talk you out of making note of it. If someone is fired because of their behavior, and a future employer calls the office, make it clear why they were fired.



The point is to protect people from being assaulted or hurt- a workplace should be a place where people can focus on their jobs. Take away distraction like harassment, and theyll be able to do their jobs even better.
A senior Tory has dismissed reports of a plot to replace the Conservative candidate in the delayed London mayoral election.

Shaun Bailey, a former youth worker who was selected as the challenger to Sadiq Khan two years ago, was said to have lost support of some Tory donors, who would like to see him supplanted by another candidate.

Sources told the FT that some senior figures wanted an alternative figure, such as ex-chancellor Sajid Javid, to take his place in the contest, which has been delayed until May 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

One donor said: There is no way Shaun can beat Sadiq. Hes a nice guy but hes barely broken 20 per cent in the polls.

"The year delay means we have the opportunity to reset the race.

Recommended Sadiq Khan will review all statues in London

However business minister Nadhim Zahawi dismissed the claims of a plot to oust Mr Bailey, who he described as a "phenomenal candidate".

"Rubbish story," Mr Zahawi told LBC. "Sajid Javid is staying in parliament. Sajid has a great contribution to make to parliament.

"Shaun Bailey is our candidate. He's a phenomenal candidate, phenomenal campaigner and someone who really understands that black lives really do matter.

"Actually he is focussing on what is material, which is the quality of opportunity for all Londoners. That is what Shaun stands for."

Mr Bailey, one of the party's leading black figures, was championed by the-then prime minister David Cameron.

A YouGov poll in March, before the election was postponed, gave Mr Khan a clear lead on 49 per cent, with Mr Bailey trailing behind with 24 per cent of the vote.

Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Show all 18 1 /18 Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, wearing PPE before going into rooms Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, speaks to a carer at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Carers working at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care worker wearing PPE opens a drink carton Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, sits with a carer Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A care staff member wearing PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home looks after a resident SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE uses a speaker Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer helps Jack Dodsley, 79, from his chair Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer wearing PPE helps Jack Dodsley, 79 Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A carer brings food to a resident at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jack Dodsley, 79, with a carer in PPE Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A staff member puts on PPE at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside Jackie Wilson, a healthcare assistant, puts on PPE before she enters a room SWNS Care home hit by coronavirus: A rare glimpse of life inside A bench at Newfield Nursing Home Tom Maddick/SWNS

Former Tory cabinet minister Rory Stewart, who was standing as an independent, won 13 per cent of the vote. He has since withdrawn from the race.

A Conservative spokesperson said: The party, including its chairmen, have clearly stated full support for Shaun.

"Shaun Bailey has led from the front in challenging Sadiq Khan's abysmal record on tackling violent crime, building affordable homes and failure to deliver Crossrail.

"He is the only candidate that can defeat Sadiq Khan next year and fix the current mayor's litany of failures for Londoners.
Monsoon Accessorize, the company that owns the two clothing and accessories brands of the same names, has fallen into administration.

The company announced it would be closing 35 shops, putting 545 jobs at risk.

While Monsoon Accessorize is understood to have been turning a profit before the coronavirus pandemic hit, the nationwide lockdown has left owner Peter Simon unable to keep paying rent on the high street chains combined 230 UK stores.

However, Simon has revealed plans to buy back the company after filing for administration, in deal that will see him stump up a cash injection of up to 15m.

Bought by Simons new holding company Adena Brands, the Monsoon and Accessorize chains will ultimately reopen with fewer shops.

Adena Brands is set to engage in talks with landlords of stores across the UK to negotiate rates and save as many outlets as possible.

However, the new company has said ultimately the new group hopes to be able to save as many as 100 stores, meaning a further 100 shops are still likely to close.

Ever since I opened the first Monsoon store in Beauchamp Place in 1973, this business has been my passion and my life, and I did not want to see it fall victim to this unprecedented crisis, said Simon.

Both Monsoon and Accessorize were trading well before the coronavirus pandemic but the business simply could not withstand the financial impact of having to close all its UK, franchise and joint venture stores for almost three months.

This deal secures the future of both Monsoon and Accessorize and means we can continue to serve our customers online without a pause. In addition, we will now try to save as many of our stores as possible, depending on the outcome of various discussions with landlords.

He added: Ultimately, we hope to be able to save as many as 2,300 jobs in this process, and more than 4,500 in our supply chain, although unfortunately not all of them. We believe that fashion has a future on the high street, and we are prepared to commit time and money making it work.

The acquisition encompasses the Monsoon and Accessorize brands and intellectual property, the head office and design teams, and the groups distribution centre in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. In all the deal secures up to 2,300 jobs while both Monsoons and Accessorizes online operations will continue to serve customers without a pause.
Zoomlion Ghana Limited last Tuesday began the disinfection and disinfestation of about fifty-five (55) military facilities and installations located in both the Volta and Oti Regions.

Similarly, 2,654 private and public basic and senior high schools in the two regions would be covered in the exercise.

The Volta Regional Minister, Archibald Letsa, made the announcement when he launched the exercise at the Regional Security Coordinating Council, Ho, Volta Region.

Under the initiative of the Military High Command, and the Ministry of Education, all military facilities, barracks, basic and senior high schools, methodist churches and tertiary educational institutions in Volta Region and Oti Region will benefit from the exercise."

55 military facilities which would be covered under the exercise include: Volta Barrack in HO, Naval Training Command in Sogakope, Akoefe Training Camp, Operation AHODWO camps, (Nkonya/Alavanyo), Operation GONGONG in Kete Karachi, Operation Safe camp in Hohoe, Operation SITDOWN LOOK CAMP in Aflao, MOC, Kpando Torkor and MOC Dambai among others," the regional minister said.

According to him, the exercise will be carried out in all offices and public places, police installations across the region.

It comes after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 10th address to the nation on Covid-19 situation in the country partially eased restrictions on social gathering, and also asked schools and universities to re-open, beginning June 15, 2020, to allow for final-year university, SHS and JHS students to resume classes for their impending exit examinations.

And it forms part of efforts by the central government to curb the spread of the new coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

He added that twenty tertiary institutions in the two regions would also disinfected and fumigated.

To this end, Mr Letsa charged all the municipal/district chief executives to engage with the respective directors of education to monitor the exercise in schools under their jurisdictions.
Cambridge Semantics, the leading provider of graph-driven modern data integration software for the enterprise data fabric, today announced that Forrester Research, Inc., a leading independent technology and market research company, has positioned Cambridge Semantics as a leader in The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Data Fabric Q2: 2020 (June 2020).

Cambridge Semantics received the highest possible score in nine criteria including Data Integration, Data Preparation, Data Catalog, Data Processing and Persistence, Road Map, Vision, and Solution Awareness

The complete report, which evaluated Cambridge Semantics Anzo, is available for download here.

Forrester stated that, Anzos graph data models provide business users with a visual map of enterprise data thats easy to understand, navigate, and analyze even when your data is vast, siloed, and complex.

Some of the top use cases include customer 360, fraud detection, optimized clinical care, and integrated view of complex businesses and accelerating R&D. Customers like Cambridge Semantics graph model, data catalog, platform support, and ability to support a broad number of data fabric use cases.

We believe being positioned as a leader by Forrester reflects our commitment to providing our customers with a market leading modern accelerated integration and discovery platform, says Cambridge Semantics Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Sean Martin. For the first time, Anzo makes it practical for virtually anyone in an organizationfrom skilled data scientists to novice business usersto drive the data discovery and integration process and build their own analytics-ready datasets.

According to Forrester, Data fabric is a hot, emerging market that delivers a unified, intelligent, and integrated end-to-end platform to support new and emerging use cases, suggesting that enterprises look for vendors that leverage graph engines to identify and integrate connected data and support comprehensive end-to-end data management capabilities. The report also states: The key objective of the data fabric is to accelerate business use cases such as customer 360, customer intelligence, risk analytics, and IoT analytics. To support this, an end-to-end data management capability that includes ingestion, transformation, preparation, discovery, data catalog, integration, governance, and security is essential.

Through a 25-criterion evaluation of enterprise data fabric providers, Forrester researched, analyzed and scored the top 15, underscoring how each provider measures up and helps enterprise architecture professionals select the right one for their needs.

Unlike other data integration and discovery tools in the market, Anzo applies a semantic, knowledge graph-driven data fabric layer over existing data infrastructure, capturing the real-world meaning of all data sourcesstructured and unstructured alike, says Chuck Pieper, Chairman & CEO of Cambridge Semantics. By connecting data into blended, harmonized views at massive enterprise scale, Anzo eliminates data silos and enables exciting new levels of business insight on demand to help enterprises gain a competitive edge in both hybrid and multi-cloud configurations.

About Cambridge Semantics

Cambridge Semantics Inc., The Smart Data Company, is a big data management and enterprise analytics software company that offers a universal semantic layer to connect and bring meaning to all enterprise data. Its software, the Anzo Smart Data Lake, allows IT departments and their business users to semantically link, analyze and manage diverse data whether internal or external, structured or unstructured, with speed, at big data scales and at the fraction of the implementation costs of using traditional approaches.

Join Cambridge Semantics Co-founder and SVP of Field Operations Ben Szekely, and Barbara Petrocelli, VP Strategy and Pre-sales, Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. ET/10:00 a.m. PT for a live webinar exploring:



The integration requirements for an Enterprise Data Fabric

How Semantic Graph Models uniquely address these requirements

Anzos capabilities enabling graph-based data integration at enterprise scale

Potential COVID-19 use cases for graph technologies

Cambridge Semantics is based in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information visit http://www.cambridgesemantics.com or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter: @CamSemantics.
(Natural News) A friend texted me a short message this morning. You called it! Thats because just a few days after I said the COVID-19 vaccine would be used to target black people with a depopulation kill switch injection, Melinda Gates came right out and stated that the new vaccines should be administered with a priority preference for people of color. (See source below.)

Right from the start, its a bigoted assertion. If vaccines are safe and effective, then Melinda Gates is essentially saying, white lives dont matter. But if vaccines are risky and dangerous  which this new covid-19 vaccine is almost certain to be  shes essentially saying its okay to run medical experiments on black Americans to find out what happens.

Black people are almost always the guinea pigs for the medical experiments of the globalists, of course. You dont even have to look very hard to see the history of government-backed Big Pharma and vaccine experiments on black soldiers, black prisoners and black civilians, both in the United States as well as across Africa.

Seeing the very same people who promote global depopulation  Bill and Melinda Gates  now suddenly urging COVID-19 vaccine equality efforts to make sure all the black people are vaccinated first is raising eyebrows across black America. Most notably among Nation of Islam followers who are arguably more aware than anyone else about how white, rich globalists have been waging a war of genocide against black people for at least three generations.

The clock is ticking. Black people have no more than 18 months before they will be hunted down with contact tracing enforcers and forcibly vaccinated with a dangerous, experimental coronavirus vaccine that bypassed nearly all the usual safety protocols typically required by the FDA.

First, theyre coming for the doctors and then blacks

In an interview published by TIME.com, Melinda Gates says that health care workers (i.e. doctors) should all be vaccinated first. This will ensure the deaths of many doctors and nurses who would normally respond to a pandemic, making sure that the next wave of the depopulation bioweapon is highly successful.

After the doctors are vaccinated, theyre coming for the blacks next. As Melinda Gates explains, In the U.S., that would be black people next, quite honestly, and many other people of color. They are having disproportionate effects from COVID-19.

Remember, these are the same black people who are being openly encouraged to abandon all precautions and join the Black Lives Matter protests, so lets drop any pretext that the authorities care about black people. Theyre practically telling all people of color to run out and get infected as quickly as possible.

That wave of post-protest infections, of course, will justify the mass vaccination of black people in the name of social justice. It will all be marketed to the black community as a special bonus treatment, a kind of black privilege to get you infected with the vaccine ahead of whites.

The media, of course, will never tell black Americans that Bill Gates polio vaccines have paralyzed half a million children in India.

The media is already rolling out the narrative that will demand black people line up to be vaccinated first

Were already seeing the genocidal mainstream media rolling out an absurd propaganda campaign right now that claims covid-19 is racist. The disproportionate number of black deaths from covid-19 is being heavily pushed as a pretext to demand that black people get the vaccines first. What black Americans arent being told, of course, it that many black people will be forced to take the covid-19 vaccine against their will.

Americas inner cities will become echoes of Tuskegee as black Americans are threatened with being dragged away to FEMA quarantine camps if they dont submit to the states demands that they be injected with the new experimental vaccine.

Just yesterday, I interviewed a resident of California who was stalked by a contract tracer who came to her house, peeked through her windows and demanded she submit to a highly invasive covid-19 contact tracing surveillance operation. She has never even been tested for, or diagnosed with, covid-19. This door-to-door surveillance operation is being beta tested in California and will soon be rolled out across the entire country. What it means is that all across the black-dominated inner cities of Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta and every other city, black Americans will be tracked and surveiled by vaccine-toting health care enforcers who will flag vaccine resisters as dissidents to be hauled away to FEMA quarantine camps.

Make no mistake: This is coming. This is why Ive repeatedly urged black Americans to know your real enemy. Its not the racist white cop nearly as much as its the genocidal white lab-coat wearing mother f##kers who run the vaccine industry and want you dead.

This is why every black American needs to own a gun, where it is legal to do so. The rich, white globalists are coming for you, and theyre on a mission of genocide. Instead of putting a knee on your neck, theyre going to put a needle in your arm, and that needle will contain specific mRNA protein synthesis instructions that will hijack your bodys cells and cause your body to declare war on itself, resulting in potentially deadly levels of inflammation and autoimmune disorders.

When the vaccine side effects roll in, the media will cover it all up. The tech giants will censor anyone who tells the truth. Black Americans will die in numbers that will dwarf all the police brutality statistics combined, and by the time the truth comes out, the vaccine industry will claim they made an honest mistake and have now fixed the problem. They will have complete legal immunity, too, making sure they can never be sued by the families of the victims they have destroyed.

Just yesterday, the WHO announced something that completely eliminated any rationale for vaccines

All of this comes on the heels of the WHO announcing just yesterday that theres virtually no spread of the coronavirus from asymptomatic carriers. Yet the very existence of asymptomatic carriers was the logical basis for demanding masks, lockdowns, social distancing and rapid vaccines. Without asymptomatic carriers, it means that only people who show obvious symptoms can spread the coronavirus, and that makes them very easy to spot and avoid (or isolate).

In other words, vaccines arent even necessary anymore, according to the WHOs data. So why the mad rush to manufacture them and make them mandatory for people of color when the actual risk of asymptomatic transmission is very close to zero?

And if authorities would simply tell black Americans to take vitamin D and zinc, the number of blacks being killed by covid-19 would plummet to something approaching zero, at least for those who arent already suffering from chronic comorbidity factors.

The bottom line is that rich, white globalists are lining up the world for a genocidal vaccine kill switch, and theyve set up the full narrative to target blacks first. Theyre going to mass murder black people while pretending that Black Lives Matter.

And Im a white guy revealing all this, by the way, so the media cant easily dismiss this as merely a black conspiracy. Nope, its actually genocidal reality, and it falls in line with the whole history of efforts to cull black people through infertility chemicals, infertility vaccines, abortion clinics, wars and now vaccines.

Get the truth by reading Vaccines.news and watching videos on Brighteon.com, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Police brutality is a public health crisis, a sociologic pandemic. It is absolutely in the purview of health care providers to address.

During rounds I peered over to one of my patients rooms in the emergency department to find a law enforcement officer video recording a patient with his cellphone.

Video recording is not permitted in the hospital, it violates our patients privacy, I declared to the officer.

Make me stop, he replied gruffly, as he continued to record. Somehow, he sensed his actions would not be met with repercussions.

I was dumbfounded.

In that moment, very early in my medical career, I was overwhelmed by fear. Unfortunately, this was not the first time I had experienced this in the ED and it certainly would not be the last. My previous experiences with law enforcement taught me this fear was largely rooted in helplessness. It was the same helplessness my father had described when he was unjustifiably stopped late in the evening and told by a law enforcement officer that he could do whatever he wanted to him and no one would ever know. This was the very same helplessness my cousins and I felt when we were regularly trailed by a police squad car on our way to high school. Some of those days were punctuated by stops. As teenagers, those days were especially petrifying.

I am an emergency medicine physician. It is my job to staunchly advocate for my patients, often when they are at the most vulnerable moment of their lives. I am also a black man. I have had several less-than-desirable interactions with law enforcement. I am all too familiar with the power that law enforcement wields and the inclination of some to abuse it.

I am deeply troubled by the stories of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and the countless other human beings, black human beings, who have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement. I feel compelled to speak up as a black man but especially as a physician. Now more than ever, we as health care providers should feel empowered to speak against police brutality and misconduct. A recent study showed that approximately 50,000 individuals present to the Emergency Department each year seeking treatment for injuries inflicted by law enforcement, albeit nearly impossible to determine how many were avoidable. Health care providers and hospital systems should be invested in addressing law enforcement misconduct, as this behavior may escalate to injury.

The lack of trust in law enforcement, held by many patients and their respective communities, affects the care health care providers deliver, as well. Many patients are reluctant to provide critical details of what brought them into the ED, particularly if it pertains to health concerns that are often criminalized (i.e. drug use, peer/domestic violence). Typically, this is a result of a distorted belief of the line between law enforcement and health care providers. Health care providers taking a stand against police brutality and misconduct has the potential to re-establish precious trust within our patients and improve their care.

Whether it is advocacy, policy development, research or direct patient care, health care institutions and providers have a voice on important issues that impact the community, such as police brutality. Unfortunately, many health care providers are not sure how to handle police misconduct while treating patients. Hospitals may consider working with local law enforcement departments to develop formal protocols to address this. Residency training programs should also consider incorporating this in their training.

There was recent viral movement entitled #ThisisMyLane that brought health care providers to the forefront of tackling firearm violence. Much like firearm violence, police brutality is a public health crisis, as well. The time is now for health care providers to speak up and advocate for our patients and larger community. Police brutality is in my lane, too.

Dr. Edouard Coupet Jr., of Hamden, is an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine.
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(Kitco News) - Magna Terra Minerals (TSXV: MTT) said yesterday that it is selling its Boleadora Project in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, to Newmont Corporation.

The Boleadora Group of properties is a large greenfields exploration land package (approx. 55,000 hectares) encompassing 12 individual MDs or exploration licenses lying approximately 17 kilometres south-east of Newmonts Cerro Negro mine area in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Newmont (Oroplata) will pay Magna Terra (Atala) US$1 million as follows: $25k on signing and six installments totalling $975k payable within six years from the date of the Agreement.

In addition, Newmont has granted a 2% NSR to Magna Terra on the Boleadora package. The royalty can be reduced to 1% by payment of US$2.5 million by Oroplata to Atala at anytime, and the gross royalty payable is capped at US$20 million.

We are very pleased to have entered into this agreement to sell Boleadora to Newmont. While it is a very large and early stage exploration package, its proximity to the Cerro Negro mine site makes it of strategic interest to Newmont from an exploration perspective. The bulk of the property package lies along trend of the NNW structural control that is an important geological feature at Cerro Negro. Including Boleadora into Newmonts regional Cerro Negro exploration program, along with the application of their proven exploration technologies, will add significant value to the project, and ensure that it is advanced in the near term, said Lew Lawrick, President & CEO of Magna Terra.
It is the appointment of Argishti Kyaramyan as director of the National Security Service that poses a threat to Armenias national security. This is what leader of Homeland Party Artur Vanetsyan said during an interview aired on Yerkir Media TV.

As always, the Prime Minister is making contradicting statements. About six months ago, on December 20 (National Security Officers Day), the Prime Minister delivered a speech in which he praised the work of the National Security Service, but when he was introducing the new director of the Service two days ago, he said the working style of the Service needs to change and so on. I have nothing against Argishti Kyaramyan, but I can only say that it is the appointment of Argishti Kyaramyan as director of the National Security Service that poses a threat to the countrys national security because a person who doesnt have experience in working within administration and security bodies is going to possess a lot of information and has to make decisions on various issues quickly and promptly. Directing the National Security Service is not just about leading a fight against economic and corruption crimes. There are more serious issues such as intelligence and counterintelligence, and this requires years of skills and experience, Vanetsyan said.

As for the claims of civil society activists that the appointment of a young specialists that is not part of the Service will markedly reduce the influence of Russia on the National Security Service, Vanetsyan said he doesnt agree with those claims and added that Russia has never had an influence on the National Security Service of Armenia.

The host of the interview recalled Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans statement that the past two years was ample time for the National Security Service to position itself after the velvet, non-violent and peoples revolution and asked if the National Security Service has to be a political body, to which Vanetsyan said the National Security Service has to be an apolitical body.
Right now, you need to practice social  not emotional - distancing. Amid the ever-changing chaos, your team deserves an empathetic leader who deeply understands what individual people are going through. Making the right managerial and executive decisions are challenging enough during good times  and even harder amid a global pandemic.

Having lived and worked around the world, I cannot think of a more necessary time for empathy. The playing field has changed for the foreseeable future. Unless you adopt empathetic leadership principles quickly, you may find yourself the captain of a sinking ship filled with crew members suffering from analysis paralysis and traumatic shock.

Related: 3 Ways Increasing Your Empathy Makes You a More Effective Leader

The importance of empathy

You may already be familiar with the value of empathy in leadership, at least on a theoretical level. The Wall Street Journal notes that roughly one in five organizations provides soft-skill training opportunities for staff to learn the art of leading with empathy. If you've been through a similar workshop, you might not have realized how important that training was until now.

Difficult situations reveal why empathy is important in leadership, and crises like COVID-19 drive the lesson home. Teams led by people who possess high emotional intelligence tend to work hard and persevere through rough patches. They also develop deeper bonds of trust, which are essential when employment statuses seem all too fragile.

Right now, plenty of workers are dealing with tremendous fear. Those guided by empathetic leaders will likely have an easier time working through their stresses, while others operating under a "business as usual" manager may become disengaged and resentful. Make no mistake: Leaders will be judged by how they react during this historic moment. Of course, leading with empathy is not an innate ability. Even if you have a high emotional intelligence quotient, you may need a refresher course in empathy and leadership. Here are a few strategies to practice:

1. Become more personable and accessible

To attune yourself to your teams feelings, you must get in touch with your own emotions and understand how to express them. Marc Benioff, the head of Salesforce, showed signs of empathy when he tweeted his eight-point plan for dealing with the coronavirus. Point seven asked every CEO to wait 90 days before resorting to layoffs. If you have to furlough personnel, be graceful and compassionate about it. Don't coldly layoff 95 percent of your employees via a video like Cirque du Soleil did at the start of the crisis, a decision that garnered negative attention.

Take time to recognize and express your emotions as well as help your team work through their fears. Add a daily reminder in your calendar or phone to stay grounded. That little "ping" will remind you to reflect every day on what you're feeling and what's going on. In time, you will be able to tune in emotionally without a physical reminder.

Related: Does Empathy Have a Place in Your Workplace?

2. Listen and respond honestly and optimistically (within reason)

The only way your team will be vulnerable with you during this difficult period is if you learn to listen without judgment. Leading with empathy often involves saying nothing at all and sometimes agreeing that you are sad, confused or angry, too. According to work published in The Journal of Behavioral Science, 70 percent of successful people say they feel like imposters from time to time. Imagine how refreshing it would be for your team members to hear that you also struggle and will not use their feelings against them.

One caveat: Don't allow yourself or your team to wallow too long in sessions focused on negative emotions. Instead, enable honest discussions and then pivot the conversation toward positive solutions. However, be aware of the language you use when you want to refocus your team. For example, in English, we tend to use I feel when we really mean I think. If you say, I feel like you all need to get back to work, then you are telling your team what to do, not empathizing. Consider your words carefully after team members open up; you want them to feel heard, not ignored, when you gently move the conversation in an optimistic direction.

3. Become an emotion-seeking detective

Now is not the moment to assume you know everything bothering your team. Ask employees, What keeps you up at night?" Their answers may surprise you. Seem a little touchy-feely? Maybe. But your team members will hear your words as an indicator of your interest. Salesforces report "The Impact of Equality and Values Driven Business" reveals that when leaders pay attention to their employees needs, the employees are 4.6 times more apt to produce stellar work.

Related: Successful Leadership Tactics in a Time of Crisis

You may discover that getting to know team members on a deeper level helps you notice when they're not on their A-games. If you see someone struggling, intervene before their work completely falls apart. Part of the importance of empathy in leadership is being able to provide emotional guidance and encouragement that will help everyone develop personally and professionally.

Uncertain times call for unparalleled leaders. Show your humanity with a heavy dose of empathetic leadership. Empathy will not only motivate your team through crisis, but it will help you deal with your own conflicted feelings, too.

Related:

To Understand the Riots, Consider the "Valuation" of Black Lives

A Navy SEAL's Guide to Thriving in Close Quarters, Part 6: Exercise

Why Empathy Is Important in Leaders Right Now



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
The Central Bank will expect greater consistency among banks when they set out the financial hit from the Covid-19 crisis in the second quarter of the year, a top regulator has warned.

Banks' first quarter financial results included a degree of variation in loan loss provisions that regulators will not expect repeated, Deputy Governor Ed Sibley said yesterday.

"We will be putting a bit of pressure on boards to take appropriate provisions," he said.

The official did not spell out whether he thought particularly banks had under-provisioned - allowed too little for losses linked to the crisis. He said estimating losses inevitably involved a degree of judgment, but indicated that the Central Bank can review banks' loans and the advice being given to boards as part of its regulatory role.

On Monday, Mr Sibley and Derville Rowland, the bank's director general for financial conduct, wrote to the chief executives of the country's banks and other regulated entities setting out steps to be taken to manage an expected rise in arrears when short-term payment breaks end in the second half of the year.

Regulators are "very much focused on learning the lessons of the past," Mr Sibley said, including avoiding the build-up of mortgage arrears that escalated unchecked after the 2008 financial crisis.

To avoid a repeat, banks have been told to provide a detailed projection of the full financial impact arising from customer payment breaks, both to profitability and to bank capital, regulators said.

Lenders have been given a month to carry out reviews of how they will approach the end of the current three- and six-month payment breaks for homeowners and small businesses.

Banks are expected to have strategic plans in place before borrowers come off payment breaks to ensure "that appropriate and sustainable solutions" are identified for customers who are not able to return to paying full capital and interest.

After the last financial crash, tackling arrears among property investors and mortgage borrowers became a huge task. This time around small and medium enterprises (SME) have also been thrust to the forefront of the crisis, Mr Sibley said. Creating a loan guarantee scheme to underpin viability for small firms that in many cases have no borrower history will be a significant challenge, he said.
By Makini Brice and Kia Johnson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the owners of some of the venerable black-owned businesses on U Street in Washington's Northwest section, the protests against racism and police brutality that have flared on the streets of the U.S.

By Makini Brice and Kia Johnson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the owners of some of the venerable black-owned businesses on U Street in Washington's Northwest section, the protests against racism and police brutality that have flared on the streets of the U.S. capital seem like an echo of the past.

Rioting that erupted in April 1968 in Washington and many other U.S. cities after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King inflicted scars on the neighborhood that lasted decades.

Three black-owned U Street businesses that existed then are still are open today in a corridor of the District of Columbia once known as "Black Broadway" for its flourishing theaters and restaurants that welcomed affluent African-American customers from the 19th century through the mid-20th century.

"It's saddened me to realize that our sons and daughters are fighting today for the same rights that we fought for back then, 52 years ago," said Virginia Ali, 86, the co-founder of Ben's Chili Bowl. "They're fighting for the same basic human rights that we were fighting for."

Ben's Chili Bowl joins Lee's Flower and Card Shop and Industrial Bank as U Street establishments that have managed to stand the test of time.

Three generations of the Lee family have owned Lee Flower and Card Shop since 1945, decorated the White House, and recently advised Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser on the reopening of businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic. But in 1968, the Lee family was not sure whether the neighborhood would survive.

Hundreds of buildings in Washington were burned. Some neighborhoods were pushed into an economic tailspin that took decades to recover from, according to historian Jane Levey of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

Rick Lee, son of business co-founder William Lee, recalls huddling in the shop with his mother Winifred, and a shotgun, praying that God would keep them safe.

"It would have been a catastrophe if something had happened to the shop," said Lee, now 77.

The family had finally purchased the building housing the shop on a U Street corner that year after renting a different location for decades.

Several businesses, including Lee's, placed "Soul Brothers" signs on their windows to make clear they were owned by black entrepreneurs. Those businesses were largely untouched in the 1968 unrest, Levey recalled.

'A SAFE PLACE'

Ali recalled that Ben's Chili Bowl, located three blocks away, was the only business allowed to stay open during the curfew imposed to try to quell the 1968 rioting.

"We were able to accommodate city officials, police officers, even activists. This was kind of a safe place to just pop in during those turbulent times," Ali said.

Ben's Chili Bowl - known for a menu that includes burgers, chili dogs and fries as well as the colorful murals adorning the outside of the restaurant - is a local institution. Its customers over the years have included former President Barack Obama, activist and performer Harry Belafonte, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, comedians Kevin Hart and Dave Chappelle and U2 frontman Bono.

The protests in the past two weeks in Washington and other cities in the United States and abroad were sparked by the death of a black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

In 1968 and today, people took to the streets because they were angry about an unjust killing, but also over a range of other issues including lack of economic opportunity and police brutality, Levey said.

Ali and Lee family members said they are looking at the recent protests with a mixture of sadness and hope.

"I'm so glad that the young people are picking up the mantle," said Stacie Lee Banks, Rick Lee's daughter and the current president and co-owner of the flower shop.

The protesters today are more racially diverse than in 1968, which could put pressure on U.S. political leaders, Ali said.

U Street's remaining black businesses have witnessed the end of segregation policies, survived the scourge of drugs like heroin and cocaine in the neighborhood in the 1970s and 1980s, and are holding on through a new wave of gentrification.

Ali is still waiting to see a broader transformation in the United States, observing, "I hope to see positive change in this country before I leave this Earth."

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Kia Johnson; Editing by Heather Timmons and Will Dunham)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Nearly half of day cares, preschools and child-care centers around the country were forced to temporarily close during the coronavirus pandemic. And many are struggling to reopen, especially those attempting to get back on their feet without any federal or state financial support.

Concerned that child-care providers may permanently close without help, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with four other Democrats, sent a letter to the Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department on Wednesday urging the federal agencies to ensure that child-care providers are able to access relief funds made available through the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program. The program offers forgivable loans of up to $10 million to small businesses with less than 500 employees that were impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The deadline to get a PPP loan approved is currently June 30, 2020.

The lawmakers, which also included Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Bob Casey Jr. (D-Penn.) and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), urged the federal agencies to provide "clear and timely guidance" to child-care providers and banks administering the PPP loans to ensure that these small businesses are applying for and receiving the loans they need.

Child-care providers "face uniquely significant obstacles to obtaining these funds," the letter states. Many in the industry are sole proprietors, so some may incorrectly think they're ineligible for the loans (they typically are eligible, even if they don't have other employees to pay).

Additionally, many providers do not have business checking accounts with banks, which could hamper their ability to get a PPP loan since some banks are only accepting applications from existing business customers. The lawmakers are hoping additional guidance from regulators will clear up any confusion and encourage financial institutions to work with child-care providers before it's too late.

About half of child-care centers, and only about 1 in 4 home-based care providers, have even applied for the PPP loan program, according to a March survey conducted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. At the time, 69% of respondents said that they either did not want loans or were too worried about having to pay back the debt to apply.

Yet of those that applied only about 1 in 4 received PPP loans. As of mid-May, about 12% of child-care providers who had applied had been denied and another 33% had not heard back yet.

"We have heard from child-care providers in our states that they are facing significant obstacles to accessing the small business benefits created by the CARES Act, and we are deeply concerned that without additional support and guidance, many child-care programs will face permanent closures," the letter states.

In addition to urging the agencies to provide guidance and increased access, the lawmakers are also seeking information on how many child-care providers have applied for PPP loans, how many received them and what types of facilities successfully received funds.

"Our child-care system is on the verge of collapsing and child-care providers are getting shut out of crucial small business funds they're entitled to. Keeping child-care providers afloat is critical to our country's recovery  the SBA and Treasury need to act now," Warren tells CNBC Make It.
As many as 19 persons tested positive for coronavirus here on Wednesday.

Among them are an employee working in a prominent cycle manufacturing unit of the city, two pregnant women and a foreign traveller. A 62-year-old man from New Shimlapuri and a 20-year-old woman of New Model Town have also tested positive.

A 32-year-old woman and a 29-year-old male from Chhawani Mohalla were also among those who tested positive, taking the total count in the containment zone to 24.

The 54-year-old male from Satjot Nagar, Dhandra Road, who works in a bicycle manufacturing unit, is currently admitted at Oswal Hospital, said civil surgeon Dr Rajesh Bagga.

A 23-year-old male who returned from Abu Dhabi also tested positive. A 45-year-old woman from Mundian Khurd and a 57-year-old man from Hata Sherjung who displayed influenza-like illness tested positive today.

Five patients including two women aged 37 and 21, and three men aged 19, 38, and 60 all from Fieldganj were tested positive.

Meanwhile. two pregnant women, one aged 23 from Dhillon Nagar and other from Gobindpura area, have tested positive.

An 18- year- old male from Dhuri Line, a 58-year-old woman from Mallah village in Jagraon also tested positive. A 42-year-old woman from Atam Nagar, who returned from Delhi recently, and a 57-year-old male from Sahnewal are both admitted at DMCH after they tested positive for coronavirus.
Virgin Australia's administrator, Deloitte, has told the Morrison government its sale process for the insolvent airline could fail without more federal financial support for the aviation industry.

Deloitte wrote to the Morrison government on Tuesday warning there was a serious risk Virgin's two final suitors - Bain Capital and Cyrus Capital Partners - might not be confident lodging binding bids unless the government pledged its support.

Eight indicative bids were put in for Virgin Australia in May. Two bidders remain in the running. Credit:AP

The letter asks the government to extend the JobKeeper wage subsidy  which is being paid to 8000 Virgin workers and around 25,000 Qantas employees, but will expire in September  by at least six months, according to sources close to the administration who spoke on condition of anonymity due to confidentiality agreements.

Binding bids for Virgin are due on June 22 and Deloitte hopes to have a new owner installed by mid-August. Sources said Deloitte fears that without an extension to JobKeeper, Virgin's new owner would face a shock wages bill shortly after taking over, which would either discourage them from bidding or force them to make mass redundancies.
By Jonathan Landay, Andrea Shalal and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's decision to cut U.S. troop levels in Germany blindsided a number of senior national security officials, according to five sources familiar with the matter, and the Pentagon had yet to receive a formal order to carry it out, Reuters has learned.

Trump decided to remove 9,500 troops from Germany, one of America's strongest allies, reducing the number there to 25,000 from 34,500, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

That official said it was the result of months of work by the U.S. military leadership and had nothing to do with tensions between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who thwarted his plan to host an in-person Group of Seven (G7) summit this month.

But other sources familiar with the matter said a number of U.S. officials at the White House, State Department and Pentagon were surprised by the decision and they offered explanations ranging from Trump's pique over the G7 to the influence of Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and a Trump loyalist.

Reuters could not determine if Grenell had played a direct role with Trump in the decision-making. Grenell resigned his post on June 1, according to a State Department spokeswoman.

The Defense and State Departments referred questions to the White House National Security Council, which declined comment.

Asked for comment, Grenell said that "this is all gossip" and declined to address specific questions about the decision and his role in it. The reduction, he said, had been "in the works since last year."

He underscored U.S. frustration over Germanys failure to meet a NATO target of defense spending of 2% of GDP. He noted that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg named Germany as the only country that had not submitted a credible plan for how to reach its commitment.

At an online event hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank on Monday, Stoltenberg declined to comment on what he termed media leakages and media speculation when asked about U.S. plans to cut troop numbers in Germany. He said NATO was "constantly consulting with the United States, with other NATO allies on the military posture, presence in Europe."

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In relatively rare criticism from his own party, 22 Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee wrote to Trump saying a troop cut would damage U.S. national security and could encourage Russian aggression.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. official told Reuters the Pentagon had not received a formal order to cut troops and that the decision caught some Defense Department officials off guard and scrambling to figure out its meaning and impact on relations with Germany.

Germany was not consulted before the decision was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday, two sources familiar with the matter said.

German government officials said on Monday that Berlin had not received confirmation of the U.S. move. But Peter Beyer, the German coordinator for transatlantic ties, said it would "shake the pillars of the transatlantic relationship."

The Trump administration pushed to reduce U.S. troops in Germany for years and Grenell has criticized Berlin in public and private for failing to meet the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defense, said a source briefed on U.S.-German military relations.

"In that sense, it wasn't a surprise, but there was no consultation or coordination. And Trump administration officials had said they did not expect a withdrawal of forces," the source added.

The decision - which has not been officially confirmed by the White House - also surprised a number of senior national security officials in the U.S. government.

Senior State Department, Pentagon and some National Security Council officials were blindsided and "learned something was up when calls started coming around and the WSJ article hit," said a third source familiar with the matter.

Since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of U.S. troops in Germany has been steadily reduced from about 200,000.

'NOT PLAYING BALL'

A U.S. military drawdown from Germany could sharpen trans-Atlantic tensions that Trump has fueled by questioning the value of NATO and criticizing some alliance members' defense spending.

Security experts have called the withdrawal plan a "gift" to Russia as it comes amid serious tensions between Washington and Moscow over arms control, Moscows support for separatists in Ukraine, the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and other issues.

But current and former officials noted the Trump administration had at times announced steps - such as the total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria in 2018 or an immediate $1 billion cut in U.S. funding for Afghanistan in March - that did not come to pass.

A congressional aide familiar with the matter said he was told Trump's decision was motivated, in part, by Merkel's reluctance to attend the U.S. G7 summit because of the coronavirus pandemic.

"This was originally only done at very high levels and he (Grenell) was involved. This was kept extremely close hold," said the congressional aide on condition of anonymity, saying he was told the decision was "sped up because he (Trump) was mad at Merkel for cancelling his G7 party because of COVID."

U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher and Grenell publicly warned in August that Trump could withdraw some troops from Germany and suggested they could be relocated to Poland unless Merkel responded to Trump's calls to increase defense spending.

"It would be the ultimate kind of slap to Germany if they were rotated out of Germany and into Poland," said a former senior U.S. official familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely. "From their (Grenell's and Mosbacher's) point of view, the Germans were not playing ball and should be punished."

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Andrea Shalal, Arshad Mohammed; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)
Colombia's capital Bogota, one of the oldest bullfighting cities in the Americas, is set to outlaw the mistreatment and killing of the animals in a move aimed at eventually banning the events altogether. The move ratchets up pressure on a spectacle long seen as part of the South American country's cultural heritage, but one slammed as cruel by animal rights campaigners. Bogota's city council backed a draft law that would prohibit the use of implements that "lacerate, cut, maim, injure, burn or hurt animals in any form whatsoever, as well as putting a bull to death," Andrea Padilla, a Green Alliance Party council member and the bill's promoter, told reporters. The move would also limit the bullfighting calendar to a maximum of three events per year in the Santamaria arena, which is run by the city hall. While the power to ban bullfights remains solely with Colombia's legislature, the city council is hoping that removing the goriest part of the spectacle will lead to an eventual end to the bloodsport. Bogota's leftist mayor Claudia Lopez, a member of the Green Alliance Party, said the measures would be promulgated in a few days. "We want to respect all forms of life," Lopez wrote on Twitter. The president of the Bullfighting Corporation of Bogota, Juan Bernardo Caicedo, told reporters the council's move was illegal and "unconstitutional." He said his organization would use the full power of the courts "to bring all the necessary remedies." Bullfights have been held in Bogota since 1931, except during a four-year halt imposed under a former leftist mayor, Gustavo Petro, in 2012. In a 2018 ruling, Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that bullfighting was part of the country's cultural traditions and exempted the spectacle from animal cruelty laws. Colombia is one of only eight countries in the world where bullfights are still held, along with Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela. Even in these countries, laws are increasingly putting restrictions on the spectacle. In Colombia, bullfights are staged in Bogota, Medellin, Cali and Manizales. Spain's Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza performs during a bullfight at the Santamaria arena in downtown Bogota in 2017 -- the city council has moved to ban mistreatment of the animals, with the hopes of eventually ending the bloodsport altogether
For more than a year, Onyx Johnson spent many of her days visiting her 17-year-old daughter, Ariana, a former honor-roll student and athlete, at St. Marys Hospital for Children in Queens, where she was recovering from traumatic brain injury she suffered when hit by a motorist in 2018.

I couldnt imagine being without her, or her not seeing my face, for a long, extended period of time, Ms. Johnson said.

When the coronavirus hit, however, she and other parents of St. Marys patients were faced with a difficult decision. The hospital, which cares for about 130 of New Yorks sickest children, wanted to limit possible contamination and suspended all visitation, following an order from the state. But in shutting its doors, it also made an unusual offer to some of its families: One parent per child could move in.
SUN Life of Canada (Philippines) Inc. remained the No. 1 life insurance company in the Philippines in 2019, retaining the top spot for the ninth consecutive year.

In the Insurance Commissions statement on the ranking of life insurance companies, Sun Life ranked first with a total premium of P39.5 billion.

It also ranked first in new business annualized premium equivalent which stood at P9.6 billion, leading in this category for the 11th straight year. Sun Life also topped the industry last year in terms of net income with P8.2 billion, while its total assets reached P254.5 billion.

This is a wonderful milestone to commemorate Sun Lifes 125th anniversary with, Sun Life president Alex Narciso said.

We are even more inspired to stay faithful to our purpose of helping Filipinos achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Together with our advisors and employees, we thank the clients who have trusted us all these years, and reiterate our promise of a lifetime partnership with them.

Steadfast amid the pandemic

This year, as part of its commitment to serve the Filipinos, Sun Life is accelerating its digital capabilities.

The company recently launched a digitally enabled sales process that will allow Filipinos to stay financially protected from the safety of their own home during the Covid-19 pandemic. Through this process, clients can connect virtually to get professional financial advice from Sun Life advisors, and side by side, they can learn about the insurance products that fit their needs and avail of these solutions. Anyone seeking a Sun Life advisor simply needs to go to advisormatch.sunlife.com to receive a free consultation.

Sun Life has also made sure that its clients have all the support they need to stay financially protected at this time. It has extended premium due dates and enabled remote transactions to ensure its clients policies remain in force and on track.

We have regular financial planning webinars and have kept communication lines open to provide our clients with information and guidance during these uncertain times, said Narciso.

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Given the relaxed quarantine measures in certain areas, Sun Life has also started re-opening its client service centers to increase accessibility to its clients, while ensuring that safety measures are observed for the protection of all.

To the next 125 years

According to Sun Life Philippines chief executive officer (CEO) and country head Benedict Sison, More than ever, we look forward to serving Filipinos as the country prepares to rise above the Covid-19 pandemic. Sun Life has been the Filipinos partner for the past 125 years and we have seen how they have emerged from every crisis.

We are confident that the Filipinos will once again prevail over this current challenge and we promise to be with them every step of the way, providing them with lifetime financial security and helping them live healthier lives.

Sun Life Asia president Leo Grepin highlighted that the milestone affirms the strong partnership between Filipinos and Sun Life.

Our clients continued trust is the best barometer of our success. We have built that trust over 125 years by always delivering on our promises and being there to help in the moments that matter most. We stand ready to help them through this crisis and beyond, he said.

Sun Life global president and CEO Dean Connor congratulated Sun Life Philippines and expressed confidence that the organization will continue to be there for clients and fulfill its obligations, especially during challenging times.

We have a long history of being there for our clients in the Philippines and helping them navigate through uncertain times, said Connor. With the Covid-19 pandemic underscoring the importance of staying financially protected, we are even more motivated to fulfill our purpose and help Filipinos achieve a brighter life and future. (PR)
Lima, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following the recent election of its new Board of Directors, Credicorp Ltd. announces its new Executive Chairman and a revamping of the composition of its Board Committees.

Credicorps new Board of Directors, as per the Bye-laws of the company, appointed Mr. Luis Enrique Romero Belismelis as Executive Chairman and Mr. Raimundo Morales Dasso as Vice Chairman of the Board in its first session held on June 9th.

Mr. Luis Enrique Romero Belismelis has been a Director of Credicorp Ltd. since 2017 and Banco de Credito del Peru since 2009. He is also a member of the Board of Pacifico Cia. de Seguros y Reaseguros, where he chairs the Risk Committee. Mr. Romero Belismelis has worked as Head of Finance and General Manager of different companies, all related to Grupo Romero. Currently, he is Chairman of the Board and Vice Chairman of companies participating in different sectors of the economy, including consumer goods, real state, textile, logistics and ports. Mr. Romero Belismelis holds a Bachelor of Economics from Boston University (U.S.A.).

 New Board Committee Composition

In June 9th, the Board of Credicorp, based on the criteria approved at the Board meeting of February 5th, defined the Board Committee composition as follows:





(I) = Independent Director C = Chair M = Member



1 Ms. Barbara Bruce Ventura is a Director of BCP, which is a subsidiary of Credicorp

2 Mr. Pedro Rubio Feijoo is a Director of several subsidiaries of Credicorp

Reflecting on Credicorps governance changes, Executive Chairman Romero Belismelis said, We are committed to ensuring that Credicorp has a governance framework that meets our objective to drive long-term stakeholder value as we act as a reference point for best practice in our operating region. We are pleased with the progress we are making so far and we will continue with the plan for further strengthening our governance practices.

Credicorp recently announced the election of its new Board of Directors and published its new criteria for independent directors. Today, Credicorps Board is more independent and diverse than in years past. For further information regarding the new Board and details on the independence criteria, please refer to our June 08th press release.

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About Credicorp

Credicorp Ltd. (BAP) is the leading financial services holding company in Peru and is present in Chile, Colombia and Bolivia. Credicorp has a diversified business portfolio, which is organized into four lines of business: Universal Banking, through Banco de Credito del Peru - BCP and Banco de Credito de Bolivia; Microfinance, through Mibanco and Encumbra; Insurance & Pension Funds, through Grupo Pacifico and Prima AFP; and Investment Banking & Wealth Management, through Credicorp Capital, Wealth Management at BCP and Atlantic Security Bank.

For further information please contact the IR team:

Investorrelations@credicorpperu.com

Investor Relations

Credicorp Ltd.
TCN News

Journalist Shaheen Abdulla from Maktoob media on Monday won the Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) Award for this year in the Print and Electronic media category.

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While lauding the young committed journalist, the awarding committee praised Shaheens work as one of substance and promise. He won the accolade for his ground reports on anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh and the Delhi Pogrom. His news reports have also appeared in Vice, Caravan Magazine, and The Quint among others.

Delhi Minorities Commission has been awarding exceptional performers among minorities since 2018 in various fields. Its recipients are selected based on recommendations by the DMC advisory panel and associated NGOs.

Other awardees this year are Farah Naqvi, AC Michael, Armeet Singh, Adv Mahmood Pracha and Quill Foundation in human rights categories while activist Teesta Setalvad has received the prestigious lifetime achievement award for her exemplary contribution to human rights in India. In the community service categories, the winners are Adv. Abu Bakr Sabbaq, Reena Charles, Adv. D.S. Bindra, Dr. Anju Jain, Rehab Foundation and Ovais Sultan Khan.

The category for which Shaheen won the DMC Awards is also shared by acclaimed journalists like Qurban Ali (former BBC journalist), author Humra Quraishi, Mahthab Alam (The Wire) and Aditya Menon (The Quint).

Currently a student of Convergent Journalism at Jamia Millia Islamia, Shaheen has been working with multimedia for two years at Maktoob in the position of Creative Editor. He has directed a documentary, In a state of doubt, on National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.
The commander of Irans Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, says the United States is incapable of controlling the coronavirus [pandemic] and is in the worst economic situation, while our great leader shined in dealing with the virus.

This is the first time a major military figure in Iran is vocally singling out Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for praise in dealing with the coronavirus crisis. Khamenei has been in total self-isolation since February when the first wave of the epidemic emerged in Iran. He has delivered a few speeches via television from his isolation venue.

Irans response to the health crisis has been haphazard and often unpredictable, as some measures to control the spread of the virus were coupled with a refusal to close religious sites in the first crucial weeks of the epidemic. The number of new cases remain high, between 2-3 thousand a day, four months after the outbreak with a sharp economic impact including more than a 15 percent fall in the value of Irans currency.

Salami also claimed no patient in the country was abandoned because of religious commitment to help everyone.

In fact, there were many reports in February and March of a disorganized effort to help those affected and a hospital system overwhelmed with serious cases.

Iran is in the tenth spot in the world with close to 180,000 cases and 8,500 officially registered COVID-19 deaths. However, many have said that the official numbers are an underestimation and the real toll is much higher. Irans own parliamentary research center and the Tehran City Council disputed the official figures in April.
Bihar Governor-cum-Chancellor of universities Phagu Chouhan Tuesday directed the universities to reorganize academic and exam calendars in such a way in the wake of disruption caused by COVID-19 pandemic that sessions were least affected and exams were also conducted following social distancing norms.

On the first day, he interacted with vice chancellors of four universities  LN Mithila University (Darbhanga), KSD Darbhanga University, Purnea University and BN Mandal University (Madhepura) through video conferencing as part of the exercise to hold meetings with all the universities. The exercise will continue till June 15.

Incidentally, three of the universities are under one VC. Purnea Univerity VC Rajesh Singh holds the additional charge of LNMU as well as KSDSU, while BN Mandal University is also under an acting VC due to delay in the appointment of VCs across the state.

However, the meeting was disrupted after barely half an hour as there was fire in the Raj Bhawan due to short circuit. The fire was, however, immediately controlled and there was not much damage.

Chouhan said that universities should work out a plan in accordance with the guidelines from the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the government after discussions in their respective academic councils. The conduct of exams and publication of results should happen within a definite time frame so that next session could get underway without any hassles. The admission process for graduation and post-graduation should also be completed timely through online process, he added.

The Chancellor also directed the universities to show alacrity for accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and encourage colleges for the same. The universities should also send the roster-wise details of vacancies to the education department, he added.

The universities in Bihar have always been struggling with delayed academic sessions. Though the new academic sessions should ideally begin from July 1, none of the universities has so far initiated the process for exams, while online classes have been mostly patchy due demographic profile of students. Most of the students live in rural areas where internet connective is far from satisfactory and facilities limited.

Forget about video lecture, even downloading a small video on Whatsapp requires a lot of efforts, said s student living in Singhia block of Samastipur, adding that he would, however, still like the exams to be conducted timely.

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European nations, including France, are eager to salvage the summer tourism season

The European Union said Wednesday it hoped to reopen its external borders to foreigners in July, as leaders look to loosen the economic stranglehold of virus lockdowns that are triggering a steep global downturn.

Europe has suffered devastating human losses from the pandemic, accounting for just under half of the 411,000 lives claimed by COVID-19's deadly tear across the world.

Now the continent is trying to contain the fallout of a historic recession spurred by restrictions on movement and business that have saved lives but have choked global commerce.

The world economy is on course to contract by at least six percent this year due to virus shutdowns, according to a grim outlook from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

By the end of next year, the loss of income should surpass that of "any previous recession over the last 100 years outside wartime", the forecast warned.

'Gradual and partial' reopening

EU member states have the final say on border measures. But Brussels is suggesting a "gradual and partial" reopening of external frontiers to travellers outside the bloc from July 1, diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday.

Greece, whose economy depends heavily on tourism, has already announced it will reopen its skies from June 15 to a list of countries including non-EU states such as Australia, China and South Korea.

COVID-19: World toll

Austria will allow free travel from most European nations in mid-June, but with exceptions for Spain, the UK and several other countries for which testing or quarantines will be required.

Germans will be free to travel to EU member states on Monday, though the country has decided to extend its warning against travel outside the EU until August 31.

'Astonishing' efforts

In Spain, where more than 27,000 people have died from COVID-19, La Liga soccer championships are set to resume on Thursday for the first time in three months.

Meanwhile in Britain, which has the highest death toll in Europe, Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended what he described as the country's "astonishing" efforts to tackle the virus.

But one top scientist there said the number of fatalities could have been halved had lockdown measures been introduced a week sooner.

In Italy, prosecutors said they wanted to question Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the health and interior ministers over how the government handled the pandemic.

The pandemic is gaining ground in Latin America, including in Mexico where this mural was painted

Second wave fears

As barriers to movement start to lift, the virus is still gaining ground in countries around world, particularly in Latin America which has logged more than 1.4 million cases and nearly 70,000 deaths.

The WHO's regional arm, the Pan American Health Organization, has warned that upcoming hurricane season could further hamper the fight against the virus.

Worst-hit Brazil is leading the continent with the world's third highest death toll38,406after the US and Britain.

Peru is also battling a steep surge, with more than 200,000 infections.

In Nicaragua, which has not taken robust steps to contain its outbreak, at least eight public health doctors were sacked for criticising the lack of a serious response by President Daniel Ortega's government, an independent medical body said.

Elsewhere around the globe, clusters of infection were growing as governments relaxed restrictions. Earlier this week, the WHO warned against complacency.

Brazil is Latin America's virus epicentre and has the world's third highest death toll38,400after the US and Britain

Iran announced more than 2,000 new cases Wednesday, part of a recent surge the government attributes to increased testing.

Indonesia also posted a record number of 1,241 new coronavirus cases, sparking calls from health experts for the world's fourth most populous country to slow down the easing of its lockdown measures.

In India's capital New Delhi, authorities say they expect half a million COVID-19 cases that will need 150,000 hospital beds by mid-July.

But in China, where the virus first emerged late last year, wildlife activists celebrated a victory after authorities decided to remove pangolin parts from its official list of traditional medicines.

Some scientists suspect that the endangered and heavily-trafficked animal, which lives in Africa and Asia, may have been the host of the novel coronavirus that emerged at a market in China's Wuhan city last year.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP




Korean Air Lines Co., South Korea's biggest carrier, said Wednesday it has started boarding passengers from back to front to help stem the potential spread of the new coronavirus.







On Wednesday, Korean Air began to apply the back-to-front boarding system on all of its domestic and international routes to minimize contact among passengers, the company said in a statement.







Airlines usually have priority boarding for first class and business class passengers instead of having passengers in the last row enter the aircraft first.







The move is in line with the government's social distancing policy, and multinational carriers, such as Delta Air Lines Inc., have already introduced the scheme amid the virus crisis.







In May, Korean Air joined its global peers, such as United Airlines Inc. and American Airlines Inc., in requiring masks to stem the spread of the new coronavirus.







Early last month, the International Air Transport Association, which represents global airlines, recommended the mandatory wearing of masks or face coverings on flights to prevent the spread of COVID-19.







The country's national flag carrier has suspended more than 90 percent of flights on international routes since late March following country lockdowns and entry restrictions.







This month, Korean Air resumed flights on 19 international routes, as it strives to offset a sharp decline in passenger travel demand with increased demand for cargo deliveries.







The resumption is aimed at preparing for increased travel demand after countries ease their entry restrictions on incoming passengers to stem the spread of COVID-19, the company said.







The routes that resumed services include Washington, D.C., Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Frankfurt, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. (Yonhap)


A Massachusetts man accused of stealing an SUV spit on a state police trooper and defecated in the cruiser and inside a barracks booking area after he was caught, according to authorities.

State police said the events all began to unfold Tuesday just after 10 a.m. Braintree police told area departments they were looking for a white Ford Explorer stolen from a pet supply store parking lot.

A pet dog belonging to the vehicles owner, who is from Quincy, was inside the SUV when it was stolen.

Roughly 50 minutes later, a trooper working a detail on Route 3 southbound in Kingston was almost struck by the SUV as it sped by, authorities said.

Another trooper ahead of the fleeing suspect deployed a tire deflation device across Route 3; the spike strips impacted two of the Explorers tires, but the vehicle kept traveling southbound on Route 3, state police said.

Troopers began pursuing the SUV. It crashed on the ramp from Route 3 southbound to Route 44 westbound, and the occupant ran away toward Commerce Way in Plymouth. Troopers began searching for the suspect.

Around 11:15 a.m., troopers found the suspect in Plymouth.

The suspect immediately become unruly and resistant, said he was COVID positive, and refused to identify himself, state police said. The suspect then spit at the trooper as he was taken into custody and continued to spit inside the cruiser during transport. He also defecated in the back of the cruiser and in the barracks.

Troopers at the barracks put on full-body personal protective equipment to gain control of the suspect in the holding cell and fingerprint him.

The suspect was identified by state police as Hamza Conner of Boston. He was charged with motor vehicle offenses, making threats, witness intimidation, refusing to identify himself, vandalism, and resisting arrest.

A hazardous waste cleanup company was contacted to clean the cruiser and the barracks. Three troopers involved in taking the suspect into custody and then controlling him at the barracks were put on a brief leave and will be monitored for symptoms.

Authorities are attempting to have Conner tested for COVID-19.

After he was booked, Conner was transferred to the Norfolk County jail in Dedham to be held pending arraignment. After determining the suspects true identity and address troopers checked his name against a public health database in the city of Boston, where he lives, and determined he had never been tested for COVID-19.

Upon transfer to the jail, the suspect was determined to be showing no coronavirus symptoms and went through intake protocols. He has not yet been tested for COVID-19, state police said.

The dog that was in the SUV was located in Somerville and has been reunited with his family.

At this time, we believe the suspect drove to the Boston area after stealing the vehicle and left the dog there, state police said. We are also investigating whether the vehicle was involved in a crash in or around Boston during that time.

Conner will be arraigned remotely in Plymouth District Court.
Michael Jordan thrives on competition. This is no secret.

The Charlotte Hornets owner and NBA icon took his competitive urges to the coast of North Carolina on Tuesday and hauled in a massive catch at the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament.

According to multiple reports, Jordan and the crew of his 80-foot Catch 23 fishing boat reeled in a 442.3-pound marlin. When he returned to dock with his catch, a large crowd was there to greet him.

VIDEO: Michael Jordan and Catch 23 at Big Rock Landing Tuesday afternoon. The crew boated a blue marlin weighing 442.3 pounds. pic.twitter.com/f0b4f2J1EC  Ken Watling (@KWOnAir) June 9, 2020

Big money at stake

Not surprisingly, Jordan doesnt sound satisfied with the catch. The fish was the fifth-largest of the tournament since it began on Monday and wasnt eligible for top-three prize money in the $3.3 million tournament that also pays prizes for wahoo, tuna and dolphin fish.

It sounds like hes going back out for more.

I would love to be back with a little bit bigger fish, Jordan said, per the Associated Press.

The biggest catch carries with it a $1.1 million top prize. Last years winner hauled in a record catch of 914 pounds.

The first boat to haul in a 500-pound marlin receives a $550,000 prize. So far the biggest catch was 494 pounds, according to AP.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the blue marlin as a vulnerable species. National Geographic notes that they are prized for sashimi in Japan and popular targets among sport fishers. It is not clear what portion of the marlins caught in the tournament are released. According to ABC 12, marlins that are boated are donated to the North Carolina State Marine Lab.

Michael Jordan hauled in a massive marlin before greeting a throng of supporters at a North Carolina fishing tournament. (AP file photo/Gerry Broome)

The tournament has been running in the coastal town of Morehead City since 1957 and features 205 boats from around the world, according to AP.

Story continues

This is the first time Jordans participated. After the weigh-in, Jordan reportedly stuck around for pictures with fans who are clearly more excited about meeting their idol than they are concerned about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic thats peaking in North Carolina.

More from Yahoo Sports:
World Oceans Day: Government needs to treat fishing communities better

by Maia Nangle

June 10,2020 | Source: GroundUp

According to the United Nations, the World Oceans Day (8 June) is a day for celebrating the role of the oceans in our everyday life and inspiring action to protect the ocean and sustainably use marine resources. Yet small-scale fishing communities have little to celebrate. Despite the recognition of the small-scale fishing sector in the Amendment to the Marine Living Resources Act, they are still extremely marginalised and over 10,000 small-scale fishers have been excluded from accessing their traditional fishing rights.



The World Oceans Day Network celebration is focused on the sustainability and conservation of the oceans, aimed at achieving 30% protection of the oceans by the year 2030 (30x30) in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal 14.



While it is important to address the challenges in the ocean, such as biodiversity loss, this narrative often lacks a human rights perspective, and raises the question of who is benefiting from the ocean and who it belongs to. It is imperative that the protection and use of the worlds oceans and resources includes coastal communities in order to ensure social and environmental justice.



The current global discourse on sustainable development of the oceans comes with a focus on the Blue Economy or Blue Growth agenda. This is presented as a win-win-win solution in utilising the oceans, providing economic growth and job creation while addressing conservation challenges. But this agenda is also associated with commodification, monetization, and privatisation of marine resources, as well as the dispossession and forced removals of indigenous communities along the coast.



Operation Phakisa is South Africas Blue Economy strategy, aiming to increase development, accelerate economic growth, and address the issues of poverty, inequality, and unemployment by developing the ocean. Developments such as oil and gas exploration, coastal mining, aquaculture, industrial fishing, as well as the expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are being advanced by the state and corporates, often with massive foreign investment. The development of these projects mostly excludes from official decision-making processes the voice and participation of those whose livelihoods and communities depend on the ocean.



While recognising the importance of growth and development in South Africa, it is also important to understand what kind of development is sustainable and compatible with environmental and social justice concerns. Industrial and commercialised ocean developments such as those supported by Operation Phakisa are high capital projects that undermine the voice of affected communities, while the development and support of small-scale fisheries is supportive of human rights and sustainable livelihoods.



MPAs, for example, are a simple tool for ocean management and in order for them to be effectively managed, the social implications for the livelihoods of communities need to be considered in addition to the ecological and biological implications. MPAs are predominantly located in coastal areas of high biodiversity, meaning that their development directly impacts the culture and survival of small-scale traditional fishing communities. These communities, therefore, need to be actively involved in decision-making processes and co-management plans.



Small-scale fishers (SSF) play an extremely important role in securing the food and nutrition security of their households and communities while presenting a viable and sustainable use of the ocean resources. They are the primary custodians of our oceans, having survived and made a living from them for generations. But, under South Africas Small-scale Fishing Policy, which was gazetted in 2012, only 47% of the 22,621 fishers who applied for rights are now successfully registered. This means that over 10,000 bona fide small-scale fishers are forced to fish illegally or with recreational permits and are unable to sell their catch for income.



Then there are also those thousands of fishers who could not apply. Infrastructural challenges and a lack of support from the state and limited consultation and public participation processes have undermined the viability of small-scale fishing. This has resulted in fishers finding themselves in a situation that forces them to engage in low-level poaching (for food) activities. They find themselves criminalised for practicing their cultures and traditions.



Both in normal times as well as in times of disaster, small-scale fishers and their cooperatives are not supported by government with necessary infrastructure, petrol subsidies, social security, skills training, or access to markets. This undermines the important role that small-scale fishers play as providers of nutritious food and in creating sustainable livelihoods in coastal communities.



Even as the economic crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds, we witness an increase in the promotion of Operation Phakisa and the associated extractive industries on the coast and in the oceans to create growth without any regard for environmental and social sustainability. Small-scale fishing communities are losing their fishing grounds and are forced to opt for low-paying and inadequate jobs created in these extractive industries at the expense of their cultural activities, heritage, and traditional livelihoods.



For the just and equitable development and protection of the oceans, it is imperative we adopt a human rights-based approach, ensuring the principles of participation, transparency, accountability, good governance, equality, and non-discrimination. South Africa needs to uphold its commitments to international treaties and conventions, to protect and respect human and labour rights and environmental justice rather than work in favour of foreign investors and conservation standards.



Decision-making processes must be democratic, ensuring the principles of free, prior, and informed consent, with adequate consultation of affected communities. We can foster human equality and build a relationship to the environment that enhances rather than degrades the functioning of ecosystems.

 2012-2020 GroundUp

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
Some Cocoa Farmers at Kusa, a cocoa farming community near Fomena in the Ashanti Region have received Personal Protective Equipment to fight against the novel Coronavirus as they go about their farming duties.



The gesture by Federated Commodities Limited (FEDCO), a cocoa buying company in Ghana saw the distribution of face masks, hand sanitizers, and soaps to these farmers.



Speaking to Peacefmonline.com the Cooperative Manager for FEDCO, Bernard Archibold Senyo Agyeman said supporting cocoa farmers in the country is another channel of enhancing cocoa production in the country.



He said the invasion of Coronavirus has not affected the cocoa sector but he believed there is a need to put pragmatic measures in place to avoid any unforeseen challenges in the future.



The aged and people living with underlying health conditions are said to be prone to the virus therefore the company also saw it relevant to protect the lives of cocoa farmers whose age bracket is at risk to the Coronavirus.



The company, apart from educating their cocoa farmers on good agricultural practices, is also keen on taking the farmers through Coronavirus education to avoid the spread and infections, he added.



He said there are some cocoa farmers who are still in doubt about the virus and always go by their duties exposing themselves to the infection.



These doubting Thomases should start believing the existence of the virus by protecting themselves.



Kontihene of Kusa, Nana Yamoah Ponko ll who was at the function lauded the gesture of the company saying as the government tries to put the effort into the fight against the pandemic, there is a need for individuals and companies to support his actions.

Source: Prince Kwadwo Boadu/Hello FM









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Photos of would-be Georgia voters standing and, in some cases, sitting in long lines after 11 p.m. to cast their ballots in the state's Tuesday primary encapsulated what rights groups and lawmakers decried as a disastrous day for democracy and an entirely predictable result of years of deliberate voter suppression efforts by Republican lawmakers and the U.S. Supreme Court.

They also warned that the myriad issues that plagued Georgia's primary  malfunctioning new voting machines, an insufficient number of paper ballots, a paucity of poll workers, and polling places opening late  are a harbinger of whats to come in November. They mirror problems that threw Georgias 2018 midterm contests into chaos, sparking calls for better preparation and stronger protections against disenfranchisement  calls that apparently fell on deaf Republican ears.

And this year, the coronavirus pandemic added yet another layer of hurdles and provided Republicans with additional opportunities to limit ballot access.

A troubled history

The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history according to history.com. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, it gave the federal government some oversight of elections in several places, mostly former Confederate states.

But in 2013, Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, who held a 5-4 majority over justices appointed by Democrats, gutted the law, saying that oversight was no longer necessary.

Our country has changed, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.

Republican-led states lost no time in enacting new rules targeted at suppressing demographic groups that tended to vote Democratic, especially African Americans. Texas, for example, quickly enacted a voter identification law. Other states began redrawing political maps to dilute the black vote. Georgia is among many states that have purged people from voting rolls for missing elections and shutting down polling places.

As writer Ari Berman of Mother Jones noted late Tuesday, Georgia, which is poised to play a major role in the 2020 presidential election in November, "closed 214 polling places after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. "There were 80 fewer polling places for the June primary in metro Atlanta, where a majority of black voters live," Berman tweeted.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leaders Mitch McConnell is blocking legislation passed by House Dems to restore the Voting Rights Act, Berman emphasized.

Georgias voter registration deadline, one of the nations strictest, turns back voters who fail to register at least 29 days before an election. According to American Public Media, that alone kept 87,000 people from voting in 2018 due to late registration.

Long lines, bad machines

"The ACLU warned that insufficient resources were allocated for polling places, machines, in-person election staff, and staff to process absentee ballots and that this would result in the disenfranchisement of voters in 2020," Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, said in a statement. "It gives us no pleasure to be proven right."

"Whether it is incompetence or intentional voter suppression," Young added, "the result is the same Georgians denied their rights as citizens in this democracy."

Pull Quote "This is no accident. Black and brown people have been kept out of our elections  100 percent on purpose and by design."

"This is by design, and it's their test run for November, tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York. 

Republicans don't want vote by mail because it chips away at their ability to do exactly this: target and disenfranchise black voters and people of color.  These scenes are specifically happening in black communities, not white ones."

Rep.-Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, echoed OcasioCortez. "This is no accident," Jayapal said. "Black and brown people have been kept out of our elections  100 on purpose and by design. We must end racist voter suppression efforts, restore, and expand voting rights, and build a democracy that ensures every voice is heard.".

A myriad of barriers to the ballot box

published drone footage showing hundreds of people waiting in line to vote at one site in Georgia yesterday. The lines were so long, judges extended voting hours at polls in at least 20 counties  including in areas with large African American communities. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted videos of voters complaining about the long lines.

Eighty-year-old Anita Heard arrived at her polling place at 6:00 a.m. Tuesday morning in an effort to get ahead of the rush. Hours later, after standing outside in rain and stifling heat, she said voter suppression is another example of the systemic racism that cost George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor their lives.

This is ridiculous. In the United States of America, this time, people cant vote, she told Democracy Now!.

People are killing each other and cant get along. I dont have to like you, but I respect you as a human being. What is going on? And now we get here. People have been  look at these people. Weve been waiting. Weve been waiting since 6:00 this morning. Six oclock. If you go around this building, youll see people waiting in line. This is unfair.

Pull Quote Our country has changed, wrote Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in the ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The 5-4 decision along party lines gave Republican-led states permission to show how little the country has changed for black voters.

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who ignored repeated warnings that the state's new voting system would not be ready by 2020, was quick to point fingers at individual counties  particularly DeKalb and Fulton, which both have large black populations  for the voting problems, vowing in a statement to launch an investigation to "determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November's election."

Michael Thurmond, chief executive officer of DeKalb County, fired back. "It is the Secretary of State's responsibility to train, prepare, and equip election staff throughout the state to ensure fair and equal access to the ballot box."

Democrats in Georgia, like those in many other states, including Wisconsin, have only five months to address all the barriers designed to disenfranchise voters during the upcoming general election.

If this is a preview of November, then were in trouble, summed up DeKalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson.

See also: Judge promises speedy resolution to voter ID, absentee voting rules in Wisconsin
Members of the STEM  science, technology, engineering and mathematics  community have gone on a 24-hour strike to support the Black Lives Matter movement.

The hashtags #ShutDownSTEM, and #ShutDownAcademia circulated widely on social media, as did support for 'Strike For Black Lives'.

It received the backing of prestigious scientific journals AAAS and Nature, as well as the popular pre-print site arXiv.

Researchers from across the scientific spectrum were encouraged to cease publication, research and self-promotion and instead use June 10 to think about how to tackle institutional racism in academia.

Scroll down for video

The hashtags #ShutDownSTEM, and #ShutDownAcademia circulated widely on social media, as did support for 'Strike For Black Lives'

Organisers of the #ShutDownForSTEM write on their website: 'In the wake of the most recent murders of Black people in the US, it is clear that white and other non-Black people have to step up and do the work to eradicate anti-Black racism.

'As members of the global academic and STEM communities, we have an enormous ethical obligation to stop doing 'business as usual.'

'No matter where we physically live, we impact and are impacted by this moment in history.'

The scientific community has thrown its support behind those protesting for racial equality in the US, and around the world, in the wake of George Floyd's murder at the hands of the police in Minneapolis.

Online website arXiv, the backbone of research for physicists, has also shut up shop for the day. All research submitted on June 10 will be put on pause until 20:00 ET June 10 (01:00am BST, June 11, in Europe). The homepage of the site has been altered to reflect the site's support for the protest, with a prominent black box explaining the campaign (pictured)

Eleonora Presani, Executive Director of arXiv, tweeted: 'This is not a US only issue. Unfortunately systematic racism exists everywhere in the world, in many different forms. 'Take this day to think how racism affects your country and your university'

Individuals and organisations participating in the movement are being urged to 'stop all usual academic work for the day, including teaching, research, and service responsibilities'.

In response to this, Nature has delayed publication of research which was initially scheduled for release today.

Writing in an editorial, the journal admits it is 'one of the white institutions that is responsible for bias in research and scholarship'.

It says it will be using the entirety of June 10 to work on ways to change this in the future.

Nature is using the day to work on and publish content about supporting Black people in academia and STEM.

The only exception to this is COVID-19 articles, due to the urgency of the ongoing pandemic.

Online website arXiv, the backbone of research for physicists, has also shut up shop for the day.

All research submitted on June 10 will be put on pause until 20:00 ET June 10 (01:00am BST, June 11, in Europe).

The homepage of the site has been altered to reflect the site's support for the protest, with a prominent black box explaining the campaign.

David Charbonneau, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard, a white man, tweeted his support of the protest. He also revealed a startling statistic laying bare the devastating lack of diversity in academia

On June 10, Nature will be joining #ShutdownStem #shutdownacademia #strike4blacklives. We will be educating ourselves and defining actions we can take to help eradicate anti-Black racism in academia and STEM https://t.co/2TLIAMaEIB. Please join us. pic.twitter.com/TY2tHFi574  Nature Portfolio (@NaturePortfolio) June 9, 2020

Eleonora Presani, Executive Director of arXiv, tweeted: 'This is not a US only issue. Unfortunately systematic racism exists everywhere in the world, in many different forms.

'Take this day to think how racism affects your country and your university.'

Institutional racism is a significant problem in STEM fields and science as a whole, with under-representation and a lack of opportunities hindering the path to equality.

David Charbonneau, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard, tweeted his support of the protest.

He also revealed a startling statistic laying bare the devastating lack of diversity in academia.

'The @Harvard Department of Astronomy has graduated 425 PhDs since 1925. One of those was awarded to a Black scientist. So, that's 0.24%, a profoundly racist history. #Strike4BlackLives', he said.

'There is no way to look at that fact and think we are not racist, that astronomy isn't racist, that it's ok because everyone was doing it.'

He went on to say that there are now nine black astronomers among Harvard's 50 PhD students in astronomy.

Of all 18 astronomy professors at Harvard, only one is black, John Asher Johnson.

A 2012 scientific study found that, of all the physics researchers in the UK, only 0..1 per cent were black.

In a tweet, Nature Reviews Physics said: 'It is clear that academic institutions are in need of structural change.

'Yet with so few Black voices within the system, there is an urgent need for non-Black allies to take an active role in campaigning for change.'
The formation of our solar system was a messy affair. Most of the material that existed before its formation -- material formed around other, long-dead stars -- was vaporized, then recondensed into new materials. But some grains of that material, formed before the sun's birth, still persist.

These "stardust" grains arrived on Earth inside primitive meteorites. New Washington University in St. Louis research led by Nan Liu, an assistant research professor in physics and the Laboratory for Space Sciences in Arts & Sciences, shows that stardust was also delivered to another planet-like body in the solar system, asteroid 4 Vesta, by micrometeoroids that also carried water.

The research was published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

"Like our Earth," Liu said, "Vesta has a core, a mantle and crust," features that formed as the materials melted, differentiated and coalesced into a single planet-like object. And like Earth, Vesta is also pummeled by micrometeoroids. The brightest asteroid in the night sky, Vesta orbits the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Liu, along with Lionel Vacher, a postdoctoral researcher, and Ryan Ogliore, assistant professor of physics, studied samples of the Kapoeta meteorite for this research. Kapoeta fell to Earth in 1942 in what is now South Sudan, landing on a road in front of a British convoy during World War II. NASA's Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta established a link between Vesta and the howardites, eucrites and diogenites, groups of meteorites found on Earth.

The research team focused on small, dark inclusions in Kapoeta that seemed out of place, like pieces of clay in lava rock. "They look completely different from surrounding material," Liu said. They turned out to be microscopic meteoroids, less than 100 microns across (smaller than the thickness of a human hair), that landed on Vesta's surface.

Liu used the university's mass-spectrometer microscope, the NanoSIMS, to search the inclusions for presolar material. Because stardust has a very different isotopic composition from material that formed within the solar system, it jumped out at her under the microscope.

The stardust in asteroid Vesta is a unique record of ancient, galactic material delivered long ago to a body far from Earth. The researchers postulate that the micrometeoroids arrived at Vesta after the violent impacts of the Late Heavy Bombardment, about 3.5 billion years ago.

Vacher and Ogliore measured the chemical compositions of the micrometeoroids to understand in what type of environment they formed. They recognized minerals and textures that were linked to interactions between rock and water from melted ice.

One of the big questions is: How did water get on Earth?

"We need a mechanism to bring ice from the outer solar system, where the temperature is low," Vacher said. "This research shows that you can transport small micrometeoroids that contain ice to dry bodies that formed without water."

The ancient record of these micrometeoroids impacting Earth has been erased by weather and plate tectonics. The micrometeoroid record from asteroid Vesta may help to explain how water was delivered to the young Earth.

"If icy micrometeoroids delivered water to the inner solar system when the Earth was still forming, this could be one way that the Earth ended up with enough water to support life," Ogliore said. "Habitable planets around other stars may have acquired their water through similar means."

More analyses are needed to determine the when and the where. "Our next measurements will constrain when this wet material was delivered to Vesta, and where it came from: an icy asteroid, a comet or some other exotic source," Ogliore said.

Take a trip to 4 Vesta

You can zoom in on Kapoeta thanks to Ryan Ogliore, assistant professor of physics. He worked to develop techniques to visualize objects from the micrometer to the millimeter scale -- that's a factor of 1,000. "It's like he took a puzzle with 1,000 pieces, but Ryan is doing the same puzzle with 10,000 pieces," said Lionel Vacher, research assistant. Click here to visit the meteorite: https://bit.ly/3dPqord

Astrobiology, Astrochemistry

Please follow Astrobiology on Twitter.
Israels High Court ordered June 9 the state to cancel the controversial Regulation Law, with eight justices to one ruling that the legislation was unconstitutional. The eight justices said that the law violates the property rights and equality of Palestinians, and gives clear priority to the interests of Israeli settlers over Palestinian residents of the West Bank." The justices argued that while preventing the demolition of [settlement] homes might be understandable, this does not justify such significant violation of property rights and the rights to dignity and equality that the Palestinian population [deserves].

The Regulation Law enables the Israeli authorities to expropriate private lands belonging to Palestinians in favor of Jewish settlements and on the condition of compensating the Palestinian owners. Its authors aimed at retroactively legalizing over 4,000 unauthorized housing units, including some, though not all, West Bank wildcat outpost.

Adopted by the Knesset three years ago, the law generated a wave of criticism by anti-occupation and human rights groups, with several petitions submitted against it over the years. European leaders sharply criticized the law, arguing it ran contrary to international law. United Nations envoy to the Middle East Nickolay Mladenov said at the time that the law "will have a drastic legal consequence for Israel and for the nature of its democracy. It crosses a very, very thick red line."

When the first petitions were submitted against the law, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said he could not represent the state, estimating the law was unconstitutional. In reaction, then-Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the pro-settler Jewish Home party hired private lawyer Harel Arnon to defend the law in court. After a series of petitions, the government agreed to suspend the implementation of the law until the High Court publishes its final ruling on the issue.

The June 9 ruling will evidently generate wide national and international implications, especially ahead of July 1, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to bring up to vote his West Bank annexation plan. On the Israeli internal political level, public radio station Kan reported that the Likud and Blue and White party, both of the ruling coalition, disputed the reaction to the ruling, with a coalition crisis looming over the issue. The Likud party said in a statement that the ruling was "unfortunate," condemning the courts intervention in a law thats important to the settlement enterprise and its future. In contrast, the Blue and White party stated, We respect the courts decision and will work to ensure that it will be respected." Several right-wing activists pledged to re-present a new version of the law for the Knesset to adopt in the near future, but a Likud source was quoted as saying that once Israeli sovereignty is implemented on West Bank settlements, the law would no longer be necessary.
Our sense of direction tends to decline with age. In the scientific journal "Nature Communications", researchers from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and experts from the USA report on new insights into the causes of this phenomenon. According to their findings, the main source of errors in determining spatial position and apparently the cause of age-related orientation problems is a "noisy" and therefore imprecise perception of the speed at which one is moving. These study results could contribute to the development of diagnostic tools for early detection of dementia.

From visual stimuli to muscle feedback and signals relayed by the vestibular system - the human brain uses a wide range of sensory inputs to determine position and to guide us through space. An essential part of the necessary information processing happens in the "entorhinal cortex". In this area, which is present in both brain hemispheres, there are special neurons that generate a mental map of the physical environment. Thus, information on real space is translated into a "data format", which the brain can process.

The human navigation system works quite well. But it is not without flaws. It is well known that there are people with good orientation skills and those who find it harder to find their way around. This ability usually diminishes with age, because older people generally find spatial orientation more difficult than younger individuals, especially in unfamiliar surroundings. Therefore, the chances of getting lost increase with age." Prof. Thomas Wolbers, principal investigator at the DZNE, Magdeburg site

Study in virtual space

To understand the causes of this decline, DZNE scientists led by Thomas Wolbers, in collaboration with experts from the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin, designed a specific experiment: A total of about 60 cognitively healthy young and older adults who were fitted with "virtual reality" goggles had to move and orient themselves - separately from each other - within a digitally generated environment. Simultaneously, participants also moved physically along convoluted paths. They were assisted by an experimenter who led the individual test person by the hand. In doing so, real locomotion led directly to movements in virtual space. "This is an artificial setting, but it reflects aspects of real situations," said Wolbers.

During the experiment, participants were asked several times to estimate the distance and direction to the starting point of the path. Because the virtual environment offered only a few visual cues for orientation, participants had to rely mainly on other stimuli. "We looked at how accurately participants were able to assess their position in space and thus tested what is known as path integration. In other words, the ability to determine position based on body awareness and the perception of one's own movement. Path integration is considered a central function of spatial orientation," explained Wolbers.

"Noisy" model

Just as important as the experimental setup was the mathematical modeling of the measured data. This was based on an approach to describe interfering effects on position determination as noise. "The human body and its sensory organs are far from perfect. Information processing in the brain is therefore affected by glitches, which can be interpreted as noise. This is similar to a radio broadcast, where noise can superimpose the actual signal," said Wolbers. "With the help of our mathematical model, we were able to unravel the contributions of various sources of error and identify what distorts position tracking the most and what has little effect. Such sources of error have never been investigated at this level of detail."

For example, data evaluation showed that body rotation in the direction of the path's starting point was consistently quite accurate. And memory errors played virtually no role. "To determine the location in space while you are moving, you have to constantly update your position in your mind. This requires you to remember where you were moments before. In this respect, our analysis found only minimal errors," said Wolbers.

A matter of velocity

The research team's conclusion: Errors in path integration are mainly caused by "accumulating internal noise" in information processing - and this phenomenon is probably a consequence of inaccuracies in the perception of movement speed. "It should be noted that humans intuitively estimate distances covered on the basis of how long and how fast they were previously travelling. Yet, our study suggests that the critical source of error for determining position is not time perception, but apparently random fluctuations in the speed information that gets to the brain," said Wolbers.

This source of error was dominant both in the younger (average age 22 years) and in the older adults (average age 69 years). "The young subjects were generally better at orientation than the older study participants. Critically, the accumulating internal noise increased with age. This phenomenon is apparently the main cause of deficits in path integration and probably also the trigger for age-related orientation problems. However, we do not yet know the exact origin of this noise and why it increases with age," said Wolbers.

Early detection of dementia

In previous studies, Wolbers and other DZNE researchers had found that in cognitively healthy, older adults, certain neurons of the entorhinal cortex - so-called grid cells -, which are essential for spatial navigation, fire irregularly: Their activity is unstable. This was related to age-related difficulties in orientation. The current results suggest that these instabilities are not due to malfunctions of the grid cells themselves, but are caused by noise from outside. The problem is therefore not in the grid cells but in the flow of information that reaches the entorhinal cortex. This points to a possibility for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's.

"Alzheimer's disease is associated with damage to the entorhinal cortex at an early stage. It is therefore reasonable to assume that orientation disorders such as those that manifest in Alzheimer's originate in this area of the brain. Unlike age-related orientation difficulties, as our current study suggests," explained Wolbers. "This could provide an opportunity to distinguish normal age-related orientation problems from those caused by Alzheimer's. In the long term, our aim is to develop diagnostic methods that detect Alzheimer's at an early stage. This might be possible using technology such as virtual reality. We are currently preparing clinical studies on this."
Chicago, Illinois, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On June 8, UIC John Marshall Law School in Chicago hosted Bakari T. Sellers for A Conversation about Race & Injustice in America. Sellers is an attorney, political commentator and activist. His memoir, My Vanishing Country, was published last month by HarperCollins.

The discussion, available on the Law Schools YouTube page, was moderated by Professor Teri McMurtry-Chubb, who joined UIC John Marshall from Mercer University School of Law and has lectured nationally on structural discrimination in educational institutions and the workplace.

Sellers explained how his fathers experiences inspired him to pursue a legal career. His father, civil rights icon Cleveland Sanders, grew up during the Emmett Till generation and was a leader in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. SNCC sent Cleveland Sellers to Mississippi to help search for the bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Cleveland Sellers later became the only person convicted and imprisoned in connection with the infamous 1968 Orangeburg Massacre; he was pardoned 25 years later.

Sellers, who ran for the South Carolina legislature during his first year in law school, becoming the youngest elected African-American legislator in the country, stressed that while [w]e are on the brink of a moment, weve seen similar movements before. As concrete steps, Sellers emphasized the need for systemic change, such as limiting qualified immunity for police officers and establishing a federal police misconduct database.

In response to student questions, Sellers also explained that defunding the police doesnt mean that police departments will be closed, but that certain budget line items should be redirected towards efforts that prevent crime, such as summer youth programs and public school education. He cited Camden, NJ, as an example of a city that defunded its police department and the citys crime has since dropped by close to half.

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Sellers also shared his personal challenges with the U.S. healthcare system. These included the hospital near his hometown being closed and near-death experiences with his wife and daughter. He tied systemic injustices in the health-care system to the high death rate black Americans have suffered as a result of COVID-19. He shared the quote, when America gets a cold, black people get the flu, and then added that when COVID-19 comes to town, black people die.

Sellers concluded the discussion by offering students a piece of advice from Benjamin Elijah Mays, a man he described as the greatest educator of all time. Whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead and no man yet to be born could do it any better.

About UIC John Marshall Law School

UIC John Marshall Law School is the 16th college at the University of Illinois at ChicagoChicagos largest university and its only public Carnegie Research 1 institution. Located in the heart of the Citys legal, financial and commercial districts, UIC John Marshall is recognized as one of the most diverse law schools in the nation and is a leader in providing access to underrepresented students.

Miller McDonald

UIC John Marshall Law School

mmcdona@uic.edu


TROY  The grassroots organization Justice for Dahmeek outlined its demands for reforms to the criminal justice system Wednesday at a rally attended by about 60 supporters outside City Hall.

The demands evolved from the peaceful Troy Rally for Black Lives that was held Sunday afternoon, attracting an estimated 11,000 protesters who marched from Riverfront Park through downtown to the city police station at 55 State St. The rally was organized by several local groups. It was part of the nationwide response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis when he was being taken into police custody. The four Minneapolis police officers involved have been fired and face criminal charges including murder and abetting murder.

Councilman Ken Zalewski of the 5th District, the leader of the Councils Democratic majority, and Republican Council President Carmella Mantello said the issues raised by Justice for Dahmeek would be discussed by the Council. The seven-member Council learned of the demands Tuesday night during a meeting. The demands were posted Tuesday night on the Justice for Dahmeek Facebook page.

Justice for Dahmeek has called for police accountability for the last two years. The demands online Tuesday night include a newly formed police civilian review board with subpoena power and at least 60 percent of its members drawn from the minority community, especially those who have experienced violence or police violence; exploration and creation of diversion programs from the criminal justice system to community-based treatment alternatives for youth and the mentally ill; the end of Rensselaer Countys involvement with the federal 287G program administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and designating Troy a sanctuary city. The demand also included cops stop killing us and our children.

In addition the group called for the state attorney general's office to investigate incidents involving police officers and unarmed civilians.

I want to take a look at them. Overall, we have to take a look at the specifics of them, Mantello said in an interview Tuesday night.

Zalewski said in an interview that the councils four Democrats and three Republicans should work together.

Were going to have to take a close look at a lot of the suggestions being made. Were going to pursue what we can given budgetary constraints and having the votes to do this, Zalewski said.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Police Chief Brian Owens and the city police will be kept apprised of what is developing, Zalewski said. Were going to keep the police involved in the conversation.

Mayor Patrick Madden named a reconstituted eight-member Police Objective Review Board Monday. The board hasnt met for five years. It doesnt have subpoena power. A Democratic attempt to declare Troy a sanctuary city failed last year.

The rally and press conference was held outside City Hall at 433 River St. City Hall is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Council has been holding its meetings online due to the pandemic.

During the press conference, members of the group read a list of police brutality cases they said have occurred since 2008 in Troy.

Wanted as a parole absconder, Dahmeek McDonald, a 22-year-old unarmed black man, was shot by a Troy police officer in 2017. McDonald survived and no charges were ultimately filed against the officer.
SPRINGFIELD - Police Commissioner Cheryl C. Clapprood said Wednesday that the police departments policies and training regarding the use of force are well ahead of the curve compared to other departments in Massachusetts or around the country.

One day after several city councilors stood on the steps of city hall and called for the banning of chokeholds during arrests, Clapprood said such holds have been banned for some time and officers are not trained to use them.

The Springfield Police Department does not authorize or train officers to use chokeholds or carotid restraints, she said. Our academy instructors place a significant emphasis on technique, and keeping weight off of the head, neck, and spine is stressed during all their hands-on training.

The use of chokeholds by police has gained attention recently following the death of George Floyd, a black man killed during his arrest in Minneapolis. While Floyd was handcuffed and held down by three officers, a white officer was shown pressing his knee into Floyds neck for more than 8 minutes.

The four officers are charged with murder, and video of the footage has touched off riots, demonstrations, and protests in cities across the country, including Springfield.

On Tuesday, Orlando Ramos, chairman of the councils Public Safety Committee, presented a series of recommendations for the use of force by Springfield police on the steps of city hall. Eleven of the 13 councilors joined him.

Among the recommendations were the banning of chokeholds by police as a means of restraining suspects being taken into custody, and the department should stress the use of de-escalation as the first step in resolving conflict before resorting to the use of force.

Clapprood said that in addition to already banning chokeholds, Springfield police already train all officers in de-escalation.

Springfield police were one of the first departments in the state to emphasize de-escalation in training as a stand-alone program for all new cadets and for required in-service training for officers.

(De-escalation) is already a part of each step of our use of force model in our policy, she said. We believe our instructors teach and train in de-escalation more so than any other department in the Commonwealth.

De-escalation is the practice of reducing stress during confrontations between police and the public before things canturn violent. If immediate action is not necessary, officers are trained to slow things down, to be compassionate but firm with someone in crisis, and even back off to create space as a way of avoiding potential violence.

Clapprood said instructors at the Springfield Police Academy are also among the first to teach EPIC training to all recruits and officers. EPIC is an acronym for Ethical Police is Courageous," and it stresses for officers to intervene at the earliest opportunity f they witness another officer behaving inappropriately.

She said the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) review of the department recommended it develop an early-intervention system to identify and retrain officers who develop bad habits that could become major problems down the road. Clapprood said she is waiting for a new records management system to be brought online before the Internal Investigations Unit can enact an early-intervention procedure.

She said she has no problem with the council or anyone else putting fresh eyes on the departments use of force policies, but we do believe we are well ahead of the curve.
WASHINGTON  A massive federal policing reform bill would require Connecticut police to report use of force data, increase body camera usage, block them from receiving some military equipment, set a new standard for police misconduct and place negligent officers on a national registry.

Born out of weeks of protests, Democrats Justice in Policing Act would attempt to bring more professionalism and uniformity to the practices of over 18,000 police departments across the country, while curbing racially-motivated and improper behavior.

Backed by the entire Connecticut congressional delegation, the legislation is the most comprehensive law enforcement reform proposal now before Congress. Republicans have not yet countered with their own proposals.

People of all backgrounds, genders and races have come together to demand change. Honor them, honor George, and make the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution - and not the problem, Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd who was recently killed by a Minneapolis Police officer, testified before Congress on Wednesday.

Hold them accountable when they do something wrong, Floyd said. Teach them what it means to treat people with empathy and respect. Teach them what necessary force is. Teach them that deadly force should be used rarely and only when life is at risk.

The U.S. House of Representatives will try to pass the Justice in Policing Act this month. If passed, it would require state and local law enforcement to report data on use of force, disaggregated by race, sex, age, disability and religion, to the Department of Justice. Connecticut police do not currently report this data publicly.

Police are the only agencies in the United States that are authorized to use force against the population so of course we should be keeping assidious records on that, said John DeCarlo, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven and former Branford police chief.

The legislation would mean that any local or state police department receiving federal funds would be required to use body cameras. It does not add federal funds for this purpose.

In Connecticut, not all police departments use the cameras  its a department-by-department decision. All Connecticut state police on patrol use body cameras. While the cameras themselves are not that expensive, police chiefs said, storage of hours upon hours of video footage gathered year after year can be  a main hurdle for some police departments interested in the technology. The state offers some financial incentives to help towns cover the costs.

The bill would prevent local and state law enforcement from getting surplus firearms, mine resistant vehicles, weaponized drones, certain aircraft and silencers from the military and would require local police to get approval from their city council to receive transfers of any military equipment.

In April, the city of Bridgeport received a mine resistant vehicle from the Department of Defense, according to DOD records. The New London Police Department and Connecticut State Police each received one of the vehicles in January, records show.

This package is not anti-police, said Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5. My husband has been in law enforcement for 23 years as part of the Waterbury Police Department. I recognize that any solution to the problem of police misconduct will have to include proper training and resources for law enforcement agencies in order to reform their practices. The Justice in Policing Act will redirect resources to where law enforcement really need them: training, accountability, and transparency, rather than militarization.

The legislation would also give Connecticut police chiefs a new tool when hiring: they could consult a national police misconduct registry listing officers who have been found to have committed abuses.

Connecticut police departments already conduct background checks and polygraph tests on candidates, but Norwalk Mayor and former police chief Harry Rilling said such a registry is absolutely necessary.

If somebody coming in from another state has been terminated because they used excessive physical force... then its critical that we have that information, said Rilling. We could reach out to the other department. Sometimes well get cooperation and other times we might not... sometimes there may be a temptation from the other department to say Oh yeah, good guy, good gal, whatever, just to get rid of them.

One of the most controversial parts of the proposed bill would limit qualified immunity for police officers, a law that gives such officials legal protection for actions performed on the job. The change could open cities and police departments to fault in lawsuits when police officers violate individuals constitutional rights. The U.S. Supreme Court is also examining qualified immunity and the shield it can provide police.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called changes to qualified immunity a nonstarter on Monday, but a few Republican senators have said it may be time for reform.

"So I'm actually thinking seriously about the qualified immunity, said Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind. Most in our conference don't want to go that far, but I'm really going out to see if I can get a few others interested in looking at that as well because I think that'd be the one thing that shows our conference means business. You never know, this might be a watershed moment."

Moreover, the bill would change the federal standard for prosecuting police misconduct from willfulness to recklessness eliminating the need to prove intent.

The cop with his knee on Floyds neck was negligent, he was reckless, DeCarlo said. If a police officer acts recklessly, it is dangerous to the community. So when we look at the guy whose knee was on George Floyds neck. ... I know that right now the national argument is it is racist, but its even more than that. I dont have any faith that this guy woudnt have done that to anyone and people like that should not be on police departments.

The legislation would also incentivize state attorneys general to conduct independent investigations into improper conduct by police departments.

In Connecticut, the Chief States Attorney appoints an out-of-district prosecutor to investigate whenever police use deadly force. In some states, these investigations are done internally by the police departments themselves. The U.S. Attorney in the District of Connecticut can also investigate civil rights violations by police.

The Department of Justice conducts investigations into patterns of misconduct by police forces. The legislation would create a new task force to oversee these investigations and enforcement and give the DOJ subpoena power in these cases.

Connecticut police officers already receive sensitivity training at the police academy and everything three years must complete review hours. The proposed legislation would mandate training on racial, religious and discriminatory profiling for all law enforcement. It would also create law enforcement development and training programs and set national police department accreditation standards.

We have upgraded tremendously the standards and practices of Connecticuts local and state police through training, recruiting, screening, and evaluating as well as taking action against those few  very few  who fail to meet the high standards we believe are essential in Connecticut, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. former attorney general of Connecticut. The nation should take those standards and protocols and practices and make them uniform across our country.

For federal law enforcement  like the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and others  the Justice in Police Act would ban the use of chokeholds and carotid holds, a move that cuts off the flow of air and blood to the head, often resulting in unconsciousness.

National scrutiny is falling on police use of force to the neck after an officer in Minneapolis kneeled on the neck of a black man George Floyd causing his death on May 25. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has proposed banning chokeholds for state and local police.

President Donald Trump met with law enforcement officials Monday at the White House, including Sheriff Tony Childress of Livingston County, Ill., who urged Trump to prohibit all physical restraints to the neck, along with requiring officers to render medical aid to all, intervene when officers use inappropriate force and make de-escalation training mandatory.

The Justice in Policing Act would also ban federal law enforcement from using no-knock warrants, the kind of warrant used when police in Louisville, Ky. responded to the home of Breonna Taylor in an attempted drug sting. Taylor, 26, was killed when police fired into the home; police say Taylors boyfriend was shooting at the officers.

The legislation would also make lynching a federal hate crme. It would require federal law enforcement to use dashboard cameras and body cameras.

As some protesters call for defunding the police, the legislation would establishes public safety innovation grants for community-based organizations to create local commissions and task forces to help towns and cities to make new, fairer public safety approaches. The Minneapolis City Council has backed ending that citys police department in its current form.

While the Trump administration has indicated openness to reforms, Trump and other Republicans have slammed calls for defunding police.

There wont be defunding. There wont be dismantling of our police, Trump said Monday. Our police have been letting us live in peace and we want to make sure we dont have any bad actors in there and sometimes well see some horrible things like we witnessed recently but I say 99.9 - lets go with 99 percent of them  great, great people and theyve done jobs that are record setting.

Local police spend much of their time responding to incidents that are not crimes  calls on homelessness, mental health issues, substance abuse problems, landlord/tenant and neighbor disputes. Part of the defund movement calls for shifting some police funding to other government organizations that would respond to these issues and take them off the plate of cops.

Once we address these pernicious and persistent disparities in policing, we must then address the historic, structural inequalities that leave communities more vulnerable to police violence, Hayes said. Funding schools, promoting housing equity, ensuring access to health care and reforming our system of mass incarceration are but a few necessary steps that still must be taken.

emilie.munson@hearstdc.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
The COVID-19 pandemic has halted many political activities in an election year which should have been bustling with political campaigns, election of candidates and all the euphoria associated with politics.

But for this pandemic, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would have elected its parliamentary candidates in constituencies where the party has sitting Members of Parliament (MP).



In the Eastern Region, one constituency that would have been interesting is Akwatia where the sitting MP, Mercy Adu Gyamfi aka Ama Sey, is being challenged by three men  Bernard Owiredu Donkor, Ernest Yaw Kumi and Robert Boateng Ampratwum.



Swing seat



The Akwatia parliamentary seat is one of the swing seats in the country. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has won the seat on two occasions  1992 and 1996  before Mr Kingston Akomeng Kissi, current Eastern Regional Chairman of the NPP, snatched it in 2000 for the NPP.



The NPP maintained the seat from 2000 to 2008 until it lost it to the NDC in 2012. The late Dr Kofi Asare, the NPPs former MP who succeeded Mr Kissi after the latter had voluntarily opted out of Parliament, lost the seat to the NDCs Baba Jamal in 2012.



Dr Asare won the seat narrowly in 2008 in an election that was marred by allegation of ballot box snatching in some six polling stations, leading to a re-run of six polling stations following a Supreme Court ruling.



Ama Sey defeats Baba Jamal



Before the general election, the NPP was to present a candidate who could defeat lawyer Baba Jamal, then Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.



Ms Adu Gyamfi, who had then been appointed as the partys Constituency Womens Organiser following the promotion of Kate Gyamfua, then Constituency Womens Organiser, to a Deputy National Womens Organiser, put herself up for the contest against Dr Asare, and Philip Kofi Ankomah, an electrical engineer, who had unsuccessfully contested in the partys primary on four occasions.



Ama Sey won with 311 votes, beating Mr Ankomah who had 183 votes and Dr Asare who got 35 votes.



Profiles



Mercy Adu Gyamfi (Ama Sey)



Ama Sey suspiringly beat Alhaji Baba Jamal of the NDC in the 2016 election. She polled 21,433 votes, representing 57.21 per cent of the valid votes.



A hairdresser, Ama Seys educational background became a topical issue in the campaign. A smear campaign was waged against her, with verbal attacks by her opponents.



She attended Presby Middle School at Akwatia, where she obtained Middle School Leaving Certificate (MSLC).



She has always been a businesswoman. Before entering Parliament, she was the Managing Director of Amasey Pharmacy, Kade.



Her supporters believe that she has what it takes to beat the other contestants.

"We are ready for the battle anytime any day. Ama Sey will win hands down as her work in the constituency has been recognised," one of her supporters boastfully said.



Bernard Owiredu Donkor



A private legal practitioner and Electoral Area Coordinator of the party, Mr Donkor holds a BSc Chemistry from the University of Ghana.



In 2009, he enrolled at the University of Ghana Law Faculty, graduating with a Bachelor of Law (LLB) in 2011. He entered the Ghana School of Law the same year and was called to the Bar in 2013.



He also holds a Certificate in Insurance Claims and Re-Insurance from the National Insurance College.



The multilingual lawyer also worked briefly as Quality Assurance Manager at a food processing company in Tema before pursuing Law.



He has been involved in some high-profile cases such as the Aisha Huang case, the Kwabenya Police shooting case, the SSNIT OBS case, among others. He is currently a retainer lawyer for many entities, including the Denkyembour District Assembly.



Robert Agyenim Boateng Ampratwum



An Engineer by profession, Robert Ampratwum is a Certified Professional Engineer, Procurement and Contract Management Specialist, Policy Analyst and a Rural Development Expert.



He is a member of the Ghana Institute of Engineering (GhIE), Ghana Society of Agricultural Engineering (GSAE), Project Management Institute (PMI) and Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply Chain (CIPS).



With a catch phrase the real game-changer, the aspirant, an old student of St Augustines College, Cape Coast, holds a BSc. Agricultural Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. After university, he worked briefly at the Adum-Kumasi branch of Agricultural Development Bank and later worked at Agricultural Engineering Service Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture as Assistant Agricultural Engineer and District Agricultural Engineer of Builsa District in 2011.



Six months later, he was made the Regional Agricultural Engineer of the Eastern Region.



He was transferred to the Project Office of MoFA as Agricultural Engineering Expert in the Procurement Unit, where he has since gained remarkable exposure, experience and contacts whilst working with various donor agencies such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development and Agence Francaise de Developpment.



Ernest Yaw Kumi



Yaw Kumi is a corporate governance expert with diverse expertise in risk management, logistics and administration, fraud detections and investigation with strong business acumen. He has over 10 years specialisation in administration planning and governance, policy and process developments and implementation, financial management, project leads, budget preparations, human resource management, supply chain management and new business generations.



An astute communicator, he is a member of the partys national communication team. He holds a Bachelor of Law from Mount Crest University, an MBA (Corporate Governance) from University of Professional Studies, Accra, Professional Certificate in Corporate Governance from Institute of Directors Ghana and an Executive Mastery Certificate in Business Administration and Enterprise Leadership (Project Management, Logistics and Transport Management Options) from Graduate School of Governance and Leadership, among a host of certificates.



Known as the Akwatia Star Boy, he has served on several committees in the NPP, including the Eastern Regional Youth Finance Working Committee.

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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He was arrested in 2016 for criticizing the government and spreading fake news on social media. The judges had sentenced him to five years to prison. The release thanks to a recent rule that converts jail terms into alternative measures. He is the first opposition activist and leader to benefit.

Manama (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Bahrain authorities have released 55-year-old human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, arrested in 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison for "criticizing the government" and "spreading false news" on social media.

In the past, human rights associations and dissidents have denounced the treatment suffered by the man while in prison and a United Nations commission has repeatedly called for his release, which took place yesterday after four years.

According to his lawyer, he will serve the remaining term in a non-custodial context. Nabeel has been released - underlines Mohammed Al-Jishi - and is on the way back home. Finally, the judges granted him an alternative" to prison, in the context of a reform promoted in 2018 that converts prison to house arrest or solutions other than jail time.

Hundreds of prisoners and detainees behind bars for common crimes have regained freedom thanks to the law. However, Rajab (pictured, along with his daughter) is the first opposition leader and human rights activist to benefit.

Rajab, a Shiite, originally from the village of Bani Jamra, near the capital Manama, led many protests against the power of Al Khalifa, calling for greater democracy and civil liberties. Leader of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (Bchr) group, on June 6, 2012 he was arrested for insulting the Sunni community on the web. Released, the activist was arrested a second time in 2016 and sentenced to five years in prison in 2018.

At the time, the top government official had defended the legitimacy of the process, speaking of an "independent and transparent" judicial process. The BCHR "welcomes the release" of Nabeel Rajab "after four years behind bars". "We are delighted," adds Aya Majzoub of Human Rights Watch (HRW), because "Nabeel is a dedicated and passionate activist who has always supported human rights" in the country.

Bahrain is a Gulf monarchy ruled by a Sunni dynasty in a country where the majority of the population (at least 60-70%) is Shia and want constitutional changes and social and economic rights. In 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring, riots broke out that the king of Bahrain  a US ally supported by Riyadh  quashed thanks to Saudi military aid.
The Paris chief prosecutor has launched a preliminary inquiry into France's response to the coronavirus outbreak, in what may be the first of many such public investigations worldwide.

Prosecutor Remy Heitz will examine the way the epidemic was managed by state bodies including government ministries, local authorities and nursing homes  to determine whether criminal offences could have been committed.

Potential charges against officials include manslaughter, endangering life, involuntary injury and failing to assist a person in danger.

The investigation marks the first judicial response to dozens of complaints over an alleged lack of virus protections in the workplace, a shortage of face masks and the state's failure to carry out mass screenings while France was in lockdown.

Complaints against state bodies

The national public health service, the Director General of Health Jerome Salomon, the prison administration and France's Labour Ministry are all targeted.

The prosecutor's office said the complaints, which were "mostly made against unnamed people", were levelled by individual members of the public as well as civil groups such as unions and associations.

Government ministers, however, can only be held accountable only by the Cour de Justice de la Republique  which itself has received 80 complaints  while President Emmanuel Macron as France's head of state enjoys immunity from prosecution.

More than 29,000 people in France have died from Covid-19, with more than 154,000 confirmed infections.

Heitz  who has jurisdiction over national public health issues as well as crimes committed in Paris  said the probe was specifically aimed at finding out if decision-makers had committed criminal offences, and not at determining political or administrative responsibility.

The prosecutor's office anticipates the inquiry will involve "considerable" work in the context of what Heitz called an "historic" situation.

"This is the first time that complaints have been filed while a crisis is in full swing," he said.
A top security aide to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Wednesday accused Armenias largest parliamentary opposition force led by businessman Gagik Tsarukian of acting like a treasonous fifth column when he reacted to its calls for the governments resignation.

Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Security Council, claimed that Tsarukian and his Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) have been trying to help the countrys former rulers return to power.

That party is positioning itself as a fifth column and trying to associate itself with the former regime and carry out its reproduction, Grigorian told RFE/RLs Armenian service.

Tsarukian said on Friday that Pashinian and his cabinet must step down because they have badly failed to contain the coronavirus epidemic and mitigate its socioeconomic consequences. Addressing senior BHK members, the tycoon also announced that he will try to rally healthy political groups and individuals concerned about the countrys future.

Grigorian dismissed Tsarukians unusually harsh criticism of the government as completely baseless. They have no institutional capacity to start a process of the prime ministers resignation or another political change, he said. They are doomed to fail.

Grigorian said that the BHKs and other opposition groups calls for Pashinians resignation are tantamount to high treason because they come at a time when Armenia is literally waging a war against a hidden enemy such as the coronavirus.

Azerbaijan tried but failed to open such a war front during this fight against the coronavirus, said the official. That page was turned as a result of our riposte. But within Armenia they are trying, according to the logic of a fifth column, to take steps clearly doomed to fail.

Pashinian and his political allies have also reacted furiously to Tsarukians statements. The prime ministers spokeswoman, Mane Gevorgian, claimed on Friday that the BHK leader attacked the government because he fears being prosecuted on corruption, tax evasion and other grave charges.

The BHK, which has the second largest group in the Armenian parliament, rejected the political blackmail. One of its senior representatives said on Tuesday that Tsarukian stands by his calls and has already started meeting with other political figures also seeking regime change. He did not name any of them.

Tsarukians party was officially in opposition to Serzh Sarkisian, Armenias former longtime leader toppled in the Pashinian-led Velvet Revolution two years ago. The party voiced support for the revolution during its final stage, helped Pashinian become prime minister and joined his first cabinet formed in May 2018.

Pashinian fired his ministers affiliated with BHK in October 2018, accusing Tsarukian of secretly collaborating with the former regime.

The BHK came in a distant second in the December 2018 parliamentary elections and won 26 seats in Armenias 132-member parliament. Pashinians My Step bloc controls 88 parliament seats.
New Zealand, on June 8 announced that there are no active COVID-19 cases in the country, thus becoming the first nation in the world to eradicate the deadly disease completely. While the Oceanic nation has been winning high praise for its handling of the pandemic, Karnataka minister Dr Sudhakar K has provided an interesting insight, comparing New Zealands handling of the pandemic with that of an Indian city  Bengaluru.

READ | Jacinda Ardern Being Hailed For Making New Zealand Coronavirus Free

The Minister shared a graphic representation that shows that New Zealand has recorded a total of 1,150 positive COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths, while Bengaluru reported 450 positive cases and 13 deaths to date. It was noted that the population of New Zealand is 50 lakh, while that of Bengaluru is 1.25 crore. Besides, the geographical area of the metropolitan city is only 700 square kilometers, against NZs 268,000.

Heres how the Karnataka MLA drew a parallel between the two regions.

READ | New Zealand Cuts Back On Scientific Research In Antarctica To Keep It COVID-19 Free

New Zealand lifts all Coronavirus restrictions

With no active cases of the coronavirus, New Zealand has lifted all its domestic restrictions on social distancing and mass gatherings. On Tuesday residents returned to cafes to catch up with friends or took part in pilates classes, now allowed after the country moved into alert level 1.

A trans-Tasman bubble is being worked on, but neither Australian nor New Zealand is ready to resume flights yet. New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said they won't insist on Australia having zero cases of COVID-19 before allowing trans-Tasman travel to resume.

READ | New Zealand PM Jacinda Arden Suggests Shorter Working Week Post-lockdown

READ | New Zealand Lifts All Domestic Coronavirus Restrictions
Ghana's housing deficit stands at two (2) million, Managing Director of State Housing Company has revealed.



The State Housing Company Boss, Kwabena Ampofo Appiah noted in an interview with host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', that for every Ghanaian to own a house, the government will have to build at least 2 million houses.



''Ghana's housing deficit is estimated at about 2 million. The 2 million means should every Ghanaian get a home, we have to build 2 million houses and it keeps increasing every year because there are people graduating from schools. People are getting employed and others are migrating from the rural areas to urban areas and vice versa, and all that movement creates a situation for our housing deficit to hike up.''



According to him, in order to resolve the housing deficit, the State Housing Company is ensuring that all housing projects from the era of Ex-President John Agyekum Kufour till the current regime are completed and none of the projects will be abandoned saying ''currently, under His Excellency Akufo-Addo, the priority of the government is to complete every project that was started regardless of the administration. So, the Asokore Mampong housing project is completed. It's completed now 100 percent and named after Otumfuo. Koforidua, Wa and Tamale, we're starting to complete it as well''.



''...currently we are working to make sure the projects are completed. Even including projects that the late President begun at Adenta which were abandoned under the erstwhile John Mahama regime but we're completing those projects. John Mahama also commenced some projects in Adenta but those projects, when we came, we did not abandon them. We're completing them. They are Ghanaians' money and when we complete them, Ghanaians will be the ones to settle in. There's top priority on this government that projects that have been neglected in bushes and wasting away, we will bring them all back to fruition for Ghanaians to find shelter as we're also doing new projects.'', he added.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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New tribal violence has erupted in South Sudan and threatens the peace deal that tentatively ended the civil war. Between 300 and 500 people have been killed in ethnic and clan violence since the second week of May. Nearly a thousand have been killed since the end of February. Eastern South Sudan (Jonglei state) has seen some of the worst clashes. In May the UN and aid organizations reported tribal conflicts erupted in 28 villages there. The cause of most of the violence is one all too common  cattle-raising nomads fighting farmers over pasturage and water resources. Aid workers are caught in the crossfire and a nurse was killed in one recent incident. Foreign aid groups use the phrase cycles of retaliatory violence to describe the phenomenon. As bureaucrat lingo goes, this one has some merit. (Austin Bay)

June 9, 2020: In southeast South Sudan (Kapoeta East County) foreign aid groups have aid shipments from Kenya via the Nadapal border crossing. This route has not been used since 2018 because of tribal violence in the area. This is one of the most direct and efficient routes for foreign aid, which arrives via the Kenyan port of Mombasa. While things are more peaceful in the southeast the same cannot be said for the rest of the country. There have been 415 violence incidents during the first five months of 2020, versus 236 during the first five months of 2019. While the government and rebels are now at peace, that February peace deal created more problems as the new government has a lot of former rebels in key positions and that has meant more debate and disagreement who will be appointed to run the states. As always its about tribal loyalties. It is difficult to overcome thousands of years of settling these disputes violently. Before the 20th century, the death toll from these clashes was a lot lower. But once firearms became widely available these clashes generated a lot more deaths and a lot more skirmishes. A few men or teenagers with rifles or rapid firing assault rifles could create a lot of casualties on a larger force without much risk. The shooters could be gone before the enemy could find and attack them. The usual suspects were known usually some tribal rival and that would lead to a bloody raid on one or more villages. That would trigger more retaliatory attacks. That is what is going on now, rather than lots of organized violence between army units and rebel militias. Vendetta violence is deadlier than organized fighting. Seven years of civil war has left over 400,000 dead and over four million driven from their homes. Many survivors of that are still seeking vengeance, and that keeps the unrest going.

June 7, 2020: The UN agreed to keep the western Sudan (Darfur) peacekeeping operation going until the end of 2020. The UN's separate task force called UNITAMS (UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan), to help Sudan move from dictatorship to democracy.

As if to prove it isnt over in Darfur, the acting governor of Central Darfur claimed that soldiers and RSF (Rapid Support Forces) militiamen retook control of the Kutrum area after an attack by SLM-AW and RAC rebels.

June 6, 2020: In South Sudan Kerbino Agok Wol a local businessman, who was once imprisoned for ten years for organizing anti-government riots, has formed a new rebel group. Wol was released from prison in January 2020 by a presidential pardon. He has named his group the October 7th Movement, after the day he led the riot that got him imprisoned. Wol argues the whole system of government must be changed since the countrys current leaders are looters.

June 3, 2929: In Sudan crowds in the capital marked the first anniversary of the June 3 Massacre that left an estimated 110 pro-democracy demonstrators dead and 700 wounded. Sudans prime minister promised that those who perpetrated the crime will be brought to justice.

In southern South Sudan (Central Equatoria state) there were clashes in the national capital (Juba) that left five dead. The source of dispute: ownership of land. The dispute led to a riot. Government and tribal authorities intervened to stop the violence.

June 2, 2020: In western Sudan, the army accused SLM-AW rebels of attacking government positions in central Darfur. The rebels denied the accusation and claimed the government units attacked them in the same area (west of the Jebel Marra).

June 1, 2020: In southern South Sudan (Central Equatoria state) the Ugandan Army was accused of killing three South Sudan soldiers and a national policeman in the Kajo Keji border area. This fatal exchange of gunfire took place on May 30 while the South Sudan personnel were patrolling the border to percent illegal crossings.

May 31, 2020: Sudan and Ethiopia exchanged diplomatic accusations after an armed incident occurred between their security forces. Sudan claimed Ethiopian militiamen crossed into Gadaref state (also called Al Qadarid, in eastern Sudan) and killed three people. Ethiopia disagreed. Apparently the Ethiopian farmers were drawing water from the Atbara River. At least one Ethiopian militiaman was wounded.

My 30, 2020: The UN extended the arms embargo on South Sudan until May 31, 2021. Individual travel bans and financial sanctions also remain in place. The U.S. wrote the resolution and twelve of fifteen nations on the Security Council approved the resolution while South Africa, China and Russia abstained.

May 23, 2020: In Sudan, government Anti-Corruption and Regime Dismantling Committee has confiscated over $4 billion in assets held by former dictator Omar al-Bashir and his family members. The government also confiscated some assets held by Bashirs political supporters.

May 22, 2020: In eastern Sudan (Kassala state) tribal violence has killed 59 people since May 7. The worst violence has occurred in the city of Kassala, which is on the border with Eritrea, 400 kilometers east of the Sudanese capital Khartoum. The Cushitic Bani Amer tribe and the black African Nuer tribe have had repeated clashes. The Cushite people are native to Sudan, southern Egypt, and Eritrea. The Nuer are from South Sudan. In western Sudan South (Darfur) 30 people from the Falata and Rezeigat tribes were killed in a tribal clash. The Rezeigat are an Arabized tribe while the Falata are black Africans from West Africa. To an outsider, all Sudanese seem to be of the same ethnicity (black African) but the reality is that there are several distinct (genetically) black African groups that intermingle in Sudan. The genetic and cultural (language and customs) are often not as diverse as religion. Thus you have Arabized tribes that are Moslem and speak Arabic while many other tribes speak local languages and are often not Moslem. In these cases, religion and not appearance and culture are the key distinction.

May 20, 2020: In eastern South Sudan (Jonglei state) thousands of people are fleeing tribal violence that has left over a hundred people dead so far while several hundred have been kidnapped. In one clash at least three foreign aid workers were killed.

May 18, 2020: The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a $4.3 billion punitive damage award against Sudan on behalf of victims of the 1998 truck bomb terror attacks that destroyed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Al Qaeda carried out the attacks. The U.S. court cases concluded that Sudan provided crucial assistance to Al Qaeda in conducting the attacks.

May 14, 2020: In central Sudan (South Kordofan state) 26 people were killed when gunmen attacked an RSF base outside Kadugli (the state capital). Several of the dead were civilians. At least 19 people were injured.

May 12, 2020: South Korea will resume sending peacekeepers to South Sudan. In March South Korea did not replace its 300 troops (whose tour was up and returned home) due to covid19 concerns. The virus crisis has abated and a new group of South Korean peacekeepers will return to South Sudan.

May 10, 2020: In eastern Sudan (Kassala state) tribal violence there was another clash between the Bani Amer and Nuer tribes. Several people were killed while about 60 were arrested.

May 9, 2020: In Sudan, the government and the SRF (Sudanese Revolutionary Front, the umbrella rebel organization ostensibly representing all of Sudans various rebel groups) announced they will extend peace talks with no time limit. East African diplomats regard this as a significant statement by both sides.

May 7, 2020: The states of South Sudan issue is once again causing severe political problems. In February president Kiir agreed to the rebel position that South Sudan would once again have ten states  but with at least three special zones. The agreement on numbers, however, hasnt solved the question of who governs the state. According to South Sudans government, six will be governed by Kiir supporters, three will be governed by supporters of First Vice President and former rebel leader Riek Machar, and one will be governed by a non-aligned governor. Machars supporters said Kiirs allocation of governors has produced a new political crisis that threatens the peace agreement.

May 5, 2020: In Sudan, a conglomerate tied to RSF (Rapid Support Forces) commander Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (nom de guerre Hemedti) and his family has turned over several major mines to the government. The mines account for about a third of Sudans annual gold production. In 2018 Sudan produced an estimated 93 tons of gold. One of the biggest mines is in North Darfur states Jebel Amer region. The company operating that mine, named Al Gunade, has been accused of illegally smuggling gold out of Sudan. Dagalo also serves on Sudans Sovereign National Council.
Angry Mancho standing in a coffin in Bamenda, while talking to crowd Facebook

Mancho Bibixy Tse and Ngalim Felix Safeh, initiators of the November 21, 2016 Coffin Revolution that coincided with the start of the Anglophone Teachers strike have given a 30-day ultimatum to armed men wreaking havoc in Cameroons North West and South West Regions to stop or be defeated.

The perpetrators of such harmful acts against our people must know that they cannot win a way against the people. If they fail to stop their actions after the thirty (30) days ultimatum, we will carry out unannounced actions to defend our people.

In a press release dated May 18, 2020 but published on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, the duo, initiators of the Coffin Revolution, says they have noted with dismay, that bandits with no Political Agenda have infiltrated the Revolution.

According to the pro-development activists jailed at the Kondengui Central Prison, the Coffin Revolution was a movement aimed at bringing political reforms that will improve on the living conditions of our people. We proposed an inclusive dialogue to look at certain political blunders made during the decolonization process of the former United Nations Trust Territory of British Southern Cameroons.

They say the overall goal of the Movement was to make life better for the population. But unfortunately, this movement has been hijacked by people without any political or development agenda. Their actions have rather brought untold pain and sufferings on the population we were fighting for, Mancho and Ngalim write in the dispatch.

Some of their actions include: Kidnapping and torture for ransom. Some hostages have even died in captivity. To prove that they are not freedom fighters, they kidnap even lawyers defending the family members of our political prisoners. They kidnap children of well-known supporters of the movement.

They attack Fulani Communities, steal cattle, kidnap cattle owners and in some cases kill cattle owners. They attack educational institutions, taking teachers and students as hostages and even setting fire on school buildings. They attack medical staff, ambulances and even medical institutions.

They have desecrated our traditional palaces and destroyed institutions we have held sacred for many centuries. They show no respect for our Fons, Chiefs and other traditional title holders.

They interrupt wedding and funeral ceremonies, demanding for money before such ceremonies could continue. They mount illegal road blocks, extort money from drivers and passengers and have imposed their own taxes in some areas.

They now call people and demand for money threatening to burn down their houses if they fail to send the amount demanded. They attack shops and steal what they need for their daily upkeep in their various hideouts.

In the press release, Mancho and Ngalim say these bandits have been clearly identified and fall under two different groups:

Those who were bandits and robbers before the start of the crisis in 2016. They have constituted themselves into organized groups with the intention of using the political crisis for financial and material gains.

Under-ground groups set up and sponsored by certain politicians. Their aim is either to use them to achieve political goals or to weaken the political struggle by genuine freedom fighters. When these politicians achieve their goals, they abandon the boys to themselves and they resort to stealing to survive.

The above groups, they say, have no political agenda and do not share in the values of the Coffin Revolution. We must separate these hoodlums from genuine freedom fighters, said the leadership of the Coffin Revolution.

Even from prison, Mancho & Ngalim say they have on many instances reached out to these groups to educate them. We have made calls, written letters, and even sent delegations to meet and talk with these groups. We have taken time to educate them on the dangers of their activities. We clearly spelt out the aims of the Revolution and made them known that they were not in any way representing us or the people we seek to defend.

Because they have refused to listen, the Coffin Revolution leaders say they have come out with the following decisions:

We are giving them a thirty (30) days ultimatum to reconsider their actions. They should use this period of grace to rethink, turn away from their evil ways and get into other acceptable and profitable activities for a source of livelihood. We call on the members of the Coffin Revolution and all our communities to prepare for action after thirty (30) days. They should use this period to identify all these gangsters and work out a plan to defeat them. The Coffin Revolution reaffirms its commitment to stand by the people at all times. The perpetrators of such harmful acts against our people must know that they cannot win a way against the people. If they fail to stop their actions after the thirty (30) days ultimatum, we will carry out unannounced actions to defend our people.

Mancho & Ngalim send ultimatum to armed groups in North West & South West Regions (Page 1) (c) WhatsApp
The EU's diplomatic chief on Tuesday called for more resources to fight disinformation from China, warning that Europe needed to stop being naive in its dealings with Beijing. EU foreign affairs high representative Josep Borrell, speaking after video talks with the Chinese foreign minister, told European countries they needed to back up their preaching on disinformation with money. He said Chinese minister Wang Yi had rebuffed his concerns about Beijing's clampdown on freedoms in Hong Kong, reiterating the communist government's lines about boosting security in the financial hub. Coronavirus has fanned the flames of a geopolitical information war, with the West accusing Beijing and Moscow of promoting false or misleading narratives about the pandemic which began in China late last year. On Wednesday, Borrell and EU vice-president for values and transparency Vera Jourova are to issue a statement on a strategy to counter disinformation inspired by the coronavirus epidemic. "Foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China, have engaged in targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns around COVID-19," it says. A copy of the statement seen by AFP accuses Moscow and Beijing of "seeking to undermine democratic debate and exacerbate social polarisation, and improve their own image in the COVID-19 context." - Provide, don't preach - The EU operates a small task force with a website analysing and debunking misleading stories, but it is primarily focused on disinformation emanating from Russia. "For sure we have to allocate more resources in the fight against disinformation," Borrell told reporters. "I think we have to work more on that and not only fighting disinformation, trying to counterattack the fakes but to present a positive narrative." EU member states are currently haggling over the bloc's next long-term budget and with the pandemic hammering economies, there is huge pressure to find savings. But Borrell urged national governments to do more on disinformation, saying he needed "not only preaching but providing". "If you want to do something please allocate resources to it," he said. Tuesday's talks with Wang were in part to prepare a video summit between EU Council President Charles Michel and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese leaders later this month. Borrell said he raised EU concerns about Beijing's plan to impose a national security law on Hong Kong, which Western governments say will curb the city's cherished freedoms. But he said there were no concessions from Wang, who restated the Chinese position that the law was needed to ensure security in Hong Kong. EU-Chinese relations are bumping through a rocky patch as Brussels struggles to calibrate its response to Beijing's growing assertiveness under President Xi Jinping. The bloc has characterised China as a "systemic rival" -- as well as a partner on issues such as climate change -- but it has struggled to find a unified response as national governments pursue their own interests with the Asian giant. "Some weeks ago in an interview with the French press I said that Europe has been too naive in its relations with China," Borrell said. "I think we have to build relations, realistic relations, we need realistic relations with China in order to defend our values and interests."
As Philadelphia and the nation enter a third week of protests against police brutality, debates about how to reform policing are gaining momentum. But those debates will lead nowhere unless we dispel with the delusion that because police are funded with tax dollars, they will be accountable to the public. Thats a delusion because of a dangerous force: police unions that are actively fighting against change or accountability. That includes Philadelphias Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5.

On Monday morning, while the rest of the country was facing a moment of reckoning with police brutality, the president of the FOP, John McNesby, and over 100 other members cheered Staff Inspector Joseph Bologna as he surrendered himself to face aggravated assault charges for beating a protester  on video. A second incident of brutality against a protester is being investigated.

Bologna has been at the center of controversy over police misconduct and force used by those under his command since the early 2000s. None of that prevented Bologna from being promoted to staff inspector.

The FOP has a long history of supporting cops who have been fired or demoted for offenses, including sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and lying under oath. The FOP is able to protect officers because of the arbitration process laid out in the contract. The arbitration panels are secret and rulings are final. An Inquirer investigation found that more than 100 questionable cops were rehired or had sanctions against them overturned through arbitration.

 READ MORE: Inside the once-secret misconduct files of 27 Philadelphia police officers

Police should have avenues to appeal management decisions and disputes. But there are models around the country for a more just appeal process: placing the burden of proof on officers, allowing civilian commissions to adjudicate police disciplinary matters, allowing appeals to go to court, or requiring that City Council approve arbitration decisions.

Some of these models could require changes to state law, but there is more that the city can gain at the bargaining table next winter before the one-year extension of the contract expires.

There is a perception that the FOP is an all-powerful political entity. That no longer seems to be the case. In 2017, the FOP shelled out nearly $50,000 on Rich Negrin and Beth Grossman campaigns in their effort to stop Larry Krasner from becoming DA. Negrin came in third. Hardly a show of force. Ninety percent of the FOPs money spent on City Council candidates in 2019 went to support five candidates who lost.

 READ MORE: Reimagining police: 14 ways to change a broken system | Perspective

The FOP is like the Wizard of Oz  it seems powerful and mighty until you look behind the curtain. There is nothing for Mayor Jim Kenney, or any other elected official, to be afraid of. Hopefully, they finally recognize it: This week, 14 members of Council and Kenney announced support to changes in arbitration, among other reforms.

Employees of the Philadelphia Police Department deserve a union to advocate for them. The FOP, however, time and again ignored racial and gender discrimination, as well as sexual harassment and assault. If officers in Philadelphia really want to be part of the solution, they have to demand change from their union  even if it means disbanding it and starting a new union from scratch.
UAE state carrier Emirates has had a second successive day of redundancies following a tough few months for the group, according to company sources speaking to Reuters.

The Dubai-based airline confirmed at the start of last week that it had planned to let go of some employees, but without providing exact figures on the number of job losses.

Reuters has now reported that hundreds of pilots and cabin crew were let go yesterday and that more have gone today, as the airline bids to stave off a cash crunch caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Emirates have been running a threadbare service since March when the coronavirus outbreak caused the airline industry to grind to a virtual halt

More dismissals were expected this week, including both Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 pilots, the sources said. They also said that those who lost their jobs were told their positions had been made redundant.

Emirates have been running a threadbare service since March when the coronavirus outbreak caused the airline industry to grind to a virtual halt.

At the beginning of the month, its outgoing president Tim Clark warned that it could take up to four years for the airline to resume flights to all the destinations it flew to prior to the pandemic.

Airlines have suffered severe financial repercussions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic forcing governments all over the world to impose strict cross-border travel restrictions.

British budget airline Flybe went under, Latin American air carrier LATAM filed for bankruptcy, and American Airlines and Delta have slashed thousands of jobs.

Emirates though, which is a subsidiary of the Emirates Group, is in a financially stable position. It recorded a full-year profit of $287.5million in the twelve months to March 31, while its parent company recorded its 32nd consecutive year of profit.

IATA has warned that the airline industry stands to lose up to $84billion this year

A new report released today by the New Economics Foundation think tank has warned that the UK airline sector could experience job losses on a par with the UK coal industry in the 1980s.

It states that the coronavirus could cause 124,000 people to become unemployed in both the aviation sector and the supply chain, with those on low pay or insecure contracts most at risk of being laid off.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has also predicted that airlines could experience their worst financial year in history because of the huge reduction in the numbers of customers and planes flying.

It believes that the sector's revenues could plunge by as much as half in 2020 to $419billion while losses could accelerate to $84billion this year before dropping to $16billion in 2021. By contrast, airlines lost $31billion during the period of the global financial crisis.

Alexandre de Juniac, IATA's chief executive, said there was 'no comparison' for the crisis the industry is currently experiencing.

He also warned that the financial relief provided to airlines has caused their total debts to soar to more than half a trillion dollars.
A cargo plane operated by Etihad Airways offloads aid related to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for Palestinians, at Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv

By Ali Sawafta and Alexander Cornwell

RAMALLAH, West Bank/DUBAI (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Tuesday he was unaware that a plane from the United Arab Emirates was to fly to Israel carrying medical aid for the Palestinians.

His remarks, after the flight was announced by Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways, cast doubt over whether the Palestinians - at odds with Israel over occupied land they seek for a state - would accept the supplies.

The Palestinian Authority is sensitive about attempts to direct aid or assistance to areas under its limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank without its knowledge and coordination.

The Palestinians, who have no airports and typically receive aid via Jordan, Egypt or Israel, rejected a similar shipment of medical supplies to combat the coronavirus on May 19, saying it had not been coordinated with them.

"If any country, whether Arab or European or international country wants to help us, we welcome that. We don't say no - as long as it is not conditional and as long as it is fully coordinated with us," Shtayyeh told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The aid was coordinated through the United Nations, which was handling the logistics, the UAE foreign ministry said.

"The UAEs only concern is to support the Palestinian people through this challenging period, in line with its historic support," it said.

State-owned Etihad also operated the May 19 flight, the first known flight by a UAE airline to Israel.

Etihad said on Tuesday it would operate a second flight to Israel carrying medical aid on a cargo-only service from Abu Dhabi. Israel's foreign ministry said the Etihad flight landed at Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening.

Aid would be transferred to Gaza and the West Bank by the UN and a unit of Israel's defence ministry, it said.

Israel has no diplomatic relations with the Gulf Arab countries and there are no commercial flights between them. But shared concerns over Iran's regional influence have led to a discreet thaw in ties.

The Palestinians have warned against Arab normalisation with Israel, which has pledged to annex the West Bank's Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley. Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Rami Ayyub in Tel Aviv and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Writing by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Timothy Heritage)
(Natural News) The United States Department of Justice is now preparing to investigate the alleged involvement of radical far-Left groups in the current riots unfolding across the country.

This is according to a senior Justice Department official, who noted in an anonymous interview that federal law enforcement officials are now looking into the possibility that criminal actors may be organizing the violent acts committed during the protests and riots throughout the United States.

Among the groups being investigated is the violent anarchist group Antifa.

Fueling speculation of criminal actors, third-party agitators and other individuals being involved in the riots are the vehicles that have been seen transporting suspicious individuals who looked like looters, vandals and thieves.

Cars would drive up, let off the looters, unload power tools and suitcases and then the cars would drive away, Carla Murphy, an eyewitness living in New York Citys Chelsea neighborhood, said of the suspicious cars patrolling their area. According to Murphy, the cars would come back after the protests to pick the individuals up before driving off.

They seemed to know exactly where they were going. Some of the people were local, but there were a lot of out-of-towners, Murphy said in an interview with ABC, noting that the cars she saw had plates from New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Further proof of third party agitators being involved, police said, are the piles and caches of rubble and bricks, which rioters use as makeshift weapons against law enforcers.

These are not isolated, New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Dermot Shea said. Speaking at a press conference on June 3, Shea noted that similar caches and piles of potential weapons have been found in Brooklyn and Queens. (Related: Illinois man charged with attempting to INCITE RIOTING; Antifa hijacking peaceful protests to start riots and cause violence)

Pre-staged bricks are being placed and then transported to peaceful protests, which are peaceful protests, but then used by that criminal group within, Shea said, adding that the police department received reports of burglaries from construction sites within the past week. The items that were taken from the sites were bricks.

Aside from bricks, water bottles filled with cement have also previously been thrown by rioters at NYPD members in the Bronx during clashes.

Similar piles of rubble have been reported in Kansas City in Missouri; Dallas, Texas; and Fayetteville, North Carolina, further stoking speculation about Antifas involvement in the ongoing violence.

What is Antifa?

Antifa  a contraction of the term anti-fascist  is an amorphous movement whose members identify with the radical far-Left. Members of Antifa often describe themselves as either socialists, anarchists, communists or anti-capitalists.

President Donald Trump has since pointed to the organization, whom he previously called a domestic terrorist group, for causing the violence and extensive property damage that ensued during the riots across the country, adding that such acts dishonor the memory of George Floyd, a black man who died at the hands of a white police officer.

The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters and anarchists. The violence and vandalism is being led by Antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting business and burning down buildings, Trump said.

The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2020

The presidents assertion has been echoed by top officials Attorney General William Barr and national security adviser Robert OBrien.

The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly, Barr said in a statement issued Sunday.

Fox News, in a report, said Justice Department officials are now looking for ways to trace the groups movement, which is believed to be coordinated via social media.

You see the hallmarks Were trying to see if theres a coordinated command and control, you see those bread crumbs and thats what were trying to verify, said an unnamed DOJ official in the report.

Stay updated with the latest news on Antifa-instigated riots at AntifaWatch.news.

Sources include:

WakingTimes.com

6ABC.com

FoxBusiness.com

DailyMail.com

AlJazeera.com

NewsWeek.com

Justice.gov
Heres why: The overall COVID-19 picture in Illinois is heartening. The pandemic isnt beaten, but the numbers of reported cases, hospitalizations and deaths are dropping. The curve of infections has been bent, which was the original intention of Pritzkers stay-at-home order. Everyone needs to continue practice social distancing to avoid a significant second surge by the virus. But the economy cant stay bottled up indefinitely. Peoples livelihoods are at stake. Industry experts worry that 25% to 30% of restaurants wont survive. Thats a lot of Illinois jobs.
The IRS has issued new guidance to help people for whom coronavirus stimulus payments were sent but never received.

NJ Advance Media has received many reports from readers who said the IRS Get My Payment tool showed a payment was issued, either through direct deposit or check, but the payment never arrived.

The agency said you can now initiate a trace on the missing payment.

First, the IRS said, it wants you to give it time.

If the Get My Payment tool said you should expect a direct deposit, dont submit the trace unless its been more than five days since the tool said your payment was sent, the IRS said. Also check first with your bank to verify it did not receive the deposit, the agency said.

If the Get My Payment tool said a paper check was mailed, give it four weeks to arrive before starting a trace, or six weeks if you have a forwarding address on file with the postal service.

And make sure you were not mailed a debit card instead of a check. Some readers have told NJ Advance Media that the Get My Payment tool said they would be getting a check but, they got a debit card instead. Some threw out the debit card because they thought it was junk mail or a scam.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Also, if you have a foreign address, you should wait nine weeks before asking for a trace, the IRS said.

To be eligible to request the trace, the IRS said you must have been issued Notice 1444  those letters from the White House and signed by President Donald Trump notifying you of a stimulus payment sent  or you must have received a payment date from Get My Payment.

To initiate the trace, submit Form 3911 or call the agency at (800) 919-9835.

Please be advised that you may experience long wait times or recorded assistance due to limited staffing, the IRS said. If you submit the form and you are Married Filing Joint, both spouses must sign the form.

The IRS said you should not request a payment trace if youre trying to determine your eligibility for a payment.

After you request the trace, if the government determines the check was not cashed, you will receive a replacement check once the original check is canceled, the IRS said.

If you find the original check and receive a replacement, you must return the original as soon as possible, the IRS said.

It gets more complicated if your check was already cashed.

The Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) will provide you with a claim package that includes a copy of the cashed check, the IRS said. Follow the instructions for completing the claim package. BFS will review your claim and the signature on the canceled check before determining whether they can issue you a replacement check.

MORE ABOUT GET MY PAYMENT

If the Get My Payment tool says Need More Information," it means the IRS does not have your direct deposit information, which is the fastest way to get your payment.

If you would like to receive your Payment to a bank account Make sure the routing number, account number, and account type are correct, it said.

You can find this information on one of your checks, through your online banking applications or by contacting your financial institution directly. Do not use the number shown on the front of your bank debit card as this is not the same as your bank account number.

If Get My Payment previously provided you with a payment date and you are now receiving a Need More Information message, the IRS said your payment may have been returned to the IRS.

Provide your bank account information to receive your payment, it said.

If you dont provide your bank account information, the IRS will hold your payment until it receives an updated address.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at bamboozled@njadvancemedia.com.
White Christians knelt with black Christians asking for forgiveness for the police brutality against George Floyd.

This video of white and black Christians coming together to kneel and pray together went viral online and became known as a "praytest" video.

People are coming together to honor the life of George Floyd, a Houston native who was choked and murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

Rapper Bobby "Tre9" Herring shared about his "praytest" in a statement, "...White people kneeling and asking God for forgiveness. My black brothers and sisters kneeling asking God for forgiveness. That was a moment that was beautiful. From that one moment, praytest has continued to multiply."

These "praytests" are being hosted in different parts of America, spreading the reconnection of people through the church and through the power of prayer.

"It's spreading nationwide and the beauty is, if you read 2 Chronicles 7:14, it's the church humbling themselves, seeking the face of God, turning from our ignoring of black related systemic issues that have been oppressing them. We're repenting of that and we're praying. And God is going to heal our land. We believe God is going to heal us through what happened to George Floyd and many others before him. God is going to heal us as a result of us standing up as a church--white, black, brown together."

Rapper Bobby "Tre9" Herring and Johnny Gentry III will be hosting the "prayest" on Sunday at 3 P.M. at 9929 Homestead Road.
At least 81 killed in attack believed to be in retaliation to the killing of fighters to prevent theft of herd animals.

At least 81 people have been killed in an attack on a herding village in northeast Nigerias Borno state, according to security sources and residents.

Fighters drove into remote Felo village in Gubio district, about 80km (50 miles) from the regional capital of Maiduguri, on Tuesday afternoon, opening fire on residents.

Al Jazeeras Ahmed Idris, reporting from Niferias capital, Abuja, said those who tried to flee were run down.

As people were running, (the attackers) followed them with their cars and motorcycles and drove over them, resulting in these deaths, he said. A lot of people are saying that several other people are missing in that community.

A community leader who asked not to be named said the attack occurred as men and children watched over their cattle at a watering hole outside the village.

Our people were caught off guard by the gunmen who surrounded them, the leader said. It is an open field with nowhere to hide, he said. They couldnt escape, they couldnt outrun the vehicles.

Residents told reporters on Wednesday the attack was thought to be retaliation for the earlier killing of members of an armed group by a local self-defence unit formed to protect against attacks and the theft of herd animals in the village and surrounding area.

Barbaric

Nearly 1,200 cattle were stolen during the raid, according to Malam Bunu, the leader of the local defence group.

He told The Associated Press news agency the fighters returned on Wednesday morning to kill a herdsman who had escaped the massacre.





(They) then set the entire village ablaze before they left, Bunu said. As I am talking to you now, the village is still smoking.

State governor Babagana Zulum visited the community on Wednesday, saying that seven people, included the village head, had also been abducted in the violence. He called the attack barbaric.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bloodshed. Attacks by both Boko Haram, who have conducted a decade-long armed campaign in the country, and the splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), are common in the area.

Attack in Katsina state

In a separate incident on Tuesday, some 200 attackers on motorcycles killed at least 20 people who tried to resist the looting of Kadisau village in the northwestern state of Katsina, according to police and residents.

The attack had also not been claimed by any group as of Wednesday.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the last year by criminal gangs carrying out robberies and kidnappings in the northwest Nigeria.

In May, the United Nations said the violence had forced about 23,000 refugees across the border to the north into Niger.
The once-bustling lanes of Nizamuddin Basti lay deserted on Wednesday. The stringent restrictions in the area  that was a containment zone for 70 days, after at least 1,080 people of the Tablighi Jamaat tested positive between March and April this year  were eased three days ago.

The fear of the virus continued to loom large in the shadows

The Markaz building, the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat from where close to 2,000 participants were evacuated, remains closed. Some civil defence volunteers were still deployed around the area.

A majority of shops and eateries in the area remained shut in the area, with very little movement of people, as the area continued to be under strict vigil of the district administration.

Residents of the area, who had been demanding the opening up of the area for long, said that there was a sense of relief among them.One carriageway on Mathura Road leading to the Basti continues to remain barricaded.

Even though the Basti has been de-sealed, the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah, which attracts visitors from all faiths and is located a stones throw away, has decided to remain shut at least till June 13, as a precautionary measure given that the number of Covid-19 cases is on the rise.

So far 32,810 cases have been reported from Delhi, as per the health bulletin released by the government on Wednesday, of which 19,581 are active . On April 16, Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain had said that at least 1,080 Covid positive cases were linked to the Tablighi Jamaat (Markaz ) event. Delhi so far has also witnessed 984 deaths (as per the health bulletin) due to the virus.

In Nizamuddin, most of the flower and chadar shops (offerings bought by devotees to the dargah) have also remained closed. The market houses a number of eateries, books, perfume and flower shops. For a number of Basti residents, their livelihoods depend on income from these shops.

The Basti, which houses at least 25,000 people, was a containment zone for more than two months after the area was declared a Covid-19 hotspot and sealed on March 30. On June 7, the south-east district authorities decided to scale down the restrictions, after no new cases were reported from the area. However, as per the relaxation order, a team of district administration officials, along with local police, were to maintain strict vigil for the next 14 days.

Mohammad Saleem, owner of a small biryani outlet in the area, said that many who had rented shops have run out of their businesses. We struggled to run our houses during the lockdown. Now that the area has been de-sealed, we hoped that people will start visiting again. But even now, shops are not being allowed to open. People have put measures in place but some of the outlets are too small to maintain social distancing. Many of those running eateries out of rented spaces had to shut down, as they couldnt pay the rent, he said.

Many locals also said that though Urs  commemorating the death anniversary of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, a 14th century Sufi saint  is observed from June 9-13, when a number of people from all faiths gather at the dargah, this year the management committee has decided not to organise any celebrations.

All the entry-exits of the dargah complex have been closed and we have announced that people must pray at home. We will take a decision on whether to open the dargah or not after June 13. The situation is not getting any better and controlling the crowd will be challenging. We do not want another controversy  said Altamash Nizami, member, Dargah management committee.

Residents said that they are not just running out of jobs and savings, but are also faced with the stigma of belonging to a Covid-19 hotspot. Even though there were no fresh cases reported from the Basti after March, the whole area was contained. Most people depended on NGOs for food and other essential supplies, as the arrangements made by the government were inadequate. The bazaar near the Markaz is still not allowed to be open. Even those who have started going out for work are looked down upon with suspicion, said Abdur Rahman, a resident, who leads of group of volunteers from the area.

Moinuddin Ahmed, a resident and social worker, said that even as the area was sealed, there were many people  employed at the shops and eateries  who started out on foot for their homes states. During the night when there was less deployment of police, a number of daily wagers started walking for their homes, as they were uncertain for how long the area would remain locked. These have been the toughest few months for people living here, he said.

According to a senior police officer, who did not wish to be named, the barricading has been done as per a decision taken by the district administration for heightened vigil. The shops can open. We havent stopped anyone from doing so. Only eateries, which do not have adequate precautionary measures in place, will not be allowed to open, the official said.

Yasmin Kidwai, the local councillor, said that despite de-sealing, there was a lack of clarity on the issue because of involvement of different agencies. There have been requests from people to allow reopening of shops. I met the district magistrate in this regard. We had a positive meeting and we hope the issue will be resolved soon.

The sitting MLA from the area Praveen Kumar, too said that people were hassled because of not being able to resume their businesses. We have requested the district magistrate to allow removal of barricading and reopening of shops after disinfecting the area.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Vatsala Shrangi Vatsala Shrangi joined HT Editorial team on July 2, 2018 as Principal Correspondent. She covers Environment, Civic bodies and the Social Sector. ...view detail
Oil alone is unable to deal with the challenges of a region that has gone through demographic expansion, says renowned scholar and author Gilles Kepel in a new podcast interview with Al-Monitor. If there is no post-oil vision, the whole area is going to sink, adds Kepel, and that is the challenge that is being taken up by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and others. This is a watershed period for the Middle East. Its place in the world system will not be as it was, and it is now facing its destiny, Kepel says. Kepel, an author whose most recent published work is Away from Chaos: The Middle East and the Challenge to the West, discussed the trends and fault lines shaping the region, including the impact of COVID-19, falling oil prices, political Islam, and the fallout of what was called the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the region. Here are some highlights and teasers of our conversation: On Egypt: Kepel says that the Muslim Brotherhood, the longtime Islamist opposition group in Egypt, has been dealt, for the present time, a death blow following the military coup in 2013 that ousted former President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist affiliated with the Brotherhood. As long as the balance of forces is not tipped between Qatar and Turkey, which support the Brotherhood, and the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which oppose it, I dont think the Brothers have a chance to resurface in Egypt. On Syria: The course of the conflict and civil war, from the popular protests of 2011 to the dominance of radical jihadist groups among the opposition, was not well perceived or well understood, particularly in the West, because we still dreamed about rebels who were forebearers of democratic visions and who would topple dictatorships of the region, and so on (as in 1989, when peaceful revolutions brought change to Russia and Eastern and Central Europe). On political Islam: As regional populations increasingly hold their governments accountable for how they deal with COVID-19 and more expansive demographic and economic challenges, Kepel says, The political language of Islam, which was key to social peace in the oil era and which nurtured competition between conservative Sunni Islamism in Saudi Arabia and so-called revolutionary Shia Islamism in Tehran, is now becoming increasingly irrelevant. On emotions: Everything is global...and emotions travel fast...whether emotions can last and develop into an organized movement, well that is the challenge, but there are many entrepreneurs, be they secular or religious, who are bandwagoning....A number of Islamist militants are trying...to find a new legitimacy in hijacking these revolt movements against police brutality. (See below on how these events reflect Islamist fragility in Turkey.) On the future: There is a desire to find some sort of solution, because of the horror of the wars, civil war, people being bombed, people being tortured...[this is all] such a trauma there has to be a way forward. More: You can listen here to my interview with Gilles Kepel and sign up for our Al-Monitor podcasts, On the Middle East and On Israel.
Rachael and Nick with baby Noah Rose, born in the midst of the pandemic. Read more

THE PARENTS: Rachael Braciszewski, 33, and Nick Braciszewski, 31, of Haddon Township

THE CHILD: Noah Rose, born March 24, 2020

SWEET ANTICIPATION: They look forward, once the coronavirus crisis has eased, to a family gathering that will include Nicks Mommom. Times ticking, he says. I want to make sure we get four generations in one room together.

Rachael and Nick needed Google translate to decipher the directions on the pregnancy test theyd picked up in a Dubrovnik pharmacy. It was the middle of their honeymoon  tours of Germany, Poland, and Prague, followed by a cruise around Italy with stops in Sicily, Malta, and Croatia  and Rachaels period was three days late.

The pharmacist spoke English, but the test kits directions were in Croatian. The picture on the front was really tiny, Rachael recalls. And I have really bad eyesight. Then the words popped up, with a plus sign.

Nick catalogs that moment in the same emotional archive as the day he proposed and the day they wed: I didnt cry, but I was a little emotional. Just shaking  all the things that are going through your head. We were in the middle of our honeymoon. It was beautiful out. It was the perfect time.

They kept the news to themselves; Rachael even made sure to pose for photographs with a tumbler in her hand, so Instagram pals wouldnt think she was avoiding alcohol. After returning, they invited their parents, Nicks beloved Mommom, and their siblings to see pictures from the trip. One shot showed pregnancy tests in nine different languages.

The two met on eHarmony, shared their first-date dinner at a Collingswood restaurant, and, within six months, were house hunting. Rachael took note of Nicks affection for his family; he appreciated her adventurous spirit, her love of annual trips to a lake in New Hampshire.

A lot of dating had felt like work, Nick says. But the more time I started to spend with Rachael, the easier it was for me to be myself.

We never had to put on a show for each other, she agrees.

Living together in a 1950s fixer-upper highlighted some of their differences: Rachael cooks strictly by the recipe, while Nick will grab four cans from the pantry and toss their contents together to make a meal. He bought a trash can with a foot pedal; she preferred one that opened when you pressed the lid.

On the day of a housewarming that doubled as an Eagles party, Nick kept offering to make breakfast, while Rachael focused on readying the house for guests. Finally, 15 minutes before kickoff, he coaxed her to the porch and proposed. She said yes. We kissed. Then we went back to cutting the ham and vacuuming before all the guests came.

They married in November 2018, a dank and chilly day, with the reception in an uninsulated barn. Guests began dancing  maybe it was the Michael Jackson soundtrack, perhaps an effort to keep warm  between the salad and the main course. Friends formed a sparkler bridge for the couple to run through as they left.

Ive always wanted three kids, and I wanted them soon, Rachael says. I pretty much think I was put on earth to be a mom. They thought theyd hold off until after their July honeymoon, but by spring, they couldnt think of a good reason to wait.

It was the next step of life, Nick says. I was ready to be a dad.

On March 1, after her baby shower, Rachael began to bleed, a consequence of placenta previa, a condition in which the placenta covers the cervix. The remedy: hospitalization, with the first few days on complete bed rest, for the remainder of her pregnancy.

At first, the stay at Virtua Voorhees felt like a vacation: Rachael wrote thank you notes for shower gifts, began knitting a baby blanket, and became glued to daytime TV talk shows. But more and more, breaking news about the coronavirus interrupted those broadcasts.

Thats when it hit me: This is something real, she says. The second Sunday in March, their parents and Nicks grandmother clustered in the hospital room to celebrate his and Rachels birthdays. By the end of that week, policies had changed: only one visitor per patient.

Moments before Rachaels scheduled C-section, Nick found himself idling in a hallway. I was a nervous wreck, but trying to be calm. Then the doctor came in, whistling. I sat right next to Rachael, and 10 minutes later they said Look up, and the baby was floating there, over the plastic cover. She was silent as could be. She just stared.

Rachael had pored over What to Expect When Youre Expecting, but nothing in that book prepared her for parenthood during a pandemic: an Amazon website swept clean of baby wipes; no grandparents permitted to visit the hospital.

By the time they were discharged with Noah, most nurses were wearing two masks, Rachael says. And when it was time to leave, an orderly wheeled her to the couples car and said goodbye, leaving them to fumble with the car seat.

Now theyre hunkered at home  a relief, on one hand, because they dont have to entertain visitors, but a lonely contrast to the postpartum weeks they envisioned. Rachael can take walks with her mother, who lives five blocks away, as long as she stays on the sidewalk with the baby while her mom strolls in the street. Nicks parents saw Noah once in person, from a safe six-foot distance. The rest of their encounters have been on FaceTime.

Rachael and Nick try hard to keep their focus on the life unfolding at home rather than the crisis seething outside. Im seeing how much of a team Rachael and I are  how at 2 a.m. we can both be irritable, but were going to make sure Noah has everything she needs.

The first morning home from the hospital, they lolled in bed: feeding Noah, staring at her, watching Sesame Street. All those weeks of checking off the to-do list  buy an SUV, redo the basement  had led, finally, to this. We were changing diapers, Nick says. We had a baby. We were ecstatic, and comfortable.
Hospitalisations in Delhi during third Covid wave significantly lower than second

Isolation facility not mandatory for flyers testing positive on arrival from at-risk countries: Check guidelin

6 Markaz attendee foreigners granted bail, not allowed to leave India

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Lucknow, June 10: The Allahabad High Court has granted bail to six foreign nationals who had arrived here after attending a religious congregation at the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi and were booked under several sections of the law including the Epidemic Diseases Act and the Passport Act.

The bail was granted by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on June 2.

The court, however, set strict conditions including that they would not leave the country without permission of a court and be present before the trial court to face further proceedings.

COVID-19: India felt a big jolt due to Markaz incident says Harsh Vardhan

Passing the order, Justice Jaspreet Singh also directed the accused to deposit Rs 11,000 each in the CM COVID-19 Relief Fund.

"The accused be released from jail on their furnishing personal bond of Rs 50,000 each and a solvent surety each to the satisfaction of the concerned court below," said the court.

The judge said, "The efforts of the administration and the police establishment while dealing with containment of COVID-19 pandemic and enforcement of law and order has been praiseworthy.

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

"However, that in itself does not give a blanket clearance to all their acts rather each case, as it comes before the Court, has to be seen and judged on its own peculiar facts and circumstances and the material placed before it."

The accused, who are citizens of Kyrgyzstan, include Sagynbek Toktobolotov, Sultanbek Tursunbaiuulu, Ruslan Toksobave, Zamirbek Maraliev, Aidyn Taldu Kurgan alias Aidyn Kairbex and Dauren Taldu Kuragn alias Dauren Zhe Xenbekov.

They were arrested on April 26 from the old city area in connection with the offences registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, Epidemic Disease Act, Passport Act, Passports (Entry into India) Act, Foreigners Act, the Disaster Management Act.

Arguing on behalf of the applicants, advocate Pransu Agrawal submitted that the applicants had come to India on valid visa which were still operative.

4,291 COVID-19 cases linked to Markaz event in Delhi: Govt

They had informed the authorities concerned in Delhi about their movement in Lucknow as well, he said, adding they completed their 14-day quarantine and were tested negative for the coronavirus thrice.

The offences in which they were challenged are punishable below seven years of imprisonment.

Opposing the bail plea, the state lawyer said that the accused had tourist visas which were misused as they attended the religious congregation at Nizamuddin and came to Lucknow where they were residing in the Markaz Mosque without getting their medical examination done.

They were arrested from the mosque, he said.

Considering different facts and circumstances, the court allowed their bail pleas with conditions.

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Story first published: Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 15:32 [IST]
A tiny 13,300-year-old bone carving of bird unearthed at a rubbish tip has been hailed as 'China's oldest work of art' by an international team of scientists.

The small bird carving, recovered from Lingjing, in Henan, China, is the oldest instance of East Asian three-dimensional art ever discovered.

The exceptionally preserved statuette, made of bone blackened by heating, is also the only known Palaeolithic sculpture representing an animal standing on a pedestal.

Researchers believe it dates to around 13,000 years ago, which pushes back the origins of animal sculpture in East Asia by more than 8,500 years.

The small standing bird carving from the Paleolithic site sheds further light on humanity's earliest 3D art, they claim.

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The stylistic and technical particularities of the figurine - it is the only known Palaeolithic sculpture representing an animal standing on a pedestal - point to an original artistic tradition. Top set of images are photographs of the sculpture from different angles, while bottom shows 3D renderings of the carving obtained through a computed tomography (CT) scan

This discovery identifies an original artistic tradition and pushes back by more than 8,500 years the representation of birds in Chinese art, said Professor Zhanyang Li from Shandong University in China, who led the study.

The figurine differs technologically and stylistically from other specimens found in Western Europe and Siberia, and it could be the missing link tracing the origin of Chinese statuary back to the Palaeolithic period.

European animal and human mammoth ivory carvings dated to 40,000 to 38,000 years ago are our earliest examples of prehistoric humans creating art in 3D form.

However, due to a lack of evidence, it's unclear when this type of three-dimensional representation became part of the cultural repertoire globally.

This particular sculpture was found in a refuse heap from a 1958 well-digging operation that was left untouched for decades.

When researchers were investigating the site around half a century later in 2005, they noticed one layer of soil had been dug up to create a well, but the nearby pile of dirt had not been disturbed.

After sifting through it, they uncovered several artefacts, including pottery sherds, burned animal remains and the bird figurine.

Tracings of the six angles of the bird with the technique used to manufacture each area - Ab: abrading; Go: gouging, Ib: Incising with a burin, a handheld steel tool; In: incising; Po: polishing; Sc: scraping

Using radiocarbon dating on the uncovered burned animal remains  including one bone with human-made gouging marks  the authors were able to estimate the age of the figurine and bone material to be around 13,000 to 13,400 years old.

Based on evidence from other Northern Chinese sites of similar age, the carving suggests hunter-gatherers with primitive stone tools occupied Lingjing during this time.

Researchers also mapped the entire surface of the bird with the various methods used in its manufacture  including abrading, gouging, polishing and incising with a burin, a handheld steel tool.

The sculpture  which is 0.5 inches in height and 0.2 inches in width  is 8,500 years older than the previous record-holder  a jade songbird dated to approximately 5,000 years ago.

It also has several stylistic elements that distinguish it from representations of birdlike creatures from Western Europe and Siberia during the same period  such as the pedestal on which the Lingjing bird is perched.

Manufacturing techniques applied to the bird. A) Traces of gouging followed by scraping on the bird back. B) Traces of gouging on the bird. C) Large notch produced by multiple vigorous gouging motions to shape the pedestal. Scale is 1mm or 0.039 inches. D) Gentle gouging applied to carve the head. Scale 2mm or 0.07 inches. E) Superficial gouging applied to the left side of the figurine. Scale is 1mm or 0.039 inches. A and B are 3D renderings obtained with a confocal microscope while the rest are black and white micrographs

Researchers are certain that the carving is that of a bird, despite its apparent lack of wings.

The fact that the wings are not carved does not represent an obstacle to identifying the carving as a representation of a bird, they said.

They suggest that the absence of wings may be due to limitations from the thickness of the bone and limited tools available to the artist.

The Lingjing bird suggests the presence of a longstanding artistic tradition specific to East Asia, with origins much earlier in the Paleolithic, although more examples of Paleolithic carving art are needed to confirm this theory, the research team said.

The Aurignacian archaeological tradition, native to the Swabian Jura mountain range in Germany, are home to the earliest known statuettes, made of mammoth ivory and including a flying waterfoul.

The Lingjing bird has been detailed further in the teams research paper, published in PLOS ONE.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex always looks put together even when her style is more casual. Whether shes wearing jeans or is dressed more formally, Meghan makes it all look effortless. She has a few tricks up her sleeve, including one secret fashion hack that guarantees a flawless look.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Ricky Vigil M/GC Images

Meghan avoids bunching tops with this trick

Meghan has found a surefire way to avoid the bunching you get when you tuck a top into pants or a skirt. She wears a variety of bodysuits that create a smooth look rather than dealing with a bunched blouse.

The duchess has worn bodysuits on a number of occasions and her fans have been none the wiser. She sported a black turtleneck bodysuit during her first official royal engagement in Nottingham as well as on a trip to Australia with Prince Harry.

What appeared to be a silk blouse that she wore to the 2018 Endeavour Fund Awards was actually a bodysuit, as was the ribbed turtleneck bodysuit she wore at a luncheon to launch the Together: Our Community Kitchen cookbook.

RELATED: Meghan Markle Wore This Adorable Sixteen Candles T-shirt: Where to Buy It for Under $20

Its a perfect solution for a sleek look

The trick is quite easy and avoids any fuss. Meghan is very aware of her own style and as someone who favors sleek, chic silhouettes the bodysuit is the perfect option for her, stylist and brand consultant Alexandra Fullerton told Mail Online.

Fullerton added, Bodysuits are a very smart way of dressing as they never bunch or ruche under outfits, meaning she can get on with the business of being a duchess, rather than worrying that her top is untucking itself.

Fashion expert Rochelle White added, I think Meghan chooses to wear a bodysuit as it is comfortable and offers a much sleeker finished look. It saves any tops that she were raising up, becoming untucked or being a bit messy when out on royal visits or engagements.

Bodysuits are perfect for any type of occasion, and they compliment Meghans body shape and silhouette, she noted.

Kate Middleton has a trick for avoiding visible bra straps

Meghan isnt the only duchess who has a useful style hack. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge utilizes strapless shapewear to avoid visible bra straps.

Royal style expert Myka Meier shared Kates hack in an April Instagram post, writing, Royal Style Hack Alert! Ever wonder why you never see bra straps?! Swipe to see a secret trick which is a must-have royal wardrobe piece!

The caption accompanied photos of Kate in a blue dress with a sheer top that she wore to Royal Ascot last summer, underneath which she wore a strapless shapewear piece in nude.

When one commenter remarked, Which is still a nuisance when you have to go, Meier noted, yes but the snaps are at the crotch so makes it easy.

Meier shared with Fabulous that there a few ways to keep undergarments out of view. There are a few options to hide bra straps, with one option being a bra that is actually sewn into the piece, she explained. A second option is strapless shapewear, which is a one-piece that either snaps at the bottom or has legs attached. You can buy them in almost any skin tone so they appear transparent and dont show through clothing.
Includes Intersection of 202 meters of 0.51 g/t gold (from surface) Ending in Mineralization

Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - Minera Alamos Inc. (TSXV: MAI) (the "Company" or "Minera Alamos") is pleased to report additional drill results from its Phase 2 drill program at the Santana gold project in Sonora, Mexico. Phase 2 was completed over the past year and was initiated as a follow-up to the Company's first drill program at Santana during the 2018/19 period. These new holes were designed primarily to test the northern limits of the Nicho main zone and to continue to evaluate the potential for further extensions of the known mineralization to the south and southwest. The successful results from the program, which are highlighted in Table 1 below, further expands mineralization to the southwest and confirms the depth potential previously identified in hole S20-134 (see news release of April 30, 2020).

The Company has also finalized initial plans for the Phase 3 drill program which will commence shortly following the resumption of post-covid mining activities in Mexico. Current plans call for an additional 20-25 holes at Nicho totaling approximately 4000m as well as the Company's first drill holes at the Zata and Gold Ridge targets in addition to the recently identified Bufita target. Drill testing on the new targets will include initial "scout" drill holes designed to understand the 3D geometry of the outcropping geology and associated geochemical anomalies, followed by more extensive definition drilling as warranted. In addition, the Company has further holes planned for the Divisadero target to gain a better understanding of the geometry, limits and the internal characteristics of this gold bearing intrusive centre. In total, the Phase 3 drill plans amount to approximately 6,000-7,500 m of drilling to be conducted over the second half of the year. The program could be expanded depending on the success of the initial holes on the new targets.

Story continues

Drilling Highlights:

Hole S20-141 - 202.7m of 0.51 g/t Au (drilled vertically from surface and ending in mineralization)

Completion of Hole S20-141 (depth in excess of 200m) approximately 100m southwest of previously drilled S20-134 (247.9m of 0.60 g/t Au) confirms the presence of open mineralization at vertical depths previously untested prior to this phase of drilling; deeper drilling now planned

Hole S20-139 extends the known area of Nicho mineralization a further 100m to the southwest of any previous drilling and increasing the SW-NE strike of known mineralization to approximately 500m

"The Phase 2 drill program at Santana has been extremely successful in demonstrating that the initial Nicho Main Zone breccia pipe has significant potential for expansion. We have now extended the lateral extents of the mineralized zone by almost 150m from what was identified previously and to overall vertical depths beyond 200m. The mineralization appears to remain open in multiple directions as well as at depth. The drilling planned for Phase 3 will focus on continuing to define the system's margins as the Company finalizes its pit optimization studies," stated Darren Koningen, CEO. "We are also excited to commence the drill testing of numerous new targets that have been identified within the Santana project boundaries over the last 18 months. During that period, our geological team has been able to put together a much more complete understanding and appreciation for the larger mineralizing events responsible for the emplacement of this cluster of gold-bearing breccia pipes. Should even a few of these new targets exhibit the potential we have now seen at Nicho it will be a transformative event for the Santana project and its future growth potential."

Phase 3 Drilling Plans - 6,000 - 7,500m - (See Figures 3-6):

Further drilling at Nicho totaling approximately 20-25 holes

Initial drilling of 15-20 holes (total) at new targets including: Zata, Gold Ridge and the newly identified Bufita (further follow-up to be planned after review of initial data)

Follow-up drilling of 3-4 holes at Divisadero

Table 1 - Drilling Results Summary Table



Mineralized Interval 1,2 Composite Interval 3

Drill Hole From

(m) To

(m) Width

(m) Gold

(g/t) Width

(m) Gold

(g/t) Area S20-135 20.0 125.6 105.6 0.31 56.5 0.52 Divisadero S20-136 15.3 66.2 50.9 0.34 24.0 0.65 Nicho S20-137 72.0 160.0 90.0 0.40 37.2 0.89 Nicho S20-138 0.0 43.3 43.3 0.61 24.3 1.05 Nicho S20-139 78.8 121.3 42.5 0.36 19.9 0.66 Nicho S20-140 22.0 84.5 62.5 0.31 22.3 0.74 Nicho S20-1414 0.0 202.7 202.7 0.51 109.5 0.89 Nicho S20-142 34.4 222.6 188.2 0.28 75.3 0.60 Nicho

Notes:

Grades/widths of mineralized intervals represent complete "from" "to" drill depths as shown. All holes were drilled at 45-90 degree inclinations. The true widths of the mineralized zones in these areas are currently unknown. Grade/width of composite intervals is a total of all mineralized intervals that have gold grades equal to or in excess of "typical" open-pit mining heap leach cut-off grades of 0.15 g/t gold. Hole ended in mineralization

Figure 1 - Drill Location Plan

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4183/57583_818df9a90413ba9a_002full.jpg

Hole S20-135D was drilled at the Divisadero area (not shown) and was planned to provide further geological information regarding the contact zones (structure, dip, etc.) between the porphyritic intrusive body, the andesites to the west and the quartz monzonites to the east. The drill hole encountered continuous mineralization in the intrusive zone between the two contacts averaging 0.31 g/t gold from 20.0m to 125.60m. The Company is preparing an access road at Divisadero which will allow for further investigation of the potential of the Divisadero zone and its real extension at depth and to the north. This work will be part of the Phase 3 exploration program.

Holes S20-136D to S20-138D were collared within the Nicho zone mineralization and intended to better delineate the northern limits of the deposit and the continuity in this area to the east and west. All three holes returned zones of mineralization with hole S20-137D showing good continuity from 70.0m to 160.0m (90.0m of 0.40 g/t gold). This intersection will be followed up in the coming drill program.

Hole S20-139D drilled downhill of the Nicho Main Zone topographic ridge to test the deeper geological structures drilled in previous holes. The hole was located approximately 100m southwest of any previous drilling and returned 42.5m of 0.36 g/t gold. The encouraging results appear to show western continuity of mineralization beyond what was previously expected based on surface outcropping in the area. Additional step out holes to the west are planned.

Holes S20-140D to S20-142D were drilled to continue to delineate the southern boundaries of the Nicho Zone mineralization and as a follow-up drill hole S20-134D (reported previously) which encountered the deepest mineralization discovered to date at the deposit. All three holes encountered mineralization with Hole S20-141D encountering 202.7m of 0.51 g/t gold from surface and ending in mineralization. This hole is located approximately 100m southwest of drill hole S20-134D and continues to show the largely untested mineralization open at depth. The Company is currently reviewing the results from this part of the deposit and what implications it may have for continuity of deeper mineralization in other areas where previous drilling focused primarily on more shallow zones.

Table 2 - Drill Hole Information

Drill Hole Easting*1

(m) Northing*1

(m) Dip*3

(deg) Azimuth

(deg) Depth*2

(m) Area S20-135 674848 3139600 -45 70 165 Divisadero S20-136 675058 3138948 -45 225 122 Nicho S20-137 675138 3139025 -80 225 168 Nicho S20-138 675237 3139064 -52 225 344 Nicho S20-139 674950 3138832 -60 45 186 Nicho S20-140 675169 3138845 -45 225 149 Nicho S20-141 675182 3138869 -90 225 204 Nicho S20-142 675194 3138839 -70 225 228 Nicho

Notes:

Collar coordinates as listed (easting, northing) are UTM values (WGS84 datum) Depth as measured downhole. Dip as shown is planned orientation. Actual measured values post drilling are generally +/- 3 deg from planned

Figure 2 - Mineralized Envelope Expansion from Phase 2 Drilling

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4183/57583_818df9a90413ba9a_003full.jpg





Section 1 - Typical section through the Nicho breccia pipe showing arrangement of geologic structures



To view an enhanced version of Section 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4183/57583_818df9a90413ba9a_004full.jpg





Note: Grade/width of composite intervals is a total of all mineralized intervals that have gold grades equal to or in excess of "typical" open-pit mining heap leach cut-off grades of 0.15 g/t gold.

Phase 3 Drill plans

The Company has finalized its next phase of drilling to include the initial testing of a number of newly identified targets on the Santana property (see Figure 3). The current priority target areas have been initially defined according to three regions - Nicho, Gold Ridge (includes Bufita) and Zata. Additional targets have also been identified and will be added to the drill testing program following the completion of supplementary ground follow-up activities. All of the targets appear to be "Nicho-like" in basic structure and have yielded similar surface sampling results as seen above and around the Nicho area. The Company looks forward to testing these new gold-bearing breccia pipes and zones and determining their significance to the currently under-construction Santana gold operation. For additional information on Zata and Gold Ridge targets please see the news releases dated October 1st, 2018 and September 5, 2019 respectively.

Figure 3 - Regional Map Showing Target Areas for Phase 3 Drilling

To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit:

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Planned Drilling Summary:

Region A - 20-25 holes at Nicho (totaling ~4,000m); Plus 5-6 scout holes in western Benjamin area (totaling ~1,000m)

Region B - 10-12 scout holes (totaling ~1500m)

Region C - 5-6 scout holes (totaling ~1000m)

Figure 4 - Inset Map Region A - Nicho/Benjamin/Divisadero

To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit:

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Figure 5 - Inset Map Region B - Bufita/Gold Ridge

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Figure 6 - Inset Map Region C - Zata

To view an enhanced version of Figure 6, please visit:

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Sample Preparation and QAQC

All diamond drill samples were collected by Minera Alamos personnel including the Company's exploration geologists. Drill core samples were cut in half and divided into typically 1-2m intervals. One half of the sample was bagged for analysis and the remaining half was logged by Minera Alamos personnel and stored for future reference. Blanks, duplicates, and standards were randomly inserted with the samples sent for analysis as part of the normal QA/QC procedures.

All samples were prepared and analyzed for gold using fire assaying with AA/gravimetric finish in addition to a standard 35-element ICP suite. All samples were sent for sample preparation at the ALS-Chemex facility in Hermosillo, Mexico.

Mr. Darren Koningen, P. Eng., Minera Alamos' CEO, is the Qualified Person responsible for the technical content of this press release under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Koningen has supervised the preparation of, and has approved the scientific and technical disclosures in, this news release.

For Further Information Please Contact:

Minera Alamos Inc.

Doug Ramshaw, President

Tel: 604-600-4423

Email: dramshaw@mineraalamos.com

Website: www.mineraalamos.com

Victoria Vargas de Szarzynski, VP Investor Relations

Tel: 289-242-3599

Email: vvargas@mineraalamos.com

About Minera Alamos Inc.

Minera Alamos is a gold development company poised to join the ranks of gold producers in 2021. The Company has a portfolio of high-quality Mexican assets, including the 100%-owned Santana open-pit, heap-leach development project in Sonora that is currently under construction, and which is expected to have its first gold production in late 2020 or early 2021. The La Fortuna open pit gold project in Durango (100%-owned) has an extremely robust and positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) completed and is nearing the end of the permitting process. A construction decision on La Fortuna could be made in late 2020 or early 2021 and highlights the organic growth the existing projects can provide to the overall production profile. Minera Alamos is built around its operating team that together brought 3 mines into production over the last 12 years.

The Company's strategy is to develop low capex assets while expanding the project resources and pursue complementary strategic acquisitions.

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.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57583
The People's Conference on Wednesday hit out at the Jammu and Kashmir administration over its new media policy, terming it the "lowest of the low".

Earlier this month, the UT administration had approved the media policy-2020 for creating a sustained narrative on the functioning of the government in the media.

According to a government spokesman, the policy attempts to thwart misinformation, fake news and tries to develop a mechanism that will raise alarm against any attempt to use the media to vitiate public peace, sovereignty and integrity of the country.

People's Conference spokesman Adnan Ashraf claimed that with the new media policy, India now joins the notorious club of the most repressive regimes of the world, in terms of freedom of expression.

"The new media policy is plain censorship where the government defines the ethics of journalism. (The) Government wants to see reality not as it exists but as it wants to see it exist. The policy gives them the power to decide what is fake and unethical. And no prizes for guessing, anything remotely true or critical of the government will be categorised as fake or anti-national news," Ashraf said in a statement.

"The new media policy is a new low - a lowest of the low- which will herald the darkest era of curbing press freedom wherein the government will script custom made versions of reality," he said.

Ashraf said it is a "sad day for democracy and freedom of expression".

"In Kashmir, this law will be at its coercive best and will be utilised to further mute the muted. They are formally recognising what they have been doing informally. Who defines fake news, who is the faker, the publisher or the enforcer. Fake news per se is evil but faking a law to fake enforcement will go down as the cruelest fetter on press freedom and will be perpetually held in odium," he added.
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A key witness in a federal lawsuit to ban the use of fluoridation chemicals in public water supplies testified Tuesday that American exposure to fluoride was too high and was endangering the next generation's intelligence, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) reported.

Dr. Grandjean found "no reasonable doubt that developmental neurotoxicity" was "a serious human health risk associated with elevated fluoride exposure." That exposure, he said, is "occurring at the levels added to drinking water in fluoridated areas." His testimony took the form of statements under approximately 5-hours of questioning and a prefiled Declaration.

Philippe Grandjean, MD, ScD, is an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. A Danish scientist, he works in environmental medicine and is the head of the Environmental Medicine Research Unit at the University of Southern Denmark. He has led groundbreaking investigations of neurotoxic chemicals, including mercury and fluoride.

Dr. Grandjean was the second scientist witness to "take the stand" in this bench trial pitting FAN, Moms against Fluoridation, Food and Water Watch, and others against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. He testified via Zoom from Denmark. The trial continues Wednesday, June 10.

A Department of Justice lawyer on the defense team attempted to disqualify Dr. Grandjean's testimony in a lengthy cross-examination, but the motion to do so was promptly denied by presiding District Judge Edward M. Chen.

In his prefiled Declaration, Dr. Grandjean stated,

"Recent research has shown that the most vulnerable life stage for many toxicants, particularly those that adversely affect the brain, is during intrauterine and early postnatal development. Fluoride fits into this paradigm, and efforts to control human fluoride exposures must therefore focus on pregnant women and small children.

" Epidemiology studies of birth cohorts from the most recent years document that adverse effects on brain development happen at elevated exposure levels that occur widely in North America, in particular in communities with fluoridated drinking water. These new prospective studies are of very high quality and show very similar results, thus leaving little doubt that developmental neurotoxicity is a serious risk associated with elevated fluoride exposure. This evidence shows that community water fluoridation is associated with IQ losses that are substantial and of economic and societal concern."

According to Paul Connett, PhD, director for FAN:

Grandjean's calculation (using the EPA's preferred risk assessment methodology) showed that a pregnant mother drinking just one glass of fluoridated tap water a day would exceed a dose that would lower a child's IQ by one point.

If successful, the lawsuit would force the EPA to ban the addition of fluoridation chemicals to public water supplies on grounds they pose too great a risk.

The court schedule is found here, with directions for tuning in the trial. A press kit providing further information on the case is found here.

SOURCE Fluoride Action Network

Related Links

fluorideaction.net


It is clear that no society should celebrate people like Robert E. Lee, Winston Churchill and Edward Colston. These were men who defended enslavement and colonialism; there is no debate about that.





by Vijay Prashad





The statues are coming down. The most recent avalanche began in the United States after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police and the uprising it occasioned. In Philadelphia, the city removed a statue of former police commissioner Frank Rizzo; the mayor agreed with the protesters who called for its immediate removal, saying that the statue is a deplorable monument to racism, bigotry, and police brutality for members of the Black community, the LGBTQ community, and many others.





For liberty

Across the U.S. South, protesters took aim at Confederate statues. The target was often Confederate generalsGeneral Robert E. Lee in Montgomery, Alabama, and General Williams Carter Wickham in Richmond, Virginia. In some casessuch as in Mobile, Alabamathe city authorities removed the statues themselves. In otherssuch as in Alexandria, Virginiathe statues owners (the United Daughters of the Confederacy) finally removed them after long campaigns of public pressure.





On Sunday, June 7, the momentum shifted across the Atlantic Ocean to Bristol, England, which was one of the key cities of the transatlantic system of slavery. Here, protesters removed the statue of Edward Colston and threw it into the River Avon. Colston made his money in the trade in human beings. The Society of Merchant Venturers, in Bristol, which emerged out of the slavery trade, responded to the removal of the statue by saying that it will continue to educate itself about systemic racism and will never forget the 12 million enslaved human beings.





On that same day, a protester went to the statue of Winston Churchill in Westminster, London, and painted was a racist under the former prime ministers name. The slogan was removed shortly thereafter. In Brussels, Belgium, protesters wrote shame on the statue of Leopold II, the butcher of the Congo.





It is clear that no society should celebrate people like Robert E. Lee, Winston Churchill and Edward Colston. These were men who defended enslavement and colonialism; there is no debate about that. Over the years, even the family of Robert E. Lee has asked for his statues to be removed from public display: One of Lees descendants said in 2017 that he believes that the Charlottesville, Virginia, statue of his ancestor has become a symbol of evil nationalism. Another descendant of Lees wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post on June 7 calling for the removal of his ancestors statue in Richmond, Virginia.





So much for the statues.





Debt





History has not been written by the likes of the protesters who brought the statues down; it is the men depicted in the statues who have had that power. Thats our tragedy.





All crises within the United States disproportionately strike African Americans: the financial crisis from more than a decade ago illustrates this, but so does the coronavirus pandemic and the coronavirus recession. Everyone suffers, but African Americans seem to suffer more. Debt rates are higher among African Americans, while income loss in a time of crisis is borne more deeply in the African American community.





To remove a statue is important because the existence of the statue is a standing rebuke to the humanity of the people who must walk past it every day. But more is needed: what the men depicted in these statues succeeded in establishing in the world must also be removed.





The removal of Colstons statue is significant. Behind it, however, lingers an atrocious reality.





In 1833, when the British parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, it promised compensation not to the human beings freed from this brutal system, but to their owners. From 1835 to 2015, the British exchequer paid the owners and their descendants 17 trillion. This is an extraordinary amount of money. The precedent for this came from the French. When Haiti won its independence from France, the French sent their warships in 1825 to demand that the new republic pay compensation for the loss of slavery. Between 1825 to 1947, Haiti paid France $21 billion for the emancipation of the Haitian people.





Meanwhile, countries like Haiti and Jamaica had to borrow money from governments and banks in Europe to finance their survival. That borrowing escalated over the last several decades as these countries faced enormous challenges, including natural disasters and coups promoted by the United States of America. The desolation of the finances of these countries continues.





Today, a reasonable estimate of the external debt of the developing countriesmany of them former slave plantationssits at $11 trillion, with debt servicing due this year of $3.9 trillion. Attempts to postpone or cancel the debt have been futile as U.S. and European governments and banks have been lukewarm to the ideas on the table. They want their money. This money, however, should not be sucked out of the formerly colonized countries; we need to use those resources toward the dire needs of our societies.





It is one thing to knock down a statue; it is another to cut down the debt.





In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon wrote, Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn from our territories. The wealth of the imperialist nations is also our wealth. Europe is literally the creation of the Third World.





Bring down the statues, surely. But more than that: cancel the debt and provide reparations to the formerly colonized for the centuries of theft and brutality.





This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.





Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.
Mitchell Musvosvi, 10, has spent the past week watching protests erupt in the United States and in his hometown of London, Ontario, over the issue of race and the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.

When Mitchell, the son of a black father and white mother, saw a child holding a sign at one protest, he decided he wanted to speak out to remind people "not to judge people by the color of their skin," he told "Good Morning America."

Mitchell made a homemade sign with the words, "Do I scare you?"

He then worked with the help of his mom, Caitlin Murphy, to write a poem that captured his thoughts as a black boy growing up in the world today.

PHOTO: Mitchell Musvosi, 10, poses with his mom, Caitlin Murphy. (Courtesy Caitlin Murphy)

"Do I Scare You? What about at the end of the summer, when my skin is several shades darker, deepened to a golden brown by the sun? Do I scare you?" he wrote. "What about after Ive finally gotten that hairstyle Ive been wanting? Ive been growing out my hair - cornrows or twists? Will I look like a 'thug?' Do I scare you?"

"What about when Im playing in the neighbourhood with my friends, when Im heading home with a pocketful of candy? Am I 'up to no good?' Do I scare you?," Mitchell went on. "What about next summer? In two summers? Three? When Ive added 20 pounds of muscle to this lanky frame? What if Im running? What if its dark? Do I scare you?"

MORE: George Floyd protest updates: Trump reignites NFL feud in tweet aimed at commissioner

Murphy shared the photo of her son and the poem on her Facebook page, where it has received hundreds of likes and sparked a conversation on racism.

"The words in [the poem] are from questions he had or things I worried about as the mother of a child who is black and from conversations weve had," said Murphy. "It was really important to be from his voice because its voices from people of color that need to be amplified right now."

Story continues

"Obviously hes 10 years old and hes not actually scary," Murphy said of her son. "Trayvon Martin was 17 [when he was killed while walking in a gated community in Florida] so how much longer does he have until people start perceiving him as a threat?"

Murphy, a mother of four, met her husband, John Musvosvi, who is originally from Zimbabwe, around 15 years ago when they each lived in Toronto. After they had kids, Murphy and Musvosvi moved to London, Ontario, which Murphy described as predominantly white.

She said she and her husband have conversations about race on an ongoing basis and are always as honest as possible with their oldest child, Mitchell, whom Murphy describes as "very curious."

MORE: Couple who celebrated wedding during Philadelphia protest call it 'empowering moment'

"Ive heard a lot of white families saying, 'Have you had the talk with your kids about racism?' But for us its an ongoing conversation because it comes up," said Murphy. "I dont remember when I started talking to them about it. Its always been something that was important to us."

PHOTO: Mitchell Musvosi, 10, poses with his siblings and parents. (Courtesy Caitlin Murphy)

Mitchell, who loves sports, "Star Wars" and video games, said he has "hope that things will change" and his future will be different than the one black men face today.

Murphy said she too is encouraged that the current protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement are the "beginning of real change."

"I think people are really starting to have those conversations they didnt have otherwise," she said. "I dont think we can go backwards from here. Were just going forward."

10-year-old black boy shares message with homemade sign, 'Do I scare you?' originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
Hong Kong: Public urged to avoid illicit assemblies

Police today urged the public not to participate in unauthorised assemblies and prohibited group gatherings.

Police issued the statement after noticing that some people have been calling on the public to take part in an unauthorised assembly under the pretext of a religious gathering on Hong Kong Island on June 12.

The force pointed out that not all religious activities are exempted from the Prevention & Control of Disease (Prohibition on Group Gathering) Regulation.

They explained that gatherings during a religious activity are exempted only if held at premises constructed or regularly used as a place of worship.

Police reiterated that anyone participating in such events may be found guilty of taking part in an unauthorised assembly in accordance with the Public Order Ordinance and liable to a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.

They emphasised that engaging in public gatherings will also increase the risk of transmission of the virus in the community and those doing so may commit certain offences under the Prevention & Control of Disease (Prohibition on Group Gathering) Regulation.

Police stressed that they will deploy adequate manpower in relevant locations and take resolute action to enforce the law, including making arrests.

Additionally, Police noted that a large group of protesters behaved in a disorderly manner and blocked roads while gathered in Central last night.

In the small hours, Police arrested 53 people, consisting of 36 males and 17 females, for unlawful assembly and participating in an unauthorised assembly.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The bodies of two firefighters, who died battling the massive blaze at Baghjan oil well in Assams Tinsukia district, were recovered by a forest team and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel from a waterbody near the natural gas well site of Oil India Limited (OIL) on Wednesday. The deceased have been identified as Durlabh Gogoi and Tikheswar Gohain.

Official sources said the fire that broke out Tuesday afternoon has reduced considerably after efforts by the district administration, military and emergency services.

It was difficult for our swimmers to retrieve the bodies because of the heat and searing temperatures due to the fire, but we managed to recover two bodies with the help from forest officials who used drones to locate the bodies, said an NDRF personnel on ground.

Meanwhile, Indian Air Force (IAF) is assisting the civil administration with three fire tenders to douse the flames. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal called upon Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to request for deployment of IAF in the operation. He also sought the intervention of Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan while directing the Tinsukia district administration and Assam police to ensure the safety of the people in the affected areas.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Sonowal held a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and apprised him of the current situation. He was assured all help and support by the Prime Minister.

It has been 14 days since a blowout was reported in the OIL gas well on May 27 as pressure control systems failed during Work Over operations to produce gas from a new sand (oil-and-gas bearing) reservoir at a depth of 3,729 metres. The exploration was done by the Gujarat-based outsourcing company, John Energy.

For experts at the site, reducing the flames remain a priority. Sources said that some of the immediate measures would be to clear up a substantial area for safe operations and constantly use water to keep the atmosphere cool. Heavy duty pumps have been pressed into service, and an arrangement for creating a water umbrella is in progress along with digging a water reservoir and laying of delivery lines from the source to the site of operation.

In a statement released by OIL after the incident, it was stated that all operations would take about four weeks, and well control operations will be initiated once the fire is brought under control. However, officials have sought help from the district administration in maintaining law and order in wake of protests around the site.

The well caught fire while the clearing operations were on. The situation can be brought under control and the well can be capped safely. There are violent protests around the well site. A request has been made to the State government for maintaining law and order so that experts can enter the site and start well control operations, said an OIL spokesperson.

An emergency meeting was held on Tuesday between OIL, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) officials and the three-member team of disaster control experts from Singapore. The statement read  the situation demands arrangement of large quantities of water, installation of high discharge pumps and removal of debris. All the operations as per ALERT (Singapore firm) will take about four weeks. Efforts will be made to reduce this timeframe as much as possible.

Chief Minister Sonowal appealed to people not to panic and cooperate with authorities, assuring them that both the state government and the Centre have been taking all measures for their safety.

The law and order situation now under control. Foreign experts are inspecting the site and the flames have reduced considerably since last evening, the blaze is now confined to the well site, said Siladitya Chetia, Tinsukia Superintendent of Police.

Over 2500 people from 1610 families living in and around Baghjan were evacuated with the help of NDRF and taken to relief camps. The gas oil field in Tinsukia is located next to the Dilgullturrung tea estate and the Maguri Beel wetland.

While several houses have been gutted in flames, an assessment of the environment impact is being initiated. A team from Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat is studying the impact on vegetation in the area. Sample collection and daily scientific analysis is being carried out by experts around the site. With the area around Baghjan heating up due to the massive fire and uncontrollable blowout from the gas well, patrolling is not possible at the Dibru Saikhowa National Park with wildlife being under constant threat. The Eco Sensitive Zone of the park is only 300 metres away while the Core Zone is 860 metres from the well site.

No patrolling is possible now, and we have already evacuated our staff from two camps on May 30. No visible damage seen, so far, but we are at risk. The condensate along with gas is impacting the park, said Rajendra Singh Bharti, Divisional Forest Officer of Tinsukia Wildlife Division.

Wildlife biologists and marine observers are also studying the impact of environmental change due to oil exploration. The Baghjan blowout is considered the second in 15 years at an OIL installation. Earlier in 2005, it took 45 days to control the blowout at Dikom in Dibrugrah district.

We cannot recreate nature and biodiversity. The planners need to review to exclude our pristine wildlife areas for such exploration in future. All other similar activities presently going on in such areas should be closed, said Wildlife Biologist and Joint Director of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).
San Francisco, June 10 : In some bad news for a defiant Elon Musk, several Tesla workers at the Fremont (California) production facility that was reopened forcibly despite health warnings from the County have been tested corona positive.

According to a report in The Washington Post, two workers with knowledge of the situation was quoted as saying that "supervisors held meetings with their teams to disclose the company had reported several cases of the coronavirus, and the employees affected were told to stay home".

One of the workers said a supervisor confirmed two positive cases to a group at the Fremont-based seat assembly facility, the report added.

US President Donald Trump last month backed Musk in his fight with the local authorities in California as he reopened the company's electric car factory in Fremont that employs nearly 10,000 workers against the state guidelines.

Defying the stay-at-home order in place, Musk reopened Tesla factory, challenging the authorities to arrest him if he has defied the rules.

"Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me," Musk tweeted.

Later, Tesla and Alameda County came to an agreement allowing the company to restart production if it adhered to strict social distancing.

The worker told the Post that three people who had been quarantined because of potential exposure had returned to work, but those who tested positive haven't returned to the factory.

The Tesla California plant was shut on March 23 under a six-county order in the San Francisco area, which was extended through May 31.
Every donation counts and it will stay in our community, helping our neighbors.

Capital Eurocars GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to feed the people who have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is getting closer to its goal. The automotive group is attempting to raise $20,000 to be donated in its entirety to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Big Bend  a non-profit organization that collects, stores and distributes donated food to more than 550 feeding partners in the area. Capital Eurocars kicked off the campaign with a donation of $7,500.

Second Harvest of Big Bend partners with 135 agencies in 11 Florida counties to provide over 785,000 meals monthly for the hungry. The organization has had a lasting impact on the Tallahassee community, and Capital Eurocars has planned a fundraiser to help further their efforts.

The Tallahassee community is a generous community and we are fortunate to join forces to help so many that have been affected by the Covid 19 Pandemic. Were about halfway there, with just over $11,000 raised so far and we are very grateful, said General Manager Crawford Atkins. Were so close to reaching our goal, and we hope youll help us get there by visiting our GoFundme page. Every donation counts and it will stay in our community, helping our neighbors.

The driving force behind the campaign is support for the neighbors, families and community members who are facing hardship due to job losses, decreased income and food supply shortages. Capital Eurocars selected the Second Harvest Food Bank due to its capability of providing a high level of support to the community during this crisis.

Thousands of people cant feed themselves or their families now. Most likely, youve seen the long lines at distribution points or youve seen images of bare shelves at area food banks. We all have a responsibility to help those less fortunate than us. This is a historic moment our nation is facing and together we can make a difference, said Jim Myers, President of Crown Automotive Group, the parent company of Capital Eurocars.

About Second Harvest Food Bank of Big Bend  Second Harvest of the Big Bend is a 501c (3) nonprofit charity formed to address the urgent problem of hunger in the community. Second Harvest food bank distributes enough food for more than 10 million meals annually, ensuring food safety throughout the entire process. Second Harvest of the Big Bends Mission is to feed the hungry in the Big Bend through our network of partner agencies, and to educate and engage the community in the fight against hunger.

About Capital Eurocars and the Crown Automotive Group  Over the last 50 years, Crown Automotive Group has grown into one of the largest privately owned dealership groups in the nation with operations in Florida, Ohio and Tennessee. Capital Eurocars has been part of the Tallahassee community for over 25 years and along with the Crown Automotive dealership is deeply involved with every community they serve in many ways. Driven by four core values: Customer Focus, Teamwork, Integrity, and Growth, the group is committed to providing each customer with The Better Way To Buy. Visit crowncars.com for more information on Crown Automotive Group and The Better Way To Buy.


Discussions on racial disparities in maternal mortality rates are gaining traction on Beacon Hill on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic and mounting calls for racial justice during protests against police brutality.

Senate President Karen Spilka, who delivered remarks Tuesday at the Massachusetts Womens Political Caucus legislative breakfast, said she spoke to a new coalition focused on equity for expecting mothers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

We too must do more for expecting mothers in Massachusetts. Because it shouldnt be normal that black women are twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related issues and have twice the rate of severe maternal morbidities, as white women, the Ashland Democrat said. This issue, among many others, exposes something else: The need for a bigger spotlight on womens health issues.

A day earlier, The Committee on Health Care Financing favorably reported a bill that would create a commission to study racial disparities in maternal mortality, the State House News Service reported. The bill, H 4448, was one of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucuss priorities for this session. It now goes to the House Ways and Means Committee for review.

Rep. Liz Miranda, a Boston Democrat and member of the BLLC, called the development another win for maternal justice" in a tweet Tuesday night.

Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, a Springfield Democrat who heads the BLLC, said hes seeing the launch of committees analyzing equity that are more inclusive than ever before, whether its been opening up our state, getting data from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The maternal health issue is something that weve championed, and were just excited and moving forward, he told MassLive Tuesday.

Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, a Boston Democrat and a BLLC member, said she was thrilled to see the House bill advance, crediting Mirandas advocacy for the proposal.

We still have miles to go before its on the governors desk, but Im happy to see it make progress," Chang-Diaz said Tuesday.

The focus on maternal health is not new, but it has gained more attention during the coronavirus pandemic and particularly after the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who captured on video being killed in police custody.

Protests erupted across the country, including in Springfield, Worcester and Boston. Several protesters invoked the memories of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was fatally shot by police in her home, and other black people who were killed in recent months.

The demonstrations follow months of restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19 that community organizers and lawmakers say have disproportionately affected communities of color, partly because black and brown residents who work at grocery stores and hospitals were deemed essential, partly because some of those essential workers live in multi-generational families in densely populated cities.

While some of the protests led to violent clashes between police and protesters, the demonstrations have prompted lawmakers in Massachusetts and other states to address racial inequities in policing, health care and other areas of life.

The BLLC last week unveiled a 10-point plan outlining steps federal, state and municipal officials could take to address racial inequality, ranging from launching a statewide commission on structural racism and implementing peace officer standards and training at the state level to declaring racism as a public health crisis at the municipal level.

Gonzalez said House leadership has worked closely with the caucus to try to address concerns about racial inequity. The caucus plans to meet with House Speaker Robert DeLeo on Wednesday.

DeLeo told lawmakers in an email Friday he planned to take a series of steps to address structural inequalities in Massachusetts, noting he planned a meeting with the caucus this week.

The House resoundingly hears the voices of the peaceful protestors and recognizes the generational pain of affected communities, the Winthrop Democrat said, according to an email obtained by MassLive. We mourn the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor  and our thoughts and prayers are with their loved ones and them and the countless others that came before them  but our thoughts and prayers, while heartfelt, are wholly inadequate.

DeLeo pledged to take decisive action through a series of short-term and long-term steps, including an agenda to consider the BLLCs 10-point plan and bills that predate the recent demonstrations.

After the committee reported out the maternal health bill, DeLeo issued a joint statement with Reps. Daniel Cullinane, Kay Khan and Miranda highlighting the proposal as a way to address systemic barriers to racial equity.

This bill will help determine the causes of increased maternal mortality among women of color in Massachusetts and provide concrete policy recommendations for how to ensure that all women are treated equitably by our healthcare system," the statement reads.

Spilka made similar remarks at the legislative breakfast Tuesday morning.

Like you, I am angry and heartbroken by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, she said. But as a white woman legislator, I also recognize that being angry and heartbroken are not enough if we truly wish to be allies in the fight against racial justice.

Over the past few weeks, I have had many productive conversations with Black leaders about steps we can take to address our current challenges, Spilka added. Ive also spoken with my colleagues, heard from my fellow elected leaders of color, and listened to those who experienced first-hand the power and trauma of participating in recent protests.

When it came to maternal health, Spilka said she would support more centers that focused on women-specific research, such as the Connors Center for Womens Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Womens Hospital.

Few reports have published and analyzed present-day data on maternal morbidity rates in Massachusetts. One of the most recent and most often-cited state reports highlighting racial disparities in maternal morbidity rates was published in 2014 and cited data for more than a decade ago.

The pregnancy-associated mortality report, analyzing data between 2000 and 2007, found that the mortality rate for pregnant black women was 1.9 times higher compared to the rate for pregnant non-Hispanic white women. The state has published other reviews in the past decade, but they focus on substance use or other factors affecting maternal health rather than health disparities along racial lines.

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The crowds have thinned and the smoke has cleared, with more than a week of nationwide protests leaving in their wake a nation increasingly resolved to change a broken law enforcement system.

But they also have left police officers badly shaken, and in some cases physically bruised. Nationwide, police leaders say the rank and file are struggling to come to grips with the level of animus they encountered on the streets, as epithets, bricks and bottles all came hurtling their way.

Police have been targets of protest many times before, of course. But never quite like this.

"I've had members say they feel like a Vietnam veteran returning home to a country that hates them," said Robert Harris, a Los Angeles police officer and director of the force's police union. "It's not that our members expect thank-yous. It's the difficulty in knowing that the protesters want to be treated with equality and fairness and respect, and what they're protesting for isn't afforded to the officers themselves."

"The morale is low," he said. "They've taken quite a beating."

Such sentiments are likely to elicit little sympathy from protesters outraged about the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, and the countless deaths of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement officers that preceded it. Police in the United States have shot and killed nearly 500 people already this year - an average of about three a day. The figure does not include those, like Floyd, who died by other means.

But the fact that police feel besieged and beleaguered potentially complicates efforts to transform Floyd's death into a catalyst for changing the system and preventing the sort of brutality that protesters say his death exemplified.

Although many police leaders say they agree with protesters' aims, they also think their efforts to change have been underappreciated and their line of work unfairly vilified.

"Law enforcement is the only profession where you get rocks, bricks and molotov cocktails thrown at you merely because you're in the same chosen profession as someone else who did something horribly wrong thousands of miles away," said Steven Casstevens, head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "I can't believe that's where we are. Aren't we better than that as a country?"

President Donald Trump has sought to channel that sense of grievance, staunchly defending law enforcement officers amid calls by some protesters and congressional Democrats to slash police funding. At a roundtable with police officials Monday at the White House, Trump called the nation's police officers "great, great people" and signaled he would resist calls for wholesale change.

"There won't be defunding," Trump said. "There won't be dismantling of our police. There's not going to be any disbanding of our police."

House Democrats introduced legislation this week that would transform many aspects of policing, including a ban on chokeholds and making it easier to prosecute police misconduct.

A Washington Post-Schar School poll released Monday found that a wide majority of Americans support the protesters, with nearly three-quarters of the country backing them. More than two-thirds of respondents said they thought Floyd's killing reflected broader problems with police treatment of black Americans, up from less than half after 2014 protests in Ferguson, Mo.

Whether police agree remains to be seen. To at least some, the officers are the real victims.

"Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect," New York police union leader Mike O'Meara demanded angrily at a news conference Tuesday. "We've been left out of the conversation. We've been vilified. It's disgusting."

The rift between police departments and critics who urge their overhaul has grown in recent days as officers in several cities close ranks to defend colleagues accused of using excessive force on protesters.

In Buffalo, officers cheered two colleagues who shoved an elderly man to the ground during a protest, leaving him bleeding on the pavement. The police union in Philadelphia is selling "Bologna Strong" T-shirts, celebrating officer Joseph Bologna, who faces assault charges alleging he clubbed a student protester in the head.

David Klinger, a former officer who is now a criminologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, said many officers are experiencing "bewilderment" at the wave of anger they're facing.

Klinger called Floyd's killing "the most disturbing thing I've ever seen," and he noted that police leaders nationwide have widely condemned it. But many officers feel as though they are being blamed for the crimes of others.

"They don't understand the vitriol directed at them because they didn't do anything. They are a symbol of something," Klinger said. "Officers understand the righteous anger. But not why it is directed at them personally, and why it takes the form of rocks and bottles and bricks."

The vast majority of participants in protests that filled cities from coast to coast did not use violence, police acknowledge. But some did, particularly in the days immediately after Floyd's death on May 25, before widespread appeals for calm were heeded.

"Demonstrations that were peaceful during the day would change, and officers had to put themselves in position to prevent property damage. And that would result in violence toward property and toward them," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a District of Columbia policy center.

During two weeks spanning the end of May and the beginning of June, 749 officers were injured while responding to protests and disturbances, according to a Justice Department tally. That figure includes about 150 officers hurt in Washington, D.C., 22 of whom required hospitalization.

Two officers in Northern California were killed, although the exact motive and circumstances remain unclear.

The attacks add to a preexisting sense among many officers that they are under siege. But data shows there has been no sustained rise in the number of officers killed or assaulted in the line of duty during the past decade.

"To the extent that officers feel their lives are increasingly in danger, it's probably not an accurate perception," said Jeffrey Fagan, a criminologist at Columbia University.

Nor, Fagan said, did demonstrators' aggression toward police appear to justify many of the violent acts carried out by officers during the protests, many of which were captured on videos that circulated widely on the Internet. Fagan said he saw multiple video clips in which police appeared to escalate confrontations when they could have done the opposite.

"I don't know how they're trained, but they should have been trained to withdraw if at all possible," said Fagan, citing in particular a widely shared clip of New York officers using their vehicles to ram demonstrators amid a hail of thrown objects.

But within police departments, there often is a very different view, even among those sympathetic to calls for reform and the need to curb excessive force. In interviews, police commanders and union officials said that although there were undoubtedly instances in which officers overreacted, many showed remarkable restraint.

"What the cameras don't capture is those officers are standing on those lines for 12-, 14-hour shifts and during that time they're subject to verbal assault, rocks, bricks, frozen water bottles, human waste," said Harris, the Los Angeles police union leader. "It takes a mental toll and a physical toll."

Harris said dozens of officers in the department were injured, including one who was hit by a ricocheted bullet and at least two others who required surgery after being struck by heavy objects.

The violence by demonstrators, Harris said, was "disheartening," particularly given the progress he thought Los Angeles police have made in addressing allegations of brutality. Last year, the union backed one of the nation's most substantive police reform bills, one that narrowed the conditions under which officers can use deadly force.

"There's a reason why we talk about not wanting other officers to tarnish our badge," Harris said. "We want that thing to shine."

Activists say police departments are still too resistant to calls for change, and too protective of bad actors. The California bill, they argue, was watered down in the face of police resistance - just one more example of officers standing in the way of much-needed change.

"This isn't a lack of appreciation for officers who do a good job. It's about holding people accountable for their actions," said Jennvine Wong, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society's police accountability project in New York, where a Brooklyn prosecutor filed charges Tuesday against an officer who shoved a female protester to the ground on May 29.

"Some of the strongest rhetoric for holding accountable civilians who commit crimes comes from police departments," Wong said. "But when it come to officers committing crimes, they try to wiggle their way out of it."

Police departments also are facing the risk of diminishing public credibility, as cellphone videos belie their official statements playing down incidents involving officer force - such as when Buffalo police initially claimed that Martin Gugino, 75, "tripped and fell" during a protest.

In Los Angeles, Assistant Police Chief Robert Arcos said his department was reviewing dozens of reports of alleged excessive force by officers during the protests. "We want to investigate. Everybody wants answers," he said.

The department, he said, is also trying to work with community leaders on broader police reforms. But he said those conversations are coming at a time when many officers feel disheartened and hurt.

The LAPD, he said, already has made significant changes to its training, its protocols for use of force and its engagement with citizens. But when the protests began, the vitriol rained down anyway.

"The level of violence was the worst that I've seen in my 32 years," said Arcos, who was on the streets as a young officer during the 1992 uprising that followed the assault on motorist Rodney King. He said the intensity of attacks on police has been greater this time.

The demand for change, he said, is greater now, too.

"I've never seen people rally around the issue in the way they have today. It's very loud. It's got a lot of momentum. I understand it. I respect it. I know it needs to happen," Arcos said. "But officers will tell me, 'Chief, we're doing all these things. And it's still not enough.' "

- - -

The Washington Post's Shayna Jacobs in New York contributed to this report.
Landmine blasts killed at least seven people including civilians on the edges of Libya's capital Wednesday, wounding 10 others, the unity government's health ministry said.

"Seven people were killed in landmine explosions in several locations in the south of Tripoli, and 10 others were wounded," ministry spokesman Amin al-Hashemi told AFP.

Those killed were four civilians and three mine-clearing experts.

Hashemi said the devices had gone off in the Ain Zara and Wadi Rabi districts on the southern edges of the capital, which had been controlled by forces backing eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar until May.

The explosions came days after the Government of National Accord declared itself back in full control of the capital and its suburbs after fending off Haftar's year-long offensive to seize the capital.

Human Rights Watch earlier this month accused pro-Haftar forces of laying Russian and Soviet-era landmines in Tripoli's southern districts.

They "appear to have laid mines as they withdrew from southern districts of the city" in May, the New York-based rights group said.

Days earlier, the UN's Libya mission voiced concern over reports that "residents of the Ain Zara and Salahuddin areas of Tripoli have been killed or wounded by Improvised Explosive Devices placed in/near their homes".

Pro-Haftar forces, backed by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have been battling since April last year to seize Tripoli from the UN-recognised GNA.

The fighting has left hundreds dead and forced 200,000 to flee their homes.

Haftar's rapid advance on Tripoli stalled to a bloody stalemate on the edges of the capital, but in recent weeks Turkish-backed GNA forces have fought back to regain control of the whole of the country's northwest.

It was the latest round of fighting in years of violence following the 2011 toppling and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a Western-backed uprising.
(Newser)  A retired judge appointed to argue against the Justice Department's move to drop the charges against Michael Flynn has delivered a blistering broadside against the case for dismissaland accused the department of "gross abuse of prosecutorial power." In a 73-page brief, John Gleeson said "no prosecutor worth her salt" would adopt the "legally unsound" argument for dismissing the charges against the former national security adviser, the New York Times reports. "The governments ostensible grounds for seeking dismissal are conclusively disproven by its own briefs filed earlier in this very proceeding," he wrote. "They contradict and ignore this Courts prior orders, which constitute law of the case. They are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact. And they depart from positions that the government has taken in other cases."

story continues below

Gleeson, appointed last month by US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, accused William Barr's Justice Department of engaging in "highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the president," per the Hill. He argued that Sullivan has the authorityand plenty of causeto reject the attempt to drop the charges, saying the "reasons offered by the government are so irregular, and so obviously pretextual, that they are deficient." Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian diplomat, then reversed his guilty plea before sentencing, claiming he had actually forgotten the conversations. In his brief, Gleeson accused Flynn of perjury but said that instead of holding him in contempt of court, Sullivan should take it into account during sentencing. (Read more Michael Flynn stories.)
Kmart shelves will be fully restocked in New South Wales and Queensland at the end of July - after foreign-made stock ran out due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specific dates for when individual products will be restocked varies, with nursery one of the first categories to hit shelves at the end of June.

Furniture and accessories will be restocked from mid to end of July, and kitchen and dining products will be replenished mid next month.

Customers will have to wait the longest for bikes and exercise equipment, which won't be back in stores until the end of July.

Retail director at Kmart John Gualtieri said demand has slowed for many products during coronavirus lockdown, which resulted in a pause in shipments from foreign companies.

'Some of the countries where we manufacture our physical products were also put into lockdown at this time, putting production of some of our goods on hold for a period of time,' he said.

Mr Gualtieri said his team are working 'fast' to restock stores.

When stock will be replenished - Home Office  mid July - Furniture & Accessories  mid to end of July - Kitchen & Dining  mid July - Nursery  end of June - Bikes & Exercise Equipment  end of July Advertisement

Kmart, Target and Big W all struggled to replenish home improvement products and kitchenware after COVID-19 lockdowns prompted sales to plummet as consumers were forced to stay at home.

Household items including cake tins, blenders, candles and chopping blocks have been sold out in major Sydney stores in Chatswood, Bondi Junction and Pagewood.

Retail bosses said the lag in restocking shelves is due to the low-cost items being mass produced in China - which is ground zero of the global pandemic.

Commsec chief economist Craig James told 9 News the shortage is a byproduct of Australia's dependency on foreign imports.

'Australia is one of the most dependent countries in the world on China. Something like 38 per cent of exports go to China and something like a third of our imports come from China,' he said.

The supply chain fell into disarray as workers went into lockdown, worsened by the run on goods with Australian restaurants closed during the pandemic.

'China is one of the biggest manufacturers of that type of product, particularly for discount department stores,' QUT Business School's Associate Professor Gary Mortimer told 9 News.

The shelves of Kmart will be empty for up to two months after the shelves were stripped bare during the coronavirus pandemic (pictured in late May)

'That's one of the drawbacks from sourcing overseas - if there's a stoppage overseas you start to have a significant impact on your supply product.'

Angry customers vented their frustrations on social media.

'Stop buying from China and make our own here in Australia,' one man suggested.

'Everyone wants to buy Australian until they see the cheaper Chinese product sitting next to it,' another Twitter user pointed out.

'Should we panic buy?' someone else asked.
UAE carrier Etihad Airways sent its second flight to Israel in less than a month Tuesday, carrying medical aid to help the Palestinians tackle the coronavirus pandemic, witnesses and officials said. Jordan and Egypt aside, Arab countries have no official diplomatic ties with Israel, but Gulf Arab nations have had ever more publicly warm ties with Israel of late, partly over shared rivalry with Iran. In mid-May, the United Arab Emirates flew its first publicly announced flight to Israel, also an Etihad flight carrying coronavirus aid for the Palestinians. But Tuesday's aircraft bore for the first time the logo of the Arab carrier, a source with knowledge of the flight told AFP. It is "the first time that a plane carrying Etihad's marking is landing in Israel", the source said. Israel's foreign affairs ministry confirmed that Tuesday's flight was the second one to Israel from the UAE. "It is the second direct flight from the UAE and it has medical aid for the Palestinians," the ministry said. The aid "will be given to the UN to distribute," it said. Palestinian premier Mohammed Shtayyeh said the Palestinians had not been informed about the flight. "The Emirati plane took us by surprise, we didn't know about it," he told foreign journalists at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. He voiced appreciation for the aid, but said the delivery should have been coordinated. "When China decides to help us, they coordinate with us, when any country in the world is extending its assistance, they tell us," he told foreign journalists in Ramallah. In another sign of warming ties between Israel and Gulf Arab nations, the Jewish state Tuesday congratulated the UAE on its bid to launch the first Arab space probe. That and the latest flight came as Israel prepares to potentially move forward in July with annexing its West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley. A peace plan announced by US President Donald Trump in January gave the green light for such annexations as well as creating a reduced Palestinian state, crucially lacking a capital in east Jerusalem. The Palestinians have rejected the proposals and Shtayyeh said Tuesday the Palestinians had submitted a counter-proposal to the Quartet mediating in the conflict, namely the United Nations, United States, Russia and the European Union. Analysts say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes Arab states normalising with Israel will push the Palestinians to reach a peace deal, not the other way around. A cargo plane operated by Etihad Airways carrying medical aid to help Palestinians cope with the coronavirus pandemic prepares to land at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on June 9, 2020
Iran to Execute Alleged CIA Spy Involved in Killing of Ex-Quds Commander Soleimani

Sputnik News

Oleg Burunov. Sputnik International

07:36 GMT 09.06.2020(updated 08:20 GMT 09.06.2020)

On 3 January, a US drone strike, authorised by President Donald Trump, killed Qasem Soleimani and Shia militia commander Abu Mahdi Muhandis who both were in a car at the Baghdad International Airport.

Iran's judiciary spokesman has announced that a citizen of the Islamic Republic, who allegedly provided the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with information about the whereabouts of the late top Iranian general, will be executed.

"Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, one of the spies for CIA and [the Israeli intelligence service] Mossad has been sentenced to death. He gave the whereabouts of martyr [Qasem] Soleimani to our enemies", Gholamhossein Esmaili told a televised news conference on Tuesday.

The statement comes after the magazine Newsweek quoted several unnamed sources as saying in late March that only a few people were in the know about the killing of Soleimani by a US MQ-9 Reaper drone in Iraq earlier this year.

According to the sources, Soleimani's assassination was carried out in such secrecy that even the US military's own spy satellites, the so-called "national technical means" (NTM), did not know about the drone's position.

One of the sources claimed that there was "no GPS track on the MQ-9 Reaper as it made its way toward Baghdad International Airport, nor was there any indication of its flight provided to radar systems tasked with identifying friendly aircraft".

On 3 January, Soleimani, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' Quds Force, was killed at the Baghdad International Airport in a US drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump.

Soleimani's assassination led to a major escalation of tensions between Tehran and Washington, with Iran officially responding by launching airstrikes against two Iraqi military bases housing US troops.

The strikes caused no deaths or serious injuries, but the Pentagon has since reported that at least 109 US servicemembers have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.

US-Iranian tensions have been in place since Trump announced Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also reinstating harsh economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic on 8 May 2018. Exactly a year later, Tehran declared that it had started suspending some of its JCPOA obligations.

A Sputnik

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Party MP and Assam Congress Chief Ripun Bora on Tuesday wrote a letter union minister Dharmendra Pradhan asking him for 'immediate intervention by Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry by deploying of expert team to control the situation at Baghjan in Assam's Tinsukia district arising due to leakage of gas at Baghjan Oil Well under Oil India Ltd'. "It is to be mentioned that this leakage is going on nonstop for last 14 days creating panic and danger to the life and property of the people living surrounding of the area.

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TUNIS - So far some 22 corpes have bene found at sea near Kraten off Tunisia's Kerkennah islands after a boat capsized that had been carrying about 53 migrants of reportedly sub-Saharan origins.



The boat had departed from Sfax over the night between June 4 and 5 in the direction of the Italian coast. Sfax courts official spokesman Mourad Turki said that an investigation would be conducted into the incident and that the Tunisian authorities were continuing to search for survivors, including with the use of diving units. Romdhane Ben Amor from the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) said in a statement that the number of dead was certainly higher but that the exact number of those trying to cross is not yet known. He added that the FTDES was against attributing the origins of people solely on the basis of the color of their skin since there are Tunisians with black skin as well.



The statement lashed out at European Union migration policies and asked the Tunisian authorities to treat the victims' bodies with respect by providing them with a decent burial and taking DNA samples in order to insert them into a database accessible to families searching for their loved ones. In May, the Tunisian coast guard blocked 1,243 people who had been prepared to leave the country on clandestine boats for Europe, Ben Amor said, 68% of whom of sub-Saharan origin and 32% Tunisians. This is the highest number since 2011-2012, he said, and more people will die soon unless European migration policies change.
Russian authorities have arrested three managers at a thermal power plant that leaked tons of fuel into the fragile Arctic environment.

The disaster occurred on May 29, when a holding tank at the facility near the industrial city of Norilsk spilled at least 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into the soil, two rivers, and a downstream lake.

Russias Investigative Committee said on June 10 that the head of the power station, Pavel Smirnov, and two top engineers were arrested on suspicion of violating environmental protection rules.

The committee said it had established that the fuel-storage tank needed repairs in 2018 but continued to function in violation of safety regulations.

"As a result the accident occurred," the investigators' statement said.

Another manager at the plant was arrested and charged earlier this month.

The power plant is owned by a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, the world's leading nickel and palladium producer, which said the leak was caused when pillars supporting a storage tank sank due to thawing permafrost soil.

The Prosecutor-General's Office has also issued preliminary findings revealing that sagging ground helped trigger the disaster.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a state of emergency after the extent of the spill became known and Norilsk Nickel has since promised to pay for the costs of the cleanup, estimated at 10 billion rubles ($145 million).

Norilsk Nickel is own by Russias richest man, Vladimir Potanin. The company denies allegations that management hushed up and downplayed the scale of the disaster for at least two days after the accident.

On June 9, the company said that the fuel-storage tank was repaired in 2017 and 2018 after which it went through a safety audit.

Those detained "are cooperating with law enforcement authorities and now they would be much more useful at the scene of the cleanup operation," the press service said in a statement to RIA Novosti news agency, citing Vice President Nikolai Utkin.

Regional officials say oil booms and other cleanup operations have failed to prevent all the spilled fuel and chemicals from flowing from the Daldykan and Ambarnaya rivers into Lake Pyasino.

Separately, the Emergency Situations Ministry said on June 10 that 14 countries, including the United States, have provided satellite data on the spill to aid in the response.

The ecological disaster came as temperatures in Siberia were up to 10 degrees Celsius above average in May and were also higher than normal earlier in the year, leading to thawing permafrost.

Sixty five percent of Russia is covered by permafrost. Norilsk, an isolated Arctic city, is constructed on permafrost and its infrastructure is threatened by climate change.

With reporting by AFP, AP, Interfax, Reuters, and TASS
(Natural News) Facemasks, gloves and other personal protective equipment (PPE) used to fight the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) are adding to the garbage in the worlds oceans.

Operation Mer Propre (Operation Clean Sea), a French nonprofit group that regularly picks up litter along the Cote dAzur, sounded the alarm late last month after their divers found discarded gloves, masks and empty hand sanitizer bottles in the Mediterranean.

The quantities of masks and gloves that they found were far from enormous. However, the organizations Joffrey Peltier worries that the discovery hinted at a new kind of pollution that could become ubiquitous after millions of people around the world turned to these single-use plastic items to fight the coronavirus.

Its the promise of pollution to come if nothing is done, said Peltier.

Disposed PPEs are an ecological timebomb

In an effort to stall the viruss spread, health authorities around the world have begun stocking up on masks and other forms of PPE. France, for one, recently ordered 2 billion disposable masks. The disposable nature of this equipment, combined with the fact that most are not biodegradable, has caused some to warn that their improper disposal could lead to an increase in marine pollution.

Knowing that  soon well run the risk of having more masks than jellyfish in the Mediterranean, wrote Operation Mer Propres Laurent Lombard about the French order for more masks.

In a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, politician Eric Pauget warned that the disposable masks were an ecological timebomb, referring to their 450-year lifespan. In his letter, Pauget called on the French president to do more to address the environmental consequences of the PPEs. He pointed out that these masks often contain plastics such as polypropylene.

Operation Mer Propres cleanup drive along the Cote dAzur wasnt the first time that disposable masks had been found cluttering the ocean. Earlier this year, the Hong Kong-based OceansAsia voiced similar concerns after dozens of disposable masks were found in a survey of marine debris in the citys uninhabited Soko Island.

On a beach about 100 meters long, we found about 70, said OceansAsias Gary Stokes. And thats on an uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere.

Curious as to the extent of the problem, Stokes began checking other nearby beaches where he also found more discarded masks.

Were finding them everywhere, he said. Ever since society started wearing masks, the cause and effects are being seen on the beaches.

While some of the debris could be attributed to carelessness, Stokes theorized that some of the lightweight masks were also being carried out from boats, as well as from landfills, by the wind.

Increase in use of single-use PPEs contribute to increased pollution

Disposing of the masks and other PPE on land doesnt necessarily mean they wont end up in the sea. Talking to EuroNews, experts from British environmental nonprofit City to Sea confirmed that land-based activity accounts for 80 percent of ocean pollution.

What makes the PPEs used during the pandemic have such an impact is the fact that, in medical settings, most of these are single-use. Theyre thrown away almost immediately after theyre used where theres a chance theyll end up clogging waterways before finding their way to the ocean and harming marine life.

The pandemic has heightened this risk as more people turn to these PPEs to protect themselves against the coronavirus. In a recent survey, City to Sea found that 36 percent of Britons felt pushed into using more single-use plastics at the moment. However, this survey also shows that 70 percent of people havent changed their feelings about plastic pollution, despite the increased amount of single-use plastics being used as protective gear due to the pandemic.

Whilst public safety must remain our priority, it doesnt have to come at the cost of our planet, says City to Sea founder Natalie Fee. Our survey shows that one-third of consumers feel pressured into using  not choosing  single-use and we feel our governments should be advocating and funding a more sustainable recovery.

Fee then pointed out that the World Health Organization still promotes good hygiene and hand-washing as the best option to protect against the coronavirus and that reusable masks, which can be made at home and washed after use, offer a more sustainable solution.

Sources include:

EcoWatch.com

France24.com

EricPauget.fr

TheGuardian.com

EuroNews.com
Chinese FM Calls on UK to Respect Country's Right to Protect State Security in Hong Kong

Sputnik News

07:13 GMT 09.06.2020

BEIJING (Sputnik) - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a phone call with his UK counterpart has expressed hope that London will not meddle in Hong Kong's affairs amid a national security legislation debate, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

"Hong Kong is exclusively concerned with China's domestic policy and is not subject to outside interference," Wang said in his call with Dominic Raab, as quoted by the ministry.

The UK, a permanent UN Security Council member, should lead the way in respecting principles of international relations and non-interference in internal affairs of other countries, the minister added.

Wang went on to note that Beijing has never interfered in the internal affairs of the UK.

"In the same way, the Chinese side hopes the UK to respect the constitution of the People's Republic of China and respect the legitimate right of China to protect state security on its territory," Wang said.

The minister argued that the national security legislation is necessary to bring to account a small number of radical supporters of Hong Kong's independence and terrorists who pose a threat to national security. The call took place on Monday.

In May, the UK said that it sees the Chinese legislature's intention to develop a national security law for Hong Kong as a violation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the city's high degree of autonomy.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has since pledged to allow an eased path to immigration and UK citizenship for Hong Kongers holding British National Overseas passports if the central government imposes the legislation on the city.

The bill at the same time would ensure the rights and freedoms of Hong Kongers and let foreigners live peacefully in the autonomy, Wang stated.

A Sputnik

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A $1.70 jar of pasta sauce has been crowned the best on the market after Australian shoppers voted for their favourite brands of 2020.

Consumer review website Canstar Blue rounded up the top eight pasta sauce brands including Dolmio, Leggo's, Barilla, Aldi's Remano, Woolworths and Coles.

More than 1,600 shoppers surveyed in the inaugural review were asked to rate the pre-made pasta sauces based on taste, consistency, variety, packaging design, value for money and overall satisfaction.

Dolmio and Raguletto both took out first place as the best pasta sauce brands after dominating the ratings with five stars for overall customer satisfaction.

Consumer review website Canstar Blue rounded up the top eight pasta sauce brands including Dolmio, Leggo's, Barilla, Aldi's Remano, Woolworths and Coles

Best pasta sauce brand of 2020 1. Dolmio ($3.29) / Raguletto ($1.70) 3. Leggo's ($3) 4. Aldi's Remano ($1.69) 5. Barilla ($3.75) 6. Woolworths ($2) 7. Coles ($3) 8. Latina Fresh ($6) Advertisement

Bringing authentic Italian flavours to the tables of families everywhere, Dolmio scored a stellar five-star rating for taste, consistency, variety and packaging design but received four stars for value for money.

A Dolmio pasta sauce, made from an average of 60 per cent of Australian ingredients, cost from $3.29 for a 500g jar.

Made on home soil in Echuca, Victoria, Raguletto scored five stars for taste, consistency, packaging design and value for money but landed on four stars for variety.

Prices for a 500g jar of Raguletto pasta sauce start from just $1.70.

Australian made brand Leggo's came third, scoring a five-star rating for consistency and four stars in taste, variety, packaging design, value for money and overall satisfaction.

A 500g jar of Leggo's pasta sauce cost from $3.

Remano, which is one of Aldi's exclusive brands, scored a five-star rating for value for money and four stars for taste, consistency, packaging design and overall satisfaction - but fell short in variety with three stars.

Prices for Remano pasta sauce start from as little as $1.69 for a 500g jar.

Dolmio and Raguletto both took out first place as the best pasta sauce brands after dominating the ratings with five stars for overall customer satisfaction

Leggo's came third, scoring five stars for consistency, followed by Aldi's Remano and Barilla

Italian family-owned food brand Barilla scored four stars for taste, consistency, variety, packaging design and overall satisfaction but received three stars for value for money.

A 500g jar of Barilla pasta sauce is retailed from $3.75.

Supermarket-owned label Woolworths scored five stars for value for money and four stars for taste, consistency and overall satisfaction. It received three stars on variety and packaging design.

Prices for Woolworths Essentials pasta sauce start from $2 for a 700g jar.

Supermarket-owned label Woolworths scored five stars for value for money while Coles' own brand of pasta sauce received three stars for taste

Latina Fresh scored four stars for taste and consistency

Coles' own brand of pasta sauce received three stars for taste, consistency, variety, value for money, packaging design and overall satisfaction.

A 415g jar of Coles pasta sauce is retailed from $3.

Known for its chilly ready meals, Latina Fresh scored four stars for taste and consistency but landed on three stars for variety, packaging design, value for money and overall satisfaction.

A 425g tub of Latina Fresh pasta sauce can set you back $6.
Hundreds of members of the Shippensburg community gathered Tuesday afternoon at the gazebo on King Street to protest the death of George Floyd.

Shippensburg Mayor Kathy Coy provided a brief welcome. Then Melissa Mankamyer, pastor and director of The Harbor of Shippensburg, led the group in prayer. Event organizers then led the crowd in a moment of silence.

Kneeling together side-by-side the crowd remained silent for eight minutes and 46 minutes  the same amount of time an officer knelt on George Floyds neck.

Between speakers, protesters lined King Street behind barricades, holding homemade signs and chanting black lives matter, no justice, no peace," "prosecute the police, and the names of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

A woman makes her own sign to hold during Tuesday's protest in Shippensburg.

Members of the Shippensburg Borough Police Department, including Chief Meredith Dominick, attended the protest. Citizens of all ages and races stood together demanding justice.

Drivers honked their car horns in support as they passed.

James Kiama took the microphone, talking about his own experiences as an immigrant. Kiama immigrated to the United States from Kenya in 2004. A Shippensburg Area High School graduate, Kiama centered his speech around perspective and how we got to this point.

Growing up, my parents taught me to fear law enforcement, he said. Its instinctive because we have to go back generationally and see where it all started. Without racism, we would not be as strong a country as we are and as weak a country as we are."

Shippensburg Borough Police were present throughout the peaceful protest.

He said people in todays society do not take the time to see others perspectives.

Its like America is a grown man who was never potty-trained, Kiama said. We tell each other all men are created equal, but in the same breath we hold a black person as three-fifth a person.

Kiama emphasized that the community must know its police and the police must know their community.

A lot of the time, when we get pulled over, police officers dont see us as a kid who grew up in Shippensburg. Oh, he must be from out of town. But I went to high school here. I went to middle school here, Kiama said.

We should not teach fear anymore, Kiama said. Teach understanding.

After Kiamas speech, the crowd marched with signs down the sidewalks of King Street to a banner where they could write their hopes for the community.

Members of the Shippensburg community line King Street Tuesday afternoon during a protest against police brutality.

Stephanie Jirard, Shippensburg University Title IX coordinator and chief equity, inclusion and compliance officer, spoke on behalf of the university, offering support for the movement.

Jirard, who previously served as a criminal justice professor, said her students are good, honorable, decent people.

When things go wrong in society, we have to be self-reflective. We have to look at each other and ourselves, Jirard said.

Jirard invited the community to come to SUs campus and meet the students, administrators, faculty and staff.

Rev. Diane Jefferson, who also serves as the SU director of multicultural student affairs, closed the event with singing and reflections.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes, Jefferson sang.

Members of the Shippensburg community line King Street Tuesday afternoon during a protest against police brutality.

Jefferson said she feels as if she is reliving the 1960s and early 70s, watching those with signs and banners marching for justice.

If you believe that all lives matter, you have got to believe that black lives matter, Jefferson said. You cannot celebrate one without the other.

She encouraged everyone to commit to the fight for justice.

[Change] may not come in a second, it may not come in an hour, it may not come in a day, it may not come in a week, it may not come in a month, it may not even come in a year, Jefferson said. But you who are holding up that banner, who marched down that street and did something that Shippensburg probably aint ever seen, who dared to be different.

Following the closure of Jeffersons speech, protesters returned to the sidewalks holding up signs, talking and dancing with one another. Various members of the community handed out cold waters and candy during the hot, four-hour-long protest.

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He was born and raised in the north of England and found fame in 2018 when he was cast as the fashion expert on Netflix's reboot Queer Eye.

And on Tuesday, designer and media personality Tan France announced via Instagram that he has become a U.S. citizen.

'For me, this is monumental. Its something Ive been working towards for literally 20 years, which makes this all the more emotional,' he wrote in the caption alongside a series of photos from his socially-distanced citizenship ceremony.

'Monumental': Queer Eye's fashion expert Tan France announced via Instagram on Tuesday that he has become a U.S. citizen

He went on: 'And now, I will exercise my constitutional right as an American. Today, I will register to vote, and vote for the change I wish to see in OUR nation.'

In the photos, France, 37, is seen taking the oath with his right hand raised and posing with his husband, Rob France.

The couple live in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Took the oath: British-born France, 37, posted several photos to Instagram from his socially-distanced citizenship ceremony where he swore allegiance to his new country

New citizen: France was joined by his husband, Rob France, with whom he lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. He vowed to register to vote and vote for change

The fifth season of Queer Eye dropped on Netflix last Friday and is set mostly in Philadelphia.

The streaming giant has renewed the reality show for a sixth season.

Meanwhile, his new Netflix show Next In Fashion, which debuted in January and was co-hosted by Alexa Chung, has been cancelled after just one season.

reality TV star: The designer found fame in 2018 when he was cast as the fashion expert on Netflix's reboot Queer Eye
Wildlife activists on Wednesday welcomed China's decision to remove pangolin parts from its official list of traditional medicines, as Beijing steps up protection of the heavily-trafficked endangered mammal. Chinese state media reported Tuesday that pangolins were left out of the official Chinese Pharmacopoeia this year, days after the government increased legal protections for the animals to the same level enjoyed by giant pandas. While international trade in the pangolin is illegal, the animal's body parts have frequently been sold at high prices on the black market as they are commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine, though scientists say they have no therapeutic value. The move "may not stop the black market, but it gives a legal foundation that should slow trade and discourage legal consumers," Maria Diekmann, founder of the Namibia-based Rare and Endangered Species Trust, told AFP. Diekmann said that while conservationists had been pushing for China to remove the pangolin's medicinal status for years, the COVID-19 pandemic was likely the factor behind "99 percent of the decision." The animal, which lives in Africa and Asia, is thought by some scientists to be the possible host of the novel coronavirus that emerged at a market in China's Wuhan city last year. "Depleted wild resources" are being withdrawn from the Pharmacopoeia, the state-owned Health Times reported Tuesday, although the exact reason for the removal of pangolins was not given. Richard Thomas from animal rights NGO Traffic said it was still unclear if the pangolin's removal from the main text of the Pharmacopoeia would mean no formulations containing the animal's parts would remain in the annex of the text. But "if the removal is confirmed, it could lead to a reduction in demand for pangolin scales," Thomas told AFP. "Ultimately it is demand that fuels trade and if there is a real, sustained drop in demand, this can only be beneficial for pangolins." China has in recent months banned the sale of wild animals for food, citing the risk of diseases spreading to humans, but the trade remains legal for other purposes -- including research and traditional medicine. tjx /lth/mtp A rescued pangolin in Uganda. International trade in pangolins is illegal but its body parts have been sold on the black market for use in traditional Chinese medicine, though scientists say they have no therapeutic value
10.06.2020 LISTEN

NATIONAL Democratic Congress Member of Parliament for (MP) for Pru East Constituency of the Bono East Region Dr. Kwabena Donkor is in fresh trouble as a pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) pressure group, Action Patriots for Justice (APJ) has led a crusade to unseat him in the 2020 general elections.

According to the group, the constituency under the incumbent MP has greeted with poor social and infrastructure development projects and programs in the area.

When the electorates are certain that, it is business as usual when the constituents feel abandoned, neglected and are left to wallow in abject poverty when the MP doesnt care about anything and does not intend helping anyone, the option of voting against such MP becomes inevitable and nothing can change the minds of the people, the group noted in a press statement today.

The statement said that That is exactly the situation at Yeji in the PRU east constituency, under the incumbent MP, Dr. Kwabena Donkor of the NDC, crying all over the place, to be voted for, for the third time, yet his defeat has already been packaged to be given to him on 7th December 2020.

According to the statement signed and issued by the leadership of the APJ in the persons of Mr. Kwadwo Owusu and Kwain Isaac, although Yeji has been a stronghold of the NDC, the area is far behind, in terms of development and it is worse under Dr. Kwabena Donkor.

The statement pointed out that Dr. Kwabena Donkor, who is part of the agenda 2024 against JM, was incompetent in government as power minister, under whose leadership the famous DUMSOR crippled this country so bad that, he willingly resigned to save his face, when he got to know that, his boss, former President John Dramani Mahama was going to sack him, for his abysmal performance.

The statement said Dr. Kwabena Donkors insensitivity and underperformance as MP is not secret in Yeji. A man who openly displays his tribalistic nature and more so does not want to have anything doing with Muslims and Zongo people.

His excellency, President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo did not make a mistake and must be commended for his perfect choice of District Chief Executive(DCE) for Pru East, Hon. Joshua Abonkra, who has ever since, after his appointment, brought hope to the people of Yeji, the statement said.

The statement noted that the DCE has been tried, tested, and proven to be a suitable candidate to replace the tribalistic, incompetent, Dr. do little, Kwabena Donkor.

The statement indicated that Hon. Joshua Abonkra is selfless and a competent- workaholic, which shows itself in action with traces all over the constituency.

Action Patriots for Justice (APJ) is by this press release, calling on the National, Bono east regional executives, and the good people of Yeji to rally behind this indefatigable young man(Hon Joshua Abonkra) to win the Yeji seat, for the first time for the NPP, and, retire Dr. Kwabena Donkor from politics, the statement concluded.

Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com
Mississippi is now seeing how legislation can swing open the door for rural broadband expansion.In January 2019, former Gov. Phil Bryant signed the Mississippi Broadband Enabling Act, removing a 1942 regulation that prevented electric cooperatives from offering anything other than electricity to their members.Since the bill was approved, nine of Mississippis 25 electric co-ops are in the process of building fiber to the home in their coverage areas, said Brandon Presley, northern district commissioner of the Mississippi Public Service Commission. Another three co-ops are in the planning stage, and six more have expressed interest in moving forward if the Mississippi Legislature allocates money for high-speed Internet service from the $1.25 billion the state received through the federal coronavirus relief package.In other words, a total of 18 co-ops could soon offer broadband in the state. Under this scenario, the vast majority of Mississippis acreage would have fiber, Presley said. For perspective, of all states, Mississippi ranked 49th in broadband coverage in 2018, according to data from BroadbandNow.No one thought the ball could roll this quickly. Presley calls it a broadband revolution.There were press reports after the governor signed the bill that there wouldnt be anyone for years deciding to do it, Presley said. It exceeds my wildest expectations. We had hoped we would have a couple step out there and then have a snowball effect.Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation President Michael McCormick, whose organization advocated for the 2019 legislation, said farmers and ranchers in all 82 counties of Mississippi cite lack of connectivity as a top concern. Moreover, in the wake of COVID-19, things such as telemedicine and distance learning have become significantly important in rural areas of the state. As such, McCormick fears that a mass exodus could occur in rural Mississippi if broadband isnt addressed.Were afraid its going to drive people to where that connectivity exists, McCormick said. Ive talked to some real estate guys, and they tell me five or 10 years ago they would never have someone ask if high-speed Internet is available on a property. Now almost everyone asks the question.In some rural parts of Mississippi, satellite Internet is an option, though McCormick believes the majority of people cant afford it. Keith Hayward, manager of North East Mississippi Electric Power Association (NEMEPA), said some residents in the state get all of their connectivity from cellular plans, which can lead to bills that easily exceed $300.One ladys bill was $600 a month for a data plan, Hayward recalled. Thats whats going on out in rural America.Another problem is that incumbent providers often provide lackluster connectivity in rural parts of the state, if at all. Presley cited the recent revelation that AT&T had been, by mistake, providing inaccurate broadband coverage data to the Federal Communications Commission for 3,600 census blocks in 20 states. Of those blocks, 184 were in Mississippi.With such limitations in Mississippi, the movement among electric co-ops to provide quality, affordable broadband service to Mississippians might look like merely a function of necessity. But its more than that. The current trend echoes the origin of co-ops.The idea to electrify rural America through cooperatives was born in Mississippi, Presley explained. In 1934, Alcorn County Electric Power Association became the first rural electric co-op in the nation.As such, Presley advises any state to consider electric co-ops as the primary vehicle for rural connectivity, as the model doesnt put profits over people.Haywards organization represents one of the nine co-ops that are building fiber today in Mississippi. In fact, NEMEPA plans to have high-speed Internet turned on for its first customers later this month.NEMEPA will build 1,500 total miles of fiber over three and a half years for $48 million, Hayward said. The time and cost could decrease based on whether NEMEPA gets any government funding. The co-op needs a 30 to 35 percent take rate to be successful. This goal looks feasible. NEMEPA provides electricity to 27,000 locations, and about 6,000 of its members have already preregistered for the broadband service.The most impressive part of the plan? The base broadband service will provide a symmetrical download/upload speed of 100 Mbps for $54.95. To say the least, that sort of deal is unusual in rural Mississippi.Still, Hayward admitted offering broadband as an electric co-op is a scary proposition. A co-op must be aware that a business can come over the top on you.Hayward also noted that the nine co-ops building fiber in Mississippi now are concentrated in the northern section of the state. Some co-ops have been hesitant to move as quickly due to stipulations in the 2019 legislation.By law, an electric co-op in Mississippi must offer broadband to all of its members, regardless of whether every member ultimately chooses to purchase the service. This means that building costs can look more intimidating when it comes to locations in very isolated areas.Furthermore, the law doesnt allow for a co-op to establish a simple broadband division within the existing organization. Instead, the law allows a co-op to establish, acquire and wholly or partially own one or more broadband affiliates.To use Haywards co-op as an example, NEMEPA cant provide high-speed Internet directly to customers. It had to create another organization, North East Fiber, to fulfill the obligations in the law. While Hayward sees this type of model as an obstacle for some, he said this part of the law was a necessary compromise for legislators.When it came to convincing the Mississippi Legislature to address the issue, Presley said an important aspect was the grassroots nature of the states push for broadband expansion. Presley organized a task force in the 33 counties he represents. The task forces, which amounted to 1,310 people, set up meetings in settings like town halls, courthouses, community centers and volunteer fire departments.They wrote emails, Presley said. They called legislators. They invited legislators to these meetings.Even though COVID-19 has made access to high-speed Internet more essential than ever, Hayward said not everyone in rural Mississippi fully realizes that they want the service. However, he believes eyes will be opened as they were many decades ago, when the countrys first electric co-ops came to life in the state.Think about when we took electricity to them, Hayward said. All they wanted was a light bulb at first.Hayward then paused before remembering a humorous modern parallel from his personal life.My dad never wanted a cellphone, but before he passed away, his cellphone bill was $400 a month, he said.Government TechnologyGoverning
By Rami Ayyub

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Germany's foreign minister on Wednesday expressed serious concern to Israel about its plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, but he stopped short of threatening sanctions.

Minister Heiko Maas was speaking on a visit to Israel one month before Berlin assumes the European Union presidency, a role which gives it great influence in guiding EU policy.

Israel's new unity government next month intends to begin discussing extending sovereignty to its settlements in occupied land that Palestinians claim for an envisaged independent state.

The plan has been criticised by Arab and European powers as likely to finish off long-moribund efforts to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel says annexation would be in keeping with a unilateral plan announced by U.S. President Donald Trump in January.

"I repeated here today the German position as well as our serious concerns as a special friend of Israel of the possible consequences of such a step," Maas told reporters alongside his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi.

Maas later met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told him that any "realistic plan must recognise the reality of Israeli settlement in the territory and not foster the illusion of uprooting people from their homes", according to a statement from Netanyahu's office.

It made no direct mention of annexation. But it said Netanyahu spoke of ensuring Israel's "vital interests", such as maintaining "full security control" over the West Bank.

Maas planned to travel from Israel to Amman later for separate talks with Jordanian officials and Palestinian leaders.

INTERNATIONAL LAW

Last September, Germany was one of five European nations to say annexation would constitute a serious breach of international law. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in February that such a move would not go unchallenged.

Asked on Wednesday about possible EU sanctions against Israel, Maas said: "I did not set any price tags."

Story continues

Israeli-Palestinian talks aimed at agreeing on a two-state solution broke down in 2014. Palestinian leaders have boycotted the Trump administration over its perceived bias towards Israel.

Washington's proposal envisages a Palestinian state in up to 70% of the West Bank, but with overall Israeli security control. Palestinians say that would leave them with an unviable country.

Defence Minister Benny Gantz called for "a broad international dialogue" on the U.S. proposal after his talks with Maas.

Gantz and Ashkenazi belong to the centrist Blue and White party, which joined Netanyahu's conservative Likud in a coalition in May. Some Blue and White ministers have expressed misgivings about unilateral annexation.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Wednesday called on countries to form an international front to isolate what he called "the Israeli colonial system".

Speaking to a virtual meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, he urged countries to boycott Israel, ban its products, and impose economic and political sanctions.

Most countries view settlements that Israel built on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war as illegal. Israel disputes this.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr and Jeffrey Heller, Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
New Delhi, June 10 : O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) has been ranked as India's top private university by the QS World University Rankings 2021.

A total of 21 universities from India are in the top 1,000 in the world in these rankings released on Wednesday, compared to 24 universities last year.

Three institutes - Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), Indian Institute of Science (IISC) in Bengaluru and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) - made it to top 200 institutes in the world this year.

With a jump of a possible 100 ranks to the 651-700 band this year from the 751-800 band last year, JGU is the only "Institution of Eminence" (IOE) that has climbed up significantly in the QS World University Rankings 2021 compared to the rankings last year.

"It is an incredibly proud moment for me to see JGU leading the charge in fostering academic excellence in India and the world," Chancellor of JGU, Naveen Jindal, said in a statement.

Out of the 20 IOEs selected by the Indian government, only 13 found a place in the QS World University Rankings 2021.

These include four IITs, IISc, Delhi University, Anna University, University of Hyderabad, MAHE (Manipal Academy of Higher Education), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, BHU (Banaras Hindu University), Jadavpur University and O.P. Jindal Global University.

This year, JGU is the youngest and the highest performing IOE compared to previous year's Qs World University Rankings 2020.

"Being a decade-old, private, non-STEM, non-Medicine University, we are elated to have broken all stereotypes of what it takes to become a world-class university," said C. Raj Kumar, Founding Vice-Chancellor of JGU.

"Our constant endeavour will be to further strengthen our teaching, learning outcomes, international collaborations and quality." Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank will be the Chief Guest at a virtual event for unveiling and the presentation of QS World University Rankings 2021 certificates to ranked Indian institutions on Wednesday.

The Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Professor D.P. Singh, and the Chairman of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), Professor V.S. Chauhan will also attend the event.
The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) is expected to provide a host of opportunities to Vietnamese enterprises to bolster their exports, but they must also meet strict requirements in order to fully capitalise on the deal, insiders have said.

A garment factory in My Hao district of Hung Yen province

Vu Duc Giang, Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), said the National Assemblys ratification of the EVFTA on June 8 is good news for the sector, which has suffered from COVID-19 in recent times, as businesses will have opportunities when the agreement takes effect.

The EU is currently the worlds largest importer of textiles and garments, with 34 percent of the global total each year worth more than 250 billion USD in value. Vietnamese products account for just 2.7 percent of the EUs imports.

Giang said companies in the sector believe in the prospect of exports to the EU rising after the EVFTA comes into effect, as tariffs will be slashed to zero percent.

Textile and garment shipments to the market are forecast to increase sharply from now to 2025, by about 67 percent compared to a non-EVFTA scenario.

However, the VITAS chairman noted, businesses need to be thoroughly prepared to make use of the opportunities and have a solid grasp of the regulations within the agreement, because the EU is a demanding market with strict requirements on product quality and design.

Just one simple fault may damage all export activities, he said, explaining that a batch of goods with unclear origin or indeterminate quality may expose similar batches to stricter inspections or even an import ban.

Phi Viet Trinh, General Director of the Ho Guom Garment JSC, said that in order to benefit from the preferential tariffs under the EVFTA, products must have a certain proportion of materials hailing from the EU or Vietnam. This is a major challenge because most input materials in Vietnam are currently imported from China or other ASEAN countries.

Therefore, management agencies and businesses alike must take certain action to maximise the opportunities, he stressed.

The official added that it is necessary to promulgate policies to attract domestic and foreign investment in material production. Mechanisms in particular are needed to promote links between material suppliers and manufacturers of finished products to meet rules of origin requirements.

Of a similar mind, General Director of the Garment 10 Corporation Than Duc Viet said the EVFTA will open up numerous opportunities but Vietnam must work hard to fully benefit.

The EU is ready to import Vietnamese goods but such products must comply with rules of origin, he noted, voicing a hope that the textile and garment industry can grasp the available opportunities.

Nguyen Quoc Tuan from Vinh Thong Co. Ltd, a footwear exporter to Europe, said the companys operation has been hindered by COVID-19 since the beginning of the year but now he expects the EVFTA will boost exports over the remainder of 2020.

Nevertheless, he also acknowledged that the company will encounter a range of difficulties in adhering to the agreements rules of origin, as while 60 percent of its input materials come from domestic suppliers the remainder come from elsewhere, primarily China. Updating technology and expanding production scale are also problematic given that the companys internal resources remain modest.

Nguyen Van Khanh, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of the Shoe and Leather Association of HCM City, said local leather and footwear enterprises should try and immediately put the EVFTA into full use despite up to 85 percent of them lacking capital, technology, and materials.

It is also not easy to meet rules of origin requirements when 60 percent of materials are from China and other suppliers, he added.

Experts predict that in the short term, the EVFTA may not give a strong boost to the textile - garment and leather - footwear industries in Vietnam, but will certainly bring about long-term benefits for them in expanding their market share in the EU.

A number of enterprises have also voiced a hope that when foreign investors realise that Vietnam now has even greater potential, technology transfer and investment in material production will grow./.VNA

EuroCham welcomes ratification of EVFTA and EVIPA EuroCham welcomes the news that the National Assembly of Vietnam has ratified the European UnionVietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and approved the European UnionVietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA),
A lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been placed on leave, after students criticised his response to a request that asked for him to provide leniency to black students during final exams, amid the George Floyd protests.

Accounting lecturer, Gordon Klein, was put on leave and placed under police protection, after his emails were posted online and subsequently angered students, according to The Daily Mail.

Mr Klein has been suspended for three weeks, and his classes have been reassigned to other faculty, according to a statement by the School of Management on Tuesday.

A petition has also been set up, which has so far attracted more than 20,000 signatures, that is calling for Mr Klein to be removed from his job completely.

The incident occurred after a group of students, who described themselves as non-black allies, wrote to Mr Klein, and asked him to extend deadlines for projects, and to provide leniency to African American students, during their final exams.

They wrote that because of the trauma black students have faced in the last couple of weeks, we have been placed in a position where we must choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter, according to Inside Higher Education.

We believe that remaining neutral in times of injustice brings power to the oppressor and therefore staying silent is not an option.

They added that their request was not a joint effort to get finals cancelled for non-black students, but rather an ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with black students in our major.

Their request came amid protests in every state in the US, in opposition to police brutality against African Americans, following the death of George Floyd.

Mr Floyd died after being detained by Derek Chauvin, who at the time was a Minneapolis police officer, but has since been fired and charged with second degree murder and manslaughter.

Mr Klein replied to their letter and said that he did not think their request was fair to all of his students, and quoted civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.

Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota, his email read.

Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the colour of their skin, Mr Klein wrote. Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLKs admonition?

He added that his teaching assistant is from Minneapolis, and suggested that a white student from the city might be badly affected by Mr Floyds death.

I am thinking that a white student from there might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that theyre racist even if they are not.

In a separate email, that he sent to his entire class, Mr Klein said that he was unable to complete the request, as it did not fall within university rules.

Some students have asked that the final exam be delayed or changed or waived altogether, he wrote. Life deals all of us challenges and I have no doubt that many of you are facing some now.

Recommended Officer who put middle fingers up at protesters stripped of his powers

Mr Klein added: In a perfectly fair world, I would be able to take these individual factors into account and perhaps modify the terms in our course syllabus, but my understanding of university rules is that, with rare exceptions, I should not.

Emilia Martinez, who was not part of the group who initially wrote to Mr Klein, posted the emails online after she was shown them by a friend.

I believed this information was important to bring to light because as a non-black POC, I believe it is my duty to amplify my black peers voices, she told the Washington Free Beacon.

I felt this was a very unreasonable response to a very valid request, and decided that the professor should be held properly accountable.
Detectives are searching for a person accused of gunning down a young man over $40 early Wednesday morning outside a motel in north Harris County.

The victim, in his early 20s, was with Clara Young as the two went to meet with the would-be gunman at the North Villa Inn along the North Freeway near North Vista Drive around 3 a.m. Young said she had accidentally left $40 in a room belonging to the suspect, so the pair went to retrieve the cash.
The Aurora Australis, the principal research vessel in Australia for almost three decades, is headed to the ship-breaking beaches of south Asia, unless funds for its purchase and maintenance can be found within weeks.

Melanie Van Twest, a former archaeologist who served as a doctor during a couple of its 150 research and resupply voyages, said it faced "an untimely end" unless $1.5 million can be raised to buy the ship from owners P&O Maritime.

Headed for the ship-breaking yards? Aurora Australis will likely be broken up unless an effort to turn it into a museum succeeds. Credit:Melanie Van Twest

The Australian-designed and built icebreaker ferried about 14,000 expeditioners across the Southern Ocean, often amid severe storms.

One severe blizzard saw the ship almost sink after it broke its moorings and smashed on to rocks at Horseshoe Harbour near Australia's Mawson Station in February 2016.
Pure ethos, the ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of justice

Its been 30 years since Nelson Mandela walked out of prison towards democracy but justice still eludes the late Neil Aggett.

An anti-apartheid activist with whom Wits student leadership of the 1970s worked, Aggett paid the ultimate price. The truth about how he died is yet to prevail. This is his story - so far.

He is the tall, bearded man you may have seen staring back from grainy black and white photos and the man making headlines earlier this year because of a reopened inquest into his death in 1982.

He may seem anonymous, but what he stood for is as relevant today as ever, and particularly now, 30 years since Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

That man was Neil Aggett, a trade unionist and medical doctor who was detained for 70 days, tortured and assaulted by the apartheid states Security Branch police, and then found dead  hanged in his prison cell on 5 February 1982. He was 28 years old.

The apartheid state held an inquest into his death that year and called his death a suicidal hanging. His friends and family though never bought the suicide version of the story.

Earlier this year in February 2020, after 38 years, a team of human rights and pro bono lawyers representing Aggetts family, along with civil society activists finally managed to push the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to reopen the inquest. Those hearings took place at the Johannesburg High Court.

Some of the people who were on the witness stand for the reopened inquest have included Aggetts fellow detainees and anti-apartheid activists in the 80s. Many of them have a personal connections to Wits University, including Barbara Hogan, Auret van Heerden, Clive van Heerden, Keith Coleman, Ismael Momoniat, Maurice Smithers and Firoz Cachalia  a former student and now also law professor at the University.

I remember the occasion of their detention well, as Clive, Keith and Firoz were all students in my honours class at the time, Edward Webster, Distinguished Research Professor in the Southern Centre for inequality Studies at Wits, recalls.

Suddenly, nearly half my honours class disappeared, detained under the frightening Terrorism Act. But it was a turning point for anti-apartheid activists as it mobilised their parents, Max and Audrey Coleman as well as Firozs father, Dr Cachalia. The Colemans formed the courageous and inclusive Detainee Parents Support committee. I recall vividly a visit after Keiths detention from a visibly angry Colemans, who indicated clearly that they were behind their son and would not rest until he was released. They went on to play an active role in the struggle against detention without trial, mobilising parents across the country.

Its worth pausing to reflect on how these one-time Witsies and many other young people of that time chose to take a stand against injustice and oppression in some of the darkest days of this countrys history. It speaks to what motivates a culture of activism, of taking action and making sacrifices. The legacy of these activists also holds lessons and enduring resonance in the battles still being fought today for a fair and just society.

Former detainees who took the stand in the Johannesburg High Court in 2020 described horrendous torture, brutality and abuse at the hands of Security Branch policemen at the notorious John Vorster Square police station. Their testimony has helped reveal dirty tricks by the Security Branch police and how they tortured, assaulted and intimidated activists. They also planted evidence, bugged homes and offices, fabricated information and plotted cover-ups.

The testimony of the witnesses has also helped to shed some light on why Aggett was targeted and how he wound up dead in his cell. Ultimately, it also helps to build cases against those who still need to account to society for crimes committed during apartheid and will hopefully bring truth and closure for Aggetts family and closest friends.

Aggett himself was not a Witsie but he was part of a widespread network of activists that joined together across racial divides, different walks of life, and even different political affiliations at the time  they were united against fighting apartheid.

The group of detainees with Neil were all active also in trade unions, community-based youth, student and civic organisations and the UDF [United Democratic Front]. The student leadership at the time included people like Bhekie Malangeni, who was assassinated by the Security branch, Lawrence Boya, Tiego Moseneke, Dali Mpofu. Also, David Webster, a professor in the Anthropology Department was assassinated by the Security police, says Firoz Cachalia.

Before Aggett was detained he worked night shifts as an emergency medicine doctor at Baragwanath Hospital so he could spend his days working for what was then the Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU). He was not aligned to any political party.

Barbara Hogan, who went on to become Minister of Health and Public Enterprises, was a Wits first-year student in 1970. She testified at the reopened inquest. She said in her affidavit that she spent her early days at Wits helping to set up the offices of a black workers advice office in Johannesburg called the Industrial Aid Society. She joined the ANC in 1977 and remembers reaching out to Aggett to join the ANC. Aggett, however, turned her down. She remembered that he was sympathetic to the ANCs aims and goals but was also emphatic about not wanting to become a member, because he knew that being connected to a banned organisation, as the ANC was since 1960, would compromise his work for FCWU.

Hogan also testified that she regretted compiling a list of close comrades that included the names of Aggett and his partner Dr Liz Floyd. The list was intercepted and could have led to the Security Branch polices witch hunt against Aggett, Floyd and dozens others by 1981.

Keith Coleman, now CEO of a biotechnology firm in the UK, said in his affidavit that his political activism started when he was at school. He remembered joining his older brother, Neil Coleman at Wits on 16 June 1977, to plant crosses on the lawns at Wits in commemoration of those killed in the Soweto Uprisings the previous year. He also remembered once raiding a right-wing student association dinner where then Prime Minister John Vorster was guest of honour. Coleman was successfully chased off campus. He also edited the South African Students Press Union (SASPU) National that carried alternative news.

He wrote in his affidavit: I and many young activists were at an age where we were filled with youthful bravado and determination. But we were also realistic and understood the risks  We had an extremely powerful dynamic and loyalty and this gave us a sense that we could survive interrogation.

But it would take a devastating toll. Coleman was detained at the same time as Aggett at the notorious John Vorster Square police station. Coleman remembered the torment and ordeal Aggett underwent in those 70 days as the Security Branch policeman got increasingly frustrated that they could extract little information from him.

The inquest has torn open many old scars. For Cachalia, who also at one time held several senior posts in the Gauteng Legislature, he didnt expect to get emotional on the stand when he testified, but he was choked up. It was emotions of remembering the brutality and pain but also the loss of so many people, including Aggett, who became the 51st person to die in detention.

Read the interview with Firoz Cachalia in Daily Maverick after he gave testimony in early February 2020. Cachalia said testifying was difficult as he had never spoken about some of the atrocities that he endured to anyone. But he said it was important for the historical record and hopefully also to get to the truth after nearly four decades.

In 1982, Cachalia was 22 years old and president of the Black Student Society (BSS) at Wits University. He said the Society had adopted the Freedom Charter, but the BSS was not an ANC organisation, which was banned at the time.

We believed there were many different ways from a strategic and tactical point of view to pursue our objectives of freedom and liberation  but we were not taking direct instruction from Lusaka, he told Daily Maverick.

He also said that even though he only met Aggett once, while both were detained at John Vorster Square and just days before Aggett died, Aggett has come to be symbol of a pure ethos of what it means to take a stand and to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Aggett is a reminder of what the struggle was about and what we need right now to keep our society on track, said Cachalia.

*The reopened Aggett inquest was indefinitely postponed on 24 February due to the presiding judge falling ill. As at 10 June 2020, new court dates had yet to be set.
A federal court has come down hard on the Environmental Protection Agency for allowing farmers to continue spraying the weed killer dicamba on crops even though it was obvious the chemical was toxic to nonresistant crops. The immediate ban imposed by the court on continued dicamba spraying seems certain to deal a catastrophic blow to an agriculture industry that has grown heavily dependent on the herbicide.

This is yet another Trump administration mess that should, by now, have farmers questioning why the president deserves any continued support. President Donald Trump launched a disastrous trade war with China that destroyed their biggest export market. His bungled response to the pandemic further evaporated markets and put a stranglehold on produce-distribution networks.

The EPA did nothing to prepare farmers for a ruling that appeared almost certain from the beginning to go against dicambas continued use. The evidence was overwhelming, as the unanimous ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made clear, that the herbicide tends to evaporate under certain conditions or drift in wind and settle onto adjacent fields. The ruling quoted a study by professor Kevin Bradley of the University of Missouri, that by the end of 2017, 2,708 formal complaints of dicamba-caused damage were being investigated by state departments of agriculture. The study estimated that approximately 3.6 million acres of soybeans in 24 states were damaged by dicamba drift.

Dicambas developer, Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, and parent company Bayer have long tried to shift blame, saying farmers failed to follow instructions. Damaged crops were the result of other factors unrelated to dicamba. It always seems to be someone elses fault. But the 56-page federal court ruling left no doubt that the herbicide is to blame.

The EPAs decision in 2018 to extend approval of dicambas use for another two years substantially understated multiple risks recognized by the agency, and also entirely failed to acknowledge others, the ruling said.

Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst raised an immediate alarm, writing to EPA: Unless immediate action is taken to restore this products availability for use during the growing season now well underway, the impact will further disrupt the economy. From farmers to agricultural suppliers to the food supply chain  individuals and businesses already facing the toughest challenges of their lives  it will be widespread.

The EPA, defying the June 3 ruling, told farmers this week they could continue spraying until July 31 to use up their existing stock, but supplies purchased after June 3 may not be used.

It was EPA that set farmers up for the prospect of worse heartbreak and financial loss. Farmers would be smart to abide by the court ruling rather than place more faith in a defiant Trump administration with a history of creating far more problems than it solves for American agriculture.
Ahold Delhaize is one of the world's largest food retail groups and a leader in both supermarkets and e-Commerce. Its family of great, local brands serves 54 million customers each week in Europe, the United States, and Indonesia. Together, these brands employ 380,000 associates in 6,967 grocery and specialty stores and include the top online retailer in the Benelux and the leading online grocers in the Benelux and the United States. Ahold Delhaize brands are at the forefront of sustainable retailing, sourcing responsibly, supporting local communities and helping customers make healthier choices. Headquartered in Zaandam, the Netherlands, Ahold Delhaize is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels stock exchanges (ticker: AD) and its American Depositary Receipts are traded on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. and quoted on the OTCQX International marketplace (ticker: ADRNY). For more information, please visit www.aholddelhaize.com.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Sprinturf, in business since 1998, is the only North American company that produces all their fibers and turf, in house, and in America. GreenPlay's plant-based infill systems have the unique distinction of providing "natural grass like" play conditions with temperature, aesthetics and performance that matches natural grass.

Rom Reddy, Managing Partner, Sprinturf commented: "The synergy between Sprinturf and Greenplay will create a single source provider of next generation playing surfaces that are cool to the touch, aesthetically pleasing and fully recyclable".

Domenic Carapella, President of GreenPlay stated: "The partnership is a huge milestone to me since first introducing plant-based infills to the US over a decade ago. While GreenPlay will continue to operate independently and supply products to the entire industry, the opportunity to develop next generation systems with Sprinturf is exciting. The new generation of turf systems will provide athletes across the country with an affordable, high value turf system that plays, feels and looks like natural grass "

About Sprinturf: Sprinturf, based in Charleston, SC has been in business since 1998 with over 2500 national and international artificial turf installations. Sprinturf is the first and only turf company that has 100% American ownership, manufacturing, sales and installations. For more information, visit www.sprinturf.com

About Greenplay: Greenplay Organics, based in New York, manufactures and distributes organic turf infill for artificial turf applications. Greenplay Organics sources materials from select pesticide free crops and blends by utilizing only natural processing methods. Greenplay has over 100 installations in the US and is considered America's original organic turf infill. For more information, visit www.greenplayusa.com

Media Contact: Domenic Carapella, (516) 223-0202, [email protected].

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Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced on Wednesday that it expects to begin a phase 1/2a clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate Ad26.COV2-S, recombinant, in the second half of July. The company previously projected that the early-stage clinical study would begin in September.

In February, Johnson & Johnson established a partnership with BARDA (the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate at an accelerated pace. Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels noted that the strong preclinical data observed thus far and the company's discussions with regulatory authorities were key in allowing it to speed up the development program.

The early-stage clinical trial will be conducted in the U.S. and in Belgium. Johnson & Johnson plans to enroll 1,045 healthy adults between the ages of 18 to 55, plus adults aged 65 and over.

Johnson & Johnson is also talking with the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases about the possibility of starting a phase 3 study of its COVID-19 vaccine sooner if the early-stage studies produce positive results. The healthcare giant is ramping up manufacturing capacity for the experimental vaccine even before clinical testing is completed, with a goal of being able to supply over 1 billion doses next year if the vaccine proves safe and effective.
Oil India Limiteds (OIL) gas well blowout in Upper Assams Tinsukia district that caught fire on Tuesday afternoon will take around four weeks to be completely restored, according to OIL authorities.

On Tuesday, OIL authorities said that the well caught fire while clearing operations were being carried out at the site. No casualty has been reported. Fire tenders are at the site controlling the spread of firetherere violent protests around the well site, the statement said.

OIL has made a request to the chief secretary, Assam, and Tinsukia district administration for maintaining law and order at the site.

All OIL and Oil & Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) officials have been evacuated from nearby areas.

Experts from Singapore-based Alert Disaster Control, who are currently on a visit to the site, and OIL, ONGC employees will return to the spot after the situation is brought under control.

The situation demands the arrangement of large quantities of water, installation of high discharge pumps, and removal of debris. All the operations as per the Acute Launch Emergency Reliability Tip (ALERT) will take about four weeks, the statement added.

Baghjan, where the gas well blowout took place on May 27 and has been continuously leaking condensed oil and gas, is located adjacent to Dibru Saikhowa National Park; Maguri-Motapung wetlands and forest villages of Barekuri -- a habitat to the endangered Hoolock Gibbon.

Weve written a letter to the Assam forest department for a report on the situation. Besides, weve asked a team from the Wildlife Institute of India, which is posted there for some other projects, to make an assessment and give us a report. The cause of concern is that the gas well is still leaking, said Soumitra Dasgupta, additional director-general (wildlife), Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC).

The Chief Wildlife Warden Assam, MK Yadava, is slated to visit the spot. Were awaiting his briefing, said Sanjay Kumar, director-general (forests), MoEFCC.

Local wildlife activists said the biodiversity of the region might be lost, as condensed oil had leaked into several important sites of the landscape.

Weve seen dead birds on Wednesday morning. A flying squirrel was also found dead. On Tuesday, a Great Pied Hornbill was rescued from the blowout site. The impact on wildlife could be massive, said Rofikul Islam, a naturalist, who visits the place regularly.

At least 50-60 houses are gutted. Angry villagers are protesting against the OIL authorities. Theyve also fought with some fire control personnel. There is a massive impact on the fragile ecology of the region. The fire has unlikely to have entered Dibru Saikhowa National Park, even though its located close to the site. But the village, the grasslands that were already soaked in condensed oil from the blowout and continuous oil leak since May 27 have all caught fire. The impact on wildlife is yet to be assessed because of the raging fire. This is tragic, said Mridupaban Phukon, a Tinsukia-based student and wildlife activist,

Environmental clearances are often given on the premise that environmental damage will not happen, or if it does happen, it will be mitigated. This spill shows us how theres little ability to mitigate. The area is part of a biodiversity hotspot and is recorded range of some of Indias most restricted range and endangered birds, such as the White-winged wood duck, the Bengal Florican, and White-bellied heron. The heron is now found mostly in Bhutan, with less than 10 seen in India. These three are the kind of species that have historically been rare. Its a shame to endanger the few places left on earth for them. We can hardly quantify the damage of an oil spill for aquatic species that live underwater, said Neha Sinha, a conservation biologist.

According to a 2013 site inspection report, regarding oil and gas pipelines in Upper Assam by conservation scientists and former members of National Board for Wildlife, MD Madhusudan and Prerna Singh Bindra, the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Biosphere Reserve meet at the confluence of the Brahmaputra with three of the countrys easternmost rivers  the Siang, Dibang and Lohit.

The park shaped by these rivers is spread over 765 square kilometres (sq km), of which 340 sq km form the core and comprise wetlands, alluvial grasslands, riverine forests, swamps, and semi-evergreen forests, including the largest willow swamp forest in north-east India.

Dibru-Saikhowa has recorded over 40 mammals, 500 species of birds, 104 fish species, 105 butterfly species, and 680 types of plants. It harbours the tiger, elephant, wild buffalo, leopard, hoolock gibbon, capped langur, slow loris, Gangetic dolphin, besides critically endangered bird species such as the Bengal Florican, White Winged Duck, Greater 8 Adjutant stork, White-rumped vulture, slender-billed vulture as well as the very rare and endemic Black-breasted parrotbill.

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As promised last month, the Frankfurt Book Fair is offering regular updates for exhibitors and hosted two online video sessions Tuesday, one with publishers in Europe, Asia and Africa, and a second with publishers in North America. The slide deck from the presentations is available for all to see.

Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, confirmed much of what he has said before: that the fair would be limited to 20,000 people at any one time; that booths would, by necessity, be larger and that upgrades would be made for free.

He said the fair was continuing to revise health and safety protocols based on guidance from the German government. Boos said that it remains to be determined if the fair will require the installation of plexiglass where there will be face to face interactions and does not yet know whether or not attendees will be required to wear face masks or face shields. "Right now, you can assume that you can do anything at the fair that you could do at a bookstore in Germany right now, which includes the ability to touch, browse and buy books," said Boos.

There will be few if any on-site events, most of which will be moved online. On the fairgrounds, the focus will remain on trade booths, both for the German publishing trade and international guests. Several times during the update for North Americans, Boos emphasized that the fair would still be "a very international fair," but admitted that travel restrictions likely meant that this would mean far fewer visitor from North America.

In addition to areas for collective stands and trade booths, there will be dedicated areas for exhibitors focused on audiobooks, education, and academic publishing, as well as for libraries and librarians.

Asked how Frankfurt will handle the program for Canada, the 2020 Guest of Honor, Boos said the fair will not host the traditional Guest of Honor pavilion and "their program will be mostly be virtual."

A few more details were given as well. The Festhalle will be turned into a broadcasting center and will serve as the digital heart of the fair, a place to "connect the physical fair with digital opportunities," said Boos. He said that the fair was in discussions with several German television stations to partner on event production.

Organizers will now be giving visitors the option of signing up for "workspaces," which will offer a fairgoer a space at one of several long tables that will serve as quasi-co-working spaces for attendees who want a dedicated place to take meetings but do not want a booth. The price will be 495 euros per day for individuals.

For business-to-business attendees, Frankfurt is looking at implementing a digital rights platform, most likely powered by IPR License, as well as facilitating matchmaking, something which has been available in a limited fashion through the fair's mobile phone app for several years, as well as virtual meetings.

At present, anyone who is signed up for this year as an exhibitor has until August 15 to cancel and ask for a full refund. After that, the normal penalties will be applied.

While Boos admitted that he "can't predict the future," he said that should the situation in Europe change and the German government demand that the fair not proceed due to a second wave of Covid-19 infections, they have a plan. "We'll move entirely to a virtual fair and refund everybody," he said.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. will make history when he becomes the first African-American chief of staff in the Air Force in a couple of months, taking the reins of the service as the country faces a reckoning over race relations.

Confirmed in a 98-0 Senate vote Tuesday, Brown defied the odds in climbing the ladder to become the services top military leader, excelling as a fighter pilot, aide de camp to a chief of staff and a series of elite jobs  one of them as commandant of the Air Force Weapons School.

Hell become the 22nd Air Force chief of staff, succeeding Gen David Goldfein, who has led the Air Force four years.

C.Q. Brown isnt chief of staff because hes black, said retired Gen. Robin Rand, who served as head of the Air Education and Training Command in San Antonio and has known him for decades. C.Q. Brown is chief of staff of the United States Air Force because he is an incredible officer and leader, and thats what I want everyone to understand. He is an amazing officer, and I would follow him into hell.

Brown, 57, was born in San Antonio to a military family. His father was an Army officer. Hell serve as the senior uniformed Air Force officer responsible for the organization, training and equipping of 685,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian forces, and will advise the defense secretary and president as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Hes taking command of a branch that long has struggled to include African-Americans in its upper ranks. About 15 percent of 328,000 active-duty airmen are black, outpacing the African-American makeup in the U.S. population of 13 percent.

But only 6 percent of the Air Force officer corps was African-American in 2016, according to a diversity report by the Pentagon. Whites made up about 80 percent of the officer corps.

As a black pilot, he is a rarity in the Air Force, an issue he raised in a recent video released from his command, Pacific Air Forces, in the wake of protests that have erupted over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

In 2016, only 3,628 blacks served as officers, compared with 48,512 whites. The number of officers from major to lieutenant colonel in the years 2006-16 was about 6 percent. In 2009, Brown was one of only 12 blacks to become a one-star general.

African-Americans were a fraction of all the general officers in those years, ranging from 2.8 percent in 2006 to a high of 5.3 percent in 2012. In 2016, just 5 percent of all general officers were black.

In the Pacific Air Forces video, Brown talked about Floyds death and his own ordeals with racism during his career, and thinking about a history of racial issues and my own experiences that didnt always sing of liberty and equality.

Im thinking of my own Air Force career, when I was often the only African-American in my squadron or as a senior officer the only African-American in the room, he added. Im thinking about wearing the same flight suit with the same wings on my chest as my peers and being questioned by another military member, Are you a pilot?

Goldfein and two former top commanders didnt dwell on Browns historic rise, instead talking about his skills as an F-16 fighter pilot, his knowledge of combatant commands and weapons systems around the world  from tanks and planes to submarines and satellites  and his keen insight as a young aide to a highly revered Air Force chief of staff, now-retired Gen. Ronald Fogleman.

Brown comes from a fighter pilot background and is considered by commanders as one of the Air Forces best aviators. He has flown a wide variety of aircraft, including three versions of the F-16, and 15 other planes and helicopters. Hes logged 130 hours in combat.

Rand, who headed the Air Force Global Strike Command before retiring, recalled that both he and Brown flew the F-16, which they called the Viper. They often crossed paths over their careers, including when Brown landed a coveted slot with the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis AFB, Nev.

Rand was the weapons schools operations officer at Nellis, and Brown was an instructor. Over time, Rand recalled that Brown also followed him, in one case serving as commander of the 8th Fighter Wing in Kunsan, South Korea, a unit known as the Wolf Pack

That Brown returned to teach at the Weapons School means in my humble opinion he was the best of the best, Rand said, but noted that his friend wasnt finished with the school. He later came back as its commandant.

Hes a world class Viper driver. Hes the top 1 percent of combat test Viper pilots, and said.

Goldfein said Browns combat experience and connections have global reach, perhaps more than any other officer in the Air Force.

He said Brown knows every minister of defense and air chief in the Middle East, and also commanded the 3rd Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

That means he knows every European and African air chief and has relationships with top leaders in India and the Pacific in his current job, making Browns Rolodex probably as deep and as wide as anybody weve ever groomed for this position, said Goldfein, who will retire in San Antonio after leaving as chief later this summer.

On top of that, hes just a deep down, good man, a good officer and a great leader. He comes to the table with a lot of real breadth in understanding joint operations. And I would highlight one particular job he had as the deputy commander of Central Command and understanding all of the military operations that come together, Goldfein said.

He had to understand submarine operations, carrier operations, he had to understand space operations, he absolutely had to be steeped in the business of land warfare, he had to understand special operations.

When Fogleman got the job as chief of staff, he interviewed several candidates for the job of aide de camp.

Brown wound up on top.

I think he was a superb aide. I tried to include him in everything so as part of the experience of being an aide he would sit in on high-level meetings, see how different individuals, different senior officers with different personalities interfaced, said Fogleman, 78, of Durango, Colo.

I always felt that he was very honest and open and was never working his own agenda, he was trying to support me and the people who worked with me, and certainly was not one of these careerist guys who was trying to fill a square and move on to the next slot, he added.

Rand said he hadnt talked with Brown about the current situation, but said his old friend landed the Air Forces No. 1 job on his merits and that he didnt have to take it  especially in a moment he thinks is one of the most volatile eras of his lifetime.

But, Rand added, his friend raised his hand and accepted the challenge.

Were far from perfect. Im not going to gloss it over. We still have challenges in the military. I mean, we know we do, but we are still a beacon of hope and light, and Im just thrilled that Gen. Brown is  for all the reasons, I dont care what his color is  Im glad hes talking over as our chief of staff, he said.

There is hope. This is long overdue, Rand added. But I dont want to put this burden, like one man is going to be able to cure the ills of society because we make one African American the chief of staff. That hes going to come in and fix the woes of societal injustice and problems that have existed for centuries and decades. Thats unrealistic, but its a positive step.

Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Sig, become a subscriber. sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe
(Bloomberg) -- Zoom Video Communications Inc. said it reactivated the account of a U.S.-based group of Chinese pro-democracy activists, after earlier closing the account to comply with local laws.

The San Jose, California-based company suspended the groups user credentials after it hosted a recent gathering to commemorate the 1989 protests and massacre at Tiananmen Square, a seminal event for advocates of democracy in China. Zooms decision to close the account was reported earlier by Axios.

Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate, a Zoom spokesman said in a statement. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws. We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters. We have reactivated the US-based account.

Zoom, which maintains a significant research-and-development workforce in China, has come under scrutiny for its links to the country. After the videoconferencing application surged in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers discovered instances when calls were routed through servers in China, even though no participant was based there. That raised concerns the Chinese government might be able to snoop on the video calls.

The company has since focused on raising encryption standards for its video conferences, though only large businesses that are paying customers will get access to end-to-end encryption, the strongest form of privacy. Zooms co-founder and chief executive officer, Eric Yuan, was born in China, though he is a U.S. citizen.

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United Airlines is requiring its passengers to complete a self-assessment health screening before flying, one of the furthest reaching efforts among carriers to keep the Covid-19 outbreak in check as travel resumes.

Customers will have to confirm they haven't experienced coronavirus symptoms two weeks before flying and complete a checklist based on recommendations from the Cleveland Clinic, United said Wednesday.
Justin Haynes Joins Anderson & Vreeland as New Field Service & Support Technician Justin brings with him many years of Flexographic expertise in the areas of Ink-Jet systems and software design that are imperative to a successful flexographic pre-press operation.

The appointment of Justin Haynes as AVantage/Field Service & Support Technician for Anderson & Vreeland, leading manufacturer of flexographic print technologies, equipment and consumables, is announced by Randy Reynolds, General Manager of AVantage Polymers for Anderson & Vreeland Inc.

We at Team/A&V are excited and enthusiastic about the appointment of Justin to our Field Service Team at A&V/AVantage. Justin brings with him many years of Flexographic expertise in the areas of Ink-Jet systems and software design that are imperative to a successful flexographic pre-press operation. In addition to this, Justin has established himself with a highly respected reputation in the areas of service and support after the sale. This addition is just one more example of how Anderson & Vreeland is establishing itself as the market leader when it comes to providing innovation and support to our customers! said Reynolds.

In his new position, Haynes will offer technical service and support to A&V customers throughout North America, initially focusing on AVStar Film Printers.

Mr. Haynes is a technical specialist in both digital and flexographic prepress workflows and production with over 20 years of experience in the graphics arts industry. He has served in various positions including Digital Printing Department Manager, Printer Technician, Customer Service Representative and Systems Administrator.

Justin Haynes resides in Alpharetta, GA with his fiancee and enjoys Photography in his spare time. Im very excited to be working with the A&V team on innovative new solutions for our customers, said Haynes.

Anderson & Vreeland provides flexographic printers with innovative solutions that are tailored to their specific application. We do this by identifying the most effective & advanced technologies in our portfolio, educating our customers on how these products will improve their bottom line, and seamlessly integrate these solutions into our clients business. We are a privately-held company with over 50 years experience providing unrivaled customer service to the flexographic printing industry.

Further information is available on the web at http://www.AndersonVreeland.com.
After four years in prison, Bahrain has released prominent activist Nabeel Rajab at the urging of the United Nations, Western governments and human rights groups.

Rajab, 55, had been held in Jau Prison since 2016 on various charges the UN says violated his freedom of expression. In 2018, he received a five-year sentence for tweets alleging abuse at the prison, as well as criticism of Bahrains involvement in Saudi Arabias war in Yemen. Rajab was also serving a two-year sentence for criticizing the tiny island kingdom in television interviews.

In August 2018, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions found that his imprisonment was not only arbitrary but discriminatory, leading 127 rights groups to call for his immediate, unconditional release.

Before his arrest, Rajab was a prominent human rights defender and outspoken critic of Bahrains ruling family. He co-founded the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, and was heavily involved in the quashed Shiite-led protests against the country's Sunni-dominated government in 2011. He has been arrested for his activism a number of times since the uprising.

Rajabs release, which came just days before the four-year anniversary of his arrest, was welcomed by rights groups today as a positive step.

While this is a moment to celebrate, it is impossible to forget that he has spent almost four years unjustly separated from them, or to forget the many other peaceful activists who remain behind bars in Bahrain, Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty Internationals Middle East research director, said in a statement.

Fearing a coronavirus outbreak in its overcrowded prisons, Bahrain has freed a number of inmates whose charges werent political in recent months. Rajabs lawyer said today that his client would serve the remainder of his sentence at home.

The activists release was long overdue, said Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.

Nabeel should not have spent a second in prison, his only crime being criticism of Bahrains government on Twitter, Alwadaei said in a statement.
Soaps Emmerdale and Coronation Street have finally resumed filming after taking a break due to the coronavirus pandemic.

And when ITV soap boss John Whiston appeared on Sky News on Tuesday to discuss their return, he accidentally let slip that a 'socially distanced' murder is coming soon in Emmerdale.

He said: 'In terms of all of the normal stuff that goes on in soaps people kissing each other or murdering each other, we'll have to socially distance murders I think.

Shock! ITV soap boss John Whiston appeared on Sky News on Tuesday to discuss their return, he accidentally let slip that a 'socially distanced' murder is coming in Emmerdale

'And we do actually have one coming up in Emmerdale quite soon.

'But yes, a lot will have to rely on the way the actors act and the power of the scripts.'

Emmerdale was the first soap to resume production following the coronavirus pandemic.

The rural outdoor set for Emmerdale has been dramatically revamped so that actors can be filmed from above now that social distanced filming has begun.

Drama! 'We'll have to socially distance murders I think. 'And we do actually have one coming up in Emmerdale quite soon' Whiston revealed

It was revealed by a fan that scaffolding platforms have been put up around houses in the village where the show is filmed so that cameramen could shoot the cast from up high.

The soap has begun a phased return in order to minimise risk of infection at the studio, with Nicola Wheeler and Eden Taylor Draper among the first to return.

New safety measures have been put in place at ITV studios including medical screening, safe-distance queuing and ambulances on set amid the coronavirus pandemic.

They're back: Emmerdale was the first soap to resume production following the coronavirus pandemic

Countryside: The rural outdoor set for Emmerdale has been dramatically revamped so that actors can be filmed from above now that social distanced filming has begun

The area around the studio appeared to be well-signposted and notices advised the cast and crew to keep a safe distance as well as informing them about medical screenings.

The channel's Health and Safety team and medical advisers have been working closely with the government to consult on social distancing guidelines to ensure the team are working in accordance with return-to-production protocols.

This means that filming units are staying together while working in designated studios, and the crew are using their own equipment which has been sanitised in advance while office staff continue to work from home.

ITV also revealed that they would not have any shoots on location, while scripts have been adapted to include fewer scenes and a small number of actors so that the cameras don't need to be moved on a regular basis.

Safety first: The channel's Health and Safety team and medical advisers have been working closely with the government to consult on social distancing guidelines
Daniel Roberts kept the broken tooth  or what was left of it.

He can joke about the souvenir a month later, but initially found nothing funny about needing a dental procedure in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Basically, it was just rotten, and a good chunk of it was cracked, Roberts says.

He had an emergency extraction in early May to remove his bottom right wisdom tooth. But he felt at ease in visits to his primary dentist and an oral surgeon, having seen the precautions both took to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

They were both very cognizant of what was going on," said Roberts, a Montclair resident and special education teacher. I had no issues. They really made sure to stress what was going on and to make me feel comfortable."

After three months of handling only emergency cases due to the pandemic, dentists and oral health care specialists understand the challenges they face as they reopen their offices for elective procedures and preventative care.

The nature of their profession puts patients and staff at an increased risk of being exposed to the coronavirus. Theyre working in peoples mouths and with instruments that can cause a spray of respiratory particles.

Its enough to keep some patients away. But dentists and hygienists interviewed by NJ Advance Media say they are following guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep patients and workers safe.

Theyre hoping to regain the publics trust by taking precautions to neutralize the risk. They also point to evidence from the CDC that no cases of COVID-19 have been traced to dental offices.

We have always looked out for their safety in our office, and now, were not only taking the same precautions that we were before, but weve amped it up because we want them to feel comfortable coming in," said Dr. Maxine Feinberg, a past president of the American Dental Association who runs a periodontist practice in Cranford.

But maintaining safety comes at a steep financial cost, and some dentists are passing it on to their patients.

They have purchased personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilation systems, ultraviolet lamps and new tools, despite many practices facing significant financial pressure from pandemic-related closures.

Ceida Quispe helps dentist Maxine Feinberg adjust a layer of protection. Feinberg has implemented many safety measures during the coronavirus pandemic at her office in Cranford. June, 1, 2020 Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for

Patients will probably offset some of the cost in the form of office fees or increased rates for services. The prices may vary, but at least one Monmouth County practice announced a $15 PPE fee, which would be covered by some insurance carriers, including Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Those costs need to be a real factor now in treatment delivery, said Jim Schulz, the director of governmental and public affairs for the New Jersey Dental Association.

Dental practices, like several other industries, are struggling with the financial fallout of the pandemic.

An estimated 20% of them could close in the next year if business continues to plummet, according to a recent ADA study. That percentage could account for 1,200 practices across the state, according to Schulz.

Were talking the smallest of small businesses in New Jersey , where they have several employees, and the economic generation of that office feeds those families, he said. When we have compression in the marketplace, we have compression in access to care. And at a time in America when were talking about escalation and increasing access, we shouldnt be following economic policies that directly cause compression in those places.

Schulz said the NJDA is concerned  at least in the short term  about access to reasonably priced PPE, and the association supports plans for patients and insurance providers to offset some of the cost.

Some hygienists and dental assistants immediately felt the financial impact of the pandemic. Many were forced to take unemployment benefits, even if some stayed on to help with emergencies, according to Kim Attanasi, president of the New Jersey Dental Hygienists Association.

But with offices reopening for routine care, Attanasi said some hygienists have voiced safety concerns. Hygienists rely on polishers and other tools  like water jets  that create spray and release particles into the air.

The way that our profession is set up, we have a license, but we work under the dentist, so we dont really have control over the decisions," Attanasi said. But what I was telling all of the hygienists was that you need to have conversations saying, Im not comfortable with this. Or 'Im not comfortable with that. Can we try something else?"

Attanasi said most of the concerns were over access to PPE.

The CDC, which has routinely warned that the coronavirus spreads through respiratory particles when infected people speak, cough or sneeze, recommends oral health care workers schedule 15-minute buffers between appointments to ensure particles in the air settle and surfaces are sanitized before a new patient arrives.

Most have implemented policies that exceed that recommendation, multiple dentists said.

Receptionist Hetal Patel takes William Hering's temperature before he enters Maxine Feinberg's Cranford dental office. She has implemented many additional safety measures during the coronavirus pandemic. June, 1, 2020 Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for

The new normal

Dentists hope they dont see any patients capable of spreading the coronavirus.

The problem?

The asymptomatic.

The reality that some people can pass on the virus without displaying symptoms limits the effectiveness of prescreening efforts. It forces oral health care workers to treat every patient like they have COVID-19.

There are five basic precautions recommended for every patient when they arrive for treatment in the new normal, Feinberg said. They range from questionnaires, temperature checks and empty waiting rooms.

Meanwhile, many dentists have embraced CDC-recommended policies involving ventilation systems, employee testing and specifics on PPE.

If youre following that, your level of comfort should be very high, said Feinberg, who has also served as president of the NJDA.

What the industry faces in the pandemic reminds Feinberg, 64, of the challenges she and her colleagues experienced during the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

AIDS forced health care workers to reshape their practices and rethink the way they managed blood-borne pathogens.

I had patients with significant periodontal disease that were afraid to go to the dentist," Feinberg said. We dont want that to happen now, and were really concerned about that.

Thats why Feinberg and industry leaders want to ensure the public that while there is an element of risk in oral care, dental offices have taken precautions.

Its important folks know that dental offices are open. Theyre ready to treat you, Schulz said. While certainly dentists have an exposure issue potential, they also have worked hard at mitigating and understanding how to protect themselves and their patients.

Dentist Maxine Feinberg with patient William Hering as Ceida Quispe looks on. Feinberg has implemented many additional safety measures during the coronavirus pandemic at her office in Cranford, N.J. June, 1, 2020 Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Patrick Lanni may be reached at planni@njadvancemedia.com.
The Allahabad High Court has granted bail to six foreign nationals who had arrived here after attending a religious congregation at the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi and were booked under several sections of the law including the Epidemic Diseases Act and the Passport Act.

The bail was granted by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on June 2. The court, however, set strict conditions including that they would not leave the country without permission of a court and be present before the trial court to face further proceedings.

Passing the order, Justice Jaspreet Singh also directed the accused to deposit Rs 11,000 each in the CM COVID-19 Relief Fund. "The accused be released from jail on their furnishing personal bond of Rs 50,000 each and a solvent surety each to the satisfaction of the concerned court below," said the court.

The judge said, "The efforts of the administration and the police establishment while dealing with containment of COVID-19 pandemic and enforcement of law and order has been praiseworthy. "However, that in itself does not give a blanket clearance to all their acts rather each case, as it comes before the Court, has to be seen and judged on its own peculiar facts and circumstances and the material placed before it."

The accused, who are citizens of Kyrgyzstan, include Sagynbek Toktobolotov, Sultanbek Tursunbaiuulu, Ruslan Toksobave, Zamirbek Maraliev, Aidyn Taldu Kurgan alias Aidyn Kairbex and Dauren Taldu Kuragn alias Dauren Zhe Xenbekov. They were arrested on April 26 from the old city area in connection with the offences registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, Epidemic Disease Act, Passport Act, Passports (Entry into India) Act, Foreigners Act, the Disaster Management Act.

Arguing on behalf of the applicants, advocate Pransu Agrawal submitted that the applicants had come to India on valid visa which were still operative. They had informed the authorities concerned in Delhi about their movement in Lucknow as well, he said, adding they completed their 14-day quarantine and were tested negative for the coronavirus thrice.

The offences in which they were challenged are punishable below seven years of imprisonment. Opposing the bail plea, the state lawyer said that the accused had tourist visas which were misused as they attended the religious congregation at Nizamuddin and came to Lucknow where they were residing in the Markaz Mosque without getting their medical examination done.

They were arrested from the mosque, he said. Considering different facts and circumstances, the court allowed their bail pleas with conditions.

Also read: Govt seeks stakeholders' opinion on decriminalising cheque bounce, lesser economic offences
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An entire neighbourhood in Nigeria has been left swamped with mountains of rubbish following torrential rainfall over the weekend.

The ground of Surulere in Lagos was barely visible as thousands upon thousands of coloured polystyrene packages, bottles, and cartons swamped the area.

Residents were seen wading through the thigh-high piles of waste as rubbish collectors resorted to using diggers to plough through the heaps of garbage.

Some residents in Lagos - which was once considered one of the dirtiest cities in the world - blamed poor drainage and a lack of government action over the mess.

The ground of Surulere in Lagos was barely visible as thousands upon thousands of coloured polystyrene packages, bottles, and cartons smothered the surface

A woman carrying groceries in a large bucket on her head wades through a narrow pathway that had been cleared as piles of rubbish remained on either side

Brightly coloured polystyrene food packages and dirty bottles completely covered the floor

Rubbish collectors had to resort to using diggers as they ploughed through the heaps of garbage

The Lagos state government said officials would arrest anyone could dumping rubbish in drainage channels and canals, according to the International Centre for Investigative Reporting.

The area's 16 million residents have long complained about garbage piled along highways and drainage canals.

It has led to appalling sanitary conditions in the area as canals are clogged with rubbish in the stagnant water.

Residents have previously said the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), which has responsibility for collecting waste, often won't collect it from homes that have fallen behind on bills.

Government officials said they were working to remove rubbish and clean the canals linked to the flooding.

Tunji Belloe, state commissioner for environment and water resources, said: 'It should be pointed out that the canal had been completely blocked and solidified over time with age-old refuse dumped in the channel.'

Thousands of bottles can be seen strewn across the ground, making it impossible for cars to drive through

Mountains of rubbish surround cars following the heavy rainfall over the weekend, with some piles reaching nearly the height of car tyres

The areas's 16 million residents have long complained about garbage piled along highways and drainage canals

The skies were clear of any clouds signalling further devastating rainfall, which caused a tide of rubbish to swamp the streets

Workers were seen tirelessly scraping through the rubbish in a bid to clear the roads

Residents walk behind each other in a line as they help join in the clean up operation

The floor was completely smothered in rubbish in the Lagos neighbourhood

Rakes were used by workers as they scraped through the waste, hoping to unclog the roads

Residents wade through the rubbish, which climbed up to their knees in height

In some areas the rubbish had been completely covered in mud, as residents expressed sanitation fears over the waste

A man is seen jogging through a pathway that had been cleared in the clean up mission

A heavy machine is pictured at the scene ready to help clear the rubbish

Government officials said they were working to remove rubbish and clean the canals linked to the flooding

Two waste collectors, one wearing a face mask, wade deep in mud as they carry shovels ready to help unclog the rubbish

Residents have previously said the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), which has responsibility for collecting waste, often won't collect it from homes that have fallen behind on bills
The Governments ostensible grounds for seeking dismissal are conclusively disproven by its own briefs filed earlier in this very proceeding, Gleeson wrote. They contradict and ignore this Courts prior orders, which constitute law of the case. They are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact. And they depart from positions that the Government has taken in other cases.
The four-level Headhouse is the new main entrance for passengers traveling through LaGuardia Airport's Terminal B, featuring 60-foot-tall ceilings and a glass facade that fills the massive hall with natural light. The first floor is reserved for ground transportation arrivals, floor two houses the arrivals hall and baggage claim, with passenger check-in located on the third level, and concourse bridges, retail and restaurants reside on the fourth level. The Headhouse design allows airport customers and employees a seamless integration with the new west parking garage, new concourses, and the Central Hall, which is currently under construction and will connect to Terminal C.

"The new Headhouse is the flagship component to LaGuardia's new Terminal B, and Walsh Construction is proud to join our design and construction partners in unveiling the terminal's new front door," said Dan Walsh, co-chairman of Walsh Construction. "The Headhouse completion is a tremendous accomplishment for all stakeholders. We thank the Port Authority, our outstanding managing partner Skanska, and the subcontractor and trade communities for their trusted partnership as we worked hand-in-hand to deliver this facility to the citizens of New York and its visitors."

Building LaGuardia Airport's Terminal B

The redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport and the new Terminal B, which began in 2016, is a complex multi-phase effort led by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the State of New York that required extensive planning and precise execution. The new Headhouse resides on the site of the old West Parking Garage, which was replaced with a seven-story, 3,100 space Terminal B Parking Garage that opened in February of 2018.

The Skanska-Walsh team also completed construction of the Terminal B Eastern Concourse in 2018. The Eastern Concourse's cutting-edge design and customer amenities allow travelers ample space across 18 gates. Terminal B will have 35 total gates upon completion of the second (western) concourse. The Terminal B Headhouse will also connect to both concourses via two pedestrian bridges. The first bridge, opening today, is 420 feet long at an elevation of 65 feet. Aircraft will have space to taxi underneath, eliminating runway bottlenecks that plagued the old airport design. LaGuardia is the first airport in the nation with this innovative pedestrian bridge design that spans active taxi lanes.

The Headhouse contains Terminal B's baggage handling system, totaling over seven miles, roughly two miles of walkways, and 1,200 energy-reducing motors. The inventive baggage claim system runs throughout the airports walls and ceilings.

Beyond the Headhouse, new infrastructure will surround the airport with more than eight miles of new roadways, 17 new roadway bridges, almost two miles of new aircraft taxiway space and 16 fewer traffic lights.

Building with Modern Technologies

The advanced techniques and modern technologies employed by the Skanska-Walsh team were crucial for the intricate execution of LaGuardia's Terminal B and Headhouse. The team developed the project phasing using a series of 3D and 4D  or time dependent  models that allowed the visualization of the future layout of the airport throughout the duration of the project. Project leaders were able to measure progress with 360-degree photography and laser scanning to keep pace with real-time construction updates, collaborate with subcontractors, and quickly resolve construction challenges across the complex project site.

Building with Environment and Community in mind

In August of 2019, the Terminal B project was recognized by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) with Envision Platinum Certification, ISI's highest level of recognition for "assessing sustainability and resilience in infrastructure." This project was the first to be recognized by ISI under their newest Envision v3 framework, which evaluates projects across 64 criteria to measure dedication to sustainable building methods.

The Skanska-Walsh team developed systems to reduce waste, recycle materials, and reduce the project's environmental impact. The team was able to recycle 21,604 tons of concrete during the initial parking garage demolition. Over 10% of this recycled concrete was used on the adjacent job site. Overall, over 99% of debris from the old parking garage was recycled.

The Skanska-Walsh team was also recognized by ISI for its community engagement efforts. The team established the Connect Committee in 2017, which has initiated dozens of community engagement programs. The Connect Committee has organized cultural events, established partnerships with shelters and pantries, and created an eight-week academic program for local students to learn 3D virtual design.

About Walsh Construction

Walsh Construction is a part of The Walsh Group, a 122-year-old family-owned company providing design, build, finance, operation and activation services throughout the building, transportation and water markets. The Walsh Group operates as Walsh Construction, Archer Western and Walsh Canada across 20 regional offices and is consistently listed among the top U.S. contractors per Engineering News-Record (ENR). The Walsh Group is currently ranked as the sixth largest airport builder in the U.S., according to ENR. In addition to work at LaGuardia Airport, the firm has built a portfolio of experience at major U.S. airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, Sea-Tac International Airport and Sacramento International Airport. Connect with The Walsh Group at www.walshgroup.com; LinkedIn; Twitter; Facebook; and Instagram.

Contact:

Walsh Construction

Pete Doherty

312.492.1533

[email protected]

SOURCE Walsh Construction

Related Links

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Miranda Ackerman, 29, has been charged with having sex with an inmate at Idaho Maximum Security Institution

An Idaho corrections officer has been arrested for having sexual trysts with an inmate incarcerated at a maximum security prison.

Miranda Ackerman, 29, was charged with one felony count of sexual contact with an inmate and one misdemeanor count possessing unlawful contraband.

She turned herself into police at the Ada County Sheriff's Office last Friday after a warrant was put out for her arrest.

Ackerman, who is a resident of Nampa, is accused of having sex with the male felon at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution on multiple occasions between February 9 and March 9.

Ackerman was an employee at the facility at the time. She tended her resignation in early April.

Prosecutors believe the sex acts occurred in an area of the jail where inmates usually get their hair cut.

She is also accused of giving the prisoner explicit images of herself, which counts as 'contraband'.

According to The Idaho Press, Ackerman went by the name of Miranda Jefferds whilst she was working at the prison.

The Idaho Department of Corrections began investigating Ackerman shortly after she resigned.

It's unclear as to how they learned of the alleged sexual trysts, but they interviewed her in April.

On Friday, more than six weeks after that interview, Ackerman was booked at the Ada County Sheriff's Department.

She was released on her own recognizance and is scheduled to appear in court at a later date.
J.K. Rowling has posted an essay defending her recent anti-trans remarks on Twitter. (Neil Hall / EPA-EFE/REX)

You-Know-Who is back  again.

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling defended her history of anti-trans comments in a new essay published on her personal website Wednesday. Titled "J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues," the post was preceded with a warning that it "contains inappropriate language for children."

Her piece comes amid a backlash for her latest anti-trans tweets, which have been condemned by Wizarding World actors Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne. Without directly mentioning Rowling or the latest controversy, "Harry Potter" actress Emma Watson also weighed in Wednesday, tweeting her support for the trans community.

After Rowling recounted how she first became interested in trans issues as well as her history of Twitter actions that have sparked outcry, she explained she had "five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism" that made her feel it was imperative she speak up.

"Were living through the most misogynistic period Ive experienced," wrote Rowling. She then lumped President Donald Trump and his history of sexual misconduct allegations, incels (men who blame women for rejecting them as sexual partners) and their calls for violence against women, and transgender activists and allies who have called her a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) together as if they were all a similar threat against women.

To be clear, there is no evidence that transgender people are a threat to anyone. Instead, studies have shown they face alarmingly high rates of harassment and violence.

Rowling then revealed that her first marriage was violent and that she is a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

"Im mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, whove been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces," Rowling wrote.

Story continues

She explained that because of her history, she believes "the majority of trans-identified people ... pose zero threat to others" and that "trans people need and deserve protection."

But despite Rowling's insistence that she wanted a nuanced discussion on the topic after levying a number of problematic claims, ultimately her concerns seemed to boil down to one about bathrooms.

Among Rowling's claims was that affirming anybody other than cisgender people (those whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth) as "women" would somehow lead to them being unsafe in places like public restrooms and changing rooms.

There is no evidence that transgender people using the restrooms that align with their gender identity puts anybody else in danger. Studies instead show that transgender people often report experiencing harassment, assault and being denied access when attempting to use public restrooms.

Actor Redmayne, who portrays magizoologist Newt Scamander in the "Fantastic Beast" films, spoke out about Rowling's recent tweets on Wednesday in a statement to Variety in which he said he "disagree[d] with Jos comments."

"Trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid," Redmayne said in the statement. "I would never want to speak on behalf of the community but I do know that my dear transgender friends and colleagues are tired of this constant questioning of their identities, which all too often results in violence and abuse. They simply want to live their lives peacefully, and its time to let them do so.

Redmayne was nominated for a lead acting Oscar for his portrayal of transgender painter Lili Elbe in the 2015 film "The Danish Girl."

I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.  Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) June 10, 2020

Watson, who portrayed Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" films, tweeted her solidarity with the trans community.

"Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they arent who they say they are," Watson wrote on Twitter Wednesday. "I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are."
Local property managers say most of their tenants have continued to pay their bill  many on time  even as the COVID-19 pandemic dragged past the third rent due date last week.

However, the rate of rent delinquency remains slightly above the usual levels locally and nationally. And landlords still chafe at the statewide eviction moratorium that limits their legal options for dealing with late and non-payers.

It is not affecting us as severely as I had feared when this all first started, said Steve Sharp of Sharp Property Management. But the number of late payments, though numerically small, is still well over pre-COVID days, he said.

As of Tuesday, Sharp was missing about 45 rent payments of the 1,100 due for the month of June. He estimated that about 30 of those tenants will pay before the next rent cycle.

Another dozen or so tenants are severely delinquent, meaning theyve missed multiple months of payments.

There are chronic late payers. There always have been and there always will be, but its double of the norm, Sharp said.

Catlin Properties Inc. was waiting on Monday on about 70 of nearly 1,000 rent payments due this month. However, some renters negotiated amended due dates, so the number of late payments may actually be lower than it looks, said Ray Pyle.

Data for previous months showed only seven people still owed the full amount of rent for May, and 11 tenants made partial payments last month. Only one tenant was backlogged for every month of the pandemic so far, according to Catlins data.

I just have high praise for all of the people who have paid their rent. Many people used their stimulus checks to pay their rent, or their extra $600 in unemployment benefits.  The vast majority of people  we are talking 98%  did pay their rent, Pyle said.

In a survey of 11.5 million professionally managed apartment units across the U.S., the National Multifamily Housing Council found that 80.8% of tenants had paid their June bill by the sixth of the month. Thats up six-tenths of a percentage point compared to the same time frame in the May payment cycle and up almost three points compared to the April cycle.

Still, its about one percentage point lower than the rate in June 2019, when 81.6% of renters paid by May 6.

Each week we see new evidence that Americans are prioritizing rent and that the work apartment firms did to create flexible payment plans is paying dividends, NMHC President Doug Bibby said in a prepared statement last month. However, the hardships caused by the outbreak are not ending anytime soon.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee recently extended a statewide eviction moratorium, which first took effect in mid-March to reduce economic hardship for people who lost their job due to the pandemic.

Local property managers originally worried renters might choose not to pay their bills under the order. Although those concerns have not been borne out, landlords still are frustrated that Inslee extended the moratorium through Aug. 1.

A very small number of tenants have used the moratorium as an excuse to voluntarily skip out on rent, even though they can pay, Sharp said.

Pyle added that under the no-eviction order, landlords have no ability to get those peoples attention and get their money.  We are hamstrung. We cant take anything before a judge. The sheriff isnt serving (eviction) orders.

Thats problematic for landlords, who rely on rent payments for not only income but also mortgage and repair payments.

One of the things that has come into our view as landlords in all of this is that some people  and unfortunately some people on the governors team  dont fully understand the concept of investment property, Pyle said. When you pay your rent, the landlord 90% of the time is not taking that money. He or she is making a payment to the bank on that property.

According to the Washington Multifamily Housing Association, about 9% of a rent payment returns directly to property owners. The rest covers the mortgage on a property, property taxes, maintenance worker payroll and necessary building repairs.

If rent doesnt get paid, the fragile system and all the costs connected to housing begin to break down, according to an WMFHA blog post. Housing providers and their residents are caught in the middle: trying to make things work with short-term payment plans, borrowing from damage deposits, or, in some cases, letting rent go unpaid which ultimately adds mounting debt for the resident.

WMFHA advocates for more direct solutions, such as rent relief programs that puts cash into the pockets of residents impacted by COVID-19, or more specific eviction moratorium to exclude renters who can afford their payments.

Pyle and Sharp also work with local legislators to discuss other ways to help renters financially affected by the pandemic, they said.

The majority of the people who cant pay have a serious financial problem. I have a big spot in my heart for those people, Sharp said. They are stuck. They dont have an option. ... Its the very few who are saying, Take that, because the governor says I dont have to pay you, that make the eviction moratorium troubling.

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The troubles for Delhi University students just dont seem to end. Many of those who had been putting up in PGs and hostels are reportedly being asked to pay rent for the entire period of the lockdown. Pooja Meena, a student of BA(Hons) from Indraprastha College For Women, says, I dont have the money to pay the rent. My father recently lost his job; the economy has been hit so bad. So even though my things are kept in the PG in Delhi, I decided to come back home in Nagpur, because my landlady would otherwise visit me everyday asking for rent... How do I pay her when I barely have money to give my fees?

Some students have had to make other living arrangements, such as moving to their friends house, because of not being able to pay rent.

When the country is undergoing a pandemic, must the landlords not be understanding of the plight of their residents?

 Alka Yadav, a DU student

Take for instance, Alka Yadav, a Political Science (Hons) student of Ramjas College. I dont have any money to give to the landlord and he has been giving me ultimatums. He was about to call the police to evict me because of non payment of rent. I left the PG and went to stay at my friends house. But is this fair? When the country is undergoing a pandemic, must the landlords not be understanding of the plight of their residents? asks Yadav.

To raise this concern, the Delhi University Student Union (DUSU), along with 128 other representatives from various DU colleges have written to the government to request financial assistance for students who are unable to pay their rent. Many students in DU are facing a financial crunch due to the pandemic. These students have nowhere to go, and the ones who are currently in their PG, continue to get pestered for rents. The ones who left for their home towns are scared of coming back to DU, since they have no place to live because they were either evicted for non payment of rentals or asked to leave so that others who can pay, could be accommodated. In such troubling times, the authorities must come forward to help all such students, says Munish Chaudhary, president, Law Centre -1, DU.

Akshit Dahiya, president, DUSU adds, Many students have gone to their home towns, leaving their belongings in their PGs and hostels because they dont have the money to pay for rent. Now the landlords are pestering these students to pay rent for the luggage that is occupying the room. In such circumstances, we have reached out to the government for monetary help or application of some sort of law that warrants waiver of rentals for students for the months in which lockdown was in place.

Author tweets @FizzyBuddha

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A good vitamin D status is beneficial both in cancer prevention and in the prognosis of several cancers, according to a new research review.

The anti-cancer effects of vitamin D are especially pronounced in the prevention and treatment of colon cancer and blood cancers. In addition, high vitamin D responsiveness can be linked to a smaller cancer risk. Vitamin D responsiveness varies between individuals, affecting their need for vitamin D supplementation.

The review article, published in Seminars in Cancer Biology and written by Professor Carsten Carlberg from the University of Eastern Finland and Professor Alberto Munoz from the Autonomous University of Madrid, provides an update on the molecular basis of vitamin D signaling and its role in cancer prevention and therapy.

Vitamin D is commonly known for its crucial role in bone health, but the authors point out it also regulates the immune system, and its anti-cancer effects are mediated mainly by immune cells, such as monocytes and T cells. Vitamin D exerts its effects via the vitamin D receptor (VDR), which is a transcription factor involved in the expression and epigenetic regulation of numerous genes.

According to the review, studies focusing on the effect of vitamin D on different types of cancers provide the strongest evidence of its benefits in colorectal cancer and in blood cancers, such as leukemias and lymphomas.

Vitamin D is important both for the differentiation of blood cells during hematopoiesis as well as adult stem cells in rapidly regenerating tissues, such as colon or skin. A too low vitamin D status leads to a suboptimal function of the VDR and in an increased risk that these cells are not fully differentiating and start to turn into uncontrolled growing cancer cells.

Even in other types of cancer, such as breast and prostate cancer, a low vitamin D status, measured as the level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the blood, has been associated with a higher cancer incidence and a poorer prognosis. However, vitamin D supplementation has not been consistently shown to reduce cancer mortality in randomized controlled trials.

According to the authors of the review, the impact of vitamin D could be shown more clearly if the participants were stratified according to their individual vitamin D responsiveness and the health outcomes analyzed in relation to changes in individual vitamin D status.

Professor Carlberg's research group has earlier shown that individuals differ in their molecular response or sensitivity to vitamin D supplementation. For example, 25% of the Finnish population seem to be low responders, needing a higher dose of vitamin D supplementation to reach the full clinical benefit. In terms of cancer risk, being a high responder can be expected to have a protective effect.

According to the review, a good vitamin D status is beneficial in general cancer prevention. There is less evidence of its usefulness in the treatment of cancer.
Toby Antony By

Express News Service

KOCHI: In a major breakthrough in its probe into last years theft of computer hardware from Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) Vikrant, which is under construction at the Cochin Shipyard here, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested two persons on Tuesday night. Dayaram Sinkariya, 22, and Sumit Kumar, 23, who were nabbed from their native places Hanumangarh in Rajasthan and Munger in Bihar respectively, would be brought to Kochi soon, said NIA officers.

Its a matter of pride for us. We had collected fingerprints of nearly 10,000 persons who work or had worked in the shipyard. Over 1,000 persons were questioned and their mobile networks traced, after which we could identify the suspects. After receiving all the information, we obtained a search warrant from the NIA Court in Kochi on Monday and three teams were sent to Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar, said a source in the NIA.

The source said the duo was produced in the courts concerned, in Rajasthan and Bihar, and transit warrants were obtained. The recovery of the stolen hardware was carried out. A few equipment are yet to be recovered, said a source. Sources said the duo was working for a contractor engaged in painting works at the shipyard. They have been working here since early 2019. They stayed together in Kochi and hatched the conspiracy, said a source.

Theft came to light on Sept 13

The theft came to light on September 13 after the trial run of the IAC's Integrated Platform Management System. Six RAMs of three computers, besides three processors and as many hard disks, all worth D2.1 lakh, were stolen. The FIR was first registered by the city police and the probe was later handed over to the NIA, which had announced D5-lakh reward for any information leading to the arrest of the persons involved. IAC is in its third phase of construction and the sea trials are expected to start this year before being inducting into the Navy as INS Vikrant, either in 2021 or 2022.
Signs and artwork bearing the slogan Yellow Peril Supports Black Power have begun appearing at protests and on social media following the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.

The slogan traces its roots to the 1960s, and while its being repurposed by Asian Americans as a show of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, some activists have begun speaking out against its use today, saying it detracts from the movement by equating Asian American struggles with black struggles.

The false analogies end up getting us into trouble, Connie Wun, co-founder and executive director of AAPI Women Lead told NBC Asian America. Asian American and black communities may have some overlap, but these struggles are not analogous, and theyre not the same.

The term yellow peril originated in the 1800s, when Chinese laborers were brought to the United States to replace emancipated black communities as a cheap source of labor. Chinese laborers made less than their white counterparts, and also became victims of racist backlash from white workers who saw them as a threat to their livelihood. This fear led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first law to restrict immigration based on race.

But in the 1960s, Asian Americans tried to reclaim the racist term and their histories. In particular, students of color at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley, formed a coalition called the Third World Liberation Front, calling for campus reform that included establishing ethnic studies classes and protesting the Vietnam War.

Yellow Peril Supports Black Power is most often associated with a black-and-white photo taken in 1969 at a rally in Oakland, California, supporting Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, who had been arrested on charges of killing a police officer. (The other co-founder was Bobby Seale.)

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In the photo, the sign is held by Japanese American activist Richard Aoki, who joined the Black Panther Party in its early stages and eventually rose in the ranks to become field marshal, making him the only Asian American to hold a leadership role in the organization. Hes also known as the person who first supplied the Black Panther Party with guns from his personal collection to use on patrols.

Image: Richard Aoki (Lonnie Wilson / MediaNews Group via Getty Images file)

At the very first Black Panther meeting, Richard was asked by Huey and Bobby Seale to speak about the history of the Japanese American concentration camps, said Diane Fujino, an Asian American studies professor at UC Santa Barbara and author of Aokis biography, Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance and a Paradoxical Life.

The Panthers understood that racism against Japanese Americans and Asian Americans was linked to black liberation, and that these communities were both oppressed by white supremacy.

While Aoki had been celebrated as a symbol for uniting Asian Americans and black Americans in their fight against white supremacy, in 2012, three years after his death, documents revealed that he had been an FBI informant tasked with infiltrating the Black Panther Party.

Its easy to teach the celebratory narrative  Richard presents a challenge to how we think about what it means to be an activist, Fujino said. The information puts huge question marks on his work and takes away from his legacy.

While at the time, Yellow Peril Supports Black Power was a way for Asian Americans to voice support for black communities and unite against oppressive forces, activists point out that today, Black Lives Matter is a different movement in a different era.

The slogan has galvanized people, and I dont discount its power in that sense, Wun, of AAPI Women Lead, said. But there are limitations to symbolism. We need to consider the fact that today, there are a lot more Asian Americans who dont identify as yellow, or East Asian, so the term yellow peril isnt inclusive. We also need to interrogate how our privileges as Asian Americans are made possible by anti-blackness.

Monyee Chau, a Seattle-based Chinese and Taiwanese artist, is one of the artists who repopularized Yellow Peril Supports Black Power after designing a poster of the slogan under images of a black panther and a yellow tiger. The image garnered more than 50,000 likes on Instagram. Chau, who uses the pronouns they and them, also made the artwork available to download so others could use it on posters and signs.

Image: Yellow Peril art (Monyee Chau)

Chau initially designed the image in response to the grief and anxiety they felt after Floyds death on May 25, but soon started receiving messages from some who disagreed with the use of the slogan.

Because I knew the slogan was used to express support for the Black Power movement, my intent was to offer the same support, said Chau, who has since archived the original post and created a new image replacing the slogan with Black Lives Matter. But I started having discussions with the people who messaged me, and I then understood how the phrase centers Asian Americans when this time isnt about us.

In their public apology, Chau also recognized the labor, patience, and opportunity for learning that Black and Asian femmes have granted them. A Black Asian person specifically worked with Chau to help them understand the implications of the slogan.

They pointed out on Instagram that black and Asian people have done the work of helping them understand the mistake. "I am grateful for the Black and Asian femmes who have cared enough to extend labor in allowing me and my community to have this opportunity to learn."

For Asian Americans who are seeking for ways to ally with black communities, Wun challenges individuals to think about whether their actions work to combat police brutality against black people, or if theyre centered around their own feelings.

People have to center black liberation and freedom in their politics and in their practice, she said. Thats what it means to be in solidarity. Its not going to be easy, but thats part of the work. Racial solidarity is a goal that requires struggle.

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David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired St. Louis police officer who served 38 years on the force was shot and killed by looters at a pawn shop early on June 2, 2020. (Scott Bandle, Suburban Journals/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

Hundreds Mourn Retired St. Louis Police Captain Dorn Killed in Looting

Hundreds of people gathered on June 9 to pay their respects to the family of David Dorn, a retired St. Louis police captain who was gunned down while trying to protect his friends pawn shop from looters on June 2.

The 77-year-olds life was remembered during a public visitation at Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, Missouri, with dozens of police officers and political leaders, including Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, in attendance, Fox 4 reported.

Relative to the investigation into the murder of Ret. Capt. David Dorn, officers arrested Stephan Cannon & the @stlcao issued one count of Murder 1st, one count of Burglary 1st, one count of Unlawful Possession of a Firearm & two counts of Armed Criminal Action. Bond not allowed. pic.twitter.com/WzkXCa55fW  St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) June 7, 2020

Stephan Cannon, 24, a suspect in Dorns death, was charged on Sunday with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, felon in possession of a firearm, and three counts of armed criminal action, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner said. Detectives obtained surveillance footage showing Cannon on the scene, Gardner said.

Based upon the diligent work of the police department, collaboration with the Circuit Attorneys Office, and the cooperation from the outraged community, we have issued charges for the tragic murder of the 77-year-old Dorn, she said in a statement.

Cannon is being held without bond.

Stephan Cannon in a mugshot. (St. Louis Police Department)

According to court documents obtained by The Epoch Times, a television stolen from the shop was recovered at Cannons house; the serial number matched records from the pawn shop.

Video footage shows a Pontiac G6 pull up outside the shop and several people exit the vehicle before entering the store. Cannon and another man are seen running into the store; the other man passes several televisions to a third person, who places them inside the vehicle.

The footage showed Cannon leaving the store and walking toward the vehicle just before Dorn arrived. When the gunshots that killed Dorn were fired, Cannon was the only person standing at the corner.

Multiple plumes of smoke are seen coming from the area where only the defendant was standing, according to the probable cause statement. The investigator said in the statement later, Once Dorn has been shot and falls to the ground, the defendant can be seen approaching the door to the pawn shop.

Witnesses told police that after the shots were fired, someone yelled into the store to tell the others they could leave. All the subjects inside then fled through the front door.

Cannon admitted to being inside the store on the night of the murder and cutting his hair to try to alter his appearance. He was aware that his photograph was being circulated by law enforcement officials.

St. Louis Police Department officials said a second man was arrested in the same case.

Jimmie Robinson was charged with first-degree burglary, armed criminal action, and stealing. His bond was set at $30,000.

Our highest respect to the family of David Dorn, a Great Police Captain from St. Louis, who was viciously shot and killed by despicable looters last night. We honor our police officers, perhaps more than ever before. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/0ouUpoJEQ4  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2020

President Donald Trump paid tribute to the retired St. Louis police captain on Twitter last week.

Our highest respect to the family of David Dorn, a Great Police Captain from St. Louis, who was viciously shot and killed by despicable looters last night. We honor our police officers, perhaps more than ever before. Thank you! Trump wrote.

A friend of Dorn, Shanice Jackson, told Fox 4 that she wasnt surprised by the turnout to the public visitation.

He was loved by so many people. He was respected by many people, Jackson said Tuesday. I see so many officers and different people of all races coming to see him, so he was a good man.

Flowers and messages are left at a memorial for David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired police captain who was murdered during overnight rioting outside Lees Pawn and Jewelry, in St Louis, Mo., on June 2, 2020. (Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)

Dorns sister, meanwhile, told KTUU-TV that she cant hate her brothers alleged killer because I guess God wont let me.

Its still hard, you know. What Im happy about, they caught the young man that shot my brother. But the bad part about it is, hes 24 years old, Christine McQueen said. Hes taken my brothers life  and hes taken his own life too. Hes not going to have a life left. But I wish I could hate him, but I dont. I feel sorry for him because hes so young, and what he did.

His body is gone, but hes still here. With me. So, that young man didnt take everything because hell always be with mehes right here, she added.

A private funeral for Dorn will be held 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Louis Friendly Temple on Martin Luther King Drive, with only family, dignitaries, and police personnel in attendance.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Prosecutors to control compliance with house arrest by Russian actor Efremov

 Moskva city news agency, Sergey Vedyashkin

10:44 10/06/2020

MOSCOW, June 10 (RAPSI)  Prosecutors will control the work of authorized officials responsible for the execution of a court decision on house arrest for actor Mikhail Efremov charged with fatal traffic accident, the press service of the Moscow prosecutors office reports.

On Tuesday, Moscows Tagansky District Court ordered Efremov to be put under house arrest until August 9. He was banned from communicating with other case parties, using mobile phone and Internet.

The famous actor stands charged with commiting a traffic offense in a drunken state that led to a victims death. He could face from 5 to 12 years behind bars if conficted.

Efremov pleaded guilty.

On the evening of June 8, Efremov driving his car crossed into the oncoming lane in central Moscow and collided with a delivery service vehicle. He was arrested on the scene. Alcohol and drugs were reportedly found in his blood. Victim Sergey Zakharov was taken to hospital where he died early in the morning of June 9.




Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Getty

Top officials on President Donald Trumps coronavirus task force told governors on Monday they were worried about a spike in infections due to the mass protests against racial injustice taking place across the country.

Speaking via conference call, a recording of which The Daily Beast obtained, Deborah Birx, Trumps coronavirus response coordinator, relayed fears that the yelling by protesters could potentially negate the health benefits of wearing a mask, and that the destruction of testing sites at those protests would set back efforts to contain the virus spread. Birx said 70 such sites had been destroyed, which had already resulted in an appreciable drop in testing rates there. She advised governors to scramble now to make sure there is testing available in urban areas.

Vice President Mike Pence, who hosted the call, bluntly conceded that protest-related infection spikes were an issue our team is following and there is a concern.

Those remarks echoed similar fears raised by coronavirus task force officials, including CDC Director Robert Redfield, during a telephone call with governors last week, a recording of which The Daily Beast also obtained. In that June 3 call, Birx said while she, like Pence, did not see a big surge in coronavirus cases over Memorial Day weekend, she was concerned that large metro areasones already struggling to stabilize case numberswould experience an uptick in cases because of the protests.

This could result in a fight over the next two weeks, she said. On the call five days later, Birx added her fears that as the protests had grown more peaceful, more people from higher-risk populations began attending them. For good measure, she told governors to also make sure that law enforcement officials who worked the protests without masks get tested as well, calling it absolutely critical.

You Might Get a Coronavirus Vaccine Shot in 2021If Youre Lucky

The governor calls come as the trajectory of coronavirus infections in the United States is going in several directions. While case numbers and hospitalizations have declined nationally, states such as Arizona, North Carolina, California, and Utah have seen upticks that do not appear to be related to the protests. On the June 3 call, Birx relayed that her team had tracked outbreaks in more than eight states over the last week, 38 percent of which were due to community spread, with 55 percent in places such as nursing homes, long-term-care facilities, prisons, and food-processing plants.

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Birxs presentationsand her fears that real-world events could exacerbate the COVID-19 outbreakunderscore the deep concerns that health officials still harbor about a possible second wave of the pandemic even as a growing portion of the country, including the president himself, seems inclined to move on.

The president seems to think the hardest part [of the pandemic] is over, said one administration official who has repeatedly spoken to Trump about the coronavirus.

In a speech in front of biotech executives Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told the audience that the coronavirus isnt over yet, saying there was still much to be understood about how the virus spreads and how to treat it.

Fauci was not on either of the two calls obtained by The Daily Beast but a spokesperson from his team said he is still an official member of the task force. Fauci told CNN last week that he had not spoken to Trump in weeks.

Dr. Fauci Re-Emerges From Media Blackout, Says Well Be Seeing More of Him

During the calls, Birx noted that while all states had dramatically increased testing, three statesCalifornia, Arizona, and North Carolinahad seen positive test results rise at the same time; an ominous sign about the virus trajectory. That makes us quite concerned, Birx said. Pointing specifically to increased cases in Phoenix, Charlotte, and in Salt Lake City, she said it was her belief that there is active community spread in California, North Carolina, Utah, and Arizona.

Birx noted, in particular, that her team had seen data that showed community spread in metro Hispanic neighborhoods, and she urged governors to ensure that the communities there knew that there are tests, and tests are free.

Task force officials, including Birx and Seema Verna, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on both calls that nursing homes and long-term-care facilities need to continue to ramp up testing, including surveillance testing, to ensure they have a handle on things if a second wave does emerge later this year. Verna said her team, along with the CDC, had for weeks been tracking coronavirus case data and death statistics from nursing home facilities and found that most of the deaths have occurred in our lower performing nursing homes.

Despite these concerns, Pence said on the June 8 call that it was undeniable that the country was ready to reopen. And he was joined in the sentiment by several governors who inquired, among other things, about guidance for school and summer camp reopenings.

Fewer figures in the administration have been more gung-ho to reopen than the president himself. Indeed, during the past few days, Trump has viewed the Black Lives Matter marches and demonstrations not as a potential contagion moment so much as a means to move away from the public-safety guidelines and, personally, hit the road in his effort to defeat Joe Biden.

According to three sources with knowledge of the conversations, Trump, along with senior officials in the West Wing and on his re-election campaign, have already discussed using the protests to justify the president getting back on the trail this summer and once again holding some version of his big, rowdy campaign rallies.

I would use the fact that if you can have a gathering of 50,000 people in the street, why cant you have a gathering of 20,000 Trump supporters in a coliseum? said Stuart Jolly, who served as national field director for Trumps 2016 run. The president wants to meet and see his supporters and this is the most efficient way he can accomplish that, safely of course. Bring hand sanitizer, masks, and everything else. But the president is going to get out and meet his supporters, for sure, this summer.

Trumps desire to move the political conversation away from the pandemic and more toward reopening has been reflected in the visibility of the coronavirus task force itself. The group has taken on a markedly reduced role in President Trumps schedule in recent weeks. When asked if the president had met with the task force recently, a White House spokesperson said: The president is regularly briefed by the VP on the work of the task force.

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100 years ago, June 10, 1920

MATTOON -- Chief of Police Johnson had a raiding party on the home of John A. Savage of North 21st Street last night. Savage was not present but officers located in the bathroom of the home a quantity of sour mash in two jars, a copper wash boiler and 15 bottles of home brew. The goods were taken to police headquarters to be used as evidence against Savage in case he is apprehended. Savage is one of the oldest and most habitual offenders of the prohibition laws in Mattoon. He has been arrested and indicted innumerable times on liquor law violations and has paid some heavy fines... MATTOON -- The automobile craze has hit the force of the local Illinois Central Railroad offices pretty hard the past week. Chief Accountant Wilcox has invested in a Cadillac; Timekeeper Stephenson is sporting a Velie; and Assistant Accountant Maurice Kemper is driving a new Elgin Six.

50 years ago, 1970

MATTOON -- The Mattoon school board voted approval last night of a plan for kindergarten space next fall which Supt. Ray Lane said will cost the district about $100,000. The board approved the plan, one of four presented by school administrators, without comment. Lane said about $68,000 of the additional cost will go to teacher salaries. Lane had said previously the plan adopted by the board uses more teachers and requires more remodeling but does not cause as many children to change schools as the other plans... MATTOON -- Following defeat of the proposed Coles County zoning ordinance, the county board of supervisors also voted to oust from office Frank Hedgcock, executive director of the Coles County Regional Planning Commission. Hedgcock also was voted out by the same 21-1 vote as the zoning proposal was defeated. By a vote of 16-6, the board rejected a motion by Eugene Sims of Hutton Township to abolish the Regional planning Commission, the zoning commission and Hedgcock's position.

25 years ago, 1995

MATTOON -- Diane Abbott's songs have been heard in Italy, Ireland, Norway, France, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, Australia and Holland. Her country and western songs have also been cropping up on some American radio stations and she may soon have her first work on a major label. But Abbott is no singer. She is a Mattoon-based songwriter whose works have appeared on a number of independent country albums. Her song, "She's the Lady of America," an ode to the Statue of Liberty, has been placed in the library collection of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Immigration Museum... CHARLESTON -- Allen Lanham and Janet Francis-Laribee recently traveled to Thailand as part of Rotary International's Group Study Exchange Team. Lanham is dean of library services at Eastern Illinois University and Laribee is associate professor of business at EIU. They said they were not prepared for the warmth of the Thai people or the intrigue of the country.Rotary sponsors a team of five people to spend a month to six weeks in another country. Then a team from that country visits the U.S. team's region for a similar period.

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Brian Cornell didnt feel compelled to discuss the financial state of the company at the Target Corp. annual shareholders meeting Wednesday morning. Instead, the retailers chief executive officer used the opportunity to outline where the company stands today during this pivotal time for our country.

Target, which is headquartered in Minneapolis, where police killed George Floyd, setting off massive worldwide protests, was hard hit by the backlash, closing some 200 of its stores and sustaining damage to others due to looting.

Cornell said most of those stores have reopened but seven were heavily damaged. Four of those are expected to reopen by the end of the month and the other three will remain shuttered until they are repaired. The companys Lake Street store in Minneapolis was the hardest hit, but Cornell said Target will rebuild that store and bring it back online as soon as possible, likely before years end.

In the meantime, the company continues to move essential products such as medicine, food, bottled water, first aid and baby care items to areas heavily damaged during the protests, he said.

Cornell said more stores could have been impacted, but  thanks to grassroots cleanup efforts by community members in Minneapolis as well as those in other cities such as Philadelphia and New York City who banded together to protect their Target from damage  the damage was minimized.

He also reiterated that the organization is dedicating $10 million  half from corporate giving and the other half from its foundation  toward Twin City rapid response needs, local rebuilding efforts and national social justice initiatives. The company will also provide 10,000 hours of pro bono consulting services to help black and other people of color in the Twin Cities to rebuild.

Cornell pointed to the companys ability to quickly shift its operating procedures as the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the nation as evidence of Targets ability to follow through on these promises, noting, We were able to pivot immediately when our guest routines changed.

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Cornell said Target remains determined to help all families, despite the fact that retail companies have been tested to their core lately. He also understood the high expectations the public has for businesses and communities as a result of the deep pain of racism and brutality unleashed most recently by the killings of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

Our company is forward-thinking, anti-racist, compassionate and open to any perspective that can help us all advance.

That will include improving the diversity within the company. Cornell said the current board is about one-third female and just under 50 percent racially and ethnically diverse. Our Target leadership team is more than 40 percent female and one-quarter racially and ethnically diverse. Approximately 30 percent of our stores are run by racially or ethnically diverse leaders, and almost half are run by women. Half of our U.S.-based team is racially or ethnically diverse. But our goal is not to hit a number or check a box. We know a number is not good enough. This is an area we will continually focus on and strive to do even better.

In response to a shareholders question, Melissa Kramer, chief human resources officer, said the corporation remains incredibly committed to reaching a permanent wage level of $15 an hour by the end of 2020. The company temporarily bumped wages of frontline workers by $2 an hour during the height of the pandemic when non-essential retailers were forced to close but Target remained open. That wage increase was extended twice. Kramer did not say when it would end, but said those who have worked between March 8 and June 27 will receive a onetime performance award this summer.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The Philippine National Police has reopened its custodial center to some visitors, detained Senator Leila de Lima said Wednesday.

"Finally, the strict no access, no visitors policy here at the PNP Custodial Center has been relaxed, by allowing scheduled visits, on specific days a week, from family members and selected staff, lawyers, personal doctors and spiritual advisers, all in limited nos. and limited time slots," De Lima said in a statement.

"While far from ideal, I can live with this interim set-up," she said, adding that she hopes for the gradual restoration of all her visitation rights.

The opposition senator has been jailed at the national police headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City since 2017 over what she calls trumped up drug charges.

Her Senate colleagues earlier protested her "solitary confinement," calling her alleged incommunicado detention illegal and unconstitutional. The last time anyone was allowed to see De Lima was on April 25.

De Lima's office on June 5 said human rights lawyer Chel Dikono, priest Flavie Villanueva, and her chief of staff Fhillip Sawali were barred from visiting the senator despite the easing of quarantine restrictions in Metro Manila. The capital region was placed under a more relaxed general community quarantine on June 1.

In a May 29 media briefing, PNP chief General Archie Gamboa stressed that they were only following the same protocols set by the Bureau of Corrections and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease among inmates.

He also noted that the Custodial Center is in close proximity to the quarantine center for infected police personnel, and to its COVID-19 testing laboratory.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in several jails and prison facilities across the country. Human rights groups have called them "ticking time bombs" for infection because of their crowded state.

The country now has more than 23,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease, including hundreds of infected inmates.
The arguments over statues, as witnessed most recently in the defacing of the Winston Churchill statue in London's Parliament Square during a #BlackLivesMatter protest, are power struggles of clashing identities  black versus white, Hindu against Muslim, or communist versus capitalist.

Joining the Dots is a weekly column by author and journalist Samrat in which he connects events to ideas, often through analysis, but occasionally through satire

***

The protests that began in the American city of Minneapolis on 26 May following the murder, caught live on camera, of George Floyd, have now spread around the world. Floyd, a black man, was killed by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, who had come to arrest him after a $20 note he used at a store was flagged by the store clerk as possibly counterfeit.

In London on Monday, a statue of former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill became a target of anger of some of the protesters at a Black Lives Matter protest that was being held in solidarity with similar protests elsewhere following Georges killing. Coming as it did a day after a statue of slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston in Bristol was torn down by a crowd and tossed into the sea in another such protest, the defacing of Churchills statue has reignited an old debate.

Britains Home Secretary Priti Patel called the Bristol incident utterly disgraceful and said its not for mobs to tear down statues, according to a report in the BBC. On the other hand, Bristols mayor Marvin Rees, who happens to be black, said Patels comments showed absolute lack of understanding. The defacing of Churchills statue in Parliament Square in London has sparked further controversy. The wartime leader, who also won a Nobel Prize for literature, is remembered as a hero by many for rallying Britain against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. On the other hand, he is also remembered by many as a racist who presided over colonial policies that contributed to the deaths by starvation of around three million people in the Bengal famine of 1943.

Mayor Rees described the statue of the slave trader standing in a prominent public space as an affront to him and to people like him. This sense of affront is one that has also found mention in the controversies surrounding statues of confederate leaders in America. It is a feeling that I myself have experienced, albeit in mild form. Walking down Whitehall in London last summer, I found myself in front of a statue of Robert Clive, whose victory at the Battle of Plassey over Nawab Siraj ud Daulah of Bengal had launched the British East India Companys path to colonial empire in India. A few metres away from this statue is Churchills war room from World War II. It so happened that we were a group of South Asian journalists; with me at that moment was another Bengali, Masrour Shakil from Bangladesh. Clive and Churchill are not our heroes. They are our villains.

We took a few photos of ourselves with the statue, glanced at the war room, and moved on. Looking back now, I dont think I would want to see that statue toppled. My reactions to Clive and Churchill come from my perspective as a brown Bengali man. Others may remember other aspects of those individuals and have a different reading of their lives. I may not agree with those readings, but attempts to rewrite history through erasure have always made me uncomfortable.

In India since Independence we have had a whole lot of erasure of our past. In the beginning, it was only the colonial past that was removed, as central thoroughfares in seemingly every town and city in the country came to be renamed after Mahatma Gandhi, and his statues became part of public spaces from Gujarat to Arunachal. Now with the ascendancy of Hindutva we are witnessing a second wave of erasure, where the period of Muslim rule going back a thousand years is also an affront. They have been at work erasing monuments (starting with the Babri Masjid in 1992), renaming a road named after the Mughal king Aurangzeb in Central Delhi, and the city of Allahabad as Prayagraj.

Different monuments may arouse feelings of affront in different people. A Muslim monument may cause a Hindu fundamentalist to feel genuinely affronted, just as a statue of the Buddha in Afghanistan may cause a Muslim fundamentalist to feel genuinely affronted. At any point of time, why should some peoples feelings be worth more than those of others? By what yardstick are we to judge which feeling of affront is justified, and which one is not?

Cultural and moral relativism would not permit the existence of any such yardstick. That would only be possible if we admit to certain universal human values. So, for example, it can be argued that a statue of the Buddha commemorates a great spiritual leader who is a lasting symbol of peace for all humanity, while one of a Confederate general is a symbol of white supremacy, slavery and war. If peace has moral worth for all humans, while white supremacy, slavery and war do not, then we might be justified in demanding the removal from public spaces of all statues that glorify the latter.

This is not likely to happen at any time in the foreseeable future. The arguments over statues are power struggles of clashing identities  black versus white, Hindu against Muslim, or communist versus capitalist (which is also a thing in places with Lenin statues).

These statue fights wont end, because theres no universal humanist dog in the fight.
The International Criminal Court called on Wednesday for Sudanese war crimes suspects to turn themselves in, just a day after longtime fugitive militiaman Ali Kushayb surrendered to The Hague.

ICC lawyer Fatou Bensouda said during a United Nations Security Council videoconference that Kushayb  who is suspected of crimes against humanity in Darfur  was transferred to the court following his surrender in the Central African Republic.

Bensouda congratulated Chad, France, the Netherlands and the UN mission in the Central African Republic but did not offer any other details about Kushaybs arrest.

There should be no escape from justice for perpetrators of the worlds most serious crimes under international law, she said, calling on others to surrender themselves.

I take this opportunity to call Abdallah Banda and all the ICC suspects to surrender to the ICC and answer the charges against them through a fair, objective and independent judicial process.

Kushayb has been wanted by international law enforcement since 2007 for his role as head of the Janjaweed militia.

He is also a former close ally of ousted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, himself wanted by the ICC and currently detained in Khartoum.

Abdallah Banda has been wanted for war crimes since 2019 by the ICC, which is also searching for two other individuals related to the case.

The Security Council members who helped found the ICC (Belgium, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Nigeria, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Tunisia and Britain) in a joint statement underlined their commitment to fighting against impunity from war crimes.

We reiterate our commitment to uphold and defend the principles and values enshrined in the Rome Statute and to preserve its integrity undeterred by any threats against the Court, its officials and those cooperating with it, the statement said.

The United States is not a member of the ICC and Russia resigned from the group in 2016.
FORMER City of Winnipeg chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl will be tried separately from 26 other defendants in a lawsuit over construction of the downtown police headquarters, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FORMER City of Winnipeg chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl will be tried separately from 26 other defendants in a lawsuit over construction of the downtown police headquarters, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Queens Bench Justice Glenn Joyal granted a motion by Sheegls lawyer, Robert Tapper, to sever the case.

In a lawsuit filed in January, the city alleges contractor Caspian Construction, "in concert" with other defendants, including Sheegl, conspired and "schemed" to inflate the cost of the construction project for their own benefit.

At a hearing Monday, Tapper argued the allegations involving Sheegl are separate from the allegations that form the substance of the citys lawsuit.

The city alleges in July 2011, shortly after Sheegl awarded the contract to Caspian, the company paid $200,000 to co-defendant Mountain Construction, which then paid the same amount to Sheegl or his company, with another $327,000 paid by Caspian president Armik Babakhanians to either Sheegl or his company.

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The city budgeted $135 million to convert the former Canada Post office and mail-sorting plant into its new downtown police headquarters. By the time the project was completed, the cost had soared to $214 million.

Any involvement Sheegl had with the project ended when he signed Caspian to the contract, Tapper said.

"This (lawsuit) puts him in a position where he will be bankrupt while he waits to hear a tidbit of information against him," Tapper said. "He will have to spend a fortune to defend himself against something he had nothing to do with."

Joyal said depending on future disclosure in the case, it remains open to the city to return Sheegl to the original lawsuit. Joyal dismissed a motion by Caspian and other defendants to strike them from the lawsuit on the grounds it unfairly lumped them together with no details of the individual allegations against them.

The city filed its lawsuit after a five-year RCMP investigation ended with no charges. The case returns to court June 15.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Knowing that the pressure on your back is choking the life out of you is truly a most frightening way to die. Knowing this force can stop if the officer chooses to stop. Knowing that other officers can see you are dying and are doing absolutely nothing to help. I cant breathe is all you can manage to say.

While I could just as well be referring to George Floyd, I am not. Vicente Villela died last year at the hands of an officer while incarcerated as a pretrial detainee at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Albuquerque. A video of Vicentes restraint by officers circulated online after his death, all too similar to the video of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Both show unambiguously excessive uses of force that defy explanation.

As a society, we must finally accept that we have a problem with the force our police departments and jails use on citizens. This problem isnt restricted to large cities like Minneapolis or New York, nor is it restricted to any particular race or demographic. It isnt even restricted to people engaged in criminal activity.

Looking at Vicente Villela, a local example of an inmate whose life was squeezed away as officers kneeled on his back, one wonders what MDC has done in the time since his death. Despite an autopsy listing the cause of his death as homicide, no criminal charges have been filed against the officers who killed Vicente as he lay on the floor repeatedly gasping, I cant breathe. The officers involved have pled the Fifth in the civil lawsuit that has ensued, but they still receive a full paycheck from Bernalillo County. The criminal investigation into this case that was so widely publicized a year ago has gone nowhere, like so many others.

The bad apples that exist in our police departments and jails are often well known. George Floyds killer reportedly had 17 prior disciplinary complaints filed against him. Lawyers who work for public defender offices throughout the country can point to officers who frequently use excessive force in their jurisdictions. The lack of accountability that allows such officers to remain employed emboldens them in their excessive behavior. When prosecutors turn a blind eye to this systemwide knowledge of the bad actors, they actively encourage their behavior. We can now see these events widespread and on a regular basis because of civilian telephone footage that has finally allowed these abuses of force to be caught on tape. Yet locally, the sheriff of New Mexicos largest county still refuses to equip his officers with lapel cameras. This is unacceptable and should change tomorrow.

Officers who deliberately interfere with citizens ability to see their government at work should be disciplined or removed from office. Just look at the Minneapolis video in which an officer stood in front of the camera in an effort to stop the events being recorded instead of coming to Floyds aid and potentially saving a life. This is exactly the type of policing we need to eradicate.

It doesnt take much common sense to realize that accountability for unconstitutional conduct is critical for cultural change. We must eliminate the blue wall of silence that law enforcement so frequently uses. We need to put a stop to collective bargaining agreements that make it almost impossible to discipline officers when they engage in misconduct. We need to reward officers who intervene when citizens rights are being violated instead of retaliating against those officers. Whistleblowers should be encouraged, not stifled.

We need to encourage a change in the culture of law enforcement.
DUBAI, June 9 (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) agreed a deal build and operate a 500-megawatt wind farm project in Uzbekistan, the Abu Dhabi media office said in a tweet on Tuesday.

The agreement was signed with Uzbekistan's Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade and JSC National Electric Grid, as part of the country's goal of developing 5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2030. (Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir, editing by Louise Heavens)
The leading African intervention platform www.beatingcorona.africa has released a report spotlighting ten insights on COVID-19 interventions in Nigeria. The report features vital facts that provide a comprehensive deconstruction of how non-governmental interventions fared in the early stages of the Coronavirus in Nigeria and how they are coping with its steady rise.

The report has revealed that asides from the general interventions provided by the federal government, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara, and Gombe states all saw less than 3 non-governmental intervention initiatives in their communities while Oyo, Abuja, Rivers, Abia, Ogun, and Lagos recorded the highest number of intervention initiatives, with Ogun ranking at 45 and Lagos, 150 being the highest. It was also highlighted in the BeatingCorona Africa report that 300 Naira is the average amount spent on helping a person a day. Beating Corona conducted a survey with a sample population of 30 COVID-19 interventions from across Nigeria who are actively providing help. The survey recorded that 30 of them had reached out to 90,270 people and had spent 27,351,810 Naira. This brings the average cost spent on meeting peoples needs to 300 Naira per person.

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This report is integral to BeatingCorona Africas initiative mission to comprehensively document the intervention in Nigeria and Africa. This report comes on the heels of the successful How I am Beating Corona campaign that urged Nigerians of all demographics to share how they are playing their part in beating the Coronavirus. This campaign featured personalities like Ruth Kadiri, Juliet Ibrahim, Ubi Franklin, Ruggedman, Nse Ikpe-Etim, BB Naijas Frodd, Olive Emodi, Simi Drey, Sega Link, among others.

There is also The Beating Corona Telethon: Heroes, Champions & The Future set to spotlight people who are most proactive in the fight against COVID-19 in Nigeria. Africas music legend, Dbanj has also joined The BeatingCorona Africas Heroes call for nominations, in a video where he urged people to visit www.beatingcorona.africa to nominate their heroes. The Beating Corona Telethon: Heroes, Champions & The Future will be hosted by some of Africas finest personalities, Vimbai Mutinhiri and Temisan Emmanuel.

The release of this report comes at a time when Nigeria marked 100 days of dealing with COVID-19, of which the BeatingCorona platform has been able to connect more than 15,050 people to help centres across Nigeria, as the world continues to search for a lasting solution to the pandemic. The full report has been made open to the public and can be accessible via this link: https://beatingcorona.africa/insights/

###

About BeatingCorona Africa

www.beatingcorona.africa established by The Future Project in partnership with YNaija and Culture Intelligence is an innovative platform that gathers data of all COVID-19 interventions. Spearheading the creation of a comprehensive and accessible information database on what organizations, brands, groups, corporations, and individuals are doing to assist in the fight against Covid-19 across Africa. Naija Relief Base is in collaboration with BeatingCoronaAfrica to provide information on Lagos based interventions.

About Red Media Africa

Red Media Africa (www.redmediaafrica.com) is the PR & Empowerment Marketing division under the parent brand, RED. It focuses on using inspiration, empowerment, and action to help brands and organisations connect with their audiences, enhance their bottom-lines, and lead in their industries. It has 6 major practise areas: Corporate Practice, Technology Practice, SME Practice, Governance Practice, Faith Practice, and the International Practice  with work for brands across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. It has been recognised with multiple local and international awards including the Gold SABRE Awards for PR Campaigns and the Young Lions PR competition for the next generation of creatives.
[June 10, 2020] 5G trials have begun in Pakistan

Sydney, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Pakistan outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Pakistan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses This report provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments in Pakistans telecommunications market. The report analyses the Telecoms Infrastructure, mobile, fixed broadband, Digital Media and Digital Economy sectors. Subjects include: Market and industry analyses, trends and developments;

Regional market comparisons

Telecoms Maturity Index

Data centres and smart Infrastructure;

Major players, revenues, subscribers, ARPU;

Broadband (FTTH, DSL);

Internet of Things, 5G developments

Mobile, broadband and mobile broadband forecasts to 2023-4. Researcher:- Phil Harpur

Current publication date:- October 2019 (25th Edition) Executive Summary 5G trials have begun in Pakistan Pakistans telecom market had long struggled with the transition from a regulated state-owned monopoly to a deregulated competitive structure. The transition, and the development of the telecom sector generally, has been greatly aided by foreign investment. Despite the governments promotion of internet services and the expansion of access nationally over the past decade, fixed broadband penetration remains low at barely 1%. The fixed-line telephony market, dominated by Pakistan Telecommunications, is similarly underdeveloped, and the number of fixed lines is slowly declining as the mobile segment continues to expand. As in many countries in Asia, both businesses and government agencies in Pakistan are opening up to the benefits of third-party data centres for public, private and hybrid cloud deployments. Data centres have been established in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, while telcos managing data centres include Telenor, Zong, and Ufone. The mobile market has experienced moderate growth over the last six years, supported by a young population and a rising popularity of mobile services. Slow to moderate growth is predicted over the next five years, though stronger growth will be constrained by local competition which has kept prices down and ARPU low. Mobilink and Warid merged their operations into a single brand, Jazz, which reduced the number of mobile operators reduced from six to five. Further market consolidation is anticipated over the next few years as the operating margins of the major operators come under further pressure. In January 2020 the telecom regulator issued trial 5G licenses to Zong and Jazz. Despite this, the capacity of LTE infrastructure and the lack of compelling user cases for 5G suggests that network operators are not yet pressed to launch commercial services. BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries. On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth. Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report. The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions. Key Developments Regulator postpones renewal of Telenor Pakistans GSM licence due to CPOVID-19 crisis,

Fixed line market predicted to decline further over the next five years to 2024;

Dominance of the mobile platform continues to hinder development of fixed-broadband segment;

Universal Service Fund (USF) and Ufone signa contract to provide broadband coverage for the Makran Coastal Highway;

MoIT aiming to launch 5G services later in 2020;

Report update includes operator data to Q1 2020, regulators market data for 2019, Telecom Iaturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector. Key companies mentioned in this report: Pakistan Telecommunication (PTCL); Ufone (PTML, PTCLs subsidiary); Telenor Pakistan; Warid Telecom; Zong; WorldCall; TeleCard; PakNet; Wateen Telecom (subsidiary of Warid Telecom); Mobiink; NayaTel; Wi-Tribe; National Telecommunications (NTC), Instaphone



Key statistics

Regional Asian Market Comparison

Country overview

COVID-19 and its impact on the telecom sector Economic considerations and responses Mobile devices Subscribers Infrastructure

Telecommunications market Market overview and analysis Revenue and investment levels Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

Regulatory environment Overview Regulatory authorities Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) National Telecommunications Corp (NTC) Fixed-line developments Access Mobile network developments Spectrum auctions  2014 - 2017 Mobile Termination Rates Other developments

Mobile market Market overview and analysis Mobile statistics Mobile infrastructure 5G Mobile broadband Major mobile operators Statistics by operator PMCL (Jazz) Ufone (PTCL) Telenor Pakistan Zong Special Communication Organisation (SCO) Historic - Instaphone (Pakcom) MVNOs Mobile content and applications m-commerce / m-banking

Fixed-line broadband market Market analysis Broadband statistics Government broadband projects Fixed broadband service providers Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) Stormfiber Fixed broadband technologies Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) Networks Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) networks Fibre-to-the-Premises (FttP) networks Fixed wireless Other fixed broadband services

Digital economy e-Commerce Overview e-Government e-Education e-Health

Fixed network operators Fixed network subscribers by operator Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) WorldCall group TeleCard Wateen Telecom

Telecommunications infrastructure Overview of the national telecom network Fixed line statistics Fibre networks International infrastructure Satellite networks Submarine cable networks International gateways International fibre optic links Data centres Overview Challenges Providers Smart infrastructure Internet of Things (IoT) Smart cities Smart grids

Appendix  Historic data

Glossary of abbreviations

Related reports List of Tables Table 1  Top Level Country Statistics and Telco Authorities  Pakistan  2020 (e)

Table 2  Pakistans telecom revenues (PKR million) by category - 2004  2018

Table 3 Pakistans telecom investment  total and mobile - 2004  2018

Table 4  Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in telecom sector  2008  2018

Table 5  Percentage of Population Covered by Type of Mobile Network

Table 6  Growth in the number of mobile subscribers and penetration  2010  2025

Table 7  Growth in the number of mobile broadband subscribers and penetration  2009  2024

Table 8  Change in the number of mobile subscribers by operator  2013  2019

Table 9  Change in the market share of mobile subscribers by operator  2013 - 2019

Table 10  Annual change in the number of mobile subscribers by operator  2015  2019

Table 11  Mobile subscribers by operator and 3G, 4G - 2018

Table 12  PCML (Jazz) mobile subscribers  2008 - 2019

Table 13  Historic - Warid Telecom subscribers  2005  2016

Table 14  Ufone (PTCL) subscribers  2008  2019

Table 15  Growth in the number of Telenor Pakistans mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Table 16  Development of Telenor Pakistans mobile ARPU  2010  2020

Table 17  Development of Telenor Pakistans financial data  2010  2020

Table 18  CMPak (Zong) mobile subscribers  2008  2019

Table 19  Change in the number of fixed broadband subscribers and penetration  2010  2025

Table 20  Fixed broadband subscribers by access type  2009  2019

Table 21  Fixed Broadband subscribers by access type  2009  2019

Table 22  Fixed broadband subscribers market share by access type  2009  2019

Table 23  Fixed broadband subscribers annual change by access type  2010  2019

Table 24  International internet bandwidth  2004  2018

Table 25  Lit/Equipped International Bandwidth Capacity  2013  2018

Table 26  Cable modem subscribers  2008  2019

Table 27  DSL broadband subscribers  2005  2019

Table 28  FTTH subscribers  2007  2019

Table 29  WiMAX subscribers  2008  2019

Table 30  Fixed local line subscribers by operator 2018

Table 31  Fixed-line (WLL) subscribers by operator  2018

Table 32  Historic - PTCL fixed-line subscribers  2008  2017

Table 33  Decline in the number of fixed-line subscriptions and teledensity  2009  2025

Table 34  Historic - mobile subscribers  1995  2005

Table 35  Historic - Telenor Pakistan mobile subscribers  2008  2009

Table 36  Historic  fixed-line subscribers and penetration  1991 - 2006

Table 37  Historic - Instaphone (Pakcom) subscribers  2000  2010

Table 38  Historic - Internet Users and Penetration  2007  2016

Table 39  Historic - PTCL broadband subscribers  2007  2016 List of Charts

Chart 1  Asian Telecoms Maturity Index by Market Category

Chart 2  Asian Telecoms Maturity Index vs GDP per Capita

Chart 3  Telecoms Maturity Index  Central Asia

Chart 4  Mobile, Mobile Broadband & Fixed Broadband Penetration  2019; 2024

Chart 5 - Growth in the number of mobile subscribers and penetration  2009  2024

Chart 6  Growth in the number of mobile broadband subscribers and penetration  2009  2024

Chart 7  Change in the number of mobile subscribers by operator  2013  2019

Chart 8  Change in the market share of mobile subscribers by operator  2013 - 2019

Chart 9  Growth in the number of Telenor Pakistans mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Chart 10  Development of Telenor Pakistans mobile ARPU  2010  2020

Chart 11  Development of Telenor Pakistans financial data  2010  2020

Chart 12  Change in the number of fixed broadband subscribers and penetration  2010  2025

Chart 13 - Decline in the number of fixed-line subscriptions and teledensity  2009  2025 List of Exhibits Exhibit 1  Key market characteristics by market segment

Exhibit 2  Central Asia -Key Characteristics of Telecoms Markets by Country

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Pakistan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses Nicolas Bombourg [email protected] Within Australia (02) 8076 7665 Outside Australia +44 207 097 1241

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Summer is finally here. That means home cooks will be looking for some fresh produce and other seasonal products to use in their kitchens.

Various farmers markets are beginning to open in the Region. The markets offer a variety of items from fruits, vegetables and flowers to jams, jellies, honey and other products.

Visiting farmers markets this year will be a bit different due to the coronavirus pandemic. Customers can expect many safety precautions in place including wearing masks, social distancing and less vendors at many of the markets.

Check out our sample list of farmers markets. If you don't see your favorite market listed, let us know.

 Chesterton's European Market, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays through Oct. 31 at 220 Broadway, in the parking lot next to Thomas Centennial Park. A limited number of vendors will showcase wares. Each week vendors will rotate. Visitors must wear masks. The market features a variety of items, including fruits and vegetables, artisan breads, flowers, jams, jellies, honey and more. There will be one entry as well as a separate exit. No pets allowed. FYI: 219- 926-5513 or chestertonseuropeanmarket.com
LOS ANGELES - After 33 seasons on the air, Cops has been dropped by the Paramount Network as protests against police proliferate around the world.

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This article was published 9/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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A mural is seen on a boarded up business as a Los Angeles Police Department car drives by, Tuesday, June 9, 2020, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Many businesses were boarded up during protests over the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a black man died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

LOS ANGELES - After 33 seasons on the air, Cops has been dropped by the Paramount Network as protests against police proliferate around the world.

Cops is not on the Paramount Network and we dont have any current or future plans for it to return, a spokesperson for the cable channel said in a statement Tuesday.

The show had been pulled temporarily from the air in late May, when protests aimed at police over the death of George Floyd began to gain momentum. That move was made permanent Tuesday.

It's not clear whether the company that makes the show, Langley Productions, would try to find a new home for it. A voicemail at a company phone number was not accepting messages.

The reality show, with its widely known reggae theme song Bad Boys, allowed viewers to ride along with police officers on patrol in various cities.

It ran on the Fox network for 25 years until 2013, when Viacom-owned Spike TV picked it up. The show remained on the air after Spike was re-branded as the Paramount Network in 2018.
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The world has left an awful lot behind - as these haunting images of decaying industry from all four corners of the globe reveal.

They feature in new book Abandoned Industrial Places, by David Ross, which contains more than 200 photos of empty factories, laboratories, mills and mines.

And while spooky, they are also irresistibly fascinating, with the structures they capture - some of which are jaw-dropping pieces of architecture - often having been left to decay amid stunning landscapes.

There's the eerie deserted Michigan Central Station in Detroit, a barren diamond mine in South Africa's Northern Cape, a vast rocket launching site deep in Kazakhstan and what could be the world's first mine in Swaziland.

David writes: 'Surprisingly often, these buildings, factories, mills or hospitals still have their machinery or furnishings left intact, with everyday articles lying about, as though the people who worked there had been suddenly spirited away. These left-over structures still hold memories of the life that was once there.'

Scroll down to explore MailOnline Travel's pick of the images from the tome, with captions courtesy of the author...

Baikonur Cosmodrome Area 2, Kazakhstan

The vast rocket launching site, the worlds first and largest, leased by Russia from Kazakhstan, is divided into different areas, writes David. The oldest part still contains many historic relics of the 1950s and 60s space programmes. While there is a museum on the site, the entire area is a kind of open-air museum of the early years of space exploration

Mirny Diamond Mine, Sakha Republic, Russia

This enormous pit has been dug out since 1955 as the worlds most productive diamond mine. At 525m (1,700ft) deep and 1200m (3,900ft) across, it is claimed as the second-largest man-made hole in the earth, writes David. Subterranean mining continues. A substantial new town extends right to the lip of the pit

Crystal Mill, Colorado

Water from the Crystal River was diverted down the wooden tower to drive an air compressor, which in turn powered drilling machinery in the adjacent mine shafts. The structure was built in 1892 and operations ceased in 1917. Its remoteness has helped to preserve it, David says

Lower Ore Dock, Marquette, Michigan

Built in 193132 to discharge iron ore pellets from railroad trucks directly into the holds of ships on each side, the massive structure has been disused since 1971 and stands isolated in the waters of Lake Superior, writes David. An ambitious plan exists to convert it into a kind of eco-park

Wilson Carbide Mill, Gatineau, Ottawa, Canada

Thomas Carbide Wilson (18601915) discovered the process of making calcium carbide, a valuable chemical compound. He built a factory here, using water power to generate the necessary electricity: the worlds first phosphorus acid condensation plant. The technology was right but the finances went wrong. The ruins remain as a memorial to the venture, says David

Michigan Central Station, Detroit

Built in the grand style when Detroit was becoming a hub of the automotive industry, writes David, the station resembled classical Roman baths, backed by a massive office block. The last train ran from here in January 1988, since when curious visitors had run the risk of falling plaster or stonework, until 2018 when the Ford Motor Company acquired it for conversion into a high-tech campus site

Blue Heron Paper Mill, Willamette Falls, Oregon

Wood, electric power, water the dense array of poles, wires, piping, spillways, conveyors and ventilators display graphically what a paper mill needed to function. Power generation from the falls prompted the establishment of a mill in the 1880s. Most of the buildings on the 23-acre site are 20th century. Local First Nation groups were displaced when sawmilling began here in the 1850s: now the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are repurchasing their old home ground, says David

Morgan Lewis Sugar Mill, St Andrew, Barbados

Slavery underpinned the colonial economy of Barbados when this mill, the only complete wind-powered sugar-mill remaining in the Caribbean, was established. Out of commercial use since 1947, it was identified in 1996 as one of the worlds 100 most endangered historic sites. Since then it has been restored, and still grinds sugar cane on occasion, using the original equipment, says David

Kelenfold Power Station, Budapest, Hungary

David writes: Hungary was at the forefront of early electric technology and this 1914 power station was one of the most advanced in the world. It supplied power until 2007, and remains intact with its turbines, generators and switchgear, as well as its splendid control room ceiling

La Fornace Penna, Sampieri, Sicily

Set up in 1912 as a brick-and tile-works, the Penna Furnace was handsomely built of stone, with a central aisle and naves, like a church, writes David. It was destroyed by fire in 1924, the cause never identified, though there have been dark rumours of political or commercial vendettas - and since then has stood as a picturesque ruin, used as a background by film-makers

Disused Cooling Tower, Charleroi, Belgium

Part of coal-burning Power Plant IM, built in 1921, this vast cooling tower was said to be capable of cooling 2,182,000 litres (480,000 gallons) of almost-boiling water a minute. But the plant also produced 10 per cent of the countrys CO2 emissions, and was shut down in 2007, explains David. The power station has been demolished but the tower remains intact

Soda Ash Plant, Winnington, Northwich, Cheshire

Geological deposits of salt and limestone led to the siting of a massive sodium carbonate plant here in 1926, writes David. Production of soda ash and calcium chloride ended in February 2014 and the giant ash silos are seen here in process of demolition in late 2016

Naval Craft, Peenemunde, Vorpommern, Germany

Peenemunde is best known as the launch site of V2 rockets in World War II, but its harbour was a temporary home in 2013 to these ex-Swedish Navy Hugin-class patrol boats, stripped of their armament and fast-drive main engines and awaiting a buyer, writes David. The deck-rails indicate that they were intended for minelaying

Bunabhainneader Whaling Station, Isle of Harris, Scotland

Between 1903 and 1920 this was a substantial whale processing works, until the North Atlantic whale population was almost wiped out, writes David. The works were briefly revived in the 1950s but since then demolition and erosion have left only a surviving chimney, though the foundations and lower parts of many of the buildings are still visible

Cwmorthin Slate Mine, Blaenau Festiniog, Wales

Mining finally ended here only in 2000 but the ruins and spoil heaps date from much earlier, says David. The hillside is seamed with five levels of underground workings, some still accessible to experienced visitors and containing much in the way of artefacts in their tunnels and chambers

Nuclear Plant I, Voronezh, Russia

Intended to provide electric power and hot water to the city, this experimental plant was constructed between 1983 and 1990 but never completed due to concerns about its safety, writes David. After being frozen for 30 years, dismantling and site clearance began in 2019. A new nuclear plant is under development alongside

Antimony Mine, Pezinok, Slovakia

A geologists dream site, this mining district is celebrated for its multiplicity of rare mineral specimens. There are many adits [horizontal passages] apart from this one, some in a dangerous state and others now lost, as well as open pits now partially filled in, writes David. Active mining ended around 1990

Diamond Mine, Alexander Bay, Northern Cape, South Africa

This area was known as the Diamond Coast. Fossilised oyster beds at the mouth of the Orange River also hold diamonds washed downstream. This derelict building held crushers and separators, writes David

Ngwenya Mine, Swaziland

A truly historic site, perhaps the worlds first mine: red ochre was dug here over 40,000 years ago. This terraced pit is modern, says David, a relic of an open-cast mine begun in 1966 and currently not being worked

Marble Cutting Room, Marmara Island, Turkey

Fine white marble has been quarried here for over 3,500 years and many techniques have been used to cut and polish the slabs, writes David. The redundant sawing machine was driven from a shaft turned by a steam engine or, later, electric motor

Caspian Sea Oil Rigs, Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku is the centre of one of the oldest exploited oil fields and the region has a correspondingly large amount of obsolete or disused drilling gear, including the cluster of platforms once employed offshore in the Caspian Sea, writes David
San Francisco, June 10 : Electric car maker Tesla's stock surpassed all-time high of $1,000 mark on Wednesday morning trades after its CEO Elon Musk said it was time to begin 'volume production' of its new commercial Semi truck.

Shares of the California-based Tesla were up nearly 7 per cent 6.8% in the morning trade.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said that demand in China for Model 3 is going stronger than expected.

"We believe that the China growth story is worth at least $300 per share to Tesla as this EV penetration is set to ramp significantly over the next 12 to 18 months," Ives wrote in a note to clients.

According to Tesla's website, Semi is powered by four independent motors and requires the "lowest energy cost per mile".

The truck was first unveiled in 2017.

Tesla's Nevada factory would likely produce the truck's battery and powertrain, while the remaining work will be carried out in other locations around the country, according to a memo Musk sent to Tesla employees, TheStreet reported on Wednesday.

"It's time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production," Musk was quoted as saying in the email.

"It's been in limited production so far, which has allowed us to improve many aspects of the design." The truck is slated to cost around $150,000 for the 300-mile model and around $180,000 for the 500-mile model, said the report.
The Florida Supreme Court has granted an emergency request by The Florida Bar to immediately suspend an attorney who, with his firm, has filed thousands of assignment of benefit and first party lawsuits against Florida property insurers over the last several years.

The states high court approved the petition for an emergency suspension of Scot Strems, owner and sole named partner of Coral Gables-based Strems Law Firm, on June 9. The move came after The Florida Bar filed a 48-page petition on June 4 alleging that Strems has been the respondent of several complaints before the Florida bar and that he and his firm are causing great public harm.

Strems firm is accused by the bar of engaging in mendacious, bad-faith conduct and making dishonest or even fraudulent statements to other parties involved in suits, including the court. The bar also accuses Strems of illegally filing multiple lawsuits on an individual policy claim, delaying and ignoring court deadlines, and violating court orders.

Mr. Strems sits at the head of a vast campaign of unprofessional, unethical, and fraudulent conduct that now infects courts and communities across the state, the petition states.

The bars petition said that given the pattern of conduct by Strems and his firm and the clear and unquestionable harm to the public, the immediate suspension was warranted.

Strems did not respond to multiple requests for comment but his attorney Mark Kamilar said in an email to Insurance Journal Wednesday that, Scot Strems strongly disputes the allegations and is working with The Bar to set a hearing to present his defense. The firms website states the firm has approximately 20 attorneys across six offices in the state and that it specializes in first-party property claims, in which it represents homeowners against their property insurers.

A former associate of the firm testified it had filed more than 10,000 suits against Florida property insurance companies.

Industry Calls On Florida Lawmakers to Reform Lawsuit Abuse The industry again expresses concern over an explosion of AOB claims over the last several years. Study Cites AOB Abuse for Increasing Insurance Costs In Florida The I.I.I. report says the AOB mini-industry has cost consumers billions of dollars as they are forced to pay higher premiums to cover needless repairs and excessive legal fees.

Despite the professional veneer of the firms website, dockets across Florida are replete with orders sanctioning Mr. Strems and his subordinates for the delay, misrepresentation, and bad faith that have become the hallmarks of their firms litigation practice, the bar stated in its petition.

The petition says Strems firm files separate lawsuits against insurers for individual claims, even though they occur under the same policy, at the same property, and at the same time. After these cases are filed, water mitigation firm All Insurance Restoration Services, Inc. (AIRS), subsequently files multiple lawsuits in county courts relating to the same losses. The bar petition states that while SLF does not typically represent AIRS, the water mitigation firm will proceed under an AOB that has been executed by SLFs clients.

The end result is that the involvement of respondent and his firm results in four separate lawsuits filed resulting from the same alleged occurrence, the bar petition says.

The bar cites a motion from Avatar Insurance Co. that the firm has worked in tandem with AIR and the public adjusting firm Contender Claims Consultants, noting the entities are involved in literally thousands of claims together, more likely tens of thousands of claims.

Cited in the 700-pages of documents that accompany the petition as evidence are:

More than 30 orders and other filings of case dismissals with prejudice because of willful violations of a courts orders or purposeful delays, as well as sanctions against the firm, involving 18 cases against eight different insurance companies.

A class action lawsuit by claimants who say they were illegally solicited and profited off of by the firm and other third parties.

Affidavits by two Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court judges who have handled hundreds of cases brought by Strems.

A deposition of the firms former litigation manager who testified that the firm has handled as many as 10,000 suits at once, that Strems attorneys for the firm didnt keep track of their time and fee sheets stating time spent on cases were falsified.

The bar said numerous parties have been and continue to be injured by [Strems] bad faith, including: insurers and their counsel who must litigate these cases; the courts; the public and Florida homeowners whose premiums ultimately fund both sides of SLFs cases and the clients of Strems who are sometimes conscripted (unwittingly or otherwise) into the firms conduct, and whose claims are frequently rendered worthless due to court sanctions.

Also cited in the petition are synopses of orders and other filings across 18 separate cases that lay bare the pattern of unethical and unprofessional conduct by respondent and SLF.

The orders  by no means represent the totality of sanctions issued against respondent and his firm. Indeed, the orders themselves make reference to yet more sanctions orders which are not addressed in this petition, the bar states.

In an affidavit dated May 4, Judge Gregory Holder of the Thirteenth Circuit Court in Hillsborough County, Fla., said he personally had presided over hundreds of first-party property claims cases involving Scot Strems or the Strems Law Firm. Holder said he and other judges in the courts General Civil Division have had many conversations concerning the pattern and practice of Strems and the Strems Law Firm.

Universally, these discussions have noted his absolute violations of the Rules of Professional Responsibility and blatant obstruction of justice in virtually every case where he and his firm enter an appearance, Holder stated.

Holder also noted Strems conduct has resulted in clear and unquestionable great harm to these Florida citizens who have chosen Mr. Strems and his firm to represent their interests.

Affected Companies

Florida-based Security First Insurance Co. has litigated hundreds of Strems cases and filed multiple sanctions against the firm. Representatives from the company told Insurance Journal the firm engaged in the aforementioned delay tactics on claims investigations, inflated or misrepresented claims, and delayed court proceedings like discovery efforts and depositions on claims lawsuits in attempts to increase its fee payouts. Security First currently has 209 open cases with the Strems firm.

In January, Security First deposed former Strems litigation manager and managing partner Christian Aguirre in a $321,000 fee dispute. Aguirre, who resigned from the firm in 2018, testified that at one point during his tenure the firm had as many as 10,000 lawsuits against insurance companies and that he personally handled as many as 700 in one year for the firm.

In the deposition, included as evidence in the petition for Strems emergency suspension, Aguirre said the Strems firm did not instruct him to keep track of his time and the law firm billed for case meetings that never occurred.

Bill Mitchell, head of the First Party Practice Group for insurance defense firm Conroy Simberg in Tampa, called the Strems Law Firm the worst in terms of firms that sue Florida insurers. He said he personally had multiple interactions with the Strems firm in cases he worked where its attorneys would fail to show up for examination under oath requests, depositions, and not respond to discovery. The goal of Strems, he said, was to incur larger fees by dragging out the cases.

When you negotiate a settlement after a year and a half, they feel they are entitled to a higher fee of that settlement when in reality that claim could have been settled in 30 days, Mitchell said.

Roger Desjadon, CEO of Florida Peninsula Insurance Co., said the company has had a magnitude of lawsuits submitted by the Strems firm  and in many cases it has been multiple lawsuits on the same loss. He described Strems as among the top three or four firms filing lawsuits against his company.

This particular law firm is a very well recognized name in the state of Florida in the realm of lawsuits for profit, or the allegation of lawsuits for profit, he said.

Whats Next

The Supreme Courts emergency suspension states that Strems may no longer accept new clients and must cease to represent any clients after 30 days of the court order. In addition, Strems must notify all clients, opposing counsel and courts where he is counsel of record of his suspension, which Mitchell said leaves any case for which he is personally named on the retaining agreements in limbo. It was not clear if the other attorneys at the firm will take over these cases for the Strems firm. Additionally, Strems must provide The Florida Bar with the requisite affidavit listing all clients, opposing counsel and courts informed of the order within 30 days.

Strems was further ordered by the court to stop disbursing or withdrawing any funds from any trust account related to his law practice without approval of the Florida Supreme Court or appointees, as well as other conditions related to financials.

A referee will be appointed by the Florida Supreme Court within 14 days and a case management conference will be conducted within the next two months. Strems is expected to respond to the Florida Bars petition.

AOB & Lawsuit Abuse

Some in the insurance industry hope this situation will be an example to the Florida Legislature of how certain law firms are taking advantage of insureds and exploiting the states legal system for their own gain, and that lawmakers take steps to address the issue.

I would like to see a greater focus on how these sort of actions impact the industry as a whole and consumers as a whole, because unfortunately I think a lot of people have the misconception that when we, being insurance companies, pay fraudulent, frivolous or over-inflated claims, that its a victimless crime and that it doesnt matter, said Melissa Burt DeVriese, president of Security First.

DeVriese said insurers in Florida are filing large rate increases because of losses related to excessive litigation like what was happening with Strems, and, Guess who pays those rate increases? The consumer.

The vast majority of people do not file frivolous lawsuits. They do not file frivolous claims, but theyre all bearing the cost of a handful of bad actors, she said. Thats what Id like to see come out of this situation is a focus on bad actors, a focus on the cost drivers in the Florida market that are leading consumers to pay more for their homeowners insurance than they should be.

Desjadon said addressing the issues with this one particular law firm is a good step, but the problems wont go away even if Strems is disbarred. He said the legislature needs to look at the one-way attorney fee statute and changing the formula of fee multipliers on first party lawsuits so attorneys are not incentivized to file frivolous claims.

I think that this for everyone really is kind of a wake-up call that something needs to be done, or the alternative is there will undoubtedly continue to be problems with pricing and problems with availability, he said.

Topics Lawsuits Carriers Florida Claims Property
CHICAGO, June 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Berlin Packaging, the world's largest rigid packaging supplier, supports today's negative determination by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) regarding the subsidization of Chinese manufactured glass. As a result of the Commission's ruling, no countervailing duty will be imposed on imports of certain glass containers manufactured in China and duties previously calculated by the Department of Commerce will be removed.

"We are extremely gratified by this decision, as it benefits not only our customers, but their customers, the consumer," said Mark Lobring, Vice President of Supply Chain at Berlin Packaging. "As the leading global supplier of rigid packaging, we continue to advocate for fair and open supply chains, so our customers can benefit from the strong relationships we have with our 900+ manufacturing partners on four continents."

With far-reaching and extensive sourcing, a global team of 1,500+ packaging professionals, and thousands of glass packaging customers across a variety of industries including beverage, food, spirits, wine and more, Berlin Packaging has advocated against the imposition of antidumping tariffs and countervailing duties in regards to Chinese manufactured glass.

The original petition was filed in September 2019 by the American Glass Packaging Coalition. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued antidumping and countervailing duties on imported Chinese glass because of an investigation spurred by this petition, but the ITC's findings nullify those duties. The parallel antidumping investigation is still pending and will be decided in October 2020.

About Berlin Packaging

Berlin Packaging is the only global Hybrid Packaging Supplier of glass, plastic, and metal containers and closures. The company supplies packaging solutions for large and small customers across a broad range of products, along with package design, financing, consulting, warehousing, and logistics services for customers across all industries. Berlin Packaging brings together the best of manufacturing, distribution, and income-adding service providers. Its mission is to increase the net income of its customers through packaging products and services. See BerlinPackaging.com for more information.

CONTACT: Julie Saltzman, [email protected]

SOURCE Berlin Packaging
Antsy city dwellers seeking to escape their covid-19 refuges are road-tripping to nearby vacation rentals in surprisingly strong numbers, showing the first signs of life for an industry that essentially ground to a halt in March.

"People, after having been stuck in their homes for a few months, do want to get out of their houses; that's really, really clear," Airbnb Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky said in an interview. "But they don't necessarily want to get on an airplane and are not yet comfortable leaving their countries."

Airbnb saw more nights booked for U.S. listings between May 17 and June 3 than the same period in 2019, and a similar boost in domestic travel globally. The San Francisco-based home-share company is seeing an increase in demand for domestic bookings in countries from Germany to Portugal, South Korea, New Zealand and more. Other companies, including Expedia Group's Vrbo and Booking Holdings are also seeing a jump in domestic vacation-rental reservations.

U.S. searches for Vrbo are now up compared to this time last year, according to a note by Cowen & Co. analyst Kevin Kopelman on Monday, and Airbnb queries are down only around 10%. However, hotels and the wider Expedia brand have yet to get any summer relief with searches still down more than 60%.

International sojourns usually planned months in advance are being replaced with impulsive road trips booked a day before and weekend getaways are turning into weeks-long respites, Chesky said. Previously, a New Yorker might have headed to Paris for a week in June. Now they are going to the Catskills for a month. "Work from home is becoming working from any home," he said.

Still, any rebound is coming from a very low base. The travel sector was gutted by the covid-19 pandemic. Online travel agencies struggled to withstand unprecedented cancellations and air travel passenger traffic that fell 95%. Airbnb and Tripadvisor cut a quarter of their workforces and Chesky said last month that he expects revenue this year to be half of 2019's level. Booking was forced to apply for government aid. In an annual shareholder report last week, Booking CEO Glenn Fogel said the pandemic would impact global travel more than the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the SARS epidemic and the 2008 financial crisis combined.

But months of pent-up demand is leading to a rush of summer reservations. Airbnb has more listings today than it did before the crisis, according to Chesky. The top destinations in the U.S. on Airbnb are almost exclusively traditional vacation rental markets such as Big Bear Lake in southern California, the Smoky Mountains, along the Tennessee-North Carolina border, and Port Aransas in Texas, according to the company.

The unexpected speed of the comeback has kept Airbnb's plans for a 2020 public market debut afloat. Chesky had originally planned to file paperwork for an offering March 31, but was waylaid by the pandemic-related market turmoil that led to speculation the listing would be shelved until next year. However, Chesky says it's still an option. "We're not ruling out going public this year and we're not committing to it," he said. Airbnb was valued at $31 billion in its most recent private fund-raising round, though recent debt issuance to shore up its finances have significantly reduced that valuation.

Since the pandemic began, the percentage of bookings on Airbnb within 200 miles (322 kilometers) -- a round trip travelers can typically complete on one tank of gas -- has grown from a third in February to more than 50% in May. Travel in a post-covid world is shifting "from airplane to car, big city to small location, hotel to home," Chesky said.

Vrbo is seeing similar trends as popular tourist states like Florida and Maine reopen. There's an "immediate pop" as soon as a destination opens, said Jeff Hurst, president of Vrbo, which accounts for about 20% of Expedia's total revenue. "If you draw a 250- mile circle around any major metro -- every place where you see water in there or mountains or national parks, the homes around it are what's starting to get booked up," Hurst said.

Hotels aren't as prevalent in more rural locations. And even where they are, travelers are preferring to stay in vacation homes so they can cook in their own kitchens, control who comes and goes and avoid crowded common areas like lobbies, Hurst said. To help salvage the summer season, Airbnb and Vrbo have enforced confidence-boosting policies that include flexible cancellations and new standards for cleaning.

"We have seen a faster recovery within alternative accommodations than in hotels," Morgan Stanley analyst Brain Nowak wrote in a note last week. Shares in hotel companies such as Marriott International Inc., Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. have dropped by more than 20% this year, compared with Expedia and Booking, which have fallen as much as 14%.

People are eager for open spaces like beach towns or mountain villages, which is sparking the vacation rental rebound, said Naved Khan, an analyst at Suntrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. "Little by little we are seeing it unfold before us as people are feeling bold enough to venture out and stay at another place for a couple of nights and most of the time these places are homes and villas."

Searches for vacation rentals on Google are about at the same level as last year, while hotel searches are down, said Booking Holdings Chief Marketing Officer Arjan Dijk. Consumer appetite has completely changed from a year ago, he said. Significantly more users are signing on to the company's wish list function and indicating interest in domestic homes over international ones. In fact, the company has seen its business shift to more than 70% domestic travel from 45% the same period last year, he said.

Demand for air travel is also showing some early signs of life after all but collapsing. Daily passenger numbers in the U.S. climbed to 391,882 on June 4, the highest since March 22, according to the Transportation Security Administration. But the average daily total over the past seven days was still 87% less than during the same period a year ago. American Airlines Group Inc. said it would boost July flights 74% compared with this month, though the number of flights in July will be about 40% of capacity a year earlier, compared with 30% in June, the airline said Thursday.

"It's going to be awhile before people start crossing borders, getting into planes or traveling for business," Chesky said. The big question on his mind now, as he weighs taking his startup public, is whether the spike in recent bookings turns into a sustainable trend. "The long-term question is what does it look like in a year or five years and that's really anyone's guess," he said. Chesky won't be celebrating until the market stabilizes. "I had a rule that even in our darkest of hours I wouldn't get too low because that's just a moment in time," he said. "And if I can't get too low, then I can't get too up."
Description

GIS  10 June 2020:  I severely condemn all acts of brutality, including those perpetrated by the Police. Such behaviour cannot be tolerated since Police Officers are supposed to be upholding the law and protecting citizens. The Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, made this statement, yesterday, in the National Assembly, in a reply to a parliamentary question pertaining to the status of the inquiry initiated regarding the alleged cases of police brutality towards members of a family in Residence Vallijee on 24 March 2020 and actions taken in relation thereto.

Subsequent to a video clip being shared on the social media showing some Police Officers using violence against two individuals of the family, indicated Prime Minister Jugnauth, the then Commissioner of Police announced during a Press Conference, on 25 March 2020, that the Central Criminal Investigation Department has been entrusted the responsibility to conduct an enquiry into the matter. In the course of the investigation, on 26 March 2020, one Police Constable was arrested and provisionally charged with the offence of Torture by Public Officer before the Magistrate of District Court of Port Louis the next day. The Police Constable was released on bail and interdicted from duty, added the PM.

The Prime Minister also highlighted that as at 05 June 2020, statements have been recorded from several Police officers with a view to establishing the exact facts and circumstances of the case. He stressed that Police has on its own initiative reported the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission for the sake of transparency. As such, a certified true copy of the Case File and a full report showing the status of the Police enquiry have been handed over to the Commission for investigation.
A frantic search for an abducted three-month-old girl in Texas ended tragically on Tuesday when police found the infant dead inside her father's car submerged in the Red River.

The Texas Department of Safety issued an Amber Alert early Tuesday night for Lyrik Brown, saying that she was last seen at 9pm the previous evening when she was taken away by her father, 30-year-old Jeremy Brown.

Shortly before 4pm on Tuesday, police in Gainsville received information on Brown's whereabouts and rushed to the Red River at Interstate 35.

Jeremy Brown, 30 (left), was arrested in Texas on Tuesday after police found his car with his dead baby daughter, Lyrik Brown (right), inside submerged in the Red River

Police had been searching for the man and the baby since early Tuesday morning , after he sped off in his Volkswagen Jetta with the infant inside

Responding officers found Brown in the water next to his overturned Volkswagen Jetta.

When the vehicle was pulled from the river, police found an infant believed to be the missing child dead inside. The baby was said to be still strapped in her car seat.

'The family has been notified of this information and a positive identification is pending,' according to a statement from the police.

An autopsy will be performed on the child to determine her cause of death.

Brown was removed from the water and assessed for any injuries, after which he was arrested and booked into the Cooke County Jail on a charge of assault of a family member.

The charge stems from an altercation that took place between Brown and his 18-year-old girlfriend, Lyrik's mother, on Monday, reported Gainesville Daily Register.

The woman told police she was riding in the gray Volkswagen Jetta with Brown and their daughter when the couple got into an argument, which escalated to a scuffle.

Brown and his 18-year-old girlfriend welcomed Lyrik on February 18. Police say she was still trapped into her car seat at the time of her death

Brown, pictured with his baby daughter, has three older children from past relationships

Brown's criminal record dates back to 2007 and includes charges of engaging in organized criminal activity and assault, among others

The young mother said she was able to escape the vehicle, but Brown followed her and allegedly continued the assault.

The 30-year-old man later got back in the car and drove off with his daughter inside.

Arrest records in Cooke County indicate that Brown has a criminal history that stretches back to 2007 and includes multiple charges of engaging in organized criminal activity, possession or delivery of drug paraphernalia, firearm smuggling and assault.

Brown and his girlfriend welcomed Lyrik on February 18. Social media posts reveal that the 30-year-old man also has three older children from past relationships.
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Linkedin Eisya A. Eloksari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 18:12 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddb0258 1 Business shopping,retail,association,COVID-19,reopening,malls Free

While the government eases restrictions and reopens the economy, the retail sector will take time to recover as consumers continue to hold fears over COVID-19, an industry association has said.

The Indonesian Shopping Center Association (APPBI) stated that it expected shoppers to continue buying their basic necessities when visiting shopping malls and then returning straight home, as has been observed thus far during the pandemic, instead of browsing through shops for leisure, as is the case in normal times.

People are not going to flock to shopping malls straight away because they will still be worried about the pandemic, APPBI chairman Stefanus Ridwan said during a MarkPlus online webinar on Tuesday.

He added that the number of shopping mall visitors had dropped since the countrys first two COVID-19 cases were announced in March. During the pandemic, no less than 190 shopping malls across the country have been temporarily closed, APPBI data show.

Meanwhile, starting in June, the government has begun to relax the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) that were implemented to contain the virus, allowing shopping centers, among other facilities, to open gradually. The Jakarta administration stated that all shopping malls in the city would be allowed to reopen on June 15.

However, Stefanus said customers would still need time to adjust to the health requirements of the so-called new normal, including wearing a face mask inside malls, practicing physical distancing and using cashless payment.

The adjustment period for customers will take around one-and-a-half years, Stefanus added.

Retail sales have dropped 64 percent, according to data from the Office of the Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister.

Meanwhile, to anticipate new customer behavior, APPBI has urged retailers to look to digital channels to reach consumers.

During the health crisis, Indonesian consumers have relied on online delivery platforms to purchase groceries and food instead of visiting supermarkets.

Minimarket chain Alfamart marketing director Ryan Alfons Kaloh said that during the PSBB period, 3,000 of Alfamarts 14,000 outlets nationwide had catered to online orders as a strategy to retain customers.

We have to understand our customers needs. What if there is another period of PSBB because of a second wave like in South Korea? Well, we must be ready to change and adapt again, he said during the same webinar.

Meanwhile, Boga Group, which operates more than 150 restaurants in major cities across Indonesia, has provided online delivery services since the government called for shopping malls to close in March.

The groups president director, Kusnadi Raharja, said it had made major changes in its business operations during the pandemic, including transforming almost of all of its restaurants into cloud kitchens that cater to online orders.

While the group still plans to resume dine-in services at more than half of its restaurants, the rest will continue to cater to online deliveries going forward, including offering ready-to-cook meals, Kusnadi said.

Switching to online deliveries or contactless dine-in services has been quite easy, as we already have the technology, such as online menus and cashless payment. It is just a matter of accelerating the adaptation, he said.

Ready-to-cook meals are among the products that have seen an increase in popularity during the pandemic, while coffee shops have been selling coffee by the liter to keep their businesses afloat.

Read also: New layout, new experience: Restaurateurs prepare for reopening
Reports from Germany suggest the OneUI 2.1 update is finally out for the Samsung Galaxy Note9. It bears the N960FXXU5ETF5 build number, comes in at 1.2GB, and brings some of the S20 series features to Samsungs 2018 flagship Note. It also comes alongside the June security patch.



One UI 2.1 new features (source: SamMobile)

The main additions with the latest version of One UI are Single Take, Pro video and AR Zone modes in the camera app as well as the Quick Share feature. As usual, the update is expected to make its way to more regions in the coming weeks and is also touted to reach Galaxy S9 and S9+ users too.

Via
[June 10, 2020] Belarus's MNOs launch standalone 5G trials

Sydney, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Belarus outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Belarus-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses Belaruss government and telecom regulator have in place three programs running through to 2020 which are aimed at developing the telecom sector and digital economy. Considerable progress has been made, in particular with enabling the mobile network operators to trial 5G services and with extending the reach of fibre infrastructure. These programs were initiated while the country experienced declining economic growth (in 2015 and 2016) and formed part of wider efforts to secure economic growth through promoting the digital economy and developing the ICT sector. Such considerations have also encompassed a growing interest in applications relevant for smart cities. There remain many opportunities for growth in coming years, particularly in the broadband segment where the incumbent telco Beltelecom is migrating its PSTN network to a fibre-based network. This will better position the company to offer a range of bundled services. Although the sector has been reformed, this has not yet resulted in the privatisation of the incumbent despite the government being pressed to sell state enterprises in a bid to reduce overall debt. Revenue growth for Beltelecom is expected to come from the FttP sector, where much of the companys capex is directed. The mobile sector has also experienced some growth, with a rise in mobile penetration attributed to effective competition which has helped drive down consumer prices. Operators have concentrated on developing mobile broadband and data services with a view to capitalising on such services to increase ARPU. Recent spectrum auctions have facilitated the development of mobile broadband access, particularly in rural areas, while the state-sponsored operator beCloud, charged with developing a wholesale-based LTE network, has enabled commercial LTE services to be extended to about 80% of the population. beCloud is also charged with developing the network infrastructure to support 5G services. In early 2015 the government decreed that the 1.5% tax on revenue derived from telcos (which was put in place in 2007) should be channelled to developing universal telecom services, particularly aimed at rural areas. In mid-2016 the cash-strapped government increased the tax on all telecom services from 20% to 25%, while a Google tax was imposed from the beginning of 2018. BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries. On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth. Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report. The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions. Key developments: A1 Belarus completes rebranding, opens standalone 5G trials;

Regulator considering end to roaming charges with Eastern Partnership Initiative countries by end-200;

A1 Belarus launches an NB-IoT service, begins deploying GPON networks;

beCloud and Huawei 5G trials deliver data at 2Gb/s;

'Google tax' raises Br15 million in its first year;

Beltelecom closes down its dial-up internet and WiMAX services;

Belarus having almost 31,000 base stations in service by March 2019;

Beltelecom completes almost two million GPON connections;

LTE use reaches 80% of mobile subscribers;

Report update includes the Ministry of Communications data to March 2020, operator data to Q1 2020, assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.



Companies mentioned in this report: Beltelecom, Cosmos TV, Minsk TV and Information Networks (MTIS), Teleradio, Belcel, A1 Belarus (MDC), MTS Belarus, BeST life:)

Key statistics

Country overview

COVID-19 and its impact on the telecom sector Economic considerations and responses Mobile devices Subscribers Infrastructure

Telecommunications market

Regulatory environment Historic overview Regulatory authority Telecom sector liberalisation Privatisation Interconnection Access

Fixed network operators Beltelecom Alternative Digital Network (ADN)

Telecommunications infrastructure Overview of the national telecom network International infrastructure Satellite Smart infrastructure

Fixed-line broadband market Market analysis Broadband statistics Forecasts  broadband subscribers  2019; 2021; 2023 Fixed-line broadband technologies Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) networks Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) networks Fibre-to-the-Premises (FttP) networks Other fixed broadband services

Digital economy E-commerce E-government

Mobile market Market analysis Mobile statistics General statistics Mobile data Mobile broadband Regulatory issues Licensing Radio frequency usage fees Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) Roaming Mobile Number Portability (MNP) Mobile infrastructure 5G developments 4G (LTE) 3G GSM Other infrastructure developments Major mobile operators Belcel/Diallog A1 Belarus Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) BeST/life :) MVNOs Mobile content and applications

Appendix  Historic data

Glossary of abbreviations

Related reports List of Tables Table 1  Top Level Country Statistics and Telco Authorities - Belarus  2020

Table 2  Fixed lines in service and teledensity  2010 - 2019

Table 3  International internet bandwidth  2009 - 2018

Table 4  Fixed-line and mobile internet subscribers, penetration  2007  2018

Table 5  Fixed-line broadband subscribers and penetration rate  2009 - 2019

Table 6  Forecast fixed broadband subscribers  2019; 2021; 2023

Table 7  Ethernet lines by data rate  2017 - 2019

Table 8  DOCSIS lines by data rate  2017 - 2019

Table 9  DSL subscribers  2009 - 2019

Table 10  DSL lines by data rate  2017 - 2019

Table 11  A1 Belarus fixed-line subscribers  2016 - 2019

Table 12  Fibre broadband subscribers  2011 - 2019

Table 13  Mobile subscribers and penetration rate  2010 - 2020

Table 14  SMS traffic  2007 - 2019

Table 15  Active mobile broadband subscribers and penetration  2010 - 2019

Table 16  MTRs by operator  2015 - 2018

Table 17  Mobile coverage by technology  March 2019

Table 18  A1 Belarus financial data  2007  2020

Table 19  A1 Belarus postpaid, prepaid and blended annualised ARPU  2007  2020

Table 20  Change in A1 Belaruss monthly minutes of use (MOU)  2010  2020

Table 21  Change in the number of A1 Belaruss prepaid users and share of total  2010  2020

Table 22  A1 Belarus mobile broadband subscribers, M2M connections 2012  2020

Table 23  MTS Belarus subscribers  2009 - 2020

Table 24  MTS Belarus financial data  2014  2020

Table 25  MTS Belarus financial data (RUB)  2014 - 2020

Table 26  BeST financial data (BYR)  2015 - 2020

Table 27  BeST financial data (Lira)  2014 - 2020

Table 28  BeST mobile subscribers  2009 - 2020

Table 29  Historic - A1 Belarus financial data  2007  2009

Table 30  Historic - A1 Belarus postpaid, prepaid and blended annualised ARPU  2007  2009

Table 31  A1 Belarus monthly minutes of use (MOU)  2007  2019

Table 32  Historic - A1 Belarus prepaid users and share of total  2007  2009 List of Charts Chart 1  Fixed lines in service and teledensity  2009  2019

Chart 2  Fixed-line broadband subscribers and penetration rate  2009  2019

Chart 3  Mobile subscribers and penetration rate  2010  2020

Chart 4  Active mobile broadband subscribers and penetration  2010 - 2019

Chart 5  A1 Belarus financial data  2010  2020

Chart 6  Change in A1 Belaruss monthly minutes of use (MOU)  2010  2020

Chart 7  Change in the number of A1 Belaruss prepaid users and share of total  2010  2020

Chart 8  A1 Belarus mobile broadband subscribers, M2M connections 2012  2020

Chart 9  MTS Belarus financial data  2014  2020

Chart 10  MTS Belarus financial data (RUB)  2014  2020

Chart 11  BeST financial data (BYR)  2015 - 2019

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Belarus-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses Nicolas Bombourg [email protected] Within Australia (02) 8076 7665 Outside Australia +44 207 097 1241

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Curiosity drives innovation. It is an impulse to pursue a thought, find a solution, seek new possibilities or keep on a path to see whats around the next bend. Driven largely by Elon Musks relentless pursuit of curiosity, SpaceX just became the first private company to send people in a spacecraft to the International Space Station and is on a path to making space tourism a reality in our lifetimes.

According to Mario Livio, an astrophysicist, and author of the book Why? there are two types of curiosity. During a 2017 podcast appearance for Knowledge@Wharton, Livio stated, There is perceptual curiosity. Thats the curiosity we feel when something surprises us or when something doesnt agree with what we know or think we know. That is felt as an unpleasant state.... On the other hand, there is epistemic curiosity, which is a pleasurable state associated with an anticipation of reward. Thats our level of knowledge. Thats what drives all scientific research. It drives many artworks. It drives education and things like that.

No less than Albert Einstein once similarly, succinctly remarked, "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

Curiosity and Entrepreneurship

Curiosity has been a driving force for Ben Lamm, CEO and founder of Hypergiant, throughout his career, leading to massive success across multiple diverse disciplines.

As a child, Lamm traveled frequently to Africa with his family, and at an early age, he saw the stark contrast between life on that continent versus suburban Texas, where he grew up. He saw that the world operated in a multitude of ways and that within those differences, opportunities lay. This led him to question things that most people accepted, even his own thoughts and assumptions.

Self-exploration and questioning are part of perceptual curiosity, something many of us lose as we grow more stable and confident with our life decisions. Yet for Lamm, that self-exploration led to early successes in the form of personal growth. He became a better student, a better friend and a better hustler.

Now, five companies in, Lamm is on to his most ambitious startup yet with Hypergiant, a modern-day Stark Industries servicing the space-company industry with advanced AI, autonomous satellite command and control systems, Intergalactic internet, an Iron Man-inspired space helmet, an AI-powered bioreactor that converts CO2 into algae and more.

For most people, these innovations sound straight out of a sci-fi movie, but with a tagline like Tomorrowing Today" and a leader like Lamm at the helm, these innovations are natural outcomes that come from a culture that encourages a passionate pursuit of curiosity in all areas of life and work.

The Beginners Mind

Shoshin, also known as beginners mind, is a concept that comes from Zen Buddhism and refers to having a lack of preconceptions about a subject. That openness to new concepts is something children have naturally. Children exude curiosity in everything they do; they are the perfect embodiment of beginners mind because they are not yet corrupted with prejudice, assumptions or a historical framework that dilutes what they are observing.

Practicing beginners mind also means that even when we know enough on a topic to be considered an expert, we are constantly learning new things, and at any point, those learnings could create a tidal shift in what we believe.

Lamm practices Shoshin with all the subjects he pursues, learning by being as deeply curious as a wayward child, asking, Why? The question of why is always a focus, whether that is why a business decision makes sense, why there isnt a regulation in place or why is there a need for a certain tool. Asking those questions is one of Lamms keys to cultivating an attitude of beginning over and over.

Born to Be an Entrepreneur

Experiencing a vast array of cultures and customs around the world gave Lamm the gift of seeing things differently from the rest and an instinctual ability to spot market opportunities. Lamm believes it is important to look at diverse customs, cultures and ideas in order to ensure you are seeing multiple sides to every situation and spotting opportunities where others have not.

As someone with a natural inclination to question the norm, entrepreneurship for Lamm was not just a path, it was his destiny. As he puts it, I truly believe entrepreneurs are born and not made. I was always destined to be an entrepreneur. Lamm was fired from every job he had in high school and launched his first company with his college professor as a junior in college. Now on his fifth startup following four successful exits with three of those companies being sold to publicly traded companies, its safe to say entrepreneurship is in Lamms blood.



Beginning Again and Again

While Lamms career path may look erratic, his commitment to a path of curiosity and fluid thinking means he is constantly shifting his observations about the world and how he works in it. Every time I create my career anew," he explains, "Im doing it as someone who is peering out to the world as a beginner and again asking how I want to see the world. I often say one of my superpowers is admitting what I don't know, which is weird in this world. I am fine with saying I don't know or don't understand something with the goal to be open and continue to learn.

That vulnerability allows Lamm to be open to new insights and to be taught by his peers, employees, experts, friends and the world on a variety of topics. Lamm practices being a beginner by never being afraid to begin again, and with an openness to being shown other ways. This manifests itself through another tenet of Buddhism that Lamm embodies, which is the lack of a possessive attachment to any of his ideas.

He recalls a line from the movie Heat, which he saw as a kid, in which Robert De Niro waxes poetic about what to do when the pressure gets too hot: You should be able to walk away from anything in less than 30 seconds if you feel the heat coming on.

Lamms not running from the law, and the mafia isnt turning the heat up on him, but his practice of non-attachment by way of not forming ties too deeply with any idea means that he can shift his thinking when presented with overwhelming evidence that contradicts what he believes to be true. The ability to accept ones own fallibility that comes with a curious mind also propagates a spirit of courage and fearlessness.

Fearlessness Through curiosity

With age and wisdom comes a belief of having figured things out. That sense of security tends to reduce our curiosity about how things work. Curiosity is in part a biological response to fear. Having a willingness to ask about things you dont know or fully understand can be an act of courage. For Lamm, that fear drives him to look deeper for answers, to push into those areas of discomfort and willingly engage in difficult conversations.

To cultivate a curious mindset is to live with a comfortable amount of fear," he offers. "I believe curiosity lives somewhere between fear and wonder.

Lamms ability to live in fear and wonder and balance his perceptual and epistemic curiosity is a a powerful tool for an entrepreneur, and he credits it as being the single most important aspect of his career success.

Nothing Is Off-Limits

Lamm can dive deep into ancient aliens one day and into cutting-edge nanoscience research the next. Hell spend an entire day learning about NASAs plans for lunar living and the next day all about rewilding theory in Scotland. Knowing a lot about a lot of subjects helps to spike his curiosity further. He can then ask questions like: How can we cultivate within lunar bases a sense of the wild worlds around us? How can we use nanotechnology to challenge the idea of ancient aliens?

His insatiable curiosity means he never stops learning and consuming new ideas. Lamm believes you should pull inspiration from as many sources as you can. His search for knowledge never satisfied, he avidly consumes documentaries, science fiction movies and non-fiction as well as art, philosophy, music and pop culture. Some of the visionaries Lamm is particularly drawn to include people like Matti Suuronen, who built the Futuro houses, and photographers like David Yarrow, who creates intricate worlds.

Im really drawn to an aesthetic perspective," Lamm confirms. I find Kanye [West]s work to be interesting and astounding in its diversity and drive. And, yet, I also am really drawn to the work of people like Livio. who is examining how and why humanity works.

Encouraging Curious Minds

While there is no doubt that curiosity is a driving force for Lamm, he clearly knows he can not come up with all the ideas needed to build a successful company. For Lamm, cultivating curiosity in the workplace is the most important thing. He relies on a team of people around him who are also smart, curious people capable of bringing new insights to the world. To cultivate that curiosity, Lamm actively encourages people to engage in and pursue outside passions. Hypergiant frequently brings in a lot of speakers, thinkers and activities into the workplace and doubles down on culture. The idea is to create a soup of ideas, stories, beliefs and insights that will naturally spur people to be curious about why and how these ideas impact their work. Creating an open-floor plan for ideas, the company pushes a variety of things into the ether of its culture, with the knowledge that the intersection of those ideas will result in novelty.

Lamm's lifetime of curiosity and openness to receiving inspiration and new ideas from any source, along with the ability to be a vulnerable and empathetic leader, has fueld his success in bringing the future to today. Where will your curiosity take you?

Related:

A Navy SEAL's Guide to Thriving in Close Quarters, Part 6: Exercise

Why Empathy Is Important in Leaders Right Now

The 5 'Cs' Approach to Conflict Resolution in the Workplace



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
In the latest round of military contact between India and China, army delegations from both sides on Wednesday held talks in eastern Ladakh to ease tensions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) where rival soldiers have been locked in a standoff for more than five weeks, two senior officers familiar with the development said.

The Indian and Chinese delegations, led by major general-ranked officers, met at Patrolling Point 14 near the Galwan area as part of continuing efforts to resolve the confrontation that has eased slightly with limited disengagement of forces at some LAC hotspots, said one of the two officers, both of whom requested anonymity.

The discussions between the military commanders of the two armies, Major General Abhijit Bapat, commander of the Karu-based HQs 3 Infantry Division and his Chinese counterpart were positive and frank, said the second officer cited above. It was, however, unclear what progress the border talks made.

This was the fourth round of talks between the two-star generals to break the stalemate that began with a violent confrontation between rival patrols near Pangong Tso on the night of May 5-6.

China has begun withdrawing its soldiers from three hotspots along the LAC, with India reciprocating by pulling back its forces deployed in those pockets, as reported by Hindustan Times on Wednesday.

The focus is now on resolving the situation on the northern bank of Pangong Tso, which has been at the centre of the ongoing border scrap and where troops are still locked in a face-off.

More military talks are planned in the coming days to ease border tensions. Limited military disengagement has taken place at the Galwan valley, Patrolling Point 15 and the Hot Springs area where Chinese soldiers have pulled back two to three km along with their infantry combat vehicles.

HT first reported on Monday that activity at the three sites declined after a seven-hour long meeting between the military commanders of the two armies, Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps and Major General Liu Lin, commander of the PLA in the South Xinjiang region, at Moldo on the Chinese side of the LAC.

While the disengagement of forces along the LAC is a positive move, the army remains concerned about the Chinese military build-up in so-called depth areas or areas within the Chinese side of the LAC, the officers said, stressing that India had matched Chinas military moves.

The Chinese build-up involves the deployment of more than 8,000 troops, tanks, artillery guns, fighter bombers, rocket forces and air defence radars, and full de-escalation would require the soldiers and the weapons systems being pulled back to their original locations, the officers said.

Around 250 soldiers of the two armies clashed near Pangong Tso last month with the scuffle leaving scores of troops injured. While an immediate flare-up was avoided as both armies stuck to protocols to resolve the situation, tensions swiftly spread to other pockets along the LAC.
MUSKEGON, MI  Muskegon Public Schools will close Nelson Elementary School one year ahead of schedule to help mitigate predicted budget shortfalls as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The elementary schools closure is expected to save the district about $150,000 in utility and maintenance costs in the upcoming year, Muskegon Superintendent Matthew Cortez told MLive. The districts board of education voted to close the building, at 550 W Grand Ave., in a virtual meeting Tuesday, June 9.

I want to do everything I can to keep these cuts away from kids and away from staff, Cortez said. I think people understood that Nelson was going to close and they understand that the economy and financial picture is bleak."

The coronavirus crisis put Nelsons closure one year ahead of schedule, Cortez said. The district already planned to close the building because of its age and decreasing district attendance.

Nelsons student body will be split between Bunker and Marquette elementary schools according to where students reside, Cortez said. The school had 224 students last year. A letter was sent to Nelson Elementary School families on Wednesday to notify them of the schools closure.

Teachers will also be relocated to Bunker and Marquette based on where their students go, Cortez said.

That will make the transition much easier because the students have relationships with those teachers, he said.

Bunker and Marquette elementary schools both have the capacity to take on the extra students and teachers, Cortez said.

Along with the short term savings from the buildings closure, the district is also considering leasing the building out to bring in additional revenue, Cortez said. The superintendent said he hopes to find a renter by the end of the month, which would first have to be approved by the school board.

District leaders are currently in conversation with the Boys and Girls Club of the Muskegon Lakeshore to potentially lease the building.

While school leaders know they must brace for a deficit in next fiscal years budget, many schools have not yet finalized their budgets, which must be approved by June 30.

Were not even done putting (the budget) together yet because this situation is so fluid right now, Cortez said.

But the superintendent said one thing is certain: Schools cannot mitigate incoming budget shortfalls without state and federal financial assistance.

Muskegon Public Schools is bracing for a $650 per-pupil cut from state funding, which amounts to a total $2.4 million budget shortfall for the district, Cortez said.

We cant solve this problem, Cortez said. There is nothing I can do as a superintendent that can cut $2.4 million out of a budget and still service the same number of students at the same level of service that students deserve. Thats why we really need stimulus money to patch this hole.

Because of a decline in tax revenues during Michigans stay-at-home order due to the COVID-19 pandemic, state economists have projected a $1.3 billion revenue loss to the Michigan School Aid Fund.

As schools prepare for their potential return to in-person learning in the fall, many school leaders are worried about the increased costs of reopening schools during a pandemic.

Muskegon administrators recently told MLive that bringing students back to school with social distancing guidelines in place comes with higher costs; for example, the busing budget could be increased, and schools may have to send more materials to students homes to improve equity in distance learning.

More on MLive:

Muskegon superintendents preparing for different learning scenarios when school reopens

Huge cuts to school programs loom if lawmakers dont provide relief funding, West Michigan educators say

Portage Public Schools faces possible $5.8M deficit amid pandemic
The Ministry of Education has launched a nationwide disinfection exercise of educational institutions across the country as part of measures to ensure the safety of students as they return to school from June 15.



The disinfection exercise, which would be undertaken by Zoomlion Ghana Limited, would cover 3,940 institutions - 2,500 Basic Schools; 1,200 Second-Cycle, and 240 Tertiary Institutions.



Launching the exercise, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister for Education said the nationwide exercise would be carried out in public and private schools both under and outside the ambit of the Ministry.



He said the government closed educational institutions in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, stating, however, that, as the government determines to re-open, it was prudent to ensure the safety of the users of the facilities.



He noted that the closure of the schools was not as difficult as re-opening them, saying, and If we are going to re-open schools, it was significant to ensure that all schools are disinfected to get rid of any hidden viruses.



Dr Opoku Prempeh said the disinfection exercise was not the end of the measures to fight the pandemic but also upon resumption, all safety protocols must strictly be adhered to.



He commended the University of Ghana authorities for allowing the launch of the exercise on its main campus.



He said Zoomlion Ghana Limited would be undertaking the exercise with other sister companies.



He charged Zoomlion to ensure that they delivered according to standards to maintain the positive image already acquired especially since the onset of the COVID-19.



He urged the Company to ensure that the disinfection exercises were carried out effectively and with the right calibration of the solution used.



Mrs Florence Larbie, the Managing Director of Zoomlion, told the Ghana News Agency on the side-lines, that the Company since the inception of the pandemic had been at the forefront of disinfecting and cleaning.



She said the disinfection of the tertiary institutions including Universities, Training Colleges, and Nursing Training would start from June 11 to 14.



She added it would be continued with the Second-Cycle Schools from June 15 to 21, which would be followed by the Basic Schools from June 21 to 27.

Mrs Larbie said the Company was committed to using the right mixture of chlorine with strength 6 per cent as recommended by the World Health Organisation as they were fully aware that too much of it could be dangerous for humans.



Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana (UG) commended the government for coming to the aid of all educational institutions in the country to make sure the premises were safe to host pupils and students.



Prof Oduro Owusu, who is also the Chairman of the Vice-Chancellors Ghana said it had been a headache for the all Vice-Chancellors on how they were going to ensure safety campuses.



He said they considered it as a great relief when the Ministry of Education announced a broad-based disinfection exercise.



He urged the government and Zoomlion to consider adding fumigation to the disinfection exercise especially in the UG, to help get rid of bedbugs that had been disturbing students on the campus of which the Minister for Education pledged to consider.

Source: GNA









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Market Overview

The significant factor driving the growth of the Organic Sugar Market Revenue is the increasing demand of ready to eat foods, both in the developed and developing economies. Sugarcane crop is increasingly sprayed with harmful pesticides and chemicals during growing stage to protect crops from various pests and weeds. These pesticides can cause severe health issues among consumers. However, organic farming of sugarcane eliminates the risk of harmful pesticides. Hence, lack in use of pesticides is another key factor spiking the demand for organic sugar. Organic sugar retains various nutrients which otherwise are lost during over-processing of conventional sugar. The organic unrefined sugar contains 17 amino acids, 11 minerals (such as sodium, magnesium, and calcium) and many different vitamins. It retains its fructose and glucose along with sucrose, while the processed sugar only contains sucrose and glucose. Therefore, this factor is playing a key role to drive sales of organic sugar.

The market players have increased their level of investment in research to identify right formulation and to improve product functionality to capture lions share and create brand recognition in organic sugar market. Also, government authorities, NGOs, and farmer organizations in developing countries are promoting organic farming by providing financial support, market information and trends in organic foods market. Developing countries are providing subsidies to small farmers to promote organic farming. NGOs, farmer organizations, traders are conducting training programs to encourage farmers to adopt organic farming. Government and non-government organizations such as FiBL (Switzerland), APEDA (India), and USDA (U.S.) support conventional farmers to switch to organic farming. All these efforts from government and NGOs are supporting the use of organic sugar.

Competitive Analysis

Key manufacturers are focusing to enhance its brand name by arranging various promotional activities. The company has participated in various social media promotions, events, and interaction with the consumers. The manufacturers have demonstrated their new product offerings to attract the new customers. By this strategy, the product of the company will be popular among the consumers which will aid to increase the overall profitability of the company. Moreover, the key players are emphasizing in the research & development process to introduce new product also to extend the product line. Key players are introducing various new products to increase the volume sales and also to increase the overall revenue of the company.

The key players profiled in Organic Sugar Market Revenue are Cosan Ltd. (Brazil), Tereos Internacional (Brazil), Shree Renuka Sugars Limited (India), Raizen S.A (Brazil), Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Limited (India), Mitr Phol Group (Thailand), Wangkanai Group (Thailand), and Bunge Limited (Brazil) among many others.

Market Segments

Global Organic Sugar Market has been divided into application, and region

Based on Application: Food & Beverages, Pharma and personal care, Others

Based on Region: Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World

Browse Full Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/organic-sugar-market-4252

Regional Analysis

Global Organic Sugar Market is segmented into Latin America, APAC, and Rest of the World (RoW). Latin America is estimated to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period of 2017-2024. Among the Latin American countries, Brazil is accounting for major market share due to the high production of organic sugar. Paraguay is also holding 30% of the market proportion in the Latin America organic sugar market. Also, Paraguay exports the maximum production to USA. Asia Pacific region is also accounting for significant market share in the global organic sugar market in the year of 2017 and it is expected to witness massive growth during the forecast period. Among the Asia Pacific, Thailand is one of the attractive destinations among the organic sugar manufacturers. Apart from that, Colombia, and Ecuador collectively account for 80% of the market share in the Rest of the World.

Related Covid-19 Analysis on FnB Reports:

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-a2-milk-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-alternative-sweeteners-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-artisan-bakery-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-rtd-beverages-market

NOTE: Our Team of Researchers are Studying Covid19 and its Impact on Various Industry Verticals and wherever required we will be considering Covid19 Footprints for Better Analysis of Market and Industries. Cordially get in Touch for More Details.
Gone With the Wind, let it be said again, isnt canceled. Its simply being reframed. Viewers who love the movie can still see it, and will be able to see it again on HBO Max  with value added that promises to enhance their appreciation rather than ruin it. Those of us with more complicated feelings can feel gratified that, in one small corner of the movie universe at least, its most troubling contradictions might be confronted with honesty and nuance.
On Wednesday about 7 p.m., I drove along Coleman Boulevard in Mount Pleasant to pick up take-out. The restaurant business there is thriving. P
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Never coined Corona Express, people did: Mamata Banerjee on attack by Amit Shah

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NIA solves mystery of 4 missing hard disks from INS Vikrant, arrests 2 men

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Sourav hardly showed emotions, Virats aggression is controlled: Former quick weighs in on Ganguly and Kohlis captaincy styles

Venkatesh Prasad has drawn parallels between the captaincy styles of former India captain Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli, calling the current India skipper extremely passionate. Prasad, the last leg of whose career was under Ganguly, reckons there are similarities between the two captains, but pointed out he never saw his former captain show the kind of aggression Kohli does.

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Malaika Aroras building sealed after resident tests positive for Covid-19

Television personality Malaika Aroras building in Mumbai has been made a containment zone after a resident tested positive for the coronavirus. The building was sealed on June 8, Hindustan Times can independently confirm.

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Asus TUF Gaming A15 laptop review: Making things TUF for rivals

Usually, the limelight is on the performance when we talk about gaming laptops, but with TUF A15, the portability and build factors are enhanced as well. We used the TUF A15 for over a week, playing graphic-heavy games for hours, and lots more. Here are our key takeaways.

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Living the kaftan life

Kaftan or caftan has become the new summer essential for our style mavens during the quarantine. And vouching for this trend are the likes of Kareena Kapoor Khan, Malaika Arora and Sonam K Ahuja, who all are seen lazing around their home in these easy-breezy and comfy kaftans.

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The mainstream media will never cover the emerging political confrontation between the two ethnic minorities the Democrats are counting on to propel them to a permanent majority, blacks and Hispanics. The riots and "mostly peaceful demonstrations" following the death of George Floyd have featured lots of white radicals, many blacks, but except for a few Mexican flags here and there, few visible Hispanics or grassroots Hispanic groups.

Maybe it is because the consequences of a defunded police structure already are familiar to many Mexicans (and Salvadorans and Guatemalans), as John Daniel Davidson explains in The Federalist:

If you want an idea of how that works, look to our southern neighbor, Mexico, where over the past decade endemically corrupt police departments in some areas have been supplanted by autodefensas, or local self-defense militias. But before you get too excited about the prospect of paramilitary autodefensas policing American cities, understand that in Mexico these groups are a mixed bag at best  and at worst they're not much better than the corrupt local police and cartel gunmen they replaced. More importantly, their mere presence in Mexico was and is a disturbing sign of societal decay. (snip) The modern autodefensas movement in Mexico arose during some of the most violent years of Mexico's ongoing drug war. In 2013, a doctor from the cartel-ravaged state of Michoacan, Jose Manuel Mireles Valverde, organized one of the first self-defense militias to fight against the Knights Templar Cartel. He initially recruited ordinary men, shop keepers and farmers, to hunt down cartel henchmen and drive them out of their towns. Initially, these ad-hoc militias met with some success, capturing or killing members of the Knights Templar, setting up roadblocks and ambushes, and expanding the number of militias operating throughout Michoacan. But as the violence in the region increased, the militias eventually caught the attention of the Mexican government, which deployed the military against both cartels and autodefensas. Mireles was badly injured in a plane crash in 2014 and was soon pushed out of a leadership role. Later that year the government ordered autodefensas to disarm as part of an effort to bring them under the control of state-controlled Fuerza Rural, or Rural Police Force. By then, the line between autodefensas and cartels had begun to blur.

The problem with ad hoc armed groups is that the Constitution's protections mean nothing to them, and even if well- intentioned, self-interest and greed inevitably supplant idealism as the motivating force, absent powerful external constraints.

And now, as police have proved themselves incapable of protecting the entire public in the face of insurrection, in Chicago, Hispanic gangs are stepping up. Fuzzy Slippers of Legal Insurrection writes:

In Chicago's Hispanic neighborhoods, the Latin Kings and other street gangs are reportedly stepping up and doing what their elected officials and police departments have not been able to do: protecting their neighborhood businesses from arsonists and looters. These are alleged street gangs, so this video comes with a heavy-duty LANGUAGE WARNING: [six and one half minutes TL]

Speaking of lack of constitutional safeguards and ethnic tension inside the Dems' plantation:

[S]ome are complaining that these Latin gangs, who are in their own neighborhoods, are harassing black Chicagoans who venture into Latino neighborhoods. Latino leaders are calling for unity after Black Chicagoans have been harassed and had bricks thrown at their cars in some Latino neighborhoods. On Sunday afternoon, Little Village neighbors came together to protect 26th Street businesses after people looted shops. Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd) said as the night went on, a few Latino men became "antagonistic" and were indiscriminately targeting Black people driving through the neighborhood. ... In a Facebook Live video shot at 50th and Cermak in Cicero at 7 p.m. Monday, groups of people with bats and metal pipes were gathering near the intersection. "Non-Black, Latinx gangs [are] armed with bats, machetes," said Luz Chavez, who shot the video. "Any car that passes by with Black people in it, they are yelling at it and throwing s," she said. Chavez, founder of online magazine Gozamos, urged Black people to "stay out of Cicero." That's good advice, and I dare say it applies to antifa pukes, as well. The Chicago Tribune ran a story on it, as well. The organizing efforts of some Latino groups to peacefully protest and help protect their communities from unrest were quickly overshadowed by racial tensions after reports that alleged Latino gang members were profiling and targeting black people in Little Village earlier this week. ... But Sunday things changed. Looting began to spread to Chicago neighborhoods and Little Village residents rallied together to stand guard in front of neighborhood businesses and on street corners. A crowd on 26th Street grew throughout the day after looters attempted to hit some businesses in the heart of the Mexican-American neighborhood. Residents and police intervened and halted the chaos. Shortly after, leaders of New Life Community Church, who have been working to reduce violence in the area for years, helped to organize residents to guard the streets and to help keep the peace. Elizeth Arguelles, a tamale seller and activist, walked the whole 26th Street corridor to check on street vendors who were shutting down early because they feared violence in the neighborhood. Alleged gang members joined in the effort to stand guard. After several social media posts were widely shared showing alleged gang members in Little Village and Cicero attacking black people in those neighborhoods, people began labeling the situation a race war. More posts advised black Chicagoans to avoid "Mexican neighborhoods" because Latinos were profiling and targeting them as looters.

The radical left still fails to understand the basic facts about human nature. You can't unleash rabid mobs bent on violence, arson, looting, and mayhem and then expect a calm, rational, politically correct response.

The now-infamous, obscenity-laced conference call between Chicago's Mayor Lori Lightfoot and all 50 members of her city council foreshadowed this tension, with its confrontation between her honor da mare and Alderman Raymond Lopez over her lack of preparedness and his ward's worries over being trashed.

"When downtown is in lockdown, our neighborhoods are next, and our failure to fully get ready for what's going on in the neighborhoods, we're seeing this destruction, and we're thinking that it's going to somehow end tonight. We have seen where, in other cities, this has gone on for days; and we need to come up with a better plan for days, at least for the next five days, to try and stabilize our communities," Lopez, who is a known critic of Lightfoot, said. Lopez said that looters might spill over into residential areas and wanted answers on how the city would handle that. "Once they're done looting and rioting and whatever's going to happen tonight, God help us, what happens when they start going after residents? Going into the neighborhoods? Once they start trying to break down people's doors, if they think they've got something," he said. "I've got gangbangers with AK-47s walking around right now, just waiting to settle some scores. What are we going to do, and what do we tell residents, other than good faith people stand up? It's not going to be enough." Lightfoot initially didn't answer Lopez's inquiry and wanted to move on to the next question. But Lopez said, "It's not something you ignore. This is a question that I have." The phone call then took a profane turn as the two elected officials began exchanging expletives. "I think you're 100% full of s---, is what I think," Lightfoot said. "F--- you, then," Lopez responded. "Who are you to tell me I'm full of s---? ... Maybe you should come out and see what's going on." "If you think we're not ready, and we stood by and let the neighborhoods go up, there's nothing intelligent that I could say to you," Lightfoot responded. "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I understand you want to preen." "Mayor, you need to check your f------ attitude. That's what you need to do," Lopez replied.

Here is a highlight reel from that confrontation, with swear words omitted:

Radical revolutionaries unleash forces they do not understand, and the moderate and the casually radical participants do not understand that they will be the first ones to be killed when brute force rules.

While ethnic tensions are not a good thing, at least in this insurrection, they can serve as a moderating force to the self-righteous protestErs who are pushing an agenda that would remove the force protecting them and the rest of us from the dark forces of mob rule, revolution, and dictatorship that currently are feeling their oats.

The only thing the clique that rules the Democrat party care about is their own grasp on power. Only if and when they see that they are being harmed by the split between blacks and Hispanics will they relent and stop fanning the flames of insurrection.
Food producer KIDO Group (KDC) has announced that it is entering the beverage industry by setting up a joint venture with dairy giant Vinamilk.

At KIDO Food's annual general meeting

The announcement, made at the Kido Frozen Foods Joint Stock Company (Kido Foods)s annual general meeting in HCM City on June 9, said the two companies had signed a memorandum of understanding to set up a joint venture, Vinamilk-Kido Beverage Joint Venture Company Ltd (Vibev), with Vinamilk holding 51 percent and KDC owning 49 percent.

Kido Foods is a subsidiary of KIDO Group. The joint venture will explore the beverages and ice-cream markets.

Sharing about the joint venture, Mai XuanTram, Deputy General Dirctor of KDC, said the mission of the new company is to build strong brands for Vietnamese beverages and offer consumers a wide choice of modern tastes while ensuring nutrition, quality and safety.

KDC said its first products would be introduced soon, possibly in the third quarter.

Tram said the two companies have strong distribution channels with over 1,000,000 points of sales.

The joint venture will also untilise Vinamilks export network in 30 countries and help the two companies better control of raw material prices, he said.

The partners expect the joint venture to grab a 50 percent share of the domestic ice-cream market.

At the meeting on June 9, Tran Le Nguyen, General Director of KIDO Group, announced that more member companies, including Tuong An Vegetable Oil Joint Stock Company (TAC), Vietnam Vegetable Oils Industry Corporation (Vocarimex) and Kido Foods, would merge with the KIDO Group.

Shareholders of Kido Foods voted yes to the merging plan into KIDO Group.

Kido Foods sought its shareholders approval for a merger with KIDO Group to better exploit the parent companys financial and managerial advantages.

According to the merger plan, the swap ratio will be 1:1.3, or one share of Kido Foods for 1.3 shares of KIDO Group.

After the merger, Kido Foods will become a one-member limited liability company wholly owned by KIDO Group.

The new shares will be listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange.

Talking about the merger at the meeting, Nguyen Thi Kim Lieu, Deputy General Director of KIDO Group, attributed it to both internal and external reasons.

Kido Foods had achieved good growth but failed to meet targets due to the lack of resources.

The global economy is volatile due to epdidemics, trade wars, climate change.

There this is a restructuring of global supply chains, offering Vietnam an opportunity, she said.

Furthermore, consumer habits are changing, forcing companies to adjust their business models, she said.

With strong financial, strategic and human resources, KIDO Group has the capacity to support Kido Foods development.

Kido Foods reported revenues of 1.38 trillion VND (59.2 million USD) in 2019, up 10 percent. The pre-tax profit was 185 billion VND (7.9 million USD), up 488 percent.

In 2020, the company targets revenues of 1.6 trillion VND (68.7 million USD) and profits of 200 billion VND (8.6 million USD)./.VNS
Xi says ready to promote China-Philippines ties to new levels

PLA Daily

Source: Xinhuanet

Editor: Huang Panyue

2020-06-09 23:05:30



BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that he is willing to work with his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte to continuously lift their countries' relationship of comprehensive strategic cooperation to new levels.

"I attach great importance to the development of China-Philippines ties," Xi said when exchanging congratulatory messages with Duterte to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Both China and the Philippines are at a critical moment for development, Xi stressed in his message, noting that the two countries share broad prospects for cooperation.

Xi said China feels empathy for the Philippines amid the COVID-19 epidemic, and is ready to work with the Philippine side to overcome the difficulties together.

China and the Philippines are good neighbors with profound traditional friendship, Xi said, noting that over the past 45 years of diplomatic relations, China-Philippines ties have made remarkable progress.

In recent years, in particular, Xi said, the two countries have deepened their political mutual trust, continuously expanded cooperation in various areas, and achieved fruitful results in Belt and Road cooperation, bringing concrete benefits to the two peoples and contributing to regional stability and development.

In his message, Duterte said friendship and kinship between the Philippine and Chinese people have been lasting for a thousand years. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1975, the friendship between the two countries has developed steadily.

Currently, global security and stability continue to face challenges and non-traditional security threats such as the COVID-19 epidemic have become increasingly prominent, he said, noting that it is of great importance to further consolidate Philippines-China partnership.

Duterte said the Philippine side takes China as a close neighbor and an important partner, and is ready to deepen bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperation and facilitate peace, development and prosperity of the two countries by upholding the principle of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo held his daily coronavirus briefing at the newly unveiled Arrivals and Departures Hall at Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport.

The governor beamed as he introduced the sparkling terminal on Wednesday, touting that renovations as a part of an $8billion transformation that will make it the first new, major airport constructed in the US in nearly 25 years.

'Were at LaGuardia Airport, the new LaGuardia airport. This is really breath-taking. I wish you could all get a good view of this really magnificent facility. It really is breath-taking,' Cuomo said at the start of his briefing.

Cuomo proudly boasted that the new-and-improved Terminal B spans a spacious 850,000-square-feet and four stories.

On Wednesday NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo held his daily press conference from the newly renovated Arrivals and Departures Hall at Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport

'Were at LaGuardia Airport, the new LaGuardia airport. This is really breath-taking. I wish you could all get a good view of this really magnificent facility. It really is breath-taking,' Cuomo said at the start of his briefing

Cuomo proudly boasted that the new and improved Terminal B spans a spacious 850,000-square-feet and four stories

The renovations are a part of an $8billion transformation that will make it the first new, major airport constructed in the US in nearly 25 years. A view of the departure hall and adjacent escalators pictured above

The project saw the demolition and replacement of every terminal and concourse except the historically landmarked Marine Air Terminal

Cuomo first presented the LaGuardia renovation plans in 2015. The project broke ground in 2016 and it has been two-thirds funded through private financing and existing passenger fees

The project saw the demolition and replacement of every terminal and concourse except the historically landmarked Marine Air Terminal.

The project marks LaGuardias biggest milestone since opening Deltas new concourse and gates in October 2019.

The new halls feature concessions and restaurants including the iconic New York Juniors Cheesecake, New York Favorites Brooklyn Diner, Hill Country BBQ, Think Coffee, Eli's Essentials with Offerings from Eli Zabar and new Mulberry Street Restaurant by Chef Marc Forgione.

The new Arrivals and Departures Hall showcases permanent public art installations curated by the Public Art Fund to enhance passenger experience.

The stunning pieces featured in the teriminal are the works of world-renowned artists Jeppe Hein, Sabine Hornig, Laura Owens and Sarah Sze Are Unveiled, Capturing the Energy and Appeal of New York.

The project marks LaGuardias biggest milestone since opening Deltas new concourse and gates in October 2019. An exterior view of the new and improved Terminal B pictured

Checking in will now be an elegant experience at the newly renovated Terminal B. A United Airlines check-in area pictured above

The new halls feature concessions and restaurants including the iconic New York Juniors Cheesecake, New York Favorites Brooklyn Diner, Hill Country BBQ, Think Coffee, Eli's Essentials with Offerings from Eli Zabar and new Mulberry Street Restaurant by Chef Marc Forgione

Sit back and relax: The makeover includes new comfortable sitting and waiting areas

Away we go! The halls at Terminal B feature windows that provide beautiful views of the city before taking off

The stunning pieces featured in the teriminal are the works of world-renowned artists Jeppe Hein, Sabine Hornig, Laura Owens and Sarah Sze Are Unveiled, Capturing the Energy and Appeal of New York

The terminal officially opens to the public on Saturday June 13 and will serve American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Air Canada.

The rebuild of LaGuardia is just one of the many infrastructure projects the governor mentioned in recent weeks to re-energize the states economy amid the coronavirus pandemic which has wiped out businesses and led unemployment to skyrocket.

And the new development was completed in the nick of time as its ample space allows for social distancing as the city slowly reopens amid the coronavirus crisis and includes COVID-19 safety protocols.

When the entire airport renovation is completed itll comprise of 2.7million square feet and will have 72 new gates across six concourses.

A mural picutred showing the vibrant city of New York pictured at the glamorous terminal

The terminal officially opens to the public on Saturday June 13 and will serve American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Air Canada

The rebuild of LaGuardia is just one of the many infrastructure projects the governor mentioned in recent weeks to re-energize the states economy amid the coronavirus pandemic

When the entire airport renovation is completed itll comprise of 2.7million square feet and will have 72 new gates across six concourses

In early April it was reported that air travel has dropped amid the coronavirus and TSA reported screen a 10-year low of passengers, as per CNN.

Cuomo first presented the renovation plans in 2015. The project broke ground in 2016 and it has been two-thirds funded through private financing and existing passenger fees.

LaGuardia is notorious in New York for its shoddy conditions and lackluster appearances that led then-Vice President Joe Biden to call it akin to a 'third-world country'.

'If I took you and blindfolded you and took you to the LaGuardia Airport in New York you must think: I must be in some third-world country,' Biden said in 2014.

'It's embarrassing and it's stupid. It puts us literally behind, they put us behind Barbados. Great country; one airport,' he added.
For more than three decades, Marc Restellinis life has been very much about his study of Amedeo Modigliani, the Italian painter known for his elongated, slender faces and figures.

He has organized exhibitions of Modiglianis work in spots around the world and in the 1990s began his own magnum opus: a catalogue raisonne, or a definitive compendium, of Modiglianis work.

He has been exhaustive in authenticating the artists work because Modigliani, whose paintings often sell for millions of dollars, has been a favorite of forgers. So to document their authenticity, Mr. Restellini, a French art scholar, has worked to persuade owners to submit their paintings for testing, sampled the paint, analyzed the works with infrared photography and magnetic resonance, and sought documents from family members of Modiglianis original collectors.

But now, months before the first volumes of Mr. Restellinis catalogue raisonne are expected to be published, he says in a federal copyright lawsuit filed in Manhattan this week that he believes a nonprofit organization in New York, the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, is planning to make some of his research publicly available.
Quash Quarantine, representing 500 travel and hospitality companies, said in a statement today it had been told privately that travel corridors, a means of allowing quarantine-free trips, would be in place later this month.

Government ministers have publicly said they are considering travel corridors, or so-called air bridges with countries with low infection rates, but there have not been any formal deals so far.

Airlines want the quarantine rule scrapped altogether. British Airways has teamed up with low-cost rivals Ryanair and easyJet with a plan to launch legal action to try to overturn it.

Quash Quarantine said it had not ruled out pursuing legal action itself.

We are still considering our options regarding legal action, including whether to join BAs claim or launch our own action, but would prefer that June 29 is confirmed as soon as possible for the start of travel corridors, Quash Quarantines spokesman Paul Charles said.

Popular holiday destinations for British tourists include Portugal, Spain, France, Greece and Italy.

An air bridge  also known as a travel corridor  is a way of allowing tourists from two countries to travel between the destinations without needing to quarantine for 14 days on arrival.

The idea is that the air bridges would enable people from areas which have low transmission rates of Covid-19 to travel between countries without having to self-isolate. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has explained that the bridges would enable people from other areas who have themselves achieved lower levels of growth virus infection to come into the country.
The top 100 companies' overseas sales in this year's first quarter declined 10.4 percent on-quarter, according to the Federation of Korean Industries on Tuesday.

The FKI attributed the drop chiefly to the suspension of business and production of Korean firms in China as a result of the coronavirus epidemic.

Nearly all businesses except banks and insurance companies posted plunging overseas sales. Automakers reported a 14.3 percent decline and makers of electric and electronic appliances a 9 percent drop.

The 20 largest companies' sales fell 11.8 percent in China and other parts of Asia, 13 percent in Europe, and 5.4 percent in the Americas.

In China the top 5 players -- Samsung, Hyundai, LG, SK Hynix and Hyundai Mobis -- suffered a combined decline of a whopping 24.6 percent. Samsung posted a 14.9 percent fall and the automaker's China affiliate saw a 70 percent plunge. But sales of SK Hynix increased 7.9 percent.


To help the tribals and elderly people living in the Maoist-affected Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, a host of bank services will now be provided at their doorstep amid a raging coronavirus pandemic.

The scheme Bank Sangwari Tumcho Dwaar was launched by the Dantewada district, which falls under the Bastar parliamentary constituency, last week.

Till now, 2541 pensioners out of 18,900, which include widows and elderly people of about 22 villages, have received money at their doorstep under various schemes of Chhattisgarhs Social Welfare Department.

Presently, the program covers six schemes and the administration plans to extend the services to MGNREGA employment payments.

Tribal dominated Dantewada is one among the seven districts of the Bastar region.

We have found that tribals, widows and elderly people are travelling through difficult terrains to reach local banks during this pandemic. Some people were walking more than 10 km, hence we decided to launch a program to provide financial services. We also want elderly population to remain indoors during this pandemic, said Deepak Soni, District Collector, Dantewada.

Soni said that due to technological advancements, it is possible to bring all banking facilities at the peoples doorstep.

A team of volunteers, The Danteshwari Mai Mitan, is helping the people of the district to provide them pension and other banking benefits, Soni added.

The Collector said that the 70 volunteers in the Mitan team have been drawn from community service centres (CSC) and village level entrepreneurs (VLE), who then reach out to the Maoist-hit villages of the district.

Most part of Dantewada has no internet connection and hence manual payment has also been made for helping tribals.

Digital payment techniques are used where there is internet while manual payments are made in the forest villages where there is no internet connectivity, said the Collector.

Lauding the initiative, Aayati Nag, 65, said earlier she had to travel five-six km to the nearest bank in Kuakonda from her village in Maharapara for her old-age pension, but things have changed now.

Due to the lockdown it was very difficult to reach the bank but a few days ago some district official came and handed over my pension money at my home, said Nag.

A senior official of the district said since Danteswahri Mitans are locals, they are not obstructed by Maoists and they know the terrain also.

Similarly, Mora Devi of Chitalanka village said that due to the lockdown there were long queues in banks and hence it was very difficult. I had to walk about 4 km and then stand in the queue, she said.

No one could have imagined banking would be so easy and I am happy to be a part of this service, that is bringing smiles to people, said Prembati, a Dantewada Mitan.
Tuesday, June 9, 2020 at 11:15PM

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Telus has reintroduced its $75/20GB Peace of Mind promotional plan as an online-only offer. This plan includes the said 20GB of high-speed data (and if exceeded an unlimited data at a throttled speed of 512Kbps), unlimited nationwide calls, text, and picture and video messaging. It also comes with voicemail, call display, call waiting, and conference calling.

On top of that, Telus is offering an $85/20GB Peace of Mind Connect offer on a limited basis. Aside from providing the same conditions as the regular Peace of Mind plan, the Connect plans allow subscribers to give "connected" devices access to your plans' unlimited data. That said, you can use the Peace of Mind plan and tether your other mobile devices to it. You can find out more about both offers in this link.
But that turned out to be a stroke of luck for Mr. Pietrzak. Searching for a way to keep his small business afloat, he took a chance and answered an offer from his bookkeeping company, Bench, an eight-year-old financial technology start-up.

Bench, he said, connected him to Fundera, a seven-year-old lending platform for small companies. On a Sunday he signed closing documents from Cross River Bank in New Jersey  which he had never heard of  and two days later found the P.P.P. money in his bank account.

I was a little skeptical with Fundera and Cross River Bank, but I just kept trying and redoing the application and eventually it went through, Mr. Pietrzak said. There were some hiccups with the site, but after I did the application a few times, it went through.

In the end, hiccups included, he received the kind of service and financial support in the early days of the program  from two little known fintech entities and a little-known bank founded in 2008  that many small business owners with well-established traditional banking relationships did not get.

Prior to this crisis you had fintechs specializing in the under-$50,000 loans, said John Pitts, the head of policy for Plaid, a fintech company that serves as a link between fintech apps and some 11,000 financial institutions, and a former deputy assistant director of intergovernmental affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Its not surprising you dont see this cohort well served by the big banks.
South Asian governments abandonment of lockdown measures in recent weeks has led to a rapid acceleration of the coronavirus throughout the region, which is home to some 1.7 billion people.

India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have all experienced sharp increases in infections since the beginning of the month. According to Bloomberg, cases rose by 27 percent in Pakistan, 19 percent in Bangladesh, and 17 percent in India over the past week, making South Asia the region of the world with the fastest increase in COVID-19 infections. Together, the three countries have recorded over 450,000 cases and close to 11,000 deaths, according to figures collated by Worldometers.

These numbers are likely a gross underestimation due to a chronic lack of testing. As of June 9, India, which has a population of 1.37 billion, had tested just 4.91 million samples, Indian Council of Medical Research data shows.

South Asia is especially vulnerable to the highly contagious virus due to its dense population, mass poverty, and ramshackle healthcare system. Millions of people crammed into urban slums and other small dwellings have no chance to observe social distancing guidelines or follow basic hygiene recommendations, such as regularly washing their hands.

India

The easing of COVID-19 restrictions by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has resulted in a massive increase in infections.

India has rapidly climbed the ladder of the 10 worst-hit countries to reach fifth place with 276,146 cases as of Tuesday. More than 10,000 new cases were registered yesterday. Over the past 11 days, over 100,000 new cases have been registered. During the same period, the death toll increased by 2,760 to reach 7,466.

Mumbai, Indias financial centre and the capital of Maharashtra, has been among the worst hit cities in the world. With 50,085 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Monday, Mumbai will today all but certainly surpass the official tally of 50,340 for Wuhan, the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus was first identified at the beginning of the year.

The health system in Mumbai is on the verge of collapse, with severely ill patients put on a waiting list to get hospital beds. Corpses have been left lying in wards due to a shortage of medical personnel. Many medical workers have been sickened by the virus.

With 1,280 COVID-19 deaths, the state of Gujarat has one of the worlds highest fatality rates; 6.22 percent of those officially recorded as infected have lost their lives.

Meanwhile, in the national capital, Delhi, which has the highest number of cases and deaths per million inhabitants in India1,262 and 33 respectivelythere is an acute shortage of hospital beds. Arvind Kejriwal, Delhis Chief Minister and the head of the Aam Aadmi (Common Mans Party), has responded to this crisis with discriminatory measures. He banned non-Delhi residents from access to the Delhi Capital Territorys hospitals, public and private. However, the order was subsequently overturned by the central government-appointed Lieutenant-Governor.

Despite the rising number of infections and a very high positive test rate (on Saturday 37.83 percent of those tested were shown to be infected), Delhi authorities have failed to increase testing. They are also refusing to test asymptomatic contacts of those who have contracted the virus.

India has been scaling back its lockdown measures since late April, when many major export-earning industries were allowed to resume operations. At the end of May, Modi announced the country was transitioning to phase one of its unlockdown. In line with this policy, shopping centers, places of worship, restaurants and offices were authorized to reopen on Monday, June 8.

In reopening the economy even as infections and deaths are soaring, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government are acting at the behest of big business, which is adamant that workers lives must not be an impediment to their profit-making. Toward this end, the Modi government has effectively adopted a policy of herd immunity, under which the virus is allowed to spread unchecked through the population until it runs its course.

The fact that this will result in mass deaths is conceded by government advisers, like Jayaprakash Muliyil, the chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Epidemiology. A fervent proponent of herd immunity, Muliyil has said his modeling shows India may see at least two millions deaths if the government quickly ends the lockdown, as it is now doing.

In pursuing this homicidal policy, Modi and the Indian elite as a whole are shamelessly exploiting the immense suffering inflicted on working peopleespecially migrant workers, other day-labourers and self-employed hawkers and artisansby the governments calamitous and ill-prepared lockdown.

When the lockdown came into effect with less than four hours notice on March 25, more than 120 million workers lost their jobs almost overnight. These workers and hundreds of millions of other Indians were left to fend for themselves. Only belatedly did the government roll out famine-style relief programs, for which many were ineligible.

As the growth in infections underscores, the lockdown was also a failure from even the most narrow medical perspective. The Modi government failed to use the nine-weeks-long lockdown to implement mass testing and contact tracing. Nor did it test and treat the millions of migrant workers whom it held in internal refugee camps for weeks supposedly to prevent COVID-19s spread before allowing them to return home. Consequently, there is now a surge in COVID-19 cases in rural India, where health services are virtually nonexistent.

The governments embrace of herd immunity is the cutting edge of an intensified assault on the working class. Modi has promised a quantum jump in proinvestor reforms, including the gutting of labor laws and the fire sale of state-owned enterprises.

Pakistan

The spread of the pandemic in Pakistan has accelerated since Prime Minister Imran Khan decided to lift all the lockdown measures his government only reluctantly implemented in the first place. Karachi, the countrys largest city, is reportedly already running out of hospital beds to treat the sick.

As of this writing, the official death toll from COVID-19 is just below 2,200 with close to 110,000 reported cases, although these figures are assuredly gross underestimates due to a dearth of testing.

A report by the Punjab government health authority, based on a small survey, estimated that just in Lahore, a city of 11 million people, there are 670,800 coronavirus cases. The May 15 report was suppressed for more than two weeks by the local government to allow the lifting of the lockdown to go ahead. The pretext given was that the Supreme Court had ordered the lockdown to be lifted. At the same hearing, the court declared the coronavirus is not a pandemic in Pakistan.

Khan has been the most vociferous opponent any lockdown measures. Even after he had been forced by the provincial governments and military to agree to a nationwide lockdown, he continued to insist that Pakistan cannot afford a lockdown and people would die of hunger. Last week, Khan went so far as to ask the people to live with the virus, making it clear the government will do nothing under conditions where the death rate is rising and health facilities are rapidly reaching full capacity.

According to conservative official statistics, poverty has increased from 24.3 to 33.5 percent due to the pandemic. GDP is projected to contract by 1.5 per cent this year, while the fiscal deficit is forecast to hit 9.4 percent of GDP. The government continues to insist that it will implement reforms agreed to with the International Monetary Fund, which will result in major attacks on jobs and workers wages. Essentially, the Khan government is conspiring with the IMF to impose the full burden of the economic fallout from the pandemic on the working masses.

Bangladesh

Bangladeshs first COVID-19 cases were reported March 8. Three months later, the country has 71,675 confirmed coronavirus cases and 975 deaths.

Tuesdays death toll of 45 was the highest of any day since the beginning of the pandemic. Likewise, the 3,171 cases reported in the previous 24 hours were a daily record. Every week has witnessed a sharp spike in infections. In the 13th week since the first case, which ended last Saturday, there were 236 new deaths and 18,418 new cases; in the 12th week, there were 158 deaths and 12,530 cases; and in the 11th week, there were 138 deaths and 11,083 cases.

However, due to inadequate testing levels these figures have little credibility. The Economic Times has estimated infections at 750,000 in Dhaka alone.

Despite warnings from health experts, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas government lifted the lockdown and reopened the economy on May 30. This further worsened the situation, particularly for workers in the export-oriented industries. According to media reports, 251 workers of 129 factories in six industrial zones were found infected on June 3.

Hospitals are refusing treatments for many patients with COVID-19-like symptoms as well as non-COVID patients, due to shortages of equipment, beds, and personnel.

Hasinas administration has revised its health protocols, allowing hospitals to only treat people with severe symptoms. This has left many patients unattended, with many dying at home. A human rights group was cited by New Age on June 7 as charging that there have been at least 122 deaths caused by treatment refusal since the first death was reported on March 18. While official figures are not clear on the deaths of people with COVID-19-like symptoms, a Dhaka University study estimated such deaths in mid-May at 1,010.

At least 866 nurses and midwives have been infected, according to the Society for Nurses Safety and Rights, due to a lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); and 73 doctors have been infected, 18 of whom died.
Essentials By Temi: After years of working in the beauty industry, Torontos Temi Shobowale wanted to do away with the harmful ingredients found in many popular products. The result is Essentials by Temi, a beautiful line of organic, plant-based goodies like this radiance-boosting oil. Essentials by Temi Radiance Oil, $25, essentialsbytemi.com

Apprenti Or'ganik: It all started with founder Alexe mixing up body care products in her kitchen. Apprenti Or'ganik has since outgrown that kitchen but has retained that handmade ethos, filling its bottles with natural actives and zero fillers. This therapeutic lotion, for instance, doesnt contain any water. Instead, its chock-full of aloe vera juice, carotene and olive squalane and topped with stimulating geranium and blood orange essential oils. Apprenti Or'ganik Blood Orange Geranium Therapeutic Body Lotion, $36, apprentiorganik.com

Makeup For Melanin Girls: As a young model, Torontos Tomi Gbeleyi often had to do her own makeup on set as makeup artists didnt have her shade in their kit. These experiences led her to build her own range of makeup designed to suit darker complexions. There are lipsticks that redefine the meaning of nude, highlighters that illuminate deeper skin and these super fun glitter pods, which come in a rainbow of high-payoff shades. Makeup for Melanin Girls Single Glitter Pods, $4 each, makeupformelaningirls.com

Bailly: Co-Founders Ariel Gough and Edwina Govindsam met over coffee in 2015 (Edwinas mom introduced them!) and instantly became friends. It wasnt long before they decided to start a business together, launching Bailly, a line of vegan and cruelty-free fragrances. Manufactured in Halifax, the scents are all coconut-oil-based and free of harmful chemicals. Even better, $5 from every purchase from their Girl Power collection (which includes Brilliance, a warm, sweet medley of patchouli, pear and praline) goes to the Girl Power Project. Bailly Brilliance Roll-On Perfume Oil, $30 (10 mL), brilliance.co

MelaGold: This Montreal-based line swirls oils and butters to moisturize and fortify kinky, curly or relaxed hair. The website is currently only in French, but trust us when we say this aptly named Elixir is a star of the range. It can be used to soothe a dry scalp, seal frayed ends or even condition a beard. MelaGold LElixir, $15, melagold.com

Earthtones Naturals: When she was younger, Susan Walker hated her hair. It wasnt until her 30s that she began embracing her natural texture. Thats when she noticed a need for effective products for curly and kinky hair. A naturopathic doctor and certified trichologist (the branch of dermatology specialized in scalp and hair health), Walker was well equipped to start her own premium Canadian-made line. Earthtones NaturalsCurl Define Curl Enhancing Gelly, $13, earthtonesnaturals.com

Atelier Sirah: This small-batch brand out of Montreal handcrafts glosses (check out this gorgeous trio of earthy shades) and body products packed with natural, good-for-your-skin ingredients. Atelier Sirahs philosophy centres on a simpler, cleaner approach to beauty. Obviously well-loved, its products are currently sold out, but an imminent restock has been announced. Atelier Sirah Nude Bundle, $24, ateliersirah.com

Kinksology: Healthy ingredients for healthy hair. Thats the credo behind Canadian-made Kinksology. The eco-luxury range whips up a variety of strand savers like this co-wash, which removes impurities without stripping the scalp or hair. Kinksology Co-Cleanse, $24, kinksology.com

This article contains affiliate links, which means The Kit may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by advertising. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set. More information.
Brisbane-based insurance broker CA Insurance Brokers has been snapped up by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG) for an undisclosed sum.

Through this acquisition, CA Insurance Brokers gains access to a range of new markets and client product offerings, while we expand Gallaghers presence and capabilities in the Brisbane market, said AJG chairman, president, and chief executive J. Patrick Gallagher, Jr.
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI  Multiple roads are blocked Wednesday, June 10, after a powerful thunderstorm knocked down trees and power lines.

Nearly 105,000 Consumers Energy customers in Michigan are without power, including 29,206 in Kent County and 12,821 in Ottawa County.

The City of Holland activated warning sirens at 11:44 a.m. when winds exceeded 70 mph. Strong winds uprooted trees and broke heavy limbs that took down power lines.

The storm also brought heavy rains that have caused flooding throughout the area. In Holland, U.S. 31 at M-40 is closed in both directions because of flooding. In Spring Lake, Lake Avenue between M-104 and School Street is closed because of a downed power line while the intersection of School Street and West Exchange Street is flooded.

Ottawa County Emergency Management provided a map of roads closed.

The storm also brought down power lines over I-196 near Zeeland, resulting in a shutdown of eastbound traffic at Adams Street and westbound traffic at Byron Road.

Kent County Road Commission reported downed trees blocking roads and isolated flooding.

A man who was driving an empty semi-tractor trailer told police that strong winds caused him to lose control of the rig and it rolled over, an Ottawa County sheriffs sergeant said.

The incident happened at 11:49 a.m. on Quincy Street in Zeeland Township. The truck driver, a 77-year-old Minnesota man, was driving east on Quincy when strong crosswinds caused him to lose control of truck, Sgt. Derek Gerencer said.

It rolled over into a ditch on the north side of the road, police said. The driver was trapped for a short time before Zeeland Township firefighters got him out.

Police said the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids reported 59-mph winds at the time of the crash.

Read more:

80 mph wind gust reported at Lake Macatawa as thunderstorms hit West Michigan

70 mph+ gusts, a few tornadoes likely as severe risk upped to 4 on 5-step scale

Edenville Dam failure investigation to take many months
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court registry, in an internal circular to all subordinate courts on Tuesday, permitted installation of a transparent screen between the dais and advocates, aiming to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The registry has also put out the design in which the sheet needs to be placed, and has entrusted the PWD with the task. The High Court had recently permitted open court hearings only in 14 districts, with only five lawyers permitted in each court hall at a time. According to the notification issued, the district judges, where the HC has ordered for reopening of the courts, will now be functioning with transparent plastic sheets.
One helps stolen generations survivors, another tries to keep Aboriginal families together and a third provides legal services, but all report the same thing  donations are through the roof.

Spurred by the Black Lives Matter protests, Australians are giving much more generously to charities aimed at assisting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Much more generously.

The Healing Foundation, which assists stolen generations survivors and their families, reaped $638 in donations last year between June 1 and June 9 from 15 donors. This year the foundation collected $109,359 from 2286 donors in the same period.

Similarly, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service has booked $280,000 from about 4500 donors since May 1, compared to just over $3000 in the same period last year.
Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) today released its regular weekly Net Asset Value ("NAV") and performance returns on its website, https://www.pershingsquareholdings.com/company-reports/weekly-navs/. The NAV and returns were computed as of the close of business on Tuesday, 9 June 2020.

PSH NAV per share as of close of business on 9 June 2020 was 35.74 USD 28.08 GBP and year-to-date performance was 33.0%.

Weekly net asset value ("NAV") is calculated as of the close of business on each Tuesday and posted on the following business day. In the event that Tuesday is not a business day, the Company will calculate the close-of-business NAV as of the business day immediately preceding that Tuesday. The end-of-month NAV is calculated as of the close of business on the last day of the month and posted on the following business day. For weeks that include a month-end NAV report, PSH will provide only the month-end NAV and not report the Tuesday NAV. Monthly NAVs are published in accordance with the Decree on Conduct of Business Supervision of Financial Undertakings under the Wft (Besluit Gedragstoezicht financiele ondernemingen Wft).

Performance is presented on a net-of-fees basis and reflects the deduction of, among other expenses: management fees, brokerage commissions, administrative fees and accrued performance fees, if any. The performance figure includes the reinvestment of all dividends, interest and capital gains. Depending on the timing of a specific investment, net performance for an individual investor may vary from the net performance as stated herein. Net performance is a geometrically linked time weighted calculation.

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. All investments involve risk including the loss of principal.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005881/en/

Contacts:

Camarco

Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
Khloe Kardashian's clothing brand Good American has a workforce that's 15 percent black, according to a company Instagram post Wednesday.

The information was shared as part of the Pull Up For Change initiative started by Sharon Chuter, the black CEO and founder of UOMA Beauty.

However, 52 percent of employees are white and people of color represent 32 percent of employees.

Khloe Kardashian's clothing brand Good American revealed Wednesday that 15 percent of its employees are black as well as having a black woman Emma Grede as co-founder and CEO

The brand was at pains to point out that reality star Khloe's co-founder and the CEO of Good American Emma Grede is black and that 84 percent of the workforce are female identifying.

Good American was founded by Khloe and Emma in 2016 and initially offered denim clothing designed a 'curvier, sexier and stronger shape.'

It has since expanded to include activewear, sweats and bodysuits.

In a statement on Instagram, the company said: 'Diversity and inclusion has always been at our core, so we see this as an opportunity to highlight the consistent and constant work our brand has done to ensure our mission is felt at all levels of the company.'

It added: 'We are committed to continuing our focus on diversity throughout our organization: both within the talent and partners we work with and the employees at our office. We refuse to be complacent.'

The clothing brand shared the information in a statement via Instagram as part of the Pull Up For Change initiative started by Sharon Chuter, the black CEO and founder of UOMA Beauty

White employees make up 52 percent of the workforce while 32 percent are people of color, and Good American stated that 'diversity and inclusion has always been at our core'

Good American was founded by Khloe and Emma in 2016 and initially offered denim clothing for a 'curvier, sexier and stronger shape.' It has expanded to include activewear and bodysuits

Khloe's younger half-sister Kylie Jenner came in for criticism on social media after she revealed that only 13 percent of her employees are black.

Kylie Cosmetics announced on Sunday via Instagram that 47 per cent of employees are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color), 53 per cent are white and 100 per cent are women-identifying.

The company also noted that its leadership team is only made up of Kylie and her mother Kris Jenner.

Commenters were quick to call out Kylie for the low number of employees who identify as black, with one person asking: '13 per cent?'

'Hire more. 13% is not enough when African Americans set the trends and standards in the beauty industry,' someone else wrote.

'Only 13% black? Damn. Also only all being women identifying isn't that progressive,' another added. 'How about some non binary/trans folks?'

One commenter noted that she 'only saw one black person modeling' when she scrolled through the beauty brand's Instagram page.

Khloe's younger half-sister Kylie Jenner came in for criticism after revealing that only 13 percent of her employees are black and she and momager Kris Jenner are the leadership team

Kylie Cosmetics said that 53 percent of employees are white and 100 percent are women-identifying in an Instagram post shared on Sunday as part of the Pull Up For Change challenge

A number of critics also pointed out that Kylie and her sisters have a history of being accused of cultural appropriation for wearing their hair in braids and cornrows.

'13% black employees when all this family has done is appropriate our culture,' one person wrote while questioning why people were praising Kyle for her transparency.

'How are y'all applauding her for posting this and it only shows 13% black employees,' she asked. '13% but everyone in that family has been influenced by black culture and your [sic] raising black children. What a way to set an example.'

Kylie Cosmetics replied to some of the comments, saying the company plans on bringing on more black content creators and influencers.

Pull Up For Change initiator Sharon Chuter launched the challenge last week and told Refinery29: 'This isn't to shame brands  it's to have an honest conversation and think of ways we can do better.'

She explained: 'One of the main causes of the issues is that black people are not afforded the same opportunities, and we aren't hired in the first place.'
While other local music acts are struggling to make money in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Kenyas highflying Afropop boyband Sauti Sol has been the exception.

Despite canceling their shows, appearance gigs, and concerts as a result of the ban on social gatherings, the quartet is still making bank.

Fresh from releasing their fifth studio album, Midnight Train, the band has revealed that they are still getting booked for online shows.

We started this year with so many plans, but Covid-19 changed everything. For a minute we were a bit scared but we changed our business module to now become a more online kind of brand, said Bien Aime Baraza.

The lead vocalist added that: We have been commissioned to do a couple of concerts. The other day we did the Africa Day concert, weve done a concert for Stanford University, and we have now been commissioned to do a concert for Essence Festival.

So a lot of international festivals are reaching out and the model is doing concerts online and in digital space, he said.

At the same time, the four-man band has since relocated to a ranch in Lukenya on the outskirts of Nairobi, where they are currently isolating as they work on the production of more content.

We got tested for Covid-19 so we are now together in a place where we are isolated and we are just making a lot of content and rehearsing. Kazi inaendelea, Bien said.
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Bamako, Mali (PANA) - The European Union (EU) has express indignation and deep concern at what constitutes clear human rights violations, following the assassination of more than 40 people in two villages of Mopti region, in central Mali, on June 3 and 5, involving the Malian Armed Forces, according to a Fulani association
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ST. LOUIS - The newly-appointed head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis vowed Wednesday to be an agent of healing, as the region and the nation continue to react to the death of George Floyd and the threat of the coronavirus.

The Vatican announced Wednesday that Pope Francis had appointed Springfield, Massachusetts Bishop Mitchell Rozanski to lead the St. Louis diocese, replacing Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, who is retiring.

This is a troubled time for our nation, Rozanski said during a news conference in St. Louis. Were still experiencing the effects of the COVID-19 virus, the death of Mr. George Floyd and the sad spectacle of racism that tears at the very fabric of our country. ... It is my hope that called to lead this church of St. Louis, Gods grace will be in abundance in helping me to be part of that healing process and resolution to all the daunting issues that we face.

The appointment drew immediate criticism from advocates for victims of priest sexual abuse. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests chastised Rozanski for not releasing the names of three accused predator priests in the Springfield, Massachusetts, who were suspended last week.

David Clohessy, of SNAP, said Rozanski said bishops have generally released the names of accused priests since 2002, when they signed the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that set out procedures for responding to widespread allegations of priest abuse in the church.

I cant think of a single instance the last five to 10 years where a bishop said This guy is too dangerous for my parish but Im not going to tell you who he is, Clohessy said.

Rozanski said he didnt release the names because the diocese and law enforcement are still investigating the credibility of allegations against two of the priests, while a district attorney has already cleared the other man. He also detailed several steps the diocese took to enhance its transparency on the issue.

Healing begins with transparency, Rozanski said. So I know we cant seem to do things perfectly but were trying as best we can.

Rozanski, 61, is considered a moderate and is taking over an archdiocese that has long been led by conservatives. Prior to Carlson, St. Louis was headed by now-Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leading point of reference for conservatives in the U.S. and beyond.

And prior to Burke, St. Louis was headed by now-Cardinal Justin Rigali, who went onto head the archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Rozanski is the 10th archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which has more than 500,000 members in 182 parishes across 11 counties.

Rozanski was an auxiliary bishop in his hometown of Baltimore before being named to lead the Springfield, Massachusetts, diocese in 2014. In another appointment Wednesday, Francis named a new auxiliary bishop for Baltimore, Bruce Lewandowski of the Redemptorist religious order.
Professor Grace Ayensu-Danquah, the Parliamentary aspirant of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has sponsored the spraying of mosques in the constituency to reduce infection and fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.



Her action, followed the ease of restrictions by the President to allow churches and mosques to congregate and worship their maker despite the rising figures in the disease.



For over two months, such religious entities had to suspend formal gathering in sanctuaries and mosques and resort to praying in their abodes since the disease spread through the massive gathering at public places without recourse to safety protocols.



Professor Ayensu-Danquah said the well-being of her constituents was a priority as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to surge particularly in the Western Region.



I have vowed to do all that I can, not just as a parliamentary candidate but even as a professional medical practitioner to help the good people of Essikado-Ketan where I have my roots".



The President during his tenth address on COVID-19 to Ghanaians eased the ban on the religious gathering but not without well-tailored safety measures to comply particularly on spacing, hand washing, and the wearing of the face and nose masks.



The President through the Ministry of Local Government had also made available such PPE for the use by religious entities as a commitment to fight the pandemic.



Meanwhile, the Muslim leaders at the various communities in Essikado-Ketan Constituency were grateful to Prof. Grace Ayensu-Danquah for her kind gesture adding, "We will do our best to glorify her in the upcoming December 7 general election, because she has proven to us that she thinks about the constituents in Essikado-Ketan".

Source: GNA









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BOSTON  The former chairman of Harvard Universitys Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department was indicted on Tuesday, accused of being involved with Wuhan University of Technology in China in a recruiting program which is known to steal proprietary information from businesses.

Charles Lieber, 61, was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of making false statements to federal authorities regarding his participation in Chinas Thousand Talents Program, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling.

As the head of Lieber Research Group at Harvard, which specialized in nanoscience, he received more than $15 million in research grants from the federal National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. As a condition of receiving the grants all sources of research support, potential financial conflicts of interest and all foreign collaboration must be reported, the statement said.

In 2011 Lieber became a strategic scientist at Wuhan University of Technology and became a contractual participant in Chinas Thousand Talents Plan which recruited high-level scientific talent. Along with bringing the scientist to China to share their knowledge and experience, the program also allegedly awards individuals for stealing proprietary information, the statement said.

Lieber is accused of receiving a salary of up to $50,000 monthly and living expenses of up to $158,000 and lying to federal authorities in 2018 and 2019 about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Plan, according to the statement.

It is alleged that Lieber falsely stated that he was never asked to participate in the Thousand Talents Program, but that he wasnt sure how China categorized him. In November 2018, NIH inquired of Harvard about whether Lieber had failed to disclose his then-suspected relationship with WUT and Chinas Thousand Talents Plan. Lieber allegedly caused Harvard to falsely tell NIH that Lieber had no formal association with WUT after 2012, the statement said.

If found guilty, he could face up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000, according to the statement.
Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor not only amazes fans with her chic sense of fashion and on-screen performances but also has also left fans inspired with her travel diaries. Sonam is a true globetrotter and her Instagram feed is a testimony to it. From exotic locations to serene surroundings, her vacation pictures have time and again given fans major travel goals. Heres taking a look at Sonam Kapoors travel pictures that will motivate you to plan your next trip.

Maldives

The Maldives is a tropical nation in the Indian ocean which is known for its beaches, extensive reefs and blue lagoon. Sonam Kapoor can be seen enjoying vitamin sea in this picture. Donning a blue ensemble, the picture is clicked at her exotic stay. Standing beside the pool she completely looks like a water baby following the theme blue.

ALSO READ| Sonam Kapoor Ahuja Gets Funniest Birthday Wish From Sister Rhea's Boyfriend Karan Boolani

Japan

Sonam Kapoor had a gala time enjoying a vacation with her husband Anand in Koyoto and Tokyo. Japan known as the land of rising sun has a lot to offer for tourists. By looking at her Instagram pictures, Sonam Kapoor seems to have enjoyed every bit of this trip. From casually strolling on the streets to visiting sites of cultural heritage, the Aisha actor can be seen spending quality time with her husband. Check out her pictures here:

ALSO READ| Sonam Kapoor's Birthday: Boney Kapoor Shares Cute Throwback Pic To Wish Sonam

Los Angeles

Sonam Kapoor and husband Anand can be seen discovering the city of Los Angeles in the picture. While sharing the photograph, she wrote how it is their time to eat and that they have successfully managed to find one of the coolest vegetarian restaurants in the town. She can be seen having a gala time as they eat. LA is one of the best places for food lovers. Have a look at Sonam Kapoors travel picture from LA.

ALSO READ| Shatrughan Sinha Wishes Sonam Kapoor On Birthday, But Becomes Subject Of Memes For The Pic

Bali

Bali is one of the best places to visit if you want to enjoy a beach vacation. The place is filled with beaches and coral reefs. Taking to Instagram, Anand Ahuja shared a picture of his Bali vacation with Sonam Kapoor. The couple is all smiles in the picture. The photo sees a background that is filled with greenery and natural beauty.

ALSO READ| Sonam Kapoor's 'Prem Ratan Dhan Payo' And Other Movies That Were Set In Rajasthan

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to a sub-inspector from Mumbais Ghatkopar police station, who was booked for divorcing his second wife by pronouncing talaq via messages sent thrice to her cellphone.

Justice Bharati Dangre granted anticipatory bail to the sub-inspector, Yusuf Usman Shaikh, on a personal surety bond of Rs 25,000.

The complainant had alleged that the sub-inspector, who was married earlier and had two children from his first wife, got married to her as per Islamic law in December 2018, and she delivered a baby girl a year later.

She further alleged that Shaikh divorced her by pronouncing talaq thrice via messages sent to her cellphone, and also refused to take care and responsibility for their baby daughter.

Shaikh was booked under Section 3 of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, which has banned triple talaq, and also marital rape.

Justice Dangre, however, ruled that the marital rape charge was unsustainable, as the marriage was solemnised under Islamic law.

The judge said the other offence was bailable and granted Shaikh anticipatory bail.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 03:51:41|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese medical experts and Sudanese health officials attend a consultation in Khartoum, Sudan, on June 9, 2020. The visiting Chinese medical team on Tuesday held consultations with Sudan's health officials on the necessary measures needed to be taken to prevent the COVID-19 spread. (Xinhua/Ma Yichong)

KHARTOUM, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The visiting Chinese medical team on Tuesday held consultations with Sudan's health officials on the necessary measures needed to be taken to prevent the COVID-19 spread.

Nada Bakri, director of the General Administration of Therapeutic Medicine at Sudan's Federal Health Ministry, praised the visit of the Chinese medical team and China's support to Sudan's fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

"There were deep discussions and consultations that were so beneficial and important to us," she said.

The Chinese team of medical experts has so far visited some hospitals and isolation centers to study Sudan's experience in prevention and treatment of COVID-19, Bakri said.

The Chinese experts also met with Sudanese counterparts tasked with mapping out the protocols and plans for COVID-19 prevention and treatment.

Chinese Ambassador to Sudan Ma Xinmin reiterated the commitment of the Chinese government to provide medical support to Sudan.

"The expert team exchanged with the Sudanese health officials, medical professionals and frontline medical workers the know-how and professional experience in COVID-19 prevention and containment, clinical treatment and coronavirus testing," Ma said.

The Chinese experts have also held 16 training sessions and six technical meetings with Sudanese medical professionals and ordinary people, he noted.

"Fighting shoulder to shoulder, the Chinese experts and their Sudanese counterparts have forged an extraordinary synergy in our fight against COVID-19," the Chinese diplomat noted.

The Chinese medical team arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on May 28 to support Sudan's efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

China has already provided help to Sudan in its anti-coronavirus fight.

In late March, the Chinese embassy in Sudan donated over 400,000 surgical masks to the Sudanese government. On April 23, Chinese medical experts held a video conference with Sudanese counterparts to share China's experiences in fighting COVID-19.

Sudan has so far reported a total of 6,242 COVID-19 cases, including 372 deaths and 2,059 recoveries. Enditem
Russia shouldnt interfere in disputes between India and China and instead act as an honest broker to contribute to solutions that dont involve the use of military force, the chairman of the Russian upper house committee on foreign affairs said on Wednesday.

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Federation Councils committee on foreign affairs, also said the Taliban are a very influential and important part of the peace process in Afghanistan even though Russia continues to see the group as an extremist movement. India, as a neighbour of Afghanistan, also has a key role in the process to find a solution in the war-torn country, he added.

Interacting with a small group of journalists in New Delhi via video conference from Moscow, Kosachev was sceptical of US President Donald Trumps move to invite India, Russia, Australia and South Korea to an expanded G7 Summit later this year, saying the move appeared to be aimed against China.

Asked whether Russia could play any role in the stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), he replied Moscows log-standing position is that such bilateral disputes should be handled by the countries involved.

Russia should not interfere in these kinds of disputes, but our roleis to be an honest broker to contribute to a dialogue and to do the utmost in order to prevent and avoid any solutions connected with the use of military force, said Kosachev, who plays an influential role in Russias foreign policy set-up.

This is the political message Russia keeps sending to Chinese and Indian friends as it respects the sovereignty of both countries, he said. Russia-China ties, which are in the best shape ever in decades, arent aimed against any other country, he added.

Russias good relations with both China and India are factors that mutually strengthen each other and provide good opportunities for the solution of problems that still exist between India and China, Kosachev said.

Responding to a question on the Talibans role in the Afghan peace process and India being kept out of most discussions on the future of Afghanistan, he said Russia perceives the Taliban as a very difficult partner.

The Taliban is classified in Russia as an extremist movement though it isnt prohibited. At the same time, we are realists and we understand that the Taliban is a very influential and very important part of the ongoing processes in Afghanistan, he said.

If you just try to exclude the Taliban from any type of political dialogue, you will not reach anywhere. So whether you like the Taliban [or not], you have to recognise the existence of the Taliban and the potential of the Taliban as a part of the ongoing processes, Kosachev said.

Other countries, including Russia and India, should contribute to the fragile political dialogue between the authorities in Kabul and the Taliban, he said. India is a neighbour of AfghanistanSo Im absolutely in favour of having India as an equal and very important participant in the ongoing discussions, he added.

Referring to US President Trumps recent move to invite Russia and India to the G7 Summit in September, Kosachev said the American leaders doesnt have the right to expand the grouping. Trump is free to invite additional participants to the summit but they wont be able to join the preparations or to influence the outcomes and decisions, he said.

There was also no unity among the other members of the G7, such as the UK and Canada, which have opposed the invitation to Russia, he said. Besides, Trump appears to be interested in bringing together other countries to create a joint opposition to China, and Russia is opposed to blocs that are arrayed against a third country, Kosachev said.

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A former Northern Ireland Secretary has warned that companies here are moving jobs to the Republic because of Brexit.

Julian Smith also urged Cabinet Office Minister Penny Mordaunt "to look at the fact that many businesses have not realised the consequences of coming out of the single market and the customs union. We can start preparing them for that reality".

He added: "On the Northern Ireland protocol, there are businesses reporting to me that they are now moving jobs to the Republic."

South Belfast SDLP MP Claire Hanna drew Ms Mordaunt's attention to last week's Assembly vote calling for an extension to the Brexit transition period.

She said: "The Government insisted that the Northern Ireland Assembly should have the final say on the protocol.

"The Assembly finally gave a say on Brexit when it voted last week to request an extension to the transition period to allow businesses, which are currently in the fight of their lives due to Covid, to adapt and to have the certainty that the minister refers to.

"If the Northern Ireland Assembly's consent is so vital, should the Government not listen to what it says?"

Ms Mordaunt said that although the Assembly would determine whether the terms of the protocol remain in force in a few years' time, the Government would not be extending the transition period.

She added that trade talks with Brussels are at a "key stage" and need to be escalated in the coming weeks.

She repeatedly ruled out extending the transition period beyond December this year and pressed the need for the UK to be treated as a "sovereign equal".

Mr Smith said many businesses haven't realised the consequences of coming out of the single market and customs union.

"We can start preparing them for that reality," he added.

Ms Mordaunt replied: "We are already in discussions with businesses in every part of the UK."
School children under the age of 15 have a 'tiny' one-in-3.5million chance of dying from coronavirus and are more likely to be hit by lightning, according to statistics.

Analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) by a top expert from the University of Cambridge shows that the risk of Covid-19 to children is extremely low.

The death rate for youngsters aged five to 14 in England and Wales is around one in 3.5million and for under-5s it is one in 1.17million  only 14 people aged under 19 have died with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 since the start of the outbreak.

In comparison, between 30 and 60 people are hit by lightning every year in the UK, according to figures from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

This is a risk of between one in 2.21million and one in 1.1million each year, the Daily Telegraph reported, although it was unclear how many people hit by lightning are children.

The figures come after the Government scrapped its target of getting all primary school pupils back in the classroom before the summer holidays.

A leading teaching union claimed it has been 'abundantly clear' that the Government's dates for reopening schools were 'ill-considered, premature and unworkable'.

School children under the age of 15 have a very low chance of dying from coronavirus, according to statistics

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson made the announcement amid warnings the two metre social distancing rule will make a full return to the classroom impossible.

The Government's long-stated 'ambition' was to see all primary children return for at least a month in the before the end of the academic year but unions and councils have said school buildings would have to double in size to make that happen.

Smaller classes and social distancing requirements have forced the Education Secretary into a rethink as he conceded on Tuesday 'we are not able to welcome all primary children back for a full month before the summer'.

Anxious parents also spoke to MailOnline about their worries for their children if the uncertainty continues and one father demanded to know, 'what is going to be different if they go back in September' instead of if they return to school now.

However, speaking about the new research into the risks posed to children by coronavirus, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the University of Cambrdige's Winton Centre for Risk, said the threat posed was 'tiny'.

The figures come after the Government scrapped its target of getting all primary school pupils back in the classroom before the summer holidays

Pictured: Education Secretary Gavin Williamson made the announcement on Tuesday

However, speaking about the new research into the risks posed to children by coronavirus, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter (pictured), chairman of the University of Cambrdige's Winton Centre for Risk, said the threat posed was 'tiny'

He added that allowing immunity to build naturally between youngsters may be recommended if a vaccine does not become available.

He said: 'In school kids aged five to 14 it's not only a tiny risk, it's a tiny proportion of the normal risk.

Why can't we get schools back like the rest of Europe? How classrooms in most of the continent have reopened and there is no spike in cases Evidence from 22 EU states that have restored classes suggests little or no risk to pupils, teachers or families. In Wales, the Government plans to reopen all schools on June 29, with a third of children at most in school at any time. Pupils in Scotland will return on August 11 but they will spend around half their time in school and the other half at home. In Northern Ireland, all children are intended to restart classes on a phased basis in September, but schools can accept pupils preparing for exams in the third week of August. Denmark reopened primaries and nurseries a month ago and has seen infection rates continue to fall. Norway, which is outside the EU, has taken similar action without a rise. Around 1.4million French pupils went back to class in May and of around 40,000 schools and nurseries only 70 were closed again following virus cases. Advertisement

'I remember the pre-vaccination era and I was sent round to play with friends with measles, mumps and chickenpox.

'I'm not suggesting this is the public health solution to this, but if no vaccines come along you might be thinking that.'

And Lord Blunkett, who served as Education Secretary as part of Tony Blair's New Labour government, said the Government had shown a 'lack of will' by not reopening schools.

He told BBC Radio 4's World At One: 'To be honest, I think it is a lack of will, it is a lack of 'can do'.

'It is a failure to do what we have already done with the health service and economy, which is to say there are challenges, there are real problems but we are going as a nation to seek to overcome them.

'Why is it that other countries, not just in Europe but across the world, can have the ambition to get their children, in all kinds of creative ways, back into school and we can't?

'I can only conclude that the Government is losing the plot.'

The findings come after a review of the scientific evidence into the risks presented by re-opening schools concluded that doing so is unlikely to spread the disease among children or adults.

The research, a systematic review of more than 47 separate studies, found that children are at a low risk of catching, spreading and suffering severe symptoms of the disease, and unlikely to infect their families or teachers.

The team of scientists at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute, near Stockholm, in Sweden, concluded that keeping schools open is 'unlikely' to spread COVID-19.

They added that children are unlikely to catch it or to pass it on to their families.

Professor Jonas Ludvigsson, who led the review, told the Daily Mail: 'The vast majority of children do not get very sick from Covid-19 and deaths are extremely rare.

'So there's really no reason to close down schools and kindergartens to protect the children themselves.'

Anne Longfield, the Children's Commissioner for England, said on Tuesday she was 'incredibly concerned' about the long-term impact on children's education and wellbeing and warned youngsters could remain 'isolated', with many living in 'fragile' family environments.

Professor Spiegelhalter added that allowing immunity to build naturally between youngsters may be recommended if a vaccine does not become available. He said: 'In school kids aged five to 14 it's not only a tiny risk, it's a tiny proportion of the normal risk'

Mr Williamson said large schools which do have space to bring back more pupils should do so in the coming weeks as he promised all children will be back in the classroom in England by the autumn, in September.

Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure from his Cabinet to slash the two metre rule in order to make it easier for schools, shops and the hospitality sector to return.

Numerous countries have a one metre or 1.5 metre rule.

Hopes of the two metre restriction being reduced were given a boost after the World Health Organisation said it is 'very rare' for asymptomatic coronavirus patients to pass on the disease.

Gary Murray, who has two daughters aged 15 and eight, said: 'The question I feel a lot of parents want answering is; what is going to be different if they go back in September to what is different to them going back to school now?'

Another parent, Lindsay Astle, from Nottingham, told MailOnline her eight-year-old son has been 'massively affected' and suffered nightmares as a result of his school being closed.

Other parents said they were 'deeply concerned' about the impact of social distancing on their children and likened it to 'child abuse'.

The findings come after a review of the scientific evidence into the risks presented by re-opening schools concluded that doing so is unlikely to spread the disease among children or adults

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Williamson conceded the Government had no choice but to drop its 'ambition' for all primary school pupils to return before the summer holidays.

He said: 'We continue to follow the best scientific advice and believe that this cautious, phased return is the most sensible course of action to take.

'While we are not able to welcome all primary children back for a full month before the summer we continue to work with the sector on the next steps where we would like to see schools who have the capacity to bring back more children in those smaller class sizes.

'To do so, if they are able to, before the summer holidays.

'We will be working to bring all children back to school in September.

'I know students who are due to take exams in 2021 will have experienced considerable disruption to their education this year and we are committed to doing all we can to minimise the effects of this.

'Exams will take place next year and we are working with Ofqual and the exam boards on our approach to these.'

Currently children are placed in 'protective bubbles' of no more than 15 per class at primary schools to help prevent the spread of the disease.

But this often requires using additional classrooms or different areas of the school, with some not able to find enough space to fit all their pupils in.

Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure from his Cabinet to slash the two metre rule in order to make it easier for schools, shops and the hospitality sector to return. Pictured: The cordoned off play area and equipment of a primary school in London on Tuesday

Mr Williamson said the class size restriction imposed by Public Health England is a 'limitation' to getting more children back to school.

'That obviously does limit the amount of ability to have as many year groups in school as we'd like,' he said.

'But as this is changed and as this is modified this will give us the ability to slowly and cautiously move forward in terms of welcoming more children back to school when that is the right time.'

Tory MP Robert Halfon, chairman of the Commons Education Committee, has urged the Government to set up a 'national education army' of volunteers who could set up temporary classrooms in school gyms and public libraries.

Earlier he had urged the Government not to ditch its primary schools 'ambition'.

He said the UK was a 'strange country' for seemingly prioritising reopening pubs over schools.
In the wake of the recent police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the multiple uprisings in numerous countries that have occurred in the past couple of weeks, the scope of public discourse on policing has undoubtedly expanded.

More specifically, the current moment is characterized by the movement of previously peripheral ideas into the realm of mainstream discussions about how to reconceptualize public safety in ways that are community-centred rather than police-centric. Defunding the police is one such idea.

Here in Toronto, as elsewhere, calls to defund the police are gaining traction. Proponents of defunding hold the view that the current operating budget of the Toronto Police Service  $1.08 billion ($365 per capita)  undercuts the ability of the city to provide better funding for other programs and agencies.

These include childrens services; employment and social services; shelter, support and housing administration, which bolster community wellness without the use of guns, tasers, batons and handcuffs.

The most prominent defunding proposal, a 10 per cent operating budget reduction motion put forth by Councillors Josh Matlow and Kristyn Wong-Tam, has predictably been met with opposition by Police Chief Mark Saunders, Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack and various local commentators, all of whom claim, in one way or another, that defunding will compromise public safety.

They are all wrong for three main reasons.

First, the vast majority of police activity in Toronto has nothing to do with addressing serious violent criminality. In 2018, for example, 4,635 people were charged with theft under $5,000, 3,345 were charged with shoplifting under $5,000, 996 were charged with fraud and 772 were charged with mischief. In contrast, 168 people were charged with aggravated assault, 130 were charged with forcible confinement or kidnapping, 102 were charged with attempted murder, and 70 were charged with homicide.

These numbers, and others, reflect the long-standing criminological insight that significant police resources are devoted to handling high volume, low-level offences rather than major violent crimes. It should also be noted that during the same year Toronto police officers issued 191,620 provincial offences tickets and 46,656 warnings (issued in lieu of tickets)  equalling 4,582 tickets and warnings handed out during a typical week.

Second, the majority of violent crimes, with the exception of robbery, involve victims and offenders who know each other. Consider national data on homicides in 2018, which showed that 81 per cent of homicide victims in Canada were killed by family members, acquaintances, criminal associates (e.g. fellow gang members) or intimate (nonspousal) partners.

The upshot is that resource-intensive modes of police patrolling are based on exaggerated visions of stranger danger in public places, and the supposed need to roam the streets in search of violent criminals, when, in fact, many of those criminals can be readily found in bedrooms, family rooms, basements and backyards throughout the city.

Third, in a city of 2.9 million people, in which poor and racialized communities constitute a good percentage of the population, it is misleading to think that big budget policing equals public safety for all.

Large budgets for the Toronto Police Service have enabled forms of aggressive proactive policing that lead to incidents such as the beating death of Junior Manon (he was driving in violation of a probation condition); the beating, public strip searching and arrest of Ohene Darteh (he was accused of riding his bicycle on a pedestrian crosswalk); the violent arrest of four teenagers now known as the Neptune Four (they were suspected of trespassing in the townhouse complex where they lived); the beating and prolonged handcuffing of Mutaz Elmardy (he declined to take his hands out of his pockets on a cold January evening) and so on.

In each instance, if there were no police officers in the immediate area, all of those targeted Black civilians would have been spared serious abuse and one of them, Junior Manon, would have been spared his life.

As we approach the end of June in the coming weeks, at which time the 10 per cent defunding motion will be presented to Toronto City Council, the public will be inundated with claims and counterclaims about the merits and demerits of defunding the Toronto Police Service. In this context, concerned citizens might simply bear this in mind: the idea that police defunding will undermine public safety should be regarded with very healthy skepticism.
Elon Musk comes back to Twitter after some time off. Elon Musk is back in the Twitterverse again after his worldwide announcement of some time off from the social media application on June 2, 2020. One of his latest tweets on Twitter was a remark on planet Mars having a substantial amount of icy water in one of its craters.

The tweet is a comment on @latestinspace's tweet of split images of Mars's northern polar crater filled with what appears to be an icy substance. The tweet was posted on June 7, 2020. The image was taken by ESA's (European Space Agency) Mars Express. @latestinspace replied back to Musk's tweet on the icy crater of Mars. The Twitter user mentioned that it was crucial for Mars to have craters that contain water and ice.

Mars has an amazing amount of water ice  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 7, 2020

This is because it confirms that Mars has sustainable matter within it. The Twitter user then proceeded to cheer Mars on. People in the Twitterverse have also expressed their delight on the matter, claiming they want to go to Mars and the hope of a possibility that Mars is a sustainable planet.

Mars: The Red Planet and the ice-filled Crater

According to Space, another name for the planet Mars is "The Red Planet." This is because Mars exhibits a red color all throughout its exterior surface. Some would even say that Mars resembles the colors of rust in its entirety. The reason why Mars exhibits a red and rust color is that the soil of Mars is rich in minerals that contain iron particles and molecules.

The iron particles and molecules within the soil of Mars go through an oxidation process, allowing the ground to appear red and look rusty. Because of the warm red color Mars shows, Mars is also tagged, by the general public, as one of those planets that exhibit warm temperatures. However, EarthSky states that Mars showcases features that indicate Mars has cold temperatures within its atmosphere and environment.

Read Also: Ancient Maya Civilization: Scientists Find Artificial Plateau that Challenges Every Traditional Archaeological Belief

EarthSky referenced ESA's recent image of Mars's Korolev Crater. The picture shows an aerial view of the Korolev Crater. What is most evident in the picture is the striking contrast of the icy substance within the crater and the red and rusty-colored soil of Mars. EarthSky stated that in various areas of Mars, specifically its craters, polar ice caps are seen.

The properties of these polar ice caps on Mars consists of water in ice form and carbon dioxide in ice form. Since Mars is known for its rusty-looking environment, these polar ice caps stand out in Mars's horizon.

Elon Musk and Mars

When Elon Musk commented on @latestinspace's tweet, people on the Twitterverse grew curious about the matter. However, as stated by EarthSky, the image posted by @latestinspace was released by ESA almost two years ago on December 20, 2018.

As mentioned earlier, @latestinspace tweeted about Mars's Korolev Crater filled like a polar ice cap on June 7, 2020. The tweet is a repost of ESA's old announcement on Mars's icy Korolev Crater.

Read Also: Elon Musk Liked a Twitter Post About 3D Concept Comparing Crew Dragon and Starship Size: Sign of Approval?
People with type O blood may be less likely to get diagnosed with the coronavirus, according to a recent study  but millions are clueless as to what blood type they actually have.

There are eight main blood types and O+ and A+ are the most common, accounting for around 65 per cent of all people in the UK, the NHS says.

The rarest is AB-, found in only one per cent of blood donors in Britain, along with AB+ and B-, which each make up two per cent of donors.

Finding out someone's blood type is a done through a simple procedure called ABO typing that requires a blood sample to be analysed in a laboratory.

NHS Blood and Transplant does this for free for everyone who gives blood through its official donation system, with donors receiving their information about a week later. And people who have had their blood taken in hospital may be able to ask their doctor what their blood type is.

But do-it-yourself tests are also available online for as little as 8, while private clinics will test and analyse people's blood for a one-off fee or around 70.

Here, MailOnline reveals some of the options available in Britain for finding out your blood type.

People who donate blood to the NHS will be told their blood type shortly after their donation, for free, by NHS Blood and Transplant (stock image)

HOW COMMON IS EACH BLOOD TYPE? There are eight main blood types and O+ and A+ are the most common, accounting for around 65 per cent of all people in the UK, according to the NHS. This is how common each type is among people who donate blood in the UK: O positive: 35%

O negative: 13%

A positive: 30%

A negative: 8%

B positive: 8%

B negative: 2%

AB positive: 2%

AB negative: 1% Source: NHSBT Advertisement

Give blood or ask your doctor, NHS (Free)

The NHS's blood donation scheme tells all donors their personal blood type after the give their first sample.

Run by NHS Blood and Transplant, a specialised arm of the health service, the programme collects blood from healthy donors to keep in NHS supplies.

Donors can make appointments online to attend donation sessions, where a trained medic will insert a needle into a vein in their arm and drain around 470ml of blood.

Donated blood is used for life-saving transfusions for people who lose a lot of blood during major surgery or through massive injuries in traffic accidents, for example, as well as those with long-term illnesses such as kidney disease or sickle cell disease.

The blood bank must make sure it has all types of blood because they are not all cross-compatible.

Someone with O+ blood, for example, cannot receive a transfusion with anything other than O-type blood. And O- people can only receive O- blood.

To make sure they have sufficient stocks the NHS tests each blood type when a sample is received, and the donor is then told their blood type about a week after they donate, the NHS says.

People who have had blood taken in the past by a doctor, during hospital treatment for example, can also ask their doctor to tell them their blood type if it is known.

Giving blood is free but the NHS warned it has seen a surge in the numbers of people signing up during the coronavirus crisis, meaning donors are now having to wait longer to get involved.

Blood types are important because people who receive transfusions, because of disease or serious injury, can only receive blood from certain types of donors, depending on each person's blood type. Not all are cross-compatible

DIY testing kit, Amazon (7.99)

For people who don't want to donate blood, DIY testing kits are available online which can reveal someone's blood type.

One of the most common is the Eldon Blood Typing Kit, which is for sale on Amazon for 7.95 per kit.

These tests work using a simple finger-prick method which was originally designed to be used on the spot by trained medics, such as in a battlefield hospital or in countries with poor healthcare services, but are easy enough to use at home.

The user should use a small lancet to prick their finger and then push blood out of it, before collecting a sample on a small swab.

The swab is then rubbed onto four separate patches of reagents - chemicals which aim to produce a reaction - which will then change colour and pattern according to the blood type, which can be interpreted with a card.

DIY blood type tests are available on Amazon from just 7.99. The Eldon test (pictured) is one of the most popular online

Private clinic, London (72.80)

Private clinics will test people's blood for a one-off fee, but these are considerably more expensive than DIY tests.

They are, however, likely to be more accurate because the blood is collected by a medical professional and the results analysed by a doctor.

The London Doctors Clinic, a private provider, offers the service for 72.80 in the capital.

The clinic says: 'Knowing your blood group can save essential time in case of emergency, whereby an urgent blood transfusion may be necessary.'

It offers the service at 10 locations across the city and says results are available by email within two days after a sample has been collected by a phlebotomist.

London Doctors Clinic offers the service for 72.80 at any of 10 clinics across the capital

Private clinic, UK-wide (71-101)

Private medically-done tests are also available from clinics across the UK that will collect people's blood samples and have experts analyse them.

The website medichecks offers an ABO blood typing service costing 71-100 which can be done at one of dozens of clinics across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If the blood is collected by a professional at a clinic, a 31 surcharge is applied, taking the total cost to 101.

Alternatively, people can have a medical professional who they know - such as a nurse or doctor who is a family member of friend - take the blood for them.

This test says it takes three working days from when the clinic receives the blood.

The private company medichecks offers to test people's blood type for between 71 and 101 per patient, depending on whether or not they require a professional to take their blood sample

Could your blood type help protect you from coronavirus? People with Type O are nearly 20% LESS likely to test positive for COVID-19, 23andMe study of 750,000 people finds

Having a certain blood type may help protect you against the novel coronavirus, preliminary data from a new study suggests.

Researchers at genetic testing company 23andMe found that people with type O blood were up to 18 percent less likely to test positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Additionally, those who had the blood type, and had been exposed, were up to 26 percent less likely to contract coronavirus.

The team says this indicates a link between the genes that determined blood type and the virus.

A new study found that people with type O blood were between 9% and 18% less likely than those with other blood types to test positive for coronavirus (pictured)

Those with O-type blood who had been exposed to the virus were between 13% and 26% less likely to test positive (pictured)

Researchers say this indicates a link between variations in the ABO gene, which determines blood type, and COVID-19. Pictured: Punches of donated blood in a hospital

For the study, the team recruited more than 750,000 participants, including 10,000 who reported having COVID-19.

Individuals with type O blood were between nine and 18 percent less likely than those with other blood types to test positive.

About 1.3 percent of 23andMe research participants with type O blood tested positive for COVID-19.

By comparison, 1.4 percent of those with type A blood and 1.5 percent of people with type B or type AB blood were confirmed to have the virus.

People with O-type blood who had been exposed to the virus, such as frontline health workers, were between 13 and 26 percent less likely to test positive.

Among those exposed, 3.2 percent with type O blood tested positive compared to 3.9 percent of people with type A blood, four percent with type B blood and 4.1 percent with type AB blood.

The findings, which have yet to be peer reviewed or published in a medical journal, held when adjusted for factors such as age, sex, body mass index and underlying health conditions.

Researchers identified a variant in the ABO gene, responsible for difference blood types, that was associated with a lower risk.

'The study and recruitment are ongoing, with the hope that we can use our research platform to better understand differences in how people respond to the virus,' a statement on the 23andMe blog read.

'Ultimately, we hope to publish our research findings in order to provide more insight into COVID-19 for the scientific community.'

This is not the only study that has found certain blood types offer protective benefits.

A March preprint from China found that people in blood group A had a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 compared to people in non-A blood groups.

Comparatively, those in blood group O had a lower risk of catching the infection than people in non-O blood groups.

Additionally, a joint-preprint from a group of Italian and Spanish researchers also found a higher risk of illness among A-positive people and a protective effect for people with blood type.

Another, from Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, found that people with A-positive and A-negative blood were 33 percent more likely to test positive than other blood types.

Meanwhile, both O-negative and O-positive blood types were less likely to fall ill with coronavirus than other blood groups.

In the US, there are more than 1.9 million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 111,000 deaths.
Representative image

India is considering lifting the ban on export of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).

HCQ, which is currently used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, is being touted as a possible treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Exports of the drug and its formulations were banned without any exceptions by Indias Directorate General of Foreign Trade in early April.

However, the drug gained spotlight after United States President Donald Trump claimed it was effective on COVID-19 patients. This triggered a massive demand leading to India withdrawing the export ban.

Since April, India has been exporting HCQ to a number of countries on a cases-to-case basis, including the US, Australia and Singapore. Many other countries have also raised a request.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

As per a report by The Economic Times, the Centre is now considering lifting the ban altogether as companies in India seem to have enough stock available in the country.

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

The report suggests that production of HCQ has increased over the months. India now produces 10 crore tablets per month, while the requirement so far is two crore tablets.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

On June 3, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that it is resuming HCQ trials days after temporarily suspending it citing safety concerns.

On its part, India has said that HCQ doses reduced COVID-19 risk among healthcare workers.

A case-control study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has revealed that the administration of the drug to healthcare workers, who have maximum exposure to the SARS-Cov-2, virus that causes COVID-19, showed promising results.

Also read: Explained | What makes hydroxychloroquine popular? Is it really effective against coronavirus?

The ICMR study suggested that taking HCQ in four or more maintenance doses resulted in a considerable decline in the chances of healthcare workers getting infected by the deadly pathogen.

The study, however, explains that simply initiating HCQ prophylaxis did not lessen the chances of contracting COVID-19 among healthcare workers; the results started showing only after the intake of four or more maintenance doses.


remaining of

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To that end, we will be introducing legislation in the General Assembly that will create a duty for employers to supervise, train and control their employees to prevent harm to third persons when the harm to a third person is reasonably foreseeable; apply vicarious liability to hold employers responsible for any harm caused by their employees when their actions arise out of an activity that was within the employees scope of employment, ordinary course of business or incident to their employment; and exempt localities sovereign immunity protection in actions brought pursuant to this legislation.

These policy changes are tangible and necessary in an environment where we must seek to make our justice system equitable and fair. We must provide families a way to seek justice when other avenues fail them and those lacking prosecutorial courage stand down.

Coupled with legislation that requires proper training in de-escalation and the appropriate use of force in the line of duty, our proposals would form a backstop against preventing victims from a just recovery. While money cannot bring those slain back, it is but one step we can take toward supporting a victim or their families in the wake of an unnecessary use of force.

The names listed above cannot die in vain. This is our moment to effect real change in our approaches to justice in Virginia and we cannot let it slip away.
New and forthcoming books from religion publishers are examining the experiences of people with physical and mental health impairments in an effort to ensure all marginalized people are welcomed and accommodated within faith communities. From autism to mental illness, to those with physical disabilities, authors are sharing perspectives that have long been ignored, silenced, or forgotten in hopes of strengthening understanding in both able-bodied and disabled readers.

This article has been updated with language preferred by people with disabilities as well additional information about With Sighs Too Deep for Words.

Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion By Lamar Hardwick (IVP, Dec.) The pastor and author of I am Strong: The Life and Journey of an Autistic Pastor explores biblical text as well as historical and theological issues of disability with the aim of helping churches better minister to those with diverse abilities. Hardwick, who was diagnosed with autism in his mid-thirties, also lays out steps people with disabilities can take to become fully participating church members.

Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges By John Swinton (Eerdmans, Sept.) Swintonfounding director of Aberdeen Universitys Centre for Spirituality, Health, and Disabilitycalls on churches to become the epicenter of compassion for those experiencing depression, bipolar disorder, and other mental health difficulties, part of which means dropping assumptions that often accompany these diagnoses. Its possible, writes Swinton, that these people experience God in unique, real, and revelatory ways. He includes firsthand accounts of people experiencing mental health challenges in each chapter.

Might from the Margins: The Gospel's Power to Turn the Tables on Injustice By Dennis R. Edwards (Herald Press, Sept.) Edwards, associate professor of New Testament at North Park Theological Seminary, makes a case for the power that marginalized Christians have to take leadership roles in the church. This includes racial or ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, women, and those who have been displaced from their homeland. He encourages readers to embrace that power for the good of the church. I believe that those who have been marginalized have power that is not only unnoticed, but often underutilized, writes Edwards.

Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body By Rebekah Taussig (HarperOne, Aug.) Taussig, a high school English teacher, began writing essays to explore what it means to live with a disability while working on a Ph. D. in disability studies. Sitting Pretty examines the complications of kindness and charity, living independently and dependently, and experiencing intimacy, plus more, while also challenging society to understand better the diversity of humanity. She gives voice to what it means to live in a body that doesnt fit.

Teaching Students with Autism in a Catholic Setting By Deacon Lawrence Sutton (Loyola, out now) Ordained deacon and psychologist Sutton offers a guide to people working with autistic children that aims to manage behavior to enhance education, reduce challenges these children face, and identify and cultivate gifts and strengths of autistic individuals. He draws on case studies, personal experience, and educational best practices, all grounded in the Catholic principle that every person has dignity and gifts.
On an unseasonably cool evening in late May, Stuart Hyatt emerged from his home in Indianapolis holding a small black box. The moment he stepped outside, the box began to chatter and click.

Whoa, can you hear that? he said, grinning on a FaceTime call. I have never seen them fly this low.

His neighborhood bats had arrived, chasing their nightly meal of insects. And, as usual, Mr. Hyatt was there to listen and marvel, the black box allowing the bats usually inaudible chatter to be heard, even through a cellphone.

Bats have lately been enduring yet another image crisis. Believed to be ancient harbors of coronaviruses, they are reportedly being killed in India and vilified most everywhere for the outbreak.
Concrete measures needed to better protect children from abuse



A 43-year-old woman was arrested in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, June 3, for killing her nine-year-old stepson by locking him in a suitcase for hours. The boy suffered a cardiac arrest inside the suitcase and died two days later. During questioning, the stepmother confessed to having put him into the suitcase as a punishment for lying. Police said several bruises were found on the boy's body.



On Monday, the police in the southeastern city of Changnyeong arrested the stepfather of a nine-year-old girl and her biological mother for habitual child abuse. However they were released. The couple's maltreatment was exposed May 29 when the girl was noticed by a member of the public while running on a street in the city with a black eye.



The two children had been abused habitually for a long time, but their dire situations were discovered belatedly. The child in Cheonan, in particular, was taken to a hospital by his parents for emergency treatment to his head and hands on Children's Day prior to his death. Medical staff discovered bruising on the child and reported their suspicions of abuse to the police. In pure-Korean policing style, these so-called protectors of society took zero meaningful action to ensure the safety of the defenseless child as the parents promised to change their "style of discipline." When the child was released from hospital, the police and child care agencies should have taken proper measures to stop him from falling victim to parental abuse again.



According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, 132 children have died from child abuse over the last five years and 84 percent of the perpetrators were their parents. This explains why it's urgent to ensure the separation of children from parents when they are likely to be maltreated again at home.



Under the current law, only a prosecutor or local government head is allowed to request that abusive parents be deprived of their parental rights. This make it difficult to separate children from their abusive parents, forcing child care agencies to return abused children home without any proper protection for them. It's long overdue for concrete measures to be enacted to protect and support them.


With an aim to make e-learning more constructive, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and Rotary India joined hands on Tuesday for e-learning content for class 1-12 telecast over all NCERT TV channels. Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank expressed hope, the collaboration will ensure that e-learning reaches children across the country with NCERT-approved content. Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16, when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as part of a slew of measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Since March 2020, when the novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic, learners, teachers, parents and the entire education community have been gravely affected. In this scenario, we have been working tirelessly to develop best education system rooted in Indian ethos with technology and innovation as strong pillars, Nishank said.

Under our Vidya Daan initiative, Rotary International will provide e-content in Hindi language to NCERT for classes 1 to 12 for all subjects. This material is of high class and very high quality. It will benefit all our children very much. The material will also be provided for special needs children as well as contribute its entirety to the Adult Literacy Mission as well as teacher training, he added.

As per the MoU, the curriculum modules telecast for classes 1-12, through 12 national Television channels of NCERT, will be available from July.

The content is currently available in Hindi and Punjabi and hence shall be implemented immediately across 12 states or UTs benefiting approximately 10 crores students. The intellectual rights to the content would be with Rotary and provided to the NCERT so that the said content can be translated to all regional languages by NCERT and the respective state SCERTs in the next few months, the Ministry said in an official statement.

A 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day. While the government has announced easing of certain restrictions, schools and colleges continue to remain closed.
(Natural News) A bar owner in Birmingham, Alabama, was targeted by the leftist mob recently after calling convicted felon George Floyd a thug, and those protesting in his honor idiots. Conservative pundit Candace Owens, a black woman, immediately came to this bar owners support by starting a GoFundMe fundraiser for him, only to have that fundraiser shut down by the platform for supposedly violating its Terms of Service.

After raising some $205,000 to support Michael Dykes, the owner of Parkside Cafe, Owens was notified by GoFundMe that not only was the campaign being suspended, but also Owens personal account. GoFundMe claimed that this campaign had to be suspended because of a repeated pattern of inflammatory statements that spread hate, discrimination, intolerance and falsehoods against the black community at a time of profound national crisis.

Furthermore, the Parkside Cafe has clearly condemned the comments that initially led to this campaign, a statement from GoFundMe further reads.

The good news is that Dykes will be able to keep the $205,000 that was already raised in his support. The bad news is that GoFundMe is showing itself to be no better than Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, all of which reject free speech in favor of pandering to the leftist mob.

At their discretion, Owens tweeted about GoFundMe, they deemed that funds raised for a conservative business constitutes intolerance. They WILL however give the funds raised thus far to the cafe

Listen below to The Health Ranger Report as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, discusses the ongoing problem of Big Tech censorship and what to do about it:

GoFundMe says its working to clarify how Parkside Cafe will use the money

The only reason why GoFundMe appears to have released the money at all is that it was specifically earmarked for the Parkside Cafe, and not Dykes personally. GoFundMe apparently agrees that the business itself should receive the cash, but says it is working to clarify how Parkside Cafe will use the funds raised on their behalf.

Back in the fall, we reported that GoFundMe was busy censoring and removing fundraisers for vaccine-choice causes, accusing them of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.

At the time, GoFundMe spokesman Bobby Whithorne publicly stated that any questioning of vaccine safety or effectiveness on his companys platform would not be tolerated. All fundraisers towards this end violate GoFundMes terms of service and will be removed from the platform, he indicated.

It appears as though these violations now extend to the free speech rights of those who refuse to worship George Floyd as some kind of black hero. Unless you are willing to march in the streets and burn down businesses in Floyds honor, then GoFundMe considers you to be in violation of its standards, and unworthy to receive money from people who want to give it to you.

Keep in mind that all Dykes did was express anger over the fact that the protests in Floyds honor were interfering with his business opening. He also never suggested that Floyd deserved to die, and pointedly stated that while adding the caveat that honoring a thug is irresponsible.

Nothing Dykes wrote was factually incorrect. And all he did was couple the facts with his own frustration about the lunacy of all this protesting, which in reality is a whole lot of violence, rioting, and looting, as the nation has undeniably witnessed.

But facts apparently do not abide by GoFundMes Terms of Service, and thus are not tolerated. This is worth remembering the next time you or someone you know considers starting an online fundraiser.

To keep up with the latest news about Big Tech censorship, be sure to check out Censorship.news.

Sources for this article include:

Twitter.com

Al.com

NaturalNews.com
Spain's Balearic Islands are to allow thousands of holidaymakers to fly in for a two-week trial to test how to balance the needs of Spain's vital tourism industry with new regulations to curb coronavirus.

The trial begins on June 15, before the archipelago and the rest of the country reopen to international tourism on July 1.

The Spanish government is under heavy pressure to reactivate an industry that generates 12pc of Spain's GDP and provides 2.6 million jobs.

Through an agreement with German tour group Tui, other tour operators and several airlines, up to 10,900 Germans will be allowed into the archipelago, its president Francina Armengol said.

That represents only 0.41pc of the visitors the Mediterranean islands welcomed in the second half of June last year. The islands, which include Majorca, Ibiza and Menorca, are a magnet for northern European visitors and others seeking sunny beaches, rocky coves and nightlife.

"We will be the first region (in Spain) to open to international tourism under safe conditions," said Ms Armengol, adding that Germany had been chosen because its government has kept tight controls on its outbreak, just like the Balearic Islands.

Germany's virus death toll - at 8,695 - is about five times less than Britain's and four times less than Italy's.

The visitors this month can come from all over Germany and can purchase tickets on a first-come basis until the maximum number of 10,900 is reached.

No previous health checks are required to travel, but all visitors will need to complete a questionnaire during their flight aimed at identifying possible infections.

They will be exempt from Spain's rule that visitors need to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

They will be able to stay, for a minimum of five nights, at designated hotels, tourism apartments and their own houses in the islands.

As they get off the plane, they will face temperature checks and get information on Spain's social distancing and mask-wearing rules.

Health authorities will also give them a phone number in case they show symptoms, with strict contact tracing planned and tests for suspected cases and their close contacts.

Spanish authorities imposed a strict lockdown in mid-March that helped curb its outbreak. The country has recorded more than 240,000 positive cases and over 23,000 confirmed virus-related deaths.

Spain's move came as Greece said it will gradually lift all restrictions on Italian tourists entering the country by the end of the month.

Foreign minister Nikos Dendias, speaking after meeting his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio, said the decision was taken based on the improving situation regarding the spread of the virus in Italy.

Rome had been angered by its exclusion from a list of 29 countries whose citizens Athens had initially announced would be allowed into Greece from June 15 without compulsory coronavirus tests or quarantines.

That list included Ireland.

The Greek government later clarified tourists would be allowed to enter without restrictions if they arrived from airports - rather than countries - that were not on a European air safety agency list of those considered high risk regarding the virus.

In Cyprus, an Israeli airliner with 22 passengers aboard became the first commercial flight to touch down after the east Mediterranean country reopened its airports following an 11-week ban aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19.

Israel is among a group of 19 countries with low infection rates from which Cyprus is now permitting commercial flights.

Arriving passengers must secure health certificates declaring them coronavirus-free three days before departure.

The requirement is set to expire on June 20 for people coming from 13 of those countries, including Greece, Finland, Norway and Germany.

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The BJP said on Tuesday Home Minister Amit Shah's virtual rally for Bengal was watched by more than two crore people, but rival Trinamool Congress rejected the claim as "far from reality". Shah addressed the rally from New Delhi as part of the BJP's nationwide 'Jan Samvad' campaign. "The virtual rally was sort of a new experiment for all of us in West Bengal.

But at the end of the day, it has been a huge success. People have viewed it either on TV or on social media. According to our reports and estimates, around two crore people have watched ...
The U.S. video-conferencing company Zoom closed the account of a group of prominent U.S.-based Chinese activists after they held a Zoom event commemorating the 31st anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Zoom has faced growing scrutiny over security concerns and its ties to China.

Update: A Zoom spokesperson confirmed to Axios that the account had been closed "to comply with local law" and said it had now been re-activated.

Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws. We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters. We have reactivated the US-based account.

 Zoom statement

Between the lines: This suggests Zoom closed the account due to concerns in China, which forbids free discussion of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement.

Details: Zhou Fengsuo, founder of the U.S. nonprofit Humanitarian China and former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, organized the May 31 event held through a paid Zoom account associated with Humanitarian China.

About 250 people attended the event. Speakers included mothers of students killed during the 1989 crackdown, organizers of Hong Kong's Tiananmen candlelight vigil, and others.

On June 7th, the Zoom account displayed a message that it had been shut down, in a screenshot viewed by Axios. Zhou has not been able to access the account since then, and Zoom has not responded to his emails, he told Axios.

A second Zoom account belonging to a pro-democracy activist, Lee Cheuk Yan, a former Hong Kong politician and pro-democracy activist, was also closed in late May. Lee has also received no response from Zoom.

What they're saying: "We are outraged by this act from Zoom, a U.S company," Zhou and other organizers told Axios in a statement. "As the most commercially popular meeting software worldwide, Zoom is essential as an unbanned outreach to Chinese audiences remembering and commemorating Tiananmen Massacre during the coronavirus pandemic."

Background: Chinese pro-democracy activists and dissidents face harassment and surveillance even beyond China's borders. U.S. companies with a presence in China have also faced scrutiny for their handling of content deemed sensitive by Chinese authorities.

In 2019, LinkedIn blocked Zhou's account from being visible in China, telling him in a message it was because of "specific content on your profile." LinkedIn restored his account after media attention.

Zoom has skyrocketed to global prominence during the coronavirus epidemic, going from 10 million users to over 300 million in a matter of months. Its meteoric rise has brought increased scrutiny to its ties to China.

The company has acknowledged that much of its product development has been based in China, and that some Zoom calls were accidentally routed through Chinese servers.

The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said it found serious concerns over Zoom's security protocols, and said the company's large workforce in China could make it "responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities."

The government of Taiwan banned official use of Zoom due to security concerns, and schools in New York State, the U.S. Senate, and the German ministry of foreign affairs have discouraged or restricted its use.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in early June that the company has chosen not to end-to-end encrypt free calls in order to cooperate with law enforcement.

What to watch: In May, Zoom announced that it would no longer provide free accounts to China-based users, citing "regulatory requirements." The company continues to sell paid accounts in China.

Go deeper: Chinas spy agencies are coming to Hong Kong

Editors note: This story has been updated to include a response from Zoom and to clarify that Zoom does encrypt free calls, but not end-to-end.
Built-in 1890, the historic two-story Queen Anne Victorian home known as the "Valentine House" is on the market for $745,00.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the iconic three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,320 square-foot home nestled in Old Sixth Ward is also pending approval to be designated as a Protected Landmark.

Located at 1908 Decatur Street, this stunning restored home, originally built by Angeline Valentine circa 1890, includes two wrap-around porches, original hardwood floors, among other unique details honoring the historic design elements of the home, according to the official listing on HAR.com.

HOUSTON'S MOST EXPENSIVE HOMES: Massive Rivercrest mansion highlights Houston's most expensive homes

Journey back in time as you admire the exquisite details of this historic home.
BY SIBONGINKOSI MAPHOSA

SECESSIONIST Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) and the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) have accused the opposition Zapu of hijacking and personalising protests over unfair recruitment of student nurses at Mpilo Central Hospital.

The nursing school reportedly recruited 90% of its students from Harare, in the process sidelining local applicants.The three groups on Monday last week staged a joint sit-in at the nursing school, demanding the authorities to address the anomaly.

MRP and BPRA were, however, left out of the closed-door meetings held by Mpilo executives and Zapu.MRP executive member Mbonisi Gumbo claimed that before the sit-in, they had agreed that none of the parties would wear party regalia, but Zapu members defied the directive.

It is very unfortunate to note that Zapu, which calls itself a national party, to be seen competing with us (MRP), a regional party. Prior to that sit-in at Mpilo, we had a meeting with Zapu, BPRA and other civic societies strategising on how we were going to go about the sit-in, Gumbo said.

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Zapu representative Ndodana Moyo suggested that we should not wear party regalia, but surprisingly they came to Mpilo wearing their party T-shirts, a move that we feel was wrong because we had all agreed on what they had suggested.

Gumbo accused Zapu of trying to gain political mileage during the sit-in.Zapu is trying to gain political mileage in wrong places and by doing so they are downplaying us as MRP; mind you, we are the ones who initiated this move. We came to Mpilo three months ago to question the issue of the recruitment of prospective nurses. Civic organisations joined us and Zapu came last, but now they want to act as if they are the ones at the forefront, Gumbo said.

BPRA health secretary Marble Ngwenya, said Zapu should stop politicking at wrong places.We are not happy because what is happening here right now is not what we had agreed on, right now (on Monday) Zapu is coming out of a closed-door meeting with Mpilo management, leaving us behind. That was not the strategy, Zapu has a problem, Ngwenya said.

Contacted for comment, Zapu deputy national organising secretary, Ndodana Moyo said they had earlier visited the hospital in their civilian clothes and were turned down because they failed to identify themselves as Zapu members.

Well, I understand MRPs concerns, but we had a reason why we wore our party T-shirts. During our first attempt, we were turned away because we failed to identify ourselves, so the only way was to put on our party T-shirts and we did not have bad intentions, Moyo said.

He asked the MRP to stop being cry-babies because on the day in question they brought banners that bore their party name.MRP must desist from being cry-babies, on Monday they brought their banners which had their party name. That is a form of party regalia, so can we as Zapu question as to why they had their banners? Moyo asked.

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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Kamala Harris clapped along with protesters near the White House chanting "Hands up! Don't shoot!" A few days later, she passionately defended an anti-lynching bill on the Senate floor. And this week, she warned that America has "still not fully embraced, acknowledged or addressed its history of racism."

As Harris, D-Calif., seizes an outspoken role supporting the protests gripping the nation, top Democrats - including allies of Joe Biden in touch with his presidential campaign - increasingly see her as the strong favorite to become his running mate.

"I think she'd be great," said Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio. "I think that she absolutely checks all the boxes." Fudge, who wants Biden to pick a black woman, added, "This is the opportunity to show the diversity that we were all so excited about when this campaign started."

But while Harris is championed by Democratic officeholders and leaders, who see her as appealing to suburban and centrist voters, many of the activists who have helped energize the street protests warn that party figures are missing the mood of the moment. As a traditional politician and former prosecutor, they say, Harris would fail to capture the passions that are powering the protests, and her selection could dampen the excitement that is crucial to the Democrats in November.

"I think that he needs to figure out somebody that's not just there because they're a black woman, because they check a box," said Tay Anderson, 21, a Denver school board member and a leading voice in that city's protests. "Nominating Kamala Harris in the wake of what's going on is not the best solution. Nominating someone who's put black people in jail doesn't make sense at this moment. You have to have someone who's not just a box- checker."

Within Biden's orbit of allies and confidants, there is a sentiment that picking Harris increasingly makes sense, according to three people in touch with the campaign who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid on a sensitive topic.

Biden holds a clear lead in the polls over President Trump, and some Biden allies have concluded that whomever he picks should invite little political risk and reduce the potential for drama. Harris is largely in ideological alignment with Biden and understands the workings of the federal government, they say.

Biden's running mate search has been unlike any other. He has declared he will pick a woman, and the protests have added pressure for her to be African American. The number of black women in national political roles is relatively small - Harris is the only one who is either a senator or governor, let alone a recent presidential candidate.

Beyond Harris, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, D, who has won plaudits for her response to George Floyd's death and the resulting protests, is mentioned as a potential running mate by some Democrats. Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., a former police chief, has also forged a bigger presence. Former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice and ex-Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams have shown strong interest in the job.

Harris has been cautious in discussing the role she envisions for herself. "I'm honored to be part of the conversation, and the vice president is going to make a decision that I'm sure will increase his ability to win," she said in an interview. "And I want him to win, just about as much as I want anything else in life right now."

But her growing prospects are evident in other ways. Harris and Biden appeared at a virtual fundraiser Tuesday that illustrated their personal dynamic. "She's been a fighter and a principled leader - and I know, because I've seen her up close," Biden said.

He mentioned Harris's friendship with his son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, and he recalled running into Harris when he taught at the University of Pennsylvania. "You said, 'I love you and I loved Beau,' " Biden said. "I won't forget that."

The running mate search, and its increasing focus on black women, represents a reversal of the Democratic presidential primary, which initially featured the most diverse field in history, including Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, but was dominated by white candidates as the field narrowed. The last two candidates standing - Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. -- were white men in their 70s.

Still, Harris's prospects are not without complication. Although her experience as a presidential candidate is considered an asset, her campaign was plagued by infighting and collapsed before a single vote was cast.

She launched a blistering attack against Biden on school busing and race during a presidential debate last summer, which Biden's wife Jill Biden later said landed "like a punch in the gut."

And her record as a prosecutor, which some critics argue was overly harsh, is facing renewed scrutiny in the current environment, given protesters' heavy focus on the criminal justice system. Harris herself argues that she was a progressive prosecutor, fighting racial injustice from within the system.

Beyond that, however, lurks a deeper question about the nature of the political moment. The demonstrations have showcased a resurgent black activism, often with support from white Americans that was absent in previous eras. That's prompted a rethinking of the country's fundamental approach to race, raising questions about whether America's leaders have long been too complacent in confronting racism.

Amid that turmoil, some question whether Harris would meet indifference or even a backlash from those urging a broad societal overhaul, and they warn about a potential lack of passion for the ticket.

"That's one of the things we hear a lot about Joe Biden," said Tharon Johnson, an adviser to Bottoms, the Atlanta mayor. "No one's really willing to run over brick wall or crawl over broken glass" for him. Still, Biden "has proven he's a fighter," Johnson added, and "we just need someone to build upon the enthusiasm, to really cultivate the base."

Harris, who appears acutely aware of these pitfalls, is mounting a vigorous effort to shore up her possible weaknesses. Her once sprawling and leak-prone political operation is leaner, and she is getting new credit from the activist wing of the party, which at times was openly hostile during the primaries.

Lenard Larry McKelvey, who goes by Charlamagne tha God as host of "The Breakfast Club," a radio show popular with black audiences, said he now leans toward Harris as Biden's running mate. "She's tough, and she makes old white men nervous," he said.

McKelvey supported Harris in the primary, but also said last year that she was "terrible" in one of the debates.

Biden, who has said he plans to name a running mate around Aug. 1, has kept the process tightly guarded.

In an interview with CBS News broadcast Tuesday, Biden said the protests of the past two weeks have not affected his thinking on a running mate, "except it's put a greater focus and urgency on the need to get someone who is totally simpatico with where I am."

Even with prominent African American women in the mix, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D, who are white, are seen by Democratic leaders as potential running mates. In contrast, the chances of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who is also white and was once viewed by Biden allies as a leading contender, have been diminished, some of them believe.

The killing of Floyd, a black man who lost his life after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck as he cried out that he couldn't breathe, triggered a national outcry against police violence. That damaged Klobuchar, a former Hennepin County attorney, as critics contend she was too tough on black and brown people and not hard enough on police during her tenure.

Since departing the presidential race, Harris has become one of Biden's most active surrogates, participating in live-stream events with his campaign and helping raise money. The event with Biden on Tuesday raised a hefty $3.5 million for a joint fundraising vehicle that includes Biden's campaign.

Away from the campaign trail, Harris has kept busy on the issues at the forefront of the national conversation. On Monday, she appeared with congressional Democrats at a news conference promoting a sweeping new police reform bill. Harris has also unveiled legislation to fight racial disparities in the coronavirus pandemic.

When Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., recently called for amending a bill that makes lynching a federal hate crime, citing concerns that it could allow enhanced penalties for lesser offenses, Harris took to the Senate floor to say, "The idea that we would not be taking the issue of lynching seriously is an insult."

In recent years, many of Harris's standout moments have come in the Senate, where she has developed a reputation for posing tough questions to Trump nominees at Judiciary Committee hearings. On the presidential campaign trail, however, she proved to be a shakier candidate who sometimes had to clarify her public comments.

This week, Harris won some Democratic praise for navigating an interview on ABC's "The View." When pressed on calls by some activists to "defund the police," she pointedly asked questioner Meghan McCain how she was defining that term - putting McCain on the defensive before repeating her call for rethinking how public safety funds are distributed.

Personal relationships have long been important to Biden, and Harris has also made a point of reaching out in nonpolitical ways. Her friendship with Beau Biden dates back years to their time serving as state attorneys general, Harris in California and Beau in Delaware. Harris recently posted a smiling photo of the two of them on Twitter to honor his memory five years after his death.

"You couldn't find a man with more principle and courage who cared deeply about his family and the nation he served," Harris wrote, adding that she was thinking of Joe and Jill Biden and their family that day.

During Tuesday's fundraiser, Harris said her husband, Doug Emhoff, had enjoyed spending time with Jill Biden, and they've stayed in touch beyond the primary. "There's a special bond between the spouses," she said.

- - -

The Washington Post's Cleve R. Wootson Jr. contributed to this report.
Nickey Brennan is a living legend in sporting circles - but his toughest battle came off the field.

The 66-year-old, who enjoyed an illustrious career as a player and a manager with Kilkenny and also served as the 35th President of the GAA, contracted the Covid-19 virus in March and faced into his toughest battle to date.

It was Holy Thursday when I felt really bad, he said, recalling when he fell ill. I rang my doctor and he got me in for testing for the virus on the following Tuesday. I was coughing and sweating and had aches and pains - it was awful.

I was driven into Nowlan Park and it was a sombre experience. By then I wasnt sleeping and my appetite was gone and I had to remain sitting up all the time to stay anyway comfortable. It was a real worry.

All the memories from being in Nowlan Park came back. I tested positive for the virus and I was sent to Kilcreene Hospital for an assessment and then went into St Lukes. I went into the Emergency Department and was moved into an isolation unit and underwent more tests.

I was very conscious when I was in St Lukes Hospital of the two frontline workers who had died and the mood in the hospital was subdued, he continued.

The staff were excellent, caring and professional, I couldnt praise them enough.

The doctors gave me medication and sent me home to fight the virus. At that point I hadnt slept for a week and a half - I was absolutely wrecked both physically and mentally.

It was the sickest that I have ever been but I am very conscious that there are other people who were a lot worse off, he said.

A non-drinker and non-smoker, Nickey attributes his healthy lifestyle to helping him fight off the virus.

Before the Covid-19 outbreak I was swimming 350 to 400 lengths of the pool in the Newpark Hotel every week and I think that was a big factor in my breathing control, he added.

Nickey has made an excellent recovery and is back out walking up to nine kilometres a day. He said he is close to being back to 100% but admits that the gruelling experience is one he will never forget.

It was very stressful, it was the worst thing I ever went through - I was floored from it, he said.

My heart goes out to people, especially those who have loved lost ones from this virus.

The Kilkennyman is full of praise not only for frontline workers in hospitals but also staff in nursing homes.

I have seen the statistics from nursing homes and it is terrible how the virus swept through some of them, he said.

My brother, Gearoid, is involved in Brookhaven Nursing Care, which owns a number of nursing homes, including Brookhaven Nursing Home in Ballyragget and fortunately there have had no reported cases of Covid-19.

My sister, Kathleen, works as a nurse in Hamburg in Germany and two of my wife Maireads sisters are in nursing homes so I was well aware of the challenges that exist.

In recent weeks cases and deaths from Covid-19 in Kilkenny and across the country are decreasing but Nickey Brennan is adamant that we all need to keep our eye on the ball if we are to keep Covid-19 at bay.

Normally at this time of the year I would be heading to matches or going to cover matches but it will be a sports-free summer for the most part this year, he said.

Hopefully club matches will take place in September and some inter-county matches may take place later in the year.

August will be a defining month as it is only then after all the stages have been completed will we see if the roadmap has worked.

I think August will be a crucial month and we will have a much clearer picture them from a sporting perspective of what can happen for the rest of the year.

People need to continue to act safely and responsibly. I think by and large we have acclimatised to this new normal but we have to stick with the distancing and the queuing. We need to wear face masks when we are in shops.

We have to keep listening to the experts, he stressed.

They have got almost everything right, apart from some issues with nursing homes and how they dealt with Cheltenham and other sporting fixtures in March.

It is very important that people have hope, he added. Hopefully things will continue to open up, but we have to continue to listen to the experts and follow their advice if this is to happen.

With the accelerated easing of restrictions there are many reasons for people to be positive, but there is still a long road to travel.

It is important that the economy opens up safely but restrictions need to stay in place for now, he said.

The scientific evidence is there that if physical distancing was reduced from two metres to one metre the virus would spread further. Physical distancing will be difficult especially for bars and restaurants and a number will not reopen. We have to remember that all these measures are for the greater good and we just have to continue doing what the experts are asking of us.

There will also be a lot of challenges with schools and travel going forward.

Having come through my battle with the virus I know the impact it can have not just personally but nationally and internationally. If you pick it up you know in your heart and soul that it can be very serious and you do worry if you will see it through.

I am very grateful to be back in good health and be able to look forward. I know there are so many others who have been far more affected and my heart goes out to them. We all have to do our best to keep the virus under control for us all and for the greater good.
VANCOUVERPeter Dahlin says in 2016 he was taken from his Beijing home by authorities and held for more than three weeks in a padded room.

The human-rights activist says he was interrogated, watched 24 hours a day, deprived of sleep and eventually forced to confess to endangering state security in a video later broadcast on television.

The confession, which Dahlin says was forced and false, was broadcast into Canada on one of Chinas state-owned international television networks available on cable. Accused of using foreign funding to subvert state power, Dahlin was released and deported weeks later.

In December 2019, Dahlin filed a complaint to federal authorities about his confession  and those of dozens more people  that he says have been shown in Canada since 2013.

Six months later, Dahlin said, it appears as though the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) isnt pursuing his complaint  and he says thats political.

Its hard to imagine anything else, Dahlin told the Star. I think its safe to say the fact the Chinese Communist Party is behind the TV channel is the reason they are so reluctant to act.

The complaint is directed at the China Global Television Network (CGTN) and China Central Television-4 (CCTV-4), alleging the two networks broadcasts breached the conditions for which CCTV-4 was first allowed to be carried in Canada in 2006. Both channels are operated by the government of mainland China.

Dahlin filed the complaint through the human rights organization Safeguard Defenders, of which he is the director, listing more than 30 confessions broadcast into Canada involving around 60 people.

At the time of the commissions decision to allow the two channels in 2006, the CRTC said that though the channel had aired some abusive content from 1999-2001  without specifying  it had no recent examples of such abusive content between then and 2006.

When the CRTC approved CCTV-4 in Canada, it added a warning to its decision.

Removal of a service from the lists of eligible satellite services authorized for digital distribution is a remedy that the Commission will be prepared to exercise if it finds that abusive comment has been aired on the service while it is distributed in Canada, it wrote in the decision.

A request for comment to CGTNs U.S. operations and CCTV-4 in Beijing was not answered by press time. Past requests for comment have also not been answered. (Both are operated by the Chinese government and share content.)

But since the approval of the channel and the later addition of CGTN to Canadian digital services, Dahlins complaint reads, the airing of abusive content has become systematic.

The airing of forced confessions often extracted through torture or intimidation for propaganda constitutes abuse, he said, adding the CRTC is ignoring the warnings it made in 2006.

They have written down on paper how they are going to act and then they are refusing to do just that, he said.

Dahlin said when he inquired about his complaint with the CRTC after six months without hearing from the regulator, he was told by spokesperson Patricia Valladao the CRTC doesnt license foreign channels.

The Commission does not have a formal application to remove the services in question for the list of eligible services in Canada, wrote Valladao in emails provided by Dahlin to the Star, nor is there a decision with respect to this forthcoming at this stage.

The emails show Dahlin pressed further but was told he is not accredited media and was given all available information. Valladao sent a similar response to the Star about the commissions role and insisted the complaint is still open. She would not comment further.

Canada-China tensions have been increasing since the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in December 2018 and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has sparked more scrutiny of the Chinese state. In turn, Beijing has lashed out at numerous countries around the world with trade tariffs and threats.

Dahlin said he thinks Canadian officials fear more tension if the CRTC were to investigate its international television channels. He points out that the broadcast regulator in the United Kingdom, Ofcom, recently released decisions against CGTNs coverage of the Hong Kong protests for being biased.

When initial complaints about forced confessions were first investigated by Ofcom, the broadcaster stopped showing such confessions for one year, he said. A decision on those investigations is expected this year.

At stake is the well-being of those who may be subject to forced confessions in the future, Dahlin said, including Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The arrests of the pair have been described by many observers as retaliation for the arrest of the Huawei executive.

A party or state like China that is desperately trying to expand its media operations worldwide will be very careful if their broadcasting starts being held accountable to rules, laws and standards in the regions it is trying to expand its soft power to, Dahlin said.

So, besides a failure of rule of law for Canada, it is yet another missed opportunity to use its system to defend and protect human rights, including of Canadians.

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MIDLAND, MI -- Those who were displaced during the May flooding in Mid-Michigan have yet another hurdle to deal with. After suffering through heavy rains, dam failures, and even a newly hatched hoard of flood-water mosquitoes, severe thunderstorms and even possible tornadoes are now forecast.

A severe weather outbreak is expected the next two nights across Midland County, prompting the Midland County Office of Emergency Management to urge those in temporary shelters to seek a sturdy and safe place.

Midland County is urging those who are currently living in structurally compromised homes from flood damage and those in tents, campers or vehicles to seek a severe weather shelter.

Those who are in need of shelter are asked to call the Red Cross at 1-800-733-2767 and select 2020 Spring Flood Event while going through the prompts.

There is currently a marginal risk for severe thunderstorms across the area on Tuesday, June 9 in the evening and nighttime hours. The National Weather Service is predicting that the main hazards will be damaging wind gusts up to 60 mph. Due to a warm front lifting through the area, an isolated tornado cannot be ruled out late tonight, according to Midland County.

As for Wednesday, June 10, there is a risk for the afternoon and evening hours. The severe risk is expected to be more severe than Tuesdays storms. Damaging wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph with a few tornadoes are currently being ruled as a possibility, with storms expecting to be on the move at a rate at 45 mph.

Midland County Office of Emergency Management officials could not be immediately reached for comment on how many people are living in temporary shelter or compromised homes at this time.

Related news:

How a spring rainstorm became a 500-year flood event in mid-Michigan

Flooding causes $27 million in damage to Midland County roads and bridges

Groups donate nearly $2.5 million to help residents hit by floods in Midland area

Flood aftermath spawning mosquito horde in mid-Michigan
Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Light #YOURFACEHERE Ford, races during the NASCAR Cup Series The Real Heroes 400 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, S.C. on May 17, 2020. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

Motor Racing: NASCAR to Allow Limited Spectators at Select Races

NASCAR will allow a limited number of spectators to attend two June races in Florida and Alabama amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the organisers of the popular racing series said on Tuesday.

The plan to reintroduce guests at select NASCAR Cup Series races will begin with the June 14 Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

NASCAR, which postponed racing in mid-March due to concerns over the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus and resumed action in mid-May, said it will welcome up to 1,000 invited military members to the Miami race while Talledega will allow up to 5,000 guests.

Homestead-Miami can normally host up to 46,000 fans while the capacity at Talladega Superspeedway ranges between 80,000-175,000.

Among the safety measures in place, NASCAR said guests in attendance will be screened before entering, required to wear face coverings and maintain social distance.

We have tremendous respect and appreciation for the responsibility that comes with integrating guests back into our events, NASCAR Executive Vice President Daryl Wolfe said in a statement.

We believe implementing this methodical process is an important step forward for the sport and the future of live sporting events.

NASCAR has returned to racing, but had not allowed fans inside the tracks in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

General view of American flags on NASCAR car haulers in the garage area during practice for the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Homestead Florida, on Nov 17, 2018. (Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo via Reuters)

John Bobo, NASCAR vice president of racing operations declined to reveal if NASCAR has had anyone test positive for COVID-19 since racing resumed May 17 at Darlington Raceway. Supercross said earlier this month no one tested positive for the virus when it resumed with 705 riders, team members and race officials on site.

Were going to have PPE there for fans if they didnt bring their own, Bobo said. Were going to instruct fans to do it. Then staff is also going to make sure that we do have compliance in that area when needed politely.

Talladega tickets will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis to fans who purchased tickets or reserved camping for the originally scheduled April 26 race. There will be limited menus and limited food preparation onsite.

NASCAR had set guidelines to safely hold the events using CDC guidelines on social distancing and personal protective equipment. The venues were completely used to maintain distancing in garage stalls and where the haulers are parked, while drivers self-isolate in their motorhomes as they prepare to compete.

We really miss our fans, but, at the same time, were with our fans, 2018 NASCAR champion Joey Logano said. Before the races start and youre on pit road and you dont have any fans around you, you cant hear any cheering or booing from drivers intros, or everyone getting all fired up before they say drivers start your engines. We dont have that part, but when the race starts, the race starts and youre kind of in the zone and you dont notice it.

NASCAR was the first major sport in the United States to return to action amid the CCP virus pandemic when it held a May 17 race in South Carolina without spectators.

By Frank Pingue

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The home where a family of six was found dead late last week once was owned by a San Antonio man who is awaiting sentencing in a scheme to steal crude oil extracted from the Eagle Ford Shale of Texas.

Luis Valencia will be sentenced in federal court July 6 for stealing more $1.8 million worth of oil from companies operating in the region. He was convicted early this year.

Records show Valencia bought the home in 2004 and paid off the mortgage nine years later. The next year, the house was acquired by his mother and her husband, who later sold it to a California real estate company that rented it in January to Army Staff Sgt. Jared Esquibel Harless, an intelligence specialist at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.

Police suspect Harless killed his wife, Sheryll, and four young children before taking his own life. They say they do not yet have a motive and are trying to determine when the family died.

On ExpressNews.com: Police identify family of 6 found dead in San Antonio home

The realization that the Harless family had a connection with Valencia stunned a neighbor.

What else can go wrong? Our jaws dropped, the man said. Time for the exorcist.

Harless, 38, and his wife, Sheryll Ann, 36, were found in the back of an SUV in their garage Thursday along with their four children, Esteban Lorenzo Harless, 4; Penelope Arcadia Harless, 3; Avielle Magdalena Harless, 1, and Apollo Harless, 11 months.

Michael Fisher

Neither San Antonio police nor the Bexar County medical examiners office have said how they died. Seven police officers were overcome by what police believe was carbon monoxide after briefly entering the home when called on a welfare check Thursday morning.

Police Lt. Jesse Salame said Tuesday that the medical examiner had notified relatives, the first step in facilitating funeral arrangements. He said detectives were talking with some family members, but wasnt aware of what they had learned.

Police also were looking at phones, computers and phone records, anything and everything that might have some clues on there, Salame said.

A jury convicted Valencia of all charges against him  10 counts of theft from interstate shipments, 10 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of money laundering and four counts of transportation of stolen goods.

A nephew, Mauricio Valencia, was convicted of 10 counts of theft from interstate shipments, one count of wire fraud and four counts of transportation of stolen property. He was found not guilty on 19 other counts. Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered both men held until sentenced.

Theft of interstate shipment carries penalties of up to 10 years in federal prison. Wire fraud runs up to 20 years, while money laundering and transportation of stolen goods each carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

San Antonio Express-News file photo

The Valencias were accused of working with others to steal about 33,000 barrels of crude oil over a period of more than two years ending in 2016, and selling it to unsuspecting third-party companies.

Luis Valencia and others used a Cotulla facility owned by Houston-based Andra Energy LLC to serve as a collection point for oil stolen from nearby oil storage facilities. Luis Valencia served as Andra Energys vice president and accountant.

Payments to Andra Energy for the stolen oil were issued mostly through bank wire transfers, and false documents were filed to make it look as if it came from legitimate sources.

The day after the bodies in his former home were found by police, Valencias attorneys asked for a judgment of acquittal and filed a motion for a new trial.

On ExpressNews.com: Jury convicts two San Antonio relatives in oil theft scheme

Luis Valencia purchased the 2,928-square-foot home in the Heights of Stone Oak in 2004 and either sold or gave it to his mother, Tania Valencia, and her partner, Thomas Williams, who then sold it to American Homes 4 Rent Properties Eight LLC. in 2014.

Michael Fisher /Staff

The house appreciated in value, with the Bexar County Appraisal District assessing it at $262,800 in 2016. It now is appraised at $335,530. It doesnt stay vacant for long, the neighbor said.

The Harlesses moved from Washington state. They were known to be quiet and even reclusive. No one knew anything was amiss until officers called to the house Thursday encountered a bizarre note saying, Bodies or people inside, do not enter, and continued, The animals are in the freezer.

Police shot out the windows with rubber bullets to clear the fumes, sent a robot in to search for bombs and late that evening entered and found the bodies.

Salame said investigators dont know how the killings occurred.

Theres something there that might explain this, he said. I just dont know what it is yet.

Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Sig, become a subscriber. sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe
Tamil Nadu: Chennais fisherfolk set for business, while Telanganas brick workers vow never to return

June 10,2020 | Source: The Print

India is witnessing a massive surge in Covid-19 cases with more than 2.76 lakh cases and over 7,700 deaths at last count. For more than 10 weeks, ThePrints reporters and photojournalists have travelled across India to bring you the most accurate local news of how the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown have impacted the lives of millions of people. This week, our journalists visited a fishing harbour and a car manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu, and a cemetery and brick kilns in Telangana. They spoke to fisherfolk, contractual labourers, graveyard staff and local leaders to understand how they are dealing with the pandemic.



In Chennai, ThePrints Revathi Krishnan and Manisha Mondal met disaster management specialist Dr J. Radhakrishnan, who has been roped in as the special nodal officer for the Greater Chennai Corporation to streamline efforts against Covid-19. He was the district collector of Nagapattinam in 2004 when the tsunami hit and the health secretary during the 2015 Chennai floods. He was also put in charge when the Kumbakonam school fire broke out in 2004. Chennais Kasimedu Fishing Harbour, one of the largest in Tamil Nadu, is now buzzing with activity. The period from April to June is a lean one for fisherfolk, as it is the breeding season, and fishing trawlers are banned from going out to sea. However, this year, the lockdown coincided with this period, leaving them with no income. The ban period was thus cut short due to the lockdown and ended on 31 May.



ThePrint found that even though the Kasimedu Fish Market is still shut, likely for another week, the fisheries department is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that once it opens, social distancing is maintained, from set timings to a cap on customers. The sector has faced a production loss of around 30,000 metric tonnes in the last two months. Over in Sriperumbudur, Chennais automotive corridor, Indias only Hyundai manufacturing unit produced 200 cars on the day it reopened from lockdown on 8 May, and has sold 12,583 units since then. Spokespersons from Hyundai told ThePrint that stringent Covid-safety norms were being followed there. Bharati Desan and Ram Kumar, contractual labourers who work mainly in engine packaging, told ThePrint that while they were paid throughout the lockdown, Hyundai has now said it will only pay those workers who come to the factory.



Brick kiln workers in Telangana want to return to Odisha



At a brick kiln near Kongara Kalan in the Rangareddy district, Neeran Jaal told ThePrints Aneesha Bedi and Suraj Singh Bisht that he has been trying to go back home to Odisha for weeks now, but neither is he getting paid nor has his seth ji (the owner of the kiln) arranged any transportation for him. He added that the recent rains ruined the bricks that were ready, and he wont be paid for them. Neither he, nor the other families from Odisha, who came here to work at the kilns have received the rations promised by the government, and Jaal vowed that once he finds a way to leave, he will never return to a place that treated him so shabbily. It is a refrain ThePrints journalist heard at every kiln. Workers from Odisha form up to 90 per cent of the labour force at these kilns. According to many kiln owners, if the workers quit, it could really hurt the industry. They also insisted that they had done what they could for their labourers given that their own hands were tied due to lack of subsidies and materials coming in.



In Hyderabad, ThePrint met the director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Rakesh Mishra, who explained that the institutes new test could significantly increase Indias testing capacity. Acknowledging the concerns about Indias testing strategy, he said the new test, if all goes well, could increase daily capacity by up to 50,000 times. Mishra also explained the central governments efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine as well as an alternative to plasma therapy. He was also glad about one fallout of the pandemic, which is India realising the importance of investing in scientific research.



About 16 km from Hyderabad, in Balapur, lies the Faqeer Mullah Kabristan. The graveyard covers an area of 50 acres, and 10 acres have now been reserved for those who died of coronavirus. The move came from AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, after he found that the staff at many burial grounds were refusing to bury Covid-19 patients because of the stigma. Ahmed Saji, who supervises the graveyard, told ThePrint that while mostly Muslims were buried there, the section is open to victims of all faiths. Last Tuesday, the staff buried their youngest coronavirus victim, a three-month-old. Even we were really upset when we saw such a small body being buried and sadly not a single family member was around as the parents had been quarantined, and no other relatives wanted to come because there is a stigma attached to the disease, said Habib Asif, who works at the cemetery. Even the ambulance driver and staff were heartbroken. We read the namaz together, thats the least we could do, he added.
WASHINGTON  George Floyds brother challenged Congress on Wednesday to stop the pain as lawmakers consider a sweeping law enforcement overhaul, so the man he looked up to wont become just another name on a growing list of black Americans killed during interactions with police.

Philonise Floyds appearance before a House hearing came a day after funeral services for his older brother, the 46-year-old African American whose death has become a worldwide symbol in demonstrations calling for changes to police practices and an end to racial prejudice.

Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain, Philonise Floyd told the silenced hearing room.

Choking back tears, he said he wants to make sure that his brother, whom he called Perry, is more than another face on a T-shirt, more than another name on a list that wont stop growing.

Floyd challenged lawmakers to be leaders: Our country, this world needs the right thing.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler gaveled in the session, with many lawmakers and witnesses masked during the COVID-19 outbreak, as Democrats review the Justice in Policing Act, a far-ranging package of proposals amid a national debate on policing and racial inequality.

Repercussions after the weeks of protest continued nationwide.

President Donald Trump ruled out changing the names of Army bases named for Confederate Army officers, NASCAR announced it is banning the Confederate flag from its races and venues, and Amazon said it will suspend police use of its facial recognition technology for a year.

In Washington, lawmakers also heard testimony from civil rights and law enforcement leaders as Congress considers changes to police practices and accountability after Floyds death in police custody in Minnesota and the mass protests that followed.

Today we answer their call, Nadler said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi watched from the audience, and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy also joined.

Republicans are criticizing activists who want to defund the police  a catch-all term for shifting law enforcement resources  though the Democratic bill does not call for that. Trump and allies have seized on the phrase to portray Democrats as extreme as GOP lawmakers rush to come up with their own proposals.

The American people understand that its time for a real discussion, said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the panel. But he said they also understand it is pure insanity to defund the police.

For hours, witnesses described what what happened to Floyd on May 25  one called it a lynching. Others placed his death alongside those of other African Americans, an ever increasing tally that has become difficult for lawmakers in Congress to ignore.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is leading the legislative effort, said the proposed changes reflect a nation coming to grips with a history of racial injustice.

This is about the kind of America we all want to see, said Bass.

The Democrats legislation would create a national database of police misconduct, ban police choke holds and loosen qualified immunity to make it easier for those injured to seek damages in lawsuits, among other changes. The proposals dont go as far as some activists want to defund police departments for other community services. They do, however, make available grant money for states to reimagine ways of policing.

Republicans as well as Democrats have called for a national registry of use-of-force incidents, so police officers cannot transfer between departments without public awareness of their records.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the depravity he said he saw in the video of Floyds death burned in my soul. He welcomed a new database and called for police chiefs to get rid of bad apples.

There is also growing bipartisan support for increasing the use of police body cameras, ending no-knock warrants  police used one to enter the home of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in Louisville, Kentucky  and making other changes to police practices and oversight.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that Trump was still looking at different options. She said the administration was making final edits on a proposal for release in the coming days.

Philonise Floyds testimony captivated the room as he recounted what he saw in the widely viewed video as an officer pressed a knee into George Floyds neck while other police stood by. The one officer, Derek Chauvin, who is white, is now charged with murder, and three others also face charges.

He called all of the officers sir,' said Philonise Floyd. He still called them sir as he begged for his life.

His life mattered, the brother said. He broke down at one point over the images. At another, he said he wonders every day if he will be next.

Within the wrenching testimony were many of the core issues being debated as part of the police overhaul. Those include questions about whether its appropriate to have police officers respond to minor offenses  Floyd was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a neighborhood market  and the use of force to detain suspects.

I am asking you, is that what a black mans life is worth? Twenty dollars? Philonise Floyd asked.

Asked if he could think of any reason for the incident, Floyd told Nadler his brother and Chauvin both worked at the same place.

I think it was personal, Philonise Floyd testified.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Wednesday investigators are looking into a report from CBS News that the men had bumped heads working at the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub in Minneapolis.

Rev. Darrell Scott, who is part of Trumps national diversity coalition, blasted activists push to dismantle police departments as one of the most unwise, irresponsible proposals ever.

Scott noted he, like many black men, has been pulled over by police for driving while black, as he put it.

I could very easily have been George Floyd, he testified. However, I do not recommend throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The committee also heard from Angela Underwood Jacobs, the sister of a black law enforcement officer, Dave Patrick Underwood, who was shot and killed while guarding a federal courthouse in California during the protests that followed Floyds death.

Underwood Jacobs, a former Republican candidate for Congress, called for justice for Floyd and for her brother. She said the idea of defunding the police was ridiculous. But she also urged the lawmakers to find answers.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Zeke Miller in Washington and videojournalist Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 22:05:59|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Japan's core private-sector machinery orders dropped in April from a month earlier, the government said in a report on Wednesday.

According to the Cabinet Office, the orders, excluding those for ships and utilities because of their volatility, fell 12.0 percent to 752.59 billion yen (7 billion U.S. dollars) in the recording period, marking the lowest level in almost six years.

The Cabinet Office downgraded its assessment for the first time in six months, stating that orders are "worsening" from its previous view that they were "stalling."

The latest decline in core orders marks the second successive month of decrease and comes on the heels of a 0.4 percent retreat logged in March, the Cabinet Office's data showed.

The global coronavirus pandemic has led to factories shuttering operations worldwide on falling demand as supply chains have become increasingly disrupted. Businesses have also rethought their capital investment plans, which has seen investments downwardly revised, analysts here said.

They added that the Japanese government's stay-at-home request and business closures following a state of emergency first being declared in Japan in April, saw domestic demand plummet while factory output came to a halt.

Orders from manufacturers declined 2.6 percent in the recording period to 334.18 billion yen, the Cabinet Office's data showed.

Those from non-manufacturers, excluding those for ships and from power companies, tumbled 20.2 percent to 406.33 billion yen, marking the sharpest drop since record began.

Orders from overseas, seen as an indicator of future exports, dropped 21.6 percent to 689.45 billion yen, the government's data showed.

Total orders, meanwhile, fell 8.3 percent to 2.10 trillion yen, the Cabinet Office said.

Machinery orders are a key advance indicator for corporate capital spending and the government uses this key data to predict the strength of business spending in a six to nine-month period ahead.

A rise in capital expenditure here can boost the economy as Japanese companies are producing more machinery to meet rising demands from overseas markets.

A drop in such expenditure, as has been the case of late, can have the reverse effect.

Such business investment accounts for roughly 15 percent of Japan's gross domestic product.

Types of machinery included in the monthly government survey comprise engines and turbines, heavy electrical machinery, electronic and communication equipment, industrial machinery, machine tools, railway rolling stock, road vehicles, aircraft, ships, water crafts, as well as sub types in those categories. (1 U.S. dollar equals 107.34 Japanese yen) Enditem
Designed to enable flexibility and maximise the utilisation of office space for employees in a post-coronavirus world, Wipro Lighting in association with Mapiq, has launched Office Shifts. A smart office technology software, it can be scaled and upgraded depending on the policy changes organisations need to make due to local government directives. The company claims it to be a one-stop solution for employers to ensure a healthy and safe working environment for their employees.

"Fundamental changes to the way organisations function and large office complexes operate has necessitated a complete rethink. Everyone has the safety and security of people as their top priority. Social distancing, sanitising, and restrictions on meetings and gatherings necessitate a newer and efficient manner of functioning. This is where Mapiq's Office Shifts technology is useful. It ensures both employee safety and productivity," says, Anuj Dhir, Vice President and Business Head, Wipro Lighting.

Due to the new norm of social distancing, in most offices, desks and workspaces availability will decrease by an average of 43 per cent. As only half the strength will be able to attend office, organisations need to align schedules and working patterns of employees and their teams. Resuming office raises concerns about safety and productivity among employees. Keeping employees informed in real-time and ensuring they are evenly spread in the office is essential.

"With this technology organising teams together, anticipating and updating office capacity quickly, is simply hassle-free. The software is available as a subscription-based model built on SaaS (Software as a Service) model. Customers can pay either as per building, per month, or per building, per year model. This makes it less capital intensive and easy to afford," says Ramakrishna Puranam, Senior General Manager - Sales, Wipro Lighting.

Netherland based Mapiq is a cloud-based platform that creates smart offices and optimises workspaces. Wipro Lighting had formed a strategic partnership with Mapiq in April last year, where it indented to implement interactive 3D maps into its Internet of Lighting smart building proposition.
The York County Coroners Office announced Wednesday afternoon the death of a Delaware County woman in Gifford Pinchot State Park was a homicide.

Lauren Gallagher, 37, of Broomall, Pennsylvania, was found dead Monday night in a wooded area in the York County park, authorities said.

An autopsy revealed Gallagher died due to a sharp force trauma to her neck, according to York County Coroner Pamela Gay. Gallaghers death has been ruled a homicide, and police are continuing to investigate.

Another unidentified woman was taken to a York Hospital for treatment Monday night.

Both women were camping and were expected to check out Sunday, according to state police. Park rangers found their abandoned vehicle and belongings at a campsite Monday morning before calling police.

The public is not thought to be in any danger, Gay said.

State police are investigating the circumstances of Gallaghers death. Anyone with information can call 911 or the state polices York barracks at 717-428-1011.

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After nosediving in April, oil prices bounced back in May, surging more than 88%.West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures went negative for a while in mid-April for the first time in history, as the coronavirus pandemic led to a massive decline in demand and surging output caused scarcity of storage (read: 4 Energy ETF Areas Better Positioned Amid Negative Oil).

However, reopening of global economies and expectations of increased activities finally led to a fast rebound in prices. No wonder, energy ETFs like SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services ETF (XES) and VanEck Vectors Oil Services ETF OIH gained in the range of 60% to 66% past month (as of Jun 8, 2020).

But is everything rosy in the energy space? Probably not. Goldman Sachs believes that an oil price correction as deep as 20% "may already be underway. Lets tell you why.

Refiners Are Suffering Massively & Likely to Buy Less Oil

Data from global refineries shows weak margins, or crack spreads. Since crude is refiners input, the oil price rally has acted as a dampener for the space. Very poor refining margins and the recent sharp decline in US crude bases now comfort us in our sequentially bearish outlook, analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote.

OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, announced that historic production cuts of 9.6 million barrels per day across the group would run through July may make matters worse for refiners. Higher crude cost along with no increase in prices of the products from refineries is leaving refiners in a tough spot.

The crack spread for refined products in the United States was $9 last week compared to $21 at the same time last year, per Reuters . Margins for European diesel reached a record low of $2.90 per barrel last week, quoted on CNBC.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has announced some of the biggest price increases for crude exports in at least two decades, removing almost all of the discounts it provided during its short-lived price war with Russia. Saudi selling prices will jump next month by $5 to $7 per barrel just for Asian buyers, which in turn would hurt refining margins, per analysts.

Story continues

Both factors may lead refiners to buy lower crude volumes, resulting in lower crude prices in the coming days. Goldman Sachs expects Brent pulling back to $35 per barrel in the coming weeks compared to spot prices at $43.

Opportunistic Buying is a Risk to Recovery

Many oil-importing nations reserved oil strategically amid low prices. China recorded a massive rebound in crude imports in May with a record 11.3 million barrels per day, reflecting an increase of 13% from April. Many analysts are of the view that the buying has been done opportunistically, not to meet real demand.

Moreover, renewed U.S.-China tension over the latters imposition of new security legislation on Hong Kong and its apparent mishandling of the coronavirus incident may derail the oil market recovery. Although China purchased record volumes of crude oil in May, analysts do not expect the United States to be the key provider. China has fallen meaningfully short of overly ambitious energy import targets.

Shale Oil Production May Ramp Up Again

Crudes recent rise may inspire the shale producers to boost drilling activities. In fact, the sharp gains in the price have already prompted EOG Resources (EOG) and Parsley Energy (PE) to plan a potential revival of production. U.S. crude inventories jumped 8.4 million barrels in the week through Jun 5, API data showed, while a Reuters poll of analysts had indicated a draw of 1.7 million barrels. This will weigh on the outlook for prices.

Economic Activity Yet to Pick Up Materially

Per Goldman, there is a surplus oil inventory of an estimated 1 billion barrels as global economic activity and travel have been far below the pre-coronavirus level. Some analysts believe inventory build would not reverse until the middle of 2021 that too in a steady demand and prolonged OPEC+ output cut scenario.

Bottom Line

At the end, its all about material demand growth. Oil has rallied a lot past month on hopes of a rebound in demand. But further rally from here seems dicey. VanEck Vectors Oil Refiners ETF CRAK  the pureplay refining ETF  has gained about 16.6% past month, a lot less than the oil services and explorers gains.

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Both of Mayor London Breeds nominees for Police Commission are officially out.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday rejected the nomination of Nancy Tung by a 10-1 vote, with many saying the prosecutor did not possess a desired track record of advocacy or action around police reform. Attorney Geoffrey Gordon-Creed withdrew his candidacy for the police watchdog group earlier in the day, correctly predicting that he too wouldnt win a majority of the votes.

The denials came amid a national uprising over police use of force and accountabilty, as communities around the globe reel over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd on May 25. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.

Tung, who is supportive of police using Tasers and accepted a donation from the San Francisco Police Officers Association during her run for district attorney, was the wrong person to lead this charge, supervisors said Tuesday.

During this moment in history we must heed the calls of millions of people in the street, literally begging for radical change, said Supervisor Hillary Ronen. We need every person on the police commission to be working with life or death urgency to end policies that result in killings of people of color.

Supervisor Shamann Walton said it would be disrespectful to the black community to support Tungs appointment.

That comes from my heart as a black man, he said.

Supervisor Catherine Stefani cast the lone vote supporting Tung. She said the board ought to give careful consideration to a candidate put forward by a black mayor with a personal family history studded with incidents of violence and involvement with the criminal justice system. Breeds bother is serving a 44-year sentence for a manslaughter conviction and, as Breed has recently revealed, her cousin was killed by San Francisco police in 2006.

In a statement, Tung said she was disappointed that some of the supervisors mischaracterized or failed to familiarize themselves with her record.

I am proud to have been nominated by Mayor London Breed for the Police Commission, she said. While the outcome of the Board of Supervisors vote is not surprising to me, I stand firmly behind my professional record as someone who is independent, fair, and willing to challenge authority to do what is right.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The board also tacitly rejected Gordon-Creed, another Breed nominee. Gordon-Creed, a former deputy city attorney, withdrew his nomination in a letter to Breed Tuesday, saying he lacked sufficient support from the board to confirm him.

Breed will now be tasked with recommending two more nominees.

Breeds press director Andy Lynch accused the supervisors of playing politics and called the rejections just the latest example of the supervisors delaying and blocking the mayors nominees.

The mayor has spent her career leading on the issue of police reform and she just announced that she will be leading the effort to redirect funding from the San Francisco Police Department to support the black community, Lynch said. This is the type of action this moment calls for, and the board needs to stop holding critical commission seats vacant when we have real, important work to do.

Dominic Fracassa and Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com, megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa, @meganrcassidy
China said on Wednesday that Indian and Chinese troops have started implementing the "positive consensus" reached by the senior military officials of the two countries on June 6 aimed at "easing" the situation along the borders.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson's remarks came a day after officials in New Delhi suggested that armies of India and China have undertaken a "limited disengagement" in few areas in eastern Ladakh in a demonstration of their intent to end the border standoff peacefully ahead of another round of military talks on Wednesday.

Asked about the reports of the troops on both sides disengaging and moving back to their previous positions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.

"Recently the diplomatic and military channels of China and India held effective communication on the situation along the border and reached positive consensus," she said.

"The two sides are following this consensus to take actions to ease the situation along the borders, the spokesperson said.

Military sources in New Delhi said the two armies have begun "disengagement" around patrolling points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and another in the Hot Spring area, adding the Chinese side has even moved back up to 1.5 km in two areas.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged since May 5 following a violent clash in Pangong Tso.

The trigger for the face-off was China's stiff opposition to India laying a key road in the Finger area around the Pangong Tso Lake besides construction of another road connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley.

During their military-level talks on June 6, India and China agreed to follow the broad decisions taken by their leaders in the Wuhan summit in 2018 to ensure peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control.

On June 6, Lt General Harinder Singh, the general officer commanding of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Commander of the Tibet Military District Maj Gen Liu Lin held an extensive meeting.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it.
Oil tankers that were sailing toward Venezuela have turned around and others have left the country's waters as the United States considers blacklisting dozens of ships for transporting Venezuelan oil, according to shipping data and industry sources.

The threat of tighter sanctions is already disrupting the global shipping market. Chinese oil firms are considering whether to decline to charter any tanker that has visited Venezuela in the past year, no matter where the ship is now or for what voyage, four shipping sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

Washington is seeking to oust the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro by choking the oil exports that provide its main source of income. The measures have contributed to a fall in Venezuelan oil exports to a 17-year low and deepened the country's economic crisis, but Maduro has held on - to the frustration of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.

The United States may add dozens more tankers to an existing blacklist, U.S. sources told Reuters last week. That would make it more difficult for state firm PDVSA to deliver oil to refineries abroad. Exports dropped to about 452,000 barrels per day in May, the lowest since a national strike paralyzed the economy and hit exports between 2002 and 2003.

Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said on Twitter on Tuesday that Washington was attacking Venezuela's economy by blocking foreign revenue that could be used to import humanitarian goods, including food and medicine. The U.S. State Department did not immediately comment.

Malta-flagged tanker Seadancer, operated by Greek firm Thenamaris Ships Management and chartered by Thai refiner Tipco Asphalt, returned to Gibraltar after waiting in the Atlantic Ocean for a week, according to Refinitiv Eikon tracking data.

Tipco Asphalt told Reuters on Tuesday the company had dropped plans to use the vessel, which had previously been on course for waters off the coast of Venezuela at Amuay, according to the Eikon data and PDVSA's export schedules.

The Seadancer was scheduled to load 1 million barrels of Venezuela's Boscan crude for shipping to Malaysia's Kemaman refinery, operated by Tipco, according to the schedules.

Another vessel operated by Thenamaris that had loaded crude in Venezuela in February, the Seahero, was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department last week.

A second Malta-flagged tanker expected in Venezuela, the Novo, made a U-turn this week in the Caribbean. The vessel was scheduled to transport 1 million barrels of Hamaca crude in June to Singapore, Eikon and PDVSA data showed.

A loading window assigned for the Novo was canceled on June 6 after the chartering contract was suspended, according to the PDVSA schedules reviewed by Reuters. The tanker is operated by Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd, which also manages the Chios I, blacklisted last week by the U.S. Treasury.

PDVSA, Thenamaris Ships Management and Dynacom Tankers did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

As word spread on the possibility of more Venezuela-related shipping sanctions to come, at least three more very large crude carriers (VLCCs) - Boston, Commodore and Respect - exited Venezuelan waters over the weekend to anchor in the Eastern Caribbean, the Eikon data showed.

Oil companies and merchants worldwide - not just in China - are becoming more wary of vessels that have recently transported Venezuelan oil, the sources said.

"Anything on the potential sanctions list will just become toxic," a source at a top oil trading company said. "No one will touch it until it's clear what the rules will be."

Broker Clarksons Platou Securities estimated that 77 tankers had called at Venezuela's main oil ports since December, more than 2% of the global fleet, and so were potentially at risk of sanctions.

Sanctions typically have a knock-on effect on the rest of the oil tanker market as energy companies and merchants scramble to swap blacklisted vessels for others
My wife and I used HSBC to invest our 630,000 retirement savings. Last November, she sadly passed away.

I was told I'd need a grant of probate. I was surprised as everything, bar three investment accounts, was in joint names.

The bank's guide says probate is at its discretion and is not related to the value of the estate. It said my wife's will may not have been a final one, which I found offensive.

Let down: An HSBC customer, who invested 630,000 with the bank, claims he was treated very poorly after his wife died

I obtained probate and asked for the investment fund units in the accounts to be transferred to me rather than cashed in, as I didn't want to crystallise losses in a falling market.

But the bank sold them on March 25  the worst time to do so, in terms of the unit values before and since.

I complained and was told I'd get compensation. I want HSBC to replace the investment units it sold, which would now be worth 23,000 more than the sale price.

I am also trying to track down 2,000 which my wife had in a regular savings account. The staff I deal with are pleasant, but seem to be totally ineffectual.

A. F., Hampshire.

Banks keep telling us they have improved the way they deal with bereaved customers  then in comes a letter like yours.

You are a member of HSBC Jade, the bank's premier service, with significant investments and a dedicated wealth manager.

Yet HSBC rewards your loyalty with ineptitude and indifference.

Naturally, one call from the Daily Mail and it sprang into action. A spokesman says: 'It is very important to us that we support customers at times like this.

We sincerely apologise to Mr F for his recent experience at what was an extremely difficult time for him.

'We have fallen short of the high standards we set ourselves. We have been working with Mr F to resolve the issues, including re-purchasing the shares and correcting the investments, so he is not out of pocket.'

The 2,000 from the savings account has also been sent to you. It seems HSBC was waiting for a form. Why couldn't someone just explain this to you?

On the probate point, HSBC says each case is reviewed by bereavement specialists. As the value of the estate was more than 185,000, probate was deemed appropriate.

Fair enough. So why insensitively suggest that you may be presenting an out-of-date will?

HSBC has paid you 500 in compensation.

Straight to the point How can I file a tax return now HMRC is making the service digital? I do not have a computer. G. H., Essex. HMRC no longer sends out paper tax return forms automatically, but you can request one by calling 0300 200 3310. *** I've had the same mobile number with O2 for 16 years, but on March 10 it was disconnected. I keep contacting the companys helpline but nothing is being done. Both my parents are in their late 80s and need to keep in touch with me. J. O., Liverpool. O2 says the disruption was due to an internal error made by one of its advisers. Your number has been restored. The telecoms giant has also added credit to your account as an apology, and sent you a gift. *** For five years Amazon has taken 7.99 a month out of my account for a service called Kindle Unlimited, which I never ordered nor used. Amazon assured me I would be refunded but Im still waiting. H. D., Glasgow. Amazon has now refunded you the full amount and offered you a 50 giftcard as a gesture of goodwill. *** I booked to stay at a hotel in Manchester tomorrow but it is shut due to coronavirus. The booking agent, I used, Hotelogical, says it is not responsible for refunding me. I stand to lose 187. L. J., Aberdare, Wales. Hotelogical says it asked what you wanted to do several times, and you insisted you were still planning to take the trip if possible. You have now received a refund.

On October 7 last year I asked Staysure if I could extend my European travel cover for a world cruise.

This was not possible, so I took out a new policy with the firm costing 2,267, and asked it to cancel the first policy.

I arrived home from the cruise on March 16 to find Staysure had renewed the European policy at a cost of 916.84.

I could not respond to two renewal notices as I had been away, which the firm would surely have known.

Several calls resulted in a negative response.

N. M., Chester.

Congratulations on getting a world cruise in before lockdown. Staysure admits it made an error which, after my intervention, it addressed directly with you.

Did I still look for a statement from the firm? Of course I did!

I can only assume that without my intervention the response would have remained negative.

A spokesman says: 'We were grateful to have been alerted to this isolated error.

'In normal circumstances, we believe this would have been picked up. However, due to the numerous challenges we've faced in answering the unprecedented volumes of calls and queries, as well as ensuring our workforce is safe during the crisis, it was not.

'We are glad that it has been swiftly rectified to everyone's satisfaction.' Staysure refunded the 916.84 and offered a discount on a future policy.

One reader went on a world cruise but was charged for two travel insurance policies

***

My elderly mum is having difficulty getting help with a faulty Currys fridge-freezer, bought on March 23.

It does not freeze or chill food, and pale liquid started pooling under it. We had to throw out all of the food in it.

Someone from Currys' technical team inspected it and said it was faulty, but was unable to get it replaced.

My mum has been left without a fridge-freezer for more than a month. We get automated responses to emails promising a six-day callback which never happens.

J. K., by email.

You and your mum have had a frustrating experience, but hopefully all is 'cool' now.

Like many companies, Currys was struggling to deal with customer issues in the early days of lockdown.

Let's remember that it suddenly had to work out ways to run the business while ensuring the safety of staff answering calls and visiting customers.

When I alerted Currys it immediately arranged for a replacement to be delivered.

A spokesman says: 'When Mrs K's freezer arrived it unfortunately had a fault.

'We've arranged a refund and to pick up the appliance, and offered a gesture of goodwill (100) which Mrs K has accepted. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.'
Sarpinos is dedicated to bringing friends and family around the table to enjoy a delicious meal. Our new vegan options will help ensure everyone is welcome at the table for a fresh, Italian meal.

Sarpinos Pizzeria provides their millions of customers with local, real Italian flavor in all their delicious menu items. The company is proud to announce that their diverse menu of Italian offerings is extending even further to include a large array of vegan pizzas and calzones. Sarpinos will also be offering Beyond meat products to deliver a plant-based sausage topping to hungry customers. All vegan products will feature Daiya cheese.

All the vegan menu options for Sarpinos pizzas or calzones, and other items, contain no animal products including lactose. The new vegan offerings from Sarpinos allow for a whole new audience of diners to discover the incredible flavor provided by Sarpinos recipes.

Today, those looking to enjoy vegan options at Sarpinos can order some incredible specialty pizzas, like the Vegan Italiano and the Vegan Margarita, as well as vegan breadsticks and vegan calzones.

Sarpinos representative, Rebecca Kroupa, explains the excitement surrounding vegan options now being offered by Sarpinos saying, Sarpinos is dedicated to bringing friends and family around the table to enjoy a delicious meal. Our new vegan options will help ensure everyone is welcome at the table for a fresh, Italian meal.

In addition to the new, exciting vegan option at Sarpinos the company remains committed to the safety of their staff and their customers. Inside the different Sarpinos franchises, all employees are keeping their distance and following enhanced protective measures. Customers can count on the same gourmet style food through the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. With hours of operation that ensure their customers can enjoy a great meal when it is convenient for them, when people are hungry, Sarpinos delivers.

About Sarpinos:

Sarpinos Pizzeria provides mouthwatering food with free delivery. Every Sarpinos Pizzeria is dedicated to gourmet quality and offers contactless delivery at all hours of the day. No matter when a person needs a hot and delicious meal, Sarpinos delivers.
A large international study coordinated by University Hospital Regensburg and Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin has demonstrated the safety of new cell therapy approaches for use in kidney transplant recipients. Transplant recipients were shown to require lower levels of immunosuppression in order to prevent organ rejection. This reduces the risk of side effects such as viral infections. Results from this study have been published in The Lancet.*

Transplant recipients usually receive immunosuppressants to prevent organ rejection. However, these drugs cannot provide an absolute guarantee that rejection will not occur at a later stage. Furthermore, immunosuppression is often associated with severe side effects such as intolerances, infections, or other problems. Cell therapy offers an alternative treatment approach. This involves the use of specific immune cells, which are isolated and expanded in vitro. Known as 'regulatory cell products', these cells are then infused into the transplant recipient in order to restore their immune system.

Charite was one of a number of institutions involved in the international ONE Study consortium, which was led by Prof. Dr. Edward K. Geissler of University Hospital Regensburg. The Berlin-based members of the consortium were primarily responsible for testing the safety and efficacy of cell therapy in kidney transplant recipients as well as effects on their immune system. Research centers based in several different countries worked to a standardized protocol to develop a range of regulatory cell products, which were then tested in clinical trials. These therapies, which were administered to transplant recipients either before or after their surgery, comprised regulatory T cell and macrophage products, as well as products made of dendritic cells, which produce anti-inflammatory messengers. Results were then combined and compared with a reference patient group who had received standard-of-care immunosuppression. Patients were then followed up for a further 60 weeks.

"The new cell therapy was able to reduce the need for immunosuppression in approximately 40 percent of patients, thereby minimizing the risk of side effects," says the study's first author, Prof. Dr. Birgit Sawitzki of the Institute for Medical Immunology on Campus Virchow-Klinikum. The regulatory cells were shown to be just as safe as the drugs used in standard treatment and did not result in higher rejection rates. "Particularly remarkable was the fact that none of the patients given regulatory cells developed herpes infections, which often lead to dangerous complications in transplant recipients," notes Prof. Sawitzki.

Prof. Sawitzki's team was primarily responsible for the development and implementation of standardized immune monitoring, i.e. the monitoring of immune cell populations in the blood. "Before transplantation, patients showed altered immune cell composition, and regulatory cells were better than standard therapy at restoring normal composition," explains Prof. Sawitzki. She adds: "This means there are new, safe treatment options which can help to reduce the dose of conventional immunosuppressants and the risk of viral infections." There are plans for further, larger studies to confirm the efficacy of regulatory cell therapy.

###
THE ISSUE:

School board elections in New York offer an early look at problems with our voting system, including questions of privacy.

THE STAKES:

Voter participation depends on trust in the integrity of our democratic process.

Historically, the privacy of a person's vote has been fundamental to American democracy. Yet voters in school budget and board of education elections across the state are discovering that secrecy seems not to be so valued this year when it comes to absentee ballots.

Add this to a list of concerns that must be addressed, fast, as the nation prepares for what could be one of the most tumultuous election seasons in memory. And the republic doesn't need reasons for citizens to doubt the integrity of our electoral system at a time when some politicians are all too eager to stoke suspicion.

With the COVID-19 pandemic making in-person voting a dangerous proposition, we were initially encouraged that school districts were quickly rising to the challenge of providing mail-in ballots. And it's understandable that with hundreds of districts across the state suddenly doing this, something as basic as envelopes would suddenly be in short supply, and there might be delays in ballots getting to voters' homes. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's move to extend school voting to June 16 was a sensible solution.

But as anyone who has opened their ballot package probably noticed, these are not secret ballots, or at least they certainly are not designed with sufficient privacy safeguards in mind. After filling out a ballot, the voter places it inside an envelope on which all their identifying information is to be written; that envelope goes inside another envelope that's mailed back to the district. What's to stop nosy officials from glancing at the ballot once they've looked at the identifying information on the inside envelope to see how a person voted?

There's a simple enough solution: one more blank inner envelope containing the ballot, opened separately after all the incoming ballots have been logged in.

Don't blame school districts for this. They are just following a state law that should have been fixed long ago, and certainly should be this year.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

With a coronavirus vaccine unlikely to be widely available until at least next year, and with fears that there will be another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic this fall, mail-in balloting will almost certainly need to be the rule rather than the exception in November. We need full public confidence in that system (not to mention a lot of envelopes).

New York's duty to get this right isn't just to its own residents, but to the country. With Donald Trump and other Republican figures openly expressing concern about their party's prospects if voter participation is high, and trying to suppress the vote  by, among other things, casting doubt on mail-in voting  it's essential that states and local elections boards add no valid reasons for concern to the flimsy ones the president and his allies have offered, or fabricated, so far. Come November, we can't have voters waiting in hours-long lines as they just did in Georgia  many of them, conspicuously, minorities  and we can't have people in states like New York refusing to vote by mail out of concern that their vote isn't secret.

A nation in so much turmoil simply cannot get democracy wrong.
Srinagar, June 10 : Five terrorists were killed in an encounter with security forces in south Kashmir's Shopian district on Wednesday, officials said.

Kashmir Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar told IANS that the encounter began at Sugoo village on Wednesday morning after security forces came under fire from hiding terrorists.

Police said earlier Sugoo village was cordoned off by a joint team of Army and police after a specific intelligence input about the presence of terrorists.

As the security forces zeroed in, the terrorists fired at them. In the ensuring gun battle, five ultras belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Toiba were killed.

This is the third major encounter in Shopian district in less than a week.

On Sunday, five terrorists were killed in an encounter at Reban village whereas four terrorists were killed in Pinjura village of Shopian on Monday.
Former DOJ Employees Call for Probe Into Barrs Role in Clearing Protesters Outside White House

A group of former Justice Department (DOJ) employees are calling on the DOJ internal watchdog to launch an investigation into Attorney General William Barrs role in the clearing of protesters at Lafayette Square near the White House.

Some 1,260 former prosecutors and department officials have penned an open letter on Wednesday to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz expressing concern over the Justice Departments role in dispersing a group who were protesting for change in the wake of George Floyds death.

Shortly after the area was cleared, President Donald Trump and several of his aides, including Barr, walked across the square to the church to pose for photosa decision that had garnered some public backlash. Some media reported that the protesters were forcefully removed using tear gas and rubber bullets in order to make way for Trumps visit to the church, but Barr has repeatedly denied that the two events had any correlation.

While the full scope of the Attorney Generals role is not yet clear, he has admitted that he was present in front of the White House before law enforcement personnel took action to disperse the crowd. Department of Justice and White House personnel initially said that the Attorney General gave an order to law enforcement personnel to get going or get it done, the letter reads.

Based on what we now know, these actions violated both the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and the press, and the right to assemble; and the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable seizures, to include objectively unreasonable uses of force by law enforcement officers, it added.

The letter also raised concerns over the deployment of federal law enforcement officers across the country in order to address the violent rioting, looting, and arson happening in several cities. They added their concerns are also related to the fact that some of the officers reportedly did not wear identifying insignia on their outfit.

We have profound doubts that the personnel deployed from these agencies are adequately trained in policing mass protests or protecting the constitutional rights of individuals who are not subject to arrest or have not been convicted of a crime, the group said.

If the Attorney General or any other DOJ employee has directly participated in actions that have deprived Americans of their constitutional rights or that physically injured Americans lawfully exercising their rights, that would be misconduct of the utmost seriousness, the details of which must be shared with the American people, it said.

During an interview with CBSs Face the Nation on June 7, Barr addressed criticism of the Trump administrations handling of protesters in Washington. He disputed claims that protesters at the White House were forcefully cleared from the area using tear gas and other means for the purpose of Trumps church visit.

Barr said that the decision to clear the park was made before he knew that Trump was going to speak there, and that it was not an operation to respond to that particular crowd.

It was an operation to move the perimeter one block, the attorney general said.

Barr said the decision was made in response to violent riots in Lafayette Square over the previous few days.

On Sunday [May 31], things reached a crescendo. The officers were pummeled with bricks. Crowbars were used to pry up the pavers at the park and they were hurled at police. There were fires set in not only St. Johns Church, but a historic building at Lafayette was burned down, he said.

He said these incidents prompted the Park Police on May 31 to prepare a plan to clear H Street and put  a larger perimeter around the White House so they could build a more permanent fence on Lafayette. He added that he gave the green light to the plan at 2 p.m. the next day.

Police have to move protesters, sometimes peaceful demonstrators, for a short distance in order to accomplish public safety. And thats what was done here, Barr said.

The letter also comes after Black Lives Matter D.C. and several protesters sued the Trump administration (pdf), alleging that the law enforcement personnel carried out orders that violated their free speech and other constitutional rights.
A wave of complex female protagonists is enriching this new platinum age of television. Clockwise from top left: Zoe Kravitz as Rob in "High Fidelity," Hailee Steinfeld as Emily Dickinson in "Dickinson," Elle Fanning as Catherine the Great in "The Great" and Margherita Mazzucco, left, as Lenu and Gaia Girace as Lila in "My Brilliant Friend." (Hulu / AppleTV+ / HBO / Hulu)

It wasn't that long ago that "Murphy Brown" caught hell for its title character's decision to raise a child on her own. Yes, that was a thing in the late 1980s. And just last month, the president of the United States upbraided a reporter, saying she "wasn't Donna Reed," referring to the actress who embodied the 1950s TV ideal of the good housewife.

Expectations of women as shaped by television  especially as to their moral character  have long been pretty narrow. It would be many years after "Murphy" before female leads could be seen as unapologetically independent, complicated and neither fully "good" nor fully "bad." That multidimensional territory had long been reserved for men. But then came "Nurse Jackie" and "Girls" and even "The Mindy Project" and "Fleabag."

Now a new crop of quality shows has these kinds of flawed but compelling young women bursting forth in all their human messiness  strident, selfish, rebellious and all.

Sara Kucserka, co-creator of Hulu's series adaptation of "High Fidelity," grew up in the age of "Murphy Brown" and has watched the TV landscape change. She largely credits the evolution of women characters to a "huge groundswell of female creators who are rising up and saying, 'We are just as complex and difficult and complicated as any male character youve been seeing on television.'

"I think that hunger has always been there, and there were baby steps to getting there. Streaming has opened up new avenues, new voices. It has allowed, I think, not just diversity behind the camera but in front of it and allowed more and more people to say, Yes, thats me. Its representational. 'That's me. Nobody has seen it before, but that is who I am.' "

Zoe Kravitz stars as Rob in Hulu's "High Fidelity." The character was male in Nick Hornby's book and the 2000 film starring John Cusack. Kravitz's Rob is every bit as messed up, arrested in her development and sympathetic as the male versions were. (Hulu)

Faithful in her fashion

The hero in Nick Hornby's novel "High Fidelity," Rob, is a self-pitying, pop-music-obsessed man-child. He was memorably played by John Cusack in a 2000 film. In the 2020 Hulu series, Rob's gender is flipped and ethnicity changed, but pretty much everything else is the same. As played in the show by Zoe Kravitz (an executive producer who co-wrote an episode and whose mother, Lisa Bonet, played one of Rob's girlfriends in the film), Rob has the same appetites, flaws and appeal, and is just as sympathetic.

Story continues

Kucserka said, "When Veronica [West] and I pitched this, we said, We are not changing this character at all. We read this book when it came out, and we identified with this character. It wasnt that we saw him as a man we knew; we saw him as ourselves."

"For a long time, if you wanted to have a woman behaving the way Rob behaves, in order to explain it and make it OK for the audience, there had to be some deep trauma that her behavior was a byproduct of," says Kucserka. "As some of society has become more comfortable with the fact that women can be just as messy without some huge catalyst, its gotten better and better."

In "Dickinson," Hailee Steinfeld plays great American poet Emily Dickinson as a young woman struggling against social constraints and obsessed with Death (here embodied by Wiz Khalifa). (AppleTV+)

A portrait of the artist as a young woman







Apple TV+'s "Dickinson" is a frequently absurd, hip, anachronistic take on the beloved poet (played by Hailee Steinfeld). We see Emily as a teen, moving through discoveries sexual, artistic and philosophical. All this happens in antebellum Massachusetts, where women were not expected to pursue dreams outside the family. We even see her hiding her identity to write a contest-winning poem.

"The traditional received myth of Emily Dickinson is she was alone in her room, writing her poems," says Smith. "But she started as a very social, wickedly funny, outgoing, rebellious  not necessarily as rebellious as she is in the show  but spiritually rebellious ... The story about her being the only girl who didnt get born again in her high school  that was true. The shows goal is to depict Emily Dickinsons coming of age."

Smith also agrees series like hers might not have been possible until recently. "There has been a new mold created in, say, the last 10-15 years," she says. "It wasnt that long ago that women were kept in some pretty tight boxes. ... Its kind of up to us, as things do become more open, to re-engage with that history and pull the old dresses out of the closet and say, What was it really like to wear these? And are we still wearing them now?' "

In HBO's "My Brilliant Friend," Lila (Gaia Girace) and Lenu (Margherita Mazzucco) are the smartest people in most rooms, and the closest of friends ... usually. (HBO)

To be young, gifted and female

HBO's Italian drama "My Brilliant Friend" looks deeply into Lenu and Lila, each the other's brilliant friend. It's based on a series of novels by Elena Ferrante (a pseudonym), but the show is created, co-written and mostly directed by a man: Saverio Costanzo.

The young geniuses in "My Brilliant Friend" are generally discouraged from any ambitions beyond taking low-level jobs in the little universe of their neighborhood and serving a husband. It's not a box that fits them well. They're guilty of pettiness and selfishness; they make some terrible decisions despite being the smartest people in the series.

"When cinema and television describe women, usually, especially in Italy, we have very simple characters. Theres no complexity, the dark side that makes a character interesting. These two girls are very bad at some things. We can identify with them."

The uncertainty of the characters' futures in "My Brilliant Friend" makes it particularly painful to see the vibrant minds of Lenu and Lila so shackled. "The story is a fight between women who are trying to become a person and the men who are afraid to break a habit. We are talking about a country  my country  which is one of the most misogynist in the world. Even if we are in the 21st century, Italy is still very misogynist," says Costanzo.

In "The Great," Elle Fanning plays the young woman who would eventually become Catherine the Great. The road there is bumpy, winding and flat-out bananas at times. (Hulu)

Think she's good now? Just wait

At the center of "The Great" (as in "Catherine ...") is Elle Fanning's portrayal of a naive girl thrown into court intrigue before rising to become one of Russia's greatest leaders. Her dreams of humanist reform fall into the meat grinder of a society so patriarchal, women aren't allowed to be formally educated. In one exchange with her trusted maid, Catherine says she always sensed God intended her to do great things. Her maid asks, "Why did he make you a woman then?" She answers, "For comedy, I guess."

"You go into the show thinking you know whats going to happen," says Fanning, noting Catherine's staggering accomplishments. Fanning says viewers might expect her to be "strong" and prepared from the start, which she emphatically is not. But, says the actress, " 'strong female character' always sounds a bit condescending to me. Like when people say it, they sound surprised."

Creator Tony McNamara ("The Favourite") says, "Shes not simple and not all good. As the series goes on, youll see more and more complications of what its like to have power and how she tries to retain elements of herself. She has got an arrogance; shes got this ruthlessness, which she needs. So I do see it as part of that line" of complex female protagonists.

Fanning says, "I got to go to pitch meetings ... those rooms that a lot of times were full of men  you know, talking about the show, and a lot of those rooms not getting it. Trying to explain why its important to have a show like this where the female [lead] isnt perfect. She has an ego. I love her ego too."
Acting Inspector Christine Lalor said people in the area should cook a barbecue, if possible, as Will loves the smell of onions and bacon. He also loves vegemite, peanut butter and feta. Water should also be put on the veranda or porch. "We are throwing everything at our search again today," she said.

Three speakers are moving around the area playing the Thomas the Tank Engine theme tune. Acting Inspector Lalor said the search was unique and different, but they are using everything they can to draw Will out. Houses are being door-knocked again today. "We are very optimistic at this stage that we will find him and he will be safe," she said.

The past few days had been extremely difficult, Ms Callaghan said. "Its up and down I guess, yesterday was probably tougher in some ways, I was overwhelmed by what had happened. I wasnt here when he disappeared, he was here with another family member and they lost sight of him. "Hes never spent a night outside by himself, or even been camping so this exposure will be tough. What is going through my mind? All sorts of things, any parent Im sure would be thinking worst case scenario. I cant do that at the moment. Im hoping we find him today. I dont want him out another night. He will really scared and very hungry and wanting me Im sure." She said Will loved tic tacs and she was looking forward to giving him "a million tic tacs ... and all the things he loves" when she sees him next.

Ms Callaghan said if Will had reached the urban environment anyone who saw him should be aware that he doesnt like loud noises, and could be covering his ears. He may also be barefoot as he doesnt like shoes. "Having said that, he is going to be pretty hungry and scared so food is going to be a main driver for him at this point. He loves his food." "Will is loved by everyone who comes across him." "Hes got the most amazing smile and hes just a beautiful beautiful person. "Im not really the praying type but Im praying now because I want him home."

She said Will was vulnerable and sensory oriented and will be seeking warmth and comfort. Loading Searchers played the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song on loudspeakers through the night in an attempt to draw out Will, as he loves the series. Police are urging residents in the area to open any windows and doors if they are cooking, in the hope that Will can smell the food. He likes chocolate and is interested in water bottles, according to police. If people see Will, they should use hand gestures to get his attention, police say.

Victoria Police released images taken from the air of the dense bushland as they searched during the night, which showed how thick the vegetation is in the national park. The police airwing has been searching dense bushland on Mount Disappointment. Credit:Police Media More than 450 people, including hundreds of volunteers have been looking for Will. He was wearing blue trackpants and a hoodie when he disappeared. Police have said the cold temperatures in the area could be dangerous for Will, the overnight low at nearby Whittlesea was 4.9 degrees. "This is very dangerous weather, it can get down to zero, perhaps sub-zero, up here in the hills and it is life-threatening weather but we have had people survive several nights in these conditions as well so we are quite serious about trying to find Will as quickly as possible and there is every likelihood we could succeed," Senior Sergeant Greg Paul said.
The ex-president also stressed that the attempt to hand him a suspicion notice at the SBI HQ was wrongful.

Former Ukrainian President and leader of the European Solidarity parliamentary faction Petro has commented on the issue of appointing a deputy head of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

"I acted in full accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine," he said outside the SBI HQ in Kyiv.

Poroshenko added that "an attempt to serve the former president, incumbent MP with charge papers should be done exclusively by the prosecutor general."

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine handed Poroshenko a suspicion notice, charging him with issuing a "criminal order" during his cadence. In turn, Poroshenko's lawyer denied the handing of charge papers, claiming only a prosecutor general can serve them to a member of parliament.

Read alsoPoroshenko could be arrested over alleged issue of "criminal order"

UNIAN memo. Semochko served as First Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Service from July 31, 2018, to April 12, 2019. Investigative journalists pointed to Semochko's alleged ties with Russia via his family members and that the aggressor state could have paid the official for certain information.

Nashi Groshi journalists found evidence that Semochko owns real estate worth over UAH 200 million (US$7.5 million), while his family members, namely his common-law wife and her daughter, are Russian nationals running a business in the Russian-occupied Crimea.
By Express News Service

KOZHIKODE: A 12-year-old boy died on Tuesday in Kozhikode of amoebic meningoencephalitis, a rare and fatal disease that causes inflammation of the brain.

The boy was admitted to Baby Memorial Hospital on Saturday with symptoms that included headache, vomiting and unconsciousness. His relatives revealed that the boy had gone swimming in the pool at his cousin's home in Marikunnu last week.

"We suspected amoebic meningitis because of the rapid disease progression and history of swimming. Later the Brain Fluid Examination of the spinal cord confirmed the pathogenic amoeba. Since there is no specific protocol for treatment, we treated the patient in the pediatric intensive care unit with ventilator support. Unfortunately, we couldn't save the boy," said Dr Abdul Rauf, pediatric ICU specialist, Baby Memorial Hospital.

ALSO READ | Church opposes burial of COVID-19 victim in Kerala; District Collector intervenes

The fatal disease is caused by an amoeba called Naegleria fowleri, found in non-chlorinated freshwater ponds, lakes and wells. While taking bath in such water bodies is not harmful, but diving and prolonged swimming are infectious.

"The disease spreads when contaminated water enters the body through the nose. Once the amoeba enters the nose, it travels to the brain where it causes Amoebic Meningitis, which is usually fatal with a mortality rate that is around 95%," a doctor mentioned.

Less than 10 patients worldwide have reportedly survived the disease. The disease cannot be contracted through person-to-person contact.

In India, only 15 amoebic meningoencephalitis cases have been reported till date.

Ahead of the rainy season, the disease could be eliminated by disinfecting the ponds, lakes and wells with bleaching powder.

ALSO READ | Indian women with COVID-19 at higher risk of death than men: Study
A sanitizing cloth is seen near a phone line for unemployment benefits for the public at the State Office Building in Fairbanks.
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The U.S. congressional Democrats announce a new bill to stop police violence and unequal racial treatment, just fourteen days when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police that started all the protests.

Contents of the 134-page bill will take many steps to achieve its goal, which includes the avenue for victims to sue police for whatever harm they cause to suspected criminals, like chokes, and they must wear a body camera at all times and restrict lethal force as well. These measures will make sure the police will not abuse suspects. Other add-ons are the investigations of the police department guilty of misconduct, according to Reuters.

Representative Karen Bass of the Congressional Black Caucus said that any profession like a professional police officer has to be accountable for actions about carrying out their duties. This was her statement given at a news brief, confirmed the New York Times.

During the protests, the Democrat gave their open support after incidences of looting, and rioting in commercial districts, struck by opportunistic participants of the protests. These Democrats are going to bring its legislation on the house floor by July 4.

But it won't be an easy pass with the majority of the senate as Republican, though counting on the sentiment of the George Floyd sympathizers who inspired the bill, and the Republicans are hoped to consider it after the events past days.

According to the sponsors of the bill, it does not seek to defund police departments, but supporters of the bill say it gives importance to programs that deal with other concerns that law enforcement cannot solve expertly.

The legislators stated that the issues will be dealt with in subsequent bills.

Also read: What Non-Lethal Weapons are US Police Using to Control George Floyd Rioters?

According to Senator Kamala Harris, she said that having a secure community does not mean having more policemen. The better way is to invest in them and not put more policemen. She is seen as a possible vice-president, reported Monkey Viral.

But despite promised made to the protestors, the Biden camp will not support to defund the police, which runs contrary to their attitudes when the looters and rioters were running amuck.

This only shows how the Democrats are teeter-tottering on what they promise during the protests, and find the concept uneasy to accept.

Uncertainty of the Democrats was cited by President Trump and Republicans as one of the points of the Dems bid to go to the White House.

Taking the cudgels for those concerned with keeping some well-funded police, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy stated that the Democrats want to defund, but the Republicans gave the assurance that they will get their backs. This was a sharp contrast to the Democratic party, confirmed the Washington Post

In the Senate, the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept mum on the new bill, but choose to go after the suggestions to slash police funding for social programs that was contrary to some degree.

McConnell questioned if psycho-analyzing a criminal is even practical, compared to an officer arresting him is much more practical.

Recently,Trump was at a meeting with police officials at the White House. Democrats think that civil lawsuits against police will lessen police brutality, but Republican will not agree.

The Democrats promised to the police reform bill, but not defunding them as what the protestors want.

Related article: George Floyd's Friend and Key Eyewitness Said He Did Not Resist Arrest

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Singapore replaced the United States as India's biggest overseas market for engineering parts in April, with exports rising 95% to $553 million from a year earlier, a trade body said on Wednesday, as statistics are upended by coronavirus lockdowns.

India's overall engineering exports, comprising industrial machinery and auto parts, constitute nearly a quarter of total goods exports, contracting in April and May due to the coronavirus and weak global demand, traders said.

"Singapore has replaced the U.S. as the number one destination for Indian engineering exports," said Ravi Sehgal, chairman of the India'a Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC).

Engineering exports to China were up 19% year on year to $173 million, he said.

However, total engineering exports were down 63.9% in April to $2.31 billion from $6.4 billion, the EEPC said. In April, for which latest data is available, engineering exports to the United States declined 75% to $222 million.

India is due to release monthly trade data for May next week and is widely expected to report another fall in exports.

Singapore imports electrical machinery, components, aircraft and ship parts and non-ferrous metal from India, the trade body said, adding there was a more than five-fold rise in exports of non-ferrous metal to Singapore in April from a year earlier.

Over the last few years, Singapore has emerged among the top 10 destinations for Indian engineering exporters, with exports of more than $80 billion in 2018/19.
Iranian Links: New Taliban Splinter Group Emerges That Opposes The U.S.-Afghan Peace Deal

By Frud Bezhan June 09, 2020

A new breakaway Afghan Taliban faction that has close ties to neighboring Iran and stands in opposition to efforts aimed at ending the 18-year insurgency in Afghanistan has emerged in the war-torn country.

The Hezb-e Walayat-e Islami, or Party of Islamic Guardianship, is believed to have split from the mainstream Taliban soon after the United States and the militant group signed their landmark peace agreement in February.

The formation of the splinter group underlines the possible divisions within the Taliban, which has seen bitter leadership transitions and growing internal dissent in recent years.

It is unclear whether the new splinter group will rally broad support but its emergence could pose a new hurdle for the U.S.-Taliban deal, which has been undermined by violence, disputes, and delays.

Under that agreement, international forces will withdraw from Afghanistan by July 2021 in exchange for counterterrorism guarantees from the Taliban, which pledged to negotiate a permanent cease-fire and power-sharing deal with the Afghan government.

'Early Stages Of Forming'

Antonio Giustozzi, a Taliban expert with the Royal United Services Institute in London, said it appears the new splinter group is based in Iran, which shares a 900-kilometer border with Afghanistan and has a sizeable Afghan population.

"It's still in the early stages of forming," said Giustozzi, adding that the military strength and the leadership of the faction is unknown.

An Afghan intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL that the new splinter group has not been "officially announced." The official said members of the group included radical Taliban commanders and members of small Taliban offshoots.

A new report by a United Nations monitoring team made public on June 1 said that "at least one group of senior Taliban" had "formed a new group in opposition to any possible peace agreement."

The breakaway faction was "composed mainly of dissident senior Taliban members residing outside Afghanistan," said the report, which was based on information provided by Afghan and foreign intelligence and security services, think tanks, experts, and interlocutors.

Iran Building Taliban 'Combat Capabilities'

The Hezb-e Walayat-e Islami joins a growing list of Taliban factions that support continued fighting against Afghan and international troops.

"There are several Taliban leaders, fronts, and commanders who oppose peace and are linked to Iran," said Giustozzi.

Among them, he added, is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the deputy leader of the Taliban and the head of the Haqqani network, a powerful Taliban faction that is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

That is despite Haqqani's op-ed in February in The New York Times, in which he voiced support for the peace deal with the United States.

Haqqani, who is the Taliban's operational chief, has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. He is the son of the late radical Islamist leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Al-Qaeda-linked network blamed for some of Afghanistan's deadliest suicide attacks.

The Haqqani network has strong ties to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. But Giustozzi said the network is "getting closer" to Iran as Islamabad and Riyadh cut funding to it.

Other Iran-linked Taliban leaders who oppose peace efforts include Mullah Qayum Zakir, a powerful battlefield commander and the former military chief of the Taliban until 2014. A former inmate in the infamous U.S. prison at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, Mullah Zakir has the backing of hard-line field commanders.

Mullah Zakir leads a conservative Taliban faction along with Ibrahim Sadr, the Taliban's former military commission chief. In October 2018, Sadr was among eight Taliban members designated global terrorists by the U.S. Treasury Department.

"Iranian officials agreed to provide Ibrahim with monetary support and individualized training in order to prevent a possible tracing back to Iran," the Treasury Department said, adding that "Iranian trainers would help build Taliban tactical and combat capabilities."

An Afghan intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the new splinter group included the followers of Sadr.

The officials said the new group also includes members of the Feday-e Mahaz (Suicide Brigade) a small, hard-core offshoot of the mainstream Taliban.

The group is believed to be led by Haji Najibullah, a loyalist to radical Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, who was killed in a U.S.-led attack in Helmand Province in 2007.

The group, vehemently against reconciliation with Kabul, has claimed several high-profile assassinations over the years.

'Material Support'

Iran backed the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, when the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan. Tehran also provided help to U.S. forces as they toppled the Taliban regime. But in recent years the Islamic republic and the Taliban have forged closer ties, with militant leaders even visiting Tehran.

Tehran has confirmed it has contacts with the Taliban but insists that it is aimed at ensuring the safety of Iranian citizens in Afghanistan and encouraging the Taliban to join peace talks.

But U.S. officials have accused Tehran of providing material support to the Taliban, an allegation it denies.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in January accused Tehran of "actively working" to undermine the peace process in Afghanistan, adding that Iran was supporting the Taliban and the Haqqani network.

In a report released in November, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said Iran provides financial, political, training, and material support to the Taliban.

"Tehran does not seek to return the Taliban to power but aims to maintain influence with the group as a hedge in the event that the Taliban gains a role in a future Afghan government," the report said, adding that Iran's support enabled it to advance its interests in Afghanistan and attain "strategic depth" in the country.

Taliban Divided Over Peace

The emergence of the Taliban splinter group has exposed serious divisions within the militant group.

The Taliban is believed to be divided over a peace settlement.

Its political leadership based in Pakistan is believed to be more open to a peace deal but hard-line military commanders on the battlefield in Afghanistan demand the restoration of the Taliban regime that ruled from 1996 to 2001.

Internal Taliban divisions have intensified after the death of founder and spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, whose death was revealed in 2015, more than two years after he had died in Pakistan.

Some Taliban commanders accused his successor, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur, of covering up Mullah Omar's death and assuming leadership of the extremist group without proper approval.

Mullah Mansur struggled to quell the internal dissent and reconcile feuding factions, with some commanders splitting from the group and challenging his leadership.

Mullah Mansur was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in May 2016.

The succession of Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, a low-key Islamic scholar who was Mullah Mansur's deputy, was also opposed.

But experts said the Taliban has overcome the succession crises, has fended off competition from the global appeal of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, and has remained a relatively coherent fighting force despite a deadly war against foreign and Afghan forces.

Borhan Osman, an independent analyst and a leading expert on Islamic extremism and the militant networks operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, said divisions within the Taliban are not yet visible.

"So far the Taliban has been successful in spinning the agreement with the United States as an outright victory," he said.

Osman said the Taliban's unity will be tested during intra-Afghan talks, when Afghan and Taliban negotiators will discuss a permanent cease-fire and a power-sharing deal.

The negotiations were scheduled to start in March but were delayed by disputes over the release of Taliban prisoners by the government and escalating militant attacks.

"The Taliban will be forced to come up with specific positions on issues and present their vision for a future Afghanistan," said Osman.

The Taliban has been ambiguous on key issues, including women's rights, the future distribution of power, and changes to the Afghan Constitution, reflecting the divisions within the group.

Many expect intra-Afghan negotiations to be complex and protracted, considering the gulf between the sides on policy and the sharing of power between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Taliban Offshoots

Internal rifts and rivalries have led to the emergence of various Taliban offshoots over the years, although many lack the military strength and support to pose a threat to the mainstream group.

The High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan -- led by Mullah Mohammad Rasul -- has been engaged in deadly clashes with fighters from the mainstream Taliban in southern and western Afghanistan since 2015, leaving scores dead on both sides.

The clashes have left the offshoot severely weakened, experts said, with many considering the group to be militarily irrelevant.

Mullah Rasul is believed to receive arms and support from Afghan intelligence in an attempt to divide the militant group.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-splinter- group-peace-deal-iranian-links/30661777.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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[June 10, 2020] Israel-Based UVeye Plans to Expand Its Operations in the United States

TEL AVIV, Israel, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- UVeye, an Israeli supplier of high-tech vehicle-inspection systems, is planning to expand in the United States with the introduction of products especially designed for car dealers, used-car auction houses and major vehicle-fleet operators. The company plans to open sales and product development offices in Ohio and New York within the next four months, is assembling a team of regional sales representatives and also is exploring various North American locations for production and warehouse facilities in 2021. "Our systems are ideally suited for use by new and used-car dealership groups, major fleets, vehicle auction houses and rental-car companies," noted Amir Hever, UVeye's co-founder and CEO. "Our deep-learning technology identifies even the smallest exterior defects or problems within seconds and can significantly improve profit margins and customer satisfaction levels." Hever said UVeye's automated vehicle-inspection systems are equipped with high-speed cameras and artificial-intelligence technology to check for sheet metal damage, underbody component problems and tire wear. Its technology also is used by carmakers to improve manufacturing quality and by security professionals to detect bombs, weapons and other onboard-vehicle threats. North American sites under consideration for future UVeye production facilities include locations in Michigan, Ohio and Texas, as well as several states in the southeastern United States. The company currently has headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel; Stamford, Connecticut, and Tokyo, Japan. A European headquarters is scheduled to open in Munich, Germany, later this year. The company's 360-degree Atlas quality-control technology was shown for the first time in North America earlier this year at CES 2020 in Las Vgas. UVeye inspection systems today are being deployed worldwide by major carmakers such as Volvo, Daimler and Toyota.



Atlas systems with software developed for use by major vehicle fleets and car dealerships are equipped with high-resolution cameras to capture paint and sheet-metal defects, component damage, missing parts and other quality-related issues. Atlas generates thousands of images per second at multiple angles to detect scratches or dents as small as two millimeters in diameter.

"Our deep-learning technology will dramatically change how automakers, dealers, major fleet operators and used-vehicle auctions inspect vehicles," Hever predicted. "We already are working with a number of car manufacturers and vehicle resale businesses to provide efficient, high-speed inspection systems that will save both time and money." He added that the company's proprietary algorithms, cloud architecture, sensor fusion, artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies allow it to automatically check vehicle chassis components, suspension systems, sheet metal and tires at dealerships within seconds. "Our systems help standardize and speed up vehicle inspection processes and give dealership service personnel more time to work directly with their customers," Hever pointed out. In addition to Atlas, other break-through products UVeye is developing for fleets and vehicle aftermarket use include: Helios  An underbody scanning system that captures problems such as frame damage and fluid leaks, as well as brake and exhaust system issues.

Artemis  Camera-based technology that automatically identifies tire specifications and checks for quality issues, including tread wear and sidewall flaws. The company's deep-learning technology initially was developed for the security industry to detect weapons, explosives, illegal drugs and other contraband. Today its inspection systems are in place at hundreds of high-security locations throughout the world and have generated millions of vehicle scans. "We currently have several major automotive- and security-industry pilot programs underway in North America," Hever concluded. "Combined with development projects underway in Japan and Europe, we expect those programs will lead to a significant amount of new business over the next 12-24 months." About UVeye The company develops and provides automated inspection systems for vehicles, powered by artificial intelligence and proprietary hardware. UVeye's deep-learning-driven "Inspection as a Service" unified platform provides an objective, scalable and efficient standard for identifying issues in vehicles as they move through the automotive lifecycle. UVeye's anomaly detection and alerting solutions offer support from assembly-line and paint shop inspections at the OEM manufacturer to the aftermarket applications, including systems for insurance providers, fleet managers, rental agencies, dealerships and used-vehicle auctions. UVeye's first line of products, deployed all over the world in homeland-security and defense markets, enables customers to automatically scan, detect and identify anomalies, modifications or foreign objects in the undercarriage of virtually any vehicle. The company today is setting new standards for vehicle inspection in the automotive and security industries by changing basic approaches to vehicle inspection through automated processes, improved accuracy and standardized inspection systems. Additional information is available at www.uveye.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/israel-based-uveye-plans-to-expand-its-operations-in-the-united-states-301073768.html SOURCE UVeye

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Former President John Mahama has asked all Doubting Thomases to get a copy of the National Democratic Congress Green Book to cross-check whether his erstwhile administrations infrastructural projects exist in reality or only in that book.



The 2020 flag bearer of the NDC told party supporters at their 28th-anniversary flag-raising ceremony in Accra that all his achievements are documented in the Green Book, adding: I urge all doubters to get a copy and step into their communities and cross-check if the projects outlined there  the e-blocks, the interchanges, the hospitals, and other transformational projects  exist only in that book.



Mr Mahamas challenge to his critics follows a recent comment by President Nana Akufo-Addo that Mr Mahamas much-touted unprecedented infrastructural projects only existed in the Green Book.



We made a pledge to the Ghanaian people to expand and improve the road network while closing the missing links in the network. We had to make this pledge because we know that the so-called unprecedented infrastructure development of the Mahama administration was fantasy; existing in the Green Book and not on the ground, President Akufo-Addo said on 5 June 2020 when he inaugurated the $57-million Tema Motorway Interchange project that is being financed by the government of Japan through the Japanese International Cooperation Agreement (JICA).



A few days after the Presidents comment, a former Deputy Minister of Communication in the last administration, Mr Felix Kwakye Ofosu, responded, saying every single project captured in the Green Book exists and not a fantasy.



Mr Kwakye Ofosu said: For the avoidance of doubt, there is not a single project in the Green Book which does not exist on the ground today or for which clear context has not been provided regarding its status. Anybody interested in the truth would simply match what is stated in the book to what exists. Such an exercise would yield only one outcome, which is that the work shown in the book are as real as they come and evidence of them are abundant.



How can President Akufo-Addo, for instance, look the people of Ghana in the eye and say that the Ridge Hospital doesnt exist when everybody knows it does and that on the 4th of March 2020 he toured it to ostensibly to ascertain the state of preparedness of that magnificent edifice toward the fight against COVID-19? Mr Kwakye Ofosu asked.



Surely, the President would not have Ghanaians believe that what he saw on his visit to the hospital was a fantasy or that he was walking on the pages of the Green Book when undertaking the tour, he said, noting: Or is the President telling the people of Ghana that when on the same 4th of March, 2020, he toured the ultra-modern Terminal 3 at the Kotoka International Airport to learn about their COVID-19 preparedness, he was inspecting a phantom facility?



Read his full speech below:



SPEECH READ BY FELIX KWAKYE OFOSU AT NDC WEEKLY BRIEFING ON FALSE INFRASTRUCTURE CLAIMS BY PRESIDENT AKUFO-ADDO AT COMMISSIONING OF THE TEMA MOTORWAY INTERCHANGE.



Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the media,



Thank you once again for your kind coverage of this important platform.



Last Friday, President Akufo-Addo, at the commissioning ceremony of the Tema Motorway Interchange stated as follows we made a pledge to the Ghanaian people to expand and improve the road network while closing the missing link in the network.



We had to make this pledge because we know that the so-called unprecedented infrastructure development of the Mahama administration was fantasy, existing in the Green Book and not on the ground.



It bears mentioning, that it would not be the first time that President Akufo-Addo has made such comments about the contents of the Green Book or the stellar record of his immediate predecessor, President John Dramani Mahama.



On 7th May 2019, he had this to say to members of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs who had paid him a visit at the Flagstaff House;



Before I came here, I was told by my biggest competitor that they have done all roads in Ghana and that they are responsible for an unprecedented infrastructure development. Everywhere I go, I do not think there is any institution that had talked to me and has not raised the issue about the roads in their area as their principal concern.



President Akufo-Addo took this narrative a notch higher when he stated in his fourth and hopefully final State of the Nation Address on 20th February 2020, that artists impressions had been passed off as constructed roads.



Ladies and Gentlemen of the media,



The Presidents misrepresentation of the Green Book predates his ascension to the highest office of the land. He had claimed during the launch of the NPP manifesto, which has in the fullness of time-proven to be the most deceptive and dishonoured in Ghanaian political history, that the Green Book was full of artist impressions.



In summary, the President through his various statements has sought to portray three things.



1.That the contents of the Green Book are not real and cannot be found on the ground or anywhere in the country.



2.That the book is filled with artist impressions.



3.That his predecessor, President John Dramani Mahama has said that he did all the roads in Ghana, but no evidence exists of this.





Ladies and Gentlemen of the media,



The facts, as they relate to each of the President claims, are as follows:



The Green Book, officially titled Accounting to the people, is arguably the most famous book that chronicles the achievements of a Ghanaian government. Its contents have been widely publicized and are well known to the generality of the Ghanaian people. Many would, therefore, be surprised at the effort put in by President Akufo-Addo to convince himself otherwise.



Having actively participated in the compilation of this book which highlights the boldest and biggest capital investment in the history of the fourth republic, I can state with absolute certainty, that the Presidents claim that it contains fantasy projects that cannot be found on the ground, is an outright untruth.



I must at this stage point out that the team that put the book together had such membership as Former Presidential Advisor, Dr Valerie Sawyer, Former Deputy Chief of Staff, Johny Osei Kofi, and Former Presidential Staffers, James Agyenim Boateng and Dr Kpessah White.



In view of the abundance of evidence over the accuracy of the contents of the Green Book, there are only two possible explanations for the consistent falsehood of the President on the matter.



It is possible that despite having heard about it, President Akufo-Addo has never sighted a copy of the book and has thus not had the opportunity to peruse it, in which case he would have been compelled to rely on the same pedestrian propaganda of low-level NPP communicators.



This would not be a far-fetched theory in view of the several times he has displayed a lack of attention to detail and faced embarrassment when multiple plagiarized speeches have been thrust before him to read.



We all can recollect how the same cavalier approach to governance and his lack of attention to detail led to his approval of the most inflated contract in the history of Ghana, the Ameri Novation deal, only for it to be withdrawn and for us to be told by sources with knowledge of the matter, that he had been misled into granting executive approval for same.



It is also entirely possible that he is fully apprised of the contents of the Green Book but has chosen the path of falsehood in so far as it enables him to mislead fanatical supporters of the NPP or unsuspecting members of the public and in the process hide his dubious reputation as the least performing of all Ghanaian leaders at least in the area of infrastructure or capital investments.



Either way, this would be most unbecoming of an occupant of the high office of President. That office is associated with certain basic requirements which include candor, thoroughness, and truthfulness. The president of a country must speak in ways that leave no room for doubt or the potential for him to be ridiculed or derided.





For the avoidance of doubt, there is not a single project in the Green Book which does not exist on the ground today or for which clear context has not been provided regarding its status. Anybody interested in the truth would simply match what is stated in the book to what exists. Such an exercise would yield only one outcome, which is that the work shown in the book are as real as they come and evidence of them are abundant.



How can President Akufo-Addo, for instance, look the people of Ghana in the eye and say that the Ridge Hospital doesnt exist when everybody knows it does and that on the 4th of March 2020 he toured it to ostensibly to ascertain the state of preparedness of that magnificent edifice towards the fight against COVID-19?



Surely, the President would not have Ghanaians believe that what he saw on his visit to the hospital was a fantasy or that he was walking on the pages of the Green Book when undertaking the tour.



Or is the President telling the people of Ghana that when on the same 4th of March, 2020, he toured the ultra-modern Terminal 3 at the Kotoka International Airport to learn about their COVID-19 preparedness, he was inspecting a phantom facility?



If he were in any doubt about the existence of that terminal, he would certainly be aware that one of his daughters operates a prime duty-free shop at the facility.



Again, can President Akufo-Addo describe the University of Ghana Medical Centre, built at a cost $ 217 million by his predecessor, and which his own government has earmarked as the treatment centre for foreign diplomats who contract COVID-19, as fantasy or unreal?



It does the image of the President and the office he holds no good that he continues to live in denial of what his own eyes have seen and what every Ghanaian can testify to.



Ladies and gentlemen of the media,



On the second claim that the Green Book is filled with artiste impressions, it represents yet another exercise in denial by the President.



The Green Book is a 210-page publication containing a total of 584 different pictures. These pictures represent actual projects which had either been completed at the time of compiling the book or for those that had not been completed, progress made on them. There are exactly 5 artist impressions which depicted what those projects on which work was being done at the time of the publication but had not reached a stage of completion that could be shown, would look like when completed.



These are clearly captioned as such in the book and include the $ 298 million Kejetia Market in Kumasi, Terminal 3 at the Kotoka International Airport and the Ho Airport among others.



To be clear, these projects have been completed as I speak, and their existence cannot be denied. It is, therefore, a gratuitous falsehood for President Akufo-Addo and his NPP to say that the Green Book is filled with artist impressions. All of these are imposing physical structures that no one can miss.



The Presidents assertion that President Mahama had stated that he constructed all roads in Ghana during his tenure and that those roads cannot be found, is yet another falsehood that must not come from the occupant of the highest office of the land



I wish to put it beyond doubt that President Mahama has NEVER made such a claim anywhere or at any time. We would like to throw a challenge to the President to show where and when his predecessor said this or forever hold his peace.



It is obvious that President Akufo-Addo invented this falsehood in a bid to mask his abysmal performance in road construction as is the case in every other sector of national life. Between pages 100 and 113, the Green Book lists over 200 roads that had either been completed, were ongoing at the time or which had been awarded on contract.



Here, too, I wish to state for emphasis that there is not a single road which was said to have been done in the Green Book that does not exist. No amount of consistent untruth about this from the President can change this fact.



Perhaps, the clearest indication yet, of the total falsehood inherent in the claims, has often come from President Akufo-Addo himself. He has never ceased telling the people of Ghana that his wobbly government has paid road contractors as much as GHS 2 billion in arrears owed them by the previous NDC government. Unless the President is publicly admitting to paying contractors for no work done, it is extremely illogical and disrespectful to the people of Ghana for the same person to say that no road projects had been done by President Mahama or that the roads exist only in the Green Book.



It is perfectly legitimate for Ghanaians to demand that their roads be fixed especially in areas where work on roads started by his predecessor have stalled because of vindictive but totally unjustified investigations carried out by his government which yielded no results.



If the President truly respects the people of Ghana whom he governs, he will do one of two things. He would either provide a list of the roads he claims do not exist but are in the Green Book, or he would refrain from repeating what he knows to be untrue.



As far as roads are concerned, and seeing as the Presidents latest false claims about the Green Book were made at the commissioning of the Tema Motorway Interchange Project, which he has sought to appropriate in terms of conception, it is necessary at this stage to put to rest the needless debate about whose brainchild it was and who did the heavy lifting required to ensure its execution.



The Minority in Parliament last week, set the records straight, but just so that anyone out there who is not yet aware of the facts surrounding the project is left in no doubt, I wish to reiterate this, also in the hope it the jolts President Akufo-Addo and his government into reality about the true state of affairs.



The Tema Motorway Interchange Project was funded by a Japanese Grant of $ 57 million applied for in 2013 by the Mahama administration.



The survey for the development of the project and the tender process began at the behest of the Japanese government through JICA in March 2015



The survey and design were completed in December 2016 and a detailed report presented in February 2017 when the Akufo-Addo government was barely a month old.



The only contribution of the Akufo-Addo government was to go through the mere formality of signing the grant agreement with JICA after work had already been done prior to their assumption of power.



The rest was to go through the motions and respect the agreements so signed.



It is beyond debate, therefore, that for all intents and purposes, the Tema Motorway Interchange is the brainchild and handiwork of President John Dramani Mahama.



It is regrettable that when commissioning the Tema Motorway Interchange, the zero-sum-game brand of politics practised by President Akufo-Addo, which emphasizes polarization instead of cohesion, caused him to depart from the noble tradition set by the venerable President John Evans Atta Mills and followed through by President John Dramani Mahama which saw them invite President John Agyekum Kufour to the commissioning of the N1 project and the Bui Dam which he found money for.



While in office, President Mahama demonstrated his capacity to execute such major road projects by starting and completing both the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and the Kasoa Interchange projects, respectively. He gave life to his vision to further modernize the road network across the country by securing funding for a number of other major interchange projects. In November 2016, President Mahama secured $ 39.2 million and $ 84 million for the Obetsebi Lamptey and Pokuase Interchanges, respectively.



If you happen to pass by the former Obetsebi Lamptey Circle or the Pokuase road and find interchanges coming up, please note that those projects have been made possible because President John Dramani Mahama found money for them and they are his initiative.



Ladies and gentlemen,



We also know that all the effort President Akufo-Addo has put into disparaging the achievements of President Mahama are but a defence mechanism against the exposure of his abject failure to match up to his predecessor, sector by sector.



President Akufo-Addo has benefitted from more resources than any other leader before him. At the last reckoning, he had access to close to GHS 250 billion in three and half years compared to roughly the same amount available to the NDC between 2009 and 2017, a period of 8 years.



President Mahama, within the four years of his stewardship, had access to barely half of this amount yet produced the most outstanding outcomes of any leader in the fourth republic.



The danger that the Green Book poses to President Akufo-Addo is a grave one as it provides the most compelling and visceral proof of his mediocre performance compared to his predecessor, hence the extraordinary lengths he has gone in a fruitless bid to discredit its contents.



Time would not permit a full analysis of everything contained in the Green Book but I would be remiss if failed to highlight the performance of President John Dramani Mahama in two or three sectors in order to offer perspective on just how abysmal his successor has been.



As the foreword of the Green Book, penned by then Communications Minister, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, makes clear, the projects and programmes captured in there were by no means exhaustive as there would not have been enough space to do so given the sheer scale of the work carried out by President Mahama while in office.



There are many projects that came on stream after the book was published like the Bank Hospital and over 22 polyclinics.



A lot has been said about the unprecedented investments President Mahama made in the health sector which have become the mainstay of the current fight against COVID-19. I would like to focus therefore on other sectors such as education, water, transport and energy to demonstrate the gulf in performance between John Dramani Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo.



After coming under heavy criticism for having little to show in the education sector by way of infrastructure which has led to the unacceptable double-track system at SHS level, the Akufo-Addo government has begun passing off some classroom blocks as notable achievements. The Minister of Education only last week claimed that this government has constructed 3,321 classrooms.



Ladies and Gentlemen of the press,



This claim is most misleading. The truth is that President Akufo-Addo has only 196 classroom block projects to his name since 2017 after having access to over GHS250 billion. Many projects currently ongoing at the SHS level were inherited from the NDC government.



To be exact, a total of 766 classroom block projects were bequeathed to this government by the Mahama administration and this fact is contained in the documents presented to Parliament for the collateralization of GETFund for a loan of $ 1.5 Billion to complete them.



In fact, both the Minister of Education, Mathew Opoku Prempeh and his Deputy, Dr Yaw Adu Twum, are on record and are widely quoted in the media as having said this openly.



The NDCs record in terms of educational infrastructure far outweighs anything the NPP can lay claim to and I present a summary of them below. The NDC government



Constructed 1,347 classroom blocks at KG level



Between 2010 and 2016, undertook a total of 5,128 different projects at the basic school-level comprising of



-3,322 classroom blocks at Primary and JHS level



-73 Teacher accommodation facilities



-1,161 washrooms and 82 water systems



At SHS level, we started over 1,000 classroom block and other projects



123 Community Day SHS projects were started out of which 80 had gotten off the ground and reached appreciable stages of completion.42 of them had been commissioned and had admitted students as of the end of 2016.



At the Tertiary level, the NDC established three new public universities namely the University of Health and Allied Sciences, the University of Energy and Natural Resources and the University of Environment and Sustainable Development. A new campus was built for UHAS while President Mahama found an amount of $50 million for the construction of the Somanya Campus of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development and cut sod for it on 29th December 2016.



He also began the process to secure funding for the Donkorkrom Campus for the same University.



The only notable contribution of President Akufo-Addo to Tertiary education is the unnecessary renaming of existing institutions after NPP figures and the introduction of the draconian Public Universities Bill which seeks to undermine academic freedoms and make the various universities appendages of the NPP.



In the area of water provision for instance, President Mills took over coverage in 2009 at 58.5% and increased it to 63% by 2012. President Mahama with much less resources than President Akufo-Addo increased it by 13% to 76% in 2016.In absolute terms, the NDC increased water supply capacity by 109.7 million gallons per day to serve an additional 7 million Ghanaians in over 2,000 communities across the county.



President Akufo-Addo despite all the GHS 250 billion he has had, has shrunk this to 69% as we speak with virtually no significant water project to boast about.



In the electricity sector, President Mahama ramped up generation capacity by an additional 2,000 MW and increased electricity coverage from 54% in 2009 to 84% in 2016 by extending electricity to 2,900 communities. Despite having GHS 250 billion since taking office, President Akufo-Addo has added approximately zero MW generation capacity and has only increased electricity coverage by a paltry 2%.



In the transport sector, where we now have three Ministries instead of one, President Mahama made telling contributions which as yet remain unparalleled.



In the aviation sub-sector, President Mahama did the following.



The 5-million-passenger-a-year Terminal 3 at the Kotoka International Airport



Modernization of Terminal 2 at the Kotoka International Airport



The Ho Airport



Phase 1 of the Kumasi International Airport and found $ 72 million for phase 2.If you see a modern terminal building coming up at the Kumasi Airport, please note that it stems directly from the handiwork of President Mahama



Phase 1 of the Tamale International Airport



Modernisation of the Wa Airstrip



Despite all the resources he has received, President Akufo-Addo has nothing to show in the aviation sector beyond the creation of a new Ministry.



In the maritime sub-sector, President Mahama counts among his achievements,



The MPS Terminal which has doubled the capacity of the port and transformed it into a world-class facility second only in size the Lagos Port in West Africa.



The completion of the first phase of the Takoradi port expansion project and the securing of funding for the second phase



The expansion of the Albert Bosomtwi-Sam Fishing Harbour



Beyond baseless fault-finding and needlessly delaying the second phase of the Takoradi Port Expansion Project, President Akufo-Addo has virtually nothing to show in the Maritime sub-sector.



In the Railway sub-sub-sector, President Mahama left indelible footprints. He counts among his successes,



The 20km Takoradi-Sekondi-Kojokrom Rail project with three modern terminals



Secured $ 398 million in November 2016 for the 84 km Tema to Akosombo rail project. I need to stress that if you happen to find rail tracks popping up between Tema and Akosombo, it is down to the work of President Mahama.



Here, too, beyond the creation of a completely needless Ministry for Railways, there is little in terms of achievement that President Akufo-Addo has, which would compare with what President Mahama did.



Lip service has continued to be paid to his promise to build a rail line between Ghana and Burkina Faso and with six months to the expiration of his tenure, no tangible work has been done in that direction.



In the Communications sector, President Mahama achieved such remarkable feats as the largest Data Centre in West Africa, a 510km long fibre optic cable which has opened up the Eastern Corridor of the country to data services, the multi-purpose Accra Digital Centre established as a hub for tech companies and BPOs, the imposing Headquarters of the National Communications Authority and over 70 enhanced Community Information Centres bridging the digital divide between urban and rural communities in Ghana.



I might add for emphasis that the national emergency number 112, announced earlier this year by President Akufo-Addo with pump and circumstance was in fact launched in 2015 by the Mahama administration.



The paucity of investment in infrastructure by President Akufo-Addo across the board, is amply reflected in key economic indicators presented in his governments own budget statements. A good way of assessing a governments commitment and actual investment in infrastructure is the Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) to GDP ratio which measures how much money is put into infrastructure against the GDP of a country.



The higher it is, the more investment has been made.









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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I am comforted by the solidarity of those taking action. Its everyones fight, we cant keep explaining racism away. We witnessed a lynching with our own eyes. Its time for systemic long-lasting change because we cant pass on this generational trauma to the next generation.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, urged people on Friday not to attend the weekend protests, warning at the daily coronavirus briefing that they were undoubtedly a risk for spreading Covid-19.

Ms Butler, former shadow women and equalities minister, said she received dozens of threatening and abusive emails after writing in Metro that anti-racism demonstrators should not be blamed for another spike of in infections. She wrote: This, in my view, is a cynical attempt to not only discourage people from using their right to protest but an attempt to shift the blame away from this governments incompetence if there is a second wave.

She added in the column: Where was their anger when we saw people flock to the beaches in Devon, Cornwall, Brighton? Or even their indignation when people were forced to cram on to the tube and buses to get to work?

Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, replied to Ms Butler on Twitter, saying: A couple of years ago my staff stopped me opening my own mail in order to hide from me most of the racist and abusive stuff. But I know they have been reduced to tears by some of the stuff they have seen.

Azmina Dhrodia, who conducted a major Amnesty International report into Twitter abuse of women politicians and journalists, told The Independent that the onslaught of violent threats and racist abuse directed at Ms Butler over her support for Black Lives Matter was yet another example of the disproportionate levels of online abuse black women MPs are forced to endure.

She added: The same discrimination and anti-black racism that Dawn Butler experiences offline, like when she was mistaken for a cleaner in parliament, also manifests online and aims to suppress black womens participation in public life.

Recommended The underreported scourge of police violence against black women

Ms Dhrodia, whose 2018 report discovered black women were 84 per cent more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets, said black women faced a particular denigration of online abuse that simultaneously targets both their gender and their race which is commonly referred to as misogynoir.

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, condemned reports of huge levels of online abuse against black women MPs for expressing support for Black Lives Matter protests.

She said: Reports of horrifying levels of online abuse against black women MPs are deeply concerning. Our research has revealed the shocking levels of abusive tweets hurled against women of colour in politics and public life, especially black women. The content of this abuse can be extremely disturbing  including death and rape threats  and have a chilling effect on peoples willingness to speak out.

These vicious attempts to silence black MPs must be met with action. Racist online abuse must be called out and properly tackled, and social media companies like Twitter must do far more to combat this extremely worrying trend so that women can feel safe to participate in public debate and politics.
MONTREAL, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Essilor Vision Foundation Canada (EVFC) has partnered with Essilor Canada to donate 10,000 goggles and protective glasses and 20,000 faceshields in support of the heroic efforts of frontline healthcare workers in Canada. This equipment will help keep frontline workers safe while they care for their patients and battle the ongoing pandemic. This donation is part of Essilor's broader activities to support our communities through these difficult times. EVFC and Essilor Canadas donation aligns with the mission of both organizations to make a measurable improvement in peoples lives through improved sight, and to protect the health of Canadians eyes, including from COVID-19.



The federal government as well as nineteen hospitals and healthcare organizations throughout Canada have received the equipment. As the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved, so too have the protocols and practices for personal protective equipment (PPE), with a growing focus on eye protection. We encourage everyone to take the necessary steps to ensure their safety and the safety of those around them. Our teams are doing their best to support frontline workers by providing safety glasses and goggles and raising awareness throughout our industry of good practices to stop the spread of the virus.

As a responsible organization, we remain committed to working with stakeholders to support efforts to battle this pandemic, says Christophe Perreault, President of Essilor Canada and chair of EVFC. During these unprecedented times, we have created assistance programs and training initiatives to help our partners within the industry cope and recover. Weve also provided prescription eye protection to those treating patients and provided essential services through our national network of laboratories.

Essilor Vision Foundation Canada wished to help our country through this pandemic with what it does best, protect, correct and enhance the vision, and thus the lives of Canadians, says Simon Robert, Executive director of Essilor Vision Foundation Canada. It is thanks to partnerships with amazing eyecare professionals that we are able to provide the tools they need to help people see more, be more and live life to its fullest.

Story continues

About Essilor Vision Foundation Canada

A Canadian charity since 2016 (813857794 RR 0001), Essilor Vision Foundation Canada is the philanthropic arm of Essilors mission and focuses on eliminating poor vision and its lifelong consequences and providing underprivileged people the opportunity to learn, to work, to express themselves and to fulfill their potential.

About Essilor Canada

Canadians have visual needs that impact their lives, their ability to learn, their development, health and safety. We believe that everyone has the right to good vision. This is why our mission of improving lives by improving sight drives everything we do. Essilor Canada designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of lens, distributed through eyecare professionals, to correct and protect vision, as well as prevent visual health issues. Canadians can entrust their vision to Essilor brands such as Varilux, Eyezen, Crizal, Xperio and Transitions.

CONTACT : Lina Betancout, Head of Communications Essilor Canada lbetancourt@essilor.ca

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1746fe64-3f9a-4666-9f8e-3d99c714329e

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0588ca9f-f055-4230-8da0-7f5b5ea4ee15




The request came from one resident after another: decrease funding recommended for the Worcester Police Department for Fiscal 2021 and instead divert those dollars to the citys public health, public schools and other services.

Dozens of people spoke for more than three hours during the Worcester City Council meeting Tuesday night, asking the council to reconsider the $254,320 increase for the police department, bringing the departments budget for Fiscal 2021 to a total of $52,766,614.

Tonight we are at the crossroads of historical revolution and it is your chance right now to choose where the city of Worcester will stand," Abdullah Kazi told the council, which held its meeting virtually amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Discussion around the police budget comes as the country has seen protests and demands for justice in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A video showed a now-former police officer kneeling on Floyds neck for nearly 9 minutes as Floyd cried out that he could not breathe. Floyd was black and the officer, Derek Chauvin, is white.

Chauvin and three other former officers involved in the arrest are now facing charges.

Similar calls to defund police departments and reallocate those funds to communities and social services have occurred in cities across the country. In Minnesota, the city council intends to dismantle the citys police department and to recreate systems of public safety.

Gordon Davis, speaking for the Worcester branch of the NAACP, said he would like the city to release a report on the use of body cameras by police (the department had a pilot program last year), complaints against officers and clarify whether chokeholds are forbidden in police department policy.

We want to know if theres one officer who has 18 complaints against them, Davis said.

When the meeting started at 6:30 p.m., at least 148 people were on the call-in line waiting to speak. The council voted unanimously to suspend the rule limiting public comment to 30 minutes so that as many residents as possible could address the council. Shortly after 9 p.m., speakers continued to address the council.

Worcesters Fiscal 2021 budget has $163.2 million in city operations, 32% of which goes to the Worcester Police Department, the highest allocation of the budget.

Numerous speakers said they feel the police department has not demonstrated that it can keep city residents safe after seeing videos of officers in riot gear in Main South. Instead of increasing the police budget, residents said they wanted more services in the Worcester Public Schools, increased public health services, more affordable housing, and measures to address climate change, among other ideas.

I see many public health and social programs that could completely be changed by this amount of money especially as police brutality and deaths from COVID-19 creates an unprecedented amount of trauma in this county, Andrew Nickerson said. This money would not go to equipment and weapons when it could go to social and mental health and special education programs.

In particular, many suggested that the funding could be used to secure more personal protective equipment during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Alice Dillon offered a suggestion to take the funds and amplify local black readers and writers and offer paid internships to Worcester youth who want to learn from librarians.

Councilors, mayor, city manager, you all have the power to fund incredible opportunities that enrich the youth of Worcester instead of sending them to jail, Dillon said.

Several residents who spoke during the meeting called for an independent investigation of actions by Worcester police on June 1. Following a peaceful protest demanding justice for Floyd and other black people who have died in police custody, a smaller group continued marching in the citys Main South neighborhood.

Police arrived in riot gear, telling the crowd to disperse. There were a few small fires, fireworks and other destruction. Nineteen people were arrested, including four Clark University students. Clark University has hired a Worcester law firm to conduct an independent review of the incident.

Selina Gallo-Cruz told officers that since the incident, her 9-year-old son has been afraid to go by his school in Main South. She said she heard her son on a virtual playdate express concern about being beaten or shot by police when he grows up.

I just want us to all to ask what kind of world were raising our children in here, Gallo-Cruz said.

Alex Rothfelder reminded the council that this conversation is happening because of the deaths of black people, naming Floyd as well as Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

I remember in 2015, Gerald Jones, a black man, was viciously beaten by a Worcester police officer while handcuffed in police custody, Rothfelder said. In 2017, former officer Michael Motyka was found guilty one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in the attack on Jones and was sentenced to two years probation.

As we engage in this movement of defunding the police, were hearing more and more of these stories of black and brown people who have had traumatic and inhumane experiences with the Worcester police and police elsewhere, Rothfelder said. For you to do nothing is to ignore a lot of the suppression.

Several residents criticized Councilor Kate Toomey, the councils chair of public safety, for her support of the police department following the incident on June 1.

We are not exempt from police brutality just because we are a left-leaning city, Angie Giorgio said.

In addition to the Fiscal 2021 funding, the council agenda included a petition from resident Douglas Arbetter to immediately cease the allocation of money used to purchase future Military-grade weapons and gear for the Worcester Police Department and immediately prohibit the use of already purchased military-grade equipment. Further, request police officers be prohibited from covering their badge numbers at any time, in any way.

Ahead of the public comment period, Arbetter addressed the council, saying the issue was not about being punitive against the police, but rather investing in social change.

This conversation that we want to have is about how the institution of public safety should function in our society," Arbetter. "It does not make you anti-police to believe that police officers are not mental health counselors and therefore we should not be allocating money for them to act as such. It does not make you anti-police to believe that police officers are not social workers and therefore we should not be allocated money to act as such.

Arbetter said it was not anti-police to then redirect funding to trained professionals and institutions.

If we care about our community, if we believe that black lives matter, then we need to treat the issue of systemic racism as a public health issue and not play political games, Arbetter said.

Mayor Joseph Petty, ahead of the public comment period, said he knew people in the city were hurting, in particular, Worcesters African-American community.

This will not be the end of our discussion, he said.

Some residents warned the council that if no action was taken councilors would be voted out of their seats.

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TOKYO, June 10, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu Limited, Palantir Technologies Japan (Palantir Japan), and Palantir Technologies Inc. (Palantir') announced an agreement that the three companies have formed a strategic partnership to bring world-class technology to the Japanese market and accelerate Japan's Digital Transformation (DX) initiatives.As part of this agreement, Fujitsu CEO Takahito Tokita and Palantir Japan CEO Koichi Narasaki announced that Fujitsu will become Palantir Japan's sole Flagship Technology Partner in Japan and sell its DX Services to complement Palantir's leading software platforms.Fujitsu has also invested $50 million USD into Palantir Technologies Inc. as a strategic investment to demonstrate its commitment to the partnership, as well as its aim to become a dominant player in the rapidly growing big data analysis market. As part of their new strategic partnership, Palantir, Palantir Japan, and Fujitsu will deliver their technologies and experience to various industries and customers throughout Japan.By combining Palantir's powerful platforms and success across industries with Fujitsu's information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities and extensive experience supporting customers in their DX journeys, the partners will enable Japanese customers to achieve transformational outcomes against their core missions. Fujitsu's experience working with all branches of the Japanese government and commercial institutions will provide the partners with an added layer of regional expertise. "I am confident that our partnership with Palantir will offer customers in Japan the chance to accelerate their digital transformation journeys, while simultaneously strengthening our own DX initiatives within Fujitsu," commented Takahito Tokita, CEO and CDXO of Fujitsu Limited."We face a rapidly changing and increasingly uncertain world. With Palantir's extensive track record in solving complex challenges and our own robust customer base and wide-ranging industry expertise, we will offer solutions that embody Fujitsu's purpose-driven mission and endeavor together to deliver new value to our customers in Japan."As the leading Japanese ICT company, Fujitsu recognizes the power of Palantir's technology and is deploying it internally to transform its operations, and propel its own success. In the future, Fujitsu will continue to strive to resolve customers' management issues, while deploying a data platform service that contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by tackling a variety of social challenges relating to smart cities and disaster prevention and mitigation. Fujitsu's partnership with Palantir Japan demonstrates its ongoing commitment to leveraging world-class technology while promoting sustainable DX for its customers."Since the establishment of Palantir Japan in November 2019, we have been working on supporting digital transformation of Japanese companies and society through the best of Silicon Valley technology," said Koichi Narasaki, CEO of the company. "Our role of promoting digital transformation through Palantir software platforms has become even greater through the global COVID-19 pandemic, and it is with pleasure that we welcome Fujitsu as our Flagship Technology Partner in this critical time. Palantir Japan aims to promote our cutting-edge technology by cooperating with partners like Fujitsu to accelerate digital transformation for the most important institutions and in Japanese society as a whole."Palantir Japan was co-founded by Palantir Technologies Inc. and Sompo Holdings Inc. Palantir Japan unites Sompo's mission of creating a "theme park for security, health, and wellbeing" with Palantir's mission of providing global institutions with a modern operating system that enhances security, privacy, and civil liberties. By combining the strengths of Sompo and Palantir, Palantir Japan promotes the security, health, and wellbeing of Japanese society through its work with customers across government and commercial sectors."We founded Palantir to support democratic governments around the world, including the United States and its allies abroad, particularly in times of crisis," said Alexander Karp, co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc. "The partnership with Fujitsu further reflects our commitment to Japan -- to ensuring that the country's leading commercial institutions and government agencies have the software they need to do their jobs, whether it is responding to a public health crisis or defending the nation."About FujitsuFujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 130,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.9 trillion yen (US$35 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.About Palantir Technologies Japan K.K.Co-founded by Sompo Holdings Inc. and Palantir Technologies Inc., Palantir Japan enables the digital transformation of Japanese government and commercial institutions by providing the Palantir Gotham and Palantir Foundry platforms and enabling the security of real operational data. For more information, please see https://www.palantir.com/jp/palantir-foundry/impact/.About Palantir Technologies Inc.Palantir Technologies Inc. provides technology and services that build enterprise data platforms for organizations with highly complex and sensitive data environments. From building safer cars and planes, to discovering new drugs and combating terrorism, Palantir helps its customers across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors transform the way they use their data. For more information, please see https://www.palantir.com or email media@palantir.com.Source: Fujitsu LtdCopyright 2020 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Scorpio Gold Corporation ("Scorpio Gold" or the "Company") (SGN.V) is pleased to announce the engagement of Artemis Capital Advisors LLC ("Artemis") as the Company's financial advisor in connection with securing term financing in support of development of the Company's Mineral Ridge gold project, located near Silver Peak, Nevada.

The Company is advancing the brownfield development of Mineral Ridge and intends to reprocess existing heap leach material followed by extraction of fresh, hard rock ore; construct a mill utilizing the carbon-in-leach metallurgical recovery process; and implement a dry stack tailings storage facility, while taking advantage of substantial existing infrastructure at site (see April 22, 2020 news release). Together these development steps would both expand Mineral Ridge throughput capacity and extend its mine life.

Concurrently the Company plans to expand our exploration programs to include the North Springs and Orleans properties within the Mineral Ridge project. A mapping and sampling program is ongoing and will identify targets for a later drill program.

In its capacity as financial advisor to the Company for the Mineral Ridge project, Artemis will assist the Company in identifying and evaluating alternative sources of term financing such as capital markets, private equity firms, commodity-linked structures, including any financing proposals which the Company may already have received; advising on structuring, sourcing and reviewing financing proposals; and support of the Company in negotiating the financial aspects of a transaction.

Artemis is a New York-based financial advisory practice providing corporate and project finance advice on a full range of strategic and financial matters tailored to clients in the mining industry. Artemis is composed of a team with over 45 years of collective mining investment banking experience and commodity markets expertise, having executed transactions with a combined value of over $4 billion. https://www.artemis.llc.

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About Scorpio Gold

Scorpio Gold holds a 100% interest in the Mineral Ridge gold mining operation located in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Mineral Ridge is a conventional open pit mining and heap leach operation. Mining at Mineral Ridge was suspended in November 2017; however, the Company continues to generate limited revenues from residual but diminishing recoveries from the leach pads. Scorpio Gold also holds a 100% interest in the advanced exploration-stage Goldwedge property in Manhattan, Nevada with a fully permitted underground mine and 400 ton per day mill facility. The Company recently signed a toll-milling agreement with Lode-Star Mining Inc. for processing of its ore at the Goldwedge facility.

Scorpio Gold's Chairman, Peter J. Hawley, P.Geo., is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has verified, reviewed and approved the technical content of this release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

SCORPIO GOLD CORPORATION

Brian Lock,

Chief Executive Officer

For further information contact:

Brian Lock, CEO

Tel: (604) 889-2543

Email: block@scorpiogold.com

Website: www.scorpiogold.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement

The Company relies on litigation protection for "forward-looking" statements. This news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on the Company's current expectations and estimates. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "suggest", "indicate" and other similar words or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur, and include, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's plans to seek and obtain sufficient financing to improve its financial position and to construct a new processing facility at Mineral Ridge, plans to re-commence mining operations and to plans with respect to the development and exploitation of its Mineral Ridge mine, including any forecasts regarding future production or costs related thereto. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results implied or expressed in such forward-looking statements, including risks relating to operation of a gold mine, including the availability of cash flows or financing to meet the Company's ongoing financial obligations; unanticipated changes in the mineral content of materials being mined; unanticipated changes in recovery rates; changes in project parameters; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; availability of skilled labour and the impact of labour disputes; obtaining the required permits to expand and extend mining activities; delays in obtaining governmental approvals; changes in metals prices; unanticipated changes in key management personnel; changes in general economic conditions; other risks of mining. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Forward-looking statements are not guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty thereof.

SOURCE: Scorpio Gold Corporation





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/593348/Scorpio-Gold-Engages-Artemis-Capital-Advisors-LLC




Professional advisors attend an NSSA Social Security education certification course. (Oak Tree Communications Photo) We understand that this is a difficult time, as many advisors have experienced a reduction in revenues and profits... But this is also a great time for advisors to learn about Social Security in anticipation of the economy opening up later in 2020.

Premier Social Security Consulting of Cincinnati, which teaches the National Social Security Advisor (NSSA) program to professional advisors nationwide, will offer online instruction only during the coronavirus outbreak.

Social Security offices nationwide have closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which makes the need for qualified advisors who know the Social Security program more valuable than ever, said Marc Kiner, partner at Premier. We hope to resume our live NSSA classes later in 2020, but in the meantime, were offering only live webinars and taped, on-demand videos. The education is the same, regardless of educational format.

Kiner said he and Premier partner Jim Blair enjoy teaching the National Social Security Advisor (NSSA) program in person because a live classroom setting is socially interactive and builds relationships. Still, they recognize that to help flatten the COVID-19 transmission curve, online learning is the right course for them and clients who may have connections to the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.

We pay attention to the details of the coronavirus situation, just as we pay attention to the details of the Social Security retirement program, said Kiner. Understanding Social Security is especially important for advisors in order for them to understand client issues and questions, as well as to help clients maximize Social Security income. Dedicate yourself now to learning about Social Security so you can ask clients to call you with their questions and help them with their Social Security strategies. A little work now will help advisors come out of the pandemic sprinting, not walking.

There are 76 million baby boomers in the U.S. today, and each day 10,000 of them turn 65 years old. The Full Retirement Age (FRA) for workers to access Social Security income is between 66 and 67 years old.

Each client is unique, said Kiner. Advisors must understand the questions and issues related to each and every client. Dont wait until the economy recovers and you are super busy. Prepare now for the many questions you will receive from clients about Social Security.

Kiner, a 35-year public accountant and entrepreneur who sold his accounting firm to form Premier, and business partner Blair, a 35-year employee of the Social Security Administration and a former SSA office manager, coined the phrase Situational Social Security because each worker in the U.S. has a unique Social Security situation.

Whether a person is single, married, divorced, a surviving spouse, has children, or is a public employee should help dictate your Social Security strategy, said Blair. Workers born before June 1, 1954 are in a slightly different category than younger workers with an FRA of between 66 and 67 years old. Smart advisors will get ahead of the Social Security learning curve so they can help clients maximize Social Security income by becoming qualified and competent advisors.

Ninety percent of American workers do not maximize benefits when claiming Social Security, which can mean leaving up to $200,000 on the table during retirements that can last 20 years or longer.

Thats a big chunk of money that could provide for long-term, health care expenses for yourself or loved one as you age, said Blair.

The NSSA curriculum covers Social Security from A to Z and emphasizes Situational Social Security. At the end of the class, advisors will understand the issues and questions related to each of their clients, said Kiner.

NSSA certification program accreditation is provided by the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE) in Washington, D.C. Tuition for the NSSA Certificate Program is $695 and includes the education, certificate in all instances after passing the assessment, and Gold Standard of Support. Support includes monthly webinars with personal counsel on Social Security questions from Kiner and Blair.

We understand that this is a difficult time, as many advisors have experienced a reduction in revenues and profits, said Blair. But this is also a great time for advisors to learn about Social Security in anticipation of the economy opening up later in 2020.

Were offering two incentives to advisors due to the difficult times we have encountered, said Kiner. We have a $50 discount by using discount code covid19 and a payment plan (discount code: paymentplan) that allows for a payment of 25 percent at registration and 75 percent payment in six months."

For more information about the NSSA program, contact Kiner at (513) 218-8505 or by e-mail at mkiner@mypremierplan.com. Visit http://www.premiernssa.com to register.

Contact: Marc Kiner

Email: mkiner@mypremierplan.com

Phone: (513) 247-0526

About Premier Social Security Consulting:

Premier Social Security Consulting, LLC of Cincinnati educates professional advisors nationwide on the national Social Security program so they can counsel their clients on how to maximize Social Security income. Premier partners Marc Kiner and Jim Blair teach the NSSA certificate program.

About the National Social Security Advisor program:

Marc Kiner and Jim Blair are partners at Premier Social Security Consulting of Cincinnati, which teaches the National Social Security Advisor (NSSA) certificate program. NSSA is the nations only accredited Social Security education certificate program.
Veteran Ghanaian rapper, Reggie Rockstone has blasted Ghanaians for their apathy and lack of support towards music arts in the country.



According to Reggie Rockstone, affectionately called ''grandpapa of Hiplife'', many Ghanaian music lovers tend not to appreciate their own music talents and rather hail Nigerian musicians over Ghanaian musicians.



Dancehall artistes Shatta Wale and Stonebwoy have had beautiful collaborations with great foreign music talents like American music superstars Beyonce and Keri Hilson respectively, but it appears they're not getting the buzz they expect from music lovers in the country.



Stonebwoy, in particular, has had to go an extra mile to promote his sound tracks.



The enthusiasm surrounding the work that these musicians and others in the country have done is not as profound as the euphoria that accompanies Nigerian arts.



Recently, there were talks about Nigerian music star Davido to feature American rapper Nicki Minaj and as expected, a lot of Ghanaian music lovers didn't disappoint at all as they used their social media platforms to throw a spotlight on the collaboration, sending their congratulatory messages.



The exuberance to which the country's music fanatics give to Nigerian music is one of the headaches of Hiplife legend, Reggie Rockstone.



Juxtaposing the interest and support of Ghanaian music lovers towards local music and Nigerian music, Reggie Rockstone wasn't impressed by the attitude of Ghanaians.



He believes Ghanaians are an epitome of the biblical quote ''a prophet has no honor in his own country''.



Reggie Rockstone, speaking in an interview with Nkonkonsa.com, called on Ghanaians to show a higher level of patroitism for Ghana's music industry by patronizing and pushing the brand and works of the country's musicians.



''Ghanaians have adopted the Jesus syndrome a little bit too much...With Nigeria, Nigeria has a serious level of patriotism. Their level of patriotism is unrivaled. Look, let me give you an example. A few years ago, if you spoke about Nigeria, it was about 419. It was synonymous with 419 but look at what Afro Beats did. It's done a PR job for them. Now, when you mention Nigeria, they're talking about Afro Beats...So, Ghanaians are what we call in New York; dick riders!...They're not gonna do for themselves but they wanna talk about the next person'', he stressed.



Watch his full interview below:





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.

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BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks fell slightly on Wednesday after the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecast the global economy would contract 6.0 percent this year before bouncing back with 5.2 percent growth in 2021.



As the threat of a second wave of contagion keeps uncertainty high, OECD chief economist Laurence Boone wrote in an introduction to the refreshed outlook that now was no time to fan the flames of trade tensions and governments should cooperate on a treatment and vaccine for the virus.



Investors also looked ahead to comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the central bank's economic forecasts later in the day.



The pan European Stoxx 600 slipped 0.2 percent to 368.75 after declining 1.2 percent in the previous session.



The German DAX dropped 0.4 percent, France's CAC 40 index slid 0.1 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was down 0.2 percent.



Banks were moving higher after Reuters reported that the European Central Bank is drawing up a 'bad bank' scheme to cope with potentially hundreds of billions of euros of unpaid loans due to the coronavirus crisis.



Airbus SE rose over 1 percent after the French government unveiled a 15 billion ($17 billion) support plan for the aerospace industry.



Spanish fashion retailer Inditex rose nearly 3 percent. After booking its first ever loss in a quarter due to the pandemic, the company said that trends were improving in May.



HSBC Holdings declined 1.7 percent after U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo criticized the bank for backing China's move to impose national security legislation in Hong Kong.



Paragon Banking Group dropped 1.4 percent after its first-half profit before tax fell 20.7 percent to 57.1 million pounds from last year's 72.0 million pounds.



Shaftesbury slumped 4.6 percent as the real estate investment trust reported a loss before tax of 287.6 million pounds for the 6 months ended 31 March 2020 compared to profit of 38.7 million pounds, prior year.



Hornbach Holding AG & Co. KGaA Group surged 6.3 percent after reporting substantial sales and earnings growth in the first quarter of 2020/21.



In economic news, French industrial production dropped 20.1 percent from March, when output was down 16.2 percent, data from the statistical office Insee showed. Economists had forecast a monthly fall of 20 percent in April.



Similarly, manufacturing output decreased 21.9 percent on a monthly basis after easing 18.3 percent in March.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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One of the brothers of George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis sparked protests around the world, is due to speak to a Democratic-led congressional panel on Wednesday as lawmakers take on the twin issues of police violence and racial injustice.

Philonise Floyd, 42, of Missouri City, Texas, near Houston, will testify before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, along with family attorney Ben Crump and 10 others at the first congressional hearing to examine the social and political undercurrents that have fuelled weeks of protests nationwide and overseas.

George Floyds death on May 25 after a policeman knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes was the latest in a string of killings of African-American men and women by police that have sparked anger on Americas streets and fresh calls for reforms.

For every incident of excessive force that makes headlines, the ugly truth is that there are countless others that we never hear about, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said this week. This is a systemic problem that requires a comprehensive solution.

The Judiciary panel is preparing to shepherd a sweeping package of legislation, aimed at combating police violence and racial injustice, to the House floor by July 4, and is expected to hold further hearings next week to prepare the bill for a full House vote.

Other witnesses include NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill and Pastor Darrell Scott, a member of Republican President Donald Trumps National Diversity Coalition.

The hearing will also provide a platform for House Republicans, who have responded to protests by underscoring their support for police and accusing Democrats of wanting to cut off police funding, which top Democrats oppose.

Where you demonize the police, they stop engaging with the community. If we stand with the police, it will be better for all Americans, Representative Matt Gaetz, a House Judiciary Republican, tweeted on Tuesday.
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There are over 798 containment zones in Mumbai and over 4,538 buildings have been sealed in the city, according to latest data released by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The number of containment zones are lower compared to those that were notified earlier. According to an earlier update released by the BMC, there were over 2,000 containment zones in the city.

Follow our LIVE Updates here.

According to the civic body's guidelines, a containment zone is set up after a number of cases are found in a particular area. The civic body then shuts down shops and movement from the area. However, when a building is sealed, the civic body closes down only a small portion of the complex, more often than not the floor where the positive case has been found.

R-North ward (Dahisar) has the most amount of containment zones at 116, followed closely by L ward, which comprises of Kurla region and has 115 containment zones. In terms of the residential buildings sealed, F-North (Matunga) ward has the most number of buildings sealed at 443, followed by R-Central ward (Borivali west) at 373.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

BMC has also released ward-wise growth rate of new cases, with P-North ward, covering Malad, registering a growth of 5.9 percent. According to reports, the doubling rate in Malad has been 11 days, as opposed to the rest of the city, where the doubling rate has now improved to 23 days.

Meanwhile, Dharavi, a COVID-19 hotspot in Mumbai, reported 11 new cases and no deaths on June 10. The total cases in Dharavi, one of the most congested regions in the world, have risen to 1,964 while the total number of deaths stand at 73.

Officials from the city's civic body have claimed that the infection rate in Dharavi seems to be slowing down, and that the authorities have managed to flatten the curve in the region.

Follow our coverage of the coronavirus crisis
UC Riverside has entered into a $2.25 million partnership with Spain-based Eurosemillas S.A., a global leader in the commercialization of agriculture innovations, to help the university bring to market the most promising and advanced avocado scions and rootstocks in its collection.

If successful, these varieties would meet diverse regional growing requirements, exhibit better post-harvest characteristics, increase yields, provide resistance against disease, and expand consumer market diversity.

"Eurosemillas has successfully commercialized citrus varieties developed at UC Riverside in the past. They have the global network and expertise to do the same with the next generation of avocados," said Brian Suh, director of technology commercialization in the Office of Technology Partnerships at UC Riverside, who worked with a team on this initiative for the past four years.

Eurosemillas will obtain access to a small subset of the overall university avocado variety and rootstock collection for evaluation and testing on various continents to see if they perform as well as they do in California. At the same time, they will forge partnerships for commercialization that could lead to global market penetration of some of these selections.

"After 31 years of working with UC on many other crops, we are delighted to partner with UCR again in a new product like avocado," said Javier Cano Pecci, Chief Executive and Development Officer of Eurosemillas. "The avocado market is growing and is currently dominated by the Hass variety. This is a great opportunity for growers, marketers, retailers, and consumers to have options and diversify to include better avocado varieties and rootstocks adapted to their regions."

UC Riverside's 70-year old avocado breeding programs house one of the most elite germplasm collections of scion and rootstock breeding material in the world. The University of California has partnered with California avocado growers since the inception of the industry a century ago and has had several plant breeders developing new varieties and rootstocks for the industry.

Bob Bergh headed the variety improvement program for nearly 40 years, which released among other varieties, the 'Lamb Hass' and 'GEM.' This program is under the leadership of Mary Lu Arpaia, an extension horticulturist. The goal of the variety breeding program is to develop trees with high eating and market quality while increasing yield efficiency.

Arpaia said for the California industry to remain viable, growers must have new varieties that yield more than Hass, are more tolerant to environmental stress, and can be produced reliably under high-density planting systems.

"I am delighted by this partnership with Eurosemillas since it will help UC take this vision for the future toward reality," Arpaia said.

The variety improvement program has four selections being readied for release that can augment the 'Hass' variety in terms of seasonality and have potential for expanded environmental adaptation within California.

The rootstock breeding program was started in the 1940s by George Zentmyer and is currently directed by Patricia Manosalva, an assistant professor of plant pathology at UCR. The UCR Rootstock Breeding Program is one of the few well-recognized rootstock breeding programs worldwide and has been historically funded by the California industry through the California Avocado Commission. The main goal of the rootstock program is to develop and release the next generation of rootstocks that meet the most pressing needs of growers using traditional breeding complemented with genomic-assisted breeding approaches.

The program is selecting rootstocks that can resist Phytophthora root rot, the most common avocado disease worldwide, as well as salinity, drought, and heat, all of which are expected to become worse as the climate warms. In collaboration with the California Avocado Commission, five UC Riverside advanced rootstocks exhibiting resistance to these major challenges are being evaluated by growers throughout California.

"This partnership with Eurosemillas will allow us to test our five advanced rootstocks in combination with 'Hass' and local scions in other countries to determine their potential outside California," Manosalva said.

Peggy Mauk, director of agricultural operations and cooperative extension horticulture specialist, has been active in avocado research and extension for more than two decades. Over the past 25 years, avocado production in California and worldwide has been challenged by declining water quality. Avocado is the most salinity sensitive tree crop and 'Hass' is very susceptible to damage caused by salts. She initiated a program to find rootstocks tolerant to saline water.

"Our UCR team in partnership with Eurosemillas is focused on finding rootstock/scion combinations that increase salinity tolerance," Mauk said.

Over the last 30 years, the avocado market has increased 2.5-fold and per capita consumption has quadrupled, generating interest in avocado production in many other countries, Manosalva said. But diseases, climate change, and the worldwide market's dependence on the Hass variety threaten this burgeoning market.

"The funding from Eurosemillas will allow UC Riverside to maintain the plant material and support and complement the current California Avocado Commission funding of the avocado scion and rootstock breeding programs, respectively, which have significant value given their uniqueness," said Kathryn Uhrich, dean of UC Riverside's College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

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The Ontario outbreak has centred on farms in Canadas Windsor-Essex region, across from its border with the US.

Ontario has started testing about 8,000 migrant farmworkers for COVID-19 in a hard-hit rural region of the province after two young workers died and the coronavirus was found on at least 17 farms, according to the local public health authority.

The Ontario outbreak has centred on farms in the Windsor-Essex region, across from the Michigan border. Canadian farmers rely on 60,000 temporary foreign workers predominantly from Latin America and the Caribbean to plant and harvest crops.

Two workers from Mexico, aged 24 and 31, have died in recent days after contracting the virus. The provincial coroner is investigating the death of the 31-year-old worker.

Nurses, doctors and paramedics, including home care nurses who speak Spanish, are going to farms to check on sick workers and ensure exposure to the virus is contained, said Erie Shores hospital chief of staff Ross Moncur.

The impact on the individuals has been more severe than we would have anticipated, he said. Going into this, we would have said, temporary foreign workers are young, healthy, folks in general  but weve seen some severe cases.

About 200 farmworkers have tested positive for the coronavirus, said Wajid Ahmed, medical officer of health for Windsor-Essex.

A man delivers groceries to migrant workers from Mexico to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during a mandatory 14-day quarantine after arriving at Mayfair Farms in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada [File: Shannon VanRae/Reuters]

Were dealing with an emergency, said Ahmed, whose unit is considering a new binding order to improve worker accommodations.

The order could limit the number of people who can isolate together, require employers to make it easier for public health to reach workers, and set standards for food in isolation.

Moncur said transportation, language and cultural barriers mean workers have not received as much follow-up care as people with COVID-19 usually would in Canada.

Farm workers, who often live in bunkhouses, are entitled to healthcare in Canada.

Bunkhouses on farms for migrant workers are, relative to other things in Canada, very crowded spaces, in which transmission is very easy, said Allison McGeer, an infectious disease expert from Torontos Mount Sinai hospital.

Public health advocates had warned that shared housing could put workers in danger.

Scotlynn Group, a fruit and vegetable farm in Norfolk, another rural area with a large migrant worker population, has reported 164 cases  two severe enough to require hospitalisation  among 216 migrant workers.

The farm has been working closely with local health authorities.

Its been difficult to keep the operation going, and to see our men infected with this virus. Its been rattling, Scotlynn Group owner Scott Biddle told Reuters.

Ministry of Labour data requested by Reuters showed that Scotlynn Group was the subject of a complaint about a lack of COVID-19 measures one week before its first reported case on June 2. It declined to give further details.

Biddle said the ministry has visited the farm twice and did not find any problems.
The majority of Indigenous students attend school for an average of just over four days a week, and the attendance gap is growing.

The average attendance rate for Indigenous students was 81.5 per cent last year, compared with 92 per cent for non-Indigenous students  a 10.5-percentage-point gap that has risen from 9.7 points in 2014.

More than 62 per cent of Indigenous Australians attended years 10 to 12 in 2018, compared with almost 84 per cent of non-Indigenous students. Credit:Angela Wylie

And the National Report on Schooling in Australia showed more than 62 per cent of Indigenous Australians attended years 10 to 12 in 2018, compared with almost 84 per cent of non-Indigenous students.

Indigenous education expert Melitta Hogarth said the figures were not surprising.
PITTSBURGH, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael Baker International, a global leader in engineering, planning and consulting services celebrating 80 Years of Making a Difference, has been named the 2020 Employer of the Year by WTS International. The Employer of the Year is awarded to organizations for their commitment to strengthening the transportation industry through recruiting, retaining and advancing women within the industry, providing career development and opportunities for professional growth within their organization and supporting WTS at local and national levels.

WTS recognized Michael Baker for encouraging and participating in the advancement of women in transportation through student internship and shadowing opportunities, project management and leadership training programs and career development including financial assistance for license registrations, professional certifications, conference participation and tuition reimbursement. The firm was acknowledged for understanding the importance of having a diverse and innovative workforce at all employment levels comprised of diverse backgrounds, passions, experiences and capabilities and has partnered with organizations such as WTS to attract outstanding talent through meaningful performance-based rewards and exceptional development and growth opportunities. Additionally, women serve in all levels of leadership at Michael Baker, including the firm's Board of Directors, Executive Leadership Team and Regional Management.

"Michael Baker International is honored to receive this prestigious recognition from WTS and is extremely proud of all our employees who made this award possible," said Brian A. Lutes, Chief Executive Officer at Michael Baker. "We remain committed to supporting WTS' mission of advancing both the transportation industry and the professional women who are an integral part of it."

"Michael Baker was nominated by the Northeast Chapter of Ohio for being a strong partner of WTS in many local chapters across North America and as an Advocate Corporate Partner at the International level," said Sara Stickler, WTS International Executive Director. "The firm supports many of its employees to take leadership roles within WTS. Congratulations for the recognition of a firm that wholeheartedly supports the vision and mission of WTS."

With more than 100 active WTS members across the organization, Michael Baker is a strong supporter of WTS at the national and local levels and encourages its employees to host and attend WTS events that add value to the transportation industry. Throughout the country, Michael Baker has also been recognized as the Employer of the Year by WTS Chapters including Greater New York (2006), Atlanta (2007), Colorado (2010), Central PA (2012), Wisconsin (2016) and Northeast Ohio (2020). Michael Baker was previously recognized as the WTS International Employer of the Year in 2012.

Kimberly Guice, P.E., Project Manager  Bridge, in Michael Baker's Cleveland Office was also named the 2020 WTS Member of the Year for her involvement in the organization's Northeast Ohio Chapter and her dedication to fostering the future of the industry through her participation in the Transportation YOU program, an interactive mentoring program that offers young girls an introduction to a wide variety of transportation careers. Ms. Guice has developed several mentoring opportunities over her eight years as Transportation YOU Committee Chair, including partnering with the Cleveland Engineering Society to assist with the Engineering Roadshow program, mentoring students through the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Bridge Building Initiative and helping mentees find funding to support their attendance at the Transportation YOU DC Youth Summit for two consecutive years.

"Kim's commitment to the mission of WTS and the Transportation YOU program is evident by the many mentoring opportunities she has developed over the years," said Malcolm Dougherty, National Practice Executive, Transportation. "I cannot think of a more deserving person for this distinction."

"WTS has been instrumental in growing my career and providing me with multiple opportunities for leadership training, mentorship and growth," said Ms. Guice. "I am truly honored by this recognition and look forward continuing the great work of WTS for generations to come."

Kirsten Bowen, P.E., Regional Transportation Lead, Great Lakes, was previously named the 2016 WTS Member of the Year.

About Michael Baker International

Michael Baker International, celebrating 80 Years of Making a Difference, is a leading provider of engineering and consulting services, including design, planning, architectural, environmental, construction and program management. The company provides its comprehensive range of services and solutions to support U.S. federal, state, and municipal governments, foreign allied governments, and a wide range of commercial clients. Michael Baker's more than 3,000 employees across nearly 100 locations are committed to a culture of innovation, collaboration and technological advancement to help solve challenges for clients and communities throughout the country. To learn more, visit www.mbakerintl.com.

Contact: Julia Covelli

[email protected]

(866) 293-4609

SOURCE Michael Baker International

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WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration will not even consider changing the name of any of the 10 Army bases that are named for Confederate Army officers. Two days earlier, Defense Secretary Mark Esper indicated that he was open to a broad discussion of such changes.

These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom, Trump wrote. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.

Name changes have not been proposed by the Army or the Pentagon, but on Monday, Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy indicated in response to questions from reporters that they were open to a bipartisan discussion of renaming bases such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Benning in Georgia.

MORE: Confederate monuments are being torn down in America

Supporters of disassociating military bases from Confederate Army officers argue that they represent the racism and divisiveness of the Civil War era and glorify men who fought against the United States.

To amplify Trump's view, his press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, read his tweets to reporters in the White House briefing room. She said he is fervently opposed to changing the base names and believes that doing so would amount to complete disrespect for soldiers who trained there over the years.

The possibility of renaming the bases, McEnany said, is an absolute non-starter for Trump.

If Congress were to pass legislation requiring name changes, he would not sign it, she said.

The U.S. military recently began rethinking its traditional connection to Confederate Army symbols, including the Army base names, mindful of their divisiveness at a time the nation is wrestling with questions of race after the death of George Floyd in police hands. The Navy and the Marine Corps are now banning public displays of the Confederate Army battle flag on their installations, casting their decision as necessary to preserve cohesion within the ranks.

Ten major Army installations are named for Confederate Army officers, mostly senior generals, including Robert E. Lee. Among the 10 is Fort Benning, the namesake of Confederate Army Gen. Henry L. Benning, who was a leader of Georgia's secessionist movement and an advocate of preserving slavery. Others are in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana. The naming was done mostly after World War I and in the 1940s, in some cases as gestures of conciliation to the South.

Few voices in the military are openly defending the link to Confederate symbols, but some of the bases named for Confederate officers are legendary in their own right. Fort Bragg, for example, is home to some of the Army's most elite forces. Any decision to change the name at Bragg or other bases likely would involve consulting with officials from the affected states and localities.

Paul Eaton, a retired two-star Army general and a former commanding general of Fort Benning, said Trump's statements go against ideals the Army stands for.

Today, Donald Trump made it official. Rather than move this nation further away from institutionalized racism, he believes we should cling to it and its heritage, by keeping the names of racist traitors on the gates of our military bases, Eaton said.

Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and veteran of the Iraq war, said in an email exchange that renaming these bases is long overdue.

Most serving soldiers know little about the history behind the Confederate leaders for whom these bases are named, or the political deals that caused them to be honored in this fashion, he said. There might be some pushback from a small segment of soldiers from the South, but this is what we like to call a teachable moment. Now is the time to finally bring about a change that will speak volumes as to what the U.S. Army stands for.

David Petraeus, a retired four-star Army general, said the renaming move, which he supports, amounts to a war of memory, and that before deciding to rename bases like Fort Bragg, where he served with the 82nd Airborne Division, the Army must be ready to follow its own procedures for such change.

The irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention," Petraeus wrote in an essay published Tuesday by The Atlantic. Now, belatedly, is the moment for us to pay such attention.

Fort Bragg was named for Braxton Bragg, a native North Carolinian and Confederate general with a reputation for bravery and mediocre leadership. His forces were defeated at the Battle of Chattanooga in November 1863.

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09.06.2020 LISTEN

Mr. Kafui Agbeko, a former North Dayi Constituency Communications Officer of the opposition NDC has described Madam Jean Mensah and Dr. Asare Bossman led EC as bossy and hypocritical.

The full statement below.

The Electoral Commission of Ghana as an official body responsible for all public elections as guaranteed by the 1992 constitution must protect its integrity in order to build confidence among Ghanaians but is that the case with Jean Mensah and Asare Bossman led EC?

Madam Jean Mensah's appointment and occupancy of the office of the Chairman of the EC did not attract much wagging of the tongue and raised eyebrows even though many felt a bit skeptical and uncomfortable.

Observers' fears at the time were minimized somewhat as they felt she was coming from the stock of Civil Society Organization leaders and a key player in Ghana's electoral systems and processes with her Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) organizing debates for presidential hopefuls of Ghana.

It is now clear the removal of Madam Charlotte Osei from office was because of the new register agenda hatched by President Nana Addo and the NPP.

It is strange upon assumption of office, Madam Jean Mensah and Dr. Asare Bossman are dismantling the structures they solicited respect for in the past.

As a camouflage, they assembled dignified persons of high moral and social standing as Eminent Advisory Committee for advisory or whatever purpose one knows not. Soon afterward, this Eminent Advisory Committee (EAC) constituted and inaugurated by this same EC has abandoned and disregarded it.

It is evident that the boss in the bossy Jean Mensah and Bossman detests hearing advice.

Are they possessed by "Gbeshie" or an uncontrollable spirit? It is obvious the "spirit" must have been induced by the powerful hand pushing them in a blindfolded manner.

IPAC has functioned so well in the past, but in recent times under her bossy leadership, is it no longer a platform for sharing ideas.

Madam Jean Mensah has turned IPAC into an announcing forum.

Their attempt to exclude the current Voter's ID card from their unnecessary compilation of entirely new voters register is just a way of trying to disenfranchise people in the strongholds of the NDC because they are aware the grounds are not good for President Nana Addo.

They kept on shifting the goal post because their argument for such a dubious agenda is not resonating with the citizenry.

It is also very shocking the bossy bosses have not learned lessons from how the partial lockdown was poorly implemented.

The same thing will be happening during their impending needless mass registration which will further spread COVID-19.

The current posture by Madam Jean Mensah is a sign of insensitivity to the plight of Ghanaians.

It is extremely absurd they are not ready to listen to wisdom from the general public on this important subject matter.

Their decision to go ahead with the mass registration is nothing but a means of spreading the COVID-19 pandemic the more.

It is, therefore, necessary for the Bossy Mensah-Bossman led EC to heed to the advice and depart from the stubbornly arrogant intransigent and belligerent attitude.

Jean Mensah should now practice what she preached as the Boss of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and Mr. Bossman should practicalize the political science theories and stop displaying hypocrisy.

God help our homeland Ghana.
Superstar Amitabh Bachchan has arranged charter flights for over 500 workers. The actor had earlier arranged buses for migrants who were stuck in Maharashtra.

According to a Times Of India report, Bachchan has arranged for two charter flights each for Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. Each flight would carry 180 migrant workers and will operate on June 11 and 12.

Rajesh Yadav, MD of Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd (ABCL) said that the actor asked him to arrange chartered flights as he did not want them to lose hope after they were told that they could go home. According to the daily, the migrants were supposed to be sent home by trains but could not due to some technical issue. Hence, Bachchan arranged for chartered flights.

Bachchan's team has also distributed ration packets, donated PPE kits, sanitisers to hospitals and police stations in Mumbai.

Not only Bachchan, actor Sonu Sood has garnered a lot of praise for sending migrants home through buses and flights. Sood has been making headlines as thankful migrant workers swarmed his social media with messages of gratitude. Actor Swara Bhasker had also arranged for transport for migrant workers.

Also Read: Coronavirus treatment cost: Tamil Nadu hospitals can't charge above Rs 15,000 a day

Also Read: Vizag gas leak: Andhra govt forms committee to probe incident; seeks report by June 22
As gallivanting came to a screech earlier this year, dire predictions were made. From travel will never be the same again to normality wont resume for at least three years its all been said.

While were still waiting to see which predictions will come true, of late we have seen a tentative return to normality.

This has involved an extension of Emirates flights. As the Dubai-based carrier recently announced, Emirates now offers flights for passengers to 29 destinations including four Australian cities (two of which were previously unserviced).

More flights for passengers will be available from 15th June between Dubai and 16 cities: Brisbane, Perth, Bahrain, Manchester, Zurich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, New York JFK, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Taipei and Hong Kong.

Flights will be available to four Australian cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Travellers flying between Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas, can connect safely and efficiently through Dubai, blurbed the media release.

Importantly, following the UAE Federal Governments announcement to lift restrictions on transit passenger services, from the 15th June Emirates will offer passengers services to 16 more cities on its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, extending its Australian services to Brisbane and Perth (in addition to reinstated services to Sydney and Melbourne).

The only problem is that travel restrictions remain in place at most countries (to which Emirates says customers are reminded to check entry and exit requirements before their journeys).

Emirates also says, Passengers can book to fly between destinations in the Asia Pacific and Europe or the Americas, with a convenient connection in Dubai, as long as they meet travel and immigration entry requirements of their destination country.

The idea being that, working closely with the UAE authorities, Emirates is taking a measured approach to flight resumption and rebuilding connections between Dubai and the world.

Thats all well and good. But in terms of those whom these resumed routes benefit, in the near term, it remains incredibly limited.

Yes: if you could get there (and perhaps this is a step in that direction), this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see Europe without the crowds (to pick one example).

RELATED: Why Now Could Be The Best Time In History To Visit Europe

But as The Guardian recently reported in the context of Greeces quarantine free offer to Australians, leaving Australia now to holiday, is  at the time of writing  illegal in the eyes of the Australian government.

Plus: thanks to the massive grey area that is insurance right now, even if the Australian government loosens the rule Australians cant leave the country due to COVID 19 regulations, the only Australian travellers who would be able to take advantage of these Emirates flights would be those of the rich, adventurous disposition.

If this sounds like you (or you have an essential reason to travel), here are the full Australian flight details, relating to Emirates latest extensions:

Perth

From 17 June, the inbound service EK420 will depart Dubai at 03:00, arriving in Perth at 17:50. From 18 June, the outbound service EK421 will depart Perth at 22:20, arriving in Dubai at 05:20 the following day.

Brisbane

From 18 June, the inbound service EK430 will depart Dubai at 02:45, arriving in Brisbane at 22:35. From 19 June, the outbound service EK431 will depart Brisbane at 21:00, arriving in Dubai at 05:10 the following day.

Melbourne

The inbound service EK408 departs Dubai at 02:40, arriving in Melbourne at 21:50. The outbound service EK407 departs Melbourne at 21:15, arriving in Dubai at 05:15 the following day. From 17 June, the outbound service will be changed to EK409, departing Melbourne at 21:15, arriving in Dubai at 05:15 the following day.

Sydney

The inbound service EK414 departs Dubai at 02:15, arriving in Sydney at 22:05. The outbound service EK415 departs Sydney at 21:10, arriving in Dubai at 05:40 the following day.

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WASHINGTON - Vice-President Mike Pence will make an appearance at a manufacturing plant near Pittsburgh on Friday as part of a new campaign effort showcasing the nations economy making a comeback.

President Donald Trump had planned to run for reelection on the back of a strong economy, a hope dashed by the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic devastation, including a soaring unemployment rate. But he seized on a better-than-expected jobs report released last week, and his campaign quickly made an ad proclaiming the great American comeback has begun.

That theme will continue Friday on the Great American Comeback Tour, which is being organized by America First Policies, a non-profit associated with the America First Action super PAC supporting Trumps reelection. Other administration officials, including Ivanka Trump and trade adviser Peter Navarro, may appear at the tours later dates.

Officials said the event is just one of the several stops Pence will make in the Pittsburgh area on Friday, including a meeting with faith leaders amid nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyds neck while Floyd was handcuffed and lying on the ground.

Pence has ramped up his travel in recent weeks as the White House projects a return to normalcy even amid rising coronavirus cases in more than a dozen states.

Beginning July 4th weekend, America First Policies plans a multimillion-dollar television and digital ad campaign around the comeback theme.
New York's state legislature has voted to scrap the controversial 50-a law that keeps police disciplinary records secret and passed a bill that bans the use of chokeholds while making arrests after widespread protests against police brutality that were sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

The State Senate passed the bill on Tuesday with a majority of 40-22 and Governor Cuomo says he will sign it into law this week. All the Republicans in the Senate voted against it.

The bill not only repeals 50-a, which means police disciplinary records will become public, but it also bans chokeholds and allows prosecutors to charge cops with a Class C felony if they cause serious injury or death while putting someone in a chokehold.

Mayor Bill de Blasio touted the move on Wednesday as a 'historical, watershed moment' that leads the charge in national reform on policing.

The 50-a law is what the NYPD cited to keep secret the misconduct records of Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold in 2014

'Now there will be the ability to have the openness and transparency to see what's really going on,' he said.

Police unions have long argued that releasing officers' records would put them at risk of harm. Under the new bill, their phone numbers and addresses will be redacted but details of complaints against them will become public.

The law has existed since the 1970s but was never enforced by the NYPD until 2016, after the 2014 death of Eric Garner who died after being held in a chokehold by Daniel Pantaleo.

It means Pantaleo's record never became public and the outcome of his administrative trial was also shielded from the media and public.

New York Sate Assemblywoman Diana C. Richardson, D-Brooklyn, speaks in favor of new legislation for Police Reform during a Assembly session at the state Capitol Monday, June 8

It is unclear if people will now be able to access historic records, like that of Pantaleo who was fired in August.

New York Senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in a statement: 'The legislation that will be passed over the coming days will help stop bad actors and send a clear message that brutality, racism, and unjustified killings will not be tolerated.'

Police unions are fighting back against the move and say it is further proof that cops are being attacked.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Pat Lynch, the president of the Sergeant's Benevolent Association, fumed at a press conference against the 'rhetoric' politicians were using.

He said cops were being sacrificed while risking their own lives by politicians who were bending to the social movement against police brutality.
[June 10, 2020] PV Nano Cell Signs Agreement with Healthcare Giant to Develop Sensors Digital Printing Solution Using Resistor & Gold Inks

MIGDAL HAEMEK, Israel, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PV Nano Cell Ltd. (OTC: PVNNF), (the Company), an innovative provider of inkjet-based conductive digital printing solutions and producer of conductive digital inks, today announced that it has signed, under NDA, an agreement with a well-known, world-leading multinational healthcare company to develop a new inkjet printing technology for the fabrication of sensors using resistor and gold inks.

As part of the funded project, PV Nano Cell will develop two project-dedicated inks. The first ink is a high resistance ink  resistor ink and the second ink is a gold based ink. After the successful completion of the inks development, PV Nano Cell will develop the printing process technology to allow mass-production inkjet printing of the sensors. The resistor ink is based on PV Nano Cell prior work and knowledge, developing breakthrough materials and process technologies for embedded passive components. PV Nano Cells Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Fernando de la Vega, commented, We are honored to have been selected by this world-renowned multinational company for the project. The technology we are developing is expected to result in a dramatic drop in the current cost of fabricating the sensors. PV Nano Cell is working on further developing and expanding of its technology to print embedded passive components. We have already printed resistors and also capacitors using conductive and dielectric ink and believe this is a strategic development applicable to many markets and applications. As recently announced, sensor solutions provider HENSOLDT together with Printed Electronics (PE) provider, Nano Dimension Ltd., recently succeeded in assembling the world-wide first 10-layer inkjet printed circuit board (PCB). The board carries a high-performance electronic structures soldered to both outer sides. We believe such advancements prove the need and feasibility of embedded passive components. PV Nano Cells Chief of Business Development Officer, Mr. Hanan Markovich commented, The technology we are now developing is expected to have a dramatic impact on the bottom-line cost of production of our partners senors. The development is well on its way and were expecting to meet all milestones as planned. We look forward to finish the development of the two inks and start working on the printing process. During the project, our DemonJet printer will be used to print both the resistor and gold inks. We further plan to use our printer to print dielectric ink as well. Using our 10 channels print head, the DemonJet is capable of printing multiple materials and thus print embedded passive components.



About PV Nano Cell

PV Nano Cell (PVN) offers the first-ever complete solution for mass-produced inkjet based, printed electronics. The proven solution includes PVNs proprietary Sicrys, silver-based conductive inks, inkjet production printers and the complete printing process. The process includes ink properties' optimization, printers parameters setup, printing modifications & tailored printing instructions per application. In the heart of PVNs value proposition lies its unique and patented conductive silver and copper inks - Sicrys. Those are the only inks made of Single Nano Crystals  which allows the inks to have the highest stability and throughput required to drive optimal mass-production results for wide range of applications. PVNs solutions are used all over the world in a range of digital printing applications including: photovoltaics, printed circuit boards, flexible printed circuits, antennas, sensors, heaters, touchscreens and other. For more information, please visit http://www.pvnanocell.com/ Forwardlooking Statements

This press release contains forwardlooking statements. The words or phrases "would be," "will allow," "intends to," "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimate," "project," or similar expressions are intended to identify "forwardlooking statements." All information set forth in this news release, except historical and factual information, represents forwardlooking statements. This includes all statements about the Company's plans, beliefs, estimates and expectations. These statements are based on current estimates and projections, which involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forwardlooking statements. These risks and uncertainties include issues related to: rapidly changing technology and evolving standards in the industries in which the Company operates; the ability to obtain sufficient funding to continue operations, maintain adequate cash flow, profitably exploit new business, and sign new agreements. For a more detailed description of the risks and uncertainties affecting PV Nano Cell, reference is made to the Company's latest Annual Report on Form 20-F which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the other risk factors discussed from time to time by the Company in reports filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. Except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

Emerging Markets Consulting, LLC

Mr. James S. Painter III

President

w: 1 (321) 206-6682

m: 1 (407) 340-0226

f: 1 (352) 429-0691

email: [email protected]

website: www.emergingmarketsllc.com PV Nano Cell Ltd

Dr. Fernando de la Vega

CEO

w: 972 (04) 654-6881

f: 972 (04) 654-6880

email: [email protected]

website: www.pvnanocell.com

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Indonesian media recently reported the bizarre case of a 31-year-old man who married a woman he met online only to find out that she was actually a man two days after their wedding.

The man, identified only as Muh, in order to protect his identity, reportedly met his wife, Mita, on Facebook about a month ago. After getting to know each other and establishing a romantic relationship online, the two decided to meet up in real life as well. They went out for coffee, and the 31-year-old claims that nothing about Mitas appearance and voice felt suspicious. She looked beautiful and graceful, which made him fall in love with her instantly. He was staying up at night thinking about her, and after a few weeks of dating, he called Mita up one day and asked her to marry him.

Mita, I miss you! Lets just get married, Muh told his beloved, and she accepted immediately. Last month, Muh told his family about his plans to get married, and he and his parents visited Mitas house to deliver the dowry, as is customary. The 20 million rupiah ($1,430) offered by his family was considered a considerable dowry.

On the morning of June 2nd, Muh and Mita arrived at the Office of Religious Affairs in Kediri District, Indonesias Central Java, to be wed. Even though the 25-year-old had most of her face covered on the big day, no one thought she looked suspicious, as her face cover was traditional for a bride. Their wedding was attended by religious leaders from around the region, none of which had any suspicions about the brides gender.

Things started going south for the newlywed couple when Muh tried to consummate their marriage on their wedding night, only to be turned down by his young wife. He didnt think too much of it, thinking there was always the following night and every one after that, but when the same thing happened on his next attempt, he began to suspect that something was wrong.

After the third night passed without any action, Muh started doing some investigating, asking around about his wife, and was shocked to learn that Mita was actually a man. As incredible as that was, it made sense, since she had refused to make love to him for three nights straight.

Its not clear how Mita found out that her new husband had learned about her true gender, but when Muh came home to confront her, she had already left. Mad with anger, Muh told his family the truth and immediately divorced his wife. Feeling cheated by the person he had thought his soul mate, he also notified the police about Mitas deception and accused her of being a fraud.

Police quickly found and arrested the 25-year-old, who turned out to be a man named Adi. Its unclear if he will have to face charges, or what punishment he stands to receive.



Interestingly, Muh and Mitas marriage broke the record for the shortest union ever recorded in Indonesias West Lombok region.

Muhs story isnt unique. Earlier this year we featured the very similar of a Ugandan holy man who married a woman who turned out to be a man wearing makeup.

Source: IndoZone
A Dublin man accused of falsely imprisoning, threatening to kill, and sexually assaulting two women in the city centre is facing trial after being extradited from the UK.

Philip Murphy (39) was brought before Dublin District Court yesterday morning after he arrived on a flight from England and was charged on Monday.

Judge Colin Daly remanded him in custody after no bail application was made on his behalf.

Mr Murphy, from Clondalkin but of no fixed address, is charged with false imprisonment, threatening to kill and sexually assaulting named women in two separate attacks on the same day in the north city centre.

Warrants

Both assaults are alleged to have happened on February 25, 2016.

Yesterday morning, Detective Garda Emma Ryan told Judge Daly she arrested the accused at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel at 5.05pm on Monday, on foot of six warrants that had been issued at the district court on December 17, 2018.

He was brought to Store Street Garda Station, where he was charged at 6.04pm.

Mr Murphy made no reply to any of the six charges after caution and was handed copies of the charge sheets, Det Gda Ryan said.

Defence solicitor Emer O'Sullivan said no bail application was being made.

The judge asked Det Gda Ryan if the DPP had issued directions yet.

She replied that directions had been given and they were for the case to proceed on indictment to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Judge Daly said he would adjourn the case for mention and it could be further put back for the preparation of a book of evidence.

He remanded the accused in custody, to appear at Cloverhill District Court on June 16.

Ms O'Sullivan asked the judge to recommend the accused is detained at a different prison from Cloverhill and that this would assist the accused greatly.

The judge told her that he could not direct this, but made the recommendation for Mr Murphy to be transferred as requested.

He also granted free legal aid after Ms O'Sullivan made an application and said it was an "appropriate" case.

The accused, dressed in a striped jumper and blue jeans and wearing a blue face mask, was not required to address the court during the brief hearing.

He has not yet indicated how he intends to plead to the charges.
Outgoing Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza succumbed to a heart attack in Bujumbura while his wife, Denise Bucumi Nkurunziza, is still receiving treatment at the Aga Khan University Hospital, in Kenya's capital Nairobi.



Ms Nkurunziza had attended a volleyball match on Saturday afternoon and was taken to a hospital that evening after falling ill.



The former First Lady is receiving treatment for an underlying condition after contracting the coronavirus.



She received a message on Tuesday from President Uhuru Kenyatta, who sent a message of condolence and comfort to the people of the Republic of Burundi following the demise of President Nkurunziza.



In his message, President Kenyatta termed the outgoing Burundi leader as an outstanding regional counterpart who served his country with distinction as Head of State and Government and worked tirelessly for the peace and stability of his country and the Great Lakes Region.



The President said death had robbed East Africa of a prominent leader whose contribution to the integration and progress of the region will be sorely missed, and prayed for God's calming comfort as the family, people of Burundi and East Africans mourn their departed leader.



Although he appeared to recover on Sunday and spoke to those around him, he suddenly deteriorated on Monday morning. He then suffered a heart attack and despite an immediate resuscitation attempt, doctors were unable to revive him.



Mr Nkurunziza died at a hospital in Karuzi, eastern Burundi. Ms Nkurunziza was airlifted to Nairobi on Thursday morning following a government-to-government agreement using Amref's acquired portable isolation chamber, which is an innovative medical unit and transportation system designed for optimal safety during patient loading and transport.



A source said the unit is a single patient isolator made of cleanable materials and is compatible with leading ambulance-stretcher systems as well as with most mechanical ventilator circuits.



"Due to our patient confidentiality policy, we cannot share any information with the public," the hospital's communication department had stated.



The government said there would be a period of seven days for national mourning from Tuesday and that flags would be flown at half-mast.









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Republican senators on Capitol Hill have expressed their dismay at a Donald Trump tweet accusing 75-year-old Black Lives Matter protester Martin Gugino of being an ANTIFA provocateur and dismissing the viral video in which he is seen being shoved over by police at a George Floyd demonstration in Buffalo, New York, as a set up.

Its a serious accusation which should only be made with facts and evidence, commented John Thune of South Dakota, as Utahs Mitt Romney branded the speculation from the president shocking and Alaska moderate Lisa Murkowski observed: It just makes no sense that were fanning the flames right at this time.

Floyds funeral was finally held in his hometown of Houston, Texas, on Tuesday, with Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden and the Reverend Al Sharpton among those paying tribute to the man whose death at the hands of Minneapolis cops sparked a global racial justice movement.

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One of my earliest memories is of walking along a burned-out 14th Street in my hometown, Washington, D.C., in 1968, holding one parents hand as the other pushed my brother in a stroller; I was 4 years old. They took us to witness the destruction that arose from rage following the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination, and later to the Poor Peoples Campaign for economic justice encamped on a muddy National Mall.

My parents wanted to teach us that the America they loved harbored injustices and systemic racism, yet it was a union we had a duty to try to perfect.

Fifty-two years later, not nearly enough has changed. Entrenched bigotry and senseless violence against African-Americans persist. We still have much to do to make this a truly equal and just America  from eradicating police brutality and reforming the criminal justice system to ensuring access to affordable housing, quality health care and education, and decent jobs for all regardless of the color of their skin.

An often overlooked piece of the justice agenda was cast into stark relief last week, when President Trump ordered heavily armed federal forces into the District of Columbia against the will of Mayor Muriel Bowser. Largely because Washington lacks statehood, Mr. Trump had the authority to line city streets with military Humvees, to fly Black Hawk helicopters dangerously low to terrorize protesters, to fill the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with military personnel and to deploy thousands of federal forces, many unidentifiable with no discernible chain of command, like Russian Little Green Men, to intimidate residents.
The search for a man missing in bushland west of Brisbane will resume on Thursday for a second day.

Police say Mark Wilson, 37, was last seen at a Bannerman Street home in Riverview about 1.30pm on Tuesday.

Missing man Mark Wilson. Credit:Queensland Police Service

A search on Wednesday including police and SES personnel scoured bushland off nearby Conway Street, but failed to locate any signs of the man.

His family hold concerns as his behaviour is considered out of character.
The host of 'Maakye' morning show on Accra-based Hot 93.9FM; Isaac Boamah Darko has a given a vivid account of how the self-acclaimed Pastor and sympathiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) 'Apostle' Kwamena Owusu Agyei who threatened to kill the chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) Jean Mensa was arrested on Tuesday,9th June 2020.

Apostle Kwamena Agyei was arrested by some officers of the National Security while granting a live interview with Boamah Darko on Hot 93.9FM at a hideout at Greda Estate in Accra.

Explaining what led to the arrest on his show "Maakye", Boamah Darko stated that they wanted to make him retract his statement and apologise to Mrs. Jean Mensa and President Akufo-Addo for the unpleasant statements but did not go as planned.

The "Maakye" morning show host expressed his disappointments in some Ghanaians for saying he planned the arrest of Apostle Agyei because that wasn't the motive behind the interview.

He emphasized candidly that, "We made sure no one was aware of the location of Apostle Agyei during the interview and was even shocked when the BNI arrived at the premises during the interview," .adding that", We even asked the security men who came to him for their arrest warrant and ID cards".

---HotfmGhana
An Amegilla bee. Credit: Kit Prendergast, Curtin University

Novel research into native bee populations by Curtin University provides a best practice recommendation on how to accurately monitor these important insects, with the aim of monitoring and saving bee species from emerging environmental threats.

Curtin Ph.D. candidate and Forrest Foundation Scholar Miss Kit Prendergast, from the School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said while there are currently numerous surveying and sampling methods for bees, there is no consensus within the scientific community on which are the best in practice.

"In order to learn more about the bees, it is important to be able to catch and monitor them in the most effective and efficient manner. Our research explored this and concluded sweep netting was the best method for collecting the greatest number and diversity of bees," Miss Prendergast said.

"Native bees are vital components of ecosystemsthey are intrinsically valuable through contributing to the biodiversity of life, and they are important pollinators of flowering plants. Consequently, their loss can lead to declines in flowering plants, with cascading effects throughout the ecosystem.

"My research involves saving the bees by identifying what factors can boost native bee numbers, as well as what factors threaten their survival. But to make any solid conclusions, I first needed to determine how to effectively survey native bee populations.

"WA hosts around 800 species of bees, yet no systematic surveys of native bees in the urbanised areas of this region, such as the Perth area, have previously been published. This was a major knowledge gap, given that Perth is a rapidly urbanising region, yet is located in an internationally recognised biodiversity hotspot."

To carry out the research, Miss Prendergast compared methods currently used when monitoring bee populations: actively counting bees by observation; actively catching them with an entomological net; and passively collecting bees, using blue and yellow bowls and vane traps.

"I found that passive methodssetting out bee bowls and vane trapswere the least effective for monitoring bees, with only a small fraction of species and individuals being collected, giving a very biased estimate of the true diversity present," Miss Prendergast said.

"The only exception was for the Amegillalarge, important buzz-pollinating beeswhich were caught in very high abundances in blue, but not yellow, vane traps."

While the observation methodsimply watching flowers and recording how many bees were observedproved to be quite successful in determining overall bee numbers, Miss Prendergast explained it was nearly impossible to identify the different species of native bees by observation alone.

"Native bees on average are about one centimetre long, with numerous species being only about 4 millimetres long. This means the differentiating details, like sculpturing of the body and shape of the wing veins of each species are microscopicit's not something you can readily see with the naked eye," Miss Prendergast said.

"Therefore in order to know exactly what species of bees are present in the area, scientists must be able to catch the bees and have a closer look."

When it came to catching methods, sweep netting was the most successful, and many bee species in the study were caught exclusively this way.

"Sweep netting is no easy taskyou need good eyesight and good reflexes to catch these tiny bees," Miss Prendergast said.

"Overall, our research concludes that a variety of methods combined is the best suggested practice to accurately monitor native bee populations, as each method did have its own biases. However if scientists are to select one specific collection method to monitor bee populations, sweep netting is indispensable."

The full paper, "The relative performance of sampling methods for native bees: an empirical test and review of the literature," is published in Ecosphere.

Explore further Study finds native bees turning to polystyrene for nesting places

More information: Kit S. Prendergast et al. The relative performance of sampling methods for native bees: an empirical test and review of the literature, Ecosphere (2020). Journal information: Ecosphere Kit S. Prendergast et al. The relative performance of sampling methods for native bees: an empirical test and review of the literature,(2020). DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3076
The Conservative government and a baying right-wing media are using a few minor incidents of conflict with the police and damage to property to demand a brutal clampdown on the George Floyd protests in the UK.

On Monday morning Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, People have a right to protest peacefully & while observing social distancing but they have no right to attack the police. These demonstrations have been subverted by thuggery Those responsible will be held to account.

Speaking in the House of Commons Monday, Home Secretary Priti Patel declared, Around 200 protests took place across the country over the weekend, attended by over 100,000 people. As many as 137,500 people have now attended Black Lives Matter protests across the UK.

She then denounced a lawless minority of protesters who have regrettably turned to violence The thugs and criminals responsible are already being brought to justice. This is a fluid situation, but as of this morning the total number of arrests stood at 135.

Patel continued her attack declaring hooliganism is utterly indefensible and it is not for mobs to tear down statues and cause criminal damage in our streets I want to see the violent minority responsible arrested and brought to justice.

Tory MPs as well as Labourites denounced thuggery and violent protesters in the debate. Tory Bob Stewart asked Patel, I thought the police seemed to be holding back Will my right honourable friend assure me that the police have every power they need to cope with future riots such as the one that they had to go through on Saturday?

Johnson gave an interview to the Voice, a longstanding journal for the black community. In an accompanying video he commented, I say, yes of course I hear you, and I understand. And no. I will not support or indulge those who break the law, or attack the police, or desecrate public monuments. Johnson said the perpetrators would face the full force of the law.

Far from the foaming at the mouth presentation of the government, what distinguished the weekends events was their almost universally peaceful character. There were a few scuffles around Downing Street between police and a tiny minority of protesters, with a police officer falling off her horse as it bolted. The horse then ran down Whitehall, ploughing into a demonstrator. Aside from the impact of this poor horsemanship and one officer hit on the head by a bottle, none of the 49 officers cited as injured in the media seem to have suffered any serious harm.

Fireworks were thrown, a Union flag was attempted to be set alight on the Cenotaph, without success, and the nearby statue of Winston Churchill was sprayed with the words was a racist.

In Bristol, in an entirely justified protest, the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was torn down. Colstons statue was dumped by a cheering crowd of 10,000 into Bristol Harbour. The statue has been widely seen as an affront by the citys residents, and campaign groups have sought its removal for decades to no avail. Colstons company, the Royal African Company, was responsible for the shipping into slavery, between 1672 and 1689, of an estimated 100,000 West African men, women, and children. All were branded on the chest with the initials RAC. More than 20,000 died during the journey and were thrown overboard.

The large turnout at demonstrations over the last 10 days by multi-racial and overwhelmingly youthful protesters not only reflected anger at the brutal killing at Floyd, but wider social discontent over poverty, social inequality and at the governments criminal response to a pandemic that has led to more than 60,000 preventable deaths.

This was recognised by the police, who were initially instructed to maintain a lowkey presence given the social tinderbox that threatens to ignite. Some police officers even took the knee in memory of Floyd outside Downing Street. The Metropolitan Police issued a statement through a spokesman: We know passions are running high and like everyone we were appalled by the images of George Floyd losing his life. Our officers are part of the communities of London and care deeply about justice and equality Taking the knee is a personal decision for officers, who were free to do so at their own discretion.

Responding to Patel, Andy Marsh, chief constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary, said of the Bristol events, Midway through the protest we saw CCTV images in our control room of protesters on top of the Colston statue. Within two minutes that statue had been pulled down.

Police could easily have broken up the protest and made arrests, he said, but commanders on the ground made the decision that to intervene and arrest suspects would likely lead to injuries to suspects, injuries to officers, and people who were not involved in damaging property being thrown into a very violent confrontation with the police. Can you imagine scenes of police in Bristol fighting with protesters who were damaging the statue of a man who is reputed to have gathered much of his fortune through the slave trade?

Johnson, Patel and key figures in ruling circles are now insisting that caution must give way to mass arrests and repression. On Monday, Bristol police superintendent Andy Bennett said, We know and have identified 17 main offenders in terms of tearing it down and an investigation is underway.

Johnson and Patel, and their critics in the state apparatus all calculate that the protests against the murder of George Floyd are the harbinger of a far broader eruption of the class struggle. One side is urging caution, for now, for fear of things escalating out of control. Johnson and Patel, like Donald Trump in the US, are insisting that repression and intimidation begins now, before things escalate.

Patel told MPs, So the police need to know that they have a prime minister, a home secretary and a government who stand with them and will give them the tools, powers and resources they need to keep us safeand they do. Police funding has had its biggest uplift in a decade, increasing by more than 1 billion, and we are recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers to keep our streets and our country safe. They will have my full support in upholding the rule of law, and in tackling violence, vandalism and disorderly criminal behaviour.

The WSWS has repeatedly pointed to the Tories Operation Yellowhammer. Under its provisions 50,000 regular and reserve troops are readied in case of civil unrest, to assist at Britains airports and to ensure fuel and medical supplies. They are backed by 10,000 riot police, ready to be deployed in 24 hours, and 1,000 extra police from Britain sent to reinforce the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

While rolled out under the guise of Britains exit from the European Union, Yellowhammers fundamental purpose is in ensuring that the state apparatus was strengthened for coming confrontations with the working class.

In March this year, the government rolled out large parts of Yellowhammer as it rushed through the Emergency Coronavirus Bill. The Bill, with no public discussion, hands ministers virtually unlimited powers for up to two years, under the pretext of fighting the pandemic. It enabled the government to restrict or prohibit events and gatherings in any place, vehicle, train, vessel or aircraft, any movable structure. The same week 20,000 military personnel were placed on standby10,000 military personnel regularly assigned to operations among civilians, such as in floods, plus a further 10,000 troops.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer wasted no time in denouncing the actions of the Bristol protesters. It shouldnt have been done in that way, completely wrong to pull a statue down like that, he bleated. That statue should have been brought down properly, with consent, and put, I would say, in a museum. Starmers intervention was a signal to the government that he was fully onboard with their planned clampdown.
NASA's GPM satellite gathered data on what is now Post-Tropical Cyclone Cristobal and revealed some areas of heavy rain were occurring. Cristobal was bringing rainfall and gusty winds to the Great Lakes Region and still generating warnings.

Warnings and Advisories

On June 10, Cristobal was designated a post-tropical cyclone and the storm has triggered several watches and warnings in the Great Lakes area. The National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center (WPC) in College Park, Md. issued a Lakeshore Flood Warning for the northern shores of Lake St. Clair. Lakeshore Flood Advisories are in effect for the Lake Michigan shoreline of northern Lower Michigan, the Lake Michigan shoreline of Upper Michigan and the Lake Huron shoreline of Upper Michigan.

In addition, a Gale Warning is in effect for Lake Michigan, eastern Lake Superior and portions of Lake Huron. Wind Advisories are in effect for parts of Wisconsin and Michigan.

What is a Post-tropical Cyclone?

NOAA's National Hurricane Center defines a Post-tropical cyclone as a former tropical cyclone. This generic term describes a cyclone that no longer possesses sufficient tropical characteristics to be considered a tropical cyclone. Post-tropical cyclones can continue carrying heavy rains and high winds. Former tropical cyclones that have become fully extratropical and remnant lows are two classes of post-tropical cyclones.

Rainfall Estimates

When the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed over Cristobal on June 10 at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 UTC). GPM found heaviest rainfall occurring in two areas. One area was north and west of Lake Superior, north of Rossport and Red Rock, Ontario, Canada. The second area was over Georgian Bay on the eastern side of Lake Huron. In both places, rain was falling at rates of 1 inch (25 mm) per hour. Light rain appears stretched around the northern and eastern side of the system, falling at less than 0.2 inches (less than 5 millimeters) per hour.

Forecast Rainfall

The WPC noted, "The primary rainfall threat with Cristobal has ended. Sporadic heavy rain is possible today across the Great Lakes, along and ahead of a cold front associated with extratropical Cristobal. Minor to moderate river flooding will continue across portions of the Mississippi Valley."

Cristobal's Status on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on June 10, the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Cristobal was located near latitude 45.8 degrees north and longitude 88.2 degrees west. That places the center about 195 miles (310 km) north-northeast of Madison, Wisconsin and about 185 miles (295 km) west of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The post-tropical cyclone is moving toward the north-northeast near 30 mph (48 kph) and this motion is expected to continue as Cristobal tracks into Ontario, Canada.

Maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph (65 kph) with higher gusts. Little change in strength is forecast during the next 48 hours. The estimated minimum central pressure is 983 millibars.

Cristobal's Forecast Path

WPC noted that in addition to rainfall, winds gusting over 40 mph are expected early during the morning of June 10 over portions of Wisconsin and Michigan close to the Great Lakes. In addition, a few tornadoes are possible today across in the Great Lakes region, with the greatest chances in parts of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

Tropical cyclones/hurricanes are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA. The Suomi NPP satellite is a joint mission with NASA and NOAA.

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

###
By Barrs latest telling, Park Police had decided the night before that the security perimeter outside the White House should be extended because of violent demonstrations there in the days prior. He said he gave that direction to law enforcement officials about 2 p.m. on Monday. Hours later  just before police moved in  Barr was spotted on the scene, and a Justice Department official and the White House press secretary have said he was telling officers on the scene to put the plan into action. Barr, though, has disputed giving tactical commands of the operation.
Syracuse, N.Y. -- World of Beer at Destiny USA features hundreds of beers and 50 rotating taps, along with a full cocktail selection and a beer-inspired food menu. But no beer has flowed and no food has been eaten there since the mall closed nearly three months ago because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The franchises owner, Neil Patel, thinks thats long enough.

Patel wants the state to allow his business to open under phase three of New Yorks regional economic reopening plan, but hes not optimistic.

Its upsetting, to say the least," he said.

Destiny USA officials were surprised when Gov. Andrew Cuomo did not permit tenants in the interior portions of malls to reopen when he allowed Central New York and several other regions to enter phase two on May 29.

A spokesperson for Cuomo cited concerns that people will congregate in the common areas of malls, increasing the likelihood of spreading the novel coronavirus and Covid-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease it causes.

Its unclear whether malls will be permitted to fully reopen under phase three, which might start for Central New York as early as this Friday.

Jason Conwall, a spokesperson for Cuomo, said Tuesday the full reopening of malls is under discussion but remains to be determined.

Standalone restaurants, however, will be allowed to reopen their dining rooms under phase three, with restrictions such social distancing requirements and maximum 50% occupancy. Patel said it would be unfair not to allow his restaurant to open, too.

It is an unfair competitive advantage for other folks, he said. Thats very frustrating. Were following the same procedures. Were taking the same precautions. Weve invested out of pocket.

Its been a difficult time for World of Beer since Destiny USA, the largest mall in New York and sixth-largest in the nation, was ordered closed by government order in mid-March because of the pandemic.

Patel tried offering curbside pickup service, but that did not work out. Because of its name, many people view World of Beer as primarily a bar, even though it derives half its revenue from serving meals, he said.

The restaurant has not been able to make its lease payments -- they total $28,000 a month for rent, common area charges and utilities -- since the mall closed.

Im working with the mall for a deferment or abatement, he said. Im hopeful we can work something out with them.

The interior portions of Destiny USA in Syracuse were shut down by government order in mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic. Rick Moriarty | rmoriarty@syracuse.com

Its been hard on his 30 employees, too.

My staff has family that they are trying to take care of, he said.

Patel said the malls abundance of common areas would actually make it easier for people to socially distance.

In preparation for reopening, Patel has rearranged tables in World of Beer to maintain social distancing and adhere to the states occupancy limits, and hes made plans to have employees frequently clean and sanitize tables, the bar, bathrooms and other high-touch surfaces. Employees would have their temperatures checked and be required to wear masks and answer a series of health questions each time they report to work.

The restaurant opened on Destinys third floor in December 2013, offering 50 different brews on tap and hundreds of bottled beers behind the bar.

Patel said he hopes to bring back many of his employees when the business reopens, even with the occupancy restriction and likelihood that customers will not return in large numbers right away.

Something is better than nothing," he said. Right now, I have nothing.

Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Imagine if scientists invented a special pair of glasses strong enough to reveal where the virus that causes COVID-19 lurks. Such a discovery could warn people about possible danger zones, help stop the spread of the illness and assist Canada in getting past the gruelling lockdown of recent months.

Of course, no such pair of glasses is anywhere to be found. But there is, in fact, an existing technology that could automatically notify people if theyve been near someone with COVID-19 and alert public health officials to places where they should intervene.

Its called a contact-tracing app. It could be downloaded to every cellphone in Canada. France rolled out its own version last Tuesday and within hours 600,000 people were using it. Italy, Switzerland and Latvia have similar apps up and running for their people.

But while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month that Ottawa intends to recommend strongly to Canadians a particular app that will help us manage the spread of COVID-19, that potentially game-changing technology is nowhere in sight for most of the country. That should change, and as soon as possible.

Contact-tracing apps have been developed to inform people if they have come into close contact with someone who later tests positive for COVID-19. That would allow people who have been exposed to self-isolate quickly  certainly more quickly than is now the case.

And by better identifying those who should be in quarantine, it would make it easier to relax physical-distancing measures in places where such measures are not needed. We could reopen this country more quickly. And we could do it safely.

To be sure, public health officials already recognize the value of tracking people who might have come into contact with someone with COVID-19. But the way theyre doing it now, by telephone, is laborious, slow and limited in scope.

Its not getting us where we want to be. While Toronto public health officials say they can contact 80 per cent of the people who test positive within 24 hours, reaching all their contacts is proving an almost impossible task.

So why hasnt Ottawa already offered Canadians an app? Well, Canada being Canada, the federal and provincial governments need to co-ordinate their response. Part of the challenge facing them will be in determining whether there will be one app for the entire nation or as many as one for every province and territory.

Alberta has, with unfortunately poor results, had its own contact-tracing app for a month. Now, its trying to offer an improved version of it. But the countrys COVID-19 hot spots are in Ontario and Quebec. How long must they wait?

Another obstacle is the reasonable concern over the potential abuse of the privacy of those who download the app to their cellphones. These concerns can be managed. Yet although Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien is ready to offer his helpful advice, he has not been consulted by the federal government. What an egregious oversight.

If our federal and provincial leaders want to introduce contact-tracing apps to the public  and they should  they need to start talking to Canadians about it. This is the time for a nationwide public-information campaign. This is the time to answer and allay the concerns of those who fear we might be entering an unprecedented era of government surveillance.

If there is to be a nationwide rollout of contact-tracing apps, the strategy will work only if the vast majority of the population voluntarily buys into it. But if Canadians arent properly asked, dont be surprised if most say no deal.
Business & Finance, Community, Charity & Cause

By Ls Cohen Published: June 10 2020

Local manufacturer, L3Harris Technologies, will help make the PPEs available.

An initiative in the Town of Babylon will help to distribute face shields to barber shops and salons in the towneship for free to help them as they begin to reopen amidst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

The townships Industrial Development Agency and a local North Amityville manufacturer, L3Harris Technologies, are donating 1,000 face shields to Babylon barber shops and hair salons. This is a part of the Towns Babylon Is Back program, which helps businesses get back to work as quickly as possible while protecting employees and customers.

New York Forward Phase 2 re-opening - anticipated to begin on Wednesday, June 10- includes barbers and hairdressers, who are required to wear a face mask and a face shield and get tested within two weeks of starting work.

Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer said that Babaylon is happy to make the PPEs available to Town barber shops and salons and thanked those involved including Deputy Supervisor Tony Martinez, the Industrial Development Agency, and L3Harris Technologies.

Its great to see businesses reopen safely, but particularly barbers and hairdressers, he said.

According to a statement released about the initiative, licensed barbers shops and hair salons within the Town of Babylon will each receive seven face shields to better prepare them for reopening under New York Forward Phase 2. The shops must be located in the Town of Babylon and the reusable face shields are limited to one per professional and until supply lasts. Shop owners who require more supplies can fill out a form located at babylonisback.com.

Ted Damaskinos, a general manager at L3Harris Technologies, said that the company is supporting New Yorks economic recovery through a series of initiatives to assist small business suppliers, bolster the states workforce, and expand innovation.

L3Harris is honored to be donating these 1,000 face shields to support the Babylon is Back initiative in helping local businesses to get back to work safely, he said in a statement.
Bollywood celebrities have been pitching in to help migrant workers return home. After Sonu Soods stellar effort to help workers go back to their home towns, it has now emerged that actor Amitabh Bachchan has arranged three flights so that about 500 workers could go home to Varanasi. The actor had earlier sent back workers to various places in Uttar Pradesh via road.

A Mid Day report quoted a source as saying, Everything is being done with utmost discretion as Bachchanji doesnt want it to be publicised. He was moved by the plight of the migrant workers and decided to help them. He has chartered the Indigo Airlines Varanasi-bound flight that is scheduled to depart on Wednesday morning. The 180 migrants scheduled to travel on the morning flight have been asked to report to the airport at 6 am. The initial plan was to send them home by train, but the logistics didnt work out.

Also read: Gul Panag gives fans food for thought with throwback beach pic in favourite swimsuit. See here

The report added that the entire arrangement is being supervised by a close aide of the actor. It added that Amitabh is also arranging for a few more flights to ensure migrants reach their hometowns in West Bengal, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and a few other states.

A week ago, Amitabh had also arranged for 10 buses to help migrants reach their native places in Uttar Pradesh - the state that the actor hails from. As per celebrity photographer Viral Bhayani, buses departed from Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai, on May 29.

Earlier, Amitabh supported the families of 1,00,000 daily wage workers belonging to the All India Film Employees Confederation by sponsoring their monthly ration. Amitabh was also a part of the I for India online fundraising concert organised by filmmakers Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar. For his segment, the actor gave a heartfelt tribute to his co-star and close friend, the late Rishi Kapoor. I for India managed to raise a total of Rs 52 crore, which were given to GiveIndia for coronavirus relief efforts.

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Looters rob a Target store as protesters face off against police in Oakland, Calif., on May 30, 2020. (Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)

Killed Federal Protective Officers Sister Tells Congress Calls to Defund Police Ridiculous

The sister of a federal officer who was shot and killed during a George Floyd protest told Congress Wednesday that the calls to defund or abolish the police are absurd.

It is a ridiculous solution to claim that defunding police departments is the solution to police brutality and discrimination because its not a solution. It gets us nowhere as a nation and removes the safety net protection that every citizen deserves from their communities elected officials, Angela Underwood Jacobs said at the House Judiciary Committees hearing on police brutality, as reported by Fox News.

Her brother, Patrick Underwood, was stationed in front of a courthouse in Oakland, California, in late May when a vehicle pulled up and someone inside opened fire on him and another security officer. Underwood was killed and the other officer was injured, officials said at the time.

The protest was over the death of Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis, sparking calls to reform police. However, some activists and local officials have attempted to push to totally defund or abolish police departments, which in turn has drawn significant backlash from some Democratic and Republican officials alike.

Police officers wearing riot gear push back demonstrators by deploying crowd control devices next to St. Johns Church outside of the White House, in Washington, June 1, 2020. (Jose Luis Magana/AFP/Getty Images)

Jacobs criticized the use of violence and intimidation against police officers, including looting and arson.

Such acts are blind violence and are dividing us as a nation, she said. We will never solve generational systemic injustice with looting burning, destruction of property, and killing in the name of justice.

When those in a position of authority choose to abuse their power, that is a very definition of oppression. And when innocent people are harmed in the name of justice, no one prevails. We all lose, she added. Police brutality of any kind should not be condoned, however, it is blatantly wrong to create an excuse out of discrimination and disparity to loot and burn our communities, to kill our officers of the law.

Meanwhile, Floyds brother Philonise Floyd, called on Congress Wednesday that he is here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain.

Floyd added: Be the leaders that this country, this world, needs. Do the right thing.

Republicans as well as Democrats have called for a national registry of use-of-force incidents, so police officers cannot transfer between departments without public awareness of their records. There is also bipartisan support for increasing the use of police body cameras, ending no-knock warrants as police used to enter the home of Breonna Taylor who was killed in Louisville, Kentucky, and other changes to police practices and oversight.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Labour Department will release consumer price index for May at 8:30 am ET Wednesday. Ahead of the data, the greenback fell sharply against its major counterparts. The greenback was worth 107.42 against the yen, 0.9463 against the franc, 1.2780 against the pound and 1.1373 against the euro as of 8:25 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
An activist who has supported the democracy protests against Syrias authoritarian president since they began nine years ago knows a thing or two about battling adversity. But Hosam al-Ali, 35, is more than a little worried about his new adversary: the coronavirus.

A pharmacist in Idlib, the last province still in the hands of Syrian opposition groups, Mr. al-Ali volunteered to be the main virus-response coordinator in his region.

An estimated 3.5 million people are crammed into the northern half of the province, at least half of them displaced, many in makeshift homes and tents. The lack of basic services, aid groups warn, makes Idlib particularly vulnerable to the virus.

As he set to work, Mr. al-Ali began keeping an audio diary, which he shared day by day with Carlotta Gall, the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times. His entries have been condensed, and edited for clarity.
Apple will announce a new processor for its Mac computer line at its virtual World Wide Developers Conference later this month, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Fulfilling a years-long rumor, the company will begin using an ARM chip based on Apples A14 processor, which will be featured in the next iPhone.

Although the next generation of Macs will run on a mobile chip, the computers will continue to use macOS and not Apples mobile operating system, iOS, Bloomberg noted.

ARM chips tested inside Apple reportedly have shown sizable improvements over Intel-powered versions, especially in graphics performance and artificial intelligence.

The Apple processors are more power-efficient than Intels, which could lead to lighter, thinner Macs.

In addition to the main processor, Apples ARM SoC (system on a chip) for the Mac will have a graphics processing unit and a neural engine for handling machine learning functions, Bloomberg noted.

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reportedly will produce the new processors using five nanometer technology, which it already uses to produce chips for Intel rivals Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices.

Apple likes to make their own components. They did it first for the iPhone and iPad, and now theyre extending that to the Mac, said Bob ODonnell, chief analyst at Technalysis Research, a technology market research and consulting firm in Foster City, California.

Apple just wants to control the whole experience, and they feel that if they design the chips, they can design the software to best take advantage of those chips, and they can get the best possible performance and experience for their users, he told TechNewsWorld.

Better Cost Control

Users, developers and Apple itself will benefit from the companys move away from Intel chips in favor of designing its own processors, maintained Linn Huang,research vice president for devices and displays at IDC, a market research company in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Intel supply disruptions over the course of the last two years, as well as its slowness to land on 10 nanometer, have been a thorn in the side of Apple, which likes its supply chain the way it likes its ecosystem  tightly integrated, he told TechNewsWorld.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Moving towards their own platform allows them to be in more control of their feature set and roadmap, Huang added.

Bringing Macs into the ARM fold can help Apple manage some of its costs, maintained San Jose, California-based Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, a high-tech research and advisory firm.

It allows Apple to spread the development costs of its A-series ARM processors over more chips, he told TechNewsWorld. This would really be an opportunity for Apple to differentiate itself from the rest of the PC industry even further.

5G Roadmap

Apple will benefit from severing ties with Intel, suggested David McQueen, research director at ABI Research, a technology advisory company headquartered in Oyster Bay, New York.

Apple now wont be beholden to Intels chipset launch dates and update cycles, he told TechNewsWorld.

Moving to ARM-based chips can bring efficiencies and better battery life without sacrificing performance, McQueen added.

Some of Apples A chips already perform well in benchmarks against those from Intel, he said. The move may also help cut out some size constraints, possibly allowing Macs to be made thinner, while also negating a need for fans.

In addition, the move could pave the way to make all of Apples devices 5G-enabled, potentially using its own 5G modems in the future, the fruits of its billion dollar deal to obtain Intels smartphone modem business last year, McQueen speculated.

ARM-based PCs will be able to behave more like smartphones and smart speakers, noted Frank E. Gillett, principal analyst at Forrester Research, a market research company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The PC may be able to gauge a users emotions and ask to help. It could sense when a user approaches and starts up the computer, before its touched, he told TechNewsWorld.

All those things require low-power background processing, which has been difficult to add to the Intel architecture, which wasnt designed for those things, Gillett said.

Heavy Lifting for Developers

One potential drawback to Apples move is that as a chip maker, the company would have to keep up with demand for its chips and stay ahead of the curve in chip technology, ABIs McQueen pointed out.

But it seems to have done pretty well so far at that with its A series of processors for iPhones and iPads, and the advantages seem to outweigh any challenges, he said.

However, Apples plan does raise some questions.

Its a risky and expensive move for Apple, and right now Im scratching my head on why Apple would do this, said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, a technology analyst and advisory firm in Austin, Texas.

Theres no clear benefit for developers or for users, and it appears Apple is trying to boost profits, he told TechNewsWorld.

All things equal, Apples new CPUs would need to outperform Intels to translate the X86-Intel-AMD world to ARM, Moorhead noted. To get a strategic benefit, Apple needs developers to rewrite applications to take advantage of its GPUs and NPUs, which is a heavy lift.

An Apple First

ARM adoption across the Apple line could be beneficial to developers, however, suggested Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a technology advisory firm in Campbell, California.

Developers would have a single processor platform to develop for, which would make their development for Apple devices easier and more consistent, he told TechNewsWorld.

The biggest impact of the move could be on Apples development community, which now develops applications for ARM devices on MacBooks running X86 processors, noted IDCs Huang.

In the future, developers could build iOS apps on ARM architecture and then deploy into ARM servers, he said. Consequently, the biggest ripple might not be for Apple or its users, but for the developer ecosystem.

When ARM-based Macs roll off the production line, it will be the first time in the 36-year history of the company that the computers will be based on a chip made by Apple.

It has changed processors twice in the past. In the early 1990s, it went from a Motorola processor to one made by IBM, the PowePC chip. Then in 2005, the company announced a switch from IBM to Intel at its WWDC, and the new Intel Macs began appearing in January 2006.

To cushion the blow of the change on users during the PowerPC to X86 transition, Apple included an emulation program called Rosetta in all Macs.

Apple will likely provide an x86 to ARM emulation layer, much as Microsoft has done in the Windows-on-ARM versions of Windows, observed Tirias Krewell.

Apples done this before, and theyve been successful doing it, said Technalysis ODonnell. The difference now from the past is that so much software is Web- and cloud-based. That makes things theoretically easier.
The city of Shenandoah has reimbursed a group of current and former employees almost $70,000 in tuition and textbooks as part of the citys efforts to provide continuing education to various employees.

The program has come under scrutiny after the sister of former police chief Raymond Shaw made allegations during a public comment statement on May 13 that the program had been supposedly misused by interim police chief Troye Dunlap, who replaced Shaw in early May. Shaw walked off the job as police chief with no notice May 1.

Related: Shenandoah discusses future water improvement project; names interim police chief

Kathie Reyer, the city administrator for Shenandoah, denied the claims made by Maria Vasquez, who called into the May 13 meeting of the Shenandoah City Council to complain about the tuition reimbursement program and Dunlaps promotion to interim police chief. Reyer initially declined to identify Vasquez, however after a public records request from The Villager for emails about the May 13 comments, Reyer said Vasquez is Shaws sister.

The May 13 council meeting was closed to the public due to the COVID-19 restrictions on the number of attendees. Vasquez called in via a special telephone line set up to allow public comment during the pandemic and changes to the Texas Open Meetings Act. As Vasquez made her comments, Shenandoah Mayor Ritch Wheeler tried to end the call, but was rebuffed by Vasquez who asked she be allowed the full three minutes of public comment afforded residents.

Related: Internal emails reveal little about Shenandoah police chiefs resignation

Shenandoah tuition payments A total of 11 employees of the city of Shenandoah were reimbursed for tuition since 2010. Here is the breakdown. Joseph Peart, public works director: $16,469.76 Raymond Shaw, former police chief: $16,154.97 Troye Dunlap, current interim police chief: $14,185 Joel Gordon, police detective sergeant: $11,100 Meghen (Owen) Martinez, police administrative assistant: $5,274.74 Kathie Reyer, city adminstrator: $4,089.59 Garrett Burleson, police sergeant: $1,629.53 Bryan Carlisle, former assistant police chief, $900 Tom Kiefer, former police officer: $900 Mike Bledsoe, police community services officer: $750 Bennett Steil, former city accountant, $391.87 - Source: The city of Shenandoah. See More Collapse

This is awkward. I want you to take a closer look at how he billed the city not once, but I think twice, if I read it correctly, for his college tuition. You can ask (Reyer), she is aware. They are stealing money from us, Vasquez alleged in her call as Wheeler tried to stop her comments. I have three minutes. I am Maria Vasquez. You guys know this is not right. This is insane. Say something. I pay taxes, I dont want someone stealing from me.

Dunlap, who was present at the meeting and had earlier conducted a promotion ceremony for Sgt. Jake Reuver who was elevated to the rank of lieutenant, denied Vasquezs claims.

The allegations made by the caller were not true, Dunlap said of Vasquezs statements.

Popular program

According to documents provided to The Villager, a total of 11 city employees have used the tuition reimbursement program since 2010. Documents provided by the city list a total of $69,968.72, however a Villager analysis of the list of tuition repaid to staff shows a total of $71,845.43 repaid. Reyer said city staff were reviewing the amounts to determine if any reimbursements were not included in documents.

Many of the employees took both online and in-person classes, including at the University of Charleston of West Virginia, Lone Star College and American Public University. The courses ranged from the Adult Learner, various business classes, police policy and protocol courses and other topics such as art appreciation, math and communications.

Of the 11 staff who have used the tuition reimbursement program since 2010, eight were members of the citys 25-person police department. Of those, former police chief Raymond Shaw, who resigned on May 1, 2020, with no notice and entered into a settlement with the city, and current interim police chief Troye Dunlap, both were repaid a combined more than $30,000 in tuition. Both Dunlap and Shaw listed numerous online classes at the University of Charleston of West Virginia in the Organizational Leadership program.

Dunlap also listed that he attended online classes at University of Charleston of West Virginia-Beckley campus, which a small satellite institution about 100 miles south of Charleston.

Related: Shenandoah police chief resigns with no notice

Online training

Dale Retzlaff, the director of the University of Charleston of West Virginias Organizational Leadership program, said it is common for law enforcement officers from across the United States to take online courses at the university. Retzlaff, who noted that he is a former police officer, said the program he leads specializes in leadership-related coursework for cities and counties across the nation. Four current and former police department staff took online classes at the university: Shaw, Dunlap, Garrett Burleson and Mike Bledsoe.

The other four non-police employees who used the tuition program were in other city departments, including the current public works director Joseph Peart, who had the highest total of reimbursement of any of the 11 staff at more than $16,400. On June 12, city officials said Peart used the reimbursement program to obtain his masters degree in business administration at Sam Houston State University. Peart was a police patrol officer at the time. Reyer said she used the program for partial funding of her undergraduate degree at the University of Houston, through the Lone Star College University Center program.

The educational institutions for three other city staffers were not provided to The Villager. No educational institute records could be located by city records staff for Bryan Carlisle, former assistant police chief; Tom Kiefer, former police officer; or Bennett Steil, former city accountant.

In information detailed in the citys reimbursement policy, Reyer stated that specific requirements include that educational institutions must be accredited, employees are allowed a full 100 percent reimbursement of tuition and 50 percent for books, based on achieving a certain grade in the class.

There is an application process that reserves a portion of the budgeted funds during a given fiscal year for employees who apply on a first come, first served basis. There is a reimbursement request process when classes are completed. There is also a limit to how much an employee can be reimbursed in one year.

Continuing education

Reyer said the only requirement in regard to what college or educational institutions are chosen for city staff using the tuition reimbursement program is, the school be accredited according to the criteria spelled out in the policy.

The city does not dictate that employees attend certain universities beyond the requirements stated in the policy. I cant speak to every employees decision on how or why schools were selected, but based on my own experience, not all schools offer the courses of study that a person is seeking, Reyer stated in an email. A schools reputation, cost and curriculum availability are all considerations. Not only that, not all schools offer a schedule that works for everyone. Working people with families dont always have the flexibility to take classes wherever and whenever they would like to.

As far as what classes are taken by staff and repaid for, Reyer said that is also left to the individual employee and could be used to meet prerequisites or other requirements of a degree program.

If a class is required as part of an approved degree plan at an accredited university, then it complies with the policy.

Reyer also said the program is not unique to Shenandoah, noting that many cities, counties and private businesses offer similar perks in an effort to provide continuing education to staff that helps the organization serve the public better.

Different classes benefit different employees in different ways, depending upon their individual jobs and the overarching degree plan. Again, an educated staff in general is a stronger staff and that benefits any organization, she added. The main goal, as stated in the policy, is to provide assistance with professional education, development and advancement for employees. As I mentioned before, tuition reimbursement is a common employee benefit in both the public and private sectors. I think we can all agree that a more educated workforce is a stronger workforce.

jeff.forward@chron.com
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

Trend:

The recent statements by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia trying to accuse Azerbaijan of hate speech reveal once again its practice of arbitrary and selective interpretation of the decisions adopted by international bodies, Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, Trend reports.

"By reciting the usual groundless allegations, Armenia pursues the goal of misleading the international community and distracting the attention from its own racist policy and hate crimes, manifested in the unlawful military occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding seven districts of Azerbaijan, and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis in the course of the aggression," said the statement.

"Armenia, which bears full responsibility for unleashing the war against Azerbaijan, seizing 20 percent of its internationally recognized territory, carrying out ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories, committing other heinous crimes during the conflict, advocating undisguised racist ideology and blatantly disregarding the binding 822, 853, 874 and 884 resolutions of 1993 of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as well as the decisions and documents of other international organizations, cannot lecture others on the standards and values that it has consistently violated itself," the statement added.

Armenia has become a mono-ethnic country, having achieved this by expelling all non-Armenians, including Azerbaijanis. It has applied the same policy and practice of creating ethnically homogeneous areas to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, from which all non-Armenians were expelled and where it has set up a puppet racist regime, noted the statement.

Hatred, animosity and intolerance on ethnic and religious grounds, which are at the core of Armenias policy is evidenced in the unconcealed conviction of its leadership in the ethnic incompatibility between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, the statement said.

The statement also said that international community has repeatedly stated its indignation with the overt promotion by Armenia of such odious ideas and expressed serious concerns about the spirit of intolerance prevailing in Armenia and the discriminatory policies and practices pursued in that country.

Armenia must put an end to its hypocrisy and selectivity with regard to the human rights standards and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, starting with the implementation of the same Courts leading judgment of 16 June 2015 in the case of Chiragov and Others v. Armenia, noted the statement.

As is known, having examined the evidence presented, the Grand Chamber of the European Court has ascertained that Armenia exercises effective control over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan, established the responsibility of Armenia for violations of the rights of the Azerbaijani internally displaced persons and reaffirmed their right to return to their homes or places of habitual residence in the occupied territories, the statement added.

The statement also said that the primary cause of the continuation of the conflict and, as a result, of tensions and sporadic escalation on the ground is the unlawful occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan and Armenias attempts to consolidate that situation.

"Peace, security and stability are achievable, first and foremost, only if the consequences of Armenias aggression are removed, thus ensuring that its armed forces are immediately, unconditionally and completely withdrawn from the territories of Azerbaijan, as it is demanded by the above mentioned UNSC resolutions, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is restored within its internationally recognized borders and the human rights and fundamental freedoms of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani internally displaced persons, including the right to return to their homes and properties, are guaranteed and implemented without delay," said the statement.
While promoting the 2019 Disney blockbuster Aladdin, actor Naomi Scott recalled the time on set when she was mistaken for Deepika Padukone in a video that she was watching. Naomi, who is of Indian descent, said that she didnt correct the person who thought she looked like Deepika.

In an interview to BBC, when the interviewer asked her if Princess Jasmine was inspired by Bollywood actresses, Naomi said, I have to tell you this funny story. Do you know Nagada Sang Dhol? I was playing it on set -- and I had an American cast and crew -- so Im playing it because I love that song so much, and literally someone was like, Oh its so beautiful, Nay, is that you? and I was just like, Yeah, it is, it is.

She continued, I thought to myself, you could be compared to worse people than Deepika, so Ill take that because shes pretty beautiful. Directed by Guy Ritchie, Aladdin went on to become a billion-dollar hit. Actor Tara Sutaria was also in the running for the role of Princess Jasmine.

Actor Will Smith, who played Genie in the film, said in an interview that he encouraged Ritchie to embrace Bollywood aesthetic in the film. Aladdin is hot... you are going to love it! I was trying to do my best Bollywood version in this movie and there is a Prince Ali sequence in the film and I kept telling Guy Ritchie you got to go full Bollywood, you have to give them full Bollywood flavour, Smith said at a red carpet event in Tokyo.

Also read: Deepika Padukone has sweetest birthday wish for dad Prakash: Greatest off-screen hero I could have ever had, see pic

Naomi went on to star in the rebooted version of Charlies Angels, and is also signed up for an Aladdin sequel. Deepika, meanwhile, made her Hollywood debut opposite Vin Diesel in xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.

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Baku, Singapore and Suzuka are set to be definitively scratched from the 2020 calendar.

That is the word from Andrea Cremonesi, a respected correspondent for Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport.

"In days, if not hours, the official cancellation of the race in Baku will be announced," the Italian source Formula Passion quotes him as saying.

"The same applies to Singapore and also Japan, where the Olympics also had to be postponed until 2021."

Cremonesi said another victim of the corona crisis in 2020 will be the new venue in Vietnam, but China, Austin and Mexico reportedly remain hopeful.

He said Brazil, though, is "a big question mark", meaning that if there are too few races on the eventual schedule, second races in Bahrain and Russia could be added.

(GMM)
Two Hill Country politicians are under fire for controversial comments they made Tuesday as racial tensions throughout the country run high.

The mayor of Woodcreek, a small town about 66 miles northeast of San Antonio, deleted a Facebook post in which she wrote Black Lives Matter was "a Socialist attempt to take over our lives, using guilt and shame."

In Kerr County, a county commissioner said on his radio show that George Floyd, who died while in police custody, did not deserve the funeral he received, calling him "basically a thug."

Woodcreek mayor

A Hill Country mayor faced criticism for a series of Facebook posts about Black Lives Matter, including one in which she labeled the movement "a threat to our lives."

Gloria Whitehead, mayor of Woodcreek, penned the since-deleted posts on Tuesday, according to The Wimberley View.

Whitehead repeatedly said "I'm not a racist" in several follow-ups to her original post, which called Black Lives Matter "a Socialist attempt to take over our lives, using guilt and shame."

After noting that a relative's salon in Delaware had recently been damaged, Whitehead linked Black Lives Matter to communist groups and the Weather Underground.

The View reported that the mayor's posts spurred hundreds of comments, many calling Whitehead racist and requesting her resignation.

City officials were not immediately available for comment Wednesday.

The Woodcreek city council adopted a social media policy in 2019 that advises the mayor and councilmembers to "keep postings factual and accurate" and "consider content carefully, because postings are widely accessible."

Before deleting the posts, Whitehead defended her statements.

"I don't support the BLM Group...for my personal reasons and research over many years and just like that I'm a Racist," the mayor wrote. "...and have unmercifully been vilified. Let me be clear, I do not support, BLM, the Movement. Never have I ever said that Black Lives do not matter.

"Do not misquote me nor change the dialogue. To the contrary..All Lives Matter. AND..I AM NOT A Racist..You can call me a Racist all day long and I'll still not bow to the BLM idealogy."

State Representative Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, responded to Whitehead on Facebook, writing, "As a fellow elected official, I am disappointed to see this."

"Your words, intentionally or not, do harm to our black community members," Zwiener said. "Please take the time to understand why. If you want to learn more about why this is harmful, I am happy to sit down and help you through this work. Black lives matter, full stop, and every single person in power should be stepping up to make sure theyre treated as such."

Kerr County Commissioner

A Kerr County Commissioner said George Floyd, who died in police custody and sparked a global push for police reform and social justice, didn't deserve any of the "accolades" he received during a memorial service attended by thousands Tuesday in Houston.

Along with being an elected Republican official of Kerr County, about an hour outside of San Antonio, Pct. 1 Commissioner Harley Belew also hosts a radio segment on the Hill Country Patriot. The day before Floyd was buried, he shared his opinions on his death and the memorials planned in Houston.

Audio from the radio show was recorded by Kerrville United, a volunteer-run website geared toward news in the area.

Belew opened the show by calling Floyd "basically a thug." He opposed the Floyd's funeral because he said others were "denied" having services for their loved ones due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Someone that dies with a knee on their neck has probably done something wrong to get the cops called there and thats what people are not talking about," Belew continues. I was waiting to see how this was going to play out. I figured it was going to be one of these Michael Brown deals, and, of course, it has been.

Brown, 18, was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in 2014. The shooting also prompted protests in the St. Louis area for a week after the shooting and then again when Wilson was not indicted.

Belew went on to call Floyd a "useful tool" in pushing a "message."

"George Floyd does not deserve the funeral he's getting, he does not deserve the accolades," he added.

The commissioner could not immediately be reached for comment. On his personal Facebook page, he penned a public post the same day of the radio segment saying he believes the "human race" is the only race and he has "no idea why we're not all the same color."

Discussion within the county, which encompasses Kerville, is mixed with support for Belew and disdain. Some suggested running him "out of town" for the "stunt." Another resident called on County Judge Rob Kelly to address Belew's behavior.

"What he (Belew) said is what he said, I didn't say it," Kelly said when reached by phone, then declined to comment further.
Union minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday listed the various achievements of the Narendra Modi government while attacking the opposition during a video address to BJP members and leaders in Uttarakhands Kumaon region. She alleged that the Opposition was quick to criticize government initiatives but did nothing when in power.

Iranis virtual rally was focused on the achievements of Narendra Modis government in the first year of its second term. She addressed the party members from Delhi through online streaming with party state president Bansidhar Bhagat and Nainital-US Nagar MP Ajay Bhatt attending it from the party office in Haldwani town of Nainital.

Attacking the Opposition, Irani said, The Opposition criticises PM Modis government on various issues. But I want to ask them, what they did when they were in power all these years?

Why didnt the banking services, during the opposition rule, reach 34 crore people, who now have Jan Dhan accounts due to PM Modis efforts? Also, why didnt they think of providing free gas connections to the poor women of the country during their government, when we have given it to 8 crore people? They only made tall promises but did nothing for the poor, said Irani.

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The Union minister also took an indirect dig at Rahul Gandhi during her address.

I wont take the name of that Congress leader and former Amethi MP who had once publicly torn down a copy of order given by PM, Irani said in what appeared to be a reference to Rahul Gandhis act of publicly tearing a copy of an ordinance brought by the UPA government under Manmohan Singh in the year 2013.

Irani added that all 130 cr people of the country were standing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his handling of this ongoing pandemic.

She also attacked the Opposition on the issue of farmers.

When they were in government, they never thought of transferring money to farmers but made hollow promises for their welfare. They just wanted them (the farmers) to beg for their rights so that they can do politics on it. But our government through Kisan Samman Nidhi have transferred money directly to the bank accounts of farmers in the country even in this lockdown, she said.

Irani also spoke about the infrastructural development in Uttarakhand by the Modi government.

The highly ambitious Char Dham all weather road project worth Rs 12,000 crore is under development along with Rs 13,000 crore railway project. Our government under PM Modi is investing heavily to develop the infrastructure in Uttarakhand. PM Modi even discussed the all weather road project and Kedarnath Dham restoration project with chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Wednesday, said Irani.

She also mentioned abrogation of Article 370, law banning Triple Talaq and paving the way for construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya as other achievements of the Modi government.

Party state president Bansidhar Bhagar, too, attacked the Congress for questioning the BJP led state government on the issue of Gairsain as the states summer capital.

Bhagat said, The Congress is questioning us on why Gairsain has been made the states summer capital and not a permanent one. I want to ask them, why didnt they do anything when they were in power twice? They know that they have nothing relevant to say hence they are making baseless attacks.

Also Read: Two Covid-19 patients die in Uttarakhand in 24 hours; 23 fresh cases take tally to 1560

The Congress meanwhile attacked the BJP for holding virtual rallies amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Suryakant Dhasmana, party state vice-president said, When we had questioned the government on its failure in handling the pandemic in Uttarakhand, BJP had accused us of doing politics. Now, they are holding these virtual rallies all across the country including our state. They should now answer who is doing politics?
The body of a man who had been shot in the head at close range was found near railroad tracks a few blocks from the police station. Investigators determined it was a homicide believed to be related to the other shootings, Paso Robles police said. The victim was only described as being in his 40s.
Besides Sonu Sood's efforts to help workers got back to their native places, megastar Amitabh Bachchan has also been doing his bit for those in need of help during the lockdown.

Over the past two months, the veteran actor has been distributing food kits among the needy in Mumbai. Recently, he arranged the transport of over 200 people stuck in the city. Now, Mid-Day has reported that Bachchan chartered three flights to take over 500 migrant workers to their hometown Varanasi, today.

A source revealed, "Everything is being done with utmost discretion as Bachchanji doesn't want it to be publicised. He was moved by the plight of the migrant workers and decided to help them. He has chartered the Indigo Airlines' Varanasi-bound flight that is scheduled to depart on Wednesday morning. The 180 migrants scheduled to travel on the morning flight have been asked to report to the airport at 6 am. The initial plan was to send them home by train, but the logistics didn't work out."

Two more chartered aircrafts were scheduled for later in the day. As part of the endeavour, in the coming days, the actor will also arrange air tickets for those headed to West Bengal, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and other states.

It was previously reported that a week back, Bachchan had also arranged for 10 buses to help migrants reach their native places in Uttar Pradesh, the state that the actor hails from. In addition to this, since the coronavirus lockdown, he has also supported the families of 1,00,000 daily wage workers belonging to the All India Film Employees Confederation by sponsoring their monthly ration.
The morning of Friday, June 5, I ventured down to the courthouse to be present with and support those gathered in memory of George Floyd and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The first person I encountered was a young man in military fatigues carrying an AK-47 assault weapon around his neck.

I greeted him warmly, introduced myself by name and told him I am a local Catholic priest. He did not introduce himself so I asked if he was with the police department. He said no. So I asked, Why are you here with an assault weapon? He said he was "protecting the people gathered there.

I gently said, I feel your presence here with that weapon is threatening and makes me very uncomfortable. I have participated in many marches and demonstrations in Missoula but never saw anyone with a weapon.

I went up to speak to the young woman who seemed to be leading the demonstration. I told her I was there to support the demonstration and that Black Lives Matter. Then I shared my conversation with the armed man. While speaking with her I learned a young woman in military fatigues standing near me was carrying a holstered pistol.

So I told the leader of the demonstration I was leaving because I cannot support the presence of such weapons in a peaceful demonstration. I later learned there are others here in Missoula who have gone to support the demonstrations but did not remain when they saw these armed people.

I think of blessings as any sort of gift from God. I fail to see or understand how anyone can think Montanas open carry law is a blessing.

Father Jim Hogan is a Catholic priest in Missoula.

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China's Ambassador Says Hong Kong's Security Law to Make Social System Stable, Governance Effective

Sputnik News

10:28 GMT 09.06.2020

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The central authorities' national security legislation will only strengthen Hong Kong's legal system, while people's freedoms and interests of investors will remain unaffected, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said in an interview.

According to the diplomat, the draft legislation would target an "extremely small range of activities," namely those that endanger national security.

"[The planned legislation] does not affect the autonomy of Hong Kong, nor the rights and freedom of citizens of Hong Kong, nor legal rights and interests of foreign investors in Hong Kong. On the contrary, thanks to this decision by the National People's Congress of China, the legal system of Hong Kong will become better, the social system more stable, law-based governance more effective, and the business environment more favourable," Zhang said.

The ambassador said that the rise in violence from radical separatist forces and foreign interference against the backdrop of 2019 protests in Hong Kong "has caused grave harm to China's national security and created a huge threat to the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong and the implementation of the 'one country, two systems' policy."

"The Central government of China is adamant and resolute in protecting state sovereignty, security, and development interests, and decisively and adamantly oppose any foreign forces interfering in the affairs of Hong Kong. On such an important and fundamental issue, it is impossible to continue to back down and make concessions," Zhang stated.

In May, the Chinese parliament passed a resolution to develop the national security law that bans secessionist and subversive activity in Hong Kong.

Supported by the Hong Kong leadership, the move has triggered a backlash from the local opposition and Western countries that express concerns about a possible infringement on civil rights. Washington, in particular, has threatened to revoke the city's favoured trade status with the US.

China and Russia will build on their cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus, emerging as stronger partners after the pandemic, Chinese Ambassador in Moscow Zhang Hanhui told Sputnik in an interview.

The two countries supported each other in overcoming the peaks of the epidemic, sending humanitarian aid when it was needed most. Since China was the first to confront and counter coronavirus, it also sent a team of 10 medical experts to Russia in April to exchange experience.

"The experience of China and Russia in the fight against the pandemic will be transformed into impetus to accelerate the development of Chinese-Russian relations after the epidemic," Zhang said.

The ambassador recalled that, despite the pandemic, bilateral trade increased by 3.4 percent to $25.4 billion in the first quarter of 2020 year-on-year. China's imports from Russia grew by 17.3 percent to $16.2 billion, with Russia ranking first among the country's main trading partners in terms of imports growth.

As the two economies recover from the coronavirus crisis, the ambassador expressed hope that China and Russia "will continue to closely cooperate while jointly responding to the challenges of the pandemic" to further strengthen relations and implement their goal to boost bilateral trade to $200 billion by 2024.

A Sputnik

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New Delhi: Under Vande Bharat Mission to evacuate Indians from abroad amid COVID-19 pandemic, 58 more flights have been added to bring them back from Gulf countries between now and 30th June, said Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday (June 10).

He took to social media and tweeted, "58 more flights added to evacuate stranded & distressed Indian citizens from Gulf countries between now & 30th June 2020. Starting immediately, the number of flights from Gulf under phase-3 of Vande Bharat Mission now increased from originally planned 107 to 165."

58 more flights added to evacuate stranded & distressed Indian citizens from Gulf countries between now & 30th June 2020. Starting immediately, number of flights from Gulf under phase-3 of Vande Bharat Mission now increased from originally planned 107 to 165. pic.twitter.com/gJ3Wyze3we  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 10, 2020

Earlier, Puri said that India has so far brought back nearly 70,000 people under the Vande Bharat Mission. The ministry will begin the third phase of exercise from June 11 and continue till June 30.

Notably, 193 Indians reached Kolkata from New York today by a special evacuation flight of Air India. The flight arrived at Kolkata airport on Wednesday morning as part of the `Vande Bharat` mission, aimed at bringing Indian nationals stranded in various countries.

The third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission started today (June 10) and will last till July 1. The schedule has 356 flights, which include the return services and domestic connections. The second phase had about 180 flights and the first, which ran between May 7 and 15, had 64 flights.

The first phase brought back about 15,000 Indians home, while the second phase carried nearly 30,000 citizens till May 29. The mission, said to be the largest repatriation exercise in the world, intends to bring back over two lakh Indians stranded across the world since the lockdown was announced in March.

The government had suspended domestic and international flights as part of the lockdown. Air India announced that bookings for the third phase began on June 5.

Meanwhile, a Kuwait Airways flight carrying around 45 Indian passengers from Kuwait landed at Devi Ahilyabai Holkar International Airport in Indore on Tuesday.

(With Agency Inputs)
Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], June 10 (ANI/NewsVoir): In an effort to help the second-largest workforce sector in India, the Master Craftsmen and Artisans, facilities have been allocated by brand and Silver Centrre to allow them to work from home during this difficult time due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Covering a total of 25,000 Artisans across India, the company aims to provide them with hope and a bright future. This innovative programme was started by the brand and iconic company and Silver Centrre in 1998. Till today, it is the only initiative of its kind taken up by any jewellery company in India.

is a Veteran Designer of the nation and a Rajasthani Business Magnate. She produces more than 10,000 designs of precious metal jewellery studded with precious, semi-precious gemstones, handmade paintings and pearls every year.

Silver Centrre was founded by 'The Silver King of India', Seth Kistoor Chand Boochra in 1897 as a Bullion Trading Company. It was only in 1960 when his visionary son Seth Lalit Kumar Boochra saw an opportunity and converted it into a Jewellery Manufacturing Company.

The brand and company have 45 stores, 3 factories and design studios.

Neeta Boochra - Director, Sangeeta Boochra - Director and Designer, Abhineet Boochra - Director, Divya Boochra - Director and Creative Head and Riteek Boochra - Chief Brand Officer.

The brand has been loved by many royal families of the world, industrialists, politicians and celebrities. From Her Highness Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II of England, Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, Royal Family of Patiala, Nizam of Hyderabad, Royal Family of Rajkot, Royal Family of Kota, Wadiyar Dynasty of Mysore, Royal Family of Baroda - the Gaekwad Dynasty, John F. Kennedy, President of United States to Hollywood celebrities Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Sofia Vergara, Monica Bellucci, Salma Hayek, Audrey Hepburn and Bollywood celebrities like Deepika Padukone, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Vidya Balan and Alia Bhatt, all have adorned the brand's collections.

It would be impossible to ARGUE that "Sangeeta Boochra" is the most famous designer of Jewellery. Her strength is her ability to read the times and the moods that changed them - and usually do so before anyone else did.

Director of the brand Abhineet Boochra states that during this difficult time due to COVID-19, the brand is helping the second most important sector, the Artisans and Master Craftsmen of India, by providing them work in their villages through the companies long-standing network of 400 clusters across all states and union territories in the country.

This way, they are helping 25,000 artisans on the national level in the jewellery industry. In 1998, Sangeeta Boochra along with her father-in-law Seth Lalit Kumar Boochra jointly started a programme known as the 'Community Development Programme' which turned out to be a boon for these Artisans and Master Craftsmen during this pandemic.

"We are providing daily wage, work from home, medical help and aid, food and all other necessary requirements that are useful for their livelihoods. The brand's ethics are so deep-rooted that we value the life of each and every employee and artisan of the company," informed Abhineet Boochra.

The company has made sure that no Artisan under their programme would sleep hungry or face any loss of work. We have even deployed additional teams to take care of this situation adhering to all government guidelines.

"Our advantage is that we have built a network inside these villages and clusters of India over a period of 22 years and now the connectivity amongst our Artisans is very strong and we can easily facilitate services in remote locations as our nature of business calls for it," said Abhineet Boochra.

The brand manufactures beautiful handcrafted jewellery which is inspired by the traditions and culture of India, hence these Artisans are the real strength of India and of the company as they are the ones who make it successful.

"We are also preserving the dying form of the jewellery making art by helping these artisans so as to sustain this craft so that our forthcoming generations are able to see these beautiful pieces of art. Otherwise, in the future, these might only ever be seen in museums," stated Abhineet Boochra.

Below are the details of our Community Development Programme which we have been continuously working on since 1998.

Unskilled Rural Poor are made jewellery artisans through community mobilization and skill training.

Training and livelihood sources are at their doorstep, fair wages, no exploitation, no child labour, no pollution and no harm to the society.

Social Development Support: Artisans and their communities are facilitated for better health, life skill education, sanitation and other social imperatives. Financing the marriage of at least 1 daughter of an Artisan.

Connecting artisans to world markets by taking them to all shows and exporting their products to different countries of the world.

We partner with Government, Civil Societies, NGO's etc.

Employing Artisans who live in the most remote parts of India with little to no access to transport. The greatest challenge in their lives is commuting to work and back, often resulting in families that live far apart. One of the key differentiators of our model is an artisan's ability to not only work from home, but have business travel to them.

A grassroots network that requires specialized logistical support is set up through which raw materials are dropped off at an artisan's home from where they work on the product. To ensure customers receive high-quality products, quality supervisors inspect the production to help ensure a consistent output while tracking progress. These supervisors also ensure artisan service to ensure they are not interrupted by the shortage of raw bullion. When completed, the product is picked up at the Artisans' doorstep and sent to the next stage of the jewellery making progress.

These networks stretch across 400 villages in India through an intense grassroots network to connect 25,000 artisans.

Sangeeta Boochra/Silver Centrre's Artisans' thus have the ability to work from home.

More women can work towards financial independence as they don't have to navigate commute, especially in remote villages.

Artisans decide their own work hours - being able to work around their family's schedules.

Artisans will lose no workdays in receiving and transporting material.

Traditional Indian communities do not give women the opportunity to work outside the home and thus Sangeeta Boochra/Silver Centrre's model provides an easy solution to this.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)

DISCLAIMER

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mathura : , June 10 (IANS) The Mathura administration has now made it mandatory to seek permission for funeral or cremation of the dead.

The decision was taken on Tuesday after the police registered a case against 72 persons, including 47 identified persons, at Raya police station. The case has been filed under section 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of IPC and for violating prohibitory orders.

Scores of people attended the last rites of a person who tested Covid-19 positive after his death.

The deceased was a well-known businessman in Raya. He died at a Faridabad hospital on Saturday and was cremated the same day. However, he was tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday.

Mahavan Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Jag Pravesh said, "The family should have informed the district administration if the hospital had taken his samples for Corona testing. We are now facing issues in tracing his contacts as many of them are from other villages. Around 100 primary contacts, including 30 high risk ones who touched the body, have been quarantined." The SDM further said, "We assure you that permission will be granted within 30 minutes of submitting the application. We have given permission for over 200 weddings in the sub-division till date," he added.

Meanwhile, two more persons, including a doctor's son in Raya town, have tested positive for the virus and the Health Department has started contact tracing.
OTTAWATwo young Black graduates delivered pointed anti-racism messages to Justin Trudeau Wednesday ahead of the prime ministers commencement address to Canadas Class of 2020.

At an event televised from Carleton University that featured physically-distanced grads, the prime minister and a quiet family-only audience, Jordan Gray, a graduate of Carleton University, and Caleb Adedze, of Ottawas College La Cite, stole the brief show when they took the podium.

They hailed their fellow graduates with brief valedictory speeches and prodded Trudeau to take concrete anti-racism action after he appeared at a protest in response to George Floyds death last week.

Adedze addressed Trudeau directly in French, telling the prime minister that he had been one of the young people in a crowd of 5,000 at Fridays No Peace Until Justice demonstration against anti-Black racism on Parliament Hill.

Trudeaus presence was an important symbolic message. It is very appreciated, he said.

But, Adedze said, What really matters now is measures that will be taken from now on to ensure that equality of opportunity is not a dream, nor some kind of utopian fantasy, but rather a reality.

Celebrating diversity without encouraging inclusion is only a distraction, Adedze said.

Adedze, an international student from Togo in West Africa, graduated from mechanical engineering, and was the student union president. He said it was an honour for him to stand and represent national and international students in colleges and universities across Canada at the event.

History is watching us, Adedze said. We have a duty to commit our own efforts to achieve sustainable change in government institutions, post-secondary institutions, and in our own attitudes.

Jordan Gray, a graduate of Carletons Bachelor of Global and International Studies and winner of two academic scholarship awards, said he believed at one point I would not make it to the end of this degree.

It is not always easy to succeed when discretion within the academy and beyond favours those who are not Black, not Indigenous and not people of colour, Gray said.

And yesterdays funeral for George Floyd was a reminder for Canada that the racism that manifested in George Floyds killing is often structurally supported by our own institutions.

Let us take in the magnitude of this moment, pause in reflection of our successes and then on what is the beginning of this new decade, let us roll up our sleeves, for we have much work to do.

Gray received one of Carleton Universitys highest honours for an undergraduate. A Carleton press release described him as the scholarly equivalent of a pro athlete who conducted 10 major research projects, on marginalized groups and Indigenous languages, and presented seven of those at conferences  five outside Canada  including at the UN.

Both Adedze and Gray underlined the resilience of their graduating classmates who completed their studies and achieved their degrees amid a pandemic.

To be graduating in a time that has set norms aside is to be tooled with knowledge, resilience and audacity to address the crises of our current moment, Gray said.

From health to racism to climate change, we graduates have been gifted with a new decade to write the new chapter of our country and of our world.

Adedze told his fellow grads to remember that you are unique and that your power rests in the fact that you are unique. Never give up  History is watching.

Trudeau, who had donned a black mask, sat listening and nodding at times as each man spoke. Afterwards he saluted them, tapping his hand to his heart.

He complimented them and two young female graduates, Lana El Sanyoura of University of Toronto, and Emmie Ouellet of the University of Laval, who also delivered valedictory remarks in English and French, for their individual academic achievements.

Trudeau compared this years graduating class to the Class of 1939, and challenged them like that generation to rebuild their world, reassuring them that they already have the resilience, the strength, the passion and the tools it will take to face the uncertainties of the future.

You know that Canada is far from perfect. That we are still very much a work in progress. And your generation has enthusiastically embraced the hard truth that we have to do better.

Trudeau has often declared on the campaign trail and in political speeches as both candidate and prime minister that diversity is our strength, and yet last year his re-election campaign stumbled when photos of him as a younger man dressed in brownface and blackface makeup surfaced. He has repeatedly apologized, and committed government money to anti-Black racism initiatives.

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(Alliance News) - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday took to task HSBC Holdings PLC for backing Beijing's controversial security law proposal in Hong Kong, warning of businesses' overreliance on China.

The Asia-focused British banking giant last week posted its support for the law on Chinese social media platform WeChat with a picture of HSBC's top Asia executive, Peter Wong, signing a petition backing the measure.

"That show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the bank's business in China as political leverage against London," Pompeo said in a statement, calling HSBC's experience "a cautionary tale."

"Beijing's aggressive behavior shows why countries should avoid economic overreliance on China and should guard their critical infrastructure from CCP influence," he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Pompeo renewed his call on all countries to shun Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which Washington says will jeopardize personal security if it is allowed to dominate construction of the fifth-generation internet.

China's rubber-stamp parliament last month moved ahead with a law that will punish subversion and other perceived offenses in Hong Kong, a move some activists say will kill the former British colony's promised freedoms.

Pompeo responded by declaring that Hong Kong will no longer be considered autonomous from mainland China in the eyes of US law.

HSBC offered support for the law after public pressure from a pro-Beijing figure in Hong Kong who pointed to the bank's reliance on business in China.

HSBC executive Wong, speaking to Chinese state media agency Xinhua, voiced hope that the law would bring "long-term stability and prosperity" to Hong Kong.

Other British companies that have backed the law, bucking London's official position, include bank Standard Chartered PLC.

source: AFP

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
In line with easing restrictions amidst management of coronavirus situation in Ghana, government itemized instructions to be followed by schools, mosques, churches, and other bodies in order to open.

Following this, the Dormaa East District Public Health Emergency Committee (PHEC), tasked with issues of COVID-19 at the district level, over the weekends met all religious leaders, heads of schools and other stakeholders in the fight against coronavirus in all six area/town councils to readout and bring to their understanding the instructions put forward to ease the restriction.

The meeting was also to enable the participants to acquire firsthand knowledge of their expectations in order to operate cautiously, safely and to assist the churches and mosques identify some of the basic requirements far from their reach and how best the committee could partner and liaise with them to meet the requirements in order to make opening easier.

Participants at the meeting included pastors and church leaders, imams, heads of schools, traditional heads, opinion leaders, area council members, and assemblymen.

The District Chief Executive, Hon. Emmanuel Kofi Agyeman, who chaired the meeting, gave gallons of hand sanitizers to the churches and mosques to support the need to sanitize microphones, pulpits, and other instruments necessary after use. He however gave the churches which could not immediately get the thermometer guns, a minimum of two weeks to acquire them. He also asked them to see the environmental health officers in the various area councils for the fumigation of their premises as part of the basic requirement to start operations.

Other basic requirements included hand washing and sanitizing, social distancing, and the wearing of nose-mask.

He appealed to the religious leaders to do well in the compliance of all the directives since they were backed by law and would be very difficult for him to help anyone who is caught up with the law. The DCE said the disease is real, every individual has a role to play in its fight alongside governments schedules on it. He reiterated that these directives are for our own good and asked the churches to intensify prayers for the disease to be taken away by God so that life would be back to normal

He appealed to the heads of schools to do what is within their power and whatever that is beyond them, be forwarded to the Assembly for assistance to ensure protection for both teachers and school children.

He presented some amount of money and megaphones to the COVID-19 committee taskforce in all the area/town councils to support them in their sensitization and monitoring routines of the protocols.

The Presiding Member of the Assembly, Mr. Daniel Acquah pleaded with churches to intensify support for their members especially the poor in these difficult times.

He emphasized that none of the requirements are negotiable and advised pastors and imams who cannot meet the requirements to suspend opening till they are ready.

In an interview with some of the participants, they testified about the good work the District Public Health Emergency Committee led by the DCE has done so far in fighting the disease and to protect the people in the district. They expressed gratefulness to the DCE and the committee for their support and encouragement as well as their willingness to partner them meet the requirements to successfully operate. They admitted that the requirements, though tough, will go a long way to help in containing the disease.
Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 10.06.2020:

 428 COVID-19 new cases were confirmed in Armenia on Wednesday, bringing the total number to 14,103, the health ministry reported.

The death toll in Armenia has reached 227.

The total number of tests conducted so far is 73,156, while 8,573 people are currently being treated.

According to the latest data, 5,226 people have recovered thus far.

 In the meantime, Armenia now ranks 19th in the world in the number of COVID-19 cases per one million inhabitants, while on June 8, the country was in the 20th place.

According to worldometers.info/coronavirus/, Armenia has 4,760 cases per one million residents.

Qatar, San Marino, and the Vatican are the top 3 countries in the world in this regard.

 Three men have been found dead in a non-operating gold mine in Armenias Kotayk province.

According to reports, they had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Rescuers, police, and several citizens carried the dead to a waiting ambulance, on foot, on stretchers, and for about 2 km.

Police have later received a call from the Hrazdan town hospital that they had admitted several persons with a diagnosis of "exogenous poisoning from mine gas." And it turned out that these persons had suffered gas poisoning when they had tried to retrieve the dead bodies of their fellow villagers.

 Azerbaijani armed forces on Tuesday opened fire on the defensive positions of the Noyemberyan region of Armenia.

According to the head of Voskepar village, Serob Makhsudyan, several bullets fell in the village. However, no damages have been reported.

 Lithuania will send a team of doctors and specialists to Armenia to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Lithuanian FM Linas Linkevicius tweeted.

The minister also wrote in Armenian: Together we will overcome all challenges.

 Armenia has improved its position by 15 spots in the Global Peace Index 2020, taking 99th place out of 163.

According to the report, Armenia "rose 15 places in the rankings and is now ranked among the 100 most peaceful countries, owing to a large improvement in relations with neighbouring countries, as well as a substantial fall in its incarceration rate."

 Filmmaker Jivan Avetisyan's 'Gate to Heaven' will take part in the Marche du Film.

The film premiered in Armenia in October 2019. It tells the story of a German journalist who returns to Artsakh in 2016 to cover the war which has been reignited after a 22-year ceasefire.
Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) CEO Yoon Jong-won, third from right, speaks with officials of an auto parts manufacturer in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, Tuesday. The state-run lender said its CEO made the visit to hear how the subcontractors of auto manufacturers have been affected by COVID-19. / Courtesy of IBK
Even as the World Health Organisation leads the worldwide response to the coronavirus pandemic, the agency is failing to take stock of rapidly evolving research findings and to communicate clearly about them, several scientists warned Tuesday

Even as the World Health Organisation leads the worldwide response to the coronavirus pandemic, the agency is failing to take stock of rapidly evolving research findings and to communicate clearly about them, several scientists warned Tuesday.

In a news briefing Monday, a WHO official asserted that transmission of the coronavirus by people without symptoms is very rare. Following concerted pushback from researchers, officials Tuesday walked back the claim, saying it was a misunderstanding.

But it is not the first time the WHOs assessment has seemed to lag behind scientific opinion.

The agency delayed endorsing masks for the general public until Friday, claiming there was too little evidence that they prevented transmission of the virus. Virtually all scientists and governments have been recommending masks for months.

The WHO has said repeatedly that small airborne droplets, or aerosols, are not a significant factor in the pandemics spread, although a growing body of evidence suggests that they may be.

The WHO has been out of step with most of the world on the issue of droplets and aerosols, said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota.

These scientific disagreements have wide policy implications. Many countries, including the United States, adopted lockdown strategies because they recognised that isolating only people who were sick might not be enough to contain the epidemic.

If the virus is transmitted by small airborne droplets, people will need to continue to avoid congregating in poorly ventilated spaces, even if they practice rigorous hand hygiene.

The WHO traditionally has taken a cautious approach to evaluating scientific evidence. But the pace of research has changed: Now scientists are rushing to publish preliminary research, even before their results can be thoroughly vetted by other experts.

The avalanche of findings may bring advances  like a vaccine  in record time. But the onslaught also has led to confusion, even retractions of high-profile results.

On the one hand, I do want to cut the WHO some slack, because it is hard to do this in an evolving pandemic, said Dr Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. At the same time, we do rely on the WHO to give us the best scientific data and evidence.

The WHOs thinking on asymptomatic transmission does not appear to have changed much since February, when the WHO China Joint Mission reported that the proportion of truly asymptomatic infections is unclear, but appears to be relatively rare and does not appear to be a major driver of transmission.

Studies later estimated this number could be as high as 40 percent; the current best estimate from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is 35 percent. The research prompted many countries, including the United States, to endorse use of masks by everyone.

But Monday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHOs technical lead for coronavirus response, said that it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.

Her statement provoked an immediate backlash from scientists, who noted that study after study had shown transmission of the virus from people before they ever felt symptoms.

The reaction prompted the WHO to clarify its position in a live session hosted on Facebook and Twitter. Van Kerkhove said her comment had been based on only two or three studies.

I was just responding to a question; I wasnt stating a policy of WHO or anything like that, she said. Van Kerkhove said her statement was also based on unpublished evidence that some countries have shared with the WHO.

But critics, including its own officials, said the organisation should be transparent about its sources. WHOs first and foremost responsibility is to be the science leader, said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on National and Global Health Law.

And when they come out with things that are clearly contradicted by the scientific establishment without any justification or citing studies, it significantly reduces their credibility.

A key point of confusion is the difference between people who are pre-symptomatic and will go on to develop symptoms and those who are asymptomatic and never feel sick. Van Kerkhove suggested that her comments were about people who are truly asymptomatic.

A widely-cited paper published in April suggested that people are most infectious up to two days before the onset of symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms.

WHO refers to such people as pre-symptomatic. OK, technically fine, Jha said. But for all intents and purposes, they are asymptomatic  they are without symptoms.

Van Kerkhove said that by using the two terms, WHO officials are in fact trying to be very clear about the group of people they are referring to.

Unfortunately, thats not how everybody uses it, she said. I didnt intend that to make things more complicated.

The WHO continues to maintain that large respiratory droplets expelled by sneezing or coughing are the main route of transmission and to downplay a possible role for aerosols, smaller particles that may linger in the air.

But evidence is piling up that aerosols may be an important route.

What they havent recognised is that activities like coughing and talking, even breathing in some cases, are also aerosol-producing procedures, said Linsey Marr, who studies airborne transmission of viruses at Virginia Tech.

WHO officials said they were aware that breathing and talking might result in aerosols, but questioned their importance in spreading the virus.

To date, there has been no demonstration of transmission by this type of aerosol route, said Dr. Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHOs technical lead on the coronavirus.

But the WHO defines airborne transmission too narrowly, some scientists said. Airborne transmission also includes the possibility that the virus is aloft for shorter distances, then inhaled.

They have a very early 20th Century, very unsophisticated view of what aerosols and airborne transmission are, said Dr Don Milton, an expert on public health aerobiology at the University of Maryland.

Up until the 1950s, Milton said, tuberculosis was thought to be spread by prolonged close contact. We now know that its only transmitted by aerosols, he said.

Some scientists are suspicious that WHOs stance on masks and aerosols may stem less from scientific research than from a concern over supplies of personal protective equipment for medical workers.

The organisation currently recommends respirator masks that would block aerosols only for health care workers doing medical procedures that produce aerosols.

Van Kerkhove said that the WHOs guidance was based only on science and not on any considerations of supply. While a shortage of PPE is a problem, she said, it doesnt change what we recommend.

All of the experts said it was not that the WHO is wrong on all counts, but that given the implications of its statements, it should be more cautious in concluding that transmission by air or by people without symptoms is not significant.

We dont know, Milton said. But they also dont know.

Some experts said that when the WHO uses the phrase there is no evidence to indicate uncertainty, it is in fact conveying certainty about the absence of a phenomenon.

Van Kerkhove conceded that point.

Thats a fair statement, she said. Theres a lot of research that needs to be done to really understand this, and we are open to the fact that there is new research every day.

Apoorva Mandavilli c.2020 The New York Times Company
Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance union leader Oh Sang-hoon, third from right, reads a statement after filing a petition with the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Administration, Tuesday. / Yonhap



By Park Jae-hyuk



Unions of Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance and Samsung Claim Adjustment Service began calling for the company's management and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong to accept their request for wage increases.



They warned that they will file civil and criminal suits against the management if their request is not accepted.



According to the unions, Wednesday, their petition was submitted to the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Administration a day earlier.



They alleged their companies have delayed paying overtime to their employees.



"Since the Samsung Fire union was established on Jan. 23, we have held 10 meetings with the management, but the CEO has never appeared in a venue for negotiation," Samsung Fire union leader Oh Sang-hoon said after filing the petition.



"If our petition does not work, we will push forward our next steps  civil and criminal suits."



The unions criticized Lee, Samsung's de facto leader, for this issue, alleging he has yet to make any efforts to guarantee the three primary rights of workers  the rights to organize, bargain collectively and act collectively.



They urged him to accept the unions from the bottom of his heart and pay attention to their demands.



Samsung Fire's labor and management have failed to reach an agreement on payment for extra work, although they started wage negotiations in March.



They have differed over the wage system which was changed in 2012.



Back then, the insurer introduced a "blanket wage system" which refers to a wage calculation method used in Korea, under which workers are paid a fixed monthly salary regardless of how many extra hours they work.



In this regard, the management claimed it has already paid for overtime.



However, the workers said their overtime payments should have been raised in line with the hike in their base salaries under the changed wage system.



According to the workers, the management needs to pay each employee 15 million won ($12,500) to 20 million won for their additional labor.



When the Samsung SDI union filed a similar complaint against management in 2016, the court ruled in favor of the union.



Against this backdrop, Samsung Fire said it has complied with the Supreme Court precedents and related laws regarding wages.



"We will respond to the union's petition according to the law," a Samsung Fire official said.


Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 04:36:13|Editor: huaxia

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A worker wearing a protective suit disinfects a street to help fight the spread of the novel coronavirus in Sanaa, Yemen, on June 9, 2020. (Photo by Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua)

ADEN, Yemen, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 cases in Yemen's government-controlled provinces increased to 524 on Tuesday, as 28 new cases were confirmed.

The Yemeni Health Ministry said in a brief statement that during the past 24 hours, the number of recoveries in the government-controlled areas remained at 23 since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus on April 10.

Also, the government announced that the death toll from the deadly respiratory disease climbed to 127 in different areas under its control, including the southern port city of Aden.

The Yemeni government has taken several measures to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, including imposing a partial overnight curfew in Aden and other major cities under its control.

The government called on donors and relevant international humanitarian organizations to provide support to help contain the pandemic.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi group seized control of much of the country's north and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa. Enditem
House Intel Relied on Sources Besides CrowdStrike to Conclude Russians Stole DNC Emails, Source Says

The information provided by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike wasnt the most compelling piece of evidence examined by a House committee to reach the conclusion that Russian hackers stole thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server in late May 2016, according to a Republican on the panel who was directly involved in the investigation.

The House Intelligence Committee reviewed multiple independent sources, all of which were more compelling than the evidence handed over by CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that the DNC hired to deal with the breach of its systems. The evidence for the exfiltration of the emails from the DNC server was as convincing as the evidence for the rest of the cyberattack, the source told The Epoch Times.



The evidence on exfiltration was not weaker than for any other parts of the hacking operation. CrowdStrikes evidence was not the most compelling thing we hadit was the independent sources of information that also indicated Russian exfiltration. Unfortunately, those details are classified and were redacted from official reports on the hack, the source said.

The committee disclosed the new information in response to questions that arose from the recently declassified testimony of Shawn Henry, the president of CrowdStrike Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of CrowdStrike. Henry told the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 that CrowdStrike had no direct evidence that Russian hackers exfiltrated emails from the DNC email server.

According to special counsel Robert Mueller, Russian hackers breached the DNCs Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails sometime between May 25 and June 1, 2016, more than three weeks after the DNC hired CrowdStrike to protect itself from the hackers and oust them from its network.

The questions raised by Henrys testimony prompted CrowdStrike to issue a voluminous update last week to the statement it issued in June 2016 about its work with the DNC. The 2,400-word update includes just one sentence addressing Henrys acknowledgment of having no direct evidence of data being exfiltrated. The sentence addresses only a separate instance of exfiltration in April and omits the alleged theft of the emails that occurred a month later.

The entrance to the 150 Mathilda Place lobby, where Crowdstrike headquarters offices are on the 2nd and 3rd floors, in downtown Sunnyvale, Calif., on June 9, 2020. (Steve Ispas/The Epoch Times)

Shawn Henry stated in his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that CrowdStrike had indicators of exfiltration (page 32) and that data had clearly left the network, the statement reads.

On page 32 of his interview transcript, Henry tells Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) that CrowdStrike had indicators of exfiltration occurring in April 2016. Schiff, referencing a CrowdStrike report which the company has refused to release to the public, pinpointed the date as April 22.

In response to questions from The Epoch Times about the alleged theft of the emails during the separate breach in late May 2016when CrowdStrike was already engaged by the DNCa company spokesperson said in a statement: There is no indication that there was ever a breach on any DNC server or computer protected by CrowdStrikes technology.

The assertion is notable because CrowdStrikes co-founder, Dmitriy Alperovitch, told Esquire in 2016 that the DNC had installed CrowdStrikes Falcon software on its systems on May 5, 2016, three weeks before the DNCs mail server was allegedly hacked. CrowdStrike declined to answer whether the Microsoft Exchange Server from which the emails allegedly were stolen was protected by Falcon.

The companys website describes Falcon as a breach-prevention software.

If the server was protected by CrowdStrikes software, the companys statement would contradict the findings of Mueller, who alleged that the emails were stolen in a separate breach in late May.

If the server wasnt protected, questions would arise about whether the DNC was aware that its systems were subject to more breaches and theft of emails after it had engaged CrowdStrike for protection from hackers.

A lobby directory shows Crowdstrike offices on the 2nd and 3rd floors at the companys headquarters at 150 Mathilda Place in Sunnyvale, Calif., on June 9, 2020. (Steve Ispas/The Epoch Times)

CrowdStrike wouldnt confirm if an understanding existed with the DNC about whether the committees systems were protected from theft after CrowdStrike was engaged. Henry testified in 2017 that protection was the goal.

To be clear, our goal, my goal was to protect the client. We were hired to protect the client. We identified an adversary there. The goal was to make sure that the adversary was removed and the client had a clean environment with which to work, Henry told lawmakers.

CrowdStrikes new statement and timeline of the events show that the company began its investigation of the breach on May 1-2, 2016, roughly three weeks before the alleged breach and theft of emails from the DNC server.

The new timeline clashes with the one Alperovitch provided to Esquire in 2016. The companys founder told the magazine that the DNC had engaged CrowdStrike late on May 5. CrowdStrike didnt respond to a request to explain the discrepancy.

According to the new timeline, the company was planning a remediation event at the time of the alleged theft of the emails. The remediation took place over the course of three days, starting on June 10, and consisted of abandoning the hacked servers and setting up the DNCs systems from scratch. CrowdStrike didnt respond to a request to explain why it took 40 days to prepare.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee when it investigated the DNC breach as part of a broader Russia investigation, was asked directly about CrowdStrikes claim of having no direct evidence of email exfiltration in an interview on Fox News on May 13. Nunes didnt address the question and said that Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, every single day, they are trying to get in and to break into these official records.

I dont think its rocket science to think that several countries could be breaking into government agencies at all hours of the day, Nunes said.

Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on Nov. 19, 2019. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)

Wikileaks published tens of thousands of stolen DNC emails during the heat of the 2016 presidential election cycle, dealing a blow to the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Wikileaks has repeatedly claimed that Russia wasnt the source of the emails.

The Wikileaks releases served as part of the predicate for the opening of the investigation into the Trump campaign, an FBI probe that eventually evolved into the Russia investigation by Mueller. The special counsel found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The new information from the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee came at a time when evidence for Russian exfiltration of the emails was beginning to appear increasingly shaky.

The special counsel indicted Russian hackers in July 2018 for allegedly hacking into a DNC Microsoft Exchange server and stealing thousands of emails. The only evidence offered in the indictment is that an alleged Russian operative searched for Microsoft Exchange Server commands around the same time.

Mueller softened the language around the alleged theft by the time he issued his final report in March 2018, claiming that the Russian operatives appear to have stolen thousands of emails and attachments.

Prior to Muellers indictment and report, there were three main sources of evidence that claimed that Russian operatives stole the emails: CrowdStrikes June 14, 2016, report on the intrusion; the Dec. 30, 2016, analysis report (pdf) on Russian malicious cyber activity by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security; and the Jan. 6, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment (pdf).

Former special counsel Robert Mueller on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 24, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

CrowdStrikes report on the matter, authored by Alperovitch, made no mention of stolen data, although Henry told The Washington Post in an article published the same day that the Russians allegedly stole two files.

The joint analysis report stated that Russian hackers were able to gain access and steal content, likely leading to the exfiltration of information from multiple senior party members.

The intelligence community assessed with high confidence that Russian hackers handed the material they stole from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. The assessment noted that high confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong.

According to DNC IT director Yared Tamene, in May and June 2016, the DNC created images of 38 systems compromised by the hackers. Of those, CrowdStrike selected 26 systems for further investigation. The FBI requested and received some or all of those images via CrowdStrike.

CrowdStrike didnt respond when asked if the Microsoft Exchange Server was one of the system images handed over to the FBI. The FBI didnt respond when asked if the server was among the images.
DENVER, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) announced that Level 3 Financing Inc., its indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary ("Level 3 Financing"), plans to offer $1 billion aggregate principal amount of fixed-rate, eight-year unsecured senior notes (the "2028 Notes") in a proposed private offering that will not be registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act").

The net proceeds from the offering will be used, together with cash on hand, for general corporate purposes, including, without limitation, to redeem all $840 million aggregate principal amount of Level 3 Financing's outstanding 5.375% Senior Notes due 2022 (the "2022 Notes") and a portion of Level 3 Financing's outstanding 5.625% Senior Notes due 2023 (the "2023 Notes").

The 2028 Notes will not be registered under the Securities Act or any state securities laws in the United States and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from the applicable registration requirements. Accordingly, the 2028 Notes are being offered and sold only to persons reasonably believed to be qualified institutional buyers in accordance with Rule 144A promulgated under the Securities Act and to non-U.S. persons outside the United States in accordance with Regulation S promulgated under the Securities Act. The 2028 Notes will not have registration rights.

In a separate transaction, CenturyLink also announced that its indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary, Qwest Corporation, issued notices to redeem $200 million outstanding aggregate principal amount of its 6.875% Notes due 2054 (the "Qwest Notes"). Pursuant to these notices, on June 29, 2020, $200 million of the Qwest Notes will be redeemed at par plus accrued and unpaid interest to but excluding the redemption date with respect to the Qwest Notes. Additional information regarding the partial redemption of the Qwest Notes is available from Bank of New York Mellon.

This press release will not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, the 2028 Notes, nor will there be any sale of the 2028 Notes in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. This press release does not constitute a notice of redemption with respect to the 2022 Notes, the 2023 Notes or the Qwest Notes.

About CenturyLink

CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is a technology leader delivering hybrid networking, cloud connectivity, and security solutions to customers around the world. Through its extensive global fiber network, CenturyLink provides secure and reliable services to meet the growing digital demands of businesses and consumers. CenturyLink strives to be the trusted connection to the networked world and is focused on delivering technology that enhances the customer experience.

Learn more at http://news.centurylink.com/.

Forward-Looking Statements

Except for historical and factual information, the matters set forth in this release and other of our oral or written statements identified by words such as "estimates," "expects," "anticipates," "believes," "plans," "intends," and similar expressions are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are based on current expectations only, are inherently speculative, and are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. Actual events and results may differ materially from those anticipated, estimated, projected or implied by us in those statements if one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if underlying assumptions prove incorrect. Factors that could affect actual results include but are not limited to: the possibility that potential debt investors will not be receptive to the offering on the terms described above or at all; corporate developments that could preclude, impair or delay the above-described transactions due to restrictions under the federal securities laws; changes in Level 3 Financing's credit ratings; changes in the cash requirements, financial position, financing plans or investment plans of Level 3 Financing or its affiliates; changes in general market, economic, tax, regulatory or industry conditions that impact the ability or willingness of Level 3 Financing or its affiliates to consummate the above-described transactions on the terms described above or at all; and other risks referenced from time to time in the filings of CenturyLink Inc. or Level 3 Parent, LLC with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). For all the reasons set forth above and in our SEC filings, you are cautioned not to unduly rely upon our forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements for any reason, whether as a result of new information, future events or developments, changed circumstances, or otherwise. Furthermore, any information about our intentions contained in any of our forward-looking statements reflects our intentions as of the date of such forward-looking statement, and is based upon, among other things, existing regulatory, technological, industry, competitive, economic and market conditions, and our assumptions as of such date. We may change our intentions, strategies or plans (including our plans expressed herein) without notice at any time and for any reason.

SOURCE CenturyLink Inc.
The rapid evolution of religiosity in the United States is by now a familiar story. The decline of American Christianity continues at a rapid pace, Pew Research reports, while the religiously unaffiliated, or nones, grew from 16 to 26 percent of the country from 2007 to 2019 alone. Evangelical churches are retaining more members than their mainline counterparts, but evangelicalism too is losing cultural cachet and overall population share.

Yet we would be mistaken to conclude Americans are becoming less religious. We live in a secular age, as philosopher Charles Taylor famously argued, not because we have lost our human instinct to worship but because the object of our worship is no longer assumed. We have options. We can seek meaning, purpose, and community outside the church and institutional religion altogether, and increasingly so, as Tara Isabella Burton details in her forthcoming Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World(Hachette, June 16, 2020).

We do not live in a godless world, Burton argues in subversion of her own subtitle. Rather, we live in a profoundly anti-institutional one, where the proliferation of internet creative culture and consumer capitalism have rendered us all simultaneously parishioner, high priest, and deity. Armed with a doctorate in theology from Oxford and a journalists eye for anthropological curiosities, Burton delves into self-focused new religions as disparate as SoulCycle and Harry Potter.

What odd creatures people are, I kept thinking while reading, confident in my own strength to resist such alien liturgies. Yet theres a more insidious temptation in what Burton dubs remixed religion, a siren song away from Christ thatunlike fixation on wellness culture or Hogwarts fan fictionisnt as easy to identify as a superficial contender for our souls. That age-old lure is politics and its consuming pursuit of power, demanding an allegiance from us we owe only to God.

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them, Jesus warned his disciples when the sons of Zebedee sought seats of honor at his right hand and his left. It will not be so among you, he charged, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:2028, NRSV).

This call call to humility, service, and even self-abnegation goes against our every fallen instinct.

This call to humility, service, and even self-abnegation is integral to Jesus invitation to the upside-down kingdom of God, where the last are first and our weakness is occasion to display Gods strengthand it goes against our every fallen instinct. All ones ways may be pure in ones own eyes, as Proverbs 16:2 (NRSV) observes, allowing us to convince ourselves we only seek political power with the best of intentions and the purest of principles. But if good intentions and principles were a sure guard against idolatry, Satan couldnt have tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world  their glory and all this authority (Luke 4:56). It is the very potential to do good, in fact, that often makes the idolatry of politics and power so enticing. That is never truer than in times of intense political strife and opportunity, such as our present moment of pandemic, racial protest, and presidential campaign.

Burtons Strange Rites trains its political coverage on three new movements, each born online but eager to reshape the offline world. First is the social justice movementsocial justice warriors in the pejorativecritical equally of tradition and the rationalism and capitalism of the liberal order. Second is the culture of Silicon Valley  [techno-utopians who] envision an equally radical account of human potential. Third is what Burton dubs new atavism, a broad category encompassing everything from the intellectual dark web to the black pill, their commonality a vision of a hierarchical world where one makes meaning through sheer willpowerbootstrap existentialism, sometimes with a heavy dose of racism and misogyny.

Article continues below

Burton argues compellingly that these rising movements function as religions for their adherents, but I wondered if she was letting more traditional political alignments off too easily. Though certainly the content of a civil religion matters, the mere fact of it matters, too. When we so deeply invest ourselves in politics, particularly politics as acquisition of power, any political movement can provide us with the fixtures of faith: beliefs, rituals, saints, virtues, heresiesand an idolatrous claim of our allegiance.

Conventional political loyalties can be just as religious as the new trio Strange Rites examines, I suggested in a conversation over email. Burton agreed, pointing to the partisan fervency of many white evangelicals, who overwhelmingly voted for [President Donald] Trump [and tend to] vote along GOP party lines. Some pockets of white evangelicalism are particularly vulnerable to the intuitionalism and best-self-ism of remixed religiosity, she told me, especially those given to prosperity gospel teachings, interest in conspiracy theories, and instinctive distrust of established authorities. Mainstream Democrats have had difficulty in recent years, around mobilizing behind a strong candidate the way, say, Trump voters have, Burton noted, but a left-wing version of Trumpian civil religion is plausible: Oprah Winfrey once described then-candidate Barack Obama as a rare politician who know[s] how to be the truth.

The temptation of political power is sly. It confuses us about reality in a social climate Burton described to me as already ambiguous about what is real (physically, spiritually, socially, biologically). Like the Devil in the desert, it lies about what we can have and what we should want, encouraging at once undue fixation on our present worldpolitics as a source of meaning, purpose, and community we ought to find in Christand too little true love for neighbor and enemy alike, especially those with politics unlike ours. Our citizenship is in heaven, we are too often inclined to forget, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:20). That hope is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13:8), no matter what politics we face or what strange new rites arise around us.

Bonnie Kristian is a columnist at Christianity Today, a contributing editor at The Week, a fellow at Defense Priorities, and the author of A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (Hachette).
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PORTLAND (AP)  TriMet and Oregon's smaller transit agencies want lawmakers to let them spend payroll tax dollars on basic operations instead of expanding service and converting diesel fleets to lower-emission vehicles.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that under a 2017 transportation bill, Oregon lawmakers added a 0.1% tax on employer payrolls statewide to enhance public transit. But agencies now say they need the money to shore up their core budgets and avoid layoffs.





. . .
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The African Development Bank has announced that Dr. Jennifer Blanke, Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, will be leaving the Bank effective July 4, 2020.

Ms Blanke joined the bank in early 2017 and has overseen a number of the banks key programmes.

I thank President Akinwumi Adesina for his strong leadership, guidance and support which have undoubtedly motivated and helped my team and I to play a key role in the transformation of the Bank. I feel privileged to have been given an opportunity to contribute to the Banks agenda for accelerating Africas social and economic transformation, Ms Blanke said.

The outgoing Vice-President added, I am leaving purely for family reasons to rejoin my family in Switzerland, after a very fulfilling time at the Bank. I will miss the Bank and the excellent team we have built. I will continue to strongly support the Bank from wherever I am.

Bank President Akinwumi Adesina said: I have been delighted to work with Dr. Jennifer Blanke over the past three and a half years. She has demonstrated genuine leadership skills and moved the needles on so many fronts, especially in the areas of food security, womens financial empowerment, and job creation. I wish her all the best and look forward to continued partnerships and engagement with Jennifer.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).
Honda Hit By Ransomware

Japanese carmaker Honda is investigating a cyber-attack after experiencing issues with its IT network. Automotive manufacturer Honda is experiencing a company-wide network outage that is suspected to have been caused by a ransomware attack.

One of the carmaker's servers had become infected with the Ekans malware, a type of ransomware that targets industrial control systems used for operating factories, and demands payment to open them up again. Ransomware attacks have escalated dramatically in recent years and have largely targeted businesses, often disrupting factories and basic infrastructure.

In 2019, more than 205,000 organisations submitted files that had been hacked in a ransomware attack.

This attack is reported to have put certain computer programmes off limits to employees. Security researchers at MalwareBytes have posted evidence on the Internet showing a Honda server has become infected in the Ekans malware.

Honda workers in America have been sent home from work after getting to their offices to find equipment and phones werent working.

In previous cases of the Ekans malware infecting companies it has informed users that it has penetrated their system and demands payment to unencrypt its data.

Honda said: This is currently under investigation, to understand the cause. At this point, there is no effect on either Japanese production or dealer activities, and no customer impact.... In Europe, we are investigating to understand the nature of any impact. We can confirm some impact in Europe and are currently investigating the exact nature. Honda has been targeted by cyber criminals before and in 2017, one of the companys plants at Sayama, Japan, had to shut down production temporarily after its network was hit by WannaCry ransomware.

The Ekans malware is thought to target systems which control machinery, gaining access and then encrypting data, causing production processes to halt.

Honda: Car Dealer: CityAM: BizJournals: MalwareBytes: Telegraph: Dragos:

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The University of Connecticut plans to start classes for the fall term on Aug. 31 with a range of in-person and on-line course offerings.

In a message to the UConn community on Wednesday, President Thomas Katsouleas said the plan is contingent on meeting a series of gating conditions established by the state.

I am optimistic that together we will be able to satisfy them in advance of the next semester, Katsouleas said.

Returning he cautioned, does not mean back to normal.

The draft plan calls for a modified academic and campus experience shaped by responses to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Altogether, UConn has about 32,000 students spread across its campuses.

Like many other residential colleges in the state, students will not return following Thanksgiving break. The rest of the fall semester, including final exams, will be online.

On campus, classroom capacity will also be reduced to allow for six feet of separation between people.

Residence halls in both Storrs and Stamford will open with reduced density and a new housing assignment process. Dedicated space will be put aside should some students need to isolate during the semester because of illness.

Students who will be living on campus will have to return approximately two weeks before the start of classes to allow for testing and a period of quarantine.

Students who cant return home at Thanksgiving will be allowed to stay but also cant leave for Thanksgiving break and then come back.

Housing and dining fees will remain unchanged.

All dining halls will be open, however, services will be  at least to start  take-out only.

The library and campus bookstores will be open, but common spaces may be limited to promote physical distancing. Same goes for the Student Recreation Center.

Use of the Student Union is currently being evaluated.

Student activities and on-campus events are on, but officials admit they could look different depending on state guidelines regarding group gatherings.

Potential testing protocols for other student populations, as well as accommodations and capacity, are still being established.

Protocols for employee testing are also being developed.

In public, everyone will need to wear a mask, including in classrooms.

UConn has purchased enough masks to supply its entire community.

Health screening and monitoring will be continuous and anyone ill will have to stay home. The university also said it would institute preventative measures through operational changes to our buildings, transportation systems, deliveries and visitation as well as interactions with campus visitors and guests to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

Katsouleas called the guidelines a piece of the draft plan which continues to evolve.

This is new for all of us, he said.

More information is on a dedicated UConn website.
TWITTER

The Assam gas well blowout which took place on May 27 and has been continuously leaking condensed oil and gas, will take at least four weeks to be completely restored. Oil India Limited (OIL) gas well blowout in Upper Assams Tinsukia district, caught fire on Tuesday afternoon, with authorities swinging into action to contain the blaze. Read more

Here's more top news of the day:

1) 5 Terrorists Gunned Down By Security Forces In Shopian In The Third Encounter In A Week

Defence Aviation Post

The India security forces have eliminated five terrorists in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on Wednesday. The encounter followed a cordon-and-search operation that was launched in the Sugoo area of Shopian in south Kashmir in the morning after receiving specific information about the presence of militants in the area. Read more

2) Tribal Women Protest & Drive Out HP Agri Min From Lahaul-Spiti For Violating Quarantine Norms

Twitter

Setting up an example for people to follow quarantine norms, the tribal women did not allow Himachal Pradesh Agriculture Minister Ram Lal Markanda to enter Lahaul and Spiti district's sub-divisional headquarters Kaza. The women alleged that he was violating quarantine rules framed by the local residents to check the spread of COVID-19. Read more

3) Assam Cop Does Last Rites Of COVID-19 Patient After Locals Objected Cremation Fearing Infection

Representational Image/Thinkstock

In Assam Karbi Anglong district, a policeman carried out the last rites of a man who died of COVID-19 after the people of his village objected to his cremation fearing infection. Read more



4) Following Tragic Incident In Kerala, Man In Bihar Donates His Entire Land To Two Elephants

Representational Image/Wikipedia

Showing exactly how we can be benevolent towards animals is a man from Bihar named Mohammad Akhtar. An animal lover, Akhtar has bequeathed his entire wealth to two elephants. He says one of them had saved his life from a criminal. Read more

5) Delhi Will Need 1.5 Lakh Beds For COVID-19 Patients As Cases May Touch 5.5 Lakh By July End

BCCL

A day after testing negative for COVID-19, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that L-G Anil Baijals order on hospitals accessible to everyone living in Delhi would be implemented amid a political slugfest in the national capital even as coronavirus cases continue to rise. Read more
An allegation of forgery has continued to trail the submitted credentials of the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, as he joined other five aspirants in battling for the All Progressives Congress (APC) the state governorship ticket.

The party chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, has joined some social media users to cast doubt over the authenticity of his mentee-turned-rivals first-degree certificate obtained from the University of Ibadan, as he challenged Nigerians to approach the institution to get clarity.

Mr Obasekis Bachelor of Arts degree in Classical Studies from the institution in 1979, alongside other aspirants, were pasted for public scrutiny at the partys secretariat in Abuja on Monday.

In one of the top 20 twitter trends on Tuesday, the BA and National Youth Corps Service (NYSC) certificates of the embattled governor were placed under scrutiny as some users pinpointed inconsistency in font, signatures and time frame in his presented certificates alongside certificates issued to others the same year.

Mr Obaseki, in his secondary school certificate obtained in June 1973, had three credits, three passes grade out of the six subjects recorded in his Olevel results, a grade combination many believed as lower than acceptable points for the entrance examination into the university back then, unless he sat for other exams to combine the result.

None of the two institutions has reacted to affirm or annul the controversies around Mr Obasekis credentials.

Someone should approach the UI and end this matter once and for all. If the certificate Obaseki parades is that of the UI, find out  how did he pass senate screening of those days? Im aware that in those days when this man never dreamt of becoming a governor, every student, no matter your status or your family name, must pass screening.

How come the UI allowed him then? Did he do a remedial? Which was not unlikely. These are questions. Many (who) came in especially in education and linguistics, did remedial for one year and if the result was good, gained direct entry and graduated three years after, Mr Oshiomhole told journalists on Tuesday at the inauguration of the APCs screening and appeal committees drawn from academia to vent the credentials of the six governorship aspirants.

One would recall that Mr Obaseki, who is seeking the partys re-election ticket, has enjoyed the national chairmans support until 2019 when the feud between the duo could no longer be hidden from the public.

The cause of the feud and the crisis rocking the state chapter of the party has been linked to Mr Oshiomholes position on the incumbent governors second term ambition.

Defending the fastidiousness of the aspirants screening process, Mr Oshiomhole said it is to avert a replica of what happened to the party in the post-Bayelsa 2019 governorship election.

The screening is not a formality and we expect you to be very meticulous in every material, in particular, to protect our party so that it would not be said that we did not learn anything from Bayelsa.

As you know, sometimes when things go wrong, everybody sees it that NWC did not do a thorough job. So, people personalized it. They say, If the chairman is thorough, if he has done his job this will not happen but that is the price for leadership, he said as he registered the supremacy of the partys NWC over the screening committee reports, if not satisfactory.

Obasekis reaction

In an interview with The Punch newspaper, the Edo State governor, challenged anyone in doubt of the authenticity of his certificate to approach the institution for clarity.

READ ALSO:

The University of Ibadan is perhaps the most reputable university in Africa. The University of Ibadan awarded a BA degree in Classical Studies to his excellency the governor as far back as 1979. The university is still there. If anybody feels the certificate is not credible why doesnt the person go there to verify?

Why are we just seeing this only in the media? Bear in mind that the Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, was among an elite corps of illustrious alumni of the university people to deliver a national alumni lecture in August 2018.

Do you think such an institution will call someone who is not an alumnus to deliver such a lecture? Crusoe Osagie, the spokesperson to Mr Obaseki, defended.
Mexico City (AFP) - More 1,200 Mexicans have died of the novel coronavirus in the United States, Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday, adding that another 12 citizens around the world have also fallen victim to the deadly virus.

Ebrard said more than half of the US deaths were in New York, while five of the worldwide deaths happened in Canada.

As borders all over the world were closed due to the pandemic, Mexico repatriated more than 14,600 people, including almost 4,000 from Europe, Ebrard said.

Remittances sent home from Mexicans living abroad is an important source of income for many people.

Those coming from the US dropped 2.6 percent in April compared to the same month in 2019, having reached a record of more than $4 billion in March 2020.

Some 12 million people born in Mexico live in the US, as well as another 26 million second or third generation Mexicans.

Mexico, a country of 127 million, had recorded more than 120,000 coronavirus cases by Monday and over 14,000 deaths, making it one of the worst hit countries in Latin America.
(Newser)  A professor at UCLA for 39 years has been suspendedand is now receiving police protectionafter refusing a request to alter final exams in response to the "traumas" of black students. Accounting lecturer Gordon Klein said he was only following his supervisor's orders when he rejected the request from a non-black student amid global protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, per NBC News. But students took issue with his response, shared on a Change.org petition calling for his firing. "Thanks for your suggestion ... that I give black students special treatment," the email reads. "Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them?" Klein also suggested a white student from Minneapolis might be "more devastated by this" than a black student.

story continues below

"Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the 'color of their skin.' Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK's admonition?" Klein concluded, noting "our sole course grade is from a final exam only." The petition, signed some 20,000 times, calls it an "extremely insensitive, dismissive, and woefully racist response to his students' request for empathy and compassion during a time of civil unrest." Anderson School of Management Dean Antonio Bernardo also called it "troubling" and reportedly extended the time students have to complete exams, per Fox News. The university said Tuesday that Klein had been placed on leave and his classes reassigned to other faculty members while his conduct is under review. Police are also maintaining a presence outside Klein's home following threats, per Fox. (Read more UCLA stories.)
Protest against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Washington

Reuters

Protests against police brutality were spurred by the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a Black man, died after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.

Protesters in various cities are also calling for justice for those who have been killed in incident with their local law enforcement.

Memorial efforts have been installed in places like Los Angeles.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The death of George Floyd has ignited a streak of protests across the US and the world, and many are also protesting the deaths of those killed by their local law enforcement.

A video circulated on May 25 showing now ex-officer Derek Chavin kneeling on Floyd's neck for several minutes. All four officers involved in the incident were fired, and Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. More than a week later, the three other officers involved in the incident were charged with aiding and abetting, and the charges against Chauvin were upped to second-degree murder.

Floyd's death is one of many that protesters are demanding justice over: Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed in Georgia while on a jog, and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky was shot by police while in her apartment.

These are just a few names protesters are saying in remembrance:

Mubarak Soulamane

Omo Muhammed, center, mother of 19-year-old fatal shooting victim Mubarak Soulemane, kisses her daughter Sirah Bandeh, 9, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, during ceremonies to honor Soulemane's life.

AP Photo/Steven Senne

Protesters chanted "I am Mubarak, I am Mubarak" in New Haven, Connecticut, during Black Lives Matter protests.

Souleman was shot and killed by a state trooper in January after he is alleged to have of stolen a car, which ended with a high-speed chase, WTIC reported.

Brian Didlake TV (@BrianDidlakeTV) June 6, 2020

According to the Associated Press, Soulemane's family said he had schizophrenia and was a community college student.

The AP also reported that state police body camera videos showed a West Haven officer smashing out the passenger door window of the stolen car. Then a state trooper uses a stun gun on Souleman, before trooper Brian North fires his handgun seven times through the driver's door window.

Story continues

State police told the AP that Soulemane displayed a knife.

Breonna Taylor

Photos of Breonna Taylor were displayed during a vigil for her outside the Judicial Center in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, on March 19, 2020.

Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal/Reuters

Protests in Louisville, Kentucky were held seeking justice for Taylor's death. Taylor was shot and killed by police on March 13 serving a "no-knock" warrant. Officers entered Taylor's apartment during a narcotics bust and said they returned fire. Taylor had eight gunshot wounds. Insider previously reported that police were in the wrong house, and later arrested a suspect 10 miles away from Taylor's home.

According to the Courier-Journal, at least 1,000 people gathered on what would have been Taylor's 27th birthday last week to demand justice.

"Maybe this is the generation that says, 'We've had enough!'" Louisville poet Hannah Drake told an energized crowd, according to the Journal.

Demonstrators replied with: "Say her name" and "No justice, no peace."

Ahmaud Arbery

Ahmaud Arbery.

Marcus Arbery/Handout via REUTERS

Arbery was shot and killed while jogging in Georgia in February. It wasn't until two months after his death that Gregory and Travis McMichael, a father and son, were arrested and charged with murder, Insider previously reported.

The McMichaels said they mistook Arbery for a burglary suspect. Video of the incident was later leaked and caused national outrage that led to the charges of felony murder and aggravated assault. The man who shot the video was also arrested and charged.

While protests over Arbery's death took place before Floyd's death, his death has compounded the injustice that many are now protesting against.

Early last month, a protester, Anthony Johnson, told the Associated Press he believes Arbery "died because he was Black like the rest of them did. For no reason."

Atatiana Jefferson

Atatiana Jefferson

Atatiana Jefferson's family/GoFundMe

Jefferson was killed in her home while babysitting her nephew in October 2019. Former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean resigned following the incident and was later indicted on a murder charge.

Dean shot Jefferson through her bedroom window in Forth Worth, Texas, after a neighbor reported that her door was left open for several hours.

The officer could not be heard identifying himself on body-cam footage, and after spotting Jefferson through the window and yelling, "Put your hands up! Show me your hands!" he fired a shot immediately, Insider previously reported.

Pamela Turner

Protesters demonstrate police brutality in front of Dallas City Hall in downtown Dallas, Saturday, May 30, 2020.

AP Photo/LM Otero

Turner was shot and killed by a police officer during an arrest last May. Turner's family said she took medication for schizophrenia.

A patrol officer recognized Turner and knew she had an arrest warrant, Baytown police spokesman Lt. Steve Dorris said at the time.

Dorris alleged she resisted arrest and said that she and the officer struggled over a taser he tried to use on her before she used it on him. He then shot her several times.

In a video, she could be heard screaming "I'm pregnant." Police later said they confirmed that she wasn't pregnant, The Guardian reported.

Turner could also be heard saying in the video, "I'm actually walking to my house" and "you're actually harassing me." The officer attempted to provide aid after the shooting, according to KTRK, Houston's ABC affiliate.

The officer involved in Turner's death is still with the Baytown police department on administrative duty.

According to KTRK, Turner's family also marched in protests in Baytown, Texas, last week following Floyd's death.

Michael Dean

Heavily armed police officers are seen as protesters demonstrate peacefully during the protests for George Floyd on June 7, 2020, in Hollywood, Florida.

MediaPunch/IPX via AP Photo

On December 2, 2019, Michael Dean was shot and killed while he was out getting supplies for his daughter's sixth birthday, local station KXXV reported.

Lee Merritt, an attorney for Dean's family, told KXXV that Dean was pulled over for a traffic stop when he was shot and killed.

Officer Carmen William DeCruz stopped Dean's car for speeding, an affidavit said. Dean did not immediately stop but when he did, body camera video and dashcam video showed DeCruz walking to the front of Dean's car with his firearm drawn. DeCruz told Dean told to turn off the car and attempted to get his keys with one hand. He had his other hand on the trigger of his weapon which was pointed towards Dean.

"Officer DeCruz pulled on the keys with his left hand. The affidavit says his right hand also pulls backwards causing the handgun to fire. Dean was shot in the head," KXXV wrote.

Tony McDade

A protester in Times Square holds a handmade sign that reads, "RIP Tony McDade, Black Trans Lives Matter, RIP Nina Pop and Trump/Pence Out Now" while another holds a sign that reads, "BLM".

Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images

On May 27, two days after Floyd's death, McDade, a trans man was shot and killed in Tallahassee, Florida, ABC News reported.

Advocates are now calling for a full investigation and justice for his death. According to ABC News, the police department said an officer was responding to a stabbing. McDade matched the description of the stabbing suspect. He was fatally shot after police say he pointed a gun at the officer.

"Justice cannot be served without accountability," Natishia June, the deputy field director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said during a press briefing Monday calling for an independent investigation into his death. "The Tallahassee Police Department must be held accountable to Tony McDade's family and the community they are sworn to protect and serve."

According to WGCU, the police department has pushed back the date it planned to name the officer who shot and killed McDade.

WGCU reported that authorities have said that because McDade was pointing a gun, the officer was considered a "victim" and can conceal his identity.

David McAtee

Protesters and police stand off as tear gas is deployed in the streets of Louisville, Kentucky on May 30, 2020.

Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

David McAtee was shot and killed during protests in Louisville, Kentucky on June 1. Insider reported that McAtee was the owner of a local popular restaurant, YaYa's BBQ, and he used to offer free meals to police officers, his mother said.

Police officers and National Guardsmen returned fired after they were shot at while trying to clear an area of people protesting the recent death of Breonna Taylor, Louisville Police Chief Steve Conrad said.

McAtee was shot once in the chest and died at his restaurant.

As Insider previously reported that "it's unclear if McAtee had participated in protests that took place near his restaurant."

Manuel Ellis

People listen during a vigil for Manuel Ellis, a black man whose March death while in Tacoma Police custody was recently found to be a homicide, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiners Office.

David Ryder/Getty Images

Manuel Ellis yelled out, "I can't breathe" as police restrained him on March 3 in Tacoma, Washington, Insider reported. He could be heard on a police radio recording.

His death was recently ruled a homicide by the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office. The office reported that he died from respiratory arrest as a result of oxygen deprivation, hypoxia, and physical restraint. The report also added that methamphetamine intoxication and heart disease were contributing factors.

Many efforts have been made to honor and remember the victims of police brutality.

In Los Angeles, the fence around the 2.2 miles long Silver Lake Reservoir has become a canvas for "spelling out the names of unarmed black people who have been killed across America at the hands of police," the Los Angeles Times reported.

Names like Charles Goodridge, Corey L. Tanner, Euree L. Martin appear next to more than 100 others on the "Say Their Names: Silver Lake Memorial."

"And if the reservoir was 10 times as big, we would still have an abundance of names left over," project co-organizer Eli Caplan told the LA Times. "We may hear about the George Floyds, the Breonna Taylors. But for each of those, there are hundreds and hundreds of other names that get lost. This is a way to acknowledge them."

Read the original article on Insider
A Wisconsin gym is facing backlash after it advertised a workout called "I Can't Breathe" and included an image of a person kneeling.

The roughly 35-minute drill of burpees and row exercises was written on a dry-erase board at an Anytime Fitness in Wauwatosa, about 6 miles west of Milwaukee. Written at the bottom of the board was, "And don't you dare lay down."

A photo of the workout was posted on social media and sparked immediate criticism from people who said it was mocking the death of George Floyd, the man who died in Minneapolis police custody after an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

A board with a fitness routine at Anytime Fitness in Wauwatosa, Wisc. (@cashewcruise / via Twitter)

In a video of the May 25 incident, Floyd told officers: "Please. Please. Please. I can't breathe." The officer whose knee was on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, was fired from the police department and faces charges that include second-degree murder. Three other officers were also terminated and charged for their involvement.

"Really concerned that @AnytimeFitness finds mocking the death of George Floyd appropriate. racism is alive in Wauwatosa #Milwaukee," a Twitter user who posted the photo wrote.

"It is absolutely disgusting. I saw this earlier and my jaw dropped. I am so glad I canceled my membership with them," another Twitter user wrote.

Anytime Fitness, which says it has over 4,000 franchised locations in 50 countries, issued an apology on Wednesday, saying it was shocked and devastated over the workout.

"No matter the intent, we absolutely do not condone the words, illustrations or actions this represents," a statement read. "To our employees, owners and members, we are truly and profoundly sorry that this incident occurred."

Jen Dunnington, the co-owner and general manager of the Wauwatosa location, apologized on Facebook for "how deeply offensive our words, illustrations and actions have been." Dunnington could not be reached on Wednesday.

Anytime Fitness went on to say that it realizes it still has work to do in training franchise owners to "lead with empathy, love and respect" and will use this incident to show other franchise owners why it's offensive.

"We remain committed to working to inform and educate employees and owners worldwide to stand for our black communities including our members and employees," the statement read.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global healthcare wipes market size is anticipated to reach USD 17.63 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2020 to 2027. Beneficial properties of healthcare wipes, such as ease of use, disposability, portability, and reduced risk of cross-contamination, are expected to favor market growth in the foreseeable future.

Some of the other characteristics of the product including cost convenience, hygiene, performance, time saving, safety regulation, and consumer centered aesthetics are also expected to boost market growth. The application of healthcare wipes is also increasing owing to rising number of hospitals globally.

Key suggestions from the report:

In terms of product, the wet wipes segment is expected to expand at the fastest CAGR over the forecast period

By distribution channel, pharmacies and drugstores held the largest market share in 2019

North America emerged as the largest regional market in 2019. This can be attributed to rapid urbanization and increasing number of hospitals in U.S. and Canada .

Read 80 page research report with ToC on "Healthcare Wipes Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Dry Wipes, Wet Wipes), By Distribution Channel (Pharmacies & Drugstores, Supermarkets & Hypermarkets), And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2027" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/healthcare-wipes-market

Some of the other characteristics of the product including cost convenience, hygiene, performance, time saving, safety regulation, and consumer centered aesthetics are also expected to boost market growth. The application of healthcare wipes is also increasing owing to rising number of hospitals globally.

The market is also driven by rising hygiene and health concerns among individuals worldwide, coupled with the use of healthcare wipes for numerous purposes, including cleaning of health-related equipment, hospital sterilization, hand sanitizing, skin cleaning, and surface cleaning. Furthermore, rising usage of healthcare wipes owing to their ability to prevent or control infection is another prominent factor augmenting the demand for the product.

In terms of product, the market has been segmented into two categories, namely dry and wet wipes. Dry wipes emerged as the largest segment in 2019 with a share of 60.1% and are expected to remain the most dominant category during the forecast period. These products allow users to perform tasks in significantly less time.

With regards to sales/distribution channels, offline distribution channels such as pharmacies and drugstores are likely to remain the most preferred platform throughout the forecast period. The e-commerce platform is expected to expand at the fastest CAGR over the forecast period owing to rising number of online retailers within the market.

Grand View Research has segmented the global healthcare wipes market based on product, distribution channel, and region:

Healthcare Wipes Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

Dry



Wet

Healthcare Wipes Distribution Channel Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

Pharmacies & Drugstores



Supermarkets & Hypermarkets



E-commerce



Others

Healthcare Wipes Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

North America



U.S.



Europe



Germany





U.K.



Asia Pacific



China





India



Central & South America



Brazil



Middle East & Africa

&

South Africa

List of Key Players of Healthcare Wipes Market:

Procter and Gamble



3M



Johnson & Johnson Private Limited



Diamond Wipes International, Inc.



The Clorox Company



Kimberly-Clark Corporation



Costco Wholesale Corporation



Reckitt Benckiser Group plc



Procotech Limited



Beiersdorf AG

Find more research reports on Beauty & Personal Care Industry, by Grand View Research:

Organic Shampoo Market  Millennials are leading the trend of organic hair care products, thereby contributing to the growth of the global organic shampoo market.

Beard Oil Market  Fashion experts and celebrity endorsements play a crucial role in increasing the awareness about these products and influencing consumer buying patterns, thereby supporting the growth of the market.

Anti Aging Products Market  Intrinsic aging leads to changes in facial appearance such as collagen, loss of skin elasticity melanin production, decrease in dermal collagen, and hair follicles. Consumers are more interested in using these products in order to limit the occurrences of the above-mentioned problems.

Gain access to Grand View Compass, our BI enabled intuitive market research database of 10,000+ reports

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.

Contact:

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Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc.

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A Mountrath based business has achieved a quality mark signifying it meets the highest standards of service and trust.

CJ Sheeran Ltd. was awarded the coveted All-Ireland Business All-Star accreditation at a virtual ceremony on May 29th last.

This is an independently verified standard mark for indigenous businesses, based on rigorous selection criteria.

The accreditation is overseen by the prestigious All-Ireland Business Foundation, whose adjudication panel is chaired by Dr. Briga Hynes of the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick and Kieran Ring, CEO of the Global Institute of Logistics.

"We evaluate a companys background, trustworthiness and performance, and we speak to customers, employees and vendors," said Dr. Hynes. "We also anonymously approach the company as a customer and report back on the experience. The business goes through at least two interviews and is scored on every part of the process against set metrics."

Receiving the award on behalf of CJ Sheeran, Director Ashleigh Doyle said, "We are incredibly proud of our team and to receive such prestigious recognition as a Best-In-Class Business All-Star is testament to our teams hard work, dedication and diligence. It is a huge milestone for our business and affirms our position as industry leader in the pallet sector. We are delighted to have joined such an elite body of professionals at the All-Ireland Business Foundation with the same high expectations as ourselves."

Employing 180 people in six locations across Ireland, CJ Sheeran is Irelands largest timber packaging and pallet manufacturer providing a premium quality, accredited and sustainable packaging solution to a diverse customer base comprising of the pharmaceutical, medical device, food and beverage, agri-business, building supplies and general manufacturing industries.

The All-Ireland Business Foundation is responsible for overseeing the All-Ireland Business Summit and All-Star awards, ongoing All-Star accreditation, Thought Leader awards and promoting peer dialogue among members.
Probate applications should usually take ten days, but social distancing measures mean staff process forms remotely

Bereaved families are facing delays of up to two months to gain control of loved ones' finances, solicitors have warned.

Probate applications should usually take ten days, but social distancing measures mean staff process forms remotely.

A grant of probate is the official document families need to take control of a loved one's estate when they die and execute their will.

Families were left waiting up to 14 weeks for probate last year after a proposed fee increase prompted a rush of applications.

The backlog was then made worse by the introduction of a new IT system set up by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

HMCTS is allowing electronic signatures on forms to help speed things up.

f.parker@dailymail.co.uk
Erdogan, Trump agree on 'some issues' regarding Libya

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 7:13 AM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he and US President Donald Trump have come to unspecified agreements about the conflict in Libya, where a host of countries are aiding rebels against a Turkish-backed government.

"A new era between Turkey and the US may start after our phone call. We agreed on some issues," Erdogan said in an interview with state broadcaster TRT on Monday, without elaborating.

Ankara backs the internationally-recognized government of Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj against rebels commanded by military strongman Khalifa Haftar. The United Arab Emirates and Egypt, among other countries, back Haftar.

The White House also confirmed in a statement that Trump and Erdogan had discussed the conflict in Libya, as well as Syria and the wider eastern Mediterranean region, but similarly provided no details.

Haftar's rebels launched a deadly offensive to capture Tripoli, the seat of the Libyan government, in April last year. They have not been able to advance past the city's outskirts. Recently, government forces have made major gains against the rebels, retaking a major airport and liberating several towns.

Egypt recently proposed a ceasefire that would have started on Monday as the Libyan rebels lost ground. While Russia and the UAE welcomed that initiative, the Libyan government and Turkey  whose support for Tripoli has helped change the course of the war  said fighting would continue to recapture the coastal city of Sirte and the Jufra air base, to the south, in a strategic region of the oil-exporting country.

"Now the goal is to take over the whole Sirte area and get it done. These are areas with the oil wells, these are of great importance," Erdogan said.

Libya's Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha also stressed that the government would engage in political talks only after retaking Sirte and also the inland Jufra airbase.

Erdogan also announced that he would discuss Libyan matters with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including what he said was the supply of Russian planes and Pantsir air defense systems to Haftar's rebels.

"They have Pantsirs there, they sent 19 warplanes to Libya," Erdogan said, adding, "After talking with him (Putin), we can plan ahead."

Russia has denied dispatching warplanes to Libya.

Russia, Turkey support Libya peace process

Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, had agreed on the need to collaborate toward a peace process in Libya in a call on Monday.

The two sides also agreed that a new UN Libya envoy must be appointed swiftly, according to the statement.

EU rejects Cairo process, Germany urges UN-backed talks

Separately, the European Union (EU) has rejected a peace process unilaterally proposed for Libya by Egypt, insisting that a European initiative known as the Berlin Process be pursued.

"In general, any initiative in line with the United Nations-led Berlin Process is a positive development. But no alternative to the inclusive political solution of the Berlin Process, also confirmed by the UN, is acceptable," the EU's chief spokesperson on foreign policy, Peter Stano, said Monday.

Berlin hosted a conference aimed at finding a political solution to the Libyan crisis last January that was attended by world powers and regional actors.

Also in a phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated the necessity for UN-backed talks to go forward, according to the German government.

Libyan army advance in Sirte, UAE drones target hospital

Libyan government forces on Monday pushed further into the strategic city of Sirte  the key gateway to the country's main oil fields in the east  in the latest battlefield gains against Haftar's rebels.

Meanwhile, Emirati drones supporting Haftar hit a field hospital in the village of Abugrein, 115 kilometers south of Misrata, in northwestern Libya, the Libyan army said.

The government-led Operation Volcano of Rage said in a statement on Facebook that the attack only caused material damage to the field and the ambulances in Abugrein.

Libya plunged into chaos in 2011, when a popular uprising and a NATO intervention led to the ouster of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

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Heavy rains and strong winds lashed Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) on Wednesday evening bringing down temperature and providing relief from hot weather.

Temperatures had soared up to 40-degree Celsius even as southwest monsoon advanced into more parts of west central and north Bay of Bengal. A low pressure area has formed over east-central and adjoining west-central Bay of Bengal which is expected to move towards west-northwest during next 48 hours, informed India Meteorological Department.

Southwest monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of Tamil Nadu, most parts of Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura, and some parts of Assam and Nagaland, IMD said.

Conditions are favourable for further advance of monsoon into some more parts of Central Arabian Sea, Goa, some parts of Maharashtra, some more parts of Karnataka and Rayalaseema, some parts of Telangana, some more parts of Central & North Bay of Bengal and North Eastern states during next 48 hours, it further added.

The department said that conditions are likely to become favourable for further advance of monsoon into some more parts of Maharashtra, remaining parts of Karnataka, Telangana, Rayalaseema, Bay of Bengal and North Eastern states, entire Sikkim, and some parts of Odisha and West Bengal during in the next 24 hours.

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In Ecuador's Amazon region, a severe volcanic eruption on June 7 left cities covered in ash further posing the threat to the health of the citizens of the South American nation amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Ecuadors Sangay volcano was seen spewing hot lava propelling the ash toward the coast and the largest city, Guayaquil recently hit by the COVID-19 respiratory disease. Further, the recent change in the wind direction targetted the calamity towards human-inhabited districts, although, the volcanos remote location had less impact from moderate eruptions over the years on people.

Geophysical Institute of Ecuadors researcher, Benjamin Bernard, was quoted saying, the ash erupted out of the Sangay volcano and it violently spreads into the Guayas province. He added a massive quantity of ash was witnessed in the direction of the Guayaquil province that raises concerns about the wellbeing of the people. However, the institute has speculated that no major eruptions are expected to take place in the weeks ahead, although, a series of moderate volcanic outbursts can be seen.

Report from the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network: #Sangay (Ecuador) Eruption produced ash plumes, lava flows, and rockfalls during August-December 2018https://t.co/aHA3DTNsPY pic.twitter.com/2aLLjS9eqc  Global Volcanism Program (@SmithsonianGVP) June 3, 2019

That moment when the volcano 30 minutes away from you wakes up in the middle of the night. #andes #life #Ecuador  pic.twitter.com/yCfRTRgSlK  Jorge L Mora (@jorgelmora85) June 9, 2020

Read: Court Finds Ex-Ecuador President Guilty Of Corruption

Read: Rights Group: Justice Awaits For Ecuador Protest Violence

'Ash' causes fears of respiratory distress

Earlier, in April, the province of Guayaquil witnessed one of the worst coronavirus impacts in the whole of the country as it struggled to bury the fatalities from the respiratory disease COVID-19. The death rate was so high that the authorities couldnt keep a count of it. Further, the Ecuadorian government had to distribute the wooden coffins to residents in the worst affected, Guayaquil. Also, a dedicated helpline was set up to help families to remove corpses from homes, as per reports. As many as 800 bodies were removed per day by the police officers as more people reported severe respiratory issues as the symptom of the disease.

Therefore, as per the reports, with volcanic eruptions to continue in the coming days, the Guayaquil airport halted flights to clear the runway and sanitize the premises. Furthermore, the authorities had to remove the excess ash from public spaces to avert potential respiratory issues among the public, coupled with mounting fears of the resurgence of coronavirus asymptomatic cases. As of June 10, Ecuadors health ministry announced that the deaths dipped to below 10 per day, speaking at a press conference.

Read: Ecuador Stores COVID-19 Victims In Giant Refrigerated Containers As Morgues Get Full

Read: Ecuador: Dead Bodies Of Coronavirus Victims Piling Up On Streets
ATLANTA - Coronavirus infections sidelined some poll workers and scared away others. New workers were trained online instead of in person. And when Election Day arrived, trouble with new voting equipment and social-distancing precautions forced voters to wait in long lines, sometimes for hours.

The resulting chaos during Tuesdays primary elections in Georgia resulted in a national embarrassment and for the second time since 2018 raised questions about the states ability to conduct fair elections. It also set off a scramble to identify and fix problems before the high-stakes November general election.

It scares me, said Cathy Cox, a Democrat who oversaw Georgia elections as secretary of state from 1999 through 2007. But hopefully it was such a traumatic experience for so many people, and appears to be such a black eye for Georgia, that it will ring the bell for elected officials to make significant changes.

Tuesdays breakdown drew the second round of stinging criticism for Georgia election officials since 2018, when the states closely watched gubernatorial election was marred by hourslong waits at some polling sites, security breaches that exposed voter information and accusations that strict ID requirements and registration errors suppressed turnout. That led to lawsuits and changes to state law that included the $120 million switch to a new election system.

Much of the outcry over the 2018 election targeted Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who still served as secretary of state when he ran for governor two years ago. Kemp has so far stayed silent on the most recent problems.

Like two years ago, activists say voting problems seemed to disproportionately affect areas with large numbers of minority voters in cities such as Atlanta and Savannah.

We saw those overwhelming issues in black and brown communities predominantly, Aklima Khondoker, state director of the advocacy group All Voting Is Local told reporters.

Votes were still being counted Wednesday, including absentee ballots that topped 1 million  the result of many voters trying to avoid trips to the polls because of the virus. The possibility of an August runoff loomed in a high-profile primary race among Democrats seeking to challenge GOP Sen. David Perdue, meaning Georgia voters could face another logjam at the polls in just two months.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, blamed local election officials. He said he plans to ask lawmakers to give state officials greater oversight of county election offices, including authority to directly intervene and require management changes.

Metro Atlanta appeared to have the worst voting delays, with some voters reporting five-hour waits and and others giving up and leaving in frustration when confronted with long, slow-moving lines. Voting hours were extended, and the last voters didnt cast their ballots until around midnight.

I did expect long lines. I wasnt expecting it to be so unorganized, said Kiersten Berry, 34, of Atlanta, who waited more than 3 1/2 hours to vote Tuesday morning.

Georgia was in the midst of an ambitious statewide effort to replace outdated voting equipment when the coronavirus hit in March.

Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron largely blamed the pandemic. Two poll managers tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days, and other election workers simply did not show up, Barron said.

In-person training on the new voting system was held early in the year, but recent refresher sessions were held online because poll workers werent comfortable attending in person as the virus surged in Georgia. The threat also meant many polling sites  such as at senior centres  could not be used, forcing consolidations. The county had 164 polling places instead of the planned 198.

On Election Day, poll workers who had not put their hands on the new machines in months got confused, Barron said, and their calls overloaded the county election office. There were instances of scanners powering down or jamming, he said, and in some places too many voting machines were plugged into the same circuit, causing them to flicker.

Barrons elections office was also flooded with 92,000 absentee ballots  compared with fewer than 1,000 in the 2016 primaries. Many voters have said they requested mail-in ballots and never received them.

Georgia had delayed its primary twice  presidential primary votes had initially been scheduled for March 9  to give more time to prepare. While there were reports of equipment failures, only about 20 components such as scanners, printers and touchscreens were replaced by Tuesday evening out of 30,000 in use statewide, said Kay Stimson, vice-president for government affairs for Dominion Voting Systems, the vendor for Georgias new system.

State election officials said a few polling places in metro Atlantas Gwinnett County opened late because officials didnt realize the new machines were bigger than the old ones and delivery trucks had to make extra trips. In Fulton County, some workers couldnt get machines to work because they were inserting voter cards upside-down.

County election officials countered that the state should have provided more resources for staffing and training. Cox, who held Raffenspergers job more than a decade ago, agreed that state officials share in the blame.

Cox oversaw the rollout of Georgias first electronic voting system in 2002. Now the dean of Mercer Universitys law school, she said the state needs to fund more election workers, additional training and voter education to ensure voting goes smoothly in the fall.

I would not be trying to pick a fight with the counties, Cox said. I would be rolling up my sleeves and saying, Lets all of us in the election community figure out every step that had a problem and how we can make this work for November.

___

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writers Ben Nadler, Sudhin Thanawala, Jeff Martin and Christina Cassidy in Atlanta also contributed to this report.
Photo: CFSEU

A public inquiry into money laundering has heard that British Columbia appears to have more high-level organized crime groups than other provinces.

The director general of Criminal Intelligence Service Canada says that among at least 1,850 organized crime groups known to operate in Canada, the agency has assessed 680.

RCMP Chief Supt. Rob Gilchrist says one quarter of the assessed groups are known to be involved in money laundering, although the agency believes that figure to be low.

British Columbia's port access and proximity to Mexico make it a natural gateway for illicit drugs into other parts of Western Canada, and Gilchrist says it may be more appropriate to consider some of the crime groups as operating regionally rather than just in B.C.

However, Gilchrist says because his agency depends on sensitive law enforcement information, there is a limit to what he can share with the inquiry.

He also says the agency depends on individual police departments to share information they think is relevant and, like his agency, they have limited resources.

"Individual police services must prioritize the use of their resources, therefore not all organized crime groups are reported on," he told the inquiry on Tuesday.

"The reality is that resource levels and limitations result in efforts being prioritized at multiple levels."

Attorney General David Eby has said he hopes the inquiry will answer lingering questions about how the criminal activity has flourished in the province.

Among 14 organized criminal groups assessed as national high-level threats, 10 are linked to B.C., the inquiry heard.

Organizations considered high-level threats may have interprovincial networks or international connections and engage in multiple criminal activities.

"Four high-level threat groups in 2019 were assessed as being linked to money laundering for large international organized crime networks providing laundering services to domestic and international drug traffickers," Gilchrist said.

Of those, three are linked to B.C., he said.

Those involved in money laundering move large sums to hide the proceeds of crime and may span a network of organized crime groups, he added.

Gilchrist said the most common channel for money laundering at the higher level was through private businesses like restaurants and construction, while others cleaned money through real estate, gambling and other means.

Gilchrist said the size of the problem in B.C. may also reflect better reporting by local police departments.

Quantifying how much money is laundered is "extremely difficult" due to its secretive nature, he said.

The inquiry heard that the B.C.-Yukon branch of the agency has not had the resources to undertake studies on money laundering in specific areas, such as casinos, real estate or cryptocurrency.

Insp. Leslie Stevens said money laundering is only one crime the agency investigates and it has been "acutely" short on analytical staff.

"It's always on the backburner because of resource shortages," she said.
A 19-month-old child in the northern Vietnamese province of Vinh Phuc has been saved from a critical condition after being left inside a closed car in the sun for two hours.

The baby boy was left in his familys car around 12:00 pm on Monday, when a family member, who had driven him around, became occupied and forgot about his presence.

The baby stayed in the car, which was parked outdoor in the sun, for about two hours with no air conditioning as the vehicle was not running.

By the time the family found out about him, the child had lost consciousness, suffering from fecal incontinence.

After receiving first aid at a communal health station, the baby was transferred to Lap Thach Districts health center, where he went into convulsions with his body temperature measured at 41 degrees Celsius.

Realizing that the babys condition could be life-threatening, doctors at the district health center transferred him to Vinh Phuc Province General Hospital.

The boy was admitted to the emergency ward at the provincial infirmary in a coma.

Through examination, the doctors concluded that he had suffered from heat stroke due to being in the hot car for too long.

His test results returned with abnormal indicators, including coagulation disorders, electrolyte disorders, and low blood potassium levels.

Doctors promptly resuscitated the boy and gradually stabilized his conditions. However, the boy still requires follow-ups.

Dr. Nguyen Van Huy, head of the emergency ward, said if doctors had intervened only a bit later, the baby might have faced a high risk of sequela and had little chance of making a full recovery.

The hospitals doctors made use of every second to save the child, Huy said.

Doctors warned that leaving children in closed cars in the sun with no air conditioning is very dangerous.

In August 2019, a first grader in Hanoi died after he had apparently been neglected for hours in a van contracted by his school to transport students.

One month later, a three-year-old child was found locked inside a kindergartens school bus for hours in the northern province of Bac Ninh, but was fortunately rescued.

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Weeks after an advocacy organization found that black airmen in junior enlisted ranks are twice as likely to receive discipline as those from other demographics, the Air Force Inspector General has launched an independent review into the service's history of disparity in military punishment and developmental opportunities given to African American service members, officials announced Tuesday.

In a release, the service said the review, ordered at the direction of Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett; Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein; and Gen. Jay Raymond, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, will "assess and capture existing racial disparities; assess Air Force-specific causal factors, like culture and policies; assimilate the analysis and conclusions of previous racial disparity studies by external organizations; and make concrete recommendations resulting in impactful and lasting change."

Read Next: Its Official: Gen. CQ Brown Confirmed as 1st African American Military Service Chief

"We are listening, and we are taking action," the leaders said in a letter accompanying the announcement.

The IG will reach out to airmen, including those temporarily assigned to the Space Force, through anonymous surveys and one-on-one interview or group discussion requests. The surveys will be made available by mid-June on the Air Force's website.

In a town hall last week, Goldfein and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright called for change and improvement in the service, including a review of the military justice system.

The IG review formalizes that request, according to the release.

"We want to make sure our Air and Space Professionals are able to share their experiences and concerns, and we want to empower them to be a part of the solution," said Lt. Gen. Sami Said, the Air Force Inspector General.

"Their voices will be heard and captured for the record. We have a tremendous opportunity here, and we will not waste it," Said added.

An advisory board will supplement the review process. Said has formed a senior leader advisory group composed of "10 African American general officers, 10 African American chiefs and four African American senior executive service Airmen," the service said.

The IG's office will also reach out to a number of airmen from all the major commands to join its review team.

Following the announcement, Wright praised the move. "Action," he posted on Twitter and linked to the release.

Wright was the first member of senior military leadership to speak out publicly following the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis.

Wright's words contained concern for black members of the Air Force; officials told Military.com that he felt compelled to say something as part of a larger conversation about being black in America, especially as it relates to the military judicial system.

In May, the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders released newly obtained materials from an Air Force study that found the service has not implemented any serious solutions to fix a long-standing problem of racial disparity in the military judicial system. Furthermore, POD said, the service did not appropriately disclose information of its own inconsistencies when analyzing the issue.

"It takes people at the very top to acknowledge that there's a problem and act on the problem," Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders and a retired Air Force colonel, told Military.com last month.

He said that implementing real change starts with the chain of command.

"Now, fortunately, it looks like the Air Force will have its first African American chief of staff," Christensen said last month of Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown. "But it's still so underrepresented."

In a historic vote, Brown was unanimously confirmed Tuesday by the Senate to take over as the 22nd chief, making him the first African American officer to ever serve as the top uniformed officer of any of the military branches.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related: Top Air Force Lawyer Calls for Proposals on Improving Racial Disparity in Military Justice
Suspects in arson in Minneapolis, Minn., during riots in the wake of George Floyd's death. (ATF)

New Images Show People Accused of Starting Fires During Minneapolis Riots

Newly released pictures show individuals accused of committing arson during the riots that exploded in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd.

Authorities released the images in an appeal for members of the public to share any information they have on the suspects.

Progress has been steady in the Minneapolis fire investigations, and we are at a point where we need help identifying people, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jeff Reed, in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) said in a statement.

These arsons adversely impact the communities, business owners, employees, and their families.

A person of interest in arson at the Minnesota Transitions Charter School in Minneapolis, Minn. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at the Minnesota Transitions Charter School in Minneapolis, Minn. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at the Minnesota Transitions Charter School in Minneapolis, Minn. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at the Minnesota Transitions Charter School in Minneapolis, Minn. (ATF)

One individual wearing a yellow shirt was captured carrying a gas can and is believed to be linked to arson at the Minnesota Transitions Charter School.

Images of three other persons believed to have contributed to arson at the school were also released, including a man wearing a mask and wielding a firearm; a woman in a halter top carrying what appears to be a small fire extinguisher; and a woman carrying a torch that she used to light a fire.

Three sets of images show individuals believed to be linked to arson at an Auto Zone, an Aldis, and a Wells Fargo.

Screenshots from video footage show five people that were at the scene of the Minneapolis Police Departments 3rd Precinct, which was torched after police officers abandoned it on May 28.

A person of interest in arson at an Auto Zone in the Twin Cities, Minn. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at a Wells Fargo in the Twin Cities, Minn. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at an Aldis in the Twin Cities, Minn. (ATF)

The images show a man wearing a vest and a cap; a person wearing a blue shirt with a unique symbol on the front; a person wearing a vest with a blue hooded sweatshirt underneath; a woman with her face unobscured; and a person wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

ATF investigators have been working on the investigation into the fires with officials from the Minneapolis Police Department, the Minneapolis Fire Department, the Hennepin County Sheriffs Office, the Minnesota State Fire Marshal Division, and the FBI.

Anyone with information was asked to contact the bureau at 1-888-ATF-TIPS (1-888-283-8477), via email, or anonymously via www.ReportIt.com or the Report It mobile app.

In addition to identifying persons of interests, authorities want people with photographs or video footage from the nights of unrest in the Twin Cities to come forward. Investigators especially want pictures or videos of people starting fires or adding additional material or accelerants to any of the business property fires.

A person of interest in arson at the Minneapolis Police Departments 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at the Minneapolis Police Departments 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at the Minneapolis Police Departments 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at the Minneapolis Police Departments 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (ATF)

A person of interest in arson at the Minneapolis Police Departments 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (ATF)

The appeal for help in identifying persons of interest came after Branden Michael Wolfe, 23, was charged with helping set fire to the precinct.

Wolfe was arrested on June 3 after allegedly trying to break into a home improvement store in St. Paul, which forms the Twin Cities with Minneapolis. Wolfe was fired from the store earlier in the day after social media posts showed him allegedly stealing items from the police precinct.

Investigators said Wolfe admitted to being in images from the destruction of the precinct and to stealing property from the building. They found items belonging to the Minneapolis Police Department at Wolfes apartment, including a riot helmet, a police radio, and a 9mm pistol magazine.

Also this week, prosecutors charged Samuel Elliott Frey, 19, and Bailey Marie Baldus, 29, with conspiracy to commit arson of the St. Paul Health and Nutrition Store on May 28.
MIAMI (June 8, 2020)  The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) is calling on one of the worlds largest leisure, travel and tourism companies, TUI Group (Touristik Union International), to reimburse Caribbean hotels and resorts for services received.

Last April, CHTA appealed for a response from those tour operators which had failed to reimburse hotels for first quarter (Q1) stays by travelers who had made their payments to the tour operators well in advance of their travel.

Most tour operators honored their obligations, and weve been pleased to see that a number of those who had delayed reimbursements have settled since our appeal in April, said Frank Comito, CHTAs CEO and Director General. But millions of dollars in reimbursements remain obligated and are jeopardizing the hoteliers survival and ability to meet obligations, like taxes and labor expenses, because of the holdout by TUI and several other tour operators.

In a letter to Andrew Flintham, Managing Director of TUIs United Kingdom and Ireland operations, Comito said he wanted the company to join its competitors in settling debts to Caribbean hotels whose survival is under threat.

The CHTA chief executive also described efforts by TUI to advance amendments to payment terms for future contracts  which are even more onerous for hoteliers  and would be tied to receiving the Q1 payments that are contractually owed, as unreasonable and untenable.

By failing to pay, TUI appears to be in breach of existing contractual obligations, Comito said, noting that these distressed hotels have been longstanding loyal partners, directly contributing to the build of TUIs Caribbean book of business.

The Caribbean private sector leader noted with great interest the public statement of apology that Flintham recently made to travelers who are also awaiting cancellation reimbursements. While a similar sentiment would be appropriate to your loyal and longstanding partner hotels in the Caribbean  we urge your support in expediting the reimbursement of these obligations.

In April, CHTA wrote trade associations representing tour operators in Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, to address the delays in paying hotels for services already delivered.

Comito said that despite numerous requests to publicly identify tour operators that were withholding reimbursements, the association had refrained from doing so in the interest of long-standing, mutually beneficial relationships. However, Comito charged that the failure to act expediently left CHTA with no choice but to shine further light on the matter. He advised that in addition to TUI, the Canada-based tour operator Sunwing has also been cited by Caribbean hoteliers as still withholding payments.

We have acted in good faith, as have those impacted hotels, in seeking and awaiting a timely resolution, Comito stated. This has become a matter of survival for many small- to medium-sized hotel operators in the Caribbean, many of which are independent and locally owned and have been loyal clients for many years to TUI and Sunwing. While we understand that the pandemic is impacting the tour operators in a significant way as well, their financial obligations for services already rendered should take urgent priority.

Comito reported that on Friday he received a response from TUI which, regrettably, provided no immediate redress for financially impacted Caribbean hotels.

TUI Group is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.
ISLAMABAD  The Pakistani governments restrictions on the defense industry are stifling potential and must go, according to the president of the trade body Pakistan Aerospace Council.

PAeC is a collective of aerospace, defense and high-tech electronics enterprises that aims to internationally raise the profile of Pakistani industry. Its leader, Haroon Qureshi, heads the defense engineering and electronics company East West Infiniti.

In a June 3 post on the PAeC website, Qureshi said Pakistans private, high-tech manufacturers have the potential to help establish a more ambitious local aviation industry by acting as suppliers to and manufacturers of components and systems used by Western counterparts. However, this is hampered by government restrictions that demand permission prior to even design work.

Without these restrictions, Qureshi believes the private sector could leap-frog, especially with electronics of the future.

Citing the success of private space companies in the United States, Qureshi said if the Pakistani government frees the high-tech private sector to innovate and do what the private industry thinks is feasible and viable, those businesses would not use public funds and probably generate income for the government through taxes.

In response to PAeCs comments, the Ministry of Defence Production told Defense News the government recognizes and actively promotes the importance of indigenization and cooperation between the private sector and the defense-related industry. However, it denied there are stifling constraints on the private sector, saying the market meets both domestic and export demand, but because of international obligations/treaties, especially the measures taken to counter terrorism, certain limitations have to be observed.

Nevertheless, the ministry added, measures are under deliberation to further facilitate the private sector in forthcoming defense production policy, including the creation of a unit for so-called one-window operations  an approach meant to shorten the lengthy bureaucratic process. It also cited recent supplier and vendors exhibitions as well as a defense production seminar to promote cooperation among private businesses.

Story continues

The government is also preparing a Defence Offset Policy" to encourage the private sector to absorb the latest defense and dual-purpose technologies, the ministry said.

But author, analyst and former Australian defense attache to Islamabad Brian Cloughley said Qureshis concern has existed for years, and the governments regulations are driven by security fears.

Whenever private industry wants to get involved in any aspect of defense production, the security people and bureaucrats in the defense system roll out objections, based mainly on the possibility of leakage of technical information and thus jeopardy of national security,  he said. Its been a real headache, and I continue to be surprised that the private sector has continued its efforts for so long.

Despite the governments efforts, Shehzad Ahmed Mir, managing director of the private defense company Bow Systems, remains unconvinced.

While MoDP lives in a self-pleasing, make-believe cocoon devoid of market realities, similar companies created much later in the West are literally thriving financially and technologically today simply because their respective governments gave them subsidies, export incentives, financial support, etc., compared to our government that drowns their ambitions in [no objection certificates], taxation whirlpools, bureaucratic hurdles, etc., he said.

So by the time  and if at all  MoDP comes out with any good news for the private sector, there wont be anyone credible around to jubilate on it.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The inspection tour to the Yellow River by President Xi Jinping reflects the great importance he attaches to the ecological environment amid the country's pursuit of high-quality development.

It is the fourth visit by Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, to China's "Mother River" in a year.

The protection of the Yellow River is critical to the great rejuvenation and sustainable development of the Chinese nation. That explains why China has set the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin as a major national strategy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

The 5,464-km-long waterway is the cradle of Chinese civilization. The river feeds about 12 percent of China's population, irrigates about 15 percent of arable land, supports 14 percent of national GDP, and supplies water to more than 60 cities.

Following his previous visits to Gansu Province last August, Henan Province last September and Shanxi Province in May, all of which are located in the Yellow River Basin, Xi, on Monday afternoon, inspected Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where he visited a section of the Yellow River in the city of Wuzhong to learn about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the river.

The dike project of this section is aimed at tackling problems of floods, severe river course changes and bank collapses. The project is also used for river course arrangement, environmental management and afforestation, significantly improving the ecology along the Yellow River.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

It exemplifies how the national strategy is transforming from a blueprint to concrete practice and shows the determination to protect the ecological environment of the Yellow River.

The peace of the Yellow River is significant to the stability of China. The country has stepped up efforts in conserving water source, controlling water and soil loss, solving pollution, improving industrial structure, as well as preserving and promoting cultural legacies of the Yellow River.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Xi's frequent tours to the Yellow River indicate that more efforts are expected to be made in strengthening ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin.

Ecological protection is an important guarantee that comes before development in China. The protection of the Yellow River reflects the concept reiterated by Xi that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.
Des cadres de l'UDC aux cotes de Patricia Ndam Njoya Droits reserves

Three Members of Parliament elected during the February 9, 2020 twin elections resigned Wednesday, June 10 in keeping with the provisions of Chapter II of the Standing Orders of the National Assembly on incompatibility.

The trio preferred to take the position of Mayor, thereby surrendering the office of Member of Parliament to their alternates. The replacements took place today during the opening of the Second Ordinary Session of the National Assembly for the 2020 Legislative Year chaired by House Speaker Cavaye Yeguie Djibril.

Mme. Jiha Tankoua Epse Peyou Odile Clarisse of the Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU) has replaced Hon. Hermine Patricia Tomaino Ndam Njoya who succeeded her husband, late Adamou Ndam Njoya, as Mayor of Foumban in the Noun Division of the West region.

Two MPs of the Front for the National Salvation of Cameroon, FSNC, in the North Region also chose their Mayoral posts over their stay in the Glass House. As such, Abiassou Ernest replaced Hon. Ousmanou Aman SaAly in the Benoue  West Constituency while Ahmadou Mohamadou has replaced Hon. Boubakary Djidda in the Mayo-Louti Constituency.

Hon. Ousmanou Aman SaAly stays as Mayor of Pitoa while replaced Hon. Boubakary Djidda is Mayor of Mayo Oulo.

Section 4 (2) of the Standing Orders of the National Assembly provides that: The office of Member of the National Assembly shall be incompatible with State remunerated public duties. Consequently, any public officer elected to the National Assembly shall be immediately replaced. In addition, he shall be placed on secondment at the Parliament where, a month following his election, he does not indicate that he declines the office of Member of the National Assembly.

Law N 2012/001 of 19 April 2012 relating to the electoral code, amended and supplemented by law n 2012/017 of 21 December 2012 also addresses issues of incompatibilities in its sections 162 and 163:

SECTION 162.- (1) The office of Member of Parliament shall be incompatible with the office of member of Government or of persons ranking as such, member of the Constitutional Council and of member of the Economic and Social Council.

(2) The office of Member of Parliament shall further be incompatible with the office of Senator, mayor, government delegate to a city council, president of a regional council, with any other nonelective public office and with the duties of president of a consular chamber, board chairperson or with the status of wage earner in a public establishment or public and semi-public enterprise.

SECTION 163.-(1) The occupation of one of the posts referred to in Section 162 above shall render the parliamentary seat vacant.

(2) No Member of Parliament shall cause or allow his name to be followed by any reference to his capacity as Parliamentarian in any advertisement concerning a financial, industrial or commercial undertaking.
File image: Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah

The BJP said that Home Minister Amit Shah's virtual rally was a "huge success" as more than two crore people across West Bengal watched it, a claim which the Trinamool Congress described as "far from reality". Shah addressed the rally from New Delhi as part of the BJP's nationwide 'Jan Samvad' campaign.

"The virtual rally was sort of a new experiment for all of us in West Bengal. But at the end of the day, it has been a huge success. People have viewed it either on TV or on social media. According to our reports and estimates, around two crore people have watched it," BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu said.

At least 15,000 big LED screens and more than 70,000 smart TVs were installed across the state for connecting with party workers down to the booth level, party sources said.

The state has an estimated 78,000 polling booths.

"Apart from watching the rally on TV, a large section of people had seen it on Facebook, YouTube and our party website," Basu said.

Several leaders and journalists watched the rally at the state BJP headquarters on Murlidhar Sen Lane in central Kolkata.

State BJP president Dilip Ghosh, along with senior leaders such as Mukul Roy took the dais alongside Basu.

At the same time, Union ministers from Bengal Babul Supriyo and Debashree Chaudhuri, and other senior leaders attended it in Delhi where Shah spoke.

The Trinamool Congress leadership, which criticised Shah for addressing a meeting at a time when the state is battling the double whammy of COVID-19 and the devastation caused by cyclone 'Amphan', said the virtual rally has "been a flop show".

The TMC ran a social media campaign on twitter with hashtag #BengalRejectsAmitShah.

"Amit Shah's political gimmick has found no place in the state of Bengal. Throughout his speech from today's live rally, the people of Bengal have repeatedly been voicing their opinions against BJP and Amit Shah across all the social media platforms, including Twitter. #BengalRejectsAmitShah was trending at the top in Kolkata and at 17th in the country-wide statistics," a senior TMC leader said.

The TMC leader said BJP's claim of two crore viewers was far from reality.

"The BJP finds it tough to get people for normal rallies, so where from will they get two crore viewers. The BJP should stop telling lies on every issue," he said.

Addressing the rally, Shah criticised the TMC-led Bengal government for its alleged apathy towards migrant workers.

He said these labourers would ensure Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's exit in the 2021 assembly polls as she "insulted" them by terming Shramik Special trains, which were run to ferry them home amid lockdown, 'Corona Express'.
Gov. Phil Murphy announced Tuesday he was lifting stay-at-home order put in place nearly three months ago to stop the spread of the coronavirus as officials reported fewer numbers of infected people and deaths in the state.

With more and more of our businesses reopening, we are no longer requiring you to stay at home, but we are asking you to continue to be responsible and safe, the governor said during his COVID-19 briefing in Trenton. And, when you do go out, please continue to wear face coverings and keep a social distance from others, whenever possible."

At least 12,303 New Jersey residents have died and more than 164,700 have been infected since the first case was reported in the state on March 4. Murphy said employers should still let people work from home even as he lifted restrictions.

BREAKING: Im signing an EO RAISING THE LIMIT ON INDOOR AND OUTDOOR GATHERINGS.



Effective immediately:

Indoor gatherings will be permitted at whichever number is lower  25% of a buildings capacity or 50 people total

Limit on outdoor gatherings will be raised to 100 people pic.twitter.com/07uRYvmR2K  Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) June 9, 2020

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Heres a roundup of whats opening and when:

Graduations: New Jersey high schools can plan to have as many as 500 people at outdoor graduation ceremonies beginning July 6. The governor said he plans to gradually increase the limit of people who can attend outdoor gatherings to 500 people by July 3.

It comes down to this  social distancing must remain our practice and our priority, Murphy said. And thats because its worked.

Religious services: Churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship may reopen to indoor services with new capacity limits after months of restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Religious institutions were included in an executive order that allows people to gather indoors at either 25% of a buildings capacity or 50 people in total - whichever number is lower, the governor said. People must also wear face coverings and stand six feet apart, according to Gov. Phil Murphy.

Yes, this order will allow for greater indoor religious services, the governor said at his regular COVID-19 briefing in Trenton Tuesday. We have not only heard from our partners in our faith communities, but we have worked closely with many of them, and we believe this represents a responsible plan that ensures that religious services will be appropriately distanced and as safe as possible."

Public and private community pools: Public and private community pools will be allowed to reopen in New Jersey on June 22, with capacity limited to 50% and a range of other guidelines. Officials said swimmers should practice social distancing when in the water, and there will be no pool toys allowed to continue to protect against the coronavirus.

Health experts have said COVID-19 cannot be spread through chemically treated waters in pools. As long as the pool is properly disinfected with chlorine and bromine, it should inactivate the virus, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Restaurants and retail: With Stage 2 of New Jerseys multiphase reopening coming June 15, restaurants will be allowed to offer outdoor dining and nonessential retail will be permitted to welcome customers back inside, though at half capacity.

Daycares: Child-care services are allowed to resume at 6 a.m. on Monday, June 15, as long as they comply with state safety restrictions, under an executive order Murphy signed Friday. When child daycare centers reopen in New Jersey, the facilities will be required to conduct temperature checks of kids and staff and limit class size. Children will be encouraged  though not required  to wear masks to protect against the coronavirus.

Camps: Gov. Phil Murphy previously announced that youth day camps and municipal summer camps in the state will be allowed to operate beginning July 6, with safety restrictions in place.

Hair salons and barbershops: As part of the states Stage 2 reopening plans, hair salons and barbershops will reopen with restrictions June 22.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

NJ Advance Media staff writers Brent Johnson, Matt Arco, Jeff Goldman, Noah Cohen and Adam Clark contributed to this report.
New Delhi, June 10 : Almost half of India's population will not be able to survive more than a month without any job or income, just with the help of savings or family support.

With a protracted lockdown and dismal economy, job losses are mounting and concerns are going up for families as to how long they can hold out.

As per the latest IANS CVoter Economic Battery Wave survey, 28.2 per cent of males said they would survive less than a month without income, while 20.7 per cent said they could survive for a month. At the more comfortable end of the spectrum, 10.7 per cent said they could survive without income for more than a year.

For 2 months, the number is 10.2 per cent while for 3 months it is 8.3 per cent. It is 9.7 per cent for 4-6 months and 5.7 per cent for less than a year.

The numbers are concentrated for less than a month and a month, which is almost half the respondents.

The sample date is first week of June and the sample size is 1,397 and covers more than 500 Lok Sabha seats across the country. This is a weekly tracker of 1,000 plus new respondents.

For females, the numbers are similar in less than a month to a month of survival without income. However, in the case of females, the survival is more for a month as compared to less than a month.

For females, 19.9 per cent said they would survive less than a month without a job or income while 28.4 per cent said they could survive for a month. Broadly, this also adds up to half the numbers. A total of 11.5 per cent said they could survive for more than a year.

From the survey, it is clear that the senior citizens have the best survival rate without income and are leveraging their savings. For the senior citizens, 60 and above, 19.2 per cent said they could survive more than a year without any income.

The lowest survival rate is indicated by the young, in the 25-40 years age group, where the highest percentage of 28.6 said that they would survive less than a month sans income.

Understandably, the survival rate is longer for those with higher education and in the high-income group, although both may not necessarily follow.

The higher education group is the highest amongst all social groupings with 31.6 per cent saying they can survive for more than a year without income. For the high-income group, this number is 29.6 per cent.

Among the social groups, for Muslims the number is highest for less than a month with as high as 38.4 per cent while it is 30.2 per cent for a month, which makes it more than 68 per cent who would not be able to survive for more than a month.

Among the regions, the prosperous and industrialised Western region is the best performing, where only 17.2 per cent said they would survive for less than a month while 15 per cent said they would survive for more than a year.

The Eastern region is more vulnerable as 30.4 per cent said they would survive for less than a month. For the regions as a whole, more than 48 per cent said they would survive for a month or less without income or jobs.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
George Floyd's uncle lived in Rapid City for 20 years before moving to Gettysburg in central South Dakota three years ago and becoming a business owner in the town of 1,200.

Now, he wants to see his community remove the Confederate flag that is part of the police department's logo.

Selwyn Jones said Tuesday that he has friends who are police officers in Gettysburg and that the logo is something hes sure will change now with all the things going on in the world.

Im a crusader for change, said Jones, a hotel owner who recently attended a peaceful walk in Rapid City commemorating his nephew's life. Ill see if we can figure out a way to make a change in that. It will change.

Gettysburg, which is in Potter County, is also across the Missouri River from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

Lynn Hart, a black man and Native American, said hes offended to see the Confederate flag on the police departments logo in Gettysburg.

If they really want to be sincere about history, they should (use) the white flag in the logo, said Hart, noting that the Confederacy fought for slavery under the command of General Robert E. Lee until it surrendered in 1865 to the Union in a war that cost 600,000 Americans their lives.

To me, this is not going to help South Dakotas image, Hart said. To me, its a symbol of racism and bigotry. Theyre sending the wrong message if youre a person of color. Im not mad at anybody, I just dont understand.

Why now?

Protests have erupted nationwide in the wake of George Floyds death in the custody of Minneapolis police. As part of the demonstrations, protesters in other states have torn down Confederate memorials and statues while counter-protesters in Rapid City have patrolled the streets with Confederate flags flapping from their trucks.

A desire to remove Confederate statues and retiring the flag also came after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned violent Aug. 12, 2017, when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters, killing one woman.

Removal of the statues and of Confederate flags stems from the belief that the monuments glorify white supremacy and memorialize a government whose founding principle was to continue the enslavement of people of color.

The U.S. military has begun to rethink its traditional connection to Confederate Army symbols as well. The Navys top admiral announced Tuesday that he will follow the example of the Marine Corps, which directed commanders to remove public displays of the Confederate flag.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, both former Army officers, said theyre "open to a bipartisan discussion" of renaming Army bases such as North Carolina's Fort Bragg that honor Confederate officers who led the fight against the Union and directly or implicitly defended the institution of slavery.

However, President Trump rejected the idea of removing Confederate names from Army bases on Wednesday after top Pentagon officials expressed openness to the idea.

Gov. Kristi Noem spoke out about counter-protesters who have shown up at Black Lives Matter protests in Rapid City with the Confederate flag and said on June 3 that they are disappointing to see.

Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender also said people riding around in pickup trucks with Confederate flags are embarrassing to see in Rapid City.

Mayor defends flag

Gettysburg Mayor Bill Wuttke said he will not remove the flag from the logo on police cars, buildings or uniforms and maintains it represents history.

The reason it was put on there has nothing to do with racism. It has to do with our heritage, Wuttke said. If I thought for a minute it had something to do with racism that would be a whole different ball game, but it doesnt and it didnt. Its just strictly to do with the history of our community.

The patch, which shows the American and Confederate flags overlapping and a cannon to represent the battle that the town was named for, was created in 2009 by Scott Barksdale, a South Carolinan, after he learned of the history of the town from then Chief of Police Gayle Kludt.

This patch has no racist intentions; it is meant to be another way that we, as a city, represent our heritage, states a 2015 post on the citys Facebook page.

Bill Wainman, the police chief of Gettysburg in 2015, resigned a few weeks after the controversy boiled over, moving to the Hot Springs Police Department where he now works as the captain.

Gettysburg Police Chief Dave Mogard, who has been with the two-person department since 2008, declined to comment when contacted by the Journal.

Wuttke, who has been mayor since 2012 and was a city councilman before that, said he was born and raised in South Dakota and doesn't have any family members who served in the Civil War or fought for the Confederacy.

The town, he said, was founded in 1883 by veterans from both the Confederate and Union sides of the Civil War.

A historian from the Dakota Sunset Museum, Mary Carol Potts, said her records show only one Confederate soldier homesteaded in Gettysburg: William Epling.

Potts said a book in the museum that details Civil War veterans who settled in Potter County has about 40 pages of names of Union soldiers.

A Rapid City Journal columnist wrote in 2011 that the town was founded by 200 Civil War veterans, the majority of them Union soldiers, and that many of their descendants still lived there.

Wuttke said hes worried that people will tear down the Civil War memorial in front of the Potter County Courthouse if any future protests ensue.

If we change that patch are they going to come after us next to change our memorial? Wuttke said. Up until the last four years, it hasnt been an issue. Do we not have our right to be able to display what we feel is our freedom?

He also said no one in his community has ever complained about the logo to him. The 2015 post explaining the decision to keep the flag on the logo has more than 14,000 likes.

Media attention of the patch was sparked in 2015 following the massacre of nine people by a white man at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The shooter had posted photos of himself online displaying the Confederate flag.

Hart first spoke out about the patch in 2015 to local media sources.

The battle wasnt fought in South Dakota, Hart said. The Confederate flag is a symbol of hate."

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) endorsed a half-dozen insurgent candidates in upcoming primaries, backing state Rep. Charles Booker over national Democrats' preferred candidate to face Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky and boosting two challengers running against incumbent House Democrats.

The string of endorsements on Tuesday represents Sanders' highest profile support for liberal candidates in down-ballot races since he exited the presidential race this spring and is an enormous boost for the candidates seeking momentum in the closing weeks before the summer primaries.

Sanders' announcement also puts the Vermont independent at odds with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and positions him against two prominent House Democrats: Foreign Affairs Chair Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"One of the ways we must continue building that movement is by electing progressives at all levels of government," Sanders said in a Medium post announcing the endorsements. "Because the truth is, real change never happens from the top on down. It happens from the bottom on up."

Sanders' post included a link to a fundraising page for the six candidates and a tweet announcing the endorsements. He also sent an email to the fundraising list that powered his presidential campaign.

Sanders backed Booker, a first-term state representative, in the Kentucky Senate race against McConnell ahead of the June 23 primary. Booker is running on a platform that includes "Medicare for All" and the "Green New Deal," and is challenging Amy McGrath, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The African American lawmaker endorsed Sanders in the presidential primary, while McGrath backed former Vice President Joe Biden.

Kentucky state Rep. Charles Booker, right, promotes a voting-rights measure on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020, in Frankfort, Ky. Booker is the lead sponsor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would automatically restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences. (AP Photo/Bruce Schreiner)

McGrath has raised record sums for her campaign and massively outspent Booker and other candidates on TV throughout the campaign, largely focusing on McConnell and sidestepping the primary. But Booker has already received support from a number of Democrats in Kentucky, including more than a dozen elected officials, and his campaign has seen a boost in fundraising in the past week amid protests over police brutality. He launched his campaign's first major TV advertising this week, saying Kentucky needs a "real Democrat" in the Senate race.

Story continues

"These endorsements are further proof that our vision to end poverty, lead on structural change, and uplift all people is the right message at the right time," said Booker, who was also endorsed Tuesday by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), in a statement.

Sanders also endorsed Jamaal Bowman, who is challenging Engel in New York, and Cori Bush, a nurse and activist running for the second straight cycle against Clay, who defeated her by 20 percentage points in 2018. He has previously expressed support for Bush, who was a surrogate for his presidential campaign.

Sanders' endorsement of Bowman comes less than a week after Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a neighboring district, backed his bid against Engel. Like Kentucky, New York is holding primaries on June 23.

Bowman is running to the left of Engel, attempting to portray the 16-term congressman as out of touch with his constituents. A recent hot-mic gaffe and questions about Engel's home outside the district are creating uncomfortable questions for the incumbent.

Thus far this year, Sanders' endorsed primary challengers are 1-for-2 against Democratic incumbents: Rep. Henry Cuellar held off Jessica Cisneros in Texas, while Marie Newman ousted Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois.

Sanders also endorsed two liberal candidates running in open-seat primaries in New York: Samelys Lopez to replace retiring Rep. Jose Serrano in the Bronx; and Mondaire Jones, who is running to replace retiring Rep. Nita Lowey in the lower Hudson Valley.

In Texas, Sanders backed Mike Siegel in a Democratic primary runoff next month for an increasingly competitive district held by GOP Rep. Michael McCaul. Siegel, the only white candidate Sanders endorsed on Tuesday, finished first in the March primary but failed to win a majority of the vote, prompted a runoff with physician Pritesh Gandhi, the second-place candidate.

Siegel lost to McCaul by 4 points in the 2018 midterms, a closer-than-expected finish.

Max Cohen contributed to this report.
BRISTOL, England (AP)  In an English port city that once launched slave ships, an empty plinth has become the center of a debate about racism, history and memory.

For over a century the pedestal in Bristol held the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader whose wealth helped the city grow. On Sunday, anti-racism demonstrators pulled the 18-foot (5.5 meter) bronze likeness down, dragged it to the nearby harbor and dumped it in the River Avon  sparking both delight and dismay in Britain and beyond.

On Monday the empty base, surrounded by Black Lives Matter placards, drew a stream of activists, office workers and onlookers. Some posed proudly in front of it, others stood in silence, a few argued. Some Bristolians said toppling the statue was historical vandalism. Others welcomed the removal of a stain on their city.

It should have happened a long time ago, said Katrina Darke, a family doctor.

Chyna Lee, a 24-year-old recruitment consultant, said that she didnt advocate vandalism, but Im quite happy it got dumped in the river.

There have been petitions and requests to get the statue removed, she said. I just think people werent listening to anything at all, and everyone is very fed up."

Images of protesters toppling the statue  one posing with his knee on its neck, evoking the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police  made news around the world. They resonated especially in the United States, where campaigners have sought to remove Confederate memorials.

Colstons demise also reinvigorated Oxford University campaigners calling for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a Victorian imperialist in southern Africa who made a fortune from mines and endowed the universitys Rhodes scholarships.

Since Floyds death, Black Lives Matter protests have spread across the U.S. and to countries around the globe, including Britain, where more than 200 have been held.. Demonstrators in London, Glasgow, Bristol and other U.K. cities  whose cultural diversity is rooted in Britains long-vanished empire  have expressed solidarity with the United States, and also demanded change closer to home.

Story continues

The protests have been predominantly peaceful but some demonstrators in London hurled objects at police and spray-painted a statue of Winston Churchill. The government said 135 people had been arrested and 35 police officers hurt, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the outbreaks of thuggery.

Johnson's spokesman, James Slack, said the prime minister viewed the statue-toppling in Bristol as a criminal act and said the police should hold to account those responsible. Home Secretary Priti Patel, Britains interior minister, said it was sheer vandalism.

But Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees said it was a significant moment in the citys history.

I cannot condone criminal damage, said Rees, who is the city's first black mayor. But also, as the descendant of Jamaicans who were enslaved at some point, and this man was a slaver, I wont deny that the statue was an affront to me.

Colston has long been a problematic presence in Bristol, 120 miles (195 kilometers) southwest of London. He was a senior official in the Royal African Company, which in the late 1600s trafficked 80,000 African men, women and children to slavery in the Americas. About 20,000 died on the journey.

Bristol went on to become Britains biggest port for slave ships during the early 18th century. Ships based in the city transported at least half a million Africans into slavery before Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807. Many 18th-century Bristolians helped fund the trade and shared in the profits, which also built handsome Georgian houses and buildings that still dot the city.

Colston died in 1721, leaving his fortune to charity. Modern-day Bristol has Colstons Almshouses, Colston schools, Colston Avenue, Colston Tower and the Colston Hall concert venue, which plans to change its name. An annual church service of thanksgiving for Colston's life was held until a few years ago.

The city attempted to replace the plaque on the statue extolling Colson as virtuous and wise with one that mentioned his role as a slave trader. But several years of wrangling failed to come up with an agreed wording.

Some residents of the city feel that toppling the statue amounts to airbrushing the past.

The reason the statue was erected is not the same reason you have to retain it, said 66-year-old Claire Wren.

This was just hooliganism and criminal damage, she said, wondering whether supporters of making Britain a republic would want to tear down statues of Queen Victoria. "Where does it end?

Olivette Otele, professor of the history and memory of slavery at the University of Bristol, acknowledged that some people felt angry and sad that the statue had been felled, but asked them to examine their reasons.

Why are you sad about this particular statue? The movement was about the death of a black man, she said. What are the priorities here? What does it say about mourning the statue and not the man?

Everythings going really fast at the moment, but its a moment to pause: What do we value as a society?"

Despite some calls for the statue to be re-erected, that looks unlikely. Historic England, the country's heritage guardian, said it recognized that the statue was "a source of great pain for many people" and said "we do not believe it must be reinstated.

Rees, the mayor, said city authorities planned to fish the statue out of the harbor and install it in a museum as part of the overarching story of the city of Bristol.

He said the statues fate was almost (a) piece of historical poetry  the man who sent slave ships across the ocean ending up under water, just like the bodies of enslaved Africans.

Simbarashe Tongogara, a musician and longtime activist in Bristol, was hopeful the actions of the young protesters who brought the statue down, some black and some white, could mark a turning point in the fight against racism.

Seeing that it was white people that brought the statue down, thats the important message because that means some learning time is happening, he said. Because its taken a long time to come to that point.

Its not British, American  its a world pandemic that we need to address.
VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Mota Ventures Corp. (CSE:MOTA) (FSE:1WZ1)(OTC PINK:PEMTF) (the "Company") the Company's subsidiary, Nature's Exclusive, an eCommerce provider of CBD products to consumers in the United States, is pleased to announce an all-time monthly revenue record achieved during May 2020. Revenue for the month of May totaled Cdn$5,141,000, representing an increase of 110% compared to May 2019. Expenses totaled Cdn$4,992,000 for the month, representing a gross profit of Cdn$149,000 for May 2020.

The Company's investment in customer acquisition continues to yield benefits with the brand acquiring 23,141 new customers during the month of May 2020. The Company's strong ability to continue to acquire and retain new customers for its products continues to accelerate. As consumers continue to seek natural health product solutions, the Nature's Exclusive brand is well positioned to offer consumers quality and convenience.

NATURE'S EXCLUSIVE CBD BRAND LEADING THE WAY

The Company's Nature's Exclusive brand offers a CBD hemp-oil formulation intended to provide users with the therapeutic benefits that hemp may offer. The hemp oil used in the products is derived from hemp grown and cultivated in the United States. The extraction process is designed to maintain all the beneficial qualities that hemp may offer. Nature's Exclusive offers a range of products, which include CBD oil drops, CBD gummies, CBD pain relief cream, CBD skin serum and CBD coffee.

"I am very pleased our Nature's Exclusive brand achieved another monthly sales record. We continued to expand in the United States, and our outlook for the second half of fiscal 2020 is very positive. We remain on track to achieve our goals for 2020 despite the recent economic turmoil," stated Ryan Hoggan, CEO of the Company.

We encourage readers to visit www.motaventuresco.com to view our brands and sign up to our newsletter.

The Company cautions that figures for revenue, expenses and margin generated from the sale of Nature's Exclusive products in fiscal year 2020 have not been audited, and are based on calculations prepared by management. Actual results may differ from those reported in this release once these figures have been audited. These figures were translated from US dollars into Canadian dollars using the Bank of Canada monthly average exchange rate of US$1.00:Cdn$1.397 for May 2020 and US$1.00:Cdn$1.3459 for May 2019.

About Mota Ventures Corp.

Mota Ventures is an established eCommerce, direct to consumer provider of a wide range of natural health products including CBD and psychedelic medicine products in the United States and Europe. In the United States, the company sells a CBD hemp-oil formulation derived from hemp grown and formulated in the US through its Nature's Exclusive brand. Within Europe, its Sativida brand of award winning 100% organic CBD oils and cosmetics are sold throughout Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. In Germany, Verrian currently produces natural psilocybin extract capsules under the PSI GEN and PSI GEN+ brand. Mota Ventures is also seeking to acquire additional revenue producing CBD brands and operations in both Europe and North America, with the goal of establishing an international distribution network for CBD products. Low cost production, coupled with international, direct to customer, sales channels will provide the foundation for the success of Mota Ventures.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MOTA VENTURES CORP.

Ryan Hoggan

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, readers are encouraged to contact Joel Shacker, President at +604.423.4733 or by email at IR@motaventuresco.com or www.motaventuresco.com

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 press release, which has been prepared by management.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statement

All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including with respect to its plans to become a vertically integrated global CBD brand, and its plans to acquire revenue-producing CBD brands and operations in Europe and North America. The Company provides forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited those identified and reported in the Company's public filings under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. 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 unless required by law.

SOURCE: Mota Ventures Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593347/Mota-Ventures-Reports-Monthly-Revenues-of-Cdn5141000-for-Natures-Exclusive-Highest-in-the-History-of-the-Brand-Representing-an-Increase-of-110-from-May-2019
Kyrgyz Parliamentary Committee Approves Bill Increasing Russia's Military-Base Fee

By RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service June 09, 2020

BISHKEK -- A parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan has approved a bill that would increase Russia's annual fee for renting land for its combined military base in the Central Asian nation.

The bill, approved by members of the Kyrgyz parliamentary committee on international affairs, defense, and security on June 9, concerns the ratification of a Kyrgyz-Russian protocol on amendments to the agreement on the status and conditions of usage of the military base.

The bill was presented after a topographic survey of the land rented by the Russian military base had found that the combined base occupies 924.52 hectares, which is 58.32 hectares more than the area specified in the lease agreement.

After the amount of rented territory is amended, the current annual rental fee of $4,502,495 will be increased by $291,600, according to the bill.

The bill stirred controversy in Kyrgyzstan after some Internet users questioned the lease agreement, according to which, the runway at Russia's military air base in the northern Kyrgyz city of Kant would be owned by the Russian side after it is renovated.

Meanwhile, the bill says that "the General Staff of the Kyrgyz Armed Forces has outlined amendments to...the agreement that envisions return to the Kyrgyz side of the objects after the document's expiration date."

"Additionally, the runway's buildings have been included to the list of joint [Kyrgyz-Russian] use," the bill says.

Russia's air base at Kant was opened in 2003 under the auspices of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.

A U.S. air base outside the capital, Bishkek, began hosting U.S. troops in 2001 as part of the campaign in nearby Afghanistan, but Kyrgyzstan shut it in 2014 amid pressure from Moscow.

In 2017, the Kant air base and three other Russian military facilities in Kyrgyzstan were consolidated into a single combined base.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyz-parliamentary- committee-approves-bill-increasing-russia-s -military-base-fee/30661411.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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A inmate who filed multimillion-dollar property liens against a South Texas judge got additional time tacked onto his 50-year drug sentence Wednesday in Houston.

Noel Exinia, 50, who has spent the past 15 years in federal prison, admitted in March hed used bogus liens to retaliate against the judge who presided over his drug smuggling case. However, Exinias lawyer told his new judge Wednesday that Exinias goal was not to harm the trial judge. The liens were merely a last-ditch effort to get the courts attention.

Defense attorney Richard Kuniansky made this argument, following technical glitches and a brief resetting, at a video hearing. Exinia appeared by videolink from the Houston federal detention facility, dressed in a standard-issue olive green uniform. His lawyer, the judge and the prosecutor were all in separate remote locations with other participants patched in by phone.

Exinia agreed to forgo an in-person hearing and agreed to proceed under the COVID-19 era setup.

His lawyer argued that Exinias claim  in the fake filings  that U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen owed him hundreds of millions of dollars was preposterous. His client filed the fraudulent paperwork, which hed obtained from jailhouse lawyers, in an attempt to get Hanen to reconsider his sentence.

The Cameron County man had been serving at a federal facility in Pennsylvania and he was afraid hed never see his family again, his lawyer said.

As crazy as this scheme is, hes under the belief that this is a way that he can get his sentence revisited, Kuniansky said, explaining his clients mindset at the time. I agree its totally ridiculous. Hes in there grasping at straws. Hes desperate. He knows he may be in there the rest of his life.

Exinia apologized for any harm, saying, I thought this was a way out. Every time I would send a motion to the court theyd always said it was denied.I tried everything.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal said she didnt buy the notion that Exinia had been duped by fellow inmates.

He may be many things, Mr. Kuniansky, but I dont find him a stupid man, Rosenthal said. His success in running a complicated and successful drug conspiracy testified to his skills, his intelligence and his competence. Im finding it difficult to square. The fact that he genuinely understood this was a legitimate way of getting a different result simply defies belief.

She sentenced him to an additional 30 months in prison  18 months will be consecutive to his drug sentence and one year year will run concurrently.

Exinia was sentenced to prison in 2006 after he pleaded guilty to using his La Feria-based trucking business to transport marijuana and cocaine from Mexico to the United States. He represented himself at trial and later attempted to retract his plea, saying hed had poor representation and was not in good mental health at trial as a result of being held in solitary confinement, according to reports.

From November 2014 to January 2015, while serving at a federal penitentiary in Canaan, Pa., Exinia filed a series of liens against Hanens personal and real property. Civil court records and his federal indictment also indicate he filed similar liens against property belonging to Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Lewis, who prosecuted the Brownsville drug case. Those charges were dropped by the federal prosecutor at his sentencing Wednesday.

Despite the hassle, neither official suffered any financial harm, according to Kuniansky.

The fake liens are considered a Sovereign Citizen filing, a do-it-youself legal tactic used by inmates and some in the free world; it holds that that the U.S. government is not legitimate and thus citizens can render justice within their own common law system.

In what the Justice Department calls a nonsensical rant, Exinia wrote that the government does not have the authority or jurisdiction to prosecute him and he questioned whether his plea deal was voluntary. He cited the 1961 Hague convention and indicated the government shouldnt have presumed he was the person with his name.

gabrielle.banks@chron.com
Nord decided a strike was necessary after talking with a group of fellow black scientists about the frustration they felt as the nation became engulfed in Black Lives Matter protests that were frequently met with force from police officers. Some scientists wondered whether they should stop working for a while, to which University of New Hampshire physics and astronomy assistant professor Chanda Prescod-Weinstein responded with the idea of a strike, Nord said.
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Linkedin Apriza Pinandita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 14:04 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd9575c 1 World COVID-19,COVID-19-Indonesian-abroad,South-Korea,Deportation,COVID-19-quarantine,pandemic,coronavirus-restrictions,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona Free

South Korea has deported an Indonesian man for violating the mandatory two-week COVID-19 self-quarantine, the second Indonesian citizen to be deported from the country for the same offense since the pandemic.

South Korean English daily newspaper The Korea Times reported on Tuesday that an Indonesian man in his 20s was being held at the Daegu police station and that the countrys immigration office would soon decide on the next step.

When the COVID-19 pandemic reached South Korea, Seoul made self-isolation mandatory for international arrivals to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The South Korean justice ministry has so far deported more than 60 foreigners for the same offense.

According to the police, the Indonesian arrived at Incheon International Airport from Indonesia on May 30. He cleared immigration on the promise that he would stay at a state-designated quarantine facility in Gimpo  a city in Gyeonggi province  for two weeks, but instead took a taxi heading for Daegu, his destination, The Korea Times reported.

Although the man had fled from the taxi, the police managed to arrest him in northern Daegu.

Read also: Indonesia, South Korea join hands in COVID-19 response

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry and the Indonesian Embassy in Seoul said that the man had already been deported from South Korea.

The man  an Indonesian migrant worker  was deported on May 31, Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He was not the first Indonesian citizen to be deported for breaking South Koreas quarantine regulation. In early April, a 40-year-old Indonesian man was deported after violating the same rule.

He was deported after he was found to have falsely reported his local address and left the registered self-isolation venue, reported The Korea Herald.



South Korea imposed a 14-day self-isolation requirement on international arrivals on April 1. Violators can face a year in prison or a 10 million won (US$8,343) fine  or deportation.
OTTAWA - The non-partisan spirit that has allowed Parliament to swiftly pass emergency legislation during the COVID-19 pandemic evaporated Wednesday, with opposition parties refusing to give unanimous consent to the Trudeau government's latest bill.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises during a meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday, June 9, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

OTTAWA - The non-partisan spirit that has allowed Parliament to swiftly pass emergency legislation during the COVID-19 pandemic evaporated Wednesday, with opposition parties refusing to give unanimous consent to the Trudeau government's latest bill.

The Conservatives then blocked the government's bid to split the bill in two, to allow a promised benefit for Canadians with disabilities to go ahead.

That benefit  a one-time, tax-free payment of up to $600 for Canadians with disabilities  and other measures in the bill are now in limbo, while the parties point fingers at one another over who is to blame.

Government House leader Pablo Rodriguez said he was disappointed that no opposition parties supported the bill but vowed to keep negotiating with them in hopes that a resolution can be found. He conceded, however, that this will delay the disability benefit and other measures.

"I'm not going to quit on this because it's too important," he said in an interview shortly after the bill was rejected in a sitting of the House of Commons that lasted just 15 minutes.

"Canadians need it, people with disabilities need it."

The bill includes a proposed expansion of the wage subsidy program to include seasonal workers and some additional businesses, as well as proposed penalties for fraudulently claiming the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

The Liberals needed unanimous consent from all MPs in the House of Commons to allow the bill to be debated and passed in a matter of hours, as has been done with four previous pandemic-related bills.

But none of the opposition parties was willing to support the latest bill.

The NDP balked at the prospect of Canadians who fraudulently claim the $2,000-a-month CERB being fined or sent to jail  despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's assurances that the punishment is aimed at those who deliberately defraud the government, not those who make honest mistakes.

New Democrats also wanted a firm commitment that the CERB will be extended and changes to the proposed disability benefit, which they maintained would apply only to 40 per cent of Canadians with disabilities.

The Conservatives held out for a full resumption of Commons business.

And the Bloc Quebecois demanded three conditions be met before it would support the bill: a fiscal update this month, a first ministers' meeting before September on health-care transfers to the provinces and a ban on political parties accessing the wage subsidy to avoid laying off staff.

Rodriguez said "there's been a little bit more politics in the middle of this than before and it's bad because it should be about people, not politics, definitely not partisan politics."

The Bloc's conditions for supporting the bill "have nothing to do with the bill," he noted.

However, Bloc Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet accused the Liberals of playing politics, arguing they're acting like a majority government in trying to force through legislation while not providing transparency about the country's finances.

"The most poisonous pill of all of that is the government trying stubbornly to act as if there were not 338 people having been elected last October and doing as if it was a majority government led by some kind of prince, which is not the case," Blanchet told reporters.

"They are not asking us for negotiations, they are asking us for a rubber stamp."

He also accused the Liberals of deliberately including the disability benefit in the bill in order to coerce opposition parties into going along with the controversial fraud penalties. He likened that to "putting cod-liver oil in chocolate cake."

Both Blanchet and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh suggested the disability benefit should be dealt with separately. But when Rodriguez moved to do just that, the Conservatives refused to give their consent.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer instead proposed his own motion to have the House of Commons resume sitting later in the day  and resume business as usual thereafter. The Liberals rejected that.

"Had we been sitting normally, we could have debated this bill, we could have facilitated the government's request," Scheer told the chamber.

Rodriguez called Scheer's motion "some kind of procedural trick" that "looked very innocent but was loaded." It would have undone last month's decision, supported by the NDP, to continue with sittings of the special COVID-19 committee that has been acting as a stand-in for the Commons during the pandemic.

What happens to the bill now is not clear.

The Commons is not scheduled to sit again until next Wednesday, when it is supposed to deal with the supplementary estimates  $87 billion in planned government spending, mostly on pandemic-related matters. The bill  or just the disability benefit portion of it  could be added to the agenda but opposition parties have already complained they have too little time to debate the estimates.

Rodriguez said the government can ask that the Commons be recalled at any time. Blanchet called for it to sit on Monday to deal separately with the disability benefit.

The minority Liberals need the support of at least one opposition party to pass any legislation. While New Democrats want amendments to the disability benefit to cover more Canadians, a party spokesman indicated Wednesday that they wouldn't block the government's proposal if it's put in a separate bill.

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To deal with such a bill quickly, the Liberals would also need the support of at least one opposition party to shut down debate and bypass the normal, lengthy legislative process.

The current bill includes a provision to allow the Canada Revenue Agency to share information so that the benefit can be delivered to Canadians who are eligible for the disability tax credit. Government officials say a different delivery mechanism can be found if necessary to get that benefit flowing.

The bill also includes changes to the CERB in response to concerns that the benefit is discouraging people from returning to low-paying jobs. People would be cut off if they fail to return to work when "it is reasonable to do so" and their employer has asked them to come back, or if they are able to work but decline a reasonable job offer.

It would also allow people to make claims for the CERB for a two-week period, rather than the current four weeks.

It would also protect Canadians from penalties for missing deadlines in civil legal matters, such as bankruptcy proceedings, due to the pandemic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2020.
Dr Reddys Lab completes acquisition of select business divisions of Wockhardt

Hyderabad, Jun 10 (UNI) Dr Reddys Laboratories Ltd on Wednesday announced that it has completed the acquisition of select divisions of Wockhardt Limiteds branded generics business in India and a few other international territories of Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives.

The business comprises of a portfolio of 62 brands in multiple therapy areas such as Respiratory, Neurology, VMS, Dermatology, Gastroenterology, Pain and Vaccines, which would transfer to Dr. Reddy along with related sales and marketing teams and the manufacturing plant located in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh with all plant employees, Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company said in a release here.

On February 12, 2020, Dr Reddys signed a Business Transfer Agreement (BTA) with Wockhardt, to acquire the above referred business undertaking for an upfront consideration of Rs 1,850 crores.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent government restrictions, there has been a reduction in the revenue from the sales of the products forming part of the Business Undertaking during March and April, 2020, the statement said.

Subsequently, through an amendment to the BTA, Dr. Reddys and Wockhardt have agreed that the deal consideration would now be upto Rs. 1,850 Crores and in which Rs 1,483 crore would be paid on the date of closing the deal consideration while the rest would be through different ways.

Dr Reddys Co-Chairman and Managing Director G V Prasad said, ''This deal is in line with our strategic focus on India and has paved a path for accelerated growth and leadership in the domestic market. We believe that the acquired portfolio offers a good growth potential for us.

''We welcome the employees joining us from Wockhardt to the family of Dr Reddys'', he added.

UNI KNR JTS 2145
Gone With The Wind has been temporarily removed by HBO Max from its streaming platform after it was criticized for romanticizing slavery, amid a nationwide re-evaluation of cultural values.

The 1939 Civil War epic, starring Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara, is based on a novel written three years previously by Margaret Mitchell.

It tells the story of a turbulent romance during the Civil War and Reconstruction period. Hattie McDaniel, who would've been 127 today, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar.

Yet the film has been viewed through a more critical lens in recent years, with many questioning whether a film that glosses over the horrors of slavery should still be shown.

Hattie McDaniel, as Mammy, with Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, which HBO Max removed from its streaming service on Tuesday amid criticism of the content

The 1939 film stars Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, and won eight Oscars. Yet its rosy portrayal of life in the antebellum South has angered many, who say it is racist and glorifies slavery

HOW HATTIE MCDANIELS' BECAME THE FIRST EVER AFRICAN AMERICAN TO WIN AN OSCAR BUT WAS SEGREGATED FROM HER CASTMATES AT THE CEREMONY McDaniel, the daughter of two former slaves, played the role of a maid 74 times in her career, but it is as Mammy, the maid in Gone With The Wind, that she is best recalled.

McDaniel's performance won immediate critical acclaim - and she marched to the office of producer David O. Selznick to ask he submit her for Oscar contention.

McDaniel was nearly not allowed to attend the Oscars ceremony in 1940, owing to the 'no blacks' policy of the Ambassador Hotel, where the awards were held. Selznick intervened.

McDaniel was escorted not to the table where Selznick sat with the stars of the film - Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland - but to a small table set against a far wall.

A list of winners had leaked before the show, so McDaniel's win came as no shock. Yet the room was still emotional.

McDaniel died in 1952. Her final wish - to be buried in Hollywood Cemetery - was denied because of the color of her skin. Hattie McDaniel with her 1940 Oscar Advertisement

In the light of the killing of George Floyd, the debate has gained added power.

On Monday John Ridley, screenwriter for 12 Years A Slave, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that the film should potentially be removed.

'It doesn't just 'fall short' with regard to representation,' he wrote.

'It is a film that glorifies the antebellum south. It is a film that, when it is not ignoring the horrors of slavery, pauses only to perpetuate some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color.

'It is a film that, as part of the narrative of the 'Lost Cause,' romanticizes the Confederacy in a way that continues to give legitimacy to the notion that the secessionist movement was something more, or better, or more noble than what it was  a bloody insurrection to maintain the 'right' to own, sell and buy human beings.'

The film was controversial from the beginning.

African American film critic Earl J. Morris, who wrote for the black Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, urged readers to write to the Motion Picture Producers Association and demand that the 'n-word' be removed from the script, because it featured heavily in the novel.

Morris also reported that many black actors refused to take the demeaning roles, but added that 'we cannot criticize' the black actors, 'for they are economic slaves.'

When the movie was released in January 1940 the NAACP criticized McDaniel, who played Mammy, as an 'Uncle Tom.'

McDaniel reportedly responded by saying she would 'rather make seven hundred dollars a week playing a maid than seven dollars being one.'

McDaniel was seated at a table in the back during the Oscars, separate from the rest of the cast and crew.

The incident features heavily in the Netflix show Hollywood, released in May.

HBO said on Tuesday the film's removal was only temporary.

'Gone With the Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society,' the company said in a statement.

'These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible.

John Ridley, pictured with his Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, in 2014. Ridley said HBO should consider removing the film from its offering, describing it as a film which only serves to 'perpetuate some of the most painful stereotypes of people of color'

John Ridley called for HBO to take down the film, and a day later the service complied

Other films making streaming bosses nervous After HBO Max pulled Gone With The Wind amid the George Floyd protests, attention has turned to other films that now be at risk of removal. Chiefly among those are several classic Disney movies hosted on the Disney+ streaming service. They include Dumbo (1941), Swiss Family Robinson (1940 and 1960), Fantasia (1940), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), The Sign of Zorro (1958), Jungle Book (1967), and The Aristocats (1970). Dumbo contains racist stereotypes of African Americans at the time in the form of black crows, who use jive-like speech patterns. The main bird is even named Jim Crow, a nod to the racist segregationist Jim Crow laws of the time, and is voiced by a white actor. Disney's 1941 classic movie Dumbo Swiss Family Robinson airs on Disney+ with a warning As of last November, all of the above classics air on the streaming network with the warning that they 'may contain outdated cultural depictions' or that it may contain footage of characters smoking. No further measures have yet been announced as Black Lives Matter protests spread globally, but bosses are expected to turn their attention to other films with the aforementioned Disney films seemingly most at risk. The service already does not show 1946 film Song of the South because of its dated racial stereotypes. Disney chairman Bob Iger said earlier this year: 'It was just not appropriate in today's world.' Old Warner Brothers cartoons, such as Tom and Jerry, already air with a warning about cultural sensitivity. One movie that is not expected to ever be available on streaming is Birth Of A Nation (1915)  the DW Griffith film hailed as the birth of cinema. The film portrays the Ku Klux Klan as sympathetic characters. Advertisement

'These depictions are certainly counter to WarnerMedia's values, so when we return the film to HBO Max, it will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.

'If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.'

The decision is, however, likely to anger Donald Trump, who after the Oscars ceremony in February declared his love of the film.

'The winner is  a movie from South Korea! What the hell was that all about?' he said.

'We got enough problems with South Korea with trade.

'Can we get Gone With the Wind back, please?'

Supporters of the president were quick to condemn Tuesday's decision on Twitter.

Erielle Davidson, who works with Republican congressman for Texas, Dan Crenshaw, said the move marked the start of 'the left's cultural purge'.

'Gone with the Wind is just the beginning,' she tweeted.

Greg Price, social media associate for The Daily Caller, tweeted: 'Way to erase a historic black achievement in the name of social justice.'

His comment was 'liked' almost 2,000 times in one hour.

But Ira Madison III, host of the Keep It podcast, laughed with his 204,000 followers about the anger from conservatives.

'My only opinion on Gone with the Wind right now is I find it hilarious so many racists are pretending they want it on HBO Max because it made Hattie McDaniel the first black person to win an Oscar,' he said.

The movie is thought to be the first to be pulled amid Black Lives Matters protests following the killing of George Floyd.

However, others are also now thought to be at threat over dated depictions of minorities.

Chiefly among those are several classic Disney movies hosted on the Disney+ streaming service.

They include Dumbo (1941), Swiss Family Robinson (1940 and 1960), Fantasia (1940), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), The Sign of Zorro (1958), Jungle Book (1967), and The Aristocats (1970).

The movies currently stream with the warning that they 'may contain outdated cultural depictions'.

As of last November, all of the above classics air on the streaming network with the warning that they 'may contain outdated cultural depictions' or that it may contain footage of characters smoking.

Davidson, who works for Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw, said it was a 'cultural purge'

Price, social media assistant for conservative site The Daily Caller, condemned the move

Writer, actor and producer Ira Madison mocked conservatives for their anger at the decision
WASHINGTON - The GOP is looking for an answer on how to respond to national outrage over the police killing of George Floyd. And they are looking to Sen. Tim Scott to provide it.

The question is whether Scott, the lone black GOP senator, will be able to pull Republicans behind legislation in the roiling aftermath of Floyds death. That challenge is steep enough in a mostly white party led by self-proclaimed law and order President Donald Trump. But Scott also is batting back at members of the black community accusing him of allowing Republicans to use him in an election year to right racial wrongs.

Scott, who has kept lines of communication open with Trump even after the president called white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., good people, is asking critics: Who better?

Not surprising the last 24 hours have seen a lot of token boy or youre being used in my mentions, Scott tweeted Wednesday. Let me get this straight ... you DONT want the person who has faced racial profiling by police, been pulled over dozens of times, or been speaking out for YEARS drafting this?

Floyds killing at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked painful upheaval and protests against systemic racism in the United States. But it also posed a stark test for the white Republicans who control the Senate. As Floyds funeral was held in Houston on Tuesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell struck a new tone and acknowledged that almost all Senate Republicans, unlike Democrats, are white.

None of us have had the experience of being an African American in this country and dealing with this discrimination, McConnell, who is up for reelection alongside Trump, told reporters. I think the best way for the Senate Republicans to go forward on this is to listen to one of our own, whos had these experiences.

McConnell spoke after Scott finished briefing Senate Republicans on the legislation, which in part would establish a national database for police misconduct. Floyds brother, Philonise, challenged Congress Wednesday to stop the pain with police reforms. Scott said he was talking with the White House, but not Trump so far, to agree on a package of legislation.

The 54-year-old former House member describes himself as the son of a son of a son of a slave, a descendant of a West African family who arrived in the U.S. aboard a slave ship, probably in Charleston, S.C., two centuries ago.

For all of my life and for all of my familys heritage, we had tried to avoid being confrontational, Scott writes in Opportunity Knocks: How Hard Work, Community and Business Can Improve Lives and End Poverty. Always, we believed, the primary aim should be to find common ground in order to move forward.

In September 2017, Trump summoned the senator to the Oval Office to discuss Scotts criticism of the presidents response to the race riots in Charlottesville, Va.  notably, Trumps description of the white supremacists involved as being among the very fine people on both sides. Scott writes that the president was gracious  and that he walked out with the presidents commitment to opportunity zones for poverty-stricken cities. The proposal passed as part of the tax cut bill signed into law that year.

The police killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., and others have made problems with police conduct and accountability hard for Republicans to ignore. Scotts legislation is part of a burst of GOP-written bills on the subject. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky wants to stop sending surplus U.S. military equipment to local law enforcement. And Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah is backing several bipartisan bills to change police practices.

But the challenge is different for Scott, in part because of the trust issues between the black community, the Republican Party and McConnell. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said in a telephone interview that Scott will have succeeded if he produces a good product.

I think that Tim has the background, he has the experiences that are necessary to bring Republican senators to the realization that this law enforcement issue is real and needs to be dealt with, Clyburn said in a telephone interview. I would hope that he would engage with enough of the other members to make sure that whatever he comes up with will have buy-in from others in his conference.

There are signs that theyre listening. GOP senators, who risk losing control of the chamber in the November election, are distancing themselves from Trumps provocative response as the Black Lives Matter movement gains support.

On Tuesday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Scott had told their Bible study group that hed been stopped by police in Charleston multiple times, even as a public official, for being black at the wrong place and the wrong time.

During these last few days Ive been thinking a lot about what Tim Scott told us, Alexander said on the Senate floor. One result of George Floyds killing is that black Americans are telling more stories like Tim Scotts.

At the political intersection, Scott on Wednesday addressed his critics in the black community who chafed at his role.

Dont throw youre the only black guy they know at me either, Scott tweeted. Hes one of three black members of the Senate, he noted, the others being Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. Stop pretending theres some huge racial diversity gap in the Senate.

It is true, though, that the GOPs constituency and Trumps base of support are overwhelmingly white. And though Trump insists hes done more for black Americans than any other president, his rhetoric often carries racial overtones. Last year, Trump tweeted that four female House members of colour, known as the squad, should go back to where they came from. All four are American citizens.

Scott on Wednesday called himself an optimist.

History is a teacher, he said. The president has been receptive the last three years on the priorities that Ive brought to him, he added. Hopefully hell have the same approach.

___

Follow Kellman at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman
A migrant is found hidden under bales of hay in a truck stopped for inspection in California

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents rescued a group of undocumented immigrants who were trapped under hay bales in the back of a truck during an inspection in California.

The incident took place Monday night when a truck driven by a 42-year-old Mexican man approached the Highway 86 CBP checkpoint in Salton City.

Border Patrol officers deployed a canine which led them to the rear area of the semi tractor-trailer truck.

Subsequently, the CBP agents conducted a secondary search and discovered 12 men and a woman lying under multiple stacks of hay.

The migrants, all natives of Mexico, had 'no means for escape,' and were assisted off the flatbed after the border agents removed the hay bales.

None of the undocumented individuals required medical assistance.

The driver, who unlawfully entered the United States, was placed under arrest and processed for human trafficking.

The migrants were processed for illegally crossing the Mexico-U.S. border.

All 14 individuals were later deported to Mexico.

CBP said Monday's incident was the 14th tractor-trailer smuggling incident in 2020 in the Imperial Valley, which covers the Southern California counties of Imperial and Riverside.

Recent data showed that apprehensions of unaccompanied minors, family units and single adults along the southwestern border dropped from 30,002 in March to 15,862 in April. Figures for May have not been released yet.
U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian A. Nichols, left, speaks with Zimbabwean President-elect Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2018. (Associated Press)

For U.S. diplomats around the world, these are dispiriting times.

Entrusted with duties that include extolling democratic values in scores of developing and autocratic countries, career foreign service officers are finding their mission undermined by events back home.

The police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed, handcuffed black man, and the unprecedented law enforcement crackdown that followed  including the temporary prepositioning of active-duty troops, deployment of the National Guard and use of a low-flying helicopter against protesters in the nations capital  has strained the United States' moral authority when it comes to serving as a model for other nations.

Its absolutely tough to be a diplomat out in the field right now, said Barbara Leaf, former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates who served under both President Obama and President Trump.

Many diplomats say they don't mind facing criticism about racism in the U.S. because it can open the door to frank discussions with other governments about the need to confront it, including in the United States.

But Trumps threat to unleash the military to "dominate" protestors, Defense Secretary Mark Esper's characterization of Washington, D.C.'s streets as a "battlespace," and the deployment of numerous mysterious, unidentified security agents to confront demonstrators conjured images more often associated with authoritarian regimes  the kinds of things American diplomats usually condemn.

The Floyd killing and the subsequent protests pose a particular challenge to U.S. credibility in Africa.

Brian A. Nichols, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, had the awkward mission of meeting with that countrys foreign minister, S.B. Moyo, to demand his government end state-sponsored violence against peaceful protesters just days after Floyd's death and hours before Trump had peaceful protesters violently ejected from Lafayette Square, across from the White House, so he could stage a photo op.

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Nichols attempted to navigate the delicate situation by acknowledging that Black Americans, like Zimbabweans, struggle for their rights. Americans will continue to speak out for justice, whether at home or abroad, Nichols told Moyo, according to a statement the U.S. embassy released.

But Zimbabwe government officials  who are rarely receptive to U.S. advice anyway  were particularly dismissive. The country's defense minister said with contempt that the pressure was coming from a country that kills Black people "willy nilly. ... This is America for you."

Stephanie S. Sullivan, a career foreign service officer who currently serves as ambassador to Ghana, joined many U.S. missions in Africa in quickly condemning the killing of Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer. She said his death is prompting important and necessary conversations in the United States, and serves as a reminder of the importance of confronting painful truths head on. She added that we can do better in addressing the underlying conditions and existing systems that perpetuate racial injustice in the United States.

Asked by reporters if the events in the U.S. had any impact on his work as special envoy for Syria, veteran diplomat James Jeffrey said no. But he added: Im not here to comment on the situation in the United States, but the right of assembly is a Bill of Rights right in America. We do it in America. We urge other countries to do it.

Other diplomats say the administrations handling of the protests has not harmed U.S. standing abroad.

Kelly Craft, a major Republican donor from Kentucky who was named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations last year, told reporters last week that she has been impressed by the number of countries represented on the U.N. Security Council who have "reached out in support of the fact that the U.S. is allowing the freedom of speech."

She said she sees no contradiction between what the U.S. advocates abroad and how the U.S. protests were handled at home.

We have to remember that there is no moral equivalence between our free society and other societies," Craft said.

But reaction from governments and groups who most frequently find themselves at the end of pointed U.S. barbs regarding human rights and violence has been predictable and swift.

The heavy-handed crackdown reveals in broad daylight Washington's double standard on human rights, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua said. The United States has an infamous track record of boasting and exporting its so-called universal values around the globe, oftentimes interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

Russia told the U.S. to look in the mirror" and drop the holier-than-thou attitude. "The United States simply cannot have any questions for others in the coming years, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said in Moscow.

Palestinians and their supporters say the U.S. appears to be adopting many of the harsh law enforcement tactics that Israel has used for years in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, further eroding U.S. credibility to act as a mediator in the Mideast conflict.

Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former advisor to the Palestinian Authority, said the images from the U.S. are triggering really awful memories from when she has been caught in similar Palestinian-Israeli skirmishes. She said it suggested that U.S. security forces, like their Israeli counterparts, see everything through the lens of security, not rights.

And Venezuela's socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington has been trying to overthrow for a year and a half with crippling economic sanctions, said the police brutality and racism disqualified the U.S. for making any demands.

"They want to suffocate us the way they suffocated this young African American," Maduro said in a television address.

Even some democratic allies have raised concerns. Australia is investigating why an Australian TV crew was roughed up by police near the White House. British parliamentarians said they wanted to stop selling lethal equipment to the United States.

That has made sticking to the narrative of the moral authority of the United States more difficult, diplomats say.

As American diplomats, it is our job to explain America to the world, Eric Rubin, former ambassador to Bulgaria who is president of the union representing foreign service officers, told his members last week. We have always pointed to our story as being worthy of emulation. ... This week, we have been forcefully reminded that we still have a long way to go as a nation. A career foreign service officer, Rubin was nominated to the Bulgaria post by Obama and left it last year.

The events have created a dilemma for some ambassadors and top diplomats who work at the pleasure of the president and are expected to support administration policies.

We have to color within the lines and are limited to what we can say about whether the administration is breaching U.S. norms, Leaf said in an interview. We can talk about the causal principles behind all the unrest, the [Floyd killing]  all the larger issues of justice. But can a serving diplomat speak about the administrations response? No.

More than 500 former diplomats and military officers did, however. They signed a petition condemning the use of military assets to intimidate and otherwise break up peaceful protesters, noting that America's strict separation of the U.S. military from politics is an inspiration and model for those in repressive societies seeking greater freedom.

Misuse of the military for political purposes would weaken the fabric of our democracy, denigrate those who serve in uniform to protect and defend the Constitution, and undermine our nations strength abroad, the document says.

Roberta Jacobson, a former assistant secretary of State and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico until mid-2018, said confronting chronic problems such as corruption and civil rights abuse has been made more difficult since the start of the Trump administration.

Its so difficult to say, 'Do as I say, not as a do,'" she said in an interview. "I dont know how you advance democracy and human rights as a moral example anymore. That is sad, debilitating and draining.

Indeed, American diplomacy was already reeling from challenges under the Trump administration, which has shown little interest in traditional detente, international relations and multilateral work. Trumps America first doctrine has alienated allies, turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of many adversaries and diminished U.S. credibility and influence on the world stage.

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo condemned the Floyd killing, but endorsed the law enforcement response. His work has not gotten any easier, either.

In recent days, Pompeo has attempted to focus international attention on China's crackdown in Hong Kong, a potentially irreversible power play by Beijing. But his efforts have been overshadowed  by the similar scenes playing out in American cities.
Don Lemon at his home in East Hampton, N.Y., on June 8. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Don Lemon was talking about his mother during a recent Zoom video call with a reporter.

"As a man of color my mom worries about me constantly," he said. Then his cellphone started buzzing. She was on the line.

The CNN anchor picks up and puts Katherine Lemon-Clark on speaker so the reporter can say hello and ask how she thinks her son has fared in guiding the cable news networks nighttime coverage of the social protests that have swept the nation since George Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

I am very proud of him, Lemon-Clark said of her son. The only thing I dont like is how people attack him. Im concerned about his safety. I dont care how old he gets. Thats my child. Im always concerned about him.

Lemon had noted how throughout his college years and every job hes had in Chicago, Atlanta and then New York, he called his mother nightly to let her know he was OK. Lately, those calls have become mandatory. Lemon-Clark has seen the vicious comments written about her son online since he became more outspoken on his nightly program CNN Tonight. The vitriol intensified after Lemon called President Trump a racist in response to comments he made regarding immigration in January 2018.

Its garnered me a lot of enemies, said Lemon, 54. A lot of them in person as well. I have to watch my back over it.

After finishing the call from his mother, Lemon leaned back on the couch in his home in East Hampton, N.Y., and had to wipe tears from his eyes before he could continue the interview. His emotional response would come as no surprise to his regular viewers who often hear him refer to her on his program. But the anxiety that many mothers of Black men have long experienced likely informed Lemons coverage of Floyds death and the nightly demonstrations that followed.

Officer Derek Chauvin, who was recorded on video kneeling on Floyds neck as he begged for air before he died, has been charged with second-degree murder. Three other Minneapolis police officers at the scene also face criminal charges.

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The recent weeks have been exhausting for Lemon, who has handled his two-hour program on weeknights downloading information from the CNN correspondents on the ground amid the demonstrations throughout the country. He has also been tapped for breaking coverage throughout the day, including Floyds first memorial service.

I think about how much longer I can continue to do this at this pace and the amount of negativity that comes my way, he said.

But the Louisiana native, who joined CNN in 2006 and is the only African American cable news anchor in prime time, is clearly energized by having a role in shaping the current national discourse on race relations.

I love what I do right now, he said. I feel like I found my voice and found my groove. This is my time to be me on TV.

Nielsen data backs him up. While Fox News has the most cable news viewers overall, CNN has attracted the largest prime-time audience in the advertiser-favored 25 to 54 age group since May 26, when the Floyd killing in Minneapolis became the countrys leading story. The 2.4 million people watching Lemon's program in May was up 75% from the previous year, the most growth of any cable news show that month.

While Lemon has talked frankly about race on his program for years, he believes the shocking video of Floyds death has made the audience more receptive to those discussions.

"I think seeing that eight minutes and 46 seconds, that George Floyd  the way he was treated on the ground  just broke so many people," he said. "Like, 'Oh, my gosh, I can't believe this.' And it is opening people up in ways that they haven't been opened before."

Lemon said he tries to challenge his audience to think about the causes of racism. He created a viral-video moment when he said it was not up to Black people to solve the problem.

As the protests heightened on the night of May 31, he asked for Hollywood celebrities of all races to publicly offer their support. (Where are you? Why arent you fighting for these young people? If you dont do it now, when are you going to do it?) He raised the point after remembering how performers such as Lena Horne, Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte were out front and center during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

(A few days later Lemon would thank Dwayne The Rock Johnson, who issued a video online expressing support for the Black Lives Matters movement and asked President Trump, Where is our compassionate leader?)

NBCs Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon recently sought Lemon's advice after photos of him wearing blackface in a 20 year-old Saturday Night Live sketch surfaced online. Lemon then appeared as a guest on Tonight after Fallon gave a lengthy, somber opening monologue to express his regret.

I didnt really know Jimmy, Lemon said. But I was indeed honored that he chose me to come on at the time that he did.

Lemon said Fallon's response to the controversy elicited the kind of discussion more citizens should be having. "He looked at himself in the mirror and said, 'What do I need to do? What do I need to realize as a person in this culture as a white man in this society? What do I need to learn?' And I think that's work everybody needs to do right now, all of us. Even as a Black man, I need to do the same thing."

Lemon did not always enjoy the stature hes been given lately. He moved into CNNs prime-time lineup in 2014 when the network was immersed in saturation coverage of the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which drew strong ratings but was widely ridiculed by media critics.

He also became a lightning rod for the networks coverage of the protests in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, after a police officer was not indicted for the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager. When describing the scene outside of the city's police headquarters, Lemon said, Obviously, there is a smell of marijuana in the air, which drew some harsh responses on social media.

I feel like I did my best back then, he said. Some of the hits I took were warranted, some were not. I just lived and worked these past five or six years and you learn and grow. Thats it.

CNN President Jeff Zucker believes Lemon's maturation as a broadcaster has neatly coincided with the crisis facing the country right now.

"I think he knows how important this moment is  he's been preparing for it his entire career," Zucker said. "Don has always brought a little of himself and his emotion to his reporting and that's why he's stood out. On this story, he's done it in an insightful and measured way that I don't know the Don Lemon of six years ago would have done."

Lemon has long had a strong following among African American viewers. Producer-director Lee Daniels once had Lemon appear as himself in "Empire," his hit Fox TV series about a Black musical family dynasty.

"I put him in a party scene because I really thought he was the voice of our people then," Daniels said. "I think he still is. He's a truth teller. He doesn't waver."

Daniels texts Lemon while he is on the air, offering opinions on his tie or suit and watches for a reaction. "I enjoy watching him smile as he delivers the news," he said.

While growing up in the 1970s and '80s, Lemon watched "ABC World News Tonight" when it featured Max Robinson, the first Black evening news anchor. He won journalism awards on the NBC station in Chicago before joining the network as a correspondent.

On CNN, he has defined himself with an opening segment labeled Dons Take, which he writes with the help of his staff. "It's what I think America needs to hear at the moment," he said. He presents it in a conversational style with dramatic pauses. He often adds riffs that are not in the script. He also ends most of them with the phrase "and those are the facts."

Other clip-worthy moments have been generated by the nightly exchanges he has with Chris Cuomo, whose program precedes "CNN Tonight." The CNN audience grows during the segment where Cuomo hands off the anchor role to Lemon, which shows that people are tuning in for it along with "Don's Take."

Lemon has known Cuomo for years, but their bromance has intensified since they have become neighbors in CNN's prime-time block. He hopes their on-air exchanges can inspire similar dialogues among viewers.

"He's from a very famous, powerful New York family, white guy, Italian," Lemon said. "I am a Black Southern guy whose family  you know, no one ever heard of my family. And so it works because these are the kind of conversations that every single American should be having with someone who does not look like them."

Lemon, who is engaged to real estate broker Tim Malone, said even with the tense situation playing out every night on his program, he is hopeful about the country's future.

"All of the chaos makes me sad," he said. "But seeing those young people out there [who] are doing things the right way. They got it right. And they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. And good for them. So I am optimistic."
Boris Johnson has been warned that Parliament 'is feeling increasingly restless about the UK's dependency on China' - Shutterstock

Boris Johnson must provide a legally-binding date to strip Huawei from Britain's 5G network or face a Commons defeat, senior Tory MPs have warned.

Conservatives are pressing for a concrete pledge by the Government within the next two months, while crucial legislation is expected to go through Parliament.

Writing in The Telegraph, Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Bob Seely said: "Parliament is feeling increasingly restless about the UK's dependency on China. More and more legislators are recognising that how we handle this issue hugely affects our constituents."

They said a ban on new Huawei equipment being installed into the UK network from 2023 or 2024, which the Government has been discussing, will "not be sufficient". Instead, they have called on the Government to agree to having "all Huawei equipment removed from the UK network, root and branch, by a fixed date".

Sir Iain and Mr Seely pointed out that 59 MPs have now joined the Huawei Interest Group of Conservative MPs.

A source close to the group said on Monday that they could all vote against the Government by supporting rebel amendments to three potential bills due to go through Parliament before the summer recess. These include the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill, currently going through the committee stage in the House of Lords.

Lord Alton is expected to lay down an amendment to stop companies with links to human rights abuses from supplying telecoms to leasehold properties. A draft of his amendment, seen by The Telegraph, says no operator should be allowed to use the UK's telecommunications infrastructure "to breach human rights after 31 December 2023".

Sir Iain and Mr Seely said the Parliamentary arithmetic on upcoming legislation is "troubling ministers".

They wrote that MPs are "no longer prepared to sit idly by as a nascent superpower, run by a repressive and intolerant government, undermines the global rules-based order", adding: "In allowing Huawei into our 5G networks, we have undermined the unity of the shared Five Eyes approach to the global conduct of the Chinese Communist Party."

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Sir Iain and Mr Seely say 59 MPs have now joined the Huawei Interest Group of Conservative MPs - AP

Neil O'Brien, the Conservative MP who co-leads the China Research Group, told The Telegraph: "There are important choices to make on whether changes will only affect the 5G network or also older Huawei 3G and 4G equipment that is in the network now.

"There are also choices on whether to set a date for stopping new inflow of Huawei equipment, or a date to have eliminated it by."

It comes amid Government plans to introduce new legislation that would prevent foreign takeovers by companies that represent a threat to national security.

As part of the Government's National Security and Investment Bill, ministers are working to make it compulsory for British companies to report any attempted takeovers that could be a cause for concern over security. Anyone who fails to comply with the rules after takeovers could risk imprisonment and fines.

Mr Johnson's official spokesman said the bill would "strengthen the Government's power to scrutinise and intervene in takeovers and mergers to protect national security, wherever risks may emanate from". He added that details of the legislation would "be announced in due course", saying: "It's a Queen's speech commitment, so I'm sure it won't be too long before we bring the legislation forward."

The Prime Minister wants "academic partnerships" and research projects to be included under the rules amid concern about links between British universities and Chinese companies, the Times reported on Monday.

Last month, The Telegraph revealed that Huawei backed 17 scientific papers with UK universities about cutting-edge "dual use" technologies in an attempt to forge close ties to western culture.

Meanwhile, Huawei published an open letter in several national newspapers on Monday, pledging that it was as "committed as ever" to building internet networks "quickly, affordably and securely".

In the letter, the Chinese telecoms giant said: "For nearly 20 years, we've supplied the UK's mobile and broadband companies with 3G and 4G. But some now question our role in helping Britain lead the way in 5G.

"We're also playing our part in creating jobs, training the engineers of tomorrow, investing in new technology and supporting universities."
The success of Dharmendra Kumar, a candidate who scored 142 marks out of 150 and emerged as one of the toppers in the examination held for recruiting 69,000 assistant teachers in 2019, was exposed after the Prayagraj police busted a racket involved in enabling undeserving individuals make the cut in lieu of cash.

Kumar was among three candidates arrested. During police interrogation, he failed to answer simple general knowledge questions  the youth from Sarai Mamrej, Prayagraj also could not name the president of the country, when queried by police officials.

Dharmendras name was on the list of 20 candidates whose names were in the diary found from the gang members arrested by police. Among 20, 18 got selected with the help of unfair means and the question papers were allegedly provided by gang members.

The racket busted by Soraon police two days back allegedly provided question papers to 69,000 assistant teachers recruitment aspirants in return of cash. Eight people, including the kingpin of the gang, were arrested in this connection. Later, the police arrested three aspirants who cleared the examination through the racket.

ASP KV Ashok, who led the operation, said three successful candidates, including Dharmendra, Vinod and another youth, were traced and arrested on Saturday. It came to light that Dharmendra got 142 marks out of 150 in the recruitment examination.

Dharmendra had cleared the TET in 2018 and secured 126 rank out of 150 while he scored 57.1% in B.Ed, which he completed in 2012 from Sampurnand Sanskrit University, Varanasi from where also did his graduation in 2007 with 56.77%.

The name of Dharmendra and other two youths were found in the diary seized from the gang members arrested for helping candidates in cracking the teachers recruitment examination through fraudelant means, said SSP Satyarth Anirudh Pankaj.

The youths failure to answer simple questions reveals the means of his success in the teachers recruitment examination. More candidates will be questioned after these arrests, added SSP.

A question mark on recruitment process: Priyanka Gandhi

Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in a tweet, said the anomalies in the assistant teachers recruitment exam were a big question mark on the entire recruitment process.

The future of youths in Uttar Pradesh is being trampled. The government should bring out all the facts related to these anomalies in recruitments, she said.
The Living Room

The blue Turkish bathtub, used as a small water body, is the centre of attraction in Irrfan's living room. Speaking about it, the late actor had told Architectural Digest magazine, "It is important for me to have a water body. It has to have its own ecosystem, survive on its own. That fascinates me. That the fishes don't have to be given oxygen separately, that the water doesn't have to be cleaned or changed."

Shabnam Gupta, who designed the interior of Irrfan's house, spoke about the challenge from moving this water body from the corner to the centre of the room, and shared, "When he ideates, he enjoys the sound of water. But this has to be an extremely controlled amount of sound, otherwise it gets on your nerves. Plus, he wants fishes and lotuses and reeds."

Irrfan also loved his 'jhoola', which is accentuated in pink, and gives the house a 'desi' vibe.

Irrfan Khan Had A Fetish For Mirrors

"I always peer into them even if I'm walking by in a hurry. I finally have an area surrounded by mirrors, where I can see myself from every angle," the late actor had candidly confessed while speaking about his house.

Irrfan's house has been decorated with various wall hangings, mirrors and furniture, locally sourced from Jaipur.

The Dining Room

The lights in the dining room was sourced from Jaipur. The set of five black wire lamps hanging just above eye-level prove Irrfan's keen eye for detail and symmetry.

Irrfan's Wife Sutapa Sikdar's Room

The table lamps in Sutapa's room were sourced from artisans in Jodhpur. The wall paintings add more to the beauty of her room.

Irrfan Khan's Study Room

With a centre table, sofa and a large wooden shelf to keep his books, DVD collections and award trophies, Irrfan's study room is a dream space to work.

Calming Effect

The entrance of Irrfan's house has an ink-blue foyer, which is decorated with art sculptures, decorative frames and floral motifs.

Talking about his choice of design and colour, the actor had shared, "When you enter the house from the noise outside, I want that it changes your mindset. It brings you in".

Warm Memories

The late actor and his wife Sutapa Sikdar are seen reading a book in their living room in this picture.
Written by Greg Wilesmith, who also conducted the interviews, the fourth episode of this six-part series, entitled Return of the Wall, focuses on refugees and border protection. Smoothly fronted by Chris Bath, Road to Now aims to provide an overview of events that have shaped the world in this century. Here, it ranges far and wide, examining the violence and instability that have displaced millions of people and propelled refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to leave their homelands.

Rodger Corser and Asher Keddie.

It follows the flow of people from Africa and the Middle East to Europe, and considers the impact of that migration. It takes in Brexit, which former New Zealand Prime Minister and UN program director Helen Clark describes as "a fiasco". And it examines US President Donald Trump's promise to build a "big beautiful wall" on the country's southern border. It also turns the spotlight on Australian detention camps in Nauru and Manus Island, and, finally, it anticipates the disruption that climate change could bring. Thorough, absorbing and disturbing.

Party Tricks

Tenplay

It's a shame that this smart, spirited and sexy 2014 local drama about political power plays during a fictional Victorian election campaign only lasted a single season. Written and co-produced by Michael Lucas (Offspring), it stars Asher Keddie as Victorian Labor premier Kate Ballard, who's firm, focused and determined to run on her record. Rodger Corser is Liberal Party golden boy David McLeod, a flash new player parachuted in by powerbrokers to lead the Opposition.
In the past two weeks, we've seen the very worst of police work in America, and some of the very best.

The worst manifested itself in horrendous graphic detail with the slow, contemptuous murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin in 8 minutes and 46 seconds of horrific brutality.

But in its aftermath, there have been numerous other appalling incidents across America, captured on camera phones for the whole outraged world to see.

The very worst of police work in America manifested itself in horrendous graphic detail with the slow, contemptuous murder of George Floyd. He was killed after Derek Chauvin left his knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds of horrific brutality

In the aftermath of George Floyd's death, there have been numerous other appalling incident. In Buffalo, 75-year-old man, Martin Gugino, was roughly shoved to the ground by two officers in riot gear and then left bleeding and unconscious on the ground

But we've also seen the some of the very best police work. Officers took a knee in Washington D.C. on Sunday after being encouraged by protesters, with one DC police officer saying he 'respects what they are doing'

At protests in Queens, New York, NYPD officers could be seen kneeling with protesters after being invited by a pastor. Protesters then recited names of black people who had died in conflicts with the police

In Buffalo, a 75-year-old man, Martin Gugino, was roughly shoved to the ground by two officers in riot gear and then left bleeding and unconscious on the ground.

In Salt Lake City, another elderly man with a walking stick was knocked over by police as they cleared protestors away.

In Indianapolis, officers were seen beating and firing pepper spray rounds at a black woman.

In Austin, a 20-year-old university student reportedly suffered brain damage and a fractured skull after police shot him with beanbag rounds.

In Philadelphia, another student was beaten on the head by one officer, and had his face kneed to the ground by another.

In New York, two NYPD SUVs mowed down protestors standing behind a barricade, knocking many of them to the ground.

In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, police and National Guard soldiers were seen marching through a neighbourhood shooting paint canisters at people standing on their front porch.

The media have also come in for dreadful treatment by police, with numerous incidents of reporters and TV crews covering the protests being fired at with rubber bullets, leaving one photo-journalist partially blind after she was hit in the eye.

So, police brutality is very real, and not just confined to black people.

But there's no doubt that black people in America suffer from it far more than white people.

Google the names of Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Rodney King, and you'll read about a litany of despicable police conduct towards African-Americans.

Google the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor (right), Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Rodney King, and you'll read about a litany of despicable police conduct towards African-Americans

Tamir Rice (left) and Michael Brown (right) were both killed by police officers

The killings of Eric Garner (left) and Philando Castile (right) showed police brutality is very real in America

The stats don't lie: black people in the US are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people, and the police who commit atrocities rarely get made properly accountable for their actions; a staggering 99% of killings by police from 2013-19 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime.

Even George Floyd's killers weren't charged until public outcry reached fever pitch.

So, it's not surprising there have been renewed calls to 'defund the police' from those most targeted by police brutality and most dismayed by the lack of justice when it happens.

Campaigners, led by organisers of the Black Lives Matter and Movement 4 Black Lives groups, say the whole police system is broken, and the only solution is to now scrap it and reallocate the billions spent annually on it to community public services prioritising mental health, education, housing, employment.

They've been loudly supported by left-wing Democrat politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar, and by many celebrities including Lizzo, John Legend, Common and Jane Fonda who all signed an open letter calling for a defunding of the police.

George Floyd's killers weren't charged until public outcry reached fever pitch. So, it's not surprising there have been renewed calls to 'defund the police' from those most targeted by police brutality and most dismayed by the lack of justice when it happens

Campaigners, led by organisers of the Black Lives Matter and Movement 4 Black Lives groups, say the whole police system is broken, and the only solution is to now scrap it and reallocate the billions spent annually

Campaigners who want police defunded been loudly supported by left-wing Democrat politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (right) and celebrities, including Natalie Portman (left)

One of the signatories was actress Natalie Portman who posted a lengthy statement on Instagram to explain why: 'When I first heard #defundthepolice,' she wrote, 'I have to admit my first reaction was fear. My whole life, police have made me feel safe. But that's exactly the center of my white privilege: the police make me as a white woman feel safe, while my black friends, family and neighbors feel the opposite: police make them feel terror. And for good reason. Police are the 6th leading cause of death for black men in this country. These are not isolated incidents. They are patterns and part of the system of over-policing of black Americans. Reforms have not worked. Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered, is one of the most progressive police forces in the country, having undergone extensive anti-bias training. I am grateful to the leaders in the @mvmnt4blklives who have made us question the status quo. And who have made us imagine, what a world could be like in which we invested in nourishing people; (in their education, healthcare, environment, shelter) rather than putting all of our money into punishment. I've gotten to the age in my life, where if my gut feels uncomfortable, I take the situation as wrong. But this concept initially made me uncomfortable because I was wrong. Because the system that makes me feel comfortable is wrong.'

Portman was swiftly backed by fellow actresses.

'Beautifully said!' gushed Ellen Pompeo.

'So well said,' agreed Olivia Wilder. 'Thank you, Natalie!'

Hmmm.

I'm afraid my gut had a rather different reaction when I read Ms Portman's clarion cry to defund the police.

This, surely, is celebrity virtue-signalling at its most laughably hypocritical?

All these stars live in secure protected homes.

Most of them employ expensive bodyguards or even full security details.

It's very easy for them to sit safely in their mansions and tell those who can't afford such luxuries that they'll be just fine without the police around.

But the truth is they won't.

I share the disgust at what happened to George Floyd, it was the single worst example of police brutality I've ever seen, and it demands real action now gets taken, not just yet more predictable exclamations of temporary horror.

I also think the police must be dramatically, institutionally reformed.

But getting rid of the police altogether is frankly a batsh*t crazy idea.

Yet this is exactly what Minneapolis city council is now planning to do in the wake of George Floyd's murder happening on its watch.

A veto-proof majority in the council announced that they plan to 'dismantle' the police department and build a new system of community-focused public safety.

It admits it doesn't really have any clue how this will actually work.

'We recognize that we don't have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,' said the council members at a community meeting. 'We're committed to engaging with every willing community member in the City of Minneapolis over the next year to identify what safety looks like for you.'

Power to the people then.

Well sorry, but I think this is complete madness.

In Los Angeles, Police Chief Michel Moore and officers from the LAPD's Harbor Division joined several hundred participants who chanted 'Black Lives Matter!' in a unity march

LAPD police chief Michael Moore is seen walking with a Black Lives Matter protester

This may not be a popular view right now - but I believe the majority of police officers do a good job; they're brave, diligent, and care about protecting people, not killing them.

Yes, there are sadly all too many bad apples, just as there are in every industry, and it's absolutely vital they are held to account, justice is done when crimes have been committed, and the culprits made to rot in jail.

To achieve this, it needs other officers, the good apples, to root out the bad ones  not line up behind them.

It was astonishing, and depressing, to see 57 police officers in Buffalo resign from the force's emergency response team following the suspension of the two officers who shoved 75-year-old Martin Gugino.

Why did they not share our horror at what happened?

'Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders,' Buffalo Police Benevolent Association president John Evans explained.

Sorry, what?

They had 'orders' to shove over elderly men, leaving them fighting for their lives in hospital?

If I got an order like that, I'd refuse it.

By resigning, those other 57 officers are effectively condoning what their colleagues did, and that only serves to further damage public perception of the police.

The most effective way the police can reform is to pursue the path many of its number have pursued during the George Floyd protests: less is more.

We've seen at first-hand how disarming it has been when police officers have taken the knee or stood aside and let people protest in peace, when they've shown compassion and empathy not just a baton.

In Fort Worth, Texas police joined forces with protestors who told them they would go home if officers joined them in a show of solidarity. The two groups then shook hands and even exchanged hugs before leaving the area as promised.

At protests in Queens, New York, NYPD officers could be seen kneeling with protesters after being invited by a pastor. Protesters then recited names of black people who had died in conflicts with the police.

Officers also took a knee in Washington D.C. on Sunday after being encouraged by protesters, with one DC police officer saying he 'respects what they are doing.'

In Los Angeles, Police Chief Michel Moore and officers from the LAPD's Harbor Division joined several hundred participants who chanted 'Black Lives Matter!' in a unity march.

At another protest in Griffith, Indiana, police officers helped make protestors hot dogs and Police Chief Greg Mance took the knee with them.

At another protest in Griffith, Indiana, police officers helped make protestors hot dogs and Police Chief Greg Mance took the knee with them

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg (left) and Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn (right) foreground right, kneel with protesters

In all these instances, violent clashes were avoided and mutual respect and trust was gained.

Forces and officers should be less aggressive and 'proactive' where it isn't entirely necessary.

Think this sounds weak and guaranteed to increase crime?

Think again.

In 2014 and 2015, New York police staged a 'slowdown' to protest against the mayor, Bill de Blasio during the ferocious fallout from a jury failing to indict officers involved in the fatal chokehold of Eric Garner in Staten Island.

They believed that if they did less police work, the city would be less safe.

But, fascinatingly, the opposite turned out to be the case.

When the officers stopped 'broken windows policing', meaning targeting low-level offenses, crime dropped.

Researchers reported that the slowdown, which went on for a few weeks, resulted in 2,100 fewer major-crimes complaints.

'In their efforts to increase civilian compliance, certain policing tactics may inadvertently contribute to serious criminal activity,' the researchers wrote. 'The implications for understanding policing in a democratic society should not be understated.'

The police remain a vital corner stone of any democracy.

At their best, they keep order, protect the public, and save lives.

They're not all like Derek Chauvin and the public knows this.

That's why recent polling on race and justice in the US found less than a fifth of Americans want police funding to be cut.

Defunding the police is not just a bonkers idea that will make America more dangerous, it's also political suicide that will get Trump re-elected

However, the same polling revealed a strong majority of Americans support police reform measures to reduce deadly force encounters, including training for police on how to lower conflict and avoid using force, more body cameras, and using an early warning system to identify problem officers.

Senior Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi are also pushing for a ban on chokeholds including putting a knee to someone's neck, and no-knock warrants in drug cases of the type that led to an innocent woman, Breonna Taylor, being mistakenly shot dead in her home.

There's another reason why liberals should be very wary of backing defunding of the police.

As former Bill Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen wrote in The Hill: 'If Democrats persist with this rhetoric about disbanding law enforcement in the midst of the pandemic and the protests, which have at times been violent or involved looting, then they will be playing right into the hands of President Trump and will increase his chances to win the election this year. Ultimately, calling to reduce the police will simply make people feel unsafe, insecure, and in my view less likely to vote for Democrats.'

He's right.

Defunding the police is not just a bonkers idea that will make America more dangerous, it's also political suicide that will get Trump re-elected.
North Korea Cuts Off Communications With South Over Leaflet Launches

By William Gallo June 09, 2020

North Korea says it will cut off all lines of official dialogue with South Korea, the latest escalation, some analysts say, in Pyongyang's effort to unilaterally ramp up tensions with Seoul.

Starting at noon local time Tuesday, North Korea will "completely cut off and shut down" four separate communication channels, including at a liaison office near the border, a military communication hotline, and a line between North Korea's ruling party and South Korea's presidential office, according to North Korean state media.

"This measure is the first step of the determination to completely shut down all contact means with South Korea and get rid of unnecessary things," said the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

As justification for its decision, North Korea cited the activities of South Korean activist groups, who for years have floated anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

"They dared to hurt the dignity of our supreme leadership and mock the sacred mental core of all our people," KCNA said.

Over the past week, North Korea has angrily complained about the leaflets, which are often sent over the border via balloon.

South Korea, which desperately wants to improve inter-Korean ties, had tried to placate the North's concerns by vowing to legislate a formal ban on such launches. Local police also blocked at least two recent attempts by activist groups to send materials over the border.

But despite those concessions, North Korea has continued to generate the sense of an inter-Korean crisis, an apparent attempt to extract further concessions from the South.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a Korea specialist who teaches at King's College London, says North Korea may also be indirectly pressuring Washington via Seoul.

"I think that North Korea has every incentive to ramp up tensions with Seoul until the U.S. election. The South Korean government will have to take the hit, and there is little it can do," Pacheco Pardo says.

N. Korea Warns S. Korea to Stop Defectors from Scattering Anti-North Leaflets

North says it may cancel recent bilateral military agreement if activity persists

With two years left in his five-year term, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has recently indicated he will make a final push to improve relations with North Korea.

But with the U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks stalled, international sanctions against Pyongyang remain in place, greatly limiting South Korea's ability to move forward with planned economic and other projects with the North.

In the U.S., President Donald Trump has deprioritized negotiations with North Korea, instead focusing on his re-election campaign, the coronavirus pandemic, and nationwide protests against racism and police brutality.

Amid the stalled nuclear talks, North Korea has gradually ramped up tensions. Most notably, it has repeatedly tested short-range ballistic missiles and other weapons. Trump has shrugged off those launches but has hinted he would be unhappy with a more serious North Korean provocation.

"I think that with ICBM and nuclear tests not really an option, North Korea has to try everything it can. This [move to cut off communications with the South] falls into that category in my view," says Pacheco Pardo.

North Korea is seeking sanctions relief and security guarantees from the United States. But Trump has been reluctant to offer that unless Pyongyang agrees to completely abandon its nuclear program.

Domestic issues

North Korea may also have domestic reasons for escalating tensions with the South.

Some analysts say North Korea's move may be meant to distract attention away from the country's economic problems.

Many North Koreans were already unhappy with the economy, which has been held back by the sanctions. The coronavirus pandemic has only made things worse.

North Korea may also be using the inter-Korean tensions to raise the public profile and solidify the political standing of Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

In recent days, Kim Yo Jong has issued strongly worded statements slamming South Korean activists who launch leaflets across the border.

According to KCNA, she, along with senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, ordered the latest decision to cut off communications with Seoul.

"They discussed phased plans for the work against the enemy in order to make the betrayers and riff-raff pay for their crimes," the KCNA report said.

That combative stance is a role reversal for Mrs. Kim, who struck a more conciliatory tone in 2018 when she visited South Korea as the North's special envoy.

But some suspect her tone may eventually change yet again, if North Korea later decides to "fix" inter-Korean relations.

"I have no doubt that Kim Yo Jong is mentioned in the North Korean media on an issue in order to send a signal internationally, elevate her visibility domestically, and so she can receive credit later for an accomplishment planned by the regime," says Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

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Loading "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence," the company said in a note attached to Trump's statement. Facebook reacted differently, allowing the same statement to go unflagged. Around the same time, companies were struggling with how and whether to address the worldwide demonstrations prompted by the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died last month in Minneapolis after a white police officer pinned him to the ground. On June 2, in an effort that became known as Blackout Tuesday, many advertisers posted images of black boxes instead of paid ads, a gesture intended to show support for the protests.

"They began to realise that all of their messaging was off-target," said Rishad Tobaccowala, a former advertising executive who is now an author and marketing adviser. Facebook generates 98 per cent of its revenue through ads. It netted $US17.4 billion ($25 billion) from advertising in its most recent quarter. The pandemic has hurt advertising sales in general, and some companies are still "incredibly challenged," said Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president for global marketing solutions. Blackout Tuesday "really had a very significant role on our platforms," Everson added, with hundreds of companies pausing their spending. President Donald Trump's reelection team was the 10th largest advertiser on Facebook last month, behind Samsung, Microsoft and The Walt Disney Co. Credit:AP Since then, ad revenue has mostly recovered for the company, she said, although several companies have been slow to return as they adjusted their messaging. Nike, Anheuser-Busch and others each slashed their daily Facebook and Instagram spending by more than $US100,000 in early June, according to advertising analytics platform Pathmatics. Some smaller advertisers  including authors, therapy providers and payment companies  described their break from Facebook as a protest against the platform and its subsidiaries.

Simris, an algae-growing business in Sweden, wrote in a LinkedIn post that it was "vitally dependent on digital marketing" but unwilling to "continue to enable a sick system with our funds." "The current developments have now rendered it morally impossible for us to continue feeding the same hand that complacently offers its services as the major platform for hate-mongering, promotion of violence, and disinformation," the company wrote. Last week, Braze, a software company in New York, withdrew a Facebook ad campaign it had planned later this summer valued at around $US60,000. Its chief marketing officer, Sara Spivey, said Facebook's decision to leave presidential statements untouched factored into the decision. "Facebook is the biggest publishing platform arguably in the world, so of course we want to be on it," Spivey said. "But the bigger question is Facebook's responsibility to make its platform safe and if we want to be associated with it." Abe Kasbo, head of marketing agency Verasoni Worldwide in Fairfield, New Jersey, said his agency ceased all Facebook ads soon after Zuckerberg's comments defending Trump's posts. Verasoni, a small agency representing regional banks and retailers, said it stopped its $US6000 monthly budget on Facebook ads.

"The amplification of divisive speech and the lack of responsibility that Facebook is taking as a platform forced this," Kasbo said. The current developments have now rendered it morally impossible for us to continue feeding the same hand that complacently offers its services as the major platform for hate-mongering, promotion of violence, and disinformation. Advertising client Simris Everson, the Facebook executive who deals with marketers, said she had never worked more closely with Zuckerberg than she has in the past week. She acknowledged that the company's decision on Trump's social-media statements "is not a decision that everyone agrees is a perfect decision." On Friday night, she sent a personal note to top advertisers, attached to a long public post from Zuckerberg that promised to review some of Facebook's policies. She said that most of her discussions with clients now focused on efforts to dismantle systemic racial inequality within companies. "Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the conversation has moved off the decision about the Trump post," she said. "It actually would minimise the importance of this moment historically to just focus on one post from President Trump."

Loading The Trump campaign spent more than $US2.8 million advertising on the platform last month, according to Advertising Analytics, a media tracking firm. Combined with spending by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint effort with the Republican National Committee, the president's reelection team was the 10th largest advertiser on Facebook behind Samsung, Microsoft and The Walt Disney Co., according to Pathmatics. Most of Facebook's 8 million advertisers are small businesses or individuals, who "continue to depend and rely on our platforms," Everson said. Many of them are uncomfortable with the negativity on the platform but feel they have no choice but to keep promoting themselves on it. Lutchi Gayot, a small-business owner and congressional candidate in New York, said he paid for Facebook ads while feeling conflicted about it. "The moral thing to do, of course, is to stand on the side that's right," he said. "But it's hard  Facebook ads are keeping small businesses alive. If you're not on Facebook, you don't exist."
Philip Shaibu, Deputy Governor of Edo State has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, of sponsoring protests against Governor Godwin Obaseki over alleged certificate forgery. Shaibu, made the allegation in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, saying the protests were targeted at destroying the Governors goodwill with President Muhammadu Buhari.

The federal government has announced the approval of payment of two months hazard allowance for health workers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement was made by Chris Ngige, minister of labour and employment, at a meeting between representatives of the federal government and health professionals associations.

Hamza Al-Mustapha former chief security officer to Sani Abacha, a former military ruler says only God can reward him (Abacha) for transforming Nigeria.

Al-Mustapha said this while marking the 22nd anniversary of the death of Abacha, who died in 1998, on Monday. Al-Mustapha described the death of Abacha as a big loss to the nation, saying what he did for Nigeria will not be forgotten in the annals of history and generations yet unborn.

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Angry protesters in Yantumaki town, Danmusa local government area of Katsina state were seen burning a billboard of President Muhammadu Buhari and logo of the All Progressives Congress (APC).The residents took to the streets on Tuesday to protest the insecurities in their communities. The Kaduna state government had entered a peace agreement with the bandits but pulled out of the deal following several attacks on the communities in recent times by gunmen.

Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, says more than half of the strange deaths recorded in Kano state may have been caused by COVID-19.

The minister said this while speaking at the presidential task force briefing on Monday, saying the verbal autopsy report from the state suggested that a significant number of deaths recorded was also triggered by an inability to access routine care as a result of the fear of COVID-19.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila says prison experience for any politician is a badge of honour.

Gbajabiamila who was represented by Deputy Speaker Ahmed Idris Wase, said this when he led Principal Officers of the House on a visit to Senate Chief Whip Orji Uzor Kalu, who was recently released from the Nigeria Correctional Centre in Kuje, Abuja.
Protesters gather outside City Hall in Los Angeles to condemn the police killing of George Floyd. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles protesters arrested for violating curfews while demonstrating against the police killing of George Floyd wont be prosecuted and now wont have to attend meetings planned by City Atty. Mike Feuer.

After receiving pushback from activists and local Black Lives Matter leaders, Feuer dropped the strings attached to dismissing the cases. On Monday, he said protesters arrested for curfew violations would be required to attend "dialogues" or other events with law enforcement and community stakeholders designed to focus on police interactions, bias and other issues.

Some 2,500 people were arrested in L.A. alone for curfew violations and failure to disperse while protesting last week. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey had already announced she would not charge any of those violators.

We evaluated a number of factors in deciding whether to make attendance at these events voluntary or mandatory for protesters who were arrested for these violations," Feuer said. "On the one hand, for example, although I very much hope there is never a future need for another curfew in Los Angeles, if one is ever imposed, in whatever circumstances, it will be important that our residents take it seriously and comply with it."

But, he said, the factors weighing in favor of voluntary participation in our program were more compelling, particularly given how unprecedented  indeed, absolutely extraordinary  the events of the last two weeks have been.

Feuer said the goal of these discussions is to promote meaningful change.

If those arrested were required to attend as a necessary precondition to our office not filing a case, but then chose not to participate, they would be subject to prosecution. Those prosecutions could result in peaceful protesters having a criminal record, which is not an outcome I support  especially here, given the rights they were exercising at this crucial time."

He also said resources would be better used making the city safer, but he strongly encouraged those who were arrested to participate.

Story continues

The decision by city law enforcement officials to not pursue criminal or financial penalties against protesters follows complaints by many of those arrested that they spent hours in plastic handcuffs crammed in buses without justification, leaving them with injuries and potentially exposing them to the coronavirus.

Many of those arrested were taken into custody on suspicion of either violating curfew rules or failing to disperse after the LAPD had declared their protest unlawful.

A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Black Lives Matter L.A. claims the curfews illegally suppressed constitutionally protected protests and violated peoples freedom of movement. The organizations have also decried videos that show police officers responding with violence against protesters, including swinging batons and firing foam and sponge projectiles.

Those advocates said the citys new stance does not resolve all the concerns outlined in the lawsuit, and they urged that all cases be dismissed.




MANZINI  A prison gang attack on other inmates ended nasty as a convict died, allegedly in the hands of HMCS officers.



The incident took place on Tuesday night at the His Majestys Correctional Services (HMCS) facility at Sidwashini in Mbabane.

According to impeccable sources, there was a skirmish between 14 inmates who are believed to be members of the 28 gang and convicts who were non-gang members. The sources alleged that the 28s, as they are popularly called, allegedly attacked the non-gang members in a bid to force them to join them (28s).

They said the 28s launched the attack just after the prison cells were locked and were satisfied that the officers were patrolling the facility premises.



Attacking



They said the inmates started attacking the others from inside their cell with the full knowledge that it would take some time for the Correctional officers to open their dormitories as there were procedures which needed to be followed before a cell could be opened, especially after hours.

The number of the attacked non-gang members could not be ascertained.



Soon after the officers noticed the commotion which had engulfed the cell, the insiders said they ran to the scene and tried to calm the situation through spy-holes, but in vain. They said while the officers tried to reprimand the inmates, the gang members continued attacking their counterparts.

In that regard, the insiders said the officers were left with no choice, but to raise the alarm to the facilitys authorities, who responded promptly.



Rebuke



They said the authorities of the facility also made efforts to rebuke the offenders, but their attempts seemed to have fallen on deaf ears as the 28s continued with the alleged violent attack on their counterparts.

At that time, the insiders alleged that some of the inmates who were under attack were already lying on the floor, bleeding profusely as the perpetrators had broken some of the water taps from their bathrooms and used these as weapons to inflict pain and injuries on their targets.



They said it was then that the authorities of the facility realised that if not stopped, the violent gang members could cause serious harm to the other inmates.

In that regard, they said the officers were allegedly given an instruction to use force to open the locked cell in order to rescue the inmates who were under attack because some of them had already been injured.

However, the source alleged that to the officers dismay, their intervention was met with violence from the enraged 28 gang members as they failed to comply with the orders to stop the attack.



In fact, the insiders alleged that the gang members started fighting the officers by throwing all sorts of missiles at them, including the water taps and pipes, hence the warders took a decision to use their batons to restrain them.

They said the scuffle left a number of inmates injured and one of them, believed to be a member of the 28 gang, was confirmed dead at the Mbabane Government Hospital. Sources said the deceased had serious injuries to the head and body.

The incident was confirmed by HMCS Public Relations Officer (PRO) Assistant Superintendent Gugulethu Dlamini.



Lamented



She said the Commissioner General of HMCS, Phindile Dlamini, lamented that during this altercation, some of the inmates sustained injuries as they stumbled on each other during the scuffle with one inmate later succumbing to his injuries.

She said the deceased was a 25-year-old male of Nkambeni (Buhlebuyeza) who was serving a three-year sentence having been convicted of grievous bodily harm (GBH) and another three- month sentence for malicious damage to property.



Nonetheless, she said investigations to what the fundamental cause might have been were still ongoing. She said at the moment, the information that she had was that offenders who ran prison gangs, at this time of the year, got engaged in a series of meetings where they plan heavy disturbances in operations within the centres.



Popularity



She said in these under-the-carpet meetings, they had gathered that the inmates even contemplated the killing of officers in order for them to gain popularity and be promoted within the hierarchy of prison gangs.

The PRO added that these gangs were self-formed associations of peers united by mutual interests. She said they thrived on negative thinking and embraced hatred and violence as a sense of security.



She said they maintained their existence within the Correctional facilities through recruiting neutral inmates into their camps by preying on them through violence, intimidation and at times murder as has been witnessed in the matter at hand, where the gangs wanted to kill their fellow colleagues who refused to be part of their association.



In that regard, the PRO said the commissioner general had warned offenders against misusing some of the privileges given to them by the department. She said it had since become evident that since all programmes were suspended within the centres due to the outbreak of COVID-19 some offenders had allegedly resorted to planning bizarre and barbaric acts as they spent most of their time idling about.



She said one of the mistakes that offenders would think of was the killing of one another for the sake of earning promotions within their prohibited gangs. In fact, the she said the commissioner general reiterated that officers had the duty to protect all inmates under their care and there were no inmates who had to feel discriminated against due to one group claiming dominance over another.
CrossFit CEO

Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

CrossFit CEO and founder Greg Glassman questioned the existence of systemic racism and the intentions of protesters demanding justice for George Floyd in a virtual meeting with gym owners, Buzzfeed News reported.

"I doubt very much that they're mourning for Floyd," Glassman said on the call. "I don't think that there's a general mourning for Floyd in any community."

Glassman's remarks in the meeting came hours before he posted a controversial tweet, comparing the unrest in light of Floyd's killing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gyms, and brands like Reebok, canceled partnerships and affiliations with CrossFit in light of Glassman's response.

"Floyd is a hero in the Black community and not just a victim," Glassman said in a public apology. "I should have been sensitive to that and wasn't. I apologize for that."

Glassman announced later Tuesday that he would be stepping down as CEO of the popular fitness brand in light of his comments.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

CrossFit founder Greg Glassman announced he was stepping down as CEO of the popular fitness brand after facing backlash for his remarks in response to the Black Lives Matter protests and the death of George Floyd.

According to a recording of the meeting obtained by BuzzFeed News, Glassman downplayed the protests demanding justice for George Floyd in a virtual meeting with affiliated gym owners.

"We're not mourning for George Floyd  I don't think me or any of my staff are," Glassman said during the 75-minute Zoom meeting.

In response to a Minneapolis-area gym owner's question as to why the brand hadn't posted a message in solidarity with the Floyd protesters or the Black Lives Matter movement, he said, "Can you tell me why I should mourn for him? Other than that it's the white thing to do  other than that, give me another reason."

Story continues

BuzzFeed reported that Glassman went on in the meeting, questioning the existence of systemic racism in the country and the motives behind the protests sparked by Floyd's death.

"I doubt very much that they're mourning for Floyd," Glassman said on the call. "I don't think that there's a general mourning for Floyd in any community."

CrossFit

CrossFit Fever/Flickr

"Moved to action? Burning the city down, is that the action? Destruction of Black and minority-owned businesses, is that the action?" Glassman asked a series of questions to a Minneapolis gym owner on the call who talked about what the gym's members had been doing to help the community damaged by looting and rioting.

"I would prefer a trial of a murderer rather than burning the city down," Glassman continued. "I think that the law has a better response. I think burning your city to the ground and burning a police station to the ground because a cop killed what was very likely going to be a co-conspirator in a counterfeit ring  I just don't get the burning thing."

While Glassman told people on the call that "killing George was wrong," he said that he thought the city's plans to defund the police was "terrifying."

"It sounds like more of the same. It sounds like punishing the cops. It sounds like blaming the police for all of the problems in blighted communities, and I don't think anything could be farther from the truth," Glassman said in the call. "Have you ever done a ride-along with cops in a rough neighborhood? You don't have to answer, but I have many, many times, and that is crazy tough work and almost all of the men and women are professionals."

Glassman touted unfounded conspiracy theories about Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for several minutes while Floyd was in custody. He pointed to the connection between Floyd and Chauvin and how they both worked at the same night club for a year.

"It's very interesting that George gets popped with counterfeits and who comes but the head of security from the dance club? Watch  this thing's going to turn into first-degree murder," Glassman said during the call, according to the BuzzFeed News report.

Reebok Ambassadors Batu Khasikov poses for pictures to help launch Reebok's The Sport Of Fitness Has Arrived campaign in Russia. The pair hosted a public CrossFit workout, a revolutionary strength and conditioning programme, against the backdrop of Moscow's iconic Gorky Park on May 15 in Moscow, Russia.

Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images for Reebok

"And it's going to be because I'm predicting this  we have friends in the FBI in your neighborhood and they're of the view that this was first-degree murder, and it was to silence him over the counterfeit money," Glassman continued, iterating another unproven conspiracy theory during the call.

Mike Young, who owns a gym in Morrisville, North Carolina, partnered with CrossFit and was on the call, told Buzzfeed News that he was initially excited to speak to Glassman, until the meeting turned into a "sh--show" and the CrossFit CEO touted "conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory."

"My first thought was, I thought maybe I was being punked, but I knew how he was and I thought this is just batsh-- crazy," Young told Buzzfeed News. "I'm sitting there, like, my jaw is dropping. Is this happening? What is this guy saying?"

"It was just surreal," Young added.

Representatives from CrossFit did not immediately respond to Buzzfeed News nor Business Insider's request for comment.

Hours after Glassman's remarks in the meeting, he posted a controversial response to a tweet, stating "racism is a public health issue."

Glassman responded saying, "It's FLOYD-19," a play on COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.

Twitter users lambasted Glassman's tweet, with some describing it as tone-deaf and insensitive. Gyms, including Young's fitness facility, and brands like Reebok, canceled partnerships and affiliations with CrossFit in light of Glassman's response.

In a public apology, CrossFit wrote that Glassman's remarks were "not racist but a mistake."

"Floyd is a hero in the Black community and not just a victim," Glassman said in the apology. "I should have been sensitive to that and wasn't. I apologize for that."

After Buzzfeed News published its report of the Zoom meeting, Glassman announced that he would be stepping down as CEO.

"I'm stepping down as CEO of CrossFit, Inc., and I have decided to retire," he said in a statement. "On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members."

He added, "I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQ's or affiliates' missions. They are too important to jeopardize."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Coronavirus has now reportedly killed one in 16 care home residents in England and Wales, fresh research suggests.

The Government has been widely criticised for its handling of care homes across Britain during the pandemic, with figures of the virus spreading rapidly rising since its initial onset in March.

Now, analysis by the Telegraph points to shocking figures of people who have lost their lives as a result of the spread, with data showing there have been 26,211 excess deaths in care homes since the start of the outbreak, compared to the five-year average for the same period.

While coronavirus is believed to be the main driving factor behind the rise in deaths, it is understood the mass disruptions to normal care home service as a result of the pandemic has also led to people losing their lives.

Coronavirus has now reportedly killed one in 16 care home residents in England and Wales

Figures released on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show 11,614 deaths are linked to coronavirus, while half are due to other reasons.

A large portion of the excess death numbers are due to dementia or related illness, though many elderly care home residents in these situations found themselves struggling severely due to a lack of contact with familiar loved ones as the lockdown regulations tightened.

There are 411,00 people living in care homes in England and Wales and the data shows that more than six per cent - or one in 16 - has died since the spring.

This week health minister Helen Whately sparked a row over the Government's approach to protecting care homes from coronavirus as she suggested scientists could be blamed for deaths before furiously backtracking.

The Health Secretary revealed that working age patients in care homes would be eligible for testing under extension of the scheme that is in place for the elderly.

When quizzed on Sky News by presenter Kay Burley over the policy, Ms Whately said: 'As we have learned more about the virus we have updated those infection control guidance, we have taken more steps, we have done the social care action plan.

'At all points in this we have followed the scientific guidance.'

She then appeared to tell the presenter she could 'stick it on the scientists' regarding the rising death count, before then retracting her words and stating: 'What I mean to say is that we have taken the scientific advice at every stage of this process - we have taken the scientific advice and then judgment is made about what is the right decision to take.'

This comes in the immediate aftermath of Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisting the epidemic that has cut a swathe through care homes is 'coming under control' as he announced an extension of the testing regime.

Mr Hancock revealed that working age patients in care homes would be eligible for testing under extension of the scheme that is in place for the elderly.

Speaking during Monday's Downing Street press conference he also unveiled a new Covid-19 social care support taskforce under the leadership of David Pearson.

'We've now sent over a million test kits to almost 9,000 elderly care homes and the care homes themselves asked that they have the flexibility to do the test when it works for them,' Mr Hancock said.

'The good news is that the test results so far do not show a significant rise in the number of positive cases despite going through and testing all of the residents and staff.

'We will now make sure that we do all of this in working age care homes as well.'

As of Tuesday Britain's coronavirus death toll jumped by 286, with Northern Ireland having now gone three days in-a-row without recording a single fatality as the outbreak continues to fade.

Department of Health figures show 277 of the Covid-19 victims were from England, while the other nine were in Wales. No laboratory-confirmed deaths were recorded in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

It means the official number of coronavirus deaths now stands at 40,883. But separate grim statistics released today suggested the disease has already claimed at least 51,000 lives in the UK.
A New Jersey Transit bus struck and killed a pedestrian Wednesday morning in Bergen County.

The rear driver side tires of a No. 166 bus hit the woman at the corner of Fairview Avenue and Anderson Avenue in Fairview, a New Jersey Transit spokeswoman said. The victims identity has not been released, pending family notification.

There were 38 passengers aboard the bus, which was en route to Cresskill from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York when the woman was struck at 6:45 a.m.

Fairview police are being assisted by NJ Transit police in the ongoing investigation.

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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
- The name of the world's first albino gorilla is Snowflake and it was captured in Africa in Equatorial Guinea

- Snowflake spent its years in a Spanish zoo in Barcelona before he died in November 2003

- The 2018 popular movie, Rampage, was inspired by the gorilla

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The world's first gorilla called Snowflake was captured in Rio Muni in Equitorial Guinea (it was called Spanish Guinea then) in October 1966.

After its capture, it was taken to and kept in a zoo in Barcelona, Spain. The animal, unfortunately, died in November 2003.

The gorilla was named Nfumu Ngui by the person who captured him before his keeper, Jordi Sabater Pi, renamed it Copito de nieve which translates as little snowflakes.

The animal was the inspiration behind the 2018 Hollywood blockbuster, Rampage.

A collage showing Snowflake. Photo source: Twitter/Africa Facts Zone

Source: Twitter

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that an orangutan made a rare show of love when it tried to assist a man in a river by offering its outstretched arm to the man.

The animal thought the man was stuck in the river, not knowing that he was searching for snakes.

It was gathered that the ape lives in a protected conservation forest area in Borneo, while the man works for the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation - a non-profit organisation aimed at protecting the endangered species.

The worker was clearing away snakes in an effort to guard the orangutans when one of the apes showed up.

PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update

Narrating what happened, Prabhakar said: "Someone told him there was a snake in the river. The warden went there and cleared the bushes.

"An orangutan came to the banks and was watching what he was doing. He then came closer and gave his hand.

"The warden just moved away. I asked him why later and he said: 'It's a wild animal, not one we are familiar with.'"

In other news, a male baboon in Kruger National Park in South Africa stole a lion cub from its pride and took it up a tree to groom.

A man who has walked the length and breadth of the park for 10 years, Kurt Schultz, was baffled when he saw the baboon tending to the cub.

Schultz took the video of the moment, and the video has since gone viral on social media. In the video, the baboon can be seen sitting in a tree with the cub as it combs through the cub's fur with its fingers.

Nigerian man rescues, shelters snakes and other wild animals for a living| Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
IIT Roorkee has said, 'The objective of the PMRF programme is to attract the best talent into research thereby realising the vision of development through innovation.'

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, has started the application process for Phd programmes. The application process commenced on 5 June and will end on 14 June. The institute has clarified that the last date for submission of application will not be extended.

Those who want to apply can do so by visiting the official website of IIT Roorkee at https://www.iitr.ac.in/. Candidates will be charged no application fees.

The Phd programmes are run under the Prime Minister Research Fellowship (PMRF) scheme. Those applying for the courses will be shortlisted through a direct entry channel.

The PMRF has been designed for improving the quality of research in various higher educational institutions in the country. The institutes which can offer PMRF include all the IITs, all the IISERs, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and some of the top Central Universities/NITs that offer science and/or technology degrees.

The selected candidates will be awarded fellowship of Rs 70,000-80,000 per month along with a research grant of Rs 2 lakhs per year.

IIT Roorkee has said, The objective of the PMRF programme is to attract the best talent into research thereby realising the vision of development through innovation.

Candidates can apply in one or more departments. Besides, they should ensure that they fulfill all the eligibility conditions as specified. The institute has informed that the prescribed qualifications and eligibility are the minimum required and merely fulfilling them does not make a candidate entitled for being called for an interview.

Apart from all this, those applying are required to submit their statement of purpose department wise. It should include interested area of research, a synopsis, details of research publications in reputed journals and details of national or international conference attended or paper presented.

How to apply

Go to the official website of IIT Roorkee at https://www.iitr.ac.in/. Click on the link for Phd application and download it. Fill the form and convert it and the required documents into pdf. Combine all the converted documents in single pdf. Email that single file at pmrfadmission@iitr.ac.in.

IIT Roorkee is considered one of the reputed institutes in the country and has often created headline for its research related activities. In April, a professor of the institute claimed to have developed a software which can detect COVID-19 within five seconds using an X-ray scan of the suspected patient.

The professor, named Kamal Jain, took over 40 days to develop the software. He teaches at the institute's civil engineering department.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-09 23:55:08|Editor: huaxia

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WINDHOEK, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's national airline, Air Namibia, has discontinued all charter flights with immediate effect, until further notice, an official confirmed Tuesday.

The national flag carrier's spokesperson Paul Nakawa told Xinhua Tuesday that the cancellation is temporal until further notice and it was necessitated due to operational requirements.

"Cancellation in our industry is a norm, nothing is sinister about this very recent one," he added.

According to a released notice to the flying public on Monday, the airliner said the cancellation is of all earlier planned flights, inclusive of South Africa this week.

On June 4, Air Namibia operated a successful international flight, repatriating Namibians and other citizens from Frankfurt and London. The flight successfully landed in Namibia with 127 passengers and cargo.

Meanwhile, the airline also announced that the Eros - Walvis Bay flights remains suspended until June 22, due to the stage 1 restrictions' extension to the entire Erongo region due to COVID-19. Enditem
The billionaire ruler of Dubai has lost a battle to build a lodge for family members at his Scottish estate following a backlash from locals.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum wanted to expand his Inverinate Estate in the Highlands by erecting a six bedroom building designed to accommodate his relatives.

The proposal led to 31 objections being made to Highland Council by residents who said it was too close to a neighbouring bungalow and would spoil the natural beauty of the area at Loch Duich.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (left, pictured with former wife Princess Haya Bint Al-Hussain), the billionaire ruler of Dubai, has lost a battle to build a lodge for family members at his Scottish estate following local backlash

Roddy Macleod, 71, whose home of 35 years sits just 20 metres from the proposed lodge, said the new building in Wester Ross would invade his privacy and spoil his enjoyment of his property.

The sheikhs application was refused at a meeting of the local authoritys north planning applications committee on Tuesday despite officials recommending that it should be approved.

It is the latest blow for the Sheikh, who earlier this year lost a high-profile court fight with his ex wife after she fled their home with his children.

The court ruling in March this year, which the Sheikh had tried to supress, revealed embarrassing details about the couples marriage and sensational claims he had kidnapped his own daughters

Her Royal Highness Haya bint al-Hussein fled Dubai with his children Princess Jalila, then 11, and son Prince Zayed, seven, to the UK in April last year over claims she feared for her life.

The Sheikh sent British lawyers to the Royal Courts of Justice in London to demand the summary return of his children.

But he later abandoned his demand for their return and they were made wards of the court. The couple have since divorced.

The billionaire was looking to add a six-bedroom property to his Inverinate Estate for family

The Sheikh's property borders the homes of neighbours who have opposed the proposals

The court clash is estimated to have cost an unprecedented 5.2million.

Despite a backdrop of family turmoil, the Sheikh has refused to give up on his Scottish estate plans, although he may now have to admit defeat here too.

Nine councillors on the committee voted to refuse planning permission while five voted to approve it.

Councillor Maxine Smith, the chair of the committee, led a motion to block the proposal because of the houses size and its proximity to Mr Macleods property.

She said: I really dont understand why they need to build right next to somebody else.

Putting that massive mansion right next to a small bungalow is just awful for the people who live in that place.

Locals also raised concerns that the proposed access road which the sheikh wanted to use for the lodge was unsuitable and would cause increased traffic issues.

The sheikhs architects altered the design of the building and reduced the number of bedrooms from nine to six in a bid to gain approval.

The plans received 31 objections with locals saying the building was too close to neighbouring property. Last month, officials asked why the lodge could not be moved elsewhere

An artist impression of the proposed building that was rejected by the local council

Last month, planning officials wrote to his representatives asking why the lodge could not be moved to another part of the 63,000-acre estate.

They received a reply saying that he bought the land for the specific purpose of building the lodge and would not relocate it.

A letter sent by the sheikhs planning agents stated: To move the proposed lodge further west beyond the existing stone boundary wall and watercourse would take the proposed development completely outwith the building plot which the applicant purchased for the sole purpose of erecting a dwellinghouse/lodge.

Moving the proposed lodge further west would therefore make this purchase meaningless.

In this regard, the applicant purchased a development plot not an amenity buffer strip, which effectively the purchase plot would become if the applicant was to amend its proposals further as suggested, for which it is understood, there is no reasonable justification in planning policy terms. The 70-year-old sheikh, who has six wives and 23 children. has an estimated 14 billion fortune and bought the estate more than 20 years ago.

The Highland retreat already boasts helipads and a 14 bedroom holiday home, next door to a 16 bedroom luxury hunting lodge with pool and gym.

Last year he was also granted permission to build a 19 bedroom lodge as well as a nine bedroom house at the estate.
Queensland's peak doctors lobby group has called for a "credible independent review" of the state's troubled $1.2 billion electronic medical record software, including patient safety.

The Australian Medical Association's Queensland branch, led by new president Chris Perry, wrote to Health Minister Steven Miles on May 15, warning that the "rushed" rollout of the integrated electronic medical record had left clinicians using software that is "buggy, not user friendly and difficult to adapt to local needs".

The AMAQ has called for an independent review of the integrated electronic medical record's clinical impacts. Credit:Jim Rice

In a statement, Dr Perry said it was important clinicians have clear information moving forward, after the ieMR's staged rollout into public hospitals statewide was paused last year.

"Given clinician concerns over impacts on patient safety and productivity, it is important for the government to clearly outline a roadmap for the future of the ieMR," Dr Perry said.
Indian markets reclaimed crucial resistance levels on June 10 after falling more than 1 percent in the previous session. The S&P BSE Sensex is back above 34,000 while the Nifty50 is trading above 10,100 levels.

For the day, the Sensex rose 290 points to 34,247 while the Nifty50 closed 69 points higher at 10,116.

The bulls took control of D-Street to close above 5-day EMA on the daily charts. However, marginal selling pressure was seen at higher levels as investors wait for the outcome of the US Federal Reserve meeting and the spike in coronavirus cases in Delhi fanned worries of a similar situation playing out in other metros.

Domestic markets remained volatile throughout the day and eventually ended higher despite mixed global cues ahead of a Federal Reserve policy meeting later in the day. Concerns with rising coronavirus cases pose serious threats to the newly opened businesses, Paras Bothra, President of Equity Research, Ashika Stock Broking, told Moneycontrol.

Sectorally, the action was seen in banks, realty, finance, energy, and healthcare stocks while profit-taking was visible in auto, metals, consumer discretionary and oil & gas stocks.

On the broader markets front, the S&P BSE Midcap index rose 0.8 percent while the S&P BSE Smallcap index rallied 0.92 percent.

Top Nifty gainers included RIL, Shree Cements, Hindalco Industries and IndusInd Bank.

Top Nifty losers included Coal India, Bajaj Auto, GAIL India and Hero MotoCorp.

Stocks & Sectors

Sectorally, the S&P BSE Bankex was up 1.79 percent followed by the S&P BSE Realty index that gained 1.78 percent and the S&P BSE Finance index was up 1.4 percent.

Profit-taking was seen in the S&P BSE Auto index which was down 1 percent,followed by the S&P BSE Metal index that fell 0.4 percent and the S&P BSE Consumer Discretionary that was down 0.38 percent.

A spike in volume was seen in stocks like Hero MotoCorp, Ramco Cements, TCS, Bosch, MindTree and BHEL.

Long Buildup was seen in stocks like RBL Bank, BHEL, Equitas Holdings, Ujjivan Financial Services and IndusInd Bank.

Short Buildup was seen in stocks like M&M Financial, Motherson Sumi, BOSCH, and SBI Life.

More than 60 stocks hit a fresh 52-week high on the BSE. These included Dr. Reddys Laboratories, Vaibhav Global, Lupin, and Muthoot Finance.

Stocks in news

Extending the gains into the fourth consecutive session, shares of IndusInd Bank ended 7.93 percent up at a near three-month high at Rs 500.70 on BSE on June 10.

Godrej Consumer share price was down almost 4 percent after Vivek Gambhir resigned as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company.

Hero MotoCorp stock price was down over 3 percent after the company posted poor numbers for the March quarter.

Yes Bank stock price gained 2 percent after Madhu Kapur's family withdrew the suit filed against the bank management in the Bombay High Court, according to exchange communication.

Dwarikesh Sugar Industries stock price spiked almost 10 percent after the company in the March quarter reported 37 percent YoY jump in net profit at Rs 44.26 crore against Rs 32.34 crore.

Dhanuka Agritech share price jumped 7 percent after the company's consolidated net profit jumped 46 percent YoY to Rs 39 crore versus Rs 26.7 crore and revenue was up 18.1 percent at Rs 227.6 crore against Rs 192.7 crore, reported CNBC-TV18.

Gujarat Pipavav Port stock price was up over 7 percent after the company reported revenue in-line with expectations.

Technical View

The Nifty formed an Inside Bar pattern on the daily charts. The swing low of 10,021 has become a crucial support level for the index.

On the higher side, the bulls need to take out the resistance zone of 10,300-10,328 to stretch towards 10550, which is 61.8 percent retracement of the Jan- March fall, say experts

: The views and investment tips expressed by experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
The Ministry of Justice of Armenia today hosted an online workshop devoted to the presentation of the www.e-rights.am platform, which is aimed at increasing accountability and transparency of the 2020-2022 Action Plan arising from the Strategy on Human Rights Protection.

Among the participants of the workshop were nearly a dozen representatives of state bodies and government agencies in charge of implementation of the actions envisaged by the Action Plan. During the workshop, representatives of the Ministry of Justice provided information about the toolkit for the www.e-rights.am platform, particularly information about posting (on the website) the semi-annual reports of state bodies on implementation of every action prescribed by the decision of the government, change of status of actions and the resources and methods for responding to comments.
Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all.

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Since the start of the protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd, at least 2,700 demonstrators have been arrested in Los Angeles. Booking records show that the majority of the corresponding charges were for looting, vandalism, burglary, and violating curfew, despite the fact that most of the protests we've reported on over the past two weeks have been peaceful.

The arrests have sparked outrage on social media, as well calls from public officials and advocacy groups to drop charges.

Today, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that they are currently investigating "allegations of misconduct, violations of Department policy, and excessive force during the recent civil unrest." So far, the department is investigating 56 complaints - 28 of those involve alleged use of force.

The following are three accounts of events from protestors who were arrested for disobeying orders from police officers.

Here are their stories, in their own words, edited for clarity:

Farhan Kamdar, 20-year-old college student from Walnut, California.

Arrested for "failing to obey a lawful order" from LAPD, while protesting at City Hall in downtown L.A. on May 29th.

Farhan Kamdar, 20-year-old college student, arrested for "failing to obey a lawful order" on May 29. (Courtesy Farhan Kamdar)

I got downtown at around 5:30 p.m. and was marching through the streets of downtown with all of the protesters. There were hundreds of them. It was very peaceful. People were just chanting and holding up signs and repeating the names of George Floyd and the other victims of police brutality. It was completely peaceful until around 9:30pm.



When the police got there, it became chaotic. I saw a few instances of people who were completely unarmed and non-violent, shouting at police. LAPD officers pushed them away and shot people with rubber bullets.



We stopped in front of City Hall because the police had blocked us in. They surrounded us on all sides and wouldn't let us leave. They released a statement saying that they gave us the option to either leave and disperse, or be arrested. But in reality, we had been chanting for an hour to let us leave -- we were chanting the phrase "Let us leave, let us go home."



The police would not let us leave. They slowly closed in on us and demanded that we all sit down, in order to be peacefully arrested.



We asked what we were being arrested for and they wouldn't respond. They said that they gave us a warning but in reality, there was no warning. They arrested the few hundred of us that were there.





When we were arrested, we were taken one by one behind City Hall and told to sit down, very close to each other. No space for social distancing. They handcuffed us with zip ties and took our names. We sat there for over an hour.



They started blocking us in at 9:30 p.m. We were arrested starting at around 11:30 p.m. And by 1:00 a.m. we were put into Metro buses and taken into an LAPD building, where we were kind of just corralled.



It was a very, very large group, about five or six bus loads of people. We were trapped in a very small area with a lot of people and very slowly processed. Then we were given citations and let go.



Overall, I would say that LAPD's behavior and response was pretty hostile towards what I would consider peaceful protesters. The most violence that I saw were people screaming and shouting, which I do not think is cause for rubber bullets being shot and people being tear-gassed.



It was scary when I heard the police firing with loud bangs. I felt frustrated with the system.



I think it's important to know that the protesters are trying to be peaceful and that the violence is often instigated by the police. The few times I did see someone trying to spray paint a business or try to [loot] or something, there were a dozen or so protesters that would stop them or protect the business. I saw someone start to spray paint a food truck and about 15 protesters told him to stop.



I think it's important to know that the violence really escalates with the police's hand, and that's true all across the country.





The night that Kamdar was in downtown, LAPD did declare an unlawful assembly, following, as they said in a statement to CNN, "repeated acts of violence & property damage."

Ricci Sergienko, 29-year-old organizer with the Sunrise L.A. Movement and the People's City Council of Los Angeles

Arrested for "failing to obey an order from a police officer," according to LAPD's citation on May 30th in the Fairfax District.

At the beginning of the day, it was all full of love and so much solidarity and positivity. When we broke out of Pan Pacific Park and hit the streets, we had tens of thousands of people [with us].



People were honking from their cars to let us know they were there with us, in solidarity.



Then LAPD showed up.



Officers separated us, so that one group went in one direction and another group (of thousands of people) went in the other direction.



While we were marching, I turned on Kendrick Samson's Instagram livestream and I saw that there was a direct confrontation stand-off with the police happening nearby.



A bunch of us, specifically from People's City Council LA, tried to head back towards where Kendrick was [to help him]. We've had discussions before about what happens when black people are confronted by the police and we agreed that white people try to act as a buffer between the police and black and brown people.





Ricci Sergienko, 29, arrested for "failing to obey an order from a police officer" on May 30. (Courtesy Ricci Sergienko)

So we headed back. On the other side of the block, we were met by the police. We could see Kendrick and the other group of protesters were being hit by the police with batons.



LAPD was being very violent, trying to corner and hit protesters. I specifically got a video of an officer instigating violence. He was [hitting] and pushing protesters with this baton.



The rest of LAPD officers followed his lead, and started pushing and hitting protesters. I was right there recording it and I was telling protesters "relax, relax, don't fight back."



At one point I got all the protesters to put their hands up to let the LAPD officers know we were not there to be violent. But it wasn't enough to stop the police. I turned to a few of my friends that were with me and said, "We need to get everyone out of here. We need to get everyone to dip out right now."





As I was announcing that we should leave on my megaphone, LAPD officers ran up to me, tackled me, dragged me across the ground and hit me with a baton. One of my friends, Albert, tried to grab me. They hit him with the baton twice. And I was arrested.



I was left in handcuffs on the side of the street for about three hours. They put us in the van to head to jail, where we waited for about two hours. I was in tight handcuffs the entire time.







Sergienko said after waiting in the van, he was taken to a police station in Van Nuys, where he was issued a misdemeanor citation and let go.

The citation requires him to be present for a court hearing in October.

Kaamil Benoit, 30-years-old, works as recording secretary for the Voices Neighborhood Council in South L.A. She joined the protest on June 2 in the area near City Hall.

Arrested for being in the area past curfew, which was at 6 p.m. that day.

Rikayah Benoit, who goes by Kaamil, 30. Arrested on June 2 for breaking curfew. (Courtesy Kaamil Benoit)

I watched George Floyd's murder. And I saw a man beg for his life, while another man so casually took it away from him. All while three other people, who were supposed to be there to "protect," just let it happen.



I went out protesting because I spent the morning crying after seeing what was happening to other protesters around the country. Seeing a man tear-gassed with his pregnant girlfriend in the car (Denver) and a young college couple pulled out of their car and just terrorized (Atlanta). It's just like -- "You guys know we're watching you. And there's just still such a little regard for our lives."



I arrived around 4:30 p.m at the downtown protests. There were a lot of people of all races and a lot of young people - I think that probably stood out the most. I saw a lot of police officers in front of the LAPD building. They seemed pretty casual, just kind of standing there, chatting...not doing much.



At about 5:30 I ended up back in front of City Hall. At 5:56 p.m. the police made an announcement - they were like, "you guys have four minutes until curfew. If you're out here after curfew, you may get arrested." Everybody pretty much just booed.



The organizers were basically saying, "if you want to leave, this is the time to do it. But if you want to stay, 'we got this.'"



I decided to stay.



Others stayed, too. We chanted. We kneeled. We put our hands up. We put our fists up. It was all just very peaceful methods of protest.



At about 6:30, we started marching again, very peacefully, past the police station. People were leaning out of the buildings, cheering us on. Then towards the front of the protest, people kind of stopped. The police had formed a kind of blockade with their bodies.



At that point we realized we were trapped by the police, which wasn't a great feeling.



Our white allies really stepped up. They literally pulled their cars parallel to us and the police officers, saying things like "we're going to protect you, we have to protect you guys." I've never seen that from white people before. That was amazing.



We kept chanting and eventually we all went to one side to basically get out of the street and we sat down on the sidewalk. Somebody was like, "let's sit in.. just sit in and be peaceful." So we're sitting and being peaceful.



People were yelling from their apartment buildings at the police to let us go. Meanwhile, the police were like slowly inching in; their perimeter was getting closer and closer.



Then they announced that we were all under arrest for violating curfew.



I very carefully got my phone out of my pocket and called my boyfriend and just kind of spoke into the speaker like, "Hey, I'm getting arrested. I'll let you know what's happening." People were circulating the number to a lawyer; they encouraged us to chant it and write it down on our arms.



The police told us to put our hands behind our heads. We did, and they just came into the crowd and stood in front of us and said, "You're under arrest, if you choose to comply, stand up."



Everyone stood up because no one was trying to fight. They put zip ties on our wrists. I told the officer that mine was on my wrist bone, and he was like, "Don't worry, we'll take it off when you get over there." He pointed across the street. At that moment, I felt emotional because he was a person of color.



They were separating the men and women and processing us. They asked us questions like - "What's your name? How old are you? Where do you live? Have you ever been arrested?" They searched our bags. It seemed like almost every protester had their own police officer, arresting them, which I thought was weird. My arresting officer stayed with me the whole time. He held my purse.



After that we were put in a van and transported to the LAPD's Metropolitan Detention Center.



The LAPD officers weren't physically rough. But a good amount of them were trying to antagonize us by making comments about Trump, and telling people they had a chance of spreading coronavirus. They were the most antagonizing when we were in closed quarters with them in the van.



At the Detention Center, we sat and waited, for about 30 to 45 minutes, to get into the area where they were doing the bookings. They gave us a little piece of paper, then we gave it to the person at the door, and the person at the door gave it to another officer. That officer called the names from that stack of papers and then took us in to get processed. We finally got the zip ties off and were fingerprinted, given a citation and told to go home.



I absolutely don't think we should have been arrested. We were peacefully protesting. I don't think the curfew was legitimate, especially after a day or two of no looting. It was designed to keep us from our constitutional right to assemble.



It's especially bizarre to have the institution that we are protesting, keep us from protesting.



At the very least, we need accountability.





People are arrested in Hollywood, California, June 1, 2020 as a third night of curfews followed days of massive, mostly peaceful protests to decry George Floyd's death in Minneapolis. (Photo by Robyn Bec / AFP)

We reached out to LAPD for comment on the protestors' stories. Officer Drake Madison declined to address the specifics of what these three protestors experienced, but said that the department is aware of the videos posted online and is investigating "each instance thoroughly," with plans to, "hold any officer who violates Department policy accountable."

He also sent us the following statement by email (which is identical to the blanket statement that LAPD posted several days earlier on Twitter), and points to injuries sustained by police officers.

"Protests, marches and demonstrations over the last several days have been often dynamic and at times dangerous situations for both officers and demonstrators. A number of these gatherings have unfortunately devolved into chaos with rocks, bottles, and other projectiles being launched at police officers, who have sustained injuries that range from cuts and bruises to a fractured skull. We have also experienced vehicle and structure fires with widespread looting and destruction while trying to facilitate the first amendment rights of those peacefully demonstrating."

The statement also encouraged anyone who "believes they were wrongfully accused of a crime, unjustly injured, or experienced misconduct on the part of an officer" to make call the Professional Standards Bureau complaint line at 1-800-339-6868 or make a complaint through the Office of the Inspector General at 213-893-6400 or Oig.compl@lapd.online.

On June 4, the ACLU and Black Lives Matter L.A. filed a lawsuit against several local politicians, including Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD Chief Michel Moore, over the city's curfew orders, which they say violated the constitutional protections of free speech and freedom of movement.

Four days later, L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer said people who were arrested for peacefully protesting won't face jail or fines, but he did suggest they talk it out with police "to directly share their experiences and views." On Tuesday, Feuer said arrested protesters would not be required to talk it out with police.

However, the sessions will still take place and Feuer said he encourages all protesters to participate.

City Attorney Mike Feuer:



Rather than default to traditional prosecution, I see this as a moment to further focus on the deeply-rooted, deeply-felt issues at the core of the protests - to begin to find common ground necessary for us to make progress...https://t.co/QBceZLhvK8  LA City Attorney (@CityAttorneyLA) June 9, 2020

The decision came after L.A. City Council members Mike Bonin and Marqueece Harris-Dawson introduced a motion to have Feuer drop efforts to have protesters arrested for curfew violations and failure to disperse participate in these discussions. Bonin and Harris-Dawson said these sessions would be an "unnecessary burden" and a "waste" of city resources.

Peaceful demands for justice shouldnt be penalized with fines, mandatory courses, or vehicle impound fees.



I was grateful to join my colleague @mhdcd8 to propose legislation today requesting the city attorney dismiss violations against peaceful protestors. pic.twitter.com/1Ego3ap5lK  Mike Bonin-Official (@MikeBoninLA) June 10, 2020

Council member Mike Bonin also wrote a letter to LAPD Chief Moore about his concern over "reports that protestors were detained unnecessarily by officers" at the protests.

L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey sent a memo to her deputy DA's stating that her office will not prosecute anyone for violating curfew or failing to disperse, because doing so "could be considered punishment for people exercising their First Amendment constitutional rights." Lacey's office, however, is only responsible for cases in unincorporated L.A. and in cities that don't have their own prosecutors.

People are arrested in Hollywood, California, June 1, 2020 as a third night of curfews followed days of massive, mostly peaceful protests to decry George Floyd's death in Minneapolis. (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

Mayor Garcetti also noted that the Los Angeles Police Commission is "reviewing protest videos and will ensure a full investigation of incidents depicting excessive use of force, which could lead to officer discipline or removal."

Several days later, LAPD tweeted a video of the protests, calling them proof of the city's "collective voice." LAPD said the department will not release body cam footage to the public from the demonstrations, in cases where excessive force is being investigated.

This is the power of a collective voice  this is Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/tuIyGmYNhv  LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) June 7, 2020

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NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Control Valve Market Research Report by Type (Linear Valve and Rotary Valve), by Material (Alloy Based, Brass, Bronze, Cast Iron, and Cryogenic), by Component, by Industry - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913965/?utm_source=PRN







The Global Control Valve Market is expected to grow from USD 7,786.28 Million in 2019 to USD 10,888.78 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.74%.



Market Segmentation & Coverage:

This research report categorizes the Control Valve to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:



On the basis of Type, the Control Valve Market is studied across Linear Valve and Rotary Valve. The Linear Valve further studied across Diaphragm Valve and Gate Valve. The Rotary Valve further studied across Ball Valve, Butterfly Valve, and Plug Valve.



On the basis of Material, the Control Valve Market is studied across Alloy Based, Brass, Bronze, Cast Iron, Cryogenic, Plastic, and Stainless Steel.



On the basis of Component, the Control Valve Market is studied across Actuators and Valve Body.



On the basis of Industry, the Control Valve Market is studied across Building & Construction, Chemicals, Energy & Power, Food & Beverages, Metals & Mining, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare, Pulp & Paper, and Water & Wastewater Treatment.



On the basis of Geography, the Control Valve Market is studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region is studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region is studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region is studied across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.



Company Usability Profiles:

The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Control Valve Market including Alfa Laval AB, AVK Holding A/S, Cameron International Corporation, Christian Burkert GmbH & Co. KG, Crane Co., Curtiss-Wright Corporation, Emerson Electric Co., Flowserve Corporation, IMI plc, Kitz Corporation, Metso Corporation, Neway Valve Co., SAMSON Controls Inc., Spirax-Sarco Engineering plc, and Trillium Flow Technologies.



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Control Valve Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.



Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:

COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.



The report provides insights on the following pointers:

1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on sulfuric acid offered by the key players

2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets

3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments

4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players

5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments



The report answers questions such as:

1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Control Valve Market?

2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Control Valve Market during the forecast period?

3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Control Valve Market?

4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Control Valve Market?

5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Control Valve Market?

6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Control Valve Market?



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913965/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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Cops, they finally came for you.

The reality show, which since 1989 has taken viewers along on police raids across America, was canceled by the Paramount Network just before its 33rd season would have begun. The decision, of course, follows the nationwide protests over police brutality and racism after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

I wont miss the show. If Im being totally honest, I write about TV for a living, and I would not have been able to tell you it was still on the air without looking it up. (If this sounds dismissive, Im not alone. By the time Paramount canceled it, the series had an average of only 470,000 viewers per episode, small even for cable.)

But people other than me have already weighed in on the problems with Cops and shows like it. Lets hear from one of them:

The dominant image is hammered home again and again: The overwhelmingly white troops of police are the good guys; the bad guys are overwhelmingly black  a policeman snares white drug buyers in a black neighborhood and warns, Dont you know what happens over here to white boys like you? The racism is so casual, so taken for granted, that the only response might well be despair.

That was the TV critic of The New York Times, but not me. It was John J. OConnor, reviewing the premiere of Cops on Fox in January 1989.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told bankers to focus on Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) and has asked the lenders to extend the credit to other businesses than Micro Medium and Small Industries (MSMEs). While addressing a review meeting on credit guarantee scheme with heads of public sector banks, which was announced as a measure for MSMEs under AtmanitbharBharat Package, the finance minister appreciated the efforts of banks in execution of the scheme.

According to the Department of Financial Services, private sector banks (PSBs) have been asked to continue focus on sanction and reaching out to eligible MSMEs. However, they also need to target meeting the credit requirements of businesses, other than MSMEs.

The latest data shared by the government shows that a total of Rs 8,320 crore has been disbursed so far under emergency lending scheme pan India, out of which Rs 599 crore has been given for MSMEs.

As of June 8, 2020, PSBs have sanctioned loans worth Rs 1,109.03 crore for MSME hubs in 12 States under the 100 per cent Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme, of which Rs 599.12 crore has already been disbursed to 17,904 accounts, Sitharaman tweeted from the official twitter handle. Hubs with the highest disbursement to MSMEs were Tamil Nadus Coimbatore (Rs 143.7 crore in 1,758 accounts) and Tiruppur

(Rs 97.2 crore in 760 accounts) followed Durgapur (Rs 61 crore in 2,005 accounts) in West Bengal, Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur (Rs 60.5 crore in 1,498 accounts), and Gujarats Surat (Rs 39 crore in 992 accounts) and Rajkot (Rs 33.8 crore in 981 accounts).

Other states included Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Telangana, and Karnataka, it further added.Under the scheme, 100 per cent guarantee coverage are being provided by the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company for additional funding of up to Rs 3 lakh crore to eligible

MSMEs and interested

Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) borrowers, in the form of a guaranteed emergency credit line facility. For this purpose, a corpus of Rs 41,600 crore was provided by the government, spread over the current and next three financial years.
Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) has signed two memoranda of joint cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources and The Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY) to stimulate, enable and localise military industries in the Kingdom.

This comes through the implementation of comprehensive governance of supply chains in military and civil industrial sectors, the pursuit of establishing military industrial clusters; and supporting the kingdoms direction in achieving the goals of its Vision 2030, by localising 50% of military spending and making it an important tributary to economic and social development, said a Saudi Press Agency report.

The signing ceremony was attended by the Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu Bandar bin Ibrahim Al-Khorayef, Chairman of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu Engineer Abdullah bin Ibrahim Al-Saadan, Governor of the General Authority for Military Industries Eng Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al-Ohali and a number of officials.

This strategic cooperation seeks to empower local and international manufacturers in this sector, by providing the appropriate investment environment to build industrial capabilities that target it, and to build a large supply chain that serves industrial sectors, both military and civil, as well as the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu.
US Issues An Updated List Of Sanctioned Iranian Ships

Radio Farda June 09, 2020

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) updated the list of Iranian ships subject to sanctions on Sunday, June 7, and added several other Iranian ships and oil tankers to the list.

Titled as Iran Non-proliferation Weapons of Mass destruction Sanctions, the new list names 123 Iranian vessels, including cargo ships and oil tankers.

However, the U.S. Treasury Department has not said how many of the vessels were already on the sanctions list and how many had recently been added.

About two weeks ago, when five Iranian oil tankers transported fuel to Venezuela, some media outlets reported that at least two non-Iranian tankers were moving in the same direction but withdrew following the U.S. threat to sanction them.

Last December, the U.S. had announced IRISL and Shanghai-based E-SAIL Shipping Company would be added to its blacklist.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Monday, June 8, that the action against the Islamic Republic was under Executive Order 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters.

The sanctions came into effect after a 180-day grace period for companies working with IRISL and E-Sail to find alternative shipping methods.

"IRISL has repeatedly transported items related to Iran's ballistic missile and military programs and is also a longstanding carrier of other proliferation-sensitive items, including Nuclear Suppliers-Group controlled items," Mike Pompeo said.

"Despite Iran's claims that it will never develop nuclear weapons and associated delivery systems, the Iranian regime has continued to pursue and procure proliferation-sensitive items in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231," the U.S. Secretary of State asserted.

Furthermore, he called on the international community to "take notice of Iran's continued deception."

"These designations serve as a clear warning that anyone doing business with or otherwise supporting IRISL or E-Sail are exposed to potential sanctions and risk contributing to Iran's proliferation-sensitive programs, including its nuclear and missile programs," Pompeo cautioned.

"We urge government authorities worldwide to investigate all IRISL and E-Sail activity in your ports and territorial seas and take appropriate action to put a halt to it. The world must be vigilant and take action to prevent Iran from acquiring proliferation-sensitive items that further threaten regional stability and security," Pompeo noted.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/us- issues-an-updated-list-of-sanctioned- iranian-ships/30659855.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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New Delhi, June 10 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice on a plea of Andhra Pradesh government challenging the order of the High Court to quash an ordinance which curtailed the tenure of the State Election Commissioner from five to three years.

A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde, Justice A S Bopanna and Justice Hrishikesh Roy, though issued notice on the plea, clarified that there was no stay on the implementation of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in the meanwhile. The High Court order led to the reinstatement of N Ramesh Kumar as the State Election Commissioner. Due to the ordinance, Kumar had to leave the post, as his tenure was curtailed.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi contended before the bench that the state government, through an ordinance, struck down the provision under which Kumar was appointed. The bench queried the counsel of the Andhra Pradesh government on the motive behind the ordinance. The Andhra Pradesh government contended before the top court that changes were essential to bring in transparency and efficiency in the functioning of the State Election Commission.

The bench observed it was not convinced by the contention of the state government that motive was entirely innocent. After arguments on the matter, the top court declined to entertain the state government's contention that the High Court order should be stayed.

Kumar was represented by senior advocate Harish Salve. The court has posted further hearing on the matter after two weeks.

The state government, in its appeal, cited the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 2020 included following key changes -- Only a retired High Court judge could be appointed as the State Election Commissioner; the term of the SEC which was earlier for a period of 5 years was reduced to three years; and the term of the existing SEC was brought to an end leading to appointment of a new SEC.

The High Court had struck down the ordinance noting it was "actuated by fraud on power and does not qualify the test of rationality and reasonableness specified in Article 14 of the Constitution."
Realtors' body Naredco on Tuesday said it has approached 2.85 lakh displaced labourers in Uttar Pradesh and 75,000 of them have so far agreed to work in various real estate projects in the state. The state unit of the National Real Estate Development Council (Naredco), an autonomous self-regulatory body under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, said it had entered a memorandum of understanding with the Uttar Pradesh government for engaging 2.50 lakh displaced labourers in the sector.

Accordingly, the state government provided Naredco a list of 2.85 lakh labourers seeking jobs, while three more lists were received from district industries centres in Sonbhadra and Ghaziabad, according to a statement. "Naredco has approached 2.85 lakh labourers through calls and SMS out of which 75,000 labourers have given their consent for working in real estate projects," Naredco UP president R K Arora said.

Naredco has sent emails to 75 district magistrates in UP to inform that the realtors body has shortlisted labourers from their district concerned as per data received from the UP government, he said in a statement. "We have started communicating with them to hire them on different construction projects across the state," Arora, also the chairman of Supertech, said.

Naredco has 250 member developers in UP, and is in the process of creating a 'Group of Members' for employing migrant workers, he added. Arora said enquiries for approximately 1.25 lakh labourers have been received from 50 developers in UP and such queries are continuously increasing and more than 5,000 workers have so far joined at various sites of these developers.

"More labourers are being placed at various real estate project sites in the coming days. Also demand for more labourers is coming from developers regularly, he said.

Also read: India is offering Rs 12,000-crore export market to China on a platter
In 2006, GMT Magazine continued expanding internationally with the launch of GMT XXL Russia & Ukraine as well as zeroing in on its demographic with the new womens special edition XXS, produced in collaboration with the womens magazine Profil. The phenomenon of mono-brand boutiques intensified, as did the desire for second hand Rolexes. Antiquorum auctioned off the largest collection of Rolex watches ever to appear in public sale: 300 Rolex models belonging to publisher Guido Mondani, amassed over 20 years of travel. Brands continued to streamline their production, from major brands to small independent watchmakers, with Bovet taking up residence and opening its museum in the Chateau de Motiers in Fleurier, which the descendants of the founding family had bequeathed to the canton of Neuchatel.

Many tried to ride the wave of a booming watchmaking industry, reflected in advertisements for brands that have since sunk: Bertolucci, DYD, Enigma, Instruments & Mesures du Temps, Roberge, Trebor, U-Boat and Yeslam. Quite the opposite of Montblanc, which celebrated its 100th anniversary and 300th boutique, headed by Jean-Marc Pontroue, for whom Montblanc has been a creator of soul for 100 years. Symbolising both a turning point for the brand and a strong trend in luxury watchmaking at that time, Montblanc unveiled its first major complication, the Star Chrono GMT Perpetual Calendar.

Innovation in all directions

Independently of volume, a certain contrast emerged in luxury watchmaking with, on the one hand, independent craftsmen and designers not shying away from innovation, and on the other hand, traditional manufacturers weighing the pros and cons of this quest for spectacular performance. A champion for ostentatious luxury but now enriched with a strong technical know-how, Jacob & Co. presented its enormous Quenttin with axial time display (on rollers, without hands), using 7 barrels providing 31 days of power reserve, at the heart of a steel, gold and carbon case, radically interwoven with the movement. Equally impressive in terms of design and mechanical audacity, Vianney Halter and DMC have created the extra-terrestrial-shaped Capestan, which is set using a winding stem that pops out of the case. The transversal construction of the mechanism with fusee and tourbillon is as innovative as its time indication on engraved rotating cylinders.

More inside the box, comparatively, was the Monopoussoir Chronograph with 5 coaxial hands and isochronic balance-spring designed by De Bethune, featuring 3 patents and only 172 hours of power reserve. As for Francois-Paul Journe, he showcased his expertise with a Grande Sonnerie Souveraine in steel with 120 hours of power reserve, protected by 10 patents. In particular, he had developed systems that both facilitated the use of the Grande Sonnerie and made it more secure. The winding stem, for example, locks when an alarm is active. The striking mechanism locked after 48 hours of operation to protect the power reserve.

GMT 2006  GMT

All the more impressive was Patek Philippe, who unveiled its own balance-spring, the Spiromax, in monocrystalline silicon, already used in the escapement wheel designed the year before by its R&D department. At the same time, Patek Philippe presented its first in-house chronograph caliber, to equip the Platinum Annual Calendar Automatic Chronograph with flyback and power reserve display.

GMT 2006  GMT

This complication also inspired another great secular Manufacture, Jaeger-LeCoultre, whose AMVOX2 Chronograph Concept has the chronograph started by pressing on the upper part of the sapphire crystal. On a more significant watchmaking register, its Triptyque Reverso stands out as the first wristwatch equipped with a detente escapement, known to have obtained the best results in terms of mechanical adjustment, particularly on marine chronometers, and integrated here with a tourbillon.

GMT 2006  GMT

A whirlwind in all its forms

Watches equipped with tourbillons explode on the scene in all forms. At Roger Dubuis, 16 of the 160 novelties of the SIHH that year have a tourbillon integrated, including one with constant force for ladies, and another with a square shape, the GoldenSquare Tourbillon in titanium. Audemars Piguet chose the oval for its Millenary MC12 Tourbillon Chronograph in platinum, named after its partners, Maserati, 700-horsepower racing car. It is obviously the tonneau that is the order of the day at Richard Mille with the RM 008 Tourbillon Chronograph in pink gold, water-resistant to 100m.

On a more alien plane was the HM1 from MB&F, designed by Laurent Besse and Peter Speak-Marine, which housed two dials linked by an elevated central tourbillon in the centre, four mainspring barrels and a battle-axe shaped automatic winding rotor. The large case size is also reflected in the DNA of the Sea Hawk II Tourbillon in titanium and pink gold, water-resistant to 1000m by Girard-Perregaux, or in Franck Mullers tourbillon Aeternitas with equation of time, split-seconds chronograph and triple time zone, whose perpetual calendar is programmed for 1000 years. Less extreme was Peter Speake-Marins Tourbillon Piccadily Repetition Minute in platinum with perpetual calendar and moon phases, which showed collectors what they could expect from him. Among independents, DeWitt continued its demonstration with a new world first, the Constant Force Tourbillon, whose patented constant force device absorbed the force coming from the barrel every second and redistributed it to the tourbillon every 10 seconds.

GMT 2006  GMT

2006 was also distinguished by watches with a tourbillon moving around the dial. On the front page of the GMT was Piagets Tourbillon Relatif Polo, which achieved the feat of hooking its cage to the minute hand and thus rotating around the dial. The principle is similar with the Tourbillon Orbital by Jean Dunand equipped with a Christophe Claret calibre. Even stronger at Breguet, whose Grande Complication featured a double independent tourbillon on a single axis that completed its rotation of the dial in 12 hours.

GMT 2006  GMT

David & Gloliath: the take from CEOs

Big bosses and small entrepreneurs give voice through various media to claim their territory or legitimacy in the territory of exclusivity and haute horlogerie. As the new CEO of Vacheron Constantin, Carlos Torres made a lucid analysis: Vacheron Constantin has been around for 250 years, but the explosion in the number of brands aspiring to be highly exclusive should not be ignored. These new watchmakers have talent, they force us to stay alert. Moreover, they are also attacking the purchasing power of the retailer, for whom the cake is not indefinitely extendable. The art of watchmaking belongs to everyone, but many of these brands are struggling and their durability is not assured. To which Michel Jordi replied: Each brand must indeed have its own face, and we are the first to offer the face of the Twins. In 250 years of watchmaking history, no one has ever designed a watch that opens out like a fan.

GMT 2006  GMT

For the founder of MB&F Max Busser, We all aspire towards hyper-creativity, motivated by the most daring challenges. This is much more a matter of lifestyle choice than a purely economic orientation. His successor at Harry Winston Rare Timepieces, Hamdi Chatti, explained: The Opus saga continues with the same creative and innovative impetus that is at the heart of the concept and ensures its durability and exclusivity. Greubel Forseys incredible Opus 6 is currently being delivered, and at the next Baselworld we will present Opus 7 jointly with two independent creative geniuses (Urwerk).

Next week: watchmaking in 2007.

*To celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2020, GMT Magazine will summarise weekly, exclusively on WorldTempus, the essence of its content published year after year in the last 20 years. The information is by no means exhaustive and refers to excerpts. For a more in-depth view of the last two decades of watchmaking, order The Millennium Watch Book produced by GMT Magazine and WorldTempus with the contribution of over twenty experts, each of whom witnessed this incomparable period in our industry.

WorldTempus offers below the Spring 2020 GMT for download.

Download GMT #66 for free
As we emerge from the coronavirus lockdown, those of us who still have a workplace may not recognize it. Businesses, eager to limit liability for employees and customers, are considering a variety of emerging technologies for limiting pandemic spread.

These technologies can be loosely divided into two types: one based on cellphone technologies and the other using wearable devices like electronic bracelets and watches. Both approaches focus on maintaining social distancing, nominally six feet between any two workers based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and supported by some modeling.

Most workers will have little choice whether to participate in their employers risk mitigation. As a networking and security researcher, I believe that it is essential that both employees and employers understand the technologies in use, their effectiveness at reducing risk of infection and the risks they may pose to the privacy and well-being of all involved.

The technologies

Social distancing technologies are designed to warn workers when they get too close to each other, typically relying on communications that can travel only short distances. In this way, if your device can hear someone elses device, youre considered too close to the other person and potentially infected.

Perhaps the most promising communication technology for social distancing is ultra-wideband, which enables precise distance measurements between devices. A more common medium is Bluetooth Low Energy, which is used for headphones and portable speakers, though it may produce less consistently accurate distance information depending on the environment.

Finally, sound itself can be used to determine distance to other people, much like bats use echoes to identify obstacles in their flight paths, with the advantage that it respects wall and door boundaries just like the coronavirus.

Modern cellphones typically can communicate through both Bluetooth Low Energy technologies and sound. Late model iPhones also support ultra-wideband communications.

Contact tracing apps, which are used to alert people when theyve been exposed to an infected person, generally use these media while loosely adhering to a common design. They include approaches focusing on privacy and security, or precise distance measurements using sound outside of the human hearing range. More recently, Apple and Google jumped into the fray with their own approach that also solves some of the technical challenges that appear to require the cooperation of the two tech giants.

Wearables, which are more limited devices that a person can wear like a bracelet or a ring, can also be used for social distancing. Popular workplace wearables can be programmed to buzz or otherwise alert employees when they get within six feet of each other. These include Halo, Estimote and Covid Radius. Other devices monitor health indicators such as pulse, body temperature or movement.

Will this help?

Workplace social distancing products are designed to monitor the six-foot separation guideline of the CDC. This is a crude measure that is complicated in practice. How long are people in contact? What kind of air patterns surrounded them? Were they wearing masks? Were they singing?

Although some modeling suggests that even crude social distancing can help spread out infection rates over time to help with hospital load, digital contact tracing faces serious challenges of adoption  in order for an infectious contact to be recorded, both parties must be using the technology.

This means, for example, that if 50% of people in a work area  including mail deliverers, IT support and plumbers  adopt the technology, then approximately 25% of the infectious contacts might be identified. If the workplace is already a hot spot for infection, say a meatpacking facility, then the technology only tells workers what they already know: There is widespread infection risk.

What about privacy?

Employers can already legally read employee emails, monitor calls and record video of employees. What additional risk does contact tracing present?

The location data that is used by some contact tracing solutions can be intensely personal. It can identify, for example, with whom workers eat lunch or even what they purchased at the lunch counter. It can identify what fraction of the workday is spent by the water cooler, and even how often and for how long workers go to the bathroom. Without explicit safeguards, employees are forced to choose between keeping their jobs and maintaining their privacy.

Fortunately, some of the solutions do attempt to safeguard privacy in a variety of ways.

Open tech, limited data

It is important that data shared with the employer  or any other third party  should be anonymous and not tied to personal information. Indeed, several of the cellphone-based solutions only share randomly generated data that is useful only for contact tracing apps that tell the cellphones owner about potential exposures. Furthermore, some of the wearables do not use a central repository, instead sharing data only among themselves and deleting it after the infection window, typically 14 days.

Some of the technologies prevent employers from accessing employee contact history. In these approaches, only employees who have been near an infected individual are alerted, either through physical feedback like a vibrating buzz or through alerts on their smartphones. Employers are naturally anxious to get a broad picture of worker health, but the greater insight necessarily intrudes on privacy. I believe the ideal scenario is where the worker  and no one else  knows only that he has been exposed to the virus at some recent time, not when, where or by whom.

It may be very difficult for employees to understand what kind of privacy a social distancing system provides without knowing how it operates. Many of the existing products on the market are open-source, meaning that anyone can view and analyze at least some of their code. Some also make all contact information publicly visible, albeit obfuscated, so that there is no mystery about what data is being collected and used.

At the end of the day, social distancing technologies can help protect employees in a post-COVID world. However, absent well-crafted privacy law, both employees and employers must understand broadly how these technologies work, their limitations and their capabilities.

This article was first posted on The Conversation.
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) says it has submitted a proposal for reopening of its camps nationwide  weeks after they were s...

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) says it has submitted a proposal for reopening of its camps nationwide  weeks after they were shut due to COVID-19.





According to NAN, Adenike Adeyemi, spokesperson of the NYSC, in a statement on Wednesday, said the proposal was part of the schemes preparedness for post-COVID-19 operations.





The statement quoted Shuaibu Ibrahim, director-general of the scheme, as saying this during a courtesy visit to Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).





Ibrahim informed the NCDC boss that the scheme suspended the 2020 Batch A Stream One orientation course just one week into the exercise as a proactive measure to avert the spread of COVID-19 to any of the orientation camps.

He said other activities of the scheme, including passing-out of the 2019 Batch B Stream One corps members, were low-keyed with full adherence to the COVID-19 prevention protocols.





The NYSC boss said the proposal would be presented to the presidential task force (PTF) on COVID-19 through the NCDC for guidance.





He added that the suspended 2020 Batch A Stream One orientation course would be completed when the scheme received the green light from the PTF.





Ibrahim also briefed Ihekweazu on the various COVID-19 interventions made by the scheme, especially through corps members activities all over the country, including sensitisation, production and distribution of face masks.





He, however, called for the PTFs support in the funding of mass production of the automated disinfection chambers for use in all the NYSC orientation camps.





Responding, Ihekweazu commended NYSC for its support to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic through corps members activities.





The NCDC boss also assured that the proposals presented by the NYSC DG would be studied and recommendations made to the appropriate authorities.








Court records show that Mirabella was sentenced to five years in prison for reckless homicide in 1993. Mirabellas vehicle collided with a car on Interstate 88 and sent it across the median, where it was struck by an oncoming vehicle, killing a woman. Prosecutors said Mirabella was under the influence of alcohol and had marijuana in his system.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Global Air Transport industry is expected to lose $84.3 billion in 2020 for a net profit margin of -20.1 percent, according to the financial outlook released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents some 290 airlines comprising 82 percent of global air traffic.



This will be the biggest loss in aviation history after the industry lost $31 billion with the Global Financial Crisis and oil price spike in 2008 and 2009.



In February, IATA had projected total revenue loss of $29.3 billion for the global airline industry, assuming the loss of demand is limited to markets linked to China. However, it updated the outlook in early March, saying the losses could be between $63 billion and $113 billion for the passenger business.



IATA noted that 2020 will go down as the worst year in the history of aviation, with the industry losing $230 million every day on average this year.



Revenue in 2020 is projected fall 50 percent to $419 billion from $838 billion in 2019. In 2021, losses are expected to decrease to $15.8 billion on revenue increase to $598 billion, IATA said.



Passenger demand evaporated as international borders closed and countries locked down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. At the low point in April, global air travel was roughly 95 percent below 2019 levels. There are indications that traffic is slowly improving.



Last week, IATA said demand for air services is beginning to recover after hitting the bottom in April, with global passenger traffic rising by 30 percent in May from a very low level in April. Passenger demand in April had plunged 94.3 percent compared to the same month in 2019, as the COVID-19-related travel restrictions virtually shut down domestic and international air travel.



IATA noted that passenger demand will fall between 52 to 59 percent in all regions in 2020, with North America registering the lowest fall of 52.6 percent and Africa reporting the highest with a 58.5 percent drop.



Looking ahead to 2021, IATA said the global airline industry is expected to see reduced losses, with the industry expected to cut its losses to $15.8 billion given the opening of borders and rising demand.



For 2022, IATA says the challenge will be turning reduced losses of 2021 into the profits that airlines will need to pay off their debts from this terrible crisis. Although losses will be significantly reduced in 2021 from 2020 levels, the industry's recovery is expected to be long and challenging.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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(Bloomberg) -- Europes Just Eat Takeaway.com NV agreed to acquire U.S.-based Grubhub Inc. for $7.3 billion, in a deal that creates one of the worlds largest meal-delivery companies as the coronavirus pandemic drives a surge in orders.

Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway said it will pay $75.15 per share for Grubhub in an all-stock deal. Grubhubs share price rose 4% in extended trading to about $62, while the European company fell 13%.

The deal sidelines Uber Technologies Inc., which had been in acquisition talks with Grubhub for months. Political pressure raised questions about whether U.S. regulators would approve such a deal. The two companies had nearly aligned on a price but remained at odds over other issues, including terms of a breakup fee for Grubhub if the deal couldnt be completed, people familiar with the matter said last month.

Grubhub will launch Just Eat Takeaway into the U.S. market, broadening its already-global reach that includes Australia, Brazil and Canada, in addition to its home base in Europe. Jitse Groen, the Dutch billionaire who created Takeaway in 2000 in his university dorm room, has been looking to expand aggressively over the last year. Less than two months ago, Takeaway received antitrust clearance from the U.K. for its $8 billion acquisition of Just Eat.

Matt Maloney, Grubhubs chief executive officer, helped start the company in 2004. He first met Groen a few years later. They now describe one another as kindred spirits. We have the same company on different continents, Maloney said in an interview Wednesday. Theres this mutual cosmic alignment.

In 2013, Maloney led a merger of Grubhub and Seamless to create what was then a dominant food delivery website. But the company has fallen far since then. DoorDash Inc., the current leader in the U.S., and Uber have eaten up market share, leaving Grubhub with 23% as of the end of April, according to market research firm Second Measure.

Food delivery was one of the few parts of the economy to benefit from the spread of the virus this year, thanks to people spending more time at home. Grubhubs stock is up 39% since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March, though its still trading at less than half of its peak in 2018.

Story continues

Profit margins are tight or nonexistent in food delivery due to stiff competition to sign the most popular restaurants and add customers. Gross food sales for Grubhub rose 8% to $1.6 billion in the first quarter, and the company reported a net loss of about $33 million. Ubers gross bookings for food delivery increased 52% to $4.68 billion in the same period, but the divisions loss also rose.

Analysts have long said the unprofitable model in food delivery is unsustainable and expected consolidation. Grubhubs largest shareholder, Caledonia Investments Plc, expressed support for the sale. This was timed really well with Grubhub at a depressed price, said Will Vicars, co-chief investment officer at the Sydney-based firm, which also owns shares in the acquirer. It gives Just Eat Takeaway another important profit pool, and they have showed they can win against Uber in markets like Germany and the Netherlands.

For Uber, losing the deal is a blow to the companys plan to increase revenue and eventually turn a profit from food delivery. That strategy was especially urgent with the pandemic lifting food delivery while decimating Ubers main business of ride hailing. The company has cut jobs and side businesses as a result. It was relying on deals to achieve a top position in the markets where it operates.

In an emailed statement, a spokesman for Uber said the company believes the industry needs consolidation but that its not interested in doing any deal, at any price, with any player.

Read more from Bloomberg Opinion: Ubers Dutch Rival for Grubhub Risks Indigestion

Talks between Uber and Gruhub started before the pandemic and heated up in April, a person familiar with the matter said. Some financial advisers working on the deal referred to it internally as Project Checkers, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. Grubhub was known as Red, Uber as Black and Just Eat Takeaway later emerged as Jade. Uber and Grubhub had agreed on a ratio valuing Grubhubs shares at 1.925 to Ubers on the condition they work out a framework for securing regulatory approval, two people familiar with the matter said.

Tensions between management of the two companies were boiling over in recent weeks, people familiar with those discussions said. Among the points of contention: the roles for Maloney and other Grubhub executives at Uber and the plan for a Washington charm offensive that was expected to take a year and a half, one of the people said.

Maloney said Groen contacted him after Bloomberg first reported on the talks between Uber and Grubhub last month. The discussions progressed quickly. They knew the price to beat, Maloney said. Grubhubs financial advisers were Evercore Inc. and Centerview Partners, and Just Eat Takeaway was advised by Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Just Eat Takeaway said Maloney will join the board and run the North America business. Matt and I are the two remaining food delivery veterans in the sector, having started our respective businesses at the turn of the century, albeit on two different continents, Groen said in a statement. Both of us have a firm belief that only businesses with high-quality and profitable growth will sustain in our sector.

(Updates with shareholder comments in the ninth paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
LG veered away from its usual products to introduce the Velvet smartphone. In many ways, the LG Velvet refreshes the company's approach towards the market. But despite having so many features and a new design to lure customers, LG Velvet runs a mid-range processor for the price of a flagship phone, which can be a deal-breaker for some customers. The South Korean company may now be looking to make amends. A new LG model has been spotted on the Geekbench and the Wireless Power Consortium websites, which is speculated to be a toned-down version of LG Velvet.

According to a Persian website called toranji, citing confirmation received from LG Iran, LG Velvet could have another model that will run Snapdragon 845 SoC. Since the Snapdragon 845 SoC does not support 5G networks, it will be a 4G model of LG Velvet. The smartphone has a model number LM-G910 while the existing Velvet smartphone bears the model number LM-G900. On Geekbench, the smartphone has got a score of 2090 in multi-core and 440 in single-core. It can be seen featuring 6GB of RAM and Android 10. The listing on the Wireless Power Consortium website has also revealed there will be 10W wireless charging available on the LG Velvet's new model.

LG Velvet 4G's remaining specifications are not known at this point, but they could be nearly identical to those of the 5G counterpart. Only the processor has been confirmed to be different from the one used on the existing LG Velvet. One of the listings of the LG Velvet 4G also shows it will be similar to the 5G model design-wise. There will be notched display on the upcoming smartphone, but the rear design is yet to be revealed.

The 4G model of LG Velvet is said to be launched in non-5G markets, such as Middle-east countries where the smartphone could debut first. LG Iran has not listed the smartphone yet while there is also no confirmation on whether the smartphone will reach other markets that do not have a commercial 5G infrastructure as of yet, such as India. It is also said to be 20 per cent cheaper than the LG Velvet 5G version. The LG Velvet costs about $735, which means the 4G version could be priced at $588.
Lisa Vanderpump has broken her silence about the firing by Bravo of four of her Vanderpump Rules stars over racism.

Meanwhile, new images of her restaurant PUMP in West Hollywood show it boarded up with 'Black Lives Matter' graffiti all over it.

The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star took to social media on Wednesday to share her note.

In her message, the 59-year-old restaurateur said that she was 'saddened by the lack of judgment' of Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni while urging her followers to do their part to spread 'kindness.'

Upset: Lisa Vanderpump has broken her silence about the firing by Bravo of four of her Vanderpump Rules stars

A balance statement: In her message, the 59-year-old restaurateur said that she was 'saddened by the lack of judgment' of Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni while urging her followers to do their part to spread 'kindness'

Flagship: Meanwhile, new images of her restaurant PUMP in West Hollywood show it boarded up with 'Black Lives Matter' graffiti all over it

The lengthy note had a light purple background.

'As weve seen such devastating sadness that has played out globally, we all have a part to play to create a kinder, more just society,' began the reality TV star and producer.

'My hope is for this generation to treat each other with respect and humanity, and realize that actions have; and should have, consequences.'

Lisa added that she had to wait to say anything.

'I love and adore our employees and I am deeply saddened by some of the lack of judgment that has been displayed,' stated the Pump restaurant owner.

'As many of you know, after watching me for 10 years, I have always been an equal rights activist and ally - my family, my businesses and I condemn all forms of cruelty, racism, homophobia, bigotry and unequal treatment.

'Weve never tolerated it in the workplace or our lives.'

They're out: Vanderpump Rules stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute have been fired by Bravo after their racially-charged prank that targeted co-star Faith Stowers

Vanerpump added, 'The world needs to move forward with a kinder generation. Everybody deserves to feel safe, heard and appreciated in their communities.'

On Tuesday it was announced that Schroeder, Doute, Boyens and Caprioni have been axed by Bravo after their past racist comments resurfaced.

Stassi, 31, and Kristen, 37, have starred on the reality show since its inception in 2013 while Max, 27, and Brett, 31, were newcomers on the most recent season eight.

Arguably one of the most popular stars of the series, which follows the staff at Lisa Vanderpump-owned SUR restaurant in West Hollywood, Stassi has come under fire for a disturbing racist stunt, along with racially-insensitive remarks she has shared online in recent years.

The outspoken blonde has since been dropped by her agent, publicist and several sponsors after her and pal Kristen's racially-driven stunt against black co-star Faith Stowers came to light.

A spokesperson for Bravo and Evolution Media confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that Stassi, Kristen, Max and Brett 'will not be returning to Vanderpump Rules'.

Stassi also made offensive comments on a previous podcast episode where she was heard speaking negatively about black people and claiming they ask for special treatment in Hollywood.

On Tuesday afternoon, Faith said she felt 'vindicated' after their firing, in a new interview with Page Six.

Apologetic: Newcomers Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni have also been dropped by Bravo. They apologized last week for past racist tweets on the Vanderpump Rules reunion

'I feel so vindicated studios and production are able to see blatant racism and make these positive changes and help move the race forward - help with the fight forward,' Faith told the outlet.

The 31-year-old star continued: 'I was in the middle of prayer and I felt a sense of - I know it sounds corny - I felt a sense of glory. I felt God's presence and I'm seeing now [that the news has been revealed] maybe that is what that was.'

Adding: 'He gave me a sign of optimism meant to be hopeful and showing that all of this was worth it.'

Most damning: Stassi called the cops on her black former costar Faith Stowers  whom she didn't like  in an effort to get her in trouble on a previous season of the show; Faith is seen in 2016 above

Faith said that she 'was ready to put myself in the line of fire because I don't know what will happen if I don't say anything, but I'm glad I did.'

'Now I'm seeing Bravo follow suit, releasing women that have given crazy ratings for them because they want to be on the right side of history and I'm seeing people are finally hearing us,' Faith said to Page Six.

She also said that she hopes networks and production companies are 'ready to hire casting directors and producers of color to make sure there changes are not just a one-time thing.'

Faith added: 'I hope they use this time that they have now to educate themselves to why this happened to them and try to use [their] voice later for real change.'

Season eight: Stassi during the season eight reunion episode Tuesday claimed that she was a 'nice girl' as the cast talked about the tradition of assigning menial chores to newcomers

The reality star also commended Lisa on Wednesday following release of her statement.

'I respect her for that. She did say that every action should have a consequence so that just lets me know that she agrees with the process that they chose ...believes I was done wrong,' Faith told TMZ.

Faith also told the outlet that Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent, 30, has reached out to her to offer support and they have rekindled their friendship that started on the show.

'She showed her true colors when she reached out to me when she didn't have to. She's still on the show, she's having a great life, she didn't have to reach out to me,' Faith said of Lala, who is engaged to Hollywood producer Randall Emmett, 49.

After losing several endorsement deals over the past week, Stassi has now been forced to part ways with both her agent and her publicist, Variety reported Monday.

Scandal: Stassi parted ways with both her agent and her publicist after previous racist remarks and behavior has resurfaced

A spokesperson for UTA, where Stassi was represented, has confirmed she is no longer a client of the agency.

Additionally, a representative of the PR firm Metro Public Relations told the publication: '[Stassi] became a client when her publicist joined our company in July 2018. We made the decision this weekend to part ways with Stassi.'

The moves come after Stassi apologized for past 'racially insensitive comments' and for a particularly demeaning stunt, in which she purposefully misled the police in an effort to get her black former costar Stowers  whom she didn't like  in trouble.

Stassi was vocal online recently about her support for the Black Lives Matter movement; however, the gestures seemed significantly different to her output from three years ago.

OGs: Stassi and Kristen have starred on Vanderpump Rules since its inception in 2013

Bravo stars: The duo are pictured with fellow original castmember Kate Maloney-Schwartz

She claimed that black people demanded special treatment in her March 2, 2017 podcast in which she talked about the lack of diversity of Academy Award candidates, referred to on social media as #OscarsSoWhite.

'Maybe you weren't nominated because you didn't do that great of a job in your movie,' said Stassi. 'Like it's not about race. It's literally like not about what you look like at all. It's like your acting ability, so like, what the actual f***?'

The New Orleans-born reality star said on the podcast (which she later deleted from her site, according to US) of black people: 'When they get upset, everybody has to go above and beyond to then make them happy.

'I'm like, really sick of everyone making everything about race - I'm kind of over it.'

Despite the take on race, Stassi had plenty more to say about the topic: 'Like, everyone giving their impassioned speeches about race and all of that stuff, I'm like, "Why is it always just about African Americans?''

Speaking out: Stassi said she's refocused her mentality amid the career crisis, which has seen her lose sponsors and admit to 'racially insensitive comments'

'Like why aren't the Asians like, "We're not represented? Why aren't ... Native Americans and Latinos not like, "We're not represented?" Why is it always just "that"?'

'And then when they get upset, everybody has to go above and beyond to then make them happy. And I hate saying the word 'them' because I'm not ... not everybody's the same.'

She said that black people were 'the ones that are out there b****ing about things.'

The star implied that Moonlight's victory over LaLa Land was racial 'politics' in play, noting that she 'didn't f--kin see' the movie, but that 'the reason why it won was because it was like, "The message."'

She added: 'It's groundbreaking because of 'the message'. Winning Best Picture to me isn't about the f***ing message - like it's not church.'

Stassi said that she was 'not allowed to say that' as her opinion was marginalized as 'a white, privileged, blonde 28-year old.'

'My privilege blinded me': Doute also shared an apology after she also tweeted the accusations with Schroeder

Incredibly sorry: Kristen posted this statement to her Instagram on Sunday

In a 2018 photo: Schroeder described her fashion ensemble as Nazi chic alongside Rachel O'Brien and Kristen Doute

Kristen followed up with a statement on her Instagram page on Sunday.

'I have been taking some time to really process what I've been seeing, feeling and learning. And I need to address something specifically that happened a few years ago with my former castmate, Faith Stowers,' she wrote.

'Although, my actions were not racially driven, I am now completely aware of how my privilege blinded me from the reality of law enforcement's treatment of the black community, and how dangerous my actions would have been to her.'

Kristen added, 'It never was my intention to add to the injustice and imbalance. I'm ashamed, embarrassed, and incredibly sorry. I will do better. I have to do better.'

Last week, Max and Brett apologized for writing racist posts on Twitter.

Racially insensitive: Max Boyens apologized for racially insensitive tweets on Tuesday's first episode of the Vanderpump Rules Reunion

Also apologized: Brett Caprioni during the reunion filmed remotely also apologized for past racist tweets

'I'm an adult now and I cringe even thinking that I said those things,' said Max, 27, who in 2012 used racial slurs and offensive language to describe Asian and African-American people.

The TomTom manager's mother was 'half-black,' and his grandfather was African-American, he said, adding, 'We live in a generation now, where saying some things, even if you are of that culture, is just frowned upon. I just want to say I'm just really sincerely sorry. There's no excuse.'

Brett, 31, called what he had written about black people in the past, 'stupid s***' and said it was written in jest, but insisted he wanted to 'move forward and be the best person I can be.'

'Not the beliefs they are holding now': Lisa Vanderpump, 59, who employed the men, defended her decision not to fire them while speaking from home during the reunion show

Vanderpump - who employed the men - then defended her decision not to fire them.

The British born TV star - who is a strong supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and has worked closely with the Trevor Project - told host Andy Cohen, 'I have never seen any inkling of anything that made me believe that's the beliefs they are holding now.

'And if I had, they wouldn't be working for me.' she insisted.

Vanderpump Rules has been criticized for its lack of diversity over the years.

Since premiering in 2013 the show has featured only two black cast members as recurring characters: Faith and Tina McDowelle, who appeared in seasons one and two.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The export of steel from Turkey to Uzbekistan decreased by 54.50 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $12.2 million, the Turkish Ministry of Trade told Trend on June 10.

"The export of steel from Turkey to Uzbekistan decreased by 66.86 percent in May 2020 compared to May 2019 and amounted to $1.9 million," the ministry said.

The export of steel from Turkey to the world markets decreased by 22.9 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of last year amounting to $4.8 billion.

The export of steel from Turkey amounted to 7.9 percent of the country's total export volume from January through May 2020.

Turkey exported steel worth $817.8 million to the world markets in May 2020, which is 39.7 percent less than in the same month of 2019.

The export of steel from Turkey in May 2020 amounted to 8.2 percent of the country's total export volume.

Over the past 12 months (from May 2019 through May 2020), Turkey exported steel worth $12.4 billion.

----

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Credit: Ndaaunhi - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

A new study by researchers at The University of Western Australia has found deep reefs in Western Australia can be used as a refuge by marine forests from the impacts of ocean warming.

The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that deep marine forests in Western Australia, formed from large algae, were less affected by an extreme marine heatwave that severely affected shallow ones.

Marine forests are essential marine ecosystems in temperate regions that provide food and refuge for numerous fish and invertebrates, and sustain important Australian fisheries, such as the Western Rock lobster.

In 2011, the coast of Western Australia experienced an extreme marine heatwave, which caused temperature anomalies of up to 5 degrees centigrade.

The consequences of these high temperatures were devastating for the marine environment, in particular coastal marine forests, where they significantly decreased in abundance.

The researchers, from UWA's School of Biological Sciences and UWA Oceans Institute, examined the deeper marine forests at depths of up to 40 meters in areas offshore from the Abrolhos Islands, Jurien Bay and Rottnest Island to assess if they had declined at the same rate as the shallow reefs.

They found the big changes observed in shallow sites were reduced or marginal in the deep areas at all three locations.

Lead researcher Ph.D. student Anita Giraldo Ospina, said identifying areas of refuge where organisms could survive periods of ocean warming, had become a research and conservation priority.

"We wanted to find out if deeper areas of the ocean offered some protection against ocean warming events for marine forests," Ms Ospina said.

"We found that after the 2011 marine heatwave in Western Australia, the abundance and type of species that characterized shallow reefs at depths of 15 meters changed a lot.

"Deeper reefs at around 40 meters, had very minimal change after the marine heatwave, indicating they were less affected by this extreme warming event

"This provides hope that deep reefs may be areas where organisms can survive the impacts of ocean warming and possibly help the recovery of impacted shallow reefs."

Explore further New study reveals hidden impact of marine heatwaves

More information: Ana Giraldo-Ospina et al. Depth moderates loss of marine foundation species after an extreme marine heatwave: could deep temperate reefs act as a refuge?, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2020). Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B Ana Giraldo-Ospina et al. Depth moderates loss of marine foundation species after an extreme marine heatwave: could deep temperate reefs act as a refuge?,(2020). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.0709
SAGINAW COUNTY, MI  A tornado has possibly touched down in rural Saginaw County.

According to Sheriff William L. Federspiel at 1:37 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10, there have been reports of a tornado touching down in the area of M-52 and Gary Road between St. Charles and Chesaning. Heavy winds have knocked down trees and power lines at various locations throughout Saginaw County, including in Saginaw Township and the Shields area, Federspiel said.

Power outages are also occurring in Saginaw and Bay counties, with a significantly large one from Saginaw Township to St. Louis. Projections are for it to be restored around 4 p.m.

Consumers Energy shows 1,446 customers are affected in Bay County. They are projected to have power restored by 5:15 p.m.

Federspiel said this has left several traffic lights not functioning. Motorists should treat these intersections as four-way stops.

Weve got no reports of injuries as of yet, Federspiel said. If you dont have to be out and about, stay put where youre at.

A tractor-trailer was also reported to have been on its side on US 127 near M-46. The Michigan Department of Transportation reports the freeway is closed there.

A tractor-trailer on its side in Saginaw County on June 10, 2020.

In Bay City, fallen trees are blocking Sheridan Street between 13th and 14th streets and Lincoln Street near Columbus Avenue. Trees are also reportedly down around Cass and Kosciuszko avenues. Half of Lafayette Avenue is blocked by a downed tree, presenting an obstacle to eastbound traffic near the A&W at 301 Lafayette Ave.

The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm watch in the Saginaw-Bay City area until 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Related:

70 mph+ gusts, a few tornadoes likely as severe risk upped to 4 on 5-step scale

Severe Thunderstorm Watch issued for 20 Michigan counties; Isolated 75 mph gusts possible

Severe weather outbreak, including possible tornado, shaping up for majority of Lower Michigan
President Trump and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, with their dreams of a militarized, anonymous secret police force, exhorted the mayors and governors of the United States to dominate protesters in the street. Meanwhile, Attorney General William P. Barr ordered heavily armed agents dressed in garb that owed more to computer-generated imagery than to reality to use violence against unarmed Americans exercising their First Amendment rights in the purest sense. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) took up the challenge with her vision of a Black Lives Matter Plaza and returned fire with those beautiful, golden letters emblazoned upon 16th Street NW, on the veritable doorstep of the White House, where they will howl their rage back at Mr. Trump for as long as he occupies that space. Looks like she won the Battle of Domination, hands down.
Sweden on Wednesday dropped its investigation into the unsolved murder of former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was shot dead 34 years ago in downtown Stockholm.

The cases chief prosecutor, Krister Petersson, said the case was being closed because the main suspect, Stig Engstrom, had died in 2000.

Palme was gunned down on Feb. 28, 1986, after he and his wife Lisbet Palme left a movie theater in the Swedish capital.

Petersson said Engstrom, also known as the Skandiamannen for working in the nearby Skandia insurance company, had a strong dislike of Palme and his policies. He was one of the first at the murder scene and was briefly considered a possible suspect.

Since he has died, I cannot indict him, Petersson told a news conference.

Several other witnesses gave descriptions of the fleeing killer that matched Engstrom while others said he wasnt even at the scene. Engstrom himself claimed to have been present from the beginning, spoke to Lisbet Palme and police, and attempted to resuscitate the victim.

Soon after the murder, Engstrom appeared in Swedish media and developed an increasingly detailed story of his involvement in the events and criticized the police. He claimed those witnesses who had described the killer had in fact been describing him, running to catch up with police officers in pursuit of the assassin.

The police then labelled Engstrom as a unreliable and inconsistent witness and classified him as a person of no interest.

Palme sought to live as ordinary a life as possible and would often go out without any bodyguards. The night of the murder, he had no protection.

Lisbet Palme was injured in the attack and later identified the shooter as Christer Pettersson, an alcoholic and drug addict, who was convicted of Palmes murder. The sentence was later overturned after police failed to produce any technical evidence against him, leaving the murder an unsolved mystery. Pettersson died in 2004.

Palme, who cut a flamboyant, even boyish figure, had an aristocratic background but was known for his left-leaning views. He was eyed with suspicion in conservative circles and by the United States. Among Swedes and in the Nordic region, he was much loved, but also hated.

More than 100 people have been suspected of the crime and the unsolved case has been surrounded by conspiracy theories, ranging from foreign involvement, people with right-wing sympathies within Swedens police, to an act by a lone shooter.

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In the last few days, there have been a number of articles written by far-right extremists claiming victory over the Conservative Solutions Caucus in the 2020 Republican primary elections. In reality, the Solutions Caucus performed well in the 2020 primary election and still is a power player in the Montana Legislature.

For several sessions, there has been an ideological battle in the Republican Party. On one side are a group of far-right extremists who believe legislators should follow the orders of party bosses even if those orders are contrary to the best interests of the people of Montana. On the other side is the Conservative Solutions Caucus. The Conservative Solutions Caucus is a group of Republican legislators who believe legislators should represent the people, not the party bosses or the special interests.

In the last five sessions, our group has worked to find real solutions to the problems Montana faces. We have worked to restore fiscal responsibility to the state budget. Under our leadership, we helped pass one of the most conservative budgets in state history. Members of our group have led the effort to increase personal responsibility in our Medicaid program, lower the cost of prescription drugs and health insurance, improve education, reduce taxes, eliminate voter fraud, rebuild failing infrastructure and improve Montanas business climate.

Although a few Conservative Solutions Caucus members lost their primary challenges, a substantial majority of the Conservative Solutions Caucus won their races and won big. The Conservative Solutions Caucus won two key Senate races and 10 key House races. Many of our candidates won by massive margins. For example, Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick won over 80% of the vote, Reps. Ed Buttrey, David Bedey, Julie Dooling and Denley Loge earned over 70% of the vote, and Reps. Geraldine Custer and Frank Garner both received percentages in the high 60s. And we had several new seat pickups.

Despite the efforts of many far-right extremists to intimidate and threaten our members and supporters, there will be more than enough Conservative Solutions Caucus members to ensure problem solving legislators will have a powerful voice in the Montana Legislature. We will not be intimidated and we will not allow an extreme minority in the Republican Party to put their desires ahead of the needs of the people of Montana.

Montana is a special place because Montanans work together to solve problems. We cannot let our Legislature become a highly polarized, ineffective institution like the U.S. Congress. As members of the Conservative Solutions Caucus, we will continue to do what is best for the people of Montana.

This opinion is signed by Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad; Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls; Rep. Frank Garner, R-Kalispell; Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip; Rep. Geraldine Custer, R-Forsyth; Sen. Terry Gauthier, R-Helena; Rep. Ed Buttrey, R-Great Falls; and Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton.

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Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 13:48 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd93f8b 1 Politics Gerindra-Party,Prabowo-Subianto,puan-maharani,PDI-P,2024-presidential-election Free

Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto will soon decide on the candidate for the party to endorse in the 2024 presidential election, a party top official has said, adding that Probowo himself is ready to run again.

A decision on the nomination would be made soon after the partys national leadership meeting on June 4, which was attended by party executives from across the country.

"Regarding the presidential candidate nomination, Prabowo will immediately decide, Gerindra Party secretary-general Ahmad Muzani said in a written statement on Tuesday, without further elaboration.

He said that Prabowo, who currently serves as defense minister, was considering running again in the 2024 presidential election if he garnered support from the partys cadres and members of the public.

"If he is healthy and if the party and people ask him to run, of course, he will consider it and make the right decision later," Muzani said.

Read also: Prabowo keeps a low profile, Gerindra simmers in uneasy alliance with Jokowi

Prabowo, Muzani said, had asked all party cadres to be patient.

A survey commissioned by pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia revealed that Prabowo's electability dropped dramatically amid the pandemic from February to May.

According to the February survey, Prabowo, the rival of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in the presidential races of both 2014 and 2019, was a strong lead among the top potential candidates with an approval rating of 22.2 percent. However, the defense minister only garnered the backing of 14.1 percent in the May survey.

At the same time, Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo and West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil are trending upward as potential candidates for the 2024 presidential race.

The pollster's executive director, Burhanuddin Muhtadi, said regional leaders had more electoral incentives amid the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two months, as they had the platform to show off their policies on managing the health crisis, which subsequently affected politics at a national scale.

Prabowos position as defense minister doesnt give him direct control over COVID-19 handling, he said.

Read also: Prabowo could still become president: Gerindra

Experts have stated there was a possibility of Prabowo and House Speaker Puan Maharani, the daughter of PDI-P patron Megawati Soekarnoputri, running together for the 2024 election. This would be in line with Megawati's political pledge in 2009, also known as the Batu Tulis pact, in which Megawati reportedly promised to support Prabowo as a presidential candidate in the 2014 election.

The pledge, however, was broken when the PDI-P eventually nominated the Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla pair for the 2014 presidential race, while Prabowo paired with former National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman Hatta Rajasa.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday thanked everyone for their good wishes and blessings after his Covid-19 test result turned out negative. The chief ministers remark came after his office on Tuesday announced his test result, stating he doesnt have Covid-19.

The fever has subsided and he is now feeling well. The Covid-19 test was administered this morning, the CMs office said after Kejriwal test results came in the evening yesterday.

Also read: Delhi L-G Baijals orders to be implemented: CM Kejriwal on hospitals row

Kejriwal felt unwell on Sunday after which he decided to consult a doctor and get tested for Covid-19. On Sunday, he also had cold and cough, and mild pain in his throat, an official in the CM office said. The chief minister went for a Covid-19 on Tuesday morning. The CM went into self-isolation and was not meeting anyone since Sunday.

Asked whether he would undergo a test again after some days, the official said, There is no need for it.

In Kejriwals absence, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia held a meeting over the prevailing coronavirus situation in the national capital on Tuesday and said that there is no community spread of coronavirus in Delhi.

Officials from Centre say no community transmission of Covid-19 virus in Delhi, said Sisodia. The minister also said that Delhi is likely to see 5.5 lakh Covid-19 cases by July-end, adding that the government will need 80,000 bed by that time to cater to the patients.

The national capitals Covid-19 tally rose to 31,309 on Wednesday which includes 11,861 patients who have recovered and 905 Covid-19 fatalities.
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As he deals with numerous complaints of excessive force during the George Floyd protests, LAPD Chief Michel Moore now faces another challenge: how much discipline to impose on an officer who was found Wednesday to have violated policy when he fatally shot an unarmed and intellectually disabled man in a Corona Costco last year.

The L.A. Police Commission agreed with Moore's determination that Officer Salvador Sanchez had no justification for shooting 32-year-old Kenneth French and wounding both of his parents on June 14. Sanchez opened fire after French hit him in the back of the head while the officer was standing in a food-tasting line holding his 18-month-old son.

It's now up to Moore to decide on what level of discipline to impose on Sanchez.

The chief's report to the commission noted that Sanchez had claimed to the department's Use of Force Review Board that he believed he had been shot and that French had a black handgun in his right hand. The Review Board said it couldn't find any information that would support Sanchez' contention: no other witnesses saw a handgun, and no objects were recovered from the scene that resembled a firearm.

In addition, the Review Board was presented evidence that French was moving away from Sanchez at about the time the officer opened fire.

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin had referred the case to a grand jury, which last September declined to indict Sanchez.

In December, French's parents, Paola and Russell, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Sanchez and the LAPD. The case is pending.

Sanchez attorney Ira Salzman called the incident "a terrible tragedy," saying his client "acted because he believed his son, a toddler in his arms -- that his life was in danger."

This is a Facebook post from Kenneth French's cousin Rick Shureih shortly after the incident.

LESS THAN FOUR SECONDS LATER, TEN SHOTS ARE FIRED

Here's what happened after French struck Sanchez in the back of the head, according to information provided by Hestrin.

Sanchez opened fire almost immediately -- less than 3.8 seconds after being struck by French, according to investigators. It remains unclear whether French intentionally or accidentally hit Sanchez. His intellectual disability left him unable to communicate verbally and made him awkward sometimes in public, according to his parents.

Sanchez fired 10 shots. Four hit French, three of them in his back, according to the DA. One hit his father in the back. Another struck his mother, leaving her in a coma for more than a week.

Security video previously kept secret by a judge's order appears to show French's father pushing his son away from Sanchez as the officer opened fire.

Hestrin revealed that Sanchez told witnesses he thought he'd been shot -- even though the only gunfire was his own.

Hestrin also revealed there was no evidence Sanchez lost consciousness after he was struck, as his attorney had claimed. Sanchez attorney Ira Salzman said his client did suffer a concussion and that he gave the DA medical records substantiating that claim for presentation to the grand jury.

'IT WOULD BE DISINGENUOUS OF ME'

French family attorney Dale Galipo denounced Hestrin's use of the grand jury, accusing him of avoiding the politically sensitive decision of whether to file criminal charges against a cop.

"This highlights the unequal treatment of police officers compared to other citizens when they shoot people," Galipo said in a statement. He argued that Hestrin would have filed charges if Sanchez had been a civilian.

Galipo called for the public release of the grand jury transcripts, but Hestrin has not released them.

Hestrin defended his decision to give the case to a grand jury, and his decision not to pursue the case further.

"It would be disingenuous of me to take a case to the grand jury, present it, and then say, 'Well, thank you very much, I am not going to abide by what your decision is,'" he said.

Hestrin said he presented the case to the grand jury because it had the ability to subpoena reluctant witnesses. He also said he wanted the input of citizens on whether to prosecute.

The shooting may have been a bad one, but it wasn't criminal, Hestrin said.

He maintained Sanchez reasonably believed his life was in danger -- even if it wasn't. That was the longstanding legal standard at the time for determining whether a police shooting is justified. (Last summer the state legislature passed a law changing the standard -- now an officer may use deadly force only when "necessary.")

"I am not condoning this shooting," he told a September news conference. "I'm not up here saying it was fine."

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VIENNA - An award-winning journalist who has aggressively covered Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes administration is bracing for a verdict in a libel case and says she sees the upcoming decision as an existential moment for democracy in the Philippines.

Maria Ressa, the head of the Rappler online news site, was arrested twice in as many months last year, once for allegedly violating a ban on foreign ownership of news media and once for alleged cyber libel. The latter was based on a complaint filed by a businessman who accused Rappler of linking him in a 2012 news report to illegal drugs, human trafficking and murder without getting his side or citing evidence.

A Manila court is expected to rule in the case Monday.

This is an existential moment for us, for our democracy, Ressa said Wednesday during an online conference call organized by the Vienna-based International Press Institute.

As the verdict nears, journalists worldwide have been rallying behind Ressa, who was named one of Time magazines Persons of the Year in 2018 for her work combating fake news..

The International Press Institute said in a statement that the multiple charges brought against Ressa are a transparent attempt to silence her and shut down Rappler in retaliation for its critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration.

During the online call, Ressa said she was putting her hope in the judge resisting political pressure, noting that a judge dismissed one libel case against her last year.

Its been four years that weve been under attack for doing our jobs, she said. I think that this is not an easy time for being a journalist, but I think that the mission of journalism has become more important today than ever.

When asked if she was afraid of going to prison, Ressa said she experiences fear as she faces the great power of the state, but also anger that I have done nothing wrong but do my job.

She said she was embracing her fear so I can take the sting out.

Ressa, who is CEO and executive editor of Rappler Inc., also pleaded not guilty to charges of breaching the ban on foreign ownership and control of media outlets in the Philippines. She and some media watchdogs described the charges as an attempt to muzzle independent media that are critical of the president, particularly over his deadly crackdown against illegal drugs.

The Duterte administration denied Ressas legal problems were a press freedom issue, saying she and Rappler should answer before the judicial system like other violators of the law.
The government on June 1 decided to divide areas under red, yellow, and green zones and put them under lockdown in order to prevent the virus spread. Around 72,000 people are affected by the pandemic as the death toll has risen to more than 975.

All gatherings and open political activities across the country have come to a halt for the last over two months beginning March 26, due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Chairperson of opposition in Parliament Golam Muhammad Quader of Jatiya Party recently wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting that if the government invited them, the parties are "prepared to work for the sake of humanity to fight Covid-19."

"The entire world is fighting the pandemic; politics is not in function the way it used to. Almost all regular activities are postponed in view of the lockdown. Our party's organizational works are hampered. We are trying to adopt a new system to scale up our organizational work," Quader told IANS.

On April 30 last year after months of bitter political fight, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) joined the 11th Parliament. It saw the return of Khaleda Zia's party to parliament after five years. The party had no representation in the 10th parliament after its boycott in the 2014 general election over its demand for a non-partisan, stop-gap government.

The BNP is now no more in a position to represent the opposition as it has only 5 members in Parliament. So, Jatiya Party's G.M. Quader is the leader of the Opposition.

There was a lot of speculation over BNP's Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir's meeting with the party chairperson Khaleda Zia last month, one-and-a-half months after her release from prison.

Alamgir has alleged that BNP leaders and workers are being randomly arrested over fabricated cases across the country.

Ruling Awami League's General Secretary Obaidul Quader on Tuesday dismissed BNP's allegations, urging its leaders not to harm the country's interests. He said despite some limitations, the Sheikh Hasina government is working relentlessly to overcome the present challenges.

To the charge that BNP activists were being harassed, the AL leader said: "Give us an accurate list of arrests and cases," charging Alamgir with being power-hungry.

"Now is not the time for political activities. It is time to make people aware and support them for the sake of humanity," said Tofayel Ahmed, former Minister of Commerce and one of the senior leaders of the ruling Awami League.

As the national Budget will be placed in parliament amid coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, the BNP has urged the government to focus on protecting people's lives and livelihoods rather than on economic growth.

Many senior politicians of Bangladesh are trying to adjust with the evolving situation. They say they are connected with the people. There are others who are writing books and columns on corona crisis and other issues.

--IANS

sumi/prs
In India, domestic airlines have not secured any relief from the government and are reporting 50-55 per cent loads as domestic air travel resumed on May 25 after two-month suspension.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has projected $84.3-billion loss for global airlines in 2020 as travel bans and visa restrictions are set to halve international passenger traffic.

Financially, 2020 will go down as the worst year in the history of aviation, IATAs director general Alexandre de Juniac said as he released the financial outlook for the air transport sector on Tuesday.

Based on passenger estimates, airlines will lose $37.54 per passenger, it said.

A sharp fall in demand and revenue has forced airlines to slash costs, and governments are stepping in to infuse funds and keep airlines afloat.

On Tuesday, Cathay Pacific said the Hong Kong government will take 6 per cent stake in the airline as a part of a $5-billion bailout plan.

On the other hand, news reports on Tuesday said Emirates is laying off hundreds of pilots and cabin crew to curb expenses.

In India, domestic airlines have not secured any relief from the government and are reporting 50-55 per cent loads as domestic air travel resumed on May 25 after two-month suspension.

Near-term travel outlook remains uncertain, but 48 per cent year-on-year fall in fuel price offers a silver lining.

IATA said passenger demand has evaporated as international borders closed and countries locked down to prevent the spread of the virus.

This is the biggest driver of industry losses, it said.

At the low point in April, global air travel was roughly 95 per cent below 2019 levels.

The global airline body said passenger numbers will roughly halve to 2.25 billion, approximately equal to 2006 levels.

Capacity, however, cannot be adjusted quickly enough with a 40.4 per cent decline expected for the year.

India is yet to take a decision on opening up international traffic.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said the decision to resume regular international operations will be taken as soon as countries ease restrictions on entry of foreign nationals.

Destination countries have to be ready to allow incoming flights.

IATA said passenger revenues are expected to fall to $241 billion (down from $612 billion in 2019).

This is greater than the fall in demand, reflecting an expected 18 per cent fall in passenger yields as airlines try to encourage people to fly again through price stimulation, it said.

With open borders and rising demand in 2021, the industry is expected to cut its losses to $15.8 billion.

Airlines will still be financially fragile in 2021.

"Passenger revenues will be more than one-third smaller than in 2019.

"And airlines are expected to lose about $5 for every passenger carried.

"The cut in losses will come from reopened borders leading to increased volumes of travellers.

"Strong cargo operations and comparatively low fuel prices will also give the industry a boost.

"Competition among airlines will no doubt be even more intense.

"That will translate into strong incentives for travellers to take to the skies again, said de Juniac.
The Spanish government has made changes to its guidelines for a safe return to school in September, when the country will be under the new normality following a prolonged coronavirus lockdown and deescalation process.

After months of remote learning due to nationwide school closures, students will go back to classrooms adapted to the new situation, which means smaller class sizes, more hygiene measures, and face masks when safety distances cannot be observed.

But the decree regulating the new normality and published on Wednesday in the Official State Gazette has reduced the safety distance between students from two meters to 1.5 meters.

A student preparing for exams at home during the coronavirus pandemic. Marta Monzon (EFE)

The Education Ministry also said that in early education  for children ages three through five  and for students in the first four years of primary school, classrooms may hold groups of up to 20 children, instead of the 15 originally recommended. The ministry adds that 15 is still the ideal number.

Students in these lower grades will make up self-contained groups that will not have to observe the physical distancing rules that apply to older students.

Education centers will have to use all available space, including the library if necessary, in order to ensure distances are respected. And if this is not enough, they may request additional support from local authorities, said Education Minister Isabel Celaa in an interview on the radio station SER Catalunya.

The document setting out these and other guidelines was drafted by the health and education ministers, and will be presented on Thursday at a meeting of central and regional education chiefs. The goal, said the government, is to establish a strategy with widespread consensus.

Fresh air

The protocol establishes that children up to 10 years of age may socialize without maintaining a strict personal distance because it is believed that this would be very difficult for them to achieve. Instead, these classes will mix as little as possible with other students in the school, in order to make it easier to trace any potential cases of Covid-19. The use of face masks will not be compulsory for these grades.

Fifth and sixth graders will be asked to wear face masks when it is not possible to keep a distance of 1.5 meters, but not when they are sitting at their desks. The document also recommends using open-air spaces as much as possible for educational activities.

Classroom windows must remain open as long as possible throughout the day, and classrooms must be ventilated before and after classes. Centers must be cleaned and disinfected at least once a day, while bathrooms must undergo similar cleaning three times a day.

Class size

The maximum number of students to a classroom in the last two years of primary school, as well as in secondary and in post-secondary education, will depend on their size. Back when the government was talking about a two-meter distance, some centers had determined that they could accommodate no more than 12 students per classroom. Now that figure could go up to 15, and even higher if gyms and cafeterias are converted into classrooms.

At least seven regional governments have been working to ensure that all their younger students can go back to school in the fall, as they believe that remote learning is not working out well for them. This opinion is shared by teachers unions, as well as numerous school principals and education experts. The latter have warned that remotely learning is particularly harmful on children from low-income families.

Every school will have to draft a plan for the start of the new academic year, and protocols to deal with potential new outbreaks. Centers will designate a person of reference for all aspects relating to Covid-19. The government guidelines also recommend the creation of a team comprising various representatives of the education community, to guarantee that everyone stays informed and that principles are being observed.

English version by Susana Urra.
The continued spread of COVID-19 has challenged businesses and individuals everywhere by radically reshaping our economy overnight. Amidst all of this sudden change and unexpected chaos, many companies are finding it effectively impossible to keep the lights on and are searching for new, innovative ways to cut down on the costs of doing business. Increasingly, saving money on business insurance is being viewed as the cost-cutting method to rely upon during a crisis. By carefully shopping around, investing in package policies and investing ahead of time, you can save on business insurance during times of crisis.

The most important thing that any business owner should understand when it comes to saving on business insurance during a crisis is that the purchasing decision cant be rushed. By doing your homework and carefully shopping around before you ultimately invest in business insurance, youll be eliminating those negative plans that will cost you an arm and a leg in the future while securing cost-effective coverage for your budding enterprise. Many entrepreneurs are so preoccupied with the daily running of their businesses that they have little to no time to devote to studying business insurance, however.

In that case, it can be worthwhile to invest in some outside expertise, which will cost you money initially but may end up saving you a huge sum of cash in the long-term by steering you away from disastrous coverage options. If investing in an insurance expert to help your decision-making isnt in the books, there are also a number of free and digitally accessible resources that you can rely upon instead. Head over to the Small Business Administrations formal webpage on business insurance, for instance, and you can discover a number of helpful tips you may presently be bereft of.

Some businesses may only need to invest in general liability insurance, for example, whereas others in certain industries will find it essential to have product liability insurance if they sell potentially defective products to customers who may want to sue. The biggest problem with waiting until a time of crisis to invest in insurance is that insurers themselves are going to hit you with steeper than usual rates, since they cant sustain themselves by offering normal insurance packages in abnormal times.

Nevertheless, some neat tricks can help you recover money that you would otherwise lose on your insurance program.

Related: Are Your COVID-19 Business Losses Covered by Insurance?

Have you been overpaying?

If you already have business insurance, youve almost certainly been paying an insurance premium thus far. The insurance premium youve been paying is the money you owe to your insurance provider in exchange for the insurance coverage they offer you in times of emergency; the exact amount of money paid in an insurance premium will differ on a case-by-case basis and depend upon what coverage plan you selected. If youve paid your entire premium and are now near the end of your insurance coverage period, you could potentially be owed some money by your insurance provider.

Besides overpaying and then seeking redress from your provider, there are other ways to mitigate your insurance costs in a time of crisis. If your insurance costs are determined in part by the overall amount of square footage your business operates upon, and this crisis has led you to shut down or reduce your physical operating space, you can potentially reduce the square footage you have insured, thereby lowering your rates. Knowing how to reduce commercial occupancy costs is particularly important for companies that have been beset by COVID-19 and forced to shutter their operations entirely.

Certain types of insurance plans are far more desirable for business owners than others. Business Owner Policies, or BOPs, will usually be the best choice for entrepreneurs who are worried about preparing themselves for future financial calamities.

Related: Taking Coronavirus Uncertainty Head-On: A Small-Business Owner's Guide

Why a BOP is worth it

For entrepreneurs, a business owner policy is effectively an insurance package that provides you with greater-than-usual coverage to ensure that your commercial operation can survive a tough economic crisis. These plans effectively combine your business property insurance with your business liability insurance, and in doing so offer you a greater amount of financial protection in the event you find yourself embroiled by a future lawsuit. Shop around extensively before investing in any given BOP because, as with all insurance plans, they differ on the basis of whos providing them. Nevertheless, understand that most entrepreneurs find a BOP to be worth it when it comes to preparing for future crises.

As costly as it can be, some businesses should also consider ponying up the payments for their insurance plans as quickly as possible. Paying up front for your insurance isnt always desirable because it may cost your business money you cant afford to part ways with right now, but in doing so youll almost certainly be achieving a long-term discount. Virtually all insurance providers offer discounted rates or some form of discount to those insurance customers who pay up front, so rely on this long-term saving method if you can afford a short-term spending spree. Given that insurance is inherently a long-term investment for most, this is what savvy entrepreneurs who want to save the most money should focus on.

Finally, its worth reviewing what not to do in a time of crisis, as certain money-saving measures can come back to haunt your business and doom you financially.

Related: How the Coronavirus Has Changed the Future of Work

This isnt the time to cut benefits

For many companies beset by COVID-19, this may seem like an appealing time to cut benefits. What these entrepreneurs fail to realize is that cutting benefits in the midst of a public health crisis is terrible for your business, particularly as social media campaigns are actively targeting those companies that dont provide for the workers, customers and communities they often exist to serve. Some business owners may think cutting employee plans is a smart money-saving measure, but the blowback could come back to tarnish your reputation beyond repair. During a crisis, thats not something you can afford.

Remember that all crises end, by definition, but that the sterling reputation of your company can be wasted in a heartbeat if you make a callous and short-sighted decision. Some businesses are certainly going to have to make costly cuts or else risk closing down entirely, but short-term emergencies arent the time to do away with your long-term plans and potential. Take some time to review some COVID-specific insurance information if this ongoing crisis is particularly damaging to you, and youll be better informed for the future.

Focus on bundling your insurance coverage, finding the right provider for the job and making payments as quickly as possible if youre seriously interested in cutting costs during this crisis.

Related:

A Note To Business Leaders: Don't Hit That Stop Button, No Matter How Tempting

How to Save on Your Business Insurance During a Crisis

How to Protect Your Small Business From Cyber Attacks Right Now



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Failte Ireland has published sector-specific operational guidelines for the tourism industry to ensure the safe re-opening of tourism businesses on June 29th.

The National Tourism Development Authority developed the guidelines in collaboration with industry groups and they are in line with the Governments Roadmap for Reopening Society and Business and the Return to Work Safely Protocol.

The guidelines provide detailed advice on the necessary systems to be implemented in order to instil public confidence and reboot business while adhering to public health advice and Government protocols. They are the first in a suite of new supports being rolled out by Failte Ireland to help tourism businesses to recover and re-open safely.

The guidelines have been issued for Hotels & Guesthouses; Self-Catering businesses; Caravan & Camping businesses; Visitor Attractions; Activity Providers; B&Bs & Historic Houses; Restaurants & Cafes.

Failte Irelands sector-specific operational guidelines will be regularly updated in line with Government public health advice as and when this advice evolves. This includes any further guidance that is given following work by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre and National Public Health Emergency Team on the application of the existing social distancing requirements in specific, defined and controlled environments in the hospitality industry during periods of low incidence of the disease.

Paul Kelly, CEO of Failte Ireland, said the new guidelines are a critical part in helping tourism businesses reopen safely: Throughout this crisis we have been working with tourism and hospitality businesses to give them the guidance and supports they urgently need. The next phase of our response is recovery, re-opening and rebuilding the tourism industry and renewing its vital contribution to job creation and regional development.

"This is the greatest crisis our industry has ever faced and the reality is that many tourism businesses will not be in a position to re-open. The purpose of the operational guidelines we have developed in collaboration with industry groups is to try to help those businesses that can re-open their doors to do so safely. I would like to thank the industry groups, individual businesses, worker representation groups, relevant State agencies, Government departments and all those involved in the development of these guidelines. We will continue to focus all of our resources on providing critical operational and business supports to ensure the re-opening of as many tourism businesses as possible and to safeguard the viability of our tourism industry.

Jenny De Saulles, Director of Sector Development at Failte Ireland, added: We have worked closely with a number of industry groups and an infection control expert to develop these operational guidelines that will equip tourism and hospitality businesses with the necessary information and advice to enable them to re-open safely while also helping to instil public confidence. Our consumer tracker research is finding that health and safety protocols in premises and safe breaks are emerging as strong themes as people plan their domestic holiday.

Speaking about the guidelines for re-opening, Tim Fenn, Chief Executive of the Irish Hotels Federation, said: The health and safety of employees and guests will always be our main priority. Hotels have already begun to adapt their services and facilities in anticipation of reopening under COVID-19 guidelines and the publication of these standards gives them further clarity on what they must do, while providing important reassurance for guests that they can book and look forward to an enjoyable and safe staycation in an Irish hotel this year. Irelands hotels have a well-earned reputation globally for their high service standards and we will be applying that same commitment to the implementation of these new standards.

Following the development of the new guidelines for safe re-opening, Failte Ireland is working with tourism businesses to support them to determine the capacity of their business and the financial implications of this new operating model. A new suite of financial recovery supports, a Calculating Capacity tool and supports around HR for re-opening are now available on the COVID-19 Business Support Hub.

You can see the full guideline for each sector HERE.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 04:15:17|Editor: huaxia

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Students play traditional Chinese music during a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration held at a high school in Houston, the United States, Jan. 27, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Liwei)

"For adults and young adults, while learning Chinese, they are also indirectly learning the Chinese culture," Christina Hayes, a Chinese language teacher in the Washington, D.C. area said.

by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Lucy Zhang noticed several years ago that Chinese students in U.S. colleges tended to interact mostly within their own groups, so she set out to change that dynamic.

She co-founded SetSail, an online company that not only teaches English, but also instructs students on how to navigate the tricky labyrinth of American university culture. In so doing, she is preparing around 150 students, whose average age is 12 to 13, in China to better integrate into U.S. college life.

"As a Chinese American, a lot of times when I was in college, I felt there were Chinese international students who tended to mostly interact with each other, have other Chinese friends. So it didn't feel like there was that much cross-cultural exchange," Zhang, the company's CEO, told Xinhua.

While there are many online companies that help Chinese kids get into university, many do not focus as much on getting Chinese students to engage -- both in and out of the classroom, Zhang said.

"We focus our classes more on critical thinking, speaking up in class and debating," she said, adding that her company emphasizes student-teacher interaction, rather than just passive listening in the classroom.

Students write Chinese calligraphy during a New Year gala for Chinese and international youth in New York, the United States, Jan. 19, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

That principle also rings true with Americans studying Chinese.

"For adults and young adults, while learning Chinese, they are also indirectly learning the Chinese culture," Christina Hayes, a Chinese language teacher in the Washington, D.C. area who came to the United States from China, her native country, over a decade ago, told Xinhua.

"I definitely think learning the language is the first step to get to know the culture better. When we understand each other's cultures better, I feel like people will be more open-minded, instead of being very judgmental," Hayes said, adding that grammar rules and linguistic patterns can often influence how people in a culture think and act.

For people who study and teach foreign languages, there is something particularly meaningful in connecting with someone from a different culture.

"I love learning about my students' day-to-day life, how their school works, and what life outside school looks like," Sarah Gourevitch, a teacher at SetSail, told Xinhua.

Exchanging ideas about books, current events and daily life "has expanded my world outlook," Gourevitch said.

She has also gained a new understanding about how various countries are dealing with the pandemic that has, in many ways, lumped the entire globe into one boat -- amid lockdowns, daily mask wearing and more hand washing.

"It's also been such a unique time to be having this exchange -- my students and I have been comparing notes on how our lives have been changed by COVID-19 in our respective locations," Gourevitch said.

Students make dumplings during a New Year gala for Chinese and international youth in New York, the United States, Jan. 19, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

An estimated tens of thousands of Americans are now teaching English online to students in China, reported USA Today. The trend has been made possible by technology advances that allow anyone with a laptop and an internet connection to connect with millions of others across the ocean.

It also creates opportunities for students, whose foreign language and cultural skills could command a higher salary once they enter the workforce.

Hayes' husband, Brian Hayes, an American, told Xinhua one thing that has always motivated him to study Chinese has been gaining insights into the Chinese culture.

"I'm learning the language but I'm learning the culture at the same time," he said.

Hayes said studying the Chinese culture and language, at least in the beginning of their marriage many years ago, helped him and his wife get along well as a married couple.

"Especially in the beginning, it was having another common thing to talk about, I think that helped us a lot at the beginning," Hayes said. 
An ex-police officer has lifted the lid on the 'systemic racism' he says Aboriginal Australians have suffered at the hands of his colleagues.

The former officer, who worked in Western Australia for eight years, said he could not ignore what he experienced in the police force any longer.

He referred to a 'vicious cycle' of racist comments and hatred towards Aboriginal people.

'The general sentiment in WAPOL is so desensitized towards Aboriginals that they are not even seen as humans anymore,' the ex-cop wrote on Facebook.

An ex-police officer has lifted the lid on the 'systemic racism' at the hands of his Western Australian colleagues against Aboriginal Australians. Pictured: Western Australian policemen in January 2020

'The exact same situation with a white person can end up as ''have a nice day'' or a warning... whilst [for Aboriginal Australians] it ends up violent arrest and abuse of power.'

The post, which was shared on June 4, comes amid heightened discussion about racial inequalities in Australia following Black Lives Matter protests across the globe.

Thousands of Australians took to the streets of major cities on Saturday in solidarity with the movement and to call for an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody.

The man said he witnessed senior officers 'manipulate' junior officers by making racist comments about Aboriginals.

'The things they used to say about Aboriginals were more of a brainwashing of young constables and it was full of hatred,' he said.

'The constant bad mouthing about Aboriginals is so rife that it was acceptable to say anything about them.'

The former cop claimed officers described Aboriginal people as 'animals', 'rats' and 'cockroaches', and 'the lowest race on earth'.

He went on to list a series of examples of racism within the department.

The post, which was shared on June 4, comes amid heightened discussion about racial inequalities in Australia following Black Lives Matter protests across the globe. Pictured: Protesters participate in a Black Lives Matter rally in Brisbane on Saturday

'The general sentiment in WAPOL is so desensitized towards Aboriginals that they are not even seen as humans anymore,' he wrote

One of the most horrific allegations was a police officer who made their computer wallpaper a photo of a dead Aboriginal person.

During a training session, the man said a detective told the class 'we should have killed all the Aboriginals here in WA like in Tasmania'.

He said there is no seatbelt in the back of the police wagon so some officer would 'purposely brake or drive erratically' and the handcuffed person would be 'thrown from one end to another'.

In his lengthy post, the former cop also alleged police officers approached Aboriginal people and said 'provocative things' before arrests.

'And as soon as they raise their voice, they find themselves in the back of the van,' he said.

'Some Aboriginals usually were saying things as this is my land, ''you can't do this to me etc.'' and the response was ''no it is not your land, it is ours now, we conquered it'' or ''it is too late we own it now''.'

Pictured: A traditional Indigenous welcoming ceremony takes place during the Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney on Saturday

The man said there was a requirement for a minimum number of arrests as part of a performance indicator, which led to police officers competing with one another.

'The easier way to increase the arrest numbers were to go and pick on Aboriginals, as they were easy target,' he said.

He said the culture in WA is based on making as many arrests as possible and looking good in the eyes of the bosses.

'This leads to arresting Aboriginals,' he said.

Pictured: A police officer keeps watch on crowd numbers at Cottesloe Beach during the coronavirus pandemic on April 10, 2020, in Perth

'This should end. Many things have to change. Otherwise, business as usual, things will only get worse and this is bad for all of us.

'We do not have to like each other but we have to respect each other.'

A WA Police spokesperson said they have taken steps to improve the relationship between officers and Aboriginal Australians.

'The Commissioner of Police set the tone early in his tenure with an apology to the Aboriginal people for past injustices,' the spokesperson said.

'WA Police Force has undertaken significant steps to enhance the relationship between police officers and the indigenous community, including the development of a Reconciliation Action Plan and the establishment of the Aboriginal Affairs Division.'
A Republican congressman recently sent a letter to the defense secretary calling for reforms to military training in the wake of an Army investigation that found "disturbing revelations" surrounding a Bradley fighting vehicle rollover accident that took the life of a young soldier in South Korea last November.

Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Florida, sent the letter Monday to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, detailing how Spc. Nicholas Panipinto of Bradenton, Florida, lacked the proper training to drive the massive armored fighting vehicle on a Nov. 6 road test at Camp Humphreys, South Korea.

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In addition, there were malfunctions of the vehicle's communication systems, defective or broken equipment, a lack of medical services on base, and significant delays in medical response to the scene of the accident, according to the letter.

"The heartbreaking and very preventable death of my constituent, Spc. Nicholas Panipinto, clearly shows that changes in training and safety procedures need to be made," Buchanan said in a statement. "The serious deficiencies and failures identified in the report on Spc. Panipinto's death call for immediate reforms within the Department of Defense. I want to make sure that no family has to go through the pain and suffering that Spc. Panipinto's family has faced."

The accident investigation revealed that the "right-hand side tread of Panipinto's M2A3 came off, which caused his vehicle to roll over," according to the letter Buchanan sent to Esper.

Buchanan, who recently sent similar letters to the leadership of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, said that Panipinto's mother, Kimberly Weaver, told him that the 20-year-old soldier did not have a license to drive a Bradley before the road test.

Current regulations require three days of classroom instruction and two days of hands-on driving experience, with an instructor, before military personnel are given licenses to drive Bradleys, Buchanan wrote in the letter.

Panipinto had only six hours of hands-on driver training and no classroom instruction when he was ordered to road-test the vehicle, the lawmaker added.

The unit's master driver told investigators that the unit's driver training program was "nonexistent," according to a news release from Buchanan's office.

"The unnamed individual went on to state, 'When I took over the program, there was nothing. I had no paperwork for any soldiers with licenses,'" according to the release. "'Soldiers came up to me and informed me that the previous master driver just gave them licenses without a 40-hour block of instruction.'"

Also, some of the communications headsets in the four M2A3s being driven were not properly functioning, Buchanan added in the letter. As a result, all crew members could not communicate with one another.

The safety pin in the driver's hatch of Panipinto's M2A3 failed, Buchanan wrote. Meanwhile, another hatch in a different Bradley was not functioning properly.

"Consequently, a soldier in that vehicle did not see Spc. Panipinto's M2A3 roll over because he was holding the broken hatch open for another crew member," the letter states.

Medical support on site was also lacking.

"Camp Humphreys did not have an on-campus hospital or even a military ambulance available to quickly transport Spc. Panipinto to a medical facility for emergency medical treatment," Buchanan wrote. "A civilian ambulance responded to the accident scene, but its medical supplies were sorely lacking."

It did not have a sufficient oxygen supply, its suction equipment stopped functioning, it didn't have a blood transfusion supply and the instruments needed to treat Panipinto were unavailable, the letter states.

The medical response was further hindered when the first on-base medical evacuation helicopter dispatched to the accident scene initially got lost and a second medevac helicopter suffered from mechanical problems, the letter adds.

Eventually, the first medevac helicopter arrived at the site 80 minutes after the accident, according to the letter.

"By the time that Spc. Panipinto arrived at a hospital, two hours after the accident, he needed nine pints of blood and five pints of plasma transfused," Buchanan wrote. "Unfortunately, he passed away later that day from the severe injuries he sustained in the accident and the prolonged delay in getting him to a hospital for emergency medical treatment."

Buchanan stressed in his letter that a "staggering 32% of active-duty military deaths were the result of training accidents" between 2006 and 2018, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

During that same time period, only 16% of service members were killed in action and, in 2017 alone, nearly four times as many service members died in training accidents than were killed in action, Buchanan wrote.

The Government Accountability Office is conducting a sweeping Army- and Marine Corps-wide investigation into vehicle training deaths. Congress mandated the probe after family members of Marine 1st Lt. Hugh Conor McDowell, who was killed in a May 2019 light armored vehicle accident, lobbied lawmakers to look at the growing number of military vehicle rollover deaths.

Military.com reached out to the Pentagon for comment on Buchanan's letter but did not receive an immediate response.

Panipinto's mother described the death of her son as an "unbearable pain" made worse by knowing "it was entirely preventable."

"Nothing is going to change the outcome for us now, but we can and should take action to prevent it from happening to other families in the future," Weaver said in the news release. "We look forward to working with Congressman Buchanan to address this issue and help save lives."

Buchanan's letter called on Esper to make the following reforms to military training:

Take steps to strengthen and enhance current requirements for training and licensing of military drivers.

Add a simulation training requirement to existing requirements to help ensure that new military drivers are fully ready for their driving responsibilities.

Strengthen existing regulations governing the safe and proper working conditions of all military equipment used in training exercises.

Take steps to make sure that there is a hospital or an emergency medical facility on-campus at every U.S. military base on foreign soil.

Take steps to ensure that all U.S. military bases on foreign soil have properly functioning medevac helicopters and military ambulances, with appropriate emergency medical supplies available, to promptly transport and treat injured U.S. military personnel.

"The highest tribute that can be paid to the life of Spc. Panipinto is that the Defense Department will make sure that future military personnel who are injured during training exercises can quickly receive high-quality medical treatment that might help save their lives," Buchanan wrote.

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Related: Fallen Troops' Families Demand Action After Spate of Military Vehicle Rollover Deaths
THUMB AREA  Less than one year after their grand openings in Bad Axe, Ludington, Manistee and Caro, Gordmans across the country may be closing their doors. Storewide liquidation sales are in progress.

The discount apparel and home decor retailer is a Stage Stores company and former sister store to Bealls, Goodys, Palais Royal, Peebles and Stage.

According to its website, Stage entered an off-price segment to acquire Gordmans in 2017. Then, in 2018 it began testing the conversion of department stores to Gordmans off-price stores. It was not until 2019 when Stage announced a long-term strategy to convert all department stores to Gordmans. Its goal was to reach approximately 700 total off-price stores by mid-2020.

Through our family of businesses and stores, Stage Stores has brought style and savings to our communities for more than 100 years, President and CEO Michael Glazer addressed his customers in a letter posted on the company's website.

Bad Axe Store Manager Joey Sutliff said that Stage filed bankruptcy back in May, only one week before competitor J.C. Penney also filed.

Customers are sad because we havent been open that long, Sutliff said of the Bad Axe location.

However, Caro Store Manager James Bailey revealed that he has not been given a closure date just yet.

Sales will keep going up, so come in and get good sales, Bailey said.

In Manistee, the store manager confirmed that all Gordmans stores were liquidating but refused to answer any additional questions. She did not give her name. The Tribune was unable to reach anyone from the Ludington location.

According to an article in the Washington Post last month, the Houston-based company is searching for a buyer and plans to reopen and liquidate all of its stores.

In Glazers letter to customers, he addressed the harsh financial impact COVID-19 has had on the business.

We temporarily closed all of our stores as we have worked to manage through this challenging environment, Glazer stated. Despite all of our efforts, we have been unable to obtain necessary financing to continue operating as an independent business.

As a result, the off-price brand name retail chain filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11.

Glazer went on to explain that if a viable bid were to be placed by another entity or potential partner, a few unnamed store locations could remain open. This leaves some hope for devoted employees and shoppers.

You never know with retail, Sutliff said.

According to the Stage website, its stores are currently open until further notice following the pandemic. They will continue abiding by the recommendations of health authorities to ensure its guests and associates feel safe and comfortable. Steps include practicing social distancing, using face covers, increasing cleaning and sanitation, modifying purchases and returns, promoting good hygiene and spreading health awareness.

I want to emphasize how much we appreciate your loyalty and thank you for your support, Glazer stated. We look forward to seeing you in our stores again and serving you in the coming weeks as we move through this process.
A Tokyo yakatabune pleasure boat operator has resumed service after halting operations in mid-January due to a coronavirus outbreak among customers and employees.

Funasei Ltd. had been hit by negative rumors and comments, as well as numerous reservation cancellations, because it was seen as a spreader of the then largely unknown disease.

aNow weall look ahead to keep the torch of tradition burning,a said manager Yoko Ito, 67.

On Thursday evening, Ito, clad in a yellowish green kimono, and other Funasei employees were busy cleaning and sanitizing a roofed pleasure boat reserved for about 10 customers ahead of their arrival.

Social distancing measures were fully in place, with up to four customers accepted for each table for eight. Ventilation and disinfection were conducted frequently.

That day, the boat sailed alone on the Sumida River and near the Odaiba waterfront area in Tokyo Bay.

After the tour, a customer said, aThe night view was wonderful,a while another said, aWe felt safe because there were no other customers,a according to Ito.

In mid-January, coronavirus infection occurred among a group of customers who had a party aboard a Funasei ship. Later, two employees were found to be infected.

At that time, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said Funasei employees had come into contact with travelers from Wuhan, China.

But a travel agency told Funasei that the travelers did not include infected people, according to Ito.

Cancellations caused losses to balloon by hundreds of millions of yen, while a flood of telephone calls came in to complain following intensive media reports on the outbreak.
The personal liberty of passengers and their onward connections informed a NSW Health decision for them to disembark the Ruby Princess, despite officials awaiting COVID-19 test results for some aboard, an inquiry has heard.

NSW chief human biosecurity officer Dr Sean Tobin told the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Ruby Princess on Wednesday that the potential for a cluster aboard the ship, which had 104 passengers reporting signs of acute respiratory illnesses, was also a consideration.

Ruby Princess passengers sit in Circular Quay after disembarking the ship on March 19. Credit:Kate Geraghty

The Ruby Princess, which docked in Sydney on March 19, has since been linked to more than 650 cases of COVID-19 and 21 deaths.

On Wednesday counsel assisting Richard Beasley SC raised with the inquiry that previous COVID-19 tests from cruise ships were returned within four and nine hours.
10.06.2020 LISTEN

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) posted a profit of 1.8 billion cedis for 2019.

This is about twice the operating loss of 793 million cedis it recorded in 2018.

This has largely been attributed to the strong performance the central bank posted for the year under review.

For 2019, the Bank of Ghana's income from fees, penalties charged to commercial banks, interests among others, reached 5.85 billion cedis compared to the 3.12 billion cedis recorded in 2018.

Though the central bank's expenditure items such as personnel costs, rent, repairs and renewals increased from 3.92 to 4 billion cedis between 2018 and 2019, it posted more income for 2019 which contributed to the profit.

Meanwhile, the banking sector regulator's total assets, which are those items it can lay claim to; increased by 16% within the one year period; from 59 to about 69 billion cedis.

Of this, securities such as long-term government bonds, topped with a share of 46.2 billion cedis; followed by cash and balances with correspondent banks at 7.4 billion cedis, while balances with the IMF recorded the third-highest of 5.34 billion cedis.

Also, total liabilities which are those items that the central bank cannot lay claim to; also increased by 13.4% to record 67 billion cedis from the 59 billion cedis recorded in 2018.

Deposits with the central bank comprising those facilities belonging to the government of Ghana and other financial institutions contributed the highest of 19.4 billion cedis.

It is followed by currency in circulation and liabilities to the IMF with a share of 16.3 and 10 billion cedis.

Despite the strong performance posted by the Bank of Ghana in 2019, the Board did not approve the payments of dividends for the year.

---
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 04:40:47|Editor: huaxia

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GENEVA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Some 5,000 people joined a demonstration denouncing police violence and racism in downtown Geneva on Tuesday, the day scheduled for the funeral of George Floyd, an African-American man who died on May 25 at the hands of four police officers, with one of them keeping his knee down on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes.

Demonstrators marched in the drizzle with at least one group stopping on the way to take a knee. They carried posters bearing slogans such as "Black Lives Matter," "Silence=Complicity," "No justice, No peace," "My Fight Is Your Fight," "Racism Is A Pandemic" and "Silence Is No Longer An Opinion."

At the front of the parade, a banner bore the inscription "I Can't Breathe."

"We are walking together for a better world where racial inequality has no place," said one protester to Xinhua.

Tuesday's demonstration, with many of the protesters wearing masks, is the first large-scale gathering in the city since the relaxation of COVID-19 containment measures.

Earlier last week, similar demonstrations had taken place in other Swiss cities like Neuchatel, Berne, Basel, Zurich and Lausanne. Enditem
One of the worlds largest computer companies is taking a stand against facial recognition.IBM sent a letter to Congress June 8 announcing that it no longer sells general-purpose facial recognition or analysis software, and offering to work with Congress in three policy areas: police reform, responsible use of technology, and broadening skills and educational opportunities.The letter  specifically addressed to Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, Reps. Karen Bass, Hakeem Jeffries and Jerry Nadler  is a statement of solidarity with the causes of justice and racial equity. IBM was one of many multinational corporations to issue such a statement following nationwide public protests in recent weeks, but it didnt stop with words of support. The letter warns about facial recognitions potential for abuse and recommends a national conversation about it.IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and principles of trust and transparency, wrote Arvind Krishna, IBM's first CEO of color. We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies.Expounding upon the category of responsible use of technology as it relates to public policy, IBMs letter mentions two other potential issues. On the positive side, it says body cameras and modern data analytics techniques could improve transparency and accountability in police work. On the negative side, it says that artificial intelligence, while useful, can reinforce biases if its not properly tested, audited and reported. The idea is that algorithms and machine learning could produce biased conclusions if theyre based on data accumulated through decades of racial profiling and unfair policing. A task force at the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security is studying this now IBMs hard line on facial recognition appears to be a change of tune since November, when the company argued in a blog post for what it called a precision regulation approach.Instead of simply banning an entire category of technologies with so many possible applications, including many that are helpful and benign, policymakers should employ precision regulation that applies restrictions and oversight to particular use-cases and end-users where there is greater risk of societal harm, read a post on IBMs Policy Lab blog last year. For example, recent municipal bans on the use of facial recognition technology by government may cut consumers off from a convenience that could make one aspect of air travel a little less frustrating or aid first responders in rapidly identifying victims of a natural disaster. It simply does not make sense to subject a smartphone and a police body camera to the same regulatory treatment.Whether IBMs new disavowal of facial recognition software includes all possible uses, meaning its walking back last years statement, is unclear. IBM did not answer requests for comment before deadline, but a spokesperson told CNN Business that the company will limit its visual technology to "visual object detection," for example to help manufacturing facilities or assist farmers with crop care. The Verge also reported being told by IBM that it would no longer develop or research facial recognition or analysis technology.Hard line or not, IBMs concern about facial recognition is not unique . IBM follows in the footsteps of Axon , the nations top body camera provider which announced a year ago that it would no longer use face recognition technology on body cameras or make face-matching technology for the foreseeable future. Anticipating potential problems with privacy and surveillance, the state of California passed a law in October forbidding the states law enforcers from using facial-recognition software in body cameras until at least 2023.Besides weighing in on these specific technologies, IBMs letter expresses support for several non-technical reforms. These include the creation of a federal registry of police misconduct, a requirement for better state reporting on deadly use of force, and anti-profiling measures.The letter ends by asking Congress to consider training and education programs to help communities of color. Specifically, it suggests expanding eligibility for Pell Grants and growing IBMs P-TECH program, which helps students earn their high school diploma and an associate degree without incurring debt.
Weve opened just on May 29th, we moved into phase three. Were barely a couple of weeks in here and the incubation period is 14 days, he said. Dont forget, you dont really see the bulk of hospitalizations until between 14 and 21 days after people engage with one another that have COVID-19. And so the idea here is to make sure that we dont overwhelm the hospital system as we reopen.
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CommonBond, a leading financial technology company, today announced the completion of its latest securitization totaling over $225 million in loans, setting a company record, for the most investor demand relative to bonds available, at 7x. The securitization received AAA ratings from Moody's and DBRS, continuing the company's track record of AAA-rated transactions.

The transaction was CommonBond's tenth and brings the company's total securitized loan amount to over $2 billion. Goldman Sachs served as structuring agent, co-lead manager, book-runner, and co-sponsor for this securitization. Barclays, Citi, BMO and Guggenheim Securities also served as co-lead managers and book-runners on the transaction.

"The market for high quality bonds has come roaring back," said Sam Luk, Head of Capital Markets and Credit at CommonBond. "We were pleased to see the strong receptivity from investors  a testament to the platform we've built, the credit we underwrite, and the discipline with which we operate."

The transaction priced better than the market's expectations. The senior bonds priced 20-30 basis points tighter than initial market indications and landed on 170 basis points of credit spread. The high demand for the bonds also contributed to tighter spreads.

Securitization is one of multiple ways that CommonBond funds its loans. Other loan funding sources include whole loan sale commitments and warehouse line capacity. A highly diversified funding system ensures funding that is capable of withstanding market shocks over time.

This securitization follows a significant period of growth for CommonBond, which grew revenue significantly in 2019, and continues its topline growth in 2020. The company is profitable in 2020 year-to-date and is known for its low-cost customer acquisition as well as its high-quality customer experience.

In recognition of the company's innovative DNA, Fast Company named CommonBond one of the World's 50 Most Innovative Companies, and TIME Magazine named CommonBond one of its 50 Genius Companies in 2018. To date, the company has reached over 500,000 users in its consumer business and 1000s of corporate clients in its enterprise business.

About CommonBond

CommonBond is a leading financial technology company that offers a suite of student loan-based solutions to consumers and enterprises. Consumers benefit from more affordable, transparent, and simple ways to pay their student debt. Enterprises benefit from tech-forward engagement capabilities to scale their businesses with Millennial and Gen Z customers and employees.

To date, CommonBond has reached over 500,000 users and powers student loan solutions for 1000s of enterprises nationwide. CommonBond is the first and only finance company with a "one-for-one" social mission: for every loan it funds, CommonBond also funds the education of a child in need, through its partnership with Pencils of Promise. For more information, visit www.commonbond.co.

Media Contact

Tori McKnight

201-927-2937

[email protected]

SOURCE CommonBond

Related Links

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Global Tinplate Packaging market is projected to grow at a CAGR of XX% to reach USD XX million by 2025 and it was valued USD XX million in 2017. Tinplate is a thin steel sheet coated by tin. It has an extremely beautiful metallic luster as well as excellent properties in corrosion resistance, solderability, and weldability. Tinplate is used for making all types of containers such as food cans, beverage cans, 18-liter cans, and artistic cans.Its applications are not limited to containers; recently, tinplate has also been used for making electrical machinery parts and many other products. Tinplate is an eco-friendly packaging material offering 100 percent recyclability, any number of times, and without quality loss

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Market Dynamics:

The tinplate packaging market is primarily driven by increasing urbanization, rise in packaged food sales, increasing demand for aerosol products, rising demand for metal packaging in alcohol industry, and increasing consumption of canned vegetables and foods. Pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industry is propelling the growth of the tinplate packaging market.

The drivers of the tinplate packaging market include increasing beverage and food market improved standard of living. These drivers are focused at reinforcing the growth of metal packaging market in the future.

However, the market needs to handle critical challenges such as environmental issues related to steel manufacturing and flexible packaging.

Market Players:

The Tinplate Packaging market is dominated by a few global players, and comprises several regional players. Some of the key players operating in the Tinplate Packaging are ArcelorMittal, NSSMC, U.S. Steel, JFE, ThyssenKrupp, POSCO, TCILTATA Steel, Tonyi, Massilly, Berlin Metal, Toyo Kohan, Titan Steel, Baosteel, Tianjin Jiyu Steel, Sino East, Guangnan, WISCO, Hebei Iron and Steeland other.

Market Segmentation:

Tinplate Packaging market is segmented based on Product, Applicationand region. On the basis of product the market is classified into primary, secondary and other grade tinplate.

Tinplate Packaging by region segmented into North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa. North America accounted for a maximum share of the global market owing to high consumption of tinplate packaging in the U.S. Growing concerns regarding the use and consumption of sustainable packaging materials is expected to drive the demand for market growth.

Market segmented on the basis of application:

 Packaging

 Electronics

 Engineering

 Construction

 Other

Market segmented on the basis of product:

 Prime Grade Tinplate

 Secondary Grade Tinplate

 Others

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Market segmented based on region:

 North America

 US

 Canada

 Mexico

 Europe

 UK

 Germany

 France

 Rest of Europe

 Asia-Pacific

 China

 Japan

 India

 Australia

 Rest of Asia-Pacific

 Latin America

 Brazil

 Rest of Latin America

 Middle East and Africa (MEA)

 South Africa

 Saudi Arabia

 Rest of MEA

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A Northern Territory marijuana grower has called the police on himself with concerns his precious crop was being stolen by sticky-fingered youths.

The phone call in May 2019 landed William Pointon, 61, and his growing partner Ramon Paton, 56, in the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Tuesday, where they pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis.

According to defence lawyer Noah Redmond, Pointon alerted authorities because he was worried his cannabis would be in the hands of children.

A Northern Territory marijuana grower has called the police on himself with concerns his precious crop was being stolen by sticky-fingered youths (stock image)

'The fact that he did call police on himself for cultivating cannabis is a very significant factor,' Mr Redmond said.

'Youths were attempting to steal his cannabis and he had a view about the use of cannabis that it should not be illegal. Nevertheless he recognises that it is illegal and it is therefore wrong.

'However that children are not capable of making decisions to whether or not to smoke cannabis and they should not have access to cannabis so he called the police to prevent them having access.'

Police immediately searched Pointon's Tennant Creek grow house where they found 69 cannabis plants up to a 1.5 meters tall, NT News reported.

Despite the large quantity, the court heard Pointon was no drug dealer.

Mr Redmond said his client never sold marijuana for money but would sometimes share the plants with his friends in exchange for beer and labour.

The phone call in May 2019 landed William Pointon, 61, and his growing partner Ramon Paton, 56, in the Northern Territory Supreme Court (pictured) on Tuesday, where they pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis

Pointon told police he had been growing cannabis crops for decades.

'Pointon participated in a voluntary record of interview in which he made full admissions to cultivating the plants and he had been growing cannabis plants for about 40 years,' Crown prosecutor Glen Dooley said.

The two men are due to be sentenced on Thursday.
Paramilitary policemen walk along a red wall near the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on Nov. 13, 2019. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

The Modern-Day Gestapo Terrorizing China for 21 Years

Why June 10 is a solemn and horrific anniversary in China

Commentary

Gestapo means secret state police.

The death-dealing, above-the-law Gestapo of Nazi Germany has a modern-day cousin: the 610 Office, a Chinese secret police force flying below the radar with its plain-vanilla name.

This 610 Office kills, terrorizes, and takes away the liberty of millions of Chinese people in China.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is increasingly under the microscope worldwide during the turmoil over current events such as the CCP virus pandemic, controversial moves toward Hong Kong, and friction with the U.S. government.

Shedding light on the origin and continued existence of this Chinese agency can shed light on the true nature of the CCP.

The Secret 610 Office Is Born

Twenty-one years ago in China, a storm was brewinga storm that would change the world for millions of people directly, and indirectly for many more.

Ten years after the June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre, the regime plotted a campaign that would have consequences even more deadly than that brutal slaughter in 1989.

The top leader of the CCP at the time, Jiang Zemin, was agitated and jealous of a group in Chinese society consisting of 70 million to 100 million people. Were these people plotting against the Party? Were they outspoken dissidents? Were they advocating something dangerous for the health and stability of society?

They were none of the above. They were meditators who were aspiring to live every day by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. They were practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong. They were asking only that they be allowed to practice peacefully, and continue to improve their health, their families, their schools, and their workplaces as they lived according to those principles.

In the twisted logic of Jiang, tens of millions of law-abiding, peaceful, healthy meditators posed a threat. So he ordered the formation of a leading group of top CCP officials to handle this problem, and along with it a secret office to implement a devastating campaign of persecution.

The secret office was formed on June 10, 1999, and thus its name: 610 Office.

Jiang said about Falun Gong, Destroy their reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.

Since then, Falun Gong practitioners have endured what some scholars have called a cold genocide.

Chinese Gestapo

The 610 Office is just like Hitlers Gestapo, said Guo Guoting, a Chinese human rights lawyer in exile, in an interview with the Falun Dafa Information Center. They are powerful and they got enough financial support from the government so  they secretly control all the Falun Gong practitioners in their local areas.

Like the Gestapo, the 610 Office is tasked with eliminating people belonging to groups undesired by the reigning dictator.

Like the Gestapo, the 610 Office gives orders to institutions to administer brutal psychological and physical torture. 610 Office personnel also sometimes administer torture themselves.

Like the Gestapo, the 610 Office is not a police force that protects, serves the people, or provides security for people. It is a security force that uses violence and cruelty only to destroy people.

Like the Gestapo, the 610 Office is responsible for killing without accountability to any recognized authority. They can, and do, make people disappear without a trace.

Like the Gestapo, the 610 Office operates outside legal and judicial structures. It sometimes actually controls the legal and judicial structures, so it is truly above the law.

Eliminating and Torturing Innocent Groups

The models of political and religious repression in China have evolved over the last two decades, said Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for China at Freedom House, a U.S.-based NGO.

The persecution of Falun Gong has helped the CCP create a new playbook to persecute other groups.

Surveillance tactics initially employed by the 610 Officesuch as databases of targeted individualsare also now used on other specific segments of the Chinese population, or even foreigners visiting China.

The CCPs creation of the 610 Office in 1999 is an example of the same kind of political and legal maneuvering currently being directed at Hong Kong, Cook said.

The Chinese regime most recently enacted a national security law for Hong Kongbypassing the citys own legislature to punish activities Beijing considers related to secession, terrorism, and subversion.

Also, the 610 Office was one of the first entities in China to systematically carry out spying on Falun Gong practitioners in other countries, thus extending the persecution and harassment of Falun Gong practitioners outside China.

The 610 Office oversees torture of unknown numbers of Falun Gong practitioners in jails, prisons, hospitals, labor camps, and other detention facilities. It draws upon all known methods of torture, both ancient and modern. Pulling out fingernails, force-feeding of human excrement, forcing people to squat for hours or days on end while having cold water poured on them, sexual abuse of many types, injections with psychotropic drugsthese are just a few torture methods wielded by the 610 Office or those under their control.

No one knows the true number of people killed by torture and abuse, but it is certainly many times the 4,363 deaths confirmed and cataloged at Minghui.org, a U.S.-based website that tracks the persecution in China. Based on interviews with survivors and their family members, the website documents methods of torture and many individual cases of torture.

Death by Forced Organ Harvesting

Perhaps the most shocking of the ways that Falun Gong practitioners and others have been systematically killedorchestrated behind the scenes by the 610 Officeis via the removal of transplant organs while they are still alive. Kidneys, lungs, hearts, corneas and other organs are taken from prisoners and sold on demand to wealthy recipients and foreign transplant tourists. The 610 Office is among those who take their cut of the profit from the gruesome commerce.

Independent investigators have confirmed that this organ harvesting is still occurring, despite CCP denials.

The China Tribunal, an independent peoples tribunal convened to investigate allegations of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China, held evidentiary hearings in London in 2018 and 2019. The Tribunals final report was issued on March 1, 2020, noting that forced organ harvesting has happened in multiple places in the PRC and on multiple occasions for a period of at least 20 years and continues to this day. It also concluded that Falun Gong practitioners were the main source of organs for the state-sanctioned practice.

An Office Above the Law

The 610 Office has branches all over China down to the tiniest village, said Cook. As such, its influence and control at all levels in China is unprecedented.

The number of staff at the 610 Office is unknown, due to its secretive nature and the fact that 610 staff may have multiple roles, serving in other departments simultaneously. But the number is relatively small compared to other CCP agencies.

The source of its power is not its size, but that it is accountable only to a few top-level CCP officials, and that it has power over every other bureaucratic structure.

The 610 Office has the leeway to run rampant over the rights of Chinese people, said Cook.

The 610 Office tells the police what to do with targets, such as Falun Gong practitioners. Arrest them? Torture them with electric-shock batons? Allow visitors? Release them? All can be done only with the approval of 610 officials. The police and prisons have their hands tied.

Is there any legal recourse? In general, in China, there is no such thing, as courts are told what verdicts to give in advance, regardless of the evidence presented. In the case of Falun Gong practitioners, their fates are determined by the 610 Office, with judges merely passing on the orders they receive, according to many accounts documented by Minghui.org.

The ramifications of this reach far beyond the lives of tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners and members of other targeted groups persecuted by the Chinese regime.

The existence, creation, and functioning of the 610 Office fundamentally undermine the rule of law in China, said Cook.

The 610 Office is the elephant in the room if youre talking about the rule of law, she added. You cant have the rule of law in China as long as something like the 610 Office continues to exist.

If the rule of law in China cannot be relied upon, Cook said, it has broad implications. Food and product safety, investments, intellectual property, rights of foreigners, and joint ventures are just some of the areas that are compromised, that cannot be relied on. Without the rule of law, living in China or transacting any kind of business with Chinese entities are fundamentally high-risk endeavors.

Shell Game

The Epoch Times has reported that the 610 Office may have been disbanded. In reality, the names have changed, but the players are the same. The CCP is playing a sophisticated shell game, a ruse to distract or throw people off track.

It is clear that, whatever names or titles have changed, the functions of the 610 Office continue at full force.

The same groups of people continue to be persecuted.

Funds are still being allocated to persecution activities.

The same above-the-law status of the persecutors continues.

As we can see with the tightening of the screws in Hong Kong and the so-called re-education camps for Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, the legacy of Chinas Gestapo continues to be built.

Perhaps one day, the extent of the 610 Offices murderous misdeeds will become as well-known as the Gestapos.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Not ceded, will not cede an inch of land to the Chinese says Kishan Reddy

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 10: Minister of State for Home, Kishan Reddy said that the government has not ceded an inch of territory to China.

He said that India has not and will not cede an inch of land to the Chinese. The retort came in the wake of Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi seeking to know if the Chinese had occupied Indian territory in Ladakh.

One morning Congress shahzada woke up in the night thinking India was still under his great grandfather. Pt. Nehru had on September 10, 1959, admitted in Parliament that a road was built in Ladakh many laters and he was unaware. This Narendra Modi government had not and will not cede an inch, Reddy also said.

Expect resolution with China in a months time: Sources

In a tweet, Reddy attached a copy of the 1959 debate in the Rajya Sabha where Nehru, who was also the external affairs minister presented a white paper on the different perception along the China border.

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

Nehru had said that the government had discovered a year ago (1958) that a road had been built across Yechong in north east corner of Ladakh and he did not know where it was. It is a relevant question, but the fact is that it is an uninhibited area, 17,000 feet high. It is a territory where not even a blade of grass grows. It adjoins Sinkiang. We sent a small party, practically of explorers, numbering 8 to 10 to find out the facts. One of groups of this party was apprehended by the Chinese government and there was correspondence on this. The men belonging to the group were released later, Nehru had also said.
Coffee giant Starbucks announced Wednesday in an SEC filing it will close up to 400 company-operated stores over the next 18 months.

There are over 250 Starbucks locations in New Jersey but it is unknown if any will be impacted. A Starbucks spokesperson didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

Starbucks said it expects to lose up to $3.2 billion in revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the closures are to strategically optimize our portfolio.

The filing also said Starbucks has plans to open an additional 300 stores this year, down from 600 originally, as well as renovate layouts in select stores.

As we navigate through the COVID-19 crisis, we are accelerating our store transformation plans to address the realities of the current situation, while still providing a safe, familiar and convenient experience for our customers, CEO Kevin Johnson said in a statement.

In March, Starbucks closed its dining rooms and transitioned to only drive-thru and delivery services. Select cafes reopened in May, but those in New Jersey still remain closed.

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(Natural News) A book criticizing the perceived overblown government reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic has put its author in the middle of a controversy after e-commerce giant Amazon initially rejected its publication.

Written by novelist and former journalist Alex Berenson, the book, Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1, not only expresses skepticism regarding the effectiveness of government-mandated lockdowns, but also pushes a belief that the deadliness of the disease  which has claimed well over 400,000 lives worldwide  has been overstated.

This controversial take, according to Berenson, is what led to his book being rejected by Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazons self-publishing arm.

According to Berenson, who first worked as a reporter for the New York Times, his book was scheduled to be published on Amazon on June 3rd.

Berenson, however, in an interview with Foxs Tucker Carlson, said that he soon woke up to an email from the online retail giant, informing him that they would not push through with its publication and sales.

They just sent an email saying something like it didnt conform to their standards. They were encouraging people to use official sources about COVID-19, Berenson said.

Berenson then posted a screenshot of the email on his Twitter account, admonishing Amazon for allegedly censoring his book.

Oh fuck me. I cant believe it. They censored it. pic.twitter.com/GfPEr7OiV2  Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) June 4, 2020

Replying to Berensons original post, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called out Amazon for their decision, calling the situation insane.

Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong! Musk tweeted, tagging Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1268602138860515328

Amazon would later change course, noting in a statement to Business Insider that Berensons book was only removed in error and would, in fact, be reinstated on its online shelves.

According to Amazon, the companys decision to greenlight the sale of Berensons book was not due to Musks intervention.

The company, however, did not apologize directly to Berenson.

Theyve said publicly, but not to me, that they made a mistake. You know, people can judge that for themselves, Berenson said in his interview with Tucker Carlson.

Berenson, in his interview, noted that Amazons mistake was picking on somebody or trying to censor somebody who happened to have a big enough megaphone to shout back.

As of press time, Berensons book is part of the online retailers Top 100 Books, where it has secured a spot at the 13th place. It is also number two on Amazons Viral Diseases and Communicable Diseases categories.

The booklet is selling incredibly well right now. And I think thats because people really want information that theyre not getting, Berenson said, adding that his book is all facts, all data. (Related: Scientists increasingly say coronavirus was created in a lab.)

Theres no conspiracy theories in there, Berenson added, noting that his book has information people need and they seem to want that.

Both Berenson and Musk have pushed for skepticism in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic caused by the Wuhan coronavirus, with Berenson noted for saying that mainstream media outlets seemed committed to painting as bleak a picture of coronavirus as possible.

A former investigative reporter who covered the pharmaceutical industry beat, Berenson has since made a name for himself as an author of spy novels, as well as non-fiction books. His debut novel, The Faithful Spy received an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel in 2007.

Sources include:

WSJ.com

Coronavirus.JHU.edu

FoxNews.com

BusinessInsider.com

Reuters.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 16:26:30|Editor: huaxia

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MANILA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday approved a 500-million-U.S. dollar loan to expand its support for the Philippine government's conditional cash transfer program, which is helping millions of Filipino families across the country send their children to school and keep them healthy.

The Manila-based bank said the expanded social assistance project will help families maintain health and educational gains for their children achieved under the country's Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), which was introduced in 2008.

The 4Ps program, implemented by the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development, provides cash payments every two months to about 4.3 million households - as long as the children meet school attendance targets and go for regular health checkups, women avail of pre- and post-natal care, and the parents participate in family development sessions.

According to Ahmed Saeed, the vice-president of ADB, the 4Ps program provides vulnerable households with an income supplement to help their children become educated, stay healthy, and leave poverty for good.

The ADB added that the cash grants do not discourage 4Ps parents from looking for and retaining employment. In fact, it said employment outcomes in 4Ps families are the same as non-4Ps families.

The ADB said the loan builds on ADB's decade-long support for the 4Ps program, with total assistance to the program now reaching more than 1.5 billion U.S. dollars. That includes the 200 million U.S. dollars loan approved in April 2020 to provide unconditional emergency cash transfers to 4Ps households amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With this loan, the ADB said its total lending to the Philippines has reached 2.6 billion U.S. dollars so far this year, exceeding its record lending of 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. Enditem
Lucknow, June 10 : Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court's order in which it asked the state governments to consider withdrawal of cases against migrant workers lodged for violation of the lockdown.

Mayawati, in a tweet in Hindi, said, "The Supreme Court's decision of withdrawal of cases against unemployed and helpless migrant workers for not following the norms while they were returning home thousands of kilometres away due to corona epidemic and lockdown, is correct, timely and appreciable." In another tweet, she said, "The court's directive to arrange employment for migrant workers returning home by assessing their qualifications in their home state is also very welcome. In this regard, now the governments should start taking concrete and sensitive action immediately, this is the demand of BSP." During the nationwide lockdown, the Supreme Court has given some important orders in the interest of migrant workers going back home and struggling with employment and livelihood crisis. The apex court has asked the central and state governments to bring the migrants who wish to return to their homes within 15 days. They should be provided facilities and employment. The court has ordered that the state governments should also consider withdrawal of cases registered against the migrant workers for violating the lockdown.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Singapore kicked off a global rush to develop contact tracing apps for the novel coronavirus when the city-state launched an apparently new system in March.

But the project actually drew inspiration from a 2014 U.S. high school project that won an international prize but found no backers - until now.

It all started when Rohan Suri created an app at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, to tell his mom to leave home for the bus stop when he was seven minutes away. As the Ebola epidemic ravaged western Africa at the time, Suri and schoolmate Claire Scoggins connected the dots between tracking apps and contact tracers who ask patients whom they may have spread viruses to.

I got really interested in basically automating a lot of these contact tracing efforts, Suri said, noting a staff shortage in remote parts of Africa during the Ebola epidemic.

When Suri and Scoggins developed a prototype called kTrace, they appealed to medical aid organizations and the U.S. government to bring it to the frontlines. But they found no takers, even after winning third place for systems software at the 2015 International Science and Engineering Fair.
A court has found two companies liable for a chemical scandal that rocked the egg industry in the Netherlands in 2017.

Millions of birds were culled, millions of eggs destroyed and food products were withdrawn from supermarket shelves across Europe after fipronil - a chemical banned from use on animals in the food chain - was found in eggs.

Investigations subsequently found that the chemical had been used in a treatment for red mite in laying hens.

Traces of the chemical were found in eggs or chickens in eight European Union countries, although UK farms were found to be clear of fipronil.

The Netherlands' egg industry association, Ovoned, estimated that losses to the country's egg industry amounted to well over 60 million Euros.

Some 120 poultry farmers pursued legal action against two companies - Chickfriend and Chickclean - which were said to have provided farmers with disinfectant which they said was natural.

But it was found to contain fipronil - a banned insecticide potentially harmful to humans in high doses.

A court at Arnhem in the Netherlands has now ruled that the damage caused to poultry farmers was a result of Chickfriend and Chickcleans use of fipronil.

Chickfriend and Chickclean have not fulfilled their agreements with poultry farmers to fight blood lice and are liable, the Arnhem court said in a statement.

The owners of the lice control (company) knew that the pesticide Dega-16 contained fipronil and that the use of this biocide to control lice is prohibited, it said.

The court said individual damages to be paid to poultry farmers would be determined in court at a later stage.

The 2017 scandal led to the creation of an official Dutch inquiry into what happened. It produced a report in 2018, which heavily criticised egg companies and Government bodies for failing to take food safety more seriously.

The report said that companies in the egg chain, the NVWA (Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority) and the ministries of VWS (Ministry of Health) and LNV (Ministry of Agriculture) gave insufficient priority to food safety. Companies in the egg chain did not fulfil their legal responsibility.

Food safety received too little attention at the NVWA, says the report. It also says that politics and government have too limited a view on their own role in relation to food safety and only come into action when an incident or crisis occurs.

"Economic and financial interests should never take precedence over the importance of food safety," said former Justice Minister Winnie Sorgdrager, who was president of the committee looking into the scandal.

"Food safety must be given priority, both among the companies in the egg chain, as well as at the NVWA and the relevant ministries.

"The egg sector has been struggling for years with the problem of blood lice. Suddenly there was a panacea.

"There should have been alarm bells in the sector itself. It also took far too long before action came after the reports and there was too long uncertainty about the risks to public health

" That says something about how it is arranged in our system. Food safety must be well secured. There are countless opportunities for all parties to limit risks of this type of incident. "

Even a year after the original scandal more fipronil was found on three Dutch farms and some 73,000 Dutch eggs were withdrawn from sale in Germany.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Calls for measures to urgently prop up demand have occupied centre-stage in most corporate wishlists and the Lenovo India CEO's is no different. On Wednesday, Rahul Agarwal, chief executive of the China-headquartered computer major, sat down for a chat with author and senior journalist Kaveree Bamzai as part of The New Indian Express' Express Expressions, a series of live webcasts with people who matter. Excerpts:

There is a lot of talk about Aatma Nirbhar and you are in an unenviable position of running a China-led company...

We don't know what that means, to be honest. I don't think it's being interpreted in the right spirit. Because the world is integrated and we need FDI. So, this cannot mean isolation. It means that India has to become self-sufficient.

Our per capita GDP is low, half our population lives in substandard living conditions. That is not aatma nirbhar. Our fiscal deficit is quite high, our exports are not that high, our balance of payments can improve. Those things, I think, is more about us becoming aatma nirbhar than anything else.

Do you have a wish list from the government?

The government has a very tough job and you can't please everyone. But, I feel that it is assumed that large enterprises will take care of themselves, which I think is not true. Our playground may be bigger, but our challenges are too.

If I were to ask the government to do something, I would say pull up demand. People are losing jobs, are not getting increments... For the larger good, the government should take the bitter pill of leaving more money in the hands of the middle class. They are the ones who will spend.

What are the advantages of Work From Home and why shouldn't it become the new normal?

I think a hybrid approach is good. Work from home gives some flexibility. For me, I feel so much better, I have hot lunch at home, I've reduced the number of meetings, I have more time to think.

The flip side, however, is a reality. Many people may not have comfortable living spaces or private enough workplaces. And, there are always 5-10% of people who will take advantage. But, we need to move past this, because it is not like the 10% delivered more anyway. We also have to move from an input-based to an output-based system (while assessing work).

So, what if (employees) are at a movie. What is important is what they are supposed to deliver for the company and whether they are doing that.

What do you see happening if migrant workers do not return?

I'm now not sure that migrants will not come back because it is a paradox for them. Maybe, the social fabric is stronger, they have a more spacious house. But the income is pathetic back there. Here, I think they earn money, but they're away from their loved ones. So, I'm not clear. Some might have to come back, but some may stay and rediscover the joys of the rural world and may find refuge in farming. But, let's see.

Is this an opportunity to reinvent the rural market?

A market depends on two factors: need and a buying capability. If you look at computers, people were not sure about the need and it is still an expensive product. A good laptop still costs you at least Rs 30,000.

I think that rural market penetration is less than 2%. For metros it is 50%, so the opportunities are there. But, it all depends on peoples' incomes.

What are the innovations that are possible in the rural economy with technology?

Maybe rural schools can start teaching more technology. Can they all have PC labs? I think this is a space where the government will have to play a role.

There was a big initiative of Digital India, maybe it's time to revive that and put a lot of money on bandwidth technology, technology in education, and also affordability.

Maybe we can give an income tax exemption on PC purchase, if you have children between 12 to 18. From the private sector, we can try to build up some appetite to give products on credit.

Lenovo has launched a smart education platform. How is that taking shape?

We have a shortage of 1 million teachers, so we launched this platform where we are inviting people with good intent and good competence, willing to dedicate some time to teach children who need it online. A teacher in Bangalore can teach a student in a small town in Bihar, and all they need is maybe a smartphone or a tablet or a computer. Our challenge here, really, is to reach out to people and increase awareness about the platform.

Looking forward, what is the role of laptops, smartphones in online education?

Historically, the education system has been a laggard in terms of change. But now, Covid has forced them to begin online education. Today, one teacher can teach 500 students at the same time. Quality is suspect, yes, and there are social aspects, because we learn outside the classroom as much as in the classroom. Which is why I think it's gonna be a hybrid system.

You've tweeted earlier on the reaction of businesses to the lockdown where they have resorted to job cuts, not paid wages...

A business that can't sustain for three months was not a business well run. I've also seen that the small and medium enterprises many of them did not display character.

Even landlords. They were just way too quick to ask people to vacate houses. Our urban society could not take care of the workers who maintained it for even three months.

We should never criticize the government because it is a reflection of society... even the bureaucracy is. So, if they're being inefficient, it's because you know we are inefficient and that's the harsh reality.


NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has said the military body must focus on the threat posed by China to 'our values and way of life' .

Mr Stoltenberg called for a 'more global approach' in response to China in a speech on Monday setting out his vision for the future of the organisation.

He also expressed security concerns that have been 'magnified' by the coronavirus pandemic and said that the West is becoming more conscious of the dangers of relying on China for goods and technology.

It comes after the UK announced last month that it would review the role of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei in building its 5G network.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the military body must focus on the threat posed by China to 'our values and way of life'

'The rise of China is fundamentally shifting the global balance of power, heating up the race for economic and technological supremacy, multiplying the threats to open societies and individual freedoms and increasing the competition over our values and our way of life,' he said.

Mr Stoltenberg said China's military might could not be ignored and the US and Europe had to remain united.

'We cannot ignore the consequences of the rise of China. China will soon have the biggest economy in the world, they already have the second largest defence budget.

'They are investing heavily in new modern capabilities, in the last five years they added 80 ships to their navy which equals the total amount of ships in the Royal Navy.'

Critics, especially Donald Trump's US administration, have claimed Huawei's equipment could be used to spy on people and governments in the West - allegations the company has repeatedly denied. Above, Mr Stoltenberg pictured with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson

The secretary-general welcomed a review of Huawei's involvement in the UK's 5G network, which was announced last month, and warned that the West 'cannot ignore the consequences of the rise of China'.

Stoltenberg said Beijing's influence was being felt far beyond Asia and the alliance had to respond to the fact that 'China is coming closer to us' through investment in critical infrastructure such as 5G.

The UK Government allowed Huawei's equipment to play a limited role in the 5G network in January but has since launched another review assessing the impact of US sanctions on the firm.

Critics, especially Donald Trump's US administration, have claimed Huawei's equipment could be used to spy on people and governments in the West - allegations the company has repeatedly denied.

Stoltenberg said Beijing's influence was being felt far beyond Asia and the alliance had to respond to the fact that 'China is coming closer to us' through investment in critical infrastructure such as 5G

Mr Stoltenberg said NATO members had to focus on the 'resilience of critical infrastructure' against a backdrop of Chinese investment in Europe.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today: 'This is not about a global presence of NATO but it is about the global approach of NATO because China is coming closer to us - we see that in the Arctic, we see they are heavily investing in critical infrastructure in Europe, and we see of course China also operating in cyberspace.

'So this is not about deploying NATO into the South China Sea but responding to the fact that China is coming closer to us.'

On the issue of Huawei, he added: 'I trust that the UK Government will design their networks in ways that protect the networks and make sure that the UK has secure 5G networks and therefore also think it's important that now there will be a new review looking at exactly how to make sure that that should happen.'
A boy from Arizona died in March because of abuse and starvation. According to the autopsy report, the 6-year-old boy only weighed 18 pounds at the time of his death, the Arizona Daily Sun reported.

Starvation and child neglect

The parents of Deshaun Martinez, 26-year-old Elizabeth Archibeque, and 23-year-old Anthony Martinez and his grandmother 50-year-old Ann Marie Martinez were all arrested in March and were charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and child abuse.

The child's father was also charged with aggravated assault. All three of them pleaded that they are innocent. Lawrence Czarnecki, a medical examiner, wrote that Deshaun's skin was stretched over his bones and that the child had almost no body fat, which made him look like a skeleton.

The child's eyes were surrounded by dark circles and were sunken and his hair was brittle. The child's autopsy report showed that Deshaun had abrasions and bruises all over his body and it was revealed that when he was only 2 weeks old, he was hospitalized because he had difficulty in gaining weight, he also had sepsis and urinary tract infection.

Deshaun had difficulty eating. Both of these parents were counseled on how to keep his weight up when he was discharged and the report said that he was 34 pounds by age 4, but his weight had dropped to 27 at age 5.

On March 2, the police were called to the Martinez's house after the grandmother called 911 because Deshaun was unresponsive. The firefighters in the scene pronounced the child dead after they could not revive him.

Also Read: Fact Check: Can Police Legally Rape Detained Women in 35 States?

The police report read that the physical appearance of the boy did not compliment his age and he appeared malnourished. Both of the parents of Deshaun admitted that they kept him and his older brother inside a closet in a bedroom.

The parents deliberately withheld food and gave Deshaun and his 7-year-old brother almost little to no food. The parents defended their actions and said that they only did it as a punishment because the boys would sneak in the kitchen in the middle of the night and steal food.

Severe punishment

According to the authorities, Deshaun and his brother were kept in the closet from 8 p.m till 12 p.m the next day. FOX 10 reported that the boys are not enrolled in any public school in the area. The grandmother of the children, Ann Marie Martinez, admitted that she knew what the parents were doing to the children but she claimed that she was innocent and did not do anything wrong.

During a jail video, she said that she is a law-abiding citizen that is trying to keep her grandchildren away from the street. According to an article written by the Associated Press.

The father, Anthony Martinez, became volatile after his arrest. He arrived at the Coconino County jail in a wheelchair with his hands cuffed behind his back and ankles shackled.

The authorities also said that he screamed at the police officers and shouted profanities during the booking process and he was violent. The rescued children, the 7-year-old boy, and his two younger siblings, ages four and two, were all put into the care of the Department of Child Safety.

Related Article: Florida Couple Bite, Beat, Kick and Punch 6-Year-Old Boy For Years, Leaving Permanent Scars

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
ROME - Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Wednesday that Italy was continuing to demand ''meaningful progress in the investigation into the case of the brutal murder'' of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Egypt. ''The Italian government and institutions are continuing to demand the truth from Egyptian authorities'' through cooperation, he added in response to a question during a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies.

Meanwhile, ''concern remains high on the case of Patrick Zaky, an Egyptian researcher of the University of Bologna who was arrested on February 7, 2020,'' he continued. ''Our embassy will continue to monitor the hearings and Italy will continue to follow the case both through coordination with its international partners and through other channels''.

On the sale of Freem (Fincantieri) frigates to Egypt, Di Maio said that the procedure to authorise the end of the talks ''is still underway''. On supplies for Egypt's defense sector, Di Maio said that ''authorisation is subject to strict application'' of legal criteria and that the government examines the cases individually, and that ''in addition to the technical-legal evaluation, the government has obviously decided to conduct a political assessment''. The foreign minister went on to say that Egypt ''remains one of the most important interlocutors in the Mediterranean sector as part of important issues such as the conflict in Libya, the fight against terrorism and illegal trade, as well as migration flows and cooperation in the energy sector.''
As of June 3, 2020, the CDC reported that there have been 20 deaths in children in the U.S. due to COVID-19. In my home county of Orange in California, no child has died due to COVID-19. JAMA Pediatrics for May 11, 2020 had this to say: "Finally, it is important to emphasize that the overall burden of COVID-19 infection in children remains relatively low compared with seasonal influenza."

We have never closed schools or forced children to wear masks during an influenza season. Yet the CDC has issued guidelines recommending face coverings for elementary schoolaged children, social distancing, reduced classroom populations, and other suggestions that make little scientific or common sense.

To put some of the COVID statistics into perspective: Motor vehicle injuries are a leading cause of death among children in the United States. In 2017, 675 children 12 years old and younger died as occupants in motor vehicle crashes, and nearly 116,000 were injured. In the same year, according to the CDC, drownings claimed the lives of almost 1,000 U.S. children. That is 50 times greater than COVID-19! As a result, would you favor closing down all swimming pools in the United States?

The argument that children should wear face coverings to prevent the asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus to a high-risk teacher or administrator is also fallacious. First of all, there is little if any evidence that asymptomatic children are spreading COVID-19 to adults. Indeed, the World Health Organization issued a report on June 8 indicating little evidence of asymptomatic transmission of the virus.

Secondly, the way a healthy society ought to handle individuals at risk for any disease is to protect those at risk, not mandate a solution affecting the other 99%. For example, a recovering cancer patient whose immune system is suppressed from chemotherapy ought to stay at home during a declared pandemic or take extra precautions (face shield, mask, gloves) when in public spaces.

Mandatory face coverings on children is very harmful to the child: learning is inhibited; critical interactions among students and between student and teacher are fractured; and the face covering is counterproductive, as kids will naturally touch their faces, thereby contaminating their covering. This new normal that many are advocating may well lead to a spike in childhood behavior problems such as learning disabilities, anxiety disorders, and depression, to name a few.

I believe that the path forward for our country is to achieve sufficient herd immunity from COVID-19 to protect the majority of the population. One of the best mechanisms to protect the highest-risk folks is to allow the lowest risk individuals (children and young adults) to develop protective antibodies. When that happens, the COVID-19 virus will be less likely to spread. We cannot achieve herd immunity by effectively quarantining a substantial number of the healthy members of the herd. Our schools should never have been shut down in March to begin with, and now they should be opened with few restrictions. A healthy society quarantines the contagious, protects the most vulnerable, and lets everyone else operate freely.

My prescription for opening the schools:

Children should not be required to wear face coverings. Classroom size should not be reduced  no social distancing is necessary for children. Temperature checks should be performed regularly and ill children, teachers, or staff should be sent home. Good hygiene with frequent hand-washing and the use of hand sanitizer should be encouraged. Classrooms, meeting rooms, and administrative offices should be thoroughly cleaned each night. Higher-risk teachers and staff should consider working remotely or using PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) at school.

There are already financial strains on our public education system. Further politicizing school openings will drive more parents to homeschool or to seek out more child-friendly environments such as charter schools or private schools. Of course, in the latter case, that could be a silver lining emerging from the COVID-19 crisis and limit continuing governmental overreach.
Top Senate Republican Condemns New York Times Over Treatment of Senators Op-Ed

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday criticized the New York Times over how it handled an op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that promoted a view that, according to one poll, a majority of Americans share.

Backlash to the op-ed from younger staffers at the New York Times, as well as a number of activists, prompted publisher A.G. Sulzberger to oust James Bennet, who oversaw the papers opinion pages since 2016.

The paper finally met her match, McConnell told colleagues on the Senate floor, referring to previous op-eds the paper published by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Gehad El-Haddad, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. It also ran a piece arguing for the normalization of pedophilia.

McConnell noted that Cottons position is supported by a majority of voters, according to a recent poll (pdf).

His view was controversial, no question, but there is also no question it was a legitimate view for a senator to express, he continued, as looting and arson were crippling cities nightly.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 5, 2020. (Andrew Harnik/AFP/Getty Images)

Rather than actually rebut speech, the far left instead tries to silence the speaker with a mixture of misrepresentation, sanctimonious moralizing, and bizarre, emotional word salads that nobody else could have standing to question, the senator said. This silencing tactic has escaped from the Ivory Tower and is spreading throughout American life.

When the left tried banning Cotton from polite society, the New York Times folded like a house of cards, giving way to what McConnell described as an angry mob, McConnell said.

Outside leftists blasted the paper for airing the argument, he said, adding later: The facts couldnt hold a candle to the hurt feelings. The New York Times had erred grievously by making people confront a different viewpoint.

Our republic can survive a pandemic. It can survive civil unrest. But ideas and deliberation are our very foundation. America cannot be America if civil disagreement becomes a contradiction in terms, McConnell charged.

Cotton in his piece argued for using active-duty military to quell rioting after agitators at or near peaceful protests caused major destruction in multiple cities, including Minneapolis, New York City, and Washington.

Staffers at the paper claimed on social media that Cottons op-ed put the lives of black journalists in danger, with many alleging he wanted the military to act against protesters.

Buildings continue to burn in the aftermath of a night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Protesters and rioters were upset at the treatment of George Floyd, a black man accused of forgery who died while in police custody on Memorial Day.

These rioters, if not subdued, not only will destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens but will also take more innocent lives. Many poor communities that still bear scars from past upheavals will be set back still further, Cotton wrote.

He took pains to differentiate people protesting peacefully from rioters, which the New York Times admitted later when it conducted a so-called stealth edit to an article about the ideological clash within the newsroom.

Faced with harsh criticism, the paper added a lengthy editors note to Cottons op-ed, asserting the piece didnt meet its standards and should not have been published. The paper stated that the role of left-wing radicals like Antifa members in riots have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Federal and state officials have arrested multiple Antifa members and anarchists for looting and rioting and are examining how the group and its affiliates are funded.

Cotton has said he stands by what he wrote.

Katie Kingsbury, a deputy editorial page editor, is now the acting editorial page editor through the November election.

In a memo to staffers over the weekend, she said that anyone who sees any piece of Opinion journalismincluding headlines or social posts or photos or you name itthat gives you the slightest pause, please call or text me immediately.
In South Africa, we use the term "ubuntu". It doesn't just apply to business but every aspect of life. It is a social contract based on the philosophy that if my community thrives, I thrive. Other African countries use different words to describe ubuntu, but the spirit is the same: I am because we are.

Bafana Kubheka

Since it describes the uniquely African approach of embracing mutual prosperity, it inevitably also encompasses our way of doing business. Were in business for each other, and long-term relationships are favoured over making a quick buck.So its no wonder that building rapport and strengthening bonds socially is a highlight of doing business in Africa. One must be prepared - and enjoy the occasion - to spend a good amount of time discussing personal matters, like ones family life, health, opinions, values or beliefs, before getting down to the deal.For foreign companies, this may seem like a waste of time, a needless distraction or a lack of focus. Yet taking the opportunity to assess one another and cement a more personal working relationship ensures it will be lasting and fruitful. And able to weather the inevitable ups and downs of a sometimes disruptive business environment.Against this background, we find ourselves in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the spirit of ubuntu continues in our communities, doing business the African way is severely hampered by lockdowns, restrictions on travel and social distancing. Its not easy to get to know someone and build trust if you cant even meet them in person.Of course, these measures are essential to combating one of the greatest dangers the world has faced in recent history. However, they affect us both externally - in the supply chain - and internally - in the way we run our businesses. This is especially true when it comes to selecting new executives.How do you assess the character and cultural fit of each new executive hire without the ability to meet them face-to-face? In these complex times, it pays to simplify the process by building a single strong relationship with a highly trusted partner that has the resources and expertise to find and appraise high quality executives on your behalf.Their success will depend on their access to talent pools across the continent, so they can source leadership specialisations not available in your region. It will also depend on a deep understanding of the unique market environment in which you operate, as well as that of your trading partners. And, most importantly, their service will hinge on their inherent grasp of doing business the African way, in the spirit of mutual growth.There is nothing we can do about Covid-19. It is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, and we must adapt to this new normal. But you dont have to sacrifice trust when hiring the executives your company will depend on for leadership in this challenging time. You just need the right executive search partner, who understands what you really want.
GODFREY  Lewis and Clark Community College can help area teachers earn extra endorsements in just a semester or two.

Lewis and Clark can deliver the 15 hours of content to meet most of the requirements for obtaining an endorsement and saving tuition costs, said L&C Child Development and Education Coordinator Melissa Batchelor.

Regionally, the most requested endorsement is Middle School Language Arts. Participants can choose from the following course options offered at L&C to fulfill their 15 credit hours of content:

LITT 135 Women in Literature (3 credit hours)

LITT 136 Mythology (3 credit hours)

LITT 140 Childrens Literature (3 credit hours)

LITT 233 Non-Western Cultures (3 credit hours)

LITT 234 Multicultural American Literature (3 credit hours)

LITT 235 American Literature I (3 credit hours)

LITT 236 American Literature II (3 credit hours)

For language arts, we have worked to streamline this endorsement content into less than a year, but also have worked with Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to be a recognized institution for many of the endorsements, Batchelor said. Teachers within our college district can begin working on endorsements as early as this summer.

Tuition is just $125 per credit hour for in-district residents. Since all summer classes at L&C are being offered online or remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the $40 online course fee is being waived for the semester. Second eight-week summer courses begin June 8.

Many of the courses are also offered for those who want to get started this fall. Fall classes begin Aug. 24.

With face-to-face, evening and online options available, Lewis and Clark offers flexibility and affordability for anyone looking to add endorsements, said L&C Assistant Director of Academic Advising Kate Kessler. Additional endorsements can open employment opportunities in new content areas.

Other endorsement options include Middle School Math, Middle School Social Sciences and Middle School General Science.

Options for Middle School Math endorsement:

MATH 131 - College Algebra (4 credit hours)

MATH 132 - Trigonometry (3 credit hours)

MATH 142 - Math for Elementary Teachers I (4 credit hours)

MATH 145 - General Education Statistics (4 credit hours)

MATH 152 - Math for Elementary Teachers II (3 credit hours)

MATH 171 - Calculus I (5 credit hours)

MATH 235 - Statistics (4 credit hours)

Options for Middle School General Science endorsement

BIOL 130 - Fundamentals of Biological Science (4 credit hours)

BIOL 131 - Biology: A Contemporary Approach (4 credit hours)

BIOL 132 - Human Biology (4 credit hours)

BIOL 160 - Human Sexuality (3 credit hours)

BIOL 161 - Biology of Nutrition (3 credit hours)

BIOL 162 - Human Inheritance (3 credit hours)

CHEM 130 - Fundamentals of General, Organic and Biochemistry (4 credit hours)

CHEM 131 - Introduction to Chemistry I (4 credit hours)

PHYS 130 - Concepts of Physics (4 credit hours)

PHYS 131 - Introduction to Physics I (4 credit hours)

PHSC 130 - General Physical Science (4 credit hours)

PHSC 131 - Physical Geography (4 credit hours)

PHSC 135 - Environmental Geography (3 credit hours)

PHSC 141 - Astronomy (3 credit hours)

PHSC 145 - Intro to Geology and Physical Geography (3 credit hours)

Options for Social Sciences endorsement:

ECON 151 - Macroeconomics (3 credit hours)

ECON 152 - Microeconomics (3 credit hours)

HIST 131 - Western Civilization I (3 credit hours)

HIST 132 - Western Civilization II (3 credit hours)

HIST 135 - World History I (3 credit hours)

HIST 136 - World History II (3 credit hours)

HIST 161 - Womens Movement in American History (3 credit hours)

HIST 231 - American Republic: Beginnings-1877 (3 credit hours)

HIST 232 - American Nation 1878-Present (3 credit hours)

GEOG 132 - World Regions (3 credit hours)

GEOG 205 - Human Geography (3 credit hours)

POLS 131 - American Government (3 credit hours)

POLS 132 - State and Local Government (3 credit hours)

POLS 231 - International Relations (3 credit hours)

L&C does not offer the 3-credit hour methods course that is also required to finalize the endorsements, but that course can be taken locally at four-year schools including Greenville University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Blackburn College.

For more details, contact Kessler at 618-468-5250 or cekessler@lc.edu.
Armed men on Tuesday killed at least 20 people in Faskari local government area of Katsina State, the police have said.

The police spokesperson in Katsina, Gambo Isah, told PREMIUM TIMES that the attack occurred in Kadisau community when the bandits arrived on over 200 motorcycles.

The bandits attempted to loot food items. However, the residents resisted their attempt. As a result, the gunmen opened fire and killed 14 residents on the spot.

In the attack, 26 were also injured. Among the injured victims, six died on Wednesday morning. We recorded 20 deaths, and 20 injuries during the unfortunate incident, Mr Isah told PREMIUM TIMES.

The police commissioner in Katsina has deployed more personnel in the affected area to prevent further bloodshed, he added.

Katsina is the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Assurances

Mr Isah said the special forces deployed from Abuja have already ensured security in Jibia, Safana and Batsari local government areas.

He said residents in the aforementioned councils areas are now sleeping with their two eyes closed. These areas were hitherto trouble areas because the bandits operate at will.

The policeman said the dangerous Danya forest, which housed the bandits leader, in Danmusa council area, which was hitherto inaccessible because of the terrain, is now liberated by the Nigerian security forces.

He said bandits leader, identified as Manore, built a modern house in the forest with Italian roofing, but the security forces have destroyed the building and killed hundreds of his boys while many fled.

Mr Isah said although the special forces were carrying out operations, they cannot cover the over 5000 villages in Katsina.

The security men cannot be everywhere at the same time. Even the area being attacked recently was a deliberate by the bandits to show that they are still breathing.

The attacks in Faskari, Sabuwa, Dandume will soon be over as the bandits days are numbered, the security forces are on top of the situation. The criminal wills no longer have a hiding place, he said.
NASA and the European Space Agency have discovered evidence that suggests the formation of the first stars and galaxies occurred earlier than previously believed.

The new findings were uncovered by the Hubble Space Telescope, which astronomers used to study the first generation of stars, known as Population III stars, in the early universe.

The team probed the early universe from about 500 million to one billion years following the Big Bang by studying the cluster MACS J0416, which is about four billion light-years from Earth, and its parallel field with the Hubble.

Rachana Bhatawdekar of the ESA and lead of the study said: 'We found no evidence of these first-generation Population III stars in this cosmic time interval.'

This conclusion means these stars and the first galaxies are much older, as they could not be identified by the Hubble.

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The new findings were uncovered by the Hubble Space Telescope, which astronomers used to study the first generation of stars in the early universe known as Population III stars. Pictured is an artistic impression of the early universe

The discovery was achieved using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Population III stars formed from the primordial material that emerged from the Big Bang and experts say they were made of hydrogen, helium and lithium.

This is because heavier elements, such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and iron, developed in the cores of these stars and those that formed after them.

Bhatawdekar and her team used a new technique that removes the light from the bright foreground galaxies that constitute these gravitational lenses.

The team probed the early universe from about 500 million to one billion years following the Big Bang by studying the cluster MACS J0416 (pictured), which is about four billion light-years from Earth, and its parallel field with the Hubble

Rachana Bhatawdekar of the ESA and lead of the study said: 'We found no evidence of these first-generation Population III stars in this cosmic time interval.' This conclusion means these stars and the first galaxies are much older, as they could not be identified by the Hubble (pictured)

This has allowed them to observe galaxies with lower masses and at a distance that corresponds to when the universe was less than a billion years old.

'At this point in cosmic time, the lack of evidence for exotic stellar populations and the identification of many low-mass galaxies supports the suggestion that these galaxies are the most likely candidates for the reionization of the universe, NASA shared in a statement.

'This period of reionization in the early universe is when the neutral intergalactic medium was ionized by the first stars and galaxies.'

'These results have profound astrophysical consequences as they show that galaxies must have formed much earlier than we thought,' said Bhatawdekar.

The findings also imply that the stars and galaxies formed earlier than the Hubble Telescope is capable of detecting. The team notes that the results provide future research for the James Webb Space Telescope (pictured) to study the universe's earliest galaxies

'This also strongly supports the idea that low-mass/faint galaxies in the early universe are responsible for reionization.'

The findings also imply that the stars and galaxies formed earlier than the Hubble Telescope is capable of detecting.

The team notes that the results provide future research for the new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope  to study the universe's earliest galaxies.
Questions on international matters are not to be answered on social media platforms, pointed out Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in pithy advice to Congress leader Rahul Gandhis constant probing of the China question.

Rahul Gandhi should know that on international matters, like China, questions should not be asked on Twitter. He is the same man who asked for evidence after the Balakot airstrikes and 2016 Uri attack, Ravi Shankar Prasad was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The Congress leader has been tweeting, seeking answers from the Central government on the China aggression in Ladakh.

Earlier today, the former Congress president, stepping up the attack, targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modis silence on the issue. The Chinese have walked in and taken our territory in Ladakh. Meanwhile The PM is absolutely silent and has vanished from the scene, he tweeted.

The latest salvo comes even as the Chinese troops at the four standoff points in Ladakh have started thinning out. A Major General-level meeting is also scheduled between the two sides to work out the mechanics of scaling down troops on both sides of the Line of Actual Control.

On Tuesday, a group of retired officers of the armed forces deplored Rahul Gandhis statements on India-China border issue, terming them as ill-conceived and against national interest.

We, as a group of senior armed forces veterans, strongly deplore the ill-conceived and ill-timed statements and tweets of Rahul Gandhi questioning the handling of India-China border disputes by our armed forces and the Government of India, the group of nine retired army officers, including Lt Gen Nitin Kohli, Lt Gen R N Singh and Maj Gen M Srivastava, said in a statement.

His statements are patently harmful to our national interest. In the past too, Rahul Gandhi and Congress leaders questioned the Indian armed forces ground and air strikes, they said.
U.S. theatre world accused of exploiting, excluding people of color FILE PHOTO: 2019 Hollywood Film Awards - Show - Beverly Hills, California, U.S.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Viola Davis, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Cynthia Erivo joined some 300 actors and playwrights on Tuesday in decrying racism in the U.S. theatre world, saying it had exploited, excluded and diminished people of color.

In an open letter addressed to "Dear White American Theatre," the signatories complained of tokenism, prioritizing white theatre for white audiences, and a failure to make promised changes in programming or leadership.

The letter follows a national reckoning in the United States about systemic racism, sparked by the death of African American George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer last month. Floyd's funeral, broadcast nationwide, took place on Tuesday in Houston, Texas, after two weeks of street protests around the world.

"We have watched you use our BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) faces on your brochures, asking us to politely shuffle at your galas, talkbacks, panels, board meetings, and donor dinners, in rooms full of white faces," the letter said.

It was addressed not just to theatre owners and theatre companies but also to critics, casting directors, agents, labor unions and university training programs.

"We have watched you exploit us, shame us, diminish us, and exclude us. We see you," it said, adding that despite holding anti-racism workshops, few changes are made to theatre programs or leadership.

"This is a house that will not stand. This ends TODAY," the letter said.

It was accompanied by a change.org petition demanding reforms in the theatre that by late Tuesday had been signed by almost 50,000 people.

Others signing included "This is Us" star Sterling K. Brown, "Pose" star Billy Porter, playwright Lynn Nottage, "Black Panther" actress Danai Gurira, and "Orange is the New Black" Emmy winner Uzo Aduba.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Tom Brown)
The International Space Station is about to join the effort to control the world's wildlife. They will revolutionize the science of animal monitoring through Project Icarus - floating about 240 miles above the earth.

A large antenna and other devices are being tested onboard the orbital station, installed by Russian spacewalking astronauts in 2018, which will become fully operational this summer. The device can relay a much broader data range than previous tracking systems, recording the location of an animal and its physiology and environment.

ALSO READ: NASA Experiments to Fly Aboard Its Gateway Space Station; Is Outer Space a "Safe Zone" From Coronavirus?

How can ICARUS help?

International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) would allow animals to be monitored in far larger areas than others. At the same time, ICARUS has shrunk the size of the transmitters the animals carry, making them much cheaper for booting.

These changes will allow researchers to track insects and bird flocks as they migrate over long distances instead of monitoring just one or two birds at a time. With climate change and habitat destruction roiling the planet, ICARUS will enable biologists and wildlife managers to respond quickly to changes in where and when species migrate.

"It's a new era of discovery," said Walter Jetz, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale, whose center is working with the project. He told The New York Times they will discover new migration paths, habitat requirements, things about species behavior that we didn't even think about.

ALSO READ: NASA Cuts Boeing From Competition To Deliver International Space Station Cargo

People worldwide will be able to log on to the "Internet of Animals" with a smartphone app to track their favorite wildlife animal as they migrate real-time.

This space-based approach in unfolding the untold animal stories is led by Martin Wikelski, director of migration research at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Germany. He has been pursuing it for years with a passion for overcoming gaps and disadvantages in current technologies. DLR, the German Space Agency, primarily fund it.

ICARUS will collaborate with other stakeholders

The program will be available to researchers around the world using it for research purposes. And the data should be open to all, with some exceptions. Dr. Wikelski said that ICARUS readings could be combined with other types of information, such as the eBird database, to make the data even more robust.

Dr. Wikelski said one of the project's aims is to help conservation managers adapt to a changing environment. Fixed boundaries define protected areas such as wildlife parks and forest preserves. But as several animals are on the move, other changes are causing climate shifts. Wikelski said protecting them would require a sense of where they are going and where new protected areas and corridors might need to be created.

Another of ICARUS's ambitions is to allow anyone with a smartphone to track tagged migratory animals. One app, called the Animal Tracker, already exists as a way to tap into wildlife tracking systems based on the ground.

Dr. Wikelski aims to create support for conservation by linking people to a single charismatic animal, whose actions they can observe. "If people hear Cecil the lion died, it's [genuine] to them," he said, referring to a lion in Zimbabwe that was killed by an American hunter in 2015. "But if you say 3,000 lions died, nobody cares."

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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Linkedin Julia Suryakusuma (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 10:25 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd806e6 3 Opinion COVID-19,coronavirus,pandemic,mahfud-md,gender-based-violence,sexism,sexist,domestic-violence Free

Dont you just love it when government officials put their foot in their mouths? The most recent incident was committed by the honorable Coordinating Legal, Political and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD.

Many of you have probably seen the video of his gaffe. With a satisfied smirk on his face, on May 26 Mahfud stated Corona is like your wife. Initially, you tried to control it, then you realize that you can't, so you learn to live with it.

He obviously thought it was a super smart and funny thing to say, so when he got a huge backlash, and not just from women activists, he tried to shift the blame to Luhut B. Pandjaitan, by saying it was a meme he had received from his colleague, the coordinating maritime affairs and investment minister.

A friend of mine, a political science professor, commented Despicable, sexist and not funny. But then she added, On the other hand, its good to know that Luhut can't lord it over his wife. Hah!

Unsurprisingly, many said the joke was misogynistic. I mean, comparing your wife to a virus?? One female journalist remarked, If they dont like their [wives], why did they marry each other?

Mahfud and Luhuts statements occurred less than three weeks after a 16-year-old girl in Bantaeng, South Sulawesi, was brutally murdered. On May 9, Rosmini was stabbed and hacked to death by her two older brothers, Supriyanto, 20, and Rahman, 30, reportedly on their fathers orders.

Her sin? Having allegedly had premarital sex with a much older cousin, so the father ordered his sons to kill her in front of other family members. Apparently Rosmini surrendered herself to her fate. Death is way better than a life that would have been a stigma-filled hell.

The brothers have been arrested, charged with premeditated murder and could receive the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Recently I watched an inspiring 2010 TED talk by the remarkable Sheryl WuDunn, business executive, writer, lecturer, Pulitzer Prize winner (together with her husband Nicholas Kristof) and former correspondent for the New York Times. With Kristof, she coauthored Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009).

The title of the book was inspired by Mao Zedongs proclamation in 1968 to prove that women are a resource that ought to be deployed outside of the homes into the professional fields.

WuDunn started her talk by pointing out that the greatest injustice in the 19th century was slavery, in the 20th century, it was totalitarianism and in the 21st century, gender equality. The oppression of girls and women worldwide is the human rights cause of our time, she said.

The book focuses on genital mutilation, prostitution, rape, maternal mortality, micro-credit and solutions in developing countries.

What is inspiring about the talk is the way she demonstrates how oppression can be turned into opportunity. WuDunn recounts the cases of three girls from China, Ethiopia and Pakistan who prove that a vicious cycle can be turned into a virtuous cycle. I will share the story of the Chinese girl. Watch WuDunns TED talk for the other cases. They are truly inspiring!

Dai Manju was a 13-year-old girl from the Dabian Mountains in the remote part of Hubei province in central China whose parents decided not to school her because they didnt have the money. When WuDunn and Kristoff wrote about her in the New York Times, they received a flood of donations. This allowed Dai Manju to go to school, where she excelled and continued on to high school and vocational school for accounting. She not only found a job but also sought jobs for her friends. She sent money home and transformed the lives of her family and indirectly that of many others.

WuDunn concluded, What we saw was a natural experiment. It is rare to get an exogenous investment in girls' education. [Dai Manju] not only changed her own dynamic, she changed her household, she changed her family, her village.

The inspiring stories that WuDunn recounts are not the kind we often hear about. Invariably, its all the negative stuff that of course also needs to be reported. Honor killing is practiced in Europe, the Americas, Australia, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, but hardly ever in Southeast Asia. So the fact that Rosminis brutal murder was the first recorded case of honor killing in Indonesia made it very newsworthy.

The fact that Mafhud made the coronavirus is my wife statement just a few weeks after the horrific killing of Rosmini serves to demonstrate even more the callous gender insensitivity of many of our political leaders.

Mahfud and Luhut would certainly condemn the cold-blooded murder of Rosmini. They would be shocked to know that there is a connection between their sexist jokes and the murder of a 16-year-old girl. Ya bapak-bapak (yes sirs), you may consider these jokes harmless but in fact they are in the same spectrum of oppressive patriarchy as honor killings.

Both stem from the misogynistic view that women are inferior to men and merely property or even commodities that have no agency or rights. An activist commented on Mahfuds gaff, a joke that casually objectifies women will only normalize violence against women.

So please, bapak-bapak pejabat, (honorable officials) its high time you raised your gender sensitivity awareness if you dont want to be seen as enablers of the violence against women epidemic in Indonesia!

***

Author of Sex, Power and Nation

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
(Photo : CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS on Reuters) Coronavirus Started in August? China Mocks Harvard by Calling 'Ridiculous' After Published Study (Photo : ALY SONG on Reuters) Coronavirus Started in August? China Mocks Harvard by Calling 'Ridiculous' After Published Study

On Tuesday, June 9, Tech Times reported that Harvard Medical School published research about the origin of coronavirus. It was said that the disease was spreading in Wuhan, China, months before the country even told the World Health Organization (WHO). Now, the Chinese government mocks the study and said that it was 'incredibly ridiculous' to believe that their theory is true.

Coronavirus started last August?

The Chinese government calls out the recent Harvard study that was published yesterday, June 9. It was concluded in the study that Coronavirus started spreading in Wuhan, China, in August 2019. Contrary to what the Chinese government said that the virus started to spread in December 2019.

Harvard researchers came up with this idea when they found satellite images of Wuhan hospitals packed with more parked cars in the lots around late summer to fall of 2019 compared to the same months of 2018.

A surge of internet searches regarding the symptoms and the disease were also linked to the idea that it may have started spreading earlier than people thought.

"Individual hospitals have days of high relative volume in both fall and winter 2019. However, between September and October 2019, five of the six hospitals show their highest relative daily volume of the analyzed series, coinciding with elevated levels of Baidu search queries for the terms 'diarrhea' and 'cough,'" the team wrote.

The study clarified that it was not yet peer-reviewed, but this might be a possible scenario that creates controversy with China.

Due to this, the Chinese government now seeks an explanation from the university.

China: Harvard study is 'incredibly ridiculous'

To answer all the claims of Harvard University, Chinese authorities have commented on the issue.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: "I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume."

Other experts in the medical field also supported China's dismay with the study.

Paul Digard, an expert in virology at the University of Edinburgh, said that Harvard made an interesting find with the satellite images, but said that "it would have been interesting - and possibly much more convincing - to have seen control analyses of other Chinese cities outside of the Hubei region."

Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the research method is not validated and is "very indirect and imprecise."

The university and the researchers of the study have not yet commented on the issues regarding their early diagnosis of viral disease.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
An official who was at the heart of the Ruby Princess debacle has defended as 'reasonable' the decision to let passengers disembark from the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship despite the devastating results.

Thousands of passengers were allowed to get off the ship in Sydney Harbour on March 19 and spread across the country.

They were allowed off even though more than 100 passengers had suffered respiratory illness while on board, and two were still awaiting the result of tests for COVID-19.

The ship's passengers have since been linked to more than 650 of Australia's coronavirus cases, just under 10 per cent of the nationwide total, and 22 deaths.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Special Commission of Inquiry to investigate how the blunder happened, NSW Health's chief biosecurity officer stood by the decision.

He was one of four NSW Health officials who gave the ship the green light to dock and release passengers, the inquiry heard.

The Ruby Princess docked in Sydney Harbour on March 19 (pictured) and more than 650 infected travellers were allowed to disembark the ship without any medical checks

A crew member is seen arriving at Sydney airport on April 23 (pictured) after leaving the doomed ship to fly to her home country

'We did understand that risk of pre-symptomatic people going into the community,' Dr Sean Tobin said on Wednesday.

'If it were happening now, the best practice now is all international travellers go into a policed quarantine arrangement.

'At that time, I still believe it was a reasonable judgement.'

Officials said NSW Health's decision to let them disembark was based on the personal liberty of passengers and their need to make pre-booked travel connections.

And it was made despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison having banned cruise ship passengers from disembarking in Australia just the day before.

Crew of the Ruby Princess are seen leaving a charter bus at Sydney airport on April 23(pictured), preparing to fly to their home countries

At the time, 104 passengers were reporting signs of acute respiratory illness, associated with COVID-19, and two were awaiting test results.

Despite this, they were allowed to spill out into Circular Quay, potentially infecting thousands of people as the disease was spreading rapidly at the time before most lockdown measures were put in place.

Dr Tobin defended this decision, saying they were no confirmed cases on board at the time.

Some local residents came to wave off the Ruby Princess on April 23 (pictured) in Woolongong, as it finally set sail for the Philippines

When asked by Commissioner Bret Walker SC asked if the ensuing health disaster could have been stopped by 'reasonable action', Dr Tobin said 'no'.

The ship finally left Australian waters on April 23, marking the end of a five-week fiasco which saw federal border and state health officials at loggerheads over who was to blame for the ship being allowed to dock.

On Tuesday, the inquiry heard the Ruby Princess was deemed low-risk because no passengers had been to countries with major COVID-19 outbreaks.

Dr Tobin had acknowledged that a 'fair number of passengers and crew presented with respiratory systems' when deciding on the low-risk rating.

The doomed Ruby Princess cruise ship (pictured) is seen leaving Port Kembla in Wollongong on Thursday, with a banner draped over the back saying 'Thank You Illawarra'

He also confirmed he was not aware of an upward trajectory being reported on the ship, as he had not been shown the medical logs.

Those logs showed daily increases of influenza-like illness or acute respiratory illness from March 15.

Commissioner Bret Walker SC said he thought it was 'a bit odd' that clinical judgments were being made by the authorities without having seen individual patient records.

The Ruby Princess was at anchor in Manila on Wednesday afternoon.
Washington  Dana Balter has held onto her lead over Francis Conole two weeks before the Democratic primary election in the 24th Congressional District, according to a new poll paid for by the Balter campaign.

Balter leads Conole 60-31% among likely voters in the June 23 primary election, with 9% undecided, the poll by GBAO Strategies of Washington, D.C. found.

Balter held a commanding 43-point lead over Conole (64-21%) in a poll by the same firm at the end of March.

In the new poll, Balter led Conole across all demographic groups in a district that spans all of Onondaga, Cayuga and Wayne counties, and the western half of Oswego County.

Balter is favored among Democratic voters in Syracuse, its suburbs and surrounding counties, according to the poll. She also led among men and women, younger and older voters, and liberal and moderate Democrats.

The poll surveyed 400 likely Democratic primary voters in the 24th District on landlines and cell phones from Thursday through Sunday. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

No other polls have been made public in the primary campaign. The winner of the June 23 election will challenge Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, in November.

The new poll found Conole, 42, an Iraq War veteran from Syracuse, has become better known in Central New York over the last two months as he began airing TV commercials and sending mailers to potential voters.

In March, only 28% of those polled were familiar with Conole. In the new poll, 61% of voters knew about Conole. The familiarity helped Conole gain 14 percentage points from the previous poll.

Balter, 43, a Syracuse educator, won the 2018 Democratic primary election but lost to Katko in the general election. She improved her name recognition and favorability rating with Democratic voters in the new poll.

About 88% of likely voters are now familiar with Balter, up 12 percentage points from March. The poll found those who know Balter increasingly like her as a candidate. She improved her favorability rating to 59-13%, compared to 34-11% for Conole.

Conole campaign manager Will Van Nuys said the Navy veterans overall gain in the poll since March is a positive sign. He said the poll shows more voters are shifting their support to Conole from Balter as they learn about his background.

Francis Conole speaks in Syracuse after winning the Onondaga County Democratic Committee's designation for Congress on Feb. 15, 2020.Teri Weaver | tweaver@syracuse.com

Conoles name recognition among Central New Yorkers is likely to continue to improve over the next two weeks as his campaign and a national veterans group spend at least $200,000 on TV ads.

Vote Vets Action Fund said Monday it will spend $100,000 this week on TV ads supporting Conole. The ads coincide with the start of voting in the district.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order allowing all New Yorkers to vote by mail in the June 23 primary election because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Early in-person voting in the primary election begins Saturday, June 13, and will continue daily through June 21. Polls will be open for in-person voting from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Election Day, June 23.

MORE POLITICS

NY primary election 2020: Where, when to vote early in Central New York

Veterans group to spend $100K on ads for Francis Conole in Democratic primary

The virtual campaign for Congress: Balter, Conole innovate to reach CNY voters

Dana Balter, Francis Conole agree to debate in Democratic primary for Congress

Dana Balter criticizes Trumps handling of coronavirus pandemic in first TV ad

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Countries cannot ignore corruption during the COVID-19 response. Even in ordinary times, research has shown that corruption in the health sector causes losses of US$455 billion per year and, according to OECD estimates, up to US$2 trillion of procurement costs could be lost to corruption.

How do we consider this reality during a global pandemic, when there are increased opportunities for corruption to take place, while at the same time not compromising an effective public health response?

Experience has shown that applying a risk-based prioritization framework is a crucial first step. Tailored to each context, the framework should determine which governance, transparency and accountability mechanisms must be integrated into all COVID-19 public health response planning and design. This framework should prioritize deterring those forms of corruption that stand to most severely undermine both the quality and speed of the public health response. Indeed, there may be times when risks and mitigating measures identified during ordinary times are deprioritized during an emergency response.

The adoption of a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral oversight body, involving governments, civil society, academia, and anti-corruption, audit and oversight institutions, will help to raise awareness, and to bridge the health and anti-corruption communities, promoting dialogue and cooperation to mitigate corruption risks and make the most of available resources.

Community-led monitoring mechanisms which place greater reliance on bottom-up social accountability from the public itself are central to a robust response. Measures to increase transparency of data and decision making, as well as channels for citizens to safely report instances of potential corrupt acts are paramount. For example, use of digital technology to report falsified medical products, shortages in supplies, and other irregularities related to procurement or assets, should be encouraged.

Here are a few examples of smart anti-corruption practices that are being used by countries during the pandemic response.

In Ukraine, anti-corruption reforms oblige all emergency contracts to be published in full, shared as open data, including terms of payment and delivery, and value. Civil society has developed a business intelligence tool to monitor COVID-19 related medical procurement and emergency spending, and includes information such as the name of items, the price per item, terms, and supplier. Colombia uses an e-procurement platform which complies with the Open Contracting Data Standard, even as emergency procedures have been announced. Colombias National Health Institute discloses not only tender data and information but all the technical comments received from potential suppliers.

The COVID-19 response also reminds us that effective institutions are an essential part of pandemic preparedness. Building institutional capacity and ensuring measures and systems are in place to prevent corruption and institutionalize transparency and accountability will help to deliver better health outcomes that would benefit the whole of society post the pandemic.

Given the enormous burden expected on countries to plan, respond and recover from the current pandemic, corruption must be considered as a significant barrier to a successful response. It is vital to focus on addressing those corruption risks which may most seriously harm the COVID-19 response both in the short-term crisis response and in recovery phase.

What are your experiences using ACTA measures during COVID-19? We would welcome your ideas and experiences, keeping in mind the questions below. Please email acta@who.int to share.

In what circumstances can fraud and corruption undermine the pandemic response? What measures do you think may be best suited to mitigate fraud and corruption risk in the context of pandemics?

What criteria would you suggest health and anti-corruption professionals use to determine when to insist on anti-corruption measures, or to lighten them in the context of a pandemic? Are there alternative mechanisms that can be leveraged to mitigate fraud and corruption risk while permitting efficient and effective delivery of the health response?
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2020 American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum will take place as scheduled, June 14-18, with a change of venue from gathering in Berlin to convening online. It will be the first time in AJC history that the leading global Jewish advocacy organization's signature annual event is held virtually.

"Our Global Forum is too vital to be sidelined by the pandemic," said AJC CEO David Harris. "While we were set to hold the largest gathering in Germany of a global Jewish advocacy group since World War II, we are proud to announce that the same caliber of world leaders and policy experts will address our worldwide audience participating in the AJC Virtual Global Forum."

Confirmed speakers for the 2020 AJC Virtual Global Forum include:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was set to host the AJC Global Forum in Berlin, will address the opening plenary.

Benjamin Gantz, Israel's Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense in the country's new unity government, will discuss the most pressing challenges and greatest opportunities facing the Jewish state.

Dr. Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Secretary General of the Muslim World League, will speak about his historic visit to Auschwitz with AJC earlier this year, as well as the state of Muslim-Jewish relations.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece, will discuss the democratic alliance in the Eastern Mediterranean among Greece, Cyprus, the United States, and Israel, and the importance of expanding that vital strategic partnership.

The Great Debate is one of the highlights of the annual AJC Global Forum, and this year the Virtual Global Forum will have three spirited sessions on highly topical issues.

Election 2020: Debating American Values and Interests, a discussion of the competing visions that the Democratic and Republican parties will offer American voters, will feature Antony Blinken, Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Biden for President and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State (2015-2017), and KT McFarland, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor (2017), and author of Revolution: Trump, Washington and "We the People".

The Future of the West Bank: Two Israeli Perspectives, a discussion of whether Israel should extend its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, will feature Merav Michaeli, Member of Knesset (Labor), and Dore Gold, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations (1997-1999) and current President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

The Hate Speech Debate: Should Free Speech Be Limited? This conversation on how democracies should grapple with the challenges posed by hate speech will feature Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emerita, at New York University and President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) (1991-2008), and Dan Shefet, President of the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy.

More sessions will be announced in the coming days. For the full AJC Virtual Global Forum program, and to register for free for sessions, visit AJC.org/VirtualGlobalForum2020.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


Retail and wholesale traders across India on Wednesday launched a campaign to boycott import of Chinese goods with an aim to reduce imports of upto Rs 1 lakh crore ($ 13.3 bn) by December 2021. Under the aegis of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), a preliminary list of 3,000 items has been prepared which account for significant imports from China but where local alternatives are available. Bilateral trade between the two countries stood at nearly $ 81.6 billion in 2019-20 with China enjoying a trade surplus of $48.66 billion. Imports from China during the fiscal stood at $ 65.26 billion, a decline of 7.2 percent over 2018-19.

"In 2001, imports from China was at just $2 billion. It has ballooned to $70 billion today. In 20 years, the growth has been a phenomenal 3,500 percent and clearly shows they have a well thought out strategy to capture India's retail market," said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general, CAIT. "I must admit it was an error on the part of business community, traders as also the government that we did not look at alternatives earlier which allowed China to become this big. It is high time now and corrective measures are needed."

CAIT said more than 40,000 trader bodies representing 7 crore retailers and wholesellers in the country have agreed to join the movement for a total boycott of Chinese products. Further it said there was a visible change in purchasing pattern among consumers as well who do not want to buy Chinese goods as readily as before.

Also read: BT Buzz: China struggles with economic recovery; Xi Jinping turns to home market

"Even in January, much before the lockdown, when the first news of the virus started trickling in, we saw a shift in the purchase decisions of Indian consumers. Chinese goods have an advantage of low cost but they are also low on quality. Consumers today want reliable products and are willing to pay extra for it," Khandelwal said.

"Besides they know that the profits from the products they buy here are used to pay for the Army in China or to support Pakistan which then intrude into our country. So indirectly by buying Chinese goods we are only harming ourselves. The mood is against it today and we as responsible traders need to educate ourselves and the consumers about this," he added.

The list of items that CAIT has prepared mostly include electronic goods, FMCG products, toys, gift items, confectionary products, clothes, watches and a host of plastic products. The alternatives for these are already available in the country, it said.

The call for boycott of Chinese goods in India however is not new. Each time, however, it has succeeded only as a temporary fad linked largely to any skirmish on the borders. Once peace is restored, business goes back to usual. "It is not the same this time. We know each year during Diwali, the lights that are bought to decorate our homes are made in China. This year, all these lights will be made in India because we will not stock them from across the border at all," Khandelwal said. "It will not be a Chinese Diwali anymore."

Also read: Coronavirus effect: China's exports rise in April even as COVID-19 crashes global demand
Lome, Togo (PANA) - The French Development Agency (FDA) on Monday granted a concessional loan of 40 million euros to Togo for the water and sanitation under a financing agreement, PANA noted in Lome
Seemingly unaffected by the controversy in the global scientific community, Greece has resumed production of chloroquine to treat cases of coronavirus and is conducting clinical trials with a "calm and distant approach", scientists there say.

Chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, and hydroxychloroquine, a related compound normally used to treat arthritis, have been among the most high-profile drugs being tested for use against COVID-19.

But last week a major UK trial run by Oxford University halted its tests of the drugs, saying there was no evidence they worked against the new coronavirus in hospitalised patients.

The move came just after the World Health Organization (WHO) resumed its own trials after briefly suspending them in response to a now-retracted study in The Lancet.

But the ongoing debate over the drugs has had little impact in Greece, where epidemiologists consider chloroquine effective, especially in the early stages of COVID-19.

Renewed licence

Evangelia Sakellariou, a chemist responsible for quality control in a laboratory in the Athens suburb of Nea Kifissia, was one of the first scientists to have tested the chloroquine tablets used in Greek hospitals.

As the scale of the pandemic became apparent earlier this year, the company Uni-Pharma moved quickly to renew an old manufacturing licence for the drug, which was exported to Africa in the 1990s for the treatment of malaria.

The licence was reactivated in March, just days before Greece closed its borders to contain the spread of the virus, Spyros Kintzios, Uni-Pharma's development director, told AFP.

Five tonnes of raw material were imported from India and the laboratory went into "high-alert", Sakellariou said.

"On the weekend of March 21 we were working constantly, we were under pressure and in 30 hours we produced 24 million doses, which were then offered to the Greek national health system," she said of the pills, made under the brand name Unikinon.

"When I saw the first tablets, I felt relieved and happy to have made this effort for a good cause," Sakellariou added.

At the time, there were only six coronavirus deaths and 464 recorded infections in Greece. The country has remained one of the least affected in Europe, with 182 deaths and under 3,000 official cases so far.

Against a backdrop of international competition, "the resumption of chloroquine production in Greece has had a positive effect on local industry, whose exports have increased in recent years," said Markos Ollandezos, president of the Panhellenic Union of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

The Greek industry is mainly specialised in the manufacture of generic drugs and some commonly used medicines.

'We wait and see'

The debate on chloroquine in other countries has not affected its use in Greece, where it has been administered to hospitalised patients in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin.

In April, the Athens Medical University started a study on "the activity of chloroquine phosphate in patients with SARS-CoV-2 virus infection", to test how the drug could prevent or improve symptoms of pneumonia.

There has been little debate on treatment in the country because coronavirus has caused so few deaths, said Ollandezos.

"People in Greecethe public, healthcare professionals, people within institutional rolesthey maintain a very calm and distant approach to chloroquine," said Kintzios at Uni-Pharma.

"So the idea is that we wait and see, we wait for the results," he said.

Globally, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been swept up in a politically charged debate amid the pandemic, with hydroxychloroquine endorsed by public figures including US President Donald Trump.

At a press conference in May, Greek health ministry spokesman Sotiris Tsiodras said "chloroquine's action is still contested".

Last week's retraction of the Lancet studywhich had found the drugs had no benefit in treating coronavirus, and even increased the likelihood of patients dying in hospitalrocked public opinion and the scientific community.

However, the manufacture of both medications has continued in many countries in Europe.

France's Sanofi produces hydroxychloroquine sulfate at a site in Hungary. The drug itself, under the brand name Plaquenil, is manufactured at two large production sites in Spain and France.

Plaquenil is exported to several countries where hydroxychloroquine is not produced, such as Greece, Poland and Estonia.

In Bulgaria, chloroquine from the state laboratory Bul Bio is used for treating COVID-19 patients.

Poland, which also authorises its use, is considered a major producer of chloroquine with company Adamed producing it under the name Arechin.

Questioned by AFP, a Hungarian government spokesman stressed that the drug was not administered to new patients but only to those who have already started treatment.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
The European Union plans to partially and slowly ease restrictions and allow most travel to its member countries from 1 July. Non-essential travel was restricted from mid-March, and the curbs are due to lapse on 15 June. After months of shutdown, Europe is now looking to revive the domestic economy as the summer tourism season begins while guarding against a second wave of infections. To catch up on the rest of the news in five minutes, heres Mint Lite.

World economy to slide 6%: OECD

View Full Image OECD has forecast a global economic slump of 6% this year, more than World Bank estimates earlier this week. This is if virus continues to recede.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fragmented the world economy, Paris-based OECD said. The extraordinary uncertainty and unprecedented loss of income" will hit businesses and the most vulnerable, it said, prompting governments to take extraordinary action" to protect people. OECD has forecast a global economic slump of 6% this year, more than World Bank estimates earlier this week. This is if virus continues to recede. If there is a second wave of infections, it could mean 7.6% contraction. It highlighted deepening fault lines created by the virus, including in social and health systems, and the capacity of governments to respond. Lockdowns have heightened inequalities between workers, with the youngest and least qualified on the front line. By the end of 2021, it expects loss of income to exceed that of any previous recession over the last 100 years outside wartime". Covid-19 has accelerated the shift from great integration to great fragmentation," it said.

Assam fire threatens lives, wetlands

View Full Image Environmentalists said they are worried about the impact as the well is about 1km from the Maguri-Motapung Beel wetland, and 2.5km from the Dibru Saikhowa National Park

Two firefighters have died and over 3,000 people evacuated from a fire at an Oil India natural gas well in Assams Tinsukia district. The well caught fire on Tuesday afternoon, about two weeks after it began leaking gas. Workers have been trying to cap the well since 27 May, but OIL has now said the fire could take at least four more weeks to control. Four people have been injured and about 30 homes damaged. Environmentalists said they are worried about the impact as the well is about 1km from the Maguri-Motapung Beel wetland, and 2.5km from the Dibru Saikhowa National Park. The fire at the periphery has been contained, but it has spread due to the presence of natural gas condensate, an OIL official told Al Jazeera. Last month, OIL received clearance from the Centre to carry out drilling and testing of hydrocarbons in seven locations under Dibru Saikhowa National Park, which locals and activists have been protesting, Mongabay reports.

Covid-19 hits womens jobs

The lockdown has been lifted, but its effect is harsher on employment of women and disadvantaged caste groups than others. Ashoka Universitys Ashwini Deshpande used data from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy to find that 100 million men lost jobs, against 17 million women, but as a proportion of workforce, 39% women were without work in April 2020 as against 29% men. The reason is more men get paid work than women. This is a trend worldwide70% of 44 million jobs likely to be lost globally due to covid-19 are done by women. In US, more women than men lost jobs from February to May11.5 million to 9 million mens jobs. Hospitality, education, health, and tradewhich employed 47% womenaccounted for 59% of total loss in non-farm jobs from February to May.

View Full Image Women worse affected than men by job losses

34 years on, Sweden closes case

View Full Image Over the years, more than 100 people claimed responsibility for the murder but the investigation got nowhere

After 34 years, Sweden has closed the investigation into the murder of former prime minister Olof Palme in 1986. Palme was shot in Stockholm while walking home with his wife and son. The killer disappeared, setting off a manhunt and conspiracy theories that speculated on the involvement of everyone from CIA to Kurdish separatists and even linked it to his discovery of corruption in the Bofors deal in India. At a press briefing on Wednesday, officials said the assassin was Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer, a former army veteran and a critic of Palmes policies who died by suicide in 2000. Palme was a Social Democrat who laid the foundations for Swedens welfare state. Over the years, more than 100 people claimed responsibility for the murder but the investigation got nowhere. Palmes murder is seen a defining moment" in a nation that considers itself an open and peaceful society.

Notre-Dame work resumes

View Full Image Teams hanging from ropes 40 to 50 metres in the air will use electric saws to cut away the scaffolding piece by piece.

The delicate work of removing molten scaffolding from the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris is underway. Scaffolding encased much of the 850-year-old cathedral, including its spire, as it was undergoing repairs when a huge fire broke out in April last year. The spire crashed down during the blaze, and the scaffolding, which included 50,000 tubes, became a tangled melted mess and got attached to the building. This week, workers have started the job of cutting away the 20 tonnes of metal. To do this, theyve built another complex, giant scaffold structure over the damaged cathedral. Teams hanging from ropes 40 to 50 metres in the air will use electric saws to cut away the scaffolding piece by piece. Its one of the riskiest operations of the restoration process, officials said. The process could damage the limestone walls supporting the ceiling vaults. The operation is expected to take four months, after which reconstruction and redesign can begin.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:02:50|Editor: huaxia

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LISBON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission announced on Wednesday the approval of a lending in the amount of 1.2 billion euros (1.36 billion U.S. dollars) to Portugal's national airliner Air Portugal (TAP) as part of the Portuguese State's plan to support the airline.

A statement sent by Brussels said the objective is "to allow immediate liquidity without distorting competition in the single market."

The European Commission explained that the decision was taken in "record time" because "the situation is extremely urgent and important" to resume flights in Europe after the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the condition demanded by the European Community's executive body is that this operation must "pave the way for the company to restructure and ensure its long-term viability."

It was the Portuguese government itself that requested approval of the recovery plan from the European Commission led by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

"The Commission has assessed the measure under its guidelines on rescue and restructuring aid, which allows member states to support companies in difficulty, provided that, in particular, public support measures are limited in time and scope and contribute to an objective of common interest," said the statement.

According to the European Commission, "the Portuguese authorities have committed to repay the loan or to present a restructuring plan within six months, in order to ensure the future viability of the TAP."

In April, several Portuguese government senior officials criticized the management of the national airliner, and discussed on many occasions the nationalization of the strategic company.

However, the government has said recently that the ceiling for the state aid to the flag-carrier is 1.2 billion euros, but warned that the aid plan is still waiting for the approval from private shareholders.

"The amount is large and we don't do it with our eyes closed. There are a number of conditions that have to be accepted by the private sector," Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Pedro Nuno Santos was quoted by local media as saying.

Since 2016, the state has held 50 percent of the TAP, a result of negotiations by Antonio Costa's government with the Gateway consortium (of Humberto Pedrosa and David Neeleman), which took 45 percent of the carrier's capital. The remaining 5 percent is in the hands of the workers.

The TAP has been virtually paralyzed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 22:53:31|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, waves at villagers as he visits Hongde Village in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. Xi inspected Ningxia on Monday. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

YINCHUAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Xi underscored fully implementing the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, working hard to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and giving priority to ensuring stable employment and people's livelihood.

Efforts are needed to continue building a beautiful new Ningxia with economic prosperity, ethnic unity, beautiful environment and well-off residents, he said.

During his inspection trip from Monday to Wednesday, Xi visited places including the cities of Wuzhong and Yinchuan to learn about efforts to coordinate regular epidemic containment with economic and social development, consolidate achievements in poverty alleviation, strengthen ecological and environmental protection, and promote ethnic unity and progress.

Visiting a poverty relief workshop in the village of Hongde in Wuzhong Monday afternoon, Xi talked with villagers producing cartons.

Such workshops were set up for poverty alleviation, and they should lean toward needy people in terms of employment, Xi said.

Compared with migrating to cities to work, the villagers employed near their homes may not earn as much, but they can save on accommodation, food and transportation costs and are able to take care of their families, Xi added.

At the house of Liu Kerui, a villager of the Hui ethnic group, Xi took a good look at the courtyard, living room, bedrooms, kitchen and cowshed, and asked Liu and his wife if they had any difficulties and what they planned for the future.

Xi expressed his hope that the villagers could keep going and create better lives for themselves.

Visiting a section of the Yellow River, Xi learned about the river's ecological conservation.

He said the Yellow River is China's "mother river" and called on Ningxia to take good care of it.

Visiting the Jinhuayuan residential community, where people of several ethnic groups live together, Xi said no single ethnic minority group should be left behind in the country's building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

It represents the fine tradition of the Chinese nation and the great strength of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics to enable people of all ethnic groups to walk hand in hand into a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Xi added.

On Tuesday afternoon, Xi visited a rural ecotourism park in Yinchuan to learn about the development of modern agriculture in Ningxia and the operation of agricultural cooperatives to help farmers raise income.

He stressed upholding a people-centered philosophy of development and putting the interests of farmers first in developing modern agriculture and cultural tourism.

Xi required continuous efforts to fully implement the regular COVID-19 containment measures and accelerating the return of normal work and life order.

While visiting a vineyard in Yinchuan near the Helan Mountains, Xi said the mountains constitute crucial shields for ecological security in the northwestern part of China. He demanded resolute measures to strengthen the ecological conservation of the mountains.

Xi said the wine industry has promising prospects as the living standards of Chinese people continue to rise.

On Wednesday morning, Xi heard work reports of the Ningxia regional committee of the CPC and the regional government, and gave his acknowledgment of the progress Ningxia has achieved in various aspects of work.

Xi stressed unremitting efforts to push for high-quality development, accelerate the transformation of economic growth mode, speed up industrial transformation and upgrading, and expedite the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones.

Policies designed to reduce tax burdens on companies and measures aimed at expanding domestic demand should be implemented fully, he said.

Xi said innovation should be given full play to in driving growth and enabling industries to achieve high-end, green, smart and integrated growth.

He urged efforts to speed up the establishment of industrial system, production system and management system of modern agriculture, so that more signature farm produce of Ningxia will hit the market.

New breakthroughs in reform and opening-up should be achieved, Xi said, calling for targeted reforms and enhanced assessment of reform measures.

He called on Ningxia to seize the opportunities in the cooperation on Belt and Road Initiative, foster an open economic environment and promote higher-quality growth through greater openness.

Xi stressed resolutely winning the battle against poverty by addressing the prominent problems and weak links and sparing no effort to ensure poverty alleviation goals are accomplished on schedule.

Xi called for continuous efforts to make progress in the battle to keep skies blue, waters clear and land pollution-free and to push forward eco-environmental protection.

On protecting the Yellow River, Xi called for efforts to build a pilot zone for the ecological conservation and high-quality development of the river.

Stressing the people-centered philosophy of development, Xi demanded solid efforts in ensuring employment for key groups such as laid-off workers, college graduates, rural migrant workers and demobilized military personnel, and in promoting balanced development of compulsory education in urban and rural areas and improving the public health system.

Xi called on all Party members, especially leading officials at various levels, to stay true to the Party's founding mission, remain clear-headed and maintain the political orientation.

He asked them to unwaveringly uphold and strengthen the Party's leadership, uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, and strive for the great goal of national rejuvenation.

"We must persevere in carrying forward the great cause that our revolutionary forefathers had fought for," Xi said. Enditem
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The global phenolic resin market size is expected to reach USD 18.1 billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period according to a new study published by Polaris Market Research. The report Phenolic Resin Market Share, Size, Trends, Industry Analysis Report By Product (Novolac, Resols), By Application (Wood Adhesives, Molding, Insulation, Laminates, Paper Impregnation, Coatings, Refractory Materials, Friction Material, Rubber & Tire, Electronics, and Abrasives); By End-Use (Building & Construction, Automotive, Electrical & Electronics, Furniture); By Regions, Segments & Forecast, 2020  2026 gives a detailed insight into current market dynamics and provides analysis on future market growth.

The market is projected to witness a significant growth over the forecast period. Phenolic resins exhibit favorable properties such as heat & chemical resistance, moisture resistance, superior mechanical strength among others. In addition, ability to customize these products into different grades has resulted in the further expansion of application portfolio of phenolic resins.

Get sample copy of this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/phenolic-resin-market/request-for-sample

Favorable versatility and diversity of phenolic resins also makes them suitable for innovative product designs with high aesthetic appeal, such as in architecture, aerospace structural components and others. Furthermore, product and application innovation in impregnated materials is likely to present lucrative opportunities for growth in this market over the forecast period.

Phenolic resins for molding compounds are anticipated to emerge as the fastest growing market segment over the forecast period. Phenolic resins in molding compounds lend high heat stability & lower the curing times required. Expansion of the aerospace and retail transportation sector in countries such as Mexico, India, Indonesia, and Thailand are encouraging the demand for large parts with higher mechanical strength, which in turn is driving phenolic resins consumption.

The R&D efforts in Europe by market participants are also expected to impact phenolic resins production and processing technologies in other regional markets of the globe. Recent innovations have led to the development of unique prepreg resins that completely eliminate the need for refrigerated shipping and storage, enable increased service temperatures and improve safety, while lowering residual stress as compared to conventional phenolic resins raw materials. This may lead to greater substitution of phenolic resins across the globe over the near future.

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Market participants are concentrating more on providing customized products to their clients. Companies strive to provide a one stop solution to all the client needs. To achieve this scenario, companies are considerably investing in R&D to develop novel products as product differentiation and ability to modify existing products are critical success factors in this market.

Some of the major players in the market participants include Owens Corning, Arclin Inc., Ashland Inc., DIC Corporation, Hexcel Corp., Momentive Specialty Chemicals, Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd, Olympic Panel Products LLC, BASF SE, SI Group Inc, Hexion, Asahi Kasei, GUN EI Chemical Industry, Kangnam Chemical Co. Ltd., Changchun group, DYNEA, Zhejiang Hangmo, Yushiju Chemical, Hitachi Chemical Co. Ltd., and Red Avenue New Materials.

Polaris Market research has segmented the Phenolic Resins market report on the basis of product, application, end-use, and region

Phenolic Resins Product Outlook (Volume, Kilotons, Revenue, USD Million, 2015  2026)

Novolac

Resol Liquid Solid

Others

Phenolic Resins Application Outlook (Volume, Kilotons, Revenue, USD Million, 2015  2026)

Wood Adhesives

Molding

Insulation

Laminates

Paper Impregnation

Coatings

Refractory Materials

Friction Material

Rubber & Tire

Electronics

Abrasives

Phenolic Resins End-Use Outlook (Volume, Kilotons, Revenue, USD Million, 2015  2026)

Building & Construction

Automotive

Electrical & Electronics

Furniture

Others

Phenolic Resins Regional Outlook (Volume, Kilotons, Revenue, USD Million, 2015  2026)

North America U.S. Canada

Europe France Germany UK Italy Spain Russia Turkey

Asia Pacific Japan China India Southeast Asia South Korea

Latin America Mexico Brazil

Middle East & Africa Saudi Arabia



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Corning to receive $204M in funding to substantially expand domestic manufacturing capacity under White Houses Operation Warp Speed Initiative

CORNING, NY, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Corning Incorporated (GLW) today announced it will receive $204 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through its partnership with the Department of Defenses Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense and Army Contracting Command. Under the agreement, Corning will substantially expand its domestic manufacturing capacity of Corning Valor  Glass vials to support the vaccination and treatment of billions of patients. Corning will provide priority access to designated BARDA vaccine and drug development partners.



Wendell P. Weeks, Cornings chairman and chief executive officer, said, Were delighted that BARDA has selected Corning as a packaging provider for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Our Valor Glass provides the strongest, fastest to fill, and highest-quality pharmaceutical glass vials ever produced. It helps protect patients and addresses existing bottlenecks. Corning is ready to do our part in the fight against the pandemic, as well as to help prepare for future public health emergencies.

At the White House in 2017, Corning joined Merck and Pfizer to announce a Valor Glass collaboration focused on modernizing pharmaceutical glass packaging. Through investment in Valor Glass manufacturing capacity under Operation Warp Speed (OWS), the U.S. government will strengthen the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain by directly addressing existing constraints and shortages.

Valor Glass sets a new standard for quality and performance in pharmaceutical packaging. It is purpose-built for pharmaceuticals and is uniquely positioned to enable faster, more reliable drug manufacture and delivery  attributes that are critical to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic response, said Brendan Mosher, vice president and general manager, Corning Pharmaceutical Technologies.

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Valor Glass offers superior chemical durability and minimizes particulate contamination, enhancing product quality. The specialized glass allows for faster filling and capping, increasing manufacturing throughput by as much as 50% on conventional filling lines, and reduces the time needed to manufacture vaccines and therapies. Up to ten times stronger than conventional borosilicate glass, Valor Glass reduces damage and breakage during manufacturing and shipping, helping to ensure more treatments reach patients. This revolutionary glass is advantaged for highly specialized formulations that may be utilized in next-generation therapies due to manufacturing quality standards that are more stringent than those used for conventional vials.

This critical investment from BARDA will enable Corning to accelerate the scale up of Valor Glass tubing and vial manufacturing assets at three U.S. facilities in Big Flats, New York; Durham, North Carolina; and Vineland, New Jersey. The increase in vial manufacturing surge capacity will help meet the rapidly growing demand for glass containers as pharmaceutical companies enter COVID-19 clinical trials towards eventual approval of vaccines and treatments.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements (within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995), which are based on current expectations and assumptions about Cornings financial results and business operations, that involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include: the duration and severity of the recent COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak, and its ultimate impact across our businesses on demand, operations and our global supply chains; the effects of acquisitions, dispositions and other similar transactions by the Company, the effect of global business, financial, economic and political conditions; tariffs and import duties; currency fluctuations between the U.S. dollar and other currencies, primarily the Japanese yen, New Taiwan dollar, euro, Chinese yuan, and South Korean won; product demand and industry capacity; competitive products and pricing; availability and costs of critical components and materials; new product development and commercialization; order activity and demand from major customers; the amount and timing of our cash flows and earnings and other conditions, which may affect our ability to pay our quarterly dividend at the planned level or to repurchase shares at planned levels; possible disruption in commercial activities due to terrorist activity, cyber-attack, armed conflict, political or financial instability, natural disasters, or major health concerns; unanticipated disruption to equipment, facilities, IT systems or operations; effect of regulatory and legal developments; ability to pace capital spending to anticipated levels of customer demand; rate of technology change; ability to enforce patents and protect intellectual property and trade secrets; adverse litigation; product and components performance issues; retention of key personnel; customer ability, most notably in the Display Technologies segment, to maintain profitable operations and obtain financing to fund their ongoing operations and manufacturing expansions and pay their receivables when due; loss of significant customers; changes in tax laws and regulations including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017; and the potential impact of legislation, government regulations, and other government action and investigations.

For a complete listing of risks and other factors, please reference the risk factors and forward-looking statements described in our annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the day that they are made, and Corning undertakes no obligation to update them in light of new information or future events.

Web Disclosure

In accordance with guidance provided by the SEC regarding the use of company websites and social media channels to disclose material information, Corning Incorporated (Corning) wishes to notify investors, media, and other interested parties that it uses its website ( http://www.corning.com/worldwide/en/about-us/news-events.html ) to publish important information about the company, including information that may be deemed material to investors, or supplemental to information contained in this or other press releases. The list of websites and social media channels that the company uses may be updated on Cornings media and website from time to time. Corning encourages investors, media, and other interested parties to review the information Corning may publish through its website and social media channels as described above, in addition to the companys SEC filings, press releases, conference calls, and webcasts.

About Corning Incorporated

Corning (www.corning.com) is one of the world's leading innovators in materials science, with a 169-year track record of life-changing inventions. Corning applies its unparalleled expertise in glass science, ceramic science, and optical physics along with its deep manufacturing and engineering capabilities to develop category-defining products that transform industries and enhance people's lives. Corning succeeds through sustained investment in RD&E, a unique combination of material and process innovation, and deep, trust-based relationships with customers who are global leaders in their industries. Corning's capabilities are versatile and synergistic, which allows the company to evolve to meet changing market needs, while also helping our customers capture new opportunities in dynamic industries. Today, Corning's markets include mobile consumer electronics, optical communications, automotive technologies, life sciences technologies, and display technologies.

Operation Warp Speed

Operation Warp Speed is a U.S. government-sponsored public-private partnership to facilitate, at an unprecedented pace, the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 countermeasures, between components of HHS, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and BARDA; the Department of Defense; private firms; and other federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Operational Warp Speed coordinates existing HHS-wide efforts, including the NIH's ACTIV partnership for vaccine and therapeutic development, NIH's RADx initiative for diagnostic development, and work by BARDA.

About HHS, ASPR, and BARDA:

HHS works to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans, providing for effective health and human services and fostering advances in medicine, public health, and social services. The mission of ASPR is to save lives and protect Americans from 21st century health security threats. Within ASPR, BARDA invests in the innovation, advanced research and development, acquisition, and manufacturing of medical countermeasures  vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, diagnostic tools, and non-pharmaceutical products needed to combat health security threats. To date, 55 BARDA-supported products have achieved regulatory approval, licensure or clearance. To learn more about federal support for the nationwide COVID-19 response, visit coronavirus.gov .

About the JPEO-CBRND:

The Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) is the DoD Joint Services lead for development, acquisition, fielding and life-cycle support of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense equipment and medical countermeasures. As an effective acquisition program, the JPEO-CBRND puts capable and supportable systems in the hands of the service members and first responders, when and where it is needed, at an affordable price. Our vision is a resilient Joint Force, enabled to fight and win unencumbered by a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear environment, championed by innovative and state-of-the-art solutions.

Corning Media Relations Contacts:

Gabrielle Bailey

(607) 684-4557

BaileyGR@corning.com

Amy Washco

(828) 228-730

Washcoa@corning.com

Corning Investor Relations Contact:

Ann H.S. Nicholson

(607) 974-6716

Nicholsoas@corning.com
Canadas first black police chief believes the institution of policing in this country is among the best in the world, but that doesnt mean it isnt ripe for an overhaul.

Its no longer policing an island onto itself. Its the police who are here to serve the citizens and we need feedback from the citizens to try and craft the future of policing, thats where Canada is, says Devon Clunis, who served as Winnipegs police chief from 2012-2016.

Police leaders need to help the push for change, he said, adding that although there are a few enlightened leaders in Canada, most are reticent.

But change-resistant police leaders need only look to the United States, where calls to abolish the policing model and create a new system of public safety are gaining steam. Minneapolis city council, for instance, has pledged to disband its force in the wake of George Floyds death under a police officers knee.

When police leaders dont lead and advance that change, it will come but it will roll over us, Clunis warned.

Still, he said, compared to America Canada is miles apart in terms of our approaches to policing, nor are this countrys police forces plagued with racism to the same degree as south of the border.

My fear is people look at the U.S. and broad-brush thats Canadian police, it is not, he said Wednesday from Winnipeg, adding I can tell you (that) as a person of colour.

That doesnt mean theres not discrimination and racism in the policing environment, because policing is just one small slice of society, and it exists, but it is not the same.

Since retiring four years ago, Clunis has been working as a consultant to the policing and justice sector both in Canada and the United States. But he is currently assessing his future, and deciding whether to apply to head up the countrys largest municipal task force.

That job has come open earlier than expected after Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders this week announced his intention to retire at the end of July, eight months ahead of schedule.

Sitting from afar, Clunis said hes not in a position to start analyzing the state of policing in Toronto, or comment on proposals to slash the $1 billion police budget. He would, however, support diverting money to under-served communities  after a careful analysis is done on where to divert 911 calls if there are fewer officers.

As for the fierce debate over defunding police, Clunis says that concerns him. We actually need to shift the entire model of policing, but intelligently and not in an adversarial environment.

Whats critical is getting the buy-in of the members, of which there are some 8,000 in Toronto, including more than 5,100 who wear uniforms. Basically, it comes down to treating them with respect and dignity, giving them a sense of meaning, as opposed to issuing directives from the top this is what you must do.

Toronto has never had a police chief who didnt rise up through its ranks.

Clunis is aware of this and says part of the selection process might be consulting various communities, and staff, on whether the service is fulfilling its role to serve and protect.

If you have a healthy environment Id say theres nothing wrong from hiring from within the inside, he said.

But if you have significant systemic issues I think its going to be very hard from people on the inside to bring about that deep cultural change. My mindset is if you were part of the problem, like what theyre experiencing in U.S. policing right now, then you bring in someone from outside.

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In the US capital, a fence meant to divide has brought people together.

Washington, DC  The massive black fence that encircles the White House, erected after US security violently cleared peaceful protesters last week, has become a gallery of protest art and a symbol of defiance.

The metal barrier around Lafayette Square is almost entirely covered with messages, signs and drawings denouncing excessive use of police force and racial inequality  nearly obscuring the view to the presidential residence.

More than two weeks after angry and sometimes violent protests erupted across Washington, DC over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed in police custody, a new mood is taking hold in the city, one of defiance and hope.

Its a fence that is meant to block people and defend this president (Trump), said Julia, who did not want to share her last name.

But it has become a fence of positive emotion and unity, she told Al Jazeera, while holding her own sign, scrawled on a cardboard box which read, stop state sanctioned murder.

I really like reading the messages, they are very powerful, she said

Floyd died on May 25 after a white police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, sparking nationwide protests demanding justice over police killings of unarmed Black people, and for policing reforms.

The signs hung with duct tape on the fence, reflect the calls for change in the wake of Floyds death.

Silence is violence, one message on the fence read, defund the police, read another in bright red writing and racism is a pandemic.

A pencil drawing echoed some of Floyds last words, I cant breathe.

Signs and message line the fence that was put up on the perimeter of Lafayette Park, near the White House in Washington, US [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]

The towering chain-link fence was erected last week, after baton-swinging US Park police and other officers used smoke bombs and pepper pellets on June 1 to disperse hundreds of peaceful protesters who had gathered in Lafayette Square.

Soon after, President Donald Trump walked through the newly cleared area to allow photographs of him in front of the nearby St Johns church, while holding up a Bible.

The previous evening, demonstrations in the area had turned violent, with looting and fires nearby including one in the church.

A festive atmosphere

After blocking off one of the capitals most popular places to protest, nearby 16th Street, that leads to the White House, has also changed.

Washington, DCs mayor commissioned a large Black Lives Matter mural to be painted on the street, in bright yellow capital letters, stretching from sidewalk to sidewalk. It covers two blocks.

On Saturday, activists added their own message an equal sign and Defund the Police, reflecting a growing call to redirect budgets from police forces and give them to local communities.

The citys mayor renamed the nearby area, Black Lives Matter Plaza, with a gleaming new road sign.

The violence has subsided in recent days and a new, more festive atmosphere outside of the White House has emerged. Police cars have blocked a section of 16th Street to traffic and every evening, hundreds of people, many with young children in tow, converge here.

A woman reads protest signs affixed to the fence around Lafayette Square, near the White House in Washington, US [Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]

In the newly named plaza, T-shirts bearing Floyds picture are on sale from makeshift stands and there is music blaring from loudspeakers. Young people dance, while others snap pictures. Volunteers advertise free water and snacks to fend off the sweltering heat, and there is a medical station offering hand-sanitiser and face masks.

Rise up for Black lives, read another large message painted on a white sheet and near it, fund the Black community.

A group of dozens of young people that had marched together earlier down 16th Street, form a circle and begin taking turns going in the centre and speaking out.

We have to keep showing up and standing up for whats right, a young man said loudly, while pumping his fist in the air. The crowd surrounding him cheered.

Enough racism, it has to stop now, he said to more cheers from the crowd.

Nearby Emma, who only wanted to be referred to by her first name, had come with her cousin. They brought camping chairs which they unfolded on the sidewalk right in front of the fence.

Originally, I didnt know if I wanted to come here because of COVID and I want to keep my family safe, said the 17-year old, who was wearing a blue mask and surgical gloves.

But I really felt the need to come here and contribute my voice, she told Al Jazeera.

She said seeing the thousands of people across the US, of different ages, races and walks of life taking to the streets, united over the same cause has given her tremendous hope for meaningful change in the country.

I finally feel like people are listening.

Our presence is needed

The Trump administrations response to the protests set off a tense confrontation with his critics.

Its a sad commentary that the house and its inhabitants have to be walled off, Washington, DCs mayor, Muriel Bowser, said last week during a news conference. We should want the White House opened up for people to be able to access it from all sides.

Thousands of protesters lie in the middle of the recently renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd while in police custody [Samuel Corum/Getty Images]

On Monday, congressional Democrats demanded the Trump administration to reopen the public square, saying it currently resembles a militarised zone.

We call on you to immediately reopen Lafayette Square to the public, a place which has long been a venue where Americans can gather to freely exercise their constitutional rights in close proximity to the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a joint open letter to Trump.

The National Park Service said on Monday that the fence is temporary, and most of it will be removed on Wednesday.

But protesters say they have no plans of leaving the area any time soon.

This fence is a clear message of the fear behind it and of the change that peaceful protesters can make in the world, said Vanessa, who did not want to give her last name.

Until things change, we shouldnt stop coming here. I think our presence is needed, she said.
In this file photo from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, distributed by Korea News Service, two to five-year-old infants receive polio vaccinations.

North Korea excludes children of single mothers from vaccination and nutritional programs sponsored by the United Nations because local law forbids registering out-of-wedlock births, RFA has learned from sources inside the reclusive country.

North Korea depends on aid programs from UNICEF and other U.N. agencies to maintain the health and nutrition of children. In a country with a crumbling medical infrastructure that started a precipitous decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union almost three decades ago, the vaccinations and food supplements for children are highly prized by parents.

Every year, infants and children who have been vaccinated with the help of the United Nations are made safe from polio and other diseases. So when the vaccination project, which people call UN shots, is announced, people scramble to go to the hospital, a resident of South Pyongan province, who requested anonymity to speak freely, told RFAs Korean Service Tuesday.

Last week, local hospitals in our province provided nutritional supplements to infants younger than one-year-old and toddlers five and younger. They also gave shots to prevent polio and tuberculosis, the source said.

But not all children are eligible for this type of immunization, because there is no mechanism to legally register the births of children born out of wedlock, leaving them without legal protections.

Babies born out of wedlock were not included on vaccination lists after last year because their births have not been registered, the source said. Only children whose birth certificates are confirmed by the health authorities are included on the vaccination list.

Another source, a resident of North Pyongan province who requested anonymity to ensure security, told RFA that the problem is becoming more common along with changing attitudes on premarital sex.

These days, young people in urban areas are more sexually open, so more and more unmarried women are giving birth to children, the second source said.

Newborn babies that have parents who did not register their marriage are not legally allowed to register their births because their biological parents are not identified, said the second source.

North Korea does not release statistics on unwed mothers and single-parent families. Although single mothers may be more common these days, the stigma against them remains strong in a traditionally conservative society cut off from most outside culture and media for decades, with even the primary youth organization fueling discriminatory perceptions of them.

The Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League label single mothers as ideologically corrupt women, the second source said.

Parents of young single mothers often secretly raise their [grandchildren], but when the story gets out in the neighborhood, they are accused of [enabling] morally corrupt [behavior], the source added.

Because of this, single mothers cant even vaccinate their babies.

The authorities should not only advertise that they value human life, but also establish a legal protection system for children born by single mothers, as they are [people too], the North Pyongan province resident added.

The first source, from South Pyongan province, said parents have turned up at hospitals begging to at least be given nutritional supplements for their children.

Unmarried mothers pleaded with a local hospital doctors to provide the nutritional supplements for their babies, as they are famous for their healthful effects, but they were rejected, said the source.

Doctors said they were not allowed to give them anything because they were only provided enough supplements and vaccines for the number of registered children. They told [the mothers] to appeal to upper leadership to get it, the source added.

UNICEF, along with the World Vaccine Immunization Alliance (GAVI), provides major immunizations for diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, and hepatitis B for infants and toddlers under 6 years old in North Korea.

RFA requests for comment from UNICEF on medical assistance they provide for single mothers and their children in North Korea received no reply.

Reported by Hyemin Son for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
An experimental version of a new cruise missile is fired from San Nicolas Island, Calif., in August 2019, part of the Pentagon's effort to develop new intermediate range missiles that could be based in Asia. (Scott Howe / Department of Defense)

The governor of a Japanese territory where the Pentagon is thinking about basing missiles capable of threatening China has a message for the United States: Not on my island.

I firmly oppose the idea, said Gov. Denny Tamaki, the governor of Okinawa, in an email to The Times.

Officials in other Asian countries are also signaling they dont want them.

But Pentagon planners arent backing down after the Trump administration withdrew last year from a 33-year-old arms control treaty that barred U.S. land-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia.

Senior officials now say that putting hundreds of American missiles with nonnuclear warheads in Asia would quickly and cheaply shift the balance of power in the western Pacific back in the United States' favor amid growing Pentagon concern that Chinas expanding arsenal of missiles and other military capabilities threaten U.S. bases in the region and have emboldened Beijing to menace U.S. allies in Asia.

The missile plan is the centerpiece of a planned buildup of U.S. military power in Asia projected to consume tens of billions of dollars in the defense budget over the next decade, a major shift in Pentagon spending priorities away from the Middle East.

But it also highlights the complex relationship between the U.S and its Asian allies, many of whom feel increasingly threatened by China but are reluctant to back new U.S. military measures that might provoke Beijing, which has built the biggest navy in the world in the last decade.

Australia and the Philippines publicly ruled out hosting American missiles when the Trump administration first floated the idea last year. South Korea is also considered an unlikely location, current and former officials say.

In Japan, the decision on whether to allow U.S. missiles on its territory will be made by the central government in Tokyo. Gov. Tamaki said officials at the Pentagon and in Tokyo have told him there are no definite plans to put missiles on Okinawa. But Tamaki isnt reassured.

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With a Japanese mother and an American father who served with the Marines on Okinawa before abandoning the family, Tamaki personifies the complex relationship between the U.S. and its allies in Asia. He was elected two years ago after pledging to oppose expansion of the already-substantial U.S. military presence on the island.

More than half of the 50,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan are in Okinawa, most concentrated at a Marine base surrounded by residential areas in the largest city. Opposition to the 70-year-old U.S. military presence has sparked local protests for years, which would probably intensify if there were a move to base missiles there.

If there is such a plan, I can easily imagine fierce opposition from Okinawa residents, Tamaki said.

For the last year, the Pentagon has been testing several new types of short- and intermediate-range missiles  those with ranges up to 3,400 miles  including a ballistic missile that could be placed in Guam, a U.S. territory, and mobile missiles carried on trucks.

The first of the new weapons could be in operation within two years, though no decision has been announced about where they will be based. Similar missiles are now carried on U.S. warships and planes based in Asia, but there are no land-based systems.

U.S. officials say that many allies are privately supportive of the missile plan and may come around to permitting them on their territory but dont want to provoke opposition from Beijing and their own public before decisions are on the table.

The U.S. has a defense treaty with Japan, as it does with South Korea, the Philippines and Australia. Taiwan is not a formal ally but has close, unofficial defense ties with Washington.

We are very attentive to our allies concerns, and we recognized their political challenges, said a senior defense official, who agreed to discuss Pentagon planning if he was not identified. Everything thats said in the media is not necessarily whats said behind closed doors.

To lessen the political opposition, the U.S. could rotate missile batteries in and out of locations around the region or place them in strategic locations without publicly disclosing it.

"It wouldn't make much sense to announce plans now, which would stoke Chinese anger and possibly play into the domestic politics," said Randy Schriver, who was a senior Pentagon official responsible for Asia until his resignation last year.

A decision to go ahead in Asia would intensify an arms race between the regions two biggest powers whose relations  already tense over President Trumps confrontational trade agenda and Chinese President Xi Jinpings hawkish policies  have nosedived since the coronavirus outbreak.

Its naive and dangerous, said Alexandra Bell, a former Obama administration arms control official and a critic of deploying U.S. missiles. Instead of looking at how we can prevent a full-out arms race, thats our opening salvo? added Bell, a senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington.

Putting land-based missiles in Asia capable of attacking China is not a new strategy.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. kept them at bases across the region, including in Okinawa, where hundreds of nuclear-armed warheads were stored secretly for decades even though Japans constitution prohibited the presence of nuclear weapons on its territory.

The missiles were gradually taken out of service in the 1960s and 1970s, because of budget cuts and a shift in U.S. strategy away from defense of the region focused on nuclear weapons. In 1987, the Reagan administration signed an arms control treaty that prohibited the U.S. and the Soviet Union (and later Russia) from deploying any land-based intermediate range missiles, including in Asia.

China was not a signatory, leaving it free to build up its missile arsenal.

The Trump administration withdrew from the treaty last year after accusing Russia of developing new land-based missiles that violated its terms. The exit opened the way for the Pentagon to consider reintroducing ground-launched missiles in Asia.

With mobile missiles around the region, the U.S. could pose an even bigger challenge for China, forcing it to hunt for hundreds of launchers capable of targeting its planes, ships and bases, strategists say.

Ground-based missiles arent some kind silver bullet, said Eric Sayers, a former consultant to U.S. commanders in the Pacific and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. But they are a way in the near term ... to create dilemmas for the [People's Liberation Army] planners.

Although the risk of large-scale conflict with China seems low, tensions have continued to ratchet up over Beijings crackdown in Hong Kong, its military maneuvers near Taiwan, its border dispute with India and its offshore maritime claims in the East China Sea and South China Sea.

Nearly a quarter of world trade travels through the South China Sea, making the contest between Beijing and Washington over control of its maritime lanes and rich resources especially tense and certain to continue, no matter who wins the U.S. presidential election in November.

The U.S. Navy for decades dominated the first island chain, as strategists call the area of the western Pacific stretching from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines that fell within Americas defense umbrella after World War II.

But American reliance on bases, warships and airfields in the region has become increasingly risky, officials and analysts say.

China has developed its own missiles, sophisticated radars and anti-satellite weapons as well as a growing fleet of warships and submarines in recent decades that could threaten American bases and other targets early in a conflict, said Collin Koh, a research fellow in Asian maritime security at the S. Rajatnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Chinas Peoples Liberation Army can project significant firepower on U.S. and allied military installations in the western Pacific and threaten to overwhelm American forces in times of armed conflict, Koh said.

The Chinese weapons in many cases have ranges that exceed those on U.S. warships, though the U.S. retains a significant advantage in attack submarines and in advanced fighters and bombers armed with cruise missiles that can be fired from long distances.

"Their capability and their reach have created vulnerabilities for our legacy basing structure," said the defense official, who agreed to discuss U.S. planning on condition that he not be identified.
Professor Lucy Yardley, of Bristol and Southampton universities, suggested setting up South Korean-style quarantine hotels to clamp down on people flouting self-isolation rules

Britons tracked down by contact tracers should be put up in quarantine hotels to clamp down on the tens of thousands of people flouting coronavirus self-isolation rules, one of Number 10's scientific advisers has suggested.

The Government is relying on its test and trace programme to stop a resurgence of Covid-19 as the UK slowly begins to reopen from the draconian lockdown imposed on March 23.

But the scheme  which is still missing the app that was promised for mid-May  requires Brits to self-isolate for 14 days after they have been in contact with a Covid-19 patient, even if they don't show any symptoms of the disease.

Lucy Yardley, professor of health psychology at Bristol and Southampton universities, warned the programme could fail because of low compliance.

She suggested putting suspected cases in dedicated hotels where they are far more likely to comply, as has been done in South Korea, India and some parts of South America.

This idea hinges on using hotels as isolation zones, where people who come from cramped housing in poorer areas, from care homes or who are homeless, for example, can stay and be looked after while they recover and complete their isolation period.

This could relieve pressure from people who may struggle to look after themselves at home, pay for necessities if they are out of work or be unable to go to food banks or shops, for example.

It comes as one Whitehall source yesterday claimed only 15 per cent of the public were strictly adhering to social distancing and lockdown rules.

There is growing concern that as society reopens, compliance will dwindle because people perceive the Covid-19 threat to be low.

Professor Yardley, part of SAGE and its subgroup for behavioural science, said the committee had seen evidence that even Britons with Covid-like symptoms were not self-isolating.

The NHS Test and Trace programme launched last week, but experts have doubts about how many people will comply with the isolation part of the rules

WHAT ARE QUARANTINE HOTELS? Asian countries such as South Korea and India have been using hotels as isolation zones for suspected patients since the tourism industry shut down at the start of the crisis. The rooms were prioritised for people with mild or no symptoms who were required to self-isolate following contact tracing efforts. Rooms were provided free of charge and provided mostly to people who could not self-isolate at home or because they were homeless or in a care home. The move had the added benefit of reducing job loss in the tourism and hospitality industries  two of the hardest-hit by the crisis. The hotels have since been used in Brazil for impoverished coronavirus patients living in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, where social distancing is near-impossible. Advertisement

She told the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee yesterday: 'We have never managed to accomplish good adherence to self-isolation, not even in the earliest stages.

'We have data that when people thought or said they were adhering they were leaving the home while symptomatic. We have to understand better the various reasons why people are doing that, despite good intentions.'

Experts believe a fully functioning test and trace programme and high compliance from the public will be critical if the UK is to avoid a second wave as life slowly begins to revert to normal.

Test and trace requires people with symptoms to self-isolate and get tested. If they test positive their close contacts are then tracked down and also told to self-isolate.

The system is designed to break the chain of transmission as quickly as possible in order to squash potential outbreaks and stop them from escalating.

But one Whitehall source told The Times that Government estimates suggested just one in six people were fully complying with isolation rules.

Professor Yardley said some people were ignoring the curbs because they did not have the financial security to skip work, while others lived in crowded homes where isolating was impossible.

She suggested the Government needed to look at extra financial support or dedicated Covid hotels to help support the policy.

Professor Yardley told Peers: 'We know a lot of [non-compliance] has to do with not having sufficient support or income.

'One of the problems is the rules ask people to isolate at home, potentially putting their closest family member at greater risk.'

Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London and a member of SAGE, criticised the Government's decision to abandon the word 'isolate' from its Test and Tract programme, claiming it will lead to less compliance

GOVERNMENT'S TEST AND TRACE SCHEME WILL BE OVERWHELMED IN THE WINTER Professor Andrew Hayward, director of the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, told Peers that a second lockdown would be inevitable in the event of another epidemic because the current test and trace programme is 'not sufficient'. He said the Government will not have the testing capacity to swab enough people in winter, when respiratory illnesses are rife and the number of people reporting fevers surges. He added: 'We can see that during a normal summer about 100,000 people a day would have new symptoms of cough or fever or loss of sense a smell. 'And that rises to about half a million a day during winter, so there is an enormous scale to this testing issue that I don't think has been truly appreciated. 'If we are moving into a situation where we have a second wave during the winter -when we know we have way higher levels of respiratory infections - we will have way higher levels of people presenting with symptoms that could be Covid. 'So we need to be able to ramp up testing capacity to way higher than it currently is if we are to pursue that strategy of test and trace as one of the main means of control. 'We may need, probably will need, in a severe second wave to revert to lockdown. Because test and trace will not be sufficient.' Advertisement

Asian countries such as South Korea and India have been using hotels as isolation zones for suspected patients since the tourism industry shut down at the start of the crisis.

The rooms were prioritised for people with mild or no symptoms who were required to self-isolate following contact tracing efforts.

Rooms were provided free of charge and provided mostly to people who could not self-isolate at home or because they were homeless or in a care home.

The move had the added benefit of reducing job loss in the tourism and hospitality industries  two of the hardest-hit by the crisis.

The hotels have since been used in Brazil for impoverished coronavirus patients living in favelas in Rio de Janeiro, where officials were worried the virus could devastate entire communities.

Professor Susan Michie, a psychologist at University College London, who is also on SAGE's behavioural science panel, also criticised the Government's decision to leave out the word 'isolate' from its coronavirus Test and Trace programme.

She told Peers that isolating cases was the most vital part of the system and not including it in the title of the UK's flagship scheme was 'puzzling'.

Professor Michie said the decision to leave out 'isolate' sent mixed messages to the public and could lead to Britons ignoring that aspect of the programme.

'The other thing that is very puzzling to me is why the government has called it Test and Trace, when the World Health Organization (WHO) and many other countries call it Test, Trace and Isolate,' she said.

'Because without isolation all of the rest of it is for nothing. We absolutely need the isolation. And if one doesn't have it in the label of the system, it's not communicating that this is a vital part of it.

'We already know there are going to be really big difficulties with isolation if people are being asked to stay home for 14 days and not go to work, this is a big financial penalty.'
Tehran said it could negotiate with Ukrainian officials at any time

Iran is ready to negotiate with Ukraine to resolve issues related to the black boxes of the downed airplane PS 752. The Iranian side claimed that during a meeting between the Ambassador of Ukraine to Iran Serhiy Burdilyak with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran for International and Legal Affairs Mohsen Bakharvand, Tasnim News Agency reports.

"At the meeting, Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran emphasized that he was ready to negotiate with Ukrainian officials at any time and at any place determined by the Ukrainians, as soon as possible, in order to immediately resolve issues regarding the aircraft's black boxes," message stated.

Baharvand also said that the Iranian side was ready to pay compensation to the families of the victims. In response, the Ukrainian ambassador said that he would pass this on to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

January 8, Boeing 737 of Ukraine's International Airlines, flight PS752 with 176 passengers aboard crashed in Tehran, not far from Imam Khomeini airport.

11 citizens of Ukraine died in the crash of Boeing 737 of Ukraine's International Airlines (PS 752 flight). President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky reported that the passenger plane crash in the Iranian capital left no survivors.

On January 19, the bodies of the Ukrainians, who died in a plane crash in Iran, were delivered to Ukraine. The farewell ceremony took place at Boryspil Airport.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay is among the only three institutes in the top 200 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2021. However, its performance has dipped as the premier institute dropped 20 ranks in the list - from 152nd position in 2020 to 172 in the 2021 list.

The QS World Rankings are announced a year in advance. Though overall rankings have been announced, other lists based on employability, subject-wise rankings will be released over the next few months. This year, QS revealed that their work was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The only two other institutes making into top 200 are Bengalurus Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at the 154th position from 184th rank last year and Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi on the 193rd position, down from the 182nd rank it held in the 2020 list.

While IIT-Bombay is pleased to have retained number one position in India, the drop in global rankings is something we are concerned about. It appears to be linked to the Academic Reputation (AR) portion of the rankings which constitute 40% of the total score. Our AR score remained close to last years so we will take this up with QS, said Subhasis Chaudhuri, director, IIT-Bombay. He added that the institutes student-faculty ratio has also dropped due to the introduction of the category for economically weaker section, which is likely to have affected the overall score.

Surprisingly, University of Mumbai has no mention in the list this year. Last year, the varsity was placed between 801-850 ranking, but the university does not reflect anywhere on the list this year.

The performance of universities is measured on various parameters such as academic reputation, employer reputation, citation per faculty, faculty student ratio, international faculty and international students.

Other institutes making it into the QS Rankings list this year include IIT-Madras and IIT-Kharagpur, both institutes witnessing a drop in their rankings. While IIT Madras has dropped four spots and stands on the 275th rank this year, IIT Kharagpur has dropped 33 spots from 281 to the 314 rank this year.

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North Korea severs hotlines with South, citing 'treachery'

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 6:08 AM

North Korea has severed its military and presidential hotlines with the South as a first step toward terminating all contacts with Seoul, citing South Korea's "treacherous behavior."

Top government officials in North Korea, including leader Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo-jong, and Kim Yong-chol, the vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, determined "that the work towards the South should thoroughly turn into the one against an enemy," the official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

As a first step, it said, North Korea will close lines of communication at an inter-Korean liaison office, and hotlines between the two militaries and presidential offices, at noon on Tuesday.

The people of North Korea have "been angered by the treacherous and cunning behavior of the South Korean authorities, with whom we still have lots of accounts to settle," the report said, blaming officials in Seoul for allowing North Korean defectors to attempt to harm the dignity of North Korea's leader.

"We have reached a conclusion that there is no need to sit face to face with the South Korean authorities and there is no issue to discuss with them, as they have only aroused our dismay," the report said.

A thaw between the two Koreas began back in January 2018. Leaders from the two countries met, diplomatic visits were exchanged, and joint events were held.

South Korea also brokered diplomacy between the North and the United States. While incumbent US President Donald Trump met with Kim three times, sparking hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough, interactions between Washington and Pyongyang gradually came to a halt over Trump's refusal to relieve any of the harsh US-led sanctions on the North in spite of several major goodwill measures by Pyongyang.

Relations with the South also recently worsened.

Kim's sister warned last Thursday that North Korea could scrap a recent inter-Korean military accord if the South failed to stop North Korean defectors from sending propaganda leaflets into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two countries.

She said that Pyongyang might even permanently shut down the Kaesong industrial region and the liaison office in the North Korean border town as well if Seoul did not stop the defectors.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited officials in Seoul as saying that North Korean officials did not answer a routine daily call to the liaison office on Tuesday morning.

The United States has been attempting to pressure the North into giving up its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea maintains that its nuclear and missile capabilities are intended to defend the country against potential aggression amid persisting joint war games by Seoul and Washington on the Korean Peninsula.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

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By Express News Service

CHENNAI: DMK MLA J Anbazhagan, who contracted COVID-19 earlier this month, died in a private hospital in Chennai. The 61-year-old legislator was admitted to Dr Rela Institute and Medical Centre on June 2.

MLA Anbazhagan passed away on his 62nd birthday.

According to a statement issued by the hospital, "Thiru Anbazhagan J, who has been fighting for his life with severe COVID 19 pneumonia rapidly deteriorated early this morning. In spite of full medical support including mechanical ventilation at our COVID facility, he succumbed to his illness. He was declared dead at 08:05 hours on the 10th of June 2020."

His condition was critical since Monday and was admitted on June 2 with severe acute respiratory distress and tested positive for COVID-19. He was put on a ventilator the following day. He was initially getting 90 per cent oxygen from the machine and improved steadily until he was gradually weaned off.

However, on Monday evening, J Anbazhagan's health deteriorated significantly.

The hospital said that 'his oxygen requirement had gone up and cardiac function had deteriorated. He required medicine to support blood pressure and that his chronic kidney disease had also worsening'.

DMK president MK Stalin expresses deep grief over the demise of J Anbazhagan @xpresstn @NewIndianXpress  T Muruganandham (@muruga_TNIE) June 10, 2020

On Wendesday June 10, the hospital declared him dead.

The three-time MLA had actively engaged in relief distribution as part of the DMKs Ondrinaivom Vaa initiative, distributing relief materials till as recently as May 27.

J Anbazhagan's brief profile in State Assembly's Who is Who Page @xpresstn @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/n8KTUvNBze  T Muruganandham (@muruga_TNIE) June 10, 2020

The Chepauk MLA is the first legislator to test positive for viral infection in Tamil Nadu. Anbazhagan was elected to the State Assembly from the Chepauk-Triplicane constituency in 2011 and 2016 and from T Nagar in 2001.

He has been in active politics for the last four decades, his father Jeyaraman having been one of the frontline functionaries of the DMK since the partys launch in 1949. Anbazhagans 40-year-old son Raja works in the partys youth wing.

I am deeply saddened about the loss of Mr.#JAnbazhagan MLA this morning. My heartfelt condolences to his family, people of his constituency and his party. May his soul rest in peace. #RIP #JAnbazhagan pic.twitter.com/AsL7lBjopN  Dr C Vijayabaskar (@Vijayabaskarofl) June 10, 2020

Puducherry CM condoles the demise of Anbalagan MLA

Expressing his heartfelt condolences, Narayanasamy tweeted "He was a strong leader of Dravidian movement pillar of DMK. His loss is great loss personally to DMK President''.
Ms Smart was left with brain damage and a fractured eye socket after assault

A social housing worker was brutally bashed in her own car by another woman after stopping at a set of traffic lights.

Deni Smart, 29, was left with brain damage and a fractured eye socket after being assaulted outside Christchurch's Eastgate Shopping Centre on May 30.

Ms Smart told Stuff that when the woman got into her car and started attacking her, she submitted and told her she could take whatever she liked, in the hope of avoiding long-lasting injuries.

'She just got in and she just said to me 'you're a f mongrel b.' and she grabbed my ponytail and smashed my head against my window and punched me probably five times. I pleaded with her to stop and she wouldn't,' she said.

Deni Smart, 29, was left with brain damage and a fractured eye socket after being assaulted outside Christchurch's Eastgate Shopping Centre on May 30

She thought the woman intended to steal her car but the assailant fled after the unprovoked attack.

After being rushed to the Christchurch hospital in an ambulance with cuts and bruising to her race, Ms Smart was told she had a severe concussion.

Ms Smart still doesn't know the extent of the brain damage, and said she's suffering anxiety and flashbacks to the traumatic experience.

'It's really impacted every aspect of my life, I can't work, I can't really drive, I can't really visit my friends, I can't leave the house. The anxiety levels are pretty much next level,' she said.

Ms Smart still doesn't know the extent of the brain damage, and said she's suffering anxiety and flashbacks to the traumatic experience

She was stopped at a traffic light near Christchurch's Eastgate Shopping Centre when she was violently attacked in her car

'I don't like being alone, I have to make sure the doors are locked at all times. I get a bit of nightmares and a bit of flashback.'

She still has no idea about the motive behind the attack, but suggested it could have been road rage related.

The 29-year-old is so traumatised by the incident she is even planning to sell her car out of fear the attacker may recognise it.

Police are investigating the alleged attack and calling for any witnesses to come forward in the hope of identifying the attacker.

Meanwhile Ms Smart's friend Alesha Rutledge has set up a crowdfunding page to raise funds for Ms Smart while she's unable to return to work as a customer service officer at a Community Housing trust.

On the Givealittle page she appeals for support to help retain Ms Smart's independence as she recovers.

'Deni is a kind, caring and brilliant woman who now has significant uncertainty in her future. But life still goes on. She has a mortgage to pay. Doctors appointments to attend. She is having to adapt to a new normal for at least the near future. It's a scary time,' she wrote.

'She didn't ask for this. She didn't provoke the attack. She is now having to deal with the results of someone else's complete disregard for human life. We need to support her.'

She's had to undergo additional screening at the Concussion clinic at Burwood Hospital to determine the extent of her brain damage
Anytime Fitness has apologized for a Wisconsin branch's 'I Can't Breathe' workout that the gym owner claimed was in 'honor' of George Floyd and was meant to be 'so hard that we felt what he felt'.

The gym chain's cofounders Chuck Runyon and Dave Mortensen and brand president Stacy Anderson posted a statement on social media Wednesday saying they are 'truly and profoundly sorry' and condemned the shocking incident at the Anytime Fitness in Wauwatosa.

The gym had displayed a whiteboard with instructions for an 'I Can't Breathe...' workout, which involved exercises including rowing and burpees.

The shocking sign also read 'And don't you dare lay down' and featured a drawing of a person kneeling.

Photos of the sign quickly surfaced on social media, sparking a backlash, as 'I can't breathe' were some of the last words spoken by black man Floyd as he died when a white cop knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

Anytime Fitness has apologized for a Wisconsin branch's 'I Can't Breathe' workout that the gym owner claimed was in 'honor' of George Floyd and was meant to be 'so hard that we felt what he felt'

The fitness center's co-owner Jen Dunnington told TMZ she was 'deeply' sorry for the offensive sign but said the workout was created by one of the trainers in Floyd's 'honor' and that she did not realize people would take offense to it.

She defended the sign saying the exercise program was meant to provide 'a workout so hard that we felt what he felt' - when the 46-year-old passed out and died while desperately gasping for air and calling out his dead mother's name.

'I was not aware of the signage that it was posted in that way,' Dunnington told TMZ of the outraged reaction to it.

'I didn't read it in that way, but I do definitely apologize that those words were on there.'

She then admitted that the 'lay down' line 'should not have been on there.'

Dunnington initially posted a video apology on the gym's social media page but it was deleted soon after.

Anytime Fitness has since blasted the actions of the franchise saying the workout was 'shocking' and 'devastating.'

The gym chain's cofounders Chuck Runyon and Dave Mortensen and brand president Stacy Anderson posted a statement on social media Wednesday saying they are 'truly and profoundly sorry' and condemning the shocking incident

'No matter the intent, we absolutely do not condone the words, illustrations or actions this represents,' the officials said in a social media statement Wednesday.

'To our employees, owners and members, we are truly and profoundly sorry that this incident occurred.

'One of our publicly-stated commitments to antiracism work is to bolster education efforts for our franchise owners to lead with empathy, love and respect. This incident makes it clear that we have work to do in this space; immediately, we are sharing this incident with our franchise owners worldwide as an example of what not to do, why it is offensive, and what locations should be doing instead.'

The statement added: 'We remain committed to working to inform and educate employees and owners worldwide to stand for our black communities including our members and employees.'

The shocking workout was displayed at the Anytime Fitness in Wauwatosa (above)

The incident came just days after Anytime Fitness released a statement announcing its solidarity with Floyd and Black Lives Matter, as people are protesting across America calling for an end to police brutality and racism.

'We are committed to listening and learning, so that we can take action that helps our communities heal and grow in real and meaningful ways,' the statement released on June 1 read.

The gym chain also participated in the #BlackoutTuesday campaign, going silent on social media for 24 hours last Tuesday in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
By PTI

LONDON: Non-essential retail shops, zoos, safari parks and drive-in cinemas are among the public places allowed to open up again within COVID-secure settings from next Monday, the UK government said as it lays out plans for its next phase of lifting the strict lockdown measures in place to control the spread of coronavirus.

Other businesses, including pubs, restaurants and hairdressers, are to remain closed at least until July 4 in the government's phase by phase lifting of restrictions which came into place on March 23.

"This is the latest step in the careful restarting of our economy and will enable high streets up and down the country to spring back to life," said UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma.

"In the new normal, we have all got used to shopping with social distancing. Now is the right time to apply these principles more widely, to more shops, as we continue our cautious re-opening of the economy," the senior Indian-origin Cabinet minister said.

Downing Street confirmed that the openings from June 15 will also include open recreational areas to give families the chance to get out into the open and also save some of these businesses from collapse.

"We hope the reopening of safari parks and zoos will help provide families with more options to spend time outdoors, while supporting the industry caring for these incredible animals," a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the House of Commons on Wednesday of further measures to address a lockdown-hit economy.

"This government has put its arms round the people of this country," Johnson said, as he announced a further 63 million pounds towards post-coronavirus local welfare assistance.

During the weekly Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs), Opposition Labour Party Leader Sir Keir Starmer also confronted him over the issue of higher risks faced by the UK's black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups during the coronavirus pandemic.

"High contact professions will get expanded and targeted testing now," Johnson said.
The Delhi High Court has declined jailed Unitech directors Sanjay and Ajay Chandra's plea for daily access to their lawyers, saying the Supreme Court has directed not to provide them any additional facilities.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru said they would be allowed to interact with their lawyers via video conferencing only twice a week for 30 minutes each as is permitted for all other inmates. "Since, such facilities are available to the prisoners twice a week, this court finds no reason to not allow the request of the petitioners (Chandras) for being permitted video conferencing ...
A German student who went on an illegal self-guided tour of the Australian Museum has blamed alcohol for the bizarre break-in.

Paul Kuhn, 25, has been given a 12-month Community Corrections Order and a $500 fine for his late-night break-in at the museum in central Sydney on May 10.

A court has heard how Kuhn was fuelled by booze when he decided to climb the scaffolding into the building, entering through a fire escape door at 1.10am.

German student Paul Kuhn (pictured) is accused of breaking into the Australian Museum in Sydney on May 10

Police claim he walked through multiple levels and taking selfies with exhibits (pictured, the intruder taking a selfie with the skull of a Tyrannosaurus-Rex)

The international student wandered through various levels of the building, which is currently under renovation - taking selfies with multiple exhibits.

At one point he stuck his head inside a dinosaur skull to take a selfie. When he finally left the museum he stole a framed painting and an Akubra hat.

Ahead of sentencing in Downing Centre Local Court, Kuhn's lawyer Steven Mercael said his client had no intention to cause harm or steal any valuable items.

He said Kuhn's escapades were fuelled by alcohol.

Mr Mercael also claimed his client had gone into the museum because he had been unable to find a way down after climbing the scaffolding.

The man was caught on CCTV taking a cowboy hat from a hat stand before putting it on his head (pictured) on May 10

He said his client had since called the museum to apologise.

Kuhn had been in Australia for more than two years and hoped to stay longer, he said.

Magistrate Jennifer Price said the need to protect the community and its assets was paramount.

Despite Kuan's 'general good character and lack of criminal record' a conviction was recorded to deter others from committing similar crimes, she said.

Paul Kuhn (pictured) was granted bail and will next appear in court on June 1, charged with breaking and entering after an incident on May 10
Coronation Street stars Michael Le Vell, Sally Dynevor and Alexandra Mardell were spotted arriving at the set for another day of shooting on Wednesday.

The ITV soap recently resumed filming after production was halted for nearly three months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The trio were also joined by co-stars Sally Carman (Abi Franklin) and Harry Visinoni (Seb Franklin) at the Manchester studios.

Back to the cobbles! Coronation Street stars Michael Le Vell (pictured), Sally Dynevor and Alexandra Mardell were spotted arriving at the set for another day of shooting on Wednesday

Michael, 55, who plays Kevin Webster led the soap stars as he was seen arriving first in his black car on Wednesday.

Sally, 57, who plays Sally Metcalfe, shortly followed in her silver car while Alexandra, 26, who plays Emma Brooker, made a glamorous arrival in her baby blue MINI Cooper.

Michael was seen arriving at the set on Monday with Sally and Harry where they were met with security guards wearing face masks.

Exciting: The ITV soap recently resumed filming after production was halted for nearly three months due to the coronavirus pandemic (Sally Dynevor pictured)

Stylish: Alexandra, 26, who plays Emma Brooker, made a glamorous arrival in her baby blue MINI Cooper

Co-stars: The trio were also joined by co-stars Sally Carman (Abi Franklin) and Harry Visinoni (Seb Franklin) at the Manchester studios (L-R)

The set and studios also had a series of signs enforcing social distancing upon arrival.

As the actors return to filming, the plan is to make enough shows to continue airing three episodes a week to ensure the soap remains on-screen in July.

ITV bosses previously confirmed that older cast members will be kept at home during the first few weeks of filming.

Leading the way: Michael, 55, who plays Kevin Webster led the soap stars as he was seen arriving first in his black car on Wednesday

Casual: The actor appeared to cut a casual figure in a grey padded hoodie

Andy Whyment (Kirk) also revealed that kissing scenes will be banned in accordance with new social distancing measures.

The star also shared a picture of new soap scripts to his Instagram, he penned: 'New scripts EXCITED' with smiley faces and a thumbs up emoji.

The new safety measures are in accordance with the recently issued TV production guidelines which will be observed whilst filming the top ITV soap.

Crew have also begun preparations to ensure filming will resume in full on Tuesday at the studios in Manchester, with recording initially producing three episodes a week.

Happy to be back! Sally Carman, 39, who plays Abi Franklin, appeared to be delighted at returning to the set

Cautious: The cast were met with security guards wearing face masks and signs around the set stress social-distancing guidelines

The new episodes will be scheduled following the instalments recorded earlier this year before the coronavirus pandemic halted production in March.

Cast and crew over the age of 70, or with an underlying health condition, will be kept at home during the early stages.

This may be sad news for soap fans, as cast members who fall into that age bracket include William Roache (who plays Ken Barlow), Barbara Knox (Rita Tanner), Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts) and Maureen Lipman (Evelyn Plummer).

No kissing! Andrew Whyment, pictured as Kirk Sutherland, has revealed that kissing scenes will be banned in accordance with new social distancing measures

Secret: The star also shared a picture of new soap scripts to his Instagram on Tuesday, he penned: 'New scripts EXCITED' with smiley faces and a thumbs up emoji

It has been reported that older stars may still appear via video calls, with a source telling Talk TV according to The Sun: 'Bosses know just how important these characters are to their millions of fans.

'And who wouldn't love to see the likes of Ken, Evelyn and Roy taking part in a Zoom quiz night?

'Or Tracy calling her dad and telling him how much she misses him. There are good ways to do it and that's what they're looking into at the moment.'

'Too risky': Cast and crew over the age of 70, or with an underlying health condition, will be kept at home during the early stages (Ken Barlow's Bill Roache, 88, left, 88, and Audrey Roberts' Sue Nicholls, 76, right)
Last week, as anti-racist protests gripped communities around the world, Black people from news outlets by and for them convened to discuss how they were prepared to cover the moment. Hosted (over Zoom) by the Center for Community Media at the City University of New York, editors and publishers from Americas Black press debated whether, when, and how to send their reporters to protests that have often been beset by police violence.

Katrina Louis, the managing editor of Q City Metro, a digital publication based in Charlotte, said that she wasnt sending a reporter to every demonstration in her city. It wasnt safe, as the group understood, because of police aggression and the coronavirus. Plus, the Q City Metro staff is small, with only three full-timersLouis couldnt afford to lose anyone. We covered the first night, she told her fellow editors. We have to prioritize what stories we are tellingso yes, well recap it, but what voices do we want to hear? First-time protesters, people whose lives have been affectedbut also organizers and elected officials.

Reporting the story hasnt always required presence in the street, Louis explained. In the days after George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old Black man, was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, her reporters did not have to scramble for sources; they knew all too well how to cover the response. We are an outlet that focuses on the Black community, Louis said. The issues that are at the core of protesters messageracism, brutality, systemic issuesthats not new to our platform.

In the last days of May, major news outlets were met with criticism of their protest coverage, including by Black readers, who saw that loaded words like looting, riot, and chaos would help justify police brutality; the Black press, the group agreed over Zoom, felt the burden of changing the narrative. We have to make sure we tell our stories correctly, Elinor Tatum, the editor in chief and publisher of the Amsterdam News, in New York, said. The difference between Black newspapersin contrast to mainstream onesis that we actually talk to community membersand have been talking to community members for weeks, months, years, and decades. Its not like were just finding them for the first time. She added, Its interesting to see how the Black press will begin stories and the mainstream will start to run with them and then get them so wrong.

In cities like Clevelandwhich has been all but stripped of its regional media infrastructurethere is not just a mishandling of stories about the Black struggle against police oppression; there is a near-total erasure. Right now, in Cleveland, theyre not talking about lootingor even the protests, Ron Calhoun, the publisher of the Ward 7 Observer, a local monthly, said. The citys major newspaper, the Plain Dealer, recently laid off most of its staff and dissolved their union; the few articles that have appeared on the front page feature heavy use of the term rioters and images of burning police cruisers. Calhoun told his colleagues that allegations of destruction by outside agitatorsa charge heard from mayors and police officials across the country, and on social mediawerent being investigated. The primary narrative, he observed, was not about the Black Lives Matter movement, but post-rally neighborhood cleanup by white people. Theyre giving glamour stories, he said. Celebrating how the suburban community has come downtown to clean up all the broken glass and help with constructiontotally ignoring what the whole problem is. Local media doesnt want to deal with that. They dont have the time or even the inclination to investigate that.

Some Black outlets have tried to recast the narratives of mainstream publications by participating in community events, where Black journalists can engage directly with readers. In Charlotte, Q City Metro held a panel discussion in collaboration with a local African-American museumfeaturing politicians, the sheriff, and a photographer and activist who had recently returned from trips to Minneapolis and to Brunswick, Georgia, where Ahmaud Arbery, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, was shot and killed while jogging down a residential street. Those collaborations have done a lot becausewhile we may not be able to churn out as much content minute by minute, because we are so smallwe still get the visibility and stay current in conversations, Louis said. She and her colleagues also appear regularly on WFAE, Charlottes NPR affiliate, enabling them to reach a non-Black audience.

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But in Chicago, journalists working at The Triibe, a digital outlet, have been hesitant to share their reporting with other newsrooms. We have been suspicious of copublishing, especially sharing our on-the-ground footage with TV news, Morgan Elise Johnson, a cofounder of The Triibe, said. We told them that if you want our footage, you need to allow us on air to contextualize it. Sometimes, the way TV news frames stories when theyre not there, we just dont agree with it. Videos may be edited, or voices cut, in such a way that the story is robbed of its intention. So weve been saying no, Johnson said, unless theyre going to give us a voice.

ICYMI: The Story Has Gotten Away from Us

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Alexandria Neason was CJRs staff writer and Senior Delacorte Fellow. Recently, she became an editor and producer at WNYCs Radiolab.
The house where Lori Vallow's missing children's remains were found this week was searched by police in January but cops found nothing, which adds to the questions over why it has taken so long for the kids to be found and their mother and stepfather charged.

JJ and Tylee were last seen alive in Idaho in September but they weren't reported missing until November and their mother fled to Hawaii the first time she was questioned by police.

She married Chad Daybell, a former grave digger and doomsday fanatic, and the pair evaded police, refusing to answer questions on where the children were, for months. Lori was finally arrested in December on charges of neglect.

The case stalled again then until this week, when the Rexburg Police Department in Idaho suddenly carried out a search warrant on Daybell's property in Salem that allowed them to bring cadaver dogs for the first time.

The police department is refusing to answer questions on why it took so long to arrest Lori and find the children's remains.

The search warrant has been sealed, which shrouds the case in further mystery.

The remains of the children were discovered this week on the property in Salem, Idaho. Police won't say how long they have been there

JJ and Tylee have been missing since September. Their mother refused to answer questions about their disappearance

In January, police seized several items from Chad's home after executing a search warrant but it was believed to have been in connection with his ex-wife's death and not the children's disappearance.

Legal experts say they must have some form of new evidence which led them to believe the children's bodies were buried there, and that the force did not want to put a foot wrong in the complex investigation because it could jeopardize a future trial.

'I don't have any idea why it took that amount of time. There are so many legal issues that have to be dealt with prior.

When the children vanished, Lori and Chad fled to Hawaii and got married on the beach. His wife of 23 years had just died and her ex-husband had also been killed by her brother. Her brother died in December

'I don't know when it was the police would have gotten the information from that there were bodies on that property but they can't do any of that without probable cause

'It's called fruit of the poisonous tree.

'If you wind up finding evidence but not legally, that evidence can be thrown out, all the evidence could be no longer useful they have to do it the right way.

'It could have catastrophic consequences,' Jennifer Shen, former cop and crime lab manager, told DailyMail.com on Wednesday.

She added that the case was 'tragic' but 'really complicated'.

'[It is] one of the most bizarre cases from start to finish.

'This case has got dead bodies everywhere - you have to do things the right way,' she said.

Daybell remains in court on a $1million bond.

While the children vanished in September, suspicious and mysterious deaths were happening in the family months earlier.

In January 2019, Lori's third husband - JJ's adopted father Charles - called the police claiming she was behaving erratically and that she did not recognize him.

He filed for divorce shortly afterwards and she complained that he'd changed his life insurance policy to write her out of it.

In July last year, Lori's brother Alex Cox shot Charles dead in Arizona.

He told police at the time that it was an act of self-defense and he wasn't arrested.

In September, the children - after moving with Lori to Idaho - vanished.

The following month, Chad Daybell's wife of more than 23 years died in mysterious circumstances at their home.

The home of Chad Daybell in Salem, Idaho, where the remains of the children were found buried on the property

The pair have now finally been charged and are in custody but so much of the case remains a mystery

He and Lori fled to Hawaii, got married and dodged questions on the children's disappearance, even as it made national news.

She was eventually arrested in December and extradited back to Idaho.

Frank Montoya Jr, who retired from the FBI in 2016 after serving since 1991, previously explained to DailyMail.com that the authorities in Idaho had been forced to hold off until there was any evidence of a crime which was more difficult to produce than before.

He gave an interview in February - before the kids bodies were found - and said it 'wasn't enough' at the time that Lori simply was not cooperating with the authorities.

'When the parent herself is not cooperating.. it isn't enough to arrest them.

'What's the charge? If it's just child endangerment and she refuses to talk, how do you prove the children have been harmed or more tragically if they're dead? You can't.

'A judge and jury have no choice but to say there's no evidence to hold her in cases like this you'll hugely dependent,' he said.

Montoya went on to explain what will likely happen now to Vallow. He also speculated over the various strands of investigation the police in Idaho now have to look at.

'People like this - what exactly is their intent? Part of these end of the world scenarios is that everyone gets resurrected. Are her kids the test case of that?

'Until she starts talking who knows... maybe this is the step to get her to start talking,' he said.

JJ's grandparents have long made public appeals for him to return safely to them.

They put up their own $20,000 reward for information in January because they'd heard nothing about the case.
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, 3 June 2020. CCRIF is pleased to announce that its member governments in the Caribbean have all renewed their parametric insurance coverage for tropical cyclone, excess rainfall, earthquake and fisheries ahead of the upcoming 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season, ceding over US$1 billion in risk to CCRIF and increasing overall coverage by 8 per cent. Also, in response to the challenges being faced by Caribbean governments, the European Union (EU) under its Global COVID-19 Response, has proactively stepped forward and provided a grant of 10 million (US$11 million) to CCRIF for premium support or for increasing coverage for its Caribbean members whose social and economic sectors have been significantly disrupted.

The renewal of countries catastrophe risk insurance policies at this time signals the strategic importance they are placing on disaster risk financing as key to advancing their sustainable development prospects and welcomes this additional support provided to them by the EU in the context of shrinking fiscal space.

The EU-funded support that is available for each member country would provide at least a 26 per cent (26%) discount on total gross premium or an increase in policy coverage under their CCRIF parametric insurance policies. This is in addition to the discounts that CCRIF also is providing  5 per cent discount on gross premium for Tropical Cyclone coverage, and a further discount of 15 per cent on additional coverage purchased by members for increased Tropical Cyclone and/or Earthquake coverage for the 2020/21 policy year.

Daniela Tramacere, EU Ambassador to Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean States, OECS and CARICOM/CARIFORUM, has reaffirmed the strong partnership with the Caribbean in these difficult times: Mitigation of COVID-19 impacts ahead of the hurricane season that already started in the region requires extraordinary and coordinated measures. EU is strongly committed to stand together with its partners in the Caribbean, providing emergency support and participating in the social/economic recovery process. The 10 million support has been provided to CCRIF SPC to ease payment of member countries premiums and improve their risk coverage against natural hazards.

This financial assistance to CCRIF is channeled through the EU Regional Resilience Building Facility managed by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and The World Bank. The GFDRR, the World Bank and CCRIF will continue efforts to secure further potential discounts to CCRIF member countries.

Member countries have the option of utilizing the EU-funded discount during the 2020/21 and 2021/22 policy years. The decision to allow for use of the funding in 2021/22 is based on projections of low or negative growth in Caribbean countries next year, which undoubtedly will have an impact on their fiscal space.

While CCRIF, over the years has received financial support from as many as 12 bilateral and multilateral development partners, this is the first time that support is being provided to all members simultaneously en bloc for premium support. The EU has been one of CCRIFs development partners from its inception in 2007 having contributed to a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) that enabled the initial capitalization of CCRIF. Again in 2014, the EU contributed to the capitalization and development of new parametric insurance products for current and potential members of CCRIF, and to facilitate the entry of Central American countries and additional Caribbean countries to join the Facility.

CCRIF CEO, Isaac Anthony commented, I must use this medium to openly thank the European Union for its rapid response in support of our member countries at a time when they are grappling with significantly diminished financial resources due to the economic crisis posed by COVID-19. I also take the opportunity to thank the GFDRR and the World Bank for facilitating this timely assistance to Caribbean countries as part of its wider response to the COVID-19 crisis in the region.

Since its inception in 2007, CCRIF has made 41 payouts totalling US$152 million to 13 of its 22 member governments on their tropical cyclone, earthquake and/or excess rainfall policies  all within 14 days of the event. For example, following Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, CCRIF made payouts totalling US$55 million to 9 affected Caribbean countries. The single largest payout made by the Facility was US$20.4 million to the Government of Haiti on its Tropical Cyclone policy following TC Matthew in 2016; and following Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas last year, the Facility made two payouts to the Government totalling US$12.8 million. CCRIF is working to bring new parametric insurance products to market for drought, the agriculture sector and public utilities with support from our donor community. CCRIF limits the nancial impact of natural hazard events to Caribbean and Central American governments by quickly providing short-term liquidity when a policy is triggered.

As the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season begins, Caribbean countries are assured that they are covered for another year  against tropical cyclones as well as excess rainfall events that occur throughout the year and earthquakes that may occur at any time. There is scientific consensus on an above-average Atlantic Hurricane Season this year. The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) is forecasting a likely range of 13 to 19 named storms (with winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 6 to 10 could become hurricanes (with winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3 to 6 major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5; with winds of 111 mph or higher).

CCRIF also has three members in Central America that has coverage for tropical cyclone, earthquake and excess rainfall. The Facility is a working example of a disaster risk financing instrument and one of a suite of such instruments available to governments to assist in post-disaster recovery and to help close the protection gap.

According to Mr. Anthony, The truth is what we do at CCRIF is about supporting governments to help their populations  communities, businesses and key sectors such as education, agriculture, and tourism. An assessment of the beneficiaries of CCRIFs payouts show that over 2.5 million persons in the Caribbean and Central America have benefitted directly and/or indirectly from these payouts after a natural disaster.
Bolsonaro, facing numerous investigations and the worst health and economic crises in decades, has grown increasingly aggressive against what he views as attempts to constrain his powers. His supporters have called on him to lead a military takeover. He has attended their rallies, asserted the military was on their side and declared he has the weapons of democracy in my hands.
WALLINGFORD  A fire at a commercial tire facility filled the air with heavy, black smoke as firefighters worked to get the flames under control Tuesday afternoon.

Units responded to 136 Dudley Road around 4 p.m.

Responding units found heavy smoke and confirmed a working fire at Tri-State Tire.

Heavy black smoke poured out of the facility and flames shot several feet into the air as firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze.

Reports indicated the fire was in one of the trailers and involved used tires.

It was unclear if there were any injuries.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Miami: Records that could reveal whether there was any wrongdoing by prosecutors in their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case in Palm Beach, Florida, will remain sealed, at least for now, a judge has ruled.

Palm Beach County Circuit Court Chief Judge Krista Marx dismissed portions of a lawsuit filed by the Palm Beach Post that sought release of the 2006 state grand jury probe into Epstein's sex crimes.

Jeffrey Epstein is alleged to have received favourable treatment in Florida. Credit:AP

The grand jury returned a minor charge of solicitation of prostitution against Epstein, who later managed to negotiate a lenient federal plea deal that resulted in his serving 13 months in the Palm Beach county jail, much of it from his lavish office in West Palm Beach on day release.

In her order, Marx concluded the Post had no standing to demand that the state attorney, Dave Aronberg, or the county clerk, Sharon Bock, unseal the documents. Rather, it should have sought a court order  which would mean that Marx, as chief judge, could be the final arbiter of whether the public will ever know how and why Epstein got special treatment in the county.
Schools may not fully reopen until after September, the health secretary has hinted amid concern from educators that it may be impossible to impose social distancing rules once classrooms are filled.

Primary schools across the UK have already been given the green light to have some year six, year one and reception-aged children return to classes after months without formal education.

However, the return has been far from universal  with a number of councils refusing to ask schools in their area to reopen amid concern from unions that it will be impossible to keep teachers and students safe from the virus which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 across the country.

Now the health secretary Matt Hancock has hinted that a full return to classrooms may not be possible when the next academic year begins  stating it is the current working plan for education to resume in September.

Asked at the evening Downing Street press conference whether schools would be able to reopen fully in the new academic year with social distancing rules in place, Mr Hancock said: That is our current working plan  that secondary schools wont open until September at the earliest.

I very much hope that they can because the impact on childrens education is so significant.

But what we have to do  not only in schools, but right across the board  is work out how we can get the other things that matter going.

Like schools, like hospitality  especially outdoor hospitality, like retail. And get them going safely and carefully, in a way that doesnt lead to the spread of the virus, and that is going to require ingenuity.

Meanwhile, a source at the Department for Education told The Daily Telegraph that the intention is to have business as usual in all schools come September but admitted there were no guarantees given the uncertainty about the infection rate.

It comes after schools were urged to reconsider opening after it was thought the rate of reproduction of the virus  or R number  had risen beyond one in some areas like the north west, meaning it was increasingly spreading among the community.

General secretary of teachers union NASUWT, Dr Patrick Roach, urged education providers to fulfil their duty of care to staff and pupils by rethinking plans for the wider reopening of schools in their region as a result.

However, Mr Hancock, who today asserted the national R rate was between 0.7 and 0.9 and was no higher than one in any region of the country, said it was a mistake for councils and schools to look at just one model when considering whether to let pupils back.

In the Commons, Tory MP Andy Carter asked: Does the Secretary of State agree with me that local authorities need to look at a number of local factors, not just regional R data for a wider area, when taking important decisions on getting our children back to school?

Mr Hancock replied: It is particularly a mistake to look at just one model rather the overall assessment of R in each part of the country  which is assessed to below one in each area  and therefore with the number of new infections coming down we can take the plan forward  and we ought to take the plan forward  because the education of children matters, as well, of course, as controlling the virus.
The Andhra Pradesh government has constituted a high-power committee to investigate the causes behind the gas leak incident at LG Polymers plant in Vishakhapatnam. The panel has been asked to submit its report by June 22.

#VizagGasLeak: The Government of Andhra Pradesh has constituted a High-Power Committee to probe into the causes behind the gas leak incident at LG Polymers plant in Visakhapatnam. The committee has to submit its report by 22nd June, 2020. pic.twitter.com/faioOYqgoA ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2020

The committee, headed by Special Chief Secretary Neerab Kumar Prasad, will look into what caused the gas leak and the recovery steps taken in response to the incident, according to ANI.

Members of the panel, as per local media reports, include - Commissioner of Police RK Meena, Special Chief Secretary R Karikal Valaven, Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board Member-Secretary Vivek Yadav, and Collector Vinay Chand.

Also Read: LG Polymers: Gross negligence, lack of training caused Vizag gas leak, says NGT report

The committee team has already held numerous meetings with other stakeholders such as petrochemical experts, the National Green Tribunal, besides others.

The Andhra Pradesh government has also invited opinions/questions from the general public to investigate the gas leak incident.

At least 12 were killed and several others hospitalised after they inhaled the vapour that leaked from one of the storage tanks in the LG Polymers Plant located at R.R. Venkatapuram village of Vishakhapatnam during the early morning of May 7.

The gas leak impacted villages within a five-km radius of the plant.

Also Read: Vizag gas leak: LG Chem sends delegates to probe matter
SAN ANTONIO  Working with the support of the Mexican Consulate of San Antonio, Missions Foods on Wednesday donated more than 37,920 servings of food to the San Antonio Food Bank.

The items delivered included 4,800 packages of corn and flour tortillas and 750 packages of spinach herb wraps.

We are proud to work with Mission Foods to help our neighbors and communities in San Antonio, said Ruben Minutti Zanatta, consul general of the Mexican Consulate of San Antonio.

Mexico and the U.S. are not only neighbors but good partners who share trade and culture. Its important for us to collaborate with Mexican companies operating in the U.S. to ensure those with the ability to help are reaching people in need.

Eric Cooper, Food Bank president and CEO, noted that the nonprofit continues to feed about 120,000 people per week during the novel coronavirus pandemic after assisting about 60,000 per week in normal times.

Because of incredible partners like Mission, weve been able to save enough food from manufacturers, restaurants and farmers to keep the supply flowing to hungry families in Southwest Texas, Cooper said.

Mission Foods is expected to make more donations this year to the Food Bank.

"Were definitely motivated to help the community, said Juan de la Rosa, Mission Food's VP of sales for San Antonio and Houston. Weve had tough times before like Hurricane Harvey in Southeast Texas. But this is global - everybodys in the same boat. Our company is so proud to be able to help our neighbors."
Japanese conservatives disrupt recovering China-Japan ties by hyping Diaoyu Islands dispute

Global Times

By Yang Sheng and Xing Xiaojing Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/9 18:43:40

Japanese conservative forces attempt to use a dispute over sovereignty with China to interrupt fast-recovering bilateral relations, said Chinese diplomatic experts on Tuesday, after a local government in Japan mulled to change the Diaoyu Islands' administrative designation.

The city government of Inshigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, is seeking to change the administrative designation of the area containing the so-called Senkaku Islands, China's Diaoyu Islands, from Tonoshiro to Tonoshiro Senkaku, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported on Sunday

The city office confirmed with the Global Times that the proposal was submitted to the city council at a routine conference on Tuesday, and the council will vote for the proposal on June 22.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that the Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan is still unsolved and is not likely to be solved in the short term, so both sides should manage the dispute carefully to prevent an escalation.

"Changing the administrative designation at this time can only make the dispute more complicated and bring more risks of a crisis. This will cause more uncertainties to the recovering China-Japan ties," Li said.

This could be a move initiated by local conservatives in Okinawa, and they do not stand for the interests and policy of the Japanese central government in considering the impact on China-Japan ties in general, Li further noted.

Chinese analysts also noted that the US could be maneuvering behind Japanese local conservative groups, as the US has now identified China as its most important strategic rival, and the Trump administration doesn't want to see Japan repair its ties with China, but instead wants it to stand with Washington to challenge Beijing.

The US, which will chair the G7 summit this year, is now planning to form an international alliance based on the G7 to confront China, but such plan received lukewarm responses from other major Western powers, including Japan and Germany.

"If Japan decided to have an intensive confrontation with China on the Diaoyu Islands, the 'support' from the US will mostly be words rather than actions, and eventually Japan will pay the price," Li said. So it would be very unwise to restart a confrontation with China over a sovereignty dispute this time, especially when the two countries, as well as South Korea, are trying to work together to realize economic recovery in the region.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference on May 11 that, China Coast Guard discovered a Japanese fishing boat illegally operating in China's territorial sea while performing regular patrol in waters around Diaoyu Dao (Diaoyu Islands in Chinese).

"The Chinese Coast Guard vessels followed and monitored the boat in accordance with law, asking it to immediately halt its activities and leave the relevant waters, and responded to the illegal disruption by a Japan Coast Guard vessel that came to the spot. The Chinese side has lodged representations with the Japanese side through diplomatic channels, urging it to immediately stop its infringements," he noted.

"I want to stress that Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands are an inherent part of China's territory, and it is our inherent right to carry out patrols and law enforcement activities in these waters. We ask the Japanese side to honor its four-point principled agreement with China, avoid triggering more incidents relating to the Diaoyu Dao and make concrete efforts for stability in the East China Sea," Zhao further said.

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Bollywood actor Sonu Sood had the internet in splits once again with his quirky reply to a man who asked for help to elope with his girlfriend. The actor has emerged as a Good Samaritan for migrant workers as he helped thousands reach their hometowns amid the lockdown.

A user tweeted to Sonu, Bhai.. Mujhe bhi kahi chhod do.. Girlfriend ke sath Bhagnaa hai!! Andman nicobar hi chhod do bhai (Please drop me somewhere. I need to elope with my girlfriend, you can drop me at Andaman Nicobar islandds too)!! Sonu was quick to respond with a better idea. Mere paas isase behtar idea hai. Kyu na aap dono ke saath aap dono ke parivaar ko bhi bhej doon? Chat mangni aur pat byaah? (Why dont I send your family members with you too, you guys can easily get married then), he tweeted.

     idea                      https://t.co/lDtfatY0ka  sonu sood (@SonuSood) June 10, 2020

Earlier on Tuesday, Sonu took to Twitter to clarify that contrary to reports, he was not stopped from entering a railway station in Mumbai. Just to set the record straight - I was not stopped from entering the station. I absolutely respect the protocols and have duly followed it. I had requested the state government for the train so that I could send the migrants back home to reunite them with their families, he tweeted.

Also read: Bulbbul teaser: Anushka Sharma gives first glimpse at her Netflix horror movie, watch video

Just to set the record straight - I was not stopped from entering the station. I absolutely respect the protocols and have duly followed it.

I had requested the state government for the train so that I could send the migrants back home to reunite them with their families.  sonu sood (@SonuSood) June 9, 2020

As there were almost two thousand people. I am extremely thankful to the state govt, Hon. CM Uddhav Thackeray ji @CMOMaharashtra @AUThackeray @AslamShaikh_MLA for helping me bring a smile on the faces of all migrants! Jai Hind   sonu sood (@SonuSood) June 9, 2020

As there were almost two thousand people. I am extremely thankful to the state govt, Hon. CM Uddhav Thackeray ji @CMOMaharashtra @AUThackeray @AslamShaikh_MLA for helping me bring a smile on the faces of all migrants! Jai Hind, Sonu added.

Sonu told Hindustan Times in an interview, My phone hasnt stopped ringing since the day our buses filled with people went to Karnataka. Ive been missing out on calls and messages, which is why I started the toll free number. Thats also flooded with calls. There are over 70,000 people on the waiting list, and many more contacting us.

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Angry social media users have threatened to boycott Sainsbury's after a statue of slave owner Robert Milligan was torn down in London's docklands yesterday.

The hashtag #boycottSainsburys appeared on Twitter after the statue was uprooted from its spot on West India Quay outside the Museum of London Docklands.

Twitter users accused Lord Sainsbury, whose charity supports the museum, of influencing the decision to remove the monument.

The Linbury Trust - a charitable foundation created by Lord Sainsbury - donated 10million to the Museum of London for a new site at West Smithfield.

It is not clear if Lord Sainsbury, whose family founded the supermarket chain in 1869, has publicly spoken out about the issue.

There is also no evidence that he played any role in the decision.

But Twitter users were adamant he was to blame. One account tweeted: 'The statue of Robert Milligan was removed from the West India Quay after the Museum of London demanded that its owners remove it.

'Government had no involvement. The Museum is funded by the Sainsbury family.'

Another posted: '#Boycott Sainsburys. The Museum of London demanded that its owners remove it. The Museum is funded by the Sainsbury family.'

The hashtag #boycottSainsburys first appeared on Twitter last night after workmen uprooted the statue of Robert Milligan from its spot on West India Quay in London's docklands

One social media user tweeted: 'The statue of Robert Milligan was removed from West India Quay after the Museum of London demanded that its owners remove it. Government had no involvement. The Museum is funded by the Sainsbury family'

One social media user tweeted last night: '#boycottSainsburys needs trending'

The Canal and River Trust worked with the Museum of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to remove the bronze figure of Scottish merchant Milligan who owned 526 slaves at his Jamaican plantation yesterday.

The decision to remove the statue came amid growing calls from anti-racism protestors across Britain to get rid of any statues which appear to glorify slavery.

But while #boycottSainsburys began to circulate last night, it was trending this morning after many people made fun of it and accused supporters of being 'racist'.

Another account tweeted: 'Well guys #boycottsainsburys #thiscountryissticking'

Angry social media users blamed Lord Sainsbury for the removal of the Milligan statue

Workers, some pictured wearing face masks, use a crane to remove the monument to Milligan, as police officers and members of the public can be seen looking on from behind a cordon

A worker sits down as the statue of slave owner Milligan is taken down at West India Quay in east London. It comes as Labour councils across England and Wales will begin reviewing monuments in their towns and cities

The statue of Milligan pictured on the back of a truck as it is driven away by one of the workers

One user said: 'Can we get a full list of everywhere racists are boycotting please? Imagine a world where you no longer have to encounter a single one of them.'

Another added: 'So let me get this straight. People are going to #BoycottSainsburys because Lord Sainsbury has urged statues of slave owners to be taken down?

'Are these people actually for real?'

A spokesman for Museum of London told MailOnline that the decision to remove the statue 'was made independently of our sponsors and donors'.

Sainsbury's declined to comment.

Statues glorifying slave traders and colonialists have come into sharp focus as part of a broader movement inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests that started in the US following the death of George Floyd on May 25.

On Sunday, protesters in Bristol tore down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the harbour, receiving a mixed reactions of celebrations from anti-racism campaigners and protestors while some politicians and officials questioned the 'anti-democratic' manner in how the statue was taken down.

In Oxford yesterday, more than 1,000 demonstrators demanded the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes, an imperialist who provided philanthropical support to Oriel College in Oxford University where the monument stands.

The Canal and River Trust, which owns the land where Milligan's statue is located, issued a statement following a petition launched by Tower Hamlets Labour councillor Ehtasham Haque, which demanded the removal of the figure.

One account tweeted: 'So it comes back to Brexit. They don't give up do they'

Another tweeted: 'Statue owed [sic] by Sainsbury family, who ordered it removed!'

Other social media users made fun of the planned boycott, with one writing: 'Coming in shopping after racists #BoycottSainsburys knowing now that the shops may not be as crowded as before be like' and sharing a GIF of Peter Kay's 'Is This The Way to Amarillo?'

It earlier said: 'We recognise the wishes of the local community concerning the statue of Robert Milligan at London Docklands and are committed to working with London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the Museum of London Docklands and partners at Canary Wharf to organise its safe removal as soon as possible.

'The Trust stands with out waterside communities against racism. We promote equality, diversity and inclusion, using our canals to enrich the lives of all those alongside our waterways from every community.'

Sadiq Khan tweeted a video showing the removal of the statue yesterday, adding: 'While it's a sad truth that much of our city and nation's wealth was derived from the slave trade, this does not have to be celebrated in our public spaces.'

Two police officers look on at the statue, before its removal. It follows protesters in the English port city of Bristol tore down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston

Four workmen pictured standing next to the empty plinth after the statue was removed

Robert Milligan

Robert Milligan (1746-1809) was a Scottish merchant and slave owner. His statue stands at West India Quay outside the Museum London Docklands

Where is his statue?

West India Quay outside the Museum London Docklands, where it has stood since 1997 after being moved from its original plinth nearby in 1813.

Who was he?

Robert Milligan (1746-1809) was a Scottish merchant and slave owner. He was born in Dumfries, Scotland, but soon moved to Kingston, Jamaica, where he managed his wealthy family's sugar plantations.

He returned to London in 1779 where he became instrumental in the construction of the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs. According to the inscription on the bronze statue's plinth, it was to Milligan's 'genius, perseverance and guardian care' that the docks owed their 'design, accomplishment and regulation'.

From the Docks, ships would sail to West Africa where shipowners such as Milligan bought enslaved Africans.

The ships then crossed the seas to the Caribbean to buy sugar, rum and coffee before returning to England.

At the time of his death in 1809, 526 slaves were registered on Milligan's Jamaican plant called Kellet's and Mammee Gully.

What did he do?

The Bad:

Used slaves to amass great wealth through trade

Was a vocal opponent of the abolition of slavery

The good:
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (Photo: VNA)

He said the outcome of Vietnams fight against COVID-19 was certainly worthy of note, with nearly two months having passed with no new infections in the community.

The PM ordered full preparations for reopening to the world in the near future, not only focusing on the economy but also on political and diplomatic ties.

He warned everyone not to lower their guard, particularly those in border areas and at border gates, along roads, and on waterways and air routes. Apart from facilitating the return of Vietnamese citizens from abroad, it is important to promote socio-economic development in the new normal.

The PM agreed to allow foreign experts, investors, and skilled workers to enter Vietnam to seek investment and job opportunities.

He assigned the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control to announce safe zones for reopening flights to destinations where no COVID-19 cases have been detected for 30 days or more.
In an effort to get a public review of pending Manitoba Hydro layoffs, the Manitoba NDP is asking the Crown corporation to make a rate application before the Public Utilities Board.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In an effort to get a public review of pending Manitoba Hydro layoffs, the Manitoba NDP is asking the Crown corporation to make a rate application before the Public Utilities Board.

"It is imperative that Hydro immediately file a rate application with the PUB so that the impact of the layoffs on the services provided to Manitobans can be publicly examined and studied prior to their full implementation," said a letter sent Monday to Hydro president Jay Grewal from NDP leader Wab Kinew and Manitoba Hydro critic Adrien Sala.

"We think the job cuts and other layoffs are going to damage the utility," Kinew said Tuesday. "Before Hydro does something thats going to permanently damage its service to Manitobans, the public should have the facts."

On Friday, Manitoba Hydro announced the four-month layoff of 200 workers in response to government-mandated cost-cutting, 190 of whom belong to Local 2034 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers saluted in the legislature for their work during last falls ice storm.

In addition to the IBEW layoffs, Hydro said 12 members of its natural gas unit would also be temporarily laid off. An official with their union, Unifor, said the dozen workers include eight first responders to emergency calls.

While both unions had been offered three days of unpaid leave for all members in place of temporary layoffs for some, they said they balked at the proposal when Hydro wouldnt assure them thered be no future layoffs.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 998 has recommended that its members  900 clerical and administrative staff at the corporation  accept the unpaid days off. Theyre expected to vote this week, starting Wednesday. Theyd been trying to get a guarantee there would be no layoffs if they accept the unpaid days off. However, as of Tuesday, had only been given a promise of no COVID-19-related layoffs. If it rejects the unpaid leave days, 28 of its members will be laid off for four months.

The NDP says its concerned Hydro cant afford any more staff reductions without it having a negative effect on service.

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Last September, Grewal sent a message reassuring staff that Hydro had already achieved the staffing-reduction targets set out earlier by the provincial government, and layoffs werent imminent.

Just over a year ago, after Hydro had already cut staff by 872 positions  14 per cent  over the preceding two years, the Pallister government asked Hydro and other Crown corporations to cut management staff by 15 per cent and their overall workforce by eight per cent. Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen said at the time that any further staff cuts would be risky.

"We believe that further staff reductions would significantly increase the risk of public and employee safety, of system reliability... as well as our ability to provide reasonable levels of service to our customers," Owen told the Free Press last May.

On Tuesday, Owen said there are no plans to submit a general rate application (GRA) at the Public Utilities Board.

"The preparation of a GRA takes months of work prior to the commencement of hearing themselves, and as such is not feasible at this time," Owen said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
WASHINGTON (AP)  George Floyd's brother challenged Congress on Wednesday to stop the pain" as lawmakers consider a sweeping law enforcement overhaul, so the man he looked up to won't become just "another name on a growing list of black Americans killed during interactions with police.

Philonise Floyd's appearance before a House hearing came a day after funeral services for his older brother, the 46-year-old African American whose death has become a worldwide symbol in demonstrations calling for changes to police practices and an end to racial prejudice.

Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain, Philonise Floyd told the silenced hearing room.

Choking back tears, he said he wants to make sure that his brother, whom he called Perry, is more than another face on a T-shirt, more than another name on a list that wont stop growing.

Floyd challenged lawmakers to be leaders: Our country, this world needs the right thing.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler gaveled in the session, with many lawmakers and witnesses masked during the COVID-19 outbreak, as Democrats review the Justice in Policing Act, a far-ranging package of proposals amid a national debate on policing and racial inequality.

Repercussions after the weeks of protest continued nationwide.

President Donald Trump ruled out changing the names of Army bases named for Confederate Army officers, NASCAR announced it is banning the Confederate flag from its races and venues, and Amazon said it will suspend police use of its facial recognition technology for a year.

In Washington, lawmakers also heard testimony from civil rights and law enforcement leaders as Congress considers changes to police practices and accountability after Floyd's death in police custody in Minnesota and the mass protests that followed.

Today we answer their call, Nadler said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi watched from the audience, and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy also joined.

Story continues

Republicans are criticizing activists who want to defund the police  a catch-all term for shifting law enforcement resources  though the Democratic bill does not call for that. Trump and allies have seized on the phrase to portray Democrats as extreme as GOP lawmakers rush to come up with their own proposals.

The American people understand that its time for a real discussion," said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the panel. But he said they also understand it is pure insanity to defund the police.

For hours, witnesses described what what happened to Floyd on May 25  one called it a lynching. Others placed his death alongside those of other African Americans, an ever increasing tally that has become difficult for lawmakers in Congress to ignore.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is leading the legislative effort, said the proposed changes reflect a nation coming to grips with a history of racial injustice.

This is about the kind of America we all want to see, said Bass.

The Democrats legislation would create a national database of police misconduct, ban police choke holds and loosen qualified immunity to make it easier for those injured to seek damages in lawsuits, among other changes. The proposals dont go as far as some activists want to defund police departments for other community services. They do, however, make available grant money for states to reimagine ways of policing.

Republicans as well as Democrats have called for a national registry of use-of-force incidents, so police officers cannot transfer between departments without public awareness of their records.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the depravity he said he saw in the video of Floyds death burned in my soul. He welcomed a new database and called for police chiefs to get rid of bad apples.

There is also growing bipartisan support for increasing the use of police body cameras, ending no-knock warrants  police used one to enter the home of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in Louisville, Kentucky  and making other changes to police practices and oversight.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that Trump was still looking at different options. She said the administration was making final edits on a proposal for release in the coming days.

Philonise Floyd's testimony captivated the room as he recounted what he saw in the widely viewed video as an officer pressed a knee into George Floyd's neck while other police stood by. The one officer, Derek Chauvin, who is white, is now charged with murder, and three others also face charges.

He called all of the officers sir,'" said Philonise Floyd. He still called them sir as he begged for his life."

His life mattered, the brother said. He broke down at one point over the images. At another, he said he wonders every day if he will be next.

Within the wrenching testimony were many of the core issues being debated as part of the police overhaul. Those include questions about whether it's appropriate to have police officers respond to minor offenses  Floyd was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a neighborhood market  and the use of force to detain suspects.

I am asking you, is that what a black mans life is worth? Twenty dollars? Philonise Floyd asked.

Asked if he could think of any reason for the incident, Floyd told Nadler his brother and Chauvin both worked at the same place.

I think it was personal, Philonise Floyd testified.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Wednesday investigators are looking into a report from CBS News that the men had bumped heads working at the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub in Minneapolis.

Rev. Darrell Scott, who is part of Trump's national diversity coalition, blasted activists' push to dismantle police departments as "one of the most unwise, irresponsible proposals ever.

Scott noted he, like many black men, has been pulled over by police for driving while black, as he put it.

I could very easily have been George Floyd, he testified. However, I do not recommend throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The committee also heard from Angela Underwood Jacobs, the sister of a black law enforcement officer, Dave Patrick Underwood, who was shot and killed while guarding a federal courthouse in California during the protests that followed Floyds death.

Underwood Jacobs, a former Republican candidate for Congress, called for justice for Floyd and for her brother. She said the idea of defunding the police was ridiculous. But she also urged the lawmakers to find answers.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Zeke Miller in Washington and videojournalist Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
This past April 17th, a dispute between Iran and the U.S. occurred over the U.S. decision to increase its military presence in Caribbean and Eastern Pacific waters, with the purported reason being a counter-narcotics campaign.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this past Sunday, that the real purpose for this move by the U.S. is to intervene and create disruption in the transfer of Irans fuel to Venezuela.

In the same letter, Zarif expressed concern over the United States intention to consider dangerous, unlawful and provocative measures against Iranian oil tankers engaged in perfectly lawful international commerce with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The Iranian deployment consists of five tankers carrying around $45.5million of gasoline and related products, as part of a wider deal between Iran and Venezuela. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on both nations oil exports.

For the first time since 1962, Iran has requested IMF assistance due to severe shortages created by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Iran requesting an emergency loan of $5 billion. However, the request is currently being blocked by the U.S., which accounts for slightly more than 16.5% of IMFs voting shares and has an effective veto over decisions.

Iran is presently experiencing a critical shortage of medicines and equipment amid the pandemic, and yet is prohibited from purchasing medicines and supplies because of the banking sanctions.

It is clear that these manoeuvres against Iran are not on behalf of anyones security but rather an attempt to force Iran to finally bend the knee and be reduced to a state of complete dependence.

Iran has fought a long fight to claim its independence from western powers.

However, what if I were to tell you that once there was a time when Iran and the U.S. had good relations and that the U.S. was in fact the leading promoter and supporter of Irans sovereignty?

Almost out of a Shakespearean play of tragedy and betrayal, the relationship was jeopardised by a third player. As identified by John Perkins, in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, the first ever U.S. coup against a foreign country was the overthrow of Irans nationalist Prime Minister Mosaddegh in 1953. However, what is often left outis that it was a British authored and designed operation.

In order for us to understand how and why the U.S. was dragged into such an affair, our story starts 150 years ago

DIEU ET MON DROIT

It all started in 1872, with Nasir al-Din Shah having granted to the British Baron Julius de Reuter, rights to Irans entire economic estate. Reuter not only controlled Irans industry, farming, and rail transportation, but also held the right to issue currency and to set up a national bank, called the Imperial Bank of Persia, which was under direct British control.

In 1901, Muzzaffar al-Din Shah negotiated what became known as the DArcy Contract, granting William Knox DArcy, a millionaire London socialite, the special and exclusive privilege to basically own and manage the natural gas and petroleum of Iran for a term of 60 years.

In May 26th 1908 DArcy struck pay-dirt in Iran, discovering a huge oil field in Masjed-Soleiman. Britain immediately set up APOC in 1908, purchasing the rights to the black gold from DArcy. Six years later, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill gave the order to purchase 51% of APOC, effectively nationalizing the company. This was to ensure the free flow of oil to the British navy. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran.

Iran received only 16% of the royalties on the oil.

Britain continued to pursue total control of Iran, not through colonial occupation, but rather through economic agreements. In the midst of carving up the empires new jewels of the Middle East from the Sykes-Picot fraud on the Arabian people and the illegal British occupation of Palestine, the notorious Anglo-Persian Agreement of Aug 19, 1919 was also signed, with London effectively turning Iran into a de facto protectorate run by British advisors. Britain had succeeded in becoming the masters of Irans natural resources through this agreement.

Iran received almost nothing in return, not even oil from APOC for domestic consumption, but rather had to import it from the Soviet Union!

On Nov 28th 1932 Reza Shah announced that he would be cancelling the British concession to APOC. The British Navy was heavily dependent on cheap Iranian oil and thus Britain refused to acquiesce. A compromise was reached in 1933 through bilateral negotiations and the British managed to extend their concession up until 1993! Iran had succeeded in getting the British to pay a higher price but it still did not control its own oil.

THE AMERICAN RELATIONSHIP

Despite claiming a neutral stance for Iran during WWII, word had gotten out that Reza Shah was apparently sympathetic to the cause of Hitler. The argument was thus used that a pro-German Iran could become a launching pad for an attack against the Soviet Union, justifying British and Soviet entry into the country on Aug 25th 1941 for what would be a several years occupation. On Sept 16th Reza was forced by the British to abdicate and go into exile transferring power to his 22 year old son, Mohammad Reza Shah.

Mohammad Reza Shah was not happy with the joint occupation and sought an American military presence as a mediator to British and Soviet interests. The Shah sent a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Aug 25th 1941 asking him to:

be good enough to interest yourself in this incident [] I beg Your Excellency to take efficacious and urgent humanitarian steps to put an end to these acts of aggression.

In response to this plea, Roosevelt sent Gen. Patrick Hurley as his special representative to Iran to help prepare what was to become the Iran Declaration, finally adopted at the Tehran Conference where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill would agree to guarantee the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Iran.

The Iran Declaration was used to finally end the foreign occupation of Iran after WWII, despite some resistance, and would play a crucial role in Irans future fight for sovereignty. The Iran Declaration thus proved itself to be more than just words, and this would certainly never have happened if not for FDR.

As part of Hurleys report to FDR, he wrote some biting words on the present system of British imperialism, The imperialism of Germany, Japan, Italy, France will, we hope, end or be radically revised by this war [WWII]. British imperialism seems to have acquired a new life. . . What appears to be a new life is the result of the infusion, into its emaciated form, of the blood of productivity and liberty from a free nation [Iran] through Lend-Lease.

Roosevelt sent a copy of the Hurley report to Churchill with his thoughts on the matter: The enclosed memorandum was sent to me I rather like his general approach to the care and education of what used to be called backward countriesthe point of all this is that I do not want the United States to acquire a zone of influence, or any other nation for that matter [in Iran].

Churchill was less than enthusiastic on the Hurley-FDR vision. He was particularly irked by Hurleys notion that British imperialism were in conflict with democracy.

FDR died only a few months later, and with his interment, Hurleys plans for American support for a sovereign and democratic Iran as a model for the rest of the Middle East were relegated to the dust bins of time and forgotten by much of the world.

Following WWII, nationalistic sentiments were on the rise including in the Middle East, the most notable being Iran. However, following the death of FDR the British were free to disingenuously respond to Irans request for better economic conditions by offering what was called the Supplemental Agreement, in May 1949. This entailed a better payment in royalties but still denied Iran any oversight over accounts or any other form of control over Iranian oil.

ENTER MOSADDEGH

In the late 1940s, a new political force emerged in Iran called the National Front led by Mohammad Mosaddegh. Their campaign was centered on the demand to nationalize the AIOC and the people of Iran were in accord, electing Mosaddegh into the Majlis (parliament) in 1949.

Mosaddegh lost no time, and quickly became the head of the Majlis Oil Committee which was tasked to study the British Supplemental Agreement. When it came time to put it to a vote on Nov 25th 1950, the committee delivered a resounding no to the British proposition.

Less than four months later, the Majlis voted on March 15th 1951 for nationalization of the AIOC, and it was renamed as the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Less than two months later, Mosaddegh became Prime Minister of Iran on April 28th 1951.

The British were left empty handed.

Twice the British tried to argue their case before the international community, once in May 1951 at The Hague and again in October at the UN Security Council. Both attempts were to lose to Mosaddeghs defense. Mosaddegh had earned a Ph.D. in law from the Neuchatel Law School in Switzerland in 1914.

This was anything but a formal victory. It was to set a precedent in the international community that a countrys right to national sovereignty would be favored over Britains imperial claims, which were exposed during these two very public trials as amounting to nothing more than the threats and bribes of pirates.

At the UN Security Council, Mosaddegh responded to Britains imperial ambitions over Iran with these eloquent words:

My countrymen lack the bare necessities of existenceOur greatest natural asset is oil. This should be the source of work and food for the population of Iran. Its exploitation should properly be our national industry, and the revenue from it should go to improve our conditions of life. As now organized, however, the petroleum industry has contributed practically nothing to the well-being of the people or to the technical progress or industrial development of my countryif we are to tolerate a situation in which the Iranian plays the part of a mere manual worker in the oil fieldsand if foreign exploiters continue to appropriate practically all of the income, then our people will remain forever in a state of poverty and misery. These are the reasons that have prompted the Iranian parliament to vote unanimously in favor of nationalizing the oil industry.

A BRITISH COUP

The British were fuming over Mosaddeghs high profile humiliation of the British Empires claim to Irans oil. Mosaddegh would have to be deposed, however, this could not look like a British retaliation.

During Averell Harrimanns visit to Tehran in July 1951, in an attempt to salvage the broken British-Iranian relationship, Mosaddegh is reported to have said,

You do not know how crafty they are. You do not know how evil they are. You do not know how they sully everything they touch.

As coup rumours circulated and reports were rife of British contact being sought with Iranian military officers, Mosaddegh severed diplomatic relations with the UK on Oct 16th 1952. The British were further humiliated and had to leave the country taking their agents with them.

It was at this point that Churchill invited his lap dog, de facto president Truman, to participate in his vision for regime change in Iran. In November 1952, NSC 136 and 136/I were written into record, Truman had agreed to promote direct intervention in Iran through covert operations and even military force. A detailed plan was approved on Jan 8th 1953 which was 12 days before Eisenhower was inaugurated.

The management of this covert operation was under the treasonous Dulles brothers, who would use the very same technique when JFK first entered office in setting him up with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, however, JFK managed to publicly expose Allan Dulles in this scheme and fired him. Dulles had been the Director of the CIA for 8 years up until that point, and was Deputy Director of the CIA for two years prior. Refer to my paper on this for further details.

A preliminary meeting in Washington saw representatives of the Near East and Africa Division (NEA) with British Intelligence. The key personalities were Christopher Montague Woodhouse who had been station chief for British Intelligence in Tehran and on the American side Kermit Roosevelt (son of Teddy Roosevelt) acting as NEA Division Chief. It was the British who would propose a joint political action to remove Prime Minister Mosaddegh according to CIA documents, which were in part leaked by the New York Times on April 16th 2000. The final plan was codenamed TPAJAX.

Appendix B, aka London Draft of the TPAJAX Operational Plan was black propaganda aimed at hammering out these themes 1) Mosaddegh favors the Tudeh Party and the USSR 2) Mosaddegh is an enemy of Islam since he associates with Tudeh.

The aim of such tactics was to drive a wedge between Mosaddegh and his National Front on the one side and his clerical allies, especially Kashani on the other. Demonstrations against Mosaddegh in the streets were to provide the pretext for bought MPs to hold a vote against him, if he refused to step down the plan was to have Fazlollah Zahedi, leader of the opposition, to arrest him. Zahedi, as laid out in Appendix B was selected by the British to replace Mosaddegh as Prime Minister after the coup.

Chief of Staff Gen. Taghi Riahi found out about the coup plans and alerted Mosaddegh in time. When the chief of the Imperial Guards, Col. Nasiri went to Mosaddeghs house the evening before the planned coup day (Aug 16th) to arrest him, Nasiri himself was taken as prisoner by the pro- Mosaddegh military. Zahedi managed to flee.

The coup attempt had failed and the word spread fast, crowds flooded the streets supporting Mosaddegh and denouncing the Shah. The Shah left the country quickly.

The CIA informed of the fiasco alerted Kermit Roosevelt that he should leave Iran immediately. But Kermit believed the coup could still work and would make a second attempt three days later. British Intelligence and CIA orchestrated demonstrations set to the streets on Aug 19th. The royal decrees signed by the Shah for the deposal of Mosaddegh to be replaced by Zahedi were made public in the press that very day with the radio news announcing: that Zahedi was Prime Minister, that Mosaddegh had been ousted and that the Shah would return soon.

Military units were dispatched to Mosaddeghs home. As his house was being destroyed by gunfire and tanks, Mosaddegh managed to escape. It is said he later turned himself in to the authorities.

After a ten-week period in a military prison, Mosaddegh was tried on charges of treason, because he had allegedly mobilized for a rebellion and had contradicted the Shah. In fact, the accused treason was a nationalistic response to a foreign-led coup.

Mosaddegh was promptly found guilty and sentenced to death, later lessened to three years in prison, followed by house arrest.

Mosaddeghs response to the kangaroo court proceedings was:

My only crime is that I nationalized the oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire [the British Empire] on Earth.

Members of his government were also arrested, as were the leading military who remained loyal to him. Six hundred of the 6, 000 of these men were executed.

Even after Mosaddegh had passed away, on March 5th, 1967, his enemies were fearful of his influence. Mosaddegh had requested that upon his death, he be buried in the public graveyard beside the victims of the political violence that occurred on the 21st July 1952 from British-backed Ahmad Qavam who ordered soldiers to shoot at Mosaddegh nationalists during a demonstration, resulting in a blood bath.

Not wanting his grave to become the site of political manifestations, a public funeral for Mosaddegh was denied and his body was quietly buried underneath the floorboards of a room in his house.

This is Part One of a planned three-part series originally published by Strategic Culture
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 15:09:47|Editor: huaxia

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Hundreds of people came to say a final goodbye to George Floyd at the Fountain of Praise Church in the U.S. city of Houston on Tuesday. The private funeral service was held in his hometown two weeks after his tragic death. Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, was killed as he was being arrested in Minneapolis on May 25, after police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes despite Floyd saying he couldn't breathe. The four officers charged in Floyd's death have since been fired and charged. Anti-racism protests sparked by his death have spread from the United States to around the world.
OUTGOING Children's Minister Katherine Zappone has said any move to abolish the cabinet-level posting would be a retrograde step.

Speaking to RTE's News at One, Ms Zappone, who lost her Dail seat in February, said: "Any move to eradicate the position would bring Ireland back to an era when children were seen and not heard."

Ms Zappone's comment came after an organisation representing childminders has said it is "deeply concerned" at proposals to abolish a Cabinet-level Minister for Children.

The proposal is on the table in government formation talks between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Green Party.

Read More

Fianna Fail wants a new Cabinet-level Minister for Higher Education.

To free up a position it has been proposed that the Minister for Education become the Minister for Education, Children and Youth Affairs, taking on responsibility for both the Departments of Education and Children and Youth Affairs.

Childminding Ireland has today written to the party leaders, Micheal Martin, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan to express its "strenuous objections" to the loss of a dedicated Cabinet post for the Department of Children.

A statement said: "Children and young adults will define our society, and their choices and voices must be respected and reflected in the new Programme for Government as it is negotiated.

"Childminding Ireland is deeply concerned by reports of a proposal to abolish the Minister for Children as a standalone Cabinet-level position".

The statement said: "Childminding will not fit into a Department of Education.

"Childminding is a model of care, not education.

"Whilst children are constantly learning in childminding settings, developing life skills and enjoying protected childhoods, formal curriculum have no place in such a child-led environment," the statement added.

It said there are estimated 88,000 children being minded in childminding settings and "We asked the Party Leaders to respect children and parents choices and voices by supporting and protecting childminding."

The Children's Rights Alliance said on Wednesday that Children and Education are the two biggest policy areas in Government and each deserve a full minister at cabinet.

"Any incoming Minister for Education will need to work at 120pc to address the challenges for the education system following Covid19. However, Children and Youth Affairs faces its own challenges including a demand surge in Tusla child protection services, rising child poverty, massive funding for childcare reform, funding for youth services, youth justice reform, adoption and fostering. This is a massive list. One Minister only has so much political capital that one area is bound to suffer," CRA chief executive Tanya Ward said.

She said the move also raised concerns about the ability of the new Government to respond to the issues facing children and families that have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis.

"We are walking towards another recession and carrying with us rising child poverty rates, a volatile housing crisis, increased demands on our health and mental health service, a spike in domestic violence and child protection calls for help and a rocky return to education for many students, Ms Ward said.

Young people need and deserve to have their voice represented at the highest levels of Government as we try navigate our way through this. Over 65 of our members have urged the negotiating parties to retain the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs."
The Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA)  the largest alliance of wildlife centers in Africa  has released a statement calling for the end of commercial trade in wildlife. This statement is part of a sustained focus on wildlife trafficking which includes the Action for Chimpanzees conference held in January, the #NotAPet petition launched in February, and now a panel discussion on preventing the next pandemic co-hosted with the World Affairs Council of Oregon.

As an alliance of wildlife centers, our members know first hand the destruction caused by the wildlife trade, said Gregg Tully, PASA Executive Director. They currently care for over 3,000 great apes and monkeys rescued from devastating conditions. We have seen this issue grow at the same time that habitat has disappeared, creating the right conditions for an outbreak like COVID-19. We cannot sit by any longer while human health and endangered species are at risk.

The problem of commercial trade in wildlife is complex, requiring international treaties, national laws, and local enforcement for success. Recognizing that no single entity can do it all, PASA has outlined proposed actions at each level, including:



Prohibiting the sale of wildlife in both online and local markets

Collaborating with communities to develop alternative livelihoods that make the wildlife trade unnecessary

Developing and enforcing regulations to prevent zoonotic disease transmission

Reevaluating and, where needed, strengthening international treaties

To further explore the issue, PASA is joining with the World Affairs Council of Oregon to convene a panel discussion entitled Preventing the Next Pandemic: The Intersection of Human Life & Wildlife, on June 11 at 12 PM Pacific time (19:00 GMT).

The panelists are: Thomas Gillespie, of Emory University, who studies the emergence of pathogens in human and animal populations; Dominic Travis, of the University of Minnesota, an expert in wildlife epidemiology and veterinary public health; James Desmond, of the EcoHealth Alliance, a field veterinarian tracking disease in wildlife populations in Liberia. Registration is available at the World Affairs Council of Oregon website.
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

In the final hours of his life, a frail Yves-Emmanuel Segui lay in a hospital bed as the time ticked toward midnight. It was the night of April 5, the birthday of his younger daughter, Chloe. By 3 a.m. on April 6, his heart had stopped beating.

Mr. Segui, who was 60, had died of the coronavirus, his older daughter, Dr. Morit Segui, said. I think he held on because of my sister, she said, to avoid Chloes birthday becoming forever synonymous with his death.

If she was right, it would have been a fitting last act from a man who had dedicated his life to his two daughters.
TDT | Manama

A Bahraini family of seven, who were all rescued from a fire that engulfed their house near Hamad Town recently, expressed thanks and appreciation to His Majesty the Kings Humanitarian Works and Youth Affairs representative and Royal Humanitarian Foundation (RHF) Board of Trustees chairman His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa for swiftly responding to their plea to assist them in their ordeal.

This came a few days after Civil Defence firefighters rescued the family from their house in Sadad village in the Northern Governorate, where flames suddenly engulfed the two-storey building at midnight on Friday. All members escaped the blaze unharmed, but their losses were estimated to cross tens of thousands of Bahraini Dinars.

Initial reports indicated that the fire was caused due to an electrical short-circuit in one of the air-conditioners in the living room. We had moved in the house around 10 months ago and we are still paying monthly installments to fully own it from the bank, a family member told our sister newspaper Al Ayam. The fire destroyed everything and we are affected by this matter.

HH Shaikh Nasser instructed the RHF to immediately follow up on the familys condition, while the Labour and Social Development Ministry subsequently provided a temporary housing unit to shelter the family members who became homeless overnight. Meanwhile, a delegation led by Northern Governor Ali bin Al Shaikh Abdulhussain Al Asfoor, along with the areas representative in the Northern Area Municipal Council Zainab Al Derazi and other officials, visited the house to meet the family and see the damage caused by the flames.

The delegation was reassured about the familys condition, while the Northern Governor confirmed that the necessary measures were being taken, in cooperation with the Labour Ministry, to provide the family with urgent financial assistance, adding that the Governorate is coordinating with the relevant authorities to renovate the house.

The priority now requires providing the basic needs to the members of the family until the technical reports are completed, said Al Asfoor. The Northern Governor also underlined the importance of taking utmost care and precaution, as well as following preventive measures and installing prevention and safety means in the house, such as smoke detectors and firefighting tools, and to ensure the safety of electrical installations.

For her part, Al Derazi expressed her utmost thanks and appreciation to HH Shaikh Nasser for his continuous supportive stances towards those in need, including citizens and residents.
President Donald Trump organized a roundtable Wednesday with African American supporters amid the national debate over police violence and the black community  where a participant said three prominent black media members 'are killing more black folks than any white person with a sheet over their face.'

The event mostly featured a panel of black supporters praising Trump on the economy and his efforts to address mass incarceration, although several participants took the opportunity to bash the media and President Barack Obama.

Virginia-based Republican political consultant and syndicated radio talk host Raynard Jackson took the opportunity to rip media members who were there to record the exchange  then tore into three black TV commentators.

'I'd like to say to all the media assembled here that I wish they would quit lying about what you've done specifically for the black community,' Jackson said.

President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion with African-American supporters in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, in Washington. Seated alongside Trump are Pastor Darrell Scott and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson

'So you got radical liberal journalists like Joy Reid from MSNBC, Don Lemon from CNN, Roland Martin, who are putting more poison into the black community than any drug dealer  who are killing more black folks than any white person with a sheet over their face,' Jackson intoned.

Then he pivoted to praising Trump's handling of the economy.

'How are they doing it? Spreading these lies about the economy you had, Mr. President, before the virus, or the continuation of Obama. That's just factually not true. I have a degree in accounting. I keep up with the economy. They're lying,' said Jackson, also does PR and lobbying and who studied accounting at Oral Roberts University.

'I'd like to say to all the media assembled here that I wish they would quit lying about what you've done specifically for the black community,' Raynard Jackson said

Trump held the roundtable amid national conversations on race

Raynard Jackson, bottom left, blasted three prominent African American TV commentators

Trump has regularly gone after CNN commentator Don Lemon

Jackson also called out MSNBC's Joy Reid

Commentator Roland Martin

'So to all these folks on MSBNC, CNN, Roland Martin what are you afraid to have real black Republicans who know what the hell they're talking about? If you want to know the truth, if you want us to dissect the Obama economy, let's do it. And I think Mr. President your record would win the debate,' he concluded.

Trump, who was seated a few feet away in the White House Roosevelt Room, responded immediately afterward: 'Thank you very much. It's interesting you say that. You go down the list of criminal justice reform ... opportunity zones, the best unemployment rate in the history, just before the plague came in. And it's going to be back again soon.'

Trump said 'nobody's done anything like we've done' for the black community, including criminal justice reform.

'We will take the full credit, because they could not have done it without us,' Trump said. 'I'm not sure frankly that the previous administration tried. The may have,' said Trump.

Also participating was Housing Secretary Dr. Ben Carson.

'He's been my friend from the first day we met I think,' said Trump, who got along with Carson during the campaign but also attacked claims he made in his autobiography about growing up in Detroit.

'We're here obviously to talk about some of the concerns in the black community. People all around the world are making their voices heard. This is an opportune time to do something about it because this administration has already established a record of actually solving problems  problems that other people just talk about,' said Carson.

'This was an intentional stopping of the economy - of an amazing economy,' he added. 'Your philosophy of course has been that a rising tide floats all boats and that's why you don't spend a lot of time with identity politics. we want everybody to be successful.'

Trump said of the coronavirus: 'It was a plague that floated in from China.'

Also there was pastor Darrell Scott, chairman, Urban Revitalization Coalition, Inc.

'He's a tough cookie,' said Trump.

'It's been one challenge after another. But we've pressed pause and we're ready to press play now and continue in the positive initiatives regarding the black community,' he said of the economy. 'We're going to come up with some great solutions to these problems that are confronting this country.'

The event featured almost no discussion of the issue splashed across the headlines and playing out in the streets with protests over the killing of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police.

Said radio host Sonnie Johnson: 'I am probably the most Trumpish out of everybody in this room, so you are going to have to forgive me.

'The black community is not doing okay,' Johnson said. Then she made a political pitch. 'They are not going to change until we have a Republican party that is willing to go into these communities and actually offer a choice to these communities.

Right now 'The only choice we get is either left or either further left,' she said.

'And you don't need closed police departments - do you agree with me?' Trump asked her, referencing the push to defund the police by law enforcement critics.

JaRon Smith, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Office of American Innovation congratulated Trump on his leadership and asked: 'How can we create better police community relations?

'Now we have solutions. Those are things we're going to continue to work through as an administration,' he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether Trump endorsed Jackon's comment about media members.
The property market went downhill amid the COVID-19 crisis, and so did the building sector. Statistics New Zealand's latest report has confirmed that the building sector had started seeing the impacts from the pandemic even before the lockdown.

Stats NZ's latest figures found that building activity in the March 2020 quarter dropped by 5.7% compared to that of the December 2019 quarter. Residential building activity fell 5.8% and non-residential 5.6%.

Dave Adair, the acting building statistics manager at Stats NZ, said the latest figures had partly reflected the lockdown, which started in the last week of March.
Has your bank deducted money from your account unjustifiably? Have you been denied interest on your savings or deposits? Have you had ...





Has your bank deducted money from your account unjustifiably? Have you been denied interest on your savings or deposits? Have you had unauthorised ATM or POS transactions on your account? Or lost your savings to fraudsters? And has your bank refused to resolve the problems?





You can seek redress against the errant bank through the Central Bank of Nigeria, the regulator of the banking system and all financial institutions. Appealing to the CBN is like appealing to the Supreme Court.





However, the CBN Consumer Protection Department recommends that you first exhaust seeking redress in your bank.





Here is the Guide on how and where you can lodge a complaint against Financial Institutions regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria such as Commercial Banks, Microfinance Banks, Primary Mortgage Institutions and Discount Houses.





Contact Your Institution First





The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular in 2011 directing all banks to expand their existing ATM HELP DESK to handle all types of consumer complaints.





Therefore, if you have a complaint against your bank, you MUST first report the complaint at the bank/branch where the issue originated and then allow 2 weeks (it might be less in some banks) for the issue to be resolved.





If Your Bank Fails To Resolve Your Complaint





If after lodging your complaint your Bank still fails to engage you and resolve the complaint within 2 Weeks as provided for in the ATM HELP DESK Circular, you have the right to escalate your complaint to the Consumer Protection Department (CPD) of the CBN.





Complaints to Consumer Protection Department





Note that you can only direct your Complaints to CPD upon the failure of your Bank/Financial Institution to resolve your complaint within the 2 weeks timeline given by the CBN.





Contacting Consumer Protection Department





You can contact the CPD through the following channels:





E-mail: cpd@cbn.gov.ng cpd@cbn.gov.ng

Letter: Director, Consumer Protection Department : Director, Consumer Protection Department

Central Business District, Abuja.





Your letter of Complaint should be addressed to the Director, Consumer Protection Department. You can submit your letter at the CBN Head Office OR at any of the Central Bank of Nigeria branches nationwide. If you live in Lagos, the CBN has an office on Lagos Island. Physically drop the letter at the department. Workers there are receptive and will help you.





Does the CPD Deal with all Types of Complaints?





The CBN deals with all financial related complaints so far as it is against Financial Institutions within its regulatory purview.





How to Write an Effective Complaints Letter





Your complaint should be clear and concise to avoid ambiguity. The Complaint letter (petition) should contain amongst other things the following:

 Name, Address, Contact Phone Number & E-mail of the Complainant;

 Name of your Financial Institution;

 Personal banking details (Do NOT include PIN & Passwords, please;)

 History/Date of the transaction in dispute;

 Amount claimed (if any);

 Attach relevant documents to support your claim and;

 Evidence to show that you have first lodged the complaint at your bank.





If you do not want to write long grammar, the CBN on its website provides a template to lodge the complaint online. Its just a click away:





https://www.cbn.gov.ng/Contacts/Complaints/.
History subjects about the making of the US, American slavery, fascism and anti-fascism are nominated to be cut from the University of Sydney's arts and social sciences faculty due to budget-saving measures.

Up to 35 per cent of history courses could be lost next term as the faculty anticipates a $68 million deficit and 20 per cent fall in student enrolments due to the coronavirus crisis.

Protesters throw a statue of slave trader Edward Colston into the Bristol harbour this week. Credit:AP

It comes as the statues of slave traders are torn down in Britain and thousands worldwide protest against police brutality in the Black Lives Matter movement, after the death of George Floyd in the United States.

History student Annabel Pettit said she was hoping to study American slavery next semester.
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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 12:24 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd8b184 1 National Blasphemy-Law,blasphemy,YLBHI,Religious-minority,religion,legal,criminal-charge Free

A report conducted by the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) has revealed that accusations of blasphemy are still rampant amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the report, at least 38 cases of alleged blasphemy were reported to police or other institutions across 16 provinces in the first five months of 2020. Nineteen of the cases were filed before the first COVID-19 cases were announced on March 2, and the rest were filed afterward.

It turns out that, when it comes to [accusing people of] blasphemy, the coronavirus does not stop our society. Instead, we are getting more sensitive about things considered blasphemy, YLBHI chairwoman Asfinawati told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

South Sulawesi accounted for 6 of the 38 reports, followed by East Java and North Maluku with 5 report each, West Java and North Sumatra with 4 each and South Kalimantan, Riau Islands and Jakarta with 2. Eight other provinces recorded 1 report each.

The reports were filed with or processed by the police, the Interfaith Communication Forum (FKUB), the Pakem team (which monitors religious beliefs) or the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI).

One case linked to the coronavirus outbreak pertains to a district head in South Sulawesi reported for blasphemy after dispersing a Friday prayer gathering, while another pertains to the donation of meals with a dog logo on the packaging in North Jakarta.

Read also: No breakthrough in efforts to resolve blasphemy cases

Other cases include alleged mass conversion of children, a claim to being a prophet for Muslims, a misinterpretation of religious teachings, an insult of a certain religious figure or symbol, and vandalism of a religious text.

Most of the alleged blasphemy involved the use of social media. Some of the allegations were levelled at people in their early 20s, late teens or even at people as young as 14 years of age, according to data compiled by the YLBHI.

However, the NGO noted that there seemed to be a more progressive handling of blasphemy cases by law enforcement officials, in which they carried out proper clarification and physiological assessments, facilitated mediation and dismissed reports in several instances.

There appears to be an improvement toward better law enforcement by both the police and judges, although not very [prominent], the report states.

Nevertheless, the YLBHI condemned the unclear definition of blasphemy in relevant laws, which had resulted in 28 of the 38 cases processed based on the ground that they had caused public disorder and unrest.

The argument that there is disturbance of public order is merely from a sociological and not juridical perspective. This is a classic argument since the 2005 blasphemy case targeting the Eden [community], it argued.

Read also: Man claiming to be final prophet gets reported for blasphemy

The unclear definition of blasphemy had led to lack of consideration of an alleged perpetrators intentions, the research suggested. It also expanded the use of absurd and contradictory articles.

The number of cases has increased as people can easily report supposed blasphemy under not only Article 156a of the Criminal Code and the 1965 Blasphemy Law, but also the 2013 Mass Organization (Ormas) Law and the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law.

A case in point is that of Michael Samuel Ratulangi, who was accused of blasphemy for a Facebook post in February. He was arrested under Article 45A of the ITE Law, with police saying, "the case contained expressions of hatred that led to blasphemy".

In other cases, Article 27 of the ITE Law regarding criminal acts of defamation were used to level charges at people accused of insulting religion through social media.

Asfinawati said the group demanded that the government remove unclear and variably interpretable articles in the laws that did not meet principles of legality and could interfere with the freedom of speech, religious beliefs and other rights of expression.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:27:08|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China's cultural affairs regulator has approved plans to build two cultural ecology protection experimental zones at the national level.

The two zones will be set up in Jingdezhen City in east China's Jiangxi Province and Luoyang City in central Henan Province, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Known as China's porcelain capital, Jingdezhen will feature in the pilot zone its time-honored history of porcelain making, while the city of Luoyang will highlight the ancient civilization along the Yellow River, according to the ministry.

Local authorities need to formulate operation measures, build and improve regulation systems, and put in place multifaceted protection policies regarding the zones, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

An overall plan on the building of the two cultural ecology protection zones must be finalized within one year, according to the ministry.

China started building national cultural ecology protection zones in recent years to help develop traditional cultures in areas with high concentrations of intangible cultural heritage resources.

Seven areas have so far been designated as national cultural ecology protection zones. Enditem
Welspun India, a home textile manufacturer, has entered into the health and hygiene segment with the launch of 'Welspun Health'. Based on the company's existing integrated woven and non-woven capabilities, Welspun Health will offer hygiene products for medical professionals, institutional use as well as personal care products ranging from masks, wipes, medical gowns, disposable linen, coveralls, hand sanitising wipes, surface disinfectant wipes and other relevant lifestyle products, the Mumbai-based company said in a statement.

"This strategic pivot is aligned with the organisation's aim to cater to consumers as well as front line workers' requirements and support the nation and the world in its fight against the unprecedented global pandemic," Welspun Group company said.

The company said that it will manufacture 2,50,000 masks per day including 3 ply surgical masks, reusable masks and N95 respirators. The company is in the advanced stage of offering customisation and branding options to large and discerning buyers from a continuous print on medium to registered logos on masks, it added.

Under the Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), Welspun is producing 10,000 disposable coverall suits per day made from soft-lightweight fabric with taped seams and certified by SITRA, it said. The coveralls made with pre-approved fabric medium, are in government approved laboratories and are undergoing secondary product certification and approvals under ASTM 1670 standards.

The company has developed 9 certified varieties of BLOOD PENETRATION BARRIER MEDIUM for making COVERALL PPEs, it said. The company is also making washable medical gowns made from soft lightweight fabric for protection, it added.

Catering to everyday needs, Welspun is manufacturing disposable wipes like hand sanitising, surface disinfectant wipes, dry wipes and kitchen wipes made for personal and institutional use.

Commenting on the launch, Dipali Goenka, CEO and Jt MD, Welspun India said, "Guided by our core ethos of 'people ahead of everything,' we continue to develop innovative solutions under 'Welspun Health' that will help address the surging needs of the world due to the pandemic. As we combat the increasing spread of COVID-19, consumers have adopted a lifestyle centred on health, safety and hygiene. Catering to the ever-evolving customer as well as institutional needs, we have used our existing competence and enhanced our capabilities to introduce a wide range of certified, advanced Health & Hygiene products. With this launch, we are hopeful to fill an existing gap in the health and hygiene segment."

The company said that in the emerging 'new normal' world, it has become critical to focus on safety, health and hygiene. This has resulted in a significant shift in consumer behaviour and a rise in demand for both personal, industrial, and institutional sanitation solutions.

Through this wide range of products under 'Welspun Health', the company will cater to pharmaceutical companies and e-tailers along with marking a presence on the shelves of general trade and modern trade across geographies, it added.

By Chitranjan Kumar

Also Read: 'Finally found the startup I was looking for,' says Anand Mahindra; invests $1 million in Hapramp

Also Read: S&P keeps India's rating unchanged at 'BBB-'; keeps outlook stable
A 12-year-old Welsh boy risked his life to save a stranger from drowning during one of his first outings after the CCP virus lockdown.

Ethan Hutchings was at the Gorad, Cwmafan, on June 1, 2020, when he witnessed a man struggling in the river. The young boy, who has been self-isolating amid the pandemic after battling thyroid cancer, jumped into the river and performed CPR on the man until help arrived.

Ethan was out to meet his stepmother, Lauren Bennison, and younger sister, Bali, when he spotted a man in trouble and dove into action, reported Wales Online. When I saw him in the water all I thought about was saving his life and to go down to him and push him to the shore, the teenager told the Welsh news website.

The young hero not only helped get the drowning man to shore but was also a part of a group of people who took turns doing CPR until an ambulance arrived.

Given his previous cancer treatment, Ethan had been careful about staying home due to the global pandemic of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

Ethan hasnt had treatment for the last year and half to two years but hes still having regular scans and blood tests to make sure the levels are staying down, said his mother, Emma Hutchings.

Due to his compromised immune system, his family wanted to be especially careful not to expose him to the virus. That made his outing on June 1 extra special as it was the first time he had seen his little sister in several weeks.

(Illustration  Elena Isida/Shutterstock)

However, the brave boy didnt hesitate to help when he saw someone going under the water. After diving under the man and pushing him to shore, Ethan started performing chest compressions.

Ive been taught how to do CPR at school before so I knew how to do that, he said.

Some of the crowd of people who had gathered also lent him a hand until paramedics were able to take the man to the Morriston hospital in the nearby city of Swansea.

On the day of the rescue, Emma was walking back home after visiting her mother when she noticed ambulances racing by and even a medical helicopter overhead. I didnt know Ethan was up at the [bridge] I just thought it must be serious to have all of those ambulances and helicopters, she said.

Then Emma received a very surprising call from her adolescent son, recounting that he had saved a mans life. Im so proud of him for having that courage and bravery that he had to think so quickly, especially for someone of his age, Emma said.

(Illustration  Platoo Fotography/Shutterstock)

Given that Ethan has been through several years of fighting cancer, he has become a tough person and a survivor. Hes got a heart of gold and will go out of his way for people [] Hes still got a bit of cancerous tissue in his throat but hes OK, Emma said.

The proud mom said that even in the worst of his medical problems, he remained brave. He showed so much courage through all that as well, with the operation to remove his tumor. Hes a little warrior and a little hero.

Im so proud of him for that, Emma said.
Oprah Winfrey said Tuesday night that America is 'on a true tipping point' during a town hall featuring Stacey Abrams and Ava DuVernay who along with numerous advocates, demanded systemic change because black people are 'tired of having to prove our humanity'.

During part one of a two-night town hall titled Where Do We Go From Here? Winfrey was joined by a number of guests for the televised event, including DuVernay, actor David Oyelowo, Color of Change founder Rashad Robinson, NAACP national board member Rev Dr William J. Barber II, Abrams, New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and many others.

The town hall, which was hosted in response to the protests of the recent killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, opened with Winfrey saying: 'We find ourselves on a precipice, on a tipping point.'

'For black people everywhere, we recognize that knee on the neck,' Winfrey said, referring to the final moments of Floyd's life as he gasped for air under the knee of Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.

Oprah Winfrey (pictured) said Tuesday night that America is 'on a true tipping point' during a town hall featuring Stacey Abrams and Ava DuVernay who along with numerous advocates, demanded systemic change because black people are 'tired of having to prove our humanity'

Ava DuVernay (right) called on white people to educate themselves about systemic racism instead of looking to black people to do it for them. Former US Rep Stacey Abrams (left) spoke about Floyd's murder and about how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected black people

But I think for black men, I can only just imagine, that it's even more primal,' Winfrey added, as she asked the male panelists to speak about the pain and trauma that black people felt while watching the life seep out of Floyd on May 25.

New York Times columnist and author, Charles Blow, said: 'My emotional reaction to these things has transformed. It has become exhausted. I now see that the country is not responsive to black pain.'

Oyelowo echoed similar sentiments, taking his thoughts a bit further by thinking of his own son.

'I had made the mistake of thinking that things would be different for my son," he said.

'I say "mistake" because I had watched things progress in some ways and then the knee on the neck is so symbolic of so much,' he added.

Winfrey then moved onto the next panelist, New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who made one of the most powerful remarks of the evening when she said: 'Black Americans are tired of having to prove our humanity only when the most inhumane thing happens to us.'

Hannah-Jones also said that black people should get reparations as a solution to a wealth gap between black Americans and white Americans, which has remained unchanged for 70 years, according to a Washington Post study.

Following Hannah-Jones, DuVernay said that she has been having discussions with her inner circle about how to move forward.

She stressed that black people should not have to continuously educate white people.

DuVernay called on white people to 'take on the labor' themselves instead of asking black people to 'walk them through' the process of understanding systemic racism.

Later into the special, former US Rep Abrams spoke not only about Floyd's murder, but about how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected black Americans.

'While George Floyd's horrific murder was a catalyst, we are dealing with a confluence of events that all demand action,' she said.

Floyd (pictured) 46, was finally laid to rest on Tuesday afternoon in Houston, Texas, alongside his mother

The footage of Floyd's shocking murder on May 25 sparked widespread outrage across the country and the world, with protesters calling out the systemic racism that is embedded into the fabric of American history.

Winfrey's segment posed the question: Where do we go from here?

It's a question that black people are contemplating as they continue to protest peacefully throughout the nation.

Floyd, 46, was finally laid to rest on Tuesday afternoon in Houston, Texas, alongside his mother.

His burial came after hundreds, including Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum, attended his funeral.

Before Tuesday night's segment, OWN president Tina Perry said in a statement: 'As a network dedicated to supporting and uplifting Black lives, OWN is committed to providing our community with important dialogue and helpful resources in this challenging time as we mourn the murder of George Floyd and ask ourselves how can we come together to create meaningful change.'

The special TV event will air part two on Wednesday night on Winfrey's OWN Network, as well as all 18 of Discovery's other networks, including Discovery Channel, TLC, HGTV and Science Channel.

Tuesday night's special was also broadcast on all the aforementioned channels.
Researchers from the University of Kansas are monitoring and evaluating COVID-19 response activities in 47 African countries. The project -- in partnership with the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa -- is led by KU's Center for Community Health and Development, a designated WHO Collaborating Centre since 2004. The center is affiliated with KU's Department of Applied Behavioral Science and the Life Span Institute.

The monitoring system is designed to capture and communicate COVID-19 response activities, such as programs and policies related to infection-control and risk communication, in order to help eliminate transmission of the disease.

The KU-WHO team leads training of partners from 47 African countries so they can monitor and communicate their countries' progress in responding to the pandemic.

Our partner, the WHO Regional Office for Africa, has the responsibility of supporting countries in monitoring and evaluating response activities related to COVID-19. This work is critical to each country being able to show progress in taking action and in using data to make adjustments related to suppression of transmission and follow-on recovery. We worked together with our WHO AFRO partners to evaluate the Ebola response in 2014, so the regional office reached out to us for similar technical support with the COVID-19 response." Stephen Fawcett, senior adviser at the KU center and co-director of KU's WHO Collaborating Centre for Community Health and Development

On May 27, the KU-WHO AFRO team launched monitoring and evaluation (M&E) training with the first cohort: 200 participants working in 29 different African countries. This training will continue with French-speaking countries in early June until all 47 African countries have been engaged.

The WHO M&E team is based in the WHO Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville-Congo.

"The WHO AFRO M&E team includes staff trained by the KU team in monitoring and evaluation of the COVID-19 response," Fawcett said. "WHO focal points will be reporting from their Ministry of Health offices in each of the 47 countries. Reports of COVID-19 response activities will be reviewed and characterized by the WHO AFRO M&E team, for example by the type of response activity, and by country in which they're implemented. These data will be entered and stored in the online COVID-19 Response M&E System developed by the KU center."

According to the KU researcher, the online COVID-19 Response M&E System is able to capture response activities and support communication using online graphs of the pattern in COVID-19 response -- for instance, when increasing and decreasing -- and factors associated with those patterns.

"This will contribute to country-level reports of the association of response activities and suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19," Fawcett said. "This participatory M&E system will enable systematic reflection by country partners in what they are seeing, what it means and implications for adjustment."

Peter Phori, technical officer at the WHO Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, leads the M&E team.

"Capturing and communicating what countries are doing to respond to COVID-19 is essential to tracking what we are doing to address this pandemic in the African region," Phori said. "Our WHO Regional Office relies on KU's WHO Collaborating Centre for its world-leading technical support in monitoring and evaluation. We could not do this without them."

The KU WHO Collaborating Centre team is supported by an initial six-month grant of $30,000 from the WHO Regional Office for Africa.

"As a designated WHO Collaborating Centre at KU, we have the privilege of working to have an impact with talented and committed global partners," Fawcett said. "This is why we came together as a KU center and why we treasure being a part of KU's mission of building healthy communities -- locally and globally."
An autistic non-verbal teenager lost in treacherous bushland was lured to safety with talk of his most favourite television show Thomas The Tank Engine.

Two days after he went missing in freezing conditions at Mount Disappointment, William Callaghan was miraculously found alive by a lone volunteer.

William had discarded his shoes, was cold and alone in the kind of hellish bushland that would challenge the most seasoned of soldiers.

Volunteer Ben Gibbs has been revealed as the man who made the discovery Australians had wished for.

He found William on Wednesday afternoon about 20 minutes away from the summit.

William Callaghan (left) is seen at the base camp at Mount Disappointment where he is comforted by his mum's partner Nathan Ezard

Autistic non-verbal teenager William Callaghan, 14, has been miraculously found alive after two days stranded in remote wilderness

Volunteer Ben Gibbs is being hailed a national Australian hero after finding William Callaghan in think bush near the summit of Mount Disappointment

William was standing up and Mr Gibbs gave him something to eat while authorities arrived.

'I was just wandering through the bush and it was quite thick so I was just breaking my way through it and then he was just like about 15 metres from me just standing there,' he told Channel 9.

'He was really angelic - just, just standing there. Standing and looking.'

Mr Gibbs said he was aware of the teenager's fondness for Thomas The Tank Engine and proceeded to engage him on the subject.

'I just sort of talked to him about Diesel and stuff like that,' he said.

William is reportedly alert, warm and has already asked for his favourite food: McDonalds.

His ecstatic mum Penny told reporters she would sort that out promptly and maybe take him on a holiday.

Inspector Christine Lalor described the discovery as great news.

Police said William had been reluctant to come with rescuers and had to be coaxed into a rescue vehicle, with other volunteers warned not to clap when he arrived at base as the boy hates loud noises.

More than 450 people, including hundreds of volunteers, had desperately combed rugged terrain surrounding the summit of Mount Disappointment.

Ms Callaghan had never lost hope her son would be found alive and her prayers were answered.

'I'm really overwhelmed. He is well as can be expected under the circumstances. He's quite calm considering,' she told reporters at the scene. 'More than anything, thank you everyone. Im so grateful, youre all amazing.'

LOCAL HERO: We speak to Ben Gibbs, the volunteer who found William Callaghan about 20 minutes away from the summit of Mt Disappointment.



See the full story in #9News at 4.00pm and 6.00pm.



Article: https://t.co/x48VgBBclS pic.twitter.com/Pbw94AsPAj  Nine News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) June 10, 2020

Mrs Callaghan said William had communicated that he was confused, scared and that his 'body feels weird'.

The shocked mum said she could hardly believe the news when she was told he had been found alive and well.

'I can't imagine what he's been feeling and going through and I'm just so grateful,' she said.

Mrs Callaghan said she was desperate to speak to the man who found her son in the wilderness.

'I want to thank him. Where is Ben?' she asked reporters.

The news of William's rescue has sent a wave of joy across Australia where people hit social media to express their delight.

'Ha, screw you 2020, we snuck in some good news while you weren't watching,' one tweeted.

'2020 - youre no longer cancelled...William Callaghan found alive!!!' another wrote.

Many think Mount Disappointment is due for a name change.

'Im thinking Mount Disappointment needs to be renamed Mount William Callaghan!!!,' one read.

'Perhaps Mount Disappointment can be renamed Mount Thank Thomas the Tank Engine Happy Hill or something, because this has been one of the few bits of joyful news in 2020,' another tweeted.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews even chimed in.

'It might be named Mount Disappointment, but there's absolutely nothing disappointing about today,' he said.

Australians have also been quick to brand Mr Gibbs a national hero.

'You are a true hero Ben, thank you so much for taking the time to find William,' one woman tweeted.

'As the mother of an autistic child who is non-verbal, I was terrified for this boy and his family. So glad for this happy ending. Thomas the Tank Engine is indeed a powerful character in our world.'

'Someone buy that man a beer!! Well done mate!' another wrote.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison thanked William's rescuers and those that found another missing boy in NSW.

'Very relieved to hear both the missing boys from Victoria and NSW have been found,' Mr Morrison said.

'Im sure this is a great relief to their families. A huge thank you to all those involved in the search efforts over the past few days.'

Hours before William was found, Ms Callaghan had made an emotional plea for help, saying despite her son's difficulties, he was fit and active.

'I'm feeling positive because he's quite resilient,' she said.

The delighted mum and other friends and family were seen hugging and crying upon hearing the news that William was alive and well.

William Callaghan after his rescue on Mount Disappointment on Wednesday. He is carried by his mum Penny

William Callaghan (left) is carried by his mum's partner Nathan Ezard at the base camp at Mount Disappointment on Wednesday

Penny Callaghan (left), mother of William Callaghan, and Nathan Ezard prior to a press conference at the base camp at Mount Disappointment in Victoria on Wednesday

Melburnians had shivered through the city's coldest morning since August 2018 on the night William went missing - the coldest June morning since 2015.

Up in the mountains, the weather would have been absolutely hideous.

Ms Callaghan described her son as a light sleeper, who was likely to be on the move if able.

'As a mum it's tough when I'm trying to sleep and he isn't, but having said that I'd lose so many hours of sleep just to have him back with me,' she said.

'He's such a beautiful person - he wouldn't harm, a fly.'

Ms Callaghan said if William had managed to make it out of the bush into civilisation he would stand out.

'He will look out of place. He will be quite scared of loud noises,' she said earlier.

The worried mum believed William may have been without footwear in the bush as he doesn't like wearing shoes.

In desperation, emergency services had begun playing the theme music from William's favourite show - Thomas the Tank Engine - on loudspeaker through the forest in an attempt to encourage him to come out of hiding.

Rescuers said William was very food focused and had called on people in the area to open any windows and doors if they are cooking in the hope that he can smell the food.

He also liked chocolate.

William's mum said food would be a main driver for him while stuck in the bush.

'He will be seeking food. He loves his food ... if someone is there he's not going to shy away from approaching someone for food. He won't ask them - he can't, he's non-verbal - so he won't, he might just try to grab it,' she said.

Ms Callaghan broke down as she described her desperation as the days went on.

'I'm not really the praying type, but you know I'm praying now because I want him home,' she said.

William Callaghan enjoys something to eat after his two-day ordeal in the mountains

William Callaghan, 14, (pictured) a teenager with non-verbal autism, went missing on Mount Disappointment in Victoria around 2.20pm on Monday

Mount Disappointment was named so after British explorers in 1824 made the summit in the hope of spotting Port Phillip Bay

William Callaghan, 14, (pictured) a teenager with non-verbal autism, went missing on Mount Disappointment in Victoria around 2.20pm on Monday

'He's very vulnerable ... he's very much in the moment. He will be seeking you know food and shelter and warmth and comfort too.'

William was not dressed for the cold weather and had no food or water with him when he wandered off.

'Hes never spent a night outside by himself, hes never been camping,' his mum said. 'This exposure will be tough.'

Despite William's mum's sad declaration that she would be unable to give him a hug, she was seen tightly embracing him as she carried him to safety this afternoon.

'Sometimes being a mum of an autistic child is really tough  Will is my eldest son and he would be considered, I guess, very low-functioning,' she said earlier.

'He has an intellectual disability and hes very smart in his own way.'

Emergency service personnel attend a briefing at the base camp at Mount Disappointment in Victoria on Wednesday

Hundreds of SES volunteers, police and the community are searching for William in thiock terrain

Rescuers are having to search through thick scrub and are playing William's favourite music in the hope he responds

Rescuers had never given up hope of finding William alive and had clung to hope that if he survived Monday night, he could still be alive today.

Temperatures in the area were not as cold as initially expected last night, giving some relief to search efforts after the freezing conditions on Monday.

It was about 6C on the summit where William was last seen but temperatures in the surrounding valleys would likely have been freezing.

William had been enjoying a long weekend camping trip with his dad Phil and younger brother Robin when he took off.

Corbin Mundy, 17, and his dad pose for a photograph before joining the search for missing teenager William Callaghan at Mt Disappointment in Victoria

Thermal imaging was being used to try and track the missing teenager

Hundreds of volunteers (pictured) searched Mount Disappointment overnight and continued on Wednesday

He was last seen 1.5km south of the summit, on Road 1, about 60km north of Melbourne.

On Tuesday night, Williams mum had spent an agonising night surrounded by family and friends at the Blairs hut staging point.

Senior Sergeant Greg Paul said rescuers were fighting against time.

'It can take a long time to find someone if they are lost in this terrain,' he said.

'We all have limitations, this time of year especially. There is no sugar coating it, it is life-threateningly cold.'

The area where William went missing is particularly treacherous.

Bush in the area is dense due to regrowth after the devastating Black Saturday bushfires that consumed half of the state in 2009.

Overnight, searchers used thermal-imaging equipment in the hope of finding the teenager.

Rescuers had scoured the bush in 4WDS, motorbike, helicopter and on horseback.

Crews even headed into gullies and even more difficult country on Wednesday morning.

A federal aircraft from Canberra with thermal imaging equipment arrived last night to join the search.

The mountain has historically proven to be a major disappointment for those that dared to tread there.

Mount Disappointment was named so after British explorers in 1824 made the summit in the hope of spotting Port Phillip Bay.

Unfortunately, the mountain's many trees prevented it, resulting in their 'immense disappointment'.

When explorer Hamilton Hume suffered a painful injury to his groin, they recorded their feelings in the name they chose for the mountain.
Jammu: Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Nowshera Sector on Wednesday (June 10, 2020).

At around 7.30 am on Wednesday, Pakistan army resorted to small arms firing and intense mortar shelling along the LoC at Nowshera Sector of Rajouri district.

The Indian Army is retaliating befittingly.

Meanwhile, two terrorists were killed in an encounter between security forces and terrorists at Sugoo area of Shopian district in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday (June 10).

The operation by a joint team of Jammu and Kashmir Police, 44 RR and CRPF is still on. This is the third encounter at Shopian in the past one week.

(This is a developing story, more details awaited)
After protestors toppled a statue of man few outside Bristol had probably ever heard of, I was left with just one question; why stop at one? Why not junk the lot - I can't think of a more inappropriate, out-moded way of honouring anyone.

A big hunk of stone stuck on a plinth is just something for dogs to wee on, a handy surface for drunken vandals to spray with idiotic slogans.

In the age of Instagram and selfies, commemorative statues are as stone dead as the people they attempt to glorify.

In 2020, we can find modern heroes everywhere - today's role models are creative people and inspirational leaders, care workers and doctors - all very much alive, not slabs of dead metal. We honour them by clapping, by posting on social media, by starting online tributes in their names.

Protesters pull down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol City Centre on June 7

For years, campaigners have been fighting to get offensive statues removed from public display.

The Black Lives Matter campaigners have published a Topple The Racists map - a hit list of 70 plaques and monuments they want removed, including the founder of Guys Hospital and the Tate Gallery.

If your skin is black, it can't be enjoyable to walk to college or work past a statue celebrating someone who was willing to pay cash for one of your distant relatives, transport them in chains around the world to a place where they would be working for virtually nought, the property of a wealthy stranger.

For years, petitions have been signed, and colleges have been petitioned - and yet, 90% of these memorials to male nastiness have remained in place, justified as being of 'historical' value.

David Walliams and Matt Lucas as Lou and Andy in the BBC comedy Little Britain

Finally, the horrible killing of George Floyd by a policeman in Minneapolis on 25th May has galvanised public opinion across race and class, and millions have taken to the streets to protest, demanding that everyone gets treated the same.

They are asking politicians and councils to be consistent - how can it be right to pay lip service to racial equality, if you fill your streets with monuments celebrating people whose views would be considered offensive today?

Last weekend, Black Lives Matter protestors stuck a noose around the neck of slave trader Edward Colston, dragged him through the streets and dumped him in the Bristol docks.

Exactly the kind of behaviour the Klu Klux Klan meted out to afro-Americans- except they were innocent victims, marked out by the colour of their skin.

These preposterous monuments glorify people (mostly men) who lived a long time ago.

When they were commissioned, their subjects were thought to be worthies the rest of us could look up to and possibly emulate. The majority of these statues are of white old men often wearing clothing associated with either wealth or war, seems ludicrous today.

If I had children, would a trip to admire a statue of Nancy Astor (the first female MP, who was an anti-semite and a Nazi sympathiser), Francis Drake or Christopher Columbus really enrich their understanding of history? As for Maggie Thatcher, she remains as divisive in death as she was in life, best studied in private.

Most statues - regardless of who they celebrate - belong on the scrap heap or in a museum, where they can be set in context and placed alongside other material from their era. I'm not asking for history to be re-written and sanitised in the name of eliminating racism - many of these men were typical of their times.

The slave trade was only abolished at the end of the 19th century, and thousands of British citizens sought their fortunes in Africa, India and the caribbean, using labour which was treated appallingly.

Now, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wants the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to authorise the removal of offending street names and memorials honouring people who do not conform to today's standards of equality.

Now, Gone With the Wind has been removed by HBO because of the slavery theme - so what next?

Fair enough but this Commission would be achieving more if it ensured that the judiciary, the upper echelons of the civil service, the house of Commons and the House of Lords, all truly reflected the wonderful diversity in our society. As it is, the most powerful people in the UK are mostly white and male.

You can remove statues, but let's not airbrush history, because we need to be vigilant that things never slide backwards or that we forget just how badly some people suffered.

I recommend a trip to the Museum of Slavery in Liverpool or anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce's Museum in Hull. Here you see detailed and horrific information about the true extent of slavery and how widely accepted it was for centuries.

At the same time, remember there are more modern slaves in the third world than there were two hundred years ago. And slaves work for the richest people in the Middle East and who often visit the UK.

Matt Lucas as Bubbles De Vere (left), Rob Brydon as Roman De Vere (centre) and David Walliams as Desiree De Vere (right) in the comedy show Little Britain

While Black Lives Matter campaigners can celebrate some victories - over 100 Labour councils have announced they are undertaking a review in their areas - should our cultural history be subjected to the same treatment?

Look back less than two decades and remember how we hooted at David Walliams and Matt Lucas' brilliant creation - Little Britain, with sneaky Andy in his wheelchair, Anne who wet herself, and Bubbles De Vere, the ludicrous chubby woman who considered herself a sex goddess.

Removing this popular series from the iPlayer and Netflix is just the latest knee jerk reaction from broadcasters who want to be seen to be doing 'the right thing'.

But there is no need to apologise for these shows, they were hugely successful between 2003 and 2011 and resonated with millions of their fans.

The statue of the 17th century slave trader is plunged into the harbour during a protest against racial inequality in Bristol

Now, Gone With the Wind has been removed by HBO because of the slavery theme - so what next?

Hollywood stars of the time themselves were racists, bigots, secret homosexuals and violent parents, many of whom abused their children.

Is a purity police going to trawl through the entire back catalogue to ensure everything available to view conforms to modern standards of behaviour?

The amount of unfiltered mindless violence available nightly on television is far more dangerous and polluting than a few silly episodes of Little Britain.

Don't sanitise the past, remember we started out as cave dwellers and are still evolving. (Some of us quicker than others).
It is no longer the India of 1962 and the country is led by a "courageous" leader like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not by the Congress, the BJP asserted on Wednesday, seeking to fend off the attack by the opposition party on the government's handling of the Sino-India border standoff.

BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for raising questions about the border situation, saying he should have at least this much understanding as to not raise queries on Twitter about strategic issues involving China.

Speaking at a 'virtual rally' for Himachal Pradesh, Prasad said when India works to become self-reliant, it will also do so in matters of security and referred to surgical and air strikes targeting terrorists inside Pakistan during the first term of the Modi government.

"We (India) want disputes to be resolved peacefully. We will say one thing very humbly that today India is the India of 2020 and not 1962. Today's India is of a courageous leader like Narendra Modi and not of Congress leaders. This must be understood," he said, without making any direct comment on the standoff.

China had defeated India in the 1962 war. The Congress was in power then.

Taking potshots at Rahul Gandhi, the BJP leader said that how much the Congress leader understands the country's economic policy or strategic affairs is a matter of debate.

Prasad asked if it is proper for him to raise such questions openly about crucial matters related to external affairs and said the Congress leader had also sought "evidence" following Indian surgical and air strikes inside Pakistan.

Targeting the Congress, he said when the matter involving China is discussed, then the party's handling of the country, a reference to 1962, will also be debated.

Indian and Chinese armies are involved in a standoff at the Ladakah border with both countries trying to resolve the matter through military and diplomatic channels.
[June 10, 2020] Adaptiva Partners With OKTiK Technology to Help Global Enterprises Accelerate Digital Transformation

Adaptiva, a leading, global provider of endpoint management and security solutions for enterprise customers, today announced that it has partnered with UK-based IT consultancy OKTiK Technology to provide its solutions as part of OKTiK's automation platform. The partnership will dramatically expand Adaptiva's reach throughout Europe. Additionally, it enables Adaptiva to move aggressively into Southeast Asia. "Adaptiva has been looking for an outstanding partner that can facilitate our expansion into Southeast Asia as well as to grow our European presence based on heavy customer demand," said Doug Kennedy, Adaptiva's chief growth officer. "The OKTiK team has deep roots in these areas. We also share many of the same global enterprise customers, such as Coca-Cola. "This partnership has become even more significant amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Enterprises throughout the world are seeking digital solutions as their entire workforce has been forced to go remote; they are accelerating plans to modernize," added Kennedy. "OKTiK has established itself as a digital transformation specialist over the last several years, and our on-premises and cloud-enabled products are an outstanding fit for OKTiK's automation platform. Together, Adaptiva and OKTiK can drive a painless transition to modern management." OKTiK is a boutique consultancy known for revolutionizing the digital workplace via cloud services. It has built its reputation in the UK, across Europe, and in Asia by establishing a coexistence between legacy and new technology using uniquely developed software tools. OKTiK's team of industry experts rapidly deploy agile and scalable digital solutions for some of the largest enterprises in the world. "We are delighted to be working with Adaptiva," said Graham Brant, group commercial director of OKTiK Technology. "Having already introduced several industry-firsts, Adaptiva provides foundational components that will help enterprise customers modernize desktop management. Its products have the ability to automate essential processes at unprecedented speed and scale - and they do so without compromising network performance, which is absolutely vital. Adaptiva technologies are embedded within our OneTiK Automation Platform, delivering accelerated digital workplace automation to clients, such as Coca Cola Europe." The partnership comes on the heels of Adaptiva's release of its groundbreaking new product, OneSite Intune Edition. OneSite Intune Edition is currently the first and only third-party softwaredelivery system that works with Microsoft (News - Alert) Intune. The product makes it possible for Intune to automatically deploy software to hundreds of thousands of endpoints per enterprise via a single-download solution, eliminating one of the most significant hurdles companies face in transitioning to the cloud. In addition, Adaptiva recently announced its latest offering, OneSite Cloud, which enables users to receive software and other content updates at unprecedented speed and scale from wherever they are without overwhelming the corporate VPN or compromising network performance - only an internet connection is required.



Adaptiva's OneSite and Endpoint Health solutions have been proven in enterprise environments that manage more than 450,000 endpoints and are trusted by many of today's leading Fortune 1000 organizations. About Adaptiva

Adaptiva is a leading, global provider of endpoint management and security solutions. The company's products, including OneSite, Endpoint Health and Evolve VM, empower enterprises to manage and secure endpoints at unparalleled speed and massive scale using the power of peer-to-peer technology. Leading global Fortune 1000 organizations, including T-Mobile, Nokia (News - Alert), HSBC, Walgreens, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, use Adaptiva products to eliminate the need for a vast IT infrastructure and automate countless endpoint management and security tasks. Learn more at https://adaptiva.com/, and follow the company at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. About OKTiK Technology OKTiK Technology is the industry-leading expert in driving large-scale digital transformation programs for global enterprise organizations. With offices in London, Hong Kong and Singapore, we have the team, the expertise and the tools to accelerate and deliver the most complex workplace transformation and cloud migration projects. Learn more about our OneTiK Automation Platform for a fully-orchestrated, user and analytics-driven migration process at www.oktik.net or visit our LinkedIn (News - Alert) page www.linkedin.com/company/oktik-technology-limited/. OneSite and Evolve VM are trademarks of Adaptive Protocols, Inc. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Tags: Adaptiva, OneSite, OKTiK, endpoint security, endpoint management, peer-to-peer technology, Microsoft Intune, vulnerability management, bandwidth harvesting, digital transformation, cloud, security View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005196/en/

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Quidel Receives Amended EUA for Rapid Antigen COVID-19 Diagnostic Assay Using Sofia 1 Instrument

By HospiMedica International staff writers

Posted on 10 Jun 2020



Image: Quidel Corporations Sofia 2 SARS Antigen FIA (Photo courtesy of Quidel Corporation)

Quidel Corporation (San Diego, CA, USA) has received an amended Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the US FDA, allowing the company to run its Sofia SARS Antigen FIA on its first generation Sofia Fluorescent Immunoassay Analyzer (Sofia 1).



The Sofia SARS Antigen FIA is to be used as an aid in the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 in nasal or nasopharyngeal specimens from patients meeting the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) criteria for suspected COVID-19 infection. The assay is currently available for sale in the US States under EUA, and Quidel is now shipping the product to its customers.



Quidel has previously received EUA to run the Sofia SARS Antigen FIA, a rapid point-of-care test for COVID-19, on the second-generation Sofia 2 instrumented system. Sofia 1 provides an accurate, objective and automated result in 15 minutes. Like the Sofia 2, the original Sofia 1 instrument offers two distinct workflows. Depending upon the users choice, the Sofia SARS Antigen FIA cartridge is placed inside the instrument for automatically timed development (WALK AWAY Mode); or test cartridges can be placed on the counter or bench top for a manually timed development and then placed into the instrument to be scanned (READ NOW Mode), allowing the user to markedly increase testing throughput per hour. There are approximately 20,000 Sofia 1 instruments installed in hospitals and physician offices worldwide.



This EUA amendment permits our novel Sofia SARS Antigen test to be used on both models of our Sofia instruments, leveraging our worldwide installed base of over 43,000 combined placements, allowing many of our larger healthcare facilities to be able to quickly diagnose first responders, healthcare workers, and other high priority personnel, said Douglas Bryant, president and chief executive officer of Quidel Corporation. The demand for the Sofia SARS Antigen test kits and Sofia instruments has been phenomenal. In under 10 days, we had over 1,000 sites on contract and continue to expect that we will ship every cartridge that we can manufacture for the foreseeable future.



Additionally, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority {(BARDA) Washington, DC, USA} has awarded funding to Quidel for the development of its SARS-CoV-2 test. BARDA, a division of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has awarded USD 634,643 to Quidel for the development of a four-analyte antigen test on the companys Sofia 2 instrumented system. Quidel will develop the test to detect SARS-CoV-2, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza A, and influenza B. According to BARDA, the sample-to-answer, point-of-care assay is being developed to be CLIA waived, enabling possible use in doctors offices and to be sensitive enough for the early detection of SARS-CoV-2 in samples from people who have COVID-19 symptoms.






WILTON  Wilton High School was well represented at the Connecticut Association of Schools awards program this year, receiving honors for its Socks for Soldiers and St. Baldricks programs. Both programs were recognized with the associations Educational Citizenship Award.

At the June 9 awards ceremony that was presented via Zoom, Socks for Soldiers was represented by Jake Zeyher, Jack Savarese, Connor Burke and Elijah Ackerman. Connor and Elijah also represented St. Baldricks.
Oil prices rose faster over the past six weeks than at any time in history, and an OPEC-Russia alliance has promised to keep nearly 10 million barrels a day of oil off the global markets to keep prices up.

Whoopee, the price for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is nearly $40! Too bad most U.S. companies need $50 to make a profit.

Oil and gas industry cheerleaders are ecstatic that the worlds largest producers are driving up prices. They are thrilled that people around the world are beginning to drive again, even if they remain reluctant to board aircraft.

The oil business, though, will not return to normal anytime soon. It may never.

The world still has 1 billion barrels in storage, according to S&P Global Platts, which tracks the data. We have more than 12 million barrels a day of excess capacity, and people around the world are doing their best to break their reliance on fossil fuels.

The data firm Fitch Group projects the global oil industry will lose $1.8 trillion in revenue this year.

The COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate the fight against climate change. As governments around the world consider ways to stimulate their economies, policymakers are concentrating on clean energy.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Texas businesses can make money in COVID world with right strategy

If President Donald Trump loses in November, Americans can count on a Democratic White House slashing support for fossil fuel companies, placing a price on carbon, and providing incentives for the development of renewable energy sources.

A new study shows the U.S. could meet 90 percent of electricity demand with clean energy by 2035 at no additional cost if politicians adopt the right policies, according to researchers at the University of California at Berkeley.

Analysts at the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie have theorized a Greener Growth scenario that forecasts little or no growth in the oil and gas industry.

After the post-pandemic rebound, world oil demand is essentially flat in the 2020s before starting a steep decline in the 2030s, their model shows. Demand for gas grows as it drives out coal for power generation and domestic use. The combined share of oil, gas and coal in total primary energy drops to 68 percent in 2040, down from 84 percent in 2019.

Even if you doubt governments will do whats necessary to slow global warming, other trends bode equally ill for oil and gas.

The new coronavirus demonstrated that extended supply chains that rely on sometimes-hostile nations are vulnerable. We need to make stuff closer to home.

If we have achieved what some call peak globalization, then people and goods will not travel as far or as much. Since oil is primarily used for transportation, any reduction in global trade is bad news.

Large corporations are also anxious to appease customers by relying solely on clean energy. Amazon, UPS and other shipping companies are all buying electric vehicles and green power to reduce carbon footprints.

Lastly, investors are increasingly reluctant to put money into oil and gas. When Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette draws parallels between big banks refusing to participate in Arctic drilling projects and red-lining discrimination against African Americans, you know the industry is entering panic mode.

The most revealing indicators that oil and gas will never be the same are the layoffs and bankruptcies. Energy executives never can say it out loud for fear of hurting stock prices, but they are downsizing for a lower-for-longer environment. They know peak oil demand is close at hand.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Roads and cars will change, companies could make a lot of money

BP is shedding 10,000 workers, mostly in administrative roles. Chevron is eliminating 6,700 jobs. Nationally, 90,000 oil and gas workers have lost their jobs, while in Texas alone, the industry shed 26,300 jobs in April. Those cuts were on top of layoffs in 2015 and 2016.

Fourteen oil and gas companies declared bankruptcy in April and May, compared with five over the same period last year, the law firm Haynes and Boone reported. The corporate bond default rate is up to 12.5 percent, mostly because of oil companies unable to pay their debts, S&P Global Platts reports.

Forecasters do not see any relief on the horizon. The production cuts by OPEC and Russia are only intended to keep prices from dropping below $30. Russian officials are committed to keeping prices low so American shale oil drillers will not steal their market share ever again.

Chris Midgley, global head of analytics at S&P Global Platts, sees prices dropping back to $35 in August and remaining there for the rest of the year as OPEC and Russia adjust their supplies to meet demand.

We all want the Coronavirus Recession to end, but we must remain realistic. The worlds energy markets have fundamentally changed, and Texas must keep up with the times by developing industries beyond oil and gas.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

twitter.com/cltomlinson

chris.tomlinson@chron.com
Fitness fanatic Soobong Hwang was evicted from Big Brother on Wednesday after being seen as a threat by his co-stars.

But the ripped Adelaide delivery driver believes the other housemates are ignoring the real front runner to win the competition.

The 48-year-old told Daily Mail Australia that he's convinced former AFL star Daniel Gorringe is going to take the crown.

His verdict: Soobong Hwang (pictured), who was evicted from Big Brother on Wednesday, believes the contestants who voted him out were ignoring the real threat in the house

Soobong had arrived at the Big Brother compound in a metal cage suspended by a crane, alongside three other latecomers, Shane Vincent, Hannah Campbell and Danni Keogh.

Despite his obvious physical advantages when it comes to the challenges, the others decided it was best to send him home sooner rather than later.

When asked who he thinks will win, he said: 'Daniel is built for winning. He's an AFL player - he has a plan, he has physical ability and he has leadership. Everything! He's a top dog for sure.'

The former Carlton star, 28, had lobbied his fellow housemates to vote Soobong off the show, and smiled when his rival was evicted.

Soobong said he 'doesn't hold a grudge' over being eliminated on the day of his arrival, saying the contestants 'had to do what they had to do'.

'Daniel is built for winning!' The Adelaide delivery driver, 48, told Daily Mail Australia that he's convinced former AFL star Daniel Gorringe (pictured) is going to take the crown

'He's sweet': Soobong also believes mining electrician Mat Garrick (pictured) will go far

Soobong also believes mining electrician Mat Garrick, 30, will go far.

'Mat has a weird mystery power from his smile. He's soft and sweet, marshmallow style,' he said.

Interestingly, both Daniel and Mat are tipped by Sportsbet to make it to the live finale, which airs in July.

Others with favourable odds include Chad Hurst, Talia Rycroft and Sophie Budack.

The winner will ultimately be decided by a public vote.

Finger on the pulse: Interestingly, both Daniel (pictured) and Mat are tipped by Sportsbet to make it to the live finale, which airs in July

Gone so soon! Soobong had arrived at the Big Brother compound in a metal cage suspended by a crane. He said he 'doesn't hold a grudge' over being eliminated on the day of his arrival

Soobong said he knew his physical abilities would make him a 'target' in the house, and wasn't surprised by his co-stars' decision to evict him.

When asked if he would have done anything differently if he had the chance, he said: 'I have no regrets, whatsoever. It was me, being me.'

Big Brother continues Sunday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven
AFCAT 02/2020 is slated to be held on 19 and 20 September in online mode.

Indian Air Force will commence the application process for AFCAT 2020 from 15 June and it will continue till 14 July.

The applications have been invited for the courses commencing in July 2021 for grant of Short Service Commission (SSC) in Flying Branch and Permanent Commission (PC) and Short Service Commission (SSC) in Ground Duty (Technical and Non-Technical) Branches. It has put out notification for grant of PC/SSC for NCC Special Entry Scheme (for flying branch) and for Meteorology entry.

AFCAT 02/2020 is slated to be held on 19 and 20 September in online mode.

Those who want to apply for Air Force Common Admission Test (AFCAT) can do so by visiting the website of IAF at http://afcat.cdac.in/

Eligibility for AFCAT

Candidates applying for flying branch should be between 20 and 24 years. Those born between 2 July, 1997 and 1 July, 2001 are eligible for the test.

On the other hand, those who want to appear for ground duty (technical or non-technical) branches should be between 20 and 26 years. Candidates born between 2 July, 1995 and 1 July, 2001 are eligible for AFCAT 2020.

Selection process for AFCAT

AFCAT 2020 is conducted in two stages  a computer based test and SSB interview. Those who qualify these stages are called for medical tests.

Basically, candidates who get selected in computer based test are invited for interview and those who get through the second stage are called for medical test.

How to apply
Today show host Karl Stefanovic has taken aim at the Queensland government for continuing to keep its borders closed, saying it defies belief.

Despite Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk standing in parliament in May describing the pandemic as having dealt tourism a crippling blow", the states solicitor general has filed court documents stating the government doesnt admit the the tourism industry is suffering any financial hardship.

This is about arrogance, Mr Stefanovic said on Wednesday morning.

It defies belief to me and more importantly, reality, he continued.

Today show host Karl Stefanovic (Left) took aim at QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (Right) for denying the states closed borders caused any financial hardship. Source: Today/AAP

It comes as a group of businesses owners attempt to force the government to hand over documents justifying the interstate travel ban.

The governments argument could delay the case by forcing business owners to provide detailed records showing a drop in revenue since restrictions came into place.

If the border remains closed until September, previous estimates suggest the tourism industry will lose $5 billion in revenue, The Courier Mail reports.

If the border remains closed until September previous estimates suggest the QLD tourism industry will lose $5 billion. Source: AAP

This is just arguing against the absolutely bloody obvious, and what is really concerning is not just that arrogance, but the Queensland Government listening to the people, Queensland senator Matt Canavan told Today.

In May the Premiere called the hit to the states $12 billion tourism industry heartbreaking.

It has been heartbreaking to make tough but unavoidable decisions, for example, the decision to close our borders and place hard restrictions on the industry knowing they would hurt, while at the same time understanding they were absolutely critical to save lives, Ms Palaszczuk said.

State Member for Burleigh Heads, Michael Hart, has installed a billboard pleading with government to open Queensland's border.

Story continues

Planes equals jobs the billboard at the Reedy Creek and Bermuda Street intersection reads.

"I'm hoping the billboard will send a strong message to the Premier that the people of the Gold Coast want to see planes flying back into our airport and a time frame for our borders to be open," Mr Hart told the Today show.

Its the second billboard to be launched in recent weeks with Ms Palaszczuk standing firm on the border closure despite no new coronavirus cases reported in Australia in the past 24 hours.

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The main opposition United Future Party (UFP) pressed the government to realign its conciliatory policy toward North Korea Wednesday following the North's threat to cut off inter-Korean communication lines a day earlier and regard South Korea as an enemy.

Holding an emergency meeting on national security issues, a group of six UFP lawmakers specializing in North Korea adopted a joint statement in criticism of the Moon Jae-in government's appeasement policy with Pyongyang.

The meeting, presided over by UFP floor leader Joo Ho-young, brought together North Korean defector-turned-lawmaker Tae Young-ho, former Deputy National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong, former chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee Park Jin and two other UFP lawmakers.

"We urge President Moon to apologize to the public for his failed North Korea policy and to replace the lineup of security officials entirely," the lawmakers said.

The statement called for a full reconsideration of a military tension reduction pact signed between the two Koreas in 2018, noting the "Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreement generated a fatal defense vacuum."

"The three years of submissive appeasement policy toward North Korea by the Moon administration and its cooperative projects that ran counter to international coordination drew finally to its end," the lawmakers argued, urging the government to fundamentally realign its North Korea policy.

The statement came one day after North Korea threatened to shut down all communication lines with the South in protest against anti-North Korea leaflets sent to the country by activists and North Korea defectors in the South.












The almajiris in Northern Nigeria have been sinned against and denied opportunities for social progress by the regions Muslim elite, Catholic cleric, Hassan Kukah, has said.

The Almajiri has become a scapegoat for the multiple sins of the Nigerian state in general and the Muslim Umma in particular, Mr Kukah said in a paper shared with PREMIUM TIMES on Monday. As usual, as of now, the northern elite will do what they do best: hide in the sands of self-deception, knowing that this will blow over and soon, no one will remember again.

The almajiri system (or almajirci) is the over a century-old practice of poor rural parents who send their children to live with mallams in pursuit of Islamic knowledge, which the children now receive under violent and torrid conditions. It is seen as providing an environment for recruits into violence in the north, apart from the systems socio-economic implications.

Governors in the region have announced steps to end or reform the practice, with Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai saying it has not worked for the children, it has not worked for northern Nigeria, it has not worked for Nigeria. It has to end.

The Governors indicted themselves when they said that it is time to act now because the Almajiri has outlived his usefulness, said Mr Kukah. At least they have admitted their complicity and the fact that the Almajiri system had always been a tool for political and economic forms of transaction.

Here is my thesis: With regards to his condition today, the Almajiri is an object, not a subject, is a victim, not a perpetrator, sinned against rather than a sinner.

Mr Kukah is the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kaduna, and has made blistering remarks aiming at northern Muslims whom he accuses of perpetrating the domination and persecution Christians in the region.

Stating further in his paper, he said, the almajirai (plural for almajiri) and their mallams (teachers) are blamed for being dirty and unkempt, miscreants, delinquents, nuisances to the society, petty thieves, prospective Boko Haram recruits, a stigma, an assault on our collective social sense of decency.

Their Mallam is charged with many sins including child abuse, abduction, human trafficking, exploitation, physical abuse, hard labour, enslavement, etc. So, we identify the Mallam and his Almajiri more by their crimes than their names. They are spoken about and not spoken to.

In the media reports, no one bothers to give them a voice of their own. They do not speak for themselves. If they had a chance, for example, they might say: Everyone calls me, Almajiri. No one has asked me my name. We are in the millions but have only one name. I have no name. I have no father. I have no mother. I have no home. I have no town. I have no tribe. I have no address. The streets are my home. I do not know if I have brothers or sisters. I am an Almajiri. No one knows if I have feelings. No one has ever asked me what I want to be in life. I live for today and for the sake of Allah. I have no tomorrow except Allah gives me. Tomorrow is in the hands of Allah, he added.

He said the almajiri system was ordinarily good and much treasured part of Islamic history and found similarity with it in Christianity, giving an example of the role of catechists in the Catholic Church.

He said, The challenge for the Muslim Umma in northern Nigeria is to answer the question, where did all this go wrong? Where was the Almajiri supposed to go at the completion of his studies? Was there a career path? How and why did the Mallam and his Almajiri, a much-treasured part of Islamic history, deteriorate to the status of the scum of the earth? I do not have the answers to these questions, but I wish to raise a few issues for the attention of the northern Muslim Ummah.

First, the northern Muslim ummah must accept full responsibility and see the Almajiri as part of the huge baggage of their failure to prepare for a future for their people.

They left their people in the lurch as the modern state emerged, providing no further rung on the ladder of progress for the Almajiri as part of the future for their children.

With both he and his Mallam left behind in the cave of ignorance about the modern state, they grew to fear life outside the cave. They have remained trapped in time. The new world of modernity was presented as a contaminant to the purity of Islamic knowledge.

So, while the modern elite equipped themselves and their children with the armour of western education, the Mallam and his Almajiri were left behind in the twilight zone of ignorance, fear, anxiety, disorientation and discomfiture, treating those outside with veiled contempt.
Since decades, the United States has been sponsoring dozens of so-called "Regime Change" revolts around the world. Regime Change has been an active part of US foreign policy by setting and implementing its agenda across the globe with sole objectives for pursuit of US vested interests in the subsequent regimes, continents across the globe.

The exploitation of these revolts by igniting them into fire and fury, flashing out these riots in global media, and to show United States (US) as the biggest sympathizer of these protesters has been an integral part of the aggressive diplomacy for the past several decades. In almost all these movements across the globe, the US was depicted as the biggest champion of human rights and democracy in the world taking pains for millions of people on account of subsequent rights.

To topple down the governments, the US launched series of movements in different parts of the world because it is always easy to rule and to get a hold on the resources of countries by wrecking their economies through these bloody protests, springs, and winters.

These protests have always been attributed with names of very colorful and attractive revolutions so that deprived communities could be highly exploited for the accomplishments of US vested interests.

Today these colors of upsurges are sprinkling across the US streets as US citizens have come to roads against the worst inhuman conduct of US law enforcement agencies towards racial discriminations.

The world is watching as the US President threatens many countries, but those torchbearers of human rights, democracy, and champions of freedom of expression have closed their eyes.

Nevertheless, the US has different and opposite views on these colorful protests being witnessed now in the various cities across the US. However, the world is watching more closely the protesters have been called looters, thugs, thieves, and much more but surprisingly these protesters would be called democracy heroes and activists in the other part of the world in such kinds of demonstrations.

The mob politics and the fire flashing out in the United States nowadays but no one is trying to understand this outburst of the epidemic of racism in America, rooted back centuries.

The menace of racism is not new in the United States it owns a long history since the creation of the United States of America (USA) by neglecting and grabbing the rights of the Native Americans who were pushed behind the wall forever. This reality hinted at the fact that very foundations of US based on exploitation and persecution of Red Indians, native inhabitants of America.

This hundreds of years frustration, deprivation, and anxiety have now turned into the massive eruption of lava cratering out from the so-called American double standards, values, and hypocrisy.

The white supremacy has badly haunted the Americans and there is no more space for the others. Since Donald Trump took the office, the US has shut down its doors for the nationals of other countries. The US has been isolating itself from the global arena; it gives a gesture that the US is no more a proactive player to be on the top among the other emerging global contemporaries racing towards internationalism.

After 9/11, the US has changed the dynamics of the entire world. Especially in the episode of Arab Spring how the US has destroyed the whole Middle East and manipulates its regime change doctrine through a hypocritical Foreign Policy.

With an excuse of Weapons of Mass Destruction WMD, the US destroyed and invaded Iraq just for the resources of oil in the region. After the Iraq war, ISIS and ISIL get control of a big part of the Middle East and they have destroyed the thousands of years old Muslim history, culture by wiping out from the earth.

Therefore, the Arab Spring has changed the face of Arab countries by pushing them towards the Stone Age. The fate of the citizens of Arab nations turned even worst and an unending humanitarian crisis engulfed Europe.

Donald Trump has a team of advisors who are experts in making every complex situation even more complicated to make a huge mess. The way Donald Trump mishandled the whole situation after the murder of George Floyd, he does not need any political rivals while having such kinds of advisors in the White House.

When Rome was burning, Nero was playing the flute, imagine if Nero was alive in todays world, what he would have to do? Maybe he was tweeting on twitter?

When US President says that the US is pulling out from international agreements and cannot afford to pay, it is mean he is accepting that America is no more capable to be a key player in international politics.

Watching America massively on the street, Domagoj Nikolic vividly remarked: Is the Libya-sation of the States and Gadhafi-sation of Trump the next to come?

Indeed, the United States has been losing its hegemony due to its double standards and the emerging multipolar world. The US monopoly towards setting up an international world order badly failed due to Washingtons invasion and regime change policies.

Subsequently, with an international tarnished image and damages while engaging the US into international conflicts, now the US has turned back with the same aggressive approach towards its people.

The existing governance system, institutions, policing in the United States need an overhauling due to the excessive control of white Supremacists, otherwise, this fire and fury summer revolt will lead towards mob politics, anarchy, and days back to 1960s.

Malik Ayub Sumbal is a Geopolitical Analyst, Commentator, and Award-Winning journalist. He tweets at @ayubsumbal
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Northern Ireland has recorded its fourth consecutive day without a Covid-19 death.

The figures should be treated with caution but it is still a positive milestone in what has been an overwhelmingly bleak period in which more than 700 people have lost their lives to the virus and countless more are suffering from the impact of the lockdown.

When Covid-19 first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year, few people in Northern Ireland gave it a second thought. Like Ebola and SARS before it, Covid-19 seemed like an exotic anomaly that would never reach our shores.

But as it began hurtling towards Europe and its devastating effects were seen in the likes of Italy and Spain, suddenly reality set in that Northern Ireland would not escape the virus.

Emergency planning was already under way with experts working hard to establish the likely effects of Covid-19. However, as a novel coronavirus, knowledge of the virus was limited and projections relating to infection levels and the potential death toll could only be based on the experience of other countries already impacted.

Nevertheless, as a vital part of pandemic planning, a team of scientists, doctors and mathematicians were tasked with the important piece of work to allow officials to best prepare for the arrival of the virus here.

At the same time, a public awareness campaign was launched to encourage people to take precautions that would reduce the transmission rate of Covid-19.

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As part of this, the Health Minister seemed to rely on predicted fatalities to illustrate how important it was that the public strictly adhere to everything that was being asked of them, no matter how extreme the guidelines appeared to be.

In March, he said: "If we fail as a community to take the necessary action to slow down the transmission of the virus, up to 80% of the Northern Ireland population could be infected during this pandemic.

"If all the public health advice is ignored, in a worst-case nightmare scenario and with a fatality rate of 1%, then that could mean up to 14,000 to 15,000 lives lost."

He described a surge of "biblical proportions", while some of the most senior doctors in Northern Ireland said it was likely that access to critical care would be rationed.

The British Medical Association even drew up ethical guidelines for doctors which warned that, in the event that hospitals became overwhelmed, frontline workers in the pandemic response would receive priority treatment.

By this stage, the virus was spreading out of control and we were told the only way to get a grip of it was by implementing a series of drastic interventions.

Schools were closed with parents asked to take on the role of teacher at home, businesses pulled down their shutters and people were told to stay indoors.

The lockdown has, of course, had disastrous consequences for the economy, for mental health, for hospital waiting lists and for families who have been torn apart for the last 12 weeks.

In a particularly cruel twist, people across Northern Ireland have been separated from their loved ones in their final hours, saying goodbye through iPads and over the telephone, with only a handful of people allowed to attend funerals. And yet, with the potential for 15,000 deaths without such drastic measures, all the sacrifices were easier to accept.

Certainly, throughout the pandemic, the message from the Department of Health has remained the same.

Covid-19 is highly infectious, it is deadly - particularly to older people with pre-existing health conditions, and social distancing is necessary to save lives, if not our own then the lives of those more susceptible to the virus.

Now we are moving beyond the first surge and attentions are turning to lifting the lockdown in a way that will suppress the virus and prevent a second peak.

However, as a semblance of normal life resumes and more people are coming into contact with one another, it is absolutely crucial that complacency doesn't set in.

Now is perhaps one of the most dangerous moments in the pandemic to date as a second peak, particularly during the winter months, would be catastrophic.

But the battle has been dealt a huge blow with the revelation that Robin Swann chose not to make public the best-case scenario death toll of 250.

It has also transpired that he did not reveal that experts had said the predicted loss of 15,000 lives was not realistic. The timing could not have been worse.

In response, the Department of Health has said publishing the best and worst cases - both deemed unrealistic - would have sent out mixed messages at a crucial time.

And can Mr Swann really be criticised for his decision, particularly if it saved lives?

The real issue here is the danger this revelation poses to the future pandemic response as the minister, who until this point has been lauded for his honesty, is now faced with the possibility that the public may not believe him in the months ahead.
The total number of cases in India has jumped to 276,583, showed data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday.

For the first time, recoveries have overtaken active Covid-19 cases in India. Close to 6,000 recoveries pushed the total number of cured/discharged patients to 135,206. The count of active cases now stands at 133,632. The number of active cases across India has risen by 3,715, while 5,991 new recoveries have been reported. Indias recovery rate has improved to 48.9 per cent, while the death rate remains unchanged at 2.8 per cent.

The on Tuesday projected a near 20-fold rise in Covid-19 cases in the city by July-end. After a meeting with Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and other top officials, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister told reporters that estimates suggested 550,000 positive cases by July 31. This has been causing panic in the national capital lately and throwing residents into a tizzy.



Today, Delhi Chief Minister said in a press conference that the numbers show is going to spread rapidly in Delhi. "We need to protect ourselves and others by taking precautions, and also inspiring others to do so," he said.

Delhi currently has nearly 31,000 cases of whom 12,000 have been cured, while 18,000 cases are active, and about 900 have died. Of the 18,000 active cases, 15,000 are home quarantines.



Dwelling on the bed crisis, Kejriwal said the city's hospitals needed almost an equal number of beds for residents of Delhi and those coming from elsewhere for medical treatment. Claiming that the situation was challenging to the point of being daunting, he nevertheless assured the citizens that his government would do its best to meet the medical needs of all.


STAMFORD, Conn., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ReneSola Ltd ("ReneSola Power" or the "Company") (www.renesolapower.com) (NYSE: SOL), a leading fully integrated global solar project developer, today announced that it will participate in a consortium to develop a large-scale ground-mounted solar plant in the south of France. The plant is expected to produce 46 GWh, and supply electricity to approximately 10,000 households per year.

The consortium is led by Tenergie, the second largest independent power producer in France. Other members of the consortium include a leading power consulting company and a recognized leader in project crowdfunding. The consortium will develop the power plant covering 30 hectares of leased land in the town of Aups. The plant will be owned by an entity, which in turn will be owned by the IPP, the Municipality of Aups. Local stakeholders and the individuals that participate in crowdfunding are deeply involved in the project conception phase. The Company estimates that a project of this size and design would typically have capacity of approximately 30 MW. Actual capacity will be subject to additional authorizations, such as permits needed for final project design.

Mr. Josef Kastner, CEO of ReneSola Power European Region, commented, "This project demonstrates the strength of public-private partnerships and how they can help us grow our business in Europe while promoting a more sustainable energy supply. Not only will Aups get a substantial source of clean and low-cost energy, but the town will secure a good source of revenue and its citizens will have an opportunity to invest inand profit fromthe growth of the clean energy industry."

Mr. Yumin Liu, ReneSola Power Chief Executive Officer, added, "This project validates that our business in France is strong and growing. ReneSola Power is a leading developer in Europe, and we intend to accelerate our growth in the region. Europe focuses on the development of social responsibility, and various governments across the region support the deployment of solar power. Both France and other European countries are exactly the type of markets in which we are focusing our business development efforts."

About ReneSola Power

ReneSola Power (NYSE: SOL) is a leading global solar project developer and operator. The Company focuses on solar power project development, construction management and project financing services. With local professional teams in more than 10 countries around the world, the business is spread across a number of regions where the solar power project markets are growing rapidly, and can sustain that growth due to improved clarity around government policies. The Company's strategy is to pursue high-margin project development opportunities in these profitable and growing markets; specifically, in the U.S. and Europe, where the Company has a market-leading position in several geographies, including Poland, Hungary, Minnesota and New York.

SOURCE ReneSola Ltd.

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A new world

The COVID-19 pandemic raises a worldwide realization: Were all in this together. COVID suddenly disrupted routines, pursuits, and priorities; made us focus on how to protect ourselves, families, everyone.

As the crisis continues, varied responses of individuals, businesses, governments, faiths, organizations and societies provide countless experiences in what works or doesnt work. What protects or destroys life.

Interrupting travel and industry reduced pollution and allowed nature some respite from pressure on habitat. Millions of people gave help, money, masks, research, knowledge, food and resources that, before, they would have kept to themselves, families or groups with whom they identified.

COVID has not prevented other crises from occurring. Severe weather, earthquakes, injustice, racism and brutal consequences  crises are unabated. Our responses to each demonstrate simultaneous processes affecting humankind: destruction or construction, disintegration or integration.

Were experiencing birth pangs of a new world which must discard obsolete values that destroy life and dignity, like greed, domination and all prejudices. A new world embracing were all in this together; in reality, a whole human family. Bahais of Cowlitz County.

Hannah Rishel

Longview

Mitigating circumstances

Before we label George Floyd a fallen national hero it may be good to remember:

1. He died with fentanyl, meth and morphine in his system.

2. This man had a large violent rap sheet which included having four years ago spent five years in prison for assault and robbery.

3. Previously, he spent time for eight arrests ranging from assault to firearms and drug sales.

When the police responded to the shop keepers call of a very large man (6 7, 250 pounds) trying to pass a fake $20 bill, the police were concerned of handling a man with such a violent past.

It is terrible for the way this man died, but there may have been mitigating circumstances which caused his death. Many of the papers I follow have not reported the above for fear of being labeled racist and inciting the leftists in our society. The police when called have a job to restore order, not stand aside and let criminals destroy.

Mike Long

Kalama

Washington vs. Florida

In her June 5 letter to the editor, Sherry Davis thanked Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, for his handling of COVID-19 to keep us from ending up like Florida. Inslee issued a stay-at-home order for all, while the state of Floridas Republican governor focused on the most vulnerable residents.

The results Sherry Davis is thankful for are: Washington unemployment for April was 15.4%, Floridas was 12.9%. Washington has 301.6 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents. Florida has 275.6 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents. Washington has 14.6 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 residents. Florida has 11.9 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 residents. This is what shes thankful for?

She also thanked Inslee for opposing President Trumps recommendation to use the National Guard to keep protests from turning into riots and looting. But Inslee did activate the National Guard statewide when protests turned violent in several cities.

I guess the takeaway from her letter is that whatever a Democrat does is good, whatever a Republican does must be criticized and condemned.

Bob Myers

Longview

Props to TDN sports

I commend The Daily News for giving local sports teams the opportunity to showcase their senior players.

They bemoan their lost seasons and post pictures of the athletes.

Hats off to the seniors and The Daily News.

Dorothy Bain Hanson

Longview
FREDERICTONNew Brunswicks minister of Aboriginal affairs said Wednesday the province has a problem with systemic racism toward Indigenous people as he backed a call from Wolastoqey Nation chiefs for an independent inquiry.

Ive done this job 19 months, and I have felt on numerous occasions there is systemic racism. I thought it was about time I spoke out and told the public how I felt about that, Jake Stewart said outside the legislature.

Last weeks shooting death of Chantel Moore, a 26-year-old Indigenous woman who was killed by police in Edmundston, N.B., has brought the issue to the forefront. Her death came when an officer performing a wellness check allegedly encountered a woman with a knife.

Stewarts comments came as six Wolastoqey Nation chiefs renewed their call for an independent inquiry to review what they called systemic bias against Indigenous people in the provinces policing and criminal justice systems.

The chiefs said Wednesday they want the provincial government to appoint legal experts from Indigenous communities, who they say are the only people who can conduct an unbiased inquiry into such matters.

Stewart said Wednesday he supports the chiefs and believes a separate inquiry to examine systemic racism in policing and the justice system could begin before a Quebec police watchdog investigating the shooting files its report.

He said such an inquiry would be separate from the investigation into Moores death and said he would bring the idea to cabinet.

The shooting is being investigated by Quebecs independent police investigation agency, the Bureau des enquetes independantes. The agency has said it wont comment until it files its report, which could take months.

Premier Blaine Higgs said the Quebec agency should be allowed to do its work.

There is a process to do this, he said. It is extremely unfortunate with any life lost, that this is a young Indigenous woman, but that doesnt mean the whole system is broken. It means something went wrong that night, very seriously wrong. Thats why the independent analysis is underway.

The premier said if the investigation shows there were broader issues involved, he would go the distance to understand what more needs to be done.

The six New Brunswick chiefs say their people are over-policed, underserved as victims and more likely to be sentenced and jailed.

The province has a responsibility to act  to address systemic racism in the justice system. We need to end this discrimination, the chiefs wrote.

Now is not the time to wait for a predetermined process to ignore the systemic problems that result in the unequal treatment and death of Indigenous Peoples in our province and throughout the country.

Lisa Harris, the Liberal critic for Aboriginal affairs, pushed the issue in the provincial legislature Wednesday, calling on the premier to discuss the call for inquiry with his cabinet and take action.

Public Safety Minister Carl Urquhart said the death of Moore, who was originally from British Columbia, was heartbreaking, and he expressed his condolences to the family.

He said the agency from Quebec has a good track record. They will get to the bottom of this case, and they will engage Chantel Moores family and will report their findings to public prosecutions, he said.

Liberal backbencher Stephen Horsman  a former police officer  and Peoples Alliance Leader Kris Austin also supported allowing the Quebec agency to complete its work.

A private funeral service for Moore is set for Thursday morning.

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After various publications claimed that Sushant Singh Rajput and Varun Sharma's former manager Disha Salian committed suicide on Tuesday, the Malvani police have said that she accidentally fell off from the 14th floor of a Malad building in an inebriated state. Disha had visited the residence of her friend in the Jankalyan area of Mumbai's Malad, where the six friends were drinking after dinner.

According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, Senior Inspector Jagdev Kalapad of Malvani police station was quoted saying, There were six friends in all. They were drinking after dinner. Disha Salian, who was also tipsy, walked to the window of the apartment from where she fell down around 1 am on Tuesday.

The officer also said that they have recorded the statement of Disha's parents. They dont suspect any foul play. They also told us that Disha had been anxious about her future for a while. We are yet to record the statements of Dishas friends present in the flat at the time. Because of her intoxicated state, we cannot say for sure whether it was a suicide or an accident, he told the publication.

Sushant Singh Rajput took to Instagram Stories to express his grief on Disha's demise. He wrote, "It's such a devastating news. My deepest condolences to Disha's family and friends. May your soul rest in peace."

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By Express News Service

MUMBAI: The capital city of Maharashtra has overtaken Wuhan city of China as far as the number of coronavirus cases are concerned, but there is a silver lining  the curve of coronavirus in Mumbai is flattening.

The 'Maximum City' has been showing the signs of an increase in the number of patients getting cured and discharged.

With 50,878 cases, Mumbai on Wednesday overtook Wuhan which has so far registered 50,340 patients.

State minister Aaditya Thackeray on Wednesday tweeted: The good news from Municipal Commissioner of BMC today: As of yesterday, Mumbais doubling the rate was at 24.5 (the national average is 16), the death rate has lowered to 3% (almost at par with the national average), and discharge rate is 44 per cent and Dharavi doubling days at 42 days.

On Tuesday (June 9), the city reported 1015 new cases and 50 deaths; and on the same day, 904 patients got cured and discharge as well. On Monday (June 8), while 1314 fresh cases and 64 deaths reported, 842 patients got cured and discharged. Similarly, on June 7 saw 1421 new patients and 61 along with 1218 discharges. On June 6, as many as 1274 positive patients, 57 deaths, and 1181 discharges were reported, read the BMC report.

Dharavi, Asias largest slum, played a key role in flattening coronavirus curve. In the last eight days, the slum is witnessing a significant decline in the coronavirus cases and no death has been reported.

Maharashtra government had opened the shops and other business establishments from last Monday. The private and government offices have also opened with 10 per cent of total strength. Earlier, it was expected that there will be a spike in the virus cases and deaths. However, as Mumbai is showing a positive sign, it might encourage the authorities concerned to take more such measures to ease the lockdown.
Russia and China have started making the case at the UN Security Council to prevent the United States from triggering snapback on Iran if it fails to extend the arms embargo which is due to expire in October. In order to get the Security Council resolution on arms embargo adopted, the US would need nine votes in favour and no vetoes from permanent members including Russia and China.

However, Russia and China have already indicated that they are not in favour of extending the embargo, which means the resolution will get vetoed. US special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Washington will ensure the extension of the arms embargo one way or other, threatening to trigger all UN sanctions.

The United States, Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France entered a deal in 2015 agreeing to provide sanctions relief to Iran in lieu of preventing it from developing nuclear weapons. Later in 2018, US President Donald Trump announced Washingtons withdrawal from the deal, known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), calling it the worst deal ever.

The Iran nuclear deal was enshrined in a UN Security Council resolution will still names the United States as a participant and the Trump administration is arguing on the technicality that Washington could still trigger a snapback. Russian Foreign Minister Sergio Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi have written to the Security Council and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arguing that Washington has no locus standi for triggering the snapback.

Read: US Sanctions On Iranian Shipping Companies Over Proliferation Come Into Effect

'No right to demand snapback'

Wang wrote to the council saying the US is no longer a participant to the JCPOA after walking away from it and has no right to demand the Security Council invoke a snapback. In a letter to the 15-member council, Lavrov said that the US was being ridiculous and irresponsible and cited a 1971 International Court of Justice opinion to make the case for Iran.

ICJ observed that a fundamental principle governing international relations was that a party which disowns or does not fulfil its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to derive from the relationship.

Read: Iran: Experts Will Continue Nuclear Development Activities Despite US Sanctions

Read: US Sanctions Irans Interior Minister For Alleged Human Rights Abuses
Newly released police body camera footage, obtained by CNN, shows that Ambler told police that he "can't breathe" multiple times during his arrest. He later died.

Screenshot/CNN

Javier Ambler died in police custody on March 28, 2019, after he did not immediately pull over for a Williamson County deputy in Texas. The details of his death are still under investigation.

New police bodycam footage obtained by the Austin American-Statesman and local TV station KVUE provides new insight into what happened on the night Ambler died.

In the footage, Ambler can be heard repeatedly telling officers that he couldn't breathe as they tased him several times before he became unresponsive.

According to the Statesman, an autopsy found that Ambler died of congestive heart failure and hypertensive cardiovascular disease "in combination with forcible restraint."

A state attorney general report classified the manner of his death as a homicide, the outlet said.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

New bodycam footage released by the Austin Police Department shows Javier Ambler, 40, repeatedly telling police that he couldn't breathe as they tased him several times before he became unresponsive.

Ambler, described in the footage as a "heavyset black male," died in police custody on March 28, 2019, after he did not immediately pull over for a Williamson County deputy.

The Austin American-Statesman and local TV station KVUE obtained bodycam footage from the night of his death after months of requesting records related to the incident. The footage is from one of the Austin police officers who responded to the scene after Ambler's car crashed.

The video shows multiple officers yelling at Ambler to put both of his hands behind his back. "Give me your hands or I'm going to tase you again," one of the officers can be heard saying. An officer can be heard telling Ambler to lay flat on his stomach and to "stop resisting."

During the altercation, Ambler can be heard telling officers that he has congestive heart failure and that he can't breathe.

Story continues

"I am not resisting," Ambler says, breathlessly pleading with the responding officers to release him. "Please, save me."

Ambler is told by an officer to roll over onto his stomach as the sound of a taser can be heard. After forcibly trying to roll Ambler over, one of the cops says "I'm pretty sure I just broke his finger." Another officer says he "needed to use his knee on this one to control it."

Ambler becomes unresponsive about two minutes into the recording. Officers can be seen trying to revive him while waiting for an ambulance.

The circumstances surrounding Ambler's death are still under investigation. His family is calling for justice.

According to the Statesman, an autopsy found that Ambler died of congestive heart failure and hypertensive cardiovascular disease "in combination with forcible restraint." A state attorney general report classified the manner of his death as a homicide, the outlet said.

According to a death-in-custody report filed with the Texas attorney general's office and obtained by the Statesman, Ambler did not assault or threaten the responding officers and did not attempt to gain control of their weapon.

According to a Williamson County sheriff's office incident report, published by KVUE, Ambler failed to dim his vehicle's headlights as he drove past a deputy at around 1:20 a.m. local time. Authorities say the deputy tried to stop Ambler but he kept driving, resulting in a 22-minute police chase that culminated in the nearby city of Austin, Texas.

The incident report said Ambler exited his car with his hands raised and was told to "get down" several times. At one point, Ambler "turned toward the open driver door," at which point the deputy tased him.

An Austin police officer arrived for back up shortly after and recorded part of the incident using his bodycam.

According to CNN, the Office of Professional Standards in the Williamson County Sheriff's Department said the primary and assisting deputies who responded to the incident "acted in accordance with the guidelines set in the WCSO policy and used objective reasonableness in the level of force used."

According to CNN, Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore said Monday that Ambler's case was being "stymied by lack of cooperation" by the Williamson County Sheriff's Department. Austin is located in Travis County.

In a statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday, the Williamson County Sheriff's Office said it "cannot comment on the Ambler incident due to the ongoing ingestion with the Travis County DA."

The statement added that Moore's statements were "misleading" and that it "remains ready and willing to participate in the investigation being conducted by the Travis County DA's Office."

"We participated fully in the investigation launched by the Austin Police Department, the results of which have been forwarded to the Travis County DA," the statement said.

Ambler's family said it is still awaiting justice for Javier's death.

"I cry every day," Ambler's father told the Statesman in an interview. "We need some closure and we want justice."

Read the original article on Insider
As Formula 1 begins to race out of the corona crisis, the 2019 Ferrari engine legality saga looks set to return.

The FIA has issued a range of new technical directives regarding operation of the hybrid engines, believed to be based on the controversial secret agreement reached with Ferrari.

One of the new measures is an additional sensor to measure the use of the complex energy recovery systems, while another is a clampdown on oil consumption.

"This topic has not yet been closed," German language f1-insider quotes Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul as saying.

McLaren is also unhappy, with boss Andreas Seidl insisting that "Ferrari could have been more transparent".

And Red Bull-Honda's Dr Helmut Marko said: "Because of corona we have unfortunately had to deal with other things.

"But that does not mean that we will not continue to work on this deal between the FIA and Ferrari again as things go back to normal."

(GMM)
Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday said that given the prevailing coronavirus situation in the national capital, Delhi is likely to register around 30,000 more Covid-19 cases in the coming 12-15 days.

If one person gets infected, it takes around 2 weeks for him/her to get cured and during this period they infect nearly 2-10 other people. Considering the present situation, its expected that in the next 12-15 days, therell be around 30,000 more cases, he said.

Orders have been issued to increase no. of beds by 2000 in next 2-3 days. It is expected that we would need 15000 beds by end of June. We will even use space available in banquet halls, hotels&stadiums, if required. We are working accordingly: Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain pic.twitter.com/fQYl8qHuKW  ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2020

The minister said that the administration has issued an order to increase the number of hospital beds by 2,000 in the next 2-3 days.

It is expected that we would need 15,000 beds by the end of June. We will even use spaces available in banquet halls, hotels and stadiums, if required. We are working accordingly, Jain said.

Also read: Rajasthan to seal its borders after surge in Covid-19 cases

#WATCH There is transmission in the community, but if it is community transmission or not that can be declared by Centre only, it is a technical term: Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/ltJV7hYUxa  ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2020

Jain said only Central government can declare if the transmission fits the category of community spread or not. There is transmission in the community, but if it is community transmission or not that can be declared by Centre only, it is a technical term, he added.

On Tuesday, the minister had said that the source of Covid-19 infection is not known in nearly half of the fresh cases being reported. He also said that the Kejriwal government is making all the preparations to handle the huge rush of patients estimated by June end.

Epidemiologically, community transmission is the third stage of the infection...In Delhi, of the new cases being reported, in nearly half of these cases, the source of infection is not known, he said.

National capitals Covid-19 tally rose to 31,309 on Wednesday, 11,861 patients have recovered here while 905 have died due to Covid-19.
US Reportedly Seeks to Sanction Up to 50 Tankers Over Iran-Venezuela Oil Trade

Sputnik News

16:03 GMT 09.06.2020

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States is planning to designate a number of tankers that facilitate the oil trade between Iran and Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) wants to add up to 50 tankers to its blacklist for cooperation with Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro, the report said, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Last week, the United States imposed Venezuela-related sanctions against four entities and four oil tanker sailing under the flags of Panama, Bahamas and the Marshall Islands.

Five Iranian tankers have shipped oil to Venezuela in recent weeks, but these deliveries were only a diplomatic gesture, the report said.

The additional sanctioning of tankers will mark a dramatic expansion of the United States' effort to interrupt trade between Iran and Venezuela, the report added.

US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook recently said that the United States de-flagged some 150 Iranian tankers and promised to continue doing so in the future.

On May 14, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said tracing and tracking of fuel tankers entering Venezuelan waters constituted a violation of international law.

Iran sent earlier this month a flotilla of five tankers to Venezuela and promised more supplies if requested. All ships received a military escort after the United States said it was considering options for responding to deliveries, which violate Washington's sanctions imposed on both countries.

A Sputnik

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Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  The executive director of New Mexicos Office for African American Affairs resigned Tuesday, just days after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced her plans to create a new council for racial justice.

William Scott Carreathers did not state the reasons for his departure in his resignation letter to the governors chief operating officer, saying that holding the position had been an honor.

He also declined to comment on his resignation Tuesday through the offices deputy director.

However, the leader of a regional group of African American ministers said theres been ongoing frustration among New Mexicos black community about the role of the Office of African American Affairs, along with budgetary and salary discrepancies between it and other state agencies.

For the most part, the community feels devalued by state government, said Bishop David Cooper of New Hope Full Gospel Baptist Church in Albuquerque.

Cooper, who is also president of the Ministers Fellowship of Albuquerque and Vicinity, said attempts to elevate the office into a Cabinet-level agency have been stymied under several governors, including Lujan Grisham.

I am disheartened, along with all of our partners, because we saw him as a good ally to our community, he told the Journal, referring to Carreathers.

Part of what were marching about right now is not having a seat at the table, Cooper added.

Carreathers did not take part in a news conference last week that featured the governor and three African American women discussing institutional racism and race-related protests that have swept the country in response to the high-profile killings of several black individuals.

A Lujan Grisham spokesman said Tuesday that he did not know the reasons for Carreathers resignation, but said Carreathers had regularly attended Cabinet meetings.

Lujan Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki also said the resistance to elevating the office was more due to a reluctance to further increase the number of Cabinet-level agencies  there are now 24 such departments  than any specific opposition to the Office of African American Affairs.

The governor is thankful for Carreathers service, Stelnicki said, and is looking forward to finding a new director for the office, who could also serve on the council for racial justice.

In his job with the Office of African American Affairs, Carreathers is paid $93,600 annually, according to the state Sunshine Portal.

Thats less than members of Lujan Grishams Cabinet, who make roughly $150,000 a year.

The Office of African American Affairs is also much smaller than most Cabinet-level agencies; it has only seven employees as of this week.

Before being appointed by the governor in 2019, Carreathers was director of African American Student Services at the University of New Mexico.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will travel to Jerusalem on Wednesday, with Israel intent on toning down Europe's reaction to its annexation plans in the occupied West Bank. Maas is the first foreign dignitary to visit since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed a coalition government with his election rival Benny Gantz, although US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had visited just days before the May 17 swearing-in. Israel could take initial steps to annex its West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley as soon as July 1, the same day Germany takes the rotating European Union presidency. The EU opposes the move, which forms part of a US peace initiative, and argues it would contravene international law. The Washington plan was unveiled in January and paves the way for the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, but it has been rejected by the Palestinians who were not consulted on proposals they see as capitulating to Israeli demands. While Israeli officials are unlikely to change Europe's anti-annexation stance, they see Maas's visit as a chance to at least soften its response. Europe is Israel's top business partner with trade totalling 30 billion euros ($34 billion) last year, according to EU figures. "It is the first visit since this new government is established," said Avi Nir, head of the Israeli foreign ministry's European section. "It is a symbol of the strong and the unique relation that Israel and Germany are having, a symbol of the personal friendship of Heiko Maas towards Israel," he told AFP in English. - Europe's reaction - While the EU's view of annexation is well-known, the bloc has not announced retaliatory measures against Israel. Sanctions would need the approval of all 27 member states. "Such a decision (to annex) cannot be without a response," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. Some European countries could formally recognise a Palestinian state but, according to an Israeli official, Germany would not be one of them. "Germany even with annexation would not recognise a Palestinian state and is not going to support sanctions against Israel," he told AFP. Maas's Jerusalem trip is his first outside Europe since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and will see him meet his new Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi. He will then hold talks with Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gantz before travelling on to neighbouring Jordan. The German diplomat will skip a trip to the West Bank city of Ramallah, headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, due to a lack of time and coronavirus measures, Berlin says. Maas will instead hold a video conference with Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh from the Jordanian capital Amman, where he will meet the country's foreign minister Ayman Safadi. Jordan stands strongly opposed to annexation in the West Bank, home to 450,000 Israeli settlers and 2.7 million Palestinians, and has warned it could spark conflict. - Iran and Hezbollah - Looking beyond the West Bank, other matters on Maas's Jerusalem agenda include Israeli foe Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah. Along with Paris and London, Berlin was one of the European parties to a landmark 2015 accord signed with Iran to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. But US President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the deal and reimpose crippling economic penalties -- a move praised by Israel -- has led Tehran to suspend its compliance with some of the curbs. The UN nuclear watchdog says Iran has gone beyond the limits for enriched uranium set under the accord and has blocked visits to some sites where past research is believed to have taken place, prompting Netanyahu to call on world powers to impose "crippling sanctions". But Iran has kept all of its current nuclear sites under UN supervision, something welcomed by the remaining parties to the deal, including Germany. Germany won praise from Israel in April for announcing a ban on all Hezbollah activities after previously tolerating the militant group's political wing. Israeli officials blame Paris for blocking EU resolutions against Hezbollah, pushing European countries such as Germany to take unilateral measures. With Lebanon now facing a severe economic crisis, Israeli sources say they are hoping any foreign financial aid will be tied to reforms which would reduce Hezbollah's influence. Israel occupied a swathe of southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000 and went on to fight a war with Hezbollah in 2006.
Inflammatory-rheumatic disorders are a widespread ailment, affecting at least 1.5 million people in Germany alone. Because there is a shortage of rheumatologists, however, only half of the patients in this country are adequately treated.

The use of other health care professionals, as is the case in Denmark and the UK, could help to improve the situation. A study in Germany has shown for the first time that the care of patients with inflammatory-rheumatic diseases by 'rheumatological assistants' (RFA) is just as effective as treatment by specialist rheumatologists.

To reduce waiting times and prevent damage to health, the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) strongly recommends the use of RFAs in Germany, which will be announced at a press conference on 3 June 2020 held for its annual congress.

Around two percent of the adult population in Germany is affected by chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) or psoriatic arthritis (PsA). "These patients have a considerable medical condition," explains Dr. Kirsten Hoeper from the Clinic for Rheumatology and Immunology at the Hanover Medical School in Germany.

Missed opportunities for treating patients due to long waiting times

Severe pain, extreme fatigue, lack of strength, stiffness and physical deformity can have a significant impact on activities, education and career, partnership and family and can lead to occupational disability. Early diagnosis and therapy are essential to prevent as far as possible such serious consequences of damage to the joints.

But the existing medical resources do not suffice to provide early, patient-centred and guideline-based care. The waiting times are far too long,this is despite the fact that new drugs could almost completely force the disease back into so-called remission for the majority of patients - provided that treatment is administered in good time." Dr Kirsten Hoeper, Clinic for Rheumatology and Immunology, Hanover Medical School, European League Against Rheumatism

The deployment of RFAs could improve the situation, as is already well-established in some Northern European countries.

RFAs are members of related medical professions such as paramedic, nurse, student nurse or road traffic/motor traffic accidents, who have acquired additional theoretical and practical knowledge about the care of patients suffering from rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs). Such a delegation of medical care in rheumatology is recommended worldwide.

"The legal framework for this also exists in Germany," says Hoeper. "In addition, the curriculum for the RFA degree exists since 2006, which is currently available to the German Medical Association for certification in an extended form.

In order to examine whether and how RFAs can also be used in the German health care system, a prospective, randomised, controlled and multi-centre study was conducted, which was completed in December 2019.

"A total of 236 patients from eight German centres participated in the study, where a blood test had confirmed the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis," explains the author of the study Hoeper.

Study involvement of RFAs produces the same treatment results

On average, the patients were 58 years of age, over 70 percent were female and suffered from rheumatic complaints for a period of 130 (ranging from 12 to 144) months on average.

While one study group was exclusively treated by rheumatologists during the twelve-month study period, the other study group RFAs temporarily took over the care at three fixed intervals with only brief contact to the physicians.

The patients' condition was measured using the standard assessment form DAS28 (Disease Activity Score at 28 joints), which assesses the activity of the disease on an ascending scale from 2.0 to 10.0. Values between 3.2 and 5.1 are considered moderate.

Result of the study: The structured delegation of medical tasks to an RFA does not undermine the current standard of care. While the disease activity for the group co-treated by RFAs was on average DAS28 2.43, the value for the group with continuous rheumatologist consultation was on average DAS28 2.29.

"This difference is not clinically or statistically significant", concludes EULAR President Professor Dr. Iain B. McInnes from Glasgow, Scotland, UK. "For the first time it can be shown for Germany that an RFA consultation is a safe way to complement the care of patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis", says Professor Dr. med. John Isaacs from Newcastle, Great Britain, EULAR Scientific Programme Committee Chair.

Better care in a cost-efficient way

"Integrating a team approach comprising rheumatologists with other health professionals into the treatment of patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases presents great opportunities," emphasises McInnes.

"RFAs can complement a physician's workload, who in turn can use freed-up resources for more complex or new patients," Hoeper adds. The long waiting times for an appointment with a rheumatologist could thus be cut shorter. Hoeper concludes, "by following the international EULAR Recommendations regarding RFAs, Germany will lead to better patient care in a cost-efficient way".
He informed the Employers board of directors of his intention to retire from his position on April 1, 2021, and the board has now initiated a search process to identify his successor.

It has been the privilege of my professional life to oversee the evolution of the company, which was started in 1913 as Nevadas State Fund to provide workers compensation insurance for Nevada businesses, said Dirks. We privatized in 1999 as Employers Insurance Company of Nevada, de-mutualized, and then went public in February 2007.

I extend my deepest thanks to our executive management team and our 700 employees, without whom our shared success would not have been possible. Im extremely proud of the team that is in place and have complete confidence that Employers will continue to grow and thrive. I look forward to working with the board of directors to ensure a seamless transition to my successor.

Michael J. McSally, chairman of the board, thanked Dirks for providing Employers with 27 years of superb leadership, dedication and vision. He added: Many of us think of him as the companys founder. He is leaving Employers in an excellent position, as the quality and strength of the management team and operating platforms have never been better, and our financial position has never been stronger. Doug has the profound gratitude of the board of directors for the value creation he has overseen. We look forward to a smooth leadership transition.
Hyderabad: In a suspected case of honour killing in Telangana, a 20-year old woman was allegedly smothered to death by her parents for being in love with a man from another caste, becoming pregnant and refusing to undergo abortion, police said on Tuesday.

The parents killed their daughter using a pillow while she was asleep in the early hours of June 7 in their house in Kalukuntla in Jogulamba-Gadwal district and sought to project it as natural death, claiming she died of heart attack.

However, following specific information and suspicion raised by the village secretary over the death of the woman, a college student, a probe was launched and the couple arrested on charges of murder under Indian Penal Code section 302 after post-mortem, police said.

The parents decided to kill the woman, the youngest of their three daughters, a day after she was found pregnant and refused to undergo abortion, police said.

The woman had fallen in love with the man while pursuing her degree course in Kurnool district in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and informed her parents about it after she was found pregnant during an examination by a doctor.

Her parents feared that their daughter may elope with her lover and brought pressure on her to go for abortion. Though initially she agreed, later she declined, following which they killed her and told everyone that their daughter died of heart attack, the police official said.

When a police team went to their house and insisted on a post-mortem after noticing some marks on her body indicating a struggle, the parents tried to stop it, saying there was no need.

Later, police shifted the body to a hospital where a post-mortem revealed the woman was "throttled to death". Her parents during interrogation confessed to killing their daughter, the official said, adding they were arrested.
BUFFALO, N.Y., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Brian Leslie, owner of Criminal Case Consultants Inc. (coerciveinterrogationexpert.com) and a nationally recognized coercive interrogation expert says identifying patterns of racial targeting, flawed investigations, excessive use of coercive interrogation techniques that force questionable confessions, coercive interview methods that use narrative integration to extract favorable witness statements, and faulty processes identifying suspects is unfortunately common in his profession.

Leslie has examined many felony cases in more than forty-five of the fifty states just in the last three years, providing forensic reports and testimony. Leslie says, "It is not a coincidence that ninety-four percent of my caseload is non-white, the majority being black or Hispanic."

This pattern demonstrates how police culture going unchecked can create dangerous factions in police departments that ultimately affect the community. Police officers have a tough job to do, but this should never excuse destructive or criminal behavior for any reason. Having an understanding and relationship with a community allows officers to put a face on those they police, not a mask.

Many officers in police departments across America do take their oath seriously with pride and perform their sworn duties flawlessly. These officers work each day in their communities with no incidents and do make a difference. Most of these officers are seldomly in the media and maintain virtual anonymity but unfortunately wear a negative stain from those that fail their communities.

Change in the policing community can only begin when most officers take a stand against the negative police culture that manifests within their ranks. The first step to solving this problem is admitting there is one. Change cannot begin without the will of everyone involved.

With more instances of police misconduct circulating in the media each day, police organizations need to honestly re-evaluate management as well as identify those officers who are a potential liability and monitor their behavior much closer. This is only the first step in many. Real change will only come when good officers and supervisors on the front lines get the courage to speak out. Until then, they too are complicit.

Learn more about Criminal Case Consultants Inc.:

Website: coerciveinterrogationexpert.com

Phone: 1-888-400-1309

Email: [email protected]

About Criminal Case Consultants

Criminal Case Consultants Inc. provides forensic expertise in coercive interrogations and interviews.

SOURCE Criminal Case Consultants

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President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on May 11, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

New Voice of America Leadership May Seek to Shed Beijings Influence

News Analysis

The appointment of a new head at the agency charged with telling Americas story to the world may usher in reforms to the Voice of Americas troubled Chinese-language service, which has been accused of having been compromised by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In June 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump nominated documentary filmmaker Michael Pack to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia, and other international taxpayer-funded, non-military broadcasting outlets of the United States.

Two years later, Pack was confirmed on June 4 by a Senate vote of 5338. The vote ran roughly along party lines, with only Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), joining the Republican majority. His confirmation was fiercely opposed by Democrats, who fear that under Pack, the USAGM could become a propaganda outlet for the Trump administration.

Pack is a noted conservative who has served in a variety of public roles, including on the National Council of the Humanities, and as the top television executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 2003 to 2006. Hes known to be an ally of conservative activist and Trumps former chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

Part of Packs mission will be to deal with allegations that the CCP has infiltrated and gained influence over VOA.

Hoover Institution Report

In October 2018, the Hoover Institution published a 218-page report, titled Chinese Interests & American Influence, detailing how Chinas communist regime has infiltrated and influenced U.S. life, business, education, media, society, and politics.

In its section on media, the report spells out Beijings success at compromising VOAs Mandarin Service branch.

Starting in the first decade of the 2000s, the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., and the leadership of VOAs Mandarin service began an annual meeting to allow embassy officials to voice their opinions about VOAs content. PRC embassy officials have also reached out to VOA hosts to convince them to be more supportive of the regime. VOA personalities have hosted events at the embassy. One of VOAs TV editors even publicly pledged his allegiance to China at an embassy event.

The report states, In 2012, a Chinese immigrant, who was also a former Chinese dissident and a specialist on the U.S. political system, became the first female Chinese head of the service. She was later fired over a controversial interview that drew the official ire of the PRC, which threatened repercussions.

The report claims that after her dismissal, VOAs Mandarin service has resumed a pattern of avoiding stories that could be perceived to be too tough on China, according to several staffers. For example, blogs written by dissidents such as Cao Yaxue, who runs the human rights-related http://chinachange.org site, have been removed from the VOA website.

The report states that several prominent Chinese commentators are no longer on VOAs lineup of analysts. In addition, VOA staffers say that the emphasis is now on travel, culture, and language, which viewers can find on homegrown media, as well.

Sounding the Alarm

The academic criticism in the Hoover report has found a champion in the White House.

In recent months, Trump and his administration have expressed their dissatisfaction with Voice of Americas programming, charging that the broadcaster has increasingly become a voice for the very regimes to which its mission requires it to broadcast American values of freedom, democracy, and human rights.

On April 10, the White House put out a statement declaring, Today  VOA too often speaks for Americas adversariesnot its citizens.

Voice of America  spends about $200 million each year on its mission to tell Americas story and present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively to people around the globe, the statement says.

The administration cites VOAs reporting on the coronavirus pandemic as an example of the broadcasters bias, saying that VOA has amplified Beijings propaganda.

Calling the lockdown in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, a successful model for the world, VOA also tweeted video of the light show put on by the regime to mark the quarantines alleged end.

VOA also used notoriously unreliable Chinese statistics to create graphics comparing deaths from the virus in China and in the United States. The administrations statement points out that intelligence experts [say] there is simply no way to verify the accuracy of Chinas numbers.

Former Employees Call for Reform

The Trump administration and the Hoover Institution arent alone in their concerns over VOAs editorial integrity. Former Chinese employees of the Chinese-language service that broadcasts into communist mainland China, as well as to the Chinese diaspora around the world, agree that VOA has strayed from its mission.

Sasha Gong, the first female Chinese head of the service mentioned in the Hoover Institution report, was ultimately fired, along with several members of her team, over circumstances related to an interview with a wealthy Chinese exile who has been scathingly critical of the Chinese communist leadership. Gong told The Epoch Times that Pack is in the right position to change things at VOA, but he just needs the right lieutenant.

There are systemic issues facing the Chinese-language branch, however.

If not the majority, at least half of the Chinese staff when they go back to China to see their family, they are harassed by the Chinese secret police. Gong cited the experience of one young woman who in 2016 returned to her home only to find that two police officers were downstairs waiting for her.

Gong also corroborates the general findings of the Hoover Institution report.

International broadcasting is a different type of business, Gong said. It speaks for whoever paid, like the taxpayers. There is no need to give 50 percent to the balance of whatever dictatorship that you happen to broadcast to.

Now, however, VOA calls that balance, Gong continued. In those countries, Gong said, the news is never balanced to begin with  and we, in order to balance a little bit, we have to be 100 percent pro-democracy, thats the key.

Li Su, who worked for 27 years in the Chinese-language service of VOA told The Epoch Times that since 2000, the direction of VOA changed from an entity to promote freedom, democracy, and human rights, to be a normal media, the so-called balanced reporting.

Li Su, former senior editor of VOA, established Hi5 Channel One (Hi5  shorturl.at/wzFLU) on YouTube in 2019. Among several shows he hosts, he continues to tell the history of modern China that has been banned by the CCP. (Courtesy Li Su)

VOAs mission is to broadcast to primarily nations where democracy has not been in the system yet, Li continued.

Li was one of Gongs team who was fired from VOA over the 2017 interview of Chinese fugitive Guo Wengui, a billionaire who claims to have exposed massive corruption in the CCP.

We are different; we need to have that mission, Li said. But VOA leadership, he maintains, said were just a media, we need balance.

Their meaning of balance, Li continued, is that on the one hand is the criticizing, and on the other side of the scale should be the dictatorships voice. So, you know what they say about the same issue.

I said, well, should we go to Nazis and ask them about their opinion about the Holocaust? Should we go to Chinese Beijing authorities to ask them their opinion on Falun Gong? Come on! They have a huge propaganda budget already! Theyve spent billions of dollars. Why should we use taxpayer money to add on to their voice? Li said.

The existence of VOA is to keep balance with their [the CCPs] propaganda. We are already balanced. We dont need their voice in our balance. Thats not right, Li concluded.

Voice of America Responds

Bridget Ann Serchak, VOAs director of public relations, declined to comment to The Epoch Times about whether Packs leadership might in any way change VOAs mission or operations.

She said in an email that Mr. Pack has not yet taken the position as CEO and director of USAGM, as he has not yet been sworn into office, but the USAGM Public Affairs office is the best contact for your queries for Mr. Pack.

Serchak offered to conduct a review of the news stories in question of any specific examples of compromised reporting by the VOA Chinese branch.

VOA adheres to the highest journalistic standards, as outlined in the VOA Charter, and requires VOA news to be accurate, objective, and comprehensive and that includes truthful coverage of both U.S. government and its policies and those of other nations, including China, she said.

Li said that 10 years ago, VOA reporters were told not to cover the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, which is persecuted in China.

Asked about coverage of Falun Gong, Serchak provided search results from its Chinese-language website showing that more than 40 stories in the past year mention the persecution of the Falun Gong.

She asked to be notified of any questions about a specific Falun Gong case or incident of persecution.
Travellers should be free to cross all state borders from July under a new push by Prime Minister Scott Morrison to remove barriers he blames for costing jobs and putting tourism at risk.

As tourism operators pleaded for certainty so families could book winter holidays, Mr Morrison told Parliament he wanted state and territory leaders to commit to the July timetable "at the earliest possible opportunity" so customers knew where they stood.

Scott Morrison wants state and territory leaders to commit to opening borders in July. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has signalled it could happen. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen, AAP

The controls are a key sticking point in national cabinet ahead of the peak group's next meeting this Friday, when Mr Morrison is likely to push for swift removal of restrictions.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has frustrated the industry by naming September as a potential date to end the state's ban on interstate holidaymakers but signalled on Wednesday it could happen in July.
After panic ensued at inter-state borders over Rajasthan government's order on sealing borders, the state partially withdrew its decision, allowing movement through its borders but with relevant permissions.

Rajasthan's Transport minister Pratap Singh Khachariyavas said that inter-state movement of buses would not be affected due to the move, which will last for seven days.

Previously, the Rajasthan government had sealed all state borders on Wednesday in view of a surge in COVID-19 cases. All movement to and from the state will be regulated. No person can enter Rajasthan without a 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from the state or leave without a pass, Director General Of Police, Law and Order, M L Lather said in an order.

Directions were issued to all range IGs, SPs, commissioners and deputy commissioners in this regard, officials said. They were asked to put up check posts along state borders with immediate effect and the arrangements would be in place for the next seven days.

Apart from inter-state routes, check posts will be put up at railway stations and airports as well, the order said.

District collectors and superintendents of police will be the authorities for issuing passes and only emergency cases like hospitalisation or death may be exempted, it said.

Rajasthan reported one more COVID-19 fatality on Wednesday, taking the death toll to 256 as 123 fresh cases of the infection pushed the state's tally to 11,368. The death was reported in Jodhpur, officials said.

Of the fresh cases, 40 were reported in Jaipur, 34 in Bharatpur, 11 in Sikar, nine in Jhunjhunu, five in Nagaur, three in Kota and two in Alwar, besides cases in other districts, they said.

Jaipur topped the COVID tally in the state with 2,500 cases and 118 deaths, followed by 1,944 cases and 26 deaths in Jodhpur.

There are 2,610 active COVID-19 cases in the state. A total of 8,152 patients have been discharged after treatment, the officials said.
Agra, June 10 : With two more deaths and 11 new COVID-19 cases reported till Tuesday evening, alarm bells have started ringing again in the city.

The death toll now is 53 and the total number of corona cases has soared to 991. However, District Magistrate P. N.Singh said 882 had recovered while 116 were under treatment. The number of samples had increased to 15,498.

Health officials explained that the surge in cases was due to increase in sample tests. A large number of deaths were of patients who had a past history of morbidities.

Officials claimed that 4,37,642 houses had been surveyed, which meant more than 16 lakh people in the district have been screened so far. This number is the highest in Uttar Pradesh.

As markets opened, after the announcement of Unlock-1, traffic on the main streets has increased. This has put additional pressure on the policemen. To ensure people observe social distancing and wearing of masks, the police has upped the vigil. On Tuesday, 4,476 vehicles were checked for violation of traffic rules. A total of 1,156 owners was given the tickets.

The district authorities in anticipation of a surprise visit by the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, have started preparations to present a better profile of the city. Medicare facilities at the district hospital and the S.N. Medical College, were being streamlined and grievances were being addressed urgently.

Health department officials said, private hospitals were being encouraged to open their doors to patients, suffering from non-Covid ailments.

Meanwhile, Several associations of parents have complained to the administration against schools compelling them to pay fees for the past three months, though children have stayed home during the lockdown.

Complaints have also been filed against the private power discom for sending wrong bills and overcharging during this period, though the company has denied the allegations.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
09.06.2020 LISTEN

The EC's own response doesn't in any way invalidate the voter's ID. They used the "poisonous tree" scenario but the relationship between the register and the voter's ID card doesn't fit in a tree and fruit relationship. It fits in the "sand in food" scenario rather.

This is because, with a tree and fruit, the tree must exist before the fruit but in this case, both the tree(register) and the fruit (the card) originated simultaneously.

Secondly, fruits of a tree don't have different "ways" of becoming the fruit of that particular tree. However, in the case of the register, different people used different breeder documents ( birth certs, voter ID, passport) to get into the register (the tree). This proves that the cards are not fruits of the register but the register is a pool of ID cards different people acquired using different means.

Thirdly, if we to go by the tree and fruits scenario at all, those who have survived on the fruits of a tree for 8 years cannot turn and say the fruits are poisonous. How did they survive all that long?

Based on these reasons, the EC's Scenario of a tree and fruit relationship between the register and the voter's ID card is not fit. And for these same reasons, it is not proper to consider every voter's ID card as poisonous since it's some used safe means into the register.

The scenario itself lacks a legal basis. There's a clause in the Constitution or any court ruling that spells out the relationship between the register and the voter's ID card and the reasons given to relate them, as given by the EC is not sound. It's not sound because of the above reasons.

Granted, without admitting that there are poisonous fruits in the register, I think we need to use the illustration in Genesis 18:24 as our guide rather than a poisonous tree scenario. Even God who created with a word of mouth didn't destroy his creation simply because there were some bad ones amongst them.

The Genesis 18:24 reads "What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?"

I hope the EC re-examine their motifs for pushing the new register agenda.
NYPD Police officers listen as Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York President Pat Lynch and representatives from other NYPD and law enforcement unions holds a news conference at the Icahn Stadium parking lot to address the "current anti-law enforcement environment" in New York City on June 9, 2020. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

NYC Police Union President Defends Officers: Mainstream Media Is Portraying Us as the Enemy

Police across the nation are not the enemy of the communities they serve, said New York Police Benevolent Association President Mike OMeara in an interview, which comes on the heels of several arrests of NYPD officers during protests as well as a push to defund the police.

OMeara stated that law enforcement around the country is mourning the death of George Floyd and standing with peaceful protesters, adding that he had to speak out against politicians and media outlets. They have been vilifying cops like animals and thugs, he said.

We are portrayed in the press and everywhere else as the enemy and we want people to know that we take our jobs seriously, were professional, and the vast, vast majority of the time we act appropriately and honorably and thats what we do and thats not being portrayed right now in the media and in the world, he told Fox News.

There have been calls to dismantle or defund police departments across the United States, and some Democratic politicians have complied. It includes Minneapolis, where the city council said it has enough votes to disband its police department, although it didnt say when it would happen or what its replacement would be.

OMeara said that the pressure on police has been significant in recent weeks.

The notion that police are not investigated and were some wild organization out there, you know, doing what we wish is just a falsehood  And, thats why I think its important  because we need people to understand that we are under scrutiny, he told the news outlet. Meanwhile, the vast majority of NYPD officers act honorably every day, but amid the protests, riots, online censorship, and skewed media coverage, theyre being portrayed in a negative light.

Police make dozens of arrests as demonstrations continue in Manhattan over the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police officer in New York City on June 3, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Our legislators in New Yorkwe have had a partnership with our legislators in New York for years and years and years. I know many of them personally. And, they dropped us like a hot stove when this happened, the union leader said, adding that reform isnt just about saying that all police are bad.

His remarks came after NYPD union leader Pat Lynch said politicians are asking them to abandon their communities during the anti-police protests.

Several days ago, Captains Endowment Association (CEA) President Chris Monahan wrote a letter complaining that due to a lack of state and city leadership, police cannot crack down on violent protesters.

They do not have your back and will use you as a political pawn! he wrote, according to the New York Post. My assessment is Hands off the protester/looter you will be assaulted by them. Hands on the protester/looter you will be assaulted by our elected officials. BE CAREFUL! it warned.
The endless lines for trains and buses. The tireless walks back home. The pictures of migrant workers with desperation writ large on their face have given chance to the opposition to attack the government.

Rahul Gandhi spent some time with the migrants to make the point that the BJP was running a government, which cared only for the rich. The opposition has almost unitedly condemned the government for being callous and not bothering to see the writing on the wall.

Its a fact which the Centre cannot deny that it has been lacking in doing enough for the migrants. And hence, it is working on a plan now to do some damage control. News18.com has accessed a blueprint of the government scheme for the long-term rehabilitation of these migrant workers.

The prime minister could unveil an app for these migrants. The app would sync the details of the migrant workers to the labour ministry and would have details of their qualifications and job specialisations. "The entire idea is to ensure that the workers get the jobs as per their skills and are not under-utilised and under paid," a government official said.

Tabulation of the workers isnt an easy task as most workers are in the unorganised sector and this is where the role of the states come in. The Centre through labour ministry and home ministry is in touch with the state governments, asking them to give data and do a survey of the workers.

The data so collected will be fed to the main central system and will be used for also giving out the social benefits which are announced by the government.

"Its going to be somewhat like the ones we have for women under the Jan Dhan Yojana. Not just this, if at some point the workers want to go independent and begin skilled independent outlets then this app could be their ticket to central help routed through state government," the official said.

The government hopes this would ensure that the workers have a reason to come back. The Supreme Court has asked states and Centre to ensure that there are facilities for the workers to return back to their place of work. But not many may be confident to come back as job security is no guarantee.

From the point of view of corporate and medium and small sectors  that have now resumed work  shortage of labour is the main issue. With most labour gone back home, it would be required a lot of convincing for the government and the owners to bring these labourers back. The Centre hopes this app and blueprint would do the trick. But more importantly it would blunt the criticism its facing over the migrant issue.
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YEREVAN.  I am now unemployed, I work in a casino, but since March, casinos have not been allowed to work. If there are restrictions, let them do it for everyone, and not put a difference. Citizen Garik Kirakosyan on Wednesday stated this in a conversation with journalists in front of the building of the government of Armenia.

"They [the authorities] have shut down the casinos, they do not permit the clubs to work, and I am an employee of that sector, I have not worked for four months. Let them say why they don't let me work. We haven't been working since March 21, we haven't received 10 drams in aid from the state. Casino employers have provided their employees with foodfrom house to house. But for how long can they?

If they dont [re]open the workplaces, the law does not apply for everyone, the employeeswhich are more than 1,000of those casinos and clubs will come here with their families; they can't apprehend that many [people]. I'm not staging a protest, I'm standing by myself," he said.

A police officer approached him and said. "Protests and rallies are banned en masse. Im giving a reasonable time of 5 minutes [for you] to leave the area. Otherwise, we will apprehend [you]."

And to the policeman's remarks that now no one will approach to him from the government, the citizen responded: "No one [from the government] will approach me because their children's stomach is full. There employees of those casinos and clubs are more than a thousand.
John A. Eisenberg, a deputy White House counsel, informed Charles Cooper, Mr. Boltons lawyer, of concerns the book still contained classified information after learning that The Room Where It Happened was scheduled to be released on June 23 as planned.

The current draft manuscript still contains classified material, Mr. Eisenberg wrote in a letter to Mr. Cooper.

As we advised your client when he signed the nondisclosure agreements, and as he should be well aware as a former assistant to the president for national security affairs in this administration, the unauthorized disclosure of classified information could be exploited by a foreign power, thereby causing significant harm to the national security of the United States, Mr. Eisenberg wrote.

Mr. Eisenberg said the National Security Council would provide Mr. Bolton with a redacted copy of the manuscript by June 19  four days before the books publication date.

Mr. Cooper, in an op-ed article published on the Wall Street Journal website, said Mr. Bolton went line by line through the text in order to get the White Houses approval.
PLEASANT PLAINS TOWNSHIP  Police are continuing to follow leads and interview witnesses in connection to the missing person case of Richard Allen Ashbrook after discovering human remains buried at a residence in Pleasant Plains Township.

Law enforcement personnel are still working to identify the remains, which were exhumed from the backyard of a home on Sunday. Lake County Sheriff Rich Martin said police believe the remains could be connected to the missing person case of Richard Allen Ashbrook.

"The remains have been sent to the Michigan State Police Crime Lab to determine if there was any foul play involved," Martin said.

Det./Lt. Brad Nixon, with the Lake County Sheriff's Office, said Ashbrook, who is from the Baldwin area, was reported missing on Feb. 11, 2018, and was last seen by family in November 2017.

At the time he went missing, Ashbrook was 47 years old.

Martin explained when the missing person report was filed, police did not have reason to believe any foul play was involved, but after receiving new information recently he decided to begin looking into the case again.

Related: Sheriff's office finds human remains during search

"We received a credible lead about the case a while ago and decided to investigate it," Martin said.

The investigation lead to police obtaining two search warrants for property in Pleasant Plains Township, which is Ashbrook's last place of residence. It is owned by an unrelated party.

Martin said no arrests have been made in connection to the human remains, but the investigation is ongoing.

"We are going to pursue any leads," he said.

In the state of Michigan, there are currently 598 open missing persons cases, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
New Delhi, June 10 : Proxy advisory firm, Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IIAS) has put out an advisory to support Vedanta's delisting proposal but called it as "opportunistic" and the base price low, commenting that Vedanta's independent directors should have called for an independent valuation and guided shareholders on pricing.

"We believe the delisting, at this time, is opportunistic - at the time of the announcement, the company's stock price was closer to its 52-week low, tempered by the fallout of the current economic environment and the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on equity markets," IIAS said in the advisory.

The base price at which the reverse book-building commences for the promoters to accept tendered shares, set at Rs 87.50 (marginally higher than the floor price of Rs. 87.25 calculated based on regulatory requirements), is low, it said.

"We believe Vedanta Ltd's Independent Directors should have commissioned an independent valuation of the business and guided shareholders by providing a price range for the delisting price," IIAS added.

"Even so, we support the delisting because the regulations protect minority shareholders by allowing them to set the delisting price through a reverse book building process," IIAS said.

IIAS believes the compulsions of having better financial flexibility to support group debt at the promoter level is a key driver of Vedanta's delisting.

It said the group has funded almost all its recent corporate actions using debt. The acquisition of a stake in Anglo American and the delisting of VRL all resulted increasing debt at the holding company level.

The aggregate debt across the group (Vedanta, VRL and other holding companies) is estimated at $17 bn in March 2021. Repayment pressures on the group are also high - around $1.9 bn will need to be refinanced by September 2021, which includes a $670 mn bond due in June 2021.

Cash generation for the group is through the operating subsidiaries, Vedanta and its 64.92 per cent subsidiary Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) - which are listed and limits the promoters' access to that cash, it said.

Vedanta Ltd, on March 31, 2020, reported cash balance of about $5 bn. HZL, on May 12 (the day VRL proposed the delisting), announced an interim dividend of Rs 16.50 per share. Vedanta's share of HZL's FY20 dividend aggregates $603 mn (Rs 4.53 bn), which should be distributed to Vedanta's shareholders, according to Vedanta's dividend distribution policy.

However, Vedanta has decided not to declare a final dividend in FY20 (after its Rs 3.90 per share interim dividend) to maintain financial flexibility.

"By owning 100 per cent of Vedanta (from the current 50.14 per cent), VRL's consolidated EBITDA will likely double as it will have full access to Vedanta's share of HZL's dividend," it said.

In the past, the group has undertaken transactions bypassing shareholder approval to access cash in these companies. The 2015 $125 mn loan by one of Cairn India's subsidiaries to one of Vedanta's subsidiaries is one such transaction5.

Past mergers and acquisitions can be attributed, to an extent, to improve financial flexibility of the group and manage debt repayments.

The August 2013 merger of Sesa Goa into Sterlite Industries Ltd (Sterlite) created a combined balance sheet that had better credit metrics. The 2016 merger of Cairn India with Vedanta Ltd once again allowed Vedanta's debt-heavy balance sheet to leverage on Cairn's cash-heavy balance sheet. The promoters have not injected any equity into the business in over ten years, even as turnover, on a consolidated basis, increased from Rs 66.7 bn in FY10 to Rs 920.5 bn in FY19 (through organic and inorganic expansion).

"Vedanta's delisting will likely be funded through debt, which will add to group leverage, and create a greater imperative to access the operating companies' cash flows," IIAS said.

"Although repayment pressure of the group drives the decision to delist, the timing of the delisting is best suited for the promoters," it added.

Vedanta's stock price has been trading close to its 52-week low (up until the delisting was announced), and at a steep discount to its historic five-year average - a fallout of the current economic environment and the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on equity markets. At the floor price, VRL would be expected to invest $2.2 bn to delist the company.

IIAS has pointed out five delisting attempts by companies where there was a difference between the floor price and the discovered price.

In the case of Linde India, it was 373 per cent where the discovered price was that much higher, in Essar Oil, it was 132 per cent, in Essar Shipping it was 42 per cent, in Polaris Consulting, it was 30 per cent while in Claris Lifesciences, it was 14 per cent.

Citing its rationale for voting for the resolution, IIAS said: "The group's past behaviour seems to suggest that minority shareholders are a hindrance to the promoters' ambition." "Cash flowing from the operating companies to the holding companies has been an element of concern for shareholders, and some of the transactions have taken investors by surprise. This risk continues to remain very real going forward," it added.

"The regulation protects minority shareholders by allowing price discovery through a reverse book building process. In the past, there has been a wide variation between the floor price and the discovered price. Therefore, we expect investors to be discerning and not anchor their price bids to the floor price," it said.

The past actions of the promoter group suggest that they are willing to pay a premium - as was the case in VRL's delisting from the London Stock Exchange and Cairn's merger into Vedanta, IIAS added.

According to a research report by HSBC Global Research, the focus remains on delisting process with shareholder approval awaited.

HSBC said: "A weak commodity outlook, high leverage (and zero EBITDA) at the parent level and inefficiencies in the current group structure (causing leakages in channelling dividends to promoter entities) have led to the promoter intending to delist Vedanta Limited." According to HSBC, the proposal needs two-thirds approval from public shareholders via a postal ballot for which results are due on June 24, which would kick start the reverse book building process.

HSBC has said that Vedanta Ltd balance sheet is relatively resilient, however, leverage rises significantly at the group level after accounting for debt on the books of VRL and Volcan.

(Sanjeev Sharma can be contacted at sanjeev.s@ians.in)




Haiti - FLASH : Changes to the conditions required for the return of Haitians to the country





In a correspondence dated June 4 addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Claude Joseph, Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe informs him of the changes in the requirements required for any request from a Haitian citizen wishing to return to Haiti.



Correspondence from Prime Minister Jouthe :



"[...]



Mr. Claude Joseph

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship (MAEC)

In its offices.



Minister,



Referring to the correspondence of April 9, 2020, [...] https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30564-haiti-flash-drastic-conditions-to-return-to-the-country.html , determining the conditions fixed for any repatriation request in favor of Haitian nationals, I have the advantage of informing you of the following modifications relating to the documents to be submitted :



1. A certificate of negative test for covid-19;

2. A confirmed travel reservation;

3. Proof of home address and a bona fide written commitment to self-quarantine at home for 14 days. Those concerned can be visited at any time by the health services.



The passports of those concerned will be kept by the immigration authorities during the quarantine period.



[...]"



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30564-haiti-flash-drastic-conditions-to-return-to-the-country.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















China will precisely retaliate against Czech Republic Senate speaker who plans to visit Taiwan

Global Times

By Yang Sheng Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/9 22:49:24

The speaker of the Czech Republic's Senate announced on Tuesday that he will visit China's Taiwan, a move which shows support for the separatist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities on the island, despite warnings from the Chinese mainland and a recommendation from his own government that he not take the trip. Analysts said China's retaliation should precisely hit politicians who provoke China's sovereignty and avoid harming innocent Czech companies in China.

According to the Associated Press (AP), Milos Vystrcil said he would be accompanied by a business delegation on his visit, which is tentatively scheduled to begin on August 30. Vystrcil said he was also planning to meet Taiwan's regional leaders, but didn't immediately give details.

Vystrcil's predecessor in the post, Jaroslav Kubera, was planning to travel to Taiwan before he died in January. His plans angered Czech President Milos Zeman who respects the one-China principle and paid efforts to build friendly ties with China.

The DPP authorities have spent a lot of resources on making trouble regarding China-Czech ties and divide the relationship between the Czech Republic government and the Senate in recent years citing different excuses. The separatist authorities expressed their "welcome" to the plan made by Vystrcil, and said that the trip "will advance cooperation and interactions between Taiwan and the Czech Republic in economic, technological, medical, tourism, and cultural areas."

The Chinese mainland has actually allowed economies and countries around the globe to have non-official ties which include normal trade and cultural exchanges before the realization of reunification, but the mainland firmly opposes any country building formal diplomatic ties and even military cooperation with the island, as these moves will harm China's sovereignty and are against the one-China principle that is respected by most countries around the globe and the UN.

Therefore a visit conducted by the speaker of the senate to the island is truly provoking China's bottom-line regarding sovereignty matters, and if Vystrcil just wants to boost trade and cultural exchanges with the island, it is totally unnecessary for him to have such a plan to provoke the mainland, said Chinese analysts.

"The People's Republic of China believes it has a right to tell us what to do," Vystrcil said. He said the Czech Republic will benefit from his trip to the island, according to the AP.

A Beijing-based expert on Taiwan affairs who requested anonymity said that Taiwan is definitely China's domestic affairs, and Czech politicians like Vystrcil are rudely imposing interference over China's internal affairs, but they still dare to accuse China of interference in the Czech Republic's "internal affairs" while Beijing expressed reasonable opposition and anger over their acts to support separatism in Taiwan.

This is truly "gangster logic" and China will surely retaliate against Vystrcil's moves as there is no room for China to tolerate provocations regarding its sovereignty, he noted.

The AP reported that the government of the Czech Republic also suggested Vystrcil not take the trip.

However, due to the government and the senate of the country displaying a different attitude on the matter, some Chinese analysts said that China's retaliation could precisely hit the politicians who provoke China's sovereignty and avoid harming the Czech companies in China if they do nothing wrong.

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MBABANE  The country has recorded 27 new COVID-19 cases. This is according to a statement issued by Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi yesterday.

Of the new cases, Manzini has 19 while Hhohho and Lubombo have four each. The total number of cases in the country is now at 398.



The 27 new cases follow 31 cases that were reported on Tuesday. Of the new cases, the youngest case is of a three-year-old while the oldest is 57. Of the 27 new cases, only seven presented with mild symptoms and the 20 were asymptomatic. There are 14 females from the new cases while males are 13.

Recoveries are now at 236. This reflects an addition of four recoveries.



When the minister was called for a comment on the upsurge of cases, she said they were expecting the increase due to some businesses being allowed to operate.



This, she said, was because there was a lot of movement and they were expecting an increase as more businesses were opening next week.



Businesses



As more businesses will be opening next week, the cases will be even higher and worse when schools open, she said.

The minister was questioned if there were means that would be done to minimise the increase in cases and in response, she said it was something she was yet to discuss with Cabinet.



I have something in mind but I have to discuss it with Cabinet first, she said. The minister made emphasis on the importance of minimising movement, stating that the virus was moved by people.



When questioned on suspicions that there was a backlog of samples that needed testing, hence the upsurge in the positive cases, the minister responded to the negative. She said these were new cases that were collected on the ground and they all tested.

We do not have a backlog, all samples that come in get tested and released, she added.
Nevertheless, according to Putin's spokesman, the Russian Federation does not want to interfere in a domestic issue

Protests and civil unrest in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd The New York Times

Russia perceives protests and civil unrest in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd as a domestic issue." It was stated by Russian President Vladimir Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov, CNBC reports.

What is going on in the States with these riots and protests is Americas domestic affair. We hate it when someone is trying to interfere in our domestic affairs and we never do it ourselves, he added.

However, according to Putin's spokesman, the Russian Federation is "concerned about respect for human rights in every corner of the world and that is applicable for the United States as well."

As we reported earlier, Voice of America journalist Khrystyna Shevchenko was attacked during the shooting of news footage on protests in the United States.

"I was filming, as activists/robbers broke into the store. No one touched me for about 10 minutes. And then my eyes went blank from a punch. I was blacking out for a few seconds and then I fell. The tripod with the camera also fell on my foot," the journalist told.

Shevchenko was diagnosed with a fracture of two toes and a minor head injury.
Human eggs use chemical signals to attract sperm. New research from Stockholm University and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust shows that eggs use these chemical signals to "choose" sperm. Different women's eggs attract different men's sperm - and not necessarily their partners.

Humans spend a lot of time and energy choosing their partner. A new study by researchers from Stockholm University and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) shows that choosing your partner continues even after sex - human eggs can "choose" sperm.

"Human eggs release chemicals called chemoattractants that attract sperm to unfertilised eggs. We wanted to know if eggs use these chemical signals to pick which sperm they attract," said John Fitzpatrick, an Associate Professor at Stockholm University.

The researchers examined how sperm respond to follicular fluid, which surrounds eggs and contains sperm chemoattractants. The researchers wanted to find out if follicular fluids from different females attracted sperm from some males more than others.

Microscopic mate choice

"Follicular fluid from one female was better at attracting sperm from one male, while follicular fluid from another female was better at attracting sperm from a different male," said Professor Fitzpatrick.

"This shows that interactions between human eggs and sperm depend on the specific identity of the women and men involved."

The egg does not always agree with the women's choice of partner. The researchers found that eggs did not always attract more sperm from their partner compared to sperm from another male.

Is this egg or sperm choice? Professor Fitzpatrick explained that sperm have only one job - to fertilise eggs - so it doesn't make sense for them to be choosy. Eggs on the other hand can benefit by picking high quality or genetically compatible sperm.

"The idea that eggs are choosing sperm is really novel in human fertility," said Professor Daniel Brison, the Scientific Director of the Department of Reproductive Medicine at Saint Marys' Hospital, which is part of MFT, and the senior author of this study.

The University of Manchester Honorary Professor added: "Research on the way eggs and sperm interact will advance fertility treatments and may eventually help us understand some of the currently 'unexplained' causes of infertility in couples."

"I'd like to thank every person who took part in this study and contributed to these findings, which may benefit couples struggling with infertility in future."

###

The article "Chemical signals from eggs facilitate cryptic female choice in humans" is published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Contact information:

Dr John Fitzpatrick, Wallenberg Academy Fellow, Department of Zoology, Stockholm University.

Tel: +46 (0)73 710 6359

E-mail: john.fitzpatrick@zoologi.su.se

Stockholm University Press office

Tel: +46 8 16 40 90

press@su.se

Contact for Professor Daniel R Brison, PhD, FRCPath Scientific Director, Department of Reproductive Medicine, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust:

Kate Banks

Communications Manager

Tel: +44 7873 205 676

E-mail: Kate.banks@mft.nhs.uk

Research was supported by the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Manchester, the National Institutes of Health Research, a Knut and Alice Wallenberg Academy Fellowship, and a Wenner Gren Fellowship.
HOWELL, MI  The coronavirus outbreak has pushed many businesses to innovate or retool with new areas of focus, and Howells Nyatex Adhesive and Chemical Co. is among them.

The chemical company has a primary focus on automotive plastics and adhesives, but began producing hand and surface sanitizer once company President Jason Hulbert realized he had the means to do so.

Hulbert said the company is always adjusting what it produces based on industry demands, and built-in access to the suppliers and chemicals needed to make sanitizers made for a smooth adjustment. Hulbert said even with shortages, he can work around supply obstacles with his list of vendors.

Because we deal with so many (vendors), I've got 10 (of them) to choose from, Hulbert said. If the first five are out, I got five more I can try. Not a lot of companies have that many commodity suppliers in the rolodex.

Nyatex never made sanitizer before the pandemic, but Hulbert said the company is familiar with the alcohols and glycerin that are used in sanitizer, and chemical engineers on staff who said it could be done. The company is using a World Health Organization formula to make the sanitizer.

It has been selling sanitizer in 5-gallon plastic pales for $150 each, with discounted rates for first responders, hospitals and essential businesses. While sales have mainly been in Livingston County, the sanitizer has been sold in Midland, Saginaw, Flint and Metro Detroit as well. Dental offices, landscapers and gyms have also been purchasing pales of sanitizer from Nyatex.

Mindy Bianchini, owner of TRVfit gym in Howell, said she bought the sanitizer to clean rooms and equipment in between classes once it reopens.

It seems that it will look great for what I have conceptualized as far as opening and having new health regulations for my gym, Bianchini said.

Related: Whitmer hopes to reopen gyms, salons and more by 4th of July weekend

Nyatex probably will not continue producing sanitizer after the demand generated by the pandemic dissipates.

Were in a position (where) we could produce it indefinitely and its something we could fold into what we do pretty easily, Hulbert said. But I feel its something that we will fade out, especially because of the size we are doing it.
A State Department inspector general fired by President Donald Trump last month told lawmakers that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not sit for an interview about the decision to justify arms sales to Saudi Arabia by declaring a "national emergency," according to a transcript released on Wednesday.

The inspector general, Steve Linick, was fired on May 15, the latest in a series of government watchdogs dismissed by the president. Members of Congress, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, are concerned that the dismissals will prevent adequate oversight of the government.

Democrats launched an investigation, including an interview of Linick conducted on June 3 by members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees and Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Inspectors general are charged with preventing fraud and abuse.

In the congressional interview, Linick said Pompeo agreed only to provide a written statement as Linick's office investigated the sale and that the State Department had argued that the probe was outside of Linick's jurisdiction.

"I told him that, under the Foreign Service Act of 1980, it was within the IG purview to review how policy is implemented," Linick said.

When he was fired, Linick was investigating Trump's decision to declare a national emergency last year in order to sell arms to Saudi Arabia despite congressional objections.

Linick also said his office was engaged in more investigations when he was fired, including an audit of the issue of Special Immigrant Visas and a review of the protocol office.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the transcript.
Yu Tianrui, a recent graduate of the oral history master's program at Columbia University, has been invited by a high school in Beijing to be a guest teacher instructing students of its oral history course. [For China Daily]

The lexicon of change. Phrases with which we were not familiar just a few months ago have now become part of our everyday language. Face masks, COVID-19, confirmed cases, social distancing and lockdowns. The images they conjure up are etched into our memory.

Since late January, Yu Tianrui, who is in her 20s, has been in contact with, and talked to, people from different countries and various walks of life about their personal experiences and feelings during this historic time.

"As the pandemic started to rage on, like many others, I was startled to see the dramatically increasing number of confirmed cases every day," recalls Yu, who is taking a gap year after graduation last year from Columbia University's Oral History MA Program. "I was anxious and wanted to help but didn't know how."

An idea then hit her. Why not use her specialty to highlight and preserve for generations to come the hardships people went through along with some of the touching moments.

She then initiated a COVID-19 oral history project. She did not know what to expect, but furthest from her mind was that a teacher from the Affiliated High School of Peking University would contact her and invite her to teach 68 Beijing high school students how to conduct the same oral history project.

Oral history is a field of study that gathers, preserves and interprets the voices and memories of people and communities that participated in past events. It reflects personal, subjective opinions offered by the narrator, and can be used to gain a valuable insight into history.

Among the people she interviewed was a reporter who stayed in Wuhan, the hardest hit city in China, for more than 80 days to report on how people in the city fought the virus. Not all the interviews were with people in China. One was with a Chinese person working in the luxury sector in Italy. Another was a Beijing resident who had to rethink his future plans after losing his job as a teacher at an online education provider during the outbreak. There was also the daughter of a couple who were frontline medical professionals in Wuhan.

Generally, they were questioned about how their lives had been affected during the outbreak, how their work had changed and how they reflected on the crisis.

"I hope the various perspectives offered by the narrators might help people better understand each other and therefore create harmony and cohesion in these tough days," says Yu.

She adds that after readers notice that most of the interviewees, though from different backgrounds, shared similar anxieties when initially facing the pandemic, they may later feel a sense of relief and empathy, having established a better understanding of others.

Since last year, a total of 68 students from the Affiliated High School of Peking University have chosen to take an elective oral history course. They started participating in a COVID-19 oral history project that was launched in March. [For China Daily]

Yu has reached out to nearly 40 interviewees.

She says she found that all have things in common. They stressed the importance of saving money, finding reliable information and strengthening people-to-people relations.

Yu also plans to conduct follow-up interviews to gauge how perceptions and understandings about the pandemic changed.

In February, Sun Ying, an instructor on the elective course of oral history from the Affiliated High School of Peking University, got in touch with Yu and invited her to be a guest teacher for the elective course. The two quickly hit it off, as Sun had also been thinking about encouraging her students to record stories related to the pandemic.

In March, the 68 students in the oral history class joined Yu in the project.

They formed 27 small groups to choose interviewees, do preliminary research, prepare interview guide sheets and learn how to improve their questioning technique while conducting interviews.

To date, the class attendees have interviewed around 45 people, including foreign students who are studying in China, Wuhan natives, and medical practitioners.

The Influence on Teens

Oral history, an interdisciplinary study that highlights communication between people, will help the students grow to be more open-minded and adept at soul searching, Sun points out.

She encourages the youngsters to feel free to interview anyone in the class and listen to their peers' experiences, especially about the days when they were confined to their homes.

Sun also asked students to write a brief autobiography to inspire them to reflect on their own past, in the hope of "creating an atmosphere where the students are willing to open themselves up and express themselves".

Sun says the key value of the course lies in heart-to-heart talks. "We can understand how one's past affects the present and how our collective memory of a particular time has been formed.

"When discussing a certain topic, they like to quote the classics rather than express their own ideas," says Sun, adding that she hopes the course will help them think more originally.

Wu Rui, a 15-year-old student from the school, chose to attend the elective course and volunteered to be Yu's assistant, helping to double-check the interview transcriptions.

Rui has also been asked to read through pages of interviews and highlight interesting phrases or ideas.

Later, Rui wrote a review essay from the transcribed materials.

In class, Rui and other students were also asked to appreciate classic oral history works, such as Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, and share their reviews with classmates and the instructors.

Rui says her "writing skills have improved", and "I started to enjoy reading more into a text to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the information".

"For me, the detailed experience at an individual level turns out to be more touching than the general tale of major events of the past," Rui says.

Another revelation she got from taking the course is that "to ask a question that would prompt thoughtful, personal answers is not as easy as I imagined".

To encourage interviewees to vocalize their thoughts, Rui says she confided her own stories "to strike up a rapport with them".

Taking the course has helped students like Rui to improve in some aspects. Another oral history class attendee, Ye Wenyi, used to focus on herself when she communicated with others and didn't care much about whether her ideas were understood or not by listeners.

"After the course, I began to consciously adjust my usual way of conversing with others," says the 17-year-old. "Now I tend to use more approachable expressions to deliver my ideas logically, ensuring that I can be well understood by listeners."

The students were asked to interview their family members and write down anecdotes of their life stories.

Ye interviewed her parents and grandmother and found that the talks have brought them much closer.

"Most of the time, they just talked with me about domestic trivialities, without mentioning their childhood stories or revealing their inner selves," says Ye, who thanks the homework for providing a new channel to build better bonds.

However, in the hour-long interview, she was surprised to learn more about her loved ones, like the fact that her father was once nearly swept away by a flood, and bitter, sad stories told by her grandmother about World War II.

"Now I feel that I know more about my family," Ye says, who adds that she also hopes one day she can initiate oral history projects as well, having people from different groups, such as domestic violence victims, speak up, convey and record their experiences and thoughts.

(Source: China Daily)
Emirates has received approvals to carry passengers on flights to Kabul in Afghanistan, starting from June 25, taking to 30 the total number of destinations currently offered to travellers.

In addition to Kabul, flights to the following cities can be booked on emirates.com or via travel agents: Bahrain, London Heathrow, Manchester, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Zurich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, New York JFK, Chicago, Toronto, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Taipei, Hong Kong, Perth and Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Manila.

Customers can book to fly between destinations in the Asia Pacific and Europe or the Americas, with a convenient connection in Dubai, as long as they meet travel and immigration entry requirements of their destination country.

In addition, from June 8, Emirates will offer flights from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad for travellers from Pakistan who wish to connect onwards to other Emirates destinations.

Health and safety first: Emirates has implemented a comprehensive set of measures at every step of the customer journey to ensure the safety of its customers and employees on the ground and in the air, including the distribution of complimentary hygiene kits containing masks, gloves, hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes to all customers.

Travel restrictions: Customers are reminded that travel restrictions remain in place, and travellers will only be accepted on flights if they comply with the eligibility and entry criteria requirements of their destination countries. Residents returning to the UAE can check the latest requirements at: https://www.emirates.com/ae/english/help/flying-you-home/ . - TradeArabia News Service
[June 10, 2020] IDC Survey Finds Artificial Intelligence Adoption Being Driven by Improved Customer Experience, Greater Employee Efficiency, and Accelerated Innovation

A recent International Data Corporation (IDC) survey of more than 2,000 IT and line of business (LoB) decision makers confirms that adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is growing worldwide. Over a quarter of all AI initiatives are already in production and more than one third are in advanced development stages. And organizations are reporting an increase in their AI spending this year. Delivering a better customer experience was identified as the leading driver for AI adoption by more than half the large companies surveyed. At the same time, a similar number of respondents indicated that AI's greatest impact is in helping employees to get better at their jobs. Whether it is an improved customer experience or better employee experience, there is a direct correlation between AI adoption and superior business outcomes. "Early adopters report an improvement of almost 25 percent in customer experience, accelerated rates of innovation, higher competitiveness, higher margins, and better employee experience with the roll out of AI solutions. Organizations worldwide are adopting AI in their business transformation journey, not just because they can but because they must to be agile, resilient, innovative, and able to scale," said Ritu Jyoti, program vice president, Artificial Intelligence Strategies. While there is considerable agreement on the benefits of AI, there is some divergence in how companies deploy AI solutions. IT automation, intelligent task/process automation, automated threat analysis and investigation, supply and logistics, automated customer service agents, and automated human resources are the top use cases where AI is being currently employed. While automated customer services agents and automated human resources are a priority for larger companies (5000+ employees), IT automation is the priority for maller and medium sized companies (<1000 employees).



Despite the benefits, deploying AI continues to present challenges, particularly with regard to data. Lack of adequate volumes and quality of training data remains a significant development challenge. Data security, governance, performance, and latency (transfer rate) are the top data integration challenges. Solution price, performance and scale are the top data management issues. And enterprises report cost of the solution to be the number 1 challenge for implementing AI. As enterprises scale up their efforts, fragmented pricing across different services and pay-as-you-go pricing may present barriers to AI adoption. Other key findings from the survey include:

Enterprises report spending around one third of their AI lifecycle time on data integration and data preparation vs. actual data science efforts, which is a big inhibitor to scaling AI adoption.

Large enterprises still struggle to apply deep learning and other machine learning technologies successfully. Businesses will need to embrace Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) - the compound of machine learning, development, and operations - to realize AI/ML at scale.

Trustworthy AI is fast becoming a business imperative. Fairness, explainability, robustness, data lineage, and transparency, including disclosures, are critical requirements that need to be addressed now.

Around 28% of the AI/ML initiatives have failed. Lack of staff with necessary expertise, lack of production-ready data, and lack of integrated development environment are reported as primary reasons for failure. "An AI-ready data architecture, MLOps, and trustworthy AI are critical for realizing AI and Machine Learning at scale," added Jyoti. The IDC (News - Alert) report, AI StrategiesView 2020: Executive Summary (Doc #US46261720), summarizes the results of a global survey of 2,056 IT and line of business decision makers and influencers about their current and future current and future AI investments, business drivers, and use cases and applications. The survey was designed to provide a better understanding of what drives customer buying behavior for AI on a worldwide basis across different IT and LOB personas, from CXOs to middle management to practitioners (including data scientists, data architects, data engineers, and MLOps engineers). About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter (News - Alert) at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights: http://bit.ly/IDCBlog_Subscribe. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005127/en/

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By Easton Sanders Jun. 09, 2020 | 03:17 PM | FRANKFORT

According to Beshear, the pandemic has revealed where our priorities have to be in terms of where we start addressing the issue of health care coverage.





He said, "When we have in the middle of a pandemic that's going to continue until there is a vaccine, a portion of our population that is dying at twice the rate they make up, then don't you believe we have an obligation to go out and ensure especially that community right away is able to sign up for a form of coverage?"





According to Beshear, there is between 18 to 20 thousand black Kentuckians that have no form of coverage. His short term goal is to reach out to every single one of those Kentuckians and get them signed up for some form of coverage, whether it's Medicaid, private market, or otherwise.





"That doesn't mean we're going to stop there," Beshear continued, "eventually we want to make sure that everybody who doesn't have coverage, has coverage, again using one of the forms that's out there."

There are 245 new cases of the virus across the Commonwealth, bringing the total number of cases to 11,708.







Out of the new cases, four were in Christian, two in Hardin, and one in Calloway, Fulton, Graves, McCracken, and Trigg counties. There are currently 525 Kentuckians hospitalized with the virus, with 75 of those in the ICU.







As of Tuesday, five more Kentuckians have passed away after contracting the virus, bringing the total number of COVID-19 related deaths to 477. One of those deaths was a 53-year-old woman from McCracken county. A total of 3,365 Kentuckians have recovered from the virus.

During Gov. Beshear's update on Tuesday, he addressed his promise to provide health care coverage to 100 percent of African-Americans across Kentucky.


Since 22 May, the Zagros mountain range in southwestern Iran has been ravaged by forest fires spreading across thousands of hectares. Iran is woefully underprepared to deal with the country's hot season because of a lack of resources and budget, and so extinguishing the fire falls to volunteers. Locals have almost no tools with which to fight the fire, apart from tree branches and leaf blowers. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have tried to deny the extent of the damage.



The Zagros mountain range along Iran's western border is home to many unique species of flora and fauna, with 40% of all plants used for medicinal purposes found in the region. However, drought and overconsumption of resources have damaged the forests in the region, and now wildfires threaten it too.





The first wildfire began on 22 May in the Zagros mountains, 2.5 kilometres north-east of Gachsaran, a city in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province in southwest Iran.



The next two fires began on 28 May, nine kilometres away from the first fire in the Dil region and 20 kilometres from the second one in the natural conservation area of Khaiez.





NASA satellite images from 22 May to 2 June show that a forest fire ravaged the area and allows us to monitor the fire's spread.



On 1 June, the head of the Department of Environment in Iran's parliament, Issa Kalantari, claimed that only 990 hectares of forest in the Zagros region were affected by wildfires last month. "We should not exaggerate, as though the whole country were burning," he said. However, the FRANCE 24 Observers has been able to refute this claim by using satellite images to map just how far the fires spread and how much forest was burnt.



According to satellite images, at least 9,500 hectares of forest have been burned in these three fires near Gachsaran, Dil and Kahiez in the period between 22 May and 2 June  more than nine times the surface area claimed by Iranian officials.





According to our Observers, it took 12 days to extinguish these fires. This is primarily because of strong winds, but also because the task of fighting the fire had to be done without any equipment.



Story continues

Some people start fires to take revenge on the system or the government

Ali is a local environmental activist. He helped to extinguish the fire in the Khaiez protected area.



Unfortunately, all the recent fires were set deliberately. The fire in the Khaiez region began after two locals argued and one of them set fire to the pasture shared between them. Police detained them only for a day. Two other fires were also started deliberately but the perpetrators haven't been arrested yet.



According to the Forests, Range and Watershed Management Organisation, 95% of fires in the Zagros region are due to human error or, worse, deliberate acts.



Locals burn the trees to have more pasture for their animals, or simply to get charcoal and sell it. There are some sick people who want to take revenge on the system and the government by committing arson, and people who start campfires outside and then dont extinguish them properly. They dont care because they have no idea that this small fire could become a conflagration and destroy kilometres of forest.



These fires would happen anyway, like everywhere in the world, but the difference is that we do not have resources like extinguishers, airplanes or helicopters, or even proper safety equipment and we have to try to extinguish the fire with tree branches.



We have seen an amphibious helicopter only once or twice. We've also seen army and Revolutionary Guard helicopters, who were transferring volunteers or soldiers to help to control the fire - but they had no equipment. When we asked them, "Why dont you help more often?", they said that they didn't have enough fuel.

Video showing Iranian volunteers trying to control the fire.



The local army commander said on 31 May they had sent out helicopters 108 times to dispatch 530 volunteers to the wildfire zones since 29 May, with only two helicopters. However, according to our local Observers, the fires were actually extinguished by locals and volunteers who climbed the mountains to reach the fires.



"We didn't know where the fire was spreading"



Ali continues:



In the last few days some donors gave us money to buy six leaf blowers, which is one of the most important tools to extinguish a fire in a region like Zagros, where trees are sparse and there is a large layer of bushes that are dry in this period of the year [Editors note: Each leaf blower costs 25 million toman, equivalent to about 1380].



We had to cut branches for each volunteer and then they have to hit the fire with the branch to try to extinguish it. It takes lots of energy and time to get a fire like this under control, but with a leaf blower its much faster and easier.



Another problem we had was the lack of management. We did not have any information, for example where the fire was spreading or where it had already been got under control. Local officials would announce that the fire was totally extinguished, but when volunteers went back after a few hours, they would find that the fire had started again in another spot, and volunteers would have to climb up again reach the fires.



Fortunately, as far as we know there, no large animals like wild goats, sheep or leopards died in the fires, but we know many small animals like birds, rodents and snakes were killed in the flames, along with many precious plants like the Persian turpentine tree, wild almond trees and Syrian ash trees.



Leaf blowers are a crucial piece of equipment to help put out the fires. Video sent by our Observer.





"We don't have any money to pay for extinguishing the fires in our region, not a cent"

A local official in the Forests, Range and Watershed Management Organisation in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, who preferred to stay anonymous, explained the lack of equipment to FRANCE 24:



The short and simple explanation is we do not have any money to pay for extinguishing the fires in our region, not a cent. We used to have a specific budget for fighting forest fires, but we haven't had anything for about a year. They simply cut out this part from the annual budget. We even have problems paying the salaries of the people here.



The firefighting helicopter does not belong to us; we have to rent it and we have no money for that. We don't have any money to pay the army and the Red Crescent who dispatched the helicopters. They only did it after the news about the fire got lots of attention. Some years ago, government presented a firefighting airplane, but since then no one has seen it - apparently it was only for show. So as you saw, for extinguishing the fires we are dependent on volunteers and donors. And not only did we not have the proper equipment to extinguish the fire, but we had nothing to protect ourselves.



According to our Observers, at least 10 volunteers were injured fighting the fires, including Alborz Zarei, a climber who was severely burnt.



Article by Ershad Alijiani
South Korea's diplomacy with North Korea has gone back to square one, with Pyongyang furiously building up its weapons arsenal and refusing to engage in any way.

A U.K. think tank has pointed out that "much of the optimism that enveloped Korean Peninsula diplomacy at the start of 2019 has dissipated." The International Institute for Strategic Studies made the claim in an annual report on June 5.

"All the while, the specter of a U.S.-China cold war casts a lengthening shadow, one that seems destined to shape the future of diplomacy in relations to North Korea," the report adds.

Improving relations between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping incapacitated South Korean President Moon Jae-in as a mediator. Inter-Korean dialogue lost all value to Kim as a direct communication channel was opened with the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea.

After his failed summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February 2019, Kim turned to Xi for both advice and economic support.
Former Fine Gael Deputy Maria Bailey has had a complaint about an item concerning her on RTEs Today Show with Sean ORourke rejected by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI).

She lodged a complaint with the BAI about a segment of the show which was broadcast on November 15, 2019 and included details of a statement issued by Fine Gael.

Read More

She had been at the centre of the Swing-gate controversy last May after issuing legal proceedings against a Dublin hotel after a fall from a swing during a night out Her compensation claim was subsequently dropped.

Ms Bailey took issue with a panel discussion that took place in November about her de-selection as a Fine Gael candidate in the wake of the incident.

According to her complaint, one of the panellists referred to defrauding insurance while another contributor spoke about exaggerated insurance claims. Ms Bailey said these were untrue and damaging comments. She was not found to have made a fraudulent claim.

She was also unhappy with the presenters comments about a past matter relating to her expenses. Ms Bailey said this was a separate matter and not under review. The broadcaster spoke about a statement issued by Fine Gael at the time but not reference her own press release.

She added that she felt inaccurate comments made throughout the segment were presented as fact and were not challenged by the presenter. She said that this was not fair or objective.

In response, RTE said that segment of the programme is a weekly robust review of current affairs. While her being deselected as a party candidate was discussed, the broadcaster believed the matter also involved a wider debate regarding insurance claims.

At the time, the broadcaster stated twice that she was not being accused of fraud and also stood over the references to a statement made by An Taoiseachs statement. Ms Bailey was also invited onto the programme afterwards to address any concerns she had.

RTE did not accept that she was defamed by the broadcaster.

Considering her complaint, the BAI committee accepted that more clarity could have been provided regarding the panels comments on fraud.

However, when taken as a whole, the Committee determined that the subject matter was treated fairly and presented in an objective manner, it added.

The programme did not infringe the Code and, as such, the complaint was rejected.
WASHINGTON - The brother of George Floyd delivered an emotional plea Wednesday for Congress to act to stop police violence against minorities, formally launching the congressional effort to revamp laws after his brother's death at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests across the country.

With negotiations at both ends of the Capitol heightening, Philonise Floyd put a personal face on a death that had been, in his estimation, almost desensitized by the recurring loop of his older brother's video-recorded death on TV news.

"I couldn't take care of George that day he was killed, but maybe by speaking with you today, I can make sure that his death would not be in vain. To make sure that he is more than another face on a T-shirt. More than another name on a list that won't stop growing," Floyd told the House Judiciary Committee.

He went on to tell the panel that he was "tired of pain, pain you feel when you watch something like that, when you watch your big brother - who you looked up to your whole life - die, die begging for his mom."

He added: "Stop the pain."

When it was not his turn to speak during the nearly six-hour hearing, Floyd wore a mask, part of the coronavirus safety response, that included an image of his brother. "It is on you to make sure his death wasn't in vain," he told the committee.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the committee, opened the session by reading the names of Floyd and several other African Americans who died in similar circumstances while outlining the legislation that Democrats unveiled Monday, shaped largely by the Congressional Black Caucus.

"We must act today to honor their memory," Nadler said.

The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit some no-knock warrants, among other initiatives. The bill, which has more than 200 Democratic co-sponsors, contains several provisions that would make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court.

At the hearing, Republicans did little to focus on the Democratic proposal and instead decried the "defund the police" movement that is growing in some cities, designed to dramatically overhaul local forces.

To illustrate their opposition to the looting and violence that happened during some of the protests that followed the Floyd killing, Republicans called Angela Underwood Jacobs, whose brother Patrick Underwood was killed in Oakland, Calif., in a shooting police said was related to a protest.

"Fear, hatred, ignorance and blind violence snatched the life of my brother Patrick from all of us," Jacobs said. "Every day the actions of a few are dividing us as a nation at a time when we should be coming together and uniting for the well-being of all people. We will never solve generational, systemic injustice with looting, burning, destruction of property and killing in the name of justice."

Lawmakers questioned a dozen witnesses, with testimony from officials from civil rights organizations and law enforcement, and from religious leaders. At an emotional point, Philonise Floyd and Jacobs were given an opportunity to talk about the personal ordeals of their respective brothers' recent deaths.

Philonise Floyd said that the video of his brother's death, playing repeatedly, "felt like 8 hours 46 minutes" and that his family just keeps asking "why" it all happened, moved to tears as he spoke. "They just cry and cry every day."

"His life mattered. All our lives matter. Black lives matter," Floyd said. "I just, I just wish I could get him back."

Jacobs said she and Philonise Floyd are on "opposite ends" of the debate, because her brother wore a police uniform. But she said they both had the same objective at the hearing, getting Congress to produce the right legislation.

"If you can't get it right, there's no hope for the rest of us," she told lawmakers.

Later, Floyd pulled off his mask and told lawmakers that he was "too emotional" to continue discussing details about this brother's death. He spoke to Congress a day after his brother's funeral in Houston.

Democrats said this hearing will launch several weeks of consideration, first in committee and then a full House floor debate, perhaps with a vote by the end of the month.

Despite this panel's recent partisan history - it formally sent articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the full House in December - a key Democrat found optimism that some Republican support could emerge for the legislation.

"Their theater is about defunding the police, which has nothing to do with the legislation, so that makes me a little hopeful that maybe there's room for us," Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., co-author of the proposal, said of the GOP complaints.

Bass, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said she was "a little hopeful" after hearing one witness called by Republicans testify to all the abuse he faced growing up as a black man in Ohio.

Republicans with more libertarian leanings, including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Tom McClintock of California, voiced support for some proposals. Gaetz, a close Trump ally, said it was "fine time" to outlaw chokehold and promised "Republican cooperation" on some proposals.

However, the legislation still faces an uphill climb.

Senate Republicans have indicated that they are interested in coming up with their own proposals. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican in the Senate, has been tasked with leading the effort, which included a meeting late Tuesday with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Jared Kushner, a senior presidential adviser.

Exiting Wednesday's Senate GOP luncheon, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voiced support for banning chokeholds and creating a national registry for violent police misconduct as well as an idea floated by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to tie federal funding to police forces with good records.

"You're not going to get federal money if you don't best business practices," Graham, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters.

Graham had not spoken to Trump about the issue and questioned whether Democrats were trying to get a political victory by having Republicans block proposals that have polled well in recent days.

"First thing I'll do is find out, are Democrats willing to work with us to find something, and then we'll go talk to him," Graham said.

To focus their attention on the "defund" issue, House Republicans included Daniel Bongino in their witness lineup. He is a conservative radio show host and a contributor to Fox News whose confrontational style sometimes wins him kudos from Trump. He used his testimony to focus entirely on the "defund" movement that he argued would "target these heroes" in local police departments.

"Please stop this defund-the-police abomination before someone gets hurt," said Bongino, who ran for Congress three times over the past decade. He was a New York City officer before serving more than 10 years as a U.S. Secret Service agent.

Top congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have distanced themselves from the activists' demands, with several saying it's not an issue for Congress.

The Democratic bill contains one proposal long sought by civil rights advocates. It would change "qualified immunity," the legal doctrine that shields officers from lawsuits, by lowering the bar for plaintiffs to sue officers for alleged civil rights violations. Another section would change federal law so victims of excessive force or other violations need only show that officers "recklessly" deprived them of their rights. The current statute requires victims to show that officers' actions were "willful."

Its other provisions include formally making lynching a federal crime.

At times, Philonise Floyd said his brother faced "a modern-day lynching."

In his opening statement, he explained the minor infraction that led to his brother's altercation with police, ending with an officer's knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes before he died.

"He didn't deserve to die over 20 dollars," Philonise Floyd said. "I am asking you, 'is that what a black man is worth? Twenty dollars?' This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough."
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has extended his condolences to the people of Burundi after the death of President Pierre Nkurunziza.



Pierre Nkurunziza died aged 55 after suffering a cardiac arrest, according to reports.



Reports suggest that Mr. Nkurunziza was admitted to the hospital on Saturday, June 6, 2020, after feeling unwell. His condition improved but on Monday, June 8, 2020, he had a cardiac arrest, and efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.



President Akufo-Addo in a tweet on Wednesday, June 10, 2020, extended his condolences to the government and people of Burundi.



He wrote: The Ghanaian people and I extend our deepest condolences to the Government and people of the Republic of Burundi, on the sad news of the death of their President, His Excellency Pierre Nkurunziza. May his soul rest in perfect peace.

















The Ghanaian people and I extend our deepest condolences to the Government and people of the Republic of Burundi, on the sad news of the death of their President, His Excellency Pierre Nkurunziza. May his soul rest in perfect peace.





 Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) June 10, 2020









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind. Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

When I wrote this essay back in 2017 the world was in a markedly different place in terms of its relationship to notions of white supremacy and the horrors of anti-black racism. Now, were in the midst of a fiery reckoning, in which individuals and groups are examining their complicity in the structures that uphold horrifying inequalities. This has led companies like HBO Max to temporarily take Gone With the Wind off its platform, announcing plans to eventually reintroduce the film with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of its racist depictions. Gone With the Wind is often held up as a sterling example of the noxious racism that powers Hollywood to this day. This piece, while written three years ago, still works to illuminate how we should reconcile the industrys racist past  not by burying it, but facing it, prickly dynamics and carefully crafted white supremacist arguments and all.

Gone With the Wind is one of cinemas most seductive confections. Its a moving story of a womans determination to control her own destiny against the odds of the crumbling world around her, an indelible love story, and one of the most gorgeous films Hollywood has ever produced, thanks to the work of set designer William Cameron Menzies and cinematographer Ernest Haller. In a memo during the preproduction of the 1939 epic, producer David O. Selznick  who shepherded the project through directorial changes and other calamities  referred to the novel its based on as the American Bible. Selznick was a making a ploy to bypass any objections by film censor Will Hays in order to get damn in the now-infamous dialogue at the end of the film. But Selznicks bit of salesmanship takes on a double meaning today, becoming a prescient description for the film. Nestled in its visual splendor is a slippery sort of racism that is surprising for what it says, meta-textually, about the ways America has yet to reckon with its second original sin. More than any American film about the Civil War, Gone With the Wind reveals the cunning skill with which white supremacy creates its own myths.

The extent to which Gone With the Wind has seeped into American culture is massive. It has been endlessly parodied, homaged, copied, and plucked clean for inspiration. Its clever subversion and updating of certain archetypes puts any film dealing with similar subject matter in its shadow. Its dialogue (Frankly my dear, I dont give a damn) and visual landscapes (the Tara plantation; Scarlett swanning around the frame in gorgeous gowns; the profiles of its lead actors moments before they kiss) have seared themselves into the cultural imagination. It has always been as beloved as it has been reviled and criticized, and in the wake of the Charlottesville riots and larger conversations on race, it once again finds itself at the center of controversy. Recently, a Memphis, Tennessee, theater, the Orpheum, pulled a screening of the film, citing community input and insensitivity. This quickly launched multiple conversations about the place of the film within Hollywood history, dredging up older considerations of its racial insensitivity. Despite the fever pitch of this debate, Gone With the Wind is not being banned, like Disney did with the 1946 film Song of the South, which isnt available to stream or buy anywhere in the United States. (While the film has been rereleased in theaters several times in the wake of its 1946 premiere and is available to buy in foreign markets, it has never been made available Stateside, with Disney CEO Robert Iger deeming it offensive.)

Given its availability on any platform possible to watch a film, and its towering status, Gone With the Wind is under no threat of actual censorship, or of being wholly forgotten. But there is something gallingly dishonest about the current conversations surrounding the film, which mention it in the same breath as the Confederate monuments rightfully being torn down, and in some cases destroyed by citizens. Some have argued for Gone With the Wind to be viewed a Confederate monument, and others against. My position skews more toward the latter camp: Whereas these monuments have one message  to celebrate and uphold a painful time in American history, whose scars linger to this day  a film, especially one with so many influences as Gone With the Wind, rarely holds a single message.

Treating Gone With the Wind as a relic that should be walled off in museums, as former New York Post critic Lou Lumenick suggested in a 2015 piece, may seem like the corrective necessary after the Academy Awards its garnered, its staggering financial success, and decades of worship. It would be simpler, under this guise, to brand Gone With the Wind as a Confederate monument that, despite its gorgeous construction, is too saddled by racism to enjoy, and should be resigned to the past. But that is a half measure. It lets modern Hollywood off the hook for displaying similar, casual racism, albeit in different forms, and modern white people from understanding the thorny truths the film holds. Gone With the Wind is not only the most successful Hollywood film about slavery, its the most instructive. Not because it dutifully recreates actual history  far from it actually. Better than any film, Gone With the Wind is a searing, accidental portrait about the American mythology around slavery. The mythology Gone With the Wind extols about cheery, simple-minded slaves who are unerringly faithful to their abusers and the beauty of a lost South isnt trapped in the amber of another time. It exists today in the loathsome, venomous beating heart at the core of American life. If Gone With the Wind were consigned to the past, it would make it easier for many to forget how indicative it is of our present.

D.W. Griffiths silent epic The Birth of a Nation is often spoken of alongside Gone With the Wind, given their shared qualities: innovation, controversy, and a dramatically dishonest portrait of American slavery. The Birth of a Nation is an unparalleled piece of propaganda that uses white actors in blackface to frame black people as savages and buffoons. It isnt just vile, it has been credited with the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. Where Birth of a Nation inspires violence and the perpetuation of virulent racism, Gone With the Wind inspires complacency  its mythology echoes today in a more casual form of bigotry that ignores the humanity of black people, while scrubbing white people clean of any wrongdoing.

Despite all that, Gone With the Wind has had a curious place in my heart for years. Its a film that brings me joy given its sheer beauty, craft, and towering place in film history. It has countless virtues, from the love story at its heart to its grand scope, which still remains specific in how it understands the emotional realities of its cast, and Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh at the height of their prowess. It is both tragic and endearing, electrifying in its romanticism and delightful in its humor. Whenever I see a particular shade of red or stand on the land I call home in rural Louisiana, sometimes my mind cant help but wander to Gone With the Wind. It casts a spell that is hard not to be beguiled by. Its this entrancing nature that makes its racism so tricky. Slaves are grinning, dumb fools, loyal to a cause that runs on their subservience. The film ignores the brutal reality of slavery and the Civil War in order to create a fairy tale about Southern perseverance through one Southern belles becoming.

It may seem curious for a black Southern woman like me to have affection for a film that ignores the horrors my ancestors endured in order to create the most iconic Southern belle of all time, that unabashedly celebrates the Souths greatest sins. Loving film, both classic and modern, can require a bifurcated approach (especially as a black woman), acknowledging the artistic wonder and its role in often supporting oppression. For me, this racial dimension to the film isnt merely an intellectual exercise or something I brush past in the news, but a lived reality. Gone With the Wind, in this light, becomes a way for me to study and understand the ways white people spin fables from an obstructed view of the past and present.

Its also a movie thats riddled with contradictions. Gone With the Wind elides historical truths and favors emotional ones from a white perspective, but it is hard to ignore that Mammy (played by Hattie McDaniel, who became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for her performance) is the soul and guiding force of the film. Its also impossible to look past the fact that she brings to life one of the most troublesome and enduring stereotypes that have beset black women since slavery. But McDaniels career and position within Gone With the Wind actually proves to be a useful way to understand the film. While supporting actor Butterfly McQueen (who played the manic fool, Prissy) resented the film and the business of Hollywood for its racism, McDaniel chose to remain mostly apolitical to advance her career. McDaniel inspired actors like MoNique, who paid homage to her when she won her Academy Award decades later for Precious. McDaniel has been viewed as a key step forward for black actors in the industry and a woman who put career success over the needs of her community. Shes said to have famously quipped when then-NAACP head Walter White critiqued her, I would rather make $700 a week playing a maid than $7 being one. Her support for Gone With the Wind in the face of vehement questioning from the black community exists at a nexus of issues. The same can be said for Gone With the Wind itself, which both fails to acknowledge the lived reality of the slaves that made women like Scarletts life possible, while also being a vehicle for McDaniels success.

So, what are we to make of Gone With the Wind and its blinkered perspective on history? How can we reckon with its failures as a historical document if America has yet to do the same with the poisonous roots that make such films possible in the first place? Some have suggested that Gone With the Wind screenings be accompanied by more evenhanded lectures that take its problems to task, which is a somewhat useful gesture. But these conversations have been happening since the film was released in 1939. Its also important to not act as if the failings of Gone With the Wind are an outlier from a more racist Hollywood past.

Hollywood has always loved presenting itself as a liberal mecca. (Take George Clooneys 2006 Oscar speech: You know we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood, every once in a while. Its probably a good thing, he said. Were the ones who talk about AIDS when it was only being whispered. We talked about civil rights when it wasnt really popular.) But Gone With the Wind exists on a continuum of Hollywood racism that includes the whitewashing in recent films like Ghost in the Shell and Doctor Strange; still-beloved works like Dumbo and Breakfast at Tiffanys; the unequal pay that besets women of color; and issues people of color have simply making films and finding a place in cinemas canon.

Still, there is often the perception that Hollywood exists on a path of perpetual progress  that Hollywood today is more considerate and politically aware than its forebears. Case in point: Sitting alongside this debate about Gone With the Wind is also a curious name-checking of the Steve McQueenhelmed 2013 film 12 Years a Slave. This routine, which uses 12 Years a Slave as a cudgel to highlight the moral and historical failings of Gone With the Wind, isnt new. As Frank Rich noted in a New York Magazine feature from 2013:

 film critics as different as those of the Times, the New York Post, and Hollywood Life felt they had to address the continued sway of Gone With the Wind in their raves of 12 Years a Slave. All offered some variation on the thesis that the movie was, at long last, an antidote to (as Manohla Dargis put it) all the fiddle-dee-dee of its nearly 75-year-old predecessor, the film that was supposed to have been trampled into the dust by Roots more than a generation ago. Maybe, but tomorrow is always another day at Tara, and its probably wishful thinking that 12 Years a Slave will consign Mitchells magnolia-scented view of the South to oblivion any more than the far more widely disseminated Roots did.

A video essay from 2014, which made the rounds again during the GWTW controversy, intersplices scenes from Gone With the Wind and 12 Years a Slave to argue the formers dishonesty and the latters import.

An op-ed in the New Orleans Times-Picayune last week used the video to argue: In the kindest reading, Gone With the Wind is romanticized fiction. In a more realistic assessment, it is nothing but Lost Cause Confederate propaganda. If its history you are looking for, I suggest 12 Years A Slave, the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free black man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and sold into slavery. [] That is history. That is truth.

But who is looking for history when watching narrative film? No film should be a proxy for historical record. Furthermore, hewing to a more truthful representation of historical fact narratively says nothing about the ways a film is shot or scored, which can easily warp the facts in any way the artists making it see fit. Film does operate as a history of industry mores, audience desires, and societal constraints. Touting 12 Years a Slave as a more important historic document and film than Gone With the Wind engenders several questions. Namely, what do we expect and need from films concerning this swath of time in American history? How are we to truly understand a film if we ignore its context?

Despite its bloody rendition of the conditions of slavery, I believe 12 Years a Slave is an easier watch for liberal whites given the distancing effect of the violence it displays. Its easy to look upon the whipped backs of Solomon Northup and other characters and think, Well, Im not that bad. I do not enforce such violence. This emotional distance allows modern white audiences to indict not their own bigotry, but those forms they feel are squarely in the past or wholly outside of their social circle. When watching Gone With the Wind, white audiences today who are willing to examine their racist failings must also examine how they specifically propagate the mythology that upholds white supremacy, even if they dont have the particular delusions that exist among white nationalists and people in the South, crying in horror at Confederate monuments being torn down. What makes Gone With the Winds racism so important and difficult to taxonomize is the deftness of its characterization. The white characters in the film, including minor bit players, feel real, complex, and human in ways many period epics fail to conceptualize. They are heroes it can be hard not to root for. For all her cruelty and selfishness, Scarletts prickly nature make her a fascinating anti-heroine. Yet everyone  including Melanie, one of the most selfless and naively angelic women ever portrayed in film  are still complicit in, and directly benefit from, the enslavement of black people. As an audience, you are captivated by them, and even root for their triumphs, while still being unable to forget the darkness teeming underneath the surface of the gorgeously wrought antebellum society Gone With the Wind brings to life. Their great capacity for racism exists in tandem with their own admirable qualities, making them frustratingly human and trickier to demonize than the more one-dimensionally villainous white characters in other slavery epics. The same can be said of white people today who, no matter how powerful they are as allies or how moved by films like 12 Years a Slave, benefit from the horrors that have existed against black people in this country since its beginnings.

To be black in America is to exist in a liminal space. This is the only home I know, but I am acutely aware that the distinctly American triumphs that Gone With the Wind upholds doesnt include Americans like me  it exists based on our subjugation. And to pass off the film as a relic and Confederate monument of a cinematic past ignores how its tactics exist today  it isnt just Gone With the Wind that needs a reckoning, but Hollywood, and America itself.
The announcement of the discovery of Homo naledi fossils in 2015 in South Africa was met with mixed responses from the research community. Credit: GovernmentZA / Flickr, CC BY-ND

All humans alive today can claim a common ancestral link to some hominin. Hominins include modern humans, extinct human species, and all our immediate ancestors.

Recent discoveries of hominin remains, including the skull of a Homo erectus in South Africa, have generated high levels of interest from the public and scientific community alike.

Fossils hold invaluable information about human history. But digging deeper, there is much complexity around the question of what a "fossil" is, and who should be granted ownership of them. This is the topic of our latest research article published in the journal Heliyon.

Fossils fuel debate

The question of what qualifies as a "fossil" remains open. The Oxford dictionary defines fossils as: "the remains or impressions of a plant or animal embedded in rock and preserved in petrified form."

But this definition doesn't encompass the broader use of the word. Eggshells or coprolites (fossilised excrement) are neither direct remains nor the impression of an animal or plant, but archaeologists often refer to them as "fossils".

The process of fossilisation can start immediately after an organism's death, and the term "fossil" isn't attached to a specific time period or state of preservation.

The term also relates to the perceived value, uniqueness or rareness of remains (and what they may reveal). Given such a breadth of meanings, it's unsurprising attempts to regulate the status of fossils are fraught.

Hands off my fossil!

There was lively debate surrounding the 2015 discovery of Homo naledi in the Rising Star cave near Johannesburg, South Africa. The public's access to the site and its fossils drew heavy criticism from researchers. This raised the question: should fossil discoveries be freely available?

Generally, around the world a person who excavates a fossil is allowed to keep it. Not only that, they can conduct potentially destructive analyses on it, and grant scientific and public access to the information it reveals.

Such practices can generate "gentleman's club" syndrome, wherein members of scientifically influential groups have a better chance of accessing important fossils. But despite being accepted practice in the field, the "finders keepers" approach is legally problematic.

Humans and human remains have a special status in most nations' legal systems. While animals can be owned, humans can't. Compounding this, the definition of "human" is itself contested, and this muddies the legal waters when it comes to discovering archaeological human remains.

For instance, recent DNA discoveries of interbreeding between Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis and Denisovans  as well as the fact that Homo naledi and Homo floresensis existed at the same time as modern humansindicates scientists struggle to reach a consensus on where the boundaries of "human" lie.

Dinosaur poo can become fossilised. This is called a coprolite. Credit: Shutterstock

The definition of "human" can also be culturally ascribed. Many indigenous peoples including communities from Australasia and Africa recognise an ancestral connection to species not always classified as Homo sapiens.

So what should be done with the fossilised remains of extinct species that aren't "human" in the sense of belonging to Homo sapiens, but are nevertheless our evolutionary ancestors?

Are human remains things to be owned?

In Australia, as in most common law systems, there can be no "property" in a human corpse. While both burial and exhumation are regulated, ownership of a corpse is not.

The export of "Class A" cultural heritage, which includes human remains, is prohibited under the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986. Also, Australian state legislation regulating the scientific use of human tissue (such as the NSW Human Tissue Act 1983) doesn't require any consent for samples excavated before 2003.

On the other hand, Australia also has a national repatriation program for Indigenous cultural patrimony. This program seeks to restore stolen human remains and sacred objects to their original communities.

Cultural subjects

The tension between scientific interests and spiritual beliefs is apparent in the context of repatriating human remains to Indigenous communities.

While fossilised human remains hold significant scientific value, their symbolic and spiritual value can't be ignored, particularly to communities that feel a connection to them. Human remains would be best described as both scientific objects and also cultural subjects.

Some scientists view repatriation and reburial of human remains as a deliberate destruction of a "source of information" that belongs to global humanity.

On the other hand, historical injustices and the imbalance of power between colonial entities and Indigenous people stand against such arguments. As a result, the repatriation and reburial of human remains becomes inseparable from broader legal arguments advanced by Indigenous peoples today.

Human, hominin and hominid fossils are far more than just objects to be owned. In fact, they reside at a contested and poorly regulated scientific, cultural and legal intersection.

We need common standards for ownership, protection and access controls. One solution would be to establish an international delegation with key stakeholders including scientists, lawyers, community representatives and policy makers.

Ideally, this could exist under the umbrella of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Such a body could foster constructive dialogue on how we value human fossils, and how we assign them ownership.

Explore further Homo naledi juvenile remains offers clues to how our ancestors grew up

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
GLENVIEW, IL  As the 344 churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago gradually begin reopening preparations, in Phase 3 of Gov. J.B. Pritzker's Restore Illinois plan, Cardinal Blase Cupich announced Monday students will be returning to school in the fall. The Roman Catholic school system, covering Cook and Lake counties, closed in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Archdiocese of Chicago schools in Glenview include:

St. Catherine Laboure School (preK-8)

Our Lady of Perpetual Help (preK-8)

"We have every intention of our students returning to the classroom when our school year begins in the fall," Cupich said in a video to parents. "Have no doubt that we will employ measures that keep the safety of your children the priority."

Illinois Coronavirus Update June 10  Don't miss updates about Illinois' response to COVID-19 Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters.

Cupich said the Archdiocese of Chicago is working with experts on COVID-19, as well as state and local public health officials.

The schools, consisting of more than 70,000 students, closed for in-person instruction on March 13 and transitioned to remote learning, which Cupich admits has presented some challenges.

"We take pride that our educators quickly responded when I made the decision to close school buildings due to the COVID-19 pandemic," Cupich said. "They established remote learning within days of the closure."

Cupich said no instructional days were missed and the school year has closed for most schools.

Among the safety measures Archdiocese of Chicago schools will be practicing in the fall include:

Enhanced regular cleaning and disinfecting of high contact areas

Use of Plexiglas barriers in common spaces such as main offices

Availability of adequate supplies of sanitizer and personal protective equipment

Temperature checks on anyone showing coronavirus symptoms

Cupich also announced remote learning will continue in the fall for parents who prefer or need to keep their children home.

Story continues

"Our decision to aggressively plan for reopening our schools this year is based on the value we place on face-to-face instruction and the community learning environment that distinguishes Catholic school education over the years," Cupich said.





This article originally appeared on the Glenview Patch
'7500' is the emergency code for an airplane hijacking and the title of an upcoming high-octane Amazon thriller.

The studio dropped a chilling new trailer for the Joseph Gordon-Levitt drama about every traveler's worst nightmare on Wednesday.

In the film, Gordon-Levitt plays a pilot forced into a sticky situation mid-flight when a group of terrorists try to take control of the aircraft.

Terror in the skies: Amazon Studios dropped a new trailer for the upcoming thriller 7500, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the pilot of a plane hijacked by terrorists

The dimly lit preview opens with the flight crew embarking on a nighttime trip from Berlin to Paris.

The pilots prepare for a routine flight and the flight attendants get the passengers settled and, before take off, one pretty attendant plants a kiss on Gordon-Levitt.

All seems well until several men start attacking passengers and attempting to overtake the cockpit with make-shift weapons.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tobias, a co-pilot who is forced to take control of the flight after his fellow pilot gets severely injured in the scuffle with the attackers.

Routine: The dimly lit preview opens with the flight crew embarking on a nighttime trip from Berlin to Paris

Not so friendly skies: Gordon-Levitt plays a pilot forced into a sticky situation mid-flight when a group of terrorists try to take control of the aircraft

Business as usual: The pilots prepare for a routine flight and the flight attendants get the passengers settled

Love story: One of the flight attendants plants a kiss on Gordon-Levitt's character Tobias before take-off

Taking a turn: All seems well until several men start attacking passengers and attempting to overtake the cockpit with make-shift weapons

'They have a hostage, they're going to kill him if I don't open the door,' he says to ground control.

The clip sees Gordon-Levitt struggle with his inability to help the passengers as he is advised time and again by ground control that, under no circumstances, is he allowed to open the door of the cockpit.

It appears that most of the action in the thriller happens while the 39-year-old actor remains trapped between all the gizmos in the cockpit, watching the terror unfold in the main cabin via surveillance screens.

'Let her go, please, please I beg you, please,' he implores the hijackers through tears after they hold another passenger hostage.

Help! '7500' is the emergency code for an airplane hijacking

Vantage point: It appears that most of the action in the thriller happens while the pilot remains trapped between all the gizmos in the cockpit, watching the terror unfold in the main cabin via surveillance screens

This is your captain speaking: Throughout the preview, Pilot Tobias tries to talk to both the passengers and the terrorists on the intercom

'They have a hostage, they're going to kill him if I don't open the door,' he says to ground control.

'Let her go, please, please I beg you, please,' he implores the hijackers through tears after they hold another passenger hostage.

The emotion is felt through the screen as the young co-pilot screams in fear and frustration while still managing to keep the plane on course.

In the trailer, which is a bit over a minute long, it seems that Tobias' central struggle is wanting to leave his small, and for the time being safe, enclave to assist the passengers.

At one point he gets on the P.A. system and tries to encourage the group to fight the terrorists themselves.

The pilot shouts: 'They don't have guns! They don't have knives! If you work together you can beat them!'

Flight plan: The emotion is felt through the screen as the young co-pilot screams in fear and frustration while still managing to keep the plane on course

Hostage: It seems that Tobias' central struggle is wanting to leave his small, and for the time being safe, enclave to assist the passengers

Casualties: Through the surveillance cameras, the pilot can see the destruction happening beyond the small cockpit

Expressly forbidden: Ground control repeatedly reminds the pilot that, under no circumstances, is he allowed to open the door of the cockpit

Authentic: For the production, Collider reported that the studio purchased a real plane, an Airbus, and 'manipulated the front third of the aircraft for filming'

At the end of the trailer, it seems as though the terrorists have succeeded in getting inside the cockpit and Gordon-Levitt is left bloody and panting while someone holds a bloody shard of glass toward his face.

For the production, Collider reported that the studio purchased a real plane, an Airbus, and 'manipulated the front third of the aircraft for filming.' The front third of the plane includes the first few rows of seats and the 'food-prep area.'

'The plane was then hoisted on a pneumatic rig that allowed it to be shaken by hand to simulate turbulence,' Collider said.

7500 streams on Amazon Prime Video on June 19.

The pilot shouts on the intercom to the passengers: 'They don't have guns! They don't have knives! If you work together you can beat them!'
LOUISVILLE, Ky.  U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie's primary opponent is calling attention to the GOP congressman's display of a Confederate battle flag at his Kentucky home when it was under construction 14 years ago.

Massie previously criticized his opponent, attorney Todd McMurtry, for reportedly posting racist tweets in the past. In an interview with local radio station WVXU on Monday, McMurtry responded to a question about the tweets by mentioning Massie's flag.

"I have personally seen photographs of Congressman Massie flying the Confederate flag over his Kentucky home, so him attacking me as a racist is pretty ironic," McMurtry said.

Massie started documenting the construction of his home in Garrison, about 104 miles northeast of Lexington, in 2003 through a blog titled "Building a timberframe home from scratch."

In posts from July, August, September and October of 2006, Massie posted photos of the house without an exterior covering in its early stages. Each photo, taken from outside of the house, features a Confederate battle flag hanging downward from a wooden frame next to a modern-day American flag, also hanging downward.

In this image from video, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks on the floor of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Friday, March 27, 2020. (House Television via AP)

Additionally, one photo from July 2006 shows a second Confederate flag hanging by the opposite side of the house.

Massie's staff did not respond to several phone calls and emails seeking comment on whether the flag is still displayed in the home and why the congressman put up the flag.

For many Americans, the Confederate flag represents racism, as the group consisted of southern slave-owning states. The flag has been displayed today by those who want to express southern pride and white supremacists alike, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which classifies the flag as a hate symbol.

The comments on the Confederate battle flag in Massie's home come as demonstrations have taken place across the United States demanding justice for those killed by police officers.

More: Marines order Confederate flags removed in ban that includes bumper stickers and clothing

Story continues

In response to these protests, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday that the statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy and a Kentucky native, should be removed from the Rotunda of the state Capitol building in Frankfort.

On Monday, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer removed an 107-year-old statue of Confederate soldier John Castleman from Cherokee Triangle, stating that "the events of the past weeks have shown clearly that its not enough just to face our history  weve got to address its impact on our present."

And in Virginia, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday that the statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate army and a Virginia native, "will be removed as soon as possible" from Richmond, the commonwealth's capital. The monument had been there for more than a century.

In the interview with the radio station, McMurtry also brought attention to Massie's defense of U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa with a history of racist remarks who lost his committee assignment in 2019 after questioning why white supremacy is considered offensive in an interview with The New York Times. King lost the Republican primary for his reelection last week to Iowa state Sen. Randy Feenstra.

"In my presence, he's never said anything racist, and so I'm not ready to censure a man based on a New York Times article," Massie told Fox Business Channel at the time.

The Kentucky congressman, who has served in the House of Representatives since 2012, has earned the reputation of "Mr. No" for the frequency with which he votes against legislation.

Massie was one of four representatives to vote against a House bill in February designed to make lynching a federal hate crime.

"I voted against (the bill) because the Constitution specifies only a handful of federal crimes, and leaves the rest to individual states to prosecute," Massie told The Courier Journal at the time. "In addition, this bill expands current federal 'hate crime' laws. A crime is a crime, and all victims deserve equal justice. Adding enhanced penalties for 'hate' tends to endanger other liberties such as freedom of speech."

Massie also voted against a coronavirus-relief package in April and threatened to hold up the vote on the CARES Act in March, earning him the wrath of President Donald Trump.

Massie also created a buzz during a radio interview on Thursday, in which he called many protesters demanding change in policing and racial inequities "violent looters and lawless criminals."

"Is there an articulate person among the group who are upset with the way things are going that can step up to a microphone and speak for all the people?" Massie asked in the interview. "I'm not seeing that person."

Follow Ben Tobin on Twitter @TobinBen.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie had Confederate battle flag in home
P rotesters have torn down a statue of Christopher Columbus, set it on fire, and thrown it into a lake during anti-racism demonstrations in Virginia.

Activists chanted tear it down as the depiction of the explorer, which had stood in the state capital Richmonds Byrd Park for 93 years, was pulled off its plinth with ropes.

The monument - the latest statue to a controversial historical figure to fall during protests this week - was then set alight and rolled into the nearby Fountain Lake.

Within hours of the incident, its defaced pedestal was home to a new symbol - a placard reading Columbus represents genocide - according to local paper the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Over 1,000 people are believed to have attended the demonstrations, initially planned to mark the struggles of both indigenous American peoples and African-Americans in the United States.

A sign was left in the monument's former pedestal in the Richmond park, reading: "Racism, you will not be missed" / AP

Activist Chelsea Higgs-Wise and other protesters spoke to a crowd earlier in the day, saying: "We have to start where it all began.

We have to start with the people who stood first on this land."

There was no police presence in the park, but a police helicopter was seen circling the area after the city-owned figure was torn down, the paper reported.

It remains unclear whether the Byrd Park protesters had planned to topple the 8-foot statue in advance.

Its toppling comes amid international anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd. It also follows the tearing down of statues to slave-owners and other historical figures perceived as oppressive around the globe.

A statue to slave-owner Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into Bristol Harbour during a BLM demonstration on Sunday / PA

They include a statue to slaver Edward Colston in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest at the weekend, a statue of Confederate general Williams Carter Wickham - which was pulled from its pedestal in Monroe Park by demonstrators who also used ropes - and a statue to colonialist Emperor Leopold II in Belgium.

The monument had been the first statue of Christopher Columbus erected in the South, according to the paper.

The Italian explorers famed transatlantic voyages unlocked the American continent for European colonisation in the following centuries. Some communities see him as a symbol of conquest and its ensuing violence.

Native American advocates have campaigned for various American states to re-name the countrys annual Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day over concerns that Columbus spurred centuries of genocide against indigenous populations in the Americas.

The city's parks department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the fallen statue.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 06:47:48|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to revise down the growth forecast for the Asia and Pacific region in a revised update to its World Economic Outlook (WEO) later this month, a senior IMF official said Tuesday.

"First quarter GDP growth turns mostly on the downside, with high-frequency indicators for April and May point to severe disruptions in the second quarter. China appears to be the main exception," IMF First Deputy Managing Director Geoffrey Okamoto told reporters at a virtual roundtable.

"Some countries also have had difficulty containing the pandemic spread, which has implications for their own economic outlook," said Okamoto, whose appointment as the multilateral lender's second-highest ranking official took effect in March.

Noting that the IMF is going to release an update to the WEO on June 24, Okamoto said that "we expect to revise down materially reflecting the mainly longer-than-expected lockdowns and increasingly negative global trade spillovers, partially offset by large stimulus in several countries."

In the latest WEO report released in April, the IMF projected growth in Asia to stall at zero percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lowest growth since the 1960s. China is expected to see moderate growth of 1.2 percent, according to the report.

In response to a question from Xinhua, the IMF first deputy managing director said at the roundtable that one thing China benefited from was "very clear, decisive action early on" to contain the spread of coronavirus within its country, and also "acting very quickly to put in place the policy support measures that would allow things to stabilize."

Noting that China is in the cycle a little bit earlier than other countries, Okamoto said that "we hope more countries end up in this category as time goes on," meaning that they could follow a path toward seeing growth on an "upward trend" in a few months.

"Obviously we're still in the thick of this, and in many areas, there are economies that are just starting to reopen as we speak. And some of them haven't yet. So it's too early to judge for many of them," Okamoto said.

Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, who also joined the roundtable, said as China implemented and started to ease lockdown policy a lot earlier, China's first quarter performance was in line with IMF expectation, but for many other Asian economies, the first quarter numbers were worse than expected.

For the second quarter, Rhee said that China also "cannot be immune from" the global trade slowdown, while noting that China's economy seems to "turn around" in general, even though at a low level. Enditem
Following the arrest of Nigerian-Dubai based socialite, Hushpuppi, many Nigerians have taken to several means to react to the news.

On Twitter, one of the top trends is Hushpuppi and on Google, one thing people are searching for is Hushpuppi.

The news of his arrest came as a shock to some while others expressed that, it was long overdue. Some users also hinted that he is innocent until proven guilty.

READ ALSO  Why Hushpuppi Was Arrested In Dubai  Kemi Olunloyo

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According to popular Nigerian investigative journalist, Kemi Olunloyo, Hushpuppi was arrested for fraud which the intel was shared by Nigerian secret services.

Here Are Some Reactions From Twitter:

Big ups to Interpol for arresting Hushpuppi , but other frauds like Glory Osei & Eden Hazard keep roaming the streets freely  machaala jnr (@kusssman) June 10, 2020

If Interpol ask Hushpuppi how many other fraudsters e know and e no mention Buhari, e fuck up.  Oloye. (@oloye__) June 10, 2020

Today is for Hushpuppi but while we are at this, let not forget that we are govern by mostly people who dont need to steal from American but from us daily. Right here under our own nose, Obasa was cleared by Lagos house of assembly of any wrong doing, Kalu is back to senate.  Olumide F Makanjuola (@O_Makanjuola) June 10, 2020

Today is for Hushpuppi but while we are at this, let not forget that we are govern by mostly people who dont need to steal from American but from us daily. Right here under our own nose, Obasa was cleared by Lagos house of assembly of any wrong doing, Kalu is back to senate.  Olumide F Makanjuola (@O_Makanjuola) June 10, 2020

I only hope Interpol will catch up with Mompha the same way they already did with Hushpuppi, this is the kind of energy we need. I've always told my friends, nothing illegal ever lasts, it might seem legit at first but it always ends up bad if you resist the urge to stop.  Bayo (@mr_adebayo5) June 10, 2020

https://twitter.com/qgatss/status/1270638535717027841?s=20

Am I the only one that feels like Hushpuppi will out a lot of people in Naija some Jeffery Epstein shit is about to go down we wait!  Michael Faya (@themichaelfaya) June 10, 2020
China's education ministry issues an advisory, warning of "discriminatory incidents" in Australia.

China has warned students to consider the risks of studying in Australia during the pandemic, aggravating a political row between the nations.

Its education ministry has issued the advisory to students before Australian universities reopen in July.

The ministry cited the threat of Covid-19 and discrimination against Asians as possible risks.

Australia's government and universities have rejected the idea the country is unsafe.

On Tuesday, Beijing said in a statement students should be "cautious"when choosing to go or return to Australia.

"The spread of the new global Covid-19 outbreak has not been effectively controlled, and there are risks in international travel and open campuses," the ministry said. "During the epidemic, there were multiple discriminatory incidents against Asians in Australia."

In response, Australian Education Minister Dan Tehan said the country was a "successful, multicultural society" which provides a "world-class education".

He also made reference to Australia's success in flattening its virus curve which meant that it was "one of the safest countries in the world for international students to be based in right now".

What are the broader tensions?

The advisory marks the latest escalation in tensions between China and Australia during the coronavirus pandemic.

Relations worsened after Australia echoed the US in calling for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, first detected in China late last year.

China has dismissed that call as politically motivated. It has since imposed a tariff and blocked shipments of some Australian imports, but has denied this is economic retaliation.

Last week, it also warned citizens against travelling to the country, saying there had been a "significant increase" in racist attacks on Asian people in Australia.

Education and tourism are Australia's third and fourth biggest exports overall, and significant contributors to the economy.

Students from China represented 28% of the more than 750,000 international students in Australia last year, government numbers show.

Australia's universities have already faced financial difficulties during the pandemic, as border closures have deterred international students. Several institutions have said they are facing financial crisis.

Australian universities could lose A$12bn ($8.3bn; 6.5bn) over the next two years if Chinese students decide against studying in the country, Prof Salvatore Babones at Sydney University has estimated.

Education 'the pawn in a political game'

Australia's Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said China's assertions about the dangers to tourists had "no basis in fact".

However, government bodies, community groups and media outlets have all catalogued hundreds of racist attacks and abuse on Asian people in Australia since the pandemic began.

In one of several high-profile incidents caught on film, a woman was accused of a racist attack on two students from the University of Melbourne in April.

On Wednesday, a coalition of Australia's leading universities called China's advisory "unjustified". The Group of Eight said they had asked the Chinese embassy in Australia for examples of racism, which were not provided.

"It is concerning that yet again, international education, and particularly with China, is yet again the pawn in a political game that is not of our making," said chief executive Vicki Thomson.

However, Australia's universities have long been accused by researchers of not providing better support to international students.

Surveys of Chinese students in Australia have found many struggle to develop stronger social bonds with their Australian-born peers due to existing prejudices. BBC
[June 09, 2020] Frontline Senior Care Worker Hits Divine Fortune Mega Jackpot For $130K At PlaySugarHouse.com

PHILADELPHIA, June 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A Heidelberg, Pennsylvania woman hit the Divine Fortune jackpot on PlaySugarHouse.com yesterday for almost $130 thousand. Jamie H. was playing the progressive online slot game on her mobile phone when she hit the jackpot for $129,931.43 with only a $2 bet. As the world begins to recover from the recent pandemic, frontline workers are still working tirelessly to protect their communities. The 32-year-old is an activities director at a senior living community where, she says, thankfully, no one has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. "We haven't stopped working since the beginning of the Coronavirus, and we're working even harder and longer than before it began," says Jamie. "This win is a big treat and I can't begin to describe how incredible it feels." She says she plans on using the winnings on home improvements, mostly, but will definitely take a nice vacation, too. "It is gratifying to see someone who has given so much to the community during these difficult times win a life changing jackpot," said Mattias Stetz, C.O.O. of Rush Street Interactive, which operates PlaySugarHouse.com. "This is one of many recent Divine Fortune jackpots which proves our players can win big, even when placing small bets." This is te fifteenth Divine Fortune jackpot at PlaySugarHouse.com in Pennsylvania since its launch last summer.



ABOUT RUSH STREET INTERACTIVE

Founded in 2012, Chicago-based Rush Street Interactive (RSI) launched its first betting site, PlaySugarHouse.com, in New Jersey in September 2016. The company subsequently made history by becoming the first operator in the United States to offer a fully integrated online sportsbook and casino. In addition, RSI was the first company to launch legal online sportsbooks both in Pennsylvania (PlaySugarHouse.com) and Indiana (BetRivers.com) as well as being the first to open a legal sportsbook in the state of New York (@ Rivers Casino in Schenectady) and, most recently, in Illinois (@ Rivers Casino in Des Plaines). RSI also operates in-casino sportsbooks at Rivers Casinos in Pittsburgh & Philadelphia and at the historic French Lick Resort in Indiana. BetRivers.com is also the exclusive official sportsbook partner for the Philadelphia Flyers & Wells Fargo Center. RSI was the first US-based gaming operator to launch a legal and regulated online sportsbook in Latin America (Rushbet.co in Colombia). Rush Street Interactive is also the developer and operator of a leading social gaming platform currently deployed at the group's affiliated land-based casinos and selected third party partners. Rush Street Interactive was named "Mobile Operator of the Year" in North America at the EGR North America Awards 2019 and "American Operator of the Year" & "Casino Operator of the Year" at the American Gambling Awards in 2019. For more information, visit rushstreetinteractive.com.

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/frontline-senior-care-worker-hits-divine-fortune-mega-jackpot-for-130k-at-playsugarhousecom-301073342.html SOURCE Rush Street Interactive

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MORGAN CITY, La., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Conrad Industries, Inc. (OTC Pink: CNRD) announced today that its subsidiary, Conrad Shipyard, LLC, has entered into a contract to construct a 6,500-cubic-yard-capacity Trailing Suction Hopper Dredge with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation ("Great Lakes"). The contract gives Great Lakes the option to build an additional dredge should market conditions warrant. The dredge will be constructed at the Deepwater South shipyard in Amelia, LA with expected delivery in the first quarter of 2023.

Johnny Conrad, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer commented, "Great Lakes has been a valued customer of Conrad, and we are honored to have been chosen to construct this highly automated vessel to complement Great Lakes' existing fleet. We look forward to working with the Great Lakes' team to provide another quality vessel to serve the US dredging market."

Conrad Industries, Inc., established in 1948 and headquartered in Morgan City, Louisiana, designs, builds and overhauls tugboats, ferries, liftboats, barges, offshore supply vessels and other steel and aluminum products for both the commercial and government markets. The company provides both repair and new construction services at its five shipyards located in southern Louisiana and Texas.

For Information Contact:

Cecil Hernandez (985) 702-0195

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SOURCE Conrad Industries, Inc.

Related Links

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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 15:50 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd9e33c 1 National KPK,Corruption-Eradication-Comission,Firli-Bahuri,salary,ICW,Indonesia-Corruption-Watch Free

Antigraft activists have criticized the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for discussing a salary increase for its leadership even as polls show declining public faith in the antigraft agency.

KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri said the KPK had conducted a virtual meeting with the Law and Human Rights Ministry on May 29 to discuss a revision of the government regulation on the salaries of the KPK chairman and his four deputy deputies.

Ali said the KPK did not initiate the meeting to discuss the raise.

Out of respect for the invitation [from the Law and Human Rights Ministry], we attended the meeting and delivered the chairpersons direction that the discussion be left entirely to the government whether the preparation [for the salary raise] will continue, Ali said in a written statement on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, the antigraft watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) criticized the fact that the KPK had discussed the raise directly with the ministry as it posed huge potential for a conflict of interest.

ICW activist Kurnia Ramadhana said that any salary increase would not be proportional to their performance, citing a recent survey from Jakarta-based pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia that found that public faith in the KPK had declined by seven percentage points to 74.3 percent compared with 81.3 percent in February.

The decline in public trust cannot be separated from the leadership of [KPK chair] Firli Bahuri, which has been severely lacking in achievement. The public has seen too many controversies from the KPK, Kurnia said in a written statement published on Tuesday.

Read also: 100 days of blunders: Watchdog slams new KPK chairman's performance

He added that the salary should not be raised during the COVID-19 outbreak.

As public officials, the KPK leaders must understand and realize that the handling of the COVID-19 outbreak requires an enormous allocation of funds, so now is not the time to think about yourself with this request for a raise, he said.

Kurnia urged KPK leaders to publicly reject the pay rise deliberation, adding that the raise should be given to the next elected chair and commissioners if discussions were to continue.

Government Regulation No. 82/2015 stipulates a monthly income of Rp 123.9 million (US$8,783) for the KPK chair, comprising a Rp 5 million base salary and Rp 118.9 million in benefits. The four deputy chairs each receive Rp 112.6 million monthly, consisting of a base salary of Rp 4.6 million and Rp 108 million in benefits.
Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan has mocked Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, over the confirmation ...





Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan has mocked Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, over the confirmation that he is COVID-19 positive.





Ikpeazu on Tuesday confirmed he tested positive for coronavirus.





His confirmation came days after some of his aides tested positive.





Reacting, Omokri took to his Twitter page on Wednesday prayed that the Governor recovers both in his body and senses after he alleged that Abia State cannot have COVID-19.

The former Presidential Spokesman wrote: It is almost poetic, that Ikpeazu, who said Abia State cannot get COVID19 because it is the only state named in the Scripture, now himself has coronavirus.





Religiosity is a poor substitute for faith. I pray he recovers, both in his body and in his senses!





If Israel that is mentioned in almost all the 66 books of the Bible could get coronavirus, why would Governor Ikpeazu think that Abia, that is questionably mentioned once, would not get it?





May God deliver Ikpeazu from COVID-19 and COVIDIOT19!
Photo: Brendan Kergin

As protests around police brutality continue in Canada and abroad, the T?ilhqotin Nation in B.C.'s Interior is calling on the federal government and RCMP to take action on systemic racism.

In a press release from the T?ilhqotin National Government, the First Nation notes this is not a new problem and First Nations communities have been calling for change for years.

"This systemic racism is killing our people," reads the release. "First Nations in Canada have been coming forward to share their stories of racism and police brutality."

They note recent incidents are part of a longtime issue, including an "encounter" between Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam in Fort McMurray in March and the death of Nuu-chah-nulth woman Chantal Moore. The 22-year-old was the subject of a wellness check in New Brunswick by RCMP; it ended with her being reportedly shot five times.

"This is not new, but recent events have provided the opportunity for our people to come forward with their experiences of injustice," says Chief Joe Alphonse in the release. "Like many other First Nations across Canada, we have had serious issues when it comes to the RCMP."

He specifically refers to incidents during the 2017 wildfires.

"The RCMP threatened to take our children from our homes when we refused to evacuate our community and stayed to fight the fires ourselves. They failed to understand our Indigenous rights and authority," he says. "Further, they failed to understand the sensitivity of communicating in such a manner given our peoples history with residential schools."

He states more training is needed by the federal force, to better understand Indigenous people and the biases internal to institutions like the RCMP.
By PTI

LONDON: Neil Basu, Scotland Yard's Indian-origin Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing, issued a personalised message on Wednesday, calling on his police colleagues across the UK to stand up to racists amidst protests against the killing of George Floyd in the US.

He referenced his own mixed Indian and white British heritage as he responded to a series of anti-racism Black Lives Matter' protests in London and across Britain over the weekend in the wake of the killing of Floyd - a 46-year-old black man who was pinned to the ground by a white police officer as he gasped for breath in the US city of Minneapolis, triggering worldwide protests.

Personally I see this as a time to stand up  stand up to racists, to inequality and injustice, Basu, a Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, said as he acknowledged the choice made by some of his police colleagues to take the knee  a symbol of solidarity with the Justice for George Floyd movement around the world.

We can be better than this, and we must be better than this. There can be no better sight than watching people of many different faiths, nationalities and colour, standing together in peace against injustice. At the height of probably the greatest fear some of our communities have ever known, this is a time to stand together, he said, in reference to the coronavirus pandemic.

Basu traced his history with the Met Police as being among the early ethnic minority recruits and highlighted the racism issues faced by the force over the years.

However, he stressed that the important Stephen Lawrence Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson into the killing of a black man in the UK in 1993 had transformed policing in the country for the better.

I have worn the badge proudly for 28 years. I also happen to be of a mixed Indian and white British heritage, which means that I am the most senior BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) officer in the UK, he said.

The damning findings and recommendations of that inquiry are etched into the fabric of UK policing's history - but the positive outcomes, hard won are real The death of George Floyd horrified us all and rightly so.

All the good cops I know - regardless of heritage - were also horrified, but for many of my BAME colleagues I suspect this has been a particularly shattering week. At least, that's how I feel, he said.

Striking a contrast between the style of policing in the US, which relies on force, and in the UK, which follows policing by consent, Basu urged his fellow officers to tackle the legitimate anger, manifesting itself in different ways, with nuance and care.

The way George died represented the worst of policing and will forever be a totemic image of racial injustice in America.

His last words I can't breathe ' have become an anthem, and I desperately hope this is their moment for change, as Stephen's senseless murder and the Inquiry by Macpherson were for the UK policing.

We cannot directly compare policing in the UK to that of our counterparts in the USA.

But what we are seeing in America, and here in the UK, too, is anger directed not just at police brutality but the racial bias built into the very fabric of our institutions and society  perhaps best illustrated in the UK by the huge disparity in young black men in the criminal justice system, he said.

Basu, who is one of the UK's senior-most police officials and a representative of the National Police Chief's Council, stressed that his personal heartfelt message was aimed at highlighting the need for compassion and understanding.

In the days to come, if you're working alongside a BAME colleague please take the time to check how they are.

And if you are one of my BAME colleagues please know that whether you feel ok and able to get on with life, or you feel like you have been deeply affected  your feelings are valid.

If you feel like you need help or support, please do not be afraid to ask for it, he said.

As many as 36 people were arrested following violent clashes between what the Met Police said were a small minority of demonstrators and police officers, 35 of whom reported injuries as bottles and fireworks were hurled at them during two consecutive days of widespread protests on Saturday and Sunday.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel have made repeated interventions this week to condemn the violence while showing solidarity with the anti-racism message of Black Lives Matter.
Stay-at-home orders and "lockdowns" related to the COVID-19 pandemic have had a major impact on the daily lives of people around the world and that includes the way that people sleep, two studies report June 10 in the journal Current Biology. Both studies show that relaxed school and work schedules and more time spent at home has led people to sleep more on average with less "social jetlag" as indicated by a reduced shift in sleep timing and duration on work days versus free days. But, at the same time, one of the studies also finds that the pandemic has taken a toll when it comes to self-reported sleep quality.

"Usually, we would expect a decrease in social jetlag to be associated with reports of improved sleep quality," says sleep researcher and cognitive neuroscientist Christine Blume (@christine_blume) from the University of Basel's Centre for Chronobiology, Switzerland. "However, in our sample, overall sleep quality decreased. We think that the self-perceived burden, which substantially increased during this unprecedented COVID-19 lockdown, may have outweighed the otherwise beneficial effects of a reduced social jetlag."

In their study, Blume and colleagues including Marlene Schmidt and Christian Cajochen explored the effects of the strictest phase of the COVID-19 lockdown on the relationship between social and biological rhythms as well as sleep during a six-week period from mid-March until end of April 2020 in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Their data showed that the lockdown reduced the mismatch between social and biological sleep-wake timing as people began working from home more and sleeping more regular hours from day to day. People also slept about 15 minutes longer each night. However, the self-reported data indicated a perception that sleep quality had declined.

In the other study, Kenneth Wright at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory and colleagues asked similar questions by comparing sleep prior to and during Stay-at-Home orders in 139 university students as they shifted from taking their classes in-person to taking them remotely. As the team reports, nightly sleep duration increased by about 30 minutes during weekdays and 24 minutes on weekends. The timing of sleep also became more regular from day to day, and there was less social jetlag.

Students stayed up about 50 minutes later while staying home during weekdays and about 25 minutes later on weekends. Students that tended to sleep less before the effects of COVID-19 took hold showed the greatest increase in the amount of sleep after they stopped going to in-person classes. After the Stay-at-Home orders went into effect, 92 percent of students got the recommended 7 hours or more of sleep per night, up from 84 percent before.

"Insufficient sleep duration, irregular and late sleep timing, and social jetlag are common in modern society and such poor sleep health behaviors contribute to and worsen major health and safety problems, including heart disease and stroke, weight gain and obesity, diabetes, mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, substance abuse, and impaired immune health, as well as morning sleepiness, cognitive impairment, reduced work productivity, poor school performance and risk of accident/drowsy driving crashes," Wright said. "Our findings provide further evidence that poor sleep behaviors are modifiable in university students. A better understanding of which factors during Stay-at-Home orders contributed to changed sleep health behaviors may help to develop sleep health intervention strategies."

"Not surprisingly, this unprecedented situation of the pandemic and the lockdown increased self-perceived burden and had adverse effects on sleep quality," Blume said. "On a positive note, though, the relaxation of social schedules also led to an improved alignment between external or social factors determining our sleep-wake timing and our body's internal biological signals. This was also associated with overall, more sleep."

From a sleep health perspective, the increase in sleep duration and regularity are welcome changes, say the researchers. For those having trouble with sleep quality, Blume suggests engaging in physical activity under the open sky.

###

Current Biology, Blume and Schmidt et al.: "Effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on human sleep and rest-activity rhythms" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30837-X DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.021

Current Biology, Wright Jr. et al.: "Sleep in University Students Prior to and During COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30838-1 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.022

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.
The police crackdown to clear protesters from Lafayette Square last week looms as a defining moment in the national debate over race and law enforcement that followed the death of George Floyd.

An exclusive USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds Americans overwhelmingly endorse the right of peaceful protest outside the White House  a view held by nearly 9 of 10 people across racial and partisan lines. Nearly 9 of 10 heard about the clashes that cleared demonstrators before President Donald Trump walked across the square to stand in front of historic St. John's Church, holding aloft a Bible.

In their wake, Americans by a huge margin, by 22 percentage points, express more trust in the Black Lives Matter movement to promote justice and racial equality than they do in the president of the United States. Former President Barack Obama is more than twice as likely as Trump to be seen as a president who could best handle this moment of civil unrest.

Step by step: How police pushed aside protesters before Trump's controversial church photo

A woman walks past a "Black Lives Matter" mural painted on the boarded-up Apple Store, June 6, 2020, in Boston.

Two-thirds of Americans, 63%, oppose the show of force that swept the protesters from the park just north of the White House, the scene of many demonstrations in the past. Almost half, 44%, say they "strongly" oppose it.

"That was a bad call," says Aaron Jones, 40, a Republican from Katy, Texas.

Charles Ritt, 56, a Democrat from Roseville, Minnesota, who watched the scene unfold on TV, called it "disgusting and ridiculous."

Some of those surveyed side with law enforcement.

"That's kind of sad that force had to be used," says Jane Gillespie, 26, a Republican from Glendale, Arizona. "But it seemed like they felt like there was a threat to the president, and that's why they were acting the way they did."

Thirty percent of those surveyed, including 50% of Republicans, support the use of rubber bullets and tear gas in the park.

The online poll of 1,113 adults, taken Monday and Tuesday, has a credibility interval, akin to a margin of error, of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Story continues

Divisions along racial and especially partisan lines remain, including when it comes to finding the right balance between protecting peaceful protests and ensuring law and order. Americans are split down the middle: 45% say law and order should be the priority, 44% say the right to protest should be the priority.

Biden more trusted to promote justice

The poll underscores the degree to which the president's provocative comments about the demonstrations in particular and the issue of racial justice in general seem out of step with the mood of the country.

The poll was in the field when Trump posted a controversial tweet Tuesday that promoted an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about a 75-year-old protester who was pushed to the ground and injured by police in Buffalo, New York.

Officers charged: 2 Buffalo cops charged with assault after video shows officers shoving 75-year-old man to the ground

Mike Desmond, 75, a protester falls to the ground after being shoved by Buffalo, N.Y., police, on June 4 after Buffalo's curfew went into effect.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans say they trust Trump to promote justice and equal treatment for people of all races  much lower than the Black Lives Matter movement, trusted by 60%, or the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, trusted by 51%.

Asked to choose among the current president and the four former presidents who are living, 45% of Americans identify Obama as the one best suited to handle the challenges. Twenty percent choose Trump.

Among Democrats, 75% choose Obama. Among Republicans, 43% choose Trump, lower than the support he and his actions generally command within the GOP. Eighteen percent of Republicans choose former President George W. Bush and 15% choose Obama.

"I think it speaks volumes that the (former) presidents have kind of unified and that so much of the country is unified in its feeling," says Brittany Baca, 31, a Democrat from Oregon City, Oregon, referring to public statements issued by former presidents expressing support for the protesters. Trump "is making opposite, opposing statements" that she calls "atrocious."

Baca, the daughter of a police officer, says cellphone videos showing police violence against Floyd and other African Americans were an awakening for her and others. "It just breaks our hearts to hear what's going on in the country," she says in a follow-up phone interview. "This feels terrible to say, but it's really opened our eyes to the fact that it's happening."

Mostly peaceful or mostly violent?

On some questions, the partisan divide is yawning.

Three-fourths of Democrats, 73%, say the protests after Floyd's death have been mostly peaceful; a 54% majority of Republicans say they have been mostly violent.

Two-thirds of Democrats, 65%, say the right to protest is the most important thing to ensure, "even if it means there are some incidents of violence." Two-thirds of Republicans, 69%, say law and order is the most important thing to ensure, "even if it means limiting peaceful protests."

Three-fourths of Democrats, 75%, oppose the idea of deploying U.S. military forces to states in the wake of the Lafayette Square protest. Two-thirds of Republicans, 68%, support the idea.

"Views toward George Floyd's killing and the subsequent protests tell a tale of two Americas," says Cliff Young, president of Ipsos. "The vast difference of opinions and experiences here highlight not only a deep racial divide but one based on partisanship."

There are jarring differences along partisan lines about what institutions and forces can be trusted to promote justice and equal treatment. Republicans most trust the U.S. military (89%) and police and law enforcement (79%). Democrats most trust Black Lives Matter (84%) and Joe Biden (78%).

The divide is also racial. Black people express much lower levels of trust in police and law enforcement than white people do, 28% compared with 65%.

A solid majority of Americans agree on some basics. Sixty percent say Floyd was murdered; just 2% say the police officer "did nothing wrong." Sixty-five percent support the protests that followed, and 87% support protesting peacefully outside the White House.

Ten days after demonstrators were cleared from Lafayette Square, it continues to be a center of protest activity. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser renamed a section of the street "Black Lives Matter Plaza," and a makeshift shrine to Floyd covers part of an expanded security fence that was erected around the White House.

"By protesting and reacting, that shows me that people still have a sense of humanity about them, and they believe ... that their expression of how they feel and what they think can still have the desired effect," says Maira Nigam, 62, a Democrat from Stamford, Connecticut, though she adds with a touch of skepticism: "So they still have hope. We'll see if that holds up."

'Not acceptable': USA TODAY Network reporter covering George Floyd protest detained in Delaware

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trust high in Black Lives Matter; photo op defining moment for Trump
Gordon Klein, an accounting professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, says he was placed on involuntary leave after students slammed him as being racist and dismissive for questioning a request to be lenient on black students given the George Floyd protests

A UCLA professor who was suspended and accused of being 'woefully racist' after he refused a request to effectively cancel final exams for black students amid the George Floyd protests says his record is 'pristine' and that he has hired a lawyer.

Gordon Klein, an accounting professor at the university's Anderson School of Management, says he was placed on involuntary leave after students slammed him as being racist and dismissive for questioning the request to be lenient on black students.

Klein says he has been subjected to ongoing threats after an email exchange he had with students about the request was posted online.

A Change.org petition calling for him to be fired has also attracted more than 20,000 signatures.

The petition calls for support in having Klein's employment terminated for his 'extremely insensitive, dismissive, and woefully racist response to his students' request for empathy and compassion during a time of civil unrest'.

Klein told Fox Business on Wednesday that he had hired an attorney following his suspension.

He has denied any suggestion of discrimination.

'My record is pristine when it comes to any accusations relating to alleged discrimination,' he said.

'I love UCLA and would like to return to what I've done for 39 years.'

In separate comments to NBC News, Klein said he had always provided compassionate treatment for students facing unique stresses during final exams but that he was following orders from his supervisor.

'In 39 years of teaching, there are hundreds of students who can attest that I have given them compassion, encouragement and support,' he said. 'I sympathize with anyone who at any time feels anguish or pain.'

The university said in a statement that Klein's classes had been reassigned while reports of his alleged conduct were investigated.

Klein says he has been subjected to ongoing threats after an email exchange he had with students about the request was posted online. A Change.org petition calling for him to be fired has also attracted more than 20,000 signatures

Protesters gather during a march down Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles on Sunday

The saga unfolded after students, who described themselves as 'non-black allies', wrote to Klein asking him to effectively cancel final exams for their black peers given the current civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd's death.

The students had requested a 'no-harm' final exam that could only benefit students' grades, for shortened exams and extended deadlines for final assignments and projects.

The students wrote that, in light of recent 'traumas, we have been placed in a position where we much choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter'.

'We believe that remaining neutral in times of injustice brings power to the oppressor and therefore staying silent is not an option,' they wrote.

Klein replied and denied their request for leniency.

'Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota,' he wrote.

'Do you know the names of the classmates that are black? How can I identify them since we've been having online classes only?

'Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?'

Klein asked the students whether any of them - black or otherwise - were from Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed at the hands of police on May 25.

'I assume that they probably are especially devastated as well,' he wrote. 'I am thinking that a white student from there might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they're racist even if they are not.

'My TA (teaching assistant) is from Minneapolis, so if you don't know, I can probably ask her.'

Klein asked how he was expected to implement the 'no-harm' exam, given the course was solely graded on the final exam.

He ended his email with a quote from Martin Luther King.

Protesters and police officers meet at a police road barricade on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood on Sunday. An estimated 20,000 people attended the march

'One last thing strikes me: Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the 'color of their skin,'' he wrote. 'Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK's admonition? Thanks, G. Klein.'

In a separate email to his entire class, Klein said that outside events, including personal hardship, do not necessarily relieve students of their responsibilities.

He gave the example of his daughter, who suffered a severe illness and lost close friends to suicide during her time at UCLA, but still completed course work.

'Some students have asked that the final exam be delayed or changed or waived altogether,' he told the class.

'Life deals all of us challenges and I have no doubt that many of you are facing some now.

'In a perfectly fair world, I would be able to take these individual factors into account and perhaps modify the terms in our course syllabus, but my understanding of university rules is that, with rare exceptions, I should not.'

Students slammed his response, saying it was unreasonable given it was a valid request.

Following outrage from students, the dean of Anderson School of Business, Antonio Bernardo, sent an email out on Monday calling Klein's behavior 'troubling'.

'Respect and equality for all are core principles at UCLA Anderson,' a spokesman for the school said.

'It is deeply disturbing to learn of this email, which we are investigating. We apologize to the student who received it and to all those who have been as upset and offended by it as we are ourselves.'

Those speaking out in defense of Klein said he was within his First Amendment rights to send the response.

Lawyer Katlyn Patton, who works for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the organization had sent a letter to UCLA on Wednesday demanding Klein be reinstated.

'Klein has significant rights to manage the content and direction of his course and his disagreement with the students' reasoning does not amount to harassment or unlawful discrimination,' Patton said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 02:11:10|Editor: huaxia

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, on June 9, 2020. Erdogan on Tuesday announced further easing of the restrictions against the COVID-19 pandemic as Turkey has entered a normalization process. (Photo by Mustafa Kaya/Xinhua)

ANKARA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday announced further easing of the restrictions against the COVID-19 pandemic as Turkey has entered a normalization process.

"It is a fact that we have survived with the least loss of lives, restrictions, and economic difficulties compared to Europe," Erdogan said at a press conference after a cabinet meeting.

"I want to remind you of the fact that we need to organize our lives with masks, distance and hygiene until the root (of the virus) is scraped," he added.

Turkish citizens aged 65 and older were permitted to go outdoors every day while the curfew for those under the age of 18 has been lifted, according to the president.

Marriage halls will open on June 15, while cinemas, theaters and wedding halls on July 1. The closing time of businesses, such as restaurants and cafes, has been extended from 10 p.m. to the midnight.

The novel coronavirus cases in Turkey increased by 993 to 172,114 in the past 24 hours, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted Tuesday.

Meanwhile, 18 more people died, taking the death toll to 4,729, while 3,218 patients have recovered, raising the total recoveries to 144,598, Koca said.

A total of 642 patients are being treated in intensive care units, and 281 intubated, he added.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case on March 11 and started normalization from June 1.

Turkey and China have supported each other in the fight against COVID-19. Chinese doctors and medical experts held a video conference with Turkish counterparts to share China's experiences in treating coronavirus patients, protecting medical workers, and controlling the spread of the virus. Enditem
By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA, June 10 (Reuters) - Canada's political consensus over help for those hit by the coronavirus outbreak began to fray on Wednesday when a government official complained the opposition was blocking a proposed expansion of benefits.

The move could spell trouble for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals, who need the support of other parties to govern. Legislators have so far been united, approving aid programs worth more than C$160 billion ($119 billion) in direct spending, or around 7% of gross domestic product.

But the three opposition parties, citing concerns over how the money is being spent and a push by Trudeau to slash the number of times Parliament meets, are resisting a Liberal appeal to quickly adopt draft legislation boosting the programs.

"The other parties have not agreed to do this and this is very unfortunate," said Pablo Rodriguez, the minister charged with pushing legislation through the House of Commons.

"I'm calling on (them) to set politics aside," he told reporters, saying he hoped to find a compromise.

The legislation would expand benefits for the disabled and seasonal workers while punishing those cheating the system.

The New Democrats say such penalties would hurt the most vulnerable. The official opposition Conservatives want legislators to meet more often while the Bloc Quebecois are demanding a fiscal update.

"If (Trudeau) wants us to trust him, he needs to open up those books," Bloc leader Yves-Francois Blanchet told reporters. Trudeau says the situation is too uncertain to make forecasts.

Rodriguez sidestepped a question as to whether Trudeau - who barely held onto power last October - would press for a quick election. Insiders and analysts say Trudeau has little chance of cashing in soon on his popularity with voters.

The total number of Canadian deaths linked to the coronavirus rose to 7,897 on Tuesday from 7,835 on Monday, data showed. ($1 = 1.3415 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by David Ljunggren)
Recognizing the incredibly thin margins safety net hospitals operate on, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will distribution nearly $5 million in Provider Relief Funds to the states safety-net hospitals serving the most vulnerable citizens.

The payment is being sent directly to these hospitals via direct deposit this week, according to a news release. Across the nation, more than $10 billion is being delivered to safety net hospitals this week.

Healthcare providers who focus on treating the most vulnerable Americans, including low-income and minority patients, are absolutely essential to our fight against COVID-19, said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. HHS is using funds from Congress, secured by President Trump, to provide new targeted help for Illinois safety-net providers and clinicians.

HHS is providing support to healthcare providers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic through the bipartisan CARES Act and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which allocated $175 billion in relief funds to hospitals and other healthcare providers, including those disproportionately impacted by this pandemic.

Qualification for these safety-net hospitals to receive payment was based on:

 a Medicare Disproportionate Payment Percentage of 20.2% or greater;

 average Uncompensated Care per bed of $25,000 or more. For example, a hospital with 100 beds would need to provide $2.5 million in Uncompensated Care in a year to meet this requirement;

 profitability of 3% or less, as reported to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in its most recently filed cost report.

Recipients received a minimum distribution of $5 million and a maximum distribution of $50 million.

HHS also said it was opening an enhanced portal to allow Medicaid and Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) providers participating in state Medicaid and CHIP programs and expects to distribute approximately $15 billion to eligible providers that have not received a payment from the Provider Relief Fund General Allocation.
Qurban Mamut disappeared in 2017, a few months after visiting his son Bahram Qurban in the United States. It is not clear whether he is in prison or in a concentration camp. For the United Nations, one million Uyghurs are arbitrarily detained. Often the Chinese authorities arrest the families of Uyghurs who live abroad.

Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - An Uyghur journalist whose whereabouts has not been known for three years is in detention. This is what Radio Free Asia learned from an employee of the Public Culture Office of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

Qurban Mamut went missing in November 2017, a few months after visiting his son Bahram Qurban in the United States. It is unclear whether the former editor of the Xinjiang Cultural Journal is in prison or in an internment camp.

According to the United Nations, over one million Uyghurs (out of a population of nearly 10 million) and other Turkic-speaking minorities of Islamic faith are arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang, which the local population calls "Eastern Turkestan".

Beijing denies these accusations, and replies that these people are housed in professional education and assistance centers to combat terrorism, separatism and Islamic extremism. Human rights activists, and many governments in the West, describe them as real concentration camps that aim to destroy the cultural identity of the Uyghur ethnic group in favor of the Han majority in the country.

Bahram Qurban raised the alarm for the disappearance of his father in October 2018. He claimed to have learned from family and acquaintances that Mamut had been arrested and interned in some camp in Xinjiang. For Bahram, his fathers dentention is due to the fact that the authorities of the Chinese Communist Party often arrest the family members of the Uyghurs who live abroad to exercise a form of control over them.
A group calling itself Lawyers In Search of Democracy (LINSOD) has accused think thank Danquah Institute (DI) of turning itself into a propaganda entity for the Electoral Commission regarding the compilation of a new voters' register.

In a statement signed by its spokesperson George Loh, LINSO recalled that on Monday, 1 June 2020, DI organised a press conference at which it accused the EC of failing to give clarity through its communications pertaining to the voter registration and other election-related controversies and that this has allowed propaganda to be peddled by persons opposed to what the Electoral Commission has proposed to do.

In the first place, LINSOD said: It is befuddling that the Danquah Institute would perceive the National House of Chiefs and the various civil society organisations that have raised genuine concerns about this issue as mere propagandists doing the bidding of anti-government interests.

Read LINSODs full statement below:

A RESPONSE TO THE PROPAGANDA BEING PEDDLED BY THE DANQUAH INSTITUTE IN RESPECT OF THE USE OF AN EXISTING VOTERS IDENTITY CARD FOR REGISTRATION AS A VOTER

On Monday, 1st June 2020 the Danquah Institute (a pro-NPP think tank) organized a press conference at which it accused the Electoral Commission of failing to give clarity through its communications pertaining to the voter registration and other election-related controversies and that this has allowed propaganda to be peddled by persons opposed to what the Electoral Commission has proposed to do.

In the first place, it is befuddling that the Danquah Institute would perceive the National House of Chiefs and the various civil society organisations that have raised genuine concerns about this issue as mere propagandists doing the bidding of anti-government interests. It is equally surprising that the Danquah Institute ignored the fact that this issue is currently sub judice at the Supreme Court. Any responsible group of people would have refrained from making prejudicial and contumacious statements on issues that the court is currently seized with.

Among other things, the Danquah Institute stated that in the Abu Ramadan case, the Supreme Court had decided that an old voters identification card cannot be used for fresh registration of a voter in a new voters register. The Danquah Institute then proceeded to state that the Electoral Commission ought to have informed the Ghanaian public that it is based on the Supreme Courts judgment in the Abu Ramadan case that the Electoral Commission is compelled to exclude an existing voters identity card as a qualifying document for registration. Clearly, this is propaganda by the Danquah Institute since the Supreme Court never made any such pronouncement. The Danquah Institute must realize that the Electoral Commission is a public body and as such, it cannot engage in the kind of deceptive propaganda urged upon it by the Danquah Institute.

Unlike the Danquah Institute, we are responsible persons so we shall not delve into the issues that are sub judice at the Supreme Court. However, we shall merely set the record straight on the actual decisions of the Supreme Court in the Abu Ramadan cases. There were four Abu Ramadan cases that were pronounced upon by the Supreme Court between 2014 and 2016, all before the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.

In the Abu Ramadan (No.1) case [1] , the Supreme Court accepted the plaintiffs argument that it would be unconstitutional for the Electoral Commission to use the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card as proof of qualification to register as a voter under regulation 1(3)(d) of CI 72. However, the Supreme Court rejected the argument by the plaintiffs to the effect that it would be unconstitutional for the Electoral Commission to use an existing voter identity card as proof of qualification to register as a voter under regulation 1(3)(e) of CI 72. The Supreme Court left no room for doubt on this issue when the Court, speaking through her Ladyship, Georgina Wood CJ, stated as follows:

The critical requirements which are clearly stated on the old voter registration card include the age and citizenship status of the applicant. It may, indeed, be legitimately argued that for all practical purposes, the old voter card is the best prima facie evidence of an applicants eligibility under CI 72. [2]

In both the Abu Ramadan (No.2) case [3] as well as the Abu Ramadan (No. 3) case [4] , the issue of whether or not an existing voter identity card is enough proof of qualification to register as a voter when a new register is to be compiled, was never presented to the Supreme Court and neither did any of the issues have anything to do with an existing voter identity card as proof of eligibility to register to vote. Indeed, in the Abu Ramadan (No.2) case, the Supreme Court itself had this to say, speaking through Gbadegbe JSC, about the outcome of its decision and order in the Abu Ramadan (No.1) case:

The said order clearly was a direction which affected the first respondent Electoral Commission, of which, we would observe, complied therewith by excluding the utilization of the National Health Insurance (NHI) card as a qualification to register in regulation 1(3) of the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2016 (CI 91) which came into force on 18th March, 2016. [5] (The emphasis is mine)

Notably, per regulation 1(3)(d) of the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations, 2016 (CI 91), an existing voter identity card has been retained as sufficient proof of eligibility to register to vote, yet the Supreme Court observed that CI 91 had sufficiently complied with its decision and consequential order in the Abu Ramadan (No.1) case.

Equally significant is the fact that the Abu Ramadan (No.3) case merely sought clarification of the decision and orders of the Supreme Court in the Abu Ramadan (No.2) case, yet no mention was made of the clearly settled issue of whether or not an existing voter identity card suffices as proof of eligibility to register to vote when a new register is to be compiled by the same electoral commission. Indeed, in the Abu Ramadan (No.3) case, the Electoral Commission was ordered by the Supreme Court to submit a list of names of voters who used unconstitutional means of proving eligibility to be registered as voters in the voters register. The Electoral Commission obeyed the said order by submitting a list of 56,739 names to the Supreme Court. All those names concerned people who had used the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card as proof of qualification to register as voters. In that case, too, the Supreme Court made no order relating to the use of an existing voter identity card as proof of eligibility to register to vote. In the end, the cleaning of the voter register was done in respect of deceased persons and people who had registered by the use of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card as proof of their qualification to register as voters.

Finally, in the Abu Ramadan (No. 4) case [6] , the Supreme Court itself summoned some contemnors to show cause why they should not be committed to prison for contempt of court for scandalizing the court. Obviously, the Abu Ramadan (No. 4) case had nothing to do with the use of an existing voter identity card as proof of eligibility to register to vote. Indeed, the decision of the Supreme Court in the Abu Ramadan (No. 4) case is the very reason why the Danquah Institute ought not to have acted so contumaciously by organizing a press conference to play propaganda on an issue that is sub judice in the same Supreme Court. It remains our prayer that the Supreme Court would take judicial notice of the contumacy of the Danquah Institute and set them as another example of what not to do when a matter is sub judice.

From the foregoing, it has become clear that whilst the Danquah Institute was hypocritically accusing other people of doing propaganda against the Electoral Commission, the real propagandist in this situation is the Danquah Institute itself. It remains our hope that if even the contumacy of the Danquah Institute escapes the radar of the Supreme Court, the said politically-aligned think tank would refrain from all attempts to obfuscate issues before any court through press conferences. We hope that the Danquah Institute and its surrogates would endeavour to act responsibly by not fomenting confusion in pending cases such that should the court decide the case in a way contrary to the propaganda they have churned out to the public, the courts prestige and respect would not be diminished in the eyes of right-thinking members of society.

Issued by Lawyers In Search Of Democracy [LINSOD]

Group Spokesperson

George Loh ESq.

0244257126

[1] [2013-2014] 2 SCGLR 1654

[2] Ibid at pages 1677 to 1678

[3] [2015-2016] 1 SCGLR 1

[4] [2015-2016] 1 SCGLR 77

[5] [2015-2016] 1 SCGLR 1 at page 40

[6] [2015-2016] 1 SCGLR 1
Central business district in Singapore in Phase 1 of the post COVID-19 circuit breaker period. (PHOTO: Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  Fines were issued to 58 businesses and individuals during the first week of Phase 1 in the post-COVID-19 circuit breaker period.

In a media release on Tuesday (9 June), Enterprise Singapore (ESG) said that it conducted inspections together with Singapore Tourism Board (STB) across workplaces, tourism establishments and malls from 2 to 8 June.

Five businesses across retail, food and manufacturing were fined $1,000 each for failing to enforce proper safe management measures.

These include failure to direct employees to work from home where the job function allows for it; failure to implement at least one-metre safe distancing measures at the workplace premises and storefronts; and failure to comply with sector-specific requirements on retail sales.

Another 53 individuals  including the public and employees of retail and food-and-beverages (F&B) outlets  were fined $300 each for not wearing masks, breaching the ban on social gatherings, and leaving their places of residence for non-essential purposes.

Advice on improving safe management measures

ESG also provided advice to 10 businesses on how they can further improve their implementation of safe management measures.

Common areas for improvements include ensuring that employees did not socialise or congregate in groups at the workplace; having clearly demarcated safe distancing markings of at least one-metre in common areas; staggering of work hours; and providing an isolation room for those who are unwell.

Companies may refer to updated guidelines and the full list of safe management measures at this website.

Gearing up to manager larger crowds

ESG said in the media release that, as more business, schools and workplaces reopen, malls and shops will need to gear up to manage larger numbers of people.

It is urging businesses to continue to comply with the safe distancing measures such as implementing SafeEntry, ensuring proper queue markings and crowd control during anticipated peak periods and ensuring that employees put on face masks properly at all times except during meals.

Story continues

ESG also reminded the public to remain vigilant, practise safe distancing and cooperate with the measures put in place by the establishments. They should continue to wear masks whenever they are out, avoid visiting supermarkets or malls in groups, and not loiter in and around malls or F&B outlets after school or work.

Under the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act, first-time offenders caught infringing safe distancing measures may be jailed up to six months and/or fined up to $10,000. Subsequent offences may face a one-year jail term and/or a fine of up to $20,000.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

Other Singapore stories:

Six community cases among 218 new COVID-19 infections in S'pore; no local residents

Woman who allegedly spat and abused at KFC employee in NEX to face 3 charges

Singapore on track to do 40,000 COVID-19 tests a day in coming months: Lawrence Wong

Every Singaporean who needs COVID-19 vaccine will get it at affordable price: Lawrence Wong
(TNS)  As the Boston, Mass., City Council readies to vote on an ordinance banning the governmental use of facial recognition technology, activists and politicians Tuesday described the dire need to restrict the software, particularly in light of nationwide protests against racial injustice sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn.Concerns about the technology are aplenty. Activists, public officials and even some in law enforcement have noted the software is inaccurate, especially in identifying people of color, is already abused by totalitarian governments and may violate the publics civil liberties and basic privacies.At a press conference Tuesday ahead of a 3 p.m. Boston City Council hearing in which young residents were slated to speak about the dangers of facial recognition, speakers talked about the harm the technology poses to minorities, immigrants, students and other groups.As protests over police violence and systemic racism continue to shake the concrete here in Boston and across the country, the conversation were having today about face surveillance is all the more urgent, said Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, adding that citizens stand at a crucial moment in the nations history.The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts started a campaign last summer called Press Pause Face Surveillance with the hope of making citizens more aware of the worries posed by face surveillance and the need to pass a statewide moratorium.A major concern about the technology is the fact that it remains largely unregulated at both the state and national levels. The ACLU has turned its attention to passing municipal bans on the software due to the lack of legislation governing law enforcements use of the technology on a wider scale.The statewide moratorium is currently in the Massachusetts State Houses Joint Committee on the Judiciary, where the bill has received an extension until the end of the committees session, according to Crockford.Although multiple public officials and technology experts testified against the use of the software in October and a strong majority of Massachusetts adults said in a 2019 poll they support a statewide moratorium, the bill may not make headway through the state legislature until July 31 or later, according to Crockford.We view these municipal efforts as crucial measures to, frankly, put pressure on the legislature, Crockford told MassLive on Tuesday. If the state legislature is not going to act, we have no choice but to work with municipal governments to protect our people, and thats what were doing.So far, five communities in Massachusetts have passed either outright bans or temporary moratoriums on the municipal use of facial recognition. Those towns and cities include Brookline, Cambridge, Northampton, Somerville and, most recently, Springfield.Easthampton may also be poised to passed its own municipal ban following talks between officials in the communitys government and the ACLU of Massachusetts, according to Easthampton City Councilor Peg Conniff.Now the campaign turns its attention to Boston, the regions largest and most economically and politically important city, said Crockford, noting that the community could be the largest city east of San Francisco to ban what she called a dangerous, racially biased, dystopian technology.The California city was the first community in the country to ban the municipal use of facial recognition software.Michelle Wu and Ricardo Arroyo, both city councilors in Boston, introduced their communitys ban on the governments use of the technology in May, arguing the software is plagued by transparency and racial bias issues.The ACLU of Massachusetts told the public last month that passing an ordinance restricting the technology is especially crucial in Boston, where the citys contract with BriefCam, a company that runs the communitys surveillance camera network, was expected to expire on May 14.The version of the network did not include facial recognition features, but if officials chose to renew the contract, the city would have been due for a super-charge update that could have included instant access to the surveillance tool, the ACLU said.Wu told reporters at Tuesdays press conference that she spoke with officials from the Boston Police Department and that, from her understanding, the update has not yet been incorporated.I dont have 100 percent confirmation, but my understanding is, especially given this proposal was filed before that happened, that that has not been added, the city councilor said. But Ill make sure to ask that at the hearing today.She added that Boston police have already agreed facial recognition surveillance is not appropriate for use. The agency claimed not to use it, the city councilor said.However, we know that the technology that they are already in contract with, the system that they have in place does have available a software upgrade that could add face surveillance to their current system without any public process, Wu said. We need to make sure that were codifying the protections against discrimination and protections of basic rights.Throughout Tuesdays press conference, officials noted the racism engrained in the software and how the technology easily misidentifies people of color as well as transgender individuals.Particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, a public health crisis that has disproportionately affected communities of color, it is important not to invest in technology that researchers have proven to be ineffective and that furthers racial inequity, Arroyo said in early May.The city councilor told reporters on Tuesday that prior to serving on the Boston City Council, he was a public defender for the Massachusetts courts, where misidentification was commonly seen. Such inaccuracies are not new, he said.The inaccuracy of cross-racial identification, for instance, has been well litigated, Arroyo said. When we talk about facial recognition surveillance, its really important to understand that facial recognition tech. serves to further racial inequity.Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Joy Buolamwini, who is expected to speak before the Boston City Council later Tuesday afternoon, discovered shocking and persistent racial bias problems in facial recognition algorithms, Crockford said.Arroyo noted that Buolamwini, the creator of MITs Algorithmic Justice League, found in her research that black women were 35 percent more likely than white men to be misclassified by face surveillance.A December 2019 federal government study also confirmed racial bias remains a major issue for the technology, Crockford said, noting that the software does not impact everyone equally.But the technology is equally dangerous when it works exactly as advertised, Crockford said. "In a free society, we should not be subject to constant government tracking and cataloguing of our every movement, habit and association. For at its logical conclusion, that is exactly the threat face surveillance poses to our individual freedoms and collective freedom.As Boston city councilors look to potentially ban facial recognition technology, they are also seeking information about the military equipment the citys police department has previously applied and currently uses.Last week, Wu filed an order requesting a comprehensive inventory of all the Boston Police Departments assets. She called the request part of an effort to demilitarize the law enforcement agency.Boston Mayor Marty Walsh also stated over the weekend he will look at potentially reallocating parts of the police departments budget to training or community involvement.How weve been funding and operating our public safety infrastructure is not safe for so many residents. Our criminal justice system is not just for black and brown residents in our city and around the country," Wu said. In this time of national trauma, we must act with urgency to protect communities and ensure accountability. That begins most concretely and most immediately at the local level.
A Melbourne man who wants to return from New Zealand has pleaded with the Victorian government to waive the 14-day hotel quarantine enforced on all returning travellers.

New Zealand has eliminated transmission of coronavirus, with no new COVID-19 cases recorded there in the past 19 days.

Patrick Enright on New Zealand's South Island, where there have been no coronavirus cases for weeks. The entire country has not had a case for 19 days.

His plea came as New Zealand's Deputy Prime Minister called for a "trans-Tasman travel bubble" with Australia to start immediately.

Patrick Enright usually lives in Black Rock, in Melbourne's south-east, but in March flew to NZ's South Island, where he was born, because of a medical emergency in his family.
A video posted on social media shows a group of men, including a New Jersey state corrections officer, taunting and mocking protesters in Gloucester County Monday - with one kneeling on a mans neck, reenacting the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

The officer has been suspended, officials said Tuesday. Online commentators and state employment records identify him as Joseph DeMarco.

A second person who participated in the taunting was fired from their job at FedEx, the company said.

And late Tuesday, Gov. Phil Murphy condemned the incident, writing on Twitter, Mocking George Floyds murder in effort to belittle the calls for justice from our Black and Brown communities is repugnant. I condemn this behavior in the strongest terms possible. We wont let the actions of a few distract from our progress toward dismantling systemic racism.

Floyds death over Memorial Day weekend has set off protests across the world.

That was the case Monday, when peaceful, chanting protesters marched along Delsea Drive in Franklinville, an unincorporated community in Franklin Township.

As the protest passed by a property, a group of men, with a President Trump banner behind them, shouted at protesters as one had his knee on the back of a mans neck.

You dont comply, thats what happens," the kneeling man is heard saying in one video. You dont comply, thats what happens right here, look. He didnt comply. He didnt comply. If he wouldve complied, it wouldnt have happened.

Floyd, who was being arrested for alleged forgery, was not armed and did not appear to be resisting arrest, according to multiple reports. The officer who kneeled on Floyds neck - for nearly nine minutes - was ultimately charged with second-degree murder. The three other officers involved were also fired and were all later charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Multiple calls to Franklin Township Police Chief Brian Zimmer and Mayor John Bruno were not immediately returned. But Tuesday afternoon, the mayor, police chief and police department released a joint statement that does not specifically reference the kneeling incident, but denounces the actions of certain individuals.

The Franklin Township committee and its police department are appalled and saddened by the revolting actions of certain individuals after Mondays locally organized peaceful march, the statement said. This is not who we are as a community. We support the goal of this march which is to spread awareness and to ensure a better future for all of us.

Franklin Township police, who rode alongside protesters, were aware of the group of men taunting those in the march, with one officer telling protesters they would ride ahead and provide a physical buffer, according to a marcher named Russell, who is one of the people who recorded the reenactors. He declined to have his full name published.

In the joint statement, Franklin Township police said they are investigating the incident, but did not release any further details or charges.

Social media commenters later outed one of the reenactors as a state corrections officer. On Tuesday, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) confirmed that a senior correctional police officer participated in the reenactment.

We have been made aware that one of our officers from Bayside State Prison participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd, said Matt Schuman, DOC spokesman.

The officer, whose name was not made public by the agency, was suspended from his post and was banned from state DOC facilities, pending an investigation, Schuman said. The officer was hired in 2002 and worked at Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County until January 2019, when he moved to Bayside.

The corrections officers union, PBA Local 105, posted a statement on Facebook Tuesday which did not specifically mention the incident, but said:

Make no mistake about itunder absolutely no circumstance do we condone nor will we ever tolerate actions and expressions of discrimination, harassment and hatred based on race, faith, skin color, national origin, nationality, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or disability. We need to continue practicing tolerance and understanding; not discrimination and hate.

PBA Local #105 is comprised of approximately 6,000 correctional police officers representing men and women that come... Posted by NJ PBA Local 105 on Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Another reenactor was identified as an employee of FedEx, which a company spokesperson confirmed late Tuesday.

The behavior depicted in the video ... is appalling and offensive. The employee in question was immediately removed from all FedEx work duties while our investigation is concluded and all internal procedures are followed, FedEx said in a statement. A diverse and inclusive workforce is at the heart of our business, and we stand with those who support justice and equality.

Late Tuesday, the company said theyd fired the employee, saying, FedEx holds its team members to a high standard of personal conduct, and we do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video. The individual involved is no longer employed by FedEx. A diverse and inclusive workforce is at the heart of our business, and we stand with those who support justice and equality.

The videos also show the group of men standing in front of a pickup truck on a property with an American flag and a sign that says, All Lives Matter. The property is owned by James and Toni Demarco, according to property records.

Russell, a lifelong Franklinville resident, said the marchers saw the reenactors on the first leg of the march, and they yelled, All lives matter." On the way back, more people had joined them and the group reenacted Floyds killing, he said.

He was ready, said Russell.

In one video that appears to be shot by one of the men involved in the reenactment, a man is heard responding to protesters chants of Black Lives Matter," with to no one. The videos show the group of men standing in what appears to be a firewood business, with a sign advertising firewood for sale. The phone number listed on the sign had been disconnected as of Tuesday.

Russell, who is Black, said some of the men who taunted protesters had made racist and inflammatory remarks before on social media platforms. What bothered Russell the most was that young people who joined the protest were now exposed to hate while marching peacefully.

That gentleman is somebodys uncle, Russell said of the man who kneeled. That gentleman is somebodys father. So you can imagine the hate that he has been feeling and the generations that come from him. Thats what probably hurt the most. To know that hate is not just being from them, but its being continued.

For Russell, the group of men and what they did speaks to an ugly secret that protests like the one in Franklinville Monday will hopefully shed light on: racism is everywhere.

I want people to see, they think this only exists in the deep south," he said. "Or in the midwest or the middle of the country where theres only three houses in a town. Thats not the case. We want people to understand and see racism exists everywhere.

- Reporter Kevin Shea contributed to this story.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.
Illustration photo. Ky Anh MK wind power plant project is expected to start between June, 2022 and December, 2023. (Photo: enternews.vn)

The project is studied, invested and built by the MK Central Solar Power JSC in Ky Anh district.

The project consists of four plants, each of which has a capacity of 100.8MW. The generation capacity of the whole project is 1,139 GWh per year.

It is expected to be put into operation between June 2022 and December 2023.

The plant is built based on advantages, policies and natural potential of the province when using renewable and eco-friendly energy sources.

The project will contribute to increase the provincial budget revenue, the national electricity supply and energy security.

However, due to the current survey location and the study of construction investment projects have not been included in the list of power sources under the national power grid development plan for the period 2011-2020 with a vision to 2030.

Therefore, Chairman of the provincial People's Committee Tran Tien Hung has just signed a document to submit to the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to consider and approve the Ky Anh MK wind power plant project into the national electricity development plan for the period of 2011-2020 with a vision to 2030.
Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market Research Report by Component (CGM Monitor, CGM Transmitter, and Glucose Sensor) - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19

New York, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market Research Report by Component - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913960/?utm_source=GNW



The Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market is expected to grow from USD 3,356.55 Million in 2019 to USD 5,067.39 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.10%.



Market Segmentation & Coverage:

This research report categorizes the Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:



On the basis of Component, the Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market is studied across CGM Monitor, CGM Transmitter, and Glucose Sensor.



On the basis of Geography, the Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market is studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region is studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region is studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region is studied across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.



Company Usability Profiles:

The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market including Abbott Laboratories, Bayer AG, Dexcom, Inc., Integrity Applications Incorporated, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Medtronic plc, Novo Nordisk A/S, ORSENSE LTD, and Senseonics Holdings, Inc..



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.



Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:

COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.



The report provides insights on the following pointers:

1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on sulfuric acid offered by the key players

2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets

3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments

4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players

5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments



The report answers questions such as:

1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market?

2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market during the forecast period?

3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market?

4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market?

5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market?

6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market?

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913960/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




June is Pride month and, while venues up and down the country are sadly closed  that doesn't mean that you can't get your theatre fix from the printed page! We've picked out a mere slice of the canon with 20 stage plays that can educate and celebrate.





Paul Boakye  Boy With Beer

This play was a solid hit when it ran at the King's Head Theatre a few years ago, exploring the love affair between two black men over three nights, each separated by one month.





Tarell Alvin McCraney  Wig Out!

Wig Out!

 Teresa Wood

Before he penned the screenplay for hit film Moonlight, McCraney was making all sorts of waves with his powerful writing. Though many many shows would be perfectly pertinent to read this month, we've gone with Wig Out!.





Lisa Kron / Jeanine Tesori / Alison Bechdel  Fun Home

One of the best new musicals of the last decade, Fun Home is based on Alison Bechdel's brilliant graphic novel and explores how different generations and genders can experience gay romance.





Taylor Mac  Hir

Taylor Mac



Taylor Mac has been pivotal in transforming contemporary ideas of gender and performance over a massive career. His play Hir examines what it is like to have a transgender child in a household.





Michael R Jackson  A Strange Loop

The Pulitzer-winning musical hasn't yet arrived in the UK but is on Spotify, and it's certainly worth reading up on because we expect it'll only go from strength to strength over the coming years.





Sarah Daniels  Neaptide

Daniels' Neaptide was the first full-length play by a female playwright at the National Theatre  premiering just under 35 years ago in 1986. It describes the life of a lesbian mother in the '80s, facing a custody battle and uncertainty over her career as she comes out.





Paula Vogel  Indecent

Indecent

 Carol Rosegg

Its run at the Menier Chocolate Factory was cut short by the pandemic (though it will be back, we're assured) but in the meantime, it's well worth checking out the play, which won a number of awards after its US premiere.





Aziza Barnes  BLKS

Mississippi-dwelling gender non-binary writer Barnes is one of the most exciting new voices of the last decade. Their play BLKS was originally penned at university but was later performed by Steppenwolf's Theatre Company in Chicago in 2017.





Mart Crowley  The Boys in the Band

Mark Gatiss and Jack Derges in The Boys In The Band

 Darren Bell

Crowley's 1968 play was one of the first to put gay men's lives onstage in an accessible and unapologetic way and, given that the playwright sadly passed away in the last year, now would be a great time to read up on Crowley's works.





Jeremy O Harris  Daddy

Daddy

 Matt Saunders

The piece was meant to have had its UK premiere at the Almeida Theatre this year (but has been postponed due to the virus) and follows a young black artist who becomes involved with an older European art collector.





MJ Kaufman  Sagittarius Ponderosa

The struggle to assert your trans-identity is brought into blistering clarity in Kaufman's piece, which follows Archer, who returns to his Central Oregon family where he is still referred to as Angela.





Jo Clifford  Eve

Penned by Clifford in collaboration with National Theatre of Scotland, the piece is based on Clifford's own experiences and is a vital account of trans experiences in the UK.





Mika Johnson  Pink Lemonade

Mika Johnson in Pink Lemonade

 Max Zadeh

Mika Johnson's play is very recent, having only just had its world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of HighTide and Queer House's season. Our critic Daisy Bowie-Sell said that Johnson is "a dynamic new voice" in her dissection of what it means to be masculine or feminine, and we certainly agree.





A Rey Pamatmat  Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them

Pamatmat's play sees three youngsters growing up in isolation and, in their own little world, develop unique relationships that are enriching, uplifting and more  a great piece that needs to be seen in the UK.





Jordan Cooper  Ain't No Mo

The New York Times described Ain't No Mo as "thrilling, bewildering, campy, shrewd, mortifying, scary, devastating and deep", exploring both contemporary black American life and the legacies of slavery and the treatment of African-Americans over the decades.





Jon Brittain  Rotterdam

Bethan Cullinane and Lucy Jane Parkinson in Rotterdam

( Helen Maybanks)

Brittain's Rotterdam is one of the most successful British plays to come out of recent years, charting trans experiences and relationships. It recently completed a hit tour.





Tanya Barfield  Bright Half Life

US playwright Barfield writes a touching and heartfelt play about a lesbian couple's relationship that spans decades  juxtaposing the timelessness of love with the contemporary significance of telling same-sex romantic stories.





Douglas Carter Beane  The Nance

Nathan Lane led this hit Tony Award-winning comedy about the lives of burlesque performers during the 1930s, especially stock camp characters known as "nances".





Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood  Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche

Here's a fun one  Linder and Hobgood's piece follows five members of The Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein who are isolated together after an atomic explosion. Its quarantine-y vibes may be very apt for the current circumstances.





Temi Wilkey  The High Table

Another recent play that only just had its premiere, The High Table sees generations (living and not) come together for a lesbian couple's wedding.

Also try:

Last Summer at Bluefish Cove by Jane Chambers

The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez

Angels in America by Tony Kushner

Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey

Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fiersten

The Drag by Mae West

Coming Clean by Kevin Elyot

Since U Been Gone by Teddy Lamb
French officials have launched a probe into who killed a brown bear in the Pyrenees mountains, after the animal was found dead with gunshot wounds earlier in the week.

The bear, a four-to-five-year-old male weighing between 150 and 200 kilogrammes, was found near a ski station in the high mountains of the French department Ariege, near France's border with Spain.

Its remains were discovered Tuesday by biodiversity officials investigating after receiving complains from farmers about sheep killings.

The bear was not wearing a tracking collar and has not been identified. Its carcass was flown by helicopter to a veterinary school in Toulouse, where experts were carrying out an autopsy.

News of the bear's death spread after Environment Minister Elisabeth Borne published graphic images on Twitter and promising the state would investigate who was responsible for the illegal and highly reprehensible act.

State, environmental groups press charges

Legal officials in Ariege opened an investigation for unauthorised destruction of a protected species, a crime punishable by three years in jail and a 150,000-euro fine.

Everything possible is being done to identify the perpetrator or perpetrators, prosecutor Laurent Dumaine told reporters.

Conservation groups promoting efforts to boost the bear population in the Pyrenees said they would also press charges and called on the government to ensure the animal would be replaced.

The reaction of the state must be clear and firm: condemn and repair, 10 environmental and animal rights groups said in a statement. Failing to do so would vindicate the poachers.

Background

Since starting to repopulate the Pyrenees with brown bears from Slovenia under European Union conservation rules in the 1990s, France has seen the bear population climb from near disappearance to as many as 50.

But the programme is a point of discord with farmers, whose livelihoods consist in letting herds of sheep, goats and cattle to graze undisturbed in high pastures during the summer months.

High pastures stretch over several thousand hectares, making it impractical for shepherds and guard dogs to effectively deter predators.

Tensions have become especially high in Ariege, where a large concentration of bears has amassed over time.

While bears are known to kill individual sheep, farmers are especially fearful of predators spooking their herds and sending them stampeding by the dozens or the hundreds over cliff edges.

Conservations say a small number of virulent anti-bear farmers have dominated debates in the region and recommend adapting practices to the presence of bears.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in January the state would place a moratorium on bear releases until 2028.

(with AFP)
In the words of satisfied homeowner Ryan, "My life is indeed simplified and your team had their finger firmly on the pulse of tech-industry millennials with the design and included features."

Westcott Homes is pleased to announce their newest townhome community, The Farmhouses at Roxburghe in Lake Stevens, WA. The distinctive neighborhood, located minutes away from the Hwy 2/Hwy 9 interchange, features modern townhomes with spectacular floor plans and state-of-the-art amenities. Construction has started on this one of a kind community and they're planning on a Grand Opening in August 2020.



Nestled in the community of Lake Stevens, The Farmhouses offer close proximity to shopping centers, award winning schools, a variety of restaurants and plenty of recreational opportunities. Not only is Roxburghe minutes from the shores of Lake Stevens and the Centennial Trail, the community itself includes an off leash dog park, picnic shelter, fire pit and walking trail.



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Westcott Homes has served the Pacific Northwest for over 20 years. Building thousands of homes in dozens of communities throughout the Puget Sound, we create beautiful living spaces that appeal to the needs and lifestyles of contemporary homeowners. We believe that excellence starts with the details from careful site selection and intelligent design to expert construction and exquisite finishing touches  and is inspired by our strong relationship to the homeowners we serve. Our promise is to provide outstanding service and total satisfaction as we assist you in purchasing the perfect home for your family. For more information, please visit http://www.westcotthomes.com. We look forward to working with you.
If there is some confusion about whether the state legislature can force Gov. Tom Wolf to end the coronavirus-prompted emergency declaration, or if Wolf has the power to override Tuesdays action by the General Assembly, theres a good reason.

Its never happened before.

Whether or not the General Assembly has the authority and power to terminate the declaration is a matter of first impression -- it hasnt been raised before in the history of the Commonwealth, said attorney Marc Scaringi, who has been leading a legal fight against the governors stay-at-home and business-closure orders over the last few months.

While other legal experts say its clear the Pennsylvania Constitution backs Wolfs ability to overturn the General Assemblys concurrent resolution  much like a veto  the final say will likely come from the courts.

The Republican-controlled General Assembly on Tuesday passed a concurrent resolution that directs Wolf to issue a proclamation or executive order to end the COVID-19 disaster emergency that the governor declared on March 6 and renewed on June 3.

While Republican lawmakers are adamant that the governor has no power to veto their resolution, that is exactly what Wolf has vowed to do if it is presented to him. Its not clear, however, that lawmakers will even put the bill on his desk.

And at a news conference on Wednesday, Wolf reiterated that the emergency disaster declaration will stand, and said he plans to take the matter to court.

Neil Makhija, lecturer in law at Penn Law, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, said, it seems to me like the legislature is trying to usurp the governors power.

The emergency disaster declaration statute says that, by concurrent resolution, the House and Senate can terminate an emergency declaration and the governor shall issue a proclamation or executive order to end it, he said. But the governor still has a veto-like power, he said.

Thats because the Pennsylvania Constitution overrides any statutes.

The statute may have gotten around it, but you cant get around the Constitution by statute, he said.

Any order, resolution or vote has to go through the governor, and the state legislature cannot override his veto without a two-thirds majority, he added.

Scaringi, who has a pending case in the U.S. Supreme Court and one in the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania challenging Wolfs orders, said the bottom line is its not clear either way who has the better position under the law in Pennsylvania.

In the meantime, the safest thing for business owners to do is to continue to comply with the governors orders to avoid fines and license suspensions, he said.

But as he continues his fight against those orders, hell be keeping an eye on this case.

The General Assembly is following to the letter of the law the Emergency Management Services Code, Scaringi said.

Thats the code that says that if the General Assembly passes a concurrent resolution to terminate a state of emergency, the governor shall issue an executive order or proclamation ending it, which "is pretty strong language in the code that the General Assembly is hanging its hat on, he said.

But, like Makhija, Scaringi said the Article III, Section 9 of the state constitution says before a concurrent resolution takes effect, it should be approved or disapproved by the governor  essentially a veto  which is the heart of the legal dispute.

And Michael Dimino, professor of law at Widener University Commonwealth Law School, says that will be a tough argument for the state legislature should this go to court.

The statute on which the General Assembly is relying authorizes what is known as a legislative veto, which is flatly inconsistent with the state constitution, Dimino said.

A legislative veto is a mechanism in which the legislature delegates authority to the executive, but retains the power to disapprove of the way the executive exercises the delegated authority, he explained.

It is unconstitutional because the legislature does not have any control on the execution of the laws, Dimino said. It is permitted to make the laws, but if it is unhappy with the way the executive exercises the delegated power, it has to pass a new law reining in the governors power.

The General Assembly does have an argument in its favor, he said, but its a long shot.

If the legislative veto is unconstitutional, is it likely that the law giving the governor authority to declare an emergency would have been passed in the first place? he asked. One could argue that if the legislative veto is unconstitutional, then the entire statute should be struck down, presumably rendering the governor unable to declare an emergency. I would not bet on such an argument succeeding, but it is plausible.

In the meantime, enforcement of the existing orders, including business closure and health and safety measures, will continue, the governor said Wednesday. He advised businesses to continue doing everything they can to protect customers and employees.

Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.
Police in England are facing calls for a watchdog investigation after rapper Wretch 32s father was Tasered by police in his home.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and human rights group Amnesty have urged the UK's Independent Office for Police Conduct to launch an inquiry into what happened.

Oliver Feeley-Sprague from the charity said it beggars belief that the Metropolitan Police internal standards department found no misconduct had occurred.

Footage posted online showed 62-year-old Millard Scott tumbling downstairs at his north London home after an officer is heard to warn: Police officer with a Taser. Stay where you are.

As officers ask if he is OK and tell him to keep still, a distressed woman can be heard saying: Theyve Tasered him.

This is how the police think they can treat a 62 year old black man in Tottenham but this 1 happens to be my dad #Nojusticenopeace pic.twitter.com/17bGizKwem  littleBIGman (@Wretch32) June 9, 2020

Speaking to ITV News, Mr Scott said he believed he would not have been Tasered if he were white.

Im lucky to be alive, he said.

The only people who have invaded our space are the Metropolitan Police. The only people who seem to ignore the guidelines put out there are the Metropolitan Police.

It seems at this moment in time we are being singled out and targeted.

His 35-year-old son, rapper Wretch 32, whose real name is Jermaine Scott, told the broadcaster there has been no progression since he grew up watching his father and uncle fight against police brutality.

He shared the 36-second clip on his Twitter account, where it has been viewed more than a million times.

He wrote: This is how the police think they can treat a 62-year-old black man in Tottenham but this 1 happens to be my dad.

At the start of the clip, officers can be seen entering the front door of the house as a woman tells them: Im not resisting, dont touch me, social distancing, please dont touch me.

The Met said officers went to the property as part of a long-running operation to tackle drugs supply linked to serious violence.

A statement said: As officers entered the premises, a man came downstairs and started moving towards an officer suddenly.

He was ordered to remain where he was but continued towards officers who, after several warnings, deployed a Taser.

The man was not arrested but was assessed by the London Ambulance Service at the scene. He did not require further medical treatment.

Officers from the north area command unit have liaised with the family to discuss any concerns they have about the incident.

The incident, including body-worn footage, has been reviewed by the Mets Directorate of Professional Standards and no indication of misconduct has been identified.

Police said a 22-year-old man found in the house was arrested and charged with encouraging another to commit an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007, while a 52-year-old woman was charged with obstructing police after being interviewed under caution at a later date.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: I have asked the Metropolitan Police for an urgent explanation of this distressing incident which is understandably causing considerable concern.

It is imperative that the incident is properly investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

Mr Feeley-Sprague, who is Amnesty International UKs policing expert and member of the independent advisory group to the National Police Chiefs Council lead on Tasers, said: We need a proper investigation into how a 62-year-old black man who didnt fit the description of the person police were looking could be Tasered almost instantly at the top of stairs where he then falls from a height.

It beggars belief that the Mets own professional standards body has concluded there is no case to answer here. This is yet another litmus test for the Mets claim that black lives matter to them.

The IOPC said it was in contact with the Met to see if a referral to the watchdog was needed.

A spokesman added: We have recently called for greater scrutiny on use of Taser following a series of incidents and increasing BAME community concerns in recent months.
" " Portrait of Voltaire (1694-1778) holding a copy of "The Henriade" painted by Maurice Quentin Delatour, 1728. Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images

Voltaire didn't invent the Enlightenment  he was the Enlightenment.

Born Francois-Marie Arouet in 1694 in France, Voltaire wrote countless plays, poems, satires and polemics  his collected works take up 200 volumes  and centuries before there was a Madonna, Bono or Beyonce, the one-named Voltaire was Europe's first truly modern celebrity. (Historians have differing views on why he gave himself that one-name moniker.)

Voltaire was so much more than an Enlightenment "philosopher" or "thinker"  he lived his beliefs. Voltaire embodied the Enlightenment principles of intellectual freedom, sharp-tongued critique and the righteous battle of reason versus superstition. And he did it on a public stage through his canny use of new publishing outlets like magazines and journals.

Voltaire's "fans" weren't only entertained by his witty writing and shocked by his public attacks against the church and other old-guard institutions; they were hungry for details of Voltaire's tabloid-ready private life. Illicit love affairs, illegitimate offspring, prison stints and forced exile became as synonymous with the name Voltaire as his satirical masterpiece "Candide."

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Master of "New Media"

Voltaire would have loved Twitter. The Enlightenment was fueled by an explosion in new forms of print media like pamphlets, journals and even magazines, says J.B. Shank, a history professor and director of the Center for Early Modern History at the University of Minnesota. The ideas circulated in these publications would be discussed and debated at new intellectual arenas like urban coffeehouses, public libraries and upper-class salons.

"The 18th century was its own moment of new media and new media authorities, which created a new kind of fame," says Shank, author of "The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment" and "Before Voltaire: The French Origins of 'Newtonian' Mechanics."

"Voltaire emerges as this famous intellectual, writer and wit. He's really just famous for being Voltaire."

In "The Invention of Celebrity" by Antoine Lilti, the French historian notes that Voltaire understood "like nobody else" how to keep his name in the news through hilarious satires, bawdy poetry and shameless attacks on the "old regime" orthodoxy.

"Even those who had never read [Voltaire's] books had heard his name," writes Lilti.

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Philosophie vs. Philosophy

It's wrong to call Voltaire a philosopher in the classical sense. He was what 18th-century France called a philosophe and what we might call today a "public intellectual." Through Voltaire's voluminous writings  plays, prose stories, letters, journalism  he contributed to a new type of public discourse that was free-spirited, critical, anti-establishment, and often funny and entertaining.

"Put all that together and what the French called it was 'philosophie,' which is anything but what you'd get if you signed up for a college philosophy course today," says Shank.

Voltaire became the "avatar" or embodiment of Enlightenment philosophie and in so doing popularized a new kind of modern intellectual stance. Voltaire and his compatriots weren't writing as mere intellectual exercises. They wanted their words and ideas  often delivered with wit and shock value  to shape and influence public opinion, and from there to chip away at the very foundations of old-guard European society.

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"Crush the Infamy!"

Voltaire's motto was "Ecrasez l'infame!" which roughly translates to "Crush the infamy!" The "infamy" in Voltaire's eyes was everything that was wrong with European society, from priests telling people what to believe and how to live, to royal dynasties sending countless men to their death in meaningless wars. It was the role of the philosophe to rail against the old regime and expose its dangerous absurdities.

"The idea was to mobilize intellectuals to call out the outrages of society and to marshal true thought, reason and sanity in the name of progress and improvement," says Shank. "The spirit of this motto is a shout through the bullhorn of 'We need to defeat the idiots!'"

Think of Voltaire as an 18th-century John Stewart, John Oliver or Trevor Noah. The material may be biting and sarcastic, but the underlying passions are dead serious. Voltaire used his celebrity persona as the brash, aggressive, provocateur to call out real violations of public trust by established institutions, particularly the Catholic Church and its undo influence on the state.

A great example was the Calas Affair, when a wealthy Protestant merchant was sentenced to death by Catholic judges in the city of Toulouse for the alleged murder of his son, supposedly because the son wished to convert to Catholicism. Not only was the father, named Calas, brutally torn limb from limb by teams of horses, but his widow and surviving children were cut off from his inheritance.

Voltaire launched a public campaign to get justice for Calas, whom Voltaire believed was convicted out of blind prejudice without a shred of evidence. With a lawyer's mind (Voltaire trained in the law in his youth) and his trademark wit, Voltaire wrote a series of unflinching pamphlets and letters that were published throughout France and even made their way to England in translation. In them, he brilliantly ridiculed the state's case and appealed to a higher court for a retrial, in which Calas was eventually exonerated posthumously and his family's fortune restored.

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Liberty, Hedonism and Luxury

Voltaire's celebrity status was solidified after the Calas Affair. Free thought, reason and tolerance had prevailed over the cruel machinations of church and state. The philosophe, freely speaking his mind in the light of day, had swayed public opinion and righted a wrong through intellectual combat.

The Calas episode neatly encapsulated one of the pillars of the Enlightenment, which was unfettered liberty of speech, no matter the topic and no matter the opinion.

"Voltaire never actually said, 'I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,'" says Shank. "But even if he didn't say it, he should have. It's a perfect distillation of his philosophical stance."

For Voltaire, free speech was just part of the total liberty package. Voltaire was an infamous libertine who had no patience for the repressive morality of the church that held priestly celibacy as the sexual ideal. In his erotic poetry and unapologetic personal life, Voltaire preached the merits of hedonism.

"Anchoring all of this is Voltaire's idea that I'm a material human being with pleasures and passions, but also pains, and that the whole Christian apparatus is trying to suppress those pleasures," says Shank.

Voltaire was no starving artist, either. Thanks to some savvy investments, including a scheme to win a Paris lottery, Voltaire lived a lavish lifestyle and defended his desire for nice things. Like Adam Smith, Voltaire supported a free market system in which personal self-interest wasn't viewed as a "sin," but drove competition, innovation and progress.

Voltaire died in 1778, 11 years before the start of the French Revolution, after which the provocative public intellectual was raised from a popular literary celebrity to a French national hero. When the revolutionary government decided to entomb France's "Great Men" in the Pantheon, Voltaire was the very first to receive the honor.

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Now That's Cool Voltaire was a huge fan of Sir Isaac Newton and popularized the tale of Newton discovering the universal law of gravity when he saw an apple fall out of a tree.
Actor Gul Panag has shared a throwback picture from a recent vacation, but also left her fans with some food for thought. Taking to Instagram, Gul shared a picture of herself at the beach, along with her son, Nihal.

The picture shows the actor, wearing her favourite swimsuit, gazing into the distance. She wrote in her caption, The question to ask is, what world are we leaving behind for our children? All the answers flow from there. The actor was perhaps making a reference to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has shattered global economies and left thousands dead.

The post has been liked over 15000 times. I guess a chaotic and violent world, one person answered her in the comments section. OMG. Such a cute picture, wrote another.

Interestingly, Gul wore the same swimsuit to the Maldives in 1999 and in 2019. She pointed this out in an Instagram post last year. Sharing side-by-side pictures, she wrote, Then and now. Back in Maldives after twenty years!! My @marksandspencer swimsuit still going strong.

Also read: Gul Panag wore same swimsuit in the Maldives, in 1999 and 2019; internet is stunned at her agelessness. See pic

At the onset of the coronavirus lockdown, Gul had told Hindustan Times in an interview, We (my husband and I) come from three generations of Armed Forces, so we understand that duty is above everything else. Earlier, the frontiers were manned by soldiers. Today, we have new frontiers, and new custodians of our security and those are the police, those who have to fly planes or drive essential services that cater to the basic transport, medics, chemists, grocery store owners, the garbage collector... these are our new soldiers.

The actor was last seen in the Amazon Prime Video series, Paatal Lok, in which she played the long-suffering wife of actor Jaideep Ahlawats Inspector Hathi Ram Choudhary. She was also seen in Amazons The Family Man, in which she starred opposite Manoj Bajpayee.

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Our "leaders" are allowing, and in some cases even assisting in, the destruction of our way of life, our livelihoods, our freedoms and indeed the USA itself.

COVID-19 has been a terrible scourge, but nowhere near the devastation the "experts" and politicians predicted; they got it wrong time and again. For state and local politicians the temptation to grab power was irresistible resulting in unconstitutionally suspending our civil liberties.

Walmart, abortion clinics and pot stores thrive while pastors and salon owners go to jail. L.A. Mayor Garcetti permits putting your bare feet on wet beach sand, but not dry sand. Where's the science behind that stupidity? Their dictates have resulted in 40 million jobs lost, the bankruptcy of thousands of small businesses, spikes in poverty, suicides, drug overdoses, alcohol abuse, spousal and child abuse, depression, as well as overall crime; many deaths will result ... maybe more that the virus itself.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- When the coronavirus pandemic hit earlier this year, Dana Knights income as a substitute teacher dried up.

She is behind on rent since April at her Wyoming apartment and she goes to food pantries for help.

Knight is among many people across the state worried what will happen when Gov. Gretchen Whitmers order to prohibit evictions ends June 12.

Im personally potentially effected by being evicted and potentially homeless, she said Tuesday, June 9 at a No Rent MI Grand Rapids Car Caravan event to spur awareness of the issue.

Organizers of No Rent Michigan want Whitmer to extend the eviction moratorium and also prevent utility shutoffs until the economic recovery from COVID-19 is further along.

They say thousands of renters across the state could be threatened by eviction if nothing is done.

Justin Barr, a member of the Grand Rapids Area Tenant Union, said a goal is to have the eviction ban extended to 60 days past the end of the pandemic.

But beyond that, he wants state leaders to consider issues over back rent and whether tenants should be forced to pay it.

Related: Evictions must halt amid coronavirus outbreak, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer orders

Were worried that if the order ends and we dont address the back rent issue, which is where cancel rent comes in, theres going to be a mass eviction crisis, as people are suddenly faced with two to three months of rent thats due, he said.

So far, Whitmers office has given no indication the eviction ban will be extended.

Knight, who recently joined the No Rent MI group, figures there are many people like her struggling to survive.

She said families in her situation are worried about putting food on the table first.

Youre not going to put that money to rent, she said.

If she did get evicted, Knight worries it would be difficult to rent again in the short term.

If you have a court claim against you, other places dont want to let you rent because of that, she said. So theres a domino effect.

Organizers behind the No Rent Michigan movement urge people to send emails to Whitmer, state Attorney General Dana Nessel and their state senator.

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. State Department says religious freedom in Uzbekistan continues to improve, while Iran and China remain among the worst offending countries in the world.

"In many places of the world, individuals have become more familiar with religious oppression than religious freedom," Sam Brownback, the ambassador at large for international religious freedom, said on June 10 after the release of an annual report on religious freedom.

Uzbekistan was removed from the "worst of the worst" list of offenders of religious freedom last year and continues to take positive steps despite continued abuses.

We documented no police raids of unregistered religious-group meetings during 2019, compared with 114 such raids in 2018, and 240 the year before that. These are great strides, real progress, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a news conference in Washington.

However, Tashkent remains on a special watch list, meaning there are still "severe" violations of religious freedom in the Central Asian country.

Pompeo said that while there was improvement in some countries, there remained great darkness over parts of the world where people of faith are persecuted or denied the right to worship.

In Iran, the countrys Shiite theocratic leaders continued to repress religious freedom and discriminate against minorities as part of an already bleak human rights record.

The government continued to execute individuals for enmity against God and otherwise persecute small religious minorities such as the Bahais, Christian converts, and Sunnis, according to the 2019 Report on International Religious Freedom.

Elsewhere in the word, Pompeo accused China of continuing a decades-long war on faith to strengthen the hold of the Communist Party over all aspects of life.



China has rounded up more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims and other groups into concentration camps in the western Xinjiang Province, where the report said forced disappearances were accompanied by political indoctrination, torture, sexual abuse, and forced labor.

In Russia, the report said the government continued to enforce a ban on Jehovahs Witnesses as extremists, raiding homes, detaining believers, and throwing some into prison.

Similar treatment was meted out against the banned Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, with more than 200 people imprisoned for their religious beliefs.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 17:56:12|Editor: huaxia

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BLANTYRE, Malawi, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The processes of recruiting medical assistants in Malawi for the fight against COVID-19 were interrupted on Tuesday due to a heavy turnout of youth seeking jobs.

Thousands of job seekers flocked into different assigned places where they were supposed to get interviewed for different posts that the government had offered. However, due to the high rate of unemployment in the country, thousands showed up hence interruption in most places.

According to reports from the local media, there was a stampede in different places as people were fighting to get access to the interview premises.

In an interview with Xinhua, Samuel Munthari, aged 21 said life is getting harder for him every day because of unemployment. On Tuesday, Samuel was very optimistic that he would get a job because he believes he has enough qualifications as required.

"I think there is more to be done for us as youth, we have the qualifications but jobs are not there. Today we came with high hopes that we are going to be interviewed, but there is too much of us and it's obvious that most of us will not get interviewed," said Samuel.

Samuel, who looked helpless added that his hope is in the government to offer him a job since he has the job qualification.

Recently, President Mutharika had announced that the government is going to employ two thousand medical personnel to assist in the fight against COVID-19.

Meanwhile, both the president and opposition leaders have promised to create a room for more jobs in order for the youth to get eased from the woes of unemployment. Enditem
When it comes to Gilead Sciences (GILD), recent focus has landed squarely on its potential COVID-19 treatment, remdesivir, but now, its grabbing headlines for an entirely different reason.

On Sunday, Bloomberg reported in an unconfirmed article that AstraZeneca (AZN) informally approached Gilead to discuss the possibility of a merger. It should be noted that currently, formal talks are not ongoing.

Writing for RBC Capital, 5-star analyst Brian Abrahams tells clients that the market caps of GILD and AZN, which land at $96.6 billion and $138 billion, respectively, could make the transaction one of the largest in recent memory. He added, Recall in February, we had cited an acquisition as one possible outcome, and at the time had viewed a 25-30% premium to the $68 stock price at that time as the minimum necessary to acquire the company; with recent stock/sector appreciation and improving strategy and diversification, we believe GILD would be unlikely to agree to a takeout/merger valuing at anything less than ~ $100/share.

The collosal size of this potential deal as well as GILDs improved approach under its new management may actually make it more difficult to finalized any agreement. However, Abrahams argues that the deal could provide synergies for both companies. In addition, the fact that Pascal Soriot and Daniel O'Day overlapped as executives at Roche could lend itself to better understanding and increased willingness to work together.

Expounding on this, Abrahams stated, We have often highlighted GILD's strength in virology - particularly their core franchises in HIV and HCV, and also note the company's expanding commitment to immuno-oncology and inflammation. In our view, GILD's assets could round out AZN's product portfolio by adding expertise to the virology and inflammatory areas, while GILD's burgeoning oncology portfolio could potentially synergize well with AZN's extensive offerings in this area.

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If that wasnt enough, any developments around M&A activity tend to cause major share price swings for biotech stocks, which bodes well for GILD, in Abrahams opinion.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Abrahams stayed with the bulls. The analyst rates GILD an Outperform (i.e. Buy), while keeping his price target at $88. This target suggests shares could surge 14% in the next year. (To watch Abrahams track record, click here)

What does the rest of the Street think about Gileads long-term growth prospects? It turns out that other analysts are not as optimistic. 10 Buys, 14 Holds and 4 Sells were issued in the last three months, which put the consensus rating at Hold. Additionally, the $79.95 average price target suggests a modest upside of 3%. (See Gilead stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for healthcare stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.
First Quarter Net Sales Increased 32.8%

First Quarter Comparable Sales Increased 50.0%

STAMFORD, Conn., June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Lovesac Company (LOVE) (Lovesac or the Company) today announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2021, which ended May 3, 2020.

Shawn Nelson, Chief Executive Officer, stated, Amid the global dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lovesacs first quarter results affirm the resilience and compassion of our team, the benefit of our diversified channel mix, and the fundamental appeal of the Lovesac brand. These positive attributes contributed to the quarters strong results with nearly 33% total company sales growth, including a 255% increase in our e-commerce sales. We were also pleased that our operating loss improved by almost $1 million from the prior year period despite our entire fleet of showrooms being closed for half the quarter.

Mr. Nelson added, Lovesacs origins as an e-commerce-first platform confers a distinct competitive advantage in this environment. Our logistical expertise, processes, and cultural underpinnings are evident in our shippable product offering, agile and lean multi-channel operating model, and dynamic digital marketing efforts. As we move into the re-opening phase, we are taking a thoughtful and measured approach to re-opening showrooms, governed by local regulations and with the health and safety of our employees and customers as our highest priority. The power of our business model, the execution and commitment of our entire team, combined with our strong balance sheet and financial position, will continue to serve us well as we move into this next phase and beyond.

Key Measures for the First Quarter Ending May 3, 2020:

(Dollars in millions, except per share amounts)

Quarter Ended

May 3, 2020 Quarter Ended

May 5, 2019 %

Inc (Dec) Net Sales $54.4 $41.0 32.8% Gross Profit1 $27.3 $21.0 30.0% Gross Margin1 50.2% 51.3% (110) bps Total Operating Expense $35.7 $30.3 17.6% SG&A

$25.8 $23.9 8.3% Advertising & Marketing $8.2 $5.4 52.0% Total SG&A as % of Net Sales 47.5% 58.3% (1080) bps Advertising & Marketing as % of Net Sales 15.1% 13.2% 190 bps Basic and Diluted EPS Loss ($0.58) ($0.67) (13.4%) Net loss ($8.3) ($9.1) (8.3%) Adjusted EBITDA ($5.7) ($4.7) 22.1% Cash used in Operations ($0.5) ($8.2) (93.7%)

1 Estimated gross 25% tariff impact for the first quarter of fiscal 2021 to Gross Profit and Gross Margin was $2.4 million and 447 bps, respectively. Estimated gross 10% tariff impact for the first quarter of fiscal 2020 to Gross Profit and Gross Margin was $1.0 million and 248 bps, respectively.

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Percent Increase (Decrease), except showroom count Quarter Ended May 3, 2020 Quarter Ended May 5, 2019 Total Comparable Sales (2)(3) 50.0% 43.1% Comparable Showroom Sales (3) (31.7%) 31.7% Comparable Internet Sales (3) 258.3% 83.8% Ending Showroom Count 91 78

2 Total comparable sales include showroom and internet transactions through the point of sale.

3 Comparable sales reflect transactions through the point of sale and not necessarily product that has shipped to the customer. Product that has shipped to the customer is what is included in Net Sales. Showrooms were closed as required by local and state laws as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic effective March 18, 2020 through the remainder of the first quarter.

Highlights for the First Quarter Ended May 3, 2020:

The net sales increase of 32.8% was driven by an increase in internet sales of 255.4%, an increase of 11.0% in Other sales (which includes shop in shops and pop-up shops), partially offset by a decrease in showroom sales of (32.7%) due to the impact of showroom closures related to COVID-19.



The gross profit increase of 30.0% was primarily due to the increase in net sales, partially offset by the impact of tariffs. The approximately 110 basis point decrease in gross margin versus the prior year period reflects an increase of approximately 300 basis points in distribution and tariff related expenses, partially offset by improvements of approximately 190 basis points in product costs as a result of vendor negotiations associated with tariff mitigation and continued shift of product sourcing from China to Vietnam and Malaysia.



SG&A expense in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 and first quarter of fiscal 2020 included less than $0.2 million of other non-recurring expenses related to financing and executive recruitment fees, respectively. SG&A expense as a percent of net sales decreased 1080 basis points primarily due to leverage of employment costs, rent and professional fees as well as a decrease in equity-based compensation, partially offset by increases in selling related expenses.



Advertising and marketing expense in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 increased approximately 52% over the prior year quarter principally due to increased media and direct-to-consumer program spend which contributed to the first quarter sales increase over the prior year period.



Operating loss was $8.4 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 compared to $9.3 million in the prior year period. Operating margin improved to (15.4%) of net sales from (22.8%) of net sales in the prior year period.



Net loss was $8.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 compared to $9.1 million in the prior year period.

Other Financial Highlights as of May 3, 2020:

The cash and cash equivalents balance as of May 3, 2020 was $45.5 million as compared to $35.7 million as of May 5, 2019. There was no debt outstanding on the Companys line of credit as of May 3, 2020 and May 5, 2019, respectively. The Companys availability under the line of credit was $11.4 million as of May 3, 2020 and $12.5 million as of May 5, 2019.



Total inventory was $33.4 million as of May 3, 2020 as compared to $30.9 million as of May 5, 2019.

Conference Call Information:

A conference call to discuss the first quarter of fiscal 2021 financial results is scheduled for today, June 9, 2020, at 8:30 am Eastern Time. Investors and analysts interested in participating in the call are invited to dial 877-407-3982 (international callers please dial 201-493-6780) approximately 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available online at investor.lovesac.com.

A recorded replay of the conference call will be available within two hours of the conclusion of the call and can be accessed online at investor.lovesac.com for 90 days.

About The Lovesac Company

Based in Stamford, Connecticut, The Lovesac Company is a direct-to-consumer specialty furniture brand with 91 retail showrooms supporting its ecommerce delivery model. Lovesacs name comes from its original Durafoam filled beanbags called Sacs. The Company derives a majority of its current sales from its proprietary platform called Sactionals, a washable, changeable, reconfigurable, and FedEx-shippable solution for large upholstered seating. Founder and CEO, Shawn Nelsons, Designed for Life philosophy emphasizes sustainable products that are built to last a lifetime and designed to evolve with the customers needs, providing long-term utility and ultimately reducing the amount of furniture discarded into landfills.

Non-GAAP Information

This press release includes the following financial measures defined as non-GAAP financial measures by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC): Adjusted Net Loss and Adjusted EBITDA. We define Adjusted EBITDA as net loss less interest income, plus income tax expense, depreciation and amortization, management fees, deferred rent, equity-based compensation, net (gain) or loss on the disposal of property and equipment, one-time IPO-related expenses, and fees associated with fundraising and reorganizing activities. The Company has reconciled these non-GAAP financial measures with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures hereunder. The Company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures not only provide its management with comparable financial data for internal financial analysis but also provide meaningful supplemental information to investors. Specifically, these non-GAAP financial measures allow investors to better understand the performance of the Companys business and facilitate a more meaningful comparison of its actual results on a period-over-period basis. The Company has provided this information as a means to evaluate the results of its ongoing operations. Other companies in the Companys industry may calculate these items differently than the Company does. Each of these measures is not a measure of performance under GAAP and should not be considered as a substitute for the most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP, such as net income/loss. Non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as analytical tools, and investors should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of the Companys results as reported under GAAP.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements either contained in or incorporated by reference into this communication, other than purely historical information, including estimates, projections and statements relating to our business plans, objectives and expected operating results, and the assumptions upon which those statements are based, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as may, believe, anticipate, could, should, intend, plan, will, aim(s), can, would, expect(s), estimate(s), project(s), forecast(s), positioned, approximately, potential, goal, pro forma, strategy, outlook and similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in or incorporated by reference into this press release regarding strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenue, projected expenses, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on managements current expectations and/or beliefs and assumptions that management considers reasonable, which assumptions may or may not prove correct. We may not actually achieve the plans, carry out the intentions or meet the expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual results and performance could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of many factors. The preliminary financial results included in this press release represent the most current information available to management. The Companys actual results when disclosed on the Companys first quarter fiscal year 2021 earnings conference call may differ from these preliminary results as a result of the completion of the Companys financial closing procedures; final adjustments; completion of the audit by the Companys independent registered accounting firm; and other developments that may arise between now and the disclosure of the final results. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements are the effect and consequences of the novel coronavirus public health crisis on matters including U.S. and local economies, our business operations and continuity, our ability to re-open showrooms and those showrooms to remain open, the health and productivity of our associates, the ability of third-party providers to continue uninterrupted service, the timing of openings of new showrooms that further shift expected growth to later periods, risks related to tariffs, the countermeasures and mitigation steps that we adopt in response to tariffs and other similar issues, as well as those risks and uncertainties disclosed under the sections entitled Risk Factors and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and similar disclosures in subsequent reports filed with the SEC, which are available on our investor relations website at investor.lovesac.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this press release speaks only as of the date on which we make it. We disclaim any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

Investor Relations Contact:

Rachel Schacter, ICR

(203) 682-8200

InvestorRelations@lovesac.com

THE LOVESAC COMPANY CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS As of May 3, 2020 February 2, 2020 Assets (unaudited) Current Assets Cash and cash equivalents $ 45,478,559 $ 48,538,827 Trade accounts receivable 7,076,590 7,188,925 Merchandise inventories 33,419,165 36,399,862 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 5,901,175 8,050,122 Total Current Assets 91,875,489 100,177,736 Property and Equipment, Net 24,429,058 23,844,261 Other Assets Goodwill 143,562 143,562 Intangible assets, net 1,479,346 1,352,161 Deferred financing costs, net 158,673 146,047 Total Other Assets 1,781,581 1,641,770 Total Assets $ 118,086,128 $ 125,663,767 Liabilities and Stockholders Equity Current Liabilities Accounts payable $ 17,396,215 $ 19,887,611 Accrued expenses 6,915,766 8,567,580 Payroll payable 2,085,322 887,415 Customer deposits 4,738,974 1,653,597 Sales taxes payable 1,145,967 1,404,792 Total Current Liabilities 32,282,244 32,400,995 Deferred rent 3,248,543 3,108,245 Total Liabilities 35,530,787 35,509,240 Stockholders Equity Preferred Stock $.00001 par value, 10,000,000 shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding as of May 3, 2020 and February 2, 2020. - - Common Stock $.00001 par value, 40,000,000 shares authorized, 14,508,387 shares issued and outstanding as of May 3, 2020 and 14,472,611 shares issued and outstanding as of February 2, 2020. 145 145 Additional paid-in capital 169,065,775 168,317,210 Accumulated deficit (86,510,579 ) (78,162,828 ) Stockholders Equity 82,555,341 90,154,527 Total Liabilities and Stockholders Equity $ 118,086,128 $ 125,663,767





THE LOVESAC COMPANY CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (unaudited) Thirteen weeks ended May 3, May 5, 2020

2019

Net sales $ 54,372,407 $ 40,958,363 Cost of merchandise sold 27,088,838 19,965,868 Gross profit 27,283,569 20,992,495 Operating expenses Selling, general and administration expenses 25,831,402 23,861,612 Advertising and marketing 8,195,585 5,389,330 Depreciation and amortization 1,635,660 1,065,617 Total operating expenses 35,662,647 30,316,559 Operating loss (8,379,078 ) (9,324,064 ) Interest income, net 56,356 234,563 Net loss before taxes (8,322,722 ) (9,089,501 ) Provision for income taxes (25,029 ) (12,276 ) Net loss $ (8,347,751 ) $ (9,101,777 ) Net loss per common share: Basic and diluted $ (0.58 ) $ (0.67 ) Weighted average number of common shares outstanding: Basic and diluted 14,480,081 13,669,944





THE LOVESAC COMPANY BASIC AND DILUTED NET LOSS PER COMMON SHARE (unaudited) Thirteen weeks ended May 3, 2020 May 5, 2019 Numerator: Net loss  Basic and diluted $ (8,347,751 ) $ (9,101,777 ) Preferred dividends and deemed dividends - - Net loss attributable to common shares (8,347,751 ) (9,101,777 ) Denominator: Weighted average number of common shares for basic and diluted net loss per share 14,480,081 13,669,944 Basic and diluted net loss per common share $ (0.58 ) $ (0.67 )





THE LOVESAC COMPANY CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (unaudited) Thirteen weeks ended May 3, 2020 May 5, 2019 Cash Flows from Operating Activities Net loss $ (8,347,751 ) $ (9,101,777 ) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operating activities: Depreciation and amortization of property and equipment 1,557,289 1,016,035 Amortization of other intangible assets 78,371 49,583 Amortization of deferred financing fees 19,726 12,171 Net loss on disposal of property and equipment - 46,857 Equity based compensation 898,077 3,222,563 Deferred rent 140,298 11,772 Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Trade accounts receivable 112,335 (1,043,903 ) Merchandise inventories 2,980,698 (4,762,440 ) Prepaid expenses and other current assets 2,166,595 (409,621 ) Accounts payable and accrued expenses (3,204,128 ) 2,527,119 Customer deposits 3,085,377 271,536 Net Cash Used in Operating Activities (513,114 ) (8,160,105 ) Cash Flows from Investing Activities Purchase of property and equipment (2,142,086 ) (1,930,145 ) Payments for patents and trademarks (205,556 ) (77,448 ) Net Cash Used in Investing Activities (2,347,642 ) (2,007,593 ) Cash Flows from Financing Activities Taxes paid for net share settlement of equity awards (149,512 ) (3,164,132 ) Proceeds from the issuance of warrants, net - 4,000 Paydowns of line of credit - (31,373 ) Payments of deferred financing costs (50,000 ) - Net Cash Used in by Financing Activities (199,512 ) (3,191,505 ) Net Change in Cash and Cash Equivalents (3,060,268 ) (13,359,203 ) Cash and Cash Equivalents - Beginning 48,538,827 49,070,952 Cash and Cash Equivalents - Ending $ 45,478,559 $ 35,711,749 Supplemental Cash Flow Disclosures Cash paid for taxes $

25,029 $

12,276 Cash paid for interest $ 16,816 $ 8,392




[June 10, 2020] Burkina Faso makes further efforts to end mobile roaming charges

Sydney, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Burkina Faso outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets. Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Burkina-Faso-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses The telecom sector in Burkina Faso continues to be stymied by slow regulatory procedures and insufficient mobile spectrum, compounded by the poor condition of fixed-line networks which has held back the development of fixed-line internet services and rendered such services among the most expensive globally. The fixed-line incumbent Onatel is now 61%-owned by Maroc Telecom. It operates the countrys fixed-line network as well as one of the three mobile networks, Telmob. Mobile telephony has experienced strong growth since competition was introduced in 2000. There has been some fluidity in ownership, with Zain having been acquired by Bharti Airtel before being sold on to Orange Group in 2016. Although market penetration remains below the African average, is continues to grow steadily. Onatels FasoNet is the countrys leading internet service provider, offering DSL and EV-DO services. Internet penetration is extremely low, exacerbated by the high cost of connectivity despite price cuts introduced since 2011 in the wake of improved international bandwidth via fibre links through adjacent countries. These links provide access to the regions international submarine cables. Although about 50 ISPs have been licensed, only three compete with FasoNet, and collectively these have fewer than 1,000 subscribers. As a result of poor fixed-line infrastructure the mobile operators have become significant players in the internet sector, accounting for most connections. BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries. On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth. Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report. The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions. Key developments: Main One to increase broadband bandwidth with new fibre cable;

Government begins computer subsidy program for university students;

Burkina Faso joins G5 Sahel countries to eliminate roaming fees;

Orange Burkina Faso launches LTE-A services, extends Orange Money services;

Maroc Telecom increases its stake in Onatel to 61%;

Government prepares to amend legislation to improve regulations and the legal framework governing the telecom sector;

SES Networks renews contract to provide satellite services for government agencies;

Government proposes technology-neutral licences to boost mobile broadband connectivity;

Huawei starts phase one of a new national fibre backbone project;

Government progresses with XOF23.6 billion project to provide metropolitan fibre-optic infrastructure;

Vodafone Wholesale and Huawei complete cable to Ghanaian border;

International internet bandwidth increases to 17.7Gb/s;

Report update includes the regulator's annual reports and market statistical data to 2017, telcos' financial and operating data to Q1 2020, Teleco Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.



Companies mentioned in this report: Onatel, Telmob, Bharti Airtel (Zain, Celtel), Orange Burkina Faso, Moov (Telecel, Etisalat), FasoNet, ZCP, Delgi, Cenatrin, CFAO Technologies, River Telecom, Net Access, Maroc Telecom, Vivendi.

Key statistics

Regional Africa Market Comparison

Country overview

COVID-19 and its impact on the telecom sector Economic considerations and responses Mobile devices Subscribers Infrastructure

Telecommunications market Market analysis

Regulatory environment Regulatory authority Fixed-line developments NICI development plan Market liberalisation Second fixed-line and fourth mobile licence Universal Service Fund Mobile network developments Mobile Number Portability (MNP) Roaming

Mobile market Market analysis Mobile statistics Mobile data Mobile broadband Major mobile operators Orange Burkina Faso (formerly Airtel, Zain, Celtel) Telmob (Onatel) Moov (Telecel) Mobile infrastructure 4G (LTE) 3G Other infrastructure developments Mobile content and applications m-payment m-health

Fixed-line broadband market Introduction and statistical overview Broadband statistics Public Internet access locations Computer program Other ISPs Fixed-line broadband technologies Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) networks Other fixed broadband services WiMAX Broadband via satellite

Digital economy E-government E-education

Fixed-network operators Onatel

Telecommunications infrastructure Overview of the national telecom network National telecom network Wireless Local Loop (WLL), CDMA2000 1x National fibre backbone Cloud-based services International infrastructure

Appendix  Historic data

Glossary of abbreviations

Related reports List of Tables Table 1  Top Level Country Statistics and Telco Authorities - Burkina Faso  2020 (e)

Table 2  ICT parameters by service  2010  2018

Table 3  Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Burkina Faso  2010  2018

Table 4  Mobile operator market share of subscribers  2011  2017

Table 5  Mobile market revenue, investment  2013  2017

Table 6  SMS traffic  2010  2017

Table 7  Active mobile broadband subscribers  2013  2018

Table 8  Mobile internet subscribers  2011  2017

Table 9  Orange Burkina Faso mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Table 10  Orange Burkina Faso financial data  2016  2020

Table 11  Onatel mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Table 12  Fixed internet subscribers  2010  2018

Table 13  Fixed-line broadband subscribers  2016  2018

Table 14  Public telecentres  2009  2017

Table 15  DSL subscribers  2005  2017

Table 16  Onatel fixed broadband subscribers  2016  2020

Table 17  Onatel subscribers by service  2010  2020

Table 18  Fixed-line market revenue, investment  2013  2017

Table 19  Fixed-lines in service and teledensity  2010  2019

Table 20  CDMA subscribers  2015  2017

Table 21  Burkina Faso's international internet bandwidth  2010  2017

Table 22  Historic - ICT parameters by service  2004  2009

Table 23  Historic - Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Burkina Faso  1999  2009

Table 24  Historic - SMS traffic  2003  2009

Table 25  Historic - Orange Burkina Faso mobile subscribers  2006  2009

Table 26  Historic - Onatel mobile subscribers  2007  2009

Table 27  Historic - Onatel revenue  2011  2014

Table 28  Historic - Onatel annualised ARPU  2011  2015

Table 29  Historic - Onatel mobile subscribers  2007  2009

Table 30  Historic  Telecel mobile subscribers  2007  2010

Table 31  Historic - Internet users and penetration rate  1999  2009

Table 32  Historic - Fixed internet subscribers  2006  2009

Table 33  Historic - DSL subscribers  2005  2009

Table 34  Historic - Onatel financial data  2011  2016

Table 35  Historic - Wireless broadband subscribers  2007  2013

Table 36  Historic - Fixed-lines in service and teledensity  1999  2009

Table 37  Historic - CDMA lines in service  2009  2014

Table 38  Historic - Burkina Faso's international internet bandwidth  2002  2009 List of Charts Chart 1  Overall Africa view - Telecoms Maturity Index vs GDP per Capita  2018

Chart 2  West Africa - Telecoms Maturity Index vs GDP per Capita  2018

Chart 3  Africa  Middle-tier Telecoms Maturity Index (Market Challengers)  2018

Chart 4  West Africa Telecoms Maturity Index by country  2018

Chart 5  West Africa mobile subscriber penetration versus mobile broadband penetration  2018

Chart 6  West Africa fixed and mobile penetration rates  2018

Chart 7  Mobile subscribers and penetration rate  2005  2018

Chart 8  Mobile operator market share of subscribers  2011  2017

Chart 9  Onatel subscribers by service  2010  2020

Chart 10  Fixed-lines in service and teledensity in Burkina Faso  2005  2018 List of Exhibits Exhibit 1  Generalised Market Characteristics by Market Segment

Exhibit 2  West Africa - Key Characteristics of Telecoms Markets by Country

Exhibit 3  Map of Burkina Faso Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Burkina-Faso-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses

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CAIRO - The United Nations has quietly ended the assignment of its chief rights officer in Yemen after Houthi rebels blocked his entry into the country for months, according to U.N. documents.

The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner replaced its chief in Yemen, Elobaid Ahmed Elobaid, nearly nine months a fter the Houthis, who control northern Yemen, denied him entry, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

A U.N. document dated Tuesday showed that OHCHR notified the Yemen mission in Geneva of the replacement of Elobaid without giving reasons.

A Yemeni document dated Wednesday showed the Yemeni mission in Geneva notifying Yemens Foreign Ministry of the appointment of Elobaids deputy, Abeer al-Khraisha, as chief of mission.

There was no immediate comment from the U.N. on Wednesday.

Houthis occupied the capital Sanaa in 2014 and have been at war with the internationally recognized government and its backers, a Saudi-led coalition, over the past five years.

Mohammed Askar, the governments minister for human rights, condemned the U.N.s move and described it as succumbing to the militias blackmailing.

He told the state-run news agency SABA on Wednesday, such a move gives the Houthis the upper hand upon the U.N.

Elobaid was denied entry into the country on Sept. 30 last year in the aftermath of a damning U.N. report detailing abuses by all parties in Yemens civil war, including sexual violence against women in Houthi-run prisons.

After landing in Sanaa, Elobaids plane was ordered to leave after security officers boarded the jet and withdrew his travel permit.

The Associated Press has previously reported that Houthi rebels have obstructed the work of U.N. humanitarian agencies, using visas and travel permits as bargaining chips to control U.N. operations in the country.

Earlier this month, the world body failed to obtain enough funds from international donors to support its humanitarian operation in Yemen amid the pandemic.

U.N. officials and donors have cited the Houthis obstruction of humanitarian work as one of the main reasons behind cuts in donations, which threatens to deprive millions of Yemenis of aid.
YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. Estonia is providing medical items and personal protective means to the medical facilities of Armenias Lori province aimed at battling the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, President of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid said today on Facebook after a telephone conversation with President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian.

Today I had a phone call with President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian. Estonia is assisting Armenia by purchasing medical items and protective means for the medical facilities of Lori province, the Estonian President said.

During todays telephone conversation the Armenian and Estonian Presidents discussed the situation in both countries connected with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the actions taken to prevent and overcome the disease, as well as the cooperation opportunities in fighting the pandemic.

The Armenian President thanked the Estonian counterpart for providing 30,000 Euros to the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) which will be directed for fighting the pandemic and purchasing respective medical items.

The two Presidents also touched upon the development of the bilateral relations, in particular highlighting the great cooperation potential of the two countries in the fields of technologies, artificial intelligence, science, education, as well as the mutual partnership within the frames of the Armenian presidential initiative ATOM (Advanced Tomorrow). In this context they both noted that the expected official visit of the Armenian President to Estonia in autumn will give a new impetus to deepening the cooperation between the two friendly countries.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
LONDON  After a week when protesters battled with police outside his residence, spray-painted racist on a memorial to Winston Churchill and dumped the statue of a 17th-century slave trader into Bristol harbor, Prime Minister Boris Johnson knew he was going to face questions about race and justice in Parliament.

Yet, standing in the chamber on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson seemed nonplused when a lawmaker from the opposition Scottish National Party, Kirsty Blackman, condemned President Trumps response to the police killing of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, and asked Mr. Johnson if he still believed his assertion that Mr. Trump had many, many good qualities.

Yes, black lives matter, he replied, and yes, the death of George Floyd was absolutely appalling. As for Mr. Trump, the prime minister said, he is the president of the United States, Britains most important ally, which is a bastion of peace and freedom, and has been, for most of my lifetime.

Mr. Johnsons statement landed with a thud  and not just because Parliament was sparsely populated as part of coronavirus-related social distancing measures. At a time when the unrest in the United States is prompting many in Britain to ask questions about racial injustice in their society, the prime minister is still struggling to find his voice.
While several states in north India are in the midst of what is being described as the worst locust plague in nearly three decades, there was a similar scare in Tamil Nadu after farmers complained that their crops are being attacked by swarms of insects.

AFP

Over the past few days, farmers have complained that swarms of locust species have attacked banana, rubber and other crops in parts of plantation dominated districts of Tamil Nadu.

However, according to Tamil Nadu government, these are spotted coffee grasshopper, Bombay locust and the Crytacanthacris Tartarica, a type of grasshopper, which has been mistaken for the swarm of desert locusts.

According to a member of the Grasshopper Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, none of the three species noticed in the Nilgiris and in the vicinity, are of immediate threat.

BCCL

Farmers in Poovankodu and Viyanur in Kanyakumari district bordering Kerala have claimed that the "locust" have ravaged the banana and rubber crops to a large extent. State Revenue Minister RB Udayakumar on Saturday assured farmers that the agriculture department has been instructed to tackle the "menace."

Earlier, a farmer in Khandal near Udhagamandalam who noticed a swarm on Friday, managed to capture some of the species, and informed the district administration.

Nilgiris collector Innocent Divya, who verified with experts, assured the farmers that the species captured in her district was not the desert locust.

BCCL

The Tamil Nadu government has also assured that farmers need not be alarmed since the possibility of desert locusts attacking the State was remote. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami chaired a meeting with Ministers and officials to review the situation after farmers complained about locusts and confirmed it was in fact that grasshoppers found in some parts of the State were not desert locusts, as it was originally feared.

Though the chances of desert locusts attacking the State were remote, the Chief Minister instructed officials to undertake certain precautionary measures and to monitor the situation in various districts.

Farmers need not be alarmed over hoppers found in fields by mistaking them for desert locusts. However, if they are found, farmers could inform officials in agriculture and horticulture departments at once, the Chief Minister said.

The Tamil Nadu government has advised farmers to use bioinsecticides like neem seed oil to protect agriculture and horticulture crops. Till now several states in the country including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra have seen unusually large swarms of locusts attack crops.
Experts in the real estate industry say CMHCs new, strict lending measures will trigger a surge in home purchase volume as potential home buyers rush to the mortgage market before July 1, when these policies take effect.

Whenever there has been a deadline given for a major mortgage rule change, Ron Butler, mortgage broker at Butler Mortgage, told Yahoo Finance Canada there has been a distinctly accelerated pace of transactions prior to that change. Butler described that this has been the case with any rule change that was not immediately invoked.

CMHCs new measures, which include at least one applicant having a minimum credit score of 680 and a maximum debt service ratio of 44 and gross debt service ratio of 35, mean that prospective home buyers who dont meet the new requirements have a tight deadline to meet.

Its an issue that resonates with Jivan Sanghera, mortgage broker at Circle Mortgage Group. Sanghera described a family he has been working with who would have qualified for a $900,000 mortgage before the measures, would now qualify for $790,000, losing about 12 per cent of their purchasing power.

These are people that have been saving over time, don't have an income interruption and don't perceive an interruption in their income. The credit scores are already fine, Sanghera explained, They're being told for no reason other than underwriting rules that they no longer qualify for what they want.

Sanghera said that with the economy slowly emerging from the COVID-19 crisis and Canadians are beginning to transact again, this is the wrong time for CMHC to introduce these stricter measures. The short-term scramble to be approved for a mortgage and purchase a home in a tightening window will boost the sales-to-listing ratios in a major housing market like the Greater Toronto Area.

Now you are going to put further short-term pressure on prices, Sanghera explained, What is being solved here other than reducing risk for the bank? That's the only thing I keep seeing this come back to.

Story continues

In a press release, CMHC president and CEO Evan Siddall explained that the measures were to protect home buyers, reduce government and taxpayer risk and support the stability of housing markets while curtailing excessive demand and unsustainable house price growth.

Sanghera responded. Of course, we do not want people to be overextended. In the same regard, at what point is CMHC intervening in a free market? he asked.

Ben Rabidoux, president of North Cove Advisors, doesnt agree with the free market characterization of the mortgage market. The entire mortgage lobby has a direct federal guarantee and multiple layers of direct federal guarantees that subsidized them, so cry me a friggin river, Rabidoux told Yahoo Finance Canada.

The government from time to time has the right and should be re-evaluating their position given the changing risk landscape. That's how that's supposed to work. It's not a free market.

CMHC also said in their statement that the aim of some of these measures would help manage the risk to their insurance business.

Butler noted that the soaring household debt levels in Canada, much of it driven by mortgage debt, are a factor in the CMHC decision.

At the end of the day, an insurance company has to wisely consider how to operate their business.

From CMHC to the private sector

As CMHC tightened its measures, it left many who analyze the industry wondering what the next step for private companies will be. Around the same time CMHC elected to tighten its measures, HSBC introduced a record-low 1.99 per cent rate on a five-year fixed mortgage. It was the first bank to break the two per cent barrier on the five-year fixed, according to Rate Spy.

At this point, the big question is whether the private insurance will follow suit, said Rabidoux.

On Monday, Genworth MI Canada Inc. announced that it has no plans to follow CMHCs lead on tightening mortgage requirements. The standards to debt service ratio limits, minimum credit score and down payments are expected to stay the same. Canada Guaranty Mortgage Insurance Company has yet to comment on whether or not it will follow CMHCs mandate.

I think the biggest change is the debt service ratio. That's the one that has the potential to be quite disruptive, said Rabidoux, adding that there could be a potential workaround in the private space.
Volkswagen of America and The Conservation Fund announced the winners of the Volkswagen Community Grant Program. Five charitable organizations located in eastern Tennessee received grants of up to $50,000 to advance efforts that will provide environmental learning and leadership opportunities for local youth, help keep rivers and waterways within the Cherokee National Forest clean, and provide current recreational access information for outdoor lovers in the region.

The Volkswagen Community Grants have been awarded to:

great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, for the expansion of a successful pilot program that provides a pathway of environmental learning, recreation and leadership experiences for underserved Knoxville youth;

WaterWays, for the development of an environmental educational programincluding outdoor classroom and interpretive nature trailfor local K-12 students;

National Forest Foundation, for a program that brings youth from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma to their ancestral homelands in the Cherokee National Forest for several weeks of learning, service and exploration;

Keep The Tennessee River Beautiful, for river cleanups with volunteers that raise awareness for conservation of waterways and showcase the vastness of the Cherokee National Forest spanning from Watauga Lake to the Ocoee River; and

Partners of Cherokee National Forest, for the update of a popular regional outdoor recreation map that shows access locations to all federal and state public land near the Cherokee National Forest.

We are committed to being good stewards of the environment especially in our production home of Tennessee, said Duncan Movassaghi, executive vice president of sales and marketing, Volkswagen of America. Working with The Conservation Fund, we are proud to help these great organizations improve access and education related to our greatest natural resources.

The Volkswagen Community Grant Program is part of an ongoing initiative to help protect and restore forestland in the United States, starting in eastern Tennessees Cherokee National Forest. A portion of Volkswagens $1.25 million donation to The Conservation Fund was awarded via the program. The remaining funds will be used by the Fund to buy, conserve and donate approximately 1,500 acres of land to the U.S. Forest Service for inclusion in the Cherokee National Forest later this year, helping to protect wildlife habitat and cultural resources, improve water quality, and provide additional recreation access and environmental education.

We applaud these exemplary organizations for their expanded efforts to maintain and enhance access to the Cherokee National Forests many recreational, educational and inspiring offerings, said Larry Selzer, president and CEO of The Conservation Fund. We are honored to support their efforts and are grateful for Volkswagens commitment to help protect the environment and support the communities in which they work."

TVA, a steward of natural resources in Tennessee since 1933, also contributed by providing administrative support to the Program.

For more information on the collaboration, visit https://www.conservationfund.org/our-work/business-partnerships/our-partners/volkswagen.




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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 16:15 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdda120b 1 City driving-license,SIM-surat-izin-mengemudi,Jakarta-COVID-19,Jakarta-police,dispensation,expired Free

The Jakarta Traffic Police have announced that expired driver's licenses will not need to be renewed until Aug. 31 owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the policy, drivers licenses with expiration dates between March 17 until May 29 will remain valid until the end of August.

The Jakarta Police have instructed officers not to give tickets to drivers with licenses that expire between said dates until Aug. 31.

We decided to extend the grace period because we have seen long queues [at renewal service offices in Jakarta], Jakarta Police spokesperson Yusri Yunus said as quoted from kompas.com on Wednesday.

The regional police forces that are providing a grace period for expired licenses are the Jakarta Police, East Kalimantan Police and Surabaya Police in East Java, he added.

Read also: International driver permit, valid in 188 countries, can now be processed online in Indonesia

The policy is an extension of the previous grace period until May 29 and is aimed at supporting the governments social restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The head of the National Police traffic corps, Insp. Gen. Istiono, signed on May 29 an order to reopen license renewal services at the polices vehicle registration center (Satpas) and the vehicle document registration center (Samsat) in the capital.

Since reopening the service, the police have reported a high number of requests for renewal, resulting in long queues at counters from early in the morning.

Jakarta Police traffic director Sr. Comr. Sambodo Purnomo Yogo said the police would also limit the numbers of applicants for renewals in order to follow COVID-19 health protocols. (trn)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  Lawmakers called on the government's financing arm to ramp up its loan disbursement efforts to process pending applications of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Small Business Corporation, the financing arm of the Department of Trade and Industry, told congressmen on Tuesday's House inquiry that it has only approved 12 loan applications amounting to 1.22 million out of 10,000 potential borrowers.

House Committee on MSME Development chair Virgilio Lacson urged the agency to revisit potential "discrepancies" that led to the delay in disbursement.

The SB Corp. has initially set up a 1-billion loan facility for affected MSMEs under the COVID-19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises program

SB Corp. president and CEO Luna Cacanando said that at least 4,000 applications are already being processed.

"By the end of June, we're targeting the approval of 7,000 applications," she said.

We should be able to complete the approvals within July and by August, we will have spent all our funds already," Cacanando added.

In order to accommodate 10,000 potential borrowers, funding must amount to 1.37 billion, which comes from the national budget.

The loanable amount under the program is 10,000 to 200,000 for a micro enterprise with an asset size of not more than 3 million, while small enterprises with assets not more than 15 million may borrow a higher amount of up to 500,000.

SB Corp. was also called for the tapping of rural banks in disbursing funds for small businesses and improve its information dissemination to allow more applicants into the program.

"We have to make sure that the amount is properly distributed among the loan applicants. A point person [from the SB Corp.] should coordinate with the lawmakers' offices to allow more constituents to apply in the program," said Las Pinas City Rep. Camille Villar.

The DTI previously said that the SB Corp. started accepting loan applications on May 18 as the government eased quarantine rules in Metro Manila and other parts of the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 18:24:31|Editor: huaxia

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A barber cuts hair for a customer at a barbershop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 10, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's barbershops and hair salons opened their doors to the public on Wednesday, the first time after nearly three months as the government easing more restrictive measures against COVID-19.

However, both the customers and their hairstylists need to get used to the strict measures and conditions set by the government to prevent a spike in new cases.

Barbers, hairstylists, and beauticians are required to wear face masks, face shields, and gloves. The protective gear must be changed constantly, and the sharing of towels is strictly forbidden.

Customers are required to have their temperature taken, their contact recorded and put on face masks. Many barbers and saloons only provide haircut service for the moment.

For many Malaysians, have their hair cut is the priority as Malaysia eases more restrictions on Wednesday to allow most social, economic activities to reopen. Barbers and saloons were kept closed since the government imposed on March 18 to contain the virus.

At a barbershop in Kuala Lumpur, a local resident who identified himself as Mr. Tee had his hair cut for the first time in three months. "I felt cool and refreshed," he said.

Tee said he was not concerned about the risk since the barbershop has followed the government's Standard Operating Procedure. "They have done the disinfection, have my temperature taken and put the disposable protective cloth on me, so I feel pretty safe," he said.

The barber, who identified himself as Raj, said more than 30 customers had come as of noon. "We have closed for a long time, so many people come today," he said, admitting that it is not easy to work with gloves and masks on.

Local media reported that some shops have been booked for two weeks and some major chains are receiving an overwhelming response. But the situation was not across the board, as caution and convenience kept some from getting their hair done.

Ng Yen Teng, who operates a hair salon with her family in Selangor state that outside, said she expected businesses to slowly pick up.

"People are reluctant in general but we have some regular customers who come in on an appointment basis. We also have to bear the cost of protective clothing and other materials to keep prices the same for our regulars, but it is more important to maintain them and ensure repeated business," she said.

Malaysia reported only two new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the third consecutive day of single-digit increase and the lowest since late February. The total confirmed case stood at 8,338 with a death toll of 118.

Still, some Malaysians decided that they could wait longer. They also said it would take time to get used to the new normal including having to don protective clothes for a haircut and having to spend more for the service.

Sales executive Syazwan Suleiman, 32, from the administrative center of Putrajaya said he remained cautious about visiting his regular barber as he was concerned the outbreak had not completely died off.

"I would feel safe after a couple of weeks of no new cases or if the numbers stop swinging so much. I understand many of the cases are foreign nationals but the fact is many barbers including mine are from overseas," he said.

"At some point, things have to change but for me, the 'new normal' will take a while. I have not fallen sick so far and I do not need to risk it for something as simple as a haircut," he told Xinhua.

Those who have picked up the skill to cut their own hair are now less dependent on the barbers.

"It is like food and cooking. Most people have already done it for themselves for a few months. If you can do it yourself why to bother go get stuck in a crowd," said Slyvester Navaratnam, a 59-year-old businessman from Kuala Lumpur.

"Having my hair cut at home during the restricted movement means it will take me a while to adjust. But it is also counting the fact that people will crowd around at barbershops. I would rather not take that risk," he said.
US president Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hold talks on defense spending and trade. (File photo)

By Dai Shangyun

US President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of 9,500 US troops from Germany by September, reducing the number by nearly one third. Meanwhile, the number of US troops in Germany has been reduced from the current maximum of 52,000 to less than 25,000, according to a recent report fromReuters. Germany is the headquarters of the U.S. European Command. Trumps troop cut in Germany reflects the growing structural problems between the two powers and their contradictions in fields like security and trade is perhaps the epitome of divide between US and Europe in recent years.

Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US and Germany had multiple confrontations on issues such as defense spending sharing, Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, and US-EU trade talks. As those issues remained resolved, the contradictions accumulated, and the relationship between the two countries showed no signs of easing during the pandemic. Recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected Trumps proposal for G7 summit twiceand it became the focus of recent disputes between the two countries. Germany first refused her personal participation in an in-person event at the end of Juneand warned the US not to modify the rules of the G7 summit without authorization. German TV station Das Erstereported:Merkel coldly rejected Trumps invitation and this may be the first time in trans-Atlantic relations. Cui Hongjian, director of the Department for European Studies of China Institute of International Studies, said that the dispute over the G7 summit may have caused Trump to withdraw troops without any hesitation. Trump tried to take the opportunity to express his dissatisfaction with Merkel and put pressure on Germany, said Cui.

For Germany, Trumps withdrawal from Germany completely disregarded the security interests of allies and may increase the tension between Europe and Russia. It is reported that part of the 9,500 troopswithdrawn from Germany was sent to Poland, which borders Russia. Unlike Germany who advocates easing relations with Russia, Poland not only invites the US to permanently station troops but also actively supports and participates in military exercises led by the US. Poland even defines the Russian Aggressive Policyas Polands biggest threat in its new National Security Strategy. Cui believes that the US government wants to discipline its allies through Carrot-and-Stick game. However, this practice will objectively lead to an escalation of the conflict between Europe and Russia.

In the eyes of US allies in Europe, this is not the first time that the US government has undermined the interests of its allies in the name of "America first". When the US decided to withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies which played an important role in European and global security and stabilityat the end of May, it was met with joint opposition from 10 European countries. Recent actions by the US government indicate that it is redefining US national interests, but the Transatlantic Alliance is not among them. New York Times commented that in the eyes of European officials, the US has changed from an indispensable ally to an unreliable ally. To maintain its own security, calls for the establishment of the European Army and the desire to create European defense integration have become increasingly highand Europe has frequently acted in promoting independent defensein recent years. French President Emmanuel Macron said that Europe cannot rely entirely on the US.

In fact, the contradiction between the US and Europe in the security field is only a reflection of the deepening cracks between the two sides. In recent years, the US and Europe have constant conflicts in the fields of energy, military spending, and foreign trade, and have confronted each other on the issues of unilateralism and multilateralism. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the actions of the US have disappointed its European allies: the US has repeatedly snapped up or intercepted anti-pandemic materials ordered by Germany, France, and other allies, unilaterally prohibited the entry of citizens of European countries, withdrew from the WHO, and announced its initiating the Section 301 InvestigationsAs L'Opinion, a French language daily newspaper,commented that the Trump administrations actions have attracted increasing criticism and resentment, and the divide between Europe and the US has deepened.
Kissing bugs also find suitable climatic conditions in Europe

An infection with Chagas disease is only possible in Latin America since the insect species that spread the disease only occur there. Scientists at Goethe University and the Senckenberg Society for Natural Research have now used ecological niche models to calculate the extent to which habitats outside of the Americas may also be suitable for the bugs. The result: climatically suitable conditions can be found in southern Europe for two kissing bug species; along the coasts of Africa and Southeast Asia the conditions are suitable for yet another species. The Frankfurt scientists therefore call for careful monitoring of the current distribution of triatomine bugs. (eLife DOI: 10.7554/eLife.52072)

The acute phase of the tropical Chagas disease (American Trypanosomiasis) is usually symptom-free: only in every third case does the infecting parasite (Trypanosoma cruzi) cause any symptoms at all, and these are often unspecific, such as fever, hives and swollen lymph glands. But the parasites remain in the body, and many years later chronic Chagas disease can become life-threatening with pathological enlargement of the heart and progressive paralysis of the gastrointestinal tract. There is no vaccine for Chagas disease. The WHO estimates that 6 to 7 million people are infected worldwide, with the majority living in Latin America (about 4.6 million), followed by the USA with more than 300,000 and Europe with approximately 80,000 infected people.

Chagas parasites are transmitted by predatory blood-sucking bugs that ingest the pathogen along with the blood. After a development period in the intestinal tract of the bugs, the parasites are shed in the bug's faeces. The highly infectious faeces are unintentionally rubbed into the wound by the extreme itching caused by the bug bite. Oral transmission by eating food contaminated with triatomine bug faeces is also possible.

Researchers led by the Frankfurt parasitologists and infection biologists Fanny Eberhard and Professor Sven Klimpel have used niche models to investigate which climatic conditions in the world are suitable for Latin American kissing bugs. In particular, temperature and precipitation patterns were incorporated into the calculations on the climatic suitability of a region. The researchers were able to show that currently in addition to Latin America, Central Africa and Southeast Asia also have suitable habitats for triatomines. Two of the triatomine species, Triatoma sordida and Triatoma infestans, are now finding suitable habitats in temperate regions of southern Europe such as Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. Both triatomine species frequently transmit the dangerous parasites in Latin America and can be found inside or near houses and stables, where they get their nightly blood meals preferably from dogs, chickens and humans.

Another triatomine species, Triatoma rubrofasciata, has already been detected outside Latin America. The model calculations by the Frankfurt scientists identify suitable habitats along large areas of the African and Southeast Asian coasts.

Professor Sven Kimpel explains: "There are people living in Europe who were infected with Chagas in Latin America and are unknowingly carriers of Trypanosoma cruzi. However, the parasite can currently only be transmitted to other people through untested blood preservations or by a mother to her unborn child. Otherwise, Trypanosoma cruzi requires triatomine bugs as intermediate hosts. And these bugs are increasingly finding suitable climatic conditions outside Latin America. Based on our data, monitoring programmes on the distribution and spreading of triatomine bugs would therefore be feasible. Mandatory reporting of Chagas disease cases could also be helpful."

###

Publication: Fanny E. Eberhard, Sarah Cunze, Judith Kochmann, Sven Klimpel. Modelling the climatic suitability of Chagas disease vectors on a global scale. eLife 2020;9:e52072 doi: 10.7554/eLife.52072, https:/ / elifesciences. org/ articles/ 52072

Images may be downloaded here: http://www. uni-frankfurt. de/ 88953890

Caption: The triatomine or "kissing" bug Triatoma infestans. Credit: Dorian D. Dorge for Goethe University Frankfurt

Further information:

Prof. Dr. Sven Klimpel

Institute for Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University

& Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre

Tel. +49 69 798 42237

E-Mail: Klimpel@bio.uni-frankfurt.de

https:/ / www. bio. uni-frankfurt. de/ 43925886/ Abt__Klimpel

http://www. bik-f. de/ root/ index. php?page_id= 1224

Current news about science, teaching, and society can be found on GOETHE-UNI online (http://www. aktuelles. uni-frankfurt. de )

Goethe University is a research-oriented university in the European financial centre Frankfurt am Main. The university was founded in 1914 through private funding, primarily from Jewish sponsors, and has since produced pioneering achievements in the areas of social sciences, sociology and economics, medicine, quantum physics, brain research, and labour law. It gained a unique level of autonomy on 1 January 2008 by returning to its historic roots as a "foundation university". Today, it is one of the three largest universities in Germany. Together with the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Mainz, it is a partner in the inter-state strategic Rhine-Main University Alliance. Internet: http://www. goethe-universitaet. de

Publisher: The President of Goethe University Editor: Dr. Markus Bernards, Science Editor, PR & Communication Department, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Tel: -49 (0) 69 798-12498, Fax: +49 (0) 69 798-763 12531, bernards@em.uni-frankfurt.de

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Bengaluru, June 10 : The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate 11's court at Mayo Hall complex here has been sealed for two days from Thursday, as a police constable posted there tested positive for coronavirus, a court official said on Wednesday.

"As the constable attached to the magistrate's court tested positive on Wednesday, the Karnataka High Court Chief Justice has ordered sealing the entire Mayo Hall complex on June 11-12," said High Court Registrar General Rajendra Badamikar in an order here.

As the entire complex will be sanitised, all appointments granted to the members of the bar for physical filing, payment of court fee and process fee and hearing shall be cancelled in all courts in the complex on Thursday and Friday.

"The Principal City Civil & Sessions Judge, Bengaluru, will ensure that in case of urgency, the matters may be heard only through video conferencing," said Badamikar in the order.
(TNS)  The Everhart Museum has found new ways to keep kids and adults engaged this summer.With its doors still closed and its traditional childrens summer camps canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Scranton museum decided to take its programs and public outreach online.Kids can register for the Virtual Summer Camps at the museums website, everhart-museum.org , through June 15. A Museum Adventure Kit costs $15 and includes physical and virtual activities  the museum uses Googles Meet platform  the children can do, with options varying depending on age. They also come with family museum admission passes for a year.The kits themselves will have activities that will be like step-by-step tutorials, so everything you need to actually do the activities, said Stefanie Colarusso, director of programs and events. The virtual experience will be discussions ... with museum educators about the collections. Were going to have some physical art lessons online ... maybe in line with something youre using in the box.Week 1, Nature Adventure, runs July 13 to 17 with Butterfly Discovery on The Pamana Expedition for kindergarten to grade two and Dr. Twinings Strange and Unusual Herbarium for grades three to six; Week 2, Art Adventure, runs July 27 to 31 with The Story of the Fisherman from Kanagawa for kindergarten to grade two and Stitching a Story: A Weaver from New Hope for grades three to six; and Week 3, Mystery Adventure, runs Aug. 10 to 14 with Magical Egypt  Animals and Insects of the Ancient World for kindergarten to grade two and Breaking Codes in the Tomb of Queen Hatshepsut for grades three to six.As a mom, I am always looking for something to do, especially on rainy days, with my kids that are like really good photo tutorial stuff, stuff that I dont really have to focus as much energy on, Colarusso said. What parents will like about this is well include photos step-by-step for the kids.But participants dont need to go online to enjoy the kits, which include activities such as lesson plans, project tools and supplies, and printed artwork in addition to the virtual aspects, like online field trips.We have a lot of families in the area that we work with that dont have the resources available, Colarusso said. Theres a lot of equality issues in Lackawanna County, so we decided to make a hybrid (kit).The kits are valued at $90, but Colarusso said the museum board raised money to make the kit really affordable at $15. Some already sold out, but anyone who didnt get one can email assistant.programs@everhart-museum.org to be added to a wait list. Those who did get kits can pick them up curbside at the museum the week prior to camp, but the Everhart also can ship them for a fee.The museums programs and curatorial departments, meanwhile, already had been working together to move exhibitions online thanks to a grant for digitizing the collection and creating 3-D prints of objects. Theyve taken photos of various items for virtual tours that Colarusso said they hope to release later this summer or early fall.We were already thinking about how could we have this more virtual presence, make (the exhibits) more accessible to the public, how can we bring our museum into the next century, she said.And virtual tours could help educators whose students couldnt go on field trips to the museum like usual because of the shutdown, Colarusso noted.If they cant come to us, we can come to them, she said.The free, all-ages Virtual Classroom Series, meanwhile, lets the public can learn more about history, food and art via museum collections and exhibits. The classes include an instructional video, worksheets and an at-home preparation and materials list. Registration is required so participants get the URLs to attend.The session Small Table and Rug ran this week and presents its final pre-recorded video Wednesday, June 10, on Facebook with a live chat on Google Meet on Friday, June 12. The final session, Butterflies in Nature and Art will include pre-recorded videos posted on Facebook from Monday, June 29, to Wednesday, July 1, with a live Google Meet chat on Thursday, July 2.The videos show up on Facebook each class day at 9 p.m., and the live chats take place at 12:30 p.m. The museum also has posted past course videos on its website Continued museum education is important because we want to teach (the public) about where they live and whats around them and the history of that, Colarusso said.The Everhart also plans to continue offering virtual gallery talks. The first featured Ryan Ward, curator of The Maslow Collection at Marywood University, who worked with the museum for an exhibit of the collection earlier this year. The public can watch the video on the museums website and Facebook page, where Ward also answered questions in the comments.He has created about a 15-minute talk, and it really does go through (the exhibit) room to room, Colarusso said.Everhart staff have stayed active during the closure as well by sharing activities, playlists, inspiration boards and links to content from other museums on its social media channels. People can download coloring sheets from the Everhart website and also check out the museums blog, which Colorusso said is really important to our staff because its full staff engagement.Adults, meanwhile, can engage with the museum through coffee breaks on social media where museum staff chat about different pieces; through virtual happy hours, which include a presentation and a chance to socialize from home; and tea time with museum docents.Going forward, the museum sees activities that mix in-person and digital activities as something it will continue even after COVID-19 restrictions end.We really are planning to do hybrid programs for the long haul, Colarusso said. This is not something we plan on stopping.
Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza has died of a heart attack at age 56, the government announced Tuesday, ending a 15-year-rule marked by deadly political violence and a historic withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.

The statement posted on social media said the president was admitted to a hospital overnight Saturday after not feeling well. He appeared better Sunday but to very great surprise his health abruptly worsened Monday morning, and several hours of effort failed to revive him.

Burundi's government has declared a week of mourning.

Nkurunziza's death comes weeks before president-elect ruling party candidate Evariste Ndayishimiye was expected to be sworn in after winning the May election.

It was not immediately clear what the government's steps will be and a spokesman was not available for comment.

"According to Burundi's constitution, when a president dies in office before handing over power, the speaker of parliament takes over and organises a fresh election. But I think the leadership will ignore this requirement and go with Evariste Ndayishimiye, said David Gakunzi, a Burundian author.

Despite the government's statement, some in Burundi wondered whether Nkurunziza died of COVOD-19 instead.

When Nkurunziza's wife was flown to Kenya suffering from COVID-19, many in Burundi suspected the president himself was sick," said Justin Nyabenda, a resident in Bujumbura.

He was referring to reports in Kenyan media that Nkurunziza's wife, Denise, was hospitalised in Nairobi for COVID-19 in late May.

Burundi's government has downplayed the virus and held the election and large campaign rallies in spite of the threat. Authorities kicked out the World Health Organisation's top official in the country just days before the election after the WHO raised concerns about crowded rallies. The country has reported 83 virus cases.

Nkurunziza took office in 2005, chosen by lawmakers to lead the East African nation after the 1993-2005 civil war killed about 300,000 people. He and Ndayishimiye fought alongside each other as rebels in the conflict.

The peace process known as the Arusha Accords specified that a president's term can be renewed only once. But Nkurunziza, who won a second term in 2010, announced he was eligible for a third term in 2015 because he had not been chosen the first time by universal suffrage.

The deadly turmoil that followed badly damaged ties with the international community, and Burundi became the first country to leave the ICC after it started investigating allegations of state-sponsored crimes including murder, rape and torture.

The United Nations human rights office reported more than 300 extrajudicial killings and was later kicked out of the country after outgoing UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein called Burundi one of the most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times.

Burundi's government has denied allegations it targets its people, calling them malicious propaganda by dissidents.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent condolences to the government and people of Burundi and to the president's family.

The scretary-general reaffirms the willingness of the United Nations to support the government and people of Burundi as they face the COVID-19 pandemic and in their continuing efforts to create a stable, prosperous and peaceful future for all the country's citizens, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Nkurunziza survived a coup attempt shortly after the 2015 vote. International donors cut support, leaving the government struggling. Hundreds of thousands of people fled the country.

Many Burundians will remember Nkurunziza as a president who left behind a divided country, said author Gakunzi.

When he came into power after the Arusha agreement, citizens expected peace and prosperity. However, his greed for power in 2015 divided the country and sent many to live in exile.

Many Burundians were surprised when the president announced in 2018 that he was serving his last term.

Many thought he would continue to wield power behind the scenes. The opposition leader who lost the May election, Agathon Rwasa, said his supporters were harassed ahead of the vote and arrested by the scores on election day. His court challenge to the vote alleging fraud was rejected.

The government had approved legislation meant to bestow upon Nkurunziza the title of paramount leader once he stepped down.

Nkurunziza leaves behind a legacy of ruthless repression, said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

He ruled through fear to erect a system synonymous with the worst human rights abuses: extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances and the systematic crushing of dissent. Burundi must investigate the crimes, Mudge said. As long as these abuses go unpunished, this dark legacy will hang over Burundi for many years to come.
MCS Community Services said financial assistance is available for Morgan Countians having difficulty paying their utility bills.

The agency administers the Illinois Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federally funded program that provides utility bill assistance to those who meet income eligibility guidelines.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan has extended until July 1 the special quarantine regime in the country, the coronavirus task force under the Cabinet of Ministers said in a briefing on June 9.

The task force also announced that a two-day nationwide quarantine regime will be imposed in Baku, Ganja, Lankaran, Sumgayit, Absheron, Yevlakh, Ismailli, Kurdamir and Salyan regions from 00:00 on June 14 to 06:00 on June 16.

The decision to impose strict lockdown was made taking into account the number of infected people and the dynamics of the disease in the country.

Under the new lockdown rule, citizens are banned to leave their place of residents unless there is immediate danger of life and health (emergency care will be provided by ambulance crews) and in order to attend the funeral of a close relative.

Work in all spheres of service and trade as well as the movement of vehicles will be suspended except for special vehicles of special purpose, emergency recovery, ambulance and authorized bodies (institutions) and the movement of official vehicles of organizations.

The difference between upcoming lockdown and the one that was in force on June 6-7 is that now dog owners are allowed to walk pets during lockdown without the need of obtaining a permit. Moreover, this time residents with a work permit are allowed to go to work by using their private cars, whereas during the previous lockdown they could only go there by service car, bicycle or by foot.

It was noted during the briefing that in accordance with the current sanitary-epidemiological situation, people over 65 are strongly advised not to leave their places of residence and location without an emergency.

Furthermore, it was stated that unlike the weekend lockdown imposed on June 6-7, there will be no shortened working day in state structures this Friday, and some institutions will be working on Saturday on their normal working basis.

The head of associations for the management of medical territorial units (TABIB) Ramin Bayramli said at the briefing that the increase in number of coronavirus infected people, especially among the youth, is a cause for concern.

"The number of patients in serious condition has also increased. From May 18 to 24, 848 new cases of infection were detected. In the following week, 1,372 new cases of coronavirus infection were registered. At that time, the number of infections exceeded the number of cured cases," Bayramli said.

According to him, cases of coronavirus infection have also been registered in government bodies (institutions).

Nineteen employees of the Presidential Administration, seven employees of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and five employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations were infected with the coronavirus, he stated.

It was also noted during the briefing that it may be decided to treat asymptomatic patients with coronavirus at home.

"So far, all coronavirus patients have been treated in hospitals. Lately, more information will be provided in connection with the treatment of asymptomatic patients at home. We are concerned that such patients may get out of control and infect other people. That's why they will have to sign a special receipt," Bayramli said.

Additionally, press secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers Ibrahim Mammadov said during the briefing that around AZN 113 million ($66M) have been collected in Azerbaijans Fund to Support Fight against Coronavirus.

"In case of necessity, the funds may be spent under supervision of the Council for Public Control of Azerbaijans Fund to Support Fight against Coronavirus. But so far, there is no need for that. The government covers all expenses. Therefore, these funds remain untouched, Mammadov added.

Furthermore, Ramin Bayramli stressed that if people do not show solidarity in the fight against infection, and ignore using medical protection means in public places, as well as maintaining social distance, it could lead to even more serious consequences.

Azerbaijan first introduced special quarantine regime on March 24 and the fourth stage of quarantine regime easing came into force on May 31.

On June 4, Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers announced the decision to impose a weekend lockdown on June 6-7, saying that weekend lockdowns may last for up to two months.

The movement of people working in authorized work, service and transport areas will be allowed by the employer after entering information about these persons on the portal "icaze.e-gov.az" using an electronic signature.

In order to leave the place of residence or location on the basis specified in decision, each person must get permission by calling "102" of the Duty Part Management Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

As of June 10, Azerbaijan has registered 8,191 COVID-19 cases and 98 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of recovered patients is 4,606.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
After my boyfriend accepted a job in northern California, we took a trip to see where wed be living. We sat in the living room of our future landlords  whod also moved from Montana  and they explained the culture in the Sierra Nevada foothills, nestled halfway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, two hours from the Bay Area.

Some people fly the American flags, and some fly prayer flags, they said, other groups fly some more regional flags, but mostly we all get along. Ive lived in nine states and four countries, and I know that its almost impossible to fully understand a place until you really get into it. I had some leeriness about this rural part of California, but I figured it wouldnt be too bad, and probably not more intolerant than Montana.

My New York City roots are four generations deep. Im the first person on my mothers side to leave the east coast, and only the second on my fathers side. Its like our roots have cement shoes. When I told my grandfather I was moving to Missoula, Montana he saw images from his Spaghetti Westerns. Do they have car dealerships or movie theaters out there? he asked.

When I arrived in Montana and told people I was from back east, I got curious responses. One woman asked if I was from Billings  a five-hour drive east of Missoula  and another guessed Minneapolis  a sixteen-hour drive east, but not even halfway to New York. When I told them I meant all the way east to the absolute edge of the United States, they pictured me in Times Square or maybe in a scene from The Sopranos, which contrasted with my grandfathers image of me sitting in a field, chewing on a blade of grass.

Montana is idolized by outsiders. They think of images from the national parks  Yellowstone and Glacier  and see grizzly bears, bison, snow-capped peaks, and the proverbial big sky. California is the same, but different. Strangers see incredible weather, nonstop sunshine, and beaches that dont quit.

What most people dont realize is that California has more hate groups than any other state. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which keeps a current Hate Map by State on their website, California has 88 active hate groups as of this writing. Montana has six. California is the most populated state, but the ratio of hate groups to population not only seems disproportionate but also unexpected.

Last week in Whitefish, Montana, a white man disrupted a peaceful protest. He knocked signs from protesters hands and stared down Samantha Francine, a young black woman. The bully shouted obscenities and towered over Francine with fists clenched at the ready. Francine shared on Facebook some advice she remembers from her now-deceased father, a white man who raised her by himself: No matter the threat, always look them in the eye so they have to acknowledge youre human.

They identified the man and charged him with disorderly conduct. I heard from people at that protest that it was beautiful the way the crowd protected the young woman until the police arrived. While the man intimidated Francine, the protesters chanted, Peaceful.

In contrast, at a protest last week in Colfax, California, a man drove his truck through the crowd, distributing in his wake white supremacist stickers that included graphic cartoons and racial slurs. Although someone must have caught his license plate and/or vehicle description, the mans identity remains protected. No charges have been filed and the sheriff reports that the incident is under investigation. The Colfax City Council hasn't commented, and the attitude seems to be equal parts complacency and oh, this again?

Theres no question that hate has been on the rise over the past few years. The data shows this to be true in every state. My home state of New York, with a population half the size of California, is on par with 44 hate groups. New York and Los Angeles have a long-running rivalry over which place has a better quality of life, and although sunshine versus bagels have camps firmly on one side of the country or the other, most inhabitants of the two cities agree theyre about equal on politics. The Bay Area fits in there as well.

But heres the thing: if the cities themselves are safe(ish) havens for diversity, open-mindedness, and a bit of insulation from hate groups, the countryside is where the hate groups let it all hang out. If last weeks events in Whitefish and Colfax are an indication of a trend, Montana feels less racist than California, and might actually be less tolerant of blatant racism.

If nothing else, at least in Montana they look the tough guy in the eye.
Rowling was linking to an article calling for more access to water and sanitation, education as well as cloths, pads and cups for the some 500 million of the 1.8 billion girls, women and "gender non-binary persons" who menstruate but have had their ability to practise good hygiene during their periods further compromised by the pandemic. One of the authors, Marni Sommer from Columbia University, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that the phrase was developed by the "menstrual community" comprising activists, NGOs, researchers, UN agencies and governments: "It emerged from some careful work that has been done in recent years in the menstrual community to be more inclusive of everyone who menstruates." In her essay, Rowling said the language that trans activists demand was "dehumanising and demeaning" to many women. "I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us whove had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, its not neutral, its hostile and alienating." The post generated more than 30,000 responses on Twitter, most of which accused her of being a misogynist, transphobic and a TERF - the acronym widely used by trans activists that stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

"I decided not to kill myself because I wanted to know how Harry's story ended," a US-based account named Kate Beetle wrote in response, referring to Rowling's bestselling books. "For a long time, that was all that kept me alive. Until I met my husband who helped me learn to love myself and to want to live. You just insulted him to my face. "I hate you," she said. That response was liked by more than 50,000 Twitter accounts. On Wednesday, Rowling listed five reasons for why she had decided to keep speaking out despite being harassed for her "wrongthink".

Loading She said she had been researching trans issues and gender identity for two years, partly to help inform a character she is writing and also out of personal concern. She said when she returned to Twitter on the weekend to share a free children's book during the pandemic, she was "swarmed" by activists "who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people assuming a right to police my speech". Since her charitable trust supports female prisoners and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, as well as funding research into Multiple Sclerosis, which affects men and women differently, Rowling argued she was interested in preserving the definition of men and women based on their sex. She said also, that as an ex-teacher, she held "deep concerns" about the effect the trans rights movement is having on the education and safety of children.

She said a third reason for speaking up was that as a much-banned author, she would always promote free speech, even for US President Donald Trump, to whom she is politically opposed. Rowling, a mother of two, said her fourth reason was "truly personal" and centred on the "huge explosion" or 4400 per cent increase in young women being referred for transitioning treatment. Rowling said there were "increasing numbers" of people regretting their choice and wanting to return to their original sex, but in some cases after altering their bodies irreversibly and removing their fertility. "The more Ive wondered whether, if Id been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition," she said, revealed she struggled with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as a teenager. "If Id found community and sympathy online that I couldnt find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said hed have preferred."

Rowling said finally she was prompted by the violence and sexual assault she suffered during her first marriage. She said defending separate male and women toilet blocks for example, as opposed to gender-neutral facilities demanded by trans activists, was out of solidarity for other domestic violence victims who have been "slurred as bigots" for holding concerns around single-sex spaces. "When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels hes a woman  and, as Ive said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones  then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth." Rowling used a new Twitter function that disables replies aimed at preventing online pile-ons when posting her latest comments on the social media platform.
CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman has now stepped down after winding up in further hot water for his comments on the protests over the killing of George Floyd in police custody and conspiracy theories about the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus . On Saturday, Glassmans Its FLOYD-19 tweet in response to a Black Lives matter statement from the University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation drew a lot of backlash, including Reebok cancelling their deal with CrossFit HQ as of 2021. It turns out thats only one of the problematic things Glassman said that day. BuzzFeed News Ryan Brooks and David Mack obtained an audio recording of Glassmans 75-minute Zoom conference with CrossFit affiliated gym owners Saturday, and the excerpts they published Tuesday evening have Glassman making quite the comments on Floyd, on the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. Thats now led to Floyd leaving that post. Heres more from a statement CrossFit put out Tuesday night:

Im stepping down as CEO of CrossFit, Inc., and I have decided to retire. On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members. Since I founded CrossFit 20 years ago, it has become the worlds largest network of gyms. All are aligned in offering an elegant solution to the vexing problem of chronic disease. Creating CrossFit and supporting its affiliates and legions of professional trainers has been a labor of love. Those who know me know that my sole issue is the chronic disease epidemic. I know that CrossFit is the solution to this epidemic and that CrossFit HQ and its staff serve as the stewards of CrossFit affiliates worldwide. I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQs or affiliates missions. They are too important to jeopardize.

Here are some highlights from the piece Brooks and Mack wrote on that Saturday call:

Hours before he posted a controversial tweet on Saturday night that has sparked backlash for his company, CrossFit CEO and founder Greg Glassman told gym owners on a private Zoom call, Were not mourning for George Floyd  I dont think me or any of my staff are, according to a full recording of the meeting obtained by BuzzFeed News. Can you tell me why I should mourn for him? Other than that its the white thing to do  other than that, give me another reason, he asked a Minneapolis gym owner who had questioned why the brand hadnt posted a statement about the protests across the country after the death of George Floyd. I would prefer a trial of a murderer rather than burning the city down. I think that the law has a better response. I think burning your city to the ground and burning a police station to the ground because a cop killed what was very likely going to be a co-conspirator in a counterfeit ring  I just dont get the burning thing. How about the black cop that was killed? Glassman said later in the call, adding that he wasnt going to fund Antifa  another conspiracy theory  because a guy got killed. Glassman also trashed epidemiology as a social science, said upstate New Yorkers should secede from the rest of their state due to the strict lockdown measures in New York City, and urged gym owners to only pretend to comply with health precautions when they reopen. It was a panic. Absolute panic right from the start and I think its inevitable that its going to turn out that this has cost way more lives than have been saved. Way more, he said. At some point youve got to do whats right, and it may not come with approval, it may not be seen as the right thing to do, but you still have to do it. Its the burden. During a lengthy discussion on the coronavirus, Glassman again shared more unfounded theories. The Chinese let this virus get out of the laboratory, and that indeed did happen, he said.

The whole article is an amazing read, both for Glassmans remarks and for the reactions from CrossFit affiliate owners who were on the call. And it goes to show that Glassmans tweets Saturday (which he did later halfheartedly apologize for in a statement on the CrossFit Twitter account) appear to be only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what he believes on Floyds death and the spread of COVID-19. And its quite notable to see him now stepping down shortly after that.

[BuzzFeed News]; photo from Glassmans visit to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska in 2014, USAF photo by Charles Haymond]
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- District Attorney Michael E. McMahon called on members of the New York City Council on Tuesday to include an exemption to a proposed chokehold ban that would allow officers to offer a justification defense in the event that the use of force was necessary to protect their lives.

In regards to legislation on the use of chokeholds by police officers, I do fully support the bills that were passed in Albany yesterday to ban and criminalize the use of chokeholds by police officers, McMahon wrote in a statement. However, the state legislation also allowed for an important exception - where an officer may offer a justification defense in the event that such force was necessary to protect their lives.

On Monday, State lawmakers passed legislation named after Eric Garner, who died in Tompkinsville in 2014 after he told officers 11 times that he could not breathe as they attempted to take him into custody.

The "Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act was passed as part of a package of bills aimed at police reform following massive protests across the country in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Initially introduced in August, the bill is based on proposed legislation introduced shortly after Garners death, but originally did not provide for an affirmative defense if officers used a chokehold in protection of their lives. However, State Sen. Diane Savino said that was corrected before the final vote Monday.

Although I recognize and am supportive of the intent behind the legislation the City Council will take up today, I cannot support it without inclusion of this important exception that the state adopted, McMahon said.

Most police departments in the state already have internal bans on chokeholds, but the legislation passed Monday would mean cops could be charged with aggravated strangulation and face up to 15 years in prison, according to a media release from the New York State Assembly.

The fate of the anti-chokehold bill in the City Council is currently unknown, as the councils Committee on Public Safety was slated to hear testimony on Tuesday.

While pushing back on the City Council legislation that does not include the aforementioned exemption, McMahon offered solidarity towards other police accountability measures being passed in New York.

Like my fellow DA colleagues, I support action being taken by the city and the state to increase law enforcement accountability. We are witnessing positive history being made across the country and we are in a critical turning point in the relationship between law enforcement and the community, McMahon said.

There is no question that there are many ways in which we can strengthen the trust that has been lost by improving transparency, accountability, and sending a clear message that hate, racism and excessive force will not be tolerated, he added.

McMahon said he acknowledges and intends to support change to bring more accountability, transparency and community input into our criminal justice system, and endorsed state-passed legislation that protects the rights of New Yorkers to record law enforcement activity, requires officers to promptly report when a firearm is discharged, prevents the biased misuse of emergency services, requires visible shield numbers and rank designations and also brings greater transparency to policing data.

These are all important changes that will help New York lead the way in this important moment, he said.

My statement in regards to legislation on chokeholds and other law enforcement accountability measures. pic.twitter.com/mCDE6pEcBr  Michael E. McMahon (@StatenIslandDA) June 9, 2020

The concerns voiced by McMahon concerning the chokehold measure were shared previously by Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore), who last week accused Democratic leaders of using a critical moment to score a cheap win on progressive legislation that has been previously unable to pass."

Chokeholds are already banned, but this will criminalize officers who may be fighting for their own lives," Borelli said.

None of the responding officers involved in Garners death were ever charged, and a grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was filmed bringing Garner to the ground by his neck and continuing to apply pressure after he was down.

Last year, he was fired from the NYPD after a departmental trial.

POLICE UNIONS TAKE FIRM STANCE

Police unions on Tuesday sternly pushed back against a wide swath of proposals being passed and proposed in the city and state.

We, as professionals, are under assault, said Police Benevolent Association (PBA) President Pat Lynch, who spoke alongside other union leaders Tuesday at a press conference in Manhattan. I dont want the neighborhood that I worked in, that I brought back, that we brought back  I dont want it to slide back."

Apeaking about ex-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin  who has since been charged, along with three colleagues who responded that day, Lynch said he believes there is not a single cop in the city who agrees with the tactics Chauvin used.

The Minneapolis Police Department is now facing a complete overhaul by a majority of city leaders, citing irreparable corruption. However, Lynch claimed the NYPD is different

in part because of what he said are the most restrained" enforcement tactics used in the U.S.

In his statement, McMahon acknowledged the work of police officers, saying they do an incredibly difficult job and risk their lives every day to serve our communities.

We are grateful for their service and recognize the challenges they face, McMahon said. As such, our legislation must reflect those realities and our respect for those police officers who live up to our ideals and the NYPD 's core values of courtesy, professionalism and respect of the community.

Echoing sentiments expressed by Lynch and others  who slammed lawmakers for not being transparent in the way theyre drafting and voting on bills that directly impact law enforcement officers and their families  McMahon urged law enforcement to be included in dialogue that leads to legislative change.

McMahon said he hoped that all levels of government would "continue to push for meaningful legislative and policy action that includes dialogue with law enforcement and the community about what we can do to restore and build trust and improve our criminal justice system.

As always, I pledge to remain committed to working together to create a fairer, more just, and better place to live for every New Yorker," he said.
The Congress on Wednesday charged the Bharatiya Janata Party with attempts to destabilise the Rajasthan government with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot claiming that some of the party MLAs were offered Rs 25 crore each.

Gehlot's statement came hours after the Congress took its MLAs to a Jaipur resort for a meeting ahead of the elections to three seats of the Rajya Sabha in the state on June 19.



Claiming a heavy transfer of cash to Jaipur, Gehlot said there were reports about the BJP's plan similar to that of Madhya Pradesh and some of the party MLAs were offered Rs 25 crore in cash with Rs 10 crore in advance.

But the party MLAs were 'alert and united', he said, adding that the condition of those who left the Congress to join the BJP was not good.

He also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that the Rajya Sabha elections were postponed under pressure because the BJP could not poach MLAs in Rajasthan and Gujarat.



About the meeting with the MLAs, Gehlot said it was fruitful and they will meet again on Thursday.



Earlier in the day, Congress's national spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, who arrived in Jaipur to attend the meeting of the Congress MLAs and Independent legislators, said 'repeated assassination' of public mandate has become the BJP's character.



The BJP's conspiracy in Rajasthan will not succeed, he said, adding that the Congress MLAs are 'fearless', therefore, they are not going to fall into any temptation and the BJP will get the 'right reply' through

democracy.



Stressing that the party has an absolute majority, he said no one can 'defeat the public mandate or democracy'.



Alleging a bid to poach the party MLAs and the independent legislators backing the government, government chief whip Mahesh Joshi too forwarded a written complaint to the DG, Anti-Corruption Bureau.



He sought action against 'identified' elements for the corrupt conduct and attempts for destabilising the government.



It has come to my knowledge that like Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, attempts are being made to destabilise the government in Rajasthan, Joshi said in the complaint.



However, he did not specify who is making the attempts.



ACB DG Alok Tripathi said action will be taken on the complaint.

Amid this, the MLAs who were called at chief minister's residence in the evening for a meeting for the Rajya Sabha elections were taken to the Shiv Vilas resort on the Delhi highway in Jaipur, where the meeting was held.



The meeting was fruitful today. The MLAs were asked to go tonight and we will meet again tomorrow, Gehlot told reporters after the meeting on Wednesday night.



AICC general secretary Avinash Pande and the party's Rajya Sabha candidate from Rajasthan K C Venugopal will also remain present in the meeting tomorrow.



On the other hand, state BJP president Satish Poonia said the Congress in Rajasthan is "feeling insecure".



"Their own house is not in order. They do not trust their MLAs," Poonia said.



The Congress has nominated K C Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi for the Rajya Sabha elections scheduled for June 19 while the BJP fielded Rajendra Gehlot and Onkar Singh Lakhawat.



In the assembly of 200, the Congress has 107 MLAs, including six those who defected to the party from the BSP last year. The party enjoys the support of 12 of the 13 Independent MLAs in the state.
Moving house is a stressful business.

Theres all that packing up and agonising over what to take, what to throw out, what to give away; then theres the settling into a new home.

But for John and Angela Hodge there was the additional heartache of knowing that they didnt really want to leave Ballingdon Hall, their 16th-century Grade II-listed Elizabethan manor house, in the first place.

So, in the winter of 1972, they decided to keep it  but move the entire building half a mile up a hill in Sudbury, Suffolk, where they could enjoy commanding views over the Stour Valley and live happily ever after.

John and Angela Hodge decided they simply could not leave their 16th-century Grade II-listed Elizabethan manor house, and so moved it using extraordinary measures

It was an outrageous fantasy and one that made headlines around the world, with many people thinking it was an impossible task. But the Hodges, who acquired the property in 1959, proved that there were mobile homes  and then there was Ballingdon Hall.

It was my idea and everyone thought I had gone mad  even my husband, says Mrs Hodge, 85. But I loved the house so much and was prepared to do anything to stay in it.

What prompted moving the whole caboodle was an encroaching modern housing estate on one side of the drive and expanding industrial warehouses on the other, near the busy A131 which was being improved.

The inspiration Mrs Hodges drew upon for her audacious plan was Abu Simbel, one of the great ancient sites of Egypt. For 3,000 years, Abu Simbels two temples sat on the west bank of the River Nile.

But, in a remarkable feat of engineering, the entire complex was dismantled and rebuilt on a higher hill to make way for the rising waters of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s.

I thought to myself if they can do that at Abu Simbel they can do it in Sudbury, but when we approached various heritage bodies they all said we could not take down the house piece by piece and rebuild it because it was too fragile. The only way was to move the whole thing as it was.

The stunning property now sits half a mile away up a hill in Sudbury, Suffolk, where they could enjoy commanding views over the Stour Valley

Pynford (now Abbey Pynford), a firm of engineers, took on the project and said bravely that the job could be completed in a week.

Some promise. In fact, it took almost a year  and, like most building works, cost double what was quoted, amid all kinds of legal wrangling.

Built by Sir Thomas Eden, a wool baron and local High Sheriff, in 1593  the year in which Britain was threatened by a Spanish invasion  Ballingdon Hall used to be five times bigger than it was in 1972.

Even so, it was a considerable size and weight, albeit made lighter in readiness for the move by removing five huge chimneys, the inglenook fireplaces and some interior walls, all of which were rebuilt once the house was settled in its new position.

First, Pynford cut a trench all around the building, slid wooden beams under the house and started to lift the whole structure by 12-15 ft using hydraulic lifts.

Then, supported by two massive Bailey bridges (portable bridges used in World War II), the 170-ton timber house was rolled on to 26 metal wheels. Two huge caterpillar tractors were deployed to do the heavy dragging when everything was in place and the time was right.

The big day came on Leap Day, February 1972. But leap it did not. In fact, it moved just a few inches for the first few days.

I was very nervous and began to wonder if we were doing the right thing, especially because it had to be dragged in an S shape to minimise the gradient of the hill, says Mrs Hodge.

And people came up and asked what would happen if it started to slide back down. Word spread about the extraordinary spectacle unfolding on the Suffolk/Essex border.

Newspapers estimated that 50,000 turned up to watch over the year. One weekend, we actually charged people sixpence (2p) to come into the grounds and see what was happening.

'There were loudspeakers telling people not to get too close. If one of the wires had snapped it would have been catastrophic.

The money raised  around 3,000  went towards the restoration of the 15th-century tower of the local All Saints Church. Moving the house proved to be wise. One night, there was a fearful storm, which felled a giant oak next to the houses old position.

If we had been there, the tree would have destroyed the house and killed us and our then two young children, says Mrs Hodge. That told me it was meant to be.'

Eventually, Ballingdon Hall was lowered gingerly on to its 20thcentury foundations exactly in the position that the Hodges wanted. The beams were removed one by one, with new trenches built in a reverse process of what happened a year earlier.

It took a further five years to reinstate the chimneys, construct new plinths around the bay windows and restore the fire places and interiors. That was when the wrangling started.

Mrs Hodges doesnt recall the exact figures. It was expensive, lets leave it at that. At one point, Pynford sued Mr Hodges, a solicitor, for 6,000 in unpaid bills, while he accused the firm of causing more than 75,000 worth of damage.

Mrs Hodges husband died last year and she is now finding the 25-room, three-storey house too big. So, reluctantly, she has put it on the market for 1.9 million and hopes to move somewhere more manageable.

I have been so happy here and have always realised that we are just custodians of the houses we live in. Its time now to pass the house on.

Theres an element of keeping the sale in the family. The Colchester estate agents tasked with selling the property is run by Nicholas Percival, who is married to the daughter of Mrs Hodges.

I never lived there myself, but you would certainly never know that its only occupied its spot for less than 50 years, says Mr Percival. And, if desperate, he could always tempt buyers with the slogan  Britains ultimate mobile home.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has ordered its officers to stop using chokeholds to restrain suspects, amid George Floyd protests.

The department directed its officers to stop using carotid restraints, commonly referred to as chokeholds, as the restraint can stop blood flow to the brain, according to The Hill.

Los Angeles Police Commission president Eileen Decker asked for an immediate review of the departments policy regarding the use of the carotid restraint control hold, according to a statement from the department on Tuesday.

The department added: Commission president Decker ... agreed to an immediate moratorium on the training and use of the carotid restraint control hold until such time that the Board of Police Commissioners can conduct a detailed review.

The moratorium comes amid protests across the US, in opposition to police brutality against African Americans, following the death of Mr Floyd on 25 May.

Recommended Officer who put middle fingers up at protesters stripped of his powers

Mr Floyd died after being detained by Derek Chauvin, who at the time was a Minneapolis police officer, but has since been fired and charged with second degree murder and manslaughter.

The officer knelt on Mr Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes, as he repeatedly shouted that he couldnt breathe.

Lieutenant John Satterfield, from the Los Angeles Sheriff Department, also announced that he has directed his officers to stop using the restraint, unless someones life is threatened, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Mr Satterfield said the decision was made in reaction to the protests that have taken place over the last couple of weeks.

The communitys made it clear that this isnt a force option that they want where its currently at, Mr Satterfield said.

We hear the community, and were going to react.
Merchandise is seen outside a souvenir store on Tinker Street in Woodstock, New York, on Aug. 14, 2019. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

Why Were In the Mess Were In

Commentary

Many are trying to figure out how things went so wrong in our country, how so many of our young (and old) peoplepoliticians, entertainers and media notable among themare clamoring for such absurdities as defunding the police when 18 people were murdered in Chicago last weekend alone.

Im not.

I have suspected I knew the most important reason long before the latest outburst of this madness, with undoubtedly more to come.

No, its not Donald Trump or the derangement syndrome thereof. This began long before Trump was president or even a guest on the Howard Stern Show.

And its not police brutality, which has been on the wane for decades, as anyone slightly interested in the facts knows.

The same goes for racism, which had been diminishing rapidly until Obama got elected and has only bumped up recently as a means to power enhanced by the explanation I am about to give.

No, the real cause, shall we say the uber-cause, is what I call Sixties Envyand I, a card-burning member of that generation, am among those responsible.

Mea culpa, and then some.

Ever since our generation turned on, tuned in and dropped out in Dr. Timothy Learys 1966 words, everyone, or nearly everyone, too many anyway, have wanted in on the fun. Or what was supposed to have been fun.

They heard the stories from their older siblings, or their parents, now even their grandparents, plus their uncles, aunts, and whoever else:

The Sixties were so cool! Sex, drugs and rock n roll! Woodstock!

Who wouldnt want to be part of that? And demonstrating was the key part, the moral part that excused everything else, all the excesses, as we chanted in unison: Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh/Viet Cong is gonna win! Hey, hey, LBJ/How many kids did you kill today? and, of course, the ever-popular Off the pig!

Off the pig! Sound familiar? Not quite Dead cops now but close. Marx, almost right for once, famously said, History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Only this second time isnt really so farcical and may end up more of a tragedy if were not careful.

As for how much fun the first version was, I had the proverbial birds eye view. My Dartmouth college roommate was one of Learys original LSD test cases at Harvard. A year after graduation, a brilliant grad student in semantics at Columbia, my roomies car flew off the road when he and the driver were high on acid. He ended up a paraplegic who, not long thereafter, committed suicide.

Another view came a few years later, when I was a very lucky young screenwriter andto my shamein my early version of white guilt became a small financier of the Black Panther breakfast program. I did this until I discovered the two of my contacts were heroin dealers and one was wanted for assault with a deadly weapon.

Which leads me to the present day because the line from the Black Panther Party to Black Lives Matter is pretty direct. Both are in essence black separatist Marxist-Leninist groups with BLM adding a contemporary LGBTQ spin.

I would imagine the BLM guys and gals look back with nostalgia to the good old days of the Panthers, just as Antifa can look back to a host of groups including the California Communist League, a few of whose meetings I attended, mostly out of curiosity (thank God).

Those meetings had an apocalyptic tone about them as the leader warned those who didnt join up with the (promised and immediate) revolution their absence would be remembered and they would be in serious trouble soon. He did this to the tune of John Fogertys Theres a Bad Moon Arising, newly released in 1969.

Tradition, as the song goes from Fiddlerits a big thing. But being cool is bigger yet. And the great thing about being cool is that you dont have to do much but demonstrate. You certainly dont have to work.

So you will excuse me if I look at todays demonstrations as if I were in a time warp. In the words of Yogi Berra, Its deja vu all over again.

But there is a difference. At least back in the sixties and seventies there was something to protest about. The Vietnam War, like it or not, was real.

Whats going on now is not. Racismalready all but disappeared to the extent it ever could be, until recentlyis conjured up and defined, for purposes that are in essence evil, as something that can never go away, that is indelible. We are all culpable foreverand dont you forget it.

People of my generation, incredibly, go supine over this, take knees and so forth. You know who they are. Some are leaders of great power. What strikes me as a possibility is that these are the very people who stood aside during the sixties, who didnt participate and looked on with envy at all the goings on. They are now getting their chance.

They have Sixties Envy just as BLM and Antifa do, though in a yet more pathetic manner.

Too bad for the rest of us.

Roger L. Simon is a prize-winning author and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter. His most recent books are I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasnt Already (non-fiction) and The GOAT (fiction).

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
WASHINGTON - Michael Flynn committed perjury and his guilty plea of lying to the FBI should not be dismissed, a court-appointed adviser argued to a federal judge Wednesday, calling the Justice Department's attempt to undo the conviction "a gross abuse of prosecutorial power."

In a formal briefing to the judge overseeing Flynn's case, former New York federal judge John Gleeson issued a sharp rebuke of the Justice Department request, saying the move for dismissal was "corrupt" and "politically motivated." Gleeson added that Flynn's guilt "could hardly be more provable," and President Donald Trump has violated "foundational norms of prosecutorial independence."

Gleeson argued that though Flynn committed perjury by first admitting under oath to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts and then seeking to rescind his guilty plea, Trump's former national security adviser should not face a contempt hearing but instead be punished as part of his sentence.

"Flynn has indeed committed perjury in these proceedings, for which he deserves punishment, and the Court has the authority to initiate a prosecution for that crime," Gleeson wrote in a blistering, 82-page brief. However, Gleeson said, moving Flynn's case to sentencing " - rather than a separate prosecution for perjury or contempt - aligns with the Court's intent to treat this case, and this Defendant, in the same way it would any other."

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has paused Flynn's case to hear from outside groups and appointed Gleeson to argue against the Justice Department's May 7 motion to immediately drop its prosecution of the retired three-star general. Flynn was the highest-ranking Trump adviser convicted in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Sullivan has set a July 16 hearing to weigh the unusual request, which came after Attorney General William P. Barr ordered a review of Flynn's case. In its motion, which is supported by Flynn and prompted a career department prosecutor to quit the case, the department said it had concluded that Flynn's January 2017 FBI interview was unjustified. The Justice Department also concluded the interview was "conducted without any legitimate investigative basis," so any lies Flynn told about his contacts with Russia and other foreign governments were immaterial to any crime.

The department cited newly uncovered FBI records showing the bureau had decided to close a counterintelligence investigation of Flynn before learning of his calls with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The Justice Department said FBI officials also knew that the calls probably did not give rise to a crime by themselves and differed over how to handle or interpret his actions.

In his brief, Gleeson blasted the "transparent disingenuousness" of the Justice Department and Barr's arguments, citing "clear evidence" of prosecutorial abuse and "pure misdirection" to exonerate a top Trump aide.

The government's reversal in Flynn's case prompted criticisms that the Justice Department is bending the rule of law to appease the president. In March, Trump said his is "strongly considering" a pardon for Flynn, who the president said was a victim of "dirty, filthy cops at the top of the FBI."

Gleeson said the government's "ostensible grounds" for seeking dismissal were "conclusively disproven" by its own earlier arguments in the case; contradict the court's prior orders and Justice Department positions taken in other cases; and "are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact."

A former federal prosecutor and judge for 22 years in Brooklyn - best known for putting the late mob boss John Gotti behind bars and presiding over the trial of "Wolf of Wall Street" stockbroker Jordan Belfort - Gleeson wrote that judges are empowered to protect their court's integrity "from prosecutors who undertake corrupt, politically motivated dismissals. That is what has happened here. The Government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected to hear arguments Friday over Flynn's request for the federal appeals court to intervene, either by ordering Sullivan to drop the prosecution or reassigning the case to a different judge because of bias.

Flynn attorney Sidney Powell has argued that prosecutors have exclusive authority to decide whether to drop a case. She said Sullivan's actions "reveal his plan to continue the case indefinitely, rubbing salt in General Flynn's open wound from the Government's misconduct."

Flynn awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to lying in an FBI interview on Jan. 24, 2017, to conceal conversations with Kislyak. Flynn later admitted to being in touch with senior Trump transition officials before and after his communications with Kislyak, which involved efforts to blunt Obama administration policy decisions on sanctions on Russia and a United Nations resolution on Israel before Trump took office.

Flynn repeated the lie to White House staff and Vice President Pence, leading to the firing of Trump's first national security adviser three weeks later.

Flynn admitted his conduct under oath three times before two federal judges. He then reversed course after Mueller's investigation concluded and Barr took office last year. Flynn switched defense teams, accusing prosecutors and his former attorneys of misconduct and asserting his innocence.

Gleeson called the Justice Department's argument for its reversal distorted and factually false, offered as "sleight-of-hand to camouflage" actions to serve the president's personal political interests.

"Pursuant to an active investigation into whether President Trump's campaign officials coordinated activities with the Government of Russia, one of those officials lied to the FBI about coordinating activities with the Government of Russia," Gleeson said.

"That is about as straightforward a case of materiality as a prosecutor, court, or jury will ever see," he wrote.

If a defendant in any other false statements case demanded knowing whether investigators at one point thought about closing the investigation, the evidence on which the investigation was based, or what agents subjectively believed at various points, "the Government would scoff at those demands, and this Court would summarily deny them," Gleeson asserted.

"There is no other case in which the DOJ has taken the position that an interviewee can lie with impunity to federal investigators so long as he has committed no other provable crimes," Gleeson added, especially in a counterintelligence investigation, which are often intended to prevent future security breaches.

Flynn faces a sentence of zero to six months under his initial plea deal, although prosecutors at one point recommended he get probation and no prison time.
- Jaclyn Jose got into a word war with Vivian Velez for defending Pinky Amador on social media

- Pinky was heavily criticized after she got caught on video shouting and cursing at employees of a hotel in Makati for accepting OFWs and allegedly placing the tenants health in danger

- Vivian defended Pinky, saying that the hotel employees should be sued for the alleged violations they supposedly committed against Pinky and the other tenants

- However, Jaclyn lambasted Vivian and said that Pinky should not be defended at all

- In a later post, Jaclyn used her Instagram account to publicly apologize to Vivian for her emotional comments on the latters Facebook wall

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Jaclyn Jose could not hold back her emotions as she got into a word war with Vivian Velez for defending Pinky Amador.

Pinky was heavily criticized after she got caught on video shouting and cursing at employees of a hotel in Makati for accepting OFWs and allegedly placing the tenants health in danger.

Vivian defended Pinky, saying that the hotel employees should be sued for the alleged violations they supposedly committed against Pinky and the other tenants.

However, Jaclyn lambasted Vivian and said that Pinky should not be defended. According to Jaclyn, cursing and humiliating the employees were uncalled for despite Pinkys valid concerns.

Screenshots by Fashion Pulis

Source: Facebook

Screenshots by Fashion Pulis

Source: Facebook

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Later on, Jaclyn used her Instagram account to publicly apologize to Vivian for her emotional comments on the latters Facebook wall.

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In a previous report by KAMI, Pinky broke her silence about her controversial video.

Jaclyn Jose is a veteran actress, considered as one of the best and most accomplished in the Philippines. She is the mother of another famous actress, Andi Eigenmann. Jaclyn made history in 2016 when she won the best actress award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Please like and share our amazing Facebook posts to support the KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinions about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts and views on different matters!

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23rd November 1947: Official photograph of Princess Elizabeth and her husband on honeymoon at Broadlands, Romsey, Hampshire. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

Prince Philip is in the record books as the longest-serving royal consort, and has been a key member of the British Royal Family for decades.

But he was no commoner when he met and married the future Queen. Philip, who turned 99 on 10 June, has his own royal background.

Philip was born in Corfu in 1921, the fifth and youngest child, and only son, of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg.

He was also the nephew of King Constantine I, who was forced to abdicate his throne and go into exile just over a year after Philip was born.

Philip and his family left Greece by the December of 1922, and he does not speak Greek. Hes previously said he feels more Danish and his family spoke English, French and German.

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Prince Andrew of Greece, brother of Constantine I and father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. (Getty Images)

Prince Andrew of Greece was born in Athens in 1882, and was the fourth son of King Constantine I of Greece, making him unlikely to ever take the throne himself.

He had a military background, even serving in the Balkan Wars. Andrew ended up being exiled twice - once when his brother abdicated and his whole family went into exile, and a second time after he was blamed for loss of Greek territory as he served as a Major General in the Greco-Turkish war.

He married Princess Alice in 1902, having met her in London the year before when they both attended the coronation of Edward VII - Queen Elizabeths grandfather.

They had a civil wedding and two religious services - one Lutheran and one Greek Orthodox.

According to History Answers, Andrew disobeyed orders from his superiors while fighting in the Greco-Turkish war, but his own battle plans were unsuccessful. He was court-martialled and eventually the family was stripped of their Greek passports, traveling on Danish passports.

In 1930, Andrew wrote a book defending his moves on the battlefield, but effectively lived in forced retirement. His marriage to Alice broke down and she ended up returning to Greece.

In 1936, his exile was quashed and his land returned to him, so he did go back to his home country again for a brief visit.

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However he more or less trapped in France by the time the Second World War broke out, and died there just as it was ending. He did not see Philip for five years.

According to biographer Philip Eade, the prince eventually came to possess Andrew signet ring, which he had resized and has worn since.

Read more: The real Philip in photographs: Royal experts share their favourite moments of the Duke of Edinburgh

Princess Alice of Battenberg

Princess Alice of Battenberg was a great grand-daughter of Queen Victoria. (Getty Images)

Princess Alice of Battenberg has found new fame lately, mostly thanks to the portrayal of her in Netflixs The Crown.

She was born in 1885 in Windsor Castle and was a great granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her real first name was Victoria but she was known by one of her middle names.

Her life was marked by her health. She was diagnosed as deaf when she was a child and in her adult life was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to a sanatorium.

After her marriage with Prince Andrew broke down, she returned to Greece where she took on lots of charitable work.

She sheltered Jewish refugees, and founded a nursing order of nuns. Her work with refugees led to her being recognised as Righteous Among Nations by Israels Holocaust memorial institution.

Of the honour, given posthumously, Prince Philip said: I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with deep religious faith and she would have considered it to be a totally human action to fellow human beings in distress.

Read more: Prince Philip's 99th birthday marked with new lockdown photo with the Queen

The Duke of Edinburgh with his mother Princess Alice in 1960. (Getty Images)

Alice spent most of her life in Greece but did come back to the UK to live in Buckingham Palace in 1967. According to The Daily Telegraph it was monstrous of The Crown to imply that Philip did not want her there - he had been keen for her to come for some time.

According to Hugo Vickers though, it was only when the Queen insisted on her coming that Alice acquiesced.

Vickers added: At Buckingham Palace, she was housed not in a far-flung attic room like Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre, as depicted in The Crown, but in a handsome suite of rooms overlooking The Mall, next to the balcony room on the first floor; the same room that the Duchess of Windsor stayed during her late husbands funeral in 1972, and was famously photographed watching the Trooping the Colour procession.

She died in 1969.

Read more: Prince William and Kate share photos in birthday message to Prince Philip as he turns 99

Prince Philips sisters

Lady Louise Mountbatten with Princess Theodora of Greece (left) and Princess Margarita of Greece. (Getty Images)

Prince Philip had four older sisters, called Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie and Sophie.

They all married German men, and within about nine months of each other during 1930-31.

It meant Philip, barely 10 years old, was left more or less on his own and was taken in with the English side of his family, eventually going to school in Scotland.

Cecilie and her husband were members of the Nazi Party.

Tragedy struck in 1937 when Cecilie was killed in a plane crash as she flew to England for a wedding. She was pregnant at the time.

She and her husband had three other children. Margarita had six children, and Theodora had three.

Theodora died five weeks before Princess Alice, in 1969 aged 63, while Margarita died in 1981, aged 76.

Sophie had eight children from two marriages and died in 2001.

Most of his sisters husbands had links to the Nazi Party and its said to be the reason he couldnt invite any of them to his wedding to Elizabeth.

Sophies first husband was an SS officer, who was killed in duty in the Second World War. She also named one of her sons after Adolf Hitler - though later wrote to say she had changed her views.

In her memoir she said: I have to say here, that, although Chri [Prince Christoph] and I changed our political view fundamentally some years later, we were impressed by this charming and seemingly modest man, and by his plans to change and improve the situation in Germany,

Margaritas husband was in the German army during the war too - though its understood he became part of a group which plotted to overthrow Hitler.

But according to the obituary of Theodoras daughter, she and her husband were not linked to the Nazi Party.
NEW YORK, June 10 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regrets that North Korea has severed hotlines with South Korea, warning that such channels "are necessary to avoid misunderstandings or miscalculations," a U.N. spokesman said on Wednesday.

Pyongyang's decision, announced by the KCNA state news agency on Tuesday, marks a new setback to stalled efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric noted that June was a symbolic month representing the second anniversary of the first meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the 20th anniversary of the first meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas.

"The Secretary-General hopes that all parties use the June anniversaries to redouble efforts to resume talks to achieve sustainable peace and the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Dujarric said.

North Korea has been subjected to U.N. sanctions since 2006. They have been strengthened by the 15-member Security Council over the years in a bid to cut off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols Editing by Alistair Bell)
In this episode, national affairs editor Rob Harris and national editor Tory Maguire discuss Australia's response to the coronavirus pandemic. They talk about what has been done well and where the national cabinet could have improved in its fight to flatten the COVID-19 curve.

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A humpback whale that stole the hearts of Montrealers when it spent time in one of the citys ports  far from its natural habitat  was found dead in the St. Lawrence River on Tuesday.

The whale enchanted city residents and drew crowds to Montreals Old Port; it was first spotted there on May 30, CBC Montreal reports. The whale was last seen swimming near Pointe-aux-Trembles Sunday morning before it was found floating in the St. Lawrence River Tuesday morning about 19 miles downstream from the city.

Triste nouvelle, nous venons dapercevoir la baleine echouee dans le secteur de Varennes. Posted by Simon Lebrun on Tuesday, June 9, 2020

It was the first time a humpback whale made its way into Montreal waters, said Robert Michaud, coordinator for the Quebec Marine Mammal Emergency Network.

Experts had hoped the whale would return to its natural habitat in the Gulf of St. Lawrence when it began traveling downstream. Factors that may have contributed to the death of the healthy-looking whale include dehydration from swimming in fresh water and a possible collision with a shipping vessel, Michaud said.

Canadian officials are assessing what to do with the carcass, he said.

Humpback whales are among the worlds largest animals, they can be up to 52 feet long and weigh up to 66,000 pounds.

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A 21-year-old Nigerian woman doing her mandatory national service in Akwa Ibom State, South-south Nigeria, has been gang-raped in Uyo, the police have said.

Nigerians have been demanding tougher actions on rape from the authorities after waves of sexual violence across the country.

The police in Akwa Ibom said in a statement on Tuesday that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member was raped on May 24 by two men. The victim is doing her primary assignment in Uyo.

The statement signed by the police spokesperson in the state, N-Nudam Fredrick said one of the men alleged to have raped the corps member has been arrested, while the other is on the run.

The police identified the arrested man as Ofonime Emmanuel Essien of 15 Iba Oku Street, Uyo. He is said to be 25 years old.

The fleeing suspect has been identified as Frank Okon.

Investigation revealed that the victim visited her colleagues at No. 15 Iba Oku Street and later took her phone to the room where the suspects are living at the same address for charging and met Ofonime Emmanuel who pretended to be asleep, while Frank Okon and two girls were in the room, the police said.

Shortly after the victim left for her colleagues room in the same compound she was called by Frank Okon that Ofonime Emmanuel was awake. The suspects swooped down on the victim and serially gang-raped her as she entered the room.

The police, in the statement, also said they have arrested a 55-year-old man, Udo Ekong Esau, in Odot 1 community, Nsit Atai Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom state, for allegedly raping his 15-year-old step-daughter in March.

According to the police, Mr Esau chased the teenager out of his home when he realised she was pregnant.

The police also said they have arrested one Ekemini Asuquo Aya, 38, for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl whom he was said to have lured with N1500 to a hotel, Celebrity Hotel, in Abak Local Government Area, on June 8.

The suspect was said to have threatened to kill the girl if she reports the incident to the police.

Vera Omozuwa, an undergraduate student in Edo state, was brutally attacked inside a church in Benin City last month. She died some days after in the hospital. It is believed that her attackers also raped her.

The case, including similar ones, prompted outrage from Nigerians.

The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, in response to the outrage, ordered the strengthening of Gender-Desk Units and the Juvenile Welfare Centres across Nigeria.
A BSF constable died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the national capital in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of deaths in the Border Security Force (BSF) to three due to the infectious coronavirus disease, a statement from the force said on Wednesday.

The 35-year-old constable was deployed for law and order duty with the Delhi Police.

He was admitted to the Delhi hospital on June 5 after he complained of weakness and cough. Constable Vinod Kumar Prasad died on June 9 at the AIIMS in Delhi. He was deployed on law-and-order duty with the Delhi Police and admitted to the AIIMS on June 5 with weakness and cough, a Border Security Force spokesperson said.

ALSO READ| Six BSF personnel test Covid-19 positive in last 24 hours, forces tally now at 282

This is the 14th Covid-19 death in the paramilitary or the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), including five in the CISF, four in the CRPF and one each in the SSB and ITBP.

The constables Covid-19 test results came negative on June 6, but his condition deteriorated on June 8 and he breathed his last on Tuesday at the AIIMS ICU, the spokesperson said. His test results of June 8, however, had returned positive.

The about 2.5 lakh personnel-strong force has had a total of 535 coronavirus positive cases till now, of which 435 soldiers have recovered and been discharged.

Earlier last month, several BSF soldiers had tested positive for the coronavirus disease from other states like West Bengal, Tripura as well as among those posted in the national capital.
BANGKOK, June 9 (Reuters) - Thai Airways has asked German and Swiss courts to protect its planes, deposit accounts and other assets overseas from creditors, a government spokeswoman said.

The airline, which is under bankruptcy court protection in Thailand, will seek the same recognition from courts in other countries, including Japan and the United States, Naruemon Pinyosinwat told reporters on Tuesday.

A legal adviser to Thai Airways, which will have a first hearing on Aug. 17, has said the timeframe for its rehabilitation may be up to seven years.

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat Writing by Orathai Sriring Editing by Alexander Smith)
Using data from IMDb and Metacritic, Stacker has compiled a list of the 100 greatest romance movies of all time, from "La La Land" to "Casablanca."

This article was first published on Stacker
Hope Jorgensen and Susannah Brown lead a peaceful protest along Route 39 in Harwich on June 6, with Harwich Police Chief David Guillemette participating, in honor of George Floyd. Kat Szmit Photo

HARWICH  On May 25, for eight minutes and 46 seconds, George Floyd cried out for help, calling for his mother, a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck until Floyds life ended on the street of the Minnesota city.

On June 6, an estimated 1,000 peaceful protesters kneeled in silence in Brooks Park for eight minutes and 46 seconds in Floyds honor, the only sounds the chirping of birds in nearby trees and an occasional muffled sob.

The crowd had gathered well before the 2 p.m. start, swelling to fill and spill past the lawn of the park, breathing life into a peaceful demonstration that had ridden a roller coaster of tumult before it took place on Saturday afternoon.

Originally, a pair of Monomoy Regional High School eighth graders, close friends Susannah Brown and Hope Jorgensen, came up with the plan for a peaceful protest condemning the actions of the that allowed Floyds death to happen. But when online posts regarding the event were met with controversial comments, the girls parents felt it best to cancel the event for their safety and the safety of those taking part.

As word spread about the negative treatment Brown and Jorgensen had come up against, adults in the community, including Elizabeth Harder, Harwich Delegate on the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, and Monomoy graduate Lexi Roma, got angry and took action, assuming control of the event.

I wanted to stand up to the bullies, Harder said. I thought it was reprehensible that people would try to scare schoolchildren into canceling something they believed in. What got me so angry was the way the kids were treated. I wanted to stand up for them.

News of the rejuvenated event quickly spread, with protesters arriving at Brooks well before the 2 p.m. start, many carrying signs with powerful messages. One read, All lives cant matter until Black lives do, while another read, White mothers cannot choose silence while Black mothers are choosing caskets.

One, held by a Black sixth grader wearing a protective face mask with the words I cant breathe inked across it, simply read, Am I next?

In the beginning, the group feared being met with unrest, worried about those with ill intent aimed at disrupting their peaceful gathering. But the event remained peaceful, even as it grew powerful, the words of speakers Tito Santos-Silva and Timora Israel ringing out well beyond the park.

Santos-Silva reminded the crowd that racism is not new to this country. The only difference now, he said, is that people are filming it.

Weve had to walk a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way in order to fit in, and also to survive, he said. Ive had this conversation with my son about how he should walk in his own community.

The protests, he said, seemed a sign, however tentative, of hope.

I think for the first time in Americas sordid history, everyone is starting to realize that we have a problem with racism, he said. That gives me hope that my son wont have this conversation with his son.

That said, Santos-Silva challenged the crowd to continue striving for change away from the gathering.

Its easy to do this when were all together. Its easy when theres a hashtag. Its easier when everybody else on your timeline is saying the same thing, he said. The question now is, what do you do next? What are you going to when you walk back into your office and you realize that there is racism there? What are you going to do at your childrens school when you realize that theres racism there? What are you going to do if you see my son being pinned to the floor because theres racism there? Martin Luther King said, We will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. There is no more room for indifference.

Then the crowd took a knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds, after which, signs aloft, they marched, Brown and Jorgensen carrying a massive Black Lives Matter banner as they led the way. Harwich Police Chief David Guillemette walked right behind them.

I think its important that the community of Harwich realizes that that police department is behind the idea that what occurred in Minneapolis was absolutely grotesque and unnecessary, and theres absolutely no police officer I know that would support that conduct ever, he said. Thats why I walked.

When the crowd reconvened at Brooks, Timora Israel spoke, offering a key suggestion on making change.

If you want to get involved in a different way, support Black businesses, Israel said. When you visit the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, ask them if they have a list of Black-owned businesses. If they dont, ask them why and when? We have to ask the why question. The answer to the why tells us where we stand and how far we have to go.

As the crowd slowly dispersed, a sense of change in the air, Roma reflected upon its success in remaining peaceful and powerful.

Im just feeling so blessed and happy to be part of this community at this point, she said. Seeing things on Facebook made me super upset and I felt like, What is wrong with this town? What is wrong with Cape Cod? I just felt so much negativity.

But the positive energy from the crowd bolstered her.

I hope that everybody leaves here and keeps that energy, Roma said. Keep that energy in November. Keep this energy next year. Keep this energy throughout life. And keep in mind, were all one.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Krishan Redddy on Wednesday said that the government will focus on domestic manufacturing of arms, ammunition and other security products to promote self-reliance under Make in India. "Atmanirbharta is not just a dream, but a well thought of roadmap for the future ready India. We will have to strengthen our presence in making a strong public private partnership culture," Reddy said while addressing the FICCI webinar on 'Atmanirbhar Bharat: Opportunities for Homeland Security Industry'.

There were reports recently that the government has held discussions with 17 Indian companies for domestic manufacturing of arms for the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs). The reports also said that the private companies shortlisted by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) will have the license to manufacture weapons locally.

Reddy also said that the government has decided to soon initiate procurement from local industries to reduce import dependence. He also urged the private players to come forward. A meeting was recently held on facilitating procurement for arms and ammunition by CAPFs from domestic private manufacturers. Urging the private industries to come forward, Shri Reddy said that the government is open to solving the issues of the industry.

"There is a need for the private sector to be price competitive and focus on quality in production. It should not only cater to the domestic needs, but also be able to export products, only then it will achieve the vision of Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan," Reddy said.

India was the second-largest arms importer between 2015 and 2019, according to data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Russia and the US are the top suppliers of arms for India.

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: India sees 9,985 new COVID-19 cases, 279 deaths in 24 hours; tally surges to 2.76 lakh

Also read: Coronavirus effect: Availed EMI moratorium? Be ready for hiccups in future loans
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money-laundering case against Medanta Hospital, its chairman Dr. Naresh Trehan and unknown Haryana government officers for alleged irregularities in the allotment of land to the hospital in 2004, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday.

EDs PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) case is based on a Gurugram Polices first information report (FIR) filed in the matter on June 6 that named Dr. Trehan; his organisation Global Health Pvt Ltd; Atul Punj of Punj Llyod; and Sunil Sachdeva and Anant Jain, two officers of Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), among others on the orders of a Gurugram civil court.

An RTI (right to information) activist, Raman Sharma, had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the matter in the Gurugram civil court of additional district and sessions Judge Ashwani Kumar, citing irregularities and corruption for laundering money.

Watch l ED files money-laundering case against Medanta, Naresh Trehan: Key details

The Medanta hospital authorities have denied the allegations as false, baseless and motivated.

The case pertains to the allotment of a plot of land to the hospital in 2004. The Haryana government, through HSVP, allotted 53 acres of land in Gurugrams Sector 38 along the Delhi-Jaipur road (NH-48) for the development of The Medicity.

An official statement by Medanta Hospital authorities on Gurugram Polices FIR said: This complaint has been filed by a person, who claims to be an RTI activist. However, it has been reported in the press that he has had an FIR for extortion registered against him. All the allegations in this complaint are completely false, baseless, and motivated.

Sharma had alleged that Medanta, in connivance with government officials, obtained pecuniary advantage as land meant for institutional purposes was used for pure commercial, speculative and self-service purposes, and several acres of land were allotted at undervalued rates.

Sharma also alleged that the accused obtained occupational certificates based on misrepresentation, as there was no area on the premises that was allocated for medical and paramedical education, as advertised.

Dr. Trehan has reacted to Sharmas charges.

The allegations in Raman Sharmas complaint pertain to the 16-year-old land allotment on which the hospital is built. Everything about this land allotment, which was done through a public auction, is legal. The allegations are nothing short of absurd. Weve built one of the finest hospitals in this part of the world, and were proud of the work we do. Sharma has chosen to file this complaint to harass me amid a global pandemic. Im continuing to tend to my patients despite being over 70 and putting myself at a risk because of the pandemic. Its of grave concern and hurt that doctors and hospitals are bearing the brunt of harassment by people of dubious antecedents, Dr. Trehan said.
In order to understand fully the driving forces behind American political life and the political environment that has led to the rise of Donald Trump, one first and foremost, needs to grasp fully the fact that race is the ever-present, but not often visible formwork that shapes and has shaped American domestic political discourse since the end of the American Civil War. Race or racism is what animates large swaths of American society, very often to the exclusion of any other factors.

The irony is that the racial diversity of America also makes it an amazingly vibrant society with a culture that has become the default global culture. The sad truth, however, is that unless carefully controlled and contained as it has been until now, the centripetal forces that this diversity embodies hold the possibility of ultimately fracturing this great nation. The rise of Donald Trump may be proof that such a possibility is no longer to be dismissed as pure fiction.

The fact of the matter is that the issues of race and slavery that led to the first attempt at tearing apart the American union resulting in the Civil War were never fully resolved despite the defeat of the forces of the Confederacy. These forces, intent on preserving slavery and its attendant racial animus were vanquished militarily but not ideologically or psychologically. For reasons that we will not delve into here, they were allowed by the victorious Union forces first to simmer, and then ultimately to flourish. It has been said that the long arc of history eventually bends towards justice. This may be true as a general statement of historical fact, but in the particular case of the United States the sinuous tendons of racism have pushed and pulled at the arc of American history for so long so as to succeed in bending it in directions that appear to defy this dictum: in directions that have now led, I believe, to the rise of Donald Trump.

Trumpism unlike other political movements such as fascism, socialism or communism is best described as "chameleonic." Anybody who has followed its progenitor's public persona will know that Donald Trump can best be described as a shape shifter. He has been all over the map on the major issues of our time. Trump was for abortion until he was no longer for it. He employs illegal immigrants then threatens to build a wall to keep them out. He sells clothing made in China while berating other companies for outsourcing American jobs. The changes in his political positions are too numerous to list here. So the question that arises is why Donald Trump appears to have so many followers, at least, as evidenced on his campaign trail.

To answer this question, we need to go back in time to the beginning of the 1960s. The political base of the Democratic Party of the United States at that time consisted of an alliance of the Northern industrial states with their large, powerful and politically active labor unions and the states of the old Confederacy whose allegiance to the Democratic Party was based on the sole fact that it was the Republican Party under Abraham Lincoln that freed their black slaves and defeated the Confederacy. It was a strong alliance that allowed the Democrats to control the Congress for decades at a time much to the frustration of the Republicans.

In the late 50s, we saw the coming to fruition of the independence movements in black Africa. First, of course, was the independence from British colonial rule of the former Gold Coast, now Ghana. This was followed by waves of new African countries freshly minted from the fracturing of the European empires. This period of African independence happened to also coincide with the Cold War between the then Soviet Union and the West, led by the United States. Each side needed allies in the existing international institutions such as the United Nations, but allies were also necessary if for nothing more than as indirect proof of the supposed superiority of one social/economic system over the other. Thus began the ideological scramble for the loyalty of these newly formed African states.



In this new scramble for Africa, the United States had certain advantages. It was a western country with a culture and language that was familiar to most of the new African countries. Its cultural exports such as pop songs and movies were well-known and well-received in the African countries. American cultural figures such as Elvis Presley and Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong were as familiar to most Africans as the local African entertainers, if not more so. With the coming of independence, African students and African ambassadors had started arriving in the United States. In spite of the positive advantages that familiarity with American culture gave to the United States in its competition with the Soviet Union, there was one huge obstacle that, if not addressed, could derail this budding relationship with Africa.

This was the institutionalized racism that was endemic in America, especially in the southern states. It had to be clear to the bureaucrats in the U.S. State Department that it was only a matter of time before some Sherriff in Alabama or Mississippi would arrest and or beat up an African ambassador innocently familiarizing himself with his host country. There was also the embarrassment these ambassadors might run into if or when they were turned away from a local motel because of the color of their skin. It was also going to be difficult to sell the wonders of American democracy as the desired governing methodology to these Africans if it became apparent across the continent that their fellow blacks were not even allowed to vote in this bastion of democracy.

Something had to be done and done sharp-sharp as we would say in Africa. The Democratic Party was in power at the time, and it fell to them to solve this problem. The Democratic Party, despite their long history of alliance with the Southern segregationists, took the risky political move of addressing these issues. Issues of discrimination in public accommodations such as hotels and motels were addressed in Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and voting rights for black citizens of the United States were dealt with in the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Now, I do not mean to imply by any stretch of the imagination that the arrival of African ambassadors and students in the United States in the late fifties and early sixties were the ONLY motivating factors driving the need on the part of American legislators to address these longstanding issues of racial injustice. Black, and lots of white, Americans had been agitating for a repeal of the segregationist laws for years before the arrival of African students and Ambassadors. Indeed, many Americans (of both races) had been bitten by dogs or had bravely faced multiple arrests and police brutality; some had even given their lives to end the system of racial injustice that was endemic in the land.

Dr. Martin Luther King's speeches and marches were exposing to the world the hypocrisy that had been hiding in plain sight all these years. It is my thesis, however, that the fact that these various civil rights laws passed the American Senate and House of Representatives only in the early 60s was not coincidental or simply fortuitous. We are naive if we ignore the fact that, in politics, nothing rarely happens by chance and divisive legislation, such as the civil right laws typically do not grow out of the soil of unalloyed goodness of heart.

It is not that difficult to maintain an oppressive state of affairs domestically if one is happy to live with and accept the resulting international opprobrium and its consequences, moral and or economic that comes with that territory. North Korea is a shining example of such equanimity, and for decades South Africa was quite happy to defend its brutally enforced policy of apartheid with all the power at her disposal as long as the rest of the world, especially the West, looked on unconcerned. In the case of South Africa, indeed, it was only after the western countries applied the external threats of economic and other boycotts aimed at upending the South African economy in the late 80s that the die-hard racists down there decided it probably was no longer in their best interest to continue going down that path. The cost of maintaining apartheid had become too high.

I am suggesting therefore that, in spite of her self-proclaimed virtuous nature, America might well have kept its system of racial oppression to this very day but was forced to change when external forces, interacting with the domestic ones made official segregation no longer acceptable. This is not to say that the internal pressures were secondary or insignificant to forcing this change. They were not. But clearly, even the presence of an armed guerrilla group in South Africa such as the armed wing of the African National Congress was not enough to deter the apartheid regime. By comparison, the mostly peaceful marches and demonstrations in the U.S., embarrassing though they may have been, could have been easily dismissed and were for decades. After all, Jim Crow had been around for decades if not centuries and the relevant American authorities knew well how to handle "them uppity niggers." In the U.S then, and as would happen in South Africa later on, it is my thesis that the internal and external pressures reinforced and magnified each other. It got to a point where the problems attendant to Jim Crow could no longer be ignored or swept under the legislative rug. In the case of the United States of America, it is my thesis that it was this coming of African nations on to the international scene and their potential for recruitment as allies in the Cold War against the Soviet Union that was the external factor that helped force the changes in domestic American racial policy.

Indeed, current events such as the unending shootings of black Americans with very little, if any legal consequences soon after the tenure of a black President, tends to support this hypothesis. We can all agree that the potential for Africa as a force on the international scene has diminished considerably since the heady days of the 60s when domestic policy in a country like the U.S might be modified to assuage African sensibilities. The Cold War with the Soviet Union is a dim memory, current skirmishes with Russia notwithstanding. Africa and Africans' desires, wishes or feelings carry very little to no weight in the halls of power in the West these days as they might potentially have been in the 60s when Africa was being wooed by the West.

Thus, was removed over time this one external force that might have kept America on the path of keeping the forces of oppression that hounded and continue to harass black Americans, in check. In short, there is no doubt in my mind that the weakness and lack of influence of Africa on the world scene, politically, economically and militarily has helped to lift the foot off the brake and given free rein to the latent forces of darkness previously hibernating under America's ugly underbelly. If one doubts the soundness of this hypothesis, one only needs to ask oneself what might happen if Chinese-American citizens were being shot down on the streets of America with abandon. I feel quite comfortable in asserting that the relevant authorities in Washington would hear some not-so-comfortable noises from Beijing and they would be doing their very best to control the excesses of the American Police Forces.

There is proof for this. The American state of Alabama decided in a fit of xenophobia to institute laws that allowed local police to stop and check for the immigration documents of people who looked like they did not belong in town. This law was supposedly aimed at the illegal Mexican population in the state, but among its early victims were some Japanese executives of the Honda Automobile Company who were visiting their massive assembly plant in Lincoln, Alabama. It does not take much imagination to figure out what happened next. The law was quickly redrafted, and I would not be surprised if the Governor of the state of Alabama personally apologized to the Honda executives. This is the power which Africa currently lacks. Black people all around the world are paying, in my view, for Africa's economic and political weakness. I would dare suggest that if the Governor of Ohio, for example, had been in the middle of negotiations with an African multinational company for the construction of a multi-billion dollar factory in Cleveland, the Cleveland Policemen who shot that twelve-year-old Tamir Rice playing with a toy gun in the park would not have been allowed to go scot-free.



So, at the very least, Africa's emergence from colonial rule and its potential to impact the international scene in the 60s, converged with the civil rights movement in the United States to emphasize and magnify the potential damage that leaving the issue of unbridled racism unaddressed could create and was creating for the United States. The problems were not only in its relationship with Africa and the colored peoples of the world, but also in its own domestic peace and tranquility. It was also producing a propaganda windfall for the Soviet Union. Somewhere in the State Department and the halls of Congress, somebody or a group of somebodies most likely must have decided that this problem needed to be solved and not necessarily for its immorality. The Democratic Party went ahead, in fairness, with some Republican support in some cases to pass the necessary legislation. This was against the strong wishes of some, if not all, of their southern Democratic cohorts, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina being a prime example.

Richard Milhous Nixon, a Republican President, came into power following the passage of these laws. He sensed an opportunity to shift the political allegiances of the people in the southern United States by indicating through coded language and various actions and inactions that his Republican Party was "sympathetic" to their plight and "understood" their grievances. This strategy was meant to loosen the grip of the Democrats on the southern states. It was called "The Southern Strategy." If it was a secret plan, it was not very well kept, and it worked strategically well for the Republican Party. Within a generation, there were very few Democratic office holders, Senators or Congressmen left in the states from the old Confederacy. The Republican Party became the home of the segregationists and die-hard racists. The party that fought to free the slaves under Abraham Lincoln had turned overnight into the party of racist resistance.

The Nixon-inspired Southern Strategy never promised any particular social or economic programs for the South. The truth is it only promised a wink and a nod to let the South know that their racialist concerns would be "sympathized" with in a Republican controlled White House and within the Republican Party. That was apparently all the South and its less visibly racist allies in the mid-West of the United States needed to vote reliably Republican in almost all elections in the last quarter of the last century and so far in this one.

Almost all the worst social ills in the United States, from abject poverty, through high teen pregnancy rates to deaths from drug overdoses and more, are to be found in excess in this southern belt of the United States. Ironically, the very Republican Senators and Congressmen that the electorate in the South put in office have been the stumbling block to solving most of these crises that have afflicted them. The white residents of this region have, time over time, been willing to vote against what might appear to be in their best economic interests just so long as they could be assured by the Republicans that these minorities and in particular blacks would be kept in their place." If one ever doubted the power of ethnocentrism, the election results over the past few years in the southern belt and certain portions of the mid-West of the United States should put any such lingering doubts to rest.

In the meantime, their support for the Republicans has allowed the Republican-controlled legislatures at both the Federal and State levels to enact massive tax-cuts for their wealthy supporters, which was always the real reason the Republicans sought power anyway. Their rich friends got hugely rewarded in this life, and their poor constituents got nothing except the assurance that the niggers would continue to be shown who the master race was. This was the race-fueled scam that the Republicans played and have been playing all these years on their core constituents.

Over time, this base of white non-college graduates came to realize that something was amiss. Their lives were not getting any better. In fact, it was getting worse by every measure. Furthermore, the presidency of Barack Obama was proof, if any was needed, that the blacks were not only not being kept in their place as promised, but were now dirtying the hallowed halls of what had been till then, the epitome of white male power, the White House! The so-called Tea Party, a stridently anti-Obama uprising of the Republican base was the result. It called for aggressive tax cuts and cuts in various social programs which they felt were only benefiting "those others."

The Affordable Care Act or Obamacare (ACA) was in their thinking, the poster child, of this transfer of resources from them, to those "never-do-wells sitting on their porches all day smoking dope and having nothing but babies, which they, the white working classes would end up paying for. The repeal of Obama's signature domestic program, the ACA, thus became the test of true Republicanism. And the Republican Party eagerly took up the cry of repeal even though the power arrangements in Washington at the time, consisting of filibuster-wielding Democratic Senators and a veto-wielding President Obama was never going to let that happen. The Republicans in Congress kept up the facade, assuring their base day-after-day that they were going to repeal the ACA. Of course, nothing happened which was no surprise to a Republican establishment well-versed in the power dynamics of Washington.

In the meantime, the industrial belt of the United States was getting hollowed out as businesses whose only objective is to be as profitable as possible, regardless of the impact of closing down the only factory in a small rural town, fled to Mexico or China. The white, mainly rural, working classes faced a dilemma. They saw what they perceived as the "takeover of their country" by the minorities, Obama's election being proof-positive.

The regular Republican Party appeared incapable of keeping their end of the bargain, while at the same time the jobs that their lower levels of education had afforded them had either left or were leaving. The dilemma they faced was this: The Democrats were the party of the working classes, more eager to fund unemployment insurance for those laid off when the factories moved and "welfare" benefits for the indigent. Over time, the Democratic Party had become, to a large extent, also the party of minorities as the white working classes abandoned it. Women, gays, lesbians, illegal immigrants and other undesirables were also now finding comfort under the umbrella of the Democratic Party.

The Republicans, openly and not so openly, played to the white working classes fears about these others and their increasing acceptability within the Democratic Party. These working-class whites were faced with choosing between their economic allies, the Democrats or their xenophobic allies, the Republicans. They chose the Republicans. The Republicans, of course, never planned to be their economic saviors, but simply used their votes to transfer wealth to the upper classes while stoking their fears of these "others." This was the situation the white working classes faced when the 2016 elections rolled around.

This Republican scam was working very well until Donald Trump came on the scene. He quickly saw through it and decided to get in on the act but only go bigger. No matter what one may think of The Donald as he is often referred to, he is a strategically-focused businessman. He has a knack for seeing any loopholes that can be exploited for financial or another gain. Until his election, the world of business was the world in which Donald Trump played his games. But like every ambitious person, having made billions (if we are to believe him) in the world of business, he decided to set his sights higher. I have no doubt that The Donald would have run as a Democrat and be saying the exact opposite of everything he is saying now if he thought he could wrestle the presidential nomination away from Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for President.

Seeing that avenue closed, he decided to launch a hostile takeover of the Republican Party and get his hands on its riches, metaphorically speaking. Being the good businessman, he is, he must have spent some time studying the major shareholders at the time. He must have quickly realized that they were all scammers and con-artists only less accomplished. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and Scott Walker were like babes in the woods compared to what a tried and true scammer could pull he must have concluded.

He must have figured out secondarily that the way to overwhelm all these low-grade scammers was by going nuclear on the issues that animate the base of the Republican Party. He rightly decided that an overtly blatant appeal to racism along with a massive dose of Islamophobia, not the subtle approach used by the others, would be his passport to the nomination. This did not sit well with the establishment types in the Republican Party who preferred to accomplish the same objective but with a wink and a nod.

He, Trump, would combine a chameleonic transformation of himself into a Mussolini-type leader, to distinguish himself from the cerebral and black Obama that the base hated with a passion, with an appeal to these voters' existing and deep-seated prejudices that had been nurtured by the Republican Party for decades. Trumpism was the result. His slogan Take back our country needs no further elucidation. It meant, to those who heard it and took it to heart (the white working classes) that they would be getting back the levers of power, economic, political and psychological, from those "other" Americans if they were even to be granted that moniker.

The strident efforts by the establishment Republicans to derail Trump's presidential ambitions was thus very similar to a fight between drug dealers over turf. The Republican establishment thought they had the scam-artist market cornered and then along came this interloper. Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republican establishment were not amused and like all con-artists do when the jig is up, pedaled furiously to see how they could escape the fate that awaited them. In spite of their best efforts The Donald did win the Republican nomination and went on to win the Presidency.

The work that the Republican Party had been doing all these years, starting with Richard Nixon, finally bore this poisonous fruit. The more surprising thing is that it was Republicans who seemed the most surprised. The question we all need to ask ourselves is what this means for the long-term political health of the United States. The upcoming election will decide if there will be a rout of Trumpian Republicanism or the possible entrenchment of some type of fascism in this supposed bastion of democracy. We will find out soon enough.
The Delhi Police on Tuesday filed three charge sheets in connection with the violence in February which singed the North-East district.

The police have named Shahrukh Pathan, the man whose video of pointing a pistol at a policeman during the riots had gone viral on the Internet, in two cases. Pathan has been charged with rioting and under relevant sections for pointing a gun at head constable Deepak Dahiya during the riots on February 24.

Both the incidents had taken place at the Jafarabad-Maujpur Chowk, but separate cases were registered and Pathan was booked and arrested.

Pathan was arrested from Uttar Pradesh in March. He is a resident of Karawal Nagar in North-East Delhi.

The police have said in the charge sheet that on February 24 around 11 am, two groups - one supporting and the other opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizen (NRC) - clashed at Maujpur Chowk.

...incidents of stone-pelting, brick batting, arson, firing and sabotage from both sides led to injuries to several police personnel as well as public persons and created an atmosphere of fear among public..., the police have mentioned in the charge sheet.

Eyewitnesses had said that Pathan emerged from the crowd of the groups protesting against the CAA. The police allege that he fired at constable Dahiya.

Reacting to the allegations made in the charge sheet, Pathans lawyer, Asghar Khan, said that his client is being falsely charged. He said that in the first case, the complainant, (head constable Deepak Dahiya)s statement in the first information report (FIR) about opening fire is contrary to an interview he gave to a TV channel after the incident.

My client is being falsely charged in the case. The complainant told a TV channel that my client did not fire. However, in the FIR he has said that he had to duck to save himself from the bullet. The charge of attempt to murder (307 of IPC) is also false as Pathan opened fire in self-defence and not to injure or kill anyone, Khan said.

The other two cases in which charge sheets were filed on Tuesday were for the deaths of two persons during the communal violence in Kardampuri neighbourhood on February 24 and 25. Eight people - four in each case - were arrested and charged with murder, rioting, criminal conspiracy and other offences.

A total of 88 charge sheets have filed by Delhi Police in different cases related to the North-East Delhi riots so far, including three against suspended AAP MLA Tahir Husain (one of which accuses him of planning the murder of IB staffer Ankit Sharma), one against six persons for the death of 85-year-old Akbari Begum, against Pinjra Tod activists Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, one against Khalid Saifi of United Against Hate, one against 17 persons for the death of head constable Rattan Lal, and one against 12 persons for the death of Dilbar Negi.
BERKELEY, June 10 (WNM/University of California - Berkeley) - The study, funded by the California Air Resources Board, is one of the largest of its kind and the first in the state. It analyzed the records of nearly 3 million births to people living within 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) of at least one oil or gas well between 2006 and 2015. Unlike previous studies, it examined births in both rural and urban areas, and people living near both active and inactive oil and gas sites. The study found that, ...

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.
TokyoThe jury panel at Interop Tokyo 2020 has given the Huawei Atlas 900 AI cluster the Best of Show Award in recognition of its powerful AI computing and superior heat dissipation. Huawei Atlas 900 is the only AI product of 2020 to receive the Best of Show Award. The exceptional performance of Atlas 900 is a catalyst for global AI research and drives AI application across industries.

The Best of Show Award is the highest honor of the Interop conference. Only products which meet the high standards of quality demanded by the Japanese IT market are considered.

Tony Xu, President of Huawei Ascend Computing, said, The Huawei Atlas AI computing solution provides powerful computing and ultimate energy efficiency for all AI scenarios across devices, the edge, and the cloud. The Atlas 900 AI cluster provides data centers with powerful computing, high linearity, and the best energy efficiency to accelerate data-intensive research, such as astronomical exploration, weather prediction, oil exploration, and gene sequencing. Research breakthroughs translate into practical benefits for people worldwide.

Atlas 900 is the fastest AI training cluster in the world. It delivers a total computing power of 256 to 1024 petaFLOPS at half precision (FP16), equivalent to the computing power of 500,000 personal computers. Atlas 900 shattered the world record on the ResNet-50 benchmark test for model training by completing training in 59.8 seconds. Atlas 900 is the only product capable of completing the training in under a minute. Atlas 900 has broad applications in scientific research and business innovation for faster training of AI models with images and videos.

Atlas 900 integrates three interfaces for high-speed interconnection: Huawei Cache Coherence System (HCCS), PCIe 4.0, and 100G Ethernet. The Atlas 900 AI cluster leverages the Huawei CloudEngine data center switches to work on a 100 TB/s full-mesh, non-blocking dedicated network for parameter synchronization. The network slashes parameter synchronization latency by 10 to 70 percent to streamline AI model training.

Heat dissipation is a critical issue for an AI training cluster with such high computing power. That is why the Atlas 900 AI cluster adopts a groundbreaking system for heat dissipation. It leads industry innovation with a full liquid cooling solution and a rack-scale enclosed adiabatic design. This design delivers tremendous heat dissipation even for single racks with power consumption of up to 50 kW. It achieves a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of below 1.1 for data centers, almost reaching the ideal PUE of 1.0. Atlas 900 improves over air-cooled 8-kW racks by reducing equipment room space by 79%. Its innovative liquid cooling system provides energy-intensive, high-density, and low-PUE deployment to drastically reduce customer TCO.

Huawei is fostering cooperation to build the Ascend computing industry with open hardware, open source software, and partner enablement. Huawei provides full-stack AI computing infrastructure and application solutions to power industries with AI and create pervasive intelligence.

To learn more about Atlas, please click here.

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With integrated solutions across four key domains  telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud services  we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

Huaweis end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions and services are both competitive and secure. Through open collaboration with ecosystem partners, we create lasting value for our customers, working to empower people, enrich home life, and inspire innovation in organizations of all shapes and sizes.

At Huawei, innovation focuses on customer needs. We invest heavily in basic research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world forward. We have more than 194,000 employees, and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company wholly owned by its employees. For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow us on:

http://www.linkedin.com/company/Huawei

http://www.twitter.com/Huawei

http://www.facebook.com/Huawei

http://www.youtube.com/Huawei
WATERLOO REGION  How do you run a parade with proper physical distancing?

Weve got some options, believe it or not, said Alfred Lowrick, executive director of Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest, who hopes to have much clearer take on what the 2020 edition of the annual festival and Thanksgiving Day parade will look like in about a months time.

The idea of Onkel Hans sporting a face mask for this years pin isnt out of the question. Elbow-to-elbow, suds-splashing ceremonies, probably are.

Like most businesses, tourist attractions and special events, K-W Oktoberfest, the regions largest annual festival with economic spinoffs estimated at $22 million, has been taking a wait-and-see approach due to the ever-evolving rules and restrictions related to COVID-19.

Unlike Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany thats already been cancelled for 2020, the Bavarian bash in Waterloo region is de-centralized and ultimately depends on whats feasible for its various operators and festhalls.

According to Lowrick, some of the regions largest venues such as the Concordia Club are willing to wait until the 11th hour.

The word cancelled has never crossed our minds, he said.

We will do something, even if its something small, we will do something for the festival to keep our brand going and give back to the community.

Lowrick said recently organizers will be using all resources at their disposal, but that the pandemic will surely cause them to scale back celebrations.

It will not be what weve experienced in the past, but a lot of it is wait and see at this point, he said. It will be public health that will dictate what we can and cannot do.

It was just days before the pandemic started impacting daily life in North America in March that the festivals board of directors reported that it had reached a crisis situation after receiving a third-party review of the nonprofit organizations financial records, which revealed it lost close to half a million dollars over the past three years.

Many people dont realize that Oktoberfest is essentially an umbrella organization that acts as a facilitator and doesnt profit from many of the parties, Lowrick said.

In April, the organization put its head office in downtown Kitchener up for sale for just above $1.8 million and committed to finding a more suitable home.

Its also been trying to find ways to better connect with a younger, more diverse population in recent years and had some new events in the works for 2020.

However with local post-secondary institutions planning to take classes online again this fall, the festival will lose a substantial portion of its younger demographic who wont be residing in the area.

Explore Waterloo Regions chief executive officer Minto Schneider said the same goes for restaurants, bars and hotels. Shes banding with other destination marketing organizations in asking the province to reopen regionally.

In a presentation before the provinces Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs last Thursday, Schneider asked that her industry be provided clear information about the re-opening process, including restrictions and capacity guidelines.

About 80 per cent of tourism businesses are reporting significant disruption to cash flow and many are facing insurmountable debt levels, Schneider highlighted.

This year might allow Oktoberfest to hit the pause button or make some tough decision about its annual festival that some say finally need to be made. This is also the year that everyone has to come together, she said.

People are looking for a way to celebrate and if certainly theyre looking for it now, theyre going to be doubly looking for it in September/October.

Lowrick plans to meet with operators shortly to see where theyre at collectively and make some sort of decision on what the festival will look like come July.

If Stage 2 of reopening is indeed 50 per cent occupancy, does that provide an environment for what we expect as Oktoberfest? Lowrick wonders.

Were also looking at what happens if theres a second wave (of COVID-19) and be cognizant of the fact we could be in worse situation than we have right now.

We need to do things that can be both executed and changed.
New Delhi, June 9 (IANS) Bharti Airtel's subsidiary Bharti International (Singapore) has increased its stake in Robi Axiata, a telecom service provider in Bangladesh.

Bharti International (Singapore), which had a 25 per cent stake in Robi Axiata, acquired an additional 6.3 per cent stake in the company from NTT DOCOMO and its group entities, said Bharti Airtel in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.

The company, however, didn't disclose the deal amount.

"Acquisition of the ordinary shares of Robi from DoCoMo has been done at mutually agreed valuation. The said valuation is non-material and is not disclosed herein due to reasons of confidentiality," it said.

Robi is the second largest mobile network operator in Bangladesh and a subsidiary company of Axiata Investments (Labuan), which is the subsidiary of the leading Asian telecom giant, Axiata Group Berhad, based in Malaysia.

--IANS

rrb-sn/pcj
RADLogics We are delighted to have Linda join our executive team during this critical and exciting time for RADLogics, said Moshe Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of RADLogics.

RADLogics today announced that Linda McManus has joined the companys growing executive team as Executive Vice President and General Manager for U.S., Canada, and the Americas. With over 25 years of healthcare technology experience including several high-profile roles with Nuance, she will lead RADLogics efforts to scale the companys medical imaging AI platform and applications user base with particular emphasis on the U.S. market. RADLogics recently announced the companys novel AI-Powered applications supporting the evaluation of COVID-19 patients are available on the Nuance AI Marketplace for Diagnostic Imaging.

We are delighted to have Linda join our executive team during this critical and exciting time for RADLogics, said Moshe Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of RADLogics. In response to the pandemic, we have successfully deployed our AI-Powered medical imaging analysis solutions globally, and we have seen significant interest in the U.S. market and throughout the Americas. Building on our long-standing strategic relationship with Nuance, Linda will work closely with their customer engagement and marketing teams to rapidly expand access to our AI-Powered solutions that are now available to thousands of U.S. clinicians and radiology teams at connected healthcare facilities through the Nuance AI Marketplace.

During her tenure at Nuance, Linda McManus held several senior roles in professional services  most recently serving as Senior Director, Enterprise Project Office of their Healthcare Division. She has a proven track record consistently meeting revenue growth plans by orchestrating dynamic and diverse teams to success. Over her two decades working at Nuance, she led the front-end speech recognition strategy and adoption in radiology, which significantly expanded the market share and customer base for Nuance PowerScribe. She also oversaw the implementation of thousands of new customers including customer upgrades and solution conversions to new platforms.

Im thrilled to join the RADLogics team to help the company chart a path for success in North America and South America, said Linda McManus, EVP & GM for RADLogics in the U.S., Canada, and the Americas. Not only is there a pressing need for our AI-Powered solutions to help manage and treat symptomatic COVID-19 patients, but AI tools are poised to help meet the high demand on radiology providers and practices due to a dramatic increase of scans that were postponed due to the influx of COVID-19 patients. To help support radiologists as they respond to this new surge, our solutions will help alleviate the increased burden on U.S. healthcare providers and support better outcomes.

RADLogics AI-Powered software includes algorithms that not only detect abnormalities on chest CTs and X-rays, but also provide automatic triage alerts to the radiologist to help ensure potential findings are reviewed in a timely matter. The companys solutions provide quantitative analysis of the CT and X-ray images for patients with suspected disease including a volume percentage score that can help monitor findings over time. Access to these applications will help meet the growing demand in the U.S. for these solutions that have the capacity to process 1 million CT and 10 million X-rays studies per day through the RADLogics cloud-based platform.

About RADLogics

A healthcare software company developing AI-Powered solutions, RADLogics provides machine learning image analysis solutions to improve radiologists' productivity while enhancing patient outcomes. Based in Boston, MA, U.S., and Tel Aviv, Israel, RADLogics is one of the pioneers in using AI & machine learning image analysis and advanced big data analytics to search and analyze imaging data from CTs, MRIs, PET scans, and X-rays to help reduce diagnostics turnaround time from hours to minutes by automating detection and report generation functions. The companys patented AI medical image analysis platform enables rapid development of AI algorithms, and provides seamless integration into existing radiology workflow. Visit http://www.radlogics.com to learn more or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said he met home minister Amit Shah this evening over the coronavirus situation in the city, adding the two discussed the issue in detail.

He [Amit Shah] assured of all cooperation, tweeted the CM.

The coronavirus cases in Delhi have seen an upswing in the recent days as the government, with an economic focus in mind, allowed a number of relaxations under its Unlock 1 guidelines.

With an average of 1,250 Covid-19 cases daily, Delhi added 10,000 cases in just eight days from June 1, a sharp spike from the 79 days it took to reach the 10,000 mark, analysis of data provided by the city government reveals. On June 3, the city witnessed the highest single-day spike in coronavirus cases at 1,513.

In another development, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) sent notices to the Delhi government, Centre on Covid-19 situation in the national capital.

Acting on a complaint by former Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken, the Commission has referred to difficulties being faced by the people in Delhi, due to non-availability of beds in the hospitals for Covid-19 patients and inadequate number of tests leading to a grim state of affairs and mismanagement, resulting in death of a large number of people.

The meeting with home minister comes in the backdrop of Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, on Monday, overturning the state governments decision to reserve hospitals, except those run by the centre, exclusively for residents of Delhi. The state governments decision to test only those showing symptoms of Covid-19 was also overruled, allowing asymptomatic cases and high-risk contacts of a virus patient to be tested.

This afternoon, CM Kejriwal, underscoring that it is not the time for disagreements, said Lt Guv Baijals decision will be followed in letter and spirit.

The chief minister said in the next few days he will personally step out to supervise the preparations to convert hotels and banquet halls into healthcare facilities.

Delhi will need 1.5 lakh beds in healthcare facilities by July 31 once people start coming to the city for treatment from other states, Kejriwal said in his first virtual briefing since Sunday.

The chief minister said out of the 1.5 lakh beds, it is estimated that 80,000 will be required for Delhiites, adding that the calculation is based on numbers that showed 50 per cent of the beds in hospitals in the national capital were occupied by those from other states before the coronavirus pandemic.
Evolution is a brutal process which only allows the strongest and the fittest to survive. The subtle signs of this natural selection theory are seen in the complexities of human mating and sexual behaviour, where women are shown to chose specific partners that are genetically suited to producing a fit offspring with more chances of survival. Various theories exist about how a woman or a man chooses the right partner.

And even after that, the process of fertilization weeds out the unfit sperms before finding the right sperm cell for fertilisation.

The process of fertilisation is often considered to be an olympian race where the sperm that reaches the egg first is the one that fertilises it. In recent research though, a group of researchers at the Stockholm University, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and The University of Manchester said that a womans egg might reject the sperm of her chosen partner.

Explaining the findings of the study, Dr John Fitzpatrick, an Associate Professor at Stockholm University said in a press release that human eggs release certain chemicals to attract the right sperm and that the chosen sperms may be from an entirely different male than the one chosen by the woman to be her partner.

The obstacle race to fertilisation

Millions of sperms are released inside the uterus with a single ejaculation. However, the uterus has an entire obstacle course to help narrow down the choices the ova/egg has. These include the acidic pH of the uterus, the thick lining of mucus inside the uterus wall and the various white blood cells (WBCs) that the uterus uses to kill sperms. The female body considers sperms to be a foreign object and hence her immune system reacts to eliminate them.

Also, sperm can stay inside the uterus for about 3-5 days, but an egg only becomes viable for 24 hours.

Studies suggest that some birds even eject out sperms to avoid the unfit ones from fertilizing the egg.

The first sperm to reach the egg does not always fertilise it. This is because ova have two thick protective layers surrounding it and the sperms have to hydrolyse (break down) these layers enough to be able to enter the ova. So, hundreds of sperms break down the layers and only when there is enough space through the two layers can a sperm enter into and fuse with the ovum.

Usually, the female reproductive system prepares the sperm for this through a process called capacitation. Again, those sperms that do not complete this process cannot fertilise the ova.

The role of the egg

Researchers have observed that the otherwise passive looking egg has much to do when it comes to choosing the right sperm. The egg releases specific chemicals to attract the sperm that is genetically compatible with it and would reject the sperm that is incompatible.

The genes that make this choice are usually related to the immune system, more specifically the MHC (Major histocompatibility complex) present in human cells. MHC plays an important role in recognition and elimination of pathogens from the body. So, if an egg fuses with a sperm with dissimilar MHCs, the progeny would have a stronger immune system than either of the parents and would hence be fitter to survive.

It has previously been noted that the MHCs have an association with body odour and humans can detect the variations in MHC through body odours. They also tend to choose perfumes that most match their MHCs.

For more information, read our article on In Vitro Fertilisation

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.
A lawsuit filed against the Berkeley County School District over alleged violations of South Carolina's public records law has been dismissed, according to court records filed Wednesday.

S.C. House candidate and Berkeley attorney Tom Fernandez has effectively withdrawn a lawsuit he filed last month against the school district.

Fernandez filed the suit after he was asked to pay more than $6,800 to get copies of various documents, invoices and emails exchanged on the districts server.

He first submitted a public records request to the school district a year ago and filed the lawsuit in mid-May.

Fernandez's legal counsel petitioned a judge Wednesday to allow the suit to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can't be brought up again in court.

"The District takes its responsibilities under FOIA seriously, and is pleased that the lawsuit has now been dismissed with prejudice," district spokeswoman Katie Tanner said in a statement. "The District plans to move forward with its Motion for Sanctions for the filing of the lawsuit."

Reached by The Post and Courier, Fernandez deferred to his attorney, Desa Ballard.

"It is disheartening as a senior member of the bar to see lawyers behave like this," Ballard said.

She declined to say why Fernandez petitioned the judge for the lawsuit to be dismissed, citing attorney-client privilege, but said that the withholding of public documents is reflective of a much larger issue.

"By requesting such huge deposits and projecting such huge fees ... it has to have the effect of scaring people off, and that's totally inconsistent with the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act," she said.

Fernandez has submitted a new public records request to the school district, Ballard said, this time seeking copies of all the FOIA requests the district has received and their responses issued over a certain time frame "to try and determine if there is a pattern of the school district trying to scare people off when requesting public documents."

Fernandez faced Republican incumbent Rep. Sylleste Davis for the House District 100 seat during Tuesday's election. With 49.72 percent of the vote, Fernandez barely trailed Davis in the polls, triggering a recount expected to take place Friday.

Part of Fernandez's campaign focused on targeting what he called political corruption and fighting for increased government transparency. The timing of his lawsuit against the district caused some to question its ties to the election.

"Clearly, Mr. Fernandez filed it in a desperate attempt for political gain," said Berkeley County Councilman Tommy Newell, adding that "the real losers here are the taxpayers, children and teachers of the School District because they were forced to spend funds fighting Mr. Fernandezs bogus lawsuit.

Ballard denied the allegations.

"I had no idea Tom was running for office of any kind," she said, adding the timing of the lawsuit "had absolutely nothing to do with any election."

According to court documents filed Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge Roger Young is still considering the school district's request that Fernandez and his attorney be sanctioned.
[June 09, 2020] Propzy Raises $25M Fund from Gaw Capital and Softbank Ventures Asia

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Propzy, a full-stack real estate platform based in Vietnam, has raised $25 million in a Series A round of funding led by Gaw Capital and Softbank Ventures, along with new and existing investors, Next Billion Ventures, RHL Ventures Breeze, FEBE Ventures, RSquare, and Insignia. With the investment, Propzy commits to simplifying real estate transactions, from beginning to end, and managing the assets or logistics to streamline the entire real estate lifecycle, such as leasing and purchasing of landed houses and high-rise condos. The company will also continue its expansion into leasing services by leveraging the online to offline capabilities of its platform, which has recorded 50% month-over-month growth.

As the only "firetech" (financial, insurance and real estate technology) company in Vietnam, the company pioneered the hybrid online to offline model that offers a full-stack real estate platform. "Propzy is an example of the many macroeconomic successes in Vietnam. With its innovative breakthrough in real estate's offline to online business models, we see the immense potential of Propzy to skyrocket," said Gaw Capital's Managing Partner, Humbert Pang.

Vietnam has emerged as a thriving real estate market in Southeast Asi. Despite the global crisis and coronavirus pandemic, Vietnam has reached its target of over 5% GDP growth in 2020.





Despite this, however, the real estate industry still lags in terms of its adoption of new technology.



"Sellers see uncovering buyers needs as a headache that slows the buying process. Therefore, we invited a group of world-class investors to provide an advanced solution. With the largest number of estate agents in Vietnam - around 400 sales staff operating in 30 locations - we have facilitated over $1 billion in property transactions since inception and anticipate another record-setting year of growth, as we continue to expand," said Founder and CEO of Propzy, John Le.

Vietnam's robust economy is one of the fastest-growing in Southeast Asia. Research by the World Bank found that 70% of Vietnam's population is considered economically secure. Propzy is now well-positioned to scale its market leadership to 70 centers and 1,300 advisors nationwide over the next 18 months. "The security that the Vietnamese economy offers to property investors and homebuyers is ideal for Propzy to thrive. We are excited to support the company in its mission to enable a 10X consumer experience in real estate," said Daniel Kang, Senior Partner of SoftBank Ventures Asia. About Propzy Founded in 2016 by Mr. John Le, Propzy is a full-stack real estate platform and integrated marketplace offering open house, closing-settlement services, and turn-key mortgage financing. The founder is a multiple exit serial entrepreneur behind numerous leading fintech companies, including LoanTrader and Portellus, with blue-chip investment from Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, GE Capital, Zurich, FBR Capital and IAC. About SoftBank Ventures Asia Founded in 2000, SoftBank Ventures Asia is the early-stage venture arm of SoftBank Group. Their expertise lies in ICT investments including AI, IoT, and smart robotics. They look for early to growth-stage startups that have strong business potential in the global market and assist them to be plugged into the SoftBank ecosystem by facilitating side-by-side growth. About Gaw Capital Partners Gaw Capital Partners is private equity fund management company that focusing on real estate markets in greater China and other high barrier-to-entry markets globally. Specializing in adding strategic value to under-utilized real estate, the firm's investments span the entire spectrum of real estate sectors, including residential development, offices, retail malls, hospitality and logistics warehouses.

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200609/2825006-1 SOURCE Propzy

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[June 10, 2020] Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market to Reach USD 16.53 Billion by 2027; Rising Investment by Companies to Aid Growth: Fortune Business Insights

Key companies profiled are Thales Group, Raytheon Company, Indra Sistemas, S.A., Harris Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Honeywell International, Inc., BAE Systems PLC, Saab AB, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Honeywell International, among others PUNE, India, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global air traffic management & consulting market is set to gain momentum from the increasing investment by public & private companies in the aviation industry. This information is given by Fortune Business Insights in a recently published report, titled, "Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market Size, Share and Covid-19 Impact Analysis, by System (Air Traffic Services, Airspace Management, Air traffic Flow Management, Aeronautical Information Management), By Component (Hardware, Software), By End Use (Commercial, Tactical), and Regional Forecast, 2020- 2027." The report further states that the air traffic management & consulting market size was USD 13.30 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 16.53 billion by 2027, thereby exhibiting a CAGR of 5.58% during the forecast period. Browse Summary of This Research Report with Detailed Table of Content: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/air-traffic-management-market-101813 COVID-19 Impact Analysis: The recent coronavirus outbreak has had an adverse impact on majority of the businesses across the world. Accounting to the strict measures taken by governments of major countries, it has become increasingly difficult to carry out business operations. The report will include the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global. It will also include the strategies that major companies are adopting to overcome the downfalls during this pandemic. We are making continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future. Get Sample PDF Brochure with "Short-Term and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19" on Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market, Please Visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/covid19-impact/air-traffic-management-market-101813 This Report Answers the Following Questions: What are the significant market trends, challenges, opportunities, growth drivers, and barriers?

Which region is anticipated to lead the market by generating the largest revenue?

How will the key companies cope up with the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic?

Which segment is likely to hold the highest share in the near future? Drivers & Restraints- Rising Adoption of AI Technology to Drive Growth The officials of a large number of prominent agencies, such as Council of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO) are expressing their concerns regarding the high air traffic by air taxi services and unmanned aircraft. These regulatory bodies are apprehensive about the security and safety of air congestion that is occurring because of the rising usage of such services. Many of these agencies are gradually shifting towards artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the communication process. It would also help in enhancing the exchange of information between the air traffic control (ATC) authority and the aircraft in real-time. It is set to thereby boost the air traffic management & consulting market growth in the coming years. How Will the Outbreak of Covid-19 Pandemic Affect the Market? The global economy is falling persistently because of the spread of the deadly coronavirus worldwide.

The aviation industry is expected to suffer a heavy loss throughout the forthcoming years.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) mentioned that the global aviation industry is anticipated to experience a drop of USD 314 in 2020. It refers to a revenue loss of around -55%.

in 2020. It refers to a revenue loss of around -55%. Owing to the rapid spread of the virus, almost every country is under lockdown. It has thus, brought the industry to a standstill.

Since the past three months, there has been a tremendous decline in the number of passengers. It is also set to severely affect the investments by the key companies in developing unique air traffic management & consulting systems. Speak to Analyst: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/air-traffic-management-market-101813 Regional Analysis: Segment- Aeronautical Information Management Segment to Grow Rapidly Owing to Rising Operation of Flights Based on system, the market is segregated into aeronautical information management, air traffic flow management, airspace management, and air traffic services. Amongst these, the air traffic flow management segment generated 21% air traffic control equipment market share in 2019. The aeronautical information management segment is expected to grow at a fast pace in the coming years backed by its ability to perform the most vital tasks efficiently. The increasing operation of numerous flights across the globe would also augment growth. Regional Analysis- Rising Investment in Tourism Sector to Bolster Growth in the Middle East I 2019, North America procured USD 4.30 billion in terms of revenue stoked by the increasing number of air traffic management & consulting system manufacturers in this region. Europe would lead the market owing to the presence of industry giants, such as Saab AB, Indra Sistemas, BAE System, and Thales Group. In Asia Pacific, the market would exhibit rapid growth fueled by the rising number of airports in various countries. Airport authorities are therefore planning to upgrade and modernize the existing air traffic management & consulting systems. In addition to this, developing countries, such as China and India possess several planned airport construction projects. In the Middle East, the presence of international airports would accelerate growth. The region is likely to exhibit high CAGR backed by the growing investment in the tourism sector.



Competitive Landscape- Key Players Focus on Introducing Innovative Air Traffic Control Equipment

The market houses various companies that are mainly following the organic or inorganic strategies of signing long-term contracts with the airport authorities, launching state-of-the-art air traffic management & consulting systems, and acquiring other start-ups companies. Below are two of the latest industry developments: May 2018 : Harris Corporation was awarded a contract by the Airport Authority of India (AAI). It is worth USD 141 million and will enable the company in creating Futuristic Telecommunication Infrastructure. It will not only help in enhancing the performance of India's air traffic management, but also improve air safety and network operation.

: Harris Corporation was awarded a contract by the Airport Authority of (AAI). It is worth and will enable the company in creating Futuristic Telecommunication Infrastructure. It will not only help in enhancing the performance of air traffic management, but also improve air safety and network operation. October 2018 : Inverness Airport in Scotland recently operated with the help of InNOVA approach. It also included the Tower display surveillance data processing system. These were provided to the airport by Indra Navia . Fortune Business Insights lists out the names of all the organizations providing air traffic management & consulting. They are as follows: Thales Group

Raytheon Company

Indra Sistemas, S.A.

Harris Corporation

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Honeywell International, Inc.

BAE Systems PLC

Saab AB

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Honeywell International Quick Buy  Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/101813 Detailed Table of Content: Introduction

Research Scope



Market Segmentation



Research Methodology



Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics

Market Drivers



Market Restraints



Market Opportunities

Key Insights

Key Industry Developments Mergers, Acquisitions and Partnerships



Latest technological Advancements



Porters Five Forces Analysis



Supply Chain Analysis

Global Air Traffic Management & Consulting Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027

Key Findings / Summary



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By System



Air Traffic Services





Air Traffic Flow Management





Airspace Management





Aeronautical Information Management



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Component



Hardware





Software



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By End-use



Commercial





Tactical



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region



North America





Europe





Asia pacific

pacific



The Middle East





Rest of the world TOC Continued!!! Get your Customized Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/air-traffic-management-market-101813 Have a Look at Related Research Insight: Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Traffic Information, Traffic Assignment, Traffic Optimization, Traffic Prediction) Others and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026 Airport Security Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, by Security Type (Access Control, Cyber security, Perimeter Security, Screening, Surveillance, and Others), By System (Metal Detectors, Fiber Optic Perimeter Intrusion, Backscatter X-Ray Systems, Cabin Baggage Screening Systems, and Others), By Airport Model (Airport 2.0, Airport 3.0, and Airport 4.0), By Airport Class (Class A, Class B, and Class C), and Regional Forecast,2020- 2027 Airport Services Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (International, and Domestic), By Application (Aeronautical Services, Non-Aeronautical Services), By Infrastructure Type (Greenfield Airport, Brownfield Airport), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027 Aircraft Line Maintenance Market Size, Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Transit Checks, and Routine Checks), By Aircraft Type (Commercial, Military), By Platform (Traditional Line Maintenance, Digital Line Maintenance), By Service (Engine and APU Service, Component Replacement and Rigging Services, Aircraft On Ground Service, and Others) and Regional Forecasts, 2020-2027 Smart Airport Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Platform (Hardware Systems, Data Management, Software Systems, and Others), Airport Model (Airport 2.0, Airport 3.0, and Airport 4.0), Airport Size (Small, Medium, and Large), Application (Airside, Landside, Terminal Side), Airport Operation (Aeronautical and Non-aeronautical), and Regional Forecasts, 2020- 2027 Aviation MRO Software Market Size, Share and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Solution [Software (ERP Solution, Point Solution,) and Service (Deployment & Integration, Consulting], By Function [Maintenance Management (Line, Base, Engine), Operation Management (Training Safety & Quality Assurance), Business Management (Accounts, Finance, HR)], By Point of Sale (Subscription, Ownership), By Deployment Type, By End-Use and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027 Homeland Security and Emergency Management Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By System (Modeling And Simulation, Communication System, Rescue And Recovery Systems, Intelligence And Surveillance System, Detection And Monitoring System, Weapon System,), By End Use (Cyber Security, CBRNE Security, Aviation Security, Maritime Security, Law Enforcement and Intelligence Gathering, Critical Infrastructure Security), and Regional Forecast, 2020- 2027 Wireless Infrastructure Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Connectivity Type (5G, 4G & LTE, 3G, 2G and Satellite), By Infrastructure Type (Small Cells, Mobile Core, Macro-cell, Radio Access Networks (RAN), Distributed Antenna System (DAS), Cloud RAN, Carrier Wi-Fi, Backhaul, and SATCOM), By Platform (Government & Defense, Commercial), and Regional Forecast,2019- 2026 C5ISR Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Type (Land, Naval, Airborne, Space), By Application (Electronic Warfare, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Intelligence, Command, and Control), By Solution (Product and Services), and Regional Forecast, 2019- 2026 Satellite Communication (SATCOM) Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Component (Receiver, Transmitter/Transponder, Transceiver, Antenna, Modem/Router), By Technology (Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), SATCOM-On-The-Move (SOTM), SATCOM-On-The-Pause (SOTP), SATCOM Telemetry), By Platform (Commercial and Government & Defense), By End-Use (Portable equipment, Land equipment, Maritime equipment), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026 About Us: Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them to address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in. Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data. At Fortune Business Insights, we aim at highlighting the most lucrative growth opportunities for our clients. We, therefore, offer recommendations, making it easier for them to navigate through technological and market-related changes. Our consulting services are designed to help organizations identify hidden opportunities and understand prevailing competitive challenges. Contact Us:

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Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast

COLUMBIA, S.C.On May 11, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster officially reopened the state economy after four weeks of government-mandated social distancing aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

With our increased capacity for testing the people of our state, it is time to responsibly and gradually get these small businesses back up and running, McMaster said in a statement.

We have an opportunity to set an example for the rest of the world by reinvigorating our economy while staying safe, but we can only do that if South Carolinians continue to follow the advice and recommendations of our public health experts.

Almost exactly one month later, South Carolina had arguably its worst week yet in the pandemic.

Between June 1 and this past Monday, this state of five million people registered 3,069 new infections and 63 deaths, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). By Monday, the health agency had counted 14,800 total coronavirus cases and 557 deaths, and projected an overall COVID-19 case rate of 442 per 100,000 people by June 27. The agency said that was worse than Californias 323-per-100,000 rate as of June 6, but much better than New Yorks 1,965 per 100,000.

But whats chilling about South Carolinas stats is that all the evidence points to the pandemic getting worse here, not better. It seems pretty clear that these data indicate an increasing circulation of the virus, Theresa MacPhail, an author and medical anthropologist at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, told The Daily Beast.

There were 624 new infections in South Carolina on June 6, according to Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker, which recorded a spike in infections in South Carolina starting on Thursday, and an ominous two-week trend that didnt come close to federal reopening guidelines.

While the data seem to indicate that social distancing in April helped to prevent South Carolina hospitals from being overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, the numbers also suggest that McMasters eagerness to reopen the economy has backfired on the states residents.

Story continues

Trumps Task Force Warns Governors of COVID Spike Tied to Protests

More people are getting sick. More people are dying. The death rate for infected patients hasnt really changed: It was about 3.6 percent in early May and 3.5 percent in early June. And some businesses, having reopened just a few weeks ago, are closing again. McMasters office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The novel coronavirus officially arrived in South Carolina on Feb. 24 with six infections, according to DHEC figures. State-organized testing began the first week of March. The first COVID-19 death is said to have occurred on March 16. That same day, McMaster, a Republican and a close ally of Donald Trump, suspended activities at the states schools. But he didnt close businessesyet. And for a few weeks he didnt try to stop large public gatherings, either.

The states major cities of Columbia and Charleston began implementing social-distancing measures on their own in late March, closing bars and restaurants, imposing curfews, and limiting public gatherings.

But aside from closing schools, in the first month or so of the coronaviruss spread in South Carolina, there was very little in the way of a statewide effort to slow the pathogen. As late as the end of March, the Republican-led state government was actively discouraging local public-health efforts. We affirm that local government cannot exercise the emergency powers delegated to the governor by the general assembly, attorney general Alan Wilson stated on March 27. The general assembly is South Carolinas state legislature.

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, a Democrat, brushed off Wilsons memo and continued with local social-distancing measures. The actions taken by the city are entirely within our authority, Benjamin said.

There was an early statewide spike in new infections on April 6, with 183 new patients. The next day, McMaster finally ordered many businesses to close all over the state. Bars, restaurants, nail and hair salons, entertainment venues, and gyms shut their doors. At the states encouragement, many churches moved their services online.

At the peak of social-distancing in South Carolina in early April, DHEC estimated the populations mobility to be down 42 percent compared to normal. By comparison, in New York City mobility dropped more than an estimated 90 percent, in late March, though metrics used to gauge mobility varied in the two appraisals.

The infection rate flattened. South Carolinas hospitals have 405 beds in intensive care units, but the most ICU beds it ever needed for pandemic-response was 105 on May 1.

Although late to start, South Carolina succeeded in bending the curve. But as in a slew of other states, there were signs early on that public-health measures wouldnt last. The first major public protest against social-distancing measures occurred in Columbia on April 24. A few hundred people, many of them from out of town, marched or demonstrated from their cars.

Such protests, which Trump himself encouraged, were common in Democratic-led states. South Carolina was one of the few exceptions, where protests targeted Republican leaders.

In early May, Trump began insisting the United States should reopen with or without a coronavirus vaccine and regardless of whether all states had succeeded in containing the virus. McMaster, who was an early endorser of Trump back in 2016, had moved swiftly to lift South Carolinas public-health measures.

The states work or home order ended on May 4. On Memorial Day weekend in Hilton Head, South Carolina, 62,524 cars traveled over the citys bridges in both directions heading to and from the areas popular beaches. That was just 10,000 fewer cars than crossed the bridge on the same weekend in 2019.

By June 8, overall state mobility was down just 13 percent compared to normal, according to DHEC. Mandatory social distance had all but ended. DHEC continued to urge people to voluntarily wear masks, wash their hands, and avoid crowds.

Coronavirus cases spiked. The health agency cites numbers showing a peak in deaths between April 28 and May 6, when 11 people died of COVID-19 per day, on average. The daily death rate declined to around six per day by May 24. Then it began climbing again. In the first week of June, around nine people died per day, and the rate was rising.

DHEC knows it has a problem. While we expect the number of cases to increase as we work with community partners to increased testing events around the state, were also observing that many are not adhering to public health recommendations to social distance, avoid large gatherings, and wear a mask in public, the agency told The Daily Beast in a statement.

Many restaurants and bars that reopened in May shut down again in June after learning that staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus.

One of them was Carolina Ale House in Columbia. We are closing early tonight for a management-led, thorough deep cleaning and sanitation, the restaurant announced on June 5. An employee of Columbias Publico Kitchen and Tap told their boss that their roommate had tested positive. Management closed the restaurant last Wednesday and, on Thursday, sent all staff to get tested. Everyone tested negative. Publico reopened this Wednesday.

Through early June, the health agency continued alerting restaurants about infected staff and requiring temporary closings, sterilizations, and public notifications. But McMaster did not restore any statewide measures.

One Columbia bar owner expressed his frustration with the states reopening plan. Kind of like sticking your head in the sand because you dont want to see whats happening, he said, requesting anonymity because he feared backlash in the deeply conservative state.

We have been nudged into doing business knowing that we have to walk the line between putting food on our table and keeping ourselves, family, staff, and customers safe, Sean McCrossin, the owner of several Columbia restaurants, told The Daily Beast.

Anthony Alberg, an epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, told The Daily Beast he was not surprised South Carolina has failed to contain the pandemic. And, he argued, its current trajectory should not be attributed to improved disease surveillance.

Early on, South Carolina took the essential steps needed to flatten the curve, Alberg said. The problem has been re-opening too soon, which has led to a very large upsurge in COVID-19 cases that cannot be accounted for solely due to the increased testing for active SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Updated 6/10 for clarity.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Taylor Swift has again set herself in opposition to Donald Trump (Greg Allen/Alex Brandon/PA)

Taylor Swift has again placed herself in opposition to Donald Trump as she voiced support for a voting method the president has frequently attacked.

The pop superstar  who has become increasingly vocal following years of remaining quiet about her political beliefs  shared a series of tweets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

She said: Racial injustice has been ingrained deeply into local and state governments, and changes MUST be made there. In order for policies to change, we need to elect people who will fight against police brutality and racism of any kind.

Racial injustice has been ingrained deeply into local and state governments, and changes MUST be made there. In order for policies to change, we need to elect people who will fight against police brutality and racism of any kind. #BlackLivesMatter  Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 9, 2020

We need to fight for mail-in voting for the 2020 election. No one should have to choose between their health and having their voice heard. https://t.co/4ImsKW1fQN  Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 9, 2020

Swift shared an article written by Barack Obama titled How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change before confirming her support for mail-in voting ahead of Novembers presidential elections.

No one should have to choose between their health and having their voice heard, she said.

Mail-in voting looks set to be a key issue ahead of the election.

Supporters say it will allow vulnerable people to safely cast their ballot without worrying about the coronavirus pandemic but critics  chief among them Mr Trump  say the system is open to abuse.

In May, the president accused the state of California of sending ballots to people who arent citizens, illegals and anybody who is walking or breathing.

Video of the Day

Republicans in the state are suing Democratic governor Gavin Newsom in an attempt to block his plan to send mail ballots to every registered voter.

It is not the first time Swift, one of the worlds biggest pop stars, has gone against the president.

Following Mr Trumps controversial tweet amid the anti-racism protests sweeping America, in which he warned when the looting starts the shooting starts she fired back an angry response.

She said: After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? When the looting starts the shooting starts??? We will vote you out in November.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:03:02|Editor: huaxia

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SWEIDA, Syria, June 10 (Xinhua) -- With the increase in the prices of medicine and the unavailability of some kinds in Syria, a new initiative of sharing meds took place in the southern province of Sweida.

In the city of Shahba in the northern countryside of Sweida, Nour Abu Fakher, a pharmacist, launched an initiative for people to share their unused meds with one another.

People would find the medicine they need and exchange it for free with the medicine they don't use.

This initiative comes at a time the pharmaceutical industry in Syria has been affected by the devaluating Syrian pounds against the U.S. dollar.

Those who run pharmaceutical factories are having a hard time securing U.S. dollars at a suitable price to bring in raw materials from abroad, which caused some problems in securing all the needs of people.

The sanctions and the devaluation of the Syrian pound also affected the imported meds as their prices have skyrocketed and become unaffordable to the majority of people.

Fakher told Xinhua that she started the initiative by creating a group chat on social media with some ladies in Shahba city.

"We launched a humanitarian call for the people who have meds they don't use to bring it to my pharmacy for other people who might need these meds to find it for free," she said.

She noted that this humanitarian call has been positively met by people in that city and many people found their needs of meds through this initiative.

Fakher said she feels happy when people find the medicine they need, adding that her small initiative has spread from Shahba to the provincial capital of Sweida.

Many pharmacies have started taking medication from people and give it to others who are in need, she said.

Those pharmacies who have joined this initiative have also established communication between each other so that they can have an idea about the meds available in each one of them.

Fakher hoped that more pharmacies could join this initiative to help as many people as possible amid these tough circumstances in the country.

"In times of crisis, we better focus on what we can do rather than dwell in negative thoughts," she said.

Um Shadi, a 48-year-old woman with high blood pressure, said that she had been searching for days in Sweida to find her meds but in vain.

"After days of futile search, my granddaughter told me she read about a pharmacy who offers free meds so I went there and got my medication," she said, feeling lucky and grateful at the same time.

After that, Um Shadi searched in her cupboard for meds she doesn't need and sent them to the pharmacy.

"It feels so good to give people things they need for free, it reminds us of our humanity," she said.

For his side, Abu Motasem, a man in his 60s, also benefitted from the initiative, saying these kinds of love and giving is a lifesaver.

The diabetic man said people with chronic illness cannot just miss their meds, noting that the new initiative is a positive one amid the current crisis.

"When people help themselves and others, they can overcome any crisis and I hope we get over all our crisis soon," he wished. Enditem
The perceptions of the two countries about the LAC vary widely, and there is huge disagreement even on its length.

The border standoff between India and China in Eastern Ladakh appears to be easing up for now, with the troops of both countries disengaging at three locations. A Chinese spokesperson also said on Wednesday that Indian and Chinese troops have started implementing the "positive consensus" reached by the senior military officials of the two countries on 6 June.

Nevertheless, the broader issue of ambiguity on the demarcation of the Line of Actual Control remains.

Indeed, while the Line of Actual Control has seen far fewer confrontations than the Line of Control (LoC) that separates Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the former is not nearly as clearly defined as the latter. A part of the reason why the issue has received relatively less attention could be the much sharper political rhetoric over Pakistan as compared to China.

Contrast between LoC and LAC

The LoC came into being in the aftermath of the 1948 war between India and Pakistan. At the end of the war, the two countries agreed on a ceasefire line (CFL). This was the line till where armed tribesmen and Pakistani troops were pushed back at the time that the United Nations (UN) ceasefire was announced. Later, the ceasefire line was converted into the LoC, with minor changes, during the Simla Agreement of 1972. The total length of the LoC is 742 kilometres (460 miles).

As an article in The Indian Express notes, the LoC was not just marked on a map but was also agreed upon by the two sides on the ground after a joint survey was conducted by both the armies.

On the other hand, the LAC came into existence after the 1962 war, and demarcates the territory which is in Indian control and that which is in Chinese control. The perceptions of the two countries about the LAC vary widely, and there is huge disagreement even on its length. While India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, China considers it to be only around 2,000 km.

The LAC is divided into three sectors: the eastern sector which covers Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, the middle sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and the western sector in Ladakh.

Regular incursions and confrontations have taken place in some specific areas, including Asaphila, Longju, Namka Chu, Sumdorong Chu, and Yangste in Arunachal Pradesh, Barahoti in Uttarakhand, and Aksai China and Demchok in Ladakh, states an article in Economic Times.

Most of the disagreements over the demarcation of the LAC have taken place in the western sector of Ladakh. On the eastern sector, the LAC is aligned with the McMahon Line and there is no major dispute on the middle sector either.

Even before the 1962 war, the then Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai had spoken about such a 'line' to India's then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He had said that the LAC consisted of the so-called McMahon Line in the east and the line up to which each side exercises actual control in the west".

Enlai repeated the claim after the 1962 war.

However, India had rejected China's claim and Nehru had asserted, "There is no sense or meaning in the Chinese offer to withdraw 20 kilometres from what they call line of actual control. What is this line of control? Is this the line they have created by aggression since the beginning of September?

As an article in The Indian Express notes, there have been several tense standoffs after the 1962 war. These include confrontations in Sumdorong Chu valley in 1987, Depsang in 2013, Chumar in 2014 and Doka La in 2017.

In the past, attempts have been made to clarify the demarcation of the LAC. According an article in The Hindu, India had proposed such an exercise a long time ago. However, due to wide differences in the perception of the two countries on the western sector of the line, the attempt could not bear fruit. China has rejected this exercise, viewing it as adding another complication to the on-going boundary negotiations, the article notes.
We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Xtract Resources (LON:XTR) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. Let's start with an examination of the business's cash, relative to its cash burn.

View our latest analysis for Xtract Resources

How Long Is Xtract Resources's Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. In December 2019, Xtract Resources had UK361k in cash, and was debt-free. In the last year, its cash burn was UK976k. That means it had a cash runway of around 4 months as of December 2019. With a cash runway that short, we strongly believe that the company must raise cash or else douse its cash burn promptly. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

AIM:XTR Historical Debt June 10th 2020

How Well Is Xtract Resources Growing?

On balance, we think it's mildly positive that Xtract Resources trimmed its cash burn by 7.3% over the last twelve months. Having said that, the revenue growth of 51% was considerably more inspiring. We think it is growing rather well, upon reflection. Of course, we've only taken a quick look at the stock's growth metrics, here. This graph of historic revenue growth shows how Xtract Resources is building its business over time.

Can Xtract Resources Raise More Cash Easily?

Given Xtract Resources's revenue is receding, there's a considerable chance it will eventually need to raise more money to spend on driving growth. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to drive growth. We can compare a company's cash burn to its market capitalisation to get a sense for how many new shares a company would have to issue to fund one year's operations.

Story continues

Xtract Resources's cash burn of UK976k is about 18% of its UK5.4m market capitalisation. As a result, we'd venture that the company could raise more cash for growth without much trouble, albeit at the cost of some dilution.

Is Xtract Resources's Cash Burn A Worry?

On this analysis of Xtract Resources's cash burn, we think its revenue growth was reassuring, while its cash runway has us a bit worried. Summing up, we think the Xtract Resources's cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. On another note, we conducted an in-depth investigation of the company, and identified 5 warning signs for Xtract Resources (2 are significant!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

Of course Xtract Resources may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.

Love or hate this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
TDT | Manama

Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel bin Mohammed Ali Humaidan has stressed the importance of maintaining the national workforce and developing them professionally in ensuring the sustained success of companies and establishments.

He pointed out that investing in the national workforce is a gain for business ownersbeing the real asset and the main contributors to the continuous progress of the private sector in the Kingdom. The Minister made the statements during his meeting with the members of the Council of Representatives, MP Abdulla Khalifa Al Thawadi and MP Salman Al Maliki.

He discussed with the lawmakers the on-going cooperation between the executive and legislative branches, as well as the efforts of the Labour and Social Development Ministry to consolidate the professional stability of Bahraini workers in the labour market, and maintain the employment rates in order to address the current challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic.

The meeting also highlighted the Labour Ministrys efforts to oversee the protection of workers in the private sector from unjustified and illegal dismissal, as well as labour rights and gains. Humanidan lauded the employers confidence in the national workforce for their professional discipline and real sense of belonging to their establishments, which have contributed to increasing productivity.

MPs Al Thawadi and Al Maliki commended the remarkable efforts exerted by the Labour Ministry to protect workers in the private sector, as well as provide the social protection umbrella and assistance for Bahraini families during these exceptional circumstances, in line with the sound directives of the government.

They highlighted the importance of intensifying social efforts in order to ensure workers rights, strengthening social protection and securing decent living for them, in accordance with the relevant national laws, and called for more initiatives aimed at enhancing the labour markets stability and growth.
At 22, Selena Feliciano, a preschool teacher from Harrisburg, had never participated in any civil protest.

The rallies spawned by the killing of George Floyd in police custody changed all that.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: While holding a review meeting with Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav and Panchayat Raj Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao here on Tuesday, Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) Minister KT Rama Rao said that there would be a lot of scope for fishing activities in the State after the construction of new irrigation projects. During the review meet, Rama Rao said that the State government would also distribute fish seedlings to fisherman for free.

Speaking on the occasion, Rama Rao said that this would help the State attain growth in terms of fish production. He said, with the State government distributing sheep, the meat production would also improve in the ensuing years. There is a need to start processing units with the coordination of Industries and Animal Husbandry Departments, Rama Rao told the officials.

Meanwhile, KTR directed the officials to take necessary steps, on an experimental basis, for the growth of blue revolution in Sircilla district. With the distribution of cattle, Telangana is poised to witness a white revolution, he observed.

Meanwhile, he assured that the Industries Department would try to bring in investments to start food processing units, which would help create more number of jobs for youngsters.

What's more, Fisheries Dept ensured that 3 Lakh+ fishermen sustain their livelihoods by helping them harvest, ship, and retail fish in these tough times. Kudos to Minister Sri @YadavTalasani & Dept of Fisheries for this transformation under the leadership of CM Sri KCR 3/3 pic.twitter.com/VsiQCzmu6v  KTR (@KTRTRS) June 9, 2020

Speaking on the occasion, Talasani Srinivas said that they would create awareness among the public on schemes being implemented by his department. Srinivas Yadav also said that he would write to the MLAs on the schemes.

He said that the State would become surplus in meat and fish production soon. Errabelli said that his department would help construct ponds under NREGS, so that the new water bodies would provide jobs to youths.
Kudelski Security Becomes Member of the German Cyber-Security Council and Hosts Webinar on Future IT Security Strategies

The webinar will give cybersecurity experts the opportunity to explain how Chief Information Security Officers can optimize their security program reports to senior leadership.

Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland, and Phoenix (AZ), USA, June 10th 2020 -Kudelski Security, the Kudelski Group's cybersecurity division, today announced it is a new active member of the Cyber-Security Council Germany and that it will co-host the organization of the "How CISOs Gain Trust in the Boardroom" webinar on June 18th, 2020.

The Cyber-Security Council Germany was founded in August 2012. The Berlin-based association is politically neutral and advises companies, authorities and political decision-makers in the field of cybersecurity in order to support them in the fight against cyber crime. The members of the association include large and medium-sized companies, operators of critical infrastructures, numerous federal states, local authorities as well as experts and political decision-makers with an interest in cybersecurity.

The focus of the June 18th webinar will be on the "How CISOs Gain Trust in the Boardroom" study. IT security experts will examine the challenges of communicating corporate risks, cybersecurity maturity and program development to senior management and boards of directors.

According to Gartner, cybersecurity and technology risk are now ranked fourth as a topic discussed at all board meetings - behind strategy, regulatory compliance and capital allocation. Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) face the challenge of articulating a strategic vision, building trust in their IT security program and developing executive presence as they present cybersecurity topics to board members. In order to align security strategy to company priorities and appetite for risk, CISOs need to gain insight into the interests and concerns of the board. How this can best be achieved is the subject of the webinar. The speakers will be Shiri Band, Client Success Manager at Kudelski Security, and Jason Hicks, Global CISO at Kudelski Security. Hans-Wilhelm Dunn, President of the Cyber-Security Council Germany e.V., will moderate the event.

"Through our membership in the Cyber-Security Council Germany and the joint webinar, we want to introduce Kudelski Security to a wider audience in the German market," explains Philippe Borloz, Vice President EMEA Sales at Kudelski Security. "We see it as our responsibility to help companies optimize their security infrastructure and we will help them build cyber-resilience through our award-winning managed security services and consultancy."

For further information:

"How CISOs Gain Trust in the Boardroom" report and webinar registration

About Kudelski Security

Kudelski Security is a global leader in innovative cybersecurity solutions for modern organizations. Through long-term partnerships, it provides a continuous analysis of the security situation, minimizing business risks based on regulations and standards. Its customers include corporations, medium-sized companies and enterprises as well as government organizations in Europe and the United States. The comprehensive portfolio of solutions includes detailed consulting, the latest technologies as well as managed security services and customer-specific innovations.

Further information can be found at https://www.kudelskisecurity.com

Contacts

Kudelski Security / Nagra Media Germany GmbH

John Van Blaricum

Vice President, Global Marketing

Oskar-Messter-Strae 29,

85737 Munchen/Ismaning

Tel.: +1 650 966 4320

E-Mail: john.vanblaricum@kudelskisecurity.com

LEWIS

Kai Faulbaum / Stefanie Loges / Franziska Stebner

Tel.: +49 (0)211 882 476 00

E-Mail: KudelskiDE@teamlewis.com
Before the coronavirus lockdowns, Matt Majesky did not take much notice of the fees that Grubhub and Uber Eats charged him every time they processed an order for his restaurant, Pierogi Mountain.

But once the lockdowns began, the apps became essentially the only source of business for the barroom restaurant he ran with a partner, Charlie Greene, in Columbus, Ohio. That was when the fees to the delivery companies turned into the restaurants single largest cost  more than what it paid for food or labour.

Pierogi Mountains primary delivery company, Grubhub, took more than 40 percent from the average order, Majeskys Grubhub statements show. That flipped his restaurant from almost breaking even to plunging deeply into the red. In late April, Pierogi Mountain shut down.

You have no choice but to sign up, but there is no negotiating, Majesky, who has applied for unemployment, said of the delivery apps. It almost turns into a hostage situation.

Even as apps like Grubhub, Uber Eats and DoorDash have cast themselves as economic saviours for restaurants in the pandemic, their fees have become an increasing source of difficulty for the establishments. From Chicago; Pittsburgh; and Tampa, Florida, to Boise, Idaho; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Richardson, Texas, restaurant owners have taken to social media to express their unhappiness. Some restaurants have shut down, while others have cut off the apps and are looking for other ways to take orders.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Complaints about the fees that the apps charge to both restaurants and consumers are long-standing, but the issue has become heightened as many restaurants have shut down in-room dining. Even as they begin reopening, delivery is likely to remain a bigger part of their business than before the pandemic.

Several restaurants have also publicly worried that they will soon have even less power in pushing back against the fees. Thats because Uber has been in talks to acquire Grubhub, potentially creating a delivery app heavyweight.

Peter Land, a spokesman for Grubhub, said Majesky paid higher fees than normal because he had chosen to take part in marketing programmes that increased his restaurants visibility. We recognise this is a difficult time for independent restaurants, Land said. We have redoubled our efforts to support them.

Majesky said that Grubhub had led him to believe the marketing programme was one of the things it was paying for to help local restaurants, and that he had not realised he would have to foot the bill. Other restaurants have voiced similar complaints.

Land and Uber declined to comment on their deal talks.

Restaurant owners are concerned about more than the apps fees. In 18 interviews with restaurant owners and industry consultants, plus in lawsuits and social media posts, many said the apps also engaged in deceptive practices like setting up websites with inaccurate information for the restaurants, all without asking permission.

A Denver restaurant, Freshcraft, sued Grubhub last month, accusing it of creating websites for restaurants without their consent and then labelling them on those sites as closed or not taking online orders when they were open and taking online orders.

The fact that they misrepresented my brand in these times, and pushed Grubhub clients toward other restaurants  its deplorable, said Erik Riggs, who owns Freshcraft.

He is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit.

After The New York Times contacted Grubhub about the same issue at restaurants in Pittsburgh and Chicago, it took down the incorrect language. The company declined to comment on the lawsuit or the language on the sites.

The gap between the success of the apps and the pain of the restaurants is striking. Spending at restaurants in recent weeks dropped about 35 percent from a year earlier, while revenue for the delivery services rose about 140 percent, according to data from M Science, a firm that analyses transaction data.

At the heart of the issues is some basic math. For the typical restaurant, fixed costs such as labour, food and rent eat up around 90 percent of the money coming in. That leaves little room for the base fees that the large delivery services charge small restaurants, which generally are 20 percent to 30 percent of what customers pay for each order.

Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and San Francisco have recently put into effect legislation or emergency rules to cap the apps fees until the lockdowns are over. But even with the caps, 62 percent of local restaurants in San Francisco said in a survey last month that they were losing money on delivery and takeout.

The fees have taken on a particularly bitter taste as delivery apps have begun campaigns proclaiming they will help save local restaurants. One ad proclaimed: Grubhub believes that together, we can help save the restaurants we love.

DoorDash, which does most of its delivery business with big restaurant chains, said in April that it would cut its primary fees in half for all independent restaurants until the crisis passed.

All the delivery services are now facing anger from smaller restaurants for giving priority in their apps to chain restaurants because of the volume the chains can bring, even though the chains generally pay the apps lower fees, according to restaurant consultants. In the apps, the chains often appear at the top of the list of restaurants in any area  unless smaller restaurants pay additional fees to bolster their placement.

They take care of their corporate partners first and then use us for advertising to try to create goodwill, said Scott Weiner, head of the Fifty/50 Restaurant Group, which owns 20 restaurants in Chicago.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
Today, within the framework of the virtual mission, meetings with the Members of the RA National Assembly took place. Luc Devigne, Director for Russia, Eastern partnership, Central Asia and OSCE at the EEAS, Vassilis Maragos, the Head of the European Commission's DG NEAR Unit responsible for Armenia and Richard Tibbels, the Head of Division of Eastern Partnership bilateral relations at the European External Action Service, with participation of EU Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin held virtual meetings with Lilit Makunts, Head of My Step Faction, Arman Yeghoyan, Chair of the Standing Committee on European Integration and Ruben Rubinyan, Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations.

During the meetings, the EU officials highlighted the fact that the National Assembly has been working intensely in the context of COVID-19 and reiterated the EUs continuous support to Armenia. They stressed the important role of the National Assembly in fostering implementation of the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and welcomed the progress on the CEPA Implementation Roadmap. The importance to further strengthen the relations between the RA National Assembly and the European Parliament was also emphasized. Among the key topics of discussions were the EU-Armenian cooperation within the Eastern Partnership, upcoming EU Twinning with the National Assembly, as well as the EUs support to implementation of Justice and Anti-Corruption Reform agenda.

The discussions with the Members of the RA National Assembly were followed by the online meeting with the Representative of the Republic of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights Yeghishe Kirakosyan. The parties exchanged on process and directions of the ongoing Constitutional Reforms and the possible EU support.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 12:27:24|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits a rural ecotourism park to learn about the development of local signature agriculture in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 9, 2020. Xi on Tuesday inspected the city of Yinchuan during his trip to Ningxia. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

YINCHUAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Tuesday stressed the need to actively develop water-conserving agriculture and refrain from water-wasting irrigation.

Xi made the remarks when visiting a rural ecotourism park in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, to learn about the integrated development of modern agriculture and leisure tourism there.

The planting structure should be adjusted to better protect the water resources here, Xi said, noting that the people in Ningxia have long been blessed by the Yellow River.

Production should be based on the situation of local water resources and efforts be made to focus on the quality rather than quantity of products and increase their added value, Xi added. Enditem
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Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 11 2020

Pita, a Jakarta resident who asked to use a pseudonym for this article, said anxiety had kept her from sleeping for several days at a time during the pandemic. Social distancing prevented her from gathering with her friends and going out, which had helped her cope with her stress before the outbreak.

She said she felt bad for reaching out to her usual therapist, who was busier than usual during the pandemic. She could either make a video call or meet her therapist in person at Mintoharjo Naval Hospital (RSAL Mintoharjo), a COVID-19 referral hospital, to obtain her psychological test results. The latter was a riskier choice.

She initially hesitated to do an online consultation because of the lack of privacy in her home, where she lived with her siblings, but she managed to obtain the results on Monday on a video call.

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Both North Korea and left-leaning supporters of South Korean President Moon Jae-in want him to restore economic ties broken by security tensions. But pleasing them would mean angering US President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, North Korea said it was closing down communication links set up two years ago between Moon and Kim Jong Un, jeopardizing the South Korean leaders 2017 campaign promise to move the heavily armed rivals toward a permanent peace. Its bad timing for Moon: His ruling bloc secured a historic supermajority in National Assembly elections in April, boosting calls within his Democratic Party to mend ties with North Korea.

The problem for Moon is that he doesnt have much he can offer North Korea without prompting a blowup from the Trump administration, which has repeatedly rejected South Koreas calls for sanctions relief. The US has refused to relax United Nations penalties and other measures against the regime without greater commitments on arms reduction from Kim.

Woo Won-shik, a senior lawmaker and a former Democratic Party floor leader, said Tuesday there was an urgent need to revive inter-Korean cooperation, arguing that failure to act now could further isolate North Korea and bring about a return to the brinkmanship of three years ago. Kim earlier this year said he would soon debut a new strategic weapon -- part of a bid to pressure Trump, who faces an election in November, back to the negotiating table.

There are many inter-Korean projects that can proceed without breaching the existing UN sanctions regime, Woo said.

The latest dust-up -- triggered by South Korean activists who sent anti-Pyongyang messages in balloons across the border -- comes ahead of the 20th anniversary of the first meeting between top leaders of the divided Koreas. The summit beginning on June 13, 2000, was the biggest moment of then-President Kim Dae-jungs reconciliation effort that led to stepped up trade and joint projects and helped earn the South Korean leader the Nobel Peace Prize.

While that Sunshine Policy helped cool tensions, it was also criticized for providing Pyongyangs leaders with cash needed to build up its nuclear weapons program. Smaller measures that might allow only a trickle of foreign currency back into cash-starved North Korea also risk disappointing Kim Jong Un and Moons allies, who see their current strength in parliament as their best chance to secure lasting change.

North Koreas relations with Moon havent been the same since Trump walked out of a summit with Kim in February 2019 in Hanoi. The North Korean leader was pushing a plan backed by Seoul to give up his antiquated Yongbyon nuclear facility in exchange for sanctions relief -- an offer that came nowhere near the Trump administrations demand for the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea.

It is a sense of betrayal and disappointment, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former analyst for the US government specializing in North Korea. Kim Jong Un feels South Korea has misled him into believing that Yongbyon facilities were going to be enough for a deal with Trump in Hanoi.

After that, North Korea has effectively ignored Moons requests for talks, shunned his offers for aid and test-launched new ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear payload to all parts of South Korea, where about 28,500 US military personnel are stationed.

North Korea didnt answer South Koreas calls made on the military line Tuesday for the first time since the inter-Korean communication link was restored in 2018, defense ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo told a briefing in Seoul. Inter-Korean communication lines are a basic means for communication and should be kept in line with inter-Korean agreements, South Koreas Unification Ministry said in a text message to reporters.

A State Department spokesperson said the US urges North Korea to return to diplomacy and cooperation. The United States has always supported progress in inter-Korean relations, and we are disappointed in the DPRKs recent actions, the spokesperson said, referring to North Korea by its formal name.

Kim Jong Un may follow up his move to cut communications links with more missile tests, but making sure to avoid the wrath of Trump. The American president has brushed off shorter-range tests and credited his own diplomacy for stopping Kim from further tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the US mainland.

Provocations like missile launches will follow, but nothing as serious as an ICBM test, said Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-run think tank. Cho added that North Korea also didnt want to push Moon too far: The South is well aware that ending the inter-Korean relations is not something that the North wants.

Moons government said in late May said that it wanted to try to again ease travel restrictions and inter-Korean exchanges. A similar attempt in 2018 led Trump to bluntly tell Seoul that it couldnt do anything regarding sanctions without our approval.

Alliance at Risk

Members of the Moon administration have hinted that Seoul could act unilaterally to resuscitate inter-Korean cooperation, but that would come with the enormous risk of cleaving Seoul from its alliance with Washington, said Soo Kim, a Rand Corp. policy analyst who specializes in Korean Peninsula issues.

President Moon can promise the North Koreans the earth, but realistically, he remains constrained in the way of practical measures South Korea can take -- if Seoul were to be conscious of and concerned about its relations with the US, she said.

South Korean proposals blocked by the Trump administration included resuming operations at a joint factory park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong and a separate resort at North Koreas Mount Kumgang. Both were opened in the spirit of the Sunshine Policy and later shut due to political turmoil.

While South Korea was able to win a UN sanctions waiver that led to the ceremonial sending of trains across the border about two years ago, its humanitarian assistance has dried up under Trumps maximum pressure campaign. South Korea has sent more $3 billion of aid since 1995, but little of it has come under the Moon government, which sent just $12 million in 2017 and 2018, government data shows.

Bent Over Backwards

Trade between the two nations has dropped to virtually zero from $2.7 billion in 2015, or about 10% of North Koreas economy. The regime took a further hit this year when it sealed off its borders in January at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which slammed the brakes on other trade with countries like China.

Kim Jong Un believes he doesnt have much of anything to lose by increasing pressure on Moon, according to Duyeon Kim, a senior adviser for Northeast Asia and Nuclear Policy at the International Crisis Group.

North Korea is raising the ante, trying to further punish, scare, and force Seoul to work harder to meet Pyongyangs demands, Kim said. Kim Jong Un feels he bent over backwards for Moon, but believes Seoul has not reciprocated, has betrayed North Korea and the Korean race, and has no influence over Washington to deliver on its promises.
Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday that the COVID-19 emergency disaster declaration would continue despite the GOP-led Legislatures resolution ending it.

I understand that its frustrating and I understand the hardship. We have to stay focused on recovery, he said, at a press conference. Ending the disaster declaration is not part of that plan.

Wolf said he planned to take the matter to court. Based on his understanding, he said, I dont know of any case where the Legislature can unilaterally pass a law without the governors oversight.

Lifting the declaration would not reopen businesses, Wolf said, but it would reduce access to telehealth services, reverse the moratorium on utility shutoffs, lift the temporary ban on evictions, impede food distribution systems and otherwise impact a variety of other measures designed to help those directly or indirected impacted by coronavirus.

Enforcement of the existing orders, including business closure and health and safety measures, will continue, the governor said. He advised businesses to continue doing everything they can to protect customers and employees.

The Wolf administration pointed to language in the state constitution that requires all legislation to first pass his scrutiny before taking effect. Republican lawmakers, however, insist that emergency declarations are an exception and that the Legislature can terminate them at any time.

On Tuesday, constitutional law expert and Duquesne University professor Bruce Ledewitz told PennLive that a 1985 Superior Court decision found that the Legislature could modify criminal sentencing guidelines via concurrent resolution. In that case, if the governor wanted to stop the change, he had to veto the overriding law.

Wolf first signed the COVID-19 emergency disaster declaration on March 6 and renewed it last week.

The legislative standoff raises questions about the status of the various guidelines that followed from it, such as the governors restrictions on business and his order that Pennsylvanians wear masks in public. The states stay-at-home order, meanwhile has been phased out as the last of the counties with the most stringent restrictions moved from red to yellow phase last week.

As of last week, state police issued 357 warnings and three citations for businesses violating the governors closure order against a roofing company and two gyms. Troopers issued another 47 warnings for businesses violating Wolfs health and safety measures order.

On Wednesday, the state Department of Health announced 410 additional positives out of a total of 8,491 tests, just beneath the 5 percent benchmark thats one sign the coronavirus epidemic monitoring is adequate.

Testing increased in the last month as new deaths and positive cases statewide slowly declined. On Wednesday, the rolling 5-day average of new positives was 492 versus the rolling 5-day average for deaths at 35. A month ago, those figures were 1,130 and 139, respectively.

Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook.

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10 of the best cheap dividend stocks to buy under $25.

The ebb and flow of the stock market is difficult to predict at the best of times, but the additional volatility of a global pandemic has made it nearly impossible. Investors who want to find some stability in these uncertain times should take a close look at dividend stocks that offer sustainable yields -- yields that can translate into long-term profits for their shareholders. With a capricious market comes the opportunity to invest in some of the strongest and safest dividend-paying companies at discounted prices. Here are 10 of the best cheap dividend stocks to buy now for less than $25 per share.

Amcor (ticker: AMCR)

Dividend aristocrats are companies that have consistently been raising their dividends for at least the last 25 years, and the newest among their number is Amcor. Added to the list in January when the company merged with competitor Bemis, Amcor provides flexible and rigid packaging solutions for a variety of industries. It's normally not a high-growth environment, but the increased importance of shipping during the pandemic has been a boon for the company: Last quarter, Amcor reported a 36% year-over-year increase in revenue and a 23% increase in earnings per share (EPS). And while most companies are withdrawing their guidance in the face of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, Amcor has proudly raised its full-year EPS forecast by 11% to 12%. A 4.2% dividend yield rounds out the pros for AMCR.

Franklin Resources (BEN)

Franklin Resources' well-known Franklin and Templeton mutual funds make this asset management company one of the best in the business. Unfortunately, business hasn't exactly been booming in the midst of the pandemic -- last quarter, Franklin Resources announced a whopping 78% decline in net income on the back of an 18.5% decrease in assets under management. However, Franklin Resources' balance sheet is as strong as ever, with cash and cash equivalents of $7.6 billion. This should allow the company to continue to pay out its 4.8% dividend yield for the foreseeable future, a future that looks bright for the dividend aristocrat as it nears the completion of its $4.5 billion acquisition of Legg Mason.

Story continues

People's United Financial (PBCT)

People's United Financial is one of the smallest dividend aristocrats, with only a $5.7 billion market cap. Yet this regional bank has been slowly but surely expanding across the Northeast thanks to a slew of smart acquisitions, including its 2019 purchase of United Financial Bancorp, growing from $14 billion in total assets in 2007 to more than $60 billion today. And while other banks are reeling from the effects of the virus, People's United Financial's first-quarter revenue grew 22% and profits rose 14%. That's largely thanks to the diversity of the bank's loan portfolio, and in fact, chief financial officer David Rosato thinks the bank will be "profitable every quarter" throughout the crisis. That certainty, along with a 5.4% yield and a share price less than $15, helps make PBCT one of the best cheap dividend stocks to buy now.

Hanesbrands (HBI)

Consumer discretionary spending will likely decline over the coming months as uncertainty keeps customers' wallets closed, but there's one type of clothing consumers just can't do without: underwear. Enter Hanesbrands, a market leader in the undergarment category that has suffered from shoppers staying home and stores closing down -- in fact, the company reported that first-quarter revenue would have increased 1.6% if not for the effects of the virus. Due to the pandemic, sales declined 17% year over year and earnings per share fell from 22 cents to a loss of 2 cents. Yet Hanesbrands sees opportunities ahead, including in cloth mask production, and given its strong liquidity position of $1.1 billion in cash on hand, the company feels secure enough to continue providing shareholders with an impressive 4.6% dividend yield.

Nokia (NOK)

Nokia may not sell as many phones as it once did, but a focus on helping other companies upgrade their networks for the widespread rollout of 5G could mean a bright future for the Finnish telecommunications company. Though the virus has disrupted Nokia's plans for building out networks and pushed revenue down 2% last quarter, a different sort of disruption is boosting the bull case for Nokia -- tensions between the U.S. and China have led the U.S. government to begin moving away from using equipment made by Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, leaving room for Nokia to fill in the gap here in the U.S. Though 5G networks aren't going to be in every home around the world tomorrow, Nokia has an opportunity ahead -- and a 4.9% dividend yield will encourage shareholders to stick around and see how things play out.

Vodafone Group (VOD)

In the age of social distancing, it's never been so important to stay in contact however you can. That spells opportunity for investors in the next name of the best cheap dividend stocks to buy: Vodafone, the world's second-largest mobile phone operator, which saw a surge in data usage across its markets from people stuck at home. Trading for less than $20 a share, the company reported a 3% increase in revenue, a 2.6% increase in EBITDA and higher customer retention last quarter. Most importantly for income investors, Vodafone's free cash flow grew 12.2%, allowing the company to continue paying its dividend. Vodafone was forced to cut its dividend down a year ago in order to save money, but business improvements mean it is once again in a position to provide shareholders with a healthy dividend yield of 5.5%.

CenterPoint Energy (CNP)

It's not every day that a company gets a new lease on life, especially in the midst of a global pandemic. Yet that's exactly what happened to utility company CenterPoint Energy in early May, when it announced that Elliott Management, Fidelity Management and others had invested $1.4 billion in the company. In exchange for two seats on the board and a comprehensive review of the business, CenterPoint goes a long way to paying off its hefty debt obligations and has secured enough equity to see it through 2022. In the meantime, the company is shedding business units, selling off subsidiaries and generally streamlining the business. A dividend yield of 3.3% will keep shareholders invested in the company while it turns things around.

Enterprise Products Partners (EPD)

As the energy market reels from a pricing war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, Enterprise Products Partners has emerged relatively unscathed thanks to the diversity of its services. This master limited partnership focuses on midstream energy services, splitting its attention among natural gas, crude oil and petrochemicals -- the result was that last quarter Enterprise Products' operating income fell by just more than 7%, while its cash flow from operations declined a mere 3%, and the company reported a reasonable payout ratio of 56%. Industry-low debt levels, strong operating margins and $8 billion in liquidity should see Enterprise Products through to the other side of this crisis, and an 8.5% dividend yield will keep investors happy along the way.

Brookfield Property Partners (BPY)

Brookfield Property, like many real estate companies, has watched its business get gutted by the pandemic; considering roughly half of Brookfield Property's portfolio is empty office buildings and retail properties, it's easy to understand how the company posted a net loss of $373 million compared with net income of $713 million in the same period last year. But Brookfield Property is betting big on the recovery, and it's launching a $5 billion fund for investing in retailers whose sales exceeded $250 million a year or more but were adversely impacted by the pandemic. If you're looking for a cost-effective contrarian way to play the pandemic's economic turmoil, you could do worse than Brookfield Property and its 10%-plus dividend yield.

Global Medical REIT (GMRE)

Global Medical REIT focuses on leasing its properties to health care providers -- and considering that medical services are more essential than ever, it should come as no surprise that 99.7% of Global Medical's properties were occupied last quarter. What may be surprising is how well that translated to the company's earnings. Global Medical reported a 42.4% increase in total revenue and a one-cent increase in earnings per diluted share. It speaks to the strength of its tenants that Global Medical was able to collect 96% of April rents and 76% of May rents, and the company only expects about $2 million in rental payments to be deferred until later this year. Strong demand for its tenants' services plus a dividend yield of 6.6% make Global Medical a solid income investment.

10 of the best cheap dividend stocks to buy today.

-- Amcor (ticker: AMCR)

-- Franklin Resources (BEN)

-- People's United Financial (PBCT)

-- Hanesbrands (HBI)

-- Nokia (NOK)

-- Vodafone Group (VOD)

-- CenterPoint Energy (CNP)

-- Enterprise Products Partners (EPD)

-- Brookfield Property Partners (BPY)

-- Global Medical REIT (GMRE)





More From US News & World Report


The city of Daegu and province of Gyeongbuk had the largest outbreaks, as represented by the largest and second largest circles, respectively. The DG region is shaded in grey. Credit: Data: Ministry of Health and Welfare

Coronavirus plunged the world into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Many governments are trying to revitalize their economies by gradually lifting lockdown measures, including the UK.

But reopening may not rescue their economies to the degree they hope. Evidence from South Korea, which never shut private businesses, tells a cautionary tale. Rushing to reopen without the proper measures in place may not only jeopardize public health, but economic recovery may also be limited.

UK consumer spending has already stalled since the gradual lifting of lockdown measures in May. And earlier evidence from other countries shows people spend less in the midst of a pandemiclockdown or no lockdown. For example, Sweden decided against a severe lockdown, but still experienced economic contractions of similar magnitudes to its European neighbors.

Taiwan and South Korea are also in midst of an economic downturn, although not as severe as the UK's. But since these countries are highly export dependent, some have argued that they experienced economic contagion from their trading partners, most of whom did shutdown.

However, my new research with colleagues Sangmin Aum and Yongseok Shin comparing regions within South Korea shows this is not the case. Despite the fact that the country successfully contained the virus and did not impose a blanket lockdown, COVID-19 still led to employment losses nationwide and caused even more losses in the sole region in South Korea that did experience a major outbreak.

South Korea's large, early outbreak of coronavirus was isolated to a single region, Daegu-Gyeongbuk (DG), and traced to a religious sect. While South Korea is now lauded for its test-and-trace policy, this was born out of the need to contain this outbreak to DG. Consequently, we can study the economic effect of coronavirus by comparing what happened in DG, with 1.6 infections per 1,000 to date, with the rest of the country, with only 0.23 infections per 1,000 to date.

Job losses and inequality

From the outbreak in February to the end of March, total employment in South Korea fell by 2.5% from its month-to-month trend since 2017. This was unlikely due to a downturn in international trade: imports and exports during this timeframe actually increased, possibly because South Korea was one of the few major industrialized countries to stay in business at the time.

But better evidence comes from DG, which is no more exposed to the international market than the rest of the nation. Employment in DG dropped by 3.8% by the end of March, 1.3 percentage points more than the nationwide drop. And nationwide, but much more so in DG, the drop in employment was concentrated in more or less the same sectors as in other countries, especially food services and accommodation.

The main reason for the fall in employment levels was due to hiring freezes rather than increased layoffs or people quitting. Plus, job losses resulted in people giving up or holding off on looking for new work entirely, rather than higher unemployment (you need to be actively searching for work to be recorded as unemployed). These patterns are the same as what we are observing in the UK.

Employment losses by industry (%)

More alarmingly, job losses were focused on disadvantaged groups. Virtually all stemmed from small businesses with fewer than 30 employees, while businesses with 300 employees or more saw marginal rises in their employment, on average. The job losses primarily fell on those with less formal education, the young, and workers on temporary contracts.

The same groups were hardest hit in the UK economically and also by COVID-19 deaths. Moreover, these groups were more vulnerable across the board. They didn't just lose their jobs because they worked at restaurants or hotelsthey lost the most jobs within every sector.

Employment losses by demographics (%)

Lessons for elsewhere

While the additional 1.3% employment loss in DG is much smaller than the UK, where 15% of workers have been furloughed and 3% have lost their jobs, the outbreak has also been much larger in the UK. Here, there have been more than four confirmed infections per 1,000.

It turns out that the ratio between employment drops and cumulative COVID infection counts in DG is roughly half of that for the UK or the US. This suggests that roughly half of the employment losses in the UK may be due to private businesses and consumers voluntarily curtailing their economic activities out of fear of infection, and not the lockdown. And the fact that disadvantaged workers were harmed the most even without a lockdown means that lifting the lockdown won't improve inequality either.

Our study offers a cautionary tale as Britain reopens for business: unless social distancing measures keep infections low for a sustained period of time, lost jobs will return only slowly. And in the unfortunate scenario of a second wave in the autumn, the economic crisis is bound to only get worse, even if it doesn't trigger a second lockdown.

This is not to say lockdowns should be the policy of choice: broadening the new NHS test-and-trace scheme is a promising route. But in another research paper, my colleagues and I found that quarantine enforcement was just as imperative as testing and tracing for South Korea's successful containment of the virus. This calls for the transparent communication of the UK government's plans for isolating the infected.

Explore further Pandemic-fueled job losses exacerbating preexisting inequalities among workers

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The airline lost US0 million as a result of the pandemic. Some 330,000 jobs in the air transport business are at stake as is Hong Kongs role as a regional hub. Passenger demand for air travel worldwide dropped 94.3 per cent in April. The United States, Germany and Italy have bailed out their airline companies.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews)  Hong Kong plans to invest HK$ 40 billion (US$ 5.2 billion) to save Cathay Pacific, its main airliner, hit hard by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The companys main shareholders  Swire Pacific, Air China and Qatar Airways  have given the green light to the operation.

In return, the government will get a stake in the company and appoint two observers on its board, Cathay chairman Patrick Healy said in a statement today.

This is the first time that Hong Kong authorities have directly injected money into a private company.

Some 330,000 jobs are at stake in the air transport industry, threatened by the pandemic crisis, as is Hong Kongs role as a regional hub.

Cathay Pacific, which has a fleet of 238 planes, holds approximately 50 per cent of runway slots at Hong Kong International Airport

Last year, it carried over 35.2 million passengers, with HK$ 107 billion (US$ 13.8 billion) in revenue. In the first four months of this year, it lost HK$ 4.5 billion (US$ 580 million).

The crisis of the air travel industry began in February when most countries closed their air space to foreign carriers to contain the spread of COVID-19.

According to the International Air Transport Organisation (IATA), passenger demand dropped by 94.3 per cent in April.

At the end of May, daily flights rose by 30 per cent over to the low point in April, but IATA estimates that air travel will return to pre-emergency levels only in 2023.

So far, seven international airlines have filed for bankruptcy or suspended their operations. In Asia, Thai Airwayss bankruptcy proceedings will take five years.

Like Hong Kong, other governments have rushed to the rescue of their national companies. In the United States, carriers have benefitted from a US$ 50 billion bailout. The Lufthansa Group is set to get US$ 12.3 billion from the governments of its national airlines in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Austria. Italys Alitalia will get US$ 3.4 billion in government aid.
Its been a little while since we last looked in on progress with Claudio Coltris Curtiss P-40E Warhawk 41-13570 at Pioneer Aero Ltd. in Auckland, New Zealand. We are happy to report that the combat veteran fighter has just passed a major milestone in its progression towards first flight, with the installation of its wings on June 8th, 2020.

As readers will recall from our two previous articles about the restoration HERE and HERE, this Warhawk was recovered substantially intact from a Russian fresh water lake back in 1997. As such, a lot of original material has been available for incorporating into its restoration. Once she flies, the P-40 is destined for Italy, where she will be the first airworthy Curtiss Kittyhawk/Warhawk of any stripe to call the nation home since soon after the end of WWII! However, Italy does boast the sole-surviving, and incredibly well-preserved, Merlin-engined P-40L 42-10857 on display at the Museo Piana delle Orme in Latina, nearby the Anzio beachhead where she ditched in the sea on January 31st, 1944 with 2ndLt Michael Mauritz at the controls.

It will be great to see a P-40 in the skies over Italy when Claudio Coltris example finally arrives! Bravo to all concerned in the restoration of this remarkable airframe!
Annie Tritt, a 51-year old photojournalist, slept for days. Weeks turned into a month, with Tritt feeling ill, holed up in their apartment in Brooklyns Navy Yard. (Tritt self-identifies with the pronoun they.) Four different doctors agreed that Tritt had COVID-19, though no tests were available.

Tritt makes their living as a photographer: they are published in The New York Times and elsewhere. Tritt lost roughly $10,000 worth of photographic assignments in March alone due to the pandemic, though. (Their yearly earnings range from $40,000 in one recent year to $70,000 last year.) In April, Tritt had no savings and feared eviction. For the past two months, they were only able to pay two-thirds of their monthly rent.

Meanwhile, on May 29, Linda Tirado, a sometime contributor to the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, the journalism organization I am the executive director of, was blinded in her left eye by a rubber bullet while reporting from a Minneapolis protest. And many other such writers and photographers are being threatened and harmed.

The pandemic has been dubbed the media extinction event, as news outlets are starting to shrink or disappear altogether. And after the last two weeks, we have a new chapter to the media extinction narrative, as physical violence and threats to journalists covering protests, often at the hands of police, are starting to pile up.

An estimated 36,000 media workers have lost their jobs or been furloughed since COVID-19 struck. For independent photographers and reporters like Tritt, the damage is less heralded, but perhaps more severe. Dozens of publications have cut or eliminated their freelance budgets. To make matters worse, most self-employed journalistslike all Americanshave little to tide themselves over in this emergency; a recent poll suggests that only 47 percent of Americans have enough emergency funds to cover three months of expenses.

In terms of the physical dangers to journalists who are covering the protests, in addition to general risk, freelancers are already taking on medical costsand potentially they will also take on medical debtall for simply reporting.

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The Economic Hardship Reporting Project exists to support reporters covering economic struggle. Some of those reporters have experienced poverty themselves. We commission journalism and co-publish it with publications ranging from The New York Times to Teen Vogue. We have replaced a photojournalists broken camera and provided warm-weather gear for a reporter who couldnt afford a winter coat.

Now weve started a $100,000 COVID relief fund for reporters on the edge due to the economic or physical toll of the disease. For these grants, we dont require them to publish; they simply have to have an active record of estimable and recent reporting or photojournalism, and prove to the best of their ability the financial peril they now face because of the pandemic. (The Heising-Simons Foundation is underwriting it.) We have already given out roughly $30,000 of it, preventing a few reporters from potential eviction. Other similar efforts are here or on the way, including those set up by PEN America, the Magnum Foundation, and Poets & Writers. Call it DIY UBI (universal basic income).

These moves are critical, but what we really need is something akin to the Federal Writers Project, a program of the Works Progress Administration, which launched in 1935 as part of a New Deal response to the Great Depression and ran for eight years. In its first four years, the FWP supported 6,600 writers, editors, and researchers, creating not only journalism but also oral histories and the like.

But such federal funding is unrealistic given the Trump administration. A more likely source of funding would be the very Internet companies that originally stripped the media industry for parts, like Facebook and Google. New York Times media columnist Ben Smith and others have credibly argued for a bailout of the journalism industry, with underwriting led by the digital behemoths, perhaps with regulators forcing them. Yet that sort of plan could just lead to big bonuses for news executives and little help for writers and editorsand no help for freelancers. Bottom-up bailouts are better than top-down ones; why not start with the big tech companies helping out the freelancers and the laid-off journalists in our midst, rather than their often fickle and self-interested employers?

And what if New York and California and other progressive governments put the many talented writers, editors, and image-makers who live in those states to work documenting this utterly disorienting period, in addition to offering them emergency relief funds?

This would not be so different from the original Federal Writers Project, which, despite its name, was taken over by the states later on in its history. Not coincidentally, FWP also supported some full-throated responses to white supremacists in that period. It also highlighted working class and minority voices, including the work of soon-to-be-famous Zora Neale Hurston, Studs Terkel, and Richard Wright. Any state-supported writers project today should have a similar goal.

Today, theres more than enough talent to fill the ranks of such an endeavor. Those struggling include legendary television reporter Ray Suarez, who wrote a piece for The Washington Post (supported by our organization) about his recent struggles. As Suarez wrote of his economic experience as a freelance journalist before the pandemic, a bicycle accident in his home in Washington, DC, where he hurt his jaw after he dropped family dental coverage, was a horror. I was having trouble chewing food, Suarez wrote. In just a few weeks I had moved from being a guy who had top-drawer health coverage to being one of the guys I read about, one of the guys I covered, who deferred health care for fear of the cost. Now in the time of the pandemic, such fears are only worsening. Suarez recounted to me how editors hed talked to in February about assignments rescinded offers, and how the speaking gigs he needed in order to get by had also disappeared. Income you thought in your head was real was gone, yet you still have the water bill, the electric bill, he told me.

There are also plenty of other pandemic-related struggles that media workers now face that arent as striking but are still causing pain. Reporters and photojournalists who work second jobs to make ends meetlike photographer Rian Dundon, who worked as a museum security guard until the Portland Art Museum closed its doors due to the pandemicare now facing hard times due to that development. Or there are reporters like Jake Price, another freelance photojournalist and filmmaker, whose surprise COVID-related economic setback occurred when Prices sister and her family were infected and could no longer take care of Prices 89-year old mother. At the same time, all of Prices photography work slowed down and, when a roommate left his apartment the week before the pandemic, he was on the hook for twice his usual rent. That was when Price applied for, and received, a modest emergency grant from our organization. It has tided him over till now, when hes starting to get more assignments again.

As journalists, we are used to thinking we are not the storythat we are creative class non-essential workers and, thus, that there are other, more worthy industries that deserve support. And no doubt the needs in the country are immense, as unemployment in some communities reaches Depression-era levels. But look at the past eight weeks. Who covered failures of testing and tracing? Who has covered the shabby treatment of supermarket workers? Who is covering the front lines of the unrest stemming from police violence?

Journalism is essential, like rain.

Felled by COVID for two months, Tritt has now physically recovered. They have also received a check that begins to cover their medical bills and their rent. Of course, Tritt is a media freelancer, one of many who often subsist on the edges of the media ecosystem, even in boom times. Tritt applied for unemployment funds twice during COVID. (They could have also applied to the Paycheck Protection Program, but limited money in that kitty often means that freelancers are up against small businesses for its funds.) Tritt never received any money and was instead told that they dont earn any money as a journalist. I wanted to call and say I paid $15,000 in taxes last year! I earn money!

Tritt wants to start shooting again, following a COVID test that turned out negative. They have plenty of ideas for projects. And thats what emergency relief for journalists should do: keep gifted reporters healthy and solvent so that they can keep working. We must prevent the extinction of independent journalists as a species. We must keep documenting America, even as it fractures into a place that is less and less recognizable.

ICYMI: Confronting racism within the press

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Alissa Quart is a former CJR columnist and contributing editor who is now the executive editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, a journalism nonprofit devoted to covering inequality. The author of four nonfiction books and two poetry collections, she has also contributed to the New York Times, The Guardian, and the New York Review of Books, among other publications.
In the most recent controversy, the signers of the Black Lives Matter letter stated that they would no longer submit work to Poetry magazine or collaborate with the Foundation until the president was replaced and other meaningful action was taken to support people of color as well as immigrants and those who are disabled, trans and queer. Ewing, who was unavailable for comment for this story, stated on Twitter that she would suspend her participation in the Chicago Poetry Block Party and Poetry Incubator.
For the first time, Houstons Center for Hearing and Speech is enrolling preschool-aged students without hearing loss to attend the Melinda Webb School this fall. Located in their new facility at the Texas Medical Center, the schools goal is to prepare both typical and non-typical students who have typical for any general education classroom.

Research says in the field of listening and spoken language development for children who are deaf and hard of hearing, says Lindy Powel, MWS director of education, that interaction with typically developing students is critical for preparing them socially, academically and language-wise for a typical classroom.

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The MWS has partnered with a local private preschool on the best ways to implement the co-enrollment. With the schools new facility, Powel believes the school has the right resources and knowledge base to make the school mutually beneficial for students with and without hearing loss.

For the kids without hearing loss, says Powel, they will be enrolled in a classroom with a masters level teacher in a preschool program. That could be rare to find someone with that level of education and experience on a preschool level.

Being surrounded by their peers who are not hearing impaired, I think, is a wonderful way for them to get integrated into mainstream classrooms, said Dr. Soham Roy, professor of otorhinolaryngology with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth and affiliated with UT Physicians and Childrens Memorial Hermann Hospital.

According to Powel, all of MWS teachers are well versed in typical hearing development and the state standards for early learning. Through the partnership with the private preschool, the school was able to learn the empathy, social/emotional, and behavioral benefits co-enrolling students could achieve.

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Theyre going to have experiences that other kids might not get to appreciate, said Dr. Roy of students who enroll at MWS without hearing loss. Theyre going to be surrounded by children of different backgrounds who have had different experiences because of hearing impairment, and I think thats going to broaden their worldview. Being able to get that kind of experience early in life is a wonderful thing for these kids.

Houstons Center for Hearing and Speech was found in 1947 and is the only facility in the Houston area that offers health services and spoken language education for children with hearing loss in one location. In addition to the MWS, the Center for Hearing and Speech has both an audiology and speech clinic that serves children up to eighteen years old.

All of MWS students have varying degrees and types of hearing loss and come to the school at different times in their lives. They see babies as young as a week old who have been identified early and received timely intervention, as well as students a few years older with a later diagnosis.

According to a 2006 article by Laurie Katz and Teris K. Schery published in the journal Young Children, hearing loss is a general term referring to reduced functioning of the ear that can affect the intensity and/or clarity of sounds heard. The most common type of hearing loss in young children is a conductive loss, which concerns how loud sound must be for a child to hear it. A second and more permanent type of hearing loss is a sensorineural loss, which involves damage to the cochlea or the acoustic nerve to the brain.

Hearing aids appropriately fitted to a childs hearing loss and used consistently is critical for enhancing the childs speech and language development as well as providing access to environmental sounds. According to Powel, the biggest challenge in helping children with hearing loss is, getting the child amplified, giving them the right technology, the right path, to support their family so that their child has the tools they need to be successful.

The schools classrooms are given special considerations for acoustics, making sure each class has a great listening environment along with technology like teacher worn microphones with devices that transmit directly to students hearing aids.

The schools teachers and speech therapists remediate and teach specific listening and spoken language skills so theyre able to build a foundation for the childrens education. Without the foundations in listening and language, learning academic skills is enormously difficult. Because the MWS students receive a timely intervention, many have listening and language skills comparable to their peers by the time they are a year and a half or two years old.

Its pretty well appreciated and documented that kids with hearing loss, when they have an opportunity for hearing rehabilitation, do well in mainstream classes, said Dr. Roy. I think the MWS is as good as it gets around the country for giving children with hearing loss the opportunity to participate with mainstream education and become caught up with their peers.

ryan.nickerson@hcnonline.com
Just days shy of the sixth anniversary of his being named bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, the Most. Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski was welcomed in Missouri as archbishop-elect of St. Louis.

The 61-year-old Baltimore native and former auxiliary bishop there has been appointed by Pope Francis to succeed the retiring Archbishop Robert J. Carlson as head of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of St. Louis. He will be installed there Aug. 25.

In his remarks, some of which he delivered in Spanish, Rozanski presented himself as a parish priest at heart. He said he hoped to manifest what he called Christs healing presence in the archdiocese, adding he was both surprised and grateful in being named archbishop. He also thanked Catholics in the Springfield diocese for their cooperation with him as bishop.

It is wonderful to be with you today and many thanks to your presence here at this beautiful cathedral, said Rozanski during the morning news conference in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis with Carlson that was live streamed.

Just over two weeks ago I received the very surprising news that our Holy Father Pope Francis had named me the 10th archbishop of St. Louis," he said. "Mindful of Gods goodness, I wish to express my gratitude to our Holy Father for the trust he has placed in me and to Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Papal Nuncio to the United States, for this appointment.

Rozanski, to a round of applause, also expressed gratitude to Carlson for his support and wise counsel and wisdom in the days, months and years ahead.

He called the present a troubled time for our nation, noting the COVID-19 pandemic, death of George Floyd at the hands of police and the sad specter of racism that tears at the very fabric of our country.

Jesus has entrusted us to be his presence in the world, particularly here in the city and the surrounding areas of St. Louis," Rozanski said.

Jesus did not avoid any person or situation that was uncomfortable. He walked into those difficult circumstances bringing the healing presence of God. All of us stand in need of that healing presence, personally, communally and as a nation. It is my hope that called to lead this church of St. Louis Gods grace will be in abundance and help me to part of that healing process and resolution to all of the daunting issues that we face.

He added, No leader can do this alone. We all must work together if we want to realize the mandate of Jesus to bring justice and peace to our families, communities, nation and world.

Halfway through his remarks, Rozanski paid tribute to his time in Springfield, where he served as its ninth bishop.

Over the last six years, I have been graced to serve as the bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts," Rozanski said.

He told those in St. Louis that the good people of Springfield are hearing this news of his archbishop appointment today just as you are" and that he wanted them to know "how grateful I am to them for their welcome to me when I first arrived, for their cooperation with me over these six years and I want them to know they are in my prayers.

He added, Goodbyes are never easy, but we remain close in faith.

In welcoming him to the archdiocese, Carlson called Rozanski a true man of God" with a zeal for evangelization known from Boston to Baltimore, as well as working with people of all colors and creeds.

Carlson called it a time when a new look, new view, new leader is exactly what we need in the archdiocese where he said faith has deep roots here, people are amazingly friendly, the people in this archdiocese are very, very generous.

The St. Louis is home to an estimated 2.25 million people  some 509,280 of whom are said to be Catholic.

Carlson cited the archdioceses strengths: 182 parishes he described as vibrant, 80 religious communities and more than two dozen Catholic high schools, which he described as doing very well.

Rozanski leaves a much smaller diocese where school consolidations continued during his years as bishop, closed churches were sold off, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield were forced by financial concerns to sell their Holyoke motherhouse and a dwindling number of priests resulted in the dioceses oldest parish being among those led by a deacon administrator.

His legacy includes the opening of the $54.5 million Pope Francis Preparatory School  a much debated project around the question of financial sustainability. It was built on the tornado-destroyed campus of Springfields Cathedral High School and created by its merger with Holyoke Catholic.

He held listening sessions in the four counties of his diocese for feedback on how the diocese could improve.

Pressure from survivors of clergy sex abuse, ongoing law enforcement investigations into their allegations and mixed efforts by dioceses both in this country and abroad into responding to allegations forced the Vatican to issue new directives. Rozanski restructured and expanded aspects of survivor outreach in the Springfield Diocese.

Rozanski also met with an individual who alleged being sexually abused by the late Bishop Christopher Weldon, but whose account of this before the Diocesan Review Board was disputed. After referring details to law enforcement, Rozanski appointed a retired judge last July to investigate the allegations against Weldon for the diocese.

The diocese has said the much-awaited report is expected in the near-future.

Asked about accusations that the Springfield Diocese has not been transparent enough around allegations of clergy sexual abuse at his St. Louis news conference, Rozanski said the diocese has been working on having as much transparency as possible and that in St. Louis he would follow norms established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as laws set by the city and state.

Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno was among those congratulating Rozanski and praising his time in Springfield.

Ive had a wonderful spiritual and working relation with Bishop Rozanski, Sarno said. "He has always put forth a very carrying, calming and reassuring leadership style. I will miss him and wish him congratulations and continued success in preaching the word of the lord, peace, understanding and harmony.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 10:31:14|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Numerous National Guard members deployed in Washington D.C. to deal with the massive protests over the death of African American George Floyd have tested positive for COVID-19, the military said on Tuesday.

Authorities said in a statement that the accurate number of infections in the National Guard would not be revealed due to "operational security."

All members had COVID-19 tests before they were sent to the capital, and will have another round of testing before leaving, the statement said.

Videos on social media showed that many National Guard troops did not wear face masks while responding to the nationwide protests, and it was next to impossible to keep any social distancing.

Local media reported that thousands of National Guard troops were deployed to respond to the growing unrest. Enditem
The following editorial appeared in Wednesday's Japan News-Yomiuri:

- - -

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has struck a heavy blow to non-regular workers. It is vital to avoid a rapid increase in the shedding of temporary workers.

According to an April labor force survey announced by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, the number of non-regular workers stood at 20.19 million, nearly 1 million fewer than in the same month last year. Due to the coronavirus situation, employment in the manufacturing industry and related to lodging and eating and drinking establishments declined greatly.

There is concern that temporary staff will continue to lose their jobs. Many of them renew their contract every three months. Those who were contracted in April, the beginning of the new fiscal year, will finish their contract term at the end of June. Labor unions have already been approached for consultations about notices of nonrenewal of contracts.

The number of temps has reached about 1.3 million. The government needs to carefully pay attention to the situations of their employment because they are likely to be affected by economic conditions.

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, a massive shedding of temps took place, and the number of people who lost as much as their homes increased. This time, it is important to take measures in an appropriate manner before this becomes a social problem again.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has requested the temp industry and other relevant organizations to not terminate contracts without much consideration. Even if they cannot help but do so, the ministry has called on them to allow workers who are in company dormitories to be allowed to stay for a certain period after they have to leave their workplace.

In special cases, subsidies for companies that put their employees on leave without laying them off also apply to non-regular workers who do not have unemployment insurance. Utilizing subsidies, it is desirable for temp agencies to find these workers their next workplace even after the contracts with previous companies have been terminated.

The fact that the system also covers non-regular workers is inadequately known. Efforts should be made so that companies and workers can be sufficiently informed.

There is also a support system in which non-regular workers who leave their jobs can receive benefits equivalent to living expenses as well as work training. To improve their skills and expand their scope of available occupations is fruitful.

On the assumption that the effects of the coronavirus will linger for a while, work in other fields must be facilitated. The important thing is to shift the labor force toward demand while minimizing unemployment.

Many farmers are hiring personnel from other lines of business as foreign technical intern trainees cannot come to Japan. The hope is this will prompt employment in industries suffering from labor shortages, such as nursing care and distribution services, or in growing fields including the IT industry.

Many local governments and chambers of commerce and industry are helping businesses in industries facing labor shortages by matching them with job applicants. It is indispensable to identify needs with regional conditions in mind. The central government is required to analyze successful examples and make efforts to provide information.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the GCC consumer sector, with dramatic changes in consumer behavior and supply chain disruptions.

The crisis comes after recent economic weakness in the GCC, marked by waning consumer confidence and the recent steep drop in the oil price, according to Strategy& Middle East, part of the PwC network.

Although there is a surge in demand because of stockpiling for some product categories like packaged food, hygiene products, and other essentials, consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers and retailers are dealing with unpredictability that is putting extreme pressure on their daily operations, stated the industry expert.

Just as companies have appointed crisis teams to manage immediate priorities, they should establish a recovery team of senior people with strong strategic experience which can prepare the organization for the rebound and the longer-term by focusing on three areas.

First, companies must stay closer than ever to their consumers and customers. Behaviors are shifting so quickly that any traditional research will become outdated soon.

Rather than relying on syndicated research and other established sources of information, companies should develop systematic approaches to analyze changing market dynamics and shifts in consumer preferences and behaviors on a continuous basis.

To that end, companies can conduct regular open-ended surveys and enable their front-line sales representatives to collect key customer data and act on them swiftly. Going forward, they need to invest in robust data analytics and nurture a data-driven mindset to enable more objective and faster decision making.

Second, companies must reassess their supply chain and build resilience and, in the case of CPG companies, ensure that their distributors networks are operationally and financially viable.

Beyond that, they need to increase the visibility of their end-to-end supply chain.

Equipping their organization with relevant and accurate data can help companies make the right decisions to mitigate risks and respond rapidly to any supply chain event that affects customer satisfaction, profitability, and working capital. This might be as well an opportune time to explore strategic partnerships through M&As to acquire complementary capabilities and build economies of scale.

Third, companies should accept the shift toward e-commerce and embark upon it. The largest long-term effect of the Covid-19 crisis will likely be an accelerated move to online ordering, which stood at a low base of less than 5% for most consumer goods in the region before the pandemic.

Most companies have reacted quickly by setting up crisis teams and devoting all their focus to keeping their people safe, securing business continuity, and managing day-to-day issues, said Ramy Sfeir, partner with Strategy&, part of the PwC network, and the leader of the Consumer Markets practice in the Middle East.

Companies need to strike the right balance between solving short-term challenges and positioning themselves to rebound faster than their competition and generate future sustainable and profitable growth, he added.

Strategy& Middle East said companies must build or acquire the required capabilities to provide a frictionless online ordering and delivery experience.

"This is not straightforward and is costly; very few companies have managed to turn profits from their e-commerce business. Another possible approach could be to develop strategic partnerships with established e-commerce players," remarked Sfeir.

"For example, Mondelez International and Mars partnered with Alibaba Group in China in 2016 to launch their products on its online platform and take advantage of its marketing services, including big data analytics and consumer insights," he stated.

Sami Darouni, the senior executive advisor with Strategy& Middle East, said a common thread among all three of these measures is that they require speed, decisiveness, and resources.

"Accordingly, companies should get fit fast. They should set ambitious cost-savings targets for each function and business unit, along with a time frame to achieve those goals. Success requires quickly identifying which costs to cut and where to invest," he added.

Makram Debbas, Principal with Strategy& Middle East, pointed out that companies should divest from non-strategic areas, and re-invest the savings in activities and capabilities that are critical and that make a difference to their consumers and customers.

"This should lead to a continuous cost improvement process that should be embedded in the way of doing business and in the organizations mindset and culture," stated the senior official.

"By taking the right steps now and building for the future, companies can build the knowledge, processes, and capabilities to emerge fitter and stronger," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
This is the moment a man running late for his ferry decides to take a leap of faith and jump between the dock and the boat, only to end up landing in the cold water.

The panicking passenger is supposed to be travelling from his home in Paramushiro to Kamchatka, Russia but ends up missing the ferry.

Footage from the boat shows the man, on the dock, bending down to pick up two bags, one that is much larger than the other.

The man moves towards the end of the boat that is nearest to the dock and then tries to fling the heavier of the two bags onboard

He then walks worriedly alongside the ferry that is pulling away.

He moves towards the end of the boat that is nearest to the dock and desperately tries to fling the heavier of the two bags onboard.

He leans forward in a last ditch attempt to jump onto the moving ferry, only to fall face forward into the water, still clutching his bags.

There is a splash in the water and concerned onlookers come to assist the man.

The ferry continues to sail away and some men from the dockside climb into the water to help the wet man.
Reuters

Americans should show more respect for Russias space programme after relying on it for nine years as the only way to send US astronauts into orbit, the head of Russias space agency said.

The United States launched the first astronauts from US soil since 2011 last month in a rocket built by SpaceX, the company of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. In the intervening years, Americans flying to the International Space Station relied on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

In a column in this weeks Russian version of Forbes, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, lamented that Americans still do not take the Russian space programme as seriously as their own.

When our partners finally managed to conduct a successful test on their spacecraft, there were nothing but jokes and mockery directed at us, Rogozin complained. Instead, the American space industry should have thanked Russia.

Our country was the first to send a man into space, Rogozin wrote. We remain first to this day.

Roscosmos has in recent years suffered a series of setbacks and corruption scandals, including during the construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the countrys far east.

It criticised US President Donald Trumps hysteria after he said the SpaceX launch showed the United States had regained its place as the worlds leader in space.

Trump also said U.S. astronauts would soon land on Mars, and that Washington would soon have the greatest weapons ever imagined in history.
Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem, reads one Trump ad on Facebook.

The campaign is spending about $40,000 to promote various iterations of the ad using that language, but none of them use any images from the protests. Instead, they use photographs of the president or big text saying Stop Antifa, a loose movement that has not been shown to be orchestrating violence or looting.

The messaging coming from the Biden and Trump campaigns has been mirrored by allies and down-ballot campaigns across Facebook. Liberal organizations like MoveOn have interspersed images of protesters and Mr. Floyd, while the re-election campaign of Senator Mitch McConnell attacked looting, riots, and destruction alongside a photograph of the senator speaking.

On television, the chaotic scene of protesters being gassed near the White House runs in the middle of a new ad from Priorities USA, one of the biggest Democratic super PACs, with a narrator proclaiming, As Americans stand up for justice, Donald Trump divides and inflames. The ad began airing on Monday and is being rotated into the groups multimillion-dollar ad buy in battleground states.

The same scene was repeated in a new ad from the Lincoln Project, a super PAC supported by Republicans critical of Mr. Trump. That ad began airing over the weekend and includes a picture of Mr. Trump holding up a Bible outside St. Johns Church as a narrator calls the president a coward.

In the hotly contested Democratic Senate primary in Georgia  see the results from todays voting here  Jon Ossoff, the former House candidate who was leading in the polls, went with a different visual approach and addressed the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. He spent $420,000 on an ad where he speaks to the camera for the entire 30 seconds, saying its the worst kind of corruption when a young black man in Georgia is shot dead in the street, but police and prosecutors looked the other way. There are no scenes of protests, or any other cutaway during the ad.

The protest movement may be only a few weeks old, but expect to see many more ads featuring the demonstrations, and the reaction to them, in the coming weeks and months.
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

What:

Muscular Dystrophy Associations Medical Consultant Dr. John W. Day answers questions from the neuromuscular disease community as the country reopens in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) invites you to join a special virtual conversation on Facebook Live featuring MDA Medical Consultant Dr. John W. Day and MDA Director of Care Center Programs, Marydeth Guerin, about:

Reopening and COVID-19 and the impact on the neuromuscular disease community

Pediatric Concerns around COVID-19

Review of pulmonary guidelines for neuromuscular disease community

Featuring a live Q&A open to a global audience including patients and caregivers from MDA families, the conversation aims to provide answers and resources families urgently need in these uncertain times, when this community is among the highest risk for COVID-19.

The Facebook Live will also cover topics related to preparedness, community impact, telemedicine, and MDA care and resources. These guidelines will continually be updated on the MDA resource page for COVID-19.

When:

Monday, June 15 at 3-3:30 p.m. ET

Where:

https://www.facebook.com/MDAOrg/

MDA will request questions from the community in forthcoming posts on the @MDAorg Facebook page.

Who:

** panelists available for interview prior to, or following, Q&A**

Dr. John W. Day is MDA's Medical Consultant on the strategic Chief Medical Advisory Team. He is the professor of neurology and pediatrics and director, Division of Neuromuscular Medicine at Stanford University and directs Stanford's MDA Care Centers, which uniquely integrate the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Pediatric and Transitional Neuromuscular Clinic with the Stanford Hospital Neuroscience Health Center's Neuromuscular and ALS Research and Clinic.

is MDA's Medical Consultant on the strategic Chief Medical Advisory Team. He is the professor of neurology and pediatrics and director, Division of Neuromuscular Medicine at and directs MDA Care Centers, which uniquely integrate the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Pediatric and Transitional Neuromuscular Clinic with the Stanford Hospital Neuroscience Health Center's Neuromuscular and ALS Research and Clinic. Marydeth Guerin is MDA's Director of Care Center programs, overseeing MDA's National Care Center Network program, which includes management of grants, engagement, and oversight of the network infrastructure and operations. She also serves as Chair of the MDA Care Center Review Committee and manages strategic planning for the network in close collaboration with MDA's Chief Medical Advisors and executive leadership.

Why:

The neuromuscular disease community (including muscular dystrophy, SMA, Duchenne and related diseases such as ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's disease)  are among the highest risk populations for COVID-19. They are also among the most overlooked. While precautions for cancer patients, older adults and those with conditions that affect respiratory health exist, there is a lack of information specific to people living with neuromuscular diseases and their caregivers. This conversation and Q&A aim to bring those concerns to light as MDA continues to be on the frontlines serving this community of over 250,000 in the United States.

Sponsorship:

Sanofi Genzyme and Amicus are proud sponsors of this event.

About the Muscular Dystrophy Association:

For 70 years, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) has been committed to transforming the lives of people affected by muscular dystrophy, ALS, and related neuromuscular diseases. We do this through innovations in science and innovations in care . As the largest source of funding for neuromuscular disease research outside of the federal government, MDA has committed more than $1 billion since our inception to accelerate the discovery of therapies and cures. Research we have supported is directly linked to life-changing therapies across multiple neuromuscular diseases. MDA's MOVR is the first and only data hub that aggregates clinical, genetic, and patient-reported data for multiple neuromuscular diseases to improve health outcomes and accelerate drug development. MDA supports the largest network of multidisciplinary clinics providing best in class care at more than 150 of the nation's top medical institutions. Our Resource Center serves the community with one-on-one specialized support, and we offer educational conferences, events, and materials for families and healthcare providers. Each year thousands of children and young adults learn vital life skills and gain independence at summer camp and through recreational programs, at no cost to families. During the COVID-19 pandemic, MDA continues to produce virtual events and programming to support our community when in-person events and activities are not possible, including virtual summer camp. MDA's COVID-19 guidelines and virtual events are posted at mda.org/COVID19 . For more information, visit mda.org .

SOURCE Muscular Dystrophy Association

Related Links

https://www.mda.org


Boris Johnson has been accused of refusing to admit to the UKs sky-high coronavirus death toll by claiming it is too early to draw comparisons, in a clash with Keir Starmer.

The Labour leader attacked the prime ministers claim to feel pride in his response to the crisis, saying  of the 50,000 likely deaths  There is no pride in those figures is there?

And he urged Mr Johnson to learn quickly from other nations strategies, protesting: It just doesnt wash that we cant compare these figures to other countries.

It is of little solace to families who have lost someone to be told this is too early to compare and to learn from other countries.

But Mr Johnson hit back, insisting: The best scientific evidence and advice is we must wait until the epidemic has been through its whole cycle before we can draw relevant international comparisons.

During prime ministers questions in the Commons, he hailed the astonishing speed with which Nightingale hospitals were built and the way the country came together to follow social distancing rules.

This government has announced a plan on 11 May to get the country back on its feet, he told MPs.

But Sir Keir said the UK death toll  more than 50,000 according to the Office for National Statistics, above 63,000 overall excess deaths  should haunt us.

It compares with what scientific advisers said, in March, would be a good result of 20,000 deaths and is widely seen as the second highest tally in the world, after the United States.

Mr Johnson also came under pressure from the SNP to stick to the 2-metre social distancing rule, as he pushes it to be cut to 1 metre, saying it was still under review.

Later, he angered many MPs by hailing the US, under Donald Trump, as a bastion of peace and freedom, despite the police brutality that has triggered the angry Black Lives Matter protests.

Sir Keir and the prime minister over what the Labour leader called the completely avoidable mess of primary schools remaining shut for most children, after Tuesdays U-turn.

Government plans were in tatters and parents had lost confidence, he warned, adding: Its time he took responsibility for his own failings. The consequences are stark.

The prime minister was pressed to give poor and vulnerable pupils free meals over the summer, after Gavin Williamson, the educations secretary, refused to do so.

But he replied: We don't normally continue with free school meals over the summer holidays but we're also aware of the particular difficulties faced by vulnerable families.

That's why we're announcing a further 63m of local welfare assistance to be used by local authorities at their discretion to help the most vulnerable families.

Mr Johnson also told the Labour leader to ensure his friends in the left-wing trade unions helped get schools ready.
The former BJP leader says government's has been lukewarm to several letters written by her on the coronavirus pandemic

Hyderabad: Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has said she is disappointed with the TRS government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state, particularly its reluctance to disclose information.

In an exclusive interview with Deccan Chronicle, Soundararajan said the government's response to her requests for information has been unsatisfactory.

On the count of COVID-19 disclosure, the governor's views square with remarks made by the Telangana High Court which has criticized the government for suppressing facts on the pandemic.

Tamilisai Soundararajan used to be a BJP leader in Tamil Nadu prior to her appointment as governor of Telangana in 2019.

In the interview, the governor said she visited the Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), where several doctors have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, to show solidarity with the medical professionals as she was a doctor herself. The state health department was not very happy about the visit, she said.

The government's response has been similarly lukewarm to the several letters she has written to the state government nudging it to follow central government guidelines, increase testing, and share correct information on the extent and impact of the disease.

I have been communicating my concerns and suggestions on the COVID situation to the state government. I have written several letters over the past couple of months, the governor said. But the state governments response has been less than satisfactory.

She added, "Even basic information is not shared."

Soundararajan said the information she sought from the government related to the spread of the disease, the rate of testing and disease management and containment.

Asked if she gets a detailed daily brief on the COVID-19 situation in Telangana, the Governor laughed and said: I also get a COVID-19 bulletin at the end of the day from the health department.

In the governors opinion, the government should have been more open and responsive to her letters; a lack of openness indicates a desire for secrecy.

Soundararajan said she could no longer watch quietly when there was an outbreak of coronavirus cases among medical medical professionals at several hospitals in the state capital.

That is why I decided to go to NIMS and meet with doctors and other medical staff who had contracted the disease just because they chose to risk their lives for the others in society, she said.

Soundararajan said that as a medical professional, she fully understands the risk to herself when she went to NIMS. It is a chance I am willing to take. They are under severe pressure. As a fellow doctor, I wanted to express my support and thank them for their service and assure them that I am with them.

Authorities at NIMS and the state health department were aghast at her decision to visit the COVID-19 ward and tried to dissuade her. But she insisted and the authorities reluctantly let her visit NIMS on Monday.

Medical professionals are our most precious resource in these times. My interaction with COVID-19-affected doctors was to clearly tell them that I stand with them, she said.
GENEVA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization (WTO) began the process on Monday of selecting a new director-general to replace Brazil's Roberto Azevedo, who is stepping down a year early at the end of August.

Three nominees have so far been received from Egypt, Mexico and Nigeria, according to WTO documents.

Azevedo's successor will need to steer reforms and negotiations in the face of rising protectionism, a deep recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing trade tensions, notably between the United States and China.

The Geneva-based body normally takes nine months to choose a new chief but now wants to do so in three. It prefers to pick a chief by consensus, moving to a vote only as a last resort.

Below is a summary of possible candidates:

AFRICA

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria), board chair of global vaccine alliance Gavi

Okonjo-Iweala, 65, is an economist and development specialist who has served as Nigeria's foreign minister and finance minister as a managing director of the World Bank. The former Harvard and MIT student's work has involved efforts to make immunisation programmes financially sustainable.

Nigeria sent her nomination to the WTO on Tuesday, the body confirmed.

Abuja had previously backed another of its nationals, Yonov Frederick Agah, in a process via the African Union that was supposed to nominate a single African candidate.

Eloi Laourou (Benin), ambassador to the U.N. and WTO

Diplomat for 30 years and champion of the rights of poorer countries as ex-coordinator of a group of the least developed countries. Holding a doctorate in international law and international relations, he co-chairs a working group of French-speaking countries on trade and development.

He did not respond to a request for comment.

Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt), currently Geneva-based lawyer

Former trade negotiator for Egypt and ex-WTO official who helped draft an agreement on trade in services in the landmark Uruguay Round deal - an experience which he said gave him essential "bridge-building" skills.

Story continues

Mamdouh, 67, is currently advising the G20 presidency, Saudi Arabia, on trade and investment matters. Egypt nominated him to the WTO on Tuesday, the body said.

Amina Mohamed, (Kenya) sport and culture minister

Mohamed, 58, is a former Kenyan ambassador to the WTO who was the first woman to chair the WTO's General Council in 2005.

She ran for the director general post unsuccessfully in 2013. Her CV says she speaks four languages, has a law degree and is an "excellent strategist and visionary" who has advocated broad participation in the WTO reform process.

She did not respond to a request for comment.

EUROPE

Arancha Gonzalez Laya (Spain), Spanish foreign minister

A lawyer, she served as chief of staff to then-WTO chief Pascal Lamy between 2005 and 2013. Trade officials say she may be unacceptable to the U.S. administration given strained relations with Washington under Lamy's leadership.

Asked about her potential candidacy, she said she had a "full plate" with her current job.

Phil Hogan (Ireland), European trade commissioner

He is in his second role as a European commissioner, previously covering agriculture, and confirmed he is considering a bid. A politician of the centre-right Fine Gael party, he has also served as a minister in two Irish governments.

He advocates reform at the WTO, agreeing with the United States and Japan on the need to update global rules on industrial subsidies. But his own relations with Washington have been less cordial amid persistent transatlantic trade tension.

AMERICAS

Jesus Seade (Mexico), 73, senior trade official in Mexican government

Mexico nominated Seade, who helped rework the North American Free Trade Agreement, to the WTO on Monday, a document showed. He previously worked at universities in Hong Kong.

(Reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Andrea Shalal in Washington, William James in London, Belen Carreno in Madrid, Katharine Houreld in Nairobi and Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Mark Potter)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 19:51:26|Editor: huaxia

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NAIROBI, June 10 (Xinhua) -- At the outbreak of the COVID-19 in Kenya in March, Victoria Selima, a government auditor, was asked to work from home by her employer as one of the measures to curb the spread of the disease.

Selina has been working from home since then but last week, she was asked to start working from the office at least thrice a week to boost productivity.

While she has no problem working from the office as that is where she was employed to work from, the rising cases have thrown a dilemma on her path as they point to increased risk of exposure to the new coronavirus.

"I thought that the disease would have slowed down in about three months as it happened in countries like China, but cases are rising now, yet we cannot continue staying at home," she said on Tuesday.

This is a dilemma thousands of Kenyans are facing as the country progressively moves to normalize activities amid a sharp increase in infections.

From shopkeepers to commuter bus conductors and office workers, the rising cases pose a fresh dilemma, portending how closer the disease is to everyone.

Caroline Auma, a shopkeeper in Kitengela, south of Kenya's capital Nairobi, noted that she has put a handwashing point outside her shop but some people don't use it.

"I cannot force them to use, but their omission means they are exposing themselves and myself to the disease. Yet, I cannot close my shop and stay at home because the disease is spreading. I have to work to cater to the needs of my family," she observed.

For public transport vehicle operators, the dilemma stems from the fact that they deal with hundreds of people daily and some of the containment measures, in particular, such as use of mobile money were not embraced by commuters.

"No commuter pays fare using mobile money anymore. Yes, paying using coins and notes exposes one to the disease as the cases rise but we are trying harder to observe hygiene because we have to work," said Joseph Mungai, a conductor with Rembo Shuttle in Nairobi.

The dilemma hangs over the minds of the East Africa nation's citizens as they go about their businesses.

Kenya's COVID-19 curve is rising sharply across many regions of the country. The East African nation on Tuesday recorded 127 new positive cases as infection cases rose to 2,989.

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe recently warned that the country is yet to hit the peak and that cases of new infections may stand at over 200 per day.
A man who was brutally glassed in the face at a music festival had to undergo reconstructive surgery after suffering horrific injuries.

Ted Watkin, 24, was assaulted with a glass bottle about 5am at the Pitch Music and Arts Festival near Ararat, in Victoria's south-west, on March 9.

Mr Watkin had been standing near stage one when he got into an argument with another man and was struck in the face with a glass bottle.

The injuries were so bad he had to undergo expensive reconstructive surgery, Victoria Police said, leaving him with thousands of dollars in medical bills.

Ted Watkin (pictured, centre), 24, was assaulted with a glass bottle about 5am at the Pitch Music and Arts Festival near Ararat, in Victoria's south-west, on March 9

In March, Mr Watkin's friend, Harry Aikman, started a GoFundMe to cover the extensive medical costs.

'The attacker threw a bottle into Ted's face and the result being five badly damaged teeth (broken and knocked out) and over 20 stitches to his face,' Mr Aikman wrote.

'The attacker ran and got away leaving Ted on the ground and then straight to the medics' tent where the extent of the damage was realised.

'As a result of all of this, the person who committed the assault has escaped and Ted's medical bills are going to be in the thousands.'

Horrific photos of the injuries show cuts covering Mr Watkin's face, stitches in his eyebrows, broken teeth and stitches in his lip.

Police are now on the hunt for the man who attacked Mr Watkin.

The injuries were so bad that Mr Watkin (pictured) had to have reconstructive surgery, Victoria Police said

Police are now on the hunt for the man who allegedly attacked Mr Watkin and released a composite image of what he is believed to look like (pictured)

He is described as a man in his mid-to-late 20s with a slim build, olive complexion and was wearing an orange bucket hat at the time.

The alleged offender is believed to have a large gap in the bottom of his teeth or missing a tooth, was unshaven and had short dark hair.

Mr Watkin believes the man was of French descent and spoke with a European accent.

Composite images have been released of the man in the hopes the public can assist with inquiries.

Anyone with information is being urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT /ASX:AFP) (AFT) is pleased to announce the successful completion of its NZ$73.8 million Placement (Placement), comprising a NZ$10 million primary issuance and a sell down by certain major shareholders of NZ$63.8 million of existing shares.

Approximately 19.7 million shares were sold to existing shareholders and new investors across the Placement, including approximately 2.7 million new shares under the primary issuance, at a price of NZ$3.75 per share. The Placement price represents a discount of 11.1% to the 30-day VWAP up to 9 June of NZ$4.22 and a discount of 20.2% to the last close price of NZ$4.70 on 9 June 2020.

AFT Founder and Chief Executive Hartley Atkinson said: We are pleased with the response we have had to the Placement and look forward to offering shares to our existing retail investors with the upcoming Share Purchase Plan (SPP).

In addition to the strong takeup of the Placement from New Zealand investors, we are delighted to be welcoming a broad swathe of Australian institutional and retail investors onto our share register. Through the placement, sell downs and SPP the free float of the company is expanding from 11% to up to 31% of the shares on issue.

We are hopeful the addition of these new investors - coupled with our record of strong growth and consistently delivering on market expectations  will help to build AFTs profile and a deeper appreciation for the significant opportunities we enjoy in Australasia and further afield.

Settlement of the Placement is expected to occur on 15th June 2020. The new shares issued under the Placement are expected to be allotted and commence trading on the NZX and ASX on 15th June 2020, and will rank equally in all respects with AFTs existing ordinary shares.

Share Puchase Plan

As announced on 10th June 2020, AFT is also undertaking a NZ$2 million share purchase plan (SPP). Full details of the SPP will be set out in the SPP offer document, which is expected to be released to NZX and ASX and dispatched to eligible shareholders on 15th June 2020. Key dates relating to the SPP are set out below.

Additional information

Further details about the Placement and the SPP are set out in the announcment and investor presentation released to the NZX and ASX on 10th June 2020.

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TORONTO, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pasinex Resources Limited (CSE:PSE) (PNX.F) (The Company or Pasinex) today reports the Companys financial and operating results for the three months and year ended December 31, 2019.



Steve Williams, President and CEO of Pasinex, commented, Pasinex had a difficult year in 2019 due to problems associated with the failure to receive any significant payment against the loan receivable that our Turkish joint venture business, Horzum AS, has with our Turkish joint venture partners, Akmetal. The underlying operating business in Turkey showed a positive net operating income but the recording of an impairment on the loan receivable from Akmetal resulted in a net loss for the joint venture. Pasinex is not happy with these results. We continue to actively pursue the resolution of this problem with our partners in Turkey. We expect to see them start to return monies owed and to put Horzum AS and Pasinex back into a positive cash position.

Highlights - 2019 Year End

Year Ended December 31 2019 2018 Financial: Equity gain (loss) from Horzum AS $ 672,139 $ (4,098,639) Adjusted equity gain from Horzum AS (1) $ 3,965,688 $ 5,489,452 Dividend received from investment in Horzum AS $ 672,139 $ 1,523,538 Consolidated net income (loss) $ (1,032,850) $ (8,429,326) Adjusted consolidated net income (1) $ 2,260,699 $ 2,845,365 Basic net income (loss) per share $ (0.01) $ (0.06) Diluted net income (loss) per share $ (0.01) $ (0.06) Cash used in operating activities $ 292,330 $ 1,006,264 Weighted average shares outstanding 144,415,192 142,823,411 Horzum AS operational data (100% basis): Zinc product mined (wet) tonnes 17,812 45,757 Zinc product sold (wet) tonnes 27,239 46,154 Zinc product sold grade 32% 33% Gross margin (1) 34% 57% CAD cost per tonne mined (1) $ 436 $ 229 USD cash cost per pound of zinc mined (1) $ 0.42 $ 0.25 (1) Refer to Note 1

Financial and Operational



For the year ended December 31, 2019 Pasinex incurred a net loss of approximately $1.03 million, compared with a net loss of approximately $8.4 million for 2018. The substantial decrease in net loss in 2019 is largely due to the significant impairment of Akmetal Madencilik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (Akmetal) debt to Horzum Maden Arama ve Isletme Anonim Sirketi (Horzum AS), which was recorded in 2018, resulting in an equity loss of $4.1 million, versus an equity gain of approximately $0.67 million recorded in 2019. The equity gain in 2019 is equal to total of the cash dividends paid in 2019 by Horzum AS to Pasinex Arama ve Madencilik Anonim Sirketi (Pasinex Arama). In addition, the Company recorded an impairment to the Golcuk property in 2018. No similar impairment was recorded in 2019. Finally, exploration and general & administration costs are significantly lower in 2019 versus 2018.



The adjusted consolidated net income and adjusted equity gain (see non-GAAP measures) were $2.3 million and $4.0 million, respectively, for 2019 compared with $2.8 million and $5.5 million, respectively, in the same period in 2018. These non-GAAP measures reflect what the results of the Company would be without the recording of the impairment charges in 2018 and 2019 (see Review of Annual Consolidated Financial Statements and Loan receivable  Akmetal).



The operating income in Horzum AS decreased from $14.8 million in 2018 to $4.6 million in 2019. This decrease was primarily due to lower sales in 2019. The gross margin (see non-GAAP measures) for 2019 continued to be a healthy 34% although this represents a 23% reduction from 2018. The reduction is largely due to incurring similar fixed costs in both years, which were spread over fewer tonnes produced and sold in 2019 compared with 2018.



During 2019, the Company received a net of $365,000 from related parties of the Company. Subsequent to the end of the year the Company received an additional $355,500 from those related parties.

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Summary of Pasinex Situation in Turkey

Akmetal is a private Turkish company, which is controlled by the Kurmel family. The Kurmel family has a conglomerate of companies (the Kurmel Group) that includes Akmetal, a carpet company, an agricultural business, real estate assets and other minor businesses.



Several of the companies in the Kurmel Group have gone through financial distress during the last three years. This has led to the growth of a large payable amount owed to Horzum AS by Akmetal and one of its subsidiaries.



In November 2018, one division of the Kurmel Group together with certain family members of the Kurmel family, entered into a Turkish court-controlled process called Concordat. The purpose of this process is to allow a company with liquidity problems, but with assets greater than its debt, time to sell some or all of its assets in order to reorganize and pay its debts. This process was completed on February 21, 2020 and the division and those family members came out of the Concordat process. Concurrent with the ending of this process the Kurmel Group arranged for a loan with a Turkish bank.



In May 2019, the Company entered into a Debt Agreement with Akmetal to resolve the collectability of the trade receivable owing to Horzum AS. The terms of the Debt Agreement include a minimum amount of repayments on a monthly basis plus the chance for additional repayments from proceeds Akmetal would receive from the sale of its other assets (see Loan receivable  Akmetal). Akmetal has not honoured the terms of the Debt Agreement and has not been able to complete the sale of its other assets as it had planned. As a result, the financial position of Horzum AS and the Company has weakened further.



The value of the loan receivable from Akmetal and one of its subsidiaries, to Horzum AS as at December 31, 2019, is $35.1 million. The portion of the receivable owed by the subsidiary is guaranteed by its parent, Akmetal. As at December 31, 2019, Horzum AS owes Pasinex Arama $2.4 million that arose upon the declaration of a dividend in 2018.



Management has been in constant contact with senior executives of the Kurmel Group during and subsequent to 2019, while the Kurmel Group have been working through the Concordat process. Pasinex is expecting to receive the payment of the remaining dividend and other amounts owing to Pasinex Arama following a payment of a portion of the Akmetal receivable, as a result of the financial restructuring the Kurmel Group has undergone in the past few months. In addition, the Company has been discussing the necessary management and structural changes at the Horzum AS joint venture.

Other Highlights

In January 2019, the Company filed an amended National Instrument 43-101 technical report for the Pinargozu mine. The report was filed to comply with National Instrument 43-101 and did not contain any changes to the mineral resource estimate.



During the third quarter of 2019, the local tax office in Turkey sent a legal demand to the Turkish based directors and officers of Horzum AS for late payment of taxes due. The Turkish tax department has taken no further action against Horzum AS or the individuals associated with the Company, as Horzum AS is waiting to continue negotiations with the Turkish tax department to achieve a payment plan for its outstanding taxes due.



In September 2019, the underground workers at the Pinargozu mine in Turkey, commenced a strike action for late payment of their wages. This action was resolved during the month of October. Ore production at the Pinargozu mine resumed upon the workers return to work during October 2019.



On September 11, 2019, the Company announced that it had changed the payment date on an option payment due on the Spur Option Agreement. The payment was originally scheduled to be made on September 11, 2019 and was changed to December 11, 2019. In addition, the remaining 2019 exploration obligations were deferred to 2020.



Personnel changes during the year included the appointed of a new Chief Financial Officer and the resignation of the Companys Vice President of Exploration.

Note 1

Please note that all dollar amounts in this news release are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. Refer also to the year-end 2019 Managements Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) and Audited Financial Statements found on SEDAR.com for more information. This news release includes non-GAAP measures, including adjusted equity gain from Horzum AS, adjusted consolidated net income, gross margin, cost per tonne mined and US$ cash cost per pound of zinc mined. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the GAAP financial statements is included in the MD&A.

About Pasinex

Pasinex Resources Limited is a Toronto-based mining company which owns 50% of the producing Pinargozu high grade zinc mine and, under a Direct Shipping Program, sells to zinc smelters / refiners from its mine site in Turkey. The Company also holds an option to acquire 80% of the Spur high-grade zinc exploration project in Nevada. Pasinex has a strong technical management team with many years of experience in mineral exploration and mining project development. The mission of Pasinex is to build a mid-tier zinc company based on its mining and exploration projects in Turkey and Nevada.

Visit our web site at: www.pasinex.com

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

PASINEX RESOURCES LIMITED

Steve Williams

Steve Williams Evan White President/CEO Manager of Corporate Communications Phone: +1 416.861.9659 Phone: +1 416.906.3498 Email: info@pasinex.com Email: evan.white@pasinex.com

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.



This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.



All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although Pasinex believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not a guarantee of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, exploration results, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Its subtle stuff, like maybe your senator should try to duck Kasie Hunt in the hallway, one of the strategists said, referring to the NBC News correspondent whose on-camera questioning of Republican senators last week over the use of military force against peaceful protesters was widely replayed. Its all about operating outside of the tumult of the moment with him, but leaving yourself in a position for him to rally for you this fall.
Francis's appeal in view of the World Day against child labor. In the moment of life in which we will feel truly alone, in that moment God will give us a new name, which contains the meaning of our whole life, will change our heart, and give us the blessing reserved to those who let themselves be changed by Him. This is a nice invitation to allow ourselves to be changed by God, He knows how to do it, He knows us."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Every effort" should be made to protect minors from exploitation "which deprives boys and girls of their childhood and which jeopardizes their integral development". This is the appeal launched by Pope Francis in view of the World Day Against Child Labour, next Friday, June 12.

In the appeal, which concluded his general audience, Francis stressed that "given the current health crisis in various countries, many children are forced into jobs that are inappropriate for their age, so as to help their own families who are in conditions of extreme poverty. Many cases are forms of slavery and confinement, resulting in physical and psychological suffering. We are all responsible for this. I appeal that every effort be made on the part of institutions to protect minors, by filling the economic and social gaps that underlie the distorted dynamic in which they are unfortunately involved. Children are the future of the human family: all of us are expected to promote their growth, health and tranquility."

Previously, in the catechesis for the audience, also held today in the Library of the Apostolic Palace, continuing the cycle on prayer, he spoke of "Jacob's Prayer" "(Gen 32.25-30).

Reflecting on Jacob "a man who had made cunning his best gift", the Pope recalled the "difficult relationship" with his brother Esau and the "long series of tricks that this unscrupulous man is capable of". " Jacob  as we would say in modern terms  is a self-made man; with his ingenuity, his cunning, he manages to obtain everything he wants. But he lacks something. He lacks a living relationship with his own roots. And one day he hears the call of home, of his ancient homeland, where his brother Esau, with whom he has always had a terrible relationship, still lives. Jacob sets out, undertaking a long journey with a caravan of many people and animals, until he reaches the final step, the Jabbok stream. Here the Book of Genesis offers us a memorable page (cf. 32: 23-33). It describes that the patriarch, after having all of his people and all the livestock - and they were many - cross the stream, remains alone on the bank of the river on the foreign side. And he ponders: what awaits him the following day? What attitude will his brother Esau, from whom he stole his birthright, assume? Jacob's mind is a whirlwind of thoughts.... And, as it is getting dark, suddenly a stranger grabs him and begins to wrestle with him. The Catechism explains: the spiritual tradition of the Church has retained the symbol of prayer as a battle of faith and as the triumph of perseverance (CCC, 2573).

Jacob wrestles the entire night, never letting go of his adversary. In the end he is beaten, his sciatic nerve is struck by his opponent, and thereafter he will walk with a limp for the rest of his life. That mysterious wrestler asks the patriarch for his name and tells him: Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed (Gen 32:28). As if to say: you will never be the man who walks this way, straight. He changes his name, he changes his life, he changes his attitude. You will be called Israel. Then Jacob also asks the other: Tell me, I pray, your name. The other does not reveal it to him, but blesses him instead. Then Jacob understands he has encountered God face to face (vv. 29-30).

Wrestling with God: a metaphor for prayer. Other times Jacob has shown himself able to dialogue with God, to sense Him as a friendly and close presence. But that night, through a lengthy struggle that nearly makes him succumb, the patriarch emerges changed. A change of name, a change in hits way of life and a personality change: he comes out of it a changed man. For once he is no longer master of the situation - his cunning is no use to him - he is no longer a strategic and calculating man. God returns him to his truth as a mortal man who trembles and fears, because in the struggle, Jacob was afraid. For once Jacob has only his frailty and powerlessness, and also his sins, to present to God. And it is this Jacob who receives God's blessing, with which he limps into the promised land: vulnerable and wounded, but with a new heart.

We all have an appointment during the night with God, in the night of our life, in the many nights of our life: dark moments, moments of sin, moments of disorientation. And there we have an appointment with God, always. He will surprise us at the moment we least expect, when we find ourselves truly alone. That same night, struggling against the unknown, we will realise that we are only poor men and women - poor things, I dare say - but right then, in that moment in which we feel we are poor things, we need not fear: because God will give us a new name, which contains the meaning of our entire life; He will change our heart and He will offer us the blessing reserved to those who have allowed themselves to be changed by Him. This is a beautiful invitation to let ourselves be changed by God. He knows how to do it, because He knows each one of us. Lord, You know me, every one of us might say. Lord, You know me. Change me.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 06:18:37|Editor: huaxia

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Video: Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, the African American man whose death in police custody inspired protests across the country, testifies at a congressional hearing on June 10, 2020, in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua)

"If his death ends up changing the world for the better, and I think it will, then he died as he lived. It is on you to make sure his death isn't in vain," says Philonise Floyd.



WASHINGTON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- "I'm here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired," Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, the African American man whose death in police custody inspired protests across the country, said at a congressional hearing here on Wednesday.

In his emotional testimony at the House Judiciary Committee's hearing titled "Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability," the younger Floyd urged the lawmakers to honor those from around the world calling for change in the wake of his brother's death. "Honor them, honor George and make the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution and not the problem."

"If his death ends up changing the world for the better, and I think it will, then he died as he lived. It is on you to make sure his death isn't in vain." said Floyd's brother.

Wednesday's hearing came one day after Floyd was laid to rest, and two days after congressional Democrats introduced a piece of legislation seeking sweeping reforms to policing policies, which will make it easier to prosecute police misconduct cases and prevent excessive use of force by law enforcement.

Flowers are seen outside the church where George Floyd's funeral is held in Houston, Texas, the United States, on June 9, 2020. The funeral of African American George Floyd was held Tuesday in the southern U.S. city of Houston, where he was brought up and spent most of his life, two weeks after his tragic death in police custody in Minneapolis. (Photo by Chengyue Lao/Xinhua)

Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus that led the drafting of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, said in her opening statement that she hopes the bill will pass both chambers of Congress and become law, so that "we never, ever, ever see again what we saw a few weeks ago."

Calling police brutality "an embarrassment of our nation in front of the entire world," Bass said the Unites States, which oftentimes points its fingers to so-called human rights violations in other countries, should honor its own commitment to human rights. "While we hold up human rights in the world, we obviously have to hold them up in our country."

On May 25, Floyd, during the final moments of his life, was put in neck restraint for eight minutes and 46 seconds by a white police officer in Minneapolis, even as he begged for his life. Derek Chauvin, the now fired officer who kept his knee on Floyd's neck, has been jailed and faces murder charges.

"I can't tell you the kind of pain you feel when you watch something like that, when you watch your big brother, who you looked up to your whole entire life die, die begging for his mom," Floyd's brother said. Enditem
Pennsylvanias 14 state universities are planning to reopen in the fall, but that reopening will vary by campus, the systems chancellor said Wednesday.

The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Educations Board of Governors approved a general framework for reopening the 96,000-student system, giving individual presidents authority to work on details for their campuses, which are spread throughout the state, from cities to rural areas.

During an hour-long discussion, they expressed concern about liability, availability of testing, and costs associated with enhanced cleaning and safety measures as they grappled with many of the same issues colleges throughout the region are facing as they plan for the fall.

 READ MORE: Colleges fall plans: Online classes? Hybrid? Early end to the semester? Options abound.

Some schools may invite only a limited number of students back to campus for face-to-face instruction, said Daniel Greenstein, the systems chancellor. Some are looking at allowing single-occupancy dorm rooms, while others are planning to offer suite apartments where those in a unit would act like a family. The colleges are exploring various course schedules and hybrid models of face-to-face and remote instruction, he said. Theyre also varying the semester calendar, with some planning to start and finish earlier, he said.

Our universities are very different, he said. And the plans being developed will reflect very different local circumstances.

 READ MORE: Pennsylvania state universities freeze tuition, plan for uncertain fall

But all the plans, he said, will include contingency steps to move quickly to remote instruction if the coronavirus pandemic resurges. And the system will be guided by state guidelines, which specify how campuses should operate during the red, yellow, and green phases of Gov. Tom Wolfs three-phase reopening plan.

Board member Janet Yeomans asked what liability colleges will face if they bring students back and an outbreak occurs, resulting in deaths and financial losses.

What kind of protection do we have, do we need to have against that? she asked.

Andrew Lehman, the systems counsel, said that as a public entity, the system has sovereign immunity protection.

There are not liabilities in which the legal office is unduly alarmed, he said.

Board Chair Cynthia Shapira said the system is making its best effort to develop sound plans, and that the board needs to demonstrate accountability by endorsing that effort.

Theres still risk, and thats just the nature of what it is, she said.

State Rep. Brad Roae (R.-Crawford/Erie) noted that the legislature voted this week to repeal Pennsylvanias state of emergency, though its unclear what that vote actually changed and Wolf has said his order remains in effect. Roae encouraged colleges to reopen to the greatest extent possible.

 READ MORE: Colleges had to adapt to virtual final exams. What they learned could shape the future on campuses.

If we dont go back to having a nearly normal, well-rounded, in-person interactive education, were going to lose a lot of students," he said. "Students want real college. They dont want college through a computer screen.

But Meg Snead, Wolfs policy and planning secretary and board designee, cautioned that the administration does not believe the legislature has the power to remove the disaster declaration.

Im sure this will be litigated, she said.

Greenstein said chief to the colleges planning process is the knowledge that many students in the system would benefit from in-person instruction. During the spring, some students struggled with internet access in their local communities.

Many of the students that we engage dont do desperately well in remote learning. he said. They need the kind of engagement that our universities provide.

But Jamie Martin, president of the statewide faculty union and a professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, cautioned system leaders to proceed carefully.

We all want to be back in the classrooms interacting with our students, but we recognize that the fall 2020 semester is but one semester in many others that will follow, she said.

Martin noted that some staff are at high risk from the virus.

We have to have some plan in place for those individuals because we are going to be in close contact with the students, she said.

State Sen. Judith L. Schwank (D., Berks) asked if campuses would have access to coronavirus testing.

The system has to rely on the state for assistance with testing and contact tracing, Greenstein said. The absence of the surveillance techniques is a considerable challenge."
Members of Carrick-on-Shannon Municipal District have labelled the actions of Bank of Ireland in closing its branches in Mohill and Drumshanbo for the past three months as absolutely disgraceful.

The stinging criticism from the local councillors came lat last Monday's meeting of the municipal district, ironically, on the same day that Bank of Ireland announced the limited re-opening of the two branches in question.

The branches in both towns as well as in nearby towns such as Bundoran, Arva, Elphin and Strokestown, were closed last March at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis and according to Bank of Ireland its services at the time were being kept under review.

Cllr Sean McGowan tabled a motion at a meeting of Carrick-on-Shannon area councillors on Monday last calling on Bank of Ireland to immediately reopen their branches in Mohill and Drumshanbo.

He described it as appalling that the bank would leave the area and its customers without a service for the past three months.

Cllr McGowan, while welcoming the move to reopen the banks, said both towns have no other bank serving them and while the ATMs at both branches were operational, no lodgements could be made.

It's an appalling way to treat their customers, he said.

Mohill-based Cllr Thomas Mulligan agreed and described the bank behaviour as absolutely disgraceful and said it resulted in people who were cocooning having to travel outside the permitted zone to Carrick-on-Shannon or elsewhere to make a lodgement.

I think it's time Bank of Ireland came out and said what they intend to do, he said, and called for a major rethink of policy by the bank.

Cllr Des Guckian said the Irish public funded those banks during the economic crisis and it is up to the big parties to tell those banks to provide a proper social service to towns and villages in rural Ireland.

Cllr Paddy Farrell supported the call and said he hoped the bank was not using Covid-19 as an excuse to get out. He called on the Council executive to try and get answers from them.

Bank of Ireland has outlined its plans to reopen branches around the country with the branches in this locality all having a reduced opening time of 10am-1pm, Monday-Friday.

Modifications will be made to allow for social distancing and the protection of customers and workers in each branch.

The bank said, from June 29, it will return all services to ATMs. These had continued to provide cash withdrawal services at the closed branch locations but lodgement services were withdrawn. These ATMs will again offer cash and cheque lodgements, as well as withdrawal services - 24 hours a day - from June 29.

Gavin Kelly, CEO of Retail Ireland at Bank of Ireland, commented, We have been monitoring and adapting our operations throughout Covid-19 to reflect customer demand and public health advice.

As the economy starts to reopen, which is critically important for families and businesses across Ireland, we are updating our operations over the coming weeks.

In line with Phase 3, we will reopen most closed branches from 29 June, while making changes to ensure that social distancing can be maintained for the safety of our customers and colleagues. ATM services will also return to full operations.

We will also continue to offer all of our dedicated Covid-19 services for customers requiring specific support, including personal customers and businesses.
AMSTERDAM  Lawyers bringing a case before the World Court accusing Myanmar of genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority have asked a U.S. district court to order Facebook to release posts and communications of Myanmar military and police.

The International Court of Justice based in the Hague has agreed to hear a case accusing Myanmar of genocide against Rohingya in violation of a 1948 convention.

The United Nations court, commonly known as the World Court, accepts cases between states, and the case against Myanmar was brought by The Gambia with the backing of a group of Muslim countries.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have fled a crackdown in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, which considers members of its Rohingya minority to be foreigners. Rights groups have documented killings of civilians and burning of villages. Myanmar authorities say they have been battling an insurgency and deny carrying out systematic atrocities.

Image: Rohingya refugee children fly improvised kites (Damir Sagolj / Reuters file)

In 2018 U.N. human rights investigators said that Facebook played a key role in spreading hate speech that fueled violence in Myanmar. Facebook has said it is working to block hate speech.

A request, filed on behalf of The Gambia on June 8 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia, calls on Facebook to release "all documents and communications produced, drafted, posted or published on the Facebook page" of military officials and police forces.

The U.S. case has been referred to a judge who is due to schedule a meeting with representatives of Facebook and The Gambia as soon as possible.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

Facebook confirmed it was aware of The Gambias request and would evaluate it in accordance with applicable laws.

Among officials whose Facebook data is being sought were Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of Myanmar's armed forces. Details from 20 accounts of officials and organizations banned by Facebook in August 2018 were also sought, the document said.

World Court judges have ordered Myanmar to take urgent measures to protect the Rohingya population from genocide and other forms of violence until the case is heard in full.
Rapid growth customer focused IT supplier Techster and Kubernetes implementation specialist Stakater join forces to deliver a fully managed Enterprise Kubernetes application platform from Hydro66 data center

Boden, Sweden--(Newsfile Corp. - June 9, 2020) - Hydro66 Holdings Corp. (CSE: SIX) (OTCQB: HYHDF) ("Hydro66" or the "Company"), the ultra-low emissions cloud infrastructure company, is delighted to announce that Techster, Stockholm based full-service IT provider and Stakater, the authority for Kubernetes adoption for DevSecOps automation, are now delivering Enterprise Kubernetes solutions from its data center in Boden, Sweden.

John Elison, CTO Techster, said: "Working with high energy technology companies like Stakater means delivering IT capacity quickly and at scale for them to meet their customer objectives. Identifying a like-minded colocation company, Hydro66, allows us to meet and exceed challenging deliverables. For us, the environmental perspective on what we deliver is very important and is prioritized, which is why we have chosen Hydro66 as a partner and use their data center. We look forward to many more similar deployments."

Rasheed Amir, CEO Stakater commented: "Making Kubernetes adoption painless for Enterprise DevSecOps automation is the founding mission of Stakater. The new combined approach to the market of our managed Kubernetes offering with Techster hardware and Hydro66 colocation will enable a new level of customer performance and service levels. Our focus has always been on helping customers deliver cloud native apps faster with minimal operational friction, so we are delighted to enter a trusted partnership with Techster and Hydro66."

David Rowe, CEO Hydro66 commented: "This new three-way partnership will deliver enhanced efficiency at multiple layers of the IT stack. In essence, Kubernetes is an efficiency story, and it is in the DNA of Hydro66 to drive efficiencies where possible. We are delighted to work with Techster and Stakater to enable companies everywhere to accelerate their plans for cloud."

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About Hydro66

Hydro66 owns and operates an award-winning colocation data center in Sweden specializing in ultra-low emissions cloud infrastructure hosting. The Company hosts its own and third party IT infrastructure, utilizing 100% green power, at amongst the EU's lowest power prices and within an ISO27001 and OCP accredited facility.

Hydro66 is uniquely positioned to capitalize on opportunities in cloud infrastructure, HPC and the traditional Enterprise colocation data center market. The Company provides truly green power at a leading price, purpose-built space and cooling, telecoms, IT support services and 24/7 physical security in their facility in Boden, Sweden. www.hydro66.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Paul Morrison

Chief Commercial Officer, Hydro66

paul.morrison@hydro66.com

About Techster

Techster was founded in 2014 to challenge the status quo. The Company exists to prove that it is possible to challenge large established retailers. Combining innovative thinking and new technology delivers novel business benefits to our customers. Maintaining strict vendor neutrality and always keeping the needs of our customers at the center, we have formed an offer that few competitors can match.

Our clients see us as a trusted advisor to help with external monitoring and the execution of ideas. Thanks to the role of a general contractor, Techster is used to working on projects with several involved partners. The primary guiding principle is that the collaboration must benefit the customer no matter what the universe of possibilities looks like. Our customers demand and expect quick answers, precise deliveries and availability - these are business as usual hygiene factors for us.

Techster delivers full life cycle solutions through selected partnerships with leaders such as Stakater, Hydro66, DellEMC, HPE, Arista, Cisco, PureStorage, VMware, Microsoft, Redhat, F5, PaloAlto, Runecast and others.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

John Elison

Chief Technology Officer, Techster AB

john@techster.se

About Stakater

Stakater was born in 2016 with a mission to enable painless DevSecOps transformation, centred around Kubernetes, for enterprises. Stakater has full-stack competence across all layers from infrastructure to applications and tools, enabling it to offer enterprises a holistic approach when adopting kubernetes for their devsecops, containerisation and cloud-native strategies. Stakater implementations not only benefit developers in the organisation but also offer Operations and Management to realise the full benefits of a DevSecOps methodology.

Stakater understands the unique needs of each client and that one size does not fit all, offering organisations consultation and the use of tools that suit them specifically. With its partners, Stakater is able to offer solutions to enterprises across various industries, as well as different organisation sizes and use cases.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Rasheed Amir

Chief Executive Officer, Stakater AB

rasheed@stakater.com

Forward-Looking Information

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements may be discussed in this news release and the Company's annual and quarterly management's discussion and analysis filed at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws.

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57470
Will solve own problems, wont allow external interference says Nepals foreign minister

No Beijing, only Delhi says former Nepal PM on ties with India

Indo-Nepal ties to hit rock bottom after latter makes strong pitch tore-draw its map

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 10: India's relations with Nepal could lead to a standstill, with the latter making a strong pitch to redraw its map.

The push made by the K P Oli government is expected to clear the legislative hurdle in the lower house. Following this, the constitution amendment bill would go before the 59 member National Assembly, where the ruling Communist Party has a clear majority.

While India is watching the developments closely, the government had said that the revised official map was a unilateral act and not based on facts.

Nepal renews call for talks with India as row over map deepens

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

Anurag Srivastava, spokesperson Ministry of External Affairs had said that what Nepal did was contrary to the bilateral understanding to resolve outstanding boundary issues through diplomatic dialogue. Such artificial enlargement of territorial claims will not be accepted by India, he had also said.

India also urged Nepal to refrain from such unjustified cartographic assertion and respect India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. We hope that Nepalese leadership will create a positive atmosphere for diplomatic dialogue to resolve the outstanding boundary issues, the MEA spokesperson also said.

Last month Nepal's cabinet endorsed a new political map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura under its territory, amid a border dispute with India.

The move announced by foreign minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali came weeks after he said that efforts were on to resolve the border issue with India through diplomatic initiatives.

Nepal's ruling Nepal Communist Party lawmakers have also tabled a special resolution in Parliament demanding return of Nepal's territory in Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh.

The Lipulekh pass is a far western point near Kalapani. Both India and Nepal claim Kalapani as an integral part of their territory - India as part of Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district and Nepal as part of Dharchula district.

Nepal all set to clear controversial new map amid border row with India

Indian officials say that they are upset that Nepal did not wait for the foreign secretary level talks. The government had assured Kathmandu that the talks would take place once the threat from COVID-19 subsides. Nepal, on the other hand, claimed that a dialogue was sought in November last year itself.

It may be recalled that India had donated the antimalarial drug HCQ and 30,000 test kits to Nepal.
(Newser)  Fuel is flowing toward the Arctic Ocean in Russia's far north following a major diesel spill last month. Some 150,000 barrels of dieselnearly half as much fuel as leaked in the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska in 1989were released near the mining city of Norilsk in northern Siberia after a storage tank sank into thawing permafrost and burst on May 29, reports the New York Times. The government is investigating the spill, which deposited fuel into a river, where floating barriers failed to contain it. Diesel has now reached other rivers, turning them red, and a finger lake that extends toward the Arctic Ocean, says Aleksandr Uss, governor of the Krasnoyarsk region. "Naturally, there are fish there and a good natural environment. But it's impossible to predict how it will hold up now," he says, per the Times.

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Calling the disaster one of the largest petroleum spills in modern Russian history, the World Wildlife Fund has sounded the alarm over "poisoned animals." But the situation could grow worse as the lake, Pyasino, flows into the Pyasino River, which passes through a nature reserve before draining into the Kara Sea (part of the Arctic Ocean). Uss says it "should be possible" to prevent the fuel from reaching the river, though the BBC reports plenty of diluted oil has been seen beyond booms meant to stop its spread. Hundreds of workers are tasked with cleaning up the mess, which led to the arrest of the director of the power plant in charge of the tank, per Deutsche Welle. It's run by a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, the world's leading nickel and palladium producer, which has vowed to cover at least $146 million in cleanup costs. (Read more oil spill stories.)
SACRAMENTO  Landlords would be barred from evicting tenants in California for not paying their rent during the coronavirus pandemic, under legislation a San Francisco lawmaker plans to introduce Wednesday.

Democratic Assemblyman David Chiu said his bill, AB1436, is intended to prevent what advocates fear will be a wave of evictions once temporary protections are lifted for millions of Californians who have lost their jobs in recent months. While the bill would not provide tenants with direct financial aid, it would give them more time to make up their unpaid rent and take the threat of eviction off the table.

Many Californians were struggling to afford high rents even before the pandemic, Chiu said, and the state now risks adding to its surging homelessness population.

This was already a horrific situation. It has gotten exponentially worse, he said. Were trying to provide a path for transitioning out of this COVID-19 crisis.

Policymakers have been grappling with how to keep people in their homes amid an economic shutdown that has pushed nearly 6 million Californians into unemployment since March.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, local governments and the judicial branch all adopted policies that have halted evictions during the pandemic, but those moratoriums may be lifted soon. Newsoms executive order allowing cities to freeze evictions for tenants who lost income because of the coronavirus is set to expire at the end of July. The court system will decide this week whether to resume eviction cases in August.

Its not known how many tenants have been unable to meet their obligations for the three months of rent that have come due so far. A recent U.S. Census Bureau survey found that nearly 14% of California tenants did not pay or deferred their rent last month, while more than 31% had no or only slight confidence that they would be able to pay in June.

If even a fraction of Californias 17 million renters wind up losing their homes, tenant advocates warn, it could be a catastrophe. Facing a projected $54.3 billion deficit, the state has limited resources to offer relief, and a federal bailout that many are hoping for is at a standstill in Congress.

I dont see any scenario where government comes to the full rescue of everyone who is suffering, Chiu said.

His bill would prohibit landlords from seeking to evict tenants for any rent they did not pay during the state of emergency that Newsom has declared for the coronavirus pandemic and for 90 days after it is rescinded.

Tenants would be expected to resume paying rent at that point, and could be evicted if they fell behind on those payments. But they would have a year to start repaying any back rent that they accumulated during the pandemic. At the end of that year, landlords could file a civil action to recoup the remaining money.

San Francisco supervisors passed a similar proposal Tuesday, extending permanent eviction protections to tenants who missed rent payments during the pandemic.

Chiu said his approach strikes a balance, encouraging landlords to let tenants stay in their homes while they pay back what they owe. He said he wants to give people more time to make up their unpaid rent, so everything doesnt come due as soon as eviction protections expire.

Were advocating a different way to handle that scenario, he said.

But the open-ended timeline is likely to present a political challenge. Newsoms state of emergency for the pandemic could last for months or even years, to give the state more flexibility in dealing with potential future outbreaks.

As communities across California have considered their own measures to give tenants grace periods, landlord groups have argued it amounts to an unlawful taking of property.

There must be consideration for small rental property owners who have gone months without the rent and have a mortgage and expenses to pay, Debra Carlton, lobbyist for the California Apartment Association, said in an email.

The group is a powerful force at the state Capitol. It backs SB1410 by Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, which would create a taxpayer-financed fund to cover at least 80% of the rent that a tenant could not afford because of the pandemic, for up to seven months, if the landlord forgives the rest.

Another renter relief measure, AB828, by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would freeze evictions and allow courts to set up repayment plans.

Brian Augusta, director of the Rural Housing Project at the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, said those bills put too much onus on renters to seek help and give landlords veto power. His organization is sponsoring Chius measure.

We need to provide this baseline protection that ensures people cant be evicted, Augusta said.

That would buy more time for the Legislature to figure out a financial solution, he added.

Senate leaders have floated a proposal to give landlords tax credits to forgive the rent of tenants who cannot pay because of financial hardships related to the coronavirus, but it has not been formally introduced yet. Other bills moving through the Legislature would allow property owners to push back their mortgage payments and request an emergency reassessment of their property taxes.

Augusta said its in landlords interest to keep their tenants housed and stable, so they can eventually earn enough to pay back their missed rent. Evicting them, he said, is not going to put money in anyones pocket.

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff
Surge in secure access sales supports research bellwether for long-term workplace flexibility, and increased hybrid IT application infrastructure capacity for WFH workloads and cloud services

SINGAPORE, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pulse Secure , the leading provider of Zero Trust Secure Access solutions, today announced it is extending its offer to help customers support ongoing work-from-home (WFH) initiatives and bolster new online business services. The Pulse Cares program will be offered through Sept. 30, 2020, providing flexible licensing and enabling expedited deployment and capacity enhancement to support business continuity as organizations extend digital workplace capabilities in the wake of the COVID-19 global health crisis.



The Pulse Cares program is designed to expedite sales and service response to ensure customer business resiliency. Since being introduced earlier this year, Pulse Secure has provided temporary licenses to over 1,500 enterprise accounts that needed immediate support to eliminate deployment delay during their procurement of permanent licenses.

Companies are accelerating digital offerings to offset the economic impact on their business due to the pandemic. According to an upcoming Enterprise Management Associates Application Delivery Infrastructure for Cloud-Forward Enterprises report, 40% of organizations needed to increase their application infrastructure to support increased WFH workloads. Additionally, 35% of organizations have invested in more automation, and have added more public cloud services to support COVID-19 WFH transition.

Enterprises are experiencing significantly greater workload traffic during this global health crisis, requiring IT organizations to increase their application performance to support demand and to review their delivery infrastructure for scalability and resiliency, said Shamus McGillicuddy, Research Director at Enterprise Management Associates. Advanced Application Delivery Controller solutions that offer virtual and cloud management flexibility, such as those from Pulse Secure, can help organizations to scale rapidly while gaining greater cost efficiencies.

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As such, the Pulse Cares program will now offer organizations Pulse vADC temporary licenses for up to a 90-day duration to enable enterprises to increase application performance for WFH productivity and the launch of new online applications and online services.

I am proud at how our company and partners have locked arms to support our customers in their hour of need and helped them with their business continuity and productivity needs. We remain committed to serving our communities, employees and customers as they navigate these challenging times, said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, chief executive officer at Pulse Secure. Our Secure Access solutions are increasingly more relevant to customers as they adapt to new workstyle initiatives and advance their digital and hybrid IT transformation.

Massive Increase in Sales YTD in 2020 to Support Global Remote Work Shift

Pulse Secure experienced tremendous sales growth aligned to helping thousands of customers maintain business continuity and shift millions of employees to work from home due to COVID-19  ensuring greater productivity and security. From January through April 2020, Pulse Secure:

Sold millions of end user licenses of its popular secure remote access solution, Pulse Connect Secure . This represents nearly 250% growth over the annual user licenses purchased in 2019.

Added over 350 new customers to an install base of more than 24,000 enterprises and service providers and 20 million users.

While all regions expanded business, Pulse Secure increased licensing in the Asia Pacific region by 300% over previous year.

Expanded their subscription business by more than 10 times that purchased in 2019.

Pulse Connect Secure has provided the technology means to allow our employees to access corporate resources from any location and at any time securely with a computer or mobile phone, without leaving home, said Leo Liu, Chief Technology Officer, APAC, Dentsu Aegis Network. The ability to grant such a working model option to our employees is critical at this juncture, as it not only serves as a precautionary measure against infection, but also ensures our business is operating as usual, without any disruption to our customers.

Remote Work from Home Flexibility Becoming a Long-term Trend

Research shows a shift to more flexible and permanent remote workplace as a long-term trend that will change the way we all live and work in future. According to the 2020 Remote WFH Cybersecurity Report , produced by Cybersecurity Insiders, 84% of organizations are likely to continue with increased WFH capacity and 54% of organizations plan to accelerate user workflows and apps to cloud-based applications.

Like other companies faced with the crisis, we mobilized our efforts to ensure business continuity, and thanks to Pulse Secure, we were able to rapidly roll out our secure remote access capabilities and capacities to our employees, said Bharath Reddy Guddeti, Vice President of IT at Flipkart Private Limited.

Pulse Secure also saw an increase in virtual and cloud appliance sales related to offering rapid and flexible deployment options for remote and work from home access expansion. From January to through April 2020, more than 3,100 new Pulse Secure Appliances were purchased, with over 40% of the appliances being virtual or cloud based.

Pulse Application Delivery Controller (vADC) provides enterprise extensible virtual and cloud application traffic management and availability to ensure app responsiveness and resiliency; including Optimal Gateway Selection across multiple geographic Pulse Connect Secure clusters.

COVID-19 forced our business to rethink how our workforce could be positioned to continue business while maintaining the necessary safety precautions. Pulse Secure provided the answer with the flexibility we needed to enable a seamless transition from "office" to "work from home", said Scott Kollar, senior director of infrastructure shared services at Essilor Group.

Customers can explore vADC with Optimal Gateway Selection technology by visiting Try Now at https://www.pulsesecure.net/trynow/ogs/ .

To sign up for the extended Pulse Cares program, please visit: https://www.pulsesecure.net/pulse-cares/ .

TWEET THIS: Pulse Secure Extends Pulse Cares Program to Assist Shift To New Remote Workstyle and Digital Business Acceleration #PulseSecure # Pulse Cares #Work-From-Home #COVID #SecureAccess #ZeroTrust #Security #ADC

About Pulse Secure

Pulse Secure provides easy, comprehensive software-driven Secure Access solutions for people, devices, things and services that improve visibility, protection and productivity for our customers. Our suites uniquely integrate cloud, mobile, application and network access to enable hybrid IT in a Zero Trust world. Over 24,000 enterprises and service providers across every vertical entrust Pulse Secure to empower their mobile workforce to securely access applications and information in the data center and cloud while ensuring business compliance. Learn more at www.pulsesecure.net

Follow @PulseSecure on Twitter or visit us on LinkedIn and Facebook .

Media Contact:



Tony Tan

Autonomy for Pulse Secure

tony@autonomy.marketing

+65 6570 9139
Two fighters from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps raped a young girl before fleeing to Deir ez-Zor, as the victims family remained silent writes Baladi News.

Two fighters from Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps raped a 10-year-old girl in the city of al-Mayadeen in rural eastern Deir ez-Zor.

Nahar Media, a news site centered on eastern Syria, reported that two fighters, Wael Abu Wafed and Uday Shalash from al-Mayadeen, who were members of the Revolutionary Guard, committed the crime.

The site added that the two men fled towards Deir ez-Zor city while the girls relatives remained silent about the crime, as the two fighters were part of the Iranian militia.

According to the news site, a woman in Deir ez-Zor city faced sexual harassment in the al-Joura neighborhood before residents intervened and removed her from the situation.

In areas under the control of Syrian regime forces, there is frequent sexual harassment of girls by fighters from the Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah. Residents have remained silent about it for fear of killing or arrest, amid the absence of any role for the regime or security institutions in prosecuting the militias and holding them accountable for sexual crimes.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
[June 10, 2020] Codafication's Virtual Assist Now Available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

BRISBANE, Australia, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Codafication, a software start-up that empowers enterprises to digitally transform at scale, today announced the availability of its flagship product Virtual Assist in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace . The online store provides applications and services for use on Microsoft Azure. Codafication customers can now take advantage of the productive and trusted Azure cloud platform, with streamlined deployment and management. In response to the global pandemic, Codafication is helping organisations to rapidly digitalise their operations, connected supply chains, and distributed workforces. Codafication's virtual collaboration tool, Virtual Assist, is being rapidly adopted by Australia's leading insurers, brokers, utilities, facility managers, and more. Virtual Assist allows teams to see what is happening on-site in real-time with secure, high-definition video streaming. Teams can instantly connect with remote customers or team members to provide help, assess damage, verfy work, or complete site inspections, all without leaving their desk. Unlike traditional video streaming solutions, Virtual Assist is equipped with enterprise-grade data security and does not require a frustrating app download or login to connect.



"We're excited to make it even simpler for organisations to embrace digital transformation by making our software available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace," said Daniel Sandaver, Managing Director at Codafication. "We're helping organisations integrate Virtual Assist in as little as a couple of hours, so they can provide swift and safe services for their clients. For many industries, Virtual Assist has made it possible for them to continue operating with a distributed workforce." Mr Sandaver said that Virtual Assist is driving optimal customer outcomes amidst the challenges created by COVID-19 and beyond. Virtual Assist consistently achieves a Customer Satisfaction Score above 9/10 and can reduce the insurance claim lifecycle by up to 2 weeks.

"Through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure," said Sajan Parihar, Senior Director, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp. "We're happy to welcome Codafication's solutions to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem." The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. The Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use. Learn more about Virtual Assist in the Azure Marketplace. About Codafication: Codafication is a globally awarded digital services and software development company focused on cloud-native solutions. Based in Brisbane, Australia, they currently service water utilities, Tier 1 and 2 insurance companies, global brokerage firms, their related supply chains, and more. Codafication empowers clients to save time and money through cloud-based software that makes the world simpler. Their innovative solutions are secure, scalable, and industry-agnostic. [ENDS] SOURCE Codafication

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Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - Japan Tuesday gave Tunisia 500 million Yen for the acquisition of medical equipment to fight against the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), a statement issued by the Tunisian ministry of foreign affairs here said
Maybe it sounds like a broken record, he said. But China is such a big player in this space, in such a negative way, that its hard to overlook. And theyre an exporter of their ways and their technology. If they werent an exporter, if they just did it to their own people, which is terrible in and of itself  but thats one you just really cant take your eyes off of.
Lancashire Holdings Ltd. has completed an equity capital raise of approximately 277 million (US$352 million) through the placement of new common shares.

The Lloyds insurer said it intends to use the proceeds of the placing to fund organic growth and take advantage of rate rises that the company is currently seeing across the majority of its business lines.

The insurer said its long-term strategy is to deploy more capital into hardening markets, where prices have strengthened due to market capital constraints, while lowering the amount of capital it deploys in softer markets, where pricing is weaker due to an over-supply of risk capital.

Lancashires capital raise follows on heels of other insurers in the Lloyds market, including Beazley and Hiscox, which raised money last month.

Lancashire explained that the recent COVID-19 pandemic has generated re/insurance market losses in terms of claims and the negative impact on the investment markets. As a result, there has been a retrenchment in re/insurance market risk capital and capacity, which has led recently to continued rate increases in many of the Lancashires core insurance segments.

For example, the company has seen, to date, rate rises of 20%-30% for June 1 renewals in the Florida property catastrophe portfolio, said Lancashire, which expects the momentum of rising rates to continue in this and other classes of business across its portfolio during the rest of this year and throughout 2021.

Whilst Lancashire remains strongly capitalized and has sufficient capital headroom to take some advantage of the current rate momentum, the rapid increase in rates and dislocation in reinsurance and retrocession markets that are currently being witnessed imply a return to a traditional hard market over the next six to 12 months, the company continued.

The share placement and resulting increase in capital will allow Lancashire to take full advantage of this market opportunity, if it

develops in the way Lancashire considers likely.

A total of 39.6 million new common shares were placed at a price of 700 pence per share, raising approximately 277 million. The placing price represents a discount of 3.6% to the closing share price of 726 pence on June 9. 2020. (On June 9, when it announced the capital raise, Lancashire estimated that it would raise gross proceeds of approximately 287 million, or approximately US$365 million).

Further, the placing shares amount to approximately 19.5% of the existing issued common share capital of the company prior to the placing.

Related:

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- Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe has reproached Akufo-Addo for what he believes to be autocracy and dictatorship under his administration

- According to him, that could plunge the country into chaos

- He added that the true character of the President, as a human rights lawyer, must be brought to the fore to address negative issues

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, a founding member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has reproached President Akufo-Addo for what he believes to be autocracy and dictatorship under his administration.

According to him, the worrying incidents that happen under Akufo-Addo could possibly plunge the country into chaos.

A report filed by Kasapa FM that quoted Nyaho-Tamakloe stated that there is no doubt that there is political tension in the country.

Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe Source: UGC

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Voters' registration exercise pilot suspended in Western Region as BVR machine fails

As a founding member of the NPP, a party whose philosophy is underpinned by democratic principles, I am deeply worried about what is happening in our dear country, he said.

He added that the true character of the president, as a human rights lawyer, must be brought to the fore.

This, he said could help address the negative issues that continue to haunt the good conscience of Ghanaians.

READ ALSO: Parliament gives EC go-ahead to use Ghana Card, Passport for identification for new register

In other news, Ghana's Parliament is set to come to an agreement to allow the Electoral Commission to use the Ghana Card and Passports as the means of identification for the new voters' roll.

In a 102 against a 96 decision in favor of the amendment of the Constitutional Instrument, the EC has been given the go-ahead to begin the compilation of the voters' register on June 30.

This vote also goes to say the existing voters' ID will not be valid and allowed as a means of identification to register for the new voters' register.

READ ALSO: Give reasons why old voters ID is not part of identification for new register - Supreme Court to EC

Ghanaian female accounting graduate and mushroom farmer recounts her experience | #Yencomgh

Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Yesterday (June 11), an ordinary African American, George Floyd was transformed to an icon of revulsion against American apartheid and systematic injustice targeted at blacks and other minorities in the so called God`s own land and a nation that prides itself as the bastion of democracy and freedom. His death at the knee of a white policeman on May 25 caused international outcry that reverberated in every corner of the globe. His funeral which was broadcasted for more than three hours by many international broadcasters is the type yet to be equaled with similar respect given to former monarchs and presidents.

The world view of United States of America has changed and the country can no longer pull wools over the eyes of other nations as to its claim of democracy, world policeman, the melting pot of the world and with the disdainful words on its currency `In God We Trust`. It is only those from outer space can believe American moral authority to pontificate to others about the fine grains of democracy. At best, America is now seen in the prism of a prostitute preaching morals.

The history of America`s origin is rooted in the political and religious dissenters in Europe who wanted to exploit the opportunities in the New World. Thus Europe was happy to do away with these social and political deviants. America was a virgin land waiting to be exploited for its rich resources. The Europeans met the Red Indians, the original owners of the land. Some of the Red Indians were exterminated through massacre, alcohols and those that remained were put in the reservations under the misguided veneer not to pollute their culture. The Africans were unwilling immigrants to America via the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Despite the abolition of the slave trade, African Americans remained the butt of dirty jokes and so treated in all spheres of life. Black Americans did not get quality education and were discriminated against in the civil service, health care and political spheres.

It was this systematic injustice that galvanized Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr to press for racial equality and freedom. His famous speech ` I have a Dream` shocked the very foundation of the American Society. The American government led by cerebral John F Kennedy and later Lyndon B Johnson were simply confused about the King phenomenon. However, enemies of progress cut short the life of King in 1968 and that witnessed massive protests by black people. Few concessions were given to blacks but the whole system remained skewed against the blacks. King Jnr was given national honour of public holiday on January 15 against the racist protestation of President Ronald Reagan. I am going do this memory lane so that you can understand the socio-milieu that gave birth to George Floyd and the white police man that killed him.

The truth of the matter is that the American system is a fraud. The so called melting pot is meant to serve the interest of the whites, another echo of Aryan superiority claim of Adolf Hitler. True that Obama, a black man was elected the president of the States and shattered the political glass ceiling. What such commentators and political scholars failed to realize is that Obama is not a descendant of former freed slave but of Kenya ancestry. American claim to democracy is hollow and spurious. It was the American government that annexed a large chunk of Mexico turning it into three states. The Americans were happy to make Cuba, a haven of prostitution and drugs for their wealthy citizens. That is why till death; Fidel Castro was seen as American sworn foe. What of Panama and forceful arrest of Manuel Noriega? What of the invasion of Iraqi and the search for chemical weapons by the Bush administration? Look at the crisis that is Libya today, the Americans are responsible. The list is endless and Amnesty International, the so called human rights group does not see anything wrong with that.

America must look at the mirror and correct the scarecrow image. Black Americans suffer from police brutality, economic deprivation and racial injustice that found expression in poverty and lack of education. Joe Biden, the former vice president and presidential candidate for November election made a plea to end the racial injustice. Hear Biden: Now is time for racial justice. We must not turn away. We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul`.

George W Bush, a former president was more emphatic about the American tragedy. Said Bush: `It remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young American men are harassed and threatened in their own country. This tragedy- in a long series of similar tragedies raises a long overdue question: How do we end systematic racism in our society? It is time for America to examine our tragic failures`. It is indeed a task before every American of all political hues, the United Nations and Amnesty International to address these issues and truly make America, a truly democratic nation. That remains the best legacy for King Jnr , George Floyd and other martyrs in the struggle for equality and freedom.

Julius Oweh, a journalist, writes from Asaba, Delta State. 08037768392
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The European Commission, after the approval by the IMF Executive Board of a new Stand-By Arrangement for Ukraine on the night of June 10, has provided Kyiv with EUR 500 million in the framework of the fourth macro-financial assistance, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal has said.

"We are grateful to the EU for the positive assessment of the process of implementing reforms in Ukraine. The funds received will strengthen the economy against the backdrop of the global crisis," he said on Twitter.

Earlier that day, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko noted that the availability of the new IMF program opens up opportunities for the government to receive funding from other partners.

"In particular, from the World Bank according to the formula $700 million plus $300 million, macro-financial assistance from the EU in the amount of EUR 1.7 billion (EUR 500 million plus EUR 1.2 billion)," the minister said.

After the allocation of the indicated EUR 500 million by the European Commission, the total EU assistance to Ukraine in the form of macro-financial assistance loans has reached EUR 3.8 billion since 2014. This is the largest amount of macro-financial assistance that the EU has allocated to any one partner country.
Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan has asked the National Democratic Congress to send their grievances about the Electoral Commission (EC) to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, popularly called NATO.



The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has vehemently registered their displeasure with the posture of the Electoral Commission on the compilation of a new voters' register.



The party leadership and members have dragged the Commission to the Supreme Court to seek clarifications whether or not the Commission is acting according to their constitutional mandate and also for the court to direct the EC to include the old Voter's ID card.



The NDC is also said to have petitioned the United Nations and ECOWAS about the conduct of the electoral management body as they accuse the Commission of planning to rig the 2020 elections for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the governing New Patriotic Party.



Addressing the issue on Peace FM's Wednesday edition of ''Kokrokoo'', Kwamena Duncan held that the NDC petitioning the UN and ECOWAS will not change anything, particularly when Parliament has approved the EC's Constitutional Instrument (C.I) 126.



Peace FM's Parliamentary correspondent, Emmanuel Akorli, noted that Parliament, by a majority decision, approved the report of the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation on the Public Elections (Registration of Voters) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (C. I 126) to allow the Instrument to come into force after 21 sitting days of Parliament which matured on Wednesday, 10th June 2020, following the laying of the C.I 126 before Parliament on 31st March 2020.



Ninety-two (92) members voted against the adoption of the committee's report while 106 members of the Majority side of the House voted in support of the C.I.



''It gives legal backing to the plans by the EC to compile a new registration of voters. By C.I 126, the Electoral Commission is excluding or prohibiting the use of a driver's license or the existing voter identification card as evidence of identity in the registration of a voter as contained in the existing Constitutional Instrument ( C.I 91 ) and allow the use of Ghana Card issued by the NIA and passport for registration as a voter''.



In view of this, Kwamena Duncan ridiculed the NDC's petition before the UN and ECOWAS asking ''have they sent some to NATO?''



''They should sent some to NATO...I'm not surprised that they have gone as far as to the United Nations. That's all good but eventually, it is the law. If you go to the United Nations, if you go to the moon...wherever you go, it's all the law. And the United Nations is not only in America, they have their representatives here. All the embassies are following proceedings in the country. Likely, for us, all the representatives that they have written those copious letters to them attend all the meetings, they know what is going on. So, it's not going to the United Nations that will prove anything, it is the law. Abide by the law. You're not above the law'', he emphasized.









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.

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SANTA FE  New Mexico State Police officials are investigating an officer-involved shooting that took place late Tuesday at a residence off the west frontage road of U.S. 84/285 north of Santa Fe.

Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office deputies were dispatched to the home around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday in response to a domestic dispute, according to a news release. Deputies were told that a man had become irate with a family member and armed himself with two knives inside the home.

On arrival, deputies contacted the man, who still held the knives.

At some point during the encounter, a Santa Fe County deputy fired his duty weapon at the male, striking him, according to State Police.

Deputies provided aid to the man until an ambulance arrived and took him to a hospital. He was still in the intensive care unit at the hospital late Wednesday afternoon, according to State Police. The deputies were not hurt.

State Police officials have not released the name of the deputy or the man who was shot.

A Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office spokesman said the deputy who fired his weapon has been placed on standard administrative leave pending the outcome of the State Police investigation.

This is the second officer-involved shooting in the Santa Fe area in three days.

State Police officials are also investigating an incident that took place Sunday night in the parking lot of the Big R farm and ranch retail store on St. Michaels Drive. Police say two Santa Fe police officers fired their duty weapons at a man who allegedly was moving aggressively toward them while swinging a machete. By then, the suspect, who was confronted by store personnel for shoplifting, had already stabbed the store manager and an employee with the machete, striking one in the face and the other in the arm.

One of the victims in that incident had to undergo surgery. The suspect was treated at a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening.
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have led to a record crash in emissions. But it will be emission levels during the recovery--in the months and years after the pandemic recedes--that matter most for how global warming plays out, according to a new Nature commentary from researchers at the University of California San Diego.

While the skies have been noticeably cleaner, countries like the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and others have recently relaxed laws controlling pollution and vehicle energy efficiency standards.

"This trend is worrisome because policy decisions being made now about how to save economies will determine how much CO2 enters the atmosphere over the coming decade," said Ryan Hanna, lead author of the Nature piece and assistant research scientist at UC San Diego.

Some economies are already ticking upward, and so too emissions. Coal consumption in China, for example, has already returned to pre-pandemic levels.

History shows that recoveries can spur green or dirty industrial turning points

Key in determining post-pandemic emissions is how governments choose to spend stimulus monies--whether they use it to prop up fossil fuel incumbents or bolster clean energy transitions already underway, according to Hanna and co-authors David Victor, professor of international relations at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy, and Yangyang Xu, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University.

Economic shocks, the authors note, can be critical industrial turning points. Past shocks have led to both increases and decreases in the growth of CO2 emissions. After the 1998 Asian financial crisis, emissions doubled largely due to growth of China's heavy manufacturing and exports, all fueled by coal. By contrast, after the global financial crash of 2008, emissions growth halved over the next decade, aided by stimulus for green technologies--up to $530 billion in 2020 USD, or 15 percent of the total global stimulus. That's promising as it shows that structural change and lower emissions are possible if governments provide support.

Whether the coming recovery is green or dirty will have an outsized effect on climate. According to the authors' analysis, this year's crash in emissions, by itself, would lead to levels of atmospheric CO2 in 2050 about 10 PPM lower than the trajectory the world was on before the pandemic. By comparison, whether the recovery is green or dirty amounts to a difference of 19 PPM in the atmosphere by 2050--nearly double the impact on the climate.

Ensuring a green recovery will require government action. Yet, government responses have so far been mixed. The European Union and South Korea remain largely committed to their respective "Green New Deals," while other governments are falling short.

The Trump Administration in March rolled back U.S. auto fuel economy rules, committing the nation to higher transport emissions--now the largest source of warming gases in the U.S. In the same month, China authorized more coal power plants than it did in all of 2019.

Indeed, many governments have signaled a narrow focus on immediate concerns of the pandemic, such as securing health, jobs and the economy, rather than protecting the planet.

That's bad news for planetary warming. As the authors note, meeting the goals of the Paris agreement--limiting warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels--would require cutting emissions by an amount similar to that delivered by the current economic catastrophe every year for the next decade.

Charting a course that protects both jobs and the climate

How do you align the public's urgent needs with the need to also limit warming? "Political leaders--and climate activists who want to help them succeed--should filter policy actions for the climate by what's politically viable," said Hanna. "In short, that means coming up with projects that deliver jobs and revenues quickly."

Investing in sectors like renewables, energy efficiency and preserving the existing feat of zero emission nuclear plants can set the economy on track and deepen cuts to future emissions. Bolstering these sectors can deliver and save hundreds of thousands of jobs.

At the start of this year, more than 250,000 people worked in solar energy in the U.S. The pandemic has since wiped out five years of job growth in that sector -- jobs that could return quickly if credible investment incentives were in place.

Investing in energy efficiency and infrastructure construction, such as erecting power lines and conducting energy retrofits for buildings and public transportation, is another large potential employer.

"The trillions devoted to stimulus, so far, have been about stabilizing economies and workers," said Victor. "With a fresh focus that looks further into the future, the next waves of spending must also help to protect the climate."

The EU Green Deal as a model for stimulus

Hanna, Victor and Xu write, "The European Green Deal is a good model for stimulus packages. It is a massive, 1-trillion (U.S. $1.1-trillion) decade-long investment plan that combines industrial growth with deep decarbonization and efficiency and has maintained political support throughout the pandemic."

Existing firms will need to be involved in a green recovery because they are ready to restart, the authors recommend. And a savvy political strategy would isolate only those companies whose actions egregiously undermine climate goals, such as conventional coal, and would ensure their workers are treated justly and retrained in new areas of employment.

The authors also recommend a sector by sector approach to decarbonizing the economy, as the policies needed to rein in the largest emitters in each sector differ.

"On our current path, emissions are likely to tick upwards, as they have after each recession since the first oil shock of the early 1970s," said Victor. "The historic drop in recent months was too hard won to be so easily lost."

###

To read the full Nature piece, go to the Nature website.
The board works in tandem with the Department of Veterans' Services, veteran service organizations and individuals across the greater NYC area, focusing on the issues facing veterans and their families. In addition, the board advises the Commissioner of Veterans' Services on matters regarding veterans, ensuring open lines of communication between the veteran community and the city.

A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Mercedes served on active duty for nine years as an administrative and legal officer. She rose to the rank of Captain, deploying to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012. During her time as a Marine, Mercedes was stationed in multiple locations including Virginia, North Carolina, Japan, California and New York, before separating from the service and remaining in NYC, with the goal of making a difference in the veteran community as a civilian.

"As a veteran-owned business, we are very passionate about supporting the veteran community," said Bob Jones, President of AVI, U.S. Air Force veteran and Vietnam Prisoner of War. "AmeriVet is absolutely thrilled that Mercedes has been recognized in this capacity; she is proven a leader in the veteran community and will truly be an asset to the board."

Mercedes has been a key player at AmeriVet since joining the firm nearly two years ago. In 2019, she secured partnerships with 16 different organizations in support of veterans, including an event with the Gary Sinise Foundation, which had a special focus on Gold Star families  those who have lost a family member during active duty. In addition, she played an integral role in hiring five veteran full-time employees and eight veteran interns, in support of AmeriVet's goal of hiring 50% veterans.

Mercedes will serve on the NYC Veteran Advisory Board for three years, with a potential for reappointment following her term.

About AmeriVet Securities, Inc.

AmeriVet Securities, Inc., is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business broker-dealer that specializes in Capital Markets, Public Finance, Institutional Agency Trading, Loan Sales and Investment Banking. Established in 1994, AmeriVet is dedicated to providing the highest level of service in the industry, while providing meaningful employment opportunities to post 9/11 military veterans.

Contact

Jessica Borriello

[email protected]

SOURCE AmeriVet Securities, Inc.
Finance Minister Conor Murphy has tweeted a "clarification" of his claim the Northern Ireland coronavirus lockdown was preventable had the health service been better funded.

In an interview on Wednesday morning, the Sinn Fein MLA said Northern Ireland would not have had to go into lockdown if the health service had been more "robust" and not suffered through years of austerity.

That afternoon he tweeted saying the lockdown was "absolutely necessary" to save lives. He did not say if he still felt additional funding for the health service would have prevented the introduction of the draconian measures.

The UUP described his "clarification" as "feeble".

MLA Alan Chambers said it made "the situation worse because he singularly fails to explain why he said what he said in trying to blame the UK Government for lockdown and he has failed to retract the comments he made.

"Conor Murphy's own party leader said, on more than one occasion, that we should be following the World Health Organisation`s advice on lockdown, so his failure to retract his original comments run directly counter to what they were saying. More people being infected would have meant more deaths.

Austerity policies have severely impacted on the capacity of Health and Social Care services, here and elsewhere, to respond to the Covid 19 pandemic. For clarity, lockdown has been absolutely necessary to save lives.  Conor Murphy (@conormurphysf) June 10, 2020

The Health Minister Robin Swann dismissed Mr Murphy's suggestion better funding for his department over the years could have avoided a lockdown.

The UUP MLA said no health service could have coped with the outbreak no matter how well it was funded and the measures imposed were based on similar responses from around the world.

Read More

The impact of the lockdown has been immense in Northern Ireland with the economy suffering a major shock with all sectors in a slump. The rate of decline experienced has been the worst in all the UK.

Mr Murphy told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster: "The fact we had to go into lockdown is because our health service has suffered from decades of under investment."

Read More

He added: "If we had a very robust health service that was well-resourced then it would have been fit to cope with the pandemic.

"The reason we had to go into lockdown - and people should understand this - is because the health service has been under resourced through austerity cuts for many, many years.

"So any attempt to restructure the health service is a big challenge as we still suffer from nine years of austerity."

Read More

Later in a tweet he said: "Austerity policies have severely impacted on the capacity of Health and Social Care services, here and elsewhere, to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. For clarity, lockdown has been absolutely necessary to save lives."

Health minister Robin Swann said he agreed his department was under resourced but said the only way to manage the spread of the infection in NI was to go into lockdown.

He said he took exception to Mr Murphy's claim they could have coped better had the funds been available.

"It was not because our health service was not fit to cope. No health service was fit to cope.

"When we look at the pictures coming out of Italy at the time and New York - which is supposed to be world leading - no health service could have kept going in its day-to-day operations and coped with Covid at the same time."

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He added: "Our health service has been under resourced and is still under resourced. It's not [the reason NI went into lockdown].

"The reason we went into lockdown was how we were to manage the spread of Covid-19 and that was the method that was used across the world.

"No health service could have coped."

The Finance Minister was called to clarify his remarks, with SDLP MLA Matthew O'Toole describing them as "bizarre and inexplicable".

Years of austerity have undoubtedly degraded the quality of our public services and have placed immense pressure on hard-worked public servants," he said.

But there is, to my knowledge, no evidence suggesting that the reason for the Covid-19 lockdown is the financing of our health service.

"Its baffling, therefore, that the Minister in charge of financing our response to the Covid-19 pandemic, seems to have a view at odds with most other countries in Europe and the scientific community.

"Public messaging during a health crisis is important and, on this occasion, it seems to have gone wrong again."

Read More

Mr Swann has in the past blamed Stormont for running down the health system to an extent a "scramble" was necessary to find the capacity to cope with the virus.

Vital services have been underfunded, short-term decisions were preferred over long-term planning, difficult choices were ducked, staff were left to feel unappreciated, social care was particularly neglected, Mr Swann told MLAs in May.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill, a former health minister, responded by accusing the Conservative government of having stripped the Executive of funding over 10 years.

The impact thats had on our health service and our public services are well rehearsed and well known to everybody. Even the fact and the condition that we were in as a health service to be able to respond to Covid-19 was greatly diminished because of the impact of Tory austerity over many, many years, she said.
Covid-19 outbreaks have been worse in areas with major airports and large numbers of travellers passing through them, according to a global report.

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said the spread of the disease, which has killed more than 50,000 people in Britain, was 'highly correlated' with air travel.

It claimed the UK was a prime example of where constant flights, both domestic and international, had 'facilitated contagion'.

Ministers have throughout the crisis refused to shut the borders to travellers, opting instead only to advise people not to travel, which in turn hit airlines so hard they had to stop flights because they were losing money.

Other countries hit by coronavirus meanwhile, including China and Italy, closed their borders to all international visitors and sent them home or locked them in.

The public called for international travel to stop early on in the outbreak but officials refused and Government documents have since revealed it was because so many people in the UK already had the virus.

A rule that came into place this week now requires all people travelling into Britain to self-isolate for two weeks, while there has been talk of 'air bridges' to popular tourist destinations to allow people to travel freely.

Britain has been one of the worst-hit nations in the world during the pandemic, with 290,000 people officially diagnosed and more than 40,000 confirmed dead. Only the US has had more cases and deaths, with Brazil and Russia recording more cases but not as many deaths  although Brazil will likely pass the UK within days.

A separate study by researchers at the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh estimated that most of the imported cases of coronavirus in Britain came from Spain, France and Italy, and that only a tiny fraction came from Asian countries, with just 0.08 per cent transmitted by people travelling from China (Study published on Virological.org)

Britain has not banned international flights at any point of the outbreak, instead advising people not to go abroad (Pictured: People passing through Heathrow Airport this week)

The IEP report showed that international travel hubs particularly badly hit by the coronavirus - including Milan, New York and London - had to almost completely stop people moving around in order to get on top their outbreaks

The IEP's Global Peace Index report said: 'The flow of air passengers across and within country borders has been a major contributor to the spread of the virus'.

A director at IEP, Serge Stroobants, said: 'The countries most impacted are countries that are really participating in global trade in the globalised world and the interconnected world.

'These are countries in which you will find a large airport hub, giving the potential to people to travel from one country to the other.

'That's why, for example, the region of Milan in Italy, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, London and New York, those big international hubs created more exchanges and more potential for the virus to grow.'

The UK Government's policies on air travel during the pandemic have been highly controversial.

Flights have been unrestricted and international arrivals have only been required to enter a 14-day quarantine since Monday, June 8.

When there was still a small number of coronavirus cases in the UK, there were calls for restrictions on flights from destinations deemed at high risk of the virus.

The Government insisted at the time there was no evidence that closing the borders would be an effective measure.

Air travel had to be drastically reduced worldwide to stop the virus from spreading. Experts said international travel had 'facilitated contagion'

STOPPING INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS CONSIDERED 'NOT A USEFUL MEASURE' IN MARCH In a paper dated March 22, the day before lockdown, scientists said stopping international flights in a bid to stop people bringing the coronavirus to the UK from abroad was 'not a useful measure'. There were so many people already infected in Britain that any imported cases would be drops in the ocean, the paper explained. It said: 'The initial view from SPI-M [the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, which reports to SAGE] is that given the current widescale transmission of COVID-19 within the UK, measures to stop imported cases would have negligible impact. This might change if the UK were to successfully contain the epidemic.' On the subject of 'hotspots' the SPI-M committee suggested that flights from Spain and Iran were probably the highest risk. Spain because of the sheer number of passengers - there were some 15,000 per day still arriving on weekday flights that week. And Iran because of the severity of the outbreak there - even though passenger numbers were low, there was a high chance some of them might have the illness. It said flights from countries like France, Italy and Germany were low-risk because they were going through the same experience as the UK and passenger numbers were already low because of their government and airline restrictions. Britain did not force flights to stop but told people not to travel abroad. Airlines took it upon themselves to stop most flights when passenger numbers dried up. Advertisement

It has since emerged that the reason officials refused to stop international flights into and out of the UK was that millions of people in Britain already had the virus.

Documents that were presented to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) in March showed stopping flights would not have protected the UK.

In a paper dated March 22, the day before Britain's lockdown, scientists said stopping international flights in a bid to stop people bringing the coronavirus to the UK from abroad was 'not a useful measure'.

There were so many people already infected in Britain that any imported cases would be drops in the ocean, the paper explained.

It said: 'The initial view from SPI-M [the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, which advises SAGE] is that given the current widescale transmission of Covid-19 within the UK, measures to stop imported cases would have negligible impact. This might change if the UK were to successfully contain the epidemic.'

On the subject of 'hotspots' the SPI-M committee suggested that flights from Spain and Iran were probably the highest risk.

Spain because of the sheer number of passengers - there were some 15,000 per day still arriving on weekday flights that week.

And Iran because of the severity of the outbreak there - even though passenger numbers were low, there was a high chance some of them might have the illness.

It said flights from countries like France, Italy and Germany were low-risk because they were going through the same experience as the UK and passenger numbers were already low because of their government and airline restrictions.

Britain did not force flights to stop but told people not to travel abroad. Airlines took it upon themselves to stop most flights when passenger numbers dried up.

As the country moves of lockdown air travel is now starting to return to something resembling normal in the UK.

Gatwick Airport will reopen its north terminal and extend its operating hours from Monday.

The West Sussex airport announced the measures as airlines scale up their flying programmes.

EasyJet, Wizz Air and Ryanair are among the carriers whose passengers will use the north terminal from Monday.

Since April 1, Gatwick has only opened its south terminal and flights have been scheduled between 2pm and 10pm, but this will be extended to between 6am and 10pm.

In 2019, Gatwick served more destinations than any other UK airport and saw 280,700 flights and 46.6million passengers use the international airport.

However in April this year, the airport had a total of just 305 aircraft movements, data from the Civil Aviation Authority showed.
BRISTOL, Va.  The Bristol, Tennessee man charged with second-degree murder in the death of a man in downtown Bristol on Sunday told police it was self defense and he thought he used a pencil rather than a knife in the stabbing, according to court documents.

Twenty-four-year-old Chandler Ryan Rutter was arrested Sunday afternoon in the death of William Kenneth Price, a 28-year-old Bristol, Virginia resident, who told police before he died that Rutter stabbed him, the documents state. The two were acquaintances, police said.

Witnesses said the two men fought outside the former Wells Fargo building at the corner of State and Moore streets, after which a wounded Price collapsed. Price, who was stabbed in the abdomen, was taken to Bristol Regional Medical Center, where he died, Bristol Virginia Police Detective Sgt. Steve Crawford said Monday.

Based on witness descriptions, police found and arrested Rutter a few blocks away.

Mr. Rutter said that Mr. Price was punching him so he used what he thinks was a pencil in a stabbing motion into Mr. Prices side, the arrest warrant states.

According to the warrant, when a Bristol Virginia Police sergeant arrived at the scene and asked Price who stabbed him, Price responded, Chandler Rutter.

Rutter is being held without bail at the Bristol Virginia Jail.

His arraignment was initially scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday morning, but the hearing was postponed because the defendant was being uncooperative that morning, according to an employee of the clerks office at the Bristol Virginia General Sessions Court.

Rutters hearing is now scheduled for 9 a.m. today.
As Indonesias overall virus caseload continues to rise, Jakarta has moved to restore normalcy by lifting some restrictions this week

A woman reacts as she is sprayed with disinfectant inside a chamber as a precaution against the new coronavirus outbreak before entering a shopping mall in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP)

Jakarta: Eva Rahmi Salama worries that authorities in Jakarta, Indonesias sprawling capital, are acting too soon to lift restrictions put in place two months ago to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Salama, who lives in Jakarta with her husband, has reason to be concerned. She saw firsthand the tremendous agony the virus can inflict when her mother and father both died from COVID-19 within two days of each other.

As Indonesias overall virus caseload continues to rise, Jakarta has moved to restore normalcy by lifting some restrictions this week, saying that the spread of the virus in the city of 11 million has slowed after peaking in mid-April. This has raised concerns among some, including Salama.

It seems that people are underestimating the virus now, she said.

Looking at Indonesias overall handling of the crisis, its easy to understand her skepticism.

While Indonesias neighbors scrambled early this year to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the government of the worlds fourth most populous nation insisted that everything was fine. Indonesias southern neighbor Australia and some fellow Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore took action as early as late January that included containment and tracing measures.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo acknowledged in March that his government had chosen to keep the public misinformed about the state of the coronavirus in the country. Indeed, we did not deliver certain information to the public because we did not want to stir panic, he said at the time.

Adding to the problems, Indonesia has one of the lowest rates of coronavirus testing in the world, with roughly 1,000 tests per million people, according to government figures  far behind neighboring Malaysia, which has a rate of over 19,000 per million. The United States is at around 63,000 per million, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

Indonesias virus caseload continues to climb rapidly. On Tuesday, the government reported 1,043 new cases, a single-day high for the country, which has confirmed over 33,000 infections in all. More than 1,900 people have died from the virus in Indonesia, the highest toll in Southeast Asia.

Jakarta itself has confirmed more than 8,300 cases and at least 533 deaths, the most in Indonesia. The city had roughly 3,400 new cases in both April and May, and has reported at least 1,037 new ones so far in June.

But even though Jakarta seems to have flattened the curve of the virus, other parts of Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people, are still seeing their curves rise, due largely to people traveling to these places from the capital.

East Java province  which, like Jakarta, is on Java island  has had the second-most confirmed cases in Indonesia, at over 6,500, including more than 500 deaths, and the numbers are still rising there, according to the governments COVID-19 Mitigation Task Force.

People from Jakarta traveled to East Java ... . That is why East Java suddenly became the next epicenter in Indonesia, said Pratiwi Sudarmono, a microbiology professor at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. I am sure that after Ramadan, many people from East Java went back to Jakarta. This can cause a second wave in Jakarta.

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan ended in late May in Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim-majority country.

Still, Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan has moved to reopen the city, which imposed large-scale social restrictions on April 10. According to the graphs, Jakarta is starting to be under control, he said.

Offices, restaurants and grocery stores in Jakarta reopened on Monday with only 50% of their employees and customers. Public transportation also resumed services. Last Friday, the citys worship facilities, including mosques, were allowed to reopen at half capacity and with social-distancing requirements in place.

Some shopping centers will reopen next week, while schools will remain closed.

Many experts, however, fear that the move to reopen may be premature, and that a second wave of the virus could hit the capital.

Countries including China and South Korea, whose tracing campaigns, testing and other social initiatives are far more robust than Indonesias, have experienced coronavirus relapses after lifting restrictions.

The second wave of COVID-19 potential here is high, Sudarmono said. This is because there is a lack of awareness and there is no clear plan.

Agus Pambagyo, a public policy analyst, said that even though many people have been hit financially by the restrictions in Jakarta, the government should be looking at other factors and increase its testing for the virus before reopening.

Because it is a pandemic, there should be scientific evidence that the virus is under control, Pambagyo said.

Salama, meanwhile, remains concerned about the situation in Jakarta, with the horrific memories of what happened to her family still vivid.

Salamas 68-year-old mother was hospitalized in Jakarta in March with typhus. She also had difficulty breathing, and was tested for the coronavirus at the familys request.

We were very suspicious my mother was infected by the coronavirus, said Salama, who is 42. But the nurses did not take it seriously.

After testing positive for the virus, Salamas mother was transferred to a COVID-19 hospital, where she died five days later. Salama and her two younger brothers never had a chance to say goodbye.

Two days later, the family got more tragic news: Their 70-year-old father, who had been hospitalized earlier because of a heart condition, had died on the same day the family received a positive COVID-19 test result for him.

In addition to losing her parents, Salamas 36-year-old brother also contracted the virus and was quarantined for nearly three months.

For Salama, relaxing restrictions in Jakarta has its pros and cons.

On one hand, it would allow her and her husband to continue their efforts to open a restaurant in the city after putting their plans on hold due to the virus outbreak. But she is not confident Jakarta is prepared to reopen, and worries that many people are not taking the coronavirus seriously enough.

I want people to know that it is not easy to recover from COVID-19, she said.
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Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 17:59 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddae928 1 National UGM,Gadjah-Mada-University,World-University-Ranking,top-300-world,Yogyakarta Free

Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM) has joined the ranks of the worlds top 300 universities, moving up 66 places to land in 254th position on the 2021 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, which was released on Wednesday.

It ranked 320th out of 1,000 universities last year.

The rise in ranking puts UGM in the lead of eight Indonesian universities that are listed.

University of Indonesia (UI) is ranked 305th, followed by the Bandung Institute of Indonesia (ITB) at 313th place.

Airlangga University is ranked between 521st and 530th, Bogor Agricultural University between 531st and 540th, the November 10 Institute of Technology between 751st and 800th and both Bina Nusantara University and Padjajaran University between 801st and 1,000th.

The QS World University Rankings evaluates six parameters to score university rankings, namely academic reputation, employer reputation, number of citations per faculty, faculty-students ratio and the proportion of foreign students and international faculty members.

UGMs rector Panut Mulyono expressed his gratitude over the universitys achievement.

Although a higher ranking is not our ultimate goal, this achievement is proof that UGM is able to compete globally, he said as quoted by the universitys website, ugm.ac.id.

UGMs quality control office head, Indra Wijaya Kusuma, said the upgrade would motivate the university and its faculty members to offer quality education to students.

We will keep improving our quality of education and other aspects in years to come as the competition is getting tighter, he said.

The United States' Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) claimed the number one spot. Meanwhile, the National University of Singapore is the top university in Asia at 11th place.
If someone arrives "from the red zone countries," they will undergo all procedures that are currently in place, namely an observation or self-isolation.

Ukraine's Chief Medical Officer, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Liashko has elaborated on rules that could be introduced for passengers in case of a full-fledged resumption of air traffic.

Speaking during an online briefing on Wednesday, he said that a regular meeting of the EU ministers dealing with air travel and tourism was held on June 5, following which "they decided that all air services within the EU countries will be resumed from June 15," an UNIAN correspondent reports.

According to Liashko, it was additionally decided the EU countries will resume flights with third countries from July 1, but on condition that the country from which the passenger arrives meets certain epidemiological criteria that are not yet approved at the EU level.

Read alsoHealth minister lists Ukrainian regions with most COVID-19 cases reported in past day

"But what we've learned in cooperation with our diplomats and epidemiologists from the EU countries, they consider the rate of 40 active cases per 100,000 population and count people who have a coronavirus disease at a given time and divide recoveries and deaths. As of today, this indicator is 33 per 100,000 people in Ukraine, i.e. Ukraine will be part of the list if the EU accepts the norm of 40 per 100,000," the official said.

Liashko said Ukraine was also considering such an opportunity.

"When we talk about the green and red lists, we want to introduce in Ukraine an indicator that will point out the number of active cases per 100,000 people," Liashko said.

According to him, in this case, those arriving from a country where the epidemiological situation is the same as in Ukraine or better "will enter the territory of Ukraine without observation, being able to freely move across the territory of Ukraine without isolation provided that they will have health insurance."

Liashko said that, if someone arrives "from the red zone countries," i.e. where the incidence is higher than in Ukraine, they will undergo all procedures that are currently in place, namely an observation or self-isolation.
As Kerry enters phase two of the easing of COVID-19 restrictions the scale of the virus' economic impact has been highlighted by the loss of almost 250 jobs at Fexco and the Jam cafe chain.

Last week Killorglin based financial technology giant Fexco sent shock-waves through the financial sector when it announced it was to shed 150 staff.

Fexco - which employs close to 1,000 staff in Ireland with the vast majority of these ion Kerry - has been rocked by the COVID-19 outbreak which has had a devastating impact on the firm's foreign exchange business.

In the same week the news that Jam cafes chain Kerry and Cork would not open their doors again also sent shock-waves through the towns of Kenmare and Killarney.

The company also has two cafes in Cork and its closure will lead to the loss of up to 90 jobs - the majority in Kenmare where both the cafe, bakery and food production outlet is based.

Fexco hopes to achieve its cut through a voluntary redundancy scheme which will see the Killorglin firm lay off almost 15 per cent of its Irish workforce.

Aside from its Killorglin headquarters the company also has offices in Cahersiveen and Dublin.

The cuts being sought by Fexco will relate to the company's Irish operations and will affect all areas of the business.

Further cuts to Fexco's 1,500 strong overseas workforce are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

CEO Denis McCarthy said cost cutting measures - including pay cuts - that were introduced at the outset of COVID-19 crisis had not been enough to protect the company from the virus' catastrophic impact on global tourism and travel.

He said he had taken the "difficult decision" with a "heavy heart" in order to secure the company's future.

"Early on in the crisis, rather than cutting jobs, we took steps to reduce costs through a three-month phase of graduated pay cuts. Unfortunately, we now need to reduce our cost base further to protect the business for the long term," Mr McCarthy said.

"Despite our efforts, we find ourselves in a position that I would have considered unthinkable just a few months ago," Mr McCarthy said.

"It's clear that the impact of Covid-19 will not be short-lived, and the economic consequences will be severe," Mr McCarthy said.

Just over a month before the Covid crisis Fexco opened a new research and development hub near Killorglin, which was supported by Kerry County Council through its property tax fund.

Cllr Michael Cahill said the job losses in Fexco are a 'hammer blow' to Kerry.

"Employment in Fexco is the life blood of the economy of all of Mid-Kerry and beyond. Families up and down this county are depending on receiving their income from Fexco and this news will come as a hammer blow" said Cllr Cahill.

Staff in Kenmare and Killarney at both Jam cafes have also been left reeling by the news of the closure of the hospitality business which has employed so many for almost 20 years. Many of the staff at the Kenmare cafe have been working there for many years and are devastated at the news.

Cllr Patrick Connor Scarteen said that towns like Kenmare rely on hospitality jobs.

"In a large urban area this might not be such a big blow but in a small area like Kenmare these jobs losses will have a huge impact on the town. It is sad for all involved, the staff and owner, James Mulchrone. With the Fexco news, that is almost 250 jobs in the Kenmare Municipal District and the first major job losses as a result of the Covid crisis," he added.
WASHINGTON  The Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as the Air Forces chief of staff, elevating a four-star general who is the first black man to hold the position and who recently spoke out about his experience with racism in America.

Vice President Mike Pence made a rare appearance on the Senate floor to preside over Browns confirmation, which was approved by a vote of 98-0, and President Donald Trump celebrated it on Twitter. It came a week after Brown released a video in which he spoke in starkly personal terms about his experience as a black man in America, his unequal treatment in the armed forces and the protests that have gripped the country after the killing of George Floyd in a confrontation with Minneapolis police officers.

Im thinking about how full I am with emotion not just for George Floyd, but the many African Americans that have suffered the same fate as George Floyd, Brown said in the video, an unusually public statement by a high-ranking military leader about a sensitive and politically charged issue.

Im thinking about protests in my country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, the equality expressed in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that I have sworn my adult life to support and defend. Im thinking about a history of racial issues and my own experiences that didnt always sing of liberty and equality.

The vote was a rare moment of unanimity in a deeply divided Senate, where lawmakers in both parties spent the day struggling to craft a response to the civic unrest that Brown addressed. Pence called the confirmation historic.

Trump took to Twitter before the vote to announce that it had already happened, and praised the Senate for approving my decision to name Brown.

A historic day for America! Trump wrote, calling the general a Patriot and Great Leader!

In the video released last week, Brown described his life as straddling two worlds, between the American ideals that he has defended with his life and his other reality as a black man subject to discrimination in his own country.

As he rose through the ranks in the Air Force, Brown said, he was often the only African American in my squadron and as a senior officer, the only African American in the room.

He recalled having his credentials questioned, when those of white pilots were not. He said he frequently felt pressure to perform without error to prove wrong those supervisors who expected less from him than from his white counterparts.

Rarely, Brown said, I had a mentor that looked like me.

Browns confirmation comes at a time when black commanders are underrepresented in the top ranks of the armed forces.

Of the 41 most senior commanders in the military  those with four-star rank in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard  only two are black: Brown and Gen. Michael X. Garrett, who leads the Armys Forces Command.

Brown was formerly the commander of the Pacific Air Forces, responsible for 46,000 airmen and operations spread over half the globe, including Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Alaska and Guam.

He graduated from the ROTC program at Texas Tech University and is a command pilot with more than 2,900 flying hours, including 130 combat hours.

Im thinking about the African Americans who went before me to make this opportunity possible, Brown said in the video. Im thinking about the immense expectations that come with this historic nomination, particularly through the lens of current events plaguing our nation.

He said his new role came with a heavy burden.

I cant fix centuries of racism in our country, nor can I fix decades of discrimination that may have impacted members of our Air Force, he said. Im thinking about how I can make improvements.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Photograph: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

A US teenager has been shot dead by local police in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in yet another shocking case of police abuse and brutality.

The 16-year-old victim  identified only as Alexander  was killed on Tuesday night after he went out to buy soda, according to media reports.

Details of the shooting remain unclear. News agency Quadratin said Alexander was shot at from a patrol car in an attack that injured a friend. The newspaper Reforma quoted a family member, who said Alexander was riding on a motorcycle with a 15-year-old boy at around 10.50pm and was chased by police.

They were in a petrol station buying a soda. They started to shoot, and because these 15- and 16-year-old boys were scared, they ran, a cousin, Dulce Darian, told Reforma.

They didnt give them the option to stop or take off their face masks. They simply started to shoot and they shot him in the head. Alexander died instantly because the police didnt want to give him first aid.

Prosecutors in Oaxaca have opened an investigation into the shooting in the town of Acatlan de Perez Figueroa, but provided no details, according to a brief statement.

The municipal government expressed regret on its Facebook page for the incident that occurred last night and said it had turned over evidence to state investigators.

But it also tried to pass off the shooting as an accident, saying it was not carried out in bad faith or to harm the community.

They also showed sly support for the police with the illegible hashtag: #Thehistoryofthe[police]forcespeaksforitself.

The municipalitys statement reflected a tendency for Mexican authorities to blame the victims of violence for the crimes and aggressions committed against them  including police brutality.

They want to incriminate Alexander to justify the vileness of their actions, tweeted Javier Valdivia, a native of Acatlan de Perez Figueroa.

Video uploaded to Twitter showed a woman presumed to be Alexanders mother shouting at the police: My son wasnt bad, he didnt smoke, he didnt drink, my son had a dream  Theyre not criminals, theyre kids. And Im not going to believe that these arseholes confused them [with someone else].

Story continues

Related: 'We'll disappear you': Mexican protesters recount terror of police abduction

Local press reports said Alexander was staying with his grandparents in the town where he was shot. Relatives say he was born in North Carolina to Mexican parents.

The killing comes just days after a wave of national indignation over the death of Giovanni Lopez, a construction worker in western Jalisco state, who was forcibly detained by municipal police for not wearing a mask and found dead the next day by his family.

Subsequent protests against police violence were themselves met by further police violence. About 80 people were seized by plain-clothed police officers on their way to a demonstration in the city of Guadalajar, and held for for hours. The victims said they were beaten, threatened with death, and eventually dumped in isolated areas.

Evidence collected by human rights groups suggested that security forces in Mexico are routinely responsible for abuse, torture, and extra-judicial killings.

Its really a volatile mix of a lack of training, an inability to attract quality people and a lack of oversight, said Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst with the International Crisis Group. Theres also an endemic culture of corruption and collusion.

With reporting from the Associated Press
New Delhi:

A consignment of 900 iPhones worth Rs 2.25 crore that was looted early this week has been recovered in South Delhi with arrest of two persons in this connection, said police.

The iPhones were looted on Tuesday, September 13, when Kalam Singh, a driver with Beetel Company, Okhla, was going to to deliver the consignment to Mudita Cargo Express in Dwarka.

When he reached near Rajokri Flyover, a gang of robbers attacked Singh with knife and injured him, said additional DCP-I (South) Nupur Prasad.

They kidnapped him and took control of the truck with the consignment of iPhones and later dumped him at the underpass of Dwarka Link Road, added the officer.

Accused Mehtab Alam and Arman were arrested yesterday, said additional DCP-I (South) Nupur Prasad. During the course of investigation, the crime scene was created and it was concluded the accused could have taken only three routes.

The CCTV footages of the three routes were scanned and the truck with the consignment was spotted in the CCTV footage on the route of Sector-E, Pocket-2, Vasant Kunj, said Prasad.

Later, Malkhan Singh, who used to provide drivers to the company told the police that two of his drivers, Bhola and Pradeep, had left the job two weeks ago, the officer said.

It was found that Bhola and Pradeep had followed the complainant on the day of the incident, she said. Acting on a tip-off, a raid was conducted yesterday at a house in Mahipalpur and Mehtab Alam, who is Bholas and Pradeeps accomplice, was arrested, the officer said.

Later, another accomplice Arman was also arrested and 98 cartons were recovered from his hideout at Bengali Basti, Rangpuri, the officer said. The police are on the look out for the remaining accused, said the officer.
Apollo Global Management and ICICI Bank Ltds private equity (PE) armICICI Ventures are ending their joint venture investment platform Aion Capital , as the New York-based PE firm plans to set up its own credit investment business in India and do bigger PE deals, said two people aware of the development.

The two had started Aion Capital in 2011 and raised $825 million for their first fund.

Apollo and ICICI are calling off the Aion JV. Last year, they were looking to raise a second fund under the JV. Those plans are cancelled now," one of the two people said on the condition of anonymity.

Utsav Baijal, a senior executive at the fund, will manage the existing funds portfolio and look at exiting the investments made by the fund, the person said.

Apollo will continue to make bigger private equity investments in India from its global fund, the person added.

AION, originally established in 2011 through an exclusive strategic advisory relationship between Apollo and ICICI Venture (I-Ven), has matured since its inception alongside the India private equity investment market. In light of such evolution, Apollo and I-Ven have jointly agreed to a revised format for their relationship as of April 1, 2020, said a spokesperson for ICICI Venture.

"With respect to AION Capital Partners Limited (AION I") investments, AION I will continue to be advised by Apollo affiliates with inputs from I-Ven until the end of the term of AION I, and I-Ven will continue to retain its rights, interests and obligations with respect thereto. Each of Apollo and I-Ven / ICICI are free to pursue future investment opportunities independently," the spokesperson added.

A spokesperson for Apollo Global said, Apollo has built a global platform and invests across credit, private equity and real assets. We have been in India across all asset classes for over 12 years and remain committed to India."

The Aion platform has made several investments in India, including an acquisition of GE Capitals commercial lending and leasing business in India, the takeover of bankrupt steelmaker Monnet Ispat and Energy along with the JSW group.

Apollo will join American peers KKR and Blackstone that have their own independent teams in India. In 2018, Apollo acquired JPMorgan Asset Managements $300-million real estate investments in India. As of 31 March, Apollo Globals assets under management stood at $315.5 billion.

The second person cited above said Apollo plans to set up its own credit platform in India. They are keen on credit deals in India including credit secondaries. They want to buy both distressed and performing loans," he said.

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[June 10, 2020] Randal M. Smith Promoted to Divisional President within Great American's Property and Casualty Group

Great American Insurance Group is pleased to announce the promotion of Randal M. Smith to Divisional President within its Trucking Division. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005536/en/ Randal M. Smith has been promoted to Divisional President within Great American's Trucking Division. (Photo: Business Wire) Mr. Smith first joined Great American in 1992. After leaving the company to co-found Transportation Specialists Insurance Agency, he rejoined Great American in 1999 within its Trucking Division.During his career at Great American, Mr. Smith has held numerous leadership roles in various functions, including product and business development, and dealer programs. He brings over 28 years of industry experience to the position, along with expertise in product development and management, distribution channel management and alternative risk transfer.



Mr. Smith graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and a Master of Business Administration. About Great American Insurance Group

Great American Insurance Group's roots go back to 1872 with the founding of its flagship company, Great American Insurance Company. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, the operations of Great American Insurance Group are engaged primarily in property and casualty insurance, focusing on specialty commercial products for businesses, and in the sale of traditional fixed and indexed annuities in the retail, financial institutions, broker-dealer and registered investment advisor markets. Great American Insurance Company has received an "A" (Excellent) or higher rating from the A.M. Best Company for more than 110 years (most recent rating evaluation of "A+" (Superior) affirmed September 11, 2019). The members of Great American Insurance Group are subsidiaries of American Financial Group, Inc. (AFG), also based in Cincinnati, Ohio. AFG's common stock is listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFG. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005536/en/

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At least 69 persons were reportedly killed after armed men suspected to be Boko Haram members attacked communities in Gubio Local Government Area of Borno State between Tuesday and the early hours of Wednesday.

Residents of the attacked communities are mostly herders who have over the years resisted Boko Haram hostilities.

A local security source who confirmed this to PREMIUM TIMES said the attack happened on Tuesday afternoon at about 12.30 p.m.

It was like a genocide because the gunmen simply opened fire on both the residents and their livestock.

We counted a total of 69 corpses, mostly matured men and children, the source, a top Civilian-JTF personnel, Mala Bunu, said.

He said nearly 1200 cows belonging to the villagers were rustled.

How the attack happened

Mr Bunu said the villagers were confronted by the Boko Haram insurgents at a location where they usually water their animals.

He said the attack was like a retaliation for the death of two Boko Haram members whom the villagers managed to kill when the insurgents attempted to attack them about two months ago.

Ever before now, the Boko Haram usually go to harass the villagers, forcing them to pay illegal tax and levies which they forcibly collect by taking away some of their livestock, he said.

But over time, he said, the villagers began to resist the extortion, and would effectively repel the insurgents who used to go to the villages in few numbers.

On Tuesday, the herders from the Gubio village called Zowo, went to a watering station at Foduma Kolowombe, where the government had drilled a borehole that provides water for both residents and animals, to water their animals. Usually, the traditional time to water animals was at noon. So as they were busy watering the animals, Boko Haram insurgents arrived at the borehole station in three gun trucks and began to harass the herders.

Because they normally go to water the animals in large numbers, the herders tried to resist the insurgents. In the process, the armed gunmen opened fire on them and other persons at the scene.

They did not spare even some of the livestock. Each time the overpowered herders attempted to take cover under a cow, the insurgents would open fire on both the person and the animal, and in the process over 100 cows were also killed.

We arrived at the scene about two hours after the insurgents had left with over 1200 cows. We met women and children crying over the littered corpses of their relatives.

The source said an airforce fighter jet hovered over the area and left without firing a shot at the fleeing insurgents who were less than an hour away.

Insurgents returned this morning

Mr Bunu said the insurgents returned to the attacked village at about 6 a.m. Wednesday to kill one of the herdsmen who escaped the water point massacre using a horse.

They returned at 6 a.m. to trace one of the herders, shot him dead, and then set the entire village ablaze before they left, he said.

As I am talking to you now, the village is still smoking.

CSO confirms

Confirming the incident, the head of a coalition of civil society groups in Borno, Ahmed Shehu, described the situation as sad and barbaric.

Mr Shehu reacted to the incident in a statement obtained by PREMIUM TIMES from the official CSO Forum WhatsApp handle.

That was a piece of very sad news, it seems like we are going back to the old days of the insurgent killing and abducting soft target in villages and along major roads,  he said.

Of recent Northern Borno route has become a no go areaas the insurgents will mount a roadblock, screen commuters, and kidnap humanitarian workers only.

Last week, five people were kidnapped through the same process, among them was Abdurahman, a SEMA Camp Chairman in Monguno, whose wedding day was fixed for last Sunday and three others.

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On Sunday, the route was attacked again and commuters were assembled and strategically engaged in video-recorded discussions by the insurgents for almost an hour.

From the information available civil servants and teachers documents were seized and later returned and about four people were abducted. There is urgent for the protection of vulnerable civilians and local aid workers.

Borno Governor visits community

Meanwhile, the state governor, Babagana Zulum, has reportedly left for Gubio local government in respect of the attacks.

Details of what the government intends to do there have not been disclosed.
LOS ANGELES  A Los Angeles police officer who was seen on video repeatedly punching a man in an encounter in April has been charged with felony assault, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Officer Frank Hernandez, 49, is set to be arraigned Thursday, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said.

"This is a disturbing case of the illegal use of force at the hands of a police officer," District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement. "We believe the force was neither legally necessary nor reasonable."

Prosecutors say that Hernandez and his partner responded to a call of a trespasser at a vacant lot in Boyle Heights on April 27 and that "during a confrontation between police and the victim, Hernandez is accused of illegally punching the unarmed man more than a dozen times in the head, neck and body."

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The victim's name was not disclosed in the statement. Richard Castillo last month filed a federal lawsuit stating that he was beaten in the incident, and his attorney confirmed that Castillo is the victim in the incident for which Hernandez is charged.

"I think it's a really good first step in restoring the public's faith in the legal system at this moment," Castillo's attorney, Wesley Ouchi, said in a phone interview Tuesday evening.

"After seeing the videos, both the third-party video and the body camera video, as well, it's really difficult to justify not prosecuting him," Ouchi said.

A spokesman for the district attorney's office said no charges are being filed against the victim.

Hernandez has been stripped of all police powers and has been assigned home, the Los Angeles Police Department said. It said the complaint and use-of-force investigations are nearing completion.

"The Department has taken this matter very seriously from day-one and he will be held accountable for his actions," Police Chief Michel Moore said in a statement.

Story continues

The incident was captured in video recorded by a bystander, and the police department also released body camera video. At the time, Moore called the use of force in the video disturbing and said the body camera video would not change that description.

In video that went viral, two officers can be seen appearing to order a man to turn around near a fence outside a church.

In that video, a male officer tells the man: "Don't fight. You're fighting, man." The man responds: "Ain't nobody fighting." The officer then throws punches to the back of the man's head while shouting profanities.

The lawsuit filed by Castillo says the officer used closed fists to repeatedly strike him for 20 or more seconds while the other officer "failed to intervene."

Hernandez was booked and released from custody Tuesday afternoon, a jail official said.

An attorney for Hernandez told NBC Los Angeles in May after video was released that he believed the officer would be cleared of any wrongdoing.

If convicted, Hernandez faces a possible maximum sentence of three years in county jail, the district attorney's office said.

The Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, a police union, said in a statement that what is seen in the video is unacceptable.

"While we have a fiduciary responsibility to provide our members with assistance through the internal affairs administrative process, what we saw on that video was unacceptable and is not what we are trained to do," the board said.

The alleged illegal use of force by Hernandez occurred around a month before the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, which sparked protests across the country and prompted calls for police reform.
Madhya Pradesh: Traditional Fisherfolk turn to farming to survive lockdown, monsoon

June 10,2020 | Source: The Wire

For the past couple of months, the people of the Nishad community of fisherfolk who live and work on the banks of the river Narmada in Madhya Pradesh have been growing and selling vegetables to survive.



The nearly 2.2 lakh fisherfolk have had to turn to small-scale farming because the lockdown on movement imposed in the country to help combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus put them out of work. Though the state government permitted them to catch fish and the fisheries department had even written to other departments on March 31, asking them to allow the transportation of fish within the state and beyond its borders, the fisherfolk found no buyers for their catch. The state government issued an order on March 31 that allowed us to catch fish, but the Rajya Matsya Mahasangh (state federation of fisheries) and fish contractors did not begin their activities, says Munna Barman, a resident of village Pipariya, gram panchayat Khamariya, in Mandla district.



On March 31, the Madhya Pradesh department of fishermen welfare and fisheries development, which is responsible for the development and conservation of fisheries in the state, wrote to the state chief secretary, the commissioner of agriculture production, the home department, the transport department, the cooperative department, the divisional commissioner, the directorate of Matsya Udyog (fisheries), the managing director of the Madhya Pradesh Matsya Mahasangh Limited, the chief executive officers of district panchayats, the superintendent of police and a few others, asking them to allow fish produce and its transportation within the state and beyond its borders. The March 31 order issued by the Department of Fishermen Welfare and Fisheries Development.



However, none of these departments appeared to have paid attention to the letter. Nor did the federations responsible for the welfare of fisherfolk follow up the matter. The vast majority of fisherfolk and fish farmers are usually engaged by fish contractors across the state, says Raj Kumar Sinha of the Bargi Baandh Visthapit Evam Prabhavit Sangh, a federation that represents fisherfolk along the banks of the river Narmada. This year, the fisherfolk have not been hired by the contractors and samitis, which is totally unprecedented. This is the biggest crisis to hit our fishing industry ever. Madhya Pradesh has nearly 2.2 lakh fisherfolk whose livelihoods depend on the 18 big reservoirs spread over 2,000 hectares of the waters of the rivers Narmada, Betwa, Tapti and others. The vast catch from Bargi reservoir and other reservoirs in the state is usually meant for the markets of Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi. Without access to these markets, the fisherfolk of Madhya Pradesh are lost, says Barman, who fishes in the Bargi reservoir, one of the first major reservoirs built on the Narmada in the early 1990s.



The lockdown has threatened our survival, Barman continues. We fisherfolk do not have many alternatives in terms of local employment and food availability. For Ramesh Nanda of village Kilawad in Mandla district, this has been the worst year in all his years of fishing. Nanda, a fisherman and office-bearer of the Rajeshwari Matsya Sehkari Samiti, a co-operative, says this is because of the uncaring attitude of fish contractors and the Rajya Matsya Mahasangh.



The lockdown has threatened the future of the community, Nanda says. The marriage season is over and the local fish market is yet to open. We have already faced challenges in recent years due to globalisation and industry over-regulation. Now we cant even fish during the coronavirus crisis. Like most fisherfolk in the state now, Nanda has been cultivating crops such as melon, tomato, pumpkin and bitter gourds on a small piece of land. Because the crops were not sown in December when they were actually supposed to have been planted, we have no ready crops to sell. Our families are struggling to survive, says Barman.



Even when the lockdown eases completely, the community will be unable to return to work, because fishing is not permitted for two months during the monsoon. This fishing ban, under the Madhya Pradesh River Pisciculture Rule, begins on June 16 every year and ends on August 15, to protect the fish stock in the reservoirs during their breeding season. In these two months, the purchase, sale and transport of fish is strictly prohibited. Violation of this rule attracts a fine of Rs 5,000 or one years imprisonment according to a provision of the Madhya Pradesh Fisheries Act, 1948. Though the Rajya Matsya Mahasangh and fish contractors have begun to work with members of the fishing community, opening the Indirasagar and Onkareshwar reservoirs for fishing from June 1 and the Bargi reservoir from June 5, the community feels robbed, says Sinha. He told The Wire: Even if they work every day till June 16, it is going to be really hard for them to survive. They are very insecure.



The Nishad community hopes it will be permitted to fish in the Bargi dam and other reservoirs even during the monsoon. They also demand MNREGA cards so they can apply for paid work with their local gram panchayats.
The owner of Frankie and Benny's has confirmed plans to close 125 sites across the country, potentially putting thousands of jobs at risk.

The Restaurant Group (TRG) said it had been on the 'sharp end of the Covid-19 pandemic' and it would try to slash what it pays in rents.

The firm is entering into a company voluntary arrangement with its landlords to restructure its estate by closing around 125 restaurants, and trying to get better deals from landlords on the rest.

The company, which counts the Wagamama and Garfunkel's brands among its 650 restaurants and pubs, plans not to reopen dozens of outlets after the lockdown ends, putting up to 3,000 jobs at risk.

The Restaurant Group, which owns Frankie and Benny's, has confirmed plans to close 125 of its sites as it tries to push down rents after the huge hit to the hospitality sector from coronavirus

A TRG spokesman had said they were in discussions with landlords about 'potential restructuring options for our leisure estate'.

The warning came as the boss of Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca said starting up again after the lockdown is 'going to be hell' for the restaurant industry.

'A lot of people are going to be nervous about coming out,' said Mark Selby, chief executive and co-founder of Wahaca. 'We've all got to do our jobs in making people feel confident, making them feel safe, but also giving them that experience that hospitality is.'

TRG stressed that the restaurant sector is 'facing exceptional challenges' due to the lockdown, and was 'already facing significant challenges prior to the onset of Covid-19'.

In March, it shut 60 of its Chiquito Mexican-style outlets, as well as its Food & Fuel chain of pubs, after placing them into administration.

The company, which counts the Wagamama and Garfunkel's brands among its 650 restaurants and pubs, plans not to reopen the outlets after the lockdown ends, putting up to 3,000 jobs at risk

The company, which has about 22,000 staff on furlough, is one of Britain's largest restaurant operators.

But analysts at Citi said it would benefit from selling its whole leisure business, saying that it comprises nearly half of the group's sites but is likely to account for only 20 per cent of profits in the 2021 financial year.

The brokerage said: 'A clean exit would leave the group focused on its growth businesses, which we think have stronger prospects and would command a higher multiple.'

Most of Wahaca's 1,000 employees have also been furloughed, but Selby called on the Government to go further to protect jobs and firms that will continue to struggle even after the lockdown ends.

'I can guarantee for the next six to eight months, with sales where we expect them to be, we are going to need serious rent concessions.'
Sinn Fein MLA Deirdre Hargey has condemned racist abuse of two teenage boys on the Ormeau Road on Sunday evening.

The South Belfast MLA said two teenage boys were racially abused by a large gang dressed in hazmat suits on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast on Sunday.

The gang of around 10 also made threats of violence against the two boys," she said urging anyone with information to contact police.

Those involved in this racist attack are to be condemned.

Anyone with information in this incident should bring it forward so that those responsible can be brought before the courts."

Ms Hargey praised the community spirit Ormeau Road residents had shown over recent months as "extremely heartening".

Those of all religions, races and ethnicities have been working together to support the vulnerable in our community during this pandemic," she added.

Our community has also been united and strong in our anti-racism message in recent days, standing fully in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Anti-racism and anti-fascism proudly forms part of the DNA of our community.

Those involved in this despicable incident will not succeed in undoing the strength of our community solidarity.

Police are investigating.

Officers asked for anyone who was in the area around 6.30pm and may have information to contact investigators.

Inspector Natalie McNally said: We are investigating this incident and I would appeal to anyone who either saw this group of up to 10 males, who were walking along the Ormeau Road wearing the distinctive while boiler suits, or anyone with dash cam footage of them, to call us on the non-emergency number 101 quoting reference number 1284 of 7 June 2020.

"A report can be made using the online reporting form via www.psni.police.uk/makeareport

Information can also be provided to Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org.
The Dow and S&P 500 ended a choppy session lower on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve reassured investors of its support for the economy but projected a 6.5 per cent decline in gross domestic product this year.

The Nasdaq, helped by gains in Microsoft and Apple , managed to hold onto a good chunk of its gains and registered a closing record high for a third straight session.

Wall Street moved lower after Fed chairman Jerome Powell spoke. Credit:NYSE

In its latest policy statement, the Fed also forecast a 9.3 per cent unemployment rate at year's end, and officials saw the key overnight interest rate, or federal funds rate, remaining near zero through at least 2022.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 282.31 points, or 1.04 per cent, to 26,989.99, the S&P 500 lost 17.04 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 3,190.14 and the Nasdaq Composite added 66.59 points, or 0.67 per cent, to 10,020.35. The S&P 500 was off as much as 0.8 per cent before the Fed statement.
After years of playing hot and cold with users when it came to unrolling new updates, Twitter has finally brought in an update that no one, ironically, wanted. With "Fleets", its newest story feature which it introduced in India on Tuesday, Twitter has now joined the leagues of Instagram and Facebook, allowing users to post ephemeral content that is public to all in little globules that appear on top of the screen.

Annoying as it was for many when Facebook and Instagram stole Snapchat's modus operandi, Twitter getting literally the same uninspired update while ignoring several persistent user demands was rather disappointing. Especially amid so much talk about the politicisation of Twitter in the United States.

Upon its launch in India, Italy and Brazil on Tuesday, Twitter asked users for feedback.

Namaste! Starting today, Fleets are coming to India. If youre in India, check it out and let us know what you think! #FleetsFeedback pic.twitter.com/U6QiHynm1U  Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) June 9, 2020

Here is a list of demands that users put forth and have been doing for several years. Edit Button Many have over the years sought an "Edit" button on tweets and an extension on the character limit. Since Twitter is used by all and sundry for both personal and professional communication, the inability to edit a typo or a misquotes fact has caused many a Twitter user inconvenience and embarrassment. Even former Jammu & Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah tweeted about it.

Dear @Twitter I didnt need #fleets. I dont miss having a feature like this when I tweet. What I do miss is having the ability to edit small mistekes in tweets that I post without having to delete them & post corrected versions. Thanks muchly #FleetsFeedback  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) June 9, 2020

#FleetsFeedback FFS take it away, not only is it annoying to see the circles on the top and distracting , it is a DM disaster. Nobody wants insta in twitter else we will be there. Bring on the Edit button   (@deepsealioness) June 9, 2020

Instead of fleets it would be helpful if we you increase the word limit and provide us with an edit option... Fleets are not useful on twitter!#FleetsFeedback   (@Harshizzz19) June 9, 2020

We need edit button not an Instagram feel@Twitter #FleetsFeedback  Rana Safvi   (@iamrana) June 9, 2020

Safe space for women Despite several calls to make Twitter a safer space for women, the platform has failed to come up with any new policies or measures to safeguard women from sexist and vicious trolling. When actress Rose McGowan spoke out against Harvey Weinstein at the start of the #MeToo movement, Twitter banned her for posting the graphic content online. Several prominent women on Twitter called for a boycott of the platform unless it was made safer for women, especially women of colour, Asians, women with disabilities and more. But even in 2020, Twitter remains as toxic a platform for women. What is worse is that the misogyny has now been normalised and the approach to women's safety now is focusing on how to live with the abuse. The recent trolling of Jamia Millia Islamia student Safooa Zargar who was arrested under the UAPA while being pregnant is proof.

Sorry brother, maaf karna, but my very permanent and not so fleeting #FleetsFeedback would be ki all this IG story stuff you can experiment with later, you first please make Twitter safer for women and do something about rape threats, death threats, fake news, and trolls.  veep (@vishnupriyabh) June 9, 2020

There's no need for fleets on twitter. Instead focus more on hate speech abuses, sexual harrasment and actual rape and death threats to various women of twitter. That'll be enough. #FleetsFeedback  Andy in Pandemic Times (@atavist_13) June 10, 2020

This is an important thread. @TwitterSupport , why aren't women a protected category? Please change your policy to include us. Make Twitter safe for women! Misogyny and Misogynoir have no place on Twitter https://t.co/zjdKPnMI68  Jana Cornel (@RadfemJana) August 20, 2019

@TwitterIndia this is staggeringly insincere. I was one of the ppl you recently interviewed to "help make twitter a safe place for women" (after signing an NDA of course). This platform has been tone deaf to open public conversation from every minority... https://t.co/5PrgPPmsks  Vidya (@VidyaKrishnan) November 7, 2019

@jack @TwitterIndia @Twitter #FleetsFeedback Replies goes directly in DM, Are You serious guys ? Do you know how much problem it will create for women ? There are many Road side Romeo's on Twitter. Kindly remove this feature ASAP. This feature is not good for women's safety.  Disha (@Disham_90) June 9, 2020

This is not at all a new demand. In a 2018 amnesty report, researchers found that Twitter continued to remain toxic for women. Women have repeatedly pointed out the targeted toxicity face by them on the microblogging site.

Glad to contribute to this. When I report abuse, the chirpy response from Twitter telling me each time that no action is required comes from "support@Twitter". What a joke. @amnesty report is out on Wednesday. https://t.co/mVUefhiW9k  Sophie Walker (@SophieRunning) March 19, 2018

We believe that big tech companies like @Twitter , @instagram & @facebook have a responsibility to make the digital spaces safe for women. They have a choice to protect women on their platform. The question is if they so chose to or not #HerNetHerRights https://t.co/ESgGYrsqKQ  EuropeanWomen's Lobby (@EuropeanWomen) May 7, 2019

Dear @TwitterIndia, Thanks for the Opportunity! Here are the things I want to say :  Twitter is failing to respect womens rights online by inadequately investigating & responding to reports of violence & abuse. What plan @TwitterIndia have, to make Twitter safe platform ? https://t.co/hbB3rA8yDH  Deshdeep Dhankhar (@DeshdeepDU) February 13, 2020

Measures against Fake News and Hate Speech In the year 2020, social media platforms such as Twitter have emerged as the biggest platforms for mobilizing fake news. At a time when the platforms need to be engaged in combating the spread of viral misinformation, experts fear that experimenting with options like "Fleets" might exacerbate the problem even more. The same is true for hate-speech. Recently, it started tagging some of President Donald Trump's tweets with anti-violence advisories. Will the same hold true for those spreading fake news and hate on Indian Twitter? No such action has yet been taken.

Imagine people spreading fake news through fleets and no one to explain in comments or verify the news. This can go real wrong. #FleetsFeedback  Neel Joshi (@neeljoshiii) June 9, 2020

Twitter just installed a new feature to spread propoganda faster than the light that will result in more fake news also communal hate.#FleetsFeedback  Laal salaam comrades (@MountTibidaebo) June 9, 2020

Safer for LGBTQIA and minorities Twitter is a particularly difficult space for LGBTQIA voices, activists and influencers who have daily abuse and trolling from a large section of netizens. Activists have often called out Twitter for blocking or banning content posted by gender activists and also for not identifying homophobic or transphobic comments on Twitter. Similar demands have been put worth by racial and religious minorities, all of whom have demanded stricter measures against targeted trolling from Twitter.

The homophobic, anti- gay, bigoted, transphobic comments that are left on my social media post daily is maddening - mainly bc the social media platforms say that the comments arent against their policies - Twitter & Instagram get your shit figured out - no more hate speech pic.twitter.com/QlGZAWwP3u  Marti Gould Cummings (@MartiGCummings) April 13, 2019

Does anybody on twitter actually use the list feature for anything other than the targeted harassment of women & people of colour?  Sister Outrider (@ClaireShrugged) October 16, 2019

Seeing women, both trans and cis, hounded off Twitter... Nasty stuff is going on. This is the world we live in. Just as before, first they come for the less privileged. Get serious everybody: if (y)our movements can't make it safe for trans women to participate, we're falling. pic.twitter.com/cD6p6vwTJ6  Olivia Guest is on the job market! |   (@o_guest) January 18, 2019

His account has been suspended for calling someone inbred. He was responding to consistent stream of homophobic abuse from a verified handle, who btw continues to tweet.  Rupa Subramanya (@rupasubramanya) December 26, 2017

While many are still posting their feedback, here's some more feedback that Twitter has received over the years but has turned a deaf ear to. Less toxic Overall, users across communities have called for a cleaner environment and a respite from toxic trolling. This is true in India where every political party or famous/powerful personality has its own Twitter troll army, ready to jump on any new voice that speaks against political hegemony, governmental failures, misogyny, homophobia, racism, casteism, communalism and more. Many have called for measures to weed out active trolls and bot accounts in order to make the platform less toxic. But Twitter has so far taken no real action in this regard.

Twitter is SO toxic. So many people have gotten bullied on here. Ive seen so much hate on this app and people just decide to listen to them. Stop LISTENING to these attention seekers! Know that you have people that have your back! Im sorry to all those who have gotten bullied.  Katie  (@KatieMetcalfe9) June 7, 2020

More transparency

This point often colludes with the others on this list. Twitter users have time and again demanded transparency from the platform. Be it the process of blue-tick verifications, random blocks and suspensions or Twitter's inability to block deeply problematic content which it claimed it did not violate the platform's policies despite being sexist, racist, homophobic or glorifying violence, leaves much to the imagination. While many have sought a more systematic list of 'Do's and Don'ts' and detailed descriptions of the clauses that can get one verified or blocked from the platform, Twitter has continued to evade full transparency bout its policies..

Yes but Twitter made this platform safer by suspending my account for saying biological males can never be women. https://t.co/62UFOQoVnM  Tanya M (@SpygirlBrexit) January 3, 2020

Slightly confused as to how this isn't violating rules @Twitter - very many women reported this tweet, please can you explain?  Rosie Duffield MP (@RosieDuffield1) May 5, 2019

While it is interesting that Twitter wants to make the platform more standardised with other apps in terms of look and feel as well as function, it is just a little more than disappointing when the platform continues to ignore the real needs of users despite repeated requests.
June 09, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - As America implodes, the president would like to have all Americans know of his two rules.

Rule one: Donald Trump is always a winner. Rule two: when Donald Trump is losing, refer back to rule one.

So as an increasing number of Republicans and conservatives abandon him; as former generals and government officials denounce a president who is losing the public trust, refer back to rule one.

As the economy dips and unemployment rises to an historic high, and Americans die in record numbers from the coronavirus, all under his watch: Ditto.

As an historic protest against racism and police brutality spreads nationwide and shakes the presidency. Ditto.

Trump would like to have you rest assured that he will beat these "pathetic losers", "thugs", agitators and news fakers. Just as he "built the greatest economy in the world, the best the US has ever had", he is "doing it again!"

After all, "God is on our side", as he told his political supporters at a megachurch outside Miami back in January. After all, he is the incarnation of the "Second Coming"; he is "the chosen one".

Or is he now!

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Piety and patriotism

Such use of God's name in vain may be especially dishonest and narcissistic, but Trump is not the first leader to use religion to advance his views and policies; far from it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's use of the Orthodox church, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's use of Hinduism, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's use of Shia Islam, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's use of Judaism are no less cynical.

But Trump is mainly tapping into a long American history of political exploitation of religion, which intensified as America began to identify more pronouncedly as a "nation under God", or a "Christian nation".

In fact, it was a Democrat who first made a notable use of biblical scripture to advance his vision of a kinder society. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recited biblical verses in speeches to defend and advance his liberal policies, notably the New Deal in the 1930s following the Great Depression.

President Dwight Eisenhower of the Republican Party did the same in the 1950s, but to advance a conservative agenda, notably to unify Americans against the "godless Soviet Union" during the Cold War.

He presided in 1953 over the first National Prayer Breakfast, and in 1954 enthusiastically supported the addition of "under God" to the national allegiance, "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all under God". Soon after, "In God We Trust" appeared on stamps, coins and currency to become the official national motto.

Since then, Democrats and Republicans have followed in the footsteps of both Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Some have preached the 'social gospel' of the welfare state helping the powerless and vulnerable; others have preached the 'freedom gospel' of individual sovereignty, small government and free enterprise.

Needless to say, Trump belongs to the latter camp, having long expressed his personal admiration for Eisenhower, but focusing mainly on the gospel of "I, me and myself".

Unholy matrimony

In 2016, conservative Christians embraced Trump knowing all too well he is an adulterer, blasphemer and thrice married. They even picked him over their favourite Christian, Ted Cruz.

This was a marriage of convenience, considering "God has used worse people".

Conservative Christians saw Trump as a necessary evil, a cutthroat businessman, and a "winner" who would do anything, for them, to win.

And he has. Big time.

From assigning conservative judges, to cutting taxes and supporting "pro-life" and other socially conservative policies, to recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and demonising Iran, Trump has indeed done a lot to satisfy Christian libertarians.

He saw them as indispensable allies: without them he could not win; with them he would not fail.

And it all seemed to work rather well until recently, when his mismanagement of the pandemic and his mishandling of the protest movement against racism and police brutality backfired.

As word got out that Trump cowardly sought shelter in the White House bunker in fear of the unrest while calling for military deployment to cover up for his impotence and incompetence, public anger intensified.

In an attempt to appear like a strong and pious leader and appeal to his Christian base, Trump walked from the White House to nearby St John's church, which was damaged during the protests.

Brandishing a copy of the Bible, he posed for photos in front of the church and cajoled administration officials to join him. This staged photo op seemed like a hypocritical act of using God's name in vain.

The man who boasted, "no president has ever done what I have done for evangelicals, or religion itself", was now calling for his Christian base to return the favour, to help him against, well, mainly fellow Christian Americans.

Neither cool, nor Christian

The answer came swift, clear and surprisingly damning from one of the most popular conservative evangelical leaders in the country.

Media mogul and televangelist Pat Robertson scolded Trump for responding harshly and punitively by threatening to deploy the military, instead of responding with compassion to the plight of the protesters. "You just don't do that, Mr President. It isn't cool," he said.

The church stunt clearly backfired.

Trump, who has been gripped by anxiety about losing conservative evangelical voters, is now bleeding more support with his desperate attempts to save his presidency.

The first signs that his solid base has started to crack appeared in December, when a damning editorial in the influential evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, called for his removal from office.

By May, his approval ratings among white evangelicals had declined from 77 in March to 62 percent. An even greater decline of 27 points was registered among white Catholics.

That is more than the decline in the general population.

Clearly, as the country's mood changes, so does the mood of the evangelicals, whose support for Trump has been guided by the Machiavellian, and arguably "unchristian", principle: the ends justify the means.

But in recent months, Evangelicals and conservative Christians in general may increasingly see the unpopular Trump as a meaningless mean; even a liability that may cost them some loss among their own followers.

In that case, and short of a total turnaround of the economy, Trump will need more than one or two rules to win. He will need divine intervention.

But in the memorable words of former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell, "Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics."

Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. - " Source " -
Students applying to college in 2020-2021 will soon have access to over 40 additional colleges and universities across the United States through the Common App online application system. Used by more than three million applicants, teachers, and counselors around the world every year, the Common App platform streamlines the college application process for students and connects them to additional support resources, including financial aid and scholarship opportunities, virtual mentors, and more.

Through these unprecedented times, these 42 colleges and universities continue to help forge a direct and unambiguous path to a viable future for all students, and reduce barriers to college access for underserved students. We are honored to welcome them into our membership, said Jenny Rickard, President & CEO of Common App. Thanks to our diverse membership, all students, regardless of their background, have the opportunity to apply to the colleges or universities that will help them achieve their best future.

Common App is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. For more than 40 years, Common App has played a leading and innovative role in streamlining the college admission process. In addition to providing a single, online application and 24/7/365 support for all students applying to member colleges and universities, the Common App connects applicants to financial aid and scholarship information, virtual mentors, online portfolios, and a vast library of counselor resources available in English and Spanish.

In January 2019, the Common App united with Reach Higher, the college access and success campaign started by former First Lady Michelle Obama during her time at the White House. Its core programming, including Better Make Room, UpNext, College Signing Day, Beating the Odds, school counselor support, and current grants continues as part of the Common Apps work with its member institutions, school counselors, and students.

Auburn is in the business of helping people reach their hopes and dreams. By using Common App, even more students across the country and around the world will have the opportunity to learn what sets us apart and how they can pursue their educational and career goals at Auburn, said Dr. Joffery Gaymon, Vice President for Enrollment.

The University of Georgia is pleased to join the membership of the Common Application for the 2020-21 first-year application cycle. Once the application goes live on September 1st, potential students and families from Georgia and beyond will have the opportunity to use the platform to explore their post-secondary opportunities and to manage their college applications, said Patrick Winter, Associate Vice President of Admissions & Enrollment Management at the University of Georgia.

Clemson University is excited to offer the Common Application as another application avenue for prospective students beginning with the 2020-2021 admissions cycle. We are confident that this partnership with the Common App will allow us to continue to fulfill our mission as a land grant institution in the state of South Carolina by reaching a broader and more diverse group of applicants. We also look forward to the ways this partnership will streamline the application process for prospective students and families across the country, as well as the school counselors who support them throughout their path to college. David Kuskowski, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at Clemson University.

Common App membership enables institutions to:

Expand their reach to gain exposure to more students, including students who may not have otherwise considered the institution.

Support college access by simplifying the fee waiver process for students, while also providing opportunities to participate in programming by Reach Higher.

Gain valuable insight and best practices from the Common App community to inform the college application process and strategic enrollment management decisions at their institutions.

New Members of The Common Application for 2020-2021 Application Season*

Mid-Atlantic

Bryn Athyn College (PA)

Carlow University (PA)

Holy Family University (PA)

Medaille College (NY)

Mid-West

Baker College (MI)

Buena Vista University (IA)

Bethel University (MN)

Cornerstone University (MI)

Lake Superior State University (MI)

Indiana Wesleyan University (IN)

Loyola University Chicago (IL)

Northern Illinois University (IL)

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (WI)

Wilmington College (OH)

South

Arkansas Baptist College (AR)

Auburn University (AL)

Augusta University (GA)

Clemson University (SC)

Coastal Carolina University (SC)

Lees-McRae University (NC)

Milligan University (TN)

Norfolk State University (VA)

Palm Beach Atlantic University (FL)

Richard Bland College of William and Mary (VA)

Spalding University (KY)

Texas Tech University (TX)

Trevecca Nazarene University (TN)

Tuskegee University (AL)

University of Georgia (GA)

University of Louisville (KY)

University of Texas at Dallas (TX)

University of Texas at San Antonio (TX)

University of South Florida (FL)

Winthrop University (SC)

West

Fresno Pacific University (CA)

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (CO)

International

New College of the Humanities, London



Full class will be announced at the launch of the 2020-2021 application season on August 1.

About Common App

Common App is a not-for-profit member organization committed to the pursuit of access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. Each year, more than one million students, one-third of whom are first-generation, apply to college through the Common Apps online application. In January 2019, the Common App united with Reach Higher, the college access and success campaign started by former First Lady Michelle Obama during her time at the White House. Its core programming, including Better Make Room, UpNext, College Signing Day, Beating the Odds, school counselor support, and current grants continues as part of the Common Apps work with its member institutions, school counselors, and students. Founded in 1975, Common App serves over 900 member colleges and universities worldwide.

To learn more, visit commonapp.org, and follow @CommonApp and #CommonApp on social media.
The police in Adamawa State on Wednesday said they have arrested 32 suspects over another communal clash in the state in which residents said many people were killed or injured.

The latest violent clash erupted over a land dispute between Lunguda and Waja communities in Guyuk and Lafiya Lamurde local government areas of the state

Last month, residents said about 50 persons were killed and about 60 injured in a clash over land in Tingno in neighbouring Lamurde local government area of the state.

The police spokesman in the state, Suleiman Nguroje, on Wednesday confirmed the arrest over the latest round of violence.

So far, 32 suspects from both sides of the warring communities were arrested and will be thoroughly investigated, he told our correspondent.

Mr Nguroje said many houses and valuables were destroyed, forcing residents to flee the affected communities.

The police spokesperson said the situation was brought under control by security personnel deployed to the area from the military, police, and the state security service (SSS).

We are yet to establish the figure of fatality traceable to the incident, he said. He said an investigation was ongoing to unravel the cause of the incident and track down the perpetrators.

The villages affected include Boshikiri and Zakawon in Guyuk local government area, and Mamsirme and Tarakra in Lafiya Lamurde local government area.

Fleeing residents said the latest round of violence started on Tuesday night following a land dispute between the two ethnic groups.

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They said Mamsimi, Boshikiri, Zakawon and Burti villages were burnt down in the fight before security officers were deployed to contain the situation.

I cannot say the exact casualty figures because we have all fled for our lives, but lives were lost. It was a land dispute and it has been there for years unresolved. The villages affected include Boshikiri, Zakawon, Burti and Momsurmi, a woman who identified herself as Madam Kauna told our correspondent.

Human lives, animals and foodstuffs were also destroyed and many were injured, the Chairman of Guyuk local government has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Dumna district, she said.

Other residents said Lafiya Lamurde town is completely deserted following the clash.

The state Deputy Governor, Crowther Seth, who visited the affected area in the company of the Brigade Commander of the 23 Brigades Yola, Sani Mohammed, , a brigadier-general, also said normalcy had been restored there.

Mr Seth said the government would investigate the immediate and remote causes of the clash with a view to bringing perpetrators to book. He warned against further escalation of the violence.
Jon Ossoff was far ahead of two other candidates in his bid to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue in November. As of 12 p.m. Wednesday, he had just shy of 49% of the counted vote, trailed by Teresa Tomlinson and Sarah Riggs Amico. Tomlinson and Amico were separated by less than 2 percentage points in the race for the second spot in a potential runoff.
DURANT and SHAWNEE, Okla., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Zones Project by Sharecare is gaining momentum in Oklahoma with success in Pottawatomie County and an exciting new launch in Durant. A partnership between Blue Zones, LLC, and Sharecare, Blue Zones Project is a community-led well-being improvement initiative designed to enable residents to live longer, happier lives with lower rates of chronic disease and a higher quality of life. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, communities are seeking proven approaches to influencing social determinants of health. The presence of the Blue Zones Project in these respective Oklahoma communities underscores the effectiveness of its unique approach to well-being improvement, especially in a region that traditionally ranks lower in well-being compared to other parts of the country.

According to recent data from Sharecare's Community Well-Being Index (CWBI), the Blue Zones Project  initially launched in Pottawatomie County in 2017  is yielding positive outcomes in that community, as it has remained consistent in well-being measurements from 2017 to 2019 while state and national scores declined during the same period. In fact, Pottawatomie County has outperformed the state of Oklahoma across four key health risk trends: poor nutrition, lack of exercise, lack of purpose and dissatisfaction with standard of living. When comparing CWBI results for Pottawatomie County to other Oklahoma communities with similar demographics  such as Owasso, Broken Arrow, Ardmore, Sand Springs, Tahlequah, McAlester, Ada and Tulsa  Pottawatomie County scores higher in every well-being element. Therefore, the Shawnee-based Avedis Foundation is demonstrating its long-term commitment to well-being improvement in Pottawatomie County by extending its partnership with Sharecare to continue Blue Zones Project locally through 2027.

"At the Avedis Foundation, our vision is to measurably improve the health, well-being and quality of life for the people of Pottawatomie County and its surrounding communities. In just three years, we've seen firsthand the effectiveness of the Blue Zones Project approach to improving well-being through enhancing the built environment, and we are pleased to extend our partnership with Blue Zones Project for an additional seven years," said Avedis Foundation president and CEO Kathy Laster, Ph.D. "In addition, Avedis would like to welcome Durant as the second of what we hope will be many more Blue Zones Project communities in Oklahoma. We applaud the leaders of Durant for their foresight and vision in supporting an initiative that serves as a beacon of the transformative possibilities for Oklahomans."

In Durant, the need for a comprehensive solution to address well-being deficiencies is evident in recent CWBI data, which reveals that three in five of its residents are overweight or obese; half do not exercise at appropriate levels; and two-thirds struggle with hope and purpose in their life outlook. Launched in conjunction with Texoma Health Foundation, First United Bank, the Choctaw Nation, the Massey Family Foundation, and other local partners, the Blue Zones Project in Durant will provide community members, schools, businesses, grocery stores, restaurants and other organizations with the opportunity to participate in customized well-being programs and offerings.

"The opportunities for well-being improvement in Durant are significant, and we look forward to making healthier choices easier in this community as we implement Blue Zones Project programs and methodologies," said Greg Massey, CEO of First United Bank. "The impact the initiative has already made in Pottawatomie County confirms the effectiveness of this approach and will inspire those of us in Durant to improve our quality of life in a similar fashion."

Durant joins 50 other Blue Zones Project communities across North America. Further, as the first Blue Zones Project community to launch during COVID-19, Durant will provide critical learnings for future Blue Zones Project communities  from addressing the longer-term impacts of the pandemic during the early discovery and foundation phases of development to creating more opportunities for communities to align virtual and in-person assessments and programs.

"In the wake of COVID-19, and with Oklahoma consistently placing in the bottom five of state well-being rankings, the challenges facing the state are real, and visionary leadership is required to effectively influence the trajectory of health. By partnering with Blue Zones Project, Pottawatomie County and Durant are demonstrating how small communities can become masters of their own population health destiny in states with otherwise low well-being," said Michael Acker, senior vice president and general manager of Blue Zones Project by Sharecare. "A healthy community requires policies and programs that effectively impact the social determinants of health, and we look forward to collaborating with partners in Pottawatomie County and Durant as they work to create and sustain this supportive environment, while serving as examples for other communities in Oklahoma and beyond."

Blue Zones Project works with its partners to closely align with the Blue Zones Power 9 Principles, the common characteristics of the world's longest-lived people that encourage us to move naturally, eat wisely, connect with others, and cultivate the right outlook. For more information about Blue Zones Project and how to become involved, please visit www.bluezonesproject.com.

About Blue Zones Project

Blue Zones Project is a community-led well-being improvement initiative designed to make healthy choices easier through permanent changes to a city's environment, policy, and social networks. Established in 2010, Blue Zones Project is based on research by Dan Buettner, a National Geographic Fellow and New York Times best-selling author who identified five cultures of the worldor blue zones with the highest concentration of people living to 100 years or older. Blue Zones Project incorporates Buettner's findings and works with cities to implement policies and programs that will move a community toward optimal health and well-being. Currently, 51 communities across North America have joined Blue Zones Project, impacting more than 3.4 million citizens. The population health solution includes two Health Districts in California; 15 cities in Iowa; Albert Lea, Minnesota; the city of Fort Worth, Texas; Corry, Pennsylvania; Airdrie, Alberta; Brevard, North Carolina; and communities in Southwest Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Blue Zones Project is a partnership between Blue Zones, LLC, and Sharecare, Inc. For more information, visit bluezonesproject.com.

CONTACTS:

Sharecare PR Team

[email protected]

404.665.4305

Naomi Imatome-Yun

[email protected]

917.952.8534

SOURCE Sharecare

Related Links

sharecare.com


(Newser)  Donald Trump Jr. continues to be dogged by that sheep-hunting trip to Mongoliaone that documents now show cost taxpayers roughly $77,000. ProPublica in December reported on the eight-day August trip, during which the oldest son of the US president killed a rare argali sheep and obtained a retroactive permit to do so. At the time, it was reported that security resources for the trip were provided by both the US and Mongolian governmentsand Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has managed to suss out what the cost on the US side was after suing over a Freedom of Information Act request. CREW explains that the Secret Service documents it was provided with in March put the cost of Secret Service protection for the trip at a minimum of $17,000.

story continues below

But the nonpartisan and nonprofit group says it appealed the request after noticing potential holes in the expenses: They didn't include a reported private meeting between Trump Jr. and the Mongolian president in Ulaanbaatar, for instance. The new records give the total as $76,859.36. CNN notes that a rep for Trump Jr. made clear that all costs outside the Secret Service bill were paid for by Trump Jr. CREW's take on the whole thing: "As a son of the president, Donald Trump Jr. is entitled to Secret Service protection and should be protected, but taxpayers deserve to know how much they are paying to facilitate his trophy hunting and interactions with major political donors and foreign leaders." (Read more Donald Trump Jr. stories.)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Madrid, Spain  Wed, June 10, 2020 08:52 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd78865 2 Sports Madrid,Spain,champions-league,soccer,soccer-league,final,host,host-candidate,football Free

The mayor of Madrid has said the city is being considered as a potential host of this year's Champions League final and has given the idea his "total and absolute support".

The fixture was due to be played at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul on May 30 before the Champions League was postponed in March with only half of the last 16 completed.

The final last season between Liverpool and Tottenham was held at Atletico Madrid's Wanda Metropolitano while Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu hosted the 2010 decider between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich.

"I know steps are being taken in this regard and on behalf of the city council, I want to show my total and absolute support for the Champions League final being held in Madrid," mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida told Spanish television channel Trece late on Monday.

Spain has been able to bring the coronavirus under control in recent weeks and Madrid moved into phase two, the penultimate stage of the government's de-escalation program, on Monday.

But overall there have been more than 27,000 deaths caused by COVID-19 in the country.

"I think hosting an international event like the Champions League final is very important but especially in these circumstances," Almeida added.

"What it would demonstrate is Madrid's ability to recover in a very short time from the dramatic situation we have been through."

Almeida added "adequate security conditions exist, we have the infrastructures and public services to host it and it would send a message to the world that Madrid, despite what we have experienced, does not give up and is back."

UEFA is yet to confirm how or if the tournament will continue, with an update expected after the governing body's executive committee meeting on June 17.

The BBC in Britain reported on Tuesday Lisbon is favorite to host an eight-team Champions League knockout tournament in August, pending UEFA approval.

Neither of the city's two teams -- Benfica and Sporting Lisbon -- are in the competition and both of their grounds are capable of hosting top level matches, while most virus restrictions will be removed this month.

Domestic leagues like La Liga in Spain and the Premier League in England are due to finish in July, allowing the possibility for European competitions to resume the following month.
Recently the life of a man was taken on the streets of Minneapolis while bystanders watched him beg for his life. I cant breathe! has become the call for action to stand against the abuse black men endure in America every day at the hands of police.

While a police officer put his knee on the neck of an unarmed, black man, handcuffed while lying on the pavement, the nation held its collective breath as we witnessed the life fade from George Floyd. For many, it was eye opening. But for far too many of my black brothers and sisters, it brought home the realities of the dual lives we live in America. The scene made it clear that the racist world of our ancestors is still alive and well today. We saw it in Floyds senseless death, and we see it every day in our black community.

At the approach of adulthood, every black man of my era was given what is just referred to as the speech. The speech is one where a young black teenager is told that if you are stopped by a police officer, your job is to stay alive. I have no doubt that Floyd received the talk from his mother, as have many others before him. The speech is still given today. Black girls and boys know that those who are supposed to protect and serve can sometimes become the oppressor.

All men are created equal is just a slogan when you are stopped for the crime of just being black. Two hundred and forty-four years after the Declaration of Independence, the senseless murders of African Americans such as Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Botham Jean, Breonna Taylor and thousands of others remind us that those words do not include us. These tragic deaths are reminders that the   land of the free and home of the brave was built on the backs of our enslaved ancestors.

The question for us all, as a nation, becomes Where do we go from here? Let me be clear, just as it is wrong for police to judge us because of the color of our skin, it is also wrong for us to condemn every police officer for the criminal actions of those who choose to hide behind their badge and abuse the community that they are sworn to protect. I proudly served this country in the armed forces in the days of my youth. Our mission was to protect and ensure freedom around the world. Where does the black community go when freedom cannot be found at home?

I am afraid that the national outrage over the killing of this compliant, unarmed black man will become long forgotten, like the way our outrage over the numerous lives lost in school shootings seem forgotten. What makes this tragedy different than the other deaths of black men at the hands of police is that the advancement of technology has placed a clearly focused lens on what some in our culture have endured for generations.

Peaceful protests are happening all over the country. Majority and minority people are demanding answers and accountability. Unfortunately, some have decided to forego playing by the rules and have chosen instead to engage in violence and looting in the streets.

I understand the pain, the outrage, and the disgust. However, if there is to be change, we cannot alienate those who want to be a part of the change. Change demands unity. To my brothers and sisters who believe that this moment calls for a violent response, I say breathe. For those who want to use this moment for their own selfish agendas, I say shame on you.

In a few weeks, or maybe a month, the name George Floyd will be added to the list of black men and women who have needlessly died at the hands of law enforcement. We, as African Americans must not become complacent in the new slavery in which we find ourselves. This should remind us that we, as African American people, are not completely free. It should scare us in a way that we would want to arm our children with the ammunition to fight with their minds.

We must also continue to fill them with knowledge that will help them when they are faced with the next challenge, for it will surely come. We should want to gather every African American boy and girl and read the stories of slavery and how we overcame as a people. We should remind them of the struggles that those before us had to endure for us to have opportunities to make decisions for ourselves.

We should remind them of the struggles that those before us had to endure for us to be able to be respected as we wear our pants around our waists and not hanging below our buttocks. We should remind ourselves of the reasons our parents gave us the speech and realize the world in which our children are growing up in, is not too different from our own.

The murder of George Floyd should make us angry enough to remove every barrier that is in the way of all Americans voting in the 2020 election. We must do more. Instead of looting, take that energy to respond to the census, register to vote, and go to the polls. We cannot let this moment escape us. In November of 2020, there should not be one African American who is registered to vote and decides not to. This is the perfect time to plan our strategy of attack. Not in the sense of physically fighting, but to fight for the future of our young boys and girls.

Let us take a breath for calm.

Let us take a breath for mercy.

Let us take a breath for enduring change.

Dr. Mark L. Porterie is Superintendent of Schools for the Port Arthur ISD.
New Delhi, June 10 : Microsoft venture fund M12 on Wednesday announced it has opened its office in Bengaluru to pursue investment opportunities, focusing on B2B software startups in applied AI, business applications, infrastructure, security and vanguard technologies.

M12, that arrived in the country in February last year, aims to invest in disruptive enterprise software startups in the Series A through C funding stages, targeting both local and cross-border solutions.

"We see the greatest hurdles in a startup's journey as they scale from local success to global challengers, and then again when they go on to become category leaders. M12 is proud to be co-located in the region, and to bring experience and resources that will help startups successfully navigate these inflection points," said Abhi Kumar, India Lead for M12.

The introduction of M12 (formerly known as Microsoft Ventures) in is creating new value for startups, VCs and the company itself to maintain the pace and direction of innovation.

The company said that local presence is a step forward in M12's long-term commitment to the Indian startup ecosystem.

The Bengaluru office joins an M12 network that includes San Francisco, Seattle, London, and Tel Aviv.

M12 current portfolio in India includes category leaders such as Innovaccer and FarEye.

Post-investment, the startups in M12's portfolio can elect to work with the fund's Portfolio Development team, which is dedicated to unlocking growth opportunities.

Since its global launch in 2016, M12 has invested in 90 companies.
Contributed photo /

HARTFORD  A conversation held by state Rep. Christie Carpino, R-Cromwell, with state Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, and Connecticut health care advocate Ted Doolittle, is now available on their Facebook pages.

Considering the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the three discussed how COVID-19 is impacting health care coverage, according to a press release. They also took questions from constituents, and members of the public seeking information on how the state Office of the Healthcare Advocate can help the public and important details about how the public can ensure health care coverage.
Q. I'm currently deferring making my mortgage payments because I lost my job because of COVID-19. I know the loan will be extended for three months. But if I still don't have a job, when would I have to worry about foreclosure? How does that work?

 Unemployed

A. Were sorry to hear this is a hard time for you financially.

The time limits for mortgage forbearance  the suspension of mortgage payments  depends on whether or not the loan is backed in some way by the federal government.

For many homeowners whose income has been reduced due to COVID-19, lenders can give you up to one year to get back to work and start paying your mortgage, said Bruce Levitt, a bankruptcy attorney with Levitt & Slafkes in Maplewood.

However, this is not true for all homeowners.

Levitt said roughly two-thirds of all mortgage loans are owned or backed by the federal government. The most common of those loans are FHA, VA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Under the CARES Act, which was signed into law on March 27, 2020 in response COVID-19, lenders involved with these types of loans can give an initial forbearance of up to 180 days, Levitt said, noting that lenders were automatically giving 90 days. That time can be extended for up to an additional 180 days if the hardship has not been eliminated.

For those homeowners that received an initial 90 days of forbearance, they must reach out to the lender to request more time, he said.

The remaining mortgages are held by private banks, state backed institutions or other entities. The CARES Act does not apply to loans held by those institutions, he said.

While most of these lenders are giving an initial 90 days of forbearance, each of these lenders have the right to decide if additional time will be granted, Levitt said. It is important for homeowners to contact their lender before the initial 90 days runs to see if an extension is available.

For homeowners who find themselves with a mortgage payment due and no ability to pay, foreclosure is a possibility, he said.

While the New Jersey courts are not currently issuing foreclosure judgments and sheriff sales are on hold while we remain in a state of emergency, foreclosure cases can and are being filed in this state, Levitt said. Foreclosures do take time and there may be relief available. It is best to seek advice from an attorney, legal services agency or housing counselor if foreclosure appears to be imminent.

Email your questions to Ask@NJMoneyHelp.com.

Karin Price Mueller writes the Bamboozled column for NJ Advance Media and is the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Follow NJMoneyHelp on Twitter @NJMoneyHelp. Find NJMoneyHelp on Facebook. Sign up for NJMoneyHelp.coms weekly e-newsletter.
Halifax council has voted in favour of rescinding the purchase of a police armoured vehicle and will instead allocate the money to efforts aimed at reducing anti-Black racism.

Coun. Shawn Cleary, who brought the motion forward on Tuesday, says the decision reflects a shift in viewpoints driven in part by the public demonstrations against police racism occurring throughout North America.

His motion shifts $300,000 that would have been used for the purchase to support a variety of anti-Black racism initiatives, with another $89,500 going toward programs for diversity, inclusion and public safety.

The budget committee motion passed with the backing of all but one councillor.

Cleary first attempted to have the contract for the Halifax police refused in a motion last year opposing the militarized, tactical vehicle with a rotating roof hatch, eight gun ports and a powered battering ram.

The Halifax police had argued the vehicle was needed in the city because crises happen here and it would provide safety for officers in situation such as armed standoffs.

Cleary says he was elated by the decision to rescind the contract.

The councillor said he believes the cancellation is legal because the request for proposals had a clause that a cancellation could occur if the original delivery date couldnt be met.

The delivery date was pushed back due to COVID-19 and some other factors ... so we think legally, were fine cancelling the contract, he said.

He said Terradyne Armoured Vehicles in Newmarket, Ont., had been the successful bidder on the contract. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a 2019 presentation supporting the purchase, the Halifax Regional Police emphasized the armoured vehicle would be providing protection  a safe haven during high-risk operations and natural disasters. It said the weaponless vehicle would be used to safely remove people from dangerous situations, including active shooters and other threats.

The proposal had raised eyebrows, coming just a month after the release of a report on racial profiling that concluded Black people in Halifax were street-checked by police at a rate six times higher than white people.

Read more about:
In February, I declared, somewhat winkingly, that Twitter is real life. My argument was not that what happens on that social media website is broadly representative of popular opinion but that what happens on Twitter is a good barometer of enthusiasm around movement-building and fandoms. And that elites tend to undervalue or dismiss what happens on the platform, suggesting that those loud voices making them uncomfortable arent accurate indicators of lived experiences.

Since, Ive received a steady stream of gloating emails about how wrong I was. After all, I cited Senator Bernie Sanderss online movement for the Democratic presidential nomination, powered in large part by Twitter, as a primary example of this insurgent force and referred to the candidate as arguably now the Democratic front-runner. Not two weeks later, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race and endorsed Joe Biden, effectively cementing him as the Democratic Partys nominee. If Twitter was actually real life, surely it would be Mr. Sanders doing virtual town halls from his basement campaign headquarters, not Mr. Biden.

The power of online movements has been at the front of my mind the past two weeks as Americans have gathered by the tens of thousands to protest police and state violence against black people. Millions, too, have followed along on their screens, amplifying protest messages, sharing donation links and expressing solidarity. Online platforms, especially Twitter, have become like security camera grids, each with images of a dystopia, my Times colleague Jenna Wortham wrote last week of the images of police violence against peaceful protesters.

Those images appear, at last, to be having a sweeping effect on our public consciousness of racial inequality and injustice, especially in regard to police violence. The most urgent filmmaking anybodys doing in this country right now is by black people with camera phones, Wesley Morris, a Times critic at large, wrote last week.
According to the Ordinance, for the first offence, a person can be jailed for one to seven years with a fine ranging from Rs 100,000 to Rs 300,000 while for the second offence, the person can be imprisoned for 10 years with a fine up to Rs 500,000. ALSO READ: Unlock 1.0: UP targets to create 10 mn jobs for migrants, says Chief Secy "The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday ...

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Sudan Militia Leader in Custody on Darfur War Crimes Charges

BANGUI, Central African RepublicSudanese militia leader Ali Kushayb, who is charged with 50 crimes against humanity and war crimes related to the devastating conflict in Darfur, has been arrestedmore than 13 years after a warrant was issued for himand transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, authorities said on June 9.

Kushayb surrendered to authorities in a remote corner of northern Central African Republic, near the countrys border with Sudan, International Criminal Court spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said. He later added that Kushayb arrived at the ICCs detention center late on June 9.

In the Darfur conflict, rebels from the territorys ethnic central and sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

The government responded with a scorched-earth assault of aerial bombings and unleashed militias known as the Janjaweed, who are accused of mass killings and rapes. As many as 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes.

The courts prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda said Kushaybs surrender and transfer into the courts custody nearly two decades after the Darfur conflict raged was a powerful and somber reminder that the victims of atrocity crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan have waited too long to see justice done. The victims in the Darfur situation deserve to finally have their day in court.

The ICC charged Sudans ousted former President Omar al-Bashir with genocide for allegedly masterminding the campaign of attacks. Al-Bashir hasnt been turned over to the court to face trial. Kushaybs detention sets the stage for the court to hold its first trial focused on the Darfur conflict.

Brad Brooks-Rubin, managing director of The Sentry, a watchdog group co-founded by George Clooney, called Kushaybs detention a modest triumph for the cause of accountability for atrocity crimes in Africa.

This represents a glimpse of hope for people in Darfur and around the world who desperately seek justice and security but are too often forgotten, he said.

According to the ICCs arrest warrant, Kushayb is accused of commanding thousands of Janjaweed militia back in 2003-2004 and acting as a go-between for the militia and Sudanese government. The ICC says he personally participated in some of the attacks against civilians and allegedly enlisted fighters, armed, funded and provided food and other supplies to the Janjaweed militia under his command.

Among offenses listed on his arrest warrant are murder, rape, persecution, and pillage.

No immediate date was set for Kushayb to appear before the court. At his initial appearance, judges will seek to confirm his identity and that he has read and understood the charges against him and his rights. The next stage will be a preliminary hearing, likely to be months from now, at which prosecutors will attempt to convince judges that their evidence is strong enough to merit putting Kushayb on trial. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.

Central African Republic Attorney General Eric Didier Tambo confirmed to The Associated Press that Kushayb had been extradited to The Hague in the Netherlands on June 9 after being brought to Bangui the day before. It wasnt immediately known how long he had been in the Central African Republic.

Kushayb and al-Bashir evaded arrest on war crimes charges for more than a decade amid reluctance by other African nations to carry out arrest warrants.

Al-Bashir, who is accused of crimes including genocide, traveled abroad freely and it was not until after he was deposed in 2019 that Sudanese authorities agreed to extradite him to The Hague. However, the ex-president has not yet been turned over to the ICC.

Human Rights Watch welcomed Kushaybs detention.

Today is a landmark day for justice for victims of atrocities committed across Darfur and their families, said Elise Keppler, associate director of the groups International Justice Program. The world watched in horror as Sudans government carried out brutal attacks on Darfur civilians, killing, raping, burning and looting villages, starting in 2003. But after 13 years, justice has finally caught up with one major fugitive of the crimes.

Justice is not always immediately possible, making the ICCs role as a permanent court so critical, she said. ICC arrest warrants have no expiration date, but do rely on cooperation from states to be enforced.

By Hippolyte Marboua & Mike Corder
Lyman said COVID-19 patients with hematologic cancers may be at a greater risk than those with solid tumors, but he said the difference was not statistically significant, at least at this time.

Patients with active cancer, however, were much more at risk than those in remission. According to the study, patients with progressing cancer had a fivefold relative risk of dying within 30 days compared to those in remission.

It appears that active cancer that is progressing may be an especially poor risk factor for adverse COVID-19 outcomes, he said. Clinicians may want to consider earlier end-of-life conversations.

Researchers also noted a strong association between higher mortality rates and treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, although they noted the combo treatment was commonly used in high-risk patients so they couldnt determine whether poor outcome was "due to the drug or the higher risk patient population that received the drug combination.

The World Health Organization just halted a clinical trial investigating the antimalarial drugs effectiveness in treating COVID-19 due to safety concerns raised by another observational study published last week by The Lancet.

The results of our study should not be used to make a final judgment about this regimen for COVID-19, Lyman said of the treatment, which has become a political hot potato. There are many other clinical factors that doctors use to decide which patient to put on a potential therapy that we couldnt assess in this model and many we may not even be aware of yet.

The bottom line: Prospective clinicals trials are still needed to establish the safety and efficacy of treatments for COVID-19, he said.

Whats the COVID-19 and cancer takeaway?

There are conclusions that can be taken from the study, Lyman stressed.

First, if youve been diagnosed with COVID-19 and are on active cancer therapy, you should talk to your oncologist immediately.

If you have active COVID-19, you should delay treatment for your cancer until you recover, Lyman said. Its highly risky for you.

Second, cancer patients who need to go in for treatment, despite the pandemic, should carefully balance the risks and benefits, particularly if they suffer from additional comorbidities. Some patients, he said, may be able to change the order of their treatments, using endocrine therapy first for instance, and following up with chemotherapy at a later time.

Taken together, these results suggest that fit, nonelderly patients with cancer and few comorbidities can proceed with appropriate anticancer treatment, he said. Whereas those with poor performance status or cancer thats progressing need to have thoughtful conversations with their oncology providers about risk versus benefit of treatment.

For these patients, supportive care is key, he said.

We are encouraging clinicians to be very aggressive with supportive care and to pay special attention to these patients, especially those with comorbidities and a smoking history, he said. If you have COVID-19 and cancer and other medical problems or are older, you will really need careful attention.
S Lalitha By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Probably the one with the heaviest heart on board the flight which left last week from Bengaluru to Chhattisgarh, would be a widower Rajkumar Puri. The autorickshaw driver, who came to Bengaluru in search of a better life, left for his village in Bilaspur, with his two young children, following the death of his pregnant wife here.

The tragedy was the outcome of callousness and lack of humanity from seven public and private hospitals in the city. Puri roamed the entire day on April 9 and in the early hours of April 10 with his 28-year-old wife Gayatri, pleading for her to be admitted in some hospital. However, everyone sent them back for various reasons and his wife breathed her last on April 10.

Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar told TNIE he was extremely saddened by the incident. No doctor or hospital should ever behave like this. If I get the names of the hospitals, I will ensure action is initiated, he said. An NGO highlighted his plight to TNIE. Speaking to this reporter over the phone, Puri said, My wife was experiencing severe body pain and her haemoglobin count had dropped really low.

Puri added, We went to many hospitals. My wifes elder brother, Mohan Sakat, with whom we stayed, was also with us.

At every hospital, we were asked to wait, fill up forms and then later informed that admitting her was not possible. Saket told TNIE that one leading government hospital told him that due to Covid issue they are not admitting anyone. Another hospital told us the doctor was not available, and one said it was not possible to admit her. I watched my sister dying in front of my eyes, helplessly.
Celebrity The Daily Beast

Reuters/Arnd WiegmannTheatrical rock superstar Meat Loaf, whose Bat Out of Hell is one of the bestselling albums of all time, has died at the age of 74. Reports say the singer and actor had recently fallen sick with COVID-19.In an emotional statement posted to Facebook early Friday, the performers family said he was with his wife when he died and had said his final goodbyes to his two daughters in the past 24 hours. The star sold 100 million albums in his five-decade career and starred in movie
More tech news PUBG Mobile becoming highest grossing game worldwide and Lenovo launching four new laptops.

Xiaomi today launched a new Redmi smartphone -- the Xiaomi Redmi 9 -- in Spain at a starting price of 149 Euros. While Redmi 9 will go on sale in Spain starting June 18, there is no word on when the smartphone will arrive in India.

Apart from this, Lenovo launched four new laptops in India today and Facebook debuted a new News tab in the US today.

Heres a breakdown of all the things that made headlines today:

Xiaomi Redmi 9 makes a debut

Xiaomi launched the Redmi 9 smartphone in Spain today. Pre-orders for the smartphone will begin on June 15 and the device will go on sale on June 18.

Lenovo launches four new laptops in India

Lenovo launched four new laptops in India today. The list includes IdeaPad Slim 3, IdeaPad Slim 5, IdeaPad Gaming 3 and the Yoga Slim 7i.

Facebook launches News tab in the US

Facebook introduced a new News tab in the Facebook app in the US today. The newly introduced News tab contains local news. It will also feature news from publishers who focus on five racial and ethnic groups in the US.

PUBG Mobile becomes top grossing game

PUBG Mobile became the top grossing mobile game in May recording over $226 million in user spending. This marks a 41% growth for PUBG Mobile.

Google Pixel smartphones gain popularity

Googles Pixel smartphones performed exceptionally well in 2019 shipping 7.2 million units in 201, which accounted for a 52% growth year-on-year.
A group of protesters stood in front of the entrance of the CKTV building. They are against the show holding homosexual content.

Ah Jin tried to appease them but one of the men throw colored paint. It hit Ah Jin straight to her head. Another water ball hit Chef Park at the back. He watched from a distance and came to rescue Ah Jin from the protesters. Tae Wan ran along with him.

Song Eun saw what happened to Ah Jin. She took her car and let Ah Jin, Chef Park, and Tae Wan join her. Noh Jae Soo rushed to join them as Gyu Sang instructed him to spy on them. Song Eun wanted to help Ah Jin forget the incident. Another reason is to convince Chef Park to agree and return to the show again.

Chef Park declined to shoot and be the lead role for "Sweet Munchies." He felt ashamed of what his family would feel as he comes out on TV as a gay. Tae Wan decided not to proceed as the designer of the show since Chef Park did not join. Ms. Cha, the head director, will cancel the regular slot of the show if Park will not be the lead cast.

The five co-workers traveled outside of Seoul to Gangwon province to enjoy the beach. They had fun swimming and bought fresh foods in the wet market. They bought colored jumpsuits on the market. Chef Park cooked for them while they enjoy the time to forget about work.

Chef Park enjoys his time with Ah Jin, while Tae Wan felt envious as Park gives more attention to her.

Gyung Sang fought with his superior, showing his rude and blunt attitude. Ms. Cha warned him to stand as a leader and cooperate with his team. She bought food and held the two men inside the conference room. Until they started to laugh, enjoy the food over wine and beer.

Ah Jin woke up early dawn and went outside to watch the sunrise. Chef Park realized that Ah Jin is gone, he went out and sits beside her at bay area. Tae wan woke up looking worried at how close they can be.

They went to the market again and took a heavy breakfast as they headed back to Seoul.

Ms. Cha arranged a team meeting with the whole crew at 2:00 p.m. She is expecting to see Chef Park back again. Ah Jin stammered as she tries to reason out with Ms. Cha. She wasn't able to convince Park to join.

After an hour, the whole team shocked as Chef Park and Tae Wan entered the room and announcing they are coming back to the show. Ah Jin's eyes grew wide in surprise. Ms. Cha amused of having Park on the show again. Later that afternoon, Tae Wan met Park at his office to get a fit for a new set of clothes. His father arrived and question Park's presence. He insisted that Tae Wan will show up as he sets a blind date for him.

Tae Wan agreed to go on a blind date his father arranged to avoid Park being ridiculed. But he wasn't really happy with the met up.

He went to Park's Bistro for the first time to take out the stress he felt. Park prepared a special dish for him with wine as they talked about their interests and thoughts. Tae Wan grabbed and held Park's hand tightly and looked him in the eyes. Silence washed over the room.
It all started with the stolen verdict. This was after the December 7, 1992 Elections when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on December 29, 1992, boycotted the parliamentary elections and wrote the book  Stolen Verdict to register its protest against the 1992 presidential election.



The Interim National Election Commission (INEC), with 29 per cent of registered voters turning out to vote in the parliamentary election, declared the National Democratic Congress (NDC) winner of 189 of the 200 parliamentary seats which gave the NDC the mandate to govern for the next four years.



Since then, election after election, the Electoral Commission (EC) has come under severe suspicion and criticisms depending on which political party is in opposition.



Under the Fourth Republican dispensation, we have had elections in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 and none has seen the EC not coming under intense scrutiny, suspicion and mistrust especially from the two dominant political forces, the NPP and the NDC.



Interestingly, our two foremost political parties have all won clean elections and come into political office under the same electoral management of the EC. The NDC won the 1992, 1996, 2008 and the 2012 polls with the NPP winning the 2000, 2004 and 2016 polls.



Actions/inactions of EC



Indeed, the actions and inactions of this same EC have ushered in new governments under Ghanas Fourth Republican dispensation.



Why is it then that the two parties when in opposition view the EC with suspicion and tend to have issues with every step of the election management body? Currently, the EC faces the same integrity issue going into the 2020 polls, with the NDC breathing heavily on its neck alleging that the EC is planning to rig the polls in favour of the ruling party, the NPP.



But the key question to ask is, can the EC ever rig any elections in the country? Has there been an occasion it has proven that the EC ever rigged an election in favour of any political party?



Rigging an election



Responding to a question on the 2016 polls, the former chairperson of the Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei said: It is just not possible under the system.



She said to rig an election will require getting the support and active involvement of her six co-commissioners, her 10 regional directors, the 200-plus District Electoral Officers, the 275 Returning Officers and their two assistants.



She said it will also involve getting the party agents at the collation centres to toe the line.



All these people must actively be working and changing the documents for Charlotte Osei to rig the elections.



So I need to convince 500,000-plus people to skew the system in favour of one person. I havent figured out how to do that yet and it is not even a part of my value system that I will do that. Basically, it is impossible, she said.



The current EC chair, Mrs Jean Mensa, on multiple occasions has also articulated similar sentiments. So why is it that political parties in opposition will continue to disbelieve the EC even though the electoral management of the process by the same EC has more than twice favoured parties in opposition.



A former chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan has often said that elections are won at the polling station and that a well-organised political party can know its overall performance in an election from the polling station results provided by its agents.



With each election coming off smoothly even if with some hitches, it must increasingly be clear to all stakeholders that no EC has what it takes to rig elections in favour of any political party. Otherwise no ruling political party or incumbent government will ever lose an election.



Time to trust EC



I honestly think it is time to trust the EC and support it to deliver a world-class election whose outcome will be acceptable to all competing interests.



This phenomenon where political parties in opposition always allege that the commission is planning the electoral process in favour of the ruling party must be a thing of the past.



After 28years of democratic practice under the current dispensation, we rather have to support efforts at strengthening the EC to perform creditably.



There are whole measures that we need to put in place to strengthen our electoral process. For instance, I am looking forward to a day we will not need party polling agents at our polling stations across the country. This will considerably reduce the huge financial burden that faces our political parties in deploying party agents across the country.



I am looking forward to the day, where the registration of new voters will be an ongoing everyday activity instead of the current situation where opportunities are given to registrants only when there is going to be an election.



Vigilance



Political parties must also know that what really wins an election requires vigilance. In 2008 for instance, in spite of suspicions of rigging, mistrust and incessant demands from the opposition NDC, they eventually won that election primarily because they remained vigilant at the polling stations. In that general election, the ruling NPP candidate Nana Akufo-



Addo conceded to losing in the closely contested presidential election run-off amid accusations of vote rigging.



Similarly, in the 2016 Election, despite their demands for a new voters register, the opposition party then, the NPP, emerged victorious as a result of their vigilance at the polls.



They had occasions where knowledgeable and experienced persons such as Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng and Mr Boakye Agyarko were polling station agents.



Training of party officials to understand electoral matters is therefore paramount as safeguards to winning an election.

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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People hold up placards to protest over the death of George Floyd outside the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct in Seattle, Washington on June 2, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

Protesters Storm Seattle City Hall, Demand Mayors Resignation

'Autonomous zone' created in Capitol Hill area

Hundreds of protesters, with the help of a sympathetic City Council member, stormed City Hall on Tuesday and demanded the mayors resignation.

A number of people chanted defund SPD, referring to the Seattle Police Department. Protesters as well as self-described anarchists and communists have also camped outside the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, which spans six blocks, including the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct, which was closed on Monday.

Twitter accounts of individuals involved in the zone, called CHAZ, have uploaded photos of the areas border, which consists of plastic barricades, trash cans, pieces of plywood, some fencing, and orange conesfeaturing anti-police graffiti.

One of the signs, which appears to have been written on a piece of cardboard with a marker, reads you are now leaving the USA. It appears that the blockade doesnt prevent pedestrian traffic.

Seattle police told Fox News they are still responding to the area if there is a 911 call or an emergency.

Mayor Jenny Durkans office also confirmed the Tuesday City Council protest, saying the city is committed to reforming policing in the city.

As the person who originally investigated the Seattle Police Department for the unconstitutional use of force, Mayor Durkan believes that SPD can lead the nation on continued reforms and accountability, but knows this week has eroded trust at a time when trust is most crucial, her statement said, according to KOMO News.

Mayor Durkan has worked non-stop over the last three months to keep our community safe and to address the inequities of the pandemic in our community. Working together, we must focus our investments in opportunities for communities of color and increase efforts that go even beyond what we built the first two years, like free college, expanding preschool, protecting domestic workers and rideshare drivers, building affordable housing, and investing in community led youth safety programs, the statement said.

Demonstrators raise their fists as a fire burns in the street after clashes with law enforcement near the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct, in Seattle, Wash., on June 8, 2020. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

On Friday, Durkan, a Democrat, banned the police use of tear gas on protesters, who are outraged by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.

News outlets reported that the City Council protesters were led by Seattle City councilwoman Kshama Sawant, a member of the Socialist Alternative party.

If Mayor Durkan refuses to step aside, it will be the responsibility of the City Council to remove her, by introducing articles of impeachment, Sawant said last week, reported the Seattle Times.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said he would declare the far-left Antifa extremist group a terrorist organization in the wake of arson incidents, riots, vandalism, and looting that occurred during or after protests over Floyds death in several cities.
A dispute between fruit and vegetable distributor Begley's and its technical manager has been resolved amicably, the High Court has been told.

Agnieszka Luz had denied any wrongdoing following allegations by her employer she forwarded some confidential company information to her personal email.

Terway Unlimited Company, trading as Begley's Distribution, last month obtained interim orders ex parte, one side only represented, against Ms Luz requiring her to preserve the information and not disclose it.

Earlier that same day, it had suspended her.

When the matter returned before Mr Justice Brian O'Moore at the end of May, Marguerite Bolger SC, for Ms Luz, Annfield View, Porterstown, Dublin, said her client denied any wrongdoing.

The judge was told the sides had agreed Ms Luz would provide undertakings in lieu of the interim orders and that agreement was without prejudice to the position of either party in the litigation.

The case was further adjourned to today when Mark Connaughton SC, for Begley's, told the judge the case had been resolved amicably and both sides wished each other well into the future.

There are no outstanding applications concerning Ms Luz and the proceedings could be struck out, he said.

On consent of the sides, Mr Justice OMoore discharged the undertakings and struck out the proceedings.

The court previously heard Ms Luz started work some 12 to 14 years ago with Begleys and had held various positions before she was appointed technical manager.
These are terrible times. A pandemic is sweeping across the globe, infecting more than 6.4 million people and killing over 380,000. More deaths will follow. Over the past few months, children have watched as COVID-19 destroyed their daily routines and unraveled their worlds. No more playdates.

No more school or daycare. No more going to the playground or park. No more petting the neighbors dog. No more visits from grandma and grandpa. Family members have become acutely ill; some have died. The familiar became fearsome. That which gave children comfort now frightens them or is forever gone from their lives.

This is the acute threat of COVID-19. More insidious, more powerful, and more destructive is the chronic threat of the racism that pervades this country. Just as we were reaching for optimism and hope that the worst of COVID-19 was behind us, George Floyd was brutally murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis as his fellow officers stood by.

This horrific act of violence has rightly galvanized our nation. Protests are occurring across the country and here in Massachusetts as people demand justice and speak out against the longstanding inequities -- in our criminal justice system, in economic opportunity, in education, in housing, in simply being-- that racism creates. These inequities and the violence that often accompanies them harm health all along the life course, from preconception onward.

As a social determinant of health, racism is a public health issue. So is COVID-19. Nature produced COVID-19. Man produced the systemic and pervasive racism that lives on in American society. Humanity must respond to both. There will be no vaccine for racism. No miracle of medical science to fix these deep seated, difficult, and painful issues. We must work together to change our social, political, and economic systems to create a just society where all our children can feel safe and secure.

The fear and the pain that COVID19 has wrought is but an echo of that which racism has wrought in the lives of Black Americans. MCAAP, an organization whose mission is to promote the optimal physical, mental, and social health of all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults condemns racism in all its myriad forms. We will continue to advocate for policies and practices that advance social justice and promote equity and speak out against racism and discrimination.

We encourage everyone to speak out against injustice. One way to do that is through your vote. So please vote. And when you do, vote for kids--for politicians and policies that support a more just, healthy America.

Elizabeth Goodman, MD, MBA, is president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Kyiv's court of appeals on Wednesday dismissed a counterclaim of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine against the ruling of Kyiv's Pechersky District court issued on February 9, 2017 on the commitment of PrivatBank to fulfill the terms of deposit agreements that were concluded by the Cypriot branch of the bank with offshore companies of the Surkis brothers (worth about $257 million), Law Adviser to PrivatBank Andriy Pozhydayev told Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

"Kyiv's court of appeals dismissed the appeal of the Cabinet of Ministers, upheld the ruling of the Pechersky District court. We are preparing to file a cassation appeal and hear the case by the Supreme Court, since the Supreme Court has an unambiguous practice  the ruling to secure a claim cannot substitute a substantive solution to the dispute," he said.
SULEIMAN KHEL, Pakistan - When Tariq Nawazs daughter was born a year ago, he borrowed money to pay for his wifes cesarean delivery. Seven months later, they learned their baby had polio and sold the little bit of jewelry his wife had received for her wedding to pay mounting medical bills.

Then the new coronavirus pandemic struck Pakistan, prompting a countrywide lockdown that closed even their village of Suleiman Khel, at the edge of a tribal region plagued by militants. Still in debt, Nawaz lost his job, his monthly paycheque of $95 and the means to provide treatment for the babys polio.

Its all I can think of. I feel like my head is going crazy, he said.

For millions of people like Nawaz who live in poor and troubled regions of the world, the novel coronavirus is only the latest epidemic. They already face a plethora of fatal and crippling infectious diseases: polio, Ebola, cholera, dengue, tuberculosis and malaria, to name a few.

The onslaught of infectious diseases is made worse by the many other threats in lives already overwhelmed by adversity. Crushing poverty leads to malnutrition and lack of medical care, making people more susceptible to illness. In many places, they must also navigate the violence of militants, gangs and government soldiers, which can make campaigns to fight disease more difficult.

___

This story was produced with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

___

Just when the Democratic Republic of Congo appeared to be nearing the end of its deadly Ebola epidemic this year, the first COVID-19 cases appeared, devastating residents. Militants also terrorize the region.

People here have been victims of attacks by Ugandan ... rebels, Ebola and now COVID-19, said 46-year-old Philemon Tsongo, a physician who survived Ebola at the epicenter of the outbreak in Beni. They are traumatized.

In war-torn Yemen, the cholera epidemic peaked with more than a million infections in 2017. Health officials have seen a dramatic drop in cholera, but there is growing concern that the fight against the recently arrived coronavirus will undercut the anti-cholera campaign.

Officials from the U.N. childrens agency, UNICEF, say stocks of hygiene kits and chlorine tablets for water purification in Yemen will last only until the end of June. The agency needs at least $18 million through the end of the year to buy more supplies for water, sanitation and hygiene services, but it appears the money will go to fight COVID-19.

We think that the risk remains high and that cholera and acute watery diarrhea cases could easily make a strong, strong comeback, said Bismarck Swangin, a UNICEF spokesman in Yemen.

Across the world in Central America, Honduras has seen a steep climb in COVID-19 cases in the midst of a dengue fever outbreak. San Pedro Sula, the business capital where gang violence makes Honduras one of the deadliest countries in the world, is also now the epicenter of a COVID-19 outbreak. The city and surrounding area have about two-thirds of Honduras approximately 3,000 confirmed cases.

We have a full-blown dengue epidemic, meaning we have two illnesses circulating in the country, said Dr. Carlos Umana, president of the Social Security Doctors Association for northwest Honduras, who is based in San Pedro Sula.

The simultaneous epidemics are overwhelming a public health system that had few resources to begin with. For a population of about 10 million people, Honduras only has 350 intensive care beds and about 6,000 hospital beds overall  compared to some 23,000 in New York City.

The collapse of the health systems are imminent if these two illnesses continue rising, Umana said.

In Pakistan, where Nawaz lives, coronavirus cases are going up sharply. The countrys toll of above 113,000 coronavirus cases surpasses that of neighbouring China, and 2,255 people in Pakistan have already died.

Meanwhile, Pakistan continues to suffer some of the worlds worst outbreaks of infectious diseases. It has 4.3 million cases of malaria annually, and is one of the top 10 countries for new cases of tuberculosis each year. It is also one of only three countries, including Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is still endemic.

The fight against disease is made harder by militants who oppose vaccination. The militants in Pakistan have multiple and sometimes overlapping motives, focusing on the government, religious minorities, connections with anti-U.S. organizations in neighbouring Afghanistan and attacks on Pakistans historic rival, India.

Militants have spread rumours that the polio vaccine is a Western conspiracy to make the next generation of Muslims infertile. Dozens of vaccinators, with heavily armed security at their side, have been targeted and killed in recent years. Just last month, a half-hour drive from Nawazs home, masked gunmen shot and killed 40-year-old Abdul Wahab, a well-known vaccinator in the tribal regions.

Nawazs daughter, Tuba, was vaccinated against polio at four months, but before she could receive her second of three doses, she contracted the disease.

Dr. Rana Mohammad Safdar, the countrys leading immunologist and front-line warrior in Pakistans COVID-19 battle, said that last years testing revealed the polio virus was everywhere in the country. Now, the arrival of the coronavirus means 40 million children wont get their polio vaccination this month, Safdar said, leaving them without protection.

Late last year, Safdar had begun to hope polio could be beaten in Pakistan. He had a battle plan and everyone on board, even reluctant religious leaders. But when the coronavirus struck, Safdar ordered his army of more than 250,000 vaccinators to shelter in their homes for their own safety and to prevent a COVID-19-infected vaccinator from spreading the virus to an entire village. He worried that just one COVID-19 infection would be grist for the militant clerics rumour mills.

The virus already has devoured most of Pakistans budget to fight the other diseases. Theres no money left to disinfect the countless fertile grounds for mosquitoes that carry crippling diseases such as dengue or malaria.

COVID has been a devastating blow to our efforts ... We are now in a position where we cant do much, said Safdar, who went into self-imposed quarantine after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

So far this year, 40 children have tested positive for polio, including Nawazs daughter Tuba. Safdar fears new infections this year could surpass 150, a startling figure for a disease the WHO had hoped would have been eradicated by now.

The covonavirus and the lockdown to fight it are also making worse endemic poverty. Nearly 30% of Pakistanis live below the poverty line, earning less than $2 a day.

Nawazs debts have been piling up. He already had sold his share of the family plot to his elder brother for money to cover his wedding and construction of his familys one-room house.

He and three of his brothers also carry the burden of another brother who spends most of his days and nights in a drug-induced stupor. That brother, Gul, couldnt get work and found an escape in opium, and now the extended family must care for his five children. Another brother also is broke, after losing his job as a security guard to the virus lockdown, and is trying unsuccessfully to migrate to Malaysia for work.

Sitting in the brutal heat on a steel-framed bed made of knotted rope, Nawaz held his daughter close. He thinks she feels protected in his arms.

She is his joy and his greatest worry. Tuba doesnt talk yet. That afternoon, her round brown eyes were outlined with a thick coal and her tattered shirt was caked with dirt. Tuba cant stand, and when Nawaz touched her right leg she pulled away. Polio has left her leg and foot lifeless, but also painful.

Tubas 3-year-old sister Ilana snuggled up against her father, shoving and poking at her many barefoot cousins who crowded the dirt courtyard. Social distancing has no place in their crowded world, nor in the dusty streets where women in burqas sell second-hand goods and small shops remain open despite the lockdown.

When Tuba became sick, Nawaz took her to the village clinic, but they couldnt help and sent her home. After two visits to government hospitals, he took her to a private clinic where finally she was diagnosed with polio.

We didnt know what to do. They gave her medicine, but there was no therapy, just medicines, he said.

Since being laid off theres no money to buy Tuba medicine or even the milk she needs to keep her other limbs strong. Instead, Nawaz says, he gives her tea with a little milk.

In late February she fell ill, but the virus had shut the government hospitals and Nawaz had to take her to a private hospital again that cost 8,800 ($50) a night. Tuba was there for four nights.

We had no choice, she needed treatment, he said. There was everything for her there.  She was doing so well.

They were told to return after three months but he knew they wouldnt. There is no money to treat the polio.

Now they can all just pray that the family is not struck with the coronavirus. A COVID-19 patient is more likely to die in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, where Nawaz lives, than anywhere else in Pakistan, with a death rate of 4.6%, compared to 2.3% nationwide.

Its a scary place to be, he said.

___

Associated Press writers Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria; Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro in Beni, Congo; Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Senior Iranian Official Slams Europe for Failing to Stand Up to US Over Nuclear Deal

Sputnik News

13:09 GMT 09.06.2020

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A senior adviser to the Iranian parliament speaker in charge of international affairs criticized Europe on Tuesday for failing to shield his country from US sanctions in return for Iran staying in the nuclear pact, the Tasnim news agency said.

"European countries need to stand against Washington's unilateral and arbitrary decisions", Hossein Amir Abdollahian was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.

Amir Abdollahian, who spoke with French Ambassador to Iran Philippe Thiebaud in Tehran, said that by challenging the United States over the 2015 nuclear deal Europe would safeguard global peace and security.

On 27 May, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would end the waivers that allowed foreign companies to work on Iran's peaceful nuclear projects as stipulated in the nuclear deal, after a 60-day wind-down period. The United States will provide a 90-day extension for the sanctions waiver for foreign entities engaged in work at the first unit of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. The decision was already criticized by Russia and China.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said that the United States cannot claim to be part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) after withdrawing or try to deal with the relevant issues as part of the Iran nuclear deal.

"We agree that the embargo was taken at a certain moment, with a certain schedule of time. The US has withdrawn from the JCPOA. and now they cannot claim that they are still part of the JCPOA, in order to deal with this issue", Borrell told a press conference.

The US cancelled sanctions waivers for European companies involved in Iran's nuclear programme in late May, two years after it quit the nuclear pact that saw Iran curb its nuclear research in exchange for sanctions easing.

EU signatories vowed to protect Iran from US penalties but Iran argues that not enough has been done.

A Sputnik

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The President of Ireland Michael D Higgins has written a letter to Michael Duignan, the COVID-19 Community Outreach Champion for Co. Offaly, in which he thanks Michael for his hard work, solidarity and active citizenship during the pandemic.



Michael is one of 34 COVID19-Community Champions who have been deployed across Ireland as part of COVID-19 Community Outreach, a national programme coordinated by The Wheel and Irish Rural Link with support from the Department of Rural and Community Affairs. Michael, and the other the Community Champions, are working closely with local authorities and local community and voluntary groups to make sure that people who need help get it from trusted, experienced sources.



In the letter, President Higgins wrote: You, and all who have been working with you in COVID-19 Community Outreach over the past weeks and months have answered the call of your communities. You have made an enormous difference and are continuing to perform a vital service as we slowly emerge from the dark of the pandemic and into the light of a better, shared future.



President Higgins has also recorded a message thanking the Champions and all volunteers and organisations who have come together at this time to ensure no one is excluded. The message is available on https://soundcloud.com/presidentirl/message-from-president-michael-d-higgins-on-the-covid-19-community-outreach/s-kxBtS0XCqPa and As Gaeilge at https://soundcloud.com/presidentirl/teachtaireacht-on-uachtaran-o-huiginn-for-rochtain-an-phobail-maidir-le-covid19/s-KNZlTgIumQw



Deirdre Garvey, CEO of The Wheel called on people who need assistance in their homes to contact their local Community Champion: It is the role of the Community Champions to join the dots and ensure that every person, regardless of where they live in the country, is connected to the necessary help and supports to meet their needs at this time, said Deirdre Garvey.



Your local Community Champions contact details are available at www.wheel.ie/champions. Those in need of support can also call the Community Call Helpline on 0818 222 024. This number is available from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Sunday.
The colors in this newly discovered phase of liquid crystal shift as researchers apply a small electric field. Credit: SMRC

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder's Soft Materials Research Center (SMRC) have discovered an elusive phase of matter, first proposed more than 100 years ago and sought after ever since.

The team describes the discovery of what scientists call a "ferroelectric nematic" phase of liquid crystal in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery opens a door to a new universe of materials, said co-author Matt Glaser, a professor in the Department of Physics.

Nematic liquid crystals have been a hot topic in materials research since the 1970s. These materials exhibit a curious mix of fluid- and solid-like behaviors, which allow them to control light. Engineers have used them extensively to make the liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in many laptops, TVs and cellphones.

Think of nematic liquid crystals like dropping a handful of pins on a table. The pins in this case are rod-shaped molecules that are "polar"with heads (the blunt ends) that carry a positive charge and tails (the pointy ends) that are negatively charged. In a traditional nematic liquid crystal, half of the pins point left and the other half point right, with the direction chosen at random.

A ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal phase, however, is much more disciplined. In such a liquid crystal, patches or "domains" form in the sample in which the molecules all point in the same direction, either right or left. In physics parlance, these materials have polar ordering.

Noel Clark, a professor of physics and director of the SMRC, said that his team's discovery of one such liquid crystal could open up a wealth of technological innovationsfrom new types of display screens to reimagined computer memory.

"There are 40,000 research papers on nematics, and in almost any one of them you see interesting new possibilities if the nematic had been ferroelectric," Clark said.

Views of a new phase of liquid crystal as seen under the microscope. The diamond shapes reveal "domains" in which almost all of the molecules take on the same orientation as shown by the arrows (bottom). Credits: SMRC

Views of a new phase of liquid crystal as seen under the microscope. The diamond shapes reveal "domains" in which almost all of the molecules take on the same orientation as shown by the arrows (bottom). Credits: SMRC

Under the microscope

The discovery is years in the making.

Nobel Laureates Peter Debye and Max Born first suggested in the 1910s that, if you designed a liquid crystal correctly, its molecules could spontaneously fall into a polar ordered state. Not long after that, researchers began to discover solid crystals that did something similar: Their molecules pointed in uniform directions. They could also be reversed, flipping from right to left or vice versa under an applied electric field. These solid crystals were called "ferroelectrics" because of their similarities to magnets. (Ferrum is Latin for "iron").

In the decades since, however, scientists struggled to find a liquid crystal phase that behaved in the same way. That is, until Clark and his colleagues began examining RM734, an organic molecule created by a group of British scientists several years ago.

That same British group, plus a second team of Slovenian scientists, reported that RM734 exhibited a conventional nematic liquid crystal phase at higher temperatures. At lower temperatures, another unusual phase appeared.

When Clark's team tried to observe that strange phase under the microscope they noticed something new. Under a weak electric field, a palette of striking colors developed toward the edges of the cell containing the liquid crystal.

"It was like connecting a light bulb to voltage to test it but finding the socket and hookup wires glowing much more brightly instead," Clark said.

Stunning results

So, what was happening?

The researchers ran more tests and discovered that this phase of RM734 was 100 to 1,000 times more responsive to electric fields than the usual nematic liquid crystals. This suggested that the molecules that make up the liquid crystal demonstrated strong polar order.

"When the molecules are all pointing to the left, and they all see a field that says, 'go right,' the response is dramatic," Clark said.

The team also discovered that distinct domains seemed to form spontaneously in the liquid crystal when it cooled from higher temperature. There were, in other words, patches within their sample in which the molecules seemed to be aligned.

"That confirmed that this phase was, indeed, a ferroelectric nematic fluid," Clark said.

That alignment was also more uniform than the team was expecting.

Microscopic image of the wild colors seen in the new phase of liquid crystal. Credit: SMRC

"Entropy reigns in a fluid," said Joe MacLennan, a study coauthor and a professor of physics at CU Boulder. "Everything is wiggling around, so we expected a lot of disorder."

When the researchers examined how well aligned the molecules were inside a single domain, "we were stunned by the result," MacLennan said. The molecules were nearly all pointing in the same direction.

The team's next goal is to discover how RM734 achieves this rare feat. Glaser and SMRC researcher Dmitry Bedrov of the University of Utah, are currently using computer simulation to tackle this question.

"This work suggests that there are other ferroelectric fluids hiding in plain sight," Clark said. "It is exciting that right now techniques like artificial intelligence are emerging that will enable an efficient search for them."

Explore further Breaking symmetry leads to responsive organic photodetectors
The media aide to a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has debunked insinuations of a cold war between his principal and the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola.

Tunde Rahman, in a statement issued on Tuesday night, restated the loyalty of Mr Aregbesola to the APC chieftain.

Earlier on Tuesday, there were reports speculating that the disbandment of factional groups within the ruling party fuelled a rancour between Mr Tinubu and Mr Aregbesola.

Mr Aregbesola was alleged to be fronting some political groups in Lagos State without the knowledge of Mr Tinubu.

However, according to Mr Rahman, the Governors Advisory Council, which he described as the highest decision-making body within the APC in Lagos State, passed the resolution calling for the disbandment of all factional groups within the party.

He said the decision was to promote discipline, harmony and cohesion and engender party supremacy and it was not targeted at any particular individual or collection of individuals.

Our attention has, however, been drawn to a report in an online newspaper alleging that the GACs appropriate and candid resolution had worsened a phantom cold war between Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.

This is a figment of the imagination of the news organisation that authored the report. Asiwaju Tinubu remains Ogbeni Aregbesolas leader. The former governor of Osun State has been unswervingly & wholly committed to the progressive ideology of the Tinubu political family.

There is no war, cold or hot, between them. There has never been and there will never be. Asiwaju believes in him and he believes in the APC leader.

Our political family remains strong. And we are staying focused in our commitment to building and maintaining a cohesive political party, Mr Rahman said.

He noted that the resolution was to restate the often-stated position that the only recognised group is APC and not any of the factional groups.

It was to renew the commitment to APC and its unity, Mr Rahman wrote.

He further stated that the former Osun State governor is a strong member of the Tinubu political family.

The GAC position does not imply any division within the group. The resolution is well-meaning and should not be misinterpreted.
The acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner told ABC News that CBP drones that were used to monitor protests from high in the sky were not put in place to surveil protesters.

"What I would categorize that as just a false narrative," Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan told ABC News. "We were not providing any resources to surveil lawful peaceful protesters. That's not what we were doing," he continued.

Morgan said CBP was helping more than a dozen cities around the country and "providing assistance to state and locals so they could make sure that their cities and their towns were protected."

He added that when a driver allegedly ran over a group of law enforcement officers in Buffalo, NY, the CBP "air operation" was able to help track the vehicle and assist local law enforcement in arresting the driver.

PHOTO:A drone with a camera attached, flies over a vigil remembering the death of George Floyd, June 4, 2020, in Riverside, Calif. (Dylan Stewart/Image of Sport via Newscom)

"We weren't taking any information on law abiding protesters, but we were absolutely there to ensure that the safety of folks there as well as to enforce, and make sure law and order remain," he said.

Over the weekend, House Democrats sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf about alleged drones over Minneapolis and other cities.

Morgan said that the support that CBP provided to cites is "no different" than what they have done throughout the agency's history.

MORE: 52% of Americans support deploying military to control violent protests: POLL

He also told ABC News that there is no systematic racism in the law enforcement profession. "That's just not true," Morgan said, echoing the attorney general and acting DHS secretary over the weekend.

"What is systematic is that men and women in this profession, are law enforcement professionals who get up every single day. They put a badge on their chest, and they go answer the call, to help people that often can't help themselves," he continued. "And they run towards danger, they don't run away from it, and they're not asking, when they're running towards a danger to help somebody, they're not asking what their race, creed, color or sexual orientation is, all they see is a human being in need of assistance, and they're running to it."

Story continues

Morgan said he will work with lawmakers on police reform in the country and has already "offered assistance and dialogue" to some members.

PHOTO: Demonstrators march in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement, on June 06, 2020, in Deer Park, New York. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

"We need to keep talking, we need to keep engaging, but we need to do so in an honest way and we need to recognize that not all cops are bad," he said before adding that "of course" there are bad cops, but the overwhelming majority are good.

The acting CBP commissioner said that although it is too early to tell who exactly is stirring up the violent protests, there are few things that are "very clear."

The first is that there are people with "antifa-like tactics," he said, citing the fact that there have been a "cache of bricks that have been dropped off in multiple cities in strategic locations."

"There is information out there where people are organizing and influencing and trying to direct people to smash businesses," Morgan said. He added that these people have an "ideological agenda," and that some are specifically targeting police officers.

MORE: Cities across US announce police reform following mass protests against brutality

The second group he categorized as "common thugs."

"Just criminals that have nothing to do with the protests, nothing to do with the tragic death of Mr. Floyd, and everything to do with the traditional greed of a common thug, of individuals that are going out there smashing businesses and looting businesses," Morgan explained. "It has nothing to do with the protests, it has nothing to do with justice has everything to do with just being common thugs and looking out for their own greed."

The final group of people, Morgan said are "people that are legitimately lawfully and tried to peacefully protest."

MORE: George Floyd protests spread to smaller, mostly white towns

He thinks that CBP's presence around the Washington monument helped stop it from being "defaced with graffiti or targeted."

"We call that a show of force as a deterrent to keep those agitators, those groups that have an agenda to either burn or loot buildings or attack law enforcement, because we kept law and order in check," he said.

Morgan said the show of force "supported and enabled the lawful peaceful protests."

Drones deployed during marches were not to spy on protesters: Authorities originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
"Self Made," featuring Octavia Spencer, center, is part of Netflix's new Black Lives Matter collection. (Amanda Matlovich / Netflix)

Netflix added a Black Lives Matter section to its genre tab on Wednesday, responding to viewers' interest in titles related to racial injustice, discrimination and systemic racism.

Even though the collection is new, its title tag insists that it's "more than a moment." The streaming giant's main Twitter account has also been posting messages of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

"When we say 'Black Lives Matter,' we also mean 'Black storytelling matters,'" read a Netflix tweet Wednesday morning. "With an understanding that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time  we're starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience."

A Netflix spokesperson says the company has no plans to remove the Black Lives Matter genre tab.

When you log onto Netflix today, you will see a carefully curated list of titles that only begin to tell the complex and layered stories about racial injustice and Blackness in America. https://t.co/dN6XQmsrGK pic.twitter.com/3CIrrno6mw  Netflix (@netflix) June 10, 2020

Drawing on documentaries, films and TV series, among the 48 titles in the collection are: Da 5 Bloods, LA 92, American Son, 13th, Theyve Gotta Have Us, When They See Us," "Becoming," Moonlight," "Self Made," "Pose," "Malcolm X," "Orange Is the New Black" and Beyonce's "Homecoming." (Here's the full lineup.)

The new Black Lives Matter collection arrives on the heels of "The Help" spiking in viewership recently on Netflix. But even one of the film's stars, actress Bryce Dallas Howard, acknowledged that the 2011 period drama is "a fictional story told through the perspective of a white character and was created by predominantly white storytellers."

"We can all go further," Howard wrote on social media and recommended other "powerful, essential, masterful films and shows that center Black lives, stories, creators, and / or performers."

And no, "The Help" is not part of Netflix's new Black Lives Matter collection.
Iran To Execute 'Collaborator' For US Targeting Of Soleimani

Radio Farda June 09, 2020

Iran's Judiciary Spokesman Gholam-Hossein Emaili on Tuesday said a "collaborator" who had provided foreign intelligence services with details of movements of Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, has been sentenced to death.

According to Esmaili the death sentence that was passed on Seyed Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd earlier has been upheld by Branch 19 of the Supreme Court and will soon be carried out.

Esmaili did not provide any information about Mousavi-Majd's age, occupation or military connections, how he was arrested or his trial but claimed that he had been connected to Mossad and the CIA. An Iran expert said on Twitter that he was a senior member of the Revolutionary Guard.

It is not possible to verify the claims of Iran's Judiciary about a collaborator or whether this person was a member of IRGC.

According to the Spokesman, Mousavi-Majd sold information in "various security areas, particularly the Armed Forces including the Qods Force" as well as information on Soleimani's whereabouts and movements.

The United States targeted the armored Toyota Land Cruisers of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Deputy Commander of Iraq's Popular Recruiting Forces (IPRF) outside Baghdad International Airport in the early hours of January 3.

Both men and nine of their companions were killed in the missile attack which took place no more than 15 minutes from the time their plane had landed. The vehicles were seen completely on fire with body parts of the passengers, including Soleimani's hand, strewn around them. Soleimani severed hand and a ring he always wore helped identify him.

Soleimani had flown to Baghdad on a commercial flight from Syria and was greeted by al-Muhandis.

On January 18, Intelli Times, an online Israeli intelligence blog published a detailed reconstructed report about the operation according to which when flying to Baghdad, Soleimani was nearly always greeted by Al-Muhandis upon arrival at the airport where (IPRF) agents had been observed making preparations before the attack.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed "harsh vengeance" for Soleimani's killing. Iran later retaliated Soleimani's killing by launching more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases that hosted U.S. forces. The attack had no fatalities but tens of U.S. soldiers suffered brain injuries.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-to- execute-collaborator-for-us-targeting-of -soleimani/30660904.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Rodrigo Alves headed to Heathrow airport on Wednesday to finally fly home to Brazil to reunite with her family.

The 36-year-old showed off her curves in a power-blue co-ord which consisted of a form-fitting mini dress and cardigan which belted at the waist.

She added some pizazz to her look with a pair of fluffy yellow mules which gave a retro Hollywood vibe to her ensemble.

On her way! Rodrigo Alves wore a blue co-ord and fluffy heels at London's Heathrow airport on Wednesday as she prepared to fly home to Brazil to reunite with family

Rodrigo, who is a transgender woman, grappled with her designer luggage as she headed into the departure lounge ahead of her trip wearing a face mask.

The TV star has been laying low since the coronavirus pandemic struck but has been desperate to reunite with her family members.

Roddy has needed the support of her nearest and dearest after going through a series of operations including breast surgery and facial feminisation.

First class, baby! Rodrigo, who is a transgender woman, grappled with her designer luggage as she headed into the departure lounge ahead of her trip wearing a face mask

Flying home is permitted during lockdown as it's seen as essential travel and while Roddy owns properties in London and Marbella, she also calls Brazil home.

She previously told MailOnline that she had found lockdown a very lonely experience as she was living alone.

Roddy said: 'I am finding lockdown tough, I just really feel like I should be home but I am being safety-conscious and taking extra care.'

Empowered: Rodrigo shared this glamorous picture on Instagram the day before as she said 'I don't feel any less female than any other ciswoman'

However, she admitted that she has been using the time to think about legally changing her name.

Roddy said that the coronavirus pandemic has meant that any future plastic surgeries have been put on hold.

She said: 'I also have a scar on my cleavage and that's from an old nose job. They removed cartilage there to rebuild my nose, but it was botched and I still cannot breathe.'

'I'm trying to enjoy life in a different way without the surgeries and to try to be happy with what I've got.'
Eric Hayes Tyra, 37, was arrested Tuesday morning after leading authorities in a pursuit, then hitting a sheriff deputy's car.

Hamilton County Sheriffs deputies were involved in the pursuit which started in the 500 block of Signal Mountain Boulevard and ended in Marion County in the 12400 block of Highway 41. The pursuit was initiated after Tyra's vehicle was observed with a light law violation and his actions immediately became reckless, the Sheriff's Office said.

The preliminary investigation determined that in Marion County the suspect vehicle violently struck Deputy Jordan Long-Ross open drivers door as Deputy Long-Ross was exiting his patrol car. Deputy Long-Ross then shot at the suspec. Tyra was not struck by the gunfire. The Marion County Sheriffs Office and Tennessee Highway Patrol assisted in effecting the stop.

Tyra was arrested and transported back to the Hamilton County Jail where he has been booked for felony reckless endangerment, felony evading arrest, reckless driving, driving on a revoked license, and violation of light law.

Additional charges may be forthcoming pending the outcome of the investigation.

This investigation is being conducted by the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.




BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Turkmenistan has participated in global online session on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the response to COVID-19, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.

The mentioned discussion was organized via videoconference by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Parliamentarians for the achievement of global goals on June 2020. The global online session was attended by parliamentarians of the states from all regions of the world, international experts in the field of public health, economics and other spheres.

The representatives of Parliament of Turkmenistan participated in the discussion.

Participants considered the measures to fight the epidemic and restart the global economy. The parties exchanged views on the economic recovery from the perspective of sustainability.

Turkmenistan spoke about the measures to prevent the virus from entering the country that were outlined in a letter from President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 14:49:59|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China will dispatch more than 22,000 teachers this year to the country's poverty-stricken regions to work for one year, the Ministry of Education said Wednesday.

This is part of an annual government program providing educational support for the country's poor areas, including contiguous areas of extreme poverty.

A total of 22,842 teachers will be selected for the program for the 2020-2021 academic year, of whom 21,635 will work in the field of compulsory education, from elementary to junior high school, according to a circular posted on the ministry website.

Under the program, the teachers usually work in poor areas for one year, but they can opt to extend their stay.

Calling the move a key step to advance China's targeted poverty reduction through education, the circular urged local authorities to coordinate epidemic control and anti-poverty efforts, implement the program well and ensure that teachers safely take up their new posts. Enditem
Zoya, Ishaan, Zaara, Tanya, Sana, Arjun and Aryaman  these 13-15 year olds are no ordinary kids. Unlike youngsters of their age, this group of seven, who are all classmates in Std IX, have started a fund-raising initiative called We Stand by Her. Zoya Sethi describes the initiative as an effort to uphold dignity and comfort of migrant women who are making an arduous journey home, on foot.

Many, we know, were helping out migrants with food, water, and ration kits, but no one was providing sanitary pads for women.

 Zoya Sethi, a Gurugram teen

The campaign aims to raise funds to provide hygienic reusable sanitary napkins to women. Ask how they came by the idea, the teenagers say that they had been constantly discussing the plight of the migrant workers with their parents while spending their days at home. Many, we know, were helping out migrants with food, water, and ration kits, but no one was providing sanitary pads for women, adds Zoya.

We did not come across any initiative that was specially for women who would probably get their periods while walking home, says Sanaa while Ishaan Mittal, another young member of the campaign adds, We wanted to provide reusable cloth napkins that are biodegradable because they can be used multiple times, and do not harm the environment since they are biodegradable.

Their search for a partner, to help them in their campaign, led them to Udaipur-based not-for-profit organisation Jatan Sansthan, which runs project Uger  to locally source cotton that is stitched by women to make reusable cotton pads. We understood that the regular challenges of periods were enhanced by Covid-19 for migrant women. So we subsidised our pads highly, so that they could reach the most marginalised women. Each cloth costs around 90 and can be used for 1.5 years, says Smriti Kedia, co-creator of Uger. She adds that the project allows women to create pads at home, in a safe environment, and also breaks the taboo around menstruation.

The groups classmates and individual donors have rallied for the kids by sharing their initiative on social media. So far, we have raised over one and a half lakh, and are inching closer towards our initial goal of two lakh. We have provided almost 600 sanitary napkins to the Red Cross Society, which is making kits inclusive of food and sanitary pads for the migrant women, informs Tanya Malhotra. These kids have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Zoya shares, We had initially planned to raise two lakh, but now we are gunning for more so that the campaign benefits as many as possible.

Author tweets @bhagat_mallika

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Letter carrier James Daniels walks on his mail delivery route in San Clemente on May 15. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: Reporter Brittny Mejia's article about San Clemente mail carrier James Daniels beautifully illustrates the importance of the United States Postal Service and why the Postal Preservation Act, which would provide the struggling agency with $25 billion in emergency funding, is so vital.

The post office helps democracy function  it sustains the civic life of this country. The USPS is not a business but a public service, something President Trump does not understand. When Trump called the Postal Service a "joke" earlier this year, he once again revealed his ignorance of the simple facts of how a democracy functions.

I thank Daniels for his outstanding service. May his faith, wisdom and dedication to his job be an example to all of us during these troubling times.

Holly Hall, Glendale

..

To the editor: Thank you for the wonderful front-page Column One piece about the postman in San Clemente. It was terrific.

It reflected what I've said all my life about the post office  that it is a foundational institution with truly dedicated people, from those at the counter in the office to the ones who deliver our mail. We are so fortunate as Americans to have such fine people working to keep us all connected.

I've always remembered my mother asking, "Has the mail arrived yet?" It was the event of the day. Even now in the age of instant news on television and online, we always ask the same question in our house. If I am fortunate, I will be going to the mail box just as the letter carrier is moving on, and he or she always waves and smiles, as a lifelong friend would.

Thanks to Mejia for her article on this one carrier, a reflection of all who work to give us excellent mail service.

Patrick OBrien, San Juan Capistrano
The Sudanese authorities crackdown on media, unions and journalists has escalated during the Covid-19 pandemic, with tightening state control over media, journalists being arrested and facing increasing pressure on their freedom to work.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Sudanese Union of Journalists (SUJ), urge the authorities to stop the harassment and guarantee rights during this critical period.

21 newspapers have been suspended, leaving hundreds of journalists without income and the country deprived of newspapers in a critical moment.

According to SUJ, the government currently controls several media outlets through appointed administrative supervisors, while national media organizations are being heavily penalized, with more than 500 journalists likely to be dismissed soon, according to a plan drawn up by the Empowerment Removal Committee (ERC), created to dismantle former president Bashirs system.

The latest blow against press freedom was struck last week when the authorities announced legal changes which would result in jail terms of up to 10 years for criticising the actions of the Committee. The new provision has already claimed its first victims, among them Atyib Mustafa Abdelrahman, an SUJ member, columnist and publisher, who was arrested for his critical stance, the union claims.

These restrictive measures have grown during the Covid-19 crisis. According to SUJ, journalists have been repeatedly threatened, harassed, and summoned over in recent weeks. Journalists Lana Awad Sabil and Aida Ahmed Abdelgadir were arrested after publishing reports about the number of Covid deaths.

No journalists have been allowed to cover the proceedings of the High Committee for the Emergency of Corona and the relevant authorisations and permits have been removed from accredited journalists and correspondents, hindering their movement during the curfew period.

The move comes after recent attacks on the SUJ. On 7 June, the ERC issued an arrest warrant for the journalists unions president. While not immediately translated into an arrest, the warrant could be implemented at any time, authorities said.

The SUJs premises have been occupied since December 2019, when military forces stormed the building and banned and forcibly shut down the country's trade unions.

Sudanese Union of Journalists main office in Khartoum is still occupied by security forces, all assets were confiscated, top officials in the government are threatening us with prison from time to time, but we do not surrender, we are still fighting, said the SUJ.

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said, Sudanese journalists need international support. We call on the Sudanese authorities to release all imprisoned journalists, stop the control over unions and stop harassing and blackmailing reporters covering the pandemic.
10.06.2020 LISTEN

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) has revealed that soon the Government of Ghana (GoG) will supply inputs to farmers in Ahafo Region to boost their activities.

The Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Honourable(Hon) Collins Ntim disclosed this when he visited four(4) assemblies(Asunafo North, Asunafo South, Asutifi North and Asutifi South) out of the six to assess, evaluate and improve the various policies of Ministry Of Food and Agriculture to benefit the farmers and the country.

In an interview after meeting stakeholders where District Directors of Agruculture made presentations, the Deputy Minister explained that MOFA has procured a number of farm inputs to be circulated to assemblies doing so well in the sector of agriculture and per the way rice cultivation is on a large scale in Ahafo Region the ministry can not afford to neglect the region.

On government policies concerning agriculture sector, the aim is to ensure that by 2023 the country will be able to produce enough to the extent of exporting some of the produce for foreign income and this can be achieved when the government assist farmers to move from traditional to mechanise farming just like well developed countries where the percentage of farmers is small yet they produce in abundance for themselves and export.

According to Hon. Collins Ntim who is the Member of Parliament(MP) for Offinso North in Ashanti Region, his visit has revealed to him that rice farmers in Ahafo Region are extremely doing well to help the government achieve the 2023 goals and also to improve their living standards so all the needed support from the government must be given.

" In Ahafo Region, 75 percent of agriculture policies by President Akufo Addo have achieved so the farmers deserve inputs to make activities more easier and faster " he stated.

Touching on the COVID-19 fight in the region, he commended the Municipal District Chief Executives(MDCEs) for sensitising and providing Personal Protective Equipments(PPEs) for the people. He urged them to keep with the sensitisation the people and also supplying PPEs for effective fighting the virus.

Two of the MDCEs, Hon. Anthony Mensah(Asutifi North) and Hon. Robert Dwomoh Mensah(Asutifi South) thanked the Local Government Ministry for the visit which has been fruitful because alot of things have been shared to improve the living conditions of folks in the rural communities.

According to them, the assemblies have been assisting both farmers and agriculture officers to ensure that farmers apply the best of practices to boost the yielding of crops. Trainings are often arranged for both farmers and agric officers and it is gradually yielding positive.

" For MOFA to supply inputs to rice farmers in the region is a major relief because getting inputs for them has been problematic to the assemblies " they mentioned.

They explained, now rice farming is now hugely patronised by residents due to the education and measures put in place by the assemblies and government at large so MOFA must often supply inputs to 'ginger' them to venture into more commercial farming instead of subsistence way of farming.

On farming in Ahafo, the two DCEs explained that now residents are engaging in cashew, coconut and rice so inputs to assist thems will surely be supplied the government. They urged the youth to venture into farming because the current government has good plans for farmers to make them their living status better as compare some years back.

The engagement by the Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development and stakeholders of the assemblies were held at the capitals thus Goaso (Asunafo North), Kukuom(Asunafo South), Hwidiem(Asutifi South) and Kenyasi (Asutifi North).
Harvey Norman executive chairman Gerry Harvey has lamented the erratic state of the world's sharemarkets and said it is impossible to guess how the economy will recover from the coronavirus pandemic following a boom in sales at his electronics chain.

On Wednesday, Harvey Norman reported a 17.5 per cent jump in sales from the start of January to the end of May as consumers spent up big to improve their homes. The sharp lift marks a massive increase on an anemic December half, during which sales edged up just 0.1 per cent.

Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey and chief executive Katie Page have conflicting views on the potential for a strong economic recovery. Credit:Janie Barrett

Mr Harvey told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald the sales result was somewhat unexpected for the retailer, who pulled its dividend and cut executive salaries earlier in the year as it prepared for the worst.

But the veteran retailer was reticent to predict if the sales surge might continue as the economy stages a recovery, saying businesses were flying blind.
Johannesburg, June 9 (Peoples Daily Online)  On June 6, 2020, a Memorandum of Understanding on strategic cooperation was signed between Houde Institute and the Inclusive Society Institute (ISI, South Africa).

Wang Hongjuan, President of Houde Institute, pointed out in her speech at the signing ceremony that China is the largest developing country in the world and Africa is the continent with the largest number of developing countries. Both the Inclusive Society Institute and Houde Institute are emerging think-tanks. By promoting institutionalized exchanges of scholars, conducting joint research, co-sponsoring academic seminars, and practising track two diplomacy, the two institutes can help share the experience of both countries in good governance, improve understanding between the two peoples and provide intellectual support for better policies from the two governments. The Houde Institute will work with the Inclusive Society Institute to promote the inclusive development of the two countries and further contribute to the UN 2030 Agenda and the 2063 Agenda of Africa.

Professor Zweli Ndevu warmly welcomed the establishment of a strategic partnership between the two institutes. The ISI, according to him, is committed to improving the democracy, social participation and economic development of South Africa and beyond. He said the ISI is ready to work with the Houde Institute to come up with areas for joint research, policy analysis and consulting work. Their cooperation is a south-south agreement that will provide south developmental solutions for the multiple challenges posed by Covid-19 and in the post-pandemic era.

Fu Chengyu, former Chairperson of Sinopec Group and a practical professor at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, pointed out in his speech that both China and South Africa have prioritized their economic and social development, however, only South Africa knows best what it really needs. Chinese companies in Africa should adapt localization strategies and contribute to job creation and local economic development.

Daryl Swannepoel, CEO of the Inclusive Society Institute, noted that the agreement with Houde is the first international formal cooperative agreement that ISI is entering into. China is South Africas largest trading partner, and a country with which international policy coordination is high on the agenda. This means that their collective efforts can make a meaningful contribution to the inter-regional and global policy discourse.

Representatives from both sides discussed the international trend in the post-Covid-19 era and had their first working-level dialogue. Wei Dongze, Secretary-General of the South Africa-China Economic & Trade Association, made congratulatory remarks for both sides on behalf of Chinese enterprises in South Africa, and expressed his expectation for the early start of substantive cooperation between the two sides and the willingness of Chinese enterprises to offer the necessary support for cooperation between the two institutes.

The cooperation agreement between the two sides aims to provide a platform for exchange, dialogue and cooperation between experts and scholars from China and Africa. Meanwhile, by conducting joint research on topics of common concern and evaluating existing and potential problems, the think tanks hope to initiate forward-looking and innovative suggestions and proposals for decision-makers from both sides, and further contribute to the progress of the "Belt and Road Initiative" in Africa, and Chinas comprehensive, in-depth and stable relations with the continent.
New Delhi, June 10 : The BJP continued its virtual campaign across the country with party leaders addressing the people in different parts of the country, highlighting the achievements of the Central government in the past one year.

The virtual campaign across the country was launched by Union Home minister Amit Shah as 'Jan Samvad' rally for Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal. Nearly 30 lakh people are reported to have watched the programme.

Addressing the 'Odisha Jan Samvad' rally through video conferencing, Shah said, "Now is the time to make Odisha an impregnable stronghold of BJP. It is the spiritual centre of India, it must be a developed state. We need to create such a situation that no brother of Odisha should go to other states for employment. Only the BJP government can do this work." Shah addressed the people of Odisha through a virtual rally on June 8. The rally was witnessed by a record number of people on various social media platforms and TV channels.

BJP state unit president Sameer Mohanty told IANS, "This rally was witnessed by 29,58,635 people, which is a record for Odisha. Preparations were on at the state level for 10 days. Arrangements were made for watching the speech of Home Minister Amit Shah on 364 booths across the state as well as 1,004 mandals and 6,798 Shakti Kendras." Besides telecasting the Home minister's public rally on five major TV channels of the state, it was also made available on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

According to the Odisha BJP, nearly 20,22,700 people watched the event on Facebook on which 83,905 likes were received and 9,574 shared the Jan Samvad programme.

As many as 7,79,300 people watched the event on different Twitter handles, 8194 liked it and 296 people retweeted with comment while 15,6635 people watched the event on YouTube.
The recent death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and the riots and anti-riot police actions that followed them, have made new radical libertarians out of some of our friends on the left, who are demanding the defunding and abolition of city police departments. As Dan McLaughlin points out, their cheerleaders in the media are undertaking yogic exertions to pretend that left-wing radicals proposing to abolish city police departments are not left-wing radicals proposing to abolish city police departments. Apparently, we are to apply the Selena Zito method and take them seriously but not literally.

There is someone we might consult about a plausible police-reform agenda: the founding father of modern policing, Sir Robert Peel.

Police departments as we know them today are a relatively new kind of agency. We have had courts, sheriffs, bailiffs, etc., for a long time, but the first modern police department did not exist until Peel organized the Metropolitan Police in London in 1829. It is to Peel that we owe the modern notion of policing with consent, the principle that police agencies operate legitimately only where they operate with the consent of those subject to their powers. The situation in Minneapolis and elsewhere suggests that the local police agencies have lost the confidence of at least a portion of those to whom they are responsible, and that their legitimacy is therefore in question. If there is anything at all of substance to these riots and the spectacle of Nancy Pelosi kneeling in kente cloth (dressing up like a Wakandan chess set in the low-pH assessment of screenwriter Eric Haywood), then that question of legitimacy is it.

(It may be that the riots are only tangentially related to any real policy agenda and are instead simply a manifestation of the ancient instinct to conduct penitential rites during a plague. Thats my read.)

Peels nine principles of policing articulate more of a reform agenda than the would-be reformers do. We should consult them.

Story continues

Peel insisted that civil police were to be understood as a more liberal alternative to (attn: Senator Cotton) using military forces to quell disorder and relying on excessive punishment to terrorize the citizenry into submission, which had been the previous model. We have strayed far from that ideal, not only in relying on the threat of military force during the recent episodes of political violence but also in reshaping our municipal police departments to look and think more like military units than civil authorities. We have given the police military weapons and military uniforms, the results of which have ranged from the ridiculous (the SWAT team in my hometown of Lubbock, Texas, skulking around in woodland camouflage when answering a domestic call in a famously treeless environment) to the dystopian (riot police dressed up like extras from Starship Troopers, that great American testament to aspirational fascism). We arm the police like soldiers and we dress them up like soldiers, and we tell them they are at war  with drugs, with crime, but, ultimately, with the citizens they purport to serve.

And what was Joe Bidens famous crime bill if not a semi-hysterical attempt to impose through the terror of severe punishment that which could not be achieved through other means?

Peel believed that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives and that the police must use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

(The Peelian Principles, from which I am quoting, may not have been put on paper by Peel himself.)

The death of George Floyd did not result from the minimum degree of force which is necessary, or anything close to that. The more general problem is that the police are not generally trusted to ethically and intelligently determine what the appropriate minimum degree of necessary force is and surely do not universally deserve such trust, as many police departments have demonstrated on many occasions.

Peel advised that the confidence and consent of the public were to be gained not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy . . . by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life. The word courtesy stands out in those sentences. You can have courtesy, or you can have a state of war  it is difficult to have both at the same time.

And that may help us to understand why many police critics remain unmoved by data suggesting that there is no obvious widespread racial disparity in the use of deadly force by police; unjust police killings, this line of criticism holds, are only part of a larger pattern of targeting and mistreating African Americans that ranges from disrespect and discourtesy to racial profiling, and so the (contested) data on deaths do not reflect the more general facts of the case. If George Floyd had survived his ordeal, the behavior of the police would not have been any less wrong  it would only have produced a less shocking and dramatic outcome.

That kind of behavior comes from a bunker mentality, an us-and-them view of the world. Peels advice foresaw this as well: The police are the public and . . . the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. We no longer even pay lip service to the notion that the police are the public and the public are the police, as attested to by such developments as qualified immunity and laws establishing that assaulting a member of the general public is a less serious offense than assaulting a police officer. We have taken a civil office and made a kind of caste of it.

The final Peelian Principle: To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

Well.

More from National Review
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has officially selected UAE based, award-winning travel-tech start-up Hotel Data Cloud (HDC) as a Healing Solutions for Tourism.

Beating out over 1,000 contestants, from over 100 countries, HDC has been recognised as the most disruptive startup in the Middle East, that is offering solutions to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on tourism.

Tourism has been the worst affected of all major economic sectors due to Covid-19, with an estimated loss of 60 to 80 per cent of international tourist arrivals, equaling 850 million to 1.1 billion fewer tourists. In order to restore traveller trust and confidence to reinvigorate the tourism industry, HDC has initiated a Covid-19 preparedness program that spans over 90 attributes. Hotels can now re-engage travellers by communicating their updated safety standards, hygiene protocols, social distancing measures and much more to potential travelers, booking websites and travel agent databases, in real time.

Tourism is a leading driver of economic growth and re-establishing trust by being open and transparent with travellers is a critical factor in restarting tourism globally. It is encouraging to see HDC stepping up to that challenge and offering a solution that will enable hotels to rebuild customer confidence and trust by being able to share vital attributes, that affect travel decision making, said Natalia Bayona, Senior Expert on Innovation and Digital Transformation, UNWTO.

A centralised global database for descriptive hotel content that disseminates to hundreds of booking partners, HDCs new attributes include all the Covid-19 factors that travellers are taking into consideration, before making a booking decision. Hotels can now easily communicate their health and safety measures by creating a profile on HDC and filling in the Covid-19 preparedness section  which will then be automatically shared and freely accessible by any travel company, tourism board, government agency and other institutions via the HDC data feed.

We are proud and humbled to be recognised for our efforts towards rebuilding the tourism sector. With our technology, hotels can now efficiently share critical information, so that travellers can be reassured of their safety and confidently book their next stay, said Kevin Czok, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of HDC.

HDC was founded in 2016 by Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok and currently has a portfolio of over 11,400 hotels in 153 countries. HDC closed its first round of seed funding having secured $350,000 and is raising its second round of funding to meet increased demand, interest and accelerate growth. - TradeArabia News Service
The former President Jerry John Rawlings has cautioned Ghanaians not to let down their guard on the dangers of the COVID-19 virus till it has been contained.



This is contained in statement signed by Mr Kobina Andoh Amoakwa, the Head of Communications Directorate of the former President's Office and copied the Ghana News Agency in Accra.



The statement said the former President made the call during a courtesy call on him by the 95-year-old Ex-Private Ashiteye Hammond, a World War II veteran.



Former President Rawlings said: I dont want to take any chances and I think we should all cooperate to handle the pandemic as seriously as we can".



Ex-Private Hammond undertook a seven-day walk a couple of weeks ago to raise funds for frontline health workers dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.



He walked a total of 14 miles, doing two miles a day.



The former President described the effort by Ex-Private Hammond as a noble cause and urged other former Presidents and corporate institutions to support the fundraising campaign.



Former President Rawlings pledged 1000 dollars towards the fund.



The former World War II veteran, on his part, said he was inspired by what Captain Sir Thomas Moore did in the United Kingdom to raise funds for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday in April this year.



He is a veteran and I am also a veteran. He fought in Burma and I also fought in Burma, so I decided that if he has done it for Europe why cant I also do the same for Africa?"



I am very happy that I was able to do it. I did not let our people down and I am appealing to all Presidents and former Presidents across Africa to emulate President Rawlings gesture, Ex-Private Hammond urged.



The fund, which aims to raise 500,000 has so far raised 27,000.



Ex-Private Hammond was accompanied by Ex-WO1 Bright Segbefia, Public Relations Officer of the Veterans Association of Ghana (VAG), Derek Cobbina, a representative of the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League and Klenam Fiajoe, a team member.

Source: GNA









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A job advertisement by country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has caught everyone's attention. It has also revived an old debate of relatively low pay of public sector bank employees.

According to the advertisement posted on its website, SBI said it will offer Rs 75 lakh to 1 crore as annual compensation for the role of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) on a three-year contract.

Now compare this with SBI Chairman's remuneration. According to SBIs annual report, Rajnish Kumar received less than Rs 30 lakh in FY 19. To be precise, Kumar's annual compensation was Rs 29.5 lakh for FY19. As compared with this, HDFC Bank's CEO got an annual compensation of Rs55 crore. Other private, foreign bank CEOs too get comparable high annual package.

For long, the huge difference between compensation levels of public sector bank employees and their private sector counterparts has been a matter of debate in banking industry. Poor pay has been cited as the prime reason for exodus of talent from public sector to private entities. This also affects the morale of bankers in a highly competitive banking sector.

Public sector employee unions have been highlighting the disparity in pay levels for several years. Presently, the compensation of public sector bank executives are decided through negotiations between Indian Banks Association (the industry lobby of banks) and trade union representatives once in five years.

Recently, a comment by SBI chairman had caught public attention. In a conference call with analysts, Kumar was asked if the SBI would cut pay for employees. The SBI Chairman replied saying "road pe aake rehna padega, pehle hi itni kam milti hai (I'll have to live on road, I already get so less)". Although this was said jokingly, the comment was a reference to the relatively low pay of PSU bankers.

The CFO post in SBI turned vacant after Prashant Kumar resigned to head Yes Bank. According to the advertisement, the CFO candidate must be a chartered accountant with minimum 15 years of experience in managing accounts and taxation with large institutions out of which ten years should be with a bank/financial institution.

SBI has also announced the opening for a data protection officer. Compensation will not be a limiting factor for suitable candidate, the bank said.
Indications have emerged that there was a mild disagreement between a group of whistleblowers and the ethics committee of the board of directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) during the probe of its embattled president, Akinwunmi Adesina.

Documents obtained exclusively by PREMIUM TIMES showed that both parties clashed when demands were made by the whistleblowers on the progress made in the course of the investigations into allegations levelled against Mr Adesina.

Both parties also disagreed when evidences were demanded to support the allegations against the president.

Embattled

Mr Adesina, who seeks a second term in office as head of the AfDB, has been in the eye of the storm lately over sundry allegations of misconduct.

In a petition by the group of whistleblowers, Mr Adesina was accused of 20 breaches of the banks code of conduct. The bank, however, found the allegations to be frivolous.

But in a fresh move, ostensibly done in deference to the demands of the United States, the Board of Governors of the bank approved an independent review of the findings of the ethics committee.

Clash

Email exchanges and documents recently obtained by PREMIUM TIMES show that the ethics committee and the whistleblowers clashed in the middle of the investigations into allegations leveled against Mr Adesina.

In an email exchange dated January 9, seen by PREMIUM TIMES, the whistleblower group, which identified itself as a Group of Concerned Staff Members of the AFDB, called for a probe of the president.

The email was addressed to the ethics committee of the bank.

Please find attached a document transmitted in accordance to the Whistle-blowing and Complaints Handling Policy of the African Development Bank and to Resolution of the Board of Governors B/BG/2008/11 regarding the Application of the Code of Conduct for Executive Directors of the African Development Bank to the President of the Bank Group, the email reads.

We are a group of staff members concerned by the current perceived state of impunity and bad governance at the Bank. Through this communication, we wish to bring to your attention what we believe to be serious and repeated breaches of the Code of Conduct by the President.

We hope that in compliance with the adequate procedures, all the necessary clarity will be made. We also hope that in accordance to the Whistle-blowing Policy, our anonymity will be safeguarded and that no attempt will be made to uncover us.

Response

In a response dated February 14, Takuji Yano, Chair of the Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors, assured the whistleblowers that the allegations will be looked into.

As Chairperson of the Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors, I can assure you that the Committee takes your allegations seriously and is proceeding with the duty assigned to it pursuant to Resolution B/BG/2008/11 at this stage of the process to conduct a preliminary

examination of the complaint or allegation to determine whether it is based on apparently solid justifications with a view to submitting it to the Chairperson of the Bureau of the Board of Governors under the precise conditions defined in Article 3 of Resolution B/BG/2008/11, the committee chair said.

However, the committee declined a request by the whistleblowers to be updated with details of the investigations into the allegations against Mr Adesina, saying it would be in violation of the banks rules.

In response to your request for the Committee to provide you with clear and credible indication of the progress being made by the Committee, the email reads, I regret to inform you that pursuant to Paragraph 5.4 of the Bank Groups Whistle Blowing and Complaints Handling Policy, providing you with such a progress report will be in violation of the Bank Groups rules governing the handling of whistle blowing complaints.

In effect Paragraph 5.4 of the Whistle Blowing Policy provides as follows: It should be noted that whistleblowers and complainants are reporting parties. They are neither investigators nor finders of fact; they do not determine if corrective measures are necessary; and they do not determine the appropriate corrective or remedial action that may be warranted.

In addition, there is no other provision of the Whistle Blowing Policy or Resolution B/BG/2008/11 that permits the Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors to share any information of any type with you regarding what is being done concerning your allegations. Thank you very much for your understanding of the ethical dilemma in which the Committee finds itself and is unable to share any information with your group.

Disagreements

In a subsequent February 15 email addressed to the committee chair in response to the refusal to provide updates, the whistleblowers disagreed with the committee over their refusal to disclose updates of the investigation to them.

We are fully aware of our position as whistleblowers and that we have no say in the course of action of the Ethics Committee, the group said in its response. If we thought that anyone could influence the decisions of the Committee, you can be sure that we would have chosen a different strategy. We do not want to interfere in that process, otherwise we would not have started it.

However, it is not because something is not explicitly permitted by a regulation or a policy that it is prohibited. Article 5 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, which forms the basis of our modern legal systems, states: Article V  The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.

In our view, as parties to the cause, our respectful request for information on what was being done with our contribution does not seem ludicrous nor impossible to meet. We do understand the ethical dilemma in which you find yourself and we commend your dedication to protect the process from interference, which we share. The discretion we have demonstrated so far should be a sufficient proof of our own dedication to due process.

The whistleblowers also added that some of them were becoming more nervous than others that the choice to work with the ethics committee might not have been the right strategy and that they should switch approaches.

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Any indication that you would be willing to provide will help clear these doubts and calm the nervousness.

We do not think it is useful to debate any longer on this subject, we leave it up to you to choose the best course of action, the group added.

As part of its preliminary examination of the complaint, the ECBD said it also requested the whistleblowers to provide any further information or evidence that they had to sustain the allegations made against the President, but the whistleblowers declined to provide any such further information because not doing so will assist in preserving their anonymity.

This point of disagreements perhaps played a role in the investigation and subsequent dismissal of the allegations against Mr Adesina.

In dismissing the allegations against Mr Adesina, the ethics committee noted that if its preliminary examination of the complaint or allegation reveals it was frivolous or not based on any objective and solid facts, the resolution empowered the committee to dismiss it.

President @MBuhari receives President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. @Akin_Adesina, at the State House, Abuja. [PHOTO CREDIT: BASHIR AHMAD]

Allegations

In a petition by the group of whistleblowers, Mr Adesina was accused of 20 breaches of the banks code of conduct, including unethical conduct, private gain, an impediment to efficiency, preferential treatment, and involvement in political activities.

The group, which noted their allegations were in line with AfDBs whistleblowing policy, said these activities adversely affected the confidence and integrity of the bank.

The bank, however, found the allegations to be frivolous and thus cleared Mr Adesina.

Regardless, the United States government expressed deep reservations about the integrity of the committees process and called for a fresh in-depth investigation of the allegations.

In a letter dated May 22, 2020 to Ms Kaba, the U.S. government, through the Secretary, Department of Treasury in Washington, D.C., Steven Mnuchin, faulted the decision of the committee to totally exonerate Mr Adesina of all allegations, saying it was not yet time to make such a declaration.

On June 5, PREMIUM TIMES reported how the board of governors of the bank approved an independent review of the ethics committees work.

The decision, taken at the meeting of the bureau regarding the whistleblowers complaints against Mr Adesina, was obviously in deference to the demand by the U.S. government

Mr Adesina has consistently insisted that he is innocent amid the crisis.

President @MBuhari receives President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. @Akin_Adesina, at the State House, Abuja. [PHOTO CREDIT: BASHIR AHMAD]

In a recent visit to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Adesina, a former Nigerian minister for agriculture, said the allegations raised against him were trumped up, and without facts, evidence, and documents, as required by the rules and regulations of the bank.

Earlier, he had said that he is confident that a fair and just process of investigation would establish that he is innocent of all the allegations leveled against him.

I am confident that fair, transparent and just processes that respect the rules, procedures and governance systems of the Bank, and the rule of law, will ultimately prove that I have not violated the Code of Ethics of this extraordinary institution, he said.

He also promised to work with other stakeholders of the bank in its drive to fulfil the mandate of transforming and accelerating Africas development.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) speaks during a Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on new CCP virus tests on Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 7, 2020. (Andrew Harnik, Pool/AP Photo)

McConnell Selects Tim Scott to Lead GOP Police Reform Legislation

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has selected Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.)the only black Republican in the Senateto lead the Republican effort for police reform legislation.

Ive asked Sen. Tim Scott to lead a group that is working on a proposal to allow us to respond to the obvious racial discrimination that weve seen on full display on our television screens over the last two weeks, McConnell said on Tuesday.

None of us have had the experience of being an African American in this country and dealing with this discrimination, which persists here some 50 years after the 1964 Civil Rights bill, he said. The best way for Senate Republicans to go forward on this is to listen to one of our own, whos had these experiences.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaks to reporters following the Senate Republicans weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, on June 9, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

With his guidance and leadership were going to come together with a proposal that we think makes the most sense, McConnell said, referring to Scott.

Were still wrestling with Americas original sin. We try to get better, but every now and then its perfectly clear were a long way from the finish line, McConnell said.

Scott said he hoped to have a bill by Friday. He said the bill would include anti-lynching legislation, a review of no-knock warrants, and funding for more police body cameras.

Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) said that the legislation does not include a federal ban on police use of chokeholds, cited in last months arrest of George Floyd, whose death in police custody has triggered protests across the nation.

Floyd died as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for almost 9 minutes. The officer has been charged with second-degree murder.

McConnells announcement comes after Democrats announced on June 8 their police reform bill, which is set for a vote this month.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read More Democrats Unveil Legislation to Bring Sweeping Changes to US Law Enforcement
STOCKHOLM, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Odakyu Department Store, Tokyo's iconic 16-level department store, has finalized its agreement with Chengan (below referred to as `Taeltech'), the safe-product ecosystem ensuring verifiable product authenticity to consumers in over 500 cities in China. Through the Taeltech Ecosystem, Odakyu Department Store will provide the Chinese market with a wide variety of Japanese and international products, including Japanese accessories, fashion products, cosmetics and more.

The agreement allows the Japanese retailer to gain a foothold in the Chinese market through the Taeltech Ecosystem. Counterfeit goods are an ongoing issue in China, so each Odakyu product is protected with Taeltech's Smart Packaging anti-counterfeit technology when sold through the Taeltech Marketplace. Taeltech has also created a dedicated `Odakyu Zone' in their Marketplace, which will function as an extension of the department store experience for customers who have returned home. In the coming months Department Store staff will hand out Marketplace loyalty cards, to guide customers to the `Odakyu Zone' after leaving the physical store.

In addition, Odakyu Department Store will give Taeltech extensive promotional opportunities in prime locations within the department store, with special deals catered to Chinese tourists visiting Japan once inbound tourism accelerates again.

Those purchasing Tael protected Odakyu Department Store products can utilize their smartphones to verify authenticity while earning Taeltech loyalty points, called shijifen, in the process.

Shuji Kawate, Business Department General Manager of Odakyu Department Store, commented:

"Odakyu Department Store has roughly 50M visitors per year, a yearly revenue of nearly one billion US dollars and is directly connected to Shinjuku Station, the world's busiest railway station. Considering the fact that most of our inbound tourism revenue is generated by Chinese tourists, we saw a unique business opportunity, as well as a potential to provide the best customer service, in this partnership with Chengan by catering to their continued needs, thus expanding the department store experience into China in the future. It is for this reason that we have chosen Chengan as our partner."

Alex Busarov, Chengan (Taeltech) CEO, commented:

"Not only does this partnership give Chinese consumers the opportunity to order high quality and verifiable authentic Odakyu Department Store products from their homes, in the future it also introduces the Tael Ecosystem to Chinese tourists within Japan, connecting our target market both domestically and internationally. With the majority of Japan's overseas visitors hailing from China, this is a golden opportunity for both parties."

This partnership follows multiple recent Taeltech developments with other leading Japanese companies, including Rakuten and MUFG.

About Odakyu Department Store

The Odakyu Department Store is one of the largest in Asia and part of the conglomerate Odakyu Electric Railway Group which connects Shinjuku, the largest shopping town in Japan and Hakone, an extremely popular tourist spot among foreigners. Due to its direct connection to the Shinjuku transportation hub, the department store is a landmark for inbound and outbound tourists and travelers.

About Taeltech

Taeltech's Marketplace provides consumers in China with verifiable authentic consumer goods through state-of-the-art RFID/NFC & blockchain technology. Underpinned by a unique incentive system, Taeltech's databank also helps brands generate rich consumer insights that enable them to build authentic relationships with these consumers. The Ecosystem currently has over 50,000 active users across every region in China. Learn more on www.Taeltech.com.

Press Contact

Kasper Rasmussen

[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/taeltech/r/chengan--global-name--taeltech--partners-with-odakyu-department-store-to-serve-chinese-at-home,c3131330

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/19535/3131330/1261851.pdf Press release (PDF)

SOURCE Taeltech
EU to reopen to world gradually from July 1 Germany restrictions end June 16, Austria cautious on Lombardy

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 10 - While the various EU states are opening their internal borders, the external borders will be reopened in a second phase starting July 1, High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said Wednesday.



Austria will reopen its border with Italy on June 16 but an invitation to caution will remain in force regarding Lombardy, the region most hard hit by the coronavirus. Also on June 16, Germany will lift restrictions on EU travellers but will wait until June 21 with Spain, for a question of reciprocity.



Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio thanked his Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg for Vienna's "common sense choice" and said "thank you my friend, we're expecting you in Italy soon". (ANSAmed).




Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 05:25:07|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased to 177,938 in Iran on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a Chinese medical team arrived in Palestine to help Palestinians fight the coronavirus.

Iran, which has re-emerged as the hardest-hit country by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East region, reported 2,011 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking the total confirmed cases to 177,938.

The country also reported 81 new deaths from the virus, raising the death toll to 8,506. A total of 140,590 coronavirus patients have recovered.

Meanwhile, a 10-member medical team, sent by China's National Health Commission, arrived in Palestine, said Guo Wei, director of the Office of the People's Republic of China to Palestine.

The week-long visit of the Chinese experts until June 17 is aimed at enhancing bilateral relations in the health sector and the exchange of expertise in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.

According to Guo, 26 Chinese medical expert teams are currently around the world to help fight the pandemic.

Palestine on Wednesday reported eight new COVID-19 cases in the West Bank and two new infections in the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of infections to 664, including 320 cases in East Jerusalem, 272 in the West Bank and 72 in the Gaza Strip.

On the same day, the Chinese Embassy to Libya said a shipment of Chinese medical aid, which has arrived in neighboring Tunisia, will reach Libya in a few days.

"The aid includes 834 nucleic acid diagnostic kits, 5,000 medical protective suits, 15,000 N95 masks, 100,000 surgical masks, 5,000 goggles, and 5,000 pairs of medical gloves," the embassy said.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the North African country has reached 359, including 58 recoveries and five deaths.

In Turkey, the total number of COVID-19 cases climbed to 173,036 after 922 new infections were reported, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted.

The death toll from the coronavirus in the country rose to 4,746 after 17 new fatalities were added in the past 24 hours, he said, adding that 2,241 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, raising the total recoveries to 146,839.

The Turkish authorities have started COVID-19 antibody tests on 153,000 people across the country to know the level of the immune status in society.

Saudi Arabia's coronavirus cases continued the surging trend to reach 112,288 after 3,717 new infections were added.

The kingdom also reported 36 more deaths and 1,615 new recoveries, taking the death toll to 819 and the total recoveries to 77,954.

In Qatar, 1,716 new cases of coronavirus infections were detected, bringing the total number to 73,595, of whom 66 have died and 49,413 recovered.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced 603 new COVID-19 cases and one more death, raising the tally of infections to 40,507 and the death toll to 284.

The total number of recoveries from the virus in the UAE increased to 24,017 after 1,277 more fully recovered.

Egypt announced 1,455 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total infections in the country to 38,284.

The Egyptian Health Ministry also reported 36 more deaths and 503 cases of recoveries, increasing the death toll to 1,342 and the total recoveries to 10,289.

Kuwait reported 683 new cases, bringing the country's total number of infections to 33,823, of whom 275 have died and 23,288 recovered.

The country decided on the same day to open mosques in residential areas after nearly three months of closure, as part of the government's measures to restore normal life.

As a precautionary measure, worshippers must wear face masks, keep social distancing, and bring their own mats to pray on.

Oman's Ministry of Health announced 689 new cases of infections, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 18,887, including 84 deaths and 4,329 recoveries.

Israel reported 175 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the tally of coronavirus infections to 18,355.

The deaths from the virus in Israel remained at 299 while the recoveries rose to 15,187.

Iraq confirmed 1,146 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of infections to 15,414, of whom 426 have died and 6,214 recovered.

Algeria said 102 new cases of infections were reported in the past 24 hours, taking the tally of infections to 10,484, while the death toll hit 732 and the recoveries reached 7,074.

In Morocco, the tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 8,508 after 71 new cases were added, which included 211 fatalities and 7,565 recoveries.

In Lebanon, the number of COVID-19 infections increased by 20 to 1,388, while the death toll remained unchanged at 30.

Jordan registered 18 more infections, bringing the total coronavirus cases to 863, including nine deaths and 663 recoveries.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Yemen's government-controlled provinces increased to 560 after 36 new infections were confirmed.

The death toll from the virus climbed to 129 in the government-controlled areas including the southern port city of Aden, while the number of recoveries remained at 23. Enditem
Egypt will exempt incoming tourists on direct flights to resort cities from visa fees until the end of October, the end of the summer tourism season, the cabinet said on Wednesday.

The decision is part of measures to encourage tourism following the expected resumption of flights in the upcoming period.

Egypt has suspended international flights since March in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The civil aviation ministry had earlier decided to grant a 50 percent discount on landing and parking fees for charter planes to the country's resort cities.

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The domestic oil sector that emerges from the pandemic-fueled price and demand collapse will be different than what preceded it. And more signs arrive every day.

Driving the news: ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance, in a newly posted interview with IHS Markit's Dan Yergin, says "shale will come back."

But he adds that there will be "pressure on companies to confine their capital program, maybe not grow dramatically as they were before."

"I don't think the access to capital in the investor community, at least in the public side of the business, is going to be as robust as it was over the last decade," he said.

What's next: Asked whether U.S. production will return to its pre-crisis peak of roughly 13 million barrels per day, he replies, "If I were a betting man, today I would say it would be pretty difficult."

He sees a potential return to "encroaching on" 12 million, but cautions "a lot of that depends on the shape of this recovery.

Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal feature looks at how the distribution of shale production will change as production and demand recover, with the Permian Basin  the heart of the now-interrupted boom  becoming even more central.

The big picture: With the economics of shale expected to remain tough for a long time, companies will "concentrate on their richest targets," they report. From their piece...

"The Permian Basin is set to return to growth by next year and continue through 2030, consulting firms Rystad Energy and Wood Mackenzie estimate."

"By contrast, the Eagle Ford region of South Texas is unlikely to top its average 2019 shale-oil output until 2024, and then will decline, the firms said."

WSJ also notes that Rystad doesn't see oil production from the prolific Bakken region in North Dakota reaching its 2019 average until 2026.

Go deeper: Oil faces tough road back from coronavirus
Like many working parents, Vlada Lotkina, the founder and CEO of ClassTag, wanted to be more involved in her daughters preschool education. A paper notice about an upcoming field trip, squeezed between messy folders in a backpack, begged for smart technology around parent-teacher communication, she recalls.

Lotkina turned to other parents in the preschool class and found similar stresses. So, she teamed up with a fellow parent, Jason Olim, and launched ClassTag, a free parent-teacher communication platform that supports more than 60 languages.

Today, the company announced it has raised $5 million in seed funding from a group of investors that include AlleyCorp, Contour Ventures, Founder Collective, John Martinson, Newark Venture Partners, Smart Hub and TMT Investments. The platform says it has grown to 2 million users across 25,000 schools in the United States.

ClassTag has two end users: parents and teachers. Parents can use ClassTag for information on events, field trips, fundraisers and more. For teachers, ClassTag is an easy way to engage with parents, schedule parent-teacher conferences and share resources. Additionally, teachers can look at a parent engagement dashboard to see which families are more engaged, and which may need extra pings or attention.

With ClassTag, parents can get communications, without downloading an app, in their preferred channel via email, SMS, app, web or even paper if they are entirely offline. Any announcements or messaging will be automatically translated in numerous languages.

The company makes money by letting educational and family-friendly companies advertise on ClassTag. In general, an edtech platform pumping out advertisements might raise concerns for parents, but because ClassTag is not a platform for children, it is less controversial. ClassTag says it does not share any personally identifiable information with advertisers, but does share aggregated general data, like how many users are in certain grades or particular ZIP codes.

Story continues

A portion of proceeds from brand revenue is also donated to classrooms for supplies. The company describes this brand relationship as brands becoming sponsors versus advertisers.

The simplicity of the platform is stress-tested by ClassTags other goal of ensuring access for any parent, regardless of socioeconomic class or work schedule. Even though the digital divide has slightly lessened, lower socioeconomic families may struggle with digital access beyond their phones. A parent who works an hourly job, therefore, might be easier to reach through text than through an email.

Another platform that tries to digitize classroom communications is ClassDojo, which is a communication platform for kids, students and parents. ClassDojo is used by 95% of schools in the United States.

Lotkina says that ClassDojo focuses more on the behavior aspect of kids. ClassDojo, for example, lets teachers give points to kids to help parents be alerted about behavior, and focuses on classroom engagement and management. ClassTag, by contrast, is more focused on information dissemination.

Lotkina, who is originally from Ukraine, began in the startup world at the age of 17. She traveled around Western Europe selling Ukrainian designers from a catalog. She then applied to the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business, got accepted, and came to the United States. She says that starting a company in the United States is easier than in Ukraine because of investor risk in banking companies before they are profitable.

On top of that, theres obviously a lot of corruption and regulatory pressure that exists in Ukraine and many other countries. Unfortunately, creating an impactful business that solves a real problem is not enough to be successful in countries like Ukraine, Lotkina said in a Medium post.

Two million users, and a fresh $5 million in funding later, Lotkinas choice has been so far, so good.
President Moon Jae-in / Yonhap



President Moon Jae-in expressed his gratitude Wednesday to the governments of Gabon, Nigeria and France for cooperation in successful efforts to secure the release of a South Korean man kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Gabon in early May.



On his social media account, Moon also commended hard work by South Korean civil servants and authorities charged with handling the matter.



The previous day, the foreign ministry announced that the man in his 50s had been set free in southern Nigeria. He was among six crew members taken hostage by unidentified pirates during attacks on two Senegal-flagged fishing vessels. The South Korean man and five nationals of Senegal and Indonesia were released in good health after 37 days of captivity, according to the ministry.



"Immediately after the abduction, the government put a 24-hour response system into operation and made efforts for the early return (of the hostage)," the president said.






When I returned to Vietnam last year, decades after my first posting here in 1993, I was amazed at how far and how fast a country could develop over a 25-year period, and how much had changed.

At the same time, I was heartened by how much was familiar, and by a strong sense of continuity in Vietnams society and culture. Something that had not changed, and probably never will, was the steely determination, solidarity and enduring community spirit of the Vietnamese people.

Australia has redirected A$10.5 million of assistance towards mitigating the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the economy and Vietnamese lives and livelihoods.  Infographic of Australian Embassy in Vietnam

In recent months, as the COVID-19 global pandemic has ravaged the world, these qualities have come to the fore once again. As Australias Ambassador to Vietnam, I have been impressed and inspired by the swift and decisive actions taken by the Government of Vietnam to tackle the threat of COVID-19 and to contain its impact on the lives and livelihoods of the people of this wonderful country.

With just a few hundred confirmed cases at the time of writing and zero recorded deaths, Vietnams management of the pandemic has been exemplary, deservedly capturing the worlds attention. A fast and proactive response, informed by science and lessons learnt from past experience, together with strong and transparent public communication, have been critical to Vietnams success.

While Vietnam is rapidly developing its new normal, there are still many formidable challenges ahead. Both here in Vietnam and in Australia, we must remain vigilant to new waves of infection. We must both seek to manage the serious economic and social impacts of COVID-19, amid continuing global uncertainty.

Australia and Vietnam are steadfast friends and long-standing partners. Throughout this crisis, we have been working closely together, collaborating on vaccine research, exchanging information and sharing lessons learned from our health responses. In the months ahead, we will continue to work together to help our economies and our people to recover.

The Australian Government provides more than A$70 million (US$48.7 million) in official development assistance to Vietnam every year with the intention of helping Vietnam achieve its socio-economic and development aspirations. Our assistance places an emphasis on economic reform, human resource development, private sector engagement, climate change, gender equality and innovation. This week, we redirected A$10.5 million of this assistance towards mitigating the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the economy and Vietnamese lives and livelihoods.

The COVID-19 crisis has sharply demonstrated the importance of maintaining free and open trade and maintaining a rules-based global trading system in order to support critical supply chains and ensure regional stability. The Australian Government will therefore provide additional funding through our strategic partnership with the World Bank Group to support the Government of Vietnam with high quality economic advice and information sharing. As we shift our focus to economic recovery, Vietnam and Australia are working closely together on an Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy to boost two-way trade and investment and accelerate the economic recovery of our nations and the broader region.

We will also provide critical support to women and girls who have been disproportionately affected by this crisis. We know that domestic, sexual and gender-based violence increases during crises and disasters. Evidence suggests this is happening across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on our longstanding support for gender equality in Vietnam, Australia will fund a campaign to address violence against women and children in partnership with UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women.

Australia will also provide additional support to the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI), an initiative that collects and analyses information from thousands of Vietnamese citizens each year. Trusted and independent information is a critical part of good public policy, and is more important now than ever before, as we address the complex policy challenges COVID-19 has thrown our way.

Australia has made a commitment to helping its friends and neighbours recover from COVID-19. As the effects of this global crisis continue to unfold, Australia stands with its neighbours, including Vietnam, as we work together to minimise the human, economic and social costs of this pandemic, and chart a course to economic recovery.

Robyn Mudie (Australian Ambassador to Vietnam)

HCM City, Australias Victoria state step up cooperation Ho Chi Minh City and Australias Victoria state held a teleconference on May 4 to accelerate the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on their twining relationship.
The woman accused of the murder of Darren McNally in Londonderry performed CPR after calling the emergency services, a court has been told.

The court was also told the defendant's family and neighbours had made reports she was a victim of domestic abuse.

Shauna Louise Piper, 41, from Primity Terrace in Newbuildings appeared at a video link hearing at Derry magistrates' court on Wednesday charged with the murder of Darren McNally and with possessing a knife with intent to commit murder.

She denies both charges.

Mr McNally (46) was stabbed in his home at Duncastle Road in the village of Newbuildings on the outskirts of Derry on Monday night, a police detective said during a hearing on Wednesday.

Piper, who wore a hygienic mask during the hearing, was asked during the hearing if she understood the charges. She replied "I do".

The detective constable told District Judge Ted Magill that she was fully aware of the circumstances of the case and said she could connect the defendant to both charges.

Questioned by defence solicitor Ciaran Shiels, the police witness confirmed that the defendant replied "definitely not guilty" when the charges were put to her while in police custody.

When Mr Shiels asked if "a number of statements have been recorded by the Serious Crime Branch from the defendant's family and neighbours which attest to the defendant being the victim of domestic abuse", the officer replied that was the case.

The officer also confirmed Mr McNally had suffered no other injuries other than a single stab wound to the back which had pierced a lung.

The detective constable further agreed with Mr Shiels that the defendant dialed 999 and "acted under the close direction of the emergency services in terms of applying CPR to the deceased and was commended by the police for the CPR she applied to the victim".

There was no bail application and the defendant was remanded in custody until July 8.

Mr Shiels said if he was going to bring forward a bail application in the interim, he would inform the court office.
As a virus named Corona is hopping around the world, the original travel bug is sulking in forced hibernation. Borders shut, flights grounded, discotheques silent, restaurants vacant, hotel beds unmussed and the traveller homebound for months. The numbers are staggering - according to United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), COVID-19 has resulted in a loss of 67 million international arrivals, put 100 to 120 million direct tourism jobs at risk and the disappearance of demand could translate into a loss of $910 billion to $1.2 trillion for the tourism sector. Thats a loss of $1,200,000,000,000.

The travel future looks bleak and cities and countries are aggressively announcing sops for the return of footfalls. If your eyes have popped at Get Paid to Travel headlines, read the fine print. No, there will be no cash handed at ports of arrival, what you get are attractive incentives and freebies. As cities/countries cautiously reopen, lets look at whats on offer right now (please note that all offers will depend on the COVID-19 situation).

Sicily (Italy): Reeling under a $1.12 billion tourism loss in March-April 2020 alone, Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, is planning to lure international tourists. Not with free limoncello and pasta at a plaza, but with vouchers that will cover half of your plane ticket fare. For every three nights you stay at a hotel, they will cover one of them. Thats buy 2 nights, get 1 free from the town. Add to it free tickets to museums and archaeological sites. The government has set aside $56 million to fund this scheme. A small price to pay for return of big crowd on the island.

Cancun (Mexico): This Monday, Mexico resumed tourism in beach destinations of Cancun, Tulum, Playa del Carmen, Riviera Maya and the Mayan Ruins with limited capacities. Cancun, of course, is the hot destination not only for its tacos and silken sands but also for Come to Cancun 21 offer. According to the Cancun Hotel Association, the offer will include two free nights for every two paid nights, with limited discounts on plane tickets as well.

Bulgaria: One of the oldest states of the European continent, Bulgaria is reopening its doors to travellers from June 15. Foreign arrivals in March 2020 had fallen by 43.7percent year-on-year and Bulgaria is throwing baits to bring back tourists. A few beaches that earlier had a pay-to-enter mandate will now be free for tourists. Free sun loungers, sunbeds and tables have been added to sweeten the deal. The average sun lounger rental is 10 Bulgarian Lev. A free lounger everyday is al ot of savings (1 Bulgarian Lev = 43.55 INR).

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Cyprus: God forbid, if coronavirus finds you, youd want to be in Cyprus. Not to gape at archaeological sites and tombs of kings but because you will not have to loosen your purse strings to fend off the virus. Fight the virus for free. In a five-page letter issued to governments, airlines and tour operators on May 26, the Cypriot government said that it will pay for any accommodation, food, and medicine used by patients and their families should any tourist test positive for the virus. A 100-bed hospital for foreign travellers who test positive and 500-bed quarantine hotel for families and close contacts have been earmarked. Remember, youll have to pay for the repatriation flight.

Las Vegas: A casino mogul is giving away 1,000 free tickets to Las Vegas. Derek Stevens, owner of two Vegas downtown gaming properties (D Las Vegas and Golden Gate on Fremont Street), has announced that he is giving away 1,000 free flights from more than 20 major US cities to Las Vegas. The Sin City reopened on June 4 but a few hotels and their most-sought buffets havent. Not yet.

Japan: Last month, Japan was on everyones after-COVID-19 must-visit list. The sudden urge prompted by Get Paid to Travel to Japan headlines emblazoned across major newspapers/magazines. Dismiss the headlines. No, you will not get paid to travel to Japan. According to an official clarification, Japans under-consideration Go to Travel Campaign is not for foreign travellers. The Campaign is to stimulate domestic travel demand within Japan after the COVID-19 pandemic and will only cover a portion of domestic travel expenses.



Since the COVID-19 situation is very fluid, do not book much in advance. Keep track of the situation in the country you want o visit.



All cities/countries reopening for tourism are allowing limited capacities. Check the list of countries from where tourists are banned/allowed to enter. There is no one definite list valid worldwide; each country has prepared its own list.



Check whether the destination country requires a Covid-negative certificate on arrival.



A few countries require a proof of an insurance policy with minimum medical coverage of $50,000. Check that.



Check with your agent about COVID-19 insurance. Read the fine print.



Check whether visa exemptions and Visa-on-Arrival policy of the destination country has changed/suspended.



Check whether 7/14 day quarantine is mandatory in the destination country.



Worldwide, COVID-19 will lead to an annual decline of between 60 percent and 80 percent in international travel arrivals. Compare it with 4 percent decline during the 2009 global economic crisis and 0.4 percent decline during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

Preeti Verma Lal is a Goa-based freelance writer/photographer.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced the first steps toward a community-based method of combatting violence in low-income, minority neighborhoods scourged for decades by controversial incarcerations and deaths of unarmed black men.

If we actually invest in people, if we invest in communities, we make a change thats much much deeper, de Blasio said Wednesday during his daily press conference.

The announcement came after several consecutive days of budgetary discussions and legislative action to reform police departments statewide, amid a global civil rights movement sparked by the alleged murder of George Floyd last month by Minneapolis police.

EXPANSION OF SERVICES

Following two consecutive days in which historic, police reform legislation was passed by a majority of lawmakers in Albany, de Blasio announced the expansion of specific anti-violence programs.

An additional $10 million has been budgeted for the citys Anti-Gun Violence Crisis Management System and Cure Violence Movement, which deploy teams of credible messengers who mediate conflicts on the street and connect high-risk individuals to services that can reduce the long-term risk of violence.

The city also will fund the expansion of the programming to five additional police precincts, now totaling 20 across the city with the highest volume of gun violence, according to the citys website.

The mayor did not specify if the $10 million would be shifted from the NYPD budget, or how it would be generated -- though previously he called for moving money from the department to youth and social services.

On Staten Island, the partner organization is True 2 Life, located at 59 Wright St. in Stapleton. None of the four additional neighborhoods added to the anti-violence programs are located in the borough.

The mayor was joined Wednesday by leaders within those organizations, who work daily with residents to diffuse violence through face-to-face counseling, psychological healing, setting goals and job programs.

When the trauma that impacts (youth) from generation to generation from the violence, from the years of oppression, from the years of brutality, from the years of miseducation... some times they take that trauma, that pain, and lash out at those around them," said Erica Ford, CEO of Life Camp Inc.

De Blasio said the groups have played an instrumental role in crime rates dropping across the city over the past several years.

The NYPD during that same time instituted the NCO program, a new way of sectioning off patrol routes to keep the same officers patrolling a neighborhood, with the intention of developing relationships between police and residents.

De Blasio said he still believes there is a central role for police to play in keeping us safe through community policing.

POLICE IN SCHOOLS

De Blasio said Wednesday the NYPD should maintain its presence in city schools, after calls across the country to limit the presence of law enforcement.

School safety is necessary in its current form to keep ensuring safety in our schools, the mayor said. We have to think about the reality of safety and what each agency knows how to do.

The NYPD was first deployed in schools during the late 1990s, under Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Pat Lynch on the effect of the anti-police movement: Our politicians want us to walk away from our communities and abandon you. pic.twitter.com/aGSDtgh4CL  NYC PBA (@NYCPBA) June 9, 2020

POLICE UNION LEADERS FURIOUS

Legislative action in Albany will make police disciplinary records more transparent and classify chokeholds by cops as a felony.

For decades and decades, there were so many things in the way of change, including too often the, I think, fundamental inappropriate overuse of power by police unions, de Blasio said Wednesday. Thats what often blocked change in Albany, but it did not block it this time.

On Tuesday, law enforcement union leaders representing 200,000 officers across New York spoke out firmly against the legislation, including Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch, who criticized lawmakers for rushing through bills without the appropriate input from police officers and their families who will be directly impacted.

Why arent you asking the question of professional law enforcement? Lynch shouted. Why arent you seeking our advice? Is it that maybe wed be reasonable? Maybe we could see where the problems would be?

He also expressed concern that as a result, crime rates will increase.

I dont want the neighborhood that I worked in, that I brought back, that we brought back -- I dont want it to slide back."

Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated his support for police reform, amid two weeks of massive protests in more than 100 cities across the U.S.

"What the people want is very simple  they want an America as good as its promise, he said. Theyre saying enough is enough....this is a national moment for change. New York is going to lead the way on this change.
During March and April 2020, deferral of elective procedures and many routine in-person medical visits imposed a financial burden on healthcare providers and caused changes to their practices, such as a new emphasis on telehealth. To study these issues, FAIR Health drew on its repository of private claims data to analyze, on a monthly basis, changes in utilization and estimated in-network reimbursement amounts for professionals in the first four months of 2020 as compared to the same months in 2019 (adjusted by Consumer Price Index). The second part of the study focused on seven specialties: cardiology, dermatology, oral surgery, gastroenterology, orthopedics, pediatric primary care and adult primary care. For each specialty, FAIR Health analyzed changes in utilization and estimated in-network reimbursement amounts in the first four months of 2020 as compared to the same months in 2019, as well as changes in the five most common procedures in the first four months of 2020. Among the findings:

Of specialties studied, oral surgery had the largest decreases in utilization and revenue in both March and April 2020 . In March 2020 , oral surgery utilization declined by 80 percent, and revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts dropped 84 percent; in April 2020 , oral surgery utilization declined 81 percent and revenue 92 percent. Gastroenterology had the second largest decreases in all four categories.

. In , oral surgery utilization declined by 80 percent, and revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts dropped 84 percent; in , oral surgery utilization declined 81 percent and revenue 92 percent. Gastroenterology had the second largest decreases in all four categories. Of specialties studied, pediatric primary care had the smallest decreases in March 2020 utilization (52 percent), March 2020 revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts (32 percent), April 2020 utilization (58 percent) and April 2020 revenue (35 percent).

Comparing March 2019 to March 2020 , utilization of professional services decreased 65 percent and professional revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts decreased 45 percent. In the Northeast, comparing March 2019 to March 2020 , utilization of professional services fell 60 percent and revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts declined 55 percent.

to , utilization of professional services decreased 65 percent and professional revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts decreased 45 percent. In the Northeast, comparing to , utilization of professional services fell 60 percent and revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts declined 55 percent. Across many specialties from January to April 2020 , office or other outpatient evaluation and management (E&M) visits became more common relative to other procedures, both by utilization and total estimated in-network amounts. This may have been due in part to the fact that many of these E&M services could be rendered via telehealth, whereas certain other procedures that became less common required in-person visits.

, office or other outpatient evaluation and management (E&M) visits became more common relative to other procedures, both by utilization and total estimated in-network amounts. This may have been due in part to the fact that many of these E&M services could be rendered via telehealth, whereas certain other procedures that became less common required in-person visits. In oral surgery, a procedure specifically for telehealthtelephone E&M by a physician or other qualified healthcare professional, 11-20 minutes (CPT 1 99442)climbed from number 131 in utilization in January 2020 to number 1 in April 2020 .

99442)climbed from number 131 in utilization in to number 1 in . Total knee replacement (CPT 27447) and total hip replacement (CPT 27130) ranked high in the orthopedic top five procedures by total estimated in-network amounts in January 2020 . They fell out of the top five by April 2020 .

. They fell out of the top five by . For pediatric patients 0-4 years of age, there was little change in preventive care visits from March- April 2019 to March- April 2020 , whether from the standpoint of utilization or of revenue based on total estimated in-network amounts. Decreases in these months were much greater for preventive care visits for older pediatric patients (5-17 years of age) and adults (18 and older).

FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd stated: "As with past studies in our COVID-19 series, we again use FAIR Health's vast data repository to illuminate the impact of the pandemic. We hope this report will be useful to stakeholders throughout the healthcare sector, including providers, payors, policy makers and researchers."

This is the third in a series of briefs released by FAIR Health on the COVID-19 pandemic. The first brief examined projected US costs for COVID-19 patients requiring inpatient stays, and the second the impact of the pandemic on hospitals and health systems.

For the new brief, click here.

Follow us on Twitter @FAIRHealth

About FAIR Health

FAIR Health, a national, independent nonprofit organization that qualifies as a public charity under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, is dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information through data products, consumer resources and health systems research support. FAIR Health possesses the nation's largest collection of private healthcare claims data, which includes over 31 billion claim records contributed by payors and administrators who insure or process claims for private insurance plans covering more than 150 million individuals. FAIR Health licenses its privately billed data and data productsincluding benchmark modules, data visualizations, custom analytics and market indicesto commercial insurers and self-insurers, employers, providers, hospitals and healthcare systems, government agencies, researchers and others. Certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as a national Qualified Entity, FAIR Health also receives data representing the experience of all individuals enrolled in traditional Medicare Parts A, B and D; FAIR Health includes among the private claims data in its database, data on Medicare Advantage enrollees. FAIR Health can produce insightful analytic reports and data products based on combined Medicare and commercial claims data for government, providers, payors and other authorized users. FAIR Health's systems for processing and storing protected health information have earned HITRUST CSF certification and achieved AICPA SOC 2 compliance by meeting the rigorous data security requirements of these standards. As a testament to the reliability and objectivity of FAIR Health data, the data have been incorporated in statutes and regulations around the country and designated as the official, neutral data source for a variety of state health programs, including workers' compensation and personal injury protection (PIP) programs. FAIR Health data serve as an official reference point in support of certain state balance billing laws that protect consumers against bills for surprise out-of-network and emergency services. FAIR Health also uses its database to power a free consumer website available in English and Spanish and an English/Spanish mobile app, which enable consumers to estimate and plan for their healthcare expenditures and offer a rich educational platform on health insurance. The website has been honored by the White House Summit on Smart Disclosure, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), URAC, the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, appPicker, Employee Benefit News and Kiplinger's Personal Finance. FAIR Health also is named a top resource for patients in Dr. Marty Makary's book The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Careand How to Fix It and Elisabeth Rosenthal's book An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back. For more information on FAIR Health, visit fairhealth.org .

Contact:

Dean Sicoli

Chief Communications Officer

FAIR Health

646-664-1645

[email protected]

1 CPT  2019 American Medical Association (AMA). All rights reserved.

SOURCE FAIR Health

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MANISTEE COUNTY  Tropical system Cristobal skirted Lake Michigan in a rare path for a storm of that type on its way to the Upper Peninsula Tuesday evening.

This meant Manistee County and other parts of northern Michigan experienced strong winds and heavy rain that left thousands in the region without power.

Manistee County saw winds between 20 to 30 mph overall and there were more than 2,100 in the area left without electricity.

Manistee County also had gusts up to 51 mph, said National Weather Service Gaylord Office Meteorologist Andy Sullivan.

Sullivan said northern Michigan saw widespread rain and gusty winds early Wednesday morning.

Those are non-thunderstorm wind gusts, just basically air mass, just strong pressure gradient remains of that tropical system, Cristobal, moving up to our west. Its in relation to that, he said.

The weather service reported the following gusts Wednesday morning:

 Around 2 a.m.there was a 46 mph gust at Blacker Airport.

 Around 3 a.m. there was a 51 mph gust north of Manistee.

 Around 4:40 a.m. there was a 47 mph northwest of Manistee.

He said most places in the region saw between  inch and 1 inch of rainfall Wednesday morning.

The National Weather Service reports show Cristobal crossed the Upper Peninsula and over Lake Superior Wednesday.

Sullivan said it is very abnormal to have a tropical storm pass through the Upper Peninsula.

Usually it falls apart and/or gets pushed much farther east than what this ended up being, he said. It is definitely rare.

National Weather Service's forecast from Tuesday

WHICH AREAS SAW THE WORST

More Information June 10 outage highlights  Onekama area: 959 without electricity  Manistee: About 615 without electricity  Bear Lake: About 303 without electricity  U.S. 31 corridor area near Onekama: 203 without electricity  Bar Lake area: About 106 without electricity  Filer Township: About 60 without electricity See More Collapse

Combining Great Lakes Energy and Consumers Energy outage numbers for Manistee County shows more than 2,400 in the area were without electricity Wednesday morning.

For Great Lakes Energy numbers alone, Manistee County made up the largest percent of customers without power per county in the region as of Wednesday afternoon at 29%.

Consumers Energy showed about 2,255 in Manistee County areas lost power with the Onekama area showing the highest number of customers in the county on its outage map.

 The Onekama area had 959 Consumers Energy customers without electricity Wednesday morning starting at 3:21 a.m.

 In the city of Manistee, there was a group of 604 customers and a small group under 20 that did not have electricity under Consumers.

 Bear Lake had about 303 Consumers customers without power starting at 3:23 a.m. on Wednesday.

 The U.S. 31 corridor area near Onekama showed 203 Consumers customers out of power at 5:06 a.m.

 In the Bar Lake area there were 106 without electricity starting around 2:40 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. depending on the location for the Consumers customers.

 There was also a group of about 60 Consumers customers east of Filer Township who did not have electricity.

 The Claybank Lake area showed a group of less than 20 without power.

 The largest section for Consumers Energy outages in the state was a group of 1,932 without power between Cadillac and Houghton Lake.

National Weather Service's alert for Lake Superior area residents

Great Lakes Energy has a smaller presence in the Manistee County area by comparison.

Great Lakes Energys outage map showed 149 out of the 511 served were without power Wednesday morning. However, these numbers showed the largest percent of customers without power compared to other counties it serves in the region.

Manistees neighboring Wexford County showed about 14% of Great Lake Energys customers were without power.

Great Lakes Energy saw more customers though who were impacted in the tip of the mitt, according to a news release issued Wednesday morning.

Most of the damage caused by the storm is in parts of Antrim, Charlevoix, Kalkaska, Lake, Mason and Osceola counties, reads part of the release.

Great Lakes Energy advised residents to stay away from downed power lines and to also stay clear of trees and limbs hanging on the lines.

Both Great Lakes Energy and Consumers Energy outage maps available online show current outage information and expected power restoration times for each location.

The National Weather Service Gaylord Office is also forecasting more storms this afternoon.
Iran's state television may have to shut down several foreign language channels due to financial strains caused by sanctions, mismanagement, falling viewership figures and long-standing differences between the state broadcaster and the presidential administration.

Payman Jebelli, the head of the external services of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Broadcasting organization (IRIB) told Fars news agency on Wednesday June 10 that the organizations ideologically charged Al-Kowsar TV network as well as the Iranian Radio's Dari service have already been closed due to accrued debts to satellite providers.

Jebelli added that a dozen other TV channels including the English-language Press TV and the Arabic news network Al-Alam, the Spanish language Hispan TV as well as i-Film channels in Arabic and English are among the networks that might be shut down soon due to financial strains.

Jebelli accused the President Hassan Rouhanis administration of "negligence and deliberately exerting pressure on the state TV," adding that "the administration has refused to allocate foreign currency funds to the state broadcaster."

As a result, said Jebelli, the IRIB cannot pay its debts to radio relay stations and satellite service providers."

The IRIB's Dari radio has been broadcasting Shiite ideological programs into mainly Sunni Afghanistan during the past 40 years.

Jebelli said: "We have always suspected that the administration is following other objectives by exerting financial pressure on the IRIB. The administration has been increasingly targeting the broadcaster's international network."

However, Jebelli did not say how much the IRIB owed to relay stations and satellite providers. Nor did he elaborate on the Rouhani administration's political motivation for depriving the IRIB of funds. He said: "We thought the administration would do something to solve the problem after Al-Kowsar network was cut off."

In mid-May, Jebelli broke the news about the network's shut down and blamed "neglect by the administration" for it. Subsequently, the Planning and Budget Organization (PBO) published some evidence to prove that the administration has paid IRIB's budget in full and in foreign currency.

According to Mehr news agency, Jebelli said in May that the external services budget was reduced to one sixth of what it was six years ago when the Rouhani administration took office but did not say how large was the budget then or now.

However, IRIB insiders say the PBO has allocated the budget in Chinese yuan and other currencies not as fungible as U.S. dollars or euros. Converting the allocated sum into strong currencies would dramatically diminish the IRIB's purchasing power in the international market. The PBO has also confirmed that it has only Yuan at its disposal while the IRIB wants dollars or euros.

Meanwhile, the administration-run Borna news agency questioned why the IRIB should need extra budget for its routine activities. During the past years, other than the one-billion-dollar state budget, IRIB received over two billion dollars from the country's foreign currency reserve per orders issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

According to the March 2018 - March 2019 budget bill, the administration had allocated 8.75 trillion rials to the IRIB ($175 million) while the organization finally received 14.7 trillion rials (around $300 million) during that year. The administration believes the IRIB has received an extra 60 percent more than its approved budget.

Nevertheless, Jebelli claimed on Wednesday that despite five months of follow ups, "the administration has not allocated even one dollar or euro or dirham or dinar to the IRIB although all the formalities for the payment have been met."

Following the U.S. pull-out from the nuclear deal with Iran, Washington imposed heavy sanctions on Iran causing financial difficulties for Tehran. This has affected the country's overall budget.

But the IRIB has had other problems too. Its programming including what is broadcast on its external services is heavily loaded with ideological propaganda and disinformation and lags behind other networks in its target areas. This has led to a drop in their viewership as observed by Iran's own news agencies.

Meanwhile, the presidential administration has been always complaining about IRIB's one-sided messaging which reflects the ideas of Iran's hardliners and is often critical of the administration's approach to economy and foreign policy. That leaves no incentive for the administration to adopt a favorable policy towards the broadcaster.

Other than dozens of radio and TV networks beaming programs abroad, the IRIB operates two dozen channels in Tehran as well as over 30 provincial channels that often broadcast the same programs. Meanwhile it has several offices in other countries that spend millions of dollars on their staffing and operations.

According to media experts in Iran and various polls by Iranian polling agencies, the IRIB's viewership has been dropping particularly since 2009 as the broadcaster lost its popularity because of its biased coverage and due to the emergence of social media as well as several popular foreign-based Persian-speaking TV stations that operate on a fraction of the budget spent by the government on the IRIB.
Prior to joining AF Group in August 2019 as managing director of Multiline Distribution, Fusner was president and CUO with Redstone Underwriters. During her career, she has developed an impressive background in strategy, product development and underwriting performance with other major insurance carriers nationwide, including Vela Insurance Services (a W.R. Berkley company), Liberty International Underwriters and The Hartford.

"We're thrilled to welcome Kelly to this important role," said Lisa Corless, president and CEO of AF Group. "She is an exceptional insurance mind, with knowledge grounded in underwriting, strategic planning and operations. Her significant experience in the industry and insights on product management and development is an incredible asset as we further grow and diversify to meet the needs of our customers."

Fusner earned a Bachelor of Science in Financial Planning from Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) and attended the executive leadership school at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business (Charlottesville, VA). In addition, she holds a number of professional designations, including Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Associate in Risk Management (ARM) and Associate in Commercial Underwriting (AU).

AF Group continues to serve the industry with dynamic specialty insurance solutions and programs that demonstrate its lasting commitment to customers and communities. Recently AF Group announced its People First Relief Program, which is aimed at protecting its workforce and providing more than $20 million in relief to agents, policyholders, injured workers and communities during COVID-19.

About AF Group

AF Group (Lansing, Mich.) and its subsidiaries are a premier provider of innovative insurance solutions. Insurance policies may be issued by any of the following companies within AF Group: Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, Accident Fund National Insurance Company, Accident Fund General Insurance Company, United Wisconsin Insurance Company, Third Coast Insurance Company or CompWest Insurance Company.

Contact:

Bob Lapinski

Tel: 517-331-4890

312-443-9819

[email protected]

AFGroup.com

SOURCE AF Group

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Human rights are not only about law  artistic expressions carry them, too.

A documentary series that celebrates the diversity of beliefs makes its television debut in June. The series Believe to See documents the beliefs, philosophies and teachings of twelve spiritual leaders from across the globe. The series is the idea of Gaby Herbstein, an Argentina-based photographer, who has been working on the series for three years.

Herbstein said she wanted to feature religious and spiritual leaders because of a desire to show that while belief systems and cultures may be different, they share messages of dignity and equal rights of all human beings.

I think that change in the world will come from spirituality, she said. For my documentary series, I have travelled to Argentina, Austria, Greenland, Malta, Mexico, India, Russia and the United States to meet with spiritual leaders and participate in their ceremonies.

While looking up information about religions and human rights, Herbstein came across the Beirut Declaration and its 18 commitments on Faith for Rights, and she thought this initiative by UN Human Rights was a perfect fit for her project.

I said to myself Whoah, the messages of Believe to See and Faith for Rights are very much aligned, Herbstein recalled. So I sent UN Human Rights an email, telling about Believe to See and suggesting joint outreach.

UN Human Rights agreed and offered to hyperlink her project in the #Faith4Rights toolkit as well as disseminate it among the Faith for Rights network. Ibrahim Salama from UN Human Rights said Herbsteins artistic project resonates well with the toolkit, as art touches both hearts and minds.

The #Faith4Rights toolkit features inspiring examples of artistic expressions, including through photos, videos, music, improvisation, dance, street art, social media, cartoons and calligraphies, Salama added. The toolkit also includes a dozen cases to debate, which illustrate the intersectionality of the 18 commitments and enhance the skills of faith actors to manage real life situations towards the shared aims of Faith for Rights.

At a virtual global consultation with religious actors and faith-based organizations, High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet recently stressed that Joining diverse faith actors within a shared vision and framework, we hope to nourish a community of practise, learning from each other and stimulating promising initiative based on human rights and mutual collaboration and respect.

The Faith for Rights initiative is working with faith-based groups and individuals, in order to foster peaceful societies, which uphold human dignity and equality for all, where diversity is not just tolerated but fully respected and celebrated.

The #Faith4Rights toolkit contains 18 modules with concrete ideas for peer-to-peer learning exercises, for example concerning the impact of COVID-19 on women, girls and minorities, leveraging the spiritual and moral weight of religions or beliefs, and contributing diverse examples of artistic expressions.

The science, geography, history and culture broadcaster National Geographic were also struck by the diversity of spiritual leaders profiled for the documentary series, and have agreed to broadcast it on various channels throughout Latin America in June 2020. The series features not only leaders from the major religions but also indigenous faith leaders, offering their own words of inspiration. The series was scheduled to come out earlier, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed back broadcast.

Herbstein said the pandemic has only sharpened the need and message of the series.

This is a bridge. Believe to See is a project about believing in ourselves, she said. Its a project about unity in diversity, where people will realize that all those teachers, elders and spiritual leaders are saying in different languages and with different tools the same thing. They help us to remember that everything is already within us.

10 June 2020
Open source

On June 9, Russian mercenaries attacked Ukrainian positions in Donbas eight times. They used Minsk-banned weapons, including 82 and 120 mm mortars. Ukraine's Defense Ministry reported this on Tuesday evening.

In Mariinka, Donetsk region, militants opened fire from mounted anti-tank grenade launchers. In the Luhansk region, they fired 60 mines of 120 mm-caliber and also used grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and small arms.

In the areas of Novoluhanske, Novotoshkiske, and Shumy (all in Luhansk region), Ukrainian positions took fire from grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. 82 mm mines hit the vicinities of Khutir Vilny.

Ukrainian forces took no casualties.

On June 9, the prosecution team presented a piece of evidence in the case of the downed Boeing 777. These are the photos of how the Buk missile launcher was transported. Besides, the driver of a missile system's van also testified before the court, confirming that the transport was stolen nine days before the plane was downed. The prosecution explained how they checked if the collected photos were genuine. Specifically, they found an owner of the van that moved the missile launcher. He confirmed that the vehicle was captured by the illegal armed formations nine days before the disaster. One of the members of the illegal armed gangs also confirmed that information; his name remains undisclosed.
New Delhi, June 10 : In the backdrop of the India-China standoff, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said no one can dare to stare at India with a crooked eye.

"We will dedicate our lives to this nation. We will make this nation happy, prosperous and powerful so that no one can look at our country with a crooked eye," said the Union Road Minister speaking at Jan Samvad, a virtual rally being organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday.

Stating that during the Narendra Modi government regime Maoism and terrorism have declined, Gadkari said earlier governments appeased terrorists. He hailed Modi for this hawkish policy.

To attack the Congress, Gadkari talked about the Batla House encounter. "The Congress leaders went to the house of terrorists killed to console them. But they didn't go to martyred soldiers' houses," he said.

He said the Modi government decided to check the surplus water from flowing to Pakistan. "After partition, India and Pakistan got three rivers each. Our water was flowing to Pakistan as there was no consensus among our states," he said.

Talking about abrogation of Article 370 and Ram temple, he said, "We did whatever we promised." Making a pitch for self-reliant India, he highlighted his ministry's achievements, like highways and e-driving licence.

On the first Prime Minister, the BJP said on Wednesday Jawaharlal Nehru had "Russian influence" on him.

Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Regular Press Conference on June 10, 2020

2020/06/10

As agreed by the two sides, Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council and Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Federal Republic of Germany will have a video conference on June 11.

The Chinese government has decided to send a team of medical experts to Palestine to support its efforts against COVID-19. The team, put together by the National Health Commission with members selected by the Chongqing Municipal Health Commission, left for Palestine on the noon of June 10.

CCTV: Could you give us more information on the video conference between the Chinese premier and German chancellor? How do you comment on the China-Germany relations? What is your expectation for this conference?

Hua Chunying: China and Germany are all-round strategic partners. Leaders of the two sides have been in close communication since the start of the outbreak, even more frequently than before COVID-19. President Xi Jinping had another phone call with Chancellor Merkel last week, and only about a week after that the Chinese premier and German chancellor will have a meeting via videolink, demonstrating mutual political trust and close cooperative ties between the two sides.

China and Germany have been supporting and assisting each other in the joint fight against COVID-19. Domestically, we have both effectively brought this pandemic under control. Internationally, we have also fulfilled our responsibilities, championed international solidarity and cooperation, and firmly supported the WHO. At the moment, we are working to restore normal economic activities and promote economic and social development while sustaining epidemic control measures. All-around cooperation between China and Germany has been restarted and will be fast-forwarded. This serves the common interests of the two sides and helps to keep international industrial and supply chains stable and to pull the world economy out of recession at an early date. During the videoconference, the Chinese premier and German chancellor will focus on China-Germany relations, China-EU relations and international cooperation on fighting COVID-19. The two sides will explore ways to expand practical cooperation in various fields. We hope this conference will deliver more outcomes in China-Germany relations.

Xinhua News Agency: Yesterday Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held the 10th China-EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue with Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Could you tell us more about the dialogue and its outcomes?

Hua Chunying: Yesterday State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held the 10th China-EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue with Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. This is the first strategic dialogue between State Councilor Wang Yi and High Representative Josep Borrell. It is also important strategic communication between China and the European Union at a time when the pandemic is deeply impacting the world and the international landscape is undergoing profound changes. The two sides had long, in-depth and candid discussions on China-EU relations, high-level exchanges, China-EU anti-epidemic cooperation and international and regional issues of mutual interest. The strategic dialogue achieved good results as it enhanced mutual understanding and trust and helped to prepare for the next-stage major diplomatic agenda between China and the EU.

During the strategic dialogue, the two sides reiterated that they respect each other's development path, value each other's important role in international affairs and stay committed to strengthening bilateral and multilateral dialogue and cooperation and deepening China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership on the basis of equality and mutual respect. This year is of special significance to China-EU relationship as it marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two sides. Both sides have positive expectations for China-EU relations this year and hope to accelerate investment agreement negotiations, step up cooperation in economy, trade, sustainable development and other areas, and work for more practical outcomes in China-EU major diplomatic agenda this year.

The two sides discussed international anti-epidemic cooperation, including trilateral cooperation with Africa to fight COVID-19. Both sides expressed readiness to help countries in Africa and elsewhere that have vulnerable health systems to better respond to epidemics. The two sides reaffirmed commitment to multilateralism, stronger international cooperation, better global governance and expressed willingness to jointly address global challenges through international cooperation. The two sides also exchanged views on nuclear non-proliferation, the Iranian nuclear issue, the Middle East peace process and other international and regional issues, noting their endeavor to find political solutions to these issues and safeguard world peace and stability.

Shenzhen TV: As we understand, a team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government to Peru returned to China on June 10. Could you tell us more about the expert team's work in Peru?

Hua Chunying: At the invitation of the Peruvian government, the Chinese government recently sent a four-member COVID-19 medical expert team to Peru in support of its anti-epidemic efforts.

During their stay in Peru, the Chinese medical experts conducted over 40 training and interaction sessions. They had in-depth exchange and shared experience on epidemic prevention and control, virus tests, diagnosis and treatment with Peru's national headquarters on COVID-19 response, the health ministry, Peruvian National Institute of Health, authorities of the social security of health and other local medical institutions, as well as the WHO office and the Pan American Health Organization's desk in the country. They also helped to train local medical workers. The medical experts visited cities outside the capital to assess epidemic containment situation and shared experience and know-how with the localities. With the coordination of the Chinese embassy in Peru, the medical expert team offered consultations via videolink to representatives of Chinese businesses and Chinese nationals including students there to share epidemic-related information and answer their questions.

The Peruvian side highly commended the Chinese expert team. The Peruvian foreign ministry published a communique thanking the Chinese government for sending the medical team. The Peruvian government awarded medals and certificates of honor to all members of the medical team.

Now the epidemics are still spreading in Latin America. China stands ready to provide anti-epidemic support to Latin American and Caribbean countries to the best of its capacity, discuss strengthening cooperation on medical health and vaccine development, and safeguard people's safety and health.

South China Morning Post: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan hopes to lead the effort in drafting a statement on the Hong Kong-related national security legislation and "one country, two systems" in the upcoming G7 Foreign Ministers' Meeting. Do you have any response to that?

Hua Chunying: We noted relevant reports and have expressed grave concerns to the Japanese side. The NPC's decision on establishing and improving a legal system and enforcement mechanisms for safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong SAR is purely China's internal affair that allows no foreign interference. The said country should abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations.

China Daily: On June 9, Burundi's government said in a statement that President Pierre Nkurunziza passed away due to an illness. Does the Chinese side express its condolences?

Hua Chunying: We are saddened to learn the sudden passing of President Nkurunziza. China expresses its deep condolences and sincere sympathies to the government and people of Burundi and the family of President Nkurunziza.

President Nkurunziza was a strong champion of national sovereignty and independence against foreign interference. He played an active role in helping his country find a development path that suits its national conditions. He was deeply respected and adored by his people. President Nkurunziza was also a good friend to the Chinese people as he was devoted to the cause of China-Burundi friendship and contributed greatly to deepening bilateral all-weather partnership. At this moment of grief, the Chinese people's hearts are with our friends in Burundi.

Global Times: As you announced, a medical team is sent to Palestine by the Chinese government. Can you give us more details on that? What else will China do to assist and support Palestine in fighting COVID-19?

Hua Chunying: China and Palestine share a deep, traditional friendship. Now COVID-19 is spreading in Palestine. At the request of the Palestinian government and in light of the country's practical needs, the Chinese government has decided to send a medical expert team to help its fight against COVID-19. The team will stay there for one week. During their stay, the medical professionals will discuss and share experience and know-how with the locals on epidemic control, clinical diagnosis and treatment and lab tests, addressing the challenges together with the Palestinian government and people. They will also provide COVID-19 prevention and control guidance to Chinese nationals in Palestine.

In the meantime, China will contribute an annual donation of $1 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), donate supplies to its affiliated medical institutions and provide help through UNRWA to Palestine refugees in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

China's above-mentioned approaches are a concrete step to act on the important speech delivered by President Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony of the 73rd World Health Assembly, demonstrating deep friendship between Chinese and Palestinian people. Upholding the vision of a shared future for mankind, China will continue contributing to public health security in the Middle East by helping Palestine and other regional countries to the best of our ability based on their needs.

Beijing Daily: According to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a unit in China engages thousands of organizations to collect intelligence, making efforts to influence Chinese communities around the world and foreign elites to advance Beijing's interests, which requires heightened vigilance from democratic countries. Do you have any comment on that report?

Hua Chunying: I don't know what is the basis of this ASPI report, but I do know that some in Australia revealed in an article that this institute has long been receiving funds from the US government and arms dealers, and has been enthusiastic about cooking up and sensationalizing anti-China topics. It is so imbued with ideological prejudice that it becomes an anti-China "vanguard", which leads to serious doubt on its academic integrity. It has also fabricated a fallacious report on so-called "Xinjiang-related issues", making it a laughing stock in the world.

China has been developing foreign relations based on principles of mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. Intervention has never been in the "genes" of China's diplomacy, and has never been the type of thing we are good at. We hope external forces will stop hyping up such matters.

TASS: According to media reports, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg made a statement that NATO cannot ignore the rise of China but doesn't see China as a rival. He also said that China is coming closer to NATO borders in the Arctic and in the cyberspace. I wonder if China has any comment on this?

Hua Chunying: We also noticed Secretary General Stoltenberg's remarks that NATO doesn't see China as a rival. In today's world, there is turbulence and instability in some regions, but on the whole, the trend of the times is still peace, development and cooperation. China has always been committed to peaceful development. We have made and will continue making contributions to world peace and development. China pursues a defense policy that is defensive in nature. Our per capita defense budget is significantly lower than that of other major countries. China's development brings opportunities to the entire world; it doesn't pose any threat to any country or people.

We hope NATO can continue viewing China in the correct way, regarding China's development in a rational manner, and contributing to upholding international and regional security and stability. China is ready to enhance dialogue with NATO on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

AFP: Indian media reported that Chinese and Indian border troops are disengaging and moving back from three locations in the west section of China-India boundary. Can you confirm this?

Hua Chunying: Through diplomatic and military channels, China and India have recently had effective communication and reached agreement on properly handling the situation in the west section of the China-India boundary. At present, the two sides are taking actions in line with the agreement to ameliorate the border situation.

The Paper: In response to HSBC backing the national security legislation for Hong Kong, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on June 9 that the show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the bank's business in China as political leverage against London. He said that the "browbeating" of HSBC "should serve as a cautionary tale" and it proved that countries needed to avoid economic overreliance on China due to its "aggressive behavior" and "coercive bullying tactics". What is your comment?

Hua Chunying: For some people in the US, there are only two types of people: those who take order from the US and join it in its attacks against China, and those who don't do so because they are coerced by China. Such a view is simply narrow-minded and hilarious. As is known to all, "All living things should grow in harmony without hurting one another; and all the ways should move forward without interfering with one another." Every nation, every party and every individual has the right to make decisions on their own based on the merits of the matter and act out of their fundamental interests.

As for the national security legislation for Hong Kong, we have said many times that it serves the fundamental interests of the Hong Kong SAR and the legitimate rights and interests of foreign institutions and personnel in Hong Kong to establish and improve the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong SAR to ensure Hong Kong's long-term prosperity and stability. After the NPC made the decision, stakeholders including the business communities, have given objective and unbiased responses in light of the facts and their fundamental interests.

Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs which allow no foreign interference. We urge the US to correctly view this legislation, stop stoking discord and using Hong Kong-related matters to interfere in China's internal affairs, and do things that are conducive to Hong Kong's prosperity and stability instead of working for the opposite effect.
" " Lucky Luciano's mugshot, taken on April 18, 1936. He was convicted of 62 charges of compulsory prostitution and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, a sentence that was reduced upon the condition of his deportation back to Italy. Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images

From Al Capone to John Dillinger, America has a long list of legendary gangsters that have become the subjects of books, films and morbid curiosity for centuries. But one among them has the distinction of having introduced a sort of governmental structure into the unlawful mobster world: Charles "Lucky" Luciano.

"Charles 'Lucky' Luciano was originally an immigrant from Sicily called Salvatore Lucania who arrived in New York with his parents in 1907," says Tim Newark, author of "Lucky Luciano  the Real and the Fake Gangster," in an email interview. "Over the next three decades, he rose from being a teenage hoodlum to mob hitman to head of organized crime in New York."

According to organized crime historian and creator of ganglandlegends.com, Christian Cipollini, Luciano's upbringing in a particularly diverse part of the Big Apple set the scene for his future. "His family settled in Manhattan's Lower East Side, where it was a mix of Jewish and Italian immigrants," Cipollini writes via email. "It was there he met other young future stars of the underworld, such as Benjamin Siegel and Meyer Lansky."

"Because of his childhood friendships with Jewish mobsters, he was able to see the benefit of working with diverse individuals," says Claire White, educational programs manager at The Mob Museum, via email. "This allowed him to consolidate power not just among Italian American mobsters, but across Manhattan and then the nation  an important step in the Commission's [the centralized syndicate of New York crime families] creation and ascendency."

"His family immigrated to the United States when he was 10," White says. "He developed a reputation in the Five Points Gang in Manhattan before graduating to a position of power in one of the five New York Italian American Mafia families. In 1931, after powerful bosses Giuseppe 'Joe the Boss' Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano were assassinated, Luciano inherited the organization that would eventually become known as the Genovese family."

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A Bully From the Beginning

But long before he was recognized by the big bosses, Luciano was apparently ruling the schoolyard. Luciano conned his classmates into paying for protection from bullies, and if they didn't fork over the cash, he'd bully them himself. After he dropped out of school in 1914, he worked as a hat company clerk and began befriending local gang members like Lansky and Siegel.

In 1916, Luciano was caught selling heroin and served six months at a reformatory. But it was in the 1920s when he hit his criminal stride, thanks to the prohibition of alcohol. Luciano became one of the "Big Six," a group of bootleggers who were considered top brass in the East Coast illegal liquor trade.

" " Lucky Luciano with his entourage as he is given a shave while living in exile in Sicily, in an undated photo. Slim Aarons/Getty Images

"By introducing a new, corporate mentality to organized crime at the end of Prohibition, Luciano set the stage for the mob's control of gambling and other rackets throughout the 20th century," White says. "Luciano is regarded as the founder of modern organized crime in America. In 1931, he ousted the old Sicilian bosses and formed the Commission, a national syndicate of crime families centered in New York."

When prominent mobster Salvatore "The Duke" Maranzano was assassinated, Luciano inherited the crime family that would eventually become known as the Genovese family. "A natural organizer, Luciano continued the committee of Five Families, which was established by Maranzano and would control East Coast rackets for decades," White says. "But rather than naming himself 'Boss of Bosses,' as Maranzano had, Luciano called himself the chairman of the board."

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Formation of the Syndicate

In 1931, Luciano and Meyer Lansky established a board known as the national syndicate or "combination," composed of non-Italian Jewish members. "Luciano was notable and successful for modernizing organized crime in New York in the 1920s and '30s," Newark says. "He ran it along more effective business lines, put an end to disruptive gang fighting between the old Sicilian mobsters, and left behind their old-world Catholic prejudices of not working with Jewish gangsters."

"The most important contribution of Lucky Luciano to the Italian-American Mafia was organizational," Federico Varese, professor of criminology at University of Oxford, says via email. "He was the brain behind the creation of the Commission, where the Five Families have a seat. He understood that the Italian-American Mafia would continue to fight if a single boss wanted to be the capo di tutti I capi [i.e., 'boss of all bosses' or 'The Godfather']."

In 1936, a New York prosecutor named Thomas Dewey led raids on brothels throughout the city, and in the arrests of over 100 people, gathered information on Luciano's illegal dealings. On June 6 of that year, Luciano was convicted of 62 charges of compulsory prostitution and was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in state prison.

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Luciano During World War II

While you might expect that to be the end of Luciano's story, the global crisis that soon ensued altered the gangster's seemingly set path. During World War II, the government sought assistance from the mob in keeping New York docks safe from strikes and sabotage. Authorities came to Luciano and he agreed to help, in hopes that his aid would lead to a sentence reduction. After all, by that time, former prosecutor Dewey had become New York governor and was in the position to grant Luciano clemency.

"Luciano's role in World War II was fascinating," Newark says. "Despite being in prison, he assisted U.S. Naval Intelligence by securing the New York docks against Nazi sabotage, but my archival research has revealed that his much-vaunted help for the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 was not as significant as has been claimed. Much as his postwar reputation as an international gangster was largely exaggerated by the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to justify their own budgets. There is, however, tantalizing evidence that Luciano may have been a useful Cold War asset in Sicily in 1947 helping the CIA foil a Communist takeover of the island."

" " The elaborate funeral for Lucky Luciano in Naples, Italy, on January 29, 1962. Keystone/Getty Images

And after the war, Dewey did indeed lessen the severity of Luciano's punishment on the terms that the mobster would leave the U.S. Luciano agreed and returned to Italy as a deportee but eventually wound up in Havana, Cuba (hanging out with the likes of Frank Sinatra, no less). The U.S. government then forced the Cuban government to deport Luciano back to Italy where he spent the rest of his life. Luciano died of a heart attack in 1962 at the Naples airport while on his way to meet with a movie producer to discuss making a screen adaptation of his life.

"Luciano possessed an innate aura of leadership, charm and savvy street smarts," Cipollini says. "Such qualities proved to be a split of good and bad though. Not only did these characteristics help establish him as a figurehead among his peers and within the restructured underworld of America, but [they] also made him a ready-made 'poster boy' representation of the vice and crime problem, which the authorities exploited fully from 1936 up to and including the day he died in 1962."

So where did the name "Lucky" come from? Luciano reportedly got the nickname after surviving an abduction and attack in 1929. A group of men beat and stabbed him and left him for dead on a Staten Island beach, but a police officer found him at the scene and took him to a nearby hospital.

Now That's a Fitting End After Luciano died of a heart attack on January 26, 1962 at Naples International Airport, a funeral service was held in that city, during which his casket was driven through the streets in a horse-drawn black hearse. Luciano's relatives took his body back to New York for burial with the permission of the U.S. government. He is buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens.
Current experiments support the controversial hypothesis that a well-known concept in physics -- a "critical point" -- is behind the striking behaviour of collective animal systems. Physicists from the Cluster of Excellence "Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour" at the University of Konstanz showed that light-controlled microswimming particles can be made to organize into different collective states such as swarms and swirls. By studying the particles fluctuating between these states, they provide evidence for critical behaviour -- and support for a physical principle underlying the complex behaviour of collectives. The research results were published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Animal groups exhibit the seemingly contradictory characteristics of being both robust and flexible. Imagine a school of fish: hundreds of individuals in perfect order and alignment can suddenly transition to a convulsing tornado dodging an attack. Animal groups benefit if they can strike this delicate balance between being stable in the face of "noise" like eddies or gusts of wind, yet responsive to important changes like the approach of a predator.

Critical transition

How they achieve this is not yet understood. But in recent years, a possible explanation has emerged: criticality. In physics, criticality describes systems in which a transition between states -- such as gas to liquid -- occurs at a critical point. Criticality has been argued to provide biological systems with the necessary balance between robustness and flexibility. "The combination of stability and high responsiveness is exactly what characterizes a critical point," says the study's lead author Clemens Bechinger, Principal Investigator in the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour and Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Konstanz, "and so it made sense to test if this could explain some of the patterns we see in collective behaviour."

The hypothesis that collective states are hovering near critical points has been studied in the past largely through numerical simulations. In the new study published in Nature Communications, Bechinger and his colleagues have given rare experimental support to the mathematical prediction. "By demonstrating a close link between collectivity and critical behaviour, our findings not only add to our general understanding of collective states but also suggest that general physical concepts may apply to living systems," says Bechinger.

Experimental evidence

In experiments, the researchers used glass beads coated on one side by a carbon cap and placed in a viscous liquid. When illuminated by light, they swim much like bacteria, but with an important difference: every aspect of how the particles interact with others -- from how the individuals move to how many neighbours can be seen -- can be controlled. These microswimming particles allow the researchers to eschew the challenges of working with living systems in which rules of interaction cannot be easily controlled. "We design the rules in the computer, put them in an experiment, and watch the result of the interaction game," says Bechinger.

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But to ensure that the physical system bore a resemblance to living systems, the researchers designed interactions that mirrored the behaviour of animals. For example, they controlled the direction that individuals moved in relation to their neighbours: particles were programmed either to swim straight towards others in the main group or to deviate away from them. Depending on this angle of movement, the particles organized into either swirls or disordered swarms. And incrementally adjusting this value elicited rapid transitions between a swirl and a disordered but still cohesive swarm. "What we observed is that the system can make sudden transitions from one state to the other, which demonstrates the flexibility needed to react to an external perturbation like a predator," says Bechinger, "and provides clear evidence for a critical behaviour."

"Similar behaviour to animal groups and neural systems"

This result is "key to understanding how animal collectives have evolved," says Professor Iain Couzin, co-speaker of the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour and Director of the Department of Collective Behavior at the Konstanz Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. Although not involved with the study, Couzin has worked for decades to decipher how grouping may enhance sensing capabilities in animal collectives.

Says Couzin: "The particles in this study behave in a very similar way to what we see in animal groups, and even neural systems. We know that individuals in collectives benefit from being more responsive, but the big challenge in biology has been testing if criticality is what allows the individual to spontaneously become much more sensitive to their environment. This study has confirmed this can occur just via spontaneous emergent physical properties. Through very simple interactions they have shown that you can tune a physical system to a collective state -- criticality -- of balance between order and disorder."

Application areas

By demonstrating the existence of a link between collectivity and critical behaviour in living systems, this study also hints at how the intelligence of collectives can be engineered into physical systems. Beyond just simple particles, the finding could assist with designing efficient strategies of autonomous microrobotics devices with on-board control units. "Similar to their living counterparts, these miniature agents should be able to spontaneously adapt to changing conditions and even cope with unforeseen situations which might be accomplished by their operation near a critical point," says Bechinger.

Key facts:
Kyiv's Pechersky District Court has decided to choose a restrictive measure in the form of detention for the former member of parliament, the co-owner of Ferrexpo mining company and Finance and Credit Group, Kostiantyn Zhevaho.

"Today, the Pechersky court has considered the petition and decided to choose a preventive measure in the form of detention, which is a necessary step for his arrest and extradition when establishing his whereabouts," the State Bureau of Investigations told Interfax-Ukraine.

Earlier, the businessman's press service, citing his lawyer, whose name was not mentioned, reported that the Kyiv Court of Appeals on May 25, 2020 canceled the decision on the detention of Zhevaho, made by the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv in early December 2019. According to the appellate court, the canceled decision of the judge of the Pechersky District Court was adopted with significant violations of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.

As reported, in early December 2019 the investigating judge granted the petition, supported by the prosecutor of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, to select a restrictive measure in the form of custody for Zhevaho, who is suspected of organizing the embezzlement of the property of Bank Finance and Credit. The Prosecutor General's Office clarified that suspicion was put forward to the former MP under Part 3 of Article 27, Part 5 of Article 191 (organization of embezzlement of other people's property by prior conspiracy), Part 3 of Article 209 (legalization of proceeds from crime in especially large amounts) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Ratings issuer A.M. Best said it has removed from under review with negative implications and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A (Excellent) and Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings of a of five companies collectively referred to as North American Casualty Group (NAC).

The companies with the affirmed ratings are: California Insurance Co. (CIC) (Foster City, Calif.), Continental Indemnity Co., Illinois Insurance Co., Texas Insurance Co. (Dallas) and Pennsylvania Insurance Co. All companies are domiciled in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

A.M. Best assigned a negative outlook to the credit ratings.

The ratings reflect NACs balance sheet strength, which A.M. Best categorizes as very strong, as well as its strong operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

Applied Underwriters Sold to Founder in $920M Deal Applied Underwriters Inc. and its subsidiary North American Casualty Co. has been acquired by Applied Underwriters founder Steve Menzies. California Balks at Applied Underwriters Sale, Questions Subsidiarys Move to New Mexico The California Department of Insurance has denied approval of the sale of California Insurance Co., a subsidiary of Applied Underwriters that has been under scrutiny over campaign contributions. Applied Underwriters Responds to California Department of Insurance Effort to Halt Sale Applied says that after six months it gave up waiting for California to act on its request for approval of its sale and instead took up another state, New Mexico, on its offer to expedite the transaction by moving its California subsidiary, California Insurance Co., to that state. New Mexico Explains Role in Enabling Applied Underwriters Sale New Mexicos insurance regulator said it facilitated the sale of Applied Underwriters by approving the creation of a new insurer and a merger of it with an existing Applied Underwriter California subsidiary in order to save jobs and protect policyholders.

A California judge on Nov. 4, 2019, appointed the California Department of Insurance as conservator of CIC after the state regulator legally challenged the companys merger and relocation to New Mexico. A.M. Best said it remains in close dialogue with company management, as they work to resolve these outstanding regulatory issues.

Currently, there is no clear date for a resolution of this matter; however, the company does continue to operate unencumbered by this action, according to A.M. Best.

A.M. Best said it will continue to monitor NACs rating fundamentals and the potential impact stemming from the ongoing controversy between the company and the California regulator.

There is a background to the controversy (see sidebar). California Insurance Co. was purchased in 2003 by Applied Underwriters with Californias approval. In 2006, Berkshire Hathaway bought an 81% interest in Applied, which was founded in California in 1994. Owner and founder Steven Menzies retained the other shares. Last year, Menzies and The Quasha Group agreed to buy Applied back from Berkshire Hathaway. California insurance regulators complained that the $920 million sale of Berkshire Hathaways Applied Underwriters workers compensation unit to Menzies was apparently closed without their approval.

However, Applied Underwriters said that it got tired of waiting for Californias approval and changed the domicile of the California Insurance Co. to New Mexico through a merger with a newly-created company there and New Mexicos regulator signed off on the deal. California maintains the decision to merge the entity with a New Mexico-based entity also required department approval.

Rating Analysis

NACs risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), is assessed at the strongest level, and AM Best expects it to remain at a similar level in prospective years. Balance sheet strength also benefits from the companys strong liquidity profile, conservative investment strategy, and disciplined reserving.

The ratings agency said NAC has a track record of strong operating earnings, underpinned by its robust underwriting performance and demonstrated by a five-year average return on equity ratio of 13.1% and a combined ratio averaging 75% (2015-2019).

However, NACs operating performance has deteriorated over the past couple of years as the workers compensation industry remains under pressure, and the companys EquityComp product is now a smaller contributor to underwriting results.

A.M. Best said it expects the company to maintain returns at historical levels to warrant the strong assessment for operating performance.

NACs business profile remains concentrated in the workers compensation line of business, which accounted for 80.7% of NACs gross written premiums (GWP) in 2019. Although management has achieved measured growth in other states, California remains the companys primary market (i.e., 37% of 2019 GWP).

A.M. Best said it views NACs risk management capabilities as aligned with its risk profile; however, it will continue to monitor the companys capabilities in maintaining regulatory compliance. A.M. Best said NACs enterprise risk management assessment could be revised downward if current regulatory issues are not resolved with a favorable outcome.

Topics California Legislation Workers' Compensation Underwriting AM Best Mexico Casualty
Inside Hook

In the wake of nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd, HBO Max removed the classic-yet-extremely-antiquated Gone With the Wind from its streaming platform on Tuesday night. But as the company clarified today, the move is only temporary, and the film will return to the service at a later date with new material that frames its racist and stereotypical content in a historical context.

Gone With The Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society, HBO Max said in a statement. These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible. These depictions are certainly counter to WarnerMedias values.
A batch of major banks in Vietnam face gaps in succeeding with attempts to gain Basel II standard status. Photo: Le Toan

Vietnamese lenders will likely run into choppy waters in raising external capital. They have a 30 per cent foreign ownership limit, which constrains efforts to raise equity from overseas investors and makes them reliant on capital issuance in the shallow local market.

Previously, the Vietnamese government rolled out plans to allow state-owned lenders to pay dividends in shares or retain dividends in a bid to accumulate capital and meet regulatory minimum capitalisation thresholds.

However, thin capital buffers still ail several major banks. According to global rating firm Fitch Ratings, should Vietnamese banks continue to make timely provisions for newly impaired loans, some Fitch-rated local banks may fall up to $2.5 billion short of Basel II requirements. Basel II provides guidelines for calculation of minimum regulatory capital ratios and confirms the definition of regulatory capital and an 8 per cent minimum coefficient for regulatory capital over risk-weighted assets.

State-owned banks are expected to face the largest gap. For example, by late March, Agribanks capital adequacy ratio (CAR) was only 6.9 per cent, which failed to meet the minimum requirement of 8 per cent. Needless to say, Agribank is now falling short of the large capitalisation stipulated by Basel II for 2019-2021.

Despite being a wholly state-owned lender, Agribank has not increased its charter capital in the past nine years, which made the CAR plummet below the industry standards. The bank needs an injection of VND3.5 trillion ($152.2 million) from the Vietnamese authorities in 2020, said Nguyen Thi Phuong, deputy general director at Agribank.

Likewise, VietinBank seems to have been bogged down in its struggle to reach Basel II. Earlier this year, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) reduced its shares in VietinBank from almost 6.49 to 4.99 per cent.

At its latest general annual shareholder meeting, VietinBank signalled ambitions to preserve capital by only offering stock dividends this year, while reinvesting all profits into operations after paying taxes and setting aside the obligatory reserves for capital supplementation (5 per cent), financial reserves (10 per cent), as well as bonus and welfare funds.

VietinBank has agreed with the government and relevant ministries to add its earnings from 2017-2018 to its charter capital. The bank awaits amendments from state capital investment to clear legal hurdles before increasing paid-in capital, noted Harrison Kim, head of Equity Research at KB Securities.

In past years, stronger profitability and internal capital generation, amidst a benign economic environment, have helped some banks to raise their capital ratios recently. However, internally generated capital tends to be depleted by rapid credit growth, and many banks have resorted to issuing local tier-2 instruments to bridge the gap.

Surging overdue loans from the pandemic-induced economic fallout threaten Vietnamese banks earnings and capital accretion momentum, with many banks likely to face capital shortfalls should the weak economic conditions persist. Increased slack in the labour market is also putting mounting pressure on the quality of banks assets and profitability, especially given the rapid growth of the retail and consumer banking segment in recent years, Fitch Ratings said.

Looking on the bright side, many foreign lenders have expressed their eagerness to jump on the local bank bandwagon. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement are set to amplify European giants presence in Vietnam. After the trade deal comes into force, Vietnam will lift foreign ownership limits at local banks to 49 per cent in the next five years, with the exception of the four joint-stock commercial banks in which the state still holds a controlling stake.

Experts stated that some private lenders could gain the upper hand thanks to the EVFTA, such as Techcombank, ACB, VIB, or VPBank. Fortunately, these lenders have satisfied Basel II requirements, while still possessing strong retail banking arms and reporting upbeat performance. Some high-profile names from the European continent include BNB Paribas, Standard Charted, HSBC or Societe Generale SA, which also stand to see tailwinds from the deal.

Vuong Dinh Hue, Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee, said that 100 per cent foreign-owned banks would not be allowed to be established in Vietnam from 2020. Thus, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) seems to be the most feasible way for foreigners to enter the Vietnamese financial sector. Hue also encouraged strategic tie-ups between overseas investors and distressed local lenders, such as GPBank, Construction Bank (CBank), or OceanBank.

Japan-based J Trust Group has revealed intentions to partner with CBank in 2019, while Singaporean private investment group Clermont Group has expressed keen interest in the emerging Vietnamese financial segment. MARUHAN Group, a Japanese conglomerate which has broadened its banking subsidiaries in some Southeast Asian countries, has also been paying attention to Vietnam. Recently, commercial lender Ocean Bank was mulling the sale of 11 per cent of its charter capital to Japan-based Aozora Bank Ltd., which is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with around $3.16 billion of market capitalisation.

DGB Financial Group, a listed South Korean banking holding company, applied for a license in Vietnam last December, to prepare for extending its reach to the country, after hitting Cambodia and Laos.

We are looking for opportunities in Vietnam the way Shinhan Bank did, said DGBs representative, adding that there are a lot of cultural similarities between South Korea and Vietnam  which is one of the reasons why the group is seeking to launch services here.
Swedish authorities have dropped their investigation into the unsolved murder of then prime minister Olof Palme who was shot dead 34 years ago in central Stockholm.

The cases chief prosecutor, Krister Petersson, said the case was being closed because the main suspect Stig Engstrom died in 2000.

Mr Palme was gunned down on February 28 1986 after he and his wife Lisbet Palme left a cinema in Stockholm.

Olof Palme makes the victory sign after the Social Democrats election victory in 1982 (Bertil Ericson/TT via AP)

Mr Petersson said Engstrom, also known as the Skandiamannen for working in the nearby Skandia insurance company, had a strong dislike of Mr Palme and his policies.

He was one of the first at the murder scene and was briefly considered a possible suspect.

Since he has died, I cannot indict him, Mr Petersson told a news conference.

Several other witnesses gave descriptions of the fleeing killer that matched Engstrom while others said he was not even at the scene.

Engstrom himself claimed to have been present from the beginning, spoke to Mrs Palme and police, and attempted to resuscitate the victim.

Soon after the murder, Engstrom appeared in Swedish media and developed an increasingly detailed story of his involvement in the events and criticised the police.

People lay flowers at the site where Mr Palme was shot (Anders Holmstrom/TT via AP)

He claimed those witnesses who had described the killer had in fact been describing him running to catch up with police officers in pursuit of the assassin.

The police then labelled Engstrom as an unreliable and inconsistent witness and classified him as a person of no interest.

Mr Palme sought to live as ordinary a life as possible and would often go out without any bodyguards. On the night of the murder he had no protection.

Mrs Palme was injured in the attack and later identified the gunman as Christer Pettersson, an alcoholic and drug addict, who was convicted of Mr Palmes murder.

The memorial plaque in Stockholm marks the spot where Mr Palme was gunned down (Fredrik Sandberg/TT via AP)

The sentence was later overturned after police failed to produce any technical evidence against him, leaving the murder an unsolved mystery. Mr Pettersson died in 2004.

Mr Palme, who cut a flamboyant, even boyish figure, had an aristocratic background but was known for his left-leaning views.

Story continues

He was eyed with suspicion in conservative circles and by the United States. Among Swedes and in the Nordic region, he was much loved but also hated.

More than 100 people have been suspected of the crime and the unsolved case has been surrounded by conspiracy theories, ranging from foreign involvement, people with right-wing sympathies within Swedens police, to an act by a lone gunman.

Hans Melander, head of the investigation, told the news conference that 134 people had confessed to the murder  29 directly to the police  and some 10,000 people had been questioned during the 34-year probe.

He said: I am completely convinced that there are other people who believe in other solutions, but as Krister (Petersson) says, this is what we came up with and believe in.

Marten Palme, the son of Olof and Lisbet Palme, told Swedish radio: I also think Engstrom is the perpetrator.
Clara Selva Olid, professor at the UOC's Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences explained: "Informal learning and a culture of unconditional cooperation have given rise to a rapid and brilliant response from different healthcare bodies across the country." According to a recent study published in the Journal of Workplace Learning in which Clara Selva Olid participated, this informal knowledge exchange is much more valuable than it's often given credit for in working environments.

She said: "Learning within our workplace plays a very important role in developing, improving and bringing our skills up to speed. As a natural result of the long hours we spend at work, this is without a doubt one of the most beneficial contexts in which to develop our professional and personal skills." Traditionally, huge importance is placed on what people learn through formal education, which is organized and given specific objectives; academic years and terms, seminars and conferences would be typical examples. However, professionals also learn by exchanging experiences in an informal setting, for example over a cup of coffee or by observing how their colleagues work.

As such, this research, which was conducted alongside Carlota Riera from the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC) and Miguel Sahagun from the University of Aguascalientes (Mexico), sought to shed light on the relationship between formal, informal and peer learning within a workplace setting. For this, the researchers conducted a nine-month ethnographic study with a team of gynaecologists from a hospital in Catalonia. The researchers were able to observe and analyse the daily routines and practices of the team's 44 members, comprised of doctors, nurses, midwives and administrative staff.

The value of informality

According to Selva, the results suggest that "in contrary to what many people and organizations may believe, the great value of learning is found, above all, in informal contexts and in interactions between people, more so than in formal learning activities. The less hierarchical the organization, the more and richer the learning opportunities, which also prove to be more equal, democratically speaking". Therefore, "an organizational culture that fosters dialogue and equal participation throughout its community boosts learning acquisition for individual members as well as for the group as a whole". Additionally, employees find learning more enriching when it occurs among peers, in other words, among people who identify with each other as equals.

Selva said: "Now that we have the results, we think it's necessary that current and future organizations highlight the importance of equality among their staff. Besides, bearing in mind the clear relationship established between equality and participation, it seems evident that promoting equal roles must be a goal for any organization that aspires to ignite complex learning the requires assimilating diverse knowledge quickly and efficiently."

In the case of hospitals, hierarchy and the scientific nature of knowledge have proven to be obstacles in this exchange. According to the UOC researchers, "a healthcare centre's organizational culture legitimizes some kinds of learning over others, often with more vocational than scientific interests. Promoting greater participation and a horizontal structure among medical professionals and nurses, for example, would greatly benefit organizations and enhance their learning capacity".

An emergency tackled as a team

This has been perfectly illustrated by the COVID-19 emergency. Selva said: "Teams were not prepared, from a formal training point of view, to tackle a health crisis such as this one. Within the space of a few hours, any kind of pyramidal and hierarchical structure that would normally make it more difficult for everyone to participate, became obsolete before this call to action. All professionals loaded with experience and knowledge have been essential players in transforming hospitals. Organizations have spontaneously facilitated the flow of learning and the participation of all staff members to find the most appropriate solutions in a way that is not mediated hierarchically, but rather is driven by a common and shared objective. This is the kind of learning you carry with you forever, and the hope is that some of this information remains embedded within the very fabric of organizational cultures."

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The state has launched a social media campaign to recruit foster parents.

The Can you foster my future? campaign by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services started Wednesday.

There are more than 18,000 children in foster care in Illinois. Of those, 1,300 live in group homes or institutions. Foster homes are needed for sibling groups, adolescents, African American and Latino youth, children with special medical needs, teenage mothers and their babies, and LGBTQ youth, according to a department representative.

Foster parents must be at least 21 years old. The licensing process can take up to six months. Prospective foster families must participate in a social assessment and home inspections, complete training on foster care and a criminal background check of all household members, be financially stable and complete a health screening.

 Marco Cartolano
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, elbow bumps Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia before a Senate Finance Committee hearing on "COVID-19/Unemployment Insurance" on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, June 9, 2020.

Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call/Pool via AP

US Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said Tuesday that he opposes extending an emergency $600 weekly payment to unemployed Americans.

The benefits are set to expire on July 31.

In May, House Democrats passed a $3 trillion stimulus measure that would extend the payments through January 2021.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Trump administration opposes a Democratic effort to extend weekly $600 payments to unemployed Americans, a US official said Tuesday, arguing that continuing the program would discourage people from returning to work.

In May, House Democrats approved a $3 trillion stimulus measured that would extend the additional payments to January 2021. They are currently set to expire July 31.

Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, US Labor Secretary Euge Scalia said lawmakers should instead allow the emergency payments to expire at the end of next month.

"That recognizes we'll be in a very different place in July where the opportunity for people to return to work will be far greater," Scalia said, per The Wall Street Journal.

Son of the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Eugene Scalia argued that a recent jobs report showing unemployment at 13.3% was an indication that public assistance could now be pared back.

Over 30 million Americans have filed unemployment claims. By this summer, however, "we expect the economy to be deep into the process of reopening," Scalia testified, according to the Associated Press, "with shutdown orders ended and millions of Americans freed to return to work."

Chad Stone, the chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, argues that aid should be tied to economic benchmarks, not an arbitrary deadline.

"While the economy may be starting to recover from the depths of the recession in the second half of this year, jobs and employers that existed when the layoffs began may no longer exist," Stone wrote this week.

Story continues

The Congressional Budget Office projects that unemployment will remain in the double digits through the rest of this year.

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com

Read the original article on Business Insider
An aviation taskforce has been set up to examine how the sector can recover from the Covid-19 lockdown.

Announcing the members of the group today, Transport Minister Shane Ross said: "We all know that as an island nation we are hugely dependent on the air traffic that connects us to the rest of the world; to our friends, relatives and our many business partners, north, south, east and west of the globe.
How the brain controls our speech

Speaking requires both sides of the brain. Each hemisphere takes over a part of the complex task of forming sounds, modulating the voice and monitoring what has been said. However, the distribution of tasks is different than has been thought up to now, as an interdisciplinary team of neuroscientists and phoneticians at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics Berlin has discovered: it is not just the right hemisphere that analyses how we speak - the left hemisphere also plays a role.

Until now, it has been assumed that the spoken word arises in left side of the brain and is analysed by the right side. According to accepted doctrine, this means that when we learn to speak English and for example practice the sound equivalent to "th", the left side of the brain controls the motor function of the articulators like the tongue, while the right side analyses whether the produced sound actually sounds as we intended.

The division of labour actually follows different principles, as Dr Christian Kell from the Department of Neurology at Goethe University explains: "While the left side of the brain controls temporal aspects such as the transition between speech sounds, the right hemisphere is responsible for the control of the sound spectrum. When you say 'mother', for example, the left hemisphere primarily controls the dynamic transitions between "th" and the vowels, while the right hemisphere primarily controls the sounds themselves." His team, together with the phonetician Dr Susanne Fuchs, was able to demonstrate this division of labour in temporal and spectral control of speech for the first time in studies in which speakers were required to talk while their brain activities were recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

A possible explanation for this division of labour between the two sides of the brain is that the left hemisphere generally analyses fast processes such as the transition between speech sounds better than the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere could be better at controlling the slower processes required for analysing the sound spectrum. A previous study on hand motor function that was published in the scientific publication "elife" demonstrates that this is in fact the case. Kell and his team wanted to learn why the right hand was preferentially used for the control of fast actions and the left hand preferred for slow actions. For example, when cutting bread, the right hand is used to slice with the knife while the left hand holds the bread.

In the experiment, scientists had right-handed test persons tap with both hands to the rhythm of a metronome. In one version they were supposed to tap with each beat, and in another only with every fourth beat. As it turned out, the right hand was more precise during the quick tapping sequence and the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of the body, exhibited increased activity. Conversely, tapping with the left hand corresponded better with the slower rhythm and resulted in the right hemisphere exhibiting increased activity.

Taken together, the two studies create a convincing picture of how complex behaviour - hand motor functions and speech - are controlled by both cerebral hemispheres. The left side of the brain has a preference for the control of fast processes while the right side tends to control the slower processes in parallel.

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Publications:

Floegel M, Fuchs S, Kell CA (2020) Differential contributions of the two cerebral hemispheres to temporal and spectral speech feedback control. Nature Communications, 11:2839. https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1038/ s41467-020-16743-2

Pflug A, Gompf F, Muthuraman M, Groppa S, Kell CA (2019) Differential contributions of the two human cerebral hemispheres to action timing. eLife, 8:48404 https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 7554/ eLife. 48404

Further information:

Dr. Christian Kell

Cognitive Neuroscience Group

Clinic for Neurology

Goethe University Frankfurt/ University Hospital Frankfurt

Tel.: +49 69 6301-6395

E-mail: c.kell@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Current news about science, teaching, and society can be found on GOETHE-UNI online (http://www. aktuelles. uni-frankfurt. de )

Goethe University is a research-oriented university in the European financial centre Frankfurt am Main. The university was founded in 1914 through private funding, primarily from Jewish sponsors, and has since produced pioneering achievements in the areas of social sciences, sociology and economics, medicine, quantum physics, brain research, and labour law. It gained a unique level of autonomy on 1 January 2008 by returning to its historic roots as a "foundation university". Today, it is one of the three largest universities in Germany. Together with the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Mainz, it is a partner in the inter-state strategic Rhine-Main University Alliance. Internet: http://www. goethe-universitaet. de

The Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) is a non-university research institute of the federal state of Berlin that is jointly funded by the federal and state governments. It is sponsored by the Verein Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren Berlin (GWZ e.V.) . At ZAS, the human faculty of language and its expression in individual languages is explored, with the aim to better understand this central human ability and its biological, cognitive and social factors. Knowledge gained on how language is structured, acquired and processed can be applied elsewhere, e.g. in the field of speech diagnostics or speech technology. In addition to its function as a research institute, the ZAS also takes on tasks in university teaching and in the coordination of national and international collaboration projects.

Publisher: The President of Goethe University Editor: Dr. Markus Bernards, Science Editor, PR & Communication Department, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Tel: -49 (0) 69 798-12498, Fax: +49 (0) 69 798-763 12531, bernards@em.uni-frankfurt.de

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Soldiers in three Western African countries have led to the killings or disappearance of at least 199 people between February and April, as a part of their operations against jihadist, Amnesty International on June 10 said. Earlier this year, security forces in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger launched an offensive against al Qaeda and Islamic State fighters after they threatened to occupy swathes of the Sahel region.

Mass disappearances

However, according to the London based organization, this offensive has led to major human rights violations, deaths and even disappearance of a large number of civilians. Previously, many human rights group has accused those forces of committing atrocities or executing disappeared people. The government meanwhile, continues to deny all the accusations.

Amnesty researchers Ousmane Diallo, speaking to international media opined that he wasn't sure if the activities have risen in recent times but they were occurring more frequently amid a flurry of activities by national armies after they suffered significant military losses.

Read: Amnesty Reports Chilling Details Of Egypt Press Crackdown

Read: Amnesty Slams Palestinians' Freedom Of Expression Arrests

According to the Amnesty report, 102 people died in southwest Niger after being arrested by the army at a market fair and villages in late March and early April. Later investigations found mass graves in the area. Meanwhile, the defence minister of Niger, speaking to international media, said the human rights group in the country along with the military were making an investigation. He also added that the people who were making accusations of military atrocities were not able to present any proofs in case required.

In Mali, defence minister, has issued a statement promising investigation on allegations against the army which also include the killing of 43 people in two villages during a military attack last week. Despite the government's promise, rights groups in the areas said that criminal sanctions are seldom made.

Read: Amnesty International Raises Concerns Regarding Saudi Arabia Take Over Of Newcastle United

Read: Ex Amnesty International Official Booked For Offensive Remarks
Dileep V Kumar By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Given the rising number of Covid-19 cases with unknown sources of infection, the state health department has decided to launch an epidemiological investigation into the phenomenon after grouping them separately.

The department will examine how such people contract the virus and from where. Most cases within that group is assessed to have been reported from Kollam, Kottayam and Kozhikode.

The state expert committee on Covid-19 had earlier said that the rise in cases with unknown sources of infection may be an indication of community transmission.

"The department will examine such cases separately. The Chief Minister had given an instruction in this regard at the high-level assessment meeting on June 8.

The reasons for healthcare workers increasingly contracting the infection will also be examined," said a health department officer.

While 13 healthcare workers have been infected this month, 16 contracted the virus in May. "The CM is concerned over the development," the officer said.

"It may be because of breaches in protection or due to flaws in infection control measures. An expert team will be constituted to understand it better. The team will visit every health institution where such instances were reported."

Earlier, Health Principal Secretary Rajan Khobragade told TNIE that the department will conduct an audit to find the reasons behind healthcare workers getting infected. According to him, though the health staff, in general, are following an established protocol, some instances of breaches in protection may have

happened.

In a compliant to the CM, the Kerala Government Medical Officers' Association had raised doubts on the quality of the safety gear -- including PPE kits and N95 masks -- being provided to healthcare workers.
Britain's three biggest airlines initiate legal action over UK quarantine.

Ryanair, the low-cost Irish airline, says it has been a "surge" of British and Irish people booking flights to holiday destinations including Italy this summer.

A Ryanair spokesperson told The Irish Times that "thousands" of British and Irish holidaymakers were booking flights to Italy, Portugal and Spain, despite the covid-19 quarantine rules for those arriving in the UK and in Ireland, as well as official advice from the Irish government to avoid non-essential travel.

The statement from the company followed an Irish Times interview by Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary who said: "Flights are full outbound from the UK. British people are ignoring this quarantine, they know its rubbish."

O'Leary's remarks come as Britains three biggest airlines - British Airways, EasyJet and Ryanair - initiate legal proceedings against the British government in a bid to overturn the "disproportionate and unfair" quarantine rules, which require those arriving into the UK to self-isolate for two weeks.

Ryanair is operating a thousand daily flights to points all over Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece from 1 July, the 2nd, the 3rd and every day after that, O'Leary told The Irish Times.

"They are booking in their thousands already over the last 10 days" - O'Leary said - "All they want to know is when can they fly, and nobodys worried about the Irish or the UK quarantine.

O'Leary's comments, which increase pressure on both British and Irish governments to ease travel restrictions, come as The Telegraph reports that bosses in the UK's travel and hospitality industry have been privately assured by the British government that air bridges will be introduced for foreign summer holidays by the end of June, to replace blanket quarantine.

O'Leary also said recently that Britain's introduction of a completely ineffective, useless quarantine would do untold damage to the countrys tourism industry.

Separately, Ryanair has announced that it will scrap its flight change fee for all customers who book to travel in July and August of this year, allowing people to move their flights free of charge until 31 December 2020.

See below official travel information for Italy, Ireland and the UK.

Photo credit: Stefano Garau / Shutterstock.com
For most small businesses across the country, its been a devastating couple of months. The global health crisis has left many employers and employees reeling. But the hardest-hit small businesses have been black- and minority-owned. These entrepreneurs were overwhelmingly excluded from receiving relief loans in the early rounds of stimulus funding. Already struggling to survive on tightrope margins, there was no safety net for the most vulnerable businesses.

Thats how it played out in East Tampa, a predominantly black neighborhood of the Florida city where Natasha Goodley is a senior consultant at White and Black Consulting, which advises businesses and political campaigns. Many businesses were shut down for over eight weeks, Goodley says. But we were struggling to come out of this stronger.

Finally, as Memorial Day approached, many small businesses in Tampa were preparing to reopen. The loss of life and income had been severe, but the community was hopeful about the prospect of rebuilding.

Little did we all know, May 25, 2020 would be the day that changed America, Goodley says. Millions of people watched the life slowly exit George Floyd's body. The community of Minneapolis took to the streets to begin protesting, which quickly spread around the country and ultimately, around the world. The protests turned into riots, which spilled over into the business world.

In some cases, the riots turned to looting, which #BlackLivesMatter activists around the country  including George Floyds brother  have widely condemned. Practically no one endorses looting, but many say its not so difficult to understand in the context of deprivation. Consider that one Tampa woman, arrested for looting a Walgreens, was charged for stealing $50 of merchandise  mostly boxes of diapers.

Perhaps it is understandable, then  if no less generous  that most of Goodleys clients are more supportive of the protests larger goals than they are angry about their own losses.

Related: Black-Owned Restaurants and Businesses You Can Support Right Now

"They all understood what was happening right now in this country"

It has amazed me how many of my clients have chosen to see the forest instead of focusing on the trees, Goodley says. I have a few business owners who have been directly affected by the protests and riots. One was a shoe and clothing store, Shoe Mountain. They were vandalized and had their merchandise stolen. The next morning, the owners had repaired the broken glass and were working to reopen. They put up a large sign that read 'Black Owned Business.' The other is a pharmacy that was broken into and had medication stolen. And I have a client, Pamela Thompson, owner of My Shade & Texture, located less than a mile from where the gas station was set afire. I told her to stay in her shop and guard it.

Later, when Goodley asked Thompson how she felt about what was happening around her, Thompson said that while the nearby looting was scary, overall the protests had actually brought more community members into her store to help monitor the shop or keep her company. What is interesting is that while the business owners are hurt and sad, none really complained, Goodley says. They all understood what was happening right now in this country.

As a black woman in business herself, Goodley says, I understand the need for change. And I understand the need for the protests and riots ... I am hurting like the rest of the world. We need healing, and anything that works to separate and divide us should not be tolerated. If my business has to suffer so we can gain freedom and peace in this country, then so be it.

Related: How Should You Be Talking With Employees About Racism?

Related:

76 Percent Of Consumers Support Expungement Of Felony Records For Cannabis Offenses

CrossFit CEO to Step Down After He Reportedly Downplayed Protests

Reddit Appoints Michael Seibel to Ohanian's Vacated Board Seat



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To the Editor:

I became a landlord after my father died. Both of my parents were landlords, and some of my earliest memories involve sitting in the back seat of my parents car as they shuttled between rental properties in downtown Rochester. Im here to tell you that its time to cancel rent.

Even before this crisis, millions of renters were treading water. A study from last year found that nearly half of all New York families are paying more than 30% of their income on rent, with the heaviest burden falling on black and brown families. This pandemic has placed tenants  in every corner of our state  under a new level of financial pressure.

A defining characteristic of the past 40 years has been the shifting of risk from a wealthy investor class to the most vulnerable people in our society. We saw this during the Great Recession, when banks were bailed out despite their predatory practices and millions of families were displaced from their homes. Were seeing it again with a deeply flawed stimulus package that gives billions to corporations with little oversight and no guarantee that workers will be retained once the crisis is over.

Small landlords will need relief, but the burden to prove hardship should be on those who have assumed risk, not on everyday tenants. Gov.. Andrew Cuomo has the authority to protect tenants by waiving rent for the duration of this crisis. The fact that he has failed to do so shows a disappointing lack of empathy for families struggling with a sudden loss of income.

The Emergency Rent Relief Act passed last month by the state Legislature fails to meet the scale of this crisis. The $100 million rent bill falls short of providing relief and hundreds of thousands of families will be at risk of losing their homes in several weeks. Houstons $15 million relief fund was claimed in less than two hours.

Our lack of investment in public housing and agencies like NYCHA has turned housing into a speculation game and left us with a dire shortage of affordable units. Rents continue to outpace wages and the number of people without stable housing has increased dramatically over the past decade. We need a deep investment in public housing across our state and the creation of new supportive housing units that end the homelessness crisis once and for all.

Many property owners are doing the right thing by reducing or waiving rent for struggling families. But unfortunately, they are the exception, not the rule. Without swift action from our state and federal leaders, I fear mass displacement and homelessness. Suspending rent is how we can prevent the next crisis from taking shape.

Ravi Mangla

Citizen Action of New York

Rochester

Opposing view: Syracuse landlord to Cuomo: We have bills to pay, too (Commentary)

How to submit letters and commentary to Syracuse.com
The coronavirus pandemic has spread across almost all the countries in the world, leaving behind a trail of death and financial ruin. Be it the European countries or the US, and India, coronavirus induced-lockdowns have affected the economic conditions of every country.

Amid this global pandemic that started from Wuhan in China in December 2019, some countries prudently fought against this deadly virus, while some struggled. So far, countries that have won the battle against the coronavirus outbreak are predominantly small ones with less to very less population.

There are at least nine countries in the world that have successfully controlled COVID-19 so far. These include New Zealand, Iceland, Tanzania, Fiji, Montenegro, Vatican City, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Papua New Guinea.

1. NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand reported its first coronavirus case on February 28, 2020. On March 25, just like India, New Zealand enforced one of the strictest coronavirus lockdowns in the world. The pandemic peaked in early April in New Zealand, with 89 new cases recorded per day and 929 active cases.

By June 8, the country did not report any active cases. The last case was reported on May 22. Overall, New Zealand had a total of 1,504 cases (1,154 confirmed and 350 probable[a]) and 22 people have died from the virus.

2. TANZANIA

Tanzania's President John Magufuli has declared the country "coronavirus-free". Tanzania received the first coronavirus case on March 16. On 29 April, the last day official data was released, there were 509 cases, with 21 deaths in the East African country.

However, in May-end its President said only four patients were under treatment.

3. ICELAND

The tiny island nation with a population of 360,000 reported its case on February 28. The Icelandic health-care system started testing people on January 31, one month before the first official case was detected. Iceland had reported around 1,800 coronavirus cases and 10 deaths.

There have been only three new cases so far this month. Now, Iceland will open its airports to tourism on June 15.

4. MONTENEGRO

One of Europe's smallest countries with a population of a little over 6 lakh, the country has not reported any new case of coronavirus AFTER May 24. The country reported 324 coronavirus cases and nine deaths in 68 days.

The first coronavirus case was confirmed on March 17.

5. FIJI

Fiji declared itself coronavirus-free on June 5. The small island country with a population of 930,000 reported its first COVID-19 cases in mid-March. A total of 18 people were infected from the deadly virus in the pacific island nation. All of them recovered. Fiji has not reported a single death from COVID infection. The country's recovery rate is 100 per cent.

6. SEYCHELLES

With just 11 confirmed cases, life in Seychelles began returning to normal in early-May, when no new positive case of coronavirus was reported. Seychelles reported the fist confirmed case of coronavirus on March 14, 2020. By April 6, there were 11 confirmed cases.

Seychelles went into lockdown on April 8, shutting non-essential services and banning all movement aside from grocery shopping. The Seychelles government declared the country free of COVID-19 on May 18.

7. PAPUA NEW GUINEA

The Pacific nation declared itself free of the coronavirus on May 4. It had 24 cases of Covid-19 and no deaths from the virus.

8.VATICAN CITY

On March 5, the holy city reported its first coronavirus case. On June 6, Vatican City declared itself coronavirus free. It reported the last confirmed case of COVID-19 on May 16. Overall, Vatican City reported 17 coronavirus cases and one death.

9. MAURITIUS

According to a statement by the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA), no new cases have been recorded in Mauritius for 20 consecutive days as of May 17. In the island nation, 332 confirmed cases of coronavirus appeared, out of which 322 recovered, and 10 died.

Also read: Traders to boycott Chinese goods; cut imports by Rs 1 lakh crore by Dec 2021

Also read: EPFO launches AI system to settle claims as PF withdrawals shoot up
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 14:36:36|Editor: huaxia

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AYBAK, Afghanistan, June 10 (Xinhua) -- A total of 16 miners have been confirmed killed due to blast inside a coalmine in Dara-e-Suf Bala district of Afghanistan's northern Samangan province on Tuesday, provincial police chief Safiullah said Wednesday.

"The tragic incident happened Tuesday afternoon and so far six bodies have been recovered and operations for the recovery of the remaining 10 have been continuing," Safiullah told Xinhua.

Without providing more details the official said that investigation is underway.

Meantime, locals said that more than 30 workers were present during the blast.

However, deputy provincial governor Sifatullah Samangani blamed illegal digging, lack of safety measures and necessary instruments to the workers for tragic incidents inside the coalmines.

Overlooking safety measures and illegal digging in the past years also claimed the lives of miners, the official said. Enditem
Greg Glassman stepped down as CEO of CrossFit shortly after a report said the founder of the fitness company made several controversial statements during a private Zoom call with gym owners, the company said in a statement.

We're not mourning for George Floyd  I don't think me or any of my staff are, according to a full recording of the Zoom meeting that was sent to BuzzFeed News.

"Can you tell me why I should mourn for him? Other than that its the white thing to do  other than that, give me another reason, Glassman, 63, reportedly asked a Minneapolis gym owner during the call on Saturday. Floyd's death, which was captured on video, has sparked demonstrations across the United States to protest police brutality. Four former Minneapolis police officers have been charged.

RACIST POSTS: Texas school board member called to resign after defending racist Facebook posts

Glassman even offered up some unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding officer Derek Chauvin's involvement in Floyd's death. Chauvin, who has been charged with second-degree murder, and Floyd worked at the same Minneapolis nightclub, El Nuevo Rodeo.

It's very interesting that George gets popped with counterfeits, and who comes but the head of security from the dance club? Watch: This thing's going to turn into first-degree murder, Glassman reportedly said on the call. That's what it's going to turn into. And it's going to be because I'm predicting this. We have friends in the FBI in your neighborhood, and they're of the view that this was first-degree murder and it was to silence him over the counterfeit money. That's the belief. That's what the cops think.

Glassman's statements on Zoom were reportedly made just hours before he sent a tweet that appeared to make light of both Floyd's death and the coronavirus pandemic.

On Saturday, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation center tweeted, "Racism is a public health issue." Glassman replied, "It's FLOYD-19."

Soon after sending that tweet, gyms across the country began severing ties to CrossFit, with Reebok saying it will not renew its deal with the company.

Our partnership with CrossFit HQ comes to an end later this year," Reebok said. Recently, we have been in discussions regarding a new agreement, however, in light of recent events, we have made the decision to end our partnership with CrossFit HQ. We will fulfill our remaining contractual obligations in 2020.

HATEFUL CONDUCT: Texas State fires woman who allegedly called protesters a 'bunch of monkeys'

Glassman, through his company's Twitter account, wrote, I, CrossFit HQ, and the CrossFit community will not stand for racism. I made a mistake by the words I chose yesterday. My heart is deeply saddened by the pain it has caused. It was a mistake, not racist but a mistake.

The latest revelation of Glassman's comments on Zoom appears to have been the last straw.

Im stepping down as CEO of CrossFit, Inc., and I have decided to retire," Glassman said on Tuesday. "On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its member. I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQs or affiliates missions. They are too important to jeopardize."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Gold 2020 Stevie Winner American Business Award LCS employees put their heart into their work and it shows. To earn this kind of recognition on a national scale is a testament to their commitment at being the best at what they do, and continuing to innovate our processes, products, and events to best serve our customers, added Hegemann.

London Computer Systems (LCS), developer of Rent Manager property management software and other business-critical technologies, is pleased to announce the company was recently honored with six Stevie Awards from the American Business Association.

LCS received four Gold Stevie Awards in the Best Marketing or Sales Brochure Kit; Mobile Site & App - Real Estate; Conferences & Meetings - Educational Event; and Corporate & Community - Customer Engagement Event categories.

LCS President and CEO, David Hegemann, also received a Silver Stevie Award in the Entrepreneur of the Year Category; and LCS Marketing Manager, Erin Hooper, was awarded a Bronze Stevie Award in the Marketer of the Year category in the 18th Annual American Business Awards.

The American Business Awards are the United States premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S. are eligible to submit nominationspublic and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.

Nicknamed The Stevies after the Greek word for crowned, the awards will be virtually presented to winners during a live event on Wednesday, August 5.

More than 3,600 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories. LCS was nominated for the six aforementioned categories, as well as the Application Programming Interface (API) Management solution. Rent Managers My Integrations and Partner Web Access Solution is currently eligible for a Peoples Choice Award in this category.

London Computer System was one of just 13 businesses to have won three or more Stevie Awards. Mastercard, John Hancock, and Crocs were among this group of exceptional businesses.

I am so incredibly proud of our people, products, and the Rent Manager User Conference for meriting some of the highest honors in business awards sector. Our team works tirelessly to create best-in-class solutions and experiences for our customers. Its amazing to see their time and effort validated on a national level, said Brittany Christerson, Director of Sales and Marketing for Rent Manager, and Coordinator of the Rent Manager User Conference.

LCS employees put their heart into their work and it shows. To earn this kind of recognition on a national scale is a testament to their commitment at being the best at what they do, and continuing to innovate our processes, products, and events to best serve our customers, added Hegemann.

Details about the American Business Awards and the full list of 2020 winners are available at https://stevieawards.com/ABA.

About LCS

Incorporated in 1987 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, London Computer Systems (LCS) is a developer of business-critical software used in all 50 states and several markets throughout the world. LCS products include Rent Manager property management software, rmVoIP telephone systems, and enterprise-level hosting solutions via its Sentry Data Center.

LCS also provides complete network design, implementation, and support services, and custom website development through its IT Services and Web Design Services divisions. With more than 30,000 users, LCS combines best technologies with best practices to create unique, affordable, customer-focused products and services.

For more information about LCS, please call 800-669-0871 or visit LCS.com.

About The Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

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An Oxford-educated museum curator is being investigated by police after she tweeted expert advice on how to dissolve bronze statues using corrosive chemicals in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.

Privately schooled Madeline Odent, curator of Royston Museum in Hertfordshire, sent a series of tweets last night to her 5,164 followers, which were then shared thousands of times.

The American-born banker's wife wrote that the damage would be 'irreversible' and 'practically impossible to stop' before saying her next target was 'marble memorials of racists' with a picture of Winston Churchill's plinth.

There are growing demands from protesters for statues all over the country to be torn down due to their links to the slave trade and Britain's colonial past.

Mrs Odent's remarks on her private account prompted fury online, with one follower threatening to report her to the police, who have promised to investigate.

But the moneyed curator dismissed her critics, taunting them by saying 'my boss has my back' and that she intends to use her 'safe platform' to 'p*** off some racists'.

Mrs Odent provoked outrage when she shared advice online about defacing statues

American-born Madeline Odent is curator of Royston Museum in Hertfordshire

Mrs Odent published a string of tweets disclosing how to create maximum damage to statues

One of the series of tweets, which attracted many thousands of shares online

Mrs Ordent was unrepentant when members of the public complained about her messages

Mrs Odent has introduced a radical agenda to the sleepy Hertfordshire museum, including a 'Drag Queens Story Time'

Mrs Ordent married banker Pascal Ordent in 2017, in two lavish ceremonies in Britain and America

WHO IS MADELINE ODENT? Madeline Odent, nee Madeline Briggs Glamorous curator Madeline Odent, whose maiden name was Madeline Briggs, comes from a wealthy family of American academics and is married to a banker. The privately-educated curator claims to speak English, Spanish and Welsh. On her social media profile, she says that she brings an entrepreneurial mindset to the museum industry. Born in the United States, Madeline  known to her family as Maddy  has two sisters, Morgan and Meredith. Her father, Dr Stephen Briggs, a personality psychologist, is the president of Berry College, a private liberal arts college in Georgia. He and her mother, Brenda Morgan Briggs, are old university friends. Mrs Ordent went to Darlington High School, a private, co-educational boarding school in Georgia. Set in 500 acres of land, the school is based on the English public school system. After graduating, the firebrand curator attended Stetson University, a private college in Florida, where she became president of the Honor Council and was a keen rower. In 2013, she was named a National Scholar Athlete by the Collegiate Coaches Rowing Association. In 2014, she graduated with a BA in History, before moving to Britain and taking an MPhil in Early Modern British History at Oriel College, Oxford, two years later. Pursuing her passion for rowing, she often coxed at Oxford. In one slightly jarring incident, she was sanctioned by university officials even though she claims to have done nothing wrong. On completing her studies, she returned to the United States, working as a barista in a coffee shop in Georgia. She was then given a job at Berry College, where her father is president, as assistant rowing instructor. Mrs Odent, right, and her banker husband Pascal,left In 2017 she married prominent banker Pascal Odent. The couple staged two lavish ceremonies, one in an English country house and the other in the opulent surroundings of her fathers college in Georgia, which sits in 26,400 acres of magnificent landscaped gardens. The new Mrs Odent went on to spend a year as a self-employed freelance researcher in London, before landing a job as curator and manager at Royston Museum, Hertfordshire, in August 2018. Since commencing her role in Royston, Mrs Odent has introduced a radical agenda to the museum's scheduling, including a 'Drag Queen Story Time' session. She has a fondness for corgis. Advertisement

Mrs Odent's father, Dr Stephen Briggs, an eminent personality psychologist, is president of an affluent private liberal arts college in Georgia which boasts the largest college campus in the world. She moved to Britain in 2015.

In the tweets, which MailOnline is not showing in full, the conservation expert used her knowledge of preserving ancient artefacts to suggest that people use substances found in household products to dissolve public statues.

It is 'extremely difficult' to remove the chemicals once they have been applied, she said, adding that 'it can be done, but the chemical needed is super carcinogenic, so it rarely is'.

'We haven't found a way to restore artefacts that this happens to,' she tweeted. 'Which is a shame, since we all immediately forget history when statues are destroyed.'

The glamorous curator, who is from an affluent academic family in Georgia, USA, signed off her thread by posting a photograph of Churchill's defaced plinth, alongside the message: 'Stay tuned for our next edition, where we'll be talking about marble memorials of racists'.

Royston Town Council, which funds the museum, told MailOnline that it was 'investigating' and would release a statement today. 'The Town Council does not endorse the comments or views expressed,' it added.

Many Twitter users slammed Mrs Odent's posts, threatening to report her to the police. 'Telling people in detail how to vandalise Churchill's statue (or others) has got to be promoting hooliganism no matter how she twists it,' one wrote.

And a spokesman for Hertfordshire Constabulary told MailOnline:

'We are aware of a series of tweets on a private twitter account, which we believe may relate to damaging statues, and we are currently looking into this matter along with our partner agencies.'

But Mrs Odent was unrepentant, taunting her critics online. In response to members of the public contacting the museum on Twitter, she wrote: 'a) my boss thinks I'm funny, b) she also supports BLM, and c) I'm the one reading [your direct messages].'

She also claimed that she had negotiated a contract with her employer that allowed her to 'decolonise and diversify' the museum, and that her boss had given her a 'safe platform' that she would use to 'p*** off some racists'.

In a further act of provocation, the official museum Twitter account, which Mrs Odent suggested she is controlling, posted: 'We've just tidied up our cellar in case any town needs to remove a statue of a racist and put it somewhere'.

Mrs Odent's father, the personality psychologist Dr Stephen Briggs, is president of the opulent Berry College, a private liberal arts college in Georgia, where she worked for a year as an assistant rowing instructor.

In 2017, she married banker Pascal Ordent in two lavish ceremonies, one in an English country house and the second in her father's luxurious college in the United States.

Since taking up her role at Royston Museum in 2018, Mrs Odent, who studied at a private university in Florida before moving to Britain to pursue a postgraduate course in history at Oxford, has introduced a radical agenda to the sleepy Hertfordshire establishment.

In February, she scheduled a 'Drag Queen Story Time' event, writing on Facebook: 'If you're introduced to difference in a positive way, you'll respond to difference in a positive way. Thrilled to be putting this on.' The event has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It comes as several Labour councils drew up a list of controversial statues in their communities which could be torn down.

Dozens of memorials honouring colonial figures have been targeted for removal by activists, who yesterday crossed another name off their nationwide hit-list.

The monument of 18th Century slave dealer Robert Milligan was uprooted from its spot on West India Quay in London's docklands to the cheers of spectators.

Many more in the cross-hairs are expected to fall after all 130 Labour-led authorities clubbed together to promise to 'review the appropriateness of local monuments and statues on public land and council property'.

Several local leaders have already earmarked some statues for removal. Cardiff Council leader Huw Thomas threw his weight behind campaigners wanting to get rid of the statue of slave holder Sir Thomas Picton.

Edinburgh council leader Adam McVey said he would feel 'no sense of loss' if a statue to Henry Dundas, who delayed the abolition of slavery, was removed.

Plymouth council said a public square named after slave trader Sir John Hawkins would be renamed. Mayor or London Sadiq Khan is also conducting his own review of statues in the capital.

The 130 Labour councils won the blessing of Sir Keir Starmer's central party, but senior Tories have lined up to admonish the behaviour.

Andrew Rosindell, Conservative MP for Romford, told MailOnline the wave of statue scrutiny was being driven by 'a politically-correct gang of anarchists who hate everything about this country'.

Campaigners have also set their sights on statues on private property, such as the monument of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University, where yesterday crowds of protesters rallied.

Mrs Odent has been approached for comment.

In February, she scheduled 'Drag Queen Story Time', though it had to be postponed

Mrs Odent caused outrage when she tweeted advice on how to destroy statues

The local council, which funds the museum, told MailOnline that it is 'investigating'

Mrs Odent has been curator of Royston Museum and Art Gallery, pictured, since 2018

Some of the tweets criticising Mrs Odent's publication of advice on destroying statues
Four global insurers have agreed to underwrite work on the Adani coal mine in central Queensland despite local financial institutions shunning the project due to concerns about climate change.

Leaked invoices obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reveal for the first time that insurers have agreed to cover work on the politically contentious coal mine. Liberty International Underwriters, HDI and XL Australia charged Adani for policies covering construction work for the mine and rail project in November last year, while reinsurance giant Aspen Re also covered work in January, the invoices show.

A flock of black-throated finches at Adani's Carmichael mine site in Queensland's Galilee Basin. Credit:Stanley Tang

Indian conglomerate Adani employed the world's largest insurance broker, Marsh McLennan, in 2015 to secure cover for the Carmichael mine, a key component of the overall viability of the project. But a campaign led by climate and investor activists has pushed domestic financial institutions to rule out any involvement.

Australian insurers QBE, Suncorp and Allianz have each refused to underwrite work on the mine and have adopted climate policies that restrict exposure to companies that rely on fossil fuels. Australia's four major banks  ANZ, Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank  have also refused to lend to the project.
New Delhi:

Building on gains for the third straight session, the benchmark Sensex surged over 258 points and the NSE Nifty recaptured the 8,800-mark in early trade on Friday on sustained buying by participants and foreign fund inflows amid positive global cues.

The 30-share index, which had gained 59.35 points in the previous two sessions, was up 258.59 points or 0.91 per cent at 28,671.48 with all sectoral indices led by auto and banking trading in green, rising by up to 1.64 per cent.

Also Read: India down to 112th spot on World Economic Freedom Index

New Delhi :

India has slipped by 10 positions to 112th, out of 159 countries and territories, as it fared badly across categories including legal system and regulation, according to the Economic Freedom of the World: 2016 Annual Report.

Although China, Bangladesh and Pakistan lagged behind India at 113th, 121st and 133th ranks respectively, Bhutan (78), Nepal (108) and Sri Lanka (111) were better placed on the World Economic Freedom Index.

Also Read: TATA AIG, Paytm to offer health insurance to cab and auto drivers

New Delhi :

Tata AIG General Insurance and mobile payments firm Paytm have entered into an agreement to provide cab and auto drivers health insurance plans. This tie-up will enable cab and auto drivers, who are using Paytms digital wallet, to avail cashless health insurance through Tata AIG General Insurance, the private insurer said in a release issued.

Tata AIG General Insurance has designed cashless insurance scheme, as required by Paytm, to provide drivers, quality medical care as per their need and budget.









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Qantas Airways plane takes off at Sydney Airport in Sydney on March 19, 2020. (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

Australian Government Extends Aviation Support Schemes to Boost Domestic Services

Australian airlines are assured of the financial resources needed to sustain domestic air travel services until the end of December after the federal government announced an extension of its support to the sector to facilitate the nations economic recovery from the pandemic induced by the CCP virus.

In the meantime, Qantas Group and Virgin Australia have confirmed the suspension of their subsidised international flights from June 8 after their government-contracted rescue flights expired.

The government has put in place more than $1.2 billion worth of measures since March to assist the aviation sector in coping with near-zero demand due to travel restrictions, including a $298 million scheme to keep regional airlines operating, and a $165 million underwriting for flights run by Virgin and Qantas to maintain a skeleton network across the country.

The deputy prime minister and the transport minister Michael McCormack confirmed on June 7 that a range of initiatives would be extended.

We have kept the aviation sector going by funding minimum networks to get essential personnel and critical supplies to where they may be needed, McCormack said in a statement.

He said the extension aimed to ensure Australian airlines and operators can maintain essential air services so that Australians can access domestic air travel as restrictions are relaxed.

This includes extending the Domestic Aviation Network Support (DANS) program to September 30, to maintain connectivity on major domestic air routes, and extending the Regional Airline Network Support program from September 30 to December 31, to ensure essential flights continue to regional communities.

The government will continue to cover operating shortfalls on a minimum number of flights on key routes, and on a limited number of regional route services.

The extension also applies to a range of measures under the $715 million Australian Airline Financial Relief program, which is made up of waivers of government charges backdated to February 1.

In addition, the $100 million Regional Airlines Funding Assistance program will be extended until December 31 or when the funds are exhausted.

Domestic Services Are Recovering

The announcement injects a much-needed boost to domestic network recovery, as Qantas Group and Regional Express Airways (REX) have both started to expand its domestic services from this month.

Qantas Group plans to increase its domestic flights by Qantas and Jetstar from just five percent of normal levels to 15 percent by the end of June, equating to more than 300 return flights per week, and further up to 40 percent for the July school holiday period if border restrictions have eased further by then.

In response, REX, the largest independent regional airline in the country, moved to double its flying schedule starting from June 6 to regional towns that are in competition with Qantas, including Albury and Wagga Wagga.

REX, which flagged a plan to launch flights between capital cities last month, is believed to be the largest beneficiary of the governments support schemes for the aviation industry, having received a total of $67 million in grants as reported by the Australian Financial Review.

However, with domestic travel restrictions still in place, and international restrictions unlikely to ease in the near future, the road to recovery for the aviation industry will be slow.

Greg Bamber from Monash University, an expert in management and industrial relations in the aviation industry, told the ABC recently that the federal government needed to stump up funds, expecting up to three years for the air travel demand to return to pre-pandemic levels.

Given this, he warned that the aviation industry would collapse without government support.

Qantas also told the ABC that some flights it was currently operating were still commercially unviable due partly to ongoing interstate border restrictions.

Qantas and Virgin Suspended International Flights

While embracing the recovery of the domestic network, Qantas has ended its special government-underwritten flights to Auckland, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, and London, with the last of the subsidised international flights landing in Australia from Los Angeles on June 8.

The airline confirmed the suspension of the international flights in a statement provided to The Epoch Times, explaining that they were operated on a cost-recovery basis, with passenger revenue remitted to the government to offset the cost of operations.

The temporary international network that Qantas was operating on behalf of the Federal Government has now ended, the statement reads.

We were proud to have helped thousands of Australians return home as well as taking foreign nationals back in the other direction.

Were particularly grateful to the crew who operated these regular flights together with charters to various other countries over the past few months.

Qantas will continue to fly some international freight flights and said it was ready to fly some ad hoc  international services if required.

Virgin Australia, which entered voluntary administration in April, with more than $7 billion debt, has also suspended its weekly Brisbane to Los Angeles flights which were also underwritten by the government while rescue flights were operated.

The agreement, signed on May 8, had enabled the airline to operate one return service per week between the two cities.

The suspension leaves United Airlines daily Sydney to San Francisco service as the only direct passenger link between Australia and the United States.

Several international airlines are now offering flights from Australia through to the UK and Europe, including Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Cathay Pacific.

With international travel restrictions still in place, only Australian citizens, residents, and immediate family members can travel to Australia and must go into quarantine for 14 days on arrival.
10.06.2020 LISTEN

Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Mastercard Foundation have partnered to respond to COVID-19. Through its COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program, Mastercard Foundation is committing US$40 million to the Africa CDC's Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT).

These funds will be used to purchase 1 million test kits, as well as train and deploy 10,000 community healthcare workers and 80 surveillance rapid responders to support contact tracing as well as strengthen the Africa CDC's capacity to oversee a continental response to the pandemic. Africa CDC will undertake these COVID-19 response measures in partnership with the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET).

PACT is anchored on the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for COVID-19 endorsed by the Bureau of Heads of State and Government of the African Union to help limit COVID-19 transmission in Africa. PACT will strengthen the capacity to test, trace, and treat COVID-19 cases on the continent. Under the initiative, Africa CDC is working with Member States and several partners to support pooled procurement, storage and distribution of diagnostics and other medical supplies; testing of at least 10 million individuals; and the deployment of one million community workers and community healthcare workers. These workers will enable COVID-19 contact tracing and the deployment of technology platforms that will enhance testing, epidemiological modelling, and critical health forecasting, to support re-opening and recovery of economies.

There is only one formula to fight COVID-19 in Africa and that is the PACT initiative. The daily figures show clearly that the pandemic is still on the rise, and to defeat it Africa needs greater cooperation with everybody, including the governments, the community, the media, and the development partners. We need to equip, deploy and train more healthcare workers as quickly as possible, and we expect that there will be more cooperation and solidarity through PACT, said Dr John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC.

Africa CDC has distributed more than 2.5 million tests and provided medical equipment such as personal protective equipment, thermal scanners, and ventilators, across Africa. As of 31 May 2020, Africa CDC had deployed 164 community health workers to support COVID-19 response within Ethiopia, where the Africa CDC is headquartered, and across 14 Member States. Despite the progress, governments across Africa continue to face tremendous needs within their public health systems, which must be met to ensure an effective and sustained response to the pandemic. Africa CDC is rallying resources and support to bridge existing gaps in public health systems by meeting the PACT targets.

We are impressed by the swift pan-African response to COVID-19 led by Africa CDC and regional organizations. They have created a clear plan and targets to deliver a robust health response and save lives. The Mastercard Foundation stands with the Africa CDC and calls on other funders to support this excellent plan. Fighting this pandemic requires all of us to coordinate our efforts and work together, said Mastercard Foundation President and CEO, Reeta Roy.

Lessons from the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa in 2014 show that many people died not only from the disease itself, but from a lack of essential medicine or timely medical care. The same trend has been observed in the current pandemic. Africa needs more testing kits if it is going to quickly, identify, isolate, and care for those who are infected. It needs more healthcare workers and rapid responders who are trained to support contact tracing as well as referral and linkage to healthcare services at the community level.

About Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)

Africa CDC is a specialized technical institution of the African Union that strengthens the capacity and capability of Africa's public health institutions as well as partnerships to detect and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats and outbreaks, based on data-driven interventions and programmes. Learn more at: http://www.africacdc.org

About the Mastercard Foundation

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Four people, including two brothers, died after inhaling a poisonous gas inside an under-construction well in Chhattisgarhs Janjgir-Champa district on Wednesday.

Inspector General ( Bilaspur range ) Dipanshu Kabra told Hindustan Times that the incident took place at 7 am in Dhamni village under Hasaud police station area.

 Hemant Ratre went inside to clean his under-construction well and became unconscious. Ratres wife, who was there in the field, shouted for help following which three others entered the well and died. The other deceased were identified as Nagendra Madhukar (34), his younger brother Mahendra Madhukar (31) and Chintamani Banjare (45), said the IG.

All four were rushed to a hospital in Jaijaipur where doctors declared them brought dead, IG said.

Prima facie it seems that they died after inhaling some poisonous gas inside the well, he said.

A case has been registered in this connection and further investigation is underway, he added.

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Linkedin Yereth Rosen (Agence France-Presse) Anchorage, Alaska  Wed, June 10, 2020 13:15 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd8f50b 2 Environment Donald-Trump,Alaska,wildlife,wildlife-conservation,environment,wildlife-protection Free

The Trump administration on Tuesday overturned an Obama-era rule that barred hunters in Alaska national preserves from baiting bear traps or killing denning bear cubs and wolf pups or other practices that have been condemned by environmental and wildlife protection groups.

Under the new National Park Service rule, effective July 9, hunting on natural preserves in Alaska will be controlled by the state, which allows baiting of brown and black bears; hunting of denning black bears with artificial light, killing of denning wolves and coyotes, hunting of swimming caribou and hunting of caribou from motorboats.

The Obama administration had banned all those practices in National Parks.

The change stems from 2017 orders issued by then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to provide greater recreational access for hunting and fishing in Alaksa, National Park Service spokesman Peter Christian said, acknowledging that the rule-change was unpopular.

I would say the vast majority of people did believe this was a controversial move and were almost entirely opposed to us lifting the ban, he said.

"The Trump administration has shockingly reached a new low in its treatment of wildlife. Allowing the killing of bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens is barbaric and inhumane. The proposed regulations cast aside a primary purpose of national preserves to conserve wildlife and wild places," Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a written statement.

State officials said the Obama-era rule was wrongheaded.

From our perspective, the Park Service was infringing on our territory, said Eddie Grasser, director of wildlife management for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, adding that some of the hunting practices now allowed in national preserves are part of indigenous culture.

Those practices are used by only a small number of people in a few places, Grasser said.

Another pending Trump administration rule, expected to be released on Wednesday, would overturn similar restrictions in Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday held a review meeting on credit guarantee scheme with heads of public sector banks, and asked them to expedite loan disbursement under the Rs 3-lakh crore ECLGS for MSME sector, hit hard by coronavirus-induced lockdown. The meeting on Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) was held through a video conference, and the minister appreciated the efforts of banks in execution of the scheme.

"Hon'ble FM @nsitharaman Ji complimented PSBs on rapid traction for achieving sanctions of Rs 20,000 Cr under ECLGS. Also advised to maintain proactive outreach at branch level and keep Forms for ECLGS simple & formalities at minimum," Department of Financial Services said in a tweet. "PSBs to continue focus on sanction & reaching out to eligible MSMEs. To also target meeting credit needs of other businesses," it said.

Earlier in the day the ministry gave cluster wise data of loans sanction till June 8. "As of 8 June 2020, #PSBs have sanctioned loans worth Rs 1,109.03 cr for #MSME hubs in 12 States under the 100% Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme, of which Rs 599.12 cr has already been disbursed to 17,904 accounts," the minister tweeted.

The scheme is the biggest fiscal component of the Rs 20-lakh crore Self-Reliant India Mission package announced by Sitharaman last month. On May 21, the Cabinet had approved additional funding of up to Rs 3 lakh crore at a concessional rate of 9.25 per cent through ECLGS for the MSME sector.

Under the scheme, 100 per cent guarantee coverage are being provided by National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC) for additional funding of up to Rs 3 lakh crore to eligible MSMEs and interested Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) borrowers, in the form of a guaranteed emergency credit line (GECL) facility. For this purpose, a corpus of Rs 41,600 crore was provided by the government, spread over the current and next three financial years.

The scheme is applicable to all loans sanctioned under GECL facility during the period from the date of announcement of the scheme to October 31 or till an amount of Rs 3 lakh crore is sanctioned under GECL, whichever is earlier. The main objective of the scheme is to provide an incentive to member lending institutions to increase access and enable availability of additional funding facility to MSME borrowers, in view of the economic distress caused by the COVID-19 crisis, by giving them 100 per cent guarantee for any losses suffered by them due to non-repayment of the GECL funding by borrowers.

All MSME borrower accounts with an outstanding credit of up to Rs 25 crore as on February 29, which were less than or equal to 60 days past due as on that date, i.e., regular, SMA-0 and SMA-1 accounts, and with an annual turnover of up to Rs 100 crore, are eligible for GECL funding under the scheme.

Also read: 41% Indians to curtail shopping budgets in new post-COVID normal
A number of Russian media, referring to deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko, said Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko would attend the event.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov says the Kremlin has not invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to attend this year's Victory Day parade in Moscow to be held on June 24, as "Ukraine has not signaled a desire to share the joy of Victory Day."

"I told you that the emphasis is on renewing invitations to CIS leaders. There are also our partners who have expressed their will to come, which is a pleasure. As we know, Ukraine is not a de facto, and in many respects de jure, part of the CIS. They've been showing no willingness to work within these structures in any way and have never signaled their will to share the joy of Victory Day," Peskov told journalists, as reported by an UNIAN correspondent in Russia on June 10.

Read alsoLukashenko stealing Putin's show

A number of Russian media, referring to deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko, said Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko would attend the event.

Meanwhile, representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have already declared readiness to visit the parade in Moscow. Also, there came confirmations from Serbia, Croatia, and the Russian-occupied Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

As was earlier reported, Russian-backed occupation administrations in the self-proclaimed "Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics" ("DPR" and "LPR") planned to hold the Victory Day parades in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk on June 24.
New Delhi, June 10 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal asserted on Wednesday that Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal's order to keep hospitals in the national capital open for non-residents of Delhi will be implemented.

Addressing a press conference here, Kejriwal said, "This is not the time to differ from each other or argue. Whatever the Lt Governor and the Central government said will be implemented. This is not the time to do politics. If we keep on fighting, coronavirus will win." The remarks came two days after Baijal issued an order striking down key announcements made by the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government to reserve beds in private and Delhi government hospitals for city residents only.

The L-G, who is also the Chairman of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), said in his order on Monday that "treatment should not be denied to any patient on grounds of being a non-resident".

Kejriwal, however, rued that it will be a massive challenge to accommodate people from adjoining states, and requested them to make sufficient provision of beds so that people don't have to come to Delhi for treatment.

Meanwhile, he contended that Delhi is faced with a big challenge as recent data shows that there will be a significant increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in the national capital in the coming days.

Kejriwal said, "Data shows that Covid-19 cases will significantly increase in Delhi in the coming days. We have a big challenge ahead. Keep yourself safe and make it a mass movement. Wear a mask, wash hands and maintain social distancing." The Chief Minister also projected an exponential growth in the city's numbers. "Till June 15, there will be 44,000 Covid-19 cases and we would require 6,600 beds. We would hit one lakh cases and require 15,000 beds by June 30," he said.

He added that the cases would mount to 2.5 lakh and the city would require 33,000 beds by July 15, while by July 31, there will be 5.32 lakh cases and 80,000 beds will be needed.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday to discuss Israel's plans to begin annexing parts of the occupied West Bank next month. Maas is expected to express Germany's displeasure about the move during talks with his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi. The annexation is part of the Trump administration's Middle East plan and has attracted criticism from some of Israel's closest allies, including the European Union. Critics say the plan would destroy any lingering hopes for establishing a Palestinian state and reaching a two-state peace agreement.

It envisions leaving about one-third of the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967, under permanent Israeli control, while granting the Palestinians expanded autonomy in the remainder of the territory. The Palestinians, who seek all of the West Bank as part of an independent state, have rejected the plan, saying it unfairly favours Israel. They have already cut off key security ties with Israel and say they are no longer bound to agreements signed. The moves have raised concerns of a return to violence if the plan is carried out.
NASA finds post-tropical depression Cristobal soaking the Great Lakes

NASA's GPM satellite gathered data on what is now Post-Tropical Cyclone Cristobal and revealed some areas of heavy rain were occurring. Cristobal was bringing rainfall and gusty winds to the Great Lakes Region and still generating warnings.

Warnings and Advisories

On June 10, Cristobal was designated a post-tropical cyclone and the storm has triggered several watches and warnings in the Great Lakes area. The National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center (WPC) in College Park, Md. issued a Lakeshore Flood Warning for the northern shores of Lake St. Clair. Lakeshore Flood Advisories are in effect for the Lake Michigan shoreline of northern Lower Michigan, the Lake Michigan shoreline of Upper Michigan and the Lake Huron shoreline of Upper Michigan.

In addition, a Gale Warning is in effect for Lake Michigan, eastern Lake Superior and portions of Lake Huron. Wind Advisories are in effect for parts of Wisconsin and Michigan.

What is a Post-tropical Cyclone?

NOAA's National Hurricane Center defines a Post-tropical cyclone as a former tropical cyclone. This generic term describes a cyclone that no longer possesses sufficient tropical characteristics to be considered a tropical cyclone. Post-tropical cyclones can continue carrying heavy rains and high winds. Former tropical cyclones that have become fully extratropical and remnant lows are two classes of post-tropical cyclones.

Rainfall Estimates

When the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed over Cristobal on June 10 at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 UTC). GPM found heaviest rainfall occurring in two areas. One area was north and west of Lake Superior, north of Rossport and Red Rock, Ontario, Canada. The second area was over Georgian Bay on the eastern side of Lake Huron. In both places, rain was falling at rates of 1 inch (25 mm) per hour. Light rain appears stretched around the northern and eastern side of the system, falling at less than 0.2 inches (less than 5 millimeters) per hour.

Forecast Rainfall

The WPC noted, "The primary rainfall threat with Cristobal has ended. Sporadic heavy rain is possible today across the Great Lakes, along and ahead of a cold front associated with extratropical Cristobal. Minor to moderate river flooding will continue across portions of the Mississippi Valley."

Cristobal's Status on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on June 10, the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Cristobal was located near latitude 45.8 degrees north and longitude 88.2 degrees west. That places the center about 195 miles (310 km) north-northeast of Madison, Wisconsin and about 185 miles (295 km) west of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The post-tropical cyclone is moving toward the north-northeast near 30 mph (48 kph) and this motion is expected to continue as Cristobal tracks into Ontario, Canada.

Maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph (65 kph) with higher gusts. Little change in strength is forecast during the next 48 hours. The estimated minimum central pressure is 983 millibars.

Cristobal's Forecast Path

WPC noted that in addition to rainfall, winds gusting over 40 mph are expected early during the morning of June 10 over portions of Wisconsin and Michigan close to the Great Lakes. In addition, a few tornadoes are possible today across in the Great Lakes region, with the greatest chances in parts of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

Tropical cyclones/hurricanes are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA. The Suomi NPP satellite is a joint mission with NASA and NOAA.

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www. nhc. noaa. gov

###

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A nurse holds a sign to protest the lack of personal protective gear available at UCI Medical Center in Orange. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)

Desperate for face masks, California paid $800 million to a politically connected firm that failed to deliver most of the state's order.

State officials in Mississippi paid nearly $500,000 to a company whose owner was convicted on federal fraud charges after he resold to grocery stores food that was intended for animals or meant to be destroyed.

The state of Georgia paid a company nearly $7 apiece for masks that normally cost less than half that.

As the novel coronavirus spread across the United States, the Trump administration left states and cities to fend for themselves amid shortages of key medical equipment. States and municipalities competed against each other  and the federal government  driving up prices and creating a chaotic every-man-for-himself environment.

The Times used public records requests to collect spending data from 20 states and large cities. They showed that amid the scramble to buy face masks, winners and losers emerged.

Large states and those that entered the market early, like Washington, got some of the best deals, paying fair rates for N95s  the most protective and coveted masks on the market. Smaller states and those that were slow to respond to the crisis found themselves on the outer fringes of the medical supply chain. With no choice but to abandon contracts and longtime suppliers, some of them paid exorbitant prices.

"It was brutal," said Nick Vyas, executive director of the Marshall Center for Global Supply Chain Management at USC.

Large, well-funded states were mostly able to buy the protective gear they needed, Vyas said. But smaller states simply couldnt compete. "They ended up having to pay more for supplies," he said.

Supply chain experts fear these disparities could continue as businesses reopen and virus transmission rates rise in more than 20 states.

In Mississippi, the urgency to buy face masks led the state to do business with a contractor who had pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges.

Story continues

The state placed multiple orders for masks with Silver Dollar Sales, a grocery outlet owned by Randy Sparks, who in 2018 admitted to participating in a conspiracy to resell food products that were supposed to be used as animal feed or for agricultural purposes. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Washington, the scheme had involved producing fraudulent paperwork.

Still, purchasing records show that Mississippi officials agreed to buy more than 91,000 KN95 masks  a Chinese standard similar to N95  from Sparks for $6.50 each. It was more than double what many other states paid for similar masks.

Mississippi finance records show that the state paid $466,982 to Silver Dollar Sales. It's unclear how many masks Sparks ultimately delivered.

When reached by phone, Sparks declined to comment and referred questions to Mississippis Emergency Management Agency. Gregory Michel, the agency's executive director, declined to be interviewed by The Times and did not respond to written questions.

The state's deal with Silver Dollar Sales was not an anomaly. Across multiple transactions with other companies, Mississippi officials agreed to pay inflated prices for relatively small orders of KN95 masks.

"In a crisis, you're trying to balance cost, quality and timing," said Trevor Brown, a professor of public management at Ohio State University. "In this case, I would imagine, timing prevailed."

Brown said states and cities where coronavirus outbreaks emerged after heavyweights like California and New York had entered the market were at a distinct disadvantage. The domestic market had been picked clean. And while large states and the federal government were buying masks from China in the millions, smaller ones struggled to get sellers' attention.

In mid-March, as governors pleaded for federal intervention to help them buy lifesaving medical supplies, Trump announced that the federal government was "not a shipping clerk." States and cities would have to purchase their protective gear  and they'd have to do it without the president mobilizing industry to increase production.

The conditions were perfect for a frenzied gray market.

Unprepared and inexperienced at buying vast quantities of medical supplies, many states initially turned to contracted vendors, only to find that those distributors were already stretched thin and struggling to restock.

Solicitations poured in from brokers claiming to have connections in China, where they could secure shipments of N95 or KN95 masks. Citing the public health emergency, many states dispatched with their competitive bidding requirements and turned to vendors they'd never worked with before.

Steven Haynes, an entrepreneur in Dallas who got into the protective gear market at the beginning of the outbreak, said New York and California drove up prices for everyone else.

"New York in particular  they just bought everything  and they couldn't care how much they paid, said Haynes, who has sold masks to three other states. "They needed it. They were the center. But then nobody wanted to sell below the New York benchmark."

In Houston, city officials tried to get around this problem by bundling their orders with nearby cities, counties and medical centers, hoping to get the attention of a proven supplier. Still, they found that companies like 3M and Honeywell were focused on states ordering hundreds of millions of masks.

Jerry Adams, Houstons chief procurement officer, said the city wound up buying N95 masks from doctors' and dentists' offices that had closed during the pandemic.

When a local real estate developer and entrepreneur approached the city, offering 10,000 KN95 masks for $5.50 apiece, Adams knew the price was high. He said the market was pushing smaller buyers like him to what he considered a less protective product, at a price larger buyers were paying for the gold standard: N95s. But he agreed to pay.

"At that time, we had no N95s anywhere close to being delivered," Adams said.

Since then, the city has acquired about 18,000, but most of its mask orders still have not arrived.

Some states that were early to the market got the best deals.

State purchasing records show that Washington, where the virus first established a deadly toehold in America, worked with sellers offering millions of N95 face masks for $3 or less.

When other states jumped into the mask market weeks later, prices had doubled.

The possibility of a second viral wave this fall has led some researchers to study ways states and cities might avoid the price gouging, fraud and failed deliveries that affected whether many Americans received adequate protection in the early days of the outbreak.

Academics at USC are working on ways states and municipalities might band together on future orders to lower their costs. Vyas, the supply chain expert, said the university is planning to share lists of proven contractors with states.

Rich Tong, a Seattle-based former Microsoft executive, and Sandra Archibald, former dean of the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, are also trying to help states buy protective gear wisely.

Through their nonprofit Restart Partners, they are introducing states and cities to a model Tong created that projects how many masks, gloves and other supplies governments should stock during the pandemic. Equipped with more information to plan their purchases, Archibald said, states could avoid paying high shipping costs for expedited delivery.

As manufacturing ramps up in the U.S. and shipments from overseas arrive, state officials said they are seeing mask prices drop. But they are nervous costs could skyrocket again in the fall.

At the outbreak of the virus, "everybody got caught flat-footed," Adams said. Now he's trying to be better prepared, with more supplies stockpiled than before.

"What Id like to know," he said, "is what is the second wave going to look like?"

Times staff writer Jie Jenny Zou contributed to this report.
By Peter Koenig

June 09, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - There comes a time when shooting around in circles just hits walls, bullets splinter off sidewalks, and shatter a window here and there. But people are in safety. They watch from a distance and with self-assurance.

Venezuela has received five tankers from Iran loaded with hydrocarbons  petrol gas, additives  shipped through a totally US-militarized Caribbean Sea, amidst warnings of attacks and retaliations  and as usual, sanctions no end. How much more sanctions can a country get? There is an immune system, called sovereignty and fearlessness  confidence and dignity. Knowing your rights. Thats what makes the whole difference.

Granted, the tankers were escorted by the Venezuelan Navy and Air Force; especially through Venezuelan waters. And they made it undisturbed to the port of El Palito, a small Venezuelan port run by Venezuelas state oil company PDVSA. The American shooting didnt take place and the event was not televised.

Another aggression against Venezuelan sovereignty is the Bank of Englands withholding totally illegally some US$ 1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold, deposited voluntarily by Venezuela in times of trust  as part of Venezuelas reserve funds. With oil prices collapsed, Venezuela decided to use part of her gold reserves to purchase medication and food to counter the disastrous corona effects.

Venezuela claimed the gold deposited at the Bank of England (BoE) which offers gold custodian services mostly but not exclusively to developing nations; and so, does the New York FED and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basle and several other international institutions and central banks considered safe and trustworthy. These are legal arrangements under which the depositing country may withdraw the funds at any time and at will.

Venezuela has a sovereign right to claim these funds without any explanation or justification. The BoE refused, claiming the Government of Nicolas Maduro was not the legitimate government recognized by the UK. Can you imagine  if any government decides to confiscate funds from another government, because they dont like its leadership  where would we end up?  Well, there is not much guessing. We are already there. The Anglo-Zionist world makes its own rules and decides over and above any international law. And the spineless European puppets follow their cue. It is high time that this matrix collapses and gives way to a civilization that recognizes the values of democracy, justice, basic ethics and human rights.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

In this case, Venezuela explained that the money is needed to buy food and medication to counter the nefarious effects of COVID-19. The UN, intervening on behalf of Venezuela, has requested the BoE to return the money. That gesture or action by the UN is in itself is an act of independence by the UN against the US, for whom the UN otherwise does the bidding. But to no avail. The BoE didnt release the Venezuelan-owned gold. As a compromise, Venezuela suggested that the funds be handed over to UNDP (United Nations Development Program) which would buy vital food and medication for Venezuela.

Already at the end of 2018, Venezuelan Finance Minister Simon Zerpa and Central Bank President Calixto Ortega, travelled to London to demand that Venezuela be allowed to take the gold back to Venezuela. In January 2019, the BoE refused the request. All it said publicly was that it did not comment on customer relationships. However, the real reason was clear.

The US-trained and self-proclaimed, US supported Juan Guaido, an Assembly member, who was never elected  who never faced a presidential election  asked Downing Street that the gold was not returned to the legitimate Maduro Government which Washington, the UK and other EU members, out of the blue and without any legal reasons declared illegitimate. What a world!  Imagine that some 40 or 50 countries in the world would decide that Donald Trump and Angela Merkel were illegitimately in their high offices. Well, you laugh. It would never happen.

Under pressure from Washington, and her own neofascist government, the UK and her central bank didnt budge. The case was brought on May 14, 2020, to a Court in London. A Venezuela-favorable judgement is however unlikely. The case will then go to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Will the ICJ have enough backbone to decide against Washington? That remains to be seen. It would be another sign that Trumps last trumps are gone.

On yet another account, the Trump Administration has seized all Venezuelan assets in the US, including in 2018, the CITCO refinery and gas station network, in a further attempt to hurt their self-made archenemy, socialist Venezuela. CITCOs assets in the United States, are estimated at about 8 billion dollars, plus about 30 billion dollars of annual revenues. CITCO covers about 10% of the US domestic gasoline market. Overall Venezuelan assets confiscated  or more accurately described as stolen  in the US and overseas are estimated at about 50 to 70 billion dollars.

In addition to other strangulating sanctions and coercive actions by Washington against Venezuela, just think what these illegally US-appropriated funds could do to ease living conditions of Venezuelans whose hardship has exclusively been brought about by Washington and Washingtons coercion of its so-called western allies  alias vassals, especially Europe  to economically sanction Venezuela. A hardship being exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis. Mind you, Venezuela has done no harm, has never threatened any of the countries that follow the US dictate on economic sanctions.

Yet, through this all, Venezuela remains calm, non-aggressive, non-conflictive, self-assured and survives; and Venezuela has actually mastered the Covid-crisis better than most of Latin America. According to WHO, as of 4 June Venezuela registered 1819 confirmed cases and only 18 deaths.

Venezuelas strength of resistance and self-determination is extraordinary. It is THE recipe for success and for overcoming western oppression. This autonomy and Irans undisturbed solidarity and sovereign action to help Venezuela with oil tankers despite the US threats, are signals to the world that Washingtons empire is crumbling.

Or, as Andre Vltchek pointedly says in his article about the brutal police murder of Mr. George Floyd, The World Cannot Breathe! Squashed by the U.S.  A Country Built on Genocide and Slavery: Now more and more people can finally see what few of us have been repeating for years: The entire world has its neck squashed by the U.S. boot. The entire world cannot breathe! And the entire world has to fight for its right to be able to breathe! (https://www.globalresearch.ca/world-cannot-breathe-squashed-usa-country-built-genocide-slavery/5714728).

Lets add to this: And the entire world is no longer afraid to stand up and defend and fight for their rights.

This fight is increasingly a battle of the 99 % against the 1%  the rich and powerful psychopaths wanting to control ever more of the globes resources. With every day this battle is turning more in favor of We, the People.

The worldwide corona-lockdown and the yet unfathomable social and economic calamity of uncountable unemployment, famine and misery  unheard of in human history  is unwittingly shocking he billions of victims worldwide into an awakening that the masters behind the crisis, behind the nonsensical lockdown, behind the power and control thirst  the Gates, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Soros and Co., may not have thought of.

The ruthless killing of George Floyd has set in motion a series of riots throughout the US  affecting some 150 US-cities. Admittedly the riots are largely financed and organized by Soros & Co. (see https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-06-02-antifa-plans-purge-of-suburbs-homes-starting-tonight.html) with the objective of a broad military lockdown. Though, these unrests will likely gain their own dynamic, as the wave spreads to Europe and possibly also to the Global South. While the generous financiers of Antifa, Black Lives Matter and other protest organizations may have as their clear objective the militarization of the west, dynamics of an awakened people may derail the diabolical psychopaths goals and ring in a new set of societal values.

The resisting forces and perseverance of the people of Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, let alone, Russia and China, have magical power. Never mind the physical losses of stolen assets, of economic sanctions, of attempted humiliation by the neoliberal western alliance breaching contracts and agreements at will, i.e. the Iran Nuclear Deal, several disarmament agreements with Russia  and more  the new wave of spiritual and universal consciousness gains, far outpace these losses. The forces of Light may overcome the Darkness which has engulfed humanity over the last 5,000 years  laying the foundation for a new society with values of equality and peace for a common future for mankind.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO); RT; Countercurrents, Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press; The Saker Blog, the and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion  An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed  fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution!  Essays from the Resistance. Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization
(Photo : REUTERS/Dado Ruvic ) 3D-printed objects representing 5G are put on a motherboard in this picture illustration taken April 24, 2020.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Tuesday, June 9, to clarify rules that limit local governments' power in upgrading existing infrastructure to 5G. CNET reported that the Republican majority on the FCC said the rules will help accelerate 5G deployment.

The regulations seek to clarify aspects of the 2012 Spectrum Act, which aim to hasten the deployment of 5G. It allows telecom companies to enhance cell towers to support 5G service. These prevent municipalities from blocking or delaying the changes on existing tower structures, so long as the underlying structure remains.

FCC clears cell tower rules to speed up deployment of 5G but limits power for municipalities

In a statement, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said these regulations are needed to prevent "unnecessary ambiguities and roadblocks in order to advance wireless broadband service for all Americans."

Pai said these clarifications will fast-track the progress of 5G infrastructure by preventing misunderstandings and disputes between local governments and wireless infrastructure builders that may face lawsuits and further delays.

The commission voted 3-2 with two Democrats dissenting. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks said in their separate statements that they opposed the new rules, which would impose new burdens on cities and local governments while they are still struggling with the economic and social effects of the coronavirus, as well as protests over George Floyd's death.

The two commissioners were critical of the Republican majority who refused to delay the vote which some municipalities requested.

"[Mayors] and governors across the country are ringing the alarm," said Rosenworcel adding that local governments are "wrestling with historic crises" while struggling amid civil unrest. She also said these mayors want to be heard, but the FCC's decision shows that the commission is "not listening."

Wireless companies commend FCC

The FCC is currently in legal battles with many cities over infrastructure control as the wireless carriers pursue 5G deployment. The issue is being reviewed in the Ninth Circuit.

Many municipalities argue that the FCC's rules restrict them from negotiating with these network companies. However, Republicans on the FCC argue that many cities exploit these approvals to slow down the 5G deployment.

"Achieving the full and timely potential of 5G in the United States requires good infrastructure policy," said Verizon Senior Vice President of Federal Regulatory and Legal Affairs Will Johnson in a statement. He also added that these adopted clarifications ensure that providers quickly upgrade their existing 5G facilities, which would speed up "consumers' access to next-generation wireless services."

Rural broadband auction rules

Also, the FCC agreed to adopt auction procedures for Oct. 29's auctions to provide $16 billion subsidies to broadband companies, which vow to bring high-speed internet access in rural areas. The government subsidies will be dispersed every month for 10 years.

In return, auction applicants are required to offer voice and broadband services to areas that are still not accessible to any network. Similarly, the FCC works on improving its broadband maps.

However, Rosenworcel argued that it was "irresponsible" to continue with the auction before the agency has resolved the problem and has established accurate data.

On the other hand, Pai said Americans in the rural areas should not have to wait "longer than necessary to obtain the economic, educational and health care opportunities provided by high-speed broadband."

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
On June 1, police cameras captured an occupant of a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo firing shots at a home in the 10400 block of South State Street on the Far South Side, prompting Calumet District officers to put out a warning about the vehicle, the proffer said. But it was not clear in the proffer whether the Jeep in the video was identified as the same vehicle that led police on the chase, or whether Oliver was identified as the shooter.
Maple Gold reports additional intercepts from winter drilling campaign, with 1.23 g/t Au over 75 metres, including 1.61 g/t Au over 31m

Posted by Publisher Internet

Maple Gold Mines Ltd. ?Maple Gold? or the ?Company?) (TSX-V: MGM, OTCQB: MGMLF; Frankfurt: M3G  ?https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/maple-gold-mines-ltd/) is pleased to report further assay results from its 2020 winter drilling campaign at the Douay Project. The western part of the Porphyry Zone is a high priority area for the Company, given the broad zones of relatively shallow mineralization with demonstrated continuity, higher than deposit average grades, existing indicated resources (RPA 2019) and remaining drilling gaps in the area. The Company?s latest drill hole (DO-20-281) cut mineralization over 164 metres starting from 108m downhole (about 97m vertical depth). Highlights for DO-20-281 and this western part of the Porphyry Zone are given below:

DO-20-281 cut multiple gold zones, highlighted by 23 g/t Au over 75m from 108m downhole, including 15m of 1.32 g/t Au, followed by 31m of 1.61 g/t Au.

After an intervening lower-grade zone (0.30 g/t Au over 50m), DO-20-281 intersected 0.85 g/t Au over 38m, including 1.71 g/t Au over 5m.

DO-20-281 was collared about 130m NE of two historical drillholes (DO-11-33 and DO-12-97), which were collared about 30m apart and drilled in 2011 and 2012. Maple Gold?s new drillhole supports the updip continuity of mineralization from these historical holes, which returned 1.14 g/t Au over 62.0m, including 3.0 g/t Au over 11.5m, and 1.17 g/t over 163.5m, including 8.96 g/t Au over 9.0m respectively, uncapped for DO-12-97 (see Fig. 2 and Table 2)

DO-20-281 also tested and supports downdip continuity of mineralization encountered in hole 70586, a historical hole found within indicated resources (RPA, 2019). That hole cut 0.98 g/t au over 13.6m from 78.3m downhole, followed by 0.87 g/t Au over 93.6m from 107.6m downhole, including 2.04 g/t Au over 14.2m.

The Company?s 2020 drilling appears to now link up multiple intercepts (new and historical) within a much broader zone of mineralization extending from top of bedrock to the base of the current conceptual pit in this area.

Maple Gold?s VP, Exploration, Fred Speidel, commented: ?We are very pleased with our 2020 drill results from the western part of the Porphyry Zone, in particular with the higher-than-deposit-average grades over significant widths, as well as with the hole to hole and section to section continuity; our team is already in the process of defining drillhole locations for the next phase of drilling in this area. Given its characteristics, this area has the potential to positively impact project economics, and given the fact that the northern and eastern limits of this zone are still not fully defined, we intend to further test this area in our next drill campaigns.?

New assay results from DO-20-281 build on those recently reported from DO-20-280 and DO-20-283 (see press release May 27, 2020, Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, and Table 1 below), as well as those from historical holes 70586, DO-11-33, and DO-12-97 (see Fig. 2 and Table 2). These holes show some of the longest intercepts anywhere on the property. Note that the mineralized envelope in DO-20-281 extends well below the reported intercept (Fig. 2). Indicated resources (RPA 2019) shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 are still limited due to previously sparse drilling; the maximum projection distance from any given hole for the indicated category is 50-60 metres (RPA, 2019).

Click the following link to view the latest drill results in 3D: https://bit.ly/2UtmyfP

Mineralization in the western part of the Porphyry Zone is mostly intrusive-hosted, with sulphide mineralization often associated with quartz-calcite-fluorite veinlets and crackle breccias (Fig. 4). This style of mineralization is distinctive when compared to the contact style of mineralization (mixed syenite and basalt) or the structurally-controlled, basalt-hosted mineralization.?

Both historical and winter 2020 drilling results support the Company?s perception that the western part of the Porphyry Zone has better-than-average mineralization; key objectives of future drilling in this area will therefore be to better define the limits of mineralization, not only to the north, but also to the east where a number of drilling gaps exist (see Fig 1), and also to upgrade inferred resources to indicated resources in this area.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical data contained in this press release was reviewed and prepared under the supervision of Fred Speidel, M. Sc., P. Geo., Vice-President Exploration, of Maple Gold.?Mr. Speidel is a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.?Mr. Speidel has verified the data related to the exploration information disclosed in this news release through his direct participation in the work.

Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC)

Maple Gold implements strict Quality Assurance (?QA?) and Quality Control (?QC?) protocols at Douay covering the planning and placing of drill holes in the field; drilling and retrieving the NQ-sized drill core; drillhole surveying; core transport to the Douay Camp; core logging by qualified personnel; sampling and bagging of core for analysis; transport of core from site to the Val d?Or, QC, ALS laboratory; sample preparation for assaying; and analysis, recording and final statistical vetting of results. For a complete description of protocols, please visit the Company?s QA/QC page on the website at:

http://maplegoldmines.com/index.php/en/projects/qa-qc-qp-statement

About Maple Gold

Maple Gold is an advanced gold exploration and development company focused on defining a district-scale gold project in one of the world?s premier mining jurisdictions. The Company?s ~355 km? Douay Gold Project is located along the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone (55 km of strike) within the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt in northern Quebec, Canada. The Project benefits from excellent infrastructure and has an established gold resource that remains open in multiple directions. For more information please visit www.maplegoldmines.com.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS PRESS RELEASE.

Forward Looking Statements:

This news release contains ?forward-looking information\ and ?forward-looking statements? (collectively referred to as ?forward-looking statements?) within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation in Canada, including statements about the prospective? mineral potential of the Porphyry Zone, the potential for significant mineralization from other drilling in the referenced drill program and the completion of the drill program. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions, uncertainties and management?s best estimate of future events. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company?s expectations and projections. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding timing and completion of the private placement. When used herein, words such as ?anticipate?, ?will?, ?intend? and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements are based on certain estimates, expectations, analysis and opinions that management believed reasonable at the time they were made or in certain cases, on third party expert opinions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, and uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual events, results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future events, results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of such risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, refer to Maple Gold Mines Ltd.?s filings with Canadian securities regulators available on www.sedar.com or the Company?s website at www.maplegoldmines.com. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
This article is part of the Free Speech Project , a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech.

Welcome to Source Notes, a Future Tense column about the internets knowledge ecosystem.

In its current form, the Wikipedia article on the killing of George Floyd describes the event as follows: On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while he was lying down handcuffed on the street. Thats a more visceral description than you might normally find on a Wikipedia page, but its accurate.

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Since Floyds killing on May 25, Wikipedia editors have documented more than 466 George Floyd protests in both the United States and abroad. Some volunteers have been personally photographing protests, leading to interesting discussions of whether Wikimedians should be eligible for press passes. Wikipedia user groups like AfroCROWD have organized challenges during the two weeks leading up to Juneteenth to improve Wikipedias coverage of civil rights topics. And the new WikiProject Black Lives Matter has helped editors collaborate on notable demonstrations, pages for victims of police brutality, and new pages like When the looting starts, the shooting starts and the list of Confederate and other monuments removed during George Floyd protests.

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All of these updates are the result of Wikipedias high-tempo and decentralized editing process, which gives the internet encyclopedia its extraordinary ability to create and revise content following current events. Knowledge production, at least in the Wikipedia sense, is part collaboration and part combat. Editors undo one anothers contributions if they disagree and intensely debate proposed changes on the talk page sitting behind each article. With the recent coverage of George Floyd and other victims of police brutality, those debates have often centered on the proper interpretation of neutrality.

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Neutral point of view is one of Wikipedias core content policies, and its often been described as nonnegotiable. To the extent possible, the sites content is to be written without editorial bias so that it retains encyclopedic character. Last week, the community of editors voted against a proposal to black out the site in support of Black Lives Matter in part due to concerns that it could threaten Wikipedias reputation for neutrality. Critics of Wikipedia, like co-founder Larry Sanger, argue that Wikipedia has completely ditched neutrality in favor of left-leaning political bias, a story covered in May by Fox News. (Sanger is currently promoting a new initiative called the Encyclosphere, one of several internet encyclopedia projects hes been involved with since leaving Wikipedia in 2002.)

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Editors who are interested in working together on certain goals for Wikipedia are allowed to coordinate with one another using whats called a project page. For instance, members of WikiProject Curling collaborate on articles for the sport described as chess on ice. But recently a user nominated the Black Lives Matter project page for deletion for being non-neutral advocacy. Over at Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales user talk page, editors sniped back and forth about whether blacking out Wikipedia would be too much of a political statement.

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A supporter wrote: There is an idea that we are neutral. We are not. The simple idea of free knowledge is, in and of itself, the most radically progressive idea that has ever existed in the minds of humankind. To which another editor responded, Lets work on becoming more neutral, not less. Also on Wales user talk page, the editor known as FloridaArmy listed several black people who were denied Wikipedia entries, including Thomas Cardozo, who served as state superintendent of education in Mississippi during the Reconstruction era. Cardozos Wikipedia entry was declined on May 2 on the basis that he lacked notability, even though hes the only black person to have thus far held the post. (The original rejection decision has since been overruled, meaning you can now read about Cardozos tumultuous political career on his Wikipedia entry.)

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Neutrality also becomes a flashpoint in debates about language, and specifically the names of articles themselves. Editors voted by consensus to change the article Death of George Floyd to Killing of George Floyd on June 2. A few editors suggested that death was the more neutral-sounding term. But more editors reasoned that killing was the more factually accurate term, and that the most accurate description was neutral by definition. That same day, there was a proposal to rename the Killing of George Floyd page to Murder of George Floyd, but it was closed by Wikipedia administrator El_C on procedural grounds because the page had already gone through multiple name changes; there is now a 30-day moratorium on future name changes. (Another Wikipedia administrator told me on condition of anonymity that the Murder nomenclature decision was incorrectly decided by El_C and could be revisited later.)

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Over on the biographical Wikipedia entry for George Floyd, editors are debating whether it should mention his prior criminal charges. Those in favor of mentioning Floyds prior arrests argue that Wikipedia is not censored; those opposed argue that highlighting this past on the page would afford that information undue weight since his criminal history had no relevance to his killing on May 25. In the meantime, visitors to the George Floyd biographical page can see the suggestion to merge this entry into the Killing of George Floyd article via a clear notice at the top of the page.

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There have also been nomenclature disputes over whether to use the word riots in the article named George Floyd Protests. Editors who rejected these calls reasoned that most reliable news sources did not refer to the protests as riots. Although riots is not part of the title, the current version of the page for George Floyd Protests states that demonstrations in some cities have descended into riots and widespread looting.

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Some Wikipedians take issue with the word neutrality itself. That group includes Jackie Koerner, a social scientist who specializes in online communities and the free-knowledge movement. Koerner explained that she preferred the word balance to neutrality and that one of Wikipedias goals should be knowledge equitythe just representation of knowledge and people. When dedicated user groups like Black Lives Matter contribute content about racial justice, they are helping Wikipedia identify historical blind spots and moving the project closer to achieving balance.

On the other hand, some Wikipedians have characterized neutrality not so much as an end result, but as a process. For example, the decision to rename the page Death of George Floyd to Killing of George Floyd was decided by the process of editorial consensus. Following that decision, Wikipedia editors engaged in the same process to discuss and eventually rename the article Death of Eric Garner to Killing of Eric Garner for consistency. Arguably, each of these changes are neutral because they were made in accordance with established Wikipedia rules.

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Then again, this rules-based view of neutrality may not be as neutral as it seems. Wikipedia contributors have begun operationalizing a definition of neutrality in order to silence perspectives outside the community accepted point-of-view, Koerner said in an email. Take the case of Black Birders Week, a series of online events to celebrate black naturalists and birders. This initiative was conceived in response to last months racially charged incident in Central Park. In connection with Black Birders Week, Wikipedia editors created new articles about black bird-watching leaders like Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, the Ghanaian-born American activist who co-founded the movement.* After Opoku-Agyemans Wikipedia page went up, so-called deletionist editors moved to have it removed. The deletionist editors argued that even though Opoku-Agyeman had been written up in places like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, she was only given passing mention by those sources and therefore was not sufficiently notable to merit her own Wikipedia page. At the end of the day, more editors voted to keep the article for Opoku-Agyeman, whose page remains online. But the incident itself shows how the notion of neutrality can be weaponized by some factions to keep certain knowledge off of the encyclopedia.

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If there is one reason to be optimistic about Wikipedias coverage of racial justice, its this: The project is by nature open-ended and, well, editable. The spike in volunteer Wikipedia contributions stemming from the George Floyd protests is certainly not neutral, at least to the extent that word means being passive in this moment. Still, Koerner cautioned that any long-term change of focus to knowledge equity was unlikely to be easy for the Wikipedia editing community. I hope that instead of struggling against it they instead lean into their discomfort, she said. When were uncomfortable, change happens.

Correction, June 9, 2020: This post originally misspelled Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyemans middle name.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
The European Union is urging online platforms to step up the fight against a wave of online disinformation triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, accusing China and Russia of mounting propaganda campaigns to undermine democracy and burnish their own images.

Foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China, have engaged in targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns around COVID-19 in the EU, its neighborhood, and globally, says a policy document released on June 10 outlining the blocs approach to tackling disinformation linked to the pandemic.

The two countries are seeking to undermine democratic debate and exacerbate social polarization, and improve their own image in the COVID-19 context," the document adds.

The pandemic showed that disinformation does not only harm the health of our democracies, it also harms the health of our citizens," the report says, citing dangerous hoaxes and misleading health-care information like claims that drinking bleach can cure the disease and that washing hands does not help prevent its spread.

The EU praised online platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter for removing millions of misleading ads and those U.S. digital giants that agreed to extra scrutiny under a voluntary code of practice aimed at halting the spread of disinformation linked to the virus.

But European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova told journalists that the companies should provide far more detailed reports each month than currently on the action they are taking to prevent a fake news infodemic.

The companies should also enable the public to identify new threats independently, she added.

The coronavirus has infected more than 7.6 million people worldwide and killed over 412,000, about 180,000 of them in Europe, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

With reporting by AP and AFP
Baxter Planning, a pioneer and recognized leader in service parts planning and optimization solutions, announces a strategic alliance with Vertical Solutions, Inc. (VSI), a developer of cloud-based solutions, including Actionable IoT Squirrel.

Most Baxter customers are Enterprise businesses that were early adopters of the servitization trend and have established leadership positions in their markets by differentiating their products with service. Augmenting our partner ecosystem with Actionable IoT expands Baxters capability to be a trusted partner for supporting their service supply chain. Phillip Kennedy, Chief Marketing Officer at Baxter Planning.

Actionable IoT Squirrel provides Alarm Response Automation (ARA) to help companies rapidly monetize on their intelligent services initiatives. As companies step further into connected services, Squirrel helps organizations use IoT data effectively as a connector in the supply chain. New models are being built every day, and Squirrels asset, entitlement and workflow building blocks assist organizations in finding meaning in their IoT data while expediting the return for outcome-based service strategies.

"Manufacturers and service organizations are tasked with not only capturing real- or near-real time data from products and equipment but also make sense of that data to enhance the services being offered to customers," says Aly Pinder Jr, program director Service Innovation & Connected Products IDC. "Without a link between IoT data and the execution of service resolution, organizations will continue to struggle to deliver predictive and prescriptive service resolution."

The collective solutions of Baxters Prophet and Actionable IoT Squirrel create a robust, sophisticated combination. As IoT data begins to shed light on which installed base assets have the potential to fail, and action needs to occur, the natural evolution is to ensure spare parts are available to maximize uptime. Integrating the service supply chain with pre-emptive service specifically designed to function at the actionable IoT data level, paves the way for new, revenue-generating service offerings.

During their digital transformation journey, our customers and prospects are continually looking at innovative revenue models to more quickly monetize on the connected products within their install base says Ronnie Wegmann, SVP at VSIs Actionable IoT. Coupling our Squirrel solution with Baxter makes sense for companies who want to deliver differentiated value from their supply chain.

About Baxter Planning

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with employees around the globe, Baxter Planning was founded in 1993 by Greg Baxter, who saw the need for a solution to address the lack of planning technologies in the market. Now a worldwide leader in aftermarket supply chain planning, Baxter helps customers plan billions in service parts inventory every day. The list of Global 2,000 enterprises and growing startups deploying solutions from Baxter include Verizon, Nokia, Tokyo Electron, Stanley Black and Decker, SONY, Johnson & Johnson, and many others. Baxters differentiated combination of a SaaS platform featuring Planning as a Service enables supply chain organizations to deliver dramatic improvements in post-sales service levels while increasing profitability and cash flow. Baxter has been on SupplyChainBrains List of 100 Great Supply Chain Partners for 15 consecutive years and recognized multiple times as a Best Places to Work in Austin. For more information, visit http://www.baxterplanning.com or email us at info@baxterplanning.com.

About Vertical Solutions, Inc. (VSI)

Companies worldwide use VSI's solutions to improve service response and resolution times, reduce the costs of delivering service, better manage entitlements, increase revenue, improve the customer experience, and broaden their portfolio of connected service offerings. Our cloud first PaaS features unique capabilities that enables companies to automate interactions between any entity, database, or group within their supply chain based on business processes. Your supply chain requires flexibility and agility  you need additional tooling for your Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things 4.0 (IIoT 4.0) strategies that will enable you to deliver exceptional services now, and to be poised for future demands. Our Actionable IoT solutions enable better visibility into your data, and further automate your intelligent services strategies. For more information, visit http://www.Actionable-IoT.com.
Pride Month 2020, albeit in the middle of a deadly pandemic, is a glorious occasion to celebrate as it has been the second year since India abolished the draconian Section 377 and legally accepted her LGBTQIA+ citizens.

Recently, superstar Akshay Kumar took to social media to announce that he would be playing a transgender woman in Raghava Lawrence's Laxmmi Bomb, remake of Tamil film Kanchana.

The response to Akshay's casting left the audience divided. While many recognised the positive impact a superstar like Akshay would have in challenging the stigma around the community, as was the case in Tamil cinema, where a paradigm shift in their representation happened due to the Kanchana movies. But the other section expressed exasperation because another cis-gendered heterosexual man was taking up space that could have gone to a queer actor.

The same happened when people questioned Anurag Kashyap, why Kubbra Sait, a cis-gendered woman had played Kukku in Sacred Games. Konkona Sen Sharma, a cis-gnedered woman starred as a transwoman in A Monsoon Date, a film surprisingly written by a trans writer Ghazal Dhaliwal.

It was only in 2018 with the Tamil-Malyalam film Peranbu featured the first transgender actor in a lead role. Anjali Ameer created history, albeit quite late, when she starred opposite Mammootty as Meera, the trans woman Mammoottys character falls in love with and marries after she saves and rehabilitates him and his disabled daughter.

Filmmaker Faraz Arif Ansari, who has helmed Sisak and Sheer Qorma, two films with about same-sex couples , had taken to Twitter to find a transgender woman to be the lead of his film TRANSaction 2.0. While the tweet generated underwhelming response, it caught the attention of Hollywood actor Ellen Page, who had retweeted it. Two years down the line, with several workshops conducted, Ansari is yet to find his lead.

When a community, race or region is underrepresented for centuries, they tend to accept consolation prizes. While it takes eighteen into the 21st century to have one transgender actor play herself in a lead role in Peranbu, and nineteen years for one transgender actor Shree Ghatak to make her debut in Season's Greetings in Bollywood, a lot of people are finding consolation in the fact that the representation of the community has come far from what it used to be.

The transgender community has come far from their original depiction on screen as villains or psychos. The brilliant Ashutosh Rana, who is chilling in every negative role he plays gets remembered most because of his portrayal of Lajja Shankar Pandey, the trans woman who abducts children and sacrifices them in Sangharsh. The same kind of stereotype was exploited in Emran Hashmi-led Murder 2 where the murderer was a man named Dheeraj Pandey who was so scorned with women that he transitioned into a woman to murder them.

This depiction is regressive on so many levels as it reinforces negative stereotypes against the community. It does not only deny the fact that transitioning is a natural right for members of the community, it also takes away attention from the fact that trans women are, in fact, real women.

Sadashiv Amrapurkar's Maharani in Mahesh Bhatt's Sadak was a sadistic brothel owner who tortured and forced women into sex work. While many transgender people are employed in sex work, with this depiction, there is a complete erasure of the socio-political reasons behind such employment.

If not villains, the transgender community was shown as a laughing stock with "effiminate men" and "masculine women" stereotype dehumanising them. Many Bollywoood male-leads, ranging from Aamir Khan to Ajay Devgn cross-dressing as humourous ploys in films, who in no time would reclaim their machismo back in the same film. On the other hand, actors like Bobby Darling, who was cast in many such roles was bullied by people in the industry and the audience for years.

With the passage of time, and a wave of much-required sensitivity in films, there is a slight ray of hope. Recently, Vijay Sethupathi played the trailblazing Shilpa in Thiagarajan Kumararaja's Super Deluxe, who normalised the complex yet never changing love between a son and his father, who has now transitioned into a woman.

Credit where its due, two films in the 90s that also quietly paved the way for a better, more nuanced portrayal of transgender characters. Paresh Rawal's Tikku Ali Sayyed in Mahesh Bhatt's 1997 Tamanna, a trans woman who adopts and raises a little girl is an example of a fleshed out, complex transgender character. Another example is Amol Palekar's 1996 film Daayra, where a trans woman rescues and shelters an abducted girl.

Many other roles throughout the years have brought the community to the mainstream. Be it Mahesh Manjrekar in Rajjo, Shashank Arora in Others, Sanjana Dipu in Moothon, Adah Sharma in the upcoming Man to Man, among many others, a lot of these stories are finally being told.

What the community now needs is to have its real members telling their own stories on screens. A cis-gendered male actor might argue that he has the right to play anyone he wants to, but it is not his place to say so. If a marginalised community is saying that it wants real representation, a cis-het person doesn't get to say otherwise.

Granted, Indian cinema has still not reached the desired political correcteness yet, where it could make a force like Scarlett Johannson apologise for taking up seldom given space, but there is hope that one day we will get there. Because Mairembam Ronaldo Singh's Mary Lyngdoh in Paatal Lok is just the first step towards equality.

Follow @News18Movies for more
Elliott Bay Design Group

Reeves

In Seattle Elliott Bay Design Group promoted senior engineer John Reeves to director of business development. Reeves will oversee business development, generate leads, and lead the sales and marketing team. He joined EBDG in 2015 and has 23 years of experience operating and maintaining complex vessels in the U.S. Coast Guard fleet. His background includes port engineer and manager of industrial repair facilities, serving as an associate professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and over a decade at sea providing service on and maintenance of vessels. EBDG provides naval architecture, marine engineering and production support services.




The cruise ship industry has gotten hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and Carnival (NYSE:CCL) (NYSE:CUK) was one of the biggest casualties among stocks in the S&P 500. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, Carnival and its peers have had to suspend cruises for months, and that caused a liquidity crisis that pushed their financial conditions to the brink. Now, though, investors have gotten a lot more optimistic that things might get back to normal sooner than originally feared, and that's prompted shares to more than triple from their lowest levels in early April.

Despite the big bounce in its stock, Carnival isn't out of the woods yet. It needs a lot of things to go right in order to justify the big recovery in its stock price. If three particular things don't happen soon, it could cause Carnival's stock to lose much or all of its recent hard-fought gains.

1. Carnival needs to set a realistic but firm reopening date

The biggest challenge that Carnival faces right now is not knowing when it will be able to resume sailing. To a large extent, Carnival is at the mercy of the regulators that oversee public health and travel right now. The nature of the cruise ship industry often requires that operators comply with regulations in several different countries to run certain trips, and right now, that makes for a logistical nightmare as various jurisdictions take different approaches toward how and when they intend to reopen.

Until now, Carnival has taken the same approach as many travel companies, allowing would-be passengers to book travel only to announce later that it will need to cancel or postpone those trips. Last month, for instance, Carnival said that it intended to restart operations on August 1. However, the restart will at best involve just eight ships, including ports in Miami, Galveston, and Port Canaveral. Moreover, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have still expressed concerns about cruise ships generally, and countries other than the U.S. have expressly prohibited cruises until later dates. That prompted Carnival to suspend cruises in Australia, Canada, and Taiwan well beyond the August 1 date.

Teasing a potential opening only to delay it further on a month-by-month only erodes confidence that passengers will ever be able to sail again. The better approach is to work with regulators to come up with more reasonable firm dates that are likely to be realistic, so that Carnival can stop disappointing its best, most enthusiastic customers.

2. Carnival needs to make Congress happy

Part of what's holding regulators back from supporting cruise ship companies is that they haven't yet come up with elaborate safety plans that describe what post-coronavirus cruises might look like. In early May, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee asked Carnival CEO Arnold Donald for extensive information about how the operator plans to deal with the unique public health challenges that cruise ships present.

Carnival's website explains, "We are currently assessing enhanced health and safety protocols in light of COVID-19 and how they may impact our future offerings." Yet most of the information Carnival has released is basic, simply stating measures like more frequent cleaning and greater availability of handwashing sinks and hand sanitizer. Investors will want to see a full plan that can satisfy Congress, in the hope that the CDC will be able to lift its no-sail order more quickly.

3. Carnival needs to stop diluting shareholders

Finally, Carnival shareholders need the company to act quickly to minimize its cash burn so that it can stop raising money at unfavorable terms. In early April, Carnival had to pay 11.5% on $4 billion in three-year notes, and it also sold $1.75 billion in convertible debt paying 5.75% and convertible at $10 per share. It also sold 62.5 million shares of stock at $8 per share -- a great deal for those who bought in, but it will potentially hold back the stock's long-term recovery.

Having to raise that capital was bad enough, but it did keep Carnival afloat. Any future offerings could further reduce the likelihood that Carnival stock can advance further from here -- and reduce the payoff for brave investors even if Carnival is wildly successful.

A lot of uncertainty

Carnival stock is getting a lot of attention from thrill-seeking short-term traders right now, because its stock is volatile in both directions. For long-term investors, Carnival has the potential to bounce back fully, but its share price has already reflected much of the optimism surrounding the industry right now. Would-be buyers of the stock now need greater assurances that these three bullish signs are coming soon, or else they could see much of the stock's recent gains sink back under the sea.
WASHINGTON  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday trumpeted the United States as a beacon of "freedom" and "democratic values" across the globe, but quickly found himself on the defensive over the Trump administration's response to the nationwide protests at home sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

Pompeo lashed out at a reporter who pressed him on the White House's decision to forcibly remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, and how that squared with his condemnations of China for its sweeping crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

"The question is so troubling," Pompeo said, because it assumes a "a moral equivalency between" what happens in the United States and what happens in China and other authoritarian countries.

"They repress their people, and they bludgeon their people, and they burn down their religious facilities, and they deny journalists  you all  a chance to ask a question of a secretary of state," Pompeo said.

Floyds death has put American diplomats in an awkward position, amid a backlash over boasts of American exceptionalism and the Trump administration's demands for action on human rights abuses abroad. Take this example from the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

Dear ambassador, your country is shameful, a prominent businessman there wrote in a tweet directed to Mike Hammer, the U.S. ambassador stationed in that country. Proud America, which went through everything from segregation to the election of Barack Obama, still hasnt conquered the demons of racism. How many black people must be killed by white police officers before authorities react seriously?

Hammer responded he was deeply disturbed by Floyd's death.

"Law enforcement must be held accountable worldwide. No one is above the law," he said.

In Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam accused the United States of a double standard for blasting China's attempts to stifle Hong Kong protests while taking a hard line on the protesters in the US.

Story continues

And when the State Department's chief spokeswoman accused the Chinese Communist Party of "flagrantly" violating the rights of the people of Hong Kong, China's foreign ministry spokeswoman issued a three-world retort:

"I can't breathe," Hua Chunying tweeted. Those were among Floyd's last words as the police officer held him down on the street.

Even America's strongest allies have struggled to defend the U.S. and Trump's rhetoric toward the protesters. The most viral example came last week when Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was asked for his reaction to Trumps threat to use military troops against the protesters and the forcible clearing of Lafayette Square.

Trudeau paused for a full 21 seconds, an awkward silence filling the air as he seemed literally speechless. We all watch in horror and consternation (at) whats going on in the United States, he finally responded.

Pompeo said American diplomats can be "proud" that they represent a country where officials are held accountable "when something as tragic and as awful as what happened to George Floyd takes place" and a "wide-open" debate can unfold about what reforms are needed in response.

Pompeo's remarks came at a news conference in which he unveiled the State Department's annual report on religious freedom around the world. The report outlines cases of government-sponsored religious persecution.

In the weeks since Floyd died, after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes while he gasped for air, thousands of Americans across the country have participated in protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality against African Americans.

President Donald Trump initially responded by calling violent protesters "thugs" and demanding that governors to "dominate" the streets to quell the civil unrest. He even threatened to send in active-duty troops to respond to the protests. Although the protests have been largely peaceful, there was some rioting and vandalism during the initial demonstrations over Floyd's death.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, Wednesday, June 10, 2020.

Trump later labeled himself an ally of the protesters, although the White House has not outlined any specific proposal to address their demands. And during a speech in which Trump called himself a "law and order" president, police outside the White House used smoke canisters, pepper balls and other means to force protesters from the area before the president walked to historic St. John's Church.

As the protests continue to unfold, some law enforcement officers have attacked peaceful protesters, as well as reporters covering the events. Pompeo cast himself as a champion of the free press when asked about incidents in which reporters have been arrested or assaulted by law enforcement officers.

"I have worked for journalists to have the right to say whatever the heck they want to," he said.

Pompeo acknowledged that some foreign reporters based in Washington had been attacked by law enforcement officers during the protests and said he was working with their home countries to make sure those cases were investigated. In one case, an Australian cameraman was assaulted near the White House, and that country's ambassador immediately sought the State Department's help in filing a complaint.

"Those countries should know we will we will handle them in a completely appropriate way," Pompeo said. The U.S. Park Police said on June 3 that two officers involved in that incident have been assigned to administrative duties pending an investigation.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: George Floyd: Pompeo on defense over Trump's response to protests
Four migrants were rescued in the Channel today after they tried to paddle from France on two windsurf boards tied together with rope.

The group, who were picked up by a French patrol boat at 6.35am after attempting the crossing in a make-shift vessel, had used shovels as oars.

They were picked up around three-miles from the Calais coast after being spotted in difficulty by the crew of cross-channel ferry Dunkirk Seaways.

A Prefecture de Maritime spokesman said: 'Arriving in the area at 6.45am the VCSM Escaut took charge of the four shipwrecked people and their boats in tow.

Four migrants were rescued by French authorities in the Channel today after they tried to paddle from France on two windsurf boards tied together with rope

'They were actually two interconnected "windsurfing" boards, which they tried to propel with shovels as oars.'

The four men were taken to Dunkirk suffering from mild hypothermia, where they were taken in by the border police.

Dozens of migrants have today made it to Britain on three small boats - meaning more than 1,900 have crossed the Channel this year alone.

Around 14 are thought to have been crammed on to one boat, with the Border Force meeting two other vessels off the Kent coast today.

Pictured: Migrants being brought into the UK today after crossing the Channel into Dover

The Border Force are pictured speaking to migrants who arrived in Dover, Kent, this morning

The incident - only the second migrant crossing so far in June - comes a week after 166 arrived in eight boats, a record for a single day.

So far this year at least 1,896 migrants have made it to the UK in rigid-hulled inflatable boats - smashing the 1,850-odd who arrived throughout the whole of 2019.

The group of migrants were this morning pictured being brought into the Port of Dover in Kent by the Border Force vessel Speedwell.

The Coastguard said a search and rescue operation is underway and that it is working with police and Border Force.

Clear skies and calm seas provided perfect conditions for the refugees to sail over the Channel.

Pictured: Migrants are brought ashore this morning in Dover, Kent, this morning

A Coastguard spokeswoman said today: 'HM Coastguard has been coordinating a search and rescue response to incidents off Kent, working with Border Force, Kent Police and other partners.

'We are committed to safeguarding life around the seas and coastal areas of this country.

'HM Coastguard is only concerned with preservation of life, rescuing those in trouble and bringing them safely back to shore, where they will be handed over to the relevant partner emergency services or authorities.'

The latest crossings will nudge this year's tally closer to the 2,000 mark. Of the figure, 1,525 have illegally made it to Britain since lockdown began in March. Last month 741 reached the UK - a record for a single month.

The staggering milestone is a body blow to Home Secretary Priti Patel, who has repeatedly vowed to clamp down on crossings since taking up her post last year.

The Home Office has pumped millions of pounds into security measures to prevent migrant crossings from France, funding drones to patrol the country's coastline - but the crisis has continued to worsen.
The police in India, as in America, face a reckoning. From the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests to the Delhi riots and the COVID pandemic, recent events have raised troubling questions about the quality of Indian policing. In 2019, the non-profit Common Cause and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies issued a report on the Status of Policing in India. The report is one of the most comprehensive, empirical examinations of the police on record.

This week on the show, Vipul Mudgal, the Director of Common Cause, joins Milan Vaishnav (Director of the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) to discuss the colonial legacy of the Indian police, the personnel and operational challenges ordinary police officers must confront, and the contested role the police have played during the COVID pandemic. Vipul also outlines a reform blueprint for more effective policing.

Programming note: This is the very last episode of Season Three of Grand Tamasha. As usual, we are going to take a little time off this summer to recharge our batteries and prepare for a brand-new season of Grand Tamasha, which we will kick-off at the end of the summer. During this break, please send us your feedback, comments, and criticisms. You can contact us on Twitter @MilanV or email the Grand Tamasha team at podcasts@ceip.org.
Two suspected armed robbers who were members of an AK-47-wielding gang have been gunned down at Atasamanso New Site in Kumasi.



It follows a gun battle between police and a six-member gang at about 6:45p.m on Tuesday, June 9, 2020.



A police officer who sustained gunshot injury was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.



Police, based on intelligence of the gangs plans, dispatched members of the Anti-Robbery Taskforce to quell the activities.



But the armed men who were using a BMW car first opened fire upon seeing police vehicle moving towards their direction, forcing police to return same.



The gunshots drew a large crowd from nearby homes to the scene, a situation that affected the police operation.



The presence of the crowd meant the police were limited in firing at the robbers as four of the suspected robbers managed to escape.



Both police operational vehicle and the BMW car used by the suspected robbers had their windscreens damaged in the process.



Police retrieved one AK-47 assault rifle and a foreign pistol from the suspected robbers.

Source: adomnews









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The steep decline of the local stock market as the coronavirus ravaged economies lured many new punters to the market.

Retail brokers have reported a jump in new clients opening financial market trading accounts, with more than 100,000 accounts registered in the past three months.

Of the new 100,000 accounts, 31,900 were opened in March and 36,700 were opened in April.

The number of new accounts opened at Ho Chi Minh City Securities Company (HSC) in March, April and May nearly doubled over the same period last year.

At VNDIRECT Securities Company, there were 10,230 new accounts opened in May and 15,000 accounts in April.

Besides the new investors, there has been a considerable amount of money coming from officials and employees within enterprises, according to Tran Minh Hoang, Head of Research & Analysis Department under Vietcombank Securities Company (VCBS).

Everyone has flocked to cash in on betting opportunities via a stock market plunge inflicted by damage caused by the coronavirus crisis, Hoang said.

They have accumulated beaten-down stocks in the recent massive sell-offs during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The steep fall of the stock market in March attracted investors as 60 percent of stocks on the market had market prices lower than their book values.

Shares are proving too tempting for thousands of punters and this brings more people to wager, boosting both trading value and volume.

This capital flow will stay in the stock market for the long-term if clients are professional or can demonstrate an understanding of the risks.

However, most of the new cash flow poured into the market shows signs of speculation in the short term. Bettors will sell-off anytime they see risks. The stock market has rebounded sharply since April, making the index approach strong resistance zone. Many forecasts say the stock market may shake strongly in the short term as speculative cash flows are gradually withdrawn, Hoang said.

Nguyen The Minh, Director of Analysis at Yuanta Vietnam Securities, said new cash flow had not shown signs of withdrawing from the market, especially as other investment channels are generally considered more tedious.

Vietnam gained initial success in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. GDP this year is forecast to maintain positive growth of 4 percent.

Investors also focus on information about the wave of foreign direct investment inflows into Vietnam, public investment promotion process, opportunities from the newly-ratified Europe-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, equitisation and divestment of State capital, Minh said.

Pham Thien Quang, Director of VNDIRECTs Investment and Asset Management Services, said the surge in newly opened accounts was unprecedented.

Traders often rush to the market when stock prices rise sharply as a result of a growing economy or large profit margins. This year, the majority joined the market even amidst high risk of recession, Quang said.

In early May, the VN-Index reached 800 points, a strong resistance zone. But positive market sentiment helped the index maintain uptrend and overcome the thresholds of 830 points, 850 points and most recently 880 points, heading to the next threshold of 900 points.

Experts believe the changes of the index are not as important as betting opportunities for each different stock code. But if the index surpasses important landmarks, market sentiment will be strengthened.

The earning results of businesses in the second quarter may continue to decline, but economic supportive policies, especially stimulus packages, have helped strengthen investor confidence and support the market.

Any upside will need a period of correction. Although it has not happened yet investors need to stay calm and limit leverage. Investors should also pay attention to cash flow trends to adjust investment strategy when the situation changes, Minh said./.

VNA
The incoming leader of the Catholic Diocese of Beaumont will be ordained as a bishop this summer at St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica, a first-of-its-kind ceremony for the 113-year-old church on the edge of downtown.

Monsignor David L. Toups, 49, was announced Tuesday morning as bishop-elect for the nine-county diocese, home to more than 68,000 Catholics.

He will replace Bishop Curtis Guillory, 76, a ubiquitous community presence who is retiring after leading the diocese for 20 years.

Both men were appointed to their positions at a time of change.

Guillory was the first African-American bishop to lead a diocese in Texas. He is the longest-tenured of five bishops at the Diocese of Beaumont since it was formed in September 1966.

Toups, who is fluent in Spanish, arrives during a time of national upheaval following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He referenced the funeral for Floyd getting underway in Houston during his introduction at St. Anthony Tuesday morning, pledging to work against the sin of racism.

In a lighter moment, looking out at a crowd that was limited in size due to coronavirus-related precautions, he made note of the pandemic as well.

It is a pleasure to be with you all in Beaumont since COVID 19 and (Tropical Storm) Cristobal tried to scare me away, he said.

Toups was born in Houma, the youngest of three children. His family moved to Clearwater, Florida, when he was in high school. He attended Florida Southern College and graduated from Saint John Vianney College Seminary in Miami. In 1997, he was ordained as a priest in the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

He also has studied in Rome, worked in Washington, D.C., and held pastoral positions in Florida. He comes to Beaumont from St. Petersburg.

More Information Diocese of Beaumont Created: Sept. 29, 1966 Number of churches: 55 Serves: 68,579 parishoners in Jefferson, Hardin, Orange, Liberty, Chambers, Polk, Jasper, Tyler and Newton counties. Headquarters: St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica, which opened in 1907 See More Collapse

Toups said he was familiar the ups and downs that come when the economy is dominated by oil and gas, having grown up in Houma.

I also recognize how volatile our industries are in this difficult time, he said. I join you in prayer for a quick recovery of our economy and those suffering physically emotionally, spiritually and financially in these days.

He also reflected on driving through Beaumont as a boy.

We were on our way to Galveston Beach and I would hear the names Spindletop and Port Arthur, Toups said. Half of my family went to college in Texas, so there have been many visits to this great state. My youngest niece is about to begin her first job in Austin.  That being said, I have a lot to learn.

That includes adapting his attire.

I look forward to buying my first pair of boots, Toups said, with a laugh.

Guillorys departure was not exactly a surprise. The bishop, who will turn 77 in September, had announced his retirement nearly two years ago. He said he would continue to serve until Pope Francis chose a successor.

He welcomed Toups and also took note of the challenging times.

In the middle of a pandemic, racial tension, protests, economic downturn and at the start of hurricane season, I am like the angels at Our Lords birth bringing good news to the shepherds. Guillory said.

Guillory was born on a farm in Mallet, Louisiana, in 1943 to a family of sharecroppers. He attended St. Paul in Epworth, Iowa, and graduate school at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

I was a parish priest in New Orleans, he said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. From there, in 1988, I was made auxiliary bishop in Houston, before coming here in 2000.

Guillory elevation was a first in the racial history of Catholics in Texas.

There are many African-American Catholics, particularly in this area, he said. The church does not look at color. It looks at faith and the qualification. Also, everybody is represented in the church. There are many diverse members and the leadership should come through that diversity as well.

Guillory said he will remain in Beaumont. Looking back, he expressed pride in the resiliency of local Catholics.

During his tenure, many area churches and their parishoners experienced tropical flooding and weathered a tough public accounting in the long sex-abuse scandal. In January 2019, Guillory and other diocesan leaders across Texas released the names former priests here who had been credibly accused of molesting children.

The local tally was 13. Guillory issued an apology for the severe damage victims suffered for the sinful and criminal abuse.

He included that period when recalling the accomplishments of his time in charge.

Physically, the repairs to the cathedral, Guillory said. We built the pastoral center, what we call the offices. We tried to build small ministries. Weve been through a lot. Weve been through these hurricanes, the sexual abuse, flooding. Those were challenges, but we were able to get through it.

Guillory will be bishop emeritus.

Im too old to move, he said, laughing. Ive got a lot of friends here. I want to help the new bishop where ever he needs it. Ill celebrate Mass, give talks and those types of things. Ill do more pastoral work than administration.

I feel like I have given it everything I have. Now, it is time to get out of the sun and get under a tree and relax.

chris.moore@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/chris_moore09
In bullying lesser powers, China is also shaping their strategic choices and forcing the nations into changing their external posture for a greater balancing manoeuvre.

The nature of the rise of the United States post Second World War as the global hegemon was fundamentally different from the rise of China in the 21st century. The American model was incumbent on showcasing and even evangelizing the model of liberal democracy as a system that ensured economic success and geopolitical prowess while safeguarding political rights.

The US fought wars to secure its interests, including some needless and immoral ones, but it also struck alliances and treaties and used its position as the global hegemon to implement an international order founded on a rules-based system to regulate the governance of global commons, economic exchanges and management of peace and security. During the Cold War, the US in certain cases even helped European nations or Japan find its feet economically to counter the rise of its strategic rival USSR.

In contrast, the rise of China has been guided by a grievance narrative. The Middle Kingdom suffers from a sense of injury over what it calls a Century of Humiliation when its wealth, power and cultural heritage fell to attacks from external and internal forces leading to the most dire and tragic time in the nations history.

China now seeks to return to its position of pre-eminence and become the new global hegemon based on a few lessons it claims to have learnt. The Chinese Communist Party has made wealth and power its paramount goals. It believes that weakness and technological backwardness are fatal, weakness in a state invites exploitation and only strength and wealth can earn a nation respect and preserve sovereignty.

The grievance narrative has led China to assume the role of an aggressive, autocratic superpower that has scant respect for the rules-based international order. It has amassed enough economic, military and soft power to impose a new geopolitical and geoeconomic order where the Middle Kingdoms interests will be eternally paramount. Accordingly, China has set about creating a new space for itself by trampling on the feet of others.

China uses its $14 trillion economy  the worlds second-largest  as a weapon to secure its political objectives and bully countries that criticize its policies. Its Belt and Road Initiative has saddled infrastructure-hungry nations around the globe with unsustainable debt leading to China usurping strategic assets in return. Beijing is also expanding rapidly its naval presence, buying up critical infrastructure and triggering alarm within NATO, and apart from posing a technological and ideological challenge to the West, China is also busy picking fights with nearly all its neighbours and putting pressure on littoral nations on the Indo-Pacific led by a medieval smash-and-grab territorial lust.

Sovereignty with Chinese characteristics

For instance, based on an imaginary nine-dash line that has no legal basis, China claims almost the entire South China Sea that has huge hydrocarbon resources, is a prime maritime trade route and holds paramount strategic importance for all the littoral nations that have overlapping claims. China has also claimed the South China Sea archipelago of Paracel and Spratly island chains (contested by Taiwan and Vietnam) based on historical, presumptive sovereignty.

In recent months, China has harassed Indonesia by invading its maritime border, targeted a Japanese maritime destroyer, sank a Vietnamese fishing boat, went into a naval standoff with the US over disrupting Malaysias exploration activity, sent fighter jets over Taiwan airspace and introduced a new language on Taiwans unification to bully Taipei, subverted Hong Kongs autonomy by imposing a national security law and locked horns with India again in the high Himalayas at multiple locations along the Line of Actual Control.

In most of these cases, China has been guided by imaginary grievances and perceived injuries, and nearly all of the Chinese actions are in response to provocations. The persistent border tension with India owes to the fact that the nearly 4000 km-long LAC lies un-demarcated and un-delineated, and China has kept it this way because it serves its purpose.

Strategy of deliberate obfuscation

China has deliberately refrained from exchanging maps so that India and China may resolve the long-standing dispute, and over decades has attempted to relentlessly alter the norms, change facts on the ground and shift the status quo to slowly but interminably change the political map. Each time it shifts the claim lines, China puts the onus of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the other side. And it has also cultivated deliberate obfuscation to hide its real motive behind this territorial aggression.

No one knows, yet, for instance, why China has launched its latest offensive against India in Ladakh  the western sector of LAC.

According to some analysts, China is aggrieved over Indias decision last year to turn Ladakh into a Union Territory and establish direct control, even though India has been at pains to clarify that this internal decision in no way impacts the boundary with China.

Some analysts have reasoned that China is reacting to Indias infrastructure-building along the LAC and these bullying tactics are meant to interfere with Indias effort to catch up with China, so that Beijing may lock in its comparative advantage in terms of local power balance in case of a conflict. Some have suggested that Chinese incursion into Indias territory along LAC is in line with Chinas new aggressive tactics elsewhere to quell internal unease over the pandemic.

Yet these are all speculations. The governments are tightlipped and we dont really know why China intruded into territory claimed by India and forced New Delhi into yet another military standoff  the fourth in this decade. China has the requisite hard power to pull off such stunts and keep India unsettled and each time it does so, New Delhi must do the hard grind through military deployment and diplomatic engagements to restore status quo ante while taking care that the dispute does not escalate into an armed conflict and Indias sovereignty is not compromised. As the bigger power, China has no reason to negotiate with India when it can occupy the territory as the aggressor. China does so because it can.

Consequences of Chinas aggression

In bullying lesser powers, however, China is also shaping their strategic choices and forcing the nations into changing their external posture for a greater balancing manoeuvre. For instance, China has successfully goaded an indolent India into exploring its strategic options and display balancing behaviour more prominently than it has ever before.

Mindful of the power gap between the two, India has always been wary of offending Chinas heightened sensitivities as Cold War 2.0 intensifies between the US and China. However, as it remains locked militarily in the mountainous regions of Ladakh in response to Chinese penetrations on Indian claim lines, there have been subtle and not-so-subtle signalling by New Delhi in coordination with Washington indicating a calibrated pressure tactic.

Unlike during the 2017 Doklam standoff, the US has been vocal about Chinese transgressions on Indian territory with statements coming in from US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and stinging comments from Alice Wells, the outgoing principal deputy assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs in Donald Trump administration, who has castigated Chinas provocations and disturbing behaviour and the threat posed by China to the international system.

More recently, Eliot L Engel, chairman of the US house committee on foreign affairs, in a statement called out China for demonstrating once again that it is willing to bully its neighbors rather than resolve conflicts according to international law.

The Indian readout of the Narendra Modi-Donald Trump telephone conversation mentioned, rather unusually, that the situation on the India-China border and need for reforms in World Health Organisations were discussed (https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/32719/Telephone+conversation+between+Prime+Minister+and+President+of+USA )  issues that New Delhi understands may trigger China. And it did. Soon after the MEA released the statement, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in Beijing that the two sides are capable of properly resolving relevant issues through dialogue and consultation. There is no need for any third party to intervene. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1785528.shtml

China is insecure about a closer India-US strategic embrace, yet through its coercive behaviour it has hastened that very possibility. If the coordinated messaging with the US displayed Indias balancing behaviour to mitigate the heightened threat posed by Beijing, some of New Delhis diplomatic initiatives  coinciding with the standoff in Ladakh  denote that India is not unafraid to push some buttons as countermeasures to contains Chinese aggression, and is willing to engage more with middle powers to adopt a more resilient posture vis-a-vis China.

We saw MPs from BJP, the ruling party, virtually attend the swearing-in ceremony of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and send congratulatory messages and acting director general of India-Taipei Association represent India at the ceremony in Taipei. https://theprint.in/world/modi-govts-subtle-message-to-china-2-bjp-mps-attend-taiwan-presidents-swearing-in/426731/. Expectedly, Indias manouvre drew a sharp response from China. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/outraged-china-asks-india-to-refrain-from-supporting-taiwan-11590286367628.html

India-Australia and middle power coalition

Whereas in the past India has been coy of playing the Taiwan card, the development this time indicates that the Modi government is not averse to taking a more confrontational posture. The biggest indication that India is moving towards a nascent coalition of middle powers to balance the geopolitical risk posed by China came last week when prime minister Modi held a virtual summit with Australian prime minister Scott Morrison.

Among the many headlines that emerged from the interaction, worth noting is the elevation of bilateral ties into comprehensive strategic partnership and the signing of a military logistics pact that will enable greater interoperability between the two navies and allow military ships and aircraft access to each others bases.

Ironically, the greater synergy between the two Indo-Pacific democracies is being underwritten by China.

While Beijing has been constantly harassing India at the border, challenging New Delhis regional interests, dragging India to the United Nations over New Delhis decision to abrogate Article 370, blocking Indias bid to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group, collaborating with Pakistan to keep India off-balance in the South Asian theatre, China has also sought to punish Australia  by exploiting its economic leverage  for Canberras move to seek a probe into the origins of the pandemic, and for resisting Chinese interference and espionage in Australias domestic policies and politics.

As Sydney Morning Herald wrote after China threatened trade boycott and Chinese state-controlled media called Australia a chewing gum stuck on the sole of Chinas shoes, the virus, and the Chinese Communist Partys conduct, have exposed the urgent imperative for Australia to diversify its risk and defend its sovereignty.

Consequently, Chinas bullying tactics is now shaping the external posture of India and Australia and the middle powers are now deepening military integration and cooperating across a range of different issues including maritime security for a free and open Indo-Pacific, defence, supply chains, critical minerals, terrorism, agriculture, water resource management, education, culture, tourism, economic ties and the works.

In releasing a joint statement on shared vision for maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, and upgrading the 2+2 format to the level of foreign and defence ministers to discuss strategic issues, the driving force behind the integration is clear.

If Modi-Morrison summit displayed a bold agenda and an even greater promise for mitigating the security challenge in Indo-Pacific, credit must go to China for helping India break its habitual inertia. As National University of Singapore director C Raja Mohan has written in Indian Express, geopolitical churn in the Indo-Pacific has opened up a massive space for consequential security cooperation between India and Australia. Delhi and Canberra know that neither of them can rely on the old formulae for securing their interests, thanks to the growing Chinese assertiveness and the uncertain US political trajectory.

Quad gets institutionalised

Meanwhile, the quad  the grouping of four Indo-Pacific democracies  met in a video conference on March 20 to discuss the pandemic and also included three new partners in New Zealand, Vietnam and South Korea  an arrangement that was called quad-plus in Indian media. As Heritage Foundation scholar Jeff Smith points out in National Interest, the Quad-Plus Dialogue assembles officials and experts from the Quad countries along with a rotating external partner to explore areas of common interest. These Plus partners have included the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, France, and Sri Lanka.

The weekly arrangement is focused on sharing best practices and collaborates on the pandemic response, covering issues like cooperation on vaccine development, challenges of stranded citizens, assistance to countries in need and mitigating the impact on the global economy, etc., according to a Ministry of External Affairs readout. However, this is also an indication that the quad mechanism is being formalized and institutionalised.

As ORF distinguished fellow Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan has pointed out, New Zealands move to join the grouping, albeit on the issue of pandemic response and Indias growing comfort with a platform that is vehemently opposed by China indicate that the strategic calculus of many nations has begun to change due to Chinas assertive behaviour.

The very fact that there are more countries over the last year endorsing the Indo-Pacific concept is an indicator of things to come. ASEANs adoption of an Outlook on the Indo-Pacific in 2019, following previous reticence to explicitly use the Indo-Pacific formulation, is a telling example. The slow but steady institutionalisation of the Quad suggests that its future expansion is a real possibility.

Worth noting, in this context, the telephone conversation between PM Modi and Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday.

Had a useful exchange with President Rodrigo Duterte about COVID-19 and other issues. I thanked him for taking care of the Indian community in the Philippines.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 9, 2020

Modi described the conversation as useful where Covid-19 and other issues were discussed. An MEA statement on the telephone conversation mentions defence cooperation and the fact that India sees the Philippines as a vital partner in the Indo-Pacific Region.

Under Duterte, the Philippines, a US ally, has relied on bandwagoning with China to secure its interests. That still hasnt saved the Philippines from Chinese wrath. What we see therefore is increasing pragmatism from littoral nations to contain the outcome of Chinas aggressive rise.

Similarly, Chinese military posturing and economic coercion has forced Japan to foster an alliance based on middle power solidarity. Notably, this change in posture is happening despite the fact that many of these nations such as Japan, Australia, South Korea have huge economic exposure to China and their economies are at risk of falling prey to Chinese belligerence.

Therefore, these middle powers are likely to forge solidarity based on the twin planks of maritime and economic security. As a Japan Times article points out, To grapple with the growing challenge of economic coercion by Beijing, Japan should forge a consensus with other middle powers This grouping would help diversify the economic and trade portfolios of participating countries so they are not so deeply affected by the deployment of economic coercion as a tool to cajole and extort states when they disagree with Beijing.

We see some of this strategy at work in the India-Australia alignment. Finally, Chinas strategy of picking a fight with everyone will have long-term consequences. In Asia, China has risked antagonizing India that has a proud civilizational heritage, a billion-plus population of young age and a growing middle-class  factors that had aided Chinas rise. It is a myopic strategy.
LONGMEADOW - Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday nominated Edward J. McDonough of Longmeadow for a return to the Massachusetts Superior Court as an associate justice.

McDonough has spent more than two years as a judge with the state Appeals Court after having been nominated for that post by Baker in 2017. He previously served as an associate justice on the Superior Court from 2013 to 2017 following his appointment by then-Gov. Deval Patrick.

"Justice McDonoughs decades of experience and prior term as an Associate Justice of the Superior Court makes him qualified to return to this role, Baker said in a statement. I am pleased to submit this candidate to the Governors Council for their advice and consent.

Before his appointment to the bench, he spent 32 years as a trial attorney. He started in 1981 as an associate attorney with the Springfield firm of Egan, Flanagan & Cohen P.C., where he would rise to become a managing partner.

As a trial lawyer, he focused on civil rights law, product liability, and medical malpractice, and he argued cases before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Massachusetts Appeals Court, First Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court.

McDonough is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts in 1977 and graduated with top honors from the Western New England College of Law in 1981.

He served as a member of the adjunct faculty for Bay Path University and Elms College.

McDonough was born in Worcester, but raised in Springfield.

Massachusetts Superior Court has 82 judges who serve in the 20 courts across the state.
He heaped praise on the western zones personnel for their efforts to counteract criminal elements, smuggling gangs, and infiltrators, as well as to safeguard the country and its territorial integrity

Egypts Armed Forces are at the highest level of readiness to face all dangers and challenges and to secure the borders in all strategic directions, as well as to help state institutions fight coronavirus, the chief-of-staff of the Egyptian Army Lt. General Mohamed Farid has said.

Farid held a meeting on Wednesday with a number of commanders, officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers in the western military zone, according to a statement issued by the military spokesman.

He heaped praise on the western zones personnel for their efforts to counteract criminal elements, smuggling gangs, and infiltrators, as well as to safeguard the country and its territorial integrity.

Farid also conveyed the greetings of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Military Production Mohamed Zaki.

The chief-of-staff also listened to the opinions and inquiries of the western zone's personnel about different challenges that are facing Egypt, hailing what he described as their awareness about all the current events and their impacts on Egypt's national security.

He added that the Armed Forces' strength increases day-by-day in terms of weapons and equipment, as well as in terms of the high morale of troops and their ability to implement all the tasks assigned to them.

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ST. PETERSBURG, FL  When the coronavirus pandemic hit, many local businesses were slapped with unexpected struggles and severe financial loss as the economy closed. The first thing the owner of Atwater's Best BBQ & Soul Food thought is that he wanted to help put food on the table for children in St. Petersburg.

"I was prepared, and the first thing that came to my mind is that kids got to eat," Eric Atwater told Patch. "So I put my money together and went and bought some meat, fresh vegetables and some supplies to feed my community and the kids in the community."

Atwater has a big, homemade sign outside his business at 895 22nd Ave. South that says, "Kids Eat Free."

There isn't a stop date set for feeding the kids. Atwater wants to give youths nourishment for as long as possible.

He said he's also given free food to adults in the community who have struggled to afford groceries since losing their jobs due to busines closings and layoffs.

"At a bad time, it's been a great experience, and God is good," he said.

He said his business has not suffered financial loss during the pandemic.

His restaurant is a family-owned business that his grandparents started in south St. Pete in 1952. Atwater laughed as he said he's been in the business since the day he was born, and because of decades of community support for their business, he is thankful that he can give back to the community during difficult times.

His son and daughter are employed at the restaurant working alongside Atwater.

"We have had so many people helping us help the community with their donations, too," he said. "It's like coronavirus brought my community together."

In addition to barbecue ribs, Atwater's has fish, crab and chicken sandwiches among other dishes on their menu.

Visit their Facebook page to learn more about Atwater's.

This article originally appeared on the St. Pete Patch
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday discussed the possibility of expanding bilateral collaboration in health technology, defence and information technology.

During a phone conversation, the two leaders agreed the post-Covid world would create further avenues for mutually beneficial partnerships in many areas, according to a readout from the external affairs ministry.

They discussed potential areas in which India and Israel could expand cooperation in the context of the pandemic, including research and development in vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

They agreed to maintain the ongoing exchanges between expert teams of both countries, and also concurred that the fruits of such collaboration should be made available for the wider benefit of humanity, the statement said.

In particular, they assessed tremendous scope for expanding the already robust India-Israel collaboration in areas like health technology, agricultural innovation, defence cooperation and information technology, it added.

Modi reiterated his congratulations to Netanyahu for his recent assumption of office, and said the bilateral partnership would continue to flourish under his leadership and guidance. The two leaders agreed to remain in touch to share assessments and consult each other on emerging opportunities and challenges in the changing global scenario.

Modi also spoke on the phone with Cambodias Prime Minister Hun Sen and discussed the Covid-19 pandemic. They agreed to continue ongoing cooperation to help each others expatriates and facilitate their evacuation.

India is committed to strengthening its ties with Cambodia, an important member of Asean, Modi said.

The leaders reviewed the bilateral development partnership, including capacity building programmes and quick impact projects under the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation framework.
LUSAKA, June 10 (Reuters) - Zambia on Wednesday said mines ministry officials will, starting next month, personally collect samples from mine sites around the country to prevent mining companies seeking to undervalue their production to pay less taxes.

The ministry said some mineral exporters deliberately submit low-grade samples to the state laboratory, causing an undervaluation of mineral exports and depriving the government of mineral royalty tax revenue.

"The loss of revenue could amount to hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars per export, depending on the discrepancy in mineral grade between the sample and the consignment being exported," Barnaby Mulenga, permanent secretary at the ministry of mines, said in a statement.

The change, which takes effect on July 1, means the ministry will no longer accept samples submitted by exporters and is the latest push by Zambia's government to squeeze more revenue from the mining sector.

Mining accounts for more than 70% of Zambia's foreign exchange earnings, an income that has become even more critical as the COVID-19 pandemic hits the economy.

Africa's second-largest copper producer, Zambia is also trying to diversify its revenue base by boosting its gold production, and making copper mining companies account for the gold they produce as a by-product.

Companies operating in Zambia include First Quantum Minerals , Glencore, Barrick Gold and Vedanta Resources.

None of them had any immediate comment. (Reporting by Chri Mfula; writing by Helen Reid; editing by Barbara Lewis)
The World Economic Forum, in partnership with the Bahrain Economic Development Board, has launched a new Roadmap for Cross-Border Data Flows to help drive global tech-based collaboration.

The framework helps countries and regions embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution at a time when restrictions on data movement pose serious threats to the global digital economy, said a statement.

By following the recommendations set out in the Roadmap, policymakers can build best-practice legislations and harness the economic and social benefits of data-reliant technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain, it said.

The practical Roadmap includes country-level policy building blocks designed to harness the benefits and minimise the risks of cross border data sharing. For some countries, such as Bahrain, small upgrades will be necessary as they have inspired the core principles by their own actions, whereas for others the framework may represent a full-suite starting point, it said.

Bahrains interest in the project stems from the recent introduction of national policy frameworks to facilitate data flow across borders and improve overall soft infrastructure, including the introduction of a data jurisdiction law allowing foreign governments to maintain their jurisdictions over data stored in Bahrain-based data centres.

The report was launched through a webinar featuring Kamal Ahmed, Bahrains Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications and Mohammed AlQaed, Chief Executive of the Information and eGovernment Authority (IGA), as well as contributions from Leanne Kemp, CEO of Everledger, and the national heads of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution for Colombia, Rwanda and Japan.

Speaking at the launch, Kamal Ahmed said: The free flow of data is critical for Bahrain and the wider GCC. Not only can it empower the region and enable it to compete in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but the proliferation of new technologies enhances our competitiveness and ability to attract innovation.

I am very pleased that Bahrain has partnered with the Forum and so many distinguished companies to push this issue up the agenda, and I hope that countries can come together to form a data-flow taskforce that steers our collective through the adoption of the recommendations within the roadmap.

We are strongly committed to the new Roadmap and want to lead the way to ensure that the entire region can prosper by balancing the risks and the rewards of the data economy.

AlQaed said: As this report highlights, while the flow of information across borders has always accompanied the movement and trade of goods, the growth of internet-based services and eCommerce, as well as the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and Blockchain, are exceptionally reliant on accessing and processing high-quality data.

Its important to raise awareness of the benefits of cross border data sharing and data privacy and security. Encouraging the open flow of business data through the right policies can help to end unnecessary escalations of operational costs and support innovative and collaborative business models.

Robust local privacy, cybersecurity and jurisdiction laws form the building blocks of our current regulatory framework, which we believe is future proof and interoperable with many others around the world. Bahrain, like a number of other nations, has prepared its digital economy well, but data needs to flow across borders safely and seamlessly if we are to retain our competitiveness, especially in the post-COVID era, he added.

Murat Sonmez, Managing Director, Head of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network, World Economic Forum, said: Creating effective policy on cross-border data flows is a priority. Now more than ever, cross-border data flows are key predicates for countries and regions that wish to compete in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

We hope that countries wishing to engage can feel confident in using the roadmap as a guide that balances the risks and benefits.

Data for the report was gathered from workshops around the world, including the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in 2020, the Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2019, and the Summit on the Middle East and North Africa in 2019.

The project was led by an expert working team including Sheila Warren, Head, Blockchain, Digital Assets and Data Policy and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum; Anne Josephine Flanagan, Project Lead, Data Policy at the World Economic Forum; and Nada Al Saeed, Senior Manager at the Bahrain Economic Development Board. Close collaboration with private enterprise was a key factor in the successful development of the Roadmap, with a Steering Committee co-chaired by Lothar Determann, Partner at Baker McKenzie; and Leanne Kemp, Chief Executive Officer at Everledger. TradeArabia News Service
Brie Larson can be seen in more than just the MCU movies on Disney+. The service also shows off her adventurers side with the National Geographic special she did with Bear Grylls.

As Marvel fans make their way through the movies, theyll find the MCU actors popping up in unexpected places. In addition to the National Geographic show and the Captain Marvel appearances, Disney+ also serves up one of the actresss early vehicles before she was a household name.

How did Brie Larson get famous?

Brie Larson | Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET

RELATED: Is Captain Marvel Brie Larson the Only Avenger Who Has an Oscar?

Like her Marvel castmate Scarlett Johansson, Larson got her start as a child actress, with one of her first gigs being in a Jay Leno skit called Roadkill Easy-Bake Oven.

Her star gradually rose in recent years, with the actress gaining attention through her performances in movies such as Short Term 12 Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and The Spectacular Now.

Then she won an Oscar for Room, where she played the mother of a young boy whose only sense of the world came from a room he and her mother had been trapped in by her kidnappers from there. It wasnt long after that Marvel announced her as Captain Marvel, and her fame kicked up several notches.

Before all that, however, at age 13 she starred in a 2003 movie called Right on Track, and thats on Disney+. The movie is led by Beverly Mitchell, with Larson playing her sister. The girls become famous for being very unlikely drag racers, with Larson following in Mitchells footsteps. So even back then, Larson was an athlete of sorts.

Brie Larson has an adventurous streak

When Larson promotes her Marvel movies, the show shes on sometimes highlights the physical training she undergoes to be the most powerful hero in the MCU. Larson has parlayed that physicality into an appearance on National Geographic, which is owned by Disney. That was Running Wild with Bear Grylls, episodes of which are on Disney+.

According to E! Online, Larsons episode took her to the Gulf of Panama, where she spends 48 hours with Grylls. Their hijinks include jumping from a helicopter to the ocean, and then they trek through a crocodile-filled mangrove swamp that quickly becomes a maze with the rising tide.

One of those shows also features climber Alex Honnold, with whom Larson became acquainted. Honnold is best known as the subject of the documentary Free Solo, wherein he climbs the 3.200-foot cliff El Capitan in Yosemite National Park using only his bare hands.

Larson is not in that documentary, but the Oscar-winning documentary is on Disney+ too, and its well worth a look.

Where else can you find Brie Larson?

RELATED: Why Brie Larsons Captain Marvel Didnt Play a Bigger Role in Avengers: Endgame

Larsons most recent movie was Just Mercy, in which she played a legal assistant to a team trying to free a man wrongfully convicted of murder. The movie features fellow Marvel veterans Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx and has been made available for free.

Its studio, Warner Bros., is one of several trying to raise awareness of racism in the wake of the death of George Floyd, which sparked an international firestorm.

According to Variety, Larson said at a Hollywood lunch last year:

When hope is in the room, curiosity and introspection of even the harshest realities can be interrogated. So I ask: where can you gain to listen and where can you bring hope? Can you help us to live in a hope that exists as not just a thought, but a process of ceaseless effort? We all have busy lives, but I can guarantee you that you can do more,

Larson will return as Captain Marvel in the sequel to her 2019 blockbuster, with the second movie scheduled for release in July of 2022.
OTTAWA - Canada wants Iran to explain why it still hasn't handed over the black boxes from the Ukrainian jetliner that was shot down by Iranian military near Tehran on Jan. 8, Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Wednesday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In this Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 photo, wreckage from a Ukrainian plane is seen on the ground and inside a water canal in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran. Transport Minister Marc Garneau says Canada wants Iran to explain why it hasn't yet handed over the black boxes from the Ukrainian jetliner that crashed near Tehran on Jan. 8. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Ebrahim Noroozi

OTTAWA - Canada wants Iran to explain why it still hasn't handed over the black boxes from the Ukrainian jetliner that was shot down by Iranian military near Tehran on Jan. 8, Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Wednesday.

Garneau delivered a short speech to the International Civil Aviation Organization council Wednesday morning, where he noted it has been 92 days since Iran told the United Nations agency it would hand over the devices.

"Canada would appreciate an update to this council from Iran on its plans to transfer the flight recorders as a demonstration of continued commitment to a full and transparent investigation," Garneau said.

Iran initially denied having anything to do with the crash, which killed all 176 passengers and crew. Several days later Iran admitted its military had mistaken the plane for a hostile object in the middle of military tensions with the United States. There were 55 Canadians and 30 permanent residents killed, while 138 of the passengers in total were travelling to Canada via Kyiv, many of them returning to school and work after the December holiday.

The ICAO is a specialized agency of the UN that co-ordinates international standards for civilian aircraft. Among its policies are the best practices for conducting investigations of accidents involving civil aircraft.

On March 11, at a previous meeting of the council, Iran's representative Farhad Parvaresh, told the council members it would hand over the data and voice recorders from Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 within two weeks. That has not happened.

Initially the devices were to go to Ukraine, and if they could not do the analysis then they would go to France, which has the equipment needed to get the data. Canadian officials were to be present when the data was analyzed.

"While we recognize the impact of the global pandemic, Canada fully expects Iran to live up to its commitment and the ICAO standards set out in Annex 13," Garneau said. "We expect the analysis of the flight recorders be done as soon as possible, and in a way that protects the health of all technical experts."

The devices are damaged and the technology to download and analyze the data they contain is not available in Iran. For more than two months Iran insisted that France should send the technology to Iran for the analysis and France said that was not possible.

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The ICAO council is also discussing Canada's proposal for a Safer Skies strategy, to better manage how civil aircraft operate in areas of military conflict. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first discussed the initiative at the Munich Security Conference in February.

The work for the strategy first began after the July 2014 crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from pro-Russian, separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine. There were 298 people killed, most of them Dutch nationals.

Trudeau said in February the recommendations from that crash to better protect civilian planes flying in conflict zones needed to be implemented. The Safer Skies strategy now being considered by ICAO is part of that process. The main ask is for a full analysis of what gaps remain in assessing the risks to aircraft flying over conflict zones, managing those risks and what the responsibilities are for airline operators.

"Our common goal is to ensure the world never lives through a similar tragedy again," said Garneau.

ICAO has developed a working paper to push the strategy forward but Garneau's spokeswoman said Wednesday the details of the plan are not yet publicly available.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2020.
[June 10, 2020] Nobel Laureate, Top Physicists Join Hebrew University's "Einstein: Visualize The Impossible" Project

NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- At a time when science has never been more essential for the advancement and improvement of humanity, a team of visionaries has signed on to chart the course of a platform for a broader understanding of Albert Einstein's contributions to mankind. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem plans "Einstein: Visualize the Impossible" as an immersive digital engagement platform, and eventual live exhibition, in celebration of the centennial of Einstein's 1921 Nobel Prize in physics. Einstein was one of the founding fathers of the Hebrew University, which is now the home of his archival documents. Visitors will browse through the archive digitally to discover the stories behind his greatest breakthroughs and 'converse' with Einstein himself in an interactive original AI video. They will also explore playful interactive digital spaces, where they can manipulate time and space to understand Einstein's groundbreaking theories. The advisory board, still in formation, includes: Dr. David Gross , 2004 Nobel Prize winner and Chancellor's Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara

2004 Nobel Prize winner and Chancellor's Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara Dr. Margaret Honey , President and CEO, New York Hall of Science

President and CEO, New York Hall of Science Dr. Avi Loeb , Chair, Department of Astronomy, Harvard University

, Chair, Department of Astronomy, Dr. Alan Lightman , Novelist, Physicist, and Professor of Humanities, MIT

, Novelist, Physicist, and Professor of Humanities, Dr Michael Shara , Curator, Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History

, Curator, Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History David Levin , Entrepreneur in Residence, Arizona State University and Chairman, SparkBeyond

, Entrepreneur in Residence, and Chairman, SparkBeyond Ann Druyan , Emmy and Peabody Award-winning American writer, producer, and director specializing in the communication of science

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning American writer, producer, and director specializing in the communication of science Dr. Hanoch Gutfreund , Former President of the Hebrew University and Academic Director, Einstein Center and the Albert Einstein Archives



Albert Einstein to audiences across the United States and around the world," said Dr. Gutfreund. For more information go to www.einstein100.com.

About The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israel's leading academic and research institution. Serving 23,000 students from 80 countries, it produces a third of Israel's civilian research and is ranked 12th worldwide in biotechnology patent filings and commercial development. Faculty and alumni of the Hebrew University have won eight Nobel Prizes and a Fields Medal since 2000. The Hebrew University has 302 academic agreements with institutions in 44 countries; 78 competitive research grants from the European Research Council (ERC) since 2007; student exchange agreements with 56 institutions in 24 countries; 90 courses for the study of some 30 languages; 177 postdoctoral researchers from 26 countries; and an annual enrollment of approximately 2,000 students from 80 countries at the Rothberg International School. For more about The Hebrew University, see http://new.huji.ac.il/en. Contact:

Dukas Linden Public Relations

Adam Dickter

(646) 808-3700 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nobel-laureate-top-physicists-join-hebrew-universitys-einstein-visualize-the-impossible-project-301073770.html SOURCE American Friends of the Hebrew University

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(Newser)  BabyNames.com has dropped the usual pink and blue name rankings from its homepage to make a moving statement in support of Black Lives Matter. In what CNN describes as a "relatively unexpected message" from the popular site, the page features a black box listing dozens of slain black Americansfrom Emmett Till to George Floydand the statement: "Each of these names was somebody's baby." Most of the men, women, and children listed were killed by police though some, including Till, were murdered by civilians. The site, the latest in an ever-growing list of brands to state their support for the movement after Floyd's death, says it "stands in solidarity with the black community," reports the Hill. (Read more Black Lives Matter stories.)
Thousands rallied in downtown Los Angeles on June 5 to protest the death of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

As so many progressive-minded policing experts have noted, the stars are aligned in a once-in-a-generation moment for major systemic reform. The inclination to shoot for the moon and stars is more than understandable: If not now, when?

I am not a professional student of policing. As a former U.S. attorney, I have spent time with good cops and with not-so-good cops, and I have prosecuted bad cops whose crimes were particularly repugnant to civil society.

My experience leads me to repeat a statement that has been said often in the last two weeks: A majority of police officers are dedicated and honest, and their peacekeeping work is important, necessary and incredibly difficult. Anyone in law enforcement over the last quarter-century or so knows that progress among the rank and file has been substantial, especially in some high-profile jurisdictions, including Los Angeles.

We've heard a related statement from some quarters in recent days, that police brutality against Black people is not systemic but merely the work of "bad apples." That argument whiffs on the core problem: Systemic features and practices enable those bad apples and make it insanely difficult to throw them from the barrel. Thats one reason that the rate of fatal interactions with police officers has stayed depressingly constant over the years, at about 1,100 per year.

A lot of people  fellow cops, police brass, members of the community  know who the bad apples are. Deadly assaults with unreasonable force rarely come out of the blue. Certainly they didnt with Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis; he had 17 complaints on his record, yet perversely was not only on the beat but assigned to train other officers.

The tumultuous events of the last fortnight illustrate the broader issue. Minneapolis has a famously progressive police chief, who has the support of the mayor and governor. But that didn't keep Chauvin off the streets.

One systemic problem: The political power, zeal and mind-set of police unions, which can all but tie a department's hands in attempting to remove repeat offenders.

Story continues

Police unions use their money  the power of political donations  to protect their members jobs and, given the nature of those jobs, to keep them out of jail. They win contracts with cities and counties that include tools that defeat transparency and accountability. National legislation aimed, to the extent possible, at breaking unions hammerlock on these issues  for example by vesting chiefs or local independent review boards with the authority to override the unions  will occasion a mad battle on Capitol Hill, but it is the fight worth having.

Another systemic issue: wagon-circling and self-protection endemic to an us-versus-them attitude. A viral video from June 4 shows two officers in Buffalo, N.Y., needlessly push  assault  a 75-year-old man. (They have claimed he is a career agitator, which may be true, but still wouldnt justify the unreasonable force.) The officers were promptly suspended without pay and the district attorney filed charges, but not before the officers filed a blatantly false report, saying the victim had tripped and fallen. All 57 of their colleagues resigned from the Emergency Response Team in protest of the suspensions (they are seeking reassignment within the department).

Body cameras turned on all the time would go a long way toward undermining falsified reports. So would adopting a one-strike-youre-out firing policy for false reports. And chiefs need to hit back hard at wagon-circling conduct. These policies would, again, require disempowering police unions.

As to the much more far-reaching idea of defunding the police, I think some caution is in order. Shifting some responsibilities away from police to other specialists is logical and appropriate. For example, in Eugene, Ore., a team of medical and mental health professionals is dispatched to answer certain emergency calls. But the experience of the best and most engaged community policing programs suggests that what well-trained officers bring to situations  including the prospect of force  can help keep the peace.

Defunding proposals also cut directly against policies that underlie some of the biggest success stories in contemporary policing, where more involved and broadly skilled officers aim to become partners rather than occupying forces in the communities they work in. Civil rights attorney Connie Rice pointed out the gains community policing has made in Los Angeles in her Times op-ed Tuesday. Or see the many reports that attest to a turnaround in Camden, N.J., that started seven years ago.

It looks like Minneapolis will now adopt a root-and-branch restructuring of its police force. Its a virtue of our federalist system that we have the ability to conduct experiments in different policies in individual jurisdictions that then feed the national agenda. What happens next in Minneapolis may tell us how and if defunding the police should inform legislation in Congress.

The best development that could come out of the horrific killing of George Floyd would be reforms instituted locally, in statehouses and at the national level that would enact a true zero-tolerance policy for bad cops. To quote Chris Rock, Some jobs cant have bad apples.

@HarryLitman




Cora Metrick-Chen, a former Fat Rice employee, was one of the handful of people the Tribune interviewed who confirmed that Fat Rice had an English-only rule, a violation of the law unless the employer can show that they are justified by business necessity, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She shared an incident in which she watched Conlon berate and humiliate co-owner Adrienne Lo, and later found Lo crying in the office. Metrick-Chen also recounted a time when she started a sentence with um when asking Lo a question, resulting in Conlon cursing and screaming at her for being disrespectful. These kinds of occurrences were common, according to Tribune interviews, and many said that these conditions contributed to the high turnover rate at the restaurant.
Landlords will be permanently barred from evicting tenants if they cant pay rent due to coronavirus-related issues, like job loss or getting sick from the virus, under legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The legislation passed 10-1, with Supervisor Catherine Stefani in dissent.

Mayor London Breed already issued an emergency order banning evictions during the public health emergency  and for two months after  to help people avoid displacement during the pandemic. She also eliminated late fees and interest and gave tenants more time to pay back their rent.

But many still worried about the looming threat of eviction after the emergency order lifts. The legislation, written by Supervisor Dean Preston, does not waive unpaid rent, but instead makes the current moratorium permanent by forbidding landlords from ever using the missed rent as a reason for eviction  no matter when the public health emergency is lifted.

Absent this legislation, there can be little doubt that when the moratorium that we have in place expires, there will be thousands of filings to give tenants notice that they have three days to pay rent or quit, Preston said. We need to do everything in our power to avoid that fate.

This proposal drew several hours of public comment at Mondays Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting. While those in favor of the ordinance said its important to protect people from displacement during the pandemic, those against it worried about the strain it could put on landlords who still need to cover their own expenses.

Im a mom-and-pop business, Barbara Dwyer, who owns a three-unit building near Dolores Park, previously told The Chronicle. Dwyer said she already lowered her tenants rent by 10% at the beginning of the public health emergency. If my tenants were to decide to stop paying rent, I still have to pay my property taxes, utilities, insurance and cost of repairs.

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Preston said he would work to set up a Rent Resolution Fund to help landlords  particularly the small ones  offset the burden of unpaid rent. The bulk of that funding, he said, could come from a November ballot measure that he proposed last month to nearly double the citys transfer tax on residential and commercial real estate deals valued at $10 million or more.

However, that measure isnt on the ballot yet and would still need to be passed by voters in November.

Supervisor Norman Yee, who said he was torn on how to vote when it was his turn to speak at Tuesdays meeting, worried about how the city would generate the funds to help small landlords whose tenants are unable to pay.

I think it is crucial that we actually get this funding to alleviate the burden of the rent itself, he said. We should make sure that none of our residents  whether theyre landlords or tenants  get hurt from the pandemic itself.

Yee eventually decided to vote yes, after being reassured his colleagues were committed to finding the funds.

Meanwhile, Stefani, the lone no vote, said she believed the legislation would not stand up to legal challenges in court. As a result, she said she could not in good faith vote yes.

Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle

One of our greatest responsibilities with the Board of Supervisors is to safeguard the citys finances, she said. While well-intentioned ... I do believe it will lead to a costly lawsuit that the city will eventually lose.

Despite record job loss due to the pandemic, about 97% of residential tenants in San Francisco paid their May rent, according to a survey by the San Francisco Apartment Association. The survey encompassed 352 property owners or managers. While the survey is the largest of its kind, it represented only 13,961 San Francisco apartment units  or about 6% of the citys total rental stock.

Many tenants were likely able to pay their rent due to assistance from federal stimulus checks, and an extra $600 a week in unemployment compensation the federal Cares Act provided. But that assistance is set to expire in July.

As those out of work deal with accumulated debt and depleted savings, Supervisor Hillary Ronen called the legislation a common sense next step for the city.

The legislation will not erase tenant debt for unpaid back rent, she said. But it will forestall the immediate possibility of evictions, and what could otherwise be an unimaginable tragedy citywide.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
GARY, Ind., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With schools being closed since early spring, the normal pomp and stance that happens around this time of year have either been hosted online or canceled altogether due to COVID-19. However, Thea Bowman Leadership Academy has found a creative way to celebrate this momentous time by hosting a ceremony for graduating scholars at the Railcats Stadium in Gary, Indiana.

"The 2019-2020 school year has been far from normal this year. We miss our scholars very much and we are proud of what they have accomplished despite this challenging semester," said Thea Bowman principal Ms.Simmons. "We think it's important that our scholars and their families get to celebrate this academic milestone. We are happy to have found a way to safely do so amid the current pandemic."

Ms. Simmons also created a special message via youtube for all Thea Bowman 2020 graduates here: https://youtu.be/PsW7QRw61u8

Being mindful of social distancing, families will be able to celebrate and cheer on their scholars as they walk from third base to home plate on Thursday, June 11, 2020. Due to COVID-19 regulations, this is a private event. Each graduate is allowed two guests and the event will be streamed live on the Thea Bowman Leadership Academies Facebook page .

Press who would like to attend should contact Michelle McConnico at [email protected] . Press will be accommodated in the Railcats press box.

Date: Thursday, June 11, 2020

Times: 11:00 am, 12:15 pm, 1:30 pm, 2:45 pm

Place: Railcats Stadium, Gary, IN

SOURCE Phalen Leadership Academies

Related Links

www.phalenacademies.org


As Massachusetts industries continue to reopen as part of Gov. Charlie Bakers four-phased plan, the MBTA will also begin to ramp up ridership.

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority is working to return service levels to what they were prior to the coronavirus pandemic, but the process could take two weeks beginning on June 21.

Service for the MBTA ferry and commuter rail will see increases on June 22.

As the commonwealth continues its reopening phases and we begin boosting service for all modes, we will continue to protect the riding public and our workforce through enhanced safety protocols, including cleaning and sanitizing our stations and vehicles, MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said in a statement. Thank you to MBTA riders for their patience during these challenging times and for wearing face coverings while using the system. I also want to reiterate my deep appreciation to our frontline workforce, who have come to work every day throughout the pandemic in order to provide essential transit services.

Blue Line - Effective June 21, regular weekday service with trains every 5 to 9 minutes

Orange Line - Effective June 21, increased weekday service with trains every 6 to 9 minutes

Red Line between Alewife and JFK/UMass - Effective June 21, increased weekday service with trains every 4.5 to 7 minutes

Red Line Ashmont and Braintree Branches - Effective June 21, increased weekday service with trains every 9 to 14 minutes

Green Line - Effective June 21, increased weekday service with trolleys every 6 to 11 minutes on the branches; more frequent service on the trunk

Bus - Effective June 21, increased Saturday schedule on weekdays for nearly 60 routes, focusing service on high-demand routes

Ferry - Effective June 22, limited weekday Hingham/Hull and Charlestown service - full schedule will be made available in advance at mbta.com

Commuter Rail - Effective June 22, increased service - full schedules available at mbta.com

Mattapan Line - Effective June 21, increased weekday service with trolleys every 5 to 12 minutes; added weekend service

The RIDE - Full service

Most MTBA bus routes, the Silver Line, the Red Line, Orange Line and most of the Green Line are all running limited Saturday schedule service on weekdays. The MBTA providing Saturday service with increased frequency to reflect ridership demand on the Blue Line and Green Line E Branch.

As part of Bakers four-phased plan, the MBTA is expected to return to full service in phase three. It was scheduled in phase two, which began Monday, for the MBTA to increase service as well. It looks now that increased service wont occur until step two of phase two.

The MBTA has experienced extreme drops in ridership amid the coronavirus pandemic. At the end of April, it said ridership was down 95% when compared to pre-pandemic levels.

It anticipated losses of more than $200 million this fiscal year even with federal help from the CARES Act.

As part of the $25 billion being distributed nationwide to help struggling mass transit systems, the MBTA will receive $827 million from the federal CARES Act.

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Indonesian sailors show pictures of their work as crew members on a Chinese-flagged ship where they said they experienced abusive working conditions, Feb. 21, 2019.

Authorities were investigating suspected forced labor on a Chinese fishing boat after two Indonesians jumped overboard into Malacca Strait waters to escape alleged mistreatment, a foreign ministry official in Jakarta said Wednesday.

The incident, which occurred late last week, followed a spate of deaths of Indonesian crew members who had worked aboard Chinese boats  seven since November 2019, according to a fishermens advocacy group and Indonesian government officials.

Andry Juniansyah, 30, and Reynalfi, 22, jumped from the Chinese-flagged ship Lu Qing Yuan Yu 901 as it sailed in the Malacca Strait on Friday, according to Judha Nugraha, the director for protection of Indonesians overseas at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two were rescued off Karimun, an island in Indonesias Riau Islands province, and taken there on Saturday after drifting for seven hours in the sea.

They are now in good health. We are still delving into the case together with the National Police, Judha told an online news conference.

Andrys wife, Fenny, said her husband had left the country with help from a North Sumatra recruiting agency after he was promised a job and a large salary with a South Korean company.

But in reality, Andry was sent to a Chinese ship, Fenny said in an online discussion organized by Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) Indonesia, a non-profit organization that defends the rights of marine workers.

Andry gave the agent a security deposit of 50 million rupiah (U.S. $3,500) before he left, according to his wife.

Since they left on Jan. 24, 2020, they never received a salary from the recruiting company, DFW Indonesia coordinator Mohammad Abdi Suhufan said.

Abdi said the two men were verbally and physically abused at sea, and forced to work long hours without breaks.

Their mobile phones were confiscated, preventing them from communicating with their families, he said.

Officials at the Karimun Tebing Police Station could not be immediately reached for comment. Arie Dharmanto, the chief criminal investigator in the Riau Islands, told local media that the sailors had not given a full account of their ordeal because they were still in a state of shock.

Judha said most Indonesians who worked on fishing boats had no proper work papers, making them vulnerable to exploitation.

If we want to provide better protection, we must start from the beginning of the recruitment. We need to understand that many of our fishing boat workers did not follow the proper procedure, he said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Agency (BP2MI), Benny Ramdhani, said he was seeking a human trafficking investigation.

I have requested a report from a BP2MI representative who is accompanying the men to provide a basis of the report to Criminal Investigation Bureau, he said.

Fishing boat deaths

Officials said seven Indonesians working on Chinese fishing boats had died since last November. The most recent case involved a 26-year-old who died aboard a Pakistani boat in May, two months after being removed from a Chinese boat after suffering health problems indicative of forced labor, officials and activists said.

Earlier that month, DFW revealed that an Indonesian fisherman named Herdianto, had died on a Chinese fishing boat, Luqing Yuan Yu 623, in January and his body was tossed into Somali waters a week later.

Indonesian police launched an investigation into Herdiantos death after officials complained to the Chinese government about the deaths of four other Indonesians who had allegedly worked in harsh conditions on Chinese fishing boats. Three of the corpses were thrown overboard, a crew member said in an interview with South Korean media.

The fourth man died in a South Korean hospital.

BenarNews had not reported the death of Taufik Ubaidilah, who died on a Chinese fishing boat in November 2019 and whose corpse was thrown overboard, according to DFW.

In early May, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi condemned the alleged mistreatment of the Indonesian sailors and summoned Chinas ambassador to Jakarta to respond to her concerns.

The government has a strong commitment to resolve this case thoroughly, she said at the time, adding that Indonesia and China would set up a joint investigation into the allegations of abuse.

Since then, Indonesian police reported arresting five people from four local agencies who were allegedly recruiting workers for that boat and a second one, Long Xin 629. Officials said charges have not been filed against them.

At least 1,095 cases of violence and slave-like conditions experienced by Indonesian sailors and fishermen at home and abroad were recorded during 2019, Judha said.

He said the Beijing had assured Jakarta that cases of alleged forced labor involving Indonesians aboard Chinese boats were being investigated there.

But we have not received further updates regarding the investigations, Judha said.

The Chinese Embassy in Jakarta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
HOUSTON  A federal judge has temporarily stopped President Donald Trumps administration from expelling a teenager to Honduras under a policy enacted during the coronavirus pandemic that didnt give the teen a chance under federal law to stay in the United States.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups, the 16-year-old had been scheduled to be expelled Wednesday, six days after he entered the U.S. to reunite with his father. The ACLU says the boy fled because gang members threatened him after he saw one of them kill someone in his neighborhood.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington issued an order late Tuesday preventing the government from expelling the teenager through the end of the day Wednesday as litigation is pending. The teen was not identified by name in court papers.

Another federal judge also in Washington, Carl Nichols, proposed Wednesday that the boy be allowed to remain the country for two weeks to allow time for formal arguments at a court hearing. Details were to be worked out.

This lawsuit is a critical step to begin repairing the damage being done by these harmful attacks against our common humanity, said Noah Gottschalk, a spokesman for the nonprofit Oxfam America, which joined the lawsuit.

The ACLU also sued on behalf of a 13-year-old girl who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in April, asking a judge to allow her back into the U.S. She had hoped to reunite with her mother, a former police officer targeted by Salvadoran gangs who now lives lawfully in the country. According to the ACLU, agents detained the teenager for a week in a Border Patrol processing center and a hotel, then expelled her to El Salvador.

The Border Patrol did not respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.

The cases are the first known challenges of the Trump administrations expulsion of hundreds of immigrant children at the border under an emergency declaration citing the coronavirus. Trumps administration says that under federal law on public health emergencies it must close the border to asylum seekers  including children  to prevent the spread of the virus.

Under federal law, border agents would typically take youth originally from outside Canada and Mexico to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which places unaccompanied migrant children with sponsors, usually family members. In the case of the 16-year-old from Honduras, agents detained him in a detention center, then a hotel, without giving him the chance to request asylum, according to the ACLU. The boy is in good health and has shown no signs of COVID-19, according to the group.

Opponents of Trumps clampdown on immigration say the coronavirus is a pretext to accomplish a long-held goal of his administration: shutting down asylum at the southern border.

This is more extreme than any other border policy weve seen from the administration, said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU lawyer. Gelernt argued that the ACLUs lawsuit challenging thousands of family separations that led to a federal judges June 2018 order mandating that parents and children be reunited.

Under a 2008 anti-trafficking law and a federal court settlement known as the Flores agreement, children from countries other than Canada and Mexico must have access to legal counsel and cannot be immediately deported. They are also supposed to be released to family in the U.S. or otherwise held in the least restrictive setting possible. The rules are intended to prevent children from being mistreated or falling into the hands of criminals.

Health and Human Services provides services for immigrant children who are first apprehended by border agents. Since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its March 20 order restricting immigration, the process of referring children to HHS has been almost entirely shut down.

Thousands of children are typically apprehended by the Border Patrol monthly crossing from Mexico, according to the agencys statistics. In April, the Border Patrol processed 166 children as unaccompanied minors, meaning they would be taken to HHS youth holding facilities and allowed to stay in the U.S. at least temporarily, and expelled the remaining 600.

HHS is currently receiving about one child a day, spokesman Mark Weber said.
"Turkeys participation in the BALTOPS 2020 is an interesting development against the backdrop of a thriving connection between Ankara and Moscow, as the BALTOPS exercise intends to deter Russian activities in the Baltic Sea. Turkeys relations with NATO has been under stress since the country was officially removed from the F-35 program amid the purchase of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia. Many even feared that Turkey-NATO ties would be severed completely. However, Turkeys engagement with NATO in exercises such as BALTOPS indicates otherwise.

Turkeys strategic interests are more intertwined with NATO as compared to Russia. In fact, Turkeys success in the launch of a major counteroffensive against Russia-backed Syrian Government forces in Idlib in March 2020 is attributed to its leveraging of NATO assets such as AWAC aircrafts. To protect its skies, Turkey had also deployed Spanish Patriot air defense systems near its border with Syria. As Ankaras involvement in the Syrian war escalates, it will continue to depend on the NATO assets to protect its interests in the region.

NATOs dependence on Turkey is amplified by the fact that the country has the second largest military force among all the alliance members, and it hosts US nuclear weapons at Incirlik Air Base. In addition, Turkeys strategic location between Asia and Europe gives ready access to Mediterranean and Black seas. NATO is unlikely to give up these advantages it enjoys with Turkey being one of its members.

Events such as BALTOPS will certainly help to improve relations between Turkey and their NATO allies. The 10-day event will further align Turkeys operational procedures with its NATO counterparts and increase its coordination with other participants. This friendly overt event, involving several behind the scenes cooperation at NATO level, may show facets of normalising ties and reduction in the trust deficit that had developed in the past few years."
CROMWELL - Todd G. Gagnon, the Fire Districts long-time fire marshal, is being remembered as valued employee who served the town.

Gagnon, 58, died on May 22 at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford.

LeRoy Brow, the president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, issued a statement on behalf of the district, honoring Gagnon and his service to the district and the community.

Gagnon left a wife, Margie, five children, and seven grandchildren.

In his statement, Brow said Gagnon was not only a valued employee of the district, but he was my friend for over 30 years.

And not just a friend, Brow said.

He was my best friend here in Cromwell, Brow said.

Gagnon joined the fire department in 1989 as a firefighter and emergency medical technician, Brow said.

Gagnon became the fire marshal in 1994.

In that position, Brow said, Todd was instrumental in bringing our fire marshals office through many changes.

As just one example of those changes, Brow said, Starting off as an informal one-man operation, the office progressed to a six-man inspection and investigatory division.

Gagnon, who was a master electrician, also earned an assistant building official certificate. He was also a member of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 4662.

The services for Gagnon will be private.

As he died during what Brow described as this difficult and unexpected time, the notice of a public celebration of Gagnons life will be provided if and when such an event is appropriate.

In the meantime, I ask that his family be left to mourn privately, Brow said.

The family has asked that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the Wounded Warriors Project, P.O. Box 758517, Topeka, Kan., 66675-8517.

Sympathy cards can be mailed to the Local and will be hand-delivered to Todds family, Brow said.

The address is: Cromwell Professional Firefighters, P/O. Box 43, Crowell, 06416.

Meanwhile, Executive Director Julius C. Neto said the districts personnel committee is scheduled to meet June 25 to begin the process of finding a new fire marshal.
[June 10, 2020] Wolters Kluwer collaborates with American Diabetes Association to develop virtual alternative for the ADA's 80th Scientific Sessions

Wolters Kluwer, Health, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, has joined forces with the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and other collaborators to develop and virtually host its 80th Scientific Sessions: A Virtual Experience from June 12 through 16. The ADA's annual, in-person meeting has been transformed into a fully digital experience leveraging components of the Wolters Kluwer virtual conference solution offering. To create a fully immersive experience that delivers the same comprehensive, cutting-edge research and expertise to attendees, Wolters Kluwer delivered a solution that combines streamed presentations as well as prerecorded sessions that attendees can access on any device, at any time throughout the five day event and up to 90 days after the meeting. In total, Wolters Kluwer and the ADA worked together to turn more than 900 presentations into over 325 hours of digital content. Attendees will also have access to eAbstracts of the latest research studies and can visit a virtual poster hall, eBookstore and virtual exhibit hall, where attendees will be able to see information and interact with pharmaceutical, medical device and other various companies in the digital environment. Additionally, CME credits can be earned after the conclusion of the event. "We are honored to partner with the American Diabetes Association to help them achieve their vision of a virtual annual meeting that delivers on the Scientific Sessions' 80 years of connectivity and progress in an online etting," said Greg Samios, President and CEO, Wolters Kluwer, Health Learning, Research & Practice. "Conferences are a vital mechanism for societies to connect with their members and share the latest translational research for their medical specialty. We developed a virtual meeting solution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic so societies like the ADA have the opportunity to continue to inform and engage their members and attendees in a new digital format."



An OnDemand version with additional content will be available to anyone who missed the event. For more information about the American Diabetes Association's 80th Scientific Sessions: A Virtual Experience, please visit ADA2020.org.

Read this story on our website. About Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer (WKL) is a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the clinicians, nurses, accountants, lawyers, and tax, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and regulatory sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with advanced technology and services. Wolters Kluwer reported 2019 annual revenues of 4.6 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. Wolters Kluwer provides trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students with advanced clinical decision support, learning and research and clinical intelligence. For more information about our solutions, visit http://healthclarity.wolterskluwer.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter (News - Alert) @WKHealth. For more information, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005180/en/

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Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has hints of government plan to open the countrys borders for final year foreign students to return following the reopening of schools for final year students.

Final year students will be allowed in, arrangements are being done with the Ministry of Education. You know schools are closed except for final year students. So for final year foreign or international students, my understanding is that the Education Ministry has said that they can engage with the various school authorities and some arrangements can be made for them. So for final year international students, that arrangement can be made through the specific institutions in collaboration with the ministry in charge of education, Oppong Nkrumah said on GTVs #AskTheInfoMinistry programme on Tuesday.

Eased restrictions

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 10th televised address to the state announced the easing of some of the restrictions imposed on the country including the reopening of schools solely for final year students.

However, there have been concerns about the fate of final year foreign students who left the country before the closure of the borders in Mach 2020.

The countrys borders were shut as part of measures put in place to check the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Ghana.

President Akufo-Addo said the countrys borders were to remain shut even though measures have been put in place to bring Ghanaians stranded abroad back into the country.

According to the Minister of information, government has taken into consideration the concerns of foreign final year students who left the country and would need to return to complete their studies.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, however, indicated that such students will have to engage with their schools for the necessary arrangements to be made to enable them gain access into the country.

---citinewsroom
To protest their counties not making the cut for the next phase of COVID-related reopening, the mayors of Haldimand and Norfolk got a trim from local hairdressers outside town hall in Simcoe on Tuesday afternoon.

And the premier was not impressed.

Norfolk Mayor Kristal Chopp said she organized the haircuts to prove a point about the provinces inconsistent approach to loosening restrictions prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

I sympathize with the hairdressers. You can go to a hygienist but you cant get your hair cut. That makes absolutely no sense, Chopp said.

I think this entire process  has been replete with injustices from the beginning. Why is it for the longest time you could buy a fridge at Walmart but you couldnt buy a fridge at the Leons in Simcoe? Why is it you could buy clothes at Joe Fresh in the Superstore but you couldnt from one of our local boutiques?

Haldimand Mayor Ken Hewitt said the entire province should have moved into the next phase of reopening.

Were picking winners and losers, and thats unfortunate, he said.

News of the photo-op reached Queens Park, where Premier Doug Ford expressed his exasperation during his daily press conference.

You cant be telling everyone to stay away and were going to fine you if you go to the cottage that you pay taxes for, and (be) the most outspoken in the entire province, and a couple weeks later be sitting there getting a haircut and going against the protocol, Ford said.

Give me a break. Like, really.

The province said Monday that an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak at a farm in Vittoria  which sent seven migrant workers to hospital and more than 200 into quarantine after 164 workers tested positive  was the reason Haldimand-Norfolk couldnt advance to the next stage.

The ironic thing about this, they were the same mayors  that were shouting and screaming; In the whole province, the only two that were saying, We are going to fine cottagers if they come up to their own residence, Ford said.

And thats fine, God bless them. But all of a sudden to do a 180 in a couple of weeks as the numbers are going up in your area? It would be totally irresponsible for us to say, OK, thats fine, open it up. Theyre the last two mayors in the whole province out of 440 mayors that I would think would be doing this, but this pandemic does strange things for people. I cant figure it out myself. You cant have your cake and eat it too.

Back in Simcoe, hairdressers expressed their gratitude for the mayors public show of support.

I think its great. It means a lot, said Cher Horton, the Port Dover stylist who chopped Chopps locks.

I think they definitely see the concern that were going through. And that its not just (salon owners) that want to be open, its all the clients. We dont want to lose these businesses.

Emily Hall took the shears to Hewitts self-described quarantine cut.

Its unfair that we are being restricted based on numbers in a farming community when were following all the same protocols as everyone else in other communities like Brantford, Tillsonburg, said Hall, who opened Small Town Beauty in Simcoe seven months ago.

She noted that hairstylists are used to following safety guidelines and said she is 100 per cent confident that salons in Haldimand-Norfolk could reopen safely.

Weve already taken precautions to buy extra PPE, to get shields, masks and gloves, so we were prepared to open the same time as everybody else, Hall said. Now it just feels like were being penalized because of our location.

Brendalee Engelhardt, owner of Florian Clinic and Day Spa in Simcoe, said she is really disappointed that esthetician and podology services are also on hold.

Ive had many calls from clients who are desperate to have their feet done and dont have the mobility or the flexibility or the vision or the strength in their hands to cut their own toenails, Engelhardt said. Its an essential service to them.

But not all local barbers were on board with the mayors public protest.

I definitely dont agree with what happened, said Tammy Mayo, who owns The Barber Shop of Dover in Port Dover.

If we all follow the rules as the government is asking us to do, then businesses will open on time. People need to be patient and not do anything crazy or ridiculous.

Its not clear whether the mayors and the hairdressers broke the health units rules preventing hair salons from operating, since no money changed hands. But they risked a ticket for flouting physical-distancing rules had a bylaw officer wandered by.

None did.

J.P. Antonacci s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about the regions of Haldimand and Norfolk.

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New York-based fintech startup Wahed (meaning "One" in Arabic) describes itself as a digital Islamic investment platform and as the worlds first "halal robo adviser." It has now closed a $25 million investment round led by Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures (also known as Waed Ventures), a venture capital investment arm of oil giant Saudi Aramco.

Existing investors BECO and CueBall Capital participated, as well as Dubai Cultiv8 and Rasameel. The funds will be used to expand internationally, including developing the companys subsidiary in Saudi Arabia. The platform is currently running in the U.S. and U.K., and has more than 100,000 clients globally. It plans to grow in the largest Muslim markets, including Indonesia, Nigeria, India and the CIS. The three-year-old company has already received a license to operate in Saudi Arabia, and aims to get regulatory approval in 20 countries.

According to Crunchbase, Wahed has raised a total of $40 million in funding since its 2015 founding by Junaid Wahedna.

Last October, Wahed launched in Malaysia after the Malaysian Securities Commission awarded the company the countrys first Islamic Robo Advisory license. The firm is also considering listing its Islamic ETF on the Saudi stock exchange.

Ethical investment and Islamic finance is growing in popularity in Muslim countries so long as it is in line with Islamic ethics, so Wahed looks set to benefit.

Commenting on the investment, Junaid Wahedna, CEO of Wahed, said: Were excited to have the support of Aramco Ventures as we foray into the Saudi market. We consider Aramco a strategic long-term partner in both the Kingdom and the rest of the world.

Wassim Basrawi, managing director at Waed Ventures, said: We believe in Waheds mission to provide ethical investing. The company has taken the lead in delivering investment services to one of the worlds fastest-growing sectors -- Islamic Finance. Wahed is also, in the true spirit of fintech, helping to broaden the investment landscape. This latest funding round will enable Wahed to make Saudi their regional MENA hub and contribute towards a fast-growing fintech ecosystem.
WASHINGTON  U.S. and Canadian officials are finalizing a plan to extend the closure of the border between the two countries into July, sources on both sides of the border confirmed on Wednesday.

The pending but all-but-certain decision  which the Reuters news service first reported Tuesday night  means that Buffalo residents who travel north to summer cottages or for other reasons will likely not be able to do so for several weeks. It also means that Buffalo-area businesses that rely in part on Canadian customers will have to go at least several more weeks without them.

Officials on both sides of the border said the border closure has been an effective tool in slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

With COVID-19 cases concentrated in the heavily populated provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and U.S. cases spiking in Washington and some other states, officials said its too soon to broadly loosen the travel restrictions between the two countries.

The two countries first agreed to ban nonessential travel between the two countries starting March 22. They extended the border closure for another month in mid-April, and in mid-May extended the shutdown to June 22. Officials said its likely, but not certain, that the closure will be extended for another month and continue to be re-evaluated on a month-to-month basis.

Thats bad news for Buffalo area hotels, shops and other businesses that depend heavily on Canadian visitors, said Patrick Kaler, president and CEO of Visit Buffalo Niagara.

Southern Ontario is one of our top feeder markets, and the extension of closing the border will have a huge negative impact on our overall tourism economy, Kaler said. With Buffalo and our county beginning to reopen businesses, we really need those Canadian customers to start crossing the border as soon as possible to see overall profitability for our businesses and full employment of their staffs, which is what we are trying to get back to.

Word of the extended closure comes soon after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau loosened the travel restrictions ever so slightly.

Starting Tuesday, Canada began allowing some close family members to reunite north of the border so long as they plan to quarantine for at least two weeks. The new policy defines immediate family as spouses, common-law partners, dependent children, parents or stepparents, and guardians or tutors.

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Motivi, the Italian diffusion brand controlled by Italian Miroglio Group, on Wednesday unveiled a new shopping experience.

Working in collaboration with software company Radicalbit, the fashion label developed a proprietary platform to introduce a live stream shopping channel, which will enable invited loyal customers of the brand to interact live with sales staff. Every 15 days, the sales staff will livestream from the brands 200 stores in Italy to present the latest arrivals and propose outfits, which will be shown on models. The livestreamers and the users will have the chance to interact through a live chat.

We are proud to be the first European brand to launch this type of shopping experience, which integrates three main elements of our business: relations with customers, technology and the world of retail, said Motivi managing director Furio Visentin, highlighting that the GoLive platform will be integrated into the brands e-commerce, enabling consumers to directly buy the products they discover with the livestreams from the brands boutiques. At the beginning, this service will be dedicated to a selected number of consumers but our goal is to extend it as much as we can, using it also as a tool for the brand for live broadcasting.

As Radicalbit head of international business development Massimo Minetola explained, through artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, the platform also allows during the livestreams to immediately analyze data, enabling the brand to predict the desires of consumers and offer them products that meet their needs and preferences. This new shopping model is highly successful in China on marketplaces and in the United States, big companies like Amazon and Facebook are investing on this, said Minetola. But the plus of the GoLive platform adopted by Motivi is that it is fully customized according to the brands needs and requests.

According to Motivi marketing director Barbara Borio, the use of this interactive service will be extended to other brands under the Miroglio Groups umbrella in the future. Along with Motivi, the Italian fashion group operates the Oltre, Elena Miro and Fiorella Rubino labels.

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WELLSTON  Debi Bair wants to bring a twist on primitive camping to the Wellston area this summer: cannabis-friendly camping.

Bair bought 20 acres near Tippy Dam with some hardwoods and some red pines and she is turning it into Camp Happy Trees near the corner of Hoxeyville and Fawn roads.

The campgrounds introduction on its Facebook page describes it as being nestled amongst towering pine trees in the magnificent Manistee National Forest."

When asked about the name of the new campground, Bair said it is because we are cannabis friendly and they are happy trees. And were surrounded by massive red pines.

She said there arent many cannabis-friendly campgrounds available to campers and she plans for the space to be a relaxed place.

With 420 allowed, theres only two KOAs in the state of Michigan that allow 420 usage and they want you to stay in your tent or in your camper. You cant walk around freely, Bair said. Im somebody thats camped a lot.  Smoking in tents is not a good idea, its very dangerous.

Bair also wants to help ease long held stereotypes about cannabis.

I dont want the shame with it. This is medication, its legal, and I want people to be able to not feel awkward or weird. I want them to be safe, she said. I love camping  Its a whole different vibe. Its calm, it isnt rushed. You can just go sit by a tree and just relax.

Bair is hoping to open Camp Happy Trees next month but said there is still work to do, and the pandemic has slowed the camps opening as it awaits a driveway and other work.

But for now, she is seeking people who want to camp and clean up for a discounted deal.

Im offering workaway weekends where you can come out and you clear two sites, you get one for free, she said. And its basically raking, moving sticks and isnt anything major.

The campground will be accessible to tent camping and RV camping, though Bair added that the location does not have electricity.

She said Camp Happy Trees will plan to have shower passes for campers who wish to take showers at neighboring campgrounds that have shower facilities.

Bair said she hopes to create a relaxed vibe that also features meditation and off grid living presentations at the campgrounds once it is established.

Bair noted that Camp Happy Trees is not the place to get drunk and be loud.

There will be a community bonfire area as opposed to individual fire pit options at the beginning. She also said there will be a food truck with things like kebabs, hot dogs and hamburgers that will be on site during events as well as a campfire cafe.

Camping is $25 per night for rustic sites.

Bair plans to later be listed on thedyrt.com and hipcamp.com for people seeking camping options and detailed information. She also plans to have some glamorous camping sites, commonly known as glamping, listed on Airbnb.com when the sites are completed.

To arrange a workaway experience, contact Bair on Camp Happy Trees Facebook page.
NEW HAVEN  University of Connecticut law professor Sara Bronin wants to seize this moment to make progress on land use laws that are responsible for segregation.

She met virtually with more than 150 lawyers, planners and architects Tuesday in what she hopes will be the beginning of discussions to make progress on an issue that has impeded the availability of affordable housing and limits opportunities for people.

Bronin, an expert on land use and the author of multiple books on the subject, said the group is not a formal organization or group of organizations, but rather she is reaching out to like-minded individuals to determine if they want to work on a common project.

She did say what it is not.

This is not a group where we are going to debate whether land use laws lead to segregation ... If you are part of this conversation, we assume thats what you believe, Bronin said.

In Connecticut, land use laws, which regulate uses, structures and lots, change dramatically when you go from one town to another. They are based on state enabling acts that originated in the 1920s.

Bronins professional conclusion is that almost all of land use law, as it is structured now, is probably wrong for Connecticut. Would we have really written the Connecticut land use laws from scratch today in the form that we have them now? I think we can all agree that we would never do what we have now, if we wanted logical land use policies.

Injustice

Given that one-time major events usually lead to planning changes, she said it is time for Connecticut to ask what will these pandemics mean for our land use regime? She said

Right now, of course, we have the COVID-19 pandemic, but we also have the bigger pandemic of racial injustice and segregation. And, again, if you are on this call I assume you think that is a problem, Bronin said.

We find ourselves in a moment where people are calling for reforms on a broader scale, Bronin said. She said one thing to consider on how to restructure land use laws to address segregation might be what people are doing now in response to COVID-19.

She said the executive orders issued by Gov. Ned Lamont, considered together, at their core they overrode local zoning requirements in a variety of areas.

She said these included over-riding both state and local laws related to public hearings and published notices. They waived certain requirements for applications, particularly around outdoor activities. Bronin said they also overrode local zoning when it came to substantive decisions on outdoor dining, retail sales, outdoor drinking and minimum parking requirements.

She asked how did local zoning commissions grapple with the state government takeover?

My working hypotheses here is that actually people were pretty happy about it, Bronin said. I think ... people were pretty happy when the state provided them with clear rules about how to proceed in addressing the issue.

Bronin said she did not hear cries for local control or complaints by property owners. We didnt see local revolt to the changes, the attorney said.

One observer said the public understood that things had to change fast for something that was unprecedented.

Dan Grannis, a landscape architect, said people have been very receptive, but he felt that is different in a non-crisis situation, I think you would have a lot of pushback. That is not to say that is good or bad, I think that is just a fact to be taken into account.

Bronin said the question going forward is whether the racial segregation crisis is a crisis that people would think of as a crisis; the inequality conundrum is something people would think of as a crisis.

Because if we are willing to respond to crisis situations in the dramatic way we did during COVID and segregation is an urgent crisis, then we have to think, why arent we taking the same response? she asked.

The law professor said the baseline question is: Has racial segregation become a crisis for our state or not? If not, then we leave the status quo, but if it really is, we have to consider other options.

New Haven City Plan Director Aicha Woods, who participated in the event with the majority of her staff, liked Bronins treatment of segregation as a crisis as serious as the pandemic.

Grannis responded that if the land use changes are specific to racial injustice, I think people will support it. If it is taking over all local regulations ... I think that will get a lot of pushback. But if it is specific to racial injustice, I think it will get a lot of support.

As a land use law professor, Bronin said she writes about land use, historic preservation and wrote a zoning treatiste with another professor, Dwight Merriam. Im really not playing around when it comes to analyzing and understanding the land use system. she told the virtual audience.

Bronin is also the chairwoman of the city of Hartfords Planning and Zoning Commission, which has done a climate plan and a total overhaul of the zoning code, which just won a national award. In terms of local control, Hartford has taken it and run with it, she said.

She said Hartford is 15 percent white and the staff and the commission reflect the diversity of the city, while the city plan reflected a lot of different communities.

She reminded her audience that they should keep in mind that the land use laws exist because someone wrote them down. They are not pre-ordained. They are not mandatory.

Bronin said DataHaven found a correlation between concentrations of poverty and racial segregation in Hartford, while the Open Communities Alliance said statewide opportunities are limited for those who live in cities.

As she took polls of the audience, some of the problems they pointed to included fragmented jurisdictions, which includes inconsistent rules and in many cases zoning out low-income housing; untrained commissioners that engage in ex-parte discussions; bias to preserve the status quo and unconstitutional exactions imposed on affordable housing developers.

She said all of these things are problematic for fair decision making across the state. She said courts tend to defer to boards as local experts, even though they may not be trained. Bronin said 75 percent of local decisions are overturned on affordable housing.

If 75 percent of decisions are overturned, what does that tell you about the quality of the decisions that happening at the local level, she said.

mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577
BHUMIKA POPLI By

Express News Service

Nowadays, theatre actor Raghvika Kohli, often finds herself in front of the mirror recording monologues, reviewing the performance and giving online auditions. I literally grew up on stage. I miss it, but then I remind myself of renowned English director Peter Brooks words of how actors can take any empty stage and use it for a performance. Kohli has chosen the Internet space owing to the rise in COVID-19 cases in Delhi where an auditorium performance is not possible. The thrill of performing before an audience is far greater than home, but right now I have to be within the boundaries of my home.

The Little Theatre Group (LTG), a 50-year-old collective in Delhi, had plans to conduct its rehearsals on a new terrace space. Given the extended winter in Delhi, the terrace at our centre at Mandi House, would have been perfect to resume our training. But for now, its the online window through which we interact with the world, says Aneesha Dass, Trustee Manager, LTG, who has curated online listening and reading groups in the lockdown.

Like LTG, for many theatre groups, the virtual is now their stage. Oddbird Theatre and Foundation started a Quarantine Video Project series for artists to showcase their talents. Asmita Theatre uploaded its 78 recorded plays for its online Quarantine Theatre Festival. Like many artists collaborating with BookMyShow to stay connected to their audience, Rahul Bhuchar, Producer of Felicity Theatre, did the same by showcasing Felicitys recorded plays. Bhuchar says, Now, my audience is anyone with an Internet connection. Bhuchar also held online acting classes with celebrities for film and theatre enthusiasts. Early on in the lockdown, Akshara Theatre Group has been sharing excerpts from previous shows on their social media. This includes dialogues, poetry, music, interviews with theatre practitioners, informs co-founder Anasuya Vaidya.

But virtual mediums have their limitations. For instance, the actors are being trained through video calls. But practical exercises involving breath regulation, voice modulation among others, should be put on hold for the time being, says Suresh Sharma, Director of National School of Drama.



The voice of a theatre actor holds great importance, and any mistake by either a teacher or student may lead to long-term injury. At the most, one can teach theory lessons, he reasons.

Theatre has been hit by economic crunch too. Take the case of Deepant Kandoi. Some years ago, this Delhi actor had quit his MNC job to perform on stage full-time and took theatre classes at a Noida school. Now, in the pandemic, he was given a pay cut by the school.

Hoping for a solution where live plays will resume, Shilpi Marwah of Sukhmanch Theatre in Delhi, has already prepared a play to give voice to migrants issues. She says, When the audience and actors will meet on stage (again), the phenomenon will be worth watching. Sure, there are OTT platforms, but due to the physical distancing, the homely feeling of being welcomed by a theatre group has gone missing. I feel we will now value theatre more.
Antarctica New Zealand, an agency responsible for carrying out New Zealand government's research activities in Antarctica has decided to continue with only long-term science monitoring and essential operational activity in the region to limit the continent's exposure to COVID-19.

READ: New Zealand Lifts All Domestic Coronavirus Restrictions

Limited people traveling people to Scott Base

The authorities have announced that the project will focus on supporting only long-term monitoring, essential operational activity and planned maintenance this season in Antarctica. The project will support monitoring programmes in the vicinity of Scott Base, essential maintenance and priority engineering projects and critical Scott Base Redevelopment tasks.

Antarctica New Zealand is developing a managed isolation plan with multiple government agencies to ensure COVID-19 doesnt enter Antarctica.

Scott Base is New Zealand's only Antarctic research station, perched on a low volcanic headland called Pram Point at the southern end of Ross Island. It is 3800km south of Christchurch and 1350km from the South Pole.

READ: WHO: Pandemic Worsening Globally, Death Toll Rising

READ: Jacinda Ardern Being Hailed For Making New Zealand Coronavirus Free

'Crisis worsening'

Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the coronavirus pandemic is worsening globally, even as the situation in Europe is improving.

At a press briefing on Monday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that about 75% of cases reported to the U.N. health agency on Sunday came from 10 countries in the Americas and South Asia. He noted that more than 100,000 cases have been reported on nine of the past 10 days  and that the 136,000 cases reported Sunday was the biggest number so far.

READ: New Zealand Tackles 'period Poverty' By Providing Free Sanitary Products In Schools

(Image credits: twitter.com/AntarcticaNZ)
Did you ever think that your 2019 novel about the Black Death set in Nobber, Co Meath, in 1348 would suddenly become topical?

No, I had no idea that would happen. One of the reasons I went for such a historical story is that I didn't want it to be topical. I wanted to escape the issues of the day. But to some degree, pandemics have always been a feature of human life and history.

Have you noticed parallels between Covid-19 and the Black Death?

Of course, it was very different, but the discourse during that plague was in some ways similar to what is happening now. Now it's the health service that we are worried about. Back then, during the plague, they were afraid that there would a shortage of confessors and priests. In a lot of places they were very well-organised. People would self-isolate and people would be forced to self-isolate.

Read More

Do you think people have changed their outlook during the present pandemic, and how has it affected you?

People reconnect with certain things that are important to them because they realise that their time on earth is finite. I think we value face-to-face contact because all that Zoom stuff is not fun. In some ways, I feel I have lived through this already, because I spent two years thinking about my novel, Nobber. I imagined what it was like to be in a curfew. I knew that the thing to do was relax, calm down, and become pensive and meditative. Panic would serve no function. I have been reading books that I grew up with - and spending more time with my family, which is very precious.

When did you start writing?

It's all I ever wanted to do since I was a child. I was very much into reading fantasy writers in early childhood - Robin Hobb, Terry Pratchett and Ursula Le Guin. Later on it was William Faulkner and Jack Kerouac. There are so many doubts you have as a writer. You write a book and what happens to it? Do people like it or dislike it? Why do I write at all? You need a huge amount of faith.

Video of the Day

Which books would you take to a desert island?

The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal would definitely be one. It's about an Italian aristocrat who flees his family home to join Napoleon and arrives late at the Battle of Waterloo. He comes back, goes to prison and falls in love with the prison warden's daughter. It's extremely political. I always feel like it's a fairytale, but I can't put my finger on why. I read it every summer. At the moment, I would also bring Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, because I have a hangover.

If you weren't a writer what would you be?

I'd like to teach surfing in the south of France - something like that.

'Nobber' by Oisin Fagan has just been shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
Courtesy of OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

What matters now? What matters next? What do we want? What are our demands? Where do we go from here?

These questions from Oprah Winfrey introduced OWN Spotlight: Where Do We Go From Here?, the unprecedented two-night town hall event that premiered Tuesday on OWN and across Discoverys 18 other U.S. networks. Airing the same night as the funeral for George Floyd, the Minneapolis black man whose death at the hands of a white police officer has sparked global protests, part one launched Winfreys conversation with black thought leaders and activists including director Ava DuVernay and Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams. Together, they discuss systemic racism and the current state of America.

Winfrey began the special by recalling her 35 years as a television personality interrogating these topics, beginning in 1985 when she interviewed diversity expert Jane Elliott and realized how little so many white people understood about racism.

Over the years of the Oprah show, I did over 100 shows about racism, she said, recounting famous examples like her town hall in Forsyth County, Georgia, where there was an attempt to ban black people entirely, and her spotlights on civil rights heroes like the Little Rock 9 and the Freedom Riders.

In all of those experiences, though, I dont recall a moment quite like this one, she continued. Because we find our nation on a precipice, a true tipping point, I believe. And just like all of you for the past few weeks, Ive been talking and Zooming with friends, and the same question keeps popping up over and over: Is this the moment that will finally change our country, where people will recognize systemic racism for the problem and the evil that it is?

The conversation that ensued was impressive, specific, emotional and educational. It gave space to her panelwhich also included Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, actor David Oyelowo, and journalist Charles M. Blowto express their grief, describe the effects of generations of trauma, articulate their exhaustion, and put Americas current, historic civil rights movement in context and lay out the path forward.

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We cant move forward without calling out that pain, Winfrey said. Watching the life seep from George Floyds body caused a kind of universal shock and pain. For black people everywhere, we recognized that knee on the neck.

Later, in a discussion of the societal numbness towards black violence, pain, and death, she returned to that idea.

Isnt it very much like in the days of Jim Crow when black men would be lynched and dragged through the town as an example for other people to see, watching black men be shot on camera and nothing happens is a triggering thing? she said. Theres this memory that we have of everything thats gone in the past, so when this keeps occurring, it is re-traumatizing.

Attempting to define the current moment while also informing and contextualizing what is happening is a tall order, even across two nights. The panel of guests were candid, diving quickly and deeply into topics ranging from systemic racism to the effects of racial economic inequality to the responsibility of white allies and how to harness the energy of the current moment.

Where white Americans have often viewed these as individual incidents, black Americans understand that this is part of a collective history, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer prize-winning founder of the New York Times magazines 1619 Project said. The weariness that it has to take something so horrifying for white Americans to decide that they cant tolerate it anymore Were just tired as black people of having to prove our humanity only when the most inhumane thing happens to us.

One of the most moving moments came early, when Oyelowo talked about why watching the footage of Floyds death affected him to the point that he posted a video explaining his reaction.

I had made the mistake of thinking that things would be different for my son, he said. I say mistake because I had watched things progress in some ways, but then the knee on the neck is so symbolic of so much. Its something that I hadnt realized that I had internalized in a way that makes it difficult for me to function. I hadnt realized how deep the wounds were.

As he went to go talk to his son about it, he was stalled by the fact that Floyd wasnt resisting arrest. Its not the same conversation he, and so many black parents, have had to have with their children. Those conversations are already emasculating, to basically say, Forget about justice in an interaction with police. Come home alive.

One point was driven home repeatedly: at the root of everything happening nowfrom the violence to the marches to the conversationsis a systemic issue of power.

Its not a broken system, DuVernay stressed. It was built this way. It was built to function exactly as it is. I feel its disingenuous as a society to act as if were suddenly horrified when everyone has participated in this and benefited from it not for years or decades, but centuries. Generations.

The grief and the anger has been the same. The discussions have been the same. And the responsibility to guide white people through all of it has been the same. Part of where we go from here is to relieve that burden.

So much of those conversations have centered on educating Caucasian people through the trauma, walking them through what it is, making sure they feel and sustain that outrage, DuVernay said. While that has a place and is valuable, shes realized that my own work [is] to break out of a constant education of folks, and to really ask white folks who feel deeply about this issue to take on that labor for themselves.

Of what to make of this moment, DuVernay warned against being sidetracked by the conflation of protesting, rioting, and looting in the media.

If your concern with the murder of black people by police can be deterred or shifted because someone is taking a pair of jeans from a Target, then youve got to look at how much you cared about the murder of black people by police to begin with, she said. Watch yourself as youre playing this game of respectability politics because youre getting to a place that is really veering way off the path of what the point at hand is, which starts from a place of the murder of black people by police and really opens up to an interrogation of a whole system.

The whole system is the point, participants repeatedly emphasized. It drove home why the question of where do we go from here? is such a lofty one. Its not just about the police. Its about the systems and institutions they subsist on.

If we believe this is an inflection point, then we actually have to do things to upend these structures, said Color of Change president Rashad Robinson, decrying that far too often we get to a place of news coverage, social activation, and cultural energy but dont manifest anything from it. We mistake all of that visibility for actually getting to the place where both the written and unwritten change.

More footage and talking points from night one of Where Do We Go From Here?and theres so much more to unpackis available to stream on the Watch OWN and Discovery Familys TVE apps, as well as OWNs Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube channels. Part two airs Wednesday at 9 pm ET/PT.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Will President Uhuru Kenyatta let her go home? This is the question posed by leading newspapers on Wednesday, June 10, as they delve into the impeachment of Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru by the devolved unit's county assembly.

The dailies also wade into rising cases of COVID-19 in the country and death of Burundi's outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza as his wife battles COVID-19 in a Nairobi hospital.

READ ALSO: Nairobi: Speaker Elachi suspends MCA Abdi Guyo for skipping sittings

As of Tuesday, June 9, Kenya had recorded 2,989 COVID-19 cases. Photo: UGC.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: CJ Maraga directs all courts to prepare for reopening on June 15

1. The Star

After Kirinyaga County Assembly impeached Governor Anne Waiguru, The Star reports there is a big possibility Senate will not approve her removal as county boss.

The House is likely to dismiss the impeachment based on the fact the MCAs went ahead with the sitting despite a court order halting its proceedings.

Senate may reject the impeachment motion on ground that the county assembly acted in contempt of court.

Waiguru may also be spared the axe for being a key Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) player in central Kenya, a close ally of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Opposition leader Raila Odinga.

This will be buoyed by the fact Senate has been realigned with key leadership positions being handed to pro-BBI and handshake leaders.

Nandi senator Samson Cherargei claimed Uhuru and Raila will want to save Waiguru through Senate but he vowed to use the House to prosecute the governor. His sentiments were echoed by his Elgeyo Marakwet counterpart Kipchumba Murkomen.

READ ALSO: Pastor Ng'ang'a's daughters narrate struggling through life after losing mom at tender age

2. The Standard

The Standard reports on Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru's political career which hit the limelight when she was appointed the first Devolution Cabinet Secretary (CS) in 2013. She resigned in 2015.

During her tenure, the daily says, a section of leaders claimed she was receiving preferential treatment from powerful political players.

In 2015, the then Igembe South MP Mithika Lenturi started collecting signatures to impeach her but he failed to show up on the day he was to move the motion in parliament. Linturi later said forces in Jubilee Party told him to drop the bid.

Recently, Waiguru was involved in a land tiff with Interior PS Karanja Kibicho but she lost the battle after the state cancelled a title deed she claimed was owned by the county government.

This was one of the occasions bigger powers in government ruled against her and only time will tell if she will survive the impeachment motion that was ratified by the Kirinyaga County Assembly. The motion now lies in the hands of Senate.

READ ALSO: Uhuru amuomboleza Rais Pierre Nkurunziza kufuatia kifo chake

3. People Daily

Embattled FORD Kenya party leader Moses Wetang'ula has threatened to institute legal proceedings against Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu.

Through his lawyer, John Khaminwa, Wetang'ula accused Nderitu of abuse of office after she gazetted names of the team led by Kanduyi MP Wafula Wamunyinyi as new party leadership.

According to the Bungoma senator, the registrar needed to use her position as a professional to bring peace in the party and not gazetting names of people "who want to take over the party forcefully".

"What was or is, the legal basis of your decision? Should you not as a professional consider revising your decision so that the internal dispute resolutions procedure give guidance on the way forward and rule of law prevails?"

The lawyer who joined Benson Milimo in the legal team said in a letter to the Registrar of Political Parties.

READ ALSO: COVID-19 positive or negative? 2 Nairobi residents receive conflicting test results from different facilities

4. Daily Nation

Daily Nation reports that investigation into suspected poisonous food distributed in Kiambu about three weeks ago is still shrouded in mystery.

The food was shared on the weekend before May 25 in bags branded with the name of area MP Kimani Ichung'wa and William Ruto Foundation. The two denied the food was from them.

Kiambu County Commissioner Wilson Wanyanga said the matter had been overtaken by events.

County Director of Public Health Kellen Kimani said he was not aware if tests had been conducted on the food.

About 12 people who had been admitted after consuming the food had been discharged from hospital.

Kikuyu DCIO boss Jeremiah Kinga said he could not comment on the matter since it was being investigated by the DCI.

READ ALSO: Senate Speaker Ken Lusaka denies receiving Anne Waiguru's impeachment motion

5. Taifa Leo

Nominated MP Godfrey Osotsi has claimed the tenure of ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi and other party officials is set to expire on Monday, June 15, after which the positions will be declared vacant.

Osotsi said failure by the party to call for elections had put the outfit at a delicate situation where it risked being dissolved by the Registrar of Political Parties.

His claims that party positions will be rendered vacant by June 15 were dismissed by Nambale MP Sakwa Bunyasi. Bunyasi, however, agreed the party was supposed to elect new officials this year.

This comes amid claims Osotsi was planning to stage a coup in ANC party and take leadership from Mudavadi, in the same way, Wetang'ula was ousted as FORD Kenya party boss by Wafula Wamunyinyi. The MP dismissed the allegations.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

24 patients discharged as Kenya's Recoveries rise to 873 | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Accra - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is ramping up its support to the Government of Ghanas efforts to provide comprehensive care for COVID-19 patients in isolation facilities, with a contribution of 10,800 bags of specialized nutritious food worth Three Hundred Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC300,000). The supply is enough to cover three months of feeding for 4,000 patients.

We are living in very challenging times where we must come together to care for one another hence our support to complement the work of the Government of Ghana, said Rukia Yacoub, WFP Representative and Country Director in Ghana. The specialized nutritious food we are providing is one of several excellent, highly nutritious made-in-Ghana products, which WFP has helped to develop and market thanks to generous funding from Canada.

Specialized nutritious foods are made of blended cereals and soy flour, mixed with extra minerals and vitamins. They are highly nutritious, formulated to meet the bodys protein, energy and micronutrient requirements for optimal growth. The added minerals and vitamins provide numerous health benefits including boosting the immune system to fight infections.

Nutrition is a key area of work for WFP, which supports the Ghana Health Service to implement programmes in the Northern and Ashanti regions. This is helping to prevent stunting among children and micronutrient deficiencies such as anaemia among pregnant and nursing mothers, and adolescent girls.

WFP has prioritised nutrition support under its COVID-19 response plan. It has provided handwashing stations in all the participating health centres and retailer shops and supported the Ghana Health Service to include COVID19 preventive measures in their social and behaviour change communication messages to mothers and care givers.

The United Nations World Food Programme is the worlds largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies, building prosperity and supporting a sustainable future for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.
Predictmedix to offer a fully integrated enterprise solution for healthcare along with workplace health, safety, and compliance.

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Predictmedix Inc. (PMED.CN) (PMEDF) ("Predictmedix" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the acquisition of MobileWellbeing, an innovative, feature rich, Telemedicine Remote Patient Monitoring platform that will integrate with Predictmedix's Artificial Intelligence ("AI") driven rapid screening system for infectious diseases, including COVID-19. This will also integrate with the Company's screening modules for impairment and mental illness. The MobileWellbeing platform addresses several of the gaps currently observed with comparable platforms which are offered by a few public companies trading at high valuations.

MobileWellbeing has demonstrated its value in multiple different programs over several years, and has shown benefits such as improved patient health, minimized the impact of chronic disease, and driven down the cost for care through remote monitoring. The technology has been successfully used at Arnprior District Memorial Hospital for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (Ottawa/Ontario), Algonquin College (Nursing department) for diabetes management and StonyBrook Hospital (New York, US) with the Pediatrics team that manage patients in the community with high risk pregnancies, teenage pregnancies and mothers in low income housing for wellness of their infants. The technology has also been used by the Cardiology department for Hypertension.

Compared to its competitive environment, MobileWellbeing has a unique and robust set of features such as, Assisted Monitoring that allows for data collection, transmission, evaluation, notification and intervention at home or through kiosks that might be especially useful in Long Term Care and Retirement Community settings. The Interactive Voice Response System also gives patients the accessibility to interact with the system without the need for internet connected devices. This is an important consideration given the breadth of population affected and for regions, sometimes remote, where connectivity remains a major issue.

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Dr. Rahul Kushwah, COO of Predictmedix, explains, "We are excited to roll in the MobileWellbeing business that is already working with the healthcare system in both Canada and the United States. Its presence in these health care sectors will provide enhanced credibility to future clients as Predictmedix expands its market reach. The key to getting back to work, back to school, back to business, is knowing when someone is potentially infected, taking the appropriate safety measures immediately, then monitoring and supporting these individuals to ensure their recovery from COVID-19 and the emotional toll are professionally managed. So, when it's safe for them to go back to work, they are healthy and ready. Additionally, the many features offered by MobileWellbeing allow us to align the right telemedicine tools for each type of user and for each of our three products - Infectious Disease Screening (including COVID-19), Cannabis and Alcohol Impairment Screening, and Mental Illness Screening."

The MobileWellbeing platform's suite of features are uniquely applicable to multiple use cases that impact Predictmedix clientele. Workplaces of all sizes and sectors want their Human Resources ("HR") departments to monitor employee recovery during quarantine periods and manage their transition back to work while maintaining employee privacy. Healthcare providers will now have a very robust tool to be able to remotely manage all aspects of care, recovery, and support whilst protecting all parties from the dangers of further infection transmission.

Says Rajiv Muradia, Founder & CEO of MobileWellbeing, "I am very excited to be part of the Predictmedix team as their vision of Leading the future in impairment detection and healthcare screening' aligns well with the MobileWellbeing Remote Monitoring platform we have developed over many years. The combined solution will now allow us to take healthcare delivery to the next level. The integration will enable workplaces as well as clinicians to remotely manage patients outside their physical environments using MobileWellbeing's suite of patient engagement and monitoring solutions, now within Predictmedix Disruptive AI platform."

About Rajiv Muradia

Mr Muradia has extensive experience in developing Tele-health, Tele-medicine, and mobile healthcare technology platforms for over 15 years. He has led teams to build technologies (at VaaSah Inc. and Healthanywhere Inc.) that were operationalized with TeleSat Canada, London Health Science Center and European Space Agency for Remote Tele-Psychiatry project (REACH). Moreover, Mr Muradia has been phenomenally successful in delivering market-ready mobile healthcare applications on wireless tablets, smart phones, KIOSKS as well as several applications for consumers, care providers, family care givers, specialists etc. Over the past several years he has delivered solutions to support larger number of patients at various healthcare institutions in Canada, US, Puerto Rico and UK.

MobileWellbeing is being acquired by Predictmedix (asset purchase) for an upfront cash payment of $25,000 along with 250,000 common shares and a royalty of 20 percent of gross sales from the first $2.5 million in sales generated exclusively from the MWB platform. Among 250,000 shares, 150,000 common shares are to be vested with sales related milestones. At the same time, the CEO of MobileWellbeing, Mr. Rajiv Muradia will join the board of Predictmedix as a technical advisor. The transaction is expected to close within the next 60 days.

About MobileWellbeing Inc.

MobileWellbeing Inc. as a company has been developing applications in the mobile healthcare space for about 15 years starting with Tele-Psychiatry in partnership with TeleSat Canada, European Space Agency and London Health Science Center. These applications were used by various institutions, care providers as well as patients in Canada, US, UK and Puerto Rico.

MobileWellbeing is a Remote Patient Monitoring technology platform to deliver preventive healthcare applications for self-care to the consumers (on Android phones & tablets) as well as assisted care applications for chronic disease management in conjunction with care providers. These applications combine automated care plans, video visits, vital signs monitoring, medical alerts/notification, reminders, patient surveys, regimen compliance (medication, nutrition, exercise, education), secure access to collected data and reports as well as adapters to connect to existing Electronic Health Record systems. The platform also provides social networking collaboration tools that allow patient, care providers, family members as well as other healthcare professionals to stay engaged in the patient care network.

To find out more, visit us at http://www.mobilewellbeing.com

About Predictmedix Inc.

Predictmedix Inc. is an artificial intelligence ("AI") company developing disruptive tools for impairment testing and healthcare. It is intended that the Company's cannabis and alcohol impairment detection tools will be used across various workplaces and by law enforcement agents. Its technology uses facial and voice recognition to identify both cannabis and alcohol impairment by utilizing multiple features along with numerous different data points. Testing does not require any body fluids or human intervention, thereby helping to remove human error and the potential for discrimination and prejudice.

The Company is also developing AI based screening for the healthcare industry. The recent advent of COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented stress on the global economy and highlights the need for tools to help screen mass populations for infectious diseases, with the hope of preventing pandemics in the future. In turn, Predictmedix Inc. is expanding its proprietary AI technology to screen for infectious diseases such as influenza and coronaviruses (COVID-19). Our current partners along with advisory board members have played a key role in gathering data pertaining to COVID-19, which has allowed us to develop a predictive mass screening tool for COVID-19. The technology is for mass screening and is to be used to predict and identify individuals who have the highest likelihood of being infected with COVID-19.

Additionally, psychiatric disorders such as depression, dementia and Alzheimer's disease can carry a significant burden and early identification is the key to better management. To help address this, the Company is also expanding its proprietary AI technology to screen for psychiatric and/or brain disorders such as depression, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

To find out more visit us at www.predictmedix.com

Disclaimer: "The Company is not making any express or implied claims that its mass screening product has the ability to eliminate, cure or contain the Covid-19 (or SARS-2 Coronavirus) at this time".

For further information, please contact:

Dr. Rahul Kushwah, Chief Operating Officer

Tel: 647 889-6916

Email: rahul@predictmedix.com

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Information:

THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED NOR DOES IT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results of the Company. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. The Company's securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulations under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein, such as, but not limited to dependence on obtaining regulatory approvals; the ability to obtain intellectual property rights related to its technology; limited operating history; general business, economic, competitive, political, regulatory and social uncertainties, and in particular, uncertainties related to COVID-19; risks related to factors beyond the control of the company, including risks related to COVID-19; risks related to the Company's shares, including price volatility due to events that may or may not be within such party's control; reliance on management; and the emergency of additional competitors in the industry.

All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.

SOURCE: Predictmedix Inc.





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Michele Buzon, professor of anthropology at Purdue University, is a bioarchaeologist who has excavated in the Nubian region of modern-day Sudan, to better understand interactions between Egyptians and Nubians. She and her research team excavated the site of Tombos in northern Sudan in January and February. This was her 10th field season at the site. Credit: Michele Buzon

Like a fingerprint, teeth are unique to each individual. Dental records are useful in identifying human remains, but what can tooth enamel tell us about an individualor an entire civilizationof 3,000 years ago in the Nile River Valley?

"One way we can identity whether an individual is from a particular area is from elements that are in the ground; plants and animals that we consume are incorporated into our skeletal and dental tissues," said Michele Buzon, professor of anthropology at Purdue University.

Buzon is a bioarchaeologist who has excavated in the Nubian region of modern-day Sudan, to better understand interactions between Egyptians and Nubians.

"I have been using the element strontium in tooth enamel in order to see if the individuals buried at the sites I am excavating were born and raised in the local area or if they are immigrants that were raised somewhere else," she said.

Buzon, who also is known in the archaeology world for excavating the burial of an ancient horse and uncovering evidence of Egyptians and Nubians creating new communities together, spent January and February excavating at the site of Tombos in northern Sudan with her research team, aided by a grant from the College of Liberal Arts Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences grant. A photo gallery featuring nearly two dozen images from Buzon's recent excavation are featured online.

She's excavated this site for ten seasons, and this recent trip focused on studying the alkaline-earth metal called strontium. The element has similar physical and chemical properties to calcium.

Buzon is looking into how the element varies depending on geographical location. Since 2004, she and her team have been collecting samples of strontium from soil, plants and animal remains to determine the element's local signature. They then compare the strontium isotope values in dental enamel from the tombs they excavate to the local range to see if the individual grew up in the area.

"Part of this project is to understand variability in different places in the Nile Valley because we would like to be able to see if we can identify where somebody might have come from, if their strontium doesn't match the local area," Buzon said. "We are using these plant samples from various places in the Nile Valley to get a better sense of the local signature and see how much they might vary from place to place."

To measure the element in humans, the surface of the tooth is cleaned and between 10 and 20 milligrams of enamel is extracted. The enamel is then ground up, dissolved and cleaned chemically before it is processed to measure the element's isotope ratio. Buzon has been working with Antonio Simonetti, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

Buzon's current strontium project, which started in 2019 and will last through 2022, is funded by the National Science Foundation, one of the largest federal agencies that provides money for archaeology and anthropology. She was first funded by the NSF as a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The initial grant was from 2003-2004 and was awarded as an aid for her dissertation. Other grants she received from the NSF were for a 2009-2012 study to examine the identities of individuals during the development of the Napatan State and for 2014-2018 research to look at the impact of the Egyptian New Kingdom Empire in Nubia. She also was funded by the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration in 2009.

Her work with the isotope's variability can aid in understanding migration and how climate change may have affected strontium over time. There are many challenges that come with studying ancient civilizations, but now researchers have to look into how climate change may impact how they study societies in the past.

"There have been some changes in climate, temperature and humidity and also how much dust is coming from the Sahara and moving across the desert," Buzon said. "Some researchers have hypothesized that when sediments are coming in from another area, it could change the strontium isotope signature. This project is one way we can see if there is a change in the strontium isotope signature of a particular area because of factors that may have been affecting climate."

While Buzon has spent 20 years excavating in the Nile Valley, she is partnering with a new team of scientists to tell a more complete story with the help of plants. Maha Kordofani, Sudanese botanist and professor at the University of Khartoum, is assisting the team in identifying the types of plants collected. Working with local scientists is just one of the ways Buzon and her team are engaging with the community.

"As anthropologists it's important to think about other cultures coming in and documenting the history that is not their own and what that means for telling someone else's story, so I think it's very important to involve the local communitythe descendants of people we're researching in telling the story together," Buzon said.

The research team involves the local community by providing information on its recent findings. The team has hosted end-of-the-season and women's talks, and engaged with the community to see what topics they would be interested in learning more about. Buzon and her team also have worked with the local schools to provide teaching materials and informational posters for the students. This past season, the team hosted a tour for a fifth grade class to allow the students to see the process of archaeology first hand.

"For us we want to try to provide for the community in terms of education and what their interests are and really make this feel like a partnership. We want this to be a joint project in terms of what we're learning about the past in Sudan and how to protect these sites and cultural heritage so that more people can learn from this information," Buzon said.

Explore further Archaeologist begins dig in the Sudan, Nile River Valley area
The chancellor of Oxford University has hit out at the 'hypocrisy' around protests to remove a statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes.

Lord Chris Patten, who has no power to remove the Rhodes statue at Oxford University's Oriel College, said a trust set up after the mining magnate's death pays for the education of more than a dozen African students at the prestigious university each year.

But he also called for a 'sensible discussion' over the removal of Rhodes' statue, which has become a focal point amid continuing anti-racism protests from the Black Lives Matter movement - who at the weekend toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

It follows protesters from the revitalised 'Rhodes Must Fall' campaign gathering at the university last night and an invitation by Oxford City Council's leader for the college to apply for planning permission to have the statue removed.

Meanwhile, concern continues that Oriel College chiefs may be reluctant to remove the statue after furious donors threatened to withdraw funding worth more than 100million if it was taken down, as revealed by a leaked report in 2016.

Commenting on the protests, Lord Patten, who was the last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997 and Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992, told BBC Radio Four's Today Programme: Firstly I am very pleased the demonstrations were peaceful and secondly I dont make the decision on whether the statue comes down.

The chancellor of Oxford University has hit out at the 'hypocrisy' around protests to remove a statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Pictured: Protesters gather in front of Oriel College calling for the statue to be removed

Lord Chris Patten (pictured left), who has no power to remove the Rhodes statue (pictured right), located at Oxford University's Oriel College, said a trust set up after the mining magnate's death pays for the education of more than a dozen African students at the prestigious college each year.

Last night more than 1,000 protesters (pictured) gathered in Oxfords High Street  without any pretence at social distancing  in the hope of seeing the statue tumble

I think there should be a proper and engaged argument and I hope its one about symbols and one which doesnt avoid an argument about more fundamental issues which touch on Black Lives Matter, like education, like public housing, like public health.

'So yes, we should have that discussions and its welcome that so many people in that decision are themselves Rhodes scholars.'

The controversial statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes Where is his statue? A 4ft statue of Rhodes stands outside Oriel College at Oxford university Who was he? Cecil Rhodes (1853 - 1902) was the Former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, the modern day South Africa. He was a British supremacist, imperialist, mining magnate, and politician in southern Africa who drove the annexation of vast swathes of Africa. What did he do? The bad  Colonised much of Southern Africa for Victorian Britain and established a vast new British territory in Rhodesia, today's Zimbabwe and Zambia  Rhodes believed that the British were 'the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race'  He secured control of Rhodesia by swindling the king of Matabeleland, and showed scant regard for his African employees, whom he dismissed as 'n***ers'  Founded De Beers mining company, trading diamonds mined with slave labour The good  Established Rhodes Scholarships, which paid for brilliant young students from former British possessions to study at Oxford, among them the former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott Advertisement

He also responded to calls by former Oxford student Doctor Rahul Rao, who was himself a Rhodes Scholar and is now a professor of politics at SOAS University in London, for the statue to be removed.

Lord Patten said: I am delighted he was able to have an education at Oxford and Im not holding that against him.

'But what I am saying is that for me there is a bit of hypocrisy, as Mary Beard said the last time round, in Oxford taking money for 100 scholars, 100 schools, one-fifth from Africa, and then saying we want to throw the Rhodes statue into the River Thames.

The Cecil Rhodes Trust was set up in 1902 in the will of Cecil Rhodes, a politician, businessman and mining magnate who founded the De Beers Consolidated Mining diamond firm - which mined using slave labour - in South Africa in 1888.

The trust is a global organisation which offers scholarships to non-British students at Oxford University.

But Rhodes, a British imperialist who wanted to continue British rule in South Africa, has been criticised by modern historians as a white-supremacist - having believed that the British were 'the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race'.

Lord Patten told Radio Four that he had previously publicly backed the Cecil Rhodes Trust following a meeting with anti-apartheid campaigner and South African Prime Minister Nelson Mandela.

He said he had been there when the late Mandela signed the agreement to set up the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, a leadership development programme for Africa, was established in 2003 by agreement between Mr Nelson Mandela and the Rhodes Trust.

He said Mr Mandela had said at the time 'Cecil Rhodes, you and I are going to have to work together now.'

But calls have continued to grow for the removal of the statue from the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which originally started in 2015 at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where students successfully campaigned for his statue to be removed.

The campaign has spread across other areas where a statue of him stands, including at Oxford University's Oriel College.

But the college decided to keep the statue in 2016.

Members of the Oxford anti-fascists were outside Oriel College to demand the statue of Cecil Rhodes is removed ahead of a Black Lives Matter protest in the city this evening

At the time Daily Telegraph reported that the statue had been kept in place after furious donors threatened to withdraw gifts and bequests worth more than 100 million if it was taken down.

Rhodes Must Fall: A timeline of events March 2015: Students at University of Cape Town begin protest to remove statue. April 2015: After a vote by the university's council, the statue is removed May 2015: A vote is held at Rhodes University, South Africa, to change the name of the university. The vote is defeated. January 2016: Vote held by Oxford students in Oxford Union, not affiliate to Oxford University, vote to remove the statue. January 2016: Leaked report reveals the university faces huge funding loss if it removes the statue. June 2020: The Rhodes Must Fall campaign is thrown into the spotlight among growing anti-racism protests by the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of American George Floyd. It gains particular attention following the toppling of a statue to slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol. Advertisement

The governing body of Oriel College, which owns the statue, ruled out its removal after being warned that 1.5m worth of donations had already been cancelled and others had threatened to remove the college from their will if the statue was removed, according to a leaked report.

But the Rhodes Must Fall campaign has been newly revived among continuing action by the Black Lives Matter movement, who are protesting the death of George Floyd in America.

Thousands of people have signed two new petitions calling for the statue of colonialist Rhodes at Oriel College to be taken down.

Meanwhile, Susan Brown, leader of Oxford City Council, has expressed her support for the movement, stating she has a 'great deal of sympathy' for the campaign.

At least 26 councillors in total have for the statue to be removed ahead of last night's protest.

In a statement published yesterday, Ms Brown said: 'I'm clear in my support for the Black Lives Matter movement and I have a great deal of sympathy with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.

'The question of statues and their historical context is not a simple matter, but sometimes acts of symbolism are important.

A vocal but unsuccessful five-year movement for his removal  calling itself Rhodes Must Fall  has now found itself reborn and firing on rocket fuel after the death of George Floyd at the hands (and knee) of a Minneapolis police officer

Ndjodi Ndeunyema (pictured left), an Oxford University law student and a former Rhodes scholar, organised yesterday's Oxford rally. Doctor Rahul Rao (right), a former Oxford University student who is now a professor of politics at SOAS University in London, backed calls for the statue to be removed

'I know my views are shared by a majority of my fellow councillors.'

She continued: 'I have written to Oriel College to invite them to apply for planning permission to remove the statue, as it is a Grade II-listed building.

'Typically such actions are only allowed in the most exceptional of circumstances.

'But these are exceptional circumstances, and as a city council we are keen to work with Oriel to help them find the right balance between the laws that protect our historic buildings and the moral obligation to reflect on the malign symbolism of this statue.'

Backing calls for the statue to be removed, Doctor Rao told Radio Four: 'I think protesters made their argument very eloquently.

'They've pointed to Rhodes' participation or really his pioneering of some of the ideas that gave us the system of apartheid in South Africa and his plundering of resources in southern Africa.

'His glorification in South Africa and more recently the UK has been seen as a massive problem.'
Appointment

10 June 2020

Vakkaru Maldives is delighted to announce the appointment of Janice Tan as its new Director of Sales and Marketing. Commencing at the Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok her two-decade-long career in luxury hospitality has included stints in Beijing and Singapore but has most commonly included roles at the Maldives' leading resorts.

She arrives at Vakkaru Maldives with an innate understanding of what makes holidaying in this idyllic island nation so special. A sales and marketing veteran, Janice brings a wealth of experience, vision and connections and will help to define the strategies that will ensure the resort is recognised as one of the world's preeminent retreats.

In her previous leadership roles, Janice was instrumental in launching luxury resorts in the Maldives including Anantara Naladhu, during her tenure as Anantara Group's Cluster Director of Public Relations, Velaa Private Island and Accor's Raffles Maldives Meradhoo, where she served on both occasions as Director of Sales and Marketing. She was also Regional Director of Sales and Marketing for COMO Hotels and Resorts' COMO Maalifushi and COMO Cocoa Island.

Raised by parents who worked in the airline industry, she has travelled extensively and lived in Switzerland, Italy, Greece, the US and France. She then indulged her love of gastronomy by studying at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris and working at the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant Georges Blanc. Currently based both in Singapore and the Maldives, she enjoys practising Pilates, qigong movements, yoga and mindful meditation.

Her lifelong love of travel and residency in countries around the world will provide invaluable insights as the Maldives redefine its approach to tourism and hospitality in response to the changing consumer habits and preferences following the evolving global crisis.
Leigh Francis has been pictured for the first time since issuing an emotional apology for playing black people on his noughties sketch show Bo' Selecta!.

The Keith Lemon star, 47, stepped out near his north London home on Wednesday days after addressing his 'offensive' portrayal of various celebrities using blackface.

The series, which aired between 2002 and 2006, featured the comedian playing a series of stars - including Michael Jackson, Craig David and Trisha Goddard - by wearing face masks to impersonate them.

Spotted: Leigh Francis was seen for the first time on Wednesday after issuing an emotional apology for playing black people on his noughties sketch show Bo' Selecta!

In light of awareness being raised in regards to the Black Lives Matters movement, Francis has since tearfully admitted he 'didn't realise how offensive it was back then'.

The Celebrity Juice star appeared stony-faced during his stroll as he stepped out in chequered trousers and a denim jacket.

Francis tried to keep a low profile in a leopard print bucket hat and black sunglasses.

The comedian's appearance comes after he issued an emotional apology for playing black people on his noughties sketch show Bo' Selecta last week.

Offensive: The Keith Lemon star, 47, stepped out for a stroll near his home in north London just days after addressing his 'offensive' portrayal of celebrities using blackface

Noughties show: The series, which aired between 2002 and 2006, featured Francis portraying a series of celebrities; including Michael Jackson (pictured) and Trisha Goddard

Francis said he was 'deeply sorry for any upset' he caused for using blackface to dress up as celebrities.

In light of awareness being raised in regards to the Black Lives Matters movement, Francis tearfully admitted it made him rethink.

He captioned the post: 'I want to apologise to anyone that was offended by Bo'selecta. I'm on a constant journey of knowledge and just wanted to say I'm deeply sorry. #blacklivesmatter.'

In the video, the Celebrity Juice host said: 'My name's Leigh Francis. I play a character called Keith Lemon on television.

Reflection: In light of awareness being raised in regards to the Black Lives Matters movement, Francis has since tearfully admitted he 'didn't realise how offensive it was back then'

Stony-faced: The Celebrity Juice star appeared stony-faced during his stroll as he stepped out in chequered trousers and a denim jacket

'It's been a weird few days, I've sat and thought about things and what I could post to help things.

'Back in 2002, I did a show called Bo' Selecta, I portrayed many black people. Back then I didn't think anything about it, people didn't say anything- I'm not going to blame other people.

'I've been talking to some people. I didn't realise how offensive it was back then.

'I just want to apologise, I just want to say sorry for any upset I caused whether I was Michael Jackson, Craig David, Trisha Goddard, all people I'm a big fan of. I guess we're all on a learning journey.'

Francis captioned the post: 'I want to apologise to anyone that was offended by Bo'selecta. I'm on a constant journey of knowledge and just wanted to say I'm deeply sorry'

Francis later revealed that it had been a 'rubbish' day, he posted a pictured of a sewing machine with the caption: 'Since lockdown, I've become a dressmaker.

'Haven't actually, but I have learnt to sew a bit. Made four T-shirts. Who needs the shops! Hope you've had a nice day! Mine's been incredibly rubbish. Goodnight x.'

Trisha Goddard has since revealed that she has accepted a tearful apology from Francis following his racist depiction of her on his show Bo' Selecta!

The TV icon, 62, revealed she has received a personal message from the Celebrity Juice star after the sketch show left her feeling 'hurt, distasted and disgusted'.

He said: 'Back in 2002, I did a show called Bo' Selecta, I portrayed many black people. Back then I didn't think anything about it, people didn't say anything- I'm not going to blame other people. I've been talking to some people. I didn't realise how offensive it was back then.'

Francis was among the 25million people who took part in Blackout Tuesday earlier this month on social media for the Black Lives Matter movement, following the senseless death of George Floyd.

George, 46, an African-American man, died on May 25 after white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

His death has sparked days of demonstrations across the world over police brutality against African-Americans.

Apology: Trisha Goddard has since revealed that she has accepted a tearful apology from Francis following his racist depiction of her on his show Bo' Selecta! (pictured)

Chauvin has now been charged with 2nd-degree murder which is more severe than the 3rd-degree murder, which he was initially charged with.

He faces three charges; 2nd-degree murder, 3rd-degree murder and 2nd-degree manslaughter. The most severe charges carry a maximum sentence of 40 years imprisonment.

Thomas Lane, J.A. Kueng and Tou Thao, the three other officers also present, were charged on Wednesday with aiding and abetting the murder of Floyd. They have also been charged with second degree aiding and abetting manslaughter.
Two firefighters who were engaged in controlling a blaze in Assams Baghjan were killed on Wednesday. Their bodies were found near the natural gas well that ignited on Tuesday.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) confirmed that the bodies of Durlov Gogoi, 30 and Bikeshwar Gohain, 56, were found from a pond near the well at Baghjan.

Meanwhile, flames continue to erupt from the gas well, reported news agency ANI. The fire broke out at the well a day after three experts from Singapore had reached the area to attempt plugging the well.

The gas well had been spewing gas and condensate since the blowout began on May 27.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has deputed industries minister Chandra Mohan Patowary to the site. He also suggested use of Indian Air Force aircraft to douse the fire.

I have apprised Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan about the incident and asked him to take steps to contain the fire and the blowout. Indian Air Force (IAF) can also play a role in controlling the fire and I have asked defence minister Rajnath Singh about it, he said on Tuesday.

Sonowal also asked residents of the area and Tinsukia town, which is 9 km away from the site not to panic and assured all help from the state government.

The fire broke out at 1:40 pm at the site, said Jayant Bormudoi, senior manager (corporate communication) of OIL.

Smoke could be seen billowing from the well several kilometres away from the site close to Dibru Saikhowa National Park and the eco-sensitive Maguri Mottapung wetland.

Following the blowout nearly 2,000 people residing near the well were shifted to four relief camps.

The Baghjan well suffered the blowout on May 27 while work was underway to produce gas from a new oil and gas bearing reservoir at a depth of 3,729 metres.
Uber representatives are confused with Grubhub's decision to merge with Just Eat Takeaway, citing a higher offer price and frustration over disagreements about how to characterize regulatory risks, according to people familiar with the matter.

"Like ridesharing, the food delivery industry will need consolidation in order to reach its full potential for consumers and restaurants," said an Uber spokesperson. "That doesn't mean we are interested in doing any deal, at any price, with any player."

Grubhub and Just Eat Takeaway announced merger terms after the bell on Wednesday. Just Eat Takeaway offered 0.67 shares for each Grubhub share, an implied value of $75.15 for each Grubhub share based on June 9's 98.60 Just Eat Takeaway closing price. Still, Just Eat Takeaway shares fell more than 10 percent on Wednesday's news, lowering the offer to about $65.17 per Grubhub share.

Uber offered 1.925 shares for each Grubhub share, valuing Grubhub at $67.04 based on Wednesday's close.

Just Eat declined to comment. A spokesperson at Grubhub couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Grubhub chose Just Eat's proposal because of more regulatory certainty, two of the people said. Uber was still negotiating antitrust and regulatory issues with Grubhub this week and had grown increasingly concerned with deal leaks and a New York Times story published on Tuesday detailing predatory fee practices from Grubhub, one of the people said.

Uber felt its stock has more upside than shares of Just Eat, making it better currency for Grubhub shareholders, said two of the people. Some Uber representatives also questioned if Grubhub was more attracted to Just Eat's offer because it would keep current Grubhub executives installed running the business.

Uber also believed it would would need to stop several undesirable business practices from Grubhub, including phone charges and cybersquatting, or buying domain names with the intent to profit from them. Grubhub has denied cybersquatting in the past.

Grubhub felt increasing political pressure from several Democratic lawmakers who expressed concerns over a deal with Uber, which would create a new market leader in the U.S. online delivery space over rival DoorDash. In a letter to top antitrust officials last month, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., urged the agencies to investigate the deal if it closed.

In a statement, Klobuchar said, "I have repeatedly raised concerns and advocated against a potential merger between Uber and GrubHub. During this pandemic, when millions are out of work and many small businesses are struggling to stay afloat, our country does not need another merger that could squelch competition. News that the Uber/Grubhub deal may not materialize would be good for both consumers and restaurants."

Grubhub's deal with Just Eat is unlikely to garner as much regulatory attention as its possible combination with Uber. The proposed Uber-Grubhub deal would have combined two of the three largest food delivery companies in the U.S.

The British competition authority just gave the green light in April for Britain's Just Eat and Netherlands-based Takeaway to combine. At the time, the British Competition and Markets Authority said it was unlikely Takeaway would have been able to re-enter the British market in a significant way on its own without the merger.

Watch: Uber likely to pull out of merger talks with Grubhub over antitrust concerns
Chad Daybell in a booking photo provided by the Rexburg Police Department. (Rexburg Police Department via AP)

Husband in Missing Idaho Children Case Hid Remains of Children, Prosecutor Says

A prosecutor in the case of the two missing Idaho children confirmed Wednesday that human remains found on the property of author Chad Daybell are the remains of children.

Officials have not identified the remains of the deceased.

We are aware that those remains are the remains of children, prosecutor Rob Wood said at an initial hearing Wednesday, according to USA Today.

Lori Vallow, also known as Lori Daybell, the mother of two Idaho children missing since September 2019, was arrested in Hawaii on Feb. 20, 2020. (Kauai Police Department)

Joshua JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan have both been missing since September of last year. Daybell, who was married to Lori Vallow, the mother of the two children, was arrested on Tuesday.

Officials on Tuesday carried out a search of Daybells property, finding the remains. Vallow, meanwhile, was arrested in February after she didnt meet a court-mandated deadline to bring her children to authorities in Idaho.

Now, according to court papers obtained by East Idaho News, Daybell is accused of hiding, altering, or destroying human remains on his property between September 2019 and June 2020. Another count said that he hid, destroyed, or altered remains on his property around the same time frame.

In the weeks following the childrens disappearance, Daybells wife, Tammy, died before he married Lori Vallow in Hawaii, according to family members.

JUST IN: Chad Daybells mugshot pic.twitter.com/jERCnuutiH  Adam Herbets (@AdamHerbets) June 10, 2020

The Idaho Attorney Generals Office is investigating Vallow and Daybell for conspiracy, attempted murder, and murder in connection to the case, the East Idaho News noted.

Tylee Ryan, 17, holds her brother JJ Vallow, 7, at Yellowstone National Park on Sept. 8. (FBI)

In a statement to East Idaho News on Tuesday following Daybells arrest, JJs biological grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, said: This is obviously a very difficult time for our family, and we ask that you respect our privacy as we wait further news with heavy hearts.

Daybell is the self-published author of apocalyptic and doomsday books.
Today we're tackling a beloved piece of military culture: the myths, rumors and legends that get passed down from generation to generation of service members, and sometimes are even taught as history -- whether or not they actually happened. To do that, Military.com managing editor Hope Hodge Seck sat down with a colleague and personal friend, who for years was known to readers of Stars and Stripes by another title: The Rumor Doctor.

Jeff Schogol is one of the most beloved faces in the Pentagon press corps. Unless, that is, you're an official behind the lectern in the briefing room and he has a question for you. In his 13 years covering the military, he has reported on military operations in Iraq, Haiti and other locations, and has never shied away from asking the tough questions the public really wants to know. Such as, what will the Space Force anthem be? What's really going on with those Navy UFO videos? And where the heck is the secret fighter pilot bar in the Pentagon? He's now the Pentagon correspondent for Task and Purpose.

Mentioned in this episode:

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The following is an edited transcript of this episode of Left of Boom:

Hope Hodge Seck 00:01

Welcome back to another episode of Left of Boom. I'm Hope Hodge Seck. Today we're tackling a beloved piece of military culture: the myths, rumors and legends that get passed down from generation to generation of service members, and sometimes are even taught as history -- whether or not they actually happened. To do that, I sat down with a colleague and personal friend, who for years was known to readers of Stars and Stripes by another title: The Rumor Doctor. Jeff Schogol is one of the most beloved faces in the Pentagon press corps. Unless, that is, you're an official behind the lectern in the briefing room and he has a question for you. In his 13 years covering the military, he has reported on military operations in Iraq, Haiti and other locations, and has never shied away from asking the tough questions the public really wants to know. Such as, what will the Space Force anthem be? What's really going on with those Navy UFO videos? And where the heck is the secret fighter pilot bar in the Pentagon? He's now the Pentagon correspondent for Task and Purpose. Jeff, thank you so much for being on the show.

Jeff Schogol 01:08

Thank you very much. I would say I'm not so much beloved as tolerated in the Pentagon press corps, just for your audience.

Hope Hodge Seck 01:17

Well, let's agree to disagree. I first got to know you about a decade ago through your Stars and Stripes column The Rumor Doctor. It was informative and funny, and a lot of what you did was unearthing facts that crushed beloved military myths and legends into the dust. Your job description these days is a lot broader, but you still investigate and debunk a fair amount of military folklore. So how did that first gig come about? How did you become The Rumor Doctor?

Jeff Schogol 01:47

Well, it was almost by accident. We had received at Stars and Stripes a letter to the editor complaining that the Army had changed the phrase "Battle Buddy" to "Warrior Companion." And when I called up the Army, I said, "Why did this happen?" They said, "we didn't make any change like that." And so the first story I wrote was just kind of whimsical, saying no, Battle Buddy has not become Warrior Companion. As a side note, I found out about a year later that this was a joke, that someone had written a mock Army message and it had been taken seriously by the Army, and I heard even Odierno was briefed. But afterwards, my editor at the time decided this would become a recurring column. And the way he announced it to the staff was, he had a whiteboard, and he he drew a figure of a face with a beard and some kind of doctors insignia on it. And the staff said, Wait a minute, that's Schogol. And yes, he said he wanted this to become a permanent item, which I did for more than a year. And it was interesting because I was unaware of the just scope of military lore out there, of myths and legends that are taken as sacrosanct, and the gospel truth which are just complete fabrications. And then of course, there's the constant stream of disinformation, which as we now know, is become such a regular part of life. But I was not lacking for stories.

Hope Hodge Seck 03:33

No doubt. And as you said, some are really sacrosanct. They're part of sort of this treasured mythology of military branches. Have you gotten angry letters and emails for your trouble as you go about getting to the ground truth on these rumors? Oh, yes. One of my earliest It was either a story about how the the the Marine Corps story about the blood stripes, which is a uniform matter, or the origin of the term Devil Dogs had no bearing in reality. I received this one time an email from a Marine. It was glorious in in its profanity, which I will spare your audience. But there was a line in there that said something to the effect of, the next time I'm in the field, I'm going to use Stars and Stripes for toilet paper. Which I think is a really bad idea, because first of all the printers ink does stain, and it will cause a rash. So the joke's on him, I guess. I hope he didn't try it. Was there one particular service that you found had an outsized portion of sort of the the military mythology? So both of those rumors that you just mentioned, were Marine Corps specific. That's right. I think the Marine Corps offered a target-rich environment because as part of recruit training, Marines essentially become PhD doctorates in Marine Corps history from 1775 to the present. By the time they leave, they can name every significant event in the Marine Corps that has ever happened. And the fact that some of what they learn may not have a bearing in reality strikes a nerve, especially because the Marines owe their existence to a high esprit de corps. But there are other services -- the Army, actually from what I had learned, would test NCOson a complete myth that in every flagpole on an Army installation, there was a razor and a match in the in what's called the truck which is the ball at the very top of the flagpole. Just in case the installation was overrun, someone would have to climb up the flagpole, unscrew the truck, use the razor to cut off the flag, use the match to set it on fire. And apparently there was a pistol buried something like four paces from the base, which the soldier would then have to dig up and shoot himself. And I called up the Army and I said, so soldiers have to shoot themselves. No, they do not. The U.S. military has never ordered that. And also, they checked and there was never any specifications in the truck to be hollow so that it could have a match or scissors or anything like that, and implements of destruction. But that was taken as serious that that was part of you know, apparently when you became an NCO, how many paces from the base is the pistol buried and what is in the truck? So these legends have a lot of staying power, clearly. How do you go about getting to the bottom of it? Is it typically as simple as calling somebody? There was a great there's a comedian whose name escapes me. But he talks about ... he had a problem of sleepwalking. And one night he actually jumped out of the second story of his hotel room while sleepwalking. And he talks about going into the hotel lobby, and all the phones are ringing off the hook, because guests are saying that somebody jumped out to their hotel while screaming. And he says, so I said, "Hello," because you have to start somewhere. And that's really good advice. When you're, you know, when you have to ask someone a question about something that sounds completely absurd. Start with Hello. And then just kind of, you know, ease into it and say so, I know this may sound a little strange, but, you know, my understanding is, this is what people believe and what can you say about it. Thankfully, there are several historians within the military, especially the Army, who can say no, this is nonsense, and a lot of the times I would hear as well, you're not the first person to ask about this. There was a widely held belief that the 1st Cavalry Division's unit patch was a sign of shame to signify something from the Korean War. And when I talked to Army historians, they said no, this is not true. In fact, the unit that you're talking about was not in the 1st Cavalry. And yet it just the legend lived on, and they had been asked about it several times. That's amazing. Well, let's talk about some of my favorite military myths and legends and you've already referred to quite a few of them. But the the perennial trope of recruits of various services, being given saltpeter at boot camp as something to basically suppress libido and help them to focus on training. That's absolutely wild and out there and I still hear it in circulation today. So what's the deal with that legend? Oh, it's been going around for, I think, since World War II. And it's funny because after the story broke, I got an email from a concerned girlfriend, who said, You know, I sent my boyfriend pictures at basic training and they're not doing anything. And I just kind of went, well, I'm not a doctor, so I really can't answer that. I can say that, you know, physical exertion will decrease the libido, I'll tell you that. But when I called up the services, they said, giving recruits a substance that they're unaware of counts as poisoning. So they don't do that. It's kind of illegal. But that's, it's been going around since the dawn of time. And that was also one where I had to say, okay, so just checking it does this does this really happen? Amazing. So let's talk about some others and a legend about the Army formerly issuing stress cards to recruits that they could wave in the face of drill instructors who push them too hard. That was a long, complicated drama. Because I first wrote a story about it and said, there are no stress cards. And then somebody sent me a picture of something look like a stress card. And it was kind of a lost in translation moment, which, there was a commission that was looking into the military under the Clinton administration. And they had noted they made some note about stress cards that they could be waved in the face of the drill instructor, or drill sergeant, and say, I'm stressed out. Well, that's not what they were. They were known as blue cards, but they were given to recruits basically saying, if you were feeling overwhelmed talk to the chaplain. It was not a get out of PT card, it was not stop yelling at me card. It was, you know, are you OK? If not, here's your stress level, if you're feeling stressed, talk to the chaplain. But the commission had misinterpreted that, and the fact that these actual cards existed have perpetuated legend. So I wrote a follow-up story, basically saying, here's my doctoral dissertation on stress cards, because it took a lot of research. And I was very happy to see that at the time, the Defense Department had a very good archive of of news briefings and so on. So I was able to find the actual briefing. And the the actual report where this was mentioned and to say that, okay, this is a misunderstanding, but it is, you know, as they there's a term simulacrum, which I used to know what it meant, but it actually applies in this situation, where the copy originates the original. The legends simply will not go away, because people say, "Nope, I, I have this card it proves it." And there's also this desire, I think, from everyone who's going through boot camp or recruit training, to say that it was the toughest possible when I went through it, and ever since then it's been getting easier. And now, you know, recruits have it's so easy that, you know, if they had to go through what I did, they would simply cry. So here's another one that I think Marines also get quizzed on: the blood stripe that appears on the trousers of noncommissioned officers and officers, their dress uniform. What's the story with that? It was fortuitous. I was reading a story about how there at the time, there was no formal regulation that said Marines couldn't put their hands in their pockets, but it kind of fizzled because I told my boss, "Well, they do have gloves," and they said, "Well, if they have gloves that that kind of defeats the purpose." But I got a call from someone who I won't name because he's going on to other things, telling me to look into this blood-stripe myth. And the myth is at the Battle of Chapultepec, which was during the Mexican-American War, so many NCOs were killed taking this Mexican castle that the trousers for NCOs, which is when you become an E-4, have the red stripe along the side to commemorate their sacrifice. And I called the Marine Corps history division. They said yeah, we get asked about this all the time. First of all, there were not, this was not a huge bloodletting you know, no offense to those the actual battle, but the NCO's were not disproportionately casualties. This is what really kind of put salt into the wounds, is that the stripe is actually taken from the Army -- that they adopted something from the Army uniform now to every corporal who got the, you know, the blood stripe and you know, the unofficial ceremonies to get it beat on and to have people punch you, and so you get bruises and you've just got your blood stripe. I'm sorry you had to go through that ritual for something that comes from the Army. But that was the truth. And yes, Marines were extremely, I don't want to say angry, that doesn't capture the emotion. They were not happy with that. They they thought that that was an insult to Corps lore. And it is, it's something that that they have to memorize in recruit training. It's it's one of the stories that makes the Marine Corps separate from the other services. And it turns out there's it's a legend, sadly enough. All right, one more, can troops be punished for damaging government property if they get a sunburn? Well, there's actually a little bit of truth to that. Because since it's come out that, I mean, unfortunately in more serious cases where someone has been assaulted and bled on their uniform and the unsupportive chain of command accused them, charged them with with damaged property. But yeah this particular story came from my boss at the time who I won't name, but he had fallen asleep on the beach and gotten badly sunburned. And his supervisor in the Air Force threatened to to charge him, well, I think you can get non-judicial punishment for destruction of government property, which didn't happen, but this is not actually too far from the truth. At the time I said this is preposterous, it simply cannot happen. Legal experts say that there's nothing that you can justify it. Well that said, I don't want to say it can't happen, because what I've learned since then is, military law's pretty funny and fungible. And there is latitude. And of course, the famous phrase different spanks for different ranks. So in the case of this, the story, I talked to military justice experts who said, No, you cannot be charged for government damaging property if you get a sunburn, you know, you're not government property. It doesn't mean that it hasn't been tried since and may have been successful. I can't say. So is there a favorite myth or legend that you investigated that we haven't talked about so far?

Jeff Schogol 16:41

I mean, it's kind of like asking which of your children are the favorites in their own way, I think the one that has stood the test of time was whether the Taliban were training monkeys and Afghanistan as snipers to attack U.S. troops. This started in, I think it started in a Chinese newspaper. I actually called up the Chinese Embassy about this to ask who their source was. But there was quickly pictures online showing some kind of monkey, I'm not an expert on the species, with what turned out to be a toy gun. And this was the proof that the Taliban were using, were training monkeys to to attack U.S. troops. And I called up the PA, the public affairs officer in Afghanistan, he gave me a wonderful response. You know, just so deadpan about how this is not true. And then I called up a scientist who explained that, you know, the sheer amount of bananas that would have to be used to train monkeys to do this was so incalculable and so that it would defeat the purpose. And you know that was that, because I was working on a serious rumor at the time. It wasn't so much a rumor ... We had heard that, this was on the Obama administration, troops in Afghanistan could not have a round in the chamber when they went outside the wire. OK. We found out that this was not for all troops in Afghanistan. This was a company commander who had told his troops that,and this was in the days of, you know, courageous restraint and not shooting back, and, and General (Stanley) McChrystal. So when I found out what particular unit it was, and I asked the folks in Afghanistan, wouldn't you know, they were quickly allowed to put a round in the chamber. But I was working on that story, and I saw I think it might have been the British press, picked up this story about the monkey snipers and did this story, and I was honored that at the time there was a Taiwanese media outlet that made these, I don't say cartoons, but anime is of stories and that story got turned into an anime.

Hope Hodge Seck 19:13

Unbelievable. And ultimately it was just an unrealistic amount of bananas, and that was what tipped it over into the falsehood territory.

Jeff Schogol 19:24

Well that was part of it and later someone said, Hey, you know the story of the the monkey holding the weapon -- in color you can clearly see that's a toy plastic gun, and the monkey or chimpanzee is on a leash. So know that this is not an 0311 chimpanzee.

Hope Hodge Seck 19:43

I also love that you're one of the few reporters I know who has a Taliban spokesman basically on speed dial you've got somebody over there that you can check in with all these things.

Jeff Schogol 19:55

They get back to me eventually, but yeah, yeah. They send me their statements and I ask them questions and they just repeat what they told me. I mean, I did make one of them a little angry, getting into kind of a Twitter exchange with him when they claim they hadn't suffered any casualties in a U.S. air strike. And I said, Well, here's the video. Can you do a roll call? If you're missing 22 people, then you know. That was awhile ago.

Hope Hodge Seck 20:23

These days, you still find time to investigate legends from time to time. Can we talk about your quest to find the secret fighter pilot bar in the Pentagon? How that came to your attention and how you ultimately, to the satisfaction of many, tracked it down?

Jeff Schogol 20:40

Well, you know, I've heard about the fighter pilot bar before, it was kind of a myth. This I guess this gets back to something I found out that was true. But I received an email from someone saying, Hey, Jeff, do officers in the Pentagon still have bottles at their desk, so when Friday comes around, they have happy hour. And I wrote a fairly vanilla story where they said absolutely not, that tradition of alcohol at the Pentagon went away 40 years ago. So after I wrote that, you know, there was just one line in there about the the mythical fighter pilot bar, which I'd heard about for years. And after the story ran, a colleague who I won't name to protect his identity, he said something to the effect of, Hey, Jeff, you know, there is a fighter pilot bar, and I forget whose idea was to go find it, but he I and someone else would track. I just went, OK. It was a slow day in July. Find it. So we go through this very circuitous route. When I actually saw where it was. It was much closer to where I was sitting than I expected. Going through the bowels of the Pentagon. At one point, I see a sign that says NRO, National Reconnaissance Office, and I said, No, we're not going there. We're looking for some kind of marker. It was potted cactus, I believe. And the cactus has since been removed. friend told me that there was a code for you would walk by the room, you would knock on a certain wall, and then they would let you in. We're walking around and He kind of looks around. He says, Oh, see where that guy went in. That's it. In a rare bout of courage, I walked to the door, and I rang the bell. And my two friends scattered. I mean, it was just, I turned around they were they took off like a shot. And this Air Force officer looks at me and I said, Hi, I'm Jeff with Task and Purpose. I'm here to see it, the fighter pilot bar. Fortunately, the guy had read the story. I said, OK. It was almost as if he expected me and he led me through and I said, OK, this is it. And this is the popcorn maker I've heard so much about that does the popcorn and OK, here's the missiles ... like the descriptions that I'd heard about it fit. Like, I mean, I'm in the place. This is it. This is real. I didn't really stick around very long because It would be weird to, you know, take notes. I said, OK, it's here, I understand. I've seen it, I can verify it. And I quickly retreated. And I think my friends were kind of surprised that I had lived through the experience. You know, kind of like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark where they actually see the face of God. It's like, what you can't see that live. No, I had survived and back and I emailed my boss and I had been working on something else that wasn't very good. And I said, well I found the fighter pilot bar, and it was just a revelation to it was such a breath of fresh air. So okay, I'll write that up. I hear there's also a space bar. People who know where it is are certainly not going to say because you have to have a security clearance to get in there. Whenever I get back to the Pentagon, I will look for it.

Hope Hodge Seck 23:48

Stop the presses. Is this bar that has sprung up with the newly established Space Force, or is this something that has ostensibly existed for some time?

Jeff Schogol 23:59

This is existed for a while, you know, it may get prominence now that Space Force has stood up. But no, there has been a space bar, and I've heard about it before. And then one day I said, Well, I'll find that too. I mean, that's a little dicier because space, of course, is the most classified space. I don't know if they have an armed guard at the door. I doubt it. But I will certainly see if I can look it up to the final frontier.

Hope Hodge Seck 24:30

I hope you do. And I hope that this time you actually get to taste of the sweet nectar on offer behind the bar. It sounds like they did not in fact, offer you a shot of whatever was on the rail at the fighter pilot bar.

Jeff Schogol 24:45

I didn't stick around long enough. I mean, I didn't want to really bother them. I just wanted to say OK, it's here. I see it is everything I expected it to be, and left. I mean, I was kind of hoping there would be a DJ and you know, Skynet would be there, but no.

Hope Hodge Seck 25:01

You still have a desk at the Pentagon. Obviously, we're in strange times now but what is a rumor or a legend or a mysterious spot that you'd still like to get to the bottom of that you haven't had a chance yet?

Jeff Schogol 25:13

Oh, you know, other than the space bar, I'm still writing about UFOs because [it's] been in the news, kind of, it says a lot that you know, the Navy released these videos and kind of shrugged but continued to look into that, because why not? And I'll have to think about that a little bit more to see what other legends and myths to to delve into as they as they arise.

Hope Hodge Seck 25:41

Jeff, it's been a pleasure to have you on. Can you tell our audience where to find you and your work?

Jeff Schogol 25:48

I'm on Task and Purpose which is three words, www.taskandpurpose.com, and find me in my apartment where I have been working for the past nine weeks. In front of my computer, I have put on a lot of weight, one pair of jeans no longer fits.

Hope Hodge Seck 26:08

Jeff, you're doing God's work. Thank you so much, and have a great day.

Jeff Schogol 26:13

Thank you.

Hope Hodge Seck 26:16

Thanks for joining us today on Left of Boom. On this episode, Jeff mentioned Odierno. That's General Ray Odierno, the 30th, Chief of Staff of the Army who retired in 2015. The comedian whose name escaped him, that was the very funny Mike Birbiglia. We'll have new episodes coming soon, so please hit subscribe and let us know what you think about the show in the feedback section. We also want to hear from you about future episodes. Who do you want to hear from and what military hot topics would you like us to tackle next? Let us know by sending us an email at podcast@military.com. And remember to stay up to date on all the news that matters to the military community every day at Military.com.
Having unloaded a historic arsenal of stimulus measures over the past three months, the world's central banks are doubling and tripling down on bond buying and policy easing even as the stock market booms and unemployment improves.

Why it matters: Many have credited the unprecedented surge of liquidity for the exceptionally fast rebound in capital markets  but with millions of workers and small business owners unable to take direct advantage of such programs, more action could further exacerbate the chasm between financial assets and the real economy.

Whats happening: The Fed is meeting today. It has yet to fire up many of its newly created lending and bond-buying programs, which are budgeted for hundreds of billions of dollars each and to which it has widely expanded access.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs and other major investment banks also expect it to announce a yield curve control program in the coming months that would see the Fed buying as many U.S. government bonds as necessary to keep Treasury yields at its desired level.

The state of play: "[Fed chair] Jay Powell has said he will expand the balance sheet to infinity if need be, DoubleLine CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said during a webcast on Tuesday, predicting the Fed would institute the policy if yields continue to rise.

Elsewhere, the People's Bank of China continues its reverse repo program to provide capital to banks and announced in late May it will introduce 11 financial reforms, including more incentives for commercial banks to provide financing to smaller businesses.

The European Central Bank has increased its bond buying program to about 1.1 trillion euros and last week expanded its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) to 1.35 trillion euros, extending it through at least June 2021.

The Bank of Japan has increased its purchases of ETFs and other risky assets, including corporate bonds, and is creating a new program to extend zero-rate loans to financial institutions.

Central banks in Indonesia, Poland, Romania and South Africa are among those in emerging markets that have started to buy government debt and initiate quantitative easing programs.

The big picture: In total, the world's four largest central banks  the Fed, ECB, BOJ and PBOC  hold $23.3 trillion on their balance sheets, according to data from Haver Analytics and Yardeni Research.

When including major central banks from England, Australia and Canada, that number rises to around $25 trillion, data from Bank of America show.

Of note: Fiscal policy also is expected to ramp up this year, even after measures in the past three months that Fitch Ratings estimates totaled 7% of global GDP, or around twice the total expended during the global financial crisis.

Go deeper: Central banks load up for a long war against coronavirus
SHREVEPORT, La. - The family of a black man who died in police custody in Louisiana after a videotaped altercation that appears to show officers hitting and tasing him demanded answers Wednesday, calling on the officers to be held accountable.

The family and a lawyer representing them spoke to the media outside the courthouse in the northern city of Shreveport, days after video surfaced showing the encounter between four police officers and Tommie McGlothen Jr. on April 5. McGlothen died the next day.

We have a hole in our heart and in our family that will never be filled again. And I want justice for my brother, said his sister Laquita.

McGlothens death comes at a time of massive protests nationwide in which people are demonstrating against police treatment of black people and racial discrimination. The protests were sparked by the death of George Floyd, an African American man who died May 25 in an encounter with Minneapolis police.

In a video, Floyd can be heard repeatedly saying I cant breathe as hes pinned to the pavement by a white Minneapolis police officer who put a knee on his neck for several minutes, even after he stopped moving.

The video in McGlothens case came to light Monday. In the 4 1/2 minute video, obtained by KSLA station and shot off of the cellphone of a person who the station said witnessed the altercation, officers can be seen wrestling with a man on the ground, with at least one officer punching him repeatedly and another appearing to hit him with a baton. A voice can be heard saying that the officers were using a Taser on the man. The man can be seen kicking at police officers.

At one point police get the man to his feet with his hands appearing to be handcuffed behind him and he immediately falls or is pushed backward to the ground. After getting him up again, they then walk him over to the police vehicle, push him against it and his head hits the hood.

A lawyer for the family, James Carter, described the death as a homicide and suggested the four officers seen on the video should face murder charges. He called for them to be immediately fired and said that until the video surfaced Monday they had been working their jobs. The citys police chief announced Monday that they had been put on leave pending an investigation but he did not indicate when that happened.

The district attorney, James E. Stewart Sr., said in a news release that he received the polices investigation of the case on May 29 but faulted the quality of the investigation, saying there were missing reports, statements, downloads, and other vital information. The police have not responded to requests for information.

Carter said he fears a coverup.

It should be homicide. Murder. We know that, Carter said. We believe that this was a homicide committed by law enforcement. ... It is not how our justice system is supposed to work.

Police arrived at a Shreveport home April 5 after McGlothen blocked a driveway and followed a homeowner into his house, according to Dr. Todd Thoma, the coroner.

Police reported McGlothen was mumbling incoherently and exhibiting signs of paranoia and emotional disturbance, the coroner said. The coroner said it should have been obvious that McGlothen needed medical care.

Thoma said the police used Tasers, mace and nightsticks to control McGlothen, who had fought with a homeowner. According to the coroner, McGlothen was left in the back of a police vehicle for 48 minutes before it was discovered that he was unresponsive and not breathing and that after such a violent confrontation there should have been a more thorough evaluation. He said McGlothen died of natural causes but that his death might have been prevented.

Carter said McGlothen suffered from both schizophrenia and depression and that law enforcement should have followed procedures for dealing with mentally ill people.

Carter also lashed out at the coroners description of the cause of death.

Thoma said McGlothen died of natural causes  specifically excited delirium. In a news release in which he quoted from the American Medical Association, Thoma describes excited delirium as the sudden death of individuals who are combative and in a highly agitated state and who have exhibited agitation, excitability, paranoia, aggression and apparent immunity to pain, often associated with stimulant use and certain psychiatric disorders.

He said none of of the injuries McGlothen suffered from police or from the confrontation with the homeowner were life-threatening.

Mr. McGlothen had underlying heart disease and clearly was suffering from excited delirium. The combination of these factors caused his death, Thoma said. His decision was based on autopsy and toxicology results, McGlothens medical history and review of police and witness statements and videos, he said.

But Carter attacked the concept of excited delirium, saying it was junk science that is often used to justify deaths in police custody.

__

Santana reported from New Orleans. Follow Santana on Twitter @ruskygal.
Netflix subscribers are urging the streaming service to remove the Oscar-winning historical drama The Help as they accuse the hit film of having a 'white savior' narrative.

The 2011 film, which was adapted from a novel written by author Kathryn Stockett, imagines the relationship between black maids, cooks and nannies during the 1960s, and the white people who they served.

It has become the most-watched movie on Netflix in recent weeks, coinciding with ongoing protests across the US in the wake of the death of unarmed black man George Floyd at the hands of white cop Derek Chauvin and three other officers who looked on.

Social media users have blasted the film on Twitter, and urged the streaming service to remove it, arguing that there are better films available that address racism throughout history.

Netflix subscribers have urged the streaming site to remove 2011 historical drama The Help, after it became the most viewed movie in the US amid ongoing Black Lives Matter protests

The 2011 film was added to the Netflix catalogue on June 1. It became the number one film on the US website by June 4.

Thousands of Twitter users have voiced concerns about the message portrayed in The Help, which stars Viola Davis, Emma Stone and Octavia Spencer.

Blasting The Help, one Twitter user wrote: 'So The Help is now Netflix most watched movie. One question: WHO is out her watching The Help to understand racism and discrimination?

'The movie isn't going to teach you anything about the injustice faced by black people. Go watch 13th or When They See Us #TheHelp'

Another said: 'I'll be the one to say Netflix releasing The Help after protests and riots in America was not a good move.'

Tweeting to Netflix, a third added: 'Okay but be a soldier and delete The Help from Netflix.'

A stream of social media users slammed the film, with many urging Netflix to remove it from it's service

'Instead of watching The Help on Netflix which centers around a white savior complex, watch other works including: When They See Us, 13th, Malcom X, Dear White People, Just Mercy, Watchmen, I am Not Your Negro,' added another.

The hit movie follows a white journalist as she explores the racial prejudice that black people experience in the town where she lives.

It comes after one star of The Help, Bryce Dallas Howard, took to Instagram to point to other films that viewers can watch in order to learn more about racism, Black history, and racial diversity.

In her post, she explained that The Help was 'created by predominantly white storytellers', and she urged people to focus their time on work that centers around 'Black lives, stories, creators, and / or performers'.

She wrote: 'Ive heard that #TheHelp is the most viewed film on @netflix right now! Im so grateful for the exquisite friendships that came from that film -- our bond is something I treasure deeply and will last a lifetime.

'This being said, The Help is a fictional story told through the perspective of a white character and was created by predominantly white storytellers. We can all go further. 

Many have blasted the streaming service for hosting the film amid the ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd

It comes after Bryce Dallas Howard, who starred in The Help, urged her Instagram followers to watch other historical dramas to educate themselves about racism

'Stories are a gateway to radical empathy and the greatest ones are catalysts for action.

'If you are seeking ways to learn about the Civil Rights Movement, lynchings, segregation, Jim Crow, and all the ways in which those have an impact on us today, here are a handful of powerful, essential, masterful films and shows that center Black lives, stories, creators, and / or performers.' 

She listed: 13th, Eyes on the Prize, I am Not Your Negro, Just Mercy, Malcom X, Say Her Name: The Life And Death Of Sandra Bland, Selma, Watchmen and When They See Us.

Bryce added that her list was just a start and 'not comprehensive' and encouraged her followers to add more worthwhile films, shows and documentaries in the comments section.

Despite receiving a nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Award for her role in the film, Viola Davis has previously voiced regrets that she starred in the The Help, which has an 89 per cent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 76 per cent from critics.

In a 2018 interview with the New York Times, Davis praised her collaborators on the movie, noting that she had formed friendships that she 'is going to have for the rest of her life' - however she criticized the film itself for centering more on white voices than black ones.

Bryce listed When They See Us and I Am Not Your Negro among the films that help to learn more about racial prejudice

'...Have I ever done roles that Ive regretted? I have, and The Help is on that list,' David said.

'I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasnt the voices of the maids that were heard,' she continued.

I know Aibileen [Davis's role]. I know Minny [played by Spencer]. Theyre my grandma. Theyre my mom.

'And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.'

At the time of its release, the movie was actually widely praised by critics, with many highlighting the work of Spencer and Davis in particular, with Spencer actually earning the 2012 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the movie.

As well as Spencer and Davis's nods, the movie also received two other nominations at the 84th Academy Awards. It was nominated for Best Picture, and Jessica Chastain was among the candidates for Best Supporting Actress.

However the recent criticism comes as Gone With The Wind was temporarily removed by HBO Max from its streaming platform after it was criticized for romanticizing slavery, amid a nationwide re-evaluation of cultural values.
When I think about disquieting topics, one question remains in my mind: Why are U.S. military forces still in Afghanistan?

Osama bin Laden has been eliminated. Al Qaeda has been devastated. The Taliban has been held accountable for their role in the 9/11 attack.

Like many Americans after 9/11, I supported efforts to protect our nation from future terrorist attacks and punish those responsible. However, it is apparent the war in Afghanistan should end and our troops should come home.

We are no longer bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. Worthlessly attempting to nation-build using thousands of American soldiers who have sacrificed life and limb is, in my opinion, pouring money down a rat hole. Thousands of innocent Afghan civilians are caught in the crossfire. No matter how noble our intentions, occupation forces are seldom appreciated.

As a disabled Vietnam combat veteran, I have empathy for the Afghan people and our U.S. ground forces. Like Vietnam, Afghanistan appears to be a no-win situation with no end in sight.

Last, the burden to our national debt we are leaving to our grandkids is very troubling.
Embattled businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome has said that government has all the evidence on how his GHc51 million judgement debt was disbursed.



According to him, the government has all the answers relating to all the beneficiaries of his infamous judgment debt.



He explained that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has taken over his accounts and, therefore, are aware of all the beneficiaries.



The Government of Ghana is in a better position to tell you how much money has gone to who and who, Mr Woyome said on Citi TVs 'Face to Face' programme on Tuesday evening.



They had EOCO take all the accounts. They know and have all the evidence. They know where this went to and where that went to. They should come out and tell the people [of Ghana].



Mr Woyome, who was a financier of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has been involved in a legal tussle with the government since 2013.

Source: Ghanaweb









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The city of Midland Health Department is currently conducting its investigation on three new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Midland County, bringing the overall case count to 180.

There have been 25 cases confirmed since Monday and 51 since June 1, according to information provided by the city.

The three cases (178 through 180) confirmed Wednesday are:

--a female in her 80s who was tested by the state. She is a resident at Mabee Health Care Center and is self-isolating on the COVID-19 unit of Manor Park.

The source of exposure is community acquired.

--a male in his 20s who was tested by a private provider. He is currently self-isolating at home. The man is an employee at McCoys, who last worked on Monday. He was not in a role where he interacted with the public, according to a press release from the city.

The source of exposure contact to a known case.

--a male in his 70s who was tested by the state. He is an employee at Ashton Medical Lodge and is currently self-isolating at home. He last worked on Monday.

The source of exposure is community acquired.

The Midland Health Department website indicates that of the total number of cases,110 are female; 70 are male. The website also states, that of the 180 cases:

--83 people have recovered;

--5 are hospital inpatients;

--20 people are in a nursing homes or rehab facilities;

--55 people are in home isolation;

--4 people have completed isolation; and

--13 people have died.
Boris Johnson pleaded with the public not to judge him over the UK's massive coronavirus death toll tonight after a top scientists claimed up to 25,000 British lives could have been saved if lockdown had started just a week sooner.

The Prime Minister struggled under a barrage of questions at tonight's Downing Street press conference after Professor Neil Ferguson's bombshell revelation to MPs this afternoon.

Mr Johnson imposed the lockdown on March 23 on the back of the Imperial College London scientist's grim modelling, which predicted 500,000 people could die if the virus was left unchecked.

But Ferguson, dubbed 'Professor Lockdown' conceded this afternoon that, in hindsight, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the lockdown had come a week earlier.

Britain has officially suffered 40,000 fatalities where Covid-19 was the definite cause of death - the most in Europe and only second to the US.

But the true death toll is thought to be above 50,000 according to estimates which factor in suspected cases who did not receive a test.

Facing the public and reporters tonight Mr Johnson highlighted the number of questions about past actions, when he wanted to focus on the future with an announcement on easing the lockdown for the most isolated Britons

'At the moment it is simply too early to judge ourselves,' he said.

'We simply don't have the answers to all these questions.'

Asked about what his biggest regret from the crisis is, the PM said: 'Of course we are going to have to look back on all of this and learn lessons that we can.

'But, frankly, I think a lot of these questions are still premature.

'There are lots of things, lots of data, things that we still don't know, and this epidemic has a long way to go, alas.

'Not just in this country, but around the world.'

But chief medical officer Professor Christ Whitty was more forthcoming, saying: 'I think there is a long list, actually, of things that we need to look at very seriously.

'If I was to choose one, it would probably be looking at how we could ... speed up testing very early on in the epidemic.

'Many of the problems that we have had came because we were unable to actually work out exactly where we were.'

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour's shadow health and social care secretary, said: 'The tragic reality is Boris Johnson was too slow to take us into lockdown, too slow on PPE for health and care staff, too slow on testing and now too slow on putting in place a functional test and trace regimes.

'Ministers must accept they made mistakes and reassure they have learnt lessons so we can save as many lives as possible and minimise harm from this horrific deadly virus.'

Mr Johnson imposed the lockdown on March 23 on the back of the Imperial College London scientist's grim modelling, which predicted 500,000 people could die if the virus was left unchecked. But Ferguson, dubbed 'Professor Lockdown' conceded this afternoon that, in hindsight, tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if the lockdown had come a week earlier

The Prime Minister struggled under a barrage of questions at tonight's Downing Street press conference after Professor Neil Ferguson's bombshell revelation to MPs this afternoon

Britain's death toll from COVID-19 could have been halved if lockdown was introduced a week earlier, 'Professor Lockdown' Neil Ferguson has claimed

Facing the public and reporters tonight Mr Johnson highlighted the number of questions about past actions, when he wanted to focus on the future. 'At the moment it is simply too early to judge ourselves,' he said

Professor Ferguson made the stark admission at a virtual House of Commons Science and Technology Committee briefing today in a rare public appearance since flouting stay at home rules to have secret trysts with his married mistress

Professor Ferguson made the stark admission at a virtual House of Commons Science and Technology Committee briefing.

It was one of only a handful of public appearances made by the former SAGE scientist, who was forced to stand down from the group after flouting stay at home rules to have secret trysts with his married mistress.

Professor Ferguson also claimed that Britain missed 90 per cent of its coronavirus cases because it was not screening passengers at airports, in a thinly-veiled jab at the Government.

The epidemiologist told MPs today: 'The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.

'So had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have then reduced the final death toll by at least a half,' Ferguson said.

'So whilst I think the measures ... were warranted ... certainly had we introduced them earlier, we would have seen many fewer deaths.'

WEARING FACE MASKS COULD KEEP THE R BELOW ZERO UNTIL A VACCINE IS READY The widespread use of face masks in Britain could keep the reproduction rate below one and stop a second wave of coronavirus as the UK comes out of lockdown, a study suggests. Modelling by the universities of Cambridge and Greenwich found if half of Brits wore masks it would prevent the crisis from spiralling back out of control. The researchers said mask-wearing by everyone was twice as effective at reducing R compared to only asking symptomatic people to use them. Lead author Dr Richard Stutt, from Cambridge University, said: 'Our analyses support the immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public.' If 50 per cent or more of the population wore them then the R will remain below one as long as social distancing stayed in place and lockdown was eased very gradually, the study claims. If every single Briton wore masks in public then the scientists estimate it could keep R stable without any draconian curbs. But the researchers admit it would be highly unlikely that everyone would adhere to the rules. The UK's R rate is thought to be between 0.7 and 0.9  but some experts estimate it has crept above 1 in the North West and South West of England. The R represents the average number of people an infected patient passes the virus to and keeping it below 1 is crucial to prevent a second surge of the virus. Advertisement

Professor Ferguson claimed that a lack of screening at airports was the route cause of Britain's catastrophic outbreak.

He claimed he was sounding the alarm about imported cases coming from Italy and Spain since February.

Professor Ferguson criticised the UK for taking too long to ramp up its testing capacity, which meant swabs were reserved for only very sick Covid patients.

The result was that thousands of infected people were allowed to fly in from Europe and spread the virus through the UK.

Professor Ferguson told MPs: 'We tried very hard to estimate what proportion of cases were being missed. At the time [before lockdown] we didn't have a policy of screening people at borders and we estimated then that two-thirds of cases were being missed.

'What we know now is... it's probably 90 per cent of cases imported to this country were missed.

'These were really decisions made by the Foreign Office and by the Department of Health and Social Care, not by SAGE.

'SAGE recommended that when a country had been identified as having active transmission, we should check travellers from those countries.

'The difficult was we know now, particularly with Spain and Italy, had large epidemics before they even realised. We were just not aware of the scale of transmission in Europe.

'Had we had the testing capacity then certainly screening everybody with symptoms coming in would've given us a much better impression of where infections were coming from.'

Epidemiologist Mark Woolhouse, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and an adviser to Tony Blair's Government during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, told the committee that he feared lockdown would be worse for the nation's health than coronavirus itself.

He said: 'I don't think we will be able to do a full reckoning of the cost of lockdown for some time yet. I have no doubt that lockdown itself will cause a loss of livelihoods, loss of wellbeing and, quite possibly, a loss of lives of itself.

'But we won't be able to balance that out for some time. I fear that, to a degree, in the UK... lockdown may be considerably worse than the disease itself.'

It comes after a study in May predicted 30,000 lives would have been saved if the UK locked down a week before March 23.

The claim was made by mathematical sciences expert Dr John Dagpunar, from the University of Southampton.

He predicted how different scenarios could have affected the progress of the outbreak in Britain and suggested that starting the lockdown on March 16 could have limited the number of deaths to 11,200.

Detailed statistics predict that more than 50,000 people have already died with COVID-19 in the UK, but this study from the University of Southampton suggests that number could have been kept to 11,200 if lockdown was introduced a week earlier

Britain was one of the last countries in Europe to put the rules in place - Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, France, Austria, Spain and Italy had done it days or weeks earlier.

Dr Dagpunar said in his paper 'literally, each day's delay in starting lockdown can result in thousands of extra deaths... it does pose the question as to why lockdown did not occur earlier?'

Dr Dagpunar's study considered the number of people infected with the virus, its rate of reproduction, hospital bed and staff capacity, and the proportion of patients who die, among other factors.

He calculated the death rate to be one per cent, and the pre-lockdown reproduction rate (R) to be 3.18, meaning every 10 patients infected a further 32.

The paper estimated that 4.4 per cent of all patients need hospital treatment, 30 per cent of whom will end up in intensive care.

Of the intensive care patients, a hospital stay lasts 16 days on average and half of them go on to die.

Of the other 70 per cent, a hospital stay averages eight days and 11 per cent die.

Running these factors through an algorithm based on the timing of the UK's outbreak, Dr Dagpunar suggested that the March 23 lockdown could have resulted in a total of around 39,000 deaths. Britain is known to have passed this grim landmark number already.

If lockdown had been started a week earlier, on March 16, the model suggested, there could have been a 'very large reduction' in deaths, limiting them to around 11,200.

The virus would have infected four per cent less of the population in this scenario (two per cent compared to six per cent), the study said, and the demand for hospital beds would have been lower.

Dr Dagpunar said: 'In hindsight [this] clearly illustrates that earlier action was needed and would have saved many lives.'

He said the number of people who would go on to die in the scenarios was 'extremely sensitive' to the timing of the lockdown.

Air travel was a 'major' driver in spread of Covid-19 worldwide: Report warns Britain was a prime example of where constant flights letting travellers pour into the country 'facilitated contagion'

Covid-19 outbreaks have been worse in areas with major airports and large numbers of travellers passing through them, according to a global report.

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said the spread of the disease, which has killed more than 50,000 people in Britain, was 'highly correlated' with air travel.

It claimed the UK was a prime example of where constant flights, both domestic and international, had 'facilitated contagion'.

Ministers have throughout the crisis refused to shut the borders to travellers, opting instead only to advise people not to travel, which in turn hit airlines so hard they had to stop flights because they were losing money.

Other countries hit by coronavirus meanwhile, including China and Italy, closed their borders to all international visitors and sent them home or locked them in.

The public called for international travel to stop early on in the outbreak but officials refused and Government documents have since revealed it was because so many people in the UK already had the virus.

A rule that came into place this week now requires all people travelling into Britain to self-isolate for two weeks, while there has been talk of 'air bridges' to popular tourist destinations to allow people to travel freely.

Britain has been one of the worst-hit nations in the world during the pandemic, with 290,000 people officially diagnosed and more than 40,000 confirmed dead. Only the US has had more cases and deaths, with Brazil and Russia recording more cases but not as many deaths  although Brazil will likely pass the UK within days.

A separate study by researchers at the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh estimated that most of the imported cases of coronavirus in Britain came from Spain, France and Italy, and that only a tiny fraction came from Asian countries, with just 0.08 per cent transmitted by people travelling from China (Study published on Virological.org)

Britain has not banned international flights at any point of the outbreak, instead advising people not to go abroad (Pictured: People passing through Heathrow Airport this week)

The IEP report showed that international travel hubs particularly badly hit by the coronavirus - including Milan, New York and London - had to almost completely stop people moving around in order to get on top their outbreaks

The IEP's Global Peace Index report said: 'The flow of air passengers across and within country borders has been a major contributor to the spread of the virus'.

A director at IEP, Serge Stroobants, said: 'The countries most impacted are countries that are really participating in global trade in the globalised world and the interconnected world.

'These are countries in which you will find a large airport hub, giving the potential to people to travel from one country to the other.

'That's why, for example, the region of Milan in Italy, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, London and New York, those big international hubs created more exchanges and more potential for the virus to grow.'

The UK Government's policies on air travel during the pandemic have been highly controversial.

Flights have been unrestricted and international arrivals have only been required to enter a 14-day quarantine since Monday, June 8.

When there was still a small number of coronavirus cases in the UK, there were calls for restrictions on flights from destinations deemed at high risk of the virus.

The Government insisted at the time there was no evidence that closing the borders would be an effective measure.

Air travel had to be drastically reduced worldwide to stop the virus from spreading. Experts said international travel had 'facilitated contagion'

STOPPING INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS CONSIDERED 'NOT A USEFUL MEASURE' IN MARCH In a paper dated March 22, the day before lockdown, scientists said stopping international flights in a bid to stop people bringing the coronavirus to the UK from abroad was 'not a useful measure'. There were so many people already infected in Britain that any imported cases would be drops in the ocean, the paper explained. It said: 'The initial view from SPI-M [the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, which reports to SAGE] is that given the current widescale transmission of COVID-19 within the UK, measures to stop imported cases would have negligible impact. This might change if the UK were to successfully contain the epidemic.' On the subject of 'hotspots' the SPI-M committee suggested that flights from Spain and Iran were probably the highest risk. Spain because of the sheer number of passengers - there were some 15,000 per day still arriving on weekday flights that week. And Iran because of the severity of the outbreak there - even though passenger numbers were low, there was a high chance some of them might have the illness. It said flights from countries like France, Italy and Germany were low-risk because they were going through the same experience as the UK and passenger numbers were already low because of their government and airline restrictions. Britain did not force flights to stop but told people not to travel abroad. Airlines took it upon themselves to stop most flights when passenger numbers dried up. Advertisement

It has since emerged that the reason officials refused to stop international flights into and out of the UK was that millions of people in Britain already had the virus.

Documents that were presented to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) in March showed stopping flights would not have protected the UK.

In a paper dated March 22, the day before Britain's lockdown, scientists said stopping international flights in a bid to stop people bringing the coronavirus to the UK from abroad was 'not a useful measure'.

There were so many people already infected in Britain that any imported cases would be drops in the ocean, the paper explained.

It said: 'The initial view from SPI-M [the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, which advises SAGE] is that given the current widescale transmission of Covid-19 within the UK, measures to stop imported cases would have negligible impact. This might change if the UK were to successfully contain the epidemic.'

On the subject of 'hotspots' the SPI-M committee suggested that flights from Spain and Iran were probably the highest risk.

Spain because of the sheer number of passengers - there were some 15,000 per day still arriving on weekday flights that week.

And Iran because of the severity of the outbreak there - even though passenger numbers were low, there was a high chance some of them might have the illness.

It said flights from countries like France, Italy and Germany were low-risk because they were going through the same experience as the UK and passenger numbers were already low because of their government and airline restrictions.

Britain did not force flights to stop but told people not to travel abroad. Airlines took it upon themselves to stop most flights when passenger numbers dried up.

As the country moves of lockdown air travel is now starting to return to something resembling normal in the UK.

Gatwick Airport will reopen its north terminal and extend its operating hours from Monday.

The West Sussex airport announced the measures as airlines scale up their flying programmes.

EasyJet, Wizz Air and Ryanair are among the carriers whose passengers will use the north terminal from Monday.

Since April 1, Gatwick has only opened its south terminal and flights have been scheduled between 2pm and 10pm, but this will be extended to between 6am and 10pm.

In 2019, Gatwick served more destinations than any other UK airport and saw 280,700 flights and 46.6million passengers use the international airport.

However in April this year, the airport had a total of just 305 aircraft movements, data from the Civil Aviation Authority showed.
New York, June 10 : Americans wearing face coverings, in sharp contrast with the US president's style, are taking their first steps back into their bruised cities amidst a perfect storm of coronavirus deaths, unrelenting public protests against police brutality and a presidential election less than 150 days away.

All this comes at a time when eight in 10 Americans feel America is spiralling "out of control", according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Within the context of the 2020 election, this sentiment is increasingly becoming about leadership in crisis, not race and gender like in 2016 or the economy.

Against this backdrop, three trends promise to roil presidential politics: Head to head poll numbers, jobs numbers and the big public health test of reopening the economy during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

First, US president Donald Trump is trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden in a growing number of polls, including in the battleground states.

Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling the pandemic and the protests after George Floyd's death. The colour of protests has changed, the multiracial coalition that has come into clear view during the George Floyd protests will test Trump's political brand and his ability to move white voters.

Trump's readiness to weaponize race to fire up his base worked in 2016. After Floyd's brutal death too, Trump continues to swing for the fences but his own party has begun cringing at the clumsy photo ops and rage tweeting. Trump is eager to get back on the campaign trail, with his signature brand of boisterous rallies.

Meanwhile, White House insiders have begun speaking on background about internal polling showing that support for Trump is slipping among precisely those groups who were Trump's staunchest supporters.

Second, for every American who is out of work, there are currently a shade less than five job openings, underlining the huge catch-up looming ahead. The unemployment rate is officially 13.3 per cent, which is higher than in any other downturn since the second world war. The number is a lot higher for those who have scaled down to part time work. US employers let go 7.7 million workers in April alone as businesses shuttered.

Young people in America -- especially millennials and Gen Z are not seeing the kind of income growth their earlier generation did. The economy is reopening slowly but everything's going to remain muted until Americans resume life and work like they did during the pre-coronavirus time.

Economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research announced this week that the US economy entered a recession in February, ending the longest economic expansion on record. After the crash of 2008, it took a full eight years for the unemployment rate to return to pre-downturn levels. People are hurting from the economic bloodbath. Even Floyd, whose death sparked the protests was out of work when he died.

And finally, all eyes will be on New York City which reopened this week after losing 21,000 to the coronavirus in just three months. Given its population -- 8.3 million, New York City is the biggest test of the US reopening phase.

Unsure how the results will turn out, locals remain fearful that reopening could spark a second wave of the virus as people begin resurfacing in public spaces. The death rate from the coronavirus is hovering at around 38 per 100,000 people in the US. The United States now accounts for one-fourth of global deaths, with more than 111,000 Americans dead out of a total of around 404,000 worldwide.

(Nikhila Natarajan is on TwitterA@byniknat)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Five terrorists were killed in a gunbattle between the security forces and terrorists at a village in Jammu and Kashmirs Shopian district on Wednesday.

The encounter began around 1.30 am when Army Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) began an operation on specific input about presence of militants in the village.

These terrorists were believed to be trapped inside a house in Sugoo village, according to police.

This is the third encounter in Shopian district since Sunday.

Fourteen militants have already been killed in these encounters.

More details are awaited.
The third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission started on Wednesday (10 June) and will last till 1 July.

Kolkata: A special evacuation flight of Air India, carrying 193 Indians from New York, arrived at Kolkata airport on Wednesday morning as part of the 'Vande Bharat' mission, aimed at bringing Indian nationals stranded in various countries due to coronavirus pandemic.

The Air India flight - 102 had left New York on 8 June, according to the Indian Embassy in the US.

The third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission started on Wednesday (10 June) and will last till 1 July.

The schedule has 356 flights, which include the return services and domestic connections.

"All domestic flights mentioned in schedule below are meant for international connecting passengers departing and arriving on the Air India evacuation flights," the national carrier said in the schedule.

Follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak here

The second phase had about 180 flights and the first, which ran between 7 and 15 May, had 64 flights.

While the first phase brought back about 15,000 Indians home, the second phase carried nearly 30,000 citizens till 29 May.

The mission, said to be the largest repatriation exercise in the world, intends to bring back over two lakh Indians stranded across the world since the lockdown was announced in March. The government had suspended domestic and international flights as part of the lockdown.

Air India announced that bookings for the third phase began on 5 June.
Moscow

Bahrains Ambassador to Russia Ahmed Abdulrahman Al Saati received Haitham Ali Al Haddad and congratulated him on obtaining his Masters Degree in the field of Systems and Software Engineering from the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

Al Saati praised the Bahraini achiever for his success and for his efforts and wished him further success.

Al Haddad briefed the ambassador on his thesis, "The development of artificial intelligence in self-learning and randomly generated worlds, saying it covered the specialization of all information technologies - infrastructure, software, artificial intelligence, systems, cloud computing and more.
Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, looks on during a hearing on Capitol Hill of the House Judiciary committee about policing practices and law enforcement accountability, in Washington on June 10, 2020. (Graeme Jennings/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

George Floyds Death Is Changing the World, His Brother Tells Lawmakers

The death of George Floyd is sparking change, one of his brothers told lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday.

The people elected you to speak for them to make positive change. Georges name means something. You have the opportunity today to make your names mean something, too, Philonise Floyd said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on policing.

If his death ends up changing the world for the betterand I think it willthen he died as he lived. It is on you to make sure his death is not in vain.

Speaking to his brother, who he called Perry, Floyd said: Perry, look at what you did, big brother. You changed the world. Thank you for everything.

Philonise Floyd said there were many who loved his brother, including his children. Younger than George Floyd, Philonise said he has to be the strong one, filling the role his brother traditionally did.

Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, arrives to a hearing on Capitol Hill of the House Judiciary committee about policing practices and law enforcement accountability, in Washington on June 10, 2020. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP)

He said he traveled to the hearing in an effort to make Floyd more than another face on a T-shirt, more than another name on a list that wont stop growing.

He described his brother as a gentle giant who was mild-mannered and called police officers sir.

Video footage captured by bystanders watching Floyd being arrested for alleged forgery in Minneapolis on May 25 showed three officers pinning Floyd to the ground, including one, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyds neck.

Philonise Floyd said he felt immense pain watching the video, urging lawmakers to make it stop.

Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired. George called for help and he was ignored. Please listen to the call Im making to you now, to the calls of our family and the calls ringing out in the streets across the world, he said.

Examples of what he wants, Philonise Floyd said, are holding police officers accountable when they do something wrong and teaching them that deadly force should only be used rarely and when life is at risk.

George Floyd in a file photo. (Courtesy of Ben Crump Law Firm via CNN)

He wondered whether his brother deserved to die over $20, the amount of money George Floyd was accused of using illegally.

Other witnesses scheduled to speak included Pastor Darrell Scott of the New Spirit Revival Center, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, and Benjamin Crump, one of the lawyers representing Floyds family.

Acevedo, who also heads the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, spoke out against defunding police departments, telling lawmakers via virtual testimony that even underfunding the police can have disastrous consequences and hurt those most in need of our services.

Adequate funding can ensure body cameras for every officer, investment in other technologies, and the hiring of qualified officers who are service-minded.

Acevedo, a Cuban-American, argued that the majority of police officers are not racist, but said he supports some reform of law enforcement.

We must learn from what is being shared with us. That includes being honest about our history. We must acknowledge that law enforcements past includes institutional racism, injustices, and brutality. We must acknowledge that policing has had a disparate treatment and impact on disenfranchised communities, especially communities of color and poor communities.
Pete Davidson and Bill Burr in The King of Staten Island Photo: YouTube

Try to describe Pete Davidson to someone unfamiliar with his whole deal, and you run up against the issue of what that deal really is. Hes a comedian, but his comedy feels, if not secondary, not quite central to the equation. His stand-up is rough and raw and still developing. Hes spent six seasons as the break-prone youngest cast member on Saturday Night Live, while being the first to admit that sketches arent his strong suit. Davidson  lanky, covered in ink, marked by tragedy, open about his depression and borderline personality disorder and use of substances to stabilize  comes across more like a SoundCloud rapper whos neglected to put out any music than a comic, which is part of the fascination. Theres a guilelessness about him thats only felt more pronounced as his fames grown, boosted by a brief but wildly scrutinized romance with Ariana Grande that collapsed into a wreckage of songs, self-referential late-night bits, and a suicide scare. No one can ever be fully prepared for the stresses of modern celebrity, but Davidson seems uniquely unsuited to it, so lacking in armor and impulse control that some of his Weekend Update appearances took on a tightrope-walk uncertainty.

It makes some sense, then, that in trying to get at the essence of its star, The King of Staten Island feels the need to return him to anonymity. The film, which Davidson co-wrote with former SNL writer Dave Sirus and director Judd Apatow, is semi-autobiographical in that its protagonist shares a lot of Davidsons qualities and formative experiences  his childhood in the forgotten borough, the loss of his father at age 7, his fondness for tattoos and pot, and his mental health struggles. But the character, whose name is Scott Carlin, also represents a kind of thought experiment about what Davidsons life would be like if he never stumbled into comedy as a teenager. Scott lives in Staten Island with his mother (as, granted, does Davidson at the moment), spending his aimless days getting high with friends, one of whom he occasionally has sex with. In its efforts to scale this version of Davidson down, the film also changes the details of his firefighter fathers death. Unlike the comedian, whose dad died working during the 9/11 attacks, Scotts father died during a local fire. The characters life has been disentangled from the national cataclysm, which doesnt make his unprocessed grief any less debilitating.

Apatow has a nuanced understanding of his collaborator, but doesnt know what to do with him any more than SNL really does. As in the Amy Schumerled Trainwreck (in which Davidson had a tiny role), the director cant help but inexorably bend what begins as a more chaotic portrayal into the kind of story he loves best  that of arrested development. The King of Staten Island acknowledges Scotts inner turmoil in its opening scene, in which the character turns up the radio while hes driving and then closes his eyes, flirting with death and almost getting in an accident. But after that, his trauma and his mental disorders become more abstract, things that are spoken about rather than put on screen. During a dalliance with his reluctant fuck buddy Kelsey (Bel Powley, who, good as she normally is, feels miscast), he discusses his inability to orgasm due to his meds, and then begs off telling their friends about their non-relationship: Im scared of myself and I dont want to, like, scare you or me or like hurt anyone, so I think itd just be best and really responsible of me if I just backed off. Scotts self-proclaimed fucked-up-ness has become a reason for him to not engage with anything seriously, or even try. And while theres something very real about that, itd feel more convincing if that fucked-up-ness were explored instead of shunted aside like an excuse.

The development that nudges Scott, an aspiring tattoo artist, toward his delayed coming-of-age involves his mothers love life. Hes unknowingly responsible for Margie (Marisa Tomei) having an acerbic meet-cute with Ray (Bill Burr) that blossoms into her first real relationship since the death of her husband 17 years ago. Scotts supportive until he learns that Rays also a firefighter, a fact that triggers all sorts of repressed emotions that emerge as self-centered protests. But Margie and Rays matter-of-fact romance is solid  the warm, unfussy chemistry Tomei and Burr share makes their scenes the best part of the movie  and they arent budging. And so Scott finds himself staying for a stint at Rays firehouse, where hes hazed and tough-loved back into the world by a group of firefighters led by Papa (Steve Buscemi). Before he gets there, though, there are long stretches involving his sister (Maude Apatow) heading off to college, and his getting tasked with stopping by Rays ex-wifes (Pamela Adlon) house to walk their kids to school, and the plan his fellow dirtbag buddies (Moises Arias, Ricky Velez, and Lou Wilson) cook up to rob a pharmacy.

Apatows not afraid of a luxuriant run time, and these storylines all seem like theyre meant to express the teeming messiness of life. But theres a slack inconclusiveness to each that makes them instead feel vestigial, especially the swerve into crime, snipped into something almost incoherent. The result is that, while we spend a lot of time in Scotts company, hes tiresomely static for most of it, a childish dick to his mom and sister, unrelentingly hostile to Ray, opportunistic toward Kelsey, and shockingly careless with his only pals. The King of Staten Island shrinks Davidson down a little too much, to the point where his pathos and humor doesnt blend with but actively gets obscured by his immaturity. By the time Scott takes some faltering steps toward responsibility, the movie feels too much like one weve seen before  from Apatow, especially, with his tendency to send his heroes staggering like toddlers toward the long-suffering women in their lives, standing around with their hands on their hips, waiting for them to grow up. It hardly feels like it addresses whats most interesting about Davidson, whos playing a character but still mostly playing himself. Whats most interesting about Davidson may just be a sense of promise  the sense that something, eventually, is coming that will fit just right.

*A version of this article appears in the June 22, 2020, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
Sinn Fein Councillor Sandra Duffy has welcomed the arrival of the first shipment of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) worth more than 60 million.

The partys local health spokesperson said: I welcome the news that a major shipment of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has arrived in the north from China.

This equipment is worth more than 60m and includes 1.5m respirator masks, 63m other masks and more than 50m pairs of gloves.

This delivery came about through a joint order from my party colleague, Finance Minister Conor Murphy and the health minister.

Not only is this PPE essential in our hospitals, care homes and other health and social care settings, but it will also be necessary as we move to the next phase of easing restrictions.

This will also put our health and social care services in a better place to cope with any resurgence in COVID-19 which may occur.

Our priority has always been to save lives and keep people safe in the face of this pandemic.

The Executive will continue to work tirelessly to secure PPE supplies for frontline workers.

That was the pledge from Health Minister Robin Swann and Finance Minister Conor Murphy as they confirmed the first consignment of a major PPE order from China.

1.5 million Type 11R respirator masks arrived in Belfast in recent days, the first instalment from this supply line.

In total just over 63m Type 11R Masks have been purchased alongside 109m gloves (54.6m pairs). The total value of the contract is just over 60m.

The remainder of this consignment will be delivered in a phased basis over coming weeks and will be a major boost to supplies for local health and social care services.

The purchase has been the result of a joint endeavour between the Department of Health, Department of Finance and The Executive Office.

The two Ministers thanked staff in their Departments for their hard work in making the order possible. They also praised the important contribution of the NI Bureau and Invest NI in China in developing the supply line.

Minister Swann stated: There is intense global demand for PPE products so the achievement in securing this order should not be underestimated.

However, demand for PPE will remain at very high levels for a considerable period  not just in health and social care but in other sectors too.

I have made clear that PPE products will be only be issued to frontline staff after they are assessed. I am pleased to confirm that the reports on the new consignment are positive in this regard.

Minister Murphy: Establishing a supply line with China, in the face of significant international competition for PPE, is a significant achievement for the Executive. This has been made possible by the collaborative efforts of the procurement teams in Health and Finance along with the Bureau in China.

At the same time as opening up a supply line with China, it is important to ramp up local supply of PPE. Many companies have already repurposed their operations and this should be expanded to provide security of supply and create employment as we move towards economic recovery.
Lesser flamingos (Phoeniconaias minor), a species of flamingo found in sub-Saharan Africa and India, do not have a breeding season  they breed when theyre in good enough condition; and this is often displayed by a pink flush in the feathers. So when the birds squabble over food, the pinkest individuals tend to push the others around, according to new research.

Flamingos live in large groups with complex social structures. Color plays an important role in this, said Dr. Paul Rose, a researcher at the University of Exeter.

The color comes from carotenoids in their food, which for lesser flamingos is mostly algae that they filter from the water.

A healthy flamingo that is an efficient feeder  demonstrated by its colorful feathers  will have more time and energy to be aggressive and dominant when feeding.

Dr. Rose and his colleague, Laura Soole of University Centre Sparsholt, studied the behavior of lesser flamingos housed at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) Slimbridge Wetland Centre.

The scientists observed the birds in different feeding situations: at an indoor feeding bowl, a larger indoor feeding pool, and outdoors with food available in a large pool.

In the outdoor pool, the flamingos spent less than half as much time displaying aggression, while foraging time doubled (compared to when fed from a bowl).

When birds have to crowd together to get their food, they squabble more and therefore spend less time feeding, Dr. Rose said.

Its not always possible to feed these birds outdoors, as lesser flamingos only weigh about 2 kg and are native to Africa, so captive birds in places like the UK would get too cold if they went outside in the winter.

However, this study shows they should be fed over as wide an area as possible.

Where possible, creating spacious outdoor feeding areas can encourage natural foraging patterns and reduce excess aggression.

This research shows that zoos dont have to make huge changes to how they keep their animals to make a big, beneficial difference to animal behavior.

The findings were published in the journal Ethology.

_____

Paul Rose & Laura Soole. What influences aggression and foraging activity in social birds? Measuring individual, group and environmental characteristics. Ethology, published online June 8, 2020; doi: 10.1111/eth.13067
M any London furnishing and design stores reopen today as lockdown restrictions lift on the sale of non-essential goods. But the shopping experience will be drastically changed.

Social distancing will be enforced. There will be one-way traffic, two-metre border lines on the floor, masked queue monitors and shop assistants, plus plastic screens.

Youll be offered masks, gloves and loads of hand sanitiser. You can try out beds and sofas using disposable plastic or paper sheets.

Elsewhere, touching surfaces is discouraged, though assistants should be cleaning as you go.

Before you set out to shop its wise to do your browsing online first and book appointments where they are offered - it all helps to cut down on the dreaded queuing. And returned goods will go into quarantine for 72 hours.

Loos and cafes will be shut and at Harrods and Westfield, advanced tech will control footfall. Small shops must limit customer numbers, so large stores will benefit.

In the middle of last month, the Government added homewares to its list of essential retail and some big names - after seeking legal advice - snapped up the chance to reopen, with a slew of sales and offers to woo back buyers.

Those already trading, with rule changes, include Furniture Village, DFS, Ikea, Carpetright, Sofology and Heals.

Otherwise, a clutch of stores that did not interpret homewares as big-ticket items such as sofas, beds and carpets, will open on or after Monday June 15, in line with official guidance on non-essential services. The big department stores, including Harrods, reopen next week.

John Lewis will open on Monday in Kingston and Poole, with 11 more stores next Thursday, June 18, including Bluewater and Welwyn, all deep cleaned, restocked and with staff retrained.

Harrods will open Monday and will also have a large outlet store at Westfield, effectively replacing its in-store summer sale.

Watch out for bargains as accumulated stocks are offloaded.

Carpetright, with 30 London branches including the Croydon flagship, is doing double discounts.

Viaduct in EC1 has website discounts and 20 per cent off new orders from June 19. Ligne Roset, in W1, has 20 per cent off many lines.

SCP has discounts and clearance and the store is open with full consultations by appointment in Shoreditch.

Half-price sofas: DFS is having a huge sale on its sofas, with delivery and installation back in action

There are special offers at Sofa.com and Futon Company has up to 60 per cent off.

Virtual queuing, tested by Asda, lets customers wait in their cars. Parking is free at deep-cleaned Design Centre Chelsea Harbour  visit showrooms by appointment. Call 020 7225 9166.

Areas with walkable design shopping clusters will thrive, such as Marylebone High Street and also Kings Road in Chelsea, with Designers Guild open by appointment.

Chiswick is good for top chains such as Fired Earth, Neptune, Sofa Workshop and Heals outlet store.

South Kensington has Italian flagships, plus The Conran Shop, OKA and Andrew Martin.

Some shops will still launch new designs online and offer video phone chats, consultations and tours. You can plan rooms, build colour schemes and call in samples. Customers have loved this during lockdown.

Try Neptune for kitchens and CP Hart for bathrooms, both open now, and Farrow & Ball for paint, opening gradually from Monday.

OKA reopens in Chelsea and Guildford on Monday. Habitat in W1 opens from June 22, with its NW3 and W11 stores following on June 29.

Which shops are open now?

IKEA  "meatballs are mothballed"

Ikea is now open in Wembley, Tottenham, Greenwich, Lakeside and Croydon, all with click and collect.

But customer numbers are limited and only one adult and one child can go in at a time - so youll probably have to queue.

Theyre limiting car parking, while payment is by card only. Watch out for the wardens checking up on social distancing.

Cafes are closed. If you want the companys famous meatballs, you'll have to get them at the Swedish Food market to prepare at home. There are contact-free takeaways from all of the bistros except Greenwich.

Ikea deliveries are doorstep only, even if you have a common entrance hall in a block of flats. Youll have to carry heavy items inside yourself. You might be better shopping with the IKEA app.

"Please come with a list and your own bags," urges Peter Jelkeby, country retail chief for the UK and Ireland division. "Safetys top priority. So shopping will be different. But we're the same IKEA, trying create a better everyday life for everybody."

DFS  half-price sofas

A half-price sofa sale is in full swing at DFS. London stores now open are Brent Cross, New Malden, Croydon and Sidcup, with more promised shortly.

Currently they have sofas up to half price in a huge sale. "Weve got large stores, on average 14,000sq ft, so social distancing is easier, says Nick Smith, managing director.

Our customers know we're putting safety first, and weve had good feedback." You can make an appointment to try things out, then complete the sale by phone or by live chat. Currently they have new footstools in ravishing floral prints, from 219 to 459.

DFS has been hand-making sofas to order for five decades, many in its three factories in Yorkshire and Derbyshire  and it was one of the first companies to get the BSI Kitemark for upholstered furniture. Youll get a 15-year guarantee on all DFS sofa frames and frame springs. Delivery and installation  now back in action - costs from 69.

DFS can take away and recycle your old sofa for 89. And it is the official team GB homeware partner for the Tokyo Olympics when they eventually take place.

Heals  "a first hour of shopping for the vulnerable"

Open now is The Heals Building, 196 Tottenham Court Road, W1 (020 7636 1666) and also the Heals Chiswick Outlet Store, 124-126 Chiswick High Road, W4 (020 3150 4043). Open from Monday June 15 is Heals Westfield White City, Ariel Way, W12 (0333 212 1915).

This fine old brand dating back to 1810, has weathered a fair few crises in its time.

Refreshed with new lines and bright displays, Heals has been deep cleaned and now has hand sanitisers. Theres a one-way system and customers will be limited in each department.

"Were sure you can shop safely," says Amber Coleman, head of retail. Cafes and washrooms are closed. Youll have your own plastic sheet for trying out furniture. And in-home deliveries are back in action. But you could shop virtually using Zoom  youll be walked through the store on a video line, and get expert advice.

Heals outlet in Chiswick has up to 70 per cent off cancelled, returned and overstocked pieces, but some are customised with special fabrics and finishes.

Expect sofas - including trendy velvet - plus sideboards, wardrobes, shelving, lighting, coffee tables, dining chairs and tables, bed linen and towels, tableware including fine glass, china and cutlery, and mirrors.

Stock is changing all the while  but the store limit is three customers so you may have to queue.

Furniture Village  best ever prices on famous brands

All 52 stores are now open, including the Croydon flagship at 222 Purley Way, plus New Malden, Enfield,

Romford, South Ruislip, Orpington, Staines, Watford and Friern Barnet

Furniture Village has a massive sale, with up to 50 per cent off, plus an extra 50 off when you spend 500 and up to 300 off if you spend over 3,000.

There are stringent safety measures in place  youll even get your temperature checked. You can book an appointment to avoid a queue. Staff and tills have protective shields.

You'll get gloves and a paper sheet for trying out sofas and beds.

"It's going very well, with good customer feedback," says Charlie Harrison, commercial director, son of founder and chief executive Peter Harrison.

Carpetright  "double discounts"

This flooring specialist has 30 London branches open by appointment, including the flagship at 234 Purley Way, Croydon.

Theres social distancing and customers are limited, so make an appointment, via the website. You could consult Carpetrights virtual surveyors  theyll go on a video tour of your home and offer expert advice.

There are lots of bargains to tempt customers back. Double discounts are knocking extra off sale prices  so carpets, beds and mattresses are up to 50 per cent off, with an additional 20 per cent reduction.

Vinyl, laminate and wood flooring are reduced by up to 20 per cent, with an additional 10 per cent off, and rugs are down 20 per cent.

Sofa Workshop  sofa distancing to keep you safe

Up and running now in Chiswick and Battersea, Sofa Workshop has been making stylish upholstery in the UK since 1986.

You can customise a choice of more than 60 models, in styles from sleek contemporary to ornate traditional.

Make an appointment to shop safely.

Customers have been missing our inspirational displays, says Kate Wright, head of product and brand. And a physical test is so important  people want to test for comfort, trying out different fillings and touching the different fabrics.

Enabling you to do some preliminary research, virtual showroom visits are available, guided by an expert and backed up by a sample service.

A clearance sale is running throughout the summer, with sofas for immediate delivery.
Back in the summer of 1967, our family drove from Wisconsin to MinneapolisSt. Paul to catch our first major league game in person. I remember reading something in the motel that Minneapolis was known as the "Mill City," a reference to the city's flour milling industry.

We see in this local story:

A Minneapolis manufacturing company has decided to leave the city, with the company's owner saying he can't trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn during the recent riots. The move will cost the city about 50 jobs. "They don't care about my business," said Kris Wyrobek, president and owner of 7-Sigma Inc., which has operated since 1987 at 2843 26th Av. in south Minneapolis. "They didn't protect our people. We were all on our own." Wyrobek said the plant, which usually operates until 11 p.m., shut down about four hours early on the first night of the riots because he wanted to keep his workers out of harm's way. He said a production supervisor and a maintenance worker who live in the neighborhood became alarmed when fire broke out at the $30 million Midtown Corner affordable housing apartment complex that was under construction next door. "The fire engine was just sitting there," Wyrobek said, "but they wouldn't do anything."

No, they did not do a thing  we saw it on TV.

At any level, this is local government at its most irresponsible state. What is the point of paying local taxes if the mayor will not allow the police or fire department to protect citizens or their property? What about paying state taxes so that a governor calls for a curfew and then does not back it up with troops?

Many more will leave, as happened in Baltimore. I'm just hoping the citizens of Minnesota remember all of this in November when they finally have a chance to settle scores with bad leadership.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
- Kirinyaga county Speaker Anthony Gatumbi sent official correspondence to the Senate and informed it about Waiguru's ouster

- The speaker said the Assembly resorted to kicking out Waiguru from her gubernatorial position on Tuesday, June 9, and attached the reasons in a document

- Waiguru moved to court to protest her ouster arguing the matter was still in court

- The governor was sent packing on the grounds of gross misconduct, abuse of office among other ills

Embattled Governor Ann Waiguru's fate now lies with the Senate after Kirinyaga Members of Country Assembly forwarded her impeachment to the House.

Senate Speaker Ken Lusaka received the official communication of her ouster from the Assembly Speaker Anthony Gathumbi earlier today, Wednesday, June 10.

READ ALSO: Uhuru's nephew Jomo Gecaga, bae Lola Hannigan make relationship public on IG live

Waiguru's fate was handed over to Senate. Photo: Ann Waiguru.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Nairobi: Uber driver advertises employer's car in local dailies, sells it at KSh 248K

In the documents, Gathumbi told Lusaka that 23 members, who had reached the prerequisite two-thirds, had passed the motion to oust Waiguru from her position.

"I write to inform you that in its sitting held on the morning of Tuesday, June 9, the county Assembly of Kirinyaga, in a motion supported by 23 members resolved to remove Hon. Anne Mumbi from the office of county Governor of Kirinyaga," the memo read in part.

READ ALSO: Being an ally of William Ruto has become worse than any capital offense - Ndindi Nyoro

Additionally, the county Speaker asked the Senate to find attached documents on why the ward reps kicked out the county chief.

Waiguru and the Assembly have been in a protracted standoff which culminated in the ejection of the county boss after a section of the representatives spent their night in the House in the eve of her impeachment.

The first-term governor and one among the only two women county leaders was ousted from her plum position on the grounds of corruption, abuse of office among other ills.

READ ALSO: Seneta atishia kumtumia waziri picha zake akiwa uchi

However, with the recent political realignments in the Senate and Waiguru being a close ally of President Uhuru Kenyatta, analysts opined the House might save her.

The deposed governor protested her ouster and asked the court to declare it null and void pending hearing and determination of the case.

Should the Senate approve her impeachment, Waiguru will be the second governor to be sent home after Ferdinand Waititu.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

I married a man every woman wanted - Pastor Joan Chege | Tuko Talks | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
As part of their response to the coronavirus pandemic, Ghanas AE team will be providing food parcels to impoverished community members. The team has also chosen to reach out to another vulnerable group at this time: healthcare workers. Across the world, healthcare workers are risking their lives, and the lives of their family members, to continue to provide care in the face of COVID-19. In this broken world, healthcare workers are subject not only to physical illness, but also to the depths of mental anguish found within the human experience.

In a nation like Ghana, the challenges seem insurmountable. Annual healthcare spending is a mere $ 67 per capita in Ghana, compared to $ 5,332 in Australia (World Bank). With a healthcare system that falls short of meeting the basic needs of its citizens, Ghana is utterly ill-prepared for this pandemic, and its frontline healthcare staff absolutely vulnerable.

The team of AE Ghana, under the leadership of Bernard Sachie, will be donating medical supplies to the Kasoa Polyclinic, near Accra. The supplies, approved by Ghanas Food and Drug Authority, will include gloves, liquid soap, face masks, alcohol-based sanitizer and disinfectant.

The team members who are authorised to deliver the supplies, will utilise their opportunity to encourage the clinics healthcare staff with the eternal hope found in Christ alone.

Health care workers, who serve to bring healing to this world, are heroic indeed. But they are not heroes. They are humans who desperately need our prayers and support, now more than ever.

Find out more about African Enterprise, its missions and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa via https://africanenterprise.com.au/stories/
(Photo : National Cancer Institute on Unsplash) Anti-Parasitic Drug Effective Against Coronavirus In Animal Tests: New Methods to Safely Inactive SARS-CoV-2, Revealed by Scientists (Photo : CDC on Unsplash) Anti-Parasitic Drug Effective Against Coronavirus In Animal Tests: New Methods to Safely Inactive SARS-CoV-2, Revealed by Scientists

Coronavirus found in animals' lungs has been cured by an anti-parasitic drug as claimed by a new study. According to The New York Times' latest report, South Korea's Daewoong Pharmaceutical revealed that tests involving an anti-parasitic drug have proven to be effective in fighting the coronavirus in animals.

It was reported that the anti-parasitic drug of South Korea's Daewoong Pharmaceutical called "niclosamide" eliminated the novel coronavirus lingering in the lungs of the animals used in their tests. The global impact of the novel coronavirus has pushed drugmakers around the world to quickly develop treatments for COVID-19 which has now killed more than 400,000 people around the globe since its first appearance in China late last year.





It has also been shown to inhibit viral replication of COVID19 & render the viral pathogen noninfectious.



This is extremely promising along with HCQ + zpak. Niclosamide, an anti-parasite drug, is a wide ranging antiviral that was already known to inhibit SARS-CoV replication.It has also been shown to inhibit viral replication of COVID19 & render the viral pathogen noninfectious.This is extremely promising along with HCQ + zpak. pic.twitter.com/eXZLLornhJ  Michael James Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) April 5, 2020

The Korean pharmaceutical company said that the results of the study showed that the anti-parasitic drug has eliminated the viral disease found in the tissues of ferrets' lungs, preventing the inflammation. Daewoong Pharmaceutical said that it plans to start human clinical trials by July.

Anti-parasitic drug effective against coronavirus in animal tests; New methods to safely inactive SARS-CoV-2, revealed by scientists

Niclosamide is currently being tested by three other companies around the world as a treatment for the novel coronavirus. However, the report stated that South Korea's Daewoong Pharmaceutical is not the only company that offers the anti-parasitic drug in a form that is not given orally.

"Based on the positive outcome of the animal test, we plan to complete human trials and get approval of the COVID-19 treatment drug by the end of this year," said Daewoong Pharma's CEO Jeon Seng-ho.

The report stated that human trials of several other drugs have not shown conclusive results. Currently, there is no effective treatment yet for COVID-19. Within the three trading days after the company's announcement last week, the shares of Daewoong Pharma jumped 48.2% as of Tuesday, June 9.

Meanwhile, Fox News has reported that new methods to safely inactivate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, were revealed by scientists. The study led by virologists at the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University was peer-reviewed and published in the Journal Viruses. It explained how to inactivate the virus to achieve a safe study of the infected cells.

"Importantly, the study defines specific methods that fully inactivate the virus, that is make it non-infectious, in ways compatible with further scientific analysis," said Professor Christopher Basler of the Institute for Biomedical Sciences.

"This allows researchers to study the proteins and genes of the virus and how the infected host responds to infection outside of high containment. Confirming that such analyses can be done safely, with no risk of infection, will increase the rate of discovery about the virus and COVID-19," he added.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Anti-racism campaigners are calling for pubs called 'The Black Boy' to be renamed amid growing protests by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Critics say the name has racist connotations, especially as some of the pubs' signs feature faces of African children.

But the demands have angered others who insist there is nothing offensive about the name  which was a nickname given to King Charles II in the 17th century due to his dark hair.

Debate erupted online over one pub in the Manchester area named 'The Black Boy' after critics launched a petition to have the name changed.

Meanwhile the owner of another in Oxford has said it will not change its outdated name following complaints on social media, because it wants to preserve its history.

Yesterday, part of a sign for The Green Man and Black's Head Royal Hotel in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was taken down for its 'resemblance to a racist doll' after thousands of campaigners demanded its removal.

Pubs across Britain named 'The Black Boy' have come under scrutiny from anti-racism protesters. The sign for the Black Boy Inn in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales (pictured left) and the sign for the Black Boy pub in Retford, Nottinghamshire (pictured right)

Today, Everards, which owns the Black Boy in Headington, Oxford, (pictured) hit back at social media claims that the name makes black people feel 'alienated'

Today, Everards, which owns the Black Boy in Headington, Oxford, hit back at social media claims that the name makes black people feel 'alienated'.

As reported in the Oxford Mail, one man took to the private Oxford Community group on Facebook this week to speak about the pub's name.

He said: 'In this day and age with a multicultural setting, I wouldn't describe it as appropriate.'

Yesterday part of a sign for The Green Man and Black's Head Royal Hotel in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was taken down for its 'resemblance to a racist doll' after thousands of campaigners demanded it. Pictured: The Black Boy in Sevenoaks

People eating and drinking at the Black Boy Inn, Palace Street in Caernarfon, Wales

Another person added: 'It has always made me uncomfortable too. It should be changed  I'm sure it puts lots of people off.'

A spokesperson for Everards told the Oxford Mail: 'Its a 16th century pub which was rebuilt in the 1930s and therefore is an important part of the local story.

We understand that the pub has been called The Black Boy since at least 1805 and wherever possible we prefer to keep each pubs history alive and retain the original name.'

It comes as a debate erupted over the name of one pub in the Manchester area named 'The Black Boy'. Pictured: The Black Boy in Headington

In Manchester, a row has erupted on social media site Twitter over one pub called 'The Black Boy' in Wythenshawe, in the south of the city.

The debate was sparked by one account, Manc Pictures, who said: 'So this is my local pub called "The Black Boy" and there's now a petition to get the name changed.

'Honestly not sure what to make of it, to me it's not racist at all.'

Some rushed to defend the pub, including one who said the name had 'nothing to do with race ever'.

But another, named Michelle, said: 'I always hated the name when I taught around there if I'm honest. I think it should be changed.'

Other pubs have also come under pressure from Twitter users, including The Black Boy in Retford, Nottinghamshire.

One Twitter user argued the pub's name should be changed.

He said: 'I'm not sure how appropriate having a pub call "The Black Boy" is?

'Seems the people of Retford are rather comfortable with what is a highly offensive name of a business.'

Another called for the Ye Olde Black Boy in Hull to be 'destroyed', while another Twitter user defended the user of the name generally, saying it has 'nothing to do with a young slave' but instead is to do with King Charles II.

Picutred: The Black Boy in Winchester, Hants

However one Twitter user, using the hashtag for Black Lives Matter, claimed the pubs should be renamed 'White Boys' instead.

Across England and Wales, there are at least 25 different pubs called 'The Black Boy', or similar.

But the name, which is said to have a number of origins, including the soot darkened faces of chimney sweeps, is often thought to be a reference to King Charles II.

The English Monarch, who ruled from 1660 until his death, aged 54, in 1665, was nicknamed 'Black Boy' by his mother, Henrietta Maria of France, due to his dark hair and complexion.

There are at least 25 pubs in England and Wales named 'The Black Boy' or something similar, MailOnilne has found

'The Black Boy' or similarly named pubs across England and Wales Here is a list of The Black Boy or similarly named pubs MailOnline could find in England and Wales: The Black Boy - Winchester, Hants Blackboys Inn - Blackboys, East Sussex Black Boy - Sevenoaks, Kent The Black Boy - Sidcup, London The Black Boy - St Albans, Herts The Black Boy - Oxford, Oxfordshire The Black Boy - Reading, Berkshire Black Boys Inn - Maidenhead, Berkshire The Black Boy - Swansea, Wales The Black Boy - Solihull, West Midlands The Black Boy - Bewdley, West Midlands The Black Boy Inn - Bridnorth, West Midlands The Black Boy - Newtown, Wales Black Boy Inn - Caernarfon, Wales The Black Boy Inn - Hungarton, Leicestershire The Black Boys - Aylsham, Norfolk The Black Boy - Weeley, Essex The Black Boy - Sudbury, Suffolk The Black Boy - Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk The Black Boy - Nether Heage, Derbyshire The Black Boy - Manchester The Black Boy - Retford, Nottinghamshire Ye Olde Black Boy - Hull, East Riding Blackie Boy - Newcastle Advertisement

It was a nickname that was taken up those who supported Charles II attempts to restore the monarchy and it is believed a number of pubs changed their name to The Black Boy as a possible show of allegiance.

Other suggestions for the name's origins including the misspelling of a nautical navigation marker, a 'buoy'.

The row emerged last night after a sign depicting a boy with a black face was taken down amid growing calls for it to be removed.

Over 28,000 people signed a petition demanding that the caricature be taken down from the 18th century Greenman pub sign in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

Derbyshire Dales District Council said on Monday it would remove the sign with 'immediate effect' but when the head was taken down on Monday evening, locals said they had done so to protect it.

In a Facebook post, Mr Redfern said the head would be given 'a lick of black paint' and claimed the move was to save it from vandalism.

The petition against the head drew inspiration from an anti-racism demonstration in Bristol, which saw protesters topple the statue of slave trader Edward Colston before dragging the monument into the harbour.

The Grade II-listed pub sign, which arches over St John's Street, depicted the face of a black man, which one anthropology student from the town said resembled the a golliwog.

A golliwog is a 19th century rag doll which is considered racist for its exaggerated and offensive features.

The anthropology student said: 'I think people are ashamed of it.'

'Having it in the middle of the street in a small town is so unwelcoming.

'It should have been taken down a long time ago and put in a museum.'

Matthew Holt, an international relations student from Ashbourne, also signed the petition, stating: 'It seems such an obvious racist sign.

'I think it's important we address our history.

Mr Holt added: can't change it but this shouldn't be displayed in the public eye.'

The pub sign, with 'resemblance to a racist doll', has been removed after thousands of campaigners demanded it

Derbyshire Dales District Council took down the sign after a petition with more than 28,000 signatures

'It should be in a museum where we can learn about it with a description to contextualise it.'

Their demands prompted Derbyshire Dales District Council's decision to remove the monument from the sign.

A council spokesman said earlier: 'We're removing the head from the sign with immediate effect.

'We agree that the sign itself is not only a public safety concern right now, but that this is an issue that requires urgent discussion and consultation.

'The sign was gifted to the district council a number of years ago and is currently protected by a Grade II structure listing.

'Legally, only Heritage England or the Secretary of State can remove this listing, which means we need to take on board the views of our own councillors and local people before taking forward any representations. This will happen soon.'

However, a petition has also been launched which seeks to keep the monument in place, with supporters stating it is a part of history.

The sign, which is officially recorded as the longest single inn sign in the country, had a carved wooden head on it before it was removed

Following the petition, hundreds have now signed a counter-petition to save the imagery

On the petition page, which has garnered more than 2,700 signatures, organiser Shaun Redfern, 17, from Ashbourne, described the sign as a tourist attraction which 'should be kept because of the history for the town'.

He said: 'I believe that the sign is not even the smallest bit racist.'

He added: 'Are we supposed to deny our past now and get rid of old artefacts?'

A sign saying 'save Me' was hung from the head on Monday evening before the face was taken down.

Global Black Lives Matter protests were sparked when George Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for almost ten minutes and a number of petitions are demanding controversial monuments in the UK are taken down.

Thousands of people have signed two new petitions calling for the statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes to be taken down from Oriel College at the University of Oxford.
In February 1952, the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Army (PVA) issued a joint statement with the North Korean government, alleging that United States troops were carrying out large-scale bacterial or germ warfare during the Korean War. The United States denied the accusations. The world demanded the truth  after all, were the brave and heroic American troops boldly trampling on civilization, or was the great and never-wrong Chinese Communist Party making groundless accusations?

Did the United States troops indeed carry out bacterial warfare in the Korean War? The matter was introduced to the agenda of the United Nations Security Council in June 1952. The United States requested that the International Red Cross investigate, and the request was supported by many member states of the UN, including that of the Republic of China. However, it was vetoed by the Soviet Union, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Not only did the Soviet Union veto the American motion, but the USSR also immediately countered with a request for the World Peace Council (WPC) to investigate. The WPC, funded and supported by the Soviet Union, set up the International Scientific Commission for the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in China and Korea (ISC). The ISC went to North Korea between July 28 to August 1 and was briefed by North Korean health officials on cases of cholera deaths and plague deaths. In Sept. 15, 1952, the ISC signed and published a 500-page report titled, Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China." The report was bounded with a black cover, hence nicknamed the Black Paper. And it was this very Black Paper that corroborated the Chinese allegations that the United States had used bacterial warfare in the Korean War.

Sixty-eight years have passed. The Soviet Union has collapsed. The World Peace Council has faded away from the international arena. Nevertheless, copies of the 500-page Black Paper are still being kept in the libraries and archives of many countries as well as in peoples memories. This is the purpose that the Black Paper serves. It was not convincing enough for the world to believe in its findings, but it was stirring up enough muddy water to raise reasonable doubts. What had really happened? The report did not provide answers to the question that the commission was charged to solve, but rather, it has made the situation more complicated.

Fortunately, Wu Zhili, the former surgeon general of Chinese People's Voluntary Army Headquarters, had left behind an account of the event in his memoir, The Germ War of 1952 Was a False Alarm," in which he revealed the truth that had been buried for decades and offered some clarifications.

Several key points were noted in Wus memoir, published in Yanhuang Chunqiu no. 11 (2013): 3639:

I. The allegation of American bacterial warfare was baseless, and it was hard for the commission to link the war to germ warfare.

Additionally, in the entire year of 1952, no patients nor deaths were found to be associated with bacterial warfare in either North Korea or northeastern China.

No evidence was provided to support the allegation. This fact alone served as the best defense for the truth.

II. So, on what evidence did the team come up with the Black Paper? It turned out that the report was pre-signed ahead of time before the investigation team even entered North Korea. This was orchestrated by Nikolai Nikolaevich Zhukov-Verezhnikov, the vice president of the commission, also a member of the then Academy of Science of the Soviet Union. He argued that it was extremely dangerous in the battlegrounds in North Korea, and should God forbid anything happen to the commission, the entire investigation would be in vain, so he suggested that members of the commission pre-sign the report, just in case. The rest of the commission team thought the arguments made sense and agreed. This is another fact proving that the scientific legitimacy of this commission was little to none.

III. Wu himself did not believe that US troops used germ warfare in the Korean War. Because of this view, he was criticized twice by his superiors. The first one was a call from the central government criticizing him for failing to be on the lookout (for opportunities). The central government advised that even if the enemy did not carry out germ warfare, we could still play it to our advantage for propaganda. In another incident, the Peoples Volunteer Army Commander Peng Dehuai labeled him an agent of American imperialism speaking in our enemys defense. As the commission failed to produce any concrete evidence to sustain the allegation of U.S. bacterial warfare, yet still had to come up with some evidence, it was even suggested that the deputy director for disease control inject the plague bacteria into my body so as to enable the commission to collect a piece of hard evidence: Even the surgeon general of PVA has contracted the Plague spread by American troops. This is another fact from the memoir that proves the Chinese central government and the PVA Commander had no intention to seek the truth when handling such an important matter.

IV. Zhou Enlai personally questioned Peoples Volunteer Army deputy commander Hong Xuezhi as to whether youve made it happen? Hong answered, Yes sir, we did, or we wouldnt have been able to meet the demand ordered by the central government. Again, Wus account proved that the allegations were inaccurate and the so-called investigation was falsified. It also proved that the Chinese leaders were fully aware that these charges were fabricated. However, the Chinese leaders never apologized to the United States nor to the world about the mistakes it had made. The Chinese leaders did not, as a result, educate its party members to learn from the lesson and refrain from deploying such tactics again. This is another piece of iron-clad fact that proves my point.

Indeed, ever since then the Chinese communists have toned down their allegations against the U.S. about the bacterial warfare. Nevertheless, toning down is anything but owning up to its mistake. The toning down after the report and the vocal charges prior were all strategies based on political calculations. The Korean War took a heavy toll on the PVA troops and civilians. The Chinese government should have sought negotiations rather than instigate more controversies.

Not being able to own up to its mistake is a typical behavior trait of the CCP, even when the damage is catastrophic. The fabricated charge that the U.S. was involved in germ warfare was one example. The Korean War itself was another. China declared the war under the slogans Against the US. Assist North Korea. Safeguard our home and country. However, China was in fact taking orders from the USSR to help Kim Il-sung invade South Korea. Did the CCP government admit that it was a mistake to take part in the Korea War? No. When facing the international community, the CCP did not own up to its mistake, and domestically it had demonstrated a similar attitude to its people. Under the ideological slogan of the Three Red Banners, which consisted of the General Line for socialist construction, the Great Leap Forward, and the people's communes, tens of millions of farmers died from the Chinese Great Famine. Did the CCP ever properly and sincerely apologize to the Chinese people in a formal setting? More recently, the CCP ordered tens of thousands of fully equipped troops to slaughter those unarmed students and citizens protesting in the Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989!

It is unlikely for a political party that has constantly failed its people to own up to its mistakes to other countries in the world. Though not completely impossible, it is still extremely unlikely.

Translated by Min Eu.



Bao Tong, former political aide to the late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, is under continual surveillance and frequent house arrest at his home in Beijing.
Oil Price Rally Falters as US Shale Producers Weigh Reopening

Crude hovers at $40 as stocks build, Chinese demand questionable

Oil prices fell to around $40 per barrel in early trading on Wednesday after reports that American Petroleum Institute (API) statistics showed U.S. crude stocks had risen sharplyconfounding analysts expectations.

Market prices for Brent and West Texas International (WTI) hit three-month highs on Mondaywith WTI prices creeping briefly above the $40 mark after Brent fell to a 21-year record low of $16 per barrel and WTI future prices briefly turned negative in April.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia and others (OPEC+) crude producers group had agreed on Saturday to extend supply cuts of 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of July. Subsequently, however, a trio of Middle-Eastern oil producersSaudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAEindicated that they would not be continuing supplemental cuts of approximately 1 million barrels per day.

Norwegian energy analyst Rystad Energy stated that if OPEC and allies refrain from production increases, the market could experience crude oil and condensate supply deficits as soon as the end of June that would continue through 2021shoring up prices, drawing down brimming reserves and easing U.S. shale producers back into the market.

OPEC+ Influence?

At the 11th OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial meeting held remotely on June 6, the participants reiterated that it was vital that all major producers remain fully committed to efforts aimed at balancing and stabilizing the market. This included continuing through July the production cuts agreed for May and June between OPEC members plus Russia, while ensuring that producers that had not complied fully with the cuts, such as Iraq and Nigeria, would balance out their surpluses with even deeper cuts later in the summer.

Saudi Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh (L) and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak attend a meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC members to assess compliance with production cuts and to discuss potential long-term cooperation, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on April 20, 2018. (AMER HILABI/AFP/Getty Images)

Overall, OPEC+ reported 85 percent compliance with the production cuts.

According to Rystad Energy, the generous OPEC+ voluntary cuts into July will not only balance the Covid-19-hit global crude and condensate demand, but are deep enough to create a monthly deficit starting from June 2020 and continuing uninterrupted until at least the end of next year.

The company believes that crude oversupply is a thing of the past as long as OPEC+ compliance stays strong and the oil demand recovery trajectory isnt radically altered.

Demand RecoveringSlowly

Petroleum Association of Japan President Tsutomu Sugimori told Reuters on Monday that he expects oil to continue to trade above $40 per barrelas long as sufficient economic activity resumes to stimulate demand. Sugimori said he expected supply and demand to move toward an equilibrium.

Responding to the OPEC+ extension announcement, Ann-Louise Hittle, vice president of macro oils at energy analysts Wood Mackenzie, said The 9.7 million b/d production cuts were already working, extending them an extra month will tighten the market more quickly.

Hittle says that global demand is also recovering, with figures for May and June reflecting the relaxation of lockdown restrictions around the world. Wood Mackenzie already expected the supply and demand balance to tighten in the third quarter, she said in a statement. With the extension, this rebalancing will accelerate.

Hittle expects global demand to surpass supply and draw-downs of storage capacity to occur in the third quarter, leading to increasing oil prices from the current $40 per barrel to the $45-$50 range, with Q3 demand 10 million b/d higher than in the second quarter.

US Shale Will Recover, But When?

According to the Baker Hughes rig count, the number of rotary oil rigs in operation across the United States fell by 17 to 284 in the week ending June 5a fall of a whopping 691 from the same weekend last year.

In a report on shale shut-ins, S&P Global writes that although neither shutting down a well nor restarting production are technically difficult tasks, they are associated with costs. In addition, some of the tiny cracks in the fracked shale may have closed, meaning that some wells will require time and additional measures to return to their previous production volumesif thats possible at all.

A pump jack operates at a well site leased by Devon Energy Production Company near Guthrie, Okla., on Sept. 15, 2015. (Nick Oxford/File Photo/Reuters)

According to S&P, Some producers anticipate bringing shut-in wells online again if West Texas Intermediate oil prices remain above $30 per barrel. The company quotes Goldman Sachs analysis that shows how WTI prices can change producer behavior. From $30-$40 per barrel, well completions resume, while prices from $40 to $50 maintain production levels. Prices from $45 to $ 60 per barrel would signal a return to expanding production, which most analysts expect will occur first in the west-Texan Permian basin.

According to S&P, however, Few people, if anyone, expect the end of the great shale shut-in to offset a dramatic decline in U.S. production this year and perhaps in the years following. Oilfield workers have been laid off en masse. More than half the countrys drilling rigs have been idled. Fracking fleets are being decimated.

We just tromped on the brake pedal with both feet and slowed down production dramatically, such that it looks like we are going to get through, veteran oilman Kyle McGraw told S&P. People shut in at much greater rates because of that fear, a month ago, when we had that negative $37 oil.

As fast as we jumped on the brake, how fast will we move our foot over to the gas pedal now? McGraw asked. Will we go to the gas pedal with both feet? I think not.

Words of Caution

While global oil demand has experienced a recovery during May and June, much of that demand has been driven by China. While some analysts have assumed that increased Chinese demand has been an indicator of Chinese economic activity and a return to business as usual, others have cautioned that more sinister motives may have been at play.

Writing at oilprice.com, Tsvetana Paraskova says that the simplest reason is that Chinese buyers have likely chosen to fill as much storage capacity as possible while crude prices have been at record lows, with Chinas opportunistic buying even breaking the countrys own monthly import records in May.

However, Reuters quoted the head of China research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Michal Meidan, as saying that Chinas oil hub of Shandong is currently hoping to boost economic activity by shutting down smaller, independen, so-called teapot, refiners to make way for a massive $20 billion refinery complex. Increased oil stocks would help buffer the shut-down.

The imports may also have been a preparation for other mega-projects and for the Chinese refinery maintenance season. In addition, many smaller Chinese importers may have already used up their import quota allowances, meaning reduced Chinese demand overall in the third quarter.

Analyst Bo Zhuang from TS Lombard told the Financial Times recently that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may also be worried about increasing levels of tension with the United States.

The United States and a host of other nations are angry over the regimes cover-up of the CCP virus outbreak and the communist regimes failure to honor the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday denounced Chinese efforts to coerce the UK by pulling out of agreements to supply nuclear reactors over the UKs rejection of Huawei as a telecoms provider.

Australia, Denmark, and other free nations have recently faced pressure from CCP interests to bow to Chinas political wishes, said Pompeo. Free nations deal in true friendship and desire mutual prosperity, not political and corporate kowtows.

A further breakdown in Chinas international relations could conceivably lead to sanctions such as tariffs, which could affect its ability to import goods without impediment. Strongly increased imports now may be a harbinger of reduced demand in Q3, however.

The Financial Times reported that, according to Bo Zhuang, China wants to fill up its oil tanks and soybean warehouses in case it couldnt import these materials freely.
The parasites responsible for malaria seem to march to their own beat.

The mystery behind the molecular basis of how these parasites synch their rhythm in replication to the host's clock-driven rhythms has been solved.

A new genetic analysis led by KAUST scientists revealed Plasmodium parasites have internal timekeeping systems that help the organism maintain essential oscillations in gene expression levels and cell cycle activities.

Just as humans reset their own biological clocks in response to light-dark cues, malaria parasites time their own rhythms to host signals to maximize their growth success.

The finding of a genetic metronome within the malaria parasite, as well as one component of this timekeeping mechanism, could open new pathways for combatting one of the world's deadliest contagious diseases.

Saudi Arabia is on the verge of malaria eradication, but the disease continues to affect its southwestern border, where infections have proven difficult to treat and parasites are increasingly resistant to existing drugs.

The knowledge from our study has the potential to inform new therapies for malaria elimination.This information might allow doctors to formulate drug regimens in which patients take anti-malarial therapies with known target genes at particular times of the day so as to eliminate the malaria parasite more effectively." Amit Subudhi, Study First Author, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology

Subudhi is also a postdoctoral researcher in Arnab Pain's group.

Subudhi and Pain teamed up with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, U.K., and from Nagasaki University, Japan, to profile gene activity patterns in mouse-infecting malaria parasites.

They found that more than half of all the parasite's genes exhibited 24-hour cycles of activity, ramping up and down at regular daily intervals. This pattern is consistent with the characteristic rhythms of fevers and chills seen in people infected with malaria.

Around half of the rhythmic genes lost their periodicity when the clocks of the parasite and mouse fell out of synchrony.

Likewise ; in a lab dish, human malaria parasites cultured without timing cues also displayed some degree of daily rhythmicity in gene expression.

One of these genes coded for a receptor protein called SR10, which the researchers showed acts as a cog in the parasite's intrinsic clock machinery.

Without this protein, the usual 24-hour cycle of the rodent Plasmodium parasite became shorter, leading to defects in DNA replication and other cellular processes as well as protein breakdown.

According to Subudhi, SR10 likely serves as a link between host circadian rhythms and the endogenous time-keeping ability of the parasite.

The KAUST researchers plan to dissect the molecular components of the SR10-mediated signaling pathway in search of novel drug targets.

"Our work does not stop here," notes Pain. "Our next aim is to understand the chemical nature of the host-derived cues that the parasite receives to adjust its life cycle and its biological clock," he says.
China says has no plans to join US-Russia arms control talks

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 5:38 PM

China says it has no plans to participate in negotiations on arms control with Russia and the United States, after being invited by Washington to take part in the talks, to be held later this month.

"We have repeatedly clarified our position. China does not intend to participate in the so-called trilateral talks on arms control with Russia and the US," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Her comments came a day after US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea tweeted that China had also been invited to the talks. "Will China show and negotiate in good faith?" he wrote.

The Chinese spokeswoman said the US was attempting to get Beijing to participate in the talks even though Washington itself had been unilaterally withdrawing from arms control treaties.

"In recent years, the United States has withdrawn from a number of international agreements, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Arms Trade Treaty, and the Treaty on Open Skies, and now it is considering the possibility of resuming nuclear testing," Hua said.

She said it was "absurd" to hear an American official "speak about good faith."

Billingslea had further said on Twitter that he had reached an agreement with Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov about the time and place of the talks. In a report on Monday, Bloomberg, citing an unnamed US State Department official, reported that the talks would be held in Vienna on June 22.

China has said it will not participate in the US-Russia talks but has said it will take part in international nuclear disarmament efforts.

The upcoming arms control talks are meant to pave the way for a new accord between the US and Russia to replace the 2010 New START treaty between the two sides that expires next February.

The New START can be extended for another five years, beyond its expiry date in February 2021, by mutual agreement.

Bloomberg, citing the unnamed US State Department official, said that the US might be willing to extend the New START if "Russia commits to three-way arms control with China and helps to bring a resistant Beijing to the table."

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Courts across the country have managed to conduct a variety of legal proceedings remotely, including arraignments, guilty pleas and bench trials, but Oregon was one of the first states to reinstate in-person jury trials. Their handling provides a glimpse of the near future, and raises new questions about fairness, safety and due process in a court system that, like everything else, is affected by the coronavirus.

Masks pose a number of conundrums. How would Mr. Potter choose a jury if he could not pick up on the fleeting smirks or scowls that normally tip him off to bias? How would the jury react if his client looked like a bandit in the courtroom?

Other questions involved more fundamental principles of jurisprudence. Would the jury pool reflect the community if people in groups hit harder by Covid-19, like older residents, African-Americans and Latinos, were more reluctant to show up? Can a trial truly be considered public if the public has been told to stay at home?

Theres an inherent conflict between the rights of someone on trial and our social distancing policies, Mr. Potter said after his client, Michael Frank Moody, became the first defendant to be tried by jury in Multnomah County since the pandemic began. As smooth as this went, at no point would I ever advise a client to go through with it in these times.
Jacqui Lambie has held back tears as she tore into 'un-Australian' protesters who took to the streets across the country for Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Protesters gathered in their tens of thousands across Australia's largest cities on Saturday to rally against Aboriginal deaths in custody and the death of George Floyd allegedly at the hands of a white police officer in America on May 25.

But the Tasmanian senator hit out at the logic of gathering in such large numbers when the threat of a COVID-19 second wave still hung over the nation.

'Not only have Australians gone through the bushfires for months on end, we've now been through COVID-19 and people's mental health is really not dealing with this,' she told Today show host Allison Langdon on Thursday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also slammed the protesters, saying the rallies were the 'only legitimate blocker' to relaxing coronavirus lockdown measures further.

'We actually don't know right now whether those rallies on the weekend may have caused outbreaks. And we won't know, my health advice is, for at least another week,' he said.

'It just puts a massive spanner in the works. By all means, raise your issue but by doing this they've put the whole track back to recovery at risks and, certainly, any further action on this front would be absolutely unacceptable.'

Pictured: Protesters in Adelaide rally in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on Saturday

Ms Lambi appeared to choke back tears as she called out the protesters.

'Quite frankly, I'll call it out today. I just find this [the protests] really, really reckless and if black lives matter so much then why are you putting them at risk and doing this?,' she said.

'What is wrong with you people? It is so bloody un-Australian.

'This is not good for the cause. Please don't do this. There are other ways around doing this.'

She also defiantly defended Australian police officers - calling on those who are criticising them to 'go spend a day in their shoes'.

'There are many out there suffering with their own mental health but still go to work every day to make sure we keep peace on our streets,' she said.

Outspoken Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie hit out at the logic of gathering in such large numbers when the threat of a COVID-19 second wave still hung over the nation

'For a couple of bad eggs, this is just unacceptable. Everybody in society has bad eggs but to blame everybody for that action, that's not on and that's once again un-Australian.'

Her stinging criticism of the protests comes as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned a second wave of the coronavirus would cost the Australian economy $25billion.

But the OECD report added the economic consequences will be severe and long-lasting whether or not there is a second outbreak, with Australia's GDP to fall by five per cent this year in the absence of another wave of cases.

In the 'double hit' scenario GDP could fall by 6.3 per cent this year, the OECD says in a new report.

The economic organisation said the government should consider support measures that may be needed once existing help ends in September.

Those included strengthening the social safety net and investing in energy efficiency and social housing.
Alumni of Monroe Township High School are calling for the ouster of a board of education member, saying his social media posts violate board ethics policies.

A petition calling for Peter Tufano, a first-term board member elected in 2018, to be removed has gained nearly 1,500 signatures in less than 24 hours. The petition alleges that Tufano violated board policy against making defamatory statements with his inflammatory online posts.

Mr. Peter Tufano has violated this code many times over: verbally and sexually harassing Monroe citizens online, making openly racist statements, and personally threatening those who dare to disagree with him, Sasha Risko, a 2017 Monroe High School alumnus, wrote in a Change.org petition.

Online comments made by Tufano and reviewed by NJ Advance Media contained racist and sexist statements, including vowing to call Attorney General Grubir Grewal turban man, calling women derogatory slurs, and saying protesters were dressed like bums, not groomed and all have zero class.

Tufano did not respond to NJ Advance Medias request for comment Tuesday.

Ahead of starting the petition, Risko contacted Monroe Board of Education president Steven Riback and superintendent Dori Alvich. Riback said he would look into the matter, according to emails reviewed by NJ Advance Media. Riback declined to comment when reached by email.

Risko said she felt compelled to bring Tufanos online activity to light given the Black Lives Matter protests happening across the country. She cited a comment Tufano made that said, in part, you should teach kids to remain silent on their opinions and views for the future as particularly concerning.

Hes really trying to silence the voice of my generation especially because we dont agree with his right wing ideals. If he can so easily silence us online, what can he do on the Board of Education? Risko said.

The effort to see Tufano removed from the board began in group chats with fellow alumni, Risko said, and she posted a Twitter thread with screenshots of Tufanos posts shortly after that. A petition officially calling for his ouster was created on Tuesday.

Tufano threatened Risko with legal action in a private Facebook message after she posted the Twitter thread, saying he was planning on suing her for defamation of character. Risko shared a screenshot of that conversation with NJ Advance Media.

My goal with this is to bring attention to his, so much so that Monroe cant ignore it, Risko told NJ Advance Media by phone. This doesnt represent our community, and yeah we have some problems but this is a very racially diverse town.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Katie Kausch may be reached at kkausch@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
VATICAN CITY (AP)  Pope Francis called George Floyd by name, twice, and offered support to an American bishop who knelt in prayer during a Black Lives Matter protest.

Cardinals black and white have spoken out about Floyd's death, and the Vaticans communications juggernaut has shifted into overdrive to draw attention to the cause he now represents.

Under normal circumstances, Floyds killing at the hands of a white police officer and the global protests denouncing racism and police brutality might have drawn a muted diplomatic response from the Holy See. But in a U.S. election year, the intensity and consistency of the Vaticans reaction suggests that, from the pope on down, it is seeking to encourage anti-racism protesters while making a clear statement about where American Catholics should stand ahead of President Donald Trump's bid for a second term in November.

Francis wants to send a very clear message to these conservative Catholics here who are pro-Trumpers that, Listen, this is just as much of an issue as abortion is, said Anthea Butler, a presidential visiting fellow at Yale Divinity School.

Butler, who is African American, said the Vatican is telling Catholics to pay attention to the racism that is happening and the racism that is in your own church in America.

The Vatican has long spoken out about racial injustice, and popes dating to Paul VI have voiced support for the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr.s message of nonviolent protest. Historys first pope from the global south is no different. He quoted King at length during his historic speech to the U.S. Congress in 2015 and met with Kings daughter, as his predecessor had done.

But the degree to which Francis and the Vatican have seized on Floyd's killing is unusual and suggests a coordinated messaging strategy aimed at a national church that Francis has long criticized for its political and ideological partisanship, said Alberto Melloni, a church historian and secretary of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies in Bologna, Italy.

Story continues

Its not like seven people had the same type of reaction by chance, Melloni said.

Last week, Francis denounced the sin of racism and twice identified Floyd as the victim of a tragic killing. In a message read in Italian and English during his general audience, Francis expressed concerns about violence during the protests, saying it was self-destructive.

He also said, We cannot close our eyes to any form of racism or exclusion, while pretending to defend the sacredness of every human life.

It was a clear effort to call out some conservative Catholics for whom the abortion issue is paramount, while other life issues dear to Francis  racism, immigration, the death penalty and poverty  play second fiddle at the ballot box.

Francis has firmly upheld the church's opposition to abortion. And polls show a plurality of American Catholics support significant restrictions on legal abortion.

But Francis has also lamented that the U.S. church is obsessed with abortion, contraception and gay marriage to the detriment of its other teachings. Trump is staking his outreach to Catholic voters largely on his anti-abortion platform.

Francis spoke out June 3 after Trump posed in front of an Episcopal church near the White House, Bible in hand, after law enforcement aggressively forced protesters away from a nearby park.

A day later, Trump visited the St. John Paul II shrine, a visit denounced by the highest-ranking African American prelate in the U.S., Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., whom Francis appointed to the politically important position last year. Gregory said he found it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated.

In that vein, the popes phone call to Texas Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso last week appeared quietly significant. Seitz has taken a leading role in demanding fair treatment for migrants attempting to cross the southern U.S. border, a cause Francis has championed in ways that have fueled tensions with Trump.

Francis called Seitz unexpectedly after he was photographed kneeling in prayer at a Black Lives Matter protest. Seitz said the pope thanked him without mentioning the demonstration, but the context was clear: My recent words and actions on the events that are taking place in the country now" after Floyd's killing.

Francis was not alone in making the Vaticans views known.

While the Holy See would be loath to be seen as picking sides prior to the U.S. election, its media operation has made clear its backing for peaceful protests, denouncing injustices suffered by black Americans and underlining its longtime support of Kings message.

Sundays LOsservatore Romano newspaper featured three Floyd-related stories on its front page. The first was that 1 million people were expected to protest that day in Washington.

A second story was about a video showing two U.S. police officers shoving 75-year-old Martin Gugino, a white Catholic protester, to the ground in Buffalo. Go watch it, please," the article said.

Its third story was about a prayer service presided over by the highest-ranking American at the Vatican, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who decried how Americas constitutional ideals were failing its black citizens.

In an interview, Farrell said he has spoken to Francis in the past about Americas race problems, which he saw up close as an auxiliary bishop in Washington. Farrell said Francis is well versed in King and American history.

Francis knows what the principle was and he knows what the struggle was, Farrell said.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said the Vaticans message is having an effect on American Catholics.

We are starting to see a kind of fissure emerge, she said. Whether thats going to be long lasting or whether it is a sign of a paradigm shift, I think its too early to tell.

A poll from the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute last week found that the share of white Catholics holding favorable views of Trump had dropped by double digits since last year, registering 37% in the last week of May compared with 49% across 2019.

The test, Imperatori-Lee said, will be if priests are still preaching about racism in six months. And beyond that: I guess well know if this works when Catholics go to the polls in November.

___

Schor contributed from New York.

___

Follow all AP coverage of the U.S. and global protests against racism and police brutality at https://apnews.com/GeorgeFloyd.
B oris Johnson has stressed the two-metre rule must be kept under constant review as the Government seeks to kick-start the economy.

The Governments Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty has said that this social distancing measure, to stop the spread of coronavirus, should carry on really for as long as this epidemic continues.

However, the Prime Minister appeared to be pushing for it to be relaxed.

I believe that the two-metre rule need now to be kept under review, he told MPs at Prime Ministers Questions.

As we drive this disease down, as we get the incidence down working together, I want to make sure that we keep that two-metre rule under constant review.

There is all sorts of scientific advice about that particular matter.

Boris Johnson speaking in the Commons / Sky News

Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford highlighted that the Cabinet had discussed easing the rule.

But thats not the experts advice right now, he added.

SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) reported that being exposed to the virus for six seconds at one metre is the same as being exposed for one minute at two metres - that is a significant increase in risk.

Mr Blackford claimed ministers were trying to ease the distance rule too soon and emphasised Professor Whittys words.

However, Mr Johnson defended the Governments anti-Covid plan.

There are all sorts of views about the two-metre rule, he explained.

He is absolutely correct in what he says about the SAGE advice but clearly as the incidence of the disease comes down, as I think members of SAGE would confirm, the statistical likelihood of being infected no matter how close or far you are from somebody who may or may not have coronavirus, goes down.

Changing the two-metre rule to one metre would make it far easier for many shops, pubs, restaurants and schools to re-open and some other countries use a lower distance than two metre.

Professor Whitty, Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and other leading experts have notably not done the daily No10 press conferences with Government ministers in recent days, though it is not known whether this was at the wishes of the experts or another reason.
More than a dozen looters were captured on surveillance camera stealing about $10,000 in merchandise from Macy's Herald Square store in New York City.

On Friday, police released footage of the shocking smash-and-grab, which took place in midtown Manhattan on June 1, in a bid to help capture the culprits.

The authorities released still shots of the suspected thieves alongside the video of the large group making off with merchandise.

In the clip, a large group of men are seen trying to enter the superstore just before 10pm on June 1.

Two men, one with a bat and another with a hammer, are seen trying to bust the glass doors of the store just moments before the suspects made entry.

Within a matter of seconds, the group of men are seen running inside the store.

More than a dozen looters (pictured) were captured on surveillance footage stealing about $10,000 in merchandise from Macy's Herald Square store in New York City. Two men, one with a bat and another with a hammer, are seen trying to bust the glass doors of the store

Within a matter of seconds, the group of men (pictured) are seen running inside the store

According to the New York Post, the thieves made off with about $10,000 of merchandise.

In surveillance images released by police, one suspect is seen carrying multiple pocketbooks while another is seen with a large black bag.

The incident occurred just days after looters used hammers to break into a Macy's in Brooklyn on May 31.

Video from theft showed two men using hammers to smash into a display case.

Police are asking for anyone with information regarding the incident to call (800) 577-TIPS

Police have released these stills showing the suspected looters making their way through the department store during the smash and grab

Police said the men stole $29,000 worth of jewelry from the store. Security footage shows the two men break the glass on a number of cabinets in the store, grabbing the pricey goods.

The incident is said to have taken place on May 31 during riots which marred peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Police say the two men had first raided a CVS in Manhattan at around 8pm that evening.

The incident occurred just days after looters used hammers to break into a Macy's in Brooklyn on May 31. During the May 31 incident, a pair of looters used hammers to smash Macy's display cases before police say they stole $29,000 worth of jewelry

Security footage released Sunday shows as the two men break the glass on a number of cabinets in the store, grabbing the pricey goods

Looters lit trash cans on fire before breaking into the store and making off with goods

There they allegedly stole electronic equipment and bottles of water after breaking in through the front door.

They then made their way to the Macy's on Fulton Street at 11pm where they were able to open a side door, officers said.

Police say the first suspect was wearing goggles and a white face mask. He has short dreadlocks and was seen in a black shirt, black pants and black sneakers.

The second man was wearing jeans with a dark shirt and white sneakers. He also wore a multi-colored doo-rag, police said.

A smashed window is seen the morning after the incident. The outlet at Herald Square was one of several Macy's stores that was looted over the course of several chaotic days in New York City

Workers are seen preparing to bolt plywood over the shattered glass doors at Macy's on June 2

The store is seen being boarded up on June 2, following the looting. New York had been rocked by looting and vandalism for several wild nights

Both incidents took place during riots which marred peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd. Macy's Herald Square is pictured being boarded up last week

The department store had been closed amid the coronavirus crisis before it was looted last Tuesday night. Police are now appealing for those with information to come forward

Anyone with information regarding either incident is asked to call (800) 577-TIPS. As of Tuesday night, no arrests have been made.

Floyd's death sparked nationwide protests demanding a reckoning with institutional racism.

Cities imposed curfews as several protests last week were marred by spasms of arson, assaults and smash-and-grab raids on businesses.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested around the country since protests began.

Workers were seen boarding up the Macy's store in Herald Square after it was damaged and looted by protesters

The iconic department store is seen boarded up following the looting on June 2

There was a heavy police presence outside Macy's on Tuesday, June 2 following the overnight looting

Two weeks after Floyd died after white Minneapolis officer, Derek Chauvin, 44, pressed his knee on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, a majority of the Minneapolis City Council vowed to dismantle the 800-member agency.

'It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,' City Council President Lisa Bender said Sunday. 'Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.'

On Monday, Chauvin made his first court appearance since being fired from the department, arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He is being held on $1.25million bail.

Protests in recent days have been overwhelmingly peaceful  and over the weekend, several police departments appeared to retreat from aggressive tactics.

Several cities have also lifted curfews, including Chicago and New York City, where the governor urged protesters to get tested for COVID-19 and to proceed with caution until they had.

New York City began its first phase of reopening on Monday.
Liberal electorates were some of the big winners from a Morrison government program to back Australian exporters before the last election, sparking a row over whether the taxpayer funds helped buy political support.

The export grants appeared to favour federal electorates held by the government's own MPs in the months leading up to the May election, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison held power with a majority of just two MPs.

Industry Minister Karen Andrews said the export hubs help not only businesses in their immediate vicinity but entire regions. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Labor warned of a "politicisation" of the Export Hubs Initiative after combing through the grants to discover 97 per cent of the first round of funding went to Liberal or Nationals seats while only 3 per cent went to Labor seats.

But the government dismissed the attack and said all the grants had been made on the recommendation of a department committee without any change by the minister.
As the number of coronavirus cases passes 2 million in the US an infectious disease expert has warned another 100,000 Americans could die by Labor Day on 7 September, nearly doubling the current death toll to about 200,000.

Different data tracking tallies marked the 2 million barrier on Wednesday, while the official count from John Hopkins University is expected to pass the milestone on Thursday night or Friday morning.

While deaths in the US currently stand at 112,726, almost 30 per cent of the global total of 413,854, that number could rise even further by September.

Infectious disease experts from the Emory University School of Medicine warned that at the rate of about 1,500 deaths per day, we will hit about 200,000 deaths in the US in the autumn.

"That is a very sobering number," Dr Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and global health, said during a virtual briefing to mark the passing of 100,000 deaths in May.

"I think what we're beginning to see in the US is a certain stabilisation and plateauing in the number of cases, as well as the number of deaths."

As states continue reopening across the country, Mr del Rio said it was essential to track and isolate new infections to stop a second wave.

"I think we're going to see little outbreaks, but the idea is to make sure that those outbreaks don't become large outbreaks, and we can contain them so you can actually limit the spread of infection," he said. "Because obviously as you're opening up the economy, you will have cases, there's no doubt."

Following the nationwide protests of the past two weeks, health officials urged anyone who took part to get tested.

Since the 25 May death of George Floyd in police custody, thousands took to the streets in cities across the country to protest against racial injustice, often not social distancing or wearing face masks.

An uptick in new cases was reported in 21 states while nine states confirmed an increase in hospitalisations since Memorial Day  25 May  according to data compiled by The New York Times.

Those included Texas, California, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon and Mississippi.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and lead expert on the White House coronavirus taskforce, said he was "very concerned the protests could trigger new infections".

"Every time I hear about or see the congregation of large crowds at a time and geographic area where there is active infection transmission, it is a perfect setup for the spread of the virus in the sense of creating these blips that might turn into some surges," Mr Fauci said.

"A situation where you have a lot of confusion and a little bit of chaos, people running back and forth, taking their masks off, being close in proximity, that does pose a risk."

At a White House press briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said they were monitoring recent spikes in cases but they were not a concern to the coronavirus task force.

Referencing a report in the journal Nature on Europe's lockdowns, Ms McEnany said mitigation efforts had saved about 3 million lives in the US.

"Another study found that the shutdown efforts prevented 50 million additional coronavirus cases," Ms McEnany said. "So those are two very encouraging studies underscoring the work of the American people."
Robin Swann says officials remain in discussions with the Irish Government over how to manage the 14-day travel quarantine.

The Health Minister said details around cross-border issues are still being thrashed out - even though the controversial scheme went live this week.

From Monday anyone arriving into the UK is required to provide an address to self-isolate for 14 days.

Here, anyone refusing to provide passenger information risks a 60 fine.

The penalty is increased to 1,000 for those who leave self-isolation within the 14-day period.

However, exactly how the scheme will be policed is still unresolved.

Concerns have been raised about the monitoring of people who arrive into one jurisdiction from overseas and then travel across the border to get home.

On Monday the PSNI confirmed that Stormont had yet to set out the precise enforcement arrangements despite the rules already being in force.

Amid mounting criticism, First Minister Arlene Foster denied the rules were a waste of time. However, Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill acknowledged their complexities posed problems for police.

Yesterday Mr Swann said conversations had taken place between the Executive and the Irish Government.

Mr Swann said discussions were ongoing about getting "mutual signage" in place at airports and ports across the island informing passengers what the law was on the opposite side of the border. He stressed the rules people must place themselves under are those that apply in their place of residence, not their port of arrival.

Mr Swann said this would be made "very clear", adding: "If you land in Dublin and come to Northern Ireland, you're duty-bound under our regulations.

"If you land in Belfast and go south, you're duty-bound under their regulations, so it's about the sharing of that information so that when people arrive or pre-book their tickets, [in] the UK system you can make that application online two days before you fly.

"It's making sure that we have those information panels present and in all the Irish airports and ports as well, and that we mutually respect and support them in the utilisation of any Irish citizen who is landing in Northern Ireland." Separately, Stormont ministers have raised concerns with the Irish Government over a perceived lack of consultation on its lockdown exit plans.

The issue was discussed at a virtual meeting yesterday involving senior ministers from both administrations and Secretary of State Brandon Lewis. Mr Swann said the Executive was being made to look as if it should be "playing catch-up" with moves south of the border.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he and Tanaiste Simon Coveney did inform Stormont counterparts ahead of Friday's announcement on an acceleration of Ireland's roadmap to recovery.

But Mrs Foster and Mr Swann are among those to have voiced concerns about the extent of that consultation.

Mr Swann said he had raised it directly at the now regular cross-border political "quad call" earlier in the day.

The call involved Mr Coveney, Irish Health Minister Simon Harris, Mrs Foster, Mr Swann, Mrs O'Neill and Mr Lewis.

"Where they moved without giving us a lot of consultation as to their movements was raised," said Mr Swann.

"I raised it because it does put our Executive into a place where it seems that we should be playing catch-up, when in fact we're not.

"We were always clear from the start that our programme was not being date-led, it would be led by where the coronavirus was in Northern Ireland and where science is."

Mr Swann acknowledged it was for the Irish Government to make its own decisions on its lockdown plan.
Actor Kartik Aaryan, in the latest episode of his ongoing interview series Koki Poochega, asked veteran journalist Barkha Dutt whod shed want to play her in a biopic. After initially laughing off the question, Barkha picked Alia Bhatt. Kartik speaks to those on the frontlines of the battle against the coronavirus in the show.

Kartik had asked her to chose from Alia, Kriti Sanon, Bhumi Pednekar and Janhvi Kapoor. Out of the people you named I think Id pick Alia, she said. I think shes a fabulous actor, and the versatility that she has is unparalleled.

Kartik did, however, also ask important questions about the migrant crisis, the devastation that the virus has wreaked economically, and the status of journalism in India. He plugged the chat on Instagram, and wrote in the caption of his post, Yeh hui na baat !! Frontliner @barkha.dutt who has been reporting on ground for over 80 Days now.

The actor has, of late, been expressing a desire to work with Alia. In a recent interview with Filmfare, he was asked about the one thing he would like to ask Alia, and he said, Please Sanjay Leela Bhansali se meri sifarish karo nah (Please recommend me to Sanjay Leela Bhansali). Alia is about to work with Bhansali on Gangubai Kathiawadi.

Also read: Kartik Aaryan has a request for Alia Bhatt: Please recommend my name to Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Kartik and Alia were rumoured to be starring in the gangster saga, but no official casting announcement besides Alia has been made. Kartik does, however, have a broad slate of upcoming projects, including Dostana 2 and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2. Barkha Dutt, meanwhile, has been on the road, covering the coronavirus, for close to 80 days.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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A protester runs for safety after being shot with a rubber projectile from LAPD officers at 3rd St. and Fairfax Ave. in Los Angeles on May 30. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating 56 allegations of misconduct by officers during protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyds death, officials said Wednesday.

Of the 56 investigations, 28 involve alleged use of force, the LAPD said Wednesday in a statement. Seven officers have been taken out of the field pending the outcome of the investigations.

The LAPD has tasked 40 investigators with looking into the allegations of misconduct, excessive force and violations of departmental policy during the protests.

Numerous videos reviewed by the Los Angeles Times show LAPD violence against protesters. Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said last week that footage of officers swinging at people with batons and firing foam rounds concerned him.

Representatives of Black Lives Matter-LA and the Los Angeles Community Action Network said Wednesday they wanted to end police officers' use of rubber projectiles, batons and other less-lethal force, particularly against peaceful protesters.

Standing in front of Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, LACAN Executive Director Pete White emptied a bag of used rubber bullet shells and casings along with other items he said were used against participants in protests against police brutality following the in-custody killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Two members of the City Council and Police Commission President Eileen Decker have called for the Los Angeles Police Department to conduct a review of the way officers used force during the protests. Moore said he would commission an extensive after-action report to evaluate the police agencys performance over the last week.

U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) wrote a letter to Decker calling for the civilian commission to investigate how the department responded to demonstrations in the Fairfax District, where some of the videos were taken.
Some Nigerian lawmakers from the North-east have frowned at the exclusion of the region in listing of airports marked for reopening following the coronavirus lockdown.

Also, three senators representing Akwa Ibom State have requested for the intervention of the Senate to get the federal government to include the Victor Attah International Airport, Uyo, among the airports that would begin the first phase of flight resumption in Nigeria.

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had last week announced gradual reopening of the nations airports from June 21, starting with five airports.

In a letter to addressed to all domestic and foreign airlines dated June 1, the NCAA director general, Musa Nuhu, listed 5 airports to be opened to with the gradual start of operations to include: Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos; Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; the Omagwa International Airport, Port-Harcourt; Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano and the Sam Mbakwe Airport, Owerri.

But the northern lawmakers in a statement issued at the end of a meeting of the North-east caucus of the National Assembly, expressed disappointment over the decision of the agency.

The lawmakers stated that the zone has many airports, arguing that at least one should have been selected like it was done to the other five zones for the flights resumption.

Akwa Ibom

Also, Bassey Albert (Akwa Ibom North-east/PDP) during plenary on Tuesday commended the plan to reopen the airports but said the Akwa Ibom airport is one of the busiest with local flights and, therefore, should be included among the other five airports in view of the other states it covers.

Mr Albert spoke on the floor of the Senate for himself and on behalf of the other two senators, Chris Ekpenyong (Akwa Ibom North-west/PDP) and Akon Eyakenyi (Akwa Ibom North-South/PDP), from the state.

He appealed for the intervention of the Senate.

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, referred the matter to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation.

The Victor Attah International Airport is home to the Akwa Ibom State-owned Ibom Air which is one of the fastest-growing local airlines in Nigeria.

Nigeria is slowly reopening its economy, despite the increase in COVID-19 cases.

Mambilla, insecurity on the cards- North-east caucus

Meanwhile, the northern lawmakers also expressed happiness over the revisiting of the works at the Mambilla Power Project and expressed appreciation to the federal government over the establishment of the North East Development Commission.

They urged that the process be intensified in order to achieve the desired economic, political and social benefits with minimum delay.

On security, the lawmakers resolved to support and cooperate with the six state governors of the zone, security chiefs, religious leaders, traditional rulers and indeed all other individuals in the effort to bring an end the serious insecurity especially the insurgency which has been bedeviling the North-east for so many years.

New leadership

The caucus meeting, according to a press statement, agreed to return a senator, Danjuma Goje, as its leader, and elected other persons into various roles.

A House of Representatives member from Borno State, Mohammed Munguno, was also re-elected as the deputy chairman of the caucus.

Bauchi senator, Halliru Jika, was elected secretary; Aishatu Ahmad, representing Adamawa Central in the Senate was returned as treasurer.

David Fuoh of the House of Representatives from Taraba was elected as publicity secretary, with his counterpart, Tijjani Zakariya, elected as financial secretary.
Between the deadly pandemic and the deadly racism, it's hard to get on the front page these days, even when a story contains doomsday cults, cross-country manhunts, and no fewer than three corpses. In any other era, that would be the number-one trending topic all day every day, but it's barely a blip in this one, so let's catch you up.

In 2015, a thrice-divorced Arizona mother named Lori Vallow became obsessed with a writer of Mormon dystopian fantasy named Chad Daybell, so that's how this story starts. Sometime between then and 2018, they met, fell in love, and -- as is the natural order of things -- started podcasting together. Daybell, it turned out, was no ordinary Mormon dystopian fantasy writer. He really believed the things he wrote about were both possible and imminent, while Vallow was said to believe she was "a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ's second coming in July 2020." This shared delusion formed the basis of their podcasts and presumably every other conversation they had. You know how those types of couples are.

There was just one small problem: They were both married at the time. Conveniently for the star-crossed lovers, Vallow's husband got into a fight in July 2019 in which he was fatally wounded in self-defense, and Daybell's wife died a few months later of natural causes. That's the official story, anyway. Daybell declined an autopsy, so no one knows. A few months after that, Vallow's brother died of unknown causes, which is important because he happened to be the one who shot her husband. All of these deaths would have gone unnoticed had it not been for the disappearance of two of Vallow's children, because we still haven't gotten to the big story.
A new breakaway Afghan Taliban faction that has close ties to neighboring Iran and opposes efforts aimed at ending the 18-year insurgency in Afghanistan has emerged.



The Hezb-e Walayat-e Islami, or Party of Islamic Guardianship, is believed to have split from the mainstream Taliban soon after the United States and the militant group signed a landmark peace agreement in February.



The formation of the splinter group underlines the possible divisions within the Taliban, which has seen bitter leadership transitions and growing internal dissent in recent years.



It is unclear whether the new splinter group will rally broad support, but its emergence could pose a new hurdle for the U.S.-Taliban deal, which has been undermined by violence, disputes, and delays.



Under that agreement, international forces will withdraw from Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for counterterrorism guarantees from the Taliban, which pledged to negotiate a permanent cease-fire and power-sharing deal with the Afghan government.



'Early Stages Of Forming'



Antonio Giustozzi, a Taliban expert with the Royal United Services Institute in London, said it appears the new splinter group is based in Iran, which shares a 900-kilometer border with Afghanistan and has a sizable Afghan population.



"It's still in the early stages of forming," said Giustozzi, adding that the military strength and the leadership of the faction is unknown.



An Afghan intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL that the new splinter group has not been "officially announced." The official said members of the group included radical Taliban commanders and members of small Taliban offshoots.

A new report by a United Nations monitoring team made public on June 1 said that "at least one group of senior Taliban" had "formed a new group in opposition to any possible peace agreement."



The breakaway faction was "composed mainly of dissident senior Taliban members residing outside Afghanistan," said the report, which was based on information provided by Afghan and foreign intelligence and security services, think tanks, experts, and interlocutors.



Iran Building Taliban 'Combat Capabilities'



The Hezb-e Walayat-e Islami joins a growing list of Taliban factions that support continued fighting against Afghan and international troops.



"There are several Taliban leaders, fronts, and commanders who oppose peace and are linked to Iran," said Giustozzi.



Among them, he added, is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the deputy leader of the Taliban and the head of the Haqqani network, a powerful Taliban faction that is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.



That is despite Haqqani's op-ed in February in The New York Times, in which he voiced support for the peace deal with the United States.

Haqqani, who is the Taliban's operational chief, has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. He is the son of the late radical Islamist leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Al-Qaeda-linked network blamed for some of Afghanistan's deadliest suicide attacks.

The Haqqani network has strong ties to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. But Giustozzi said the network is "getting closer" to Iran as Islamabad and Riyadh cut funding to it.



Other Iran-linked Taliban leaders who oppose peace efforts include Mullah Qayum Zakir, a powerful battlefield commander and the former military chief of the Taliban until 2014. A former inmate in the infamous U.S. prison at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, Mullah Zakir has the backing of hard-line field commanders.

Mullah Zakir leads a conservative Taliban faction along with Ibrahim Sadr, the Taliban's former military commission chief. In October 2018, Sadr was among eight Taliban members designated global terrorists by the U.S. Treasury Department.



"Iranian officials agreed to provide Ibrahim with monetary support and individualized training in order to prevent a possible tracing back to Iran," the Treasury Department said, adding that "Iranian trainers would help build Taliban tactical and combat capabilities."



An Afghan intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the new splinter group included the followers of Sadr.



The officials said the new group also includes members of the Feday-e Mahaz (Suicide Brigade) a small, hard-core offshoot of the mainstream Taliban.

The group is believed to be led by Haji Najibullah, a loyalist to radical Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, who was killed in a U.S.-led attack in Helmand Province in 2007.



The group, vehemently against reconciliation with Kabul, has claimed several high-profile assassinations over the years.



'Material Support'



Iran backed the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, when the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan. Tehran also provided help to U.S. forces as they toppled the Taliban regime. But in recent years the Islamic republic and the Taliban have forged closer ties, with militant leaders even visiting Tehran.

The relationship between Shi'ite-majority Iran and the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni group, is complex. Iran officially opposes the Taliban, but experts say it provides some military support to the mainstream Taliban and rival breakaway factions.

Experts say Tehran is hedging its bets and preparing for different scenarios following a U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan, including a possible Taliban takeover of the country.

Tehran has confirmed it has contacts with the Taliban but insists that it is aimed at ensuring the safety of Iranian citizens in Afghanistan and encouraging the Taliban to join peace talks.



But U.S. officials have accused Tehran of providing material support to the Taliban, an allegation it denies.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in January accused Tehran of "actively working" to undermine the peace process in Afghanistan, adding that Iran was supporting the Taliban and the Haqqani network.



In a report released in November, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said Iran provides financial, political, training, and material support to the Taliban.



"Tehran does not seek to return the Taliban to power but aims to maintain influence with the group as a hedge in the event that the Taliban gains a role in a future Afghan government," the report said, adding that Iran's support enabled it to advance its interests in Afghanistan and attain "strategic depth" in the country.



Taliban Divided Over Peace



The emergence of the Taliban splinter group has exposed divisions within the militant group.



The Taliban is believed to be divided over a peace settlement.



Its political leadership based in Pakistan is believed to be more open to a peace deal, but hard-line military commanders on the battlefield in Afghanistan demand the restoration of the Taliban regime that ruled from 1996 to 2001.



Internal Taliban divisions have intensified after the death of founder and spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, whose death was revealed in 2015, more than two years after he had died in Pakistan.

Some Taliban commanders accused his successor, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur, of covering up Mullah Omar's death and assuming leadership of the extremist group without proper approval.



Mullah Mansur struggled to quell the internal dissent and reconcile feuding factions, with some commanders splitting from the group and challenging his leadership.



Mullah Mansur was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in May 2016.



The succession of Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, a low-key Islamic scholar who was Mullah Mansur's deputy, was also opposed.



But experts said the Taliban has overcome the succession crises, has fended off competition from the global appeal of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, and has remained a relatively coherent fighting force despite a deadly war against foreign and Afghan forces.

Borhan Osman, an independent analyst and a leading expert on Islamic extremism and the militant networks operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, said divisions within the Taliban are not yet visible.



"So far, the Taliban has been successful in spinning the agreement with the United States as an outright victory," he said.



Osman said the Taliban's unity will be tested during intra-Afghan talks, when Afghan and Taliban negotiators will discuss a permanent cease-fire and a power-sharing deal.

The negotiations were scheduled to start in March but were delayed by disputes over the release of Taliban prisoners by the government and escalating militant attacks.



"The Taliban will be forced to come up with specific positions on issues and present their vision for a future Afghanistan," said Osman.



The Taliban has been ambiguous on key issues, including women's rights, the future distribution of power, and changes to the Afghan Constitution, reflecting the divisions within the group.



Many expect intra-Afghan negotiations to be complex and protracted, considering the gulf between the sides on policy and the sharing of power between the Taliban and the Afghan government.



Taliban Offshoots



Internal rifts and rivalries have led to the emergence of various Taliban offshoots over the years, although many lack the military strength and support to pose a threat to the mainstream group.

The High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan -- led by Mullah Mohammad Rasul -- has been engaged in deadly clashes with fighters from the mainstream Taliban in southern and western Afghanistan since 2015, leaving scores dead on both sides.



The clashes have left the offshoot severely weakened, experts said, with many considering the group to be militarily irrelevant.



Mullah Rasul is believed to receive arms and support from Afghan intelligence in an attempt to divide the militant group.
Shipping data appeared to show nine ships near San Francisco, but were in reality miles away: EPA

So-called phantom ships thought to be sailing in wide circles near San Francisco were actually thousands of miles away, according to expert analysis.

Bjorn Bergman, who had been examining tracking data for commercial ships, spotted the strange patterns throughout 2019.

The fact that individual vessels in many different locations have been affected is puzzling and its unknown if any of these examples reflect actual disruptions of the GPS system, he wrote in a blog post last month.

Mr Bergman noticed that nine ships were making circular movements around Point Reyes, northwest of San Francisco, at the same time.

That was according to the ships own GPS signals, otherwise known as automatic identification systems (AISs), which are mandated under international law to avoid collisions and monitor sea traffic.

According to Mr Bergman, who monitors shipping vessels across the worlds oceans with the environmental watchdog Global Fishing Watch, the ships were providing fractured signals.

He found that the vessels broadcasting circular GPS signals near the US were actually in waters near Norway, Libya, Malaysia, and Russia.

Whilst some ships were in locations where boats are known to have disrupted or scrambled GPS signals, such as the Suez Canal, other vessels were not.

Mr Bergman believes that are some possible explanations behind the strange shipping data, including GPS malfunctioning and deliberate manipulation.

There is, however, no clear answer as to whats causing the strange phenomenon.

He told Newsweek that some ships could be using Port Reyes, which is an ex-US Coast Guard site, to reset GPS functions on their boats.

It has a long history in maritime navigation, Mr Bergman told the magazine. There must be some connection

One thing that could be plausible is that its acting as a zero location because of the importance of this spot in developing maritime navigation systems. So if [a ships] reception is blocked for whatever reason theyre appearing there.

Story continues

Another reason, according to Texas university professor Todd Humphreys, is that devices were tricking the international AIS system.

He told Newsweek that the circular patterns seen in Mr Bergmans study were similar to those seen with off-the-shelf spoofing devices that are used to trick GPS systems.

We know its GPS spoofing because we also see it in the data from exercise apps, Mr Humphreys told Newsweek.

Usually the false location is near the true one, but in other cases its half a world away, like Point Reyes for a ship off the coast of Africa.

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Armed separatists patrolling in an Anglophone Community Facebook

Human Rights Watch, HRW, has called on armed separatists in Cameroons North West and South West Regions to immediately stop renewed attacks on aid workers and ensure protection of people.

Armed separatists kidnapped Paul (not his real name), a humanitarian worker, in Cameroons English-speaking North-West region on Saturday. They accused him of being a spy, tied him up to a tree, and savagely beat him before releasing him on Sunday, Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Central Africa Researcher for Human Rights Watch said in a June 4 dispatch. That same day, separatists also abducted seven staff of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services, a faith-based non-profit in Bambui, North-West region. They were released two days later.

HRW reveals that these two recent attacks are just the latest in a long line of incidents in which aid workers have been attacked by English-speaking separatists fighting Cameroons military.

But separatists are not the only ones responsible for the attacks against aid workers and humanitarian operations that have been commonplace since the crisis began in late 2016, writes Allegrozzi. Government forces also bear responsibility. Aid workers have been victims of unlawful killings, abductions, harassment, extortion, and other abuses as supplies and property have been looted and destroyed. Humanitarian access has been severely hindered by the violence, as well as by deliberate actions carried out by the separatists and government forces and authorities.

The latest attacks are known to have occurred just five days before the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Cameroon, Allegra Baiocchi, expressed grave concern over the interruption of aid delivery to hundreds of thousands of people in need, following the escalating trend of attacks against humanitarians.

Attacks against aid workers disrupt the provision of life-saving assistance and services to people in need.

The dispatch notes that Cameroons Anglophone regions face a serious humanitarian crisis, with over 650,000 internally displaced, and 1.8 million relying on humanitarian aid including 1.4 million people who lack reliable access to food.

Despite the call for a Covid-19 ceasefire by one of the separatist groups, Southern Cameroons Defence Forces (SOCADEF) in March  a move welcomed by UN secretary-generals spokesperson  fighting in the Anglophone regions has not subsided.

Humanitarian workers play a vital role, often operating in difficult conditions to alleviate suffering. Government forces and all separatist armed groups should immediately end all attacks against humanitarians and other civilians, hold those who commit them to account, and allow unhindered humanitarian access, said Allegrozzi.
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Trevor Noah Roasts Nancy Pelosi and Dems for Kente Cloth Fiasco On Tuesday night, Trevor Noah addressed the Democrats' kente cloth fiasco as only he could. "While the movement in the streets has been building up steam, Democrats in Washington have been scrambling for a way to respond. And yesterday, I think they've figured it out," offered Noah.

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Locals Cash Out Art

Crossroads gallery owner sells rare find to Paris museum Hide Transcript Show Transcript ART, SO RARE ONE OF HIS PIECES WAS BOUGHT BY A PARIS MUSEUM. IT WAS IN PARIS, FRANCE JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS 2019 THAT 28-YEAR-OLD COLE MEYERS DISCOVERED THIS PAINTING. I JUST WENT TO AN ESTATE SALE AND THROUGH THE WALL OF PAINTINGS THIS ONE JUMPED OUT AT ME.

Cooling Off This Spring

Your Storm Track 5 Daily Forecast Today is a StormTrack5 Weather Alert Day. We are tracking a 30% chance for showers this morning in addition to strong winds. The sun is back this afternoon with cooler temperatures in the middle 70s. Stay connected with us at KCTV5 NEWS. Copyright 2018 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) All rights reserved.

In her latest blast of Insta-hotness,seems to be offering a bit of social commentary on current tumultuous, challenging times and so she inspires our early morning peek at the local discourse, pop culture and news from across the nation and around the world . . .is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .
President Rajapaksa has proven himself to be a very responsible man in his duties. The best example of this is the method of managing Covid-19 Pandemic.





Editorial





President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has informed the heads of state institutions to restrain from an engaging political campaign in the forthcoming parliamentary election, the Presidential Media Unit said. It is a decision that should be highly appreciated.





When he came to power, he was ordered not to use his picture in public institutions. Instead, he ordered the use of the national emblem of Sri Lanka. Some of the pseudo-political opponents and pseudo-political boasters were mocked at the decision. But that was a fundamental task which should have taken place in the country decades ago. The beauty of that bold decision can be seen by visiting almost every state institution in the country.





President Gotabaya Rajapaksa

He has proven himself to be a very responsible man in his duties. The best example of this is the method of managing Covid-19 Pandemic.





As a next step, it is commendable to ask the heads of state institutions to keep their heads out from political propaganda. If state institutions are to be changed, the attitudes of those who work in the institutions must be changed. To change attitudes, one must understand the mental state of the people who serve them. The first step is to prevent these institutions from being politicized.





Once a new government comes to power, some of those who work in state institutions are trying to seduce the successive government. They do not pursue the government's vision and mission but to achieve their personal goals. When their goals are not met, their next saviour is the trade union. In most cases, these professional associations run by men who have feelings and emotions. Unfortunately, some even deceive those professional associations to achieve their personal goals. Writing petition after a petition has become a habit. This process continued for years. Consequently, the entire state structure collapsed. The only way to overhaul it is to manage these institutions as independent state institutions accountable for the head of state (the person who won the consent from the people to rule the country) and his vision and mission.





A corrupt institution can only be rebuilt from top to bottom, but shortsighted strategies introduced by various governments attempted changed the system from bottom to top. That is why it is very important that the heads of state institutions are asked not to do political propaganda. It is very important to monitor it properly and take the necessary action in due time.





Well done!



Bravo; Mr President!
COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: ADS), a leading global provider of data-driven marketing, loyalty and payment solutions, today announced changes to its board of directors. These include the election of new board members John C. Gerspach, Jr. and Rajesh "Nat" Natarajan, as well as the appointment of long-standing director Roger H. Ballou as board chair. The changes were announced at the Company's Annual Meeting of Stockholders, held yesterday. Long-time directors Bruce K. Anderson, Kenneth R. Jensen and former chairman Robert A. Minicucci completed their board service and did not stand for re-election.

"As part of Alliance Data's ongoing board refreshment plan, the board is purposefully and continually committed to aligning its composition to reflect the needs of our evolving business and expectations of our stakeholders," said Ralph Andretta, president and chief executive officer of Alliance Data. "I am pleased with the progress we have made to diversify our board across various criteria including critical skills, expertise, industry experience, gender and ethnicity, and tenure -- all of which form the underpinnings of solid board representation necessary for effective and responsible corporate governance and oversight of our business.

"To that end, I am excited to welcome Mr. Gerspach and Mr. Natarajan to our board of directors, as each brings tremendous skills, experience and expertise that align with Alliance Data's evolved business, complementing the breadth of competencies and perspectives of our returning directors." Andretta concluded, "I enthusiastically welcome and look forward to working with Nat and John, as well as continuing to work with long-time director and newly-appointed board chair Roger Ballou, and the rest of the independent directors as we continue to provide oversight and stewardship of the Company's transformation and future-focused business strategy."

Mr. Gerspach joins the board after most recently serving as the chief financial officer of Citigroup, Inc. (200919). He began his tenure with Citigroup in 1990, holding a variety of roles in audit, accounting, risk management and international operations. Recommended to the Alliance Data board's nominating and corporate governance committee by executive management, Mr. Gerspach's executive-level experience in the banking and financial services industry provides significant bench strength to Alliance Data. Mr. Gerspach will chair the board's audit committee and serve as a member of the risk committee.

Recommended to the board's nominating and corporate governance committee by a third-party search firm, Mr. Natarajan has served as the executive vice president and chief product and technology officer for Ancestry.com since February 2017. Prior to joining Ancestry.com, he served as senior vice president and chief information security and fraud officer at Intuit, Inc. (201417), and was the vice president, platform engineering and operations at PayPal Holdings, Inc. (200614). Mr. Natarajan's executive experience in information technology, cybersecurity, engineering, operations and product development brings a diversified, digital-focused skill set to the board. Mr. Natarajan will serve on the nominating and corporate governance committee as well as the risk committee.

Alliance Data would like to acknowledge and thank departing directors Bruce Anderson, Ken Jensen and Rob Minicucci for their valuable leadership and years of service to the Company.

About Alliance Data

Alliance Data (NYSE: ADS) is a leading provider of data-driven marketing, loyalty and payment solutions serving large, consumer-based industries. The Company creates and deploys customized solutions that measurably change consumer behavior while driving business growth and profitability for some of today's most recognizable brands. Alliance Data helps its partners create and increase customer loyalty across multiple touch points using traditional, digital, mobile and emerging technologies. An S&P 500 and FORTUNE 500 company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Alliance Data consists of businesses that together employ over 8,500 associates at more than 50 locations worldwide.

Alliance Data's Card Services business is a provider of market-leading private label, co-brand, and business credit card programs. LoyaltyOne owns and operates the AIR MILES Reward Program, Canada's most recognized loyalty program, and Netherlands-based BrandLoyalty, a global provider of tailor-made loyalty programs for grocers. More information about Alliance Data can be found at www.AllianceData.com.

Follow Alliance Data on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

Forward Looking Statements

This 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. Forward-looking statements give our expectations or forecasts of future events and can generally be identified by the use of words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "project," "plan," "likely," "may," "should" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements that describe our business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements we make regarding, and the guidance we give with respect to, our anticipated operating or financial results, completion of strategic initiatives, future dividend declarations, and future economic conditions, including, but not limited to, fluctuation in currency exchange rates, market conditions and COVID-19 impacts related to relief measures for impacted borrowers and depositors, labor shortages due to quarantine, reduction in demand from clients, supply chain disruption for our reward suppliers and disruptions in the airline or travel industries.

We believe that our expectations are based on reasonable assumptions. Forward-looking statements, however, are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections, anticipated results or other expectations expressed in this release, and no assurances can be given that our expectations will prove to have been correct. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, factors set forth in the Risk Factors section in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year, which may be updated in Item 1A of, or elsewhere in, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed for periods subsequent to such Form 10-K. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and we undertake no obligation, other than as required by applicable law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, subsequent events, anticipated or unanticipated circumstances or otherwise.

Media Contacts:

Alliance Data

Tiffany Louder  Investor Relations

214-494-3048

[email protected]

Shelley Whiddon  Media

214-494-3811

[email protected]

SOURCE Alliance Data Systems Corporation

Related Links

http://www.alliancedata.com


Australians relying on JobKeeper to get by during the COVID-19 crisis are facing life on the breadline when the special pandemic payment ends, welfare campaigners have warned.

The Department of Social Services revealed earlier this month another 300,000 people had filed for JobSeeker unemployment benefits - which includes a temporary $550-per-fortnight coronavirus supplement - between April and May alone.

Including basic support payments, Australians are entitled to up to $1,100 every two weeks depending on their income.

But fears are growing JobKeeper worth $1,500 a fortnight may be scrapped before the legislated September end date, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday indicating the federal government will be making changes to the wage subsidy scheme as soon as July.

Employees who werent kept on by their bosses when the JobKeeper pay subsidy ran out would find themselves getting unemployment benefits just as JobSeeker reverted back to the old Newstart level of $565.70 a fortnight - without the $550 coronavirus boost.

Australian Council of Social Service chief executive officer Dr Cassandra Goldie said reverting back to Newstart could mean welfare recipients face a bureaucratic nightmare receiving payments.

Pictured: Long lines for Centrelink in Melbourne on March 23 after coronavirus restrictions sent tens of thousands to the unemployment queue. Australians have been warned they face a difficult reality when the JobSeeker unemployment benefit is scrapped

Under the Newstart compliance protocol in place before for the scheme was replaced with JobSeeker, applicants had to apply for 20 jobs a month to avoid losing their payments.

'When changes to the JobKeeper Payment are eventually made, many people will need help to navigate a jobs market thats rapidly adjusting from the "stay at home economy,''' ACOSS Acting CEO Jacqueline Phillips said.

'The sudden removal of JobKeeper Payment across the board, or cutting the new JobSeeker Payment back to the old Newstart level, would lead to a devastating increase in unemployment and financial hardship.'

Those coming off JobKeeper and back onto Newstart will also have to take part in the Work for the Dole scheme requiring recipients to perform a certain number of hours of designated work per week to maintain their benefits.

A Senate inquiry into Newstart - which provides Australians who need it with about $270 a week to live on - had become 'increasingly complex, punitive and ineffective'.

The head of Australia's chief housing body said the organisation was also concerned tens of thousands of people could be pushed to the brink of homelessness once the supplement is ended.

Large queues of people are seen lining up at Centrelink in Sydney on March 23. Fears are growing JobKeeper may be scrapped before the legislated September end date

'Our primary concern is renters who have been struggling to pay their rent because of a loss of income during the pandemic,' National Shelter chief executive Adrian Pisarski told Daily Mail Australia.

In April the federal government announced a six-month moratorium on rental evictions - but once that ends Mr Pisarski said tenants could be left in a severe state of rental arrears they cannot make good on.

'Even with those who have been able to negotiate a rent reduction, many of them are simply building up a debt they need to pay back.'

'There's a real risk of homelessness and we have been flagging to government ministers they need to be aware the issue when JobKeeper ends.'

JOBKEEPER PAYMENTS SCRAPPED FOR CHILDCARE WORKERS Free childcare will end for Australian parents in less than a month and JobKeeper will be wound back for childcare workers a week later. Education Minister Dan Tehan announced on Monday that the emergency childcare scheme will end on July 12 and be replaced by government subsidies. Childcare workers will lose access to the JobKeeper program from July 20, Mr Tehan said. Instead, the government will pay childcare services a transition payment of 25 per cent of their fee revenue in a $708 million parachute package. Advertisement

A queue at a Centrelink office in Marrickville on March 23. Concerns are also growing about tenants who face losing their homes when the six-month moratorium on rental evictions ends

The warnings follow Australia's impressive run of uninterrupted economic growth coming to an end for the first time in three decades - plunging the country into a recession.

Last week it emerged Australia's youngest employees were the big winners of the government's coronavirus emergency spending measures.

Workers under 20 saw their wages surge by 16.8 per cent in the seven weeks to early May, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.

Every other age group saw their pay levels plunge by an average of 5.4 per cent which suggests teenagers receiving $1,500 a fortnight JobKeeper wage subsidies through their employer were taking home more than they usually did.
President Trump announced Wednesday that he 'will not even consider' renaming American military bases that were named after leaders of the Confederacy.

'These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,' Trump tweeted. 'The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars,' the president continued.

'Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations,' Trump said.

President Trump said Wednesday that he will 'not even consider' renaming the 10 Army bases that are named after Confederate leaders. In the two weeks since George Floyd's death, the 'Black Lives Matter' protests have renewed calls to rid the country of Confederate monuments

President Trump sent out a trio of tweets just before Wednesday's White House briefing saying he was against renaming 10 Army bases that are currently named for Confederate leaders

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany started Wednesday's briefing by reading a statement that echoed President Trump's tweets, saying that he would not be renaming military bases that were named after Confederate leaders

Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany printed out a statement, which mirrored President Trump's tweets, and handed it out to reporters before Wednesday's White House press briefing

Fort Bragg is named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, who was known for being notoriously bad at his job. In the past, Gen. David Petraeus had argued that the 10 installments named after Confederate officers should be renamed since they fought against the U.S.

Ft. Hood Military Base in Fort Hood, Texas, headquarters of III Corps. Named on opening in 1942 for General John Bell Hood

Fort Benning, Alabama/Georgia 'Home of the Infantry.' Named in 1917 for plantation owner Henry L. Benning, who argued for secession from 1849, and railed against 'black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything'

'Who will get erased next?': Trump's press secretary warns Washington or Jefferson could be next... or Biden White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended President Trump's refusal to strike Confederate leaders' names from military bases by asking where the country should draw the line. 'Should George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison be erased from history? What about FDR and his internment camps? Should he be erased from history? Or Lyndon Johnson? Who has a history of documented racist statements,' McEnany asked reporters. She also pointed at comments presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden made about working with segregationist senators - and suggested he could be impacted by the fallout too. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended President Trump's decision to refuse to rename military bases named after Confederate leaders by asking where the country should draw a line 'And finally what about people that are alleged by the media to be segregationists?' McEnany said referencing Biden and the news coverage that came after he made the controversial comments last June. McEnany also brought up the decision to pull the Civil War-era drama 'Gone with the Wind' from the HBO Max library. 'I'm told that no longer can you find on HBO "Gone with the Wind," because that is somehow now offensive,' McEnany said. She went on: 'Should George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison be erased from history? What about FDR and his internment camps? Should he be erased from history? Or Lyndon Johnson? Who has a history of documented racist statements. 'And finally what about people that are alleged by the media to be segregationists?' She then used the opportunity to focus the press' attention back on Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee, for his work in the Senate with segregationists. Biden got himself in political hot water last June when he boasted about being able to work with people who didn't share his values, including some of the segregationists that remained in the U.S. Senate. Rival Cory Booker, a black U.S. senator from New Jersey, along with a number of other Democrats, criticized the former vice president for his remarks. At the June Democratic debate in Miami, Sen. Kamala Harris, who is black, also took Biden to task for his position on busing. McEnany left the podium asking reporters if the Biden center should also be renamed. Advertisement

The 'Black Lives Matter' protests that have taken place all across the nation in the aftermath of George Floyd's death have renewed discussions on the appropriateness of memorializing Confederate figures.

Currently 10 Army bases are named after Confederate leaders.

Southern states that joined the Confederacy during the Civil War-era did so in order to keep their status as slave states.

On Monday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told Politico that he was 'open' to renaming these 10 facilities.

Politico reported that Defense Secretary Mark Esper - who has been at odds with Trump over how to deal with the 'Black Lives Matter' demonstrations - also supported the discussion.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany opened up her Wednesday briefing reading a statement from Trump that mirrored his tweets, which he had pushed out minutes before she took to the podium.

McEnany was asked if the president supported the Navy's move to ban Confederate flags from flying at its bases and on ships.

She said she wasn't sure of his position on that.

'He does, as I noted at the top of the briefing, fervently stand against the renaming of our forts,' McEnany answered.

McEnany said that the 'great American fortresses' were important because they respresented the last places war dead spent time in the U.S. before fighting in battles in 'Europe and Afghanistan and Iraq.'

'And to suggest that these forts are somehow inherently racist and their names need to be changed is a complete disrespect to the men and women,' she argued. 'For the last bit of American land that they saw before they went overseas and lost their lives were these forts.'

McEnany was also asked if the president would veto a bill from Congress that changed the name of a base frmo a Confederate general to a Union general, the side that won the Civil War, and represents the modern-day United States.

'The president will not be signing legislation that will be renaming American forts,' she said.

A reporter then pointed to an op-ed writtten by Gen. David Petraeus, who had argued that bases shouldn't be named after people who fought against the United States.

Petraeus also pointed out that many of the Confederates honored, like Gen. Braxton Bragg, were notoriously bad at their jobs.

'Fort Bragg is known for the heroes within it,' McEnany responded.

The president has long sided with the 'heritage' argument to keep Confederate monuments and memorials erected.

This is how he got in hot water in August 2017, standing up for demonstrators - made up of neo-Nazis, KKK members and other white supremacists - in Charlottesville, Virginia, who wanted the city's Robert E. Lee statue to remain.

'You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,' Trump told reporters referencing, first, the Unite To Right protesters, and then the counter-protesters who came out.

One of the counter-protesters, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, had been moved down on the streets of Charlottesville by a neo-Nazi, who is now serving a life-long prison term.

'You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue,' Trump said of the Lee monument.

The president then compared Lee to George Washington, the coutnry's first president who led the Revolutionary War troops - but who was also a slave-owner.

Kayleigh McEnany even brought up Joe Biden, who got in political trouble last June for boasting that he'd been able to work with segregationists while in the U.S. Senate

Racist past of Confederate generals with bases named after them including Leonidas Polk who owned 400 slaves, KKK leader John Brown Gordon and Henry Benning who feared a 'land in possession of the blacks'

Henry L. Benning (pictured) owned at least 89 slaves on his 3,000 acres of land

HENRY L. BENNING - FORT BENNING, ALABAMA-GEORGIA BORDER

The home of the United States Army Infantry School, Fort Benning was named in 1917 for plantation owner and Confederate general Henry L. Benning.

Benning was a Georgia lawyer who became an outspoken defender of slavery and advocate for secession in the lead-up to the Civil War.

His father owned more than 100 slaves, and tax records from 1863 show that he owned at least 89 slaves himself along with more than 3,000 acres of land.

These investments gave him a total wealth of more than $150,000, and one historian has described him as 'devoted to slavery'.

In early 1861 he took his secessionist campaign to Virginia, where he complained to the legislature that the abolition of slavery would lead to 'black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that?'.

He also predicted that 'the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa or Saint Domingo'.

Imagining a world in which former slave Frederick Douglass became President, Benning said: 'I say give me pestilence and famine sooner than that.'

Benning also made explicit that Georgia was fighting for slavery, saying secession had come from 'a deep conviction that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery'.

During the Civil War he became a colonel in the Georgia militia and was promoted to brigadier general in 1863, fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg later that year. He died in 1875.

Braxton Bragg (pictured) bought a plantation in Louisiana which came with 105 slaves

BRAXTON BRAGG - FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA

Fort Bragg is home to more than 50,000 troops and hosts the Army's Special Operations Command. It was named after Confederate general Braxton Bragg in 1918.

Born in North Carolina, Bragg moved to Louisiana in 1856 where he and his wife bought a sugar plantation for $152,000 - which came with 105 slaves.

The Army says the base is named for Bragg's actions during the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, but Bragg was also a Southern general described as 'the most hated man of the Confederacy'.

Although he was sceptical about secession, he defended the South's right to do so and seized a Union arsenal in Baton Rouge in January 1861.

Beginning the war as a major-general in Louisiana, he rose to become a general and commander of the Confederate Army of Mississippi.

However, he presided over a series of Confederate defeats and was disliked by his subordinates because of his bad temper and combative personality.

One officer called him him 'self-willed, arrogant and dictatorial,' while another soldier labelled him 'obstinate, haughty and authoritative'.

Historians have said that Bragg 'did as much as any Confederate general to lose the war' because of his string of military losses.

Bragg resigned as a commander in 1863 but continued to serve as a military adviser to Jefferson Davis and remained in the Confederate cabinet until its defeat.

John Brown Gordon (pictured) owned a 14-year-old girl as a slave

JOHN BROWN GORDON - FORT GORDON, GEORGIA

Fort Gordon, established during World War II, was named for Confederate lieutenant-general John Brown Gordon.

Gordon supported secession and owned slaves as a young man, investing in coal mining operations in Georgia and Tennessee.

In 1860, the census showed him owning one 14-year-old girl as a slave, while his father owned four slaves.

When war broke out, he returned home to Alabama and became a colonel - impressing Robert E. Lee by promising to hold his ground 'until the sun goes down'.

Later promoted to brigadier-general, he led a brigade of Georgia regiments during the Gettysburg campaign in 1863.

Although he led a failed assault on Fort Stedman in the final months of the war, Gordon has been called 'one of the most successful commanders' in Lee's army.

After the war he entered politics, becoming both a US Senator from Georgia and the Governor of the same state.

He was also rumored to be a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and one historian said it was 'almost certain' that he was head of the KKK's Georgia branch.

Gordon also served as commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans. He lived until 1904.

Leonidas Polk (pictured) is thought to have had as many as 400 slaves on plantations

LEONIDAS POLK - FORT POLK, LOUISIANA

This base was named after Leonidas Polk, who was both a bishop in the Episcopal Church and a major-general in the Confederate Army.

Polk, a cousin of 11th US President James Polk, is thought to have had as many as 400 slaves on sugar plantations in Tennessee.

His family owned more than 100,000 acres of land and he initially went to West Point, but diverted to religious life and became Bishop of Louisiana in 1841.

Although he had no military experience, he had trained with Jefferson Davis at West Point and used this connection to become a major-general in the Confederate army.

Polk also supported the secession of the Southern states by withdrawing his own ecclesiastical diocese from the national church.

Known as the 'Fighting Bishop', he blundered early on by ordering troops into neutral Kentucky - prompting the border state to ask for Northern help.

He later clashed with the above-mentioned Braxton Bragg, who accused him of disobeying orders during the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.

Polk was killed in action in 1864 while fighting at Pine Mountain, Georgia.

Robert E. Lee (pictured) inherited slaves from his father-in-law in 1857

ROBERT E. LEE - FORT LEE, VIRGINIA

Fort Lee, 25 miles south of Richmond, is named after Confederate general-in-chief Robert E. Lee.

Lee fought in the Mexican-American War and spent three years as a superintendent at West Point, training some of the men who would later serve under him.

He owned slaves from the age of 22, when he inherited several families of black people after the death of his mother Ann Lee.

In 1857, his father-in-law left him 189 slaves who worked on the estates of Arlington, White House, and Romancoke.

The will provided that the slaves should be freed after five years, but Lee tried multiple times to resist this and keep the slaves under his control.

Although he was 'not a pro-slavery ideologue' according to one historian, Lee was known to use 'violence typical of the institution of slavery' and some slaves tried to escape his discipline. Some were recaptured and beaten on Lee's orders.

He did not finally free the slaves until three days before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation would have done so anyway.

Lincoln had offered Lee the command of Union forces in 1861, but Lee defected instead and became a general in the Confederate army.

Lee's Army of Northern Virginia did battle with Grant's federal troops in some of the defining battles of the war, which ended with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865. Lee died in 1870.

P.G.T. Beauregard (pictured) grew up in a slave-owning household in Louisiana

P.G.T. BEAUREGARD - CAMP BEAUREGARD, LOUISIANA

A National Guard training facility, this base was initially named Camp Stafford but renamed after Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard in 1917.

Beauregard was a U.S. Army officer who served in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, but defected to support the Confederacy when Louisiana seceded in 1861.

Born on a sugar plantation outside New Orleans, Beauregard had grown up in a slave-owning household and later rented slaves for himself while in the military.

Commissioned as a Confederate brigadier-general in 1861, Beauregard commanded the defenses of Charleston during the bombardment of Fort Sumter which marked the start of the Civil War.

Beauregard commanded Southern troops throughout the war, including at the 1862 Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee and during the defense of Petersburg in 1864.

But by 1865 he was among the generals who persuaded Confederate president Jefferson Davis to surrender and end the war.

After the war he wrote that 'in seventy-five years the colored race [would] disappear from America along with the Indians and the buffalo', although for tactical reasons he advised his fellow white Southerners to accept black voting rights.

In later life he became wealthy in his own right by promoting the Louisiana Lottery. He died in 1893.

Ambrose Powell Hill (pictured) quit the US Army to join the Confederacy

AMBROSE POWELL HILL - FORT A.P. HILL, VIRGINIA

A US Army training center in Virginia, this base was established during World War II and named after Confederate general Ambrose Powell Hill.

Hill was not a slave owner, but quit the US Army in 1861 to join the 13th Virginia Infantry at the outbreak of the Civil War.

He rose through the ranks from colonel to brigadier-general, then major-general and finally lieutenant-general after the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863.

However, he was criticized for his 'less than stellar' performance on the first two days of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.

Hill reputedly said that he did not want to survive the fall of the Confederacy - and indeed he did not, although he only missed Lee's surrender only by a few days. Hill was killed in action in April 1865, shot by a Union soldier during a battle in Petersburg, Virginia.

John Bell Hood (pictured) was from a neutral state but chose to fight for the South

JOHN BELL HOOD - FORT HOOD, TEXAS

Fort Hood is the Army's 'premier installation to train and deploy heavy forces', and is named after Confederate general John Bell Hood.

Hood was from Kentucky, which declared itself neutral in the war, and had previously served in the US Cavalry after graduating from West Point, where he met Lee.

The Hood family owned seven slaves in the 1830 census and had 11 slaves by 1840, and Hood himself had a fortune of nearly $10,000 by the end of his life.

In 1861, he chose to fight for the South in the Civil War and had been promoted to brigadier-general by 1862.

On one occasion he gave orders to procure thousands of slaves - demanding the 'services of 4,000 negroes' for his army.

By 1864 he was leading Confederate forces in defense of Atlanta, but failed to stop Sherman advancing through Georgia with his Union troops.

After the war he wrote a memoir called Advance and Retreat described as the 'bitter attempt of a soldier to rebut history's judgment of himself'. He died in 1879.

George Pickett (pictured) came from a family which owned dozens of slaves

GEORGE PICKETT - FORT PICKETT, VIRGINIA

This National Guard facility is named after George Pickett, the Confederate general responsible for Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.

His Virginia family owned 42 slaves in 1830 and 23 slaves in 1850, when his father was recorded as having a wealth of $50,000.

Pickett graduated from West Point in 1846 - although he came last in his class - but defected to the Confederacy at the outbreak of war in 1861.

His charge at Gettysburg proved a disaster when he lost more than half of his command to death, injury or capture.

In 1864, he signed off the execution of 22 Union soldiers from North Carolina after they were captured at New Bern.

However, he escaped justice from a military tribunal after Ulysses Grant - a former West Point classmate - intervened to protect him.

He was also saved by President Andrew Johnson's 1866 proclamation that the rebellion was over, allowing him to return from exile in Canada. He died in 1875.

Edmund Rucker (pictured) served under Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest

EDMUND RUCKER - FORT RUCKER, ALABAMA

Home to the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, Fort Rucker was originally named Ozark Triangular Division Camp but was later renamed after Confederate general Edmund Rucker.

Rucker served under General Nathan Bedford Forrest during the Civil War and was appointed as an honorary general himself.

Rucker was in Forrest's cavalry during the Fort Pillow Massacre in 1864 when hundreds of African-American troops were killed by Confederate forces.

After the war he became an industrialist in Alabama, working as president of a railroad firm and director of an iron and steel company. He lived until 1924.
(Photo : LAWRENCE BRYANT/REUTERS) Looting has become a massive problem amid the protests happening across the US.

The protests across the United States continue and has now become a global outcry against racism, but despite peaceful demonstrations in many areas, a few cities have seen utter destruction, especially the business sectors after looters use the protests as an excuse to steal trespass closed shops and steal a handful of items.

Looter From Chicago Brags About Theft on Facebook

One such place was Illinois, wherein businesses were destroyed, and items were looted amid the otherwise peaceful protests that have been going on.

According to the Daily Mail, the looting reached its peak on Sunday.

After a week, CBS Chicago began investigating the lootings and found one woman who was boasting about the theft and was selling the stolen items she got through Facebook.

The unnamed woman also showed a video that she captured of the looters in a local shopping mall with people running away from the stores they busted open, carrying various items on their hands.

Later on, she even showed her looting: several unopened goods and some full crates of Remy Martin cognac.

The woman showed another video where she was bragging about her deed and confirmed that yes, she looted, but after her viewers began condemning her for her actions, she replied and said she doesn't care and that it wasn't her first time looting, either.

Read Also: Couple Whot Got Married After Joining Black Lives Matter Protest Said They Planned for a Quiet Ceremony Until Their Wedding Went Viral

Police Departments and FBI Investigating

CBS has already handed the footage to the Chicago police department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who are investigating all tips they acquire.

"The FBI is currently reviewing all tips to help us identify actors who are actively instigating violence in the wake of George Floyd's death. If you witness an unlawful, violent encounter, you can help by submitting photos or video," they said, encouraging people to come forward if they have any information.

Meanwhile, Chicago police department chief David Brown disclosed on Monday, June 8, that in the last nine days, they have already made 788 arrests involving looting.

The police have also arrested 2,665 people over "civil unrest and disorderly conduct," as well as recovered 529 guns.

According to WBEZ, a local NPR affiliate, the worst day of the protests happened on May 31, wherein they have recorded 15 homicides, which was the most in the last 36 years.

New York Also Sees Massive Looting

Besides Illinois, New York City has also seen a huge number of cases related to looting and violence amid the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests in different parts of the city.

In an interview with CNN, New York Police Department Chief of Patrol Fausto Pichardo confirmed that over 50 establishments had been burglarized in the SoHo district of Manhattan during the protests.

Among the shops' looters have attacked is the Nintendo store.

A tweet went viral, saying that looters were able to steal the massive Donkey Kong statue that stands inside the store, but the company quickly dismissed the tweet and said that the statue was not stolen.

The NYPD was able to seize one car that a looter owned that had more than $17,000 worth of products inside.

Read Also: George Floyd: After 33 Seasons, 'Cops' Now Dropped by Paramount; Brooklyn Nine-Nine Expects New Plot on Season 8

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Danette Onofrio of New Fairfield has become a contender for the State Assembly District 108 in a seat left open by the retiring Rep. Richard Smith.

During the Democratic Convention held on May 18 she received the full endorsement of New Fairfield, Sherman, New Milford, and Danbury Democratic town committees.

With 20 years experience working for a legislative body, Danette Onofrio is a strong candidate, said Joshua Beckett-Flores, chairman of the New Fairfield Democratic Town Committee. Hands down, she knows the ins and out of crafting and adopting legislation to meet the needs of people. We are excited to have such a qualified candidate.

Onofrio said she is ambitious in her goals for the district.

I want to make sure our children and families are safe, and folks have affordable healthcae, she said in a press release Monday. I want to strengthen working families, build the economy and improve our infrastructure.

David Silvay, chairman of the Sherman Democratic Town Committee, described Onofrio as an avid learner and described her desire to enhance schools and libraries.

And, as a kayaker, she is strong on preserving the beauty and health of Candlewood Lake, Ball Pond, and other natural and recreational resources, Silvay said.

Onofrios education took a non-traditional route because she could not afford college after high school.

As a single parent in her 30s and living paycheck to paycheck, she knew that she wanted something better, she said in the release. She wanted to help people. She began to study and went on to earn a bachelors degree of professional studies and a masters degree in public administration.

Onofrios career included not only work that improved the lives of others, but also teaching government and nonprofit leaders how to better serve their clients.

Onofrio said one of her proudest moments was when Marist College invited her to become an adjunct instructor in their School of Management.

Ive had the honor of teaching dedicated people who worked in every level of government and nonprofits, including the New York State Police, she said.

Onofrio is a small business owner in New Fairfield, a volunteer for Western Connecticut SCORE, and a candidate for a Doctorate in Management and Organizational Leadership.

She said she recognizes the challenges businesses and workers face, especially during the current economic crisis.

Now more than ever, if we are going to keep people from moving out of Connecticut, keep businesses going and restarting them, we need a representative in Hartford who has that experience, Onofrio said. I do.

It is not enough to say you will improve the economy and want higher paying jobs, said MaryJane Lundgren, chairwoman of the New Milford Democratic Town Committee. You must have an education in it, have experience in running a business and skills. Danette has a strong blend in all three.

In addition, Onofrios background includes managing a public health crisis.

Onofrio said she believes in a strong community and is passionate about volunteering.

She recently rolled made hundreds of masks for local healthcare providers and the community, is a library director for the New Fairfield Public Library and a member of the Friends of the Library, is a member of the Womans Club of Danbury/New Fairfield , is secretary for the New Fairfield DTC and has participated in Safe Walk for The Womens Center of Greater Danbury.

She was a 4-H Leader for 15 years, co-founder and director of a nonprofit for individuals living with learning disabilities and president of the board of the Art Empowerment Project.
Gilead Sciences, Inc. and Kite, a Gilead Company, are pleased to support the Virtual Edition of the 25th European Hematology Association (EHA) Annual Congress, taking place 1121 June 2020.

The EHA Annual Congress provides a key platform for hematologists from across Europe and around the world to increase their knowledge of evidence-based approaches for hematologic diseases, access the latest results on clinical and translational research in hematologic disorders and further understand emerging innovative techniques, diagnostic tools and risk-assessment strategies in hematology and its subspecialties.

Gilead and Kite will be presenting scientific and real-world data from their cell therapy research programs to attending healthcare professionals.

We are pleased to be supporting the virtual edition of the EHA Congress 2020 and look forward to engaging, collaborating and sharing new data with hematologists throughout Europe and around the world. Our presentations at this invaluable international meeting form part of our ongoing commitment to realizing the full potential of cell therapy through continued research in advanced blood cancers. Dick Sundh, Vice President, Head of Europe, Kite

Presentations at the congress will include:

Presentation Number and Date/Time (CEST) Abstract Title Abstract #EP1259

(e-poster)

Friday 12 June 2020

08:00  23:59 Retreatment of patients with refractory large B-cell lymphoma with axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) in ZUMA-1  F. Locke, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL, USA Abstract #EP1763

(e-poster)

Friday 12 June 2020

08:00  23:59 Axicabtagene ciloleucel for the management of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma: an economic evaluation for Spain  M. Presa, Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research Iberia (PORIB), Madrid, Spain Abstract #EP1731

(e-poster)

Friday 12 June 2020

08:00  23:59 Cost effectiveness of axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) and tisagenlecleucel (tisa-cel) for adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma (RR LBCL) in the US  J. Thornton Snider, Kite, a Gilead Company, Santa Monica, CA, USA Abstract #S144

(oral)

Saturday 13 June 2020

08:00  23:59 The first-in-class anti-CD47 antibody magrolimab combined with azacitidine is well-tolerated and effective in AML patients: Phase 1b results  N. Daver, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA Abstract #S287

(oral)

Sunday 14 June 2020

08:00  23:59 Interim analysis of ZUMA-5: A Phase 2 study of axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) in patients (pts) with relapsed/refractory indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (R/R iNHL)  C.A. Jacobson, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA Abstract #S187

(oral)

Sunday 14 June

2020 08:00  23:59 The first-in-class anti-CD47 antibody magrolimab combined with azacitidine is well-tolerated and effective in MDS patients: Phase 1b results  D. Sallman, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL, USA

The following experts from Kite will be available for comments:
Oprah Winfrey led a passionate conversation Tuesday night In "OWN Spotlight: Where Do We Go From Here?, the first of a two-night town hall addressing issues raised by the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyds death has sparked nationwide protests against racism and police brutality inflicted on African Americans. Winfreys special continues Wednesday, June 10, on OWN and will be simulcast across channels that fall under the Discovery umbrella.

 You can watch OWN Spotlight: Where Do We Go From Here? for free with fuboTV (free trial).

In the town hall, Winfrey speaks with director Ava DuVernay (When They See Us); politician Stacey Abrams; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; Color of Change founder Rashad Robinson; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) national board member Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II; professor and author Jennifer Eberhardt; author Ibram X. Kendi; journalist Charles M. Blow; journalist and Pulitzer prize-winning founder of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones (who, earlier in her career, was a reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive); and actor David Oyelowo (Selma"), who directed his first feature film, The Water Man, last year in Oregon. Winfrey is one of the executive producers of the film.

In the first night, Winfreys guests talked about subjects including their own emotional reactions, including the righteous rage the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II mentioned. Others discussed the weariness they feel about having to go through this pain again.

Theres a sense that white Americans will tolerate so much pain, so much suffering, Nikole Hannah-Jones said, until something so egregiously horrifying occurs, they can no longer be in denial about how black Americans have been denied their civil rights, and full citizenship.

And I think were just tired, as black people, of having to prove our humanity only when the most inhumane things happen to us, Hannah-Jones said.

Winfrey said In a statement that she decided to do the town hall because Ive been having private conversations with friends and thought leaders about whats next and where we go from here.

The OWN Spotlight specials on Winfreys OWN network are presentations that feature conversations about issues that are relevant to contemporary black women.

What: OWN Spotlight: Where Do We Go From Here? Part 2

When: Wednesday, June 10 at 9 p.m.

TV Channels: The special will air on OWN, and also be simulcast across all of Discoverys networks, including Discovery, HGTV, ID, Food Network, TLC, Animal Planet, and more.

Watch live stream online: You can watch the show live for FREE with fuboTV (free trial), or you can watch it live at a discount with Sling TV (promotional offer). The special will also stream on as OWNs YouTube, Facebook and Instagram pages.

Channel finder, more ways to watch: Verizon Fios, AT&T U-verse, Comcast Xfinity, Spectrum/Charter, Optimum/Altice, DIRECTV and Dish.

More of our coverage:

-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
2020-06-10

The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are set to work together to develop technologies and infrastructure to support socio-economic development in South Africa and Southern Africa.

The parties recently signed a framework agreement to collaborate on projects of mutual interest, in fields such as water, energy including bioethanol production, infrastructure development, emerging and small-farmer support, and the DBSAs Development Labs known as D-Labs. D-Labs are development precincts designed to create economic development spaces within communities where all local participants are connected and have access to digital presence, technologies and information.

The partnership is expected to pave the way for the commercialisation of CSIR technologies in a bid to boost the competitiveness of local industries and regional economies. This is in line with the CSIRs strategy, which aims to use science, technology and innovation to strengthen industrial development and the creation of a capable state.

The DBSA plays a critical role in supporting the government to leverage skills and capabilities to accelerate the implementation of infrastructure programmes in the key priority sectors of the economy, such as energy, information and communication technology, water and sanitation, education and health, as well as various municipal infrastructure programmes.

CSIR Chief Executive Officer Dr Thulani Dlamini, welcomed the partnership, stating that the parties are well aligned to contribute to the improvement of the countrys industries.

The CSIR is very pleased to be working with DBSA. This partnership brings together complimentary capabilities in innovation and development which could see us make a significant impact in South Africa and also the region, says Dlamini.

DBSA Chief Executive Patrick Dlamini says, The DBSA recognises that technology is key in helping us achieve our mandate of promoting economic development and inclusive growth. As a result, we are excited about this partnership as it will enable both organisations to unlock growth in our economy.

Ends
Syracuse, N.Y.  Police are investigating after a 44-year-old woman was stabbed to death this morning near the Syracuse Community Health Center.

Officers were called to the 800 block of South Salina Street around 10:25 a.m., where they found the victim, who had been stabbed in the mid-section, said Syracuse Police Sgt. Matt Malinowski, a department spokesman.

She was rushed to Upstate University Hospital, but later died.

Police remain at the scene this afternoon. The entrance of the Syracuse Community Health Center is cordoned off with crime tape, as is the sidewalk running from the clinics entrance to East Taylor Street.

This was the second homicide in Syracuse in less than 12 hours after a man was shot and killed at an East Side apartment complex Tuesday night.

The womans death was the 13th homicide in Syracuse this year.
Actor Shabana Azmi shut down a troll who suggested that her husband Javed Akhtar hadnt actually won the Richard Dawkins Award 2020, and that his name was only nominated for it. Dawkins confirmed the news on Twitter himself.

Reacting to a WhatsApp screenshot shared on Twitter, Shabana wrote, This is patently untrue! We have an email from Richard Dawkins on 5th June offering the award and also from Robyn Blumner who heads the Centre for Inquiry, USA. I feel sad for these pathetic trolls who do not care that they will stand exposed in seconds for such a preposterous claim. In the apparent WhatsApp conversation, one person claimed that Akhtar mistook his nomination as an actual victory and told his friends in the media.

THIS IS PATENTLY UNTRUE! We have an email from Richard Dawkins on 5th June offering the award and also from Robyn Blumner who heads the Centre for Inquiry USA.I feel sad 4 these pathetic trolls who do not care that they will stand exposed in seconds 4 such a preposterous claim ! https://t.co/Ro1ejCNSdk  Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) June 9, 2020

Putting all rumours to rest, Dawkins tweeted on Tuesday, Javed Akhtar @Javedakhtarjadu is the 2020 Richard Dawkins Award winner and I could not be more pleased. The Center for Inquiry, on whose board I sit, has designated him this years recipient for his courageous public stands on behalf of atheism, rationality, and freethought.

Javed Akhtar @Javedakhtarjadu is the 2020 Richard Dawkins Award winner and I could not be more pleased. The Center for Inquiry, on whose board I sit, has designated him this year's recipient for his courageous public stands on behalf of atheism, rationality, and freethought.  Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) June 9, 2020

Earlier this week, the writer-lyricist said that he was pleasantly surprised with the honour. I wasnt sure that these people would know what I am saying, what I am writing, what I am speaking from different podiums. But thank you very much. Mr Richard Dawkins letter was a very very pleasant surprise, he told NDTV.

Also read: The future belongs to rationalists: Javed Akhtar

The Richard Dawkins Award is bestowed upon individuals who publicly proclaim the values of secularism, rationalism, upholding scientific truth, since 2003. Previous recipients include Bill Maher, Stephen Fry and Ricky Gervais. Richard Dawkins is a renowned English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author. Akhtar is the first Indian to have been bestowed with the award.

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The protest in the southern New Jersey township was similar to those that have unfolded across the United States since George Floyd was killed in police custody: About 70 people gathered to rally against police brutality and systemic racism.

But as the diverse group marched along Monday, waving signs and chanting slogans in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, it was met by several white men who had gathered near a sign that said All Lives Matter and in front of a pickup truck draped with an American flag and a pro-Trump sign.

One of the men yelled at the marchers angrily while kneeling on the neck of another who was facedown on the ground  an apparent attempt to mock the killing of Mr. Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

By Tuesday afternoon, the states Department of Corrections said it had suspended one of its employees after confirming that he was among the group that taunted and tried to upset the protesters.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

A videoconference was held with the participation of the members of the Azerbaijan-Turkey working group on inter-parliamentary relations of the Azerbaijani parliament and representatives of the Turkey-Azerbaijan inter-parliamentary friendship group of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on June 10, Trend reports.

The videoconference was opened by Chairman of the Health Committee of the Azerbaijani parliament, Head of the working group on inter-parliamentary relations with Turkey, academician Akhliman Amiraslanov.

Amiraslanov conveyed greetings of Chairperson of the Azerbaijani parliament Sahiba Gafarova to the Turkish MPs.

During the videoconference, the sides stressed that this meeting was organized on the initiative of the heads of the parliaments of the two countries.

Amiraslanov provided detailed information about the work conducted in Azerbaijan to combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has covered the whole world.

The sides also emphasized that thanks to the preventive measures taken on the initiative and under the leadership of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva, positive results have been achieved in the fight against the pandemic.

The academician stressed that an Operational Headquarters was created under the Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers. The implementation of the large-scale measures was launched to prevent the threat of the spread of coronavirus. The number of coronavirus infected people, as well as fatal cases in Azerbaijan are much lower than in other countries thanks to these measures.

The head of the working group stressed that in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the Azerbaijani government mobilized all its capacities, and 21 hospitals operate in the country to treat coronavirus infected patients.

All coronavirus infected patients are being treated in the hospitals in Azerbaijan at the state expense. At the same time, compatriots who return to the country, also at the state expense, are placed in quarantine zones under medical supervision.

In turn, Head of the Turkey-Azerbaijan inter-parliamentary friendship group of the Grand National Assembly Shamil Ayrim made a detailed report about the fight against COVID-19 in Turkey.

Ayrim conveyed the greetings of Chairman of the Turkish Grand National Assembly Mustafa Sentop to Chairperson of the Azerbaijani parliament Sahiba Gafarova and to all Azerbaijani MPs.

While speaking about the brotherhood of two countries and peoples, Ayrim expressed confidence that the inter-parliamentary relations between the two countries will continue to develop.

Having expressed gratitude to President Aliyev, Ayrim stressed that he was very happy to be awarded with the Azerbaijani Order of Dostluq.

The Azerbaijani MPs, members of the Azerbaijan-Turkey working group on interparliamentary relations Arzu Naghiyev, Eldar Ibrahimov, Malahat Ibrahimgizi, Sabir Rustamkhanli, Agia Nakhchivanli, Fazil Mustafa, Rashad Makhmudov, Nizami Safarov, and Ramil Hasan spoke about the friendly and fraternal relations and strategic partnership between the two countries.

The importance of exchange of views in the field of legislation was stressed.

The members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly Orhan Erdem, Yunus Kilic, Tulay Kaynarca, Aylin Cesur, Yasar Karadag, Yilmaz Tunc and Ugur Bayraktutan highly appreciated the moral and political significance of the relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan. The sides emphasized that Turkey invariably supports Azerbaijans position in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

At the end of the videoconference, Amiraslanov stressed that the heads of both states countries set important tasks for further developing relations between the two countries and ensuring their multidisciplinary nature.

The members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, members of the Turkey-Azerbaijan interparliamentary friendship group Ibrahim Aydemir, Yashar Tuzun, Mehmet Erdogan also took part in the video conference.
Over a third of tourism businesses in Western Australia have said they will go under unless border restrictions are eased.

The Tourism Council of Western Australia surveyed thousands of operators and 34 per cent agreed they would struggle to remain open without interstate tourists, who remain barred from the state under COVID-19 lockdown measures.

'This shows that interstate visitors are vital for tourism businesses to survive and retain jobs in their regional towns,' Tourism Council chief executive Evan Hall told 9NEWS.

Over a third of Western Australia's tourism businesses may go under if the tough coronavirus border restrictions are not eased. Pictured: Perth's CBD during coronavirus lockdown in May

Business operators told the Tourism Council of Western Australia they would struggle to remain open without interstate visitors. Pictured: A tourist and whale shark at Ningaloo Reef off the state's coast

'We cannot maintain jobs off local tourism alone,' Mr Hall said.

Western Australia saw its best tourism numbers before the pandemic hit and the industry was valued at $11billion at the last reporting period.

The state entered its third stage of eased COVID-19 restrictions in late May, which saw attractions including museums, galleries and Rottnest Island reopen.

The McGowan Government has refused to set a date for lifting WA's tough border measures despite easing most other restrictions.

Mr Hall noted: 'The reduction of restrictions on tourism attractions, experiences and hospitality venues is a bold step forward well ahead of other states. This will help save jobs, particularly in regional tourism businesses and towns.'

Struggling business owners noted that lifting restrictions within the state will not be enough to keep operators afloat.

Cable Beach Caravan Park owner Ron Beacham told Daily Mail Australia: 'Interstate customers are a big part of our clientele and they're blocked off and can't get here.

'We've got a situation where they don't know if they can get here and nor do we. We're just in limbo.

The McGowan Government eased coronavirus restrictions in late May and reopened attractions like museums, galleries and Rottnest Island. Pictured: Mosman Beach in Perth

'While these premiers play the political game we have our hands tied behind our backs and we can't operate.'

Mr Beacham noted only 48 out of his 500 camping bays were occupied and only 60 bookings had been made for the July school holidays.

WA Tourism Minister Paul Papalia said he was confident businesses would be able to survive the ongoing border restrictions.

The Minister said: 'I think right now we're providing the greatest opportunity for our businesses to open up.

'The McGowan Government has presided over record high tourism numbers in recent years.

'We look forward to continuing to support and develop the industry to ensure it bounces back stronger than ever in coming years.'

Mr Papalia said the state's chief health officer advised the border should remain closed until there was no community spread in other states.

Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson noted: 'Until community spread is eliminated in the affected jurisdictions, which will require at least a month to confirm, opening of the interstate borders is not recommended.'
Chinas government has dismissed findings from a Harvard Medical School study about the new coronavirus. The study suggests the virus may have begun spreading as early as last August in Wuhan, China.

A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the study ridiculous, at a news briefing Tuesday.

The study used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan and data from internet search engines on physical conditions like cough and diarrhea.

The studys writers said the increased hospital traffic and internet search data in Wuhan came before the documented start of the coronavirus outbreak in December 2019.

The Harvard researchers said they cannot confirm if the increased hospital visits were directly related to the new virus. But, they said, their evidence supports other recent work showing the disease appeared before its discovery at the Hunan Seafood Market in Wuhan.

Several independent scientists also criticized the study, saying it did not provide clear evidence of when the outbreak began.

Paul Digard is an expert in virus study at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He calls the use of search engine data and satellite images of hospital traffic an interesting idea with some usefulness.

But he said the data only shows a possible link between things; it does not prove one thing was the result of the other. In their study, the Harvard scientists noted this as well.

Keith Neal is a researcher of infectious disease data at Britains Nottingham University. He told Reuters news agency the Harvard study is, in his words, an interesting piece of work, but Im not sure it takes us much further forward.

The Harvard research showed a sharp jump in occupancy at hospital parking lots in August 2019.

In an internet pre-print of the study report, the researchers wrote that they found an increase in internet searches for diarrhea. That was something not seen in earlier influenza seasons nor in earlier cough search data.

Neal, from Nottingham University, said the study included traffic around at least one childrens hospital. He said though children do get sick with influenza, they do not usually get sick with COVID-19.

Digard, from the University of Edinburgh, warned that by looking only at hospitals in Wuhan, the study forces the link between increased traffic and the virus outbreak.

He said it would have been interesting and possibly much more persuasive if it had also shown data from cities outside the Hubei area of China.

Im Caty Weaver.

Reuters news agency reported this story. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_____________________________________________

Words in This Story

ridiculous - adj. extremely silly or unreasonable

parking lot - n. an area outside a building for parking cars and other vehicles

outbreak - n. A sudden start or increase of infectious disease

data - n. facts or information used usually to calculate, study, or plan something

interesting - adj. attracting your attention and making you want to learn more about something

pre-print - n. a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that comes before formal peer review and publication in a scholarly or scientific journal
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday deported Malachy McAllister, a Rutherford man who waged a two-decades-long fight to remain in the United States after fleeing Northern Ireland.

In a statement released Wednesday, ICEs Enforcement and Removal Operations mentioned McAllisters record in Northern Ireland, where he served in the Irish National Liberation Army and went to prison for the attempted murder of British police officers. In deporting McAllister, ICE cited his lengthy history of terrorism related crime in Ireland and multiple convictions.

The national liberation army, like the better-known Irish Republican Army, fought against British rule and sought to unify Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. The period of violence, known as the Troubles, ended with a peace agreement in 1998.

McAllister fled to the U.S. in search of asylum in 1996 after he said British loyalists sprayed his family home with machine-gun fire.

Since settling in New Jersey, McAllister developed close ties with the local Irish-American community, according to U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-9th Dist., who sought for years to block his deportation, including introducing legislation in Congress to allow him to stay.

McAllister had received a last-minute reprieve from deportation two years ago, and Menendez and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York asked Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf earlier this month to allow him to stay.

While Mr. McAllister was involved in paramilitary activities in Northern Ireland more than two decades ago, as were so many others, he has been a strong proponent of the Irish Peace Process," the senators wrote. McAllister also played a leading role in urging the Irish-American community to support a negotiated peace and has continued those efforts.

When the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2006 rejected McAllisters appeal, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, sister of President Donald Trump, issued a concurring opinion that said the law was clear but "I would ask  no, I would implore  the Attorney General to exercise his discretion and permit this deserving family to stay.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.
A lion cub's hind legs were deliberately broken by torturers 'so it could not run away while posing on Russian beaches for photos with holidaymakers'.

Vladimir Putin was so shocked that he personally ordered a criminal probe into the cruelty Simba experienced.

The cub was just a few weeks old when he was snatched from his mother and forced to pose for pictures with tourists.

After being exploited last summer, Simba's torturers broke his legs to prevent him running away as he grew older and bigger.

Simba's health rapidly deteriorated as he was 'tortured and beaten', suffering severe injuries to his spine that left him close to death, local reports said.

Rescuers discovered the cub with mangled legs at distorted angles and covered in dirt

Simba was starving and close to death when he was saved by rescuers and is now learning to walk again

The cub pokes its tongue out in a picture taken by his rescuers prior to having life-saving surgery

The animal was dumped, starving and hardly able to move, tethered in a dirty, cold barn in the Russian region of Dagestan.

A deeply distressing video shows the helpless animal before life-saving surgery - and afterwards as he slowly and painfully learns again to walk.

A weak and emaciated Simba licks his paw and winces in pain as he struggles to clean himself and holds his clearly distorted hind legs off the floor.

'He was practically not fed, and for some reason in the frost water was constantly poured over him,' said Yulia Ageeva, who led a rescue mission to save the cub.

'This was a real hell.'

Simba is seen stumbling around after surgery, his fur shaven, as he learns to rewalk

Simba is gently guided by a human helper who helps the cub navigate how to use his legs

The lion limps and stumbles around as he struggles to work out how to use his mended legs

Simba also suffered pressure sores, intestinal obstructions, and a wasting of muscle to his hind limbs.

Rescuers flew the cub to specialist vet Karen Dallakyan, who said he had suffered 'an ocean of pain from humans'.

He said: 'Evil photographers break bones like this so that wild predators cannot escape and behave calmly for pictures (with tourists).'

The video fades to Simba after surgery as he stumbles forward, encouraged by a human who gently guides his hind legs.

The cub, sporting a shaved coat, staggers outside and tentatively plods around as he learns how to reuse his legs.

At one point the limping lion even manages to break into a gentle jog.

The footage transitions to a clearly much healthier Simba, his luscious coat regrown, as he snuggles up to a giant teddy bear in his cage - a miraculous recovery for a cub who had been so cruelly treated.

Simba's life was saved by a specialist vet who said he had suffered 'an ocean of pain from humans'. He is pictured above after having life-saving surgery

Vladimir Putin was so shocked that he personally ordered a criminal probe into the cruelty faced by Simba, who is pictured above after recovering from surgery

Simba cranes his neck up for a friendly scratch. He has made a miraculous recovery despite being on the brink of death at the time he was rescued

Although Simba's life was saved, he has been left with permanent deformities.

Dallakyan told Putin about the scandal during a lockdown video-conference with ecologists, stressing: 'We do not see any criminal case opened.'

The Russian president said: 'Thank you, I wrote down what you said.'

A healthier, fluffier Simba snuggles up to his toy teddy bear in his cage

The Kremlin leader promised to get law enforcement to act against the animal torturer and any associates.

Dallakyan, from Chelyabinsk, said that a criminal investigation is now underway.

The unnamed photographer who worked with Simba last summer in Sochi denied that he had tortured the animal, and said he had passed on the cub to new owners.

The vet said the cub's recovery was a 'miracle'.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro told an actress to "get out of here" after she criticized his response to the coronavirus pandemic in a gathering outside his official residence on Wednesday morning.

Cris Bernart told Bolsonaro that Brazil's estimated 38,000 deaths from COVID-19 were not just statistics but families across the country who were suffering.

Bolsonaro, who has dismissed the virus as just a "little flu" and ordered state governors to loosen lockdown restrictions, told Bernart to leave, a live YouTube broadcast by a Bolsonaro supporter that was later taken down showed.

"Get out of here, you have already been heard," the president said in the video, which has been widely shared on social media. "Get out of here."

"You can see, you have this character speaking rubbish here," Bolsonaro said, repeating his criticism of state governors for shutting down businesses and causing economic hardship.

Wearing a face mask, Bernart told Bolsonaro that she had backed his 2018 presidential election campaign, but accused him of betraying the Brazilian people.

Brazil has become one of the global hotspots for the coronavirus pandemic, with the third highest death toll after the United States and Britain.
For the past 16 months, the family of Willie McCoy, a young rapper from Vallejo, California, has wondered whether charges could ever be brought against the six police officers who fatally shot him in his car in a Taco Bell drive-thru.

They're still waiting.

But for now, the recent announcement by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra that the California Department of Justice will undertake an "expansive review" of the Vallejo Police Department with the goal of reforming its use-of-force procedures and allowing for accountability and transparency for its officers has McCoy's family "cautiously optimistic" that substantive changes will be made.

Image: Willie McCoy (Law Offices of John L. Burris)

"It's one thing to say the system is broken, but it's been 487 days since Willie was killed. The six police officers were cleared by the VPD and put back to work before Willie was even buried," McCoy's older brother, Kori, said Tuesday. "In doing so, they felt that their officers never did anything wrong."

Kori McCoy said he hopes that Becerra's intervention "will uncover the truth" about what he says are systemic problems within the police department, and provides a glimpse into what better relations with the community can look like.

"Maybe Vallejo will be used as an example for how to fix a police department," he added.

The Vallejo City Council on Tuesday night unanimously ratified a three-year agreement for the city with its police department and the state Department of Justice, which will work to develop best practices for Vallejo's police force and independently evaluate its implementation efforts. The city stressed that it is a "collaborative effort to modernize and reform" the department, and not a takeover by the state.

The council also voted to request Becerra's office to open an investigation into last week's fatal police shooting in Vallejo of Sean Monterrosa, a 22-year-old Latino man from San Francisco.

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Vallejo, a Bay Area city with a racially diverse population of about 122,000, has faced scrutiny over the number of police-involved shootings  18 since 2010  making it the highest per capita in Northern California, NBC Bay Area reported last year. According to police records and lawsuits, 14 officers have been involved in at least three shootings each since 2010.

There have also been over a dozen lawsuits filed against the police department, some alleging a "pattern and practice of using excessive force and misconduct against citizens."

The city, which was mired in bankruptcy from 2008 to 2011, has paid out millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements, although officials have cautioned that the settlements don't imply wrongdoing by officers.

Some residents and activists told the City Council in comments Tuesday night that they're tired of promises by city leaders to reform the police department, only to see the complaints of use of force and police brutality continue.

Kori McCoy said last month's killing of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who was handcuffed and pinned to the ground while in police custody, shouldn't be used as a rallying cry in a place like Vallejo if officials can't have an honest accounting of its own department.

"My oldest son was a police officer for a short time. I'm not anti-police, I'm anti-bad police," he said. "And Vallejo has a house full of bad police. They've been allowed by city government to run roughshod."

A year ago, a city-ordered "expert report" on McCoy's death concluded that officers acted reasonably when they fired 55 shots at him within 3.5 seconds. The officers had said they feared they were going to be shot by McCoy after he suddenly woke up inside his car and appeared to be grabbing for a firearm on his lap.

An attorney for the family has argued the high number of shots indicates they didn't act reasonably.

Kori McCoy said he was told by the Solano County District Attorney's Office that before it can investigate the death of his brother, which was caught on police body camera, the Vallejo Police Department must turn over its report to District Attorney Krishna Abrams. It's unclear if that has happened; Abrams' office did not immediately return a request for comment about opening an investigation.

In response to the state Justice Department's involvement, Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams, who was brought on last fall and is the city's first black police chief, acknowledged that while he's strengthened implementation of a body-worn camera policy and de-escalation techniques, "the biggest steps are ahead of us."

Mayor Bob Sampayan, a retired police sergeant in Vallejo, said in a statement that "there is more that we know we can do to help the department get where it needs to be" and that the city "will not hide from a thorough review" into the fatal shooting of Monterrosa on June 2.

Police said the officer who killed Monterrosa was responding to a report of a looting at a Walgreens store. The officer, whom the city has not identified, fired five times through a windshield after he believed Monterrosa was armed with a gun and was kneeling "in preparation to shoot," police said. It was later discovered Monterrosa had a hammer in his sweatshirt pocket, not a firearm, according to authorities.

The city said the agreement with the Justice Department was in the works for months and not done specifically as a result of Monterrosa's death. Neither the city nor an attorney with the Vallejo Police Officers' Association, the local union, responded to requests for comment about reports that the officer who fatally shot Monterrosa was also involved in three previous shootings.

Given the breadth of the complaints against Vallejo police, any outside help should be welcomed since "this is a nowhere-to-go-but-up phenomenon," Robert Weisberg, a criminal justice expert and law professor at Stanford University, said.

Weisberg said the state's intervention may not appear to be as strong as if the federal government were to investigate a local police department, as it had in Ferguson, Missouri, after the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown, a teenager, and in Baltimore after the 2015 death of Freddie Gray. Oakland's police department has been under a court-appointed federal monitor since 2003 in the wake of alleged police misconduct that cost the city millions of dollars.

Still, the collaboration between the state Justice Department and Vallejo can be a "positive step" as long as the attorney general has true independence in its review and the local force acquiesces to implementing necessary policies, Weisberg said, adding that the city will also need to take a deep look into whom they're hiring.

"The rogue cop problem is a terrible, terrible problem. But it's not just training, it's recruiting," he said.

A national debate over defunding or even dismantling police departments in the aftermath of Floyd's death is especially fraught in places like Vallejo, where some say attracting the best officers means paying competitive salaries in line with other, more affluent communities in the Bay Area.

"You might not be able to fund Vallejo to ensure it's going to hire the very best officers, but you can fund it to ensure it doesn't get the worst officers," Weisberg said.

Related:

Joshua Chanin, an associate professor of public administration and criminology at San Diego State University, said that organizational reform of a police department "requires so many things to go right," including support from leadership as well as adequate political and financial backing.

Prior to Vallejo, the state Justice Department opened a similar review of the Sacramento Police Department's use-of-force procedures following the March 2018 death of Stephon Clark, a black man killed by police officers who believed he was armed, but was later found to be holding a cellphone. The Sacramento County prosecutor declined to press charges against the officers, and the federal Justice Department also decided not to pursue criminal civil rights charges.

In one change in response to Becerra's report, Sacramento agreed to track complaints against police officers differently, after police had reported that there were no racial or identity profiling complaints made against the city's department in 2017, confounding observers.

Chanin said there's been a mixed-bag of results nationwide when it comes to cities benefiting from outside oversight. Places such as Cincinnati and Seattle have seen progress, he said, while Pittsburgh, whose police department was under a federal consent decree for five years following accusations of civil rights violations, "saw changes dissipate shortly after the reform-minded chief was ousted."

Chanin remains skeptical that Sacramento and Vallejo can get the sweeping reforms needed since even the federal government can appear to be ineffective in the long run.

"The federal process is judicially enforceable, carefully monitored by DOJ attorneys, and often managed by a team of independent monitors. This oversight system has a strong track record of driving implementation, but little to show for lasting change or the ability to shift agency culture," Chanin said in an email.

Related:

"Put another way, many federal agreements fail to bring about lasting change despite having many of the necessary ingredients in place to succeed. The reforms outlined in the California Justice Department's report on Sacramento are very similar to those described in federal reviews of policing in Ferguson and Baltimore, but unlike these cities, Sacramento (and presumably Vallejo) will have none of the same systems in place," he added.

Still, Vallejo residents say they're keeping a watchful eye on what happens next.

Don Jordan, chairman of the African American Alliance, a politically active organization in the city, said officers need to undergo civil rights and bias training and there needs to be a citizens review board that has the power to subpoena officers as part of excessive force investigations.

With mayoral and City Council elections coming this November, he said, "as an African American community, we won't support candidates that aren't for this."

Adrian Burrell, a black Marine veteran who filed an excessive force lawsuit against Vallejo and an officer last September, said he's more keen on the idea of defunding police departments, which advocates suggest is beneficial by diverting money into violence prevention programs, health care and better housing in order to improve communities.

"We've tried the old ways and it hasn't worked," Burrell said, "so I think it's time to try something different."
(Newser)  Experts say North Korea earned at least $22 million last year in illegally selling, uh, sand. "This is one of the most unique cases of North Korean sanctions evasion behavior that we've seen," Lucas Kuo, an analyst with the nonprofit Center for Advanced Defense Studies, tells CNN. Kuo and his partner, Lauren Sung, first noticed more than 100 ships with Chinese flags or names in North Korea's Haeju Bay, less than 20 miles from South Korea, in May 2019. They initially suspected goods were being transferred from ship to ship to hide their origins, as the UN knew was happening, per Reuters. Satellite images, however, showed what looked like an operation to extract sand from the sea floor. Under UN sanctions, North Korea is barred not only from exporting coal, its most profitable export, but any type of earth or stone.

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Even so, the country pulled in at least $22 million in 2019 using "a substantial sand-export operation," UN investigators said in an April report, drafted before Kuo and Sung published their findings in March. It noted an unnamed country had supplied intelligence claiming North Korea sold 1 million tons of sand abroad from May to December. Kuo and Sung say the barges spotted in May 2019 departed for various destinations in Chinathe worlds largest consumer of sand, used in the making of cement, glass, even computer processors. China has denied wrongdoing, however, saying it "has always fulfilled its international obligations" and complies with UN sanctions, per CNN. In response to the UN report, China claimed authorities had been "unable to confirm that the sand had been transported to Chinese ports." (Sand is a hot commodity.)
The head of a New York state police union has hit out at both lawmakers and the media for treating the police like animals and thugs, and for vilifying the profession.

Mike OMeara, president of the New York Police Benevolent Association, standing in front of a large group of police officers at a press conference, said that 375 million interactions between the public and the police each year are overwhelmingly positive.

Yet he said that he had read all week that in the black community mothers are worried about their children getting home from school without being killed by a cop.

A frustrated Mr OMeara said: What world are we living in? That doesnt happen. It does not happen!

I am not Derek Chauvin. They are not him. he said referring to the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd. He killed someone. We didnt. We are restrained.

Speaking on behalf of the assembled officers, he said: Everybodys trying to shame us. The legislators. The press. Everybodys trying to shame us into being embarrassed of our profession.

Holding up his police badge he said: You know what? This isnt stained by someone in Minneapolis. Its still got a shine on it, and so do theirs.

Mr OMeara added, angrily: Stop treating us like animals and thugs, and start treating us with some respect! Thats what were here today to say. Weve been left out of the conversation. Weve been vilified. Its disgusting.

Bail has been set at $1.25m for Mr Chauvin, who has been charged with second degree murder and manslaughter over the death of Mr Floyd. Three other officers have also been charged.

Mr Floyds funeral took place in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday afternoon.

Recommended Buffalo cops who shoved elderly protester charged with assault

We dont condone Minneapolis. We roundly reject what he did as disgusting. Its disgusting! Its not what we do. Its not what police officers do, said Mr OMeara.

The press conference in New York City comes after an incident in Buffalo on Friday in which 75-year-old Martin Gugino fell and suffered a head injury after an interaction with two officers clearing the plaza outside City Hall.

Video of the incident went viral, and officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski were charged with second degree assault at the weekend, having already been suspended. Their suspension led 57 officers to resign from the emergency response team.

Mr OMeara did not mention the incident in his remarks.

Initial reaction online focused on the lack of diversity in the assembled crowd of police officers standing behind Mr OMeara, and it not being a reflection of the NYPD, something questioned by New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.

"Any New Yorker can tell you that this group does not look representative of the NYPD at all. Most NYPD patrol officers are Black, Latino, or Asian American  and the overall force is about 1/5 women. So whats going on here? ," she wrote.

Other users said his comments and anger at the treatment of the force underline why reform of the police is so needed.

His statement about being treated with respect was declared ironic by many, especially the use of the words animals and thugs.

One Twitter user said: Sir, thats all Black and Brown people are asking for from YOUR officers.
New Delhi, June 10 : As Delhi records more COVID-19 deaths, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal kept his political differences aside on Wednesday and met Union Home Minister Amit Shah to discuss the continuous spike of cases in the national capital.

After the meeting, Kejriwal tweeted: "Met Sh Amit Shah, Hon'ble HM. Discussed the situation on corona in Delhi in detail. He assured of all cooperation." On Wednesday alone, Delhi saw 48 deaths, taking the total casualty count to 984 as 1,501 fresh COVID-19 cases were detected in Delhi, making it further worrisome for the health infrastructure of the national capital.

Kejriwal earlier said, "Data shows that Covid-19 cases will significantly increase in Delhi in the coming days. We have a big challenge ahead. Keep yourself safe and make it a mass movement. Wear a mask, wash hands and maintain social distancing." The Chief Minister also projected an exponential growth in the city's numbers. "Till June 15, there will be 44,000 Covid-19 cases and we would require 6,600 beds. We would hit one lakh cases and require 15,000 beds by June 30," he said.

He added that the cases would mount to 2.5 lakh and the city would require 33,000 beds by July 15, while by July 31, there will be 5.32 lakh cases and 80,000 beds will be needed.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Johannesburg, June 10 : As COVID-19 cases keep climbing, the South African Medical Association (SAMA) called on the government to ban alcohol sales.

In an interview on Tuesday, SAMA Chairperson Angelique Coetzee told Xinhua that since alcohol sale ban was removed from June 1, the number of patients with alcohol-related injuries has been rising which put pressure on an already overstretched public health care system.

"People abuse alcohol and end up at the casualty and trauma units. We have a lack of resources for COVID-19 patients and now we have an additional burden of patients with alcohol-related injuries," she said.

She said health care workers, especially in provinces such as the Western Cape, were already struggling with coronavirus patients.

"If people don't drink responsibly, you get trauma stab wounds and motor car accidents type of patients. The doctors are overwhelmed with the number of COVID-19 patients and they need to focus on the pandemic," she said.

One public hospital in the Eastern Cape said 66 patients with serious alcohol-related wound were admitted since the sale was permitted.

Coetzee said responsible drinking was lacking in the country.

"People don't know how to drink responsibly, they abuse alcohol. We need to relook the sale of alcohol,"she said.

Some provincial leaders said they would be approaching the coronavirus national team which is led by President Cyril Ramaphosa to propose an alcohol ban.

Research conducted by the South African Medical Council showed that South Africa's public hospitals' trauma unit are often inundated with patients with serious injuries due to alcohol.
business Business Insight | How much do petrol and diesel contribute to tax revenues? As petrol and diesel prices rise for the fourth straight day, Moneycontrol's Gaurav Choudhury explains how a disproportionately high amount of tax revenues comes from just one set of products, both for the Centre and the states
KETCHIKAN, Alaska - Residents rallied in a small Alaska city to support LGBTQ rights after a florist declined to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding.

Tommy Varela said Heavenly Creations in Ketchikan told his mother the business would not provide flowers for his wedding ceremony after learning there were two grooms, The Juneau Empire reported.

Between 100 and 200 people attended the June 5 demonstration, lining the street and holding signs expressing support for the LGBTQ community.

Kathleen Varela said she phoned the same florist her son used to get a boutonniere for his prom when she was seeking flowers for the nuptials in August.

I said, Its a wedding for two grooms, are you comfortable with that? And there was a long and awkward silence and then No, Im not comfortable with that, Kathleen Varela said.

There was no exchange of names and she is not sure who was on the phone, but the florist has not previously expressed antipathy toward the LGBTQ community, Kathleen Varela said.

I guess I just wasnt prepared for the no, especially since weve done business, she said.

Heavenly Creations did not return messages from the Juneau Empire, but shop owner Heather Dalin told the Ketchikan Daily News the business would not comment on the advice of attorneys.

Tommy Varela and a friend organized the rally the next day outside the florists location on Ketchikans waterfront.

We had someone with a megaphone leading a couple of love chants, Tommy Varela said. We cheered for all the honks we got. I feel like there werent any moments of silence.

The demonstration was a display of love and affection and not meant to directly oppose the floral business, he said.

Ketchikan already has this great sense of community, and Ive seen them come together in times of need to support, he said.

Some Alaska cities and boroughs have laws against discrimination based on gender expression or sexual orientation, but the state does not.

I think its a perfect time for this state to be at the forefront of another LGBTQ battle, anti-discrimination laws and other laws that protect queer people from discrimination, Tommy Varela said.
WASHINGTON  The National Guard troops in their military fatigues and riot gear are leaving town.

Part of the new chain-link fencing encircling the White House is coming down. And the anger and rage in the streets that fueled 12 days of protests against police brutality has started to ebb, even if the determination to effect change has not.

But even as some semblance of normalcy returns to Washington, the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd  a Minneapolis black man killed while in police custody  have left their mark on the nations capital.

Remembering George Floyd: Biden among speakers demanding justice at funeral service for Floyd

A woman and child walk past messages attached to the security fence on the north side of Lafayette Square, near the White House, in Washington, on June 8, 2020.

A section of the street near where President Donald Trump staged a much-criticized photo op has been renamed "Black Lives Matter Plaza, a public recognition of the racial injustice that caused protesters to take to the streets. Nearby, a make-shift shrine to Floyd has blossomed, covering part of the expanded security fence around the White House.

The fence is a really powerful symbol of how our president is isolating himself and disconnecting himself from the people hes supposed to be governing, said A.J. Williamson, a student at Georgetown University.

Elsewhere, anti-police graffiti remains scrawled on the side of the Treasury Department and other buildings and statues across town. Plywood still covers the windows and doors of many shops and restaurants after owners boarded them up to prevent vandalism and looting. Restaurants that had opened up to outside dining  after being shuttered for weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic  have retreated again, waiting for the protests to end.

"It's hard to look at these buildings all boarded up, said Macee Johnson, 24, a property manager who lives in Washington. Theyre so beautiful. But people need to make sure their stuff is safe.

In the days after the protests turned violent, downtown Washington began to resemble an armed camp, with a phalanx of federal law enforcement officers and military personnel lining the streets. Some 5,000 National Guard troops poured into the District, deploying along with officers from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Prisons and other agencies.

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Green Humvees blocked and redirected traffic at intersections. Low-flying military helicopters hovered over the protesters.

Trump threatened to deploy the military to enforce order but never followed through, after some Pentagon officials raised concerns. He announced Sunday he had ordered the National Guard to start returning home, stating on Twitter that tensions had cooled and that everything is under perfect control.

Washington's iconic monuments and memorials appear to have emerged from the protests unscathed and unscarred. The Washington Monument was open to the public Monday with no visible signs of damage and just a 3-foot gate surrounding it.

Tear gas vs. pepper spray: Debate over methods used to clear Lafayette Square turns political

And one of the most eye-catching illustrations of how the protests transformed Washington can be found in big, yellow block letters on a section of the busy street leading to the White House.

Black Lives Matter, screams a new mural painted on the pavement in letters so large that they are clearly visible on aerial photos found on Google maps.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser directed city crews to paint the two-block-long street mural as a show of solidarity with the thousands of protesters who turned out day after day demanding an end to police brutality. Bowser, a Democrat, also renamed a 1,000-foot section of the street in front of the White House Black Lives Matter Plaza  an act of defiance against Trump, who had slammed the protesters and demanded that city leaders dominate the streets.

Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, who accused Bowser of paying lip service to their cause, later affixed their own message to the city-sanctioned mural. Activists armed with buckets of yellow paint added an equal sign and additional letters so that the mural now reads: Black Lives Matter = Defund the Police.

Polls: Americans disapprove of Trump response to George Floyd death and protests

Demonstrators protest Saturday, June 6, 2020, near the White House in Washington.

Protesters have also co-opted another new prominent  and much criticized  addition to downtown: The towering black fence that surrounds the area around the White House. From H Street, down 15th Street, across Constitution Avenue and back up 17th Street, the newly installed security fence stretches for more than 1.5 miles and further expands the sealed-off area between the White House and the rest of the city.

The fence was installed after police used smoke bombs, pepper pellets and officers on horseback to move peaceful protesters out of Lafayette Park so that Trump could walk from the White House to St. Johns Church, which had sustained minor damage after it was set fire during the protests. Trump stood in front of the boarded-up church and held up a Bible, a photo op that was denounced by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and many others.

Protesters have since turned the section of the fence along H Street into an art gallery and a memorial to Floyd, decorating it with posters, banners and photos. I Cant Breathe, reads one of the signs, echoing Floyds words to the police officer who pinned him to the ground with a knee to his neck. Police Reform Now, demands another. One message seems directed at Trump: Tyrant, We Will Vote You Out.

Williamson, who took part in the protests for several days, said the demonstrations brought much-needed attention to the issues of police brutality and racial injustice and are really pushing us to expand our boundaries of what we think is possible in regards to police reform.

I think thats a really good thing, he said.

Johnson said that even though demonstrators who put signs on the fence are making the best of a bad situation, she hopes it comes down soon. "It takes away our connection to the area," she said.

The National Park Service said temporary fencing on the south side of the White House will be removed Wednesday. The Secret Service is negotiating with U.S. Park Police about the removal of the fencing around Lafayette Park.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Colin Powell: Trump rhetoric 'dangerous for our democracy,' will vote for Biden

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How George Floyd protests, police surge transformed Washington
Ten Ukrainian servicemen were injured in an explosion as an armored vehicle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit a mine in the town of Avdiivka, Donetsk region, in the morning of June 9, the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office has reported.

"Under the supervision of the Krasnoarmiisk prosecutor's office, a pretrial investigation has been launched into a military vehicle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces hitting an explosive device, with ten servicemen sustaining mine-blast injuries," the report said.

According to the pretrial investigation, while moving near Avdiivka Coke Plant's Culture Palace, the Spartan armored personnel carrier, the last vehicle in a Ukrainian Armed Forces convoy, hit an unidentified explosive device at about 09:30 on June 9.

The injured servicemen were given first aid.

Criminal proceedings have been instituted under Part 2 of Article 258 (a terrorist attack) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The pretrial investigation is ongoing.

Photo credit: Prosecutor General's Office
The trucking sector is looking over the landscape of rioting and looting in numerous American cities and counting up the impact on operations.

By far the most disastrous interaction between a truck and the protesters occurred in Minneapolis. A tanker truck appeared to have deliberately sped toward a group of protesters on a bridge on Interstate 35.

"Very disturbing actions by a truck driver on I-35W, inciting a crowd of peaceful demonstrators," the Minnesota State Patrol said in its Twitter feed. "The truck driver was injured and taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. He is under arrest. It doesn't appear any protesters were hit by the truck."

The driver of the truck was identified as Bogdan Vechirko. He was dragged from the truck by protesters, and was taken to the hospital with what were described as non-life threatening injuries.

The potential threat to drivers has been clear to those in the industry who remember 1992, and the attack on construction truck driver Reginald Denny. Denny was pulled out of his cab in Los Angeles when riots began in the wake of the acquittal of police officers who had been charged with assaulting Rodney King during an earlier arrest. Denny suffers from life-long debilitating injuries as a result of the attack.

(A video of of the incident in Minneapolis can be seen here.)

There was a trucking-related death in St. Louis, when a protester was dragged by a FedEx truck.

According to news reports, the truck had been on Interstate 70 going through St. Louis when it was forced off the road. But when it was on local streets it faced more local protesters and was forced to stop.

According to the reports, the double-trailer FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) truck was stopped by a group of protesters.

Police statements about the incident said two protesters climbed on the running board of the tractor and pointed guns at the driver. Others had already begun trying to loot some of the freight in the twin trailers.

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That included a man who was between the two trailers. When the driver began to pull away, he was run over and killed.

Although there were no reports of injuries from an incident in Chicago, a startling video shows a UPS (NYSE: UPS) truck being looted before the driver manages to pull away.

The protests created a patchwork of road closures over the weekend; some officially confirmed with others more anecdotal.

In Minneapolis, the epicenter of the protests and the site of George Floyd's death, portions of interstates 35, 94, 394 and local highway 55 was closed overnight until the city's curfew was lifted at 6 a.m. As of publication time, the Minnesota Department of Transportation had not published any updates on its Twitter site regarding further closures.

Other reports of closures came in from around the country. Interstate 630 in Little Rock, Arkansas was closed for several hours. Memphis also reported highway closures. Highway 101 in San Jose was closed due to protests. Ramps to downtown off interstate 90 were closed in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.

In particular, the reaction to the incident in Minneapolis led to a robust discussion on many trucker-related boards on the internet. As one poster put it: "Two weeks ago we were labeled essential and today we are labeled as murderers."

In a similar vein of frustration, another driver posted this: "Stay home. Truckers are getting pulled out of their trucks by mobs on highways. Every city with a population over 20,000 is a potential problem spot. Just stop."

A FreightWaves report yesterday highlighted the steps that Amazon and other companies were taking in reaction to the protests and riots. You can see that report here.

Image: Flickr/Lorie Shaull

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Sadiq Khan has called for police to explain their actions after rapper Wretch 32 shared a video of his 62-year-old father being Tasered at his home in north London.

The footage, shared by the rapper on Twitter, shows Millard Scott tumbling downstairs after an officer is heard to warn: "Police officer with a Taser. Stay where you are.

As officers ask if he is OK and tell him to keep still, a distressed woman can be heard saying: "They've Tasered him.

Commenting on the clip, London mayor Khan said an investigation by the police watchdog is now needed.

Rapper Wretch 32 has shared a video of his 62-year-old father being Tasered by police. (Getty)

Khan tweeted: "I have asked the Metropolitan Police for an urgent explanation of this distressing incident which is understandably causing considerable concern.

"It is imperative that the incident is properly investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

"It is absolutely vital that our police service retains the trust of the communities it serves.

Millard Scott tumbled down the stairs after he was Tasered by police. (Twitter)

Sadiq Khan called on the police to explain their actions in the video. (Twitter)

At the start of the clip, officers can be seen entering the front door of the house as a woman tells them: "I'm not resisting, don't touch me, social distancing, please don't touch me.

Following the incident, which comes in the wake of protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in the US, Scott said he believed he would not have been Tasered if he were white.

He told ITV News: I'm lucky to be alive.

MORE: Statue of slave owner Robert Milligan removed

"The only people who have invaded our space are the Metropolitan Police. The only people who seem to ignore the guidelines put out there are the Metropolitan Police.

"It seems at this moment in time we are being singled out and targeted.

Scotts 35-year-old son, rapper Wretch 32, whose real name is Jermaine Scott, told the broadcaster there has been "no progression" since he grew up watching his father and uncle "fight against police brutality.

The Met said officers went to the property as part of "a long-running operation to tackle drugs supply linked to serious violence.

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A statement said: "As officers entered the premises, a man came downstairs and started moving towards an officer suddenly.

"He was ordered to remain where he was but continued towards officers who, after several warnings, deployed a Taser.

"The man was not arrested, but was assessed by the London Ambulance Service at the scene. He did not require further medical treatment.

"Officers from the North Area Command Unit have liaised with the family to discuss any concerns they have about the incident.

MORE: Man bailed after rape of child near primary school in Manchester

"The incident, including body worn footage, has been reviewed by the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards and no indication of misconduct has been identified.

Police said a 22-year-old man found in the house was arrested and charged with encouraging another person to commit an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007, while a 52-year-old woman was charged with obstructing police after being interviewed under caution at a later date.
The fate of a major chain retailer remains unknown at Southmont Plaza in Bethlehem Township as vacancies continue to grow amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The state this past Friday moved to the yellow phase of Gov. Tom Wolfs three-tired plan for reopening the economy. The phase now allows for some retail to reopen with restrictions.

Shoppers returning to Southmont, 4423 Birkland Place, found signs welcoming them back to Bed, Bath & Beyond: Yes, we are open! Shoppers were coming and going from Michaels, Barnes & Noble and Staples. Dicks Sporting Goods even had clothing on racks for sale outside on Monday.

At financially struggling Pier 1 Imports, however, temporary closure signs remain on the front doors. It refers shoppers to the chains website, in which a large banner pops up stating Going Out of Business Sale -- ALL SALES FINAL -- in store & online. Items currently are up to 30% off.

A Pier 1 spokesperson did not immediately return multiple requests for information on the Southmont Plaza location. The Lehigh Valleys other Pier 1 location is at the Hamilton Crossings mall in Lower Macungie Township. A Whitehall Township location closed in mid-2019 along MacArthur Road. The building was razed and has since become the site of a new four-tenant commercial building.

Shoppers returning this week also found an additional vacancy at the strip mall. A sign on the front door of the building that previously housed MP Nursing Apparel stated that business has since moved about two miles away to Stones Crossing Road in Palmer Township.

That vacancy brings the total to at least four -- two additional empty storefronts next to Franks Pizza and another totaling 1,200 square feet remains between Jakes Wayback Burgers and Holiday Hair. That site previously housed a dry cleaner. A leasing map plan lists just three of the four vacancies totaling 7,589 square feet of available space at the mall.

Pier 1 Imports remained temporarily closed this week after Gov. Tom Wolf moved the state into the yellow phase Friday, June 5, 2020.

Its unclear if any tenants have been identified to fill any of the spaces at the mall. A spokeswoman for Site Centers, the malls management company, didnt immediately return a voicemail seeking information nor was an information request answered from the corporate office.

Home decor retailer Pier 1 Imports announced in a statement last month its seeking court approval to liquidate all of its roughly 540 stores as soon as possible. The 58-year-old company said the permanent store closures are due to the profound impact of COVID-19," which prevented the retailer from securing a buyer after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February.

Its unclear if and when the Pier 1 in Southmont Plaza would close. Both Lehigh Valley locations remain listed as sites on the retailers website, but state temporarily closed. The chain proposed July 1 as the asset bid deadline, July 8 as the auction date and July 15 as the sale hearing date, according to the statement.

Bed, Bath & Beyond also has had its share of financial woes, announcing a closure in January of 40 underperforming stores. The Southmont Plaza location at the time survived the chopping block. A Bed, Bath & Beyond spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for information about the Southmont location.

Other big box stores at the strip mall also have faced similar financial setbacks as a result of the pandemic.

Dicks Sporting Goods announced in April difficulty in operating without any sports, gyms, and other physical activity. The sporting goods retailer then announced it would be furloughing most of its 40,000 employees and temporarily shuttering more than 800 stores, according to a USA Today report.

Whos in:

Southmont Plaza includes Dicks Sporting Goods, Staples, Best Buy, Lowes, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Barnes & Noble, Michaels, Pet Supplies Plus, several smaller retailers, and such restaurants as Texas Roadhouse, Franks Pizza, CJT Asian Cuisine, TGI Fridays, Panera Bread and Jakes Wayback Burgers. The center is positioned at the interchange of Freemansburg Avenue and Route 33.

Tell us your coronavirus stories, whether its a news tip, a topic you want us to cover, or a personal story you want to share.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com.
South Korea's LG Chem Ltd said on Wednesday it has signed a conditional contract with China's Ningbo Shanshan Co Ltd to sell most of its liquid crystal display (LCD) polarizer business for $1.1 billion.

The chemicals and battery maker said some of its LCD polarizer business including those for automobiles would be excluded from the sale. Polarizers improve the display function in products.

"We are going to focus on strengthening our competitiveness in tech materials, especially organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and nurture our OLED polarizer business," LG Chem said in a statement.

The company said the deal is pending approval from its board of directors, and the terms are subject to change. It said it plans to make another announcement once the deal is finalized.

Ningbo Shanshan said on Tuesday it plans to raise up to 3.1 billion yuan ($438 million) in a share placement to fund acquisition of a majority interest in LG Chem's LCD polarizer business in China, Taiwan and South Korea.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 19:46:51|Editor: huaxia

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YINCHUAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Xi underscored fully implementing the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, working hard to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and giving priority to ensuring stable employment and people's livelihood.

Efforts are needed to continue building a beautiful new Ningxia with economic prosperity, ethnic unity, beautiful environment and well-off residents, he said.

During his inspection trip from Monday to Wednesday, Xi visited places including the cities of Wuzhong and Yinchuan to learn about efforts to coordinate regular epidemic containment with economic and social development, consolidate achievements in poverty alleviation, strengthen ecological and environmental protection, and promote ethnic unity and progress.

Visiting a poverty relief workshop in the village of Hongde in Wuzhong Monday afternoon, Xi talked with villagers producing cartons.

Such workshops were set up for poverty alleviation, and they should lean toward needy people in terms of employment, Xi said.

Compared with migrating to cities to work, the villagers employed near their homes may not earn as much, but they can save on accommodation, food and transportation costs and are able to take care of their families, Xi added.

At the house of Liu Kerui, a villager of the Hui ethnic group, Xi took a good look at the courtyard, living room, bedrooms, kitchen and cowshed, and asked Liu and his wife if they had any difficulties and what they planned for the future.

Xi expressed his hope that the villagers could keep going and create better lives for themselves.

Visiting a section of the Yellow River, Xi learned about the river's ecological conservation.

He said the Yellow River is China's "mother river" and called on Ningxia to take good care of it.

Visiting the Jinhuayuan residential community, where people of several ethnic groups live together, Xi said no single ethnic minority group should be left behind in the country's building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

It represents the fine tradition of the Chinese nation and the great strength of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics to enable people of all ethnic groups to walk hand in hand into a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Xi added.

On Tuesday afternoon, Xi visited a rural ecotourism park in Yinchuan to learn about the development of modern agriculture in Ningxia and the operation of agricultural cooperatives to help farmers raise income.

He stressed upholding a people-centered philosophy of development and putting the interests of farmers first in developing modern agriculture and cultural tourism.

Xi required continuous efforts to fully implement the regular COVID-19 containment measures and accelerating the return of normal work and life order.

While visiting a vineyard in Yinchuan near the Helan Mountains, Xi said the mountains constitute crucial shields for ecological security in the northwestern part of China. He demanded resolute measures to strengthen the ecological conservation of the mountains.

Xi said the wine industry has promising prospects as the living standards of Chinese people continue to rise.

On Wednesday morning, Xi heard work reports of the Ningxia regional committee of the CPC and the regional government, and gave his acknowledgment of the progress Ningxia has achieved in various aspects of work. Enditem
NUR-SULTAN -- Kazakh officials have forcibly placed a group of women from lower-income families who were picketing the Ministry of Labor and Social Support for increased government assistance into quarantine.

Video posted on Facebook showed a large group of individuals wearing protective equipment swarming the women at the ministry in Nur-Sultan, the capital, on June 10 and forcibly removing them in a chaotic scene punctuated by the screams of the protesters.

The women, who have been protesting outside the ministry since June 8, were taken to a nearby hotel.

When RFE/RL correspondents arrived at the hotel to get more information about the situation, individuals in protective garments and masks did not allow them to enter, saying that the hotel was now "a quarantine building."

Some 20 women launched the so-called "silent protests" after Kazakh authorities started lifting some restrictions imposed to slow down coronavirus spread.

The women were wearing sanitary masks marked with an "X" on them, which they said symbolized "the fact that we are not allowed to speak up."

They also held posters saying: "Cheap mortgages for families in need," "Financial support for each child," "Amnesty for poor families' bank credits," and "We are on a hunger strike."

Rallies and pickets by poor women have been held regularly in Nur-Sultan and other Kazakh cities since February last year, after five children from a single family died in a fire at night when their parents were working.

The tragedy triggered anger across the country and demonstrations where protesters demanded increased government support to families that had several children.

The protests were held periodically until restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus were introduced in mid-March.

Since the protests began last year, the Kazakh government has announced a special program to support families with more than three children.

Initially, such families were provided with an additional monthly allowance of 21,000 tenges ($50) per child. However, the sum has since been cut twice. From January, the allowances were given only to families officially recognized as living in poverty.

The women demanded a return of the benefits to the initial levels, as well as for more benefits to be given to all families with more than three children.
Former Married At First Sight star Amanda Micallef has claimed her 'ex-wife' Tash Herz was dating somebody else while filming Nine's social experiment last year.

The personal trainer, 34, said on the Finding a Unicorn podcast on Wednesday that Tash had been romantically involved with Madison Hewitt - who had also applied for the show - throughout their short-lived 'marriage'.

Tash and Madison had been an item before the show and publicly reunited in February while MAFS was still airing, but they split again earlier this month.

'They were seeing each other during filming': MAFS star Amanda Micallef has claimed her 'ex-wife' Tash Herz was dating somebody else while filming Nine's social experiment last year

'You know where the experts are going through and introducing each person for the first time, looking through your photos like a Russian roulette? Just before my photo was Tash's ex-partner Madison's photo,' Amanda said.

'Madison and Tash applied for the show together! They knew each other for six years.'

Amanda went on to claim she had received a message from Madison's former housemate informing her that Madison and Tash were seeing one another.

It's complicated: Amanda, 34, said on the Finding a Unicorn podcast on Wednesday that Tash had been romantically involved with Madison Hewitt - who had also applied for the show - throughout their short-lived 'marriage'. Pictured: Amanda and Tash on their wedding day

She explained: 'I received a message from Madison's ex-housemate about six weeks into the show and she said, "I'm just letting you know that they were seeing each other during filming of the show." Which explains why Tash was acting towards me the way she was.'

Tash and Madison went public with their romance in February, just days after her 'wedding' to Amanda - which was filmed in September - aired on Married At First Sight. They announced their split on June 1.

It comes after months of bickering between Amanda and Tash after their disastrous pairing on Married At First Sight.

On and off: Tash and Madison (right) had been an item before the show and publicly reunited in February while MAFS was still airing, but they split again earlier this month

Amanda has made her feelings known by blasting Tash and Madison on Instagram.

'[Tash] is a disgusting person on many levels... every dog has their day. Waste of good air time,' she wrote in February.

Madison, who has the Instagram handle 'Pretzel', responded to Amanda's comments with: 'I'd be bitter too if I was rejected on national television. Here comes the real Amanda. Sending my love.'

Amanda then replied: '[I'm] far from bitter... I don't date vague boring fake brunettes. Good luck salty. I mean Pretzel. Clearly you're fit to bend like one too.'

She deleted her negative comments several hours later.

Later that month, Tash took a swipe at her ex-'wife' for her negative attitude.

'A powerful thing to remind yourself of, is people resort to negative behaviour usually when they feel a lack of control,' she told her Instagram followers.

Not a match: It comes after months of bickering between exes Amanda and Tash after their disastrous pairing on Married At First Sight

'Just because I understand this behaviour doesn't mean I need to allow it in my orbit and nor should anyone.'

Despite initially appearing to being a good match, Tash and Amanda's on-screen relationship quickly went downhill.

They had intense chemistry on their wedding day but Tash felt differently the next morning and later admitted she wasn't attracted to her spouse.
Mary Pat Gleason, a prolific character actress with nearly 200 television and film credits whose most surprising role may have been as herself in a one-woman play she wrote about her bipolar disorder, died on June 2. She was 70.

Her death was announced by her manager, Todd Justice. A nephew, John Brostrom, told news outlets that the cause was uterine cancer.

Even if you didnt know her name, you probably recognized her face. Since the early 1980s, Ms. Gleason had appeared on some of the nations most popular and enduring television series, including Dallas, Guiding Light, Friends, ER, Sex and the City, Scandal, Greys Anatomy and How to Get Away With Murder.

Most recently she appeared on the sitcom Mom as a member of an Alcoholics Anonymous group. She had recurring roles on Will & Grace, Instant Mom, 1600 Penn and Desperate Housewives, as well as a starring role on the short-lived 2008 adventure series The Middleman.
[June 10, 2020] Siemens Mobility to Provide Advanced Traffic Management System for Miami-Dade County

Siemens (News - Alert) Mobility has been awarded a $150 million contract by Miami-Dade County, Florida to provide an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), which will upgrade 2,900 intersections and traffic corridors with intelligent hardware and software technology. All intersection technology will be connected to an integrated traffic management platform that will perform intelligent analytics, implement strategic measures and optimize travel times across the County. This system will dynamically change traffic patterns in real-time at traffic lights linking a network of roadway corridors to provide for the better movement of traffic based on actual traffic demand. Data will be collected in real-time from a wide array of new sources at intersections and roadway zones/corridors, which will then optimize the signal timings at each intersection in a network. This will create an integrated system designed to quickly and efficiently counteract impending critical situations, as well as unpredictable traffic overloads and congestion. "We are proud to have been chosen to provide this vital traffic improvement project for Miami-Dade County and look forward to implementing an intelligent system that optimizes and integrates traffic operations throughout the County," said Marcus Welz, CEO of Siemens Mobility's Intelligent Traffic Systems for North America. "Our proven technology will ease congestion, reduce carbon emissions, and enhance quality of life by allowing Miami-Dade residents to spend 15% less time sitting in traffic." Siemens Mobility will be deploying its world renowned ATMS and adaptive traffic control technology. Siemens' Sitraffic Concert platform supervises and coordinates the functionality of the ATMS system and it will work directly with the adaptive traffic control system called SCOOT (Split Cycle and Offset Optimization Technique), a dynamic, on-line, real-time method of signal control that continuously measures traffic demand on all approaches to intersections. The fusion of data between the systems will enable a more robust traffic control network. Specifically, traffic data (vehicle ounts, travel times) collected by SCOOT at the intersection will be utilized within Sitraffic Concert to make network-wide management decisions. This will allow for operational adjustments to be sent to SCOOT for real-time implementation at the intersection, which will ensure public transit vehicles are kept on schedule and pedestrian safety is maximized.



Intelligent traffic management systems significantly increase the ability of municipal authorities to act and allows them to coordinate traffic guidance measures for all modes of transportation. This includes accounting for planned or foreseeable situations such as major events or roadworks, as well as using targeted traffic guidance measures to mitigate unforeseen incidents such as accidents or acute hazards, and respond to them in a quick, efficient and coordinated manner. The services and technologies Siemens Mobility plans to use in Miami-Dade have been used for traffic systems upgrade projects in over 300 cities, including recent ATMS projects in Seattle, WA, Delaware, London, UK and Bogota, Colombia

Siemens Mobility plans to open a Miami-Dade operations facility and will partner with local small business subcontractors to help facilitate this work. The Miami-Dade project further expands the Siemens footprint in Florida, where there are already 5,200 employees in the state, with nearly 300 working in Miami. For more information, please visit: https://www.mobility.siemens.com/us/en/company/newsroom/press-releases/advanced-traffic-management-system-for-miami-dade-county.html Follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) at: www.twitter.com/SiemensMobility For further information about Siemens Mobility, please see: www.siemens.com/mobility Siemens Mobility is a separately managed company of Siemens AG (News - Alert). As a leader in transport solutions for more than 160 years, Siemens Mobility is constantly innovating its portfolio in its core areas of rolling stock, rail automation and electrification, turnkey systems, intelligent traffic systems as well as related services. With digitalization, Siemens Mobility is enabling mobility operators worldwide to make infrastructure intelligent, increase value sustainably over the entire lifecycle, enhance passenger experience and guarantee availability. In fiscal year 2019, which ended on September 30, 2019, the former Siemens Mobility Division posted revenue of 8.9 billion and had around 36,800 employees worldwide. Further information is available at: www.siemens.com/mobility. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005827/en/

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Lawmakers have demanded an investigation into why a predator drone - which is usually used to track and kill terrorists - was used to record George Floyd protesters.

Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform have written to the Homeland Security Department, calling its use a 'gross abuse of authority'.

The Predator B drone with the call sign CBP-104 was spotted circling Minneapolis on May 29 at 20,000 feet, making several flights around the city.

In a June 5 letter addressed to Acting Secretary Chad Wolf lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, say they 'write with grave concern'.

The letter goes on: 'The deployment of drones and officers to surveil protests is a gross abuse of authority and is particularly chilling when used against Americans who are protesting law enforcement brutality.'

They also ask if facial recognition was used on protesters.

The letter is signed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Rep. Stephen Lynch, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

The Predator B drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle and can be used to monitor an area for hours on end. According to Gizmodo, they are equipped with powerful cameras designed to capture clear video from as far up as 25,000 feet in the air and are cleared to operate within 100 air miles of the border.

An unmanned Predator B taxis back to a hangar, stock image. Lawmakers have demanded an investigation into why a predator drone was used to record George Floyd protesters

The drone flight was criticized by Democratic Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez who took to Twitter to condemn the Customs and Border Protection

In a June 5 letter addressed to Acting Secretary Chad Wolf lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , say they 'write with grave concern'

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez had already criticized the move on Twitter.

She said: 'This is what happens when leaders sign blank check after blank check to militarize police, CBP, etc. while letting violence go unchecked.

'We need answers. And we need to defund.'

And civil right advocates condemned flying the drone over the city which lies outside the 100-air mile border zone where U.S. Customs and Border Protection has jurisdiction.

They branded them a 'rogue agency' that the government 'need to defund' for policing protesters within U.S. borders.

The agency confirmed the flight and said the drone was being used to provide live video on the request of federal law enforcement in Minneapolis.

In a statement it argued that it 'carries out its mission nationwide, not just at the border'.

The flight was first spotted by investigative reporter Jason Paladino, from the Project on Government Oversight, who reported that the predator drone was circling Minneapolis after taking off from Grand Forks Air Base in North Dakota.

The flight path was in a hexagon above the city at exactly 20,000 ft before flying directly over the city. Its flight lasted between around 10 am and 1:15 pm.

The drone with the call sign CBP-104 was spotted circling Minneapolis on Friday morning at 20,000 feet, making several flights around the city before flying straight over back to base

Minneapolis is shown here on this map from CityLabs clearly lying outside of the area in which Customs and Border Protection surveillance drones are cleared to fly

Maps from CityLab show, however, that Minneapolis does not fall under the area cleared for the CBP's drones to fly.

Yet The Intercept notes that the agency has claimed international airports as a border crossing point previously through which they can extend the boundaries of their jurisdiction.

CBP also argued in a statement about the flight that they often aid other federal authorities within U.S. borders.

'AMO [Air and Marine Operations] carries out its mission nationwide, not just at the border, consistent with federal laws and policies,' it said in a statement to Gizmodo.

'During humanitarian missions AMO regularly deploys the unmanned aircraft system to assist FEMA in assessing hurricane affected areas, in coordination with the National Weather Service to capture imagery of storm impacted areas, and with federal, state and local partners to conduct search and rescue missions, in addition to its law enforcement mission.'

According to Buzzfeed, CBP informed congressional staffers about the drone flight in which they also argued they are used on humanitarian missions.

Predator B drone used for aerial surveillance by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The agency was criticized Friday for flying the drone over protests about the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis which lies outside their general jurisdiction

The flight was first spotted by investigative reporter Jason Paladino , from the Project on Government Oversight, who reported that the predator drone was circling Minneapolis after taking off from Grand Forks Air Base in North Dakota

The statement said that the flight was ordered so that the agency's Air and Marine Operations could 'provide live video to aid in situational awareness at the request of our federal law enforcement partners in Minneapolis'.

It added that the agency argued often uses drones to 'routinely conducts operations with other federal, state, and local law enforcement entities to assist law enforcement and humanitarian relief efforts'.

'After arriving into the Minneapolis airspace, the requesting agency determined that the aircraft was no longer needed for operational awareness and departed back to Grand Forks,' the statement added.

The drone's flight has drawn criticism from civil rights advocates, however, who claim that the agency was 'rogue' for surveying protesters within U.S. borders.

The drones, pictured, are cleared to operate within 100 air miles of the border but Minneapolis lies outside of this jurisdiction. CBP said it was called in by federal law enforcement

'No government agency should be facilitating the over-policing of the Black community, period,' ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani told Gizmodo.

'And CBP has no role in what's happening in Minneapolis at all.

'This rogue agency's use of military technology to surveil protesters inside US borders is deeply disturbing, especially given CBPs lack of clear and strong policies to protect privacy and constitutional rights. This agency's use of drones over the city should be halted immediately.'

This is not the first time that aerial surveillance has been used to track Black Lives Matter protesters.

According to Business Insider, the FBI used manned aircraft to carry out surveillance activities over Baltimore after the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody.

Vice notes that unarmed Predator drones were first used within the United States in 2012, when the Department of Homeland Security flew one over the property of a cattle farmer to end a 16-hour stand off between him and another rancher.
Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program made it possible for over 85% of dealerships to hire back staff

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Findings from the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association's (CADA) national monthly survey regarding the impact of the COVID-19 health pandemic on automotive dealers shows that the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program has been a critical lifeline for dealerships and employees across Canada. However, with revenues starting to increase, dealers are worried about access to CEWS vanishing once revenue declines return below the 30% mark. The survey, conducted from June 1-5, saw 425 respondents representing over 867 dealership rooftops across Canada.

"It's become clear that the CEWS program is a critical support measure that's been instrumental in helping dealers bridge through the pandemic and hire their employees back, with over 85% of dealers utilizing the program and 92% reporting the program is easy to use with no issues," said Tim Reuss, President and CEO of CADA. "The challenge now is as revenue begins to return, access to CEWS is measured by an all-or-nothing approach of a 30% revenue decline for a 75% wage subsidy. We've started the conversation with government on whether there is a way the CEWS can be scaled according to revenue - for instance, implementing lower subsidy levels at revenue declines of 20% and 10%."

The monthly survey conducted since the start of the pandemic shows that dealers have been hit extremely hard, but the various government support programs coupled with the gradual reopening of provinces have started to shift the tide. "The bulk of dealership services that are currently open remains on the parts/service and sales sides, with a low (30%) open rate for body shop-collision repairs," added Reuss. "Dealerships have been designated as an essential service from the onset of the pandemic to ensure that emergency vehicles can stay safe and that frontline workers can have servicing needs performed immediately. That being said, most Canadians have been staying home, so we anticipate an uptake of dealership services as provinces continue to loosen restrictions."

Notable results of this month's survey:

92% of dealerships are conducting vehicle sales on premise, and 42% are conducting sales online or remotely;

20.5% of sales operations are open by appointment only (down from 33% in May's survey);

30% of dealers (down from 80% in May's survey) reported new vehicle sales revenue dropping by over 50% vs. 2019.

47% reported new vehicle sales revenue dropping between 25%-50% vs. 2019, and a further 15% indicate revenues are down 5%-25%. A large bulk of these dealers (below 30% revenue drop) do not currently qualify for CEWS.

"The federal government's financial support in response to COVID-19 has helped to mitigate the impact on businesses and workers - but now we need to ensure that dealers are supported through this reopening phase," said Oumar Dicko, CADA's Chief Economist. "A strong economic recovery plan for the auto sector needs to have consumer-incentives like HST/GST waivers on new sales or a scrappage program, but it also needs to have business support measures in place. That's why an expanded and scalable CEWS program is critical during this time of transition- most businesses are already using it, and adapting it on a sliding scale basis will help transition businesses off the program in tandem with increasing revenues."

About the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association

The Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) is the national association representing new car and truck dealers. Our 3,200 members are represented in nearly every community and collectively employ 160,000 people across the country.

Media Inquiries:

Alla Drigola

adrigola@cada.ca

778-834-5517

SOURCE: Canadian Automobile Dealers Association

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593417/Monthly-National-Survey-Outlines-Need-to-Extend-and-Scale-Federal-Wage-Subsidy-Program
By Bill Hughes Jun. 10, 2020 | 01:58 PM | PADUCAH





After furloughing employees in April due to the pandemic, Dippin' Dots has laid off several dozen people in Paducah and other locations.Director of Public Relations Billie Stuber told West Kentucky Star 65 people have been laid off this week with 45 of them from Paducah.Since April, Dippin' Dots has laid off a total of 82 employees, with 62 of them in Paducah. Stuber said they don't anticipate any further layoffs. Many of these had been furloughed in April with hopes that they could return to their jobs, but the length of the pandemic has affected demand for their product.Stuber said, "Dippin' Dots are sold in theme parks and zoos, arenas, malls, and all those locations were closed during COVID, and many of them are reopening, but it's at a pretty slow rate. Most places have phases of reopening, so that has limited our business, especially getting into the summer."She said they believe business will pick up, but it's difficult to predict how long that will take, especially since rules vary in different states or regions.Stuber said, "We don't want any of our remaining employees to stress and feel concerned about their jobs, so we're done with the layoffs for now, hopefully forever."When employees were furloughed, remaining workers in all departments took a wage reduction. Stuber said those with higher paying jobs took larger cuts than those who earned less."That was designed so that executive management and those higher-paying positions would absorb the majority of the wage reduction," Stuber said.The company hopes to get back to production levels that require re-hiring the positions that have been eliminated, and Stuber said when that happens, Dippin' Dots will reach out to laid off employees to see if they are interested.She said the company also hopes to restore wages to their previous levels over time.
Just over one-third of child-care centres and licensed home daycares across Canada are not sure they will be able to reopen when provincial governments begin to reboot their economies, according to a national survey.

The COVID-19 pandemic has cast early learning and child care in a new light for many Canadians  as an essential service necessary for rebuilding a well-functioning economy, says the survey to be released Wednesday.

However, the Canadian child-care sector suffered from a confusing, uneven and often less-than-adequate approach by governments to supporting services and parents during the crisis, says the survey of more than 8,000 centres and licensed homes, representing operators in every province and territory.

The research is an attempt to quantify the degree of uncertainty facing the sector, said Don Giesbrecht, of the Canadian Child Care Federation, which conducted the survey with the Toronto-based Childcare Resource and Research Unit and Child Care Now, a national advocacy group.

We know programs have gone deep into reserves to keep operating, and now we are concerned that as we reopen, we wont have the revenues and funding from governments to bridge those gaps, said Giesbrecht, whose organization represents child-care operators and staff across the country.

The survey results reflect the differences between how jurisdictions have responded to the needs of child-care programs during the health crisis.

In Quebec, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland, provincial governments have covered daycare costs  including staff wages  while parent fees were suspended.

British Columbia and Alberta have supported shuttered child-care centres by helping to pay fixed operating costs, such as rent or lease payments, but there has been no funding to replace parent fees.

Ontario is providing stabilization funding to licensed centres and homes. But late last month, Queens Park said provincial grants could not be used to cover rent or staff salaries while centres are closed, a policy that caught many programs by surprise.

The report comes in the wake of Ottawas June 5 announcement that it is giving $14 billion to the provinces to help defray costs related to testing, sick pay, child care and other expenses related to reopening the economy.

But so far, the federal government has been silent on whether any of the money will be earmarked specifically for child care, said Morna Ballantyne, of Child Care Now.

We think if this initial funding is tied to direct services, it will set the path that we want future funding to take, she said in an interview. We want child care to be reconstructed as a publicly funded service that is high quality, available, accessible and affordable to all as opposed to the market-based system we have now.

This survey bears out the consequences of uneven policy approaches across the country and the central importance of public funding, Ballantyne added.

Amy ONeil, director of Torontos Treetop Childrens Centre, said she doesnt know if her daycare in Oriole Park Jr. Public School will be able to reopen.

We are going to be in huge financial difficulty, she said of centre that serves 155 children from age 2 1/2 to 12. We have continued to pay staff salaries at 100 per cent, and we have depleted all of our reserves.

Since few parents receive child-care subsidies, many who may have been laid off during the pandemic will have difficulty paying current fees that top $1,200 a month for a preschooler at her centre, ONeil said.

And without new funding from the province, fees will have to increase significantly to cover staffing costs in smaller group sizes, she said. Instead of a group of 30 school-age children and two staff, Ontario announced Tuesday it is mandating groups no larger than 10, including staff, she noted.

Oriole Park school, which is bursting at the seams with students during the school year, doesnt have any extra space to allow the daycare to offer care in smaller groups for preschoolers during the day. And she wonders how classrooms will be cleaned in time to allow after-school child-care programs to operate.

My fear is that the centre will collapse, she said. We already came into the pandemic with a very fragile system. This could potentially collapse the entire system.

Correction: This story has been corrected to show Alberta has provided some support to shuttered child care centres. A previous version incorrectly stated that the province had offered no support.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- MLBs first-year player draft will be held Wednesday and Thursday. It has been shortened from 40 rounds to five rounds to save the owners money because of the coronavirus.

The draft starts Wednesday at 7 p.m. It will be conducted virtually. For instance, Scott Barnsby, the Indians director of amateur scouting, will be running the draft out of his home in Huntsville, Ala.

MLB Network and ESPN will televise the draft on Wednesday and Thursday.

Who gets the first 10 picks? Detroit, Baltimore, Miami, Kansas City, Toronto, Seattle, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Colorado and the Angels will have the first 10 picks. The Tigers, who lost 114 games last year, have the top pick for the second time in three years. They selected right-hander Casey Mize two years ago.

What about the Tribe? The Indians, including their Competitive Balance A pick, will draft six players in the first five rounds. They have the 23rd pick in the first round followed by No. 36, No.56, No. 95, No. 124 and No. 154.

First day: The first day of the draft will cover the first 36 players taken. That includes the first round and the Competive Balance A round.

Second day: The draft resumes on Thursday at 5 p.m. It will be conducted through five rounds. The total number of players drafted will be 160.

Signing bonus pool: The Indians bonus pool to sign their top six players is $7,662,800. Here are the slot values for the Tribes six picks: No. 23 $2.9 million, No. 36 $2.045 million, No. 56 $1.3 million, No. 95 $610,804, No. 124 $460,000 and No. 154 $343,400.

Here are the teams with the top five bonus pools: Baltimore $13,894,300; Detroit $13,325,700; Kansas City $12,521,300; Miami $12,016,900 and Pittsburgh $11,154,500.

Who will the Tigers take at No.1? Arizona State first baseman Spencer Torkelson or Vanderbilt center fielder Austin Martin are the likely candidates. The Indians drafted Martin in 2017 as a high school senior, but did not sign him. The top pick in the 2020 draft has a slot value of $8,415,300.

Who will the Indians take in the first round? Its impossible to say. Ohio State catcher Dillon Dingler has been mentioned in some mock drafts. The Indians have taken a high school player with their No.1 pick in six of the last season years. This draft is supposed to be loaded with good college pitchers.

Right-hander Tanner Burns of Auburn, University of Tennessee lefty Garrett Crochet and University of Miami right-hander Slade Cecconi have been linked to the Tribe in mock drafts.

What happens after five rounds? Teams will be able to sign as many undrafted players as they want, but they cannot pay them more than $20,000 a pop.

In closing: This will be the first draft in MLB history that teams are flying into blind. College and high school games were suspended in February or March because of the virus. Teams will be drafting based on the backlog of scouting reports and video that theyve acquired over the years on the players now eligible for the draft. That may drive teams to draft more college players simply because they have more information on them.

On the Indians and the 2020 draft

Cleveland Indians and everyone else flying partially blind into 2020 draft

Indians history in player development reduces risk of 2020 draft: Tribe Take

What awaits Indians in 2020 draft? Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast

Will five and fly draft hurt the Cleveland Indians? The week in baseball

Teams like the Indians are hurt by a five-round draft: Terry Pluto
by Mathias Hariyadi

The clergymen want the government to promote a culture of tolerance between different ethnic groups, and boost Papuan social inclusion through dialogue and education. Ethnic Papuans are often mocked as "monkeys". They also demand the release of Buchtar Tabuni and other political prisoners arrested in 2019.

Jayapura (AsiaNews)  A group of priests from Papua province yesterday launched an appeal to stop all forms of racism, injustice and violence against ethnic Papuans.

The Five dioceses in Indonesian Papua took part in the initiative in the wake of Pope Franciss condemnation of the recent killing in the United States of an African-American man, George Floyd, by some police officers.

A strong pro-independence movement has developed in West Papua, the western part of the island of New Guinea, after it was placed under Indonesian control in 1962 following the departure of the Dutch, with the indigenous population feeling discriminated by the Indonesian government.

On the basis of the Document on human fraternity, signed on 4 February, 2019 by Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayyeb, Papuan priests want national and local leaders to promote a culture of tolerance and peace among various ethnic groups, and encourage Papuan social inclusion and development through dialogue and education.

They also urge the national government to take steps to fight the violation of Papuan human rights and the criminalisation of ethnic Papuans.

The authors of the appeal also express concern about the fate of Buchtar Tabuni, a leader in the United Liberation Movement for West Papua. Along with other activists, he was arrested in September 2019 for organising a series of anti-racism protests the preceding month, which were marred by acts of violence.

According to the priests, the protests led by Tabuni were peaceful. Pro-independence groups and agent provocateurs allegedly infiltrated the protests, attacking non-Papuans and setting fires on the streets.

Thousands of Papuans had taken to the streets to protest the treatment of Papuan students in Surabaya (East Java) a few days earlier by a local crowd that had gathered in front of a students' dormitory calling them "monkeys".

News of the incident reverberated across Indonesia, causing resentment among Papuans.

Papuan priests demand that Tabuni and six political prisoners be freed. They believe that it was unfair that these activists received sentences ranging from five to 17 years, whilst those responsible for the racist attack in Surabaya were given only five months in prison.
Ector County reported eight more cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, making the total 214 since the start of the pandemic.

Ector County reported 19 probable cases at this time, according to the ECHD website. ECHD also reported that 146 people have recovered. There have been 2,946 tests taken with 2,659 negative results and 73 pending results. ECHD has contacted 2,043 people during contact tracing.
Dhaka, June 10 : As the Bangladesh ruling Awami League headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina prepares to present Bangladeshs Budget on Thursday, the politicians in the country struggling to remain afloat post May 30 lockdown following coronavirus pandemic seem to be devising newer ways to remain relevant, maybe, as strident as ever.

All gatherings and open political activities across the country have come to a halt for the last over two months beginning March 26, due to Covid-19 pandemic.

The government on June 1 decided to divide areas under red, yellow, and green zones and put them under lockdown in order to prevent the virus spread. Around 72,000 people are affected by the pandemic as the death toll has risen to more than 975.

Chairperson of opposition in Parliament Golam Muhammad Quader of Jatiya Party recently wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting that if the government invited them, the parties are "prepared to work for the sake of humanity to fight Covid-19." "The entire world is fighting the pandemic; politics is not in function the way it used to. Almost all regular activities are postponed in view of the lockdown. Our party's organizational works are hampered. We are trying to adopt a new system to scale up our organizational work," Quader told IANS.

On April 30 last year after months of bitter political fight, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) joined the 11th Parliament. It saw the return of Khaleda Zia's party to parliament after five years. The party had no representation in the 10th parliament after its boycott in the 2014 general election over its demand for a non-partisan, stop-gap government.

The BNP is now no more in a position to represent the opposition as it has only 5 members in Parliament. So, Jatiya Party's G.M. Quader is the leader of the Opposition.

There was a lot of speculation over BNP's Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir's meeting with the party chairperson Khaleda Zia last month, one-and-a-half months after her release from prison.

Alamgir has alleged that BNP leaders and workers are being randomly arrested over fabricated cases across the country.

Ruling Awami League's General Secretary Obaidul Quader on Tuesday dismissed BNP's allegations, urging its leaders not to harm the country's interests. He said despite some limitations, the Sheikh Hasina government is working relentlessly to overcome the present challenges.

To the charge that BNP activists were being harassed, the AL leader said: "Give us an accurate list of arrests and cases," charging Alamgir with being power-hungry.

"Now is not the time for political activities. It is time to make people aware and support them for the sake of humanity," said Tofayel Ahmed, former Minister of Commerce and one of the senior leaders of the ruling Awami League.

As the national Budget will be placed in parliament amid coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, the BNP has urged the government to focus on protecting people's lives and livelihoods rather than on economic growth.

Many senior politicians of Bangladesh are trying to adjust with the evolving situation. They say they are connected with the people. There are others who are writing books and columns on corona crisis and other issues.
Parle-G, one of the oldest biscuit brands in India, has sold the maximum number of biscuits during the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

According to a report by the Economic Times, the makers of Parle-G brand affirmed that March, April and May have been their best months ever since they started business.

We have grown our overall market share by nearly 5%... And 80-90% of this growth has come from the Parle-G sales. This is unprecedented, Mayank Shah, category head at Parle Products, was quoted as saying in Economic Times.

However, Bollywood actor Randeep Hooda shared a tweet after this news, asking the company to switch its plastic packaging to a biodegradable material.

"My whole career is feuled by chai and Parle-G since theater days.. Can you imagine how much less single use plastic waste there will be if just Parle-G changed its packing to an alternate biodegradable material? Now the sales are up lets see the contribution to a better Tom (tomorrow) too," the actor tweeted.

My whole career is feuled by chai and Parle-G since theater days.. Can you imagine how much less single use plastic waste there will be if just Parle-G changed its packing to an alternate biodegradable material? Now the sales are up lets see the contribution to a better Tom too pic.twitter.com/mHdZhbr7X9  Randeep Hooda (@RandeepHooda) June 9, 2020

Organised biscuit-makers such as Parle-G got their operations running within a very short period after the nationwide lockdown was clamped on March 24. According to the report by ET, biscuits across price points have seen a massive surge in sales volumes over the past three months.

During the lockdown, Parle-G became the comfort food for many; and for several others it was the only food they had on them. This is a common mans biscuit; people who cannot afford bread  buy Parle-G, Shah said.

We had several state governments requisitioning us for biscuits They were in constant touch with us, asking about our stock positions. Several NGOs bought humongous quantities from us. We were lucky to have restarted production from March 25 onwards, added Shah.

Parle Products makes their biscuits in 130 factories across the country  120 of them are contract manufacturing units, while 10 are owned premises.

Brand Parle-G falls in the below-Rs100 per kg affordable/value category  which accounts for one-third of overall industry revenues and accounts for over 50 per cent of sales volume. The overall Indian biscuit sector is pegged at Rs 36,000 - Rs37,000 crore in fiscal 2020.
A week after New Orleans police officers met protesters near the Crescent City Connection, NOPD officials released body-worn camera footage of the encounter.

FULL STORY: Video shows some protesters clashing with NOPD, stealing a shield, throwing tear gas back

Police said they used tear gas and fired other projectiles designed to be less than lethal to break up the march after a small group of demonstrators in the front broke through one line of officers in riot gear and then tried to get past a second to cross the bridge.

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

Many, including City Council members, have questioned whether NOPD's tactics were too heavy-handed and affected those who were not among the accused troublemakers. But NOPD says its tactics were commensurate.

The demonstration was one of many last week in response to a Minneapolis police officer killing George Floyd.

Video shows some protesters clashing with NOPD, stealing a shield, throwing tear gas back In an effort to bolster its case that the use of less than lethal ammunition to clear protesters off the Pontchartrain Expressway was justifie

Warning: Video shows some graphic content/language.
(Image: News18)

The decision of IndiGo, Indias largest airline, last week that it would continue to take delivery of new aircraft and balance it by returning the older A320ceo despite the current situation, raised many eyebrows. Air traffic has plummeted to new lows and recovery isnt in sight yet, but IndiGo is trying hard to keep costs low.

From grounding of over 650 aircraft on March 25 to excess planes with airlines currently, airlines have come a long way in two months.

The move by some airlines from India to place record orders with both Airbus and Boeing will now haunt them because of the coronavirus lockdown. IndiGo, GoAir, Vistara and Spicejet have aircraft on order with Airbus and Boeing. While Air India does not have any aircraft on order, AirAsia India has not placed any order with any manufacturer directly with all its aircraft leased, a few coming in from its parent in Malaysia and other group subsidiaries and the rest coming in from open market lease.

IndiGo has 332 A320neo on order along with 398 A321neo, some of which are the A321XLR  which is yet to have its first flight. With over 100 A320neos already in fleet and 17 A321neo in fleet, the airline has a backlog of 600+ aircraft. The Wadias-backed Go Air had ordered 144 A320neos in two tranches of which the airline has taken delivery of 43 aircraft, with a hundred more yet to be delivered.

The TATA-SIA joint venture Vistara had placed orders for 50 A320neo family with Airbus and six B787-9 Dreamliners with Boeing. While the IndiGo and Go Air orders were placed directly with Airbus, Vistara had a mix with 13 A320neo being placed with Airbus and the rest including all the A321neos coming from the lessor.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Where are the customers?

SpiceJet had placed an order of up to 205 B737 MAX8 aircraft which includes confirmed orders and options. The airline took delivery of its first B737 MAX8 in September 2018. With two unfortunate crashes of the aircraft and subsequent grounding, Spicejet had to ground all its 13 aircraft which were delivered until March 2019, when the global grounding was initiated. While Spicejet has aircraft ready and waiting for delivery, the aircraft can only be re-delivered when the re-certification of the B737MAX8 is completed by regulators worldwide.

While Spicejet re-delivered two aircraft which were on their scheduled way out, no airline has taken delivery of any aircraft since the end of March when the lockdown began in India. Taking delivery of an aircraft is an elaborate process and in current times when the international commercial flights are on hold, airlines wouldnt be able to send its crew and teams to complete the process.

The three airlines IndiGo, Vistara and Go Air together have around 25 aircraft which are ready for delivery. As country after country went into a lockdown, Airbus announced e-Delivery process for airlines in April. This involves Technical Acceptance Completion tasks delegated to Airbus or anybody else appointed by the airline, electronic Transfer of Title and ferry-flight to customers base done by Airbus. While most of the activities are performed digitally, the fact is that the aircraft has to be ferried to the customers base and this requires crew to fly to one of the delivery centres; Hamburg or Toulouse for the A320 means deliveries are stuck due to lack of commercial international flights.

Blessing in disguise?

Boeing decided to stop production of the B737MAX series in January this year. This was more to do with the lack of space to park any more aircraft as the grounding continued. Repeated deadlines to get the airplane back in the air were missed as one or other problem kept surfacing for the B737MAX. The Boeing factory has suspended all operations due to COVID-19 and is only limping back to normalcy.

Airbus was grappling with supply chain issues at Hamburg, where the A321neo is manufactured, leading to delays in delivery. As COVID-19 swept across Europe, Airbus shut production at both its plants  Hamburg and Toulouse for a limited period. Had it not been for the closures of production line, there could have been more aircraft ready and waiting to be delivered to airlines in India.

Tail Note

With the Indian government allowing limited domestic flights, international charters and businesses to re-open, it is a matter of time that the government also allows ferry-out and ferry-in of brand new aircraft. In the last few months, there also is a possibility that airlines would have seen the end of lease for few airframes in their fleet and lessor would want to have the aircraft back in their custody.

However, it is not as simple as it sounds with a lot of rules in place from country to country and the possibility of the crew who flies to either take delivery or re-delivery the aircraft being quarantined or at risk.

IndiGo started inducting planes with two A321neo landing in India this morning. Interestingly, one was accounted for as part of the fleet in the investor presentation showing fleet at the end of Q4 of last financial year, indicating that the airplane was physically away but already in the fleet.

Ameya Joshi runs the aviation analysis website Network Thoughts.
The EU will prolong the Crimea-related sanctions for another year, despite Russia's efforts to use the COVID-19 pandemic to lift these restrictive measures.

The EU unity and solidarity destroyed Russias desperate efforts to use COVID-19 for lifting sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation for ongoing aggression against Ukraine. Crimean package will be prolonged for another year. Grateful to our EU partners for their unwavering support of Ukraine, Ambassador of Ukraine to the Kingdom of Belgium, Representative of Ukraine to the European Union Mykola Tochytskyi posted on Twitter.

As noted, the decision to extend the Crimea-related sanctions against Russia for another year was agreed on June 10 by permanent representatives of the EU member states.

In July 2014, the European Union imposed economic sanctions on Russia in response to its illegal annexation of Crimea and actions to destabilize the situation in eastern Ukraine. In September 2014, these sanctions were strengthened.

ish
Ballots are in the mail and on their way to voters for the June 30 statewide primary. Coloradans have a lot of voting to do this year  a few months after the March presidential primary has ended, the June primary is coming up.

Elections officials have issued the following important information for voters:

If you are a Democrat, you will receive a Democratic primary ballot.

If you are a Republican, you will receive a Republican primary ballot.

If you are a Libertarian, you will receive a Libertarian primary ballot.

If you are unaffiliated, you will receive both a Democratic and a Republican ballot, but you may only return one of the two.

Minor parties other than the Libertarian Party do not have a primary election, so voters registered with those parties are not eligible to participate in this election.

17-year-olds are eligible to vote  and will receive a ballot if they are pre-registered  as long as they will be 18 by the general election on Nov. 3, 2020.

You can register to vote or check or update your voter registration at GoVoteColorado.

Which seats are up for election?



The top race on the ballot is the U.S. Senate seat.

For the major parties, the U.S. Senate race is followed by candidates for U.S. house, the state board of education and/or CU regent (depending on your district), the state legislature, district attorney, and county commissioner.

Dont miss the latest news updates in Colorado. Sign up for free Patch news alerts and newsletters for what you need to know daily



Important dates:



May 16: Ballots were mailed to all military and overseas voters.

June 1: Last day to change your party affiliation for this primary.

June 8: Ballots were mailed to all active, registered voters and all drop boxes opened.

June 22: In-person vote centers will be opened.

June 30: Election Day  ballots must be received by 7 p.m.

Mail: Voters can also use the U.S. mail to return their ballots. Postmarks do not count, so if you choose to mail your ballot, officials recommend doing so at least eight days before Election Day.

Story continues

Vote Centers: Few voters will need to vote in person, officials said. In light of COVID-19, elections officials are taking special precautions with in-person vote centers and have chosen sites that offer adequate social distancing.





This article originally appeared on the Across Colorado Patch
VANCOUVER, Canada, June 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - B2Gold Corp. (TSX: BTO) (NYSE AMERICAN: BTG) (NSX: B2G) ("B2Gold" or the "Company") will host its 2020 Annual General and Special Meeting of the Shareholders (the "Meeting") on Friday, June 12, 2020, at 2:00 pm PDT/5:00 pm EDT. Out of an abundance of caution, to proactively deal with potential issues arising from the unprecedented public health impact of COVID-19, the Meeting will take place in a virtual-only format online via live video webcast.

As the Meeting will be in a virtual-only format, registered and non-registered shareholders of B2Gold will not be able to attend in person. B2Gold strongly encourages all registered shareholders who would like to attend, participate and/or vote virtually online via live webcast to carefully follow the procedures outlined in the Company's Management Information Circular and the Meeting's User Guide (both filed on SEDAR on May 11, 2020). If you are a non-registered shareholder, you will be able to attend, participate and/or vote at the Meeting online via live webcast only if you duly appoint yourself as proxyholder through the method specified by your intermediary. If a non-registered shareholder does not comply with these requirements, you will be able to attend the Meeting online via live webcast as a guest but will not be able to vote or ask questions.

How to attend the virtual Meeting as a registered shareholder or duly appointed proxyholder:

Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxyholders wishing to attend and to vote virtually at the Meeting should follow these steps:

1. Log into https://web.lumiagm.com/245544973 on the Meeting date at least 15 minutes before the start of the Meeting. You should allow ample time to check into the virtual Meeting and to complete the related procedures.

2. Click on "I have a login".

3. Enter your 15-digit control number as your username (located on the form of proxy or in the email notification provided to you by Computershare).

4. Enter the password: "b2gold" (case sensitive).

Shareholders who have duly appointed themselves or another proxyholder to attend and vote at the Meeting online MUST register the appointed proxyholder with Computershare by visiting http://www.computershare.com/B2Gold by no later than 2:00 pm PDT on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. Computershare will ask for the appointed proxyholder's contact information and will send such appointed proxyholder a user ID number or username via email shortly after this deadline and then may proceed with the steps above to log into the virtual Meeting.

Shareholders should note that if they participate and vote on any matter at the virtual Meeting they will revoke any previously submitted proxy.

How to attend the virtual Meeting as a guest:

1. Log into https://web.lumiagm.com/245544973 on the Meeting date at least 15 minutes before the start of the Meeting. You should allow ample time to check into the virtual Meeting and to complete the related procedures.

2. Click on "I am a guest".

3. Enter the password: "b2gold" (case sensitive)

How to vote in advance of the Meeting:

If you are a shareholder and are unable to participate in the Meeting online via live webcast, in order for your proxy to be valid you must submit your vote by no later than 2:00 pm PDT on Wednesday, June 10, 2020.

Shareholders are encouraged to vote today via the internet or telephone using the control number found on the proxy or voting instruction form that was mailed out to you to ensure your vote is received in a timely manner.

Registered shareholders may vote by: shares held in own name and represented by a physical certificate.

Beneficial shareholders may vote by: shares held with a broker, bank or other intermediary.

Shareholder Questions

Shareholders who have questions or need assistance with voting their shares should contact Laurel Hill Advisory Group, the proxy solicitation agent, by telephone at +1 877-452-7184 (North America  toll free) or +1 416-304-0211 (outside North America), or by email at [email protected].

Once the Meeting is adjourned, there will be presentations from Clive Johnson, President & CEO, and other B2Gold senior executives and spokespeople. The presentations will provide a review of B2Gold's performance in 2019, a general corporate update of the first half of 2020, and will conclude with a Q&A session.

The Meeting will be available to registered and non-registered shareholders and guests, and accessible via live webcast by clicking here: https://web.lumiagm.com/245544973.

In the unlikely event that your internet connection to the webcast is lost or interrupted, or as an alternative method to access the webcast, the Meeting will also be accessible by dialling +1 647-427-7450 (local  Toronto), +1 778-371-9827 (local  Vancouver) or +1 888-231-8191 (toll free  North America). However, participation through the conference line will only allow the Meeting attendees to listen in and you will not be able to vote or ask questions.

A playback of the Meeting will be available until June 26, 2020, on B2Gold's events page or by dialling +1 416-849-0833 (local  Toronto) or +1 855-859-2056 (toll free  North America) (passcode 7987089).

About B2Gold Corp.

B2Gold is a low-cost international senior gold producer headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Founded in 2007, today, the Company has operating gold mines in Mali, Namibia and the Philippines, and numerous exploration and development projects in various countries including Mali and Colombia. In 2020, B2Gold forecasts consolidated gold production of between 1,000,000 and 1,055,000 ounces.

On Behalf of B2GOLD CORP.

"Clive T. Johnson"

President & Chief Executive Officer

For more information on B2Gold, please visit the Company's website at www.b2gold.com or contact:

Ian MacLean Katie Bromley VP, Investor Relations Manager, Investor Relations & Public Relations +1 604-681-8371 +1 604-681-8371 [email protected] [email protected]

The Toronto Stock Exchange and NYSE American LLC neither approve nor disapprove the information contained in this news release.

This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation, including: projections; outlook; guidance; forecasts; estimates; and other statements regarding future or estimated financial and operational performance, gold production and sales, and budgets on a consolidated and mine by mine basis; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on B2Gold's operations; statements regarding activities or achievements of B2Gold including, without limitation: consolidated gold production of between 1,000,000 and 1,055,000 ounces in 2020. All statements in this news release that address events or developments that we expect to occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, although not always, identified by words such as "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "project", "target", "potential", "schedule", "forecast", "budget", "estimate", "intend" or "believe" and similar expressions or their negative connotations, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could", "should" or "might" occur. All such forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made.

Forward-looking statements necessarily involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond B2Gold's control, as described in more detail under the heading "Risk Factors" in B2Gold's most recent Annual Information Form, B2Gold's current Form 40-F Annual Report and B2Gold's other filings with Canadian securities regulators and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which may be viewed at www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov, respectively (the "Websites"). The list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect B2Gold's forward-looking statements. B2Gold's forward-looking statements are based on the applicable assumptions and factors management considers reasonable as of the date hereof, based on the information available to management at such time. These assumptions and factors include, but are not limited to, assumptions and factors relating to B2Gold's ability to carry on current and future operations, including: the timing, extent, duration and economic viability of such operations, including any mineral resources or reserves identified thereby; the accuracy and reliability of estimates, projections, forecasts, studies and assessments; B2Gold's ability to meet or achieve estimates, projections and forecasts; and other assumptions and factors generally associated with the mining industry. B2Gold's forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management and reflect their current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date hereof. B2Gold does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations or opinions should change other than as required by applicable law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Accordingly, no assurance can be given that any events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do, what benefits or liabilities B2Gold will derive therefrom. For the reasons set forth above, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements.

SOURCE B2Gold Corp.
Gov. Tom Wolf addressed the concurrent resolution passed by the Pa. General Assembly on Tuesday that directs him to issue a proclamation or executive order to end the COVID-19 disaster emergency.

Wolf said the fight between him and the state Legislature will be taken up by the courts.

This is unprecedented as far as I know, Wolf added regarding the entire situation in general.

You can watch the broadcast here or via the video below.

June 10 COVID-19 Update Please join us for the latest on COVID-19 in Pennsylvania, including a response to recent actions by the legislature. Posted by Governor Tom Wolf on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Wolf reminded residents that the stay-at-home order expired last week, with more counties expected to move to the green phase on Friday. Weve done this all while driving down new case counts, he said, pointing out the careless ways other states have reopened.

I understand that its frustrating, and I understand the hardships, Wolf said.

Ending the disaster declaration is not part of that plan, Wolf emphasized, adding that ending the emergency declaration wouldnt reopen any businesses. It would instead do the following:

Ending the ability for doctors to utilize telehealth and the temporary change in licensing that allowed retired doctors and nurses to re-enter the field.

For those who file for unemployment, the one-week wait and job search requirement would be reinstated.

The moratorium on utility shutoffs and eviction would go away

The food distribution network through the schools would go away

Not a single business that is currently closed would reopen because ending the emergency declaration does not get rid of the orders signed by Health Secretary Rachel Levine.

Anybody who says differently is wrong, Wolf emphasized. He later added, the disaster declaration is in place and will stay in place.

Randy Padfield, director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, outlined a number of other measures that the emergency declaration provides to Pennsylvanians in regards to testing sites and getting supplies to health care workers.

Wolf has previously vowed to veto the resolution when it is presented to him. However, Republican lawmakers are adamant that the governor does not have that power. Wolf told a Spotlight PA reporter during the press conference said that the measure would not get to his desk because of how it was passed in the Legislature. The legal counsel for the state, Gregory G. Schwab, took the podium to clarify it.

The plan was they were never going to present it to the governor, Schwab said.

The status quo is in place, he said when asked what the legal ramifications were of a business reopening based on Republican lawmaker say-so.

Me, Wolf replied when asked who Pennsylvanians will listen to. Wolf added that this will be headed to the court system for clarification.

Nothing in the resolution that was passed last evening does anything to disturb the orders that the Secretary (Levine) has issued, Schwab clarified.

The reopening, he said, is based off both declarations by the governor and Levine.

Essentially the resolution that was passed last evening is meaningless, Schwab said at the end of the press conference.

On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed 410 new cases of coronavirus. That raises the statewide total to 76,846. There are 6,062 total deaths attributed to COVID-19, an increase of 48 new deaths on Wednesday.

Levine said that they were watching for a potential spike in cases due to the protests in the wake of George Floyds death and Memorial Day celebrations. She emphasized that to this date, there has not been a statewide increase, but there were some local level increases such as in Erie County.

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James Dobson, Tim Scott talk George Floyd; senator urges Christians to oppose 'bad apples'

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South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott called on churchgoers and police officers nationwide to take a stand against bad apples in their communities while chatting with Dr. James Dobson to discuss the unrest in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd.

Scott, a 54-year-old Christian and Republican, joined the 84-year-old Christian psychologist for an episode of Dr. James Dobsons Family Talk radio program Wednesday as days of protests and violence have hit cities nationwide, leading to 17 deaths in riots and over 300 officers injured.

After videos of Floyds neck being pinned down by a Minneapolis police officer surfaced before he became unresponsive and eventually died, it drove many Americans to hit the streets of their towns and cities to call for racial justice and an end to police brutality.

Touching on the issue, Scott told Dobson that it's impossible to begin the conversation without first acknowledging that the trigger for the protests has been another senseless death of an African American man at the hands of the police.

That has been an unfortunate reality for all of my life, I've been watching this unfold, Scott said. This time with video; it brings a new level of validation to the cries of so many people within the African American community.

Both Dobson and Scott agreed that people must separate the actions of the violent rioters from the intent of those who peacefully protest. Dobson asked the senator how valid he found protesters complaints about police brutality in America.

Now, I would say there's a complicated relationship between law enforcement officers and the African American community, and communities of color, Scott said. Having the chance to talk with so many folks, and then having lived through seven stops, as an African American driving a car, by law enforcement officers. As an elected official being stopped by law enforcement officers, as a United States Senator trying to enter into the Senate buildings, wearing my Senate pin, they just didn't believe me.

There is a complicated and emotional attachment to the fact that the discrimination that so many of us have felt is real, he added. The solution to it, I think it is multifaceted and layered, but the vast majority, and I've had years and years of experience with law enforcement, the vast majority of officers have one objective: it's to do their jobs and go home. It's those apples, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.

Scott stressed that while there is definitely more than one bad apple among police in America, there is a strong minority of officers that are casting shadows over all of law enforcement.

The problem is it's been this way for all of my life. And that's where you're seeing the type of energy and emotion, not violence, but energy and emotion that really want to have a civil conversation about bringing justice and fairness to the system, Scott explained. That has to be a separate conversation that is hard to have while you're having violence in the streets, watching people break windows, violate buildings, and other people's rights.

Dobson asked Scott how the establishment across the country should deal with the minority of cops who are bad actors.

For the first time in my lifetime, I've seen the majority, if not all of the law enforcement agencies in my state, South Carolina, all their associations, have come out condemning the acts of the officer in Minneapolis, Scott said. The fastest way to get rid of bad officers is for good ones to take a stand against them. That is the only way, frankly, to get rid of bad officers. I say that in every vein, by the way.

Whether it's officers, or church members, or politicians, if you're not willing to stand up against those in your own corner, so to speak, your voice is probably not going to be as helpful, Scott added. And it's the ability to stand against the bad apples on your side, whatever that means to whomever means it, it is the fastest way for our nation to make progress.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 22:27:22|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The number of overnight stays by domestic and international visitors in Germany's hotels decreased by 89.3 percent in April year-on-year, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Wednesday.

The ban on the movement of private travelers in Germany, which was in effect between mid-March and April in order to contain the spread of COVID-19, caused the "largest decrease since the beginning of the time series in 1992," Destatis noted.

While the number of overnight stays by German guests, who made up the majority of travellers, fell by 88.5 percent to 3.8 million, overnight stays by international guests declined by 93.1 percent to 0.5 million in April, according to Destatis.

The increase in the number of overnight stays in January and February was followed by a sudden drop in March and April as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. For the entire first quarter of 2020, Germany's hotel industry recorded a decline in guests numbers of almost 40 percent compared to last year.

Already in March, Destatis said that the turnover of hotels and other accommodation establishments in Germany had decreased by almost 50 percent year-on-year. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a "substantial impact" on the German hotel industry.

As a result, around every third company in Germany's hospitality sector was threatened by bankruptcy, according to a survey conducted by the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (DEHOGA) in April. In Germany's capital Berlin, DEHOGA reported that although 87 percent of the hotels had reopened, 77 percent still recorded turnover losses of more than 75 percent.

"We have no prospects," stated Christian Andresen, president of DEHOGA Berlin. The gastronomy and hotel industry would need long-term assistance from the federal and state governments. Berlin's "leading industry" should not be allowed to be destroyed, he said. Enditem
While the government has declared lockdown relaxations, many are not taking the gravity of the Covid-19 situation seriously, and are flouting safety norms. Calling them out on social media, actor Ravi Dubey says everyone needs to learn from the mistakes committed during 1918 Spanish flu.

Referring to the pages of history, Dubey posted a note on his Instagram page, highlighting that in 1918, when the quarantine and social distancing norms were lifted, people rejoiced on the streets with abandon, leaving tens of million dead.

Talking about it in Indias content, Dubey explains that this relaxation too is only given by the government, and that Corona hasnt given any relaxation.

He says, We have this inherent careless behaviour. Its time that we understand that we still dont have a cure for coronavirus, so it is better that we maintain the norms. The government had to give this relaxation to address the economic slowdown. But the disturbing footage of people going out on the streets for no real reason, crowding outside alcohol shops, prove that some of us have got this totally wrong.

The 36-year-old is also concerned about the growing number of street accidents. Empty streets dont mean we can do anything. So many accidents are getting reported, so many people are dying only because some of us are irresponsible. Are we losing empathy? he questions, adding that strict punishments need to be meted out for the perpetrators who are not thinking about those who are already struggling during this pandemic.

Putting his point forward in his own style, he says, Nazar rakho nazariyon pe, nazaare badal jayenge. He explains, We need keep a tab on our perspectives as then only our outlook would change. There will be good, bad and neutral times. How we tackle them is only a game of perspective. Why not look at it like this that throughout our lives, we are busy working, and now we have time to spend with our loved ones. So lets enjoy that. But then we are still hearing about relationships falling apart, violence against women and children I think we all need to introspect.

Dubey is staying positive by watching Hrishikesh Mukherjees comedies, which make me happy. I also write down 20 things I am grateful for every day before going to bed. By the time you write down the first five, the next five come to your mind and then the rest. It changes the way you look at life, he ends.

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In 2002, Mr. Gore and others in his unit were cited for helping rescue two children and an adult from a burning home. He had been assigned to Engine 37 in Chestnut Hill for the last two years. Read more

People Weve Lost Eric Gore

48 years old

Lived in Philadelphia

Also a writer, he published a book about vampires and the occult More Memorials

By all accounts, Eric Gore was a quiet man.

He was private, said older brother Lamont.

He didnt do a lot of talking, said colleague Lisa Forrest.

Instead, Mr. Gore made noise with his actions. He was a Philadelphia firefighter, published writer, former Philly policeman, former court stenographer, world traveler, father and husband, and philanthropist.

And even though he didnt say much, he could say it in English, Spanish, and Mandarin.

He was the kind of guy who would give money to kids he met even when he couldnt spare it, said Lamont Gore, also a Philly firefighter with Ladder 15 in Frankford. I had to tell him to stop it and spend that money at home.

Mr. Gore, 48, died Tuesday, June 2, at Temple University Hospital due to COVID-19.

Like his brother and late father, Edward, Mr. Gore found a home away from home with the Fire Department. He grew up in Southwest Philly, near 58th and Baltimore, and graduated from Bartram High School in 1990. He went on to work for three years as a Philadelphia police officer, then joined the Fire Department in 1996 and worked across the city for more than 23 years, spending 12 years at Engine 61 in Olney.

In 2002, Mr. Gore and others in his unit were cited for helping rescue two children and an adult from a burning home. He had been assigned to Engine 37 in Chestnut Hill for the last two years.

Its in our blood, Lamont Gore said of the familys civic service. His wife, Deborah, is a police detective, and many relatives have worked for either the Police or Fire Departments.

Despite his laid-back nature, Mr. Gore impressed those around him with a no-nonsense approach to work and his wide array of interests. Forrest, a captain in the Fire Department, said Mr. Gore "was an action person. He never started any trouble. But he was not one to back down, either.

Lamont Gore said Eric was the perfect little brother when they were growing up. Little brothers are supposed to take whatever big brothers do and smile about it," he joked. And Eric did that.

Mr. Gore was so reserved that Lamont did not know that his brother had visited China until he had already returned. His 2016 novel, Vengeance Obtained, was about Marcel Dekrey, a 900-year-old vampire.

He found time to do a lot of stuff, Lamont Gore said.

In addition to his brother, Mr. Gore is survived by his mother, Shirley; stepfather Charlie; wife Zenaida; daughter Logan; former wife, Erica; a brother; and five stepsons.

He is to be posthumously promoted to lieutenant, and services are scheduled for Thursday and Friday, June 11 and 12.

 Gary Miles, gmiles@inquirer.com
President Donald Trump faces a new obstacle to his case for re-election - the US is now officially in recession.

The "recession" label made official on Monday (US time) cements the pain that many voters are already feeling from the economy - and will feed into their choice in November for who will be able to steer the economy back.

US President Donald Trump maintains the economy will bounce back. Credit:AP

For Democrat Joe Biden, the proclamation from the National Bureau of Economic Research is further evidence that the economy was on shaky ground even before the worst of the coronavirus hit. Trump, he said, has "squandered" the booming economy he inherited from President Barack Obama and himself.

For Trump, the recession declaration came on the first weekday after the May jobs report showed 2.5 million jobs were created and the unemployment rate declined when it was expected to jump. On Friday he touted the numbers as a sign of "the greatest comeback in American history."
When thinking about my transition from young adult to working professional, I constantly cite three milestones:

When I found my job, as an intern at Lake Trust Credit Union

When I found my passion/career, after Crashing the GAC and Filenes big.bright.minds

And, when I found my calling, as a graduate and mentor in the National Credit Union Foundation (NCUF) DE program

Last week, I had another opportunity to work with the NCUF, by hosting a DE Collaboration Session. This hour-long forum allowed me to share some of TransUnions most recent Consumer Hardship Data. I talked at length with credit union advocates on how financial hardship is disproportionately impacting hourly employees and minority groups. I also shared data that showed how many Americans were delaying major purchases or events like home buying, new/used autos, and education. We know the financing of these experiences are key ways credit unions serve their community.

But, more impactful than any slides or data I had prepared was the conversation from the credit union advocates. We heard stories from a credit union in Connecticut, that was hosting virtual financial health house parties. A credit union in New Mexico shared how their inclusive lending program has adapted to continue to serve their unique field of membership. Some CU employees were shouldering new responsibilities; others were scrambling to learn and deploy new products, programs, and compliance requirements, all while juggling different tasks at home, like teaching their children (and in some cases simultaneously teaching themselves) geometry.

These Collaboration Sessions were just one of the many DE Alumni Resources the NCUF brought digital. Over the past month, I have participated in:

Cooperative Learning Sessions  These focused sessions allow DEs to focus on a single topic of learning and development during the pandemic.

Empathy Chats  These one on one sessions pair DEs to meet and practice empathetic communication.

Happy Hours  A place for DEs to virtually socialize and share ideas and challenges

This surge of digital content is inspiring in a number of ways. To start, it is more inclusive than historical in-person industry events. I was able to participate in more DE events over the past month than I had in the prior year. It is also incredible to see how better connected DEs are becoming. My calendar is filling up as DE friends, new and old, grab time to discuss consumer financial hardship, and ideate on how we might help members navigate these uncertain times.

The road ahead will continue to present challenges. If other partners can follow the lead of the NCUF, and inspire credit union advocates to action, I am confident this industry can truly differentiate themselves from other financial organizations. Millions of Americans hold accounts at more than one type of financial institution. Lets work together to guarantee their credit union is their most trusted financial partner as we collaboratively recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran on Wednesday called on Russia and China to resist a push by Washington to extend a U.N.-imposed arms embargo due to expire in October under Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with six powers.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has been taking a harder line with the United Nations to extend and strengthen the embargo on Iran, warning that its lifting would let Tehran acquire weapons that could fuel conflicts in the Middle East.

"Americans are already angry, upset, and wanting to take this issue to the Security Council. We want four permanent members of the (U.N. Security) Council to stand up to America," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech.

"Particularly, we expect Russia and China to resist this U.S. plot. America will not succeed ... and we will increase our defence capabilities as we have been doing so even under sanctions."

Tehran and its rival Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally, have been involved in proxy wars and political confrontations in the region for decades, from Iraq and Syria to Bahrain and Yemen.

Council veto-powers Russia and China have already signalled they are against re-imposing an arms embargo on Iran.

If the U.N. Security Council does not extend the embargo, Washington has threatened to trigger a so-called snapback of all U.N. sanctions on Iran, including the arms embargo, using a process outlined in the nuclear deal.

However, Russia and China, both parties to the deal, have already started making the case at the United Nations against Washington's claim that it can trigger a return of all sanctions on Iran at the Security Council.

The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, arguing it was flawed to Tehran's advantage, and has reimposed sanctions crippling Iran's economy. Under the deal, Iran agreed to halt its sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran has gradually rolled back its commitments under the accord since the United States quit. The nuclear deal allows for a return of sanctions on Iran, including the arms embargo, if Tehran violates the deal.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by William Maclean)
[June 10, 2020] Hagens Berman: NYU Sued by Student and Alumni in Class-Action Lawsuit Seeking Repayment After COVID-19 Campus Closure

New York University (NYU) has been sued in a class-action lawsuit demanding repayment for tuition, room and board and other costs amid its COVID-19-related campus closure, according to attorneys at Hagens Berman representing a student and graduate. If you are paying for college tuition, and/or room and board at any U.S. college or university closed due to COVID-19, find out more about the lawsuit and your rights. The lawsuit was filed June 9, 2020, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and accuses the university of breach of contract, unjust enrichment and conversion. The law firm representing the student has also brought similar lawsuits against Boston University, Brandeis University (News - Alert), Brown University, Duke University, Emory University, George Washington University, Hofstra University, University of Miami, Pepperdine University, Quinnipiac University, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis for failure to repay tuition-payers for their losses. "NYU is America's largest private university, and its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak necessitated closure of its world-class campus, barring students from access to NYU's many amenities, facilities, communities and in-person benefits," said Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman and attorney for students in the class action. "Unfortunately NYU students were left paying the same in tuition, room and board and other fees, despite receiving an experience that was far from what they paid for. We believe NYU owes its students more in light of this tremendous hardship." The student and alumni bringing the lawsuit, both residents of New York, were full-time studnts at NYU during the spring 2020 semester, during which NYU closed its campus and transitioned all courses to online instruction.



The lawsuit highlights that in NYU's online courses during its response to COVID-19, students were "limited to rote emails and pre-scheduled in-and-out Zoom conferences, absent of all relationship connections from earlier in the semester." NYU students, the lawsuit says, paid the university for opportunities and services they did not receive, including on-campus education, facilities, services and activities. The complaint reads, "Despite sending students home and closing its campus(es), Defendant continues to charge for tuition and certain fees as if nothing has changed, continuing to reap the financial benefit of millions of dollars from students."

The suit also says that for one of the two named plaintiffs in the case, half of her coursework in one of her spring 2020 classes was cancelled. "And another important course, which summarized her time at NYU in a creative project, was similarly and substantially watered down," the suit states. The lawsuit's other plaintiff, a student enrolled in NYU's drama program, was left unable to participate in acting projects for classmates that were involved in directing projects or design costumes for a show that another classmate was producing. NYU promotes itself to students as "a community of communities," explaining, "[f]rom residence halls to clubs and organizations, these clubs will enrich your experience," "help you form lifelong connections with diverse classmates from across the United States and the world," according to the lawsuit. As of August 2019, NYU reported an endowment valued at more than $4.3 billion, with total assets exceeding $23.1 billion. Full-time students in NYU's Tisch School of the Arts paid $27,964 in tuition for the spring 2020 semester and $1,312 in registration and services fees. Room and board expenses for the term approximated $9,342. Other Affected Universities Hagens Berman is investigating the rights of those who are currently paying for room and board, and/or tuition at all U.S. colleges and universities that have been forced to close due to the outbreak of COVID-19. This may include parents, guardians or college students who are paying for their own costs of college. Despite orders from colleges and universities sending home students and closing campuses, these institutions of higher learning continue to charge for tuition and room and board. Collectively, these institutions are continuing to receive millions from students despite their inability to continue school as normal, or occupy campus buildings and dorms. Find out more about the class-action lawsuit against colleges and universities for tuition, room and board and other costs incurred during the outbreak of COVID-19. About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is a consumer-rights class-action law firm with nine offices across the country. The firm's tenacious drive for plaintiffs' rights has earned it numerous national accolades, awards and titles of "Most Feared Plaintiff's Firm," and MVPs and Trailblazers of class-action law. More about the law firm and its successes can be found at www.hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005766/en/

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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse)  Wed, June 10, 2020 12:34 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd8c077 2 Art & Culture library,Israel,manuscript,Islam Free

The National Library of Israel is offering free digital access to more than 2,500 rare books and manuscripts from its world-renowned collection.

The National Library of Israel said that the initiative, launched with the help of British-based Arcadia fund, is expected to be completed in three years.

The ambitious project will allow bookworms around the world to discover the institutes entire collection of books and manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, all of which date from the ninth to the 20th centuries.

High-resolution images of the items will be uploaded along with item descriptions in Arabic and English in a new digital platform, which will operate in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

Read also: Oldest Quranic manuscript on display at Medan's new Quran History Museum

We are privileged to open digital access to these treasures and hope that this project will contribute to greater understanding and shared inquiry related to Islamic civilization. It is one of a number of initiatives connecting the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem with the global community, Dr. Raquel Ukeles, curator of the Islam and Middle East Collection, said in a statement.

The National Library of Israel has announced that digitized materials will include an exquisite Iranian copy of the Persian mystical poet Nur al-Din Jamis collection Tuhfat al-Ahrar.

The manuscript, created in 1484 just a few years after the composition of Tuhfat al-Ahrar, is illuminated by various different backgrounds in gold leaf.

The opening and closing pages feature double-sided miniatures that were added later, apparently in the 17th and 18th centuries but in the 15th-century style.

Other materials to be part of the project include copies of the Quran and literary works from across the Muslim world, some of which are decorated with gold leaf and lapis lazuli.

While the portal is still in development, experts will also meticulously review all of the items to be scanned, and carry out any preservation and conservation measures that are necessary.

The National Library of Israel is home to thousands of manuscripts and rare books, most of which were acquired and donated by the late Arab-Jewish scholar and avid collector of Islamic manuscripts, Abraham Shalom Yahuda.

Topics : library Israel manuscript Islam
Rio de Janeiro: A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has ordered the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to resume publication of full COVID-19 data, including the cumulative death toll.

The ruling follows allegations the government was trying to hide the severity of the pandemic in Latin America's biggest country.

The government complied with the decision on Tuesday afternoon.

A woman walks past a mural in Rio de Janeiro depicting Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro as a coronavirus. Credit:Getty Images

Justice Alexandre de Moraes said late on Monday that the government was obliged to provide the necessary information to Brazilian citizens, days after the Health Ministry scrubbed the cumulative death and infection numbers from its revamped website.
After nearly a decade, the city of Syracuse has stabilized the drain in population that defined the suburban sprawl of the 1960s, according to recently released U.S. Census estimates.

Since 2010, the citys population has decreased by less than 3,000 people  or only 2%.

The latest town and city Census numbers also show a shift in the fastest-growing Syracuse suburbs. In the last decade, residents have traded Syracuses nearest and oldest suburbs for rural towns with space for bigger houses and more acres.

Move over, Cicero. Hello, Lysander.

Since the 1950s, Cicero had been the fastest-growing large suburb in Onondaga County. It jumped from just 6,000 residents in 1950 to 31,532 in 2010. In the last decade, the population of Cicero declined by nearly 3 percent.

Lysander topped 20,000 residents for the first time in 2010. The town now has nearly 23,000 people. Lysander grew about 4.7% in the last decade.

After the 1960s, people flocked to the town of Manlius. Now, Pompey has outpaced its growth.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released 2019 population numbers for cities and towns. It is the last set of annual estimates before the official 2020 headcount, which is happening now.

Syracuse.com pulled Census data into a map and lookup. Explore population change from 2010 to 2019 in more than 1,000 places.

Overall, New Yorks population has declined over the last decade. The state has lost a net 1.4 million residents to other states since 2010, according to an analysis of migration patterns in IRS records.

Onondaga Countys population remains stable, but the region shares some of the competition with states that have better weather and lower taxes. The countys population is about 460,500  down from a height of 472,800 in 1970.

The numbers in the latest city and town release show changes within counties. Lakeside resorts grow while urban centers, even in rural counties, stabilize or decline.

The results of the 2020 Census, under way now, will determine the number of representatives New York has in Congress as well as the amount of federal money distributed to the state for affordable housing, anti-poverty and other programs.

Syracuse

In the years leading up the 2010 census, Syracuse city leaders had been watching the population decline for 50 years. In 1950, the city had 220,600 residents. They feared the 2010 census would show the first drop below 140,000 since 1910.

City leaders were shocked when that didnt happen. The 2010 count showed the city had lost only 1.5 percent of its population over 10 years.

The trend appears to have held steady for next last decade.

Syracuse lost another 2,900 residents from 2010 to 2019. Thats only 2 percent of the population.

The citys population remains above 140,000 at 142,327.

Lysander, Pompey:

People are looking beyond the oldest suburbs of Fayetteville, Manlius and Cicero for towns with more space, bigger houses and award-winning schools.

I think this community is just a vibrant, safe community with good schools and thats what makes us attractive and its very affordable to live here, Lysander Supervisor Bob Wicks said.

The town offers a mix of vibrant village happenings in Baldwinsville and quiet country living without the overcrowding of Cicero or Clay, he said.

The Baldwinsville School District consistently ranks among the regions best when it comes to test scores and graduation rates. Spending per student is the lowest in the county. The property tax rate is low.

It only takes Wicks about 17 minutes to drive from downtown Baldwinsville to downtown Syracuse. And, he said, more people are finding they can work locally or work remotely.

Declines

Across the state, the population has declined most severely in the small cities inside rural counties.

Utica, in Oneida County, has dropped below 60,000 for the first time since 1900. The city lost about 4 percent of its population over the last decade.

Auburn, in Cayuga County, has lost nearly 6 percent of its population since 2010.

In Oswego County, the city of Fulton has declined by 7 percent and Oswego City has dropped by 6 percent.

Upstate

Population declined slightly in all of Upstate New Yorks big four Thruway cities over the last decade. Albany lost only about 1.5 percent, while Rochester lost about 2.4 percent.

Only 170 places in New York had population increases from 2010 to 2019. Population declined in 835 places in New York state.

Growth pockets

Ritzy lakeside towns and tourist regions increased in population.

The small town of Canandaigua gained 1,265 residents  an 11 percent increase.

Three of the top 10 in growth are in Saratoga County.

Contact Michelle Breidenbach | mbreidenbach@syracuse.com | 315-470-3186.
TikTok logo is seen displayed on a phone screen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on November 13, 2019. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

TikTok's new chief executive Kevin Mayer spoke to one of the European Union's top officials on Tuesday about fighting disinformation on the social media platform.

The discussion highlights the Chinese-owned app's drive to work with regulators amid scrutiny of the platform from authorities, particularly in the U.S.

EU commissioner Thierry Breton, who is responsible for the bloc's internal market and shaping digital policy, tweeted that he had a "good conversation" with Mayer.

"TikTok has a role to play against #disinformation, especially in the fight," he added.

Breton urged major platforms to sign up to the EU's Code of Practice to "address the spread of fake news & improve transparency."

The Code of Practice, which was launched in 2018, asks internet firms to take measures to tackle disinformation online. Companies can sign up voluntarily. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Twitter have signed up.

TikTok said it has also signed up to the Code of Practice.

"We're tackling disinformation by investing heavily in technology and review teams, introducing in-app features like our Covid-19 misinformation reporting function, promoting trusted information from authoritative sources, and developing policies  including the banning of political advertising  to prevent the spread of misinformation," said a TikTok spokesperson.

"Industry co-operation and increased transparency are vital in stemming the spread of disinformation online, and as part of signing up to the Code of Practice on Disinformation we look forward to working with the Commission as we continue our efforts to keep TikTok safe."

Mayer moved from Disney to TikTok in May, a hire that was seen as a move by the short video app to distance itself from its Chinese parent company ByteDance and appease U.S. lawmakers and regulators.
At 99, Prince Philip has certainly had an interesting and expansive life. Though the Duke of Edinburgh is officially retired from his public duties, for over seven decades, he stood by Queen Elizabeth IIs side, giving up his role in the Royal Navy in order to serve as a senior member of the British royal family.

The dukes early years were quite challenging. He was born in Corfu, Greece to Princess Alice of Battenberg and Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark. However, when he was just one-year-old, his uncle, the King of Greece was effectively removed from the throne and Prince Philip and his family were forced to flee the country.

Due to his mothers mental illness and his fathers philandering, the prince was left adrift without any real guidance or a real home until his uncle Georgie Mountbatten took him in. After George died, the princes uncle, Dickie Mountbatten finished raising him. During this time, the prince did not have a last name.

Prince Philip always struggled to find his place in the world

After his family fled Greece, Prince Philips life quickly fell apart. His father abandoned the family to live with his mistress in Southern France. The abandonment has sat with the duke until this day. In fact, though he is perceived as gruff by the public, Prince Philip is extremely close to his children and grandchildren.

Unfortunately, when he and Queen Elizabeth II married in 1947, he struggled immensely with living in his wifes shadow. In fact, the pair reportedly had a vicious argument when the queen refused to change the royal house name from House of Windsor to House of Mountbatten.

I am nothing but a bloody amoeba, Prince Philip said. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.

RELATED: Dark Secrets You Never Knew About Prince Philips Life

Prince Philip had no last name as a child

Since his parents were greek royalty, Prince Philip did not have a last name growing up. In fact, he was viciously mocked when he was in prep school and he was referred to as Philip of Greece.

When the Duke of Edinburgh moved to Britain and became a naturalized British citizen after his uncles took him in, he took his maternal last name, Mountbatten.

Despite his chosen last name, upon marrying Queen Elizabeth and gaining His Royal Highness title (HRH), the prince dropped his last name once again. After all, the title does not require a last name because it has such a high ranking.

This is the British royal familys official last name

Since the younger royals attend public school and some of them have even held regular jobs and positions in the armed forces, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip came up with a compromise concerning the royal familys official last name.

When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, Prime Minister, Winston Churchill told her to keep the family name of House of Windsor. However, to appease Prince Philip, the queen suggested Mountbatten-Windsor. For example, since Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex decided not to give their son a royal title, his name is Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
STEP CG is a leading managed IT, security, and cloud services provider. Earlier this year, the company announced an expansion project to bring investment, job creation, and retention to the region, further enabling the company's innovation and collaboration with customers, vendor partners, and the local community of Covington. The project is supported by a Kentucky Business Investment (KBI) incentive.

Key Facts

The STEP CG Innovation Lab is a collaborative 7,000+ square foot commercial space that will provide STEP CG employees and customers with next-generation and industry-leading networking equipment from multiple vendors, and practical technology training and certification for industry and professional development.

Training and certification on Extreme solutions will be available on-site starting in Fall of 2020 as well as virtually.

STEP CG trainers will become Certified Extreme Instructors and will join other Extreme instructors delivering training to those on-site and virtually.

STEP CG is further collaborating with Extreme to embed its technical certification and training curriculum into the academic curriculum of local engineering and computing programs, including introducing Esports to K-12 and higher education customers.

Executive Perspectives

Dan Dulac, Vice President of Solutions Strategy, Extreme Networks, Inc.

"We are excited to partner with STEP CG to develop the next generation of networking talent. The Extreme Lab will provide STEP CG with the ability to offer valuable, hands-on training and certification on the latest innovations in cloud networking, security, and AI/ML technologies. Our practical curriculum  available physically and virtually  will give students a true, competitive advantage as they seek to advance their skills in the high-demand technology industry and make their way in the workforce."

Rob Huff, Founder and President, STEP CG

"STEP CG has built a reputation as a company that constantly innovates and delivers next-generation technology solutions for businesses in our community. We are committed to bringing investment, job creation, and retention to the region. By partnering with Extreme Networks, a global leader in cloud networking, we are able to offer world-class training and certification in the latest and greatest networking best practices and innovations to inspire and grow the next generation of IT talent in greater Kentucky."

About Extreme Networks

Extreme Networks, Inc. (EXTR) creates effortless networking experiences that enable all of us to advance. We push the boundaries of technology leveraging the powers of machine learning, artificial intelligence, analytics, and automation. Over 50,000 customers globally trust our end-to-end, cloud-driven networking solutions and rely on our top-rated services and support to accelerate their digital transformation efforts and deliver progress like never before. For more information, visit Extreme's website or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Extreme Networks, the Extreme Networks logo and ExtremeCloud IQ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Extreme Networks, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Other trademarks shown herein are the property of their respective owners.

About STEP CG

STEP CG, LLC is a highly innovative, award-winning, nationwide IT services engineering firm specializing in solutions powered by strategic experts and best-of-breed technologies that guide their clients through complex IT challenges. STEP CG was founded in 2014 and has become one of the fastest-growing technology firms in the Midwest. Their portfolio enables enterprises with solutions for wireline, wireless, cellular, cloud, security, collaboration and managed services. STEP CG is a privately held company headquartered in Covington, Kentucky. STEP CG is where innovation meets execution. For more information, visit STEP CG's website or follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

SOURCE STEP CG

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Reese Witherspoons southern-chic fashion brand Draper James is at the centre of a class action lawsuit, following fallout from a dress giveaway aimed at teachers working throughout the pandemic.

In April, Witherspoons company announced on Instagram that it would like to give teachers a free dress - however teachers who expressed their interest are now suing as they allege the brand misled them.

The Draper James giveaway was announced at the start of April and read, Dear Teachers: We want to say thank you. During quarantine, we see you working harder than ever to educate our children. To show our gratitude, Draper James would like to give teachers a free dress.

Invision/AP

It continued, To apply, complete the form at the link in bio before this Sunday, April 5th, 11:59 PM ET. (Offer valid while supplies last - winners will be notified on Tuesday, April 7th.)

The New York Times claimed that over 1 million applications for a free dress were made and that the online form crashed shortly after it went online.

However, the brand only had 250 dresses to give away and the brands Marketing and Creative VP Marissa Cooley told NYT that they didnt anticipate the volume of the response - adding that they were overwhelmed.

Teachers who did not get a free dress were instead sent 20-30% discount vouchers (with one teacher tweeting she cant even afford the dresses with a discount) and many expressed their disappointment on social media - as others raised concerns over how their personal information was going to be used.

One asked, Just wondering what you are doing with all our email addresses and pictures of our photo IDs???

Another called it a scam to get my information as one commented, What a wonderful marketing ploy this was! So disappointed  that you used this tactic to get [my] email address. Teachers cant afford [a] dress that cost[s] $150.

Others however defended the brand, writing, Cant believe to see all these people complaining  did you really think that she could afford to give every single teacher a dress? Even if she gave one away that was generous!!

In documents obtained by TMZ, the lawsuit filed by three women against Draper James alleges that it was not clear there were only 250 dresses available (though the brand did say that the giveaway was valid while supplies last).

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

The giveaway allegedly required teachers to share personal information and photos of their teaching IDs, after which it was claimed winners would find out if they had gotten a dress by April 7.

The lawsuit also claims that the 250 dresses would have come to an estimated paltry $12,500 in actual cost, stating that it was in stark contrast at a time when other individuals of [Reese] Witherspoon's renown were offering millions of dollars to COVID-19 victims."

Witherspoon and the brand have since made a donation to DonorsChoose, an American nonprofit organsation aimed at improving classroom education. (The amount is not known.)

A spokesperson from DonorsChoose told E! News, "Reese and Draper James have made a donation to DonorsChoose that will support all of our highest-need teachers in New Orleans, Atlanta, and Nashville, and many more throughout the country, as they work to educate their students while schools are closed."

"These teachers will receive education funding grants they'll be able to spend on resources such as books, basic classroom supplies, art supplies, activity kits, and food, all shipped directly to their students' homes," they continued.

An attorney for Draper James told Fox News that the lawsuit was an unjust attempt to exploit Draper James good intentions to honor the teacher community by gifting hundreds of free dresses.

Their statement continued, The fact that supplies were limited, such that a free dress could not be provided to every teacher who responded, was disclosed and is no basis for a lawsuit. Draper James looks forward to defending this case, to continuing its efforts to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions made by teachers during this time of need, and to being vindicated in court."

The Evening Standard has reached out for additional comment.
On June 2, a lawyer for the Manitoba Metis Federation sent a letter to Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman outlining safety concerns expressed by staff who work at the federation's office on Henry Avenue, due to a nearby encampment.
The brother of the African American man whose death in police custody has sparked global protests has urged the US Congress to immediately pass reforms on police brutality and stop the pain.

Philonise Floyd told a House hearing that his brother George could not become another name on a list.

Be the leaders that this country, this world, needs, Mr Floyd said.

George Floyd died in Minneapolis in May as a white police officer held a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The final moments filmed on phones.

The US House of Representatives is hearing proposed changes to police practices.

It comes amid a nationwide  and in many cases international  debate on police practices and accountability, and more generally on racial inequity.

Lawmakers in the House are listening to testimony from civil rights and law enforcement officials.

---BBC
Siem Reap police said Wednesday they had searched and confiscated materials from the home of prominent activist monk and human rights defender Venerable Luon Savath, who has since denied being part of an alleged love scandal.



Last week, the Monk Council in Siem Reap announced in a statement that Luon Sovath had been expelled from the clergy for allegedly having intimate relationships with multiple women. This was based on an investigation carried out by the council, the statement read, into Facebook videos purportedly showing him having intimate conversations with at least four women.



However, on Wednesday, Luon Sovath published a social media post calling the Facebook videos fake, manipulated, and denied having any intimate relations with anyone.



I vehemently deny the allegations, these exaggerations, this smear campaign... which is to make a story that is not true, he wrote in the Facebook post.

The activist monk did not respond to multiple telephone and social media requests for comment on Wednesday.



In his post, Luon Sovath said the case was a politically-motivated targeting of him and that he was in hiding. I am now at a safe place far from the cruel animals, like crocodiles and tigers, who can eat [me], he said.



He added that the police had visited the homes of his parents and two of his nephews, detaining the nephews and questioning them overnight. The police, he said in the post, had also taken away his nephews phones, the monks camera equipment, an SUV and a television and refrigerator.



My private property kept at a provincial police station has not been given back, he said on Facebook.



The Monk Council in Siem Reap could not be reached on Wednesday, leaving it unclear if the police actions were linked to the councils investigation into the recordings.



Siem Reap Police Chief Tith Narong confirmed that the monks home had been searched and some materials are taken into possession, but would not give a reason for this action.



The court wants to check the belongings he used and check what it was related to. They wanted to find the truth related to the allegation against him.



Hesitant to speak about the case or any potential charges, Tith Narong said the venerable monk had not committed a criminal offense but that the investigation was needed to check the veracity of the allegations.



He said the confiscated materials will be sent to Phnom Penh for expert analysis.



Siem Reap Provincial Court spokesperson Yin Srang confirmed that a search warrant had been issued for a primary investigation.



But, he could not pinpoint the alleged charge or crime committed by Luon Sovath, directing further queries to Chuon Sopanha, another court spokesperson.



Chuon Sopanha said he could not comment on the search of Luon Sovaths home and belongings. I cannot comment on the case. I will wait for a report from the police, he said.



Am Sam Ath, the deputy director for rights monitoring at Licadho, said the NGO was aware that the monks home had been searched and his family questioned. He added that it was unclear why these actions were taken when it was a matter related to Buddhist practices and not a criminal investigation.



There are a lot of questions as to why there was a search of his house and confiscation of property. There is no offense, he said.



In a decision dated June 3, head of the Monk Council in Siem Reap, Chum Kimleng, alleged that Luon Sovath had conversations about deep love with women, which were shared on Facebook. The statement added that the conversations were between the monk, a woman and her daughters, alleging that Luon Sovath indulged in sexual activity.



The Monk Council claimed to have investigated the video recordings, but did not provide any evidence or forensic analysis of the videos.



There were four videos circulating on Facebook, and seemed to originate from one account, called Srey Da Chi-Kraeng that was created on May 30. The videos, according to the accompanying text on Facebook, are recordings with four women  a mother and three daughters.



The video recordings are of an unidentified person, or persons, sitting in a dimly-lit room and having Facebook audio conversations, ranging from 7 to 10 minutes each. The video is shot so that only the persons hand holding the smartphone can be seen.



The Facebook account involved in the alleged call has a male voice and uses an image of Luon Sovath and his name in Khmer script. The conversations are flirtatious and include discussions about giving each other massages.



VOA Khmer found another Facebook account, called Lun Sovath, using the same profile picture and was created on May 29, a day before the Srey Da Chi-Kraeng account was created.



Luon Sovaths online clarification note was posted to three of his often-used personal accounts and page, but not to the Facebook account named Lun Sovath.
SHOPPING in two of Ireland's most famous department stores would normally be a pleasure but today, I have to admit, I was extremely anxious taking this leap during a pandemic.

I wore gloves after parking in the city centre, realising I would be touching the ticket machine and doors. Additionally, I donned a mask walking into Brown Thomas on Grafton Street and Arnotts on Henry Street.

But I was one of very few who had chosen to wear a mask. Many shoppers are still reluctant to follow Government advice to wear masks in retail outlets.

Many, but not all staff in the two Dublin stores, were wearing masks, as they opened up for the first time in almost three months.

Some workers in Arnotts were even wearing visors in this new normal shopping experience.

Hundreds of shoppers filed into the two department stores throughout the day, with cameras counting just how many individuals were in store, to ensure capacity was adhered to.

Social-distancing signs and hand sanitisers were dotted across each store.

Social-distancing queues outside ensured safety and organisation.

The well-known, top-hat wearing Brown Thomas doorman plays a vital role in all of this, opening the door and offering a reassuring smile to customers.

Staff at both stores seemed thrilled to have customers again and, when asked how she was, one employee commented: Its great to be back."

Any sense of anxiety entering the door of either shop quickly slipped away. It was clear such a great emphasis has been placed on customer safety.

Brown Thomas is operating a policy of encouraging customers not to touch items unless there is a necessity.

Clothes are being placed in quarantine for 24 hours after each wear. Furthermore, garments are steamed and cleaned.

New technology will allow shoppers to virtually try makeup on. And there is a click-and-collect area in the Brown Thomas carpark, which allows customers to remain in their vehicles to pick items up.

Some dressing rooms are sectioned off to ensure social distancing, while only a small number of people are permitted into store toilets.

Door staff also welcomed customers at Arnotts and one smiling female worker offered hand sanitiser to a mother and her young daughter as soon as they stepped in the store.

Customers can pre-book visits to the two stores via their websites and shoppers can also join virtual queues, receiving texts when they reach the top of the queue.

It was noticeable how shoppers were so conscious of Covid-19. They were even avoiding touching the hand rests on escalators.

Though there was not the usual buzz of a June weekday in the city, it was comforting to witness life slowly returning to a semblance of normality.

And like many who ventured into Brown Thomas and Arnotts today, I'll feel much more confident to head out next time I'm in need of a new bag or dress for a socially distanced evening out.
Here's what should have been in Trump's stimulus package



Americans have an aversion to socialism. But actually, we have the most liberal socialism imaginable  for large corporations



By Sameer Butt

June 09, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Last week, a record 10 million people filed for unemployment in the US. This number will only grow in the coming weeks. To add insult to injury, given this trend, Covid-19 will have 10 times as many financial casualties as the projected worst-case-scenario medical casualties.

I used to work as a trader on Wall Street many years ago. Now I am a small business owner who owns a film production company. I am fortunate because I have done well enough where I will make it through this crisis relatively better than most. Many of the people I work with, including many of my clients, will not.

With businesses having to shutter up and people required to stay home to prevent the disease from spreading, employers are finding it hard to make payroll and are either laying off or furloughing their employees. Freelancers and gig economy workers have been hit even harder because, unlike laid-off workers, they cant take advantage of unemployment benefits. This is, obviously, causing stress and anxiety among individuals and business owners alike. It is a money or your life situation where you could lose both. Fear and desperation are not good in a pandemic. A healthy society and economy must have wage-earners with some kind of income security.

One way to address this problem would be to nationalize payroll until the crisis passes. Under such a program, everyone would continue to get their take-home pay, only instead of their employer making the payments, the government would. This way people could maintain their lives without additional financial stress and employers would not have to worry about making payroll while their businesses are shut.

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Self-employed individuals, freelancers and gig economy workers would get weekly payments based on their average annual income for the past three years. Those individuals who were already unemployed at the time the crisis hit would get their unemployment benefits extended indefinitely. People who retired last year and rely on distributions from their retirement portfolios should get their social security benefits increased so they dont have to deplete their retirement accounts while the market is down and even the most prudently invested and diversified portfolios are suffering.

This would alleviate a lot of pressure all around  which would be good for people, society and, in the long run, the economy. With everything effectively shuttered, people might even be able to save some money. Landlords and property owners would not need bailouts or assistance with unpaid mortgages or rents. Small business owners like myself, if we chose to take advantage of the new loans, could actually use the money to rebuild or grow our businesses, instead of trying to just survive the crisis.

Essential economic engines would keep running. As odiously evil as they are, even student loan payments need not be stopped, so usurious debtors can continue to make money. Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, South Korea and Belgium, among several others, all have similar programs. Even the UK is paying 80 per cent of peoples wages if theyve been furloughed, with Boris Johnson saying, Were going to have to look after people, and help them for a considerable period. The principle guiding us is that nobody should be penalized for doing the right thing.

The transition would be relatively easy and potentially immediate. Employees would continue to get their paychecks as usual. Only instead of the employers, payroll accounts would be replenished by the federal government.

Instead, Americans are being forced to settle for the promise of a one-time maximum pay-off of up to $1200, which will neither help nor find its way to many people.

The combined total personal income in the US for 2019 was about $18 trillion or $1.5 trillion per month. This is the sum total of all declared income from everyone, whether employed, self-employed, freelance, full-time, part-time or anything in between. $18 trillion is eighteen thousand billion. For perspective, if you had $1 billion sitting in a drawer just sitting, and not invested or growing you could take out $100,000 every day for more than 27 years before that drawer was empty. Go ahead, do the math on your phone. Now imagine 18,000 such drawers. Thats how much money Americans took home last year.

The recent Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security  or CARES  Act, recently signed into law is a one-time $2.2 trillion stimulus package. The bill was haphazardly put together and complex disbursement logistics are far from figured out. According to the bill, $560 billion has been earmarked for individuals. But consider this: if the government just handed over $1200 to every man, woman, and child in America, it would cost taxpayers less than $400 billion dollars.

The actual amount that will be handed out is a fraction of that. There are convoluted processes that determine who gets what, or how money is disbursed. While many individuals can get a one-time payment of up to $1200 for each adult and $500 for each child based on their 2019 tax filing, many more are summarily excluded. Anyone who is divorced and sharing custody but not the taxpaying parent is excluded from the child payment. Recently divorced parents have to wait for their $500 until next year, when they file their taxes for 2020. The same is true for anyone who had a baby this year.

Parents with children over 16 and away at college are excluded. Disabled dependents  for example, children over 16 with autism or any other mental or physical disability  are excluded. Senior citizens who are claimed as dependents by their adult children are excluded. Gig economy workers and freelancers  like videographers, sound recordists, plumbers  are effectively excluded. Anyone who made over $75,000 last year which barely enables a modest life in New York  is excluded. Supposedly there are loans available to some of them and small business owners like myself. The process for applying varies from state to state. The eligibility requirements are confusing and the websites dont work. For those who qualify, it still means emerging from the crisis saddled with additional debt payments, with a business that will have to be rebuilt in a depressed economy and many millions unemployed.

Stress and depression is mounting while social distancing is making people more and more isolated, which in turn exacerbates that stress and depression  and there is no realistic end in sight. Regardless of where one stands on the political spectrum, in the long run, this bipartisan CARES Act is a carelessly drafted piece of no-strings-attached, reverse Robin Hood legislation that will be great for big corporations at the expense of individual taxpayers and small business owners.

Americans have a preternatural aversion to socialism. Except we have the most liberal socialism imaginable. Its just not for the average citizen. It is for multi-billion dollar, faceless corporations.

Sameer Butt is a former Wall Street trader and Daily Show correspondent who now owns a film company. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @SameerNYC - - " Source "
The Borno State government has confirmed that the total deaths recorded in the Tuesday afternoon attack in Gubio village now stand at 81.

This information was obtained after Governor Babagana Zulum visited the area.

In Gubio, the governor was also informed that seven persons, including a village head, were abducted by the insurgents.

PREMIUM TIMES had earlier broken the news of the attack, quoting sources who said at least 69 persons died in the attack.

Governor Zulum who left Maiduguri for Gubio early Wednesday morning to access the situation described what he saw as barbaric.

A statement from the governors spokesperson, Isa Gusau, said Mr Zulum drove to Faduma Kolomdi to commiserate with the people.

Faduma Kolomdi, a nomadic village, is located 35 kilometres in the north of Gubio, the headquarters of Gubio Local Government area,  Mr Gusau, the governors special adviser on communications and strategy, said.

He said a survivor informed the governor that 81 residents were killed during the attack on Tuesday with 13 persons injured and seven others, including village head, was abducted.

While sympathising with the people over the attack, Governor Babagana Umara Zulum urged the Nigerian military to undertake a final onslaught that should put an end the insurgents in the shore of the Lake Chad.

Speaking to journalists in Gubio, Mr Zulum said; Last year, about the same number of people were killed in Gajiram as it happened again.

This is barbaric. It is very unfortunate. The only solution to end this massacre is by dislodging the insurgents in the shores of Lake Chad. Doing so will require collaborative regional efforts.

Account of Survivor

The insurgents in gun trucks and armoured tanks, came around 10 a.m yesterday (Tuesday),  a survivor whose name was not allowed to be mentioned was quoted to have informed the governor.

They operated for about six hours and left around 4 p.m. They gathered us and said they wanted to deliver a religious sermon to us.

They asked us to submit whatever arm we had. Some villagers gave up their dane guns, bow, and arrows. The insurgents pretended as if they were not there for any violence.

Suddenly, they started shooting at will. Even children and women were not spared, many were shot at close range. Many started running. In the end, many persons were killed and we have been burying people from 10 p.m last night to about 6 a.m this morning.

We have buried 49 corpses here while another 32 corpses were taken away by families from the villages around us. The insurgents abducted seven persons, including our village head. They went away with 400 cattle, the survivor said.

Mr Gusau said the survivors who could not account for many of their relatives believed the casualty could be more than the given figure.

There were fears amongst residents of neighbouring villages, that the casualties could be higher than 81 since tracing was ongoing,  he said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The export of cement from Turkey to Uzbekistan dropped by 52.12 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $2.6 million, Turkeys Ministry of Trade told Trend on June 10.

Turkeys export of cement to Uzbekistan decreased by 37.54 percent in May 2020 compared to May 2019 and amounted to $484,000.

Turkeys export of cement to the world markets decreased by 6.9 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019 and reached $1.4 billion.

The product export from Turkey amounted to 2.3 percent of the countrys total export volume over the reporting period.

Turkeys export of cement to the world markets amounted to $250.4 million in May 2020, which is 29.3 percent less compared to the same month of 2019.

The export of cement from Turkey amounted to 2.5 percent of the countrys total export volume in May 2020.

Turkeys export of cement amounted to $3.4 billion from May 2019 through May 2020.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
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.
The Pechersk district court is set to decide on the preventive measure to be applied.

The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has handed down a suspicion notice to a former President of Ukraine, now MP Petro Poroshenko, charging him with issuing a "criminal order" during his cadence.

That's according to the press service for the Office of the Prosecutor General.

"The investigation says MP is suspected of persuading, while being President of Ukraine, a military official, the Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, to act beyond his authority and official powers by issuing a clearly criminal order, that is, intentionally committing during a special period acts, which obviously exceed the rights and powers granted to him (Part 4 Article 27, Part 4 Article 41, and Part 4 Article 426-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)," the statement said.

Read alsoUkraine's SBI serves Poroshenko with charge papers

Pre-trial investigation is carried out by investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation.

The issue is now being decided on taking the ex-president into custody as the preventive measure in the criminal proceeding.
Mr. Griffith was always all smiles when he was with, left to right, daughter Megan, wife Joan, and daughter Courtney. Read more

People Weve Lost Bob Griffith

61 years old

Lived in Ridley Township

He worked in fire service for 45 years and deflected attention More Memorials

In his 45 years in the fire service, from his start as a firefighter up to his final months as fire marshal and code enforcement officer for Ridley Township, Bob Griffith wanted to help people.

It was just his willingness to help everybody, said his daughter Courtney. A week after he passed, his boss was going through his emails and said, I didnt realize how much he actually did. He went above and beyond.

Say he was inspecting a building with an elderly person in it, and that person was in a bad situation. He would get them the help that they needed. He didnt have to do that. Thats not part of his job description. But he went out of his way to help others.

Mr. Griffith, a Phillies and Flyers fan who enjoyed listening to Celtic music and attending Irish festivals, died Monday, May 18, eight days before his 62nd birthday, at Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park from complications resulting from the coronavirus.

A former chief with the Swarthmore Fire and Protective Association and a long-time member of the Holmes Fire Company, Mr. Griffith preferred to go about his work quietly and deflected any attention directed toward him.

Honestly, he didnt like the credit, his daughter said. He didnt want the attention. He felt that that was just his duty, to do what he had to do. He never wanted any kind of praise for it.

In his spare time, Mr. Griffith spent his Friday nights at the former Campbells Boathouse in Media with his wife, Joan, and friends listening to live music. He also attended Irish festivals with his family in King of Prussia and Bethlehem, Pa.

It was just a way for him to relax, his daughter said. We started going to Irish festivals at a very young age, and we were brought up around that atmosphere. We learned a lot about our history that way. He loved Celtic music and Irish dancing.

Another favorite activity was attending games of the Phillies and Flyers and watching the teams on TV when he couldnt make it to South Philadelphia. His daughter said he shared a love of photography with her, and he also enjoyed tinkering and taking care of the familys two Dalmatians.

In addition to his wife of 39 years and daughter, Mr. Griffith is survived by daughter Megan.

 Joe Juliano, jjuliano@inquirer.com
This is horrible. Bravo to Sohla for leading the way on this.



Also amazing that Conde Naste suddenly found an extra twenty thousand to fling at her in the middle of a recession. What kind of money were they hiding before?

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Going by this: Sohla claims that she was "insulted and appalled" at the offer because other stars earn much more in per-episode fees.



A lot!

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She said she asked Rapoport and the video head Duckor for an on-air contract on numerous occasions. According to her, each time, they said that they were unable to get one for her or that the contracts were tied up with the legal department  until she made her issue with the company public Monday.



Smh. Could you imagine what would happen had she not gone public?

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Wait, not everyone has just 20k lying around?

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When the story first broke I went down a wormhole in the Bon Appetit reddit and someone linked to the Rapoport/Molly video and OMG it really is uncomfortable to watch.



The first comment is someone saying they have the chemistry of freshly divorced parents trying to be civil at their kids birthday party.

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Lol I watched a few because I like Molly and she really doesn't hide how much she doesn't like him at all

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I like Molly too and omg you can tell she always was thinking "why the fuck did I get stuck with him"

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which one, they've done a couple together



found it!







Edited at 2020-06-10 12:39 pm (UTC)

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Rapoport should not have been on camera at all because he was so obviously an asshole, even when he was being "nice." It wasn't just that he had no charisma; he had whatever the reverse of it is. Some kind of off-putting charisma void.



I got sucked into that subreddit black hole yesterday and while they were pretty OK back then, now they're all about defending Delany and his no-talent ass. One thread even had the nerve to say: "Don't hate on Delany; hate on the systems and attitudes in society that let 'boys be boys' and normalize casual racism, sexism, and homophobia."



In other words, don't blame him because boys will be boys! But also, fuck "boys will be boys"!

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what video!? link pls - dw found it



(i don't really like molly's videos, she doesn't have a personality so she's a bore to watch)



Edited at 2020-06-10 12:51 pm (UTC)

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lmao she hates him

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feeling vindicated for always thinking Rapoport seemed like an asshole in the videos



Her annual base salary is $35000



what a joke

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I wonder what the average salary for this position is. Can someone from NY or who knows how to google provide answers?



I know in my job the assistant to the director makes $50k and that's strictly work stuff, no personal errands.

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That job is an entry level position. In NYC at a major company, I'd say starting salary should be at bare minimum $45K.



*Now having read that she had been working at BA for over 2 years it definitely should have been $50-60K no question. And apparently she still wasn't getting vacation days, which tells me either BA/Conde Nast has shitty staff contracts OR BA keeps its employees as freelance as long as possible. It's not unheard of unfortunately, my company just stopped the practice about 4 years ago.



Edited at 2020-06-10 12:48 pm (UTC)

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I used to work at a publishing company in NYC where the starting salary for an editorial assistant was 35k....and even though I know ppl got stalled out there in terms of advancement it did seem like after a year or so most people who stuck around (high turnover rate) were promoted to assistant editor and probably made 5-10k more. obviously still not enough for NYC, but the fact that Ryan got no raises at ALL after 2 YEARS is fucking nuts!!!!

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That was my starting salary as a legal assistant in DELAWARE, like she should be making at least 55k for NYC, at LEAST.

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THATS MY FUCKING TEACHERS SALARY IN SWEDEN. A super TINY town in Sweden. Que??????

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My starting salary for my publishing job was 34,500. Its common in the industry and in some other places Ive seen

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"After Sohla El-Waylly explicitly expressed her frustration about POC staffers not being paid for their video appearances on her Instagram, she got sent a contract that would add $20,000 to her base pay. Sohla claims that she was "insulted and appalled" at the offer because other stars earn much more in per-episode fees."



JOKE



Sohla should just branch out and make her own cooking channel. She's the best chef on that channel. She needs to do to BA what Safiya did to Buzzfeed

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I think Sohla should be getting more then 20k added bc her salary was abysmal ... but arent the others getting per episode fees because they have a series rather then just making appearances?



I support Sohla frustrations and think she deserves a show more then anyone, but that seems to be a valid reason why others are receiving per episode (based on popularity, ad revenue, etc.) and her offer was a lump

sum.

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IA. Sohla should have countered with a higher amount added to her overall salary rather than try and negotiate for making appearances. The whole thing is awful, but Sohla does not have her own series. She makes appearances if someone like Claire reels her in bc she happens to be in the kitchen, and I feel like that could create a lot of back-and-forth as to whether she should be paid for that or not internally. That being said, if they did a video with all the chefs and people like Brad, Claire, Molly and Chris got paid but Sohla and Gabby and Christina didn't, then that's a point of issue as well.



Idek what the correct salary for someone with her experience is but I feel like $90-$100k is a nice balance for everything she does.





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at this point they're all featured in videos in the from home series pretty equally, i wonder if they're getting paid for it at all or maybe they're not and THAT's what became the last straw. because if claire the freelance is appearing in those videos then she's definetely getting paid, otherwise why would she do it? she's not on the payroll.

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But she also does one-off videos and does all of the group ones and is not getting compensated at all.

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it seems really shitty because you can tell the producers are pushing to have her included in other people's videos. there's been a few gourmet makes recently where the producers are like "hey claire you should work with sohla on this!" or "oh sohla's here, maybe she'll have some ideas," and then sohla winds up basically being a costar for the entire video, and she's not getting compensated for that



plus she's tempered chocolate on camera like 4 separate times because nobody else can do it lmfao

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Great comparison. Ladylike at Buzzfeed is dead, and Safiya's vids are consistently Top 10 on YouTube. Have to hope Sohla is unencumbered by contract restrictions so she really could devise a new awesome platform for herself and others she wants to champion.

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Sohla deserves a lot of credit, and I appreciate all the labor she has done with setting this in motion. Honestly, she should leave and create her own channel. BA does not deserve her.



Also the Black people who had to deal with the brunt of that racist shit, fuck.



I didn't think anything of Delany but man, I think so low of him now. He did not do a quick sweep of his tweets and old tumblr posts, and people are pulling up the receipts! (i.e. his vine with him saying a gay slur, posts on how he views women)



Edited at 2020-06-10 12:34 pm (UTC)

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Knowing he's from the same general neck in the woods that I'm from, I'm not surprised. You get a mixed bag but white dudes with Delaney's mannerisms throw f***** like it's nothing. Half grow out of it when they go to college.

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I do actually think he's grown out of it but his general presence in BA is just a prime example of white mediocrity, what was he actually doing before he was given 2 shows?

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Sohla for Netflix, although I am unsure if the pay would be better.

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This has been a whirlwind. I hope Sohla drags them all to hell and back.



I used to kinda like Delany, but fuck him, he's an arsehole.





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I NEVER got his appeal, he always seemed like SUCH a "bro" type that would probably casually drop the f word about gay people or say something crude to somebody and then just say "just joking" or something.

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Yeah, I only warmed up to him cause he seemed vocal-ish on social issues. More than the others, anyway. Figured he was just a douchey graphic designer type with good intentions. Boy, was I wrong.

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I NEVER got his appeal



He's 6'4", just like Brad.

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Man... I knew they werent the lala hold hands its the office with food! they pretended to be but everything coming out sure takes the shine off the brand. this is gonna be a huge blow because lbr the popularity was the parasocial relationships and the personalities not the food.



wherever her career takes her! HMMMM @ the bro clique all going by their last names and double HMMMMMMM at Delanys no-food-experience-having-ass getting better on camera opportunities than most of the staff.Man... I knew they werent the lala hold hands its the office with food! they pretended to be but everything coming out sure takes the shine off the brand. this is gonna be a huge blow because lbr the popularity was the parasocial relationships and the personalities not the food. #teamsohla wherever her career takes her!

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Delany has always confused me. Like it was a surprise to me to realize he has his own show cause I always thought he was background/social media editor. And his show is just him eating stuff? But of course he just tripped his way into making more than women of colour with way more experience than him.

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$20 says that he reminded the right higher-ups of "themselves at a younger age" (or what they would have liked to be at a younger age)



I work in advertising which is the media industry's sellout cousin w/ similar work culture & work culture issues most of my male coworkers are or were delanys and they loveeee to hang out with - and eventually promote - other delanys.

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i mean, even here people were thirsting after him...

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$35,000??????? If that's what the assistant to the CEO makes I don't want to know about other entry level positions. What a piece of shit, fuck him.



I'm really proud of Sohla for bringing this all to light. This is unacceptable in so many ways. I used to love watching BA videos but after her first posts came out I couldn't do it. I refuse to support that company anymore.



Matt Ducker needs to resign as well. He's a dick, and clearly only hires white men for the crews that film which is its own set of problems.



I really wish the best for Sohla and the other chefs of color there. They deserve so much better.



Edited at 2020-06-10 12:53 pm (UTC)

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editor in chief, not CEO

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Sola was hired to be a recipe tester but also writes articles (https://www.bonappetit.com/contributor/sohla-el-waylly) and works in the videos. She has previous food writing experience.



As a direct comparison, https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/magazine/money-diary-alison-roman This clearly documents that Alison Roman, with less experience, earned $50k her first year and $65k after a year or two, without being an on screen personality/ having a second job doing solo and joint cooking videos. Alison also got promoted to Senior Food Editor after a year of work.



https://www.reddit.com/r/blogsnark/comments/gz7sg9/bon_appetit_adam_rapoport_brownface_and_cond%C3%A9/ftjmxze/





Alison didn't even go to culinary school



Edited at 2020-06-10 12:39 pm (UTC) Alison didn't even go to culinary school

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The start of the ba podcast is adam rapaport talking how his assistant Emiel loves fermenting shit with Brad.

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Idk this guy but I hate him

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The man who made that cake is allowed to cook stuff? It looks alright if the person making it wasnt a professional chef. Or fans of the confederacy.



Edited at 2020-06-10 12:43 pm (UTC)

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No, he doesn't cook anything. He has no culinary experience whatsoever. And his lack of ability is even more glaring now in the work from home videos because he can contribute nothing except one lame shrimp dish.



But he gets paid more than Sohla, who is older, very experienced, and classically trained.

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He is the 'Drinks Editor' lol so never actually makes any food but spends a lot of time appearing in their videos.

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Remember when he made a drink for a dessert? Smh.



Its crazy that he is not allowed on the tedt kitchen but keeps appearing. I wonder if thats one of the reason clarie gets annoyed by him.

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lol subject matter aside it looks crap even for a home/amateur baker - I know so many people irl who could do better (though hopefully they wouldn't want to!)



eta: & his main series is where he eats one of everything off the menu at a restaurant, literally anyone who got license to expense it could do it



Edited at 2020-06-10 01:08 pm (UTC)

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as others have said, he's not a chef. i think his title is web editor or web designer ... something on the back end at least, except he had a show called 24 hours that would publish every once in awhile (it's just going to a city and eating nothing but the local food for 24 hours and naming the best restaurant, ex: cheesesteaks, poutine). then he started popping up in the background of videos like it's alive and the viewers loved him so they started pushing him into more and more videos - like in the gourmet makes more recent videos you can tell they have him pop in at certain times, etc. now he's in almost every video they make and he got his own 2nd show (alex eats it all) ... but yeah, he's not from the kitchen side of BA.

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Horrid subject matter aside, he also baked that cake when he was 16. I consider myself a decent cook now and could barely fry an egg and cook rice properly at 16.



Lets focus on the racist subject matter and not the cooking ability of a teenager.

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i think someone (Molly?) also said in a video that Rapoport claimed bay leaves were useless in kitchen because they add nothing

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I have a friend who has her own plant and sent me a bag of home grown leaves she dried in a dehydrator.



One leaf alone smells like the strongest cup of chai tea imaginable.

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wow, what a lie.

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wtf how are you gonna make Filipino chicken adobo without bay leaf?????

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Brad is problematic himself (a Rogan-bro yuck) and he is far from my favorite BA cook, but, man, that made me sad for him. How demoralizing and shows what type of boss Rapo is.



Rapo is a dick.



Edited at 2020-06-10 01:01 pm (UTC)

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aw that's so mean wtf

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Yo that second he looks down afterwards. Jesus.

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Hes definitely said some mean/backhanded things to Claire on camera a few times. You can definitely tell it demoralized her the times it happened.

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I know this isnt the time to protect straight white men but Brads face at the end is so sad and its a bummer for anyone to be spoken to by their boss like that

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Carla laughing along and then trailing behind Rapo just confirms the talk about her as well.

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tbh you can tell a lot of the others think brad is stupid and don't bother to hide it well. and t b h iirc he's one of the few that didn't go to a bougie college/seems (?) like he doesn't come from family wealth and I'm SURE that plays into it when near everyone else went to expensive schools.

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Jesus

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i've never seen this! what a JERK omg

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Man Carla aint shit

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Damn he actually looks hurt



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It says a lot that they didn't edit this out of the video. Hunzi been knew

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Yikes I feel like I just witnessed someone kicking a puppy.

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god I would write up HR if I was anyone on the video team for that. You can't demoralize your talent in that way as they're on camera, especially when its mostly ad-libbed. I'd have thrown him off set immediately my god.



failing of management all around

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Brad seems like such a kind guy, that was such a jab and he looked really demoralized after. :(



Like others said, it seems like the other chefs except for Gabby, Sohla, and maybe Claire look down on him and think he's dumb. I remember how Andy didn't think adding sumac to the cranberry sauce for the Thanksgiving series would be a good idea and it ended up the winning idea. He and Gabby have very sweet interactions, he always asks her for her opinions on his fermentation projects.

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wow.

what a shitty place to work, even up at that beautiful 100th world trade centre floor.



eugh rapoport and delaney can get fucked for their behaviour tbh, thousands of more talented deserving people to stand where they do



Edited at 2020-06-10 12:55 pm (UTC)

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Honestly as beautiful as one wtc is, i dont think i would feel comfortable working there after 9/11. I been to the other buildings around the area but its never the same.

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 Ryan Walker-Hartshorn was Adam Rapoport's assistant before his resignition and she is the only black woman on his staff. Her annual base salary is $35000 and she hasn't been able to pay rent for three months. When she asked for a raise on June 4th, Rapoport's response was: "Well, maybe you should consider that this is not the right job for you."



That's about right for an assistant in media in NYC. Starting salaries at most major publishers are around $29K.

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That's still criminal. It's disgusting what these companies get away with paying people in NYC. It's so fucking expensive and exhausting here.

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I was a senior manager making $60K and doing the work of three people. No one gave a fuck. And when I left, they gave all of my work to someone else without giving her a raise or promotion.

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I know it's a hard time for traditional media but it's absolutely absurd that people like anna wintour still make millions while entry-level employees don't even make a living wage (or not for NYC CoL anyways)

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Wow. Thats crazy. Is there just no money in publishing? I work in the legal department of a bank and we work with HR to draft peoples offer letters, so I pretty much know what everyone gets paid in the company. We actually have a posting now for assistant to the head of bank operations and its posted as ~$48k and the requirements are fairly entry level, HS diploma and knowledge of basic office equipment. AND thats for his SECOND assistant. He always has two.



Btw this is Connecticut not NYC and its a local bank not even a huge nationwide one.

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No raise after 2 years and 9 months? She's taking a pay cut to work there while rent and other bills go up.

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maybe 10 years ago! I'm assistant level in nyc media right now with the same years of experience as Ryan, I make $50k. While working at a much smaller company than Conde!

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Expose them!

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The "Well, maybe you should consider that this is not the right job for you. just makes me so fucking angry, like his fucking smug face saying that to someone - my blood pressure is firing uppp

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this happened to me last week when i complained about needing my N95 to be fit tested (i'm a dentist at a public health clinic) - verbatim the wording from my director was "if MY team members don't feel safe here, i need to find a new team". he did not like when i responded "i'll keep that in mind for my future here" and emphasized that it's an OSHA requirement, not just so me made up fantasy of mine. i'm lucky b/c i can get another job easily, but i am so so so so so sick of trying to do altruistic work, but getting stuck with archaic boomer white men bosses.

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Really gross comment from her boss especially since he knew she was not paying rent and how is she supposed to find a job in media right now in a pandemic when companies are laying people off?

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Ugh I remember my POS DM at forever 21 saying this to me when I was telling her I was swerving on the highway because of how exhausted I was from our week of surprise overnight shits and then having to come in at like 4am the next day.

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Slugging San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt is selling his Lufkin, TX, home for a modest $875,000.

The two-story, single-family home was built in 2012, and features four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, and 3,722 square feet of living space. It sits on just over 20 acres in the town's Westwood Bend subdivisionwhich is about a couple hours north of Houston, in the eastern part of the Lone Star State.

HISTORIC HOME: 'Valentine House' in Old Sixth Ward on the market for $745K

The property was last on the market in 2015, with a list price of $789,000, but the price Belt paid for the place was undisclosed.

As you step inside the front door, the wide-open floor plan grabs your eye. There's a marvelous living room area with a cathedral ceiling of dark stained wood.

The large kitchen features an enormous island with sink and granite countertops, custom cabinets, stainless-steel appliances, a gas range with pot filler, double oven, and pantry. The large master suite is also located on the first floor.

Front exterior realtor.com

Living area realtor.com

Kitchen realtor.com

Master bedroom realtor.com

Master bathroom realtor.com

Back patio and pool realtor.com

The backyard features a gunite pool with an electric retractable safety cover, as well as a pool slide and diving board. There's also a luxe covered patio, a bar area, double-sided fireplace, and a fire pit with seating.

There's also a large three-car garage, currently housing a Range Rover and a McLaren.

The Giants stalwart went to high school in Lufkin, and he and his wife, Haylee, own other property in the Lufkin area. He's bought and sold at least one Bay Area property as well.

Belt, 32, broke into the big leagues with the Giants in 2011, and has spent his entire nine-year career by the shores of McCovey Cove. He was an integral part of the team's World Series wins in 2012 and 2014, and made the All-Star squad in 2016. He's currently under contract to the Giants through the 2021 season.

Tim Brookshire with Brookshire Real Estate has the listing.

The post San Francisco Giants Star Brandon Belt Selling Texas Home for $875K appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
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The Department of Interior and Kingdom Relations (BAK) launched its Single-Used Plastic Campaign earlier this year to raise awareness about the dangers of using single-used plastic for our environment, health and economy.





As part of the information campaign, the department reached out to the community, businesses and schools to share information. A logo campaign was later announced, encouraging students to be more actively involved by creating a logo design to be the face of the campaign.





Despite the COVID-19 virus and school closures, some schools still managed to assist students in creating amazing logos for the competition.





The submitted logos will be posted on Facebook (Department of The Interior and Kingdom Relations) from Monday 8th June, 13:00pm - Friday June 12th, 13:00pm.





The public would have the opportunity to vote for their winning logo for an entire week. The winning logo will be revealed on following Monday 15th June, at 13:00pm.





The office of BAK would like to thank all schools and students for participating, and we encourage all to vote and share, so others can vote too, #ourenvironmentmatter2 #St.MaartenPlasticFreeby2023!!




Despite earlier concerns about whether AMC Theatres would be able to survive financially amid the coronavirus pandemic, the popular movie exhibitor announced Tuesday plans to open its roughly 1,000 theaters and 11,000 screens across the world by July.

The company is looking forward to welcoming guests to its theatres as soon as it is safe and wise to do so, as well as being permissible under local, state /provincial and federal guidelines, AMC wrote in its first quarter earnings report this week. To that end, we have already reopened 10 theatres in Norway, Germany, Spain and Portugal, and currently expect to be fully open globally in July."

AMC, the largest movie exhibitor in the world, began to close its locations in Europe in February due to the COVID-19 public health crisis and eventually halted all operations a month later, leading to a deterioration in attendance and sales by early March.

Virtually no revenue was received in the remaining two weeks of the first quarter, the company noted.

After starting the year with two solid months of revenue growth compared to last year, in mid-March we were forced to pivot the entire company to respond to the effects of the pandemic," said Adam Aron, CEO of AMC. Our top priorities remain the safety and well-being of our guests and associates, combined with our taking sweeping actions to preserve the long term viability of AMC.

The outbreak has had a severe and unprecedented impact throughout the world, the company said. It added that measures to prevent the spread of the viral respiratory infection, mainly restrictions on social gatherings, have had a large impact on showing movies in theaters.

In a statement, the company reported a net loss of $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion in its first quarter as well as a total revenue decrease of $250 million compared to 2019.

The businesss earning report published Tuesday also showed AMC only saw 60,495 attendees in the first three months of 2020, marking a nearly 20,000-person drop from the previous year.

Last week, AMC noted it had substantial doubt it could remain in business if operations did not begin again within its estimated timeline."

We will continue to monitor the potential lifting of various government operating restrictions, or whether such operating restrictions are extended with respect to some or all of our theatres, the company wrote at the time. "Even if governmental operating restrictions are lifted in certain jurisdictions, distributors may delay the release of new films until such time that operating restrictions are eased more broadly domestically and internationally, which may further limit our operations.

As part of its reopening plan, AMC said it is expecting to maintain close contact with authorities to coordinate operating requirements, consult with faculty from the Harvard University School of Public Health about how to create a safe environment and establishing a protocol partnership with the Clorox Company.

Personal protection equipment, cleaning protocols, limited theatre capacity, blocked seating, and other strategies are all being planned, the theater exhibitor said. We are especially looking at high tech solutions as well, to aid in our sanitization techniques including the use of electrostatic sprayers, HEPA vacuums and wherever possible upgraded MERV 13 air ventilation filters.

Many things can change between now and July, the company noted. The wellbeing of staff and guests is the businesss first priority, though, AMC said.

We are confident we are taking the necessary steps on a broad array of fronts to ensure AMCs future success as we navigate these turbulent and uncertain times," the companys CEO said.

How the company will begin reopening its 10 locations in Massachusetts remains uncertain. Gov. Charlie Bakers four-phase reopening plan includes theaters and performance venues in the third phase. Such businesses could reopen by late June or early July at the earliest.

Drive-in theaters were already allowed to reopen in the first phase of the plan with some restrictions.

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Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue, walks the property near Tampa, Fla. A federal judge in Oklahoma has awarded ownership of the zoo made famous in Netflix's Tiger King docuseries to Joe Exotic's rival, Carole Baskin. In a ruling Monday, June 1, 2020, U.S. District Judge Scott Palk granted control of the Oklahoma zoo that was previously run by Joseph Maldonado-Passage  also known as Joe Exotic  to Big Cat Rescue Corp. (Loren Elliott/Tampa Bay Times via AP, File)
Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez, left, distributes food at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank drive-through distribution for those in need during the COVID-18 pandemic, in Van Nuys, Calif., on April 9, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Los Angeles Councilwoman Who Proposed $150 Million in Police Cuts Had LAPD Security Detail

Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez, who filed a motion that would cut up to $150 million from the citys police force, had a security unit from the Los Angeles Police Department outside her home.

The department, known as the LAPD, confirmed to The Epoch Times that officials deployed a patrol unit to Martinezs home.

The Los Angeles Police Department deployed a patrol unit to the home of Nury Martinez following a series of protests, in which Ms Martinez was concerned about her safety, a spokeswoman said in an email.

This decision was made by the Chief of Police to keep those units in place, for the safety of the Councilwoman and her family.

A spokesman for Martinez, a Democrat, didnt return requests for comment before publication.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez at an event in Los Angeles, Calif. in a file photograph. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

The LAPD declined to say how long the detail was stationed at Martinezs house. Neighbors told Spectrum News 1 that the detail was outside the house for two months. Sources told Spectrum that a round-the-clock detail started on April 4, usually staffed by two officers.

The detail decreased to 14 hours a day as of May 6, the sources said.

Det. Jamie McBride, the director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the LAPDs union, told the broadcaster: Its kind of ironic. Here she is demanding $150 million be reallocated from the police budget, but yet she has security at her house by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Every unit taken away for the detail is one less unit to respond to a 911 call, he said.

Rick Coca, a spokesman for the City Council president, confirmed the detail to Spectrum. Martinez, he said, had received death threats, as had her daughter.

LAPD officers keep watch beneath graffiti reading Black Lives Matters during demonstrations following the death of George Floyd, in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 30, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

LAPD recommended that placing a detail at her home was the best course of action to ensure the safety of the Council President and her family, he said in a statement.

The detail was canceled recently because Martinez felt the security was compromised, Coca added later.

The motion Martinez introduced with support from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, said the funding cuts were being made as we reset our priorities in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the black man who died in policy custody last month in Minneapolis.

The motion says the citys administrative officer and chief legislative analyst, with help from the mayor, should work to identify at least $100 to $150 million in cuts from the LAPDs budget.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joins pastors and marchers outside LAPD Headquarters during a demonstration demanding justice for George Floyd in Los Angeles, Calif. on June 2, 2020. (Sarah Reingewirtz/The Orange County Register/AP)

The money should be redirected back into disadvantages [sic] communities and communities of color, the motion stated.

The LAPD in a statement said it was working with city officials to figure out where the cuts will come from.

But the Los Angeles Police Department Command Officers Association said in a separate statement that the motion included language indirectly accusing the police department of systemic racism.

Instead of reaching out to the Command Officers Association as many council members have done in the past to address concerns or advise of their pending actions and allow for the opportunity to come together as professionals to discuss issues, Council Member Martinez simply tweeted their intentions, it said.

The motion, the group charged, is extremely irresponsible and risks the safety of all Angelenos, asserting it will lead to victims of crimes such as domestic violence waiting longer for a police response.
A contract to outsource the management of all military moves to a single company has been pulled back for review by U.S. Transportation Command, officials confirmed to Military.com on Wednesday.

The $7.2 billion, three-year contract was awarded April 30 to American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier Group Inc. (ARC), based in Parsippany, New Jersey. Originally set to begin last month, the contract shifted responsibility to ARC for the management of worldwide household goods shipments by 2022, starting with a nine-month IT and system handoff.

Read next: Iran Has Backed Off of Challenging US Since Soleimani Killing, General Says

But instead, TRANSCOM on June 9 notified the Government Accountability Office of a request to take corrective action on the contract, a decision first reported by Military Times. The GAO oversees government contract protests and disputes.

"An interested party has presented U.S. TRANSCOM with information that they believe should have been considered in the Global Household Goods Contract award decision. U.S. TRANSCOM intends to take corrective action to consider this new information, gather facts and conduct a review of the award," a TRANSCOM official said in a statement.

If the request to GAO is approved "USTRANSCOM will review the entire evaluation record, to include reviewing the reported allegations along with gathering additional facts. We anticipate the corrective action to be complete in the coming weeks," they said.

Officials with ARC said they expect TRANSCOM to deliver a new contract decision.

"The United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) has decided to take corrective action in response to protests of the contract awarded under Solicitation No. HTC711-19-R-R004," ARC spokesman Charles Diorio said in a statement to Military.com.

Corrective action occurs in a substantial number of GAO protests where an agency determines that it would like to address potential issues in the record or raised by the protests. USTRANSCOM will re-evaluate proposals and render a new award decision."

The contract had already been delayed at least 100 days as the GAO worked to review contract protests filed late last month by two companies that had lost the award, Home Safe Alliance LLC and Connected Global Solutions LLC.

"This is a standard process available through the U.S. Government Accountability Office to ensure TRANSCOM followed the terms of the solicitation and applicable acquisition regulations," Diorio said of the protests in a news release posted to ARC's website May 28. "With large government contracts, it is not unexpected that unsuccessful bidders protest the award. We have no reason to believe that the protest process will change the ultimate outcome of the award."

The ARC contract award is the first time the Pentagon has outsourced household goods and delivery system management.

Personal vehicle shipments are already outsourced to a private contractor, International Auto Logistics (IAL). But that 2014 contract sparked both public outcry and congressional scrutiny when service members reported their cars had been damaged or gone undelivered. About 70% of the vehicles IAL was tasked with shipping over 2014's peak moving system were considered late, according to TRANSCOM officials.

-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.

Related: Military Families Making Summer PCS Moves Will Have to Follow These Strict Rules
The 'world's tallest and most extreme stand-alone inflatable water slide' is being sued for negligence by a Victorian tourist who claims to have suffered a hip injury on the Gold Coast tourist attraction.

Adam Boldiston, 43, is seeking $486,000 in damages from The Big Wedgie at Southport District Court, for the incident which allegedly took place on December 28, 2017.

He says the operators failed to ensure safety, protect him from injury and to provide proper instructions.

The The Big Wedgie (pictured) is promoted as the 'world's tallest and most extreme stand-alone inflatable water slide'

But a Victorian tourist claims he suffered a hip injury on the Gold Coast tourist attraction and is now suing the amusement park for negligence

Mr Boldiston alleges he heard his hip 'pop' when he collided with the inflatable wall at the end of the slide, after he splayed his legs apart to try and slow himself down.

He says he was following the directions of amusement park staff but failed to stop.

'In order to slow yourself down once you reach the flat bit and come out of the lane, splay your arms and legs,' Mr Boldiston claims staff told him.

But due to staff 'allowing an excessive flow of water' Mr Boldiston was unable to slow down which caused him to make contact with the back wall of the slide.

Mr Boldiston, who is employed at RAVC, claims he was forced to take 19 days off from his job and has since changed roles to a lower paying position.

He says he switched jobs to reduce his travel time which had become too painful on his hip.

'Mr Boldiston is facing a lifetime of impairment in all aspects of his life and deserves to be compensated fully for his loss,' Mr Boldiston's solicitor Tim Cooper told The Courier Mail.

In total, Mr Boldiston is claiming $60,000 in general damages, $5409 in loss of income, $33,167 in out of pocket medical expenses, $15,972 in past care and assistance, $52,000 in future care, $205,000 for future diminished earning capacity, $23,000 in lost future superannuation and $92,000 for future surgery and medical expenses.

'Action needs to be taken in relation to the haphazard manner in which these types of rides are constructed and operated,' Cooper said.

'Proceedings like this initiate change, or at least assist to prevent incidents like this occurring again in the future.'

The Big Wedgie, which is opened over the Summer school holidays at Fisherman's Lawn in Broadwater Parklands, was contacted by Daily Mail Australia for comment.

A court date for the hearing is yet to be set.
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Larry Kudlow, director of the U.S. National Economic Council, speaks to members of the media at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, April 7, 2020.

White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said Wednesday that he doesn't think systemic racism exists in the United States.

"I don't believe there is systemic racism in the U.S. I'm not going to go into a long riff on it," Kudlow, who is white, said when a reporter asked about the country's black unemployment rate. Kudlow spoke to reporters at the White House following an interview on CNBC's "The Exchange."

White unemployment fell to 12.4% in May from 14.2% in April, while black unemployment increased to 16.8% from 16.7%. The country's overall rate declined to 13.3% from 14.7%.

The existence of systemic racism in the United States has been widely acknowledged by experts and academics, as well as by lawmakers and corporate leaders.

Kudlow's comments Wednesday came as protests against systemic racism and police brutality have filled U.S. cities of all sizes in recent weeks following the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes.

Citigroup Vice Chairman Ray McGuire told CNBC earlier Wednesday that he believes the widespread demonstrations may ultimately lead to changes that reduce racial inequality in the U.S.

"I live through the crisis and the systemic racism every single day, but I say, 'Maybe George Floyd is different,'" said McGuire, one of the most prominent black executives on Wall Street.

"We need to do whatever we can and commit every resource that we have ... to combat this 400 years of systemic racism across every one of the important areas: education, economics, criminal injustice and health care," said McGuire, who has been mentioned as a possible New York mayoral candidate in next year's election.

A recent poll from Monmouth University found about 75% of Americans believe racial and ethnic discrimination is a big problem in the U.S. Experts also point to the disproportionate impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on black Americans as evidence of racial inequality in the U.S.

Kudlow made his remarks shortly before Trump tweeted that he does not want to rename military bases named after Confederate figures. The Trump administration is expected Thursday to release its plan to respond to calls for police reform.

Kudlow, in trying to push back against the existence of systemic racism, touted efforts by the Trump administration on criminal justice reform and historically low unemployment figures for black and Hispanic workers last year.

Asked again by a reporter whether he believes there is systemic racism "at all" in the U.S., Kudlow said, "I do not."

Kudlow said he believes the "harm comes when you have some very bad apples" in law enforcement, and he condemned Floyd's death.

"And I think everyone in this country agrees with me," he said.
A non-governmental organisation (NGO) has sought contempt proceedings against the Centre and the local administration for non-compliance with the Supreme Courts May 11 order directing constitution of a special committee to review internet restrictions in Jammu & Kashmir.

In its plea filed on Monday, the Foundation of Media Professionals, the NGO, said the mobile internet speed was being restricted to 2G on flimsy grounds. 29 days have elapsed since the Supreme Court directed the special committee to immediately determine the necessity of the continuation of restrictions on internet access in Jammu & Kashmir. However, to the best of the petitioners knowledge, no action has been taken by the special committee to consider the necessity and proportionality of the ongoing blanket mobile internet speed, the plea said.

The Supreme Court on May 11 directed constituted of the panel comprising high-level government officers to examine a separate plea for the restoration of the high speed 4G mobile internet services and the necessity to allow faster internet in certain areas.

The NGO first approached the Supreme Court in April challenging the Jammu & Kashmir administration March 26 order restricting internet speed to 2G. It had sought restoration of the 4G internet services, saying patients, doctors, and the general public were unable to access the latest information, guidelines, advisories and restrictions about Covid-19 because of the low mobile internet speed.

The mobile internet has been restricted to low-speed 2G services since the government eased a communications blackout imposed in August last year. The blackout was among a series of sweeping measures taken to prevent protests against the Centres move to divest J&K of its special status and to divide it into two Union territories.
by Bernardo Cervellera

Born in 1922 in China into a family of British Anglicans, she became Catholic in her youth. After studying in Oxford, London, and Australia, she moved to Hong Kong in 1985, where she worked for China's economic opening to the world and for the reconstruction of the Church after the Cultural Revolution. In 2008 she set up a fund for Sichuan churches destroyed by an earthquake. She received the Pro Ecclesia et pro Pontifice medal.

Rome (AsiaNews) - Prof Audrey Donnithorne, a passionate friend of China and the Church in China, died yesterday at noon at the Adventist Hospital. The 97-years-old was a trained economist and a tireless weaver of relations between China and the world.

Audrey was born on 27 November 1922 in Sichuan to Vyvyan Henry Donnithorne and Gladys Donnithorne (nee Ingram), a family of British origin who had settled first in Australia moving later to southwest China.

Her parents were Anglican and her mother Gladys is especially remembered for her great missionary commitment to China after the First World War. Their daughter, however, become Catholic.

A youthful Audrey began studying economics at Oxford University, moving to University College London, and then Australia, where she taught at the Australian National University, without ever forgetting China in her studies.

After she retired in 1985 she moved to Hong Kong, where she became an honorary member of the Centre of Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong.

Audrey always considered China as her homeland, the place of her introduction to the world. From Hong Kong she made countless visits to the mainland trying to establish relations, set up studies and form friendships with prominent Chinese shaking off Maoism and opening up to the world.

In her first period, she published books on Chinas economy which, at a time of great reformist fervour, was trying to open up to the worlds economy.

In her travels to her place of birth, Sichuan, she met members of the Church, which was trying to re-establish itself after the Cultural Revolution and the return of many priests and bishops from prison.

She herself always remembered one of the first encounters, with 80-year-old Bishop Paul Deng Jizhou of Jiading (Leshan), who had just been released from 21 years of forced labour. From these relationships came her "call to rebuild" the Church in China.

She helped first of all Christians  coming out of decades of isolation  acquire books for study, funding seminarians, church rebuilding, after years of forced neglect.

As an expert economist, she suggested building housing near churches to facilitate relations and hospitality among different dioceses, and small businesses that generated income for the very poor parishes. Many of her projects were implemented with the support of Caritas Hong Kong.

Her most important work was weaving relations with bishops who, although coming from a "patriotic" past and ordained without a mandate from the Holy See, had a strong desire to be reconciled with the pope.

Audrey became instrumental in this reconciliation, so much so that the bishops of Sichuan were among the first to rebuild unity among themselves  despite being divided between "underground" and "patriotic"  and with the universal Church and the pontiff.

In the 1990s I travelled with Audrey once to visit Bishop Matthew Luo Duxi of Leshan and his community. At that time, the nuns were so poor that the novices had to hand copy the book of songs and prayers to be used in the choir.

In the meeting with the bishops Audrey advised, helped, vetted educational and economic possibilities for their dioceses, combining economic shrewdness with a feminine ability to listen and act.

For her work in favour of unity, the Holy See and the Study Mission of that time awarded her the Pro Ecclesia et Pro Pontifice medal in 1993.

The 2008 Sichuan earthquake was another opportunity for help. Audrey, backed by the then bishop of Hong Kong, Card Joseph Zen, launched a fund for the reconstruction of Sichuan churches and Catholic facilities, such as residences, dispensaries, and kindergartens.

For Audrey, China deserves an important place in the international community. But this importance is due to the creativity and intelligence of its people, not the Chinese Communist Party, whose economic acumen she always questioned.

For the Church in China, Audrey never juxtaposed "underground" and "patriotic" Churches, black and white. Instead, she recognised a unity stronger than any opposition.

She always worked for religious freedom, not only for Christians, but also because free worship can be an additional and truer source of progress in society.
WASHINGTON  A massive federal policing reform bill could increase New York police body camera usage, block them from receiving some military equipment, place negligent officers in a national registry, broaden the standard for police misconduct and change the legal liability for it.

Born out of weeks of protests, Democrats Justice in Policing Act would attempt to bring more professionalism and uniformity to the practices of over 18,000 police departments across the country, while curbing racially-motivated and improper behavior.

The legislation is the most comprehensive law enforcement reform proposal now before Congress. Republicans have not yet countered with their own proposals.

People of all backgrounds, genders and race have come together to demand change. Honor them, honor George, and make the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution  and not the problem, Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd who was recently killed by a Minneapolis police officer, testified before Congress Wednesday.

Hold them accountable when they do something wrong, Floyd said. Teach them what it means to treat people with empathy and respect. Teach them what necessary force is. Teach them that deadly force should be used rarely and only when life is at risk.

The U.S. House of Representatives, where there is a Democratic majority, will seek to pass the Justice in Policing Act this month.

"Our bill takes several urgent steps forward in addressing the most dangerous and deadly policing practices that have been widely and disproportionately used against black Americans and other people of color," Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, said.

The legislation would give New York police chiefs a new tool when hiring: they could consult a national police misconduct registry listing officers who have been found to have committed abuses.

"There's an opportunity here to improve the way we do things," said Patrick Phelan, chief of police in Greece, Monroe County, and president of the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police. "There is a problem with officers who have had disciplinary issues leaving one department and going to another and the hiring department not doing a proper background check. The hiring practice is up to each individual police chief. Some agencies like my own have an extremely rigorous background check. Some do not, so if we were to establish some state or national standards, I think that would be a good thing."

The legislation would mean that any local or state police department receiving federal funds would be required to use body cameras. In New York, the use of body cameras is decided by each department. The state Legislature approved a bill this week requiring the State Police to use body cameras, an effort that has languished in that agency.

Body camera use is often determined by the expense. While the cameras aren't too expensive, digital storage of hours of video footage for potentially years can be very costly. The footage can help provide evidence in criminal cases and also resolve civilian complaints, including exonerating officers.

The Justice in Policing Act would also prevent local and state law enforcement from getting surplus firearms, mine resistant vehicles, weaponized drones, aircraft or gun silencers from the military, and would require local police to get approval from their city council to receive transfers of any military equipment.

In April, the police department of Albion received a mine resistant vehicle from the Department of Defense, according to DOD records. Police agencies and sheriff's departments in New York have received 24 of those vehicles since 2013. Departments also received 258 pistols and rifles from 1993 to 2014, records show. But most of the surplus materials given to police agencies are trucks, office supplies, clothing and tools.

One of the most controversial parts of the proposed bill would limit qualified immunity for police officers, a law that gives peace officers legal protection for actions performed on the job. The change could open cities and police departments to further liability in lawsuits when police officers violate individuals constitutional rights. The U.S. Supreme Court is also examining qualified immunity.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called changes to qualified immunity a nonstarter on Monday, but a few Republican senators have said it may be time for reform.

"So, I'm actually thinking seriously about the qualified immunity, said Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind. Most in our conference don't want to go that far, but I'm really going out to see if I can get a few others interested in looking at that as well because I think that'd be the one thing that shows our conference means business. You never know, this might be a watershed moment."

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, is working with Republicans to introduce reforms for law enforcement partnerships, Stefanik's spokeswoman Madison Anderson said.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police announced its opposition to changes to qualified immunity Wednesday, while indicating openness to reforms on use of force, training, discipline and hiring practices.

Additionally, Democrats' bill would change the federal standard for prosecuting police misconduct from willfulness to recklessness, eliminating the need to prove intent.

The legislation would also incentivize state attorneys general to conduct independent investigations into improper conduct by police departments. The state Legislature passed bills this week to create an office of special investigations for police-involved deaths, as well as a new office for examining police misconduct.

Previously, police departments in New York reviewed many of these cases internally, determining on their own if there was any wrongdoing and keeping the outcomes secret.

"The premise is flawed when all you have is an internal investigation," said Brendan Cox, former Albany Police Chief and now director of Policing Strategies at the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion National Support Bureau. "To me, it's a no brainer. There's nothing to hide. If there's nothing to hide, then there is no reason not to say open the doors and show them what their doing."

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The Department of Justice conducts investigations into patterns of misconduct by police forces. The legislation would create a new task force to oversee these investigations and enforcement and give the DOJ subpoena power in these cases.

If passed, it would require state and local law enforcement to report data on use of force, disaggregated by race, sex, age, disability and religion, to the Department of Justice. New York police departments have recently started reporting use of force data to the state.

It would also create law enforcement development and training programs and set national police department accreditation standards.

The proposed legislation would mandate training on racial, religious and discriminatory profiling for all law enforcement. Currently, in New York, officers receive this training at the police academy and each police department can decide if they want to do further training with their officers, Phelan said.

For federal law enforcement  like the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Drug Enforcement Agency and others  the Justice in Police Act would ban the use of chokeholds and carotid holds, a move that cuts off the flow of air and blood to the head, often resulting in unconsciousness. The New York legislature voted to ban chokeholds by law enforcement this week, too.

National scrutiny is falling on police use of force to the neck after an officer in Minneapolis kneeled on the neck of a black man George Floyd causing his death on May 25.

President Donald Trump met with law enforcement officials Monday at the White House, including Sheriff Tony Childress of Livingston County, Ill., who urged Trump to prohibit all physical restraints to the neck, along with requiring officers to render medical aid to all, intervene when officers use inappropriate force and make de-escalation training mandatory.

The Justice in Policing Act would also ban federal law enforcement from using no-knock warrants, the kind of warrant used when police in Louisville, Ky. responded to the home of Breonna Taylor in an attempted drug sting. Taylor, 26, was killed when police fired into the home; police say Taylors boyfriend was shooting at the officers.

The legislation would also require federal law enforcement to use dashboard cameras and body cameras.

As some protestors call for defunding the police, the legislation would establish public safety innovation grants for community-based organizations to create local commissions and task forces to help towns and cities to make new, fairer public safety approaches. The Minneapolis City Council has backed ending that citys police department in its current form.

"If a person grows up in poverty, if a person doesn't have education, if a person doesn't have access to opportunity, then you see the result in the criminal justice system. This is how you get at injustice and inequality, and you can't do it piecemeal," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Tuesday. "Either attack it fully or you will never defeat it."

While the Trump administration has indicated openness to reforms, Trump and other Republicans have slammed calls for defunding polce.

There wont be defunding. There wont be dismantling of our police, Trump said Monday. Our police have been letting us live in peace and we want to make sure we dont have any bad actors in there and sometimes well see some horrible things like we witnessed recently but I say 99.9  lets go with 99 percent of them  great, great people and theyve done jobs that are record-setting.

Local police spend much of their time responding to incidents that are not crimes  calls on homelessness, mental health issues, substance abuse problems, landlord/tenant and neighbor disputes. Part of the defund movement calls for shifting some police funding to other government organizations that would handle those issues.

"I have friends that are abolitionists. I would love to live in a world where I think that could happen, I just don't believe that could happen," Cox said. "But I will stick with the mantra that I would love for people to put me out of business. ... I certainly want to live in a world where police aren't on the front lines dealing with drugs."
Three employees of thermal plant arrested in case over fuel spillage in Russias North

 flickr.com/ Jobs For Felons Hub

14:47 10/06/2020

MOSCOW, June 10 (RAPSI)  Investigators have arrested the CEO, the superintendent and his deputy of the thermal plant in the case over the collapse of a diesel fuel tank resulted in the fuel spillage into a stream and river Ambarnaya in Russias northern town Norilsk, according to the press service of Russias Investigative Committee.

The charges are to be brought and the measure of restraint to be chosen soon, the statement reads.

The arrested men are suspected of violating the ecological regulations governing the operations of industrial facilities by persons responsible for the observance thereof if it causes a disaster.

In the course of the investigation it was established that the structural components of the collapsed tank had needed capital repairs since 2018. Nevertheless, in November 2018 the tank was put into operation by a commission headed by superintendent of the thermal plant Alexey Stepanov notwithstanding the lack of a required industrial safety certificate; its decision was approved by the enterprise CEO Pavel Smirnov.

According to case papers, on May 29, over 20 tons of petrochemicals spread over the thermal power station and flew into the subsoil and waters near the Nadezhinsky iron and steel plant that resulted in the environment pollution and harm.

Three cases opened after the thermal power plant disaster were consolidated into a single case and forwarded to the Investigative Committees Main Investigations Directorate for the investigation. Investigators are checking the incident for the ground spoiling, environmental offence and water pollution.

On June 4, the Krasnoyarsk Krai Court placed a chief of the boiler-and-turbine floor of the heat and power plant in detention until July 31.
New Delhi, June 10 : After the Union Law Minister criticised former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi for asking questions over the Sino-India border situation, the opposition party, here on Wednesday, hit back at the government and said while the Defence Minister was busy reciting poetry, the Law Minister was speaking on China.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) misplaced bravado had caused 75 per cent jump in incursion at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), it said.

Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said instead of toughening its China stance, the government was bullying Rahul Gandhi and the opposition for questioning its failure on the national security front.

Attacking Gandhi, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said "Rahul Gandhi should know that on international matters, like China, questions should not be asked on Twitter." During the day, Gandhi had again attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his silence over the Sino-Indian standoff. Gandhi has been demanding a statement on the situation at the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

"The Chinese have walked in and taken our territory in Ladakh. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is absolutely silent and has vanished from the scene," Gandhi tweeted a day after he traded barbs with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
(Natural News) When President Trump recently said he planned to declare far-left extremist group Antifa a terrorist organization, there was a lot of talk about whether or not he could do so because its an umbrella term that describes a certain philosophy rather than an organized group. However, its clear that at least some parts of Antifa are indeed highly organized, as undercover reporters working on behalf of the investigative journalism nonprofit Project Veritas recently discovered.

In New York City, one undercover journalist managed to record young radicals getting instruction on fighting techniques and martial arts for riots. An antifa fight instructor is seen describing the best way to injure opponents, saying that a good liver or kidney shot can cripple opponents and that floating ribs are also good targets.

The instructor, known as Chris said that one good body shot could potentially give you all the time in the world to run away while theyre doubled over in pain, or really put a beating on them after that if you really want to make it personal.

Reporter exposes violent tactics taught by Rose City Antifa

Another reporter discussed his experience with an Antifa cell in Portland, Oregon, known as Rose City Antifa, revealing a well-organized group with initiation and security procedures as well as lectures on violent actions. Veritas did not disclose the year the reporter joined, saying only that the month in question was July. The reporters identity isnt being revealed out of security concerns, but he left the group some time ago, Veritas says.

He said that in order to be initiated into the group, he was contacted via a secure email platform and told to show up at a designated location with a water bottle in his hand while wearing a white T-shirt. Someone from the group picked him up and brought him to a second location for an interview. The reporter said that prospective members have to go to required lectures about Antifa tactics, which were held in a bookstore before it opened for the day. Attendees had to leave their cell phones in the bathroom of the store, where a fan was running to muffle sounds.

The prospects were lectured on carrying out violence clandestinely and reducing the risk to themselves. They learned how to cause their opponents grave injury, with one lecturer heard saying in an undercover video: Police are going to be like, Perfect, we can prosecute these [expletive]. Look how violent they are. And not that we arent, but we need to [expletive] hide that [expletive], he stated.

The lecturer told the prospects to practice tactics like eye gouges, which they say can injure someone with very little pressure. They were told that the idea wasnt to get involved in fights but rather inflicting serious harm and destroying your enemy.

He also talked about a tactic called Black Block, wherein members dress alike and wear masks so they all appear uniform and no one member can be singled out for perpetrating a crime. As one lecturer stated, their goal is doing dangerous things as safely as they can.

They also employ a buddy system, where members pair up with a buddy who they keep tabs on during protests, contacting legal and medical help when they are arrested or hurt and asking someone with a camera to record what is happening.

The reporter ultimately made it around halfway through the prospecting process. He noted that Rose City Antifa appeared well-structured and almost company-like, which makes him believe that outside funding, resources or influence is involved. He said the amount of tradecraft involved indicates a highly experienced professional is advising them.

Last week, Attorney General William Barr stated: There are extremist agitators who are hijacking the protests to pursue their own separate and violent agenda. He has said that recent violence at protests appears planned, organized, and driven by far-left extremist groups and anarchic groups using Antifa-like tactics.

Project Veritass front page promises that more undercover videos showing their infiltration of Antifa will be dropping this week. Theyve also called on brave insiders to record Antifa as they plan violence across the nation.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

ProjectVeritas.com
Comal County confirmed four new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, increasing the countys total to 141  with 18 more cases probable.
Spox: China always committed to upholding JCPOA

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Beijing, June 9, IRNA -- Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying once again slammed US unilateral withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal, also known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying China is always committed to upholding JCPOA.

"China noted the latest IAEA reports regarding the Iranian nuclear issue," Hua Chunying said addressing the Monday press conference.

"The reports confirmed that Iran has maintained the agency's verification and monitoring activities in the country, that Iran has not taken the fifth step of reducing commitments and has not diverted declared nuclear materials for other purposes," she added.

"The reports also suggest that Iran would like to engage in more dialogue and cooperation with the IAEA on fulfilling its obligations."

"I'd like to reiterate that the US unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA and maximum pressure on Iran is the root cause of the current Iranian nuclear crisis. The only correct way to resolve this issue is to uphold and implement the JCPOA," Chinese diplomat noted.

"The US should give up its wrong approach, avoid obstructing other parties' implementation of the nuclear deal, and leave room for diplomatic endeavors. China supports greater dialogue and cooperation between Iran and the IAEA to find a proper solution to ensure IAEA monitoring on the basis of upholding previous consensus," she stated.

"In the meantime, we hope all parties can support the above-mentioned diplomatic endeavors and do things that lead to de-escalation rather than escalation. We also believe the IAEA will properly resolve the matter in an objective and impartial manner," Hua Chunying said.

"On the Iranian nuclear issue, China is always committed to upholding the JCPOA, endorsing multilateralism, safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East and championing international order based on international law. We are ready to carry out closer coordination with relevant parties and continue making efforts for the political and diplomatic solution of the Iranian nuclear issue."

The United States, which was a signatory to Iran nuclear deal, withdrew from the agreement under unfounded reasons two years ago. It also encouraged the European parties to the deal to walk out of the agreement and exert further international pressure on Iran.

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Unfortunately because the U.S. maintains the death penalty on its statute books, this decision affects you, the Central Authority wrote in a message, the contents of which were read to The Washington Post. The U.S. is not, however, the only country affected by this pause, and the UKCA is mindful of the impact the decision to pause transmission might have on some proceedings.  Our policy colleagues are working through the implications, and we hope to be in a position to reconsider the transmission to third countries in cases where the death penalty is not the maximum sentence possible in due course.
New Delhi, June 10 : Jammu and Kashmir Police officer Davinder Singh, who was nabbed while ferrying two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists on the Srinagar-Jammu Highway, withdrew his interim bail application on Wednesday, a day after filing it in a Delhi court.

His lawyer M.S. Khan said: "Davinder's bail has been withdrawn as certain changes had to be made. We would be filing another plea in few days." On June 9, Davinder Singh and two other accused -- Syed Naveed Mushtaq and Imran Shafi Mir -- had knocked on the doors to the court to seek bail, asserting that "there is no evidence to show that there was any conspiracy to commit an act that would threaten the sovereignty of the country." The matter was listed for Wednesday for hearing.

"The accused are wrongly and falsely implicated in the case. There is also no material to substantiate that the accused had the intention or conspired to carry out a terror strike," the plea had stated.

The Special Cell of the Delhi Police is probing their role in alleged planning of a terror attack.

Singh is currently under judicial custody in Hira Nagar Jail in Jammu and Kashmir till June 16. Besides Davinder, Mushtaq and Mir, accused Javed Iqbal is also under custody.

Delhi Police's Special Cell had brought the suspended DSP from Hira Nagar Jail to the national capital in March for interrogation in another case.

Police had earlier told the court that Mushtaq, who is the commander of Shopian district of Hizbul Mujahiddeen, was, along with other militants, planning to execute a terror attack in Delhi and other parts of the country and targeted killings of protected persons.

In connection with this, the Delhi Police had filed FIR which stated that the youths of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab are being trained for carrying out terrorist activities. Singh was taken in custody under this FIR and was also interrogated regarding the Khalistan angle.
"Consumers love chili dogs," said Sarah Johnson, Hormel chili brand manager. "While usage spikes in the summer, we know consumers enjoy chili dogs year-round. Our new pour over chilis provide consumers a convenient, exciting and great tasting option to upgrade their daily meal routine."

The new products conveniently tie to the Hormel chili brand's Pour On national advertising campaign launched earlier this year, which includes a series of spots featuring real-life moments where people can pour on Hormel chili to energize to their typical dinner routine.

Hormel Chili Cheese Chili and Hormel Coney Island Chili (MSRP $2.09  2.79) are available in 15 oz. cans and can be found at select retailers nationwide.

For more information about Hormel chili, including recipes, nutritional information and where to buy, visit www.hormel.com/brands/hormelchili or follow the brand on social media at www.facebook.com/hormel.chili, www.twitter.com/hormelchili, www.instagram.com/hormelchili, and www.pinterest.com/hormelchili.

About Hormel Foods  Inspired People. Inspired Food.

Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minn., is a global branded food company with over $9 billion in annual revenue across more than 80 countries worldwide. Its brands include SKIPPY, SPAM, Hormel Natural Choice, Applegate, Justin's, Wholly, Hormel Black Label, Columbus and more than 30 other beloved brands. The company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named on the "Global 2000 World's Best Employers" list by Forbes magazine for three straight years, is one of Fortune magazine's most admired companies, has appeared on Corporate Responsibility Magazine's "The 100 Best Corporate Citizens" list for the 11th year in a row, and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts. The company lives by its purpose statement  Inspired People. Inspired Food.  to bring some of the world's most trusted and iconic brands to tables across the globe. For more information, visit www.hormelfoods.com and http://csr.hormelfoods.com/.

SOURCE Hormel Foods Corporation

Related Links

http://www.hormel.com


School leaders have concluded that, in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, school days will have to look vastly different this fall, as they brace for altered schedules, a mix of in-person and distance learning, and other shakeups.

Faced with thatand the likelihood of drastic budget cuts this summer because of plunging state sales and income tax revenueadministrators in several states want legislators to rethink how they distribute money to districts this fall.

For example, should schools still be given money based on attendance even though many fearful parents will likely decide not to send their children back to school?

Should class-size limits be expanded for virtual instruction since physical class sizes will have to be so much smaller due to social distancing? That would give them more flexibility to lay off more teachers to deal with budget cuts.

And should districts be given extra money to lengthen the school year to make up for the 2019-20 school years lost learning time? Or, conversely, should they be allowed to save money by shortening the school year?

It all adds up to a bid for greater flexibility.

Many administrators say they wont be able to afford to open school this fall if they have to abide by the existing rules.

A school districts revenue is dictated by a series of assumptions and expectations state lawmakers over the years have made about the goings-on in a school day. Administrators and many advocates have long argued that many of those policies are nonsensical and intrude on local control.

Many of them are bad ideas in normal times, but theyre heinous ideas in times of crisis, said Aaron Garth Smith, the director of education reform for the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, who is pushing Michigan lawmakers to overhaul the K-12 funding formula to help prepare districts to make more than $1 billion worth of cuts.

But civil rights advocates have urged caution.

We should be granting districts waivers where its appropriate and necessary, said Ary Amerikaner, the vice president for P-12 policy, practice, and research for EdTrust, a group that advocates for poor students and children of color. But we should be taking into account that these compliances arent just hoops we make people jump through but theyre civil rights protections to make sure vulnerable kids get the resources they need.

Here are some questions facing state lawmakers about three big factors that help determine K-12 spending and where school districts now want temporary waivers.

Should states or districts determine the number of school days and their length in 2020-21? Most state laws require that school districts start the school year by late summer/early fall and end it by late spring/early summer. And many states dictate the number of hours and minutes students must be in front of a teacher each day. States allot money accordingly, and with that money districts pay their teachers to work according to that schedule.

But the pandemic forced administrators to shut down school months before the expected last day of school this year. Administrators now, based on their students academic needs and the local coronavirus infection rates, have varying ideas on when school should start back up and how long it should last.

Many administrators worry that students will need more class time in order to make up for the learning loss and President Donald Trump, along with some governors have urged school districts to open their schools early this summer in order to help parents get back to work. But administrators say if theyre asked to extend the school year by several weeks, they should be provided more money to provide those services.

Meanwhile, districts in areas with high COVID-19 infection rates say they wont be able to afford the extraordinary efforts needed to stop the spread of the virus this fall and have asked states to allow for them to open their doors much later this year. Wyoming has already provided such waivers on school start time, allowing districts to choose their own start date.

Theres also a group of administrators who say the best way to avoid teacher layoffs in the face of budget cuts is to temporarily furlough teachers next school year and offer students fewer school days than state law requires. Anticipating COVID-related budget cuts, Portland, Ore., this year furloughed its teachers for one day a week in order to save millions of dollars.

Should districts be allowed to increase virtual class sizes above state law?

States average class size laws are one of the biggest reasons why school spending has exploded in recent decades. Districts had to hire on thousands more teachers and paraprofessionals to prevent classroom overcrowding and allow for more individualized instruction.

But those rules dont really make sense during a pandemic, administrators argue.

Districts this fall will have a hard time keeping students socially distant from one another, and some administrators are contemplating both dramatically lowering their in-person class sizes and dramatically increasing their virtual class sizes.

Administrators will be able to save more money if theyre able to virtually place more students in front of a qualified teacher, allowing them to lay off more teachers.



But teachers and administrators have warned that a big class sizewhether in person or onlineis still a lot of work and that students this fall, more than ever before, will need more one-on-one time with teachers. They also object to the idea of laying off teachers.

North Carolina legislators are considering a bill that would waive class-size requirements for students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Utahs state board of education is proposing that the legislature cut more than $150 million given to schools to keep class sizes low.

The biggest cost for us is having additional staff, Deputy Superintendent Myong Leigh, the deputy superintendent of San Francisco schools said about the districts ability to open up this fall. If the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines called for smaller class sizes, not more than 10-12 students in a classroom, then that probably involves hiring more teachers and adults in general to support that social distancing.

But this is all happening at a time when, in most states, districts are looking at enormous budget deficits, said Leigh. Its hard to square those two sets of factors. We also have to consider what an individual teacher, can reasonably be expected to do when you double or triple the number of kids theyre serving.

Should schools be given money based on how many kids walk through the door this fall?

In several states, one of the biggest factors that determine how much state aid districts get is their average daily attendance over a set period of time.

District administrators have long complained that low-income school districts with high absenteeism and mobility rates should not be given less money simply because students dont show up to school. (States argue its the best way to determine enrollment and spending needs.)

But this fall, administrators expect that many parents will be too scared to send their students back to school because of the pandemic. They also wonder how they will be able to accurately count students when many will be learning virtually. They want legislatures to determine district revenue based on last falls enrollment.

In their letter to Californias legislature, superintendents of the states six largest school districts asked lawmakers to fund schools based on an average three-year enrollment trends, rather than a moment in time this fall and to provide funding for absent students infected with the coronavirus.

Congress will likely decide this month whether or not to provide states with another bailout package. The vast majority of states legislatures will then reconvene to rewrite their budgets. Teachers unions and school districts lobbyists are gearing up for an animated debate. Read our coverage about this summers special sessions here .

Follow us on Twitter @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .
[June 10, 2020] Forrester: The Time Is Now For CX And Marketing Professionals To Transform Customer Experience

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Unprecedented levels of market uncertainty paired with new guidelines on how to serve customers during the pandemic are forcing brands to reimagine their interactions with customers. Aspects of customer experience (CX) that were integral to a brand experience before the pandemic are no longer valid and need to be revisited. To help brands transform their customer experiences to become grounded in these changing customer needs, Forrester will unveil new research at its CX North America 2020 event, which will be held as a virtual experience from June 1618, 2020. Forrester's research shows that today's consumers do not differentiate between a brand experience and customer experience. As a result, CX and marketing teams must work together to develop a unified vision and align resources to connect the brand promise and experience with the customer experience. To foster stronger collaboration between these groups, at the event, Forrester will highlight key trends, share best practices, and unveil new research and data including Forrester's 2020 Customer Experience Index (CX Index), a ranking of consumer brands that also reveals the latest key drivers of exceptional CX. Key research themes that will be unveiled at CX North America 2020 include: Why CX leaders must work with their counterparts across the entire business, especially marketing, to truly improve CX . Every organization is part of a CX ecosystem that determines the quality of the CX. Marketing and CX teams have complementary expertise and must work together to create customer-centric experiences that deliver business results.

Every organization is part of a CX ecosystem that determines the quality of the CX. Marketing and CX teams have complementary expertise and must work together to create customer-centric experiences that deliver business results. Why identifying and delighting the right customers is critical to building a successful business . According to an analysis of CX Index data, Forrester has identified "devotees," a type of customer who exhibits a high willingness to forgive the brand, to pay a premium to do business with the brad, and to go out of their way to receive goods and services from the brand.

According to an analysis of CX Index data, Forrester has identified "devotees," a type of customer who exhibits a high willingness to forgive the brand, to pay a premium to do business with the brad, and to go out of their way to receive goods and services from the brand. Why organizations must utilize the same customer-obsessed brand experience principles to elevate their employee experience. At the center of customer and employee experiences is brand. The brand's purpose is to be the connective tissue that binds employees to the firm and gives them the impetus to extend that meaning into customers' experiences. When employee experience (EX) derives from a brand mindset, the convergence creates brand ambassadors who live the brand and elevate CX.

At the center of customer and employee experiences is brand. The brand's purpose is to be the connective tissue that binds employees to the firm and gives them the impetus to extend that meaning into customers' experiences. When employee experience (EX) derives from a brand mindset, the convergence creates brand ambassadors who live the brand and elevate CX. Why organizations must close the disconnect between data, insights, and actions to focus on what matters most to the firm's business outcomes. Despite continued investments in data and analytics, there is lack of alignment between business and operations teams' accountabilities and the metrics they need to make more informed decisions. Closing this disconnect is imperative to improving business outcomes.

Despite continued investments in data and analytics, there is lack of alignment between business and operations teams' accountabilities and the metrics they need to make more informed decisions. Closing this disconnect is imperative to improving business outcomes. Why organizations need to know today what their customers will want tomorrow. An innovation must address a need to succeed  and the most ambitious innovation efforts often seek to address future needs. It is important to look ahead to anticipate customers' future needs.



Melissa Parrish , VP and group director at Forrester. "However, often CX professionals end up working in a silo and struggle to show how their efforts will produce business results. Our research will provide CX and marketing leaders with the necessary tools and frameworks that are required to build exceptional customer experiences that drive business outcomes." Resources:

Register to attend CX North America 2020.

View the full agenda and speakers for CX North America.

Learn about the networking opportunities at CX North America.

Follow @Forrester and #ForrCX for updates. About Forrester

Forrester is one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world. We work with business and technology leaders to drive customer-obsessed vision, strategy, and execution that accelerate growth. Forrester's unique insights are grounded in annual surveys of more than 690,000 consumers and business leaders worldwide, rigorous and objective methodologies, and the shared wisdom of our most innovative clients. Through proprietary research, data and analytics, custom consulting, exclusive peer groups, certifications, and events, we are revolutionizing how businesses grow in the age of the customer; learn more at forrester.com. CONTACT: Shweta Agarwal, [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/forrester-the-time-is-now-for-cx-and-marketing-professionals-to-transform-customer-experience-301073118.html SOURCE Forrester

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Bollywood has often been accused of either not representing the LGBTQIA+ relationships at all in films, or if any in a skewed manner. But over the years, there have been a handful of films that have tried to represent LGBTQIA+ characters in the most authentic ways possible.



Here is a list of Bollywood films that got the representation of gay characters right.

1. I am

 IMDB

Director Onir explores different facets of identity crisis and coming to terms with ones self and sexuality in the film. While all the stories represent different frictions in society, Arjun Mathur as Omar and Rahul Bose as Jai's story I am Omar is the one to look out for in the film. In this particular section of the film, a gay man goes through a terrible experience after having a sexual encounter. The film tries to explore how young men are exploited and the emotional turmoil they face when people take advantage of their sexuality.



2. Kapoor & Sons

 IMDB

Bollywood is guilty of having the indulgent habit of representing LBGTQIA+ characters from a stereotypical gaze. Certain mannerisms that are also considered 'feminine' are often identified with queer sexuality as well. However, films like Kapoor and Sons have attempted to change that. By breaking down the stereotype that suggests that not all gay men are necessarily 'feminine', it's given the audience a much-needed perspective of gender and sexuality.



3. Aligarh

 IMDB

The film is based on the real-life story of Prof. Ramchandra Siras from Aligarh Muslim University. After a video showing his sexual relationship with another man had gone viral, he was suspended from his University. After winning the court case, he was set to return as a professor to the University. However, he died soon after. The film portrays the terrible realities of the lives of some people who are bullied and harassed to an extent that even leads to death at times.



4. Bombay Talkies

 IMDB

Karan Johar directed Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh from the anthology film, Bombay Talkies. Starring Rani Mukerji, Randeep Hooda, and Saqib Saleem, the story shows the complications in the life of Randeep who has to live with the secret of his sexuality. The consequences of his secret coming out in the open affect everyone in his life. The film shows how men under societal pressures conform and consent to heterosexual relationships which more often results in suffering for both the partners.



5. LOEV

 IMDB

LOEV is one of the first films in the country to depict an authentic relationship onscreen with LGBTQIA+ characters. From good times to agonising fights, LOEV shows everything without sensationalising a relationship making it as normal as any other.



6. My Brother Nikhil

 IMDB

The movie follows the story of Nikhil Kapoor played by Sanjay Suri, a swimming champion who is diagnosed with HIV, and the unfortunate turn of events that take place right after. Purab Kohli plays the role of Nigel, Nikhils boyfriend who along with Nikhils sister Anamika played by Juhi Chawla are the only two who support him. The film is based on the life of Dominic dSouza, an AIDS activist.



7. Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

 IMDB

Ayushmann Khurranas film, Shubh Mangal Zyaada Saavdhan that came out a month before the lockdown started this year is the story of a gay couple fighting a conservative society in the form of their family and loved ones. The mood of the film is satirical in depicting conventional small-town families as they deal with the taboo around same-sex relationships. Though comical and non-realistic, this movie is the first ever Bollywood movie based on a same-sex relationship, that has a mainstream A-lister as the lead actor.


(Natural News) Recently, Attorney General William Barr announced that the Department of Justice has evidence that links the far-left extremist Antifa movement, as well as other similar groups, to recent uprisings that have plunged the country into chaos. In a news conference on Thursday, June 4, Barr reported that these groups have hijacked legitimate protests to fuel their own violent agenda.

He identified three different sets of actors  including peaceful demonstrators, opportunistic looters and extremist agitators  that have been involved in the riots. He also stated that foreign actors are taking advantage of the unrest to sow discord in the country.

People from these extremist groups have used the protests to to engage in lawlessness, violent rioting, arson, looting of businesses, and public property assaults on law enforcement officers and innocent people, Barr added, saying these actions have hurt and killed law enforcement agents.

Dean Patrick Underwood, a federal law enforcement officer, was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting last Friday at the courthouse in Oakland, California where he was assigned to provide security. Another officer was critically injured after he was shot outside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in the same city.

Currently, the government has made 51 federal arrests in connection to violent looting and rioting. In the conference, he praised federal officials for their work in prosecuting these bad actors at the protests. President Donald Trump said last month that his administration would designate Antifa as a terrorist group.

FBI Director Chris Wray echoed Barrs remarks, saying that the FBI is directing a joint terrorism task force across the country to support local law enforcement in detaining violent agitators. He also condemned extremist groups like the Antifa for exploiting the situation to push for their violent agendas.

These individuals have set out to sow discord and upheaval rather than join in the righteous pursuit of equality and justice, he added.

Listen below to Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as unmasks the truth behind these engineered riots, and how its a declaration of war against the United States.

Protests descend into violent riots

The protests started in response to the death of George Floyd after he was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in late May. A bystander took a video of the incident, where Chauvin crushed Floyds neck with his knee for around 10 minutes. This has since sparked outrage and prompted national protests against police brutality, particularly against black people.

However, most of these protests have since turned into riots, with some causing the destruction of black-owned homes and businesses. In fact, these violent riots have not appeared in many states. The U.S. Marshals Services (USMS) has reported damage and vandalism in 15 states, as well as the District of Colombia.

USMS Director Donald Washington stressed that while the agency will protect people who exercise their constitutional rights, this does include rioters, arsonists, thieves, looters, and their protagonists [who] are criminals.

In several states, police departments have sent out warnings of materials, such as bricks and accelerants, being planted in certain locations to fuel the riots. (Related: Rioter facing federal charges after livestreaming himself setting fires and handing out explosives.)

In response to concerns raised by protesters on the inequities of the criminal justice system, Barr added that he will have conversations with community leaders to find constructive solutions. He also stressed that while many African Americans are still wary of the countrys justice system, law enforcement officials are committed to providing equal protection of the laws to everyone.

Sources include:

ABCNews.go.com

TheEpochTimes.com

USAToday.com

Breitbart.com
A nurse who died with Covid-19 developed symptoms after sitting with a patient who later tested positive for the disease, an inquest heard.

Dominga David, 62, had been a nurse for many years and was working at University Hospital Llandough when she became unwell.

The coroners court for South Wales Central in Pontypridd heard Mrs David was sent home on March 31 as she had a temperature.

She was admitted to the University Hospital Llandough with a cough, fever and muscle pain on April 5 and died in the intensive care unit on May 26.

A post-mortem examination was not carried out but hospital consultants provided a provisional cause of death as ischemic bowel, Covid-19 and hypertension.

It is with deep sadness that we must announce the passing of our colleague, Dominga David. Our thoughts are with her colleagues, friends and family.



She will be remembered as an exceptionally hard worker and a respectful, kind and compassionate person.



We will miss her greatly. pic.twitter.com/lzYfblMbW8  Cardiff & Vale UHB (@CV_UHB) May 27, 2020

Coroners assistant Lauren Howitt told the short hearing: Mrs David had been a nurse for many years and was working on ward West 5 of Llandough Hospital.

She was usually fit and well. She was sent home on March 31 as she had a temperature.

She had been sitting with a surgical patient who later tested positive for Covid-19.

She developed further symptoms and was admitted to the University Hospital Llandough with a cough, fever and myalgia.

A CT scan was carried out on May 25 and clinicians felt her condition was unsurvivable, the inquest heard.

Mrs David, who was born in the Philippines and lived in Penarth, died the following day.

Coroner Graeme Hughes said an inquest would take place as there was reason to suspect that her death may be related to her employment.

He adjourned the hearing until a full inquest, which was listed for June 16 2021 at 1pm.

The coroner offered his sympathies to Mrs Davids family and friends.

After her death, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said the exceptionally hard worker had died after testing positive for Covid-19.

A spokeswoman said Mrs David joined the health board in 2004 when she came to the UK from the Philippines to begin a nursing adaptation programme.

She has been an integral part of ward life on West 5 in University Hospital Llandough since 2004 and will be remembered as an exceptionally hard worker and a respectful, kind and compassionate person when interacting with patients, families and colleagues alike, she said.

She was part of the ward family and was well-loved by everyone. She is survived by her son Renzie, to whom we send our deepest condolences.

The health boards website describes West 5 as a trauma and orthopaedics ward to care for patients through their recovery after planned procedures to improve their health and quality of life.
Trump campaign officials are unlikely to put into place any social distancing measures for rally attendees, or require them to wear masks, people familiar with the decision-making process said, adding that it would be unnecessary because the state is so far along in its reopening.

Mr. Trump has also made it clear he doesnt want to speak in front of gatherings that look empty because of social distancing, or to look out on a sea of covered faces as he tries to project a positive message about the country returning to normal life and the economy roaring back, even as his top health advisers have warned the pandemic is far from over. Oh my goodness, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal governments top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday. Where is it going to end? Were still at the beginning of really understanding.

Campaign officials said they were considering some modest attempts at reducing risk by providing hand sanitizer on site, but said no final decisions had been made about how to safely bring together a large group of people.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Oklahoma had recorded 7,480 cases of the coronavirus and 355 deaths, according to its health department.

Americans are ready to get back to action and so is President Trump, Mr. Parscale said earlier in the week. The Great American Comeback is real and the rallies will be tremendous.

Mr. Trump also said Wednesday that he planned to hold rallies in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina.

In March, as the country began to shut down to help stop the spread of the virus, Mr. Trump reluctantly canceled campaign rallies planned for Colorado, Nevada and Wisconsin, and he has not been out for an official campaign event since then.
A former Tijuana city official was arrested on Monday on allegations he and an ex-chief of police collaborated to torture members of the police force.

According to Mexico News Daily, former Minister of Public Security Gustavo Huerta Martinez and former Public Security Secretary Julian Leyzaola tortured four police officers nearly a decade ago.

The torture allegedly occurred after four municipal police officers-including Jose Luis Hernandez Galvez-were accused of extorting money from a group of Korean athletes who attended a Tae Kwon Do tournament in the city. The officers involved claimed they were tortured by Leyzaola and Martinez to make them confess.

Officer Galvez claimed the accused officials used rebars and an AR-15 rifle to conduct the brutal beatings that caused 18 separate wounds on his body, including a broken pelvis. The torture, Galvez said, lasted four months.

Authorities are now looking for the police chief whose current whereabouts are unknown.

Julian Leyzaola

The former public security secretary was once called a "supercop" after he successfully lowered the rates of murders, extortions and kidnappings in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez during critical years when both cities were seeing waves of drug-related gang violence.

In 2017, municipal officials in Cancun hired the cop to help take on the unprecedented wave of violence in the city. The effectiveness of the strategies he implemented in Tijuana and Juarez persuaded the mayor to invite him to "reestablish order, peace, and security."

Leyzoala became police chief in Tijuana in 2007 when it had high rates of criminal activity. During his tenure, he was able to reduce crimes by 70 percent.

In 2011, he was invited to become the police chief in Ciudad Juarez that, at the time, was considered as the murder capital of the world. Under his management, crime rates in the city decreased by 85 percent.

His performance and his leadership earned him accolades from the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) also commended his success.

The police chief was the target of at least seven attacks. In May 2015, Leyzoala was shot twice while waiting for his wife and their young son in his vehicle. A police patrol was able to capture the shooters who admitted they had been paid to shoot the police chief. The incident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Leyzoala ran twice for mayor of Tijuana. In 2017, he was named a security advisor to police in Cancun.

While some cheered his success in lowering crime rates, he was also accused of torture and other crimes, especially in the northern border cities. Leyzoala was also sanctioned for human rights violations. Human rights organizations, including the Baja California Human Rights Office, Amnesty International, and The Washington Office on Latin America, have all denounced the police chief for abuses committed in 2009 and 2010.

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Four years ago a pair of flares were my downfall, literally. I was at home and rushing to the door when one foot became trapped in the others trouser leg and I fell down an entire flight of stairs. My arms helicoptered madly at the banisters until I hit the stone floor below.

My chin took the force of the fall, my jaw snapped and my left eardrum burst.

My husband Martin returned from work to find me lying there, I dont how long later, my legs still splayed up the stairs behind me. I must have passed out.

Only when I saw his shocked expression did I try to get up. Sobbing in his arms, I felt no pain; I was too much in shock.

Melanie revealed how four years ago she fell down the stairs in a pair of flares where her chin took the force of the fall, her jaw snapped and her left eardrum burst

In retrospect, in those moments I was like one Doctor Who morphing into another. Everything about my life changed, because the fall destroyed both my face and the woman I thought I was.

I had been a true social animal; a journalist whose career depended on meeting and charming the right people. Id spent my life attending and hosting society parties where I, like everyone else, was often judged on my appearance.

Now my interest in that life was taken away in a moment.

The agony of letting nature repair my broken jaw  surgery was ruled out because it risked facial paralysis  was nothing compared with the array of aftershocks wrought on my traumatised fiftysomething body.

Months after my jaw had mended, my body went into agonising displays of distress: welts appeared on my torso; I developed an inflamed, beetroot-red trout pout and the skin on my face puckered into wrinkles before shedding like a snakes.

In short, I looked and felt like a chinless Gruffalo gone wrong. And no treatment I could find soothed any bit of me. To say this shattered my self-image would be an understatement.

Melanie revealed how the agony of letting nature repair her broken jaw was nothing compared with the array of aftershocks wrought on her traumatised fiftysomething body. Pictured: Melanie she looked after the accident four years ago

About 18 months after the accident, my mother invited Martin and me over for a dinner party which some grand friends were attending. When we arrived, she was upset as I hadnt even made up my face or done my hair.

Thankfully, Martin told her she was lucky wed made it at all  and proceeded to make my mothers party for her by being his naturally charming self.

Why arent you coming out? friends would ask. Id shrug them off. Unless you have been there, you cant understand what its like going to a social occasion when you have nothing positive to say about yourself.

Besides, its horrible to go into a room full of old acquaintances and realise no one recognises you unless they do a double-take. For years I avoided all mirrors and cameras. I told myself if I didnt look, I wouldnt see.

Melanie said she was at home in Somerset (pictured) and rushing to the door when one foot became trapped in the others trouser leg and she fell down the entire flight of stairs

Martin told me what mattered was me, not how I looked. Still, I struggled to care about things I had once believed important.

I was so lucky to have him through it all. Martin and I married six years ago, when I was 51 and he was 61. But we met long before, when I moved near to him in Somerset, escaping London to give my then eight-year-old son, Jasper, a country upbringing.

We have certainly tested our in sickness and in health vows: he with secondary lung cancer, from which remarkably he is now free; and me with my fall.

That first awful day, Martin took me straight to hospital where surgeons explained they couldnt operate as the damage was a hairs width from the nerve endings in my temple. So for eight weeks I was in jaw lockdown: unable to open it wider than an olive.

You forget how much you use your jaw until you have to not use it. But it healed at a normal rate, and paracetamol and ibuprofen were all I needed for the pain.

The more active I became, though, the more I noticed the difference in my face. If I talked too much, went out for supper, laughed or smiled, my skin would erupt and my facial muscles would swell up Elephant Man-style.

I developed rashes over my body, face and mouth, and the strong steroid ointment I was given for that crept under my skin and affected my eyesight, causing cataracts that required two minor operations and left me unable to drive for a year.

Just when I got back behind the wheel, my back went.

That was when depression fully sank in, some two and a half years after my fall. I found it difficult at times to get out of bed, let alone out of the house. I was prescribed antidepressants but behaved like a hormonal loony on them.

Eating was tricky and it hurt to talk beyond a certain amount. I tried all sorts of alternative therapies but, while some eased my rashes, nothing touched my face.

I contemplated serious surgery to fix it, restructuring my jaw and removing a balloon of skin under my neck.

It was in this deflated spirit that I came across the treatment that would, in some measure, give me back my old self. And it happened by chance, when facial masseuse Lucinda Wallop moved to my town, Castle Cary in Somerset.

Lucinda, who has clinics there and in London, specialises in what has been branded natures answer to a facelift: Ayurvedic massage techniques that use no oil or cream but gently stimulate the face to smooth the skin, boost lymphatic drainage and gently stimulate connective tissues.

Glowing testimonials insist it is practically as good as going under the knife.

The truth is that when I first stepped into her clinic, the thought of anyone touching my face made me want to curl in on myself like a sea anemone.

I dont know how you made it through the door, Lucinda recollects now. Nor do I. This is how I touched you then, she says, her touch a whisper over my skin. And this is how I touch you now, as she kneads my face like Paul Hollywood kneading dough.

At 6ft 1in and the sister of an Earl (Portsmouth), Lucinda is an unlikely masseuse. Her client list reads like a Tatler Little Black Book and she was a TV and film producer until she decided to do something more rewarding.

And she has found her calling because, slowly, her massages have worked. Eighteen months of treatments every six to eight weeks have transformed my face.

The puffiness has gone down and these days I am regularly complimented on how good I look, though admittedly comments from those close to me are more like I can see your cheekbones again and your neck is less like a bullfrogs. Charming.

But it is the effect on my emotional state I am most grateful for. Lucinda says this isnt uncommon: most people go to her for cosmetic reasons but find the true benefits lie elsewhere.

If Ive learnt one thing, it is that beauty is a shallow vehicle. Its the soul that shines.

And another life lesson? Avoid flares at all costs.

Lucinda Wallops Ayurvedic massage sessions cost 65-100 (yuvafacemassage.com)
The closest Ive ever been to being in style was donning leg warmers back when they were trendy.

Their popularity grew in part due to the influence of films like Fame and Flashdance. I didnt keep mine around long, though.

I prefer the more classic fashion styles of the past  knee length A-line dresses (minus the puffed shoulders) of the 1940s, the slim and sheath dresses of the 1950s, the sophisticated, clean and simple outfits and sensible heels worn by Jacky O in the 1960s and the Polyester jumpsuit, bell bottom jeans and vintage tops of the 1970s.

In recent months, while living through the coronavirus pandemic, many folks have made adjustments to their wardrobes. Some folks are working from home with unbrushed hair while wearing lounge pants.

There is one accessory we all can  and I believe, should  incorporate into our wardrobe moving forward: the face mask.

(I do recognize face masks pose a challenge for those with certain impairments.)

Bear with me; face masks can be fashionable. Consider the number of homemade, customized masks residents have made and are giving away and some businesses are selling.

At first masks were hard to get, so people began making them. Thanks to my aunt Lisas stellar sewing skills, she made masks for multiple family members. Masks, many of them tailored to an individuals liking, are adjustable to fit comfortably over the ears and face.

My daughter Eleanor describes the masks as, like the clothes we wear, an expression of ourselves. Hers are cool marble and floral patterns, while mine reflect my taste in pattern and color.

Masks have been part of our lives since March when the U.S. first clamped down on travel, and stay-at-home and social distancing orders were put in place to slow the spread of the virus.

I have been and continue to do my part to protect myself and others by wearing a mask when I must go out.

An individual can be asymptomatic and still spread the virus, thus the importance of everyone, not only some people, wearing the latest accessory while out in public.

With limited access to testing for everyone and no long-term plan for contact tracing for all Americans as of yet, we cannot be 100 percent sure who has been, or is, infected.

Thats why I was disappointed with the images from Memorial Day weekend of our fellow Americans who attended pool parties and other social events, going about daily life  without social distancing and masks  as if if the last two and a half months never happened.

Reality check: the virus has not been eradicated. It does not discriminate. No one is immune.

Studies have shown droplets from a person who carries the virus can even travel farther than the recommended six-foot distance for social distancing.

As one of the millions of individuals who has as underlying medical condition with a compromised immune system, I am in the high-risk category, so I must  like all those who suffer from ailments such as psoriatic arthritis, Crohns and more  make smart decisions and be proactive to protect myself.

Its what I wish everyone would do, not just to protect themselves, but to protect their loved ones, friends, neighbors and folks like myself.

Many people argue having to wear a face covering is inconvenient and uncomfortable and can lead to excess sweat, especially as the temperatures rise. Some even say it violates their freedom; they cant be told what to do.

This is not a political issue. This is a health crisis. For the entire globe and all of humanity.

Wearing a mask seems a small price to pay when we consider the big picture: 1.8 million people have been infected in the U.S., and 105,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. alone, as of Sunday. We dont know how many more will in the coming months.

It is careless to shrug aside the facts that blatantly stare us in the face.

While masks may not provide full protection, wearing one is a reasonable, responsible proactive step we can take to show respect for one another.

It is our moral responsibility as a human being to ask ourselves this question when we look in the mirror: do we want to bear the guilt of knowing we could possibly infect another human being and potentially cause their death because we chose not to wear a mask?

I dont.

Like the fashion trends of yesteryear, the face mask as an accessory of 2020 will eventually disappear, although I suspect it will be part of our lives off and on as the world faces the threat of other viruses in the future.

For now, the face mask is here for the foreseeable future. Call it the latest fashion trend.

Are you on board?

Deborah Rose is a lifelong New Milford resident who has worked at The Spectrum since its inception in 1998. She can be reached by email at drose@newstimes.com.
Irish sportswear company O'Neill's is not surprised high-end brands are starting to sell GAA-inspired shorts for highly inflated prices.

Gucci has started selling white shorts with a green and red trim for around 550.

The style has received mainstream attention since the airing of Normal People.

The show's star, Paul Mescal, has found himself appearing in a number of fashion magazines since the series aired.

He's kept the shorts in the spotlight since the series finale by wearing them while out walking in London.

GUCCI ARE SELLING ONEILL STYLED SHORTS  pic.twitter.com/354lRU4CH3  aoife  (@heya0ife) June 9, 2020

O'Neill's Marketing Manager Cormac O'Farrell says they may have to rethink their prices soon.

Mr O'Farrell said they are delighted with the exposure and the spike in the sales.

"I think some of the frustrations for our financial director when he sees the prices that these brands can get for their product and we are around normal prices at around 20.

"But it's all relative. It's a good story and it's good for us especially in the climate that we are in."
INDIANAPOLIS - The special prosecutor named to oversee the May 6 shooting death of a black man by an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer asked the Indiana State Police on Wednesday to handle the investigation.

Madison County Deputy Prosecutor Rosemary Khoury says it is best that an independent agency look into the fatal shooting of Dreasjon Reed, 21. Indianapolis police on Wednesday identified the officer who shot Reed as four-year veteran Dejoure Mercer.

In the current climate it is my professional opinion that it is in the best interest of all involved that the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department not conduct the investigation in this matter and allow an independent law enforcement agency to assume this responsibility, Khoury said in a statement released by Indiana State Police. In order to conduct as thorough and complete of an investigation as possible, I am also asking the community to co-operate with me and with the investigators who are working alongside me.

Mercer was named the Northwest District Officer of the Year one week before shooting Reed, The Indianapolis Star reported. Police have said Reed was shot in an exchange of gunfire with an officer after a chase.

Another officer, Steven Scott was disciplined after he was captured on video following the shooting saying: I think its going to be a closed casket, homie, an apparent reference to a closed-casket funeral. Scott, who has 15 years of service, was suspended for five days without pay in June, according to personnel files released to the Star.

Both officers are black, according to the department. Before Wednesday, the department had said it could not release the officers names for safety reasons.

Police have said they began pursuing Reed after officers, including Chief Randal Taylor, saw someone driving recklessly on Interstate 65. Supervisors ordered an end to that pursuit because the vehicle was going nearly 90 mph (145 kph), police said. An officer later spotted the car on a city street and chased Reed on foot before police say Reed and the officer exchanged gunfire. Assistant Chief Chris Bailey has said a gun found near Reed appeared to have been fired at least twice.

Days of protests followed Reeds killing, which came hours before Indianapolis police officers fatally shot another black man, McHale Rose, 19, and an officer fatally struck a pregnant white woman with his car.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday for an attorney representing Reeds family.

Recent Indianapolis protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis also have invoked Reeds name. Floyd was a handcuffed black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee to Floyds neck for several minutes even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air.
The largest study of its kind in the U.S. shows thousands of different types of bacteria living on cell phones and shoes, including groups that have barely been studied by scientists.

"This highlights how much we have to learn about the microbial world around us," said David Coil, a researcher at the University of California, Davis Genome Center and first author on the paper, published June 9 in the journal PeerJ.

In recent years scientists have started to better understand the communities of microbes, or microbiomes, found in basically every environment on the planet. We all carry around with us our own personal microbiome. While some of the microbes found in and on people can be harmful, the overwhelming majority of these microbes are harmless -- and some are even beneficial.

In 2013-2014, Coil, with Russell Neches and Professor Jonathan Eisen of the UC Davis Genome Center, UC Davis graduate student and professional cheerleader Wendy Brown, Darlene Cavalier of Science Cheerleaders, Inc. and colleagues launched an effort to sample microbes from spectators at sporting events across the country. Volunteers swabbed cell phones and shoes from almost 3,500 people and sent the samples to the Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago, for processing.

The researchers amplified and sequenced DNA from the samples and used the sequence information to identify major groups of bacteria in the samples.

They found that shoes and cell phones from the same person consistently had distinct communities of microbes. Cell phone microbes reflected those found on people, while shoes carried microbes characteristic of soil. This is consistent with earlier results.

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The shoe microbes were also more diverse than those found on a person's phone.

Although samples were collected at events across the country, the researchers did not find any conclusive regional trends. In some cases, there were big differences between samples collected at different events in the same city. In others, samples from distant cities looked quite similar.

Microbial dark matter

Surprisingly, a substantial proportion of the bacteria came from groups that researchers call "microbial dark matter." These microbes are difficult to grow and study in a lab setting and thus have been compared to invisible "dark matter" that astronomers think makes up much of the universe.

Since they are so difficult to grow in a lab, these dark matter groups have only been discovered as scientists have used genetic sequencing technology to look for microbes in the world around us. Although many of the dark microbial groups come from remote or extreme environments, such as boiling acid springs and nutrient poor underground aquifers, some have been found in more mundane habitats, such as soil.

"Perhaps we were naive, but we did not expect to see such a high relative abundance of bacteria from these microbial dark matter groups on these samples," Eisen said.

A number of these dark microbe groups were found in more than 10 percent of samples, with two groups, Armatimonadetes and Patescibacteria, being found in almost 50 percent of swabs and somewhat more frequently in those from shoes than those from phones. Armatimonadetes is known to be widespread in soil.

"A remarkable fraction of people are traveling around with representatives from these uncultured groups on commonplace objects," Coil said.
Global terror group Al-Qaeda's affiliate in South Asia has pumped massive online content through its websites in its attempts to reach and instigate the "like-minded" to launch "lone wolf" attacks on the government, security agencies, businesses, Hindutva leaders and "certain categories of persons" in India, news agency ANI has reported.

Citing recent intelligence inputs, the agency said Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has pushed a large team of Bangladesh-based Islamic scholars and clerics to create content that they are broadcasting using similarly named profiles on web-based platforms. The Bangladesh chapter of AQIS appears to have recently uploaded series of videos on a website which provides a detailed strategy for planning and executing successful "Lone Wolf attacks in furtherance of Global Jihad."

"Similar content is regularly uploaded on their online forums, magazines and social media channels to reach like-minded persons in Bangladesh and India, and instigate them to launch Lone Wolf Attacks," the input reads.

A lone actor, lone-actor terrorist, or lone wolf is someone who prepares and commits violent acts alone, outside of any command structure and without material assistance from any group.

READ | Taliban And Al Qaeda Ties Remain Despite US-Taliban Deal, Claims UN Report

Security beefed up

After receiving the intel, security agencies have reportedly beefed up security and have asked all units tasked with VVIP security to keep a strict check on visitors.

"Personnel have been asked not to panic in case of any such attack and work as per predefined contingency plan," another input released after input of lone wolf attack says.

READ | Al Qaeda Terror Convict Deported To India, Agencies To Probe Radicalisation Angle

AQIS challenge

In response to the rise of Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri announced the creation of Pakistan-based AQIS in September 2014 with India-born Asim Umar as its leader. The group is focussed in Pakistan, India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. Although Pakistan-sponsored terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad have been the most active in the region, AQIS pose a threat since its local affiliates in Bangladesh have gained ground over the years.

(With ANI inputs)

READ | Two Terrorists Killed In Encounter With Security Forces In J-K's Shopian District

READ | Pak Court Indicts JuD Chief Hafiz Saeed's 4 Close Aides In Terror Financing Case
Some Tucsonans are getting behind the national movement to defund police, demanding that the Tucson City Council divest from the Tucson Police Department.

Over the course of nearly 90 minutes, more than 25 speakers called in to the virtual meeting on Tuesday, echoing the national outcry in the wake of George Floyds death and many other police killings of black people across the country.

An online petition circulating on social media to defund Tucson police also garnered more than 10,000 signatures in a day, which were submitted to the council.

The council was set to vote on a tentative budget that includes more than $165 million for police, the largest expenditure in the general fund.

Every speaker asked the council to divest from police and invest more in community services, including education, public transportation, housing programs and mental health services.

Nationally, the movement to defund police is taking hold as the majority of City Council members in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed on May 25, committed to do so. The idea behind the movement is to reallocate funds from police and prisons to community investments such as education, restorative justice, employment and housing.
The 610 Office, one of the Chinese regimes deadliest and most notorious agencies tasked with clamping down on dissent, exacts enormous influence within the Party and enjoys unchallenged power to persecute religious minorities, an internal document obtained by the Chinese-language Epoch Times shows.

The office, formally known as the Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions, is an extra-legal Party organization similar to Nazi Germanys Gestapo, with various names as disguises in public.

It was established by former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin on June 10, 1999hence its namefor the sole purpose of carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice that originated in China and has since spread to roughly 90 countries. The practice became enormously popularwith roughly 100 million adherents in China by 1999, according to official estimates. Threatened by this number, which was greater than the number of Party members, Jiang ordered the brutal suppression of Falun Gong practitioners.

According to the documents obtained by Chinese-language Epoch Times, the 610 Office in Fangshan District in Beijing, formally known as the Fangshan Political and Legal Affairs Commissions Anti-Heretical Religion Guidance Branch, conducted an assessment titled Status of Work in Preventing and Handling Heretical Religions in 2019.

This kind of work-performance assessment usually happens at the end of the year among Chinas government agencies.

The agencies evaluated by the 610 Office include both Party and government institutions, such as the Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC); the Organization Department, which is in charge of assigning officials posts and promotions; local police bureaus; local prosecutors offices; courts; and the rubber-stamp legislature.

In 2019, five of the agencies were demerited for not meeting the set criteria in persecuting Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a traditional Chinese spiritual practice that consists of simple, slow-moving exercises and a meditation, with moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Adherents said the practice has helped them relieve stress and improve their health.

Under the leadership of the 610 Office, Falun Gong practitioners have been arbitrarily sentenced to labor camps, prison, or brainwashing centers.

At least 4,476 Falun Gong adherents have been killed in the persecution in China, according to Minghui.org, a website that documents the CCPs persecution of Falun Gong.

The actual number of deaths is thought to be much higher, as thousands of cases remain unconfirmed due to the CCPs tight-fisted control over details of the persecution, according to Minghui.org.

An Office Above the Law

The 610 office is just like Hitlers Gestapo, said Guo Guoting, a Chinese human rights lawyer in exile, in an interview with the Falun Dafa Information Center. They are powerful and they got enough financial support from the government so  they secretly control all the Falun Gong practitioners in their local areas.

The 610 Office has branches all over China, down to the tiniest village.

However, no legislation was passed establishing it [and] no provisions formally outlined its mandate, said Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for China at Freedom House, a U.S.-based NGO.

The number of staff at the 610 Office is unknown, due to its secretive nature and the fact that 610 staff may have multiple roles, serving in other departments simultaneously.

Cook estimated back in 2011 that the 610 Office retained at least 15,000 officers based on district-level numbers on local government websites.

Functioning without approval from the Partys rubber-stamp legislature, the National Peoples Congress, and the 25-member Politburo made up of Party elites, the 610 Office has never had a legal basis for its existence.

The 610 Office is also involved in state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting from prisoners of consciencemostly Falun Gong practitionersresulting in large numbers of unexplained deaths, according to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, a U.S.-based research nonprofit.

Independent investigators have confirmed that this organ harvesting is still occurring, despite the CCPs denials.

In a report (pdf) released on March 1, the China Tribunal, an independent peoples tribunal convened to investigate allegations of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China, ruled that forced organ harvesting has happened in multiple places in the PRC and on multiple occasions for a period of at least 20 years and continues to this day.

It also concluded that Falun Gong practitioners were the main source of organs for the state-sanctioned practice.

Function Continues After Restructuring

The 610 Office derived authority from its connection with the PLAC, a parallel organization that controls all elements of Chinas security apparatus: public security (police), state security, judicial, and prosecutorial systems.

Previously, regional directors of the 610 Office at the provincial and municipal levels were also the secretaries or deputy secretaries of the provincial or municipal PLAC. Under that arrangement, the 610 Office could dispatch all the resources of the PLAC to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

Current CCP leader Xi Jinping took several actions to weaken the 610 Office after he came to power in 2012, as part of his political movesincluding a sweeping anti-corruption campaigntargeting officials associated with former CCP general secretary Jiang.

Xi removed the PLAC secretary from the Politburo Standing Committeethe Partys most powerful decision-making bodysignificantly shrinking the PLACs authority. Later, Xi jailed several former heads of the 610 system, including former PLAC secretary Zhou Yongkang, Zhous top aide Zhou Benshun, and former 610 Office director Li Dongsheng.

On March 21, 2018, the CCP announced that the 610 Office and its functions would be subordinated to the PLAC and the Ministry of Public Security. The office appears to have been renamed, with no references to its official or informal names appearing after 2019.

This April saw the purge of Sun Lijun, a public security official who had served as deputy head of the 610 Office, as well as the retirement of justice minister Fu Zhenghua. Fu, who was concurrently the ministrys deputy Party secretary, had also previously run the 610 Office.

However, a 2019 year-end assessment done by the 610 Office, as well as later documents referring to similarly named organizations, shows the agency or its successors still carry out the Falun Gong persecution post-restructuring. These organizations appear to be empowered with the extralegal authority to enforce those policies across broad sections of the governmentin other words, the same powers that the 610 Office once wielded.

Angela Bright, Leo Timm, Meiling Lee, and Sunny Chao contributed to this report.



This article has been updated with additional information on recent developments concerning the 610 Office.
BOSTON, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Albireo Pharma, Inc. (ALBO), a clinical-stage orphan pediatric liver disease company developing novel bile acid modulators, today announced that it will host a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) call on clinical outcome assessments (COAs) on Tuesday, June 16th at 8:00 am Eastern Time.



This call will feature a presentation by KOL Chad Gwaltney, Ph.D. who will discuss key considerations for the design and implementation of COAs, including patient-reported and observer-reported outcomes, in clinical trials. His presentation will review best practices for identifying key patient experiences and developing and testing COAs that will be used to evaluate efficacy in clinical development programs.

As a key contributor to the development of the PRUCISION pruritus measurement tools used by Albireo in the Phase 3 studies, Dr. Gwaltney will discuss the creation of the careful design of PRUCISION to measure treatment benefits. He and the Albireo management team will also be available to answer questions at the conclusion of the event.

Albireo Chief Medical Officer Patrick Horn, M.D., Ph.D. will provide an overview of the companys registrational Phase 3 clinical trial of odevixibat for the treatment of patients with progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC), a rare pediatric cholestatic liver disease. Albireo is developing odevixibat, a potent and selective inhibitor of the ileal bile acid transporter (IBAT), to treat patients with PFIC, biliary atresia and Alagille syndrome.

Conference Call Details Tuesday, June 16th @ 8:00am Eastern Time Domestic: 877-407-0792 International: 201-689-8263 Conference ID: 13702827 Webcast: Click Here For Webcast

Chad Gwaltney, Ph.D. is President and Principal Consultant at Gwaltney Consulting. Dr. Gwaltney develops innovative methods to measure patient-centered outcomes in clinical trials. His academic and industry research includes the design of electronic platforms for the collection of information in real-time in the patients natural environment. He has published over 85 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters addressing patient-reported outcomes and how the patients perspective can be examined to better understand medical product efficacy and safety. He has served on U.S. National Institutes of Health review committees and has co-authored industry best practice guidelines on the development and use of patient-reported outcomes. Dr. Gwaltney has also served as Head, Patient Experience, Hematology/Oncology, at Celgene and as a research faculty member in the Brown University School of Public Health.



Story continues

About Albireo

Albireo Pharma is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel bile acid modulators to treat orphan pediatric liver diseases, and other liver and gastrointestinal diseases and disorders. Albireos lead product candidate, odevixibat, is being developed to treat rare pediatric cholestatic liver diseases and is in Phase 3 development in progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC) and biliary atresia, with a third Phase 3 trial being planned in Alagille syndrome. Albireos clinical pipeline also includes two Phase 2 product candidates. Elobixibat is in Phase 2 development in NAFLD and NASH. Approved in Japan for the treatment of chronic constipation, elobixibat is the first ileal bile acid transporter (IBAT) inhibitor approved anywhere in the world.

Albireo was spun out from AstraZeneca in 2008. Albireo Pharma is located in Boston, Mass., and its key operating subsidiary is located in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Boston Business Journal named Albireo one of the 2019 Best Places to Work in Massachusetts. For more information on Albireo, please visit www.albireopharma.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements, other than statements of historical fact, regarding, among other things: the plans for, or progress, scope, cost, initiation, duration, enrollment, results or timing for availability of results of, development of odevixibat, elobixibat or any other Albireo product candidate or program, including regarding expectations regarding the impact of COVID-19 on our business and our ability to adapt our approach as appropriate; the Phase 3 clinical program for odevixibat in patients with PFIC, the pivotal trial for odevixibat in biliary atresia, the planned pivotal trial for odevixibat in Alagille syndrome, the Phase 2 clinical trial for elobixibat in NAFLD/NASH, and another Phase 3 trial for elobixibat being conducted by EA Pharma in Japan; the target indication(s) for development or approval, the size, design, population, location, conduct, cost, objective, enrollment, duration or endpoints of any clinical trial, or the timing for initiation or completion of or availability or reporting of results from any clinical trial, including the Phase 3 PFIC trial for odevixibat, and the long-term open-label extension study, the pivotal trial for odevixibat in biliary atresia, the planned pivotal trial for odevixibat in Alagille syndrome, or the Phase 2 trial for elobixibat in NAFLD/NASH; the potential approval and commercialization of odevixibat; discussions with the FDA or EMA regarding our programs; the potential benefits or competitive position of odevixibat, elobixibat, or any other Albireo product candidate or program or the commercial opportunity in any target indication; the potential benefits of an orphan drug designation; the period for which Albireos cash resources will be sufficient to fund its operating requirements (runway); or Albireos plans, expectations or future operations, financial position, revenues, costs or expenses. Albireo often uses words such as anticipates, believes, plans, expects, projects, future, intends, may, will, should, could, estimates, predicts, potential, planned, continue, guidance, and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Actual results, performance or experience may differ materially from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statement as a result of various risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, but not limited to: negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including on manufacturing, supply, conduct or initiation of clinical trials, or other aspects of our business; whether favorable findings from clinical trials of odevixibat to date, including findings in indications other than PFIC, will be predictive of results from the trials comprising the Phase 3 PFIC program or any other clinical trials of odevixibat; whether either or both of the FDA and EMA will determine that the primary endpoint for their respective evaluations and treatment duration of the double-blind Phase 3 trial in patients with PFIC are sufficient, even if the primary endpoint is met with statistical significance, to support approval of odevixibat in the United States or the European Union, to treat PFIC, a symptom of PFIC, a specific PFIC subtype(s) or otherwise; the outcome and interpretation by regulatory authorities of the ongoing third-party study pooling and analyzing of long-term PFIC patient data; the timing for initiation or completion of, or for availability of data from, clinical trials of odevixibat, including the trials comprising the Phase 3 PFIC program, the pivotal program in biliary atresia or the planned pivotal program in Alagille syndrome, and the outcomes of such trials; Albireos ability to obtain coverage, pricing or reimbursement for approved products in the United States or European Union; delays or other challenges in the recruitment of patients for, or the conduct of, the double-blind Phase 3 trial or other pivotal trials; and Albireos critical accounting policies. These and other risks and uncertainties that Albireo faces are described in greater detail under the heading Risk Factors in Albireos most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K or in subsequent filings that it makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result of risks and uncertainties that Albireo faces, the results or events indicated by any forward-looking statement may not occur. Albireo cautions you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. In addition, any forward-looking statement in this press release represents Albireos views only as of the date of this press release and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any subsequent date. Albireo disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable law.

Investor Contact: Hans Vitzthum, LifeSci Advisors, LLC, 617-430-7578

Media Contact: Claire LaCagnina, 6 Degrees, 315-765-1462, clacagnina@6degreespr.com

Source: Albireo Pharma, Inc.
The Armenian authorities are playing with the fate of the state and people. Armenia doesnt deserve these authorities, and these authorities dont deserve Armenia. They need to stop playing games with the fate of the people. This is what leader of Homeland Party, former director of the National Security Service of Armenia Artur Vanetsyan said during an interview aired on Yerkir Media TV.

Asked if he wants to become Prime Minister, Vanetsyan said this isnt an item on his political partys agenda for the time being.

Currently, my political partys key objective is to make the current incompetent authorities step down from power since each day of their reign poses a direct threat to our homeland. Our objective is to do away with the current authorities and form a government of national accord, and we will launch political consultations with all political parties and individuals, he said.

In response to the question about the meeting with leader of Prosperous Armenia Party Gagik Tsarukyan, Vanetsyan said he has good and close ties with Tsarukyan and added that there is still no political agreement.

Vanetsyan also recalled that he has addressed the opposition parties in parliament to set up a probe committee to find out whether the government failed to combat the coronavirus or not since the government is directly responsible for the current situation.

According to the leader of Homeland Party, the incumbent authorities arent able to have normal ties with the external world. Armenia doesnt have good ties with its strategic ally Russia, to say the least. Many people say Armenia has to be sovereign and free itself from Russias dominance, but I would like to ask if these authorities are really independent. In reality, I dont remember any government of Armenia that has conformed more than the current government, he said.

As for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Vanetsyan said he doesnt believe in treason or conspiracies, but is concerned that as a result of these incompetent authorities, Armenia and Artsakh will find themselves in a situation where they will either have to make unilateral concessions or go to war.
Over 200 Microsoft employees have urged CEO Satya Nadella to cancel the company's contracts with the Seattle police department and other law enforcement agencies amid widespread calls in the US to defund the police following the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd, according to a media report.

There has been a growing demand from a section of the Americans to defund the police after a white police officer knelt on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes despite his repeated pleas that he can't breathe on May 25 in Minneapolis.

The internal email, which included more than 250 employees, was sent on Monday, addressed to Nadella and executive Vice President Kurt DelBene, with the subject line Our neighborhood has been turned into a warzone, according to a report in OneZero.medium, an online portal about tech and science.

The letter requests that Microsoft cancel the contracts with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and other law enforcement agencies and asks the company to formally support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and calls for the resignation of the Seattle mayor.

Every one of us in the CC line are either first hand witnesses or direct victims to the inhumane responses of SPD to peaceful protesting, the letter said, according to the copy obtained by OneZero.

The employee who authored the email indicated that they live in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighbourhood, where protests have become increasingly violent, the report said.

Those who choose to support the movement in ways other than boots-on-the-ground protests have also suffered the results of the SPD response, one employee wrote in the email thread.

In a statement from Microsoft, India-born Nadella said, As a company, we need to look inside, examine our organisation, and do better.

In an earlier statement on June 1 condemning the protests, the 52-year-old Indian-origin Microsoft CEO said, "there is no place for hate and racism in our society. Empathy and shared understanding are a start, but we must do more."

"I stand with the Black and African-American community and we are committed to building on this work in our company and in our communities," said the Hyderabad-born Nadela said.

Floyd's killing led to violent nationwide protests with demands for an end to police brutality and racial justice.

However, US President Donald Trump on Monday ruled out defunding or dismantling the police departments in the American cities, saying, "these people do a tremendous job of protecting citizens of our country."

Meanwhile, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has told the US Congress that the technology giant is no longer offering its facial recognition or analysis software and "firmly opposes technology that is used for mass surveillance, racial profiling and violations of basic human rights and freedoms.

Krishna on Monday sent the letter to Congress outlining detailed policy proposals to advance racial equality in America, which has seen widespread protests and demonstrations against the spate of recent killing of African-Americans, including that of Floyd.
Thiruvananthapuram:

Environment activists have criticised the Kerala governments decision to renew the no-objection certificate for a proposed hydroelectric project near the picturesque Athirapally waterfall in Thrissur district.

Even the Communist Party of India (CPI), a junior partner in Keralas Left Front government, has opposed the move even though the state administration says all stakeholders will be consulted in taking the project forward.

Supporters of the project say it will not cause any harm to the waterfall and the ecology in the area, but critics suspect damage to environment, inundation of large tracts of land and displacement of tribal families residing in the area.

The project, on the 145-km Chalakudy River, was conceived in the 1980s when the state was hit by power shortage, but was shelved due to stiff opposition. It was revived when the Pinarayi Vijayan government came to power in 2016.

If set up, the project near Athirapally, a favourite movie shooting destination, will have an installed capacity of 163 megawatts and spread across 6.7km. The dam for water storage, particularly, has emerged as a cause for concern.

Chalakudi river already has many big and small dams. It cant withstand more. Preventing natural course and storing water led to many disasters in the past. In Chalakudy, we dont want pristine forests to be submerged and many tribals evacuated, said VS Vijayan, an environmental scientist.

He was in the team of Madhav Gadgil, who has prepared a report to save the fragile ecology of the Western Ghats in 2011 on the instruction of former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

It seems the state has failed to learn a lesson from two consecutive floods (in 2018 and 2019) that claimed many lives...Votaries of the new dam should think about the future generation also, Vijayan said.

The previous no-objection certificate to the project was issued in 2016 by the state power ministry. It was set to expire in July.

Tribal families living in the forests, too, are apprehensive. They will have to kill us before building the dam. It is a ploy to plunder green cover and destroy the serene waterfall, said Kadar tribe leader P Kaliappan.

State power minister MM Mani clarified that renewing the non-objection certificate was a natural process and it didnt mean the project will be commissioned immediately.

We are not in a tearing hurry. All stakeholders will be taken into confidence. Activism is okay, but it should not be at the cost of the states development, Mani said.

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Comedian Bharti Singh is shaken up by the alleged suicide of her former manager Disha Salian. She mourned Dishas death on her Instagram stories and wrote, Speechless, followed by a series of crying emojis. RIP, she added.

Disha had also worked as a manager to actors Sushant Singh Rajput and Varun Sharma. PTI reports that the 28-year-old celebrity talent manager jumped off the 12th floor of a building in the Malad area of Mumbai on Monday night.

A Malwani police station official told the agency, She lived in Dadar but visited the building often as her fiance stayed here. Her parents were informed, their statements recorded. But they have not filed a complaint or named anyone in connection with the incident. Her swab sample has been collected for Covid-19 testing.

Also see: Sonam Kapoor missing from Shatrughan Sinhas birthday post for her, fans reply with hilarious Mr India memes

The police have filed an accidental death report and are conducting an inquiry to find out why she took this step, Senior Inspector Jagdev Kalapad told PTI. Sushant mourned Dishas demise and called it devastating news. He wrote on his Instagram stories, Its such devastating news. My deepest condolences to Dishas family and friends. May your soul rest in peace.

Varun said that he could not come to terms with the news of Dishas death. Sharing a picture with her on Instagram, he wrote: Am at a loss of words . Speechless. Numb . It all looks unreal .So many memories. Such a lovely person and a dear friend . You always wore that smile everyday , and with such kindness you dealt with everything that came your way . You will be deeply missed.Prayers and Strength to the Family. I still cant believe Disha youre gone. Gone too Soon.

Several other Bollywood celebrities including Sonakshi Sinha, Nushrat Bharucha and Richa Chadha also expressed their shock and sadness at the news.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A member of the Huntsville city council is asking for a review of police conduct in protests last week that resulted in the releasing of tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The resolution proposed by councilwoman Frances Akridge is asking for a written report due by Aug. 13 from the Huntsville Police Citizens Advisory Council.

The council will vote on the resolution at its June 25 meeting. Typically, business items that are introduced at council meetings are not discussed by the council at the time of their introduction. Instead, public discussion usually takes place when the item is presented for a vote.

The resolution states that the council, recognizes the varying opinions and concerns expressed by many citizens about the events that occurred on the evenings of June 1, 2020 and June 3, 2020 and the desire for an independent group to provide an after action review of those events.

Those dates are when police deployed tear gas on the courthouse square as well as in Big Spring Park adjacent to the square to the west and Clinton Avenue a block north of the courthouse.

The citizens council, according to the resolution, "is authorized to identify stakeholders, obtain police and protestor video footage to include that from aerial surveillance, and conduct interviews with City officials/employees, elected officials, and citizens. The HPCAC will produce a written report related to the actions on June 1, 2020 and June 3, 2020."

The report, the resolution said, should include:

Facts leading up to the events.

Action items for future handlings of the expression of First Amendment rights

Identification of lessons learned with recommendations for updating the policies of the police department or any other city department, as necessary.

The police citizens council should also engage outside experts as needed in the development of the report, the resolution said.

The police citizens council, as its name states, serves in an advisory role to the police department, to strengthen bonds between the police and the people of Huntsville to ensure equal protection and service for all citizens," according to the city ordinance that created it in 2010. Members are appointed by the mayor, chief of police and city council.

Mayor Tommy Battle and police have defended the use of tear gas at the two protests last week, citing protection of property and citizen safety.

Akridge met with protesters on June 5 outside city hall who, among other things, expressed frustration with police for suppressing their right to protest by using tear gas. Near the end of her time at the protest, Akridge dropped to her knees and prayed with Dantraeon Calvert, a 28-year-old Army veteran from Huntsville.

Absolutely, I do feel like positive steps were made, Calvert told AL.com following the prayer. "This was the first time Ive seen an elected official be willing to truly stand, come out, put themselves in a vulnerable position. As you could see, that was a very small, older lady and she was perfectly safe. We were able to lock hand-in-hand.

I hope that is a sign of good faith from the people and the citizens who are out here protesting to show that nobody is interested in any type of violence, nobody is interested to stick it to the man. All the people want to see is for people to be treated fairly.
Sydney, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Japan outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Japan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses

This report provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments in Japans telecommunications market. The report analyses the Telecoms Infrastructure, mobile, fixed broadband, Digital Media and Digital Economy sectors. Subjects include:

Market and industry analyses, trends and developments;

Regional market comparisons

Telecoms Maturity Index

Data centres and smart Infrastructure;

Major players, revenues, subscribers, ARPU;

Broadband (FTTH, DSL);

Internet of Things, 5G developments

Mobile, broadband and mobile broadband forecasts to 2023-4.

Executive Summary

Japans four MNOs all launch 5G

Japans telecommunications sector is one of the most developed markets in the world.

Fixed line growth in Japan has been stagnant over the past five years. This trend is predicted to continue over the next five years to 2024.

The fixed broadband market is supported largely by two technology platforms: cable TV (CATV) and FttP, with the latter more prominent.

Japan has a strong presence as a regional Asian data centre provider and is a global financial and corporate hub and one of the fastest evolving digital markets in the world. Data centre locations have easy access to high-speed international connectivity, with landing points for several submarine cables that connect with the western United States. Japans digital economy is highly mature and difficult to serve from overseas or alternative locations. Japan has now evolved into more of an international data centre market driven by the global hyperscale cloud providers expanding in the Tokyo and Osaka markets.

Japan possesses a large and vibrant television industry due to its unique culture and market size. Legislation enacted to restrict ownership has led to a plethora of broadcasters. Japans vertically integrated broadcasting industry means broadcasters create as well as distribute content.

Japan possesses one of the most advanced and largest broadband markets in the world. Japan has also been an early adopter of triple-play models which provide TV, broadband internet and voice telephony as packaged services from a single provider. Fixed-line broadband market penetration has grown slowly over the past five years in a highly mature market.

Moving further into 2020, FttP will continue to increase its share of total fixed broadband subscriptions at the expense of DSL. This is expected to accelerate as the few remaining DSL users are encouraged to migrate off the remaining DSL. Over the next five years to 2024 fixed broadband growth is expected to continue to increase slowly.

Recognising the potential of applying ICT to improve both social and economic development, Japan has taken steps to develop a digital economy. Businesses, governments and private citizens have been instrumental in creating the online content and services that make up the digital economy.

Mobile subscriber growth is expected to be relatively low over the next five years to 2024 due to a highly mature and highly competitive market. The market will be driven by the uptake of both 4G LTE and 5G services.

Japans mobile market is dominated by three major operators  NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile. However, the Japanese government was looking to open its mobile market up to new players for 5G services. This could result the entry of new players, even those from outside the traditional telecoms space, and potential foreign players, including those looking to target the IoT, VR and automotive applications. Japans largest e-commerce company is working on plans to build its own nationwide 4G mobile network with an intended launch later in 2020.

Mobile broadband subscriber growth is expected to be relatively low over the next five years to 2024 due to a highly mature mobile subscriber market, with the vast majority of subscribers already having wireless broadband access.

The four carriers have all launched 5G services, with DoCoMo targeting nationwide coverage by 2023. The anticipated surge in interest for IoT and related technologies such as driverless cars is expected to help fuel a boom in spending.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) is preparing to embark on R&D work in Japan to explore a new telecoms standard that will eventually succeed 5G technology.

BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries.

On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth.

Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report.

The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions.

Key Developments

Government considers telecom tax to fund rural 5G networks;

Three carriers plan 5G services launch by end-2020;

DOCOMO targets nationwide 5G coverage by 2023;

FttP continues to gain market share in fixed broadband segment as DSL is phased out;

Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) trials start;

Report update includes telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.

Key companies mentioned in this report:

NTT; KDDI; Softbank Mobile, Internet Initiative Japan, eAccess, eMobile, Ratuken, IIJ; JCI; Line Mobile









Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Japan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses
Two months ago, when there were roughly 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases and the primal politics of survival was sweeping the world, shutting down was the order of the day.

This week, the number of cases soared past 7 million, with 136,000 new infections detected Sunday alone, the highest single-day total since the pandemic began.

The order of the day? Reopening.

Terrified after watching economies built over the course of decades hollow out in a matter of weeks, countries seem to be saying, in effect: Enough.

For health officials who have been watching the virus with alarm as it began claiming a foothold in continent after continent, it is a dizzying moment.

This is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, warned at a news conference in Geneva this week. The crisis, he said, is far from over.

Peak Still to Come

While infection rates in the hardest-hit cities in United States and Europe may have slowed, the virus remains deeply woven into the fabric of the world. Indeed, the global peak of infection may still be months away.

In the absence of a vaccine or even effective treatments, the only proven strategy against the coronavirus to date has been limiting human contact. Cities around the world have done just that, reaping the benefits as new infections dwindled and then gingerly lifting movement restrictions.

But it is not that simple. In the longer term, as outbreaks wax and wane, public health officials say, there might need to be a period of repeated closings and openings. And that could prove a much harder sell.

Amid economic pain unlike anything seen in generations, there simply may not be the same political will, or even desire, to shut things down again. And while the public largely went along with restrictions (which were often not really enforceable on a wide scale, in any case), it remains to be seen if citizens would be so accommodating a second time around.

The virus itself is certainly anything but accommodating. It is now spreading exponentially in parts of the developing world where fragile health care systems may soon be overwhelmed if the numbers continue to spike.

On Tuesday, the United States top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, delivered a grim assessment  he described COVID-19 as his worst nightmare  and a warning. In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world, Fauci said. And it isnt over yet.

Of the 136,000 new cases reported Sunday, three-quarters of them were in just 10 countries, most in the Americas and South Asia. They include India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

The Pan American Health Organization on Tuesday painted a dire picture for Latin America and the Caribbean. The crisis, said the organizations director, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, has pushed our region to the limit.

Data Suppression

It is spreading swiftly in some countries ruled by leaders who are used to suppressing information to shape the public narrative.

In Russia, Moscow lifted its lockdown orders this week even as the number of detected infections continued to climb steadily.

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaros government took another approach: It stopped reporting the cumulative toll of the virus altogether, before a Supreme Court justice ordered it be reinstated.

And in Mexico, the government is not reporting hundreds, possibly thousands, of deaths in Mexico City. It has dismissed anxious officials who have tallied more than three times as many fatalities in the capital than the government publicly acknowledges, according to officials and confidential data.

Mexicos president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has struggled to balance a response to the coronavirus with the economic needs of a country in which more than half of the population lives hand-to-mouth, working informal jobs, without a safety net.

Now, Mexico is starting to bustle again as the country gradually reopens.

India's Looming Shortage

Even some countries that moved against the virus head on are losing ground. Among them is India.

There will be a total ban of coming out of your homes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told his citizens on March 24. Every state, every district, every lane, every village will be under lockdown.

The ambition was staggering. India is a country of 1.3 billion, and hundreds of millions of its citizens are destitute, with countless millions living in packed urban areas with poor sanitation and weak public health care.

Despite the swift action, the country is now grappling with a sharp surge of infections.

In just 24 hours, India reported 10,000 new cases, for a total of at least 266,500, surpassing Spain to become one of the five countries with the highest caseloads. Public health experts are warning of a looming shortage of hospital beds and doctors.

But this week, Indians can once again dine out, shop and pray at religious sites.

Manish Sisodia, a government official in New Delhi, warned that the capital was likely to have 500,000 coronavirus cases by the end of July, based on the current rate of infection.

Rajnish Sinha, the owner of an event management company in Delhi, was able to secure space for his 75-year-old father-in-law on a stretcher in a missionary hospital only after an eight-hour search. He tested positive for the coronavirus Tuesday.

This is just the beginning of the coming disaster, Sinha said. He said, Only God can save us.

Risk of Societal Collapse

In Latin America, cases are surging both in countries that took early isolation measures, like Peru and Bolivia, and in those that ignored many public recommendations, like Brazil and Nicaragua.

Governments, forced to choose between watching citizens die of the virus or watching them die of hunger, are loosening lockdowns.

It appears clear that the playbook for slowing the spread of the virus used in Western Europe and the United States may not work everywhere. Societies with informal economies simply cannot enforce lockdowns without running the risk of societal collapse

But even those countries that have made progress after being hit hard by the first wave of the virus are by no means out of the woods. Social-distancing rules in many places  and adherence to them  remain haphazard, little match for the most basic of human desires: to connect.

Marc Santora c.2020 The New York Times Company
By Baek Byung-yeul





LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo is steering the conglomerate to actively diversify its business structure and reform its human resource management system in the post-COVID-19 world, industry officials said Wednesday.



Unlike its chief rival Samsung, LG Group has long pursued stability over change in terms of its overall management style, making few and only necessary changes in its reshuffles of C-level executives. Since President Moon Jae-in took power in 2017, the group has been praised for its effective contributions to society through corporate social responsibility activities.



However, industry officials said the young group leader, who took the helm of the group in 2018, is making a bid to shed its conventional image to some degree by appointing an outside expert as leader of one of its affiliates, pursuing new opportunities aggressively and reforming its recruiting practices.



They said LG Group has been actively working to embrace uncertainties caused by the virus pandemic and use them as an opportunity to advance.



"Koo is trying to bring change to the group. As uncertainty in the global economy is growing, the group is working to prepare for the post-COVID-19 era," an official at a local conglomerate said.





LG Chem CEO Shin Hak-cheol

In accordance with the initiatives, LG Chem, the seventh-largest listed company on the country's main bourse by market capitalization, is changing its business structure, shifting its focus from polarizers used in LCD displays toward an OLED polarizer business, on which the group's electronics and display arms are concentrating.

The chemical and battery arm of the group said Wednesday it inked a deal to sell its LCD polarizer business unit to China's Shanshan Chemical for 1.3 trillion won ($1.1 billion).



LCD polarizers are used to manufacture TVs, smart devices and automobiles but LG Chem said it will keep the unit of LCD polarizers used in cars. The decision is to focus on its OLED business, which the group thinks will become its future growth engine, it added.



The money the company has secured from selling the LCD polarizer business will be used in its material business for automobiles and batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). LG Chem has the largest market share in the global EV battery business, supplying its battery cells to numerous carmakers including Hyundai, GM, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.



All these swift business decisions were made after Koo appointed Shin Hak-cheol, the former executive vice president of chemical manufacturing giant 3M, as new LG Chem CEO in November 2018. Since taking the top seat, Shin created a high-tech materials business division and restructured its loss-making electronics materials business.



In line with LG Chem's move to bolster its OLED business, LG Display, the display-making arm of the group, is also aggressively trying to improve its management efficiency, shifting its TV production line in Korea to Southeast Asia to decrease fixed costs.





LG Display CEO Jeong Ho-young
DUBLIN, June 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Aptiv PLC (NYSE: APTV) (the "Company") today announced the pricing of concurrent offerings of 13,173,495 ordinary shares at a price to the public of $75.91 per share (the "Ordinary Shares Offering") and 10,000,000 5.50% Series A Mandatory Convertible Preferred Shares (the "mandatory convertible preferred shares") at a price to the public of $100.00 per share (the "Preferred Shares Offering," and together with the Ordinary Shares Offering, the "Offerings"). The Company has granted the underwriters of the Ordinary Shares Offering, a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,976,024 ordinary shares and the underwriters of the Preferred Shares Offering, a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,500,000 mandatory convertible preferred shares, solely to cover over-allotments, if any. The Offerings are expected to close on June 12, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

The net proceeds from the Ordinary Shares Offering and the Preferred Shares Offering will be approximately $970.0 million and $970.0 million, respectively (or approximately $1,115.5 million and $1,115.5 million, respectively, if the underwriters exercise their options to purchase additional shares in full), in each case after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offerings for general corporate purposes, which may include, without limitation and in the Company's sole discretion, funding potential future investments (including acquisitions), capital expenditures, working capital, repayment of outstanding indebtedness, and satisfaction of other obligations.

Unless earlier converted, each mandatory convertible preferred share will automatically convert on June 15, 2023 (subject to postponement for certain market disruption events) into between 1.0754 and 1.3173 of the Company's ordinary shares, subject to certain customary anti-dilution adjustments.

Dividends on the mandatory convertible preferred shares will be payable on a cumulative basis when, as and if declared by the Company's board of directors, at an annual rate of 5.50% on the liquidation preference of $100.00 per mandatory convertible preferred share, and may be paid in cash or, subject to certain limitations, in ordinary shares, or in any combination of cash and ordinary shares. If declared, dividends on the mandatory convertible preferred shares will be payable quarterly on March 15, June 15, September 15 and December 15 of each year, commencing on September 15, 2020 and ending on, and including, June 15, 2023.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Citigroup are acting as joint lead book-running managers for the Offerings. Barclays, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities and J.P. Morgan are also acting as book-running managers for the Offerings. BNP Paribas, SMBC Nikko and Societe Generale are acting as senior co-managers for the Offerings. BTIG, MUFG, TD Securities and UniCredit Capital Markets are acting as co-managers for the Ordinary Shares Offering. MUFG, TD Securities, UniCredit Capital Markets and US Bancorp are acting as co-managers for the Preferred Shares Offering.

The Company is conducting the Offerings pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement, including a base prospectus, under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Each of the Offerings is being made only by means of a separate prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus. Copies of the prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to either the Ordinary Shares Offering or the Preferred Shares Offering may be obtained by contacting Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, New York 10282, telephone: 1-866-471-2526, facsimile: 212-902-9316 or by emailing [email protected] or Citigroup, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, telephone: 1-800-831-9146 or by emailing [email protected]. Before you invest in either of the Offerings, you should read the applicable prospectus supplement relating to such Offering and accompanying prospectus, the registration statement and the other documents that the Company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as incorporated by reference therein, for more complete information about the Company and the Offerings. Investors may obtain these documents for free by visiting the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About Aptiv

Aptiv is a global technology company that develops safer, greener and more connected solutions enabling the future of mobility.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release, as well as other statements made by the Company, contain forward-looking statements that reflect, when made, the Company's current views with respect to the Offerings, current events and financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are subject to many risks, uncertainties and factors relating to the Company's operations and business environment, which may cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from any future results. All statements that address future operating, financial or business performance or the Company's strategies or expectations are forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: global and regional economic conditions, including conditions affecting the credit market; uncertainties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulty in predicting its future course and its impact on the global economy and the Company's future operations; fluctuations in interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates; the cyclical nature of global automotive sales and production; the potential disruptions in the supply of and changes in the competitive environment for raw material integral to the Company's products; the Company's ability to maintain contracts that are critical to its operations; potential changes to beneficial free trade laws and regulations such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and its predecessor agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement; the ability of the Company to integrate and realize the expected benefits of recent transactions; the ability of the Company to attract, motivate and/or retain key executives; the ability of the Company to avoid or continue to operate during a strike, or partial work stoppage or slow down by any of its unionized employees or those of its principal customers; and the ability of the Company to attract and retain customers. Additional factors are discussed under the captions "Risk Factors" in the applicable prospectus supplement for the Offerings, and "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. New risks and uncertainties arise from time to time, and it is impossible for us to predict these events or how they may affect the Company. It should be remembered that the price of the ordinary shares and any income from them can go down as well as up. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events and/or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

SOURCE Aptiv PLC
The brutal death of George Floyd while in police custody is the latest in a four-century legacy of racial injustice in America. Civil blood truly does make civil hands unclean. We all must do our part to reduce systemic racism in all of its contexts, including but not limited to mass incarceration, education, the financial system, the political system, housing and drug policy. This is especially true in law enforcement.

The nearly 800,000 law enforcement officers in the United States report to 18,000 law enforcement agencies. They are governed by federal law, but also by a patchwork of state laws and local collective bargaining agreements.

The Texas Legislature will have the opportunity to revisit the state laws governing the police disciplinary process in the next session. The San Antonio City Council should prioritize police accountability in the collective bargaining agreement negotiations with the police union next year.

Swift federal action can provide immediate relief and lay a foundation for comprehensive and durable reforms. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden focuses on community policing programs, which President Donald Trump tried to cut. Congressional Democrats recently unveiled the more comprehensive Justice in Policing Act in response to the ongoing protests. This sets the stage for a battle at the Democratic convention about how far the platform should go in its police reform language. The most strident voices will call for a dismantling of American policing. The most moderate voices will likely pursue modest reform that will amount to a continuation of much of the status quo.

Police accountability has been elusive on multiple fronts. The disciplinary process for police officers is clearly insufficient. In San Antonio, media reports have found two-thirds of officers fired since 2010 got their jobs back through arbitration. Prosecutors usually work closely with law enforcement and have been generally unwilling to pursue criminal charges against police officers in use of force cases. When officers are charged, juries are half as likely to convict officers in use of force cases than other defendants.

Federal law provides a mechanism for Americans to pursue a civil remedy against government officials that deny constitutional rights. Victims of police brutality and their families should be able to make these claims in federal court, but a legal doctrine called qualified immunity is a roadblock. Meaningful police reform must remove this barrier.

The qualified immunity doctrine was created by the Supreme Court to protect civil servants and police officers from frivolous lawsuits. The rationale is that if a public official is performing his or her duties reasonably, they should not be held personally liable for their conduct.

A person suing a police officer for excessive force must clear a very high bar created by the Supreme Court. This has the practical effect of closing the courthouse as an option for those wishing to hold bad actors accountable. The courts are far more likely to invoke qualified immunity for law enforcement officials than civilian employees, creating an even higher barrier.

A comprehensive analysis conducted by the news agency Reuters found that qualified immunity protection for police officers has grown since 2005 and accelerated since 2009. The protection extends to cases when there was no physical threat posed to the officer or others and even if the victim of police force had not committed a crime. Judges appointed by both parties seem disinclined to modify the qualified immunity doctrine.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has emerged as the highest profile critic of qualified immunity, saying it is a functional absolute shield against liability for law enforcement officers even when their behavior is egregious.

In a notorious 2018 dissenting opinion co-signed by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sotomayor wrote that the court routinely displays an unflinching willingness to summarily reverse courts for wrongly denying officers the protection of qualified immunity but rarely intervene(s) where courts wrongly afford officers the benefit of qualified immunity in these same cases.

Absent judicial intervention, Congress can act. Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Justin Amash are leading a growing and bipartisan House chorus calling for reform.

The stated purpose of the qualified immunity doctrine is to protect public servants from frivolous lawsuits. Congress must override the judges and adopt a framework that prevents frivolous suits without providing an impenetrable wall that protects malignant actors.

Constitutional rights are only truly enforceable through the judicial system. Congress should limit qualified immunity.

T.J. Mayes is a San Antonio-based attorney, community volunteer and host of KLRNs On the Record.
Earlier, Acting Inspector Christine Lalor said Will was "alert, eating, drinking" and had asked for McDonald's after his 46-hour ordeal. Will could be released on Wednesday night, the doctors said. He was reunited with his parents shortly after 1pm, in a tent at the base camp where police had set up a marshalling area to co-ordinate the search. A short time later, he was carried into a waiting ambulance, still wearing his rescuer's jacket, by his stepfather Nathan, his mother Penny following close behind. Will's mother Penny thanks the hundreds of volunteers, police and firefighters who searched for her son. Credit:Justin McManus

From the door of the ambulance, Ms Callaghan said she was "obviously immensely relieved" and thanked the hundreds of volunteers who had searched for her son. "He's quite calm considering," she said. Ms Callaghan said Will had communicated to them that he was confused, scared and that his body felt "a bit weird", but he was otherwise OK. "More than anything, thank you everyone. I'm so grateful, you're all amazing. What an amazing community," she said. The moment William Callaghan was reunited with his mother after two days lost in the bush. Credit:AAP/Pool

"I want to be with my boy." Ms Callaghan said Will was a "very special person", who deserved to go on a holiday after his ordeal. "There are some amazing sides to autism. It is hard, but he's just so special," she said. Volunteer Ben Gibbs, from Research, found Will standing barefoot in the bush, with his hands over his ears, blocking the noise of a helicopter above. Ben Gibbs, who found Will in the bush. Credit:Justin McManus

"I came up from the bottom of the mountain, there is a single track there I know quite well," Mr Gibbs said. "I just followed that up and went off track once I got near the top and saw where the guys had tagged where they searched previously and I went a bit deeper than that." He said it was 20 minutes from the track, relatively near the summit. "He was really angelic, just standing there." Mr Gibbs said he tried to relax Will and speak calmly to him, before giving him some chocolate, socks and a jacket.

"I heard he liked Thomas the Tank Engine so I talked to him about [the character] Diesel. "After he ate half the chocolate bar, I carried him out." Acting Inspector Lalor said search teams had not lost hope and that Will looked "remarkably well for the time he's been out there".

"[He seems like] a lovely boy, clearly a little bit overwhelmed. The fact that he's asked for McDonald's is a pretty good sign, I think." She thanked the almost 500 people in teams from the police force, SES and CFA who had been searching for Will around the clock since Monday. "It just goes to show what can happen when everyone gets together, pulls together as a team," she said. William Callaghan after his rescue. Credit:AAP Many concerned members of the public gave their time to join the effort and police were forced to turn some volunteers away.

The mood changed at the search site about 12.30pm on Wednesday as word filtered through that there had been a potential sighting of Will in the bush. William Callaghan with his stepfather and a paramedic after being found safe and well. Credit:AAP At 12.46pm, acting Inspector Lalor confirmed it was Will. Huge grins crossed the faces of volunteers and searchers when she announced the news, as friends of the family began crying tears of relief. Police had asked the hundreds of people waiting at the search site to be quiet and not to cheer or clap in case it spooked Will.

Loading The teenager, who taps his chest to communicate, had spent two nights in the bush. On Monday night, temperatures dipped toward zero degrees. The following night, the mercury dropped below 5 degrees. On Wednesday morning, his mother described her son as a beautiful, gentle and resilient boy, and spoke of her desperate hope that he would be found safe. "We are desperately hoping he will be found today," she said.

"Sometimes being the mother of an autistic child is really tough. I have two boys with autism; Will is my oldest son and he would be considered very low functioning. He has an intellectual disability," she said. "He is very smart in his own way, Im feeling positive as he is quite resilient. He is very skinny ... but he eats all the time, hes always on the move so hes very fit. "Hes such a beautiful person; he wouldnt harm a fly and is very gentle." Penny Callaghan addressed the media with her partner Nathan Ezard. Credit:Justin McManus The teenager had never been camping or spent a night by himself.

Will is a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, so three speakers moved around the area playing the program theme tune in an effort to draw him out. SES volunteers searching thick bushland for William Callaghan on Tuesday. Credit:Chris Hopkins Police encouraged residents to cook a barbecue as Will loves the smell of onions and bacon. He's interested in water bottles so police asked people to put water on their verandah or porch. They urged locals to open any windows and doors if they were cooking in the hope Will would smell the food. with Rachel Eddie
Amnesty International on Wednesday accused armies in Africas sprawling Sahel region of unlawfully killing or forcibly disappearing some 200 people this year, adding that many incidents could amount to war crimes.

The rights monitor said that the militaries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger slew at least 57 people and forcibly disappeared at least 142 others between February and April.

Much of the semi-desert central Sahel region is plagued by Islamist militants, who first emerged in Mali in 2012, before spreading to Burkina Faso and Niger.

Despite the presence of thousands of French and United Nations troops in the region, Sahel states have struggled to quell the jihadist insurgency.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict to date, and many more have had to flee their homes.

Amnestys report comes at a time of mounting concern over alleged human rights abuses committed by authorities in the region.

On Saturday, Mali vowed to investigate claims that its own troops had killed some 30 villagers in the volatile centre of the country.

The United Nations Security Council also debated allegations of human rights violations by Sahel armies on Friday.

According to Amnesty, military abuses have occurred as governments are ramping up their operations against jihadists.

The deliberate killings of unarmed civilians by security forces in Mali and Burkina Faso may constitute war crimes under international law and should be thoroughly investigated, it said.

These violations were usually perpetrated following losses of the security forces against armed groups.

Amnesty recorded allegations of forced disappearances by Nigerien armed forces, but of no extrajudicial killings.

Wednesdays report was based on 33 interviews, and on photographic evidence of dead victims and mass graves.
Lucknow The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has earned praise for handling of the novel coronavirus crisis from an unexpected quarter -- a senior journalist from Pakistan.

Fahd Hussain, the Editor of Pakistan's 'Dawn' newspaper, tweeted how Uttar Pradesh had strictly enforced the lockdown while Pakistan did not.

Hussain tweeted a graph to compare Covid-19 death toll in Pakistan and Uttar Pradesh to explain how the two handled the crisis and what was its impact.

Here's another graphic comparison this time between Pakistan and Indian state of Maharashtra (prepared by an expert). This shows how terribly Maharashtra has performed in relation to Pakistan. Shows the outcome of bad decisions & their deadly consequences #COVID19 (1/2) pic.twitter.com/6AHenrznIs  Fahd Husain (@Fahdhusain) June 7, 2020

As per the graph, Pakistan has a population of 208 million and UP 225 million but the neighbouring country had Covid-19 death rate almost seven times higher than that of UP. Fahd also compared Pakistan's performance with another Indian state Maharashtra.

He tagged a comparative graph with another tweet and said: "While the Indian state of UP has a lower mortality rate than Pakistan, Maharashtra has a higher rate despite younger population and higher GDP/capita. We must know what UP did right and Maharashtra did wrong to learn the right lessons." The tweet comes a day after Hussain's comprehensive article 'Message that matters' wherein he dealt at length with how Prime Minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is struggling with its message on Covid-19 and how it should come out of the crisis. However, the praise of Yogi government evoked a mixed response. While many acknowledged his observations, others seemed to be irked.

Majority of the people in UP are mature & responsible, they maintained social distance & kept themselves safe. This is what most of the countries are doing.  Tayyeb Naseer (@tayyebnaseer) June 8, 2020

This is huge. Lots of #respect for you sir. Let me confess, I wouldnt have shared this data. Its high time government started thinking not all criticism is just to drag them down. They must follow what is right irrespective of who said it  Mango Man  (@AaammAadmi) June 7, 2020

And Dawns editor goes on to compare Pakistan and Maharashtra to say how the latter has performed so badly https://t.co/fGJnb7LSna  Aman Sharma (@AmanKayamHai_ET) June 7, 2020

(With inputs from IANS)
Now more than ever, people who want to learn a new language turn to their mobile devices for help as language learning applications have become increasingly available. While these apps allow users to study a new language from anywhere at any time, how effective are they?

That is a question Shawn Loewen, professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages at Michigan State University, is trying to answer.

Loewen, who is the director of the Second Language Studies program, recently conducted a study focusing on Babbel, a popular subscription-based language learning app and e-learning platform, to see if it really worked at teaching a new language. Helping Loewen with the study as a research assistant was Daniel Isbell, a recent graduate of MSU's Second Language Studies Ph.D. Program who was a doctoral candidate at the time.

"Despite the fact that millions globally are already using language learning apps, there is a lack of published research on their impact on speaking skills," Loewen said. "There are virtually no other studies that have investigated mobile language learning apps in a quasi-experimental way. Therefore, this robust and methodologically rigorous study makes an important contribution to the field."

In the study, which is published in Foreign Language Annals, 85 undergraduate students at MSU used Babbel for 12 weeks to learn Spanish. At the beginning of the study, the students took a pre-test to assess their existing oral proficiency, vocabulary and grammar in Spanish. After 12 weeks, the 54 students who completed all study requirements took the same test again to see how much knowledge they had gained.

The study showed that nearly all students who completed the requirements improved in their Spanish language knowledge and/or ability to communicate after 12 weeks of using Babbel.

"On the whole, learners in this study increased their oral proficiency, as measured by an improvement on a well-established and valid speaking test, the Oral Proficiency Interview," Loewen said. "These results establish that using Babbel can facilitate the development of oral communication skills and not just grammar and vocabulary acquisition, as a previous study had demonstrated."

Also, as one might expect, learning gains in terms of oral proficiency, grammar and vocabulary were correlated with the amount of time students invested in using the app.

Among the report's findings, 59% of participants improved oral proficiency by at least one sublevel on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages proficiency scale. The proportion of learners who improved rose even higher among those who spent more time using the app. For those who studied at least six hours, 69% increased at least one sublevel, improving to 75% for those who studied for at least 15 hours.

Additionally, when considering the improved learning outcomes for those who logged more hours in the app and the fact that 36% of participants who started the study ended up quitting, a key takeaway for prospective language learning app users becomes clear: However convenient and effective a language learning app may be, what might be most important is that learners stick with it and put in the necessary time to make progress.

Babbel first launched in August 2007 and currently offers instruction in 14 different languages, including Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
Benczkowski was confirmed as head of the criminal division in July 2018 after a lengthy partisan fight, as Democrats contended his representation of a Russian bank while in private practice and lack of prosecutorial experience made him unfit for the job. He was well respected in conservative legal circles, however, having served in the Justice Department before and having led the entire Justice Department transition as Trump prepared to take office. He was a top aide to Jeff Sessions, Trumps first attorney general, when Sessions (R) represented Alabama in the Senate.
BRASILIA, June 9 (Reuters) - Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday that he will consider pulling the country out of the World Health Organization once the coronavirus pandemic has passed.

Speaking to CNN Brasil, Bolsonaro said the WHO has not acted responsibly and has lost a lot of credibility, repeating recent criticism of what he claimed last week is a "partisan political organization." (Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu Writing by Jamie McGeever, Editing by Franklin Paul)
Washington called for a ceasefire in Libya and urged warring parties to protect its oil sector Wednesday as the unity government said landmines had killed at least seven people in the capital. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's call came as the UN said it had held "productive" talks separately with officers from the unity government and rival forces backing military strongman Khalifa Haftar. The deadly explosions in Tripoli took place days after the Government of National Accord (GNA) declared itself back in full control of the capital and its suburbs after fending off Haftar's year-long offensive to seize it. "Seven people were killed in landmine explosions in several locations in the south of Tripoli, and 10 others were wounded," ministry spokesman Amin al-Hashemi told AFP. Those killed were four civilians and three mine-clearing experts, he said, adding that the blasts took place in the Ain Zara and Wadi Rabi districts on the southern edges of Tripoli, controlled by forces backing Haftar until May. Human Rights Watch earlier this month accused pro-Haftar forces of laying Russian and Soviet-era landmines as they withdrew from Tripoli's southern districts. Pro-Haftar forces, which are backed by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, had been battling since April last year to seize Tripoli from the UN-recognised government. In recent weeks GNA forces, reinforced with Turkish drones and air defences, have staged a withering fightback to regain control of the whole of the country's northwest. - Counteroffensive - The GNA's counter-assault is the latest round of fighting in years of violence following the 2011 toppling and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a Western-backed uprising. GNA forces are hoping now to take back the strategic city of Sirte, the gateway to Libya's oil fields. But Pompeo on Wednesday backed calls for a ceasefire, urging the warring parties to keep out Russian influence and preserve the country's vast crude oil reserves. "Quick and in-good-faith negotiations are now required to implement a ceasefire and relaunch the UN-led intra-Libyan political talks," Pompeo told reporters. He was speaking shortly after European leaders also backed a truce and talks in a joint military commission made up of officers from both sides. "It's time for all Libyans on all sides to act so that neither Russia nor any other country can interfere in Libya's sovereignty for its own gain," Pompeo said. A UN report found that Haftar has enjoyed support from a shadowy Russian mercenary group, with Washington charging the sophisticated equipment on the ground could only come from Moscow. - GNA vows to push on - Like the US and the EU, Haftar's backer Egypt has called for a ceasefire following his losses in Tripoli. But the resurgent GNA has vowed to push on for Sirte, Kadhafi's hometown and the last major settlement before the traditional boundary between western Libya and Haftar's stronghold in the east. The UN's Libya mission said Wednesday it had held talks with both sides as part of the joint military commission, set up following a January peace conference. UNSMIL said it had met virtually last week with Haftar's forces and on Tuesday with GNA officers, commending "the seriousness and the commitment of both parties". But, it added in a statement, "it calls on them to de-escalate to avoid further civilian casualties and new waves of displacement." Neither of the warring sides has commented on the latest talks. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his country, which hosted the January conference in Berlin, was "extremely concerned" by the hostilities and welcomed the latest push to end them. The fighting for Tripoli has left hundreds dead and forced 200,000 to flee their homes. Almost a decade of violence has also caused repeated shutdowns of Libyan oil installations, vital in a country where almost all state revenues come from crude exports. The National Oil Company in recent days resumed production at two oil fields including the country's largest after Haftar's forces were driven out. Fighters loyal to Libya's UN-recognised Government of National Accord pose for a picture with a children's bicycle as they celebrate the capture of the town of Tarhuna, about 65 kilometres southeast of the capital Tripoli An oil refinery in Libya's northern town of Ras Lanuf
Authorities in the northern Armenian city of Vanadzor shut down three local kindergartens on Wednesday after the parents of some children attending them were infected with the coronavirus.

Vanadzor Mayor Mamikon Aslanian said most of those parents work at a large textile factory which suspended its operations last week due to a coronavirus outbreak.

We had warned the kindergarten principals to immediately alert us if their kids parents are infected or have been in contact [with infected persons,] Aslanian told RFE/RLs Armenian service. [Three of them] alerted us in writing and we took measures to shut down those kindergartens.

They will remain closed for at least two weeks, the mayor said, adding that there are no confirmed coronavirus cases among kindergarten staff.

According to the local authorities, at least 153 workers of the textile factory belonging to the Vanadzor-based Gloria company have tested positive for the virus. The total number of coronavirus cases registered in Vanadzor and surrounding Lori province stood at 302 as of Wednesday morning, compared with 14,103 cases recorded nationwide.

Gloria employs about 2,600 people, making it Armenias largest textile manufacturer. Less than 10 percent of its mostly female workers have undergone COVID-19 tests so far.

Kindergartens across the country reopened on May 20 following the lifting of virtually all coronavirus-related restrictions imposed by the Armenian government in late March. The government allowed them to resume their work despite the growing number of new COVID-19 infections reported by the health authorities. It said this will help many parents of young children return to work.

The government set detailed safety and hygiene rules designed to protect kindergarten students against the epidemic. Judging by low attendance rates reported by kindergarten administrations, most parents are unconvinced by these precautions.

Aslanian said as much as 90 percent of about 2,000 children enrolled in Vanadzors two dozen kindergartens stayed at home when they reopened their doors three weeks ago. Even fewer parents sent their kids to the pre-school institutions in the following weeks, he said.

They were probably wary because we ourselves urged those parents who can keep their kids at home not to send them to kindergartens, added the mayor.
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece and Italy signed an agreement on maritime boundaries on Tuesday, establishing an exclusive economic zone between the two countries and resolving longstanding issues over fishing rights in the Ionian Sea.

The deal, signed during a visit by Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio, follows months of tension over natural resources in the Eastern Mediterranean region, where Turkey, Greece and Cyprus have been caught in a complex diplomatic standoff.

Details of the accord, which effectively extends a 1977 agreement between the two states on continental shelves in the Ionian Sea, were not immediately available.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said the accord confirmed the right of Greek islands in the area to maritime zones and settled fishing rights issues.

"This is a historic day," Dendias said, adding that Greece seeks to establish exclusive economic zones with all its neighbours.

The Greek-Italian accord comes months after a deal on maritime boundaries between Turkey and Libya's internationally recognised government, led by Fayez al-Sarraj. That agreement angered Greece, which says it infringes its own sovereign rights.

"Maritime boundaries are defined only with valid deals," Dendias said.

Greece and Turkey are at odds over various decades-old issues ranging from mineral rights in the Aegean Sea to ethnically split Cyprus.

Italy and Greece are already partners in the EastMed gas pipeline project intended to transport 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year from offshore reserves in the eastern Mediterranean to Greece, Italy and other southeastern European countries.

The two ministers also discussed tourism and the economic impact of the coronavirus. Di Maio said he was assured that Italian tourists would be alowed in without quarantine restrictions when Greece opens its borders on June 15.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and James Mackenzie; Editing by Alison Williams and Giles Elgood)
Malaria parasites all replicating in unison thanks to the inherent biological rhythms of their genes Credit:  2020 Amit Subudhi

The parasites responsible for malaria seem to march to their own beat.

The mystery behind the molecular basis of how these parasites sync their rhythm in replication to the host's clock-driven rhythms has been solved. A new genetic analysis led by KAUST scientists revealed Plasmodium parasites have internal timekeeping systems that help the organism maintain essential oscillations in gene expression levels and cell cycle activities.

Just as humans reset their own biological clocks in response to light-dark cues, malaria parasites time their own rhythms to host signals to maximize their growth success.

The finding of a genetic metronome within the malaria parasite, as well as one component of this timekeeping mechanism, could open new pathways for combatting one of the world's deadliest contagious diseases. Saudi Arabia is on the verge of malaria eradication, but the disease continues to affect its southwestern border, where infections have proven difficult to treat and parasites are increasingly resistant to existing drugs.

"The knowledge from our study has the potential to inform new therapies for malaria elimination," says Amit Subudhi, a postdoctoral research fellow in Arnab Pain's group and the first author of the new report. "This information might allow doctors to formulate drug regimens in which patients take antimalarial therapies with known target genes at particular times of the day so as to eliminate the malaria parasite more effectively."

In mouse-infecting malaria parasites, the researchers found that more than half of all the parasite's genes exhibit 24-hour cycles of activity, ramping up and down at regular daily intervals. Credit:  2020 Amit K. Subudhi

Subudhi and Pain teamed up with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, U.K., and from Nagasaki University, Japan, to profile gene activity patterns in mouse-infecting malaria parasites. They found that more than half of all the parasite's genes exhibited 24-hour cycles of activity, ramping up and down at regular daily intervals. This pattern is consistent with the characteristic rhythms of fevers and chills seen in people infected with malaria.

Around half of the rhythmic genes lost their periodicity when the clocks of the parasite and mouse fell out of synchrony. Likewise ; in a lab dish, human malaria parasites cultured without timing cues also displayed some degree of daily rhythmicity in gene expression. One of these genes coded for a receptor protein called SR10, which the researchers showed acts as a cog in the parasite's intrinsic clock machinery.

Without this protein, the usual 24-hour cycle of the rodent Plasmodium parasite became shorter, leading to defects in DNA replication and other cellular processes as well as protein breakdown. According to Subudhi, SR10 likely serves as a link between host circadian rhythms and the endogenous time-keeping ability of the parasite.

The KAUST researchers plan to dissect the molecular components of the SR10-mediated signaling pathway in search of novel drug targets. "Our work does not stop here," notes Pain. "Our next aim is to understand the chemical nature of the host-derived cues that the parasite receives to adjust its life cycle and its biological clock," he says.

Explore further Malaria parasite ticks to its own internal clock

More information: Amit K. Subudhi et al, Malaria parasites regulate intra-erythrocytic development duration via serpentine receptor 10 to coordinate with host rhythms, Nature Communications (2020). Journal information: Nature Communications Amit K. Subudhi et al, Malaria parasites regulate intra-erythrocytic development duration via serpentine receptor 10 to coordinate with host rhythms,(2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16593-y
WOOD RIVER  The masons of Wood River Masonic Lodge 1062 awarded two local students 2020 scholarships.

They awarded East Alton-Wood River High Schools Aubrey R. Robinson, who plans to attend Illinois State University (ISU) and major in nursing and Roxana High Schools Madison E. Klaas, who also plans to attend ISU and major in biology (pre-med).

Each recipient received an award of $500 from the lodge and an extra $500 from the Illinois Grand Lodge Masonic Student Assistance Program.

Funds for the scholarship are obtained from the Masonic Lodge 1062 Pancake and Sausage Breakfast and its semi-annual Spaghetti Dinner.
Atlanta, G.A., June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UNCF (United Negro College Fund) is partnering with The Georgia NAACP, The Center for Popular Democracy and The SNCC Legacy Project to hold a virtual town hall to discuss the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) recent COVID-19 Antibody Testing Survey and other public health issues affecting Black communities in the Atlanta area. Public health and social justice thought leaders will share information and insight during the panel discussion.

Moderated by Nse Ufot, CEO of The New Georgia Project, the town hall will feature Dr. Lynn Paxton, health director, Fulton County Department of Health; Dr. David Satcher, former attorney general, founding director and senior advisor at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine; Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, former public health professor, Columbia University Epidemiology Department, Dr. Joseph Bresee, associate director of Global Health Affairs in the CDC Influenza Division and Martin Luther King, III, community and civil rights advocate.

In April, the CDC deployed staffers to predominantly Black communities in Dekalb and Fulton counties to collect blood samples. Without providing prior information, knowledge, or explanation about the survey, residents were concerned considering the legacies of the U.S. health care systems harm and mistrust that put Black citizens in danger. Even now, Black communities are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Black Georgians make up 83 percent of the states COVID-19 hospitalizations and more than 50 percent of the states COVID-19 related deaths but comprise only 30 percent of the states population.

The town hall will provide accurate, actionable information from trusted community and health leaders to Georgians most at risk of COVID-19. The town hall will address:

CDC surveys and community outreach

Community reaction and concerns regarding health surveys

Steps to stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic

Opportunities to improve community relations with the medical community

Story continues

WHO: The New Georgia Project in partnership with the UNCF, Georgia NAACP, The Center for Popular Democracy, SNCC Legacy Project

Nse Ufot, CEO of The New Georgia Project

Dr. Lynn Paxton, health director, Fulton County Department of Health

Dr. David Satcher, former attorney general, founding director and senior advisor at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, former public health professor, Columbia University Epidemiology Department

Dr. Joseph Bresee, associate director of Global Health Affairs, CDC Influenza Division

Mr. Martin Luther King, III, community and civil rights advocate

WHAT: Virtual town hall to hear from top public health experts and community leaders on the CDCs recent antibody testing, health issues impacting Black communities

WHEN: Thursday, June 11, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. ET

WHERE: Virtual via Zoom. RSVP at tinyurl.com/fillingthegap2020

To learn more about the town hall or if you have any questions, please contact Bentley Hudgins at bentley@newgeorgiaproject.org.

###

About UNCF

UNCF (the United Negro College Fund) is the nations largest and most effective minority education organization. To serve youth, the community and the nation, UNCF supports students education and development through scholarships and other programs, supports and strengthens its 37 member colleges and universities and advocates for the importance of minority education and college readiness. UNCF institutions and other historically black colleges and universities are highly effective, awarding 17 percent of African American baccalaureate degrees. UNCF administers more than 400 programs, including scholarship, internship and fellowship, mentoring, summer enrichment and curriculum and faculty development programs. Today, UNCF supports more than 60,000 students at over 1,100 colleges and universities across the country. Its logo features the UNCF torch of leadership in education and its widely recognized motto, A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  Learn more at UNCF.org or for continuous updates and news, follow UNCF on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @UNCF.

Monique LeNoir

United Negro College Fund, Inc. (UNCF)

202-810-0231

monique.lenoir@uncf.org


(CNN)  A former "Miss Hitler" pageant entrant and her partner have been jailed in the UK for belonging to the extreme right-wing neo-Nazi group National Action.

Tuesday's sentencing comes after Alice Cutter, 24, and her partner Mark Jones, 25, were convicted of membership of a terrorist group at a trial in March, alongside Garry Jack, 24, and Connor Scothern, 19, West Midlands Police said in a statement.

National Action became the first far-right group to be banned under Britain's terror laws in December 2016. It is a criminal offense in the UK to be a member of the organization, which has been described by the country's Home Office as "virulently racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic."

According to police, the four became members of the neo-Nazi group and met regularly to share their extreme ideology and attend demonstrations.

When the organization was banned, police noted that the group held secret meetings to discuss their ambitions for a race war, recruited young people to the group and shared "intensely shocking" images mocking the Holocaust and glorifying Hitler.

At sentencing on Tuesday, Cutter and Jones were jailed for three years and five and a half years respectively, while Jack received a four and a half year sentence, and Scothern 18 months, police said.

Another man, Daniel Ward, 29, pleaded guilty at a previous court hearing and was jailed for three years last July.

Cutter, who entered the "Miss Hitler" beauty competition as Miss Buchenwald  a reference to the Nazi death camp  denied being a member of the group, despite attending rallies where banners reading "Hitler was right" were raised, PA news agency reported.

Judge Paul Farrer QC told Cutter that while she did not hold an organizational or leadership role in the group, she was a "trusted confidante" of one the group's leaders, as well as being in a "committed relationship" with Jones, PA reported.

Farrer noted that Jones had "a significant role in the continuation of the organization" after the ban.

The court heard that all four had denied membership of National Action, but had attended a post-ban meeting of senior leaders and members in 2017, according to PA.

In a statement, Detective Chief Superintendent Kenny Bell, head of West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, said that authorities have seen a "significant increase" of right-wing referrals to the Prevent counter-terrorism program.

"Terrorists and extremists use this kind of ideology to create discord, distrust and fear among our communities and we strive to counter this. I would encourage people to report hate crime to us and it will be taken seriously," he said in a statement.

Ahead of sentencing, director of public prosecutions Max Hill QC described National Action members as "diehards" who "hark back to the days of not just anti-Semitism, but the Holocaust, the Third Reich in Germany," PA reported.

This story was first published on CNN.com "'Miss Hitler' pageant entrant and her partner jailed for belonging to neo-Nazi group"
Children are set to lose their voice at the Cabinet table under plans being discussed by the parties attempting to form a coalition government.

The Irish Independent has learned that a proposal to abolish the Minister for Children as a standalone Cabinet-level position is now back on the table as Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens work to finalise a Programme for Government by the end of this week.

Fianna Fail wants a new Cabinet-level Minister for Higher Education, and to free up a position it has been proposed that the Minister for Education become the Minister for Education, Children and Youth Affairs, taking on responsibility for both the Departments of Education and Children and Youth Affairs.

"It should be a wraparound model from birth to 18," said a Fianna Fail source. "Education is the common strand. Then from 18 you have the Department of Higher Education and Research."

While the department and the child protection agency Tusla would be retained, the move to abolish standalone Cabinet representation for children, in place since 2011, has sparked alarm in the Green Party.

A Green source said it was a "really regressive step - that children's rights can be shunted around for the university rankings".

Children's Rights Alliance chief executive Tanya Ward said: "Both education and children and young people stand to lose out. Only one minister has so much political capital and one area is bound to suffer as we walk into a recession."

Constitutionally there can only be 15 full members of the Cabinet, including the Taoiseach and Tanaiste.

The designation of Cabinet portfolios will ultimately be decided by the three party leaders - Leo Varadkar, Eamon Ryan and Micheal Martin - and sources stressed that no final decision has been made.

When a Fianna Fail plan to abolish the Department of Children emerged in May, it sparked furious reaction from children's rights organisations.

Meanwhile, rural Independent TDs told the three party leaders that Green policies would "decimate" farming during a two-hour meeting yesterday.

TDs Michael Healy-Rae, Danny Healy-Rae, Mattie McGrath, Richard O'Donoghue and Michael Collins raised concerns about the impact of a live export ban and reducing emissions by 7pc a year.

"There is massive worry out there that the Greens will decimate farming further than it already is," Mr Collins said afterwards.

Michael Healy-Rae said it was unlikely he would support a FF-FG-Green deal.

"If they really wanted to have Independents we should have been with them in the talks all along."

The tripartite talks continued last night with agreement reached on issues, including political reform, local government, mental health and some elements of education. But the parties remain unable to agree on agriculture, energy and emissions, which are crucial to hitting the 7pc target.

There is also growing concern in the Greens that Mr Ryan is not sufficiently arguing for party policy in private talks with Mr Varadkar and Mr Martin.

A senior Fianna Fail source said positive meetings of the three leaders were followed by more difficult exchanges with Green negotiators who are led by Catherine Martin, the deputy leader who is challenging Mr Ryan's leadership.
Tajikistans parliament has voted to criminalize anyone found negligently infecting others with the coronavirus.

The bill, passed on June 10, provides for a prison sentence of between 2 and 5 years for first-time offenders who spread the disease in a negligent manner. If someone spreads the disease more than once, they can face up to 10 years in prison.

Anyone found guilty of deliberately spreading the virus can also be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

Speaking to RFE/RL's Tajik Service, Ravshan Rajabzoda, deputy chairman of the lower house's Committee on Legislation and Human Rights, said the aim of the law is not to punish people.

"The goal is to prevent infectious diseases that still exist in our country today," he said.

Parliament also approved fines of up to $28 for anyone not wearing a mask in public or failing to practice physical distancing of two meters.

Other amendments to the criminal code allow individuals to be fined up to $112 for disseminating false information about the coronavirus and $11,000 for legal entities.

Tajikistans authoritarian government initially claimed there were no coronavirus cases in the country and President Emomali Rahmon flouted warnings by international experts to order social-distancing restrictions or other measures to try to curtail the spread of the disease.

According to official numbers, 4,690 people have contracted the virus in Tajikistan and 48 have died.

With reporting by dpa
UPDATE: Coroner identifies man found dead at fireworks explosion site

A shipping container in which fireworks were stored exploded Tuesday afternoon in Lower Milford Township, leaving one person dead and another injured, Pennsylvania State Police said Wednesday morning in a news release.

Witnesses had described subsequent explosions at 8439 Orchard Road as looking and sounding like fireworks.

Investigators have yet to determine why the Conex container blew up, Trooper Nathan Branosky said in a news release. Such a container can be carried on a tractor-trailer.

Troopers remained Wednesday morning on the scene, he said.

The Lehigh County Coroners Office has yet to publicly identify the person killed.

The property is owned by Brian Ehret, Lehigh County records show.

In addition to the coroners office, numerous fire departments, EMS teams and Lehigh County Special Operations responded just after 3 p.m. Tuesday, police said. The state police Troop M fire marshal, criminal Investigation Unit and Hazardous Device and Explosives Unit.

The area of Spinners town and Orchard roads along with School House Lane will be closed until the investigation finishes, Branosky said.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting lehighvalleylive.com with a voluntary subscription.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com.
In the spotlight: There will be a lot of focus on the Green Party and its 12 TDs this week. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

GREEN Party members have been warned not to allow themselves to be used as "mudguard" for austerity in a potential coalition government with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

The remarks were made by Rise TD Paul Murphy in the Dail during a debate on climate action.

He argued that if the Green Party go into government with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael it would represent a "substantial set-back for the environmental movement".

And he claimed that "Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will be very happy to have your assistance as a green mudguard.

"Theyll be very happy to place the blame the Green Party for every austerity measure that they bring in to say well actually its about the environment."

Read More

During the debate Climate Action Minister Richard Bruton batted off questions on the issues being raised in the ongoing government formation talks saying he wouldn't comment on the negotiations.

Labour TD Sean Sherlock asked for clarity on the 7pc-a-year target for reducing carbon emissions being sought by the Green Party.

He said the current Climate Action Plan has a 3.5pc target and asked if the more ambitious target is possible. Mr Bruton said the long-term strategy is to reduce emissions to a net zero by 2050 and his Department has been looking at options to "dramatically increase our ambition."

He added: "As for saying there is an accurate way of moving from 3.5pc to 7pc or any other percentage, I do not think we are at that level of sophistication in the modelling at all yet.

"We are identifying policy instruments that can start to move us in that direction and I think those are the ones we will have to adopt."

Mr Sherlock also asked about agriculture saying everyone recognises emissions in the sector have to be reduced but how this is done remains to be seen.

He said UCC research suggested a reduction in the national cattle herd would be needed to reach the 7pc target.

Mr Sherlock said the debate shouldnt be "bogged down" in setting specific reductions for the national herd.

He said a "stakeholder process" is needed so theres a just transition for agriculture that includes the farming community.

Mr Sherlock said new schemes and financing options need to be made available for people living in rural Ireland who would displace one form of activity for another.

He said: "I hope that we do not use very sharp implements that could have unintended consequences for citizens who live in the rural economy."

Mr Bruton said: "I have listened to all parties in this House, and no party that I have heard has indicated that it plans to set targets for a reduction of the national herd."

He said Teagasc has shown "the immense opportunities that exist not only in farming methods, where it believes we can deliver a 3 metric tonnes reduction, but also in land use where potential lies in areas like forestry, restricting agriculture on organic soils, grassland management and in replacing fossil fuels."

He agreed consultation with stakeholders "is going to be key" particularly in agriculture.
A horrifying video of two white men went viral after they were captured mocking the death of George Floyd. The two did the stunt when Black Lives Matter protesters marched in front of them.

Insensitive stunt

One of the men is a corrections officer in New Jersey and has been suspended while the other man is a FedEx worker who is now fired. On June 8, Black Lives Matters protesters marched in Franklin Township in South Jersey.

That was when they were greeted by a small group of white men who displayed a Trump 2020 flag, a "thin blue line" flag, and an "all lives matter" sign.

One of the men was lying face down on the ground, and another man had his knee on the man's neck, recreating the way that Derek Chauvin pinned down George Floyd until he passed away.

The local organizer of the protest, Daryan Fennal, told NBC Philadelphia that the insensitivity and the racially charged counter-protest automatically brought him to tears. It proves that racism is real in the country and it is alive. In the video, one of the men was heard shouting that people should comply with the cops so that what happened to Floyd won't happen again.

The names of the men in the video have not been released. New Jersey Department of Corrections, in response to the racist incident, revealed that one of the counterprotesters who was mocking the death of George Floyd was an employee.

The department said in a statement that they posted on social media that they were made aware that one of their officers participated in the filming of a disappointing, racist and hateful video that mocked the gruesome murder of George Floyd. The man in the video has been suspended and banned from the department facilities.

Also Read: White Cop Tackles, Punches Black Store Owner

Meanwhile, FedEx stated that the other person that was involved in the racist incident was one of their employees and he is now fired. FedEx said in a statement to NBC News on June 10 that they do not tolerate the offensive and appalling behavior seen in the viral video.

The governor of New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy, also criticized the counterprotesters. The governor posted on Twitter that mocking the murder of George Floyd in order to belittle the protesters who are calling for justice for the killings of people in the black and brown communities is repugnant.

The governor added that they won't let the actions of a few people distract the state from their progress toward dismantling systemic racism.

Similar incident

In the United Kingdom, Black Lives Matter protesters were also met with counterprotesters. The people were marching in Hoddesdon, a town in the Broxbourne borough of the English county of Hertfordshire when it was cut short after a group of people shouted racist comments and referred to the murder of Lee Rigby.

The Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, Bill Jephson, said that they will always challenge discrimination and racism wherever they find it. He added that they understand that people of all ethnicities are horrified and angry about the death of George Floyd.

Jephson said that they stand should to shoulder with the public and they are also saddened and angered by the death of Floyd. As for the counterprotesters, the police had escorted them out of the streets in order to prevent any physical attacks from happening.

Related Article: 64-Year-Old Woman Arrested for Blocking Protesters, Spitting on Black Man's Face

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Hyderabad-based construction major Megha Engineering and Infrastructure s Limited (MEIL) brought back about 1,000 workers who had returned to Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh during the coronavirus lockdown. The firm paid for their train tickets to resume construction work of the Polavaram multi-purpose project on Godavari River in Andhra Pradeshs West Godavari district, company officials said on Tuesday. Another 1,800 would be brought back soon, they said.

MEIL general manager, Satish Angana, said over 3,000 migrant workers had gone back to their native states like Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa, compelling the company to continue works with the available meagre workers.

Also read: Covid-19 cases spike in 6 states as migrants return

Till now, around 1,000 workers had been ferried back to Andhra Pradesh through Shramik Special trains at the companys expenses. Another 1,800 workers are expected to be brought back shortly, said another official who was not willing to be quoted. Angana said all these returning workers were tested at special medical camps and are allowed to work.

Although the government has relaxed restrictions and allowed industries to reopen from May 3, the production has not increased much because of the shortage of labourers as workers left for their homes after the lockdown commenced from March 25. The Central government informed the Supreme Court last week that close to 10 million workers were sent back to their homes through special Shramik trains that started from May 1.

However, as the industries and realty sector resumed operations in full swing from May 17, the employers tried to bring back workers, especially the skilled ones, who were needed to start the work. As workers expressed inability to return in the absence of enough trains, the employers tried to woo them, promising higher wages, better working conditions and even flight and train tickets.

Bangalore-based Prestige Group has flown 10 carpenters from Patna to Hyderabad where it has taken up a major real estate project. One of our contractors booked flight tickets for these 10 carpenters from Patna to Hyderabad. We have to complete the projects before the deadline fixed by the Real Estate Regulatory Authority and deliver the flats to the customers, a senior vice-president of Prestige Group told a news agency.

Bobby Jindal, owner of Balaji processors, a blanket manufacturing firm in Punjabs Ludhiana, brought back seven of his master craftsmen by air from Patna.

I was left with less than 50 workers at my unit which adversely affected production. I booked air tickets for seven master workers who took a flight from Patna to Delhi and then from Delhi to Sahnewal Airport in Ludhiana last week, Jindal said, adding that he had also arranged two taxis and booked train tickets for some of the other workers. I have spent Rs two lakh on bringing 50 workers back in the last few days.

Rahul Verma, who runs a manufacturing unit in Ludhiana, brought his five highly skilled workers back from Bihar who were needed in the casting unit. For some other workers, I have booked their tickets and paid them to return, he said.

In Rajasthan, from where workers go to other states looking for work, some industry owners have offered to arrange transport for workers to return. Sunil Jain president, Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI), Rajasthan said the real estate and construction sector was facing a 30 to 40% shortage of labourers as a large chunk of labourers has returned home due to the scare of coronavirus and the lockdown. Most of the workers have returned to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand.

I know of some real estate firms that are trying to get labourers back through contractors. Contractors are in touch with the workers and are convincing them to return, assuring them that they will get full work and wages. A few have even sent vehicles to ferry workers back and promised higher wages, he said.

Aseem Kumar, general secretary of the Garment Exporters Association of Rajasthan says the industry was facing up to 70% shortage of labourers and therefore, facing problems in meeting the delivery deadlines. Some units have offered a 50% increase in wages to deliver pending orders. They are offering higher wages, accommodation and even promising work for the whole year but labourers are not ready to return, he said, adding that a majority of garment exports from Rajasthan are for Japan, the US, Europe and South America.

Charanjit Singh Vishwakarma, former President of United Cycle Parts Manufacturers Association (UCPMA) in Ludhiana, said he has already sent money to three of his labour contractors in Bihar to bring back workers. As trains have not fully resumed, the workers are finding it difficult to get confirmed tickets to come via train. The government should start Shramik trains to bring them back, he said.

Some factory owners have also offered higher salary for workers returning immediately. They are also paying for their train tickets, Tarsem Jodhan, President of Punjab Mazdoor Union.

To revive industrial production in the state, Punjab government last week sent two buses to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to bring back workers. I have arranged buses to bring back workers to industrial towns, said Punjab Industries Minister Sham Sunder Arora, after a meeting with industrialists in Ludhiana on last Friday.

Rajasthan government has offered to help the industry in getting labourers back from other states, provided industry bears the cost of transportation. Labour secretary, Niraj K Pawan said, If the industry provides us details of districts from which they want the labourers back, we will coordinate with those states and facilitate the transport of the workers.
Bankers and executives flooded an old San Francisco hotel this past January for the drug industry's premier event for networking, hobnobbing and doing deals.

Six months later, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the JP Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference, with its crowded panels and presentations, finger food and seas of suits, feels like a distant memory. But that doesn't mean mergers are dead.

As pharmaceutical companies search for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, they're also reverting to proven business strategies focused on lucrative therapies for cancer and rare diseases -- and finding ways to explore tie-ups without having to meet in person.

Bloomberg reported this week that AstraZeneca's chief executive officer floated the idea of exploring a merger to his counterpart at Gilead Sciences in a phone call last month, raising the possibility of the health-care sector's largest deal ever. Though the companies aren't in formal discussions, the mere suggestion of a megamerger demonstrates the pandemic hasn't curbed an appetite for deals.

"We're trying to get more back to a business-as-usual" approach to deals, said Lonnie Moulder, a founding general partner at Tellus BioVentures, a biotech investment fund focused on early-stage companies. "Most of pharma is saying the initial shock, most of that initial distraction, is over."

While both Gilead and AstraZeneca are in the thick of COVID-19 research, they've also been sharpening their focus on cancer treatments in recent years. Gilead has made small deals centered on immunotherapy, a particularly hot corner in oncology, while bringing to market remdesivir, the first drug specifically approved to fight the coronavirus.

For AstraZeneca, the lung-cancer therapy Tagrisso has become its top-selling drug, and is expected to account for nearly 16% of its revenue this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

"Astra's strong oncology portfolio has minimal direct overlap with Gilead's mostly development-stage oncology pipeline," said Morningstar Investment Service analyst Karen Andersen in an email. The companies likely wouldn't require major divestitures in order to complete a merger, she said.

If the pandemic hasn't caused a significant strategic shift for drugmakers, it has made connecting with other companies and new capital that much more difficult. A big midyear biotechnology conference said it expects high turnout for its virtual meeting this week, a sign that bottled up investors and executives are eager to hear from one another.

More than 7,000 attendees from 64 countries have signed up the event hosted by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a Washington-based industry trade group, in order to replicate in virtual form the elbow-rubbing conference environment that's so conducive to the exchange of capital.

In place of swanky dinner parties and spontaneous hotel run-ins between CEOs, the BIO meeting is boasting online addresses from headliners like Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel of Moderna Inc., the developer of the leading U.S. vaccine candidate.

But the real action is likely to take place in the 25,000 closed-door meetings BIO says are expected to happen around the conference.

Jelena Vukasinovic, CEO of Lena Biosciences, an early-stage maker of cell-culture technologies, has set up more than two dozen meetings on Zoom, Google Hangouts and other virtual platforms. She said the company is meeting with BIO Digital attendees from as far away as Japan to Australia in hopes of finding capital and new collaborators.

Though there's the occasional Internet bandwidth issue-or toddler stumbling into the room-the connections are invaluable, Vukasinovic said, especially amid the pandemic.

"You need to make sure your value proposition resonates with the person you're talking to, and that's really hard for small businesses in this situation" Vukasinovic said.

After months of market tumult caused public biotechnology valuations to plummet, shares hit all-time highs in late May. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF is up 59% since reaching a low on March 16. The renewed stability makes it a good time to get back into the M&A game, said Moulder of Tellus BioVentures during a BIO Digital panel on Monday. Moulder, a co-founder of Tesaro, sold the cancer-drug maker to GlaxoSmithKline Plc in 2019.

"Biotech valuations were fluctuating all over the place," he said. Big companies looking for takeover candidates were either salivating "or saying uh-oh, nobody is going to sell off of a 30% decline in a month."

Global M&A volumes are down 52% in annual terms so far this year to $673 billion. But between the peaks and valleys of market volatility, health care has been a bright spot for deals. Though biopharma hasn't seen the megamergers that marked 2019, there's been activity in cancer and rare disease.

In March, Gilead agreed to buy Forty Seven Inc. for $4.9 billion to advance into one of the most lucrative areas of drug research: cancer treatments that harness the immune system to fight tumors. In May, Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. struck a $1.4 billion deal to buy Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc., a maker of experimental treatments for bleeding disorders.

Alexion Chief Financial Officer Aradhana Sarin told Bloomberg in May that the company's business development pursuits were not disrupted by thepandemic. Though stay-at-home orders may have affected how deals are clinched -- Alexion held management meetings with Portola virtually, rather than face-to-face -- it didn't change their outlook on the therapies at the heart of the transaction.

"I don't know what's going to happen for the rest of the year in the industry," Sarin said, "but I expect health-care M&A to continue."
Driver Scott Young worked a pocket ride for Pro Beach and shot the five-year-old Somebeachsomewhere gelding through the open stretch to claim a narrow victory in the $8,500 Horses and Geldings Preferred 3 Pace at Georgian Downs on Tuesday (June 9).

Off the 4-5 favourite, Pro Beach stalked pacesetter Walter Mitty through fractions of :27.4, :58 and 1:26.3. Midway through the mile Officer Jones, racing seventh, angled first over and advanced towards Walter Mitty to challenge for the lead into the final turn. However Officer Jones stalled turning into the stretch while Pro Beach readied for an inside charge. Through the stretch Pro Beach slid closer to the front before hitting the finish first by a neck in a 1:54.3 mile over Walter Mitty and Trident Seelster, who finished third.

Trained by Richard Moreau for owners Sylvain Descheneaux, Gaar Racing Stables and Gaston Bibeau, Pro Beach won his second race from 10 starts this season and his seventh from 61 overall, earning $166,274. He paid $3.80 to win.

To view Tuesday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Tuesday Results - Georgian Downs.
An elite triathlete who ran down a police officer while trying to avoid a random breath test has been spared jail.

Aman Ace Quensier, 24, pleaded guilty to causing serious harm by dangerous driving after running over Senior Constable Samuel Petts on New Year's Day 2019 in Adelaide's inner west.

On Wednesday Quensier was handed a two-year suspended sentence over the horror incident.

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Aman Ace Quensier (pictured), an elite triathlete who ran down a police officer while trying to avoid a random breath test, was spared jail time with a two-year suspended sentence

Senior Constable Petts said he still has a recurring nightmare where he is 'hooked up to the car' as it speeds away and ends up being 'torn to shreds'.

He also thanked everyone who supported him during his recovery.

'I just thank everybody for their support, my family and my colleagues,' he told Nine News.

Shocking footage tabled with the Adelaide District Court showed Quensier driving past the testing station, forcing the officer onto the bonnet of the car and then onto the road.

Senior Constable Petts suffered serious knee injuries and abrasions and Quensier fled the scene before being arrested the following day.

The injured officer said similar incidents are happening more often and police weren't getting the support they needed.

Shocking footage showed Quensier driving past the testing station, forcing the officer onto the bonnet of the car and then onto the road, leaving him with a serious knee injury

Quensier's lawyer Craig Caldicott described his client as a 'gifted triathlete', currently ranked 20th in the country.

He also said Quensier was a 'hard worker' who made a terrible decision in a split second out of fear.

'As he pulled into the RBT station it immediately flashed before his eyes that he didn't have a licence,' he said.

'He panicked because he realised he was still on a suspended sentence bond.

'Mr Petts motioned him to stop and he kept driving. Mr Petts went over the front of the bonnet and tried to get the keys out of the ignition and struck Quensier in the process. He then accelerated away.'

The court was told Quensier did not know he had hit the officer until his father mentioned the news to him the following day.
Andy Cohen has addressed the firing of four Vanderpump Rules cast members over their past racist actions being recently brought to light.

Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni have all been axed by Bravo, after their past racist comments resurfaced.

Andy, 52, spoke about Bravo's decision Wednesday on his SiriusXM channel Radio Andy saying 'I absolutely support Bravo's decision, I think it was the right decision' while also pointing out, 'I don't produce the show.'

Speaking out: Andy Cohen has addressed the firing of Vanderpump cast members over their past racist actions being recently brought to light.

The father-of-one said: 'There's so much happening in the Bravo universe. I will say this: so much talk about Vanderpump Rules and then of course the reunion ended up airing last night.'

'I will say this about what happened. I absolutely support Bravo's decision, I think it was the right decision, and I want to remind people because I've been getting so many tweets and messages and whatever about Vanderpump Rules and about Southern Charm and other shows'

'I am not, I don't - I feel like I remind people this all the time - I'm not in charge of programming at Bravo anymore. I am not an Executive Producer of Vanderpump Rules. I don't have anything to do with the show except I love it and that I host the 'reunions.'

In the firing line: Stassie Shroeder has been axed from Vanderpump Rules over her past racist behavior

He added: added, 'I don't produce the show so what I want people to know is I have no say in hiring and firing.'

Andy used to work as a top executive for Bravo before stepping down to produce his own show Watch What Happens Live.

Stassi, 31, and Kristen, 37, have starred on the reality show since its inception in 2013 while Max, 27, and Brett, 31, were newcomers on the most recent season eight.

They're out: Vanderpump Rules stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute have been fired by Bravo after their racially-charged prank that targeted co-star Faith Stowers

Most damning: Stassi called the cops on her black former costar Faith Stowers  whom she didn't like  in an effort to get her in trouble on a previous season of the show; Faith is seen in 2016 above

Speaking out: Stassi said she's refocused her mentality amid the career crisis, which has seen her lose sponsors and admit to 'racially insensitive comments'

Arguably one of the most popular stars of the series, which follows the staff at Lisa Vanderpump-owned SUR restaurant in West Hollywood, Stassi has come under fire for a disturbing racist stunt, along with racially-insensitive remarks she has shared online in recent years.

The outspoken blonde has since been dropped by her agent, publicist and several sponsors after her and pal Kristen's racially-driven stunt against black co-star Faith Stowers came to light.

A spokesperson for Bravo and Evolution Media confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that Stassi, Kristen, Max and Brett 'will not be returning to Vanderpump Rules'.

For her part, Lisa posted a lengthy Instagram post on Wednesday acknowledging a 'lack of judgement' displayed by some of her employees.

'Lack of judgement': Vanderpump Rules star Lisa Vanderpump made her own statement on the matter on Wednesday

Scandal: Stassi parted ways with both her agent and her publicist after previous racist remarks and behavior has resurfaced

Stassi also made offensive comments on a previous podcast episode where she was heard speaking negatively about black people and claiming they ask for special treatment in Hollywood.

On Tuesday afternoon, Faith said felt 'vindicated' after their firing, in a new interview with Page Six.

'I feel so vindicated studios and production are able to see blatant racism and make these positive changes and help move the race forward - help with the fight forward,' Faith told the outlet.

Apologetic: Newcomers Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni have also been dropped by Bravo. They apologized last week for past racist tweets on the Vanderpump Rules reunion

The 31-year-old star continued: 'I was in the middle of prayer and I felt a sense of - I know it sounds corny - I felt a sense of glory. I felt God's presence and I'm seeing now [that the news has been revealed] maybe that is what that was.'

Adding: 'He gave me a sign of optimism meant to be hopeful and showing that all of this was worth it.'

Faith said that she 'was ready to put myself in the line of fire because I don't know what will happen if I don't say anything, but I'm glad I did.'

'Now I'm seeing Bravo follow suit, releasing women that have given crazy ratings for them because they want to be on the right side of history and I'm seeing people are finally hearing us,' Faith said to Page Six.

She also said that she hopes networks and production companies are 'ready to hire casting directors and producers of color to make sure there changes are not just a one-time thing.'

Faith added: 'I hope they use this time that they have now to educate themselves to why this happened to them and try to use [their] voice later for real change.'

After losing several endorsement deals over the past week, Stassi has now been forced to part ways with both her agent and her publicist, Variety reported Monday.
SPRINGFIELD  Proposed east-west rail service could see ridership much higher than initially forecast, but the project would require federal support to become a reality, MassDOT officials said Wednesday.

Factoring in the larger catchment area  for example Amherst-area students and residents driving to Palmer and catching a train to Boston  and the induced demand of trackside development could give the line a ridership four or five times original estimates, Massachusetts Transportation Secretary and CEO Stephanie Pollack told reporters.

"As people change where they live and work because there is a high-speed train, what does that do for ridership," she said.

But MassDOT is sticking by its earlier cost estimates for east-west rail  $2 billion to improve rail service along existing tracks to an eye-popping $25 billion for an electrified, high-speed rail line.

All this comes out as the state Department of Transportation prepares to select the best option from the range of six and start the process of getting that option funded by the federal government. East-west rail is seen as a solution to Bostons housing shortage and traffic woes, to a stagnate economy in Western Massachusetts and to global problems like climate change and fossil fuel dependency

We are now moving from concept to project, said U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield. That is really important

A backer, Neal has already been briefed on MassDOTs plan and discussed the project Sunday with Gov. Charlie Baker.

The plan will have trains all the way from Boston to Pittsfield, no bus connections, Neal said. And it will use Springfield Union Station as hub. One concept had the trains running on new tracks built on the right-of-way of the MassPike.

Pollack told reporters that even with higher ridership estimates the cost per passenger is too high to get federal funding under existing guidelines.

Enter support from Neal; James McGovern, D-Worcester; and U.S. Sen Ed Markey, a Democrat running for re-election in Septembers primary and his proposal to invest $5 billion annually in high-performance intercity passenger rail service, including Boston-Worcester-Springfield-Pittsfield service.

"The capital cost per rider is also substantially higher than anything a state could take on," Pollack said.

Neal said a cost-benefit analysis has to factor in the economic benefits , the easing of Boston's housing shortage and the environmental benefits of taking cars off the road.

No one ever said this was going to be cheap, Neal said.

But the lawmakers say that if there is a federal infrastructure bill aimed at spurring recover from the coronavirus pandemic east-west rail will need to be a fully-planned-out project in order to qualify for funding that will get claimed quickly.

It is not really a project, Pollack said. It doesnt have a beginning middle or end. It does not have any stations. We need to turn a concept into a project.

Which is why the east-west advisor committee met Wednesday afternoon after a four-month break to review MassDOTs most recent work and start narrowing the six proposals on the table to three finalists. The three finalists my end up being hybrids, Pollack said, taking elements of existing proposals and combining them.

The advisor committee  made up of local businesses, civic and planners, town and city officials and lawmakers  will be told to get back to MassDOT in two more weeks.

A final report is expected in September.

Pollack said the state will revisit cost estimates, but she doesnt expect them to change very much.

"This is what it costs," she said.

The Advisory Committee told the state in the spring to revisit both passenger estimates and cost estimates because an earlier study had more people riding and less cost.

Regional planners from across Western Massachusetts looked at U.S. Census Bureau data from 2017 showing that roughly 21,000 workers from the four western counties commute each day into Worcester and Boston. Assuming the train service would attract just 10% of those workers  multiplied by 260 workdays each year  the planners arrived at an estimate of about 550,000 annual trips.

And that doesnt count tourists, students or people making infrequent business trips from Pittsfield to Springfield, Worcester, Boston or points in between.

MassDOTs old estimates said the cheapest option would attract just 11,500 riders a year, according to its projections. The most expensive would draw a quarter-million riders a year.

Pollack said Wednesday that the state will revisit cost estimates, but don't expect them to change. The difference between this study and earlier ones is that the state knows more about how much rail construction would cost and knows now that it must build separate tracks and expanded bridges separating passenger service from freight trains.

"The question becomes how do you run both high speed rail and freight?" Pollack said.

The Western Mass Rail Coalition, a group supporting the project, says higher speed service of up to 90 miles an hour is preferable to faster trains that might be a decade or two in the future. And Amtrak has the right to operate more trains on CSXs east-west line that could start, in theory, as soon as the state negotiates an agreement.

The coalition is calling for six round trips a day between Boston, Framingham, Worcester, Palmer, Springfield, Hartford and New Haven, and four connecting trains from Springfield to Chester, Pittsfield and Albany, New York. They say the trains need to be timed to allow early morning commutes.

Even with the new estimates for passengers considering development and longer travel to stations might not reflect all the demand, said State Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow.

He said MassDOT is using the Springfield-Hartford-New Haven line and the Downeaster Service from Maine to Boston for comparison.

But New Haven, Connecticut, is smaller, and easier to find a parking spot in , than Boston and Springfield and its suburbs are bigger than Portland, Maine.

Better points of comparison might be commuter lines Boston- Providence, Rhode Island; Chicago to South Bend, Indiana or San Francisco to Stockton, California.

I think there are still significant blind spots on the MassDOT study , Lesser said. Wonder if they are looking at these studies as a way to kill the project.

He said induced demand should account for more. Many major construction projects around the state, including the Worcester Red Sox ballpark, followed transit improvements.

"The idea that this is being done just for today, just for ridership today is not the point," he said. "Trains change development patterns. Again, they are dramatically underestimating that."

He said MassDOT is also overestimating cost, he pointed to a statement from advocacy group TransitMatters.org that says the Springfield to t Boston portion could be done for $900 million. And that would be three to nine 90-minute trips a day.

TransitMatters differs with MassDOT over the need for more track and with Neal about service to Pittsfield at least right away.

Phased implementation could begin with two rush-hour trains per day, replacing existing repositioning service on a one-to-one basis and requiring little to no capital or operational expenses beyond obtaining additional passenger rights from CSX, and a phased implementation plan which would add additional service to the line as well as service to Pittsfield as demand increased, the group wrote.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation CHK recently witnessed sharp ups and downs in the stock price. On Jun 8, the stock jumped nearly 182% and closed at $69.92. Yesterday (Jun 9), the stock dramatically plunged around 66% to $23.75.

What Happened?

Following the close of market on Monday, Bloomberg reported that the leading natural gas producer was on the verge of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Trading paused for more than three hours in the morning. The trading resumed but was interrupted again and the stock ended the day above the $23 mark. The potential bankruptcy filing, per Bloomberg, could give control of the company to the creditors, wiping out equity shareholders. However, no such news has been confirmed yet.

This was not the first time that its name has been associated with the word bankruptcy. This May, the company stated that it was evaluating Chapter 11 and other options due to tough and unsustainable business environment. Even last November, the company raised doubts over its ability to continue as a going concern. Notably, 19 American hydrocarbon producers filed for bankruptcy in 2020 so far.

Whats Deterring the Stock?

The company, which once had a market cap close to $40 billion, currently has a market cap of $232.3 million. Low commodity prices played a pivotal role in this development. Following lengthy periods of low natural gas prices, it even tried to put more emphasis on crude oil to improve the bottom line. However, the price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia earlier this year and demand destruction caused by coronavirus-induced lockdowns pushed oil prices to historical lows, upending the companys efforts. The stock, which went through a reverse stock split to boost share price in April, had been under the scanner of investors multiple times.

All the strategic moves adopted by the company were expected to help trip the debt load from the highly-levered balance sheet. Lets take a look at the balance sheet to get a clear view of its financial flexibility.

Story continues

Levered Balance Sheet

At the end of the first-quarter 2020, Chesapeake had a cash balance of only $82 million, not sufficient to pay off its $420 million of net current maturities of long-term debt. Notably, $250 million of senior notes are due in 2020 and $294 million in 2021. Also, it had $1.9 billion outstanding borrowings under the $3-billion credit revolving facility at quarter-end.

Importantly, the companys ability to clear a portion of net long-term debt of $9,163 million is questionable since commodity prices are still in the bearish territory. As investors are fearing the second wave of coronavirus infections, the demand outlook for fuel remains uncertain, which may hinder the possibilities of improvement in oil and gas prices. This in turn restricts the firms ability to gain capital from markets and reduces its credibility among shareholders.

Improvement in Horizon?

Chesapeakes operations are expanded across leading hydrocarbon resources in the United States that comprise the Marcellus Shale in the northern Appalachian Basin and Haynesville/Bossier Shales in northwestern Louisiana. These are premier natural gas resources. As such, the Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company is well positioned to ride on the mounting demand for cleaner energy. Importantly, the stock has gained 84.1% in the past month compared with 26% rise of the industry it belongs to.

Key Picks

Other top-ranked players in the energy space include Chaparral Energy, Inc. CHAP, CNX Resources Corporation CNX and Comstock Resources, Inc. CRK, each holding a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Chaparral Energys bottom line for 2020 is expected to rise 57.8% year over year.

CNX Resources beat earnings estimates thrice and met once in the last four quarters, with average positive surprise of 111.5%.

Comstock Resources sales for 2020 is expected to rise 33.7% year over year.

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By Laman Ismayilova

The 209th session of the UNESCO Executive Board has been held in a virtual format.

The session discussed the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on UNESCO's programs and activities.

Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to UNESCO, Ambassador Anar Karimov addressed the event.

In his speech, Karimov provided insight into Azerbaijan's contribution to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. He also presented Azerbaijan`s statement as a chair of the Non-Aligned Movement.

"Azerbaijan takes the floor in its capacity of Chair of NAM Group UNESCO chapter to express the concerns of NAM member states related to COVID-19 pandemic that affected not only our health, but also the vital elements of our social life. The NAM strongly believes that at these challenging times for humanity, a global response based on unity, solidarity and renewed multilateral cooperation is needed more than ever to fight the growing tendencies of inequality, racism, discrimination, stereotyping and prejudices, as well as unilateral coercive measures against NAM Member States in violation of the UN Charter and international law," said Karimov.

"The Online Summit-level Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement Contact Group in response to COVID-19 on 4 May, as well as the meeting of health ministers of NAM member states on May 20 were organized by the initiative of the Republic of Azerbaijan with a view to consolidate our efforts to help countries in mobilizing resources and implementing adequate measures to address the adverse impacts of COVID19. The NAM welcomes UNESCOs prompt reaction to address the challenges, including disruption of educational and cultural institutions around the world and to find solutions for the future postpandemic period. However, the NAM believes that these initiatives should be conducted in close consultations with the Member States, without deviating from rules and procedures of Governing Bodies of UNESCO," he added.

Notably, Azerbaijan became member of UNESCO on June 3 1992, after restoration of its independence. In 2003, Azerbaijan and UNESCO signed the framework agreement on cooperation in the areas of culture, science, education and communication, which allowed Azerbaijan to become one of the donors of UNESCO.

Many Azerbaijan's cultural sites have been included into UNESCO's World Heritage List.

The Icherisheher (Old City), Maiden Tower and Shirvanshah's palace were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000, while since 2007 the Gobustan National Historical-Artistic reserve also listed among these heritages.

Sheki, a significant city at the crossroads of the historic Silk Roads was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List during the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee held in Baku.

In 2017, UNESCO recognized Azerbaijan's dolma as the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Art of crafting and playing with kamancha, presented jointly by Azerbaijan and Iran, was also inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

UNESCO also celebrated the 600th anniversary of the death of the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker Imadaddin Nasimi and the 200th anniversary of the first settlement of Germans in Azerbaijan last year.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Colonial Pizza & Spaghetti House workers say they were fired just days before they were due back from the coronavirus-related March shutdown because they wouldnt agree to a plan to share a portion of their tips, the restaurants former bar manager told lehighvalleylive.com.

Seven members of the bar staff at the Easton restaurant were fired June 1 via text message, according to former bar manager Pippa Moody. They included Ricky Delgado, Peter David Lambdin, Maria Emmons, Robin Capner, Amy Badillo, and Jodi Lukachek.

The six bar staffers and Moody were scheduled to return to work either Friday, June 5 or Saturday, June 6, the former employees interviewed for this story said. Thats when the state moved into the yellow phase set forth in Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfs three-tiered color-coded plan.

Moody, Capner, Delgado, Lambdin, Emmons, Badillo and Lukachek said they each received a text message from a manager, blaming over-pouring and giving away liquor as the reason they were being let go.

Its unclear when the alleged over-pouring happened and the text message doesnt elaborate. The manager, who sent the text, declined to go on record for this story because she is still employed by Colonial. She confirmed Monday she has given two weeks notice that she will be leaving Colonial where she has worked for the last 14 years.

An attorney for the restaurant, David P. Caro, told lehighvalleylive.com in an email the company would not respond to questions about personnel matters and has not authorized anyone to share confidential personnel information.

The restaurant weighed in on its Facebook page on Saturday explaining some of the changes after five days of public debate over the firings raged on social media. Workers had urged the public to boycott the restaurant via the hash tag #BoycottColonial after the bar staff was let go. And, an online fundraiser was launched for Colonial Pizza workers who lost their jobs.

In recent months, the business community worldwide has faced challenging economic conditions presented by COVID-19, and under such circumstances, we are forced to make rather painful and difficult decisions," the second of two statements from the company said. Colonial Pizza & Spaghetti House was no exception, and unfortunately, we let go of our bartending staff.

The eatery has deep roots in Easton and is popular in the citys dining scene. Patrons have come to know its history, with a stone building possibly dating back to colonial times. The building was used in the 1930s and 1940s as a grocery store and in 1919, a confectionery, according to its website. It has been the Colonial Pizza and Spaghetti House, a city landmark, since 1947.

I am so super sad about this as you can imagine, the manager, who let the seven know they were being fired, stated in the text, and love you all very much, she adds followed by a heart emoji.

Moody hired the six fired workers. She said if there was wrongdoing the restaurant should have addressed it weeks ago -- not days before the bartenders expected to return to work.

Moody said she heard about the proposed plan before the bar staff was laid off due to the statewide shutdown. Moody said she told the manager who eventually sent the text that her staff would not agree with the proposed plan.

"I said back then, Nobodys going to go for that, " Moody recalled. It was going to be anarchy.

According to Moody, the plan would have required that 4% of each bartender and servers sales be given to management. She said prior to the pandemic all employees kept whatever tips they earned -- credit card and cash. During the pandemic, Moody said she learned from employees, that pooling of tips was happening among staff.

Unfortunately quite a few restaurants practice this, Moody said.

Attempts to reach the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association were unsuccessful. Emails to association addresses received automatic replies stating that employees were on furlough due to the pandemic.

Attorney Jake Sitman, a shareholder at the Allentown-based firm Fitzpatrick Lentz & Bubba, said tip pooling -- mandatory or otherwise -- is generally permissible under applicable federal and state laws. However, there are several restrictions and limitations.

It remains that restaurant servers cannot be forced to share tips with owners and other workers who dont customarily receive tips, Sitman said, citing the law. Additionally, he said, there are separate provisions in the law that prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who complain in good faith about actions taken by employers to deprive them of wages, such as tips, they have earned.

In the email to lehighvalleylive.com, Colonials attorney said Colonial House is not a public company and any content regarding any personnel matters of the Company is considered confidential and cannot be disclosed by any individual without the express written authorization of the Company. The Company has granted no such authorization.

... We ask that you cease and desist from publishing any news article... Caro wrote.

Colonial Pizza owners initially responded to the online calls for a boycott on June 3 on Facebook.

In addition to thanking their customers and staff for their support and saying they were committed to providing a safe environment, they said they regretted the ex-employees were discussing the personnel matter publicly.

As proud owners and operators of the business for more than 15 years, we regret that this matter has not been able to be handled privately.

Colonial Pizzas initial statement on Facebook drew more than 500 comments, most critical of the owners for failing to address employee complaints directly.

The statement that followed this past Saturday on the restaurants Facebook page stated, We have NEVER charged or taken an override from any tips earned by servers or bartenders during our 15 years of ownership and we never will.

During the initial outbreak of COVID-19, we made a temporary decision to pool tips because no one was employed as a server; our staff primarily consisted of runners and cooks, the post stated.

Server Allie Stefancin, of Palmer Township, has worked at Colonial for almost a decade. She said she quit May 26 after learning about the new tip plan. She described it as the straw that broke the camels back. She worked during the curbside and delivery service-only period and said she felt she wasnt compensated fairly with pay or tips.

Lambdin, of Easton, said he would have looked for another job had he known Colonial wasnt hiring him back. His federal stimulus check didnt last long before Lambdin plowed through his savings account, he said.

It has been very hard to make ends meet, Lambdin said.

Badillo, of Easton, said the text message about the firing was the first time she ever heard of an over pouring complaint.

If that was truly the issue, it would have been addressed at some point, she said. My second thought was we havent been working for months ... if that was truly the cause to let us go, why didnt they do that when the pandemic hit? Why wait a week before were opening?

Emmons, of Bloomsbury, is a single mother with more than two decades experience in bartending. She was looking forward to becoming a bartender at Colonial after being in hired in September 2019. She also adamantly denies any wrongdoing.

We all worked hard and all gave our all to our positions there at Colonial, she said. Regardless of the transition, we had a job to do and do it well. No one over poured, no one gave anything away, everything including shift drinks after our shifts were accounted for and put in the computer. Its the rules and the right thing to do. Our jobs are based on honestly and trust.

Capner, of Easton, and Lukachek, of Phillipsburg, both hired about a year ago, said they relied on the part-time bartending gig for extra income. The pair often picked up extra shifts if someone was sick or on vacation.

Since the pandemic, I was excited to get back, Capner said. I depended on it.

I was banking on working there -- it was good money, good people and the regulars have been there forever, Lukachek said.

The ex-employees echoed they will miss the patrons with whom they have bonded, attended milestones and celebrated holidays.

I feel like its a family that has been torn apart," Stefancin said.

Tell us your coronavirus stories, whether its a news tip, a topic you want us to cover, or a personal story you want to share.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com.
The CMA CGM Group said that despite the financial and operational challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, it was able to turn in a solid first-quarter performance that included a net profit of $48 million.

CMA CGM said other Q1 achievements included increased liquidity, improved operating margin, and initiatives toward carbon neutrality.

"The good results of the first quarter demonstrate the strength and the resilience of the group," said Rodolphe Saade, chairman and chief executive officer of the CMA CGM Group. "During this unprecedented crisis, our customers have been able to rely on our agility, the expertise of our teams, and [complementary logistics and maritime offerings] in order to ensure the continuity of their supply chains."

CMA CGM said it also had demonstrated "effective cost control and prompt adaptation of deployed capacity in response [to] evolving market conditions."

The world's fourth-largest container shipping line said its operating margin increased to 13.5%, helping it achieve the $48 million profit.

Bolstered Bank Account

To strengthen its cash position, CMA CGM has obtained a 1.05 billion ($1.18 billion) loan 70% guaranteed by the French government.

About a third of that loan reportedly will be used by CEVA Logistics, which CGM CGM acquired last year.

CMA CGM said in the Q1 earnings announcement that it had begun a new phase in the plan to return CEVA to profitability.

"The execution of this plan includes several actions, including revitalizing business development, reducing costs, and modernizing industrial assets and systems," CMA CGM said. "The COVID-19 crisis has confirmed the relevance of our strategy ... offering complementary maritime transport and logistics services, namely CEVA Logistics' commercial offering, particularly in terms of air freight and warehousing."

In February 2019, CMA CGM announced that it would launch a $1.65 billion tender offer for the two-thirds of CEVA shares it didn't already own. Two months later it owned 98% of CEVA's shares and had replaced the freight forwarder's top management.

Story continues

In November, CMA CGM disputed notions that the purchase of CEVA had overburdened the company with debt. But it did say at the time that it would continue to divest in an effort to raise $2 billion in 2020.

CEVA Logistics' Q1 2020 revenue increased by 0.6% to $1.71 billion, due primarily to the consolidation with CMA CGM's logistics business in May 2019.

CEVA's adjusted earnings with interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) decreased by 4.9% to $137 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8%, CMA CGM said.

CMA CGM is not the first container carrier to receive government aid during the coronavirus crisis. After news broke last month that both Yang Ming and HMM were receiving federal aid, A.P. Moller  Maersk tweeted the link to an article in which its CEO, Sren Skou, told the Financial Times that the European Union needed to push for free trade and intervene against Asian carriers receiving government assistance.

CMA CGM said in the Q1 earnings release that it also will get an $815 million lift from the sale of its first portfolio of eight-port terminals. The sale of two additional terminals covered by the agreement between CMA CGM and China Merchants Port (CMP) is expected to close this summer.

The group announced in March that it had finalized the sale of its stakes to Terminal Link, a joint venture it created in 2013 with CMP and of which it owned 51%. CMA CGM sold its stakes in Odessa Terminal in Ukraine; CMA CGM PSA Lion Terminal, Singapore; Kingston Freeport Terminal, Jamaica; Rotterdam World Gateway, the Netherlands; Qingdao Qianwan United Advance Container Terminal, China; Vietnam International Container Terminal, Ho Chi Minh City; Laem Chabang International Terminal, Thailand; and Umm Qasr Terminal, Iraq.

CMA CGM said the sale was part of the $2.1 billion liquidity plan it announced in November. It said at the time the plan was to reduce the company's consolidated debt by more than $1.3 billion in the first half of 2020.

Q1 Ups And Downs

During the first quarter of 2020, "in the context of a slowdown in world trade and a decline in carried volumes," CMA CGM Group revenues totaled $7.19 billion, down 3% compared to revenues of $7.41 billion in the same period last year, it said. "This contained decrease is achieved thanks to the diverse range of industries in which the group's customers operate, a balanced global presence, and the complementary nature of the group's shipping and logistics activities."

The group said its operating performance improved significantly. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 25% to $973 million, "equating to a margin of 13.5%, up 3 percentage points relative to the first quarter of 2019," when adjusted EBITDA was $779 million.

Shipping revenue declined by 3.3% compared to Q1 2019, to $5.52 billion. "Volumes carried by CMA CGM decreased by 4.6% compared to the first quarter of 2019 due to the impact of COVID-19 and more specifically the shutdown of factories, particularly in Asia in February and March," it said. "Nevertheless, revenue per carried container improved slightly, due mainly to the application of fuel surcharges."

Adjusted EBITDA, excluding a gain from sales, increased by 31.6% over the first quarter of 2019 and reached $836 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 4 percentage points to 15.1%.

"The performance reflects the full impact of the cost-reduction plan implemented throughout 2019 and still continuing during the period," CMA CGM said.

CMA CGM said its "reactivity and flexibility" enabled it to quickly adapt the capacity of the fleet deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CMA CGM said the impact of the coronavirus crisis was partly offset by an increase in air charters, which ensured supply chain continuity for industrial clients as well as the supply of medical products.

CMA CGM said its year-over-year Q1 volumes were down only 4.6%, despite the coronavirus pandemic's slam to the world economy and global trade flows.

CMA CGM said in "demonstrating the resilience of the shipping industry the group managed to promptly adapt its deployed capacity to the current environment while protecting the supply chains of its customers. The group leveraged its expertise to maintain the transportation of essential goods, particularly medical products, by building logistical bridges."

The French carrier is strengthening those bridges in the second quarter. CMA CGM recently presented its gift of 200,000 respirator face masks to Logistics Victory Los Angeles at the Port of LA.

Going Greener

The group said it is doing its part to improve air quality in full compliance with the International Maritime Organization low-sulfur fuel regulation (IMO 2020). As of Jan. 1, CMA CGM had "implemented a wide range of measures that were financed by the full application of dedicated tariff adjustments [bunker adjustment factors]," it said.

At a United Nations conference last week, Saade announced the group's target to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Alternative fuels are expected to account for 10% of the group's fuel consumption by 2023. The group said it will make a major step this year with the delivery of a fleet of container ships with a capacity of 23,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) powered by liquified natural gas (LNG), reducing CO2 emissions by about 20% and eliminating nearly all sulfur and fine particle emissions.

Named for the company's late founder, the CMA CGM Jacques Saade, the first of nine 23,000-TEU LNG-powered ships, was launched in September.

Looking Ahead

CMA CGM said thanks to its "operational efficiency, financial discipline, and business agility," it is ready to face the uncertainties ahead.

Saade said he expects a financial improvement in Q2 as well as continued strides in reducing carbon emissions.

Q3 improvement could be indicated by the reinstatement of a previously voided sailing by the OCEAN Alliance, of which CMA CGM is a member with COSCO, OOCL, APL, and Evergreen.

A blanked trip from Qingdao, China, on June 23 has been reinstated and will indeed sail and return from Savannah, Georgia, on July 24.

The 8,575-TEU vessel transits the Panama Canal and also calls on Charleston, South Carolina, as well as Boston and New York.

Saade said in the earnings release, "Despite the uncertainty around the global economy, we anticipate an improvement during the second quarter, thanks to our operational flexibility and our discipline in terms of cost control. The current situation reinforces our conviction that it is essential to develop better balanced economic exchanges whilst respecting the environment."

Photo by Martin Damboldt from Pexels.

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 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's incendiary responses to racial injustice protests and the coronavirus pandemic have left him politically isolated and profoundly weakened less than five months from the election, raising alarms among many Republicans about the party's prospects in November.

A raft of fresh polling nationally and in battleground states shows Trump losing ground to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, a precipitous slide that has triggered deep distress within the GOP about the incumbent's judgment and instincts, as well as fears that voters could sweep the party out of power completely on Election Day.

Trump's ability to shape cultural flash points also appears to have ebbed, as some Republican leaders and legions of large corporations are openly supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, despite risking retaliation from the White House.

Meanwhile, few Trump allies have been willing to embrace some of the president's more extreme views, such as his baseless suggestion on Tuesday that a 75-year-old man seen in a viral video last week bleeding from the ear after being shoved by police in Buffalo was a radical provocateur faking his injury.

Perhaps emboldened by Trump's diminished standing, not to mention their own outrage over his conduct, some Republicans have acted in outright opposition to the president, led by a number of prominent retired military leaders as well as Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

But there is no sign yet of a mass exodus from the runaway Trump train. If anything, most elected Republicans see themselves as prisoners onboard, calculating that jumping off would lead to almost certain defeat, according to interviews with more than a dozen party strategists, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.

Conversations at the highest ranks of the party have reached what one veteran operative called the "acceptance phase of grieving," where "there is an understanding that he's president until at least November, and there is not much we can do about it."

Most of the Republican officeholders standing for reelection are counting on Trump's core supporters to turn out - and after weathering more than 31/2 years of political storms, they see no advantage in breaking with the president now.

"There's no middle ground to run to anymore," said Brendan Buck, a former top adviser to the past two Republican House speakers, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and John Boehner of Ohio. "I continue to believe that there's really no political upside to running away from [Trump]. You gain nothing and you raise the ire of not just the president but people who support him."

Still, some vulnerable Republican incumbents are looking for ways to distance themselves from Trump. Leading Republican consultants and lawmakers privately concede that winning back control of the House is unlikely, and they are increasingly concerned that a weakened Trump atop the ticket could jeopardize the GOP's 53-seat majority in the Senate, where Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado, Susan Collins of Maine, Martha McSally of Arizona and other incumbents face steep climbs.

Strategists over the past week have suggested myriad ways embattled incumbents could tiptoe around Trump's rolling controversies, as opposed to embracing them, according to participants in private discussions and conference calls with donors, many of which are informal check-ins and catch-up sessions due to the pandemic.

"It's subtle stuff, like maybe your senator should try to duck Kasie Hunt in the hallway," one of the strategists said, referring to the NBC News correspondent whose on-camera questioning of Republican senators last week over the use of military force against peaceful protesters was widely replayed. "It's all about operating outside of the tumult of the moment with him, but leaving yourself in a position for him to rally for you this fall."

This operative continued: "Look - no one can afford at this point to get on the wrong side of Trump. But you can kind of play it cool and don't have to comment on everything he does."

Haunting the senators and their advisers is the experience of former senators such as Kelly Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire who spoke out against Trump's "Access Hollywood" comments bragging about sexually assault and went on to lose her 2016 reelection race, according to advisers close to several senators.

Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in response to the concerns, "The greatest threat to the GOP Senate majority is hand-wringing consultants who shouldn't be hired to walk a dog let alone consult on a U.S. Senate race."

Josh Holmes, a senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said: "It's such a dynamic atmosphere that making political decisions, particularly rash political decisions, are guaranteed to be regrettable. If the next five months are like the last five months, then no one has any idea what the environment will be like in November."

Trump has trailed Biden by an average of eight percentage points in national polling over the past week and a half, according to an analysis by RealClearPolitics. Recent polls also show Trump losing to Biden in head-to-head matchups in a number of battleground states, including Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, which surveyed registered voters nationally from May 25-28, showed Biden leading Trump 53% to 43%. The two candidates had been in a virtual dead heat two months earlier.

Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster who frequently leads focus groups, said Trump's strident rhetoric about crime the past week is likely to hurt him with the voters he needs to expand his base of support.

"He's isolated linguistically," Luntz said. "He's talking about 'law and order.' The last time I heard that was the 1968 campaign. His rhetoric is 50 years old. The world has changed. . . . He's got 40 percent of the country completely enthralled with him." But, he added, "This is not a lexicon that gets you elected. This is a lexicon that gets you to 45% and not more."

Trump has become obsessed with polling and lashes out at those who say he is losing to Biden, according to two White House officials and a longtime Trump ally.

A CNN survey released Monday showing Trump at a 14 percentage point deficit to Biden caused considerable alarm within the Republican Party and led the president to instruct one of his campaign pollsters, John McLaughlin, to write a public memo refuting the findings.

Trump wrote on Twitter that he thought the CNN survey and others were "FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving." He added, "Despite 3  years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd!"

White House officials said they have privately counseled Republican candidates and their advisers to stay calm, and pointed to a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll this week that showed Trump's approval rating at 45%, down one percentage point from April. They said they argued that despite everything that's going on, the president's approval rating fell only one percentage point - although that same recent survey showed Trump trailing Biden by seven percentage points.

The officials pointed out that Trump is performing better than some at-risk GOP incumbents, such as McSally, who trails Democrat Mark Kelly by double digits in most surveys, while Trump trails Biden by single digits in Arizona.

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said: "Any candidate who wants to win will stand strong with President Trump, who has a record approval rating in the Republican Party and has united the Republican Party. They will need that enthusiasm in order to win."

Trump's team and other Republicans also are buoyed by the May unemployment rate of 13.3% as an indication that the economy may be recovering. Polls have consistently shown that voters see Trump's handling of the economy as one of his appealing attributes.

"The most important data point is that Trump is leading Biden on the economy," said Scott Reed, senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He cited a Fox News poll in late May that showed Trump beating Biden on the economy, although it also had more voters trusting Biden than Trump to handle the coronavirus pandemic.

"By Labor Day, if we have a growing economy and a vaccination for first responders, Trump is going to have some real momentum," Reed said. "That Fox number on the economy is what this election is going to be about. Yes, it's a referendum on Trump, but if the economy is roaring back, it'll benefit Trump."

Republicans also are counting on Trump to help define Biden and the Democrats as extremist. The latest effort has been to link the party to the "defund the police" movement on the left, although Biden on Monday said he did not support cutting police funding.

"Republicans look at what's happening in this country and they see Maoism in action," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., a Trump ally. They frame the election as "a choice between Trump and something that would radically change America. For all of Trump's challenges, that alternative is unthinkable."

Across the political map, GOP candidates are trying to avoid being dragged into Trump's day-to-day battles and grievances. They tend to offer positive, if vague, comments about the president before turning to other issues that help them localize their races.

The latest ad from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., concentrates on his working-class roots and the economy. "My job is fighting for your job," he says in the spot. "We will build this economy back, and I'll remember who needs it the most." Trump does not appear.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, has stayed friendly with Trump but has tried to showcase an independent streak by touting last month how she "pressed" Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a Trump appointee, about ethanol.

When a reporter asked Gardner on Tuesday about Trump's tweet about the Buffalo protester seen on video pushed to the ground and then ignored by police, he claimed he had not seen it. The senator said he was busy working on the Great American Outdoors Act, an infrastructure bill.

Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who is working on polling and strategy for a soon-to-be-announced anti-Trump campaign initiative, said it would look cynical if Republican lawmakers broke with Trump this late into his presidency.

"The escape tunnel caved in a year ago," Murphy said. "So they carry on, and some of the people who are not up for reelection this year are just waiting for the year to be over. It's a party that has been trapped and is now full of fatalism."
BOISE, Idaho - The bodies of two children uncovered in rural Idaho are a boy and his big sister who have been missing since September, relatives said Wednesday, bringing a grim end to a search that captivated people worldwide but no fewer questions about a case that has put their mother and her husband behind bars.

Authorities have not released the identities of the bodies discovered on the property of Chad Daybell, who married the childrens mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, a few weeks after the kids were last seen.

But Joshua JJ Vallows grandfather Larry Woodcock told the Post Register in Idaho Falls that both children are no longer with us.

Relatives of JJ, who was 7 when he vanished, and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan sent a joint statement to Phoenix television station KSAZ-TV confirming the deaths and asking for privacy.

Its another gruesome turn in a case that had dragged on for months without answers and grew ever stranger with its ties to the couples doomsday beliefs and the mysterious deaths of their former spouses.

But developments were rapid this week: Investigators searched Chad Daybells property for evidence, they found childrens bodies, and prosecutors charged him with destroying or concealing two sets of human remains. Then finally, relatives reported that the children they have been fighting to find for months were dead.

Daybells attorney, John Prior, didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. A judge set bail at $1 million during a short court hearing Wednesday.

In court documents, Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood said he believes Chad Daybell either concealed or helped hide the remains knowing that they were about to be used as evidence in court. Wood said the first body was hidden or destroyed sometime on or after Sept. 8  the last known day that Tylee was seen  and the second on or after Sept. 22, the last known day that JJ was seen.

A document that details the reasons behind the charges was sealed after Wood said it could compromise the criminal investigation. The prosecutor also noted how much media attention the case has received and said keeping the document secret would help preserve Daybells right to a fair trial.

Lori Daybell already has been charged with child abandonment and obstructing the investigation and is in jail on $1 million bond. Her attorney has indicated she intends to defend herself against the charges, and she is scheduled for a preliminary hearing next month.

Police began searching for Tylee and JJ in November after relatives raised concerns. Police say the Daybells lied to investigators about the childrens whereabouts before quietly leaving Idaho. They were found in Hawaii months later.

The complex case spans several states and began with Lori Daybells brother shooting and killing her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in suburban Phoenix last summer in what he asserted was self-defence. Vallow was seeking a divorce, saying Lori believed she had become a god-like figure who was responsible for ushering in the biblical end times. Her brother, Alex Cox, died in December of an apparent blood clot in his lung.

Shortly after Vallows death, Lori and the children moved to Idaho, where Chad Daybell lived. He ran a small publishing company, putting out many fiction books he wrote about apocalyptic scenarios loosely based on the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also recorded podcasts about preparing for biblical end times, and friends said he claimed to be able to receive visions from beyond the veil.

He was married to Tammy Daybell, who died in her sleep last October of what her obituary said were natural causes. Authorities grew suspicious when Chad Daybell married Lori just two weeks later, and they had Tammy Daybells body exhumed in December. The results of that autopsy have not been released.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The Asian Development Bank announced on Wednesday it had approved a $500 million loan (about 25 billion) to boost its assistance for the government's conditional cash transfer program.

Through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), 4.3 million households receive cash payments from the government every two months.

However, the beneficiaries must meet certain conditions, such as children meeting school attendance targets and attending regular health check-ups. Women must also avail of pre- and post-natal care, while parents should partake in family development sessions, explained the multilateral lender in a statement.

The program was made permanent with larger cash grants after President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program Act into law in April last year. "The new loan will help fund these higher grants for program beneficiaries," ADB added.

The 4Ps program provides vulnerable households with an income supplement to help their children become educated, stay healthy, and leave poverty for good. Our evidence shows that this is working," said ADB Vice President Ahmed Saeed

He said further that the program has helped 1.5 million escape poverty since it began in 2008.

"Through this project loan and technical assistance support, ADB is helping the Philippines expand these gains," he said.

The loan brings the institution's total assistance to the program to over $1.5 billion (around 76 billion), which includes the $200 billion (about 10 billion) loan it approved in April to aid the government's efforts in providing emergency cash transfers for 4Ps beneficiaries amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"With this loan, ADBs total lending to the Philippines has reached $2.6 billion so far this year, exceeding its record lending of $2.5 billion in 2019," the bank said.
Ford and VW Serious About Trucks

Will collaborate on commercial vehicles  city van created and built by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and later 1-ton cargo van engineered by Ford, plus Volkswagen medium pickup built on Ford Ranger platform  from 2022

During the lifecycles of the products, the companies expect to produce up to a combined

8 million of the three commercial vehicles included in the commercial relationship

8 million of the three commercial vehicles included in the commercial relationship Ford to build new electric vehicle for Europe based on Volkswagens Modular Electric Drive toolkit beginning in 2023; could approach a multiyear 600,000-plus units

With Volkswagens investment last week in Argo AI, Ford and Volkswagen will work with Argo AI to independently develop AVs at scale based on Argo AIs innovative self-driving technology

Relationship does not involve cross-ownership between the two companies, is expected to create significant efficiencies for both companies

DEARBORN, Mich., and WOLFSBURG, Germany  June 10, 2020  Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG today signed agreements that expand their global alliance to meet rapidly evolving needs of their respective customers in Europe and other regions by leveraging complementary strengths in midsize pickup trucks and commercial and electric vehicles.

Plans for the agreements were first announced by Ford and Volkswagen last July.

The companies expect the alliance to enhance ownership experiences for current and future customers by more rapidly innovating vehicle offerings, incorporating relevant new technologies, delivering better utility and offering more model choices. They anticipate continued growth in global industry demand for commercial vehicles and for high-performing electric vehicles to add valuable scale to their individual product portfolios.

The alliance will:

Produce a medium pickup truck engineered and built by Ford, for sale by Volkswagen as the Amarok starting in 2022 within the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles lineup

Further strengthen the commercial-vehicles businesses of both companies as early as 2021  with a city delivery van based on the latest Caddy model, developed and built by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and later a 1-ton cargo van created by Ford, and

Lead to a highly differentiated Ford electric vehicle for Europe by 2023 built on Volkswagens Modular Electric Drive, or MEB, toolkit, expanding on Fords zero-emission capabilities in the region

During the lifecycles of the products, the companies expect to produce up to a combined 8 million of the medium pickup truck and both commercial vans included in the commercial relationships.

In light of the Covid 19 pandemic and its impacts on the global economy, more than ever it is vital to set up resilient alliances between strong companies, said Volkswagen Group CEO Dr. Herbert Diess. This collaboration will efficiently drive down development costs, allowing broader global distribution of electric and commercial vehicles, and enhance the positions of both companies.

This alliance comes at a time of tremendous enthusiasm about the intersection of increasingly intelligent, connected vehicles in an ever-smarter world, said Ford CEO Jim Hackett. This creates a huge opportunity to innovate and solve many of the worlds transportation challenges and deliver extraordinary benefits to customers  even as companies need to be selective about how they use their cash.

Ford and Volkswagen both have strong commercial van and pickup businesses around the world, including popular models such as Fords Transit and Ranger and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Transporter, Crafter, Caddy and Amarok.

Commercial vehicles are fundamental to Ford today and an area where we will accelerate and grow, and working with Volkswagen on these platforms will provide both of us significant financial advantages in things like engineering, and plants and tooling, said Jim Farley, Ford chief operating officer. Separately, Ford will add battery electric versions of Transit and F-150 in the next 24 months for commercial customers who increasingly need zero emissions and the power of connectivity, data and artificial intelligence.

The collaboration with Ford is a key building block of our GRIP 2025+ strategy and part of the current transformation of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, said Thomas Sedran, chairman of the board of management of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. This long-term cooperation with Ford will strengthen our very good position in area of light commercial vehicles, especially in our core European markets, and is proof that we are successfully implementing our plan step by step.

Fords use of Volkswagens MEB architecture in Europe will represent another cornerstone in Volkswagens electric vehicle strategy, and further efforts by both companies to fulfill their commitments to the Paris 2015 Agreement. Volkswagen and Ford plan to explore additional ways to cooperate on electric vehicles.

Over several years starting in 2023, Ford could deliver 600,000 electric vehicles atop the MEB architecture, which is designed to combine space and performance with electric drive. The vehicle, which will be designed and engineered by Ford in Cologne-Merkenich, will add another compelling nameplate to its own all-electric Mustang Mach-E, which will be introduced in 2021.

Additionally, the companies will both work with Argo AI to form distinct, highly capable autonomous-vehicle businesses based on Argo AIs self-driving technology. Last week, Volkswagen closed its previously announced investment in Argo AI, the Pittsburgh-based company in which Ford already had ownership and development interests.

Volkswagen and Ford independently choosing to invest in Argo AI illustrates the technical leadership and progress of Argo AIs self-driving system, and how alliances can help enable development of breakthrough technologies that require substantial time and resources. Argo AIs SDS is the first with commercial deployment plans for both Europe and the U.S. The global reach of Ford and Volkswagen will give Argo AIs platform the largest geographic deployment potential of any autonomous driving technology to date. Reach and scale are important factors in developing an SDS that is robust and cost efficient.

The Volkswagen/Ford alliance does not include cross-ownership between the companies, which will remain competitors in the marketplace.

About Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is a global company based in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets and services a full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified vehicles and Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions in electrification; mobility solutions, including self-driving services; and connected services. Ford employs approximately 188,000 people worldwide. For more information regarding Ford, its products and Ford Motor Credit Company, please visit www.corporate.ford.com.

About Volkswagen Group

The Volkswagen Group, with its headquarters in Wolfsburg, is one of the worlds leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. The Group comprises twelve brands from seven European countries: Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, SEAT, SKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania and MAN. The passenger car portfolio ranges from small cars all the way to luxury-class vehicles. Ducati offers motorcycles. In the light and heavy commercial vehicles sector, the products range from pick-ups to buses and heavy trucks. Every weekday, 671.205 employees around the globe produce on average 44,567 vehicles, are involved in vehicle-related services or work in other areas of business. The Volkswagen Group sells its vehicles in 153 countries.

In 2019, the total number of vehicles delivered to customers by the Group globally was 10.97 million (2018: 10.83 million). The passenger car global market share was 12.9 percent. Group sales revenue in 2019 totaled EUR 252.6 billion (2018: EUR 235.8 billion). Earnings after tax in the fiscal year now ended amounted to EUR 14.0 billion (2018: EUR 12.2 billion).

About Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles

We transport success. As a stand-alone brand within the Volkswagen Group, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles (VWCV) is responsible for the development, construction and sales of light commercial vehicles. They include the Transporter, Caddy and Amarok ranges, which are produced in Hannover (D), Poznan (PL), Wrzesnia (PL) and Pacheco (ARG). Our vehicles transport construction workers, families and adventurers, bread rolls, parcels and surfboards. Every day they help countless people all over the world to do a good job, they operate as mobile workshops and they bring paramedics and the police to wherever they are needed. Within the Volkswagen Group, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is also the lead brand for Autonomous Driving, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Transport as a Service (TaaS), and in future will therefore be developing and producing corresponding Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV), such as robo-taxis and robo-vans. In this way we are transporting an entire society, with all its requirements for clean, intelligent and sustainable mobility. Working at the companys sites around the globe are more than 24,000 employees, including around 15,000 at the Hannover site.
- Uganda reported 31 cases of foreign truckers who tested positive for COVID-19 and were referred back to their countries

- Out of the 31, Kenya accounted for 16, Tanzania (8), Eritrea (five) while South Sudan and Burundi had a single case each

- As of Tuesday, June 9, Kenya had registered 2,989 cases out of which 873 were recoveries and 88 deaths

- The Ministry of Health directed all truckers to ensure they were tested before they embarked on their journeys

Authorities in Uganda on Wednesday, June 10, announced 16 Kenyan truck drivers tested positive for COVID-19 in the Present Yoweri Museveni-led territory.

The 16 drivers were among 31 foreign truckers diagnosed with the respiratory disease in Uganda. Out of the 31, eight were Tanzanians, Eritreans (five) while South Sudan and Burundi had a single case each.

READ ALSO: Katekista wa Kikatoliki ajitia kitanzi

Health CAS Rashid Aman directed all truckers to ensure they were tested before they embarked on their journeys. Photo: MoH.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Uhuru's nephew Jomo Gecaga, bae Lola Hannigan make relationship public on IG live

The patients were drawn from 2,423 people who were tested by medics out of which eight Ugandans returned positive results.

READ ALSO: Kenyans raise over KSh 570K for Meru man who slept with wife's body at police station

Uganda's Director-General Health Services Henry Mwabesa said the 31 truckers were repatriated to their respective authorities as COVID -19 cases in Uganda hit 665.

"To date, Uganda has registered 119 recoveries with no COVID-19 related death recorded," Mwabesa said in a statement.

READ ALSO: President Museveni tells Uganda he won't be responsible for coronavirus deaths

READ ALSO: Kirinyaga: 8 family members struck by strange disease, go berserk after stealing food

This emerged as authorities in Kenya insisted they were keen at testing truckers before they embarked on their journeys in a move to prevent huge truck snarl-ups witnessed at the Busia entry point.

According to Health Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Rashid Aman, heavy traffic of trucks at the Malaba border was caused by drivers waiting for test results.

"We appreciate the important role truckers play in ensuring we have enough supplies. We, however, urge them to only embark on their safaris after acquiring a COVID-19 negative certificate.

We will also not allow them to pick goods from the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) without proof they have been tested and declared negative," said Aman.

READ ALSO: Stop insulting us when we visit State House, respect elders - Oscar Sudi tells Uhuru

Section of Kenya citizens lines up to register for COVID-19 testing. Photo: MoH.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Outgoing Burundi president Pierre Nkurunziza is dead

As of Tuesday, June 9, Kenya had recorded 2,989 cases out of which 873 were recoveries and 88 deaths.

Tanzania, which had eight of its truckers diagnosed with COVID-19 in Uganda, had not released any data from late April 2020 when it had 509, cases. The cases included 21 deaths and 183 recoveries.

On Sunday, June 7, Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli declared the country COVID-19 free.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

24 patients discharged as Kenya's Recoveries rise to 873 | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
His Excellency, Dr. Bello Muhammad Matawalle, emerged Governor of Zamfara State when the state was on the brink of socioeconomic collapse. Prior to May 29th, 2019, Zamfara citizens were marooned between the devil and the deep blue sea: this was literally symbolized by the pillaging administration of the time and the rampaging bandits unleashing terror on another end.

Zamfara was hitherto synonymous with sanctioned state looting, banditry, endemic poverty, hunger, disease, palpable social discontent and all-round retrogression. It boasted of the highest maternal and infant mortality rate in Sub-Saharan Africa; an incontestable position down the ladder of human development index, and other accompaniments of failed leadership.

But when His Excellency Dr. Matawalle heeded the divine call, he hit the ground running. Within one year, the gloomy trends have been supplanted by a new era of peace, progress and prosperity for all.

Today, Zamfara is earning accolades as a global model for good governance. Governor Matawalles achievements have stunned critics and cynics, restored hope to a fragmented populace and set Zamfara on the pedestal of socioeconomic recovery and growth.

It is noteworthy to highlight some key achievements of the Governor Matawalle Administration in just one year, as follows:

Security

Considering that sustainable development cannot be achieved amid insecurity, Governor Matawalle moved to address the lingering insecurity challenge, which had cast Zamfara negatively in the global spotlight.

The Governor met with President Muhammad Buhari and Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. He also met with the Service Chiefs; the Hon. Minister of Defence; traditional rulers, community and religious leaders; leaders of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN); Civilian Joint Tax Force (CJTF) and other notable stakeholders. His subsequent negotiations facilitated the release of over 800 captives, including several expatriates, by bandits.

To consolidate the new found peace, the Government spearheaded the disarmament of bandits, resulting in the handover of a cache of sophisticated arms and ammunition to the State Government.

Furthermore, over 200 surveillance vehicles, equipped with hi-tech security gadgets, were procured for distribution, to boost the capacity and morale of security forces. Thats in addition to deployment of drone technology. Today, Zamfara is peaceful, with over 25,000 persons hitherto displaced returned to their homes, and hundreds held captive reunited with their families.

Education

No society advances above the educational level of its citizens. Hence, in its 2020 Budget, the Government allotted 19% to Education, the highest provision in the states history. From this, N7 billion was earmarked for renovation of science schools and training of science teachers. The provision also covers renovation of five secondary schools, with all public primary schools earmarked for remodeling.

Furthermore, the Governor approved the promotion of 6,709 primary school teachers who had 5 to 7 years backlog of promotions, and their salary arrears cleared in September 2019. In addition, 556 teachers neglected by the previous administration, were reinstated, and over 200 students granted educational scholarships to study abroad. To complement Governments efforts, the First Lady, Hajiya Aisha Bello Matawalle, placed 41 orphans on academic scholarships.

Moreover, Governor Matawalle awarded contracts for the construction of 613 primary school classrooms, while equipping them with 14,810 desks and chairs; 962 desks for staff and modern ICT centres. N4.5 billion was earmarked for the execution of these projects.

Governor Matawalle further visited TETFund, where he secured One Billion Naira Intervention Fund for Abdu Gusau Polytechnic, Talata Mafara and the enlistment of Zamfara State University by NUC.

Health

Health, they say, is wealth. The leadership of Governor Matawalle accorded priority attention to revitalizing the once moribund health sector. 17 ambulances were immediately procured and distributed to General Hospitals across Zamfara.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, Zamfara State Government promptly constructed and equipped the Damba Infectious Disease Center; purchased hundreds of tricycle ambulances for distribution to health centres and procured ventilators, patient monitors and COVID-19 Zero-Contact Booths Testing equipment. Hence, Zamfara successfully discharge all its cases of COVID-19.

Contracts were also awarded for completion of Shinkafi Orthopaedic Hospital and construction of 147 Primary Health Centres in the respective Local Government Wards, along with procurement of beds for all the facilities. The construction of Kagara Hospital has since been completed.

To boost life expectancy in Zamfara, Governor Matawalle kick-started the establishment of ultramodern Women and Children Hospitals across the 14 Local Governments of Zamfara, at a free cost for pregnant mothers and children under five.

Urbanization and Critical Infrastructure

Gusau, the capital of Zamfara State, now wears a new look. Governor Matawalle has executed several impactful projects, including:

 Completion of Canteen Daji Area road rehabilitation;

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 Completion of Kwanar Inno Doya, Sabon Gari Road via Sarkin Tasha Mosque, Sardauna Bread linking up to Late Ladan Mada House;

 Completion of road from Old Motor Park near Auwal Bread, beside the railway, linking up to CIS, up to the Government House Road, opposite Jifatu Supermarket;

 Completion of a suburban close along Kantin Sauki line, via the house of Liman Dan Alhaji Sambo, linking up to the Emirs Palace Mosque;

 Kanwuri Gusau; Tudun Wada; Sabuwar Hanya; completion of road down to Tsamiya Masaka, linking up to Koramar Boko House, also linking up to Sunny Fast Food.

Furthermore, Governor Matawalle synthesized a Rural Transformation Scheme modeled after the Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructures of 1986. Several projects are in progress in many rural areas of Danmarke, Kadaddaba, Ruwan Doruwa, Kanoma, Gwaram and Yardanya, among others.

In pursuit of a robust rural remodeling program, the adroit leadership of Dr. Matawalle identified a plethora of gains in the Rural Grazing Areas program, as a masterstroke to end frequent clashes between herders and crop farmers, while opening massive vistas of investment and employment.

The project will boast of integrated settlements; properly equipped Schools; a veterinary clinic; an earth dam; cattle cottages; grazing yard; abattoir; mosques; cemeteries; overhead tanks; irrigation system; milk collection centre; assorted animal feed processors; traditional community/social arena etc., that make for a good life, sustainable development and catalytic wealth creation. Today, the pilot project in Maradun is at 80% completion. The project will be replicated across the three senatorial districts of Zamfara State.

Industrialization and Foreign Direct Investments

Governor Matawalle maintains an eagle eye for investment opportunities. Upon creating a viable environment for investments by enhancing security, practicing an open-door approach and provision of robust infrastructure; many countries, NGOs and Development Partners now offer to contribute in developing entrepreneurial skills for youth empowerment.

Governor Matawalle is also showcasing Zamfaras Investment potentials on the global horizon; from the 2019 UN General Assembly in the United States, to the Russia-Africa Economic Summit; and China from 23rd to 24th December 2019, to promote Zamfara States potentials in mining, agriculture and industrialization.

In Beijing, China, the Governor wooed investors for a win-win partnership in solid minerals development, stressing that 50% of the 34 commercial minerals listed in Nigerian are found in Zamfara; including gold, zinc, columbite, silver, gypsum, limestone, copper, tantalite and barite. The governor promised added incentives for prospective investors.

Back home, Governor Matawalle laid the foundation for a N9 billion 3-Star Hotel under a Public Private Partnership agreement. This will create more employment opportunities; as several national and international programmes and other VIP occasions could be hosted in the state.

To spur industrialization, Zamfara State Government signed an MoU with African Export-Import Bank in October, 2019. Governor Matawalle also secured a 1 Billion US Dollar investment input to facilitate trade and industry; through revival of cotton production, animal husbandry, beef processing and exploring opportunities in minerals and water resources.

Indeed, a new Zamfara State is being built. With the successes recorded so far, we can boldly say that Zamfara is lighting the pathway in the journey of people-driven leadership, geared towards engendering a greater Nigeria.

Dr. Bashir Maru Muhammed is the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Zamfara State Governor and can be reached via dr.bash007@yahoo.com
Whitefish stocks in Lake Sevan are under threat. This is what deputy of the My Step faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Varazdat Karapetyan said during a discussion on the report on performance of the 2019 State Budget held as part of the joint session of parliamentary standing committees today, adding that the reason is that many fishers fish for juvenile fish in Lake Sevan and Armenia imports fishnets with small diameters.

The deputy noted that importers often state that they are importing fishnets in order to use them as fabric or clothes and asked acting Minister of Environment Vahe Jilavyan to follow up on the issue. In his turn, Jilavyan said he has already discussed the matter with the governor of Gegharkunik Province and will also discuss it with police officers.
The president of the Jewish Federation of Reading said its time to speak out against hate Tuesday during a virtual town hall on Zoom.

This is not an African American issue, declared William Franklin, its a societal issue that affects all minorities.

The town hall was hosted by the Jewish Federation of Reading, the Reading branch of NAACP, the LGBT Center of Greater Reading and the Anti-Defamation League of Philadelphia.

An estimated 125 people signed on to the online platform for the hour-long workshop style session.

Amanda J. Hornberger, Jewish federation program director, called for vigilance in combating hate.

Hate, online and in person, has no place in our community, she said. We encourage the public to call out hate wherever we see it, regardless of who is being targeted.

Speakers discussed the status of hate groups in Berks County and Pennsylvania. They also identified the symbols and language used by hate groups and provided concrete steps to stop hate in the community.

Michelle Dech, director of the LGBT Center of Greater Reading, said the organization recently found hate related literature on its doorstep.

While such materials often contain protected speech, Dech said they are nevertheless hurtful.

It resonates deeply, she said. You almost feel violated.

Stacey Taylor, president of the NAACP Reading Branch, said the groups mission encompasses all people.

All individuals, she insisted, have the right to be free from hatred and discrimination.

Shira Goodman, Philadelphia regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, moderated the session.

Kimberly Talbot, director of the Reading Human Relations Commission, urged people to report suspected incidents of hate to the commission.

State Sen. Judy Schwank of Ruscombmanor Township outlined proposed anti-hate legislation in the Senate.

Provisions include allowing the state attorney general to intervene in cases of ethnic intimidation, allow victims of hate crimes to take civil action in the courts and train police to handle hate crimes.

Social media is a double-edged sword, Schwank said, that has created a platform for people who want to spread hate.

Franklin said the time for action against hate is now.

Tensions in America are running high, almost to the breaking point, he said. Its time that we shift from talking about the issue to doing something about it.
A report on global peace has placed Nigeria among the least peaceful countries in the world.

Nigeria occupies 40th position out of the 44 countries assessed for their peacefulness in sub-Saharan Africa  just four positions above war-torn South Sudan which is the least peaceful country in the region  according to the Global Peace Index (GPI) report released on June 10.

Nigeria is ranked 147th globally, the report says.

The report attributed Nigerias deterioration in peacefulness to the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, which it said has led to the killing of 640 civilians in 2019, including other safety and security challenges.

Nigerias problems with cross-border smuggling and imports undercutting local producers have led the government to shut down its borders, causing Nigerias relationship with neighbouring countries to deteriorate, the report said.

Over the last year, the country has recorded further deteriorations in Militarisation and Ongoing Conflict and an overall deterioration in peacefulness of 0.8 per cent.

Somalia is the second of the least peaceful countries in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, before Nigeria.

Mauritius is the most peaceful country in the region. It occupies an impressive 23rd position in the global ranking, according to the report.

Apart from Mauritius, the other top peaceful countries in Africa, in their order of ranking, are Botswana, Ghana, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Tanzania, Namibia, Liberia, and Malawi.

South Africa occupies 29th position on the African table.

Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008, the report said.

It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, and Denmark.

Afghanistan is the least peaceful country in the world for the second year in a row, followed by Syria, Iraq, South Sudan and Yemen. All, except Yemen, have been ranked amongst the five least peaceful since at least 2015.

Only two of the nine regions in the world became more peaceful over the past year. The greatest improvement occurred in the Russia and Eurasia region, followed by North America.

This is the 14th edition of the GPI, which is produced annually by the Institute for Economic & Peace, a non-partisan and non-profit organization in Sydney, Australia.

The GPI uses internal and external indicators for its measurement of peacefulness in countries around the world.

Violent demonstrations, intensity of internal conflict, violent crime, political terror, and political instability, terrorism impact, and deaths from internal conflict are some of the internal indicators used, while UN peacekeeping funding, neighbouring countries relations, and external conflicts fought are some of the external indicators.

The Global Peace Index (GPI) measures more than just the presence or absence of war, the report says. It captures the absence of violence or the fear of violence across three domains: Safety and Security, Ongoing Conflict, and Militarisation.

163 independent states and territories were assessed in this years report.
U.S. Rep. John Katko has been recognized again for his bipartisan legislative record.

Katko, R-Camillus, is one of 20 members of the House of Representatives to receive the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's inaugural Jefferson-Hamilton Award for Bipartisanship. The award, named for Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, recognizes House members and senators who, according to the Chamber, "have demonstrated a willingness to work across the aisle in support of common objectives."

To determine the winners of the award, the Chamber scored members of Congress based on their co-sponsorship of bills introduced by members of the opposing party. Katko received a score of 97%, tying with fellow New York Reps. Anthony Brindisi and Antonio Delgado for the fourth-highest mark.

Other honorees from New York include U.S. Rep. Tom Reed (99%) and U.S. Rep. Peter King (98%).

During a webcast announcing the awards, Neil Bradley, who serves as executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the House winners are members the organization goes to "because they understand how to move legislation."

"They understand how to effectuate public policy and they have a willingness to work together across the aisle and across diverse interest groups for the greater public good," Bradley said.

It's the second time this year that Katko has been honored for bipartisanship in Congress. The Lugar Center, which is named for former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, and the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University ranked Katko as the second-most bipartisan member of Congress.

The Lugar Center rankings are based on sponsorship and co-sponsorship of bills and how much support those measures received from members of both parties.

Katko said the award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce highlights the need to develop consensus on reforms.

"Since coming to Congress, I have proudly worked with Democrats and Republicans to pass legislation that has made a positive impact on central New York and our nation," he said. "But, there is more work to be done. As central New York's representative, I will continue to act as a leading bipartisan voice in Congress and deliver real results for our region."

Politics reporter Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding.

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OMAHA  Christian Rexilius has been charged in a warrant with first-degree murder and use of a weapon in the stabbing death of his father, Omaha police said Tuesday.

John Rexilius, 61, was found dead at his apartment at 617 Pierce St. on the afternoon of April 4.

Christian Rexilius, 26, is in the Pottawattamie County Jail on other charges, Omaha police said.

The elder Rexilius was described by friends and family as sometimes gruff, but caring and thoughtful.

Everyone called him Grumpy, but it was like Grumpy the Care Bear, his daughter Kayleigh Jo Bain of Omaha said in April. He was the most gentle soul possible, but he could act grumpy.

Bain said her father was retired from the Nebraska Department of Roads and the Bellevue Street Department. He was a regular at the Havana Garage, an Old Market cigar bar.  Nancy Gaarder

Police ask that anyone with information contact Omaha Crime Stoppers at (402) 444-STOP, omahacrimestoppers.org or on the P3 Tips mobile app.
New Delhi, June 9 (IANS) Sounding the poll bugle for the West Bengal Assembly elections which are still months away, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday claimed that the state had lagged behind other states in development and its law and order was in bad shape.

The senior BJP leader appealed to the people of West Bengal to vote his party to power in the next Assembly elections, promising to make it 'Sonar Bangla'.

Continuing his attack on the Trinamool Congress government led by Mamata Banerjee, he said that there was open play of bomb blasts, kidnappings, narcotics and corruption and thus a political change was necessary in West Bengal.

"MLAs are being held captive, MPs are stopped. The BJP helped Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan - which were BIMARU states - to develop. You have seen the governments of the Left and the TMC; now give a chance to the BJP," he said while addressing a poll rally in the eastern state from here through videoconference.

The BJP leader also demanded that the TMC supremo give an account of what she did in the last 10 years in power in Bengal.

"Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's government is only doing politics. It has only been complaining against the Centre. If the Modi government is giving what all it did in the last 6 years, her government should also do the same," Shah added.

Shah claimed that if the BJP was voted to power in Bengal, it will ensure the end of corruption, terrorism, nepotism and appeasement. The state would be rid of scams like Narada and Sharada, he added.

Shah said that Banerjee had opposed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act due to her policy of appeasement and used unparliamentary words for her political rivals. "What wrong have the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh done for you to oppose grant of Indian citizenship to them?" he asked.

The Union Home Minister said that one crore people across the country had benefited from the Aayushman Bharat health insurance scheme of the central government, but the people of West Bengal had been deprived of its benefits.

He said that the Centre had repeatedly asked for list of intended poor beneficiaries in the state but the TMC government had been allegedly refusing to share the same.

Shah alleged that West Bengal government did not share the list of people who could benefit from the Kissan Samman Nidhi Yojana, due to which the intended beneficiaries could not get the money.

Around 1.25 crore migrant workers had been helped to return to their native states through 4300 Shramik Special trains so far by the central government, the BJP leader said.

He alleged that the TMC government allowed only 3 lakh migrants to return to West Bengal through 236 trains. "We called them Shramik Special trains but the TMC government called them Corona Express trains. This is an insult to the people of West Bengal," Shah claimed.

He said that the state which reverberated earlier with Rabindra Sangeet was now hearing the sounds of bullets and bomb blasts, adding that more than 100 BJP workers had been killed in the political violence in the eastern state.

The last Assembly election in West Bengal were held in April-May 2016, and are slated to be held in the first half of next year.

--IANS

hindi/tsb
COLUMBUS, OhioLegislation to require state and local health officials to change the types of coronavirus data collected, and reshape the way they report it, passed the Ohio House on Wednesday.

House Bill 624, which now goes to the Ohio Senate, comes from Republican lawmakers who believe that Gov. Mike DeWine and his administration have skewed how they present the states daily coronavirus numbers to make the disease seem far more deadly than it has turned out to be.

The legislation would require the Ohio Department of Health, as well as local health boards, hospitals and coroners to report every coronavirus test given, and mandate that ODH release that information, as well as the test results, in the form of a chart or table broken down by ZIP code, as well as infection rates for nursing homes, hospitals and prisons.

It would also require the state health department, when it releases COVID-19 modeling projections, to provide supporting information and documents, as well as a margin of error.

Supporters of the measure said that the Ohio Department of Healths presentation of coronavirus statistics has created unnecessary public fear, as it provides statistics on cumulative deaths and cases but not numbers on how many Ohioans currently are being treated for or dying from the disease.

They also criticized early projections from state officials, which predicted that Ohio could see up to 10,000 new cases per day. As of Wednesday, there was a cumulative total of nearly 40,000 Ohioans infected with COVID-19, 2,457 of whom have died.

Unfortunately, the early modeling information, coupled with the media drumbeat of fear and death created this huge atmosphere of fear across our state, said state Rep. Diane Grendell, a Geauga County Republican sponsoring the bill, during a floor speech Wednesday. This atmosphere of fear could have been abated in mid-April if we had started informing the public of the whole truth.

House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, criticized DeWine and state health director Dr. Amy Acton for not reporting during their regular public briefings about how many Ohioans currently have coronavirus, which he said was about 600 people.

"If I went on TV every day, and I gave the people of Ohio the cumulative number of fatalities from automobile accidents since the time the automobile was invented, I will bet a Dunkin Donut that no one in Ohio would drive, said state Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, during a floor speech.

The bill passed 61-34, with no Republicans voting against it.

No House Democrats voted for the bill, and they raised concerns with the legislation and the arguments behind it.

State Rep. Allison Russo, a Columbus-area Democrat, said much of the information mentioned in the bill is already available in Ohio Department of Health data files. What the bill does, though, is create problematic limits on how ODH should present the information, she said.

Russo noted that state and federal privacy laws prohibit medical data from being publicly released for groups of fewer than 20,000 people. She also said that the bill provides no money for health officials to report and compile such information.

The last thing that those local entities need from us  the General Assembly  is another unfunded mandate, she said.

State Rep. Beth Liston, a Columbus-area Democrat who is a practicing physician and president of the Columbus Medical Association, said state lawmakers shouldnt be prescriptive in how scientific information is presented, because then we are hamstringing the response.

Liston continued: Were making it less transparent, because people that study it best arent showing the information thats most important in the way that it is.

Read more Ohio politics and government coverage:

Ohio Senate passes bill allowing boozy ice cream manufacturers to ship to liquor, grocery, convenience stores

Bill to permanently allow carryout, delivery orders of alcoholic drinks clears Ohio House

Ohio Green Party sues to regain state recognition, allow presidential candidates on fall ballot

Laser, radar can be admitted in court to convict speeders, without testimony about their science: Ohio Supreme Court

How much did coronavirus closings sink sales tax collections for Ohio, the counties and transit agencies?
Hours-long waits, problems with new voting machines and a lack of available ballots plagued voters in majority minority counties in Georgia on Tuesday  conditions the secretary of state called "unacceptable" and vowed to investigate.

Democrats and election watchers said voting issues in a state that has been plagued for years by similar problems, along with allegations of racial bias, didn't bode well for the November presidential election, when Georgia could be in play.

"This seems to be happening throughout Atlanta and perhaps throughout the county. People have been in line since before 7:00 am this morning," Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, tweeted shortly after polls were supposed to open  and in some cases still hadn't.

Cody Cutting was in a long line at Lang Carson Community Center in the Reynoldstown neighborhood of Atlanta, where the line snaked around the block and some people had been waiting to cast their votes for 4 hours.

"People are a bit frustrated, but spirits are still OK. Neighbors are bringing around food, water and chairs," he told NBC News.

Lengthy waits were reported in other parts of Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said the problems "in certain precincts" in Fulton and DeKalb counties were "unacceptable."

"My office has opened an investigation to determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November's election," he said in a statement.

Voting problems also plagued Fulton County in 2018, which led to allegations of voter suppression by Democrats. The secretary of state at the time was Brian Kemp, a Republican, who wound up winning the governorship by a thin margin against Democrat Stacey Abrams. Abrams at the time called the election "rotten and rigged."

She tweeted Tuesday that "Georgians deserve better."

"From Jasper to Fulton to Coffee & Chatham, long lines, inoperable machines & under-resourced communities are being hurt," Abrams wrote, adding that Raffensperger "owns this disaster."

Story continues

"He must stop finger-pointing and fix it," she said.

Democrats have targeted Georgia  which has added 700,000 registered voters to the rolls since 2018  as a possible swing state in November. Rachana Desai Martin, the national director of voter protection for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said that what happened Tuesday is "unacceptable" and noted that many voters reported asking for  and never receiving  absentee ballots.

"We only have a few months left until voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian  and every American  is able to safely exercise their right to vote," said Martin, whose candidate NBC News projected to win the Democratic primary in the state shortly after the official poll closing time. Martin said the Biden campaign "will remain fully engaged in defending" the right to vote.

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DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond blamed Tuesday's issues on Raffensperger, who Thurmond said should be investigated by the governor's office.

"It is the secretary of state's responsibility to train, prepare and equip election staff throughout the state to ensure fair and equal access to the ballot box. Those Georgians who have been disenfranchised by the statewide chaos that has affected the voting system today in numerous DeKalb precincts and throughout the state of Georgia deserve answers," Thurmond said.

Kristen Clarke, president and CEO of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a civil rights group, called the election "a catastrophe."

"If we view the primary election as a dry run for November, then Georgia gets an F today," Clarke said.

Five States Hold Primaries As Pandemic Continues In America (Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images)

She said her group has been flooded with calls from "voters who encountered barriers from polling sites that are not open on time, malfunctioning equipment, long lines with several hours' wait time, insufficient backup paper ballots and more.

Three-quarters of voters who called with problems identified as African American, Clarke said.

In Roswell, a mostly white Atlanta suburb, there were far fewer problems. Brian Takahashi voted there and said "it went well."

"There were problems with the voting systems for approximately 25 minutes. Afterwards, it was smooth sailing," he said, estimating that he was "out the door" in 20 minutes after the problem was resolved.

Basketball great LeBron James weighed in on Twitter.

"Everyone talking about 'how do we fix this?' They say 'go out and vote?' What about asking if how we vote is also structurally racist?" he tweeted.

Everyone talking about how do we fix this? They say go out and vote? What about asking if how we vote is also structurally racist? https://t.co/GFtq12eKKt  LeBron James (@KingJames) June 9, 2020

Robb Pitts, chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that "everything that could happen or go wrong has gone wrong so far."

He pointed to numerous issues, including fewer polling precincts, new voting machines and absentee ballot issues.

Nicholas Roth, 30, said he'd been in line at an Atlanta precinct where the woman ahead of him was told that she couldn't vote because she'd already asked for an absentee ballot.

"She responded: 'I never got an absentee ballot. That's why I'm here,'" Roth said. The woman was sent to an area with other would-be voters who'd had similar issues.

"The individuals had requested absentee ballots, but they didn't arrive in time to send in, but when they showed up to try and vote in person, they were blocked because the system had indicated they already had an absentee ballot, which, again, they said they never received, Roth said.

Adding to the headaches were the new voting machines, which some poll workers and voters struggled with. When voters check in, poll workers give them cards, which they insert into touchscreen machines to cast their votes. The machines then produce paper ballots that voters insert into scanners.

Five States Hold Primaries As Pandemic Continues In America (Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images)

The new system was put in place following allegations that the previous system wasn't secure. Local activists sued the secretary of state three years ago, noting that the system didn't produce any paper record.

Earlier this year, Georgia switched to a new voting system made by Dominion Voting Systems, which the state government said should mitigate most, if not all, of the plaintiffs' concerns.

Richard DeMillo, a cybersecurity professor at Georgia Tech who observed the voting process at College Park Auditorium in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, called it "pretty chaotic." He cited bottlenecks from voter check-in delays and estimated that half the center's machines were turned off and not in use.

"Not a lot of guidance is being given to a lot of people," said DeMillo, who saw voters unaccustomed to the new system sometimes walk away from machines with their paper ballots without scanning them  who would have to be "grabbed by the neck" by poll workers to make sure their votes get counted.

Eddie Perez, an election technology expert with the OSET Institute, an election technology nonprofit, said the new machinery, combined with consolidation of polling locations and shortages of provisional and emergency paper ballots at some locations, may have created a "chain reaction" that led to the long lines.

The lines caused some polling places to announce that they would remain open past the official closing time of 7 p.m. ET.

A Dominion spokesperson said that as of 4 p.m. ET, the manufacturer had needed to replace only 10 pieces of "fielded voting equipment"  such as scanners, printers and touchscreens  out of about 30,000 total voting systems across the state.

Raffensperger blamed Tuesday's voting problems on local officials.

"Obviously, the first time a new voting system is used there is going to be a learning curve, and voting in a pandemic only increased these difficulties. But every other county faced these same issues and were significantly better prepared to respond so that voters had every opportunity to vote," he said.

The state Democratic Party blamed him, saying his office failed to provide "adequate support and training."

"We demand statewide action by the Secretary of State  the chief elections official in Georgia  to fix this problem immediately," the party's statement said.
Syria's Foreign and Expatriates Ministry have said that the latest US sanctions are another attempt to interfere in Syrian affairs, after the failure of terrorist groups writes SANA.

The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said that the statements by James Jeffrey on the current situation in Syria constitute a clear admission by the current US administration, of being directly responsible for the suffering of Syrians.

On Tuesday, an official source at the ministry said that the statements also acknowledge that increasing sanctions is the other face of the war declared on Syria, following the repeated failures of terrorist groups.

The source said that these statements reaffirm that the US views the region with Israeli eyes, because the demands he spoke of are old and recurring Israeli demands, which aim to establish control over the area.

The source went on to say that if actual international legitimacy really existed, then the US administration should be held accountable for its policy that targets the livelihoods of Syrians.

The source stressed that this US policy, which violates the most basic tenets of human rights and international law, will fail as Syrians are committed to their sovereignty and independent decision making, adding that defending the national economy will constitute another defeat for the US administrations desperate attempts to interfere in Syrian affairs.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
According to the media narrative, whatever unpleasant behavior a person or group is engaging in  from criminal and gang activity to sheer terrorism  if you're white and the other party is not, that proves that the behavior is entirely your fault. Your insufferable racism and xenophobia have pushed these people over the edge; their criminal behavior is a reflection of their many grievances against you.

This would certainly require ameliorating if it were true. It's not. This is not to say there is no racism, a thing that cannot be "legislated"; rather, it is to say that the overwhelming majority of criminal behavior is and always has been fueled by things other than grievances.

Take Islam for instance. Following the savage 9/11 terror attacks, the great question was "why do they hate us?" The answer from the media and their array of "experts" was that they had grievances against America.

Thereafter followed a litany list of supposed American or Western crimes against Muslims: originally, it was Western political "sins"  from the Crusades to colonialism to the creation of Israel. With each new terrorist attack or Islamic outrage, the "grievances" Muslims had grew: free speech, churches, even teddy bears were included.

The media might as well have mentioned your sheer existence as a prosperous and free infidel as the ultimate grievance, which would have been closer to the truth. After all, unjustified Islamic attacks on Western peoples began nearly 1,400 years ago, a few years after Islam was born. They continued for a millennium, swallowing three quarters of the Christian world and bombarding every corner of Europe, whence many millions of slaves were abducted.

Even America's first war as a nation was with African Muslims, who were raiding American vessels and enslaving their occupants. When Jefferson and Adams asked the Muslim ambassador what "injury" the newborn American state could possibly have committed to provoke such attacks, "the ambassador answered us," Jefferson wrote to Congress in 1786, "that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, ... that it was their right and duty to make war upon them [non-Muslims] wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all."

Muslim attacks on the West finally went on hiatus in the early nineteenth century, when Europe, fed up with Islamic depredations, invaded and colonized the Muslim world. "The whole complex process of European expansion and empire," explains Bernard Lewis, "has its roots in the clash of Islam and Christendom[.] ... The victorious liberators [Europeans], having reconquered their own territories [from Muslims], pursued their former masters whence they had come."

Regardless, the West has been so inundated with "it's your fault," Muslim "grievances," and "Islamophobia" propaganda from their own media that the Islamic State itself (ISIS) made it a point to clarify that it hates and terrorizes the West first and foremost because Islamic law requires it to do so, irrespective of Western behavior.

Or just look to the abysmal way Muslims around the world treat their non-Muslim minorities, chiefly Christians. How could these peaceful, tiny, and politically disenfranchised communities possibly "aggrieve" Muslims? They are often the same rac and ethnicity and speak the same language as their Muslim counterparts. You cannot tell them apart except for religion  and that is the "grievance" their persecutors have: non-Muslim minorities are "infidels" and therefore to be despised and oppressed.

Despite such outrageous discrimination and persecution, the Western media seldom touch on this topic, and never honestly: doing so would throw a wrench in their "grievances" narrative that Muslim misbehavior is a byproduct of "grievances" against the West.

Now consider how the media are using this same grievance paradigm to justify criminal behavior and violence. A black man was tragically killed by a police officer. Although he has been arrested and charged with murder, that's not enough. If you're white, the current turmoil  the looting, burning, and killing  is, once again, ultimately your fault: "grievances" coming to roost.

And yet, just as with Islam, the media's "black lives matter" narrative is extremely selective and manipulative: the cold-blooded murders of several admirable black Americans, such as 77-year-old retired police captain David Dorn, who was shot to death for protecting a pawn shop from looters, apparently do not matter (who's "protesting" for them?), nor do the many lives of American blacks whose businesses have been ransacked and destroyed.

Nor, for that matter, does the fact that several thousand black lives are snuffed out by other blacks every year matter to the media (American blacks have killed 324,000 other blacks between 1979 and 2014). As for the fact that, although accounting for about 15 percent of the U.S. population, blacks commit half of all murders  which at the very least means they end up in violent confrontations with police  what difference does that make?

Only those very, very few black lives that can possibly be made to conform to the grievance narrative will ever matter.

The irony of all this is that only a naturally fair-minded people would even care, let alone allow the accusation that they are not being fair enough to their minorities to terrorize them. Try telling any non-Western nation (we've already seen how it goes under Islam) that they are mistreating their minorities  or better yet, that they need to get on their knees and apologize for their race  and see where that gets you.

Raymond Ibrahim, author most recently of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
10.06.2020 LISTEN

Humble greetings, Agyaaku. Kindly grab your well-maintained stool. Please dont forget your water, Nana. We are going to continue with the voter register discourse. Oh yes, Puppet Master was a good listen last time, as it always is. You giggled, I can sense. That is a consistent feature of yours: fondness for music that speak to issues.

That reminds me, Agyaaku. We were talking about consistencies in the views held by the major stakeholders on the new voter register.

Nana, you will recall the EC in July 2016 released a list containing details of all the 56,772 persons who used NHIS cards to register in 2012. By July 30, 2016, the EC said 24,287 (42.78%) out of the 56,772 NHIS cards registrants, whose names were deleted from the voter register, had been re-registered. However, these figures became debatable when some people alleged that they registered with the NHIS card but their names are still on the register after the deletion exercise. Notable was Sydney Casely-Hayford, a political commentator. It was admitted by then EC chairperson that some registrants using NHIS card might still be on the register, and that she thought the number would be more than 56,000.

Another bother is those who got registered on the electoral roll through the guarantee of the NHIS registrants, Agyaaku. That is, if someone registered with a document that is deemed to be unfit, making the fellow unfit to be on the register, then those that subsequently got registered through the unfit registrants guarantorship are, in like manner, unfit to be on the roll. It is a snow-ball effect, is it not?

Without a new voters register, the 2016 elections came by, Agyaaku. With a turnout of 68.62% voters, the EC pronounced Nana Akufo-Addo the winner, with 53.85% of the votes against Mr Mahamas 44.40%. That was a victory for the opposition NPP against the incumbent NDC then, from an unhealthy voter register. But the NPP still sees the need to undertake a new voter register even though they won with the 2012 voter register. And the NDC still thinks the 2012 voter register should not be replaced with a new one even though they lost with it. That is another level of consistency, is it not?

In July 2018, the EC leadership got changed again as a result of avoidable, self-inflicting and confidence-eroding machinations and banters between mainly the commissioners. Their mandate was thus quashed through the Chief Justices committee set to investigate the commissioners.

The new EC has stated that the current Biometric Verification System (BVS) is not fit for running an election, ideally. That is a re-echo of the same not-fit for purpose belief held by all stakeholders since the 2013 Supreme Court ruling. The current EC has enumerated a litany of reasons, including the inability to upgrade software of the BVS, which is corroborated by the manufacturers, Nana. To them, Agyaaku, the BVS as it is now will not help the Commission in efficiently discharging the electoral duty assigned to them. So Agyaaku, do we allow them to go ahead and compile a register anew, or we disallow them in that quest, hoping the not-fit-for-purpose system will birth us acceptable election results?

There is still the dichotomy about the new voter register till date, Agyaaku. A part thinks that the register should be compiled anew; another part thinks the register should remain as it is, except for some cleaning out of illegitimate registrants. As you are aware, several statements have been made to buttress these dichotomic standpoints. The NPP, through its assigns, have been calling for compilation of new voter register. The NDC, through its rank and file, are also calling for no new register. Both are being consistent. However, there have been some threats issued. Demonstrations have been organised by the opposition currently, just as it happened in 2016. That is admissible by our laws. Mr Mahama is reported by peacefmonline.com to have said the EC should tread cautiously. They shouldnt do something that will bring confusion and chaos in this country. If they dont want to listen to us and continue with the new registration then, whatever will happen, they have to bear the consequences. A man of God made similar statements. That seems threatening, Nana. Is such admissible by our laws, Nana? Is it wrong for the EC to also listen to, and adopt the other view? Agyaaku, I am trying to marry Mr Mahamas current statement with what he said in 2015 and 2016 about the independence of the EC, how demonstrations affect the countries democratic credentials and the ECs liberty to decide what is best for the country.

So Nana, in all this the NPP has been consistent: that irrespective of who is at the helm of the EC, and who has won or lost with the 2012 voter register, there is THE NEED to compile a new voter register. The NDC has also been consistent, Agyaaku: that no matter who is at the helm of the EC, and who has won or lost with the 2012 voter register, there is NO NEED to compile a new voter register. The referee for elections, EC, is the one whose stand has changed. Two times, and through two administrations, the EC has opted for no new voter register. The NDC has accepted and lived with that, and so has the NPP, Nana. One time, i.e. currently, the EC is changing its stand, opting for a new voter register. Will both major political parties be consistent in accepting and living with it, Nana?

Well, the level of consistency of both parties can be measured from their acceptance of the independence and liberty of the EC, Agyaaku. That is, can the same consistency be deduced from the parties in acknowledging, accepting and allowing the EC to discharge its mandate independently and ad libitum, so long as it does not breach the laws of the land? We can perhaps be helped in this judgement by subjecting consistency of each school of thought on the voter register based on Mr Mahamas two prominent pronouncements stated above, Nana. One was made when he was president and the other in his current position as opposition leader. To this end, Agyaaku, I will leave it to you to judge. Please, refill your much-adored cold water as you ponder over the inconsistency in these consistencies. And dont worry Dubes Mickey Mouse Freedom is on replay here, Nana.

Mesan aba biem, Nana!!!

Written by:

Clement Boateng

Consultant/Founder - ClemBoat Consult

( www.clemboatconsult.com )

Email: [email protected]
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The Relief Agad mobile app was the countrys most searched query in the Google web search engine in the month of May, Google Trends revealed.

Google Philippines said Relief Agad was the overall top trend in relation to COVID-19 queries as beneficiaries continue to wait for the second tranche of cash aid from the national government.

The Relief Agad mobile application is an online cash relief system designed to speed up the distribution of financial aid in the country during the coronavirus pandemic.

RELATED: COVID-19 cash aid goes digital to accelerate distribution

Most of the searches came from Calabarzon, followed by Metro Manila, and Central Luzon.

On Tuesday, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said it is hoping to distribute the second tranche of the financial assistance to poor families by next week.

DSWD Undersecretary Rene Glen Paje also explained that the department has to complete the validation process of the enlisted beneficiaries to ensure the eligibility of the individuals, and to avoid any duplication error.

A May 22 memorandum from Malacanang states that five million households will receive the subsidy, for a total of 17 million beneficiaries.
[June 10, 2020] US Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, Selects JEOL Mass Spectrometers for Five Labs

JEOL USA, INC., a wholly owned subsidiary of JEOL Ltd. (TOKYO:6951) (President & COO Izumi Oi), has been awarded a major contract by the US Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection (DHS - CBP) for five JEOL AccuTOF LC-plus 4G Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometers equipped with DART (Direct Analysis in Real Time) ion sources. These instruments will enhance the analytical capabilities of five US Customs and Border Protection laboratories across the country. Three additional labs already installed the AccuTOF with DART in recent years, bringing the total usage to eight across the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200609005874/en/ DART(TM) Direct Analysis in Real Time (Photo: Business Wire) The AccuTOF systems with DART will be used by CBP scientists as a non-destructive, rapid means to analyze many types of forensic samples including dugs, suspected controlled substances, unknown substances, and general organic materials. The AccuTOF systems with DART will also allow the laboratories to quickly screen imported merchandise entering the United States that may violate Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders.



The AccuTOF mass spectrometer with DART allows the user to immediately determine chemical composition and produce high-resolution, accurate mass spectra by simply placing a sample in its native form between the DART ion source and the AccuTOF mass spectrometer inlet. Little to no sample preparation is required, unlike traditional analysis with mass spectrometry. The DART was invented at JEOL USA by Cody and Laramee specifically for integration with the AccuTOF and this proven technology is used routinely by many crime and forensics labs for investigations or screening.

"We are very gratified to be supporting this Federal Government Agency with JEOL's AccuTOF-DART mass spec technology, which is ideal for their applications where fast answers and exact identification of a drug, unknown substances, or imported materials including foods and food additives, and even the origin of petroleum products are needed," said Michael Frey, Ph.D., JEOL USA Analytical Instruments Product Manager. "We believe the specialized ability to rapidly identify or confirm identification of samples without alteration will greatly assist the US DHS in their efforts to track the entry of illegal substances into the United States." Product information

DART Direct Analysis in Real Time

https://www.jeol.co.jp/en/products/detail/DART.html JEOL Ltd.

3-1-2, Musashino, Akishima, Tokyo, 196-8558, Japan

Izumi Oi, President & COO

(Stock code: 6951, Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section)

www.jeol.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200609005874/en/

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San Francisco: The automated Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems at Google are detecting around 25 billion spammy pages in Search every day, ensuring they dont rank well in the overall results that people see.

Although the company did not share the specific techniques it uses for spam fighting because "that would weaken our protections and ultimately make Search much less useful", but it shared details about spammy behaviour that can be detected systematically.

"A low-quality page might include the right words and phrases that match what you searched for, so our language systems wouldn't be able to detect unhelpful pages from content alone. The telltale signs of spam are in the behavioural tactics used and how they try to manipulate our ranking systems against our Webmaster Guidelines," the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Last year, the company observed that more than 25 billion of the pages it find each day are spammy.

"If each of those pages were a page in a book, that would be more than 20 million copies of War & Peace' each day," said Google.

"If you've ever gone into your spam folder in Gmail, that's akin to what Search results would be like without our spam detection capabilities," it added.

Google said it has designed systems to prioritize the most relevant and reliable web pages at the top.

The Webmaster Guidelines detail the types of spammy behaviour that is discouraged and can lead to a lower ranking: everything from scraping pages and keyword stuffing to participating in link schemes and implementing sneaky redirects.

Google admitted that fighting spam is never-ending battle, a constant game of cat-and-mouse against existing and new spammy behaviours.

"As with anything, our automated systems aren't perfect. That's why we also supplement them with human review, a team that does its own spam sleuthing to understand if content or sites are violating our guidelines," said the company.
New Delhi [India], June 10 (ANI/NewsVoir): BSE and NSE listed, Ltd., an ISO 9001:2000 Certified Company engaged into mining, imports, and processing of natural stones viz Marble, Traventine and Onyx from all around the globe, has planned major inclusion of more products in flooring and cladding segment.

Oriental has a pan India presence with factories located at strategic locations viz Greater Noida, Chennai, and Kolkata and procures premium quality marbles from countries like Italy, Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, and China, etc.

Oriental's brand 'Rare Earth' connotes a Natural-exotic-fine grained-MARBLE which are carefully and selectively handpicked from the world over. The company has strong sourcing abilities and understands the local test of its customers which several players of this field have failed to crack.

The marble supplied under Oriental's 'Rare Earth' brand is preferred by well-known architects, dealers, major blue-chip corporates in the building and construction industry, hotels, hospitals, shopping malls, commercial, retail and residential projects.

Oriental has catered its buyers in the northern region including Delhi NCR, a southern region including Bangalore and Chennai, and the eastern region including Kolkata. Presently the company has a 50,400 MTPA capacity for processing natural stones for flooring which is one of the largest in the country.

The company has planned to add more products viz exotic imported granites, Nano stones, Designed tiles, and laminated floors in its products range. New launches will enable its customers to have all kinds of flooring and cladding items under one roof.

The company is also strongly present in the mining and processing of granite in the state of Orissa. The processing facilities in its units are fully mechanized with state of the art machinery, all imported from the best overseas suppliers.

Oriental is a member of Chemicals and Allied Products Export Promotion Council, Centre of Development of Stones (CDOS), and All India Granite and Stone Association.

The government's initiative to revive stalled housing projects in or around NCR and further the direction of the Supreme Court to complete such projects in a time-bound manner to provide relief to home buyers will help to increase its revenue.

Such completion work and required funds have been given to Govt. companies. Many such incomplete projects are in or around Noida, Greater Noida, and Noida extension.

The company has its processing facilities within NCR at Greater Noida only, therefore hope to get such projects including work from hotels and commercial space which would also be upcoming in near future alongside the upcoming Jewar Airport which is always in news.

The company has done its extensive study and plans to export its products to the Middle East Market. Under Central Govt's 'Smart City' plan 12 cities of Uttar Pradesh were finalized so far which are moving towards fast urbanization.

The company's focus on these tier 2 and tier 3 cities will give it more advantages, where in the beginning of this year company has appointed its representatives to market its products.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)

DISCLAIMER

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
[June 10, 2020] UnitedHealth Group Recognized by Points of Light as One of the 50 Most Community-Minded Companies in the United States

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) has been recognized by The Civic 50 as one of the 50 most community-minded companies in the United States for its civic engagement in 2019. It is the ninth consecutive year UnitedHealth Group has been included in The Civic 50, an annual initiative of Points of Light, the world's largest organization dedicated to volunteer service. The Civic 50 highlights companies that improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business. Honorees are public and private companies with U.S. operations, selected based on how they score across four categories: investment, integration, institutionalization and impact. "An important part of the work we do in support of our members, patients and partners includes investing our time and resources to improve the health of the communities where we, and the people we are privileged to serve, live and work," said David S. Wichmann, chief executive officer, UnitedHealth Group. "We are honored to be recognized by The Civic 50 once again for the meaningful contributions of our team, who work tirelessly every day to advance our mission to help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone." UnitedHealth Group was honored for its commitment to community-centered programs, partnerships and initiatives in 2019, including: Reducing health disparities by investing more than $6 million in grants last year to expand access to social services and continuing our investments in affordable housing

Providing actionable health insights through the America's Health Rankings platform.

Supporting programs to advance a diverse health care workforce through the launch of a partnership with the Atlanta University Center Consortium.



The Civic 50 sets the standard for corporate civic engagement and acts as a benchmarking and best-practices-sharing tool for civic-minded companies participating in The Civic 50. True Impact, a company specializing in helping organizations maximize and measure their social and business value, administered the survey. The Civic 50 is in its ninth year and is the only survey and ranking system that exclusively measures corporate involvement in communities. More information about The Civic 50 and the 2020 honorees can be found at www.Civic50.org.

About UnitedHealth Group UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is a diversified health care company dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and helping to make the health system work better for everyone. UnitedHealth Group offers a broad spectrum of products and services through two distinct platforms: UnitedHealthcare, which provides health care coverage and benefits services; and Optum, which provides information and technology-enabled health services. For more information, visit UnitedHealth Group at www.unitedhealthgroup.com or follow @UnitedHealthGrp on Twitter (News - Alert). View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005519/en/

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Happiness and joy are popping up all over, said Town Clerk Wendy Lionetti.

Amid all the worlds difficulties  the coronavirus and COVID-19, protesters marching in the streets  people are in love. And theyre committing to each other  in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer.

June has opened with a brisk business in marriage licenses  four in the first week, and two more have appointments scheduled, according to Lionetti.

So far this month we have had four weddings, the first week of June, she said Monday, June 8. People have to set up an appointment, so we have a couple scheduled  we have two scheduled.

That makes six.

Last year, we only had two weddings in the same little window of time, in June, so we have more this year than we had last year, Lionetti said.

June is a busy time for weddings anyway.

May, admittedly, was less amorous  or, less matrimonial  this year.

Marriages, we had five in May this year  that doesnt sound like a whole lot, its probably is down, she said.

It was. In May 2019, the Ridgefield Town Clerks office processed 16 marriage licenses.

Thats a big difference, she admitted.

The process is also different these days  more electronic, less personal.

Basically, just doing the whole exchange that we do, in issuing the marriage license, electronically, in advance, so the amount time were exposed to each other is kept to a minimum, Lionetti said.

We share all the documents in advance, through email. So they come here and its pretty brief but  important  they still have to take their oaths. And they get married and their officiant mails the document.

Theres not much needed, but a few requirements do persist.

Its just informal. They provide all the information that goes in the documents  their parents, their residence, their Social Security number, Lionetti said. Theyre moving all that to us by email, in advance, except for their socials, which we gather when they come here in person

They give us a copy of passport or photo drivers license, some kind of photo ID, and they have to appear in person. They have to physically appear in person, they dont have to necessarily be together  some people, because of work schedules, cant be in front of us the same time.

The virus is here, things have been shut down, but life  and the desire for marriage licenses  goes on.

We are just working with the conditions that were faced with, Lionetti said.

Its good news, its happy news, compared to other news thats going on, that can be quite taxing.

Lionetti finds the persistence of couples urge to tie the knot encouraging.

Its amazing, she said. People, even though they may not be having a big ceremony, are still getting married. Its sweet.
.Cars .Car and .Auto have generated more than $11 million in sales via the operation of these successful new automotive name extensions.

Launched in 2015, .Cars .Car and .Auto, have been at the forefront of innovation in automotive naming and marketing .Hundreds of dealerships, startups, and large automotive technology companies have utilized these new domain endings, as anchor locations, marketing tools and to enhance their online presence.

A joint venture between XYZ Registry, the operators of the most successful new gTLD, .XYZ, and UNR Corp. the innovative registry service provider, .Cars .Car and .Auto have generated more than $11 million in sales via the operation of these successful new automotive name extensions. The company has built a predictable revenue stream of $1.7MM per year with an average operating margin of 95%, on a modest but growing registration base, with tremendous additional profit potential.

After a successful 5 year partnership XYZ and UNR have decided it is time to divest our mutual interest in the .Cars .Car and .Auto namespaces. Collectively we have put a lot of hard work into this investment and we have built a solid community of automotive customers. With strong utilization has come strong growth, and we look forward to watching these namespaces evolve as more automotive businesses expand their web presence. said Daniel Negari, CEO of XYZ.

Examples of customers include:



DAG.cars - Downtown Automotive Group from Toronto, Canada

Drop.car- Technology company in NYC

Watermark.auto - Watermark Auto Group based in Marion, IL

Charge.cars - Technology company in London

Arizona.cars - Arizona Car Sales based in Mesa, AZ

The auction will start on July 13th and will end the next day with a certain sale, since there will be no reserve price. It will be conducted independently by Innovative Auctions, the facilitator of the private auctions held after ICANNs first new gTLD application round. UNR and XYZ selected Innovative Auctions based on their proven track record, reputation within the domain investor community, and its known and trusted settlement abilities.

The package of assets being auctioned includes the top level domains .Cars .Car .Auto, all related intellectual property rights, brands, social media accounts, and high-value registry reserved domains, such as electric.car and rental.car.

Our journey with the team at .XYZ has been nothing short of remarkable. UNRs Investment has now matured and Im so proud of this trio of products, our customers and the incredible latent value of this generational naming asset. I look forward to watching the .Car, .Cars and .Auto extensions move from the creative hands that gave them birth to the strong guiding hands which will curate their greater success in the future. These are incredible naming assets. It is unlikely they will ever be seen openly available for sale again. said Frank Schilling, CEO of UNR.

Interested parties may contact cars@innovativeauctions.com for further information..

About Innovative Auctions

Innovative Auctions is an independent boutique auction consulting and auction facilitation company that has held auctions in industries ranging from telecommunications to aquaculture, with over $10 billion in revenue worldwide during the last 5 years. In the domain industry, Innovative Auctions is best known as the facilitator of the Applicant Auction, which resolved contention between applicants for well over 100 gTLDs after ICANNs new gTLD program originally launched in 2011.

About XYZ

XYZ is a next-generation technology company giving all people fresh domain name options, including the most popular new domain in the world, .xyz.

The registry also operates .College, .Rent, .Security, .Protection, .Theatre,

.Storage, .Baby, and .Monster as well as .Cars, .Car, and .Auto through a joint venture. Learn more about XYZ on Fox Business News with Maria Bartiromo and Wired, or at http://www.gen.xyz.

About UNR

UNR is a technology and infrastructure platform for names and naming. The owner operators of more than 30 top level domain names, and the creators of Registry-in-a-box, UNR brings names to life for its customers and offers innovative solutions for registry level blocking and other registry infrastructure services. UNR is privately held and its shareholders participate in the companys growth and success.
Steven Posey checks his phone as he waits in line to vote at Central Park in Atlanta. Voters reported wait times of three hours. Read more

ATLANTA  Voters endured heat, pouring rain and waits as long as five hours on Tuesday to cast ballots in Georgia, demonstrating a fierce desire to participate in the democratic process while raising questions about the emerging battleground states ability to manage elections in November when the White House is at stake.

Its really disheartening to see a line like this in an area with predominantly black residents, said Benaiah Shaw, a 25-year-old African American, as he cast a ballot in Atlanta.

A confluence of events disrupted primary elections for president, U.S. Senate and dozens of other contests. There were problems with Georgias new voting machines, which combine touchscreens with scanned paper ballots. The polls were staffed by fewer workers because of coronavirus concerns. A reduced workforce contributed to officials consolidating polling places, which disproportionately affected neighborhoods with high concentrations of people of color. Long lines were also reported in whiter suburban areas.

Some voters said they requested mail-in ballots that never arrived, forcing them to go to polling places and adding to the lines. Turnout, meanwhile, may be higher than expected as voters said they were determined to exercise their constitutional right after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing demonstrations that swept cities including Atlanta.

Too many people died for me to have this opportunity, said Stephanie Bush, a 49-year-old black independent voter in Atlanta. So for me not to stick it out would be a dishonor to them.

Former Vice President Joe Biden easily won the state's Democratic presidential primary. He was facing no real opposition but hoped to post a strong showing among Georgia's diverse electorate to show his strength heading into the general election.

But the developments were troubling heading into the fall presidential campaign, which will attract even more voters. Biden and President Donald Trump are expected to fiercely compete in this rapidly changing state. That leaves officials, who have already been criticized for attempting to suppress the vote, with less than five months to turn things around.

Republican leaders blamed the meltdowns on officials in Fulton and DeKalb counties, which are Democratic strongholds with significant black populations.

When these things arise, and its really specifically in one or two counties ... it leads us back to the failure of the management of the county election directors in those counties, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told The Associated Press. It has nothing to do with what were doing in the rest of Georgia.

Republican House Speaker David Ralston directed leaders of the House Governmental Affairs Committee to investigate the unacceptable deficiencies across the state, particularly in Fulton County.

Voters leaving one Fulton County polling place offered words of encouragement to the many people waiting in line well past the already-extended poll closing time of 9 p.m. Lets vote this guy out of office, one said, a reference to Trump.

Volunteers handed out bags of popcorn, chips and candy. People in line smoked cigarettes and cursed the wait. Some said theyd tried to vote earlier in the day but left because the line wrapped around the block.

Democrats insisted the issues were more widespread. About 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Atlanta, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said he was inundated with phone calls from voters reporting extensive delays.

The Trump campaign seized on the problems to amplify the president's broader opposition to expanded mail voting this fall.

The chaos in Georgia is a direct result of the reduction in the number of in-person polling places and over reliance on mail-in voting," said Trump campaign senior counsel Justin Clark. We have a duty to protect the constitutional rights of all of our citizens to vote in person and to have their votes counted.

The Biden campaign called the voting problems in Georgia completely unacceptable" and a threat to free and fair elections.

We only have a few months left until voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian -- and every American -- is able to safely exercise their right to vote, said Rachana Desai Martin, the campaigns national director for voter protection and senior counsel.

Americans also voted in primaries in West Virginia, South Carolina and Nevada. Long lines also plagued voting in Las Vegas, where voters told the AP that they been waiting four and five hours in some cases even as state election officials suggested wait times reached three hours only in one location.

But the tumult in Georgia garnered much of the attention, reinforcing concerns about managing elections amid the coronavirus.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said voters in line at one of Atlantas largest precincts reported all the machines were down. She encouraged voters not to give up.

If you are in line, PLEASE do not allow your vote to be suppressed, the Democratic mayor tweeted.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said he wasn't surprised that Georgia had voting problems given that the state's elections chief is a Republican. He noted that GOP Gov. Brian Kemp faced allegations of suppressing votes when he oversaw the 2018 elections as secretary of state.

Republicans want to ensure that it is as hard as possible for people to vote," Perez said.

Kemp was largely silent about the voting problems on Tuesday, aside from retweeting a message from his wife urging people to vote.

Georgia hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, but the state is being closely watched by Trump and Biden. The former vice president, in particular, hopes to emerge as the prime beneficiary of energy from the African American community and its white allies, who have held massive protests for more than a week.

His path to the presidency was already focused on maximizing black turnout and expanding his alliance with white suburbanites and city dwellers, young voters, Asian Americans and Latinos. Trump, meanwhile, hoped to demonstrate strength among his base of white voters in small towns while holding his own in metro areas.

Trump, meanwhile, has virtually no path to reelection without victory in Georgia.

A nearly four-hour wait outside an Atlanta polling site shook Ross Wakefields faith in the upcoming elections and people's ability to participate.

It doesnt give me a lot of confidence in the future, said Wakefield, a 28-year-old white software engineer. Personally, I feel like were struggling as a country right now to hear people who really need to be heard, and this does not give me a lot of confidence that were doing that.

Peoples reported from Montclair, N.J. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow, Janelle Cogan and Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and Michelle Price in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
Savers can now actively buy into the battle against the coronavirus by investing in a 'Covid-19 response bond' via investment funds.

The first social response bonds were issued in March by various institutions and public agencies as the virus spread hard and fast across the globe.

Ways to invest directly in these bonds - which are designed to deal with the coronavirus outbreak and its economic repercussions - are still relatively limited for personal investors, although investing via a bond fund is a quick and easy option.

Savers can now aid the battle against Covid-19 by investing in 'response bond' via a bond fund

But these bonds are different to investing in companies in sectors such as healthcare, which have indeed helped towards fighting the pandemic by playing a vital part in the research towards finding a vaccine.

Instead, the proceeds of the bonds are purely focused on resolving the health crisis and helping sectors and communities suffering from the economic impacts.

Many have been launched by development agencies and other organisations, and similar to a standard bond they ask investors to lend them money in return for a fixed rate of interest over a set period - and their original investment back at the end.

The 1.5billion Rathbone Ethical Bond fund, managed by Bryn Jones and Noelle Cazalis, has been buying such bonds in order to help fight against the pandemic while adhering to their own ethical investing approach.

Recent months have seen the impact the virus, combine with a keen desire from investors to back improving the environment and society to lift interest in responsible investing to all time highs.

According to the Investment Association's fund flow statistics for April, responsible investment funds saw record net retail sales of almost 1billion.

Cazalis said social bonds are a 'perfect fit' for what their fund is trying to achieve, and where finance can really make a difference and help to define social responsibility.

What is a Covid-19 response bond?

Noelle Cazalis is deputy manager of the 1.5billion Rathbone Ethical Bond fund

Covid-19 response bonds were created to finance projects aiming to address the coronavirus outbreak,

It remains a threat to the wellbeing of the worlds population, while millions of people will also suffer from the economic downturn and social isolation it has triggered.

Some might be described as social bonds, which are the 'more stringent in terms of transparency' says Cazalis, while others are called sustainability bonds.

Both are regulated instruments subject to the same capital market and financial regulation as other listed fixed income securities.

Strong global collective action is critical to bringing the pandemic to an end and Covid-19 response bonds, the first of which were issued in March, are poised to play a crucial role in these endeavours.

An example is the African Development Banks Covid-19 response bond - a three-year social bond - for those in need of medical help in Africa, and one which the Rathbone Ethical Bond fund is invested in.

Cazalis said: 'This is very important, not only for coronavirus cases, but also to ensure vaccine programmes do not fall behind.

'For example, in Nigeria and Cameroon, polio cases are on the rise as a result of children not getting jabs, as staff have been diverted to the Covid-19 response.

'In a similar vein, we bought a bond from the Inter-American Development bank - a five-year bond - to help the response across Latin America and the Caribbean. We also bought a bond from the World Bank, where the focus is more global.'

Who is issuing them and who is investing in them?

Demand for Covid-19 response bonds has been strong with the new market already reaching $65billion by the end of May and this figure only continues to rise.

Cazalis added: 'They tend to be issued by very strong institutions such as development banks and international organisations, so from a credit risk perspective this is as good as it gets  which has helped performance in uncertain times.'

Issuers range from the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to the European Investment Bank and response and demand is proving positive.

The African Development Bank managed to raise $3billion in just a few months while the Bank of America came to market last month with a $1billion four-year Covid-19 bond, paying a yield of 1.3 percentage points above benchmark treasuries.

According to Morgan Stanley, a combined $32billion of social and sustainability bonds were issued in April, and most were designed for the Covid-19 response initiatives.

What next?

According to analysis by AXA, which has invested around 230million into coronavirus bonds across its fixed income portfolios, the market is expected to top $100billion by the end of 2020.

Cazalis said she expects to see more investment opportunities in the market and to buy more for her fund.

'I think we will see more issuance from companies over the next six months. It is something I am keeping a close eye on,' she said.

'I hope they will follow the trend green bonds have been on over the last few years, and become established funding instruments for treasurers.

'Many bond funds have record cash levels and new issues are oversubscribed, so I am sure more issuance would meet interest.

'Crises throughout history have led to periods of disruption, innovation and eventually, drastic changes. I think this one will be no different, and I believe we will see ESG investing coming out stronger.'
Massacre de Ngarbuh capture d'ecran

The case relating to the February 14, 2020 killings and arson in Ngarbuh, a locality in Cameroons North-West region has been opened for Preliminary Inquiry before an Examining Magistrate at the Yaounde Military Tribunal, lawyer for the victims Barrister Tamnfu Richard said today.

The lawyers defending the interest of the Civil Parties (the victims) told Cameroon-Info.Net that three soldiers, one ex-separatist fighter and 17 members of a vigilante group made up of unidentified Fulani have already been charged.

They are charged for committing the offences of violation of instructions, assassination in group, and arson and destruction of property in group, Lawyer Tamfu said.

They have charged Sergeant Baba Guida, Gendarme Sanding Sanding Cyrille, 1st class soldier Haranga Gilbert, Tata Nfor Maxwell alias Bullet and 17 members of a vigilante group made up of unidentified Fulani.

Cameroon-Info.Net is informed that Tata Nfor Maxwell alias Bullet is a repentant Ambazonian fighter who accompanied the military during the operation. He is in custody.

According to the April 21report of the commission of inquiry set up by President Paul Biya to dig into the incident which saw the death of many persons including children and a pregnant woman, soldiers and some civilians are blamed for the Valentines Day killings and arson.

Following an exchange of gunfire, during which five terrorists were killed, and many weapons seized, the detachment discovered that three women and ten children had died because of its action. Panic-stricken, the three servicemen with the help of some members of the vigilante committee, tried to conceal the facts by causing fires, said the government report. On his return to Ntumbaw, Sergeant Baba Guida who led the operation, submitted a deliberately biased report to his superiors, a report on which the Government initially based its statement.

Sergeant Baba Guida, Commander of the Ntumbaw Joint Regiment as well as Gendarme Sanding Sanding Cyrille and private first class Haranga Gilbert are standing trial at the Yaounde military tribunal for their role in the incident. Some ten members of the vigilante committee who assisted the servicemen to launch the attack on Ngarbuh 3 are actively being tracked down, the inquiry report said.

Major Nyiangono Ze Charles Eric, Commander of the 52nd Motorised Infantry Battalion (BIM) is faulted for knowing how sensitive the Ngarbuh area was, due to prevailing high inter-community tensions, but failed to personally supervise the operation carried out by his troops.

On his part, Sergeant Baba Guida, Commander of the Ntumbaw Joint Regiment is said to have involved armed civilians in a military operation, failed to control his troops during the operation, ordered the burning down of houses, and deliberately produced a false report on the operation and its toll.

Gendarme Sanding Sanding Cyrille and Private 1st Class Haranga Gilbert, the government inquiry reveals, took part in an operation that caused the death of several persons and the burning of houses.

Lawyers representing the civil claimants advise ascendants or descendants of victims (civil claimants) that it is necessary for them to come up with their own cases.

Family relations of the deceased victims, be it ascendants or descendants, should be aware that hearing of their own side of the story is going on. Those whose houses or farms were burnt down in that operation should be aware, lawyers say.
(HealthDay)When COVID-19 strikes the young, the lion's share of patients still show symptoms, a new report on a coronavirus outbreak aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier suggests.

In late March, the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Guam after numerous sailors on the ship developed COVID-19. In April, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated the outbreak by checking the lab findings for 382 service members on the carrier.

In the outbreak, there was widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) among young, healthy adults living in close quarters who mostly showed mild symptoms, the researchers reported June 9 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a CDC publication.

Social distancing measures mattered: Sailors who took infection prevention measures were less likely to be infected. Wearing a face mask lowered the risk from 81% to 56%; avoiding common areas lowered risk from 67.5% to 54%; and observing social distancing lowered risk from 70% to 55%, the researchers found.

"The findings reinforce the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as wearing a face covering, avoiding common areas, and observing social distancing to lower risk for infection in similar congregate living settings," the team led by CDC researcher Daniel Payne wrote.

Among 238 service members with previous or current SARS-CoV-2 infection who completed a survey, 194 (81.5%) reported one or more symptoms, 44 were asymptomatic, and two were hospitalized for COVID-19.

Current thinking on COVID-19 among young, healthy adults has been that many show hardly any symptoms.

Males were more likely to be infected than females, but there were no significant differences when it came to age, race, ethnicity or history of a preexisting medical condition, the researchers noted.

Roughly one-third of patients had fever, body pain and chills, and these people had higher odds of SARS-CoV-2 infection than those who reported cough and shortness of breath. Participants reporting a loss of sense of smell or taste were 10 times more likely to be infected as those who did not, according to the report.

"The shipboard environment presents substantial challenges for reducing viral transmission because of congregate living quarters and close working environments," the researchers wrote. "The significant association of infection and male sex could reflect an association with berthing, which is separated by sex aboard the ship."

There was a bit of good news in the findings: Neutralizing antibodies, which could potentially disable the virus, developed among the majority (just over 59%) of those with antibody responses, "a promising indicator of at least short-term immunity," the researchers concluded.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

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The valuables include polished diamonds, pearls and silver jewellery and are worth Rs 1,350 crore.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday brought back over 2,300 kg of polished diamonds and pearls worth Rs 1,350 crore of firms belonging to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi from Hong Kong, officials said.

Out of the 108 consignments that landed at Mumbai, 32 belong to overseas entities "controlled" by Modi while the rest are of Mehul Choksi firms.

Both the businessmen are being probed by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with an over $2 billion alleged bank fraud at a PNB branch in Mumbai.

The valuables include polished diamonds, pearls and silver jewellery and are worth Rs 1,350 crore.

The ED completed "all legal formalities" with authorities in Hong Kong to bring back these valuables, the agency said.

These valuables, officials said, were moved to Hong Kong from Dubai in early 2018 so that they could be saved from being seized or attached by the ED or any other investigating agency.

The ED got intelligence inputs on this movement in July that year and since then the sleuths were on its trail.

These valuables were kept in the godown of a logistics company in Hong Kong, the central probe agency said.

"The officers were continuously engaged in discussion with various authorities in Hong Kong to bring these valuables back to India.

Various modalities were finalised and after completing all the legal formalities these consignments have now been brought back to India," it said, adding they will be formally seized under the PMLA.

This is the second such action on this case as ED had earlier brought back 33 consignments of valuables from Dubai and Hong Kong.

They were valued at Rs 137 crore then, the ED said.

On June 8, a special PMLA court in Mumbai had allowed confiscation of the attached assets of Nirav Modi, the key accused in this case, under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act (FEOA).

This was the first such order in the country after the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act was passed two years ago.

Nirav Modi (49), currently lodged in a UK jail, was declared a fugitive economic offender in December by the Mumbai court.

He was arrested in London in March 2019 and is presently fighting extradition to India.

His uncle Mehul Choksi has been evading the law since the probe into this case began and was last stated to be living in Antigua and Barbuda from where the Indian government is seeking his extradition, the probe agencies have said.
INDIANAPOLIS - Researchers from Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University report that nearly half of the time medical treatments and orders received for incapacitated patients were not compatible with goals of care requested by their surrogate decision makers. The most common disagreement involved a "full-code" medical order prepared for patients whose surrogates had indicated preference for less aggressive care options.

"The significant lack of agreement that we found between the surrogate's wishes on behalf of an incapacitated patient and the care that is actually being provided is concerning and that concern is heightened during the pandemic, as many COVID-19 patients cannot make decisions for themselves because they are on ventilators and sedated," said Regenstrief Institute Research Scientist Alexia Torke, M.D., associate professor of medicine at IU School of Medicine and the senior author of the new study which is published on JAMA Network Open. "Family members and other surrogate decision makers can't visit patients during the pandemic, which also means they can't gather information and feedback from the nurses, doctors and other clinicians, making two-way communication with the care team more difficult than ever."

In the study, which was carried out at three hospitals, surrogates of patients age 65 and older were asked to classify treatment they wished the patient to have into one of three categories - comfort care (focused primarily on relief of pain and suffering), intermediate care (routine hospital care such as oxygen and intravenous medications) or aggressive care ("full code" including cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, ventilator and other therapies available in an ICU). The surrogate's preferred goal of care was compared with electronic medical record (EMR) data outlining treatment received and medical orders written during the patient's hospitalization. The surrogate's preferred goal of care did not agree with the EMR data 47 percent of the time.

"How can we decrease discordance between what the surrogate wants and what actually happens in the hospital? We need to start at the beginning, before the patient loses capacity to engage in advance care planning, thus ensuring the patient and surrogate are on the same page," said Dr. Torke, who has conducted several previous studies on surrogate decision making. "Then good communication - preferably face to face - between the surrogate and clinicians during hospitalization is important to ensure the patient receives the care they and the surrogate desire.

"This is not TV or the movies - only one in eight critically ill patients will survive CPR. Difficult decisions have to be made and they can best be made when the surrogate knows the patient's wishes and has successful two-way communication with the care team," she observed.

The researchers found that patients who resided in a nursing home were more likely to receive medical care that agreed with the surrogate's stated goals of care than individuals who were admitted to the hospital directly from their own home. Individuals who lived with their surrogates or saw them at least weekly were more likely to receive the care that the surrogate requested than patients who had less contact with the surrogate.

"No matter how well you think you know someone, there is no substitute for having a conversation about his or her end-of-life wishes," said study co-author Amber R. Comer, PhD, J.D., of IU School of Health and Human Sciences at IUPUI, the study's corresponding author. "These conversations are crucial for ensuring that loved one receives medical treatments that he or she would have wanted. These conversations help alleviate some of the stress that surrogates experience when trying to make these difficult life and death decisions." Dr. Comer is a Regenstrief Institute affiliated scientist.

###

Authors of the JAMA Open Network study, "Assessment of Discordance Between Surrogate Care Goals and Medical Treatment Provided to Older Adults With Serious Illness," in addition to Drs. Torke and Comer, are Regenstrief Institute Research Scientists Susan Hickman, PhD, and Greg Sachs, M.D.; James Slaven, M.S.; Patrick Monahan, PhD, of IU School of Medicine; Lucia Wocial, PhD, R.N., of IU Health and Emily Burke, B.A. of Regenstrief Institute. Dr. Hickman directs the IU Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute and is on the faculty of IU School of Nursing. Dr. Sachs is chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at IU School of Medicine.

This study was supported by the Greenwall Foundation and grants R01 AG044408 and K24 AG053794 from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging.

About Regenstrief Institute

Founded in 1969 in Indianapolis, the Regenstrief Institute is a local, national and global leader dedicated to a world where better information empowers people to end disease and realize true health. A key research partner to Indiana University, Regenstrief and its research scientists are responsible for a growing number of major healthcare innovations and studies. Examples range from the development of global health information technology standards that enable the use and interoperability of electronic health records to improving patient-physician communications, to creating models of care that inform practice and improve the lives of patients around the globe.

Regenstrief Institute is celebrating 50 years of healthcare innovation. Sam Regenstrief, a successful entrepreneur from Connersville, Indiana, founded the institute with the goal of making healthcare more efficient and accessible for everyone. His vision continues to guide the institute's research mission.

About IU School of Medicine

IU School of Medicine is the largest medical school in the U.S. and is annually ranked among the top medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. The school offers high-quality medical education, access to leading medical research and rich campus life in nine Indiana cities, including rural and urban locations consistently recognized for livability.

About IU School of Health & Human Sciences at IUPUI

The School of Health & Human Sciences advances healthcare, kinesiology, sport, and event tourism through education, research, and community engagement.

About Alexia Torke, M.D, M.S.

In addition to her Regenstrief appointment, Alexia Torke, M.D., M.S., is an associate professor of medicine and associate chief of the Division of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. She also directs the Daniel F. Evans Center for Spiritual and Religious Values in Healthcare at Indiana University Health.
The death toll in the multi-storey building collapse here rose to 19 on Tuesday after 11 more bodies were recovered from the debris.

The residential building in Karachis Lyari area collapsed on Sunday night. The residents of the building said the six-storey structure collapsed with a loud thud, which was followed by a power outage making rescue operations difficult.

Till Monday, rescue teams had pulled out eight bodies and on Tuesday 11 more bodies were found in the first floor of the collapsed building. Twelve people were injured in the incident.

A man, who was rescued alive from the rubble after 24 hours, died due to his injuries in the hospital, Geo TV reported.

Personnel from the Army, Rangers, police and welfare associations were engaged in the rescue operation.

The building, located in Liaquat Colony of Lyari, had more than 40 apartments and a penthouse on the top floor. The Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) had declared it as dangerous and unstable more than two months ago.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari expressed regret over the loss of lives in the incident.

I am with the affected families, we will not leave them alone in these difficult times, Bilawal said.

This is the third major building collapse in the countrys financial capital this year. In March, 27 people were killed and scores injured when a five-storey building fell on two adjacent structures in the citys congested Gulbahar area.

Karachi city authorities have identified over 1,500 buildings as dangerous, however little action has been taken to evacuate them.

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Suzanne Morphew, 49, went missing on Mother's day, May 10, when she left for a bike ride alone from her $1.5million home in Maysville, Colorado

Nearly two dozen police officers are re-canvassing the Colorado neighborhood where a mother-of-two went missing on Mother's Day, Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze announced Wednesday.

Suzanne Morphew, 49, has not been seen since May 10 when she disappeared after setting out on a bike ride alone from her $1.5 million property in Maysville.

Police said they have received around 500 tips about her disappearance but have had no fresh leads.

On Wednesday, they are organizing to contact residents again in the hope of finding any new information one the case exactly one month after Morphew went missing.

Her family and friends are offering a $200,000 reward for her safe return.

'It has been one month since Suzanne Morphew was reported missing in Chaffee County,' Sherriff Spezze said in a statement.

'In addition to countless interviews conducted in the last month, approximately 500 tips have been called into a designated tip line in the investigation, along with 10 large-scale searches performed throughout the county.

Police are re-canvassing the neighborhood in the hope of finding a new lead on missing mother-of-two Suzanne Morphew, pictured, who has now been missing for a month

Suzanne Morphew is believed to have been alone in her home on the day she went missing as her husband Barry, 52, (pictured here with Suzanne) and their two daughters were away

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation investigated the home of Suzanne Morphew earlier in May but it was released back to the family. The $1.5 million residence is pictured here

'On June 10, investigators plan to conduct a community canvas in the county to contact residents and others to not only share information about Ms. Morphew's disappearance, but also focus on obtaining any new information in her case,' he added.

'Nearly two dozen members of law enforcement will take part in this comprehensive effort on Wednesday.'

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation is aiding the search, has said the case remains a high priority despite the lack of new information.

'There hasn't been any real new information to relay in the case other than investigators are working,' Susan Medina with the CBI told The Denver Channel.

'Our agents are working closely with the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office, and the FBI has a team as well assigned to this. Committed  there's a high level of commitment to this case,' she said.

'You may not see a news release on a daily basis but that doesn't mean that extensive work isn't happening on a daily basis.  Countless hours every day by agents and analysts and investigators to determine where Suzanne is and what happened.'

Suzanne Morphew disappeared on Mother's Day, May 10, from her million-dollar Maysville mansion.

Suzanne's daughters Mallory and Macy who first raised the alarm after they were unable to get hold of her on Mother's Day as they made their way back from a camping trip in Idaho

Police said Wednesday there had been 500 tips reported so far but no fresh leads

An area close to Morphew's house was searched after it was believed a personal item was found but the search was closed off on May 15 when it led to no fresh information

The mother-of-two was home alone at the time she set out on the ride, with her long-time husband, Barry, 52, believed to be more than 140 miles away in Denver.

Since her disappearance, the local sheriff's office has led a search that has included tracking dogs, water rescue teams and tactical mountain rescuers.

It was Suzanne and Barry's adult daughters, Mallory and Macy, who raised the alarm about her disappearance.

They contacted a neighbor when they couldn't get a hold of their mom when they returned from a camping trip in Idaho.

On the day Suzanne vanished, Barry was reportedly in Denver at a training course for his job as a volunteer firefighter.

He has publicly put forward a $100,000 reward for his wife's safe return. That amount was later doubled by a family friend to $200,000.

On May 17, Barry released a video pleading with the public to help find Suzanne

On May 17, Barry released a video pleading with the public to help find Suzanne.

'Oh Suzanne, if anyone is out there and can hear this, that has you, please, we'll do whatever it takes to bring you back,' Morphew stated in the video.

'We love you; we miss you; your girls need you. No questions asked, however much they want - I will do whatever it takes to get you back. Honey, I love you, I want you back so bad.'

Two weeks after her disappearance, police took custody of the $1.5 million Morphew residence to carry out a search.

Cops were seen carrying evidence bags and equipment into the home.

A CSI photographer was spotted on the premises, and evidence bags were pictured being brought out and loaded into a van before the house handed it back to the family on May 28.

Police and the FBI also conducted a three-day search of a separate residential property where Barry Morphew had recently worked as a landscaper.

The riverfront Salida property is located around 12 miles from the couple's home.

Authorities dug up a concrete slab that had been laid at that site, but it did not yield any further leads into Morphew's disappearance.

An earlier search took place along U.S. 50 after finding what was believed to be a personal item of Morphew's.

It was suspended on May 15 when it led to no further leads.

Police have carried out ten major searches in the area that included along the highway, in Morphew's family home and in a property where her husband Barry had been working

'They have done a number of targeted searches with specialized investigators and different groups that have come to do searches over the past month,' Medina said.

'As for volunteer search groups, at this point, the sheriff was indicating that he wanted to continue to utilize law enforcement resources to conduct those searches.'

Medina encouraged anyone with information to call the tip line created for the case.

'No matter how small or insignificant something may seem, it could be that key piece of information that help investigators locate Suzanne,' she said.

'Even if you just recall something that may have seemed out of the ordinary at the time, report that information  it doesn't matter that it's a month later. Investigators still want to know.'

Chaffee County Sheriff's Office said will release information related to the investigation as it becomes available.

No suspects have yet been identified.

Authorities have asked anybody with information to dial (719) 312-7530.
Discovery Metals Closes Final Tranche of C$25 Million Private Placement and Initiates Restart of Operations

Posted by Publisher Internet

Discovery Metals Corp. (TSXV: DSV; OTCQX: DSVMF  https://www.commodity-tv.com/play/discovery-metals-finding-high-grade-silver-with-long-intercepts-in-mexico/ ) is pleased to announce that it has closed the second and final tranche of its non-brokered private placement (the ?Private Placement?), consisting of 45,454,545 units (?Units?) at a price of C$0.55 per Unit for aggregate proceeds of C$25,000,000. Each Unit is comprised of one common share of Discovery (?Common Share?) and one half of one Common Share purchase warrant, with each full warrant (a ?Warrant?) exercisable at C$0.77 for a period of two years after the date of issuance. The second tranche closed on June 8, 2020 and consisted of 14,363,600 Units for aggregate proceeds of C$7,899,980. Discovery first announced the Private Placement on May 18, 2020 and announced the closing of the first tranche of C$17,100,020 of the Private Placement on June 1, 2020.

The Company also announces it has received approval by the Mexican government to resume operations at its Cordero project with strict COVID-19 health and safety protocols. The Company is finalizing additional measures, including mandatory testing of all onsite workers to ensure the safety of its employees, consultants, contractors and communities. The Company will begin with one drill rig and will closely monitor the ramp-up of exploration activities. Further drill rigs will only be added when the Company is confident that health and safety risks can be managed effectively.?? ?

Taj Singh, President and CEO of Discovery commented, ?With the closing of the financing we now have over $40 million of cash on our balance sheet, putting us in a strong position as we restart our exploration activities at Cordero. We look forward to safely resuming operations later this month and carrying on with the positive momentum we have generated from our excellent exploration results to date.?

Financing Close

Gross proceeds of the Private Placement, including the first tranche, totaled C$25,000,000 consisting of the issuance of 45,454,545 Units. Discovery has paid an aggregate total in finders? and advisory fees of C$1,185,001 in cash and issued 804,545 finder warrants with an exercise price of $0.55 and a two year expiry to certain arms? length parties who introduced Discovery to investors, in accordance with the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities issued on closing of the Private Placement are subject to a statutory hold period expiring four months and one day after their date of issuance.

Mr. Eric Sprott, through 2176423 Ontario Ltd. (a corporation which is beneficially owned by him), acquired 18,181,800 Units (composed of 18,181,800 Common Shares and 9,090,909 Warrants) in the first tranche of the Private Placement, for a total investment of C$10,000,000. Prior to the closing of the Private Placement, Mr. Sprott owned 44,610,111 Common Shares of Discovery representing 21.1% of the interest of Discovery on a non-diluted basis. Through the purchase of Common Shares and Warrants in the Private Placement, and following the second tranche closing, Mr. Sprott will own approximately 24.4% interest in Discovery on a non-diluted basis and approximately 27.0% on a partially diluted basis assuming the exercise of the Warrants owned by Mr. Sprott.

The Common Shares and Warrants were acquired by Mr. Sprott through 2176423 Ontario Ltd. for investment purposes. Mr. Sprott has a long-term view of the investment and may acquire additional securities of the Company including on the open market or through private acquisitions or sell securities of the Company including on the open market or through private dispositions in the future depending on market conditions, reformulation of plans and/or other relevant factors.

The proceeds of the Private Placement will be used primarily to fund Discovery?s continuing exploration program at its Cordero project and its Coahuila projects. A portion of the proceeds will be used for general working capital purposes.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors,

Taj Singh, M.Eng., P.Eng., CPA

President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

About Discovery

Discovery Metals Corp. (TSX-V: DSV, OTCQX: DSVMF) is a Canadian exploration and development company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, and focused on historic mining districts in Mexico. Discovery?s flagship is its 100%-owned Cordero silver project in Chihuahua State, Mexico. The 35,000-hectare property covers a large district that hosts the announced resource as well as numerous exploration targets for bulk tonnage diatreme-hosted, porphyry-style, and carbonate replacement deposits.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the ?1933 Act?) or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties. All statements within this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although Discovery believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements include fluctuations in market prices, including metal prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. There can be no assurance that the Private Placement will close on the announced terms. Discovery does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable laws
Representative image | The West Bengal government has imposed lockdown-like curbs to reduce the pace of COVID-19 transmission

Prime Minister Narendra Modis clarion call for `aatmanirbharta or self-reliance has more takers in India than previously imagined.

The rampaging pandemic in the country, which is slowly pushing India higher on the list of most-affected nations, has, in turn, spawned a gigantic parallel cottage industry manufacturing a variety of anti-COVID gear.

There are currently more than 1,000 companies on the government list that are producing personal protective equipment or PPE kits. The list of private producers, those that are not recognised by the government, are a handful as well, but their details are sketchy.

In addition to the government list, scores of other firms, of varying shapes and sizes, are manufacturing gloves, masks, ventilators, swabs, sanitisers and RNA extraction kits, among other gear, since coronavirus was declared a pandemic in mid-March this year.

Jumping on the anti-corona bandwagon with a flourish, not many of the firms listed here are health or wellness companies. True to the spirit of Swadeshi and of quick thinking and innovation, they include footwear firms, hosiery manufactures, textile mills, exporters, boutique shop owners, dealers in apparels, ordnance clothing, polythene bag makers - you name it and they are there.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

First the PPEs, considered sacrosanct for frontline anti-COVID warriors, including health workers, municipal volunteers, accredited social health activists (ASHA) and hospital and sanitation staff, who interact closely with potential and positive virus patients.

To meet the rapid and non-stop increase in coronavirus positive cases, the government has pulled out all stops. Companies have been awarded contracts, accorded through the single window with a speed that is astonishing for government orders, with the Ministry of Defences (MoD) PSUs and departments acting as the nodal agencies. To be sure, India could do with that speed now.

A typical order, provisioned by the Ordnance Factory Boards Heavy Vehicle Factory in Avadi, Tamil Nadu, while issuing a Unique Certificate Code for PPE fabric, reads thus: Against their Fabric for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) test sample with sample No -

FABRIC NON-WOVEN 40 GSM submitted to us on 18-May-2020 and tested on 21-May-2020, the sample has passed the Synthetic Blood Penetration Test conducted as per and confirms to the technical requirement of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare guideline dated-02-03-2020. The test result is annexed to this certificate.

For good measure, it adds: This certificate is based on the sample submitted by the applicant. No other test/verification has been conducted by the testing agency, other than results in the test report. The procurement agency is advised to conduct prior, due diligence as per the procurement policy, including periodical sample tests during the course of supply of the materials. A test report is attached to this document.

About 800 companies have been awarded contracts to manufacture PPEs by various MOD departments. These include the Heavy Vehicle Factory, Avadi, Tamil Nadu; Metal and Steel Factory; Ordnance Factory, Ambarnath; Ordnance Factory, Kanpur; the Ordnance Factory Muradnagar that is overseeing the single largest number of companies and Small Arms Factory, Kanpur.

In addition to this list, are another 358 firms, which are manufacturing PPE Body Coveralls under the supervision of the Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO). Coveralls are a PPE item designed to protect the body and other clothing against dirt or outside contaminants. They are one piece and loose fitting for ease of movement, with sleeves, full leggings and often a hood to cover the head.

Two lakh PPE kits, coveralls produced daily

Today there are 2 lakh PPE kits and coveralls being churned out daily by this new assembly line production, as per the specifications of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. In addition, roughly the same number is being produced daily by other manufacturers and suppliers to state governments, autonomous institutes and private healthcare. These PPEs include all varieties  from high quality to sub-standard and shoddy, supplied in accordance with the budget.

Testing the quality of material at different stages of processing, from fibre to fabric and evaluation of processing performance by the application of physical, chemical and processing tests have been assigned to the South India Textile Research Association or SITRA for all important quality characteristics.

PPE production capacity has increased so much that it has become a Rs 7,000-crore industry in India, the biggest after China," PD Vaghela, Union Secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals and chairman of one of the 11 empowered groups constituted for planning and ensuring implementation of response to the disease outbreak, told a media conference.

But if PPEs constitute a safeguard for frontline COVID warriors, the public need for other survival paraphernalia has triggered another segment in this cottage industry, which is doing booming business. The massive demand for masks, gloves, sanitisers and ventilators is virtually never-ending. Not surprisingly, the numbers of those getting into business are multiplying.

Consider the following -- at the last count:

** According to the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AIMED), before the virus spread, there were 20 companies making gloves; today there are 30.

** There were eight ventilator companies; now there are 14, with increased demand.

** From 35 sanitiser companies in February, the number has reached 47 and could soon be touching the 50 mark. From 19.46 million litres of sanitiser liquid per annum, these companies are now producing 41.48 million litres per annum, according to AIMED data.

** There were no specialist goggles manufactures; now there are 14. From zero production at the start of the year, the goggles count has zoomed up to 11.142 million pieces per annum.

** There were 21 mask producers till February, catering mostly to the anti-pollution users; the number has now jumped to 43. From 300 million pieces per annum, the number has gone up to 1.20 billion pieces per annum.

** There are three swabs manufacturers presently as compared to none a few months ago. From no production, the number is now pegged at 74 million pieces per annum.

In other niche areas of corona medicare like diagnostic kits, rapid diagnostic kits and RNA extraction kits, the numbers of companies have gone up from 0 to 5, 2 and 8 respectively  as has the production. While there were no diagnostic kits at the beginning of the year, companies are now producing 111.2 million pieces per month. Likewise, for RNA extraction kits; non-existent at the beginning of 2020, 10.79 million pieces are being produced every month. In the case of COVID-19 rapid diagnostic kits, 27 million pieces per annum are on the anvil.

By no chance is this list of anti-COVID gear a final one either. According to Rajiv Nath, Coordinator of the COVID PPE Support Group, which is working with the Department of Pharmaceuticals, this list is a dynamic one, which changes every two weeks. One thing is for certain. Most of these goods were imported not too long ago. Now they are wholly indigenous.

Ranjit Bhushan is an independent journalist and former Nehru Fellow at Jamia Millia University. In a career spanning more than three decades, he has worked with Outlook, The Times of India, The Indian Express, the Press Trust of India, Associated Press, Financial Chronicle, and DNA.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 9

Trend:

The current sanitary-epidemiological situation in relation to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan has been analyzed and, taking into consideration the number of new cases and the rate of the infection, the decision has been made to extend the special quarantine regime until 00:00 on 1 July 2020.

A source from the Task Force under the Cabinet of Ministers has told Trend that since the first case of the virus was registered in Azerbaijan, a total of 8,191 people tested positive for COVID-19 and 3,487 patients are currently undergoing treatment in special quarantine hospitals.

"According to the analysis of the sanitary-epidemiological situation in the country, a high incidence of the infection has recently been registered in Yevlakh, Ismayilli, Kurdamir and Salyan districts. In this regard, in order to reduce the rate of the COVID-19 infection and minimize its possible implications, a tightened quarantine regime will be applied in Baku, Ganja, Lankaran and Sumgayit cities, Absheron, Yevlakh, Ismayilli, Kurdamir and Salyan districts from 00:00 on 14 June 2020 to 06:00 on 16 June 2020.

In this connection, the Task Force under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan hereby resolves as follows:

 Activities in all spheres of work, service and trade, as well as public transport and vehicle traffic in Baku, Ganja, Lankaran and Sumgayit cities, Absheron, Yevlakh, Ismayilli, Kurdamir and Salyan districts, will be stopped from 00:00 on 14 June 2020 to 06:00 on 16 June 2020 (except for the movement of special purpose, emergency rescue, ambulance and service vehicles of authorized bodies (institutions) and organizations, private automobiles of their employees, as well as the use of private automobiles in order to participate in the funeral of family members).

 The population of Baku, Ganja, Lankaran and Sumgayit cities, Absheron, Yevlakh, Ismayilli, Kurdamir and Salyan districts are prohibited from leaving their place of residence from 00:00 on 14 June 2020 to 06:00 on 16 June 2020;

 Residents can leave their place of residence or temporary stay in Baku, Ganja, Lankaran and Sumgayit cities, Absheron, Yevlakh, Ismayilli, Kurdamir and Salyan districts in the event of an imminent threat to their health and safety, if they are in need of emergency medical aid by using the ambulance service only, and in order to attend the funeral of a close relative by seeking permission from 102 Call Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Only the following institutions and services are allowed to operate in Baku, Ganja, Lankaran and Sumgayit cities, Absheron, Yevlakh, Ismayilli, Kurdamir and Salyan districts from 00:00 on 14 June 2020 to 06:00 on 16 June 2020:

 State bodies (institutions) and other organizations the list of which has been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan;

 Law-enforcement and military service bodies;

 Hospitals and ambulance services;

 Social service institutions, including care services for people with mental and emotional disorders, as well as those in need of special care;

 Utility services (water supply and sewage, gas supply, heating, energy distribution, household waste collection and disposal);

 Electricity generation and supply;

 Land reclamation and water management;

 Communication services;

 TV and radio broadcasters (television and radio channels, cable television);

 Freight transportation by railway, road, sea and air;

 Activities involving pipeline transit;

 Uninterrupted production activity (enterprises whose activity cannot be stopped due to production and technical specifications);

 Production, refining, storage and sale of oil and gas;

 Production of bakery goods (starting from 16:00 on 15 June 2020);

 Services involving the safety and security of suspended work and service areas.

The movement of persons working in the permitted work and service areas, as well as their vehicles, will be subject to an employer entering information about these persons on the icaze.e-gov.az website using electronic signature. The activities of state-owned life-support enterprises and institutions will be regulated by engaging a limited number of employees.

In accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Azerbaijan, individuals, legal entities and officials shall bear administrative and criminal liability for violating the requirements of the special quarantine regime.

We once again thank our citizens for their solidarity with the measures being taken by the state to protect public health and safety in the fight against the COVID-19 infection, and call on everyone to follow the requirements and rules of the Task Force under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Given the current sanitary-epidemiological situation, it is recommended that people over the age of 65 not leave their places of residence or temporary stay on other days without a serious need to do so. At the same time, in order to prevent mass infections, everyone is required to strictly observe the rules in relation to gathering in groups of more than 10 people in public places, boulevards and parks, at public catering facilities throughout the country, and to use personal protective equipment."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:17:47|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese Ambassador to Uganda Zheng Zhuqiang (L) and Vincent Ssempijja, Uganda's minister of agriculture, pose for a photo after exchanging certificates during a donation ceremony in Kampala, capital of Uganda, on June 10, 2020. China on Wednesday donated an assortment of chemicals and equipment to Uganda in the fight against desert locusts in the east African country. (Xinhua/Zhang Gaiping)

KAMPALA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday donated an assortment of chemicals and equipment to Uganda in the fight against desert locusts that experts warn are threatening food security in the east African country.

Zheng Zhuqiang, Chinese ambassador to Uganda handed over the donation to Vincent Ssempijja, Uganda's minister of agriculture at a function held here.

Minister Ssempijja thanked China for the donation in the fight against the destructive migratory insects.

"It (donation) will take us very far in this effort of ensuring food security for the people of Uganda," Ssempijja said.

Ambassador Zheng said the donation is part of China's continued cooperation with Uganda in the agriculture sector, which is the country's major economic activity.

He said the 20 tonnes of chemicals and equipment is aimed at boosting Uganda's efforts in minimizing the impact of the desert locusts.

The donation included 10 tons Malathion ULV, 10 tons Malathion EC, 500 back pack mist dusters, 500 hand held ULV sprayers, 2,000 medical coveralls, 2,000 medical protective masks, and 2,000 pairs of gloves.

According to the ministry of agriculture, the country has experienced three waves of desert locust invasion from neighboring Kenya since this year started. The swarms have spread to 26 districts in the country.

Uganda has already deployed over 2,000 soldiers and 835 civilian personnel, including agriculture extension officers. Enditem
Protesters hold banners and portraits of allegedly kidnapped Thai activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit outside the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok, June 8, 2020.

Updated at 11:09 a.m. ET on 2020-06-10

Cambodias national police force has launched an investigation into the alleged abduction of Thai political activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit in Phnom Penh, despite earlier calling his disappearance fake news, a senior official said Tuesday.

Amid mounting calls for an investigation, including a request via a diplomatic note from the Thai Embassy in Cambodia, National Police Commission spokesman Chhay Kim Khoeun confirmed Tuesday that a probe into Wanchalearms disappearance was underway.

But he denied allegations by the Cambodian opposition and Wanchalearms supporters in Thailand that authorities in Phnom Penh had carried out the alleged abduction at Bangkoks behest.

I deny any allegations that Cambodia arrested Satsakit, he said, adding that authorities would investigate any information relevant to the case as part of the probe.

Meanwhile in Bangkok, Thailands leader told reporters that he had asked Thai security officials about Wanchalearms reported abduction. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha indicated that his government would cooperate with foreign authorities investigating the case.

We will see why he fled [Thailand], [and] to where, he said after a weekly cabinet meeting. I dont know where he has fled to and what he did there.

But he also made clear that Thailand would not interfere in another countrys authority as part of any investigation.

They have their mechanism to find out, Prayuth said. We can cooperate with them if they ask us.

Ive nothing to do [with this issue] and I seek fairness for Thai officials, Prayuth added.

A day after he posted an anti-government video on Facebook, Wanchalearm, 37, was apparently abducted in broad daylight on June 4 by gunmen from in front of his apartment complex in the Cambodian capital as he talked to his sister on the phone. On Friday, she told BenarNews that he had said he couldnt breathe as their call ended abruptly.

The activist had fled to Cambodia from Thailand after Thai authorities issued a June 2018 warrant for his arrest, accusing him of violating the Computer-Related Crime Act for operating a Facebook page deemed critical of the Thai government.

In Phnom Penh, Chhay Kim Khoeun said that according to official records, Wanchalearm wasnt even living in Cambodia at the time of his alleged kidnapping, and the official welcomed any information that members of the public could provide authorities related to the Thais disappearance.

According to our investigation, Satsakit left Cambodia in 2017 [and didn't return], he said, without providing any details.

We dont have any more information in addition to that. Cambodian authorities are seeking witnesses and evidence relevant to  [reports of] Satsakits disappearance.

Chhay Kim Khoeuns announcement that a probe was underway marked a sea change from Friday, when he denied any knowledge of Wanchalearm being kidnapped, in an interview with the Associated Press. He told AP that since no abduction had taken place, no investigation would be done.

Since this morning I have received about 50 calls asking me about this news but replying to them all the same ... I said this is fake news, untrue news, he said at the time.

The announcement of a Cambodian investigation came a day after a demonstration by around 100 of Wanchalearms supporters in front of the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok. They demanded that Phnom Penh investigate his case and also accused the Thai government of having orchestrated the alleged kidnapping.

We dont want the government to sit still

In the Thai capital on Tuesday, Wanchalearms sister, Sitinan Satsakit, submitted a letter to the Thai Parliaments House Committee on Justice Tuesday asking for its help in locating her brother.

Im seeking help from authorities to bring my brother back safely and would like the committee to urgently search [for him], she told reporters as she presented her letter to Rangsiman Rome, the spokesman for the House Committee on Justice.

Thank you [students and activists] for [raising] awareness about the disappearance of Wanchalearm, its a phenomenon. We feel that younger generations are alert about enforced disappearances.

Rangsiman Rome, a former pre-democracy activist and Thai lawmaker whose serves as the spokesman for the parliamentary committee, told BenarNews that while the incident had taken place abroad, the Thai government was obligated to help search for Wanchalearm through the framework of international law.

What worries us most is that the incident will fade away, he said.

It is not only a matter of human rights but the security of Thai citizens. We dont want the government to sit still and let this fade away.

Following reports that Cambodia had launched a probe into Wanchalearms disappearance, Human Rights Watch chided Bangkok for having dragged its feet in filing a request and Phnom Penh for showing a disturbing lack of interest in the case by claiming that it was waiting for Thai authorities to complain before it would investigate.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW, questioned why it had taken so long to begin inquiries in a case with CCTV footage and lots of witnesses surrounding an obvious crime committed in broad daylight on Phnom Penhs streets.

Now the investigation has finally started, Cambodias government must pursue a serious, impartial and transparent investigation that leaves no stone unturned in finding out what happened to Wanchalearm, Robertson said.

They should not rest until they find him and prosecute those responsible for the abduction.

Robertson urged governments around the world who are concerned about enforced abductions to pressure both Cambodia and Thailand to act quickly to find Wanchalearm.

Earlier calls for probe

Ahead of Cambodias launch of the probe, the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh issued a statement saying it was aware of reports of Wanchalearms abduction and urging authorities to investigate immediately.

The United States consistently encourages foreign governments, including the Royal Cambodian Government and the Royal Thai Government, to ensure freedom of expression and respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, consistent with international obligations and commitments, U.S. Embassy spokeswomen Emily Zeeberg said.

Wanchalearms disappearance had also drawn concerns from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), which on Tuesday demanded that Cambodian and Thai authorities investigate the case and ensure his safety as a matter of urgency.

The fact that a Thai political activist has been brazenly abducted on the streets of the Cambodian capital is a matter of extreme concern, said Charles Santiago, a Malaysian Member of Parliament (MP), and chairperson of APHR.

ASEAN governments that allow these types of actions to take place on their territory are effectively turning our region into an autocrats heaven, where the persecution of dissent knows no borders.

Santiago noted that in recent years, authorities in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, had all been accused of arresting and returning critics of neighboring countries.

This growing trend of Southeast Asian governments exchanging political dissidents is sinister, he said.

ASEAN leaders should protect democracy not autocracy, something that starts with respecting their obligation to grant asylum and protecting those who flee persecution.

APHR called on parliamentarians in Thailand and Cambodia to hold their governments to account by asking for regular reports on their respective efforts and progress in locating Wanchalerm.

This story was reported by Radio Free Asia, a sister entity of BenarNews, with additional reporting by Wilawan Watcharasakwet in Bangkok.

CORRECTION: An earlier version incorrectly reported that Wanchalearm Satsaksit was apparently abducted two days after he posted an anti-government video on Facebook.


Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - Clean Air Metals Inc. (TSXV: AIR) (the "Company" or "Clean Air Metals") is pleased to remind its shareholders that a "hybrid" annual and special meeting (the "Meeting") of the shareholders of Clean Air Metals Inc. (formerly Regency Gold Corp.) (the "Company") will be held on Thursday, June 25, 2020, at the hour of 2:00 p.m. (Eastern time).

Due to constantly evolving circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company is conducting a hybrid shareholder meeting, which allows participation both online and in person. Attendance by virtual may take place online at https://web.lumiagm.com/256964569, or in-person at the office of Irwin Lowy LLP, located at Suite 401, 217 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 0R2 with appropriate COVID-19 PPE protocols in place, for the following purposes:

To receive and consider the audited consolidated Financial Statements of the Company for the year ended January 31, 2020 and the report of the auditors thereon; To elect the directors of the Company. Standing for re-election to the Board are MaryAnn Crichton, Dean Chambers, Jim Gallagher and Abraham Drost. Nominated to the Board is Ewan Downie. To appoint the auditors of the Company and to authorize the directors to fix their remuneration; To consider and, if deemed advisable, pass, with or without variation, a resolution to confirm the repeal of all existing by-laws of the Company and to enact a new By-law No. 1 of the Company; To consider and, if deemed advisable, to pass, with or without variation, an ordinary resolution of shareholders approving and confirming the Stock Option Plan of the Company; and To transact such other business as may properly come before the Meeting or any adjournments or postponements thereof.

A copy of the new By-law No. 1 referred to in Item 4 above is attached as Schedule B to the management information circular (the "Circular") of the Company dated May 27, 2020, posted to the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and mailed to all shareholders of record on May 29, 2020.

Registered Shareholders (as defined in the accompanying Circular) and duly appointed proxyholders can attend the Meeting in person at the office of Irwin Lowy LLP, located at Suite 401, 217 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 0R2, or online at https://web.lumiagm.com/256964569 where such Registered Shareholders and duly appointed proxyholders can participate, vote, or submit questions during the Meeting's live webcast.

Shareholders are encouraged to complete proxies where possible or appropriate before considering attending the Meeting in person. Registered Shareholders and duly appointed proxyholders can participate in the Meeting by clicking "I have a login" and entering a Username and Password before the start of the Meeting, as follows:

Registered Shareholders - The 15-digit control number located on the form of proxy or in the email notification you received is the Username and the password is "cleanair2020".

Duly appointed proxyholders - Computershare Trust Company of Canada will provide each duly appointed proxyholder with a Username after the voting deadline has passed. The password to the meeting is "cleanair2020".

Voting at the Meeting will only be available for Registered Shareholders and duly appointed proxyholders. Non-registered shareholders who have not appointed themselves may attend the meeting by clicking "I am a guest" and completing the online form. Please refer to the section titled "Participating in the Virtual Meeting" in the Circular for additional details regarding the virtual Meeting.

If any shareholder has not received their Circular package in the mail, please contact the Company's transfer agent and registrar, Computershare Trust Company of Canada at:

General Shareholder Inquiries:

By Phone - 1-800-564-6253 (toll free North America- Int'l 514-982-7555)

1-888-838-1405 (broker queries)

By Fax - 1-866-249-7775 (toll free North America- Int'l 416-263-9524)

By Email - service@computershare.com

By Internet- www.computershare.com. The investors section offers enrolment for self-service account management for registered shareholders through Investor Centre

By Regular Mail - Computershare Investor Services Inc.

100 University Avenue, 8th Floor

Toronto, ON M5J 2Y1

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"Abraham Drost"

Abraham Drost, Chief Executive Officer of Clean Air Metals Inc.

For further information, please contact:

Abraham Drost, Chief Executive Officer of Clean Air Metals Inc.

Phone: 807-252-7800

Email: adrost@cleanairmetals.ca

Website: www.cleanairmetals.ca

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation that relates to use of proceeds, tax treatment of the flow-through shares, closing of the offering and receipt of TSXV approval. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to the TSXV approval, risk related to the failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms; risks related to the outcome of legal proceedings; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the maintenance of stock exchange listings; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies; the uncertainty of profitability; risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations; risks related to commodity price fluctuations; and other risks and uncertainties related to the Company's prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Company's disclosure record. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. 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, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations or projections.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57560
Two viral petitions are appealing to the federal government for the Ku Klux Klan to be designated as a domestic terrorist group.

As of Wednesday morning, a Change.org petition started a week ago called Declare the KKK a Terrorist Organization has gained more than 120,000 signatures and appeals for the Trump administration to make the change.

"The KKK has long been a group of thugs that have suppressed the voices of and invoked fear into minority communities across the country, wrote Trevor Powers, the petitions creator. It is time for that to end.

Another, called Make the KKK Illegal, has 250,000 signatures and counting.

That petitions organizer, listed as Karissa M, said hate should not be a way to bring communities together, nor should it be allowed or tolerated.

The social media movement comes in light of protests across the country against police brutality in the aftermath of Minneapolis resident George Floyds death. Demonstrators have called for police reform and equality for all races.

Last weekend, a self-proclaimed leader of Virginias KKK drove his pick-up truck into a crowd of protesters in Richmond, authorities said. Only minor injuries were reported.

READ MORE:

What can I do to fix this?: Why young people are fueling the protest movement

N.J. corrections officer suspended after mocking George Floyds killing as protesters marched by

Protesters peacefully gather in Shippensburg: We should not teach fear anymore. Teach understanding,' one says
Debbie Madhok is an emergency and intensive care unit physician at San Francisco General Hospital in the citys Mission District, one of the neighborhoods hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.

As stay-at-home orders went into effect and case numbers started rising in the city, she started keeping daily journals on her iPhone, documenting thoughts and observations culled from her shifts treating coronavirus and ICU patients.

Her notes, a sampling of recent entries that she shared with The Chronicle, touch on many layers of the crisis that is still unfolding: from the social and economic disparities that have left large swaths of San Franciscos residents particularly vulnerable, to the mental health issues facing the people who are working the front lines of the fight against COVID-19.

I use the word heartbreaking way too many times, to the point where my staff told me that we have to go a day without using the word, Madhok said. But its really heartbreaking to see this happen to the community.

The Bay Areas fast action in the early stages of the crisis may have flattened the curve, helping the region avoid overwhelmed medical centers and personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages seen in places like New York City.

But that doesnt mean the disease is in any way under control, Madhok said. It just means the cases will be drawn out over a much longer period of time.

In the hospital, it makes it feel like its a never-ending war, she said.

Madhok  who has three children under the age of 5, including an infant  observes the agonizing ways the virus has hit the community around San Francisco General. How families now say goodbye to loved ones by video conference calls with the help of an interpreter. How people are too afraid to come into the hospital, sometimes ignoring signs of serious illnesses like a heart attack or stroke. How the low-wage workers in the neighborhood, whose jobs in house cleaning and construction are deemed essential by the city, are being disproportionately affected.

Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle

Latino residents make up about 15% of San Franciscos total population but account for 37% of the citys confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to city health data.

Theyre not old people with tons of medical problems, Madhok said. These are young, healthy people who are on ventilators, and who are going to die from the virus.

Madhok spent years attempting to educate people in marginalized communities to recognize the signs of a stroke.

COVID-19 has reversed everything weve worked on, she said. There was already a huge gap between what the highly educated know and what everyone else knows about strokes. This is why patients dont come to the hospital, or severely delay coming to the hospital.

In contrast to the national data that show strokes declining, Madhok said theres a significant uptick in San Francisco, especially among younger people.

Nearly all the patients I took care of last week had terrible neurological diseases, she said. It was all too late. They were told not to go to the hospital. They were told its only for emergencies. They were told to stay at home, but they were still working their essential jobs.

As restrictions are loosened at an increasingly rapid pace  and people start filling Dolores Park on weekends, passing around cheese boards and bottles of wine among their friends, or heading out to Ocean Beach, face masks tucked under their chins  all Madhok can see is the misery to come.

Theres such a disconnect, she said. For some reason, people think coronavirus is gone in San Francisco. It is not gone.

Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle

Bay Area hospital cases reached a two-week high over the weekend, bringing the number of known cases in San Francisco to 2,570, according to the Department of Public Health.

Whats going on out there is just mind-boggling, Madhok said. You feel defenseless.

For the frontline workers at General, the work drags on under suffocating layers of PPE during their long shifts inside the hospital and stark isolation when theyre at home.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The toll on the mental health of frontline providers is very real, Madhok said. The uptick of suicide attempts right now is so scary.

Madhok says seeing this daily trauma is taking a huge toll on the hospital staff. She meets with her team daily for debriefings to talk about mental health and how theyre going to take care of themselves long term.

A study published this month by the Well Being Trust of Oakland estimates that in addition to the mounting deaths from COVID-19, as many as 75,000 more people will die nationally from deaths of despair, including drug or alcohol misuse and suicide.

In her notes, Madhok writes about her friend and former colleague Dr. Lorna Breen, who served as the medical director of the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. She died by suicide in April at age 49, haunted by the trauma of working the coronavirus ward, according to her family.

Lorna Breen is just the beginning, Madhok said. Were going to see so much more as this is drawn out longer and longer.

The hardest part, she said, is not being able to do anything to soften the blow of the pandemic.

This is not like anything else weve encountered, Madhok said. We dont have anything to use against it. There are illnesses that are bad but we know how to manage those things. With this, theres so little we can do to save people.

Its a terrible feeling for a doctor to feel helpless.

Aidin Vaziri is a staff writer at The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: avaziri@sfchronicle.com
New Delhi:

CBI has taken over investigations in the murder of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan as it registered a case on Thursday against unknown assailants.

The move comes four months after Bihar Government recommended a CBI into the murder of Ranjan, bureau chief of Hindustana Hindi daily. A team of agency sleuths will leave shortly for Siwan, the sources said.

The sources said name of former RJD MP Shahbuddin who has been released recently on bail was under the scanner of Bihar Police which was probing the case till recently. The case has again come into limelight as a photograph appeared of absconding suspects Mohammad Kaif and Mohammad Javed with Shahbuddin after his release from Bhagalpur jail on Saturday last on bail granted by Patna High Court.

They said it is suspected that the killing was the handiwork of some influential persons. CBI sources said they have taken over the investigation in the murder case which has been registered under the IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy, murder and arms act.

According to the rules, CBI takes over same FIR which has been registered by the state police. However, the sources said, the investigation of the agency are completely free and it may arrive at any conclusion which may or may not be in concurrence with the state police.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case under section 302, 120-B, 34 of IPC and section 27 of Arms Act against unknown assailants relating to alleged murder of senior journalist Rajdeo Ranjan on the request of Bihar Government and further notification from Government of India, CBI Spokesperson said.

She said CBI has taken over the investigation of the said case which was earlier registered vide FIR no. 362/2016 dated May 13, 2016 at Police Station Siwan town, Bihar on a complaint from wife of deceased.

The state government had issued a notification requesting the CBI to take over the investigation of the murder case on May 16.

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EDWARDSVILLE  Two former Madison County administrators allege the Madison County Board failed to follow the Illinois Open Meetings Act when it fired them on April 16.

Doug Hulme, former supervisor of administration, and Rob Dorman, former supervisor of technology, claim the county failed to cite a specific reason for an April 16 closed session at which their termination was discussed. The pairs lawsuit against the county became public Wednesday.

Hulme and Dorman were fired in a nearly-unanimous vote following an almost three-hour closed session of the county board at a special meeting on April 16. Both were accused of improperly accessing emails and other data for political purposes.

Normally discussions of hiring or firing of personnel is exempt from open meeting requirements for local governments. In their lawsuit, Hulme and Dorman claim their specific cases should have been listed on the board agenda for that date.

The suit states that agenda listed A. Executive Session: Closed session for board members to discuss specific personal (in accordance with the law) and B. Open Session: Action to be taken by the board on specific personnel.

The mens suit cites detailed, technical appeals court rulings that declared null and void actions taken in closed session for lack of specificity in the agenda.

Hulme and Dorman released a statement Wednesday amplifying their position.

Hulme said that, as county administrator, it was normally his job to prevent Open Meetings Act violations but, during the April 16 meeting, the board was operating under the advice of Madison County States Attorney Tom Gibbons.

The lawsuit alleges the county board rushed to have a special meeting electronically. Its agenda contained an executive session and action to be taken by the board on specific personnel in open session. The board took four recorded votes in open session, according to Hulme and Dornan.

Dorman said he questions why the actions taken, and all the resolutions created by Gibbons office, were not placed on the agenda but, instead, were hidden from public view. According to minutes from the meeting, Madison County Board Member Mike Parkinson, D-Granite City, was aware of the secret resolutions but many board members had not seen them.

The Open Meetings Act is an important state law that prevents public bodies from conducting business without public notice and in the dark, Dorman said. Gibbons had to email out his hidden resolutions during the meeting which speaks for itself. I took Gibbons to court before and won because he was operating outside of the law and he is doing it again.

Gibbons responded.

The States Attorneys Office serves as the legal counsel for the county board and government, and our actions in this and every matter are in service to them, according to their direction, he said.

Mr.Dorman and Mr. Hulme are free to espouse whatever they want in the public domain because we are a country, and county that values free speech no matter how useless, senseless, baseless or wrong it may be, Gibbons said. We disagree with their claims and will let the courts decide the matter.

Hulme and Dorman are both Republicans represented by G. Edward Moorman of Alton, the same attorney who is fighting to reverse the decision to fire Hulme and Dorman in a suit filed May 6. In that suit, the men allege they were terminated without a fair hearing.

Hulme and Dorman have requested a temporary restraining order reversing the boards action so they can continue to receive salaries and benefits. A hearing on the proposed order has not been set. Because of the pandemic, the court has delayed all civil matters.

Details of the email allegations against Hulme and Dorman came out after the unsealing of a large number of documents relating to a two-year investigation into possible corruption within the county administration office.

County officials allege Hulme and Dorman spied on other county office holders and obtained access to sensitive criminal legal matters that are not under the authority of Madison County government. In an affidavit, the two were accused of spying on judges, the Madison County Public Defenders Office and the Madison County States Attorneys Office.
As to that review, I never spoke with the Secretary directly about it, Linick said. There was a point in time in late 2019 that my office reached out to get documents from the office of the secretary as well as the office of the legal adviser. And during that same period of time, I did speak with Undersecretary Bulatao, possibly Deputy Secretary [John] Sullivan  but I am not sure  about the reasons  about the fact that we were making these document requests so they werent surprised.
A call for Baroness Scotland (pictured in March) to be granted an immediate second term as Commonwealth secretary general amid the coronavirus crisis has been turned down

Baroness Scotland's reappointment as Commonwealth chief has been blocked after 'significant' opposition from member states, it emerged today.

A leaked letter from Boris Johnson to other leaders said a call for the peer to be granted a second term as secretary general amid the coronavirus crisis had been turned down.

The PM said 'a significant and diverse number of colleagues from across the Commonwealth have communicated that they do not support that proposal'.

Instead Lady Scotland will remain in post until a full Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting can be held to decide on her future. One had been slated for Rwanda in April, but has been delayed indefinitely.

In February, it was revealed that Britain had suspended a chunk of its funding to the Commonwealth Secretariat amid a row over financial controls.

The government said at the time that handing over the money - around 4.7million a year - had been made 'conditional' on the body's processes meeting high standards.

The move came after Lady Scotland was criticised by auditors for 'circumventing' usual rules in awarding a 250,000 consultancy to a firm run by a friend. She has denied any wrongdoing.

New Zealand and Australia had taken similar action.

The letter from Mr Johnson to other leaders, seen by Caribbean News Global, said Barbados had proposed that Lady Scotland be immediately reappointed for a second four-year term, but it had been rejected. The former Attorney General was handed the job in 2016.

Member states 'prefer that the decision on the next substantive Secretary-General appointment should be taken at CHOGM, according to our established practice', Mr Johnson wrote.

The premier, currently chair of the Commonwealth group, said instead he wanted to 'offer Baroness Scotland an extension of her current term until we meet in (Rwandan capital) Kigali for our postponed CHOGM'.

A Commonwealth spokesman said today: 'The reappointment process for Commonwealth Secretary General's occurs when leaders gather for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

'The Secretary-General, Baroness Scotland came into post on 1 Apr 2016 for a term of four years.

'The usual convention is that an incumbent seeking a second term in office is elected unopposed for his or her second term. The Secretary-General, Baroness Scotland has been supported to serve a second term by Dominica, her country of birth.

'Commonwealth member states agreed to extend the current Secretary-General's contract in order to consider the reappointment at CHOGM in Rwanda in June 2020. However, CHOGM has been postponed of due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

'A member state wrote to the Chair in Office to request that Heads of Government consider reappointment now due to the uncertainty of when CHOGM will be able to take place due to the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic.

'The Chair in Office wrote to member states on 8 June 2020 to state that consensus was not reached for reappointment to occur now in the absence of CHOGM.

'Therefore the Chair in Office has proposed that, as is customary, the reappointment process will now take place when CHOGM is able to meet.'
Bobby Moore, 60, a Texas inmate who spent four decades on death row for a murder conviction, was granted parole on Monday

A Texas inmate who spent four decades on death row for a murder conviction was granted parole on Monday after the US Supreme Court ruled that he cannot be executed because he is intellectually disabled.

Bobby Moore fatally shot 72-year-old Houston grocery store clerk James McCarble in 1980 during a robbery. He had been on death row for nearly 39 years.

The Supreme Courts ruling in the long legal battle over whether Moore, now 60, could be put to death came in February 2019 after prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorneys Office agreed with Moores attorneys that he should be spared capital punishment.

A Texas appeals court then re-sentenced Moore to life in prison last November, making him eligible for parole, because in 1980 inmates sentenced to life in prison were eligible for parole after 20 years.

Earlier this week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to release Moore.

State Rep. Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso who co-chairs the Criminal Justice Reform Caucus in the Texas Legislature, praised the decision on Twitter, reported The New York Times.

'A nice breath of hope during a very difficult national conversation - Im proud that our Board of Pardons and Paroles has agreed with the #CJReform Caucus & voted to release #BobbyMoore,' he wrote.

In March, Moody was among the 23 members of the recently formed caucus who sent a letter to the parole board asking to release Moore, arguing that he has been wrongly denied numerous parole reviews over 20 years.

Moore, who is African-American, is expected to regain his freedom once his discharge papers are reviewed, according to Texas Tribune.

Moore fatally shot 72-year-old Houston grocery store clerk James McCarble in 1980 during a robbery

Since 2017, Moore's case had come before the nation's highest court twice. Three years ago, the Supreme Court said the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had used outdated standards to decide that Moore was not intellectually disabled.

The case was sent back to the Texas appeals court, which in June again ruled Moore was not mentally disabled.

The Supreme Court in 2002 barred execution of mentally disabled people but has given states some discretion to decide how to determine intellectual disability. However, justices have wrestled with how much discretion to allow.

Texas looks at three main points to define intellectual disability: IQ scores, with 70 generally considered a threshold; an inmates ability to interact with others and care for himself or herself; and whether evidence of deficiencies in either of those areas occurred before age 18.

In 2004, the Texas appeals court created additional factors, including whether an individuals conduct showed leadership and whether a person could 'hide facts or lie effectively.'

In March, the Criminal Justice Reform Caucus in the Texas Legislature sent a letter to the parole board asking to release Moore

State Rep. Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso who co-chairs the Criminal Justice Reform Caucus in the Texas Legislature, praised the decision to grant Moore parole

In last year's 6-3 ruling in the Moore case, the Supreme Court criticized the Texas appeals court for continuing to rely on the additional factors it had created.

The high court has said these factors, named after a former death row inmate named Jose Briseno, have no grounding in prevailing medical practice and invite lay stereotypes to guide assessment of such disability.

The Supreme Court said the Texas appeals court did not discuss evidence that seemed to support Moores claims of intellectual disability, including that when he was in school, Moore was made to draw pictures when other kids were reading and that by sixth grade, he struggled to read at a second-grade level.

In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts  who had previously sided against Moore  joined the majority, saying the Texas appeals court 'repeated the same errors that this Court previously condemned.'

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, supported the change of Moore's sentence from death to life in prison in November, but she reserved judgment on his impending release.

'We agree with the U.S. Supreme Court that the intellectually disabled cannot be executed, no matter how heinous the crime. His parole is a matter exclusively in the hands of the states parole board,' Ogg's spokesperson Dane Schiller wrote in an email to the Times on Monday.
Plymouth, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) -Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. (CSE: PRT) (OTCQB: PLRTF) (FSE: 4XA) (WKN# A2N8RH) ("Plymouth Rock", "PRT", or the "Company") a leader in the development of cutting-edge threat detection technologies, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) with SDS Group Australia Pty Ltd ("SDS"), a leading provider of best of breed products and equipment to the Australian security and defense industries.

PRT and SDS have signed an LOI to work together to position PRT's Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for procurement-focused evaluations following initial consultation with members of the Australian Government. The focus of the partnership is primarily centered around the need for the early detection and identification of remote wildfires. Fire departments have typically used consumer drones that can only deliver imagery in a small area with the pilot in close proximity. To date there has not been a commercial UAS that can combine large area surveillance, deliver stable flight operations in extreme thermal or damp conditions. The X1 delivers these capabilities. Along with its flight characteristics, the combined sensor capabilities of the X1 delivers heightened situational awareness and comprehensive actionable intelligence of a wildfire to fire and rescue crews from an elevated position. The X1's thermal spectrum capabilities can distinguish between mass area fire, hotspots, as well as people or wildlife that may have become trapped by the blaze.

This initial effort will contribute to defining strategy for the development of business across law enforcement and the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) for PRT's UAS platforms. As part of the partnership process, SDS has now registered with the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).

"Having worked with the engineers and founders of PRT over the past several years on other initiatives, we knew that their venture into aviation related technologies would be to develop systems that are both state-of-the-art and mission focused," stated Craig Seckerson, Managing Director of SDS. "The X1 and upcoming XV platform are unparalleled in their overall capabilities and have clearly been built around this mission. Last year was infamously named the Black Summer here in Australia - the sad reality is that bushfires will return this year, however we believe by giving local fire crews and central government a real-time operational overview of the situation and placement of assets, timely interventions and relevant resources can be applied much quicker here on in," concluded Seckerson.

"We're extremely proud that PRT UAS technologies are being tasked for their designed role as a heavy-duty, state-of-the-art asset for operational intelligence. Using artificial intelligence and cutting-edge avionic tech to potentially save both life and billions of dollars in loss is truly worthwhile," stated Dana Wheeler, CEO of PRT. "The X1 specifications and capabilities are focused on delivering critical operational capabilities unseen on small UAS anywhere in the world. Our sensor and payload capabilities put the X1 on the forefront of safe, reliable aerial capability that is far beyond that of typical commercial drones. This step forward with SDS is a significant move in our commercialization phase, The X1 being a multi-mission capable sensory powerhouse will greatly aid fire and rescue services in their upcoming missions," concluded Wheeler.

About Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc.

We are on a mission to bring engineering-driven answers to the most critical problems that threaten our safety. We work with government, law enforcement and military to innovate solutions for national security, defense and space systems.

The Company is developing the next generation of threat detection solutions, The PRT X1 is a purpose built multirotor Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). The unit contains an integrated sensor package that combines Thermal detection with 4K HD real-time air-to-ground streaming. Our advanced threat detection methods fuse artificial intelligence with augmented reality interfaces to eliminate human operating error. Plymouth Rock products, both airborne and land-based, will scan for threat items at greater "stand-off" distances than current existing technologies. Our unique radar imaging and signal processing technology creates new opportunities for remotely operated, none intrusive screening of crowds in real time.

Plymouth Rock's other core technologies include: (1) A Millimeter Remote Imaging from Airborne Drone ("MIRIAD"); (2) A compact microwave radar system for scanning shoe's ("Shoe-Scanner").

www.plyrotech.com

About SDS Group Australia

SDS Group Australia is driven to offer the best of breed products into the Australian security and defence industry, all SDS equipment is required to perform in critical situations often in the most harsh and inhospitable environments.

SDS Group Australia strives to work with manufacturers at the pinnacle of our industry to offer both new innovative technology and products with a proven deployment history. One of SDS's key features is to listen and understand the end user requirements and find the ideal equipment best suited to meet or exceed client expectation, there really is no requirement too big or too small.

https://www.sdsgroupaustralia.com.au/

About the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is a government body that regulates Australian aviation safety. We license pilots, register aircraft, oversee and promote safety.

We were established as an independent statutory authority in July 1995 and work together with the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications and Air services Australia to achieve our vision of safe skies for all.

www.casa.gov.au

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dana Wheeler

President and CEO

+1-603-300-7933

info@plyrotech.com

Investor Information:

Tasso Baras

+1-778-477-6990

Forward Looking Statements

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward - looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57555
Australia will join an international clinical trial to test a new treatment in children with brain cancer, due to launch in later this year. Brain cancer kills more children in Australia than any other cancer, with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reporting about 40 deaths each year in children under 15 years of age.

Funded by a $1.1 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council, part of a $3 million investment in childhood brain cancer research announced by the Australian Government this week, the trial will be led from Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick, and opened at every children's hospital in Australia.

"This trial will be focusing on children with the most commonly diagnosed type of brain tumour, low-grade gliomas," said Associate Professor David Ziegler, senior paediatric oncologist at Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick, and head of the Brain Tumour Group at Children's Cancer Institute, who will head the clinical trial in Australia. "Gliomas can be very difficult to treat. When a tumour isn't able to be removed by surgery, the child may face years of treatment and often suffers major morbidities. For such patients the only treatment options are cytotoxic chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, resulting in significant short and long term toxicity. We need new treatments that are not only more effective, but also much safer to use in children."

The new treatment being tested in the clinical trial could be just what's needed. One of a new generation of drugs known as 'targeted therapies', it has been developed to target cancer cells directly and leave healthy cells unharmed, thereby causing far fewer side effects.

"The targeted therapy we will be testing has been specifically designed to shut off the genetic driver of this type of tumour, and can be taken as a daily pill" said Ziegler. "If shown to be successful, it could replace chemotherapy as the standard treatment for this type of cancer, significantly improving quality of life for survivors."

A media release put out by The Hon Greg Hunt MP, Minister for Health, on 7 June, said the government recognised the essential nature of clinical trials for evaluating the effectiveness and safety of medicines. "We will be monitoring the outcomes of this research closely and we look forward to seeing much needed support and access to better treatments roll out to children and their families," it stated.

###

About Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Childrens Hospital, Randwick

The Kids Cancer Centre (KCC) at Sydney Childrens Hospital, Randwick has been treating children with cancer and blood diseases in NSW, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region for nearly 50 years. Almost two thirds of children treated for cancer or leukaemia at the Centre are enrolled on clinical trials, in a unique model where research and clinical care are one, ensuring the best possible care for children and their families. During that time the survival rates for children with cancer have gone from 10 per cent to nearly 80 per cent. Clinical and research staff from the Centre have made major international and national contributions to the expansion of knowledge in the area: from important discoveries around bone marrow transplantation, chemotherapy for relapsed solid tumours and leukaemia, to the invention of novel anti-cancer drug combinations and minimal residual disease testing in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Centre staff have been leaders in devising new methods of outreach and home nursing, and in developing modern approaches to the bereaved family. These achievements have been founded on academic excellence and clinical expertise. In the past five years alone, the Centres staff have published over 200 papers in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals and been awarded more than $60 million in competitive grant funding. The past 20 years has also seen a total of eight clinical staff receive the Order of Australia honours for their work. More at kids-cancer.org or schn.health.nsw.gov.au

About Childrens Cancer Institute

Originally founded by two fathers of children with cancer in 1976, Childrens Cancer Institute is the only independent medical research institute in Australia wholly dedicated to research into the causes, prevention and cure of childhood cancer. Forty years on, our vision is to save the lives of all children with cancer and improve their long-term health, through research. The Institute has grown to now employ over 300 researchers, operational staff and students, and has established a national and international reputation for scientific excellence. Our focus is on translational research, and we have an integrated team of laboratory researchers and clinician scientists who work together in partnership to discover new treatments which can be progressed from the lab bench to the beds of children on wards in our hospitals as quickly as possible. These new treatments are specifically targeting childhood cancers, so we can develop safer and more effective drugs and drug combinations that will minimise side-effects and ultimately give children with cancer the best chance of a cure with the highest possible quality of life. More at www.ccia.org.au

Contact:

Tami Bradley  tbradley@ccia.org.au

0437 953594
One of the trite pearls of wisdom repeated ad nauseam for the past several days is that America needs to have an honest conversation on race. Its a constant theme repeated in the self-flagellating virtue signaling spewing forth from prominent figures in industry, academia, and even the military, put out in hopes that the Orwellian cultural Death Star doesnt cast its eye of destruction on them.

Of course, the media manipulators and leftists have no interest in an honest conversation. The only thoughts allowed in their version are mostly false ones that have been approved by leftists for the purpose of inciting racial hatred and overthrowing America.

Anyone willing to throw around words and ideas marked with the liberal stamp of approval like white supremacy, white privilege, microaggressions, or systemic racism will be rewarded mightily with the bonus that these towering giants of moral cowardice also get to humbly brag about their bravery in speaking truth to power. Bonus points if they take an actual knee in abject surrender.

It takes no courage to adopt these positions. True courage is displayed by those willing to publicly buck this toxic stew, especially for black Americans like Thomas Sowell, Candace Owens, and Shelby Steele who show more courage on any given day than many people show during their lifetimes.

People are entitled to their own opinions, no matter how wrong or off base, but they arent entitled to their own facts, which is why the left has worked so hard to outlaw both facts and conservative opinion. True facts that are weighed appropriately for all variables shred the leftist narrative.

An honest conversation on race would include discussion of plenty of inconvenient facts, such as the fact that black men disproportionately commit violent crime or that police almost never kill unarmed black men. Indeed, the facts show that nearly 40 percent of cop killers are black and that a police officer is more than 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black American than for a law enforcement officer to kill an unarmed black person.

An honest conversation on race would express horror at the fact that somewhere around three-quarters of black men are raised without fathers and note the tremendous societal damage this causes.

An honest conversation would ponder why black American homicide-victimization rate is three times the rate of Hispanics and seven times the average white rate, almost exclusively murdered (94%) by other black Americans.

It would certainly question how defunding the police could do anything other than slamming the pedal to the metal on these horrific and mind-blowing statistics.

It might also note that those killed by law enforcement were almost always engaging in actions that precipitated their deaths and that black-on-white violent crime in all categories is far more commonplace than the reverse.

If we were having an honest conversation in America, we would lament all the communities and businesses destroyed by the wanton violence and lawlessness and stop the noxious virtue signaling. When the final butchers bill for this latest leftist lunacy comes due, there will be many black lives that apparently did not matter enough to not be destroyed, sacrificed gleefully by leftists on the altar of horror and misery.

An honest conversation might notice that all of the worst alleged incidents happened in areas ruled by Democrats for decades, and that failed Democrat policies perpetuated the cycle of violence and victimization (often intentionally) that has come to define these areas, while poisoning the culture. It might also notice that powerful unions, long a hallmark of Democrat protection, have protected the few bad apples that no doubt exist in police departments.

An honest conversation would admit that abortion started with strong racist eugenics connections and that the existence of abortion today, with clinics heavily weighted in areas with sizable populations of black Americans, results in the slaughter of entire generations of unborn black babies, something liberal hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg once all but admitted was part of the motivation for it.

There will never be an honest conversation on race because liberal policies are largely to blame for the tragic and terrible state of too many black majority communities and the toxic culture that results in so much death and despair.

As he often does, Thomas Sowell captured this phenomenon perfectly when he tweeted, Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers, and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as racists.

The concept of racism will exist so long as liberalism holds cultural supremacy because it is the most powerful weapon in the lefts arsenal, employed in racist fashion to try to keep black Americans wedded to the Democrat party.

There is nothing surprising about this. The Marxist left is at war with America. That has been obvious for many years. This is the latest front in that war, following on the heels of Russia, Russia, Russia sedition, the already forgotten impeachment,and the manipulated COVID lockdowns aimed as a stake in the heart of the U.S. economy.

This latest chapter wont end until it is either clear that these violence-fueled protests are benefiting the president or when the media manipulators are on to their next assault, a new yet unseen front in the war on America. This will also continue because Democrats are scared that they their iron-fisted control of blacks as a voting bloc is slipping. So, they agitate and burn communities to the ground even as more people catch on to their depraved and evil game.

With liberal support starting to coalesce around the clearly Marxist-inspired idea of defunding the police, one wonders if this is the lefts Stalingrad, meaning that this might be such an insane overreach that it starts sapping their energy and resources, resulting in a turning of the tide.

My fervent hope is that enough sane Americans recognize this for what it is and that a massive silent majority turns out in November to make their voices heard at the polls.

But, I am not confident in that hope. The mere fact that this can happen with so few people objecting, cowed into silence by the cultural Marxists, shows that America has already changed in a very fundamental way, even as the provocateurs of that change, responsible for decades of educational brainwashing and media manipulation, continue their subversive mission unchecked.

Time will tell whether this has yet produced the critical mass of voters needed to overthrow the greatest experiment in freedom in human history.

In the meantime, I will remember and repeat the names of federal protective service officer Dave Patrick Underwood and retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn, two black Americans (no doubt among many) killed in heartbreaking fashion in the leftist carnage. Their lives mattered. There will be no mass funerals for them. They will not be martyrs. Their lives were little more than an inconvenience for the leftists actively working to destroy their country.

But they deserve to be remembered, because they died on the front lines, victims of the lefts relentless and unending war on America.

Fletch Daniels can be found on twitter @fletchdaniels.
In late 2019, China showed off a new long-range (350 kilometers) ballistic missile, with eight of them carried in sealed containers on an 8x8 45 ton truck. Called the PCL191, it is an upgraded version of the older AR3 truck-mounted missile system built for export as the AR3. Since 2010 China has developed longer range guided rockets for the export customers. The latest of these is the AR3, which can handle a number of different size rockets that are stored and fired from pods designed to operate from the same AR3 8x8 heavy truck. This export market first approach enables several competing firms to develop similar systems, make them pay for themselves via exports and then provide the Chinese military with the best of these systems, usually with a number of updates. This is what happened as the export AR3 evolved into the Chinese Army PCL191.

The PCL191 version carries eight circular containers each containing a 370mm ballistic missile with a 350 kilometer range, a half ton warhead and a more precise guidance system. The storage/firing containers are in two pods, each with four containers. The pods are easily removed and replaced by a reloading vehicle equipped for this task.

Reload vehicles can remove empty pods and install loaded ones in about twenty minutes. The PCL191 has a crew of three that can halt and fire a missile at a specific target within five minutes. One current use of systems like PCL191 is to support an invasion of Taiwan by quickly firing these difficult to intercept missiles at airfields and naval bases in Taiwan while evading attack by Taiwanese ballistic missiles. Taiwan is 180 kilometers off the China coast. China has long aimed over a thousand larger, non-mobile ballistic missiles at Taiwan. These missiles are vulnerable to return fire from Taiwan, which is what makes the PCL191 so important. The PCL191 would keep moving, launching missiles and reloading until the battle was over, or they ran out of missile reloads.

The mobility of the PCL191 vehicle makes it easy to move a large quantity of ballistic missiles to any part of China (Vietnam, North Korea, Russia or India) to deal with an emergency.
In a new column, 'Category Error', Amruta Patil marries news-triggered observation with fiction, history, philosophy, against the backdrop of an Indian high rise. Read more from the series here. *** 1 | Ravi, Jeetu and Manishs Body Temperature The lean man in apartment B503 of Atlantis Cooperative Housing Society would have liked to spend this evening in the company of the gorgeous man he had met just before lockdown, but circumstances had been too world-altering for the spark between them to survive. Sparks between human beings are delicate phenomena that need time so a promising beginning can grow into a roaring fire. All through the day, lean man saw performances of carefulness in a city stirring into wakefulness again: The disposable viscose booties and non-contact temperature measuring device at the dentists clinic. The hand sanitiser-wielding doormen outside stores, dystopian version of folks who stood with a silver attardaani to sprinkle rose water on invitees entering a wedding. At night, to celebrate the opening up of the lockdown, the lean man ordered a meal from an Asian (i.e. cuisine-conglomerate of Thailand, Japan and China) restaurant. Despite the gloves and mask on the food delivery person, theirs was an exchange replete with intimate information:

The lean man casually made note of the temperature difference between Rajus, Jeetus and Manishs bodies, and wondered if such a difference was palpable to the touch. There was, of course, no place on the form for delivery person to write down the customers body temperature. 2 | Activist Types Our ancestors programmed us for different sorts of certitudes. For most people, the soundness of keeping ones head low to survive a gale is the most important certitude of all. The dentist couple in apartment A502 was at yet another impasse with their daughter who was charging into a metaphoric gale, texting away furiously with her two thumbs, making plans to join a protest against the miserable meals being served to still-stranded migrants. Foolish heroics, thundered dentist-the-husband, attention hungry behaviour! Who will bail you out when they throw you into prison? Why would they throw me into prison? retorted the daughter, And if they did, more the reason people need to protest! Dentist-the-wife piped in, Let activist types like Kashish and Sonali do what they do. The daughter replied, Kashish and Sonali got laathi-charged for protesting a sneaky land grab last week. Do you expect them to fight all battles for everyone? Dentist-the-husband could not bear it any longer: You want to ruin all our lives by going to prison! Youre a writer and artist

3 | Beard-clippers and Bowl Cuts In apartment C403, the IT couple was recovering from the haircuts they had given one another. Friends, colleagues (and their respective children) in various parts of the world had undertaken similar homegrown hair projects and now bore an uncanny resemblance to friars, vicars and philosophers from medieval European artwork. The most unfortunate wore beard-clipper hairstyles suited to dogs in summer. Slightly-less unfortunate ones wore versions of the bowl cut  a style that historically evolved from an actual bowl placed over the head of the unfortunate and hair being cut along its rim. The IT couple had surprised each other during the exercise. Her hairstyle, a messy step cut, was refreshed with relative ease. His hairstyle, a nondescript short haircut, proved to be exhausting beyond belief. When her scissors went to work, it felt like he had five times the amount of hair on his head than he really did. And making any headway needed not just a steady hand, but an innate of volume under wet conditions, volume under dry conditions and an understanding of sculptural form.

*** Writer-painter Amruta Patil is the author of graphic novels Kari, Adi Parva: Churning of the Ocean, Sauptik: Blood and Flowers, and Aranyaka: Book of the Forest. On Instagram: @amruta_gauri
NAWANSHAHR:Two Expert Groups Are Discussing the Situation Each Weak on e-platform

Punjab Government and Medical Colleges Working Together As A Unified Cohesive Force To Tackle The Pandemic

Health Advisor Dr. K K Talwars Guidance Plays A Pivotal Role

The COVID-19 pandemic and its consequent health crisis caught all Governments and the medical fraternity unprepared. Owing to the lack of sufficient data to draw informed conclusions and the absence of a definitive treatment, the outcomes from other countries got all State Governments worried about their preparedness with the health infrastructure required to manage the crisis.

The Punjab Governments response to the challenge was quick yet strategic and well planned. With guidance from Prof. KK Talwar, Advisor to the Government of Punjab on Health and Medical Education, the Government prepared a strategy to appropriately equip and enable medical practitioners working in the periphery and in tertiary care centres on managing COVID-19 patients.

A key intervention was to convert and disseminate the plethora of information on the subject in a structured format for the audience to comprehend clearly, explained Dr Talwar in a statement issued here today. The sessions were planned with the medical specialists and anaesthetists looking after mild to moderately sick COVID-19 patients; and with faculty of Medical Colleges and other critical care experts looking after critical COVID-19 patients.

Doctors and faculty from various Medical Colleges of Punjab were brought together on an e-platform, including specialists from AIIMS, PGI, USA, UK and Italy with significant experience on the matter. Administrators from the Department of Health and medical education were also made a part of this group to ensure that operational challenges were directly communicated to and resolved by the decision makers. A total of 19 sessions have been held between the March 27-June 4, 2020, with 1914 medical professionals involved in Covid care services. Research projects such as the use of plasma and steroids have been also been initiated on this platform.

Prof. Bishav Mohan, Professor of Cardiology at DMC Ludhiana volunteered to be the convener for these sessions. Additionally, for medical specialists and anaesthetists looking after mild to moderately sick patients, the experts held weekly online training courses on the platform. These sessions discussed matters such as the healthcare workers protection, management guidelines, risk stratification strategy and various sampling and isolation protocols. These were compiled into a 10-page document for reference and dissemination. These sessions are conducted every Thursday at 12.00 pm and have been attended by 1500+ participants.

A second group, for facilities looking after critical patients, held weekly online meetings to discuss issues regarding management of patients in the ICUs. Prof GD Puri, Head, Department of Anaesthesia and I/C COVID Unit, PGI Chandigarh coordinated the sessions. These sessions helped to significantly improve the understanding of the disease and management of critical issues associated with it. Protocols for management of systemic comorbidities were also discussed and framed using this platform. Experts from USA, UK, Italy, AIIMS and PGI regularly joined these sessions and shared their experiences in managing these cases These sessions are conducted every Saturday at 7 pm and have been attended by 500+ participants.

To ensure expert guidance, if required, to the faculty involved in managing these cases in ICUs, an expert committee was constituted under chairmanship of Dr GD Puri, with Dr. Bishav Mohan as convener.

Dr Vishal Chopra, from Government Medical College, Patiala, was designated from the Department of Medical Education as the Nodal Person for the critical care group and Dr Gurvinder Kaur from Health Deptt as the Nodal Person for District hospital, level II care.

Under the leadership of Dr. KK Talwar and the Government, the Medical Colleges of Punjab have been working together as a unified cohesive force to tackle the pandemic. Teamwork and coordination at scale has proved to be effective in ensuring quality care to these patients and has saved the lives of many in Punjab.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - XPhyto Therapeutics Corp. (CSE: XPHY) (FSE: 4XT) (OTC Pink: XPHYF) ("XPhyto" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that its diagnostic partner, 3a-Diagnostics GmbH ("3a") and their contract research collaborators, have received a 254,200 grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ("BMBF"). The BMBF grant is part of the "KMU-innovativ" program for small and medium-sized enterprises that are pioneering innovation and technological progress in Germany. Proceeds of the grant are committed to the development and commercialization of enzyme activated biosensors for use in real-time, low-cost and easy-to-use oral screening tests for the rapid detection of influenza A virus and specific variants that are high-risk pandemic threats such as H1N1 and H5N1.

XPhyto and 3a signed a definitive development, technology purchase and licence agreement, announced April 20, 2020, for the incorporation of 3a's pathogen-specific biosensors into XPhyto's dissolvable thin film ("ODF") platform. Development work is underway and a program update will be announced in due course.

3a is a research-based biotechnology company located approximately 50 kilometers Southeast of Stuttgart, Germany, specializing in the development, production and marketing of point-of-care test systems. 3a refers to their approach as "anywhere" (no power or additional equipment required), "anytime" (decentralized and rapidly deployable), and "anyone" (no specialized training required).

"We are very pleased to receive the support and validation from BMBF for our infectious disease test development program," said Dr. Heinrich Jehle, Managing Director of 3a. "We believe that low cost, distributable and decentralized screening tests will be a critical component of global population-scale pandemic management."

Story continues

About XPhyto Therapeutics Corp.

XPhyto is a biopharma and cannabis science company focused on formulation, clinical validation, and European imports, distribution and sales. XPhyto's 100% owned subsidiary, Vektor Pharma TF GmbH, a German narcotics manufacturer, importer and researcher has expertise in the design, testing and manufacture of thin film drug delivery systems, particularly transdermal patches and sub-lingual (oral) strips. Vektor also holds a number of narcotics licences issued by the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), including import and manufacturing permits, as well as EU GMP lab certification. XPhyto's 100% owned German subsidiary, Bunker Pflanzenextrakte GmbH, has been granted a unique German cannabis cultivation and extraction licence for scientific purposes by BfArM. Bunker has two exclusive R&D collaboration agreements with the Technical University of Munich, Chair of beverage and brewing technology and the Faculty of Chemistry. XPhyto is pursuing additional opportunities in Europe including commercial cannabis cultivation, processing, manufacturing, import, and distribution. In Canada, two exclusive 5-year engagements with the Faculty of Pharmacy at a major Canadian university provide certified extraction, isolation, and formulation facilities, drug research and development expertise, as well as commercial analytical testing capability. XPhyto signed a supply, import and distribution agreement for cannabis oils and isolates with one of the largest, highest quality, and lowest cost cannabis cultivators in the world.

For further information, please contact:

Hugh Rogers

CEO & Director

+1.780.818.6422

info@xphyto.com

www.xphyto.com

Wolfgang Probst

Director

+49 8331 9948 122

info@bunker-ppd.de

www.xphyto.com

Forward looking statements



This news release includes statements containing forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law ("forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "develop", "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "potential", "propose" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur, and in this release include the statement regarding the Company's goal of building an industry leading medical cannabis company. Forward-looking statements are only predictions based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including: that the Company may not succeed in developing any commercial products; that the sale of any products may not be a viable business; that the Company may be unable to scale its business; product liability risks; product regulatory risk; frequent changes to cannabis regulations in Europe, Canada and elsewhere; general economic conditions; adverse industry events; future legislative and regulatory developments; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; currency risks; competition; international risks; and other risks beyond the Company's control. The Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law.

Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57581
A professor at the University of California in Los Angeles has been suspended and placed under police protection after he rejected his non-black students' appeals for him to be lenient with his black students.

Gordon Klein, an accounting professor in the Anderson School of Business, where he has been teaching for 39 years, was suspended by the university for three weeks beginning on June 25.

The Malibu Police Department reportedly has an increased police presence outside Klein's home after multiple threats, which were made after a student, Emilia Martinez, posted an email exchange online.

A petition to have Klein removed has gained almost 20,000 signatures.

Gordon Klein, professor of accounting at UCLA's Anderson School of Business, has been suspended for a 'mocking' email denying a request for leniency for black students

The petition seeks Klein's firing as a result of his 'extremely insensitive, dismissive, and woefully racist response to his students' request for empathy and compassion during a time of civil unrest.'

The story began when a group of students, who described themselves as 'non-black allies' of their black peers, wrote to Klein asking for him to effectively cancel the final exams for black students.

They requested a 'no-harm' final exam that could only benefit students' grades, and for shortened exams and extended deadlines for final assignments and projects.

The students wrote that, in light of recent 'traumas, we have been placed in a position where we much choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter'.

They continued: 'We believe that remaining neutral in times of injustice brings power to the oppressor and therefore staying silent is not an option.'

They wrote, according to Inside Higher Education, that theirs was 'not a joint effort to get finals canceled for non-black students, but rather an ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with black students in our major'.

A petition to have Klein fired has gathered almost 20,000 requests. Klein has been suspended

Klein wrote back and declined their request, composing an email that some students felt was mocking them.

'Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota,' he wrote.

'Do you know the names of the classmates that are black? How can I identify them since we've been having online classes only?

'Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?'

Klein asked the students whether any of them - black or otherwise - were from Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by police on May 25, sparking a wave of protests.

'I assume that they probably are especially devastated as well,' he wrote.

'I am thinking that a white student from there might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they're racist even if they are not.

'My TA (teaching assistant) is from Minneapolis, so if you don't know, I can probably ask her.'

Klein asked how he was expected to implement the 'no-harm' exam, given the course was solely graded on the final exam.

And he ended with a quote from Martin Luther King.

'One last thing strikes me: Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the "color of their skin,"' he wrote.

'Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK's admonition? Thanks, G. Klein.'

Protesters gather during a march down Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles on Sunday

In a separate email to his entire class, Klein said that outside events, including personal hardship, do not necessarily relieve students of their responsibilities.

He gave the example of his daughter, who suffered a severe illness and lost close friends to suicide during her time at UCLA, but still completed course work.

'Some students have asked that the final exam be delayed or changed or waived altogether,' he told the class.

'Life deals all of us challenges and I have no doubt that many of you are facing some now.

'In a perfectly fair world, I would be able to take these individual factors into account and perhaps modify the terms in our course syllabus, but my understanding of university rules is that, with rare exceptions, I should not.'

Martinez, who posted the discussion online, was not one of the students who wrote to Klein, but said she was angered when a friend showed her the discussion.

'I believed this information was important to bring to light because as a non-black POC, I believe it is my duty to amplify my black peers' voices,' she told the Washington Free Beacon.

'I felt this was a very unreasonable response to a very valid request, and decided that the professor should be held properly accountable.'

Protesters and police officers meet at a police road barricade on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood on Sunday. An estimated 20,000 people attended the march

Demonstrators on Sunday at Belvedere Park in Los Angeles calling for justice

The dean of Anderson School of Business, Antonio Bernardo, agreed with Martinez.

He sent an email to students on Monday calling Klein's behavior 'troubling'.

He has also reportedly extended the time students have to complete exams given the 'difficult circumstances'.

A spokesperson from the Anderson School of Management told Inside Higher Ed that the email from Klein was 'deeply disturbing'.

'Respect and equality for all are core principles at UCLA Anderson,' the spokesman said.

'It is deeply disturbing to learn of this email, which we are investigating.

'We apologize to the student who received it and to all those who have been as upset and offended by it as we are ourselves.'

Other academics were concerned by UCLA Anderson's actions, and sprung to Klein's defense.

Katlyn Patton, spokeswoman for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) said the First Amendment gave Klein intellectual leeway.

'As a lecturer at a public institution bound by the First Amendment, Klein has significant rights to manage the content and direction of his course,' she said.

'His disagreement with the students' reasoning does not amount to harassment or unlawful discrimination.'

Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, called UCLA's suspension of Klein 'disturbing.'

'Professor Klein is right. Treating students on the basis of equality is morally, ethically, and legally sound,' he said.

'The fact that his complaining student has gotten traction with her complaint is disturbing.'
Pompeo Accuses Former Watchdog of Undermining State Department

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday accused former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick of undermining the mission of the department and of being a bad actor.

Pompeo made the remarks during a press conference on the occasion of the release of the State Departments annual international religious freedom report.

The state secretary said that Linick, who was fired by President Donald Trump, was a bad actor in the inspector general office here, adding that it was his mistake to allow the watchdog to serve in his post as long as he did.

He continued to undermine what it is, the State Departments mission is aimed at achieving, he said.

Pompeo preceded his remarks by saying he hasnt yet reviewed Linicks recent closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill, in which the former watchdog claimed he had been pressured not to investigate arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Linick told House lawmakers last week hes unaware if related investigations into Pompeo are being pursued by his replacement and refuted justifications for his firing, according to a 253-page transcript (pdf) released by House Democrats on Wednesday.

After May 15, I would have no indication one way or the other, Linick said, according to the transcript. All I can say is its ongoing andtheir report is ongoing. Thats the best I can say. I havent been in the office for almost several weeks now, so I dont know the exact status, he said.

Linick told lawmakers during the closed-door session that prior to being fired, he was conducting an administrative review around the use of emergency legal authority to sell billions of dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

We were not judging whether the policy was good or bad. We are nonpartisan. We just look at how policies are carried out and whether they comport with applicable regulations and law, Linick said of the probe.

The former watchdog also said that a senior department official discouraged him from probing the arms sale, claiming that Under Secretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao told him his office shouldnt be doing the work because it was a policy matter not within the IGs jurisdiction.

Linick added that Bulatao didnt block the probe, only that he argued the point that it fell outside the jurisdiction of the inspector general.

The interview with Linick was part of Democratic lawmakers probe into the circumstances around Linicks dismissal. Trump fired Linick last month, with Pompeo saying he recommended that the president fire the watchdog.

While in the interview Linick would not speculate on why he was fired, he said, I can tell you that I dont believe theres any valid reason that would justify my removal.

Democratic lawmakers released a statement Wednesday criticizing the State Department for allegedly withholding information that could help determine whether Linicks ouster aimed to disrupt investigations into Pompeos alleged possible misconduct.

Mr. Linick addressed head-on the shifting justifications that Administration officials have provided to the press for his termination. Mr. Linick refutedon the record, with the understanding that false statements to Congress are punishable under the lawcharges being leveled against him by these officials and their allies in Congress, the lawmakers wrote.

If State Department officials want to refute Mr. Linicks account, they can do so as the Committees have requestedunder the same questioning that Mr. Linick voluntarily faced. With the release of this transcript today, the American people can see that the Administration has much to answer for, they wrote.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 10:44:14|Editor: Lu Hui

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Kuaishou, a Chinese leading short-video and live streaming platform, has announced that it plans to build a data center in the country's northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. This followed a government pledge to develop new infrastructure across the country.

The company will invest about 10 billion yuan (about 1.41 billion U.S. dollars) for the new data center to be built in Ulanqab City, which will mainly focus on big data and artificial intelligence, it said.

The Ulanqab data center will cover an area of about 500 mu (about 33.33 hectares) to hold some 300,000 servers, said Kuaishou, and the launch of the center was expected in 2021.

Inner Mongolia was listed as one of China's big data development zones in 2016, while Ulanqab is home to data centers of technology giants such as Apple and Huawei.

China has pledged fresh efforts to advance the construction of new infrastructure, including next-generation information networks and 5G applications, according to a government work report delivered at the annual national legislative session.

Kuaishou said it also plans to build data centers in other parts of the country to support its technological innovation. Enditem
[June 10, 2020] Mateon Announces Achievement of Milestone Under Licensing of OT-101/IL-2 Combination to Autotelic BIO

The licensing agreement of OT-101 to Autotelic BIO with the field of use limited to OT-101 (Trabedersen) with Interleukin-2 (OT-101/IL-2) combination became effective this week with the completion of its first milestone and milestone payment by Autotelic BIO.

OT-101 and IL-2 demonstrated good synergy against tumor xenograft model as an immune-oncology therapy.

OT-101/IL-2 combination will advance to Phase 1 clinical development. AGOURA HILLS, Calif., June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mateon Therapeutics Inc. (OTCQB:MATN) today announced the fruition of its licensing of OT-101/IL-2 combination to Autotelic BIO based on an agreement entered into between Oncotelic and Autotelic BIO, a South Korean Company, during 2018. OT-101 has received orphan drug designation for glioblastoma, melanoma, and pancreatic cancer. Furthermore, FDA recently granted Rare Pediatric Designation for OT-101 against diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). OT-101 is also effective against coronavirus including COVID-19 and being deployed against the COVID-19 epidemic. OT-101 has demonstrated robust efficacy against pancreatic cancer, glioblastoma, and melanoma during phase 2 clinical trials. The demonstration that OT-101 will synergize with IL-2 further demonstrate its utility as adjunct to other immunotherapies. Interleukin-2 (IL-2, Aldesleukin, PROLEUKIN) Immunotherapy is cancer treatment that stimulates the body's immune system to fight cancer, such as melanoma. In addition to additional milestone payments under said agreement, Mateon also entitled to profit sharing and royalties arising from the commercialization and/or licensing of OT-101/IL-2 by Autotelic BIO, stated Amit Shah, CFO of Mateon Therapeutics. We look forward to continue our collaboration with Autotelic BIO and to make this unique immunotherapy available to patients. About Mateon Therapeutics

Mateon was created by the recent reverse merger with Oncotelic which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mateon Therapeutics Inc. creating an immuno-oncology company dedicated to the development of first in class RNA therapeutics as well as small molecule drugs against cancer. OT-101, the lead immune-oncology drug candidate of Mateon/Oncotelic, is a first-in-class RNA therapeutic targeting TGF beta that exhibited single agent activity in some relapsed/refractory cancer patients in clinical trial settings. The founding team members of Oncotelic were responsible for the development of Abraxane as chemotherapeutic agents for breast, lung, melanoma, and pancreatic cancer. Abraxane was approved in 2005 and has more than $1B in sales annually. The same fonding team was responsible for the development of Cynviloq, a next generation Abraxane, which was acquired by NantPharma for $1.3B. Mateon/Oncotelic will leverage its deep expertise in oncology and RNA therapeutic drug development to improve treatment outcomes and survival of cancer patients. For more information, please visit www.oncotelic.com and www.mateon.com .



About Mateons Lead Product Candidate, OT-101

During phase 2 clinical trials in pancreatic cancer, melanoma, and colorectal cancers (Study P001) and in high-grade gliomas (Study G004), meaningful clinical benefits were observed and OT-101 exhibited a favorable safety profile. These clinical benefits included long term survival and meaningful tumor reduction. Both partial and complete responses have been observed in the G004 Phase 2 clinical trial of OT-101 as a single agent in patients with aggressive brain tumors. The companys self-immunization protocol (SIP) is based on novel and proprietary sequential treatment of cancers with OT-101 (an antisense against TGF-2) and chemotherapies. This sequential treatment strategy is aimed at achieving effective self-immunization against a patients own cancer, resulting in robust therapeutic immune response and consequently better control of the cancer and improved survival. Prolonged states of being cancer-free have been observed in some patients with the most aggressive forms of cancer, raising a renewed hope for a potential cure. The use of OT-101 lifts the suppression of the patients immune cells around the cancer tissue, providing the foundation for an effective initial priming, which is critical for a successful immune response. The subsequent chemotherapy results in the release of neoantigens that result in a robust boost of the immune response. About AutotelicBIO:

Developer of personalized next generation synergy therapies for immuno-oncology, diabetes/ hypertension, diabetes/ hyperlipidemia, pain/ inflammation, geriatric disease. AutotelicBIO has multiple immunology products in its pipeline. OT-101/IL-2 was granted Pharm Navi product by Korean authority. Pharm Navi is fast track approval system at Korean FDA. Phase 1 study will be conducted in Korea. http://www.autotelic.co.kr/html/en/main.php? Mateon's Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this communication regarding strategy, future operations, future financial position, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. Words such as may, expect, anticipate hope, vision, optimism, design, exciting, promising, will, conviction, "estimate," "intend," "believe", quest for a cure of cancer, innovation-driven, paradigm-shift, high scientific merit, impact potential and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements about future plans, the progress, timing, clinical development, scope and success of future clinical trials, the reporting of clinical data for the companys product candidates and the potential use of the companys product candidates to treat various cancer indications. Statements concerning the anticipated completion of the proposed merger, the anticipated success of the PointR technology, or the benefits expected to be gained from the merger are all forward-looking statements. Each of these forward-looking statements involves risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Many factors may cause differences between current expectations and actual results, including unexpected safety or efficacy data observed during preclinical or clinical studies, clinical trial site activation or enrollment rates that are lower than expected, changes in expected or existing competition, changes in the regulatory environment, failure of collaborators to support or advance collaborations or product candidates and unexpected litigation or other disputes. These risks are not exhaustive, the company faces known and unknown risks, including the risk factors described in the companys annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on April 10, 2019 and in the companys other periodic filings. Forward-looking statements are based on expectations and assumptions as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, the company does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in expectations, whether as a result of new information future events, or otherwise. Contact Information: For Mateon Therapeutics, Inc.:

Amit Shah

Email: [email protected]

Source: Mateon Therapeutics

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2.1 of 5 billion dollars coud be paid immediately, and the rest will be redistributed in four stages and paid gradually

Open source

The Executory Board of the International Monetary Fund has approved the 18-month-long stand-by funding programme for Ukraine. The Ukrainian government will, thus, get the access to 3.6 billion SDR (about five billion dollars), the Fund's press office says.

"The new program aims to help Ukraine to cope with COVID-19 pandemic challenges by providing balance of payments and budget support, while safeguarding achievements to date and advancing a small set of key structural reforms, to ensure that Ukraine is well-poised to return to growth when the crisis ends", reads the message.

The new deal replaces the SBA programme, that was approved in December 2018; it was supposed to support the Ukrainian economy due to the presidential and parliamentary elections in this country.

"Policies under the new arrangement will focus on four priorities: (i) mitigating the economic impact of the crisis, including by supporting households and businesses; (ii) ensuring continued central bank independence and a flexible exchange rate; (iii) safeguarding financial stability while recovering the costs from bank resolutions; and (iv) moving forward with key governance and anti-corruption measures to preserve and deepen recent gains", the IMF press office specified.

2.1 of 5 billion dollars coud be paid immediately, and the rest will be redistributed in four stages and paid gradually.
Company requests rescue efforts for sunken Cozumel pirate ship

Cozumel, Q.R.  The company of a recently sunken pirate ship is asking for help in its rescue. The Cozumel pirate ship sunk June 7 after it lost a battle with the heavy rains and strong winds felt by the passing bands of tropical depression Cristobal.

Crew of El Olones, a replica of a Spanish galleon that was used to give tours along the coasts of the Isla de las Golondrinas, is asking for help to retrieve the sunken ship, which they report, is resting in 35 feet of water. The ship, which caters to tourists, employs approximately 25 people. They say that their insurance does not cover the damage due to weather conditions.

Approximately 25 people rely on the ship for employment

Unfortunately, the insurance that the ship had covered only people on board and damages to third parties. No damage to the boat due to weather conditions, as is the case, they explained on social media.

Ship owner Don Luis Perez indicated that the ship can be recovered, which is why a campaign has been created on Gogetfunding. The company has asked the community for its support explaining several days of weather from the passing storm Cristobal and questionable pumps for the excess water, she took her last breath about 4 am and is now resting in 35 ft of water with her masks still held high.

Additional information for anyone wanting to help with rescue efforts can be obtained for Pirate Ship Cozumel via Luis Samuel Perez Carmona  Cell: 9871035772 or office: 9878721449.
After destroying crops in Rajasthan, a large swarm of locusts has now reached Uttar Pradesh's Jhansi district. Image Source: PK

Hyderabad, June 10 : The Telangana government, here on Wednesday, sounded a high alert in the districts bordering Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh over possible locust attack.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao asked officials in eight districts to be on high alert and take measures to protect the state from locusts.

The locust swarm may enter Bhadrachalam, Charla, Venkatapuram, Vajedu, Peruru, Mangampet, Eturu Naagaram, Chennuru, Vemanapalli, Koutala, Dharmabad, Bodhan, Jukkal, Banswada, Narayankhed and Zaheerabad areas.

The Collectors of Bhadradri-Kothagudem, Mulugu, Mancherial, Adilabad, Nirmal, Asifabad, Nizamabad, Kamareddy and Sangareddy districts have been asked to regularly review the situation and act accordingly.

Locusts have entered the country in three phases. Last month a swarm of locusts came up to Maharashtra and MP but didn't enter Telangana.

"Locusts are now at Azmi village near Ramtek in Maharashtra, around 200 km from Telangana," said a statement from the Chief Minister's Office. If the swarm moved southwards, it would reach Telangana in no time, it added.

At a meeting, KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, reviewed the latest information on the location and movement of locusts.

According to experts, locusts may hit the state between June 20 to July 5. "If locusts attack, there will be huge loss as they would eat away the monsoon tender crop," said an expert.

KCR has set up a special team, led by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, to oversee the measures taken to prevent locusts from entering the state.

Principal Secretary (Agriculture) Janardhan Reddy, Agriculture University Vice-Chancellor Praveen Rao, CIPMC Plant Protection Officer R Sunitha, Agriculture University senior scientist Rahman and others will tour Adilabad for two days and review the situation with the District Collectors.
State health officials announced that another 46 Massachusetts residents have died from coronavirus, bringing the statewide death toll to 7,454.

Officials also confirmed another 267 cases of COVID-19, which includes 64 probable cases. Thats based on 10,034 molecular tests and 896 antibody tests reported on Wednesday.

There are now at least 104,156 cases of coronavirus in Massachusetts, 3,998 of which are probable cases, according to the Department of Public Health.

Of the 100,158 confirmed cases reported on Wednesday, 84,621 have been released from isolation. As of Wednesday, there are 65,728 residents subject to isolation.

Probable cases consist of individuals who have not been tested by the standard viral test but have either had a positive antibody test and either had COVID-19 symptoms or were likely to be exposed to a positive case. They also include individuals who did not have an antibody test but had COVID symptoms and were known to be exposed to a positive case.

The latest figures come as Phase 2 of the states plan to reopen the economy began on Monday, as officials say theyve continued to see a decline in the virus. The average positive test rate is now hovering at around 4.9%, according to Gov. Charlie Baker, which he described as a very significant reduction  down by roughly 60% over the past 30 days.

Each phase of the plan is expected to last at least three weeks. If theres a spike in COVID-19 cases, officials may revert to previous phases.

Restaurants and retailers across the state have been opening their doors this week. In Boston, officials say theyve received roughly 500 requests from restaurant establishments for outdoor seating space, and have already partially or fully approved applications from more than 200 businesses looking to begin serving customers outside.

Bars will not reopen until Phase 4 after initially planning to have them reopen during Phase 3, Baker said Tuesday.

The big issue with respect to bars is coming up with a model that we actually believe can be done safely, Baker said during a news briefing at the New Balance factory in Lawrence. As weve seen in a number of other places around the country that have moved forward very aggressively, theyve started to see a pretty significant rise in new cases, and were going to work very hard to make sure that doesnt happen in Massachusetts.

The public health data will continue to be the driving force behind how quickly the state and the economy can return to business as usual, but with new precautions, officials have said.

Coronavirus in Mass.: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Here are the cases listed by county:

Barnstable County: 1,467

Berkshire County: 574

Bristol County: 7,754

Dukes County: 42

Essex County: 15,365

Franklin County: 344

Hampden County: 6,395

Hampshire County: 905

Middlesex County: 22,889

Nantucket County: 13

Norfolk County: 8,774

Plymouth County: 8,418

Suffolk County: 19,099

Worcester County: 11,820

Unknown location: 297

Related Content:
Face masks and outdoor air may have helped reduce the spread of COVID-19 during large anti-racism protests in the US.

It has been 16 days since the killing of George Floyd  an unarmed Black man who was pinned to the ground by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The officer, who has since been fired and charged for murder, knelt on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes, as Floyd pleaded I cant breathe.

Since then, tens of thousands of people across the United States and abroad have taken to the streets demanding justice for Floyd and an end to systemic racism. Some of the largest US demonstrations, with more than 10,000 people, occurred in the nations capital, Washington, DC. There, protesters waved placards with the words No justice! No peace!, I cant breathe and Black lives matter.

With such large crowds, by now, you could possibly expect to see an increase in the number of registered coronavirus infections  but that has not been the case so far.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), COVID-19 symptoms may appear two to 14 days after exposure to the virus.

What the data shows (so far)

To see whether or not there is any visible relationship between protests and coronavirus cases, we looked at the number of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases provided by Johns Hopkins University and compared it with a list of cities where large protests are known to have taken place. In such an analysis, the best we can do is point out whether there is a correlation between the two data sets. This is very different from proving cause and effect  especially given the multitude of factors that contribute to the spread of the virus.

The US is a very large country, both in population and geography. Across the country, the average number of daily confirmed cases has gradually been on the decline. Averages can, however, be misleading. According to data compiled by the New York Times, more than a third of the USs 50 states are still seeing an increase in daily infections. Different cities are at very different stages in the fight against the pandemic, yet all 50 states have now taken steps to reopen following weeks of coronavirus restrictions.

While there were hundreds of cities across the country that witnessed protests, thousands more did not. To account for this, we looked at the numbers from a few key locations where large protests are known to have taken place.

Hennepin County, Minnesota (Minneapolis)

Minneapolis is located in Hennepin County. The Midwestern county currently has 9,567 confirmed coronavirus cases. The city has seen sustained protests since May 26, the day after Floyd was killed. Over the past 15 days, new coronavirus cases have decreased compared to the 15 days prior.

Daily confirmed cases (May 10  May 24): 3,360

Daily confirmed cases (May 26  June 9): 2,146

Minnesota stay-at-home order: Started March 27, ended May 4.

Washington, DC

The US capital has recorded 9,474 confirmed coronavirus cases since March. Demonstrators have amassed near the White House for 13 consecutive days with more protests expected this week. DC, too, has seen a decrease in COVID-19 cases over the past 15 days.

Daily confirmed cases (May 10  May 24): 1,838

Daily confirmed cases (May 26  June 9): 1,140

DC stay-at-home order: Started April 1, ended May 29.

New York City, New York

New York City is the USs most populated city. It also has been one of those that have been hit the hardest by the pandemic. The East Coast city has recorded 207,993 cases of COVID-19 this year. On Sunday, Mayor Bill de Blasio lifted the city-wide night curfew that he ordered a week earlier to prevent looting and other violence triggered by Floyds killing. New confirmed cases dropped by more than 5,000 cases over the past 15 days.

Daily confirmed cases (May 10  May 24): 13,706

Daily confirmed cases (May 26  June 9): 8,392

New York stay-at-home order: Started March 22, onging.

Cook County, Illinois (Chicago)

Cook County is home to Chicago, the countrys third most populous city. With 83,271 reported coronavirus cases, the county has one of the highest figures in the US. On June 7, Chicagos mayor lifted the citys 9pm curfew, which was put in place on June 1 as protests began to sweep the country. Confirmed cases, meanwhile, have dropped sharply from 19,355 cases (May 10  May 24) to 8,392 (May 26  June 9).

Daily confirmed cases (May 10  May 24): 19,355

Daily confirmed cases (May 26  June 9): 8,392

Illinois stay-at-home order: Started March 12, ended May 30.

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the USs second most populated city. Los Angeles County  where the city resides  has registered a total of 65,945 confirmed cases since March. New coronavirus cases have increased over the past few weeks which experts have attributed to a slower shutdown and crowded living conditions, among other factors.

Daily confirmed cases (May 11  May 24): 13,314

Daily confirmed cases (May 26  June 9): 18,100

California stay-at-home order: Started March 19, ongoing.

Data for rest of the country (irrespective of where protests occurred) shows that out of the USs 3,141 counties, 1,421 saw an increase, 1,198 a decrease and 522 had the same number of reported coronavirus cases since Memorial Day on May 25 compared to the 15 days before.

Face masks and reduced risk of transmission outdoors

Anthony Fauci, the USs top infectious disease expert, told Washington, DC radio station WTOP that the reasons for demonstrating are valid, yet the demonstration itself puts one at an additional risk.

He advised protesters who plan on going out to wear a mask and keep it on at all times.

Photos from the demonstrations showed many young people, of various races, wearing face masks while protesting (though masks were not worn by all). The CDC recommends that everyone wear cloth face coverings when leaving their homes, regardless of whether they exhibit any COVID-19 symptoms. The cloth face covering is not a substitute for physical distancing  which the CDC recommends to be at least two metres (six feet).

The evidence suggests that although still significant, the risk of transmission of the virus in open spaces is much less than in indoor areas, said Amir Khan, a doctor and senior lecturer at the University of Leeds and the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.

Khan added that fresh air dilutes the virus to a degree that transmission is much less. Furthermore, there is also some evidence, albeit small, that direct exposure to sunlight kills the virus quickly.

Protesters march in Minneapolis while decrying the killing of George Floyd [Stephen Maturen/Getty Images]

If you have not been tested, you are not counted

Maia Lesosky, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Cape Town, told Al Jazeera that about 95 percent of people who experience symptoms get them within 14 days of infection, but in order see an increase in cases, we also need to account for the delay in getting tested and reported. Furthermore, she notes, being outdoors certainly reduces the risk of transmission, by 20- to 500-fold according to some estimates.

One of the stealthiest characteristics of the coronavirus is that it can be spread with little to no symptoms. This means that the number of people who are actually infected is probably much higher than the number of official confirmed cases.

Elaborating further, Lesosky said, in contrast, the crowding that often happens during mass marches, and especially the responses by the police including the use of tear gas, pepper spray [respiratory irritants] and the arrest and incarceration of large numbers of people are very likely to increase transmission.

Across the world, health officials will be closely monitoring the figures where large protests have taken place.

In many countries, authorities have banned demonstrations due to health concerns, but protesters showed up nonetheless.
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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 31

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 25 times, Trend reports on May 31 referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

The Armenian armed forces were using sniper rifles.

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, 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 the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
The HBO Max streaming service has temporarily removed Gone with the Wind from its platform after the screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave called for its removal in a Monday op-ed.

While it is not clear if the op-ed was a driving factor in the decision, screenwriter John Ridley wrote in the Los Angeles Times the HBO should consider removing Gone with the Wind temporarily because of the massive George Floyd demonstrations occurring across the U.S. The 2013 film 12 Years a Slave was adapted by Ridley from the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup, a free-born African American who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana.

Gone with the Wind, long considered an American classic, has drawn controversy over its portrayal of African Americans in the antebellum South. The film depicts a far rosier view of slavery and its aftermath than is historically accurate.

In 1939, actress Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in the film.

Gone With The Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society, an HBO spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter. When we return the film to HBO Max, it will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.

In his op-ed, Ridley wrote I dont think Gone With the Wind should be relegated to a vault in Burbank. I would just ask, after a respectful amount of time has passed, that the film be re-introduced to the HBO Max platform along with other films that give a more broad-based and complete picture of what slavery and the Confederacy truly were.

More from National Review
Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate

June 9, 2020

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

I am providing this supplemental consolidated report, prepared by my Administration and consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148), as part of my efforts to keep the Congress informed about deployments of United States Armed Forces equipped for combat.

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN SUPPORT OF UNITED STATES COUNTERTERRORISM EFFORTS

In furtherance of counterterrorism efforts, the United States continues to work with partners around the globe, with a particular focus on the United States Central and Africa Commands' areas of responsibility. In this context, the United States has deployed forces to conduct counterterrorism operations and to advise, assist, and accompany security forces of select foreign partners on counterterrorism operations. In the majority of these locations, the mission of United States military personnel is to facilitate counterterrorism operations of foreign partner forces and does not include routine engagement in combat. In many of these locations, the security environment is such that United States military personnel may be required to defend themselves against sporadic terrorist threats or attacks, and deploy United States military personnel with weapons and other appropriate equipment for their force protection. Specific information about counterterrorism deployments to select countries is provided below, and a classified annex to this report provides further information.

Military Operations against al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, and Associated Forces and in Support of Related United States Counterterrorism Objectives

Since October 7, 2001, United States Armed Forces, including Special Operations Forces, have conducted counterterrorism combat operations against al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, and associated forces. Since August 2014, these operations have targeted the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which was formerly known as al-Qa'ida in Iraq. In support of these and other overseas operations, the United States has deployed combatequipped forces to several locations in the United States Central, European, Africa, Southern, and Indo-Pacific Commands' areas of responsibility. Such operations and deployments have been reported previously, consistent with Public Law 107-40, Public Law 107-243, the War Powers Resolution, and other statutes. These ongoing operations, which the United States has carried out with the assistance of numerous international partners, have been successful in seriously degrading ISIS capabilities in Syria and Iraq. If necessary, in response to terrorist threats, I will direct additional measures to protect the people and interests of the United States. It is not possible to know at this time the precise scope or the duration of the deployments of United States Armed Forces that are or will be necessary to counter terrorist threats to the United States.

Afghanistan. United States Armed Forces remain in Afghanistan for the purposes of stopping the reemergence of safe havens that enable terrorists to threaten the United States, and supporting the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field. In February, the United States took significant steps towards achieving peace in Afghanistan by reaching an agreement with the Taliban that was coordinated with Afghanistan's National Unity Government, and by releasing a joint declaration with the Government of Afghanistan. These commitments represent an important step to a lasting peace in a new Afghanistan and create a path forward to end the war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, United States forces remain committed to our longstanding security relationship with the Government of Afghanistan and are training, advising, and assisting Afghan forces; conducting and supporting counterterrorism operations against al-Qa'ida and against ISIS; and taking appropriate measures against those who provide direct support to al-Qa'ida, threaten United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan, or threaten the viability of the Afghan government or the ability of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces to achieve campaign success. The United States remains in an armed conflict in Afghanistan and against the Taliban, and active hostilities remain ongoing.

Iraq and Syria. As part of a comprehensive strategy to defeat ISIS, United States Armed Forces are conducting a systematic campaign of airstrikes and other necessary operations against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria and against al-Qa'ida in Syria. A small presence of United States Armed Forces remains in strategically significant locations in Syria to conduct operations and secure critical petroleum infrastructure, in partnership with indigenous ground forces, against continuing terrorist threats emanating from Syria. United States Armed Forces in Iraq continue to advise, coordinate with, and provide support to select elements of the Iraqi security forces, including Iraqi Kurdish security forces. Support to Iraqi security forces includes training, equipment, communications support, and intelligence support. United States Armed Forces also provide limited support to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mission in Iraq. Actions in Iraq are being undertaken in coordination with the Government of Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and in conjunction with coalition partners.

As reported in January, I directed a strike in Iraq targeting Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, in response to an escalating series of attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed militias on United States forces and interests in the Middle East region. I directed this action to protect United States personnel, to deter Iran from conducting or supporting further attacks against United States forces and interests, to degrade Iran's and Qods Force-backed militias' ability to conduct attacks, and to end Iran's strategic escalation of attacks on and threats to United States interests.

Arabian Peninsula Region. A small number of United States military personnel are deployed to Yemen to conduct operations against al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS. The United States military continues to work closely with the Republic of Yemen Government (ROYG) and regional partner forces to degrade the terrorist threat posed by those groups.

United States Armed Forces, in a non-combat role, have also continued to provide military advice and limited information, logistics, and other support to regional forces combatting the Houthis in Yemen. Such support does not involve United States Armed Forces in hostilities with the Houthis for the purposes of the War Powers Resolution.

United States Armed Forces are deployed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to protect United States forces and interests in the region against hostile action by Iran or supporting groups. These forces, operating in coordination with the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, provide air and missile defense capabilities and support the operation of United States fighter aircraft. The total number of United States forces in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is approximately 3,600.

Jordan. At the request of the Government of Jordan, approximately 3,145 United States military personnel are deployed to Jordan to support Defeat-ISIS operations, to enhance Jordan's security, and to promote regional stability.

Lebanon. At the request of the Government of Lebanon, approximately 40 United States military personnel are deployed to Lebanon to enhance the government's counterterrorism capabilities and to support the counterterrorism operations of Lebanese security forces.

Turkey. United States Armed Forces remain deployed to Turkey, at the Turkish government's request, to support Defeat-ISIS operations and to enhance Turkey's security.

East Africa Region. In Somalia, United States Armed Forces continue to counter the terrorist threat posed by ISIS and

al-Shabaab, an associated force of al-Qa'ida. Since the last periodic report, United States forces have conducted a number of airstrikes against al-Shabaab, and remain prepared to conduct airstrikes against ISIS terrorists. United States military personnel also advise, assist, and accompany regional forces, including Somali and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces, during counterterrorism operations. United States Armed Forces are deployed to Kenya to support counterterrorism operations in East Africa. Following the January 2020 attack on United States Armed Forces and interests in Manda Bay, Kenya, additional United States Armed Forces personnel and equipment were deployed to Kenya to increase force protection measures. United States military personnel continue to partner with the Government of Djibouti, which has permitted use of Djiboutian territory for basing of United States Armed Forces. United States military personnel remain deployed to Djibouti, including for purposes of staging for counterterrorism and counter-piracy operations in the vicinity of the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and to provide contingency support for embassy security augmentation in East Africa, as required.

Lake Chad Basin and Sahel Region. United States military personnel in the Lake Chad Basin and Sahel Region continue to conduct airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations and to provide support to African and European partners conducting counterterrorism operations in the region, including by advising, assisting, and accompanying these partner forces. Approximately 760 United States military personnel remain deployed to Niger.

Cuba. United States Armed Forces continue to conduct humane and secure detention operations for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under the authority provided by the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40), as informed by the law of war. There are 40 such detainees as of the date of this report.

Philippines. United States Armed Forces deployed to the Philippines are providing support to the counterterrorism operations of the armed forces of the Philippines.

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN EGYPT

Approximately 460 United States military personnel are assigned to or supporting the United States contingent of the Multinational Force and Observers, which have been present in Egypt since 1981.

UNITED STATES AND NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION OPERATIONS IN KOSOVO

The United States continues to contribute forces to the Kosovo Force (KFOR), led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in cooperation with local authorities, bilateral partners, and international institutions, to deter renewed hostilities in Kosovo. Approximately 640 United States military personnel are among KFOR's approximately 4,000 personnel.

I have directed the participation of United States Armed Forces in all of the above-described operations pursuant to my constitutional and statutory authority as Commander in Chief and as Chief Executive (including the authority to carry out Public Law 107-40, Public Law 107-243, and other statutes), as well as my constitutional and statutory authority to conduct the foreign relations of the United States. Officials of my Administration and I communicate regularly with congressional leadership and other Members of Congress with regard to these deployments, and we will continue to do so.

Sincerely,

DONALD J. TRUMP

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(TNS)  As the Boston City Council readies to vote on an ordinance banning the governmental use of facial recognition technology , activists and politicians Tuesday described the dire need to restrict the software, particularly in light of nationwide protests against racial injustice sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.Concerns about the technology are aplenty. Activists, public officials and even some in law enforcement have noted the software is inaccurate, especially in identifying people of color, is already abused by totalitarian governments and may violate the publics civil liberties and basic privacies.At a press conference Tuesday ahead of a 3 p.m. Boston City Council hearing in which young residents were slated to speak about the dangers of facial recognition, speakers talked about the harm the technology poses to minorities, immigrants, students and other groups.As protests over police violence and systemic racism continue to shake the concrete here in Boston and across the country, the conversation were having today about face surveillance is all the more urgent, said Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, adding that citizens stand at a crucial moment in the nations history.The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts started a campaign last summer called Press Pause Face Surveillance with the hope of making citizens more aware of the worries posed by face surveillance and the need to pass a statewide moratorium.A major concern about the technology is the fact that it remains largely unregulated at both the state and national levels. The ACLU has turned its attention to passing municipal bans on the software due to the lack of legislation governing law enforcements use of the technology on a wider scale.The statewide moratorium is currently in the Massachusetts State Houses Joint Committee on the Judiciary, where the bill has received an extension until the end of the committees session, according to Crockford.Although multiple public officials and technology experts testified against the use of the software in October and a strong majority of Massachusetts adults said in a 2019 poll they support a statewide moratorium, the bill may not make headway through the state legislature until July 31 or later, according to Crockford.We view these municipal efforts as crucial measures to, frankly, put pressure on the legislature, Crockford told MassLive on Tuesday. If the state legislature is not going to act, we have no choice but to work with municipal governments to protect our people, and thats what were doing.So far, five communities in Massachusetts have passed either outright bans or temporary moratoriums on the municipal use of facial recognition. Those towns and cities include Brookline Somerville and, most recently, Springfield Easthampton may also be poised to passed its own municipal ban following talks between officials in the communitys government and the ACLU of Massachusetts, according to Easthampton City Councilor Peg Conniff.Now the campaign turns its attention to Boston, the regions largest and most economically and politically important city, said Crockford, noting that the community could be the largest city east of San Francisco to ban what she called a dangerous, racially biased, dystopian technology.The California city was the first community in the country to ban the municipal use of facial recognition software.Michelle Wu and Ricardo Arroyo, both city councilors in Boston, introduced their communitys ban on the governments use of the technology in May, arguing the software is plagued by transparency and racial bias issues.The ACLU of Massachusetts told the public last month that passing an ordinance restricting the technology is especially crucial in Boston, where the citys contract with BriefCam, a company that runs the communitys surveillance camera network, was expected to expire on May 14.The version of the network did not include facial recognition features, but if officials chose to renew the contract, the city would have been due for a super-charge update that could have included instant access to the surveillance tool, the ACLU said.Wu told reporters at Tuesdays press conference that she spoke with officials from the Boston Police Department and that, from her understanding, the update has not yet been incorporated.I dont have 100% confirmation, but my understanding is, especially given this proposal was filed before that happened, that that has not been added, the city councilor said. But Ill make sure to ask that at the hearing today.She added that Boston police have already agreed facial recognition surveillance is not appropriate for use. The agency claimed not to use it, the city councilor said.However, we know that the technology that they are already in contract with, the system that they have in place does have available a software upgrade that could add face surveillance to their current system without any public process, Wu said. We need to make sure that were codifying the protections against discrimination and protections of basic rights.Throughout Tuesdays press conference, officials noted the racism engrained in the software and how the technology easily misidentifies people of color as well as transgender individuals.Particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, a public health crisis that has disproportionately affected communities of color, it is important not to invest in technology that researchers have proven to be ineffective and that furthers racial inequity, Arroyo said in early May.The city councilor told reporters on Tuesday that prior to serving on the Boston City Council, he was a public defender for the Massachusetts courts, where misidentification was commonly seen. Such inaccuracies are not new, he said.The inaccuracy of cross-racial identification, for instance, has been well litigated, Arroyo said. When we talk about facial recognition surveillance, its really important to understand that facial recognition tech. serves to further racial inequity.Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Joy Buolamwini, who is expected to speak before the Boston City Council later Tuesday afternoon, discovered shocking and persistent racial bias problems in facial recognition algorithms, Crockford said.Arroyo noted that Buolamwini, the creator of MITs Algorithmic Justice League, found in her research that black women were 35% more likely than white men to be misclassified by face surveillance.A December 2019 federal government study also confirmed racial bias remains a major issue for the technology, Crockford said, noting that the software does not impact everyone equally.But the technology is equally dangerous when it works exactly as advertised, Crockford said. "In a free society, we should not be subject to constant government tracking and cataloguing of our every movement, habit and association. For at its logical conclusion, that is exactly the threat face surveillance poses to our individual freedoms and collective freedom.As Boston city councilors look to potentially ban facial recognition technology, they are also seeking information about the military equipment the citys police department has previously applied and currently uses.Last week, Wu filed an order requesting a comprehensive inventory of all the Boston Police Departments assets. She called the request part of an effort to demilitarize the law enforcement agency.Boston Mayor Marty Walsh also stated over the weekend he will look at potentially reallocating parts of the police departments budget to training or community involvement.How weve been funding and operating our public safety infrastructure is not safe for so many residents. Our criminal justice system is not just for black and brown residents in our city and around the country," Wu said. In this time of national trauma, we must act with urgency to protect communities and ensure accountability. That begins most concretely and most immediately at the local level.
The attack is suspected to be a result of a factional feud within the ruling TMC, police sources said.

A local leader of the ruling Trinamool Congress was shot dead by unidentified persons in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal on Wednesday, police said.

The incident happened when 56-year-old Amir Ali Khan was out for morning walk in Basanti area of the district, a police officer said. Three others were also injured when the assailants hurled crude bombs while escaping from the scene, he said.

The attack is suspected to be a result of a factional feud within the ruling TMC, police sources said.

Trouble has been brewing over the TMC's youth wing and the main party vying to control the area, they said.

After the incident, several locals ransacked the house of a youth TMC leader. Police has recovered several crude bombs from the ransacked house, the sources said.

The local TMC leadership has denied any involvement in the incident and dismissed allegations of a factional feud, squarely blaming the opposition parties for the attack.
Photo: Times Colonist Jordan and Athena, rescued bear cubs shown at about five months old in 2015, were successfully released into the wild. Conservation officer Bryce Casavant was ordered to shoot the two eight-week-old cubs on the assumption they were conditioned to human garbage and not candidates for rehabilitation.

A former conservation officer who was fired for refusing to kill two bear cubs near Port Hardy in 2015 is feeling vindicated by a court decision that determined he was improperly terminated.

A guy can walk a little taller today, Bryce Casavant said by phone from his home in Port Alberni.

In her June 4 decision, Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon wrote that Casavants challenge to his termination as a conservation officer set in motion an ill-considered series of proceedings under the Labour Relations Code. Fenlon determined that the labour board did not have authority to address the matter, because Casavants dismissal should have been addressed under the Police Act.

Conservation officers in B.C. have status as special provincial constables under the Police Act.

The appellants dismissal related to the performance of his constabulary duties and was governed by the Police Act  The proceedings before the Board should be declared a nullity, Fenlon wrote in her decision.

Fenlon stopped short of ruling that Casavant should be reinstated in his position, but said she would leave the parties to sort out the consequences of her decision.

Casavant made international headlines in 2015 when he refused an emailed order from a superior to kill two bear cubs whose mother he euthanized after she entered a home in the Port Hardy area through an open door.

He took the cubs to a veterinarian, who assessed them and transferred the animals to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre. They were released into the wild in the summer of 2016.

Casavant said Saturday he was required to kill the sow because it had entered a residence. But he maintains he had discretion as to whether to kill or spare the cubs, because there was no evidence they had been in the home or become habituated to garbage.

That kill order is requiring me to discharge my service weapon. You know, theres a whole host of issues with that. So, I didnt kill them, said Casavant, who became a conservation officer in 2013 after leaving a military career.

His decision to spare the cubs led to his dismissal from the Conservation Officer Service and a settlement agreement that saw him transferred to a position in the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development at equal pay.

It also sparked a five-year fight by Casavant in the courts that ended Thursday.

Casavant said he refused to give up because he wanted to hold the government accountable.

For many years, both the union and the government were told that this was an unlawful and incorrect process. And they chose to do it anyways. What I can say is had they followed the correct process, I never would have been removed from my post, he said.

Casavant said he also wanted to set the record straight on a personal level.

I had senior-level bureaucrats misleading decision makers, developing records after the fact, making stories up, and saying false, misleading and inaccurate information about me.

In a letter outlining the reasons for his dismissal, the Ministry of Environment said Casavant had demonstrated an unsuitability to work as a conservation officer, listing two instances in addition to the bear-cub incident when he had refused to follow directions.

It is clear that you will continue to [not] follow instructions and policies in your capacity as a conservation officer if you disagree with them. You confirmed this in your interview with us, when you said that in the future, with the same information you would make the same decision and take the same action regarding the bear situation, the ministry wrote in an August 25, 2015, letter included in the Court of Appeal decision.

Casavant said both additional allegations were false and misrepresented him. In one instance, the ministry said he conducted an unknown risk vehicle check on his own, which he was not authorized to do, but Casavant said he was assisted by a colleague with 20 years of experience

A Ministry of Environment spokesman said the ministry would not be commenting on the decision. The ministry was represented as a respondent in the case by the B.C. Public Service Agency.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General said in an email: We will be carefully reviewing the decision and will not be commenting any further in the meantime.

The B.C. Government and Service Employees Union, also named as a respondent, said in a statement that it will review the decision and will be looking to clarify with the government what their intentions are in the case.
The Afghan government has released a total of 3,000 Taliban prisoners as a part of an agreement signed between the US and the terrorist group, the National Security Council (NSC) said on Tuesday. The Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan released 3,000 Taliban prisoners as part of its commitment to advancing peace efforts. Further releases will continue in tandem with reduction in violence and progress toward direct negotiations with the government, NSC spokesperson Javid Faisal said in a tweet.

According to the NSC statement, 1,000 of them were released prior to the Eid ul-Fitr holiday on May 23-24, while the list of the other 2,000 was completed on Monday. They were released from the detention centre in Parwan province as well as the Pul-e-Charkhi prison and other penitentiary facilities.

On February 29, the United States and the Taliban signed a peace deal in the Qatari capital of Doha, stipulating the beginning of intra-Afghan negotiations as well as prisoner exchanges.

Initially, the Taliban and the Kabul government did not show much inclination to negotiate with each other. However, the prisoner exchanges that have been taking place over the last few months, as well as the recent Eid ul-Fitr ceasefire, demonstrating some potential for a breakthrough in the Afghan peace process.

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The Stratford Festival has started a very public conversation that could change Canadian theatre forever.

Last weekend, on June 6, it issued a statement that was unprecedented in admitting its complicity in unjust systems and upholding white supremacy as protests against anti-Black racism raged around the world.

The festival acknowledged its own systemic racism in solidarity with those demonstrating for justice in the wake of George Floyds death while under arrest by Minneapolis police.

The festival then handed its social media channels for 72 hours to a group of Black artists and artisans, including a YouTube town hall-style discussion called Black Like Me, past present and future: Behind the Stratford Festival Curtain. Within three days, it had been viewed more than 17,800 times.

On Twitter, the hashtag #inthedressingroom became a meeting place for Black artists to reveal their experiences of racism throughout Canadas theatre industry: in casting and rehearsals; with administration and in marketing meetings; in media interviews, with audience members and white cast mates; in theatre training, and in ill-equipped makeup and hair departments.

Vanessa Sears, a Dora and Toronto Theatre Critics Award-winning actor, tweeted about being told I shouldnt have my role because I was Black, by a reporter, minutes before a 7 a.m. live television interview. Had to promote the show, perform, and then go backstage for a cry.

Ojibway actor Dillan Chiblow tweeted that after a performance of the musical Children of God, which is about residential schools and features a mostly Indigenous cast, an audience member remarked that the cast members were good enough to be in real musicals.

Actor Micah Woods wrote, Not exactly #inthedressingroom but a teacher from my acting program told me in front of my entire class that he wasnt listening to my sonnet because he was distracted by how dark I was.

Dora-winning performer Peter Fernandes wrote, AD (artistic director) once said to me what your community doesnt want to admit is that you dont have the numbers of the talent to fulfil what youre asking for  actors of color are getting opportunities they dont deserve then told me to read Baldwin.

It goes on.

The Stratford social media takeover also pointed toward specific practices that are harmful to actors of colour, in particular the as cast contract that allows directors to place actors in smaller roles during a rehearsal process rather than stating roles at the point of hiring. Actor E.B. Smith, who has worked at Stratford for 10 years, tweeted that this policy, held by major Canadian theatres like the Stratford and Shaw festivals, amounts to the forfeiture of all agency for actors who seek to work for them.

Smith wrote of his acute discomfort with an as cast contract requiring him, as the only other Black male cast member, to play a character who attempts to kill Othello, who is Black, for marrying Desdemona, who is white, in Chris Abrahams production of Shakespeares play in 2013.

In a joint interview with Abraham, Smith said that during that production, because I was on an as cast contract and because I was early in my career, I didnt feel empowered to put my foot down, so I raised my objection to that particular piece of business and I was unsuccessful in making a case for that changing. What that caused was a situation where I had to execute that role for the next several months, and in fact executing a moment that felt disingenuous and not appropriate.

In response, Abraham said, I deeply regret and feel very sorry for that, and the legacy of that with E.B.

Stereotypical or constrictive casting practices at Stratford affected other actors, like award-winning Andre Sills, who left the company after years of being cast, in his words, as scenery. He only returned to play the title role in Stratfords Coriolanus two seasons ago.

There needs to be policies and procedures in place that make it very clear to actors that there are no consequences to not being able to proceed with a bit of business. A lot of the power to change this lies in the hands of institutions, but also in the hands of directors, Abraham said.

On June 9, using the hashtag #CastingByConsent, Smith tweeted that progress is already being made around as cast contracts, reporting that he was having great talks with Stratford artistic director Antoni Cimolino and Abraham about abolishing the policy with the goal that no actor in Canada will ever have to agree to sign such a contract.

Feeling the need to keep their points of view to themselves in order to make a place for themselves in Canadian theatre was a shared experience among the Black Like Us participants.

Ive been hard to work with; Ive been fired for having a voice, said Allan Louis, an acclaimed television and stage performer who was to have made his Stratford debut this season in Much Ado About Nothing, Wolf Hall and Hamlet.

That also explains why the participants and other Black artists  either on social media or in interviews  have described this moment as feeling different: their voices are being prioritized and listened to.

Smith, who is a board member of the Grand Theatre in London, Ont., as well as a Stratford actor, raised concerns about the sincerity of arts organizations attempts to consult with Black and other minority artists and artisans: Gaslighting happens, or at least the perception of it, which is just as bad, said Smith. Black people are brought in to give their experience and state their case, and then white folks determine what to do.

While expressing gratitude that the Stratford Festival enabled the current conversation around racism and marginalization, Smith said in an interview he was frustrated about having served on Stratford committees on diversity and inclusion that then led to decisions made behind closed doors, and policies that were never quite what we discussed.

These diversity conversations about representation and inclusion cannot happen in the shadows, said Smith. The Stratford Festival serves this theatre community. Their struggle can be a cautionary tale or an example of how other organizations can follow suit.

Asked to respond, Cimolino pointed out that the current discussions are already a public process, and said that actions and processes in the future are not going to be internal. Its going to involve all the people who care about the festival and about theatre.

I knew that going into this, that was a vulnerability we were opening ourselves up to, said Stratford executive director Anita Gaffney of the unfolding conversation. This was the time to do it. I feel enormous admiration to these individuals for their eloquence and their openness, and for calling us to task for things that have happened in the past.

Stratford has offered a similar platform to Indigenous members of the company on June 21, National Indigenous Peoples Day.

Soulpepper Theatre artistic director Weyni Mengesha said the Black Like Me discussion was important because it affirms the experiences of many Black artists and artisans who have been traumatized in different ways  they did not imagine it, it was not exaggerated.

I am energized by the way that its not just a Black problem right now. Everybodys sharing the burden in this, she said. Everybody is entering the conversation with more vulnerability than Ive ever seen in my lifetime.

The fact that theatres are closed during the pandemic, and are likely to stay closed into 2021, has also created a context for questions about anti-Black racism in Canadian theatre, and beyond, to come to the surface and to be considered further.

There is something about this particular time that can help us all, said Cimolino. Its a time of pause, a time to take stock, to plan, to start acting differently.

Karen Fricker is a Toronto-based theatre critic and a freelance contributor for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @KarenFricker2
Refinery Catalyst Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Material (Zeolites, Metallic, Chemical Compounds), By Application (FCC, Alkylation, Hydrotreating, Hydrocracking), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2027

New York, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Refinery Catalyst Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Material, By Application, By Region And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2027" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05914180/?utm_source=GNW



Refinery Catalyst Market Growth & Trends



The global refinery catalyst market size is expected to reach USD 9.5 billion by 2027, expanding at a revenue-based CAGR of 4.7%. Growing demand for petroleum products is the major factor driving the market. Refinery catalysts are chemicals that are used in different operations for carrying out refining activities. These substances are responsible in altering the rate of chemical reactions in the FCC unit, thereby, speeding up the reaction, which reduces the turnaround time of the manufacturing process.



Among the different raw material used in the production of refinery catalysts, zeolites have emerged as one of the major segments.Zeolites are generally aminosilicates composed of frameworks of silicon, oxygen, and aluminum in the form of SiO4 and AlO4.



A number of them occur naturally, and hence are procured via mining as minerals. However, the synthetic ones are also produced commercially.



Refinery catalysts are widely utilized in refining processes such as fluid catalytic cracking, alkylation, and hydrotreating.The role of an accelerator in FCC process is to aid in breaking heavy molecules at high temperature and moderate pressure so that they can be separated from the mixture and collected as a vapor.



The separated products are purified and treated for application in multiple end-use industries.



The key market players are aiming at introducing customized solutions for different regions based on individual regulatory trends, fuel quality, and driving condition in order to reach out to a broader customer base. The European Union (EU) plans to cut down carbon dioxide emission by 2020, and hence, is encouraging major companies to introduce innovative biocatalysts for the market.



Refinery Catalyst Market Report Highlights

 In terms of revenue, Asia Pacific emerged as the fastest growing region in 2019

 FCC catalysts emerged as the prominent application segment in 2019 with a market share of 46.1% by volume

 In Asia Pacific, India and China are likely to witness a remarkable market growth in next seven years

 The industry is consolidated in nature, with presence of long term and well established global players such as Clariant and BASF SE. These players are highly focused towards R&D for the development of efficient technologies and securing them by filing for patents.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05914180/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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Lehigh County elections officials are gathering information to present to the county Election Board on a complaint filed in a 2020 statehouse race, county Chief Clerk for Registrations and Elections Tim Benyo said Tuesday.

Enid Santiago filed the complaint alleging voter suppression and intimidation in Pennsylvanias June 2 primary election, in which she challenged incumbent state Rep. Peter Schweyer for the Democratic nomination.

Schweyer won the primary by 57 votes, or 1.32 percentage points, according to results that are still unofficial until they are certified by the county.

"Nothing in the complaint's going to change the results," Benyo said.

The Election Board will decide whether to take up the complaint at its next meeting, which was not scheduled as of Tuesday, according to Benyo.

No Republicans filed to challenge Schweyer in the 22nd Legislative District covering Lehigh County communities, assuring him of re-election to a fourth two-year term in November -- barring a successful write-in campaign.

Santiago alleges in her complaint announced June 5 that she and her team witnessed "many issues" at the polls. That included an incident at an Allentown precinct, when Santiago stopped to drop off snacks for poll workers and was told by the judge of elections Schweyer "is like a nephew and his daughters call me 'auntie,'" according to a news release on the complaint.

"I witnessed her and/or members of her team speak rudely to voters, tell voters they needed to cast a provisional ballot at their precinct when all they needed was the outer envelope for their mail-in-ballots, and request ID when it wasn't legally necessary to vote," the release says. "Myself and others also witnessed the Judge of Elections fill in bubbles on blank ballots."

Later that day, Santiago claims she received a call from a voter who was given a provisional ballot without Santiago's name on it, and that she learned voters there were being "told to just write in the names of the candidates they were voting for on the backs of the ballots."

The 2020 primary election was unusual in that both voting and campaigning took place amid restrictions on in-person contact due to the coronavirus.

Schweyer himself spent the days leading up to Election Day in quarantine due to potential exposure from a House colleague -- Schweyer has tested negative for the COVID-19 illness. On Election Day, he decided against sending supporters to the polls, though some worked the phones.

I understand that emotions run high when you have a race thats this close, and thats going to happen, he told lehighvalleylive.com Tuesday. But the people that went to the polls on Election Day to ensure a fair and free election -- the poll workers, the judges of elections, etc., etc. -- did that knowing that we were still in ... a global pandemic. And so I just really appreciate them stepping up and being wiling to put themselves in harms way.

Schweyer went on to say turnout in his district represented a massive increase over 2018, and even a 10% increase from the last presidential election year in 2016, and he credits Santiago with getting a lot of voters out.

In a separate Pennsylvania House of Representatives race, Benyo said write-in votes would begin to be counted Wednesday in state Rep. Michael Schlossbergs write-in bid to secure the Republican nomination in the 132nd District. Schlossberg is a Democrat but asked Republicans to write him in, in an effort to thwart an 11th-hour write-in challenge from Lehigh Valley Grand Prix owner Michael McCreary.

Benyo said he hopes to have write-in candidates, along with 1,912 provisional ballots countywide, counted by Friday.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
Story Highlights First time under 40% for Donald Trump since October

Approval down among all party groups

Trump approval ratings for handling issues also down sharply

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Donald Trump's job approval rating has fallen to 39% amid nationwide protests about racial injustice. His ratings this year had been the best of his presidency but are now back near his term average of 40%.

Line graph. President Donald Trump's current 39% job approval rating is down from 49% in the prior poll and the lowest since October 2018.

The latest reading is from a May 28-June 4 poll, conducted as protests occurred throughout the country after the May 25 death of George Floyd. Floyd, a black Minneapolis man, died in police custody after a white officer pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes.

Trump's comments and actions in response to the protests last week, including a vow to send U.S. military troops to cities to quell violent protests, were controversial. The administration was widely criticized after police in Washington, D.C., used chemical irritants to disperse peaceful protestors from an area shortly before the president posed for photos in front of a nearby church.

The protests are occurring as the nation continues to deal with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The poll was completed before the news Friday about an unexpected drop in the unemployment rate.

The decline in approval returns the metric to a level last seen in October, shortly after the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump's dealings with the Ukraine government.

Trump's latest job approval rating fell significantly among all party groups, and by similar margins among each. This includes drops of seven percentage points among Republicans (to 85%) and independents (to 39%), and nine points among Democrats (to 5%).

Republicans' approval of Trump is the lowest it has been since September 2018 (also 85%).

Economic Job Approval Drops Below Majority Level

Forty-seven percent of Americans approve of President Trump's handling of the economy, a decline from 63% in January and 58% in February. Approval of Trump's handling of the economy had not been under 50% since November 2017, when 45% approved.

Line graph. 47% of Americans approve of President Trump's handling of the economy, down from 58% in February.

President Trump's economic approval rating has been 10 points higher than his overall job approval rating, on average, throughout his presidency in surveys in which both measures were asked. Currently, eight percentage points separate his economic approval rating and overall job approval rating.

It is unclear what impact the new unemployment numbers will have on Trump's economic approval rating or his overall job approval rating. The drop in the unemployment rate was unexpected, though the rate remains historically high and is likely higher than reported due to errors in how workers furloughed during the coronavirus pandemic were categorized.

Americans are also increasingly critical of the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic itself. Currently, 42% approve of the way Trump has handled the matter, down from 50% in the prior reading in late April, and 60% just after coronavirus infections spiked in many areas of the country in mid-March.

Also, 41% of U.S. adults approve of the president's handling of foreign affairs, seven points lower than the previous measure in February. The current approval rating on foreign affairs nearly matches the 40% average approval on this issue throughout his presidency.

Implications

The year 2020 had been a more favorable one for the Trump administration than prior years, with his job approval rating reaching personal bests during two periods. The first came in late January and early February, the time spanning his Senate trial on the impeachment charges and ultimate acquittal by the Senate on Feb. 5. The second came in the spring after the coronavirus situation produced a brief rally event for the president and Congress.

Public anger over the Floyd killing and racial injustice more generally have proven to be a significant challenge for the president, in addition to the ongoing challenges for society and the economy arising from the coronavirus.

His current level of approval would make another term as president unlikely, given the historical relationship between job approval ratings and incumbent reelection. With five months to go before Election Day, there is still time for those ratings to improve and get back near the 50% level associated with incumbent reelection in the past, but also time for them to get worse and give the president even longer odds of winning a second term.

Explore President Trump's approval ratings and compare them with those of past presidents in the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center.

View complete question responses and trends (PDF download).

Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.
Damaging straight-line winds and torrential rainfall are possible Wednesday as severe thunderstorms are expected to develop in the afternoon and continue through the evening. Winds could gust as high as 70 mph, says the National Weather Service in Detroit.

Midland County, and all of southeastern Michigan, is under a moderate risk for severe thunderstorms between 3 and 9 p.m. Wednesday, as a strong cold front moves in, according to the NWS. There is a possibility for a few tornadoes and large hail in excess of one-inch.
'If they had told me in advance they were going to put a woman in a bikini on the cover, I'd have had a freak out," says Kathleen MacMahon.

The author describes the cover design process for a writer as equivalent to "someone else choosing the dress and you have you walk down the aisle in it".

A decade and three books in, she knows the importance of a practical response as well as an emotional one: "Covers are about giving signals to the reader. It's not just about representing you and what you are, it's about genuinely connecting with people who will like your book.

Jack Smyth - an award-winning Irish cover designer whose work includes 4th Estate Matchbook Classics covers for Jonathan Franzen and Hilary Mantel, and Kurt Vonnegut reissues using Smyth's own 'Kurt' typeface - agrees.

"I always try to keep the reader in mind. What do I need to give them so that they'll understand the flavour of this book, the sense of the author's voice or a hint at what the world inside feels like? This is the challenge."

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He usually has a fortnight to work on ideas, which are then presented to a meeting of editorial, publicity, marketing and sales. "Really bold work can have the corners knocked off it as each department chimes in with their personal and professional opinion The editor is really important here as they're usually closer to the book than anyone."

In 1934, publisher Allen Lane was returning home from a weekend at Agatha Christie's and spotted a gap in the market when he couldn't find anything decent to read at Exeter train station. In launching Penguin mass market paperbacks, he not only revolutionised publishing, but also reimagined cover design.

Lane said: "I have never been able to understand why cheap books should not also be well designed, for good design is no more expensive than bad." Yet despite instigating a system (the bird, three horizontal stripes with colour coding depending on genre, and a white panel with author and title in black) the design of his early publications was erratic.

What readers know as the 'classic' Penguin cover was created by Jan Tschichold, the German typographer Lane hired in 1946. Tschichold's Penguin Composition Rules specified every aspect of the design, right down to the spacing between each letter. When anyone wanted to deviate from his rules, he would exaggerate his German accent and pretend he couldn't understand the question. David Torrans, the founder of No Alibis bookshop in Belfast, believes that a different sort of uniformity in cover design has become noticeable over the past number of years.

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"If a book becomes a hit because of its narrative content, designers will often hijack the thing that has very little to do with said content: the jacket. As booksellers, we are constantly being presented with book covers for new titles and thinking to ourselves, do we not already have that book in the shelves?"

Torrans opened his much-loved indie bookshop and literary event space in 1997, and more recently launched No Alibis Press to publish fiction by new and rising writers alongside renowned authors. As a result, he now has "to think with two heads": as a publisher, his brief to designers Bob Price and Rory Jeffers is to honour the narrative, while as a bookseller he needs the book to stand out. It's the best of both worlds, he says. "We get the chance to purvey and produce something that we love."

Tschichold's accent would fall to pieces had he to contend with the formats and platforms of contemporary publishing. For a while, e-books and Kindles were predicted to outshine physical counterparts, but if anything the digital competition forced books to up their game. 'Bookstagramming', which focuses on cover aesthetics, has added to the pressure to stand out.

Book publicist Peter O'Connell says an important consideration is how covers reproduce when sized down. "For most people, the first time they see the cover of the book is in a magazine, paper, website or online bookshop. They are looking at an image maybe one or two inches tall, so clarity and recognisability is critical," he says.

As the relationship between books and distribution platforms adapts, publishers are being forced to think outside the cover, and find new ways to attract image-savvy audiences. In 2018, Faber and Faber issued a free limited edition letterpress print with pre-orders of Sally Rooney's Normal People. The same year, New York Public Libraries released edited and animated 'Insta Novels' of classics such as Alice in Wonderland.

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Yet no matter what the platform, Kathleen MacMahon's point about the cover forming an authentic point of connection between author and reader holds firm. Nothing But Blue Sky is the story of a marriage as told by a grieving husband holidaying alone after his wife's tragic death.

"The image the designer chose has a huge amount of emotion," she says. "It captures what the book is about: the mystery of another person and how unknowable a human being is to people close to them, even in a marriage." I imagine writers everywhere nodding along when she says, "You are just telling the story you want to tell, digging into the issues and themes that interest you, and doing so in your style. No writer wants to put themselves in a box. But there is a box, so you have to get it right."

Henrietta McKervey is author of 'A Talented Man', published by Hachette
In a visible attempt to jump-start talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, Pakistans powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited Afghanistan amid the coronavirus pandemic that is taking a mounting toll on the neighboring countries.

As in similar leadership meetings in the past, both sides reiterated cooperation and Pakistani support for peace in Afghanistan during the June 9 meetings between Bajwa and Afghan leaders.

Both sides discussed the peace process and Pakistans support for the process, an Afghan presidential statement noted. They also discussed that the soil of the two countries would not be used against each other.

The statement noted Bajwas support for independence, and the republican and democratic [political system] in Afghanistan.

In Rawalpindi, a city adjoining Islamabad where the Pakistani Army is headquartered, the public message also reiterated cooperation.

[The Afghan] president was appreciative of the role being played by Pakistan for [the] Afghan peace process, the militarys public relations office wrote on Twitter on June 8. Both sides discussed current developments in the Afghan peace process, necessary steps to facilitate [the] Afghan-led and owned peace process and facilitation of trade and connectivity.

But apart from the rather vague pledge of not letting their soil being used against the other, the two sides have not mentioned, let alone agreed, on a framework to tackle the most contentious issues that have defined and dominated their bilateral relations for decades.

The first is the issue of Afghan Taliban sanctuaries. Since the emergence of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Islamist movement has largely been seen as a Pakistani ally and even a proxy. Following the demise of the Taliban regime in late 2001, Afghan and Western officials have flagged the Talibans sanctuaries and support network in Pakistan as the number one impediment to defeating the insurgency inside Afghanistan that now controls one-third of the countrys rural areas.

Some Pakistani leaders have attempted to rationalize Islamabads support for the Taliban by projecting the group as a bulwark against archrival Indias influence in Afghanistan. Islamabad also accuses Kabul of supporting remnants of Pakistani Taliban factions and Pashtun and Baluch ethno-nationalists.

This is why all previous efforts to bring together Afghan leaders and Pakistani generals in the hopes of reconciling Kabul and Islamabad have mostly ended in mutual recriminations.

But Washington appears to be banking on a different outcome this time around as Bajwas public pledge of supporting the Afghan peace process came days ahead of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The talks are set to begin three months later than scheduled in the February 29 agreement between the United States and the Taliban. The agreement has created a framework for the withdrawal of American troops and peace talks between the Taliban and leaders and factions supporting the current government and political system, formally called the Islamic Republic.

Ambassador Khalilzad expressed his appreciation for the role Prime Minister Imran Khan and General Bajwa are playing in support of peace in Afghanistan, a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad noted after U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Bajwa. The two agreed peace in Afghanistan offers an unprecedented opportunity to advance security, connectivity and development for the region.

Regional specialists hope that this time around Islamabad will follow through on its words.

By supporting a negotiated [Afghan] settlement, Pakistan is not giving up its investment in the Taliban, said Barnett Rubin, a former U.S. government adviser. It is cashing it in, though at a lower profit than it originally hoped for.

He says Islamabad is unlikely to move against the Taliban sanctuaries without a peace agreement among Afghans.

If and only if the political agreement between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban provides for demobilization and repatriation of Taliban fighters, including those in Pakistan, Pakistan will help implement the agreement and move against any who resist it, he told RFE/RLs Gandhara website.

Rubin says Islamabad is still unlikely to crack down on the Afghan Taliban as part of a pressure campaign. That is clearly in the interest of Pakistan, and Pakistan is sincere about pursuing its national interest, he noted.

But many in Afghanistan and some in Pakistan remain skeptical.

After bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table and midwifing the U.S.-Taliban deal, Pakistani generals are quite relieved as U.S. pressure has substantially decreased, Afrasiab Khattak, a former Pakistani lawmaker, noted in a recent op-ed. For nearly a quarter-century, the Pakistani Army has [had] too big an investment in the Taliban to give up.

Asfandyar Mir, a South Asia security specialist, is also skeptical. The Taliban were and remain Pakistans political actor of choice, and I expect Pakistan to support them through the intra-Afghan negotiations in the same way as in the last 16 to 17 years, he told Gandhara.

Mir, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, noted that Islamabad might change its approach to the group once it joins the Afghan government as a result of the peace process. He says this could transform from "covert sanctuaries and material aid to more formal mechanisms of facilitation for Taliban leadership and rank-and-file at a political and military-to-military level."

However, he argues, a lot still depends on how Washington approaches the issue. Does it want Pakistan to dismantle Taliban infrastructure during intra-Afghan negotiations? he asked. From the public pronouncements of Khalilzad, this is unclear.

The litmus test of Islamabads intentions may come in how it delivers on more short-term goals. It could prove skeptics and critics wrong by helping to deliver a lasting cease-fire as representatives of Kabul begin long-delayed peace talks with the Taliban this month.
Protest works.

The large street demonstrations in scores of cities and towns across the country are bringing sudden and sweeping changes to police practices and accountability.

Minneapolis is preparing to disband and rebuild its police department.

California is poised to ban the use of police chokeholds.

Dozens of cities are considering redirecting millions in taxpayer funds from Americas heavily militarized police departments to education, health care, housing and other needs of black and Hispanic neighborhoods that have been underinvested in for generations.

New York took a step toward reform with the repeal Tuesday evening of a state law known as 50-a, a decades-old measure that has allowed the police to keep the disciplinary and personnel records of officers secret. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to sign the bill.
Hyderabad, June 10 : The Hyderabad Police have arrested two persons for attacking a doctor in the government-run Gandhi Hospital on Tuesday night following the death of their relative in the hospital due to COVID-19.

Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar on Wednesday said both the accused were arrested immediately after the incident.

"Under any circumstances attack on medical staff will not be tolerated. Most firm and stringent legal action will be taken. In this time doctors are our frontline leaders," the police tweeted.

A junior doctor was assaulted by relatives of a 55-year-old corona patient who died at the hospital on Tuesday night. The incident triggered protest by doctors who demanded additional security to prevent such incidents.

Nearly 100 junior doctors staged a protest past midnight with the flashlights of their mobile phones. They raised slogans of 'we want justice'. They threatened to boycott the duties till their issues were addressed by the government.

Doctor G. Srinivas, president, Resident Doctors Association (RDA), told reporters that the patient's attendants attacked the doctor after the patient collapsed and succumbed. He said the patient was asked not to leave the bed, but he went to the toilet. He had diabetes and hypertension and was on a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine.

The attendants initially attacked the medico with a plastic stool and then with an iron stand. He said there was no policeman present in the Covid-19 ward. The protesters demanded deployment of special protection force at every ICU and in all floors of the hospital.

Telangana Junior Doctors' Association (TJUDA) continued the protests on Wednesday, demanding immediate action against the accused. The junior doctors at various government-hospitals in Hyderabad and other places in the state also staged protests.

This was the second such incident at the Gandhi Hospital and the third at government-run hospitals in Hyderabad since April.

An on duty doctor at the Gandhi Hospital was assaulted on April 1 by relatives of a Covid patient following his death. Another doctor was attacked by relatives of a patient at the Osmania General Hospital on April 14.

Three persons, including a Covid pateint were arrested by the police in the two cases.
Looks like actress Khushbu Sundar has landed herself in a massive controversy as her audio clip defaming journalists goes viral. As per media reports, the senior actress apparently commented on journalists saying how they will now rip celebrities as they are running out of news amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The controversial comments are said to have publicized by a producer to whom she was talking on a Whatsapp group consisting of television producers.

The Times of India quotes her as saying in the leaked clip, "More importantly, press people will somehow turn up. So, make sure you don't give them a chance to take photos or videos. They are waiting to rip us apart. 'Presskaaran' doesn't have any news other than the COVID right now. So they would be waiting to publish something about us once shooting resume. So please take care."

Well, with several responses coming from media personalities and netizens over her disrespectful comments on journalists, Khushbu posted a few tweets justifying herself regarding the unfortunate episode. Calling the audio clip an edited one, she wrote, "My voice message, an edited version, regarding the press is making rounds. It has gone from our producers' group n I am ashamed to say we have such cheap minds among us. My intentions were clear n not meant to disrespect the press. Its a tone you speak within friends."

My voice message, an edited version, regarding the press is making rounds. It has gone from our producers group n I am ashamed to say we have such cheap minds among us. My intentions were clear n not meant to disrespect the press. Its a tone you speak within friends. 1/1  KhushbuSundar  (@khushsundar) June 9, 2020

The Annamalai actress also issued an apology to the media in one of her tweets. She wrote, "My respect for the press is for all to see and journalists can vouch for that. Not even once in my 34yrs of cinema they would have ever seen or heard me speaking to them nor about them in disrespect. The voice message is half. But my sincere apologies if I have hurt any of you."

My respect for the press is for all to see and journalists can vouch for that. Not even once in my 34yrs of cinema they would have ever seen or heard me speaking to them nor about them in disrespect. The voice message is half. But my sincere apologies if I have hurt any of you   KhushbuSundar  (@khushsundar) June 9, 2020

Very unfortunately you realize those who you work for are the ones who try and stab you behind your back. I know which producer has done this..but i shall not name them. My silence and forgiveness is their biggest punishment. There is lot more to be done and I shall continue.  KhushbuSundar  (@khushsundar) June 9, 2020

The 49-year-old actress-turned-politician also expressed her disappointment that someone close to her team betrayed her by sharing the controversial audio note. She added that she knows which producer has circulated the note, and is willing to forgive the person. Her tweet read, "Very unfortunately you realize those who you work for are the ones who try and stab you behind your back. I know which producer has done this..but I shall not name them. My silence and forgiveness is their biggest punishment. There is a lot more to do and I shall continue."

Did Khushbu Take An Indirect Dig At Meera Chopra? Netizens Wonder If She Is Supporting Jr NTR

Chiranjeevi Sarja Funeral: Wife Meghana Breaks Down, Yash And Others Attend Chiru's Last Rites" title="Also Read: Chiranjeevi Sarja Funeral: Wife Meghana Breaks Down, Yash And Others Attend Chiru's Last Rites" />Also Read: Chiranjeevi Sarja Funeral: Wife Meghana Breaks Down, Yash And Others Attend Chiru's Last Rites
South Africa: Register for HealthCheck before entering campuses

Approximately two million students and staff in all Post School Education and Training (PSET) institutions will be required to register for HealthCheck and use it to assess their temperature level prior to entering campuses.

Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande said HealthCheck, which is part of the departments Higher Health programme, is secure to use by students and staff entering campuses daily to self-check their body temperature, and will link such data to the tracking system of the Department of Health.

Based on the answers entered on the platform, the person receives a message with the low/moderate/high level risk reading. If the risk is low, the individual will receive clearance valid for 24 hours.

The tool allows for early detection, mapping and management of COVID-19 cases within higher education institutions and feeds into the national Department of Health's tracking and tracing system, Nzimande explained.

HealthCheck which can be accessed through ones cell phone, is available in various platforms, including Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), WhatsApp or simple Web based.

One does not need to have a smart-phone to access the HealthCheck, as it can be accessed from any device.

The Minister was addressing the media through a virtual briefing on the progress in the implementation of COVID-19 measures.

Guidelines to deal with mental health of staff

Nzimande also announced that appropriate COVID-19 guidelines have been developed to deal with the mental health of both staff and students. The guidelines also focus on substance abuse which can be a serious challenge, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guidelines for the management of and response to mental health and substance abuse related to COVID-19 respond to continued concerns raised by global public health leaders. The United Nations and the World Health Organization have advocated that mental health and wellbeing of whole societies are severely impacted by COVID-19 and see these as an urgent priority.

These guidelines outline why and how students and staff may be impacted and how to assist individuals that may experience problems. Through this protocol, the universities and colleges are also urged to keep top-of-mind mental health implications of each decision they make during the forthcoming period, Nzimande said.

Risk adjusted strategy for PSET sector

Nzimande said the department remains committed to resume academic activities in PSET sector, in line with the national risk-adjusted strategy in dealing with COVID-19.

He said the department has published national directives on the broad parameters and conditions under which each institution must plan for the controlled resumption of all forms and levels of academic activity to complete the 2020 academic year.

Selected students to return to residences

The Minister said the department has further made provision that institutions may consider selected return of other categories of students to residences who may face extreme difficulties in their home learning environments, provided that all safety and logistical requirements are met.

Under level 4, the sector provided for a controlled return of final year students in programmes requiring clinical training, starting with medicine (MBChB) and the phasing-in of all other programmes, such as Nursing, Dental and Veterinary Sciences.

Under level 3, a maximum of 33% of the student population will be allowed to return to campuses, delivery sites and residences on condition that they can be safely accommodated and supported in line with the health and safety protocols as directed by the department.

This includes all groups that have already returned during alert level 4, students in the final year of their programmes, who are on a path to graduating in 2020, final year students who require access to laboratories, technical equipment, data, connectivity and access to residence and private accommodation.

Students in all years of study that require clinical training in their programmes (provided that the clinical training platforms have sufficient space and can accommodate them while adhering to the safety protocols), and post graduate students who require laboratory equipment and other technical equipment to undertake their studies, will also under level 3 be allowed to return to campuses.

It is critical that we adhere to these criteria to ensure that campuses are ready for students to safely return, and the effective health screening, cleaning protocols are in place to keep everyone safe. All other students will be supported through remote multimodal teaching learning and assessment until they can return to campus.

I would like to emphasise that we recognise that some institutions may identify other groups of students in line with their particular contexts for their return to campus. However, any deviation from this criterion must be approved by my department and must fall within the maximum of 33% of the student population, Nzimande said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
MDOT to host telephone town hall meetings on state long-range transportation plan

Kyle Haller, AICP, MDOT Transportation Planner, 517-256-1731, Monica Monsma, MDOT Public Involvement and Hearings Officer, 517-335-4381 Transportation

Fast facts:

- The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) will host two telephone town hall meetings June 16 and 17.

- Michigan residents can provide input on the state long-range transportation plan strategies.

- Michiganders are encouraged to join the conversation online.

June 10, 2020 -- The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) will be hosting two telephone town halls at 7 p.m. June 16 and 10 a.m. June 17 to give Michigan residents an opportunity to have input on the state long-range transportation plan (SLRTP), known as Michigan Mobility 2045 (MM2045).

Although registered voter lists are used to ensure residents in every part of the state receive calls, anyone living in Michigan who wants to participate can opt in by completing an online registration form. The telephone town halls will begin with a brief overview of the transportation planning process. During the calls, the public will have an opportunity to comment and provide ideas about Michigan's transportation strategies.

A unique virtual forum, telephone town hall meetings are particularly beneficial for residents who would not typically have the time to attend a regular public meeting or who cannot participate online. Residents will be called at random through an automated system and invited to take part in the telephone forums. Those who choose to join the call will have the chance to ask questions and share their thoughts about the future of transportation. Michiganders are encouraged to join the conversation.

To ensure that the most people possible are engaged, text messages will be sent to a randomly selected group of Michigan mobile phone users throughout the state. The messages will provide information on how to take part in the telephone town hall meetings, as well as how to opt out of future text messages.

MDOT is seeking the opinions of a large and diverse group of Michigan residents and stakeholders representing groups with an interest or concern for the state's transportation decision-making process. This includes best practices for targeting and providing attention to environmental justice populations, marginalized communities and tribal governments.

Accommodations can be made for persons with disabilities or limited English-speaking ability. Large print materials, auxiliary aids or the services of interpreters, signers, and readers are available upon request. Please call 517-241-7462 to make a request at least seven days before the meeting date.

The public can view the public and stakeholder participation plan, provide comments on MM2045, and get information about the telephone town halls and scheduled in-person meetings at www.MichiganMobility.org.

Public comments also can be sent to MDOT-MichiganMobility@Michigan.gov, or shared with MDOT social media sites at www.facebook.com/MichiganDOT or www.twitter.com/MichiganDOT. Comments also can be sent via U.S. Mail to:



Monica Monsma

Michigan Mobility 2045

Michigan Department of Transportation

Van Wagoner Transportation Building

425 West Ottawa St.

P.O. Box 30050

Lansing, MI 48909
Chandigarh, June 10 : The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday demanded release of compensation of Rs 3,000 per acre to all farmers in Punjab to offset the losses being incurred by them due to flight of migrant labour from the state.

Stating that migrant labour had fled the state because the state refused to distribute ration to them, SAD leader Sikander Singh Maluka said the state government had chosen to send the migrants packing to their home states rather than giving them any incentive to stay back.

"Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is directly responsible for this. Now the state must come to the aid of the farmers as paddy transplantation rates have gone up from Rs 2,500 per acre to Rs 5,500 per acre. The farmers, who are already reeling under huge labour costs incurred to harvest and sell paddy during the lockdown, are unable to bear this extra cost." Maluka said the government should offer compensation to farmers from the state disaster management fund which already had Rs 6,000 crore accumulated in it since last several years.

He said the Centre had also released Rs 247 crore under the disaster relief head recently.

He said the government should also give liberal subsidy for mechanised transplanters to fill in the gap caused by labour shortage.

He said the mechanised transplanters were being offered at a subsidy of 40 per cent which should be increased to 75 per cent to encourage the farmers to go in for them in a big way.
The death toll from an attack by jihadists linked to the Islamic State on a village in northeast Nigeria rose to 81, officials said Wednesday.

Fighters believed to be from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction shot and ran over residents with vehicles in the assault on the remote village of Felo on Tuesday.

Borno state governor Babagana Zulum Umara told journalists during a visit to the scene that residents "said they were able to identify 81 persons" killed in the attack.

"We are yet to make a complete assessment but we have listened to them that in this graveyard they buried 49 people while those that have been taken away by their siblings and parents were 32," the governor said.

Seven people including the village head were abducted, a statement from his office said.

A community leader told AFP on condition of anonymity that the increase in the death toll from an earlier figure of 69 was recorded after more victims died from the wounds they sustained.

The numbers kept rising because some of the injured were in critical condition and had died, he said.

"The latest toll is 81. We have more people with severe injuries. We hope they survive."

Residents said that men, women and children had been mown down by the insurgents as they as they watched over their cattle at a watering hole outside the village.

Corpses were left strewn across the surrounding countryside in gruesome scenes.

Local leaders said earlier that the attack was thought to be in reprisal for the killing of jihadists by a community self-defence group formed to stop cattle thefts.

Northeast Nigeria has been wracked by a decade-long Islamist insurgency that has left at least 36,000 dead and displaced some 2 million.

ISWAP is a splinter faction that broke away from Boko Haram in 2016.

It has intensified attacks against the military in the last two years, repeatedly carrying out deadly strikes against soldiers.

In recent months there has been an increase in attacks on civilians blamed on the group.

The area where the latest attack took place, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from regional capital Maiduguri, has been repeatedly targeted by the jihadists.

In response the authorities sent more than 100 militiamen and local hunters to help defend against the assaults.
Akbar Ali, a construction worker from Bihar, heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday early morning after he reached Pune from Danapur by a special train, which resumed its daily operations from June 5.

I had gone to Patna around 25 days ago by a private tourist bus amid the easing of nationwide lockdown restrictions, which were imposed from March 25 to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak. However, I soon realised that itd be difficult to survive in my native village without any income. Theres neither any job nor any regular source of income in Bihar. I had no option but to return to my construction site at Baner, said Ali, who reached Pune along with 750 of his co-passengers from Bihar at around 5:30 am on Wednesday.

Rohit Gupta, one of Alis co-passengers on the train and a Danapur resident, returned to Pune on Wednesday early morning along with four of his friends.

We had gone to our native place before the lockdown restrictions were announced. We faced a severe financial crisis back home, as there was no work in Bihar. We booked tickets immediately after the train service resumed and decided to return to Pune. We can only support our families, if weve our regular source of income, Gupta said.

The Pune district administration, along with Maharashtra health department; Railway Protection Force (RPF); Pune Municipal Corporations (PMC) transport department; Regional Transport Office (RTO), Pune; Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML); and PMC health department officials were on their toes with all precautionary measures against Covid-19 before the train arrived at the station. Three ambulances were also kept on standby by the PMC health department authorities.

After the train chugged into the platform, passengers disembarked and were made to stand in a queue on a new Foot Over Bridge (FOB) towards the stations second entry gate near Rajabahadur Mill Road while maintaining proper social distancing norms.

All passengers went through the thermal screening, their tickets and other documents checked and they were stamped on their hands for the mandatory 14-day home quarantine.

PMC transport department and RTO officials were at hand to guide each passenger to travel to h/her desired destination.

The transport authorities had arranged a free bus service on 10 different routes in Pune and adjoining Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Passengers also had the option of availing of auto-rickshaws and private taxis that were waiting for them at the stations parking lot.

PMC transport department authorities and RPF personnel provided assistance to us to help the passengers to leave for their respective destinations. We ensured that no passenger faced any kind of inconvenience in availing of transport facilities, said Ravindra Rathod, assistant inspector, RTO.

The Danapur-Pune special train service started its daily operations since June 5, and is carrying up to 1,000 passengers, most of whom are labourers, who work in sites located in and around Pune district.

Over 7,000 people have returned to Pune since the special train service resumed its daily operations on June 5, railway authorities said.

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Merriam-Webster is revising its definition of racism after a Missouri womans emails claimed it fell short of including the systemic oppression of certain groups of people.

Kennedy Mitchum, who lives in the St. Louis suburb Florissant, said people would argue with her about the definition of racism and she realized the problem was in the Merriam-Websters dictionary, KMOV-TV reported.

Merriam-Webster's current definition of racism

1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2a: a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles

b: a political or social system founded on racism

3: racial prejudice or discrimination

Its not just disliking someone because of their race, Mitchum wrote in a Facebook post. This current fight we are in is evidence of that, lives are at stake because of the systems of oppression that go hand-in-hand with racism.

The revision comes against the backdrop of protests around the country against police brutality after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pinned his neck to the ground.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary first defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

Mitchum, who recently graduated with a degree in law, politics and society, said that definition was too simple.

So, a couple weeks ago, I said this is the last argument Im going to have about this.

I know what racism is, Ive experienced it time and time and time again in a lot of different ways, so enough is enough.

"So, I emailed them about how I felt about it. Saying this needs to change, she said.

Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster, said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that the dictionarys second definition is divided to express, first, explicit institutional bias against people because of their race, and, second, a broader implicit bias that can also result in an asymmetrical power structure.

This second definition covers the sense that Ms Mitchum was seeking, and we will make its wording even more clear in our next release, he said.

This is the kind of continuous revision that is part of the work of keeping the dictionary up to date, based on rigorous criteria and research we employ in order to describe the language as it is actually used.

The online version of the Cambridge dictionary defines racism as "the belief that people's qualities are influenced by their race and that the members of other races are not as good as the members of your own, or the resulting unfair treatment of members of other races".

Racism in the Macmillan dictionary is defined as "a way of behaving or thinking that shows that you do not like or respect people who belong to races that are different from your own and that you believe your race is better than others".
Microsoft fixed 129 vulnerabilities today across its entire range of software products, from Windows and Office to Visual Studio, Azure DevOps and Microsoft Apps for Android. Eleven of those flaws are critical and should be patched immediately, but one particular vulnerability could be easily overlooked and could allow hackers with local access to take full control of enterprise Windows systems.

The issue, tracked as CVE-2020-1317, affects one of the most basic mechanisms for centrally managing the settings of Windows computers and users in Active Directory environments: Group Policy. More importantly, the flaw is old and exists in all Windows versions for desktops and servers beginning with Windows Server 2008. Microsoft rates it as important and describes it as such:

"An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when Group Policy improperly checks access. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run processes in an elevated context. To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker would first have to log on to the system, and then run a specially crafted application to take control over the affected system."

The company's advisory has no other information aside from that, but according to researchers from CyberArk who discovered the vulnerability, it is quite serious.

How an attacker can exploit the Group Policy vulnerability

Group Policy settings are stored on Windows systems as Group Policy Objects (GPO) and they can be distributed by the domain administrator over the network from the domain controller. However, Group Policy updates are not instant by default and usually take time to propagate over a network, which is why Windows includes a tool called GPUpdate.exe that users can run to request GPO updates from the domain controller instead of waiting for them.

"Interestingly enough, a Group Policy update can be requested manually by a local non-privileged user," the security CyberArk security researchers said in a blog post. "So, if you manage to find a bug in the Group Policy update process, you can trigger it yourself whenever you want to -- making a potential attack easier."

The Group Policy updates are handled through a service called GPSVC that runs under the svchost.exe process, which handles many services in Windows. As expected, this service runs with the highest possible privileges, in the context of NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM.

Group Policy updates can be linked to a machine, site, domain or organizational unit and the service will save them as a file called Applied-Object.xml, which is then renamed to the type of object the policy applies to. For example, a policy on printers would be translated to Printers\Printers.xml. The researchers found that GPO updates linked to an Organizational Unit -- which target all users and computers in the domain -- are saved in a location on the computer under the %localappdata% directory which is accessible to any local user.

Furthermore, while performing this operation the service does not switch its context and privileges to the local user who requested the update -- known as user impersonation in Windows API language -- but performs the file writing operation with LocalSystem privileges. Therefore, this mechanism provides for a situation where a non-privileged user can use GPUpdate.exe to trigger file write operations with LocalSystem privileges into a directory they have access to.

The last step in the exploit chain is for the user to create a symlink that links the targeted file location that will be written--for example, Printers.xml--to a system file located in a protected Windows directory such as C:\Windows\System32\ where many files executed by the operating system kernel live. This means when the GPSVC attempts to write the Printers.xml file in the user-accessible location, it will actually be directed to write a file in C:\Windows\System32\, which it can do because it operates with system privileges.

The CyberArk researchers describe the steps as such:

List the group policy GUIDs you have in C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Group Policy\History\. If you have multiple GUIDs, check which directory was updated recently. Go inside this directory and into the sub-directory, which is the user SID. Look at the latest modified directory. This will vary in your environment. In my case, it was the Printers directory. Delete the file, Printers.xml, inside the Printers directory. Create an NTFS mount point to \RPC Control + an Object Manager symlink with Printers.xml that points on C:\Windows\System32\whatever.dll. Open your favorite terminal and run gpupdate.

The reason why the ability of non-privileged users to write files in protected OS directories is dangerous is because it can be used for a so-called DLL hijacking attack. The C:\Windows\System32\ directory is one of the first locations many applications or the OS searches when they want to load a particular DLL. If a malicious user can place a DLL with a specific name and malicious code in that directory, it will be executed by a service or application with LocalSystem privileges giving that code full control over the computer.

The value of privilege escalation flaws

Privilege escalation vulnerabilities do not generally receive critical severity ratings because to exploit them, attackers need to already have limited access to the local computer. However, attackers can gain access to a system in many ways, including phishing emails with malicious attachments, drive-by downloads, exploiting vulnerabilities in any application. That's why it's basic security practice for users on a Windows system to have limited privileges and the applications they run to have limited privileges -- the least possible privilege they need to operate.

Due to improvements in the security architecture of modern operating systems and the developers' efforts to reduce their attack surface, it's quite rare to find a vulnerability that is remotely exploitable without authentication over a network or the internet and which directly results in complete system access. Most attacks these days use exploit chains that combine multiple vulnerabilities, and privilege escalation flaws are an important piece of those chains -- the last step before the attacker gains control over the entire system.

Unfortunately, privilege escalation vulnerabilities are still common and this is one of over 60 such flaws found by the CyberArk researchers across products from major vendors as part of a year-long research project. On Windows, privilege escalation flaws are commonly found in kernel and third-party drivers, but also in various system services, like in this case.

"These types of bugs are very common," Eran Shimony, researcher at CyberArk Labs, tells CSO. "During our research project, many of the vulnerabilities we found were of a similar nature, which means developers are not fully aware of these types of vulnerabilities, but they are easy to avoid so it would be wonderful if they would do it."

Addressing the GPO vulnerability required Microsoft to correct how Group Policy checks access which was probably not an easy thing considering it's a fundamental mechanism for Windows management. CyberArk first reported the issue to Microsoft in June last year, so it took the company a year to release an update. That might also be because it had to develop patches for all affected operating systems that are out of regular support but for which customers might still have extended security update subscriptions, including Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012 and Windows 7.
An official from the World Health Organization walked back on an earlier statement made at a Monday briefing where they suggested that virus transmission by asymptomatic individuals is "very rare."

During a Monday media briefing, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove told reporters that transmission of the coronavirus by people who have no symptoms is "very rare" - a comment that contradicted guidance from public health organizations, including the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention, which states nearly 35% of the infections may be asymptomatic.

The comment earned a concerted pushback from researchers, leading Kerkhove, W.H.O's technical lead, to address the confusion surrounding the statement during a live Q&A on Tuesday. In the video, she claimed she was referring to unpublished information.

"I wasn't stating a policy of WHO or anything like that. I was just trying to articulate what we know," Kerkhove said. "And in that, I used the phrase 'very rare,' and I think that's a misunderstanding to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare."

Kerkhove said contact tracing efforts done by other countries showed that secondary transmission by asymptomatic people is infrequent. However, she clarified that the subject is still "unknown."

She also said models that attempt to predict asymptomatic transmission yield varying results. Some predict people without symptoms make up 40 percent of transmission.

Public Reaction

Monday's statement led anti-lockdown activists to question the government's decision to shut business operations. In a tweet, Newsmax T.V. host John Cardillo said the lockdown-which caused record unemployment and job loss-and the mask-wearing protocols were for "no reasons other than government control."

The comment has also divided the opinions of public health experts. While some noted the official's failure to present published studies to support her statement, others defended her by claiming the risk of transmission is much less with asymptomatic individuals.

Critics, and other health officials, urged the organization to be transparent about its sources and present justification or studies to their claims.

Other Stumbles

The comment on asymptomatic transmission wasn't the first controversy surrounding W.H.O.'s assessment of the virus.

On June 5, Friday, the organization finally endorsed the use of face masks or coverings months after most scientists and governments have begun recommending using them.

In the latest guidelines, the World Health Organization has encouraged the use of coverings but claims its usefulness has yet to be supported by direct scientific evidence. They also provided a list of potential disadvantages, including communication difficulties and discomfort.

Apart from the endorsement, the organization has also stuck with its previous recommendations where they claim medical workers should use respirator masks only if they are involved in procedures that generate virus-laden droplets.



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"Despite these unprecedented circumstances, MGH has been able to efficiently carve out an on demand solution from Pakistan as well as within whole of South, South East Asia, and Middle East, flying hundreds of Chartered flights of Masks, PPEs, Ventilators, and Fresh Foods on simply day's notices," said Anis Ahmed, MGH Group's Founder and Group CEO.

"We've also started offering our clients multimodal transport as the air freight capacity has been highly affected. MGH Pakistan is currently operating Sea-Air shipments from its own UAE hub with a transit time of 8 days ex Pakistan to European gateways. The multi-modal solution is over 50% cost effective as compared to Air Freight and 70% faster than sea freight," Rashedul Chowdhury, Country Head  MGH Pakistan & Sri Lanka mentioned.

Andreas Kayser, Head of Global Air Freight, Forto, said, "We worked with MGH on getting much needed medical supply from Pakistan to Germany. The collaboration was extremely efficient, and partnering with MGH was a great experience. Their creativity, flexibility, and sheer commitment to the task at hand allowed us to fulfill our customer's needs in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. We hope to continue the partnership with MGH."

Since March, MGH has operated multiple freighters to and from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai, Mumbai, Hanoi, Jeddah, Riyadh and now Lahore.

About MGH Logistics

MGH Logistics is a Singapore headquartered, Bangladesh born sprawling diversified Conglomerate with presence in 18 emerging Markets over 13 years. The company has a major stronghold in Asia, Middle East and Africa, and is rapidly expanding into Europe. It encompasses a variety of services such as  Supply Chain Management for Major fast fashion retailers, Automotive, and healthcare brands to Total Cargo management for Low cost carriers etc.

About MGH Logistics Pakistan (Pvt.) Ltd

MGH Logistics is operational in Pakistan since 2005, with 3 key offices  Karachi, Lahore & Sialkot.

Media Contacts-

Fatin Khandoker

+880-1730080849

[email protected]



Shishir Ghildiyal

+91-9730191648

[email protected]

SOURCE MGH Group
Alex has cerebral palsy, but that didn't stop him flying over thousands of heads at a heavy metal concert. This occurred in Viveiro, in Lugo province, Galicia, at Resurrection Fest, one of the most famous heavy metal festivals, which attracts the best bands every summer.

It was Daniel Cruz, one of the festival photographers, who took the picture which travelled round the world via social media within a few hours. "I saw a colleague looking amazed by something, so I climbed up on the fence which separated the audience from the stage and just starting snapping away," he says.

Daniel wasn't the only one to immortalise the moment, because Swedish death metal band Arch Enemy also shared their video of it on social media and received thousands of responses. Even Podemos 'diputado' Pablo Echenique, who uses a wheelchair, posted: "That's why I was a heavy metal fan when I was young."

Alex says he wants to continue to fight for disabled people to be able to integrate at all social levels. "There's a saying, and it is something I tell myself all the time: Perseverance in the mind and feet on the ground; knowledge is power," he says.
Ladakh standoff: China, India reached positive consensus to 'ease' situation along borders

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Jun 10: China said on Wednesday that Indian and Chinese troops have started implementing the "positive consensus" reached by the senior military officials of the two countries on June 6 aimed at "easing" the situation along the borders.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson's remarks came a day after officials in New Delhi suggested that armies of India and China have undertaken a "limited disengagement" in few areas in eastern Ladakh in a demonstration of their intent to end the border standoff peacefully ahead of another round of military talks on Wednesday.

China says reached positive consensus with India on border issue | Oneindia News

China did occupy Indian territory, but...: Ladakh MP's sharp comeback to Rahul Gandhi

Asked about the reports of the troops on both sides disengaging and moving back to their previous positions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing in Beijing that both sides are taking steps to ease the situation along the borders.

"Recently the diplomatic and military channels of China and India held effective communication on the situation along the border and reached positive consensus," she said.

"The two sides are following this consensus to take actions to ease the situation along the borders," the spokesperson said.

However, the spokesperson did not specifically give details about the disengagement or withdrawal of border troops of the two countries.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, people familiar with the Major General-level talks held on Wednesday said that during the meeting, the Indian delegation pressed for the restoration of the status quo ante and immediate withdrawal of a sizeable number of Chinese troops from all the standoff points.

Ladakh standoff: Indian, Chinese troops undertakes symbolic disengagement; commanders to meet today

The dialogue that lasted for over four-and-a-half hours took place in a "positive atmosphere" with an aim to further ease tension between the two sides, they said.

The talks came a day after the two armies began a limited disengagement in a few areas in Galwan Valley and Hot Spring in a demonstration of their intent to end the row peacefully.

However, both sides remained engaged in aggressive posturing in areas such as Pangong Tso, Daulat Beg Oldie and Demchok. Military sources on Tuesday said the two armies began "disengagement" around patrolling points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and another in the Hot Spring area, adding the Chinese side has even moved back up to 1.5 km in the two areas.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged since May 5 following a violent clash in Pangong Tso. In their first serious efforts to end the row, Lt General Harinder Singh, the general officer commanding of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Commander of the Tibet Military District Maj Gen Liu Lin held an extensive meeting on June 6.

Last Saturday's talks came a day after the two countries held diplomatic parleys during which both sides agreed to handle their "differences" through peaceful discussions while respecting each other's sensitivities and concerns. India's external affairs ministry on Sunday said the Lieutenant General-level talks took place in a "cordial and positive atmosphere" and that both sides agreed that an "early resolution" of the issue would contribute to the further development of the relationship between the two countries.

The trigger for the face-off was China's stiff opposition to India laying a key road in the Finger area around the Pangong Tso Lake besides construction of another road connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley. The road in the Finger area in Pangong Tso is considered crucial for India to carry out patrol.

India has already decided not to stall any border infrastructure projects in eastern Ladakh in view of the Chinese protests. The situation in the area deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on May 5 and 6. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it. Both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

In their historic informal summit in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping underscored the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity in all areas of the India-China border region in the interest of the development of bilateral relations.

The summit had taken place months after a 73-day military face-off between the two armies in Doklam that raised fears of a war between the two Asian giants. In their talks on June 6, both sides agreed to follow the broad decisions taken by Modi and Xi in the Wuhan summit to ensure peace and tranquillity along the LAC.
So, now the Soros-backed lefties are all agreed to defund the police. Do you lefties really understand what that means?

It means, to coin a phrase,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Oh No! Not that!

You see, lefties, back in the day, the day of chimpanzees, the females were all engaged upon the birthing and the rearing of the young, and the males The males were all patrolling the border of the troop territory. This was not just a lust for battle with the males of the neighboring troops, but the simple evolutionary fact, scientists agree, that the survival of a chimp troop depends on the food and fruits within its territory available for the feeding of mothers and of the young.

Did you also know, lefties, that female chimps are peculiarly receptive, in the swiving line, to male chimps that offer them meat?

Fast forward to the agricultural age where most human males were enslaved -- or merely enserfed -- into agriculture, leaving border patrol to a few marcher lords and their followers. Marcher lord? Oh dear, didnt your wokey teacher tell you about them? Think Harry Percy, in Henry IV Part One. Harry, when not played by a woman with a fat butt in close-fitting camo, is the fierce son of the Duke of Northumberland, defending the border between England and the fiery Scots. Someone had to defend the border because otherwise the fiery Scots would sweep down and grab the grain and kill all the men serfs.

Fast forward to London in the 19th century. Robert Peel was twice Home Secretary. He founded the Metropolitan Police, to keep the gang and criminal activity in Dickens London down to a dull roar. Youll remember, you educated wokies, all about Oliver Twist and Bill Sikes and Fagin and the Artful Dodger and the kidz. If you cant read theres the excellent BBC Dickensian series. It features the detective Inspector Bucket from Bleak House.

The point of the Metropolitan Police and our current municipal police departments is to remove the need -- and the temptation -- for male city dwellers to keep the peace themselves. You will have noticed, wokies, that already, in the wake of the recent mostly peaceful protests that there are reports of vigilantes with bats patrolling the streets in the nations cities that are upsetting the woke female mayor of Chicago.

Another thing you might think of, wokies, is that if the police arent cracking heads in a shocking display of police brutality then the various gangs of helpless-victim minorities will be delighted to take up the slack.

I am sure that all you educated wokies are familiar with the North African St. Augustine, who wrote 1,600 years ago that the only difference between a criminal gang and a government was the addition of impunity.

Do you understand, wokies? If you dont have police departments then you are going to have vigilantes. Vigilantism vs. Law Officers was, if I recall, one of the themes of the TV western, back in the day.

In fact, I would suggest to you educated geniuses that you already have a permanent reminder about the danger of vigilantes. The National Rifle Association and its members are devoted to the idea that one day, maybe -- if only! -- law and order will break down and all real men will be called upon to keep the peace. For that, the NRA gun-nuts believe, they will need guns. Assault rifles even.

Of course, all level-headed people have known for decades that this fetish about guns and the Second Amendment is a conspiracy theory, the fantasy of deplorable racist sexist homophobe white supremacist white men gun-nuts.

But, if you wokies decide that it is time to defund the police why then those contemptible gun-nuts will reckon that they have been right all along, and that they will never, ever, not before hell freezes over, give up their guns. Cold dead hands, and so forth.

Let me rehearse this again. Think of the NRA and the gun-nut culture this way. They are harmless deplorables, scarcely worth your notice and your contempt -- in normal times. They are, you might say, harmlessly rehearsing their Jungian archetypes and collective unconscious that, going back to chimp times, instinctively drive a male ape to defend his troops territory against the vicious males next door. Perfectly harmless. Unless you Rosalinds decide that the police departments in your blue cities are not to be endured! Then, of course, you automatically reactivate the dormant instinct in every male ape as defender-of-the-border. And off the males march, armed and dangerous, towards the sound of the guns.

Because you wokies are all intelligent and educated and woke, I am sure that you would never do such a foolish thing.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.
Technavio has been monitoring the global blood-grouping reagents market and it is poised to grow by USD 443.28 million during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of 10% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005621/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Blood-Grouping Reagents Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is concentrated, and the degree of concentration will accelerate during the forecast period. Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., DIAGAST, Grifols SA, Immucor Inc., and Merck KGaA are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The growing demand for blood transfusions has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market.

Blood-Grouping Reagents Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Blood-Grouping Reagents Market is segmented as below:

End-user Hospitals And Blood Banks Clinical Laboratories Academic And Research Institutes

Geographic Landscape Asia Europe North America ROW



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR40141

Blood-Grouping Reagents Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our blood-grouping reagents market report covers the following areas:

Blood-Grouping Reagents Market size

Blood-Grouping Reagents Market trends

Blood-Grouping Reagents Market industry analysis

This study identifies the increasing penetration of healthcare facilities as one of the prime reasons driving the blood-grouping reagents market growth during the next few years.

Blood-Grouping Reagents Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the blood-grouping reagents market, including some of the vendors such as Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., DIAGAST, Grifols SA, Immucor Inc., and Merck KGaA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the blood-grouping reagents market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Blood-Grouping Reagents Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist blood-grouping reagents market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the blood-grouping reagents market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the blood-grouping reagents market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of blood-grouping reagents market vendors

Table Of Contents :

PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT

2.1 Preface

2.2 Preface

2.3 Currency conversion rates for US$

PART 03: MARKET LANDSCAPE

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis

Value chain analysis

PART 04: MARKET SIZING

Market definition

Market sizing 2019

Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market Outlook

PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY END-USER

Market segmentation by end-user

Comparison by end-user

Hospitals and blood banks Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Clinical laboratories Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Academic and research institutes Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by end-user

PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE

PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Asia Market size and forecast 2019-2024

ROW Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK

PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: MARKET TRENDS

Emergence of social media marketing

Advancement in technology

Increasing penetration of healthcare facilities

PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.

DIAGAST

Grifols SA

Immucor Inc.

Merck KGaA

Novacyt SA

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics Inc.

Quotient Ltd.

Rapid Labs Ltd.

Ybio Inc.

PART 14: APPENDIX

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Definition of market positioning of vendors

PART 15: EXPLORE TECHNAVIO

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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HOLYOKE  Mayor Alex B. Morse is looking to create the position of finance director, who would oversee several existing departments, including treasury, collecting and auditing.

Councilor Joseph McGiverin filed the order on Morses behalf during a virtual meeting Tuesday night. Mike Bloomberg, the mayors chief of staff, appeared before the Ordinance Committee to discuss it.

Bloomberg referenced a 2015 Division of Local Services report that reviewed the citys financial structure. It stated, By extension, we recommend the formation of a consolidated finance department in which all finance offices (e.g., treasury, collections, assessing and auditing) report to a finance director/auditor.

In our experience, this centralized management approach facilitates better communication and collaboration, and represents the citys best opportunity to deal with its longstanding financial management issues, the report added.

Bloomberg said similarly sized Massachusetts cities  populations between 30,000 and 50,000  have hired finance directors. Holyoke still has an elected treasurer.

In discussions with the Division of Local Services and other municipalities, Bloomberg stressed a step toward creating the finance director position. The ordinance would be the first step in establishing the position.

The City Council appoints the auditor, assessor and tax collector. The citys financial officials regularly update the mayor and provided needed information. Only the citys procurement officer reports directly to the mayor.

Bloomberg said the Division of Local Services noted the citys finances have grown more complex, highlighting the need for finance director or chief financial officer. The ordinance, as written, would create a finance department.

Current departments would act as sub-departments under the proposal. Only positions directly appointed by the mayor would be direct reports to this individual, Bloomberg said.

The finance director would oversee and coordinate financial activities. Step two would examine what a fully-fledged financial department would look like, and the subsequent charter change.

Bloomberg hoped for a November ballot question on the proposed change. By shifting resources, the new position would carry a net-zero cost, he said. The current fiscal year ends June 30.

Councilor Rebecca Lisi, who chairs the Ordinance Committee, asked Bloomberg what the charter change entailed?

The main purpose for a charter change is the recommendation we move away from an elected treasurer position, Bloomberg said. Under Massachusetts General Law, a municipality can combine the positions of treasurer and tax collector. Thats what were talking about with the charter change.

The City Council would still hold appropriating authority for the finance directors salary, according to Bloomberg. The proposed ordinance does not contain language on eliminating current positions.

Ward 5 Councilor Linda Vacon said she interpreted the proposed ordinance as creating a new position. Bloomberg said the ordinance is about creating the structure and not setting aside future funding.

Lisi said funding would not occur at least until Fiscal Year 2022, which gives time for restructuring and consolidating financial departments. This is exactly what the City Council asked for in terms of process, she said.

Lisi gave the example of the Veterans Services Department budgeting for two new positions, which the council rejected. The City Council needs to create that position first before you can fund it, she said.

Vacon worried about the implications for adopting the ordinance and whether a finance director would have legal authority over the treasurer, an elected official. Bloomberg deferred to the citys Law department about Vacons concerns.

Acting City Solicitor Crystal Barnes said the multi-step process was deliberate, a way to gauge the ordinances effect.

Any elected or City Council appointed financial officer would work in conjunction with the finance director and report to that person in an administrative capacity, Barnes said.

The charter states the treasurer is an elected post. We certainly dont want to override our charter. It wouldnt work that way anyway, Barnes said. If the treasurer role were eliminated or became appointed, the charter would have to reflect the move.

Barnes said the finance director would act as a point of contact, someone with a grasp of the larger picture rather than the individual departments. The ordinance allows for appointing a finance director without a charter change.

She stressed small steps before pursuing a wholesale reconfiguration of the citys financial structure. The committee tabled the order until its next meeting.
The move comes after elections scheduled for August were postponed in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ethiopias parliament has approved allowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to stay in office beyond his mandate after elections planned for August were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The vote on Wednesday  114 in favour, four against and one abstention  came two days after a leading opposition politician resigned as speaker in an apparent protest against the decision to delay the election.

The House of Federation has approved a decision to extend the term of all assemblies until international health institutions have deemed the threat from coronavirus to be over, the Ethiopian News Agency reported on Wednesday, referring to the upper house of parliament.

Lawmakers did not specify when the new elections would happen, however, their vote was an endorsement of recommendations by the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, an advisory body that had held public meetings to decide a way forward after the delay.

The body recommended for the elections to be held nine to 12 months after the coronavirus is deemed not to be a public health concern.

Ethiopias election board announced in March that it would be impossible to organise the vote on time because of the pandemic, in which 2,506 infections have been confirmed in the country with 35 deaths.

The circumstances meant that the election could not happen before legislators terms end in October.

The Ethiopian constitution does not clearly address the path forward in the unusual situation.

Endangers peace and stability

Some opposition leaders have called for a caretaker or transitional government to guide the country to elections, a suggestion Abiy dismissed as unworkable during a question-and-answer session on Monday with legislators.

The move by the upper house also drew a rebuke from opposition leaders who have accused Abiy of using the pandemic to artificially extend his time in office, and analysts warned of possible protests and boycotts.

Other opposition politicians have demanded a more prominent role in resolving the impasse, arguing that consulting parliament is insufficient because most lawmakers support the governing party.

In anticipation of the extension, oppositions had been speaking out it in recent weeks.

On Monday, House of Federation speaker Keria Ibrahim, a top official of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), resigned from her position, saying she was not willing to work with a group that violates the constitution and exercises dictatorship. TPLF, a member of the ruling coalition, opposed the decision taken in March to delay the elections due to the pandemic.

TPLF has threatened to hold its own elections in the Tigray region, home to one of Ethiopias most influential ethnic groups.





Abiy took power in Africas second-most populous country in 2018 and has since rolled out a series of reforms allowing greater freedoms in what had long been one of the continents most repressive states. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

But the changes have made it possible for long-held grievances against decades of harsh rule to resurface, and emboldened regional power-brokers such as the TPLF to seek more power for their ethnic groups.

On Wednesday night, two major opposition parties with power bases in Abiys home Oromia region issued a joint statement rejecting Wednesdays vote as an illegal and illegitimate act.

The parties, the Oromo Federalist Congress and the Oromo Liberation Front, also warned that it endangers the peace and stability of the country.

We would like to express our concern that large-scale mass uprisings which could transform into violence may arise, and this will not only take us back to square one, it will also be difficult to contain for a government already dealing with multiple socioeconomic and public health challenges, the parties said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 3

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 23 times, Trend reports on June 3 referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

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, 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 the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
TempTraq a disposable, wireless patch that continuously monitors patient temperature We are pleased that we have been able to make our technology compatible with this essential military tool that supports our armed forces medical needs, said John Gannon, Blue Spark president and chief executive officer."

Blue Spark Technologies, Inc. today announced that its TempTraq wearable temperature monitor  a disposable, wireless patch that continuously monitors patient temperature  has been deemed compatible with the Battlefield Assisted Trauma Distributed Observation Kit (BATDOK) remote patient monitoring software. This point-of-injury monitoring and documentation tool allows physicians or specialists to consult remotely with the U.S. military on the battlefield while also transmitting patient data and vitals in real-time to medical personnel.

The goal of BATDOK is to increase the simplicity and accuracy of documenting injury and health status in high-stress, fast-paced environments, ultimately allowing providers to treat more patients. Blue Spark worked with the United States Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to develop a TempTraq compatible plug-in that enables BATDOK users to continuously monitor the temperature of patients for up to 72 hours and have the data transmitted wirelessly via Bluetooth to a dashboard in real time.

We are pleased that we have been able to make our technology compatible with this essential military tool that supports our armed forces medical needs, said John Gannon, Blue Spark president and chief executive officer. Providing constant temperature monitoring will not only provide critical healthcare information, but also be used to monitor military personnel as part of any program developed for monitoring military personnel for COVID-19.

Beyond compatibility with BATDOK and support of U.S. military personnel, TempTraq is being used in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. University Hospitals, one of the largest hospital systems in Ohio, is using TempTraq for continuous monitoring of its caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that any caregivers who spike a high temperature can quickly be identified and evaluated. The technology is also being used in Australia at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital to monitor COVID-19 positive patients recovering at home as part of a virtual hospital program that was created to help mitigate a potential hospital overflow caused by the pandemic.

Implemented in hospitals across the United States, Europe and Australia, TempTraq is supported by both patient- and clinician-facing mobile apps with data centrally stored on TempTraq connect, a HIPAA-compliant cloud service. Data monitoring is also available on the TempTraq Clinician web portal or routed directly to hospital EMRs.

For more information about TempTraq, visit https://temptraq.healthcare.

About TempTraq

TempTraq, Blue Spark Technologies patented innovation, is the only Bluetooth, wearable temperature monitor in the form of a soft, comfortable patch that continuously, safely and comfortably monitors body temperature for up to 72 hours and sends alerts to Apple or Android compatible mobile devices.

TempTraq Connect is the HIPAA-compliant cloud service supported by Google Healthcare Cloud Platform that enables patients and caregivers to monitor body temperature from anywhere. It can also directly integrate with healthcare provider electronic medical record (EMR) systems and nurse monitoring stations, providing a secure method of storing patient healthcare data. The system is FDA, CE and TGA cleared.

TempTraq has shown proven efficacy in the most demanding environments, including the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and Cincinnati Childrens Hospital, as well as several other leading hospitals. The TempTraq system is scalable and can support a single hospital or a multi-hospital/physician group healthcare system. Headquartered in Westlake, Ohio, Blue Spark Technologies, Inc. is an innovator in wearable, medical device solutions.
I ndependent London filmmaker Harry Jackson has released a new satirical short film, Stop and Search, which shines a light on institutional racism in the UK.

The clip stars Top Boys Alessandro Babalola and Selom Awadzi as two black men who stop white police officers (Phil Barantini and Dean Kilbey) in the street. The officers are searched after being seen eating chips on a public bench, as they fit the profile.

How you feel right now? Humiliated, yeah? Babalolas character asks one officer in the clip. Like its us against you? Like its all we ever expected from you?

"If you're black in the UK, the police are 10 times more likely to stop and search you," the film's tag reads, "How would they feel if it was the other way around?"

Despite us being in lock down for half of March, there were still 30,608 searches in April 2020 during lock down. This is higher than any number before 2020," filmmaker Jackson explained, "As we know this disproportionately impacts black people. True to the statistics, sadly both Alessandro and Selom have been stopped and searched themselves.

BAME people have also been 54 per cent more likely to be fined under coronavirus restrictions. With the recent George Floyd tragedy, it feels like a good time or us to re-examine the problems we have in the UK.

The clip comes after mass protests across the world following the death of George Floyd, after video footage emerged showing Mr Floyd being pinned down by a Minnesota police officer, who knelt on Mr Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes. Mr Floyd later died, with the office later charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

For more information, visit harryjacksonfilms.com
Bullerdick, a former WGN-Ch. 9 photojournalist, said she was hired in July 2007 to work for the Fox Business Network in New York. She said she transferred to Fox News Chicago bureau in April 2011. She said as the only female electronic news-gathering staff field photographer and openly gay woman in the Chicago bureau, she was routinely placed in harms way by Fox News, denied security personnel, given dangerous assignments without backup, and otherwise disproportionately given job assignments without the proper training and protection, leaving her vulnerable to physical attack, according to the lawsuit.
Japanese carmaker Honda announced it has been hit by a cyberattack that disrupted its business in several countries.

The Japanese carmaker Honda announced that threat actors have compromised the Honda network disrupting its business in several countries. Source informed about the security incident believe Hondas systems have been infected with SNAKE Ransomware.

BleepingComputer reported that a security researcher named Milkream has found a sample of the SNAKE (EKANS) ransomware submitted to VirusTotal that checks for the internal Honda network name of mds.honda.com.

When BleepingComputer tried to analyze the sample, the ransomware would start and immediately exit without encrypting any files. The researcher states that this is because the ransomware tries to resolve the mds.honda.com domain, and failing to do so, will terminate the ransomware without encrypting any files. states BleepingComputer.

Security researcher Vitali Kremez has also told BleepingComputer that in addition to the mds.honda.com check, it also contains a reference to the U.S. IP address 170.108.71.15. This IP address resolves to the unspec170108.amerhonda.com hostname.

The reference to an IP address and the internal hostname check suggests the attack was launched against Honda. caused by a SNAKE ransomware attack.

The company confirmed that no breach of data has occurred as a result of the attack, it said that there is no impact on Honda customers.

The organizations is working to minimize the impact and to restore full functionality of production, sales and development activities.

At this point, we see minimal business impact, reads the statement published by the company.

The cyber attack distrupted production in Japan on Monday morning, but now the operations have been resumed,

Production in Japan is back to normal, after being disrupted Monday morning.

The impact of the attack on production in the UK could be limited because production at the factory in Swindon has been suspended during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The attack also comes as automakers face pressure to invest large amounts of money in new technologies such as electric and autonomous cars to meet air pollution limits in Europe and China and fend off competition from tech companies. states AP News.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs  Honda, hacking)
Neill is also Trucept's COO, responsible for payroll, human resources, risk management, and insurance services and has 25 years of experience in the payroll and insurance industries. In the insurance industry, she led a team of 160 employees through a complete re-brand over a two-year period. Neill has a proven record of growing businesses and driving efficiencies with a zeal for exceptional customer service. Prior to this role, Julie was the Vice President of Operations for Afinida, Inc. This was a start-up where her leadership grew the business from zero to $200 million per year in annual payroll in just three years. She also previously served as the Vice President of Operations for the Synergy Corporation, where she was responsible for the expansion of the business into new areas including third party administration (TPA). She has spent most of her career in customer service-facing roles, where she believes that outstanding customer service is to be expected.

Trucept's professional services help businesses navigate growth. The company's professional services now encompass the following:

Marketing, technology and accessibility act compliance services

Insurance offerings and third-party administrator (TPA) services

Payroll

Tax administration

Human resources and management

Employee benefits administration

Accounting support

Safety and risk management

Marketing and Technology Services - Businesses navigating the Q1-Q2 lockdown are shifting focus to an increased online presence; this requires effective marketing messaging and a path to increasing legally-compliant electronic commerce.

Trucept Inc. now offers engineering and technology services to meet Accessibility Standards including W3C and other country-specific regulations such as the American Disabilities Act (ADA), British Standard 8878 (BS 8878), and the Canadian Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). These technology services make websites, mobile applications, and electronic documents easily accessible for those with auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, or visual disabilities.

Insurance and Third-Party Administrator (TPA) Services  High risk businesses that are seeking to lower worker's compensation insurance premiums are a focus for Trucept Inc. In Q1 2020, the acquisition of UWS Insurance provides Trucept Inc. with licensed broker insurance services to a broader set of market segments currently in 25 states. Trucept Inc. is focused on expanding its licensed broker insurance services in all 50 states.

Payroll  Employees must be paid correctly and on time to comply with Federal and State employment laws. Maintaining internal staff to address these requirements comes at a cost. Trucept Inc.'s payroll services eliminate virtually all unnecessary overhead while complying with employment tax laws.

Human Resources and Management  The current uncertain business climate is affecting the global workforce with a shift from in-person operations to remote operations and lockdown business environments. The amount of stress on a remote workforce can place additional burden on a company's human resources department.

Operating with less risk and liability enables businesses to navigate market changes with efficiency. Quality HR administration, employee relation and retention services, and compliance provides time saving and peace of mind to businesses and their employees.

Employee Benefits and Administration  Employees are a primary asset in a business. Yet with the disruption experienced in Q1-Q2 of 2020, business owners are forced to evaluate all areas of cost savings to remain in business and ensure business continuity. It is possible to maintain or expand employee benefits during these turbulent economic times to foster employee retention and increased productivity. Customizing employee benefits packages by Trucept Inc., meets financial and business objectives while giving employees access to better benefits including health, dental, life insurance, and more.

Accounting Support  Businesses looking to grow in the current economic climate require time to navigate market trends. Accounting is a time-consuming process at the heart of every business. Accounting requires regular bookkeeping of accounts receivable and payable, bank and book balance record keeping, statement reconciliation, proof for audits, and more. Trucept Inc.'s services include expert guidance for all aspects of financial accounting and allow businesses to be proactive versus reactive where it matters most: the bottom line.

Safety and Risk Management  Workplace injuries occur. Preparing a business for the legal requirements of workplace injuries requires a proactive approach to safety and risk management. Trucept Inc.'s safety and risk management services save the cost of lost time and lost productivity when workplace injuries occur.

Norman Tipton, CEO of Trucept Inc. states, "The goal of Trucept Inc. is providing our clients with innovative cost savings, reliable services, and expert guidance for business continuity. From our Board of Directors to our division leadership, Trucept Inc. is composed of industry experts in every area that we service. This added benefit to our clients adds value, provides peace of mind, and enables proactive growth that is needed especially in this uncertain business climate."

Trucept Inc. is actively expanding its online presence and its Board of Directors. Additional industry advances will be shared by Trucept Inc. with its shareholders and the public very soon.

About Trucept Inc.

True solutions, today and tomorrow: Trucept Inc. helps organizations focus on growing their business. With a dedicated suite of powerful tools and services designed to put business owners in charge of running their businesses, Trucept tackles a variety of administrative needs and provides a host of value-added advantages. The company offers expert business services in the form of payroll administration, human resources and management, employee benefits, accounting support, safety and risk management, and marketing and technology services. For more information, call 858-798-1620 or visit http://truceptservices.com/.

Disclaimer

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future revenues and sales projections, plans for future financing, the ability to meet operational milestones, marketing arrangements and plans, and shipments to and regulatory approvals in international markets. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, our ability to obtain additional financing that will allow us to continue our current and future operations and whether demand for our products and services in domestic and international markets will continue to expand. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the Company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the Company's success are more fully disclosed in the Company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its annual report on Form 10-K.

SOURCE Trucept Inc.

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Three men who gardai believe are among the main protagonists in the Longford feud walked free from court yesterday after receiving suspended sentences over a violent incident that inflamed the dispute.

The shocking attack happened at the Texaco Service Station on the Dublin Road in Longford at 5pm on June 2 last year.

The Longford feud has resulted in numerous violent incidents including shootings, arson attacks, assaults and death threats, which have led armed gardai to carry out dozens of major operations.

Willie Hannafin (32), of Dublin Road, Longford; Thomas Hannafin (40), also of Dublin Road, Longford; and Denis Hannafin (39), of Curry, Athlone Road, Longford, and two juvenile defendants appeared before Judge Keenan Johnson at Longford Circuit Court.

Thomas and Willie pleaded guilty to violent disorder and were each given a three-year suspended jail sentence which was backdated until April 7 last when they were first remanded in custody by the local district court.

They were both ordered to pay 2,000 to St Vincent De Paul charity in Longford and they had to sign a 10-year bond to keep the peace.

Denis Hannafin was given a one-year suspended sentence, also backdated to when he was remanded in custody on April 7, for possession of weapons in the fracas.

The trio had been refused High Court bail in the lead-up to yesterday's sentencing hearing because of security concerns and other matters, but they are now free men.

Slitting

The two male juveniles who were identified in court as the main protagonists in the incident were remanded in custody to Oberstown Detention Centre until a court sitting on July 6. They cannot be named because they are not adults.

In a previous court sitting, gardai outlined the facts of case that the five males pleaded guilty to yesterday.

Garda John Hanley, of Longford Station, said the injured party in the case - Ronan Stokes - was assaulted by three males and that one of the males could be seen on CCTV "slitting his back".

He alleged that two of the men punched the injured party while a fourth accused swung an axe which did not make contact with Mr Stokes.

He said a fifth male drove the others to and from the service station.

The garda added that the incident started when one of the charged males emerged from a jeep when the victim was in the shop.

Two other males made their way to the front of the shop where one "punched him and the other pulled a blade up the back of the injured party".

Gda Henley agreed that the victim was slashed on his back through his clothing, which resulted in him requiring 12 stitches.

The officer said Mr Stokes escaped the scene, and an axe that was allegedly swung at him but did not make contact in the incident had not been recovered.

The victim made a complaint and gardai had obtained "very good CCTV", he said.
Photo: i_yunmai on Unsplash

An online survey done by Research Co. shows 31 per cent of Canadians say they have gained weight during the pandemic.

Fifty-two per cent reported no change and 14 per cent say they've lost weight.

During the global pandemic, Canadians have changed the way they prepare and eat food while gyms and options for exercise were closed, which has led to fluctuations in weight.

Women (33 per cent) and Canadians aged 18-to-34 (36 per cent) are more likely to acknowledge the weight gain.

While two thirds of Canadians are very familiar or moderately familiar with Canadas Food Guide, only 41 per cent say they follow the documents recommendations all the time or most of the time when choosing what to eat.

Half of Canadians aged 18-to-34 are paying attention to the recommendations of Canadas Food Guide, says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co.

Smaller proportions of Canadians aged 35-to-54 (42 per cent) and aged 55 and over (34 per cent) are following the same course of action.

Across the country, 36 per cent of Canadians say they prepare dinner for themselves and others in less than 30 minutes.

Fifty-six per cent of Canadians are in the kitchen for 31 to 60 minutes, while 8 per cent take more than an hour to prepare dinner.

Baking has also seen a spike, with 29 per cent of Canadians making desserts and 21 per cent baking bread during the global crisis.

There has also been a 24 percent increase in fruits in vegetable consumption while eating meat, fish and shellfish has gone down 15 percent.
A Realtor and a lobbyist will fill two open Bismarck School Board seats.

Dan Eastgate got 34% of the vote and Donnell Preskey Hushka got 20% in Tuesday's election. They beat out five other candidates: Kristine Johnson (12%), Karen Dunlap (10%), Sargianna Wutzke (9%), Brooke LeBeau (8%) and Nicholas Thueson (6%). About 36,300 people voted.

Incumbents Heide Delorme and Rick Geloff did not seek reelection. The other three seats on the five-person board were not up for election. Terms are four years. Members are paid $9,000 per year.

Eastgate is area director of Bismarck-Mandan Young Life and is a full-time Realtor at Venture Real Estate. He is a certified trainer with Sources of Strength, a bullying and suicide prevention program, and serves on the South Central High School Community Advisory Board. He is a board member of The Citizens of the World international health care nonprofit and serves as a director on the Bismarck Public Schools Foundation Board.

Eastgate graduated from the University of North Dakota with a bachelor of arts degree, majoring in Native American Studies with a minor in history. He and his wife, Lacey, are lifelong residents of Bismarck.

Preskey Hushka is a government affairs specialist for the North Dakota Association of Counties and executive director of the North Dakota Sheriffs & Deputies Association, as well as the County Auditors & Treasurers Association.

She is a member of the North Dakota School Safety Partners, a student safety program. She has been involved in writing the rules for the armed first responder program, launching a statewide school safety tip line and assessing the presence of law enforcement in schools across the state.

Preskey Hushka and her husband, Travis, have a daughter who attends Sunrise Elementary.

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Chandigarh: With a view to encourage women prisoners towards menstrual hygiene and ensure menstrual health, sanitary napkins were distributed in all the Prisons of Punjab where women inmates are lodged.

This noble gesture was undertaken by Aman Preet, IRS who hails from Ludhiana and is currently posted in New Delhi as Joint Commissioner, Income Tax. The project was completed with the help of NGO Sangini Saheli by Priyal Bharadwaj.

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SS RandhawaDivulging this here today, a spokesman of the Jail Department said that Aman Preet undertook this novel as well as noble initiative with a view to creating awareness and distributing free sanitary pads to the migrant, needy and underprivileged women situated in different parts of country especially in the wake of corona virus.

The officer conveyed her heartfelt gratitude to the Jail Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Praveen K. Sinha IPS, ADGP, Prisons, Punjab for encouragement and cooperation, and has also appreciated the efforts of R.K. Sharma and Mukesh Kumar Sharma, from Punjab Jail Training School Patiala for their active support and timely distribution.
Leading textiles maker and retailer Arvind Ltd expects demand for home wear, casual and comfortable wear to increase as people worked from home during lockdown. Besides, there would also be demand for special products as antiviral fabrics, the Ahmedabad-Based company said on Wednesday. The company also introduced anti-viral textile technology-based the ''Intellifabrix'' brand in the segment.

"I think home wear, casual wear and comfort wear and masks have become new accessories during lockdown," Arvind Executive Director Kulin Lalbhai told PTI. The company expects demand for such home wear, casual wear and comfort wear to increase for the industry as people are now spending much more time at home. Under the ''Intellifabrix'' brand, Arvind will offer shirting, suiting fabrics, readymade garments and face masks using HeiQ Viroblock technology. Arvind has partnered with Swiss firm HeiQ Materials AG in association with Taiwanese specialty chemical major Jintex Corporation to introduce the anti-viral technology in India.

"We are excited with this partnership and in a very short period of time we will introduce into the Indian market fabrics that will provide best-in-class viral protection and are fashionable at the same time," said Lalbhai. According to the company, HeiQ Viroblock significantly enhances the antiviral log reduction and reduces viral infectivity by 99.99 per cent and is one of the first textile technologies in the world to claim such efficacy on SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 disease.

"HeiQ Viroblock has been designed to stay active on treated garments for 30 gentle domestic washes, ensuring safety for the consumer that lasts for a good part of the garment's life," it said. On being asked how long such antiviral fabrics would have a market in India, Lalbhai said in the short term, there would be a good demand for such products. While talking about the Indian garments industry, Lalbhai said that the pandemic has hit the industry hard and it would take time to recover. Arvind is a textile to retail conglomerate with focus on textiles, apparels, advanced materials, environmental solutions, telecom and Omni-channel commerce.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 00:14:03|Editor: huaxia

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CAPE TOWN, June 9 (Xinhua) -- South Africa will continue to "take whatever action is necessary" to safeguard the lives of its citizens amid the COVID-19 scourge, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday.

Monday, June 8, "marked a solemn milestone in our country's fight against the coronavirus, as the number of our fellow citizens who have lost their lives to this disease passed the 1,000 mark reaching 1,080," Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa offered his condolences to all South Africans who have lost someone they love, and wished them strength, courage and hope in the days ahead.

The South African government has taken a "life-above-all" policy in coping with the pandemic, enforcing a hard lockdown to curb the virus spread. But this policy has been criticized for "doing more harm than good" as economic activities were brought to a near standstill.

After reducing the lockdown from level five to level four on May 1, the government further eased the restrictions to level three on June 1, allowing most businesses to reopen and 8 million people to return to work.

In response to criticism against the lockdown, Ramaphosa said South Africa has used the time during the lockdown to build the capacity of the health system, adding thousands of hospital and quarantine beds, securing adequate medical supplies and personal protective equipment, and putting training and protocols in place at all of healthcare facilities to prepare for an increase in infections.

These measures will prove invaluable as the number of cases continues to increase, said Ramaphosa.

"We should take this moment to remind ourselves that the coronavirus presents a real danger to all of us. While it may be an invisible enemy, it is nevertheless deadly," he said.

"We should take this moment to remind ourselves that the coronavirus presents a real danger to all of us," said Ramaphosa.

If necessary, the government will impose a higher alert level in specific parts of the country to prevent a rapid increase in cases, he said.

"It is therefore crucial that all South Africans adhere to the restrictions that remain in place and continue to take basic precautions to prevent the spread of the virus," Ramaphosa said. Enditem
The 1st Vice Chairman for the New Patriotic Party in the Asokwa Constituency in the Ashanti Region has predicted that Elections 2020 will go in favour of New Patriotic Party and therefore the opposition NDC should stop wasting time and resources on campaigning for the upcoming elections.



According to him, Ghanaians under NPP government led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has experienced good policies and transformations which have started yielding good results.

On this note, most Ghanaians will never bring back a party that doesn't think about the plight and development of its citizens but rather come to mess the economy we have strongly built. He noted



He said the flagship policies of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo led administration, such as Free Senior High School Policy, Planting for Food and Jobs, Planting for Food and Export, Nation Builders Corp (Nabco) which has so far engaged about 100,000 unemployed graduates, restoration of Teachers and Nursing trainees allowance among others have impacted almost every household in Ghana.



Adding that, Even under Covid-19 pandemic the government has managed to institute stimulus packages to cushion businesses and apart from the three months 50 % electricity bill reduction for all Ghanaians, Government has also offered free water distribution for 3 months among other interventions.



Whenever NPP comes to the office, we bring development, innovations and improves the living standard of every Ghanaian hence our various social interventions policies and programmes.



He said, for the sake of the future generation of our country and the transformational agenda of President Akufo-Addo led administration lets all contribute our quota toward 2020 campaign to ensure 2nd term for President to do more for the country.



Mr Edmund Kyei further reminded all Ghanaians especially party supporters that NPP is currently the only political party which has the development of the Nation at heart.



And aside from all these social intervention policies and programmes there is ongoing massive infrastructure development across the country by this current Government.



He, therefore, appealed to all party members to look at the bigger picture and also discern into the future like the president who is laying a solid foundation for the present and future generation of our dear nation.



if all should put complacency, personal and group interest aside and focus in the future couple with unity and hard work, NPP will retain power with a wider margin in 2020.



This could only be achieved when all polling station officers, electoral area Coordinators, constituency executives, Regional and National executives work tirelessly.



In going forward as a nation, NDC led by former President Mahama has nothing new or good to offer Ghanaians hence his avowed propaganda strategies.



On the forthcoming parliamentary primaries, he advised the delegates not to allow themselves to be deceived by any candidate but be bold to elect candidates who have the development of the constituencies and the nation at heart.



He also urged Ghanaians who are 18 years and above to register with Electoral Commission in the upcoming New Voters registration exercise.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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China shows best practices in virus battle, experts say

From:ChinaDaily | 2020-06-10 07:59

China has shown best practices to the world in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and its valuable experience offers many useful lessons for other countries, experts said.

A white paper titled "Fighting COVID-19: China in Action" was released by the State Council Information Office on Sunday and contains data, procedures and details of preventive measures and treatments for COVID-19.

Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion, chief economist at UnionBank of the Philippines, said the release of the white paper bodes well for further containment strategies and is a great addition to lessons learned from nations such as South Korea and New Zealand, which also succeeded in controlling the virus.

"China's valuable experience versus COVID-19 offers many useful lessons for other countries, and, hopefully, this will inspire them to be successful, like China, in combating the lethal virus," he said.

The Philippines, which is now fighting the novel coronavirus, can learn from the best practices employed by China, Asuncion added.

Christopher Bovis, a professor of international business law at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, said China has contributed best practices to the global effort to combat the pandemic and has urged global leaders to think long term and strategically to ensure that the recovery starts as soon as the pandemic is over.

Moreover, China has shown commitments to global collaboration in research, vaccine development and provision of medical equipment to fight the novel coronavirus. It also encourages openness and data sharing in order to "help ensure diagnostics, vaccines and prevention measures are developed rapidly for the benefit of every nation".

"China's best practices in social distancing and movement control have paid dividends in controlling infected areas. A pioneering system of screening and monitoring the population has played a significant role in the dynamic planning of response measures by governments. Scientific research and sharing disseminated outputs have assisted in containing the source of infection and in extending treatment," he said.

Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Program, said in reference to the white paper on Monday that "when any country publishes an evaluation of their response, it's always a good thing to see what lessons are to be learned".

"We will read the documents from China, as we do from all countries, with interest to learn lessons," he said, adding that the world should also focus on what to do to prevent a second wave of the epidemic.

Sikhumbuzo Zondi, a research assistant at the Institute for Global Dialogue, associated with the University of South Africa, said that the white paper shares with the global community China's successful experience in stopping the spread of COVID-19.

He also said that Beijing firmly holds the view that "COVID-19 could be defeated mostly through means of global information sharing, cooperation and unity to steer a collective response".

"In this regard, China has assisted many African countries in these trying times, including Ethiopia and Algeria among others, by sending medical staff and facilities to help combat the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus," he said.

Rana Mitter, director of the University of Oxford China Centre, said that scientific cooperation is the only way that the world will defeat COVID-19, and there have been more attempts to create scientific cooperation across frontiers and boundaries.

"The priority must be to make sure that research on the virus is carried out with full transparency and with no distinction about where the research comes from. The West, China and the wider world all have a vital role to play in defeating the virus," he said.

Chen Weihua in Brussels, Han Baoyi in London, Edith Mutethya in Nairobi and Chen Yingqun in Beijing contributed to this story.
"No better item to be photographed in than a pair of Maynooth GAA shorts!"

So said Paul Mescal, star of hit TV series Normal People when asked by Marty Morrissey about the fervour surrounding paparazzi pictures of him wearing a pair of O'Neills shorts.

According to Google Trends, searches for 'O'Neills shorts' spiked on May 27, the day Mescal was pictured wearing them with a colourful tracksuit top, Stan Smiths and two cans of pink Gordon's gin and tonic.

Men's shorts have made their way back into wardrobes and catwalk collections, with particularly slight versions playing a starring role in the spring-summer shows from Versace, Fendi and Etro. In some cases, designers riffed on the 80s short-shorts iconised by Tom Selleck and Bjorn Borg, while others nodded to the mid-century-inspired pastel and printed versions worn by Jude Law's Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley. With nowhere to go but the park, you may be considering a pair. So how should you style yours this summer?

Go short or go home

They are called 'shorts' for a reason. You may not dare go as high as Mescal, but below-the-knee or three-quarter styles not only miss the point, they make your legs look shorter and end up becoming impractical too.

"There's a lot of raised eyebrows when they go past the knee," says Andy Collins, owner of Dublin menswear boutique Indigo & Cloth. "We would always recommend a short that comes just above the knee - it means when you're actually moving, the fabric isn't going to sag and isn't going to be uncomfortable."

Put down the jorts

Jean shorts, aka jorts, are one of the most divisive items in menswear. Even a young David Beckham couldn't convincingly pull them off. "The thing with denim is they're not comfortable," says Alexander Fitzgerald, Editor of Menswear in Ireland. "By and large, denim is a bit unforgiving and a bit sweaty. If I'm sitting in the park, there's no way I'd be putting on denim shorts." On hot days, more lightweight natural fabrics will be breathable as well as flattering: try cotton, linen or a mix of the two for a more breezy alternative.

Pay attention to fit

All those floaty boxer-style shorts look fantastic on models with legs cut like a Michelangelo, but if you're feeling self-conscious, take comfort in structure. The above-knee length will help to define your legs and even out proportions, and good tailoring can create a streamlined silhouette. "You can get them anywhere - H&M, Zara, Dunnes, M&S. I've got great ones from Uniqlo which have a lovely stretch in them and a pleat, which makes it look a little bit more considered," says Fitzgerald.

For more structure, he suggests accessorising with a braided leather, canvas or slim suede belt: "If your shorts have loops, the addition of a belt can just crank it up a notch. It looks more elegant, like you haven't just thrown it on."

Keep it simple

Back away from the cargo shorts. More often than not, they look sloppy and immature, and all those extra pockets only add unwanted bulk. The basic chino short is a favourite for many thanks to its uncomplicated two-pocket design, or try a minimal tailored pair in a block colour.

Fitzgerald recommends muted shades such as grey, navy, beige and cream, or softer tones such as baby blue, powder pink or a seersucker. "Unless you're university age, anything too Hawaiian-style with floral prints and pineapples is a little bit too Love Island," he advises.

But don't shy away from colour

While patterns can be tricky, a vibrant colour can work well with an otherwise unfussy outfit. "Because a lot of men's wardrobes are focused around navies, blues, blacks and greys, we tend to buy shorts in brighter colours or something that's a little bit different, in contrast to what you'd be wearing on top and then socks and shoes," says Collins. Indigo & Cloth's popular styles vary from light mint to forest green to vivid orange.

Think about footwear

"One thing which can really determine the hit or miss of a pair of shorts is the footwear you wear it with," says Fitzgerald. Leave lace-up styles or anything you could wear to the office well alone, and stick to casual shoes such as trainers, moccasins, driving shoes or loafers.

Collins adds that sandals, particularly Birkenstocks, are increasingly popular, but if you're wearing closed-toe shoes, don't forget your socks. "I think it's better to go with an ankle sock when you're wearing a high short, but with the amount of different socks you can pair with certain outfits, we wouldn't be against wearing [taller] socks with it either," he says.

Don't be afraid to go retro

The rolled-down O'Neills may be best left to the professionals, but if you prefer a streetwear look, keep it clean and lean. "If you want something a bit more stylised, Adidas Originals have their old-school shorts, and they are blatantly fashion, athletes don't wear those for playing sport," says Fitzgerald. "They can look really good, or even Kappa or Ellesse - something a bit retro can look good."
Hartley Sawyer has been fired from his role as Ralph Dibny on "The Flash." He has been part of the hit CW series for the past three seasons.

Every Word Matters

"The Flash" actor has been removed from his job after a number of his past tweets with racist and misogynist references resurfaced in the past few weeks. All these tweets were made before he even joined the CW series, but it hit him hard just the same.

One of the tweets that resurfaced was one that Sawyer wrote back in 2012: "The only thing keeping me from doing mildly racist tweets is the knowledge that Al Sharpton would never stop complaining about me."

In 2014, he also wrote, "Enjoyed a secret boob viewing at an audition today."

He also had several other tweets that refer to assaulting women. One read, "Date rape myself so I don't have to masturbate."

Sawyer's Twitter account has been deleted, but screenshots of his controversial tweets continue to circulate in the web. Obviously, the CW management was not too happy with his tweets that came with messages of sexual assault, not to mention the racist and homophobic languages used.

His firing came amid the nationwide protests against systemic racism following the death of an African American at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The violent death of George Floyd has had everyone talking about practices in various industries that speak of racial bias.

The executive producer of the show, Eric Wallace, the management of the CW series, and its producers -- Warner Bros. TV and Berlanti Productions -- have released a statement confirming the actor's dismissal from the superhero series.

"Hartley Sawyer will not be returning for season seven of The Flash," the statement read.

"In regards to Mr. Sawyer's posts on social media, we do not tolerate derogatory remarks that target any race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation. Such remarks are antithetical to our values and policies, which strive and evolve to promote a safe, inclusive, and productive environment for our workforce."

Sawyer's co-actors expressed their disappointment over his tweets. In their own statement, they condemned the insensitivity of the words he used while showing their support to the larger call for change.

Fellow "The Flash" actor Eric Wallace released a statement saying: "This morning, many of you learned that Hartley Sawyer will not be returning for season seven of The Flash. Concerning his social media tweets, they broke my heart and made me mad as hell. And they're indicative of the larger problem in our country."

His full statement was published through his social media account. Grant Gustin, who plays as "The Flash," reposted Wallace's statement and added that he was "shocked, saddened, and angry" when he saw the tweets of Sawyer.

Through his Instagram account, Sawyer issued a public apology admitting his wrongdoing.

"My words, irrelevant of being meant with an intent of humor, were hurtful, and unacceptable. I am ashamed I was capable of these really horrible attempts to get attention at that time. I regret them deeply. This was not acceptable behavior. These were words I threw out at the time with no thought or recognition of the harm my words could do, and now have done today."

A Life Lost

Over two weeks ago, George Floyd was only known by the people close to him. In fact, when the news about his death was first reported, he was only referred to as an African-American who died during an arrest.

However, when videos of his violent death circulated, it sparked outrage among citizens. People started to gather in the streets screaming for justice.

As more celebrities came forward to fight against systemic racism and discrimination, those who speak otherwise are taught their lesson. Hartley Sawyer may be good in his craft, but his words only show the kind of person that he is.
Kim Kardashian is trying to be the best wife for Kanye West as she tries to save their seem-to-be dying marriage.

Weeks ago, Kim celebrated her sixth wedding anniversary with Kanye by posting a series of sweet throwback pictures -- including some from their wedding ceremony on May 24, 2014.

"6 years down; forever to go Until the end," the KKW Beauty mogul wrote on her Instagram post along with two pictures of her and Kanye.

In the first picture, the KKW Beauty mogul can be seen kissing her husband's cheek. Meanwhile, in the second one, the couple can be seen smiling brightly as the media personality wrapped her arms around the rapper's shoulders.

The post came after reports about them having marital issues emerged, claiming that the rocky part of their marriage started when the lockdown period began. Their misunderstandings eventually caused them to stay on opposite sides of their luxurious home in Los Angeles.

However, right after they celebrated their anniversary, things seemed to have gotten even worse, so much so that Kim is reportedly considering moving out so that she could avoid divorcing Kanye.

According to The Sun, Kim is thinking whether it would be better for them to spend some time away from each other during the rest of the lockdown period to prevent their relationship from further falling apart.

"Things are tough between Kim and Kanye because they never normally spend this much time together, but she doesn't want a divorce," a source revealed.

Since Kim is the only Kardashian sister who is married, divorce is the last thing she wants. In addition, the media personality is reportedly trying to prevent a separation after she received massive public backlash from her second divorce with Kris Humpries.

To recall, Kris referred to his divorce with Kim as "brutal" and a "dark place." He also denied through an essay for The Players' Tribune that their 72-day union was a publicity stunt.

"When it was clear that it wasn't working ... what can I say? It sucked," Humphries said. "It's never easy to go through the embarrassment of something like that - with your friends, with your family.... But when it plays out so publicly, in front of the world, it's a whole other level. It was brutal."

Kim Trying Harder

Kim has not spoken about the issue yet, but a representative for the couple revealed that she has been splitting her time between Kanye's Wyoming ranch and Los Angeles during the lockdown.

"It's also a lot of time alone with the kids for her. She is frustrated with Kanye, and thinks he's not pulling his weight in family responsibilities," the source revealed. "She is trying to be a great mum, focus on law school and her work commitments, and it's hard to do all of this without Kanye helping as much as he can."

Currently, Kim and Kanye are still fixing their relationship, and fans are hoping that they will mend everything soon.
ST. LOUIS  Sheriff Vernon Betts announced Wednesday that at least 30 St. Louis deputies will be outfitted with body cameras.

The cameras will be worn primarily by the departments outside service deputies who are tasked with evicting tenants and serving protection orders, lawsuits and other court papers, Betts said.

I believe body cameras are not only a tool to keep law enforcement accountable to the public, I strongly believe they also increase the safety of my deputies, Betts said.

Buying the 30 cameras, Betts said, cost an estimated $4,000, an expense covered by revenue from fees on concealed-carry permits and land tax sales, or auctioned-off properties whose owners have failed to pay property taxes.

Betts has about 160 deputies on his roster. He said some began wearing the cameras more than a week ago while assisting city police during downtown protests.

All sheriffs department video will be retained for up to 60 days and will be subject to Missouris open records law. He said video requested by the public and news media will be provided at no charge. Video of major incidents involving deputies will be stored indefinitely. Betts did not have details on storage costs.

Deputies turn on the cameras themselves and will be trained on when to activate them, Betts said.

And theyll be under strict instructions, he said. I wont have a deputy come back to me whos had an incident and tell me that he didnt turn his body camera on. It will be hell to pay, Im telling you now. So, no, we wont have those kind of games.

The announcement comes amid nationwide calls for greater accountability within law enforcement agencies after the death of 46-year-old George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. Betts said he is deeply troubled over Floyds death.

These constant deaths of black men at the hands of police make me fear for my friends, neighbors, my sons and my grandsons, said Betts, who is black.

The department has been testing the Boblov brand cameras on some of its deputes for about a year, he said. Theyll be in use starting June 22 when the St. Louis Circuit Court reopens to the public. Evictions in St. Louis were suspended during the outbreak of COVID-19. Betts said theres now a backlog of hundreds of evictions his deputies will enforce once the courts reopen.

St. Louis officials, as of March, were negotiating a contract with an Illinois company to provide body cameras for city police officers. The cost was expected to be several million dollars over five years and would need an agreement from the city police unions.

St. Louis County has chosen the same company to outfit its police force with cameras.

Betts announcement comes about two months ahead of his bid for a second four-year term.

In the Aug. 4 primary, hell face two Democratic challengers for the sheriffs seat: former deputies Alfred L. Montgomery and David A. Mosley. Two Republican candidates are also vying for the job: John N. Castellano III, deputy on staff, and Lester E. Stewart, a retired deputy.

Betts said the timing of his announcement is not tied to his reelection campaign. He said its about keeping his deputies safe amid tensions between the public and law enforcement.

My folks are going to have to go out and start serving those eviction notices, Betts said.  Im not sending my guys out on the street without as much protection as we can possibly give them.

Joel Currier  314-340-8132 @joelcurrier on Twitter jcurrier@post-dispatch.com

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Gyms will change post-coronavirus.

picture alliance / Getty

As gyms begin to reopen across the US, there will be some major changes to the way you work out.

Although you may not be required to wear a mask, you will need to wipe down your machines more regularly, and you will need to social distance.

Group fitness classes will be smaller and locker rooms will be at limited capacity.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

After the coronavirus started to spread throughout the US earlier this year, gyms across the country closed their doors, leaving many people to work out at home instead.

Now states are beginning to reopen, and some gyms are opening back up, too. Insider spoke with Adam Zeitsiff, president and CEO of Gold's Gym, and McCall Gosselin, Planet Fitness' SVP of communications, to find out what gym members can expect.

Here are nine ways gyms will be different, according to Zeitsiff and Gosselin.

Your pre-gym routine may involve a lot more planning.

Prep more.

MEHDI FEDOUACH / Getty

Zeitsiff recommends you check with your gym before arrival to make sure they are actually open. He also said gym members should go the extra mile and inquire about new policies. For example, there may be no more towel service, so now you have to pack your own towel.

It's also important that you check what your local guidelines are requiring. If your state or city requires you to wear a mask while at the gym, then make sure you pack that as well.

Zeitsiff said to bring anything that will make you feel more comfortable while in public.

"Some members are bringing their own sanitizing wipes because they prefer to wipe things down on their own," he said. "Know ahead of time what your new routine is going to be."

Your gym may be less crowded because they can only operate at a limited capacity.

There will be limited capacity.

EZEQUIEL BECERRA / Getty

Some states are allowing gyms to open but only at 25% or 50% capacity. But that doesn't necessarily mean you'll have to wait to get into the gym.

Story continues

Planet Fitness has opened 800 out of their 2,000 locations so far, but Gosselin said she has not seen an issue with the capacity requirements.

"People will be excited to come back, for sure," she said. "That's what we are seeing so far."

The check-in process will most likely be contactless.

Checking in may be different.

MEHDI FEDOUACH / Getty

Gosselin said Planet Fitness has asked all members to download the company's app so that each member can tap their bar code for entry on their own instead of handing over a card to the front desk staff member. Zeitsiff said Gold's Gym will implement the same policy, allowing members to hold their own phones up to the scanner.

Additionally, the staff member at the check-in counter will most likely be wearing a mask and gloves. Most gyms will not require members to wear a mask, as long as the state is not requiring people to do so.

Right now, states are not requiring gyms to do temperature checks on members when they enter, but Gosselin said Planet Fitness is doing daily temperature checks for its staff.

The floor plan of your gym may be different and some machines will be unplugged to ensure social distancing.

Machines will be closed.

Courtesy of Planet Fitness

When you return to the gym, it may look different because of the floor plan.

"We are spacing equipment out on the floor, we are shutting down some cardio equipment, and we are keeping benches separate," Zeitsiff said. "For example, if we have a row of 12 treadmills, we probably will have five or six of them functioning and the rest shut down."

Gosselin said Planet Fitness is doing the same and even coined the term "social fitnessing" to explain why machines are shut down in the gym.

It might be harder to book a group fitness class because they're at limited capacity.

Group fitness class.

Ethan Miller / Getty

Zeitsiff said Gold's Gym's group exercise classes are already up and running again but at limited capacity.

"If you were able to have 30 people in a class before, you're probably going to have 12 to 13 now," he said. "[There will be] floor markers so everyone knows where to stand and to set up their equipment."

Their group class schedule will also change so there's more time between classes for a deep clean of the studios, he said.

Gym staff will be roaming to make sure everyone is social distancing and cleaning along the way.

Staff cleaning machines.

NurPhoto / Getty

At Gold's Gym, there will be "roamers," whose job it is to walk around the gym and make sure everyone is social distancing. They will also be cleaning equipment to ensure safety.

Gosselin said Planet Fitness has a similar plan in that staff members are required to walk around every 20 minutes to clean the high traffic areas and equipment.

You'll see interrupted business hours for cleaning.

Staff cleaning machines.

MEHDI FEDOUACH / Getty

Zeitsiff said Gold's Gym will shut down every day from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. for a deep clean on the entire space. The gym will also be cleaned thoroughly at the end of every day.

Planet Fitness won't close for an hour in the middle of the day  instead, areas will be cleaned thoroughly and repeatedly throughout the day.

Your gym may ask you to help in the cleaning process by providing more cleaning stations.

Sanitation stations are marked by orange flags.

Courtesy of Planet Fitness

Gosselin said Planet Fitness has increased the number of "Sanitation Stations" in each gym, which include paper towels, cleaning sprays, and hand sanitizer, so that members can do their part in stopping the spread.

"We're also reinforcing to our members that they can help us and they have a role to play in helping our community stay strong and healthy," she said. "We are encouraging them to wash their hands and to wipe down equipment before and after use."

It may be more difficult to get a locker in the locker rooms, as many will not be accessible.

Locker rooms will be less crowded.

Stefano Guidi / Getty

Some states are requiring locker rooms to remain closed during this time, but others are opened with limited capacity. Zeitsiff said Gold's Gym is zip-tying some lockers shut so that members can social distance. The gym will also not provide towel service for now.

Read the original article on Insider
Chocolate lovers have had their hopes dashed after Cadbury announced it will not be selling a new Caramilk bar in Australia.

Rumours about a Caramilk Hokey Pokey bar - a mix of the cult Cadbury block and golden honeycomb pieces - swirled online this week after multiple posts appeared in a Caramilk fans Facebook group.

Cadbury has confirmed it will be releasing a new Caramilk Hokey Pokey chocolate bar (pictured) - but it will only be available in New Zealand

After speculation over the authenticity of photos of the product, Cadbury confirmed the new creation was real but said fans in Australia would miss out.

'Were excited to confirm that we are launching Caramilk Hokey Pokey in New Zealand this year,' Cadbury marketing manager Kate Watson told news.com.au.

'The combination of Cadbury Caramilk and Hokey Pokey brings together two iconic Kiwi flavours in the one delicious Cadbury block.

'While Caramilk Hokey Pokey wont be launching in Australia this year, wed love to hear if its a flavour combo Aussie Caramilk fans would like to see us launch in future.'

The chocolate manufacturer continued to tease Aussie Caramilk lovers, saying the company will have some good news to share with fans 'very soon'.

But that did little to lessen Australian fans' disappointment.

'Seriously Cadbury? Why would you deny all those Aussie Caramilk addicts from enjoying this too?' one man wrote on Cadbury's Facebook page.

'Another product only available in NZ while we still wait for the original in Australia,' someone else commented.

Another person called on Australian fans to put pressure on Cadbury to cave in and release the new variety Down Under.

'It's time to revolt everyone! We now have confirmation that Caramilk Hokey Pokey is only being launched in New Zealand,' one man wrote in a Facebook post.

'But Cadbury "Australia" have been known to bow to public pressure before, so why not post a comment on their page and let them know that Aussies want some of that Hokey Pokey goodness too!'

'I keep sending messages via messenger. Everyone needs to do this on a regular basis,' a woman responded.

The latest creation is a variation on Cadbury's Caramilk bar (pictured), a hybrid caramel and white chocolate bar

The packaging features a special edition strip across the top and describes the new confectionery as 'a golden blend of caramelised white chocolate and golden hokey pokey pieces'.

The chocolate giant has been known to tease fans in the lead up to releasing products.

Last year, Cadbury remained tight-lipped about confirming its Twirl edition of the caramelised white chocolate bar after photos were leaked online.

The brand did the same thing earlier this year with the comeback of its Marble bar.
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During the past week of protest and riot, I have heard one question uttered over and over. Who can we turn to for unity? Or, What national voices are left who can speak across divides? I asked a group of college students, all selectively-chosen DC interns, these questions today (at the time of writing) during a Zoom seminar. The chat box remains blank.

I reintroduced the students, and perhaps we all need to be reintroduced, to Martin Luther King, Jr.s potent Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963). It is a sublime statement against injustice. It is also a challenge to not allow hatred to take root in our hearts.

King was responding, from his jail cell, to letters from local religious leaders in Birmingham, Alabama, who suggested that he and other civil rights activists were outsiders bringing discord to their fair city. He responds by nodding to John Donne: there is injustice in Birmingham and no man, no community, is an island unto itself. We are a part of the whole. We are the United States of America. Injustice in Birmingham is injustice in America.

King disagrees with the pastors. He did not bring discord to Birmingham  the strife was already there due to segregation. He then outlines the thoughtful, four-step process of his non-violent campaign. The campaign begins with the careful collection of facts which are then presented to civil authorities. Every effort should be made at negotiation before confrontation. Such had been tried, and utterly failed, in Birmingham.

The third step catches most readers off-guard: self-purification. King writes, Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. He later says, nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

How does one self-purify? First, King says, civil rights activists had to ensure that they could accept the blows without retaliating. More importantly, King stresses neighbor-love as the basis for righteous indignation. Righteous anger, whether the anger of Jesus driving illicit money-changers from the Temple or the anger of bystanders who witnessed the murder of George Floyd, can be motivated by love. King calls them extremists for love, and labels Jesus, St. Paul, Martin Luther, John Bunyan, and Abraham Lincoln as such creative extremists.

Thus Kings admonition: do not fall into hate. Hatred is evil. Hatred is destructive. And, hatred is, as King well knew, counter-productive to justice.

The fourth step is nonviolent direct action such as sit-ins and marches. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. He concludes this section, My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.

As I have watched events unfold in the past week, I wish King had been here to give some guidance. The righteous anger King talks about was apparent in the voices of bystanders calling for the police to allow George Floyd to sit up. I think King would have been proud of citizens and families, from all walks of life, praying and marching in solidarity against the brutality that caused the death of this individual. Moreover, the marchers larger concern is not a single incident, but what they perceive to be a pattern. It is noteworthy that many of these demonstrations occurred lawfully and peacefully in broad daylight.

However, he would have been deeply concerned about after-dark lawbreaking, violence, and destruction. He always spoke out against thuggish behavior and lawlessness. Why? Because lawlessness leads to anarchy: In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the lawthat would lead to anarchy. If the goal of this protest is for all people to have equal rights and equal protection under the law, then burning, breaking, and looting can never be equated with King-style nonviolent direct action.

Yet, King recognizes that his nonviolent direct action often was a sort of law-breaking. His law-breaking took one of two forms, either breaking an existing unjust law or breaking a just law that was being unjustly and narrowly applied. Jim Crow laws that made it impossible for black Southerners to participate fully in economic life or as citizens in elections were unjust laws. At the same time, many mundane laws, such as the requirement for permits for marches and large-scale events, were implemented in unjust ways to bar black Americans from exercising their First Amendment rights. Whites could hold a parade. Blacks could not. Whites could mass in a public place (e.g. a park) but blacks could not. These were laws enforced, notoriously, by the officers of the law in a way that mocked the blindness of Justice.

King argues, with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all. In a moving passage on natural law, King asserts,

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

King concludes, One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Motives matter. People engaged in nonviolent direct action must ask themselves what their intentions and motivations are. Is love of neighbor and disgust of injustice the motivation? Are they acting openly and lovingly? As far as I can tell, most of the peaceful daytime demonstrations have involved little risk of imprisonment for the participants. They seem to be operating, in many instances, openly and respectfully.

I do have questions about whether or not some of the protesters are just onlookers tired of COVID-19 quarantine or are voyeurs along for the ride. And, for those on the streets after the sun goes down, which is quite late on June nights, are they behaving with openness and love?

So, where does all of this leave me as a teacher engaging a group of students? I have to recall that King was an unsatisfactory prophet to some: the white moderates wanted him to wait until the right time, but King knew that without action, justice would never come. He dissatisfied those he called black nationalists for his measured, people-power approach. He left many dissatisfied, at least at the time, with his methods.

But, King was the prophet who united an unwieldy movement against injustice and for justice. He made common-good arguments that the freedom and justice be the lived experience for all citizens, regardless of race or class. His Letter sets the Birmingham struggle in the context of Biblical figures like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the Boston Tea Partys patriots, and Hungarys freedom fighters against Communism.

King concludes his letter with the hope [that] the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

This is what I told the students. Listen to an American patriot. There is a time for sorrow, there is a time for righteous indignation, and there is a time for action. Today, this day, lets listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., confess our sins, guard our hearts against hate, and resolve to work for justice.
HOUSTON, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tokio Marine HCC (TMHCC) today announced that Mark Reynolds, current President of Tokio Marine HCC - Credit Group, will be appointed as Chairman, effective January 1, 2021. Jerome Swinscoe, currently Chief Underwriting Officer of the same group, will assume the role of President, also effective January 1, 2021.



"Over the 15 years since its establishment, the Tokio Marine HCC - Credit Group has developed into one of the premier providers of trade credit and political risk insurance. Jerome has been a driving force in our development, and I am very pleased that he will be succeeding me as President. I look forward to continuing to work with him and the rest of the team as Chairman," said Mr. Reynolds.

As part of Tokio Marine HCC's succession planning strategy, Mr. Swinscoe, who joined Tokio Marine HCC - Credit Group as Senior Underwriter in 2007 and became Chief Underwriting Officer in 2017, will lead the group as President in 2021. Prior to joining Tokio Marine HCC, he was an underwriter at Catlin Group Ltd. Mr. Swinscoe began his insurance career with Marsh in France.

"At Tokio Marine HCC, our focus is to be a strong and viable partner for our customers through our specialty underwriting expertise and diverse lines of business. As President, I plan to continue the legacy that Mark has established and strengthen this focus on our customers, living up to the outstanding reputation that we have within the industry," commented Mr. Swinscoe.

About Tokio Marine HCC

Tokio Marine HCC is a member of the Tokio Marine Group, a premier global company founded in 1879 with a market capitalization of $32 billion as of March 31, 2020. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Tokio Marine HCC is a leading specialty insurance group with offices in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Continental Europe. Tokio Marine HCC's major domestic insurance companies have financial strength ratings of "A+.
White was out in his district when the looting was happening last week, and took a walk through the neighborhood the day after. He spoke with residents, including an 81-year-old pharmacy owner who was trying to figure out if he would be able to rebuild his business.
The Zero - See Safety Measures mobile app, which aims to offer users information about the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) safety measures at local businesses and provide contact tracing functionality, is displayed on an iPhone in Oakland

By Paresh Dave

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Singapore kicked off a global rush to develop contact tracing apps for the novel coronavirus when the city-state launched an apparently new system in March.

But the project actually drew inspiration from a 2014 U.S. high school project that won an international prize but found no backers - until now.

It all started when Rohan Suri created an app at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, to tell his mom to leave home for the bus stop when he was seven minutes away. As the Ebola epidemic ravaged western Africa at the time, Suri and schoolmate Claire Scoggins connected the dots between tracking apps and contact tracers who ask patients whom they may have spread viruses to.

"I got really interested in basically automating a lot of these contact tracing efforts," Suri said, noting a staff shortage in remote parts of Africa during the Ebola epidemic.

When Suri and Scoggins developed a prototype called kTrace, they appealed to medical aid organizations and the U.S. government to bring it to the frontlines. But they found no takers, even after winning third place for systems software at the 2015 International Science and Engineering Fair.

The app languished until Suri, now a 21-year-old junior at Stanford University, got an email on Jan. 24 from Jason Bay, a Stanford alum and senior director at Singapore's Government Technology Agency (GovTech).

"My mom had texted me saying, 'You've got to look at this virus in Wuhan and do something about it,'" Suri said, referring to the city in China where the coronavirus outbreak began. "I didn't take it seriously, though, and week later the Singapore government is reaching out."

Bay's team had been looking for technology to help curb the coronavirus and came across kTrace online. Suri spent February and March volunteering on GovTech's TraceTogether app alongside fellow Stanford students Nikhil Cheerla and Daniel Lee.

Story continues

They said they gave Singapore a roadmap by sharing kTrace's code and providing advice in virtual meetings on stronger privacy protections. They also collected 13 phones to help test Bluetooth technology.

Singapore was "just looking around for any way to speed up the development process and we fit in," Cheerla said.

The agency said it contacted Suri "to understand his experiences and considerations in designing kTrace for Android." But Suri "did not commit code to TraceTogether, nor did (GovTech) use kTrace in the development of TraceTogether," it added.

NEW PROJECT

University scientists Kate Farrahi and Manuel Cebrian said their studies as early as 2011 were the first to show Bluetooth readings could aid contact tracing. They did not develop an app, however, and Suri had not seen their work in high school.

But since Singapore's app launched, several dozen governments, including Australia, Britain and U.S. states such as North Dakota, have spent millions of dollars among them to develop separate tracing apps. Government health authorities administer and promote the apps and link them to their testing systems.

Many other governments are monitoring progress in Singapore, where about 25% of the country's 5.6 million residents have downloaded TraceTogether.

Contact tracing apps largely use anonymous Bluetooth radio exchanges to automatically log nearby users. The technology aims to slow viruses by identifying secondhand infections more quickly than through interviews.

But privacy concerns are a hurdle, and the technology does not work well on iPhones. A fix Apple Inc introduced in partnership with Alphabet Inc's Google last month limits the personal data contact tracing apps can collect, which authorities say reduces their effectiveness.

Singapore has adopted a costly solution: Giving residents small tracing gadgets, possibly worn on a lanyard, that do not require smartphones.

Suri said he, too, had developed a wearable device in high school because Ebola infections were highest in countries with low smartphone ownership.

Suri is now focusing on a third app called Zero, aimed at U.S. cities.

The day after TraceTogether launched, a friend who knew about Suri's involvement introduced him to a handful of New York entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seeking to bring similar technology to the United States.

They ended up co-founding Zero, which aims to attract users by bundling contact tracing technology with a safety-rating tool for shops and restaurants based on measures such as occupancy limits and mask rules.

"You need a strategy that goes hyperlocal, and that's what Zero is doing," Suri said.

For example, a shopper would check Zero for safety ratings before deciding where to go. Shops could promote special hours through the app for customers who wear masks.

Zero launched for iPhones last week, with its first business listings coming soon in New Rochelle, New York. Contact tracing will be added when cities agree to become partners.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Richard Chang)
I f Gavin Williamson thought the Ministry of Defence  which he ran from 2017 to 2019  was the front line of British politics, he must now be having second thoughts.

Being Secretary of State for Education is much tougher. Tanks, missiles and generals are one thing. But the sensitivities of parents, the competing needs of pupils of all ages, and the inflexibilities of teaching unions  during a pandemic, no less  are something else entirely.

Yesterday Williamson emerged from his Commons statement on the reopening of schools having been criticised both for doing too much and too little.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, his Labour opposite number, managed simultaneously to take him to task for having proposed the early return of primary-age pupils in the first place, and for not hurrying up with a plan to do so.

Rob Halfon, the Conservative chair of the education select committee, warned him that, by delaying the full reopening of primary schools he was risking an epidemic of educational poverty.

Earlier in the day, Anne Longfield, the Childrens Commissioner for England, had accused the Government of furloughing childhood.

Matthew d'Ancona

But Williamson was also taken to task for potentially endangering the lives of teachers who  as adults  are at greater risk from coronavirus than young children.

Such, as he sometimes remarks to colleagues, is our trade. He is right to be philosophical about the predicament that he faces, one that will bedevil the schools, parents, teachers and pupils for many months to come.

The need to get the education system up and running again is obvious to everyone: it is urgently required by pupils, and a precondition of anything approaching economic revival.

It was scarcely Williamsons ambition when he became Education Secretary in July to close the nations schools and cancel all public examinations for the summer of 2020. But this is precisely what he was compelled to do on March 18, as the nation headed for full lockdown five days later.

While schools have been closed, he has had to create what amounts to a pop-up welfare system, providing free meals to 1.3 million, protection for vulnerable children and a safe environment for those whose parents are key workers.

During lockdown, schools have acted as food banks, creches and social support services. The Oak National Academy  an online teaching site  has delivered more than 10 million lessons to those at home.

Meanwhile, Williamson has sourced 230,000 laptops for children without access to digital technology.

He deserves credit, too, for fighting hard with the Treasury to secure resources so that Year 10 and Year 12 pupils (who face GCSEs and A-levels in summer 2021) could be ensured some face-to-face time with teachers before the end of this term.

The Governments mistake was to raise expectations as bullishly as the Prime Minister did last month that primary schools would be well on the way to full reopening before the summer holidays. The pressure to announce such dates, to disclose timelines, to commit to deadlines is immense. But, for the foreseeable future, ministers would be wise to resist it.

While it is obvious that schools should resume a full service as soon as possible, it is not obvious that this is as straightforward as is often suggested.

Comparisons with zoos and water parks are neither here nor there . Most class-rooms are potential Petri dishes of disease, not least for teachers and their assistants.

Social distancing in cramped and often decrepit buildings is not as easy as it is in the grand lobbies of Westminster. Let us reframe the question. How would the public and Labour now be responding if Williamson had said: to hell with the rules, lets roll the dice with the kids and see what happens?

It is more instructive to interpret what is happening with schools as a warning of what lies ahead in every economic sector and every part of the country.

You think this is messy? Wait till businesses start to reopen  and then have to close again in particular neighbourhoods, because of a localised spike in infections, or across whole sectors because of an unexpected national increase in R, the rate of infection.

Whisper it quietly, but Williamson is doing a pretty good job. The stop-go reopening of schools is simply an exemplar of what lies ahead of us in every field of our lives. Get used to it.
Maiduguri: Boko Haram gunmen have killed at least 69 people and razed a village to the ground in northern Nigeria's Borno state, three sources have said.

The men attacked the village of Faduma Koloram, in Gubio local government area in the state, starting about noon on Tuesday, local time.

They arrived in vehicles and on motorcycles, shooting with AK-47s, razing the village and stealing 1200 cattle and camels. A resident, a Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) member and a soldier each confirmed the same account.

People check the remnants of houses destroyed by extremists in Monguno, Borno state, Nigeria, last year. Credit:IRC/AP/File

They said the men attacked because they suspected residents of sharing information on the terror group's movements with security authorities.
The Chronicle

Two women were killed Tuesday night in Vallejo when a group of shooters got out of a vehicle and opened fire at a toddlers birthday party, wounding two other adults and a 10-year-old child, police said.

Officers responded at 9:49 p.m. to reports of a shooting on the 100 block of Cynthia Avenue in North Vallejo, where they found five people suffering from gunshot wounds, according to Vallejo police. Two of the victims  identified as a 63-year-old woman and a 37-year-old woman  were pronounced dead at a local hospital.
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The government of the Australian Capital Territory has announced stamp-duty reductions for owner-occupiers as part of its recovery plan to support local jobs.

Buyers of new land single residential blocks will have their stamp duty waived. Those who plan to buy off-the-plan apartments and townhouses with values no more than $500,000 will also not be charged with stamp duty.

The stamp duty for off-the-plan apartments with price tags of more than $500,000 to $750,000 will be reduced to $11,400.

Homebuyers can apply for the waiver until June 30 next year.

At the same time, the ACT government will be extending the Pensioner Duty Concession Scheme for another year.

Under the concession scheme, pensioners purchasing a property valued below the median property value will be given full or partial stamp duty cuts.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said these initiatives are expected to encourage growth and support jobs in the construction sector.

"The ACT's local construction industry employs and supports tens of thousands of Canberra families," he said. "These measures will save new homebuyers thousands of dollars whether they are entering the housing market for the first time, or looking to move."
Before the victory of Mr. Cunningham, who declined a request to be interviewed, the sole route to prominence as a Democrat in South Carolina went solely through Representative James E. Clyburn, the powerful House majority whip, who is even more influential on a local level.

Mr. Harrison, who was once an aide for Mr. Clyburn, said he recognized the long odds of his task, but believes he is well-positioned to win. He identified two things he needed to do: Replicate Mr. Cunninghams success with white, college-educated voters, and increase the share of the black electorate by bringing in new voters.

Mr. Harrison, the first black chairman of the state Democratic Party and a former Washington lobbyist, has toed a moderate line when it comes to policy.

He has stayed away from issues that have become litmus tests for progressives, such as Medicare for all and tuition-free college. Instead, his website speaks about issues like health care and the student loan crisis in broad, vague terms, saying he supports lowering the cost of health care for those who already pay too much and making college affordable for anyone willing to work hard.

In the interview, Mr. Harrison hinted that he would need third-party candidates to take votes from Mr. Graham in the general election. No matter Mr. Grahams best efforts, he speculated, the lingering perception of him as insufficiently conservative could lead to fractures among Republicans.

Some of those folks just cant trust this guy because hes been on both sides of every issue, Mr. Harrison said. Theres going to be alternatives on the ballot this fall. Theres a Constitution Party person. Theres a Libertarian Party person. And I think theres enough distrust, at the end of the day, theyre not going to give him their support.

The race, once viewed as an afterthought as South Carolina focused on the Democratic presidential primary, has slowly consumed the state. Mr. Harrison out-raised Mr. Graham in the first quarter of 2020, bringing in more than $7 million. Mr. Graham raised just over $5.5 million, though he had about $4 million more cash on hand from previous fund-raising efforts.
Mental health nurses will accompany police officers on jobs to help deal with psychiatric emergencies as part of a $6.1million program to help deal with Australia's mental health crisis

Minister for Mental Health Bronnie Taylor and Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott announced on Wednesday an additional 36 specialist mental health clinicians across 10 Sydney police stations.

The NSW Government will invest a further $6.1million investment in the Police, Ambulance and Clinical Early Response (PACER program) which supports police and paramedics in mental health emergencies.

Last year alone, NSW Police responded to a total of 55,000 mental health emergencies with the support of PACER.

The NSW Government will invest a further $6.1million investment in the Police, Ambulance and Clinical Early Response (PACER program) which supports police and paramedics in mental health emergencies

Minister for Mental Health Bronnie Taylor (pictured) and Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott announced on Wednesday an additional 36 specialist mental health clinicians across 10 Sydney police stations

'This ground breaking collaboration embeds mental health experts with first responders to support them to appropriately recognise, assess, and respond to mental health emergencies live at the scene,' Mrs Taylor said.

'The pilot program has had incredible results with significant reductions in emergency department presentations, police and ambulance time on scene.

Where PACER program will be expanded to Campbelltown

Nepean, Northern Beaches

Sutherland Shire

Blacktown

Eastern Beaches

Kuring-gai

Metro Combined consisting of Kings Cross/Surry Hills/City of Sydney

South Sydney

St George Area

Bankstown Advertisement

'This approach has enormous potential to change lives, with the community getting more appropriate care at the time when they need it most.'

The expansion comes following a successful trial at the St George Police Area Command.

Mr Elliott welcomed the investment of the program which has vastly improved police time on-scene of emergencies by up to 45 minutes and freed up time for officers.

'During the pilot program, police time-on-scene was reduced by an average of 45 minutes, not only supporting first responders to appropriately recognise and respond to psychiatric incidents in the community, but also freeing up officers to serve the community in other areas,' Mr Elliott said.

'The presence and availability of a PACER clinician in a police station increases the knowledge and understanding of mental health issues amongst officers

'This initiative is crucial, now more than ever, following the devastating 'Black Summer' bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, which have affected us all.'

The PACER program will expand to Campbelltown, Nepean, Northern Beaches, Sutherland Shire, Blacktown, Eastern Beaches, Kuring-gai, Metro Combined consisting of Kings Cross/Surry Hills/City of Sydney, South Sydney and Bankstown Police Area Commands.

Recruitment for the specialist mental health clinicians will begin from July 2020.
New Delhi: Amidst the ongoing border standoff in eastern Ladakh, a Chinese military expert stated that India has the world's largest and experienced plateau and mountain troops equipped with some of the best weapons suited for such terrain in the Tibetan border.

The rare public compliment from a Chinese military expert, Huang Guozhi, senior editor of Modern Weaponry magazine, was published in Chinas ThePaper.cn on Tuesday. His remarks coincided with the current standoff between India and China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The article reads, "At present, the worlds largest and experienced country with plateau and mountain troops is neither the US, Russia, nor any European powerhouse, but India. With more than 200,000 troops in 12 divisions, the Indian mountain force is the largest mountain fighting force in the world.

Huang further wrote that since the 1970s, the Indian military has established and expanded the size and personnel of the mountain troops on a large-scale, besides creating a mountain strike force of more than 50,000 troops.

"Mountaineering is an essential skill for almost every member of the Indian mountain army. To this end, India even recruited a large number of professional mountaineers and amateur mountaineers from the private sector, he said.

Mountain brigades raised by India are reportedly meant for the Chinese border, especially the Tibetan plateau. It is perhaps the first time that a Chinese military expert publicly complimented their strength and strategic importance.

Referring to Indian Armys presence in the Siachen glacier, Huang Guozhi is quoted by PTI as saying, "the Indian Army has set up hundreds of outposts in the Siachen Glacier area with an altitude of more than 5,000 metres, with 6,000 to 7,000 fighters stationed. The highest post has reached 6,749 metres.

He further said that the Indian military is equipped with a large number of weapons adapted to the highland and mountain operating environment through procurement and domestic research and development. "The Indian military has also spent heavily on advanced heavy equipment from the United States, including the M777, the worlds lightest 155mm towed howitzer, and the Chinook heavy transport helicopter that lifts the gun, to boost its fire support and anti-armour capabilities, he is further quoted by PTI.

He also highlighted the difficulties for the troops and reportedly said the mountain region, especially the plateau mountain region, is the most severe and difficult operational environment recognised by all countries in the world.

The Chinese defence also wrote about the shortcomings of the Indian armed forces, and quoted as saying that the Indian military is not yet fully self-sufficient in weaponry Especially when India procures large quantities of advanced light weapons using Western calibre, ammunition supply becomes a big problem.

India, China hold Major General-level talks

Indian and Chinese armies today held Major General-level talks with an aim to end the military standoff in Pangong Tso and a number of other areas in eastern Ladakh, a PTI report said, citing people familiar with the development.

The Indian delegation reportedly pressed for restoration of status quo ante and immediate withdrawal of a sizeable number of Chinese troops from all the standoff points in the over four-and-half-hour meeting.



The Major General-level dialogue is understood to have taken place in a "positive atmosphere" with an aim to further ease the tension between the two sides. The talks came a day after the two armies began a limited disengagement in a few areas in Galwan Valley and Hot Spring in a demonstration of their intent to end the row peacefully.

Earlier on Tuesday, military sources said that the two armies began "disengagement" around patrolling points 14 and 15 in Galwan Valley and another in the Hot Spring area, adding the Chinese side has even moved back up to 1.5 km in the two areas.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged since May 5 following a violent clash in Pangong Tso.
Cooper pushed back, asking Trump whether that wasnt a risk to the health of the conventions attendees, who could number close to 20,000. The president responded that he was not worried about an outbreak at the convention, because the biggest impact of the coronavirus is on those who are older or have underlying conditions.
In the spring of the autocrat, as thousands lay dying of fever across the nation and security forces beat people in the streets, walls began to encase the white presidential palace. Black fencing appeared and snaked around the perimeter, sealing the people out and the leader in.

In the capital city, on the steps of national monuments honoring ideals of liberty and freedom, secret police in uniforms with no insignia stood guard, faceless in plastic masks, impenetrable behind body armor and riot gear.

On the seventh day of unrest, the shielded soldiers marched on protesters gathered outside the palace, like an army advancing on the enemy.

Only then, when citizens of his country had been cleared through force, did the leader emerge from hiding. Flanked by a phalanx of guards, he walked past buildings marked with signs of protest, to a church he doesnt attend. There, for the benefit of cameras, he held a holy book  aloft and upside down.

This could be a description taken from any number of dictator novels, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquezs Autumn of the Patriarch, dystopian fantasies such as The Hunger Games, or chapters of history texts describing the waning days of a tinpot tyrant.

But its not. It is the United States of America in the year 2020.

A time when official White House media accounts disseminate propaganda films carefully edited to omit facts and the countrys leader describes the free press as the enemy of the people. A place where the president repeats Russian disinformation to smear an elderly protester injured when police shoved him to the ground.

It is familiar to any of us who come from countries where democracy is not taken for granted and demagogues have left damage and division in their wake.

Thats why my father viewed with concern Donald Trumps rise to power. He had seen caudillos before, in our native Ecuador. We both quickly spotted the same qualities.

Youre going to see what its like to live in a dictatorship, he said back then, ticking off the strategies that would be used: control of the judiciary, wielding military forces to stop protests, crackdowns on free press.

Marc Polymeropoulos, who served in the CIA for 26 years under four presidents, has also heard those echoes, tweeting: The president standing bizarrely alone and holding a Bible  after police on live TV attacked peaceful protesters to support this photo op  was indeed an iconic image. It reminded me of what I reported on for years in the third world. Saddam. Bashar. Qaddafi. They all did this.

Other countries, seeing reporters and photographers arrested and attacked by local police, are now condemning attacks on journalists here, as this nation once condemned the erosion of press freedom in authoritarian regimes. They have watched with alarm as our norms are suddenly stripped away.

So have I.

I watched, on live TV, as the line of military police in riot gear assembled near Lafayette Square across from the White House, facing off against what had been a peaceful protest. My heart tightened as I saw more police on horseback. Then coiled even tighter when the smoke canisters spiraled and they moved through the crowd with stunning force. Witnesses and journalists on the scene insist they saw no projectiles thrown at police, though U.S. Park Police said they found stashes of bats and glass bottles hidden on the streets, and later quibbled about whether they fired tear gas or pepper balls at the crowd. As if that distinction matters.

It reminded me of the violence used to disperse protests in Ecuador where, as a teenager, I saw police lob tear gas at college students demonstrating in the streets. It reminded me of seeing National Guard tanks roll down our block in New Jersey during the 1967 unrest in Newark.

Thats one of my most vivid childhood memories. It filled me with stomach-knotting dread then, just as the images out of Washington, D.C. and around the country do now.

The images should also be familiar to anyone who knows the history of this country. Our government has used brutal force on Americans and on American soil before  the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre where U.S. Army troops slaughtered several hundred Lakota Indians, the 1970 shooting of unarmed students at Kent State by Ohio National Guard, the water hoses and attack dogs turned on Civil Rights protesters by Birmingham, Ala., police.

Trump has long expressed admiration for authoritarianism. He once said the Chinese governments violent crackdown of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests showed the power of strength. As president, he has praised dictators or strongmen in North Korea, the Philippines, Brazil and Russia.

The day of the mayhem in Lafayette Square, he urged governors to quash protesters: You have to dominate.

Thats not the language of a leader who serves the people. Its the script long used by strongmen.

Rhor is an editorial writer and columnist. Email her at monica.rhor@chron.com.
One person has been killed and another injured after two tractor-trailers loaded with fireworks exploded on Tuesday afternoon.

A witness driving by the location of the blasts in Zionsville, Pennsylvania said he saw a man lying on the ground and two trailers and a shed on fire.

That's when he started recorded the aftermath on his phone as more fireworks went off for around 45 minutes.

A.J. Molalee is heard in the clip yelling 'get down!' as he and his father Tony dash over with another man to help a victim.

Scroll down for videos

A man has died after two trailer trucks full of fireworks accidentally exploded in Pennsylvania

Another man was seriously injured in the blasts which sets fire to the surrounding property

'I was afraid to even get too close because I mean the sparks and just more fireworks going off,' A.J.'s mother told ABC 6.

'He said, "My friend Brian's in there in the trailer and my dog, is my dog OK? And I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die,"' A.J recalled.

Police have not identified the deceased victim.

Authorities are investigating the incident. NBC 10 reports that the fireworks accidentally went off in at least two properties.

'We're asking him "what happened?" He said, "I just walked in and the whole place exploded",' A.J. explained about his conversation with one of the victims.

The blasts on the 800 block of Orchard Road in Lehigh Valley were so strong that those living nearby were felt the tremors.

'It shook the house, I mean the house just trembled, stuff came off my walls,' Deb Deily told ABC 6.

'It just was smoke, black smoke. Explosion after explosion. I think it lasted for a good 40 to 45 minutes,' neighbor Angela Plazola said.

She added that the resident was known for using the explosives.

A.J. Molee (left), his father and another man went to help a victim. 'I was afraid to even get too close because I mean the sparks and just more fireworks going off,' A.J.'s mother Anne Marie Molee said

'He said, "My friend Brian's in there in the trailer and my dog, is my dog OK? And I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die,"' A.J recalled

A group is seen pulling one man away from the scene of the blasts on Tuesday afternoon

'It just was smoke, black smoke. Explosion after explosion. I think it lasted for a good 40 to 45 minutes,' neighbor Angela Plazola said

'It was scary,' Plazola added. 'I had to make sure everyone in our backyard was alright and once we saw the house it came from I knew, he's known for setting off fireworks.'

Aerial footage recorded around 3pm on Tuesday shows smoke billowing into the sky. Fire was still blazing.

State Police, the Bomb Squad, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives attended the scene where the coroner announced that one person had died.

'We saw the mushroom cloud basically in the air from way down the hill,' Nathan Bailey told NBC10.

Bailey added that he witnessed one man trying to drive a trailer away from the fire.

'He was literally pulling the truck out of the explosions,' Bailey said. 'It looked half burnt already and he pulled it up near the house.'

The man had a badly injured leg and was taken to hospital in an ambulance.

'It shook the house... the house just trembled, stuff came off my walls,' neighbor Deb Deily said

Image shows the aftermath of the scene where fireworks went off one after the other
BERLIN (AP) - The German government agreed Wednesday on a long-term strategy for increasing production and use of hydrogen as part of a plan to cut the countrys greenhouse gas emissions.

While hydrogen is currently produced almost exclusively from fossil fuels, the government wants to encourage its production from excess electricity generated by renewable energy sources.

Experts say this so-called green hydrogen could help smooth out the problem of solar and wind power's fluctuating supply, and replace fossil fuels in industrial processes that require high temperatures such as steel making.

The government plans to invest 9 billion euros ($10.2 billion) to promote hydrogen production and use, including 2 billion euros that will go toward projects in developing countries such as Morocco.

It set a goal of building hydrogen production facilities in Germany with a capacity of up to five Gigawatts by 2030.

Germanys industry lobby group BDI welcomed the government decision.

In this Monday June 8, 2020 photo a nozzle valve is attached to the dispenser of a hydrogen filling station in Dresden Germany. The German government is to agree its national hydrogen strategy for the coming decades, part of a plan to reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels. (Sebastian Kahnert/dpa via AP)

"Only with hydrogen at competitive prices, from domestic sources and imports, can the goal of climate neutrality by 2050 be reached," said BDI deputy head Holger Loesch.

Germany's transport minister, Andreas Scheuer, told the Funke Media group that the widespread use of technology such as hydrogen-powered engines in buses and trucks would be necessary if the country wants to meet its emissions reduction targets in the transportation sector.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed a national goal of ending greenhouse gas emissions in Europe by 2050 to meet the goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century.

Scheuer said Germany will have about 100 hydrogen fueling stations by the end of 2020 and add a further 10-15 each year, giving it the biggest such network in Europe.

Japan, which like Germany has no major fossil fuel resources of its own, has invested heavily in hydrogen technology. China and South Korea likewise have national hydrogen strategies, as do Australia, Norway and the Netherlands.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks prior to the start of the weekly cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, June 10, 2020. (Fabrizio Bensch/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE --- This Jan. 16, 2020 file photo shows a Uniper energy company coal-fired power plant and a BP refinery beside a wind generator in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The German government is to agree its national hydrogen strategy for the coming decades, part of a plan to reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file)
Just before Sony is due to finally announce the power of its fully operational PlayStation 5, Microsoft has put out a blog post that confirms Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is being developed with Epic's Unreal Engine 5, and that will host all previous and future announcements about its next-gen console.

The blog, which is a bit light on news but does contain all of the Series X tech specs that have been discussed to date, seems to be angled as a direct comparison for whatever Sony announces on June 11th.

It's also the first time the company has confirmed that the sequel to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is being developed with Unreal 5, a debut of sorts for the engine's presence on the Xbox Series X.

Epic chief Tim Sweeney has previously stated that the Xbox Series X is capable of running the tech demo Epic recently used to showcase the PlayStation 5 technology.
The State Council Information Office of China on June 7 published a white paper titled Fighting COVID-19: China in Action. The 37,000-word document records the Chinese peoples battle against the virus, shares with the international community Chinas experience in curbing the virus and clarifies Chinas stance in fighting the virus.

At the critical moment when the world is fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic, the document conveyed confidence and strength in combating the disease through solidarity and cooperation. International observers said the white paper brings great enlightenment and inspiration to the international community in the global anti-epidemic battle, and is of global scientific value.

A timeline for Chinas epidemic-fighting efforts since the detection of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause was systematically laid out in the paper.

The document, which faithfully records five stages and 126 important moments of Chinas fight against the epidemic, demonstrates key policies, measures and achievements of China in coping with the epidemic.

The timeline clearly records the arduous efforts of China in fighting the epidemic and carries the unforgettable memory shared by 1.4 billion Chinese people.

It took China over a month to achieve initial success in curbing the spread of the virus, about two months to bring the daily figure of new domestic cases on the mainland down to single digits, and three months to win a decisive victory in defending Wuhan City and Hubei Province.

With these strategic achievements, China has protected its peoples lives, safety and health, and made a significant contribution to safeguarding regional and global public health.

Future historians may well look upon Chinas fight against the coronavirus as a global role model in containing the spread of new diseases, said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation.

Chinas anti-epidemic timeline clearly shows the strong leadership and scientific guidance of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core.

General Secretary Xi Jinping has taken personal command, planned the response, overseen the general situation and acted decisively, pointing the way forward in the fight against the epidemic. This has bolstered the Chinese peoples confidence and rallied their strength.

Under the leadership of the CPC, the whole nation has followed the general principle of remaining confident, coming together in solidarity, adopting a science-based approach, and taking targeted measures, and waged an all-out peoples war on the virus.

The central authorities made major decisions, employed extraordinary measures to deal with an extraordinary emergency, and quickly turned the situation around.

When analyzing the epidemiological curve of the virus after a field visit to China, Bruce Aylward, former assistant director general of the WHO, said every curve represents the extraordinary policy decision made by Chinese leaders.

The anti-epidemic timeline reflects the people-centered governance philosophy of the CPC and the Chinese government of serving the people and relying on the people.

General Secretary Xi emphasized that peoples lives and health must come first. He pointed out that saving as many lives as possible, by every possible means, was the number one priority. He said China must rely on the people to win the battle against the novel coronavirus epidemic. He hailed the Chinese people as the source of strength and confidence for winning this battle.

China has put the peoples interests first  nothing is more precious than peoples lives, done everything possible to protect the lives and health of its people, and demonstrated firm determination to fight and win the battle against the epidemic by mobilizing all resources and blocking the spread of the virus. This has been witnessed by the whole world.

The Chinese people have a high degree of trust for their leaders, the Party and government, and consciously shoulder their responsibilities. Edelman Trust Barometer 2020 reveals that China has once again topped the trust index among major economies in the world. This reflects that the Chinese people, while going through the epidemic, show more support for and trust in the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, as well as more confidence in the Chinese system.

Chinas anti-epidemic timeline shows the Chinese responsibility and contribution to the global anti-pandemic response.

In an open, transparent, and responsible manner and in accordance with the law, China wasted no time in reporting the outbreak to the World Health Organization (WHO) and relevant countries and regions, and shared with them the genetic sequence at the first opportunity. China also immediately carried out international cooperation in epidemic prevention and control, and shared without reserve its experience in containing the spread of the virus and treating the infected.

The irrefutable facts prove that China had sent a clear and unambiguous message to the international community at the beginning of the epidemic, and the delay and cover-up accusations fabricated by politicians from certain countries are totally groundless and scapegoating.

Some of the worlds leading academic journals such as Science, Nature and The Lancet have given positive evaluation to Chinas anti-epidemic measures for months, believing that Chinas effective control of the epidemic has set an encouraging example for other countries. The international community generally believes that China has played a truly responsible role in the global fight against the pandemic.

Recording the arduous anti-epidemic efforts of China, the White Paper marks a glorious chapter of the Chinese peoples hard work in fighting against the epidemic, a magnificent picture of the Chinese nation growing up and becoming stronger in difficulties, as well as a strong voice that China and other countries share a common destiny and come together in solidarity.

The great force running through this arduous journey has become Chinas firm confidence and strong will to overcome difficulties and challenges, to support the country and the world to jointly protect the lives and health of the people, to safeguard the common homeland of mankind, and to jointly build a community of common health for mankind.

The pandemic will have a significant impact on the development of humanity, but the peoples longing for a happy life will remain unchanged. Peace, development, and win-win cooperation will prevail, said the White Paper.

The Chinese people will always remember this period of history, and draw wisdom and strength from it, so as to usher in a better future together with the people from across the world.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by Peoples Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)
"Telemedicine has been an invaluable alternative for seeing a healthcare provider during the pandemic," says Grace Earl, Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Fairleigh Dickinson University, School of Pharmacy & Health Sciences.

Many Americans believe their overall health will suffer as they avoid medical treatment out of fears of getting COVID-19, and few are confident that a coronavirus vaccine, should it become available, will be adequately tested and safe for use. Additionally, more than one-in-four adults nationwide think hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted by President Trump, is a safe and effective treatment for the coronavirus, despite multiple studies showing otherwise. These are some of the findings from a new national survey conducted on behalf of the Fairleigh Dickinson University School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences from Fairleigh Dickinson University by the FDU Poll.

According to the survey, a majority of those polled (54%) are very to somewhat concerned that their own or a loved ones health is at risk due to delaying treatment for non-COVID-19-related medical problems because they fear doing so would put them at risk of catching the virus. In fact, more than a quarter (27%) say they will not go to a doctors office except for emergencies until a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 is available.

While resistance to seeking out medical treatment will likely have a long-lasting impact on Americans health, telehealth as an alternative to in-person medical care has gained traction during the pandemic and is enabling patients to be seen virtually by health practitioners.

Telehealth Gets Good Marks

The survey found that 24 percent of those polled have seen a doctor or other health professional via online video conferencing since the pandemic began in March, with 72 percent saying their experience was the same or better than an in-person medical visit. Although the number of Americans who actually have used these technologies is still fairly limited, three-quarters (76%) of Americans say they would be comfortable having a telehealth appointment with their doctor if they were unable to see them face-to-face.

Telemedicine has been an invaluable alternative for seeing a healthcare provider during the pandemic. It allows people to continue to seek medical treatment while protecting themselves from COVID-19 by limiting their exposure to other people, explained Grace Earl, Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Fairleigh Dickinson University, School of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. However, this research does show that there are barriers to the use of these technologies, with more than a quarter of those who had a telehealth experience saying it was worse than an in-person appointment. While some people may never be happy with virtual care, making these technologies as easy-to-use and glitch-free as possible would help improve the experience for others.

Among those who said they would not go online for an appointment (24%), a majority said they would avoid this option out of concerns they would get the treatment they need (56%). Another 32 percent cite difficulty in navigating the technology needed, and eleven percent say privacy concerns make telehealth not an option.

Americans were also asked about the degree of concern they may have for their own or a loved ones health due to delays in medical treatment that might occur because of the pandemic. A full half (54%) of Americans say they are very or somewhat concerned that their own health, or that of a loved one, will suffer because of not getting or delaying medical treatment for a non-COVID-19 related health condition out of fear of contracting the disease. A full 26 percent say they are very concerned.

Vaccines Lack Confidence

Key to getting society back to normal is a vaccine for the virus. And, while there has been a huge push to get this accomplished quickly - the Trump administration even naming the effort Operation Warp Speed - Americans have mixed views of whether it will be done safely. When asked how much confidence they have that any vaccine that becomes available will have been adequately tested for effectiveness and deemed safe for use, most Americans are not totally convinced that this will happen. Only one-in-five (20%) say they are very confident, with 28% who say they are not at all confident, and around half (52%) who are somewhat confident.

As for whether Americans would get a vaccine if and when it becomes available, 29% say they definitely will. Another third (36%) probably will, with 35% saying they are unlikely or definitely will not get a coronavirus vaccine. Democrats (37%) more than Republicans (25%) are among the definitely will, while Republicans (26%) more than Democrats (5%) are among the definitely will not.

The hesitation that Americans have, and their distrustful view of vaccine development may serve as an obstacle to vaccine acceptance in the future. A significant amount of education on the benefits and risks of the vaccine will need to be provided to the public, explained Julie Kalabalik-Hoganson, Chair and Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, Fairleigh Dickinson University School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Black Americans are particularly skeptical when it comes to their faith in vaccines. More than a third of blacks have no confidence in the deployment of a safe and effective vaccine, as compared to about a quarter of white Americans (26%) and Hispanic Americans (27%). They are also the most likely to say they will exercise restraint when it comes to getting the coronavirus vaccine, assuming it becomes available. Forty-three percent of blacks say they probably or definitely will not get the vaccine. This is significantly more than the number of whites (25%) and Hispanic Americans (35%) who express similar uncertainty.

The gap that separates blacks from whites also extends to their concerns about their overall health. Its important to note that black respondents are significantly more concerned than whites about their own or a loved ones health due to disruptions in medical care. Almost half of all blacks surveyed say theyre very concerned, with less than half that number among whites. Almost a third of white Americans are not at all concerned that the pandemic will cause their health to suffer as compared with only 15 percent of Black Americans, said Krista Jenkins, professor of politics and government and director of the poll.

In addition to the importance of a coronavirus vaccine is the yearly flu vaccine. Americans have been urged by medical leaders to get their flu vaccine to protect them from next years strain. Doing so will lessen the pressure on the healthcare system should another wave of coronavirus peak in the fall and beyond. The message seems to have been heard by many Americans, as almost two-thirds (62%) indicate they are likely to get the vaccine for the coming flu season. If true, this would be a significant increase over those who regularly get the flu vaccine (54%).

With fears of a second wave of coronavirus in the fall, it is predicted there will be a peak in COVID-19 cases in December 2020. Managing the second wave on top of the flu season will be challenging and may place a substantial strain on the healthcare system. Flu vaccination and COVID-19 testing will play an important role in reducing hospitalizations and minimizing spread of illness, explained Kalabalik-Hoganson.

(Mis)information

While there is a great deal of COVID-19 misinformation circulating, a majority of Americans are able to distinguish between whats true and false. However, there remain large numbers of Americans who believe information that is untrue about the virus. Almost one-in-three (31%) believe taking Motrin or Advil will make COVID-19 worse, 28% say Hydroxychloroquine is safe and effective for treating the virus, and 18% believe blood pressure medications should be avoided if you have COVID-19.

And finally, Americans are uncertain when it comes to the numbers of infections and deaths attributed to the coronavirus. Only 16% believe coronavirus infections have been reported accurately, with slightly more (21%) who say the same about the number of coronavirus related deaths. Most believe the numbers either over- or under-state the infection and death rate in the United States. More people believe the number of infections and deaths are under-reported (57% and 41%, respectively), as compared to those who believe they are over-reported (27% and 38%).

The Trump Effect

Attitudes toward President Trump help to distinguish respondents across some of the questions related to what people know about the virus. For example, among those who approve of the job the president has done in managing the nations response to the virus, half believe incorrectly that hydroxychloroquine is a safe and effective way to treat COVID-19, as compared with 80% who correctly identify this as a false statement among those who disapprove of his leadership. And, in regard to attitudes toward the reasons behind contradictory information about the virus from the president, half of those who believe he allows science to guide his advice say incorrectly that hydroxychloroquine is safe. Among those who believe he bows to political pressure when dispensing advice, 78% correctly identify this as a false statement.

And how one evaluates the reported incidence of infections and death from the virus is also related to views of the President. Half of those who approve of his leadership believe the infections have been overreported, and 66% of the same group believe the number of deaths are overstated. Conversely, around three-fourths of those who disapprove of his leadership believe infections have been underreported (77%) and 62 percent of the same group believe coronavirus related deaths are underreported.

You cant hear hydroxychloroquine without thinking of the president, so perhaps its no surprise that among his supporters we find a greater chance that someone believes in the drugs safety and efficacy said Krista Jenkins, professor of politics and government and director of the poll. Hes a powerful source of information to his supporters, even when there is clear evidence that refutes his messages.

Methodology

The survey was conducted by The Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll on behalf of the FDU School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. A random sample of 1003 was drawn of adults (18+) nationwide, including in Alaska and Hawaii, and live interviews were conducted in English and Spanish, upon request, on landlines and cell phones between May 20 through May 25, 2020. Persons without a telephone could not be included in the random selection process. Respondents within a household are selected by asking randomly for the youngest adult currently available. The interview was conducted in English and included 303 adults reached on a landline phone and 700 adults reached on a cell phone, all acquired through random digit dialing.

In this poll, the simple sampling error for 1003 adults is +/-3.6 percentage points (including the design effect) at a 95 percent confidence interval. Thus, if 50 percent of adults nationwide in this sample favor a particular position, we would be 95 percent sure that the true figure is between 46.4 and 53.6 percent (50 +/- 3.6) if all US adults had been interviewed, rather than just a sample.

The full analysis, along with the polls questions and tables and a detailed methodological statement, can be found on the FDU Poll website.

About Fairleigh Dickinson University

Devoted to the preparation of world citizens, Fairleigh Dickinson University offers over 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including doctoral programs in pharmacy, nursing practice, clinical psychology and school psychology; and an AACSB-accredited business school. Degree programs are offered on two New Jersey campuses and at two international campuses: Wroxton College, in Oxfordshire in England, and the Vancouver Campus, in British Columbia, Canada. For more information, visit FDU.edu.

About FDU Poll

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The Fairleigh Dickinson University School of Pharmacy & Health Sciences is one of only two degree-granting pharmacy schools in New Jersey, and is the first in the state to be associated with a private university. The Schools dynamic program of study integrates the very best practices in pharmacy education today. The school has also expanded its presence in the field of public health and health professions with the addition of health sciences programs such as Master of Public Health, Master of Social Work, Occupational Therapy and Physician Assistant.
For years, Mobile City Councilman Fred Richardson has made a point to say publicly that the only race people belong to is the human race and the word race should not distinguish people between white and black.

On Tuesday, 15 days after George Floyd was killed during an altercation with white police officers in Minneapolis triggering protests worldwide, Richardson suggested the time is right to do away with the word race from all city forms and documents and replace it with the word, ethnicity.

Its an idea the Mobile City Council, however, wants to explore more closely and the issue will be raised at a future committee meeting. And a few say such a change could have dire consequences for tracking how police and government treat African Americans.

Humans, and only humans, have the ability to walk upright, talk, laugh, cry and think and reason, to read and write  all humans have the ability to do that, said Richardson. When you try to claim Im not in the human race with someone else, youve lowered who I am. From 1619 to 1865, my ancestors were banished from the human race. They were treated as mere property.

He added, Its time to drop color off the form. It adds nothing. Its valueless except to identify who to mistreat. The time has come and gone for us to keep on listing our citizens in terms of race.

Sensitive issue

The resolution calls for the removal of the word race from all Mobile police records.

Richardson, during an exchange with James Barber  Mobiles executive director of public safety  asked about what kind of data is recorded during arrests or in issuing tickets. Barber, in return, confirmed that police officers will note someones race (black or white) and ethnicity while writing up a report.

That is part of our policing to make sure we are tracking that kind of information on traffic stops and arrests, said Barber. To us, ethnicity is more cultural than skin color. The use of skin color in descriptive characteristics is pretty important in policing.

Said Richardson, If I was from Bangladesh, what skin color would you expect to put on the form?

Barber responded, Its a call on the officers part in regard to the original heritage.

Richardson said, Its just for black and white. If they are from Mexico or somewhere else, they dont put skin color down. They are only interested in black people and white people. The day has come down for that to drop. The knee is on my neck, let it go.

Council members said they were not necessarily opposed to Richardsons position, but wanted more information as to what city forms require someone to recognize their race.

Some council members recognized the sensitive nature of the issue, especially in the backdrop of Floyds death and the protests it has spawned across America against police brutality.

Im not necessarily opposed to this legislation, said Councilman Joel Daves. Do we have a need to know that information for the particular purpose the form is being completed? If were required by the federal government to upload race, we need to upload race. All I am asking is to get some questions answered before we vote on this type of information.

Councilwoman Bess Rich agreed, and said that she didnt want her questions seen as a sign of disrespect.

Said Councilman John Williams, Giving governments any kind of information that is unnecessary should be eliminated. The elimination of unnecessary information is worthy of discussion. But we do need to know the impact.

Dire consequences

Richardsons request does have some skeptics, including the influential civil rights organization, the ACLU of Alabama.

Randall Marshall, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, said in a statement to AL.com that the collection of racial data is important to document governmental and especially police practices.

The ACLU of Alabama has supported legislation in the past to require reporting on race for police stops, Marshall said. Failing to collect this information does not advance the elimination of racial profiling; it is data around race that has substantiated how police and our criminal legal system disproportionately affect and discriminate against black and brown communities. Data alone, of course, is not enough but reporting less data is definitely not helpful and it raises the question of why would they do that?

Richardson responded, My question for them would be, what qualifies me to be of a specific race? What is it that qualifies me to be in that race? Do you know what they will say? My color. I will tell them that color has no function. It is stuck on me. It cant help me. I am saying that race is the essence of who I am and what I can do, not what color I am. Is a black dog in my race? You are telling me that my color is my race. What about a black snake? Are they in my race?

Derryn Moten, chairman of the Department of History and Political Sciences at Alabama State University said that while Richardsons idea is noble, it could have dire consequences.

Imagine what would happen if during the COVID-19 outbreak, hospitals were not required to record the race of patients who die, said Moten. As it is, some hospitals are rather tacit about admitting the racial disparities of the patients admitted with (coronavirus) and the patients who died with COVID-19. And while we are members of the human race, the law treats different members of the human race differently. Driving while black is real.

Death rate due to coronavirus highest for black Alabamians

Richardson said he believed his request is a first in a city tackling the sensitive issues of racial identity on police forms, though the issue has been at the forefront of national discussions in the past over Census identification. About five years ago, the Census Bureau experimented with the possibility of not using the words race or origin at all and instead, allow a questionnaire to check categories that might describe them. The agency found that many Americans think the words mean the same thing, while others attribute race as meaning skin color, ancestry, or color, while origin was more representative of someones ethnic background.

In the 1800s, the word color and not race was used during census count gathering. The word race first appeared for the first time in 1880, and the words race and color continued census forms or instructions through 1940. The term color was dropped from the 1950 form but reappeared on the 1970 Census.
"If my mom says yes, I'm leading a Nashville protest." Zee Thomas pressed send on her tweet on Wednesday, May 27, and by that weekend, she and five new collaborators (all between the ages of 14 and 16 years old) had organized a peaceful march against police brutality in Nashville. More than 10,000 people showed up.

Jade Fuller, Mikayla Smith, Emma Rose Smith, Kennedy Green, and Nya Collins reached out to Thomas after seeing her tweet and offered their support to make the protest a reality. Together, they created Teens4Equality.



"We are still fighting for the same things our ancestors had to fight for. We are fighting now so our children don't have to."

"We decided because we were the face of the future we needed to fight to change the system because we are fed up," Smith told POPSUGAR. "We are still fighting for the same things our ancestors had to fight for. We are fighting now so our children don't have to. We don't want them to have to fight for the same things we are fighting for, which is equality and the end of racism completely."

The teens channeled their passion into action, and with the support and guidance of Nashville's local Black Lives Matter chapter, their march took off. They expected 800 to 1,000 attendees, and were amazed to see a crowd more than 10 times that number while protesting on Thursday, June 4. Photographer Alex Kent captured the event on camera. As the protesters knelt in silence to honor the life of George Floyd, it began to rain. Not even inclement weather could stop the movement from progressing.

Smith described the evening as "memorable, inspiring, and peaceful." There was a spirit of unity and acceptance among participants. "We all felt like a community," she said. "I think it made everyone feel hope for the future, that America and the world as a whole will be different. The world of racism, ignorance, and police brutality is ending, and a new world is blossoming, except this one is completely different, and it's filled with equality, peace, and love."

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This is just the beginning for Teens4Equality. They are hosting another demonstration on July 4 at Bicentennial Capitol Mall Park, providing an opportunity for attendees to register to vote.

They have a message for their fellow teens. "We are not our parents," Green said, addressing young Americans. She encouraged Gen Z to share their big ideas and have hope that help will come. "You are your own person and you can make your own views and form your own opinions. We can make changes even though we are young, and it doesn't matter how big or small your platform is; you can make a difference."

As for adults? "I want the adults to know that just because we are kids doesn't mean that we can't bring change," Green said. "You guys forced us to grow up because of this atrocity that we have inherited, such as taking on the task of ending racism and police brutality and reforming the system and government. We aren't going to put that on our children also."
Lehigh University plans for students and staff to return to its Bethlehem campus in August for in-person classes, the school announced Wednesday.

Lehigh closed its campus during spring break this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread in the Leigh Valley and Pennsylvania.

Classes were continued remotely for the rest of the semester, though a small number of essential personnel and students unable to return to their homes were allowed on campus.

In a letter sent Wednesday, university officials said in-person classes will begin Aug. 24 and run until Thanksgiving. Remote classes will likely be needed to complete the fall semester.

As you might expect, there is a wide divergence of opinion about the best path forward, ranging from the view that we should be ready to fully open now, to the view that the coming academic year should be entirely remote, said the letter from President John Simon, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Patrick Farrell, and incoming Provost Nathan Urban. These varying perspectives are based upon predictions or assumptions about various factors, including the course of COVID-19, the slowing or cessation of its spread, the availability of accurate testing, and ultimately, the development of a vaccine. We must be able to adapt if, and as, conditions change."

The news comes after all Pennsylvania counties have moved out of Gov. Tom Wolfs red phase of the statewide shutdown that was used to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The Lehigh Valley moved to yellow last Friday. Before the expected move, state officials said colleges and universities could restart in-person classes on Friday in yellow and green counties.

Lehigh said faculty and graduate student research was allowed to begin when Northampton County moved to yellow.

Moravian College announced last month that students would return in the fall, but with the caveat of no breaks to limit the potential of transmitting the virus.

The colleges fall break was removed and, when students return home for Thanksgiving, they will stay there until the start of the Spring 2021 semester.

Lehigh released a number of details on how the campus will change in order for students to return, including basics already used now in Pennsylvania: social distancing, cloth face coverings, and personal hygiene, although the university will depend on the self-monitoring of symptoms and have a strict stay-at-home policy for those who are sick.

Students, faculty and staff will be required to complete training and acknowledge they agree to uphold community standards before returning to campus.

Moving in to residence halls and houses will be planned to minimize close contact, and residence hall common areas will have social distancing restrictions.

Greek members will be allowed to return to their fraternity or sorority chapter houses.

Because of the states suspension of construction projects during the shutdown, the Singleton, Hitch and Maida residences are expected to be completed in the fall instead of August. The university said instead of the planned razing of the Trembley Park Apartment Complex to make way for new housing, the residence hall will be used as housing for the next school year.

Classrooms. libraries and lab space will have changes made for social distancing, and large lectures will almost certainly be online. The university is looking to use large spaces including Zoellner Arts Center, the Rauch Fieldhouse and Stabler Arena for academic use.

Dining on campus will include strict guidelines, and more grab-and-go options offered.

In terms of the virus itself, the university plans self-screening protocols and temperature checks to identify symptomatic people; providing access to rapid COVID-19 testing for symptomatic students, faculty and staff; and contact tracing for identified cases.

In the event of a positive test or possible exposure to a positive person, Lehigh is working on isolation and quarantine areas in residences for students.

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Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com.
Researchers at the University of Oxford say they will be conducting the most extensive study to date linking primary and clinical data for the assessment of associations between smoking status and the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

This representative population sample will, to our knowledge, present the first comprehensive examination of the association between smoking, nicotine use without smoking, respiratory disease, and severity of COVID-19, write Julia Hippisley-Cox and colleagues.

The prospective cohort study will use anonymous data from 8.3 million peoples GP records linked to the Public Health England (PHE) database of tests for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, records of hospital and intensive care admissions and deaths due to COVID-19.

Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (green) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (purple), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID

A pre-print version of the protocol is available in the server medRxiv*, while it undergoes peer review.

Evidence about smoking and COVID-19 severity is mixed

Smoking is presumed to increase the risk for more severe COVID-19, and the World Health Organization has recommended that people stop the habit.

However, the evidence for whether smoking is a risk factor for severe disease is mixed, with some studies suggesting that health outcomes among smokers may be better than among non-smokers.

Taken together, the data suggest that smoking is associated with a somewhat higher risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2, but a lower risk of presenting for GP care, hospitalization, ICU admission, and death, say Hippisley-Cox and team.

Although this suggests that smoking may be associated with less severe disease, the evidence is not reliable because research that confines samples to hospitalized cases produces bias that can mean the associations identified are distorted.

Possible reasons smoking may lower risk of severe disease

Some experiments have suggested that the reported reduced risk for the severe disease may involve nicotine, which downregulates the expression of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor that SARS-CoV-2 binds to when it infects cells.

Human ACE2 receptor, 3D illustration. Image Credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock

Nicotine has also been shown to demonstrate immunomodulatory effects that reduce disease severity in animal models of pancreatitis and peritonitis; it reduced immune cell influx and levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines - factors that may be relevant to COVID-19.

However, contrary to expectation, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 seem to be lower among people with chronic respiratory conditions, which some researchers suggest may be due to the use of inhaled corticosteroids among this subgroup.

Laboratory experiments suggest that inhaled steroids could protect against severe COVID-19, write Hippisley-Cox and colleagues.

What will the current study involve?

Hippisley-Cox and colleagues will link data from English GP records from the QResearch database to PHE data on SARS-CoV-2 test results, to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and data on intensive care unit (ICU) admission from the Intensive Care Research and Audit Centre (ICNARC) and data on COVID-19 deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

To maximize precision and minimize selection bias, we will include all patients registered within the QResearch database on (01.01.2020), writes the team.

The researchers will aim to assess whether smoking lowers the risk of severe disease and whether this risk is also lower among people who vape or use nicotine replacement therapy rather than smoking.

They will also examine whether respiratory diseases are associated with severe COVID-19 and whether inhaled corticosteroids reduce the risk of severe outcomes.

The team will perform sequential adjustment for potential confounding risk factors such as age, gender, and comorbidities, including smoking-related conditions.

The researchers say they will also analyze the data in several ways to ensure distortions such as those arising from patients and clinicians treatment decisions does not affect results: We will be able to assess whether there is good evidence that people who smoke, use nicotine, have airway diseases, or use inhaled steroids have a different risk of experiencing serious COVID-19 when compared with the general population.

The largest study of its kind

This protocol describes what will be by far the largest linkage of primary and critical care data to investigate the associations between smoking, nicotine replacement, chronic respiratory disease (and drugs used to treat it), and severe COVID-19 disease, write Hippisley-Cox and colleagues. We will use four high quality, established large validated research databases (QResearch and ICNARC CMP, HES and ONS) and linked them to the national register of SARS-CoV-2 test results.

The team says other strengths of the study include its size, representativeness, and its lack of selection, recall, and respondent bias.

The researchers also point out that UK general practices tend to keep accurate records of diagnoses and prescriptions and provide the option of updating analyses as data changes over time.

It is, therefore, likely to be representative of the population of England. It has good face validity since it has been conducted in the setting where most patients in the UK are assessed, treated, and followed up, concludes the team.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
The patient arrived at the health center showing symptoms of respiratory problems, so he was admitted to the COVID-19 room. Shortly before entering this area, a stroke occurred. However, thanks to the oxygen treatment , he experienced a favorable evolution.
Myleene Klass looked blissfully happy when her handsome boyfriend Simon Motson drove her to work on Wednesday.

The Smooth FM radio host, 42, filmed a sweet moment in which Simon picked up their son Apollo, ten months, and let him pretend to take the wheel while stationary.

Apollo looked thrilled as he took the wheel, while sitting next to his loved-up parents.

Getting a lift: Myleene Klass looked blissfully happy as her boyfriend Simon Motson drove her to work at Smooth radio, along with their son Apollo, ten months, in tow

Baby driver: As soon as the car stopped, Apollo, happily took to the wheel to be just like his father

Myleene looked incredible wearing a bold striped suit from Zara which suited her perfectly and had a loose-fitting trouser detail.

She teamed it with a black silk camisole top and heels which gave her a spring in her step.

The pretty brunette showed off some serious arm candy with a white Chanel bag from her impressive collection.

And she had a big smile on her face as she whooshed through the doors of the studios after Simon drove her to work.

Earning her style stripes: Myleene looked incredibly stylish in a striped suit and heels as she headed to work at Smooth FM radio studios in London on Wednesday

So chic: Myleene showed off some serious arm candy with a white Chanel bag from her impressive collection

Stunning: She channelled the 70s with her bold suit from Zara and oversized shades

Myleene has been sharing lots of moments from lockdown on her Instagram stories in recent weeks.

She has been teaching the nation music lessons from her home with children Ava, 12, Hero, eight and baby Apollo, 10 months.

Last week, Myleene detailed the shocking physical and verbal racial abuse she experienced in her childhood and the prevalent prejudice she still witnesses.

Details: She completed her look with her favourite pair of oversized vintage frames

The TV and radio star, who was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, to an Austrian father and a Filipino mother, revealed she is struggling to explain racism to her children amid the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of unarmed black man George Floyd.

Floyd died last month after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis, prompting a wave of protests.

In her impassioned post, the mother-of-three listed some of the horrendous slurs she has faced over the years, with a shocking list reading: 'Chink. Slit eye. Number 69, Fried rice. Mongrel. Ping pong. Slut. All Tai girls are sluts. Banana'.
Popular indigenous rapper, Zoro, has petitioned the police over the allegation of rape levied against him by an Instagram user.

Recall that the indigenous rapper was alleged by an Instagram user, Crystal, of raping her at his friends house in Magodo area of Lagos on April 20, 2015.

Barely 72 hours after he denied the allegation, the indigenous rapper has petitioned the police and demanded an investigation into the said allegation.

READ ALSO  Rapper Zoro Denies Rape Allegation; Set To Charge His Accuser To Court

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Rise in requirement for virtualized & real-time experience in designing and planning and surge in demand for real-time rendering and rapid decision-making capabilities have boosted the growth of the global 3D rendering service market. The market across the Asia-Pacific region is projected to portray the highest CAGR of 30.1% during the study period. On the other hand, the designer segment is projected to portray the highest CAGR of 39.0% during the study period.

Portlan, OR, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As per the report published by Allied Market Research, the global 3D rendering service market accounted for $8.56 billion in 2018, and is projected to reach $61.65 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 28.1% from 2019 to 2026. The report offers a detailed analysis of value chain, market dynamics, top winning strategies, key segments, business performance, and competitive landscape.

Rise in requirement for virtualized & real-time experience in designing and planning and surge in demand for real-time rendering and rapid decision-making capabilities have boosted the growth of the global 3D rendering service market. On the contrary, lack of skilled professionals and security & privacy concerns hamper the market. However, surge in implementation of cloud-based 3D rendering services is expected to create lucrative opportunities for the market players.

Download Sample Report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/6174

The global 3D rendering service market is segmented on the basis of service type, end user, project type, and geography. Based on service type, the market is divided into interior visualization, exterior visualization, modeling services, walkthrough & animation, and floor plan.

Based on end user, the market is categorized into architects, designers, engineering firms, and real estate companies. The designer segment is projected to portray the highest CAGR of 39.0% during the study period. However, the architects segment held the largest share in 2018, accounting for more than one-fifth of the market.

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On the basis of project type, the market is divided into commercial project and residential projects. The commercial segment dominated the market in 2018, contributing to more than two-thirds of the market. However, the residential segment is projected to manifest the fastest CAGR of 29.1% during the forecast period.

For Purchase Inquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/6174

The global 3D rendering service market is analyzed across several regions such as North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and LAMEA. The market across the Asia-Pacific region is projected to portray the highest CAGR of 30.1% during the study period. However, the market across North America held the largest share in 2018, contributing to nearly two-fifths of the market.

The global 3D rendering service market report includes an in-depth analysis of the major market players such as RealSpace Vision Communication Inc., Professional 3D Services, Flatworld Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Rayvat Rendering, CG Studio, Mapsystems, 3D Animation Services, WinBizSolutions, XpressRendering, and Tesla Outsourcing Services.

Get detailed COVID-19 impact analysis on the 3D Rendering Services Market

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In factories and plants throughout the country COVID-19 infections have continued to rise among workers, despite assertions from companies, and trade union toadies, that all efforts are being made to maintain worker safety and mitigate the spread of the virus.

It has been nearly two months since Bridgestone Americas, Inc.s Firestone agricultural tire plant in Des Moines, Iowa, resumed production after shutting down from March 21 through April 13. Since restarting production, with the help of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 130, COVID-19 infections have continued to steadily rise at the facility and in surrounding Polk county.

The WSWS first reported on May 8 that eight infections were confirmed at the giant tire facility, which can produce up to 4,000 tires a day for agriculture equipment and large farm machinery. The plant employs 1,050 workers, of which United Steelworkers Local 310L claims to represent 90 percent.

In a statement to Tire Business on May 26, Bridgestone public relations confirmed the number of positive cases among workers at the plant had tripled in just over two weeks to 24. Despite the rising number of infections at the plant Bridgestone has no plans to cease production or modify its existing safety measures, which have so far proven ineffective.

In a bald-faced lie, Bridgestone claims that the well-being and safety of employees remains the companys most important value. Despite infections rising at the facility the company asserts that the playbook has not changed. The statement ended with reassurance to shareholders that no matter how many workers become infected, the Des Moines plant continues to operate on a regular schedule and in alignment with the latest safety protocol guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support a safe and healthy environment for employees.

In a letter to workers dated May 7, plant managers and supervisors tried to cover for their own duplicitous role in facilitating the spread of the virus by seeking to blame workers for not adhering to social distancing guidelines outside of work and therefore shift the blame onto workers for the continued spread of the virus within the plant.

In our larger community, we are seeing an increase in cases, and as members of the community, we want to do our part as well. I am asking that you continue to exercise safe interactions outside of work and am attaching guidelines from the CDC as a reference for you to share with your family and friends and serve as a reminder that we are all counting on each othernow more than everto be as safe as possible, management wrote in a letter.

As part of the safety playbook, which was discussed in detail with Steve Vonk, president of Local 310, prior to the plants reopening in April, Bridgestone put forth a number of new policies, which included nebulous action items such as reworked areas that require frequent employee handling or touching and limited the number of people in common areas.

These half-hearted measures were never intended to actually keep workers safe, but instead served as a cover for the companys inaction so production could continue with minimal disruptions or costs. The company and union also used the pretext of the virus to cancel start of shift and plant operational meetings. The elimination of meetings is a tried and true tactic of management to keep workers isolated and uninformed.

While workers continue to fall ill, union president Vonk has continued to sow illusions among workers that the company is looking out for their safety, asserting to Tire Business: [Bridgestone] has been pretty decent about responding to this.

Exemplifying the role of the USW as nothing more than a labor police force for the company, the unions homepagewhile remaining silent on the rising number of infections among its membersproudly displays a video from USW President Tom Conway explaining why the union executive committed to endorse Joe Biden for president on May 20.

In the just under seven-minute video, Conway vaguely listed the reasoning behind the USWs proud endorsement of the Biden campaign. Without offering any concrete proposals or plans, Conway claimed that a Biden presidency offered progressive new good ideas.

The real reason behind the USWs endorsement, besides the fact that the Trump campaign didnt even bother to return the union questionnaire sent out, is that the Democratic Party still makes use of the nationalist USW due to the crucial role it plays in suppressing the class struggle and isolating workers.

Conway noted that Biden understands the relationship between the union and labor as a partner  moving forward. Conway wrapped up his video with a droll plea for workers to get excited about playing a role in the campaign and the future of our country and how things oughta be.

Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, no less than Donald Trump and the Republicans, wholeheartedly support the back-to-work drive and, with it, the continued infection and mass deaths of thousands of workers in the US and throughout the world in dangerous factories and plants.

The only progressive social force capable of thwarting this genocidal policy, which is shared by the ruling class in each country, is workers themselves, politically armed and linked internationally through independent rank-and-file committees. Workers and youth interested in forming such committees are encouraged to contact the World Socialist Web Site and take up the struggle for socialism.
Russian Space Agency chief on Tuesday, June 9 lamented that Americans still do not take the Russian space programme as seriously as their own and complained of American jokes.

Citing the recent SpaceX Crew Dargon launch, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin while speaking to an international media said that America should show more respect for Russia's space programmes and thank them for having relied on it for nine years to shuttle US astronauts. As per reports, the launch had heavily relied on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Read: Saturn's moon Titan drifting 100 times faster than previous estimations: NASA

Complaining further, Rogozin said that when their partners had finally managed to conduct a successful test on their spacecraft, America only directed jokes and mockery towards them. He further added that Russia was the first country to send a man into space.

Meanwhile, the Russian Space Agency also criticised and slammed US President Donald Trump after he had said that the SpaceX launch showed that the US had regained its place as the world leader in space.

Read: Hollywood designer who made SpaceX-NASA's spacesuits also crafted Thor & Loki's helmets

NASA-SpaceX Mission

SpaceXs Falcon 9 launched Crew Dragons second demonstration (Demo-2) mission from Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 30 at 3:22 p.m. EDT. The test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board the Dragon spacecraft returned human spaceflight to the United States after nine long years. Crew Dragon is autonomously docked with the International Space Station (ISS), since about 10:30 a.m. EDT on May 31.

United States' National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA) and SpaceX on May 27 had to call off their Demo-2 mission at the last moment due to bad weather conditions. However, the launch took place later on May 30 with the Crew Dragon successfully launched into the near-Earth orbiter. Demo-2 is SpaceXs final test flight to validate its crew transportation system, including the Crew Dragon, Falcon 9 rocket, launch pad, and operations capabilities.

Read: Curious mind gets lucky: Ahmedabad man video chats with SpaceX crew Dragon aboard ISS

Read: Elon Musk not satisfied with ISS; tells SpaceX staff to focus on Starship for Moon & Mars
This undated photo released on Sept, 12, 2018, from South Korea Unification Ministry via Newsis, shows a liaison office building between South and North Korea in Kaesong, North Korea.

North Koreas move to sever communications with South Korea appears to be a signal that more provocations are on the horizon as Pyongyang tries to extract more concessions out of Seoul, experts told RFA.

The Norths state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) announced Tuesday that Pyongyang had shut down an inter-Korean liaison office and direct hotlines between the two Koreas because Seoul was not taking action to stop groups in the South from launching balloons carrying anti-Kim regime leaflets across the border into North Korean territory.

North Korea had threatened for several days to cut communications over the balloons. RFAs Korean Service reported Monday that Pyongyang has been mobilizing citizens to denounce former North Korean citizens who criticize Kim Jong Uns government from their homes in the South.

In Tuesdays report KCNA reiterated that Pyongyang was holding Seoul responsible for not doing enough to stop the leaflet campaigns.

The south Korean authorities connived at the hostile acts against the DPRK by the riff-raff, while trying to dodge heavy responsibility with nasty excuses. This has driven the inter-Korean relations into a catastrophe, KCNA said, deliberately refusing to capitalize the s in South Korea in its publication of the report in English.

The report said senior North Korean officials stressed that the work towards the south should thoroughly turn into the one against [an] enemy, during a meeting to discuss relations with the South.

The officials included Kim Jong Uns sister Kim Yo Jong, a close confidant of her brother who some observers believe is next in line in the ruling family, who had last week referred to exiles in the South as human scum.

The KCNA report said that the officials discussed a phased plan to deal with the South, ordering the shutdown by noon Tuesday of the liaison office, military communication lines located on the seas east and west of the peninsula, and a direct hotline between the Blue House in Seoul and the Central Committee office building in Pyongyang.

This measure is the first step of the determination to completely shut down all contact means with South Korea and get rid of unnecessary things, the KCNA report concluded.

More than just leaflets

U.S.-based analysts said that while North Korea may be saying its measures were in response to the leaflet campaigns, Pyongyang also had clear political motives in trying to pressure Seoul.

North Koreas frustrated with the current lack of progress on getting sanctions relief, and theyre frustrated by South Koreas inability, or their unwillingness, to challenge Washingtons rigid policy [on sanctions], Frank Aum of the United States Institute of Peace told RFAs Korean Service.

The sanctions, aimed at depriving Pyongyang of cash and resources that could be funneled into its nuclear and missile programs, place restrictions on items that can be legally imported into North Korea. The curbs have hurt those North Koreans tied to the countrys emerging market economy.

Pyongyang had hoped that engaging with Seoul and Washington over the past few years would bring some form of sanctions relief, but after several summits between Kim Jong Un and his counterparts, sanctions remain in place.

Analysts believe that a frustrated Pyongyang can turn up the heat on the South to get what it wants.

North Korea is trying to intimidate South Korea, Gordon Chang, a lawyer and North Korea expert told RFA.

North Korea thinks it can do so because Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president is susceptible to intimidation. He believes that relationships with the North are paramount, said Chang.

North Korea is acting out because it likely wants a resumption of several inter-Korean projects that were cash cows, according to Mark Fitzpatrick, the former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Non-proliferation.

I suppose the objective is to try to pressure the Republic of Korea into engaging in trade and reopening the Kumgang Mountain resorts and Kaesong industrial complex for North Korea, Fitzpatrick told RFA.

The resort was shut down in 2008 and the inter-Korean industrial complex has been closed since 2016.

The moves might also be a domestic distraction, or a way to pad Kim Yo Jongs resume to solidify her place as anointed successor, according to The Heritage Foundations Bruce Klingner.

However, Klingner told RFA the chief motive was to pressure Moon into offering yet more concessions, adding that President Moon was eager to offer security and economic cooperation in the past.

But Moon is constrained by what he can offer because of the U.N. sanctions as well as U.S. laws. And right now the populace in South Korea might not be all that eager to offer more concessions to the North because it hasnt led to anything, Klingner said.

More Provocations Ahead

Several North Korea-watchers saw Pyongyangs moves as an indication that further provocations are in store.

It can also be a way of trying to lay the ground work for North Korean provocative actions while blaming the South for its action, so by threatening to sever the comprehensive military agreement [CMA], dismantling Kaesong, sort of, veiled threats of additional measures against the enemy, it may be trying to make Moon even more desperate to offer concessions, said Klingner.

The CMA, intended to reduce military tensions to prevent an accidental clash, came out of the September 2018 inter-Korean summit.

Two South Korea-based experts said Pyongyang might take steps to add more pressure on Seoul.

North Korea could close the inter-Korean liaison office and even dismantle the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the future, Shin Beom-Chul, the head of the Diplomatic Security Center at the Korean Research Institute for National Strategy told RFA.

Furthermore, I think it could end the 9/19 inter-Korean military agreement, he said, referring to the CMA by the month and day it went into effect in 2018.

Cho Han Bum of the Korea Institute of National Unification told RFA, In this way, the show of force is foreseeable.

However, North Korea will not be able to carry out high-intensity provocations for the time being, and it can [only] stage a show of force to express its discontent, said Cho.

The U.S. Department of State, meanwhile expressed disappointment with the closure.

The United States has always supported progress in inter-Korean relations, and we are disappointed in the DPRKs recent actions. We urge the DPRK to return to diplomacy and cooperation, a spokesperson for the state department told RFA.

Challenge to free speech

South Korea responded to the Norths demand that it halt the balloon launches by announcing its intention to pass laws to make the flights illegal  a possibility given that Moons Democratic Party holds an absolute majority in parliament.

South Koreas right wing was furious.

The main opposition United Future Party said the balloons were effective and legal under South Korean free-speech laws.

North Korea is vulnerable to psychological warfare, a fact South Korea should take advantage of, Kim Yong-hyun, former chief director of operations at South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a policy seminar on North Korean threats at the National Assembly Tuesday.

Though not as [powerful] as North Koreas nuclear program, psychological warfare against North Korea is an asymmetric strategy that South Korea can have. It doesnt make sense to regulate it by law, said Kim.

An opposition party leader said that the North is only using the leaflets as a way to get attention.

North Korea wants to shake the table to find a breakthrough because of the prolonged U.N. Security Council sanctions and the coronavirus crisis, said Joo Ho-young, the United Future Partys Chairman.

Reported by Albert Hong, Soyoung Kim, Sangmin Lee, Yong Jae Mok, and Jae Duk Seo for RFA's Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Venezuela is currently experiencing the worst petrol shortage in its history. With residents forced to wait in line for hours or even days to get just a few litres of petrol, some have started buying it on the flourishing black market If they can afford it. The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to Venezuelans about how they are coping.



Petrol shortages arent new in Venezuela, but the problem has worsened over the past few months. Since mid-March, when the government put in place a lockdown to halt the spread of Covid-19, the capital city Caracas has also been affected by the shortages, even though it was largely spared in the past.



What caused the fuel shortage?



This situation might seem surprising to some as Venezuela has the largest petrol reserves in the world. The problem is that the country only produces 622,000 barrels a day. Thats just a fifth of what it was producing 10 years ago, according to OPEC.



The drop in petrol production is the result of a deterioration in infrastructure, a lack of investment and corruption. Moreover, the countrys refineries can only process 100,000 barrels a day. In the past, they could process more than a million barrels a day, but quite a number of sites have closed.



As a result, Venezuelas consumption of petrol exceeds its production capabilities, which means they have to import. This isnt new but it is becoming more and more difficult for the country to buy petrol abroad because of American sanctions. The country is also short on cash because of the historic drop in oil prices and the serious economic crisis that has been gripping the country over the past few years.



Petrol station queues that stretch for kilometres



Recently, the government imposed petrol rationing and most petrol stations in the country have closed. In order to get petrol, people have to go to one of the few open stations and wait in lines that sometimes stretch for kilometres upon kilometres.





"May 20, petrol station on Andres Bello Avenue in Caracas."



Story continues





"I had to eat and sleep in my car while I was in line"Miguel Villavicencio is a journalist in Guanare, in Portuguesa state.



Ive waited in line for petrol two or three times, each time for two or three days, just to get to 10 to 20 litres. While I was in line, I ate and slept in my car and I had to deal with the heat. There are also risks: it isnt very safe [Editors note: on April 20, two armed men robbed people who were waiting in line for petrol at a station in Caracas. One person sustained a gunshot wound.] Alternatively, you can leave your car with a friend to go and shower, eat and rest a little at home before going back to wait in line.



Weve had a petrol problem in our region for a long time. For example, we had to queue back in 2019, sometimes for more than a day. But you were also able to fill up your tank completely and all of the petrol stations were open. These days, you can only get 20 litres maximum and there are only three service stations open in all of Guanare [Editors note: which has more than 200,000 residents]. Theres a fourth one that is only open to doctors, farmers and government employees, and they are also limited as to the amount of petrol that they can get.



New rules were put in place a few days ago. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they broadcast a draw on the radio that determines which petrol station you can go fill up at, depending on your license plate. That system has caused a few skirmishes because as soon as people know where they can go, they rush to get there as soon as possible.







"May 29th: This is how it went down today, after the second raffle for petrol stations in Guanare. Drivers waited in the street for the results to be announced on the radio and then took off as quickly as they could towards the petrol station where they were allowed to go [...]."



Motorcyclists can only go get petrol on Sundays and they arent allowed more than three litres. So they often start lining up a day or two in advance.



May 23th: motorcyclists line up for petrol in Guanare. Whatever happened to social distancing? This video, filmed on Saturday, shows motorcyclists queuing to get petrol the next day.







"To save petrol, I drive slowly and dont use the ACAna Isabel Dominguez is a doctor in Caracas.



I filled my tank in mid-March and it is still half full because I only use my car when I have to go out for work, once a week or every two weeks. But I drive slowly and I no longer use the air conditioning to save on petrol.



Doctors can get a special paper so that we can get petrol more easily but you still have to line up the night before in the hopes of getting it around midday the next day.







"May 25th: Heres the line to get petrol at the "Texaco" petrol station in Caricuao [in Caracas]. There are motorcyclists and drivers on both sides of the Francisco Fajardo highway [...]."







"I borrowed my fathers car, which still had half a tank of petrolBernardo Rotundo works in cinema in Caracas.



Together, my wife and I have two cars and we have less than a quarter of a tank left. But since the start of quarantine, weve only been going out to buy food so we havent tried to go fill our tanks, especially considering the lines



I did end up borrowing my dads car, which still has half a tank of gas. And my wife gets picked up for work every day in a car belonging to the diplomatic corps because she works for an NGO. They buy their petrol on the black market.





The petrol black market





A litre of petrol sells for about $3 (2.70 euros) on the growing black market in the country. Thats a fortune in Venezuela, where the minimum monthly salary is less than $5 (4.50 euros). Its an especially high amount considering that petrol has been practically free for decades. Multiple Venezuelans who spoke to our team accused security forces of fueling the black market. Authorities arrested soldiers who were taking part in the illegal trade in Zulia state.



To get petrol today [May 28th], I started waiting in line at 3a.m. on Tuesday [May 26th]. They had 150 spots. This was in San Antonio de los Altos [in Miranda state]."





"I walk"Dimas lives in Puerto Ordaz, in Bolivar, state. Currently, Dimas is unemployed.



The petrol shortages started last year here so now there is practically no petrol left. So when I have to go less than five kilometres from my house, I walk. There are a few buses, but not many, and when they go by, they are usually packed. So I dont want to take the risk [Editors note: during the Covid-19 pandemic].



All of the Venezuelans who spoke to our team said that public transportation had all disappeared. There are still a few taxis, but their prices have gone up.



Iranian fuel tankers



Iran sent five fuel tankers to Venezuela, four of which arrived in the country last week. According to the Venezuelan Minister of Petrol, the tankers carried fuel and additives as well as replacement parts and other equipment meant to help improve Venezuelas ability to produce and refine petrol. These deliveries, which will help momentarily ease the crisis in the country, are occurring in the midst of ratcheting tensions between Tehran and Washington.



Price increase and end to state monopoly starting on June 1st



These deliveries do come with a price. On May 30, President Nicolas Maduro announced that the price of fuel would increase starting on June 1st. One litre would cost 5,000 bolivars (equivalent to 0.02 euros), versus 0,00006 bolivar (equivalent to less than 0.01 euro) previously.



He also announced that the 200 petrol stations run by private companies would be allowed to sell petrol at the international price, fixed at 50 cents per litre (equivalent to 0.45 euro), ending the Venezuelan governments monopoly on the sale of fuel.



He also declared that the government would subsidise 100% of public transportation for passengers and goods for the next 90 days.



Article by Chloe Lauvergnier.




The person is Stig Engstrom, Petersson told a news conference, as reported by Reuters. Because the person is dead, I cannot bring charges against him and have decided to close the investigation.

Palme was brought down by a bullet in central Stockholm in 1986 after a trip to the movie theatre with his wife and son. The aftermath of the murder included a huge manhunt and many conspiracy theories involving the CIA, Kurdish separatists, and South African security services.

Initially, a small-time criminal was convicted of Palmes killing, but this judgement was later overturned. The following years, as the police failed to find the culprit, left a stain on a country that prides itself for its low levels of crime.

Palme was prime minister between 1969 and 1976 and again between 1982 and 1986. His supporters called him the architect of modern Sweden, while opponents disliked his anti-colonial views and criticism of the US.
Milankovitch proposed in the early twentieth century that the ice ages were caused by variations in the Earths orbit around the Sun. For sometime this theory was considered untestable, largely because there was no sufficiently precise chronology of the ice ages with which the orbital variations could be matched.



To establish such a chronology it is necessary to determine the relative amounts of land ice that existed at various times in the Earths past. A recent discovery makes such a determination possible: relative land-ice volume for a given period can be deduced from the ratio of two oxygen isotopes, 16 and 18, found in ocean sediments. Almost all the oxygen in water is oxygen 16, but a few molecules out of every thousand incorporate the heavier isotope 18. When an ice age begins, the continental ice sheets grow, steadily reducing the amount of water evaporated from the ocean that will eventually return to it. Because heavier isotopes tend to be left behind when water evaporates from the ocean surfaces, the remaining ocean water becomes progressively enriched in oxygen 18. The degree of enrichment can be determined by analyzing ocean sediments of the period, because these sediments are composed of calcium carbonate shells of marine organisms, shells that were constructed with oxygen atoms drawn from the surrounding ocean. The higher the ratio of oxygen 18 to oxygen 16 in a sedimentary specimen, the more land ice there was when the sediment was laid down.



As an indicator of shifts in the Earths climate, the isotope record has two advantages. First, it is a global record: there is remarkably little variation in isotope ratios in sedimentary specimens taken from different continental locations. Second, it is a more continuous record than that taken from rocks on land. Because of these advantages, sedimentary evidence can be dated with sufficient accuracy by radiometric methods to establish a precise chronology of the ice ages. The dated isotope record shows that the fluctuations in global ice volume over the past several hundred thousand years have a pattern: an ice age occurs roughly once every 100,000 years. These data have established a strong connection between variations in the Earths orbit and the periodicity of the ice ages.



However, it is important to note that other factors, such as volcanic particulates or variations in the amount of sunlight received by the Earth, could potentially have affected the climate. The advantage of the Milankovitch theory is that it is testable: changes in the Earths orbit can be calculated and dated by applying Newtons laws of gravity to progressively earlier configurations of the bodies in the solar system. Yet the lack of information about other possible factors affecting global climate does not make them unimportant.

Show Spoiler D

1. In the passage, the author is primarily interested in

Show Spoiler D

2. The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about the Milankovitch theory?

Show Spoiler B

3. It can be inferred from the passage that the isotope record taken from ocean sediments would be less useful to researchers if which of the following were true?

Show Spoiler C

4. According to the passage, which of the following is true of the ratios of oxygen isotopes in ocean sediments?

Show Spoiler B

5. It can be inferred from the passage that precipitation formed from evaporated ocean water has

Show Spoiler C

6. According to the passage, which of the following is (are) true of the ice ages?

Show Spoiler E

7. It can be inferred from the passage that calcium carbonate shells

Show Spoiler B

8. According to the passage, one advantage of studying the isotope record of ocean sediments is that it

Show Spoiler A

9. The purpose of the last paragraph of the passage is to

(A) suggesting an alternative to an outdated research method.(B) introducing a new research method that calls an accepted theory into question.(C) emphasizing the instability of data gathered from the application of a new scientific method.(D) presenting a theory and describing a new method to test that theory.(E) initiating a debate about a widely accepted theory.(A) It is the only possible explanation for the ice ages.(B) It is too limited to provide a plausible explanation for the ice ages, despite recent research findings.(C) It cannot be tested and confirmed until further research on volcanic activity is done.(D) It is one plausible explanation, though not the only one, for the ice ages.(E) It is not a plausible explanation for the ice ages, although it has opened up promising possibilities for future research.(A) It indicated that lighter isotopes of oxygen predominated at certain times.(B) It had far more gaps in its sequence than the record taken from rocks on land.(C) It indicated that climate shifts did not occur every100,000 years.(D) It indicated that the ratios of oxygen 16 and oxygen18 in ocean water were not consistent with those found in fresh water.(E) It stretched back for only a million years.(A) They indicate that sediments found during an ice age contain more calcium carbonate than sediments formed at other times.(B) They are less reliable than the evidence from rocks on land in determining the volume of land ice.(C) They can be used to deduce the relative volume of land ice that was present when the sediment was laid down.(D) They are more unpredictable during an ice age than in other climatic conditions.(E) They can be used to determine atmospheric conditions at various times in the past.(A) the same isotopic ratio as ocean water(B) less oxygen 18 than does ocean water(C) less oxygen 18 than has the ice contained in continental ice sheets(D) a different isotopic composition than has precipitation formed from water on land(E) more oxygen 16 than has precipitation formed from fresh water. The last ice age occurred about 25,000 years ago.. Ice ages have lasted about 10,000 years for at least the last several hundred thousand years.. Ice ages have occurred about every 100,000 years for at least the last several hundred thousand years.(A)  only(B)  only(C)  only(D) and II only(E) , and (A) are not as susceptible to deterioration as rocks.(B) are less common in sediments formed during an ice age.(C) are found only in areas that were once covered by land ice.(D) contain radioactive material that can be used to determine a sediment's isotopic composition.(E) reflect the isotopic composition of the water at the time the shells were formed.(A) corresponds with the record of ice volume taken from rocks on land.(B)shows little variation in isotope ratios when samples are taken from different continental locations.(C) corresponds with predictions already made by climatologists and experts in other fields.(D) confirms the record of ice volume initially established by analyzing variations in volcanic emissions.(E) provides data that can be used to substantiate records concerning variations in the amount of sunlight received by the Earth.(a) offer a note of caution(b) introduce new evidence(c) present two recent discoveries(d) summarize material in the preceding paragraphs(e) offer two explanations for a phenomenon
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is requesting a federal disaster declaration for the Midland area, where a failure of two dams destroyed 150 houses and caused more than $200 million in damage.

Under a disaster declaration, Whitmer said she hopes to gain Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance as soon as possible to provide a wide range of service such as crisis counseling, road repairs and loans to homeowners.

The nearly 100-year-old Edenville Dam in Midland failed on May 19, forcing 10,000 residents to evacuate their homes as flood waters raged through the area.

Were going through something unlike anything any of us have seen in our lifetime and yet here we are, Whitmer said. Getting back to normal is going to be a Herculean undertaking, but with the federal governments help we can get it done and we will.

Midland County Commission Chairman Mark Bone said most of the houses damaged by the flood were not in a flood zone, so only about 8% had flood insurance coverage. There was $175 million in damage to homes, businesses and nonprofits, he said, and $34 million to public property.

Were excited and we are ready, Bone said. This community is a strong community, theyre ready to rebuild, the volunteers here have been amazing and were ready to go. Theres been a mourning period, were still mourning a little bit, but were ready to go forward.

President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration in May, after Whitmer sent a request which he signed during a visit to the state.

Whitmer said she will send a letter requesting the disaster declaration in the next week

Anna Liz Nichiols is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Flood Michigan
Every name on the BrandBucket marketplace is exclusively listed with BrandBucket. That means that all of our sellers are very responsive, making for quick domain transfers.

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In most cases, if a domain is moved between accounts at a single registrar, the transfer is quick and usually completes within 48 hours. If a domain changes registrars (in other words, you would like to move it away from where it is currently registered), the transfer is slower. The total transfer time can then be anywhere from 48 hours to 7 days.

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Rome:

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a widely respected former Italian president who played a crucial role in Italys adoption of the euro, has died at the age of 95, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced on Friday.

Ciampi, who also served briefly as prime minister in a 1993-94 caretaker government of technocrats, was president from 1999-2006. He was so popular that he was widely urged to serve a second term - a proposal he declined on the grounds of his advanced age.

Ciampi spent 14 years as governor of the Bank of Italy and later served as a treasury minister, a role in which he was the principal architect of Italys adoption of the euro as one of the founder members of the single currency.

He served Italy with passion, Renzi wrote on Twitter. Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni hailed a great Italian statesman, and other tributes poured in from across the political spectrum.

A career economist, Ciampi was politically on the centre-left although he was not officially aligned to any party for the bulk of his career. He took over as prime minister at a time when Italy was reeling from the enormous mani pulite (clean hands) corruption scandal.

As president, a largely ceremonial role in Italy, he was credited with being a restraining influence on Silvio Berlusconi when the controversial media tycoon was prime minister.

Ciampi leaves a widow, Franca, to whom he was married for 70 years, and two children. Media reports said he had died after spending several weeks in a Rome hospital.

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Sources say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his senior Cabinet colleagues were informed about China's build-up along the lines of LAC a day after activities started taking place.

The Peoples Liberation Army of China started building up its troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on May 4 after diverting its troops from a major exercise being held by it in its territory. A day after the Chinese activities started taking place, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his senior Cabinet colleagues including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Army officials held discussion on the issue involving a neighbouring country, government sources told ANI here.

At that time, the Army briefed the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues on the Chinese Army activities on the LAC near the Patrolling Point 14 in the Galwan Nala area and other points, a source said. Sources said the Army had been monitoring the Chinese activities at the 14 Corps Headquarters level and had started preparing itself for countering their offensive from that day itself.

Sources rejected suggestions that there was a lack of preparedness which allowed the Chinese to build up along the LAC in Ladakh, saying that if the troops had not been prepared and deployed, the Chinese would have been able to go to other areas.

Troops of both sides have disengaged from their stand-off locations along the Patrolling Point 14 (Galwan valley), PP 15 (114 Brigade area) and PP 17 (Hot Springs) following Lieutenant General-level talks held on June 6.

Indian teams are already in Chushul to discuss the modalities at the local level in the areas where the dispute started first.

Troops of India and China have been in a standoff since the first week of May and have held talks at multiple levels  from the level of battalion commander to Major General. A meeting of Major General-rank officers of the two countries is expected to be held on June 10 also.

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After spending much of the last few months in his room without visitors, Harry Durham celebrated his 100th birthday Tuesday surrounded by friends  at a distance.

About a dozen of Durhams friends stopped by Highlander Place assisted living in Kelso to wish him Happy Birthday and share a chocolate cake. Because of coronavirus precautions, no visitors are allowed inside. So the group took advantage of a break in the rain to meet outdoors, and Durham joined the party of about a dozen well-wishers  from a safe distance

I enjoyed seeing everybody, Durham told the group of masked visitors. This isolation business is for the birds.

Durham and his fellow Highlander Place residents were isolated from each other and visitors in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in March. Although restrictions have loosened slightly, outside visitors are still barred from the assisted living facility.

Pamela McCall, life enrichment coordinator, said she began planning a party for Durham months ago before the coronavirus outbreak. She had to alter her plans but still wanted to recognize the milestone.

Harry is such a sweet soul, so full of love, she said. Everyone loves him. This is a way to celebrate him and his 100 years.

Durham, born in Montana, served four years in the Air Force during World War II. He lived in Portland for about six years before moving to Washington in 1951. Durham worked at Longview Fibre Co. as an accountant for about 30 years. He was involved in the Lions Club and is a member of Emmanuel Lutheran Church.

Durham said he knew 100 was going to come sometime. His advice: Just hang on and take every day as it comes.

McCall said over the past few weeks Durham has received more than 100 birthday cards after a friend of a caregiver posted on Facebook asking people to send them his way.

Durhams daughter lives in Chicago and was unable to travel to Washington for her fathers birthday because of coronavirus restrictions, McCall said. Durhams niece, Liz Durham, drove up from California.

Hes 100. How could we not do something? she said. At least its not through the window.

Durham said she has a lot of fond memories of family vacations visiting her uncle in Longview and has gotten to know him even better over the last couple years.

Hes an honorable, upstanding man ... and Ive heard that from many other people, she said. He comes up with a great attitude and stays positive, especially for someone at 100.

Durham lived on Maryland Street west of Lake Sacajawea for about 60 years, and many of his neighbors became close friends.

Brenda Nanney, 91, said she lived across the street from Durham for about 30 years.

Hes such a lovely human being, she said. He never saw anything bad in people.

Judy and Willie Kilde were Durhams next-door neighbors for 17 years. Judy Kilde said Durham golfed into this 90s and only drove a cart if he was playing 18 holes.

Hes our hero, she said. If we could do as good at his age as he is, wed be golden.

Kilde said before the COVID-19 pandemic she and her husband visited Durham about once a week. In the last couple months, thats been restricted to once a month through the window, with phone calls every week, she said.

Marj Ahrens was one of three of Durhams former Longview Fibre coworkers who attended Tuesdays celebration. She said the whole accounting department was like family.

Im delighted to be here, she said. He always had a good sense of humor and was a very caring, loving guy. ... Event with the mask you can see his eyes light up.

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Out of top 25 engineering export destinations, only Singapore and China registered positive year-on-year growth in April, while the rest saw a contraction up to 91 per cent in some cases due to disruption in trade in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it said.

"The US has been the number one market, while the UAE, EU and some SAARC nations were also major destinations so far.

But the scenario has changed now due to COVID-19 impact," Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) chairman Ravi Sehgal said.

According to the monthly data, the annualised growth in India's exports to Singapore was over 95 per cent at USD 553 million in April 2020 from USD 283 million in the year-ago month.

However, the engineering exports to the US declined by 75 per cent to USD 222 million in the month under review as compared to USD 883 million in the corresponding period last year, the study said.

Exports to China grew by 19 per cent to USD 173 million in April from USD 145 million in the same month last year.

According to Sehgal, the engineering exports sector is now facing both external and internal challenges.

There are shortages of raw materials, non-availability of the workforce, unviable fixed costs and disruption in logistics on the domestic front, while restrictions on people's movement, rising trade barriers and geo-political issues are the challenges on the external side, he said.

Total engineering exports in April declined by 64 per cent at USD 2.31 billion from USD 6.41 billion in the same month last year.

Also Read: Coronavirus treatment cost: Tamil Nadu hospitals can't charge above Rs 15,000 a day

Also Read: Vizag gas leak: Andhra govt forms committee to probe incident; seeks report by June 22
A federal judge in the United States has temporarily stopped President Donald Trumps administration from expelling a teenager to Honduras under a policy enacted during the coronavirus pandemic that did not give the teen the chance under federal law to stay in the US.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the 16-year-old had been scheduled to be expelled on Wednesday, six days after he entered the US to reunite with his father. The ACLU says the boy fled because gang members threatened him after he saw one of them kill someone in his neighbourhood.

US District Judge Emmet Sullivan late on Tuesday issued an order preventing the government from expelling the teenager, who was not identified by name in court papers, through the end of the day on Wednesday as litigation is pending.

The case is the first known challenge of the Trump administrations expulsion of hundreds of immigrant children at the border under an emergency declaration citing the coronavirus. Trumps administration says under federal law on public health emergencies it must close the border to asylum seekers  including children  to prevent the spread of the virus.

Under federal law, border agents would typically take the teen and other youth from outside Canada and Mexico to the US Department of Health and Human Services, which places unaccompanied immigrant children with sponsors, usually family members. Instead, according to the ACLU, agents held the 16-year-old in a detention centre, then a hotel, without giving him the chance to request asylum. The boy is in good health and has shown no signs of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to the group.

People participate in a protest against US President Donald Trumps immigration policy and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in New York City [File: Stephanie Keith/Reuters]

Opponents of Trumps clampdown on immigration say the coronavirus is a pretext to accomplish a long-held goal of his administration: Shutting down asylum at the southern border.

This is more extreme than any other border policy weve seen from the administration, said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU lawyer. Gelernt argued the ACLUs lawsuit challenging thousands of family separations that led to a federal judges June 2018 order mandating that parents and children be reunited.

Under a 2008 anti-trafficking law and a federal court settlement known as the Flores agreement, children from countries other than Canada and Mexico must have access to legal counsel and cannot be immediately deported. They are also supposed to be released to family in the US or otherwise held in the least restrictive setting possible. The rules are intended to prevent children from being mistreated or falling into the hands of criminals.





Health and Human Services (HHS) provide services for immigrant children who are first apprehended by border agents. Since the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its March 20 order restricting immigration, the process of referring children to HHS has been almost entirely shut down.

Thousands of children are typically apprehended by the Border Patrol monthly crossing from Mexico, according to the agencys statistics. In April, the Border Patrol processed 166 children as unaccompanied minors, meaning they would be taken to HHS youth holding facilities and allowed to stay in the US at least temporarily, and expelled the remaining 600.

HHS is currently receiving about one child a day, spokesman Mark Weber said.
A nother 3600 UK jobs were at risk on Wednesday, as a flurry of retail and restaurant owners outlined property restructure plans that pile more pressure on landlords

In a major blow to retail and restaurant employees, as well as landlords already fretting about what they may get paid from cash-strapped tenants on the looming June 24 quarterly rent bill date, a number of High Street chains announced proposals to shut sites and get rent reductions.

Moves today by The Restaurant Group, Monsoon Accessorize and Quiz, which all saw income hammered after the government ordered closures in March for the lockdown, will impact 3638 roles, and hundreds of sites.

Pubs, cafes and retailers have had little or no income since the sites shut. That has impacted the ability of many tenants to pay rent on time or at all.

Vivienne King, chief executive at retail property body Revo, said: With June quarter day fast-approaching the pressure is intensifying on both property owners, and retail and leisure occupiers. We need further action from Government to support the sector.

The Restaurant Group said it is seeking a company voluntary arrangement for its leisure division which comprises the Frankie & Bennys and Garfunkels brands. The restructure puts up to 3000 jobs at risk and would see 125 branches close and 85 get revised leases and lower rents.

Creditors, including landlords, will vote on the CVA on June 29.

At fashion retailer Monsoon Accessorize some 545 redundancies are expected as 35 sites close. The company has been sold in a pre-pack administration deal to a company controlled by the chains founder Peter Simon.

The sale will transfer around 450 jobs to Simons Adena Brands, and there will be talks with landlords to get a better deal on the remaining 162 store leases. It is hoped a total of 2300 jobs will be protected.

Meanwhile fashion retailer Quiz said it is placing the division that runs its 82 standalone stores into administration as part of a restructure to offload loss-making sites and reduce its rent bill.

Some 93 roles at Quiz, which has 915 employees, could be affected.

The coronavirus outbreak has hammered consumer spending on the High Street as restaurant and stores have been shut since March 20 with little or no income for many establishments.

Non-essential retailers can reopen from Monday, with social distancing measures in place, but the earliest hospitality businesses can start up again is from July 4.

Todays restructure plans announced will impact a mixture of retail park owners, High Street landlords, and companies behind shopping centres.
Police have released a picture of a backpack-wearing teen they believe can help them in the case of an alleged sexual assault in a Melbourne car park.

The 22-year-old woman was walking to her car on Latrobe Street in Melbourne CBD at 3pm on January 9 when she was grabbed from behind.

An unidentified man then allegedly sexually assaulted her.

She managed to break free and made a dash to her car where she raised the alarm.

Police are looking for a man, believed to be 19, with black hair and wearing a black short and shorts (pictured)

Police are looking for a 19-year-old man who they believe can help the investigation.

He is described as being 172cm tall with short black hair, a dark complexion and a solid build.

He was wearing a dark t-shirt, black knee-length shorts and was carrying a black backpack.

Investigators have urged anyone who recognises the man to call crime stoppers.
The sole survivor of the Kingsmill massacre is taking legal action in a bid to have two IRA men suspected of involvement in the murders publicly named.

Alan Black wants the High Court to order that the identities of the alleged perpetrators must be revealed at an inquest into the 1976 atrocity.

The move comes amid rumours that at least one of those connected to the killing of ten Protestant workmen was a British state agent.

That suspect, who has since died, was an ex-soldier linked to more than 30 murders in total, according to legal papers.

Mr Black, 76, was shot 18 times and left for dead alongside the lifeless bodies of his ten friends after the IRA ambushed their minibus near Kingsmill, Co Armagh.

Gunmen ordered the victims out of the van, lined them up and instructed the only Catholic to leave before opening fire.

No-one has ever been convicted for one of the worst outrages committed during the Troubles.

An ongoing inquest into the shootings has heard two suspects linked to the massacre later received controversial on-the-run 'comfort letters', informing them they were not wanted by police.

The coroner overseeing the tribunal has so far declined to name those individuals, saying he would consider arguments on what was described as a "complicated" issue.

With the suspects currently referred to by ciphers, Mr Black has taken preliminary steps towards seeking a judicial review of that stance.

Explaining his reasons for the legal challenge, he expressed deep concerns at how the matter has been handled.

"I have a debt to pay to my pals, I have carried this survivor's guilt around for 44 years," he said.

"I have to do everything in my power to get the truth for all the families. We don't just deserve it, we demand it."

Mr Black's lawyers insisted the identity of one suspect, S97, is already in the public domain.

He was also allegedly connected to the killings of three members of the Royal Highland Fusiliers in Belfast in March 1971, and bomb attacks which claimed the lives of 18 British soldiers at Narrow Water, near Warrenpoint, Co Down in August 1979.

According to Mr Black's legal team, the lack of investigation into allegations surrounding S97 has fuelled rumour and suspicion that he was working as a state agent.

Even though naming both suspects has not been ruled out, lawyers claim the current situation is causing distress to relatives of the Kingsmill victims.

A pre-action letter sent on behalf of Mr Black stated: "He will seek an order from the court that the coroner lifts the ciphers so that the names of the alleged perpetrators can be known and their role, if any, in the deaths at Kingsmill (and near fatal attack on the applicant) can be effectively investigated during the course of the inquest."

His solicitor, Kevin Winters, acknowledged the sensitive and complex issues facing the coroner.

"The decision to take legal action isn't taken lightly, but really it comes on the back of a number of developments, including a recent BBC Spotlight documentary implicating one man in the killings," Mr Winters explained.

"Mr Black has heightened suspicions around what happened in 1976, especially in relation to alleged state collusion.

"This has been a difficult decision for him, but he feels he has no option given what he feels is mounting, rather than diminishing, suspicions on what happened.

"He is 76 now and he just feels he has little option to get to the truth."

The proposed challenge also centres on a decision to refuse Properly Interested Person (PIP) status to Mr Black at the hearing.

Correspondence sent in response from the Coroner's Service pointed to assurances that he will be given a full opportunity to participate as a key witness, and can invite the inquest to pursue a particular line of inquiry.

Any legal challenge is to be fully contested, with all criticisms rejected as "entirely baseless".

The letter also stated: "The issue of lifting cipher numbers allocated to deceased suspects has been the subject of full written and oral argument in the inquest proceedings and remains to be determined by the Coroner."
By Akbar Mammadov

Armenia is a mono-ethnic country that has expelled all non-Armenians, including Azerbaijanis, Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said in a statement on June 10.

Armenia has become a mono-ethnic country, having achieved this by expelling all non-Armenians, including Azerbaijanis. It has applied the same policy and practice of creating ethnically homogeneous areas to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, from which all non-Armenians were expelled and where it has set up a puppet racist regime, the ministry statement reads.

Commenting on the recent statements of Armenian FM, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry noted that Armenias accusing Azerbaijan of hate speech reveal once again its practice of arbitrary and selective interpretation of the decisions adopted by international bodies.

The foreign ministry stressed that hatred, animosity and intolerance on ethnic and religious grounds, which are at the core of Armenias policy are evidenced in the unconcealed conviction of its leadership in the ethnic incompatibility between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

The international community has repeatedly stated its indignation with the overt promotion by Armenia of such odious ideas and expressed serious concerns about the spirit of intolerance prevailing in Armenia and the discriminatory policies and practices pursued in that country, the statement said.

Furthermore, the ministry emphasized that by reciting the usual groundless allegations, Armenia pursues the goal of misleading the international community and distracting the attention from its own racist policy and hate crimes, manifested in the unlawful military occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding seven districts of Azerbaijan, and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis in the course of the aggression.

Armenia, which bears full responsibility for starting the war against Azerbaijan, seizing 1/5 of its internationally recognized territory, carrying out ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories, committing other heinous crimes during the conflict, advocating undisguised racist ideology and blatantly disregarding the binding resolutions 822 (1993), 853 (1993), 874 (1993) and 884 (1993) of the United Nations Security Council, the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the decisions and documents of other international organizations, cannot lecture others on the standards and values that it has consistently violated itself, the statement said.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry pointed out that Armenia must put an end to its hypocrisy and selectivity with regard to the human rights standards and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, starting with the implementation of the same Courts leading judgment of 16 June 2015 in the case of Chiragov and Others v. Armenia.

As is known, having examined the evidence presented, the Grand Chamber of the European Court has ascertained that Armenia exercises effective control over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan, established the responsibility of Armenia for violations of the rights of the Azerbaijani internally displaced persons and reaffirmed their right to return to their homes or places of habitual residence in the occupied territories, the ministry said.

The Azerbaijani FM also noted that the primary cause of the continuation of the conflict and, as a result, of tensions and sporadic escalation on the ground is the unlawful occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan and Armenias attempts to consolidate that situation.

Peace, security and stability are achievable, first and foremost, only if the consequences of Armenias aggression are removed, thus ensuring that its armed forces are immediately, unconditionally and completely withdrawn from the territories of Azerbaijan, as it is demanded by the above mentioned UN SC resolutions, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is restored within its internationally recognized borders and the human rights and fundamental freedoms of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani internally displaced persons, including the right to return to their homes and properties, are guaranteed and implemented without delay, the statement concluded.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A number of St. Helena residents have encouraged me to run for mayor this year.

We continue to face significant challenges, from the state of our finances, civic buildings and downtown business environment, to housing, infrastructure, and more. There is a growing sense of frustration in the community over councils inability to resolve some of these important issues and make decisions.

My council service and career experience give me confidence that I can rotate into the office of mayor, and effectively lead the council and the community toward consensus and decisions. And so today, I announce that I am a candidate for mayor of St. Helena.

As a council member, St. Helena issues are my priority and deserving of my undivided attention. I assure you that if I am elected as mayor, that will continue to be the case. Ive developed a clear understanding of all of our work and its progression through my assignment to work with another council member and our City Manager to develop the facts, analysis and alternatives related to our major issues. This began with SHAPE and continued to our civic building options, downtown business climate, housing and more.

In this current economic environment, the City Council needs to focus on our primary goal and responsibility -- which is to maintain and improve the citys short and long-term economic sustainability. To keep delivering services now and into the future, we need to take steps to strengthen our financial condition. That will also position us to make progress on our other goals -- housing, creation of recreational and cultural opportunities, environmental sustainability and more.

Ive found my career experience extremely helpful as a council member; no doubt the same will be true if I step into the position of mayor. I learned to take a broad perspective, set goals and strategies and the importance of teamwork during my first job as a city planner. Ive held management positions in both the public and private sectors. As an attorney, I spent a significant part of my career negotiating, managing and closing complex transactions. I understand that opposing parties need to work together and make mutual concessions in order to get something done. Compromise is important to effective government.

As a council member, Im sometimes asked who Im working with or who Im aligned with. The answer is and always will be everyone in St. Helena. When I make decisions, my focus is on our policies and standards and the choice that best serves the interests of the entire community. Its not always easy, but its the path Ive chosen and will continue to follow if elected as mayor. As always, Ill be available to meet with you, listen to your questions and concerns and do my best to address them.

My husband and I made our first visit to St. Helena in 2013. We fell in love with the city and quickly moved. When we arrived, I began to look for a way to meet people and put my interests and skills to work for our new hometown. I was fortunate to be appointed to the Planning Commission and then elected to City Council. From my public service and residents Ive met all over town -- many of whom continue to be my closest friends today -- I came to have a deep appreciation for all that is special about St. Helena. When we lived in Maine, if you werent born there, you were from away and no matter how hard you tried, youd never be a real Mainer. Ive never found that to be the case here in St. Helena.

Im committed to doing the best I can for our city.

I hope youll join my campaign.

Mary Koberstein

St. Helena City Council Member
BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China-developed BeiDou navigation technology has made agricultural production smarter and more precise.

Nanjing Agricultural University has developed the BeiDou-tech-supported unmanned wheat seeding and harvesting technology, empowering agricultural production with advanced navigation technology, according to the university.

The new wheat production technology is a significant part of smart wheat production technology, according to Tian Yongchao, deputy director with the smart agriculture institute of Nanjing Agricultural University.

The smart wheat production technology integrates BeiDou navigation technology, information technology and agricultural engineering into the whole process of wheat production.

BeiDou navigation technology, multi-dimensional sensing technology, unmanned vehicles and Internet of Things contribute comprehensive data to the production, said Tian.

The services provided by the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) have been used in various fields including transportation, agriculture, fishing, disaster reduction and relief.
The second of two women has made history by diving to the oceans deepest spot: the Challenger Deep, the lowest point of the Mariana Trench, the greatest of the seas many recesses.

The long fissure of the western Pacific lies 200 miles southwest of Guam. The deeps muddy bottom lies nearly seven miles down in inky darkness under crushing pressure.

I made it, Vanessa OBrien, 55, a star of adventure tourism, tweeted after emerging Friday from the icy abyss. She called herself the first woman to Earths highest & lowest points! Her moment comes after the plunge on Sunday of Kathy Sullivan, 68, an oceanographer, astronaut and the first American woman to walk in space.

Both women are passengers of Victor L. Vescovo, a wealthy investor who has climbed Mount Everest and last year piloted a mini submarine into the Challenger Deep.
Ministers are facing fury today after it emerged millions of children might not be able to go back to school full-time in September - despite zoos and drive-in cinemas opening from Monday.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson admitted yesterday that the 'ambition' of getting all primary age children back in class for a month before the summer break had been ditched just weeks after it was set.

And Government sources refused to confirm that all pupils at either primary or secondary schools will be able to go back full-time after the holidays, merely saying they hoped 'more' could return.

Children's Commissioner Anne Longfield accused ministers of 'furloughing childhood', while parents voiced anger that non-essential shops, McDonald's and zoos are reopening before most schools. Former chief inspector of schools Michael Wilshaw said the government's approach had been a 'mess' and was fuelling a 'tragedy' for young people.

Tory MPs are among those who have demanded a route map to get children back to school. Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, warned that 700,000 of the most vulnerable pupils were doing no work at home at all and many do not even have access to computers, predicting an 'epidemic of educational poverty' without more assistance.

Meanwhile, there is pressure for a Nightingale hospitals-style operation to use community halls and churches as temporary classrooms.

But business minister Nadhim Zahawi complained that those who were criticising the government for not reopening schools have previously accused them of moving too fast.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson admitted yesterday that the 'ambition' of getting all primary age children back in class for a month before the summer break had been ditched just weeks after it was set

A socially-distanced class at work at Landywood Primary School in Staffordshire this week

Mr Murray said his teenage daughter had been invited to an end-of-year picnic despite having no lessons while the school remains closed. Pictured: Reception pupils from Landywood Primary School in Staffordshire take part in a socially-distanced outdoor exercise

Schoolchildren have 'tiny' one in 3.5m chance of dying from coronavirus School children under the age of 15 have a 'tiny' one-in-3.5 million chance of dying from coronavirus, according to statistics. Analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics by scientists from the University of Cambridge shows that the coronavirus risk to children is extremely low. The death rate for youngsters aged five to 14 in England and Wales is one in 3.5 million and for under-5s it is one in 1.17 million. Official data shows that only 14 people aged under 19 have died with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 since the start of the outbreak. No children aged between 5-9 have lost their lives to the virus. In comparison, between 30 and 60 people are hit by lightning every year in the UK, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. This is a risk of between one in 2.21 million and one in 1.1 million each year, the Daily Telegraph reported, although it was unclear how many people hit by lightning are children. Advertisement

The Government's two-metre social distancing rules and advice from Public Health England  that class sizes should be limited to 15  are believed to be the major obstacles to getting more children back.

Mr Johnson is coming under growing pressure to ease the rules.

SAGE adviser Shaun Fitzgerald of Cambridge University, who helped draw up the rule, told the Times that there should be more focus on how long people are close together any whether they are facing towards each other.

'The thing which is missing from a simple two-metre rule is consideration of other factors, such as time, duration and orientation,' he said.

'It's all three that are important. I would not want to be 1 meter apart from somebody for an extended period because that's much, much higher risk than two metres.

'But being less than two metres for a short period and I'm not facing that person are ameliorating factors. If things evolve, it isn't necessarily because the evidence is any different.'

Professor Robert Dingwall, a member of one of the sub-groups feeding into the Government's SAGE committee, said that even if the distance was cut to one metre, there would still be a 'safety margin' as it was 'very rare' for virus particles to travel that far.

A study published in the Lancet found physical distancing of at least one metre lowers the risk of coronavirus transmission, but distances of two metres could be more effective.

But Prof Dingwall told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was a 'problematic' study because it did not look at the economic consequences of having a larger distance requirement.

'I think it's a question of relative risk. Even the problematic Lancet study that was published last week was really saying you're moving from a tiny risk at two metres to a very small risk at one metre.

'You have to set that against all the other harms that are being done by the, the economic devastation that is wreaked by the two-metre rule, the deaths that will be attributable to the lockdown itself, and to the social and economic disruption that is causing.'

The PM will front the Downing Street briefing this evening and is expected to confirm zoos, safari parks and drive-in cinemas can reopen in England from June 15.

It comes a day after Business Secretary Alok Sharma confirmed shops would also be able to reopen on the same day as the Government seeks to kick-start the economy.

But Mr Williamson was forced to admit defeat over plans for all primary pupils in England to attend classes before the summer break.

In a round of interviews today, Mr Zahawi said the government's 'ultimate aim' was to have a full return to school by September.

He added: 'The same voices that last week were supporting people who are saying do not open up the schools are this week criticising us for saying we will take it deliberately carefully.'

Challenged on why there was not a Nightingale-style plan to mobilise class space, Mr Zahawi insisted the government was working 'as quickly and deliberately as we can'.

Rishi Sunak has warned school closures are as damaging to the economy as the 2008 credit crunch, it was claimed today.

The Chancellor is believed to be among the most hawkish in government on the need to reopen schools.

He has privately told colleagues that the impact of keeping millions of pupils at home is the same scale as the financial crisis, which required nearly 140billion in taxpayer bailouts, according to the Telegraph.

Treasury sources dismissed the report as 'categorically not true'. Speaking on a visit to a John Lewis store this morning, Mr Sunak said: 'I personally think every day our children are not at school is a tragedy.'

He added: 'Last month we set out a clear plan to reopen our country slowly and today we're at the next stage of that plan where next week we'll be able to open shops again in our country.

'And that's because we've met the five tests that we set out.

'I hope that when all these shops open people should have the confidence to know that they can go out again in safety. And that's very important.'

The fears emerged after figures showed the costs of the government's furlough scheme rising again, with the UK on the brink of the worst recession in 300 years.

Sir Michael told ITV's Good Morning Britain that the impact on schools was an 'absolute tragedy'.

'What's happened over the last few weeks and months has been an absolute tragedy,' he said.

'It's been a tragedy for those youngsters who need school, need the structure of school, need the routine of school, need teachers who will be working with them, to support them when they get very little support at home.'

He added: 'I just don't know how we've made such a mess of it, because headteachers, and I know lots of headteachers, will have been saying to the Department for Education, you've got this wrong.

'If you're going to insist on social distancing and a maximum of 15 in a class we will need double the amount of space, we will need double the amount of teachers and we've got to make sure we have that.'

Former education secretary Justine Greening said the government was failing to understand that lockdown cannot truly end until schools reopen.

She told GMB: 'I think many people will be very surprised that there isn't yet a government plan in place to help our schools get back open and there's also not a government plan in place to help children that have been most affected by the schools shutdown to be able to catch up.

'And the big risk for Boris Johnson's government now is that unless they bring forward a proper joined-up strategy, then it won't be a government that delivers levelling up in Britain, it will end up being a government that levels down and nobody wants to see that.'

Sunak 'fears schools hit as big as credit crunch' Rishi Sunak has warned school closures are as damaging to the economy as the 2008 credit crunch, it was claimed today. The Chancellor is believed to be among the most hawkish in government on the need to reopen schools. He has privately told colleagues that the impact of keeping millions of pupils at home is the same scale as the financial crisis, which required nearly 140billion in taxpayer bailouts, according to the Telegraph. The fears emerged after figures showed the costs of the government's furlough scheme rising again, with the UK on the brink of the worst recession in 300 years. Advertisement

She added: 'It will open up opportunity gaps that were already there before and make them even wider.'

Meanwhile health bosses have raised concerns that around 10 million people will be on the waiting list for NHS treatment by the end of the year - more than double the current figure - due to a combination of social distancing measures, a backlog of treatments and staffing shortages.

The PM, who will face a grilling from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday at Prime Minister's Questions, will reopen outdoor attractions where people remain in their cars, such as safari parks and drive-in cinemas, because the risk of spreading the disease is lower outside.

A Downing Street official said: 'People are continuing to make huge sacrifices to reduce the spread of coronavirus and avoid a second spike, but we know it is tough and where we can safely open up more attractions, and it is supported by the science, we will do so.'

Questions remain, however, over returning pupils to school with a number of councils, including in the north west of England, opposing plans to widely reopen after new data suggested coronavirus could still be spreading in their local areas.

Children in nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 in England began returning to primary school last week after the Government eased lockdown measures.

700,000 children 'are doing no work at home' Tory MPs have demanded a route map to get children back to school amid warnings 700,000 of the most vulnerable are not doing any work at home. Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, said many of disadvantaged pupils do not even have access to computers, predicting an 'epidemic of educational poverty' without more assistance. Meanwhile, there is pressure for a Nightingale hospitals-style operation to use community halls and churches as temporary classrooms. Mr Halfon told the Commons last night: 'Why is that we can turn a blind eye to thousands of demonstrators and campaign for pubs and garden centres to reopen yet it is so hard to reopen our schools?' Advertisement

But some schools said they did not have enough space on site to admit all pupils in the eligible year groups, while adhering to Government guidance to limit class sizes to 15 and encourage fewer interactions.

Mr Williamson said the Government would like to see schools who 'have the capacity' bring back more pupils where possible before the summer break but conceded the Government was 'working to bring all children back to school in September'.

Former education secretary Lord Blunkett said there was a lack of ambition being shown by the Government in ensuring pupils get back to school.

The Labour peer told BBC Radio 4's World At One: 'To be honest, I think it is a lack of will, it is a lack of 'can do'.

'It is a failure to do what we have already done with the health service and economy, which is to say there are challenges, there are real problems but we are going as a nation to seek to overcome them.

Gary Murray, who has two daughters aged 15 and eight, said: 'The question I feel a lot of parents want answering is; what is going to be different if they go back in September to what is different to them going back to school now?'. Pictured: Children at a French bilingual school in Fulham, London, use hoops for social distancing

Senior Tory MP urges Boris Johnson to set up 'national education army' Senior Tory MP Robert Halfon has urged Boris Johnson to set up a 'national education army' to help pupils catch up with their learning in the coming months. Mr Halfon, the chairman of the Education Select Committee, said retired teachers, graduates and Ofsted inspectors should be asked to help open libraries and school gyms to create temporary classrooms. He said such an effort would help mitigate the damage already done by the coronavirus crisis to the education prospects of 'left behind' pupils. He told The Telegraph: 'We could start it now. Boris went on about this wonderful health service volunteering thing - which is great - but why on earth aren't we doing it for education? 'Why isn't Boris getting up there and saying 'I am going to have a national education army in our country to look after the 700,000 vulnerable children who are not doing any home or school work at the moment'? That is what Boris has got to do - it has got to come from the top. Advertisement

'Why is it that other countries, not just in Europe but across the world, can have the ambition to get their children, in all kinds of creative ways, back into school and we can't?

'I can only conclude that the Government is losing the plot.'

The trained teacher added: 'I just know that we've got to do this. If we can set up the Nightingale hospitals in the time we did, why on Earth can't we invest in the future of our children?'

Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis academy chain, told the BBC there should be a Nightingale-style drive to use community halls and churches for teaching children.

'I think there are other ways around dealing with this as well because what the Government has said about bringing children back  keeping them two metres apart, socially distanced but bringing them back  well, of course it is not possible to bring all children back into a school building and keep the social distancing  it is an oxymoron, you can't do both things,' he said.

'But in any community there are other buildings that can be used  community halls, churches and other faith groups' buildings, hotels.

'We've explored conversations with some people like that so you can bring children back in and use those buildings because their emotional and social development is so important.'

Shops will only be able to reopen if they have completed a Covid-19 risk assessment and can implement social distancing measures.

But other businesses, including pubs, restaurants and hairdressers, will remain shut until July 4 at the earliest, Mr Sharma said.

It comes as hospitality chiefs have warned the rule requiring people to stay two metres apart could jeopardise firms' ability to reopen, with some asking for the distance to be halved.

Mr Sharma said the rule was being kept under review and 'when it is safe to do so, we will see whether you can move to a shorter distance'.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New York City education officials are planning for what school could look like in the fall for the 2020-2021 school year amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic -- including phased start dates, personal protective equipment (PPE), split student schedules, and a blend of both in-person and remote learning.

Chancellor Richard A. Carranza recently sent a letter to school principals and leaders about how schools in New York City will reopen for 1.1 million public school students in the fall. Students have been participating in remote learning since March 23 when school buildings closed to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.

The Department of Education (DOE) has created a Fall Framework that consists of eight key areas that will guide the planning and organization of schools reopening, according to Carranzas letter.

Since we cannot yet predict what September will look like, we can -- and we must -- be prepared for a range of possibilities, Carranza said in the letter. Our job is to be ready and nimble.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

Even when students return for a traditional school day, Carranza said the city can prepare for a restart in the fall by leveraging approaches of both in-person and remote instruction, which he calls blended learning. It will support the transition from remote learning and maximize both face-to-face and online instruction, he said.

In the letter, Carranza said the DOE is working toward a September start date while working closely with the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to monitor health indicators to ensure if it is safe to return to school buildings and offices.

The education department is considering a rolling or phased start to the school year. In the letter, Carranza said that other countries are modifying schedules and/or starting groups of students in-person at different times.

This year for us, the timing of return to buildings, and under what circumstances buildings might be closed or have limited access, will be established in close coordination with NYC Health and based on health and safety indicators, he said.

School buildings may need to follow social distancing guidelines and create split schedules for students. Carranza said the DOE cant predict what will be true in September, but the agency is anticipating that social distancing will remain in effect.

This means we may need to limit the number of students and staff in our buildings and we will need to think creatively about schedules, he said in the letter.

The DOE would need to ensure school buildings and other office buildings are equipped to handle health requirements such as PPE, equipment, supplies, social distancing protocols, and monitoring of health indicators to protect students, teachers, and staff. Building operations will need to be adjusted to ensure safe, healthy places for students and staff. Building procedures will need to allow for limitations of student and staff movements in, out, and within the building.

According to the letter, school busing and school food operations will also be adjusted.

Additionally, Carranza said that there needs to be a thoughtful process to reacclimate students, parents, and staff to be back in school buildings. The DOE will focus on the social-emotional needs of school communities, while implementing trauma-informed approaches to teaching and learning.

NYC PLANS FOR REOPENING SCHOOLS

Mayor Bill de Blasio has previously said he is confident New York City public schools will reopen for September. He recently announced that education leaders, experts and advocates will sit on a council to help guide New York City in reopening school buildings in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

He said during a recent previous press conference that the city is looking at any and all options when it comes to reopening schools in September.

The mayors goal is to return to the normal school day with the full functioning of schools as quickly as possible. If that cant happen, there are other plans the city is looking at -- such as a hybrid approach or staggered school hours.

De Blasio announced last month that education leaders, experts and advocates will sit on a council to help guide New York City in reopening school buildings in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The Education Sector Advisory Council -- which consists of 45 members -- is one of six Sector Advisory Councils announced by the mayor last week. The councils serve as a link to disseminate information about reopening and providing guidance to shape the citys response during the pandemic.

Michael J. Deegan, superintendent of Archdiocese schools, also recently announced that a panel of experts assembled by the Archdiocese of New York will create a safe and responsible plan to reopen schools in the fall.

New York state has also made its own council to help reimagine" what schools will look like in the future. Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced that as New York begins to develop plans to reopen schools and colleges, the state and the Gates Foundation will develop a blueprint to reimagine education in the new normal brought on by the coronavirus outbreak.

The governor later announced the members of New Yorks Reimagine Education Advisory Council, which is comprised of educators, students, parents and education leaders.

Cuomo said the state is issuing guidelines early this month regarding what schools need to do to come up with a plan to prepare to open in September. The schools will make those plans and provide them to the state in July for approval.

Again, we dont want to make that decision until we have more facts, Cuomo said during a May press briefing. As the facts keep changing, prudence dictates that you dont make a decision until its timely so you have the most recent facts to make a decision.

30 Photos of the pandemic in NYC: The gradual return to normalcy

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Wenco and Oxbotica have signed an MOU to develop a world-first Open Autonomy solution for mining. This industry-leading system will provide customers flexibility and efficiency in autonomous mining Wenco and Oxbotica believe firmly in the principle of open systems and consider it the primary way to bring about our joint goals of widespread adoption of autonomous technology and safer, more productive industrial operations.  Andrew Pyne, Wenco President and CEO

Wenco International Mining Systems Ltd. (Wenco) and Oxbotica Ltd. (Oxbotica) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop a world-first Open Autonomy solution for mining. Initial trials are underway, and the companies are actively recruiting mining partners with appropriate testing grounds.

The industry-leading system will provide customers flexibility and efficiency in autonomous mining deployment, allowing them to operate any open standard-based vehicle and integrate it into their existing fleet. It will help meet growing demand with the number of autonomous haulage trucks around the world expected to grow by more than 300% by 2023.

Wenco and Oxbotica both support an open and interoperable ecosystem of partners that integrate solutions alongside existing mine infrastructure. Both companies believe this provides customers with the greatest flexibility and control for integrating new solutions while reducing associated risks and costs.

This approach also notably avoids vendor lock-in and offers customers the freedom to choose preferred technologies, independent of their primary industrial systems. Furthermore, it enables highly skilled autonomy suppliers that may be new to mining to integrate with customers existing operations while backed by a proven expert in the industry.

A wholly owned subsidiary company of Hitachi Construction Machinery, Wenco, has 30 years experience in developing technology solutions that assist mining companies in maximizing resource value from their operations. This latest advancement builds on the vision of Open Autonomy, first publicly announced by Wenco and its parent, Hitachi Construction Machinery, at the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Convention in Montreal in May 2019.

We are very excited to be collaborating with Oxbotica, says Andrew Pyne, Wenco President and CEO. We are confident that combining Oxboticas proven capability in autonomy with our three decades worth of experience in interoperable fleet management systems for large mining customers enables us to create the industrys first full-function open autonomy platform."

Regardless of the strategies of other industrial autonomy vendors, Wenco and Oxbotica believe firmly in the principle of open systems and consider it the primary way to bring about our joint goals of widespread adoption of autonomous technology and safer, more productive industrial operations. Our joint platform will allow customers to choose any open standards-based vehicle and integrate it into their existing operations.

Oxbotica was founded in 2014 out of the University of Oxford to develop an autonomy software platform that enables faster deployment of industry-specific autonomy applications. The company recognized early on the immense potential for transformation, cost savings, and safety improvements that can be achieved in the mining industry via the use of vehicle autonomy. Its mining solutions combine the best of advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and computer vision to change the way mining vehicle fleets operate.

This collaboration with Wenco is a major milestone for Oxbotica, says Ozgur Tohumcu, CEO of Oxbotica. Wencos industry experience in mining and their vision for Open Autonomy make this partnership extremely valuable for us and provides a great synergy with our own vision of Universal Autonomy  where any vehicle, in any environment, can understand where it is, whats around it and what it should do next."

The mining industry has proven to be at the forefront of deploying early generation autonomy systems because the business case has been clear for operators. However, even years after early deployments, less than two per cent of vehicles are autonomous in mines around the world. We strongly believe an Open Autonomy architecture that enables new and innovative entrants, like Oxbotica, to join and speed up autonomy adoption will be beneficial for the whole industry. Together with Wenco, we would like to accelerate the adoption of autonomy in mining, making it much easier for mine operators to deploy autonomous technologies and enjoy the benefits.

About Open Autonomy

For a system to be classed as an open system, it must meet four key elements: be fully defined so different parties can work within the same framework, be stable, be published and be unable to be controlled by a single party.

Open Autonomy, technologies that use open standards to facilitate visibility and control of systems without direct human interaction, relies heavily on open standards, such as ANSI/ISA-95 and those advanced by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). These standards are fully defined, published, and voted on by industry experts from suppliers and mining companies  ensuring an absence of bias. Wenco has worked closely with the ISO and other bodies in recent years to advance these standards in support of its open approach to industrial autonomy.

Wenco International Mining Systems

Neil Khare | info@wencomine.com | +1 604-270-8277

Oxbotica

Jamie Ivory | press@oxbotica.com | +44 (0) 7759 659323
A sweeping restructure by Australia Post, the countrys government-operated postal service, threatens up to 2,500 jobs, along with wage reductions and further attacks on working conditions.

Postal workers were informed at briefings called by management last week that one in four postal delivery positions would no longer be required. Australia Post has roughly 10,000 delivery employees, out of a total workforce of around 30,000.

While executives have told the press that workers would be redeployed and sackings were not on the agenda, management informed employees that redundancies would be offered, confirming that positions will be abolished.

The cuts are part of a broader offensive by governments, the corporations and the trade unions, in Australia and internationally. They are seeking to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic to implement long-standing plans for a vast pro-business restructuring of workplace conditions and industrial relations. The privatisation of nominally government-owned utilities, such as Australia Post, is a key component of this agenda.

The speed with which management at Australia Post is proceeding with these plans is a warning to the entire working class.

In April, it announced major changes to delivery schedules and workers conditions, claiming that these would be only for the duration of the immediate health crisis.

Last week, however, management revealed the elimination of thousands of existing positions, showing its intent to make the arrangements permanent. Government-owned entities and corporate employers across the country are undoubtedly preparing similar measures.

Management described the April announcement as Australia Posts most significant restructure in over two decades. The centrepiece was a reduction in the frequency of letter delivery in metropolitan areas from every business day, to every second business day. The required time frame for the delivery of intra-state letters was extended to five days and priority mail letter delivery was abolished.

The overhaul was introduced by fiat, with the Liberal-National Coalition government changing regulations that govern Australia Post on May 14. Other sweeping policy decisions were introduced in a similar manner on the pretext of the coronavirus health and economic crisis, without any opposition from Labor, the Greens or any other parliamentary party.

The Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU), which covers the sector, complained only that it had not been sufficiently consulted before the overhaul was announced.

The union has collaborated with Australia Post management, forcing postal workers to remain on the job throughout the pandemic, despite its members complaining about inadequate safety equipment. By April 4, eleven posties had tested positive for COVID-19 in Sydney alone, with at least four of them having been ill on the job.

CEPU officials have since held closed-door meetings with government ministers about the restructure. They have sought to divert concern among workers behind feckless petitions, appealing to management and the government not to make the changes permanent. At the same time, they have deprived workers of information and suppressed democratic discussion at online meetings supposedly called to oppose the overhaul.

By preventing any industrial and political struggle by postal workers the union has paved the way for managements attacks.

Postal delivery workers currently cover one assigned beat, or delivery round. Under the changes, two posties will be tasked with delivering letters to four beats, meaning a substantial increase in their workloads. A third employee will deliver parcels to all four beats. In other words, previously four beats meant four employees, but now that number will be reduced to three. The union also has revealed that pay cuts of up to 30 percent may be imposed.

The changes are aimed at transforming Australia Post into a lucrative parcel delivery service, in preparation for privatisation. Over the past decade, the volume of letters has continuously decreased. Amid the rise of online shopping, parcel deliveries have soared. In the last financial year, the parcel and services sector accounted for $4.8 billion of Australia Posts $6.99 billion revenue.

Business commentators, along with corporate analysts hired by Australia Post, have called for major overhauls to its business model including a reduction in the frequency of letter delivery and a greater deployment of resources into the parcel sector.

As has been the case in other sectors, including the airline and power generation industries, the elimination of excess jobs and a more direct orientation to the demands of business is the essential precondition for a government-owned utility to be sold-off and acquired by private investors.

Labor and the Greens feigned shock and outrage at Australia Posts announcement last week. They promised to move a disallowance motion in the Senate, which resumes sittings this week, to overturn the governments regulatory changes.

But Labor and the Greens said virtually nothing when the regulations were changed almost a month ago. The restructure, moreover, was announced nearly two months ago and is already underway.

Labors industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke has now branded the overhaul as a tricky attempt to bypass scrutiny. He condemned a lack of consultation. This means that Labor will support sweeping cuts provided they are made in consultation with the unions, which have helped impose thousands of job cuts in the past decade.

The last Greens-backed Labor government oversaw the destruction of 2,396 permanent jobs at Australia Post, increasing the proportion of casual and contract workers. The current Liberal-National government then presided over 900 job cuts announced in 2014, and another 1,900 in 2015.

The record demonstrates that workers cannot place their faith in the unions or any big business government, Labor or Coalition. It underscores the bankruptcy of the CEPUs call for workers to lobby parliament to disallow the regulation and prevent changes to Australia Post legislation.

The unions attempts to sow illusions in Labor go hand in hand with its acceptance of the job cuts. At CEPU members meetings last week union officials declared that contractors must be removed before postal workers lose their jobs. The union opposes any unified struggle in defence of jobs and working conditions.

Instead, CEPU is beginning negotiations with management for a new enterprise agreement. The waves of union-enforced job cuts over the past two decades make clear that any agreement will be a sell-out that facilitates Australia Posts main demands.

To defeat this onslaught, new organisations of struggle, completely independent of the unions, are required. Postal workers should establish rank and file committees to prosecute a genuine fight against the restructure. These would be tasked with breaking the isolation imposed by the union, and turning out to other sections of the working class facing similar attacks.

Above all, the corporate-union offensive underscores the need for an alternative political perspective which rejects the subordination of social needs, such as decent postal services and well-paid permanent jobs, to private profit. This means the fight for a workers government that would implement socialist policies, including placing Australia Post under democratic workers control and nationalising the banks and major corporations.

We invite all postal workers who want to discuss their experiences and take part in such a struggle to contact the Socialist Equality Party at sep@sep.org.au

The author also recommends:

Online meeting reveals union complicity in attacks on Australia Post workers

[26 May 2020]

Australia Post announces major restructure threatening thousands of jobs

[23 April 2020]
Four men will stand trial at the Special Criminal Court next year charged with attacking and falsely imprisoning Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney.

The non-jury court heard this morning (Wednesday) that the case of the four men involves 50,000 documents and that the trial will commence on Monday, 21 January, 2021.

Luke O'Reilly (66), from Mullahoran Lower, Kilcogy, Co Cavan, Darren Redmond (25), from Caledon Road, East Wall, Dublin 3, and Alan O'Brien (38) of Shelmalier Road, East Wall, Dublin 1, are all charged with false imprisonment and assault causing serious harm to Mr Lunney (50) at Drumbrade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan on September 17, 2019.

Another male, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is also charged with the same offences.

Prosecuting barrister, Mr Garret Baker BL, told presiding judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt that the case involved 50,000 documents that needed to be digitally rendered and that it could be four-to-six weeks before they could be disclosed.

Mr O'Reilly and Mr Redmond had their bail extended to January, while Mr O'Brien and the fourth male were remanded in custody.

Mr Justice Hunt read an alibi warning to the four men and ordered then not to have contact with anyone involved in the case, before adjourning the cases to January.

The unnamed male will have his case reappear at the court on 6 July, 2020, for an update on a vehicle on whether or not it had been damaged while in Garda possession.
Thirty-two flights will leave from Kuwait to Egypt, India, Jordan and Qatar on Wednesday

Twenty-two flights carrying 4,237 Egyptian workers will be operated on Wednesday from Kuwait in the Gulf countrys biggest departure since the coronavirus outbreak, Egypts manpower ministry announced.

In an official statement, manpower ministry spokesman Haitham Saad El-Din said the 22 flights will be operated to several Egyptian airports.

The flights, operated by EgyptAir, Air Cairo, Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways, will run until Wednesday night.

This is the biggest departure seen by Kuwait since the outbreak, where 32 flights will be operated from Kuwait to Egypt, India, Jordan and Qatar.

In May, Egypt began repatriating nationals stranded in Kuwait after Kuwaiti authorities broke up riots by Egyptian workers with invalid residencies seeking to return home.

Egypt has closed its airports to international flights since mid-March as part of the preventive measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It is mainly keeping its airspace open to cargo and domestic flights during the flight suspension.

Egypt is operating flights to repatriate its citizens abroad and has returned home at least 24,000 Egyptians since March.

Egypt decided last week to scrap the system of placing returnees in hotels repurposed for quarantine in the Red Sea resort town of Marsa Alam, replacing it with 14-day home quarantine.

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As the restrictions of COVID-19 were lifting this week, some of the bibliophile members of the Boroondara Library Service received a shock email from the eastern suburbs library: Their outstanding fines had been sent to a debt collector.

The City of Boroondara blamed its software provider for the systems error, which triggered the threatening email sent to members on Monday morning, but also confirmed that it does use debt collectors for recalcitrant members.

Adding insult to injury in this week's instance, many members would not have been able to return books to the library for an extended period as it had been forced to close until the end of May due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Boroondara Library members face the prospect of debt collectors if their fine exceeds $50 and it remains unpaid for 60 days.

This email was the result of a system error and we can confirm, since the COVID-

19 restrictions have been in place, no library debts have been sent to debt collection and

members have not incurred any fines for unreturned library items, the council said in a statement.
Newly uncovered video appears to show police officers in Louisiana repeatedly punching and Tasering a black man they were arresting soon before he died in police custody.

Video on Louisiana TV station KSLA shows an April 5 altercation between Tommie Dale McGlothen, 44, and four police officers in the city of Shreveport.

Mr McGlothen died on April 6 at a local hospital, according to a local coroner.

In the four-and-a-half-minute video, which KSLA shot off of the cellphone of a person the station said witnessed the altercation, officers can be seen wrestling with a man on the ground. At least one officer appears to punch him repeatedly, with another appearing to hit him with a baton.

A voice can be heard saying the officers were using a Taser on the man.

At one point, officers get the man to his feet with his hands appearing to be handcuffed behind him and he immediately falls or is pushed backwards to the ground.

After getting him up again, they then walk him to a police vehicle and push him against it, and his head hits the bonnet.

Tommie McGlothen Jr. a 44-year-old black man died in Shreveport Police custody back in April. Police didnt publicly report McGlothens death & no officers were placed on leave until my investigation aired today. @KSLA https://t.co/aNuLJ4Ge2O  Stacey Cameron (@StaceyTVJourno) June 9, 2020

The video comes at a time of furore across the US over police treatment of black people, with mourners gathering in Houston yesterday to remember George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for minutes.

According to local coroner Todd Thoma, police arrived at a Shreveport home on April 5 after Mr McGlothen blocked a driveway and followed a homeowner into his house.

Police reported Mr McGlothen was mumbling incoherently and exhibiting signs of paranoia and emotional disturbance, the coroner said in a news release yesterday.

Police officers used Tasers, mace and nightsticks (truncheons) to control McGlothen, who was agitated and combative and had fought with a homeowner, according to the coroner.

The coroner said Mr McGlothen died of excited delirium but that his death possibly could have been prevented and it should have been obvious he needed medical care.

BREAKING NEWS: Caddo Coroner says Tommie McGlothen Jr. died from excited delirium after violent encounter with Shreveport police and ...He was left in the back of the patrol vehicle for 48 minutes before he was found unresponsive and not breathing. @KSLA https://t.co/SR2NJguArP  Stacey Cameron (@StaceyTVJourno) June 9, 2020

The coroner said Mr McGlothen was left in the back of a police vehicle for 48 minutes before it was discovered he was unresponsive and not breathing.

He was predominantly unsupervised during this entire period. After a violent confrontation with psychotic behaviour, and being Tasered several times, a more thorough evaluation  would have been indicated, the coroner said.

Although autopsy showed that Mr McGlothen suffered multiple blunt force injuries from both his confrontation with police and the citizens earlier in the day and that evening, no injuries were life-threatening or could be considered serious.

Mr McGlothen had underlying heart disease and clearly was suffering from excited delirium. The combination of these factors caused his death.

The citys police chief, Ben Raymond, said in a press release the four officers involved had been placed on leave pending an investigation, saying this is a matter of great concern to me.

Raymond said the police had conducted a thorough investigation into the incident and had sent the results to the district attorneys office.

They also said state police were reviewing the case.
A proposed Chattanooga budget that allocates 28 percent to law enforcement was unanimously criticized by over 100 community members at Tuesdays hours-long City Council meeting. Over $70 million of the city budget will go toward the police. Dominant themes included divesting money from police and into youth and family development centers, CARTA, and infrastructure.

Afterward, Councilman Darrin Ledford said he "disagreed strongly with comments made last night that police 'have no place in our community.' "

He also said, "The public hearing on the budget was a very well organized advocacy effort. I will be talking with CPD this week to verify some of the statistical claims made last night.

"Mental health and homelessness are two very important discussions that need the right solutions.

"During the recent tornado that ripped through East Brainerd, our Chattanooga Police Department was there immediately and showed extraordinary dedication and commitment to the people of our city.

"During the budget process, I will continue to speak with the people of District 4."

The County Commission meeting was extended from 9:30 a.m. to almost 1:30 p.m. with a host of callers saying they wanted the Sheriff's Department "defunded" and the money to go to the county schools, arts programs, social workers and mental health services.

One said that those who take part in defacing and destroying monuments will be seen as "heroes" in the future.

The commission finally invoked a rule that says a delegation with specific issues is limited to 10 minutes.

Commissioners David Sharpe and Warren Mackey wanted to continue hearing from the protesters. Commissioner Sabrena Smedley said, "I very much understand what they are saying. But we could sit here all day and hear the same thing."

Marie Mott, a potential candidate for City Council District 8 and a protest leader, had a scathing criticism of the Chattanooga budget at City Council. She said, "Weve been in this struggle for years, and we are no longer asking, we are demanding. Let us be emphatically clear, our demands are directed toward the mayor, who is responsible for this disgrace of a budget. We have a council with no balls to break the cycle of what this mayor has done, and continues to rubber stamp everything he wants.

Ben Campbell, one of the first speakers, immediately went after Mayor Andy Berkes leadership. Only four percent of the budget goes to Youth and Family Development.

He said, Chattanoogas officials and its mayor project a facade to the rest of the country as a great place to vacation and a safe environment. But in reality, we have deeply failed people in front of their faces, more specifically the black and brown communities. With police allocated 28 percent of the budget, or $71 million, its quite clear where the City Councils and mayors priorities lie. Its no longer a question of if you will divest from our police department, but when will you divest?

Cameron "C-Grimey" Williams, another protest leader, said YFD centers in predominantly white areas have amenities that centers in predominantly-black centers do not.

I would like to see divestment in the police department and other places where we are wasting funds, and we could instead be putting them in the YFD centers, said Mr. Williams. Our YFD centers deserve to have technology centers and maker spaces, and they deserve to be fully staffed with competent people who know how to deal with children. They deserve to have the resources our white counterparts have in their schools and libraries.

He then spent time to point the councils attention toward what many see as the dismal state of public transportation in Chattanooga.

It takes people two buses and two or three hours to get to work if you have to go across town, and that is a disgrace, said Mr. Williams. I believe that many of you on the council are great people who would like to see these good things happen in our community. We the people have put blood, sweat, and tears working on many of your campaigns. Election time is coming up, so how would you like to be remembered?

Josue Carrillo said CARTA is lacking in several areas and desperately needs more funding in order to address these shortcomings."

He said, Most transit users live in under-served communities with a lack of access to frequency, because CARTA does not run on Sundays. Thats under-serving our needs to move around in our Scenic City, and we need more money to go to the failing technology that CARTA has at bus stops, and to make major improvements to their website. We should not have our arms twisted behind our back because we need to get to our point.

Others spoke about food deserts in the West Side of Chattanooga, while saying the wealthier North Shore area has plenty of choices when it comes to not only food, but obtaining healthy food. Jaclyn Michael and Mercedes Bolton asked why the city continually invests in expensive projects as the underprivileged areas of Chattanooga continue to have multiple needs.

When you say defund the budget, we essentially mean that black and brown communities are asking for the same budget priorities that white communities have already created for themselves, said Ms. Michael. Things as essential as grocery stores, people in the West Side dont have a grocery store. But you go to the North Shore and theres a Whole Foods and a Publix almost right next to each other. Is that the kind of city you want to live in?

In the West Side, there is no grocery store and nowhere for families to get groceries to feed their children, said Ms. Bolton. We have plenty of new condos, multi-million-dollar hotels, Tennessees largest aquarium, and all for tourism. Why do we care more about showing tourists a good time than respecting your citizens humanity.

Brie Stevens, another vocal organizer of the Chattanooga marches, asked the Council to invest in the community by divesting from the police.

I ask that Chattanooga take a look at how they have treated residents of color in their history, said Ms. Stevens. How they have pushed out projects and pushed out people of color in the Innovation District and people of color who have made this city great and have added to the fabric of this city. I ask that we divest from the police and invest in the community for things like community transportation, neighborhood safety, and other things that strip away the polices ability to take away a persons life.

Tamara Woodard was emotional as she asked why the city has ample funding for police while other communities do not receive funds for essential services. She alluded to police brutality, and the tear-gasing of protesters during one protest on May 31, although it was the Hamilton County Sheriffs Department who used tear gas when deputies said a crowd was trying to get into the County Courthouse.

I would like to say divest. Id like to say there is funding available for gassing Chattanooga residents, and police that stood by as protesters were hit by a car, said Ms. Woodard. There was funding for police to terrorize an eight-year-old child protester. But theres little or limited or no funding for that same eight-year-old to have swim lessons at Warner Park or Brainerd Recreation Center.

A local attorney also advocated for divesting into the police. Chad Wilson wondered aloud how investing in the community could monetarily benefit people of color, while simultaneously calling the city over-policed.

I work for the working poor and people of color, and Im in the courthouse every day. We are over-policed, said attorney Wilson. There are 30,000 criminal cases in this city every year, mostly black and brown and the working poor. Eighty to 90 percent of my clients are people of color, and they are immorally, unjustly over-policed. It makes no fiscal sense to over-police them. Just one or two of my clients, if they could get a job or had mental healthcare intervention rather than police intervention, then they could multiply our (citys) dollars hundred-fold.

A few of the speakers were Chattanooga teachers, who said they often see first-hand how under-funded communities can stunt a childs growth, and how children in the black community perceive the police.

Im a public school in Chattanooga, and I see my children come home and not have access to food unless they eat in school, said teacher Tucker McGuinness. I see them go home to communities with no resources for early learning, and their parents dont have access to career development, and the children dont have access to recreation centers that are funded properly. I would like to see the city invest in those neighborhoods and build up the futures of our black and brown communities.

I am a pastor at Renaissance Presbyterian Church, a primarily Black church located in the west side, said Trisha Dillon Thomas. A couple of nights ago when I pulled into the parking lot, some children ran up to me and said, 'Pastor Trisha, did you hear they killed a black man and put his knee on his neck for nine minutes.' These children are between the ages of four and nine years old, and what they know is that the police are scary, can be violent, and can kill people, especially black people.

Social worker Holly Christopher, like a few others, pondered why police are required to fill so many roles. She said there are social workers and trained professionals who can help diffuse situations police are not trained for.

Id like to see us add social workers to our police force, said Ms. Christopher. Not necessarily take away the police, since were not ready for that. I think theres a lot of people who would be terrified if we took away police, but what if we sent a social worker with them. How many of those visits did the officer go to that a social worker could have done instead?

Mayoral candidate Monty Bruell was among the many who advocated for change in the citys budget. He listed statistics pertaining to the non-white community of Chattanooga, and asked for a more equitable budget.

Over the last 10 days, we have witnessed true democracy in action. What began as peaceful protests in response to the murder of George Floyd has led to an appeal for human rights, said Mr. Bruell. These demands provide a road map to a more equitable and inclusive Chattanooga. Today we live in a city who has a 35 percent child poverty rate, where two thirds of these households are headed by single women. The median income of white families is twice that of African-American families, and yet 28 percent of the city budget goes to the police department.

Jade Watts said the term defunding the police could be considered a radical idea. However, she asked the council to imagine a city where the black and brown communities were given the same funding and resources white communities are given access to.

Some people say that asking to defund the police is considered inflammatory. Well, passionate dreams tend to be inflammatory, said Ms. Watts. What would Chattanooga look like if instead of being policed and surveilled, black and brown communities were given access to wealth?

The Zoom meeting started at 6 p.m. and went well midnight.

At 12:05 a.m., there were 45 speakers still in line, and the council was listening to all.

Councilwoman Carol Berz, who heads the budget committee, was moderating.
He added that it can be difficult for officers to distinguish journalists from those who are violating a curfew order or not complying with commands to leave an area.

Another video of a fatal law enforcement encounter leads to calls for a Texas sheriff to resign.

A video showing sheriffs deputies delivering repeated electric shocks to a black man just before he died, even as he told them he had heart disease and could not breathe, has triggered calls for the sheriff of a Central Texas county to resign, amid nationwide protests against bias and excessive force in policing.

The incident occurred last year, but the video, with parallels to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis that has ignited two weeks of demonstrations, was made public on Monday, a day before Mr. Floyd was laid to rest after an emotional service in Houston. The video was published by The Austin American-Statesman and an Austin TV station, KVUE.

The death of the man, Javier Ambler, after a car chase drew little attention at the time, but after the release of the video, taken from a police officers body camera, three of four Williamson County Commissioners have demanded the resignation of Sheriff Robert Chody. The Sheriffs Department concluded that the deputies did nothing wrong.

The case is also under investigation in Travis County, where the car chase ended, and is expected to be presented to a grand jury.

Yet another black man aggressively arrested and resulting in death, one of the Williamson County commissioners, Terry Cook, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

The deputies tried to pull over Mr. Ambler over for failing to dim his headlights, but he led them on a 22-minute chase. The events were filmed by crew members from A&Es reality show Live PD who were riding with the deputies, Austin outlets reported.
Three terrorists was killed in an encounter between security forces and terrorists at Sugoo area of Shopian district in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday (June 10). The operation started by a joint team of Jammu and Kashmir Police, 44 RR and CRPF is still on. The identity of the killed terrorists are still unknown.

The operation was launched after security forces received inputs that 2-3 terrorists were hiding in the area. The encounter started after the security forces surrounded an apple orchard after receiving credible inputs that some terrorists were hiding there. The terrorists opened fire once the security forces arrived at the spot, forcing the security personnel to retaliate, thus triggering an encounter.

This is the third encounter in Shopian district in last one week. Nine terrorists were killed in last two encounters in the district and all were of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit.
Multnomah County is hoping to enter phase 1 of reopening its economy on Friday, easing restrictions on business and increasing permitted gathering sizes to 25 people.

The county will stream a media briefing on the status of its reopening plans on its Facebook page at 2:30 after a board meeting to review the status of the latest public health date that will play into gov. Kate Browns decision on whether to approve the countys reopening plan.

Multnomah County is the states most populous, with the most COVID-19 cases, and the last to apply for reopening approval. County commissioners have taken a more cautious approach than others, adopting additional reopening criteria to address equity issues and how the disease is impacting communities of color, some of which have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

Multnomah County giving update about reopening progress Multnomah County is giving an update about reopening progress Posted by KOIN 6 on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Key to Multnomah Countys approval is the level of hospitalizations and the number of new COVID cases being identified. There is a good deal of concern that with thousands of people gathering shoulder-to-shoulder and in full-throated protest at nightly demonstrations around the city, residents are already effectively operating in phase 3, without any restrictions on gathering sizes, no requirements on face coverings and no social distancing.

The question is whether that on-the-ground reality, and recent increases in case counts, will impact the countys decision to move forward. Julie Sullivan Springhetti, a county spokeswoman, said public health officials had not yet seen a surge in cases related to demonstrations. But the countys reopening dashboard does show a marked increase in new cases, and slight uptick in new hospitalizations.

The advocacy group OSPIRG has been doing its own analysis of public health metrics related to COVID-19, and is asking the county to delay its phase 1 reopening to allow time for an independent and more thorough analysis of current trends, and until the county sees its number of new cases begin to fall again.
By Express News Service

KOLAR: A 40-year-old covid-infected patient who was missing from June 6 after testing positive was caught by Kolar and KGF Police jointly in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday.

According to Superintendent of Police Karthick Reddy ( Kolar) Sujeetha Salman (KGF) the man, who is a resident of Mandya came to Kolar to work in a hotel on June 3, when he was advised to test himself.

He had submitted his swab in District SNR Hospital.

After testing positive on June 6, when the health officials informed him to come to the hospital and get admitted, he switched off his phone and didn't return.

District Surveillance Officer Dr Charini a lodged complaint with the police and a ten-member team tracking his movement near Venkatagiri Kota (V.Kota) in Andhra Pradesh, nabbed him following all precautions and admitted him to the designated hospital.

District Health Officer Dr.Vijaya Kumar said that after detailed enquiry with the patient it will be possible to take necessary steps to quarantine the persons who came in contact with in the last five days.
The winged creature slowly stalked a potential victim along the waters edge, stealthily seeking out a tasty meal, its eyes turning this way and that.

Then without warning, the yellow-crowned night heron suddenly thrust its long beak into the shallow waters and grabbed a reddish-colored crawfish, chomping down several times before swallowing it.

Scenes such as this, motivated boosters of the trail system in Seabrook to successfully snare a $131,400 state grant to add 1 miles of trails.

The some for 7,400 feet of new pathways will add to the 3.6 miles already in place for the point-to-point excursion.

Its an annual appropriation. It goes through like a review process, said Stephanie Garcia, Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission communications coordinator for the states trail-related projects. All of (the request) are scored, and the ones that are scored the highest end up becoming the ones selected for these grants.

The award was sweet news to John Coggeshall, a member of the citys Seabrook Open Space and Trails Committee who spearheaded the grant application.

Drone use provided edge in competition

We were ecstatic that we got some funding because fundings a little tough with Seabrook right now. We lost so many businesses due to the highway expansion. Our tax base is under a lot of stress so this grant really is going to help us finish off this project, said John Coggeshall, a member of the volunteer advisory board.

More Information Want to go? For information about the city of Seabrook's trail system, visit https://bit.ly/2YlGGBE . See More Collapse

For months, Coggeshall and a team including a photographer, an engineer and a trail expert helped prepare a snappy presentation that would give them a chance at their slice of the appropriation pie before the review board.

Since its competitive, we did everything we could possibly think of. But you have to be concise with your message. Our engineer got access to a drone, and we had the drone fly over where the path would be to give the grant reviewers a better feel for where its all going to go and what it will look like. I dont know if anybody else did that, Coggeshall said.

Its part of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissions $3.71 million in grants to fund 22 trail-related projects across the state.

The grants are funded from a portion of the federal gas tax, generated by gasoline purchases for off-road motorcycles and four-wheelers. Of the $3.71 million, 30 percent must be spent on nonmotorized trail projects.

There was additional grant money this year courtesy of past projects being completed and another four projects that were canceled, leading to a $700,000 windfall for this years projects.

The trails new addition is planned to begin just to the north of the citys public works and animal shelter building, 1100 Red Bluff Road. The existing trail dead-ends by there. Its going to cross a waterway and then the trail takes on new heights, literally.

Mount Seabrook

Thats where it starts and its going to head for (Texas 146). Itll cross Pine Gully, and well have a low-water bridge and then its going to go up the sound berm that (Port of Houston) built, Coggeshall said. Its like a 60-to-70-foot-high berm. Were going to run the trail on top of that. When you get on top of that, you can see Galveston Bay. You would be amazed at what 75 feet will do for a view. You can see a lot of the Seabrook skyline. Its going to be absolutely wonderful.:

He joked that Seabrook will then have its very own mountain that it can call its own.

Im a volunteer sign-maker, and Im going to make a sign that says, Mount Seabrook, and Im going to stick it at the bottom of the hill, Coggeshall said.

As for a start to building the new trail, Coggeshall would love a date in the autumn months as a possible start.

It takes a few months for us to actually get it (the money). We wont start on it until we actually get the funding, Coggeshall said. Itll be (fiscal year) 20-21. Well see  the (coronavirus) is putting a twist on everything.

Those who frequent Seabrook trails know of their beauty and the surprising amount of wildlife that can be seen.

On the same day that the heron was gulping down a mudbug, a large red-eared slider turtle was spotted swimming from underneath the Robinson Park bridge and making a beeline for a brick wall to its right.

Thats where it saw a potential meal in a crevice between two bricks. Whatever the aquatic animal was, the turtle appeared to have it in its mouth for a moment. It then dove into the water, resurfacing seconds later, its snout just barely above the water.

Feral hogs are in the area.

You can see where they rut. Its almost like a little path. One day we saw them. At the end of this trail, weve seen them over there, Seabrook resident Linda Canning said.

Weve seen them a couple times, Cannings husband, Charles said.

You can even see alligators.

Its that time of the year. The waters getting warm and youll see them and youll think its a log and if you look long enough, youll realize it isnt, Linda Canning said.

Connected to Robinson Park by the trails is the Seabrook Wildlife Park.

For the Cannings, they think the most picturesque part of the 3.6 miles is along the bay.

If you walk all the way down to the water, the park there is beautiful, Linda Canning said. Theres a trail that you can go that follows the water, or if you take the road that the Maas Nursery side is on, that will take you into the driving entrance to where the park is. Theyve got barbecues and picnic benches that are covered, and theres a pier where people can fish.

The two have been longtime park visitors after finding out about it from a neightbor seven years ago.

Now they know the park backwards and forwards.

Jogging and hiking are two ways to take in the scenery. The trails are also popular with bicyclists. One cyclist had two fishing poles resting on the handlebars as he rode on the gravel trail.

Hikes will reveal many types of wildflowers, including the rarely seen passion flower and black-eyed susan. In the water, it will be hard to miss those cat onines.

What I think is so impressive about the trail, is it goes from park-to-park, Coggeshall said. I think we have 13 different parks. These trails hook up a majority of them, and theyre never really alongside roads. Up and down Todville, its about 30 feet off. .
North Korea is severing all official communication links with the South, it announced Tuesday in a move analysts said was aimed at manufacturing a crisis on the divided peninsula. Since last week the North has issued a series of vitriolic denunciations of the South over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border -- something defectors do on a regular basis. In recent days authorities in the North have organised large-scale rallies across the country of citizens pledging their support, with inter-Korean ties at a standstill despite three summits between the North's leader Kim Jong Un and the South's President Moon Jae-in in 2018. Tuesday's move cuts all official communication links between the two sides, but the immediate effect will be limited -- Pyongyang has refused to engage with Seoul for months, with few if any conversations on the lines aside from test calls. The latest development comes just three days before the two-year anniversary of a landmark summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore. The United States said it was "disappointed" by the announcement, with a State Department spokesperson urging North Korea to "return to diplomacy and cooperation". Negotiations over the North's nuclear programme have been deadlocked since the collapse of a second Trump-Kim meeting in Hanoi last year over what the North would be willing to give up in exchange for sanctions relief. The impasse has left Pyongyang increasingly frustrated over the lack of concessions and analysts say it has taken no substantive steps towards giving up its weapons. It has increasingly turned its anger towards Seoul rather than Washington, carrying out a series of weapons tests and other provocations in recent months -- including last month shooting at a South Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula. Pyongyang "will completely cut off and shut down the liaison line" between North and South from noon on Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency said, along with military hotlines and a communication link between the headquarters of the North's ruling Workers' Party and the South's presidential office. Hotline calls by the South to the North rang unanswered as the deadline expired, Seoul's unification ministry said. The decision was taken by Kim Yo Jong, the leader's sister and key adviser, and ruling party vice chairman Kim Yong Chol, KCNA said, in an explicit demonstration of the sibling's increasing authority in government. Last week she issued a statement threatening to scrap a military pact with the South and close a liaison office -- where activities have already been suspended for months due to the coronavirus outbreak. - 'Disgusting riff-raff' - Tuesday's statement repeatedly denounced defectors who send leaflets to the North by balloon and bottle criticising Kim over his weapons programmes and human rights abuses. It called them "disgusting riff-raff" and accused Seoul of complicity in their actions. "This has driven the inter-Korean relations into a catastrophe," KCNA said, describing Seoul as an "enemy". "We have reached a conclusion that there is no need to sit face to face with the south Korean authorities and there is no issue to discuss with them." Analysts say the move signals an acceleration in Pyongyang's strategy to ramp up pressure on the South. "This is North Korean policy," said Andrei Lankov, director of Korea Risk Group, adding that Pyongyang wanted to show the South that "their demand for financial giveaways cannot be ignored completely and safely". Since last month's DMZ shooting -- which the South repeatedly insisted was accidental -- the North has "tried to shake up the situation with a low-level provocation", said Shin Beom-chul, an analyst at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. "It is trying to shake South Korea's policy towards the North," he said. "With Kim Yo Jong in charge, this won't be a one-time thing," he added. "They are starting with South Korea and the hard-line stance will expand to the US." The two sides remain technically at war after Korean War hostilities ended with an armistice in 1953 that was never replaced with a peace treaty. Pyongyang is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its banned weapons programmes but has carried out a series of tests in recent months -- often describing them as multiple launch rocket systems, although Japan and the US have called them ballistic missiles.
An American flag believed to have been flying over the right front bumper of the presidential limo where John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the president's personally owned rosary beads are among over 100 items of Kennedy memorabilia that will be auctioned off.

The final round of live online bidding by University Archives in Westport, Connecticut, is happening today and is expected to gross in the $150,000 to $250,000 range.

'Normally for a sale of this type we have multiple consignors, sometimes as many as 30,' John M. Reznikoff, founder and president of University Archives, tells DailyMail.com of the June 10 auction. Bids for the items started being taken on several different online auction platforms a couple weeks ago.

'But the main part of this collection comes from an astute collector from Maryland, amassed over a period of some 40 years, who was forced to sell due to personal circumstances,' he added.

The Kennedy family's memorabilia is being auctioned off today by University Archives in Westport, Connecticut. Represented in the sale are intimate items that tell the stories of the former First Family, specifically John, Jacqueline, and John Jr., patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy

A baby gift to John is in Lot 108, going for $300-$400. It's a three-piece infant clothing set that features a short-sleeve button-down shirt with Peter Pan collar and embroidered train on the left lapel

Also up for grabs is Lot 19 ($4,500-$5,500), Jacqueline Kennedy's detailed Oleg Cassini ledger of dress fabric samples, including entries made before and after Kennedy's assassination

Represented in the sale are intimate items that tell the stories of the former First Family, specifically John, Jacqueline, and John Jr., patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy and others, through historical documents, articles of clothing, mementos and relics ranging from JFK's days as a junior senator, to the White House, and culminating with Dallas.

One lot for sale is 10 pieces of clothing that was sent to the Washington, D.C., home of Pamela Turnure, who was believed to be the mistress of JFK

'While the flag (Lot 118, $50,000 to $60,000) and rosary beads (Lot 57, $15,000-$17,000) are some of the more valuable items being offered, there are many more interesting lots with lower estimates, like the dinner menu (Lot 60, $1,000-$1,200) from the night Marilyn Monroe serenaded president Kennedy' on the occasion of his 45th birthday at the Four Seasons in NYC on May 19, 1962,' Reznikoff points out.

'It's a thick cardboard menu with the presidential seal. It's the only one I've ever seen,' he said.

Printed on the menu of the $1,000-a-head dinner is 'crabmeat baked in sea shell, chicken broth with spring wheat, medallions of beef glazed in Madeira, herbed carrots' and 'woodland mushrooms' finished off by 'the presidential birthday cake.'

Items that shed a light on the inner workings of the Kennedy household, and not all on a moral high ground, can be found in a group of receipts that had been part of the archive of the Kennedy family accountant in Lot 62, expected to sell for $300-$400.

One in particular, and the largest valued at $2,500 from Saks Fifth Avenue, is for '10 pieces' of clothing that was sent to the Washington, D.C., home of Pamela Turnure.

'She was purportedly a mistress of JFK,' says Reznikoff.

In the overview of the receipt(s) posted on the auction house website it states that, 'Not even the first lady's staff was immune from the roving eye of the presidentand Turnure, a Georgetown girl who was said to resemble Jackie, reportedly trysted with him from 1961 to 1963, beginning when she was 21.'

The description further states that 'When Jackie was gone, Turnure would reportedly spend nights with the president.'

John F. Kennedy personally owned rosary beads are estimated to sell for $15,000-$17,000

Jackie Kennedy Onassis' owned & used vintage Halliburton Briefcase, including photographic equipment, is estimated at $1,500 - $1,700

A post card is among more than 100 items for sale at auction

A ticket to President Kennedy's birthday dinner in 1961 is up for auction

Personal notes and letters of the First Lady from 1969 are included in the sale

Also up for grabs is Lot 19, estimated to go for $4,500-$5,500, Jacqueline Kennedy's detailed Oleg Cassini ledger of dress fabric samples, including entries made before and after Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963.

During Jackie's White House years from 1961-1963, Cassini had been her dressmaker.

'Quite fascinating is that one of the samples sent to her a week before the assassination was a pink material that could have been considered for a Cassini dress for that fateful trip to Dallas,' says the auctioneer, 'but it was switched out at the last minute for a pink suit by Chanel.'

That infamous Chanel number, with its black trim, is now in the National Archives, complete with the bloodstains Jackie insisted be left on the garment because 'I want them to see what they have done to Jack,' she had been quoted as saying in the aftermath of the assassination.

Post-assassination, the ledger shows that between the dates of December 16, 1963, and January 17, 1964, Jackie's wardrobe moved from gala clothes to those of eight pairs of sunglasses and dark sweaters.

'This period reflects the time when Jackie was in mourning, likely crying a lot and, as such, she wanted to shield her eyes from others,' says Reznikoff.

This framed photo and cigar belonging to JFK is estimated to sell for $700 - $800 at today's auction

A vintage photo of a young John F. Kennedy Jr. is up for auction today

'Quite fascinating is that one of the samples sent to her a week before the assassination was a pink material that could have been considered for a Cassini dress for that fateful trip to Dallas,' says the auctioneer, 'but it was switched out at the last minute for a pink suit by Chanel'

And with the 21st anniversary of John Kennedy Jr.'s tragic place crash coming up on July 16th, there are a number of items of interest that pertain to his early years. Kennedy and his wife Carolyn, along with her sister Lauren Bessette, all perished when the Piper Saratoga plane John was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Mass.

They range from a Nigerian hand carved wood plaque in memory of President Kennedy and his family (Lot 59, $500-$600); receipts for his diapers, circa 1960-61, Lot 74, estimated to sell for $200-$300; a color picture of John-John 'steering' a speedboat off the coast of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on August 25, 1963, taken by JFK's White House photographer Cecil W. Stoughton in Lot 99 for $200-$300; and a baby gift to Juniorhis pale blue bead rosary given to the Kennedys after his birth, in Lot 102, estimated at $3,000-$4,000.

Yet another baby gift to John is Lot 108, $300-$400, a three-piece infant clothing set that features a short-sleeve button-down shirt with Peter Pan collar and embroidered train on the left lapel, a button-down yellow pair of shorts with waterproof plastic lining and a pair of blue and white seersucker shorts, also with waterproof plastic lining.

'Interest in the Kennedy family comes and goes, but with President Kennedy's birthday (May 29, 1917he would have been 103) having just passed I suspect there will be particular interest in the menu from the Marilyn event and the 10 lots that pertain to John Jr., as well, since the the anniversary of his passing is next month,' says Reznikoff.

'Bidding starts to get hot and heavy a couple days out and then of course the day of the sale there will be no holding back,' he added.
BAKU -- A resident of the Azerbaijani capital is alleging police brutality while he was in custody following a local backlash to a raid enforcing coronavirus regulations.



Karim Suleymanli told journalists in Baku on June 9 after he was released from custody that police beat him for hours despite repeated warnings about his health.



"Thirty people beat me for five hours. I kept saying that I had had surgery on my lungs, begging them not to punch me on my lungs, because the surgery site might rupture, and I would die, but they ignored me. They kept kicking and punching, " Suleymanli said.



Suleymanli's lawyer, Cavad Cavadov, told RFE/RL on June 10 that his client visited a hospital and obtained an official medical report stating he was severely beaten.



Cavadov added that the document will be attached to a police-brutality complaint his client plans to file with the Prosecutor-General's Office.

Police Denial



However, Baku city police spokesman Elsad Haciyev rejected Suleymanli's claims.



"Suleymanli received minor facial injuries not in the police station, but while disobeying the law when he resisted his detention...We absolutely deny the allegations," Haciyev said in a statement on June 9.



Suleymanli was one of 11 residents of Baku's Yeni Yasamal neighborhood who were violently detained by dozens of police early in the morning on June 8.

The Interior Ministry issued a statement that day alleging that the detainees had thrown garbage at police officers a day earlier as they were detaining another locals for "violating restrictions imposed to slow down the spread of the coronavirus."



Human rights activist Baxtiyar Haciyev told RFE/RL on June 8 that the polices behavior was an example of the widening gap between law enforcement and ordinary citizens.



"What we saw today looked like a revenge operation, a step by police to intimidate citizens, to break them," Haciyev said. Meanwhile, all moves by state entities must be done strictly within legal frameworks.
A bus drives over the General Rafael Urdaneta bridge as an oil tanker sails the Maracaibo lake in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on March 15, 2019. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)

Oil Tankers Turn Away From Venezuela as More Sanctions Loom

Two tankers that were sailing toward Venezuela to load crude have turned around since the weekend and three other vessels have left Venezuelan waters as the United States considers blacklisting dozens of ships for transporting the countrys oil, according to shipping data and industry sources.

Washington is considering imposing sanctions on tankers involved in exporting Venezuelas oil as the U.S. government seeks to choke off the main source of revenue for socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

Previous rounds of sanctions have reduced Venezuelan oil exports to a 17-year low while deepening the countrys economic crisis but Maduro has held on, frustrating the administration of President Donald Trump.

Tighter U.S. restrictions on shipping would make it more difficult for state oil firm PDVSA to deliver crude to refineries abroad. Exports dropped to about 452,000 barrels per day in May, the lowest since a national strike paralyzed the economy and hit exports in December 2002 and January 2003.

Some ship operators have started diverting vessels away from Venezuela to avoid the risk of incurring sanctions that would make it harder to keep the tankers working.

Malta-flagged tanker Seadancer, operated by Greek firm Thenamaris Ships Management and chartered by Thai refiner Tipco Asphalt, returned to Gibraltar after waiting in the Atlantic Ocean for a week, according to Refinitiv Eikon tracking data.

Tipco Asphalt told Reuters on Tuesday the company had dropped plans to use the vessel.

The Seadancer had previously been on course for waters off the western coast of Venezuela at Amuay, where oil is transferred from one ship to another, according to the Eikon data and PDVSAs export schedules.

The vessel was scheduled to load 1 million barrels of Venezuelas Boscan crude for shipping to Malaysias Kemaman refinery, operated by Tipco, according to the PDVSA schedules. Tipco has a long-term supply contract with PDVSA that has not been affected by sanctions.

Another vessel operated by Thenamaris that had loaded crude in Venezuela in February, the Seahero, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last week along with its owner, Adamant Maritime Ltd.

A second Malta-flagged tanker expected in Venezuela, the Novo, made a U-turn this week in the Caribbean Sea. The vessel was scheduled to transport 1 million barrels of Hamaca crude in June to Singapore, the Eikon and PDVSA data showed.

A loading window assigned for the Novo was canceled on June 6 after the chartering contract was suspended, according to the PDVSA schedules. The tanker is operated by Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd, which also manages the Chios I, sanctioned last week by the U.S. Treasury.

PDVSA and Venezuelas oil ministry did not reply to requests for comment for this story. Thenamaris Ships Management, Dynacom Tankers and the U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to requests for comment. As the word spread on the possibility of more Venezuela-related shipping sanctions to come, at least three more very large crude carriers (VLCCs)Boston, Commodore and Respectexited Venezuelan waters over the weekend to anchor at the Eastern Caribbean, the Eikon data showed.

The operators have been waiting for clarification from PDVSA customers, brokers, vessel owners, and charterers on whether they can go ahead with exports amid increased risk of sanctions, sources at the company said.

In late May, PDVSA added an advisory seen by Reuters to its export program saying that another tanker scheduled to transport Venezuelan oil to Asia had refused loading due to sanctions.

By Marianna Parraga
With the end of financial year fast approaching, JB Hi-Fi has launched a massive 'tax time madness' sale on laptops, tablets, TVs and kitchen gadgets.

Australian shoppers can expect huge savings on home appliances - but there's just hours left to shop as the nationwide sale ends at midnight on Wednesday, June 10.

Notable deals include a $99 Lenovo 16GB tablet, USB sticks from $7, laptops slashed by as much as $300 and a $500 discount on a 77-inch TV.

With the end of financial year fast approaching, JB Hi-Fi has launched a massive 'tax time madness' sale on laptops, tablets, TVs and kitchen gadgets

Revealed: The best deals at JB Hi-Fi Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones: On sale $59, was $99 Lenovo TAB E7 16GB Tablet: On sale $99, was $109 HP14-DB0006AU 14" Chromebook (32GB): On sale $349 HP 14-DK0019AU 14" Laptop: On sale $594 Smartphone Alcatel 3x 64GB: On sale $199, was $299 NutriBullet 600 Series: On sale $69, was $79 SanDisk Cruzer Snap 16GB USB 2.0: On sale $7 Samsung Galaxy Fit Activity Tracker: On sale $59, was $119 Navman MiVue745 2.7" Dash Cam with GPS: On sale $99, was $139 Belkin Pocket 5,000mAh Power Bank: On sale $31.95, was $39.95 Advertisement

Shoppers can get the HP 14-inch laptop for $594 or the HP 14-inch Chromebook or just $349. The Chromebook is currently sold out online due to 'very high demand' but customers are urged to their their local store.

The Sony noise cancelling headphones are now $59, or buy two Lenovo smart display with Google Assistant for just $199, normally retailed at $129 each.

For fitness enthusiasts, there's a Samsung Galaxy fitness tracker for just $59, normally $119, or a selection of Garmin watches ranging from $45 to just $64.

If you're looking to upgrade your current TV, you can get the LG 75 inch screen for $2,495 after a $500 discount or you can buy a very cheap screen from just $168.

Other products on sale include Bose wireless earphones for $196 and smartphones from as little as $149.

For half price, shoppers can get the Kapture dashcam with GPS $149, or a Navman dashcam with GPS tagging for $99.

In the kitchen aisle, there's a huge range of gadgets on sale for a fraction of the price, including a $49 Breville rice cooker, $69 NutriBullet, $39 Sunbeam slow cooker, $119 DeLonghi Nespresso, $169 Crock Pot and SodaStreams from $109.

The retailer has launched another 'tax time madness' sale, which ends on June 30.

The sale includes laptops for a fraction of the price, $165 off Galaxy Tab, $99 paper shredder, $79 laminator, $31.95 power banks, and $100 off GoPro.

Australian shoppers can make big-ticket purchases on home appliances (file image)

In light of COVID-19, the retailer is taking extra precautions to ensure team members and customers are safe during their shopping experience.

'We want to do our best during this challenging period to allow our customers to access service, advice and product when they need it,' it said on its website.

'We have expanded our cleaning routines across our stores, including increased cleaning throughout the day.

'Our teams have had additional training on maintaining good hygiene practices. To support this, stores may be operating a little differently than usual.'

All stores will allow a maximum of 100 people into each store at any given time - meaning larger stores will fall well within and smaller stores will meet the federal government's recommendations on social distancing.

Payment via debit, credit or approved finance cards, as well as JB gift cards through our payment terminals is the preferred way to make payment in our stores. However, the store will accept cash if that is the only way you can make payment.

Most stores are open but trading hours have changed so shoppers are advised to check the website for their local store.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives needs a new Speaker, and they will likely elect one as one of the first orders of business on the first day that it returns to session after Rep. Mike Turzais mid-term retirement takes effect.

The speaker, as presiding officer of the House, is elected by the full, 203-seat assembly, and is almost always a member of the majority party.

The broad consensus as of Wednesday morning is that the Republicans at this point will nominate Rep. Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County, their current floor leader, and that he will accept.

If Bryan Cutler wants to be Speaker, hes going to be Speaker, said Rep. Greg Rothman, R-Camp Hill, during a break in Wednesdays action at the Capitol. Thats his decision.

A Cutler election would set off a chain of dominoes within the House Republican caucus that would start with the need to elect a new majority leader.

That election, a contest played out solely within what would be a 109-member GOP majority after Turzais departure, will likely come down to a choice between the current Appropriations Committee Chairman Stan Saylor, of Red Lion, York County, or Kerry Benninghoff, the current Republican whip who is from Centre County, sources said.

Most observers dont foresee a major shift in policy terms from all these moves, at least in the short term.

Thats first and foremost because all of these leaders are alike in their political philosophies, but also because we are entering a portion of the legislative timeline - the summer and fall of a presidential election cycle - in which there are fewer session days and it becomes harder for major issues to be completed.

This year, because of the unusual circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be the need to complete the 2020-21 state budget in the fall, but even there most observers feel a team of Cutler and Saylor or Benninghoff would be coming to the table no less resistant to the idea of tax increases to plug a budget hole than Turzai and Cutler.

Cutler, 45, is a former X-ray technologist who came to the state legislature in 2006 on the crest of a voter revolt over legislative pay raises. He is currently in his first session as majority leader, after having served as the GOP whip from 2015 through 2018.

Whoever succeeds Turzai will have the office only through November, when the current legislative session ends.

Because every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection in the 2020 general election, the body will do these elections all over again in November. If the Republicans maintain their current majority, however, it would not be surprising to see the winners of next weeks contests returned to their new posts.

The House of Representatives next scheduled session day is June 22.
A solicitor has been arrested by fraud squad detectives investigating the activities of members of a notorious Dublin family who have been involved in bogus insurance claims that have yielded more than 1m.

The veteran solicitor, who is based in west Dublin, was arrested on Monday morning on suspicion of deception and money laundering as part of an investigation by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB).

He was questioned all day at Ronanstown garda station before being released without charge late on Monday night.

Officers also raided his business office and seized documentation and other items.

He was questioned for deception and money laundering offences in relation to a number of cases where he allegedly facilitated bogus claims for 'trips and falls' against Kildare County Council, which would have had a potential loss to the local authorities of 100,000.

"He was acting for a notorious female swindler who has convictions before the court, and investigations have showed he was acting for her when she used two different names in the same period of time while attempting to sue the local authorities," a senior source said.

"Gardai suspect he was complicit in her activities."

In recent months the GNECB has been increasingly focusing its attention on the activities of "dodgy solicitors".

In a completely separate case last month, a 60-year-old solicitor who was formerly under major threat from notorious gangland criminal Alan Wilson was arrested at his Rathmines home as part of an investigation into the forgery of property deeds.

"The solicitor arrested on Monday has a long-established practice in Dublin and has decades of experience," a senior source said.

The woman he represented is a member of a family based organised crime gang which is suspected of making up to 60 fraudulent claims against local authorities.

Three generations of the same family were arrested as part of the same investigation last October.
Aviva Investors publicly rebuked HSBC and Standard Chartered on Wednesday over their support of the controversial national security law for Hong Kong, saying it was "uneasy" with the decision.

The asset management arm of UK insurer Aviva is the first major institutional investor to openly criticise the banks, which are two of three lenders authorised to issue currency in Hong Kong, over their show of support for the impending legislation.

"We are uneasy at the decisions of HSBC and Standard Chartered to publicly support the proposed new national security law in Hong Kong without knowing the details of the law or how it will operate in practice," David Cumming, chief investment officer for equities at Aviva Investors, said.

"If companies make political statements, they must accept the corporate responsibilities that follow," he added. "Consequently, we expect both companies to confirm that they will also speak out publicly if there are any future abuses of democratic freedoms connected to this law".

Aviva is the 12th largest shareholder of HSBC and the 10th largest shareholder of Standard Chartered, according to Bloomberg data.

Peter Wong Tung-shun, Asia-Pacific CEO for HSBC, signed a petition in support of the controversial national security law for Hong Kong. Photo: Handout alt=Peter Wong Tung-shun, Asia-Pacific CEO for HSBC, signed a petition in support of the controversial national security law for Hong Kong. Photo: Handout

HSBC and Standard Chartered both declined to comment.

HSBC's share price fell 1.5 per cent to close at HK$39.75 in Hong Kong on Wednesday, while Standard Chartered's shares rose slightly to end the day at HK$44.35.

Aviva has less at stake than other businesses who rely on Hong Kong as a profit centre.

As part of a restructuring announced last year, Aviva agreed to sell its stake in its Hong Kong insurance joint venture to private equity firm Hillhouse Capital, but retained its business in Singapore and a joint venture in China as part of its streamlined Asia life operations.

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Beijing said on May 21 that it would tailor a national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong, sidestepping the city's legislature. Due to opposition, lawmakers had failed to pass national security legislation since its handover from British control in 1997. The details of the new law are expected to emerge in the coming months.

The move by Beijing came after months of anti-government street protests in the city. There are concerns the national security legislation could be used to restrict speech and assembly in the city.

It also sparked an outcry from Western governments, with the United States declaring that Hong Kong no longer maintained a "high degree of autonomy" and threatening to revoke Hong Kong's special status.

Hong Kong's biggest companies and most of the city's tycoons, however, have spoken out in favour of the law, including Jardine Matheson Group, the operator of the Mandarin Oriental hotel; and Swire Pacific, the parent of the city's de facto airline Cathay Pacific; and Li Ka-shing, one of Asia's richest men.

HSBC and Standard Chartered are both based in London, but their profits are heavily reliant on Asia and Hong Kong is their biggest market. The banks have generally avoided making public statements on political issues.

After China's top legislature, the National's People Congress (NPC), adopted a resolution on the law, HSBC, in particular, came under pressure from former Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and mainland media to make clear its stance on the law as Chinese authorities went on the offensive to garner acceptance.

On June 3, HSBC posted a photo to one of its social media accounts in the mainland that featured Peter Wong Tung-shun, its Asia-Pacific CEO and a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), signing a petition supporting the law.

"As a member of Hong Kong Association of Banks (HKAB), consistent with the statement issued on May 26 by HKAB, we reiterate that we respect and support laws and regulations that will enable Hong Kong to recover and rebuild the economy and, at the same time, maintain the principle of 'one country two systems'," HSBC said in the post. "We are fully committed to playing our part in supporting Hong Kong now and in the future."

Standard Chartered came out with its own statement later in the day following media inquires.

"We believe the national security law can help maintain the long-term economic and social stability of Hong Kong," a Standard Chartered spokeswoman said then.

HSBC should be ashamed https://t.co/nSnbqZs2Tn

" Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) June 4, 2020

The announcements by both banks came a day before the June 4 traditional Tiananmen Square vigil in Hong Kong, which drew thousands to Hong Kong's Victoria Park despite a ban on mass gathering by police on public health grounds for the first time in three decades.

The rebuke by Aviva came on the same day that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticised HSBC for the decision, calling it a "corporate kowtow."

"That show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the bank's business in China as political leverage against London," Pompeo said.

Other politicians in the US and the UK also have also lambasted the lenders' decision.

Andrew Adonis, a Labour peer in the UK, said HSBC should be "ashamed", while US Sen Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, accused HSBC of choosing "profits over human rights."

Investors have mostly supported the share prices of HSBC and Standard Chartered since the announcements on June 3, with HSBC gaining 4.6 per cent in Hong Kong between June 3 and Tuesday's close. Standard Chartered advanced 11 per cent in the same period.

Top institutional investors in both companies, including Legal & General Investment Management, State Street and Vanguard, have declined to weigh in on the decision.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River on Wednesday unveiled Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) produced at the state owned garment factory.

Mr Ayade said the protective gears, which included face shields and overalls would be deployed to schools free for use by students as the state government planned trial resumption of public schools.

The governor said medical personnel in the state would also be given PPE for free.

He said that production of the protective gears was part of his administrations effort to fight COVID-19 pandemic.

I think that the Federal Government will be excited to encourage the resumption of schools because obviously coronavirus has come to stay with us.

The reality is that countries that have attempted to resume schools have had to contend with the increased prevalence of the virus, but obviously how long can we wait as a country?

So, perhaps we have to adopt a new lifestyle that will integrate coronavirus as part of our lifestyle.

For Cross River, we have a strong commitment that our children cannot continue to stay at home. The more they stay, the more the moral decadence, the more the indiscipline and the more they become lazy of getting back to school.

For every stage in life there is time where you have to be in class and once the children miss that delicate phase, it becomes very difficult, he said.

The governor noted that it was wise for the kids to go back to school, adding that in China kids were back to schools with their nosemasks and shields.

Ayade said: We have always led from the front and we think the mass production of PPE is an added advantage.

All health practicioners from doctors to nurses to radiographers must be given PPE for them to work.

Because we care, we want to support our public schools with free distribution of PPE. But our PPE for schools is limited only to nose masks and face shields.

He recalled that recently, doctors in Nigeria issued strike notice and their major reason was that their colleagues were dying in their numbers due to the lack of PPE.

According to him, the face shields will be the first and major shield production in Nigeria.

Earlier, the state Commissioner for Education, Mr Godwin Amanke, said that a trial resumption of schools would begin on June 16. (NAN)
As the lockdown for Covid-19 begins to ease in different parts of the world, Swiss-Belhotel International has rolled out a special initiative WeReassure to welcome back guests across its hotels and resorts in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Africa and India.

Gavin M. Faull, chairman and president of Swiss-Belhotel International, said: WeReassure is our promise towards the well-being of our guests and our staff by maintaining hygiene and safety standards across all our branded hotels. A 64-page document has been rolled out to our hotels on the standards of the program and continuous training and auditing is in place to ensure the same.

A health and safety officer has been appointed at every hotel managed by Swiss-Belhotel International to oversee the cleaning and hygiene standards throughout the property as well as serve as the point of contact to put guests concerns at ease.

Laurent A. Voivenel, Senior Vice President, Operations and Development for the Middle East, Africa and India, Swiss-Belhotel International, said: Our hotels have personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies on hand, including masks, goggles, disposable gloves and disinfectant solutions. Frequent sanitisation of all areas, including lobbies, reception, fitness centres, pool areas and guest rooms are being regularly carried out. Enhanced hotel cleaning practices, workplace procedures and staff hygiene standards are being complemented by a line-up of mandatory virtual training courses for hotel teams, and additional resources and audits.

As part of the WeReassure programme folllowing are the policies and measures in place at Swiss-Belhotel International with minor variations at some hotels:

WeReassure - The Arrival

 Temperature scans taken

 Self-parking services are encouraged

 Reduced contact at check-in, touchless transactions, front-desk screens, sanitiser stations, sanitised key cards, paperless checkout

 Added partitions at front desk to further limit person-to-person contact.

 Ultraviolet light technology for sanitising keys for guests and devices shared by associates

WeReassure - The Guest Rooms

 A Care Kit is being made available for guests. Each kit includes hand sanitiser gel, box of face masks, surgical gloves and antibacterial wipes.

 Visible verification of sanitised items (e.g., glassware, remote control), reduction of in-room furnishings/high-touch items, new laundry protocols.

 Windows and doors kept open as much as possible to encourage fresh air flow

 Adding disinfecting wipes to all guest rooms for personal use.

 The removal of clutter like pens, paper notepad, and guest directories and supplementing digital amenities and a digital directory available (upon request).

 In-room service menu and minibar menu accessible via QR code

 Room service delivery ensuring hygiene practices.

 After cleaning, allocating a 24-hour breathing room period between guests checking in and out of rooms.

WeReassure - The Public Spaces and Facilities

 Furniture across hotel lobbies is rearranged to allow more space and to help guests adhere to social distancing protocols.

 Extra disinfection of high-touch areas (from light switches to remotes, thermostats, front-desk counters, doors and door handles, elevator buttons and any common use areas within the hotel).

 Hand sanitiser and disinfecting wipes available at high-touch points throughout.

 Regular deep cleaning with hospital-grade disinfectants.

 Banquets and meeting spaces maintaining social distancing.

WeReassure - Food & Beverage

 Sit down buffets offered.

 Menu can be downloaded via QR code.

 Decorative items on tables are removed and other items minimized.

 In-room service menu and minibar menu accessible via QR code.

 Room service delivery ensuring hygiene practices.

WeReassure -Flexible stays

 Free cancellation on same day by 6pm.

 No charge for change in reservation (for same room type and meal plan).

 No charge for Early check-out upto two days before the original check-out date. - TradeArabia News Service
NEWTOWN TOWNSHIP >> Newtown Township will be applying for federal funding to bolster its career firefighting force. And its crossing its fingers and hoping the third times a charm. At its Jan. 12 meeting, the board of supervisors voted unanimously to resubmit its SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to...
A group of congressional lawmakers wants to ban police from using tear gas, which was deployed against peaceful demonstrators protesting George Floyds death, in the latest effort to restrict law enforcements use of chemical and other less lethal weapons on civilians.

Federal funding would be denied to police agencies that refuse to comply with the ban and dispose of tear gas in their arsenal under legislation to be proposed Thursday by Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Mark Takano of Riverside and Jesus Chuy Garcia of Chicago.

Last week, people were just so shocked to see this administration tear-gas its own people. Tear gas is a chemical weapon that is used in war, Ocasio-Cortez said during a phone call with the other lawmakers and the Los Angeles Times this week. It is one of the most basic steps we can take.

Police are supposed to follow manufacturers instructions and deploy tear gas when people have a clear exit route, but that did not appear to be the case in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and other sites of recent peaceful protests where participants and journalists were injured.

A White House spokeswoman has denied that tear gas was used against protesters in Washington as police cleared a park in advance of a visit by President Trump to a nearby church last week.

The administration denied they were using it, but indeed they found there were cartridges marked 'CS,'" another term for tear gas, Takano said.

The lawmakers said they were proposing the ban this week to protect civilians from the long-term respiratory effects of tear gas that could put them at added risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially if they are gassed and then arrested and held together.

In a pandemic situation, it can increase the risk of infection, Takano said  a particular concern for minority communities already experiencing disproportionate rates of infection.

Police have been criticized in recent weeks for using tear gas against protesters in other cities, including Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis, where Floyd died at the hands of police May 25. Although tear gas is banned during wartime by international treaties, loopholes allow countries to use it against civilians.

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Some police have defended tear gas as a necessary tool to disperse crowds.

The president of Portlands police union told a local radio station that tear gas was considered a best practice for controlling crowds.

If they deem that we cant use it, well have to use something else, a less lethal option, Portland Police Assn. President Daryl Turner told KOPB-FM radio, warning that a ban caused police "to have to use more hands-on force because they take one option away that could help disperse crowds, help keep people safe.

Turner dismissed concerns about the lasting health effects of tear gas, saying: It has a short-time period that it affects people and wears off easily with washing down with water.

Portland city commissioners called for a ban on tear gas this month after protesters filed a class-action lawsuit against the city for the indiscriminate use of tear gas during nightly protests following Floyd's death. Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, has said he will support the proposed ban if police have an alternative for crowd control.

Other cities have tried to stop police from using tear gas, with mixed results. In Seattle, the mayor and police chief announced last week that they were banning tear gas for a month only to see officers use it days later to quell protests.

In Los Angeles, activists sued the city last week, accusing police of using excessive force on protesters after LAPD Chief Michel Moore said the department needed to show more force in response to burglaries and vandalism and dozens of attacks on police, one of whom was hospitalized with a fractured skull.

The Berkeley City Council voted Tuesday to end police use of tear gas, tweeted council member Rigel Robinson. The vote came after a council member asked the Berkeley police chief what he would do to disperse protesters if he couldn't use tear gas, and he jokingly responded: "We could shoot them."

Theres a reason police are hesitant to abandon tear gas, said Phillip Atiba Goff, a professor in policing equity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity.

Tear gas is a nonlethal way to ensure that situations that are escalating into violence wont get there. Weve talked to chiefs who say, 'If we cant use tear gas, our officers are going to take rocks and bottles,'" Goff said, adding: The reality is people do go to the hospital, and it can lead to serious illness and death.

In working with police across the country, he said, weve advised law-enforcement agencies to stop using tear gas in the time of COVID because theres good evidence it increases the likelihood of contracting it. And chiefs are listening.

Goff noted that tear gas is just one of an arsenal of weapons of war and decommissioned military equipment that U.S. police have accumulated in recent years, and that the more those are abandoned, the more the perception of police changes and possibly even the mindset of the law enforcement. The more we take those things away, the more likely it is that we feel less occupied.

Tear gas is actually not a gas; its a powder dispersed by explosives from a canister, like firecrackers. Its produced by a handful of manufacturers, mostly based in the U.S.

Developed during World War I, the chemical was refined over the years as it was used to suppress protests by U.S. unions, against colonial powers in Asia and Africa, and during wars in Vietnam and Iraq. More recently, its been used by governments to suppress protests in Hong Kong and the Middle East, sometimes with deadly results.

The metal from tear gas canisters can severely damage people's eyes as it has during recent U.S. protests, as the canisters can fracture and the metal becomes embedded in a person's eyes or skull, said Sven-Eric Jordt, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Duke University School of Medicine, who has researched the health effects of chemical weapons.

The research has not really caught up with the escalating use by police and law enforcement. Weve seen a dramatic increase in use in Hong Kong and, before that, in Turkey, Chile, Brazil and the Arab Spring uprisings, Jordt said.

Congress passed a law last year that prevented U.S. manufacturers from shipping tear gas to Hong Kong, but police there just bought Chinese tear gas instead, he said. Chile imposed a temporary moratorium on tear gas in 2011, but it didnt last. Despite deaths during Arab Spring protests, when demonstrators were hit with tear gas canisters, the U.S. continued manufacturing it.

This is now coming home, Jordt said.  Theres been no oversight by local authorities who fund these police departments. Its really stunning that no one realizes these departments are buying more and more of these [chemical] agents.

The U.S. military studied the effect of tear gas on 6,000 healthy recruits several years ago and found the recruits had a much higher likelihood of developing a respiratory illness, including the flu, Jordt said.

That raises a lot of concern that the general population  protesters on a much wider spectrum of age and constitution  might respond with an even higher rate of infection, he said. If there is a protester who is exposed who has non-symptomatic or asymptomatic COVID, just by coughing or screaming they could spread the COVID widely to protesters and police.

Jordt said his concern was not limited to tear gas but extended to pepper spray, "sting ball grenades" and other new chemical weapons police have used recently to disperse protesters.
KYIV, Ukraine - Authorities have allowed foreign parents into Ukraine to collect babies who were born to surrogate mothers and stranded in the eastern European country due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ukraines human rights ombudswoman, Lyudmila Denisova, said Wednesday that 31 couples had arrived and been united with their children.

It is a special day. All government bodies have reacted quickly and helped....I have already met parents from Spain, whose daughter was born five weeks ago, Denisova said on her Facebook page.

Andrea Diez of Argentina, who got to see her child for the first time, echoed Denisovas sentiment.

It`s a very good ending of the story, unbelievable, Diez said.

A total of 125 babies around Ukraine were awaiting parents from abroad. Denisova said 88 more families have received entry permits and will come to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

The infants were stranded in Ukraine after the country closed its borders to prevent virus infections. The newborns attracted wide attention after Biotexcom, the countrys largest surrogacy operation, posted a video showing dozens of babies in bassinets arrayed in tight rows in two large rooms of the hotel where the clinic puts up clients.

The company sought to reassure parents in 12 countries: China, the United States, Italy, Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Mexico and Portugal - that their children were receiving good care, showing nurses bathing and caressing them.

Ukraine has a thriving surrogacy birth industry and is one of the few countries that allows foreigners to participate. About 50 clinics offer surrogate birth arrangements operate in the country, where economic struggles drive many Ukrainian women to become surrogate mothers.

__

Karmanau reported from Minsk, Belarus.
Lucknow, June 10 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said that the state had effectively controlled the spread of coronavirus.

He said it could be made possible due to the guidance of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a good teamwork in the state.

He, however, cautioned against any complacency and said a minor carelessness could be dangerous.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said that the lockdown was implemented strictly and the asymptomatic corona patients were kept in the hospitals which helped in stopping the spread of the virus.

He said that all precautions have to be taken during the unlock exemptions while ensuring adequate treatment of the corona infected persons.

The Chief Minister said that the provisions of the Prime Minister's special economic package should be utilised fully to provide employment in the state.

This package has facilitated loans for street vendors and arranged for the subsidy in case of inability to repay it in time as well as easing the digital payment. He directed that an action plan should be implemented for loaning facilities to the salons and carpenters, etc.

He said that the lower level of infection in the state has rendered good opportunity and an extensive programme should be prepared to create job opportunities for migrant labour, offer work to street vendors, and generate employment in the MSME and big industries.

The Chief Minister asked officials to conduct a survey about employability in the agriculture and allied areas, MSME and big industries.

Efforts should be made to find out that how many persons can be employed in these sectors for six months or more. A software should also be prepared about the details of how many persons were given employment and how many will be employed in the near future.

Yogi Adityanath asked doctors to give regular feedback about the health recovery of the corona patients to their attendants.

He said the doctors and nurses should take regular rounds in the hospitals and take special care of patients who are on oxygen or ventilator support.

The ventilators and newly acquired TriNeT machines should be kept functional in all the districts. He said the requirement of TriNeT machines should be assessed so that the state government can procure more machines.

He asked private hospitals to purchase the machine and enhance testing in the state.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The initial closure of kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) worldwide was a decisive measure to curtail the global pandemic.

In the United States, school closings have impacted approximately 56.6 million students and their families. Globally, the shutdown has affected nearly 1.3 billion students, or just over 70% of the worlds student population.

The effects of school closures were felt far beyond the quality of education; families who lean on schools for meals, Wi-Fi, special education and other resources have suffered.

The heartbreaking reality is that the students whose families are disproportionately impacted by the health-related impact of COVID are the same students who are most at risk academically and emotionally," said Jackie Peng, staff development teacher for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland.

The Senate on Wednesday will hold a hearing on the safest way to reopen K-12 schools in the United States.

With pressure mounting to reopen schools across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released new guidance to help schools plan, prepare and respond based on the level of community transmission and presence of COVID-19 cases, underscoring that all decisions should be made collaboratively with local health officials.

But with the science of COVID-19 transmission still an area of active research, reopening schools is risky. Although children seem to be less susceptible to severe illness, its too soon to declare they are "less capable" than adults to transmit COVID-19.

MORE: It's too soon to declare kids 'less capable' of transmitting COVID-19: Experts

And the risks associated with reopening will differ for each community.

It depends on where in the United States you are, what is the status of infections in the region you're in, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony S. Fauci said Tuesday during a Q&A with JAMA editor Howard Bauchner. If youre in an area that has a considerable degree [of cases] with active ongoing infection, you might have to make a tough decision. It may be either delay or do modified schooling.

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There are a number of ways to schedule students to minimize risk. One is to split the students into two groups and have them either come for half a day or every other day. Though potentially safer, this option cuts down their overall time in school by 50%.

Another option could be putting students in cohorts. The students would be placed in the same classes and lunch periods to minimize exposure to other groups throughout the day. For younger age groups, this may be staying in one room for all lessons.

Virtual learning remains the safest option and it's possible virtual learning could be fine-tuned to be more effective. Some have proposed a "hybrid model" in which there is a combination of distance and in-person learning that is more accommodating for families who need to send children to school and those who wish to keep kids at home.

MORE: UK drops plan to get all young children in school by summer

Until now, the spread of COVID-19 has been mitigated by stay-at-home orders, social distancing, mask or face covers, handwashing and respiratory hygiene, none of which are particularly easy for younger children to follow.

Rojia Banaei, director of a Montessori school in Ashburn, Virginia, cautions that younger children may need much more flexibility than older kids do. Some of these children are way too young to understand why they have to keep a mask on for an entire day," she said. It is going to take away from their focus.

Banaei is also concerned about the mental health impact.

"If children over 2 are required to wear masks or not hug their friends for example, enforcing those rules may cause distress and add to fears and feelings of insecurity," she noted.

Reopening schools is a priority, but Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, told ABC News there are real concerns about whether teachers and students will be willing to return.

You have to think about it from the standpoint of our population of teachers who may be in the more vulnerable age category," he said. "The number of educators who perhaps have some sort of a health compromised condition, or that live in homes where that also may be part of their equation that they have to work with. The other obvious concern is the number of teachers who perhaps dont want to take any risks and say maybe its time for me to retire.

Added Peng: The bottom line is learning doesn't happen in environments where students and teachers do not feel safe. Brain education research tells us that safety is a precondition to the brain's ability to learn.

She suggests that teachers must be engaged in discussions about plans to reopen and be at the table with public health experts.

Delaram J. Taghipour, MD, MPH, MBA, is a preventive medicine resident at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a contributor to ABC News.

Reopening America's K-12 schools: What are the risks? originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Chinese departments have taken various measures, such as increasing recruitment of state-owned enterprise and grass-roots positions, to help create jobs for 8.7 million college graduates this year.

An online recruitment is held for college graduates in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. (Photo/People's Daily Online)

Digital platforms have been launched to connect college graduates with small and medium-sized enterprises, which provide 80 percent of jobs in China.

With the continuous upgrading of these "online recruitment" platforms, enterprises can publish recruitment information free of charge, and also use videos, pictures and other methods to directly showcase the companies' information and culture. The platforms can also send out targeted recruitment information to the graduates of nearly 1,000 colleges and universities through the use of algorithms.

An online recruitment campaign by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Affairs was launched on March 20. As of May 14, a total of 1.7 million employers have published recruitment information for 17.3 million positions.

In northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, online recruitment campaigns have also been launched, with 2,570 employers, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, providing 19,000 jobs and signing 6,078 employment agreements with college graduates.

In the field of digital economy, the Ministry of Education and Alibaba, a Chinese multinational tech giant, have jointly launched a special job fair, which saw 160,000 small and medium-sized enterprises provide more than 400,000 jobs on its first day.

"We will give a one-off employment subsidy for small and medium-sized enterprises that recruit college graduates," said Li Zhong, vice minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Affairs, adding that enterprises are the main channel of recruitment for college graduates.
At the same time, discarded protective equipment started turning up on city sidewalks and in the oceans. In a posting on Facebook in late May, a French environmentalist said there soon could be more masks than jellyfish in the sea.

Its not clear how much of that waste comes from hospitals and how much comes from households. But, over all, some doctors and hospital managers say, the pandemic has raised awareness of medical waste and exposed an urgent need to make the system more resilient by shifting toward more reusable equipment and producing supplies closer to home.

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Ive never met a clinician who is OK with the amount of garbage we produce, said Dr. Cassandra Thiel, an assistant professor at NYU Langone Health who focuses on hospital design and medical technologies.

In the short term, doctors caution, the pandemic response is far more urgent than the problem of medical waste. And nobody is suggesting reusing single-use protective equipment like masks and gloves. Rather, that idea is that more supplies like medical scopes and staplers could be designed for cleaning and reuse.

Once the supply chain is restored, I expect there to be a massive push to make everything disposable, out of fear of infection transmission, said Dr. Jodi Sherman, a professor of anesthesiology and epidemiology and director of a health care sustainability initiative at Yale University.

That, some doctors say, would be a bad outcome on several levels. Waste would increase and create more pollution at a time when the health care system ought to be reckoning with the urgency of dealing with climate change, a problem that many consider to be a public health crisis in its own right.
The pandemic has driven new use cases that prove 5G is fulfilling network requirements better than any other technology

OYSTER BAY, New York, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- While COVID-19 has been responsible for a significant increase in data traffic as more work is moved to people's homes, 5G has proven to have many benefits beyond being the next generation for consumer mobile broadband. Several new use cases enabled by 5G deployments have been of great help to enterprises during this global pandemic and will help spur deployments, finds global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research.

As the spread of COVID-19 continues, more than 1 billion people worldwide are in either full or partial lockdown, confined to their homes as governments are trying to moderate the spread of the virus. During this difficult time, all telco network operators report increases of 30%-40% in all kinds of traffic, both fixed and mobile. "It seems that, so far, telco networks are coping, and the overprovisioning measures operators have been deploying their networks are paying off. User-perceived speed and user experience may have dropped, but networks are still operating at an acceptable level," explains Dimitris Mavrakis, Research Director at ABI Research.

However, lower overall consumer confidence, potential supply chain disruptions, and potential migration of mobile broadband traffic to fixed broadband in busy urban locations will mean that the deployment of 5G for consumer use cases will slow down. ABI Research forecasts that 5G network Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) will likely suffer a 10% decline during 2020, but this will be accounted for later in 2020 and 2021, when operators will increase spending to make up for this delay. ABI Research also expects that the heavy effects of the crisis will subside in June 2020, after which the world will slowly start to go back to its natural routines.

"On the other hand, 5G in China is illustrating new use cases that provide true benefits to enterprise," Mavrakis points out. China has already illustrated that 5G has been used as a key technology in new hospitals and, in a way, fulfilling network requirements that no other technology can. For example, China Mobile deployed 5G in Wuhan's Huoshenshan hospital that was rapidly built to handle the outbreak. "The operator claims that the network was completed in a matter of 3 days, including network planning, a site survey, design, fiber installation for backhaul, and base station deployment and commissioning. The 5G network provided high-speed reliable connectivity for healthcare staff to perform their duties and enabled new use cases, such as data collection, remote diagnosis, and remote monitoring," says Mavrakis. Another use case is AIS in Thailand, which connected hospitals with 5G and is even trialing 5G-connected robots for treating patients.

At the very least, 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) can now enable rapid deployment of broadband connections for new hospitals, as well as reinforce broadband network capabilities for existing hospitals. "Moreover, these connections can provide the foundation for advanced services, such as remote diagnosis, out-patient handling, and primary care. In addition, the combination of advanced data collection and Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms will play an important role, especially in the more technically complex, edge device-centric use cases," Mavrakis explains. The low-latency and high-throughput characteristics of 5G will help enhance data acquisition, model updates, and device prediction accuracy and reliability.

"The use of 5G during the pandemic has illustrated that the new technology can provide tangible benefits to many enterprise verticals, the most important of which are healthcare and public safety services. The early use cases will prove to several enterprise verticals that 5G can rapidly provide connectivity to new areas and enable use cases that were previously not possible. For example, 5G can provide new use cases such as remote temperature checking, constant communication for first responders, patient transfer, out-patient clinics and temporary hospitals, and repurposing networks," says Mavrakis.

ABI Research expects that 5G enterprise applications will accelerate, starting with Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), which will provide a foundation for network slicing, reliable networking, and much more. "The spread of COVID-19 has indeed been a global challenge, but it has also been a platform for illustrating that 5G has been designed to be much more than just a consumer-focused mobile broadband network," Mavrakis concludes.

About ABI Research

ABI Research provides strategic guidance to visionaries, delivering actionable intelligence on the transformative technologies that are dramatically reshaping industries, economies, and workforces across the world. ABI Research's global team of analysts publish groundbreaking studies often years ahead of other technology advisory firms, empowering our clients to stay ahead of their markets and their competitors.

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Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said he had received multiple calls from local residents with the same request: Cancel the purchase of AR-15 rifles.

Ultimately, they were successful.

The sheriffs office had requested 15 AR-15s as replacements for current firearms used by the offices SWAT team. In total, the rifles were estimated to cost nearly $9,000.

However, as protests against police brutality continue in cities across the U.S., county residents called into Tuesdays virtual county commission meeting to voice their disapproval of the proposed purchase.

I would really like to see more money going to education and not going to the sheriffs department for purchase of these weapons, Paola Martinez said.

Almost a dozen people spoke during the meeting, most of them saying they oppose the militarization of local police departments, one of the main criticisms to come out the recent protests against police brutality.

Were at a turning point in this country, Loveless Johnson told the commission. We will do everything we can to get a county commission to (cancel the purchase) if you all wont.

Christopher Harris, a retired Navy commander, also spoke against the purchase of the rifles, citing his experience training other sailors to use them in combat.

They have no place on our streets, on either side of the street, he said. We dont need military equipment patrolling the streets.

SFSO had actually rescinded its request for the rifles before the meeting started. Mendoza said that, due to the many phone calls he received, he felt it was not the proper time to make such a purchase.

We made a decision with myself and my administration that we would pull this item from our budget request based on the fact of the current climate within the nation, Mendoza said during the meeting.

Mendoza hinted that he thought AR-15 rifles could be a useful tool for deputies, but that he respected the opinions of those who disagreed with him.

SFSO also requested 33 replacement Tasers, with a combined price tag of $45,507, for its deputies. Some speakers also opposed this purchase, but the commission approved it.

So far, Santa Fe has seen two large Black Lives Matter protests since a Minneapolis Police officer killed George Floyd on May 25. Authorities say the officer pressed his knee on Floyds neck for more than eight minutes.

Commissioner Anna Hansen said she and Commissioner Ed Moreno have been working on a resolution to discuss policies and procedures for the sheriffs office.

Were working to get out in front of it and talk about the situation with the community, Hansen said.
D ear Prime Minister. Next time Sir Keir Starmer writes you a private letter, dont push it aside until after Gogglebox. Dont leave it lying around for Dilyn to chew up. Send him a thank you, a complements slip, anything; just dont forget it.

Because Sir Keir takes the art of correspondence as seriously as Queen Victoria, we discovered at Prime Ministers Questions when he once again protested he still hadnt had a response to a secret missive offering to help organise a task force for the reopening of schools.

Its not too late, appealed Sir Keir. Even now everybody could put their shoulder to the wheel and restore lessons halted by coronavirus.

Now it may be that Starmers task force would have sailed in like the United Nations, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama combined to coax nervous teachers, militant unions, parents and heads into agreement. Tragically, we shall never know.

Sir Keir Starmer said "everybody could put their shoulder to the wheel to help restore school lessons halted by coronavirus / PA

We do know, however, that the Prime Minister is not a dedicated correspondent. As I told the House before, Ive been in contact with the Right Honourable gentleman by a modern device called the telephone, he told MPs, voice dancing with amusement.

Week five of the gripping Johnson V Starmer contest saw the pair of them getting more tetchy with each other, while growing in confidence at needling the others weaknesses.

Starmer pummelled his key theme that the Tory leader has been woefully exposed by Covid-19 as incompetent and inattentive. The Prime Minister accused his opponent of tergiversation, a word that would send Queen Victoria scurrying for her dictionary. It means pusillanimous, contradictory or shifty, which is the label that he hopes to hang around his rivals neck by the next General Election.

There is no doubt that Starmers patient and intelligent questioning is hitting home to a Prime Minister who has never been known for his delight in the fine detail. But equally it is clear that Johnson, having soaked up some early defeats, has raised his game.

The exchanges started gravely with Starmer questioning the Governments record of heeding the recommendations of no fewer than seven reports into racial inequalities over the past three years. It was time to turbocharge the Governments responsiveness, beginning with a pledge to implement in full the recommendations of the looming Windrush report.

Johnson response showed the differences between him and Donald Trump. I agree that black lives matter he said, and empathised with the very strong, and legitimate feelings of people in this country over the death of George Floyd.

The PM probably gave a fuller answer than Sir Keir had hoped, discoursing knowledgeably about prosecutions and body-worn cameras with the familiarity of a former Mayor of London responsible for the capitals policing.

Starmer noted coolly that people do notice when recommendations are made and then not implemented in a tone that made clear he, for one, will be keeping tally.

He turned to the horrendous covid-19 death rates amongst black and Asian people, asking what the Government was doing in response to the shocking data.

A betting man would have predicted that the PM would have little to promise, since equalities minister Kemi Badenoch appeared empty-handed at the Despatch Box on the day the report was debated last week. Johnson came better prepared.

We are already active, he said, announcing an extension of coronavirus testing for people in jobs that are especially vulnerable to the virus, including bus drivers, many of them BAME workers. He had had a chat with Dido and it was sorted. He sat down.

Johnson mourned and grieved for the victims but claimed international comparisons were impossible until the epidemic has been through its whole cycle / Sky News

Sir Keir, deflated, asked if that was all of the action or not. He had the look of an angler who seen a fat trout slither back into the waters just before the filleting knife came out.

He tried a different tack, reading out the grim UK death toll (40,000 by testing, 50,000 when measured by death certificates, 63,000 measured by excess deaths) and the blade flashed: Last week the prime minister said he was proud of the governments record. But theres no pride in those figures, is there?

Johnson mourned and grieved for the victims but claimed international comparisons were impossible until the epidemic has been through its whole cycle.

The Labour leader spat back:. It just doesnt wash to say that we cant compare these figures to other countries  Everybody can see the disparity.

Theres little solace to families that have lost someone to simply be told: Its too early to compare and to learn from other countries,.

Sir Keir then brought up the deeply sensitive matter of his tragically overlooked private letter. Johnson recalled that they had talked by phone of a plan which he then seemed to deviate from later on.

The PM then switched into a full-on attack. Last week he was telling the House that it was not yet safe for kids to go back to school. This week hes saying not enough kids are going back to school. I really think he needs to he needs to make up his mind. Tory backbenchers got excited about that  even in the socially distanced chamber.

If Starmer liked international comparisons so much, continued Johnson, then how about those countries where no primary school pupils were getting lessons at all? What wed like to hear from the Right Honourable gentleman is a bit of support, he challenged. Perhaps even a bit of encouragement to his friends in the trade unions to help get our schools ready. Ouch. That was the sort of low blow reserved for elections rather than moments of national crisis.

Labours leader stood up furiously, muttering he would have this out. Sadly, he didn't mean he would take the PM behind the Speakers chair for satisfaction through fisticuffs, but that he wanted to get to the bottom of that wretched letter. The Prime Minister and I have never discussed that letter in any phone call, he knows that and I know it, he complained bitterly. The task force has never been the subject of conversation between him and me. He knows it. So please drop that.

Starmer accused the PM of flailing around trying to blame others, which caused such a reaction that Speaker Lindsay Hoyle had to call for quiet  the first such intervention since the chamber was lain almost empty by coronavirus measures.

Its time he took responsibility for his own failures, this mess was completely avoidable, Starmer charged. It must have occurred to the government that space would be a problemThey built the Nightingale hospitals, why are they only starting on schools now?

This was all said with a mixture of anger and contempt that would redden the face of a career criminal in the dock of the Old Bailey. But the Prime Minister has a thicker hide than that, and a gleam of pure delight at getting under his enemys skin could be glimpsed beneath his untidy shock of lockdown hair.

Johnson leapt up. He still cant work out whether he is saying schools are not safe enough, or whether we should be going back more quickly, he jibed.

Then came Johnsons best line, a haymaker thwack at lawyers like the former DPP standing opposite him. You cant you cant have it both ways with one brief one day and another brief the next, he mocked. I understand how the legal profession works - but what the public wants is some consistency.

A historical note: Margaret Thatcher used a similar line in her valedictory performance at the Despatch Box in 1990, when she utterly squashed Labour MP Greville Janner (yes, that one) with the crushing observation that being a lawyer: He can speak to any brief and I dont believe he believes a word of it.

It was Starmers turn to be on the defensive. He said he wanted children back as soon as possible when it is safe. Ive been saying that, like a broken record for weeks on end. I know the Prime Ministers got rehearsed attack lines, but he should look at what I read from this letter. That blooming letter again!

For his final question Starmer made an appeal to extend through summer the national voucher scheme that gives 1.3 million children free meals. Yesterday the Education Secretary said that wont be the case in England. Thats just wrong. And it will lead to further inequality.

Johnson said it was not usual to extend free school meals into the summer holidays but he did not rule out the idea. This government has put its arms around the people in this country, he claimed. I may say it is not helped by the wobbling and tergiversation of the Labour Party.

Memo to Sir Keir. Ask him what it means next time he phones for a chat but, please, dont write him a letter.
Three students from Kashmir who were arrested on charges of sedition in Karnataka in February were released on bail after the investigating officer delayed filing the chargesheet against them.

The trio were held in the Hubballi city of Dharwad district on February 14 - anniversary of the Pulwama attack- for allegedly shouting "Pakistan Zindabad".

On June 6, they were automatically granted bail because the chargesheet was filed after a week's delay on June 4.

"Due to the lockdown, the chargesheet could not be filed on time. A preliminary enquiry has been ordered against the investigating officer," a top source in the police department said.

A video of the three students shouting the slogan had gone viral in February, following which they were arrested and charged under section 124A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code. An additional District and Session Court had rejected the students' bail application in March.
Retailers can reopen on June 15 - Business minister Shoppers walk along Oxford Street in London

LONDON (Reuters) - Retailers will be allowed to reopen on June 15, subject to social distancing guidelines, British business minister Alok Sharma said on Tuesday.

Britain has already begun slowly opening for business after shuttering large swathes of the economy and ordering citizens to stay at home on March 23 to limit the spread of COVID-19 as the disease threatened to overwhelm the health system.

The announcement, which will only apply in England because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own policy on lockdown restrictions, had previously been announced, subject to sufficient progress against the coronavirus being made.

"This is the latest step in the careful restarting of our economy and will enable high streets up and down the country to spring back to life," Sharma told reporters.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas and Paul Sandle, writing by William James; editing by Stephen Addison)
[June 10, 2020] Rapid Therapeutic Explores Treatment of Anxiety Utilizing Proprietary Delivery System for Psilocybin and CBD

DALLAS, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rapid Therapeutic Science Laboratories, Inc. (OTC: RTSL) (the "Company" or RTSL), a fully-reporting company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is an innovative biotech company specializing in aerosol delivery of cannabinoids to the systemic blood stream though the pulmonary route of administration. RTSL manufacturers white label products as well as its own branded metered dose inhalers (MDI) under the RxoidTM name using proprietary blends of pure cannabinoids such as CBD and/or CBG. CBD is legal for human consumption in Texas and many other states and foreign countries. RTSL is also testing CBN blends and psilocybin where legal. RTSL is unique in the MDI industry in that they do not use full spectrum oil or any other excipient not approved for human inhalation. RTSLs MDI are made using FDA listed cans, valves, actuators, propellant and excipients.1 RTSL uses no tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in its products. RTSL is certified by CMDICB with respect to manufacturing of their MDI.

Everyday life involves dealing with anxiety. However, recent events have increased anxiety in the general population. For instance, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) the current coronavirus outbreak is triggering increased general anxiety disorder (GAD). https://adaa.org/finding-help/coronavirus-anxiety-helpful-resources . Although RTSL makes no therapeutic claims about any of its proprietary blends of cannabinoids, a 2015 analysis of multiple studies concluded that cannabinoids including CBD is a promising treatment for numerous forms of anxiety, including social anxiety disorder (SAD), panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, GAD, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (RTSL notes these studies although promising generally relied upon preclinical studies and not controlled clinical trials). A National Center for Biotechnology Information published article stated  Cannabinoids induce diverse responses on anxiety- and fear-related behaviors. Generally, low doses tend to induce anxiolytic-like effects, whereas high doses often cause the opposite. Inhibition of endocannabinoid degradation seems to circumvent these biphasic effects by enhancing CB1 receptor signaling in a temporarily and spatially restricted manner, thus reducng anxiety-like behaviors. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21309120 . However, this article references THC which is anxiogenic and therefore not a good candidate for potential anxiety treatment modalities.



In contrast, CBD given alone has anxiolytic properties, particularly under circumstances or in response to stimuli which normally provoke anxiety. This makes cannabidiol (CBD) an attractive candidate for therapeutic treatment of anxiety and fear-related disorders.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6486906/ . Although much additional research is needed, some clinical studies with humans have been promising in reduction of anxiety. Such studies clearly need additional testing related to dosing which involves pharmacokinetic oversight and control.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02466/full

__________________________

1 DMF #s are on file with RTSL.



About Rapid Therapeutic Science Laboratories, Inc. (OTC: RTSL) RTSL markets its MDI products directly to pharmacies and physicians who treat GAD, PTSD and other stress and anxiety disorders. RTSL currently does not sell any psilocybin products and is only testing pulmonary delivery geometry of its formulations with limited pre-clinical trials. RTSLs MDI can also be purchased online at www.rxoid.com . We encourage all customers to do their own research regarding cannabinoids, the use of MDIs and our products. RTSL makes no claims about therapeutic benefits of its products and they do not treat coronavirus in any manner. None of our products are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Always consult a physician prior to using any cannabinoid product. If you experience any adverse reaction stop use immediately and seek appropriate medical attention. RTSLs products are not approved by the FDA or under the Food Drug & Cosmetics Act (FD&C Act). Visit RTSL online at www.rtslco.com . Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements. In particular, when used in the preceding discussion, the words  may,   could,   expect,   intend,   plan,   seek,   anticipate,   believe,   estimate,   predict,   potential,   continue,   likely,   will,   would  and variations of these terms and similar expressions, or the negative of these terms or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Any statements made in this news release other than those of historical fact, about an action, event or development, are forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the results of RTSL, its divisions and concepts to be materially different than those expressed or implied in such statements. These risk factors and others are included from time to time in filings made by RTSL with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, in the  Risk Factors  sections in its Form 10-Ks and Form 10-Qs and in its Form 8-Ks, which we have filed, and file from time to time, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports are available at www.sec.gov . Other unknown or unpredictable factors also could have material adverse effects on RTSLs future results and/or could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date hereof. RTSL cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any of these forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, new information or future events, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable laws. If we update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that we will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements. Contact:

Donal R. Schmidt, Jr.

Chief Executive Officer

[email protected]

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Starbucks has announced it will close 400 stores in the United States over the next 18 months while increasing its number of pickup locations.

Starbucks revenue plunged when stores were closed early in the coronavirus pandemic. Stores were converted to a drive-through only service.

With the need for social distancing expected to continue and customers opting for more convenience, Starbucks said it plans to expand pickup stores in large cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco and expand curbside, drive-through and walk-up windows in suburban areas. The expansion was already in the works and planned to three- to -five-year plan. That plan is now accelerated to be completed in 18 months.

Starbucks president Kevin Johnson, outlined the plans in a letter to stakeholders.

In that letter, Johnson said the company will open 300 new stores instead of the originally planned 600. In addition to closing 400 stores here, the company also expects to close another 200 in Canada as it adds new pickup stores.

With customers increased use of the Starbucks App to order ahead, and the national availability of Starbucks Delivers through Uber Eats, Starbucks will also renovate select store layouts, including the addition of a separate counter for mobile orders at high volume stores, which will make it easier for customers and delivery couriers to pick up their order," the company said in a news release.

In the letter, Johnson said the company wants to have a mix of the traditional cafe stores and pickup locations within walking distance of each other. That model will serve the customers who want an on-the-go experience while reducing crowds in the cafes.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged a probe Wednesday into complaints of mistreatment of foreign journalists covering the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality.

Australia, Britain and Germany have all taken the unusual step of voicing concern about US actions, with Australia stunned by scenes of two of its television journalists attacked by police outside the White House.

"I know there have been concerns from some countries of their reporters having been treated inappropriately," Pompeo told a news conference.

"We've seen some of those allegations come into the State Department. You should know and those countries should know we will handle them in a completely appropriate way. We will do our best to investigate them," he said in response to a question.

The UN High Commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, reported last week what she called unprecedented aggression against reporters covering the nationwide protests triggered by the death of African American George Floyd at the hands of white police officers in Minneapolis.

She cited reports that at least 200 journalists were harassed or detained while covering the demonstrations.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne earlier said that Canberra would conduct its own investigation and registered "strong concerns" over the treatment of its journalists.

Footage showed 7NEWS reporter Amelia Brace being clubbed with a truncheon and cameraman Tim Myers being hit with a riot shield and punched in the face by police clearing Lafayette Park outside the White House on June 1.

President Donald Trump shortly afterward walked through the park to pose for a picture in front of a church damaged in unrest.

Civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit, saying that Trump violated the constitutional rights of free speech to protesters, whose rally had been peaceful.

US adversaries have also seized on the scenes of chaos in the United States, including Trump's threats to use the military against protesters.

Russia -- often accused by the United States of violating human rights and the right to free expression -- complained of violence by US police against reporters, in particular against a woman working as a stringer for the Russian news agency Sputnik.

China and Iran have both alleged double standards by the United States, which frequently assails them for suppressing dissent.

Pompeo hit back that Floyd's killing and the growing debate on police reform showed the strengths of the American system.

The United States wants to "respect every human being, because they are made in the image of God."
Mumbai, June 10 : Elli AvrRam had a sharp retort for a netizen who suggested that she should get married and settle down.

Elli took to Instagram, where she shared a string of screenshots.

In one screenshot, a user wrote to her: "Aab shaadi karlo or settled ho jao (get married and settle down now)." The actress replied: "Beta settle hone keliye shaadi karne ki zaroorat hai kya? Mere hisaab se nahi. Shahyad isiliye bahut marriages kharaab ho jaate hai, kyonki life 'zyaada' settled ho gaye (why do I have to get married to settle down? I don't think so. Perhaps this is the reason why many marriages go wrong, because life got too settled) lol." Another user said: "Who knows you might meet the man of your dreams?"

Elli replied: "Why do I have to marry him though? If he's the man of my dreams then he'll know sacha wala I LOVE YOU (true I love you) is enough of proof to stick with each other." "Baaki sab business, 'settlement hai' (The rest is business settlement). Of safety... and of course a nice dreamy cute la la land ceremony with a diamond put on your finger. Wah wah sacha pyaar hai yeh (wow that is true love)." The third screenshot showed a user asking her about "body needs or neend (sleep)".

"Beta mera philosophy alag hai. Kaunsa bhagvan nafrat ya punish karte hai jab insaan koi 'rule' follow nahi karthe hai? Yeh sirf insaan karthe hai, isiliye hum bhagvaan nahi hai (my philosophy is different. Which god punishes for not following rules? This is only done by humans. That is why we are not Gods)," she replied.

A social media user told Elli that it's "ok if she doesn't believe in the custom of marriages, but not to ruin it for others." Elli replied, saying that she is not here to ruin anyone's fairytale and that she has always dreamt about her "big fat Greek wedding".

Having said that, she added: "But I mean to say for me marriage or not, koi farak nahi padhta hai jab sacha pyaar hai (doesn't really matter when there is true love)." "Jo bhi karna hai life mein dil se karo (whatever you do in life, do it with). Not because karna padhta hai werna (not because you have to do it or else)."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
You never want to say youve reached a tipping point with this administration. Donald Trump has proved to be the Nosferatu of American politics: heartless, partial to Slavs, beneath grace and thus far impervious to destruction.

Even when I read my colleague Jonathan Martins fine piece about how some high-profile Republicans refuse to vote for Trump or are struggling with publicly lending him their support, I thought: yes, but. Theyre just a handful. Theyre the usual suspects. Too few of them have coattails.

Yet something right now really is different. I think.

Before diving into the more entrancing developments, Ill start with the obvious: Trumps old tactics, once so reliable, are starting to fail him, utterly.

It was a winning strategy to crow about a border wall with Mexico, but its a loser  and a sign of pure cowardice  to build one around your own White House. He once basked in the reflected glow of his generals; now those generals are laying waste to him, with James Mattis, his former defense secretary, explicitly condemning Trumps immature and divisive leadership, and John Kelly, the presidents former chief of staff, saying yep, sounds about right.

Maybe there was a time when religious conservatives would have applauded a photo of Trump standing in front of St. Johns Episcopal Church, Bible in hand. But using pepper balls and flash-bang grenades to clear anguished protesters out of the way backfired. The Episcopal bishop of Washington reacted in horror; Trumps support among white Catholics slipped 11 points between April and May.

Maybe there was a time when stigmatizing all progressive protesters as invading marauders would have worked  bigotry, it gets the job done  but not now. His proposal to suppress the tumult with the military was greeted with disapproval by his current secretary of defense, Mark Esper, and disgust by Mattis; the Black Lives Matter movement now polls at an all-time high, with 66 percent of Americans disapproving of how Trump has handled the response to George Floyds death.

Trump is flailing like an overturned turtle. A historic health crisis, an economic crisis and a social crisis all at once  its far too much for a reality TV star to handle, no more manageable than itd be for him to land an airplane. What this moment may have revealed, ironically enough, is that only in a time of stability and outrageous decadence could the United States have had the luxury of picking such a dark and divisive candidate with the intellectual firepower of a water gun. When Trump asked voters, What have you got to lose? most never dreamed that the answer could be: Everything.

Now, for the subterranean tremors that most beguile me  a suggestion that something deeper is afoot.

Trump, right now, is trying to stoke white fears about protests in the street. But hes having little luck. Lara Putnam, the chairman of the history department at the University of Pittsburgh, tweeted a modest but persuasive thread highlighting the easy victory by Summer Lee, a progressive African American woman elected to the Pennsylvania statehouse in 2018, in the Democratic primary Tuesday.

Based on the history of the district  and the range of voters Ive talked to there myself  it seemed entirely plausible that there would be white backlash against her in this moment, Putnam told me.

If ever there were a moment for a backlash, she pointed out, this would have been it: Images of social unrest were all over Pittsburgh television the weekend before the primary, and Lee had been an outspoken proponent of the protesters. Voters could have selected her primary opponent, a moderate white borough councilman who had the backing of the countys Democratic Party.

Lees victory suggested that the white suburban women and retirees in her district were unswayed by Trumps demonizing and dog-whistling.

In these protests, it is possible we are seeing the rumblings of a new Democratic coalition. Putnam and two of her colleagues wrote that the scale and geographic diversity of these demonstrations were without American precedent.

We already know that Trumps support among white women is sliding in the polls, both with college degrees and without. Its probably not an accident that the first Senate Republican to endorse Mattis views of Trump was Lisa Murkowski, a white woman from Alaska.

At a time of genuine crisis, Americans arent pining for Darth Vader. Theyre pining for a healer. Its healing words of empathy that have thus far won the day. Trump may have been fumbling with his Bible, but it was Nancy Pelosi who read aloud from Ecclesiastes, and it was Joe Biden who said in a heartfelt, 24-minute speech that he wished the president would open it every once in a while.

Its probably too much to hope for. But for the first time in three years, change is not.

@JenSeniorNY
Mumbai, June 10 : Manappuram Finance plans to raise up to Rs 250 crore by issuing non-convertible debentures (NCD).

In a regulatory filing on Wednesday, the company said that the concerned committee of its board has approved the proposal.

"The Financial Resources and Management Committee of the Board of Directors approved the issuance of the private placement of rated, secured, redeemable non-convertible debentures up to Rs 250 crore," it said.

Shares of the company rose on Wednesday on the back of the announcement. At around 2.47 p.m., its shares on the BSE were trading at Rs 141.60, higher by Rs 2.60 or 1.87 per cent from its previous close.
A shocking video has emerged from the national capital where a group of men brutally assaulted a man broad daylight in Bhalswa Dairy Thana area. The cause of the incident is not out yet but Republic TV sources said that one of the accused has been identified with the help of the CCTV footage. In the visuals, it can be seen that people in the area just stood there and watched the man getting thrashed. A further Police investigation is underway and more details are awaited
(Newser)  Stressed out while working at a bank in New Zealand, Junelle Kunin began searching for music paired with teachings from the Dalai Lama to calm herself down and allow herself to focus. But she couldn't find it online, per the AP. That's when the musician and practicing Buddhist proposed an idea to The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Let's make an album fusing music with mantras and chants from the Tibetan spiritual leader. She was politely turned down. But on a trip to Indiawhere Kunin says she typically gets a chance to meet the Dalai Lamashe asked again, this time writing a letter and handing it to one of his assistants. Five years later, Inner World is born. The 11-track album featuring teachings and mantras by the Dalai Lama set to music will be released on July 6, his 85th birthday.

story continues below

On her trip to India, Kunin wrote down a list of topics and mantras she thought would be great for the album, and recorded conversations with the Dalai Lama. Back home, her husband, Abraham, who is also a musician and producer, helped her create music and sounds to enhance his words. The religious leader recites the mantras of seven Buddhas on the album, discussing topics like wisdom, courage, healing, and children. "He really was so excited" as "he [talked] about how music can  transcend differences and return us to our true nature and our good-heartedness," Kunin said. Net proceeds from the sales of the album, featuring dozens of other musicians, will benefit Mind & Life Institute as well as Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning, an international education program developed by Emory University and the Dalai Lama. (Read more Dalai Lama stories.)
Last week at my accountants office, Tom asked me about chick flicks that his girlfriend would enjoy, which got me thinking about romantic movies and which ones were the best. I thought I would list my five favorite romance movies and review them. When I couldnt narrow the list, I expanded it to 10. As I gave it more thought and shared it with my sister, the list grew even longer.

I couldnt figure out which is my favorite.

An Affair to Remember, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, is about two people who meet on board a ship sailing from Europe to New York. They fall in love, but both are engaged to others. They plan to meet in six months at the top of the Empire State Building, but the course of true love never runs smooth. This movie is referenced in Sleepless in Seattle. In my book, An Affair to Remember ties with Casablanca.

Casablanca is a World War II flick with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid. There are so many wonderful lines in this movie. Bogarts character owns a gin joint in Morocco during the war when his love from Paris walks in with her husband. It is the classic love story. Heres looking at you kid.

Every St. Patricks Day, you can catch The Quiet Man. Personally, I think this is the best John Wayne/Maureen OHara movie of the many they made together. He is an American boxer who killed a man in the ring. He goes to his family home in Ireland to get away from the publicity. He meets and falls in love with Maureens character, but her brother has other ideas.

I love a British accent and Ronald Colman has the sexiest. He can whisper in my ear any time he wants. Instead he whispers in Greer Garsons ear in Random Harvest. Colman plays a soldier in World War I who suffers from amnesia. When he runs away from the hospital, he meets and falls in love with Garsons character. He then has an accident and remembers who he is, but doesnt remember the time he was with Garson. Will the star-crossed lovers ever find each other?

Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand are an amazing couple in The Way We Were. They meet in college. She is a Jewish Communist and he is a rich WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) whose lives seem to crisscross from their thirties to their fifties.

If you want to clear your sinuses, watch Love is a Many-Splendored Thing with William Holden and Jennifer Jones. After you bawl your eyes out, no more sinus problems. Holden plays an American newspaper man in Hong Kong covering the Chinese civil war. Jennifer Jones is a Eurasian doctor. Of course, they fall in love and trouble ensues.

Other greats are Roman Holiday, Same Time, Next Year, Pretty Woman, Beauty and the Beast, Crazy Rich Asians, My Favorite Wife, Sleepless in Seattle, Notting Hill, The Notebook, When Harry Met Sally and Youve Got Mail, just to name a few. These can all be found on TCM, Netflix and Amazon Prime.

If I have left out your favorite, email me at mary.cox@edwpub.net and let me know.

Movie critic Mary Cox lives in Wood River and studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has worked in L.A. with various directors and industry professionals. Contact Mary at mary.cox@edwpub.net.
DALLAS, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Amy Witherite, founding partner of the personal injury law firm Witherite Law Group, has again been named to the Top 50 Personal Injury Verdicts in Texas. Witherite shares this year's honor with her former associate accident lawyer, Kristofor Heald. Together, they secured a $1.3 million verdict for their client, landing them the 28th spot on the Top Verdict list for 2019.

"I'm honored to again be part of this exclusive list," Witherite said. "Kris and I worked this case for many years before he left to start his own personal injury firm, and we couldn't be happier with the result we got for our client."

This is Witherite's second year in a row receiving this recognition. In 2018, she placed number 26 on the Top 50 Personal Injury Verdicts in Texas list after securing a $468,258 verdict with associate truck wreck attorney, Martin Futrell. According to Top Verdict's website, only around 3% of law firms make their lists two years in a row.

Top Verdict's goal is to recognize attorneys and law firms on factual achievements, as opposed to publications who select attorneys based on opinion. They source their content through court records, electronic submissions by attorneys, and major legal publications. Because of the fact-based nature of the lists, most firms only make a Top Verdict list once in their history.

"Being part of the small group of firms who rank on this list multiple years in a row really showcases this firm's expertise and 'people first' mentality," said Witherite. "When someone gets in a car or truck wreck, they can rely on us to fight for them and get them the best possible outcome because people matter."

ABOUT WITHERITE LAW GROUP

Witherite Law Group is a Dallas-based personal injury law firm founded in 2001 with offices in Dallas, Fort Worth and Atlanta, GA. The firm's attorneys specialize in helping those injured in a car or truck accident and can be reached by calling 1-800-TruckWreck or 1-800-CarWreck, 24 hours a day.

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In 1988, a group of South Fork naturalists formed a membership organization called the South Fork Natural History Society, better known as SOFO. The objective of this organization was to increase public awareness about the past, present, and future of eastern Long Islands natural history and to share their joyful experiences of exploring and learning with others in the community. SOFO used to operate out of a small building referred to as the Nature Clubhouse where children gathered to examine different species, research for school projects, and just hang out. The Clubhouse served as a prototype...
If you want to visit an art gallery in New York anytime soon, consider a trip to La Guardia Airport beginning Saturday. Thats the grand opening of its new Terminal B, home to four airlines and interlaced with four sprawling art installations. With three of the four works accessible without a boarding pass, Terminal B just may be the best indoor space for contemporary art  no appointment needed  that the public is welcome to visit in phase one of New Yorks reopening.

In the final push to finish construction in the midst of the pandemic this spring, the Public Art Fund joined the pantheon of essential services permitted to continue working on-site by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. That designation attests to a centerpiece of the design: Art installations knit throughout the architectural fabric of the building, which broke ground four years ago and has crossed the finish line as a glamorous entry portal for the citys coming back to life.

Its an unusual moment to be celebrating the opening of an airport, widely feared as sites of contagion in the global spreading of the coronavirus. Even as many states are lifting restrictions on businesses and social gatherings, most Americans are expecting the pandemic to upend summer travel plans. In a Kaiser poll last month, just 23 percent of its respondents said they would be likely to fly in the next three months. In a survey of epidemiologists published Monday by The New York Times, 37 percent said they would wait for at least a year before getting on a plane.
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money-laundering case against Medanta Hospital, its chairman Dr Naresh Trehan and unknown Haryana government officers for alleged irregularities in the allotment of land to the hospital in 2004, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday.

The EDs PMLA (prevention of money laundering act) case is based on a Gurugram police FIR filed on June 6 naming Trehans company Global Health Pvt Ltd, which runs Medicity at Sector 38, Gurugram, among others.

The ED has named all the 16 accused mentioned in the Gurugram police FIR, an official said. This includes two officers of the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP)

An RTI (right to information) activist Raman Sharma filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the matter in the court of additional district and sessions judge Ashwani Kumar, citing irregularities and use of several companies for laundering money.

The Medanta hospital has denied the allegations as false, baseless and motivated.

In a statement on Wednesday, Trehan said, The allegations in his complaint pertain to the 16-year-old land allotment on which the hospital is built. Everything about this land allotment, which was done through a public auction, is absolutely legal. The allegations in the complaint are nothing short of absurd. We have built one of the finest hospitals in this part of the world, and we are proud of the work we do.

This complaint is nothing but harassment by Raman Sharma, who has chosen to file this complaint while we are in the midst of a global pandemic. Despite being over 70 years of age I continue to tend to my patients, even in the face of this pandemic, and at risk to myself. It is of grave concern that doctors and hospitals are having to bear the brunt of harassment, by people of dubious antecedents, Trehan said.

The case pertains to the allotment of land to the hospital in 2004. The Haryana government, through HSVP, allotted 53 acres of land in Sector 38 along the Delhi-Jaipur road (NH-48), for the development of Medicity.

An official statement on Tuesday by Medanta Hospital on the Gurugram police FIR said: This complaint has been filed by a person who claims to be an RTI activist. However, it has been reported in the press that he has had an FIR for extortion registered against him. All the allegations in this complaint are completely false, baseless and motivated.

Sharma had alleged that Medanta, in connivance with government officials, obtained pecuniary advantage as land meant for institutional purposes was used for pure commercial, speculative and self servient purposes and several acres of land were allotted at undervalued rates. Sharma also alleged that the accused obtained occupational certificates based on misrepresentation, as there was no area on the premises that was allocated for medical and paramedical education, as advertised.

In his complaint, which is now part of the FIR, Sharma has alleged that the Haryana government in 2004 evicted locals from their ancestral land in the area, now known as Sector 38, Gurugram, for public purpose under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984. Thereafter, the state government, through the HUDA (Haryana urban development authority), released an advertisement for the Medicity Project, which was envisaged to have super-speciality hospitals of international standards, academic medical institutions and other institutions related to medical care and research to provide state-of-the-art facilities at one place along with ancillary and subservient services in the form of a shopping mall and a yatri niwas (guest lodge).

Sharma has further alleged that factors of eligibility, and terms and conditions were nullified at various stages by accused government officials causing pecuniary advantage to Trehan, Sachdeva, Punj and Jain, and causing immense loss to the state. Accused 5 (government officials) abused position by criminal misconduct and influence, caused pecuniary advantage to accused 1, 2, 3 and 4 (Trehan, Sachdeva, Punj and Jain), the complaint stated.

The government officials allotted the entire site of Medicity to Trehan without any consideration of his financial capability, he added.

In its Tuesday statement, the hospital said that Sharma, the complainant in the case on whose allegations the FIR was registered, had previously filed two cases, one in a Patiala House court and another in the Delhi high court, identical to this one, and both were dismissed.

Extortionists have found a fertile breeding ground, while claiming to be RTI activists. The fact that the allegations in his complaint pertain to the 16-year-old land allotment on which the hospital is built demonstrates this, the statement said.

The FIR was registered on Saturday at Sadar police station after Sharma, a resident of Malibu Town condominium in the city, approached the district court. On June 5, the court directed the police to lodge an FIR within 24 hours of the receipt of the complaint. The court observed that without proper investigation, justice could not be ensured in the case and for that, lodging an FIR was a prerequisite.

Sharma on Wednesday refuted the Tuesday statement released by the hospital. I chose to contest the allegations of extortion against me and in that trial, neither the statement of the complainant nor other witnesses have been recorded. That matter is sub judice. In this case, I shall be submitting documents supporting the allegations in the court.
SELBYVILLE, Del., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Global Market Insights Inc., the metallic glass market is likely to exceed a valuation of nearly $2.08 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 8.4% from 2020 to 2026. The report provides a detailed study of the industry size & estimations, drivers & opportunities, competitive scenario, top winning strategies, key investment pockets, and wavering market trends.

Global Market Insights Inc.

Superior mechanical, physical, and chemical strength of the material have substantially increased its demand in electromechanical applications. The metallic glass market is likewise considered to be constantly improving with its new iterations, owing to nanoengineering as well as high throughput screening & testing methods. Apart from the additional application of metallic glass in raised temperature environments, evolving manufacturing methods along with improvement in material technology has considerably expanded the scope of the material to structural applications.

Request a Sample Report: https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/4722

In terms of product type, the metal-metal product segment will account for more than $1.3 billion by the end of the analysis period. Increasing product demand for good ductility as well as high strength applications is expected to drive the metallic glass market segment growth in the coming years.

Key reasons for metallic glass market growth:

Shifting preference for metal-metal based products. Increasing demand from the electrical & electronics sector. Expanding Asia-Pacific electronics & electrical industry. Growing R&D activities and adoption of business growth strategies like partnerships and acquisitions.

2026 forecasts anticipate the 'medical' application segment showing appreciative growth:

The medical application segment is anticipated to witness considerable growth, owing to strength as well as material advantage. Since glass metal is manufactured by the thermoplastic method, the shrinkage is minimum, thereby allowing it to be manufactured into various shapes, forms, compositions, and sizes. This has further significantly improved the economies of scale, thereby decreasing production costs substantially. In the medical industry, the product can be utilized in orthopedic screws, surgical instruments, and cardiovascular stents.

North America & Europe's metallic glass industry to witness appreciative growth:

The North American region will hold nearly a 30% market share by the end of the forecast timeframe. North America is witnessing a significant rise in R&D activities to broaden the application range of amorphous metal.

Request for customization of this report: https://www.gminsights.com/roc/4722

Europe will hold a market share of over 24% by the end of the analysis period. Ongoing R&D activities to increase the product application scope and increasing emphasis on additive manufacturing through metallic glass will drive the product use over the coming years. The electric industry in the United Kingdom and Germany together accounts for over $200 billion, presenting immense growth opportunities for the market. In addition, rising demand for sporting equipment, increasing consumption of electronic devices, and the development of regional electric industry in the region will positively impact the metallic glass market demand.

Leading market players:

The key market players analyzed in the metallic glass industry report include Usha Amorphous Metals Limited, Antai Technology Co., Ltd., Liquidmetal Technologies Inc., and Hitachi Metals Ltd. among others. They have incorporated several strategies including partnership, expansion, collaboration, joint ventures, and others to heighten their stand in the industry.

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Smart Glass Market Future Business Strategies and Revenue Impact Analysis - 2026

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About Global Market Insights, Inc.

Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider. Offering syndicated and custom research reports, growth consulting, and business intelligence services, Global Market Insights, Inc. aims to help clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data that aid in strategic decision-making.

GMIPulse, our business analytics platform, offers an online, interactive option of exploring our proprietary industry research data in an easy-to-use and dynamic manner. Clients get to explore market intelligence across 11 top-level categories and hundreds of industry segments within them, covering regional, company-level, and cross-sectional statistics that make our offering a stand-out for decision-makers.

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The Egyptian finance ministers deputy for financial polices Ahmed Kojok says that Egypts macroeconomic performance in the first half of FY2019/2020 has witnessed an improvement in economic performance signs, given that economic growth has been recorded at 5.5 percent.

Kojok made his comments during a meeting held virtually on Wednesday with a number of representatives of global firms operating in the Egyptian market. The meeting was organised by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and the USAID.

Kojok added that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8 percent at end of March and an initial surplus has been attained at EGP 40.4 billion, up from EGP 35.6 billion in the same period of FY2018/2019.

Tax revenues from on-sovereign entities has increased to 7 percent, reaching EGP 412 billion, before the economic activity affected by the COVID-19 crisis, according to Kojok.

He also highlighted the improvement in fiscal relations between the public treasury and the petroleum sector, given that it attained an EGP 20 billion surplus for the public treasury for the first time in years, in addition to the increase in the public investments to reach EGP 113 billion, EGP 89 billion of which were financed by the public treasury with an annual increase of 23.2 percent compared to last year.

The allocations for purchasing commodities and utilities have also risen by 8.5 percent, according to Kojok.

Kojok pointed out the purchasing managers index (PMI) for Egypt, issued on 3 June, which highlighted the upgrade in Egypts economic performance for private sector firms, which showed that Egypts PMI rose to 40.7 points in May, up from 29.7 points in April thanks to the increasing in operating rates in several firms.

He added that international institutions trust the Egyptian economy and its ability to deal positively with the COVID-19 crisis and to overcome it thanks to the economic reforms that Egypt has adopted, which is backed by the people.

Kojok added that the economic reforms have also provided a significant deal of hardness for the Egyptian economy that enabled it to cope with challenges and the external and internal shocks.

The three giant credit rating institutions have revised and changed the credit rating for 47 emerging countries, including turning the credit rating of 35 countries to negative, of which 11 percent were in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, while it has maintained the credit rating of 12 countries including Egypt, Kojok said.

He added that Egypt has adopted a pre-emptive policy in managing the crisis and a rapid positive dealing with its implications through providing a supportive financial package for the Egyptian economy worth EGP 100 billion (2 percent of GDP), in addition to the harmony of the monetary and financial policies in managing the liquidity and maintaining the national economy reform process.

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The major pilgrimage to the holy places of Islam scheduled from July 28 to August 2. Every year at least 2.5 million faithful participate in the event. Religious tourism brings $ 12 billion to state coffers. Indonesia and Singapore renounce participation.

Riyadh (AsiaNews / Agencies) - To stem the spread of Covid-19 and prevent new outbreaks, Saudi authorities could drastically reduce the number of pilgrims who will participate in the Hajj, the major pilgrimage to Mecca, scheduled from July 28 to August 2.

Meanwhile, Singapore, after Indonesia, has announced that it will renounce participation in the event - among the most important for the Muslim faith - to avoid infections by returning faithful.

Every year at least 2.5 million faithful visit the sacred places of Islam in Mecca and Medina during the seven days of the pilgrimage. For the Saudi authorities, this is not just a religious event, but a huge economic one; in fact, it is estimated that at least 12 billion dollars linked to religious tourism (Hajj and Umra, the minor pilgrimage) enter the coffers of the Wahhabite kingdom every year.

Last March, during the early stages of the pandemic, Riyadh asked to suspend the organization of travel to sacred places. According to some institutional sources, the Saudi authorities are thinking of granting the green light "to a symbolic number" of faithful, categorically prohibiting the elderly and introducing even more stringent measures at the health level.

Another hypothesis under consideration is to grant 20% of the total quota of each country. Still others are pushing for a complete cancellation of the Hajj, but this would result in a severe blow to the nation's coffers, which must already face the collapse of oil revenues due to the pandemic and clashes with Moscow on production.

Last year, 2.6 million pilgrims registered for Hajj and about 19 million for Umra.

Hajj is considered one of the five pillars of Islam and every good Muslim should do it at least once in his life. Saudi Arabia has often politically exploited permission to reach Mecca; for years the Syrians have been forbidden to travel to the Muslim holy city.

The crisis between Riyadh (Sunni) and Tehran (Shiite), still in progress between the two great regional powers, in 2016 effectively blocked the journeys of Iranian citizens to the kingdom. In the past, Riyadh's leadership was targeted by some imams who claimed the Saudi government used money from religious tourism to finance Islamic terrorism.

To date, over 105 thousand cases of new coronavirus have been recorded in Saudi Arabia with 746 confirmed victims.
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Linkedin Apriza Pinandita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 16:23 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdda1dc6 1 World Foreign-Minister-Retno-Marsudi,Foreign-Ministry,Palestine,West-Bank,Israel-annexation,deal-of-the-century Free

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi has sent letters to at least 30 of her counterparts around the world urging them to reject the Israeli governments plan to annex a large part of the West Bank, the Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday.

Some of the foreign ministers and officials have responded positively and they acknowledge Indonesias leadership on this issue. They have also promised to continue working together to push this issue forward, Achmad Rizal Purnama, the ministrys director for Middle East affairs, said on Wednesday.

Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah added that Indonesia remained absolutely clear that "the plan is illegal and contradicts international law and several resolutions issued by the UN".

It threatens stability in the region and potentially puts back a conflict resolution that is based on the two-state solution, he said in a press briefing on Wednesday.

Read also: Indonesia very concerned, condemns Israels West Bank plan

Israels plan to annex a large part of the West Bank emerged after United States President Donald Trump came up with the so-called deal of the century in January, which sees Jerusalem as Israels undivided capital and recognizes Israels sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank.

Earlier reports said that under the US plan, Israel would annex 30 to 40 percent of the West Bank. Israel plans to implement the plan on July 1.

The plan has been rejected by many countries, including Indonesia. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) also urged all of its member states not to cooperate with Washington in implementing the idea in any form.
Huntsville police will present a report to the city council next week concerning actions taken at two protests last week when tear gas was deployed to disperse the crowd.

The city announced Wednesday that the special meeting will take place June 18 at city council chambers at 308 Fountain Circle in downtown Huntsville.

Mayor Tommy Battle has asked police Chief Mark McMurray "to provide an after-action review of recent protest events that led to the use of tear gas and pepper spray by City police," the city said in the press release.

The presentation to the council next week is separate from a review by the Huntsville Police Advisory Council, according to the city statement. Councilwoman Frances Akridge is introducing a resolution at Thursdays council meeting for the advisory council to do an after-action review of police tactics at the protests. That resolution is scheduled to be voted on at the June 25 council meeting.

Related: We did the right thing: Huntsville law enforcement says tear gas, rubber bullets kept city from burning

Related: Rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray: What happened in Huntsville through the eyes of protesters

Huntsville police and Madison County sheriffs department have defended their use of tear gas and rubber bullets, saying that protesters ignored repeated orders to leave the area on both June 1 and June 3. Battle has also supported the response of law enforcement.

At both protests, about an hour passed between the first commands to leave the area and the deploying of tear gas.

Protesters have said they believed they had the right to remain in the area.

Another protest held June 5 in downtown Huntsville concluded peacefully.

The council is expected a larger-than-normal crowd at Thursday's meeting  the first since the protests. The council chambers has diminished capacity because of pandemic social-distancing guidelines.

The city said a sign-up sheet to address the council during the meeting will be available in the city hall lobby. Speakers will be called into the council chambers for their opportunity to speak.

Its been an emotionally charged time for our community and the country, and were listening, council President Devyn Keith said in the announcement. We want to hear from you.
Madhuri Dixit Nene encourages actors to take pay cuts in efforts to help producers reduce their coronavirus-induced losses

Actor-producer Madhuri Dixit Nene opines that film stars will need to take a pay cut to try and help the film industry tide over what is looking like losses worth over Rs 3000 to Rs 4,000 crores.

We need to support the producers. Everyone will try and pitch in because we all want the work to restart properly and take salary cuts as well. If the stars want the industry to come to a normal, in the new normal, we have to come and pitch in with our efforts. I will stand by my producers in this endeavour, says Madhuri.

Madhuri is not alone in holding this opinion  several other actors understand the filmmakers plight shouldering heavy losses in the film industry.

Kartik Aaryan too mentioned in a chat with Anupama Chopra that he was willing to take a pay cut. I wouldnt want to cut down on peoples jobs. There has to be a solution wherein that problem also doesnt crop up and producers (who are getting hit) too are saved. There has to be a solution and a balance will come out. Whatever it takes for the industry to get together and start working, I think, I am up for it. I would do whatever collectively we decide to do, he had said.

Saand Ki Aankh actress Taapsee Pannu adds, Since we have not been shooting for the past few weeks, we are not being paid any money at all now. So when work begins, we will need to take a salary cut and I am ready for that, says asserts.

Film industry pundits feel that it is important not only for big stars but also for highly paid technicians to fall in line with this thought.

Everyone needs to pitch in now and that is how we can overcome this situation. It is so unprecedented that films need to be made in a tighter budget, keeping in mind that the audience is also going to take a while to troop into the theatres like before, says writer and film historian Imtiaz Baghdadi.
YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. The government of Lithuania made a decision to send a medical team and experts to Armenia aimed at helping to fight the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevicius said on Twitter.

Armenia continues an intense fight against the pandemic. Lithuania continues standing by our Armenian friends. Today Lithuanian Government decided to send a medical team and experts to Armenia aimed at helping to combat COVID19, the Lithuanian FM said, adding a sentence in Armenian at the end of the post: Together we will overcome all trials.

In his turn Armenian Ambassador to Lithuania Tigran Mkrtchyan thanked the Lithuanian government, stating on Facebook that this was a very important and timely made decision.

428 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been registered in Armenia in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 14,103, the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention said today.

775 more patients have recovered and were discharged from hospital. The total number of recoveries has reached 5,226.

10 people have died in one day, raising the death toll to 227.

The number of active cases stands at 8,573.

The number of people who had a coronavirus but died from other disease has increased by 3. The total number of these cases has reached 77.

So far, 73,156 people have passed COVID-19 testing.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Fintech startup Klarna is launching a rewards program called Vibe this summer. If you use Klarna as your payment method, youll start earning points for every $1 you spend. You can then redeem your points for gift cards at Starbucks, Sephora, Foot Locker and Uber.

Klarna is best known for its buy now and pay later feature, which lets you pay over four installments with 0% interest. You can think as Klarna as a sort of credit card-alternative payment method as you dont have to pay for things right away.

Many e-commerce websites have added Klarna as a payment option to increase sales. It can increase conversion rates for expensive purchases in particular.

Choosing Klarna during the checkout process is one way to get rewards. But the company also has a mobile app that acts as a marketplace of stores. You can browse Klarna-friendly stores directly from the Klarna app and track your orders.

It gets interesting as the startup has also developed a way to use Klarna on websites that dont support Klarna, such as Amazon. You can open the Klarna app, browse the web interface of an unsupported store and pay with a Ghost card.

Klarna generates prepaid cards that can only be used once to process your payments on unsupported sites. Youll also collect points with those purchases.

The rewards program could boost usage numbers over time. Some users could slowly build a habit of opening the Klarna app when they want to make an online purchase. Vibe users will also be able to participate in various sales. Once again, Klarna positions itself as an alternative to credit cards with the addition of rewards.

The new program will first launch in the U.S. in June and will then be rolled out in other markets in the coming months, starting with Germany, Australia, Sweden and the U.K. Klarna now has 8 million users in the U.S.
The survey will close at 5 p.m. Friday, June 12. Questions and comments may also be sent to laffa@naperville.il.us by the same deadline. All comments received will be included in the June 22 council workshop packet and a summary will be shared at the meeting.
A 39-year-old New Orleans woman whose boyfriend blamed coronavirus for her untimely death, in a social media post that spread nationally in the fearful early days of the pandemics spread across the U.S., in fact died naturally of a weakened heart, a coroners official said Wednesday.

The cause of Natasha Otts death on March 20 is listed as dilated cardiomyopathy with remote myocardial infarct, Orleans Parish Coroner Dr. Dwight McKennas office said. A myocardial infarction is a heart attack.

Ott was found dead on her kitchen floor, but the positive coronavirus test that her boyfriend, Josh Anderson, had forecast in a widely shared social media post never materialized.

The test she took before she died came back negative after her death, and a posthumous test confirmed that result, family members said.

Anderson had recounted that an ailing Ott, after testing negative for the flu, had been administered a test for COVID-19  the potentially deadly respiratory disease caused by the virus  but died before the results came back.

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Her death came less than two weeks after the first case of coronavirus turned up in the city, when doubts swirled over the risks of COVID-19 to the young and healthy, along with the elderly and infirm that it most brutally attacks.

It turns out that COVID-19 rarely strikes those in Ott's demographic -- although the young are not immune. In Louisiana, just 59 of nearly 3,000 deaths attributed to coronavirus have involved people younger than 40. More than two-thirds of those who have died were over 70.

But that wasn't known when Anderson posted his somber account of Ott's decline in her last days, from text messages he said he received from her before she died.

An autopsy for Ott was performed in late March, from which the results were released Wednesday.

A native of Claremont, California, Ott had been a social worker with the local nonprofit health clinic CrescentCare beginning in 2017. She also had been the projects and operations manager for the nonprofit Young Leadership Council for about a year beginning in 2016.
- Nelson Havi said Waiguru's performance was purely on meritocracy and not on the basis of her gender

- The lawyer told off Waiguru's sympathisers for playing the gender card after Kirinyaga ward reps voted her out for gross misconduct

- The LSK president said she was elected on a popular vote and not via affirmative action

- Various women leaders came to the defence of Waiguru after her ouster with many alluding that she was being targeted because was a woman

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Nelson Havi has blasted impeached Governor Ann Waiguru's sympathisers and asked them to leave out the gender card in her impeachment defence.

Havi said the governor was elected on a popular vote and not on gender basis and her performance was being evaluated on meritocracy.

READ ALSO: Size 8 discloses evil Jezebels have tried to steal her hubby DJ Mo

Nelson Havi said Waiguru's ejection from office had nothing to do with her gender. Photo: Nelson Havi.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Section of Talai elders say William Ruto's coronation ceremony was fake

Responding to Gender CS Margaret Kobia's statement which was condemning the ouster of the Kirinyaga county chief which she said was on the grounds of gender, Havi said her ejection from the gubernatorial position had nothing to do with her being a woman.

"The distinguished governor was elected by popular vote; not affirmative action. Elected leaders are evaluated on meritocracy and performance," the LSK president said.

READ ALSO: Uhuru's nephew Jomo Gecaga, bae Lola Hannigan make relationship public on IG live

He further dared Kobia to ask Chief Justice David Maraga to dissolve Parliament because it rejected the two-thirds gender rule if she was gender genuine.

From the look of things, Kenyans agreed with Havi's sentiments with many saying that affirmative action was not an excuse to abuse office.

Here are some of the comments:

READ ALSO: Kenyan newspapers review for June 10: Waiguru impeachment motion likely to flop in Senate

Besides the gender minister, various women leaders rebuked Kirinyaga ward reps for impeaching Waiguru.

Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu said Waiguru was being fought politically by "PhD machinations".

Ann Waiguru was kicked out of the office for gross misconduct. Photo: Ann Waiguru.

Source: Facebook

Homa Bay woman representative Gladys Wanga also came to the defence of the beleaguered governor and said she was being targeted because she was a woman.

At least 23 out of 33 Kirinyaga ward reps voted to send home the county boss whom they accused of abuse of office and corruption among other ills.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

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The Department of Education (ED) changed its rules on how students defrauded by for-profit colleges seek debt relief, leading to lawsuits and a political fight to return the rule to its Obama-era form and a veto from President Trump in support of the change.

Now consumer advocates are suing over related, lesser known Trump administration student debt rule change in another attempt to obtain more relief for defrauded students.

A lawsuit filed on Tuesday by Public Citizen and the Project on Predatory Student Lending against the Department of Education (ED) targets the Partial Relief Rule, a rule implemented by ED in December 2019.

The plaintiffs argue that DeVos new standards wrongfully denies student loan borrowers who have successfully established a claim through the borrower defense process most of the relief to which they are entitled on their federal student loans.

The Department of Education did not immediately return a request for comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump (R, background) and Vice President Mike Pence (L) wait to interrupt Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as she speaks to students at a school choice event at the White House in Washington, U.S. May 3, 2017. (Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law

The new lawsuit is the latest amid the Trump administrations policies regarding students defrauded by U.S. colleges.

The so-called borrower defense rules were originally written into law through the Higher Education Act in the early 1990s and were meant to help victims of fraudulent schools seek relief. Under existing law, borrowers with federal loans are eligible for loan forgiveness if a college or a university has misled them or engaged in other misconduct in violation of certain state laws.

In 2015, after several for-profit colleges went extinct amid scandals, the Obama administration implemented regulations such that defrauded students who made a successful claim would be granted full debt relief.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos modified that rule in 2019, and made it tougher to access relief, alleging that the Obama administration left behind a messy set of policies.

Eva Garcia, 25, of La Puente, Ca., graduated from Everest College in 2009 after taking classes in medical billing and coding. In the ensuing years she has struggled to find a job in her field despite assurances of job placement. (PHOTO: by Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

When borrower defense arrived in 1995, it ... was little used in the 20 years from 1995 to 2015, fewer than 60 claims were filed, she said during a previous hearing in front of the House Committee on Education and Labor. Then the previous administration weaponized the regulation against schools it simply didnt like. They applied the law in a discriminatory fashion. So since 2015, there has been a 5,000% increase in borrower defense claims.

Story continues

A political spat ensued: Congress rejected DeVos new rules, tried to re-install Obama-era rules, which then passed the GOP-controlled Senate, only to be rejected by President Donald Trump. (The House signaled that it would attempt to override the veto.)

The new lawsuit brought forward on Tuesday argues that the DeVos-era Partial Relief Rule made it such that the vast majority of student borrowers receive only partial or no relief despite having established a borrower defense claims.

Previously, when an applicant makes a claim and is successful, all their debt would be dissolved.

A security guard inside Everest College keeps away people in Santa Ana. (PHOTO: Mindy Schauer/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Under the new Partial Relief Rule, ED compares the median earnings of recent graduates of the program the borrower attended against the median earnings of recent graduates from similar programs and then decides on the amount of debt relief.

EDs rule ignores evidence submitted by borrowers about how their schools actions harmed them, the lawsuit argues. The Partial Relief Rule adopts a flawed formula, providing borrowers with full debt relief only when the median earnings data from their program are two standard deviations below that of comparison programs. The formula assumes that the data will fall along a normal distribution pattern, but the earnings data do not.

Active duty service member defrauded by for-profit chain

Brittany Saulsberry, who grew up in a poor neighborhood in Dallas, first learned about Everest College, which is part of the now-defunct for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges, when she met the colleges recruiters at her high school.

The representative pitched the school as a way out of their tough circumstances and promised that attending a college like Everest would get them jobs. Saulsberry kept the idea of college in her back pocket, and after graduation, joined the United States Navy in 2006.

When she returned to Texas in 2008, she worked as a reservist and as a security guard. She saw some ads promising accredited degrees and good jobs by Everest. She enrolled but was called to active duty in 2011 and deployed in Afghanistan while a student.

A banner advertising new courses hangs outside Everest College, Everest College on April 27, 2015 in Alhambra, California. Corinthian Colleges Inc., a Santa Ana company that was once one of the nation's largest for-profit college chains. (Photo by Al Seib / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

When she came back and finished her degree, Everests career services offered no help finding a job. Saulsberry ended up finding a job as a postal worker and a teaching assistant, which was unrelated to what she had studied.

And, she had tens of thousands of dollars in federal student loans left. In 2016, she submitted an application to have the remainder debt forgiven, especially since Everest had misrepresented job placement, accreditation, and the cost of the program.

That application was made possible due to the Obama-era borrower defense rule. In December 2019, ED approved Saulsberrys application but only gave her 25% relief on all her federal student loans, citing the Partial Relief Rule.

Saulsberry, who has since returned to active duty with the Navy, is one of the plaintiffs in the class-action suit, along with six others who also attended for-profit schools.

The lawsuit states that the overhanging debt has not only worsened Saulsberrys credit but made it substantially more difficult for her to plan her financial future.



Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering consumer finance and education. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami. If you attended a for-profit college and would like to share your experience, reach out to her at aarthi@yahoofinance.com

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Photo credit: Starbucks

From Delish

Starbucks will close up to 400 company-owned stores in the Americas, according to a recent SEC filing obtained by CNN.

These store closures come as the company is putting a greater focus on to-go orders and mobile orders. The closings are "in conjunction with the opening, over time, of a greater number of new, repositioned stores in different locations and with innovative store formats. Those new stores, as we previously reported, will be more focused on to-go orders and mobile orders, which were already planned pre-COVID-19, but have been sped up in order to meet new customer demands.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, about 80 percent of Starbucks transactions in the U.S. were on-the-go, so the chain is adapting to fit not only increased needs for safety, but also how customers seem to prefer to get their coffee now.

Coronavirus and the social distancing measures surrounding it has dealt a tough blow to many companies, including Starbucks, which pivoted its stores to a drive-thru-only format in March. Starbucks estimates that it lost between $3 and $3.2 billion in revenue this past fiscal quarter because of COVID-19 and it expects same-store sales to drop by up to 45 percent year-over-year for that quarter.

However, things are looking up for Starbucks as states begin to slowly lift social distancing measures. Many stores began to reopen this month, and 95 percent of U.S. locations are open again. Those that are still closed are largely in New York City. The brand is expecting its cash flow to be positive by the end of June.

With each passing week, we are seeing clear evidence of business recovery, with sequential improvements in comparable store sales performance, CEO Kevin Johnson and CFO Pat Grismer wrote in a letter to stakeholders in the filing: The Starbucks brand is resilient, customer affinity is strong and we believe the most difficult period is now behind us.

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MIAMI, Fla.Gay adult network SayUncle is honoring Pride Month and social justice reform by sponsoring the Miami-based Wynwood Pride online LGBTQ festival, featuring sets by Orville Peck, Dorian Electra and other DJs from around the world.



The festival, taking place Saturday, June 13 at 7 p.m. ET, will also feature surprise guests and drag superstars as part of a fundraiser to support national bail funds and social justice reform. To learn more, click here.

We hope and expect our queer community to move in solidarity to support social justice reform, said Mars, SayUncles CEO. "Its important for us to stand with those who have been persecuted and we want to help raise awareness and funds for these worthy causes. The Wynwood Pride Festival is going to be an incredible not-to-miss event that will bring us all together in a time when weve never felt more apart.

The performances will be available free via the official Wynwood Twitch channel, the official Wynwood Instagram page for up-to-date coverage, along with a Zoom call for audience participation, costume contests and dancing.

SayUncle will co-sponsor a DJ set via Zoom, dubbed "The Saddest Spiral x SayUncle," from 5 to 6 p.m. ET. Live performances include La Goony Chonga, Tomasa del Real, TECH GRL, and more surprise guests. To join, use the Zoom Meeting ID: 820 3494 1304.

In addition to direct donations, SayUncle will also contribute $5 for every monthly subscription and $25 for every annual subscription purchased, which will go to support the Wynwood organization as it continues to promote the artistic LGBTQ community of Miami and elsewhere in order to raise awareness for social justice causes.

For more information and to donate, please visit SayUncle.com/WynwoodPride.
This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.

More people are using food delivery apps like Grubhub and Uber Eats to order from restaurants during the pandemic. But can this trend last if so many restaurants are unhappy?

My colleague Nathaniel Popper talked to a restaurant owner in Columbus, Ohio, who was paying fees that averaged more than 40 percent of each sale to one app company. He closed and applied for unemployment.

I talked to Nathaniel about his recent article, which highlights the gap between the promise and the reality of technology to generate more customers for restaurants. The stakes couldnt be higher, with many restaurants struggling because of coronavirus-related closings and concerns.

Shira: Isnt keeping 60 percent of a sale better than not having that order at all?

Nathaniel: Many restaurants are realizing that theyre taking a loss on every order through the delivery apps, so those orders dont make economic sense. Beyond the fees, many restaurants said they felt that delivery apps werent good partners  they found it difficult, for example, to reach delivery services to fix problems.
(KSBY-TV)

A man in his late 40s was found fatally shot in downtown Paso Robles during a widespread search for a gunman who opened fire at a police station and wounded a deputy early Wednesday.

The body was discovered near the Amtrak station at 8th and Pine streets. The man, who has not been identified, was shot in the head at close range, said Tony Cipolla, a spokesman for the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department.

Authorities think the homicide is related to an early morning shooting that prompted a massive law enforcement response in the downtown area, Cipolla said.

The situation began about 3:45 a.m. Wednesday when the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department and the California Highway Patrol responded to a call that a man was firing shots at a police station on Park Street.

One deputy, who has not been identified, was shot in the face, Sgt. Steve Odom said.

The gunfire occurred over a span of several minutes. After the deputy was wounded, his partner returned fire.

The deputy was taken to a hospital and was listed in serious but stable condition, Cipolla said.

The gunman, who fled the area, was identified as Mason James Lira, 26, a transient from the Monterey area of the Central Coast, according to the Associated Press.

An image taken from a surveillance camera shows a suspected gunman. (San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office)

Surveillance camera photos from a downtown hotel and an ale house were released of the suspect. It was not clear whether the shooter was struck.

Paso Robles Police Chief Ty Lewis urged family or friends to convince the gunman to surrender.

Theres no need for further bloodshed. Theres no need for further violence in our community, he said.

Residents in downtown Paso Robles were being asked to shelter in place as the SWAT team and dozens of law enforcement personnel spent nearly 10 hours searching the area.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Paso Robles Police Department at (805) 237-6464.




Development of innovative and energy efficient packaging machinery, rise in global consumption of consumer goods, and increase in usage of vacuum packaging machines have boosted the growth of the global packaging machinery market

PORTLAND, Oregon, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, "Packaging Machinery Market by Type (Filling Machines, Form, Fill and Seal Machines (FFS), Cartoning Machines, Palletizing Machines, Labelling Machines, Wrapping Machines, and Cleaning & Sterilizing Machines), and End User (Food & Beverage, Pharmaceutical, Chemicals, Cosmetics, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2027". According to the report, the global packaging machinery industry was pegged at $47.96 billion in 2019, and is projected to $70.53 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 5.1% from 2020 to 2027.

Drivers, restrains, and opportunities

Development of innovative and energy efficient packaging machinery, rise in global consumption of consumer goods, and increase in usage of vacuum packaging machines have boosted the growth of the global packaging machinery market. Moreover, rise in usage of automation in the packaging industry supplemented the market growth. However, Eurozone economic uncertainty and stringent government regulations hamper the growth. On the contrary, growth in e-commerce and retail industry and rise in usage of robots in surge efficiency in packaging would open lucrative opportunities for the market players in the coming years.

Download Sample PDF (279 Pages): https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/2239

COVID-19 scenario: The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the global packaging machinery industry.

The self-isolations rules that resulted into short supply of machinery, lockdown in several countries, and possible recession after the pandemic have affected the demand for online shopping.

Various companies are sourcing away from China and production disruptions have reduced the demand for packaging machinery.

Filling machines segment dominated the market

By type, the filling machines segment held the largest share in 2019, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the global packaging machinery market, owing to providence of custom designed machines to fit multiple options and avoidance of possible hazards such as exposure to pollutants, odors, and dust particles. However, the wrapping machines segment is projected to register the highest CAGR of 6.7% during the forecast period, due to increase in demand from fresh food & beverages, home & personal care goods, and pharmaceutical industries and growth of the retail industry.

Cosmetics segment to manifest highest CAGR through 2027

By end user, the cosmetics segment is anticipated to portray the fastest CAGR of 6.5% during the study period, owing to increase in awareness regarding personal hygiene & appearance, technological innovation in the packaging industry, surge in demand for grooming products, rise in disposable income, and changes in consumer lifestyle. However, the food and beverages segment held the largest share in 2019, contributing to more than three-fifths of the global packaging machinery market, due to increase in demand for food & beverage and rise in population across the globe.

Get detailed COVID-19 impact analysis on the Packaging Machinery Market: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/2239?reqfor=covid

LAMEA, followed by North America, to portray fastest CAGR by 2027

The market across LAMEA is expected to register the highest CAGR of 6.2% during the forecast period, due to Increase in personal disposable income in countries such as Argentina, Columbia, and Nigeria and rise in urbanization and e-retailing. However, the market across Asia-Pacific held the largest share in 2019, accounting for more than one-third of the market. This is due to increase in consumer disposable income, urbanization, and rise in consumption of cosmetics. The global packaging machinery market across North America is expected to register a CAGR of 4.8% during the forecast period.

Major market players

Aetna Group S.p.A.

Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc.

B&H Manufacturing Company, Inc.

Coesia S.p.A.

CKD Corporation

Fuji Machinery Co., Ltd.

Duravant LLC

Robert Bosch GmbH

Langley Holdings plc

The Adelphi Group of Companies

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Aseptic Packaging Market: The global aseptic packaging market size was valued at $35,713.7 million in 2018, and is projected to reach $74,475.5 million by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2019 to 2026.

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Beverage Packaging Market: The global beverage packaging market size is expected to reach $133.3 billion in 2026, from $86.1 billion in 2018, growing at a CAGR of 5.6% from 2019 to 2026.

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Santa Clara County on Wednesday issued a new order demanding that Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health and other major health care providers ramp up their coronavirus testing capacity to carry more of the burden that so far has fallen primarily on public health services.

The new order, which takes effect June 15, requires that all hospitals and their associated clinics in the county offer testing to members who have symptoms of COVID-19 or have had contact with someone who tested positive, along with all frontline workers who may be regularly exposed to the coronavirus in the community.

Kaiser, the Bay Areas largest health care provider, specifically has been criticized by Santa Clara County officials for not providing enough testing to its members. Contra Costa County officials said Kaiser also has come up short in testing residents there.

Kaiser said it is complying with the order and has been testing asymptomatic patients. More than half of the tests it is conducting in Northern California are of asymptomatic people, including first responders, health care workers and others at high risk for exposure, a Kaiser spokeswoman said Wednesday.

But public health officials say its not enough. Other large providers, including Stanford and Sutter Healths Palo Alto Medical Foundation, are also not testing enough of their own patients, they said.

Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the COVID-19 testing officer for Santa Clara County, said the county-run Valley Medical Center and community clinics have done most of the testing in the county. The county is testing about 2,400 people a day and wants to get up to 4,000 people a day.

The county cant do it by itself, he said. The small community clinics cant do it by themselves, but the large health care centers, large clinics in this county need to step up and help provide additional testing so we can meet our goal.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Kaiser has about 4.4 million members in Northern California, which represents about 30% of the regions insured population. Kaiser said Wednesday that it has conducted about 12% of the total testing in California and intends to increase testing going forward.

The health system opened a laboratory in Berkeley this month that it expects will double its daily testing capacity to 6,000 tests a day.

We were one of the first health care providers to offer COVID-19 testing starting in early March and we have continuously increased our capacity to expand testing to broader groups, Tom Hanenburg, interim president of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, said in a written statement. Our ability to expand our testing capacity even further is based on the availability of testing equipment and supplies, and we are working diligently to obtain those, which are in short supply worldwide.

Sutter declined to comment.

Stanford was one of the first Bay Area providers to begin testing, in early March, after developing its own lab test. It has conducted about 72,000 tests so far.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Stanford Medicine has been committed to supporting COVID-19 testing for the greater Bay Area community and to date has partnered with medical facilities across 14 Northern California counties, said Dr. Christina Kong, medical director and chief of pathology service for Stanford Health Care. Within days of our COVID-19 test receiving FDA permission for testing, we made it available to other medical facilities who lacked access to timely testing. As these facilities developed their own COVID-19 testing, we shifted to providing COVID-19 testing to community health clinics, health care workers, first responders, essential workers and congregate living facilities

Counties are under immense pressure to expand testing for the virus as they reopen local economies and try to keep the spread of COVID-19 under control. Bay Area counties, in general, have made significant progress toward reaching their testing goals, but underperformance by private providers is becoming increasingly problematic, public health officials said.

More than 50%  1 million of Santa Clara Countys 1.9 million residents  are members or patients of large health systems, but the systems are doing just a small number of overall tests in the county, Fenstersheib said. Kaiser has been conducting 285 tests a day, on average, for the last three weeks, he said.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Six Bay Area counties, including Santa Clara and Contra Costa, have stated a goal of reaching 200 tests per 100,000 residents a day in order to safely contain the virus. Santa Clara County currently is doing about 120 tests per 100,000 residents a day; Contra Costa County is conducting about 100 tests per 100,000 a day.

The gap is in the commercial realm, said Ori Tzvieli, deputy health officer for Contra Costa County, which is considering an order similar to the one issued by Santa Clara County. Tuberculosis, HIV, even influenza  they do their own testing. COVID is really the only place where theyre not carrying their weight.

Testing people who are at greater risk of infection  including those who work in grocery stores or pharmacies or in other essential jobs  is critical, public health officials said. Many counties recommend that frontline workers get tested about once a month.

The hope is that by regularly testing those most at risk, new cases can be quickly identified and isolated before they lead to further infections and potentially new outbreaks.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Of recent importance is testing of residents who participated in Black Lives Matter protests. San Francisco and Santa Clara counties are making free testing available for residents who participated in protests, regardless of whether they have symptoms. They do not need to have a known contact with a person with a confirmed case, or be frontline workers.

I know a family that wants to get tested  they live with an elderly mom and they wanted to go to the protests. And they cant get the tests at Kaiser, said Tzvieli. Theyre asking me if I know anywhere they can get tested. Thats a real issue.

Jan Emerson-Shea, spokeswoman for the California Hospital Association that represents more than 400 hospitals, said large providers still struggle with supply shortages  including access to swabs for collecting nasal samples and chemical agents to conduct lab tests  that have limited their testing capacity.

Jim Gensheimer/Special to The Chronicle

She added that testing shortages plagued national and state health care systems from the start of the pandemic, and that shifting responsibility for testing from public health to private providers is an evolutionary process.

We absolutely support the goal of increasing the number of people who are getting tested, Emerson-Shea said. Its not a matter of not wanting to do more testing. Its a matter of, Do we have the capacity to do it? Thats starting to ease up and it will get better.

Supply-chain problems arent as severe as they once were, and the commercial providers need to move faster to reach more of their own members, Tzvieli said. In addition to making tests more readily available, hed also like to see private providers proactively reach out to members who are at risk and encourage them to get tested.

Kaiser is Contra Costa Countys largest health care provider  covering about 60% of residents  but its conducting only about 30% of the tests, Tzvieli said. At some county-run testing sites, which in theory should be serving people who are uninsured or have no other option for care, about 20% of those tested are Kaiser members, he said.

We are encouraging everyone to get tested if they need it, Tzvieli said, but the county testing sites arent meant to support people who have other options.

We really want people who cant get testing through their doctor or their health system, or who have no insurance at all. Thats really who we set it up for, he said. But what its ending up with is that more than half the patients are people who have commercial insurance who could have been tested somewhere else.

Erin Allday and Catherine Ho are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday @Cat_Ho
President Zelensky, who was elected a year ago (at that time he had no political experience, except for the serial role of the teacher who became a president) was forced to pass the most difficult tests at the beginning of his term

President Zelensky, who was elected a year ago (at that time he had no political experience, except for the serial role of the teacher who became a president) was forced to pass the most difficult tests at the beginning of his term.

Together with the authorities, he inherited from predecessor Petro Poroshenko the ongoing conflict in Donbas, which involves negotiations with Russia (a difficult task, even with the support of France and Germany, as part of the Normandy Four). All this against the background of the impeachment procedure of Donald Trump, into which Zelensky was involved against his own will.

In parallel with this, he had to deal with a difficult situation in the economy, which largely depends on IMF financial assistance.

This support, in turn, is due to the implementation of reforms in Ukraine in such areas as health care, as well as the achievement of goals in the field of judicial independence and the fight against corruption. The implementation of these reforms rests on the elimination of corruption in the country.

In moving towards his goals, Zelensky relied in the first months of the presidency on a wide majority in the Rada and Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk. Anyway, in January he resigned after the publication of his unflattering remarks about the president.

Zelensky had to rush to look for a replacement amid the emergence of a coronavirus, which the government could not control: it transferred the fight against the epidemic in some regions to the shoulders of the oligarchs but failed to cope with it (28 381 cases and 833 dead), despite the restrictive measures that will be removed soon.

Thus, Zelensky and his young Servant of the People party are faced with not only a sanitary but also a political crisis (especially against the background of the return of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to Ukrainian politics several months before the municipal elections).

New prime minister

In March, the president of Ukraine was forced to find a new prime minister, while protecting the serious image of the government. According to him, although until that moment the Ukrainian government was doing everything possible, now the country needed an office that could do the impossible. He proposed the candidacy of Denys Shmygal, calling him capable of accomplishing the impossible by a person, despite the unknown in the Ukrainian political sphere.

The president promised the Rada a more professional government. Shmygal really had (albeit small) administrative experience: he served as governor of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, where he developed a reputation as a leader who promotes business and the economy. This feature became his trump card in the sense that the country's priorities were macroeconomic stability, attracting foreign direct investment, and maintaining close cooperation with the IMF.

Statements by the new prime minister about a cautious budget policy of the government and constructive cooperation with the IMF were designed to reassure Ukrainian MPs and citizens, as well as foreign partners. Anyway, although his strategy and reputation were respectable, a professional career could be troubling.

Shadow of the oligarchs

Denys Shmygal is known for having replaced many posts during his career after short work, and this does not inspire much confidence within the framework of the current Ukrainian government. In addition, from 2017 to 2019, he held a leading position in the energy holding of DTEK Rinat Akhmetov.

This famous oligarch controls several television channels, which positively covered the actions of the government in this turbulent beginning of the year. In addition, Akhmetov is a rival to Igor Kolomoisky, the former owner of the PrivatBank nationalized in 2016, who tried to return it by all possible means.

Kolomoiskys influence is so strong that the IMF's banking system law, which in particular makes it impossible to return nationalized banks to their former owners, is known as the Kolomoisky Law.

In addition, Kolomoisky is the owner of a number of media outlets, including the channel on which the series that glorified the current president went out. The scandalous image of Kolomoisky raised suspicions about the presidents potential connections with the oligarchic sphere, which were strengthened (albeit short-term) by the appointment of former Kolomoiskys lawyer Andriy Bogdan as head of the presidential administration.

Resurrection of Saakashvili

Another surprise or alarm event was the appointment of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as head of the executive committee of the National Reform Council.

Initially, they wanted to make Saakashvili the deputy prime minister in the government of Shmygal, but he could not get the necessary 226 votes for the deputies. Ironically, the National Reform Council was formed by former President Poroshenko, who had a difficult relationship with Saakashvili. In 2015, Poroshenko granted Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship and made him the Odesa governor.

Nevertheless, their mutual understanding did not last long: in November 2016, Saakashvili resigned, said that he could not cope with corruption in the region due to the lack of support from Kyiv, and proclaimed himself the face of the fight against corruption. He became an active oppositionist, although his actions often bordered on farce.

Saakashvili said his appointment proves Zelenskys readiness to take emergency measures. These words are unlikely to reassure those who have not forgotten how the former Georgian leader camped in front of the Rada but was then deprived of Ukrainian citizenship, detained and expelled from the country, where he then re-entered and was again expelled. In 2019, President Zelensky returned Saakashvili citizenship, which portended his return to the official political scene.

Saakashvili is still a vibrant political figure. The lack of support necessary for joining the government in the Rada indicates the cautious attitude of the deputies, who consider him too controversial and scandalous. Saakashvili can cause internal conflicts that will create not only a split but also spurious noises that distract the authorities from the necessary solutions.

In addition to internal conflicts, Saakashvilis return will affect Ukraines international relations. Georgia has already recalled its ambassador, considering it unacceptable to appoint its former president to such a position, who had already been convicted in absentia of abuse of power, and also might be attracted for misuse of funds.

In addition, this appointment might complicate the cooperation of Kyiv with Western countries, which fear that Saakashvilis unpredictability and individualism could harm the implementation of reforms in Ukraine.

Ambiguous appointments

President Zelensky could not achieve the long-awaited peace in Donbas and is now forced to fight the Covid-19 epidemic after the political crisis that led to rearrangements in the government. This comes against the background of a fall in its ratings and the lack of confidence among the population.

Under such circumstances, the last appointments are a double-edged sword. They can give a second wind to power thanks to the declared qualities of the prime minister and the courage or even insolence of Saakashvili, which can contribute to the implementation of reforms.

At the same time, Ukraine needs stability to carry out large-scale projects, especially in conditions of deteriorating conditions against the backdrop of a global pandemic. This means that the new prime minister should hold on to his position rather firmly and not raise suspicions about his competence or relations with the oligarchic clans.

In addition to stability, reforms require cooperation with the Rada and ministers, in particular the influential Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who survived several permutations and governments. It will be interesting to see how MPs and ministers will react to the methods of Saakashvili, who has already stated that Ukraine "needs to be pulled out of the swamp"...

Saakashvilis appointment can also be seen as a diversion that should allow the government to gain time. In this perspective, the former president of Georgia can not only take over the media but also become something of a useful troublemaker, creating a split among openly or potentially hostile Zelensky groups.

Such a plan still seems risky given Saakashvilis explosive nature. The situation is certainly difficult, but at least it promises to be interesting...

Christine Dugoin-Clement

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COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Green Growth Brands Inc. (the Company) (CSE:GGB) (GGBXF) at the request of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) on behalf of the Canadian Securities Exchange and in response to recent market activity, announces that it is not aware of any undisclosed material information related to the Company or its business that may be affecting the trading price and volume of the Companys common shares.



About Green Growth Brands Inc.

Green Growth Brands creates remarkable experiences in cannabis. The companys brands include CAMP, The+Source, and 8 Fold. GGB is expanding its cannabis operations throughout the U.S., via dispensaries in Nevada, Massachusetts and Florida. Learn more about the vision at GreenGrowthBrands.com .

For investor relations inquiries, please contact:
WATERTOWN, Mass., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tufts Health Plan has been named a 2020 honoree of The Civic 50, by Points of Light, the world's largest organization dedicated to volunteer service. The award recognizes superior corporate citizenship programs and showcases how companies use their time, skills and resources to impact their communities.

"This recognition underscores our company commitment and that of our employees to living our values and connecting to the communities where we live and work," said Tom Croswell, Tufts Health Plan president and CEO. "We are honored to receive this distinction just five years after launching our program."

The Civic 50 honorees are selected based on four dimensions of their U.S. community engagement program including investment, integration, institutionalization and impact. Both public and private companies with U.S. operations are considered.

Tufts Health Plan recently published its 2019 Corporate Citizenship report, Actions Matter. The report showcases the company's commitment to communities, highlighting the actions that differentiate it from other organizations, including: business practices that advance diversity, equity and inclusion; championing sustainability initiatives; products and services that promote health equity; and the company's community engagement program.

Tufts Health Plan's corporate citizenship program works to be responsive, relevant and flexible. Along with Tufts Health Plan Foundation, the company recently undertook several initiatives in response to social justice and equity issues throughout the country as well as the coronavirus pandemic:

Committing $200,000 to social justice organizations advancing racial equity.

to social justice organizations advancing racial equity. Giving an additional $1 million from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation endowment to support organizations responding to the coronavirus pandemic. The Foundation also advanced payments to grantees deploying $1.5 million more to strengthen communities  and is providing current grantees flexibility to redeploy existing funds to address emerging community needs.

from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation endowment to support organizations responding to the coronavirus pandemic. The Foundation also advanced payments to grantees deploying more to strengthen communities  and is providing current grantees flexibility to redeploy existing funds to address emerging community needs. Providing nonprofits in the region with much-needed supplies including diapers, hand sanitizer, personal protective equipment, grocery gift cards and meals.

Matching donations two-to-one from employees and board members to local nonprofits addressing social justice and the coronavirus pandemic. More than $200,000 has been donated through the match program to-date since March.

has been donated through the match program to-date since March. Establishing an Employee Relief Fund to support employees who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic and are experiencing financial hardship, such as the loss of a job by someone in their household.

The Civic 50 survey is administered by True Impact, a company specializing in helping organizations maximize and measure their social and business value. The survey instrument consists of quantitative and multiple-choice questions that inform The Civic 50 scoring process. The Civic 50 is the only survey and ranking system that exclusively measures corporate involvement in communities. To learn more about The Civic 50, its 2020 honorees and insights from this year's survey, please visit http://www.Civic50.org.

About Tufts Health Plan

Tufts Health Plan is nationally recognized for its commitment to providing innovative, high-quality health care coverage. Staying true to our mission of improving the health and wellness of the diverse communities we serve, we touch the lives of 1.14 million members in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut through employer-sponsored plans, Medicare, Medicaid and marketplace plans, offering health insurance coverage across the life span regardless of age or circumstance. We are continually among the top health plans in the country based on quality and member satisfaction. Our Tufts Medicare Preferred HMO and Senior Care Options plans received a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the highest rating possible.* Our commercial HMO/POS and Massachusetts PPO plans are rated 5 out of 5  the highest rating possible  by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).** Our Medicaid plan is rated 4.5 out of a possible 5.***

To learn more about how we're redefining what a health plan can do, visit www.tuftshealthplan.com/whatwedo. Connect with us on Facebook , Twitter , YouTube , LinkedIn and Instagram.

*Every year, Medicare evaluates plans based on a 5-Star rating system. Star Ratings are calculated each year and may change from one year to the next. For more information on plan ratings, go to www.medicare.gov. Tufts Medicare Preferred HMO plans received 5 out of 5 stars for contract years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.

**NCQA's Private Health Insurance Plan Ratings 20192020

***NCQA's Medicaid Health Insurance Plan Ratings 2019-2020

About Tufts Health Plan Foundation

Established in 2008, Tufts Health Plan Foundation supports the health and wellness of the diverse communities we serve. The Foundation has given more than $39 million to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island nonprofits that promote healthy living with an emphasis on older people and will give more than $5 million to community organizations this year. The Foundation began funding in New Hampshire in 2016 and in Connecticut in 2019. Tufts Health Plan Foundation funds programs that move communities toward implementing age-friendly policies and practices that are relevant, focus on older people, and include them in community solutions. Visit www.tuftshealthplanfoundation.org for grant program information and follow us on Twitter , Facebook and YouTube .

About Points of Light

Points of Light is a global nonprofit organization that inspires, equips and mobilizes millions of people to take action that changes the world. We envision a world in which every individual discovers the power to make a difference, creating healthy communities in vibrant, participatory societies. Through affiliates in 250 cities across 37 countries, and in partnership with thousands of nonprofits and corporations, Points of Light engages 5 million volunteers in 14 million hours of service each year. We bring the power of people to bear where it's needed most. For more information, visit: www.pointsoflight.org .

Contact: Kathleen Makela

[email protected]

617-480-9590

SOURCE Tufts Health Plan

Related Links

http://www.tuftshealthplan.com


In this article KALU

DIS

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The hugely popular Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals have been canceled, as California's Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser issued an order, citing fears of worsening Covid-19 spread in the fall. As U.S. states push deeper into reopening, several that were among the first to reopen have reported surges in cases and hospitalizations. Confirmed cases across the U.S. have been on a gradual rise since Memorial Day weekend, when packed beaches and crowded gatherings prompted warnings from officials. Meanwhile, in Europe, Russia reached a grim milestone Thursday as the number of coronavirus cases in the country surpassed 500,000. The coverage on this live blog has ended  but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's U.S. team. Global cases: More than 7.36 million

Global deaths: At least 416,201

U.S. cases: More than 1.98 million

U.S. cases: More than 1.98 million U.S. deaths: At least 112,402 The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Russia's number of confirmed cases passes 500,000 but restrictions are being lifted

10:30 a.m. (London time): The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia surpassed 500,000 on Thursday. While the rate of new daily cases is still stubbornly high. Nonetheless, lockdown restrictions are being lifted quickly ahead of two crucial political events: Moscow's Victory Day Parade  Russia's annual show of military hardware  and a historic referendum on constitutional changes that would allow President Vladimir Putin to run for further terms in office. Both events were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Kremlin has insisted that the coronavirus crisis is under control and restrictions can be safely lifted.  Holly Ellyatt

Italy's industrial output plunged in April, but not as badly as expected

09:30 a.m. (London time): Italy's industrial output declined sharply in April due to the country's coronavirus lockdown but the fall was not as bad as expected, data from the statistics office Istat showed Thursday. Production dropped 19.1% from the month before, Istat reported, compared with the previous month when output dropped a record 28.4%. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 24% drop in April. Industrial production was down 42.5% compared to April 2019.  Holly Ellyatt

Germany's carmakers facing 'toxic mix' of problems post-coronavirus

08:30 a.m. (London time): Germany's car manufacturing industry is emerging from a scathing period of lockdown, production halts and a slump in sales. The sector supports thousands of jobs in Germany and exports are vital to the whole country's economy; but demand has fallen and the industry faces big challenges in the transition to greener technology, with experts telling CNBC they fear for its future. "Carmakers contribute significantly to the German economy. Almost one million well-paid jobs depend on this sector, half of them in the prosperous south of Germany," Economist Felix Roesel, who works at Germany's Ifo institute, told CNBC. "The economic downturn now challenges thousands of jobs, income and tax revenues along the full supply chain." Read more about challenges facing the sector here.  Holly Ellyatt

White House reportedly moves on contact tracing plan for airlines

11:50 a.m. (Singapore time)  The White House wants a plan by Sept. 1, that would allow airlines to collect contact tracing information from U.S.-bound international passengers, according to a Reuters report, citing sources. There had been a debate over how data should be collected from passengers, so that those who had been exposed to the coronavirus can be quickly identified and contacted. That had dragged on for months without a resolution, according to the report. Airlines had protested, saying the plan was not feasible - they said they couldn't provide such data esepecially from passengers who had booked through third-party websites. Instead, they proposed a website and mobile app where passengers can send their contact information straight to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the report said.  Weizhen Tan

Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals canceled

9:30 a.m. (Singapore time)  The hugely popular Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals have been canceled, as California's Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser issued an order, citing fears of worsening Covid-19 spread in the fall. Both festivals were originally postponed from April to October. "I am concerned as indications grow that COVID-19 could worsen in the fall," said Kaiser in a statement. "In addition, events like Coachella and Stagecoach would fall under Governor Newsom's Stage 4, which he has previously stated would require treatments or a vaccine to enter. Given the projected circumstances and potential, I would not be comfortable moving forward." "These decisions are not taken lightly with the knowledge that many people will be impacted. My first priority is the health of the community," he added. Coachella is usually held in Indio, California, and is one of the biggest music festivals globally.  Weizhen Tan

Disneyland sets proposed reopening date

A visitor to the Disneyland Resort takes a picture through a locked gate at the entrance to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, on Monday, Mar 16, 2020. MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

7:04 p.m. ET  Disneyland Parks outlined plans for a phased reopening of California properties, beginning with the Downtown Disney District on July 9, the company said in a release. The company plans to then reopen the Disneyland theme park and Disney California Adventure Park on July 17, followed by Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel on July 23, according to the release. Capacity at the theme park will be "significantly limited" to adhere to government guidance on social distancing and the resort will use a reservation system to manage attendance, the company said. Guests must have a reservation in advance to get into the park. The proposed dates are pending state and local government approval. Chris Eudaily Disneyland reopening

Maryland to resume indoor dining on Friday

A server wears a mask and gloves while working, as Hoopers Crab House opens for in-person dining, amid the coronavirus pandemic, on May 30, 2020 in Ocean City, Maryland. Alex Edelaman | AFP | Getty Images

6 p.m. ET  Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced the state will lift multiple coronavirus restrictions on Friday. Indoor dining at restaurants can resume at 50% capacity under physical-distancing guidelines. Outdoor graduation ceremonies that implement social distancing can also be held.The state also plans to ease certain restrictions on recreation. Outdoor amusements like rides and mini golf can reopen, and the capacity limitation on pools has been increased to 50%. Hogan emphasized the need for people to continue following social-distancing measures as Maryland continues its reopening progress. "The fight against this virus is far from over," he said at a press briefing. "We must continue to remain vigilant. "Maryland will also allow additional businesses like casinos, gyms, arcades and malls to reopen on June 19. Hannah Miller

Los Angeles County to lift multiple restrictions on Friday

Customers are seen dining on the outdoor patio of Kreation Organic Kafe & Juicery on June 06, 2020 in Venice, California. Amanda Edwards | Getty Images

5:30 p.m. ET  Los Angeles County will allow gyms, fitness facilities, day camps, museums, galleries, zoos, aquariums, campgrounds and swimming pools to reopen on Friday, according to county health officials. The county is also permitting professional sports league arenas to resume operation without spectators and gave the green light for film and television production. All businesses reopening Friday will have to follow health and safety protocols."Employees and visitors to these businesses will always need to wear a face covering when they're around other people and practice physical distancing of at least 6 feet wherever possible," said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the LA County Department of Public Health, at a press briefing. Hannah Miller

9 California counties report spike in cases

Medical staff attends to a patient suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista, California, May 12, 2020. Lucy Nicholson | Reuters

4:25 p.m. ET  Nine counties in California saw an increase in hospitalizations and new confirmed cases because of the coronavirus, the Associated Press reported. While reasons for the increased cases and hospitalizations vary by county, Memorial Day gatherings and spikes in prisons and nursing homes are among those given by officials.



In Fresno County, there is "elevated disease transmission" in nursing homes. Health officials in Sacramento County, which had 47 people hospitalized due to the virus as of Tuesday, said the increase was prompted by public gatherings, including birthday parties and a funeral.



There have been more than 137,000 total cases of the coronavirus in California and at least 4,752 virus-related deaths in the state, according to Johns Hopkins University. Alex Harring

Eli Lilly could have coronavirus drug ready this fall

4:13 p.m. ET  Eli Lilly could have a drug approved for treating the coronavirus as early as September, the pharmaceutical company's chief scientist told Reuters. Lilly has launched human trials for two antibody therapies and is doing pre-clinical studies on a third, Reuters reports. If the treatments prove effective, they could beat a vaccine to widespread use. The new therapies are part of a category of medicines called monoclonal antibodies, which are often used to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions. Hannah Miller

Kudlow says economy has a hit a 'turning point'

3:40 p.m. ET  The U.S. economy has hit its lowest point amid the coronavirus pandemic and has now reached a "turning point," said Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, on CNBC's "The Exchange."



Kudlow said recent job gains seen in May were driven by the Paycheck Protection Program, CNBC's Kevin Stankiewicz reports.



He also cited a recovering housing market and increased Apple mobility data as factors indicating a growing U.S. economy. "Let's hope that this thing bottomed way in April and we're headed towards a terrific recovery in the second half of the year," he said. Hannah Miller

Fed sees rates near zero for next two years

2:51 p.m. ET  The Federal Reserve is forecasting that interest rates will remain near zero through 2022 as the economy recovers from the closing of non-essential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.



The central bank expects the economy will shrink by 6.5% this year, but will bounce back and grow 5% in 2021 followed by 3.5% growth in 2022. The Fed sees unemployment at 9.3% for 2020, 6.5% in 2021 and 5.5% in 2022. Spencer Kimball

Facebook clears the way for non-medical mask ads

1:54 p.m. ET  Facebook is set to allow advertisers to promote non-medical masks after previously banning ads for masks in March. In March, Facebook prohibited ads for medical face masks like N95 respirators. It also prohibited masks that resemble medical masks, like face covers and bandanas. The company said this was an effort to protect against scams, misleading medical claims, medical supply shortages, hoarding and inflated prices, practices that proliferated as people tried to buy masks to protect against the virus. "... We're scaling back this temporary ban to allow people to promote and trade non-medical masks, including those that are homemade or handmade, in organic posts, ads and commerce listings on Facebook and Instagram," Rob Leathern, Facebook's director of product management, said in a blog post Facebook planned to publish Wednesday. Meg Graham

United Airlines will now ask passengers health questions before check-in

A United Airlines ticketing agent checks the mobile device of a passenger as he tries to check in for a flight in the main terminal of Denver International Airport. David Zalubowski | AP

1:33 p.m. ET  Passengers on United Airlines are now required to answer several health questions when they check-in for flights as part of an effort by the airline to stop the spread of Covid-19, the airline said. Travelers must confirm they have not been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the past 21 days and have not had symptoms of the virus, CNBC's Leslie Josephs reports. United Airlines is also asking passengers to declare that they have not been denied boarding by another airline because of medical screening results and have not had close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19 in two weeks. Travelers will also have to agree to wear a face-covering on board. "Customers that are not able to confirm these requirements and choose not to travel will be able to reschedule their flight," United said in the news release. "Customers may also choose to check-in at the airport for further review." Suzanne Blake

PGA Tour set to return in Texas

12:56 p.m. ET  The top golfers in the world tee off Thursday in Fort Worth, Texas as the PGA Tour resumes its season after a nearly three-month-long hiatus due to coronavirus. A total of 148 players from all over the world are returning to a very different round of golf. Players will be tested for Covid-19 ahead of every tournament and there will also be no spectators for the first four tournaments on the tour. Despite this, the PGA Tour remains optimistic that its return will be good for business. With the absence of other major sports, the live sports event could draw in new viewers. Other professional sports leagues will also be watching closely and taking notes as they plan their own return. Jessica Golden

Texas reports steady rise in coronavirus hospitalizations after reopening

12:32 p.m. ET  There are 2,153 Covid-19 patients in Texas hospitals, marking a third-straight day of record-breaking coronavirus hospitalizations for the state, according to health authorities. The increase in coronavirus hospitalizations may draw further scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and health experts who are concerned that some states reopened too early, CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. reports. Texas was among the first wave of states to ease coronavirus-related restrictions. Hannah Miller

WHO says 'we can always do better' following confusing comments on asymptomatic transmission

AJ_Watt

12:12 p.m. ET  World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference that the agency "could always do better" following confusing comments made Monday about asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus. The WHO drew criticism from the scientific community and others across social media Monday after Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, one of its top scientists, said the asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus was "very rare." "Communicating complex science in real-time about a new virus is not always easy, but we believe it's part of our duty to the world and we can always do better," Tedros said. Kerkhove, head of the WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, walked back those comments Tuesday, saying, it was a "misunderstanding" and "we don't actually have that answer yet." Noah Higgins-Dunn

Major League Soccer will restart on July 8 at Disney World

Alexandru Mitrita #28 of New York City tries to work his way around Toronto FC defenders during 2019 MLS Cup Major League Soccer Eastern Conference Semifinal match between New York City FC and Toronto FC at Citi Field on October 23, 2019 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. Ira L. Black - Corbis | Getty Images

11:50 a.m. ET  Major League Soccer will restart its season on July 8 at Walt Disney World with its "MLS is Back Tournament" featuring all 26 clubs. Games will be played at the ESPN complex in Orlando without spectators. Clubs will be appointed to one of six groups during a live draw that will take place on Thursday. The tournament will include 16 consecutive days of group stage play. The winning team will move onto the 2021 Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League, and players are eligible for bonuses as part of a $1.1 million prize pool. The MLS, which is celebrating its 25th season, said it would have "extensive medical protocols" and players and staff will be tested regularly for Covid-19. The league suspended its season on March 12 due to the pandemic. Jabari Young

American CEO says the airline burning less cash but demand outlook is still uncertain

11:48 a.m. ET  American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told shareholders that cost-saving measures taken in response to the coronavirus pandemic have lowered his forecast of the company's daily cash burn from $50 million to $40 million per day, Reuters reported. Parker also said at the annual meeting, which was held virtually, that demand is returning slowly but the airline remains unsure of flight volume in fall 2020 or summer 2021, according to the wire service. Michelle Gao

Ford plans to return to normal North America production levels

10:55 a.m. ET  Ford Motor expects to have its North America plants back to pre-coronavirus production levels by July 6, Chief Operating Officer Jim Farley said. That includes production of its highly-profitable Ford F-Series pickup trucks. Since restarting U.S. production on May 18, the automaker has slowly been increasing output at its North American plants. The slower pace is meant to allow time for its suppliers to build inventory and employees to get accustomed to new safety protocols in the plants to lower the spread of Covid-19. "We're seeing great, very strong demand. We have for more than a month now," Farley said during CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "On production, we're adding second and third shifts now." Nearly all of Ford's plants, Farley said, will be on three shifts or overtime. Ford, according to a company spokeswoman, is continuing to add shifts and production to individual plants ahead of the early-July target. She declined to provide a plant-by-plant schedule. Ford's timeline for returning plant employees to work comes a week after GM CEO and Chairman Mary Barra said the automaker expects to return to near pre-coronavirus levels by the end of June, if not sooner. Fiat Chrysler, according to a company spokeswoman, expects employment at its North American plants to return to pre-coronavirus levels the week of June 22. Michael Wayland

J&J to begin vaccine trial earlier than forecast

10:37 a.m. ET  Johnson & Johnson said it will begin its early-stage human trial for a potential coronavirus vaccine earlier than its initial forecast of September. The human trial will start in the second half of July after strong preclinical data and "interactions with" regulatory authorities helped accelerate the timeline, the company said. The company is using the same technologies it used to make its experimental Ebola vaccine, which was provided to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in late 2019. The company said it is committed to the goal of supplying more than one billion doses globally through the course of 2021, provided the Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective. Berkeley Lovelace, Jr.

Fauci says 'no evidence' to support WHO's asymptomatic comment

Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a hearing on "An Emerging Disease Threat: How the U.S. Is Responding to COVID-19, the Novel Coronavirus" on March 3, 2020 in Washington, DC. Sarah Silbiger | Getty Images

10:32 a.m. ET  There is "no evidence" to support a comment made by the World Health Organization that transmission of the coronavirus by people who never developed symptoms is "very rare," White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said. "In fact, the evidence we have given the percentage of people, which is about 25% [to] 45%, of the totality of infected people likely are without symptoms," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." "And we know from epidemiological studies that they can transmit to someone who is uninfected even when they are without symptoms." An asymptomatic person is someone infected with Covid-19 but never develops symptoms. It's not the same as a pre-symptomatic patient, who later goes on to develop symptoms. The WHO drew criticism from the scientific community and others across social media Monday when one of its top scientists said the asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus was "very rare." The remark has since been walked back. Berkeley Lovelace, Jr.

Starbucks loses as much as $3.2 billion in revenue in latest quarter due to virus

10:03 a.m. ET  Starbucks said it lost between $3 billion to $3.2 billion in revenue during the fiscal third quarter thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. As the virus spread across the world, the global coffee chain temporarily shuttered many of its cafes, although most in the U.S. and China have reopened. Starbucks, which pulled its prior outlook in April, expects to swing a loss for the quarter ending June 28. Store closures, as well as paying baristas while cafes were closed, weighed on profits. But it is forecasting a return to profitability by the fiscal fourth quarter. And by the end of June, Starbucks expects weekly cash flow to be positive. Amelia Lucas

Regional report of new cases reported daily

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Nasdaq Composite hits fresh record high ahead of Fed update

9:40 a.m. ET  Stocks opened slightly higher as investors waited for an update from the Federal Reserve on the state of the economy and status of any further stimulus from the central bank, reports CNBC's Fred Imbert and Maggie Fitzgerald. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.7% to a fresh all-time high. The S&P 500 climbed 0.3% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 15 points higher, or 0.1%. Melodie Warner

UK wouldn't have coped with coronavirus without tech giants, official says

9:10 a.m. ET  Britain couldn't have dealt with the coronavirus crisis if not for the help of tech giants, Health Minister Matt Hancock said. Last week, contracts agreed to by the National Health Service and a number of tech firms were published online. One of the contracts showed that Palantir was charged just 1 ($1.27) for access to health data. "There is no way we would have been able to cope with this pandemic, and deal with it in the way that we have been able to, without the support of tech companies," Hancock said in an online talk at the CogX U.K. tech conference. The government has been roundly criticized for its handling of the outbreak given that Britain is among the worst-affected countries. According to data from John Hopkins University, the country's death toll is nearing 50,000, while more than 290,000 Brits have contracted Covid-19. Ryan Browne

Best Buy customers can walk into stores, browse aisles again

A view of a Best Buy retail store on August 29, 2019 in San Bruno, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

8:50 a.m. ET  Best Buy will soon phase out a requirement that customers make an appointment before they visit a store. The company said in a news release that more than 800 of its stores will allow customers to walk in and shop starting June 15. During the pandemic, the big-box retailer has changed how it operates. In late March, it closed stores to customers and switched to curbside pickup only. Starting in May, it allowed customers to shop in stores  but by appointment only. Now, the company said customers can shop when they choose but they may have to line up outside. It will limit the store to about 25% of capacity or roughly 60 or more customers. Signs on the floor will encourage social distancing and all employees must wear masks. The company furloughed about 51,000 employees in April. It said it's bringing back more than 9,000 store employees and Geek Squad agents to help serve more customers. Melissa Repko

AMC theaters to reopen in July

7:49 a.m. ET  AMC Entertainment plans to reopen its movie theaters globally in July, the company said Tuesday, according to a report from Reuters. Theaters will reopen with limited capacity and blocked seating to prevent the spread of the coronavirus when customers return, Reuters reported. The company shuttered all of its theaters in mid-March as the pandemic set it in the U.S. Sara Salinas

Indonesia reports consecutive days of highest one-day spikes in cases

Students, wearing face masks amid the Covid-19 pandemic, sit by a mural depicting the Indonesian flag at an Islamic junior high school in Banda Aceh on June 10, 2020. Chaideer Mahyuddin | AFP | Getty Images

7:13 a.m. ET  Indonesia reported 1,241 new infections, its highest one-day increase for the second day in a row, bringing total confirmed cases in the country to 34,316, Reuters reported. On Tuesday, the country of more than 260 million reported 1,043 new cases, according to Reuters, which was then a record spike. The spikes come after some regional officials in the Southeast Asian country began to ease restrictions last week. On Monday, the country resumed domestic air travel with some modifications. The country also reported 36 new deaths caused by Covid-19, bringing the total to 1,959, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Will Feuer

No-deal Brexit would 'significantly damage' U.K.'s post-virus recovery, Moody's says

Pro Brexit supporters gather ahead of the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave at Parliament Square on January 31, 2020 in London, England. Jeff J Mitchell | Getty Images
Militia's combat-led training fast-tracked to enhance support capability

PLA Daily

Source: China Military Online

Editor: Chen Lufan

2020-06-09 17:46:16

By Xu Xiaoping and Chen Jing

HUAIHUA, June 9 -- The Huaihua military sub-command in Central China's Hunan province recently organized a combat-led training for a specialized militia detachment.

The militia detachment,which is established for camouflage protection, mainly provides logistics support for troops of certain service. "The military sub-command and our detachment jointly explored a string of practical techniques and tactics such as camouflaged hiding, sending false signals, and deception and obstruction, to reduce the exposure of troops on the field," said Xie Hong, a battalion commander responsible for the training. Xie also noted that such joint training and exercise has significantly improved the militia's support capability in battles and turned militia detachments into an important part in fortifying the troops' combat force.

According to the deployments of superior military unit, the Huaihua military sub-command has formed 13 specialized militia detachments in recent years, concentrating on different fields of anti-chemical rescue, medical aid, communications support, security alert, etc. Based on their operational characteristics , the military sub-command has carried out joint exercises and training to maximize their support capability for real combats.

According to an official from the military sub-command, together with the military organs at the division and regiment level, they have conducted several surveys and battlefield inspections to get the first hand information of the battlefield environment and the targets, as well as to estimate the support demands at the same time. As a result, 32 valuable results in seven aspects have been obtained, and the organizing and commanding procedures for mobilizing militia, coordinated support mode, and military-local coordination mechanism have been established.

"The final joint training plan is strictly aligned with the troops' training requirements," said ShenDingzhen, chief of the Combat Readiness Division of the military sub-command, adding that they have tried to make the training subjects comprehensive and combat-oriented when making annual plans. For example, in terms of contents, the professional training mainly includes camouflage, cable repair, battlefield rescue and aid, and protection and sterilization, while the operational training focuses on combat formation, tactical confrontation, and specific subjects.

It is learnt that the Huaihua military sub-command organizes joint real-combat exercises with military troops every year, in a bid to enhance the militia detachments' emergency response capabilities through training in a "realistic, difficult and rigorous" environment.

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DAndraias arrest, which came less than two weeks after the confrontation, marks a potential shift in the way the justice system in the city handles police cases. Police officer arrests related to on-duty incidents in New York are historically rare and can take months or longer to happen. The video shows an officer identified as DAndraia knocking the activist to the pavement and continuing to walk forward with the rest of his detail as she lay hurt on the ground.
The San Antonio home where a family of six was found dead late last week once was owned by a man who is awaiting sentencing in a scheme to steal crude oil extracted from the Eagle Ford Shale of Texas.

Luis Valencia will be sentenced in federal court July 6 for stealing more $1.8 million worth of oil from companies operating in the region. He was convicted early this year.

Records show Valencia bought the home in 2004 and paid off the mortgage nine years later. The next year, the house was acquired by his mother and her husband, who later sold it to a California real estate company that rented it in January to Army Staff Sgt. Jared Esquibel Harless, an intelligence specialist at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.

Police suspect Harless killed his wife, Sheryll, and four young children before taking his own life. They say they do not yet have a motive and are trying to determine when the family died.

The realization that the Harless family had a connection with Valencia stunned a neighbor.

What else can go wrong? Our jaws dropped, the man said. Time for the exorcist.

Harless, 38, and his wife, Sheryll Ann, 36, were found in the back of an SUV in their garage Thursday along with their four children, Esteban Lorenzo Harless, 4; Penelope Arcadia Harless, 3; Avielle Magdalena Harless, 1, and Apollo Harless, 11 months.

Michael Fisher

Neither San Antonio police nor the Bexar County medical examiners office have said how they died. Seven police officers were overcome by what police believe was carbon monoxide after briefly entering the home when called on a welfare check Thursday morning.

Police Lt. Jesse Salame said Tuesday that the medical examiner had notified relatives, the first step in facilitating funeral arrangements. He said detectives were talking with some family members, but wasnt aware of what they had learned.

Police also were looking at phones, computers and phone records, anything and everything that might have some clues on there, Salame said.

A jury convicted Valencia of all charges against him  10 counts of theft from interstate shipments, 10 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of money laundering and four counts of transportation of stolen goods.

A nephew, Mauricio Valencia, was convicted of 10 counts of theft from interstate shipments, one count of wire fraud and four counts of transportation of stolen property. He was found not guilty on 19 other counts. Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered both men held until sentenced.

Theft of interstate shipment carries penalties of up to 10 years in federal prison. Wire fraud runs up to 20 years, while money laundering and transportation of stolen goods each carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

San Antonio Express-News file photo

The Valencias were accused of working with others to steal about 33,000 barrels of crude oil over a period of more than two years ending in 2016, and selling it to unsuspecting third-party companies.

Luis Valencia and others used a Cotulla facility owned by Houston-based Andra Energy LLC to serve as a collection point for oil stolen from nearby oil storage facilities. Luis Valencia served as Andra Energys vice president and accountant.

Payments to Andra Energy for the stolen oil were issued mostly through bank wire transfers, and false documents were filed to make it look as if it came from legitimate sources.

The day after the bodies in his former home were found by police, Valencias attorneys asked for a judgment of acquittal and filed a motion for a new trial.

Luis Valencia purchased the 2,928-square-foot home in the Heights of Stone Oak in 2004 and either sold or gave it to his mother, Tania Valencia, and her partner, Thomas Williams, who then sold it to American Homes 4 Rent Properties Eight LLC. in 2014.

Michael Fisher /Staff

The house appreciated in value, with the Bexar County Appraisal District assessing it at $262,800 in 2016. It now is appraised at $335,530. It doesnt stay vacant for long, the neighbor said.

The Harlesses moved from Washington state. They were known to be quiet and even reclusive. No one knew anything was amiss until officers called to the house Thursday encountered a bizarre note saying, Bodies or people inside, do not enter, and continued, The animals are in the freezer.

Police shot out the windows with rubber bullets to clear the fumes, sent a robot in to search for bombs and late that evening entered and found the bodies.

Salame said investigators dont know how the killings occurred.

Theres something there that might explain this, he said. I just dont know what it is yet.

Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe

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Australian officials and leading universities on Wednesday rejected China's claims students should be "cautious" in choosing to study Down Under because of concerns over racist incidents during the coronavirus pandemic.

China's ministry of education warned students on Tuesday there had been "multiple discriminatory incidents against Asians in Australia" during the pandemic, ramping up diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

The advisory was the latest in an escalating dispute between Beijing and Canberra that was deepened by Australia's call for an independent inquiry into the origin and handling of the coronavirus in central China last year.

Beijing reacted furiously to the demand, targeting Canberra on several fronts, including tourism, trade and now Chinese students, the largest overseas group in Australian universities.

Australian Education Minister Dan Tehan hit back Wednesday, saying the country was a multicultural society that welcomed international visitors.

"Our success at flattening the curve means we are one of the safest countries in the world for international students to be based in right now," he said in a statement.

"We reject China's assertion that Australia is an unsafe destination for international students."

Racism toward Asians has reportedly increased during the pandemic, with the New South Wales anti-discrimination commission saying instances included people being bullied for wearing a face mask, spat at and harassed in public, and racist language written across cars and private property.

Vicki Thomson, chief executive of Australia's prestigious Group of Eight universities, told AFP they would "be very concerned" if Beijing's warning deterred students from coming to Australia.

"We've had no evidence provided to us that there are issues of racial discrimination occurring on our campuses, and I think it's worth noting that we don't have a lot of students on our campuses at the moment," she said.

Story continues

Thomson lamented that the sector had been "caught in the middle" of geopolitical tensions.

Australian universities are already facing massive losses as an indefinite coronavirus border closure locks out the foreign students who pump billions of dollars a year into the sector.

Beijing's travel advice was largely symbolic but could interfere with a proposal to create a "secure corridor" for overseas students to return to Australia.

Education is Australia's fourth-largest export -- behind iron ore, coal and natural gas -- with more than 500,000 international students enrolled last year, bringing about Aus$37 billion into the economy.

China's statement came a day after a foreign ministry spokeswoman warned of "a lot of discrimination" against Chinese people in Australia -- and days after Beijing told citizens not to travel there at all.

As China has pursued a more combative foreign policy and sought to assert itself on the world stage, tensions with many democracies have risen.

In response to Australia backing the call for an independent virus inquiry, China's ambassador in Canberra threatened a widespread consumer boycott of Australian products -- a warning followed up by a bar on four major Australian beef exporters.

That was followed in May by an 80-percent tariff on Australian barley over dumping allegations, a move grain growers say will cost at least Aus$500 million (US$350 million) a year.
Son Doong, the worlds largest cave located in Vietnam's central province of Quang Binh, has been named among 20 record-breaking natural wonders by the USs Insider newswire. 

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Son Doong is the only Southeast Asian representative on the list of record-breaking nature wonders, which also includes the Angel Falls in Venezuela, the worlds tallest waterfall; the worlds longest Nile River in Africa; Mount Kilauea, the world's most active volcanic mass in the US, and Mount Everest, the worlds highest mountain.

Son Doong is estimated to be between 400 and 450 million years old, but it was only "discovered" in 2009. The cave, which has a total length of 9 km, opened to tourists in 2013, four years after members of the British Cave Research Association finished their exploration.

"It is large enough to have a weather system independent from the outside world. The cave even has its own clouds, jungles, and rivers, and appears almost like a fantasy world untouched by humans," the Insider said.

Tours of Son Doong have resumed since mid-May after being closed for over two months due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic./.VNA

Quang Binh to slash entrance fees to caves Visitors to Quang Binh Province will enjoy a 50% discount on tours to some famous caves in the area.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 00:02:05|Editor: huaxia

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JOHANNESBURG, June 9 (Xinhua) -- As COVID-19 cases keep climbing, the South African Medical Association (SAMA) on Tuesday called on the government to ban alcohol sales.

In an interview, SAMA Chairperson Angelique Coetzee told Xinhua that since alcohol sale ban was removed from June 1, the number of patients with alcohol-related injuries has been rising which put pressure on an already overstretched public health care system.

"People abuse alcohol and end up at the casualty and trauma units. We have a lack of resources for COVID-19 patients and now we have an additional burden of patients with alcohol-related injuries," she said.

She said health care workers, especially in provinces such as the Western Cape, were already struggling with coronavirus patients.

"If people don't drink responsibly, you get trauma stab wounds and motor car accidents type of patients. The doctors are overwhelmed with the number of COVID-19 patients and they need to focus on the pandemic," she said.

One public hospital in the Eastern Cape said 66 patients with serious alcohol-related wound were admitted since the sale was permitted.

Coetzee said responsible drinking was lacking in the country.

"People don't know how to drink responsibly, they abuse alcohol. We need to relook the sale of alcohol,"she said.

Some provincial leaders said they would be approaching the coronavirus national team which is led by President Cyril Ramaphosa to propose an alcohol ban.

Research conducted by the South African Medical Council showed that South Africa's public hospitals' trauma unit are often inundated with patients with serious injuries due to alcohol. Enditem
The use of chemical irritants is authorized under the Use of Force Policy of both 2019 and 2011.

This from General Secretary of the Police Social and Welfare Association Sgt. Ancil Forde who also notes that there must be accountability.
An association of Kenyan men living in the diaspora has come to the aid of a woman who was tortured by her husband in a bizarre attack in Tharaka Nithi last month.

The Kenya Men Empowerment Network (KEMEN) has donated Sh46,000 towards Ms Charity Wairimu medical expenses. The donation was handed over to the family by a representative from Standard.

KEMEN spokesman Alfred Omondi said they were moved by Ms Wairimus plight and medical appeal.

We decided to raise whatever little that we had so that she can get medication. We are glad that she is now responding well to treatment, he said.

Wairimu appreciated the donation saying it had come at a time when she was lacking medicine.

I want to thank our friends abroad as the funds will assist me to buy some medication that I was lacking, she said.

The 23-year-old is recuperating at her Njabini home in Nyandarua County after undergoing treatment at JM Memorial hospital.

Last month, Nyandarua Health CEC Dr.John Njenga said the county government had agreed to waive her medical bills.

The referral system was able to take the needy lady from Nyandarua and treat her and we are glad she is getting better, he stated.

RELATED: Woman Superglued in Genitals Says Husband is an Occultist: I Have Never Cheated on Him
Despite a Bombay high court order declaring the Dodamarg-Swantwadi belt in south Konkan as a no tree felling zone, local residents have been booked for assaulting forest officers and indiscriminate tree felling in the area.

According to the forest department, members from the youth wing of the states ruling party Shiv Sena in Sindhudurg district managed to cut large number of trees across a two-acre patch near Bambarde village in the proposed wildlife corridor area in Dodamarg taluka on June 4.

The two-acre area falls within the ambit of deemed reserved forest with over 50 small trees. Around 20 large trees allegedly uprooted by residents, said forest officers.

On receiving this information, our team went to the site to file a punchnama and assess damages when we faced severe backlash from locals who abused and assaulted us, and asked us to leave the site, said Dayanand Kokre, range forest officer, Dodamarg, one of the assaulted officers.

V Clement Ben, chief conservator of forest, Kolhapur said the team was directed to rush to the nearest police station and file a complaint. We are yet to assess the total loss of trees, which were uprooted using an excavator machine (see image). The violators are on the run and we expect law will take its own course, he said.

A first-information-report (FIR) was filed against four persons - Madan Rane, Dayanand Rane, Sandesh Rane, Suraj Rane, and Daulat Rane in violation of section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) by the police, said Samadhan Chavan, deputy conservator of forest, Sawantwadi. They are all in the age group of 30 to 35. Additionally, we have filed a preliminary offence report (POR) in violation of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, for illicit tree felling, he said.

Chavan added that the area used to be a private forest but was acquired by the state in 1978 under the Maharashtra Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975. It was later declared as deemed reserved forest. Locals had objected to this as they had not received compensation, and the case is in litigation. But this does not give them the right to cut trees., he said.

Sena politician Vinayak Raut, elected Member of Parliament from the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency said, Planting of trees in private forest areas is being done by locals on land belonging to them but there is a strict ban on any tree felling. Everyone is aware about it. I will take stock of the matter to check what happened at the site, he said.

The Bombay high court (HC) in 2013, based on 2011 petition by Awaaz Foundation, had directed the Union environment ministry and state to ensure the corridor is protected as an eco-sensitive area (ESA) where mining and red category industries are prohibited. The HC had reiterated its order in 2018, based on NGO Vanashaktis petition in 2016, declaring the entire belt as a no tree felling zone. It is shameful that forest officers are being attacked for doing their duty. The minister concerned needs to take action to ensure there is deterrence in such cases, said Stalin D, petitioner.

A local forest officer requesting anonymity said, The area had mixed plantation before being felled and following our intervention, the accused claimed they wanted to plant cashew trees. However, basic investigation with locals in the area revealed that they had planned to build a resort, and not less than 150 trees have been uprooted.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

The Dodamarge-Sawantwadi corridor is home to tigers, leopards, elephants, sloth bears, civets, pangolins, several resident and migratory bird species, and even the Indian giant squirrel (Maharashtras state animal). The forest department confirmed that over the past five years, transient movement of close to 25 tigers has been observed at the corridor while an elephant family of five reside there.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10) The Education Department said Wednesday it is set to roll out official standards for gadgets that will be used by students during online and blended learning programs this coming school year.

Speaking to CNN Philippines, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said parents may need to wait a little longer before buying computers or tablets for their children, as the agency is expected to release the guidelines for the gadgets within the week.

Well put this into writing kasi ang dami-daming offers na ngayon, maraming nagpo-produce na ngayon ng mga tablets, mga gadgets para sa mga bata dahil nakikita nila na may market for this, Briones said in an interview with The Source.

[Translation: Well put this into writing because there are a lot of offers now. There are a lot of companies who have producing tablets and gadgets for the kids because they see there is a market for this.]

Families have been flocking to computer stores ahead of the opening of classes in August, scouting for gadgets their children can use especially with online classes taking a front seat during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Briones, however, cautioned parents to be mindful of their purchase, stressing the need to also look at the quality of the product.

Nagbibilihan na yung mga parents. Sabi namin, tingnan muna bago sila bibili, kasi pamurahan ngayon. Pwedeng hulugan, pwedeng downpayment, kung anu-anong plans. Pero, tingnan muna yung capacity either of the cellphone or the gadget itself, Briones added.

[Translation: The parents are already buying. But we said, maybe we can look at first before buying, because its really a battle of who can sell the cheapest. Some even offer downpayment, other schemes and plans. But lets see first the capacity of the cellphone or the gadget itself.]

The DepEd announced Monday that face-to-face classes will remain postponed until a vaccine for COVID-19 becomes available. This came in line with President Rodrigo Dutertes earlier directive to ban physical classes until it is safe for students to go to school.

In line with this, officials and celebrities alike have pitched in efforts to help students who do not have access to internet and gadgets.

Vice President Leni Robredo earlier called for donations of gadgets extra or used to aid distance learners. Actress Heart Evangelista also said she will be giving away free tablets for those doing online schooling.

No internet or gadget? LGUs to help in distribution of learning materials

Students who do not have access to online learning can use alternative procedures, the agency earlier stressed, as it looks to tap the television and radio medium for the delivery of lessons.

But for those without TV and radio sets, Briones said students can instead get their learning modules from barangay (village) officials or local government units.

Kung wala pa ring radio, then you have the barangay officials who will deliver yung printed na modules. Kaya nga blended. Kung alin ang pwedeng uubra, yun ang gagamitin. Hindi na parang isang mode lang tayo. Kaya ang laking papel sa field people, the Education chief noted.

[Translation: If there is still no radio, then you have barangay officials who will deliver the printed modules. Thats why its blended. Whatever works will be used. Its not just one mode of learning. Thats why the field people have big roles.]

As of Tuesday, DepEd has recorded over 8.1 million enrollees for the school year. The agency targets to reach an enrollment rate of 28 million students by the end of the month, Briones added.
A three-year-old boy has been found dead in a sewer at Abehenease, a suburb of Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region.



The deceased, identified as Desmond Mawuko Drayi, was found dead in an open manhole behind his parents house.



When Mawuko failed to return home late into the evening, his mother mounted a search for him, leading to his discovery in the sewer.



Confirmation



Confirming the incident to the Daily Graphic, the Public Relations Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mrs



Effia Tenge, said about 6:30 p.m. last Sunday, Mawukos mother, who is the Assembly Member for the Fise Electoral Area, near Amasaman, reported to the police the discovery of her sons body in the manhole.



She said when the police visited the scene, they saw that the body had been retrieved from the manhole and covered with a piece of cloth.



After physical examination of the body, the police did not find any mark on the boy, she said.



The body had since been deposited at the Police Hospital morgue, while investigations had commenced into the matter, she added.



Caution



Mrs Tenge expressed concern over the rising incidence of children drowning in pits in recent times and cautioned parents and guardians to take particular interest in the development of their children and wards, adding that it was their responsibility to safeguard the children and wards by protecting them from harm.



Once you assume a parental status, recognise that it comes with responsibilities, and one of which is ensuring the safety of your children. Parents must not shirk their responsibilities to others, she added.



She further said at a time when children were home because of the closure of schools in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents must pay more attention to their children to protect them from harms way.



People should make sure they cover sewages and not leave them open, otherwise the police will arrest and hold them responsible for exposing children to harm.



Children are vulnerable and parents must not fail in their responsibility of taking care of them. If a parent is busy and occupied with other things, he or she must get a caretaker, rather than leave the kids to loiter, Mrs Tenge said.









Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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GAVAR, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. A separate department for treating patients infected with the novel coronavirus will open soon in the medical center of Armenias Martuni town, the Gegharkunik Governors office told Armenpress.

Governor of Gegharkunik province Gnel Sanosyan got acquainted with the construction works of the new department at the hospital.

Director of Martuni hospital Andranik Harutyunyan said the new department will have 30 beds for patients with moderate health condition and up to 10 beds for intensive care. The medical service will be provided by the local specialists. The department will have a separate entrance.

The project launched at the governments and our joint initiative. Given the number of coronavirus infected people in our province and the current situation, we found it appropriate to create this department in order to be able to provide medical care to our citizens. We are working at all directions at accelerated pace in cooperation with the ministry of healthcare. We will do the utmost for the department to receive the patients in coming days. The department will serve mainly the residents of our province, but in case of necessity it will also receive the residents of Artsakh and other provinces of Armenia, the Governor said.



Reporting by Khosrov Khlghatyan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Bhopal: A major controversy erupted in Madhya Pradesh after an audio clip went viral, in which Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan can be heard saying that it was the decision of central leadership to dislodge Congress government in the state.

Calling it a murder of democracy, Congress party has termed it a 'serious incident' and has affirmed to fight with all possible means against this act.

In the viral video (News18 does not vouch for the veracity of the audio), CM Chouhan, who apparently is addressing a party workers convention in bypoll-bound Sanwer in Indore on June 8, can be heard saying: "It was the decision of central leadership which said that this government should be toppled or else it will ruin everything."

Chouhan then turned to party workers asking, Please tell me, whether it was possible to dislodge the government without Jyotiraditya Scindia ji and Tulsi bhai. There was no other way, added Chouhan amid claps from the party workers.

I am saying this with complete belief and honesty that neither Scindia nor Silawat cheated Congress party, it was the grand old party which cheated them. Due to a pain, he (Silawat) left his ministership, when people not even abandon post of Sarpanch, claimed the Chief Minister.

Urging all BJP workers to rally around Silawat in bypoll, Chouhan asked them, Tell me if Silawat isnt reinstated as an MLA, should I continue to be the CM or should BJP government survive?

Silawat, a close aide of Scindia is probable to contest on BJP ticket from Sanwer in Indore.

Senior BJP leader Govind Malu claimed that whatever is true is before everyone. We did not allure their MLAs, their party faced a division under the leadership of senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, Malu told a news channel, adding they came to us on their own and joined the party.

Such fake audios could be presented by the Congress party, claimed Malu. The Congress government was dislodged after their party MLAs resigned and it was our duty to form the government, claimed BJP spokepsperson Rajnish Agrawal.

Senior Congress spokesperson KK Mishra claimed he has released the audio clip and vouched for the authenticity of the clip, daring BJP to sue him.

Congress media in-charge Jitu Patwari, speaking to the media, called it a murder of democracy, saying the central government has dislodged a state government and a Chief Minister has accepted it. We are exploring legal and constitutional option to take this fight further. Shivraj government wont last more than three-four months, he augured.

Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha also tweeted, If at all this audio clip is true, its highly shameful. It might be a short term win for BJP to dislodge a state government with the help of Centre but its a defeat for our democratic values and constitutional principles.
Story

Expanded free testing in south King County

Public Health  Seattle & King County has expanded free COVID-19 testing resources in south King County, where communities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. These three new free testing sites will provide ongoing access to testing in south Seattle and south King County. The sites will be located at Sea Mar Community Health Centers at South Park, HealthPoint Auburn and at UW Mobile Clinic at Auburn City Adventist Church. This brings the total number of free testing sites in south Seattle and south King County to ten, with 18 total free testing sites overall in King County.

In addition, this Saturday and Sunday, June 13th and 14th, free drive-through COVID-19 testing and essential supplies (e.g. diapers, toiletries) will be available in Renton and Federal Way. King County is partnering with local community organizations and Ms. Tina Knowles Lawsons #IDIDMYPART campaign and Beyonces BeyGood for this launch event.

Public Health  Seattle & King County urges anyone with even mild COVID-19 symptoms, or who has been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19, to contact a healthcare provider or testing site to discuss testing. If you do not have symptoms or have not been in contact with someone with COVID-19, Public Health is not recommending testing at this time.

Most people should access testing through their regular health care provider. However, if you are unable to access testing through your health care provider, please seek testing at one of the free sites. Language interpretation services are available.

"Weve always known that Black and brown communities face barriers to quality healthcare compared to white communities," said Hamdi Mohamed, King County Policy Advisor for the Executive Office of Equity and Social Justice. "We see it in high maternal mortality rates for Black women, we see it in disproportionately high populations of uninsured people in communities of color, and we see it now in the COVID-19 crisis, as people of color are being affected at a significantly higher rate than that of whites. At the County, we are partnering with Ms. Tina Knowles Lawson, BeyGood and local organizations like the Somali Health Board, to directly address the disparities we are witnessing and break down barriers to testing." The COVID-19 pandemic is deepening already-existing health disparities in communities of color, immigrants and refugees," said Dr. Ahmed Ali, Somali Health Board Executive Director. "Through these community-led testing events, in partnership with the health systems, the Somali Health Board ensures that the most vulnerable members of our communities have access to testing opportunities within their own neighborhood."

Additional information

Videos in multiple languages promoting the weekend testing events.

Visit Public Health's testing webpage for more information about getting tested, including a list of free test sites.

For more information about this weekend's #IDIDMYPART and BeyGood initiative testing drive and supply distribution, visit the event website.

Greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN) resumes testing

The greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN) will resume testing of home-based, self-collected samples for COVID-19 on June 10, 2020. SCAN will resume operations as a research study with institutional review board (IRB) approval and oversight from the University of Washington, Seattle Childrens, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. This follows a pause beginning on May 12, after the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) clarified their guidance for home-based, self-collected samples to test for COVID-19.

As SCAN resumes testing, the study will continue to inform King Countys public health response. Based on learnings from the first phase of the program, the SCAN study will dedicate additional testing resources to previously under-represented groups in south King County, and conduct outreach to encourage greater enrollment within American Indian, Black, Hispanic or Latinx, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander communities.

In this next phase, the study will make more tests available for high-risk groups as well as for family members and close contacts of individuals who test positive. Children 18 years of age and under will also receive priority. Testing in homeless shelters and among healthcare workers in long-term care facilities will continue under the Seattle Flu Study.

Additional information

Read our post about SCAN resuming testing on our Public Health Insider blog.

New SCAN participants are invited to enroll at https://scanpublichealth.org. Please note that daily enrollment is limited.

Case updates

Daily totals for new COVID-19 cases and deaths are available on Public Health's Data Dashboard webpage, which updates as soon as data are available, typically between 1-3 p.m.

Isolation and quarantine facilities update

Forty-seven people are currently staying in King County isolation and quarantine facilities.

Additional information

Information about COVID-19 and the response in King County, be sure to check our webpage: www.kingcounty.gov/covid

Public Health publishes new information frequently through the Public Health Insider blog  please consider becoming a subscriber by choosing the option to "Follow Blog Via Email."
It was a difficult morning for Joseph Monis on Sunday when he received a desperate call from the out-of-work migrants he had been sponsoring during the lockdown. We cant stay in this tiny room anymore. Please help us get back home, said one of the five workers on the phone.

In a single room in Ramnagar area of Balewadi, a group of seven men from Nepal lived through three months of the lockdown. However, only five of them could make their way back home on Tuesday, after Monis arranged for their return. While one of them died in his sleep, another preferred leaving the only accommodation he had rather than spending another minute in the dingy room where one of his temporary roommates had died.

Vijay Parihar, 24, a native of Nepal looked sleep-deprived with swollen red eyes as he recollected waking up to the cold body of his roommate Chandra Monatat Chaudhury, 23, also a native of Nepal, on Saturday morning. His four nephews - Saroj, Prem, Milan and Vishal - looked to him for mental support. They called Monis for help after cremating Chaudharys body at an electric crematorium.

Monis, who works in a multinational company (MNC) in the city, posted for help on social media to arrange for five tickets to send these Nepal nationals back home. In two days, Monis was able to gather enough funds to buy bus tickets costing Rs 5,500 per person and finally helped the five workers from Nepal board a bus back to their country on Tuesday.

Vijay worked at restaurant-bar in Balewadi and knew Monis from when he had visited the place. At 4am that day (Saturday), Chandra said that he wanted to go home and started feeling restless. The room where we stay is small and so, we all sleep close to each other. In the morning around 9am or 10am, we all woke up to find him immobile. I immediately called the person from his village in Nepal who also lives in Pune, said Vijay.

They called me early in the morning. I could only reach them after a few hours. Chandra is from the same village where I come from. He had a heart condition and died of a heart attack, the doctor later told me, said Yamlal Damai, a man who works at a dentists office in Aundh and was the closest person Chandra had. Chandra had been taken to the Aundh Hospital where his post-mortem was conducted.

The body of Chandra remained in the crammed room with one bulb and a barely functional fan as the boys - all below the age of 24 - waited for the ambulance to arrive. When we realised what had happened, none of us could stop crying out of fear. It was scary to be in the same room. None of us have been able to eat or sleep since then, said Milan. 

The five relatives were living in an accommodation provided by their employer before coming to this room when the lockdown began and the restaurant temporarily closed for business. The small room cost them Rs 6,000 per month.

From living in a building, we were moved here. Then, a fellow national brought Chandra to us and one other person. The other person ran away when Chandra died. We would eat whatever little we could buy during the lockdown. Monis provided us some support with weekly supplies. We were hoping to stay back till work started again, but now we just want to go home. Even if we die in the process, at least we will die with family; not like this, lamented Vijay, while fighting tears.

The boys have left for Nepal and will spend 14 days in quarantine once they reach their village. They hope to return to India some day under better circumstances.
A stunning archive that belonged to the 'true hero of the Titanic' is being put on sale by his family 108 years after the disaster for 60,000.

Harold Lowe helped scores of women and children into lifeboats and was the only officer to go back for survivors after the famous liner sank.

In the 1997 blockbuster movie, one of those in the water Lowe was portrayed as saving was Kate Winslet's character Rose.

Harold Lowe saved scores of women and children from death during the Titanic disaster after he skippered his lifeboat back to collect survivors from the water

Mr Lowe, pictured with the Titanic's surviving officers on the SS Carpathia which rescued survivors from the 1912 tragedy

This certificate was for Mr Lowe's competency as Master of a ship and is among items for sale

Mr Lowe's personal belongings include a poignant telescope given to him by real-life survivor who had it inscribed with the words 'To Harold G. Lowe....The Real Hero of the Titanic.'

There is also his officer's whistle that he may well have used on board Titanic to organise people into the lifeboats.

His archive includes a very rare photograph of all of the officers on the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued all of the survivors hours after the 1912 tragedy.

Clearly, the fate of Titanic played on Mr Lowe's mind for years afterwards as he painted a superb watercolour picture of the 'unsinkable' ship that was cherished by his family.

A stunning officer's whistle that belonged to Mr Lowe is also among the items being sold by his family for the sum of 60,000

This is a painting of the Titanic by Mr Lowe himself, showing he was a man of many talents

Mr Lowe was the fifth officer on Titanic and was played by the British actor Ioan Gruffudd in James Cameron's film Titanic.

The moment the officer defied requests from people in his lifeboat not to go back for survivors in case they swamped the small vessel featured in end of the film.

The archive now belongs to a direct descendant of Mr Lowe who has decided to sell it through Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes, Wiltshire.

It is expected to sell for 60,000.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: 'These items have never been seen or auctioned before having remained in the Lowe family since 1912 and has been inherited by the vendor.

Mr Lowe was played by Ioan Gruffudd (left) in the blockbuster film about the tragic event

Another of the treasures for sale is Mr Lowe's Royal Naval Reserve Ceremonial Bicorn hat

The Titanic set off from Southampton on her maiden voyage in 1912 but never returned after the ship struck an iceberg and sunk in the Atlantic

'Harold Lowe was a career seaman and spent 35 years in the merchant navy and amassed this superb archive during that time.

'He was without doubt one of the heroes of the Titanic disaster. He is venerated by the Titanic community as the officer who went back.

'Eyewitness accounts at the time and his own account to the official inquiry into the sinking led to him being portrayed in numerous books and films.

'After Titanic's collision with the iceberg, he displayed a cool and calm demeanour under pressure.

'As he loaded women and children in the lifeboats it is said he ordered J.Bruce Ismay, the managing director White Star Line, to get out of his way, telling him 'you will have me drown the lot of them', if he didn't.

'He left Titanic on lifeboat 14. After his crew rowed about 150 yards from the sinking, Lowe herded five lifeboats together and redistributed passengers.

'He then went back to the wreck site to pick up any survivors, the only lifeboat to do so with the others believing it to be too dangerous as the survivors would overwhelm the boats.

The Titanic  which sank on April 15, 1912, after a collision with an iceberg  lies on the seafloor around 350 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The liner made two short stops en route to her planned Atlantic crossing  one at the French port of Cherbourg, the other at Cork Harbour, Ireland, where smaller vessels ferried passengers on and off board

'The telescope is very emotive as it comes from a woman called Irene Harris whose husband Henry died in the disaster. Harold Lowe recovered her from a collapsable lifeboat and evidently she was incredibly grateful to him.

'The watercolour painting his very rare. I don't know of any other example by an officer on Titanic.

'We don't know when he painted it but is likely to have been soon after the disaster.'

Mr Lowe, from Barmouth, Gwynedd, ran away from home aged 14 to join the Merchant Navy and started his career as a ship's boy.

In 1908 he gained his first mate's certificate and served as third officer on the White Star Liner vessels SS Belgic and the SS Tropic before being transferred to Titanic as fifth officer in 1912.

This is a telescope which was given to him by Mrs Henry Harris, a survivor of the disaster, and it is inscribed with the moving words: 'To Harold G. Lowe....The Real Hero of the Titanic.'

He is regarded as a true hero of the Titanic and was the only officer to go back and save people

THE TITANIC DISASTER TIMELINE Ned Parfett, the 'Titanic paperboy', outside of the White Star Line offices in London April 10, 1912 (12:00): The Titanic sets sail from Southampton to New York, calling at Cherbourg and Cork en route. April 14 (09:0022.30, ship's time): Marconi Company radio officers on the Titanic received a total of six warnings of ice in the vicinity, not all of which were passed on to the crew. April 14 (23:39): Lookout Frederick Fleet, in the crow's nest, spots an iceberg dead ahead of the ship. Turning to port, the vessel managed to avoid a direct collision, but suffered a 'glancing blow' instead. April 15 (00:05): Captain Edward Smith orders abandon ship and has radio operators issue distress signals. April 15 (02:05): The Titanic's final lifeboat is launched. Ten minutes later, the liner's angle in the water increased rapidly, ultimately reaching over 30 degrees, as water reached previously unflooded parts of the ship through deck hatches. April 15 (02:20): The Titanic finally disappeared beneath the waves, some two hours and forty minutes after striking the iceberg. Advertisement

When the ship struck the iceberg on the night on April 14, 1912, Mr Lowe was off-duty and asleep in his cabin.

He went up on deck and began assisting people into lifeboats 5 and 3 and then 14 which had 58 people in.

As this boat was lowered into the water he was forced to fire several warning shots to stop frantic people jumping onto it from the listing ship.

After rowing 150 yards from the ship, they were forced to watch it sink before going back to pick up four survivors.

He later managed to rig up a sail to lifeboat 14 and proceeded at a speed of five knots towards Carpathia.

On the way he came across the collapsable boat containing Mrs Harris and took it under tow. Upon his return to Barmouth 1,300 people attended a reception held in his honour.

He married wife Ellen in 1913 and they had two children. He served in the Royal Naval Reserve in the First World War and during WWII he volunteered his home as a sector post and served as an air raid warden.

The RMS Titanic was a staggering piece of engineering at the time but suffered a grim fate

This is another angle of the 'Acme Thunderer' whistle that Lowe used on board the Titanic

His archive is being sold off separately with the telescope estimated at 20,000. The 15ins by 10ins watercolour painting is valued at 3,000.

The photo of the Carpathia's officers that was presented to him after his rescue if estimated to sell for 10,000.

His certificate of competency as a master of a ship that replaced the original which was lost on the Titanic is worth 3,000 as is his officer's whistle.

And his Royal Naval Reserve ceremonial bicorne hat is valued at 3,000.

The sale takes place on June 20.
09.06.2020 LISTEN

As a royal of the Constituency, let me share with you my scanty thought about Mfantseman NPP.

The constituency is mainly dominated by two dominant agriculture communities  farming (crops) and fishing communities with Mankessim and Saltpond as their respective capitals.

The fishing community has been preponderance in producing parliamentary candidates in the constituency with Saltpond having the majority. Therefore, birthing three (3) out of the five (5) parliamentary candidates the NPP party has had from 1992-2016.

Mr. Otoo, Mr. Isaac Kow Taylor and Miss Edna Lovis Arthur emerged as 1992, 1996 and 2000 PCs respectively of the party are all indigenes of Saltpond.

Miss Edna won against Hon. Kwamena Duncan (current central regional minister) and the late Colonel Enninful, a founding member of NPP also from Saltpond.

In 2004, 2008 and 2012 Hon. Stephen Asamoah Boateng (ASABEE) was the PC and the maiden luckiest son of the elephant fraternity to have won the seat in his first attempt in 2004 but unfortunately lost to NDC in 2008 & 2012. He is from Kormantse also a subset of the fishing community.

In 2004, ASABEE (current DG, SIGA) won the internal election against Mr. Ocran, a native of Saltpond and snatched the seat from NDC with 56.6% of vote to represent Mfantseman Constituency in the Fourth Parliament of the 4th Republic.

Again in 2008, ASABEE won against Lawyer Paintsil, a native of Mankessim. Whereas in 2012, ASABEE again triumphs over Engineer Ralph Inkoom from Abonko, a town part of the farming community but again failed in his bid to return to parliament.

The constituency in 2016 was bedeviled with a fierce contest between Hon. Ekow Quansah Hayford (MP) an indigene of Mankessim and Hon. Kenneth Kelly Essuman (current MCE) from Anomabo, a fishing community.

Hon. Hayford who is apparently another prosperous son of NPP in the constituency recaptured the seat from NDC.

Fast forward 2020 is here with a neck-and-neck finish between the incumbent MP, Hon. Hayford and Mr. James Korsah-Brown a zestful from Saltpond.

Will the baton be in safeguard of the farming community or return to the fishing community come 20th June? Well, that depends solely on the delegates.

Let me join the masses to caution both teams to run a healthy campaign devoid of vilification, assault, mayhem or whatsoever. We need a peaceful internal election to retain the seat in the forthcoming general elections.
Bob Vander Plaats possesses an increasingly rare commodity in American politics: influence.

The evangelical Iowan, who runs the socially conservative Family Leader organization, tipped the 2012 Iowa GOP caucuses to Rick Santorum with a late endorsement. Iowa evangelicals were the reason Ted Cruz upset Donald Trump in the 2016 caucuses. And in 2020, they are an essential reason why GOP congressman Steve King is packing his bags after suffering a ten-point primary loss to state senator Randy Feenstra last week.

When David Kochel, a veteran Iowa GOP operative, had helped raise some $350,000 for a super PAC opposing King, he knew that Vander Plaats was just the person to call.

Whatever you think of Steve King, its clear that hes no longer effective, Vander Plaats said in the super PACs TV ad. Thankfully, Iowa has a better choice: Randy Feenstra is pro-life, pro-family Republican who delivers.

Vander Plaats is quick to share credit with many Republicans at the state and federal level for Kings ouster. Former governor Terry Branstad (who had once defeated Vander Plaats in a gubernatorial primary) cut a check for Feenstra. Governor Kim Reynolds and U.S. senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst refused to endorse King. Their silence was deafening, Vander Plaats tells National Review. An official at the National Right to Life Committee, which endorsed Feenstra, couldnt recall the last time the organization opposed a GOP incumbent with a generally strong voting record.

At the root of Kings problems were an increasing number of bizarre and bigoted remarks.

Hes changed over the years, says Kochel, a moderate who donated to Kings campaign in 2012. Kochel says the first real red flag he noticed was in 2013 when King said that for every high-school valedictorian who had come to America illegally as a minor theres another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.

Story continues

Some Republicans cringed, but King remained in good standing in the party. He served, along with Vander Plaats, as national co-chair of Ted Cruzs 2016 presidential campaign.

It wasnt until 2018 when Republicans began to turn away from King. In October of that year, the Iowa congressman endorsed a white-nationalist mayoral candidate in Canada. That same month, Adam Rubenstein reported at The Weekly Standard that King referred to immigrants as dirt at a campaign event. King accused Rubenstein (my colleague at the time) of making up the quotation, but audiotape confirmed King said the exact words that had been reported. A couple of weeks later, King only narrowly won reelection in his solidly Republican district.

Kings near loss is what influenced the influential Vander Plaats to consider backing a GOP primary challenger. I think the tipping point for me, which is what really caught my attention, was when [Democratic congressional candidate] J. D. Scholten in 2018 came within three points of defeating him, says Vander Plaats. That is a district that should be a double-digit win every time for a Republican. Vander Plaats says that around Christmas of 2018 was when state senator Randy Feenstra spoke to him about the possibility of challenging King.

The incumbent Republican King was already on thin ice when he said in a 2019 interview with the New York Times: White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization  how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? The House passed a resolution condemning the remarks, and GOP congressional leaders stripped King of his committee assignments.

The loss of committee assignments allowed Feenstra to appeal to Republicans concerned about Kings loss of influence. Feenstra was really smart with his message, says Kochel. The margin was a lot greater than I expected.

Iowa Republicans found the right candidate at the right time in Feenstra. He ran up the score with huge margins in the staunchly conservative district he represents in the state senate. Another factor that boosted Feenstra was the decision by Iowas secretary of state to send out absentee-ballot applications to registered Republicans and Democrats for their respective primaries because of the coronavirus pandemic. The mostly mail election led to a surge in Republican turnout that helped power Feenstra to victory.

It was a perfect storm, Vander Plaats says of the forces that came together to deliver a 46 percent to 36 percent victory for Feenstra over King last week. Sixty-four percent of the Republican voters in the 4th District consciously made a decision to vote against a nine-term incumbent congressman, and that is unprecedented.

More from National Review
TDT | Manama

The Bahrain Chamber reaffirmed yesterday its support for the private sector and keenness to resolve all hurdles curbing its progress. This was stated by Bahrain Chamber chairman Sameer Nass during the 14th meeting of the Chambers Steering Group, held virtually, and headed by Sonia Janahi.

Nass also voiced pride in the governments initiatives, which came to support the private sector and ensure its resilience during this unprecedented hardship caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. The meeting, which was also attended by the Chairmans first and second deputies, the Steering Group vice-head, the CEO, and all committee heads, deliberated a number of key issues, including the current economic situation in Bahrain as well as updates with regard to the obstacles facing the private sector.

Also discussed were the initiatives and proposals of the Chambers committees with regard to supporting the private sector, coordination between the Chamber and the relevant government bodies, and extending support to the private sector post the coronavirus period.

The Chambers survey

During the meeting, the outcomes of the third edition of a study conducted by the Chambers Studies and Initiatives Department entitled The Economic Impact of Coronavirus on Business Owners was discussed. In light of the surveys results, Nass voiced pride in the wide participation in the survey, which amounted to over 1,000 members.

He also vowed communicating the outcomes of the survey and the sentiment of the private sector to the relevant government bodies, and reaffirmed the Chambers commitment to supporting and empowering the private sector to overcome this hardship.

Similarly, first vice-chairman Khalid Najibi expressed pride in the vigorous liaison between the Chamber and its members, which reflect members confidence in the body representing them, and stimulate the Chamber to exert more efforts to serve the private sector and ensure it flourishes.

From his side, Chamber CEO Shaker Al Shater underlined the pivotal role of the private sector alongside the public sector in economic development, and reaffirmed the Chambers commitment to supporting its members and keeping them abreast of all economic updates.

Recommendations of the Chambers committees:

Representatives from the Chambers 10 sector committees were present at the meeting, and made a number of recommendations. These include a recommendation made by the food wealth committee to establish a food and drug authority in Bahrain, to ensure food security during time of turbulence, in addition to resuming government support programmes for small and medium enterprises and to restaurants in particular.

The education committee called to extend student laws at favourable rates, in a bid to enable students continuing their education. As for the tourism committee, it called for urgent revival programmes and support to the sector, which was badly affected by the crisis. At the end of the meeting, the Chamber renewed its commitment to consolidating efforts with the government and sparing no effort to overcome the current hardship and spur economic development in Bahrain.
The High Court has given Irish-based aircraft lessor Nordic Aviation Capital the go-ahead to seek to enter into a scheme of arrangement with its creditors.

The NAC group of companies is the largest lessor of aircraft to regional airlines, and the fifth-largest aircraft lessor in the world. It employs over 100 people at its Limerick Headquarters.

Nordic wants to enter into scheme with its lenders due to the dire effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the aviation industry.

If approved, the scheme will secure a six to 12-month standstill on millions of euro in principle and interest payments due to NAC's lenders of approximately 5bn of debt.

The scheme will also allow the group - which owns approximately 500 aircraft - to continue to operate.

Seeking various orders under the Companies Act Lyndon MacCann SC, appearing with Kelly Smith Bl for NAC, told the court yesterday that the pandemic has had a significant impact on the group's business.

Some 65 of the group's 75 customers are seeking various concessions on its aircraft leasing agreements.

The court heard there has been a substantial decrease on the amount of money paid to the group. In April it only collected 20pc of what it is due from airlines that have leased its aircraft.

It is estimated that its cash collections for June and July will also be very poor.

Counsel said that the group fears that it will run out of cash in July, and that it could breach agreements it has entered in terms of its repayments to its creditors by the end of the month.

As a result, the group seeks to enter into a scheme of arrangement with its creditors.

Counsel said that other parts of the proposed scheme include that NAC shareholders will inject a total of $60m (53m) into the group. The scheme aims to reduce non- essential expenditure, and cut costs.

For the duration of the pandemic it also proposes to eliminate an uncommitted proposed capital expenditure programme for 2020 to 2025 of $5.7bn.

It further seeks to secure deferred payments under a committed capital expenditure programme of $1.5bn and reduce the proposed delivery of 21 new aircraft down to just eight.

Counsel said the future would be "ominous" for the company unless that scheme could be agreed.

Mr Justice David Barniville yesterday made orders admitting the company's case to the fast-track commercial court list, and formally gave it permission to convene meetings with its creditors.

The applications were made on an ex-parte basis. However, several of NAC's creditors had representatives in the courtroom observing the proceedings.

Brian Kennedy SC told the court that he represented a group which holds a total of 69pc of the NAC's unsecured debt.

Counsel said that while his client had no right to be heard during the hearing, his clients are opposing the proposed scheme.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 06:02:05|Editor: huaxia

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GENEVA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said that more research needs to be done to better understand the extent to which COVID-19 is being spread by people who don't show symptoms.

"Since early February, we have said that asymptomatic people can transmit COVID-19, but that we need more research to establish the extent of asymptomatic transmission," the WHO chief said at a virtual press conference from Geneva.

"That research is ongoing, and we're seeing more and more research being done," he added.

Saying that the world has been achieving a lot in knowing the new virus, the WHO chief told reporters that "there's still a lot we don't know."

"WHO's advice will continue to evolve as new information becomes available," he said.

Tedros stressed that the most critical way to stop transmission is to find, isolate and test people with symptoms, and trace and quarantine their contacts.

"Many countries have succeeded in suppressing transmission and controlling the virus doing exactly this," Tedros said.

Meanwhile, Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO Health Emergencies Program, said Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic is still evolving.

"If we look at the numbers... this pandemic is still evolving. It is growing in many parts of the world," he said. "We have deep concerns that health systems of some countries are struggling, under a huge strain and require our support, our help and our solidarity."

He said "each and every country has a different combination of risks and opportunities, and it's really down to national authorities to carefully consider where they are in the pandemic."

In Europe, the risk issue now are about travels and the opening of the schools, around risk management, mass gathering, surveillance and contact tracing, said the WHO official.

In Southeast Asian countries, where to a great extent transmissions have been under control, governments are more concerned about the re-emergence of clusters, while in South America, the issue of PPE for health workers has not gone away, said Ryan.

As regards Africa, Ryan said the death rates have been very low in the past week, but the health system can be overwhelmed, as it would have to cope with other diseases such as malaria. Enditem
by Fady Noun

June 6 demonstration in Beirut underline the profound political and religious rifts of the country. The President of the Republic recalls the civil war. Only the presence of the army averted the escalation. Adyan Foundation: "The weakening of state power increases the chances" of reigniting conflict.

Beirut (AsiaNews) - What happened on Saturday 6 June in Lebanon is a stark warning, says the President of the Republic Michel Aoun. "Attacking a religious symbol, whatever the Lebanese community it belongs to, means attacking the Lebanese family as a whole," he said, addressing at the same time an appeal to the "wise men who lived through the events of 1975-76".

And the head of state always launches the warning, with a view to national unity. It is certainly not through insults, much less aggression that we will be able to live in a dignified way. Nobody can do it to the detriment of others, neither through the use of force, nor with violence. Our strength lies in our national unity."

But what happened on June 6th? Originally, the call for demonstrations launched by various civil society associations had been registered, to revive the protest movement that had emerged in October 2019 and that had led to the fall of the Saad Hariri government. Due to the joint effects of inertia, the new coronavirus pandemic and following the formation of a new government made up of technocrats, this revolt stopped spontaneously on its own.

However, far from the unitary slogans of October 17 on the day of demonstrations of June 6, a wind of internal discord seems to have blown, combined with conflicts of a confessional nature, first of all between Christians and Shiite Muslims, then between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, confirming that the hostilities and reciprocal spites that brooded in the undergrowth of consciences still remain unchanged and unresolved.

Without the presence of the army, stationed in significant numbers in various sectors of Beirut since the early hours of the morning, the inter-confessional conflict could have led to an enormous bloodshed. It was mainly military reinforcements and the arrival of armored vehicles that prevented direct contact between the armed civilians of the two neighborhoods of Barbour and Tarik Jadide, in the Muslim majority sector of the capital. In any case, the clashes that followed have caused dozens of injuries, both among the ranks of Muslims and among the army troops.

The head of state signaled in his appeal for calm that the attacks on "religious symbols" exacerbated the passions of the crowd. In fact, a series of insulting slogans launched by Shiite protesters against Aisha, the bride of the prophet of Islam, considered the "mother of believers" and revered by the Sunni community, have trended on social networks.

In addition, it should be noted here the appearance of a new slogan launched by some activists: that of the application of United Nations Resolution 1559 of 2004, which calls for the dissolution of all Lebanese militias, and which has contributed to exacerbating the political climate, becoming the detonator of violence. In fact, demanding the application of resolution 1559 means demanding the dismantling of the armed faction of Hezbollah, whose military power and decision-making autonomy has created a state within the state. Its presence, and its multifaceted action, has over time weakened the central government on a political, economic and diplomatic level.

Was it appropriate to leave this theme of vindication among many others to avoid dividing the protest from the outset? Some contest this stance, while others rejoice, claim to have broken a "taboo". Whatever the cause, this theme served - and was foreseeable - to show the deep fractures that continue to connature not only the political life of the country, but its own social fabric. A fracture that can be considered as one of the particular cases of the division between Sunnis and Shiites that has healed throughout the Arab world, from Syria to Yemen.

We have narrowly avoided catastrophe" assures Massoud Achkar, one of the "wise men who lived the events of the years 1975-76" indicated by the President of the Republic. And it is this politician who comes to add, at the end of the alarmist comments that characterized the day of June 6: "What is missing is a true reconciliation between the Lebanese, at the end of the civil war (1975-1990). Or, in other words, that this fundamental memory work did not take place. In its place there was an amnesty full of doubts, a sort of voluntary amnesia, and in the end the various leaders of the war of the various communities in government of the country emerged. "

Surrounded by an oligarchy just as colorful as they are from a confessional point of view, these war leaders continue to govern and plunder the country, always refractory to the needs of a profound reform that would end up depriving them of their privileges and their profits. All this despite the enormous efforts made by the new government led by Hassane Diab.

Did they understand the "warning signal" the head of state is talking about? To the appeals for calm launched from all sides, Fr. Fadi Daou of the Adyan foundation yesterday added "recommendations for the preservation of civil liberties and peace".

In a note, he began by denouncing "the accumulation of political and financial corruption for which the entire political class is responsible" together with the "degradation of the living conditions of the Lebanese, who every day are getting closer to poverty, hunger, unemployment, with numerous institutions and companies that falter and close their doors ". And he also speaks of the excruciating temptation of young people to abandon their country.

Addressing the population, the army and other constituent bodies of the state from time to time, Fr. Daou has highlighted some of the links in the causal chain that prevents the emergence of a strong and civilian Lebanese state. Actively engaged in civil society, Fr. Fadi Daou perspicaciously notes that "the weakening of state power increases the chances of a civil war". The founder of Adyan, whose audience continues to grow in Lebanon, asked the media at the same time "not to transmit false news and not to foment sectarian distinctions or to promote speeches that encourage hatred, because all mistakes can contribute to trigger a devastating war.

Finally, he asked religious leaders "to openly delegitimize those who exploit religion or faiths to offend the religious symbols of others, invoke discrimination and appear to be the seeds of discord between people" and "not to cover any person involved in corruption ".

While waiting for these recommendations to be followed, one thing is certain: in some fringes of the population and in certain neighborhoods of Beirut, the civil war is still smoldering today and even the slightest spark could set fire to dust. This is even more true in a historical moment in which the country falters under the weight of the economic crisis and the new coronavirus pandemic. Right now Lebanon is advancing on a path bordered by cliffs.

* In the photo, the city center in Beirut on 6 June, surrounded by a cloud of tear gas. Once again. Credit: Joao Sousa
When Heather Poyner would return home after visiting her great-aunt at the Rosslyn Retirement Residence, she said the bedbug infestation there was so bad she had to change into another set of clothes outside to avoid contaminating her own house.

When Diana Garcia, formerly the Rosslyns activities director, was driving to work one day, she said she had to stop her car, jump out and block traffic so she could rescue a resident of the home with dementia who had wandered into busy King Street East.

When Brian Melnike was visiting his mother at the Rosslyn one weekend, he watched a resident of the home walk out the automatic front doors wearing no pants. Worse, he said, staff didnt seem concerned.

One woman whose sister was a resident at the Rosslyn said on numerous occasions she would pick up pills from the dining room floor because the staff didnt make sure residents took their medication. She also said her sister, who has memory problems, once wandered away from the home and walked to their mothers house in Dundas.

A nurse who used to work at the Rosslyn said she quit because she feared she would lose her nursing licence. She alleges she was being asked by the homes operators to either commit possibly illegal acts or allow others to carry them out, including lying to family members and keeping inaccurate records.

I told them numerous times it made me uncomfortable and that if something happened, I could lose my licence over it, said the nurse, who doesnt want to be identified because shes concerned about possible repercussions from Ontarios College of Nurses.

Interviews with family members of former Rosslyn residents and former staff members paint a horrifying picture of the living conditions and management of the retirement home, site of Hamiltons worst COVID-19 outbreak.

Fourteen residents of the Rosslyn have died, 22 staff members became infected and more than 60 residents were hospitalized when the coronavirus outbreak emptied the facility last month.

The Rosslyn is owned and operated by members of the Martino families, which also operate seven other retirement homes and residential care facilities in Hamilton.

Members of the Martino families did not respond to a request for comment and have not responded to repeated requests for comment since the outbreak began at the Rosslyn.

Many of the family members and former staff members say the Rosslyn suffered from chronic infestations of bedbugs and mice. Some said it was not uncommon to see bedbugs crawling on the legs of residents in wheelchairs.

They say the condition of the home declined over time and some of the rooms were described as decrepit.

Some said the Rosslyn was mismanaged, underfunded, understaffed and staffed with workers lacking the proper qualifications. The former staffers allege the homes operators were more concerned with making money than the residents care.

More disturbing, former staffers said, was that the operators of the Rosslyn billed the home to residents families as having a secure memory care unit for residents with dementia that didnt exist.

Absolute danger, said Garcia. I cant express that enough.

Brothers Aldo Martino and the late John Martino owned the Royal Crest Lifecare chain of care homes until it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2003, leaving Ontario taxpayers on the hook for $18 million.

All eight of the Martinos Hamilton homes are either now subject to orders to comply by the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA) or the citys public health department, have been cited for rules violations by the RHRA or public health in the past six months, or both.

Several former staff members and the city have confirmed that, until recently, the Rosslyn was being operated by Annette Martino, also known as Annette Gammon, the sister of Aldo and John Martino.

The home has been closed since May 15 and wont be allowed to reopen until the owners comply with three orders issued by the city and the RHRA, the provincial governing body for retirement homes.

On May 29, the citys public health unit issued an order against the Rosslyn home after an inspection found mouse droppings in the kitchen. Mouse droppings were also found in the food storage room on shelves, the floor and in plastic baskets where utensils are stored.

Seven of the 10 inspection items were not in compliance.

The inspection report notes some of the deficiencies had been originally found in early November.

On May 14, the citys associate medical officer of health had already issued an order against the Rosslyn home requiring a number of immediate steps be taken to address alleged deficiencies related to screening, outbreak response plans, protective equipment and staff training.

The following day, the RHRA issued a registrars order against the Rosslyn home, stating the facility was in contravention of the Retirement Homes Act section pertaining to infection prevention and control and failure to protect residents from neglect.

The order states Rosslyn is not permitted to admit new residents to the home until the licensee has retained a regulated health professional.

Shortly after Diana Garcia was hired in November 2017 as the Rosslyns activities director, she said she was told by Annette Martino that there was no budget for programs and activities for the residents.

I said How am I supposed to buy stuff for programming? and she told me Youre creative, you figure it out, said Garcia, who resigned from the Rosslyn in May 2019. I started buying stuff out of my own pocket and trying to find donations.

Garcia said if negative reviews of the Rosslyn were posted on the homes website, staff members were asked to post fake positive reviews to push the negative ones out of sight.

She said an elevator in the residence was often not working properly or out of service, which could leave residents stranded on their floor for days at a time.

In one of the elevators, Garcia said, the sensor that stops the doors from closing on someone wasnt working. She said she got a life-sized stuffed Santa Claus figure in the basement, placed it between the doors and took a video as the doors closed and crushed Santa.

Garcia said the room of one 95-year-old resident was horribly infested with mouse droppings and she alleges housekeepers werent cleaning the room because the infestation was so severe.

Garcia said shed try to clean the room herself but two or three days later, Id walk back in and it would be covered in mice crap again.

She said she began helping family members find ways to move their loved ones to a different home.

I did get quite a few out, said Garcia. It was like a life or death situation for a lot of them.

The Rosslyns former nurse said bedbugs were in the walls, the couches, on residents clothes and in books.

We would find them in the residents personal binders, said the nurse. Theyd be just crawling on the residents.

Carl Garbett, a former maintenance worker at the Rosslyn until he resigned in October 2019, said he wasnt given a proper budget to maintain the home and repairs were often pushed off.

Maintenance-wise, they would not spend a dime on the place unless they absolutely had to, said Garbett. They had no clue what they were doing. No clue how to run the place.

They heard I was painting my house and they asked me if I had any leftover paint, Garbett said with a laugh. Thats how cheap they were.

It was just a bad place.

The biggest concern cited by former Rosslyn staff members was that the home was housing residents who required the type of advanced nursing care provided by long-term care homes, not a retirement home.

By the time I left, we had about 18 residents in wheelchairs and two bedridden residents that absolutely should have been in a nursing home, said Garcia.

One of the bedridden residents, the former staff members said, was an elderly woman who was in a vegetative state from a massive brain trauma suffered during a motor-vehicle accident. She needed a feeding tube and could only be moved out of bed with a mechanical lift.

Garcia, an activities director, said she was asked by Annette Martino to hand out medication to residents, which Garcia was not qualified to do.

I said no, Im not putting the life of someone in my hands, Garcia said.

The former Rosslyn nurse also raised concerns about how medications were provided. She said the Rosslyns administrator handed out medications to residents because the home was understaffed.

Its not legal, said the nurse. She doesnt have any certification for that.

The nurse alleged she was aware of two personal support workers (PSWs) at the Rosslyn who did not have proper PSW certificates.

The former Rosslyn nurse also stated she was asked to lie to family members if a resident had bedbug bites and to not keep accurate documents on residents.

Thats illegal, said the nurse, who could have faced a charge of professional misconduct under the Nursing Act for falsifying a patients document. You have to document everything you do.

The former Rosslyn nurse said the home did not have a regulated health professional on site 24 hours a day and staff members said there were occasions when the Rosslyn did not even have a nurse on staff for months at a time.

According to the Retirement Homes Act, a home must have a regulated health professional, such as a doctor or nurse, on-site to administer drugs or supervise the administration of drugs to residents.

Several staff members stated the Rosslyn housed many residents with dementia but didnt have a secure memory care unit.

They state there was no unit with locked doors to prevent residents with dementia from wandering away unattended, no functioning security camera and no 24-hour supervision of dementia residents.

If there was a camera there, it was just there for looks, said Garbett, the former maintenance worker. There was no monitoring system whatsoever in the place. There was no supervision.

As a result, the former staff members allege, there was a constant problem with dementia residents wandering away from the home unattended.

One time, the staff members stated, a woman with early-onset dementia wandered away from the Rosslyn around 10 p.m. one night. She was found by a teacher around 7 a.m. the next morning standing in front of a school in the area of Parkdale Avenue and Barton Street.

RELATED STORIES Hamilton Region Investigation How were the Martino families allowed to continue running care homes?

Every single day, the staff would be running in panic, said Garcia.

Heather Poyners 90-year-old great-aunt moved into the Rosslyn last summer and spent several months there. She had previously suffered a stroke, had some mobility issues and was in the early stages of dementia.

Within a week, Poyner said, her aunt started to develop red spots on her body. The aunt told her she was itchy, couldnt sleep at night and had started to see mice.

Poyner took pictures of bedbugs in her aunts bedding, showed them to a staff member and asked what was going on.

She turned to me and said Get your aunt out of here, this place is infested, its been infested for years, Poyner said.

She said the staff member told her she was given a spray bottle with a mix of water and store-bought chemicals and her job each day was to spray the mixture around and put things in the dryer to try to kill the bugs.

By the time her aunt moved to a different home in the fall, Poyner said her skin was ulcerated and she was losing weight.

It was heartbreaking, Poyner said.

Brian Melnikes 87-year-old mother was a resident of the Rosslyn for more than a year until she was evacuated from the home to Hamilton General Hospital on May 15 because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

For much of that time, Melnike said, his mother was happy there and the family had no concerns about the home.

By April, though, things took a turn, Melnike said.

He said he called the citys public health department on April 8 because he said the Rosslyn wasnt screening people entering or leaving, they werent practising distancing protocols and they werent using protective equipment.

When his mother arrived in hospital on May 15, Melnike said she was dehydrated and suffering from a urinary tract infection.

It just took a complete nosedive, Melnike said. They kept giving us the brush-off  Dont worry about it, its all good here  and we took them at their word.

Not one single person from the Rosslyn including higher management has reached out to anybody to say Were sorry this happened, were working on it. Not a single one.

Melnike said he now feels a sense of guilt.

I kept raving about the Rosslyn up until they shut down and then all the truth is coming out, said Melnike.

Now I sit here and watch the news in tears because I think What have I done?

Read Part Two of this series here.
Fearing the spread of COVID-19 in rural areas of Goa, several villages in Sattari and Bicholim talukas have decided to remain under lockdown for at least four days as a precautionary measure.

Keri village in Sattari, which borders with Karnataka, called for a lockdown on Tuesday and it was followed by Morlem where a bandh was observed, said Laxman Gawas, a member of the Keri village panchayat.

Shops were closed in Pale village in Bicholim taluka and Sankhalim Assembly constituency as well.

Incidentally, Sankhalim constituency is represented by chief minister Pramod Sawant.

Lockdowns will be observed in Keri and few other villages for at least four days, Gawas said.

Meanwhile, state health secretary Neela Mohanan on Wednesday said although there was no need for such self-imposed lockdowns, the government had reports that some villages were imposing restrictions.

State health minister Vishwajit Rane had on Tuesday said that a few cases of COVID-19 were detected in Sattari taluka and testing has been initated in villages to reduce the risk of community transmission.

In a press statement, Rane said, "As requested by Sattari MLA Pratapsingh Rane, COVID-19 tests will be conducted in certain areas of Morlem panchayat, including Shiroli and Guleli."

The minister said the situation in Sattari and Usgao was being monitored and all possible measures were being taken to contain the spread.

Meanwhile, a few local public transport unions have also suspended their services fearing the spread in the interiors of the state.

Usgao Bus Owners Association, an organisation representing private buses, has decided not to operate their fleet for a few days.

"The decision was taken after we realised that coronavirus has reached as far as Usgao, a village near Ponda town," said Santosh Manjrekar, executive committee member of the association.

Buses originating from Ponda and plying via Usgao will not be operated for a few days to curb spread of COVID-19.
Radio host Dan Bongino, one of Donald Trump's favourite conservative pundits, urged Congress on Wednesday to reject policies to "defund the police" and warned them they must stop such an "abomination before someone gets hurt."

Mr Bongino is a former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent who has also unsuccessfully ran for Congress three times.

At a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on policing practices and law enforcement accountability on Wednesday, Mr Bongino told several anecdotes about police officers who were injured or killed in the line of duty and lauded the bravery of first responders during the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

"Removing these heroes from your community, in my community, will do nothing but ensure chaos and destruction," Mr Bongino said of calls by many liberal activists to abolish police departments and build new local law enforcement systems from the ground up.

The vast majority of congressional Democrats have not echoed calls to "defund the police" and have instead put forth legislation aimed at reforming existing law enforcement agencies in the US in the wake of the death of George Floyd, whose brother Philonise Floyd also testified on Wednesday. George Floyd was black; the Minneapolis police officers who were involved in his death were all white.

Among the Democratic bills most noteworthy reforms are provisions to:

Provide federal funding for racial bias training;

Create a national misconduct registry for officers to ensure officers with lengthy and questionable records cannot simply change departments to avoid accountability;

Reform qualified immunity laws to make it easier to prosecute police and other government agent misconduct;

require state and local law enforcement agencies to report use-of-force incidents to the Justice Department; and

Ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants in drug cases at the federal level, and incentivise local departments to adopt similar measures by withholding funding for those that dont.

Senate Republicans plan to release a package of their own later this week that would provide funding for racial bias training, create a national misconduct registry, and mandate the reporting of use-of-force incidents to the feds. But Republicans have not reached a consensus on banning chokeholds or reforming qualified immunity.

Mr Bongino is not the only GOP witness at the hearing on Wednesday who has run for Congress.

Angela Underwood Jacobs  whose brother David Patrick Underwood, a black officer in the Federal Protective Service, was shot and killed in Oakland in May  also will testify on Wednesday.

Ms Underwood Jacobs ran for the GOP nomination in California's 25th District for the special election there earlier this year to replace Democratic ex-Congresswoman Katie Hill.

"He took his last breath on cold, hard cement. ... Fear [and] ignorance and blind violence snatched the life of my brother from all of us," Ms Underwood Jacobs told lawmakers in her opening statement, a condemnation of the violent  and, at times, deadly  elements that marked some of the early protests after the death of Mr Floyd.

"We will never solve injustice with looting, killing  this is greater than a black, white or blue issue. It is a humanity issue," Ms Underwood Jacobs said.

Mr Bongino, House Judiciary ranking member Jim Jordan, and Darrell Scott, a black pastor who was on Mr Trump's 2016 transition team, used their opening statements on Wednesday to rail against liberal proposals to abolish existing police departments, with Mr Jordan arguing that such an idea is "pure insanity."

Mr Trump weighed in briefly on Twitter commending Mr Jordan for his great statement concerning Defunding (not!) our great Police.

While the president has sympathised with the family of Mr Floyd, he also adopted a highly militaristic tone in response to protests calling for large scale police reform.

Last week, he called for governors handling the protests at the local level to "dominate" the streets with National Guardsmen and other law enforcement units to root out any riotous elements.

The White House is also preparing to roll out its own its own set of legislative and executive policing reform proposals, NBC News has reported, though no timetable has been announced.
Malaysia plans to expel 269 Rohingya refugees who were detained by local authorities after their disabled boat was towed in and allowed to land for repairs at Langkawi Island, the countrys defense chief said Tuesday.

The government intended to contact Bangladesh officials to determine whether the boat that arrived on Monday had sailed in from Coxs Bazar, Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaacob said, referring to a southeastern Bangladeshi district where stateless Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have been sheltering in sprawling camps.

If that is the case, then Malaysia will deport them Rohingya to Bangladesh, he warned.

We have made a decision that we will not allow them to be in the country, Ismail Sabri told reporters.

We will ask the Foreign Ministry to discuss with Bangladesh if those who arrived on Monday were from Cox Bazar, then, we will send them back. Maybe we will ask them to be placed at the settlements created by the Bangladesh government for the Rohingya, he said during a daily press briefing on the Malaysian governments management of the coronavirus outbreak.

The defense chief added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would also be asked to contact UNHCR, the U.N.s refugee agency, so that we can send them to a third country.

But late Tuesday, Bangladeshs foreign minister rejected the idea that Malaysia could send the people on the boat back to his country.

Rohingyas are the citizens of Myanmar and Malaysia should send Rohingyas to Myanmar instead of Bangladesh. Otherwise, they (Malaysia) can keep Rohingyas in their own country, Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen told BenarNews.

We will take in no more Rohingya, he said, adding they were not Bangladeshs responsibility and Malaysian authorities had not yet contacted his government about the boat that arrived at Langkawi the day before.

On Monday, Malaysias coast guard tried to intercept the ship and push it back to international waters off Langkawi, but 53 people on board jumped into the sea and swam toward the island, the governments National Task Force said in a statement.

The coast guard towed the boat to a local dock for repairs after discovering engine damage and holes in the boat. The authorities also detained all 269 passengers, including those who swam to shore, the task force said in its statement. The Rohingya were being held at a detention center on Langkawi, according to the task force.

The landing marked the first time that Malaysia had allowed a boat carrying Rohingya refugees to disembark on its territory after the country sealed its borders more than two months ago to guard against the further spread of the coronavirus.

Upon inspection on the vessel, 216 Rohingya illegal immigrants along with one remains of a deceased illegal immigrant woman were found on the vessel, the taskforce said in its statement.

However on Tuesday, Malaysian government officials did not immediately respond to requests from BenarNews seeking clarification on whether hundreds more Rohingya had been on the boat when it set sail. The statement from the task force only mentioned 269 Rohingya and did not say whether the boat had sailed from Coxs Bazar.

On Monday, a senior Malaysian security official told BenarNews that the people aboard the boat were believed to have sailed from the Bangladeshi district in February.

The boat is believed to have carried 500 Rohingya when it departed Bangladesh but only 269 were found, said the source, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media on the matter.

Also on Monday, a Malaysian daily, Harian Metro, quoted a source as saying that the boat had sailed from Coxs Bazar. The boat was believed to have carried more than 500 ethnic Rohingya, and 200 of them reportedly died during the voyage, but authorities are still investigating the matter, Harian Metro reported, citing information from the anonymous source.

NGOs respond

On Tuesday, officials at two local NGOs involved in refugee affairs told BenarNews that the boat which arrived in Langkawi was one of two boats that had left Bangladesh in February. The boats were carrying 700 to 800 refugees between them, according to an official with one of the NGOs.

There is another boat still at sea. They were separated, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears about personal safety.

Meanwhile, the interim head of the Malaysian chapter of Amnesty International, commented on the discovery of the Rohingya womans corpse aboard the boat that was allowed to land in Langkawi.

It is terrible that a womans body was found on board  its clear this boat was adrift and failing to find a safe shore until then. For one person, this rescue came too late, Preethi Bhardwaj said.

She commended the Malaysian authorities for allowing the boat to land on Monday, calling it a humane step.

Boats carrying people in distress must always be allowed to land safely. They must not be pushed away, threatened or intimidated, she said.

Jesmin Papri in Dhaka and Ray Sherman in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
New Delhi: Popular Telugu actor-politician Nandamuri Balakrishna, fondly addressed as Balayya by his followers turned 60 on June 10. Amid the deadly novel coronavirus scare, he had a quiet birthday with near and dear ones but decided to make it special by visiting Indo American Cancer Hospital.

He paid a visit to Indo Americal Cancer Hospital and spent time with kids battling the deadly 'c' word illness. He cut his birthday cake, wished everyone well, greeted the media waiting outside while wearing a mask and following the social distancing norm.

A video was shared on Instagram by fan clubs. Take a look:

Several south actors such as Chiranjeevi, Jr NTR, Mahesh Babu amongst others wished Balayya on 60th birthday.

Nandamuri Balakrishna even donated Rs 1.25 crore towards the fight against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. He has donated Rs 50 lakh each to CM relief funds of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Rs 25 lakh towards the 'Corona Crisis Charity' welfare of cine workers of Telugu filmdom, which was initiated by Chiranjeevi.

On the work front, he released the first look teaser of his upcoming venture 'NBK 106'. It is produced by Miryala Ravinder Reddy under Dwaraka Creations. It has been directed by Boyapati Sreenu, together they have collaborated in projects like 'Simha and Legend previously.

Here's wishing Balayaa a very happy birthday!
An expert panel will review a contentious decision to deny war hero Edward "Teddy" Sheean a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come under mounting pressure to overturn an allegedly flawed decision to award the Tasmanian the nation's pre-eminent Australian gallantry decoration.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has asked for a review of Edward Sheean's claims for a posthumous Victoria Cross. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The federal government rejected the findings of the Defence Honours and Awards Appeal Tribunal report last month, which unanimously recommended Ordinary Seaman Sheean receive the VC for his 1942 heroics when the HMAS Armidale was sunk by Japanese bombers in the Timor Sea.

The 18-year-old strapped himself to an anti-aircraft gun as the vessel went down and is credited with saving the lives of 49 crew. He shot down at least one aircraft, before dying at his gun.
Zoom said Wednesday that it had temporarily closed a US account of activists who met to mark the anniversary of China's crackdown in Tiananmen Square, raising alarm over free speech on the fast-growing video-meeting service. US-based rights campaigners turned to Zoom, which has become a way of life for many people during the coronavirus lockdown, to connect more than 250 people to remember Beijing's crushing of the pro-democracy uprising on June 4, 1989. The group Humanitarian China said it had brought in numerous participants from inside China, which has tried to erase memories of the bloodshed -- and that its paid Zoom account was shut down without explanation one week later. The shutdown was first reported by news site Axios. Zhou Fengsuo, a co-founder of the group who was number one on Beijing's most-wanted list after the Tiananmen crackdown, told AFP that the Zoom account was reactivated on Wednesday. Zoom acknowledged that it had shut down and restored the account after the attention. "Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate," a Zoom spokesperson said. "When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws. "We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters." The activists voiced outrage, charging that the company may have been under direct pressure from China's communist leaders. "If so, Zoom is complicit in erasing the memories of the Tiananmen Massacre in collaboration with an authoritarian government," Humanitarian China said in a statement. It called Zoom an "essential" resource in reaching audiences inside China, which rigorously enforces censorship. - Long dilemma for US tech - Zoom reported Tuesday that its earnings had soared in the quarter ending April 30 as both companies and friends, cooped up inside due to COVID-19 lockdowns, embrace the platform to meet virtually. Its rapid growth has not been without previous problems, with the company forced to confront a rash of racists and other unwelcome gatecrashers who hack into Zoom sessions. Beijing has developed a sophisticated "Great Firewall" that aims to keep out news that is damaging to the leadership. Authorities go to extraordinary lengths each year to ban commemorations of the Tiananmen crackdown, in which the military killed hundreds of unarmed protesters -- by some estimates, more than 1,000 -- who had packed the capital to seek reform. PEN America, the literary group that defends free speech, denounced Zoom's move. "We wouldn't tolerate it if a phone company cut off service for someone expressing their views in a conference call; we shouldn't tolerate it in the digital space either," said the group's CEO, Suzanne Nossel. "Zoom portends to be the platform of choice for companies, school systems and a wide range of organizations that need a virtual way to communicate, especially amid global lockdown. But it can't serve that role and act as the long arm of the Chinese government," she said. With its alluring market, China has long been problematic for US tech giants that generally boast of allowing unfettered free speech at home. Apple in 2017 acknowledged that it bowed to Chinese law by removing apps for VPNs, or virtual private networks, that let its users evade local controls. A decade earlier, Yahoo faced intense criticism and conceded wrongdoing after helping Chinese officials identify pro-democracy advocates who posted on online message boards.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday arrested two persons from Bihar in connection with the last years theft of four hard disks and other equipment related to sensitive data from INS Vikrant, the countrys first indigenously-built aircraft carrier, which is being readied in Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) for its commissioning next year.

Both the accused were engaged in painting job at the vessel two years ago, NIA authorities said. More details are expected later in the day.

Last September, the Kerala Police had registered a case on the basis of a complaint filed by the CSL general manager about the theft and later the probe was transferred to the NIA.

The theft had raised serious concerns over a security breach and later a multi-agency probe began, headed by NIA.

Four hard disks, memory cards, a processor, and other equipment were stolen from the high-security area after dismantling computers installed on the ship.

The theft came to light after the information technology (IT) system developed a snag. There was no closed-circuit TV (CCTV)-led surveillance mechanism since work was still going on at the vessel.

NIA authorities had collected fingerprints of over 1,200 people, including the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and CSL employees, contractual workers, and others.

The Central investigating agency had also announced a reward of 5 lakh for any information about the theft, as the probe had appeared to have hit a dead end.

Several agencies are involved in the building of the aircraft carrier, which is considered to be one of the prestigious defence projects of the country. The theft had not only embarrassed the defence sector, but there were also widespread apprehensions over the pilferage of sensitive data.

The commissioning of INS Vikrant by next year will help India join an elite club of five countries, including the United States of America, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France, which have built their own carriers.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ramesh Babu Ramesh Babu is HTs bureau chief in Kerala, with about three decades of experience in journalism. ...view detail
The personal information of police officers across the United States is being leaked online amid tense stand-offs with George Floyd protesters, according to an unclassified intelligence document from the US Department of Homeland Security.

The document warns that the effort known as 'doxxing' could lead to attacks by 'violent opportunists or domestic violent extremists' or could prevent law enforcement officials from carrying out their duties.

Multiple high-ranking police officials in a number of cities, including Washington, Atlanta, Boston and New York, have had their personal information shared on social media, including their home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, the report warns.

'At least one of the police commissioners was targeted for his alleged support of the use of tear gas to disperse protests,' the report says.

The personal information of police officers across the country, including in New York (pictured above) is being leaked online amid tense stand-offs with George Floyd protesters, according to an unclassified intelligence document from the US Department of Homeland Security

Police officials nationwide have spoken out lately saying they feel caught in the middle of trying to stop violent protests and feel abandoned by lawmakers in the demand for police reform.

Some officers have said they fear for their lives.

'Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect! We've been vilified. It's disgusting,' New York State police union official Mike O'Meara said as lawmakers in the state repealed a law known as Section 50-a that keeps police records secret.

The demonstrations around the country, however, have centered on the police use of excessive force in the killings of minorities.

George Floyd, whose funeral was on Tuesday in Houston, cried out that he couldn't breathe as a white officer in Minneapolis pressed his knee into the man's neck.

Floyd's death, caught on video, has sparked widespread demonstrations and the debate over force.

The same words were used by Eric Garner in 2014 after he was placed in a choke-hold by police and later died.

Federal officials also identified posts that include specific personal information of several law enforcement officers in Kentucky and their family members.

Multiple high-ranking police officials in a number of cities, including Washington DC (pictured above), Atlanta, Boston and New York, have had their personal information shared on social media

The report says the post included a link to a website that contained their full names, the names of their family members, home addresses, specific information about the vehicles they drive and online account login information.

A 26-year-old EMT, Breonna Taylor, was killed by police who had served a no-knock search warrant at her Kentucky home on March 13 as part a of drug investigation. She was not the suspect they were seeking.

The personal information of another officer from San Jose, California, and his family was also posted online in a post that called for others to 'do with this information what you will,' the report said.

It is not illegal to post the personal information of law enforcement officers online, though many social media companies specifically prohibit its sharing as part of their terms of service.

The report warns that some of the information may be coming from officers' compromised email and other accounts, but some of the information may be from publicly available databases based on public records and social media sites.

Officers are being encouraged to increase their security settings on their accounts, like using multi-factor email authentication and strong passwords.

The report also suggests avoid taking online quizzes or games that elicit personal information, to be wary of suspicious emails and not to post phone numbers online.

The report says the Department of Homeland security has 'medium confidence that cyber actors will possibly continue to target law enforcement officers' with doxxing tactics 'to undermine law enforcements response to ongoing lawful protests.'
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The Metro Manila Council is set to meet this week on its recommendation to the governments COVID-19 task force on the fate of the community quarantine in the capital region, its chairman said on Wednesday.

MMC chairman and Paranaque City Mayor Edwin Olivarez told CNN Philippines News Night that the council composed of all mayors in Metro Manila is just waiting for latest data from the Department of Health on the case doubling time in the region, or the time it takes for COVID-19 cases to double.

Hindi po kami makapag-decide  without the specific data para malaman po natin kung ang recommendation natin is to sustain yung ating general community quarantine o i-downgrade na sa modified general community quarantine, Olivarez said.

[Translation: We cant decide  without the specific data so we would know whether to recommend a stay for the general community quarantine or downgrade it to a modified general community quarantine.]

Olivarez, however, said that he wants the general community quarantine to be extended for another 15 days in Paranaque City, despite what he described as a plateau in cases in 14 barangays.

Masiyadong abrupt kung magkaroon po tayo ng modified. Yun pong inumpisahan natin na health protocol po natin, dapat i-continue po natin yan, he said.

[Translation: Its too abrupt if we go into modified (general community quarantine). The health protocols that we started with, we should continue with those.]

The fate of the community quarantine in the country is expected to be announced on Thursday, following the meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Most of the country is now under the more relaxed modified general community quarantine, while several other regions considered still at high risk for COVID-19 infections, including Metro Manila and Cebu, are under general community quarantine.
A paramilitary police officer stands guard in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on March 11, 2018. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese Regime Steps Up United Front Efforts to Influence Western Democracies: Report

The Chinese regime is stepping up efforts to influence overseas Chinese communities and political systems worldwide, and democratic countries should tackle such campaigns with firm responses, according to a new report.

The United Front Work Department, a unit under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), coordinates thousands of groups to carry out foreign political influence operations, suppress dissident movements, gather intelligence, and facilitate the transfer of technology to China, according to a June report by think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

The units political influence initiatives target foreign elites, including politicians and business executives, and are often covert in nature, the report said. Overseas Chinese communities are also key targets, with the party seeking to co-opt and control community groups, business associations, and Chinese-language media.

Successful united front work wedges the party between ethnic Chinese communities and the societies they live in, expanding the partys control of those communities channels for representation and mobilization, the report said.

The department also runs China News Service, one of the regimes largest news outlets, spreading propaganda to the Chinese diaspora, the report said. It has also established think tanks, while Chinese individuals with ties to united front bodies have funded research at Western think tanks.

Alex Joske, author of the report, said that the United Fronts work abroad amounts to an exportation of the CCPs political system.

Its efforts undermines social cohesion, exacerbates racial tension, influences politics, harms media integrity, facilitates espionage, and increases unsupervised technology transfer, the report said.

United States

A key component of Chinas united front system involves Beijings legal and illicit technology-transfer efforts, according to the report.

Beijing establishes or co-opts professional associations with members in universities, governments, and private companies, and hires overseas scientists under Chinas state-sponsored recruitment programs such as the Thousand Talents Plan.

Beijing rolled out the Thousand Talents Plan in 2008 to aggressively recruit promising science and tech researchers from foreign countries to work in China.

Many professors in the United States have been indicted for failing to disclose their participation in the Thousand Talents Plan, including those at Emory University, University of Kansas, and Harvard University. Some Thousand Talents participants have been charged in cases of intellectual property theft.

Organizations for overseas Chinese, such as the Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA), also take part in recruitment efforts.

WRSA is directed by the United Front Work Department, and has a division dedicated to recruiting overseas experts for the Thousand Talents program. WRSA has branches in 15 countries, including the United States.

According to Chinas state-run Peoples Daily, the recruiting branch was established in January 2011.

The organization views recruitment as a key priority. In April 2018, Chen Zhu, WRSAs chairman, said during a meeting in Beijing that it was important for the organization to be a talent bank for China. Chen also said it was key to continuously strengthen the political guidance for those studying overseas, as part of its mission to implement the United Front Word Departments policy.

ASPI highlighted a criminal case in the United States in connection to the United Front. The case involved Yang Chunlai, a naturalized U.S. citizen and former engineer at Chicago-based global markets company CME Group, who was convicted of stealing trade secrets in 2015.

Yang started working for CME in 2000. Between 2010 and 2011, he downloaded more than 10,000 computer files of CMEs source codes that made up a substantial part of its electronic trading platform Globex. He transferred the files to his personal hard drive.

Yang and two unnamed business partners planned to form a business called Tongmei Futures Exchange Software Technology Company in China. Yangs company planned to provide technology to the Zhangjiagang Exchange, a chemical electronic trading market in China, that could increase its trading volume. Zhangjiagang is a city in coastal Chinas Jiangsu Province.

He pleaded guilty in September 2012 and was sentenced to four years of probation in 2015.

Yang was also former president of the Association of Chinese Scientists and Engineers (ACSE) in the United States. Founded in Chicago in 1992, the association has members in more than 20 states.

According to the ASPI report, ACSE frequently meets with United Front officials.

Yang also served on an advisory committee at the Overseas Chinese Affairs Officeoriginally an agency under Chinas State Council, that is now a bureau under the United Front after an institutional restructuring in 2018, according to Chinese state-run media.

In 2006, Yang visited Beijing to attend a training course for young overseas Chinese leaders. There, he met an investment and talent recruitment delegation from a Chinese county government, according to the report.

The source code he later stole, some of which he sent to the county government, was meant to help grow the business he established in the countys free trade zone, ASPI stated.

The report recommended that governments study and develop their capacity to understand Chinas united front work and come up with high-level policies on countering foreign interference.

ASPI also suggested that governments work with universities to develop responses to Chinese influence on their campuses. Public officials should not legitimize united front groups, it added, and instead support independent Chinese community groups in the diaspora.

It also suggested that Chinese foreign agents be denied visas or expelled from countries.
Columbia-Greene Media has recently teamed up with the US Postal Service to provide same-day delivery of your local newspaper with your mail. Our expanded daily delivery of your local news reaches into the following areas:
"Being recognized as a Top Workplace for five straight years is a testament to the strength of our shared values at Freedom Mortgage," said Freedom Mortgage CEO Stanley C. Middleman. "From the very start, our focus has been to create an environment where people can succeed and enjoy what they do, and where we are all united behind the purpose of fostering homeownership."

Middleman added that Freedom's vibrant culture is also a reflection of its visionary management team and its commitment to the communities it serves, both in Indiana and nationwide. Freedom encourages its employees to find ways to give back to their communities through various fundraisers, charities and events.

The company is particularly dedicated to helping those who are less fortunate and active-duty military, veterans and their families. Last month, for example, employees collectively donated over $281,000 to support food banks around the country. Middleman added a personal contribution, bringing the total amount donated to $1 million.

"Being socially conscious and helping the less fortunate is part of who we are," Middleman said. "Especially today, when so many people have been impacted by the pandemic in Indiana and across the U.S., we believe it's important to do what we can."

"In times of great change, it is more important than ever to maintain a connection among employees," said Eric Rubino, Energage CEO. "When you give your employees a voice, you come together to navigate challenges and shape your path forward based on real-time insights into what works best for your organization. The Top Workplaces program can be that positive outcome your company can rally around in the coming months to celebrate leadership and the importance of maintaining an employee-focused culture, even during challenging times."

About Freedom Mortgage

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Marlton, New Jersey, Freedom Mortgage is a non-bank, full-service mortgage company that provides mortgage loans through retail, wholesale, and correspondent channels. One of the nation's largest loan originators and servicers, the company is licensed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Freedom Mortgage is a leader in VA mortgage lending and one of the mortgage industry's largest philanthropic supporters of the USO and military families. The company is also renowned for its vibrant work environment where its team members can thrive. For more information, please visit FreedomMortgage.com.

About Energage

Energage offers a fully unified SaaS platform, plus support and professional services, to help organizations recruit and retain the right talent. As a B-Corporation founding member, Energage has committed itself to the purpose of making the world a better place to work together. Based on 14 years of culture research, the engine behind 51 Top Workplaces programs across the country, and data gathered from over 20 million employees at 60,000 organizations, Energage has isolated the 15 drivers of engaged cultures that are critical to the success of any business, and developed the tools and expertise to help organizations measure, shape and showcase their unique culture to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. For more information, please visit energage.com.

CORPORATE CONTACT:

Audrey Shapiro

Freedom Mortgage Corporation

(856) 380-9073

[email protected]

PRESS CONTACT:

Henry Drennan

Strategic Vantage Marketing & Public Relations

(615) 497-8358

[email protected]

SOURCE Freedom Mortgage

Related Links

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The new child-sized masks from MaskClub  a company from Trevco, one of the top licensing companies with over 800+ licensed brands  are double-ply cloth masks printed and sewn in the USA with fun, kid-approved designs like Sesame Street, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Nickelodeon favorites like SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, JoJo Siwa, Blue's Clues & You!, PAW Patrol, and more. To fit kid's faces and ears, the masks feature smaller fabric areas and shorter elastic bands. The company recognizes that wearing a face mask can be an adjustment for kids, but the thousands of playful designs makes it easier for parents and kids to wear masks.

"In these unprecedented times, we wanted to help families adjust to the new normal by creating kid-friendly face coverings," says Founder, Trevor George. "With MaskClub, the whole family can now get matching masks from superheroes to cartoon characters like Elmo or Cookie monster, familiar characters that kids know and love."

For every mask purchase, the company will donate a medical grade mask to First Responders Children's Foundation for distribution to paramedics, emergency medical technicians, police officers, firefighters and medical personnel treating COVID-19 patients. To date, MaskClub has donated 100,000 medical masks to first responders.

MaskClub is the first and only company to offer a mask subscription model, where customers will receive a new mask every month from their favorite brand. Subscriptions are $9.99/ month, almost 30% off single mask purchases ($13.99), and customers will have access to exclusive art and exclusive brand launches in the future.

For more information on adult and kid masks, visit MaskClub.com or on Instagram at @maskclubofficial. Customers are encouraged to share how they are staying safe and wearing their masks with the hashtag #maskclub.

About MaskClub

MaskClub is THE destination direct to consumer site for officially branded face masks, with 1000s of designs from the world's most beloved brands like Warner Bros., Hello Kitty, Sesame Street, Kraft Heinz, Care Bears, Betty Boop, Popeye and many more. Subscribe for $9.99 to receive a mask a month nearly 30% off or buy them one off for $13.99. MaskClub will donate a mask for every mask purchased (even monthly subscriptions) to the First Responders Children's Foundation to distribute to frontline workers. To date, MaskClub has donated over 100,000 medical masks to first responders. MaskClub masks are proudly printed & sewn in the USA. www.maskclub.com

About Trevco

Founded in 1990, Trevco (www.trevcoinc.com) is one of the top 150 leading licensees ranked by License Global magazine, currently partnered with over 800+ licensed brands such as Warner Bros, Hasbro, NBC Universal, CLC, and so many more. Today, they are known as one of the largest e-commerce players for licensed merchandise, thanks to our unique print-on-demand apparel & accessories technology.

Contact:

Alison Brod Marketing + Communications

[email protected]

SOURCE MaskClub

Related Links

https://www.maskclub.com


BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

Ravon Nexia R3 led TOP 10 best-selling cars in Kazakhstan in May 2020, with 1,007 cars sold, Trend reports with reference to Association of Kazakhstan Automobile Business (AKAB).

In the list, Uzbek sedan was ahead of Lada Granta (second place) and Hyundai Tucson (third place).

In May, sales in the automotive market of Kazakhstan increased by six percent, compared to the same period of 2019. Moreover, for the whole 2019, more than 3,500 Ravon Nexia R3 cars were sold in Kazakhstan.

In addition, the Ravon brand entered the top five leading brands in the Kazakh market.

Sales of cars under Ravon brand in Kazakhstan resumed in March 2019. From September through October 2019, Nexia was one of the top three best-selling cars in the country.

In January 2020, 449 cars of this model were sold in Kazakhstan and thus, it became the leader of the sales, taking first place in the top of best-selling cars.

On April 28, 2020, UzAuto Motors (leader of Uzbek car industry) jointly with its Kazakh partner SaryarkaAvtoProm LLP announced the start of Chevrolet cars sales in Kazakhstan.

Furthermore, the company plans to start production of several car models including, among others, Chevrolet Onix.

In the period from January through April 2020, Uzbekistan produced 96,727 cars, which is 17,113 more than in the same period of 2019.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
A chilling Whatsapp chat between a journalist and his brother before the former died due to coronavirus, is prompting serious questions on the lack of facilities and medical personnel at a government Covid hospital in Telangana.

The 33-year-old journalist and his brother had been admitted at the Gandhi hospital in Hyderabad, after both of them were diagnosed with Covid-19 on June 3. The chat reveals how the deceased, despite complaining of severe breathing issues, was not provided any oxygen support and how there were no doctors present inside the hospital's ICU.

Doctors had attended to the deceased after 12 hours despite him repeatedly complaining of breathing difficulty, alleged his brother, adding that by the time his kin was taken to the ICU, his condition had worsened.

My brother (deceased) developed breathing issues late in the night on the day we were admitted. I went out of the ward to look for doctors but there were none around. After multiple calls by fellow journalists to State Health Ministers team and pressure from higher-ups on the Hospital's Superintendent, the doctor came the next day, he said.

However, by the time the doctors came, the journalist's condition had aggravated as he developed acute breathing issues, his brother said.

"He was taken to ICU unit after almost 15 hours. We were told that there were no beds available in ICU," said the scribe's brother.

"I threatened to create a ruckus and walk out of the isolation ward if my brother wasn't given proper treatment, and only then did they agree to move him to the ICU. By then, his breathing condition had worsened," he said.

But the torment did not end there. Once inside the ICU, the journalist texted his brother saying that he had not received any oxygen support, and highlighted the absence of any doctor. He died on June 7 amid treatment.

The Telangana Government has, however, refuted the claims, stating that all patients at the Gandhi Hospital were being given proper treatment.

The hospital statement says that he died of a cardiac arrest. He could not be revived despite attempts to resuscitate him, it said.

"The deceased was already suffering from Myasthenia Gravis, which causes weakening of muscles, including respiratory ones. He had urderwent surgery due to this, as well and was on steroids because of that. With these comorbidities, he became Covid-19 positive and had bilateral pneumonia with type-1 respiratory failure and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). We tried our best but he couldnt be revived, said Superintendent Raja Rao.

The State government in a previous press release had said that the Gandhi Hospital is equipped with enough facilities to treat 2,150 patients and had 1,000 beds with oxygen supply facility.

However, as of now, there are only 247 Covid-19 at the hospital.

While the government has said that there are "fake news" being spread against the hospital to malign the image of the state's healthcare system, this is not the first time such an incident has been reported.

In a previous case, the Telangana High Court had asked the state government if a Covid-19 patient was dead or alive after his wife filed a petition alleging that her husband was missing.

She said that she had received no official communication about him and on the contrary been told contradictory versions of his whereabouts.

Videos alleged to be from the Gandhi Hospital's isolation ward have been circulating on social media. Unhygienic maintenance of the ward with beds placed too close to each can be seen in the videos.

The state is being widely criticised on its low coronavirus testing compared to other states. As of May 17, Telangana had only tested 22842 samples, one of the lowest figures in the country.
Torontos next police chief will take over in a time of unprecedented discussion over the purpose, usefulness and cost of police prompted by global protests over anti-Black racism and police brutality.

He or she will also have to grapple with new public support for cutting the police budget, strained relationships with Torontos Black and LGBTQ communities, lack of trust in accountability mechanisms and the question of how to address record levels of gun violence.

Here are five key challenges facing the man or woman taking over after Mark Saunders surprise resignation Monday:

Systemic anti-Black racism

Local protests are increasingly calling for the defunding of the police, citing a failure to keep Black communities safe. They have focused on the recent deaths of Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto and DAndre Campbell in Brampton, both following 911 calls. The new police chief will have to address systemic anti-Black racism in policing, including how police respond to mental health crises involving Black individuals, higher rate that force is used against Black people and the legacy of carding.

The job also calls for responding to a lack of trust in police accountability and oversight mechanisms made worse after an off-duty Toronto police officer and his brother were charged with beating Dafonte Miller, a Black teenager, so badly that he lost his eye. Neither Toronto police nor Durham police notified Ontarios Special Investigations Unit at the time. Millers lawyer has filed a complaint with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director alleging a cover-up, which Saunders has denied. A verdict in the criminal case against the two men is pending, as is a disciplinary charge against Const. Michael Theriault.

The coming budget battle

There has always been debate around cutting the ballooning budget for policing, but the discussion will be even more fraught in the coming months as the police service aims to hire more officers and as two city councillors move to slash 10 per cent from the $1.22 billion budget.

The motion stems from increasing public support in Toronto for defunding police and investing instead in mental health, affordable housing, community services and youth programs that research has shown would reduce crime in the long-term.

Meanwhile, there is also push by police for increased investment into technology including the use of body cameras and anti-gun-violence measures. Cuts will be especially difficult for a police chief to navigate considering that salaries and benefits account for nearly 90 per cent of total police spending. The police union has contended there is a staffing crisis with too few officers being hired to meet the demands of a growing city. The police budget calls for hiring 300 more police officers for a total of 5,038 by 2021. The force is currently at around 4,700  the target set by Saunders 2017 modernization plan.

Shootings and gang violence

All levels of government have promised money and action to fight gun crime in Toronto and the police chief will likely have significant influence over how that money is spent.

In response to two years of record highs for shootings in Toronto, Saunders strategy involved increasing officer presence in key areas and increasing resources for intelligence-led guns and gangs units.

The approach was criticized by community advocates who say short-term measures including over-policing parts of the city will not be the solution and can do more harm than good. Future police strategies will be closely scrutinized amid potential cuts to community and youth services due to financial constraints from the pandemic.

Relationship with the LGBTQ community

The relationship between the Toronto police and the citys LGBTQ community was seriously damaged during Saunders tenure, said Shakir Rahim, former Vice-Chair of the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP).

He was among those who successfully advocated for an independent review of how Toronto police investigates missing persons cases linked to the LGBTQ community and the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood following the arrest of serial killer Bruce McArthur, who killed eight men over several years, and the disappearances of Alloura Wells, a trans woman, and Tess Richey, a 22-year-old woman, both later found dead. Rahim also pointed to morality raids in 2017, in which undercover officers spent six weeks in an Etobicoke park seeking individuals interested in sexual activity.

In my own view. I dont think the force has grappled with the degree of alarm by the public from all of these events, Rahim said. There has been no public apology from Saunders or members of the Toronto police for failing to take seriously concerns that a serial killer was preying on the LGBTQ community, Rahim said. I think there is still a real breakdown in trust for the community and the service. Toronto police have not been allowed to participate in the Pride Parade since 2017.

The modernization plan

A key part of Saunders tenure was a multi-faceted modernization plan that aimed to prioritize crime prevention work, change police culture, decrease the number of police officers and reduce costs. The suite of reforms were far from sweeping, but still prompted some internal backlash from the force.

Its unclear if the transformation plans will continue under new leadership  some goals are already murky amid a current push for more officers and funding for new technology such as body cameras.

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Azerbaijan will achieve significant results in 2020 by implementing the project "Development of sustainable and inclusive local agri-food systems in the North-Western region of Azerbaijan", funded by EU, Head of the FAO Partnership and Liaison Office in Azerbaijan Melek Chakmak told Trend.

"The goal of the project is the development of effective and inclusive agri-food systems that support smaller-scale agriculture and contribute to poverty reduction in Azerbaijans North-West region. The project is also aimed at strengthening the business environment for inclusive and effective development of agriculture and food systems with the support of community agricultural consulting services in the region," Chakmak noted.

"The tasks set before us will be achieved by using four interconnected components. The project proposals are mainly focused on creating local inclusive and efficient models of agriculture and the food system for selected local agri-food products, as well as facilitating access to markets by strengthening ties between producers and buyers and expanding the potential of agritourism in the region," the head of the office added.

"The result of the first stage of the project is the recognition of the target region as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). This will draw attention to partially forgotten traditional agricultural practices and increase the level of national and global recognition and fame of the region. This, in turn, is expected to attract more investors and tourists to the region, as well as help to support the preservation of the traditional agricultural system and food production," she said.

Chakmak noted that the results of the last stage of the implementation of project provide for the creation of a model of local consulting services at the community level for the agri-food systems and their pilot introduction to individual communities.

She added the last stage of the project will also allow small farmers and processors to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to create profitable and sustainable agricultural enterprises.

The project is financed by the EU, and the main partner in the project is Ministry of Agriculture. As a pilot area, Balakan, Zagatala. Gakh and Shakhi districts were selected.

Azerbaijan has been a member of the FAO since 1995. FAO Partnership and Liaison Office in Azerbaijan has been operating since 2007.
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Linkedin (Reuters) Los Angeles, United States  Wed, June 10, 2020 19:03 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddb1c4e 2 Art & Culture theater,people-of-color,Racism,united-states Free

Viola Davis, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Cynthia Erivo joined some 300 actors and playwrights on Tuesday in decrying racism in the US theater world, saying it had exploited, excluded and diminished people of color.

In an open letter addressed to "Dear White American Theater," the signatories complained of tokenism, prioritizing white theater for white audiences, and a failure to make promised changes in programming or leadership.

The letter follows a national reckoning in the United States about systemic racism, sparked by the death of African American George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer last month. Floyd's funeral, broadcast nationwide, took place on Tuesday in Houston, Texas, after two weeks of street protests around the world.

"We have watched you use our BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) faces on your brochures, asking us to politely shuffle at your galas, talkbacks, panels, board meetings, and donor dinners, in rooms full of white faces," the letter said.

It was addressed not just to theater owners and theater companies but also to critics, casting directors, agents, labor unions and university training programs.

"We have watched you exploit us, shame us, diminish us, and exclude us. We see you," it said, adding that despite holding anti-racism workshops, few changes are made to theater programs or leadership.

Read also: UK slave trader's statue toppled in anti-racism protests

"This is a house that will not stand. This ends TODAY," the letter said.

It was accompanied by a change.org petition demanding reforms in the theater that by late Tuesday had been signed by almost 50,000 people.

Others signing included "This is Us" star Sterling K. Brown, "Pose" star Billy Porter, playwright Lynn Nottage, "Black Panther" actress Danai Gurira, and "Orange is the New Black" Emmy winner Uzo Aduba.
To be fair to the Peel District School Board, I doubt theres a major institution in Canada that would survive this level of scrutiny of their anti-Black racism policies.

To be fair to the Peel District School Board students, its past time that the boards director of education, the chair and vice-chair of the board of trustees and anyone who enabled them be sent packing. But only the director can be sacked; the trustees are elected.

Yet another scathing report released Monday that led to the minister of education issuing an ultimatum gave the boards leadership a capital F Fail grade. Black communities have long testified in meetings, in letters, in studies, in reviews, in the media that on the issue of anti-Black racism at least, its senior-most staff is incompetent and insulting.

Consider some of the phrases that jump out of the 27-page report by investigator Arleen Huggins, who was called in to investigate if the board was complying with the ministrys binding directions: failed to comply; failure to fully review; failing to answer; failed to see; failed to explain; failed to secure consensus; failure to fully understand the findings of the report; failure to provide leadership.

In a statement Monday, director Peter Joshua and chair Brad MacDonald said, While our commitment to undertake anti-Black racism work today is real, we acknowledge there is reason for skepticism and mistrust sowed by years of inaction. As educators, we know you expect and deserve better from us.

How many such statements should the community hear before they see action? A previous apology from the board said, We must do all we can to eliminate the marginalization experienced by Black students and staff in Peel schools. A statement prior to that said, We have much to do to continue the remedial work necessary to seek reconciliation. But Huggins report didnt find any evidence of trust-building measures. Yet another statement before that said apologies mean nothing if we dont take action to address and correct systemic issues.

Words, words, words.

The board has come under the microscope because of the stubborn resistance by Black community members and three women on the board: trustees Kathy McDonald and Nokha Dakroub, and associate director of equity Poleen Grewal.

The dysfunction among Peel board trustees has played out publicly. This report, mandated by Ontarios minister of education on April 27, offers details about another office in a shambles, roiling the board, but away from the public gaze.

At issue is the relationship between Peter Joshua, the director of education, and Grewal, the equity chief.

Grewal filed a human rights complaint against the board and Joshua in March 2019 alleging racism, harassment and reprisals that involved her young son who went to school in the same board. The root of her complaint, which is still outstanding, was the board silencing and diminishing her work while not dealing with anti-Black racism in schools.

The board denied the allegations and framed the issue as one of a clash of leadership styles.

A Peel board staffer had told me on condition of anonymity that Joshua goes to the We Rise Together Community meetings, comes back, laughs and mocks them. We Rise Together is an action plan to support Black students.

When I put that to Joshua in October he said, I unequivocally reject the suggestion that I was anything but respectful and supportive of the boards anti-Black racism work.

In this latest report, Huggins echoed Grewals statement that anti-Black racism was the source of disagreement.

I also heard concerns that while there is willingness to talk about marginalized communities, senior leadership have an issue with anti-Black racism in particular and get their backs up, she writes.

The report slams Joshuas competence on multiple fronts.

It portrays a leader unwilling to engage with trustees on important questions that impact Black children because he viewed being asked about it as being put on the spot. One such question was around a pilot project to stop streaming students into pathways towards or away from university  a practice that has been found discriminatory.

Joshua failed to ask his staff to respond to the equally important question by trustee Kathy McDonald of what to do with the records of students who have been expelled or suspended, a failure Huggins calls troublesome.

What about the equity team that Joshua said would help implement anti-racism initiatives system wide? The report says Joshua was not able to speak to the specific expertise, experience or credentials of any member of the Equity Committee.

Its also a committee bereft of a leader. Grewal is on a leave of absence. The board is looking to hire a superintendent of equity who would report to her.

The report says Joshua categorized his relationship with Grewal as professional, one in which he accommodated her requests. Yet, the report found, when Grewal specifically asked to be provided with a draft of the posting for the superintendent of equity, Joshua told her she would see it when it was posted online.

That there is tension in the directors office is well-known. The two-month-old ministry review mentions it, the Star has detailed the human rights claims, Black community members repeatedly referenced it and voiced support for Grewal at public board meetings, where they were shut down and asked not to get into personnel issues.

Yet the board of trustees vice-chair David Green told Huggins he was unaware of these tensions, indeed he was shocked and surprised to learn there was stuff going on there. Chair Brad MacDonald told Huggins it was irrelevant why there was tension in the office.

Huggins calls this indifference significant given the work the ministry was asking the board to undertake needed a strong relationship between the director and the equity team.

The report also puts the spotlight on the relationship between trustees  usually split 10 against two, with the two trustees Kathy McDonald and Nokha Dakroub being the ones who, Huggins notes, have been vocal advocates for equity and human rights issues and who have been engaging with the PDSBs Black and other equity-seeking communities.

The trustees chair and vice chair didnt see the two trustees that way. For instance, they assumed that McDonald and Dakroub walked away from a ministry-mandated mediation between warring factions because of their personal destructive agendas. In the same vein, the board sees the community as interfering and disruptive, the report said, which it labelled extremely troubling.

A breathtaking moment in an already shocker of a report is buried on page 18.

Chair Brad MacDonald thought it fit to tell Huggins the community has been after us, and that it is against our human rights to force us to apologize.

To quote Huggins: The board is ... incapable of providing good governance.
Taiwan chipmaker TSMC has no intention of testing the latest wave of U.S. sanctions against Huawei, regardless of how sloppy it is. Risking the wrath of Capitol Hill is not on its near-term agenda, which leaves Huawei without yet another key technology supplier.

This time, however, things are even more serious. As TSMC Chairman, Mark Liu, put it yesterday, these newest export controls might be fatal to Huaweis 2021 ambitions. At least as far as the consumer electronics segment is concerned, that is.

Truth be told, its not like fear was the primary motivator behind TSMCs decision to ditch Huawei. The prospect of lucrative subsidies from the worlds strongest economy is, by itself, reason enough for this move.

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After all, this mightily convenient incentive essentially means TSMC will have a rather straightforward roadmap toward replacing Huawei business.

And its not like TSMC is committing some grand act of betrayal here, either; its only choosing not to test the limits of Washingtons sloppily drafted embargoes against Chinas conglomerate.

However, its eager to continue seeking the Trump administrations approval to do limited business with Huawei in the future. In fact, its waiting for a response to its official application on the matter right now.

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Sure, sloppy Huawei sanctions look bad; if only Trump cared about optics

The fact remains that the Trump administrations anti-Huawei push is getting sloppier by the day. The newest trade restrictions imposed on the company hence appear to have a wide range of loopholes.

Still, key supplier like TSMC remain willing to comply with the spirit of the initiative  hurting Huawei and, by extent, China. For much the same reasons, Huawei is unlikely to find its silicon salvation in South Korea.

If anything, the company may be forced to use Qualcomms Snapdragon chipsets if its to have any hope of shipping competitive consumer electronics in 2021.

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What happens next is anything but easy to predict. Huawei still has access to vast amounts of capital, without even accounting for official support from Beijing.

Yet cutting its supply of latest chipmaking technologies may easily prove crippling to its operations in the near future. In that respect, its current predicament is a worthy culmination of decades of animosity between itself and the U.S.

Sure, the sloppy manner in which the Trump administration continues to stifle Huawei doesnt reflect too well on the White House. But if theres one thing the 45th presidency was never concerned with, its optics.
A vehicle recovered in the investigation into the alleged abduction of Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney was burned, apparently accidentally while in garda custody, the Special Criminal Court has heard.

Lawyers for one of the accused men told the non-jury court on Wednesday that they did not know what happened to the vehicle but that they would be grateful if the gardai and Director of Public Prosecutions could tell us all they know.

On Wednesday, the Special Criminal Court fixed January 11, 2021 as the date for the trial of the four accused.

They are: Luke O'Reilly (66), from Mullahoran Lower, Kilcogy, Co Cavan, Darren Redmond (25), from Caledon Road, East Wall, in Dublin, Alan OBrien (39), of Shelmalier Road, East Wall and a fourth accused who cannot be named for legal reasons. They are all charged with false imprisonment and assault causing serious harm to Mr Lunney at Drumbrade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan on September 17, 2019.

Mr Lunney was found incapacitated on a roadway in Co Cavan by a passing tractor on the date in question, having suffered a broken leg and been doused in bleach.

In an interview with the BBC last year, Mr Lunney alleged that the letters QIH had been carved into his chest with a Stanley knife during the two-and-a-half hour ordeal.

Counsel for the fourth accused, Michael OHiggins SC, told the court on Wednesday that a vehicle in respect of which evidence was gathered was apparently burned while in garda custody, apparently accidentally.

Mr OHiggins said he did not have full details on what happened to the vehicle and the easiest thing to do would be for the State to tell us all they know.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding at the three-judge court, put it to prosecuting lawyers that the matter seemed to be of concern.

Counsel for the DPP, Gareth Baker BL, replied that the State were looking into it.

Youll have to do more than look into it, the judge replied.

Separately, Mr Baker said disclosure was ongoing at the moment, with up to 50,000 documents being scanned electronically.

Mr Justice Hunt urged the prosecution to conclude the disclosure process before the end of July.

Mr OBrien was remanded in custody to appear before the court again on July 6, when his lawyers will try to have the charges thrown out. The fourth accused was also remanded in custody.

Mr OReilly and Mr Redmond were granted High Court bail in April, despite garda objections. Granting both men bail at the time, Mr Justice Paul Burns said the alleged abduction and assault on Kevin Lunney was vicious, cruel and abhorrent criminal behaviour which rightly attracted great public revulsion and anger.

He said any charges arising out of the incident must be viewed as serious and any person convicted of the alleged offences could expect to receive a significant custodial sentence.

However, he said the accused were presumed innocent and there was an entitlement to bail.

Mr Justice Burns said the alleged abduction and assault on Kevin Lunney was preceded by a series of attacks on QIH but it was fully accepted that neither Mr OReilly nor Mr Redmond were suspected of being involved of those earlier incidents.

The judge said the alleged abduction and assault on Kevin Lunney was the culmination of a campaign of harassment and intimidation of the QIH directors. The court was entitled to contextualise the alleged abduction and assault on Kevin Lunney, while bearing in mind the presumption of innocence, he added.

He said the alleged abduction and assault of Kevin Lunney itself was intimidatory. Mr Lunney was allegedly told to resign his directorship and drop all court cases involving QIH, the judge said. His alleged captors told him, the judge said, not to make any statements to gardai or they will be back.

Mr Justice Burns said the prosecution had fallen short of meeting the standard required to refuse bail. However, it was a borderline case, the judge said, and any bail had to be subject to stringent conditions.
Celebrity Gogglebox USA

Ten, Thursday, 7.30pm

As has become something of a TV custom, the term "celebrity" here is loosely applied. Among the participants in this American version who might be familiar to local viewers are chef Curtis Stone and his wife, actress Lindsay Price, model and TV host Tyra Banks, actor Justin Long and the Osbournes.

Celebrity Gogglebox USA. Credit:NETWORK TEN

Some of the others, maybe less so. In accordance with the established format, the participants sit around in their homes, drinking, munching snacks, watching TV and offering their spontaneous and not-always-deeply-considered responses to a range of shows. Here these include Nailed It!, Kings of Pain and the vintage addition, The Joy of Painting, a how-to-paint program hosted by apparent icon Bob Ross. It's worth persevering to the end to see Apple co-founder Steve Wosniak's adorable reaction to the Mother's Day screening of Dirty Dancing.
A former federal judge appointed to review the Justice Department's request to dismiss charges against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn said the department's move should be denied because there is clear evidence of a gross abuse of prosecutorial power," the Associated Press has reported.

The Governments ostensible grounds for seeking dismissal are conclusively disproven by its own briefs filed earlier in this very proceeding, former US District Judge John Gleeson wrote in a filing on Wednesday, a month after federal prosecutors, influenced by DOJ brass, moved to dismiss the case.

The government's stated grounds for dismissal "contradict and ignore this Courts prior orders, which constitute law of the case. They are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact. And they depart from positions that the Government has taken in other cases, Mr Gleeson wrote.

Mr Flynn was indicted in December 2017 for lying to the FBI about his communications with then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the bureau's counterintelligence probe into possible ties between Donald Trump's campaign and transition team and Russia.

Mr Flynn was fired by Mr Trump less than a month into his job as national security adviser in 2017 after it was discovered he had also lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Mr Kislyak and the FBI.

Mr Flynn twice pleaded guilty to the criminal charge against him before later retracting his guilty plea.

In a court filing last month, the DOJ moved to drop the charge against Mr Flynn, arguing in a court filing that it had concluded his 24 January 2017 interview by the FBI that led to his guilty plea was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBIs counterintelligence investigation into Mr Flynn and that it was conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.

The presiding judge in Mr Flynn's case, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, pumped the brakes on dismissing the feds' charges, citing concerns about the government's abrupt reversal of a case that has dragged on for two-and-a-half years.

It is unusual for a criminal defendant to claim innocence and move to withdraw his guilty plea after repeatedly swearing under oath that he committed the crime, Mr Sullivan has argued in a previous court filing.

It is unprecedented for an Acting US Attorney to contradict the solemn representations that career prosecutors made time and again, and undermine the district courts legal and factual findings, in moving on his own to dismiss the charge years after two different federal judges accepted the defendants plea," Mr Sullivan said.

Mr Trump has sought to make Mr Flynn's case a central part of his campaign message that career government bureaucrats were out to undermine his presidency from the start by ensnaring him and his top advisers in federal investigations.

Mr Trump's so-called "Obamagate" theory has not been substantiated despite multiple ongoing Senate investigations and a Justice Department inspector general's report, although the IG has found that key national security surveillance authorities over the last several years have been marked by errors.
WASHINGTON - George Floyd's brother challenged Congress on Wednesday to stop the pain" as lawmakers consider a sweeping law enforcement overhaul, so the man he looked up to won't become just "another name on a growing list of black Americans killed during interactions with police.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson arrives to testify before a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 9, 2020. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)

WASHINGTON - George Floyd's brother challenged Congress on Wednesday to "stop the pain" as lawmakers consider a sweeping law enforcement overhaul, so the man he looked up to won't become just "another name" on a growing list of black Americans killed during interactions with police.

Philonise Floyd's appearance before a House hearing came a day after funeral services for his older brother, the 46-year-old African American whose death has become a worldwide symbol in demonstrations calling for changes to police practices and an end to racial prejudice.

"Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain," Philonise Floyd told the silenced hearing room.

Choking back tears, he said he wants to make sure that his brother, whom he called "Perry," is "more than another face on a T-shirt, more than another name on a list that wont stop growing."

Floyd challenged lawmakers to be leaders: "Our country, this world needs the right thing."

Philonise Floyd, a brother of George Floyd, arrives to testify before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on proposed changes to police practices and accountability on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, in Washington. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler gaveled in the session, with many lawmakers and witnesses masked during the COVID-19 outbreak, as Democrats review the Justice in Policing Act, a far-ranging package of proposals amid a national debate on policing and racial inequality.

Repercussions after the weeks of protest continued nationwide.

President Donald Trump ruled out changing the names of Army bases named for Confederate Army officers, NASCAR announced it is banning the Confederate flag from its races and venues, and Amazon said it will suspend police use of its facial recognition technology for a year.

In Washington, lawmakers also heard testimony from civil rights and law enforcement leaders as Congress considers changes to police practices and accountability after Floyd's death in police custody in Minnesota and the mass protests that followed.

"Today we answer their call," Nadler said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi watched from the audience, and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy also joined.

Philonise Floyd, a brother of George Floyd, gives an opening statement during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on proposed changes to police practices and accountability on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, in Washington. Floyd arrived on Capitol Hill the day after funeral services for his George Floyd, who has become a worldwide symbol in demonstrations over calls for changes to police practices and an end to racial prejudices. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP)

Republicans are criticizing activists who want to "defund the police"  a catch-all term for shifting law enforcement resources  though the Democratic bill does not call for that. Trump and allies have seized on the phrase to portray Democrats as extreme as GOP lawmakers rush to come up with their own proposals.

"The American people understand that its time for a real discussion," said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the panel. But he said they also understand "it is pure insanity to defund the police."

For hours, witnesses described what what happened to Floyd on May 25  one called it a "lynching." Others placed his death alongside those of other African Americans, an ever increasing tally that has become difficult for lawmakers in Congress to ignore.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is leading the legislative effort, said the proposed changes reflect a nation coming to grips with a history of racial injustice.

"This is about the kind of America we all want to see," said Bass.

The Democrats legislation would create a national database of police misconduct, ban police choke holds and loosen "qualified immunity" to make it easier for those injured to seek damages in lawsuits, among other changes. The proposals dont go as far as some activists want to defund police departments for other community services. They do, however, make available grant money for states to reimagine ways of policing.

From left, Paul Butler, Angela Underwood Jacobs, Philonise Floyd, and Ben Crump are sworn in during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on proposed changes to police practices and accountability on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, in Washington. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool via AP)

Republicans as well as Democrats have called for a national registry of use-of-force incidents, so police officers cannot transfer between departments without public awareness of their records.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the "depravity" he said he saw in the video of Floyds death "burned in my soul." He welcomed a new database and called for police chiefs to get rid of "bad apples."

There is also growing bipartisan support for increasing the use of police body cameras, ending no-knock warrants  police used one to enter the home of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in Louisville, Kentucky  and making other changes to police practices and oversight.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that Trump was still looking at different options. She said the administration was making "final edits" on a proposal for release "in the coming days."

Philonise Floyd's testimony captivated the room as he recounted what he saw in the widely viewed video as an officer pressed a knee into George Floyd's neck while other police stood by. The one officer, Derek Chauvin, who is white, is now charged with murder, and three others also face charges.

"He called all of the officers sir,'" said Philonise Floyd. "He still called them sir as he begged for his life."

Philonise Floyd, a brother of George Floyd, speaks with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, after a lunch break for a House Judiciary Committee hearing on proposed changes to police practices and accountability on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, in Washington. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP)

"His life mattered," the brother said. He broke down at one point over the images. At another, he said he wonders every day if he will be "next."

Within the wrenching testimony were many of the core issues being debated as part of the police overhaul. Those include questions about whether it's appropriate to have police officers respond to minor offences  Floyd was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a neighbourhood market  and the use of force to detain suspects.

"I am asking you, is that what a black mans life is worth? Twenty dollars?" Philonise Floyd asked.

Asked if he could think of any reason for the incident, Floyd told Nadler his brother and Chauvin both worked at the same place.

"I think it was personal," Philonise Floyd testified.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Wednesday investigators are looking into a report from CBS News that the men had "bumped heads" working at the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub in Minneapolis.

Rev. Darrell Scott, who is part of Trump's national diversity coalition, blasted activists' push to dismantle police departments as "one of the most unwise, irresponsible proposals" ever.

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Scott noted he, like many black men, has been pulled over by police for "driving while black," as he put it.

"I could very easily have been George Floyd," he testified. "However, I do not recommend throwing out the baby with the bathwater."

The committee also heard from Angela Underwood Jacobs, the sister of a black law enforcement officer, Dave Patrick Underwood, who was shot and killed while guarding a federal courthouse in California during the protests that followed Floyds death.

Underwood Jacobs, a former Republican candidate for Congress, called for justice for Floyd and for her brother. She said the idea of defunding the police was "ridiculous." But she also urged the lawmakers to find answers.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Zeke Miller in Washington and videojournalist Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
The Partizan Center runs urban warfare training, live-fire shooting, tactical medicine, high-altitude training, military psychology, and survival.

Right-wing extremists from Germany undergo paramilitary training in a camp near St. Petersburg, according to the German Focus. Several course participants belong to the "Third Way" (Der Dritte Weg) and "Young Nationalists" parties, monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, reporters claim.

The "Third Way" was formed in 2013 by people from the National Democratic Party (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) and the banned Free Network South organization. The party is tied with the Assad government in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, IGTDS reports.

Der Dritte Weg has outlined a detailed call to boycott Israel, labeling it a "terror state".

The "Young Nationalists" is the youth branch of the oldest right-wing extremist party in Germany, the National Democratic Party. It is politically insignificant by quantity, just about 300 people, but its members are quite motivated, and a clear ideology allows for recruiting campaigns using various narratives, including environmental ones.

The militants were trained at the "Partizan" training center, according to the Focus.

The center is run by the RIM (Russian Imperial Movement), IGTDS reports.

Not unlike other far-right worldwide, Russia's RIM has been heavily focused on George Floyd protests, instances of looting in the USA. "Uncontrolled Blacks, antifas and liberals in the USA" was one of the topics of a June 5 video address by RIM's leaders.

Read alsoFinland should brace for Russian hybrid aggression  experts

In April, the United States designated the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) as a terrorist organization that includes people who "pursue the ideas of white supremacy". The movement has got two training camps in St. Petersburg, according to the State Department. One of them, according to Nathan Sales, the U.S. State Department Coordinator for Combating Terrorism, was targeted in an investigation of the explosion in Gothenburg in 2016. The Swedish prosecutor's office believes perpetrators Viktor Melin and Anton Thulin underwent combat training at the Partizan center.

The Partizan is affiliated with the DOSAAF, Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation and Navy, officially backed by the Russian military. IMINT analysis of the photos published on social network suggests the training center is in the south of Heinasenmaa Island, located in Lake Ladoga, 62 miles away from Petersburg.

The Partizan runs urban warfare training, live-fire shooting, tactical medicine, high-altitude training, military psychology, and survival training. Having been accused by the Swedish prosecutor's office, Partizans leaders claimed they had not used explosives, but the courses feature setting up elements for explosive devices handling, in particular, MS-3 mines, that are part of trap mines.

Having analyzed the photos available it is possible to assert that AK-74 5.45, AKM 7.62 Saiga 20S (used by special forces), Makarov pistols and MP-443 Grach are used while training.

Group classes are similar to teaching the basics of sabotage operations and reconnaissance group activity.

The training and teaching activities of the Center are run by war veterans and acting professionals from military intelligence, airborne troops, special forces, and Russia's Defense Ministry training center. Members of the military undoubtedly cannot run such training sessions without the top military command. Having finished the training course, the graduates from among foreign citizens were redirected to participate in hostilities in eastern Ukraine on the side of pro-Russian separatists.

It is highly probable that, at the initial stage of functioning, the Partizan trained Russian citizens who joined ISIS, the report reads, referring to the center's manager Denis Gariev.

Read alsoExpert warns of Russian efforts to fuel unrest in U.S.

Despite the fact that RIM officially declares that it is in opposition to Putin's regime, in reality it is affiliated with the government, IGDTS stresses. First, combat training is carried out using military weapons. Urban warfare tactics training does not meet resistance from law enforcement bodies. Second, the troops were sent to Ukraine and Syria under the control of Russian military intelligence. Third, in 2012, only the RIM website was declared extremist by the Russian Ministry of Justice, not the organization itself. German security services believe that Russian President Putin is aware of such camps and at least allows them to exist.

Though the site was blocked, the organization still has an account on the Russian VKontakte network, and their page has about 13,000 subscribers. Moreover, RIM has a page on the well-known Russian site Odnoklassniki, and sells its ideas on YouTube backup channels, as well as on Facebook.

RIM is politically tied with the Kremlin through the St. Petersburg branch of the Rodina party, i.e., the State Duma member Alexei Zhuravlev, the leader of the Rodina party, the report concludes.
[June 10, 2020] NHS Using Huma's Remote Monitoring to Care for Patients With COVID-19 Symptoms

LONDON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Huma is working with the NHS's digital transformation unit NHSX to provide remote monitoring for COVID-19 patients who are at-home, in quarantine, or self-isolating. Developed with leading international clinicians and academics, Huma has worked with NHSX and local NHS organisations to configure and trial its Medopad COVID-19 remote patient monitoring (RPM) platform in six sites to help support the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Creating Virtual Wards A number of NHS sites are now working with Huma's solution to support Virtual Wards to monitor and care for patients. Medopad enables the accurate exchange of health data and information between patients and their NHS care team. Healthcare teams can closely monitor a patient's symptoms to advise on appropriate care and early intervention, staying informed of symptoms and being alerted to disease progression that could avoid further complications or prompt a diagnostic procedure or a visit from a clinician or a visit to hospital  if needed. Tara Donnelly, Chief Digital Officer, NHSX said: "This is a great example of how new technology is supporting healthcare professionals to provide the right care at the right time. With COVID-19, it's vital that we make use of digital tools that can help support patients who don't need immediate hospital care and allow close monitoring of their condition. "The feedback we are getting from patients is that the remote monitoring with clinical oversight is really reassuring to them, and they are grateful to be at home while they recover, rather than in a hospital bed. The clinical team is finding it helps give them very rapid feedback on their patients and they are able to keep an eye on a number of people at a glance, which is working much better for them than the previous system which relied on phone calls." The COVID-19 remote monitoring trial phase started in London and Hertfordshire in both primary and secondary care settings to support patients with COVID-19 symptoms. The initial projects were: Watford General Hospital, part of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, is using the COVID-19 RPM solution for patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms via a 'Virtual Ward' to support COVID-19 patients who have been discharged from hospital and also to avoid admissions whose care can be safely managed in their own homes.

part of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, is using the COVID-19 RPM solution for patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms via a 'Virtual Ward' to support COVID-19 patients who have been discharged from hospital and also to avoid admissions whose care can be safely managed in their own homes. North West London trial is in two primary care led 'hot-hubs' in Hillingdon and Soho. These 'hot-hubs' provide at-scale triage from general practice and 111 for patients who are deemed to require ongoing monitoring of COVID-19 symptoms and has extended to services in Harrow and Ealing. Dr. Matthew Knight, Respiratory Consultant at Watford General Hospital, said: "Our teams are working to provide the best care for patients with COVID-19 symptoms around the clock. To provide the best patient care and outcomes, protect the NHS and prevent community spread, the remote patient monitoring offers a promising solution to help us scale our efforts to the growing needs of our community." Tony Willis, Clinicl Director for Diabetes at North West London Collaboration of CCGs, said: "Patients with suspected COVID-19 can deteriorate in a matter of hours. That's why it's vital that clinicians can track their symptoms and vital signs regularly so that they can intervene if there is significant deterioration. But patients do not have to be at the hospital or clinic all the time and this new solution means we can capture patient health data frequently enough to take timely action while the patient is in the comfort of their own home."



Within weeks, teams from the three initial sites, NHSX and Huma went from concept and ideation to implementation, quickly and collaboratively developing several iterations of the app to meet local requirements and work across systems. Huma's team needed only eight days to create the tech requirements to get up and running, configuring modules (such as patient questionnaires and symptom tracking) and user flows with clinicians at the trial sites to customise clinical pathways. Healthcare practitioners at the local sites were trained on using the Medopad solution on 17 April and the project has since been rolling out to patients. Dan Vahdat, founder and CEO of Huma, said: "As a British company, we can think of no greater honour than being part of this pilot that is helping three NHS trial sites respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in this hour of need. We are proud to use the learnings we've developed with our NHS partners to provide care for many COVID-19 patients to help people support the NHS and save lives."

Aida Yousefi, Chief Commercial Officer of Huma, said: "NHS staff are working tirelessly to provide care during this crisis. It is an honour to have the opportunity to trial our technology to lessen their burden at these sites by providing the reassurance that their patients are being monitored accurately and appropriately. "Equally, isolated and worried patients in the community can have the reassurance that they are being looked after remotely and appropriately by their healthcare teams. It has been a privilege to work with NHSX. Together we have worked at speed to implement in less than three weeks." Huma, headquartered in London, is providing its Medopad COVID-19 RPM solution as a not-for-profit initiative. About Huma Huma partners with scientists, technologists and healthcare professionals to understand, treat and ultimately prevent ill health. Giving knowledge and power to those with medical conditions, while saving clinicians time, energy and valuable resources. Because, by collectively benefiting from the data we individually generate, we can all live our longest, fullest lives. www.huma.com NOTES: Press kit available here: https://bit.ly/HumaPressKit [email protected] How Huma's Medopad COVID-19 RPM platform works: Medical staff monitor patient care via the Medopad web-based clinician portal. Healthcare teams can prioritise patients based on patient-submitted data and auto flagging, access telemedicine capabilities allowing the care team to video call the patients, and view team notes and detailed patient profiles.

Patients receive easy-to-follow instructions on how to access the service via email or text with a unique code to download and access the Medopad mobile app. With patient consent, patients use self-assessment and testing tools via the mobile patient app, including body temperature, heartbeat frequency, breathing difficulties and more. Patients may also receive an oximeter device to measure SpO2 level for oxygen saturation and heart rate without needing to connect any hardware to their mobile device. Medopad Healthcare Practitioner telemedicine portal features: Alerts & Thresholds: Set alerts and thresholds to ensure COVID-19 patients are seen at the right time by the right clinician

Set alerts and thresholds to ensure COVID-19 patients are seen at the right time by the right clinician Secure: Secure portal for ease of viewing on desktop or mobile

Secure portal for ease of viewing on desktop or mobile Telemedicine: Telemedicine available to engage with patients easily

Telemedicine available to engage with patients easily Data visualisation: Patient-level data analysis & visualisation

Patient-level data analysis & visualisation Rules-based triage: Opportunity for rules-based triage to promote efficiency

Opportunity for rules-based triage to promote efficiency Manage multiple patients with ease: Ability to manage multiple patients at once and divert care to the ones most in need

Ability to manage multiple patients at once and divert care to the ones most in need Instant reach out to patients: Reach out to patients directly and adjust their care plan thresholds if necessary.

Reach out to patients directly and adjust their care plan thresholds if necessary. Rich data: Rich data to enable a comprehensive review of COVID-19 patients to understand disease progression, evolution of symptoms, and adverse reactions nationally

Rich data to enable a comprehensive review of COVID-19 patients to understand disease progression, evolution of symptoms, and adverse reactions nationally Optimise time & resources: Reduce face-to-face visits for faster responses and to reduce the spread of the disease Medopad patient app features Medopad's COVID-19 RPM solution is configured to monitor and flag deterioration in COVID-19 patients. It supports self-management through a simple analytics dashboard. It only requires an iOS or Android smartphone, and can also be combined with other devices (such as an oximeter). Patients submit symptom ratings once per day. Each symptom is rated by the patient as mild, moderate, severe or very severe. The app is prescribed by clinicians to COVID-19 positive patients. The Medopad patient app modules for the trial include: Symptoms: including fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, headache, unusual chest pain or tightness, dizziness, loss of consciousness, and heart palpitations

Breathlessness: using a simple respiratory questionnaire

Temperature: measured via temperature dot or thermometer

Resting heart rate: captured via patients' smartphone camera through photoplethysmography (PPG) or pulse oximeter device

Oxygen saturation captured via pulse oximeter device

Information: COVID-19 specific learning and education content provided by NHS

Telemedicine: Ability for clinicians to speak with patients when necessary Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178959/Huma_Medopad.jpg View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nhs-using-humas-remote-monitoring-to-care-for-patients-with-covid-19-symptoms-301073723.html SOURCE Huma

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Recession is defined as a fall in the overall economic activity for two consecutive quarters (six months) accompanied by a decline in income, sales and employment. In independent India's history, four such years of negative GDP growth were registered. They saw contraction of -1.2% (FY58), -3.66% (FY66), -0.32% (FY73) and -5.2% (FY80). The recession looming now is different from previous recessions as it comes with a fresh set of challenges.

India's past recessions

Previous contractions in India's GDP had common culprits - weak monsoon and energy crisis. But if India's FY21 GDP contracts, as projected by analysts, its cause would be entirely different.

FY58 - Balance of Payment (BoP) crisis

The year 1957 was a difficult period for agriculture sector. Weak monsoon adversely affected agricultural production, which led to increase in prices. The government which had already imported 20 lakh tonnes of food grains in the previous fiscal had to further import 40 lakh tonnes. During 1957-58, India encountered its first drop in economic growth when a negative GDP growth of 1.2 per cent was recorded. The reason behind it was a ballooning import bill which swelled by more than 50 per cent between 1955 and 1957. During the same time exports registered a sluggish growth. India's trade deficit widened by over 9 times from $0.1 billion in 1955 to almost $0.9 billion in 1957 while gold stock and foreign reserves were reduced to half.

FY66 - Severe Drought

India which had fought wars with China in 1962 and more recently with Pakistan in 1965 was in a recovery stage. The very next year, two severe droughts affected Indian economy (during 1966 & 1967). During that time India had heavy reliance on foreign aid especially from the US. In FY1966, due to drought, food grain production fell 20 per cent. Foreign food aid came to the rescue of the starving population. India received 70 lakh tonnes of food aid in fiscal 1965, equivalent to 10 per cent of domestic production.

In fiscal 1966 India received 1 crore tones of food aid. In 1965-66 India registered an economic contraction of -3.66%.

FY73 - Energy Crisis

In 1973, world witnessed its first energy crisis as the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) proclaimed an oil embargo (an embargo is an official ban on an activity or trade with a particular country). It targeted nations that were supporting Israel during the ongoing "yom kippur" war. As a result, in a short while, oil prices shot up 400 per cent from $3 to $12. Consequently, India's oil import bill rose from $414 million in 1972-73 to $900 million till 1973-74. This was twice the amount of foreign exchange reserves present at that time. Since then energy became a top most priority for India. In 1972-73, India's economy contracted by 0.32%.

FY80 - Oil Shock leading to BoP crisis

The world witnessed a second oil shock during 1979-80. It occurred due to a decrease in oil production in the wake of Iranian revolution and led to increase in oil prices. This was followed by Iran-Iraq war which further curtailed production and escalated prices. This led to a serious crisis as the cost of India's imports almost doubled between 1978-79 to 1981-82. During this time, India's exports also took a hit as it contracted by 8%, which led to a balance of payment crisis.

FY21- Lockdown killing economic activity

The current recession staring at India brings a new set of challenges. The crisis has emerged out of the blue as the country is in a lockdown, severely hampering economic activity. For India this is estimated to be the worst ever contraction of GDP growth. RBI in its MPC meet acknowledged that this year's GDP will be in negative territory but refrained from giving any numbers. However other agencies predict a sharp contraction in the range of 5%-6.8% in FY21, with the bulk of the fall estimated to be in Q1 of FY21 when quarterly GDP may contract by nearly half.

Also view: Rs 21 lakh crore won't stop recession (Infographic)
Bengaluru, June 10 : Karnataka registered more discharges than infections, even as 120 new Covid cases breached the 6,000 mark to settle at 6,041, said an official on Wednesday.

"New cases reported from Tuesday 5 p.m. to Wednesday 5 p.m., 120," said a health official.

On Wednesday, 257 patients got discharged, continuing the trend of the last couple of days.

Like everyday, domestic returnees dominated the caseload, with Maharashtra returnees forming the bulk, 65 or 93 per cent of 70 such cases.

There were also three international returnees with travel history to Kuwait and UAE.

Meanwhile, cases with contact history stood at 24.

In the past 24 hours, cases spiked in Bengaluru Urban, Yadgir, Vijayapura, Kalaburagi and Bidar.

Among the new cases, Bengaluru Urban contributed (42), followed by Yadgir (27), Vijayapura (13), Kalaburagi (11), Bidar (5), Dakshina Kannada and Dharwad (4 each), Davangere, Hassan and Ballari (3 each), Bagalkote and Ramnagar (2 each) and Belagavi (1).

Three patients succumbed to the virus, a 58-year-old man from Dharwad, a 32-year-old man from Benaluru Urban and a 57-year-old man from the same place.

Of all the cases, 3,108 are active, 2,862 have been discharged, 69 have died while 14 are admitted to ICUs.

On a positive note, active cases reduced from 3,248 to 3,108 in the past one day.

In the past 24 hours, Karnataka tested 8,249 samples. Of this, 7,576 returned negative.

In total, 4.08 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 3.94 lakh have returned negative.

Currently, Udupi is leading the state's Covid-19 burden with 619 active cases, followed by Yadgir (560), Kalaburagi (493), Raichur (276) and Bengaluru Urban (244), among others.

Bengaluru Urban has accounted for 21 deaths, followed by Kalaburagi (8), Bidar, Vijayapura, Davangere and Dakshina Kannada (6 each) and Chikkaballapura (3 each), among others.

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Linkedin Umberto Bacchi (Reuters) Milan, Italy  Wed, June 10, 2020 10:34 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd81f20 2 Lifestyle loreal,beauty,model,Racism,race,transgender,LGBTQ,France,Cosmetics,Munroe-Bergdorf Free

French cosmetics company L'Oreal said on Tuesday it regretted sacking a black transgender model in 2017 after she described all white people as racist, and offered her a new job helping to shape the firm's diversity policies.

Protests against the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in the United States have sparked a global debate about racial inequalities - putting pressure on major brands to do more to bring about change.

L'Oreal's sacking of Munroe Bergdorf faced renewed scrutiny last week, as the firm shared a post expressing solidarity with the black community that some social media users - including Bergdorf - said was at odds with its earlier actions.

On Tuesday, however, L'Oreal Paris brand President Delphine Viguier said she had offered Bergdorf a seat on a newly formed UK diversity and inclusion advisory board, a role accepted by the British model.

"I understand much better the pain and trauma that were behind Munroe's words back then and the urgency she felt to speak in defense of the Black community against systemic racism," Viguier said in a statement posted on social media.

Read also: L'Oreal eyes post-confinement rush to hair salons

"I regret the lack of dialogue and support the company showed Munroe around the time of the termination. We should have also done more to create a conversation for change as we are now doing."

Bergdorf, who was fired days after becoming the first transgender model to appear on a British advertising campaign for the company, said it "feels good to have finally closure on this matter".

"I hope this reconciliation is proof that we can all find a way to put aside our differences and work together to push for a more progressive, fair and equal world," she wrote on Instagram.

The London-based model and activist said L'Oreal had also committed to contributing 25,000 euros ($28,000) each to transgender charity Mermaids and LGBT+ group UK Black Pride.
Former President John Dramani Mahama has asked critics of his infrastructural achievements during his tenure of office to get a true copy of the Green Book to verify his projects.

He insisted that his projects are all documented in the Green book and I urge all doubters to get a copy and step into their communities and cross-check if the projects outlined there, the E-blocks, the interchanges, the hospitals, and other transformational projects exist only in that book.

Mr. Mahama gave the advice today, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, during a flag-raising ceremony to commemorate the NDC's 28th anniversary at the partys headquarters in Accra in response to criticisms from President Akufo-Addo.

It will be recalled that President Akufo-Addo during the commissioning of the newly constructed Tema Motorway Interchange last week said John Mahama and the NDCs claims of delivering unprecedented infrastructure never existed in reality but only in their Green Book.

We made a pledge to the Ghanaian people to expand and improve the road network while closing the missing links in the network. We had to make this pledge because we know that the so-called unprecedented infrastructure development of the Mahama administration was fantasy; existing in the Green Book and not on the ground, Akufo-Addo said.

---citinewsroom
New Delhi, June 10 : The NCRTC which is undertaking the construction work of the first Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) at semi-high speed Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor will be using the modern ETCS (European Train Control System) Level-II signalling system, officials said on Wednesday.

According to NCRTC officials, the civil construction work for India's first 82 km-long RRTS corridor is underway and is expected to be completed by 2025.

The official said the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) has been leveraging technology for the efficient execution of the project and the RRTS will have state-of-the-art system that will mark many firsts in India.

"One of them is its signalling system," an official said, adding that NCRTC will be using modern ETCS Level-2 signalling system for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor.

He said, ETCS Level-II Signalling is used globally for high-speed railway transit.

Another official related to the development said, "The journey through RRTS will not only be comfortable but will also be faster and safer".

He said in order to ensure safe commuting, ETCS system will monitor the train speed and direction besides providing operation directives using radio block centre.

The official said the use of virtual block facilitated by ETCS Level-II signalling eliminates any possibility of train collision by ensuring that there is never more than one train in a single virtual block at any given time.

"ETCS also supports ATO functionality that controls the train's traction system, acceleration, braking and stopping of trains. It will have LTE as communication backbone to cater to ETCS data, Mission Critical Voice and On-Board CCTV streaming," the NCRTC official said.

He emphasised that to avoid any possibility of accidental fall on the tracks, all the RRTS stations will have platform screen doors (PSDs).

The PSDs will be integrated with the ETCS, ensuring that the train doors and PSDs are synchronized and the train starts only after both train doors and PSDs are closed, thus ensuring safety of the commuters, he said.

Pointing out at the benefits of the RRTS corridors, the official said that besides enabling train movement at quick frequencies even at higher speed of 160kmph, the ETCS Level-II signalling system will also facilitate inter-operability of all the three RRTS Corridors -- Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut, Delhi-Gurugram-SNB (Shahjahanpur-Neemrana-Behror Urban Complex) and Delhi-Panipat.

"This will reduce interchanges in the journey leading to lower waiting time for passengers. It also reduces the chances of any untoward incidents and allows uninterrupted all-weather train operations," the official said.

The official further said that the NCRTC has invited tenders for signalling and telecom systems for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor.

"The ETCS Level-II modern signalling with virtual blocks and ATO functionality over LTE backbone is being used for the first time in India," the official said, adding that telecom subsystems such as CCTV, PIDS, PAS, FOTS, ACIDS, Master Clock, Telecom SCADA, Telephone, CDRS and Train to Ground Wireless Network are also part of the package.

The NCRTC, a joint sector company of Central government and states of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, is mandated to implement the RRTS project across the national capital region, ensuring a balanced and sustainable urban development through better connectivity and access.

According to NCRTC officials, the 82-km Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS will boast a 180 kmph design speed, a first-of-its-kind rolling stock in India for regional transit services and will be implemented in phases between the cities.

The official said that the corridor will have 24 stations and the trains will reduce travel time from Delhi to Meerut to 55 minutes and daily expected ridership is eight lakh passengers.

The RRTS is a first-of-its-kind semi-high speed public transport being implemented in India.

In phase one, work on three corridors, Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut, Delhi-Gurugram-Alwar and Delhi-Panipat is being implemented.

The other highlight of the RRTS project will also be promotion of the Make in India initiative of the government. The NCRTC has finalized the procurement of rolling stock for Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor under Make in India initiative.

The official said the trainsets for the first corridor will be manufactured by Bombardier Transportation India Private Limited in their Savli plant in Gujarat.

He said the entire rolling stock for Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor will be manufactured in India, marking 100 per cent local manufacturing.

(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)
Kerry Washington wants to change the way her children look at Black History.

During her virtual visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Little Fires Everywhere star shared she is having open conversations at home about the state of the world.

"There's a lot of posts about privilege looks like discovering that racism exists as opposed to knowing that it exists," she told host Jimmy Kimmel. "So, I think for a lot of black families, we don't have the privilege of ignoring what's going on and pretending that it's not happening."

As she continued, Washington explained that she hopes this call for social change will inspire a new way of educating children on Black History.

"But the thing I've been thinking about a lot, honestly, with my kidsand with my friends' kidsI've been thinking a lot about education and a lot about talking about race and introducing ideas of race," she began. "And really thinking about the idea that for a lot of kidskids are introduced to race at Black History Month or in the concept of change-makers like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks."

Black Lives Matter: In Stars' Own Words

"And I think it's really important that we start to introduce the idea of race with a Black History that begins before teaching kids what black people were told they couldn't do, right?" she continued. "So, there's Maasai Warriors and the kingdoms of Ghana and Queen Nefertiti and the pyramids of Egypt."

"But this idea of teaching kids that Black History and Black people were a lot of things before segregation and Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement," Washington concluded. "So that we understand the beautiful complexity and elegance and richness of Black History before refusing to be put in the back of the bus."

While discussing the protests that have formed following George Floyd's death, the Scandal star shared that the activism displayed by people across the nation has given her a new sense of hope for the future.

"It fills me with so much hope and encouragement. And I feel like we as a nationand as a world in some wayswe're just done having our governments work in ways that don't reflect our values," she said. "Like, I think for a long time people thought you could just be a passenger on this train called democracy. But that's not how it works. Like, democracy works if we all show up and we all express our values whether it's voting or in the streets protesting. That is what democracy looks like. So, it's like we're living up to who wewe were supposed to be this all along."

"E! stands in solidarity with the black community against systemic racism and oppression experienced every day in America," the network said in a statement on May 31. "We owe it to our black staff, talent, production partners and viewers to demand change and accountability. To be silent is to be complicit. #BlackLivesMatter."
Staff members of The Wall Street Journal sent a letter to newsroom leaders on Monday accusing the papers former editor in chief, Gerard Baker, who has been an editor at large at The Journal since leaving the top job in 2018, of violating rules that apply to those who work on the news side.

The letter, from the board of the Independent Association of Publishers Employees, the union that represents Journal staff members, criticized a column by Mr. Baker on race and accused him of tweeting in a way that went against the papers social media policy.

While Mr. Baker expresses opinions in a weekly column, called Editor at Large, The Journal had classified him as a member of the news division, just as it had during his five-and-a-half-year run as the editor in chief.

On Tuesday, The Journal reassigned Mr. Baker, formally making him a member of the opinion staff, which is led by the editorial page editor, Paul A. Gigot, and is run separately from the news department. Those who work on the opinion side do not have to abide by the rules that apply to the papers news reporters and editors. They have more leeway in The Journals pages and on social media.
- Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana recently went to Pag-asa Island which is part of the West Philippine Sea

- He was with high-ranking military officials and several representatives from the media

- Upon setting foot on the said island, they received an intriguing text message

- They showed to the public the content of the message that popped up in their phones

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Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and several media reporters received an intriguing text message after arriving on an island considered as part of the West Philippines Sea.

KAMI learned that the government official, along with other media representatives, went to Pag-asa Island for the inauguration of the beaching ramp that would strengthen Filipino presence in the said place.

However, as soon as they sat foot on the island, messages saying Welcome to China and Welcome to Vietnam suddenly popped up in their mobile phones.

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Lorenzana did not hesitate to show to other reporters the entire content of the intriguing text message that he received.

Chino Gaston, a reporter from GMA-7, also showed how he was greeted after arriving on Pag-asa Island where the country has territorial rights.

We have a cell site there in Pag-asa Island, but it came down for several months and it's been very difficult for us to send a repair there because you just cannot go there," Smart Communications Inc. explained in an interview with GMA News.

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Photo via GMA News

Source: UGC

Photo via GMA News

Source: UGC

In a previous article by , China strongly rejected the Philippine arbitral ruling win over the much-disputed West Philippine Sea.

West Philippine Sea is considered as one of the highly-disputed territories in Asia. The countries that are disputing over the said territory include Brunie, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

POPULAR: Read more news about West Philippine Sea!

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Source: KAMI.com.gh
FILE PHOTO: The New York Stock Exchange is seen in the financial district of lower Manhattan during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York

By Engen Tham and Scott Murdoch

SHANGHAI/HONGKONG (Reuters) - Chinese companies are putting off plans for U.S. listings as tensions between the world's top two economies rise, lawyers, bankers, accountants and regulators involved in what has been a major capital-raising route told Reuters.

The drop in interest, especially from those in the early stages of planning, is the result of a proposed U.S. legislation that would make it harder for some Chinese firms to debut in America and mounting scrutiny following an accounting scandal at Chinese Starbucks rival Luckin Coffee <LK.O>.

"We have seen clients putting their U.S. IPO plans on hold for now," said Stephen Chan, a partner at law firm Dechert LLP in Hong Kong. "The underlying reason for the slowdown is the relationship between the U.S. and China," he added.

"If tensions between the two nations remain, we would expect the slowdown to continue," Chan said.

Chinese groups have raised $1.67 billion via initial public offerings in New York this year and are looking to raise about half billion more on U.S. exchanges, Dealogic data shows.

In 2019, they raised $3.5 billion.

Sino-U.S. relations have nosedived in recent months with the countries, already at odds over trade, now butting heads over the COVID-19 pandemic and China's proposed national security law for Hong Kong.

Enquiries about U.S. listings have halved this year at one of the big four accounting firms in China versus 2019 levels, a senior auditor from the firm said.

Many companies that reported plans for U.S. listings to China's securities regulator, marking an early stage in the process, are now targeting exchanges nearer to home, said a person close to the regulator.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission did not respond to requests for comment, while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment.

Listings take at the minimum several months to arrange, involving appointing advisers, preparing a prospectus and obtaining regulatory approvals. The further along the path a company is, the less likely it is to change plans.

Story continues

'INVESTOR UNCERTAINTY'

Chinese firms accounted for about a third, or some $279 billion, of funds raised globally via IPOs in the past five years. About half of that was overseas, mostly through New York and Hong Kong floats.

There are more than 550 Chinese firms listed on U.S. stock exchanges. Chinese firms often choose New York for floats given its prestige and international investor base, even as Beijing seeks to encourage them to list at home to share gains among local investors and limit foreign oversight.

Chinese authorities have long resisted audit papers leaving China, making it hard for U.S. auditing regulators to check the quality of audits of Chinese companies.

But a bill passed by the U.S. Senate which, if signed by President Donald Trump, would require U.S.-listed foreign companies to disclose levels of government control. It would also require that Chinese companies comply with U.S. oversight of their audits or face being delisted.

"For U.S. investors, it will mean fewer listings and it will be harder to capture the benefits of growth in China," said John Ott, partner with Bain & Company and a leader with its Greater China financial services practice.

U.S.-listed Chinese firms have begun disclosing the risk of an "adverse impact" on their shares due to tighter regulations.

Kingsoft Cloud Holdings Ltd <KC.O>, the first Chinese firm to brave New York since Luckin's scandal, warned efforts to increase U.S. regulatory access to audit information "could cause investor uncertainty for affected issuers, including us".

Netease <NTES.O> and JD.com <JD.O> also warned of similar risks in their recent filings with the Hong Kong stock exchange for secondary listings in the city.

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Hong Kong, Engen Tham in Shanghai, Zoey Zhang in Beijing, Kane Wu in Hong Kong and Echo Wang, Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Jennifer Hughes and Himani Sarkar)
Often repeated, but mostly misunderstood  thats an apt description of one of the rallying cries heard around the world during recent protests in response to the unprovoked killing by Minneapolis police of African-American George Floyd:

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 9/6/2020 (591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Often repeated, but mostly misunderstood  thats an apt description of one of the rallying cries heard around the world during recent protests in response to the unprovoked killing by Minneapolis police of African-American George Floyd:

"Defund the police."

On its surface, it presents as a simple and repeatable distillation of the anger felt by many after this latest manifestation of deeply entrenched racial discrimination by law-enforcement agencies against people of colour: the police have consistently showed themselves to be bad, so strip them of their resources. Defund them. Dismantle them. Abolish them, even.

But as a practical matter, defunding and dismantling police departments as they currently exist is a rather complex question involving multiple layers of government and facets of public service that extend far beyond the realms of upholding the law and preserving peace and order. And while its a handy mantra, "defund(ing) the police" is an undertaking that would require levels of political will and budgetary commitment that have seldom been shown in this or any other jurisdiction.

When faced this week with questions about defunding the police, Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth suggested an abrupt curtailment of police funding would create chaos for law enforcement and potential danger for Winnipeggers.

"If you were to just rip (out) a large segment of the (police) budget all at once, then I think you would be putting our environment into a more volatile place than it is now," he said. "We have social workers on our staff; they wont attend (incidents) unless were with them. Many of our own paramedics wont attend calls unless were with them to ensure their safety.... Its a little bit too early to just say defund the police and funnel it all back to social services."

Its true that the immediate needs associated with policing make defunding a citys primary law-enforcement agency a daunting prospect; its also true, however, that the prevailing practice of maintaining or increasing police budgets annually while eroding the funding of crucial social services is a model that is irreparably broken and in need of wholesale restructuring.

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In Minneapolis, where the May 25 killing of Mr. Floyd sparked protests that continue throughout the United States and abroad, a veto-proof majority of city councillors pledged last weekend to dismantle the citys police department and replace it with a new system of public safety  an effort that will include cutting US$200 million out of the US$1.3-billion law-enforcement budget, with those funds to be redirected to other social-services priorities.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth suggested an abrupt curtailment of police funding would create chaos for law enforcement and potential danger for Winnipeggers.

Similar promises have been made by civic leaders in New York, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities.

In Winnipeg, the organizers of last Fridays massive anti-racism rally circulated a petition calling for "abolishing/defunding the Winnipeg Police Service"; as of Tuesday, more than 30,000 signatures had been collected.

Any curtailment of the WPSs funding or duties, however, would require a massive commitment by the province, which is primarily responsible for such social services as mental-health supports, addictions treatment, affordable housing and child protection. Given the austerity-focused provincial governments disinclination to provide adequate resources in those areas  which leads directly to the WPS continually being saddled with duties unrelated to core policing functions  its difficult to imagine a scenario in which defunding the police would be matched by the required additional funding in social services.

As a rallying cry, it remains effective. As a societal strategy in Manitoba, however, "Defund the police" seems destined to remain a theory rather than a practice.
At every step, we screen candidates for any bias or prejudice that might impugn their integrity, subvert our mission and values or undermine our service to any member of the community.

Accountability is not simply a buzzword but the guiding force of our departments culture. Our policies extensively detail the procedures for reporting and investigating misconduct, including our employees duty to report. Accountability illuminates the soul of an organization, and while we are not perfect, we are committed to presenting our actions to the light of public observation.

Partnerships are critical to unifying communities and ending racial injustice. Just as modern society cannot exist without electricity, neither can modern law enforcement exist without community partnerships  they are the power source that drives everything.

The Lincoln Police Department has a long and proud history of working with neighborhood groups and community leaders. We pledge to redouble our efforts to strengthen our relationships with every community group, in particular, the African American community.
Donald Trump Jr.'s enjoyment of exotic hunting has again landed him in the spotlight.

The son of the president took a hunting trip to Mongolia in August to hunt rare sheep, and the trip cost U.S. taxpayers about $75,000, according to a report from CNN.

The expenses all came in the form of Secret Service protection while he was on the trip.

A Trump Jr. official told CNN that the rest of the expenses of the trip to Mongolia were paid by Trump Jr.

The numbers, which were obtained by a nonpartisan and nonprofit watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, found that the Secret Service estimated his protection detail to cost $76,859.36 over the 8-day period he was abroad.

While in Mongolia, Trump Jr. hunted a type of sheep known as the Argali sheep, which is considered a near-threatened species due largely to the trophy hunting associated with their giant horns, according to the Red List of Threatened Species.

According to the Washington Post, Trump Jr. also visited with the Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga during his visit, a report which a Trump Jr. spokesperson did not respond to comment for from CNN.

-- Follow Ed Sutelan on Twitter, @EdwardSutelan

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A British Government minister has called for decisions over the future of controversial statues of historical figures to be taken democratically as pressure mounts on authorities to remove contentious monuments.

In the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd in the US, local campaigns and online petitions in the UK have featured demands for universities, a hospital and councils to take down statues of individuals linked to the slave trade or to re-label buildings named after them.

Britain's Business minister Nadhim Zahawi told BBC Radio 4s Today programme that people should be able to examine the UKs history warts and all without a feeling of self-loathing and forgetting the good things weve done.

He argued that the priority should be on improving the opportunities for people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, with people deciding how political leaders respond via the ballot box.

Signs and placards at the base of the Edward Colston statue plinth in Bristol city centre following a raft of Black Lives Matter protests took place across the UK over the weekend. Pic: Ben Birchall/PA

His comments follow the pulling down of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol on Sunday by campaigners at an anti-racism protest and the local authority-approved removal of the statue of slave owner Robert Milligan in Londons Docklands on Tuesday evening.

They also come as contractors spent this morning trying to clean off graffiti daubed on a statue of Queen Victoria on Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, including the words murderer and slave owner.

A member of the public cleans graffiti, that included the letters BLM and the words "murderer" and "slave owner", from a statue of Queen Victoria in Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, England. Pic: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn told BBC Look North the death of Mr Floyd had appalled people, but vandalising Queen Victorias statue is not the way to go about expressing the anger that many people feel.

Theres a debate to be had about some statues. I dont think we should be commemorating slave traders. But lets have that debate in a proper way, and not by acts of vandalism like this.

Labour-led councils across England and Wales have agreed to work with their local communities to look at the appropriateness of certain monuments and statues on public land and council property.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has also announced a new commission to review the English capitals landmarks.

According to the Liverpool Echo newspaper, the University of Liverpool has agreed to re-title a halls of residence after students demanded it remove former British prime minister William Gladstones name due to his views on slavery.

Meanwhile, a website called topple the racists has compiled a list of around 60 statues and other memorials across the UK it argues should be taken down, because they celebrate slavery and racism.

Created by the Stop Trump Coalition, a group of organisations that originally united to protest against the US presidents visit to the UK, the website invites people to submit suggestions.

Among its targets are memorials to Sir Robert Peel, seen as the father of modern policing after he founded the Met in London in the 19th century, in Birmingham, Tamworth, Bradford and Leeds.

Text answering the question 'As a black person in the UK...' on a graffiti art piece on Black Lives Matter on a wall in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol. Pic: Ben Birchall/PA

The entry pinpointing a statue of the former prime minister on Pershore Road in Edgbaston claims that policing has disproportionately targeted the poor and ethnic minorities world-wide for centuries.

Other targets include a statue of Thomas Guy outside the London hospital he founded and is named after him, because he made his fortune from a company that sold slaves.

A spokesperson for Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust said it would work with Mr Khans commission to consider the right way forward, adding that it is fully committed to playing our part in ending racism, discrimination and inequality.

An online petition to rename a Wetherspoons pub named after Elihu Yale, a 17th-century merchant linked to the slave trade, in the town centre of Wrexham, north Wales, has gathered nearly 500 signatures.

Another petition to take down a statue of Robert Clive, known as Clive of India, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, which criticises the 18th-century figure for his role in disastrous colonial policies, has received more than 7,000 signatures.
YPSILANTI TWP., MI  The field of candidates in an Ypsilanti Township election has continued to evolve after the filing deadline, with a candidate announcing a write-in campaign on Tuesday.

Trustee Monica Ross-Williams is asking voters to write in her name for the township clerk Democratic primary, she announced June 9.

I am ready to serve with integrity and honesty, making sure that we have fair and untarnished elections within Ypsilanti Township, she said.

Ross-Williams was previously in the township treasurer Democratic primary race against Stan Eldridge until last month. In May, Ross-Williams filed a civil lawsuit to remove her name from the ballot because of an error with her filing paperwork.

A Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge ordered Ross-Williams name to be stricken from the ballot, along with clerk candidate and fellow trustee Heather Jarrell Roe and parks commissioner candidate William Sinkule, because their affidavits of identity, required when filing for any candidacy, did not have matching dates of notarization and signature dates. Judge Carol Kuhnke ruled that the discrepancy made them fatally defective and ordered the three candidates removed from the ballot on May 29.

But Jarrell Roe appealed the decision. On Friday, the Michigan Court of Appeals in a 2-1 majority decision eversed the ruling and ordered the lower court to put Jarrell Roe back on the ballot. Two township officials involved in the case have appealed the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Appeals court reverses Ypsilanti Township election decision, finding trustee can remain in clerk election

Ross-Williams said that experience was a significant factor in her decision to run a write-in campaign. She said the clerk as chief record keeper cannot let another similar issue occur.

The buck stops with the local clerk and the office to ensure that all the paperwork that the candidates submitted was correct, she said.

If elected, Ross-Williams said she wants to recruit more people into the election process as inspectors or poll workers. She also wants to audit the clerks offices records.

Ross-Williams acknowledged the challenge of running a write-in campaign, but said she believes her message of being the peoples campaign will reach voters in the township of more than 55,000 residents.

If the Supreme Court does not hear the case or affirms the appellate courts ruling, Jarrell Roe will remain the only candidate listed on the primary ballot.

Write-in candidates must file a declaration of intent by 4 p.m. on July 24.

Ross-Williams graduated from the former Ypsilanti Public Schools and has bachelors and masters of business administration degrees from Cleary University.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS AND MLIVE:

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Michigan clerks prepare for the worst as coronavirus looms over 2020 elections
Delhi govt to get Rs 10,000 cr revenue from bidding of liquor shops under new excise policy

Delhis liquor shops reopen from today under new excise policy| Check timings, costs and other details here

Coronavirus crisis: MP govt steps in to run liquor shops amid clash with contractors

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Bhopal, June 10: Madhya Pradesh government on Tuesday began the preparations to run liquor shops whose licences were surrendered by contractors amid a standoff between the two sides on reopening the vends.

It is reportedly said that about 70 per cent of contractors have surrendered their licences. The contractors have refused to open their liquor vends for well over two weeks due to poor sale owing to the economic slowdown caused by the novel coronavirus. This had put them on a collision course with the BJP government in the state.

WHO expert clarifies remarks on coronavirus spread

Now, the state government has decided to run more than 1,000 liquor shops across the state till it finds new contractors in the rebidding process.

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

Earlier, the Madhya Pradesh high court's Jabalpur bench said that those who want to run the shops as per the state government's rules should file an affidavit within three days. This allowed the Madhya Pradesh government to go for rebidding of the remaining shops.

Explained: What is herd immunity and could it work with COVID-19?

In his letter to Director General of Home Guard, excise commissioner Rajiv Chandra Dubey said, "Execution of the (bidding) process after closure of liquor shops is expected to take 15 to 30 days. In the circumstances the department will have to run more than 1,000 liquor shops. The department does not have sufficient staff to run such a big number of shops. At the same time, the department has to take action to control (sale of) illicit liquor too."

The places where liquor contractors surrendered their licences also includes major cities like Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior.

In Bhopal, district collector Tarun Kumar Pithode on Tuesday issued an order for 32 shops which make country made liquor and Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) to run.

Speaking to reporters, Dubey said, "The process to run the shops has begun and these will be reopened by Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning."

The excise commissioner said that safety norms at the shops like social distancing and sanitisation would be ensured.

Liquor shops opened in the state on May 7 after 45 days, but since the state government did not concede to the contractors' demands to reduce the licence fee, about 30 contractors moved the high court.
The show faced a lot of criticism over the years for its portrayal of black and Asian characters by white actors

Los Angeles: Netflix and BBC have removed British comedy series "Little Britain" from their platforms after the show came under fire over the use of blackface in some of its sketches.

Created by David Walliams and Matt Lucas, the comedy ran on BBC Three from 2003 to 2007. The show faced a lot of criticism over the years for its portrayal of black and Asian characters by white men, with characters including a Caribbean woman called Desiree and a mail-order bride named Ting Tong.

According to Variety, "Little Britain" has been removed from Netflix, BritBox and BBC iPlayer.

The development comes as media companies reappraise content in the wake of protests over police brutality and systemic racism after the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota last month.

A BBC spokesperson said that the decision to remove the series is in sync with the changing times.

"There's a lot of historical programming available on BBC iPlayer, which we regularly review. Times have changed since Little Britain' first aired, so it is not currently available on BBC iPlayer," the representative said.

Meanwhile, Netflix has also removed Walliams and Lucas' another series "Come Fly With Me", which also featured blackface.

Lucas, who has appeared in movies such as "Alice in Wonderland" and its sequel, "Bridesmaids" and "Paddington", had previously regretted some of the jokes that featured in "Little Britain".

"If I could go back and do 'Little Britain' again, I wouldn't make those jokes about transvestites. I wouldn't play Black characters. Basically, I wouldn't make that show now. It would upset people," he told The Big Issue in 2017.

Lucas had termed the show as "cruel kind of comedy".

"Society has moved on a lot since then, and my own views have evolved. There was no bad intent there  the only thing you could accuse us of was greed. We just wanted to show off about what a diverse bunch of people we could play," the actor had said. PTI RB 06101401 NNNN
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Attorneys for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham are asking the state Supreme Court to resolve legal questions over the administrations authority to issue hefty fines for violating emergency public health orders.

The request comes after about a dozen business owners and companies accused Lujan Grisham of improperly threatening businesses with daily $5,000 fines if they reopen their businesses in violation of the health orders.

The businesses filed a lawsuit  backed by the Republican Party of New Mexico  in state District Court challenging the fines.

The Supreme Court issued an order staying the lower-court proceedings and asking the plaintiffs to respond to the governors petition by this coming Monday. The justices, however, havent decided whether to take the case.

Lujan Grisham attorneys Matthew Garcia and Jonathan Guss urged the Supreme Court to step in now rather than let the lawsuit work its way through other courts, only to reach the justices eventually.

The states ability to issue meaningful fines is a novel legal issue with significant public safety and health implications for all New Mexicans, they said in a 30-page petition.

At stake are the size of the fines Lujan Grishams administration can issue and whether the state would have to compensate business owners for financial losses triggered by state-mandated closures.

The plaintiffs, for example, say the state is limited by law to fines of $100 or less, not the $5,000 penalty cited by Lujan Grishams administration.

Her attorneys, however, say the state has emergency authority as part of its police powers to levy the larger fines  necessary to ensure enforcement of public health orders during an emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic.

The temporary closure of businesses, the state says, doesnt entitle the owners to compensation.

The plaintiffs include the owners of K-Bobs Steakhouse in Clovis, an outdoor mercado in the Socorro area, Frontier Auto Inc., Body & Sol Fitness, Kemps Investments, Colfax Tavern & Diner, and J. Jones Massage.

They filed suit in Curry County, where the case was assigned to Judge David Reeb in the 9th Judicial District.
JERSEY CITY, N.J., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mack-Cali Realty Corporation (NYSE: CLI) ("Mack-Cali" or the "Company") today announced that, in connection with ongoing discussions with Bow Street Special Opportunities Fund XV, LP and certain of its affiliates, the Company is postponing its 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the "Annual Meeting") until further notice. The Company will separately announce the new date of the Annual Meeting and other information relating to the Annual Meeting.

About Mack-Cali Realty Corporation

One of the country's leading real estate investment trusts (REITs), Mack-Cali Realty Corporation is an owner, manager and developer of premier office and multifamily properties in select waterfront and transit-oriented markets throughout New Jersey. Mack-Cali is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, and is the visionary behind the city's flourishing waterfront, where the company is leading development, improvement and place-making initiatives for Harborside, a master-planned destination comprised of class A office, luxury apartments, diverse retail and restaurants, and public spaces.

A fully integrated and self-managed company, Mack-Cali has provided world-class management, leasing, and development services throughout New Jersey and the surrounding region for two decades. By regularly investing in its properties and innovative lifestyle amenity packages, Mack-Cali creates environments that empower tenants and residents to reimagine the way they work and live.

For more information on Mack-Cali Realty Corporation and its properties, visit www.mack-cali.com .

Forward Looking Statements

Statements made in this communication may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may," "will," "plan," "potential," "projected," "should," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "target," "continue," or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading "Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, which are incorporated herein by reference. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.

Important Additional Information and Where to Find It

This communication may be deemed to contain solicitation material in respect to the solicitation of proxies from the Company's stockholders in connection with the Annual Meeting. The Company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and mailed to its stockholders a definitive proxy statement in connection with the Annual Meeting. The definitive proxy statement contains important information about the Company, the Annual Meeting and related matters. Stockholders may obtain a free copy of the definitive proxy statement and other documents that the Company files with the SEC on the SEC's website, at www.sec.gov. INVESTORS AND STOCKHOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ THE DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT SOLICITATION MATERIALS BECAUSE THESE DOCUMENTS WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

Certain Information Regarding Participants

Mack-Cali and certain of its directors and executive officers are participants in the solicitation of proxies from the Company's stockholders in connection with the Annual Meeting. Information regarding the names of these directors and executive officers and their respective interests in the Company as of the date of this communication is set forth in the definitive proxy statement filed by the Company for the Annual Meeting. The definitive proxy statement and any other documents filed by the Company with the SEC may be obtained by investors and stockholders free of charge on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Copies will also be available at no charge on the Company's website at https://www.mack-cali.com.

Contacts: Michael J. DeMarco Mack-Cali Realty Corporation Chief Executive Officer (732) 590-1589 [email protected] Deidre Crockett Mack-Cali Realty Corporation Chief Administrative Officer (732) 590-1025 [email protected]



Proxy Solicitor: Lawrence E. Dennedy

MacKenzie Partners, Inc. (212) 929-5500 [email protected] Media Contacts: Viveca Tress / Lucas Pers

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher (212) 355-4449

SOURCE Mack-Cali Realty Corporation

Related Links

www.mack-cali.com


It was a week where oil prices climbed sharply, while natural gas finished lower.



On the news front, British energy major BP plc BP said it would cut 10,000 jobs in response to crashing oil prices, while Frances TOTAL S.A. TOT has agreed to purchase a 51% stake in the Seagreen 1 offshore wind farm project in Scottish waters.



Overall, it was a mixed week for the sector. While West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures surged 11.4% to close at $39.55 per barrel, natural gas prices fell 3.6% for the week to finish at 1.782 per million Btu (MMBtu). In particular, the oil markets extended their gain toward $40 a barrel.



Coming back to the week ended Jun 5, the crude benchmark recorded another rise after news tricked in that the worlds major oil producers were on track to prolong the record output curbs through to the end of July. Further, U.S. government data revealing an unexpected fall in crude stockpiles helped to keep the price elevated. Oil prices were also supported by the continued decline in rig count, which currently sits at its lowest since 2009.



Meanwhile, natural gas ended lower on weak LNG demand and continued oversupply.



Recap of the Weeks Most Important Stories



1. BP announced that it will commence a process of reducing its global work force. This time, the energy major has decided to cut headcount by 10,000 from its workforce of roughly 70,000 across the globe. With the announcement, the stock gained 2.4% on Jun 8.



The British energy major  carrying a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)  added that in 2020 it will be reducing majority of its workforce. However, people working in the frontline will get protection. Office-based jobs will get affected, said the company. The senior levels will see the maximum job cuts, which will include a reduction of group leaders by more than 30%.



You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



The decision, though tough to take, will significantly strengthen the financials, BP added. The leading integrated energy company also said that it is time to reinvent BP, considering the coronavirus-hit business environment and current financial status. Overall, the broader plan is to make the company smaller and more competitive. (BP Gains on Decision to Lay Off 10,000 Global Employees)



2. TOTAL has decided to acquire a 51% interest in the Seagreen 1 offshore wind farm project from SSE Renewables. This will further expand its renewable assets portfolio. TOTAL will make an upfront payment at closing of $88 million (70 million) and earn-outs up to $75.5 million (60 million), subject to fulfillment of performance conditions. TOTAL has secured nearly 70% external financing to fund the stake purchase in this offshore project.



The Seagreen 1 project is located 16.8 miles (27 kms) from the coastline in Scottish waters of U.K. North and has secured all necessary major permits. Onshore construction of the project began in the first quarter. Initially, the project will produce 1,140 megawatts (MW) of clean energy and has further extension opportunity of up to 360 MW.



The Seagreen 1 project will have the capacity of providing clean power to more than 1 million homes when it starts commercial operation from 2022-end. (TOTAL to Buy Stake in Seagreen 1, Boost Renewable Portfolio)



3. HollyFrontier Corporation HFC recently announced that its Cheyenne Refinery will shift from refining petroleum to producing renewable diesel fuel processed from soybean oil. This conversion to renewable diesel production will induce termination of HollyFrontiers petroleum refining operation and a cutback in workforce at the Cheyenne refinery.



Further, the company plans to construct a pre-treatment unit for both its Cheyenne and Artesia diesel refinery units. With this transition, the company hopes to produce more than 200 million gallons of renewable diesel every year with the Cheyenne refinery producing nearly half that amount.



HollyFrontiers decision follows the rise in demand for renewable diesel and other lower carbon fuels. The company is grabbing a decent market share on the back of changing consumer tastes and adequate aid obtained from federal and state government-sponsored stimulus packages. This paradigm shift will spawn a huge scope for HollyFrontier to infuse capital for organic growth, which in turn, will boost its profit margins as well as fortify its presence in helming environmentally-friendly projects. (HollyFrontier's Cheyenne Refinery to Adapt to Diesel Unit)



4. Petrobras PBR announced that it exported 1.11 million tons of fuel oil in May 2020, skyrocketing 231% from the volume exported in the same month of 2019. Moreover, this export figure reflects a 10% rise from the preceding record set in February this year, before the coronavirus pandemic triggered suspension of activities around the world.



The oil industry is reeling under the adverse impact of COVID-19 that jeopardized growth in most sectors. For instance, fuel demand took a huge hit following large-scale travel constraints imposed globally. Despite such challenging market conditions, this Rio de Janeiro-based company was able to produce record fuel exports, last month. To some extent, Petrobras enforcement of new global specifications for marine fuels that lowered the limit of sulfur content in crude oil from 3.5% to 0.5% was responsible for its improved market share, globally.



In a separate press release, this Brazilian state-run energy giant informed that the divestment procedure of its stakes in five power plants in the Latin American country is already on track. Those are, namely BrasympeEnergia SA, EnergeticaSuape II SA, TermoeletricaPotiguar SA, CompanhiaEnergeticaManauara SA and BrentechEnergia SA. (Petrobras' May Fuel Export Creates Milestone Despite Coronavirus)



5. In its weekly release, Baker Hughes Company BKR reported another drop in the U.S. rig count. Rigs engaged in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas in the United States fell to an all-time low of 284 in the week through Jun 5, compared with the prior-week count of 301. The current national rig count is well below the prior years 975.



Investors should know that with the recent all-time low mark, the tally has touched record-low levels for five successive weeks, thanks to dented global energy demand owing to the coronavirus pandemic.



Oil rig count was 206 in the week through Jun 5, compared with 222 in the week ended May 29. Since crude prices are in the bearish territory, explorers are cutting their capital budget considerably. This led the weekly tally of oil rigs to fall for 12 consecutive weeks. (US Oil & Gas Rig Tally Hits Record Lows for 5 Straight Weeks)



Price Performance



The following table shows the price movement of some the major oil and gas players over the past week and during the last 6 months.



Company Last Week Last 6 Months

XOM +16.7% -23.2%

CVX +9.9% -12%

COP +15.2% -18.6%

OXY +60.5% -34.7%

SLB +19.9% -36.4%

RIG +88% -56.2%

VLO +12% -18.3%

MPC +18.3% -27.8%



The Energy Select Sector SPDR  a popular way to track energy companies  gained 15.7% last week. The best performer was offshore driller Transocean Ltd. RIG whose stock surged 88%.



Longer-term, over six months, the sector tracker is down 21.4%. Transocean was on the other end of the spectrum this time, experiencing a 56.2% price plunge.



Whats Next in the Energy World?



As global oil consumption gradually ticks up, market participants will be closely tracking the regular releases to watch for signs that could further validate a rebound. In this context, the U.S. government statistics on oil and natural gas - one of the few solid indicators that comes out regularly - and the Baker Hughes data on rig count, will be on the energy traders' radar.



Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential



The biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. Theyre also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases.



Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +50%, +83% and +164% in as little as 2 months. The stocks in this report could perform even better.



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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



Transocean Ltd. (RIG) : Free Stock Analysis Report



TOTAL S.A. (TOT) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. Petrobras (PBR) : Free Stock Analysis Report



BP p.l.c. (BP) : Free Stock Analysis Report



HollyFrontier Corporation (HFC) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Baker Hughes Company (BKR) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
VALLEY COTTAGE, NY / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / CreditRiskMonitor (OTCQX:CRMZ) is proud to announce a new partnership with Esker.

Esker is a worldwide leader in AI-driven process automation software, helping financial and customer service departments digitally transform their procure-to-pay (P2P) and order-to-cash (O2C) cycles. Used by more than 6,000 companies worldwide, Esker's solutions incorporate technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive increased productivity, enhanced visibility, reduced fraud risk, and improved collaboration with customers, suppliers and internally.

"We're thrilled to partner with CreditRiskMonitor to offer our customers the ability to retrieve their FRISK score from our application when approving or reviewing credit terms, especially in that period when managing credit risk makes great sense," said Steve Smith, Esker Americas Managing Director and U.S. COO.

In the spirit of aiding credit, procurement and treasury professionals stay ahead of financial risk, the linkup of CreditRiskMonitor and Esker allows for a whole new audience to unlock the power of the FRISK score: a 96%-accurate daily read on bankruptcy risk hidden within more than 57,000 corporations worldwide. This integration is executed through an API for Esker subscribers.

"We're excited to partner with a wonderful company in Esker," said Jerry Flum, CreditRiskMonitor CEO. "An alliance with a fellow forward-thinking outfit like Esker, whose customers are always seeking greater visibility, efficiency and cost savings, is a natural."

"The fact that we can bring our data-driven solutions like our FRISK score to the table with Esker will help their guys stay ahead of peers when a global debt crisis hits," said Flum. "The COVID-19 Crisis has the potential to set off the current non-financial corporate debt bubble we've been building over the last 11 years. With worldwide non-financial corporate debt at record levels, both in absolute and relative terms, and a potential working capital crisis looming, public company bankruptcies could deal crippling blows to credit and procurement functions. The end to this unprecedented benign credit cycle has arrived and there's precious little time left to defend yourself from harm."

Esker operates in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific with global headquarters in Lyon, France, and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin.

For more information on Esker and its solutions, visit esker.com. Follow Esker on Twitter: @EskerInc and join the conversation on the Esker blog at blog.esker.com.

Overview

CreditRiskMonitor (creditriskmonitor.com) is a web-based publisher of financial information that helps corporate credit and procurement professionals stay ahead of business financial risk quickly, accurately and cost-effectively. The service offers comprehensive commercial credit reports and financial risk analysis covering public companies worldwide. Unlike other commercial credit bureaus, such as Dun & Bradstreet, CreditRiskMonitor's primary expertise and focus is on financial analysis of public debt and equity companies.

The Company also collects a significant amount of trade receivable data on both public and a select group of private companies every month, to help subscribers determine payment performance.

More than 35% of the Fortune 1000 plus over 1,000 other large companies worldwide depend on CreditRiskMonitor's timely news alerts and reports featuring detailed analyses of financial statements, ratio analysis and trend reports, peer analyses, bond agency ratings, crowdsourcing of risk professionals as well as the Company's proprietary FRISK and PAYCE scores.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain statements in this press release, including statements prefaced by the words "anticipates," "estimates," "believes," "expects" or words of similar meaning, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, expectations or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, among others, those risks, uncertainties, and factors referenced from time to time as "risk factors" or otherwise in the Company's Registration Statements or Securities and Exchange Commission Reports. We disclaim any intention or obligation to revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, a future event, or otherwise.

CONTACT:

CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc.

Jerry Flum, CEO

(845) 230-3030

ir@creditriskmonitor.com

SOURCE: CreditRiskMonitor.com, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593437/CreditRiskMonitor-Announces-Partnership-with-Esker
A family in Nakurus Section 58 Estate has called for an investigation, accusing Nakuru Level Five Hospital of switching their newborn baby with a dead one.

Alice Ochuka said that she delivered a bouncing baby boy at the hospital through Caesarean section but after two days of breastfeeding the baby, the hospital informed her he had died.

Hospital documents that were given to Ochuka, however, do not match her description of the baby she delivered.

She said the hospital documents purported that her baby died during birth.



Further, the documents allegedly given to her including the file number do not tally with the file containing the dead baby that was registered under a different name, John Nganga.

She said her journey to the hospital started while at Bondeni dispensary on May 21, after her blood pressure shot up leading to her transfer to the Nakuru Level Five Hospital.

The woman said that she delivered her baby on May 29, and that the child was fine and even the nurses complimented her for the healthy-looking boy.

Two days later, as was her routine to the nursery to breastfeed the baby, Ochuka said that she found nurses at the entrance where they accused her of taking off her babys wrist tag.

She said that the nurses on duty demanded that she produce the name tag since the baby could not be accounted for.

After a few minutes of search, they broke to her the news that her baby had died under unclear circumstances.

Amidst the confusion, Ochuka said the nurses persuaded her to sign forms that indicated that the baby was dead and that she had confirmed the death having been brought a body of a child as evidence.

However, she said the body of the child given to her had a birthmark on the face whereas her child did not have any visible birthmark.

Now she wants investigations launched into the conduct of the nurses at the nursery.

It was the womans aunt, Lilian Adhiambo, who noted the anomaly in the identification of the dead baby.

Adhiambo said that she had gone to pay Sh2,000 for the disposal of the body when she noticed that the baby had been registered as John Nganga.

She said there was a tense moment as the in-charge of accounts was verifying the hospital documents, insisting to know how she was related to the said John Nganga.

But the hospital superintendent, Joseph Mburu, admitted that there was a mistake made in the birth notification document indicating that the baby was born dead.

Dr. Mburu said that the boy was born alive and taken to the nursery but promised an investigation despite the body having been disposed of.

The hospital administrator told the woman on Monday to take the documents to his office for further investigations.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
At long last, restaurants across Central New York may be able to open their doors later this week and let you into their dining rooms.

Of course, there will be restrictions if it does happen Friday, as expected. Servers will wear masks -- and customers will, too, until theyre seated. Tables will be spaced out at least six feet.

Dining rooms will be limited to 50% of their capacity. Youll have to stand six feet away from the next person at the bar.

How is all that going to work? Will it work?

Syracuse.com has invited David Hoyne, one of Central New Yorks best known and most admired restaurant/bar owners, to join us for a live Q&A Thursday to discuss the issues surrounding phase three restaurant reopening.

You have questions and so do we.

The Q&A will be streamed live starting at 10 a.m. Thursday at the syracuse.com Facebook page. If you miss the live stream, come back to syracuse.com for a replay.

Hoyne is a native County Kilkenny in Ireland. He has operated Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub & Restaurant in Armory Square with his wife, Cindy, for more than 20 years. It has become one of the cornerstones of nightlife and hospitality in downtown Syracuse.

Hoyne was named this spring to a task force advising local officials in their response to the coronavirus. The group was assembled by the city of Syracuse, Onondaga County, CenterState CEO, and the Manufacturers Association of CNY. One of Hoynes goals is to help officials frame the guidelines for reopening.

Reporter Don Cazentre will host Hoyne for the live Q&A, You can submit questions by leaving a comment on the live syracuse.com Facebook feed or by sending an email to dcazentre@nyup.com.

Sign up for the Back In Business newsletter to get small business advice delivered to your email inbox

Don Cazentre writes about craft beer, wine, spirits and beverages for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
Company attracts three experienced industry executives to lead preclinical and clinical development as well as finance and operations

Company incorporates Swiss subsidiary and gains additional investment from Schroder Adveq

Azafaros B.V. announced today that three experienced industry executives have joined the Company. Kyle Landskroner, Ph.D., has been appointed Head of Preclinical Drug Development, Ruben Giorgino, M.D., Ph.D., has been appointed Head of Clinical Research and Development and Louise Kooij, M.S., joins as Head of Finance and Operations. The new members together with Chief Executive Officer, Olivier Morand, Ph.D., form the Azafaros executive management team.

In addition, Azafaros has recently incorporated a Swiss subsidiary in the pharma hub of Basel to strengthen its research and development operations. Separately, Azafaros today announced a second close to its recent Series A financing with Schroder Adveq, a leading global private equity asset manager.

With these new company developments, Azafaros headquartered in Leiden, The Netherlands, and with operations in Basel, Switzerland, is well positioned to advance the Company's pipeline focused on innovative treatments for rare inherited metabolic diseases.

"Attracting these experienced and skilled executives to the management team of Azafaros is a major step for the Company as our lead program AZ-3102 for neurodegenerative lysosomal storage disorders is progressing towards first-in-man studies," commentedOlivier Morand, Chief Executive Officer at Azafaros. "The insights and experience provided by Kyle, Ruben and Louise across the spectrum from R&D through finance and business will help us to accelerate our efforts to develop novel disease-modifying treatment modalities. Our successful Series A financing round concluded earlier this year, with the recent addition of Schroder Adveq as a high-profile fund, provides the capital to move the Company to the next level."

Kyle Landskroner joins Azafaros from Novartis International AG where he held the position of Director Global Integration Separation Office since 2017. Prior to this, he served as Director Portfolio Management, Global Drug Development, Portfolio Strategy and Innovation, at Novartis, where he led value-driven decision analyses for the Development portfolio, various clinical projects within therapeutic area franchises and strategic reviews. From 2008 until 2012, he held the position of Senior Laboratory Head at the Department of Preclinical Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at Actelion Pharmaceuticals in areas of lysosomal storage diseases and pulmonary hypertension. With over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, he contributes a vast knowledge of drug development, including early-stage discovery, to Azafaros. Kyle received his Ph.D. from the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University.

Ruben Giorgino previously held the position of Global Head of Clinical Research and Development of the Helsinn Group, a company with early and late stage clinical assets in cancer therapeutics and supportive care. Prior to Helsinn, he held Global Clinical Development and Medical Affairs leadership roles at Actelion Pharmaceuticals in the lysosomal storage diseases area, including clinical development for neuronopathic Gaucher disease, Niemann-Pick type C disease and gangliosidoses. With more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry he brings to Azafaros a profound knowledge and leadership in clinical development. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Rome and is Board Certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Louise Kooij joins Azafaros from Sanofi-Genzyme where she was serving as Head of Rare Diseases Central and Eastern Europe since 2018, leading all commercial activities for rare disease-related programs in those regions. Prior to this, she held the position of Head of Business Operations Europe at Sanofi-Genzyme Europe after working as Vice-President, Business Control and Analysis at Sanofi-Genzyme in Boston from 2013 until 2015. Louise has been in the pharmaceutical industry since 2002, bringing extensive global experience in finance and business operations, particularly in the rare disease space. Louise holds a Master in Controlling and Business Management from the Nijenrode Business University in Breukelen, The Netherlands.

About Azafaros

Azafaros is supported by a syndicate of leading Dutch and Swiss investors including Forbion, BioGeneration Ventures, BioMedPartners and Schroder Adveq. Azafaros was founded in 2018 by experienced industry professionals and scientists aspiring to address rare genetic metabolic disorders through a pipeline of oral small molecules with disease-modifying potential. Based on discoveries from Leiden University and Amsterdam UMC, Azafaros' proprietary lead compound AZ-3102 aims to address hereditary, life-threatening lysosomal storage diseases for which there are no effective therapies today. This orally available azasugar compound interferes with the metabolism of glycosphingolipids and uniquely affects several key disease pathways through a dual mode of action. Leveraging the know-how and experience of its team and partners in orphan drug development, the Company is advancing its lead program toward first-in-man studies while further expanding its product pipeline into other rare metabolic diseases through its drug discovery efforts.

For more information, please visit www.azafaros.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005039/en/

Contacts:

Contact for Media Inquiries:

Trophic Communications

Marie Weickert or Laura Mittmann

E-mail: weickert@trophic.eu

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Phone: +49 89 2388 7730 or +49 151 5986 2418
Grenfell campaigners are calling on the British Government to commit to a deadline to remove all flammable cladding from homes, three years after the fire killed 72 people.

The Justice4Grenfell group is asking people to write to their MP demanding a time limit and a detailed plan on how and when cladding will be removed.

Last year, the UK's then communities secretary James Brokenshire said he expected the removal of all unsafe cladding by this month, but thousands of homes are still covered in aluminium composite material (ACM) deemed to be dangerous.

Stay Alert. Remember 14th June. 



RT and write to your MP. It will only take 1 min with email generator - https://t.co/LDvXWaHVjv#JUSTICE4GRENFELL #3yrsOn #StaySafe pic.twitter.com/7EW7PEqlkI  Justice4Grenfell (@officialJ4G) June 10, 2020

The new campaign comes days before the third anniversary of the disaster, and plays on the Governments coronavirus public messaging campaign, with a graphic that reads Safe homes. Protect residents. Save lives.

Justice4Grenfell spokeswoman Yvette Williams said: For the people affected there is still no clear understanding of the time-frame to have these panels removed.

We believe the Government needs to act with urgency and set clear timings for completion and take accountability for an expedient removal.

At a time when people are urged to stay in their homes more, safety is paramount.

Over 23,000 households are still covered in Grenfell-style flammable cladding three years after the disaster.

The fight for change and justice must continue as many thousands of peoples lives are at risk.

Sunday, June 14, will mark three years since the west London tower block fire, and churches across the city will ring their bells 72 times in remembrance of the victims.

Please see updated new links to Grenfell Virtual Anniversary on 14th June 2020.



 Forever In Our Hearts  pic.twitter.com/F5jjWdw1r4  Justice4Grenfell (@officialJ4G) June 9, 2020

St Pauls Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Southwark Cathedral will join Grenfells parish church, St Clement Notting Dale, at 6pm at the invitation of the Bishop of Kensington, the Rt Rev Graham Tomlin.

Dr Tomlin said: Nearly three years ago, the tragedy at Grenfell Tower left us wondering how this could happen in a 21st-century city like London.

We are now facing a very different tragedy in the form of coronavirus, but we continue to ask similar questions.

As we try to make sense of what we are living through today, lets not forget that hundreds of families are still trying to make sense of what happened on that day in June 2017. A Government spokesman said: The safety of residents is our top priority and since the Grenfell Tower fire we have worked tirelessly with councils to identify buildings at risk and ensure they are made safe.

We are providing 1.6 billion for the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding from high-rise buildings and are bringing forward the biggest legislative changes in a generation to provide further enforcement powers against those who do not comply with the law, and ensuring that residents safety is at the heart of the construction process.
Several Republican senators have shown their dismay afer Donald Trump used Twitter to propagate a conspiracy theory over an elderly man pushed violently to the ground by police in Buffalo, New York.

Traipsing past a gaggle of reporters outside a Republican lunch, a troop of senators were asked one after the other to comment on the president's tweet, which referenced a theory floated by far-right news network OANN that the man assaulted by an officer was trying to scan police communications and fell harder than was pushed.

Longtime Trump critic Mitt Romney, who joined a Black Lives Matter protest over the weekend, was unimpressed. I saw the tweet, he said. It was a shocking thing to say, and I wont dignify it with any further comment.

More aghast still was Lisa Murkowski, a moderate senator from Alaska who recently said she was struggling with whether to vote for Mr Trump, leading him to demand she be challenged in her primary in 2022. Oh lord, she said. Ugh. Again, why would you fan the flames? Then, walking away from reporters, Thats all Im going to say.

Other Republicans, however, gave more measured responses  or none at all.

Recommended Trump defends cops who shoved elderly man to ground

Confronted by CNNs Manu Raju, Pat Roberts of Kansas told him I havent even read the damn thing. I dont want to hear it. When Mr Raju said he had the tweet on hand for Mr Roberts to read, the senator said I know and walked off.

I didnt see it, replied Marco Rubio when asked. Youre telling me about it. I dont read Twitter. I only write on it. John Cornyn simply offered that a lot of this stuff just goes over my head, while Lamar Alexander said Voters can evaluate that. Im not going to give a running commentary on the Presidents tweets.

And majority leader Mitch McConnell, when asked twice about the tweet, dodged the matter entirely, simply saying his party is working on new law enforcement legislation.

The reaction was more vocal and more caustic on the other side of the aisle. Democratic senate leader Chuck Schumer called the allegation baseless and said the president should return to his bunker, which he visited during protests outside the White House (he has since claimed he went to inspect it).

Senator Chris Murphy, meanwhile, held up the tweet as evidence Mr Trump is unfit to lead this nation, then claimed the conspiracy theory appears to have emanated from a Russian source, spelling trouble for the election to come.

Presidential nominee Joe Biden tweeted his own response, accusing the president of abusing his power just as the officer who pushed the man to the ground did. And at a press conference in New York, governor Andrew Cuomo demanded that Mr Trump apologise for his message.

How reckless, how irresponsible, how mean, how crude  At this moment of anguish and anger, what does he do? Pour gasoline on the fire. Show some decency. Show some humanity. Show some fairness. Youre the president of the United States.
R apper Wretch 32 has shared distressing footage of his 62-year-old father being Tasered by police at his home in Tottenham, north London.

The video shows Millard Scott tumbling downstairs after an officer is heard warning: "Police officer with a Taser. Stay where you are."

As officers ask if he is "okay" and tell him to keep still, a distressed woman can be heard saying: "They've Tasered him."

Speaking to ITV News, Mr Scott said he believed the incident would not have unfolded how it did if he were white.

"I'm lucky to be alive," he said.

"The only people who have invaded our space are the Metropolitan Police. The only people who seem to ignore the guidelines put out there are the Metropolitan Police.

"It seems at this moment in time we are being singled out and targeted."

His 35-year-old son, rapper Wretch 32, whose real name is Jermaine Scott, told the broadcaster there has been "no progression" since he grew up watching his father and uncle "fight against police brutality".

He shared the 36-second clip on his Twitter account, where it has been viewed more than 500,000 times.

He wrote: "This is how the police think they can treat a 62 year old black man in Tottenham but this 1 happens to be my dad."

At the start of the clip officers can be seen entering the front door of the house as a woman tells them: "I'm not resisting, don't touch me, social distancing, please don't touch me."

The Met said officers went to the property as part of "a long-running operation to tackle drugs supply linked to serious violence".

The force said in statement: "As officers entered the premises, a man came downstairs and started moving towards an officer suddenly.

"He was ordered to remain where he was but continued towards officers who, after several warnings, deployed a Taser.

"The man was not arrested, but was assessed by the London Ambulance Service at the scene. He did not require further medical treatment.

"Officers from the North Area Command Unit have liaised with the family to discuss any concerns they have about the incident.

"The incident, including body worn footage, has been reviewed by the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards and no indication of misconduct has been identified."

Police said a 22-year-old man found in the house was arrested and charged with encouraging another to commit an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007, while a 52-year-old woman was charged with obstructing police after being interviewed under caution at a later date.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called for an investigation by the police watchdog.

"I have asked the Metropolitan Police for an urgent explanation of this distressing incident which is understandably causing considerable concern," he said.

"It is imperative that the incident is properly investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

"It is absolutely vital that our police service retains the trust of the communities it serves."
When it comes to the genre of horror, there is nothing that can beat Korean movies. Hollywood has given us some good films too, but Bollywood has usually produced awful horror movies.. If movies and shows like Betaal failed to put up a scary show for you, here is a list of unsettling Korean horror movies that will for sure give you the thrills and chills. Horror is one of Korean cinemas strongest genres, after all.

For an adrenaline rush, make sure you watch these alone at night. Scary movies are best enjoyed in solitude and in the comfort of one's own home, all alone, right?

1. Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum

bloody-disgusting.com

If you are a fan of found-footage/documentary style horror movies, this South Korean horror movie is a must watch for you. Gonjiam revolves around an online reality show whose crew travels to an abandoned asylum for a livestream but soon they realise they are surrounded by something terrifying. Just for added thrill, this is based on Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in Gwangju, which is one of Korea's most haunted locations.

The film that is hailed as the Korean version of The Blair Witch Project is also getting an English remake.

2. A Tale of Two Sisters

reykissna.com

This is one of the classic horror movies ever made that you just cannot watch once. It has so many twists, especially the ending which is hailed as mother of all twists, that you would want to watch this movie again to connect all the dots. The mind-boggling plot of the movie revolves around two sisters who after the death of their mother, one of whom returns to home from a mental asylum after mothers death, to a cruel stepmother.

This is the film that brought Korean horror movies to the limelight. So much so, that it went on to become the highest-grossing K-horror film and also the first one to be screened in US theaters.



3. Thirst

allhorror.com

If you think Twilight should have been a horror movie about vampires and not a love tale, Thirst is what you have been looking for apparently.

The story revolves around a priest who is brought back to life as a vampire. If this doesn't excite you, the movie, which won at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009, is hailed as one of the sexiest horror movies of all time, and that doesnt make it any less scary.



4. Train To Busan

bloody-disgusting.com

If you're a fan of zombie horror movies, you cannot miss this one. Not only will this movie make you shit bricks with its terrifying fights, it will also make you cry out of empathy for characters that are well-built.



This apocalypse saga takes place on a movie training. The fact that there is a sense of perpetual motion, makes the movie overwhelmingly thrilling.



5. The Wailing

thisisbarry.com

If horror movies have failed to cast a long lasting effect on you, The Wailing will make you think about its terrifying ending for several days. The twists and turns and horrifying scenes in the climax of the movie is what makes it one of the best horror movies of all time.

The story follows a cop who investigates a series of killings in a small village and fights the supernatural to save his infected daughter. It will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.

6. I Saw the Devil

goombastomp.com

Warning: This film is extremely violent and also the one of the most draining movies you'll ever watch.

This is a revenge-themed horror film that has some bone-chilling gory scenes along with great actions. It's a roller coaster ride full of excitement. At several moments you will feel you have reached the top, but then you'll realise, it keeps going up from there. When it falls at the peak, it falls harder than you would expect and leaves a long lasting impact on you.

What is it about?

The movie follows the story of a secret service agent seeking revenge from a psychopath serial killer who murders his fiance.

7. The Host

vistapointe.net

Directed by Bong Joon-ho, the man who also directed Oscar winning Parasite, The Host is a monster epic movie that will make you laugh in one moment and scare the heck out of you in the other. This modern monster movie is unique and hard-hitting as well. The plot follows the story of a humble family's daughter who has been taken by a monster in the sea.What gave birth to the monster? It was the biochemical waste that is dumped into the sea. The story is inspired from a newspaper article about a deformed fish found in Han river. The movie is a thriller, horror as well as slapstick humour.

8. Death Bell

popsugar.com

Filled with scenes that have blood and gore in abundance, Death Bell isn't a ghost story yet it flirts with supernatural ideas. The plot of the movie follows the story of high school students who are taking a pre test. All is well until they are trapped in the class by a lunatic who forced them to answer some riddles. Their life depends on the answers because they cannot leave the school before solving the questions. The answers have to be correct or else, with every wrong answer, one person dies.

9. Bloody Reunion

tumblr.com

You think bunnies are adorable? This movie has a bunny-masked killer who will make you rethink your assertion. The film has a thrilling take on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and delivers a jarring twist in the end that you will have to watch to believe. The movie revolves around.

The death scenes in the movie will make your heart shiver. The story revolves around a teacher whose students gather at her home for she is now sick. While she was spiteful and unfair when the students were young, now she is forgiving and sympathetic. The gathering turns into a massacre when one after the other, the students are murdered.



10. The Red Shoes

beardedgentlemenmusic.com

The Red Shoes is a horror thriller based on a spooky interpretation of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale. The plot follows the story of a separated housewife who finds a pair of pumps lying at a subway station. She picks them and brings them home, not knowing that whoever wears them, falls under an unsettling spell. When her friend tries to steal them, she dies.

Check: How To Download Movies From Todaypk.com?

11. Bedevilled

Twitter

Bedevilled is a film that uniquely is not being narrated from the point of view of the avengers. This revenge based female centric movie, narrates the story of a woman who reaches her breaking point. The character is so well-built that after half an hour of build up, you will understand her actions better than before. It's not a dun watch, and that's what it is intended to be.

12. Loner

hancinema.net

Have you heard of hikikomori? This is the term given to people who withdraw themselves from the society and instead prefer isolating themselves in their houses for years.

This is one of those horror movies that is based on someone's inner pain. It narrates the story of a girl who lives with her uncle and grandmother after her parents' death. While her family gets worried why she isn't leaving the room, she is talking to someone else in her room.

13. Whispering Corridors

tmdb.org

Have your ever heard of the stories of your school being made on a graveyard after someone committed suicide? Reminding you the spine chilling childhood tales. At an all-girls school, the rumours of a student committing suicide spreads like wildfire. When a new teacher joins the school, she realizes her old BFF has killed herself. And thats when the haunting begins.

This movie was so successful that it led to the formation of a Whispering Corridors franchise.



14. Hide and Seek

variety,com

This creepy, suspense thriller keeps you on the edge of the seat throughout its runtime. It centers on a man who learns his elder has gone missing. When he goes to his home, he finds some strange symbols engraved into the door. When he returns home he finds similar symbols on his door too.

15. Seoul Station

wp.com

This movie is a prequel to Train to Busan, and is more horrifying than the original. This digs deep into the darkness into human nature. How To Download Movies From Todaypk.com?
If the anti-racism protests around the world in response to the killing of George Floyd indicate anything, it is that a return to the status quo ante is untenable. While much attention is being paid to reforming policing, if we are to alter the long-term trajectory of our society toward greater racial equity, a transformation must occur inside all societal institutions. And nowhere is this truer than in our schools.

What would meaningful change in our schools look like? It would start with an explicit teaching of our legacy of colonialism, slavery, and subjugation. While Canadians often look down upon Americas history of slavery, few are taught about the French and British sanctioned enslavement of Indigenous and Black peoples that took place in our pre-Confederation colonies for over 200 years.

And while schools have started teaching about the residential school system, other topics like treaties, unceded land, and current Indigenous issues are often ignored entirely. Clearly our level of Indigenous education in Ontario is inadequate.

In fact, a 2018 study that was published in the journal Curriculum Inquiry found that Ontarios curriculum and textbooks often cast Indigenous people as passive, static, technologically unsophisticated, without agency, and incidental to Canadas present.

While new curriculum has been developed, it should be considered unconscionable that in 2019 the Ford government reversed the decision to make Indigenous education courses mandatory.

As Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler remarked at the time, Learning about the colonial history of this country should not be optional. As long as we make these courses as electives, I think the system will continue to fail our students ... Imagine training the next generation of leaders, whether theyre in politics or judges or lawyers or teachers, without this critical piece. Its very troublesome.

If Premier Ford is as committed to racial equity as he recently professed in the Ontario legislature, he should back up those words with action and reinstate mandatory Indigenous education for all students in this province.

With its hiring of a new director of education, the Toronto District School Board also has an opportunity to demonstrate whether it is truly committed to race equity or is merely content to espouse these principles. Hiring a director who says all the right things but lacks a clear track record of social justice leadership is unacceptable.

Instead, the TDSB should be looking to hire someone like the Peel District School Boards Associate Director Poleen Grewal, who, long before it was trendy and at great personal cost, called out anti-Black racism at her own school board. The problem is that leaders who are actually committed to social justice, like Grewal, are often dismissed as activists by those who want to maintain the privileges afforded by the current system.

The TDSB is also currently considering the establishment of a Centre of Excellence for Black Student Achievement that will focus specifically on meeting the needs of the boards Black students. This is long overdue as by the time they finish high school, 42 per cent of Black students have been suspended at least once and Black students make up nearly half of all expulsions.

Black students are also severely underrepresented in academic pathways, as well as specialized and gifted programs. The question before TDSB trustees is whether they will provide enough funding and staff so the Centre can make a real difference in the lives of Black students.

While our school systems have long paid lip-service to social justice, much of the equity work that takes place is performative in nature. School boards publicly profess their commitment, teachers and administrators parrot the right talking points to get hired and promoted, but little actually changes in the lives of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized students.

This is because when it comes down to it, we have been unwilling to do what it takes to end racial injustice if it comes at too great a cost to our personal comfort and the privileges we enjoy. Behind closed doors, the sad truth is that many within our school systems view equity work as either a nuisance or something ancillary to the purpose of schooling.

This will no longer suffice. Public education has long been framed as the great equalizer. It is time we took that commitment seriously.
The management of the Ghana Music Right Organisation (GHAMRO) will soon organise a campaign against individuals and companies selling musical works on various music purchasing websites without their owners consent.



The society has expressed its readiness to wage intensive war against music pirates who have deprived musicians from their revenue.



The purpose of the anti-piracy exercise, Daily Guide gathered, is to arrest several persons who engage in illegal downloading and sale of music and audiovisual works which violate Ghanas copyright laws and international treaties.



The activities of music pirates in the country, according to the society, had brought untold hardships upon the local musicians and the producers who lost heavy investments through such illegal trade.



The anti-piracy exercise is part of the series of measures adopted by the society led by Rex Omar to ensure the enforcement of the Copyright Act and music piracy.



GHAMRO pointed out that if the activities of pirates not checked, it could kill creativity in the music industry.



It is unfortunate we didnt pay so much attention to the online market stores until recently. To our surprise and amazement, we realized most of the musical works were being sold on Amazon, iTunes and many other platforms by unknown individuals, Enock Agyapong, a copyright advocate, told BEATWAVES.



The society which has the powers backed by law to ban music users from using the works of its members declared its readiness to take legal action against music users who have refused to pay royalties to the society.



The Chairman of GHAMRO, Rex Omar, recently told BEATWAVES that they were bent on improving on ways of collecting and distributing royalties for music right owners.



Going forward, our new management department will roll out a complete image branding of the society and its collection system in each region of Ghana. This will be accompanied by weekly task force activities, he said.



He mentioned that in as much as GHAMRO was yet to achieve its full objectives, it has taken the turn for the better and has improved in terms of the overall corporate governance, transparency and accountability.



GHAMRO is a royalty collection organisation that represents the rights of music copyright holders.



It was established under Section 49 of the Copyright Law, Act 690 of 2005 and regulated under Copyright Regulation, L.I. 1962 of 2010 to collect and distribute royalties accruing to authors and owners of copyright and neighbouring rights.



It collects royalties for all music rights owners in Ghana.

Source: Daily Guide









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Featured Video
NDRF team retrieves bodies of firefighters

An aerial view of the Baghjan oil field engulfed in fire, in Tisukia, Assam on Tuesday, June 9, 2020. The field has been leaking gas for the past two weeks. (PTI)

Guwahati: Even as experts from Singapore continue to struggle to control fire at Baghjan oil field, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel on Wednesday morning retrieved the bodies of two firemen of Oil India Limited, who were missing since an oil well at Baghjan oilfield in eastern Assams Tinsukia district exploded on Tuesday afternoon.

The two deceased employees of OIL have been identified as Durlov Gogoi and Tikheswar Gohain. Pointing out that the duo were on duty at the site when the well exploded, official sources said that a third fireman was injured and admitted to hospital on Tuesday.

Informing that because of the inferno, it was impossible for anyone to go in the vicinity of the burning well on Tuesday, official sources said that NDRF personnel could launch their rescue operation on Wednesday. As the oil condensate at the surface has now burnt out, the surrounding areas have also become visible now, said the sources.

The OIL authorities engaged in fire-fighting with Singapore-based firm M/s Alert Disaster Control said, The ALERT Team is of view that it is now a safe environment for working. They are confident that the situation can be controlled and the well can be capped safely.

The situation demands arrangement of large quantities of water, installation of high discharge pumps and removal of debris. All the operations as per ALERT will take about 4 weeks. However, fire-fighters will try to reduce timeframe to control the fire.

The fire is still raging and has engulfed nearby residential areas forcing over 1,600 families to flee their homes. The Baghjan oil field blowout is threatening the environment of the area too.

The blowout occurred at a producing well number 5, which is situated in the vicinity of Dibru Saikhowa National Park, a biodiversity hotspot and Maguri-Motapung Beel, which is home to migratory birds.

Meanwhile, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonwaol called Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh urging the latter to deploy Indian Air Force for controlling the fire in the Baghjan oilfield.

Mr Sonowal also spoke to Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to inform him about the explosion at the Baghjan oilfield and the resultant fire engulfing the area.

He urged Mr Pradhan to take urgent steps for extinguishing the fire at the earliest while directing the Tinsukia district administration and police to take necessary measures for safeguarding the interest of the local people of the affected area.

Mr Sonowal told reporters that necessary steps have been taken by the state government to ensure safety of local people in the Baghjan area and instructions have been sent to civil and police administration about the same.

He said that the chief secretary and DGP have been directed to take active steps to control the situation while keeping the armed and paramilitary forces, fire brigade, NDRF and SDRF engaged to ensure safety of the people in and around the affected area.

Mr Sonowal also called upon the people in the affected area not to panic as both the Central and state governments have been taking measures to ensure their safety. The chief minister has also directed industry and commerce minister Chandra Mohan Patowary to immediately visit Baghjan and take stock of the situation.
'The Indian Army's surveillance had noticed the Chinese movements.'

'There was no intelligence failure.'

Signalling an end to the month-long standoff in mountainous eastern Ladakh, Indian and Chinese troops have withdrawn from most areas, news reports stated on Tuesday, June 9.

However, the questions remain: Why did the standoff between the two armies take place? Why now? Given the frequent skirmishes, do the Modi-Xi informal summits work? What did China achieve from the standoff? Has India's response been adequate?

Shedding light on these and other questions is Nitin A Gokhale, editor-in-chief, StratNews Global, a long-time Rediff.com contributor, author and strategic affairs expert.

The first of a multi-part, interview with Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf:

In June 2017, Prime Minister Modi told the International Economic Forum in St Petersburg that not a single bullet was fired by China or India in 40 years at the border, a statement which was applauded by the Chinese government.

What went wrong in the last three years that first we saw a military standoff in Dokalam and now a face-off in eastern Ladakh?

That statement still holds good as no bullets have been fired even now.

That statement was made to highlight the fact that despite huge differences between India and China on the border issue and boundary negotiations, the protocols and agreements, the system that is followed there prevents any bloodshed, unlike what happens at the Line of Control with Pakistan where everyday there is bloodshed, killings and people getting injured.

That was the context of the statement.

But yes, pinpricks by China have never stopped.

I believe that the intensity or frequency of encounters or standoffs between India and Chinese troops all along the contested, unsettled and un-demarcated border, as you know, has increased because now Indian troops are able to go to areas where they had no access to earlier due to difficult terrain and inaccessible mountains.

But now that access has been improved from our side.

We are now catching up with the Chinese side in terms of infrastructure.

Therefore, the frequency of standoffs have increased as (troop) patrols from our side has increased.

That's why we are hearing more and more standoffs.

Is the current standoff something to do with the 255-km Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road joining Leh to the Karakoram Pass, which upsets China -- like Nepal got offended by the Lipulekh pass road?

There is a difference between Lipulekh and this one (DSDBO road).

On Lipulekh, I think, China instigated Nepal to create a ruckus and raise the decibel level.

At Lipulekh, India is not deploying any troops except for the fact that (it will help) Indian pilgrims go to Mansarovar via that route to Tibet through Uttarakhand and partly via Nepal.

Earlier, this used to help the economy of that area of Nepal.

Now after the road has come up, people will straightaway drive from the Indian side to Tibet without stopping or using Nepalese resources or boundary area.

Thus, it will affect their local economy.

Therefore, due to economic reasons and instigation from China, Nepal is creating a ruckus against India.

There is no comparison between Lipulekh and the DSDBO road.

Because this (DSDBO) road is entirely in Indian territory.

Yes, China is worried as now India has the ability to deploy troops much quicker than before in the Depsang plains, short of Karakoram Pass which is vital for the Karakoram Highway.

It actually does not go through the Karakoram Pass, but goes through the Khunjerab Pass.

It gives India the ability to interdict the Karakorum Highway between China and Pakistan if the balloon goes up.

Also, China is worried that after recent assertions of changing the status of Ladakh (Ladakh becoming a Union territory after Article 370 was abrogated on August 5, 2019).

Plus, Home Minister Amit Shah said (in Parliament) that Aksai Chin is ours.

Do you think China was offended by Shah's statement?

There is nothing wrong in his statement.

It is factual as Aksai Chin is regarded as Indian territory.

It is only that for so many years, since 1962 almost for 58 years, no Indian government functionary at that level has spoken about Aksai Chin either positively or negatively.

Certainly, the antenna must have been raised in China over whether India is trying to get back Aksai Chin.

The Chinese have a stake in Aksai Chin as it connects mainland China to Xinjiang.

The road is called the Aksai Chin road.

In Xinjiang, China is facing internal rebellion.

Also, Amit Shah's statement is looked at in conjunction with the other statement where he said Pakistan occupied Kashmir is India's territory.

The Pakistanis would have gone running to the Chinese and told them, 'Look, India is eyeing a change of the status quo.'

So certainly, yes, that has a bearing on what is happening in Ladakh.

But there are other factors as China has not given up doing pinpricks and intrusions every summer and spring between the month of April and October.

These faceoffs, in my memory of 30, 35 years, this has been happening and I am sure it must have been happening before also.

But now the frequency and intensity have increased certainly.

Was the Indian Army caught offguard due to the coronavirus pandemic and the Chinese took advantage of it? Do you think there was an intelligence failure on our part to gauge China's move?

No, emphatically no.

The Indian Army's surveillance had noticed the Chinese movements.

In fact, when the Chinese came first to the Pangong Tso lake, which is an old disputed point, they (the Indian Army) knew it.

From the southern bank of the Pangong Tso lake, one can always see what is happening on the northern bank, what is happening between the area called as Finger 4 and Finger 8.

So, it is not that they were not being watched.

There is a post called Lukung which is at a height at Finger 2.

One can see from Lukung for about 10 km into what is a disputed territory between Finger 4 to Finger 8.

I have been there and I am speaking from ground knowledge.

So it is not that they (the Indian Army) were caught unawares.

If you are speaking about Galwan and Hot Springs, there Indian helicopters had noticed movement coming from the Aksai Chin side into the valley.

Since a watch was being kept and Chinese forces remained on their side of the LAC, there was nothing India could have done except building its own strength on our side of the LAC, which is at the confluence of the Galwan river and Shyok river.

The new road is to the west of the Shyok river.

At the confluence, there is a kind of deployment which India has done.

There is a point called Patrol Point 14 up to which the Indian side now gets easy access to as the road has been built or improved.

This road was objected to by China as they do not want India's infrastructure to improve or become as good as theirs.

Therefore, China is putting constant pressure by saying you are changing the status quo.

There was no intelligence failure as far as I am concerned.
In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd two weeks ago in Minneapolis, all eyes have turned to police across the nation and their policies and tactics and what many see as systemic racism in law enforcement.

Birmingham is no different, said Mayor Randall Woodfin, who on Wednesday announced he has launched a 30-day review that will look at police transparency and accountability. Woodfin, joined by Police Chief Patrick Smith, FOP President Lt. Richard Haluska, and Birmingham City Councilman Hunter Williams, said over the next 30 days, his office will review police practices, especially as they relate to the #8CANTWAIT.

The #8CANTWAIT campaign calls for radical changes in policing and public safety to reduce the chance of harm to citizens at the hands of police. The campaign touts these eight policies: ban chokeholds and strangleholds, require de-escalation, require warning before shooting, exhaust all alternatives before shooting, duty to intervene, ban shooting at moving vehicles, require use of force continuum (guidelines as to how much force may be used against a resisting subject in a given situation) and require comprehensive reporting following a use of force situation.

Every city right now is going to have to figure out what theyre going to pay for and what they arent and how theyre going to police in a post-George Floyd world, Woodfin said. Birmingham is no different and everything is on the table.

Woodfin said at the end of the 30-day review by his office, he will name a Community Safety Task Force which will be comprised of representatives from the city schools and the housing authorities as well as others from the community. At the end of that 90-day review, the mayor will issue an executive order addressing any gaps between what officers are doing now and best practices.

Now more than ever is the time to be intentional about accountability, transparency and how we engage in our community in building trust and relationships with those we are sworn to protect, Woodfin said.

Protests turned violent overnight after demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, in the wake of the death of Minnesotan George Floyd. He died when a police officer restrained him facedown with a knew on his neck for almost nine minutes. The events May 31 to June 1, 2020, in Birmingham prompted the city to enact an overnight curfew indefinitely. The city's mayor also promised arrests if unrest continues. Demonstrators tried to bring a Confederate memorial statue down in Linn Park and then did damage to businesses near the downtown park. There were more than two dozen fires reported.Dez Wilson | DWilson@al.com

As part of that accountability, the police chief summarized disciplinary action he has taken against officers during his two years on the job. You told me there were officers in this department who should not be here because of interactions they have had with the community, how the community was treated and making sure we had a standard of accountability, Smith said. That I have done.

He said since he took office in June 2018, 16 officers have been terminated, seven of whom resigned in lieu of termination. Additionally, he said, 39 have received suspensions, 25 have been required to undergo additional training and 12 have been sent to mandatory counseling. Also, he said, 12 officers with complaints filed against them have been exonerated, in part from evidence obtained from their body-worn cameras.

In addressing the #8CANTWAIT mandates, Smith said his department already follows those guidelines, including mentioning that BPD does not authorize chokehold or strangulation moves. While state policing standards require only a minimum of 12 hours of additional training annually, Birmingham police are required to go to 60 hours of additional training each year. That training does include de-escalation tactics.

Woodfin pointed out that of the roughly 900 sworn officers on the force, roughly two-thirds reflect the racial makeup of the city of Birmingham. Those officers, he said, went to the same schools and attend the same churches as those they serve in the community. Our Birmingham Police Department is not only serving you, but they are part of our community, he said.

Smith, before addressing the media, took a moment of silence in memory of Floyd. This has been a very difficult time for us in law enforcement, a difficult time for those who do this profession and want to do what is right for the city and communities they serve, he said.

He said his first order of business when he took the job was to listen to the community and that has not changed. I am prepared to listen again, to make sure that were doing what is necessary. I want you to know that your words then and your words now have been heard, he said. I dont take what I do lightly, or how we serve this city, lightly.

We want to be that department that is reflective of the community and the values we hold so true, he said.

Smith said he wanted to note that many officers have received rewards for their work  such medals of valor and purple hearts. Others have been injured and even killed while doing their job. This police department has been here for the city of Birmingham through blood sweat and tears, he said. We have lost Sgt. Carter and several officers have been injured in the line of duty as well as shot because we want to protect you and we want to serve you."

At Tuesdays City Council meeting, speakers asked that city officials redirect funds from the Birmingham Police Departments $92 million budget to other social services such as housing, mental health services and community revitalization. Similar requests have been made of police departments throughout the U.S. following Floyds death.

Woodfin acknowledge the national conversation about defunding police and said his office will be coming not only through the police departments budget but all of the citys departments such as community development and economic develop to determine how to be serve the community.

We will have to police in a different light due to whats happened, and I think thats fair, but everythings on the table, he said.
New details from Iran's latest satellite in interview with Sardar Jafarabadi

Tasmin News Agency

June 10, 2016 - 3:31 p.m.

Tasnim News Agency Defense Group - Mehdi Bakhtiari: On May 23 of this year, the Revolutionary Guards Air Force placed its first satellite, Noor, on a 425-kilometer Earth orbit by satellite to Ghased.

This happened while, unlike previous satellite launches in the country, no one was informed about it until the operation.

The launch of this satellite into space as the first satellite in the country's military field had many repercussions at the domestic and international levels, and of course, many tried to question this important achievement by raising various doubts.

In a detailed interview with Tasnim News Agency , Sardar Ali Jafarabadi, Commander of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force , while responding to the new details of the launch, also answered some of the doubts raised about the Noor satellite.

Sardar Jafarabadi, born in 1975, is one of the young commanders in the Armed Forces who has been in charge of the Air Force since its inception.

You can read the full text of this conversation below:

* in the name of God. Thank you very much for your hard work and for giving us the opportunity to talk to His Excellency about the issues and space activities of the Armed Forces, especially the Revolutionary Guards, which work in the Air Force, so that people are more familiar with this. Find a field. The pretext for this conversation is the recent action of the IRGC in sending "Noor - Satellite of Light" by "Satellite to Dandelion" to the orbit of 425 km of Earth, which led to many analyzes and comments both inside and outside the country.

If we divide the discussion into two general sections, satellite and satellite, one of the most talked about topics was satellite.

If you allow me to start the conversation with this issue, what are the main features of the satellite on the messenger and what are the differences with the previous examples inside the country?

in the name of God. I also greet your service and don't be tired, I tell your colleagues in Tasnim News Agency . First of all, I must say that this success belonged to the whole country. That is, all the military and national authorities that were directly or indirectly involved in this work and helped.

But when it comes to satellites, perhaps our most important achievement has been the technology of solid fuel engines with moving nozzles and lightweight composite bodies.

* That is, the same "Salman" space engine that was unveiled a few months ago.

Yes. The engine was first successfully tested on a satellite, paving the way for us to reach larger satellites.

** Launch animation and launch with any required orbital angle

Another issue was the tactical nature of the satellite over the messenger, which first occurred inside the country.

In fact, if the satellite is stationary, due to the limitations of the launch, launch will only be possible at certain angles relative to the equator, which is called the inclination angle. This means that if the satellite is fixed, these angles will be limited.

However, each mission requires its own orbital angle. Sometimes our throws may need to be polarized, that is, they should be thrown toward the pole, and sometimes it is better to be close to the equator.

Our country is a vast country that is geopolitically located above the Indian Ocean, and therefore, if our satellite is tactical, we will be able to launch at any orbital angle that is needed. This was made possible by satellite. This means that we can do this from any corner of the country and from any angle.

Another feature was that in this operation, the separation mechanisms that took place in three stages were all tested, and this is because it is similar in future models, in fact, it makes our minds comfortable for the future.

On the other hand, the operation was carried out at a time when the country was in the midst of a crisis, and also due to some shortcomings in previous years and some technical problems in previous launches, the country's space community was so frustrated that, thank God, this happened. The light of hope shone, and we could see this excitement and joy in the sheer volume of letters of appreciation, correspondence, and statements from officials, the public, and activists in the space community.

** IRGC special action for students and space experts

Another advantage of the messenger, which is due to its agility and tactical nature, was that we also told the space agency that it was now possible to have small student satellites in universities and science centers where space students were studying in related fields. Put yourself in orbit with this satellite once. It is a great opportunity for professors and students to be able to test and evaluate their theses and dissertations in a real process.

We started working with the space agency, and they have plans for the coming years.

** We will use solid fuel in all future launches

* As you mentioned, one of the most important features of the messenger was the use of a solid fuel engine in the second stage, and as Sardar Hajizadeh said, it is planned to use a solid fuel engine in the satellite for the messenger-2 in the first stage. to be used.

Solid fuel and its use have been considered by Sardar Shahid Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam for many years, and the IRGC has focused on it. If possible, tell our audience in simple language what the importance of solid fuel is and how it differs from liquid fuel.

First of all, it's not like liquid fuel is better or solid. Each of these has its own properties and, of course, its own limitations.

One of the advantages of solid fuel is that it is agile, quick to prepare and faster to launch, while maintaining a long service life and increasing the expiration date of solid fuel engines.

On the other hand, it is very difficult to control solid fuels. That is, when the engine is started, it is still on until the end and its trusts cannot be controlled. In this area, the satellite has an advantage over liquid fuel, but we found in the messenger that the kids came up with a high-tech technology for controlling and taming solid fuels. If we didn't have a certain amount of attention and the speed was a bit higher than the orbital speed, the circuit would no longer be a circular orbital.

Solid fuel restrictions have now been reduced with strict controls by children in control, and now its benefits are waning, and God willing, we will use them in all future launches.

** Dandelion-2 will be bigger and lighter than Dandelion-1

* In the satellite on the messenger 2, apart from the fact that the solid fuel engine will be used in the first stage, will you have other differences, for example, in size and diameter with the messenger -1?

The general purpose of Dandelion-2 is that the engine of the first stage will change from liquid fuel to solid fuel, and of course, optimizations and stylizations will be made to place heavier satellites with larger dimensions at a higher orbital altitude.

** Noor satellite is a completely Iranian satellite

* More than 35 days have passed since the launch of the Noor satellite and its orbit. During this time, various people, from experts and analysts to even some American officials, have spoken about it, and a series of suspicions have been raised about this satellite. What happened in space during these 35 days on the Noor satellite and what is the current state of this satellite?

Whenever a satellite is launched into space, it is considered that there is a time in the universe for the satellite to be stable and stable. This stage had not yet taken place in the early days of the launch, and this created a series of rumors. This has happened now.

Another rumor was that the satellite was not Iranian at all.

* Yes, they said it was probably similar to another satellite used in Mexico, for example, and made in the United States.

Yes. You see, the Americans are very careful that even medicine does not enter our country for the treatment of a number of specific diseases. Now, how is it possible that a satellite with this high technology will come from the United States, enter Iran, and the Americans will not understand?

These words are mischievous and angry.

I would like to inform you that if it were possible to buy and provide satellites from abroad, we would not be the owners of local satellites today. In fact, these sanctions have caused us to put our hands on our knees, and I am proud to announce that the Noor satellite is a completely indigenous and Iranian satellite.

** Twice a week, we broadcast satellite signals around the world

* Another suspicion was about receiving a signal from the Noor satellite. Some said the satellite would no longer send signals, which meant it would run out of life and the satellite would fail.

In the early days, as a precaution, the satellite's auxiliary and sub-signals were on everywhere, and everyone could get it, but later we limited it to saving our own power, which was later rumored to be over. The satellite is not alive and its life is over.

We now plan to broadcast satellite signals around the world once or twice a week to all countries.

Another issue was that they said that the satellite was in fact a spinning and rotating object and was not operational. Well, this satellite is on display now, and stabilization has been done, and some of those who were making these statements have gradually withdrawn, and some have even deleted their tweets.

You can be sure that these suspicions will not stop, and the more successful they are, the more professional they will be in terms of psychological operations. Well, if that were the case and the satellite was of no value, it wouldn't have angered American officials, and they wouldn't have reacted so much that they even said they would take the case to the Security Council.

The truth is that when they are confronted with an undeniable fact, the base of their psychological operations becomes active.

** The fruit of the satellite Noor has begun

* Is it possible to cite some of the actions taken by Noor satellite as an example?

I would like to make a brief reference to the fact that in the last few days, when our tankers moved to Venezuela, in the Atlantic Ocean, which is naturally more difficult to access, it was on the agenda of the Noor satellite to monitor the position of these tankers and their surroundings.

In addition to these operational tasks, today's Noor satellite has become a real space laboratory for us, and our experts daily measure various parameters of the space environment such as the Earth's electromagnetic fields, temperature changes according to the angle of the sun and day and night distances, internal heat control mechanisms. Satellite evaluates satellite control algorithms, discusses solar panels and the amount of power they can provide at different times, and tests different algorithms.

These are like a laboratory in a real space environment, and these achievements will certainly be used in the optimal design of future satellites, and we will write these experiences in the future to the extent that they do not harm the mission of the satellite. .

In a word, I offer you that the satellite Noor has become for us a symbol of "we can" and the confidence of the youth of this country. The satellite is now alive and well.

** All subsystems are active

* How long is the Noor satellite?

I said that the lifespan at this altitude is between 1.5 and 2.5 years, and of course there are other issues such as electronic life and subsystems, which fortunately there have been no problems to date and all subsystems are active and we hope this trend will continue for the next two years. Find.

* What major plans does the space command have for the future? Given that it was announced both in the past and as the Supreme Leader of the Revolution emphasized, the issue of reaching the 36,000-kilometer circuit (geo circuit) is a high goal, given that we are now in orbit. We have reached 425 km. How will this program be realized and is it possible to announce a time for it?

Of course, the space command is not only focused on the IRGC, but also looks at all the capabilities within the country in the field of defense and the country.

In the next steps, we will use larger satellites in the satellite field at higher altitudes, and in the satellite field we will think of higher orbits and heavier weights, although it is not that the higher the orbit, the better it is. And 500 km is better, but some things require higher circuits.

** We will enter the areas of telecommunications and navigation assistance

We started with reconnaissance satellites, and in the future we will enter telecommunications relays and navigation aids, which will require the use of larger satellites and going to higher orbits, which will naturally require more power and the use of larger satellites.

Another issue is Hazrat Agha's order to reach the 36-kilometer orbit, which was addressed to the entire space community of the country.

This command was a goal based on intelligence and wisdom, which can be the driving force of all scientific and academic sectors in the national and military fields.

With this command, he actually defined a peak for us, through which we can reach many technologies that spill over into other areas.

All aerospace sectors of the country - both defense and national - must join hands and help us achieve this goal, and we hope that this will be achieved in the next few years.

** All enemy intelligence services remained

* In addition to technical issues, one of the issues that received a lot of attention in the recent launch of the IRGC was the strict observance of security instructions so that no one was informed until the launch of the satellite, and in fact it can be said that even foreign intelligence services must be severe. They are monitoring our country, they are behind this incident. How did this happen?

Our enemy claims to be in control of everything, while we believe that this exaggerated claim is more propagandistic.

In addition to this recent incident, there have been other major acts in recent years that have never been reported.

Incidentally, one of the reasons for the Americans' anger was that the IRGC was left out of the satellite launch operation, and we showed that wherever we want, we can move forward with precision and strength by observing classified issues.

* When did the space command in the IRGC start its work?

The formation of the internal space command in the IRGC dates back to 1991, but it was the announcement of its official formation by Hazrat Agha in 1996 that its structure was finalized. That is, our central space activity has been for the last 7-8 years.

** The IRGC space station was commissioned by Shahid Tehrani Moghaddam

* The launch of the Noor satellite by the IRGC was the first operational step and, of course, was accompanied by many fears and hopes. How much did you hope for the success of this launch?

The hope is that there will always be something in our work space, but technically, if I were to say so, the achievements of this launch, as the first thing to do, were beyond our expectations, and I really saw God's hand above all else. It was a miracle for us that the launch and operation of the satellite, the bar and the satellite went well.

Of course, the principle of this case is thanks to the blood of the martyrs. This garment that we wear has been worn by many people during the years of the Holy Defense, who did great things in anonymity, and some of them were oppressed, martyred or martyred, and today some of them are not even mentioned. These are the treasures that are at our disposal and give us morale.

* During the interview, the name of Martyr Tehrani Moghaddam was mentioned, and his role and that of his colleagues cannot be ignored. How much do you know about their role in establishing the space sphere in the IRGC?

Martyr Moghadam was a great man who first started his career with the mortar fire unit in 1960, and in the same year, due to his high talent, he was assigned to form the IRGC artillery.

Later, when Saddam began bombing Iranian cities during the war, he was blamed for the formation of a missile unit, and you can see how great it has become today, and they call him the father of Iran's missile father.

Martyr Moghadam had a very charismatic personality that attracted people to him, and this was due to his sincerity. Right now, when the kids who worked with him hear his name, their facial expressions change.

In fact, it should be said that the IRGC's space raid was carried out by Shahid Moghadam, and today's potentials have been added to it, and work is going on with strength.

He followed solid fuel engines and higher circuits and heavier tonnages. Our strategy is the same now, and only in tactics and methods can changes be made due to the use of current issues.

Martyr Moghadam and his companions laid down their lives on this path. The base from which the Noor satellite was launched was built by Haj Hassan Moghadam himself, and today it is the blood of these martyrs that boils and helps us.

** In the seventh 5-year development plan, we will see the space sphere flourish

* As a final question, perhaps with all these interpretations, the question for our audience is how important the category of space is and how many countries in the world to this space cycle, namely the ability to design and build satellites and satellites, the ability to launch and use satellites Have they achieved that?

In recent years, we have witnessed a revolution in space. Our enemy, who has placed his main power in soft power, defines the structure of his power in matters such as space.

Being in space is a strength for our enemy and a weakness for many countries.

Although the Islamic Republic may have faced ups and downs in space over the years, today we have a clear plan in which all elements of the country are involved, and I think we will see a flourishing space in the seventh five-year development plan. .

I remember that on the day the space command was formed, Sardar Hajizadeh gave a speech and said that in 1960, the artillery and then the IRGC missile were formed by Sardar Moghadam, and the children started their work with empty hands, and after 30 years, they flourished. He said that the space team is a continuation of the same path that started with a 30-year delay and should flourish in a shorter period of time. Praise be to God. We continue.

* Thank you very much for participating in this conversation and answering our questions. In the end, if there are any points left, we are at your service.

I have no other width. We just need to remind you once again what the recent launch was like. We were at the height of the sanctions, and the country was facing a corona challenge. On the other hand, the enemy's psychological operations base is very active and always seeks to instill inefficiency and spread despair and hopelessness in the society, but the youth of this country showed that even in these circumstances, great efforts can be made with effort and hope in God.

End

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Health care professionals at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital were among the employees from their health system who participated in a silent reflection event to demonstrate solidarity for Black Lives Matter.

In partnership with Health Alliance Plan, team members were joined on June 5 by senior leaders in demonstrations held outdoors simultaneously at Henry Fords hospitals, medical center, corporate offices and HAPs offices in Troy, Flint and Grand Rapids.

Some kneeled, sat or stood for 8 minutes and 46 seconds  the time George Floyd was held down by police before he died  in support of the #WhiteCoatsforBlackLives movement to end racism and improve the health and safety of people of color.

It came on the 11th day of protests across the country, calling for police accountability and justice for Floyd and other African Americans killed in the past month.

Henry Ford President and CEO Wright Lassiter III said he was humbled by and proud of the organizations response.

Henry Fords arms are open to embrace the community, to embrace our team members in a way that says that we respect you for you, he said. And that you will be treated with the utmost respect for who you are when you come into our circle.

A spokesman for the Henry Ford Health System said the system is proud to have achieved a national reputation for its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and best practices. It is consistently recognized by DiversityInc. for its efforts in employee resource group participation, health care equity, mentoring opportunities and supplier diversity program.

The Henry Ford Medical Group comprises physicians and researchers from across the globe. In 2019, minorities represented 33 percent of the workforce and African Americans accounted for 26 percent of all hires.

Still, Lassiter pledged that Henry Ford can and will do more. In a personal message to team members he wrote I have a renewed sense of urgency to reduce the gap between today and whats possible and Im certain that we are stronger together. I am committed to ensuring that our organization creates an environment where critical conversations about race, disparities, and bias can occur; where all individuals, irrespective of their points of view, have an opportunity to share their opinion.

Lassiter said whats most important is not that everyone is of one mind, but that areas of difference can be shared and explored, and that the organization can evolve as a result of these conversations.

And, that our 33,000+ team members can grow in understanding, and that we can continue to find opportunities to galvanize our efforts to make the communities that we serve better because of Henry Fords presence, he said.

Actions the health system has taken or is taking include:

?Partnered with Streetwise to provide mentoring opportunities to team members and residents from the city of Detroit.

?In collaboration with the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund, developed apprenticeship cohorts for new hires and entry-level team members for targeted healthcare positions.

?Focused hiring with ZIP codes surrounding the city of Detroit. Several hiring events took place and 243 hires resulted from such efforts in 2019. First quarter of 2020, 50 hires have taken place.

?More than 26,000 team members have completed an online equity course.

?Donated 4,000 facemasks to the city of Detroit for protesters to use to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

?Ten Henry Ford Employee Resource Groups with more than 2,500 members increase engagement, education and awareness on diversity and inclusion.

?Lassiter signed the CEO Action Pledge for Diversity & Inclusion, a national collaboration of more than 800 CEOs. A Henry Ford Unconscious Bias Task Force works with internal and external partners on an online resource center, increased capacity for unconscious bias education, storytelling as well leadership training and multi-level communication.

Lassiter recently joined top executives from Detroits nine largest corporations to reject all forms of racism, sexism and violence and commit to supporting reforms for a fairer criminal justice system.

The event was organized by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of Detroits NAACP chapter. The corporations also committed to three additional reforms:

?Call upon appropriate government officials to hold accountable all individuals involved in the deaths that have occurred.

?Support calls for an independent prosecution of those accused to demonstrate fairness and eliminate possible conflicts in the judicial process.

?Invest in programs and policies to transform disparities in partnership with local and national leaders.

Generational prejudice and injustices wont be solved easily or alone, yet by embracing our ability to understand one another, we naturally better the communities we serve, Lassiter said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 07:16 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd71043 1 National Indonesia,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-death-toll,COVID-19-protocol,Funeral,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Despite the strict protocols in place surrounding the burial of victims and suspected victims of COVID-19 there have been a number of incidents reported recently of family and friends forcibly carrying off the bodies of dead patients from hospitals to be buried according to their own wishes.

On June 3, hundreds of people descended on Dadi Hospital in Makassar, South Sulawesi, to take away the body of a patient under surveillance (PDP) who died two days after being admitted to the hospital.

Hospital director Arman Bausat confirmed the incident, saying that the hospital could not do much to prevent the removal as some of those at the scene were armed with sharp weapons. CCTV footage showed seven people entering the intensive care unit (ICU) room and immediately taking the body away.

If we had prevented them, there may have been undesirable consequences. So, I instructed [the medical staff] to let them go just to avoid bloodshed, Arman told kompas.com last Thursday.

The patient had been previously admitted to Akademis Jaury Hospital and was transferred to Dadi Hospital after showing symptoms of coughing, severe fever, shortness of breath and vomiting.

Arman said his hospital had yet to take samples of the patient for examination. Before the body was taken away, Dadi Hospital and the task force were planning to bury it at the Maccanda Cemetery in Gowa regency under COVID-19 protocols.

Four days later, on Sunday evening, about 150 people flocked Stella Maris Hospital also in Makassar to forcibly remove the body of a PDP, a woman in her 50s who had died hours after showing severe symptoms.

A joint force of the Indonesian Military and the National Police was deployed, leading to a clash between the crowd and the security forces.

Read also: More mental health workers needed to address effects of COVID-19

The mob successfully broke through the military and police lines and carried away the body of the victim on a stretcher covered with a sarong.

Ujung Pandang Police chief Comr. Wahyu Basuki acknowledged that the security personnel were overwhelmed.

We tried to prevent and disperse them, but we were outnumbered and they finally took the body away, Wahyu said.

Before Sundays incident, the bodies of two other PDPs were forcibly removed by family members for burial, according to hospital director Luisa Nuhuhita.

South Sulawesi Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Ibrahim Tompo said that removing dead bodies without the hospitals approval was a criminal act.

It is criminal, especially when it can affect the wider community, and we will investigate further, Ibrahim said.

In Surabaya, East Java, a video that recently went viral appeared to show both the dead body of a COVID-19 patient and a hospital bed being removed from a hospital by people in Semampir district.

Semampir district head Siti Hindun Robba Humaidiyah said the incident happened on June 4, adding that the patients family insisted on taking the body home as they believed that the patient did not die from COVID-19.

They denied it was COVID-19, even though the result of the patients swab test was positive, Siti said.

District officials, community health center staff and local figures later visited the family to ask that the body be buried according to the COVID-19 protocols, to which they finally agreed. Family members in contact with the body were also asked to undergo a rapid test.

Read also: Bandung to close three markets after sellers tested positive for COVID-19

Also in Surabaya, family members, backed by hundreds of ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers, flocked to Dr. Soetomo General Hospital to carry off the dead body of a fellow driver from the hospitals mortuary.

Hospital spokesperson Pesta Parulian Edward said the 39-year-old patient, identified only as DAW, was admitted to the hospital after an accident, but was put under surveillance for COVID-19 by the hospital after an examination by the medical team.

One of the patients friends, Suroso, said that DAW was attacked while delivering a food order for a customer, fell from his motorbike and was injured. DAW was treated for four days at the hospital but his condition deteriorated.

The body was buried by the family at midnight on Sunday but not in compliance with health protocols.

Yogyakarta State University (UNY) sociologist Amika Wardhana said such incidents happened for at least two reasons; deeply rooted religious and cultural beliefs surrounding death and Indonesians apathy regarding the pandemic.

In the Indonesian tradition, among all religions and cultures, death is an important stage in life. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 burial protocols are very simple and fast, which some may see as culturally disrespectful and unacceptable, he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Moreover, he said, the governments poor handling of such critical situations had led to imperfect understanding among the public of the pandemic and even disbelief that the country was facing a serious and rapidly spreading disease.

On Tuesday afternoon Indonesia recorded its highest daily number of 1,043 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 33,076, with 1,923 fatalities. (syk)
Taliban militants surrender in N. Afghan province

Global Times

Source:Xinhua Published: 2020/6/9 13:59:42

A local Taliban leader and his five associates have given up fighting and surrendered in Afghanistan's northern Faryab province, an army source said Tuesday.

"Six Taliban militants, including their leader Nematullah Khan surrendered to Afghan National Army personnel in Gurziwan district on Monday. They also brought four AK-47 guns, two telecommunication radios and two motorcycles," Hanif Rezai, spokesman of army Corps 209 Shaheen based in the region, told Xinhua.

The surrendered militants were active members of Taliban in Gurziwan, he said, adding with the former insurgents' surrender, peace and stability would be further strengthened in parts of the district.

The Afghan government established a High Council for National Reconciliation late last month and set up a High Peace Council a decade ago to encourage Taliban to disarm and give up militancy against the government.

The Taliban militant group has yet to make comments on the report.

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Dorothy V. Weiand, 96, passed away, attended by family, on June 8, 2020.

Darcy, as she was known to family and friends, was born in Yonkers, New York, or, as Darcy preferred it, backudda Bronx. She was raised in New Haven, Connecticut and attended Hillhouse High School and Southern Connecticut State College. During the Second World War, Darcy served in the U.S. Naval Reserve WAVES corps, working as a nurse at the Treasure Island hospital in San Francisco. She was an avid and knowledgeable classic jazz and classical music fan, as well as a Beatles fan, founding and managing the Tandem record shop, a leading record store in New Haven in the 1960s. Later, she worked as the business manager at the Yale School of Medicines Ophthalmology & Visual Science Department.

In retirement, she took to the road, driving a 5th-wheel trailer across every state in the Lower 48. Darcy was beloved by her nieces and nephews as a classic fun aunt, someone who took them camping, to the beach, to Yankees games, and so much more. She encouraged them in all their pursuits, from playing music to launching businesses. She had a tough demeanor sometimes, but it was all show. In fact, she was a generous soul and a soft touch. As a soft touch, she also was a devoted pet lover, caring for a wide range of stray dogs and cats. Two significant pets in her later years were her Jack Russell terrier mix, Jack, and her ginger tabby cat, Red - the latter always curled beside her when Darcy was in hospice care. She will be remembered as a supremely intelligent, trenchant-witted, warm, good-humored, opinionated, independent-minded woman. She always had something to say, and, thankfully, she would say it. Usually, it would make you laugh or would pull you up short, or, most often, both.

Darcy was predeceased by her beloved brother and sister, Martin and Catherine, by her parents, Martin and Dorothy, and by her own beloved fun aunt, Marguerite (Aunt Peg).



Darcy is survived, and will be greatly missed always, by her nephews, Chris Sumberg (Mary Pat) and Marty Weiand, by her nieces, Martha Moore (Kevin) and Sue Weiand-Allen, her grand-nieces and grand-nephew, Alyssa and Aaron Moore, Nicole Allen, Chelsea Mikan, and Kellie Allen, and by her brother-in-law, Lewis Sumberg, and sister-in-law, Barbara Weiand.



In light of coronavirus, no service will be held at this time. Darcys family asks that, in lieu of flowers, memorials be made to St. Jude Childrens Hospital, the World Wildlife Federation, and Red Bank Animal Hospital.



Arrangements are by Lane Funeral Home, 601 Ashland Terrace, Chattanooga, Tn., 423 877-3524, Lanefh.com??.


"This telephone call may be monitored or recorded."

That brain-deadening phrase should sound familiar to anyone who's ever been stuck on hold waiting to dispute the electric bill. But when those eight purgatorial words appear at the outset of Drakeo the Ruler's new album, they foreshadow serious thrills. The album kicks off with a prerecorded message from GTL, a California telecom service that allows inmates at Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles to make prepaid phone calls to friends and family. "To accept this call," says a disembodied voice, "press zero."

Turns out, Drakeo has been recording the calls, too - and if you're interested in hearing what the most flamboyant California rapper since Suga Free has to say about sitting in jail for a murder he's already been acquitted of, feel free to eavesdrop. The rococo rhymes on this momentous new album, "Thank You for Using GTL," were recorded entirely over the phone. It's an extraordinary gesture, and it arrives at an extraordinary moment in American history, when millions are raising their voices against racist policing, from the streets of downtown L.A. to the barricades currently surrounding the White House.

Drakeo's bogus journey through our broken criminal justice system began back in 2016 when gunshots rang out at a party in Carson, Calif. A fellow partygoer was killed, and Drakeo, born Darrell Caldwell, was arrested in January 2017. At trial, state prosecutors presented Drakeo's lyrics and music videos as evidence, impugning his character and portraying his rap crew, the Stinc Team, as a gang - all while trying to link shell casings found at the crime scene with the guns seen in the music video for a song called "Chunky Monkey."

The jury didn't buy it. Drakeo was acquitted of murder and attempted murder charges in July 2019, but the jury was hung on charges of shooting from a motor vehicle and criminal gang conspiracy. The district attorney refiled those two charges in September. Awaiting a new trial as the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep through American prisons, Drakeo remains incarcerated to this day.

It all feels outrageous and absurd. Somehow, our justice system can turn a black musical group into a gang. Some way, it can present black art to a jury as criminal evidence. As Briana Younger wrote in the New Yorker last year, America's rampant criminalization of blackness now extends to the black imagination. "Rap is the only fictional art form treated this way," Andrea L. Dennis, co-author of the book "Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics and Guilt in America," told Younger last year. "No other musical genre or no other art is used in the same way or to the same extent."

What makes it so difficult for so many to grasp the idea of rap as fiction? Yes, this music speaks directly to our fraught American reality, but so do great novels, great films and plenty of other songs that don't qualify as rap. We didn't make Johnny Cash stand trial for shooting the man in Reno. We didn't send James Gandolfini off to prison for Tony Soprano's crimes. We seem to understand the difference between a person and a persona just fine - but not when the artist is black? That isn't some cultural blind spot about rap music. It's just racism.

On "Thank You for Using GTL," Drakeo's art feels intimate, imaginative and deeply resourceful. Sure, the digital phone connection flattens his lavish language into something uncharacteristically brittle, but thankfully Drakeo's maestro producer, JoogSZN, is on the other end, ready to frame the rapper's voice in crystalline beats that feel cool and spacious. After a minute or two, the music sounds less like talk radio and more like a secret being whispered in your ear.

As for the whispers themselves, they're overloaded with the same ornate slang, needling insults and Freon-frigid boasting that made Drakeo's 2017 album "Cold Devil" feel so plush and playful. "Don't mind my potty-mouth," he warns on "Keep It 100," a new song that allows him to transpose his Ned Flanders-speak into strangely stylish tough-talk. He likes to deploy a similar tactic after completing a dizzying run of syllables, marveling at his own lyrical agility in square blurts: "Sheesh!" "Holy moly!"

He sounds like one of a kind, but Drakeo's wild-styles descend from a California gangsta rap lineage that spans decades - from E-40's prankish inventiveness to DJ Quik's dry wit to Snoop Dogg's sly sophistication to Suga Free's brash extravagance. He's also part of a global street-rap fantasia that dates back to 1988 when N.W.A. offered a world-changing blast of "street knowledge," only to sanitize their own life story for the silver screen in the 2015 feature film "Straight Outta Compton."L.A. gangsta rap's proximity to Hollywood has always put this music in a blurry space between what's real and what isn't, but if you've really been listening, you know how to hear human truth in the space between the two.

Over the phone, Drakeo luxuriates in the slippage between the cold, hard facts of life and whatever passes for reality on our smaller screens. "To be honest, my life is TV," he brags over a watery, muted synth melody that sounds like it's pulsing at the bottom of a Beverly Hills swimming pool. "One million followers and none of 'em can't help you/ Tell 'em to jump up out the screens," he mutters, taunting rap rivals over a beat colder than the exosphere. "Social media can't help you."

For his grand finale, Drakeo evaporates the fourth wall altogether with "Fictional," a disclaimer delivered in his signature smirk. "It might sound real but it's fictional," he scoffs on the hook, spelling out the difference between art and real life for anyone too dim, ignorant or hateful to discern for themselves. "I love that my imagination gets to you."

Then, after phoning-in the performance of a lifetime, Drakeo pivots into a soliloquy. The drum machines vanish, the alter-ego dissolves and 26-year-old Darrell Caldwell speaks directly into the telephone, offering up his own best defense: "You're not gonna hold Denzel Washington accountable for his role in 'Training Day,' so don't do the same thing with my music. That's all I'm saying."

He's obviously saying so much more, but if you still can't hear it, at least hear this part.
Defund the police is no longer just a slogan spray-painted across boarded-up storefronts or a theory supported by academics and community activists. The concept is now a movement being discussed on Meet the Press as part of the national conversation and pursued in cities across the nation  including San Francisco.

But the rapid rise of defund ideas comes in the middle of a presidential campaign, widespread unrest and a pandemic that has the nations anxieties in overdrive. Its advocates worry that the timing leaves the concept vulnerable to attack for what they insist its not  eliminating police departments.

No ones talking about a situation where tomorrow, theres some magical switch and there are no police, Alex Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College and author of The End of Policing, told CNN. Its hard to reduce these ideas down to a cardboard sign or a tweet.

Were talking about looking at our gross over-reliance on policing and searching in every possible way to replace that with alternatives designed to build up people, to build up communities rather than criminalizing them, Vitale said.

Nevertheless, defund the police is a terrible phrase, George Lakoff, the retired UC Berkeley professor who has long been a messaging guru to Democrats and progressive groups, told The Chronicle. You need the police. Its irresponsible (to use it) because youre not going to take away the police.

The challenge, Lakoff said, is that it takes several sentences to explain.

Now Playing: Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, local artists and community members paint over boarded-up storefronts in Downtown Oakland. The grassroots project responds to the civil unrest over police violence and systemic racism, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Video: Caron Creighton

The concept generally refers to shrinking police responsibility and delegating some of law enforcements duties to other experts  for example, having social workers respond to homelessness complaints or health care workers handle people with substance abuse issues.

It is being embraced by many who have taken part in protests against police brutality and systemic racism since George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police who were arresting him May 25 for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. A majority of Minneapolis City Council members have committed to disband the citys Police Department and rethink the way it handles public safety.

We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon or pulling out handcuffs, Councilman Steve Fletcher wrote.

Other cities have signaled that theyre going to shift their funding priorities.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she would direct some funds from the citys police budget to the African American community, a concept that Chief Bill Scott endorsed. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti wants to cut $150 million from his citys police budget and redirect it to health care and other priorities.

Thats a turnaround from April, when Garcetti proposed a 7% funding increase for the police, which would have meant more than half the citys general fund was going to the department.

Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle

In Contra Costa County, for every dollar from the general fund spent on the countys sheriff-coroner and Probation Department, health, housing and homeless services together receive two cents, according to a study of the countys 2017 budget by the Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive nonprofit watchdog group.

In California schools, defunding could mean replacing police officers with counselors and mental health workers, a concept that advocates are pushing. Nearly a third of students were in schools that had police officers but no counselors in 2019, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The group also found that black students were arrested four times as often as whites at school.

On Friday, activists for police-free schools in Oakland demonstrated in front of school board members homes, asking them to remove police officers from the districts schools. On Wednesday, they will ask the board to support what theyre calling the George Floyd Resolution to eliminate police.

When we talk about defunding the police, what were saying is, Invest in the resources that our communities need, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza said on NBCs Meet the Press.

So much (police response) is directed toward quality-of-life issues, homelessness, drug addiction, domestic violence and conflict, Garza said.

Arisha Hatch, vice president and director of campaigns for the Color of Change national advocacy group, said she understands that defund the police is a new concept for many Americans.

It is being made into a scary thing, Hatch said. But thats what racism does. It makes black people seem scary.

All we are asking is to be treated like humans, for our communities to be policed in the same way that many white communities are, Hatch said. I think it would be a mistake to get into a conversation about semantics and messaging, though I understand why it would be done.

That reason is political.

President Trump has seized on the defund the police phrase, tweeting that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and the radical left Democrats want to defund the police.

I want law and order, he added.

Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune

Fearful of diving into unknown political waters, many Democratic politicians  even those leading the call for reforms  are backing away from the phrase, if not the concept.

That list starts with Biden, who spent much of his career boasting of his support for the 1994 federal crime bill that put 100,000 more police officers on the street. Last year, he said some of it was successful, some wasnt. He told CBS on Monday that, No, I dont support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said on Meet the Press that its not a slogan I will use, even though he said he agreed with the sentiment and substance of it and encouraged people not to dismiss it just because of its name.

Sen. Kamala Harris, who co-sponsored federal police reform legislation with Booker this week, parried the question from interviewer Meghan McCain on ABCs The View, asking her, How are you defining defund the police?

The California Democrat said that we need to reimagine how we are achieving public safety in America so that cities arent spending one-third of their budgets on the police.

Similarly, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday in Oakland that he did not support defunding departments if it meant eliminating police. Instead, he preferred reimagining law enforcement.

In San Francisco, Chief Scott said Monday that he was willing to defund a portion of his departments budget in response to calls for reform.

Were at a time in policing in this country where the whole world is speaking to us, and we need to hear whats being said, Scott said during an online forum hosted by the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. And whats being said is we have to change the way we do policing in this country. And I think, for me, Im open to that.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Dominic Fracassa contributed to this report.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
The reported disengagement of troops and partial pull back at multiple points was a good news on Tuesday, indicating a de-escalatory trend in standoff, amidst rhetoric and escalation dynamics. It shows some usefulness of Confidence Building Measures (CBM) and established 'Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity Agreement, 1993. It also exhibited important role of military diplomacy in resolving border issues having military implications. It is however not the end of standoff, as further talks between the two armies are to be held this week commencing from Wednesday in Hot Spring area, for easing out the situation at multiple locations including Galwan area and Pangong Tso.

Why does Standoff Happen?

China does not recognise the border agreement between British India and Tibet of 1914. In absence of any border treaty between PRC and India post-independence, both countries have own perception of Line of Actual Control (LAC) and in certain areas these perception overlap. Both sides patrol areas up to their own perception of LAC; hence in overlapping areas, it is termed as transgression by opposite side. In most transgressions, troops patrol and go back to their bases. In case the troops do not go back and make arrangements to stay in particular areas claiming to be their own, it leads to a standoff, as the opposing side is also under compulsion to do the same, which is the case in Pongong Tso and most of the earlier standoffs along LAC. In the case of Galwan valley, it's a case of relatively fresh claims, leading to similar action by Indian troops leading to face-off.

Why did a standoff happen in Ladakh?

China has developed its infrastructure up to LAC much earlier, but it wants to deny the same to India, which is only trying to catch up, to protect its sovereign territory. The trigger for this face-off in Ladakh was China's opposition to Indian road building activity in the Finger area around the Pangong Tso Lake, the road connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie in Galwan Valley. China feels that this infrastructure development will make their strategic roads and positions vulnerable and put them at a disadvantage. After a few scuffles at few points along LAC earlier in May, which were cases of response to transgressions, China transgressed at multiple points with a large number of troops, pitched tents, and made some bunkers. Indian troops have also positioned themselves in large numbers which led to a standoff at multiple places in Galwan Area and at Finger 4 in Pangong Tso area. This was followed by some military build-up by both side, as both sides got ready for longer standoff. Indian Army continued with infrastructure development in its own territory, during faceoff and local level talks, to support important posts like DBO and Hot spring.

What are the Complications and likely Solution?

Resolving the border problem is a complicated matter because, in the absence of a Border Treaty or Agreement, both countries read history as it suits them. Over decades, and 22 rounds of talks, the positions have hardened, with national sentiments attached to it. The demarcation of LAC is doable, but the Chinese continue to drag their feet in doing so, as they fear that it will become de facto border, forcing them to forego their claims made in 1960, including Tawang. India will not like to lose claim over Aksai Chin. Certainly, this is not the first or last transgression and standoff, which will continue to happen, unless the LAC is demarcated. In the long term, therefore, it will get resolved only when the political cost of not resolving it, will become higher than the cost of resolving it.

In the short term, I am sure China and India do not want a war; hence will like to resolve it by talks. The problem with standoffs is that a graceful disengagement becomes difficult, as no side wants to blink first. This incidence has shown the utility of Military Diplomacy' in such sensitive problems. They have resolved some problems and are progressing to resolve the rest in the next few meetings. India seems to be firm on the ground so far, ready to protect its territory despite the rhetoric, Chinese coercion, and information warfare. We might need more confidence-building mechanisms to avoid fistfights, as the current mechanisms have avoided bullets, but not manhandling of each other. This also has to be a subject of future talks.

(The writer is Major General S.B. Asthana, SM, VSM (Veteran). The views expressed are personal views of the author, who also retains the copyright. He can be reached at Facebook and LinkedIn, as Shashi Asthana, @asthana_shashi on twitter, on personnel sitehttps://asthanawrites.org/ email shashiasthana29@gmail.com; LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/shashi-asthana-4b3801a6; Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl50YRTBrOCVIxDtHfhvQDQ?view_as=subscriber)

-- Syndicated from IANS
The Syrian Finance Minister has insisted that the rising exchange rate is not an economic problem and that the government will solve the problem reports Jesr Press.

Syrian Finance Minister Maamoun Hamdan affirmed that, every unit of foreign currency has been spent in the right place, and we know where it has been spent, whether for electricity, oil or wheat.

Responding to yesterdays sharp criticism from members of the Peoples Council, directed at the government amid the rising exchange rate, Hamdan stressed that, the increase of the pounds exchange rate is not due to economic reasons, pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan reported. Even if the economy is part of the reason, the size of expenditures has not increasedrather it has gone down. The volume of imports has also decreased.

Hamdan explained, There are many reasons for this panic, and it cannot be explained through economics. These causes and effects are being monitored and followed within the available capabilities.

He added that the manipulation of the exchange rate, in addition to the psychological factors and panic among residents, is driving people to maintain their savings, or buy gold and real estate. Hamdan also mentioned the dangers of smuggling and the need for cooperation to reduce this problem.

According to Hamdan, the issue is not one of media statements, but rather there are objective reasons that have been studied. While a media statement can have an impact for a day or two, there are objective reasons for studying the situation until it has been assessed.

Hamdan added that there are a number of proposals being studied, and that, there will be a solution, and you will soon see the light. The government will not remain a spectator in any form.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
SRINAGAR: The security forces on Wednesday gunned down all five terrorists, hours after a fierce encounter began in south Kashmir`s Shopian district. Confirming the news, Jammu and Kashmir Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar said, the encounter began at Sugoo village on Wednesday morning after security forces came under fire from hiding terrorists. Three terrorists were killed earlier.

The identity and group affiliation of the five slain terrorists is being ascertained by the security forces at the moment.

The Sugoo village was earlier cordoned off by a joint team of Army and the J&K Police after receiving a specific intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in the area.

As the security forces zeroed in, the terrorists hiding in the area fired at them. In the ensuing gun battle, all five terrorists were killed by the security forces.

This is the third major encounter in the Shopian district in less than a week.

On Sunday, five terrorists were killed in an encounter at Reban village whereas four terrorists were killed in Pinjura village of Shopian on Monday.

A total of 14 terrorists have been killed in the last 3 encounters in the past 4 days in the Shopian district of south Kashmir.

Dilbag Singh, DGP, Jammu and Kashmir, also confirmed that 5 terrorists got killed in the encounter. All five terrorists got killed in the ongoing operation at Shopian. A search operation is underway, he said.

The bodies of all five slain terrorists and a huge cache of arms and ammunition have been recovered from the encounter spot.

DGP Dilbag Singh had earlier said, On a specific input to police, a joint operation was launched by police, Army and CRPF unit. The input said that a group of terrorists was hiding in a hideout in orchards. As the hideout was cordoned, the terrorists fired on the search party, which was retaliated.

He added that it was an old hideout that the terrorists were using since long and security forces were waiting for an appropriate time to launch the operation.

Earlier, in two separate encounters at Reban and Pinjura villages of the district on June 6 and 7, at least 9 terrorists were killed. The J&K Police said that they belonged to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen outfit.

In this year so far, the security forces had succeeded in killing at least 93 terrorists, including top commanders of almost every terror outfit.

Meanwhile, authorities have suspended the mobile internet services in the district as a precautionary measure.
Tinsukia: Houses destroyed in a massive fire that broke out at the leaking natural gas producing well of Oil India Ltd (OIL) in Assam's Tinsukia district on June 10, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News

Tinsukia: Army personnel evacuate locals residing in areas adjoining the leaking natural gas producing well of Oil India Ltd (OIL) at Baghjan in Assam's Tinsukia district that is on massive fire, on June 10, 2020. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News

Guwahati, June 10 : At least two fire fighters of Oil India Ltd (OIL) were killed near the oil well blowout site in Assam's Tinsukia district on Wednesday, while many houses in the adjoining areas were also damaged, officials said.

Several thousand people have shifted to safer places and the 12 relief camps set up by the OIL.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday telephoned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and apprised him about the latest developments regarding "oil well explosion incident".

"The Prime Minister assured all help towards the people in the affected area," an Assam government release said.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) tweeted that Modi discussed the situation in Baghjan fire tragedy in a telephonic conversation with Sonowal and "assured all possible support from the Centre".

Officials of the Tinsukia district administration said that fire fighters Durlav Gogoi and Tikheswar Gohain had been missing ever since a massive fire broke out at the OIL oil well at Baghjan on Tuesday afternoon.

"The cause of deaths of the fire fighters could be drowning in a nearby pond or suffocation in the huge smoke coming out from the massive fire since Tuesday afternoon," an official told the media.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel recovered the bodies with the help of drones used by the state Forest Department.

An OIL release said that four persons --two from OIL, one from ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) and one contractor's employee -- sustained minor injuries and have been given immediate medical treatment.

An OIL spokesman said that the fire has been controlled in a 1.5-km radius but it is still raging as the "uncontrollable" natural gas is being fed by the well's oil.

Local people said that the inferno has left a trail of devastation in the adjoining areas, including a famous lake.

Experts, environmentalists and wildlife activists are worried as the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park, known for its feral horses, is less than two km away.

Central paramilitary troopers, NDRF, OIL and ONGC engineers and experts are on a war-footing exercise to douse the fire.

The oil well at Baghjan in Tinsukia, around 550 km east of Guwahati, had been leaking gas for the past 15 days, causing enormous damage to the region's wildlife, wetlands and biodiversity.

The massive fire broke out at the well on Tuesday even as an expert team from a Singapore-based emergency management firm was trying to plug the leakage, prompting the state government to seek the Indian Air Force's help to douse the blaze.

Farmland with standing crops, as well as ponds and wetlands in the adjoining villages have also been badly affected and the threat is growing with every passing day.

Sonowal had on Tuesday spoken to Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh seeking help from the IAF to douse the blaze, officials said.

OIL Chairman-cum-Managing Director Sushil Chandra Mishra had a detailed discussion with Assam Industries and Commerce Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, who are camping at Tinsukia, in the presence of Deputy Commissioner (Tinsukia) Bhaskar Pegu, and appraised the latest status of the blowout and actions initiated by OIL.
The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education wont declare Maharashtra 12th result 2020 on June 19, Wednesday. The Maharashtra Board will publish MSBSHSE HSC result 2020, Maharashtra Board Result 2020 on its MSBSHSEs official website. Students will also be able to check their Maharashtra HSC Result 2020 at results.maharashtraeducation.com.

Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad told Mumbai Live that the results for class 12 students will not be announced on June 10 as the evaluation process started late due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Gaikwad further added that the process may take a months time.

For the academic year 2019-20, the Maharashtra class 12 board examinations were conducted from February 18 to March 20. In Maharashtra, across its nine divisions- Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Mumbai, Kolhapur, Amravati, Nashik, Latur and Konkan approximately 1.5 million students sat for the examination. Candidates can also their Maha 12th result 2020, Maha HSC Result 2020 at examresults.net (http://www.examresults.net/maharashtra/), indiaresults.com (http://maharashtra.indiaresults.com/), mahahsscboard (https://mahahsscboard.maharashtra.gov.in/). Students will be asked to enter their Maharashtra HSC exam credentials in order to access the result.

Maharashtra HSC Result 2020: Steps to Check

Step 1- Log in to the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education or MSBSHSEs official website.

Step 2- Click on Maharashtra HSC Result 2020

Step 3- On the new window, enter roll number and date of birth

Step 4- Download MSBSHSE Result 2020 can keep a printout for future use
Zurich Insurance Group launched a new legal panel to provide advice on managing large and complex claims across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Aon is partnering with cybersecurity company GK8 to insure its digital-asset storage technology. Neptune Flood will team with Northeastern auto and home insurance provider Plymouth Rock Assurance to offer flood insurance coverage through its network of independent agents.

***

Zurich Insurance Group launched a new legal panel to provide advice on the management of large and complex claims across the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region.

The new panel consists of BLM, Clyde & Co, DAC Beachcroft LLP, DWF Law LLP, and Kennedys Law, which are all law firms that Zurichs claims teams have worked with in the past. The panel began on June 1, 2020, and will ensure greater transparency and consistency of claims legal services across the EMEA region, Zurich said.

The panel complements existing country panel arrangements, providing the greatest benefit to claims that arise from Zurich International Programs, where more than one legal jurisdiction may be involved, explained the insurer.

***

Aon is partnering with cybersecurity company GK8 to insure its digital-asset storage technology.

The coverage, via Aon UK Ltd., is provided by a panel of insurers led by Arch Underwriting at Lloyds Syndicate 2012, which is part of the Lloyds insurance market.

GK8 clients can activate the insurance policy to protect their assets under custody at a coverage cap of potentially $500 million. The companys custodian technology is already operational and helps to securely manage digital assets for world renowned companies like eToro, the companies said in the partnership announcement.

The Aon policy now available for GK8 clients is designed to cover internal theft, as well as external theft, loss, damage, or destruction of the assets stored in their cold wallet.

***

Neptune Flood will team with Northeastern auto and home insurance provider Plymouth Rock Assurance to offer flood insurance coverage through its network of independent agents.

Neptune Flood is an InsurTech that uses artificial intelligence to fuel its flood insurance cover. Plymouth Rock provides coverage to drivers and property owners across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Plymouth Rock leverages an online platform that lets both customers and agents get a property insurance quote in 5 seconds and, for most customers, buy a policy in about 5 minutes.

In addition, Plymouth Rock offers a number of additional coverages that enable homeowners to customize their policies, including utility service line, home systems breakdown, identity theft monitoring through CyberScout, and home cyber coverages.

The Neptune flood plicy meets the requirements to be accepted by all banks and has optional enhancements to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policy such as coverage for temporary living expenses, unattached structures and pool repair and refill.

Sources: Zurich Insurance, Aon, Neptune Flood
Burma Arson at Ancient Temple in Myanmar World Heritage Site Prompts Questions Over Security

Loka-hteik-pan Temple. Ko Saw (Bagan) / Facebook

YANGON An arson took place early Tuesday morning at Loka-hteik-pan Temple, a Buddhist temple that houses some of the best-preserved murals in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Bagan.

Of the 3,822 temples in the east of the Irrawaddy River in Bagan, 462 of them have mural paintings. Loka-hteik-pan Temple, a 12th century temple in old Bagan, is renowned for its well-preserved murals depicting Buddhas life.

The interior of the temple is kept locked behind an iron gate to prevent damage to the murals; the gate is covered with bamboo blinds. On Tuesday morning, the bamboo blinds were set on fire.

There was little damage, as the fire was put out immediately, according to Dr. Than Htike of the Bagan branch of the Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library.

It was arson. We found turpentine. We arrived shortly after the blinds caught fire. We arrived in time and were able to put out the fire, he said.

Local police, tourism police and officials from the Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library inspected the scene after the arson. A case was opened with the local police station for damaging ancient buildings.

As turpentine was found at the scene, we can conclude that it was arson. It might be either a deliberate attempt to destroy an ancient building, or the perpetrator wanted to show that they can do this to such an important pagoda, said heritage conservation expert Daw Ohmar Myo. I view it as a deliberate challenge to the security of famous pagodas in Bagan.

On Monday and Tuesday, treasures were stolen from eight pagodas in Bagan, according to Ko Myint Naing of the Bagan Tour Guide Association. The financial value of the stolen treasures is still being determined.

I want more budget and more staff for the security of the pagodas. Rather than the [existing] security section under a department [the Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library], I want a heritage police force established. Only then will they be able to carry out night patrols. Installation of CCTV cameras at important places will also help monitor for suspicious entries, said Ko Myint Naing.

Daw Ohmar Myo also called for an increased budget to provide security for pagodas in Bagan and for establishing a heritage police.

Whatever the reason behind the arson is, it is clear that security is very poor in Bagan. Bagan pagodas lack an appropriate security apparatus, which they deserve for their archeological and historical value, she said.

The Bagan branch of the archeology department has 30 security guards, six of whom are assigned to guard the museum, the palace and the office, leaving only 24 security guards available for the security of Bagans temples. Dr. Than Htike said that the guards work with local police and the Bagan Tour Guide Association, which has over 100 members, to carry out patrols for pagoda security.

The department plans to carry out patrols in the early morning and at night, he said. There are a total of 3,837 stupas, temples and other Buddhist religious buildings in Bagan, which is a major tourist draw in Myanmar.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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For interior designer Crystal Sinclair, revamping an 1899 Brooklyn brownstone was a leap of faith. First off, most of the initial talks took place via Instagram because her clients, a family of four, had been living in Nashville, taking care of a relative with Alzheimers. We didnt meet until things were really underway, Crystal recalls.

The homeowners wanted to reimagine the Brooklyn home theyd purchased eight years ago, infusing it with Mediterranean and bohemian influences and making it more kid-friendly for their growing brood. (They happened to welcome their second child mid-renovation!) They were ready to part ways with the country-chic aesthetic, closed-off entryway, and claustrophobic hallways. Plus, they were hoping for more storage and an updated bathroom.

Through those social media conversations, Crystal saw a theme arise: Muted green was a color I kept seeing over and over in what she would send me, she says. There was also a love for texture, layers on layers, and an overall bright yet warm and cozy feel in the inspiration imagery.

One of the most noticeable design themes is the intentional collections, which appear all over the home. The den features seafoam-colored glass bottles, which the owners had already been collecting, but we went off of that and blew it up a thousand times, Crystal says. While there arent literally a thousand bottles in the home, its quite the curated sum, which adds a unique flair to the space.

Furthermore, Crystal was looking for something to hang behind the couch and art didnt seem like the appropriate fit. Instead, she was craving something more organic and sculptural, finally landing on breadboards. I scoured the internet and would look for them anywhere, she says. I traveled to my hometown of Comfort, Texas, and shoved some in my suitcase. The collection is really from all over.

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The entry has its own set of multiples, with soft, textured baskets, while the powder bath has gone full glam with antique gilded mirrors. Throughout the home, a balance between curated sophistication and unfussy child-approved pieces can also be seen. The parlor acts as a nod to the homes history, with antiques, custom built-in bookshelves that seem to disappear on either side of the fireplace, an American flag, which is a family heirloom, and a hanging chairone of the clients favorite purchases.

There are also plenty of pieces with as much character as the home itself, from the detailed credenza from an antique shop in Hudson, New York; a Chairish lamp that had once been a hair dryer; the Donso ngoni instrument in the master bedroom that the couple purchased on their honeymoon in South Africa; and a fluorescent Spread Love. Its the Brooklyn Way sign in the dining room. But one of the biggest successes in the home is the usage of IKEA cabinetry. In lieu of costly custom cabinetry, Crystal went for IKEA with Semihandmade and Reform fronts for the kitchen and architectural storage surrounding the powder bath.

It was blend from the beginning, Crystal says. Their tastes were all over, so it was all about pulling it together to create one unique look.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
Patrick Ho Chi-ping, a former Hong Kong minister who was convicted in the U.S. of bribing African officials on behalf of notorious conglomerate CEFC China Energy Co. Ltd., was released Monday after serving his jail term in New York.

Ho, 71, former head of the Hong Kong Home Affairs Bureau, was sentenced to 36 months in jail and fined $400,000 in March 2019 for violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and for money laundering and conspiracy. He was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in November 2017.

Ho was freed early after counting the time he spent behind bars before his conviction and a further reduction for good behavior, the South China Morning Post reported. He was deported back to Hong Kong after release due to passport expiration, the paper reported.

The ophthalmologist-turned-politician was found guilty of paying millions of dollars in bribes to top officials in Chad and Uganda, partly through the American banking system, in exchange for business favors for the now-defunct CEFC. Ho used a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) to hide his criminal intentions, according to U.S. prosecutors.

The fall of Ho became a trigger that led to investigations by Chinese regulators that brought to light an extensive graft network surrounding CEFC and its secretive founder and Chairman Ye Jianming. The Shanghai-based energy-to-finance conglomerate was one of the high-flying Chinese companies that came onto regulators radar screens after amassing sprawling assets abroad through debt-backed investments.

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In Depth: Investigation Casts Shadow on Rosnefts China Investor CEFC

Ye was placed under investigation on suspicion of economic crimes in early 2018 and hasn't been convicted. Investigations surrounding him and CEFC have brought down a number of high-profile officials, including Wang Sanyun, former Gansu provincial party chief, and Hu Huaibang, former head of China Development Bank.

CEFC was under regulatory pressure and mired in financial woes since Yes fall. It missed billions of yuan in debt payments, and its massive deal to take a $9.1 billion stake in Russian oil major Rosneft collapsed. A court ruling in late March showed that CEFC was declared bankrupt by a Shanghai court. Several of its subsidiaries were also declared bankrupt in the same ruling.

Ho, who served as Hong Kongs home affairs chief from 2002 to 2007, was the deputy secretary general of China Energy Fund Committee, an organization fully funded by CEFC.

According to U.S. Justice Department documents, Ho in 2014 used his contacts at the United Nations to meet Ugandan officials and former Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Gadio, who was close to the president of Chad. Through Gadio, Ho later offered Chadian President Idriss Deby a $2 million bribe hidden in gift boxes in exchange for helping CEFC to secure oil exploration rights in Chad.

In May 2016, Ho used the CEFC-funded NGO to wire $500,000 to the Ugandan foreign minister through banks in New York, according to the Justice Department. He also schemed to bribe Ugandas president and offered to provide two Ugandan officials with additional corrupt benefits by partnering with them in future joint ventures in Uganda, documents showed.

A federal jury found Ho guilty on seven of eight counts of bribery and money-laundering over oil rights for CEFC in Chad and Uganda. Five of the charges against Ho were violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits paying foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Since 1998, the law has also been applied to foreign companies and individuals who further the act of bribery within the U.S. or through the U.S. financial system.

Timmy Shen contributed to the story

Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bobsimison@caixin.com)

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YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. Justice minister of Armenia Rustam Badasyan had an online discussion with the EU partners over the process of ongoing reforms in Armenia in several areas, the ministry told Armenpress.

Vassilis Maragos, Head of Unit of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Eastern Partnership of the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations of the European Commission, Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin, deputy ministers of justice Rafik Grigoryan and Kristine Grigoryan, as well as others participated in the online discussion.

The Armenian minister thanked the EU for the productive and comprehensive cooperation in several fields and touched upon the agenda of reforms in Armenia. They mainly related to the actions envisaged by the judicial reforms strategy, the police reforms, as well as the solution of the crisis around the Constitutional Court.

The EU officials appreciated the Armenian governments ongoing efforts aimed at fighting corruption, improving the judiciary, the police, as well as reaffirmed the EUs commitment to support Armenia to implement the reforms in the rule of law in accordance with the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Daniel Itai  The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe  The Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) has dismissed the proposed reopening of schools by the government on the 28th of July 2020.

The Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC) earlier on announced that June examinations will be conducted beginning on 30 June. The Minister of Information Hon. Monica Mutsvangwa later announced that schools will open on 28 July for candidates for 2020 public examinations.

It should be noted that 66 000 candidates are sitting for 2020 June examinations. 9 900 teachers will be needed to invigilate the examinations.

On opening schools 136 000 teachers and almost 5 million learners will be admitted in our schools.

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The teacher compliment will have to be boosted by 90 000 teachers to achieve social distancing in our classrooms and plug the gap of staff shortage.

ARTUZ jointly authored petitions with 6 other Teacher Unions on 2 May, 26 May and 8 June 2020. On the three occassions we sought to impress upon government on measures that should be undertaken for safe schools opening.

On 29 May we made submissions to Parliament portfolio committeee on education making recommendations on conditions that should be met for safe opening of schools.

Our recommendations were taken on board by the committee as demonstrated by the motion moved for debate by Committee Chairperson Hon. Misihairambwi Mushonga on 4 June 2020. The ensuing debate was one sided with all parliamentarians agreeing that schools should remain closed until safety measures have been instituted.

It was therefore a shock for us when ZIMSEC announced dates for June examinations and we were further shocked when the Minister of Information announced dates for reopening schools, read a statement from ARTUZ.

Although Zimbabwe is still sitting on less than 300 COVID-19 cases and four deaths many still think its immature for government to consider the reopening of schools.

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Philonise Floyd told congress on Wednesday that his brother George Floyd "didn't deserve to die over $20" last month and asked lawmakers to "stop the pain" caused by police brutality.

I'm here to ask you to make it stop  stop the pain, stop us being tired, Mr Floyd said in his emotional opening statement at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on policing practices and law enforcement accountability.

George called for help, and he was ignored. Please listen to the call I'm making to you now, to the calls of our family, and the calls ringing out on the streets across the world, he said.

Mr Floyd said he decided to testify because hes the big brother now.

It's my job to comfort my brothers and my sisters, [George Floyds] kids, and everyone who loved him. And that's a lot of people. I have to be the strong one now because George is gone, he said.

Mr Floyd has been outspoken on the need for justice for his brother and other victims of police brutality in the weeks since Mr Floyd died while a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for over eight minutes despite Mr Floyd telling the officer he couldnt breathe.

When video of the incident emerged online, it re-exposed long-simmering racial tensions in the US, especially between law enforcement and the black communities they serve.

Mr Floyd was not the only high-profile guest to speak before the panel on Wednesday.

Also expected to testify are the Floyd familys lawyer, Ben Crump; conservative radio host and former secret service agent Dan Bongino; church pastor and 2016 Trump transition team member Darrell Scott; the sister of a Federal Protective Services officer who was killed during a riot in Oakland, California; and seven others.

Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed a desire to take federal action to reform police department practices and oversight systems.

Senate Republicans, led by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black member of their caucus, have outlined a proposal that would provide funding for training to reduce racial bias among police officers; create a national misconduct registry for officers to ensure those with lengthy and questionable records cannot simply change departments to avoid accountability; and require state and local law enforcement agencies to report use-of-force incidents to the Justice Department.

Legislation introduced by congressional Democrats earlier this week would go even farther.

That bill would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants at the federal level, while incentivising local departments to adopt similar measures by withholding funding for those that dont, and also seeks to reforms qualified immunity laws to make it easier to prosecute and sue police and other government agencies for misconduct.

The goal of this legislation is to achieve a guardian  not a warrior  model of policing, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said of Democrats bill at the hearing on Wednesday.

While most Democratic lawmakers and the partys 2020 presidential nominee, Joe Biden, have rejected calls to defund the police, Congressman Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, harangued the liberal activists and some local Democratic politicians who have issued such calls.

Americans know it is pure insanity to defund the police, and the fact that my Democrat colleagues won't speak out against this crazy policy is just that frightening, Mr Jordan said.

Mr Jordan plans to release policing reform legislation of his own.

Donald Trump commended Mr Jordan on Twitter for his great statement concerning Defunding (not!) our great Police.

While the president has sympathised with the family of Mr Floyd, he has also adopted a highly militaristic tone in response to protests calling for large scale police reform.

Last week, he called for governors handling the protests at the local level to "dominate" the streets with National Guardsmen and other law enforcement units to root out any riotous elements.

The White House is also preparing to roll out its own its own set of legislative and executive policing reform proposals, NBC News has reported, though no timetable has been announced.
In 2016, Outfitters on the Smith River wrote an op-ed expressing concern about the proposed Smith River mine and how it could devastate the businesses we have built, and in turn our livelihoods. On April 10th, the Department of Environmental Quality released a Record of Decision (ROD) for the proposed project, giving it the greenlight, so we feel compelled to again speak out.

In issuing this permit, we believe state regulators are dismissing the concerns of business owners, landowners and most of us who care about the Smith. Folks who would be directly impacted by the damage this mine could cause to Sheep Creek, the Smith River, its Blue-Ribbon trout fishery and the $10 million a year it contributes to Montanas economy. Though outfitters are allotted only 73 of the total 1,300 permits given out every year, we employ dozens of guides and staff around the state. The guests we bring to Montana spend money because of the Smith River. Last year each of us booked hotel rooms for our clients, who also spent time in Montana eating out, shopping and contributing to our economy. Additionally, that $10 million doesnt include other recreational, agricultural and tax benefits the Smith generates. These are sustainable dollars, and they benefit real people and real jobs that would be lost if the river is degraded. Our guides, like ourselves, own homes, raise families and invest in our communities for the long haul.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has put our Smith River season and our entire guiding season at risk of being lost. We are seeing firsthand what the impacts of losing the Smith River would mean to our businesses, and the people we employ across the state. Proponents of the mine claim that the jobs it will create are what Montanas economy needs right now. Hard rock mines like this create short-term jobs, jobs that more than likely will not be given to the folks that live in the community.

Our message over the years has not changed. We are not against mining, we appreciate the benefits of responsible mining, but this mine is unlikely to leave the river better off. All mineral extraction has environmental risks, but in this case, the ore deposits thread through sulfide-rich rock, which produces acid and dissolved metals that would be deadly for fish in Sheep Creek and the Smith River. We have not seen evidence to believe that this mine would avoid these problems. On the contrary, we have seen third party expert review from mining engineers, aquatic ecologists and groundwater experts that leads us to believe that this mine will cause long lasting impacts to the Sheep Creek and the Smith. We are deeply worried that state regulatory agencies will be unable to catch problems before they turn into disasters.

The short-term profits made from this project will go to the pockets of Sandfires investors in Australia, while the copper will be shipped overseas to Asia. The benefits this mine might produce for Montana pales in comparison to what we stand to lose.

Along with the privilege of working on the Smith, there is a responsibility to leave the river healthier than we found it. It is a message we preach to our guides, staff, clients and families. There is no way a large mine will leave the river healthier, so Montana should be able to just say no.

This fight is not over, and we will continue to support every effort to protect the Smith. The Smith River is truly one of a kind, a state treasure, and more valuable than copper.

Mike Geary, Lewis and Clark Expeditions

Joe Sowerby, Montana Fly Fishing Connection

John Herzer and Terri Raugland, Blackfoot River Outfitters

Brandon Boedecker, PRO Outfitters

Brian McGeehan, Montana Angler Fly Fishing

Denny Gignoux, Glacier Guides and Montana Raft

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This Wednesday, June 10, at 11 a.m., the Missoula City Council, Mayor Engen and Police Chief White are meeting to discuss how to grow Missoula as an anti-racist community.

Now is the time, for white Missoulians especially, to speak up and ensure that meaningful anti-racist action is taken right now. While the mayors recent letter outlined ongoing incremental reforms, we know that, on their own, they fall short.

We must start the conversation on what defunding the police and prioritizing community-based solutions in Missoula looks like. Do we need a police officer at Sentinel, Big Sky and Hellgate high? Do we want public safety narrowly defined as fire and police, with over a quarter of our general fund ($15,877,180 in 2018) funding the Missoula Police Department? Or do we include, for starters, stable housing, job services, mental health services and non-police crisis response services. We need immediate, sensible and concrete answers and actions for these questions and many more.

Now is the time to act radically, not incrementally, in shifting our communities away from systemic racism and entrenched white supremacy, towards an equitable and sustainable future for all.

Information on how to publicly comment this Wednesday is found on the citys website under meetings.

Blaine Doherty,

Missoula

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A statue of Sean Russell, an Irish republican who fought in the 1916 Rising and was a leader during the War of Independence.

Ireland has a racism problem and some statues of racist figures may need to be removed, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

In recent days, statues of people linked to the slave trade have been taken down around the world.

Asked on RTE 2FM if Ireland has a racism problem, he said: I think we do. Every country in the world has racism to some degree.

Thankfully we do not have the kind of problems with police brutality that we see in the United States, we have a very professional police force and were grateful for that.

If you look at the Traveller community and how they are treated and spoke about  thats a form of racism. Anyone who grew up in Ireland mixed race like me would be aware of the fact that when you look and sound different  people treat you differently and it is not nice.

It does worry me that young people of colour who grew up in Ireland are being treated as though they are not fully Irish. Leo Varadkar

Mr Varadkar said a statue of Sean Russell, an Irish republican who fought in the 1916 Rising and was a leader during the War of Independence, may need to be removed.

Russells legacy is controversial as he died in 1940 on a German U-boat after travelling to Nazi Germany in an effort to secure support for the IRAs efforts to overthrow the Free State and reunite Ireland.

We have a few of our own statues we may need to think about. There is a statue in Fairview Park in Dublin of an Irish republican man who was also a Nazi collaborator I think any statues that come down should come down legally lets not engage in violence.

Expand Close A statue of Sean Russell, an Irish republican who fought in the 1916 Rising and was a leader during the War of Independence, which Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said may need to be removed. / Facebook

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Whatsapp A statue of Sean Russell, an Irish republican who fought in the 1916 Rising and was a leader during the War of Independence, which Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said may need to be removed.

Mr Varadkar said as a mixed race person growing up in Ireland, he has experienced racism.

It is not something I speak about too much but it has not held me back  it has probably pushed me on. I have had a lot of privileges that have helped to counteract that.

It does worry me that young people of colour who grew up in Ireland are being treated as though they are not fully Irish.

Mr Varadkar said the Black Lives Matter Movement is similar to the Me Too campaign.

People are no longer ashamed to talk about their experience of racism and to shame the racists and it is almost like a switch has gone on for a lot of people.

He said Ireland needs to bring in new laws around hate speech to combat racism.

It is not easy to do as you dont want to shut down freedom of speech but we need an anti-racism campaign and to raise awareness about it, he said.
OTNIEL, West Bank - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's goal of annexing a large portion of the West Bank as soon as July 1 is facing fierce opposition from an unexpected group: Jewish settlers living in the occupied territory.

The very settler leaders who are supposed to benefit from annexation - and who have long backed Netanyahu - say they fear it would be accompanied by concessions to the Palestinians, including the establishment of a Palestinian state in part of the West Bank.

Netanyahu's initiative faces myriad internal and external hurdles, making it unclear whether he will be able to begin the process of extending Israeli sovereignty to as much as 30 percent of the West Bank, including the settlements. No official proposal for annexation has been made public, and a mapping committee of Israeli and U.S. officials has reportedly yet to complete its work.

The annexation proposal has been widely condemned, with Jordan warning it would mean an end to its peace treaty with Israel, the European Union calling the move unacceptable and the Palestinians announcing they will suspend all previous agreements with Israel. Israeli security analysts have warned the move could lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, forcing Israel to resume civic control of almost 3 million Palestinian civilians and maybe even lead to violence.

But the pushback from Israeli settlers has been, perhaps, the most surprising.

"We believe the chance to apply sovereignty to the settlements and to finally make them an inseparable part of the State of Israel is a big opportunity, a big gift," said Yochai Damri, a regional council head in the southern part of the West Bank. But he is adamant that annexation should not come with the price tag of a Palestinian state.

Some of the settler leaders had accompanied Netanyahu to Washington in January for the unveiling of President Donald Trump's Middle East plan, which provided for the extension of Israeli sovereignty over Jewish settlements in the West Bank. They had celebrated Trump as one of Israel's greatest allies and hailed the plan as the most pro-Israel ever.

Now they fear that a U.S. green light on annexation would be contingent on carrying out other parts of Trump's plan, mainly the creation of a Palestinian state on the remaining 70 percent of West Bank land.

Damri and others who oppose annexing settlements at this time point to media interviews last month with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who said annexation should be conditioned on good-faith negotiations with the Palestinians for a period of four years.

Damri, 55, lives with four generations of his family in the Otniel settlement, which is perched on a hilltop about 30 miles from Jerusalem. His community is surrounded by towns and villages on the outskirts of Hebron, the most populous Palestinian city.

"If we are left here like this, we will be in the sea of a Palestinian state, an enemy state," said Damri, who has watched Otniel grow from a cluster of dusty caravans some 40 years ago to more than 1,000 residents with red-roofed villas and creeping bougainvillea. "This is not Canada. We all know there are Arabs who want to kill us. They will do everything they can to hurt us and force us off this land."

Damri is a member of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization made up of 24 heads of settlement councils. The council is split. In a recent vote, a slight majority said they support Trump's plan but reject clauses that would freeze building in their communities until there is a final agreement with the Palestinians and they reject any suggestion of a Palestinian state in the future.

Meeting with members of the council last week, Netanyahu tried to allay some of the fears and impress upon them what he said was a historic opportunity. Some council members, representing communities that are less geographically isolated, agreed with Netanyahu's approach, but others were unconvinced.

In an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz following that meeting, the council's chairman, David Elhayani, said Trump and Jared Kushner, the main architect of Trump's approach, had "proven that they are not friends of the State of Israel." In another interview, Elhayani called the plan a strategic threat.

Elhayani's comments and those of other settler leaders prompted Netanyahu to release a statement calling Trump "a great friend of Israel." On Sunday, he met again with settler leaders, excluding those who do not agree with him.

Philosopher Micah Goodman, who explores the rise of the settler movement in his book "Catch-67," said the Trump plan has split the settlers into an "ideological right" and a "pragmatic right."

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told members of the press on Tuesday that annexation was an "existential threat." He said if Israel went ahead with its plan, the Palestinians would declare a state based on the borders from 1967, when Israel captured the West Bank and other territories, and seek international support.

"We will see if they do this or not, but the peace process has reached a serious impasse," he said.

On Saturday, thousands of Jewish and Arab Israelis protested annexation, warning it would upend all future prospects for peace. Inside the Israeli parliament and even within Netanyahu's governing coalition, there are questions about whether he can garner the support needed to pass the annexation legislation.

Anshel Pfeffer, author of "Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu," said it still wasn't clear whether Netanyahu would press ahead with the plan.

"He wants to get credit for making this an issue and for changing the discourse," said Pfeffer. "For many years, the conversation was about Israel dismantling settlements and retreating to achieve peace. Now the conversation is about Israel going forward and annexing the settlements. Even if nothing changes on the ground, this might be enough for Netanyahu."
Before Michigan resumes accepting can and bottle deposits June 15, a Taylor man is going to do the same  for a cause.

Tom Shinn, of Taylor, is collecting empties between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. June 10-13 at Greatway Transportation, 29841 Van Born Road, Romulus. He said the money will go toward purchasing backpacks for cancer patients.

Five years ago, I started doing fundraisers for cancer patients, he said. This one is my biggest one. I just want to let people know that if they want to donate their pop bottles and cans, Ill be there through the weekend.

Shinn said hes already got a trailer almost full of an estimated $5,000 in empties, and is hoping for more.

Right now, with (COVID-19) going on, people have tons of cans sitting around, he said. Even though at the end of the weekend they can start taking them back  if we could direct some contributions our way, thatd be a great thing to do.

Shinn, who graduated from Taylor Center High School in 1976, said hes battled multiple different kinds of cancer himself over the past half-decade.

I cant ever complain because it aint going to do no good, he said. Im blessed to be here and blessed to have the people around me.

A GoFundMe page for the fundraiser is also available online at gofundme.com/f/20pf4y952o.
COR Church to Hold Unity March Against Racism and Injustice

Striking a blow against racism and injustice and responding to the killing of George Floyd, Pastor Ralph E. Williamson and the members of Christ Our Redeemer AME Church (COR) will hold a Unity March and Rally on Saturday, June 13, at 10 a.m.

Churches, community leaders and law enforcement officials will participate in the event, which is co-sponsored by COR Community Development Corporation. Hundreds of people are expected to join the two-mile march that will start at the church, located at 45 Telsa in Irvine, travel to Los Olivos Shopping Center and return to the edifice for the rally.

Pastor Jason Aguila of Arise Church in Irvine, Pastors Chad Halliburton and Brian Hill of Rock Harbor Church in Mission Viejo, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes and Irvine Police Chief Mike Hamel will participate as well.

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Williamson said the two-fold aim of the event is to stand in solidarity against racism, injustice, and division and to emphasize voter registration and participation for all citizens.

The goal is not to stop at voter registration, but we must educate voters on the candidates that support the policies that matter to our community such as changes to our criminal justice system, policing standards and more, insisted Williamson.

He added, We hereby call on faith leaders, law enforcement, community advocates, elected officials, and anyone who believes in justice for all to stand with us. This will be a peaceful protest and assembly  outside agitators are encouraged to stay away!

To learn more, call COR Church at (949) 955-0014 or visit corchurch.org.
Women can spend ages finding the perfect man before starting a family. However, when it comes to biology, Mr Right could actually be wrong.

While a woman may want her partner to father her children, a study has found that her eggs might have other ideas. Researchers recruited 60 couples having IVF to see how compatible they were.

Womens eggs release chemicals that appear to signal to sperm, encouraging them to swim over to make a baby. But for some women, the chemicals worked better for sperm from a man who wasnt their partner.

Experts believe womens bodies can somehow choose sperm, making sure it is high quality and genetically compatible.

Research has found that for some women, the chemicals released by their eggs worked better for sperm from a man who wasnt their partner

Professor Daniel Brison, senior author of the study at Saint Marys Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said: We expected that a particular womans eggs would attract the sperm of her partner, but did not see this.

In fact, overall, womens eggs attracted other mens sperm as often as their partners sperm.

We hope it will advance fertility treatment and may help to understand some of the unexplained infertility in couples. There might even be a treatment to help eggs attract a partners sperm better.

Compared with other animals, humans arent very good at making babies. Just 250 individual sperm make it to a womans fallopian tube after sex, and only around 25 are capable of fertilising an egg to get her pregnant.

The study suggests the eggs help by producing chemicals in the fluid surrounding them.

Researchers also swapped sperm and egg fluid between two sets of couples, which showed womens eggs often produced chemicals better able to attract a strangers sperm

Researchers took this fluid from 60 women, and sperm samples from their partners. The sperm were given an hour to swim more than 1in to the fluid.

It emerged that they travelled in greater numbers towards chemicals released by womens eggs than a laboratory version, showing that eggs may be able to summon sperm.

But researchers also swapped sperm and egg fluid between two sets of couples. This showed womens eggs often produced chemicals better able to attract a strangers sperm than their partners.

A couple was no more compatible than with people from another couple on average. If a womans eggs did lure her partners sperm, the couple had better IVF results on average.

But the authors, whose research is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, say this result was only strongly seen in one couple, and egg and sperm compatibility did not affect the chance of becoming pregnant by IVF.

Co-author John Fitzpatrick, of Stockholm University, said: Interactions between human eggs and sperm depend on the identity of the women and men.
Pick a fight with someone whos not your own age, Don!

U.S. President Donald Trump took an unlikely pot shot Tuesday at the 75-year-old Buffalo anti-racism protester who was shoved to the ground by police in a viral video that led to criminal charges against the cops.

Trump, who is only two years younger than Martin Gugino, suggested the injured elderly demonstrator could be a member of the radical antifa group and provoked the caught-on-tape confrontation.

He fell harder than was pushed, Trump wrote on Twitter without offering any evidence of his claims. Could be a set-up?

Gugino was left bloody and dazed by the confrontation last Thursday. He remains hospitalized in stable condition.

Two Buffalo police officers are facing assault charges for knocking him to the pavement.

Trump launched the improbable cheap shot at Gugino Tuesday after apparently watching a story about him on the far-right-wing One America News Network.

Gugino belongs to a peace organization in Buffalo and there is no evidence that he has any ties to antifa, the loose-knit group that takes credit for confronting white nationalists.

He was protesting the killing of George Floyd in Niagara Square in Buffalo when a group of baton-wielding cops decided to clear the area. Two officers knocked Gugino to the ground.

Dozens of fellow Buffalo police officers say they will quit the tactical unit involved in the incident after their two colleagues were charged with assault.

Trump and his Republican allies have sought to justify harsh police tactics by tying peaceful protesters to leftist groups like antifa, which they brand as domestic terrorists.

Read more about:
OSLO, Norway, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Photocure ASA (OSE: PHO), held its annual general meeting on 10 June 2020 at 17:00 hours (CET).

All proposals were resolved as presented in the notice convening the annual general meeting dated 19 May 2020, as further set out in the minutes from the general meeting attached hereto.

For further information, please contact:

Photocure

CFO Erik Dahl

Tel: + 47-450-55-000

Email: ed@photocure.no

About Photocure ASA

Photocure: The Bladder Cancer Company delivers transformative solutions to improve the lives of bladder cancer patients. Our unique technology, which makes cancer cells glow bright pink, has led to better health outcomes for patients worldwide. Photocure is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE: PHO). For more information, please visit us at www.photocure.com, www.hexvix.com or www.cysview.com.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5 -12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/photocure/r/photocure-asa---annual-general-meeting-held,c3131877

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The comments people send in email or leave on the GoFundMe campaign speak to their feeling that they want to make sure were still here whenever life returns to something like normal, and thats whats kept us going this whole time, the idea that people are voting with their book-buying dollars to see us (and other indie stores) survive, Barrett wrote.
Just a few days after thousands of tons of diesel fuel leaked from a storage tank and turned the waters of an Arctic river a sickly purply-red, the mining giant that owned the tanks offered a tentative explanation of what happened.



"Particular attention is being paid to analyzing the risk of soil subsidence, in permafrost, under especially dangerous structures," said Norilsk Nickel, a massive Russian mining company.



A few days later, a top Norilsk Nickel executive repeated that assessment.



"It's possible that it was a loss of integrity due to thawing of the undersurface," Sergei Dyachenko told state-run Rossia-24 TV on June 4.



And on June 5, the country's top investigative office ordered a "comprehensive" inspection of oil tanks nationwide "to prevent a similar situation involving especially hazardous structures situated in locations prone to permafrost melting."



The spill  estimated at nearly 20,000 tons, or 146,000 barrels  is one of the largest in Russia ever, according to environmental groups. And the fact that thawing permafrost appears to have caused the tank to crack may be a harbinger of what may occur with increasing frequency for Russia's aging industrial Arctic infrastructure.

Retreating Ice Shelves



Climate change has substantial upsides for Russia, where nearly two-thirds of the country is estimated to be permafrost  ground that until recently has never fully thawed even during the hot Arctic summers.



Retreating ice shelves mean the country's 24,000 kilometers of Arctic shoreline is more accessible to commerce. Ship traffic can travel from East Asia to Europe in shorter amounts of time. More land will also become arable for farmers and agri-businesses to cultivate, and push Russia toward greater food production and exports.

The flipside of a thawing Arctic is substantial -- and for the environment, potentially dire. Thawing permafrost can lead to ground shifting or sinking. That endangers everything from oil-storage tanks to aging pipelines to factories and residential buildings engineered for stable, mostly frozen land that is no longer that.



"In times of global climate change, this problem is characteristic of the Arctic region," Greenpeace Russia said in a statement days after the scope of the Norilsk spill became clear.



"Permafrost has been changing for many years, not just in Russia [but also] in Canada [and] the Scandinavian countries. Few have been paying attention. And few are discussing it openly," Aleksandr Fedorov, deputy director of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute in the Siberian city of Yakutsk, told RFE/RL.



It's difficult to say exactly what happened with the diesel fuel spill, he said.



But when it comes to industrial infrastructure such as "gas pipelines, oil pipelines, factories, and workshops," he said, "there are many of these things that've been built in these sorts of risky ecological zones."



Emergency Situations



The Kremlin's reaction has underscored the magnitude of the incident, which occurred just outside of Norilsk, a heavily polluted industrial city of 180,000 people located around 2,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow.



Hundreds of engineers and emergency personnel have been flown to the region to try and remove the leaking fuel and clean up the surrounding environment. Oil-containment booms were set up on the Ambarnaya River to try and keep the spill from flowing into a downstream lake and then into Kara Sea.

But on June 9, the spill had already reached the lake, about 20 kilometers downstream from Norilsk, the regional governor told state TV. The head of Russia's environmental regulator estimated damages could run into the hundreds of billions of rubles. Multiple criminal investigations are under way, and the four employees of the unit that oversaw the fuel-storage tanks have been detained.



Further evidence of the Kremlin's unhappiness came on June 7 when President Vladimir Putin was shown publicly upbraiding company officials in a teleconference.



"Why did government agencies only find out about this two days after the fact? Are we only going to learn about emergency situations from social media?" he asked.

Putin criticized Vladimir Potanin, the president of Norilsk Nickel's holding company, for not replacing the fuel tank earlier. Potanin is one of Russia's richest men, with much of his fortune deriving from the large and highly profitable Norilsk Nickel.



"If you had changed it on time, there would not have been this ecological damage and the company would not have had to pay for these [cleanup] costs," Putin told Potanin, who pledged hundreds of millions of rubles to clean up the mess.



Soviet Expertise



During the Soviet era, central planners invested vast sums to build up the country's Siberian and Arctic infrastructure, building entire cities and towns to support crucial economic activity, like mining or oil and gas exploration.



The Soviet collapse resulted in the slow death of dozens of such mono-towns as the government ended subsidies and residents looked for jobs in more established locations.



But much of the industrial infrastructure remained in place: roads, railroad tracks, telecommunications and electricity lines, and a pipeline network that is second only to the United States in its length.



It's a problem for cities as well, where Soviet builders put scores of buildings on pilings that were driven deep into the permafrost -- as a way to keep the heat from the building from melting the ground and to help refreeze the ground during the frigid winters.



Now, the permafrost is melting anyway, potentially causing major, widespread structural damage in the coming years.

For example, in Yakutsk, a city of some 310,000 people, more than 1,000 buildings are considered at risk as thawing permafrost weakens the foundations, or the concrete pylons, driven deep into the ground, on which the buildings sit.

Thawing permafrost is a particular concern in the Norilsk area, which has been warming faster than some other parts of Russia's Arctic. The region experienced a wave of above-average heat waves in May, according to government data.



"The damage and the risks" posed by permafrost thaw "will definitely increase. This is what we expect," said Guido Grosse, a scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany.



He also said it wasn't yet clear whether the Russian spill could be blamed solely on permafrost thaw, or whether it was a broader question of maintenance and upkeep of the facilities.



"This doesn't happen suddenly, it takes some time -- months or years we're talking about," he told RFE/RL. "If you're careful about your infrastructure, and you maintain it and inspect it, proper monitoring is important."



Soviet scientists were pioneers in Arctic engineering, but a lot of accumulated research and experience has been lost over time, Grosse said.



"Some of the knowledge has been lost in 20 and 30 years since perestroika," he said, referring to the half-decade or so before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. "The infrastructure has started to crumble, maintenance couldn't be kept up with."



Fedorov, of the Melnikov institute, said accidents of this sort frequently occur as a result of negligence or corner-cutting by construction planners seeking to keep costs down.



"Putin has long been aware of these problems, but for local leaders and factory owners, it's all about money  it takes big money" to upgrade pipes and factories and similar infrastructure, he said.



"And so, many people don't want to spend the money," Fedorov said.
We will continue supporting our city in any way we can and urge other local businesses to join us in this fight against the spread of COVID-19.

Adept Urban, Pasadena-based development firm, announced it has proudly donated ten thousand personal protection equipment towards Californias fight against the spread of the novel coronavirus. In an effort to protect the communities it serves, Adept Urban has donated six thousand medical face masks Southern Californias city of Pasadena and four thousand face masks to Northern Californias city of Milpitas. The companys contributions come amid ongoing development plans across both cities with development efforts underway for a future mixed-use project in Pasadena and a four-building mixed-use project for the city of Milpitas.

A nonprofit volunteer in Pasadena for many years, Patrick Chraghchian, Adept Urban President and Chief Executive Officer, recently donated $50,000 to a dozen nonprofits in the city in partnership with commercial real estate investment company, Edgewood Realty Partners. Chraghchian and Adept Urban hope to continue supporting relief efforts across Southern and Northern California and urge others in the community to join in their contributions.

As a local business, we felt it was our responsibility to support and help protect our community from COVID-19, said Chraghchian. We have worked with local nonprofit organizations for years, funding groups who are assisting our most vulnerable community members. It was important to make an impact to aid our essential workers, first responders and wider community who are going beyond the call of duty for us all. We will continue supporting our city in any way we can and urge other local businesses to join us in this fight against the spread of COVID-19.

City officials in Pasadena and Milpitas have graciously thanked Adept Urban for its generous contribution to their local COVID19 relief efforts. Erika Estrada, Purchasing Administrator, City of Pasadena, and Ned Thomas, Planning Director, City of Milpitas, noted the thousands of face masks would greatly assist their cities in carrying out its efforts to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

We wanted to do what we could to support the health and safety of those living and working in the city of Milpitas, said Chraghchian. We felt providing this resource would help give instant aid to Milpitas residents and workforce trying to keep themselves and their families safe. If we can assist in creating safer cities in the areas where we build, then we have an obligation to do so.

Chraghchian has also mobilized to help make connections to increase the manufacturing of face shields and masks by working alongside his brother, an owner of a Las Vegas window film manufacturing business who was able to pivot operations to create plastic face shields. Through this connection, Chraghchian has been given access to a high volume of masks to purchase for continued donation efforts across the state.

For more information about Adept Urban, please visit http://www.adepturban.com.

About Adept Urban

Adept is a curated suite of development services serving Pasadena and the greater Los Angeles area for more than 30 years. Known for delivering some of the most successful high-density, transit-oriented projects in Los Angeles, Adept is most recognized for being a vertically integrated in-house team running everything from project planning and entitlement, to architecture, development, construction, sales and marketing under one roof. Operating as a collaborative unit allows Adept to identify lucrative development opportunities and ensure high-quality design and construction while sourcing local talent and materials. With a comprehensive portfolio of more than a dozen-built projects, Adept continues to efficiently and effectively build into the fabric of Los Angeles ever-evolving neighborhoods.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 07:58:16|Editor: huaxia

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People gather along the way when the casket of George Floyd is transported from a funeral to a cemetery in Houston, Texas, the United States, on June 9, 2020. The funeral of African American George Floyd was held Tuesday in the southern U.S. city of Houston, where he was brought up and spent most of his life, two weeks after his tragic death in police custody in Minneapolis. (Photo by Chengyue Lao/Xinhua)

HOUSTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The funeral of African American George Floyd was held Tuesday in the southern U.S. city of Houston, where he grew up and spent most of his life, two weeks after his tragic death in police custody in Minneapolis.

Hundreds of people came to say a final goodbye to Floyd at the Fountain of Praise Church. Memorial services had also been held for Floyd in Minneapolis and North Carolina.

Beginning at around 11 a.m. Central Time (1600 GMT), the private funeral service celebrated Floyd's homecoming with over an hour of singing and praying, before families and friends took turns to share their memories of Floyd and his 46 years of life.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden sent his condolences to Floyd's family via video.

Speaking to Floyd's six-year-old daughter, Gianna, Biden said, "You're so brave... No child should have to ask questions that too many black children have had to ask for generations: Why? Why's daddy gone?"

"Why, in this nation, do too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life? " he continued.

"We cannot leave this moment thinking we can again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul," said the expected Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election. "When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America."

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced at the funeral that he will sign an executive order banning the city police from using chokeholds and strangleholds.

Officers will also be required to give a warning before shooting, he added.

"We honor him today," said Turner. "Because when he took his last breath, the rest of us will now be able to breathe."

Prominent civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who is also black, delivered the eulogy at the funeral, saying African Americans are "fighting an institutional systemic problem that has been allowed to permeate since we were brought to these shores."

He stressed that lives like Floyd will not matter until "somebody pays the cost for taking their lives."

"Until we know the price of black life is the same as the price for white life, we are going to keep coming back to these situations over and over again. Either the law will work or it won't work," said Sharpton, also founder of the National Action Network.

Floyd is expected to be laid to rest next to his mother, who he called out for during his final moment of suffocation as his neck was under a white police officer's knee.

Floyd's body arrived in Houston Saturday night. On Monday, a public viewing of his body was held at the same church, where thousands of people queued for hours to pay tribute to the man whose death has galvanized a movement calling for racial justice and police reform in the country and beyond.

Protests have been held across the country in the past two weeks with tens of thousands of people showing up, which sometimes ended in late-night violence and looting and thus led to curfews in several cities.

Following his death, some cities and states including New York have announced agendas to address police brutality.

On Monday, House and Senate Democrats unveiled a sweeping police reform bill containing measures to make it easier to prosecute police misconduct and recover damages caused by law enforcement. Enditem
DUBLIN, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Industrial Control Systems Security Market Insights 2020, Analysis and Forecast Global and Chinese Market to 2025, by Manufacturers, Regions, Technology, Application" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Industrial Control Systems Security market with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on market of Industrial Control Systems Security. It is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in Industrial Control Systems Security industry.



Key points of Industrial Control Systems Security Market Report:



The report provides a basic overview of Industrial Control Systems Security industry including: definition, applications and manufacturing technology. The report explores Global and Chinese major players in Industrial Control Systems Security market. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2015-2020 market shares for each company. The report depicts the global and Chinese total Industrial Control Systems Security market including: capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export, by statistical analysis. The global Industrial Control Systems Security market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis. The report then estimates 2020-2025 development trends, analyse upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and current market dynamics of Industrial Control Systems Security market. The report makes some important proposals for a new project of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry before evaluating its feasibility. Overall, the report provides an in-depth insight of 2015-2025 global and Chinese Industrial Control Systems Security market covering all important parameters.



Key Topics Covered:



1. Introduction of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

1.1 Brief Introduction of Industrial Control Systems Security

1.2 Development of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

1.3 Status of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry



2. Manufacturing Technology of Industrial Control Systems Security

2.1 Development of Industrial Control Systems Security Manufacturing Technology

2.2 Analysis of Industrial Control Systems Security Manufacturing Technology

2.3 Trends of Industrial Control Systems Security Manufacturing Technology



3. Analysis of Global Key Manufacturers



4. 2015-2020 Global and Chinese Market of Industrial Control Systems Security

4.1 Market Size

4.1.1 2015-2020 Global Capacity, Production and Production Value of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

4.1.2 2015-2020 Chinese Capacity, Production and Production Value of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

4.2 2015-2020 Industrial Control Systems Security Industry Cost and Profit Estimation

4.3 Market Comparison of Global and Chinese Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

4.4 2015-2020 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of Industrial Control Systems Security

4.5 2015-2020 Import and Export of Industrial Control Systems Security



5. Market Status of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

5.1 Market Competition of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry by Company

5.2 Market Competition of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry by Region

5.3 Market Analysis of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry by Application

5.4 Market Analysis of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry by Type



6. Market Forecast of 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

6.1 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Capacity, Production, and Production Value of Industrial Control Systems Security

6.2 2020-2025 Industrial Control Systems Security Industry Cost and Profit Estimation

6.3 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Market Share of Industrial Control Systems Security

6.4 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of Industrial Control Systems Security

6.5 2020-2025 Import and Export of Industrial Control Systems Security



7. Analysis of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry Chain

7.1 Industry Chain Structure

7.2 Upstream Raw Materials

7.3 Downstream Industry



8. Global and Chinese Economic Impact on Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

8.1 Global and Chinese Macroeconomic Environment Analysis

8.2 Global and Chinese Macroeconomic Environment Development Trend

8.3 Effects to Industrial Control Systems Security Industry



9. Market Dynamics and Policy of Industrial Control Systems Security Industry

9.1 Industrial Control Systems Security Industry News

9.2 Industrial Control Systems Security Industry Development Challenges

9.3 Industrial Control Systems Security Industry Development Opportunities



10. Proposals for New Project

10.1 Market Entry Strategies

10.2 Countermeasures of Economic Impact

10.3 Marketing Channels

10.4 Feasibility Studies of New Project Investment



11. Research Conclusions of Global and Chinese Industrial Control Systems Security Industry



Companies Mentioned



Cisco

Symantec

Mcafee

IBM

GE

Siemens

Schneider Electric

Rockwell Automation

Belden



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/z3fdl9

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

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SOURCE Research and Markets

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In the June 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a team of UCLA physicians and scientists describes the first case of immune modulation being used to cure a severe and often fatal fungal infection. The team "retuned" a 4-year-old's immune system so that it could fight off disseminated coccidioidomycosis.

The case, originally reported by UCLA in 2019, could pave the way for a new treatment for the infection, which affects hundreds of Americans each year, primarily in the Southwest, and kills approximately 40% of the people who contract it.

The technique described in the study could also suggest a new paradigm for treating other severe fungal infections, bacterial infections such as tuberculosis, and severe viral infections such as influenza and COVID-19.

"Immune modulation isn't currently part of the strategy with any of these severe infections," said Dr. Manish Butte, the report's senior author, who holds the E. Richard Stiehm Endowed Chair in Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Our case suggests that rather than hoping to get the upper hand with more and more antibiotics or antifungals, we can have some success by combining these established approaches with the new idea of programming the patient's immune response to better fight the infection."

Each year, more than 100,000 people are infected with Coccidioides fungi, which reside in the soils of California, Arizona and West Texas. Most people who are infected are asymptomatic, and about 20,000 experience the minor respiratory illness commonly known as Valley fever. The vast majority of people with Valley fever respond well to antifungal medications, but approximately 1% of the infections progress to disseminated coccidioidomycosis, in which the infection spreads rapidly throughout the body, leading to bone and tissue damage, and in many cases death.

"Historically, severe infections have been seen as 'bad luck,'" Butte said. "Doctors haven't looked at how we can harness the immune systems of these patients to fight the infection."

According to a 2019 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, California spends between $700 million and $900 million a year in direct and indirect costs related to the care of people infected by the cocci fungus, including more than $300 million to care for the approximately 200 people with disseminated coccidioidomycosis.

The boy who was treated by Butte and his team had previously been treated with high doses of multiple antifungal medicines, but by the time he arrived at UCLA, he could barely walk or talk and required a feeding tube to eat. When UCLA physicians homed in on the patient's immune system, they concluded that his T cells -- the white blood cells that play a key role in the body's immune response -- were failing to properly recognize the invading fungus. The T cells were responding as though the infection was a parasitic infection rather than a fungal one.

That prompted the team to supplement the boy's antifungal medications with an immune stimulator called interferon-gamma. And Dr. Maria Garcia-Lloret, a pediatric allergist and immunologist, suggested adding yet another medication, dupilumab, which was developed as a medication for allergic diseases and had never before been used to treat infections. Dupilumab is a prescription drug that has not been approved by the FDA as a treatment for disseminated coccidioidomycosis.

The combination of immune modulators restored the proper programming to the patient's T cells -- and the boy's infection went away in a month.

###

The UCLA research team cites that the immunomodulatory approach has the potential to enhance the ability of patients to clear other types of fungal, bacterial, and viral infections that are not responding to established therapies.

In partnership with the Bakersfield, California-based Valley Fever Institute and the drugs' manufacturers -- Horizon Therapeutics, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi Genzyme -- the UCLA researchers are planning to test the two drugs on other people with disseminated coccidioidomycosis. They also plan to study the approach for treating other types of severe infections.

The study's other authors are co-first authors Dr. Monica Tsai and Dr. Timothy Thauland, and Chantana Bun, Dr. Sean Fitzwater and Dr. Paul Krogstad, all of the UCLA department of pediatrics; Dr. Alden Y. Huang of the Institute for Precision Health; and Emilie Douine, Dr. Stanley Nelson and Dr. Hane Lee of the UCLA department of human genetics. (Lee is also a member of the UCLA department of pathology and laboratory medicine.)
New Delhi, June 10 : The Resident Doctors' Association of Delhi's Kasturba Hospital on Wednesday threatened to tender their mass resignations by June 16, due to non-payment of their salaries for the past three months.

"This is to inform that the Resident doctors have not been salaried for the last three months. No, work, no pay. We are afraid that if we will not be paid by June 16, we will have to move for mass resignations," said a letter sent to the Additional Medical Superintendent of the Hospital situated near Jama Masjid.

The association further said that the doctors, besides putting their lives at risk due to the Covid-19 pandemic, are unable to pay their rents, travelling expenses and are unable to buy essential commodities due to non-disbursal of salaries since March.

Seeking salaries "as soon as possible", the letter, undersigned by Association's General Secretary Dr. Ratnesh Kumar Singh, further demanded assurance that regular salary payments will be then on.

"We hope the concerned authorities will take immediate action and take out notice on priority to resolve our issue within time," it added.

The 450-bedded Kasturba Hospital falls under the ambit of the North Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
In relief for Amrapali buyers, SC directs banks to release balance loan amount

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 10: The Supreme Court has directed the banks to release the balance amount of the loans sanctioned to the Amrapali home buyers. The court said that the balance amount shall be released even for those who have been declared as non-performing assets or NPA.

The Bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit passed the order keeping in view the current situation where housing projects have come to a standstill due to the lack of funds. The next date of hearing would be on Wednesday, June 17 for passing of further directions.

Amrapali case: SC orders attachment of groups 5-star hotel, malls, factories

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

With this order, the banks will now have to restructure the loans. During the last hearing, SBICAP Ventures had told the SC that it was ready to fund the stalled projects of the firm. It also told the court that it would create a special purpose vehicle with a court receiver on board and would also appoint a Chief Executive Officer to take over the construction of the seven stalled projects.

The construction of the stalled projects of Amrapali is now being handled by the National Buildings Construction Corporation.
San Antonio police officers are allowed to place a suspect in a potentially deadly chokehold or neck restraint as a last resort  despite a longstanding controversy over the maneuvers and repeated calls by police-reform activists to ban them.

Instructors at the Police Training Academy have not taught the two maneuvers for 20 years  if not longer  after a number of mainly unarmed suspects died at the hands of police in Los Angeles during the 1980s. Years later, in San Antonio, a suspect died after being placed in a chokehold by an officer.

But both tactics still are permitted by SAPDs use of force policy in cases where theres an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury to an officer or a bystander.

The use of deadly force is determined by the facts known or perceived by the officer at the time the deadly force is employed, the departments manual reads.

After a Minneapolis police officer was charged with murder in the death of George Floyd, elected officials and activists across the country have called for a ban on chokeholds and neck restraints.

Lisa Krantz | San Antonio Express-News

Floyd, 46, who spent most of his life in Houston, was being taken into custody for allegedly trying to spend a fake $20 bill. Cellphone video shows officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pin Floyd to the ground by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes, even as Floyd repeatedly cried out that he couldnt breathe.

On ExpressNews.com: George Floyd planned to change the world

District 3 Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran is among those who have discussed the possibility of a ban on chokeholds, saying the councils Public Safety Committee will take up the issue.

Chokeholds and neck restraints are words often used interchangeably, but are different.

A lateral vascular neck restraint  also referred to as the carotid technique, sleeper hold or blood choke  involves putting pressure on both sides of a persons neck to restrict blood flow through the carotid arteries.

When done correctly, experts say, the person falls unconscious in a matter of seconds. Some departments, as a result, still allow it to be used as a last resort.

A chokehold applies pressure directly to the windpipe. Some departments  including those in New York and Los Angeles  banned chokeholds outright years ago.

The San Antonio Police Departments policy incorrectly defines a chokehold as a lateral vascular neck restraint, one expert said.

The carotid restraint is not designed nor is it applied to cut off the airway, said Edward Obayashi, a sheriff's deputy and legal adviser at the Plumas County Sheriffs Office in northern California.

That, by definition, is strangulation. The windpipe is very vulnerable and crushing it can easily lead to death. You dont need to be a doctor to understand that, said Obayashi, a national expert on use of force.

Lisa Krantz / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

Now Playing: People protesting the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer chant and wave signs at San Antonio police officers in Alamo Plaza Saturday, May 30, 2020. Video: Express-News

On Wednesday, during a City Council meeting, Police Chief William McManus defended the departments policy on use of force.

He said the department banned chokeholds and strangleholds in 2014  even though it hardly was used up to until then  except when theres an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury.

Other than that, chokeholds and strangleholds are off-limits, said McManus, who has condemned the police officers actions that led to Floyd dying.

Longstanding issues

Several law enforcement agencies, including SAPD, limited the use of both maneuvers after the killings by police in Los Angeles.

The L.A. police chief at the time, Daryl Gates, said the suspects were dying because the veins or arteries of blacks do not open up as fast as they do in normal people.

Michael Smith, chair of the department of criminal justice at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said the carotid technique often is banned, in part, because its difficult to do correctly.

The police officer stands behind the suspect with his chest on the latters back. The officers arm is hooked around the suspects neck, with the latters Adams apple in the crook of the officers arm.

The compression is applied to the side of the suspects neck, Smith said, leaving the person unconscious.

When done properly, its safe and it works, he said. The problem is, its not easy to do it properly, especially when youre out in the field and someone is moving and fighting and struggling against you.

What has happened repeatedly over the years is that police attempt using the move and inadvertently  usually inadvertently  end up damaging the persons airway, Smith added. In some cases, people have died.

On ExpressNews.com: Inside the San Antonio Police Training Academy

The carotid technique, in places where its still used, typically is allowed at the extreme end of the use of force continuum.

Typically, Smith said, a police officer is instructed to start with verbal commands before applying various other techniques, including hand-on-hand force, pepper spray or a stun gun.

Some experts, Smith and Obayashi said, have argued that officers still should have access to the carotid technique as a last resort so they dont have to shoot the suspect.

Youre not using it unless your life is at stake, and that makes it more conservative, Obayashi said. That puts it in the same category as using your firearm. Its to be used as a last resort, when there are no other options.

Whats less clear is how many police departments allow chokeholds.

The maneuver has been banned in Los Angeles and New York. The Minneapolis Police Department allowed it under some circumstances until recently.

Last week, following Floyds death, the Minneapolis City Council voted to ban it.

Smith emphasized that what happened to Floyd was in no way an acceptable police tactic, in any form.

What we witness on that tape is completely out of bounds, he said. A knee on someones neck for eight minutes is never going to be appropriate.

Local firestorm

Chokeholds and neck restraints have a troubled history in San Antonio, too, following an incident years ago with similarities to Floyds death.

Police Officer James Smith, who was in uniform while working as a security guard, was locking up what then was called Rivercenter Mall on Jan, 1, 1997, when Eli Montesinos, a 44-year-old businessman who lived in Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, got upset with the officer.

According to police, Smith gave Montesinos a verbal warning, at which point the man shoved the officer. A violent struggle ensued.

The officer  who was 5 inches shorter and half the mans size  then struck Montesinos several times on the arms and legs with his metal baton, before the man grabbed the baton and struck the officer in the left temple with it.

Police said Smith placed the man in a chokehold as he tried to free himself from Montesinos. A bystander saw the fight and helped the officer subdue Montesinos.

Montesinos, a father of four, suffered a heart attack, became comatose and died five days later after he was removed from life support machines.

Then-Police Chief Al Philippus defended the officers actions, saying he was justified in using deadly force. A grand jury did not indict the officer.

However, the incident brought about a extensive debate over the departments use of force policy.

In interviews, Philippus maintained that the maneuver was to be used only when an officers life was in danger and that it was not taught at the training academy as a technique to be used in routine police work.

It was just too controversial in the 1980s, thats why we eliminated its use, Philippus said at the time. But we feel that, in situations where an officer may be fighting for his life, we have to leave that option open to him at his own discretion.

Related: San Antonio cops not taught to choke, but its allowed

An autopsy, performed by Dr. Vincent DiMaio of the Bexar County medical examiners office, found two toothpick-size bones in Montesinos throat that were broken, indicating pressure was applied.

But DiMaio also said Montesinos suffered from a severe heart disorder that left his heart more than twice the normal size.

The primary underlying problem that killed this man was heart disease, said DiMaio. He had a diseased heart and he shouldn't have been in this kind of struggle.

The Mexican government hired a doctor to do an autopsy and it contradicted DiMaios conclusion. It said the chokehold, not a diseased heart, that caused Montesinos death.

Years later, DiMaio faced scrutiny for his role as a key expert witness on behalf of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje is a general assignment reporter covering breaking news, cultural trends and interesting people and goings-on around San Antonio and Bexar County, as well as all across South Texas. mstoeltje@express-news.net | Twitter: @mstoeltje
Bangladesh rejects Malaysias suggestion to take back nearly 300 Rohingya refugees who were found drifting at sea.

Bangladesh has said it will not take back nearly 300 Rohingya who were detained by Malaysia after their boat was found drifting off the countrys northwestern island of Langkawi, as hostility towards the mostly Muslim refugees continues to grow.

Bangladeshs Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said his country was neither obligated nor in a position to take any more Rohingya and urged the global community to help relocate the more than one million Rohingya who fled there after a brutal crackdown in their native Myanmar in 2017.

On Tuesday, Malaysias Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob had suggested that the rescued refugees should be sent back to Bangladesh.

The Rohingya should know, if they come here, they cannot stay, the minister told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

Sabri said Malaysias foreign ministry would ask Dhaka to take back the detained refugees if they were found to have fled the refugee camps, while the government would also ask the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to resettle the group in a third country.





Malaysia does not recognise refugee status but was often a destination for ethnic Rohingya, even before the 2017 crackdown.

As of February 2020, UNHCR had registered an estimated 180,000 refugees in Malaysia, about half of whom were Rohingya. The agency is allowed to operate in the country by the government and registers those it considers in need of protection.

Drive factors of migration

On Monday, the 269 Rohingya were arrested after their boat was found, damaged. The body of a woman was also retrieved. Malaysian authorities said the boat had been deliberately damaged to prevent it from being turned back to its port of origin.

According to Benar News, nine crew members fled after the boat entered Malaysian waters. It added that boat may have carried as many as 500 Rohingya when it departed Bangladesh, but only 269 were found, including those who initially jumped overboard but were later rescued.

In recent months, Malaysia had announced that it would no longer accept Rohingya refugees after tightening borders and stepping up patrols to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Thomas Daniel, a foreign policy and security expert at the Kuala Lumpur-based Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), wrote on Twitter that the driver factors for the refugees to reach Malaysia were stronger than any deterrence the government can (or seem willing to) muster.





Malaysia is officially very tough on undocumented arrivals (and those already here), but this hasnt had much of an impact on arrivals, he wrote, noting that boats had also arrived in 2015.

Rohingya have encountered increasing harassment in Malaysia in recent months.

Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid, president of MAPIM, an Islamic consultative council in Malaysia, on Tuesday condemned as outrageous images circulating online showing a mosque and community centre in the southern state of Johor with banners reading, We are not welcoming Rohingya and We dont need you here.

We are upset that hate sentiment like this wants to be born from the Islamic worship house that is the to be the protector and enforcer to the Islamic law, Hamid said in a statement.

The number of resettlement places around the world remains extremely limited, and UNHCR told Reuters that it was probably not an option for most refugees.

For refugees to be able to live a life in safety and with dignity until such time that they are able to return home again or find home in another country, what they need is to have protection in the country where they are seeking asylum, the agency said in an emailed response to the news agency.
GREENWICH  For years, Greenwichs police chief has submitted budget requests that, if granted, would help institute the use of body-worn cameras in the department.

But for several years, the first selectman and town administrators have pushed back due to the costs of the equipment, uncertainty about freedom of information laws and privacy concerns for the public, according to Police Chief Jim Heavey. Also, town leaders felt there wasnt a significant need for the cameras because officers have a good relationship with the community, he said.

But with the intense scrutiny on law enforcement and widespread calls for transparency after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis  Heavey suspects that body cameras may move to the forefront of the conversation.

Not so much because we need them to keep the officers from doing something (bad), but I think it will demonstrate some transparency of the officers actions, he said during a virtual meeting moderated by the Greenwich League of Women Voters on Tuesday, the day of Floyds funeral service in Houston.

First Selectman Fred Camillo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The police chief estimated the body-worn cameras would be instituted in the department within 12 to 18 months.

Moderators said they set up the Greenwich conversation to talk about the challenges of policing after worldwide protests since Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin placed his knee on Floyds neck to restrain him, while the man pleaded, I cant breathe.

Heavey fielded many questions from participants about efforts by police to ensure people of color are treated fairly by local law enforcement.

A moderator asked whether there was a formal process to collect feedback from communities of color and examine how they feel about policing in Greenwich.

No designated group is set up to collect that kind of information, Heavey said. But he said the department does a great job of reaching out to houses of worship, public housing complexes and the Greenwich Housing Authority. Three months ago, Heavey said he invited the Anti-Defamation League to lead extensive implicit bias training with all of the departments supervisors.

File / Tyler Sizemore / Hearst Connecticut Media

I think that, again, we have a lot of good (community) relationships and were going to work on ever-improving those, he said. But if theres anybody who has a belief that they have been treated unfairly by us, we certainly will investigate that.

Other participants raised concerns about policing in Greenwich Public Schools, with one attendee saying they felt more students of color were arrested in schools in comparison to their white counterparts.

Heavey said he didnt have the data in front of him but he disagreed. School resources officers are stationed in schools to provide safety, security and education, he said. Overall, there have been fewer arrests in schools since the program began, the police chief added.

A few years ago, there was a high instance in statistics reporting that more Hispanics were arrested than whites or blacks, he continued.

We found that it was one Hispanic student who had been arrested several times. So thats why it looked like there was a higher instance, Heavey said.

A moderator asked Heavey what personality traits or skills that make for an effective police officer.

Heavey said that he and other department leaders look for candidates who demonstrate patience and empathy through previous volunteer or work experiences or during interviews. Once an officer is hired, the police department focuses on ongoing education. In departments with more of those requirements, there are fewer lawsuits and complaints, Heavey said.

He said he reminds his staff that their interactions with community members might not be a big deal for officers, but it can be for community members, especially when its negative.

At the beginning of the conversation, Heavey opened the discussion by giving information about the demographics of the police force. Of the 154 officers in the Greenwich Police Department, 10 percent are women and 16 percent are people of color, which Heavey called diverse compared to other police departments.

When it comes to disciplining officers, the department has a continuum of different levels, which could include a letter of reprimand, suspension without pay, retraining or termination.

In his nearly decade-long experience as police chief, Heavey said he tried to terminate an officer but a labor board made me rehire them. Heavey did not disclose his reasoning for trying to terminate the officer.

In a separate incident, Heavey also recommended firing an officer to a first selectman but it was overturned and reduced to a suspension of the employee, he said.

But there is, I think, a fair process for the officer involved and theres also a process thats stringent enough to protect the community from an officer who might not be following the rules, Heavey concluded.

For information on filing a complaint with the Greenwich Police Department, visit www.greenwichct.gov/403/Civilian-Complaint-Forms.

For information on filing a complaint with the state Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, visit www.ct.gov/chro/cwp/view.asp?a=2524&Q=315884.

tatiana.flowers@thehour.com @TATIANADFLOWERS
When a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on the neck of George Floyd, killing him while a cellphone camera rolled, a nation under coronavirus lockdown sparked back to life.

Protesters have taken to the streets in every state in the country, in urban and rural areas, demanding an end to police brutality and a dismantling of systemic racism and white supremacy.

And while many people have decided to take the calculated risk of joining the crowds while the pandemic continues, while wearing masks and applying hand sanitizer frequently, for some people the risk of catching COVID-19 is still too great.

That doesnt mean those people dont want to be part of the movement. Here are five ways you can join the movement, without taking to the streets en masse.

Educate yourself, especially if you are white.

One of the first steps to dismantling white supremacy is for white people to understand how they benefit from the system.

As far as racism goes, we as black folks, we didnt create it, we dont benefit from it, it doesnt serve us, Jomo Greenidge of the website BlackPDX.com told The Oregonian/OregonLive. If youre to ask about who should be most adamantly dealing with racism, its white folks.

Luckily for white people, there are plenty of books about the experience of being black in America, from the initial horror of being kidnapped and brought to this country as slaves, through segregation and the 400 years of unequal, abusive treatment that followed.

Heres a list of 35 books, including novels, childrens books, history and more, recommended by black Portland writers, that will give you a place to start.

Join, or organize, a caravan protest.

If you dont feel safe being physically close to other people but still do want to actually be on the streets, a caravan or drive-by protest can be an effective alternative.

According to NPR, one caravan protest in San Francisco had as many as a thousand cars, driving in a row, snaking through neighborhoods and proclaiming their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

In Portland, that was the route taken by some protestors on May Day this year.

Gather in a small group.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a blog post about ways to protest during a pandemic, suggests gathering in groups of 10 or fewer, to comply with social distancing guidelines but still make your voice heard.

Join the movement financially.

For some people, the best way to get involved is by donating money to the cause. How you direct your money is up to you. You can support a bail fund, for protesters who are arrested. Or you can pick an organization, or multiple organizations, and send them money.

Another way to use your money for good is to support black-owned businesses. Places like BlackPDX.com and ILoveBlackFood.com offer lists of businesses to support.

If you are white, become uncomfortable and stay uncomfortable.

In any relationship in life when someone does something wrong in the relationship, its up to the person who did the wrong to make it right, not the person thats been impacted by the wrong, Libra Forde, COO of Self Enhancement Inc., told The Oregonian/OregonLive. So we need to find out something new to do, and we cannot lean on black people to do that.

White people have benefited from a system that makes whiteness the default and treats everyone else as expendable. Its uncomfortable to talk about, but, if you are white and feel uncomfortable acknowledging how you benefit from racist systems, think about how much more uncomfortable it would be to be scared for your life every time you leave the house.

To be constantly worried your child would get shot by police or you would die in or after childbirth. To go to an underfunded school, live in a place with worse air quality, know you could be sentenced to a longer prison sentence for the exact same crime a white person committed, know if you are a trans person, the chances of you getting murdered are outrageously high.

Thats a lot worse than feeling uncomfortable.

Take this knowledge with you everywhere you go. Be prepared to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes.

Instead of having endless meetings about racism full of white people at your office, hire more non-white people. Put non-white people in charge.

Actively work to come to terms with your own racism while supporting and uplifting black people, indigenous people and all people of color. Challenge your family, challenge yourself, vote and listen to black people when they tell you their stories. Believe them.

Commit to being anti-racist after the marches stop, after the social media posts stop and after the world returns to something like normal.

Resist returning to normal.

I dont think normal needs to ever come back, Forde said, because normal has been wrong for us blacks in this country.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Speaking exclusively with Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on Tuesday, General Commanding Officer of Victor Force Major General Anindya Sengupta spoke about the fight against terrorism in South Kashmir. He revealed that 83 terrorists had been eliminated in 31 operations since January 2020. Moreover, he added that over 150 overground workers had been apprehended after January 2020. According to Major General Anindya Sengupta, the successful removal of OGWs from the terrorist ecosystem reduces the level of violence.

Major General Anindya Sengupta remarked, "Since January this year, we have had 31 operations in which 83 terrorists have been eliminated. At least three sets of the leadership of Hizbul Mujahideen, a set of the leadership of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a set of the leadership of Lashkar-e-Toiba and a set of the leadership of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind has been successfully neutralized by the joint operations resulted by the synergy between RR units, Jammu and Kashmir Police and CRPF."

Read: Kashmiri Pandit's Killing Attempt To 'trigger Fear Psychosis' Among Minorities: KP Organisations

He added, "We have apprehended 200 plus OGWs other than a couple of hundred instigators till January this year from August last year. A number of them were booked under PSA and almost 150 plus have been apprehended post-January. And the successful removal of the OGWs from the terrorist ecosystem does reduce the level of violence. Quite a lot of violent incidents like the throwing of grenades, firing of small countrymade pistols at civilians or security forces is done by the OGWs who are desirous of joining the ranks of the terrorists or are being coerced to join the ranks of terrorists."

Read: Kashmiri Pandits In US Condemn Killing Of Sarpanch In Valley

'An assault on the democratic process'

The General Commanding Officer of Victor Force strongly condemned the killing of Sarpanch Ajay Pandita. Terming it as an assault on the democratic process, he opined that it was an attempt to bring about a religious divide and prevent development from taking place. At the same time, Major General Anindya Sengupta observed that Pandita's killing showcased the desperation in terrorist ranks.

"The heinous killing of Sarpanch Ajay Pandita by possibly a group of two or three terrorists in the area south of Anantnag is really an assault on the democratic process being instituted in the Valley. It is also an attempt to bring about a religious divide where none exists. It is also an attempt to prevent development from taking place in the region. The Sarpanch was going to raise his own apple orchard. He has been targeted to possibly send a message which is of desperation which exists in the terrorist ranks because of the obliteration of a number of their leaders in the recent past," Major General Anindya Sengupta said.

Read: 31-year-old Man Dies Of COVID-19 In Jammu And Kashmir, Total Deaths Rise To 46

Read: Bollywood Stars Post Strong Statements On Killing Of Kashmiri Pandit Sarpanch Ajay Pandita
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 02:20:07|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The United States on Tuesday said that it was disappointed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) latest move of cutting off all inter-Korean communication lines, urging Pyongyang to return to diplomacy.

"The United States has always supported progress in inter-Korean relations, and we are disappointed in the DPRK's recent actions. We urge the DPRK to return to diplomacy and cooperation," a Department of State spokesperson said in a statement.

The statement also said the United States would remain in close coordination with South Korea on efforts to engage the DPRK.

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday morning local time that the DPRK will "completely cut off and shut down the liaison line between the authorities of the north and the south, which has been maintained through the north-south joint liaison office" starting from 12:00 (0300 GMT) on June 9.

Other hotlines will also be cut off, which include the East and West Seas communication lines between the military of the North and the South and the hotline between the office building of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and South Korean president office Blue House, according to the KCNA.

The development came in the DPRK's protest at anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets flown by a South Korean civic group, composed mostly of defectors from the DPRK, across the inter-Korean border.

Under the Panmunjom Declaration, the leaders of South Korea and the DPRK agreed to stop all hostile acts in areas near the military demarcation line (MDL), including the scattering of anti-DPRK leaflets.

The declaration was signed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un after their first summit in the border village of Panmunjom on April 27, 2018.

On June 4, Kim Yo Jong, sister of the DPRK leader, issued a statement threatening to close the joint liaison office or even completely dismantle a now-shuttered joint industrial complex in the DPRK's border city of Kaesong unless Seoul stops defector groups from sending leaflets into the DPRK. Enditem
OTTAWACanada wants Iran to explain why it still hasnt handed over the black boxes from the Ukrainian jetliner that was shot down by Iranian military near Tehran on Jan. 8, Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Wednesday.

Garneau delivered a short speech to the International Civil Aviation Organization council Wednesday morning, where he noted it has been 92 days since Iran told the United Nations agency it would hand over the devices.

Canada would appreciate an update to this council from Iran on its plans to transfer the flight recorders as a demonstration of continued commitment to a full and transparent investigation, Garneau said.

Iran initially denied having anything to do with the crash, which killed all 176 passengers and crew. Several days later Iran admitted its military had mistaken the plane for a hostile object in the middle of military tensions with the United States. There were 55 Canadians and 30 permanent residents killed, while 138 of the passengers in total were travelling to Canada via Kyiv, many of them returning to school and work after the December holiday.

The ICAO is a specialized agency of the UN that co-ordinates international standards for civilian aircraft. Among its policies are the best practices for conducting investigations of accidents involving civil aircraft.

On March 11, at a previous meeting of the council, Irans representative Farhad Parvaresh told the council members it would hand over the data and voice recorders from Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 within two weeks. That has not happened.

Initially the devices were to go to Ukraine, and if they could not do the analysis then they would go to France, which has the equipment needed to get the data. Canadian officials were to be present when the data was analyzed.

While we recognize the impact of the global pandemic, Canada fully expects Iran to live up to its commitment and the ICAO standards set out in Annex 13, Garneau said. We expect the analysis of the flight recorders be done as soon as possible, and in a way that protects the health of all technical experts.

The devices are damaged and the technology to download and analyze the data they contain is not available in Iran. For more than two months Iran insisted that France should send the technology to Iran for the analysis and France said that was not possible.

The ICAO council is also discussing Canadas proposal for a Safer Skies strategy, to better manage how civil aircraft operate in areas of military conflict. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first discussed the initiative at the Munich Security Conference in February.

The work for the strategy first began after the July 2014 crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from pro-Russian, separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine. There were 298 people killed, most of them Dutch nationals.

Trudeau said in February the recommendations from that crash to better protect civilian planes flying in conflict zones needed to be implemented. The Safer Skies strategy now being considered by ICAO is part of that process. The main ask is for a full analysis of what gaps remain in assessing the risks to aircraft flying over conflict zones, managing those risks and what the responsibilities are for airline operators.

Our common goal is to ensure the world never lives through a similar tragedy again, said Garneau.

ICAO has developed a working paper to push the strategy forward but Garneaus spokeswoman said Wednesday the details of the plan are not yet publicly available.

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President Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday that "it is possible that there will be more US soldiers in Poland" and stated that he had good relations with his US counterpart Donald Trump.

Andrzej Duda was asked by a local radio broadcaster in Gdansk (northern Poland) to comment on information about the possible withdrawal of around 9,500 US soldiers from Germany and reports that some of these American troops may be transferred to Poland.

The President stated that, apart from the fact that we invite them, it was obviously the decision for the American authorities to make. "The US Army is welcome in Poland. This is the largest and strongest army in the world," he added.

According to President Duda, the US Army is a guarantee of security. "Especially in this difficult time, when we have the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine, when Russia has invaded Ukraine, when Russia has been occupying Crimea, and when Russia, in fact, has also been occupying the region of Lugansk and Donetsk."

"This is a visible sign of Russian imperialism. In 2014, there were fears that this could have gone further, that the Baltic States could have also been attacked, and that one's hand there could have been raised against Poland. This was when it was decided to form NATO's enhanced presence on its eastern flank," he said.

Andrzej Duda added that during the first year of his presidency, he had visited all the NATO countries in order to convince their leaders to this idea.

"Today, we have NATO troops stationed in Poland, including those from the United States. There are several thousand US soldiers here. It is possible that there will be more. As everyone knows, I have a good relationship with President Trump. He understands our part of Europe, and he has repeatedly proved this during our conversations. (...) I have no doubts that we can count on US support in building a security zone in our part of Europe, also through the presence of US troops," he stated.

President Duda also expressed his conviction that the presence of US soldiers in Poland "increases the chances of US investments in this country," since American business was willing to make investments where the US Army was stationed, because it meant a guarantee of security.

The president declared that, if re-elected, he would be a safeguard for agreement and good cooperation in the coming years. He also promised to take care of the most urgent matters. (PAP)
Business leaders have pleaded with the Prime Minister to relax the two-metre rule amid fears that millions of jobs are at stake.

Trade bodies representing tens of thousands of firms in hospitality, retail and manufacturing warn many companies will struggle to comply with the safety edict as the UK lifts lockdown.

A failure to resume trading will hinder recovery from what is set to be the deepest recession for more than 300 years.

Trade bodies representing tens of thousands of firms in hospitality, retail and manufacturing warn many companies will struggle to comply with the safety edict as the UK lifts lockdown

But yesterday, Business Secretary Alok Sharma offered little comfort on the two-metre distancing rule.

As he confirmed that non-essential shops would open from Monday, he said: 'We will only change it when we think it is safe to do so.'

The Prime Minister had promised to publish results of a review into distancing before shops reopened on June 15.

In a fresh appeal, trade group UK Hospitality said reducing the distance to one metre in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines could save up to 1m jobs in the hospitality sector alone.

Meanwhile the British Beer and Pub Association and the British Retail Consortium warned of struggles ahead.

Manufacturing group Make UK said relaxing the two-metre rule would boost productivity, while the Society of Manufacturers and Traders told MPs last week that the lockdown and strict social distancing rules means 400,000 fewer cars will be made this year.

The UK has some of the strictest social distancing in the world, alongside Spain and Canada.

Builder's sales suffer By Matt Oliver Housebuilder Bellway has warned that sales will be 'severely constrained' until the lockdown is lifted. Its weekly home reservations have fallen 69 per cent since restrictions were put in place on March 23, from an average of 231 to just 71. It said the number of homes built also dipped by 12 per cent to 6,721 between August 1 and May 31 compared to the previous year. Bellway joined rivals in shutting down its construction sites, show homes and sales centres, with the market grinding to a halt as people were told not to move where possible. Bellway insisted that despite the hit to sales, prices had remained 'firm' and that it was seeing a gradual pick-up in customer interest after reopening sales outlets in England on June 1. It has restarted building work on around 230 sites, although that work is focused on homes in the final stages of production. It said: 'We expect year-on-year sales to be severely constrained until a time when restrictions are further lifted.'

Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Greece require people keep 1.5 metres apart, while France, Denmark and China have stuck with one metre.

The first comprehensive review of social distancing, prepared for the WHO and published in the Lancet medical journal last week concluded that one metre left people with a 3 per cent chance of catching Covid-19 from an infected person. It said the risk is halved at two metres.

Many businesses believe this is a risk worth taking to get the economy back on its feet and prevent redundancies.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said venues  from restaurants to pubs and wedding venues - would only be able to generate 30 per cent of their normal revenue under the two-metre rule.

If this was reduced to one metre they would be able to generate 70 per cent of their normal revenue, and at least break even.

She said: 'The rule is simply not viable. With the two-metre rule in place and without additional support from the Government lots of venues will not survive. A third of outlets would not reopen and a million jobs would be lost.'

The British Beer and Pub Association said one metre would significantly increase the number of the UK's 47,000 pubs that could reopen.

Tom Ironside, at the British Retail Consortium, said: 'Many firms will continue to struggle as it will limit sales while retailers face the same rent and other fixed costs. The Government will need to continue to support businesses while safety requirements are in place.'

Tej Parikh, chief economist of the Institute of Directors, said: 'Only half our members say it will be possible to reach normal levels of activity under social distancing.'

Josh Hardie, deputy director general of the CBI said: 'If it can be reduced safely this will have a significant economic and productivity impact.'
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary and in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir, Ram Madhav on Wednesday said the killing of Ajay Pandita alias Bharti, a Kashmiri Pandit Sarpanch in South Kashmir on Monday is an attempt by terrorists to create divisions between communities in the Valley.

Political workers across party lines, however, renewed their demand that the Union government should meet its assurance of providing panchayat members in Jammu and Kashmir security and insurance.

Madhav blamed Pakistan for Bhartis murder.

This is a heinous crime by the perpetrators of terror who out of their frustration are targeting innocent civilians. Unfortunately, every time they cannot face the law and order machinery, they turn to the minorities. This is the real face of Pakistan; in their own country they have gone after Hindus in Punjab and now are employing similar tactics in Kashmir as well, he said.

There has been widespread anger among political workers in Kashmir over the killing of Bharti, the sarpanch of Lukbawan village in south Kashmirs Larkipora area who was shot dead by unidentified terrorists. Local media reports suggest he had been seeking security in the wake of threats.

While many political workers from across parties said the government has not met their demand for security, Madhav said, the state administration has provided security facilities for the local body representatives who are about 40,000 in number. They are given safe accommodation in Srinagar, but despite that, such incidents have occurred, he said.

Nazir Ahmad Laway, a member of the Rajya Sabha said, while sitting MPs and ministers are provided security cover, former MPs, ministers and political workers find themselves in vulnerable situations as they become easy targets for terror groups. They cannot even move freely in their own area, Laway said.

In September last year, during a meeting with panchayat members from the erstwhile state, Union home minister Amit Shah had said every panch and sarpanch in Jammu and Kashmir will be given police security and insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh, which would later be revised.

He had also assured the delegation that the demand for increasing their honorarium will be considered and internet and telecommunication networks will be strengthened.

Since the year 2012 when the targeted killing of sarpanches began, we have been petitioning the Centre and the state governments to provide security and safe accommodation. In all these years starting with the Congress-led UPA government and now the BJP-led NDA government at the centre our demands have not been met. The administration has reduced us to fodder, giving us no respect and no share in power, complained Shafiq Mir, president of the All Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Conference.

Mir said in the absence of security, 19 sarpanches have lost their lives since 2012.

He also pointed out that in the absence of political representatives, since the J&K assembly has been dissolved, it is the panchyats that are the bridge between the people and the government.

Demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modis intervention, Mir said, It was on his assurance that we participated in the panchayat elections in 2018. At that time the mainstream political parties in the (then) state had refused to be part of the political process. On December 19, 2018 we met the PM as a 48-member delegation. We later met the home minister too to push for our demands.

Mir Junaid, president of the newly formed Jammu and Kashmir Workers Party who was part of the delegation that met Shah in September after the bifurcation of the state into two union territories said the panchayat workers have been questioning the governments delay.

They are also asking questions about why the government expects people to be part of the democratic process if they still have not fulfilled their promises, Junaid said.

He said the panchayat members were assured that Rs 3,500 crore will be transferred directly into the accounts of gram panchayats, provided safe accommodation at district headquarters and offered insurance between Rs 2-4 lakh per head.

Since Monday, we have not even heard of any compensation offered to Bhartis family, Junaid said.

Jammu and Kashmir administration officials did not respond to questions on why the insurance scheme has not been implemented yet.

Sushobha Barve, executive secretary of the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation said the political ecosystem of Kashmir which has deteriorated since August 5, 2019 when Article 370 scrapped, has made the Sarpanches and Panchayat members soft targets.

There is a lot of concern in Kashmir that while the political economic system has not improved and in the middle of a pandemic, the government is focusing on planning the Amarnath Yatra, she said.

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New Delhi, June 10 : Almost eight months after a theft on board the indigenous aircraft carrier in Kerala's Cochin Shipyard, where INS Vikrant, is under construction, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday arrested two suspects from Bihar and Rajasthan.

An NIA spokesperson said the agency arrested Sumit Kumar Singh (23), a resident of Bihar's Munger district, and Daya Ram (22), a resident of Rajasthan's Hanumangarh, from their houses.

The two were allegedly involved in the theft of computer hardware components from the under-construction Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) at the Cochin Shipyard Ltd. The theft on board the vessel was reported in September last year.

According to NIA officials, four computers were dismantled and hard disks, RAMs and processors were stolen from the IAC in September last year.

The stolen items included five micro-processors, 10 RAMs, five Solid State Drives (SSDs) from the Multi-Functional Consoles (MFCs) aboard the ship.

The MFCs form part of Integrated Platform Management System (IPMS) of the project.

IMPS is a computerised system used on board ships to monitor the working and course of the vessel and to warn against safety risks.

The spokesperson said that during multiple searches in Bihar, Rajasthan and Gujarat conducted on Wednesday, some stolen electronic devices were recovered and incriminating materials seized.

The case was first registered by Kerala Police on the complaint of the Cochin Shipyard authorities about the criminal trespass and theft of certain critical electronic components installed on board the IAC.

The NIA took over the probe on September 26 last year under several sections of IPC and Information Technology Act.

The NIA had taken up the case following concerns over national security as sensitive information was stored in these hard disks.

An NIA spokesperson said it conducted a detailed investigation into the "blind case" and analyzed fingerprints and palm-prints of more than five thousand persons, who had worked for the IAC project during the relevant period.

A large number of witnesses were also examined.

The NIA had also announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh in March this year for giving credible leads in the case.

INS Vikrant is the first indigenous aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy. The work on the ship's design began in 1999, and the keel was laid in February 2009. As of 2019, the ship is expected to start sea trials in February 2021 and enter service as early as 2023. The project cost has neared Rs 20,000 crore.

With the completion of INS Vikrant, India will join the ranks of US, UK, Russia, France and China in the construction of flight carriers.
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Last week, a pair of activists launched a social media campaign that quickly went from advocacy to unintentional irony. To show solidarity with African American victims of police brutality, the women encouraged Instagrammers, especially major corporations, to post a black square in lieu of a picture, in order to leave space on the platform for people of color.

As well-intentioned as Blackout Tuesday was, with people across the country continuing to express outrage over the police killing of George Floyd, it started to unravel nearly as fast as it caught on. Upon further reflection, it doesnt make a whole lot of sense to ask people to post in order to show how they werent going to post.

Nor was it practical. So many individual and company Instagrammers posted black squares, that entire portions of the site went essentially blank. If the intent was, as described, to amplify black voices, a sea of black squares drowned them out instead.

Blackout Tuesday is the latest example of whats called hashtag activism, or internet advocacy. Now that social media operates within our culture like a public square, it only makes sense that people would take to their keyboards when they want social change. Unfortunately, if thats where our activism begins and ends, as it far too often is, were guilty of a category mistake. Were treating Twitter (say that fast five times) as if its the real world. Its not.

In fact, Twitter, like the rest of social media, is actually an infinitesimally small slice of the real world. As economist Arthur Brooks pointed out last year, only 22% of American adults are on Twitter at all, only 7% are active, and 80% of all tweets come from only 10 percent of them. (And about half of those come from Ed Stetzer.)

In no way am I suggesting that advocating online is always meaningless or silly. Its not wrong in and of itself, but it is wrong by itself. It is no substitute for actual, embodied kingdom-building engagement. Just look at the stats. The most-followed person on Twitter only reaches two out of 10 of their neighbors, and thats only if they are on Twitter too. And even then, youre just talking in a one-directional, one-sentence-at-a-time way.

Blackout Tuesday reminded me of a similar phenomenon that followed 9/11, something Neil Postman warned of in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Of course, social media wasnt around in 2001 but, as Americans everywhere struggled to make sense of what had happened, we started conflating staying informed with doing something.

Maybe it was because we felt powerless or confused about what exactly we could do, but we were still wrong. The 3.0 version of that same mistake today is imagining that posting online is the best we can do.

Another problem with treating Twitter as if it is the real world is that its not clear who sets the rules. Social media often behaves as a mob. Mobs, as several business owners learned the hard way over the years and especially last week, are notoriously fickle.

Some businesses that did participate in Blackout Tuesday by posting a black square were accused of co-opting a social movement to attract customers. But businesses that didnt participate were accused of cowardice or complicity in racism.

On Twitter it was the same thing. Some who have spoken out explicitly against racism were criticized for not doing it earlier, or for not doing it at just the right time, or for virtue signaling, or for lacking the authority to speak on the issue because they werent people of color. But, nearly everyone on Twitter felt the pressure of having to post something.

Its enough to baffle even the most well-meaning advocates.

Treating Twitter as the real world leads us to conclude two things that just arent true. First, everyone must say something, and to not post something is to be a Bad Person. Second, that posting something is to have Done Something.

Professor Walter Strickland at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary put it this way  and yes, he posted this on Twitter: You are not a social media handle. Dont feel pressure to post and repost everything to show that you care. Advocate locally. Be incarnate.

Indeed. The messier, tougher approach to loving God and loving others, which takes a lot more energy but is far more effective and life-living, is to do our community-building and truth-telling and others-loving offline.

As I tell folks when I speak, if youre on Twitter, you can follow me @jbstonestreet. If youre not on Twitter, dont start.

This piece was originally published at BreakPoint
Filmmaker SS Rajamouli took to Twitter to share a throwback picture from his upcoming magnum opus RRR and said he cant wait to get back to the sets to resume shooting. In his first fleet, the new feature rolled out by Twitter on Tuesday, Rajamouli wrote that he cant wait to get back to the sets of RRR.

Throwback to the sets of @RRRMovie. Its been 3 months since we put a hard stop to #RRR! Cant wait to be back on the sets with all the recommended precautions and safety measures in place (sic), Rajamouli wrote.

Meanwhile, the Telangana government on Tuesday granted permission to resume film and television shooting in the state. Rajamouli was among the first few Telugu celebrities to thank the government for granting permission.

RRR, which stands for Roudram Ranam Rudhiram, will be SS Rajamoulis next big release after the Baahubali series. Producer DVV Danayya recently revealed that only 25 percent of shoot is still pending. Once the lockdown is over and things return to normalcy, the reminder of the film will be shot in a set in Hyderabad.

In RRR, NTR and Ram Charan play brothers in the modern-day portion and will be seen as bin the period portion which will be the flashback episode.

Also read: First KBC winner Harshvardhan Nawathe: Amitabh Bachchan spoke to me for one hour, asked me to take care of my parents

RRR will be a fictional story set in the 1920s pre-independent era and it will be based on few years in the lives of two real heroes and well-known revolutionaries  Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem.

This will be a fictional story on the lives of Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem. There are gaps in the lives of these legendary freedom fighters that we dont know about. We dont know what happened in their lives in these years. It is through this fictional story wed like to show what could have happened in their lives and what would have happened if they met and bonded, Rajamouli said at the films launch last year.

The film also stars Ajay Devgn, Alia Bhatt, Shriya Saran, Olivia Morris and Samuthirakani in key roles.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop
Things are getting pretty dire for Joe Exotic. The controversial former zoo operator, who was the subject of the hit Netflix docuseries, Tiger King, is currently serving 22 years behind bars for murder for hire and animal cruelty charges. Writing from his prison cell, Joe Exotic recently claimed that he will be dead in 2-3 months if President Donald Trump doesnt issue a pardon.

Tiger King star Joe Exotic | Netflix

Tiger King Joe Exotic releases a new letter about his life behind bars

Following the popularity of Tiger King, Joe has emerged as a controversial figure in the media. Some fans see Joe as nothing more than a comical figure from years gone by while others believe he is an animal-abusing villain who deserves to be in prison.

But as far as Joe is concerned, he remains adamant that he is innocent of the charges that put him behind bars. He has even begged Trump to issue him a pardon, a request that has fallen on deaf ears (Trump has acknowledged that he will think about pardoning Joe).

With a pardon seemingly out the window, Joe has officially issued a plea to the public. According to TMZ, Joe sent an open letter to his fans asking for them to go to bat on his behalf.

You do realise that Joe Exotic Tiger King has been the most normal thing so far in 2020 pic.twitter.com/rJWr8UMrUw  UFO CHRONICLES PODCAST (@UFOchronpodcast) June 7, 2020

Just would like to be my own voice for a change, Joe wrote. Thank you all so very much for the support and love from all around the world. The pandemic is over and now I ask you to ask President Trump to keep his word and look into making this wrong a right and grant me a miricle [sic].

It is important to note that Trump never said he was going to pardon the Tiger King star, he just hinted that he is open to the idea was the current crisis is over. While Joe believes that a pardon might be in his future, his letter turned pretty desperate after the opening.

Joe Exotic says hell be dead in 2-3 months its like being on death row

In his letter, Joe assured fans that he will not last much longer if Trump doesnt pardon him. After writing about how his soul is dead, Joe admitted that he struggles on a daily basis to hold on to what little hope I can find.

Joe then revealed that he has lost a bunch of weight and is currently suffering from an auto-immune disease. The Tiger King star says that he needs constant blood transfusions to keep the illness at bay and has not received one in months.

Im loosing [sic] weight, sores wont heal, Ill be dead in 2-3 months, he shared. Its like I have been sent to death row.

Joe Exotic's Letter to Fans Claims He'll be Dead in 2-3 Months https://t.co/5ZuWmF2Mn3  TMZ (@TMZ) June 8, 2020

Joes letter takes some strange turns from there. At one point, he compares himself to George Floyd and said that his message got (abandoned) over greed, just like Georges message has gotten lost on the riots.

As Tiger King fans are well aware, Joe is serving 22 years for paying a hitman to kill Carole Baskin. What is interesting is that she recently made the news after a judge gave her Joes old zoo.

Joes husband Dillon comes to his defense

In light of the letter, Joes husband, Dillon Passage, took to Twitter to express his thoughts on what his partner is going through in prison.

My heart is breaking after reading Joes letter, Dillon stated. He is living in hell right now and Im outraged by the way he is being treated.

Dillon noted that despite what Joe is experiencing behind bars he is still standing by him. He also assured fans that he spends most of his life alone at home, where he misses Joe greatly.

A federal judge in Oklahoma awards ownership of the zoo made famous in Netflixs Tiger King docuseries to Joe Exotics chief rival. https://t.co/xvCWKAB6gp  The Associated Press (@AP) June 2, 2020

He added that he sends Joes letters on a frequent basis and that he is disappointed that some of his letters do not go through. The Tiger King star is apparently limited to the number of letters he receives every day and sometimes Dillons notes do not make the cut.

In his letter, Joe explained how some fans have told him that Dillon is living the high life while he suffers behind bars. He also revealed that he has not received a letter from Dillon in a long time and feels abandoned.

Tiger King star Jeff Lowes dishes on Joes plea for a pardon

At this point, it seems unlikely that Joe will receive a pardon. Although Joes legal team is working hard behind the scenes, Trump has not said anything further about freeing him from prison.

In an interview with Fox News, Tiger King star Jeff Lowe revealed that he doesnt think Joe has a shot at getting a pardon.

He is not going to get pardoned. Donald Trump is not gonna pardon this guy, Jeff shared.

Today, Carol Baskin was awarded Joe Exotic's property in Oklahoma. Jeff Lowe has 120 days to leave. pic.twitter.com/bcbhawaSZW  East Feed (@eastfeed) June 3, 2020

Jeff added that Joe has a diva personality and called him a narcissist. Although he doesnt believe Joe will secure a pardon, he also doesnt think Joe is going to stop lobbying for one.

Joe has that diva personality. Most narcissists do. So of course hes gonna go and take it to where the buck stops, and thats at the White House, he added.

Fans can stream Tiger King on Netflix.
As Ralph Morana looks out at his familys newest bar, hes worried for its future.

Im not sure how Ill be able to make money, said Morana, who along with sons Tomas and Julian runs Bar Volo, a beer and tapas-focused restaurant on St. Nicholas Street. The family also runs College Streets Birreria Volo.

Morana, like many Toronto restaurateurs, is concerned that the citys guidelines for dealing with COVID-19 hazards released last week will make it difficult to stay in business, even when theyre allowed to open for dine-in and patio customers.

I might be able to get to 40 per cent capacity, just because of the layout of the place. I know the limit is 50 per cent, but weve got big, family-style tables, said Morana of Bar Volo. Our whole concept was people standing and ordering from the bar. Thats not going to happen.

The city released its guidelines the same day the provincial government announced that bars and restaurants in much of the rest of Ontario will be permitted to open their patios this Friday, as part of Stage 2 of Ontarios reopening. (Dining inside restaurants is part of Stage 3.)

But the Golden Horseshoe, including the Greater Toronto Area, didnt meet the criteria to enter Stage 2. Restaurants here are still takeout and delivery only.Social distancing is still in effect. Staff must wear personal protective equipment (PPE), and restaurants will need to keep customer contact details.

Ryan Mallough, Ontario regional director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says CFIB restaurant members are in a tough situation and they hope enforcement of the new guidelines wont be too harsh.

Our members are hoping that there will be some flexibility. And that governments realize that what might work for a white tablecloth spot with 100 seats might not work for a hole in the wall joint, said Mallough.

For Alan Liu, whose family has run Salad King, a popular downtown Thai restaurant, for more than 30 years, the fact that the GTA is lagging behind the rest of the province is less concerning than knowing his place will only be able to open at half capacity.

It is what it is. Were a denser area, so I understand the delay. And frankly, Id need more time anyway. Im getting PPE, Im installing Plexiglas, said Liu of the Yonge and Dundas mainstay, long a favourite of Ryerson students and others in the area.

The dilemma he and other restaurant owners face is a simple one to understand, but not easy to solve, Liu said.

I need to be at 70 per cent capacity to make money, but I cant keep staff or customers safe properly if were above 50 per cent, said Liu, adding that Salad King is bringing in between 15 and 20 per cent of the revenue it did at this time last year via takeout and delivery.

And Liu worries some customers might push back against providing their contact information.

In some places which are doing this, people are more used to handing over their information. Canadians can be kind of reluctant, because theyre more worried about their privacy, said Liu.

Todd Morgan, who runs Gerrard Streets Easts Maple Leaf Tavern, is eager to welcome customers onto his 50-seat patio and eventually inside the restaurant. But covering the bills wont be easy under the new guidelines.

Its a snorkel, but well still be underwater, said Morgan, who also owns Port Restaurant in Pickering.

Morgan owns the Gerrard Street building that houses the Maple Leaf Tavern. However, he took out a loan on his home to finance the purchase and extensive renovations the building needed so he needs the restaurant to be as full as possible as often as possible to make it financially viable.

We need to be high occupancy for five to seven days a week. Were not a street-front quick-service restaurant, said Morgan.

Still, he understands why some restrictions are necessary, and doesnt mind a slight delay in the reopening of patios and dining room.

Obviously health is paramount, he said. A bit more time to prepare isnt a bad thing.

He expects most restaurant owners whove hung on until now will at least give opening under the new guidelines a shot when theyre allowed to open. But how long theyll last is another question altogether.

A lot of places are really going to struggle. My biggest fear is that well eventually open again and that governments will assume everythings fine, he said.

It wont be back to normal in this industry for a long time.
(Newser)  As company after company puts out ads and sends out emails expressing their support for black Americans in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Forbes notes that some, especially in the tech world, have been slammed for being all talk, no action. Twitter is looking to separate itself from that pack, with a big announcement from CEO Jack Dorsey: The company will be making Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19 to mark the end of slavery, a holiday for its US employees "forevermore," Dorsey said in a Tuesday tweet. It will be "a day for celebration, education, and connection," he added. The holiday will be observed at Square as well, where Dorsey also serves as CEO. In other countries where similar days of emancipation are celebrated, Dorsey tweeted, "We will do the work to make those dates company holidays everywhere we are present."

story continues below

The day commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers freed slaves in Galveston, Texasmore than two years after Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamationand informed them the Civil War had ended, per the New York Times. The paper notes 47 states already recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday, and that there's been a push to make Juneteenth a national holiday as well, but it's been held up in Congress. Dorsey weighed in on that initiative, too. "Agreed," he responded on Twitter after someone mentioned that possibility. Cornell University professor Noliwe Rooks tells the Times the holiday isn't well-known outside of the black community, and that it's not common for a company with mainly white employees to celebrate it. "Like a shock, change has come," she says, adding "we will ... have to look beyond the ease of their words today" to see if "concrete" action continues. (Read more Twitter stories.)
A federal judge Tuesday night backed up Mayor Ted Wheelers restrictions on the Portland police use of tear gas with a 14-day court order barring the launching of the riot-control agent except when a life is at risk.

U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandezs ruling came after he heard just over an hour of argument earlier in the day and watched video evidence of recent protests in the city.

The nonprofit Dont Shoot Portland and two protesters on Friday sued the city, seeking to ban the Portland police use of tear gas to disperse large crowds of demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man killed by a Minneapolis officer who pinned him to the ground with a knee to his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The judge found that protesters who sued "engaged only in peaceful and non-destructive protest,'' with no record of criminal activity.

"To the contrary, there is even evidence that some protesters were confronted with tear gas while trying to follow police orders and leave the demonstrations, the judge wrote in a 10-page ruling. Given the effects of tear gas, and the potential deadly harm posed by the spread of COVID-19, Plaintiffs have established a strong likelihood that Defendant engaged in excessive force contrary to the Fourth Amendment.

Hernandez ruled that the protesters who sued demonstrated a threat of immediate, irreparable harm in the absence of a temporary court order, showed they were likely to succeed on their claim of excessive force by police and also raised a serious question as to whether their free speech rights were violated.

Calling this a significant moment in time, the judge wrote, The public has an enormous interest in the rights of peaceful protesters to assemble and express themselves. These rights are critical to our democracy. The community, however, also has an interest in allowing the police to do their jobs and to protect lives as well as property. Here, there is evidence that officers have violated the constitutional rights of peaceful protestors, as well as their own departments internal directives and guidelines. Limiting the use of tear gas may mean that officers are unable to stop some property damage. But the unconstrained use of tear gas cannot weigh in the publics interest when this use is likely to exacerbate the transmission of COVID-19, for those engaged in peaceful protest as well as the community at large.

Despite the mayors restrictions issued Saturday, the judge found that the city did not provide sufficient evidence that Wheelers directive "will be effective in preventing'' police use of the CS gas against peaceful protesters.

By issuing a 14-day temporary restraining order, the plaintiffs will be able to return to court to report any violations.

"The Court therefore orders that PPB be restricted from using tear gas or its equivalent except as provided by its own rules generally,'' the judge wrote.

"In addition, tear gas use shall be limited to situations in which the lives or safety of the public or the police are at risk. This includes the lives and safety of those housed at the Justice Center. Tear gas shall not be used to disperse crowds where there is no or little risk of injury.''

The order will expire unless the court extends or dismisses it.

Hernandezs ruling comes four days after a federal judge in Colorado ordered Denver police not to use tear gas, plastic bullets and other less-than-lethal force such as flash grenades against protesters, unless approved by a senior officer in response to specific acts of violence.

During the hearing earlier in the day before Hernandez, an attorney for Dont Shoot Portland argued that the indiscriminate police firing of tear gas on crowds of nonviolent protesters scattering blocks away from the Justice Center is unconstitutional and should be banned.

If this court does not act, it is a certainty the police will use tear gas against protesters again,'' attorney Jesse Merrithew said.

City attorneys countered that the mayor already limited the Police Bureaus use of tear gas, directing that police not use it unless there is a serious and immediate threat to life safety with no other viable alternative available for dispersing violent demonstrators.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in demonstrations in Portland and around the world, protesting police brutality and systemic racism since Floyds death.

Portlands Deputy City Attorney Naomi Sheffield told the judge she didnt believe the Police Bureau had fired any CS gas, a kind of tear gas, since the mayors directive. Police have launched smoke or OC gas, similar to pepper spray, she said.

The Police Bureaus directives already significantly restrict the use of tear gas, she said. An incident commander must authorize its use and only after officers have declared an unlawful disturbance and given repeated warnings for people to disperse with an adequate path or exit route. The bureau directives also require that no other alternative is available, according to the police. If theres a violation, each use should be examined separately and not result in a flat-out ban on the riot-control gas, Sheffield said.

Merrithew contends police have been using the tear gas to retaliate against protesters who have been rallying for the city to defund many of the officers jobs in violation of their First Amendment right to free speech and assembly.

Sheffield dismissed that argument, noting how the city has allowed thousands of peaceful protesters who have shared that same rallying cry to descend nightly upon the city without police intervention.

The city has significantly limited the level of police intervention to all of the protests going on the last week and a half as demonstrators have marched throughout city streets, across bridges and on the freeway, as occurred Monday night, the city attorney said.

The city would prefer not to use any force or the least force necessary, Sheffield told the court. But police need to ensure the safety of about 250 people housed in the Multnomah County Detention Center in the downtown Justice Center and about 70 county sheriffs employees who work there, she said, as well as police from various agencies and fire medics stationed to protect the building and the lives inside it.

Some in the crowd have been throwing rocks, bottles, soup cans, bricks and fireworks at officers over a fence at the Justice Center, she said.

Since some people broke the windows and threw a flare inside the Justice Center, setting a records room on fire, the city and county rented and had installed two fences around the building to prevent such vandalism and property damage from reoccurring, Merrithew pointed out.

Neither the shaking of an outer fence or the throwing of projectiles over the fence by some demonstrators should warrant tear gas use that undoubtedly affects nonviolent protesters, particularly when it will cause coughing in the crowd and increase the risk of the spread of the coronavirus, Merrithew said.

There are other available methods for police to respond to that,'' he said. "For instance, just backing up. He said thats what officers did Monday night and there were few confrontations.

Police arent simply able to separate and pluck out the agitators from the crowd, Sheffield said.

The idea that you can just run in and grab problem people out is just not viable, she said. Thats why police give repeated warnings to nonviolent demonstrators to leave an area before any gas is fired, she said.

It seems to me many of the plaintiffs were trying to get away when all this was happening,'' said Hernandez, who has reviewed video evidence provided by each side. "Chaos was happening and tear gas deployed was making it difficult for them to escape the area.

Sheffield said the city is fully supportive of peaceful protests.

The city is not always perfect in its response to protests, she said. We ask the court not to take the unprecedented step of entirely eliminating this tool, which in limited circumstances, is the safest way to stop people in a crowd who have engaged in significant criminal activity.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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Australia's Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann speaks during a press conference in Sydney in this file image. Cormann received donations from Chinese Communist Party-linked businessman Huang Xiangmo. (William West/AFP/Getty Images)

Australia Rejects Beijings Student Warning

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has rubbished Chinas claims of a rise in racism targeting Asian students as Beijing warned against studying in Australia.

China has warned students not to travel to Australia as relations between the two nations deteriorate further.

The warning follows a similar directive to Chinese tourists, and trade strikes on Australian beef and barley.

Chinas education ministry warned students of multiple incidents of discrimination targeting people of Asian descent.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann rejected claims of a rise in racist attacks.

Australia is a successful multicultural society, we are a welcoming country and we encourage all potential students who are considering higher education in a foreign country to come to Australia, he said on Wednesday.

Acting Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge acknowledged there were some instances of racism against people of Asian descent, but said they were the actions of a tiny minority of cowardly idiots.

Its not the Australian way and I dont think it is by any stretch of the imagination the Australian norm, he told Sky News.

Beijings warning could deal a heavy blow to Australias education sector, which is heavily dependent on Chinese students.

Vicki Thomson from the Group of Eight universities described the Chinese statement as disappointing.

Our duty of care extends to all of our students, domestic and international, and never more so at this time whilst we are in the middle of a global pandemic, she said.

Australia and our universities remain safe destinations for all of our students.

The Go8 is absolutely committed to our international students and to maintaining a positive and collaborative relationship with China, but statements such as this do make things more difficult at an already difficult time.

Thomson encouraged students to do their own research.

We look forward to being able to welcome them back to our campuses as soon as the Australian governments health advice indicates that we can, she said.

University chiefs have reportedly spoken to the Chinese embassy and been told there are no concerns about racist attacks against Asian students.

China has targeted several Australian export industries after the Morrison government led calls for an independent inquiry into the origins of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham is trying desperately to calm the diplomatic tensions but has been ignored by his Chinese counterpart for more than a month.

Australia and China wont agree on everything and we dont agree on everything, but we want and have a constructive partnership, he told 2GB radio.

By Daniel McCulloch
For the past few weeks, headlines about ongoing acts of racism, police brutality and protests have trended in the news and on social media. These stories, along with those that detail the impact of today's pandemic, have had a huge impact on our mental and emotional state at work and at home. For many black Americans, these tragic headlines often lead to ongoing mental health issues that experts categorize as racial trauma. "Racial trauma," according to marriage and family therapist Dr. George James, "is the physical and psychological impact, and sometimes symptoms, on people of color who have experienced racism." This includes seeing and hearing about the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others. It also includes feeling and experiencing injustices in everyday life through the microaggressions black people face inside and outside of work. "An accumulation of all of this," he tells CNBC Make It, "creates racial trauma." Below, James and counseling psychologist Dr. Candice Nicole detail four ways for coping with racial trauma amid today's exhausting news.

Crowds gather for a Black Lives Matter rally in Washington Square Park on June 6, 2020 in New York. Noam Galai | Getty Images

1. Recognize the personal impact of these stressors

One of the first steps to knowing how to cope and deal with racial trauma is to first identify how these experiences are impacting you personally. According to Nicole, experiencing or seeing ongoing acts of racism can impact you on a mental, emotional and physical level. On the mental level, she says, you may experience racing thoughts, a lack of concentration or an internalized sense of racism where you consciously or unconsciously accept the idea that white people are superior to people of color. If you experience any of these symptoms, then Nicole says writing down your thoughts and journaling can be a huge help. "It doesn't have to be pages long," she clarifies, "unless you want it to be. [But] just jotting down a few words to capture what you're thinking is enough." For individuals who have emotional reactions to these experiences, such as symptoms of sadness, anger, fear, hopelessness or numbness, Nicole says "talking to a loved one who will allow you to be vulnerable may be helpful." And, James adds that talking to a spiritual mentor or therapist can also be useful. For someone who has a physical reaction where they feel muscle tension, their heart racing or moments of fatigue, Nicole says stretching, exercising, dancing or doing some form of physical movement will help you to release energy in a healthy way.

2. Meditate

Regardless of the symptoms you develop from racial stressors, Nicole says meditation can be a great coping tool for anyone. In 2016, she created the Black Lives Matter Meditation for Healing Racial Trauma, which is a 17-minute guided meditation that uses mindfulness, affirmation and metta (loving kindness) to "address the multiple ways racism can target black people's well-being." She created the meditation after the 2016 deaths of Philando Castile, a black man who was fatally shot by a police officer in Minnesota, and Alton Sterling, a black man who was fatally shot by police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Following these incidents, Nicole says, "I felt both grief and the need to do something about it." "My hope is that people don't simply use [the meditation] to heal and deal with racism," she says. "I want them to use it to prevent racial trauma and racial battle fatigue, so they can continue working to dismantle systems of racial oppression."

Twenty/20

3. Be honest with others about how you're feeling

During a time like today when friends and colleagues are checking in to see how you're coping with the current news, James and Nicole agree that it's important for you to be honest about your feelings. "If you have trusted colleagues, let them know you're feeling emotionally spent so they can rightsize their expectations about how much you should produce during this time," says Nicole, while adding that you should feel encouraged to also take breaks throughout the day when needed. James adds that in addition to receiving the help and space you need, speaking up about how you're feeling can also help your colleagues to realize how much of an impact certain events can have. "The hard part is that sometimes people at work, or anywhere really, will feel like what they are experiencing other people do not value as real," he says, which can lead to some people feeling like they don't have the room to take time off to heal. That's why, James says, being honest about your emotional and mental health at work and at home can lead to you receiving the time and space needed to "really recharge."

4. Take time to unplug
The 'arrogant' Queensland government is ignoring the desperate pleas of local businesses to reopen the state's borders, Karl Stefanovic said.

The Today presenter slammed Annastacia Palaszczuk on the show on Wednesday morning, saying the behaviour of her officials 'defies belief'.

She prompted fury on Tuesday by claiming the state's border closures have not caused hardship for businesses, saying she was determined to keep them shut.

'This is about arrogance,' the presenter said.

'Ive never seen this before from a public official. It defies belief to me, and more importantly reality.'

Queensland senator Matt Canavan agreed, accusing the government of disregarding the will of the people.

'This is just arguing against the absolutely bloody obvious,' he said.

'And what is really concerning is not just that arrogance, but the Queensland government listening to the people.'

In Surfers Paradise, the co-owner of Italian restaurant Costa D'Oro, Nuccia Fusco (pictured) has slammed the government for refusing to lift restrictions, which would bring back tourists

The insistence on keeping the state border shut is despite no new COVID-19 community cases being recorded in all of Australia overnight, with any new confirmed patients coming in from overseas.

Some business owners are challenging the state's hard border closure in the High Court, arguing the measure is 'irrational' and causing them 'financial harm'.

But the state government on Tuesday refuted the claims in documents filed to the court, saying it 'does not admit' financial hardships are directly related to border closures.

Gold Coast Central Chamber of Commerce president Martin Hall said he was astonished by the state government's defence.

'That is possibly the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard,' he told The Gold Coast Bulletin.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (pictured) has come under heavy criticism for her decision to keep the Queensland border closed

A Queensland police officer is seen patrolling the QLD-NSW state border on the Pacific Highway on April 15 (pictured) with only essential travel allowed

The stunning development comes after Ms Palaszczuk publicly acknowledged the impact border closures would have on the state's $12 billion tourism industry on May 19.

'It has been heartbreaking to make tough but unavoidable decisions; for example, the decision to close our borders and place hard restrictions on the industry knowing they would hurt,' she said.

'While at the same time understanding they were absolutely critical to save lives.'

Ms Palaszczuk's refusal to open the border goes against the advice of federal health experts and despite the pleas of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

It has earned her comparisons to fellow Labor premier Daniel Andrews, who is accused of holding back the economy by relaxing rules too slowly in Victoria.

Waiters at Costa D'Oro in Surfers Paradise (pictured) are simply happy to be back at work - even though they can't work at full capacity yet

Demonstrators at the Sydney Black Lives Matter protest on June 6 (pictured) which has prompted fury as other coronavirus restrictions remain in place

CORONAVIRUS CASES IN AUSTRALIA: 27,244 Victoria: 20,269 New South Wales: 4,273 Queensland: 1,161 Western Australia: 692 South Australia: 473 Tasmania: 230 Australian Capital Territory: 113 Northern Territory: 33 TOTAL CASES: 27,244 ESTIMATED ACTIVE CASES: 269 DEATHS: 897 Updated: 5.31 PM, 11 October, 2020 Source: Australian Government Department of Health Advertisement

While Victoria's Liberal opposition has dubbed him 'Chairman Dan' - after former Chinese Communist Party leader Chairman Mao - Ms Palaszczuk has been mocked as 'Comrade Anna' by some of her critics.

Sydney lawyer Guy Reynolds SC, who is representing the businesses in the High Court, said the border closure was 'irrational' and had possibly been made for an 'improper purpose'.

'There were irrelevant factors taken into account and a failure to take into account relevant factors,' he told the High Court last Thursday, according to The Australian.

Mr Reynolds argued the closure was discriminatory, because restrictions on non-residents of Queensland were tougher than on those who lived there.

But the Palszczuk government said the health risks of a second COVID-19 outbreak is too great a threat to the state.

'The purpose of the border restriction direction is to protect persons within Queensland from the health risks associated with COVID-19,' their defence document stated.

Australia recorded zero new locally acquired cases of coronavirus on Tuesday for the first time since the peak of the pandemic, with two new cases in NSW identified as returned travellers who remain holed up in quarantine hotels.

Nuccia Fusco (pictured left and right), co-owner of Italian restaurant Costa D'Oro in Surfers Paradise, said she believes her business should be able to operate at full capacity

While the milestone is great news for the nation, it is little comfort for businesses if it doesn't result in restrictions being eased.

Nuccia Fusco, co-owner of Italian restaurant Costa D'Oro in Surfers Paradise, told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday night the lack of interstate traffic and gathering restrictions had crippled her business since they closed their doors on March 23.

Poll Should restaurants be able to trade as normal across Australia? Yes No Should restaurants be able to trade as normal across Australia? Yes 1004 votes

No 209 votes Now share your opinion





'Restaurants should be working together and demanding change... I think that will happen very soon,' Ms Fusco said.

Ms Fusco hopes strength in numbers will encourage state governments to reassess current measures.

'I'm meeting with a group of restaurateurs and bar owners tomorrow to start a Facebook group to give us a voice,' she said.

Ms Palaszczuk has faced increased calls to completely reopen her state by the July school holidays to inject much needed funds into the economy.

'It's not good for the economy, particularly as we go into this next school holiday season. Those tourism businesses need that support,' prime minister Scott Morrison previously said.

'So those individual states, they'll have to justify those decisions themselves because it wasn't something that came out of national cabinet.'

The New South Wales government released these statistics about the current coronavirus figures in the state

Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham also previously said the state was more reliant on tourism than most others in Australia, and would haemorrhage money.

'Tourism businesses currently have no choice and no access to international visitors, and if we also leave them with no access to interstate visitors, then they're going to be bleeding in terms of viability and job losses for a long time,' he said.

Even though Queensland's borders remain shut, the premier has encouraged intrastate travel and on Saturday did not ban Black Lives Matter rallies.

Restaurant owner Ms Fusco explained that watching 60,000 people gather to attend Black Lives Matter protests throughout the nation - blatantly disregarding social distancing measures - was 'horrifying'.

'I was horrified. Three months of our hard work was just taken for granted,' she said. 'If this is allowed, we should be allowed the same thing and have as many people as we want in the restaurant.'

The protest in Sydney (pictured on June 6) was allowed, then banned, then allowed once again - and tens of thousands eventually showed up

Instead, her restaurant turns away upwards of 100 loyal customers in a night because of restrictions allowing only 50 patrons at a time.

Ms Fusco said maybe they would receive more leniency from the government if they staged a protest.

'I've been thinking well maybe the restaurant and all the other operators should do something, put up signs and have a protest day so we can have as many people as we want too. This does make you want to rebel when you see all these other people getting away with it... Why can't we do the same thing?' she asked.

Ms Fusco said she was set to defy the restrictions and allow more than 50 people in her restaurant this weekend, but her husband talked her out of breaking the rules, for now.

Weddings have been restricted to just 20 people in New South Wales and Victoria. Above, a wedding of just five on Sydney Harbour, at the height of the pandemic (pictured on March 28)

While she considered breaking the rules, Ms Fusco said in all honestly, she couldn't afford to pay the fine if she were caught.

'As much as I'd love to ignore the government restrictions and open for more customers, we can't afford the fine. I'm not even sure how much it would be but after three months of no money we can't afford to pay,' she said.

Instead, she said her family is praying the government will reconsider restrictions and allow them to reopen at full capacity soon.

'We're being far more careful [than the protesters]. We're sanitising and distancing... they should lift restrictions and we should get much more freedom,' she said.

Ms Fusco isn't alone in demanding change following nationwide protests last week.

People walk along Surfers Paradise beach on April 7 (pictured) after residents were warned they could not sunbake or loiter on the sand to avoid spreading coronavirus

Curzon Hall (pictured) is one of five venues owned by Navarra Venues and will be open for unlimited guests by July

On Monday night, Sal Navarra, the CEO of five prime wedding venues in Sydney under the Navarra Venues umbrella, including Le Montage and Curzon Hall, said he would ignore government advice following Saturday's Black Lives Matter protests.

Photos taken at the rallies appear to show people ignoring social distancing policies as they crammed into tight spaces and marched through the cities.

Mr Navarra said it was untenable to continue to disappoint his brides - some of whom book their dream dates years in advance - while the government was allowing so many people to attend demonstrations without punishment.

He said his business would reopen as normal in as little as three weeks.

'From July, we are reopening,' he said. 'Reopening to any numbers. Yes we will implement social distancing, but we don't want to deal with upset clients anymore.

'It is not fair on them... The government allowed 15,000 or 20,000 people to gather.'

The sunshine state was quick to lock down the border to stem the spread of the deadly respiratory virus (pictured, a traffic block at the NSW-QLD border on March 26)

Border closure HASN'T impacted businesses, Queensland government argue Lawyers representing the Queensland government do not believe the state's strict border policy has been harmful to local business. Six plaintiffs have accused the government of implementing unnecessary and harmful policies to limit the spread of coronavirus. In particular, they have argued in the High Court that the Queensland government has gone beyond federal recommendations to stem the spread of the deadly respiratory infection. They claim to have experienced financial hardship at the hands of the government. Sydney barrister Guy Reynolds SC is representing the group, and told the High Court on Tuesday the decision was 'irrational'. But the Queensland government is defending the decision to close borders for the safety of locals. 'The purpose of the border restriction direction is to protect persons within Queensland from the health risks associated with COVID-19,' the defence argued. Gold Coast Central Chamber of Commerce president Martin Hall described the defence as 'ludicrous'. Advertisement

The rules currently state just 20 people can attend a wedding in New South Wales - an increase from just five (including the bride and groom) at the height of the pandemic.

Mr Navarra said he predicts there will not be a spike in coronavirus cases despite the close proximity of demonstrators this weekend.

'If my predictions are correct, then we will reopen as usual on the 1st, 7th or 15th of July,' he said.

Though a spokesman for the business on Tuesday said any brides and grooms choosing to go ahead during the pandemic would be doing so at their own risk.

Police would have the power to break up the event and distribute fines of up to $5,000 if they believed guests were flouting restrictions.

Curzon Hall (pictured) is one of five venues owned by Navarra Venues and will be open for unlimited guests by July

For bride-to-be Casey Girdham, 26, and her 24-year-old fiance Mitchell Coleman, the fine would be worth the risk.

'I'm over the moon someone has finally stood up to the government for us brides,' Ms Girdham told The Australian.

'The government has no right to keep telling us what to do. Our guests should be allowed to attend our wedding if they understand the risk. Even my sick grandparents would go, they wouldn't miss it for the world.'

Mr Navarra joked he would consider 'holding a rally with all the brides' to convince the government to ease restrictions.

A nurse is seen testing a woman for COVID-19 at a testing centre in Sydney on May 12 (pictured) as the country continues its fight against the coronavirus

There are currently just 445 active cases of COVID-19 in Australia, including just two people in intensive care.

So far, 6,720 people have recovered in Australia, while 102 people have died from the virus.

This week, just seven cases of COVID-19 were acquired locally - six in Victoria and one in Queensland, but health authorities nationwide are on high alert to see if cases spike following the Black Lives Matter protests.

'We don't know if anyone in those mass gatherings were infected or infectious, and so it is a wait-and-see approach,' Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said on Sunday.
As pundits and politicians grapple with Donald Trumps conspiracy theory about an on-camera police assault in New York state, his former rival Hillary Clinton has taken her chance to mock him over the theorys origins.

The theory that Mr Trump propagated by tweet this week holds that an elderly man pushed violently to the ground by two police officers at a protest in Buffalo, New York was not a peaceful protester, but a radical anti-fascist provocateur using a scanner to thwart the police and foment violence.

I watched, he fell harder than was pushed, wrote the president. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up? Mr Trump has attributed these unsubstantiated claims to a segment on far-right network OANN  a little-viewed news channel, sympathetic to the president, that is known to traffic in false stories flattering Russian government interests.

And when MSNBCs Kyle Griffin pointed out that the OANN journalist behind the Buffalo segment is also long-associated with the Kremlin-owned Sputnik News, Ms Clinton dropped a tweet with three simple words: You dont say.

Any Russian association with the Antifa/scanner theory is unflattering for the president, not least given his repeated assertions that he, his family, and his political apparatus have no connection to Russian agents or influencers.

Recommended Buffalo cops who shoved elderly protester charged with assault

Others on the right are trying to cleanse all evidence of such connections, from a Senate inquiry into Robert Muellers Russia investigation to the Justice Departments move to clear Mike Flynn of lying to the FBI.

Ms Clinton has many times warned of the prospect of Russian meddling in the 2020 election, including in an interview last year when she claimed a woman in the Democratic primary  widely assumed to be Tulsi Gabbard  was the favourite of the Russians, and that Green Party candidate Jill Stein is a Russian asset.

The former presidential nominee has herself famously been the target of myriad conspiracy theories for more than two decades, and a flurry of new ones emerged to her detriment during the 2016 campaign.

Among them were stories that she and her husband had had scores of people murdered for crossing them, that she was involved in child sexual abuse ring run out of the basement of a Washington pizza restaurant, and that she had died and been replaced by the Democratic Party with a body double.

These claims, and many others like them, have been debunked.
Neom is the smart-city centerpiece of Saudi Arabias Vision 2030 plan to grow and diversify its economy. Located in the countrys north-west, covering an area roughly the size of Belgium, the project  actually a cluster of several towns and cities  will be developed from the ground up and incorporate multiple levels of security.

Mike Loginov, Neoms CISO (chief information security officer), is undertaking the colossal task of building an intelligent and reliable security system for the project. Neom is one of a growing number of major smart city initiatives in the Middle East that is leading to adoption of IoT networking and related technology, including machine learning and 5G mobile platforms.

Smart cities integrate these emerging technologies to monitor and control infrastructure and the flow of data, with the goal of improving the standard of living for residents.

Smart cities, though, potentially offer many different avenues of attack for hackers. Loginovs job is to ensure that the operational technologies, along with the millions of IoT devices at the core of the project, are developed with built-in security that can repel potential threats.

In a career spanning over three decades, the former security engineer from the U.K. has led the cybersecurity programs of several high-profile companies, including HP.

As the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and geopolitical tensions in the Middle-East increase the risk of cyber threats, Loginov talks about his strategy for Neom, while offering advice to regional entrepreneurs and CISOs working on other smart city projects in the Gulf region.

Can you explain from end-to-end the processes that will be put into place to make Neom a secure smart city?

One objective is to have well-trained cybersecurity teams, innovative, integrated and proactive defense technology coupled with smart processes across the whole region. The geography makes this a significant challenge, but we will make Neom one of the most attractive and safe places to live and work in the world.

For example, on arrival at the airport visitors will walk straight through our digital borders, no queues, no waiting for your suitcases as they will be delivered direct to your smart home or hotel. Communication devices will connect directly into our secure digital air. No need to visit the ATM as Neom will be a completely cashless society. An advanced Founding Law reflects the needs of the digital enabled citizen, putting control for personal data and data privacy back in the hands of the individual.

What are the challenges involved in building a formidable cybersecurity system for a project of Neoms magnitude?

This is the first large-scale urban project that will have been designed and built in an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) digital era. There is no legacy infrastructure around, which is highly advantageous. We select our vendors carefully. To become one of Neoms trusted suppliers, vendors will need to show they understand and share our security ethic, allow us to test critical infrastructure beforehand and are prepared to contractually warrant that their applications and platforms are fit for deployment.

Neom will feature new operational technologies and sophisticated IoT capabilities; where do you see the greatest number of vulnerabilities?

Although Neom will be completely new from the beginning, the volume and diversity of devices is probably the biggest area of concern. Neom will be built using operational technologies (OT) with millions of IoT devices at the core of its infrastructure. One fascinating aspect of being part of the NEOM team is the level of creativity one encounters almost on a daily basis. My role is to ensure that these concepts and new innovations are developed with baked-in security.

There are planned smart cities all over the Middle East at this point, be it UAE, Oman or Kuwait  what is the advice you would like to share with the engineers and entrepreneurs working on those projects from a cybersecurity standpoint?

I would anticipate that engineers across the region are for the most part aware of the cybersecurity risks that may impact their designs and plans. The concepts of Security by Design and Security by Default are common currency now and cybersecurity is a core element of master planning for smart cities.

For entrepreneurs there are evolving examples of innovation, many evident in Neom, that address varying levels of security. One example we are exploring is the establishment of Trusted Digital Enclaves. This is an architecture where a blend of legal and technology solutions can greatly enhance the security and resilience of the critical infrastructure that makes the city work improving livability. In cities in which technology is part of the urban fabric, it is critical to remember that cybersecurity matters at every level of commercial or public services.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are battling coronavirus by promoting more remote working and e-learning; at the same time, concerns are growing that this will leave digital infrastructure vulnerable to cyber-attacks/breaches  what can organizations do to secure their infrastructure?

Remote workers need to understand that they have a responsibility to follow company policy and guidelines to protect their organisation and ultimately their jobs. Most organizations understand and recognize that the first line of defense is their people, so risk awareness training remains important, but supported with well configured and layered technological back-up. Security essentials such as multi factor authentication (MFA), encryption and deploying the capability to access the corporate network via a virtual private network (VPN) all help to make it more difficult for adversaries to breach security protocols.

Incidents of cyberattacks have been increasing in the MENA region especially on crucial national infrastructure. Have these events caused you to re-think your strategy for Neom?

All applications, platforms and systems that Neom will purchase will need suppliers and vendors to warrant that their offerings have been built and tested with cybersecurity risk in mind and with security by default. Working with our Technology & Digital teams at NEOM, our CNI (critical national infrastructure) capabilities will require independent testing and certifications from bodies approved by the NEOM CISO Office and NEOM Cybersecurity Authority before deployment.

Are you facing issues in procuring resources, for example developer talent, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down economies?

There was a global shortage of cybersecurity talent and skills before the shutdowns. We have established partnerships with authorities, universities and other educational bodies to develop a pool of talent that will meet NEOMs needs. We have started a Neom certified training program for 100 new cybersecurity specialists through Tabuk University and the Neom Academy, the intention is to certify and train hundreds more.

It is too early to determine exactly what the implications of the pandemic shutdowns will be. However, most users are aware that the internet can present a risky environment. Existing products and services do little to remedy or cure the problems cyber-attacks pose as organizations continue to suffer high profile breaches and data privacy continues to deteriorate.
The official U.S. presidential residence, famously known as the White House, has been obscured by posters plastered on barricades surrounding it, to keep out protesters who have been gathering there following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, in police custody. (VOA)
As for the body cameras, Irvin said the city started looking into body cameras for police officers last year. With the new initiative, city officials will move the process along by releasing a request for information by the end of June. The request will give companies 30 days to respond with information about the successful deployment and operation of the body cameras.
Adia Josephson, a 38-year-old black voter in the Brookhaven area just outside Atlanta, waited more than two hours to vote but wasnt about to let the long lines stop her. Problems with voting machines and long lines must be corrected before the next election, she said. Theres no room for error," she said. "Theres a lot to gain and a lot to lose.
[June 10, 2020] Qatar Donates $1 Million to Miami-Dade Community Organizations Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Today, Qatar's Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, announced a $1,000,0000 contribution to six Miami-Dade nonprofit organizations that are providing relief to Florida residents during the coronavirus outbreak. Farm Share Florida, Best Buddies International, United Way of Miami-Dade, Hospitality Employees Advancement & Training's (HEAT) COVID Relief Fund, Meals for Heroes and Seniors in Action COVID19 Relief Food Distribution received funds to continue their efforts to provide food security and support struggling families facing unemployment and other challenges amid this unprecedented time. "The People of Qatar are committed to working with local officials and community leaders to ensure that the citizens most affected by the COVID-19 crisis receive the support they need," said Qatar's Ambassador to the United States, Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani. "We have a history of partnership with the state of Florida and are invested in the health and strength of the people of Miami." The State of Qatar chose these impactful organizations as they are providing invaluable resources and services to the Miami-Dade community and beyond. Each organization provides assistance to different populations in need that have been significantly impacted during this time, including food-insecure Floridians, individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), the hospitality industry workforce and low-income senior citizens. "The hel the people of Qatar are providing to a number of local organizations is incredibly vital and important for our residents," City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said. "These are hard times for our community and any support will ease the pain many families are living today."



City of Miami Commission Chairman Keon Hardemon added, "The residents of Overtown and the greater Miami community are appreciative of the support that Qatar is providing to assist in developing their skills to gain meaningful employment. HEAT is on the frontlines of supporting our community to become economically empowered and this support furthers that mission." Florida has seen the largest increase in unemployment claims in the country since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.1 Miami, in particular, saw its unemployment rate jump by more than 100% from January to March.2 Prior to the outbreak, 12.5 percent of Floridians already struggled with hunger and food insecurity, 3 a number that has certainly grown larger during this time.

"The support the people of Qatar are providing during these challenging times is critically important and very welcome news for our community," said City of Miami Beach Commissioner David Richardson (News - Alert). "I've seen firsthand how too many families are anxious and worried about basic needs like food, and the funds provided today are going to organizations that are at the forefront of feeding and helping the families most in need." "The support provided to these local Miami-Dade organizations will go a long way in helping families during these trying times," noted City of Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber. Former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine added, "I am very grateful to the people of Qatar for supporting Miami-Dade County and a group of area nonprofits who are collectively leading relief efforts for our community. It's truly wonderful to coordinate relief aid for these great local organizations who are at the forefront of providing much-needed support to families facing real challenges." Qatar has deep and substantial economic ties to the Greater-Miami area and is invested in the wellbeing of Florida as a whole. In 2018, the first Qatar-Miami business forum was held as the first stop on a U.S. tour, with the largest-ever delegation of Qatari government and business representatives to visit Florida. In December 2019, 16 University of Florida students were invited to attend the Doha Forum in Qatar, which addresses a wide array of globally-focused topics and promotes dialogue, exchange of ideas and collaborative solutions. Executives from Farm Share, Best Buddies International, United Way of Miami-Dade and Hospitality Employees Advancement Training expressed their thanks for this gift from the people of Qatar: "Families in South Florida are facing real food insecurities. The aid provided by the people of Qatar is very welcome at a time when Farm Share is in need of monetary resources to continue to provide life sustaining food to hungry families, children, seniors and individuals in need. We are immensely grateful for the resources donated to Farm Share." --Stephen Shelley, President & CEO of Farm Share "On behalf of the South Florida community, I want to thank the people of Qatar for their unwavering support during these incredibly challenging times for individuals with disabilities and their families. The aid provided will help support Best Buddies' efforts to secure jobs for people with special needs who are currently unemployed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and also ensure that our mission of inclusion continues to thrive." --Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Best Buddies International's Founder "With over half of our community's households already struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic, the economic and health impacts of Covid-19 have only deepened the needs across Miami-Dade County. The generous support of the people of Qatar is needed now more than ever and will provide much needed emergency assistance and relief to families in our community through the Miami Pandemic Response Fund." --Maria C. Alonso, President & CEO of United Way of Miami-Dade "We are immensely grateful to the people of Qatar for the support during these truly difficult times. The hospitality industry in South Florida has been hit especially hard with the crisis and the support we are receiving to the HEAT fund will ensure families are able to better weather the storm. On behalf of the thousands of families who this support will benefit, we share our deepest gratitude for the aid." --Kandiz Lamb, Director of Hospitality Employees Advancement Training (HEAT) and Miami resident About the Embassy of Qatar to the United States The Embassy of Qatar in Washington, D.C. houses Qatar's diplomatic mission to the United States. The primary purposes of the Embassy of Qatar are to highlight Qatar's policies on regional issues, strengthen Qatar-U.S. bilateral relations and to assist Qatari citizens who travel or live in the U.S. The current Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the United States of America is His Excellency Sheikh Meshal Bin Hamad Al-Thani. __________________

1 Wallethub

2 US News & World Report

3 Feeding America View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005448/en/

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It appears fashionable among the liberal former military leaders in our country to speak out against President Trump's offer to use the armed forces to put down the street violence that the liberal leaders of many cities allowed to continue. Rioters, pillagers, looters, arsonists, murderers had overwhelmed the local law enforcement and were almost freely terrorizing the citizens of vast areas of our country, destroying public and private property, and killing or harming innocent citizens and peace officers  chaos. Alleging that their public denunciations of President Trump are intended for the good, why do these former military leaders appear exclusively in the liberal media outlets, and how will their opinions help quell and not enhance the chaos?

Sufficient ink has been spilled for the "Mad Dog" Mattis mouth-foaming idiocy in the leftist thinkers' publication the Atlantic. Other former military leaders have also provided their shallow understanding of the president's offer to quell the violence in places where the liberals would not. Retired general Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was interviewed on this topic by NPR and unsurprisingly shared the same houghts as the Mad Dog in his liberal media offering.

Let's go back in time and remember General Dempsey, nominated as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by then-president Obama. Let's remember this fierce defender of our country from the Benghazi fiasco. In a Senate hearing, Dempsey was asked by Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), why F-16s at Aviano Air Base in Italy weren't deployed to Benghazi that night. As recorded at the time, the General's response was as follows:

This is the middle of the night now, these are not aircraft on strip alert[.] ... They're there as part of our commitment to NATO and Europe. And so, as we looked at the time line, it was pretty clear that it would take up to 20 hours or so to get them there.

Our military touts itself for operating on honor, integrity, pride, "leave no man behind"type of high standards. This testimony from a military commander was disgraceful  apparent cover for his preferred political party's presidential administration.

It seems I can leave my home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and be touring Benghazi, Libya in approximately the same time it takes our military to respond to a terrorist attack. Based on the distance from the airbase in Italy to Benghazi, the flying time to Benghazi would appear to be about 1 hour for a fighter jet  a direct route from Italy's coast to Libya's coast over the Mediterranean Sea.

Not having the fearless military mind of General Dempsey, possessing only common sense, if we have military personnel, aircraft, and equipment approximately one hour's flying time away, it is inconceivable that it would take 19 hours of preparations to get a plane or planes into the air in order to account for his "20 hours to get them there scenario," regardless of the time of night or strip alert.

Response time being of the essence was known to the military and political decision-makers. Reports were coming from those on the ground, and a drone was circling overhead, recording all that was occurring on the ground. This general's apparent response to their dire situation at the Consulate...the military air base is an hour away, but we'll be there in 20 hours.

Somewhere in the entire Benghazi scandal was the disgusting stench of politics in our country, that had so permeated Washington that it had and has even seeped into our military. We expect as much from politicians, but not our military.

Is it any wonder who and what General Dempsey was and is all about in his interview by NPR regarding President Trump's offer to use the military to quell the violence? General Dempsey and his comrades in arms are another bit of sadness for our country as they busy themselves beclowning the military.
Security official who fled to Canada after MBS rise to power says his children were detained in March.

Western governments must demand that their ally Saudi Arabia release the children of a former top Saudi security official who fled to Canada after the crown prince took power three years ago, the family told the Financial Times.

The children of Saad Aljabri  daughter, Sarah, 20, and son, Omar, 21  were allegedly taken by Saudi security forces in March from their home in Riyadh and have not been heard from since, a son told the newspaper in a report published on Wednesday.

As a top interior minister official in the 2000s, Aljabri was a key figure in the fight against al-Qaeda and had close links with the US Central Intelligence Agency and the UKs MI6.

The family said Saudi authorities want Aljabri, 61, to return to the kingdom because he is an ally of potential rivals to powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has jailed perceived opponents in an anti-corruption drive that has seen many prominent Saudis imprisoned in recent years.

Its been three months and totally zero response from Saudi Arabia. We dont know whether they are dead or alive, another son, Khalid Aljabri, told the Financial Times about his sister and brother.

He called the detentions politically motivated and denied his father was involved in any corrupt activities while living in Saudi Arabia.

Used as hostages





The newspaper quoted Tim Rieser, senior foreign policy aide to US Senator Patrick Leahy, as saying members of Congress were concerned that these two young people have disappeared after being seized by Saudi security forces.

It appears that they are being used as hostages to try to coerce their father to return to Saudi Arabia, where his fate would be anybodys guess, said Rieser.

Prince Mohammeds crackdown has swept up dozens of potential political rivals, individuals accused of corruption, human rights activists, and figures posing no visible challenge to his hold on power.

In March, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, King Salmans brother, and the monarchs nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef were detained.

Bin Nayef was Aljabris boss at the interior ministry and was described as a close confidant. He was replaced as crown prince in June 2017 by MBS.

Break our silence

Analysts said the prominent arrests were a warning to any Saudi royals going against MBSs de facto rule.

The reason [for targeting the family] is Mohammed bin Salmans perception of my father as a threat, Khalid Aljabri said. It took us three years to break our silence and the reason we were silent was because of my dads service.

Aljabri earlier attempted to get his children out of Saudi Arabia, but authorities placed them under a travel ban, and they were prevented from flying out of the kingdom.

A $2m US lobbying effort and petitions from European legislators are also putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to release a philanthropist prince jailed for two years without charge amid the royal crackdown.

The detention of Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud and his father since January 2018 is seen as part of the clampdown.

Crown Prince Mohammed has also been linked to the grisly murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi critic, who was killed and dismembered by a Saudi assassination squad at the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
U.S. fighter jets intercepted and escorted four Russian nuclear-capable bombers during a routine flight over neutral waters near the United States, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday, citing the Russian Defence Ministry.

Russia said the 11-hour flight, carried out by its Tupolev Tu-95MS bombers, complied with international law and that U.S. F-22 Raptor tactical fighters had accompanied its planes during some stages of their flight.

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June 4, Verkhovna Rada did not approve the governmental program. For any Prime Minister of Ukraine, an unapproved program is a bad sign.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Open source

June 4, Verkhovna Rada did not approve the program of the new government. The document was sent for revision. For any Prime Minister of Ukraine, an unapproved program is a bad sign. Without it, he loses the right to his annual immunity. But not necessarily gets an exit ticket.

Coronavirus is to blame

The program of activities of the Cabinet of Ministers needs refinement since it was developed before the coronavirus pandemic and does not take into account the introduction of restrictive measures and economic losses, President Zelensky said during a trip to Khmelnytsky region.

The government program was developed, but no one expected a coronavirus to appear. Therefore, he (PM) turned to people and said: we have a coronavirus, quarantine measures, and the government program should have changed because of Covid-19, Zelensky stated.

In other words, the president supported the prime minister. Allegedly... They say that its okay, there is an algorithm of actions, it must be synchronized with the costs of the pandemic. However, Zelensky also supported ex-Prime Minister Honcharuk when a scandal with films surfaced, that is, records on which the former head of government spoke about the president by no means complimentary. Very soon after demonstrative support, they forced Honcharuk to resign.

In order to be replaced at the post, the Prime Minister of Ukraine must: a) die or b) cause dissatisfaction with the president, who will "push" the Rada, and the Rada will vote for the "distrust." Although under President Zelensky a third method was invented: pressure on an undesirable person.

As political scientist Kyrylo Sazonov rightly observes, the annual immunity did not help Shmygals predecessor Honcharuk - he was forced to resign even though his government program was adopted.

That is, the activity program itself is not yet a panacea. We have four options for holding back the resignation of the current head of government.

The first version. Just a bad job

Sazonov tells us that Shmygals work is not good enough. The program is really incomplete. It can be bureaucratic, boring, but it must be clear, the expert is convinced. If the government is unable to work, it leaves. But the decision will be up to the Verkhovna Rada, and it will be guided by the position of the president, Sazonov adds.

And yet Shmygal is a stronger prime minister than Honcharuk, Sazonov said. Because when Honcharuk took office, he managed to kill an economy that was growing fast enough. If Im not mistaken, we had about 4.6% growth.

The second version. Parliaments position

The parliament did not vote for the program because it does not want to share its responsibility with the government and intentionally keeps it suspended so that it can be dismissed at any time. Although a government without a program is, of course, nonsense, -director of the Ukrainian Institute for Analysis and Policy Management Ruslan Bortnyk notes.

He says that without synergy with the government, parliament will work in manual mode, and there will be no talk of fulfilling any tactical or strategic tasks at all. Why does parliament need this?

Chairman of the Servant of the People faction Davyd Arakhamia reassures: Shmygals resignation should not be expected. Shmygal works in terms of a crisis situation, he notes.

But Andriy Zolotariov, the head of the Third Sector Center, points to one eloquent detail: the governments program of action didnt fail to pass the furnace of the profile committee of Verkhovna Rada, controlled by the mono-majority. That is, the MPs were waiting for a signal from the Presidents Office, and since the president did not put pressure on them, it was obvious that she did not find support from him. And without the program, the government is a lame duck, Zolotariov notes.

The third version. Everything depends on the elections

Actually, the third version is a subspecies of the second. Andriy Zolotariov suggests that everything will be decided in the fall, that is, after the local elections, scheduled for October, as well as at the end of the fiscal year, when it becomes clear with what budget deficit we are ending it.

The prime ministers resignation might take place in the fall, then we will get all the consequences of the crisis. Then the search for the scapegoat will begin. The oligarchs will be happy to hang a negative on Zelensky, and Zelensky, if he is not going to commit political suicide, will look for someone to turn to this negative, he says.

Experts are generally unanimous that shuffling the personnel deck is a kind of sublimation for Zelensky. He has no other solutions, as soon as he engage in demonstration layoffs. And Shmygal, undoubtedly, is also in the queue of potential unemployed. And they put him there already on the day of the appointment.

The fourth version. Akhmetov's factor

Shmygal has no support among the MPs that he could hope for. There is a polarization of influence groups within the Servant of the People, and each of these groups wants its aspirations to be realized in the Cabinet. And the Cabinet so far defends the interests of only Akhmetovs group of influence, which is not even represented in parliament, Bogdan Petrenko, deputy director of the Ukrainian Institute for the Study of Extremism, is convinced.

What does Akhmetov have to do with it? Thanks to the activities of this government, for some reason we began to stop nuclear plants that produce cheaper energy in order for energy to be generated by the network of thermal power plants and thermal power plants, which belongs to Akhmetov, Petrenko explains.

Three blocks with a capacity of 3,000 MW were actually stopped in the country, and production at five more power units of operating nuclear power plants was reduced. The reasons for this decision are a surplus of electricity generated by nuclear power plants, and the transition to more environmentally friendly options - the so-called "green" energy.

Who is next?

We tried to find out who will replace Shmygal if he is forced to resign. However, no one risks making specific assumptions. Given the identities of Honcharuk and Shmygal, the next prime minister might be any. In particular, some very little-known figure. But if the crisis deepens, we can expect the return of one or another heavyweight, says Ruslan Bortnyk.

Interestingly, no one sees Mikheil Saakashvili as the new prime minister. And he, undoubtedly, has corresponding ambitions. But before receiving a real mace, it is played by a puppet, that is, it develops a little shadow Cabinet.
[June 10, 2020] Japan's four MNOs all launch 5G

Sydney, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Japan outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Japan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses This report provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments in Japans telecommunications market. The report analyses the Telecoms Infrastructure, mobile, fixed broadband, Digital Media and Digital Economy sectors. Subjects include: Market and industry analyses, trends and developments;

Regional market comparisons

Telecoms Maturity Index

Data centres and smart Infrastructure;

Major players, revenues, subscribers, ARPU;

Broadband (FTTH, DSL);

Internet of Things, 5G developments

Mobile, broadband and mobile broadband forecasts to 2023-4. Executive Summary Japans four MNOs all launch 5G Japans telecommunications sector is one of the most developed markets in the world. Fixed line growth in Japan has been stagnant over the past five years. This trend is predicted to continue over the next five years to 2024. The fixed broadband market is supported largely by two technology platforms: cable TV (CATV) and FttP, with the latter more prominent. Japan has a strong presence as a regional Asian data centre provider and is a global financial and corporate hub and one of the fastest evolving digital markets in the world. Data centre locations have easy access to high-speed international connectivity, with landing points for several submarine cables that connect with the western United States. Japans digital economy is highly mature and difficult to serve from overseas or alternative locations. Japan has now evolved into more of an international data centre market driven by the global hyperscale cloud providers expanding in the Tokyo and Osaka markets. Japan possesses a large and vibrant television industry due to its unique culture and market size. Legislation enacted to restrict ownership has led to a plethora of broadcasters. Japans vertically integratd broadcasting industry means broadcasters create as well as distribute content.



Japan possesses one of the most advanced and largest broadband markets in the world. Japan has also been an early adopter of triple-play models which provide TV, broadband internet and voice telephony as packaged services from a single provider. Fixed-line broadband market penetration has grown slowly over the past five years in a highly mature market. Moving further into 2020, FttP will continue to increase its share of total fixed broadband subscriptions at the expense of DSL. This is expected to accelerate as the few remaining DSL users are encouraged to migrate off the remaining DSL. Over the next five years to 2024 fixed broadband growth is expected to continue to increase slowly.

Recognising the potential of applying ICT to improve both social and economic development, Japan has taken steps to develop a digital economy. Businesses, governments and private citizens have been instrumental in creating the online content and services that make up the digital economy. Mobile subscriber growth is expected to be relatively low over the next five years to 2024 due to a highly mature and highly competitive market. The market will be driven by the uptake of both 4G LTE and 5G services. Japans mobile market is dominated by three major operators  NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile. However, the Japanese government was looking to open its mobile market up to new players for 5G services. This could result the entry of new players, even those from outside the traditional telecoms space, and potential foreign players, including those looking to target the IoT, VR and automotive applications. Japans largest e-commerce company is working on plans to build its own nationwide 4G mobile network with an intended launch later in 2020. Mobile broadband subscriber growth is expected to be relatively low over the next five years to 2024 due to a highly mature mobile subscriber market, with the vast majority of subscribers already having wireless broadband access. The four carriers have all launched 5G services, with DoCoMo targeting nationwide coverage by 2023. The anticipated surge in interest for IoT and related technologies such as driverless cars is expected to help fuel a boom in spending. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) is preparing to embark on R&D work in Japan to explore a new telecoms standard that will eventually succeed 5G technology. BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries. On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth. Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report. The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions. Key Developments Government considers telecom tax to fund rural 5G networks;

Three carriers plan 5G services launch by end-2020;

DOCOMO targets nationwide 5G coverage by 2023;

FttP continues to gain market share in fixed broadband segment as DSL is phased out;

Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) trials start;

Report update includes telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments. Key companies mentioned in this report: NTT; KDDI; Softbank Mobile, Internet Initiative Japan, eAccess, eMobile, Ratuken, IIJ; JCI; Line Mobile



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Japan-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses Nicolas Bombourg [email protected] Within Australia (02) 8076 7665 Outside Australia +44 207 097 1241

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
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Hours after President Trump said he wouldn't be renaming military bases named for Confederate leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flaunted her opposition by highlighting her work to get Confederate statues in the U.S. Capitol removed.

Pelosi sent out a copy of a letter she had addressed to the chairs of the Joint Committee on the Library, which manages the National Statuary Hall collection - the 100 statues contributed by states that are on display in Statuary Hall and other places around the U.S. Capitol complex.

Each U.S. state gets to contribute two statues and there are currently 11 Confederate figures on display. Pelosi called for their removal.

Pelosi's demand comes amid a wave of anti-racism protests raging across America and the world, in which several statues that symbolize racial oppression have already been torn down.

Donald Trump last night rejected demands to rename a series of military bases named after leaders of the Confederacy, calling them 'hallowed grounds'.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter asking that the 11 remaining Confederate statues in Statuary Hall and around the Capitol complex be removed

Confederate statues on Capitol Hill includes one of Jefferson Davis, which represents Mississippi in the collection and stands at the National Statuary Hall in the US Capitol Building. Jefferson was the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Before the American Civil War, he operated a large cotton plantation in Mississippi, which his brother Joseph gave him, and owned as many as 113 slaves

Also on Capitol Hill is General Robert E. Lee, a gift from the commonwealth of Virginia. Robert E. Lee was an American and Confederate soldier best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia from 1862 until its surrender in 1865. Lee married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Virginia and took leave from the army to run the family estate following his father-in-law's death. Documents show that he encouraged severe beatings for those who tried to escape

Commander Joseph Wheeler for the Confederate Army of Tennessee, left. He is known for having served both as a cavalry general in the Confederate States Army in the 1860s during the American Civil War, and then as a general in the United States Army during both the SpanishAmerican War and PhilippineAmerican War near the turn of the twentieth century

Lawyer Uriah Milton Rose was an attorney who backed the Confederacy. In 1917, the state of Arkansas donated a marble statue of Rose to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection. Rose was the only delegate from Arkansas among the 75 lawyers who formed the American Bar Association in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1872. He was president from 1891 to 1892 and again from 1901 to 1902

Military officer Wade Hampton was a Confederate States of America military officer during the American Civil War and politician from South Carolina. He came from a wealthy planter family, and shortly before the war he was one of the largest slaveholders in the Southeast as well as a state legislator. During the American Civil War, he served in the Confederate cavalry, where he reached the rank of lieutenant general. At the end of Reconstruction, with the withdrawal of federal troops from the state, Hampton was leader of the Redeemers who restored white rule. His campaign for governor was marked by extensive violence by the Red Shirts, a paramilitary group that served the Democratic Party by disrupting elections and suppressing black and Republican voting in the state

Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens was a Confederate politician who served as the vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the 50th Governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the state of Georgia in the United States House of Representatives prior to becoming Governor

CONFEDERATE STATUES ON CAPITOL HILL AND THE STATES THAT GIFTED THEM Jefferson Davis - Mississippi James Zachariah George - Mississippi Wade Hampton - South Carolina John E. Kenna - West Virginia Gen. Robert E. Lee - Virginia Uriah Milton Rose - Arkansas Edmund Kirby Smith - Florida Alexander Stephens - Georgia Zebulon Vance - North Carolina Joseph Wheeler - Alabama Edward Douglass White - Louisiana Advertisement

The statue collection includes Gen. Robert E. Lee, a gift from Virginia, the Confederate president Jefferson Davis, which is a contribution from Mississippi and Alexander Hamilton Stephens, a statue given by Georgia.

Additionally Mississippi has a statue of Confederate James Zachariah George, Alabama has Joseph Wheeler, South Carolina has a statue of Wade Hampton, North Carolina has a statue of Zebulon Vance, West Virginia has John E. Kenna, Louisiana has Edward Douglass White and Arkansas gifted a statue of Uriah Milton Rose, an attorney who sided with the Confederacy.

The statue of Edmund Kirby Smith, a general in the Confederate Army, was already expected to be replaced.

Most of the Confederates in the collection are depicted in uniform.

In her letter to Sen. Roy Blunt, the chair and a Missouri Republican and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the committee's vice chair and a California Democrat, Pelosi quoted Stephens' 'corner-stone speech' in which the Confederacy's vice president said the 'assumption of the equality of the races' was something that was made 'in error.'

'Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition,' Stephens had said in the speech, Pelosi reminded the lawmakers.

She argued that the statues that are on display on Capitol Hill 'should embody our highest ideals as Americans.'

'Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals,' Pelosi said. 'Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage.'

'They must be removed,' she argued.

'While I believe it is imperative that we never forget our history lest we repeat it, I also believe that there is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country.'

The push to get rid of Confederate symbols has come in the aftermath of the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd, a Minneapolis black man, at the hands of a white police officer.

Edward Douglass White was an American politician and jurist from Louisiana. He was a United States Senator and the ninth Chief Justice of the United States. He served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1894 to 1921. After the war, White won election to the Louisiana State Senate and served on the Louisiana Supreme Court. As a member of the Democratic Party, White represented Louisiana in the United States Senate from 1891 to 1894.

John E. Kenna was an American politician who was a Senator from West Virginia from 1883 until his death. He rose from prosecuting attorney of Kanawha County in 1872 to justice pro tempore of the county circuit in 1875, and to the United States House of Representatives in 1876. While in the House he championed railroad legislation and crusaded for aid for slack-water navigation to help the coal, timber and salt industries in his state

Zebulon Baird Vance, a Confederate military officer in the American Civil War, the 37th and 43rd Governor of North Carolina. was a Confederate military officer in the American Civil War, the 37th and 43rd Governor of North Carolina, and U.S. Senator. A prolific writer, Vance became one of the most influential Southern leaders of the Civil War and postbellum periods. As a leader of the 'New South', Vance favored the rapid modernization of the Southern economy, railroad expansion, school construction, and reconciliation with the North

James Zachariah George was one of Mississippi's strongest white-supremacy statesmen in the Reconstruction era. He was an American lawyer, writer, U.S. politician, Confederate politician, and military officer. He was known as Mississippi's 'Great Commoner'

Edmund Kirby Smith was born into a wealthy slave-owning family in St. Augustine. He was a career United States Army officer who fought in the MexicanAmerican War. He later joined the Confederate States Army in the Civil War, and was promoted to general in the first months of the war. He was notable for his command of the Trans-Mississippi Department after the fall of Vicksburg to the United States

Who was Jefferson Finis Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America? Jefferson Finis Davis, the first and only President of the Confederate States of America, serving from 1861 to 1865. He was a slave and plantation owner, a politician and soldier born in Kentucky and raised in Mississippi. He graduated from his military academy in 1828, and went on to serve briefly in the Black Hawk War in 1832 before returning to his plantation. Davis later went onto become a Congressman and a Senator before he formally withdrew from the U.S. Senate on January 21, 1861 after Mississippi seceded from the Union. One month later, he was selected to become the provisional President of the Confederacy. Historians say his poor leadership skils may have played a part in the defeat of the Confederacy, and say he was a weak leader compared to Union counterpart, President Abraham Lincoln. He was captured in 1865, and accused of treason and imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. However, he was released after two years without being tried. Advertisement

The 'Black Lives Matter' protests that followed have put renewed attention on issues like the Capitol Hill statues, flying the Confederate flag at certain events and renaming 10 U.S. Army bases, which currently are named after Confederate leaders.

On Wednesday, President Trump articulated that the U.S. bases would not be renamed under his watch.

Democrats had previously tried to get the Statuary Hall collection statues removed on the heels of the August 2017 protests in Charlottesville that pit KKK members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists against counter-protesters, one of whom was killed.

Republicans, at the time, responded by saying that the statue selections are up to each state.

Upon seeing the letter, Lofgren said she agreed with Pelosi that the Joint Committee and the Architect of the Capitol 'should expediently remove these symbols of cruelty and bigotry from the halls of the Capitol.'

'The Capitol building belongs to the American people and cannot serve as a place of honor for the hatred and racism that tears at the fabric of our nation, the very poison that these statues embody,' Lofgren said.

The longstanding debate over Confederate statues has come rushing back into the spotlight this month during the huge anti-racism movement following the death of George Floyd.

Floyd, an unarmed black man, died in Minneapolis police custody after a white officer knelt on his head for nearly nine minutes while arresting him.

Virginia governor Ralph Northam last week announced plans to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, although a judge has stalled this proposal.

Elsewhere, statues of Christopher Columbus have also become a target for protesters who say he unleashed centuries of genocide against Native Americans.

One Columbus statue was pulled down with ropes, set on fire and rolled into a lake at a park in Richmond on Tuesday night.

Another Columbus monument was beheaded in Boston, in a waterfront park near the city's North End.

However, Donald Trump says his administration will 'not even consider' changing the name of any of the 10 U.S. Army bases that are named for Confederate leaders.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper had indicated he was open to discussing such changes in the wake of Floyd's funeral.

But Trump weighed in on Wednesday night, saying: 'These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.

'The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.'
Councillor Deirdre Conroy where the trees were chopped down in Rathgar

A developer which chopped down protected trees at a Rathgar property has been rapped on the knuckles by Dublin City Council (DCC) and asked to replace them with ones of a similar size.

Neighbours called gardai when they noticed tree surgeons at the property on Highfield Road on the Saturday of the June bank holiday weekend.

More tree surgeons arrived three days later at 7am and locals had to intervene again.

They accused the developer of using "underhand tactics".

Number 37a was recently demolished, with two six-bedroom semis built in its place, but the planning file says permission was granted on condition that certain mature trees be protected during construction.

DCC has since met with the developer and an inspection of the site has been carried out.

Its Planning Enforcement and Parks sections have now written to the developer requiring that all works cease until certain information is supplied to the council.

Removed

The information DCC requires includes an arboriculture assessment of the three remaining trees; details of the date that the four trees that were to be retained on site were removed, together with the reasons why they were removed; and a detailed planting plan for replacing them on a like-for-like basis.

The property has been developed by a company called Seabren Developments with directors Michael and Tina Moran. The Moran family are also behind the Red Cow Hotel development.

The original house at 37a was an unusual one which was originally built in the 1980s as an extension to Victorian number 37 when it was owned by restaurateur Oliver Caffrey.

It was designed with a swimming pool on the ground floor and ballroom on the top floor, which was accessed by a lift.

Local councillor Deirdre Conroy slammed the decision by the developer to cut down the four trees. "It was a dismissive approach to the residents and very uncaring," she said.

Michael Moran said Seabren had now provided DCC with a comprehensive response to its information request.
Humble ISD school board member Martina Lemond Dixon used her opening comment time during the June 9 board meeting to discuss the districts commitment to diversity.

Lemond Dixon called on the district and board to be leaders by creating an official statement on diversity and require diversity and inclusion training for all Humble ISD employees as part of professional development.

As leaders, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to actively live our values and demonstrate our commitment to students from every background, Lemond Dixon said. This is a time where each of us, despite our discomfort or differences, can work together and lead by example for our students. Solidarity at this time is key.

SCHOOL MEALS: Humble ISD continues free meal distributions

According to the Texas Education Agencys 2017-18 Texas Academic Performance Report, 70.8% of teachers in Humble ISD are white, while 14.1% are African American and are 12.6% Hispanic. For comparison, graduates were composed of 41% white students, 22.4% African American students, and 30.8% Hispanic students. The total district student population was 37.9% white, 20.8% African American, and 35.4% Hispanic.

While Asian students made up 3% of the total student population and 2.9% of graduates, Asian students made the highest percent of college ready graduates at 78.8%, compared to 68% white, 58.3% Pacific Islander(0.5% of the total district student population), 56.6% two or more races (2.1% of the total district student population), 52.9% American Indian (0.4% of the total district student population), 49.3% Hispanic and 35.8% African American with the overall district score at 55% for annual graduates.

Lemond Dixons speech comes at a time where a national conversation on race is shining a light on systemic inequalities, particularly in regards to the police system. She shared one of her experiences.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Mourners gather to remember George Floyd and call for change

Lemond Dixon was six months pregnant with her first child while driving their familys almost-new Toyota 4-Runner as her husband was leading a Bible study next to her. She was pulled over by a police officer, at which time she provided her license and registration and was then asked to step out of her car on the side of the highway. As one police officer stood by her husband, the other asked her questions about how they could afford the car, where they were going, and so on. They were eventually able to continue with their trip without an incident.

That was 22 years ago, and I still today have to tell my children that this could happen to them so I have to talk to them about how to handle this particular type of situation, Lemond Dixon said. Of course, I love all of my board colleagues and I hope everyone does know that, but I do also know that they have not experienced what that feels like. But this is actually the point, the point is I think we need to be proactive in understanding the sensitivities of all of our students, all of them.

Board members followed with supportive comments on Lemond Dixons call for a commitment to diversity and inclusion initiatives. Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen said she had watched the videos of George Floyd in horror and extended condolences to Floyds family.

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And frankly I just need to say as a mother, Im sorry Ms. Lemond Dixon that you have to have that conversation with your sons, Fagen said. It should not be that way. Nobody should have to be concerned for their life or any such thing in a just system and I believe thats the system we all aspire to be part of and we are not going to stand back and accept anything less, thats not how Humble ISD functions.

Fagen looked back on the challenges the district has faced, including flood events and the effects of the global pandemic on public education, during which the district has come together to support one another like a family, she said. Despite their successful character during hard times, Fagen said that does not mean that mistakes are not made and both individuals and the district are all a work in progress.

Fagen said it is their absolute determination that every student feels welcomed and supported in Humble ISD regardless of their circumstances. She said education offers opportunities and highlighted that the reason so many follow a career in education is because they watch students learn, grow, and become contributors to society.

All of that said, that doesnt mean its a perfect family, Fagen said. No family is perfect. It doesnt mean that we dont have growth and a long journey ahead, but it is a family where there is no place for hate, there is no place for injustice, there is no place for racism, there is no place for bias, and we are absolutely an educational institution where every single teacher, leader, support staff, works really hard to be a light.

Board votes for new positions

The Humble ISD Board voted Robert Sitton as President, Lemond Dixon as Vice President, Robert Scarfo as Secretary and Lori Twomey as Parliamentarian in the board meeting.

savannah.mehrtens@chron.com
Health authorities in the Chinese capital are considering banning the "slander or defamation" of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), amid a nationwide campaign by President Xi Jinping to include traditional herbal formulas in the treatment of coronavirus.



The Beijing health commission will take comments and opinions until on the draft rules, which state: "No organization or individual shall make false or exaggerated claims about Chinese medicine ... nor shall they defame or slander traditional Chinese medicine in any way or by any act."



Anyone "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" through the slander of TCM will be dealt with by police, and possibly face criminal charges, the draft rules say.



The rules are also at pains to safeguard the public against fraudulent practitioners and quack remedies, setting down parameters for legal liability, the regulation of TCM treatments and remedies and supply chain management.



Any practitioners of Western medicine will be required to undergo training and certification before they can administer TCM, the rules say.



They also require insurance companies to include coverage for TCM treatments in basic medical insurance policies.



The ban on "defamation" prompted a social media backlash, even within the parameters of China's tightly controlled internet.



"Science can stand up to questioning. Traditional Chinese medicine cannot be questioned, so traditional Chinese medicine is not science," one user commented on Weibo.



"We should have the leaders use it first," quipped another.



Health experts are afraid to criticize TCM openly

A journalist who gave only his surname Lu said the rules were only being considered in the Chinese capital for the time being, but likely came from the highest echelons of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



"This is the beginning," said Lu, adding that health experts are already too frightened to criticize TCM openly, given the high level of support in the ruling party.



"If they were to stand up and oppose it, they would be labeled [as a dissident]," Lu said. "All people can do is discuss it in private."



A private hospital director surnamed Rao said the rules would like be implemented as they stand in the draft.



"There are huge vested interests at work behind the scenes here," he said. "They are now treating TCM as a part of China's cultural heritage."



"This means that anyone who expresses doubts about it is also expressing doubts about Chinese culture."



Rao said none of the patent TCM remedies currently circulating in China has been subjected to a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial, considered the gold standard of medical research.



A search for "Chinese herbal medicine randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial" on the open-access medical journal PLoS One on yielded hundreds of results.



However, it was unclear whether the products being tested were available to the majority of Chinese citizens.



An official who answered the phone at the Beijing municipal health commission said the rules are being overseen by the municipal TCM management bureau, and that they didn't know anything about the process.



"You'll have to ask the TCM bureau, because this isn't being carried out by us," the official said. "I can't answer your question."



'Intentional and unintentional lies'

Former state media commentator and investigative journalist Wang Zhian said the attempt to legislate for the legitimacy of TCM was "ridiculous."



Others cited late revolutionary Chinese writer Lu Xun's description of TCM as "nothing more than intentional and unintentional lies," asking if the writers' words would also be considered "defamation."



He Anquan, a former Shanghai-based physician and a New York State licensed acupuncturist, said greater regulation could only be a good thing for TCM, but he said the government had gone too far.



"The government really shouldn't be issuing regulations that restrict consumers," He said. "Regardless of whether people use [TCM] for medical reasons or to improve physical fitness, it is clearly inappropriate to force opinions on people using government regulations."



But a municipal health official in charge of TCM told the Beijing News said that "defamation" wouldn't include asking questions or having doubts. He said the rules may not be implemented in their current form.



Gu Weiqun, a U.S.-based independent political scholar and TCM enthusiast, said that TCM has endured for so long because people clearly derive benefits from it.



"TCM has been around for thousands of years, regardless of any government regulation," Gu said. "It has survived constant market competition because of the personal experiences of a very large number of people."



He Anquan said Xi's support for TCM mirrors that of late supreme leader Mao Zedong, however.



"Since the Mao era, the government has been advocating the integration of Chinese and Western medicine. This is government policy, and Xi Jinping has inherited it and will continue it," he said.



He said TCM remedies enjoy huge support and acceptance among the majority of the population.



"I think the people who swear by TCM far outnumber those who question it," He said.



Reported by Wong Siu-san and Sing Man for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Jia Ao for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Northern Regional Minister Hon. Salifu Said has showered praises on the management and staff of waste management experts Zoomoion Ghana Limited for their stelling performance in the fight to curb the Coronavirus pandemic in the country.

Launching the Northern Regional Military Garrisons, Senior High and Basic Schools' Mass Disinfection Exercise at the Northern Military Command, the minister expressed satisfaction at the work Zoomlion has done in the wake of the pandemic.

He said the experiences and successes chalked by the company over the years deserve a commendation by the entire nation.

Mr. Said urged Ghanaian churches, mosques and other religious bodies to contact Zoomlion for their disinfection activities as directed by President H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the last address to the nation.

So far Zoomlion has acquitted itself so well in this field and is the only accredited institution that handles corporate Ghana's disinfection and fumigation activities with the profession it deserves.

He commended the Military Command and men for their resolve to maintain peace and unity in the region.

Mr. Said however warned politicians and political party leaders not to foment trouble in the upcoming 2020 General Election for they will be fiercely resisted by the security forces and the law will take its course without fear or favour.

The Northern Regional General Manager for Zoomlion, Mr. Peter Dawuni cautioned mushrooming companies who have ventured into disinfection and fumigation to stop using the name of Zoomlion to avoid legal actions being initiated against them.

"We have our eyes and ears on the ground and if we find any person impersonating the good name of Zoomlion, such persons would be dealt with ruthlessly because we have used hard work and our commitment in trusting God over the years to build the brand. So we will not sit down and watch miscreants to destroy the brand".

In all, 6000 men are being deployed to disinfect 8344 basic public and private schools, 96 senior high schools and 14 tertiary institutions will be disinfected for the second time together with all military installations across the Northern within three weeks.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian hit back on Wednesday at opposition groups denouncing his handling of the coronavirus crisis in Armenia, saying that they are digging their own political graves.

His government has come under strong opposition criticism in recent weeks amid the soaring number of coronavirus cases and deaths caused by them. One of the opposition parties, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), has said that Pashinian must be held accountable for the governments failure to contain the deadly epidemic.

Pashinian responded by accusing Dashnaktsutyun and other critics of spreading a political coronavirus in Armenia. In my view, unlike the healthcare coronavirus, it will lead to the political death of all political and social forces that have characteristics of this bacillus, he told a news briefing.

You will see that those political forces will be completely driven out of Armenias political and public life because with their current actions they are building their political tombstones, he declared.

Comparing the coronavirus crisis to a war, Pashinian said that the opposition criticism amounts to high treason.

In times of war, what do they do to those who spread panic and false information and speak out against the commander? he said. They put them on trial in accordance with the logic of a warlike situation. We are obviously not pursuing such a policy because we are a democratic country.

It is the public that will throw his detractors into the trash heap of Armenias history, added Pashinian.

A Dashnaktsutyun leader, Ishkhan Saghatelian, was quick to round on Pashinian. We will continue to fight against those who spread both the political and real coronavirus, Saghatelian wrote on Facebook. As regards ending up in a political trash heap, its the authorities that have every reason to be deeply worried about that.

Opposition figures and other critics say the authorities are to blame for the rapid spread of the coronavirus in the country because they never properly enforced a lockdown imposed in late March and lifted it too soon. They cite the example of many other countries, notably neighboring Georgia, that are now reporting very low infection rates.

The Georgian authorities have so far reported 822 coronavirus cases and only 13 deaths caused by them, compared with 14,103 cases and at least 227 fatalities registered in Armenia. On Tuesday alone, the Armenian Ministry of Health recorded 428 single-day COVID-19 infections. By contrast, only 4 people reportedly tested positive for the virus in Georgia.

Pashinian said on Wednesday that the governments of all affected countries have made mistakes in the fight against the pandemic. He insisted that the COVID-19 mortality rate has been much lower in Armenia than in the most developed countries of the world.

The premier also said that his governments handling of the crisis can be objectively evaluated only after the end of the pandemic.
Broad coalition calls on Congress to address the pandemics challenges

Washington, D.C., June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ICMA-RC, along with a network of associations, including the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), National League of Cities (NLC), Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), are urging federal lawmakers to include direct and flexible relief for local and state governments in the next federal assistance package to address the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ICMA-RC joins its partners to help steer this shared agenda by calling on Congress to address the pandemics challenges by:

Retroactively providing additional flexibility for already appropriated funds to be used to cover lost revenues. Such flexibility would come at no additional cost to the federal government.

Allowing all local governments, including those with a population under 500,000, to be eligible to receive direct funding allocations for emergency COVID-19 expenditures, and amending the language in the CARES Act to include COVID-19 revenue shortfalls in the calculations.

Providing additional, fully flexible aid and support to all local and state governments with no exclusions based on population and equal funding overall for municipal and county governments.

Waiving all federal cost share requirements for FEMA grants. Raising the federal cost share has been done after many major disasters, including Hurricane Sandy (2012), the flooding in Louisiana in (2016), and Hurricane Irma (2019).

Making state and local governments eligible for the emergency paid leave tax credits that were provided to the private sector in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

This pandemic has been devastating to municipalities and states around the country, said Lynne Ford, CEO and President of ICMA-RC. It is imperative to provide a lifeline to recover, otherwise jurisdictions will be forced to make cuts to essential community services that will have a ripple effect across the public and private sectors. Ford continues, on behalf of our more than 4,700 jurisdictions, and approximately 1.6 million participant accounts, ICMA-RC is proud to serve as an ally and lend our voices and resources in support of these critical efforts.

Story continues

About ICMA-RC

Founded in 1972, ICMA-RC is a non-profit, independent financial services corporation with approximately $53 billion in assets under management and administration (as of March 31, 2020), focused on providing retirement plans and related services for over a million public sector participant accounts. ICMA-RCs mission is to help public sector employees build retirement security. The organizations mission is delivered through its RealizeRetirement approach in which ICMA-RC representatives actively engage participants in their retirement programs, help them build their asset base, and help them realize their retirement goals through a comprehensive retirement planning strategy. For more information, visit www.icmarc.org, download ICMA-RC's mobile app from the App Store and Google PlayTM or follow ICMA-RC on Facebook, LinkedIn , and Twitter.

Aprile Pritchet

ICMA-RC

202-962-8067

apritchet@icmarc.org


But these leaders are not unique in the black community, and immigrants throughout U.S. history have benefited from black struggles. Birthright citizenship was added to our U.S. Constitution as a result of the Civil War to end slavery. Many of the Asian and Latino immigrants in the U.S. today are here because the civil rights movement led to immigration reform in 1965 and the removal of pro-European discrimination. Reps. Garcia and Gutierrez were able to go to Congress only because African Americans fought for and won the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Every immigrant in this country owes a debt of gratitude to the African American community.
Stock markets carried Aprils momentum into May and hedge funds were among the beneficiaries posting a 2.71% monthly return, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index, compiled by BarclayHedge, a division of Backstop Solutions. By comparison, the S&P 500 Total Return Index was up 4.76% in May.

Year-to-date, the hedge fund industry is down 4.67% through May. The S&P 500 Total Return Index is down 4.97% over the same period.

All sectors but two tracked by the Barclay Hedge Fund Indices were in positive territory in May. The exceptions were the Merger Arbitrage Index, down 0.42%, and the Equity Market Neutral Index, losing 0.02% in May.

While bad economic news was present in abundance in May thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, markets were encouraged by governments and central banks economic stimulus actions, the first stages of easing of pandemic-related shutdowns and hopeful signs in the effort to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Equity markets continued to seize on optimistic news as they rebounded from their initial pandemic downturn, while oil prices responded positively to the combination of production limits and renewed business activity, said Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge. The result was another positive month for hedge funds.

With the world in the throes of a global health crisis, its not surprising the Healthcare & Biotechnology Index set the pace among hedge fund sectors in May with a 5.74% return. Other leading gainers in May included the Technology Index, up 4.81%, the Pacific Rim Equities Index, gaining 4.62%, the Equity Long Bias Index, returning 4.14%, and the Event Driven Index, up 4.12%.

Most hedge fund sectors remained in the red year-to-date through May, though six sectors bucked the trend. Leading the year-to-date gainers was the Volatility Trading Index, up 10.42%, followed by the Technology Index, gaining 5.27%, the Fixed Income Arbitrage Index, returning 4.80%, and the Healthcare & Biotechnology Index, up 3.53%. Also posting year-to-date gains were the Option Strategies Index, gaining 2.48%, and the Global Macro Index, returning 1.58%.

Among sectors in the red for the year, some of the largest drops were in the emerging markets. The Emerging Markets Latin America Index was down 22.44%, the Emerging Markets Global Equities Index was off 14.83%, the Emerging Markets MENA Index lost 12.92%, the Emerging Markets Eastern European Equities Index was down 11.63% and the Emerging Markets Global Index was off 11.16%.

For a complete table of BarclayHedge Hedge Fund and Sub-Index results for May, as well as historical returns, click here.

About Backstop Solutions

Backstops mission is to help the institutional investment industry use time to its fullest potential. We develop technology to simplify and streamline otherwise time-consuming tasks and processes, enabling our clients to quickly and easily access, share and manage the knowledge thats critical to their day-to-day business success. Backstop provides its industry-leading cloud-based productivity suite to investment consultants, pensions, funds of funds, family offices, endowments, foundations, private equity, hedge funds and real estate investment firms.

BarclayHedge, a division of Backstop, currently maintains data on more than 7,100 hedge funds, funds of funds and CTAs. The BarclayHedge Indices are utilized by institutional investors, brokerage firms and private banks worldwide as performance benchmarks for the hedge fund and managed futures industries.


But outdoor gatherings of more than 300 people are not permitted in WA.

Mr Cook encouraged West Australians to "get out and make our voices heard" while observing social distancing rules in an interview with Seven West Media.

WA Health Minister Roger Cook says his wife will make her own choice about whether to attend the weekend's Black Lives Matter protest. Credit:AAP

Opposition Leader Liza Harvey accused Mr Cook of hypocrisy and urged Premier Mark McGowan to "show some leadership" and have the 'Black Lives Matter' rally planned for Saturday banned.

The WA Labor government is being accused of "shocking double standards" after Health Minister Roger Cook said his wife Carly Lane was planning to represent him at an anti-racism rally on Saturday.

"We've discussed this with my family and Carly and I have decided that as the health minister it probably wouldn't be the best message if I attended, notwithstanding the fact that I feel very strongly about the issues they're protesting," Mr Cook said.

Ms Harvey said it was embarrassing for the health minister who had overseen pandemic restrictions to encourage people to attend the rally.

"We've had funerals people have been attending by Zoom and on Anzac Day we had so many people in Australia attend a dawn vigil at the end of their driveway holding a candle citing the Ode of Remembrance," she said.

"When you've still got in place restrictions for restaurants where they can get fined for having 28 people in that facility, yet there's nothing being done to ban thousands of people gathering together when we know they won't be able to socially distance, I just think that's an appalling double standard. It's un-Australian and unfair."

Mr Cook issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon to clarify his position on the rally and walked back his comments which encouraged people to attend the rally.
History is replete with examples of disease outbreaks altering cities and changing lives. In 1849, a cholera outbreak in New Yorks congested clusters prompted it to recalibrate its infrastructure. In 1994, Surats municipal corporation played a key role in overhauling its sanitary and hygiene systems after the city was hit by the plague. The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has again reminded the country that strong and resilient health systems act as the first line of defence, not only against outbreaks but in meeting everyday health challenges.

It has underscored the weaknesses, inequities and dearth of investment in urban health infrastructure and serious issues of governance. The pandemic has taken its roots in cities and proven to be the single-most potent disruptive force to the engines of economic growth. States with a higher proportion of urban populations are driving up the numbers. In India, while efforts have been made to create tertiary care facilities at the district level, little has been done to reform municipal bodies in urban areas. It is important to distinguish between the two.

Having directed the efforts towards rural India, today the country is faced with the reality of urban health care. About 60% of all hospitalisations in urban India are in the private sector, all of which may not be fully regulated in small, urban slum settlements. While the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM, 2005) was able to address some critical challenges in rural health care, Indias cities continue to struggle under the high burden of diseases.

During this crisis, a stronger and tiered structure of primary health services in cities could have served as the first points of testing and care, alleviating some of the burden on tertiary systems. While the human and economic cost of this crisis cannot be stressed on enough, it is important that we consolidate the learnings and restructure the system. Here are a set of reforms.

One, the National Urban Health Mission (2013) was launched to bring primary health services within the reach of the urban poor. Between 2015-16 and 2017-18, modest progress was achieved under this programme, though its potential remains untapped. Now is an opportune time to revisit the programme. Having a strong network of primary and community health centres in cities, as in rural India, can lead to more equitable health outcomes.

Two, we need to rethink the Smart Cities Mission. Launched with the objective of promoting cities that provide core infrastructure, currently, building health infrastructure is a low priority in the 100 such cities being developed. A closer scrutiny of data of projects taken up under the mission reveals that only 69 of the 5,861 projects were for health infrastructure and capacity-building  this works out to a little over 1% of the total projects selected since 2015. This is an opportunity to recalibrate this scheme and build sustainable cities, better equipped to handle disease outbreaks.

Three, we must remember the linkages between health and other determinants. Families in informal settlements lack a consistent supply of clean water and soap and rely on ill-maintained community toilets and shared taps. With nearly half of Mumbais population living in squalid conditions that are emerging as clusters for Covid-19, Maharashtra has the highest burden of the disease in the country. The Swachh Bharat Mission has been able to drive shared understanding about the benefits of sanitation  we must expand on this.

Even the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation can be leveraged better to ensure proper infrastructure and improved sanitation channels and networks in cities. Similarly, we can link efforts with initiatives like the National Clean Air Programme (2019), that align policies against air pollution with those under the countrys climate change plan.

Four, we must leverage the strong digital infrastructure. There are many examples of how cities are doing so during the pandemic  including the Agra Smart City Missions e-Doctor Seva, a tele-video consultation facility, launched as a public-private partnership. In Chandigarh, there are fight Covid stations with thermal screening, pedestal operated hand-wash, soap dispensers. Recent telemedicine guidelines issued by ministry of health and family welfare in collaboration with Niti Aayog and the Medical Council of India, provide for an excellent opportunity to enable health care delivery to the urban poor even beyond the lockdown period. With such use of digital technology, we can manage health facilities more effectively, and ensure better disease surveillance and data collection.

And finally, given the high proportion of patients seeking care in the private sector, its important to harness its large pool of resources so that more people can access quality services. More public private partnerships can ensure better regulation and monitoring so that protocols are followed.

As per a Boston Consulting Group estimate (2017), about 40% of Indias population will be living in urban areas by 2025. It is imperative that the government re-imagines these spaces to meet the needs of the people. By building or upgrading infrastructure, including a trained workforce, it cannot only address epidemics, but also provide quality health care. Indias has the framework, it must act on it.

CK Mishra is secretary, ministry of environment, forest & climate change

The views expressed are personal
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  People may be allowed to travel freely between an area in the Philippines with a low number of COVID-19 cases and another country, which has the same status, the Department of Tourism said Wednesday.

Since we have 7,641 islands, we can look at particular islands that have zero COVID-19 case or minimal number of COVID-19 cases. You can match it with a country,

Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat told a Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.

The idea is that tourists within the so-called travel bubble would not undergo the 14-day quarantine at their destination. New Zealand and Australia have been in discussions to establish this plan, CNN International has reported.

Romulo-Puyat cited the case of Bohol, which has recorded only four confirmed COVID-19 cases since the outbreak began in January.

She said local Tourism officials discussed with their Australian counterparts last week how visitors from Down Under could travel to certain areas in the country that may be opened for tourism.

We were telling them there is an option of flying from Australia directly to Bohol or Kalibo, she said.

The Tourism chief said an area will only be opened to foreign tourists once health protocols are in place.

Romulo-Puyat noted the importance of opening up accredited coronavirus testing centers and preparing health facilities in areas with travel bubbles in case of an outbreak.

The Tourism department also is "looking at" reopening Boracay Island to domestic tourists, Romulo-Puyat said. She added they will visit the island on Thursday to check the readiness of its healthcare system to cope with the viral illness.
MOSCOW  President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has won an important vote of confidence in his promised anti-corruption efforts as the International Monetary Fund has approved a multibillion-dollar lending program for the country.

The funds executive board late Tuesday authorized a line of credit of about $5 billion over 18 months, and Ukraine officials on Wednesday welcomed the decision as a hard-fought victory.

The money, desperately needed for Ukraines swooning economy and to pay for the costs of containing the coronavirus, is the largest foreign aid program approved so far under the tenure of Mr. Zelensky, a former comedian elected president last year.

Last year, the Trump administration delayed $400 million in congressionally approved military assistance to Ukraine, with the presidents allies asserting that Mr. Zelensky had not followed through on his anti-corruption platform.
Australias universities become latest battleground in worsening row with China as Beijing warns students to stay home.

Australias economy, facing its first recession in 30 years because of the coronavirus, would suffer if Chinese students heeded a warning from their government to stay away because of racist incidents, Australias trade minister said on Wednesday.

International education is Australias fourth-largest foreign exchange earner, worth 38 billion Australian dollars ($26bn) annually, and more critical to the economy than beef or barley, products hit with Chinese import bans and tariffs last month.

China is Australias most important trading partner and sends the most international students, accounting for 37.3 percent of 442,209 overseas students in Australian higher education in 2019, according to Department of Education data.

On Tuesday, Chinas Ministry of Education warned students to reconsider returning to Australia, saying there had been a spate of racist incidents targeting Asians during the coronavirus pandemic. It followed a warning last week for Chinese tourists to avoid Australia.

We would feel the effect  our universities would, if we saw a downturn in international student numbers, trade minister Simon Birmingham told media.

Birmingham said it would also be a loss for Chinese students and in the long term would do nothing to help further the mutual understanding between our two nations.

On Tuesday, Birmingham said Australia had zero tolerance towards racism and had established processes to stamp it out.

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported on Sunday that a survey conducted by the Per Capita think-tank had documented 386 racist incidents  ranging from abuse to physical intimidation and spitting  since April 2.

Australias relations with China have deteriorated in recent years amid accusations that China is meddling in Australias affairs and seeking undue influence in the Pacific region.

Ties have been under more strain since Australia called for an international inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus.

After the inquiry call, Cheng Jingye, Chinas ambassador to Australia, said Chinese consumers could boycott Australian beef, wine, tourism and universities.

China has said the trade actions since then are unrelated to the push for an inquiry.

Crucial to universities

Vicki Thomson, chief executive of the Group of Eight, representing Australias top universities, told Reuters news agency universities were being dragged into the diplomatic dispute.

International education is being used as a political pawn, she said.

Thomson said the Chinese embassy had told her on Tuesday it had not received any reports of students being attacked during the pandemic. She said the embassy had reassured that student travel would not be targeted and she was concerned and disappointed about the warning.

About 20,000 Chinese students enrolled at Group of Eight universities are offshore because of coronavirus travel restrictions and studying online, Thomson said.

We have a strong record of safety across Australia, she said.

Australia had ranked second only to New Zealand as an attractive place to study because of its handling of the coronavirus, a survey of 400 education agents by Navitas found, she said.

However, there has been domestic criticism that the university sector is too reliant on student fees from one country.

The Audit Office of the New South Wales government found course fees from overseas students, worth 3.6 billion Australian dollars ($2.5bn), made up a third of university revenue in the state in 2019.

At the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and University of Wollongong, income from overseas students, predominantly Chinese, exceeded that from domestic students.

Moodys Investors Service vice president John Manning said the travel restrictions to stop the coronavirus would limit the impact of Chinas warning on universities revenue this year.

In the longer term, with a number of universities ranked amongst the best in the world, we expect Australias institutions will remain attractive for international students, he said.
By Michele Kambas

LARNACA, Cyprus (Reuters) - Cyprus reopened its airports on Tuesday after almost three months of lockdown, hoping its record in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and a pledge of free medical treatment for any COVID-19 cases will lure tourists back to its beaches.

Heavily reliant on tourism, Cyprus announced a lockdown soon after its first cases on March 9. By Monday, it had recorded 970 cases and just 18 deaths, and its daily count of new infections was down to a handful.

Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos welcomed 22 arrivals from Israel at Larnaka Airport, saying Cyprus was in effect free of the virus.

"I miss Cyprus, Cyprus is a brother of Israel, it's very nice, very quiet," said Israeli visitor Joseph Amkri, 50.

Savvas Perdios, the deputy tourism minister, said: "Our target is to reach 30% of where we were last year."

The white sands of Ayia Napa's Nissi Beach are normally packed with sunseekers, but were empty on Tuesday. "It's the first time I've seen the beach this empty," said lifeguard Xenios Charalambous.

"We're trying to pull through and hope more people come now that the airports are open. We'll be here waiting for them."

Perdios said health protocols had been tightened and authorities would cover the medical costs of any visitor who tested positive for COVID-19 while on the island:

"This is really important to us. To show people this is a safe destination, with a dependable health system."

Initially, arrivals will be restricted to people who have tested COVID-19 free from a few countries including Germany, Israel and Greece. The requirement will be dropped for that group on June 20.

Cyprus says decisions about who to let in are based on the epidemiological data. Vistors from Russia and Britain, which are Cyprus's main markets, are not yet included, though Perdios said he expected that to happen in mid-July.

(Reporting By Michele Kambas; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 19:16:37|Editor: huaxia

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SHIJIAZHUANG, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China's benchmark power coal price rose slightly during the past week.

The Bohai-Rim Steam-Coal Price Index (BSPI), a gauge of coal prices in north China's major ports, stood at 532 yuan (about 75.25 U.S. dollars) per tonne Wednesday, a rise of 1 yuan week on week, according to Qinhuangdao Ocean Shipping Coal Trading Market Co. Ltd.

A number of factors contributed to the coal price rise, analysts said.

The demand showed peak season characteristics in the short term. As rainstorm alerts have been issued in many places, fire power generation showed an obvious growing trend.

Tight domestic supply drove up the price, with the quota of imported coal in some ports nearing saturation and many open-pit coal mines in Inner Mongolia shut down due to the restrictions of environmental and land-use policies.

The decrease in spot supply also led the market to remain in a bullish mood, according to analysts.

Released every Wednesday, the BSPI is a leading indicator of China's coal prices. Enditem
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The brother of George Floyd is expected to testify before Congress on Wednesday on racial profiling and police brutality.

Philonise Floyd, along with family attorney Benjamin Crump and conservative radio host Dan Bongino, will speak before the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.

George Floyd died on Memorial Day while white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. The 46-year-old black victim was unarmed and handcuffed after being subdued during an investigation into whether he had used a counterfeit $20 bill.

Chauvin, 44, has been charged with second-degree murder among other charges, while three other officers involved have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Floyd's death set off anger across the world, leading to daily mass protests in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia and demonstrations in countries including Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Spain and South Korea.

Several lawmakers have called for widespread police reform after Floyd's death. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Monday unveiled a bill that calls for restrictions in the use of force by police.

George Floyd's funeral was held Tuesday.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
More than 60% of sailors who volunteered to take part in a first-of-its-kind study on how the novel coronavirus affects young people living in tight quarters have developed antibodies for COVID-19 after testing positive for the illness.

The Navy and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday released a weeks-long study into the coronavirus outbreak on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. Ultimately, 1,273 crew members tested positive for the sometimes-fatal illness caused by the virus, which killed one sailor assigned to the ship.

Read Next: Its Official: Gen. CQ Brown Confirmed as 1st African American Military Service Chief

There were 382 crew members who volunteered to participate in the Navy and CDC study, which included questionnaires, blood tests and nasal swabs. It's still unclear whether someone who's had the virus will be immune to catching it again, but the CDC's Daniel Payne, who co-authored the report, said evidence of antibodies in nearly two-thirds of the volunteers who had the illness was promising.

"This finding may give us an early glimpse into actual immune protection against COVID-19 in young adults," Payne said. "... These are actually important in that they could be indicators of some degree of immunity."

The COVID-19 outbreak on the Theodore Roosevelt led to a leadership breakdown in the Navy. The commanding officer of that ship was removed from his job after a letter he sent warning about the health crisis was published by the San Francisco Chronicle. The acting Navy secretary at the time who ordered the captain's relief later stepped down from his own job after facing backlash over his handling of the situation.

The ship spent nearly two months in Guam, where most of the crew was offloaded and the ship was disinfected. The carrier, which was underway when the outbreak began in March, is again operating in the Pacific.

The new study confirmed that there were symptom-free cases among the crew. One in five of the volunteers who tested positive for COVID-19 never showed any signs of the illness, Payne said.

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"This actually may be an important feature of the disease in young adults," he added.

That comes a day after a World Health Organization official's comments over whether people without symptoms could spread the illness led to widespread confusion. The organization has since backtracked, saying they were wrong to call asymptomatic transition "very rare."

Payne said the Navy and CDC study didn't look specifically at whether asymptomatic crew members on the Roosevelt spread the virus.

"But what we do say," he added, "is that we found 18.5% of those who were infected were actually asymptomatic."

Most of the cases the Navy and CDC studied were mild, according to the report. When it came to symptoms, a loss of taste and smell was 10 times more likely to be reported in those who were infected with COVID-19 versus those who weren't.

Capt. Robert Hawkins, commander of the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center, said the prevalence of that symptom could lead to a new screening question for sailors and Marines.

Other common symptoms sailors in the study reported included muscle pain, fever and chills, Payne said.

The CDC added loss of taste or smell to its list of common COVID-19 symptoms in April, along with the existing list of cough, fever and shortness of breath.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: Top Navy Leaders Want Crozier Reinstated as Roosevelt's Commanding Officer: Report
Pvt. SiKenya Lynch, a member of the D.C. National Guard, was on duty at Lafayette Square near the White House last Monday when U.S. Park Police cleared the area of protesters ahead of President Donald Trumps now-infamous photo op.

Lynch said she supports the protests, and that her brother was among the demonstrators on the other side of the line, adding that he coughed a lot due to the tear gas fired into the crowd.

I was happy to see him out there ... to walk for me when I couldnt, she said, adding that if she hadnt been activated as a citizen-soldier, she would have been among the protesters to support the people, and I wanted to support what was right.

POLITICO spoke to 10 National Guardsmen who have taken part in the protest response across the country since the killing of George Floyd while in police custody. Many Guardsmen said they felt uncomfortable with the way they were used to handle the unrest because demonstrators lumped them in with the police. They felt that while they swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, their presence at times intimidated Americans from expressing their opinions and even escalated the tension.

And in the case of Guardsmen involved in the Lafayette incident, some felt used.

As a military officer, what I saw was more or less really f---ed up, said one D.C. Guardsman who was deployed to Lafayette Square last Monday and who, like some others, spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely. The official line from the White House that the protesters had turned violent, he said, is false.

The crowd was loud but peaceful, and at no point did I feel in danger, and I was standing right there in the front of the line, he said. A lot of us are still struggling to process this, but in a lot of ways, I believe I saw civil rights being violated in order for a photo op.

Im here to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and what I just saw goes against my oath and to see everyone try to cover up what really happened, the Guardsman continued. What I saw was just absolutely wrong.

Story continues

Lafayette Square

Since the protest on Lafayette Square last Monday, much of the publics attention has been focused on the decision to clear the area so Trump, flanked by advisers, could pose for photos in front of St. Johns Episcopal Church holding a bible.

In the days following, the debate shifted to whether the police used tear gas to break up the protests. The White House insisted they didnt, yet a spokesperson for the park police later acknowledged to Vox that it was a mistake to be that definitive, since tear gas is an umbrella term covering a number of chemical irritants.

One of the Guardsmen at the scene said the White House isnt being truthful.

Ive been tear gassed before. I was there the night before when we got tear gassed, there was tear gas there on Monday evening, he said. He added that he and some of his soldiers felt the effects of the tear gas from their colleagues because they didnt have masks on.

In a statement, Capt. Chelsi Johnson, a spokesperson for the D.C. National Guard, responded to accounts of Guardsmen who had been accidentally affected by tear gas.

A line of DC National Guard members stand in Lafayette Park as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, Tuesday, June 2, 2020, near the White House in Washington. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

They were instructed to put their gas masks on if/when they were ordered to or they noticed the police were putting theirs on. Every Guardsman was issued a gas mask, she said. The U.S. Park Police has acknowledged firing pepper balls into the crowd, which is also a chemical irritant.

While the Park Police cleared out the protesters, some Guardsmen said they felt they were there to actually prevent the police from beating up protesters, instead of the other way around.

I felt that we were more protecting the people from the police, said D.C. Guardsman Spec. Isaiah Lynch, whos unrelated to SiKenya Lynch.

In a statement to POLITICO, Maj. Gen. William Walker, commander of the D.C. National Guard, stressed that during the unrest, the Guard's priority is to protect citizens' right to peaceful protest.

"Providing that assistance and security to the people of Washington, D.C., is an honor for every D.C. National Guard member and not a tool for theatrics," he said.

This event and others have taken a toll on some Guardsmen.

We have a lot of National Guardsmen who are struggling with this, because unlike in combat when you have an enemy, these are our neighbors, our friends, our family, the first Guard officer said.

The officer said he even told Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just before the Park Police moved in that the protests had been peaceful that day, a sentiment that was shared by three other Guardsmen who were there.

Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.), a Guardsman who was activated for the coronavirus pandemic but not the unrest, said using the National Guard during a peaceful protest for deterrence value is not really the correct way of employing the forces, which should instead be used as partners with local law enforcement and as a deescalating force.

Torrie Osterholm, the D.C. National Guards director of psychological health, said in an interview that many Guardsmen have reached out to her in the past week to express the pain and confusion they struggled with during and after the mission, both for what they witnessed and how the protesters reacted.

One Guardsman told her, I never thought Id get a bottle thrown at me and be told I should die and I should kill myself, Osterholm said. Theres not enough Kevlar to protect you from those kinds of statements spoken in your own language.

Walker, the D.C. Guard commander, acknowledged the challenges Guardsmen faced in a Sunday briefing with reporters.

I have some Guardsmen whose family members came out and criticized them. 'What are you doing out here, arent you black?' Walker said. Of course, were all hurting. The nation is hurting.

But not all encounters were negative. Maj. Brent Mangum, who has been in the Utah National Guard for 17 years, said that during his week in D.C., a colleague who was wearing a wristband in memory of a fallen police friend had a warm encounter with a protester.

The protester asked him about the wristband and why he wore it. So he took it off and handed it to her, allowing the woman to read it.

'Oh, so youre hurting too? she asked, Mangum recalled.

A change in attitude

One of the D.C. National Guardsmen said he was worried that a lot of the goodwill that the Guard has built up with local Washingtonians because of their coronavirus response and annual Fourth of July celebrations was in jeopardy.

Within the span of 30 to 40 minutes, all of that washed away because of political stuff, he said.

Osterholm said the Guardsmen were ill-prepared for the hate directed at them by the protesters, which was reminiscent of the anti-military sentiment during the Vietnam War. The shift from being viewed as heroes during the coronavirus pandemic to villains suppressing citizens right to protest happened overnight, she said.

This generation doesnt know what that feels like. This generation knows thank you for your service, this generation knows that they can go to Lowes and Home Depot and they can get 10 percent off, Osterholm said. A lot of us are still in denial of the intensity and the traumatic impact this has had for everyone.

Isaiah Lynch said that as an African American, he was called a traitor by some protesters who cursed at him, and also seen as an oppressor protecting the cops.

But he said a moment he would remember was when a man who had hit him with a brick the first day approached him a few days later to apologize.

He shook my hand and told me, Hey Im sorry. Do you guys need any water or anything?

Stopping the bleeding

As of Monday, 42,700 National Guardsmen were deployed across 34 states and D.C. to deal with protests. At the height of the response last week, 1,200 D.C. National Guardsmen and another 3,900 from 11 states were patrolling the nations capital. Defense Secretary Mark Esper gave the order for the out-of-state Guardsmen to begin leaving on Friday; all are expected to return home by Wednesday.

Guardsmen across the country have tried to signal to Americans in the streets that theyre on their side in several ways, including some taking a knee, giving water to protesters, giving fist or elbow bumps, and even dancing the Macarena in Georgia in a video that went viral.

But while theyve worked with local police, a number of them expressed concern about how some police officers have conducted themselves.

The police had lost credibility and a considerable amount of ground within their city so we were a last ditch attempt to try to stop the bleeding, said Capt. Maggie Gregg of the Minnesota National Guard. She commanded a group of about 75 cooks, mechanics, medics and even some HR professionals to provide security in south Minneapolis after riots had broken out a few days after Floyds death.

Capt. Richard Gilberti, a Nevada Guardsman, said at first he was nervous and unsure about how Reno residents would react to armed soldiers in uniforms on American streets. He worried about whether some people were going to be hostile to him and his fellow soldiers. But pretty quickly, he could tell that most people were happy they were there after the city had been hit with looting and vandalism.

Were here to make sure everybody can exercise their constitutional rights safely, he said, adding that soldiers were reminded that these are all U.S. citizens, all Nevadans, just like us, so treat them accordingly.

Other Guardsmen who were activated during the protests and unrest said they felt they were being weaponized against fellow Americans.

The message that was being conveyed to the public was that we were placed to be another weapon. We were placed there for scare. We were the scarecrow, said Gregg, who noted that some soldiers responding to the Minneapolis protests were assigned to ride along in ambulances largely for shock value, which evoked mixed feelings.

Because many Guardsmen are young, their friends were out there protesting but they were here and they were being made to feel like they were part of the problem instead of being part of the solution, Gregg said.

She said that the National Guards presence in the community may have even caused more unrest the first night they were deployed. Some local Minneapolis residents, she said, were more upset before they realized that the Guard had been called up to help protect the community, instead of crack down on the protesters.

It was hard for people to wrap their heads around the idea: how are you helping us if you have weapons and ammunition? Gregg said.

Lara Seligman contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 15:37:43|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, June 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's unification ministry said Wednesday that it will file legal complaint against two civic groups having sent leaflets criticizing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs said in a statement that the government will charge the two groups with the violation of the inter-Korean exchange and cooperation act.

It noted that the government will launch the process of cancelling the permission of incorporation given to the two civic groups.

The civic groups delivered anti-DPRK propaganda leaflets across the inter-Korean border by flying balloons into the wind or setting the sealed plastic bottles into the ocean near the border areas.

The ministry said such acts were in violation of the inter-Korean exchange and cooperation act that requires people to get approval from the government before sending materials to the DPRK.

Such acts were directly in violation of the agreement between the leaders of the two Koreas, escalating inter-Korean tensions and endangering the lives and safety of people residing near the border areas, the ministry added.
Greg Glassman stepped down as CEO of CrossFit shortly after a report said the founder of the fitness company made several controversial statements during a private Zoom call with gym owners, the company said in a statement.

We're not mourning for George Floyd  I don't think me or any of my staff are, according to a full recording of the Zoom meeting that was sent to BuzzFeed News.

"Can you tell me why I should mourn for him? Other than that its the white thing to do  other than that, give me another reason, Glassman, 63, reportedly asked a Minneapolis gym owner during the call on Saturday. Floyd's death, which was captured on video, has sparked demonstrations across the United States to protest police brutality. Four former Minneapolis police officers have been charged.

Glassman even offered up some unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding officer Derek Chauvin's involvement in Floyd's death. Chauvin, who has been charged with second-degree murder, and Floyd worked at the same Minneapolis nightclub, El Nuevo Rodeo.

It's very interesting that George gets popped with counterfeits, and who comes but the head of security from the dance club? Watch: This thing's going to turn into first-degree murder, Glassman reportedly said on the call. That's what it's going to turn into. And it's going to be because I'm predicting this. We have friends in the FBI in your neighborhood, and they're of the view that this was first-degree murder and it was to silence him over the counterfeit money. That's the belief. That's what the cops think.

Glassman's statements on Zoom were reportedly made just hours before he sent a tweet that appeared to make light of both Floyd's death and the coronavirus pandemic.

On Saturday, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation center tweeted, "Racism is a public health issue." Glassman replied, "It's FLOYD-19."

Soon after sending that tweet, gyms across the country began severing ties to CrossFit, with Reebok saying it will not renew its deal with the company.

Our partnership with CrossFit HQ comes to an end later this year," Reebok said. Recently, we have been in discussions regarding a new agreement, however, in light of recent events, we have made the decision to end our partnership with CrossFit HQ. We will fulfill our remaining contractual obligations in 2020.

Glassman, through his company's Twitter account, wrote, I, CrossFit HQ, and the CrossFit community will not stand for racism. I made a mistake by the words I chose yesterday. My heart is deeply saddened by the pain it has caused. It was a mistake, not racist but a mistake.

The latest revelation of Glassman's comments on Zoom appears to have been the last straw.

Im stepping down as CEO of CrossFit, Inc., and I have decided to retire," Glassman said on Tuesday. "On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its member. I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQs or affiliates missions. They are too important to jeopardize."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

MORE COVERAGE ON THE GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on Bay Area protest coverage here.

Matthew Tom is a Homepage Editor at SFGATE. Email: mtom@sfgate.com.
Troy University has fired its police chief over social media comments he made regarding the police-involved death of George Floyd.

In a statement, Chancellor Jack Hawkins said the termination of John McCall came after a thorough investigation.

His comments on social media about the tragic death of George Floyd do not reflect the values of Troy University and we are no longer confident in his ability to serve our students, faculty and staff, Hawkins said.

McCall was suspended earlier this month after a Troy University student posted screenshots of the now-deleted posts.

If you look at stats, more white people are killed by police every year! Where is the media screaming about that? People die in police custody from time to time. Did the officer make a mistake? Yes. Does he regret it? Yes. Was he intentionally trying to kill George Floyd? I dont think so, McCall wrote. Did George Floyd play any role in his own death? Absolutely. He fought with the police who were trying to make a lawful arrest.

The university condemned McCalls statements shortly after they were made. In his most recent statement, Hawkins said the university is working with police to learn how they can best serve our campuses and ensure that their practices align with our values.

At Troy, every member of the Trojan family is valued, respected and supported, Hawkins said. This culture of caring requires listening to one another and making changes when needed.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 17:40:47|Editor: huaxia

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LILONGWE, June 10 (Xinhua) -- After much political bickering on the date for the fresh poll in Malawi, Parliament on Tuesday passed Resolution to gazette June 23 as the date for the election.

The new Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) team also took oath of office on Tuesday. The new team comprises High Court Judge Chifundo Kachale as the new chairperson replacing Justice Jane Ansah who recently tendered her resignation.

The appointment of the new Commission was another bone of contention as Mutharika was heavily criticized for maintaining two members namely, Jean Mathanga and Linda Kunje, from the previous commission which the High Court and Parliament declared incompetent.

However, the endorsement of the fresh poll date and the swearing-in of the new MEC is a sure signal that the country will conduct the fresh election within the 150 days as ordered by the High Court in its Feb. 3 judgment.

But the lingering threat that Malawi faces as it goes to the poll is COVID-19 which has claimed four lives and affected over 450 people in the country since April 2 when the first cases were reported.

President Mutharika, who has not been seen publicly campaigning vigorously like the opposition, recently shot a warning against holding the election under the prevailing circumstances.

"Let us admit that we have a dilemma between going to an election too soon and preventing the spreading of coronavirus... Parliament must make its voice heard before the people," Mutharika said in his televised address to Parliament on June 5.

But with the Parliament's endorsement of June 23 as the polling date for the fresh election, the battle lines are drawn.

Mutharika is facing opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Lazarus Chakwera in the June 23 fresh election and the political campaign for the presidency has just reached its peak. Enditem
Its election season again, this time to fill 55 Rajya Sabha (RS) seats. These elections are usually not interesting as they proceed from the results of past assembly elections. It is the parties strength in the states concerned that determine how many seats they get to fill. So the results are known in advance. But in recent times, RS polls have been marked by uncertainty, as some parties engage in horse-trading to change the composition of assemblies in their favour.

As I write this column, the Congress in Gujarat is busy corralling its Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in a resort, as eight MLAs have succumbed to the charms of induced retirement, putting their partys second seat in RS in jeopardy. It is a worrying trend in Indian politics that parties can induce legislators to abandon ship so easily and without consequence, which amounts to altering the peoples verdict.

On March 20, the Kamal Nath-led government in Madhya Pradesh fell, having lost its majority after 22 of its MLAs resigned, following Jyotiraditya Scindias decision to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This was the fourth time in as many years that the Congress lost a state due to defections.

In February last year, in Karnataka, 14 Congress and three Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs resigned, precipitating the downfall of the 14-month-old coalition led by HD Kumaraswamy. In July, 10 of the 15 remaining Congress MLAs announced their resignation in the Goa assembly and merged with the BJP. A similar scenario took place in Manipur in 2017. Despite having emerged as the single-largest party, the Congress was outmanoeuvered by the BJP which cobbled together a coalition, backed by Congress defectors who had joined it ahead of the election.

This is not a recent phenomenon. In a book published in 1974, Subhash Kashyap recalled that in the 1967-71 four-year period, 142 defections took place in Parliament, and as many as 1969 defections took place in state assemblies across the country, causing the downfall of 32 state governments (statistics available on a PRS report). He further observed that 212 of these defectors had been subsequently rewarded with ministerial positions. In Karnataka, last year, ten of the eleven defectors who won their by-election on a BJP ticket were offered cabinet positions.

In recent years, the BJP has benefited the most from such defections. But data shows that the dominant party is not always the favoured destination of choice for defectors. In the late 1960s, most defectors were from the Congress. In the general election of 1977, the Bharatiya Lok Dal ran 94 turncoat candidates, including 21 from the Congress. Many of them migrated back to the Congress once it became clear that Indira Gandhi was set to win the 1980 elections. Those large-scale political migrations, according to Kashyap, were the reason the anti-defection law was passed in 1985 by Rajiv Gandhi.

It is not hard to guess the motivation behind these defections and the role of parties in inducing them. But all these defections are not merely the sum of the opportunism and individual ambitions of legislators. They also reveal the troubles that brew within political parties. Contrary to what one may expect, defectors are not necessarily newcomers or professional weathercocks who contest under multiple party labels. At least half of the recent Congress defectors were seasoned politicians, some former party heads or ministers.

The fact that the Congress loses old-timers is a powerful signal of its organisational disarray. Despite winning state elections, the party remains vulnerable to poaching by the BJP, which remains unchallenged at the national level. In recent years, political parties in India have undergone at least two transformations. The first is campaign professionalisation. Parties use data platforms that enable them to reach out directly to their workers at the village level. The second is an increase in the concentration of power in the high commands of parties. This has been a process nurtured by the growing personalisation of politics and the increased reliance on direct modes of communication. As a result, MLAs who used to play an important role of mediation in and outside their organisation have been made almost redundant. This causes a great deal of frustration and discontent. And when the party they belong to suffers from a vacancy of leadership and offer little prospects of future electoral gains, it is not surprising that many MLAs jump ship.

While this might seem a problem that the Congress has to grapple with, the trend of undoing governments through defections is problematic for two reasons. First, it shows that the anti-defection law no longer serves its main purpose of preventing government instability when a dominant party, which loses an election, seeks to convert it into a victory. And second, the practice of bringing duly-elected governments down through horse-trading makes a complete joke of whatever legitimacy or meaning is left of electoral mandates. Accepting defeat and respecting the peoples choice is a strong marker of a healthy democracy. Contriving to reverse the outcome of elections undermines it.

Gilles Verniers is assistant professor of political science, Ashoka University and senior visiting fellow at

the Centre for Policy Research

The views expressed are personal.
Following protests against racial injustice and amid nationwide calls to defund law enforcement, Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz is seeking to cut the budget for the citys police department.

The mayor previously sought to increase police funding by $193,579 or 2.88% in fiscal year 2021 as part of the budget proposal he submitted on May 18. More than $140,000 would have gone to contractually obligated salary hikes, $8,072 to police training and $45,465 to replace five police cars with hybrid cruisers.

However, as the Northampton City Council began deliberating the general fund budget, it became clear to Narkewicz there was a consensus among councilors and the police department that the budget should not be increased, the mayor wrote in a letter to City Council President Gina-Louise Sciarra.

I realize that our world has changed dramatically since I submitted this budget on May 18, the mayors letter said. I am committed to working with the city council to address the larger systemic issues of institutional racism and bias laid bare once again by the tragic killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020.

Floyd, who is black, died on Memorial Day after a white policeman kneeled on the unarmed, handcuffed mans neck for nearly 9 minutes. The officer, later identified as Derek Chauvin, has since been charged with second-degree murder.

The killing of Floyd sparked hundreds of protests throughout the world, with many calling for an end to systematic racism and police brutality. Calls for defunding law enforcement departments have also grown, and the Minneapolis City Council voted to dismantle the communitys police department last week.

In Northampton, two demonstrations were held, one on June 7 and the other on June 1, drawing thousands of protesters in the wake of Floyds death. Some participants held signs that said, Defund police.

The citys police department will see a decrease in its FY 2021 budget of $19,066 or -0.28% from FY 2020, Narkewicz wrote in his letter to Sciarra. In the mayors initial budget proposal, $6,913,403 was set aside for law enforcement

Narkewiczs formal withdrawal of the nearly $194,000 proposed budget increase for the police department came after multiple nights of heated city council hearings in which a number of residents expressed their disapproval of the funding expansion.

At the Northampton City Councils June 3 public hearing, concerns were brought up about allocating more municipal funds to the police department amid the coronavirus pandemic and as black Americans continue to be killed at the hands of police in other areas of the country, activists said.

Any consideration of moneys to the police department at this particular time would be seen as an affront to what would be going on now, said Richard Hendrick, who noted he is a new resident of the city. "This is just not the time for this kind consideration.

Almost aside from the question of the need for the funds and for the good work of the police department or the challenges of running the police department and those kinds of things, I think its just an inopportune time.

Ghazah Abbasi, another Northampton resident who spoke at the hearing, noted there are deep-rooted institutional problems with criminal justice in the U.S. and she is grateful for council members who are looking at alternatives to the current policing model.

We think that this money doesnt matter. We think that its just Northampton, its just this small pool of money, its not the NYPD, she said. But its across the United States, all of our public money is going into funding these gigantic killer corporations who are profiting off of black death.

City councilors also brought up their worries of increasing police funding during the hearing.

Arguing that law enforcement training is not enough, City Councilor Rachel Maiore, asked Northampton Police Chief Jody D. Kasper about how money from the departments budget would be used for strengthening and building partnerships with members of the community.

Ive said for years, I think at the heart of all of the issues that we have with police-community relations is this, in my opinion, missing link of us sitting at the table and listening to each other, Kasper answered. I mean really, how do you develop perspective? How do you develop relationships? And I think it comes from sitting at the table with people.

Kasper noted there has been some difficult resistance to having conversations with community members. The department is willing to have such discussions, though, she said, adding that the agency is part of the community.

It has been really challenging for us to be successful in Northampton, the police chief said. These conversations come up, and I havent found success at being able to sit at a table that is open to the community without just being met with resistance and an inability to sit and share perspectives.

She added, I want to bring good things to our community, but it takes time to do that, and one of the challenges and one of my fears is cutting our police department down."

As part of the mayors substitute police budget, a $140,042 increase would remain to honor legally binding collective bargaining agreements. The city is expected to eliminate the $8,072 directed toward training, though, and reduce the number of replacement hybrid police cruisers from five to two, which is expected to save more than $200,000.

Due to the ongoing public health crisis - which has led to economic and budgetary uncertainty, the mayor noted - it is highly likely officials will need to revisit this FY 2021 budget with additional cuts.

As of this writing, the [Massachusetts State] Legislature has yet to act on or even propose a FY 2021 state budget with only 22 days remaining until the end of FY 2020, Narkewicz wrote. "Last week, the Boston Globe reported that state tax collections in May were 15% lower than projected and overall tax receipts were $2.5 billion below what the state was projected to have at this point in FY 2020.

For those reasons, this revised order defers any reallocation of funding until we have a clearer fiscal picture for FY 2021.

The Northampton City Council is expected to consider an order to approve the mayors FY 2021 general fund budget at its virtual meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Public comment will be heard for up to two hours.

Related Content:
Trump Directs US to Develop Polar Security Icebreaking Fleet for Arctic, Antarctic, White House Says

Sputnik News

17:00 GMT 09.06.2020(updated 17:47 GMT 09.06.2020)

NATO member states have doubled their military activity in the northern polar region over the past five years, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Ambassador at Large for Arctic Cooperation Nikolay Korchunov said on 22 May.

The US government has been tasked with an inter-agency programme to develop a new fleet of icebreakers to project American national interests in the Arctic and Antarctic regions as soon as possible, President Donald Trump has announced in a memorandum.

"The United States will develop and execute a polar security icebreaking fleet acquisition program that supports our national interests in the Arctic and Antarctic regions", the memorandum to the secretaries of state, defence, homeland security, commerce, energy, as well as the Office of Management and Budget and national security adviser said.

According to the memo, the fleet will include "use cases in the Arctic that span the full range of national and economic security missions (including the facilitation of resource exploration and exploitation and undersea cable laying and maintenance) that may be executed by a class of medium PSCs, as well as analysis of how these use cases differ with respect to the anticipated use of heavy PSCs for these same activities".

The new fleet must be equipped with "assets and resources, capable of ensuring a persistent United States presence in the Arctic and Antarctic regions in support of national interests and in furtherance of the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy", the memorandum said.

The assets will include unmanned aviation; surface and undersea systems; space systems; sensors and other systems to achieve and maintain maritime domain awareness; command and control systems; secure communications and data transfer systems; and intelligence-collection systems, the memorandum said.

The assets will potentially have a defensive armament adequate to defend against threats by near-peer competitors and the potential for nuclear-powered propulsion, the memorandum added.

The memorandum comes after Russian Envoy at Large for Arctic Cooperation Nikolay Korchunov stated that NATO member states, as well as non-NATO countries, have become increasingly involved in military activity in the northern polar region in recent years.

On 1 May, the US Sixth Fleet conducted a joint naval anti-submarine warfare exercise with the United Kingdom in the Norwegian Sea. Four ships, a US submarine, and a Boeing P8-A reconnaissance aircraft participated in the drills.

 Sputnik

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A demonstration in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement will be held in OConnor Square, Tullamore on this Saturday, June 13 from 2pm to 3pm.

The demonstration is being organised by members of the local community and residents of the Tullamore Direct Provision centre in collaboration with the Movement for Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) and the Offaly Pro Equality Network (OPEN).

MASI is a non-profit grassroots organisation working and advocating for the right of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

OPEN was set up to ensure that everyone living in Offaly is welcomed and included.

This event aims to unite the community of Tullamore in support of marginalised groups in Ireland who experience discrimination and injustice, as well as calling for an end to Direct Provision.

The demonstration will adhere strictly to social distancing guidelines, and all those who wish to attend are asked to wear face masks and come prepared with hand sanitiser.

More information is available on the social media platforms of MASI and OPEN.
A Chicago police officer who flicked both his middle fingers to George Floyd protesters last week has been assigned to desk duty.

The officer was photographed during a protest last Thursday as police left demonstrations that went from Lincoln Park High School to the Chicago Police Training Academy.

Superintendent David Brown stripped the unnamed officer of his powers, according to the Chicago Police Department.

'The officer used a vulgar, offensive gesture directed at a member of the public while on duty and in uniform,' the statement read, the Independent reports. 'The member will be limited to administrative duties at the direction of the superintendent.'

The officer was photographed during a protest last Thursday as police left demonstrations that went from Lincoln Park High School to the Chicago Police Training Academy

According to Block Club Chicago, the police officer threw up the gesture after watching a protester flick him off.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned the gesture and said that the officer 'forfeited their right to be a Chicago police officer.'

'We'll find that person and in my view, that person needs to be immediately stripped of their police power and start the process for firing him,' she said.

During a press conference on Monday, Lightfoot praised a 'majority' of police action after condemning the gesture from the one officer

Police and protesters have clashed in cities across the country as demonstrations over the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have swept the United States

Police and protesters have clashed in cities across the country as demonstrations over the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have swept the United States.

During a press conference on Monday, Lightfoot praised a 'majority' of police action.

'While I believe that the vast majority of Chicago police officers have done their job well and, under difficult circumstances, have exercised restraint, unfortunately we're seeing evidence of some who have not,' she said.

'We will not tolerate people who cross the line. We will not tolerate excessive force. We will not tolerate profanity and homophobic comments that demean the badge, demean the honor of being a Chicago police officer and demean the value of who we are as Chicagoans. We will not tolerate that.'
[June 10, 2020] Annual financial results 2019: Bosch in North America sales of $14.4 billion on par with 2018

Bosch, a leading global supplier of technology and services, ended its 2019 fiscal year with $14.4 billion (13 billion euros) in consolidated sales in North America, slightly below the previous year's sales of $14.5 billion. "North America performed well as a region within the Bosch Group in 2019," said Mike Mansuetti, president of Bosch in North America. "Despite headwinds such as the reduction in automotive production, our 2019 results are a testament to our associates' hard work and the value we continue to provide our customers." For the current business year, Bosch in North America projects a subdued forecast due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic as well as the slowing of vehicle production that was evident even before the pandemic. "The current situation presents a number of challenges globally as well as here in North America," Mansuetti said. "Despite the difficult climate, we remain committed to pursuing sales and investment opportunities in the region that support our plan for long-term, strategic growth." Portfolio enhanced further with IoT- and AI-enabled technology Three of Bosch's business sectors - Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology - were nearly even in sales compared to 2018. Mobility Solutions sales were down slightly from the previous year. Mobility Solutions is Bosch's largest business sector. With sales of $9.2 billion in 2019, the sector accounted for 64 percent of Bosch's North American sales. Bosch continued to bring safety technology to the market in 2019. The company announced the MPC3 mono video camera and is bringing the solution to customers in the North American market. The camera makes use of artificial intelligence for robust object and lane recognition, enabling driver assistance systems to reach the next level of performance. Another safety system introduced was Trailer Safety Control. The Dexter Tow Assist ABS (News - Alert) & Sway Mitigation System, developed together with Dexter Axle Company, helps drivers maintain control of trailers during braking and to reduce sway situations. With fuel cell systems as a key component of its broad powertrain portfolio, Bosch worked together with Nikola Motor Company to completely reimagine the commercial vehicle powertrain - and the vehicle chassis integrated together with it - from the ground up. Consumer Goods, at $2.6 billion in sales, comprised 18 percent of sales in North America. Bosch Home Appliances will be welcoming Apple (News - Alert) Watch and Wear OS by Google smartwatches into its dynamic digital ecosystem, Home Connect. The Power Tools division's Dremel brand has had strong success with its first-ever cleaning product, the Dremel Versa. Dremel is now building on that success by launching four new Versa accessories in 2020. Industrial Technology's $1.5 billion in sales equates to 11 percent of Bosch's North American sales in 2019. The company debuted a new Factory of the Future experience featuring intelligent Industry 4.0 technologies that connect everything, from individual machine components and workstations with embedded sensors, up through machine-level and plant-lvel communications architectures to a cloud-based solution.



Energy and Building Technology's sales, at $914 million, reflect 6 percent of the total sales for Bosch in North America. After adding machine learning technology to Bosch cameras with Camera Trainer in 2019, the Building Technologies division has introduced the INTEOX open camera platform, which combines built-in Intelligent Video Analytics with high performance, a commonly used open OS, and the ability to add software apps securely. A milestone in space and on Earth for Research & Development

In November 2019 Bosch sent its first deployment of technology to the International Space Station (ISS). Bosch's SoundSee module uses microphones and machine learning to analyze audio data from ISS systems and equipment. Floating through the ISS on NASA's Astrobee autonomous robot, SoundSee uses AI-driven analytics to gauge system performance and predict maintenance needs, lightening the load of astronauts on board. In 2019 Bosch celebrated 20 years of Bosch Research in North America. For the last two decades, Bosch Research has been shaping the technology of the future, playing a key role in the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, human-machine interaction, automated driving systems, robotics, advanced circuits and sensors. Bosch Research in North America encompasses three sites (Sunnyvale, California; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) with a total of more than 100 researchers. Commitment to communities In 2019 Bosch invested more than $7 million (6.3 million euros) in communities through funding and volunteering. The Bosch Community Fund has awarded nearly $30 million (27.2 million euros) in grants to educational institutions and nonprofit organizations since 2012. The U.S.-based foundation focuses on the enrichment of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and environmental sustainability. Building on an eight-year program, the Bosch Community Fund now awards grants in 45 communities where Bosch is located. In 2019 more than 1,100 Bosch associates volunteered 24,000 hours [$610,000 (553,200 euros) in value] in service to 210 nonprofits. For example, Bosch associates throughout the U.S. volunteer with STEM programs in their communities. During the 2019-2020 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) season so far, 187 Bosch associates have volunteered more than 25,000 hours, mentoring more than 3,000 students on 130 teams. COVID-19 impact and recovery With the coronavirus pandemic, Bosch in North America anticipates considerable challenges for its business in the current year. The company is working together with customers to support a phased approach for post-COVID-19 business ramp up and safely re-starting operations is well underway. With the health and well-being of associates as its top priority, Bosch in North America is committed to being a reliable supplier of products to help the economy recover as quickly as possible. Bosch has also found ways to contribute broadly to recovery efforts. The company is producing facemasks and hand sanitizer both in North America and in other regions. The Anderson (South Carolina) plant was able to start producing hand sanitizer for internal use in just three days from idea to execution. It is also one of 13 Bosch plants globally producing facemasks for internal use, as is the Juarez, Mexico, plant. Producing these items for internal use reduces the burden on the supply chain. Bosch Group: Outlook for 2020 and long-term strategic course In view of the coronavirus pandemic, Bosch anticipates considerable challenges for the global economy in the current business year. To achieve at least a balanced result, will take a supreme effort, the board of management of the Bosch Group announced during the recent Annual Press Conference in Germany. Despite the challenges of the current situation, Bosch is maintaining its long-term strategic course: the supplier of technology and services is continuing with its systematic pursuit of ambitious climate goals and is developing the activities required to support an expansion of sustainable mobility. About Bosch Having established a regional presence in 1906 in North America, the Bosch Group employs 34,600 associates in more than 100 locations, as of December 31, 2019. In 2019 Bosch generated consolidated sales of $14.4 billion in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. For more information, visit www.bosch.us, www.bosch.ca and www.bosch.mx. The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. It employs roughly 400,000 associates worldwide (as of December 31, 2019). The company generated sales of 77.7 billion euros in 2019. Its operations are divided into four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology. As a leading IoT provider, Bosch offers innovative solutions for smart homes, Industry 4.0, and connected mobility. Bosch is pursuing a vision of mobility that is sustainable, safe, and exciting. It uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. The Bosch Group's strategic objective is to facilitate connected living with products and solutions that either contain artificial intelligence (AI) or have been developed or manufactured with its help. Bosch improves quality of life worldwide with products and services that are innovative and spark enthusiasm. In short, Bosch creates technology that is "Invented for life." The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 440 subsidiary and regional companies in 60 countries. Including sales and service partners, Bosch's global manufacturing, engineering, and sales network covers nearly every country in the world. The basis for the company's future growth is its innovative strength. Bosch employs some 72,600 associates in research and development at 126 locations across the globe, as well as roughly 30,000 software engineers. Additional information is available online at www.bosch.com, www.iot.bosch.com, www.bosch-press.com, www.twitter.com/BoschPress. Exchange rate: 1 EUR = 1.1027 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005404/en/

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As many as three hundred Foreigners Tribunals are expected to begin the task of hearing appeals from suspected foreign nationals within a month in Assam.

While the appeals from people delisted by the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not come up before the quasi-judicial bodies immediately, they will deal with cases from three other categories of people who have or are likely to be declared as suspects.

A senior official of the NRC secretariat was quoted by the media on condition of anonymity as saying that the issue of rejection slips has been kept in abeyance since the Registrar General of India (RGI) is yet to issue the notification on the final publication of the register.

The rejection slip will spell out the reason for the exclusion of the person from the NRC which he would have to submit while appealing before the tribunal.

The Centres plans on the NRC are not known although several senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders have been categorical in expressing their displeasure over the final outcome of the exercise. It is no secret that the BJP is unhappy over the exclusion of a large number of Bangladeshi Hindus and inclusion of more Muslims than expected in the register.

Once they are operationalised, the tribunals will hear three kinds of cases  those referred by the police, Election Commission and the cases under the erstwhile and controversial Illegal Migration (Determination by Tribunal) Act 1983 which was repealed by the Supreme Court in 2005.

The Assam Border Police Organisation had also embarked upon a revamp of its mechanism and procedure two years ago to identify foreign nationals in the state. The objective is also to make the process efficient and prevent harassment of genuine citizens.

If the RGI issues the notification, then two more categories of appeals would have to be heard by the tribunals in Assam. This includes the appeals from people excluded from the NRC and the cases referred by the deputy commissioners from the districts on the people who do not file appeals before the tribunals.

Last year, a Supreme Court bench led by the-then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi ordered that 200 new Foreigners Tribunals should be made functional by September 1, 2019. Subsequently, 221 members were recruited on a contract of one year which included 21 vacancies from the 100 existing tribunals.

Currently there are 78 tribunals functioning in the state. For months after their recruitment, the members had no work as they were awaiting their postings. Many members have already resigned to resume their practice either in court or continue with their engagements with other occupations.

The recruited members are currently undergoing attachment in different courts. For some time it was also unclear whether they would be allowed to hear appeals from other categories of suspects until it was decided two months ago following a directive from the Centre.

Last February, union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai informed Parliament that 9,457 cases were referred to the Foreigners Tribunals in 2017, a total of 2,051 in 2018 and 599 last year till November.

Before the NRC was published in August 2019, the home ministry had approved the setting up of 1,000 additional Foreigners Tribunals in a phased manner for hearing the appeals of people excluded from the NRC.

The plan was to settle at the earliest the huge number of appeals expected in the post-NRC phase. So far, the ministry has given its consent for 400 of which 200 tribunals have been sanctioned. However, as the NRCs future in uncertain, it is doubtful if more tribunals would be set up very soon in Assam.

(Rajeev Bhattacharyya is a senior journalist in Assam. Views expressed are personal)
The Infrastructure Minister has been challenged to explain why the Enniskillen southern bypass was left out of a major funding announcement, while three infrastructure projects in the north west received crucial investment.

Nichola Mallon said she would ensure funding for the dualling of the A5 between Londonderry and Aughnacloy and the A6 between Derry and Belfast, as well as funding for an updated feasibility study into the final phase of the Derry to Belfast railway upgrade.

The minister outlined an ambitious programme of investment, which also includes a 20m fund for environmental and sewerage infrastructure, and money for road safety measures, street lights and potholes.

Her announcements include support for greenways and 30m for low emission buses, investment in flagship projects and strategic roads; a rural roads pot, 20mph speed limit schemes for 100 schools, and funding to get phase three of the Derry-Coleraine line back on track.

The exclusion of the Enniskillen bypass, however, has angered Ulster Unionist MLA Rosemary Barton. She said: "I have raised the matter of Enniskillen's southern bypass with the minister on several occasions in recent months, however there is no mention of it in this announcement.

"This is a potential major development for Fermanagh and the west, given that it would enable an easier flow of traffic around the island town, and therefore allow better access to those who are visiting for shopping and tourism. I am disappointed that it has not been mentioned within this year's plans.

"The project would also be a low cost project when compared to other strategic route infrastructure, therefore I thought it would be an obvious choice for the minister to implement and a major benefit to the area."

The Into the West railway lobby group said the focus of infrastructure funding should be on trains rather than cars. Spokesman Eamonn McCann said: "What is lacking in all of this is any consideration to the wider environmental implications.

"Investment needs to be shifted away from road and into rail but there is no overall plan for that.

"Big roads suck traffic on to them, so what we would be in favour of is building a railway line alongside the roads.

"There are no reasons why this couldn't be done. If we are going to have money poured into roads, let's do that in the context of a more rational balance of spending on transport overall."

Earlier, Ms Mallon outlined the challenges facing her budget.

She said: "It is no secret that the Department for Infrastructure is facing real pressures in its resource budget. While I've been able to allocate my budget to support services, serious gaps remain for our public transport network and NI Water.

"The financial climate remains difficult, significantly compounded by the Covid-19 crisis, but I am committed to seizing the opportunities to enable a greener, cleaner, recovery towards a new and better normal for all of us

"The decisions I have taken are to ensure DfI plays its part in responding to this crisis and enabling our safe and speedy recovery from it to a new way of living and working."
(Natural News) The health officials who led the federal coronavirus task force enjoyed plenty of opportunities to educate Americans on how to face and overcome severe acute respiratory syndrome. However, these infectious disease experts mentioned next to nothing about how to equip the individual immune system, how to prevent viral attachment, lessen viral load, and block viral replication. Americans were kept in the dark and left with limited, unsustainable options  like avoiding human contact and staying in a state of isolation into perpetuity.

Now theres ample evidence that a common mineral, zinc, can block the replication of the virus behind the covid-19 dilemma.

Zinc inhibits coronavirus, blocking viral replication in cells

RNA viruses, including poliovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, picornaviruses, influenza virus, and coronavirus can all be stopped at the cellular level by increasing the intracellular concentration of zinc. Medical researchers from the Molecular Virology Laboratory, Department of Medical Microbiology, Center of Infectious Diseases, Leiden University Medical Center, in the Netherlands explain that the replication of all these viruses can be stopped when zinc concentrations force a correction of proteolytic processing of viral polyproteins.

Using electromobility shift assays (EMSA) in the presence and absence of Zn2+, the researchers measured the binding affinity of the viral RNA and measured a 3-4 fold reduction in RNA-dependent RNA polymerase binding in the presence of zinc. By using zinc ionophores like pyrithione, the researchers proved that increased intracellular zinc impairs the replication of RNA viruses, severely inhibiting the replication of equine arteritis virus (EAV) and SARS-coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in cells. The two viruses share a core enzyme needed for multi-protein replication that is easy to block using zinc. The researchers didnt even need to rely on pyrithione to transport zinc across the plasma membrane because zinc could effectively inhibit RNA synthesizing activity in a direct manner. Because of this, the in vitro activity of both viruses polymerases could be blocked with ease. Moreover, zinc was found to specifically block the initiation step of RNA synthesis, inhibiting the elongation and template binding of SARS-CoV RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. The researchers also showed that the absence of zinc, through chelation of the mineral from cells, reverses its therapeutic effect, allowing viral replication to continue.

Zinc is therapeutic medicine against many types of viruses and bacteria

Zinc has a history of therapeutic use against viruses and bacteria, strengthening the human immune response. Why arent public health systems making this the primary focus  enhancing the intracellular immune response? During the covid-19 dilemma, strengthening the innate immune response has not been encouraged and the public has been kept ignorant and afraid. Healthcare systems are relying heavily on ventilators, and ventilator-associated lung damage and ventilator-associated pneumonia have become a serious issue that costs lives. Many healthcare systems have relied on fraudulent data that discouraged the use of known antiviral medicines. The therapeutic efficiency of chloroquine, for example, acts as a zinc ionophore, allowing for enhanced zinc absorption into the cells. Combined with a zinc supplement, this combination can inhibit SARS-CoV RNA polymerase and decrease activity of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, which is a known receptor for SARS-CoV-2.

The antiviral properties of zinc can also convey an up-regulation of interferon production, allowing the innate immune system to more rapidly respond to a virus and eliminate an infection from the body. Furthermore, zinc possesses anti-inflammatory activity and allows T-cell immune function to work efficiently, limiting cytokine storms that are observed in severe cases of covid-19.

As zinc absorption is increased in the cells, the risk of bacterial co-infection is lowered, warding off other infectious that may try to take hold of an overworked immune system, such as pneumonia. (Zinc exhibits a direct antibacterial effect toward S. pneumoniae.) Through this mechanism, zinc is also responsible for clearing the mucous from the body and improving the barrier function of the respiratory epithelium. The many people who suffered and died from covid-19 infections were mostly in high risk categories where zinc deficiency is often observed. Obesity, diabetes, and atherosclerosis are all known risk groups for zinc deficiency and have been the most common underlying conditions that have led to covid-19 deaths.

For more on the therapeutic effect of nutrition for infectious disease, check out Nutrients.News.

Sources include:

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov

Science.NaturalNews.com

Medscape.com

NaturalNews.com
The defendant in the Sasna Tsrer case and Sasna Tsrer member Pavlik Manukyan has been apprehended for not wearing a mask, judge Mesrop Makyan noted.

He did not fulfill the requirement of law enforcement officers and was apprehended, the judge said.

The trial of the criminal case of the ten members of the Sasna Tsrer armed group, which resumed Wednesday at a Yerevan court of first instance, has been rescheduled as the defended was not present.

The defendants in attendance, however, stated that they were against the adjournment of this court session.

But the presiding judge said the hearing was adjourned, but the defendants currently not in attendance would be obligated to attend the next court hearing.

Currently, defendants Armen Bilyan and Smbat Barseghyan, who are charged with murdering police officers, are still in custody.

After the revolution in Armenia in 2018, and based on the personal pledges submitted by MPs, the pretrial measure of custody that was in force for seven other members was commuted and they were released, while Sasna Tsrer member Pavel Manukyan was set free on a 1mn-dram bail.

In protest of the then authorities, the Sasna Tsrer armed group took over a police patrol regiment building in Yerevan and held hostages, but later surrendered in July 2016. Three police officers, however, were killed during the two-week standoff.

Criminal charges have been brought against 32 people in connection with this incident and related developments.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is holding his daily news conference on the Covid-19 outbreak following more than a week of nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd.

Every part of the state has now began to reopen in varying degrees. New York City entered phase one of the state's reopening plan on Monday. Cuomo declared that the state's "mojo's back" as the daily number of new cases continues to decline.

On Tuesday, Cuomo pointed to some other states, including Florida, that have reopened and since seen a resurgence of the virus. He urged New Yorkers to continue practicing social distancing and to take precautions like wearing a mask even as the state pushes forward with reopening.

"We're in a new phase. We're feeling good. We've done great, but we have to stay smart, because reopening resets the whole game," Cuomo said. "When you reopen, when people start coming out, in some ways, you go right back to day one."

The governor said earlier this week that the state will keep a special eye on New York City and perform 35,000 tests per day to closely monitor the reopening there. He added that health officials will react immediately if they see any increase in the infection rate.

The virus has infected more than 379,480 people across New York state and killed at least 30,458 people there, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Read CNBC's live updates to see the latest news on the COVID-19 outbreak.
Where are the marches and the outrage regarding the deliberate and quite systematic murder by jihadist Muslims of Black Christians in Nigeria and other African countries?

At Genocide Watch (graphic pictures), one learns that Nigeria is "a killing field of defenseless Christians." Since June 2015, "over 11,500 Christians have been murdered and 2,000 churches were destroyed." The "statistics are based on careful records kept by church groups that include the names of victims and dates of their murders."

Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen accounted for 7,400 murders of Christians. Boko Haram committed 4,000 killings of Christians. 'Highway Bandits' who separated Christians from Muslims on buses and then killed the Christians committed over 200 murders. Fulani Jihadists are now the world's deadliest terrorist group. Five Nigerian Christians are massacred every day by Fulani and Boko Haram Jihadists. One hundred percent of the 7,400 murders by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen since June 2015 were Christians. Fulani militias wipe out whole Christian villages, but they leave Muslim villages unharmed. Four thousand Christians were killed by Boko Haram, a majority of the 6000 civilians massacred by Boko Haram/Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) since June 2015. Boko Haram also murders Muslims who work with the Nigerian government, teach or attend schools, and anyone else who does not submit to Boko Haram's deadly domination. From 2009 to 2020, Boko Haram murdered at least 27,000 civilians, even more than ISIS in Syria and Iraq, making Boko Haram the world's deadliest terrorist group. That 'distinction' has now been claimed by Jihadist Fulani militias.

Christians of Igbo extraction are targeted and abducted. In a scene reminiscent of what the Nazis did to the Jews, the victims "are separated at gunpoint according to their tribe and religion. This same religious targeting is applicable to victims of house to house raiding and looting during which Christians are separated from others at gunpoint and taken away or killed on the spot." If not immediately murdered, they are "forced to pay ransom or face death including beheading or forceful conversion to Islam." Women are subjected to brutal sexual violence of all sorts.

In short, "[j]ihadists have forced 4 to 5 million Christians to flee and have destroyed 2,000 churches since June 2015."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Rev. Johnnie Moore, the president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, traveled to Nigeria in February 2020 because they could not "stand by idly when the blood of [their] neighbor is being spilled (Book of Leviticus 19:16)." They write:

[B]lood is flowing like a river through this sprawling country, and it is being spilled at the hands of the Islamist terrorists of Boko Haram and lawless tribesmen. Dozens of victims shared accounts of almost incomprehensible suffering. A 9-year-old girl told us about watching terrorists murder her parents and siblings with machetes. A pastor whose church had been destroyed twice met with us soon after negotiating the release of two female parishioners kidnapped by Boko Harem while en route to a Christmas celebration. The young women next to him, newly released, still showing signs of shock. We met men from a village razed entirely by the Islamists. The livelihoods were sabotaged, their families' [sic] massacred. The attackers waited till the middle of the night before assailing men, women and children with guns and machetes. Kidnapping wasn't to their taste. They started fires, then unleashed horrific ethnic cleansing. Every victim's story seemed to end with the words "there are thousands more like us."

Raymond Ibrahim ceaselessly documents the genocide of Christians worldwide. In truth, a "slow-motion war is under way in Africa's most populous country." It's a massacre of Christians, massive in scale and horrific in brutality. The world hardly notices. In Mali and Nigeria, Christians are burned alive. In fact, "Nigeria is ranked 12th and Mali 29th on Open Doors' 2020 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution."

No global marches, no statements from Black Lives Matter, and a deafening silence from women's groups. What might account for this?

It is because the left allies itself with the Islamic jihadists, and while they are strange bedfellows, their ultimate aim is global conquest. There is no room for Christians or Jews, whatever their racial background.

Leftist groups pay no attention to this unending murder and rape. How is it that in London, Black Lives Matter signs can be seen, but no one is railing against the carnage in Nigeria? Could it be that the Muslim mayor of London has no interest in calling out his radical Islamic brethren? Consider that Sadiq Khan, when elected mayor of London, had the full backing of the international left. Other leftists who were happy with Khan's ascent to power made their approval public.

Congrats, @SadiqKhan.  H," tweeted Hillary Clinton. Likewise happy are Islamic supremacists worldwide: members of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), the party of Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the majority party in the nation's National Assembly, held up a sign emblazoned: 'Heartiest Congratulation [sic] to Sadiq Khan 1st Muslim Mayor of London who defeated millionaire Jew Zec [sic] Goldsmith.'

How is it that the Pope will not speak out for his flock dying in Africa? Could it be that his leftist leanings preclude his concern for Black Christian Africans? He appears incapable of understanding the ferocity of radical Islam when he asserts that "[he does not] like to speak of Islamic violence because every day when [he opens] the newspapers [he sees] acts of violence, here in Italy: someone kills his girlfriend, someone else his mother-in-law ... and these violent people are baptized Catholics! They are violent Catholics[.] ... If I spoke about Islamic violence, I would also have to speak about Catholic violence."

Moral equivocation is a standard ploy of the left. It is how leftists weasel out of responsibility and shift guilt to others. It is how they exhort easily deceived people to prostrate themselves with false culpability over crimes they never committed. Considering Black Lives Matter, it would shock many members of the black community to "learn that the intellectual godfathers of this movement are mostly white communists ... intent on making blacks into cannon fodder for the revolution."

In fact, "[t]he Black Lives Matter movement is not about particular injustices but about the alleged injustice of the American system, of capitalism, and of 'white supremacy.' Its mission is not to save black lives. The thousands of deaths from black-on-black homicides draw no attention and inspire no protests, nor do the deaths of black police officers on the integrated police forces they attack. Their ferocious denunciations of slogans like 'All Lives Matter' and 'Blue Lives Matter' as 'racist' reveal the racist impetus behind their own agenda."

It is abundantly clear that BLM and its ilk applaud the destruction of whites. After all, their religion is the religion of violence.

Equally important is that no lives really matter just as long as the movement succeeds in overtaking the country. As long as the left aligns with jihadists, and remains mute in the face of this genocide, the murder of black African Christians by Muslims will continue.

Those who support Black Lives Matter are naively becoming ensnared by BLM's intrinsic hatred while the Nigerian black child cries out, "Biko zoputa anyi"  please save us.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
President Moon Jae-in looks around room No. 509 at the former site of a police interrogation office in Namyeong-dong, Seoul, where student activist Park Jong-chul died from torture. Moon and first lady Kim Jung-sook laid flowers in front of Park's photo and observed a moment of silence to pay tribute to the late pro-democracy activist. Korea Times photo by Wang Tae-seok



By Do Je-hae



President Moon Jae-in paid tribute to pro-democracy activists during an event to mark the 33rd anniversary of the June 10 Democracy Movement, Wednesday, at a site in Namyeong-dong in Seoul, notorious for the interrogation and torture of pro-democracy activists that occurred there in the 1970s and 80s at the hands of the authoritarian government.



The protest, also known as the "June Struggle," refers to a nationwide anti-government movement in 1987 from June 10 to 29 against the Chun Doo-hwan regime. The movement was critical for Korea's democratization as it ultimately brought about a constitutional revision which enabled direct election of the president.



In the 1980s, a number of university students lost their lives during the anti-government protests. One of the notable student activists was Park Jong-chul, a student at Seoul National University. He died on Jan. 14, 1987, after being tortured during police interrogation about his activities. His death and the authorities' attempts to cover it up fueled the public's indignation against the Chun regime.



President Moon honored Park and other activists during the ceremony by awarding government medals to their bereaved families. It is the first time for the government to award medals during a memorial ceremony for the June 10 movement, the presidential office said.



"This is the notorious place where many had to suffer illegal arrests, torture and human rights violations just because they hoped for democracy," Moon said in the ceremony at the site, which is now being transformed into the Democracy and Human Rights Memorial Hall.



"On Jan. 14, 1987, Park Jong-chul of the linguistics department at Seoul National University died at age 22 from police torture in interrogation room 504. But due to the June Struggle, the truth behind the state's violence conducted in Namyeong-dong was finally revealed to the outside world.





President Moon Jae-in awards the Moran medal, the second-highest grade in the Order of Civil Merit, to activist Bae Eun-shim, Wednesday, during a ceremony at the Democracy and Human Rights Memorial Hall in Namyeong-dong, Seoul, to mark the 33rd anniversary of the 1987 June pro-democracy movement. Bae is also the mother of late student activist Lee Han-yeol, who became one of the symbols of the June struggle after he was brutally killed by police. Yonhap
By Marianna Parraga (Reuters) - Two tankers that were sailing toward Venezuela to load crude have turned around since the weekend and three other vessels have left Venezuelan waters as the United States considers blacklisting dozens of ships for transporting the country's oil, according to shipping data and industry sources. Washington is considering imposing sanctions on tankers involved in exporting Venezuela's oil as the U.S.

By Marianna Parraga

(Reuters) - Two tankers that were sailing toward Venezuela to load crude have turned around since the weekend and three other vessels have left Venezuelan waters as the United States considers blacklisting dozens of ships for transporting the country's oil, according to shipping data and industry sources.

Washington is considering imposing sanctions on tankers involved in exporting Venezuela's oil as the U.S. government seeks to choke off the main source of revenue for socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

Previous rounds of sanctions have reduced Venezuelan oil exports to a 17-year low while deepening the country's economic crisis but Maduro has held on, frustrating the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Tighter U.S. restrictions on shipping would make it more difficult for state oil firm PDVSA to deliver oil to refineries abroad. Exports dropped to about 452,000 barrels per day in May, the lowest since a national strike paralyzed the economy and hit exports in December 2002 and January 2003.

Some ship operators have started diverting vessels away from Venezuela to avoid the risk of incurring sanctions that would make it harder to keep the tankers working.

Malta-flagged tanker Seadancer, operated by Greek firm Thenamaris Ships Management and chartered by Thai refiner Tipco Asphalt, returned to Gibraltar after waiting in the Atlantic Ocean for a week, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking data.

Tipco Asphalt told Reuters on Tuesday the company had dropped plans to use the vessel.

The Seadancer had previously been on course for waters off the western coast of Venezuela at Amuay, where oil is transported from one ship to another, according to the Eikon data and PDVSA's export schedules.

The vessel was scheduled to load 1 million barrels of Venezuela's Boscan crude for shipping to Malaysia's Kemaman refinery, operated by Tipco, according to the PDVSA schedules. Tipco has a long-term supply contract with PDVSA that has not been affected by sanctions.

Another vessel operated by Thenamaris that had loaded crude in Venezuela in February, the Seahero, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last week along with its owner, Adamant Maritime Ltd.

A second Malta-flagged tanker expected in Venezuela, the Novo, made a U-turn this week in the Caribbean Sea. The vessel was scheduled to transport 1 million barrels of Hamaca crude in June to Singapore, the Eikon and PDVSA data showed.

The contract for chartering the Novo was also suspended in recent days, according to two PDVSA sources. The tanker is operated by Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd, which also operates the Chios I, sanctioned last week by the U.S. Treasury.

PDVSA and Venezuela's oil ministry did not reply to requests for comment for this story. Thenamaris Ships Management and Dynacom Tankers did not immediately reply to requests for comment. As the word spread on the possibility of more Venezuela-related shipping sanctions to come, at least three more very large crude carriers (VLCCs) - Boston, Commodore and Respect - exited Venezuelan waters over the weekend to anchor at the Eastern Caribbean, the Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

The operators have been waiting for clarification from PDVSA customers, brokers, vessel owners and charterers on whether they can go ahead with exports amid increased risk of sanctions, the sources said.

In late May, PDVSA added an advisory seen by Reuters to its export program saying that another tanker scheduled to transport Venezuelan crude that month to Asia had "refused loading due to sanctions."

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Mexico City and Chayut Setboonsarng in Bangkok; Editing by Simon Webb and David Gregorio)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Russia's Roscosmos space agency Director General Rogozin is seen before President Putin's address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Americans should show more respect for Russia's space programme after relying on it for nine years as the only way to send U.S. astronauts into orbit, the head of Russia's space agency said.

The United States launched the first astronauts from U.S. soil since 2011 last month in a rocket built by SpaceX, the company of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. In the intervening years, Americans flying to the International Space Station relied on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

In a column in this week's Russian version of Forbes, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, lamented that Americans still do not take the Russian space programme as seriously as their own.

"When our partners finally managed to conduct a successful test on their spacecraft, there were nothing but jokes and mockery directed at us," Rogozin complained. Instead, the American space industry should have thanked Russia.

"Our country was the first to send a man into space," Rogozin wrote. "We remain first to this day."

Roscosmos has in recent years suffered a series of setbacks and corruption scandals, including during the construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the country's far east.

It criticised U.S. President Donald Trump's "hysteria" after he said the SpaceX launch showed the United States had regained its place as the world's leader in space.

Trump also said U.S. astronauts would soon land on Mars, and that Washington would soon have "the greatest weapons ever imagined in history."

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber)
WARSAW, Poland - Polish state television faced increasing criticism Wednesday for its negative coverage of the main opposition candidate in this months presidential election, with accusations from watchdog groups it was resorting to anti-Semitic and racist tropes.

Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who is challenging right-wing populist President Andrzej Duda, was depicted by public television in a nearly seven-minute news broadcast Tuesday as someone who would serve the interests of a powerful foreign lobby and not of Poles if he were to win the presidency.

TVP is taxpayer funded and required to be politically neutral. But TVP and other publicly-funded media have recently been trumpeting achievements of the governing nationalist conservative party, Law and Justice, and criticizing political opponents.

Reporters Without Borders has called Polands public media government propaganda mouthpieces, while many older Poles critical of the government often liken the current practice to the propaganda of the communist era.

Tuesdays segment came after the first part of an evening new broadcast dominated by positive coverage of Duda, who is seeking reelection in the vote on June 28 against nine other candidates. Trzaskowski has emerged as Dudas main opponent, with polls showing a runoff between the two will be likely required on July 12.

The program noted that Trzaskowski, who belongs to the centrist and pro-European Union Civic Platform party, had negotiated Polands position on accepting 7,000 refugees in 2015. That decision was reversed by the anti-migrant Law and Justice party, which won power in 2015.

The broadcast showed groups of dark-skinned people in violent riots in Western cities, saying that those were the kinds of scenes that Trzaskowskis policies would bring to Poland.

Andrzej Krajewski, a member of the board of the Society of Journalists, a media watchdog, said the program marked a new low for TVP, which he said has abandoned journalist standards and was carrying out pure propaganda.

Krajewski said the broadcast sought to discredit Trzaskowski with its selective usages of details about him, like linking him to investor George Soros, who is treated as an object of hate by many nationalists worldwide. For instance, TVPs broadcast noted that Trzaskowski had once studied on a Soros scholarship, but did not say that thousands of others across central Europe -- including Hungarys Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- also had such scholarships.

TVPs unbalanced reporting on the presidential candidate Rafal Trzaskowski with distorted quotes is unfortunately yet another proof of the pro-government bias of Polish public broadcasting, said Pavol Szalai of Reporters Without Borders.

Szalai added that it was all the more damaging since it comes as Poles will decide who to vote for in the election.

The program also noted that Trzaskowski had attended a meeting of the Bilderberg Group, an annual meeting of high-profile participants from business and politics. The newscaster concluded the broadcast saying: Whose interests would Trzaskowski represent if he wins the presidency? That of Poles or of a powerful foreign lobby?

Rafal Pankowski, the head of an association that monitors and fights racism, Never Again, said that it would be pretty obvious to anyone who watches the program in Poland the references to rich groups who want to rule the world and a foreign lobby could be interpreted as a code for Jews.

He also said it was extremely problematic the way TVP used footage of crowds of black people in a way that made them seem dehumanized, dangerous and aggressive.

All of that was really fascist-like, Pankowski said. The global context is also interesting because when people all over the world are waking up to the dangers of racism, these are images which play on dangerous racial stereotypes.

A TVP broadcast last week portrayed Trzaskowski, a Catholic, as anti-Christian.

The stations programming has dovetailed with the governments own attacks on Trzaskowski.

As mayor of Warsaw, Trzaskowski has supported LGBT rights, a position that the governing party has also seized on to depict him as a threat to the traditional family in this mostly Catholic country. Last week Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in parliament that Trzaskowskis pro-LGBT position amounts to an attack on the family.
A divided Harris County Commissioners Court passed a resolution condemning the death of George Floyd as the product of racist policing and a flawed criminal justice system.

Court members voted 4-1 in favor of the symbolic gesture, with Commissioner Steve Radack was the lone dissenter. Radack, a Republican retiring at the end of this year, agreed with his colleagues that the killing of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer was tragic. He declined, however, to support an indictment of American policing overall.

I'm not going to condemn the men and women of law enforcement because of a racist act that should not have occurred, Radack said.

Before being elected in 1988, Radack served as a Houston police officer and Harris County constable. The other court member with a law enforcement background, former Democratic county sheriff Adrian Garcia, supported the resolution.

The other Republican commissioner, Jack Cagle, also objected to the paragraph of the resolution describing Floyds death as the actions of racist policing and a broken law enforcement system. He said the statement was unfair to local law enforcement, though he ultimately supported the resolution.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who said he finished writing the resolution while attending the funeral for Floyd, a longtime Houstonian, earlier in the day, said the resolution does not condemn all police officers.

Anyone thats had to live 66 years, and deal with these issues all my life, yes, there is racism in America, racism in virtually everything that goes on, Ellis said. And there are many things that are broken.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo had also proclaimed Tuesday as George Floyd Day in Harris County. Hidalgo recessed the Commissioners Court meeting for several hours so she and several commissioners could attend the services for Floyd.

Court members spent much of the meeting, which stretched past 10 p.m., debating a series of police and criminal justice reforms.

zach.despart@chron.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 15:31:47|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, June 10 (Xinhua) -- A Cambodian court on Tuesday charged a provincial military police's anti-drug bureau chief with possessing and trafficking drugs and owning weapons illegally, according to a court's spokesman on Wednesday.

Chhun Somethea, chief of the southern Takeo provincial military police's anti-drug bureau, and his apparent lover were arrested on Thursday at a petrol station in Takeo province after officers found 2 kilograms of methamphetamines in their car, and a further search of the military police officer's home uncovered another 8 kilograms of marijuana and two guns.

"The military police officer was charged with three counts: possessing and trafficking illicit drugs and owning weapons illegally, while the woman was charged with trafficking drugs," Kuch Kimlong, a spokesman for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, told Xinhua.

The Southeast Asian country has seen a remarkable rise in drug arrests during the first five months of this year, according to an Interior Ministry's anti-drug department report.

The authorities had arrested 8,864 drug-related suspects in 4,490 cases during the January-May period this year, up 28 percent and 37 percent, respectively compared to the same period last year, the report said.

It added that 259 kilograms of illicit drugs, 225 kilograms of dry marijuana and 180,490 marijuana plants had been confiscated from those suspects during the first five months of this year.

Cambodia has no death sentence for drug traffickers. Under its law, someone found guilty of trafficking more than 80 grams of illicit drugs could be jailed for life. Enditem
The PSNI have issued an appeal for information about the whereabouts of a young family missing from Derry.

Police are becoming increasingly concerned for the whereabouts of Charlene Collins (25) and Martin Collins (27).

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The couple were last seen yesterday with their two young children (approximately 1 and 2 years old) at 9:30am in the OConnor Court area of the city.

The PSNI are urging those who have any information on the whereabouts of this family, to contact 101 as soon as possible quoting reference number 1225 9/6/20.
A former Green Beret and his son accused of smuggling ex-Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan in a box are fighting their extradition to the country, arguing the offense is not a crime there.

Michael, 59, and Peter Taylor, 27, are wanted in Japan on allegations that they helped Ghosn flee the country in December while he was out on bail and awaiting trial on financial misconduct allegations.

But lawyers for the Taylors said in a legal document filed Monday that 'bail jumping' is not a crime in Japan and, therefore, helping someone evade their bail conditions isn't a crime either.

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts said that former U.S. Green Beret Michael Taylor (left and right) and his son, Peter Taylor, helped Ghosn last year flee to Lebanon to avoid trial in Japan over alleged financial wrongdoing

The attorneys accused U.S. authorities of 'attempting to transform Japanese law to criminalize the act of helping someone engage in an act that is not itself criminal.'

Taylor's lawyers wrote in a statement: 'Japan has never prosecuted anyone, including Ghosn, for "escaping" bail conditions. To the contrary, in the wake of Ghosns departure from Japan, numerous news articles have reported on the fact that what Mr. Ghosn did was not a crime.'

At the very least, the Taylors should be released from jail while they challenge the extradition because they don't pose a risk of flight or danger to the community, the lawyers told the judge.

Ex-Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn fled Japan in December while he was out on bail and awaiting trial on financial misconduct allegations

The case which the former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn allegedly hid in while fleeing from Japan, where he was being held under house arrest, via Turkey to Lebanon

Michael Taylor, a former Green Beret and private security specialist, and Peter Taylor, were arrested last month in the town of Harvard, Massachusetts.

The defense lawyers called Michael Taylor a 'decorated veteran who has served his country admirably,' and his son an 'impressive recent college graduate, with no criminal history whatsoever.'

Authorities say the Taylors helped sneak Ghosn out of the Japan on a private jet with former Nissan boss tucked away in a large box. The flight went first to Turkey, then to Lebanon, where Ghosn has citizenship but which has no extradition treaty with Japan.

Michael Taylor, front right, and George Antoine Zayek (rear), were caught on CCTV at Istanbul Airport in Turkey while allegedly helping Carlos Ghosn flee from Japan to Lebanon

A team of 15 private security contractors hatched a plot to smuggle Carlos Ghosn out of Tokyo and onto a private jet to Lebanon via Turkey

Ghosn said he fled because he could not expect a fair trial, was subjected to unfair conditions in detention and was barred from meeting his wife under his bail conditions.

Ghosn has said he is innocent of allegations he under-reported his future income and committed a breach of trust by diverting Nissan money for his personal gain.

He says the compensation was never decided on or received, and that the Nissan payments were for legitimate business purposes.

He has now claimed that Hollywood has approached him for a new movie about his daring escape

Ghosn is now holed up inside a mansion in Beirut with wife Carole (pictured, security outside) and says he plans to fight for justice from the country

Its not clear yet how Ghosn hooked up with the Taylors.

The security business that Michael Taylor and a partner set up decades ago was initially focused on private investigations, but their caseload grew through corporate work and unofficial referrals from the State Department and FBI, including parents whose children had been taken overseas by former spouses.

The elder Taylor has been hired by parents to rescue abducted children, gone undercover for the FBI in a sting on a Massachusetts drug gang and worked as a contractor for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last assignment had landed him in a Utah jail for 14 months, caught in a federal contract fraud case that upended Taylors family and finances before he agreed to plead guilty to two charges.
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The Federal Communications Commission [FCC] announced a record $225-million fine against a Texas-based insurance telemarketing firm for making as many as 1 billion illegal robocalls, but two FCC commissioners wondered whether the agency will actually collect that massive fine.

The FCC alleges that John C. Spiller and Jakob Mears, through companies including Rising Eagle Capital and JSquared Telecom, made 1 billion robocalls across the country during the first four-and-a-half months of 2019 on behalf of clients that sell short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans.

Spiller admitted to the USTelecom Industry Traceback Group, a private industry group that frequently works with the FCC on robocall enforcement, that he knowingly called consumers on the Do Not Call list because he believed that it was more profitable to target those consumers. According to the FCC, Spiller also admitted that he made millions of calls per day using spoofed numbers that resembled numbers beloging to the call recipient's friends or family members.

The robocalls falsely claimed to offer health insurance plans from well-known health insurance companies like Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield, Cigna, and UnitedHealth Group, but consumers would instead be transferred to a call center with no affiliation with the companies named. Representatives would then attempt to convince the consumer to buy insurance from one of Rising Eagle's clients.

Consumer Reports contacted Spiller and Mears for comment through Rising Eagle but did not get a response before publication.

The $225 million amount was the largest proposed fine in the FCC's 86-year history. Spiller and Mears can respond to the allegations and the FCC may reduce, but not increase, the fines if the case moves forward.

"It's important to hold robocallers accountable, so we're glad that the FCC has proposed a historic fine for these apparent robocall violations," says CR's policy analyst Maureen Mahoney. "But historically, enforcement hasn't been enough to rein in robocallers, especially since it's difficult to recover the penalties."

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But Will The FCC Collect?

While applauding the enforcement action, Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the FCC's five commissioners, also wondered whether the huge fine would actually be collected.

"Over the last several years the FCC has levied hundreds of millions in fines against robocallers just like the folks we have here today. But so far collections on these eye-popping fines have netted next to nothing," she said in a statement.

Rosenworcel went on to cite a 2019 Wall Street Journal story that reported that while the agency had levied $208 million in fines against robocallers, it collected only $6,790.

"Why? Well, one reason is that the FCC looks to the Department of Justice to collect on the agencys fines against robocallers....When they dont get involvedas herethats not a good sign," Rosenworcel continued.

Fellow commissioner Geoffrey Starks echoed her sentiments.

"The threat of large fines as a deterrent means nothing if we systematically fail to actually collect on them," he said in a statement. "We must work harder to ensure on the back end that our enforcement efforts reap actual, measurable results, and then be transparent about how were going to put violators on notice that we mean business."

This proposed fine differs from previous actions against robocallers in that it names Spiller and Mears individually. By piercing the so-called "corporate shield" of Rising Eagle, JSquared Telecom, and other companies, the FCC's action potentially exposes them to having their personal assets seized.

In a related action, state attorneys general from Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas sued Spiller and Mears and their companies for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the federal law governing telemarketing. The companies could be subject to a fine of up to $500 for each individual violation with the possibility of triple damages if the violation are found to be willful.



The FCC enforcement action comes in the wake of the agency's approval in April of new guidelines that would require all U.S. phone companies to install new consumer protections against robocalls.

The guidelines, which are in line with a recent federal anti-robocall law, require telecommunications providers to implement so-called Shaken/Stir authentication technology that will help customers identify whos actually calling. The new safeguards will be free to consumers and go into effect by the end of June 2021.



"The FCC should continue to work to ensure that phone companies implement anti-robocall technology to help stop unwanted robocalls before they reach consumers," says CR's Mahoney.

The technology protects consumers from spoofed numbers by using digital fingerprints or tokens to help determine whether the number from which a call is placed is the same as the number that shows up on Caller ID. Scammers use spoof calls to mask their identity by changing the number displayed on a caller ID.

How to Protect Yourself From Robocalls

Looking for help in keeping robocalls at bay? Here are some tips from the experts.

Use the Do Not Call Registry. If you list your landline or cell number with the DNC Registry, it will be removed from the call lists used by legitimate telemarketing companies. However, it doesnt stop illegal robocallers, like the ones in the FCC complaint, who simply ignore the list. And the DNC registry doesnt cover calls from organizations like political parties, nonprofits, and companies with which you have already established a business relationship.

File a complaint with the FTC and the FCC. The Federal Trade Commission [FTC] maintains a database of rogue robocallers. This list is used by the call-blocking industry and phone companies to update their call-blocking lists. Also, with the stronger enforcement provisions, the authorities will be able to go after repeat offenders more aggressively than they have in the past. You can file your complaint with the FTC and with the FCC.

Consider using additional robocall-blocking protection. While the major wireless carriers now offer services that can block calls and alert you about incoming calls from potential scammers or spammers at no additional charge, you may be able to beef up your defenses with additional protections offered by carriers or third-party app providers. But keep in mind that some of these apps require you to share a lot of personal information.

Update your contacts list. This is especially important if you choose to enable white-listing, which blocks calls from numbers not stored in your phone. But if you have the feature enabled, you are likely to miss legitimate calls from people not on your contact lists.

Dont interact with robocallers. No technology is perfect, and some robocalls are likely to get through despite your best efforts. If you do answer a robocall, hang up immediately. While it may be tempting to give the robocaller a piece of your mind, dont engage. If you do, youre just encouraging robocallers to keep calling.





More from Consumer Reports:

Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples





Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright  2020, Consumer Reports, Inc.
(Bloomberg) -- Occidental Petroleum Corp. is reviewing options for its Middle Eastern assets as it seeks ways to reduce its debt pile, people familiar with the matter said.

Houston-based Occidental is considering reducing its stakes in oil and natural gas fields in Oman, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Its holdings in the Gulf sultanate could be valued at more than $1 billion, the people said.

The company is also open to divesting other assets in the Middle East, though it isnt formally soliciting interest, the people said. Outside of Oman, it has a presence in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Occidental was saddled with about $40 billion of debt after its purchase of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. last year. It has gone from being a steady, diversified producer to a shale-focused driller that has seen its shares fall more than 40% this year. A slump in energy demand worsened Occidentals financial situation, forcing it in May to cut a quarterly dividend to the lowest level in decades.

Failed Deals

The company has been producing in Oman for more than 30 years, according to Occidentals website. It has operations at the Safah Field and Block 62 in the north of the country and at the Mukhaizna Field in the south.

Occidental has a 40% holding in Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.s Al Hosn project in the United Arab Emirates and a 24.5% interest in Qatars North Field, which both rank among the regions biggest gas reservoirs. It also owns a stake in Dolphin Energy Ltd., which processes gas from the Qatar project and transports it by pipeline to the UAE.

No final decisions have been made, and theres no certainty the deliberations will lead to a transaction, the people said. A representative for Occidental declined to comment.

Occidental shares extended gains in Monday afternoon trading. They were up 17% to $24.40, the highest in more than three months, at the close in New York.

The explorer previously tried in 2014 to raise as much as $8 billion by selling a stake in its Middle Eastern business. At the time, it was in talks to sell a 40% interest in the operations to a consortium of government-backed firms from Oman, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. That attempt fell apart amid political turmoil in the region, Bloomberg News reported at the time.

More recent divestment plans were derailed when Total SA abandoned a purchase of Occidental assets in Ghana and Algeria.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Just as coronavirus infections weaken, European countries lift foreign travel restrictions and people gear up for the possibility that we might actually get on an airplane again, one of the worlds largest tourism markets is effectively shutting down. Under rules to be finalized on Tuesday, anyone arriving in the U.K. from June 8, including returning Britons, will have to quarantine for 14 days, with a hefty fine levied on those found in breach of the rules.

The government claims that the quarantine is based on the latest scientific evidence and that its necessary to prevent further transmission of Covid-19. But, as with the 2-meter (6.5-foot) social-distancing rule I wrote about last week, the supporting evidence appears tenuous, while the economic impact from the measure will be substantial.

Theres no question that air travel was a deadly multiplier for the spread of Covid-19. A mathematical simulation from a group of modelers at Stanford University, published last month, showed how limiting passenger flights was key to reducing transmission rates. Quarantines can be hugely effective, especially when a virus can be transmitted before symptoms develop and those potentially incubating the infection can be identified and isolated.

But much depends on the the rules being observed. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, Toronto tried to impose a large-scale quarantine, but found compliance was poor, with only 57% of people quarantined following the rules on isolation. Arguably the measures then did more harm than good, fueling public anxiety and requiring enormous government resources to enforce.

Its not clear that the U.K.s quarantine would be observed or enforceable. For the most part, police here havent even tried to get people to comply with the new number limits on gatherings in outdoor spaces, breaking up only large groups. As for policing homes (where presumably people would quarantine), forget it  unless the government plans to ape Bahrain, where quarantines are backed up by electronic bracelets and threats of huge fines and prison terms.

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Forcing arrivals in a country to isolate themselves makes plenty of sense early in a diseases progression, when a lack of public awareness, testing, contact tracing and protective equipment makes travelers a key vector for a virus. Britain didnt do this back when it would have really made a difference with the new coronavirus; its hard to see the utility of doing it now. Infection rates are also lower in most other countries now (the U.S. is a notable exception), suggesting theres more risk from domestic U.K. travel and tourism.

Then theres the economic cost. Foreign visitors arent exactly banging down Britains door right now, given its struggles to get the pandemic under control, and the country cant afford to close down a key industry for longer than necessary. The U.K. is the worlds fifth-largest tourism market, generating 146 billion pounds ($182.5 billion) of revenue a year (6.5% of gross domestic product) and employing 3.1 million workers, according to the Tourism Alliance.

In August 2019 alone, there were 4.1 million visits to the U.K. by overseas residents. They spent 3.1 billion pounds.

Even Boris Johnsons government seems unsure of the measure. The list of exemptions is so long that many wont even have to quarantine, even if theyre coming for a vacation rather than professional duties. Ireland is exempt, so technically anyone can travel into Dublin and then to the U.K. (Ireland currently has a voluntary 14-day quarantine requirement for foreign visitors, due to be reviewed on June 18). If the policy is necessary to control infection, why make it so porous?

British citizens might also face retaliatory action. Spain and Greece, popular holiday destinations for Brits, have already excluded U.K. tourists from a list of countries whose residents are allowed to fly in when travel restrictions are lifted. France allows European Union nationals to enter without quarantine, but it announced a (voluntary) 14-day quarantine for countries such as Britain whose authorities have decided, in an uncoordinated fashion, to apply 14-day quarantine measures to travelers entering their territory from European countries.

Having weathered a political storm over his adviser Dominic Cummingss decision to travel to the north of England during lockdown, Johnson may face another over the quarantine rules. Theres opposition from both industry groups and lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party. More than 200 travel and hospitality businesses have written to the home secretary, Priti Patel, to tell her the rules are unworkable.

It wouldnt be a surprise if the government backtracked, as it has done before during the Covid-19 crisis. A big cross-party group of members of Parliament, including former Tory Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, has called on the government to relax the measures. There was talk this week about establishing air bridges between the U.K. and low-risk countries, although not immediately.

Reopening the travel and tourism industry obviously poses a challenge, more so when you consider the very high levels of domestic tourism that Britain will experience this summer as people shun flights, and at a time when the virus is still in evidence. The government can afford to lift some restrictions, but probably not all of them if it wants to keep the transmission rate down.

Yet the quarantine measures, as constructed, are draconian. They leave a niggling sense  not for the first time since the pandemic hit  of a British policy that hasnt been thought through and whose rationale hasnt been clearly communicated.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Therese Raphael is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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The World Trade Organisation (WTO), on Tuesday, named Nigerias candidate, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, among the three candidates whose nominations have so far been accepted to vie for the organidations Director-General position.

The WTOs General Council Chair, David Walker of New Zealand, who announced the shortlist of three candidates, said Mrs Okonjo-Iweala would be squaring up against the Mexican representative, Jesus Seade Kuri, and Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh of Egypt.

The announcement of the former World Bank Managing Director and two-time Nigerian minister by the organisation is coming against a stiff opposition.

President Muhammadu Buharis nomination of the former minister last Thursday to replace the current deputy Director General of WTO, Yonov Frederick Agah, as Nigerias nominee caused a stir.

Shortly after her nomination, the Egyptian government wrote to the African Union (AU) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa to demand that Mrs Okonjo-Iweala be disqualified, as she was coming into the race after three candidates had already been shortlisted.

The three candidates included Eloi Laourou of the Republic of Benin, Abdulhameed Mamdouh of the Arab Republic of Egypt Arab Republic, and Mr Agah of Nigeria.

With the withdrawal of Mr Agahs candidature, the Egyptian government said it was requesting the Ministerial Committee on Candidatures to officially inform the African Group in Geneva about the development and Nigerias disqualification.

Mr Walker said the release of the three-member candidates shortlist was in line with the procedures for appointing the WTO Director-General as described in document WT/L/509.

The procedures included that WTO members would be informed of nominations of candidates as soon as they are received from their countries.

On May 20, 2020, Mr Walker said the appointment process for the next Director-General would formally commence on June 8 with nominations accepted till July 8.

After July 8, Mr Walker said he would issue to members a consolidated list of all the candidates, while candidates would be invited to meet with members at a special General Council meeting shortly after the nomination period has closed.

During the meeting, the candidates would be allowed to present their views and take questions from members.

Okonjo-Iwealas profile

A renowned global finance expert, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala is an economist and international development professional with over 30 years-experience, having worked in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America.

She is currently the Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; a member of the Boards of Standard Chartered PLC and Twitter Inc, and was recently appointed as African Union (AU) Special Envoy to mobilise International Financial Support in the fight against COVID-19, as well as Special Envoy for the World Health Organizations Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator.

Twice Nigerias finance minister (2003-2006) and (2011-2015), Mrs Okonjo-Iweala also served briefly as Nigerias foreign minister in 2006, the first Nigerian woman to hold both positions.

She had a 25-year career at the World Bank as a development economist, rising to the position of managing director (operations).

As finance minister, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala steered Nigeria through a varying degree of reforms, particularly on macroeconomic, trade, financial and real sector issues.

As managing director (operations) at the World Bank, her several portfolios included oversight responsibility for the Banks $81 billion operational portfolios in Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia.

She spearheaded several World Bank initiatives to assist low-income countries during the 2008-2009 food crisis and later in the trying period of the global financial crisis.

In 2010, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala served as chair of the World Banks successful drive to raise $49.3 billion in grants and low-interest credit for the poorest countries of the world.

President Buhari used the memo to solicit the support of AU member-States, as well as Permanent Missions and Embassies in Addis Ababa for Mrs Okonjo-Iwealas candidacy during the elections.
Eighteen recent University of North Georgia (UNG) graduates who are newly commissioned second lieutenants will take their military oath in front of a national audience this month.

U.S. Army Cadet Command (USACC) will live stream a national commissioning ceremony at 10 a.m. June 12 on Facebook Live and YouTube Live on all USACC-owned social media platforms.

Greg Killeen, recruiting operations officer in the Department of Military Science at UNG, said the live event will highlight the Army's resilience, inspire a sense of national unity and promote hope displayed through the next generation of the nation's military leaders.

"From the national perspective, it tells our citizens that they can have faith in our Army," said Killeen, a retired Army major who has worked at UNG since 2007. "We are still conducting business and securing the nation."

Selected cadets from 4th ROTC Brigade's National Capital Region will participate in person at the Pentagon while more than 1,000 cadets across the country participate online, including 18 from UNG. 2nd Lt. John Perry IV, a Distinguished Military Graduate who earned a degree in a strategic and security studies in May, will represent UNG in the ceremony from the Brooks Pennington Jr. Military Leadership Center (MLC) on UNG's Dahlonega Campus.

"It's a great honor to have been selected," he said. "I am very humbled. I think it's going to be a great experience."

The 21-year-old from Dawsonville, Georgia, was one of the 72 members of the Corps of Cadets who commissioned as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army in May. The military tradition followed social distancing guidelines because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which limited the number of guests at UNG.

2nd Lt. Micaela Tierce commissioned from her hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She said it allowed her relatives who are considered "at-risk" to watch her commission.

Others, such as 2nd Lt. Micaela Tierce, commissioned from their homes. The native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said it allowed her relatives who are considered "at-risk" to watch her commission.

"It showed how UNG and Cadet Command can be flexible and adaptive," said Tierce, who earned a degree in international affairs.

Now, she and the other recently commissioned second lieutenants can participate in the national ceremony from their homes as well. Battalions will simultaneously administer the oath of office during the ceremony.

2nd Lt. Sophie Song-Grant is excited about the experience.

2nd Lt. Sophie Song-Grant commissioned in May at the MLC.

"I think it's really special for us," said Song-Grant, who earned a degree in modern languages with a concentration in Chinese language and literature. "I appreciate how they recognize us nationally."

Members of the public can view the ceremony on the USACC Facebook or YouTube pages live events. USACC Public Affairs Office will publish hyperlinks to the live events on each page 96 hours prior to the event.

Killeen said the ceremony will show incoming freshmen and potential recruits that earning a degree and serving their country are possible, Killeen said.

"They can see that if John Perry from Dawson County can do this, they can too," he said. "He is one of their own and now he is going to join the Military Intelligence branch of the Army. It helps students envision themselves in that role."
A look at some of todays top stories from around the world.

Police unions dig in as calls for reform grow A crowd of police officers in Philadelphia gathered outside their local union headquarters on Monday to show their support for one of their own  a staff inspector facing assault charges after allegedly beating a college student at an anti-racism protest last week.

Daniel Radcliffe responds to J.K. Rowlings tweets about gender identity The boy who lived is speaking out.

Another mysterious radio burst in space is repeating a pattern. This one occurs every 157 days For the second time, astronomers have detected a pattern in a mysterious fast radio burst coming from space. It repeats every 157 days and originates in a dwarf galaxy over 3 billion light-years away. FRBs are millisecond-long bursts of radio waves in space.

Airbnb is making a huge comeback Heres another sign that summer travel is rebounding: Airbnb said its experiencing a surge in bookings as customers emerge from several months of being cooped up in their homes because of Covid-19.

BTS and its Army donates more than $2 million to Black Lives Matter The BTS fan-based charity fundraising group One In An ARMY has launched a campaign to raise funds in support of the Black Lives Matter movement after the K-pop group donated $1 million.

Rare letter detailing Van Gogh and Gauguins brothel visits could sell for $282K at auction Written by Oscar Holland, CNN The only known letter to have been jointly written by Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, in which the former details the pairs visits to French brothels, is headed to auction. The item is expected to sell for 180,000 to 250,000 euros ($203,000-$282,000) when it goes under the hammer in Paris next week.

US demands UK hand over Prince Andrew to be quizzed over Epstein link, as he says he offered help three times The US Department of Justice has requested an interview with Prince Andrew as part of its criminal investigation into the alleged sex trafficking ring once operated by Jeffrey Epstein, according to a person familiar with the matter.

India and Chinas border spat is turning into an all-out media war China and Indias latest border dispute may have mainly involved scuffles and troop maneuvers on the ground, but it has been all-out war in the respective countries media.

North Korea halts all communications with South North Korea has said it will cut off all inter-Korean communication lines with the South, including a hotline between the two nations leaders. The North said this was the first in a series of actions, describing South Korea as the enemy.

How coronavirus has fuelled China-US rivalry in Africa As Africa braces itself for a surge of coronavirus infections, both China and the US are claiming to be Africas greatest supporter, but there is more at stake in this escalating rivalry than simply tackling the virus, writes BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding.

George Floyd murder suspect granted bail at $1.25m The Minneapolis ex-policeman accused of killing unarmed black man George Floyd has made his first court appearance, where his bail was set at $1.25m (1m). Prosecutors cited the severity of the charges and public outrage as the reason for upping his bail from $1m. Derek Chauvin faces charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Africa live: South Africans protest against US police brutality  BBC News Ghanaian police have charged an activist with failure to notify the police and violating the ban on public gatherings following a Black Lives Matter protest on Saturday in the capital, Accra. The leader of the pressure group Economic Fighters League, Ernesto Yeboah, was arrested at the demonstration on Saturday night.

\

BP to cut 10,000 jobs as virus hits demand for oil BP has announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs following a global slump in demand for oil because of the coronavirus crisis. The oil giant had paused redundancies during the peak of the pandemic but told staff on Monday that around 15% will leave by the end of the year.

The stock market is actually bulls**t: Seth Meyers tears into Trump congratulating himself amidst crisis As of Monday, 109,746 people in the U.S. have died due to COVID-19. Nearly 40 percent of Americas poorest households have lost jobs during the pandemic, while at the same time billionaires gained over half a trillion dollars. Meanwhile, police have been responding to protests against police brutality with even more brutality, attacking peaceful civilians with batons and tear gas.

Apples synthetic group selfie patent could be perfect for social distancing A freshly unearthed Apple patent might enable users to do group selfies without actually being physically close to each other. Found by Patently Apple, the patent describes computer-generated synthetic group selfies, which can be an arrangement or composition of individual selfies obtained from a plurality of computing devices into a single group image.

Twitter is working on a way for people to request a blue checkmark, again One of Twitters most inconsistently applied features will hopefully make more sense in the near future. Jane Manchun Wong, who frequently reverse-engineers apps to discover upcoming new features, figured out that Twitter is planning to give users a way to request verification. The social network then confirmed the development to TechCrunch.

AOC drags White House press secretary for calling her Biden advisor Do not come for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and expect to walk away unscathed, or at the very least, without getting dragged on Twitter. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany experienced the Twitter wrath of Ocasio-Cortez firsthand. And as usual, AOC proved shes not here to play.

Elon Musk tells employees the next-gen Starship rocket is a top SpaceX priority Now that SpaceX has successfully launched NASA astronauts into space, Elon Musk wants the company to put the pedal to the metal on developing its large capacity Starship rocket. Musk sent a company-wide email Saturday in which he told employees that accelerating progress dramatically and immediately on Starship should be their top priority, according to CNBC.
(Bloomberg) -- At 23, Shunji Sugaya had what he calls a life-changing episode.

It was March 2000, and Sugaya had just won an award at a business contest where Masayoshi Son, the founder of what was then called SoftBank Corp., was a judge. He sent Son an email to thank him, the two met up, and before long SoftBank offered to buy Sugayas idea for $2.8 million or for Sugaya to join the company and receive stock options.

Sugaya turned it down.

It gave me a big boost in confidence as I was a student -- I was so happy I could dance, he said in a video interview. We were very grateful for the offer but we politely declined and decided to do it ourselves.

So Sugaya started his own company, Optim Corp., which now provides business-management platforms using artificial-intelligence and internet-of-things technologies. The bet has paid off, with Sugaya moving ever closer to joining the ranks of billionaires in Japan alongside Son.

Optims shares have gained 79% this year after rising as much as 7.9% Wednesday, as doing business remotely became a necessity during the coronavirus pandemic. Sugayas net worth, derived mainly from his roughly 64% stake in the company, has surged to about $990 million, according to a calculation by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index that excludes shares pledged as collateral.

The virus has accelerated a shift from analog to digital business practices at companies in Japan, according to Sugaya, who is Optims president.

Digitalization has progressed at great speed during the past three months, he said. It feels like quite a tailwind.

Sugaya, now 43, was a computer programmer as far back as elementary school, when he created games and sold them to his friends for a few hundred yen.

Optim, which he founded in 2000, started out providing internet video-advertising services. It got into AI and IoT as it worked with telecommunications giant Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. to create an internet-connection service. Optim came up with software so that subscribers could set up the connection themselves and later developed remote support services.

Story continues

Optim has since expanded its remote-control technologies. Its Optimal Biz line, a management platform for multiple devices including smartphones and tablets, helps companies control and secure employees mobile equipment, with functions such as remote locking and the ability to wipe lost or stolen devices to prevent data leakage.

The product accounts for about 40% of Japans mobile device management market, according to the company.

Remote Support

This is a technology that can be applied in a wide range of fields, said Kaname Fujita, an analyst at Ichiyoshi Research Institute Inc.

The company also develops remote support tools that allow sharing of screens with devices at different locations and remote operation.

With the Japanese government handing out 100,000 yen ($928) to all residents as part of its virus relief efforts, Optim decided to provide free use of its Optimal Remote product, which connects PCs to smartphones by screen sharing. That will help people avoid unnecessary trips to local government offices in the process of claiming the money, company spokesman Keiichi Yokoyama said.

Optims technologies are now used in industries including construction, health care, retail and finance. Major business partners include SoftBank, KDDI Corp., and Komatsu Ltd., according to the companys website. Optim has ventured into Southeast Asia, starting with Vietnam, and its starting to expand into North America and Europe, according to Sugaya.

Optim also offers agricultural drones equipped with AI-based image-analysis capabilities. They can recognize insects and pest damage and spray agricultural chemicals only on the affected areas, reducing labor and the amount of chemicals used.

To be sure, while the companys stock has surged, so has its valuation. Optim trades at about 57 times book value, and about 172 times estimated earnings. The company posted revenue of $62.5 million last fiscal year, and made $1.1 million in profit. It has a market value of about $1.6 billion.

I really dont care about the money, Sugaya said. Some two decades after he turned down Sons offer, he says that if the company continues to create new things, revenue and profit will follow.

In 20 years, I want us to be a company that people would point to and say, Optim changed all kinds of industries with AI and IoT, he said.

(Updates numbers throughout)

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[June 10, 2020] Wipro Extends Partnership with VMware to Deliver BoundaryLess Enterprise Solution

Wipro (News - Alert) Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced the launch of its BoundaryLess Enterprise Solution (BLE), powered by VMware Tanzu product portfolio. As part of its commitment to integrate VMware's latest innovations into its BLE, Wipro is also a Design Partner for the VMware Tanzu portfolio which consists of Tanzu Mission Control, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, Tanzu Service Mesh, vSphere 7 with Kubernetes etc. Large enterprises want to leverage Kubernetes to increase developer velocity. Kubernetes provides them the constructs - containers, microservices and Application Program Interface (APIs) - to build modern applications, and operators with means to operate infrastructure with consistency across clouds. Wipro's BLE offering packages Kubernetes capabilities from Tanzu portfolio and complementary technologies to provide customers an enterprise-ready end-to-end integrated ecosystem solution to drive modern application development. BLE provides an accelerated containerization journey through ready-made pipelines for automation of day1 and day2 operations. BLE also offers enhanced container security leveraging NSX-T. BLE empowers the customer's hybrid/multi-cloud application modernization journey leveraging Tanzu Service Mesh. This enables distributed applications running on-prem and Cloud, supporting use cases like bursting and Disaster Recovery. Wipro will offer these services across Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Wipro's customers will have access to run use cases and proof of concepts from the company's global Centers of Excellence. "'BoundaryLess Enterprise' is a new paradigm that will help enterprises power their digital transformation. This solution will enable enterprises to accelerate the development and deployment of modern apps and will simplify management of a hybrid/multi-clou multi-cluster Kubernetes-based infrastructure. BLE will help customers reduce time to market and drive agility and scale, which makes it an exciting new offering," said Milind Halapeth, Vice President, Cloud and Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited.



"VMware has a strong relationship with Wipro, which spans over multiple VMware technologies. Our customers are adopting Kubernetes, and offerings like Wipro's BLE can simplify and accelerate use of Kubernetes to build modern applications," said Teri Bruns, Vice President, Tanzu Partner Ecosystem, VMware. About Wipro Limited

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. We harness the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help our clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, we have over 175,000 dedicated employees serving clients across six continents. Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots to build a better and a bold new future. Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005273/en/

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Linkedin Tiur Rumondang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 12:17 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd8a612 3 Opinion palm-oil,sustainability,RSPO,pandemic Free

As most of the country and the rest of the world are under some sort of lockdown, were all facing disruptions and restrictions to our daily lives, not to mention the unprecedented changes that we will face as a society in the future.

Were already seeing economic disruption and job losses in the region and the near future looks bleak with Indonesia expecting up to 9 million people will fall into poverty and unemployment due to the pandemic. We dont know how long it will take for things to go back to the way they used to be but as we brace for the new normal and discover what that entails, we must not disregard the progress that weve made within the palm oil industry and press ahead with our goal to achieve sustainable palm oil.

Few industries in Indonesia have shown as strong growth as the palm oil industry in the past 20 years, contributing between 1.5 and 2.5 percent of the countrys gross domestic product. The industry also employs 8.4 million people nationwide, from farmers and mill workers to service goods suppliers. With the pandemic expected to slow down the economy and cause key sectors like tourism, F&B and retail to lose billions of dollars, the Indonesian government is expected to rely heavily on agriculture and commodities like palm oil to rebuild the economy.

As the impact of COVID-19 continues to reverberate globally, we should take the time to consider how we can push forward with the important work of making the palm oil sector sustainable and resilient.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is a global multi-stakeholder organization for the certification of sustainable palm oil, and we are continuing the work to achieve our vision of making sustainable palm oil the norm, despite difficulties in carrying out certification and audits of plantations in the current circumstances. Pushing on with this work is critical to ensure that standards for sustainable palm oil are upheld  for smallholder farmers who depend on sustainable palm oil for their livelihood, as well as consumers who rely on our certification to make the right choices.

While we work toward navigating this new normal, there are some ways we can start to become a more educated consumer or a desktop-based (for now) sustainable palm oil activist.

Get the basics right. If youre looking to learn about the issues of sustainable palm oil and the different efforts being done to achieve 100 percent certified sustainable palm oil in Indonesia and globally, Id encourage you to check the World Wildlife Funds (WWF) sustainable agriculture page on palm oil. If youre looking to learn more about RSPO and some of the latest developments and certification processes, the RSPO Sustainability College is a good start.

Acknowledge and support the members and companies who care. The reality is that there are companies that show initiative and there are companies that completely lag behind in efforts to commit to sustainable practices and hope it goes unnoticed. One great way to make use of your time is to reach out to your favorite brands and ask them to use certified sustainable palm oil. And one better, you could thank companies like P&G and Unilever for committing to the use of certified sustainable palm oil for their products. Many NGOs, like WWF for example, publish Scorecards that can help guide you to make educated purchasing decisions.

Support national parks and conservation programs. Many people arent aware that zoos help drive spending on conservation in palm oil-producing countries. For example, Oregon Zoo is working with HUTAN on programs in Sabah, Malaysia. In 2017, the RSPO signed an MoU with the World Aquarium and Zoo Association (WAZA) to further our shared goals and objectives in regard to the transformation of markets to make sustainable palm oil the norm. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Indonesia works tirelessly to conserve orangutans and their habitat in Borneo. Every rupiah counts for these organizations. Perhaps now is the time to purchase that membership or make a donation.

Keep up the pressure for climate action. Climate change is an issue that is not going away just because we have been staying indoors for the past few months. The damage we have done to our planet is lasting, and it is up to us to remind our elected officials that we should not lose ground in our fight against climate change and deforestation, keeping these issues front and center in policy discussions.

Palm oil can be sustainable, but we all have an important role to play to ensure that it becomes the norm. You can start by learning more about the problems, supporting brands that have pledged to become sustainable, or pressure your favorite brands into making a change.

Our hope for the future is that organizations like RSPO would no longer be needed because commodity producers will inherently do the right thing, governments will have the best possible laws in place to protect workers and companies will provide premium compensation to support smallholders.

--

Director Indonesia for Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 03:21:20|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on June 8, 2020 shows a sign inside the arrivals area of Terminal 2 of Heathrow Airport in London, Britain. (Photo by Tim Ireland/Xinhua)

-- UK COVID-19 deaths rise by 286 to 40,883;

-- Spain reports no deaths for 2nd straight day;

-- Italy reports 79 new deaths, total at 34,043;

-- Cyprus reopens airports as lockdown eases.

BRUSSELS, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in European countries.

LONDON -- Another 286 COVID-19 patients have died in Britain as of Monday afternoon, bringing the total coronavirus-related death toll in the country to 40,883, the British Department of Health and Social Care said Tuesday.



The figures include deaths in all settings, including hospitals, care homes and the wider community.

Workers paint a line on the street to adapt the mobility of pedestrians and ensure social distancing in Barcelona, Spain, May 19, 2020. (Barcelona City Hall/Handout via Xinhua)

MADRID -- The Spanish Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare reported no new deaths from COVID-19 for a second straight day Tuesday.

According to the ministry, a total of 27,136 people have died from COVID-19 in Spain. The figure is the same as those published on Sunday and Monday.

The ministry also informed that 50 people lost their lives to the virus in the past seven days, 23 of them in the region of Madrid. The seven-day death toll is down from the 56 reported Monday.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (C, Rear) addresses a press conference in Rome, Italy, June 3, 2020. (Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua)

ROME -- Italy recorded another 79 deaths from the new coronavirus in the past 24 hours, bringing the national toll to 34,043, the Civil Protection Department said on Tuesday.

Total active infections stood at 32,872, a decrease of 1,858 from Monday. Meanwhile, another 2,062 COVID-19 patients have recovered, bringing the total recoveries to 168,646 on Tuesday.

Of those who tested positive for the new coronavirus, 263 are in intensive care, 20 fewer from Monday's figure, while 4,581 are hospitalized with symptoms, 148 fewer over the past 24 hours, the Civil Protection Department said.

A woman wearing a face mask walks past a laundry in Nicosia, Cyprus, May 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Baoping)

NICOSIA -- Cyprus reopened its airports to international travel on Tuesday as part of the third and most important phase of the easing of restrictions following a lockdown since mid-March, officials reported.

Transport, Communications and Works Minister Yiannis Karousos was at Larnaca Airport to meet a group of 22 people who flew in from Israel on the first incoming flight.

Five arrivals and five departures to and from Athens, Sofia and Tel Aviv were reported on Tuesday.
Stockholm: Sweden has dropped its investigation into the unsolved murder of former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, who was shot dead 34 years ago in downtown Stockholm, saying that decision was made because the main suspect died in 2000.

Palme was gunned down on February 28, 1986, after he and his wife Lisbet Palme left a movie theatre in the Swedish capital. The murder shocked the nation and shook the Scandinavian county's image as being so safe and peaceful that politicians could wander around in public without protection.

Sweden dropped its investigation into the unsolved murder of former PM Olof Palme (left), because the main suspect, Stig Engstrom (right), died in 2000. Credit:AP

More than 100 people have been suspected in the crime and the unsolved case has generated scores of conspiracy theories, with possible villains ranging from foreign governments or rogue Swedish police with right-wing sympathies to an act by a lone shooter.

The investigation was being closed because the main suspect, Stig Engstrom, died in 2000, the case's chief prosecutor, Krister Petersson, told a news conference in Stockholm on Wednesday.
President Donald Trump suggested in a Tuesday tweet that supporting the call to defund the police would be good for robbers and rapists.

The American journalist who claims Mr Trump raped her in the mid 90s, took the opportunity to take a swipe at the president.

Wait. Youre AGAINST rape now? E Jean Carroll wrote in a response to the president. Sir, no president in American history has done more robbing and raping than you.

Ms Carroll is suing Mr Trump and claimed that in the mid 90s, while she was working as a columnist, Mr Trump raped her inside a New York City department store.

According to Ms Carroll, Mr Trump pushed her against a wall inside a dressing room, pulled down her clothing and penetrated her with his penis. He has denied it.

Part of Ms Carrolls lawsuit demands Mr Trump deliver his DNA for testing against DNA on the dress Ms Carroll alleges she wore when she was raped.

Ms Carroll is not the only woman to accuse Mr Trump of rape or sexual assault.

Thus far, at least 25 women have made accusations against Mr Trump.

Concerning Ms Carrolls allegations, Mr Trump claims he has never met this person, despite a photo existing showing the two of them talking.

The president said he believes Ms Carroll is sharing the story as a way to boost her book sales and suggested she was making false allegations.
Spike Lee's new movie, "Da 5 Bloods," arrives at a time when the director's singular voice couldn't be more needed.

In a rousing, gorgeously modulated prologue that we've come to expect from a Spike Lee Joint - this one offering a whirlwind tour of the protest movements of the 1960s and the violent pushback they received from government and law enforcement - it looks as if the 63-year-old director has made another film that uncannily meets its moment. If the ensuing, relatively conventional, drama doesn't always live up to that early promise, its moments of stinging insight and soaring cinematic rhetoric once again prove why Lee might be America's most indispensable filmmaker.

Case in point: The seamlessly graceful transition from that electrifying opening montage to the present day, when four Vietnam veterans gather in a fancy Ho Chi Minh City hotel for a reunion and a mission. Eddie - a wealthy car dealer played by Norm Lewis - is treating his buddies to the trip, on which they intend to recover the remains of their squad leader. As they embrace and give each other the business, snippets of their characters emerge: Otis (Clarke Peters) is watchful and reserved; laid-back Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) works on keeping it mellow; and Paul (Delroy Lindo) possesses the kind of taut, tightly coiled energy that could go off at any minute. (He also happens to be a proud Donald Trump supporter: In "Da 5 Bloods," the villains wear a red hat, not black.)

The group obeys all of the conventions of war pictures of yore - the strategizer, the quiet one, the clown, the hothead - and that includes the man they are trying to find: "Stormin' " Norman, played in flashbacks by Chadwick Boseman, didn't just lead them in battle but elevated their collective consciousness about serving their country, while also disproportionately dying in a war that wasn't their fight.

In addition to finding Norman's improvised grave, the friends have a hidden agenda, involving a cache of gold once intended for the U.S. forces' South Vietnamese allies. "Da 5 Bloods" owes as much to "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Three Kings" as it does to "Apocalypse Now," which Lee exuberantly invokes in a movie that wears its influences proudly, if not always subtly. Changing up aspect ratios and mixing in 16mm film stock and iPhone footage to delineate time periods, Lee gives "Da 5 Bloods" his usual jolts of visual energy, interjecting still photographs to illustrate tutorials on everything from the brutality of the My Lai Massacre to the glory of 400-meter hurdles champ Edwin Moses.

In the hands of any other filmmaker, such didactic digressions might drag down the narrative. But Lee's passion and fluency make them far more engaging than the putative drama of "Da 5 Bloods," which is at its least involving when it's at its most generically formulaic. Although he has clearly learned from the mistakes made in his starchy, unfocused World War II film "Miracle at St. Anna," Lee still stumbles here and there when choreographing the action sequences and multiple firefights. Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo's script, which Lee rewrote with Kevin Wilmott, is often stilted, plotty and overstuffed. One secondary cast of characters in particular has a tendency to pop up with perfunctory, unconvincing convenience.

Lee has cast some of the best character actors in Hollywood to play his title characters; Lindo especially commands the screen with a scenery-chewing performance that has madness and music at its core. (The rest of the Bloods remain frustratingly under-drawn.) But he reverts to male-gaze cliche when he enlists stunningly beautiful actresses - Melanie Thierry and Le Y Lan - to play the only two women in a movie that interrogates themes of greed, loyalty, self-sacrifice and the racism that led to so many black soldiers serving and dying in Vietnam, as well as masculinity itself.

"Da 5 Bloods" is most invigorating when Lee is most sharply polemical, whether it's during that vibrant prologue, or when he stops to drop some knowledge in interstitial flashes of history, wisdom and exuberant wit. Although Lee's frequent collaborator Terence Blanchard has written an orchestral score that swells with old-school triumphalism during the film's most melodramatic moments, it's the Marvin Gaye songs - all of them culled from "What's Going On" - that serve as "Da 5 Bloods' " most powerful musical motif.

That 1971 album, of course, was a masterpiece, both within the context of pop music and the political upheavals of that era. "Da 5 Bloods" may go over the top in its messianic depiction of Boseman's character, who becomes increasingly - and improbably - more Christ-like as the mysterious circumstances of his death are (unsurprisingly) revealed. But he delivers one of the film's most memorable and powerful moments in a flashback, when he describes living in a police state back home. "Every time I walk out that door," he says, "I can feel how much I ain't worth." Today, that line lands with a potent, dispiritingly prescient thud.

"The American War is over," a character announces early in "Da 5 Bloods," referring to the Vietnamese people's name for the conflict. Spike Lee is here to remind us that the war for America rages on.

- - -

Three stars. Rated R. Available on Netflix. Contains strong violence, grisly images and pervasive coarse language. 154 minutes.

Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.
KU researchers lead effort to monitor, evaluate COVID-19 response in 47 African countries

LAWRENCE -- Researchers from the University of Kansas are monitoring and evaluating COVID-19 response activities in 47 African countries. The project -- in partnership with the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa -- is led by KU's Center for Community Health and Development, a designated WHO Collaborating Centre since 2004. The center is affiliated with KU's Department of Applied Behavioral Science and the Life Span Institute.

The monitoring system is designed to capture and communicate COVID-19 response activities, such as programs and policies related to infection-control and risk communication, in order to help eliminate transmission of the disease.

The KU-WHO team leads training of partners from 47 African countries so they can monitor and communicate their countries' progress in responding to the pandemic.

"Our partner, the WHO Regional Office for Africa, has the responsibility of supporting countries in monitoring and evaluating response activities related to COVID-19," said Stephen Fawcett, senior adviser at the KU center and co-director of KU's WHO Collaborating Centre for Community Health and Development. "This work is critical to each country being able to show progress in taking action and in using data to make adjustments related to suppression of transmission and follow-on recovery. We worked together with our WHO AFRO partners to evaluate the Ebola response in 2014, so the regional office reached out to us for similar technical support with the COVID-19 response."

On May 27, the KU-WHO AFRO team launched monitoring and evaluation (M&E) training with the first cohort: 200 participants working in 29 different African countries. This training will continue with French-speaking countries in early June until all 47 African countries have been engaged.

The WHO M&E team is based in the WHO Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville-Congo.

"The WHO AFRO M&E team includes staff trained by the KU team in monitoring and evaluation of the COVID-19 response," Fawcett said. "WHO focal points will be reporting from their Ministry of Health offices in each of the 47 countries. Reports of COVID-19 response activities will be reviewed and characterized by the WHO AFRO M&E team, for example by the type of response activity, and by country in which they're implemented. These data will be entered and stored in the online COVID-19 Response M&E System developed by the KU center."

According to the KU researcher, the online COVID-19 Response M&E System is able to capture response activities and support communication using online graphs of the pattern in COVID-19 response -- for instance, when increasing and decreasing -- and factors associated with those patterns.

"This will contribute to country-level reports of the association of response activities and suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19," Fawcett said. "This participatory M&E system will enable systematic reflection by country partners in what they are seeing, what it means and implications for adjustment."

Peter Phori, technical officer at the WHO Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, leads the M&E team.

"Capturing and communicating what countries are doing to respond to COVID-19 is essential to tracking what we are doing to address this pandemic in the African region," Phori said. "Our WHO Regional Office relies on KU's WHO Collaborating Centre for its world-leading technical support in monitoring and evaluation. We could not do this without them."

The KU WHO Collaborating Centre team is supported by an initial six-month grant of $30,000 from the WHO Regional Office for Africa.

"As a designated WHO Collaborating Centre at KU, we have the privilege of working to have an impact with talented and committed global partners," Fawcett said. "This is why we came together as a KU center and why we treasure being a part of KU's mission of building healthy communities -- locally and globally."

###

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Omjasvin MD By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: After several reports suggested that the deaths of many COVID-19 patients in the state have not been included in the official data, the Tamil Nadu government has acknowledged the discrepancy. Officials attributed this to communication gaps between government agencies.

A nine-member committee will now audit all the COVID-19 deaths in Chennai, where officials suspect most of the deaths not included in the government data occurred.

The New Indian Express had also reported on June 8 how at least four confirmed COVID-19 deaths were not mentioned in the daily health bulletin. A few other reports suggested that more than 200 deaths have gone unreported in the city.

The reconciliation process has begun and it would likely be completed in the next two weeks, Health Secretary Beela Rajesh told The New Indian Express on Wednesday.

After a thorough review of deaths of positive cases, domicile deaths and cases from outside, if there are any cases left out, it would be added to the official figures, she said.

On June 9, Director of Public Health Dr TS Selvavinayagam wrote to the Chennai Corporation Commissioner to furnish all COVID-19 death records as early as possible.

According to the letter, the committee is headed by Dr P Vadivelan DPH (OSD) and has members from the Directorate of Medical Education besides Greater Chennai Corporations Chief Health Officer Dr Jagadeesan.

The Detailed Investigation Death Audit Report consists of basic information on the patients, their medical history and details of 15 clinical symptoms such as fever, cough and breathing difficulty including the date of onset and duration.

The letter also asked the Corporation to furnish details on reports of lab investigation and mention the probable cause as well as confirmed cause of death.

The Health Secretary said the reconciliation process is normally done only once a year and the Corporation maintains a separate death note.

"Now, under the Epidemic Act, they are supposed to do daily reconciliation for COVID-19 deaths. Private hospitals too need to follow this, said Beela Rajesh, pointing out that there could be a communication lag between the two departments.

Director of Public Health TS Selvavinayagam told The New Indian Express that anything conclusive on deaths being missed out could only be told after the process is over.
New Delhi, June 10 : A properly crafted policy is required to employ migrant labourers, who have returned back to their home state, under the MGNREGA, said a SBI Ecowrap report on Wednesday.

As per the report, the maximum number of migrant labourers have reached Uttar Pradesh (23.2 lakh), Bihar (20.7 lakh), Jharkhand (2.7 lakh), Odisha (2.6 lakh) and West Bengal (2.2 lakh).

The primary objective of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas, along with creating of durable assets such as building roads and canals.

Accordingly, the report said that new initiatives under the scheme are required to fully employ the migrant labourers.

It details that a comprehensive database of migrant workers needs to be compiled as a first step to formulate new initiatives.

The report said that extending livelihood jobs to job card holders by banks could lead to more money in the hands of the poor and marginalised.

"The banks can advance, say, 40 per cent of the eligible amount to the MGNREGA cardholders based on a simplified application form with the caveat that the interest on such livelihood loans can be guaranteed by the Government, the cost of which is minimal at around Rs 4,000 crore," the report said.

"Effectively, this loan will be self-liquidated when the MGNREGA cardholder contributes labour and pays off debt. With a Rs 40,000 crore additional push and assuming a marginal propensity to consume of 0.7 (based on our savings rate of 30 per cent and empirical evidence of MPC increasing significantly during crisis for households) this should result in a consumption boost of Rs 1.33 trillion." Furthermore, the report pointed out that MGNREGA is no longer linked to the Minimum Wages Act. "We suggest a relook at such norms even for a temporary period.

"We also suggest improvement in worksite facilities (drinking water, first-aid kit, shade for rest, creche for children below six years of age and notice board) and setting up a grievance redressal mechanism under MGNREGA," the report said.

"Fifth, develop a cluster based approach in Rural Bharat, where villages should come under a cluster based on certain specific skills and map the migrant labourers analogous to such skills. This will create a better market in rural hinterland for Indian manufacturing sector." According to the report, till June 3, with the help of 4,197 "Shramik Special" trains, more than 58 lakh migrants have been transported in 34 days.
TORONTO - COVID-19 cases among agri-food workers in Windsor-Essex have spiked this week, the Ontario region's top doctor said Wednesday, as a provincial effort to test all migrant workers for the virus ramped up.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that migrant labourers in Canada can no longer be treated like "throwaway people" as they have been in the past, adovocates said Wednesday. Workers do maintenance at the Scotlynn Group where 164 Migrant workers have tested positive for COVID-19 shutting down the asparagus farming facility temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic near Vittoria, Ont., in Norfolk County on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

TORONTO - COVID-19 cases among agri-food workers in Windsor-Essex have spiked this week, the Ontario region's top doctor said Wednesday, as a provincial effort to test all migrant workers for the virus ramped up.

The region's medical officer of health, Dr. Wajid Ahmed, said 38 additional workers had tested positive for the virus, bringing the total number of infections in the sector to over 200 since the start of the pandemic.

Of those cases, about 90 per cent are temporary foreign workers, he added.

"We are seeing a ... spike in our local community cases in the migrant farm or temporary foreign workers population," Ahmed said. "We need to get a better understanding of how we can support that particular group and there's a lot of community players working together outside of the public health trying to find better solution to address them."

Approximately 20,000 migrant workers come to Ontario each year to work on farms and in greenhouses. Many of the workers come from Mexico, the Caribbean and Guatemala and when they arrived this year they were required to self-isolate for 14 days.

Outbreaks that have affected dozens of migrant workers have been reported in Chatham-Kent, Niagara Region and Elgin County.

An outbreak in Norfolk County has seen 165 workers at a local farm test positive for COVID-19, with seven of them admitted to hospital.

Two migrant workers have also died as a result of COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex.

Last week, in response to outbreaks on farms in southwestern Ontario, Premier Doug Ford ordered government health officials to ramp up COVID-19 testing among migrant workers.

At the time, Ford said it was a crucial move to protect both the workers and ensure the safety of the province's food supply chain.

"I will definitely be addressing this with public health to make sure that we get all the migrant workers tested to keep them safe, to keep the supply chain and the food safe," he said at the time. "We're on this."

Ahmed said he expects that as this proactive effort by the province and the health unit continues, more workers will test positive for COVID-19.

"We are actively looking for cases which will definitely bring in more cases," he said.

Ahmed said the health unit will also begin to publicly disclose all workplace outbreaks in the region later this week, something that is not required by the province.

Previously, the health unit had only disclosed the number of workers, but not where they worked. The health unit will also close workplaces if it feels they present a risk to the public and that too will be made public, he added.

"Public disclosure is an important part of community education and (an) effective measure in reducing the spread of infection," Ahmed said.

Karen Cocq, the campaigns co-ordinator for Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said the spike in worker illness in Windsor-Essex isn't surprising to advocates.

Both the provincial and federal government need to take immediate action to protect workers during the pandemic and over the long-term.

The province should increase proactive inspections of farms and also mandate public disclosure of all outbreaks. Often even workers on the farms don't have enough information about an outbreak, she said.

"It's important for the public ... to know what's happening in some of these workplaces," she said. "The broader public, and people inside the workplace, need to be able to protect themselves."

Cocq said the government should also order workplaces with outbreaks to temporarily close.

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"Where there are COVID outbreaks, with there should be work stoppages immediately until facilities can be cleaned and disinfected and the health and safety of workers can be guaranteed before they are made to return," she said.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Christine Elliott said the government has not ruled out mandatory public disclosure of workplace outbreaks.

NDP health critic Frances Gelinas said public disclosure of all workplace outbreaks will be important as the province continues to reopen.

The province should make public disclosure of COVID outbreaks in workplaces mandatory, she said.

"Full disclosure is how we learn," Gelinas said. "This is how we protect lives and this is how we stop the virus."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 8, 2020.
Ben Gibbs had a feeling he was going to find missing teenager Will Callaghan.

"This is kind of our family mountain. I've been going here since I was a boy, so I know it well," he said.

The Victorian bush is overgrown and treacherous, but it's not where rescuers and searchers give up.

Mr Gibbs, an experienced bushman, was among many hundreds of volunteers who raced to Mount Disappointment to search for the missing non-verbal, autistic teenager.
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Peaceful protesters took over Seattle City Hall Tuesday night to demand the mayor's resignation, after setting up a six-block autonomous zone as a memorial to George Floyd and suing city cops over their aggressive tactics.

Around 300 protesters marched inside the lobby at around 9p.m. Tuesday, carrying Black Lives Matter banners and calling for Mayor Jenny Durkan to stand down, chanting 'Durkan must go!'

The group was led by Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who unlocked the building and welcomed the protesters inside.

Footage shared on social media showed demonstrators giving impassioned speeches, saying calls for an end to systemic racism and police brutality following Floyd's death are 'making history'.

Peaceful protesters took over Seattle City Hall Tuesday night (pictured) to demand the mayor's resignation, after setting up a six-block autonomous zone as a memorial to George Floyd and suing city cops over their aggressive tactics

A defaced sign on the exterior of the Seattle Police Departments East Precinct after protesters kicked out cops and set up a six-block 'autonomous zone' as a memorial to George Floyd

Demonstrators and cops have been clashing in the area for the last two weeks, after civil unrest spread across America following the death of George Floyd

'Do you guys see what we're doing here? Do you really I really see the magnitude of what we're doing here?' one speaker is heard telling the crowds.

'First time in this building and we're making history.'

The peaceful crowd camped out inside the government building for only around an hour before continuing to the newly-created 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone' - a zone occupied by demonstrators around a police precinct.

Durkan has come under fire over her handling of the civil unrest in the city, with calls mounting for her to resign.

Sawant - a staunch critic of the mayor - demanded Durkan step down and blamed her for the 'violence and brutality' of cops against protesters.

'If Mayor Durkan refuses to step aside, it will be the responsibility of the City Council to remove her, by introducing articles of impeachment,' Sawant said last week.

Hundreds of protesters marched inside the lobby at around 9pm Tuesday, carrying Black Lives Matter banners and calling for Mayor Jenny Durkan to stand down

The group was led by Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who unlocked the building and welcomed the protesters inside

Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, a critic of Mayor Jenny Durkan, speaks at a rally on Monday

The peaceful crowd camped out inside the government building for only around an hour before continuing the peaceful march to the newly created 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone'

The protesters marched through the streets of Seattle to the 'free zone' after occupying City Hall for around an hour

'The police have inflicted tear gas, mace, rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, curfews, arrests and other repressive tactics on Seattle activists and residents - including children - in an attempt to bully and silence the protest movement.'

Tuesday's takeover of City Hall came just hours after a Black Lives Matter group sued the city over the 'unnecessary violence' carried out by cops against protesters across the city.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, Korematsu Center at Seattle University School of Law and the law firm Perkins Coie filed the lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County.

'These daily demonstrations are fueled by people from all over the city who demand that police stop using excessive force against Black people, and they demand that Seattle dismantle its racist systems of oppression,' Livio De La Cruz, board member of Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County, said in a statement about the suit.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (pictured) has come under fire over her handling of the civil unrest in the city, with calls mounting for her to resign

People then sit down in the newly-claimed 'free zone' to watch a screening of documentary Tuesday night

Graffiti on the outside of the boarded up police precinct. Tuesday's takeover of City Hall came just hours after a Black Lives Matter group sued the city over the 'unnecessary violence' carried out by cops against protesters across the city

'It is unacceptable that the Seattle Police Department would then respond to these demonstrations with more excessive force, including using tear gas and flashbang grenades.'

The suit says the use of chemical agents violates the Fourth Amendment and First Amendment rights of protesters and brands the use of such tools 'reckless' amid the respiratory COVID-19 pandemic.

Cops have been caught on camera acting aggressively and blasting tear gas and pepper spray in the faces of peaceful protesters during the weeks of civil unrest following Floyd's death on Memorial Day.

Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best issued an apology to demonstrators over the heavy-handed tactics of officers and banned the use of tear gas for at least 30 days from Friday.

Protesters have set up a six-block radius around the East Police Precinct and called it the 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone' (above)

A popup shop with free snacks, water, and other items is seen in the autonomous zone - which is now free of cops and cars and occupied by protesters

A sign designates a smoking section in the 'free zone'. The police chief said the move by cops to leave the area is an exercise in 'trust and deescalation'

A defaced sign on the outside of the East Precinct on Tuesday after cops retreated and protesters took over the area

People sit in the street outside the East Precinct Tuesday. The area had been the site of tension and terse stand-offs between law enforcement and demonstrators before police boarded up the precinct and retreated from the area

A sign outside the East Precinct. Calls are mounting for the city police department to be defunded

Just two nights later, some cops were still seen using tear gas, pepper spray and blast ball grenades against crowds Sunday night.

'CS gas has been authorized,' the Seattle Police Department tweeted Sunday after midnight about the backpedaling.

'In the interest of public and life safety, leave the area now.'

This came after protests turned violent when a man plowed his car into crowds and shot a 27-year-old protester.

The use of tear gas was banned for at least 30 days from Friday but cops were seen hurling it at protesters again Sunday night (above)

Demonstrators clash with law enforcement near the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct shortly after midnight

A protester holds flowers as they face a wall of police in riot gear Sunday night when tensions escalated between the two sides

Protests turned violent Sunday night when a man plowed his car into crowds and shot a 27-year-old protester

Following a backlash over the renewed use of force, officers removed barricades from around the police department's East Precinct in Capitol Hill Monday, leading protesters to set up the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone around it.

The area had been the site of tension and terse stand-offs between law enforcement and demonstrators before police boarded up the precinct and retreated from the area - a move Best described as an exercise in 'trust and deescalation.'

The six-block radius has since become something of a camp where protesters gather each night to hold memorials for Floyd and march in front of the building.

Protesters describe it as a 'free zone' as it is free of cops and cars, and it contains tents for people looking to camp the night.

Durkan's office told DailyMail.com in a statement that the city is 'facing its most challenging time in its history'.

'As the person who originally investigated the Seattle Police Department for the unconstitutional use of force, Mayor Durkan believes that SPD can lead the nation on continued reforms and accountability, but knows this week has eroded trust at a time when trust is most crucial,' the office said Wednesday
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The global Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) Market is anticipated to exceed USD 3 billion by 2026 according to a new research published by Polaris Market Research. In 2017, the cloud-based segment dominated the global market, in terms of revenue. North America is expected to be the leading contributor to the global market in 2017.

Picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) is a term used for clinical or medical imaging technologies that allow exchange and storage of images across multiple sources. Such system provides cost-effective and manageable access to stored images via several source modalities such as PET (positron emission tomography), X-ray plain film, ultrasound, CT (computed tomography), nuclear medicine, and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).

Get sample copy of this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/picture-archiving-and-communication-systems-pacs-market/request-for-sample

The PACS market includes several opportunities that continue to develop with the advancement of healthcare practices. Thus, the development of scalable and interoperable PACS is a significant opportunity for the PACS market. Increasing demand for the digital medical records with patient images, and impart this information to health exchange platforms, is expected to mark the significant market growth of PACS market during the forecast period the forecast period. The cloud-based system is a relatively new concept, and is estimated to grow continuously at a constant during the forecast period. However, the global Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) Market also face several challenges relating to effective yet secure integration and transmission of medical images and patient data between radiologists and other medical specialists.

Geographically, the existence of several PACS manufacturing corporations in North America is anticipated to play a vital role for cloud-based PACS segment in the North American PACS market. Moreover, Cloud-based PACS segment is estimated to witness healthy growth in European and Asia Pacific Market due to the increased usage of cloud-based PACS majorly in diagnostic centers and large hospitals in these regions.

Complete Summary with TOC Available @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/picture-archiving-and-communication-systems-pacs-market

The leading companies profiled in the Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) Market report include FUJIFILM Medical Systems, Carestream Health, Agfa-Gevaert Group, INFINITT Healthcare Co. Ltd., Merge Healthcare Solutions Inc., Mckesson Corp., GE Healthcare, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Sectra AB and Siemens Healthineers. These companies launch new products and collaborate with other market leaders to innovate and launch new products to meet the increasing needs and requirements of consumers.

Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Deployment

Web Based Cloud Based On Premise



Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Product

Mid End PACS Enterprise PACS Mini PACS



Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by End User

Hospitals Clinics Diagnostics Imaging Centers Others



Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) Market Size and Forecast, 2017-2026 by Region

North America U.S. Canada Mexico Europe Germany UK France Italy Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific China India Japan Rest of Asia-Pacific Latin America Brazil Middle East & Africa



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Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities.

Contact us-

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Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com
In 2016, Outfitters on the Smith River wrote an op-ed expressing concern about the proposed Smith River mine and how it could devastate the businesses we have built, and in turn our livelihoods. On April 10th, the Department of Environmental Quality released a Record of Decision (ROD) for the proposed project, giving it the greenlight, so we feel compelled to again speak out.

In issuing this permit, we believe state regulators are dismissing the concerns of business owners, landowners and most of us who care about the Smith. Folks who would be directly impacted by the damage this mine could cause to Sheep Creek, the Smith River, its Blue-Ribbon trout fishery and the $10 million a year it contributes to Montanas economy. Though outfitters are allotted only 73 of the total 1,300 permits given out every year, we employ dozens of guides and staff around the state. The guests we bring to Montana spendmoney because of the Smith River. Last year each of us booked hotel rooms for our clients, who also spent time in Montana eating out, shopping and contributing to our economy. Additionally, that $10 million doesnt include other recreational, agricultural and tax benefits the Smith generates. These are sustainable dollars, and they benefit real people and real jobs that would be lost if the river is degraded. Our guides, like ourselves, own homes, raise families and invest in our communities for the long haul.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has put our Smith River season and our entire guiding season at risk of being lost. We are seeing firsthand what the impacts of losing the Smith River would mean to our businesses, and the people we employee across the state. Proponents of the mine claim that the jobs it will create are what Montanas economy needs right now. Hard rock mines like this create short-term jobs, jobs that more than likely will not be given to the folks that live in the community.

Our message over the years has not changed. We are not against mining, we appreciate the benefits of responsible mining, but this mine is unlikely to leave the river better off. All mineral extraction has environmental risks, but in this case, the ore deposits thread through sulfide-rich rock, which produces acid and dissolved metals that would be deadly for fish in Sheep Creek and the Smith River. We have not seen evidence to believe that this mine would avoid these problems. On the contrary, we have seen third party expert review from mining engineers, aquatic ecologists and groundwater experts that leads us to believe that this mine will cause long lasting impacts to the Sheep Creek and the Smith. We are deeply worried that state regulatory agencies will be unable to catch problems before they turn into disasters.

The short-term profits made from this project will go to the pockets of Sandfires investors in Australia, while the copper will be shipped overseas to Asia. The benefits this mine might produce for Montana pales in comparison to what we stand to lose.

Along with the privilege of working on the Smith, there is a responsibility to leave the river healthier than we found it. It is a message we preach to our guides, staff, clients and families. There is no way a large mine will leave the river healthier, so Montana should be able to just say no.

This fight is not over, and we will continue to support every effort to protect the Smith. The Smith River is truly one of a kind, a state treasure, and more valuable then copper.

This article is signed by: Mike Geary, Lewis and Clark Expeditions Joe Sowerby, Montana Fly Fishing Connection John Herzer and Terri Raugland, Blackfoot River Outfitters Brandon Boedecker, PRO Outfitters Brian McGeehan, Montana Angler Fly Fishing Denny Gignoux, Glacier Guides and Montana Raft

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Donald Trump will not give his nomination acceptance speech in Charlotte, the site of the Republican National Convention this year, after North Carolina officials refused to promise letting up on social distancing guidelines for the event.

The president said Wednesday that he had 'no choice' but to move the convention to another location and previewed that he would be announcing the new venue shortly.

'We'll see how it all works out, but the governor doesn't want to give an inch,' Trump said during an previously unannounced Cabinet Room meeting with black supporters on Wednesday afternoon.

He is referencing North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who has said he would not allow the RNC to fill a stadium for Trump's coronation speech as the Republican nominee.

He said that while North Carolina is snubbing the event, there are 'many, many states' that would like to host the convention, including Texas, Georgia and Florida.

While the convention, where Trump's nomination for reelection will become official, is still being held in Charlotte in August late, some of the staple events, like a speech from the president, will be moved elsewhere.

The main factor driving the move comes from President Trump's desire to accept his party's nomination for reelection before a massive, cheering crowd, especially after months of being cut off from holding his enormous campaign rallies in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump and the Republican National Committee have tentatively settled on Jacksonville, Florida as the alternative location, Republican officials briefed on the plan told The Washington Post in a report published Tuesday night.

Donald Trump and Republicans are floating moving the main festivities of the RNC Convention to Jacksonville, Florida after North Carolina refused to promise allowing a packed stadium for the days-long events

The desire comes for Trump to give his acceptance speech of his nomination to his usual massive crowd since he has been cut off from holding his rallies. Ironically, the last rally he held was in Charlotte, North Carolina  the original location for the Republican Convention

Florida, where Trump changed his permanent residence to last year, ended lockdown this month and allowed beaches, bars, gyms and almost all other businesses to reopen and operate as normal after months of observing social distancing guidelines.

North Carolina is still in Phase 2 of its reopening plan  and officials in the state have not been able to promise that Trump will have his desired packed arena for the August 24-27 event.

Despite states reopening and loosening restrictions, public health officials are still urging Americans to avoid big gatherings, wear face coverings and practice social distancing.

Trump is not happy with North Carolina's position.

'I don't want to be sitting in a place that's 50 percent empty,' Trump told Cooper in a call late last month when talking about the upcoming convention, two people familiar with the call told the Post.

'We can't do social distancing,' Trump said on the call.

Cooper then asked Trump if he didn't see the risk that posed to the health of the convention's attendees, which could reach numbers around 20,000.

Trump told Cooper on the call that he isn't worried about an outbreak there since the virus has the biggest impact on those who are older or have underlying conditions  suggesting older Americans and those with preexisting health problems would not be attending.

The president revealed during his meeting Wednesday: 'We're going into North Carolina at the appropriate time. The governor's a little backward there, a little bit behind.'

He also listed North Carolina, as well as Florida, North Carolina, as states where he would soon hold his massive rallies.

He announced that Tulsa, Oklahoma would be the first post-COVID site for a rally next Friday, June 19.

Details of moving the marquee events of the convention are still in flux to find a place that will accommodate for the large-scale multi-day festivities as Republicans are trying to determine if Jacksonville has enough hotel rooms and other accommodations.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, both Republicans, have been courting GOP and White House officials to move the convection to their respective states ever since it became clear North Carolina and the party were not seeing eye to eye.

Trump has spoken to DeSantis about moving the event in Florida.

Outside of Jacksonville, Republicans have also considered Orlando,Fla., Nashville, Tenn., Dallas, Texas, and Savannah, Ga. as potential convention locations.

Even with Florida reopening, Jacksonville remains under an emergency order that restricts certain businesses from opening, while bars, restaurants and movie theaters can operate at 50 per cent capacity.

In 2016, the then nominee gave his coronation speech as the Republican candidate in front of a massive pro-Trump crowd in Cleveland, Ohio (pictured)

Retail stories, gyms and fitness centers can reopen completely as long as social distancing protocols are followed.

Two officials told the Post that more routine and lower-profile events will still take place in the original host site of Charlotte, including smaller meetings.

The RNC would only do so in order to honor its contractual obligations with North Carolina and avoid any potential lawsuits for moving the larger events to another state.

While Republicans in the state are in favor of allowing Trump's desired crowd to come for the events, they do not have the votes to override Cooper's veto.

During a Monday news conference, he called the proposal 'irresponsible' and insinuated that state lawmakers do not have a role in the decision-making process.

'What we need to do is continue our conversations with the RNC,' Cooper, who is up for reelection next year, said in reference to the RNC.

The governor has also asked Republican officials to provide a plan for maintaining safety protocols at the convention  while they have vowed to use testing and aggressive sanitizing standard on rooms and buses, they have not offered specifics that satisfy Cooper.
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended several military exercises, but now that restrictive measures have been eased some are going forward, albeit in a scaled-down form.



Two kicked off in early June in Poland and the Baltic Sea, drawing particular interest around the world, and not just because of the logistics of holding them amid an ongoing pandemic. The proximity of the training to Russian territory is seen by many as a possible signal that the U.S. military is shifting its interest in Europe eastward.



What Are The Exercises?



The first exercise involves 4,000 U.S. soldiers and 2,000 Polish troops in northwestern Poland. The bilateral training features a Polish airborne exercise and division-size river crossing from June 5 to June 19.



Dubbed Allied Spirit, the exercise was supposed be linked to a much larger U.S.-led multinational exercise in Europe, including NATO members, called Defender Europe 20, which had to be significantly scaled down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.



The second one, Baltops 20, runs from June 7 to June 16 in the Baltic Sea region. The maritime-focused exercise, which has been held annually since 1972, involves 28 maritime units, 28 aircraft, and up to 3,000 personnel from 19 countries, with Finland and Sweden being the only non-NATO participants.



Both exercises are designed to show international resolve against any potential threat and improve the "interoperability" of national armies' land, sea, and air assets.



How Has COVID-19 Affected The Exercises?



The pandemic has forced military commanders to modify and reduce the scale of Defender Europe 20. The exercise was originally planned to be the largest deployment of U.S.-based forces to Europe in more than 25 years, involving 20,000 soldiers and nine NATO allies practicing military maneuvers in several European countries.



Before the pandemic shut down most of the continent, more than 6,000 U.S. soldiers and 3,000 pieces of equipment had already arrived in Europe. Most of the original plans were scrapped but the U.S.-Polish exercise received a green light in mid-May.

Baltops 20 has also been modified. There will be no land element to complement the air and sea operations to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. This means normally standard features of naval exercises such as amphibious landings, exchanging personnel between ships, and merchant vessel boarding will not take place.



Are The Exercises Directed At Russia?



The U.S. military and NATO have been quick to point out that all exercises are "defensive in nature." Lisa Franchetti, the commander of the Naples-based U.S. 6th Fleet, told journalists that Baltops 20 should not be interpreted as a threat to any specific country and exercises are held in international waters and international airspace. Franchetti encouraged the Russian military to behave professionally.



However, many observers expect the Russian Navy to make close approaches to the exercises and that Russian jets may "buzz" allied planes, meaning that they will fly so close as to create "wake turbulence."



A NATO official recently told RFE/RL that, in 2019 alone, allied aircraft took to the skies 290 times to escort or shadow Russian military aircraft across Europe. Even though the alliance doesn't reveal numbers for specific regions, it is believed most of the incidents occurred around the Baltic Sea.
An elderly man was forcefully shoved to the ground by Buffalo police officers. President Donald Trump claims that this was a set up engineered by other parties.

The gist of the President's charge is that certain elements are setting up police forces, like the incident with elderly who intentionally let himself be injured to cast the officers in a bad light, reported in CBS News.

It must be noted that the police were dispatched to do riot control after looters and rioters have destroyed properties Some have targeted stores for theft amidst the chaos.

Based on the set-up claim, the elder man was an ANTIFA member baiting and setting up law enforcement to be used against the already tarnished image of police in the George Floyd incident that started everything.

The protest was not just attacking property and order. It was an opportunistic attack on the establishment, by looters and rioters with other things in mind.

According to the President, he cited a part of the conservative One America News Network that alleged the 75-year old man, Martin Gugino was not innocent because he was using his mobile to cancel out police radio, mentioned Todays News-Post.

Kristian Rouz said that the reporting for the network was formerly hired by Sputnik. His claims were not backed by proofs about Guginos motives, just citing a report accomplished by The Conservative Treehouse, which was right-wing group.

The president tweeted that Gugino, a known peace activist in the community, fell harder than he should have. He was pushed while was pointing a scanner on the policemen, hurting himself in the process more than usual. His stunt gained the sympathy of rioters and looters as a result.

Also read: Democrat's Pandora's Box: Will They Agree with George Floyd Sympathizers to Defund Police?

Disputing what the president alleged in his tweet, Kelly Zarcone went on the offensive in a statement where she said that Gugino is a peaceful protestor with his concerns about the society. She further denied anything aspersions to his client's reputation, especially called a provocateur.

Gugino's lawyer adds about the attempt to paint him as subversive.

He added that most law enforcement representatives did not allude any subversive leanings or intent, expressing dismay why the president is stating these alleged claims that are not true. He further added more innuendo on the intent of the President.

Shoving of Gugino was not without fallout on the Buffalo police, who was trying to achieve peace and order, when compared to looters and rioter who are crossing the line.

Mayor Byron Brown expressed his concern for Gugino's recovery while the officers are getting due process for injuring him.

He added in another tweet directed at President Trump, saying the City of Buffalo will heal, including actions against racial injustice with emphasis on a better future.

After the pushing incident, two of the officers got charged with second-degree assault, Eric County District Attorney John Flynn stated on Saturday. A video of the actual happening went viral online, but the officer pleaded they were not guilty.

The contents of the video shows Gugino wearing a mask while moving to a group of policemen going to the protest. Gugino had a mobile in hand while talking to two officers.

Police officers yelled "move!" and the elderly man got pushed, hitting the ground hard. He acquired a wound and police called for a medic. His lawyer said that he went to the hospital due to the injuries, MSN reports.

According to the administration, the shoving was a set-up, with looting and rioting as sources of violence, directed by the Antifa.

Related article: Democrats Allow Changes to Police Reform Bill After Looting and Rioting Protesters Stopped the Chaos

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Some national executives of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) led by the National Organizer, Sammi Awuku has been touring the Savannah, Upper East, Upper West & Northern Regions respectively ahead of the new voters registration exercise slated on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 by the Electoral Commission (EC).



Speaking in an interview with Peacefmonline.com, Mr. Awuku explained that the tour is to provide opportunity for the team to train, prepare and educate the party members ahead of the exercise.



He disclosed that the training exercise will primarily center on the provisions of the new CI passed by Parliament yesterday so that they will be able to assist the registration of officials in compliance with the provision of the CI.



As a political party, we are taking these exercises seriously in order to secure victory. So, the rank and file of the party leadership are all over educating, training and preparing members for the upcoming registration exercise, he stated.



He further urged the members to comport themselves during the partys Parliamentary Primaries and comply with all party rules.



He also appealed to all political parties to encourage their supporters to participate in the exercise.



Sammi Awuku was accompanied by the Deputy National Youth Organizer, Perpetual Lamokai, MMDCEs, consistency executives and Regional executives

Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/[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.

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Linkedin Julia Zappei (Agence France-Presse) Vienna  Wed, June 10, 2020 16:00 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd9e8a6 2 Art & Culture Vienna-State-Opera,Vienna,Opera,concert,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

After months of lying silent because of the coronavirus pandemic, Vienna's illustrious classical music venues are throwing open their doors -- but their vast halls can now play host to only 100 audience members at a time.

Those eager concert-goers have snapped up the few available tickets for the first shows to be put on since Austria's concert houses shut their doors in March under a strict lockdown to stem the spread of the new coronavirus.

As the increase in infections has abated and the country eases its restrictions, venues such as Vienna's State Opera are now allowed to reopen after hundreds of shows were cancelled.

"I watched live streams, from Paris, New York, Vienna, but it's something else when you sit in the concert hall and so I'm so happy that it's starting again now," said Evelyne Strobel.

The 64-year-old teacher was among the lucky ones who trickled into the imposing foyer of the 1,709-seat State Opera on Monday, wearing a mask matching her pastel-colored outfit, to watch its first post-shutdown show.

Another audience member, 57-year-old Ulrike Grunenwald, drove 16 hours from France's northeastern Alsace region to Vienna to attend the recital by Austrian operatic bass Guenther Groissboeck with her daughter.

She said she was armed with a negative coronavirus test in case of any border controls.

State Opera Director Dominique Meyer told AFP that while it was "frustrating" to have to cap audience numbers -- and of course not economically viable in the long term -- the resumption of concerts was a "symbol".

"It's important for the soul, for people's mental health and the well-being of society," he said, adding that tickets priced at 100 euros ($110) or less for the opera's 14 shows in June were all snapped up within half an hour when they went on sale last week.

'Important moment'

Meyer said he "could not hold back a little tear" when attending one of the very first classical concerts since the shutdown on Friday, a performance of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the world-famous Daniel Barenboim at the city's Musikverein.

"It was extremely beautiful... and Daniel Barenboim, who conducted and played Mozart's 27th concerto, told me that he had played this concerto a hundred times but had never heard it played so well, and I never heard a sound so beautiful," he said.

Barenboim told reporters last week ahead of his performances that it was "a very important moment when the music starts again".

"For us it's just important that we can play," said an emotional Daniel Froschauer, first violinist and section leader of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

All orchestra members tested negative for the new coronavirus last week and so played without masks.

Spectators too are allowed to take off their masks once they reach their seats in the new chequerboard-like layout devised to observe social distancing rules.

But the smaller audiences affect the sound, commentators noted.

"There is a difference because each body absorbs sound, so when the room is empty, there is less absorption and therefore a little more echo," Meyer said.

Read also: Opera returns to Vienna with hotel 'window concert'

'Very unusual'

Gerlinde Kraft, who attended a concert at the Austrian capital's famous Konzerthaus on Saturday, told AFP that being among so few spectators "doesn't bother me but it is very unusual".

Nonetheless, concert houses are looking to the future with trepidation, especially the prospect of a new wave of coronavirus infections.

"For us it's pure joy to hear the music again in the places where it belongs," Konzerthaus director Matthias Naske told AFP.

He added, however, that audience limitations were "absurd" from an economic point of view.

From July 1, up to 250 spectators are to be allowed, and the limit will be raised again in August.

A return to full concert halls -- and larger-scale productions -- is expected from September.

The opera and other concert venues have asked the government for special support for musicians -- many of whom lost their income entirely when concert halls shut down.
- Key players profiled are Continental AG, Texas Instruments Inc., NXP Semiconductors, Robert Bosch GmbH, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Infineon Technologies AG, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, among others

PUNE, India, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global automotive powertrain electronics market is likely to gain impetus from the rising usage of DC fast charging. Nowadays, the electric vehicle (EV) sector is taking the charger out of some vehicles and are storing them off-board for other usages. Fortune Business Insights published this information in a recent report, titled, "Automotive Powertrain Electronics Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Component Type (Electric Motor, Inverter, DC/DC Converter, Battery Management System, Cell Module Controller, On-Board Charger), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars, Commercial Vehicles), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026."

The report further mentions that the automotive powertrain electronics market size was USD 49.55 billion in 2018 and is projected to reachUSD 83.47 billion by 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 7.0% during the forecast period.

Browse Detailed Research Insights with Table of Content Enabled with COVID-19 Coverage: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/automotive-powertrain-electronics-market-102856

COVID-19 Impact on Automotive Powertrain Electronics Industry:

The emergence of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. We understand that this health crisis has brought an unprecedented impact on businesses across industries. However, this too shall pass. Rising support from governments and several companies can help in the fight against this highly contagious disease. There are some industries that are struggling and some are thriving. Overall, almost every sector is anticipated to be impacted by the pandemic.

We are taking continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future.

To Get the Short-Term and Long-Term Impact of COVID-19 on this market.

Please Visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/automotive-powertrain-electronics-market-102856

This Report Answers the Following Questions:

What are the growth drivers and obstacles of the market?

How will the key companies intensify competition in the near future?

Which region would dominate by gaining the maximum revenue?

What are the major trends, opportunities, and challenges in the market?

Market Drivers

Rising Standardization of Core Product Segment to Augment Growth

The standardization of core product segments is one of the major factors driving the automotive powertrain electronics market growth. These consist of 40 to 150 kW inverters or 48V systems. It would help in reducing the obstacles required for the tier-2 suppliers of semiconductors to enter the market. They would eventually increase pressure on the average selling price of the system and hence, surge competition.

Apart from that, the automotive powertrain electronics are gaining popularity owing to the adoption of EVs. This is mainly occurring as the auto industry is trying to lower the cost of batteries and satisfy the consumer demand. However, there is a threat to the advancement of EVs as there are shortages of the supply of dysprosium. It may obstruct market growth.

Segment-

Inverter Segment to Grow Steadily Backed by Ongoing Technological Advancements

Based on component type, the inverter segment held 34.83% automotive powertrain electronics market share in 2018. This growth is attributable to the rising technological innovations in battery and inverter technologies. These are aiding in the improvement of the range of electric vehicles (EVs). Additionally, the price of EVs may reduce because of the development of such novel technologies. It would also upsurge the demand for inverters worldwide.

Speak to Analyst:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/automotive-powertrain-electronics-market-102856

Regional Analysis-

Asia Pacific to Dominate Stoked by Expansion of Automotive Industry

The market is regionally segregated into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and the rest of the world. Out of these, Asia Pacific generated USD 23.28 billion revenue in 2018 and is set to lead the market throughout the forecast period. This growth is attributable to the expansion of the automotive industry in the developing countries, such as India and China. Also, the high volume markets, as well as the rising demand for innovative safety and electronic features in passenger cars are likely to contribute to the market growth in this region. Europe is set to remain in the second position backed by the increasing usage of electric vehicles in this region. In addition to that, the governments of various European countries are implementing stringent norms on commercial vehicles and passenger cars to lower the carbon emissions.

Competitive Landscape-

Key Players Focus on Collaboration Strategy to Gain Competitive Edge

The major companies present in the market are striving persistently to invest huge sums in the development of state-of-the-art products. It would help them in strengthening their position and widening their reach in the market. They are also adopting the strategy of collaborations and partnerships to gain a competitive edge.

Fortune Business Insights presents a list of all the companies operating in the global Automotive Powertrain Electronics Market. They are as follows:

Continental AG ( Germany )

) Texas Instruments Inc. (U.S.)

NXP Semiconductors ( Netherlands )

) Robert Bosch GmbH ( Germany )

) Renesas Electronics Corporation ( Japan )

) Infineon Technologies AG ( Germany )

) Mitsubishi Electric Corporation ( Japan )

) Toshiba Corporation ( Japan )

Quick Buy - Automotive Powertrain Electronics Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/102856

Detailed Table of Content:

Introduction

Research Scope



Market Segmentation



Research Methodology



Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics

Market Drivers



Market Restraints



Market Opportunities

Key Insights

Merger, Acquisitions, and Partnerships



Distributor Analysis - For Major Players



Growth and Penetration Analysis



Porter's Five Forces Analysis



PEST Analysis



Vendor Landscape

Global Automotive Powertrain Electronics Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2015-2026

Key Findings / Summary



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast - By Vehicle Type



Passenger Cars





Commercial Vehicles



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast - By Component Type



Engine





Chassis





Transmission





Steering





Front/Rear Axle





Interior Trim



Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast - By Region



North America





Europe





Asia pacific

pacific



Rest of the World

TOC Continued!!!!

Get your Customized Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/automotive-powertrain-electronics-market-102856

Below is a key industry development:

November 2018 : NXP Semiconductors N.V. joined hands with VEPCO Technologies, Inc. to develop a high-voltage, ASIL-D-capable inverter prototype and power control reference platform. The platform consists of a Fuji Electric 800V silicon IGBT power module. It is blended with temperature and current sensing.

Have a Look at Related Research Insights:

Automotive Electronics Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Application Type (Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), Body Electronics, Power Electronics, and Infotainment), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, Light Commercial Vehicle, Heavy Commercial Vehicle, and Electric Vehicle) and Regional Forecasts, 2019-2026

Automotive Electronic Control Unit Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Application (Powertrain, Braking Systems, Body Electronics, ADAS, Infotainment), By Vehicle (Passenger, LCV, HCV, Electric Vehicle), and Regional Forecasts, 2019-2025

Advanced Parking Management System Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Parking Site Type (On-Road and Off-Road), By Application Type (Commercial and Government), and Regional Forecasts, 2020-2027

Automotive Blind Spot Detection (BSD) System Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Component Type (Ultrasonic, RADAR, Camera) By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars, Commercial Vehicles), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Automotive Adaptive Cruise Control Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Component Type (LiDAR, RADAR, Others) By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars, Commercial Vehicles), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Automotive Instrument Cluster Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Cluster Type (Analog, Digital, and Hybrid), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars, Light Commercial Vehicle, Heavy Commercial Vehicle, and Electric Vehicle), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Automotive Infotainment Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By System Type (Dashboard, Rear Seat), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, Light Commercial Vehicle, Heavy Commercial Vehicle, Electric Vehicle), By Market Type (OEMs, Aftermarket), and Regional Forecasts, 2019-2026

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By System Type (Adaptive Cruise Control, Blind Spot Detection, Park Assist, Lane Departure Warning System, Autonomous Emergency Braking, Heads-Up Display, Intelligent Headlights), By Component Type (LiDAR, Radar, Camera, Sensors), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, Light Commercial Vehicle) and Regional Forecasts, 2019-2026

Vehicle Electrification Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis; By Product Type (Start/Stop System, Electric Air Conditioner Compressor, PTC Heater, Electric Vacuum Pump, Electric Water Pump, Electric Oil Pump, Starter Motor & Alternator, Integrated Starter Generator, Actuators). By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars, Light Commercial Vehicles & Heavy Commercial Vehicles), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

Electric Vehicle (EV) Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV), Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV), and Others), By Vehicle Type (Passenger Cars and Commercial Vehicles), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026

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Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data.

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After a long fight, a state law that shields police disciplinary records from public view will soon be repealed. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would sign into law this week a bill passed by the state Legislature on Tuesday that repealed Section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law, which keeps the personnel records of police officers, firefighters and corrections officers confidential and not subject to inspection or review, without the officers permission.

Repeal 50-a has become one of the legislatively focused rallying cries in New York for people protesting police brutality and systemic racism in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. But its not the only policy change that advocates and activists say are necessary to end police brutality and racist policing.

Hawk Newsome, chairman of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, told City & State that while repealing 50-a is a step in the right direction, its still just one step in a longer march toward justice. I know the governor is taking steps in the right direction, Newsome said. But Gov. Cuomo has the chance to do something epic and historic, and set a precedent for the rest of the country that Joe Biden can also pick up and pick up a lot of votes.

To comprehensively battle police brutality, Newsome said, New York lawmakers need to embrace some of the proposals that groups like his have been backing for years. That includes prosecuting police officers who file false reports, defunding police departments, and prosecuting law enforcement officials who deny help to a person displaying signs of medical distress.

One step that Newsome is less excited about? New York City Mayor Bill de Blasios announcement that the city will paint Black Lives Matter on a street in each borough. I never got one phone call, Newsome said, arguing that its only now that lawmakers are starting to listen to Black Lives Matter leaders. I would have told him to keep his street painting and give us real justice.

To weigh in on what the repeal of 50-a does to combat police brutality  and the problems that remain despite its repeal  City & State reached out to a slate of experts and advocates: Hawk Newsome; Alexis Hoag, a civil rights lawyer and research scholar at Columbia Law School; Joo-Hyun Kang, director of Communities United for Police Reform; Zara Nasir, deputy director of community organizing and advocacy at the New York City Anti-Violence Project; Michael Hardy, executive vice president and general counsel at the National Action Network; and Chivona Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, a Democratic candidate for New Yorks 15th Congressional District and sister of Hawk Newsome. The responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What will  and what wont  the repeal of 50-a do for efforts to combat police brutality in New York?

Alexis Hoag: 50-as repeal is huge! It gives victims of police misconduct access to the very information that can help hold officers accountable for violating the rights of people they are meant to serve. However, additional steps are necessary to address the NYPDs disproportionate use of force against black people. In 2018, 56% of the people subjected to police force were black. The repeal fails to address this disparity.

Hawk Newsome: It gives a bit of transparency to people, so thats a step in the right direction. But it wont prevent police brutality. Because in places where this type of stuff is public information  where people actually know whats going on with the police  they still have police brutality. Nothing short of detailed legislation that will send cops to jail will stop police brutality.

Joo-Hyun Kang: New York had the worst in the nation loophole, called 50-a, that was used to hide police misconduct and discipline. It was a statewide statute that carved out unnecessary and harmful secrecy around abuse committed by police, fire and correction officers to shield police misconduct and failed police disciplinary processes from public view. The law passed this week will provide much-needed transparency on police misconduct and discipline in New York state and help address the systemic lack of accountability for officers who engage in misconduct. New Yorks Freedom of Information laws will, as always, protect private information about officers  like their home address  but finally the public will be able to access information about police misconduct and the failure of too many law enforcement agencies to hold their officers to account and take any meaningful action when they hurt people or communities.

Zara Nasir: The notorious police secrecy 50-a statute in New York state has been used to keep New Yorkers in the dark about consequences for officers even after serious or deadly incidents. The repeal 50-a bill pushed by Communities United for Police Reform  of which NYC Anti-Violence Project is a member  creates privacy protections for survivors of police violence, complainants, witnesses and family members, and makes it harder for police departments to hide information about misconduct and discipline, currently permitted to be redacted in Freedom of Information Law requests.

While Communities United for Police Reform is working on many different fronts to end police brutality in New York state, including the #NYCBudgetJustice #DefundNYPD campaign, 50-a is both a tremendous step in getting justice for families whose loved ones have passed due to police violence, like Eric Garner, Mohamed Bah, Kawaski Trawick and many others. Because of 50-a, consequences police officers have faced for misconduct or violence have often been hidden, and demanding accountability has been difficult if not impossible in many circumstances. Repealing 50-a makes it harder for police departments to keep secret and protect abusive police officers, and thus helps break down the culture that allows such incidents to take place in the first place.

Michael Hardy: Justice delayed is justice denied. For too long, Section 50-a of the New York state Civil Rights Law has been a roadblock to the pursuit of justice. In 2014 when Eric Garner cried out I cant breathe, 50-a was one of the primary obstacles to giving the pursuit of justice any breath to right the wrong that was done to Mr. Garner. In life, accountability is generally the rule for all persons. In New York state, 50-a provided an exception to the rule of law for police and other law enforcement officers. In repealing 50-a, the state Legislature has created a path for transparency, accountability and equality in the courts and the public square. Any time you can shine a light in corners where people feel they can hide, you force them to act more cautiously and more responsibly. That is what the citizens of the state of New York truly want  public officers and law enforcement that really do act with courtesy, professionalism and respect.

Chivona Newsome: Black Lives Matter of Greater New York has fought a very long time for the repealing of Section 50-a. The NYPD can no longer hide its abusive practices against communities of color. Although this is a step in the right direction, repealing 50-a would be largely meaningless if the information of police brutality could not be utilized to prosecute police officers who brutalize black and brown people. Ending qualified immunity will make it easier to hold police officers accountable within the justice system and give victims access to legal damages.

More legislation is needed to protect the public from law enforcement. We need to tear down the blue wall of silence by prosecuting officers who falsify reports. The political power of police unions needs to be dismantled, including lessening their influence in local and state governments, and ultimately decertifying and disbanding their unions entirely. A special prosecutor is needed to investigate the misconduct of law enforcement. Federal, state and local district prosecutors have an inherent conflict of interest in investigating a member of the law enforcement office that they work with. An elected civilian review board should be implemented to replace the current Civilian Complaint Review Board to investigate public complaints against the police department. Lastly, law enforcement must be demilitarized and defunded  by closing the pipeline between the military and the police by eliminating programs that sell military-grade equipment to police departments, provide military training to officers, or find veterans jobs in the police force. Local and state government agencies (should) divert funds from law enforcement and reinvest funding into vulnerable communities to build stronger, safer and productive communities.
The Chief Secretary of Shahi Imam at Delhi's iconic Jama Masjid has died due to coronavirus infection on Wednesday. People have now been asked to pray from home and to not come to the mosque to offer prayers.

As part of 'Unlock 1.0', religious places across the country had opened up on June 8. They were closed since March 25 when the government had initiated the lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

According to reports, the authorities are now considering closing the mosque for the general public in light of the recent developments. Though, it is also reported that Chief Secretary Amanullah had not visited the mosque in 10 days.

"He (Amanullah) had tested positive and was admitted to the Safdarjung Hospital on June 3, where he breathed his last yesterday," Jama Masjid's Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari said on Wednesday to the news channel.

"People are giving their views through social media and other channels on closing the Jama Masjid. We may again shut it down for people and limit 'namaz' for a few people, in a day or two," he added.

So far Delhi has reported 18,543 active cases of coronavirus, according to the Health Ministry. Around 11,861 people have recovered from the deadly disease while 905 people have succumbed to it.

The Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal also started showing signs of COVID-19 earlier this weeks abut has tested negative yesterday.

Meanwhile, India has reported 1,33,632 active cases of coronavirus (as of 8 am, June 10), according to the Health Ministry. Total deaths stood at 7745 As many as 1,35,205 patients have been cured or discharged and 1 migrated.

Also Read: Coronavirus treatment cost: Tamil Nadu hospitals can't charge above Rs 15,000 a day

Also Read: Vizag gas leak: Andhra govt forms committee to probe incident; seeks report by June 22
The woman says that as a result, she suffered a concussion and seizures.

The incident, one of many captured on cellphones and shared across social media during the demonstrations in New York and other cities against police brutality, has led to calls for a change to the status quo  including some from New York State legislative leaders, who have begun approving parts of an expansive package of bills targeting police misconduct.

On Tuesday  11 days after that Brooklyn protest  the district attorneys office in the borough charged the officer, Vincent DAndraia, with assault.

Officer DAndraia is the first member of the New York Police Department to face criminal charges over conduct at the protests. Police union leaders said city officials were bowing to public pressure and abandoning officers.

[Read more: An officer who shoved a protester in Brooklyn is charged with assault.]

The details

The first video showed Officer DAndraia, 28, knocking the woman, Dounya Zayer, 20, to the ground and calling her a bitch after she asked him why he had told her to get out of the street. The second video, recorded by a Newsweek reporter, shows Officer DAndraia leaning forward and thrusting his arm into Ms. Zayers body.

Officer DAndraia was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing. Ms. Zayers lawyer, Tahani Aboushi, said that she was disappointed that prosecutors had not charged him with a felony.
He is accused of inciting hatred.

Russia's Federal Security Service, also known as the FSB, has detained Andriy Kuliyevych, a citizen of Ukraine, in the Russian-occupied city of Sevastopol, the Crimean peninsula.

According to preliminary reports, he is accused of inciting hatred or enmity, the Ukrainian media project Graty said, citing lawyer Sergei Legostov.

Read alsoRussia's FSB confirms detention of Ukrainian serviceman close to Crimea border

The detainee is reportedly 20 years old. He is charged under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

According to the report, a raid was conducted at Kuliyevych's house, and his mobile phone and storage devices were seized.

After the search, he was brought to the FSB's department in Simferopol.
You are here: Business

Mercedes-Benz sold more than 70,000 passenger cars in May and achieved a double-digit growth in China, German carmaker Daimler announced on Tuesday.

"The retail sales in our biggest market China provide us with optimism," said Britta Seeger, member of the board of management of Daimler and Mercedes Benz, responsible for sales and marketing.

Daimler's core brand would get "step by step back to normality." After a production suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mercedes-Benz car plants had successfully restarted production.

From June onwards, all Mercedes-Benz plants worldwide would be gradually restarted, according to Daimler.

Last week, the German carmaker announced that global deliveries to car dealers in May were down 28.6 percent compared with the same month last year, with almost 135,000 passenger cars of the Mercedes-Benz brand sold worldwide.
DIGITAL bank Revolut is increasing its charges, just weeks after saying it had signed up one million customers in Ireland.

The move has prompted some to claim the fast-growing fintech is now acting like a regular bank.

The announcement is likely to disappoint customers here, with financial experts saying it could be the first of many fee hikes.

People have been signing up to Revolut in their droves as the app-based financial services company is seen as a low-cost way of availing of day-to-day banking.

But one disappointed Revolut customer said: I just got an email from Revolut telling me they are increasing the fees they charge on foreign exchange, which is what most people use them for. It didnt take them long to be like a regular bank.

Revolut told customers this week it plans to change its fee structure. It will charge 0.5pc on transactions in a foreign currency above 1,000 a month on its basic debit card account. At the moment customers can spend up to 6,000 a month and avoid racking up foreign exchange fees on most currencies.

The company insisted only a small number of its Irish customers would be affected by this. Very few of our standard customers in Ireland come close to using the current free FX (foreign exchange) limit which will stay at 1,000 without charges, so for the vast majority of our customers they wont see any increase in fees, said Revolut.

It added that its premium and metal plans still have fee-unlimited exchange. However, there is a monthly charge for operating these accounts.

The fintech is also increasing the fee on exchange rates at weekends. The fee goes from 0.5pc to 1pc.

Revolut said a new fee will also apply for foreign currency transfers, such as sterling transfers to banks in the UK. A fee of 50c will apply.

However, if an Irish person wants to send dollars to a bank in the UK a 3 fee will apply as its a cross-currency payment. For any non-dollar cross-currency payments, there is a 5 fee.

Fee changes will take effect on August 12.

However, Revolut clarified that transfer in euro from Revolut accounts will remain free to any Irish bank, as well as banks in the single European payment area, which includes the UK.

Confusion had been created because the email sent to customers on the fee changes makes reference to a new fee for transferring money from a Revolut account.

In the past few days, it has been reported Revolut has let go of staff in Portugal and Poland, prompting some to question its rapid growth.

Finance expert Daragh Cassidy, of price comparison site Bonkers.ie, warned of more fee rises. The announcement is likely to disappoint customers and could be the first of many.

He said Revolut still represents good value for day-to-day banking needs, but it has struggled to make a profit so more fee rises cant be ruled out. It was recently valued at more than 5.07bn. Many commentators have questioned its rapid growth.

Mr Cassidy said Revolut rival N26 has no limit on foreign exchange fees, for now.

However, N26 charges 3pc of the value of a top-up into the account from an Irish banks debit card. This means it costs 1.50 to deposit 50 into a N26 account.
Union minister for road transport & highways, micro, small & medium enterprises Nitin Gadkari has said that a loss of Rs 10 lakh crore in revenue is estimated during the current financial year due to the economic crisis precipitated by the coronavirus outbreak

Gadkari made the statement during a virtual meeting with BJP workers and leaders in Bhopal, called Madhya Pradesh Jansanvad virtual rally to mark one year of Narendra Modi governments second term.

He noted that the economic crisis had made a wide impact.

Today an economic war has begun. There are a lot of difficulties and crises. Our villages, poor, labourers, farmers and industries are facing a crisis. The crisis faced by the government of India has also grown. Some of our state governments dont have money to pay salaries next month, Gadkari said.

Gadkari said the estimated loss in revenue was worrying for the economy.

We have a GDP of Rs 200 lakh crore 10% of which i.e. 20 lakh crore has been given as a package for all sections of the society. A revenue drop of Rs 10 lakh crore is expected. We can understand that if Rs 30 lakh crore is reduced from Rs 200 lakh crore what would be the situation ahead. But Atal jis verses give us a lot of strength that kadam se kadam milakhar chalna hoga, Koshish karne waalon ki kabhi haar nahi hoti, the road and transport minister said.

For Coronavirus Live Updates

He, however, underlined that the country will recover from any adverse circumstances under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will win the twin battles.

We will make an Atmnirbhar Bharat. We will reduce import and increase export. We will strengthen village industry, rural industry, handloom and handicraft. People wont need to migrate from rural to urban areas for jobs. Employment will be available in villages. This year we have faced a crisis due to Corona. We are fighting the economic battle seriously. This is also a serious crisis. But we will win both the battles.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19

Gadkari added that people needed to learn to live with the coronavirus in their midst. For instance, we are holding a rally through an electronic medium today, he said.

Underlining the achievements of the Narendra Modi government, Gadkari said what Modi government achieved in five years, Congress couldnt achieve in the 55 to 60 years of its rule.

He said it was Modi government that worked with courage and commitment to eradicate Maoism and terrorism from the country.

Earlier, there used to be appeasement. The situation was such that Congress leaders went to the house of terrorists killed in Batla House shootout incident but didnt visit the house of the police officer who was killed fighting them.

State Congress spokesperson Abhay Dubey said the government should explain the reasons for massive unemployment in the country along with other crises.

This is obvious that the central ministers of the Narendra Modi government will cite Corona for every problem faced by the country. The Prime Minister must tell people what he did in the past six years when there was no corona. Why was the country facing a massive unemployment and along with other crises faced by every section of the society.
A hero father sacrificed his own life and spent his final moments saving 10 people from a horrific fire that engulfed a holiday home in regional Victoria.

Tributes have flowed for heroic father Michael Holmes, 34, and his six-year-old son Louis, who were both killed in a holiday home fire in Tyaak on Saturday.

They are survived by the family's mother Nicci and children Harvey and Rafael.

Michael Holmes, 34, (pictured with his family) died saving the lives of 10 people from a house fire which also claimed the life of his six-year-old son Louis and a family friend

Mr Holmes suffered burns to 98 per cent of his body as he worked to save 13 people trapped inside the home as it burnt to the ground on Saturday night.

'He single-handedly saved every single person in that house, everyone would have been dead without him, the consequence is it has cost him his own life,' Mr Holmes's brother told the Herald Sun.

'He has always been my hero, my brother is a helping, giving person. The fire was an accident, something triggered the fire, we don't know what.'

Mr Holmes desperately tried to save his son - who had only just celebrated his sixth birthday last month - but he was killed in the blaze along with a close family friend, aged 34.

The injuries he suffered while working to save the lives of others were too severe for him to survive.

A Chuffed campaign has been started by their relatives and friends to support the recovery of 'the most beautiful family who would help anyone in need.'

Mr Holmes received burns to 98 percent of his body as he worked to save 13 people trapped inside a holiday home in Tyaak, Victoria, as it burnt to the ground on Saturday

The campaign had $87,000 raised by Wednesday night, just hours after it was launched.

'Today's world is truly a better place for those who were fortunate enough to know Mike,' the campaign statement says.

'He was devoted to his family and worshipped the ground they walked on.

'He showed this in his actions during the devastating fire - giving up his own life in order to do all he could to save each and every person that night.

'For this, Michael will always be remembered as a hero by his friends and family.'

Louis, Harvey and Rafael are pictured together before last weekend's tragedy

The man desperately tried to save his son - who had only just celebrated his sixth birthday last month - but he was tragically killed in the blaze along with a close family friend, aged 34

His son Louis was described as a cheeky, extremely smart, and talented boy who showed everyone what true love meant and enjoyed every second of his life.

'He, also like his dad, was competitive and wanted to hang out with the guys, he showed us what true love meant and enjoyed every second of his life,' it read.

While Mrs Holmes recovers from burns in hospital, Harvey and Rafael are fighting for life in ICU.

'Harvey is a little boy beyond his years, he engages in emotional conversations and is so protective of his Mum,' the campaign revealed.

'Little Raff is a real-life Dennis the menace! He explores beyond his years and has the most beautiful blue eyes, he is a mini Nicci.'

Tributes flowed for the father-of-three and Louis (pictured at his sixth birthday last month) who was described as a cheeky, extremely smart, and talented boy who enjoyed every second of his life

Thirteen people had been staying at the holiday house about 100km north of Melbourne for the long weekend.

A 34-year-old man was the third victim. He died on Sunday after he was taken to hospital in a critical condition.

Arson and Explosives Squad detectives are investigating the cause and will prepare a report for the coroner, but the fire is not being treated as suspicious.

The building was a 'house built up with beautiful memories of family gatherings', the families previously said in a statement.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Liberty Gold Corp. (LGD-TSX) (Liberty Gold or the Company) is pleased to announce as part of its regional exploration and compilation program, the staking of two additional land parcels, adding to the core Black Pine Project claim block, as well as an area 7 kilometres (km) to the west of the main oxide gold discovery area. The parcels aggregate 122 new claims.



Liberty Gold staked:

2.9 square km (km 2 ) on the northwest corner of the core claim block to cover an extension of the Back Range portion of the Black Pine oxide gold system, where rock samples report up to 2 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au).

3.4 km 2 of ground to the north of the core claim block to cover iron oxide-stained and brecciated sandstone cover rocks, which typically lie above the favourable oxide host rocks.

3.6 km2 of ground 7 km to the west of the main Black Pine claim block, where the Companys proprietary data base indicates the presence of gold mineralization in an extensive area of jasperoid hosted in the same geological rock formation that hosts the main Black Pine oxide gold system. Elevated gold in soil and rock samples are associated with the jasperoid outcrops.

Liberty Golds new land holdings in the Black Pine district now aggregate 48.5 km2 in 616 federal lode claims. For a map of the Black Pine Property and the new claim blocks click here: https://libertygold.ca/images/news/2020/June/NewClaims.pdf

Cal Everett, President and CEO, states, It was imperative, given the scale of the main Black Pine oxide gold discovery, to secure all relevant ground in the district. Drilling in 2020 is ongoing and will remain focussed in the main Black Pine claim block. Liberty Gold is gradually increasing the scale of the 2020 drill program, and recently added a third drill, while following protocols to safely navigate the covid-19 issue.

Moira Smith, Ph.D., P.Geo., Vice-President Exploration and Geoscience, Liberty Gold, is the Company's designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and has reviewed and validated that the information contained in the release is accurate. Drill composites were calculated using a cut-off of 0.20 g/t. Drill intersections are reported as drilled thicknesses. True widths of the mineralized intervals vary between 30 and 100% of the reported lengths due to varying drill hole orientations but are typically in the range of 60 to 80% of true width. Drill samples were assayed by ALS Limited in Reno, Nevada for gold by Fire Assay of a 30 gram (1 assay ton) charge with an AA finish, or if over 5.0 g/t were re-assayed and completed with a gravimetric finish. For these samples, the gravimetric data were utilized in calculating gold intersections. For any samples assaying over 0.200 ppm an additional cyanide leach analysis is done where the sample is treated with a 0.25% NaCN solution and rolled for an hour. An aliquot of the final leach solution is then centrifuged and analyzed by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. QA/QC for all drill samples consists of the insertion and continual monitoring of numerous standards and blanks into the sample stream, and the collection of duplicate samples at random intervals within each batch. Selected holes are also analyzed for a 51 multi-element geochemical suite by ICP-MS. ALS Geochemistry-Reno is ISO 17025:2005 Accredited, with the Elko prep lab listed on the scope of accreditation.

Story continues

ABOUT LIBERTY GOLD

Liberty Gold is focused on exploring the Great Basin of the United States, home to large-scale gold projects that are ideal for open-pit mining. This region is one of the most prolific gold-producing regions in the world and stretches across Nevada and into Idaho and Utah. We know the Great Basin and are driven to discover and advance big gold deposits that can be mined profitably in open-pit scenarios. Our flagship projects are Black Pine in Idaho and Goldstrike in Utah, both past producing open-pit mines, where previous operators only scratched the surface.

For more information, visit www.libertygold.ca or contact:

Susie Bell, Manager, Investor Relations

Phone: 604-632-4677 or Toll Free 1-877-632-4677

info@libertygold.ca

All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Liberty Gold within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements regarding the receipt of proceeds from the Transaction and that address potential quantity and/or grade of minerals. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "planned", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. 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 including, among others, assumptions about future prices of gold, and other metal prices, currency exchange rates and interest rates, favourable operating conditions, political stability, obtaining governmental approvals and financing on time, obtaining renewals for existing licenses and permits and obtaining required licenses and permits, labour stability, stability in market conditions, the impact from the pandemic of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), availability of equipment, accuracy of any mineral resources, the availability of drill rigs, successful resolution of disputes and anticipated costs and expenditures. Many assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of Liberty Gold and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct.
Amitabh Bachchan was reportedly moved by the plight of the migrant workers amid the coronavirus lockdown and decided to help them

Veteran Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan has arranged for three flights so that around 500 workers can go home to Varanasi amid the coronavirus pandemic.

(Click here to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak)

According to Mid-Day, a source told the publication that everything is being done with utmost discretion as the actor does not want it to be publicized.

He was moved by the plight of the migrant workers and decided to help them. He has chartered the Indigo Airlines' Varanasi-bound flight, scheduled to depart today morning. The 180 migrants scheduled to travel on the morning flight had been asked to report to the airport at 6 am. The initial plan was to send them home by train, but the logistics didn't work out, the source was quoted as saying.

The report added that the initiative is being supervised by Rajesh Yadav, a close aid and managing director of Bachchan's companies. It revealed that the veteran actor is also arranging for a few more flights to ensure migrants reach their hometowns in West Bengal, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu.

Speaking to Times of India, Rajesh Yadav said that the actor has asked him to arrange for the chartered flights for the migrants as he "did not want them to lose hope after being told they would be sent home." According to the report, the migrants were initially supposed to travel by train, but it could not be arranged due to some technical issues.

A week back Big B had arranged for 10 buses for migrant workers in Mumbai to help them get home to Uttar Pradesh. According to a report in Hindustan Times, the buses left from Haji Ali Dargah.

Amitabh Bachchan had also pledged monthly ration to support 1,00,000 households of daily wage workers belonging to the All India Film Employees Confederation amid the coronavirus pandemic. The initiative found support by Sony Pictures Networks India and Kalyan Jewellers.
Those who opt for less solitary options will have their fellow travelers to consider. How do we protect ourselves from others? asks Robert Yeager, a retired military contractor from Tucson who enjoys cruises. What about passengers who fail to use the hand sanitizers prominently located just outside of eating areas? And those that handle food and serving utensils recklessly? How about the people who dont wash their hands after using the bathrooms?
Photo: BC gov. Flickr Dr. Bonnie Henry

Another 12 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in British Columbia in the past 24 hours, but the entire Interior Health region continues to have no active cases of the virus.

The 12 new cases bring the total positive tests in the province to 2,680, but there remains 185 active cases across B.C., up slightly from Tuesday. Hospitalizations dropped by four over the past day, leaving just 12 people with COVID-19 in hospital, four of whom are in intensive care.

Once again, provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced no new virus-related deaths in the province. The total COVID-19 deaths in B.C. has remained at 167 since Friday.

While Dr. Henry didn't hold her daily press conference Wednesday, in a joint statement with Health Minister Adrian Dix, she declared a new long-term care home COVID-19 outbreak at Vancouver's Holy Family Hospital. The new outbreak brings the total long-term care home outbreaks to five. There remains six active community outbreaks in the province as well.

In her statement, Dr. Henry pointed to two recent community outbreaks related to family gatherings, one of which she mentioned earlier this week that saw 15 new infections from the same gathering.

This tells us that our public health teams are quickly identifying new cases. It also tells us that while our overall provincial cases may be low, COVID-19 is active and spreading in our communities, Dr. Henry and Dix said in their joint statement.

"When you bring households together, regardless of how many people that may include, everyone brings their own risk with them and the potential for spreading COVID-19 increases.

Dr. Henry will hold another daily press conference Thursday at 3 p.m.
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Linkedin Nina Loasana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 20:38 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddb4e5e 1 National marijuana,marijuana-laws,medical-cannabis,crime Free

A group of activists under the Advocacy Coalition for Narcotics Usage for Medication along with several other civil society groups have called for the decriminalization of marijuana for medical treatments.

The plea came following the arrest of Reyndhart Siahaan, a 37-year-old man from East Jakarta, in November for allegedly consuming marijuana at his boarding house in Manggarai Barat regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).

Reyndhart's lawyer, Herie CN, said his client used marijuana to relieve the pain caused by spinal cord compression, a disease he has suffered from since 2015.

"My client has had problems in his spinal nerves since 2015 and the disease recurred in 2018," Herie told kompas.com on Monday.

"He learned from the internet that boiled cannabis water could help ease his pain."

Reyndhart was charged under Article 127 of Law No. 35/2009 on narcotics, which carries a sentence of one year in prison.

The coalition argued that the law should not restrict the usage of narcotics for medical treatment.

"Although Article 8 of the Narcotics Law forbids the use of type-1 narcotics for medical purposes, the original intent of the law is to ensure the availability of narcotic drugs for medical services. [..] The criminalization of people who need narcotics for medication clearly contradicts the main purpose of the existence of narcotic drugs, which is for the health of all Indonesians, the group said in a statement on Wednesday.

Read also: 420 blaze it? Heres what you need to know about Indonesias marijuana law

The statement also mentioned a similar case in 2017, when a 36-year-old man named Fidelis Arie was arrested by the Sanggau Narcotics Agency (BNN) in West Kalimantan for using marijuana to treat his terminally Ill wife.

In August 2017, Fidelis was sentenced to eight months of imprisonment and a fine of Rp 1 billion (US$71,159) subsidiary to one month's confinement.

During his court proceedings, Fidelis' wife, who suffered from syringomyelia, died due to lack of medication.

Syringomyelia is a rare disease where a fluid-filled cyst or cavity forms within the spinal cord. This cyst, called a syrinx, can expand and elongate over time, destroying the spinal cord.

The coalition explained that the right to medical service as a basic human right was stipulated in Article 28 H of the 1945 Constitution.

"Learning from Fidelis and Reynhardt's cases, it's time for Indonesia to open its doors and provide the possibility of using type-1 narcotics for medical use," the coalition said in the statement.

The coalition expressed hope that the panel of judges who dealt with Reynhardt's case could put forward his right to health and prioritize fundamental justice and legal utility. They also hope that the judges will free him of all charges.

"What Reynhardt did could be categorized as an emergency since marijuana effectively treated his illness. Article 48 of the criminal code says that those who commit a criminal offense due to emergency cannot be charged," the group continued.

The coalition also urged the government to reevaluate the ban on type-1 narcotics in medical fields and to conduct research on narcotics and marijuana.
TORONTO, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Volaris Group (Volaris) today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire its fifteenth acquisition in the Communications and Media vertical with Flash Networks Ltd (Flash), subject to a closing process to comply with regulatory requirements in Israel. Flash is a provider of optimization solutions that enable telecommunications operators to improve Radio Access Network spectral efficiency, boost network speed, optimize video and web traffic, and generate over-the-top revenues from the mobile internet.



Founded in 1996 in Herzliya Israel, with a heritage in TCP/IP network performance, Flash launched in 2007 its Harmony platform designed to create a fast, safe, adaptive and personalized user experience while harmonizing network infrastructure. Since then, Flash has accumulated customers globally across 5 continents.

We have been talking with Volaris regularly since 2016 and we are now convinced they are the best home for Flash as they are able to provide access to their global communications customer and partner ecosystem. Flash continues to operate autonomously, leveraging Volaris extensive experience, best practices and financial resources to enable us to grow sustainably and entertain future M&A of our own, said Tomer Itah, CEO of Flash. A key element to our decision is the Volaris unique acquisition principle of buy and hold forever as well as their commitment to allowing us to maintain our corporate identity and accelerate the brand we have worked so hard to build over 2+ decades in the market, added Liam Galin, Chairman of the Board and former CEO.

Today, Flashs customer base includes global tier 1 telecommunications operators, Globe Telecom, Verizon, T-Mobile, Safaricom, Vodafone and Orange.

We are excited to bring a market-leading network optimization business into our portfolio, in order to complement our existing companies and provide further mission-critical software capabilities to our ecosystem, said David Nyland, Portfolio Leader and President, Media & Communications vertical at Volaris. We are particularly impressed with how Flash has transformed itself into a cloud-native SDN and NFV deployment model in partnership with key industry players in the industry including Nokia and Ericsson.

About Volaris Group

Volaris acquires, strengthens and grows vertical market technology companies. As an Operating Group of Constellation Software Inc., Volaris is all about strengthening businesses within the markets they compete and enabling them to grow  whether that growth comes through organic measures such as new initiatives and product development, day-to-day business, or through complementary acquisitions. Learn more at www.volarisgroup.com and http://www.volarisgroup.com/comms .

Contact Information:

Kim Emmerson

Volaris Group

Tel: +1 647.738.5977

kim.emmerson@volarisgroup.com
Situation in Syria's Idlib Stabilizing, Turkey's Erdogan Says

Sputnik News

00:08 GMT 09.06.2020

ANKARA (Sputnik) - The situation in Syria's Idlib is stabilizing, despite isolated incidents in the area of the M4 highway, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

"Sometimes problems arise in Idlib on the M4 highway, but in general, things are going well, 200,000 refugees have already returned home", Erdogan said on TRT television.

The situation in Idlib escalated in late February when terrorists of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* group launched a large-scale attack on the positions of the Syrian government forces. The Syrian army returned fire. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, the Turkish military, who were not supposed to be there, also came under fire.

After a meeting of Russian and Turkish presidents Vladimir Putin and Erdogan in Moscow on 5 March, it became possible to improve the situation - the sides adopted a joint document in which they reaffirmed their commitment to the Astana format and declared a ceasefire. In addition, Moscow and Ankara agreed to jointly patrol the M4 highway.

The sides also agreed to create a security corridor six kilometres (3.7 miles) north and south of the M4 highway in Syria, which connects the provinces of Latakia and Aleppo.

*Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries.

A Sputnik

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Nigeria on Tuesday recorded a new highest daily figure of confirmed COVID-19 cases as 663 new infections were announced by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

With the latest update, the total tally of infected people in the country rose to 13, 464 from 12, 801 reported on Monday evening.

Previously, the highest daily number recorded was 553 on May 31.

Four deaths were recorded from the virus on Tuesday bringing the total number of confirmed deaths from the virus to 365.

The health agency in a tweet Tuesday night said the new cases were reported in 26 states. These are Lagos, Ogun, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Edo, Rivers, Federal Capital Territory, Jigawa, Delta, Anambra, Gombe, Kano, Imo, Abia, Borno, Oyo, Plateau, Kebbi, Kaduna, Ondo, Niger, Katsina, Osun, Ekiti, Kwara and Nasarawa States.

All the reporting states already had at least a case of the virus.

As of the time of reporting, 35 states and the FCT have recorded at least a case of the disease. Only one state, Cross River, is yet to report any case of the virus.

In the past weeks, the numbers of infections and deaths in the country have increased. The number of recovered and discharged patients from the virus is also increasing daily.

Till date, 13, 464 cases have been confirmed, 4206 cases have been discharged and 365 deaths have been recorded in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory, it said.

The 663 new cases are reported from 26 states- Lagos  170, Ogun  108, Bauchi  69, Ebonyi  49, Edo  33, Rivers  30, FCT  26, Jigawa  26, Delta  20, Anambra  17, Gombe  16, Kano  16, Imo  15, Abia  14, Borno  11, Oyo  11, Plateau  8, Kebbi  6, Kaduna  6, Ondo  4, Niger  2, Katsina  2, Osun  1, Ekiti  1, Kwara  1 and Nasarawa  1.

BREAKDOWN

Since the onset of the outbreak in Nigeria in February, NCDC said 79, 948 samples have so far been tested.

As at the time of reporting, there are 8, 893 active cases of COVID-19 in the country, 4,206 have recovered and have been discharged.

A breakdown of the 13, 464 confirmed cases shows that Lagos State has so far reported 6,065 cases, followed by Kano  1,020, FCT  1,012, Ogun  471, Edo  462, Katsina  399, Oyo  398, Rivers  394, Kaduna  369, Borno  367, Bauchi  364, Jigawa  309, Gombe  246, Delta  175, Ebonyi  152, Kwara  143, Sokoto  129, Plateau  128, Nasarawa  113, Abia  97, Imo  83, Zamfara  76, Yobe  52, Osun 50, Niger  46, Anambra  46, Ondo  46, Akwa Ibom  45, Kebbi  41, Adamawa  42, Enugu  30, Ekiti  30, Bayelsa  30, Taraba  18, Benue  13, and Kogi  3.

In a bid to contain the spread of the disease, the government has been intensifying its effort to get more Nigerians tested for the virus.

NCDC in a tweet earlier on Tuesday said three additional laboratories had been activated in the following states, Oyo, Akwa Ibom and Jigawa.

This brings the total number of labs with capacity to test for #COVID19 in Nigeria to 33, it said.

The laboratories are Biorepository & Clinical Virology Lab UCH, Ibadan Molecular Diagnostics Lab, Infectious Disease Unit, General Hospital, Ituk Mkpang, Akwa Ibom, and Jigawa State Molecular Lab, Dutse

READ ALSO:

The health agency said it is working on adding laboratories in Kwara, Gombe, Ekiti, Ondo and Abia.

Mr Ihekweazu in an interview with Arise TV said the country is not yet where it is meant they government want it to be in the response to COVID-19.

We recognise that we started from a very low base, with inadequate health infrastructure to respond to an outbreak of such magnitude, he said.

What we have regardless is a vibrant workforce, working round the clock to control #COVID19Nigeria.

We have reagents for about 200,000 tests across our lab network, however our testing capacity is grossly under-utilised.

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Were challenging states to collect samples from the right people, he said.
Heres an explanation from a Tuesday story in The Washington Post that cited people like Mark Bray, the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook and a historian at Rutgers University: Experts say the most common misconception is that the participants are a coherent group. Their numbers are small  though experts say the count is hard to pin down  and their organization is decentralized. In most U.S. cities, they are too small to have a visible presence. When making their most concerted effort to gather from across the nation, theyve only reached a couple hundred. They spend most of their time not fighting or protesting, but rather tracking what neo-Nazis in their communities are doing and outing them to employees and neighbors.


National People's Congress deputies attending the closing meeting of the third session of the 13th NPC on May 28, 2020 in Beijing vote on the NPC Decision on Establishing and Improving the Legal System and Enforcement Mechanisms for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to Safeguard National Security. [Photo by Wang Jing/China Daily]

On May 28, the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) adopted at its Third Session the NPC Decision on Establishing and Improving the Legal System and Enforcement Mechanisms for Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The HKSAR government and various social groups and individuals in Hong Kong have welcomed and supported the decision, and pledged to facilitate the early completion of the legislative process with maximum efforts to safeguard national security and protect Hong Kong.

It is a view widely shared in the global community that China's national security legislation for Hong Kong is legally sound and consistent with international common practices. It is driven by the situation on the ground and meets the aspiration of the people. Anyone who wishes Hong Kong a better future would support the NPC's decision. However, a handful of foreign politicians are going all out to make unwarranted accusations and blatantly interfere in Hong Kong-related affairs, which are purely China's internal affairs. The following are the six typical falsehoods about the legislation and the facts that you need to know.



Stanley Ng Chau-pei, a Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress shows his support of the national security legislation after signed a petition at a street stand in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, on May 29, 2020. [Photo by Parker Zheng/China Daily]

Falsehood #1: It is not legitimate for China to enact national security legislation for Hong Kong or, in other words, to impose it on Hong Kong.

The truth is: The Central Government of China holds the primary and ultimate responsibility for national security, as is the case in any other country. In all countries, unitary and federal alike, the power to legislate on national security rests solely with the central government. And the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China.

Australia has two national security laws, the United Kingdom has three, Canada has five, and the United States alone has more than20 such laws.

Article 31 of the Chinese Constitution stipulates that, "The state may establish special administrative regions when necessary. The systems to be instituted in special administrative regions shall be prescribed by law enacted by the National People's Congress in the light of the specific conditions." As the highest organ of state power, the NPC has both the power and obligation to fulfill its constitutional duty of safeguarding national security in accordance with the Constitution and the Basic Law based on the reality and needs of the HKSAR. The duty includes enacting national security legislation for the HKSAR and establishing relevant legal system and enforcement mechanisms. The recent decision of the NPC has solid legal grounds and the highest legal effect.

Legislation on national security falls within a state's legislative power. Through Article 23 of the Basic Law, the Central Government grants the HKSAR certain legislative power on safeguarding national security, which is a very special arrangement under "one country, two systems". However, it does not change the fact that national security legislation is essentially within the purview of the Central Government, nor does it prevent the Central Government from further developing a legal system and enforcement mechanisms for safeguarding national security in light of the actual situation and needs.



Hong Kong citizens condemn the United States meddling in HK affairs in front of the US Consulate General Hong Kong and Macao, on May 29, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Falsehood #2: It is not necessary for China to take the action at the moment.

The truth is: The current situation makes it imperative to establish and improve, at the state level, the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for safeguarding national security in the HKSAR. The decision is fundamental to the enduring success of "one country, two systems" and is of the greatest urgency.

Article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that the HKSAR shall enact laws on its own to safeguard national security. Nearly 23 years after Hong Kong's return to China, however, the relevant legislative process is still not materialized due to the sabotage and obstruction by anti-China, destabilizing elements in Hong Kong as well as hostile forces from the outside. Given this situation, it has become quite difficult, if not impossible, for the HKSAR to enact the relevant laws on its own.

Over the past weeks and months, activities that endanger national security have intensified in the HKSAR, posing notable risks to the long-term prosperity and stability of the Hong Kong and to the security of the country. In particular, since the turbulence over the amendment bill in 2019, the "Hong Kong independence" and radical separatist forces have become further emboldened and escalated their violent terrorist activities. Some separatists even made a public appeal for foreign sanctions against China and invited the US military to Hong Kong. External forces and "Taiwan independence" forces have blatantly ramped up intervention in Hong Kong affairs, which seriously challenges the "one country, two systems" principle, gravely undermines Hong Kong's law and order, and poses real threats to the country's sovereignty, security and development interests. Forceful measures are therefore required to prevent, forestall and punish these acts.



Hong Kong residents sign a petition in support of the national security legislation in Hong Kong, May 29, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Falsehood #3: The legislation will undermine "one country, two systems".

The truth is: On the contrary, the legislation will ensure the successful implementation of "one country, two systems". Article 1 of the NPC's decision states clearly that the country will unswervingly, fully and faithfully implement the principles of "one country, two systems", "the people of Hong Kong administering Hong Kong" and a high degree of autonomy.

"One country" is the precondition and basis of "two systems", while "two systems" is subordinate to and derived from "one country". "One country" is the foundation. Should the principle of "one country" be undermined, "two systems" would be impossible to practice. One important reason for the turbulence in Hong Kong is that the anti-China, destabilizing elements in Hong Kong and external forces have shown no regard for "one country" as the foundation and challenged the bottom line of the "one country, two systems" principle.

The legislation for Hong Kong will not change the "one country, two systems" principle. It will not change the capitalist system or the high degree of autonomy practiced in Hong Kong. It will not change the legal system in the HKSAR. Nor will it affect the HKSAR's executive, legislative and independent judicial power, including that of final adjudication.



An aerial view of the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. [Photo/Xinhua]

Falsehood #4: The legislation will be a violation of China's international obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

The truth is: The legal basis for the Chinese government to govern Hong Kong is the Chinese Constitution and the Basic Law of the HKSAR. The Sino-British Joint Declaration is not relevant in this regard.

As China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, all provisions concerning the UK under the Joint Declaration had been fulfilled. The basic policies regarding Hong Kong stated by China in the Joint Declaration are not commitments to the UK, but China's declaration of its policies, which have since been fully embodied in the Basic Law enacted by the NPC. These policies have not changed; they will continue to be upheld by China.

The Constitution, as the fundamental law of China, has supreme legal status and authority. It forms the legal basis for the establishment of special administrative regions and the formulation of the Basic Law of the HKSAR. It is clearly stipulated in the Preamble of the Basic Law that in accordance with China's Constitution, the NPC enacts Hong Kong's Basic Law, "prescribing the systems to be practiced in the Hong Kong SAR, in order to ensure the implementation of the basic policies of the People's Republic of China regarding Hong Kong".

The Sino-British Joint Declaration is an important document concerning China's recovery of Hong Kong and relevant arrangements during the transitional period. It consists of eight paragraphs and three annexes. Paragraph 1 is about China resuming the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong. Paragraph 2 is about the UK restoring Hong Kong to China. Both paragraphs were fulfilled with Hong Kong's return. Paragraph 3 and Annex I are declaration and elaboration of China's basic policies regarding Hong Kong. Paragraphs 4 to 6 and Annex II and III stipulate arrangements during the transitional period. Paragraphs 7 and 8 are about the Joint Declaration's implementation and entry into force. With the return of Hong Kong and the completion of follow-up matters, all UK-related provisions have been fulfilled.

The Joint Declaration does not assign the UK any responsibility over Hong Kong nor give it any right to intervene in Hong Kong affairs after the handover. The UK has no sovereignty, jurisdiction or "right of supervision" over Hong Kong after its return. The Joint Declaration is a bilateral instrument between China and the UK; it does not involve any other country or has anything to do with a third country. Sovereign equality and non-interference are enshrined in international law and are basic norms of international relations. Other countries and organizations have no right to meddle in Hong Kong affairs on the grounds of the Joint Declaration.



Nearly 3 million residents in Hong Kong have signed up to express their support for a national security legislation for their home city. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Falsehood #5: The legislation will affect the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents.

The truth is: The legislation will not affect the rights and freedoms Hong Kong residents enjoy under the law; it will enable them to enjoy their lawful rights and freedoms in a safe environment.

Fundamentally speaking, safeguarding national security and protecting human rights do not conflict with each other. The NPC's decision targets only acts of secession, subverting state power and organizing and carrying out terrorist activities that seriously jeopardize national security as well as interference in the HKSAR affairs by external forces. For the majority of law-abiding residents and foreigners in Hong Kong who love the city, there is no need to worry that they might be unfavorably impacted.

All work and law enforcement efforts to safeguard national security will be conducted strictly in accordance with legal provisions, mandates and procedures, without prejudice to the lawful rights and interests of Hong Kong residents, legal persons and other organizations.



Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor signs her name to show her support for the national security legislation for the special administrative region, on May 28, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Falsehood #6: The legislation will erode Hong Kong's business environment and undermine its position as a global financial center.

The truth is: The legislation will improve Hong Kong's legal system and bring more stability, stronger rule of law and a better business environment to Hong Kong. It will bolster Hong Kong's position as a global financial, trading and shipping center.

Only when national security is ensured can the community in Hong Kong enjoy law and order and Hong Kong's prosperity and stability be assured. If Hong Kong is fraught with national security loopholes and plagued by social unrest, investor confidence will be eroded. The turbulence over the amendment bill since last year has cost Hong Kong the title of the world's freest economy, a title it had held for 25 years. Its GDP contracted for the first time in a decade and unemployment hit a record high in nearly 10 years.

The legislation will not affect the legitimate interests of foreign investors. It will afford better protection to their law-based operations and commercial ties, alleviate the grave concern in the local and foreign business communities about debilitating violence, and create a more reliable and stable law-based business environment for foreign investors.

In 2009, the Macao Special Administrative Region passed a national security law under Article 23 of the Basic Law of the Macao SAR. Between 2009 and 2019, Macao's GDP grew by 153 percent, the number of inbound tourists increased by 81 percent, and the overall unemployment rate hit a record low in a decade.
An invasive zebra mussel has been found in Candlewood Lake, something officials have strived for years to prevent.

The mussel, which was removed, isnt believed to have been able to reproduce because its too young. Its unclear if this is the only mussel in the lake, or just the only one found at the 10 monitoring sites, raising the threat that this invasive species is on Candlewoods doorstep.

While only one mussel was found this year, it is certainly at least a reminder of just how close to home these invaders are, J. Neil Stalter, Candlewood Lake Authoritys director of ecology and environmental education, said in a statement.

Zebra mussels are problematic because they consume so much algae and plankton that they disrupt the food chain. They also make the water clearer, creating another problem in lakes such as Candlewood by promoting the growth of invasive plant species like Eurasian watermilfoil.

The mussels also interfere with recreation by attaching themselves to boats and docks, where they can form a thick crust of purplish shells.

Zebra mussels can quickly take over ecosystems and change the dynamics of entire lakes, and we want to prevent that for Candlewood, Stalter said.

The mussels were first found in the Housatonic River in 2009, believed to have traveled there from a lake in western Massachusetts. They have since infested nearby lakes, including Lake Zoar and Lake Lillinonah.

Candlewood had a close call several years ago when several handfuls of adult mussels were removed from the riverside of the Rocky River power stations foundation and from boulders along the Housatonic River shoreline near the station, but hadnt been found in the lake itself  until now.

Candlewood Lake has largely been protected because the water from the Housatonic has to be pumped into Candlewood at the Rocky River power station. FirstLight Power Resources, which owns and operates the station and the rest of the Housatonic hydroelectric system, voluntarily decided to not pump when the water reaches the temperature the mussels need to reproduce.

This has been a major tool in the fight against zebra mussels in Candlewood, Stalter said.

FirstLights consultant found this mussel on May 22 as part of its annual monitoring program.

The mussel found in the lake was located at Vaughns Neck, which is an uninhabited area about 5 miles away from the Rocky River Station, FirstLight spokesman Len Greene said. Given its distance from the station and the fact that we have never found any in the power canal in Candlewood, we believe it was likely introduced elsewhere in the lake, most likely from a boat.

Greene said FirstLight will continue to monitor the canal and intake at the power station, as well as its 10 sites around the lake.

The Candlewood Lake Authority also monitors the lake for invasive species monthly from May to October. It usually checks for zebra mussel larvae near the outlet of the lake near Lynn Deming Park in New Milford, but has since added sampling sites where the mussel was discovered and removed. Its also expanding a volunteer program where homeowners hang monitoring stations off their docks and check monthly for signs of the mussels.

We cant say for certain how many and where they will be added, because were hoping to add official volunteers and community members in all areas of Candlewood Lake, but were planning to get more comprehensive coverage and as many additional stations as possible, Stalter said.

The authority is looking to grow its sampling to include more dives throughout the lake.

Our plans will absolutely increase how many and how often stations are checked, Stalter said. This will allow us to monitor the various routes of entry mussels take to enter the water.

This includes working with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to better educate boaters to clean, drain and dry their vessels when traveling between waterbodies to prevent the spread of invasive species.

Stalter said they now know zebra mussels can survive in Candlewood, since this one was found alive and well.

We also know that this is not a time to let our guard down, and we must work together to prevent additional zebra mussels and any other invasive plants and animals from entering Candlewood Lake, he said.

kkoerting@newstimes.com
The Delhi government on Tuesday ordered an increase in dedicated Covid beds at 22 private hospitals from 1,441 to 3,456.

A order issued by Principal Secretary, Health, Vikram Dev Dutt said that "these hospitals are directed to admit Covid-19 patients as per revised allocation of beds and update on Delhi corona app immediately".

The hospitals include Apollo, Batra, Fortis, BLK, Max, Holy Family, Mata Chanan Devi, and Action Hospitals.

The Delhi government told Lt. Governor Anil Baijal on Tuesday that at present, there are 8,821 hospital beds, 582 ICU beds, 468 ventilators beds and 3,590 oxygenated supported beds in dedicated Covid hospitals. Dutt also said that the new 450-bed hospital in Burari is expected to be operational by June 20.

Meanwhile, 500 additional beds in other government hospitals have been also earmarked for Covid patients. IAS officers have been posted as Administrative Officers in Covid hospitals and help desks, manned by government officials, have been set up in all the government hospitals to facilitate the admission process.
Three children from Idleb were killed when part of a cluster bomb, left over by regime and Russian shelling, exploded reports Smart News.

On Tuesday, a cluster bomb, left behind after a previous Syrian government forces shelling, exploded and killed three children in the city of Idleb.

Activists reported to Smart News that the three children, two of them from the Saad al-Din family and the third from the Gajar family, were playing with a cluster bomb in a southwestern neighborhood of Idleb. The bomb exploded and killed all three of them.

Activists mentioned that during the military campaign, the Syrian government forces and Russia shelled southern and eastern Idleb with cluster bombs.

Earlier, the Syrian government forces and loyalist militias, supported by Russia, launched a ground military attack on the southern and eastern countryside of Idleb and the southern and western countryside of Aleppo. The Syrian government gained control of dozens of villages and towns in the region, after intensified shelling. The shelling killed and injured hundreds of civilians, and forcible displaced hundreds of thousands of others.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Community Chaplaincy Norfolk (CCN) is seeking more volunteer mentors as it continues to provide a Both Sides of the Gate support service to people leaving prison in Norfolk.

Community Chaplaincy Norfolk (CCN) is seeking more volunteer mentors as it continues to provide a Both Sides of the Gate support service to people leaving prison in Norfolk.

New chief executive for Aylsham Care Trust Philip Macdonald has been appointed chief executive of the Aylsham and District Care Trust (ACT) which has been providing care and support for older people in the community for over thirty five years. Read more

Pandemic drove Norfolk church community online New figures show that across the height of the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, churches across the Diocese of Norwich saw their in-person congregations halve but they retained 94% of their worshippers with the help of online and church-at-home services. Read more

Why we need the water of life Regular columnist James Knight explains why water is so important in our lives, especially the spiritual variety. Read more

Norwich church needs Outreach Weekend Cafe Manager St Stephens Church is seeking an Outreach Weekend Cafe Manager to become part of its successful and dynamic Cafe team, serving the community and city. Read more

Trustee treasurer role at King's Lynn foodbank Kings Lynn Foodbank are urgently seeking a new Trustee Treasurer to work with a fun, friendly, team who are all passionate about combating food poverty in Kings Lynn. Read more

Christian pregnancy charity gets Yarmouth hub TimeNorfolk, the Christian pregnancy loss charity, has opened a space dedicated to counselling for bereaved parents in Great Yarmouth. Read more

Family days at Norwich Cathedral The schools and families learning department at Norwich Cathedral are holding two sessions  morning and afternoon for a Family Activity Day at the Cathedral on Wednesday February 16. Read more

Churches prepare Queen's Platinum Jubilee plans Churches, Christian charities and youth organisations are working together to celebrate the Queens Platinum Jubilee over the four-day Bank Holiday from June 2-5 and a new website has been created to celebrate the Queen's 70 years of faith and service. Read more

Eckling Grange cares for the elderly Despite some bad press, there are some Care Homes where 'Care' really does mean 'what it says on the tin', and a star example of this is the Norfolk Christian residential care home, Eckling Grange, at Dereham. Read more

New Commission to look at use of Norfolk churches A new Church Buildings Commission has been launched with the purpose of looking at the church buildings across Norfolk and Waveney in terms of their use and sustainability. Read more

Norfolk link to teaching opportunity with TCKs A Norfolk couple working in Asia have been helped by teachers of Third Culture Kids, and a programme is now inviting more people to get involved with it. Read more

Norfolk charity seeks mentors for prison leavers Community Chaplaincy Norfolk (CCN) continues to provide a Both Sides of the Gate Mentor support service to people leaving prison in Norfolk. Read more

Prayer and Worship week for Sheringham church Lighthouse Community Church in Sheringham has launched a Prayer and Worship week as they seek Gods guidance for 2022 Read more

South Norfolk church schools are set to merge The Diocese of Norwich St Benets Multi Academy Trust has been given the green light to amalgamate Harleston CE Primary Academy and Archbishop Sancroft High School into one All Through School. Read more

Norwich conference looks at how to tackle spiritual abuse Following a series of revelations about high-profile Christian leaders, a group of Norfolk churches is organising a conference to look at spiritual abuse and godly leadership. Read more

Revelation vacancy for Centre Manager The Revelation Christian Resource Centre and Cafe is seeking to appoint a Centre Manager. Read more

Gardening morning at N Norfolk Christian centre The Pleasaunce Holiday Centre in Overstrand is holding a work-party morning on Saturday February 5 and would like as many people as possible to join in to help get the gardens ship-shape. Read more
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has warned that the low up-take of the flu vaccine among health workers saying it's "not on" and "has to change".

It comes amid fears that there could be a second wave of coronavirus outbreaks during the winter flu season.

Mr Varadkar said that such a scenario would be "very difficult" and the government is stepping up the annual flu vaccine programme as a result including expanding free vaccination for children.

He also said efforts are being made to get health workers to be vaccinated.

Speaking on 2FM Breakfast with Doireann and Eoghan, he said: "People who work in healthcare are amazing people"

But he added: "Less than half of them got the flu vaccine last year. Thats not on. That has to change."

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is also being stockpiled for the possibility of a second wave of Covid-19.

Mr Varadkar said this is so: "We wont be scrambling around the place looking for it in a hurry".

He said of the coronavirus crisis: "We havent seen anything like this in recent memory so from day one weve been trying to work out what can we learn from this so that if we have another pandemic, maybe a different virus, or if we have a second wave that were better prepared."

He said the current outbreak is "not over yet" and the government want Ireland to get to a situation like in South Korea that sees the number of new cases at zero or close to zero with a system in place to identify spikes in the disease and "jump on those outbreaks very quickly".

Mr Varadkar added: "We dont want to have to lock down the country all over again.

"There may be re-occurrence in some places but we want to be able to deal with them in that place rather than having to close down the whole country again."

He said the message to the public is to keep practicing social distancing of about two metres, washing hands, avoiding unnecessary journeys and using face coverings on public transport.

He said people should sneeze into their elbows and stay at home and self-isolate if they're sick.








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NATO's largest yearly training exercise has kicked off in the Baltic Sea in what will be interpreted as a warning to Putin's forces stationed nearby.

Twenty eight ships and aircraft from 19 countries will take part in ten days of exercises along with 3,000 personnel, which are designed to test their ability to work together to combat threats.

Included will be forces from the UK, US, France and Germany - but also Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are considered the most vulnerable to the threat of Russian invasion.

The exercise also comes in the shadow of Donald Trump's pledge to remove 9,500 US troops from Europe - which British politicians have warned will 'play into Russia's hands'.

For the first time in its 49-year history, the exercise will also not feature any ground troops because of the risk of transmitting coronavirus.

Instead, all exercises will take place at sea and the operation will also be commanded remotely from NATO's new Joint Operations Centre which is located in Lisbon, Portugal.

The annual exercise - dubbed BALTOPS and now in its 49th year - began on June 6 and will last until June 16.

It has been broken down into two phases, the first of which will train the militaries of different countries to work together, and the second of which will test their ability to respond to threats in a coordinated way.

NATO's annual training exercise in the Baltic Sea is underway - with 28 ships and aircraft, and 3,000 troops from 19 different countries taking part in ten days of drills (pictured, US Navy command ship USS Mount Whitney leads a formation comprised of frigates and supply ships from Germany, Canada, and Norway)

The exercise - dubbed BALTOPS - is NATO's largest in the Baltic Sea and includes drills in air defence, mine sweeping, anti-submarine warfare, and intercepting vessels at sea. Pictured from left to right are the USNS Supply, guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook, Norwegian frigate HNoMS Otto Suerdrup, German frigate FGS Luebeck, and oil replenishment ship FGS Rhoen

Pictured from the deck of the Lithuanian Navy's LNS Skalvis mine-hunting ship is the rear of German supply ship FGS Donau, as the pair complete a resupply mission while at sea

The exercises usually feature troops of Marines taking place in parachute and ground training, but this year the entire exercise will take place at sea to reduce the risk of spreading coronavirus (pictured is the USS Mount Whitney leading a formation of ships in the Baltic)

The training has been split into two parts - the first of which will feature exercises designed to make sure the navies of 19 countries can work together, and the second part of which will test that ability in simulated real-world conditions

Unlike in previous years all the exercises will take place at sea to reduce the risk of transmitting coronavirus, while the operation will also be commanded remotely from NATO's new Joint Operations Centre which is located in Lisbon, Portugal

A German Mk88A Super Lynx helicopter is pictured flying above the Blue Ridge-class command and control ship USS Mount Whitney during training exercises in the Baltic Sea
An event took place in Hanoi on June 9 to help promote the domestic consumption of tra fish products, a major foreign currency earner that has been hit hard by impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

A tra fish processing factory

Addressing the event, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said after more than 20 years of development, the tra fish sector has reaped encouraging outcomes with 6,000ha of farming areas generating 2.5 billion USD in annual export value.

However, he noted, aside from expanding export markets, businesses also need to pay attention to the domestic market so as to boost production and ensure more stable prices for tra fish products.

Cuong explained that a strong domestic market will help ease the pressure on export, raise export prices, and stimulate production. Local consumers will also have more options to choose.

Vietnamese tra fish has been shipped to 119 markets around the world.

On November 1, 2019, the US Department of Agriculture officially recognised that Vietnams pangasius food safety control system is equivalent to the US one, which affirmed the quality of Vietnamese tra fish and helped facilitate the export to not only the US but also other demanding markets.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed production, business and export activities of many sectors, including the tra fish industry, into stagnation.

In the first five months of 2020, the tra fish output was estimated at 462,000 tonnes, down 6.3 percent year on year. Meanwhile, exports dropped 39 percent to 456 million USD, with shipments to China down 48 percent, the EU down 47 percent and the US down nearly 20 percent.

The sudden nosedive in exports has exposed businesses to numerous difficulties when a large volume of tra fish remains in warehouses due to export disruption and orders were cancelled. Meanwhile, it is forecast that this industry will have to wait until the third quarter of this year to fully recover.

Given this, to address current hardships, it is necessary to concurrently develop the domestic market and boost overseas shipments, the event heard.

The tra fish sector targets 1.42 million tonnes in output and about 2 billion USD in export revenue this year./.

Catfish sales focus on home market as exports fall Catfish products can bring export turnover of $2 billion a year, but, surprisingly, the fish has not been favored in the home market.
A treasure hidden nearly ten years ago by millionaire art dealer Forrest Fenn has been found. The treasure chest of gold nuggets, jewellery and other precious gems, valued at around $1 million, was found in the Rocky Mountains.

Fenn had posed the challenge to people to hunt for the treaasure that he had hidden more than a decade ago and provided a map and a poem as clues. The clue stated that the treasure was located somewhere between Santa Fe in New Mexico and the Canadian border.

The clues first appeared in Fenn's self-published book, 'The Thrill of the Chase' and after countless quests and several misfortune events, the treasure has finally been found.

"The treasure has been found," Fenn wrote in a statement to a blog run by Dal Neitzel which is commonly used for discussions by Fenn's treasure seekers.

Fenn said, "I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot." Though the successful seeker has not come forward.

"The guy who found it does not want his name mentioned. He's from back East," Fenn told a local newspaper in Santa Fe. He added that the find has been confirmed by a photograph.

"It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago," he said.

The search for the treasure lured tens of thousands of people who have tried to decipher the clues in search of the hidden treasure.
A cultural exchange on a sea voyage between India and China and turning archaeological sites such as Hampi into on-site museums are among a slew of reforms proposed to improve heritage management recommended by a working group under the chairmanship of NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

In its 255-page report, the group has flagged gaps such as lack of a national database and documentation of artefacts and heritage sites. Officials at the culture ministry said that the report is under consideration and appropriate action will be taken after it is assessed.

The working group was formed by the Prime Ministers Office in June 2019 and included the secretary, ministry of culture, secretary, ministry of tourism, director general, ASI - memberconvenor, member secretary, INTACH and the CEO, Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

It was tasked with recommending institutional changes, potential ways to involve the local communities and explore the possibility of enhancing tourism and employment through heritage management. According to its report, India has over 500,000 heritage sites and monuments and 3,691 monuments protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.

(A) Cultural exchange on sea voyage proposed between India and China at Mahabalipuram to be initiated under Project Mausam, states the report. Project Mausam was started by the Central government to better connect countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

The report has also highlighted the lack of a centralized database that is leading to artefacts being ignored.

There is no centralised database of archival records, drawings and photo archives, states the report. There is no inventory which is maintained centrally, on an all India basis, in the ASI for recording all the artefacts, antiquities and sculptures found and collected during excavations, explorations or village to village survey. In many cases, the excavated antiquities are not even accessed and just stored in the ASI Circle offices, monuments and store rooms.

The report recommends a systematic photo documentation of all national monuments should be revived, and each monument (should be) documented on a periodic basis.

It has also suggested that ASI should invest in advanced surveys, documentation and monitoring instruments and training sessions to be available on site with various circles.

According to Vasant Shinde, department of archaeology, Deccan College, the ASI has already undertaken such a project.

Nearly 50 per cent of the country has been covered by the now, said Shinde. A central database like this will help avoid smuggling of artefacts.

The report has also recommended collaborations with Foreign Universities for introduction of latest techniques in exploration and excavations. ASI should collaborate with National and International organisations for training of staff in use of advanced documentation, survey and monitoring techniques to be used for monuments and archaeological sites.

In the 2020-21 budget, the government has proposed five archaeological sites to be developed as iconic sites with on-site Museums. These should be completed in next 3 years, states the report. The proposed museums are Rakhigarhi (HR), Hastinapur (UP) Shivsagar (Assam), Dholavira (GJ) and Adichanallur (TN). Clear Action Plan to be finalized for all. ASI should finalize world-class projects for 2 site museums Hampi and Sarnath within the next 3 months. A model site museum should also be set up at Ahichchhatra archaeological site in UP.

Shinde said that the step will help boost both employment and tourism. But we need to remember one thing, said Shinde. We are good at creating infrastructure, it is the maintenance of the monuments and new sites that we need to focus on more.

The group has recommended setting up of an Indian Institute of Culture (IIC) under the ambit of the ministry of culture for training and skilling manpower in Archaeology, Conservation, Museology, Archives and related fields to be located at the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archeology. The proposed Indian Institute of Culture should be a deemed university, wherein there should be a flexibility to hire experts from other countries.

According to Shinde, this step will go a long way considering it will be a first of its kind institute. It is required like the IITs. The avenues to study these subjects are limited, historians and archaeologists can be trained here. It is a demand that has been overdue, as India doesnt have any such institute, said Shinde.
Air New Zealand today noted the recent speculation included in the Australian Financial Review regarding Air New Zealand currently considering various funding options, including a potential capital raising.

Air New Zealand reports that it currently has a $900 million facility from the Crown which has yet to be drawn. The company continues to assess its capital structure and the options available to it, including taking advice from professional advisers as required. Air New Zealand will provide any further updates to the market as required in accordance with its continuous disclosure obligations.

Source: Air New Zealand Limited

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Steelmaker Evraz notified state employment officials this week that it plans to lay off another 65 at its North Portland mill amid a significant business downturn.

Evraz said the layoffs would begin Monday and continue over approximately two months at it reduces the number of crews working at its plate rolling mill.

The company laid off 230 Portland workers in April, early in the coronavirus outbreak, as it shut down its spiral mill -- also citing a significant downturn in its business. The company had approximately 600 Portland employees at the start of the pandemic.

Evraz paid $2.35 billion in 2007 to buy Oregon Steel, which was founded in Portland in 1928. The company later moved its North America headquarters from Portland to Chicago.

The steel companys headquarters are in London but Evraz has historically operated primarily in Russia.

Oregon has fielded an extraordinary 473,000 jobless claims since the middle of March and the states unemployment rate surged to an unprecedented 14.2%. Job cuts were initially concentrated in the hospitality, retail and health-care sectors, but have now spread across Oregons economy as the coronavirus outbreak sapped business and consumer demand.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
New Delhi:

Former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohd Shahabuddin on Friday said that he is not worried about the plea filed in Supreme Court by the Bihar Governnment against bail granted to him by Patna High Court.



He said: "I haven't received any notice yet, but I am not worried about anything at all."



Earlier on the day, the Bihar government moved the apex court for cancellation of the bail granted to Shahabuddin by the Patna High Court.



A Siwan native, Chandrakeshwar Prasad, has also filed a plea in the Supreme Court, challenging bail given to Shahabuddin.

Also read: SC agrees to hear plea challenging bail to Shahabuddin on Sept 19



He has alleged that three of his sons were murdered by the RJD strongman.



Later, the apex court agreed to hear on Monday a plea seeking cancellation of bail to Shahabuddin.



The former RJD MP was released on bail earlier this week by the Patna High Court.



The bail granted to murder convict Shahabuddin by the Patna High Court has prompted the BJP-led opposition to accuse the Nitish government of deliberately putting up a weak case to facilitate his bail.



Asserting the government's supremacy in the Shahabuddin issue, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said on Thursday that law will take its course in the matter.



"There is a process of law. All I will tell you is that the law will continue to take its course," he told reporters in Delhi on Thursday.





BJP doesnt love Rajdeo Ranjan or Chandrakeshwar, they are just against me being out on bail: Mohd Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/xAJkqP1Bcv  ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

Where did my name come in from in Rajdeo Ranjan case? Does police FIR have my name, or the chargesheet?: Mohd Shahabuddin  ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

Mohd Kaif had a fight in his "mohalla" & now he is called shooter?: Mohd Shahabuddin  ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

Mohd Kaif has pictures with a lot of people, why should one not be in a picture with him?: Mohd Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/wGvzshfLMe  ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

Whatever Court decides we will follow it: Mohd Shahabuddin on Bihar Govts appeal in SC challenging Shahabuddins bail pic.twitter.com/0JS7zpNU42  ANI (@ANI_news) September 16, 2016

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Ideal Credit Union will host a no-cost Social Media Marketing for Business Workshop on Tuesday, June 30 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. via webinar. Ideal offers quarterly workshops to business owners. Future workshops for 2020 will include a Quickbooks 101 session in September and a Licensing and Tax Overview in December.

Ideal Credit Union will host a no-cost Social Media Marketing for Business workshop webinar on Tuesday, June 30 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. Join Ideals Business Relationship Specialist Josh Anderson, and Linda Grubish, owner of Thats My Idea Marketing, who will share her expertise on using social media to successfully market your business. Topics will include:



Facebook Groups and how they have become the new Angies List

Facebook Ads and remarketing

Why you need Instagram for your business

Twitter is a viable platform to extend your brand

Google My Business listings  the most important social marketing you can do for your business

Ideal Credit Union workshops are open to the community and you do not need to be a member to attend. Registration is required and can be done online at idealcu.com/business-banking/business-workshops.

Ideal offers quarterly workshops to business owners. Future workshops for 2020 will include a Quickbooks 101 session in September and a Licensing and Tax Overview in December. More information on these exciting workshops will be posted at idealcu.com/business-banking/business-workshops.

Ideal also produces award-winning Business Member Spotlight videos to highlight the variety of business banking services we offer, and showcase the unique and diverse business members we serve. These videos capture the personality of each individual business owner and tells their story of how and why they started their business, and how Ideal CU has been a partner in helping meet their unique business needs.

Ideals mission in business banking is to provide the services, products, and resources business owners need to help their business succeed. The credit unions priority is to help Minnesota and Wisconsin business owners increase their bottom line and enjoy a more convenient way to manage day-to-day tasks. Josh Anderson, Ideal CUs Business Relationship Specialist, proactively reaches out to business members on a regular basis to ensure they have the proper mix of business services and products they need to operate successfully.

Ideal CU has also partnered with Kabbage to assist small businesses with Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA).

Founded in 1926, Ideal Credit Union is a member owned financial institution that is dedicated to providing financial services driven by a sincere and personal interest in the needs of our employees, members and community. Ideal CU offers a complete range of services, including a full suite of digital banking products, savings, checking, loans, mortgage products, business services, investment services and more. Offices are located in Eagan, Hugo, Inver Grove Heights, North St. Paul, Stillwater and Woodbury. Visit idealcu.com for details and directions. Ideal has been voted Best Credit Union in the East Metro four years in a row by readers of the Stillwater Gazette and was named a 2019 Star Tribune Top Workplace. Equal Housing Lender.
Chinese Propaganda Outlet Paid Millions to Washington Post, Wall Street Journal

A Chinese propaganda outlet paid millions of dollars to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to run advertisements that look to some like news reports.

New documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice show China Daily paid over $4.6 million to the Post and nearly $6 million to the Journal since November 2016.

China Daily, an English-language newspaper, is overseen by the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) Publicity Department, the governmental agency in charge of disseminating propaganda.

Read original article here.
A property Dominic Cummings used during his controversial lockdown trip to Durham did not have planning permission, council officials have found.

The Prime Minister's top aide sparked fury among Tory MPs and the wider public after it emerged that he had driven from his London home to his parents farm estate in County Durham, with his wife suffering from suspected coronavirus symptoms, at the height of lockdown in late March.

Durham County Council officials investigating Mr Cummings' lockdown cottage found historic breaches of planning and building control regulations but said no further action would be taken.

The local authority received a series of complaints about the property on his parents farm, on the outskirts of Durham city, where the Downing Street adviser stayed.

Mr Cummings told a news conference that the building was an isolated cottage roughly 50 metres from his parents home, and described it as sort of concrete blocks.

According to reports, his parents bought the farm in 1999 and records on the county council planning portal show that permission was granted two years later for the erection of a pitched roof structure over an existing swimming pool.

In subsequent years, permission has also been granted to fell trees.

Dominic Cummings: I do not regret trip to County Durham during lockdown

Stuart Timmiss, head of development and housing at Durham County Council, said: We have now investigated the complaints regarding planning permission.

While there have been historic breaches of planning and building control regulations, current legislation places a time limit on any enforcement measures and as a result no further action will be taken.

The investigation concluded that the main house has not been sub-divided and that the residential use of an outbuilding for family accommodation does not require planning permission.

However, advice has been provided in relation to building control.

We have also looked into the complaints raised in respect of non-payment of Council Tax and will be passing our findings on to the Valuation Office for its consideration and review.

HM Revenue and Customs has been approached for a comment.
An electronic banner thanks "doctors, nurses, first responders, scientists and all the heroes saving lives" during the CCP virus pandemic, at Beverly Center mall across from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center owned by Simon Properties in West Hollywood, Calif., on May 6, 2020. (Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo)

Another Big Mall Deal Implodes as Pandemic Shakes Retail

NEW YORKThe nations largest mall owner is backing out of a $3.6 billion deal to buy a major rival as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic shakes the retail industry.

Simon Property Group announced it would buy Taubman in early February, just weeks before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the first known case of COVID-19 in the United States. Clothing stores and malls nationwide were ordered to close the following month.

In its legal complaint June 10, Simon said that Taubman is uniquely vulnerable as stores reopen because most of its properties are indoor malls that many consumers will avoid. Simon also said Taubman broke its contract obligations by taking on more debt during the pandemic rather than cutting costs.

Taubman plans to fight Simon, calling its legal claims invalid and without merit. It plans to go ahead with a shareholder vote on the deal later this month at its headquarters in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

The pandemic has created more havoc in an already stressed retail environment, particularly for malls. Last month, a private equity firm backed out of a deal to buy Victorias Secret. That chain had moved aggressively into malls at the direction of its parent companys founder Les Wexner, who wanted to push lingerie into the mainstream.

Malls have struggled for years as shopping moved online and consumers grew tired of them. Their plight even inspired a haunting YouTube channel called the Dead Mall Series.

A Doing Our Part sign is shown at City Creek Center owned by Simon Properties, in Salt Lake City on May 4, 2020. (Rick Bowmer/AP Photo)

The CCP virus has delivered a devastating blow to those that remain and also stores with a big mall footprint. J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus, and J.Crew, have all filed for bankruptcy protection this year.

In malls that have reopened, drinking fountains are disabled or taped off, play areas for kids are closed, and sitting in a food court is done at a distance from other humans.

Retail consultant Jan Rogers Kniffen believes that within two years, half of the 1,000 malls in the United States will either close or be unrecognizable. Before the pandemic, he expected only 300 to close, and that decline would take place over a decade.

CBL, a Chattanooga, Tennessee, mall operator with 108 properties, warned this month that it may fail.

On Wednesday, shares of any retail chain with stores in malls plummeted. Kohls, Macys, The Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch all slumped sharply.

Simon, based in Indianapolis, owns or has a stake in more than 200 properties in the United States as of last year. Taubman Centers owns, manages or leases 26 shopping centers in the United States and Asia, including The Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey, and Waterside Shops in Naples, Florida.

By Joseph Pisani

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report
Mumbai, June 10 : After reuniting with his family last week, Malayalam star Prithviraj Sukumaran is focusing on himself and has started working out.

Prithviraj shared a photograph of himself from his gym on Instagram. In the picture, the actor can be seen in black gymwear, posing in front of a mirror. Gym equipment can be seen in the background.

"Lift, Burn, Build," wrote the actor, who recently completed seven days of institutional quarantine.

Prithviraj and director Blessy, along with a 58-member entourage of their upcoming film "Aadujeevitham", were stranded at a desert camp in Jordan since March 12 due to global COVID-19 outbreak.

In May, the actor returned to the country after which he was in quarantine. He also shared his COVID-19 test results on social media, which showed he had tested negative.

Prithviraj, who was last seen on screen in February in the Malayalam blockbuster "Ayyappanum Koshiyum" directed by Sachy, has also made his mark in the Hindi film industry.

He made his Bollywood debut in 2012 with the film "Aiyyaa" co-starring Rani Mukerji, and was later seen in films like "Aurangzeb" and "Naam Shabana".
Ly Son Island off the coast of Quang Ngai Province in Central Vietnam is said to be the azure island as the seawater is so azure and pure that it gives visitors a feeling of seeing through the seabed.
A Central Massachusetts gym owner was ordered to close his business last week after opening his doors in May in defiance of Gov. Charlie Bakers phased coronavirus reopening plan.

In an emergency hearing in Worcester Superior Court on June 5, David Blondin, owner of Prime Fitness & Nutrition in Oxford, was ordered by Judge Susan Sullivan to stop operating his gym until permitted to do so by an executive order from the governor, according to court records.

Bakers four-part reopening strategy puts gyms in the third phase, allowing them, in a best-case scenario, to reopen on June 29. The later reopening date has drawn ire and sparked defiance from some gym owners.

Ahead of the governors announcement detailing the specifics of the reopening plan last month, Blondin told gym members in a video posted to Facebook that he would begin operating again no matter what on May 18.

Im not stepping down. Im staying open as long as I have to," Blondin told MassLive last month.

Prime Fitness reopened with reduced capacity and with staff cleaning the gym regularly. Blondin only allowed people with existing memberships to enter the gym and did not permit people to buy day passes or members to bring in guests.

Going against public health guidance from the state and federal government, Blondin recommended that members not wear face coverings when inside the gym. They will not be able to breathe well while working out, he claimed.

The gym owner was given both verbal and written warnings by town officials, who said they would issue Blondin fines and a cease-and-desist order if he continued to keep the gym in operation.

In May, Blondin noted he had no plans to close his business again and urged other businesses across the state to reopen as well.

A GoFundMe page was set up for Prime Fitness to pay off fines issued by the town. Any remaining money from the fundraiser would go to a mental health charity, according to Blondin.

All small businesses need to take a stand and open their doors," the gym owner said. "This is impacting our businesses and our families.

The town of Oxford, on behalf of the communitys board of health, sued Blondin on May 28. Officials filed a motion for a temporary restraining order halting Prime Fitnesss operations, which Sullivan later granted, according to court records.

The defendants, along with their agents, servants, employees, and all others in active concert with any of them, are enjoined from operating the gym and fitness center at the property located at 1 Norwood Court, North Oxford, Massachusetts, until permitted to do so under any executive order issued by the governor, the records said.

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After a couple years of clashes with teachers in the state, West Virginia Senate President Mitch Carmichael was ousted in Tuesdays primary electionby a teacher.

Amy Nichole Grady, a 4th-6th grade math teacher, won the Republican primary with about 39 percent of the vote, compared with Carmichaels 35 percent. She will now run against Democrat Bruce Ashworth, a roofing business employee, in November and is expected to win.

Grady describes herself as a pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment conservative teacher who is fed up with self-serving elected officials. Meanwhile, Carmichael, a longtime state politician, had been the target of many teachers ire during a tumultuous couple of years with two statewide strikes and a battle over charter schools. During the campaign, Carmichael sought to align himself with President Donald Trump in his advertisements. Grady said she supports the president, too.

West Virginia teachers first went on strike over low pay and rising health care costs in 2018 and stayed on the picket lines for nine days. They won a 5 percent pay raise, and inspired teachers across the country, including in Arizona, Oklahoma, and Colorado, to walk out of their classrooms in protest as well .

The strike inspired Grady to run for the state legislature, she told Education Week.

I was going door-to-door in the capitol to legislators offices, and I didnt feel like the majority of our legislators actually listened to our perspective, she said. That frustrated me. ... We have these policies and guidelines and rules and even laws that are written for teachers, [and] you should have to have some teaching experience to be able to make those decisions.

Grady, who missed the Republican filing deadline and was not affiliated with a party in the 2018 election, came in third, with 11 percent of the vote. Although she wasnt successful, Grady said the race prepared her to run again in the 2020 primary.

Last year, West Virginia teachers went on strike again for two days , this time over a controversial education bill that would have created the states first charter schools and established 1,000 education savings accounts to allow parents to use public money to pay for private school. (The accounts would have been for students with special needs or those who have been bullied.)

That bill failed, but the legislature ultimately passed a broad education reform bill last summer that paved the way for West Virginia to open its first charter schools in the fall of 2021despite widespread concern from teachers that charter schools will take funding and other resources from the states public schools.

In a 2018 interview with the Charleston Gazette-Mail , Grady said she opposed the creation of public charter schools in the state.

Charter schools are publicly paid for, but privately run, she said. There are too many questions about charter schools practices, transparency, and lack of accountability. Traditional public schools laws and public meetings allow citizens to have a say in how their children are educated and how their tax dollars are spent.

Now, she said, shes not entirely against charter schoolsbut shes worried that the state legislature has not done the research to figure out what will make a charter school successful in West Virginia, especially in rural areas. She would advocate a more careful approach to creating charter schools, and would want to visit charter schools in other states with similar economies to see how they are run.

Her other main education priority is to find ways to increase teacher pay, including by raising the base salary and by paying teachers in border counties more. Otherwise, she said, West Virginia will have a hard time recruiting and retaining teachers.

During the 2018 elections, at least 177 current classroom teachers ran for seats in their state legislatures, according to an Education Week database , with many inspired to do so after participating in strikes and protests. In Kentucky, for example, a high school math teacher ousted the state House Majority Floor Leader who had spearheaded controversial pension changes. At least 43 teachers (including three in West Virginia) ultimately won their races in the midterm elections.

I can try to explain to people what education needs or what I need as a teacher or what students need or public education in general, but unless youve actually seen it from the inside, you cant really grasp it completely, Grady told the site 100 Days in Appalachia . I think its really important for our legislators to stay in contact with teachers so that they understand what it is that the school system needs.

Post updated 3/15 with comments from Grady

Image via Gradys Facebook page


T he Restaurant Group, owner of Frankie & Benny's and Garfunkels, today said 125 of its diners would close as it renegotiated a large slice of its struggling business's terms with creditors.

As many as 3000 jobs could be at risk as a result of the move.

The company has launched a company voluntary arrangement - where creditors such as landlords agree to cheaper terms for troubled firms.

In the case of TRG, this will include exiting 125 trading sits and seeking improved terms from landlords. Other creditors will not be affected.

TRG's move will lead to heavy job losses as restaurants that have been closed for months under lockdown simply never reopen.

If the CVA is approved, it will leave the group with 160 sites remaining in its so-called leisure estate, which includes Frankie & Benny's, Coast to Coast and Garfunkel's. The move does not include the group's Wagamama, airport concessions or pub operations.

The hospitality industry, which employs 10% of the UK workforce, has been one of the hardest hit sectors in the UK economy.

It also employs a disproportionately high number of young BAME workers which has led to concerns about the impact of the looming covid recession on minority ethnic groups in the UK.

Chief executive Andy Hornby, famed for running the HBOS bank before it collapsed into a rescue deal by Lloyds, said: "The issues facing our sector are well documented and we have already taken decisive action to improve our liquidity, reduce our cost base and downsize our operations."

Unusually, TRG's statement to the stock market included a message from Melanie Leach, the chief executive of the British Property Federation, in what appeared to be an attempt to show TRG's landlords that it had tried to be conciliatory in its demands for haircuts in the CVA.

She said: "These situations are never easy, particularly now for the retail and hospitality businesses on our high streets at the sharp end of the covid-19 pandemic.

"Property owners, however, need to take into consideration the impact on their investors, including the millions of people whose savings and pensions are investd in commercial property, as they vote on any CVA proposal.

"The Restaurant Group and [its restructuring advisers] Alix Partners engaged with the BPF before launching this CVA proposal. This has provided us an opportunity to improve understanding of property owners' interests and concerns, but ultimately it will be for individual property owners to decide how they will vote on the CVA."

Analyst Mark Brumby of Langton said: "The problem comes when the landlords, rightly or wrongly, believe the company is taking advantage of a situation to change lease terms or to dump units altogether."

He said TRG had to strike a balancing act to persuade landlords there was no alternative. TRG will need to persuade 75% of the creditors voting by value to get the CVA through.

Brumby pointed out that TRG had needed major restructuring before covid, but said: "If the group can pull this off - and covid-19 really is an exceptional circumstance - then it will have pushed perhaps three, four or five years' worth of organic restructuring into one year."

TRG has raised equity and debt and cut costs, he added. "It could and should be one of the survivors - but the creditors' vote remains another hurdle to overcome."
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 11:23 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd84ea6 1 National hajj,hajj-pilgrimage,COVID-19,Saudi-Arabia,Religious-Affairs-Minister,Religious-Affairs-Ministry,Fachrul-Razi,haj,haj-pilgrimage,haj-pilgrim-departure Free

Indonesia will try to lobby the Saudi Arabian government for a larger haj quota for 2021 following this years decision to cancel the haj over COVID-19 concerns, Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi said.

We will try our best to lobby them [the Saudi Arabian government] using various reasons, Fachrul said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com.

He explained that Saudi Arabia understood Indonesias situation since the latter was among countries with the largest number of haj pilgrims.

Indonesia had initially planned to send 221,000 people for the annual haj. The Religious Affairs Ministry recorded that nearly 180,000 of the pilgrims had paid for their scheduled journeys.

The Religious Affairs Ministry decided to cancel the 2020 haj because of the ongoing pandemic. Saudi Arabia's indefinite suspension of haj and umrah (minor haj) trips also did not leave enough time for the government to prepare people's visas and protection measures.

Fachrul said the ministry would try to secure more seats for haj pilgrims from Indonesia, even though it may be difficult, as the quota was decided by the international Islamic Cooperation Organization.

However, we will try to provide additional seats for our haj pilgrims next year so they dont have to wait any longer, Fachrul said.(dpk)
Why this Seven Springs clip grabbed the attention of 1 million people

The tweet has been seen by more than 1 million people so far. Many commenters asked if the clip was planned or fake.
Multiple strange GPS signals were detected near the Northern part of San Francisco, United States. These signals found nine ships getting near the shore. However, when the marine watchdog looked out, no ships were found on the location that the GPS said it where to be. Are these 'ghost ships' or deliberate manipulation of GPS detectors?

Marine watchdog finds GPS signals from nine 'ghost ships' missing

Daily Mail UK reported on Tuesday, June 9, that nine 'ghost ships' appear sailing in large circles off the coast near San Francisco.

Bjorn Bergman, who works for the environmental watchdog groups SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, first noticed the strange GPS signals detected by their radar. He identified nine ships that were supposedly heading to Point Reyes.

Some of the GPS signals even detect that few ships already crossed the dry land. When Bergman checked the shore and nearby parts of the ocean-- as based on the location of the GPS-- none of the said ships were found by his team.

When Bergman investigated more, he found out that the ships were nowhere near the GPS signals. They were a thousand miles from what's indicated on their radar.

Ghost ships or just GPS manipulation?

Bergman said that in 2019, the same issue happened with his GPS signals. However, it was found that several ships off the coast of China were traveling and deliberately disrupted the GPS for them not to identify their presence. But it is not the same issue with the ghost ships.

"Although the circling tracks look similar in both locations, the vessels on the Chinese coast were at most a few miles from the circling tracks, while the vessels broadcasting tracks above Point Reyes are actually thousands of miles away," he wrote in a blog post.

There's no reason they're ghost ships, here's why

Though its better to believe that they're ghost ships, Bergman thinks that there's a better explanation for these phenomena.

"It [Point Reyes] has a long history in maritime navigation," Bergman told Newsweek. "There must be some connection. I've got a lot of theories [but] we don't know. One thing that could be plausible is that it's acting as a zero location because of the importance of this spot in developing maritime navigation systems. So if [a ship's] reception is blocked for whatever reason, they're appearing there."

On the other hand, Todd Humphreys, associate professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, had a different explanation with what's happening.

Humphreys believes that the 'ghost ships' event is likely the result of 'GPS spoofing.' He said that devices to manipulate the GPS signals are now all over the market and can easily be bought.

"We know it's GPS spoofing because we also see it in the data from exercise apps. Usually, the false location is near the true one, but in other cases, it's half a world away, like Point Reyes for a ship off the coast of Africa," said him. "If I'm right and cheap spoofers are now for sale, you can bet a lot more 'GPS crop circles' will show up in the coming months and years, with negative implications for ships, aircraft, and ordinary turn-by-turn directions."

ALSO READ: Ships Have Been Sailing in Circles and Some Believe it Could be Due to the Earth's Pole Reversal

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
South Africa: Nzimande pleased with university's planned return of students

Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, says he is pleased with the progress at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) towards the planned phased return of students to the university.

Nzimande made the remarks following his visit to the institutions campus in Ga-Rankuwa on Tuesday to assess its state of readiness for the phased return of students.

He said that the university has reprioritised funding to cover for COVID-19 related measures and has repurposed one of their chemical engineering laboratories to produce sanitisers and disinfectants for the whole university, and also supply surrounding communities.

TUT also has a well-developed plan for multi-modal remote learning, which will ensure that it reaches the remotest of their students anywhere in our country for academic support and delivery of learning materials. I am happy with the progress I saw there, Nzimande said.

The Minister also noted that TUT is by far the largest contact university, not only in South Africa, but in Africa.

The socio-economic status of the students is 55% National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) beneficiaries and predominantly from the rural areas of our country, Nzimande said.

Sol Plaatje to welcome its first cohorts of students

Meanwhile, the Sol Plaatje University said it will welcome its first cohort of students from 19 June 2020.

Among the students returning are those in their final year of study, who are due to graduate and those requiring access to laboratories and technical equipment.

Sol Plaatje Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Andrew Crouch, said the students have been identified through the various departments and will be informed individually.

The Student Representative Council (SRC) and some members of the student leadership in residences will return approximately 10 to 14 days prior to the first cohort of students. They will be trained in the various health protocols and will assist the university with the transition to a new way of operatingm necessitated by the current pandemic, Crouch said.

Under level 3 lockdown, final year students in other programmes requiring clinical training began returning to campuses in the countrys universities.

Another group of students free to return to universities include postgraduate students, who require access to laboratories, technical equipment, data, connectivity and access to the residence and private accommodation.

A maximum of 33% of the student population will be allowed to return to campuses, delivery sites and residences on condition that they can be safely accommodated and supported in line with the health and safety protocols, as directed by the department.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Examples of disaggregation (top) and linear fractures (bottom) in boulders on asteroid Bennu from images taken by NASAs OSIRIS-REX spacecraft. In the bottom row, fracture orientations are (d) west-northwest to east-southeast and (e, f) north to south. Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Asteroids don't just sit there doing nothing as they orbit the Sun.

They get bombarded by meteoroids, blasted by space radiation, and now, for the first time, scientists are seeing evidence that even a little sunshine can wear them down.

Rocks on asteroid Bennu appear to be cracking as sunlight heats them up during the day and they cool down at night, according to images from NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer) spacecraft.

"This is the first time evidence for this process, called thermal fracturing, has been definitively observed on an object without an atmosphere," said Jamie Molaro of the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona, lead author of a paper appearing in Nature Communications June 9. "It is one piece of a puzzle that tells us what the surface used to be like, and what it will be like millions of years from now."

"Like any weathering process, thermal fracturing causes the evolution of boulders and planetary surfaces over time - from changing the shape and size of individual boulders, to producing pebbles or fine-grained regolith, to breaking down crater walls," said OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "How quickly this occurs relative to other weathering processes tells us how and how quickly the surface has changed."

Rocks expand when sunlight heats them during the day and contract as they cool down at night, causing stress that forms cracks that grow slowly over time. Scientists have thought for a while that thermal fracturing could be an important weathering process on airless objects like asteroids because many experience extreme temperature differences between day and night, compounding the stress. For example, daytime highs on Bennu can reach almost 127 degrees Celsius or about 260 degrees Fahrenheit, and nighttime lows plummet to about minus 73 degrees Celsius or nearly minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. However, many of the telltale features of thermal fracturing are small, and before OSIRIS-REx got close to Bennu, the high-resolution imagery required to confirm thermal fracturing on asteroids didn't exist.

The mission team found features consistent with thermal fracturing using the spacecraft's OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite (OCAMS), which can see features on Bennu smaller than one centimeter (almost 0.4 inches). It found evidence of exfoliation, where thermal fracturing likely caused small, thin layers (1 - 10 centimeters) to flake off of boulder surfaces. The spacecraft also produced images of cracks running through boulders in a north-south direction, along the line of stress that would be produced by thermal fracturing on Bennu.

Other weathering processes can produce similar features, but the team's analysis ruled them out. For example, rain and chemical activity can produce exfoliation, but Bennu has no atmosphere to produce rain. Rocks squeezed by tectonic activity can also exfoliate, but Bennu is too small for such activity. Meteoroid impacts do occur on Bennu and can certainly crack rocks, but they would not cause the even erosion of layers from boulder surfaces that were seen. Also, there's no sign of impact craters where the exfoliation is occurring.

Additional studies of Bennu could help determine how rapidly thermal fracturing is wearing down the asteroid, and how it compares to other weathering processes. "We don't have good constraints yet on breakdown rates from thermal fracturing, but we can get them now that we can actually observe it for the first time in situ," said OSIRIS-REx project scientist Jason Dworkin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Laboratory measurements on the properties of the samples returned by the spacecraft in 2023 will help us learn more about how this process works."

Another area of research is how thermal fracturing affects our ability to estimate the age of surfaces. In general, the more weathered a surface is, the older it is. For example, a region with a lot of craters is likely to be older than an area with few craters, assuming impacts happen at a relatively constant rate across an object. However, additional weathering from thermal fracturing could complicate an age estimate, because thermal fracturing is going to happen at a different rate on different bodies, depending on things like their distance from the Sun, the length of their day, and the composition, structure and strength of their rocks. On bodies where thermal fracturing is efficient, then it may cause crater walls to break down and erode faster. This would make the surface look older according the cratering record, when in fact it is actually younger. Or the opposite could occur. More research on thermal fracturing on different bodies is needed to start to get a handle on this, according to Molaro.

The research was funded by NASA's OSIRIS-REx Participating Scientist program as well as the OSIRIS-REx mission. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission's science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA is exploring our Solar System and beyond, uncovering worlds, stars, and cosmic mysteries near and far with our powerful fleet of space and ground-based missions.

More images https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/sunlight-cracks-rocks-on-bennu

In situ evidence of thermally induced rock breakdown widespread on Bennu's surface, Nature Communications

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16528-7

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it needs over $182 million to sustain aid in Nigerias North-east for the next six months.

The UN agency disclosed this in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES by its national communications officer, Kelechi Onyemaobi, on Wednesday

The WFP said funding is needed urgently for millions of people in Nigeria who have been severely hit by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, including conflict-hit communities on life-support in the North-east.

We are concerned by conflict-affected communities in northeast Nigeria (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe) who already face extreme hunger and who are especially vulnerable. They are on life-support and need assistance to survive, the WFP senior spokesperson, Elisabeth Byrs, was quoted to have said in the statement.

To cushion the negative effects on vulnerable people in countries hit by conflicts and the coronavirus pandemic, some humanitarian agencies across the globe have been seeking for more funding in order to ensure normalcy is restored.

The outfit says it is the worlds largest humanitarian organisations saving lives in emergencies, building prosperity and supporting a sustainable future for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

Insurgency

Before now, the three aforementioned states of the northeastern region of the country have been plagued by a decade-long insurgency that has displaced millions of people, rendering them homeless, with properties worth billions of naira destroyed. Thousands have died in the conflict.

The WFP said, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this region remains one of several most severe humanitarian crises in the world, with some 7.9 million people, especially women and children in need of urgent assistance today.

It said it plans to help a total of 1.8 million people in the region.

Mrs Byrs said, Thats why WFP is distributing now two months worth of food and nutrition assistance in IDP camps and among vulnerable communities to ensure that people have enough food while they are on full or partial lockdown.

Scourge

More than 3.8 million people mainly working in the informal sector, are at the risk of losing their jobs amid rising hardship, Ms Byrs said, and this could rise to 13 million if movement restrictions continue for a longer period.

She said almost 20 million (23 per cent of the labour force) are already out of work.

In a country where about 90 million people  46 per cent of the population  live on less than $2 a day, this is a real concern. The urban poor who depend on a daily wage to feed themselves and their families have been deeply hit by movement restrictions to contain the spread of the virus, she said.

Interventions

The WFP said three million individuals among the most vulnerable, will receive help, and additional support to government social protection systems in the cities of Abuja, Kano and Lagos  places where the agency has not been present until now.

We are actually scaling up our operations in the North-east to serve more people in response to the new challenges of more food insecurity posed by COVID-19, Ms Byrs said.

She said there have been a few delays with COVID-19 containment movement restrictions that are affecting supply chains. We continue to appeal to all parties to ensure access to people in need and respect humanitarian space.

The WFP also said its efforts include re-adjusting school meals programmes during school closures by providing food to take home. The initiative, it said, kicked off in Abuja and Lagos, in mid-May.

Coronavirus

As of Tuesday, Nigeria recorded 663 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the highest daily figure of the disease since its emergence, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control(NCDC).

With the latest update, the total tally of infected people in the country rose to 13, 464 from 12, 801 reported on Monday evening.

Four deaths were recorded from the virus on Tuesday bringing the total number of confirmed deaths from the virus to 365.

Till date, 13, 464 cases have been confirmed, 4206 discharged and 365 deaths have been recorded in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory, the NCDC was quoted to have said.
June 12 is Loving Day, a celebration marking the day the Supreme Court struck down state bans against interracial marriage.

The day is named for the monumental case, Loving v. Virginia, and the interracial couple at its center, Richard and Mildred Loving. The 1967 Supreme Court decision struck down 16 state bans on interracial marriage as unconstitutional.

"Over the long haul, it changes America," said Peter Wallenstein, author of "Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry: Loving v. Virginia." "Its just a stunning case."

In the five decades since the decision, interracial marriage has increased dramatically. In 2015, one in six newlyweds had a spouse of a different race or ethnicity, which is more than five times higher than the number of intermarried newlyweds in 1967, according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

Start the day smarter: For more stories like this, sign up to get USA TODAY's Daily Briefing in your inbox

What happened to Richard and Mildred Loving?

In 1958, Mildred got pregnant and the couple traveled to Washington, D.C., to get married, Wallenstein said. They then returned home to Caroline County, Virginia, and not long after, they were awakened in the middle of the night by policeman who informed them they were breaking the law.

Mildred Loving and her husband Richard P Loving are shown in this January 26, 1965 file photograph.

They were jailed on charges of unlawful cohabitation and offered a choice: Continue to serve jail time or leave Virginia for 25 years. The couple chose the latter and left the state.

Wallenstein said Mildred Loving reportedly wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy pleading their case, and he directed her to the American Civil Liberties Union. A lawyer from the ACLU took the case, which made its way to the Supreme Court, where the law was unanimously overturned on June 12, 1967.

Wallenstein described Mildred Loving as instrumental in getting the case overturned, but she never considered herself a hero.

Study: When it comes to marriage, race and ethnicity matter less

Story continues

It wasnt my doing, she told the Associated Press in a rare interview in 2007. It was Gods work.

Richard Loving died in a car crash 1975. Mildred Loving died in 2008.

Their story is chronicled in the 2016 movie "Loving" as well as the 2011 documentary "The Loving Story."

Get to know Ruth Negga: The Oscar-nominated breakout star of 'Loving'

What is Loving Day?

More than 30 years after the Loving v. Virginia decision, designer Ken Tanabe learned of the monumental ruling while in graduate school at Parsons School of Design. He said he was intrigued by the case because of his own interracial heritage and made it the subject of his graduate thesis project.

That project grew into Loving Day, a holiday Tanabe said is celebrated around the country and the world. Loving Day has been officially recognized by a handful of states and cities including Virginia, Vermont, New York City and Los Angeles, and civil rights organizations like the Anti-Defamation League.

Tanabe said the name is "not just a reference to a real couple who fought racial injustice, it also represents the love that we give to each other."

How do people celebrate Loving Day?

A small group of volunteers typically coordinates a flagship event in New York City, and Tanabe said he's been in contact with people in the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Taiwan and Spain.

Tanabe said people often celebrate with a backyard barbecue, community events, panel discussions or cultural performances. Some people even select June 12 as their wedding date because of its significance.

How will Loving Day be different this year?

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the protests occurring around the country in the wake of George Floyd's death, celebrations will likely look a lot different.

Although the day is historically centered on "joy and connection and community," Tanabe has asked that people take "a meaningful pause" to stand in solidarity with the black community in light of the national conversations about racism.

Here's how you can help: 100 ways you can take action against racism right now

He added that there is a list of ways to support the black community during the holiday and beyond, including facilitating community conversation, voting and donating on the Loving Day website.

"Weve been asking folks to continue that tradition of observing Loving Day in meaningful and personal ways but also by joining us in coming together in support of black lives and justice," he said.

Reflecting upon the cases' relevance amid nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, Wallenstein said Floyd's death epitomizes how half a century after the Loving decision and other civil rights milestones of the '60s, "the toxic residue of Jim Crow across the centuries continues to make its way down the streets and into people's lives."

"It really is quite remarkable how much can change and its just as remarkable how little does," Wallenstein said.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Loving Day: June 12 marks Supreme Court interracial marriage decision
The chief suspect in the disappearance and suspected murder of Madeleine McCann told a girlfriend he had a 'horrible job to do' in Praia da Luz the night before her disappearance, it has been claimed.

A friend of Christian Brueckner's two British ex girlfriends revealed he went off the radar following Madeleine disappearance in May 2007.

A day before the three-year-old vanished, the convicted German drug dealer told one of the women he had 'a job to do in Praia da Luz tomorrow'.

'It's a horrible job but it's something I have to do and it will change my life. You won't be seeing me for a while,' according to The Sun.

Three years later his other British ex joked that Brueckner looked like some of the photofits in the search for Madeleine's abductor and asked him if he took her.

Christian Brueckner was named as the chief suspect in the disappearance of Maddie McCann last week

A friend of both women, who have each been interviewed by police but are not suspected of being involved in Madeleine's disappearance, said: 'He blanked the question and shrugged  then added, "Just don't go there".'

The anonymous friend, originally from North Yorkshire but now living in Lagos, Portugal, said people dismissed the flippant comments, adding that both of his exes were beaten by Brueckner when they dated him.

He claims to have met Brueckner when he worked at expat bar The Tavern in the Portuguese town.

He added: 'What he said at that dinner suggests he planned the whole thing very carefully and that he might even have stolen Madeleine to order.'

Madeleine disappeared from her hotel room in May 2007, 13 years later police have named a suspect

One of the unnamed women, understood to be from Berkshire, is said to have lived in Praia da Luz where she dated German paedophile Christian Brueckner for around a year from 2004 - three years before Madeleine went missing.

She is not a suspect in the case, but according to reports, has agreed to cooperate with police and has twice spoken to detectives investigating her former partner.

The mother-of-two, who is still living in Portugal, was interviewed last year by police as part of the investigation into Brueckner, and, according to The Mirror, has spoken to them again in recent days after the 43-year-old was identified as a prime suspect in the Madeleine case.

The latest development comes as a German prosecutor has claimed that Madeleine was killed soon after she was kidnapped.

Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the investigation into Brueckner, told The Times that police have found that the suspect discussed kidnapping, raping and killing a girl in a conversation with another paedophile online.

At one point he wrote about his desire to 'catch something little and use it for days', and when asked about getting caught he added: 'Meh, if the evidence is destroyed...'

'My private opinion is that he relatively quickly killed the girl, possibly abused her and then killed her,' said Mr Wolters. 'We believe our suspect committed further crimes, especially sexual crimes, in Portugal possibly but also elsewhere like Germany.'

Mr Wolters added that he wanted to collect as much evidence as possible before confronting Brueckner, so that he would have a smaller chance of being able to weaken the case against him.

Brueckner is currently serving a jail sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in Portugal.

But he is reportedly eligible for parole this weekend and one friend has since revealed to the Sun that the unnamed woman is terrified he will come after her.

The friend said: 'She's really nervous, she knows B is in prison but fears he could be released one day and come after her.

'It's true they were together.'

Meanwhile, the Mirror say the woman's British ex-husband, a businessman who also lives in Portugal, was also spoken to by Interpol last year in connection with Brueckner.

On Monday police revealed they wanted to speak to a third ex of Brueckner's, Nakscije Miftari

He told The Mirror: 'We've decided not to talk. The police have been in touch and we've spoken to them. We don't want to be involved in this.'

On Monday police said they wanted to speak to a third ex of Brueckner's, Nakscije Miftari.

Nakscije met Brueckner when she was 17, after he set up home in a run-down part of Braunschweig, a crumbling industrial city in northern Germany, and ran a kiosk selling beer, soft drinks, snacks and sweets.

He later took Nakscije, who is German of Albanian descent, to Portugal in 2014 but she was deported back to Germany less than a year later following allegations of criminality.

Detectives in Britain and Germany want to quiz her about what she knows about Brueckner's past, in particular his time in Portugal.
An Australian mum has shared how she transformed her dirty bathroom shower and made it look sparkling new with the help of an unlikely product.

Tania, from Melbourne, used the White King Power Clean Toilet Cleaner which is priced at $4.60 from Woolworths and shared two videos of the results to a popular Facebook group.

'I wasn't going to post this but my daughter told me it was to good not to. I've been putting off cleaning the showers as I really struggle getting up and down due to bad knees,' she said online.

Tania revealed there was no scrubbing involved and applied the product on the shower floor for two hours before rinsing it away.

Scroll down for video

An Australian mum has shared how she transformed her dirty bathroom shower and made it look sparkling new by using the White King Power Clean Toilet Cleaner which is priced at $4.60 from Woolworths

Due to the struggles with her knees, Tania resorted to the old trick that she said she learnt 'years ago'.

The results made the shower look bright and shiny as if it were new.

Others part of the Facebook group were impressed with the genius idea, while some said they have been using toilet cleaners to clean the shower for years.

'I always use toilet cleaner in my shower, it's basically just thick bleach, does a great job!' one woman said.

Tania, from Melbourne, used the White King Power Clean Toilet Cleaner (pictured)

'I'm a professional cleaner and this is what I use if people are ok with me using it - I love it, best ever [to] use it in the shower, bath or sink if there is hard mould,' another added.

'Just be careful not to use the super blue coloured ones especially if you have older grout because the colour can get stuck in there,' a third suggested.

Last month another Australian woman also wowed hundreds after a budget $6 Aldi cleaning product banished the grime from her kitchen floor grout in a matter of minutes with minimal effort.

After using the store's Power Force Mould Away spray, the woman transformed her kitchen floor and shared images of the sparkling, satisfying result to the Mums Who Clean Facebook group.

Last month another Australian woman also wowed hundreds after a budget $6 Aldi cleaning product banished the grime from her kitchen floor grout in a matter of minutes with minimal effort

She also posted a three-minute video demonstrating how others can clean their floors too.

To make her tiles look shiny and new, she sprayed the Mould Away product on the grout lines and let it sit for ten minutes.

She then used a scrubbing brush to remove stubborn dirt and grime, then applied a magic eraser to spot clean the grout before mopping the whole area.

But the woman warned the powerful Aldi product has an extremely strong odour, and advised using gloves during cleaning.
Parenting blogger Jessica Hood has shared a relatable post about losing yourself to motherhood. (Images Jessica Hood)

A mum has been praised by other parents for sharing a relatable post about losing yourself in motherhood.

Jessica Hood, 31, a parenting blogger from Melbourne, shared the powerful post to Instagram explaining the life changing impact becoming a mum can have.

I dont know who I am anymore, she began her post. My life consists of putting everyone else first. Their needs, their happiness but who is putting my needs first or my happiness?

She goes on to describe her days which consist of school runs and cleaning up around everyone, with no offers to help.

I dont really talk to anyone. I never realised how lonely I was until recently. I never realised how much I wasnt myself anymore until i took a step back and looked at the bigger picture. And yet this is all to common as women, she continues.

As mothers. We give every bit of who we are and what makes us happy in order to please others. We take the backseat until eventually we become unrecognisable and then we get told we have changed.

We stare at our reflection trying to find just a small part of person we once were, she adds.

Read more: Pregnant Lauren Pope on pressure to bounce back

While she acknowledges that part of the beauty of marriage and motherhood is that you unintentionally become selfless, she believes this has a knock-on effect of making you feel that as a person you become non existent.

I cant remember the last time I was really happy, I mean really happy. I love my family more than anything but Im not happy.

Gosh I cant remember the last time I felt some sort of emotion other than sadness and stress. Perhaps its because my needs are no longer met and yet I feel bad for even just saying that, as if thats just how it is ment [sic] to be. As if Im not even a person, an individual or someone that matters.

Read more: Millie Mackintosh reveals baby name, says shes on cloud 9 since becoming a mum

Story continues

The blogger goes on to acknowledge the emotional labour she, and many other mothers, carry out on a day-to-day basis, which leaves her feeling stressed and run down.

Our job never ends, we may not get paid for our job but its 24/7. The emotional exhaustion is overwhelming, the repetitive groundhog days are mentally draining.

Arguing with tiny people who think they know better. Cooking meals that arent up to their satisfaction. Feeding plates of food to the dog because no one liked your cooking.

But while many will assume this is just part of motherhood, Hood is keen to point out that becoming a parent shouldnt mean losing yourself.

Motherhood doesnt mean we arent individuals or that we need to give every ounce of ourselves to prove our love or capabilities, she explains.

Sometimes we need to be selfish.

Sometimes we need to throw in the towel and let someone else fold the laundry.

Read more: Mum says invisible load of motherhood' is killing her in moving Reddit post

She concludes her emotional post by revealing that she has decided it is time for change.

Today is the day I decided that Im gonna chase my happiness and find my sparkle, she wrote.

Even if that leads me on a path I never knew existed. To be a better mother. To realise my worth as a woman. Im not JUST a mum, Im a motherf***ing superwoman, and so are you.

Since sharing the candid post, the comments section has been flooded with comments praising the parenting blogger for her honesty and sharing their own similar experiences.

Oh my God yes yes yes. These are the words I have been looking for, trying to escape my mouth, one user wrote.

I have just had surgery and have been off my feet for 2 weeks, I have had the huge awakening, I have realised I do too much for my family, Im taken for granted, Im a nag, I actually dont have myself in me, I just have routine and making sure EVERYONE ELSE is running smooth and happy. Time for change!!! Time to be appreciated. Time to find me.

This is exactly how I feel, agreed another. Too true that I teared up . Its so hard sometimes :( .

I feel you! agreed another user. Ive been here over and over. I like the expression filling my cup to get reminded that if I have nothing in my cup no one will get anything good from me.

Its hard to find the balance, but where there is a need and a will we will always find a way! she continued. Youve got this mumma! I loved reading this and feeling like I'm not the only one who feels this way.

The mum-of-four tells Yahoo UK that she decided to share the post to show an alternative view of parenting to the glossy side that is often presented.

We tend to hear so much about the positive and happy side of motherhood, she says. No one really talks about the raw and real side to what it's like being a mother or how life changing it really is.

But the effects on a womans mental health when she becomes a parent are huge.

I wanted to create a safe space and break the stigma that motherhood is always perfect.

Jessica Hood and her four children. (Image Jessica Hood)

Hood says she hoped so many mothers could relate to the feelings expressed in her post.

I know how common it is to lose your identity once you become a mum, she continues. I wanted other mothers to know although they may feel alone theyre not.

And since sharing shes been contacted by other mothers who have been feeling similar emotions.

Ive had so many wonderful women reach out to me sharing their thoughts and stories, she says.

It feels great knowing I made a positive impact and gave them a voice to speak up.
Senator Lamar Alexander on Tuesday said that changing attitudes toward racial discrimination is not as easy as passing new laws. It will require a change in behavior.

He said, United States Senator Tim Scott, who is an African American Republican from South Carolina, once told our Bible study that police in his hometown stopped him several times for being a black man in the wrong place  even though at the time he was serving as chairman of the Charleston County Council. During these last few days, I have been thinking a lot about what Tim told us. And I wondered, how many white Americans know that things like that happen, white Americans like me. And I wondered how I would feel if I were stopped for being a white man in the wrong place in my home town, especially if most of the people in town were black? Would I feel hurt? Scared? Disillusioned? Angry? Weary? Disappointed? Intimidated? Probably all of those things. One result of George Floyds killing is that black Americans are telling more stories like Tim Scotts.

A professor of religious studies in Nashville wrote in the Tennessean that he carries a licensed firearm with him when he goes on a run. Well-educated black businessmen count the times they have been profiled because of their race. One of my friends in Memphis, who is now vice president of one of Memphis largest hospitals, told me that when he went to Memphis State in the 1960s, it was clear to him that almost everyone thought that he didnt belong there.

So, what do we do now? Bringing those who killed George Floyd to justice will help. Dealing firmly with looters who hijack peaceful protests will help. Some new laws and government actions will help, such as criminal justice reform and permanent funding for historically black colleges and universities, both which became law in this Congress. It would also help to open schools and colleges in August and to open them safely because a good education is the surest ticket to a better future for minority students, and those students will suffer more from schools being closed.

Benjamin Hooks, the former NAACP president from Memphis, said that America is a work in progress. Weve come a long way, and we have a long way to go. That long way to go will not be as easy as passing laws. It will take changing behavior. One way to do that could be last weeks peaceful protest organized by Nashville teenagers, which was a textbook example of First Amendment citizenship. And it hopefully will encourage more victims of racism to tell their stories and more Americans to adjust our attitudes.

I am glad that Tim Scott gave me permission to tell his story. And perhaps a good first step to changing attitudes toward racial discrimination would be for each of us who are white to ask ourselves this question: How would I feel if police in my hometown repeatedly stopped me for being a white man or a white woman in the wrong place, especially if most of the people in the town were black?

Click HERE for Alexanders full remarks.
Former President John Dramani Mahama has issued a stern warning to the Electoral Commission (EC) ahead of this years general elections.



According to the former President and flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the party will not accept the 2020 election results should they suspect any underhand dealings by the EC.



As leader of the NDC, I wish to serve notice that we shall do all our parts to ensure that our country remains peaceful and that the electoral process proceeds smoothly, but let nobody assume that we will accept the results of a flawed elections, he cautioned.



Mr. John Mahama made this comment at a ceremony on Wednesday, June 10, 2020 to mark the 28th anniversary of the National Democratic Congress.



The NDC was founded on June 10, 1992 and won the first elections of the Fourth Republic of Ghana.



The anniversary event saw in attendance the NDC National Chairman, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, Leader of the Minority in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu and other dignitaries.



Delivering a speech during the occasion, Mr. Mahama recounted that the NDC has been a key stakeholder in the countrys elections, participating in all seven elections under the democratic dispensation.



According to him, although the NDC will challenge any flawed electoral results, it shall however conduct itself within the frontiers of the law.



We have a history of accepting results of the elections whenever we have believed in the integrity of the polls, he added.



He also emphasized that the NDC is waiting on the Supreme Court ruling regarding their petition against the Electoral Commission.



The party is praying the highest court of the land to direct the EC to include the Voters ID card in the new voters registration exercise and also seeking a declaration on whether the Commissions decision to compile a new register is in compliance with its constitutional mandate.



The former President stressed that the Supreme Court hearing on Thursday, June 11 will help the party determine whether we have a flawed election or we have an election that we have confidence in that the will of the people have been properly expressed.



Earlier in his address, Chairman of the NDC, Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, charged members of the party to reject the call to participate in the Electoral Commission's (EC) mass voters registration exercise scheduled to begin on June 30, 2020.



Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said the party was against the compilation of the new voters register because the atmosphere in the country was not conducive for the exercise.



"We say no to the new register and even if Parliament passes the legislation we will not accept it. We are not just against it because they will not accept the old voter card but because the whole atmosphere in the country is not conducive," he said.

Source: 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.

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Uncertainties and inconsistencies around the designated times for older people and cocooners to access public amenities are causing concern for Irelands older population.

Thats according to Active Retirement Ireland, the national representative body for over 500 Active Retirement Associations throughout Ireland with a membership of over 24,000 people.

Commenting today, Maureen Kavanagh, CEO of Active Retirement Ireland, said, our members are greatly concerned at the lack of consistency around priority times for older people in shops and parks, and the lack of any enforcement of these times. Three of the biggest retailers in Ireland, for example, have three different sets of priority hours for older people. Likewise, parks throughout the country have advertised different priority times for when cocooners and older people can visit to get their regular exercise.

The inconsistency in access times and the conflicting messages coming from diverse sources is leading to confusion and worry amongst our members. For the wider public, it also makes it almost impossible for them to know when they should avoid supermarkets or public amenities in order to make way for the older and those with health vulnerabilities. All of this, in turn, is resulting in some older people being afraid to leave their houses.

She added that in the past week, the focus has been on easing lockdown restrictions, with the priority being to re-ignite the economy, but older people feel like they are being left behind because there is a lack of clarity in the guidelines laid out.

Today, we are calling for joined-up thinking between local authorities and retailers regarding priority hours, to ensure there are national guidelines for priority times. Not only should the guidelines be consistent, but they need to be enforced. There should be a public service campaign setting out these guidelines, so that all members of society know when to avoid shops and parks to allow our most vulnerable to also return to some form of normalcy, Maureen Kavanagh concluded.

Also commenting today was Mary Thorp, a member of Active Retirement Irelands Board, based in County Cork, stated friendship, support and socialising is at the heart of Active Retirement Associations. At the moment, however, we are hesitant about returning to meetings and activities because of the age-profile of our members.

We are still advising members to stay local and avoid shopping or activities that expose them to high numbers of people. We are encouraging them to continue to ask family-members or friends to do the shopping for them; and we are advising them to keep their distance from others when out for their walks. Older people are still afraid to attend doctors and hospital appointments. There is a fear amongst our members that society and the economy may be reopening too soon  they are afraid of a new surge.

Concluding, Maureen Kavanagh said, socialising, shopping, and regular exercise are vital to the health of our older people. They must be encouraged and supported to emerge from the lockdown phase along with the rest of the population, as long as it is safe to do so. This can only be achieved by developing unified national guidelines for older people that are consistent and enforced, and aided by support and compliance from the general public.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to get tested for COVID-19 despite coming into close contact with an aide who was infected with the coronavirus.

On Sunday, Zoe Robledo, the head of Mexico's Social Security Institute and a close aide to the president, announced he tested positive for the virus. Being one of the most prominent public figures of Lopez Obrador's administration, his announcement created concerns that the president may have been exposed to the respiratory illness.

Two days before the announcement, the aide accompanied the Mexican leader at an event at Villahermosa, Tabasco. The president's security cabinet had also attended the event.

On Sunday, the president went to the country's southeast to launch the construction of a tourist train and to display the government's efforts to reopen the economy. Many have criticized the trip as risky due to the still-growing number of infections in the country.

Lopez Obrador claimed no one on the trip had been infected with the virus. However, the social security agency announced that three other top officials tested positive for the virus but remained asymptomatic.

Virus Peak

The four officials have become part of the total COVID-19 tally in Mexico-which sits at 120,301 confirmed cases and 14,649 fatalities after the health ministry reported 4,199 new cases and 596 additional deaths on Tuesday.

According to Mexican health officials, the country could still be "several" weeks away from seeing the peak of coronavirus cases. Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell claimed Mexico has yet to "reach the maximum point" as the number of cases rises daily.

Lopez-Gatell's announcement was echoed by officials from international health agencies, including the World Health Organization and Pan American Health Organization. The health experts recommended boosting tests before a wide-scale reopening as well as observing safety measures.

Mexican officials have raised the projections of total fatalities up to 35,000 deaths through October. A study conducted by a team at the University of Washington forecasted over 75,516 deaths by August.

The country's hospitals have also been overwhelmed by the surge in coronavirus cases, with some suffering from years of neglect. The pandemic has also infected over 11,000 Mexican health workers, depleting the ranks in hospitals. Many have also suffered shortages in protective gear and medical equipment.

The shortages have been devastating to patients-with some dying due to neglect or mistakes. Some died after receiving the wrong medications or doses. In some cases, patients who were given sedatives wake up abruptly then yank out their breathing tubes.

According to the World Bank, the Mexican government spends less on its health care system compared to most countries in the Western Hemisphere. President Lopez Obrador has also decided to cut spending despite acknowledging the nation had 200,000 fewer medical professionals than it needed.

As the population grew, the government allocated less than three percent of its national budget to health care. Data from the World Bank showed only two countries in Latin America spent less on health than Mexico: Guatemala and Venezuela.

"Administration after administration gave lip service to the issue of health, but it never showed up as a priority in the budget," Judith Mendez, an analyst at the Economic and Budgetary Research Center, told The New York Times.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 17:31:27|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, June 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korean banks' corporate lending posted the biggest May growth as companies rushed to secure liquidity on worry about the COVID-19 outbreak, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Banks' lending to companies amounted to 945.1 trillion won (793.2 billion U.S. dollars) as of the end of May, up 16 trillion won (13.4 billion U.S. dollars) from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

It marked the biggest May expansion since relevant data began to be compiled in June 2009. The corporate lending soared 27.9 trillion won (23.4 billion U.S. dollars) in April and 18.7 trillion won (15.7 billion U.S. dollars) in March respectively.

Companies increased their holdings of liquidity on worry about an economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Banks' lending to big corporations rose 2.7 trillion won (2.3 billion U.S. dollars) in May, while lending to small firms surged 13.3 trillion won (11.2 billion U.S. dollars).

Banks' lending to households reached 920.7 trillion won (772.7 billion U.S. dollars) as of end-May, up 5 trillion won (4.2 billion U.S. dollars) from a month earlier. The household lending added 4.9 trillion won (4.1 billion U.S. dollars) in April.

Demand for mortgage loan increased 3.9 trillion won (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) in May, after growing 4.9 trillion won (4.1 billion U.S. dollars) in April.

The number of apartment transactions in the capital Seoul reduced from 4,000 in March to 3,000 in April. The figure in Seoul's surrounding Gyeonggi province slipped from 16,000 to 12,000 in the same period. Enditem
The U.S. has "reneged on its role as leader of the free world" under President Donald Trump and failed in its response to the coronavirus crisis, according to former Secretary of State John Kerry.

Speaking to the CogX conference in London on Monday, Kerry slammed Trump's "reckless" response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and said the U.S. had failed to show international leadership through the crisis.

"The odds were against us in the beginning because you had China, which is always somewhat secretive and which clearly began to manage the news in the beginning, and you had the United States with a leader who has no ability to tell the truth, or face it, or to lead," he said.

Kerry served as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama from 2013 until 2017. He was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, and he is a surrogate for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden's campaign this year.

"The President's early and decisive action to slow the spread of the coronavirus prevented about 60 million infections in the United States and saved up to two million American lives," Sarah Matthews, special assistant to the president and deputy press secretary at the White House, told CNBC via email. "This administration will continue our science-based approach as we continue to safely reopen our economy."

The new strain of coronavirus has infected almost 2 million people in the U.S. and killed more than 112,000 across the country.

A study published on Monday by the University of California at Berkeley claimed that shutdown orders over the last two months helped to prevent almost 5 million additional U.S. coronavirus cases.

However, Kerry told delegates at the event on Monday that poor leadership in China and the U.S., as well as Trump's attacks on the WHO, "significantly" delayed the type of global response the pandemic had warranted, adding that there had also been a failure among world leaders in the handling of the crisis.

"Any leader could have stood up within the G-20 and said 'we're the most developed nations, we have the biggest resources, we're going to be the most impacted because of the way we live, therefore we've got to move.' And that didn't happen," he said.

However, Kerry acknowledged that there are "some things that only the United States can do," recalling the Obama administration's response to the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014.

"I will never forget sitting in the situation room being told that 1 million people were going to die over four months if something didn't happen," he said.

"President Obama immediately deployed 4,000 troops to West Africa. We didn't know what we didn't know, but we knew we had to summon a global response. So in the end with Ebola, 11,000 people died  11,000 too many, it's a tragedy, but it's not a million."

Trump, on the other hand, had handled the current health crisis "cavalierly" and "recklessly," Kerry claimed.

"President Obama put together a playbook for any administration that followed us  it happened to be the Trump administration  and they threw it away, they ignored it," he said. "This was a denial of science. It was a denial of experts. It was a denial of facts and evidence by procrastinators, by deniers, by people who want to live with an alternative reality."

Under Trump's leadership, Kerry said, the U.S. had surrendered its power to lead other nations on the values and principles that had been in place since the end of World War II.

"The United States has obviously been very hurt in the last few years with respect to that leadership, and it hasn't been present," he said. "The United States has reneged on its role as leader of the free world and today, frankly, there is no leader of the free world."

Trump has slumped in voter polls amid the Covid-19 outbreak, but the president has openly blamed the WHO and China for the spread of the virus, claiming they mishandled the initial outbreak.

The new strain of coronavirus is thought to have originated in a wildlife market, or wet market, in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where it was first recorded in late December.

China has since faced accusations that it withheld critical information on Covid-19 from the WHO and delayed reporting the new strain of coronavirus to the organization.

Although Chinese leader Xi Jinping has argued the country acted with transparency throughout the crisis, China is resisting complying with a WHO investigation into the global handling of the pandemic.

The Chinese ambassador to the U.K. told Sky News last month that China would allow an investigation into the outbreak  "but not now."
New Delhi: Even as Indian and Chinese military commanders are busy holding talks to resolve the border standoff in eastern Ladakh, Zee News has tried to peep into the real face of the Chinese Army, popularly known as People's Liberation Army (PLA). On contrary to India, China has made compulsory military service for its citizens which is its strength as well its weakness.

Those who refuse to follow this diktat have to face harsh punishment. Chinese people dislike their army as they are recruited forcibly. For every youth in China, it is mandatory to spare two years for military services whether they like it or not. According to reports, about 35 percent of youth in the Chinese army are forced to become soldiers.

After completing their training, these youth are made to work as bonded labourers of the Chinese army. The military service in India, however, is not compulsory, but youth here nourish a dream to get recruited in the Army.

In China, these forcibly made soldiers have no way to escape from the Chinese military. The story of a Chinese youth, named Zhang Moukang, from Hainan province exposes the real face of the PLA. After joining the Chinese army, Zhang decided to leave it within a month but it was not easy for him to do so.

The incident took place in December last year when China was busy hiding information about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. The matter was a topic of debate across the world because of punishment one has to undergo. These punishments are:

1. First of all, that person's name is put on the list of infamous people in China. Getting into such a list means that such a person cannot go abroad. He cannot buy any land. He cannot sit on flights. He cannot travel long-distance trains or buses. He can neither get a loan nor get any insurance service. All these restrictions apply for two years.

2. The second punishment is that the person who refuses military service cannot get a government job again. This restriction is not for a year or two, but for his whole life. If a person has a permanent job in a government company, then even if he cannot work temporarily.

3. Such a person is never given the chance to join the army again in his lifetime. He is labeled as being rejected by the army. It is also a life sentence for that person and his family socially because of his refusal to join the army.

4. The fourth punishment is that the youth cannot go to college again. He can't restart his studies, and he is banned from going to college for two years.

5. The fifth punishment is that the person fails to get an opportunity as priority is usually given to the Chinese soldiers.

6. Under the sixth punishment, that person has to pay back the expenditure on military training, besides paying a fine. Together, he has to pay about $8000 or about Rs 6 lakh.

7. That person is also not allowed to do business for at least two years. He is thus made helpless from every side.

8. He is also publicly humiliated in China. The official media and social media disseminate information about him and the punishment he received.

With such a punishment, no Chinese citizen can dare to refuse military service.
[June 10, 2020] Go Cloud, Go Global: HUAWEI CLOUD Leads Asia Pacific Internet Enterprises to Expand Internationally

SINGAPORE, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HUAWEI CLOUD Asia Pacific Internet Industry Summit Online has successfully concluded, where the global tech giant has announced a series of comprehensive strategies that help enterprises in the region to go further on the international stage with its renowned and innovative technologies in 5G, cloud and AI. Themed "Go Cloud, Go Global," the Summit has highlighted the upcoming plans of expanding an ecosystem where Huawei brings users, customers, scholars, experts, businesses and community members together to leverage Huawei's cloud, AI, 5G and Internet solutions for the shared success. These plans include the establishment of a global Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem with incentives worth US$100 million for better resource deployment to support more internet companies in the region, to go global. "Leveraging global network connectivity, services, and ecosystems, HUAWEI CLOUD offers a globally available, trustworthy, open platform that helps Internet companies expand their businesses internationally," said Mark Chen, Director of the International Business Department at HUAWEI CLOUD. Currently, 228 out of Global 500 companies, and 58 of 100 world's top enterprises have selected Huawei as their trusted partner for digital transformation. With the ecosystems, partners and developers can leverage services on HUAWEI CLOUD plus the likes of AI, 5G and big data to support intelligent applications. Many enterprises in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are successfully going global with Huawei's unfailing support. At the event, Huawei has also announced its Brilliant Plan program - a global scheme of ecosystem that begins in the APAC region - that is set to create an alliance between Internet companies and global telecoms by leveraging the firm's global presence and its 20 years of experience in the region. "Huawei aims to build an ecosystem that will make it easier for Internet companies to develop partnerships with local telcos," Zhang Jing, Director of Carrier Business and Network Consultancy Department at Huawei Asia-Pacific, explained. "This will greatly facilitate their entry to new markets." Domestic partners applauded the comprehensive support by Huawei. SHAREit, for instance, is a one-stop content distribution platform gaining increasing popularity worldwide, with a global use base of over 1.8 billion and 6 billion MAUs. "HUAWEI CLOUD supports us with a high-performance infrastructure. Its big data services and AI-powered intelligent recommendation service allow us to deliver a personalized experience to our users," said Henry Yu, Data R&D Director of SHAREit. Such access indeed represents tremendous business opportunities, as supported by Huawei Cloud's 2020 Go Global White Paper for Internet Companies, which has also been released in the Summit. The Paper highlights the prospects and challenges for the Internet-related industry. In particular, mobile gaming operators, such as NetEase Games, saw unstoppable growth amid the lockdown due to the pandemic. Robust cloud services can therefore lead to favorable growth of the segment. "In our case, you could say HUAWEI CLOUD has been 'plowing the road' for us, in a sense that we often choose to roll out our games in regions where HUAWEI CLOUD data centers are present," detailed Wang Xi, CEO, Booming Games of NetEase Games. The Summit has connected experts from more than 10 Asia Pacific countries sharing their insights on the industry landscape and its changes, plus the importance of an ecosystem which allows information and innovation sharing, as well as talent cultivation. Huawei has also introduced an array of solutions to support digital transformation in different scales, and elaborated further on how collaborations can actually help drive the development of the technology sectors. HUAWEI CLOUD has developed rapidly, providing stable, reliable and sustainable cloud services to enterprises and organizations. According to IDC recent report that HUAWEI CLOUD ranked third in the Asia-Pacific hybrid cloud market and became the major cloud service in the Asia-Pacific market[1]. For more information about the Asia Pacific Internet Industry Summit, please visit https://activity.huaweicloud.com/intl/en-us/go_global_Summit/index.html About HUAWEI CLOUD HUAWEI CLOUD is committed to providing stable, secure, reliable, and sustainable cloud services to help organizations grow in the intelligent world.







[1] Building a Successful Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Report, IDC, April 2020

SOURCE HUAWEI CLOUD

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For the assignment, I drove two hours from my home in Richmond, Va., to Lynchburg. I got there early, before 9 a.m. I had to work quickly and efficiently because my husband was working from home and because of the virus, we had no child care options. I would work in the morning. He would work in the evening when I got home.

I tried to be present in the work and take photos that accurately represented what I saw: a nearly empty campus with a few scattered clusters of students.

In the early afternoon, I headed back to Richmond. A week passed.

Soon, the news of the warrant for my arrest appeared on Twitter. By Tuesday, I felt like I had been thrown into the middle of the Covid-19 culture war. Some friends messaged me that I was so brave. A woman on Twitter said the arrest warrant meant that Im doing something right. To a lot of others I was fake news or worse.People were commenting on my story all over Twitter. I received more hateful emails than I ever had in my life.

One read: You media scum are indeed the enemy of the people  its about time some Justice was served against your non stop continual attacks against Conservatives. You feel you can act with impunity while hiding behind the 1st Amendment.

The truth is, I didnt feel very brave. The maximum sentence for trespassing was a year in jail. I thought about the permanent damage my incarceration would probably do to my sons.
It is using the same technologies it used to make its experimental Ebola vaccine, which was provided to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in late 2019. It involves combing genetic material from the coronavirus with a modified adenovirus that is known to cause common colds in humans.

"Based on the strength of the preclinical data we have seen so far and interactions with the regulatory authorities, we have been able to further accelerate the clinical development of our investigational SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, Ad26.COV2-S, recombinant," J&J's Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels said in a press release.

Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday its early-stage human trial for a potential coronavirus vaccine will begin in the second half of July, earlier than its initial forecast of September.

J&J said earlier this year that if the vaccine works well and is safe it could produce 600 million to 900 million doses by April 2021. The company said Wednesday it is committed to the goal of supplying more than 1 billion doses globally through the course of 2021, provided the vaccine is safe and effective.

J&J's early-stage trial will test its vaccine on 1,045 healthy adults ages 18 to 55 years as well as adults ages 65 years and older. It will take place in the United States and Belgium.

The effort by J&J is one of several working on a potential vaccine to prevent Covid-19, which has sickened more than 7.2 million people worldwide and killed at least 411,879, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

There are at least 124 Covid-19 vaccines under development as of June 2, according to the World Health Organization. At least 10 of those are already in clinical trials.

The National Institutes of Health has been fast-tracking work with biotech firm Moderna on a potential vaccine to prevent Covid-19.

Moderna expects to enroll about 30,000 people when it begins a phase three trial in July, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Hyderabad: Those with mild symptoms for Covid-19 will not be admitted to Gandhi Hospital, where Covid cases are taken at present, and only the critically and seriously ill will be admitted as cases increase in the next 14 days. With not enough beds, the seriously ill must get priority.

This decision was taken by senior government doctors who are expecting a surge in cases as unlocking is leading to faster spread of the coronavirus.

Mild symptoms are categorised as fever, cough, cold, diarrhoea, and vomiting, for which normal medicines have helped recovery. If the fever goes down after three to five days that means the viral load is reducing and the patient is on the way to recovery.

Government doctors say that those with mild symptoms should be isolated at home. The term home isolation means that the patient has to be in a separate room with bathroom and no other person from the family must stay in the same room. Food and water for the patient should be kept at the room door. The patient and all family members must wear masks at home for all the 14 days of isolation. They have to strictly follow the protocol of sanitisation and social distance.

A senior government doctor explained, Those who do not have a separate room will be kept in Nature Cure Hospital, Gachibowli centre and other places that have been identified by government. Those who want to go to private hospitals can also go there.

Private hospitals are taking all patients whether mild or critical. But their intensive care units and isolation units designated for Covid-19 patients are already full.

A senior doctor of a private hospital said home based isolation treatment is offered for those who have a separate room at home. We are opting for video-conference with the patient. The numbers are very few but we have started so that the option can be available as cases rise in the next few weeks.

A separate team of paramedical staff is also being readied along with a team to provide home based treatment. Due to the stigma attached to the disease, this is only a stand-by system created by private hospitals.

With 10 per cent of Covid-19 patients having co-morbid conditions of uncontrolled diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, cancer, respiratory illness, auto-immune diseases and others, the incidence of hypoxia, that is, less oxygen levels in the blood, is bound to increase.

Dr K K Aggarwal, past president of the Indian Medical Association explains that after fever, silent hypoxia occurs, where the person looks absolutely fine but is actually having much less oxygen in the blood. For this reason, in fevers we are now checking oxygen levels with pulse oximeter and if the oxygen level is less than 90, then it means that there is need for oxygen in the body. This development gives a window period of 5 to 12 hours. A ventilator is not the answer as these patients require oxygen.

In Hyderabad, people have walked into private hospitals with readings of 80 on the pulse oximeter and were given oxygen and are recovering.

With more patients expected, doctors must find ways to access oxygen and be prepared to administer it to patients who need it. This will go a long way in avoiding complications and mortality.

A senior doctor, who did not want to be named, pointed out: Those who die in the hospital will be counted as dead, but what about those who die at home? And how many from the villages will be able to make it to healthcare centres? The exact numbers will not be known, only the rising incidence will be recorded.
Dutch owners of historic sailing vessels set out to sea to protest the coronavirus pandemics effect on tourism.

In the Netherlands, a fleet of historical sailing ships is staging an unusual protest.

They want the government to do something to help them maintain their boats, which have found a new life as tourist vessels.

With the coronavirus pandemic and physical distancing measures making it impossible to achieve the volume they need, the owners fear they will lose their ships.

Al Jazeeras Step Vaessen reports from Muiden in the Netherlands.
The usage of racism to specifically describe the intersection of race-based prejudice with social and institutional oppression is becoming more and more common among English users, he wrote.

After several more exchanges, in which Ms. Mitchum questioned whether their sources reflected a diverse society, Mr. Chambers confirmed that the dictionary would revise the entry after the editorial staff discussed it and agreed more nuance was needed. Ms. Mitchums exchange with the editor at the dictionary was reported by KMOV-TV on June 8.

Mr. Chambers said they are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations.

While our focus will always be on faithfully reflecting the real-world usage of a word, not on promoting any particular viewpoint, we have concluded that omitting any mention of the systemic aspects of racism promotes a certain viewpoint in itself, he said. It also does a disservice to readers of all races.

Mr. Sokolowski said the revision will sharpen the language in the second section to better illustrate the ways racism can be systemic, and to include some examples. The point, he said, was to make the entrys wording less opaque.

We will make the idea of systemic or institutional racism even more explicit in the wording of the definition, he said. One way to do that, he said, would be to use more examples, such as describing the system of apartheid in South Africa. (Because of space issues, he said, the print entry will probably not have as many examples.)

The systemic elements of racism have become a central point of the protests that have spread throughout the country after the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minnesota. Increasingly, policymakers are re-examining demands to dismantle institutional barriers and policies, and public support for the Black Lives Matter movement has sharply risen.
These historic churches are closed to tourists, at least for now

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When many readers think of old churches and cathedrals they think of Europe.

The architectural masterpieces in northern Europe are generally Romanesque or Gothic in style as opposed to the more common classical or baroque edifices of southern Europe.

In many destinations, historic churches are among the most visited attractions. Think Westminster Abbey in London or Trier Cathedral, Germanys oldest church.

But coronavirus forced churches and cathedrals to close their doors, both to public worship and tourists.

Months later, countries across Europe are slowly reopening. This includes churches, museums and other cultural attractions.

However, Britain and France  arguably the two most popular summer destinations for American tourists  remain effectively closed, thanks to mandatory quarantine policies.

France lifted restrictions on local travel, though foreigners are still subject to quarantine through July 24, according to CNN. Its a similar situation across the English Channel in Britain, where the government only now imposed a quarantine.

As a result, it is all but impossible to visit some of the finest churches in all of Christendom this summer, unless you plan a trip for August or September. By then, things may be fully open.

Here is a guide to some of the places you cant visit right now, but should visit as soon as the situation changes.

Mont Saint-Michel

This tidal island  St. Michaels Mount in English  off the coast of Normandy is both iconic and remarkable. Some even call it magical for its almost fairy tale cityscape.

Centered around a medieval abbey dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, it may be the most picturesque spot in all of France. Long before tourists discovered it, religious pilgrims flocked here for centuries.

As with so many other destinations, Mont Saint-Michel is the kind of place you want to spend the night as walking the cobblestone streets after day trippers depart is a completely different experience.

Ramsgate, England

Ramsgate has underwent a revival in recent years after decades of decline. This quintessential English seaside town was home to Augustus W.N. Pugin.

Arguably the most important Victorian church architect, he championed Gothic Revival. The style, identified by its pointed arches, has become almost universally associated with churches.

Pugins legacy can be discovered  at least when Ramsgate reopens to tourists  at St. Augustines Church.

The edifice, which belongs to the Roman Catholics, is a textbook example of Gothic Revival. Pugins work here and elsewhere would be imitated by architects well the 20th-century.

St. Magnus Cathedral

Built after a Norse earl by the name of Magnus Erlendsson was martyred some 900 years ago, when the Orkney islands in present-day Scotland were part of Scandinavia, St. Magnus Cathedral is spectacular.

Despite being called a cathedral, it is, technically speaking, no longer a cathedral since there are no bishops under the presbyterianism of the Scottish church. Regardless, the mostly Romanesque architecture  massive piers in the interior and rounded arches  date to the 12th-century, when this was the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric.

Besides St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall is delightfully charming and the perfect place to explore the rest of Orkney.

Spires and Crosses is a weekly travel column. Follow @dennislennox on Twitter and Instagram.
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Scientists sequencing the virus samples from the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Scotland have determined multiple introductions, mainly from European countries such as Italy, Austria and Spainand showed that Scotland's first introductions of the virus likely occurred prior to the country's first confirmed case on March 1st.

In order to provide timely information during this critical period, this research has been published on medRxiv and the full pre-print study. It should be noted that the findings have not yet been peer-reviewed.

By looking at full genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the researchers found that the virus was introduced at least 113 times during the first four weeks of the outbreak in Scotland, mainly from other European countries. The confirmed travel-associated introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into Scotland predated both UK travel restrictions and extensive restrictions in other European countries.

Some of the inferred introductions of the virus were not associated with reported travel, so the authors conclude that several early introductions of the virus were undetected and quickly established community transmission in Scotland. A dramatic shift from travel-associated to sustained community transmission was apparent from the 11th of March, 10 days after the first detected case.

The study investigated the emergence of the virus in Scotland during March. The researchers obtained full genome sequences from 466 individuals using next generation sequencing technology in real-time of 20% of all confirmed diagnoses of the disease.

Emma Thomson, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, said: "Our study confirms SARS-CoV-2 entered the Scottish population through at least 113 separate travel-related introductions, leading to multiple clusters of sustained community transmission. We identified viral lineages with no link to travel as early as three days after the first detection of infection, indicating earlier introduction to Scotland and community spread before the first detected case."

"The emergence of continental Europe as the epicenter of the global COVID pandemic was a clear driver of the Scottish outbreak, with the majority of the lineages detected in this study related to European sequences. Cases with links to China and other countries in South-East Asia were comparatively not detected."

"The speed at which the virus took hold in Scotland and the UK as a whole following multiple introductions, mainly from other European countries, was extremely rapid. It is possible an earlier lockdown from countries with a high burden of cases, such as Italy, and other measures such as quarantine of travelers from high-risk areas, might have prevented escalation of the outbreak and multiple clusters of ongoing community transmission."

"Tracking the new coronavirus using sequencing and phylo-epidemiological analysis may help to inform our current response and the effect of public health interventions in real-time and is a tool that can be used to understand future infectious disease outbreaks of this nature."

The genomic sequencing of pathogens, has become a core component of the epidemiological response to virus outbreaks, for example Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Zika in South and Central America. In this study, researchers at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research who have been using this technology in Uganda switched to sequencing the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Scotland, alongside NHS partners at the West of Scotland Specialist Virology Centre and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. The resulting data gives scientists enhanced knowledge of the origin and transmission of the disease, and by analyzing the introductions of COVID-19 in Scotland, the information on the extent and spread of the virus can help inform targeted public health interventions.

Prof Thomson added: "As the number of cases subside in Scotland, our sequence data can provide a baseline for real-time sequencing of ongoing infections, which can act as a measure for policymakers of the success of current measures and contribute to the easing, or tightening, of public health measures."

Dr. Kate Templeton, Consultant Clinical Scientist, University of Edinburgh, said: "The introduction of this sequencing approach has been a great collaboration between the University of Glasgow and University of Edinburgh. The work in Edinburgh for this study was only possible from joint working with University and NHS scientists. The ongoing work is reliant on contributions from NHS clinical and diagnostic laboratory staff across Scotland. Their efforts have helped us build up a truly national picture of the introduction and ongoing spread of the virus, and will provide important information to guide policymakers in how to respond to this pandemic."

During the period of sampling (February 28, 2020 to April 1, 2020), 2310 positive cases of COVID-19 were detected (Scotland Open Data, statistics.gov.scot). These confirmed infections were associated with 1832 hospital admissions, 207 intensive care admissions and 126 deaths.

The study, "Genomic epidemiology during the first month of SARS-CoV-2 spread in Scotland highlights the role of European travel in COVID-19 emergence," is published in medRxiv.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Ana Da Silva Filipe et al. Genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 spread in Scotland highlights the role of European travel in COVID-19 emergence, (2020). Ana Da Silva Filipe et al. Genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 spread in Scotland highlights the role of European travel in COVID-19 emergence,(2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.06.08.20124834
White blood cells called neutrophils, tagged with fluorescent red dye, eat spheres or rods that have been tagged with green dye. Because neutrophils are more willing to eat rods than are other immune cells, an injection of rod-shaped particles could be used to target neutrophils specifically. Earlier work in mice from the Eniola-Adefeso group suggests that injections of spheres can reduce excessive inflammation in the lungs. Credit: Hanieh Safari, Eniola-Adefeso Lab, University of Michigan.

A long-ignored white blood cell may be central to the immune system overreaction that is the most common cause of death for COVID-19 patientsand University of Michigan researchers found that rod-shaped particles can take them out of circulation.

The No. 1 cause of death for COVID-19 patients echoes the way the 1918 influenza pandemic killed: their lungs fill with fluid and they essentially drown. This is called acute respiratory distress syndrome. But a new way of drawing immune cells out of the lungs might be able to prevent this outcome. This research is among the essential projects at U-M that have continued through the pandemic uninterrupted.

ARDS is a manifestation of a condition known as cytokine storm, in which the immune system overreacts and begins attacking the person's own organs. In ARDS, out-of-control white blood cells break down lung tissue and cause fluid to build up. Helping to lead the charge is a type of white blood cell called the neutrophil, which makes up 60% to 70% of intruder-eating "phagocyte" cells in humans.

"They're like the Coast Guardtheir main job is to make sure your boundaries aren't breached," said Lola Eniola-Adefeso, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor and a professor of chemical engineering, who led the research.

Neutrophils aren't specialized, which enables them to respond to many threats, she explained. But sometimes, that lack of specialization means they don't know when to quit.

"As long as there's cues, neutrophils keep acting. In some instances, the feedback loop is broken, and that turns what is meant to be a good response into a bad response," Eniola-Adefeso said.

One of their actions is to emit signaling molecules called cytokines that tell cells to break down barriers and let blood and fluid into a problem site. When that response turns bad, the neutrophils need to be stopped so that other cells can step in and repair the damage.

Previously, Eniola-Adefeso's group showed that plastic microparticles injected into the blood of mice could distract neutrophils, diverting them away from areas of severe inflammation in their lungs. The neutrophils would grab the particle and head to the liver to dispose of it. Microplastics used in this way eased ARDS in mice.

But any type of phagocyte might take up a sphere, which means a sphere-based therapy is likely to affect other parts of the immune response. However, it was already known that other phagocytes aren't fond of rod-shaped particles. Eniola-Adefeso said they "get lazy" with the long wrapping process around a rod.

"We asked, do neutrophils also have a disdain for eating rods?" she said. "We found the complete opposite. They actually have a preference for eating rods."

And that preference is useful for targeting neutrophils and leaving other white blood cells to do their jobs. They found that when they offered rods to different phagocytes, 80% of the neutrophils ate them, whereas only 5% to 10% of other phagocytes did. The comparisons included macrophages, another cell that eats intruders, and dendritic cells, which capture intruders and then show the other immune cells what to look for.

The team is currently exploring whether neutrophil-distracting particles can be made from medications rather than plastic. Eniola-Adefeso is now working with the U-M Office of Technology Transfer to advance her delivery system toward clinical trials, in hopes that it may prove useful in the fight against COVID-19. U-M has applied for patent protection and has launched a start-up company, Asalyxa.

Eniola-Adefeso is also a professor of biomedical engineering and professor of macromolecular science and engineering.

The paper is titled, "Neutrophils preferentially phagocytose elongated particlesopportunity for selective targeting in acute inflammatory diseases," and is published in the journal Science Advances.

Explore further Nanoparticles can limit inflammation by distracting the immune system

More information: "Neutrophils preferentially phagocytose elongated particlesOpportunity for selective targeting in acute inflammatory diseases" Science Advances (2020). Journal information: Science Advances "Neutrophils preferentially phagocytose elongated particlesOpportunity for selective targeting in acute inflammatory diseases"(2020). advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/24/eaba1474
The Nigerian police say they have arrested a man after 40 people were raped in one town over the period of a year.

A mother in the northern town Dangora caught the man in her childrens bedroom, according to police spokesman Abdullahi Haruna. The man ran away but neighbours gave chase and caught him, he added.

The man was arrested on Tuesday.

The police say the spate of rapes included an attack on an 80-year-old and children as young as 10 years old.

There has been a recent wave of rapes and killing of women in Nigeria, which have led to a national outcry, with thousands signing a petition and using the hashtag #WeAreTired.

Dangora is a small town in Kano state about 85 kilometres (55 miles) south-west of Kano city, making it difficult for police to access, reports the BBCs Mansur Abubakar from Kano.

The chief of the town, Ahmadu Yau, said the arrest is a welcome development.

People of Dangora are so happy at this time and we hope justice will be served appropriately.

Residents told the BBC that they had lived the last year in fear, even in their own homes, because they had heard that a serial rapist was climbing fences and raping women indoors.

We can now sleep with our eyes closed, one woman told the BBC.

--BBC
Beyond the strain of trying to keep an influx of very sick people alive and losing so many of them, there are other stressors: economic concerns, additional home-life responsibilities, such as child care, as well as the sadness that comes with being unable to perform the usual rituals for the dead, like gathering at the bedside for a moment of silence and then doing a mental health check on those involved in the patient's care. It's so sad to see the absence of these rituals, because they have meaning, Gidwani says. They are a process of closure, but there is not time and no practical way to do them now.

And fears of becoming infected or infecting one's family after so much exposure at work and assuaging worried family members are pervasive. Alicia Kowalski, M.D., professor of anesthesiology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, said that although her residency in anesthesiology was intense and stressful, working in this pandemic elevates the tension and pressure to a completely different level.

"I have colleagues who have separated from their home and identified alternative living conditions in an effort to prevent exposing their loved ones, Kowalski says.

Preventing long-term trauma

Freid describes professionals dedicated to helping their patients fight the virus who sometimes don't prioritize their own mental health. I think they feel they will deal with that later, she says.

Dealing with it later, however, isn't ideal when it comes to trauma. Robert John Sawyer, medical director for Professional Staff Experience at Ochsner Health in New Orleans, says it's better to talk about what you're feeling and digest the experience. Ninety-five percent of people will not generally get PTSD from any kind of a traumatic event, he notes, adding that in traumatized populations, such as prisoners of war and Holocaust survivors, the incidence of PTSD is only about 5 or 10 percent.

"I don't want people to come away worried they're going to get PTSD, like it's an infection, Sawyer emphasizes. There are a lot of important things to do to prevent these memories from repeatedly coming back.

Focusing on positive experiences

Sawyer says it's important to prevent negative experiences from swallowing the positive ones. In other words, when talking about the trauma of losing patients, health care workers should also speak about the people they were able to comfort or help recover.

Amy Gabrielle Judge, a nurse at Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, says that one of the most difficult things she's had to do in a job in which she's seen everything from gunshot wounds to tuberculosis is put patients on ventilators while treating them for COVID-19  a frightening sign that their cases are critical. On the bright side, she adds, our hospital plays the song Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles when a patient comes off of a ventilator and Pocketful of Sunshine by Natasha Bedingfield when a COVID-19 patient is discharged. These songs send a signal of hope throughout the hospital.

Self-care

Jagdish Khubchandani, associate chair and professor of health sciences at Ball State University in Muncie, has studied stress in nurses and says research has shown that health care workers are better able to cope with hardship if they focus on their well-being - through exercise, healthy eating, participation in support groups and telecounseling.

And several health care workers interviewed said they rely on physical activities like walking, running, bike riding and reconnecting with nature to help them decompress and transition from one environment to another. You need intentional strategies to shift your mindset from going to work to [staying] home, Sawyer explains, adding that people are less likely to develop PTSD when they recognize their power to self-soothe in healthy ways, rather than refusing to talk about what's on their mind and relying on alcohol or sedatives to relax.

Therapy

For health care workers who are having first-time panic attacks, flashbacks or bad dreams, therapy and intentional strategies to settle the nervous system sooner rather than later can be beneficial. These may include deep breathing or relaxation exercises to make it easier to fall asleep. If you already have baseline anxiety, you may be more likely to struggle with this, Sawyer says. Reconnect with a prior counselor or someone new. It may only take a few sessions. And all mental health providers are doing telehealth, so it's at the touch of your fingertips with your phone.

Freid says that in her practice she uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) along with behavior modification techniques and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), which teaches the finest details of being in the present moment. She advises her patients to hold their heartbreaking feelings in one hand and honor them, rather than fighting them. The more we fight symptoms, the stronger they become. And she counsels them to hold hope and solutions in their other hand, asking,  What can you do today to help yourself feel better?  and offering techniques that a patient can apply right there in the moment and carry out into the world after the session.
First, the bad news. As migrant workers head for home and an immediate labour shortage looms for industries reopening their factories, the hiring outlook for the year ahead looks grim. A global manpower survey has shown that Indias net employment outlook for the July-September quarter is just 5 per cent, the lowest in 15 years.

But heres the good news  such as it is: India is among a group of four out of the 44 countries in the survey to project a hiring trend. Japan, China, and Taiwan are the others. All the same, this meagre growth leaves the country with the old ...
KT Logo Courtesy of KT



By Kim Hyun-bin



KT, the country's second-largest mobile carrier, is taking the initiative to aid its partner firms in better protecting their technology and trade secrets from being leaked.



To better elevate security standards in the digital age, KT CEO Ku Hyeon-mo has signed an agreement with Park Won-ju, head of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) as well as the company's two partner firms Hi Tech and DKI Technology.



In collaboration, KT and KIPO seek to ease the burden of mid-size and venture companies regarding technology and trade secret leaks.



The agreement is designed to better protect conglomerates and their partner firms' key technical data and business secrets. With support from the KIPO, partner firms will be able to establish a business secret management system.



"The agreement will strengthen protection between conglomerates and their partner firms and I hope it can help establish a security management system," Park said.



The KIPO chose KT to lead the project, as the company cooperates with numerous partner firms and shares or jointly develops state-of-the-art technologies with them, making it imperative to maintain top security.



Over the years, KT has working hard to protect its partner firms' key technologies, and those actions have been highly evaluated by KIPO.



In 2015, KT initiated the "business secret original proof service" aimed to help small and mid-size partner firms to better protect its self-developed technologies. In 2018, the company established a formal guideline and manual to better manage key technologies and ideas.



In addition, the company offers partner firms ideas, advice and know-how in managing technical data. It became the first among the three major telecom companies to establish an automatic management system to better manage technical data.



Under the agreement the KIPO and KT will provide necessary support in consulting, education and management system establishment to better protect their business secrets. The partner firms will be in charge of educating employees to better protect their technological assets.



"KT will work to help small to mid-size companies and venture businesses to be able to better manage their technical assets and business secrets," CEO Ku said.


Around the world, governments are moving to correct an historical inequality that dates back to the birth of digital media platforms.

In April 2020 alone, Australia and France both announced plans to make sure Google and Facebook pay their fair share, instead of exploiting tax loopholes while making billions of dollars off the back of original content producers.

We, the undersigned publishers representing the vast majority of Canadian newspapers, call on Ottawa to follow the example of France and Australia.

The situation is urgent, with media companies suffering huge advertising revenue declines because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Other governments recognize the need for speedy intervention. Both France and Australia have set deadlines to have mandatory solutions in place by July. That means paying for copyrighted content and sharing the advertising dollars and data that flow from it.

We encourage the Federal Government to follow the advice of its own expert panel set up to review the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Acts, which recommended similar measures. The model exists. Th e need is clear. Let's apply those principles of fairness in Canada, and do it now.

Respectfully,

John Boynton

CEO, Torstar



Bob Cox

Publisher, Winnipeg Free Press



Phillip Crawley

Publisher and CEO, The Globe and Mail



James C. Irving

Vice President, BNI



Jonathon J.L. Kennedy

President and CEO, Glacier Media Group



Pierre-Elliott Levasseur

President, La Presse



Andrew MacLeod

CEO, Postmedia



Bryan Myles

CEO, Le Devoir



Rick O'Connor

President and CEO, Black Press Media



Lyne Robitaille

President and Editor, Le Journal de Quebec


President Trumps infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci issued a grim assessment of the coronavirus Tuesday, calling the ongoing pandemic his worst nightmare and insisting the fight against its spread is far from over.

The bleak admission from Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, comes as states across the US continue with their gradual reopening efforts amid widespread protests over the police killing of George Floyd.

In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world, Fauci said of COVID-19 during a virtual appearance at a Biotechnology Innovation Organization conference. And it isnt over yet.

As of Tuesday, confirmed coronavirus cases in the US are heading towards two million and more than 111,000 have died.

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President Trumps infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci issued a grim assessment of the coronavirus Tuesday, calling the ongoing pandemic his worst nightmare and insisting the fight against its spread is far from over

The bleak admission from Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, comes as states across the US continue with their gradual reopening efforts

Reopenings have come amid widespread protests across the US over the police killing of George Floyd

The White House advisor said although he knew it was possible for a devastating outbreak like this could occur, he was surprised by how rapidly he took over the planet.

An efficiently transmitted disease can spread worldwide in six months or a year, but this took about a month, Fauci said.

Fauci continued that still so little is known about the virus, how it can be contracted or spread and the specific impact it may have on the human body.

He said the coronavirus is far more complicated than HIV  a disease he has dedicated his career studying  because of its varying degrees of severity, ranging from asymptomatic carriers to patients who develop fatal conditions.

Oh my goodness, Fauci responded. Where is it going to end? Were still at the beginning of really understanding.

The nations top coronavirus expert added that vaccines will be the only way to completely curb the coronavirus spread, however he did voice confidence that an antidote would be found soon.

Fauci said hes expecting more than one winner in the vaccine field because we will need vaccines for the entire world  billions and billions of doses, he said.

The White House advisor said although he knew it was possible for an outbreak like this could occur, he was surprised by how rapidly he took over the planet

Im very heartened by the fact that the industry has stepped to the plate  very much differently than what we saw with SARS, Fauci continued. The industry is not stupid  they figured it out. SARS had a degree of transmissibility that it burned itself out with pure public health measures. No way is that going to happen with this virus.

The doctor said COVID-19 shines a bright light on the health disparities in the US, warning that as the country begins to rear its head from the public health crisis, resources must be readily available for the most vulnerable communities.

Fauci identified African Americans as a particularly vulnerable group, who, because of a number of different factors - including socioeconomic and employment  have been getting hit with a double whammy of the virus.

[African Americans] have a greater proportion of jobs that dont allow them to sit in front of a computer and do telework. Theyre out there, theyre doing a lot of things physically where you to have interact, Fauci said.
This statement comes from the Peoples Democratic League (PDL) in Sierra Leone, to declare support for Russias call for a political settlement to the brutal conflict in Libya, which has claimed over one and half million Africans in that country. Our understanding is that Russia wants to prevent the escalation of the conflict and is pressing for a swift political resolution to save lives.

Libya is currently facing its most daunting set of challenges since the brutal murder of Colonel Muammar Qathafi in October 2011. The North African nation is split between foreign terrorist mercenaries and the poor African masses. The country is also divided into two camps-those who are hell-bent on looting and those spilling the blood of innocent Africans in Libya.

These divisions and genocidal campaigns, and the existence of vulnerable peoples, alongside ongoing battles for raping the countrys resources and wealth and high levels of corruption by the so-called internationally recognized government have contributed to the current security crisis in Libya.

Over one and half million Africans have been killed in the country since the murder of Muammar Qathafi, and the genocidal campaign against Africans in that country has reached unprecedented levels.

The crisis in Libya has rapidly become a complex national, regional, and global issue, requiring a comprehensive response if action to protect the Libyan people is to be effective. The inaction of the African Union has encouraged aggressive foreign governments and terrorist groups to commit acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya. The ongoing fighting and indiscriminate violence have increased mass atrocities, including race purification and mass murder.

Selected violent attacks against Africans, increased terrorism and looting of natural resources and wealth suggest the civilized international community is bearing witness to unreported holocaust campaign in Libya. We want the civilized international community to understand one fact, that the Libyan population is under a multinational terrorist military Gestapo for over nine years now, and have all their rights and freedoms taken away.

The PDL rejects any attempts to turn Libya into a theatre of competition for the looting of resources between other countries. The sacrifices of Russia to see peace, security, and stability in Africa are well appreciated. We know the pathetic situation of Libyan children and their mothers and the aged population. Russia wants to end this nightmare so that Libya could again join the civilized international community. Here we commend also Russia for this bold step, to assist the Libyan people to resolve their differences through a comprehensive political settlement.

History has also not forgotten the Russians and other friendly countries, their priceless roles and sacrifices they made during the bitter colonial and obnoxious apartheid enclave in Africa. We wish to commend President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government for listening to the voice of reason and stands for peace and stability so that the Libyan people can organize elections and vote for a government through free, fair, and honest competition involving all parties.

The Peoples Democratic League (PDL) is of the belief that a just and lasting solution of the brutal conflict in Libya is essential for peace, security, and stability in Africa and the Middle-east.

Russia has no notorious history of killing African leaders, and this is what Russia stands for against injustice and oppression. History has taught us that no conflict ever fought and won in the battlefields, except on the mahogany table.

That is why we are calling on the African Union and African governments to rally behind Russias roadmap for returning of peace and governance in Libya.

Russia without any iota of doubt has heavily invested a huge amount of resources in promoting peace and stability in African, especially its current involvement in the peace process, and ensuring that there is an elected Government in Libya, elected by the Libyan people.

The Peoples Democratic League (PDL) is committed to extending solidarity with the people of Libya in their struggle for peace, justice, and political stability.

Libyan peace matters!

The Libyan people must breathe again!!

Samuel Musa Kalokoh

National Secretary for Administration

Peoples Democratic League (PDL)
The virus crisis has triggered the worst global recession in nearly a century - and the pain is not over yet even if there is no second wave of infections, an international economic report warned Wednesday.

Hundreds of millions of people have lost their jobs, and the crisis is hitting the poor and young people the hardest, worsening inequalities, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in its latest analysis of global economic data.

"It is probably the most uncertain and dramatic outlook since the creation of the OECD," Secretary General Angel Gurria said. "We cannot make projections as as we normally do."

In the best-case scenario, if there is no second wave of infections, the agency forecast a global drop in economic output of 6% this year, and a rise of 2.8% next year.

If the coronavirus re-emerges later in the year, however, the global economy could shrink 7.6%, the OECD said.

"With or without a second outbreak, the consequences will be severe and long- lasting," the report says.

Global stock markets dropped after the release of the report, which is more downbeat than other forecasts from the likes of the World Bank.

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Gurria argued that "presenting the problem as the choice between lives and livelihoods, meaning a choice between health and the economy, is a false dilemma. If the pandemic is not brought under control, there will be no robust economic recovery."

In case of a second wave of contagion, the OECD forecast that the average unemployment rate across the 37 developed countries that it represents would double this year to 10% and see "little recovery" in 2021. In the more optimistic scenario, the figure would be 9.2%. In poorer countries, the numbers are often higher, and informal workers are especially vulnerable.

The agency urged governments to tackle inequalities by investing in health care systems, global cooperation on medical supplies, vaccine and treatments and retraining people whose sectors are the hardest-hit.

The virus has infected 7.2 million people worldwide and killed at least 411,000, according to official figures tallied by Johns Hopkins University. The true toll is believed to be much higher.

AAP
GEICO Hiring Hundreds at Offices Across the Country

GEICO is hiring to fill hundreds of positions at 14 of its regional locations across the country.

The company has career opportunities available in Sales, Service, Claims and Information Technology at its offices in Buffalo, Chevy Chase, Dallas, Fredericksburg, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Lakeland, Macon, North Liberty, San Diego, Tucson, Virginia Beach and Woodbury.







Applications are currently being accepted online; potential candidates can apply by visiting the GEICO Careers homepage at geico.jobs.

With the vast majority of GEICO's 41,000-associate population working from home, all interviewing, hiring, onboarding and training will be done virtually. New hires will also work remotely until the company transitions associates back to offices.

GEICO, a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies, was founded more than 80 years ago and has steadily risen to become the nation's second-largest auto insurer. President and CEO Todd Combs welcomes candidates to consider joining GEICO and helping the company continue to offer the quality service customers have come to expect.

"We are incredibly proud to be able to offer career opportunities at a time when many Americans have had their livelihoods taken away by the pandemic," Combs said. "We are fortunate to be a stable company committed to serving our customers, developing associates and supporting our local communities during this challenging time."

GEICO--one of Comparably's 2019 "Top 50 Large Companies for Perks & Benefits" and Indeed.com's "10 Highest-Rated Workplaces for Compensation and Benefits--offers full-time associates its Total Rewards Program, with a wide range of benefits, including health, dental and vision coverage, paid vacation and holidays, parental leave, continuing education and tuition reimbursement. GEICO is a promote-from-within company that offers career growth, a supportive environment and community engagement opportunities.

About GEICO

GEICO (Government Employees Insurance Company), the second-largest auto insurer in the U.S., was founded in 1936 and insures more than 28 million vehicles. For more than 80 years, the company has worked to make people's lives better by protecting policyholders against unexpected events. As GEICO has grown, it has delivered money-saving coverage and outstanding customer service to policyholders through its investment in human resources and technology. GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and has a national workforce of more than 40,000 associates.

Homeowners, renters, condo, flood, identity theft and term life coverage are written through non-affiliated insurance companies and are secured through the GEICO Insurance Agency, Inc. Commercial auto and personal umbrella coverages are also available. Visit www.geico.com for a quote or to learn more.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005533/en/
As the saying goes, first impressions are everything.

And Big Brother intruder Hannah Campbell didn't get off to the best start with some of her female housemates on Wednesday's episode.

In an attempt to break the ice, Hannah jokingly suggested that 22-year-old tradie Talia Rycroft was actually a stripper.

She said what?! Big Brother's first feud erupted on Wednesday as the 'mean girls' plotted to evict intruder Hannah Campbell (left) after she said Talia Rycroft (right) looked like a stripper

Hannah had arrived in a metal cage suspended by a crane, alongside three other contestants, Shane Vincent, Soobong Hwang and Danni Keogh.

Before the newcomers had a chance to introduce themselves, regimental sergeant major Sarah McDougal looked displeased with Hannah's arrival.

The 19-year-old told her housemates she'd found Hannah 'rude', 'not nice' and a 'try-hard' during their group audition for the show.

Just dropping by! Hannah (left, in the pink dress) had arrived in a metal cage suspended by a crane, alongside three other contestants, Shane Vincent, Soobong Hwang and Danni Keogh

Talia said she didn't like her either, adding: 'I feel like she's the type of girl that would get intimated by pretty people.'

'I don't want her in here,' Sarah replied. Talia appeared to agree that Hannah was a threat that needed to be dealt with.

A few hours later, Talia asked the newcomers - who were still locked in their cage as part of an endurance challenge - to guess what she did for a living.

Wrong answer: A few hours later, Talia asked the newcomers - who were still locked in their cage as part of an endurance challenge - to guess what she did for a living. Hannah guessed she was a nurse, doctor or lawyer, before jokingly suggesting Talia was a stripper

Angry: Talia, who is a tradeswoman, was clearly offended by the suggestion. She later told Big Brother in the diary room: 'At this point in time, Hannah needs to earn her respect. Saying that I looked like a stripper... I didn't really like that'

Hannah guessed she was a nurse, doctor or lawyer, before jokingly suggesting Talia was a stripper.

The group laughed, but Talia was clearly offended by the suggestion and clarified that she was a tradie.

'At this point in time, Hannah needs to earn her respect. Saying that I looked like a stripper... I didn't really like that,' she told Big Brother in the diary room afterwards.

'Drama is not going to go well with me,' she continued.

Payback! Talia and Sarah McDougal (right) remained standoffish towards Hannah, and after they won the two-man balance challenge they nominated her for eviction

'Hannah's comment that I was a stripper really p**sed me off. If there is a challenge, I'm going to beat her, I'm going to win, and I'm going to evict her.'

Talia and Sarah remained standoffish towards Hannah, and after they won the two-man balance challenge they nominated her for eviction.

Eighties aerobics star Marissa Rankin, 61, told Hannah to keep her head high and not to worry about the 'jealous and immature' girls in the house.

She added: 'You're pretty and it's competition for the boys.'

Stay out of it, lads! Meanwhile, former AFL player Daniel Gorringe (pictured) recognised Talia had a 'personal vendetta against Hannah', and Ian Joass and Xavier Molyneux didn't understand why the other women disliked Hannah so much

Meanwhile, former AFL player Daniel Gorringe recognised Talia had a 'personal vendetta against Hannah', and Ian Joass and Xavier Molyneux didn't understand why the other women disliked Hannah so much.

Despite Talia campaigning to 'get rid of the b***h', Hannah only received two votes and Soobong was evicted with a total of 12 votes.

Big Brother Australia continues Sunday from 7.30pm on Channel Seven
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Jeyhun Alakbarov  Trend:

During the two-day hard quarantine regime, conditions for dog walking will be created in Azerbaijan, Ibrahim Mammadov, Spokesman for the Cabinet of Ministers, told Trend.

From 00:00 (GMT+4) on June 14 to 06:00 on June 16 it will be forbidden to go outside in the cities of Baku, Sumgayit, Ganja, Lankaran and Absheron region, as well as in Yevlakh, Ismayilli, Kurdamir, Salyan districts, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There is no specific time for walking the dogs. During the toughened quarantine regime stipulated at the end of the week, citizens can walk their dogs. As for the time and number of walks, it depends on the individual citizen who must take into account the current situation and not take advantage of it," said the spokesperson.

Mammadov added that the police will monitor compliance with the requirements of the hard quarantine regime.

At the same time, dog walking in parks and boulevards will not be allowed, Spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police Colonel Ehsan Zahidov told Trend.

"Citizens can only go outside with dogs into the courtyard of their house, and not for long. Police officers exercising control over the enhanced and toughened quarantine regime have taken and will take all necessary measures to ensure the execution of the Operational Headquarters' decision," Zahidov noted.
The last class Joel Sanders taught in person at the Yale School of Architecture, on Feb. 17, took place in the modern wing of the Yale University Art Gallery, a structure of brick, concrete, glass and steel that was designed by Louis Kahn. It is widely hailed as a masterpiece. One long wall, facing Chapel Street, is windowless; around the corner, a short wall is all windows. The contradiction between opacity and transparency illustrates a fundamental tension museums face, which happened to be the topic of Sanderss lecture that day: How can a building safeguard precious objects and also display them? How do you move masses of people through finite spaces so that nothing  and no one  is harmed?

All semester, Sanders, who is a professor at Yale and also runs Joel Sanders Architect, a studio located in Manhattan, had been asking his students to consider a 21st-century goal for museums: to make facilities that were often built decades, if not centuries, ago more inclusive. They had conducted workshops with the gallerys employees to learn how the iconic building could better meet the needs of what Sanders calls noncompliant bodies. By this he means people whose age, gender, race, religion or physical or cognitive abilities often put them at odds with the built environment, which is typically designed for people who embody dominant cultural norms. In Western architecture, Sanders points out, normal has been explicitly defined  by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, for instance, whose concepts inspired Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, and, in Kahns time, by Le Corbusiers Modulor Man  as a youngish, tallish white male.

When the coronavirus crisis prompted Yale to move classes online, Sanderss first thought was: How do you make the content of your class seem relevant during a global pandemic? Why should we be talking about museums when we have more urgent issues to fry? Off campus, built environments and the ways people moved in them began to change immediately in desperate, ad hoc ways. Grocery stores erected plexiglass shields in front of registers and put stickers or taped lines on the floor to create six-foot spacing between customers; as a result, fewer shoppers fit safely inside, and lines snaked out the door. People became hyperaware of themselves in relation to others and the surfaces they might have to touch. Suddenly, Sanders realized, everyone had become a noncompliant body. And places deemed essential were wrestling with how near to let them get to one another. The virus wasnt simply a health crisis; it was also a design problem.

The tensions created by particular persons interacting with particular spaces has long been an interest of Sanderss. I love beautiful things, but Im not interested in form for its own sake, he says. What counts is human experience and human interaction, and how form facilitates that.

The beginning of his career coincided with the AIDS crisis in New York. That time, when as a gay man he felt unwelcome or threatened in public spaces, informed his design ethos. His portfolio includes residences with open, flexible floor plans that allow people to assume different roles  a sitting area could be used for work or leisure, say  and adopt nontraditional family arrangements. About five years ago, as the fight over whether transgender people should have the right to use public bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity became national news, Sanders was struck by the fact that nobody talked about it from a design perspective, he says. And everyone took for granted and accepted sex-segregated bathrooms. How, he wondered, had we ended up with mens and womens rooms in the first place?

Joel Sanders is rethinking the built environment for a post-Covid world. Sharif Hamza for The New York Times

While working on an article with Susan Stryker, a professor of gender and womens studies then at the University of Arizona, he learned that public bathing had been a coed activity at various points in history; so was defecating, which, when it didnt happen in the street or involve a chamber pot, sometimes took place in a separate communal facility. Only with the advent of indoor plumbing and municipal sanitation systems in the 19th century did bathing and eliminating begin to come together. According to the legal scholar Terry Kogan, the first indoor bathrooms that were sex-specific and open to the public appeared in the U.S. in the mid-1800s, where they were extensions of separate parlor spaces for men and women.

Segregating toilets by sex clearly wasnt a biological imperative. It expressed mens and womens social roles in Victorian times. What if, Sanders and Stryker asked, you instead organized that space around the activity being performed and how much privacy it required? The entire bathroom could be an area with no walls or doors except on private stalls near the back. Activities requiring less privacy, like hand-washing, could be located in a middle, openly visible zone. You could make the toilet a space that isnt a sense of heightened danger because theres a closed door and someone who isnt supposed to be there is there, Stryker, who is transgender, says.

Greater visibility, they hoped, would make bathrooms safer for transgender women, who are at increased risk of violence there. Sanders had also begun to encounter others for whom these spaces meant constant anxiety for a number of reasons: wheelchair users, those assisting elderly parents or small children, Muslims performing ablutions, women breastfeeding. It dawned on him how limited his own perspective was, as well as that of the clients he typically consulted on their projects. You need to get the lived experience of the end user, he told me. Thats what architects like me were never trained to do, and were not good at it.

In 2018, Sanders, Stryker and Kogan published their research and prototypes for multiuser, multigender restrooms on a website as part of an initiative they named Stalled! Around the same time, Sanders formed a new branch of his firm called MIXdesign to function as a think tank and consultancy. The goal was to identify those whose needs have rarely been considered in architecture  who might even be avoiding public spaces  and to collaborate with them on recommendations that designers could use to make buildings more welcoming for as many people as possible.

The chaos that Covid-19 has brought to once-familiar places lent an urgency to this mission: Could MIX use the approach it was developing to imagine spaces not just for a wider variety of individuals, but for an entirely new reality?

Architecture has to mediate between the perceived needs of the moment versus the unknowable needs of the future; between the immediate needs of our bodies and the desire to create something that will outlast generations. As public venues begin to reopen, authorities are scrambling to put out advice on how to adapt them for a pandemic. On May 6, the American Institute of Architects first released guidance aiming to provide a range of general mitigation measures to consider, such as moving activities outside and reconfiguring furniture to keep people farther apart indoors. Its far too soon to say how architects will rethink more permanent aspects of projects in progress. I think theres way too much prognostication going on, says Vishaan Chakrabarti, the founder of the architecture firm PAU and the incoming dean of the University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design. Chakrabarti was the planning director for Manhattan under Mayor Bloomberg after Sept. 11. A lot of the fortunetelling that went on then has not aged well, he told me. People said there will never be skyscrapers again and cities are dead. Instead, what changed was increased surveillance and security.

Sanders and MIX have a number of active commissions they are just beginning to revisit with an eye to making them Covid-compliant: A renovation of the SoCal Club, an outreach initiative by the Mens Health Foundation in L.A. that seeks to engage young gay men and transgender men and women of color in medical care, is in progress, undertaken with a local firm; a potential remaking of the Queens Museum entryway is in the preliminary stages.

Rather than respond with temporary barriers or signs, Sanders is trying to use MIXs research process to arrive at designs that minimize the spread of the coronavirus and appeal to diverse users. This, he hopes, will result in buildings that endure, whether or not a vaccine becomes available. MIX is really leading the way on this particular set of issues, Rosalie Genevro, executive director of the Architectural League of New York, told me. There are a lot of people quickly trying to think about spatial life in the Covid era. MIX has the most explicit commitment that Ive seen so far to making sure that thinking is as inclusive as possible.

Soon after founding MIX, Sanders approached Eron Friedlaender, a pediatric emergency-medicine physician at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. From the Queens Museum, Sanders had learned that people with autism found the main atrium  a wide open, reverberant space  especially upsetting. Friedlaender has a teenage son with autism, and she had been looking for ways to make health care facilities more accessible to others on the spectrum, who often find them overwhelming. As a result, they seek medical services less frequently than their peers do and are sicker when they do show up. When the MIX group first started talking about the pandemic, on a video call, the overlap between the anxiety everyone was feeling in public spaces and the anxiety people with autism already feel in those same environments was striking. And the consequences were similar, too. Friedlaender noted that hospitals across the country, including her E.R., had seen a stark drop in their overall number of patients, who, they believe, are still experiencing the same health problems but are too afraid to come in.

The isolation people were suffering while sheltering at home was also familiar to her, she said in an early MIX meeting. People with autism frequently experience loneliness, in part because closeness to others tends to make them uncomfortable, which often keeps them from crowded places. From their perspective, you can be physically distant  by maintaining space between bodies, she told me  and more socially engaged.

That seeming paradox resonated with Hansel Bauman, another MIX member, for a different reason, he told the group. As the former campus architect at Gallaudet University, an institution for students who are deaf and hard of hearing, he needed to double any amount of space typically allocated for hearing people  to give students more room between one another to sign. At Gallaudet, Bauman worked with students and faculty members to come up with DeafSpace, a set of design principles that took into account their needs; they did this by filming hallways and cafeterias, for example, and watching hundreds of hours of interactions there. Corners in the hearing world, he said, are not designed to visually anticipate the movement of others. Sound communicates to hearing people when someone is coming  and in the past it didnt matter as much to them if they missed the signals and brushed against one another. In the Covid world, you bump into somebody coming around the corner and theyre not wearing a mask, Bauman went on, all of a sudden, now theres a potential for infection. DeafSpace recommendations would most likely help: Strategic sight lines; the use of color and light as means of way-finding. Promoting more efficient, less reactive movement was, he said, the kind of thing weve been wrestling with in DeafSpace for the last 15 years.

Designing to promote social distancing, it seemed, could actually make spaces more universally hospitable. But it was harder to guess what the overall effect of other Covid accommodations might be. One thing that has been interesting, as more and more articles are being written about Covid  they dont want the high-powered dryers, Seb Choe, MIXs associate director, noted during a design meeting in late May. Because dryers blow germs around the room. The group had added big windows to one of its prototypes to disinfect surfaces with sunlight, but Bauman pointed out that glare would make it harder for people to see one another, making it especially difficult for deaf users to communicate and causing everyone to potentially draw closer together. He suggested adding, among other things, an overhang outside for shade.

Choe pointed out a news story that day that re-emphasized the C.D.C.s guidance that the virus is not transmitted as easily through surface contact as it is through the air. Maybe sunshine wasnt as much of a priority anymore? Indeed, the following week, in a Washington Post op-ed, Joseph Allen, the director of the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, called for open windows and improved ventilation and suggested 10 feet between people would be better than six.

This is the conundrum, Sanders said. How do you design with this as a moving target? You dont want to lock in dimensions. And suppose the way coronavirus is transmitted could be perfectly understood and avoided  would that change the hesitation people feel about riding elevators together or using touch screens? Designers might have to reconcile settled science with peoples lingering uneasiness.

Photo illustration by Najeebah Al-Ghadban

Helping clients articulate how a design makes them feel, and why, is notoriously challenging. The way architects get people to tell us what they think about a space is to walk them through the space and say, What do you think? Or we show them pictures, Sanders told me. He wanted to engage people with autism in his design process, in part to learn other ways of posing those questions.

In January, along with Bauman and Friedlaender, Sanders convened a group of experts, including Magda Mostafa, a Cairo-based architect and the author of Autism ASPECTSS, a set of design guidelines, to discuss ways to understand how people with autism feel about their surroundings. In May, they met again, along with researchers from the Center for Autism and Neurodiversity at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, to continue that discussion, while considering how the coronavirus might impact their work. My concern, Friedlaender said, is people with autism dont necessarily know how to articulate what theyre thinking. I dont think we can just depend on their words.

The group began to brainstorm various ways of engaging people with autism in the design process. Perhaps participants could experience spaces using virtual reality while researchers monitored their physical reactions. Sanders wondered aloud whether this might also be a useful way to work with other focus groups on design responses to the pandemic. The Queens Museum had been planning to host a dance for people from a senior center to get their reactions to the space; now large gatherings are dangerous, and the museum is being transformed into a food-distribution center.

When I think of a space that is Covid-friendly, I think of one that can be quickly closed off, Joseph McCleery, an autism researcher at St. Josephs University, told the group. You have stuff thats available thats maybe in the basement but can be quickly brought out.

Flexibility and agility of space, but also compartmentalization of space, Mostafa said. Her designs include breakout pods off high-traffic areas that can serve as an escape for those who feel overstimulated. But, she noted, they also happen to create spaces with different air circulation, occupied by fewer people.

Listening to them describe various approaches to being together while remaining apart, it was easy to see how people with autism, and other groups that have faced difficulties in the built environment, are in a special position to identify creative solutions to the spatial challenges the virus poses  and to suggest improvements to pervasive design flaws no one else has identified yet. Perhaps Covid would inspire broader collaborations.

But fear also has the potential to trigger reactionary responses. Sanders emphasized this concern every time we spoke. He worries that funding earmarked for expanding inclusivity will be diverted toward making existing facilities safer for those they already privilege. Throughout history, he observed, the built environment has reflected and reinforced inequality by physically separating one group from another, often in the presumed interests of health or safety. Women-only bathrooms, so designated by men, supposedly preserved their innocence and chastity; white-only bathrooms separated their users from supposedly less clean black people. Its no coincidence that Covid-19 has disproportionately sickened and killed members of demographic groups  people who are black, Indigenous and Latino; who are homeless; who are immigrants  that have been targets of systemic segregation that increased their vulnerability. Its also not hard to imagine the pandemic, and a persons relative risk of infection, being used to justify new versions of these discriminatory practices. Who will be demonized? Sanders said. We must not  he smacked what sounded like a glass-topped table for emphasis  repeat the mistakes of the past.

Mabel O. Wilson, a professor of architecture and African-American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, thinks that Covid could be leveraged to remind people that many people dont feel comfortable in public. But that doesnt mean it will be. My sense is whats going to happen is, having clean rooms, having greater circulation of air, is going to be the purview of the wealthy who can afford it in their homes, she says. It will be determined by the marketplace and not necessarily be a public amenity.

A future in which we commingle again is hard to envision right now. At the most basic level, what must happen for society to resume is this: You approach the door of a building, open and pass through it and navigate your way to a destination within. Architects call this critical series of steps an entry sequence, a journey throughout which a person is deciding whether to leave or stay. Toward the end of May, Marco Li, a senior associate at MIX, created plans and 3-D renderings of an entry sequence to a hypothetical campus building that incorporated some of the groups ideas for pandemic adaptations. He showed them to Sanders, Bauman and Choe over teleconference. They had invited a frequent collaborator, Quemuel Arroyo, who is a former chief accessibility specialist at the New York City Department of Transportation and a wheelchair user, to critique them over a video call. The prototypes were intended to spark discussion about how they might rethink entry sequences for universities as well as museums and health care facilities. What architects do well, Choe told me, is providing imagination in terms of designing something that doesnt exist. Once people see it, they can talk about it.

Through the front door, in a vestibule, one-way entry and exit routes were mediated by a planter. Each side had a hand-sanitizing station along the wall. A second, interior door separated this transition zone from the rest of the building. Once inside, a visitor encountered a wide lobby. Across it, directly ahead, an information desk was positioned back-to-back with a bank of lockers. Behind that partition were multigender restroom stalls; rooms, with showers, that could be used by caregivers, nursing mothers and even bike commuters; and prayer rooms and foot-washing stations for religious practices. Motion-activated sinks abutted the walkway. The space is more of a wellness hub now than a bathroom, Sanders said  so they decided to put it front and center rather than hide it.

All along the lobby were calm zones delineated by flooring of a different color and texture, with flexible seating options. Becoming particularly important with Covid is differentiating bodies at rest from bodies in motion, Sanders said, so that people dont crash into one another. Defining those areas by color intensity allows people to locate where they need to be in space. Someone who is avoiding an obstacle, or who is confused or lost, causes a ripple of unpredictable movements in others. Social distancing isnt people standing still in space at a dotted line at the grocery store, Bauman had observed previously. Its a dynamic situation.

Arroyo asked about the textural demarcation between areas where people walk and where they sit. Sanders explained that blind users could feel them with a cane. Are these detectable edges beveled? Arroyo asked. Most people in wheelchairs hate that. You want to make sure thats detectable but not a trip hazard. He also noted that none of the bathroom sinks were low enough for a seated person. In a world of Covid and germs being shared, my biggest pet peeve is flat surfaces, because the water pools, he said. When he reached for the tap, standing water dripped on his lap and wet his sleeves.

I felt a flash of recognition. Taking my 5-year-old to a public bathroom almost always results in his shirt getting soaked. Id imagined other, better parents avoided this somehow. The relief I felt at learning that this was a problem for someone else  that it might be the sinks fault, not mine  was instructive in thinking about Sanderss work, which on paper doesnt always register as so starkly different from the places we inhabit now.

What Joels mission is for MIXdesign is to make these goals of inclusivity in the built environment so inevitable that theyre not visible, says Deborah Berke, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture and founder of an eponymous design firm in Manhattan. I would put the visible at where you tack a ramp on the outside of a building and say, Great, were done. We met A.D.A., she told me, referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is about sending such a fully inclusive message that you dont see it as that. Its just a building that works for everybody.

When we dont notice the built environment, its silently affirming our right to be there, our value to society. When we do, too often it is because its telling us we dont belong. Those messages can be so subtle that we dont recognize them for what they are. We sleepwalk our way through the world, Sanders told me. Unless a building interior is strikingly different or lavish or unusual, we are unaware of it. Covid, he added, is forcing all of us to be aware of how the design of the built environment dictates how we experience the world and each other.

Kim Tingley is a contributing writer for the magazine and the Studies Show columnist; topics have included the potential health impacts of mindfulness, sunscreen and diets.

Source photographs for photo illustrations: Getty Images.
Derek Chauvin, then a Minneapolis police officer, looked right at the camera as he pressed a knee into George Floyds neck. He understood he was being filmed.

Why didnt that stop him?

Ethan Zuckerman, the director of the Center for Civic Media at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writes that the conventional wisdom for years has been that [i]f police officers know theyre being watched both by their body cameras and by civilians with cell phones, they will discipline themselves and refrain from engaging in unnecessary violence.

By now, though, it should be clear this isnt the way it works, he writes.

Zuckerman, in MIT Technology Review, points to a large-scale 2017 study that compared the behavior of Washington, D.C., police officers sporting body-worn cameras with those who worked without cameras. The result, the studys authors wrote:

Across each of the four outcome categories -- police use of force, civilian complaints, policing activity and judicial outcomes -- our analyses consistently point to a null result: the average treatment effect on all of the measured outcomes was very small, and no estimate rose to statistical significance at conventional levels.

This file photo provided by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office shows former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin. (Courtesy of Ramsey County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

The researchers posited that officers may not have been actually aware they were being filmed or that they were aware but other factors in the heat of the moment may override any deterrent effect the cameras may have had.

But Zuckerman believes theres another key factor at play. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if police officers have an objectively reasonable fear that their lives or safety are in danger, they are justified in using deadly force, he writes. Videos from body cameras and bystander cell phones have worked to bolster reasonable fear defense claims as much as they have demonstrated the culpability of police officers.

In short, images matter, but so does power.

Zuckerman concludes that, when Chauvin spotted a witness filming him on May 25 as he pressed a knee into the neck of a man who was handcuffed and face down on the ground, the cop surely knew it was rare for police officers to be charged with murder or manslaughter and rarer still for them to be convicted.

On Monday, a judge set unconditional bail for Chauvin at $1.25 million. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of George Floyd.

Read Ethan Zuckermans essay.
In her own words, Faith Stowers said this week that she was glad she put herself 'in the firing line' after bravely speaking her truth against her former Vanderpump Rules co-stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute.

Amid widespread race protests erupting across the country in the response to the killing of George Floyd, Faith, 31, spoke frankly about her own experience of racism in the world of reality television.

In a candid interview with fellow reality star Candace Renee Rice on Instagram last Tuesday June 2, Faith's powerful words quickly garnered global headlines, and saw Stassi, 31, and Kristen, 37, be held accountable for their actions, and eventually fired from the Bravo show a week later on Tuesday June 9.

Brave: Reality star Faith Stowers (pictured in 2017) spoke out this week against former co-stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute for their racist behavior towards her

It began with Faith recalling a shocking incident where Kristen and Stassi decided to pull a 'prank' by calling the cops to investigate her for allegedly drugging men and stealing watches.

'There was this article in the Daily Mail where there was an African American lady. It was a weird photo, so she looked very light-skinned and had these different, weird tattoos. I guess this woman was robbing people,' Faith told Candace.

'And they called the cops and said it was me. This is like, a true story. I heard this from, actually, Stassi during an interview,' Faith added, who appeared on the reality show between 2015 and 2018.

Fired: Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute (pictured in 2018) have been known for their 'mean girl' behavior on Vanderpump Rules and have since apologized to Faith

Indeed, Stassi had brazenly spoken about the incident herself during a 2018 interview on a podcast titled the 'Bitch Bible' where she confirmed that she and Kristen had contacted authorities because they saw a resemblance between Faith and a suspected criminal in a news story.

'We are like, we just solved a f***ing crime,' Stassi said that in the episode, which has since been deleted but was reported by PEOPLE Magazine. 'We start calling the police. The police don't give a f****' she added in the interview.

The same year, Kristen went even further, by posting a comparison picture on social media, tweeting: 'hey tweeties, doesnt this ex #pumprules thief look familiar?'

Speaking out: Stassi said she's refocused her mentality amid the career crisis, which has seen her lose sponsors and admit to 'racially insensitive comments'

Apology: Kristen also posted this to her Instagram account claiming that her behavior was 'not racially driven'

Racial profiling - the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed a crime - is just one of many everyday forms of racism faced by the black community in America.

Faith's account of Stassi and Kristen's racial profiling towards her was quickly amplified by outraged fans who called on Bravo to take action.

The pair - who had been posting in support of Black Lives Matter on their Instagram pages this week - have both now apologized, with Stassi saying 'I did not recognize then the serious ramifications that could have transpired because of my actions.'

Racial profiling: Kristen posted this shocking tweet to her fans in 2018 aimed at Faith

Most damning: Stassi called the cops on her black former costar Faith Stowers  whom she didn't like  in an effort to get her in trouble on a previous season of the show; Faith is seen in 2016 above

However, Kristen caused further outcry when she apologized to Faith but claimed her actions 'were not racially driven.'

She said: 'I am now completely aware of how my privilege blinded me from the reality of law enforcement's treatment of the black community, and how dangerous my actions could have been for her.'

Incidentally, many across the US are also protesting the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American EMT, who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department operating on a no-knock warrant while she was sleeping.

Scandal: Stassi parted ways with both her agent and her publicist after previous racist remarks and behavior has resurfaced

They're out: Vanderpump Rules stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute have been fired by Bravo after their racially-charged prank that targeted co-star Faith Stowers

In an interview with PageSix this week, Faith said she felt 'vindicated' after it was revealed that Bravo had taken the action of firing both Kristen and Stassi (along with other cast members Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni who posted racist tweets in 2012.)

'I feel so vindicated studios and production are able to see blatant racism and make these positive changes and help move the race forward - help with the fight forward,' Faith told the outlet.

Faith revealed that she heard about the news when she was in the middle of prayer, saying: 'I felt Gods presence, and I'm seeing now [that the news has been revealed] maybe that is what that was. He gave me a sign of optimism meant to be hopeful and showing that all of this was worth it.'

'I was ready to put myself in the line of fire because I don't know what will happen if I don't say anything... but I'm glad I did,' Faith added.

Apologetic: Newcomers Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni have also been dropped by Bravo. They apologized last week for past racist tweets on the Vanderpump Rules reunion

Since Faith did speak out, promising changes have already been made in addition to the Kristen and Stassi losing their place on the show.

MTV's The Challenge announced that it 'severed ties' with Dee Nguyen as a result of her 'offensive comments on the Black Lives Matter movement' while they also fired Teen Mom star Taylor Selfridge for a number of racist tweets including one that said 'black people scare me.'

Stassi - who has made other racists remarks, including claiming black people demand special treatment in her March 2, 2017 podcast - has seen her TV career tumble.

Gone: Stassi Schroeder's popular podcast Straight Up with Stassi has been removed from all streaming platforms in light of Schroeder's previous admitted 'racially insensitive' behavior

Referencing the #OscarsSoWhite controversy on her 2017 podcast - which is now deleted - Stassi said: 'Maybe you weren't nominated because you didn't do that great of a job in your movie,' adding: 'Like it's not about race. It's literally like not about what you look like at all. It's like your acting ability, so like, what the actual f***?'

The New Orleans-born reality did not shy away from the topic, saying: 'Like, everyone giving their impassioned speeches about race and all of that stuff, I'm like, "Why is it always just about African Americans?''

Following this, Stassi was promptly forced to part ways with both her agent and her publicist, with a spokesperson for UTA, confirming she is no longer a client of the agency.

Statement: 'We recently learned of racially charged and inappropriate actions by Stassi Schroeder during one of her previous projects,' wrote the show's broadcaster Radio.com in an Instagram post on Tuesday

Additionally, a representative of the PR firm Metro Public Relations told the publication: '[Schroeder] became a client when her publicist joined our company in July 2018. We made the decision this weekend to part ways with Stassi.'

In even more shocking posts, in 2018, Stassi labelled one of her looks 'Nazi chic' after wearing a black cold shoulder jumper and a hat,

She also called Kristen's outfit - a black jumper and a red bandana - Tupac chic and Rachael OBrien's ensemble - a black jumper and a beanie hat - Criminal chic.

Stassi has since been dropped as a spokesperson for shaving brand Billie, vitamin startup Ritual and has had her podcast cancelled. In addition, a planned partnership with Glamour magazine focusing on her upcoming nuptials 'has no plans to continue at this time.'

'Lack of judgement': Vanderpump Rules star Lisa Vanderpump made her own statement on the matter on Wednesday

Kristen and Stassi - who have been known to be 'mean girls' on the show - had antagonism towards Faith because of her involvement with Jax Taylor, which was documented during season six of the show.

Taylor - whose chronic infidelity has been a VPR plot point throughout the years - cheated on now-wife Brittany Cartwright with Stowers, who was a recurring character in season four.

Talking about the dynamic during the Live session, Faith said: 'I felt like after their friend did something that we both were involved in that he's done like, a thousand times, they wanted to attack me instead of him.'

'They wanted to attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. I was wrong, I was this, I was that, calling me names, saying my hair was nappy, which is weird coming out of their mouths.

'And I believe it hit the ceiling for me, and made me really want to run for the hills, when Kristen and Stassi decided they were going to call the cops on me,' she went on.

'I [had] left the show [at that point]. I was invited back to tell my truth, but decided it wasn't going to do anything for me. So I ended up not coming back, I decided to go over to MTV. Once I did that, I felt like they got upset with me.'

Vanderpump Rules has been criticized for its lack of diversity over the years.

Since premiering in 2013 the show has featured only two black castmembers as recurring characters: Faith and Tina McDowelle, who appeared in seasons one and two.

On Tuesday, Bravo issued a statement saying, 'Bravo and Evolution Media confirmed today that Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni will not be returning to Vanderpump Rules.'

Andy Cohen also spoke out saying he supported Bravo's decision to fire the offending cast members.

Meanwhile, several outlets have reported that Stassi and Kristen have been 'surprised' at their firing, while also feeling 'distraught' over the decision, according to insiders.

Yesterday, speaking on the 'Red Flags Make Cute Scarves' podcast, Faith also expressed her disappoint at Lisa Vanderpump.

'Lisa does a lot for the LGBTQ community and support, and she does a lot for dogs all across the world to try to help them with what theyre putting dogs through all over the world,' Faith told host Lily Red.

'Unfortunately, George Floyd is not a dog, and thats how I feel, because had George Floyd been a dog, Lisa would have marched like she did for Vanderpump Dogs.'

For her part, Lisa posted a lengthy Instagram post on Wednesday acknowledging a 'lack of judgement' displayed by some of her employees.
- Hauwa'u Sulaiman, a mother with 13 kids, was delivered of a set of quadruplets on Friday, June 5

- One of the four babies died while they were been transferred to ABUTH for better care

- Hauwa'u's husband, Mohammed Sulaiman, was happy as he appreciated Allah for the babies

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A 34-year-old woman, Hauwau Sulaiman, who already had 13 kids gave birth to quadruplets at the Gambo Sawaba General Hospital, Zaria, Kaduna state on Friday, June 5.

In her interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the woman said the set of quadruplets is her eighth delivery.

After the delivery, the babies and the mothered were transferred to the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) for adequate care.

The mother, however, said that the only male child among the babies died before they got to ABUTH and the remaining ones have been placed under intensive care.

Hauwau said that she was given two bags of blood to aide her during the delivery process. She added that though she is very healthy, medical officials said she needs to be monitored before she can be discharged.

A picture showing all the four babies. Photo source: The Cable

Source: UGC

Sulaiman Mohammed, her husband, said his wife had had a set of triplets twice, a set of twins on two different occasions and three other babies at different times before the latest delivery.

Mohammed who is also a driver gave thanks to Allah for the quadruplets that were given to him. He added that his brother always supports him taking care of the children whenever he needs help.

His mother, Saudatu Haruna, said that the birth was not a surprising one as it runs in the family, adding that she gave birth to a set of twins on two different occasions. She said that her mother was also a triplet while her father was a twin.

According to Isa Abdulkadir, the head consultant in the pediatrics unit of ABUTH, the remaining three babies are in good condition.

Meanwhile, YEN.com.gh earlier reported that the photos of triplet sisters marrying triplet brothers in Nigeria have gone viral.

The marriage reportedly took place in Enugu state. Pictures of the wedding surfaced on the internet on Sunday, June 7, as the name of the brothers were given as Kenechukwu, Chinedu, and Chukwuebuka.

The sisters names, according to the same media, are Okwuoma, Dumalu and Chinwe. It was gathered that the wedding ceremony which occurred on the same day was attended by close family members and friends.

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The Rajasthan government on Wednesday imposed restrictions on interstate movement of people because of a surge in COVID-19 cases in the state.





People seeking to move out of the state will have to obtain a pass while personal IDs of those entering Rajasthan in private buses, taxis or personal vehicles will be checked and they shall be screened, an order issued by the Home Department said.

Those reaching the state in scheduled domestic flights, trains or buses have already been through various safety protocols before boarding and they will be screened again on arrival at the destination airports, railway stations and bus stands in Rajasthan, the order said.

Director General of Police (Law and order) M L Lather earlier issued an order saying no person will be allowed to enter Rajasthan without a 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from the state government or leave it without a pass.

The Home Department later issued a detailed order for the regulation of interstate movement.

As per the Home Department's order, on spot passes will be provided by the district administration through a counter set up at airports, railway stations and bus stands after verification of IDs.

Persons applying for passes at such counters will have to reach there well in advance before the time of departure.

Those travelling by scheduled flights, trains, state roadways buses with prior reservations on Wednesday and personal emergency cases like deaths or accidents in the immediate family or immediate need for hospitalisation, have been exempted from passes for travelling out of the state.

The passes will be issued by collectors, SDMs, police commissioners, deputy police commissioners, SPs, deputy SPs and local police stations.

'There has been an unprecedented upsurge recently in COVID-19 positive cases in the state since the phased opening of the lockdown with effect from June 1, 2020.

'It has also come the state government's notice that under the prevailing system of free movement, certain persons from hot spots and other restricted areas have travelled outside the state after COVID testing and before their report was received, which turned out positive subsequently, posing a threat to wherever they go,' the order issued by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Rajeeva Swarup said.

'Keeping in view the efforts of the state government till date for preventing the spread of COVID-19, and in the interest of public safety, it has become necessary to regulate the interstate movement of persons,' the order said, adding that these directions shall remain effective till further orders and till such time that the present situation is reviewed.

The number of coronavirus positive cases in the state has gone up to 11,368, with 123 fresh cases reported on Wednesday morning

The state reported 369 cases on Tuesday, its highest single-day spike so far.

Rajasthan has reported 256 COVID-19 fatalities till date.
HURON COUNTY  A severe thunderstorm warning for Huron County is in effect until 4:30 p.m.

According to a statement from the National Weather Service in Detroit, the storm is expected to bring with it 70 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail.

A line of thunderstorms extended from the Thumb to the southern border of Michigan Wednesday afternoon.

The full warning can be viewed below:

Severe Thunderstorm Warning

Severe Thunderstorm Warning

MIC063-102030-

/O.NEW.KDTX.SV.W.0023.200610T1909Z-200610T2030Z/

BULLETIN - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED

Severe Thunderstorm Warning

National Weather Service Detroit/Pontiac MI

309 PM EDT Wed Jun 10 2020

The National Weather Service in Detroit/Pontiac has issued a

* Severe Thunderstorm Warning for...

Huron County in southeastern Michigan...

* Until 430 PM EDT.

* At 309 PM EDT, a severe thunderstorm was located over Gagetown, or

near Cass City, moving northeast at 55 mph.

HAZARD...70 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail.

SOURCE...Radar indicated.

IMPACT...Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect considerable

tree damage. Wind damage is also likely to mobile homes,

roofs, and outbuildings.

* This severe thunderstorm will be near...

Elkton around 325 PM EDT.

Bad Axe around 330 PM EDT.

Kinde around 335 PM EDT.

Port Austin around 340 PM EDT.

Other locations impacted by this severe thunderstorm include Redman,

Parisville, Huron City, Ivanhoe, Rapson, Grindstone City, Bay Port,

Pinnebog, Ruth and Port Crescent State Park.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

For your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a

building.

&&

LAT...LON 4407 8286 4401 8272 4384 8259 4369 8263

4367 8346 4373 8347 4370 8349 4370 8352

4372 8353 4394 8342 4395 8334 4400 8328

4403 8310 4407 8304

TIME...MOT...LOC 1909Z 220DEG 48KT 4364 8329

HAIL...1.00IN

WIND...70MPH

$$

BT
She recently admitted she 'hadn't done anything for months' amid the coronavirus lockdown.

But Lisa Armstrong took some time to celebrate her dog's seventh birthday on Wednesday.

The Strictly Come Dancing make-up artist, 43, threw a party for the Chocolate Labrador called Hurley, who looked utterly bewildered by the events.

Sweet: Lisa Armstrong, 43, threw a party to celebrate her dog's seventh birthday on Wednesday

Hurley was decked out with an over-sized badge that read 'I am 7 today!' with a stash of cards laid out in front of him.

A blue birthday balloon was left floating in the air as the adorable pooch stood in front of a cake with Lisa encouraging him to blow out the candles.

Lisa uploaded the clip alongside a caption that read: 'Happy 7th Birthday my beautiful boy.... #spoiltHurley #sharedhiscakewithhisfriends #mybaby [pink heart emojis].'

Bewildered: Hurley was decked out with an over-sized badge that read 'I am 7 today!' with a stash of cards laid out in front of him

Bond: Lisa uploaded the clip alongside a caption that read: 'Happy 7th Birthday my beautiful boy.... #spoiltHurley #sharedhiscakewithhisfriends #mybaby'

It comes after Lisa admitted she 'hasn't done anything for months' as the nation continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Lisa said she had had plenty of time on her hands as the UK remains in lockdown, while revealing she even called out her pal Piers Morgan over his live TV make-up gaffe.

Speaking to the Royal Television Society, Lisa - the ex-wife of Ant McPartlin - said: 'I haven't done anything for months. People are having to do their own make-up.

Discussing Piers' hilarious gaffe, she said: 'When Piers [Morgan] did his for Good Morning Britain, I texted him and asked: What the hells happened to you?

'People are now appreciating what make-up artists do.'

Home: It comes after Lisa admitted she 'hasn't done anything for months' as the nation continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic

Lisa has been moving on with her life since her 31million divorce with Ant, 44, was finalised in April.

Lisa and Ant share custody of their dog Hurley and have previously been transferring the dog between homes during lockdown.

The couple, who were married for 12 years and had been together for 23 years, agreed that Hurley would spend a week at each of their homes.

Ant will now be able to marry his 'rock' and former PA Anne-Marie Corbett, 44.

A source told The Sun: 'It's been an extremely difficult road with a lot of heartache and unpleasantness, but it's finally done. It's over.

'Ant's been desperate to start the next chapter of his life and at least now he and Anne-Marie can plan for the future. It won't be long before they are married.'

DIY: Discussing Piers' hilarious gaffe, she said: 'When Piers [Morgan] did his for Good Morning Britain, I texted him and asked: What the hells happened to you?"

It was recently reported that Ant would have to close his 20 million television business to fund the divorce.

According to Companies House, the presenter's production business Teecourt Limited has filed paperwork to cease trading in the coming weeks.

Earlier this year, Saturday Night Takeaway host Ant was reported to have handed over 31 million to Lisa, including their 5 million home in West London, after an 'eight-hour negotiation'.

The beauty expert was said to have been the 'peacemaker' during a recent eight-hour long discussion about her divorce from the TV star, claimed The Sun.

The publication first alleged the TV veteran offered up more than half of his estimated 50m fortune, but was 'delighted' that the case has come to an end as he can 'move on', two years after announcing their split. However, as the news broke, the former Deuce musician took to Twitter to deny the reports, posting: 'Nope a load of nonsense AGAIN....'

Over: Lisa has been moving on with her life since her 31million divorce with her ex-husband Ant McPartlin was finalised in April 2020 (pictured together in 2010)

She went to 'like' tweets that stated: 'no amount of money could ever compensate for what this poor girl has had to endure', and 'Get what you can!

'You deserve it! Terrible treatment of you since you found out when we did! And with a so called friend! Its heartbreaking behaviour.

'I bet the money means nothing in some respects, it certainly can't buy the respect she deserves or make up for the sh***y spineless way he scurried off & tried to silence her.

Whatever the sum is I'm sure it will be put to much better use & I wish her all the best'; and 'Why do people care what you get, no amount of money big or small can change the fact a heart was broken'. [sic]

As of last month, Ant and Lisa are said to be on civil terms, with the exes speaking have 'without an intermediary' as they continue to share custody of their beloved pet Labrador, Hurley.

Late last year, friends of the former couple told The Mail On Sunday that despite efforts by Ant to keep their split low-key, Lisa still wanted her day in court.

Lisa is understood to have felt that Ant 'got away with a lot' following their split.

She was also believed to be dismayed and deeply hurt that he moved on so quickly when he started a new relationship with Anne-Marie.

A source close to the couple said: 'Ant has been very generous in terms of the financial settlement but Lisa is totally the opposite of someone who is motivated by money.

'She doesn't care about that  she earns her own. But she has been so hurt by all of this.

'What the general public and his fans don't realise is that Ant's decision to end the marriage came after years of Lisa trying to save him from himself.

'There were at least three years when she was at her wits' end and it was tough. Watching him move on was very, very difficult. Lisa is very much aware that a judge may not award her as much as Ant is offering but she doesn't care.

'She has suffered tremendously in all of this and she wants her day in court.'

Their union legally came to an end during a 30-second hearing in October 2018, finalising over a decade of marriage.
Voting rights groups called problems with Georgias voting Tuesday a complete catastrophe that is ominous for November after advocates suggested preparations since January.

Some voters waited up to seven hours to cast ballots, while others were turned away without being sure their provisional ballots would be counted. The number of polling places was dramatically reduced. Voters reported problems with poll workers unable to operate voting equipment.

Georgias election was a complete catastrophe, said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Malfunctioning equipment, long lines, poll sites that opened late, insufficiently trained poll workers and paper ballot shortages resulted in a day of chaos for voters seeking to exercise their voice.

Myrna Perez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said the problems were "a huge warning" for November because they were preventable and predictable.

This wasnt merely a warning bell," Perez said. "These were warning sirens.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told The Associated Press that state law charges counties with on-ground operation of elections.

Its really specifically in one or two counties, in Fulton and DeKalb counties, that had these issues today, Raffensperger said. It has nothing to do with what were doing in the rest of Georgia.

People wait in line to vote in Georgia's primary election June 9 in Atlanta.

A record number of voters submitted early ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, which delayed counting. Raffensperger announced that more than 1 million early votes were cast, including 810,024 mailed ballots, a week before the primary. For comparison, only 37,000 people voted by mail in 2016, he said.

Joanne Steiner, a retired small-business owner who lives in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, said she applied for an absentee ballot to avoid the threat of coronavirus. Her ballot arrived late Friday in the mail, but rather than risk having it not returned in time, Steiner ventured out that day for the last day of early voting in person.

Story continues

The line at the Sandy Springs Library wrapped around the building, and Steiner said she waited five-and-a-half hours to vote without proper social distancing. Poll workers couldn't initially confirm her registration, despite her living at the same address for 18 years and voting in the last election. Steiner brought her absentee ballot application with her registration number and her passport for identification.

This was an outrageous experience. I dont know which part of it was more demeaning, Steiner said. There is some undercurrent of not allowing certain votes to count.

More than a dozen civil rights groups, including the NAACP, Black Lives Matter and the League of Women Voters, wrote to Raffensperger and the state election board urging them to extend the deadline for absentee ballots beyond 7 p.m. Tuesday. The groups urged election officials to better promote the locations of drop-off boxes where absentee ballots could be submitted.

The advocacy group Common Cause and the Brennan Center wrote to Georgia election officials Jan. 13 urging preparations for equipment malfunctions, registration database errors and other failures that could deny voters their right to be counted.

The groups recommendations included having paper ballots on hand for equipment problems during peak hours, having provisional ballots on hand and providing at least one voting booth at polling places for every 250 voters.

Thousands of Georgians were denied the right to vote, said Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause of Georgia. Our warnings were not heeded.

The recommendations followed problems in 2018 when voters waited two to three hours because of inoperable machines coupled with historic turnout. A study by the Brennan Center found that blacks and Hispanics waited 45% longer than whites to vote in 2018.

Hourslong waits were reported at numerous locations in Georgia on Tuesday. A bipartisan presidential commission recommended in 2014 that no voters wait longer than 30 minutes to cast ballots.

Its the kind of thing thats bad under all circumstances, Perez said. Its especially horrible in a period where turnout is likely to be high and voter confidence in our systems is low and in question. We need to feel comfortable and confident that the election was well-run and that it was fair.

Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, urged the Senate Wednesday to approve legislation designed to prevent voter suppression. Georgia closed more than 200 polling places since a Supreme Court case in 2013 struck down provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

Aklima Khondoker, state director for the group All Voting is Local, said lines of hundreds of people snaked around buildings and some voters waited five, six or seven hours to cast ballots despite rain and humid heat.

Our democracy failed us, but our people did not fail us, Khondoker said. I am utterly disappointed in the state of our elections here in Georgia.

Nse Ufot, executive director of the group New Georgia Project, questioned whether the problems were intentional because they were avoidable. She described herself as equal parts determined and pissed off.

We saw people frustrated who literally quit on the spot, Ufot said of polling places that opened hours later than scheduled and closed before voting was done. I am disgusted.

Ufot said the worst lines were in the metropolitan area around Atlanta in Fulton, DeKalb and Cobb counties. Khondoker said predominantly white areas of Fulton County, such as Sandy Springs and Alpharetta, didnt have problems.

There were huge disparities, she said. While Fulton County had overwhelming issues, we saw those overwhelming issues in black and brown communities predominantly.

Stephanie Cho, executive director of the group Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said Asian voters found language barriers and potential racism in Johns Creek.

The confusion was insane, Cho said. Its actually getting worse.

Clarke gave Georgia a grade of F if the primary was a dry run for November.

The state must undertake aggressive action now to ensure preparedness for far higher turnout levels in November, Clarke said.

The polling problems unfolded against a national backdrop of protests against racial injustice in the aftermath of George Floyds death in the custody of Minneapolis police. Clarke suggested Georgias problems had a starker effect on black voters.

Lets all work, hope and pray that this is not a preview of November, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a tweet after noting tweets about long lines where machines weren't working at the Sandtown Recreation Center or Central Park, where voters filled ballots by hand.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Georgia primary: Voting groups blast long lines, other malfunctions
Three men stand trial for acting as accomplices of Taiwanese drug traffickers in Nghe An Province in central Vietnam, June 9, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Van Hai.

A Nghe An court jailed two men on Tuesday after they dumped nearly 500 kg of heroin by a highway for a Taiwanese gang last year.

Nguyen Van Phu, 30, was sentenced to three years and six months for crime concealment, while Nguyen Bao Trung, 24, got six months for not reporting a crime.

Vo Sy Manh, 27, received a suspended sentence for extortion.

On April 17 last year, police found many sacks of 489.68 kg of heroin left by the 48B National Highway in Quynh Luu District in the central province. The sacks had been dumped by the three men.

Phu said he received a call from an acquaintance in Taiwan in February last year, asking him to interpret for a Taiwanese man. The next month, the acquaintance and the Taiwanese man told Phu to "rent a storage room to store goods before transporting them back to Taiwan."

Phu rented a storage room in Quynh Luu District. He then helped the Taiwanese man take 25 boxes from a car and keep it in the room.

Phus acquaintance later told him that the boxes contained damaged loudspeakers and asked him to let two other Taiwanese men come and fix them. Accordingly, Phu took the men to the storage room and left, whereupon the Taiwanese took around 494 packets of methamphetamine from the boxes and repacked them in several white bags.

On April 15 last year, Phu saw news reports that authorities had found a large amount of drugs hidden in boxes in the province. The boxes looked like the ones that he had helped store, so Phu asked the Taiwanese men about it. The Taiwanese told him to get the drugs out of the storage room, saying he would be held responsibe for them as the person who had rented the room.

Phu asked Trung to rent a truck and along with Manh, took the drugs out of the storage room and dumped them on the side of the 48B National Highway where they were later discovered by the police.

Manh, suspecting that Phu was carrying something illegal, extorted VND9 million ($387) from him. Trung knew Phu was disposing of the drugs, but did not report it to the authorities, the court heard. The court ordered Manh to return the money he had extorted from Phu.

Once the dugs were discovered by the police, the three men turned themselves in.

The Taiwanese involved in the case remain unidentified and left Vietnam last April. They are now internationally wanted criminals.
The head of the NATO military alliance said on Wednesday that the West could not ignore the rise of China and so it was important that the United Kingdom had a review of the role of Huawei in its 5G network to ensure its security.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said China was coming closer to the West in various ways  in the Arctic, in cyberspace and in critical infrastructure, including telecommunications.

"I trust that the U.K. government will design their networks in ways that protect the networks and make sure that the U.K. has secure 5G networks," Stoltenberg told BBC radio.

"Therefore, also I think it is important that there now will be a new review looking at exactly how to make sure that should happen," he said.

As part of a broader reassessment of relations with China, Britain's National Cyber Security Centre is analysing the impact of recent U.S. sanctions on Britain's decision earlier this year to allow Huawei a role in building its 5G network.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson in January granted Huawei a limited role in Britain's 5G mobile network, frustrating a global attempt by the United States to exclude the Chinese telecoms giant from the West's next-generation communications.

Defying Britain's closest ally in favor of China on the eve of Brexit, Johnson ruled that "high-risk vendors" such as Huawei would be allowed into the non-sensitive parts of the 5G network.

But the coronavirus outbreak, disagreements over Hong Kong and U.S. President Donald Trump's anger over China has prompted Britain to reassess relations with Beijing.

"China is coming closer to us, we see that in the Arctic, we see they are heavily investing in critical infrastructure in Europe, and we see of course China also operating in cyberspace," Stoltenberg said. "So this is not about deploying NATO into the South China Sea but responding to the fact that China is coming closer to us."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and other western European states to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
BRIDGEPORT  Derby police said a gunshot victim claimed he didnt know who shot him or why, but made an arrest after the victim and alleged perpetrator began arguing in a holding cell where they were locked up on unrelated charges.

In October 2018, the then-28-year-old victim claimed he was returning home after buying toilet paper when he was shot outside his Anson Street home by a man in a hooded sweatshirt, police said.

But police said a month later they received a tip that the shooting victim and his assailant were both in the lockup at the Derby Superior Court yelling at each other.

On Tuesday, John Carlos Benitez, of East Haven, was arrested in the shooting after what police said was a lengthy investigation.

Benitez, 29, was charged with attempted murder, first-degree assault, possession of a pistol without a permit and criminal possession of a weapon.

During his arraignment in state Superior Court here Wednesday, Benitez, who was viewed on video because of pandemic precautions, hung on the bars of his cell and exclaimed, what, when Assistant States Attorney Felicia Valentino urged Judge Alex Hernandez to set a high bond.

But the prosecutor pointed out that Benitez has seven prior criminal convictions and is the subject of an ongoing investigation in another case.

The judge agreed and ordered Benitez held in lieu of $750,000 bond. He continued the case to July 14.

According to Derby police, on Oct. 15, 2018, officers responded to an Anson Street apartment for a gunshot victim. When they got there, they found the victim lying on the kitchen floor bleeding from a gunshot wound to his abdomen.

Despite a number of subsequent interviews, police said the victim repeated that he didnt know who shot him or why. He related that he had just gotten home from shopping when a car pulled up and a man had shot him, police said.

Police said on Nov. 29, 2018, they received a tip that the victim and his assailant were both in the Derby courthouse lockup.

Police said judicial marshals confirmed that Benitez and the shooting victim had been arrested on unrelated charges. While in a cell in the lockup, the two men began loudly arguing and had to be separated, police said marshals told them.

Benitez was found to match an image of the shooter from surveillance video of the shooting scene, police said.
BRUSSELS - Swedish investigators on Wednesday identified the man they think assassinated Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, but with only circumstantial evidence and the suspect long dead, it was a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion to one of the biggest political murder mysteries in generations.

The question of who shot Palme in the back as he walked home from the movies with his wife on a frigid Stockholm evening has stumped police and occupied Swedish imaginations ever since February 1986. Theories ranged from the apartheid-era South African government, which resented Palme for his outspoken left-wing views, to the PKK, a Kurdish militant group. A Swedish man was sentenced to life for the crime in 1988, but his conviction was thrown out the following year on appeal.

On Wednesday, Swedish prosecutors identified a different key suspect: Stig Engstrom, then 52, a Swedish graphic designer who was vocally opposed to Palme's left-wing policies and worked at the insurance company outside of which Palme was shot.

Chief prosecutor Krister Petersson said investigators did not conclusively link a weapon to the assassination, but with the evidence they have assembled, there would be enough to move forward with a case against Engstrom - if he were still alive.

Engstrom died in 2000 in what is believed to have been a suicide.

"We've come as far as we are able to come when it comes to a suspect," Petersson said during a two-hour news conference in which he and a police investigator laid out the evidence against Engstrom. "I understand that different conspiracy theories will keep afloat in the public domain, as they have in the past 34 years, but we have had our conclusion."

Police compared their effort to the investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the search for the culprit in the 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The uncertainty surrounding the Palme assassination captivated the country's consciousness. Swedes who were alive at the time remember where they were when they heard the news. It has been an obsession for amateur detectives and has inspired books, movies and plays - and some say Sweden's broader success in crime fiction.

Palme was shot with a single bullet that severed his spinal cord. His wife, Lisbeth, was grazed by a second bullet but survived. They had released their security detail for the day.

Petersson said records from the Skandia insurance company showed that Engstrom walked out the front door at 11:19 p.m. on the evening of Feb. 28, 1986, two minutes before Palme was killed at the corner of the building.

Engstrom had been a sergeant in the military and remained active in a military shooting club, giving him the experience to carry out a killing. Police also learned that he had known a weapons collector who, like him, hated Palme and his policies. In 2017, the prosecutor said, police found a weapon in the collection that could have been used in the assassination, but they were unable to connect it conclusively to the killing.

Engstrom was repeatedly interviewed as a witness in the year after the assassination. Multiple other witnesses said a man who ran away from the scene was wearing clothing and other items that looked a lot like Engstrom's that evening: a dark knitted cap, glasses, a three-quarter length coat and business shoes unsuited for the slippery Stockholm pavement. Engstrom gave a different account and said the perpetrator had been wearing a blue coat.

Police dismissed him as a suspect - a decision Petersson, who took over the case in 2017, said was inexplicable.

In the aftermath of the assassination, Engstrom was brazen in his alleged duplicity, narrating his account of his movements that night for Swedish television journalists and even wearing the clothing he was alleged to have worn during the killing - all while complaining that the police were uninterested in his testimony.

"You try to put the pieces into a jigsaw puzzle, you shouldn't take away pieces from the jigsaw puzzle, but perhaps they're not so good at putting the jigsaw pieces together, the police," Engstrom said in a 1986 Swedish television clip that the prosecutor played on Wednesday.

In the clip, Engstrom reenacts exiting the blocky Skandia tower where he worked, walking around the streets of Stockholm and even running down the street in what he claimed had been a frantic attempt to catch the last train home from the Stockholm central subway station.

"My interpretation of this interview is that he's mocking the police," Petersson said.

The prosecutors' conclusions announced Wednesday match those of Thomas Pettersson, a freelance journalist who published much of the same information in 2018 after a 12-year investigation. Pettersson handed over his leads to the police.

"Even if we were to continue to investigate this case for years, we would continue to see that Stig Engstrom is a suspect in this case," said Petersson, the prosecutor. "It is difficult to see how after 34 years we could get further."
New Delhi: The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Wednesday launched a national campaign for boycott of Chinese goods across the country

The campaign titled "Indian Goods- Our Pride" aims to achieve reduction in imports of Chinese manufactured goods by 1 lakh crore (USD 13bn) by December 2021, CAIT said in a release.

CAIT said, this campaign is an important step towards making the call for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Vocal for Local" and "AatmanirbharBharat " successful.

In the first phase of this campaign, CAIT has made a list of 3000 items which are currently imported from China and which are easily replaceable by Indian manufactured goods. CAIT will make traders and people across the country aware that instead of Chinese goods, Indian products should be sold and bought.

BC Bhartia, National President of CAIT and Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General in a video press conference held in New Delhi said that there are four types of imports from China to India. The goods which are imported include finished goods, raw materials, spare parts and technology products. CAIT has decided to boycott finished goods imported from China in the first phase.

Bhartia and Khandelwal said that in the year 2001, the import of Chinese goods into India was only $ 2 billion, which has now increased to $ 70 billion at present which means that imports from China increased by 3500 percent in only 20 years.

For the last four years, CAIT has been carrying out a campaign for boycott of Chinese commodities from time to time, the positive result of which is that China's imports in India have decreased by $ 6 billion in the last two years. In the year 2018, this import was 76 billion dollars which is currently 70 billion dollars.

Both business leaders said that in view of the current circumstances of the corona epidemic in the country, this campaign will be currently run on video conferences and social media, especially on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp.
Interest in Italy, Turkey and Greece and other seaside countries significantly drop.

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Most Slovaks will spend their summer vacation in Slovakia as the coronavirus pandemic has complicated their travel plans and possibilities of going on holiday abroad.

While 62 percent of Slovakias inhabitants plan to spend the summer holiday outside their homes this year, about 70 percent of them say they would like to spend their vacation in Slovakia. The second most-visited destination for Slovaks in summer will probably be the neighbouring Czech Republic.

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These are the results of the poll of the Go4insight agency conducted between May and June 2020 on 1,000 respondents.

Croatia noted the biggest drop as only 6 percent of respondents want to spend their vacation by the Adriatic Sea. This is only a quarter of those who had planned to travel to the country before the coronavirus crisis, and only 40 percent of of the Slovaks who visited Croatia two years ago.

The interest in Italy, Turkey, Greece and other seaside countries significantly dropped after the coronavirus, said Rastislav Kocan of Go4insight, as quoted by the SITA newswire. Only about 10 percent of people plan to spend their vacation by the sea, and 1 percent of Slovaks plan to travel outside Europe.

Planned holidays
President Donald Trump says he was very upset by the video that captured George Floyds killing while pinned under the knee of a police officer.

But the president apparently was not as disturbed after seeing a video of two Buffalo police officers shoving a 75-year-old peace advocate during a protest.

I watched, he fell harder than was pushed, Trump opined on Twitter on Tuesday. Trump also claimed, without evidence, that the man, Martin Gugino, could be an ANTIFA provocateur. He cited a controversial segment from One America News Network reported by Kristian Rouz, who also works for the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik, according to The Daily Beast.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that the president was merely raising questions based on a report that he saw.

We cant jump on one side without looking at all the facts in play, McEnany told Fox News Fox & Friends.

She said that this individual"  Gugino  had some very questionable tweets, some profanity-laden tweets about police officers.

Of course, no one condones any sort of violence, McEnany added. We need the appropriate amount of force used in any interaction. But there are a lot of questions in that case.

Just about an hour ago, police officers shove man in Niagara Square to the ground (WARNING: Graphic). Video from: @MikeDesmondWBFO pic.twitter.com/JBKQLvzfET  WBFO (@WBFO) June 5, 2020

Last month, Trump announced the U.S. would designate the loosely-organized anti-fascist movement antifa a terrorist organization, a move many experts said he did not have the authority to do.

Gugino is a longtime peace activist from Amherst, New York, and an advocate for the social justice organization the Catholic Worker Movement.

Officers Aaron Torgalski, 39, and Robert McCabe, 32, face charges of second-degree assault for pushing Gugino, according to Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn.

Gugino was hospitalized with a head injury, loss of consciousness and bleeding from his right ear. He remained in the hospital in critical condition as of June 6.

Fifty-seven officers resigned from the citys riot squad in a show of support for the officers.

McEnany said it was important to ask why those officers resigned" and to discover the facts on the ground."

The June 4 video showed Gugino on the ground  bleeding and unconscious  and several police officers continuing forward clearing out the crowd, even after Torgalski and McCabe both realize the 75-year-old man suffered a head injury.

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D onald Trump's oldest son and grandson reportedly cost US taxpayers more than $75,000 (59,000) by hunting a rare mountain sheep in Mongolia last year.

According to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), the trip saw Donald Trump Jr shoot a rare Argali mountain sheep and meet Khaltmaagiin Battulga, the country's President.

An employee of Mr Trump Jr told CNN that the eight-day trip last August was personally paid for by Mr Trump Jr, with the exception of his protection by the Secret Service.

The Crew report said: "As a son of the president, Donald Trump Jr" is entitled to Secret Service protection and should be protected.

"But taxpayers deserve to know how much they are paying to facilitate his trophy hunting and interactions with major political donors and foreign leaders."

Trophy hunting is one of many factors that has led to the Argali becoming a near-threatened species, the Red List of Threatened Species said.

Trump Jr posted several pictures of the Mongolia trip on social media, including a photograph of himself and one of his sons outside a traditional yurt.

In one caption Mr Trump described Mongolia as "incredibly pristine land".

The Crew report accuses the Trump family of over-using the Secret Services' finances with an average of 1,000 more trips per year.

According to the BBC, researchers say the Trump family take 12 times as many trips as the Obamas.

"This trip is just one example of the expenses the Trump family is incurring with American taxpayers, and if just one of Don Jr's trophy hunting trips cost more than $75,000, it's staggering to think how high the total bill must be," said the Crew authors in the report.

A ProPublica investigation released late last year said Mr Trump Jr killed the mountain sheep before asking for permission from the Mongolian Government.

Following two Freedom of Information Act requests to the Secret Service, Crew said the exact cost of the trip was $76,859.36.

The first document provided to the group claimed that only around $17,000 was spent as it failed to include flight costs or Mr Trump Jr's meeting in Ulaanbaatar with the President.

The second release added nearly $60,000 to the cost to taxpayers. Crew said it is still investigating other aspects of the trip such as whether the US State Department was involved or whether the US Department of Interior granted a permit to bring the sheep carcass back to the US.

Unlike his sister Ivanka Trump, Mr Trump Jr holds no official government position.

A spokesperson for Trump Jr. did not respond to a CNN request for confirmation of a Mongolian-based meeting with Mr Battulga.
BARNEVELD, Netherlands, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, today announced that De Menken Keuken has selected Infor M3 ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution to support growth, increase efficiency and help provide business continuity. The agile, future-proof solution offers the Dutch family business enhanced quality management and tracing capabilities, better warehouse, production and distribution management combined with increased supply chain visibility.



De Menken Keuken produces a wide range of salads, sauces and meat products for retail, catering and hospitality customers. This is done mainly under private label. Its portfolio includes the Albert Heijn supermarket brand Saladespecialiteiten, carpaccio from de Vleeschmeesters, and a selection of tapenades and hummus spreads.

As its ERP solution was becoming obsolete, as it was going off support, the Dutch food producer began searching for a replacement and found an ideal match in Infor after reviewing software products from three vendors. Hilbert Klop, CFO at De Menken Keuken, elaborates: "The knowledge of Infor and Infor Alfa-Beta of our industry, along with our confidence in the functionalities and quality of its ERP solution, made Infor an obvious choice for De Menken Keuken. They understood our needs and goals, and the application is perfectly able to fulfill them."

By standardizing with Infor M3, De Menken Keuken can migrate from its existing IBM AS/400 solution to a modern, innovative, and industry-specific system that can help them navigate challenges while helping control costs, reduce manual work and boost efficiency.

"We are pleased to offer De Menken Keuken a robust foundation to help them achieve their goals and ambition of becoming the leading supplier in the private label market where cost and innovation leadership are decisive factors," says Kees van den Houten, Infor's country manager for Benelux. "Infor M3 with its deep, food industry-specific functionality is designed for progress and will optimize their operations and help to boost revenue opportunities."

Looking ahead, De Menken Keuken is also evaluating the purchase of Infor's Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution.

About De Menken Keuken

De Menken Keuken is a Dutch family business. For four decades, it has been supplying food products to virtually all major retail, catering and hospitality companies in the Netherlands. The wide range of salads, sauces and meat products is mainly produced under private label and in close consultation with the client.

The company strives to be the leading supplier in the private label market with high-quality products assembled by more than 300 employees at the production location in Sassenheim. Innovation, cooperation, open communication and flexibility are the core values of De Menken Keuken. Visit http://www.demenkenkeuken.nl/.

About Infor

Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. With 17,300 employees and over 68,000 customers in more than 170 countries, Infor software is designed for progress. To learn more, please visit http://www.infor.com/.

Infor customer include:

The top 20 aerospace companies

9 of the top 10 high tech companies

14 of the 25 largest U.S. healthcare delivery networks

19 of the 20 largest U.S. cities

18 of the top 20 automotive suppliers

14 of the top 20 industrial distributors

13 of the top 20 global retailers

4 of the 5 top brewers

17 of the top 20 global banks

9 of the 10 largest global hotel brands

7 of the top 10 global luxury brands

Media contact

Lubbers De Jong

Anke van Heerebeek

[email protected]

+31(0)6 48203864

SOURCE Infor

Related Links

http://infor.com


Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament that Tokyo wants to take the lead on issuing a statement on Chinas national security law affecting Hong Kongs autonomy. Kyodo news agency had earlier reported that Japan decided not to join the US, UK, Australia and Canada in scolding China for the security law.

Obviously, we acknowledge the G7 has a mission to lead the global public opinion and Japan wants to take a lead in issuing a statement based on one nation, two systems in Hong Kong, said Abe.

During a news conference, chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga had said that Japan expressed its opinion directly and promptly to China at a high level and made its opinion quite clear to international society. He added that countrys stance on Chinas national security law has been praised by the US, Britain and other G7 nations.

Read: Japan Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimaru Warns Against Negative Rates

Joint statement

The United States, Britain, Canada and Australia had issued a joint statement on May 28 criticising the security bill. The signatories had expressed deep concern over the security law saying the international community has a significant and long-standing stake in Hong Kongs prosperity and stability.

They claimed that Chinas decision to impose the security law on Hong Kong is in direct conflict with its international obligations under the principles of the legally-binding, UN-registered Sino-British Joint Declaration. It said that direct imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong by the Beijing authorities would dramatically erode Hong Kongs autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous,

It also raises the prospect of prosecution in Hong Kong for political crimes, and undermines existing commitments to protect the rights of Hong Kong people, the statement read.

Meanwhile, Japan has been walking a tightrope on the issue since the island nation is preparing to host Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state visit. The visit was earlier planned for April but was postponed due to the coronavirus situation.

Read: Donald Trump Not Considering Placing Sanctions On Chinese President Over Hong Kong

(Image: Twitter / @JPN_PMO)
An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Tuesday indicted four top leaders of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) and close aides of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed in a terror-financing case.

The court indicted Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yayha Aziz and Abdul Salam in one of the cases registered against them on terror financing charges.

All the four accused, however, pleaded "not guilty" and chose to contest the trial.

The court adjourned the proceedings till Wednesday, with direction to the prosecution to present witnesses against the suspects.

The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police had registered 23 FIRs against 70-year-old Saeed and his accomplices on the charges of terror financing in different cities of the province.

Saeed, a UN-designated terrorist whom the US has placed a USD 10 million bounty on, was arrested on July 17, 2019 and is lodged at the high-security Kot Lakhpat jail here.

Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Taiba which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

The US named Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice. He was listed as a terrorist under the UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.

In February, Lahore's anti-terrorism court sentenced Saeed and his close aide Zafar Iqbal to five and a half years each and imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 in each case. A total of 11 years sentence will run concurrently.

The US welcomed the conviction of Saeed and described it as an "important step forward" for Pakistan in meeting its international commitments to combat terror financing and not to allow non-state actors to operate from its soil.

The crackdown on Saeed's outfit last year followed a warning by the international terror financing watchdog to Pakistan to deliver on its commitments to curb terror financing and money laundering.
10.06.2020 LISTEN

Digital Lead of Pop Out, Maximus Ametorgoh has outlined six things entrepreneurs must pay attention to before starting a business online.

The use of technology and digital means has been on the rise for years now. During this coronavirus pandemic, many businesses have moved to online platforms to stay relevant and survive.

On the Citi Business Festival E-commerce virtual forum on Tuesday, Mr. Ametorgoh gave six points business owners must put into consideration if they want to do business virtually.

Customer  The focus always has to be on the customer. If you are able to do proper profiling on your customers, youll be able to know what they want, where they spend most of their time, where they live, what their technology survey is, and what kind of social media presence they have. This would help you shape the context in which you advertise your product.

Product quality  Entrepreneurs must consider which product that the customers are interested in and want to buy. What is the digital skill of your target audience? Can they access online channels? If they are on social media, how do you position your product in their faces so they can easily make decisions? After they buy your product, can they become advocates of your products?

Pricing model  Usually people would want to go for deals on online channels. If I walk into a shop and the product is GHS50 and I go on the online platform and its the same price and you want me to pay for delivery and all that, Im most likely going to walk to the physical shop and have a physical experience with the product before I make a purchasing decision. The pricing model is very important so that when I buy things online and have it delivered to me, it should not be more expensive than me going to the physical shop to make purchases.

Payment  Do people have payment options? Is your platform able to allow all the options, cards, mobile money, etc? What is happening in Ghana currently is people having social media presence on Facebook and Instagram then when people request to buy their products, they ask them to send them mobile money to pay. Then the next thing is they are sending a courier company to have the product delivered to the buyer. So theres an emergence of social-mobile money-delivery, which is happening and this needs to be optimized.

Government  What is the policy driving e-commerce in Ghana? We need to have that so that anyone creating an online presence knows that government has a policy guiding that the buyer knows that theres a protocol guiding all the online transactions.

Policing  How do we police the platform because a lot of people complain about fraud? People order for a product and someone defrauds them. People order for a pink shoe and they get a black shoe delivered to them. How do we make sure we avoid fraud and crime?

About Citi Business Festival

The 2020 edition of the Citi Business Festival started on Monday, June 1, 2020, with a line-up of radio and TV programs. It will feature virtual business forums and will be live on Citi TV.

The month-long festival of business events and on-air activities provides inspiration, business ideas, and information for persons who are starting, building or growing their businesses.

This year's edition of the Citi Business Festival is sponsored by Absa Bank, GIPC, Citi 97.3FM and powered by the most comprehensive business news website, citibusinessnews.com.

---citinewsroom
Lucknow, June 10 : UP Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Swatantra Dev Singh, here on Wednesday, criticised the Delhi Chief Minister and said Arvind Kejriwal's contention that Delhi hospitals were only for those belonging to Delhi was unfortunate and against the spirit of the Constitution.

"We are all Indians and no state can turn away anyone on the grounds that he belongs to another state," he said and added, in UP every one was being provided medical facilities irrespective of the state they belonged to.

Singh said Kejriwal cared for people from UP and Bihar living in Delhi, only during elections.

When thousands of migrants were at the Delhi-UP border, Kejriwal and his party didn't bothered about them, the BJP leader said and added, it was UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who sent buses to bring the migrants home and provided them food and money.
FirstFarms A/S has today signed conditional agreement (SPA). The agreement is entered in continuation of Head of Terms about sale of 1,675 hectares of land in West Romania (company announcement no. 9 of 30 April 2020).



The expected sales price constitutes DKK 85 million. The trade is expected to be carried out in tranches over the coming 8-11 months.

The profit of the sale is expected to affect EBIT with DKK 40 million over the coming 11 months.

FirstFarms adjusts the announced expectations to 2020 upwards by DKK 20 million. There is now expected an EBITDA result in the level of DKK 95-120 million and an EBIT result of DKK 45-70 million. In 2019, an EBITDA of DKK 96 million and EBIT of DKK 48 million was realised.

Anders H. Nrgaard says: With this sale we are realising a significant and satisfactory profit from our development of the land in West Romania. Anders H. Nrgaard continues, FirstFarms land is in our accounts booked at purchase prices and not market prices. Therefore, it is only through a sale of the land that the accumulated value increase of the land is realised. Thus, I am pleased that the significant hidden values in our land portfolio can be partially realised through this sale.

Anders H. Nrgaard clarifies: We have at the end of 2019 a booked land value of DKK 346 million (9,200 hectares) with an estimated market price of DKK 615 million. We estimate regularly the land strategy in the individual departments, and whether the land shall be operated or sold.

With the sale, FirstFarms cash resource is strengthened by DKK 85 million, as the land is not pledged.

The land is purchased in 2007-2008 and has been operated by FirstFarms the last 5 years.

The turnover in West Romania constitutes 5 percent of FirstFarms total turnover. In the department, focus has been on development of the land portfolio, and the operating results have not been satisfactory. As a significant part of FirstFarms business model, the land holding has been increased in value in the form of extensive trenching, land swap and improvement of the land structure.



Story continues

Best regards,

FirstFarms A/S





For further information:

CEO Anders H. Nrgaard on telephone +45 75 86 87 87 and www.firstfarms.com.











Attachment




Love Catalina Island Logo Our new name not only reflects the immense love we have for our destination, but also how we want visitors to feel from the moment they step onto the island".

Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau is officially changing its name to Love Catalina Island and unveiling a new logo effective June 10, 2020. As Catalina Islands official Tourism Authority, the rebrand better reflects the organizations mission to promote and share love for the small island located off the coast of southern California.

Attracting more than one million visitors annually, tourism is the economic lifeline for the island and its 4,096 residents. On March 20, Catalina suspended visitation to the island for non-residents and non-essential personnel following precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Working closely with the City of Avalon and County of Los Angeles, a phased recovery plan is underway with retail shops and restaurants now open for in-person shopping and dining. Following the State of California guidelines, local hotels will also be opening and accepting reservations for leisure travelers beginning as soon as June 12, 2020. Social distancing and face covering guidelines remain in place for all visitors.

Love Catalina Island President and CEO Jim Luttjohann shared a personal Love Letter as homage to the island, its residents and visitors, while also sharing a hopeful message for the future of travel.

The rebrand to Love Catalina Island had actually been in the works for months prior to COVID-19, but the pandemic has made the case to share our love of this island even more important, said Luttjohann. Our new name not only reflects the immense love we have for our destination, but also how we want visitors to feel from the moment they step onto the island. Despite the challenges that lie ahead to fully recover from the impacts of this crisis, we are eager to welcome visitors back to our home, and are optimistic that travelers will once again be able to experience what makes this destination so unique.

In addition to promoting Catalina as an unparalleled tourism destination, Love Catalina Island helps protect and steward the environment through its Care for Catalina initiative. With 88 percent of the island uninhabited and protected as a land trust, Love Catalina Island works closely with partners like the Catalina Island Conservancy and the City of Avalon to conserve natural landscapes, implement sustainable practices and encourage responsible travel.

A refreshed website for the Tourism Authority now includes the new Love Catalina Island name and brand logo. Drawing inspiration from its attachment to the water, the new logo represents a classic Burgee flag, while the blue and yellow color scheme act as a nod to the sea and sun.

For more information about Love Catalina Island, please visit http://www.lovecatalina.com. Follow along on Facebook @LoveCatalinaIsland, Instagram @LoveCatalinaIsland and Twitter @LoveCatalina_. Travelers are encouraged to share their memories and experiences via social media using the hashtag #LoveCatalina.

About Love Catalina Island:

Love Catalina Island serves as the official Tourism Authority for Catalina Island. Originally founded in 1949, the nonprofit is comprised of approximately 230 member organizations, working closely with city officials, local businesses and the community at large to attract visitors and support the local economy. Love Catalina Island is governed by an elected board of directors and is funded in part through the collection of Transient Occupancy Taxes. For more information, please visit http://www.lovecatalina.com. Travelers can also join the conversation on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/lovecatalinaisland) Instagram (@LoveCatalinaIsland) and Twitter (@LoveCatalina_).
President Trump said he will not consider removing Confederate names from the countrys military bases.

In a series of tweets, the president said he was opposed changing the names of bases such as Alabamas Fort Rucker, named for Col. Edmund Rucker, a brigade commander in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Other Confederate-related installations include Fort Bragg, Fort Hood, Fort Lee, Fort Benning, Fort Gordon, Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Polk, Fort Pickett and Camp Beauregard.

These monumental and very powerful bases have become part of a great American heritage, and a history of winning, victory, and freedom, the president tweeted. The United States of America trained and deployed our heroes on these hallowed grounds and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these magnificent and fabled military installations. Our history as the greatest nation in the world will not be tampered with. Respect our military!

It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

...Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

Earlier in the week, the Army said it was open to changing the names of the installations, all of which are in the South.

The Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Army are open to a bi-partisan discussion on the topic, Army spokesperson Col. Sunset Belinsky told Politico. A later added, however, that "each Army installation is named for a soldier who holds a significant place in our military history. Accordingly, the historic names represent individuals, not causes or ideologies.
The administrative-territorial reform envisages the creation of a Hungarian district with the center in Berehove.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on June 1 published a draft resolution laying down the newly formed districts across the country's regions. Five districts will be formed in the far-western Zakarpattia region (with the centers in Berehove, Mukachevo, Tyachiv, Uzhgorod, and Khusts), instead of four, as was provided for by decisions that had been preliminary agreed, being a historically motivated compromise option.

That's according to the Zakarpattia Online outlet.

In response to Cabinet's intention, signatures are being gathered for the appeal against the creation of a "Hungarian" district with a center in Berehove.

"This could lead to a phased escalation of anti-Ukrainian policies to split and divide the Ukrainian state in the future," the appeal says.

Writer Andriy Liubka in an op-ed published by RFE/RL's Ukrainian service says Ukrainian authorities made their first concessions to Budapest.

Read alsoUkraine, Hungary move to settle differences over minority legislation

According to him, now the majority of the population in the new district will be Hungarian speakers, since the district is actually located at the border with Hungary. At the same time, it is known that the Hungarians have been asking Ukraine for decades to create a separate administrative unit in Zakarpattia. Also, they have been promoting recognition of cultural autonomy for the minority and advocated the creation of a special "Hungarian constituency" in the elections to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament.

"Not a single Ukrainian government (even that of [Viktor] Yanukovych!) ever made such concessions, realizing all the potential threats it bears to the stability of the region and national security. In their decentralization projects, experts noted that it would a big mistake to enlarge the existing districts along ethnic lines. And, for example, they suggested that the Berehove district be combined with Irshava or Mukachevo districts, that is, to engage settlements with the Ukrainian population. The position of experts was not taken into account," writes Liubka.

As UNIAN reported earlier, relations between the two countries slid to a chill after the Ukrainian parliament in 2017 passed a new education law.

Hungary has since been blocking the meetings of Ukraine-NATO Commission, claiming alleged violation of rights of Hungarians living in Ukraine due to the provision of the law that determines that the language of command in educational facilities shall be the state language, which is Ukrainian.

According to the conclusion of the Venice Commission of Dec 8, 2017, Ukrainian authorities were recommended to balance the provision of the language article of Law "On Education".

On January 16, 2020, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed bill No. 0901 on secondary education. Three models of learning the Ukrainian language in schools have been laid down.

The first model is provided for the indigenous peoples of Ukraine who do not live in the linguistic environment of their language and who do not have a state that would protect and develop this language. First of all, these are the Crimean Tatars. For them, the first model includes teaching in the language of the indigenous people from 1 to 11 (12) classes along with a thorough study of the Ukrainian language.

The second model is for schools with instruction in the language of national minorities whose languages belong to the EU languages. Depending on the language group and language environment, the use of this model may be different, but the basics are: - Elementary school: the use of the mother tongue along with the study of the official language; - Grade 5: at least 20% of the annual volume of study time should be taught in Ukrainian with a gradual increase in volume so that in grade 9 to reach at least 40% of subjects that are studied in the official language; and - High school: at least 60% of the annual amount of study time in these institutions should be instructed in the official language.

The third model will work for the rest of the national communities of Ukraine. It concerns national minorities whose language belongs to one of the Ukrainian language families, as well as those who live mainly in the environment of their own speech (Russian language). Primary schools there will also have a minority language along with the study of Ukrainian, and from grade 5 at least 80% of school hours will be instructed in the official language.

At the same time, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto says Hungary proposes not to increase the number of subjects taught in Ukrainian for the national minorities, which is provided for by the new law on secondary education.
R everend Al Sharpton has given a rousing speech at the funeral of George Floyd in Houston, Texas, saying his death was not just a tragedy, it was a crime.

Delivering his eulogy, the civil rights activist addressed violence against African Americans, the legacy of slavery and Donald Trump's failure to address the issues that surround the police killing.

Rev Sharpton praised those who stepped out in protest following the death of Mr Floyd at the hands of a white officer in the US city of Minneapolis.

He specifically referenced the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in the UK, which was torn down and thrown into Bristol Harbour by Black Lives Matter demonstrators.

All over the world Ive seen grandchildren of slave masters tearing down slave master statues, he told mourners gathered on Tuesday.

The Rev Al Sharpton speaks during the funeral for George Floyd / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Rev Sharpton added: "All over the world, George, they're marching with your name.

"You've touched the world in South Africa, you've touched the world in England, you've touched every one of the 50 states. Even in a pandemic, people are walking out in the streets."

Rev Sharpton also criticised President Trump for his silence on the issues behind police violence.

He said: "How are you going to scare a bad cop if bad cops don't go to jail? Who taught these cops that they can do this to George?

"When they have the highest level of government that excuses it. When some kids wrongly start violence that this family don't condone and none of us do, the president talks about bringing in the military. But he has not said one word of 8 minutes and 46 seconds of police murder against George Floyd."

George Floyd funeral in Houston - In pictures 1 /32 George Floyd funeral in Houston - In pictures REUTERS REUTERS POOL/AFP via Getty Images POOL/AFP via Getty Images POOL/AFP via Getty Images POOL/AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AP REUTERS REUTERS AP Family members react as they view the casket AP Mourners pause by the casket of George Floyd POOL/AFP via Getty Images The Reverend Al Sharpton arrives for the funeral service AFP via Getty Images Reverend Al Sharpton enters the church for the funeral for George Floyd REUTERS Quincy Mason Floyd, son of George Floyd, enters the church for his father's funeral REUTERS Actors Channing Tatum (C) and Jamie Foxx (R) attend the funeral service of George Floyd Getty Images Terrance Floyd, brother of George Floyd, exits his car before Floyd's funeral AFP via Getty Images he family of George Floyd prepares to enter the the Fountain of Praise church Getty Images Philonise Floyd, brother, of George Floyd pauses at the casket during the funeral POOL/AFP via Getty Images Philonise Floyd, brother, of George Floyd pauses at the casket during the funeral POOL/AFP via Getty Images The Reverend Al Sharpton prepares to lead the family of George Floyd into the sanctuary Getty Images Family members of George Floyd pauses at the casket during the funeral service AP The Reverend Al Sharpton prepares to lead the family of George Floyd into the sanctuary AP

Family members and friends, most dressed all in white, stepped up to a microphone to describe Mr Floyd as a loving, larger than life personality who deserved justice after his death while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers on May 25.

A 46-year-old African American who grew up in Houston, Mr Floyd died after a white police officer pinned him with a knee to the neck for 8 minutes 46 seconds.

The policeman, Derek Chauvin, 44, has been charged with second-degree murder and three others with aiding and abetting.

Mr Floyd's death was captured in excruciating detail on a bystander's video, with his words "I can't breathe" shocking the world and triggering a wave of demonstrations against racism and police brutality against minorities.

His niece Brooke Williams said in a eulogy that drew applause inside the Fountain of Praise Church: I can breathe. And as long as I am breathing, justice will be served.

About 500 people were invited to the funeral, which followed memorial services last week in Minneapolis and Raeford, the North Carolina town where Mr Floyd was born.

"This is a home-going celebration," Reverend Mia Wright, co-pastor at the church, told mourners. Banners featured pop art illustrations of Mr Floyd wearing a baseball cap with a halo above it.
The police chief says we will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting.

The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, MPD Chief Medaria Arradondo said on Wednesday as he announced the first steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency in the wake of George Floyds death.

Arradondo said a thorough review of the contract is planned. He said the contract needs to be restructured to provide more transparency and flexibility for true reform. The review would look at matters such as critical incident protocols, use of force, and disciplinary protocols, including grievances and arbitration.

He said it is debilitating for a chief when there are grounds to terminate an officer and a third-party mechanism works to keep that person on the street.

This work must be transformational, but I must do it right, Arradondo said of changes to the department.

He also promised new research and strategies to spot and intervene with problem officers.

We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart, he said, adding that the department has to address issues of racism head-on.

Arradondo sidestepped a question about whether he thought union head Bob Kroll, often seen as an obstacle to reforms, should step down. He also did not directly answer a question about whether citizens should worry about a slowdown in police response time as a pushback against attempts to transform the department. Some city council members have said in the past that their wards saw such slowdowns when they complained about the police action.

Minneapolis police officers detain a group outside a car during continued demonstrations in reaction to the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minnesota [Lucas Jackson/Reuters]

Arradondo fired the four officers involved in Floyds death even before they were criminally charged. A majority of Minneapolis City Council members have called for dismantling the police department, but they provided no clear plan on how that would happen.

Mayor Jacob Frey said he would not support abolishing the department, but he would favour a cultural shift in how it functions. He did not get into specifics, but told the Good Morning America show on Monday that the city has difficulty terminating and disciplining officers because of the police union.

Former police chief Janee Harteau said she received pushback from the union when she was trying to make changes.

Bob Bennett, a lawyer who said he has sued the department hundreds of times over police misconduct allegations, has said the union has more sway over police conduct than chiefs do.

Arradondo, the citys first African American police chief, joined the Minneapolis Police Department in 1989 as a patrol officer, eventually working his way up to precinct inspector and head of the Internal Affairs Unit, which investigates misconduct allegations against officers. Along the way, he and four other Black officers successfully sued the department for discrimination in promotions, pay and discipline.





He was promoted to assistant chief in early 2017, then became chief later that year, after his predecessor was fired for the way she handled the fatal police shooting of a Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian native who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home.

Many hoped Arradondo could change the culture of a department that critics said too frequently used excessive force and discriminated against people of colour. Arradondo spoke of restoring trust during his swearing-in ceremony and made some quick changes, including toughening the departments policy on the use of body cameras. But critics have continued to call for more change.
New Delhi, June 10 : Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday once again attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his silence over the India-China stand-off. Gandhi has been demanding a statement on the current situation at the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh.

"The Chinese have walked in and taken our territory in Ladakh. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is absolutely silent and has vanished from the scene," Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

His remarks came a day after he traded barbs with the Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

On Monday, Rajnath Singh responded to former Congress chief jibe at Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The Wayanad MP on Tuesday questioned the government on Chinese intrusion in India.

"Once RM (Defence Minister) is done commenting on the hand symbol, can he answer: Have the Chinese occupied Indian territory in Ladakh?" Rahul Gandhi questioned in a tweet.

His remarks were in response to Singh's jibe at the Congress after Rahul Gandhi raised questions over the issue of border dispute with China.

"Haath me dard ho to dawa kije, haath hi jab dard ho to kya kije (You apply medicine to the hand when it pains, but what to do when the hand itself is the cause of pain)," Rajnath Singh said in tweet in reply to the Congress leader.

The back and forth between the two parties started on June 3, when Rahul Gandhi questioned the central government over a military stand-off with China in Ladakh. He had tweeted: "Can the government of India please confirm that no Chinese soldiers have entered India?" India and China have started the process of de-escalation at the Line of Actual Control with withdrawal of troops, guns and combat vehicles from three standoff positions in eastern Ladakh, sources said on Tuesday. India's bone of contention of Chinese troops built up at Finger Four would be resolved eventually, they said.

The withdrawal started happening after India and China's top military-level talks that took place June 6.
French paper Le Monde has taken a closer look at the Grand Duchy and its response to the corona outbreak.

The newspaper published an article on Tuesday analysing the Luxembourgish strategy in face of the pandemic.

Le Monde, one of the most influential media outlets in France, qualified the efficient handling of the situation a success.

Early diagnosis and the channelling of funds into the medical sector allowed hospital staff to prepare adequately and not be overrun by the first wave of infections. There was even enough room for French patients to be transferred to the Grand Duchy from Grand Est. This has secured Luxembourg a spot of honour during the celebrations of the national day of France on 14 July.

The newspaper further highlights the level of anticipation put forward by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, who monitored the situation in Wuhan early on and used his connections to supply the country with safety masks.

Nonetheless, Luxembourg was dependent on the support of its neighbouring countries, especially when borders started to close.

This move put a lot of pressure on the national health services, which rely on staff commuting from across the border on a daily basis. The country thus offered hotels to these workers and provided them with the same number of masks that Luxembourgish residents received.

Bettel further emphasises that Luxembourg, although privileged, stays determined to help out the rest of the European Union in solidarity.
Covid-19 and 10 years of declining growth put the South African economy into freefall. Insurers are heading into an environment where consumers will be under tremendous financial pressure and questioning the value proposition of all their financial planning solutions.

Key take-outs from the SA-csi for Life Insurance 2019

Customer satisfaction  overall index

Absa Life at 83,2 FNB Life comes in at 82,2 and Old Mutual at 80,3  are leading the industry.

Metropolitan (79,6) and Sanlam (78,6) both come in on par, however both brands show a slight decline in their 2018 scores.

Discovery Life (75,7), Liberty (75,2) and Momentum (74,5) all come in below par on overall Customer satisfaction scores. Both Liberty and Momentum managed to show improvements in previous scores.

Customer expectations and perceived quality

All brands measured met or exceeded the expectations of customers, with the exception of Discovery and Momentum. These brands showed the biggest negative gaps particularly around the reliability of the offering  showing that customers experienced more problems than they expected to.

Both these brands come in below par on customer expectations and perceived quality scores.

Old Mutual leads the way on meeting and exceeding customer expectations with a score of 84,1, and a perceived quality score of 84,7. Absa life also performs well with scores of 82,9 and 85,0 on customer expectations and perceived quality respectively. FNB Life follows with 82,0 and 84,6 respectively, however it has the biggest gap between customer expectations and actual experience.

Perceived value

Perceived value is a measure of the quality, relative to the price paid. The perception of value for money is a very strong predictor of future usage and company growth.

Discovery Life (75,0), Liberty (76,8) and Momentum (75,1) remain below the industry par (79,9).

Absa Life (86,6), FNB Life (84,8) and Old Mutual (81,7) take the lead on perceived value.

Effort levels have a big impact on perceptions of value, with customers being at risk of moving their cover when it becomes too high (as a result of poor service and feedback) and benefits do not deliver what customers were led to believe.

Complaints incidence and resolution

In terms of complaints incidence and handling, Absa Life has the lowest complaint incidence (6,2) which is well below the industry par (10,6) and it also has an exceptionally high complaint resolution rate (70,6).

Liberty also performs well on this front, with a complaint incidence score of 9,2 and a solid complaint resolution rate of 63,2.

Both Absa Life and Liberty show massive improvements in their complaint handling scores, which suggests that this has been a key focus in the businesses since the 2018 index.

Discovery Life performs worst on this measure with a high complaint incidence rate of 10,8 and the lowest complaint resolution rate of 38,7  both scores fall well short of the mark in terms of industry par, and both scores have shown significant decline when compared with 2018 scores.

Discovery Life and Sanlam all show a big pickup in complaint incidence compared with their 2018 scores.

Customer loyalty

Absa Life (75,6%), FNB Life (73%) and Old Mutual (70,3%) have the highest percentage of loyal customers, are above the industry par of 68% and have all shown an improvement in loyalty scores compared with 2018.

All other brands are below par when it comes to customer loyalty.

Net promoter score

Net promoter score measures the likelihood of a person recommending a brand.

Absa Life with a net promoter score (NPS) at 54,2 and FNB Life at 52,2 both have NPS scores much higher than the industry (33,7).

This is followed by Old Mutual at 40.8 and Metropolitan at 35,2.

All other brands score lower than industry average, with Momentum (16,7) and Discovery Life (19,9) falling well below par. While Momentum has shown an improvement of 6-points compared with its 2018 score, Discovery has taken a big 10-point decline from its previous years score of 29,4.

Sanlam (29,9) also showed a decline in their score compared with 2018.

Treating customers fairly (TCF)

The degree to which customers feel they are being treated fairly by their insurer is highest with Absa Life (86,5), FNB Life (85,6), Metropolitan (83,5), Old Mutual (83,3) and Sanlam (82,4) - all above industry par of 81,9.

Discovery Life (75.9), Liberty (77.7) and Momentum (77,7) are on par with the rest of the industry.

The sentiments and views expressed by customers in the latest South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SA-csi) for Life Insurance (2019) conducted by Consulta will ultimately feed into how customers respond in a post-Covid economy. Every household expense will be scrutinised, and customer satisfaction and perceived value for money will be the dealbreakers as to who maintains market share, and who loses it in the months ahead. Loyalty will be challenged as customers look to value and price above all other measures.The benchmark measurement for Life Insurance (2019) provides important insights into the levels of customer satisfaction of South Africas major life insurers  Absa Life, Discovery Life, FNB Life, Liberty, Metropolitan, Momentum, Old Mutual and Sanlam  and will have a distinct bearing on how customers respond in an inevitably tough economy.For at least the medium term, South Africa faces a heavily constrained economy, high and growing unemployment and technological disruption, all impacting the financial services sector and how it engages with customers. Customer mindsets, approaches to their financial planning products and providers are likely to undergo radical change in a post-Covid economy, as will all consumer discretionary spending.Brand loyalty will come under significant strain as customers scrutinise aspects such as perceived value for money, overall customer experience with their brands, and whether they trust their providers to pay out in their time of need. If markets were challenging before, they are about to enter unprecedented competition in a recycled and shrinking consumer pool that will demand laser-like focus by insurers on customer satisfaction if they are to keep churn rates in check, says Ineke Prinsloo, head of customer insights at Consulta.After the most severe consequence of the coronavirus pandemic  death  comes retrenchments resulting from a contracting global and local economy. Consumers will be scrutinising every policy and what they are paying for them. The bells and whistles of overly complex benefit designs and loyalty programmes will be moot in a post-Covid economy, where consumers will be scrutinising the underlying value for money in every policy and programme.Insurers are going to be challenged like never before to deliver real, tangible value and simple benefit designs and communication on an ongoing basis, and not only at the time of a life claim. On this point, banks offering credit life insurance, together with traditional life insurance, have an added advantage to demonstrate tangible value right now, where customers are being advised to claim under the retrenchment benefits on these policies to assist with debt repayments during the pandemic crisis. Across all providers, those who fail to get a handle on complaints and resolution and who are not responsive to their customers, are likely to see a greater number of customers go the mercenary route to look for better options.Finally, effective digital delivery, maintaining customer satisfaction and experience will be key for the effective delivery of service and support. Given how quickly and widely South African consumers have had to integrate digital technology into every facet of their personal and work lives, the delivery of insurance products and advice in future is in for a major shake-up, says Priinsloo.In the 2019 SA-csi for Life Insurance, Absa Life, FNB Life and Old Mutual all take leader positions, followed by Metropolitan and Sanlam coming in on par, while Discovery Life, Liberty and Momentum all come in below par on overall customer satisfaction scores. It is interesting to note that two of the three leader positions are held by banks  Absa Life and FNB Life - and not traditional life insurers. Bancassurance  the process of selling insurance products through banking channels  is making inroads into the traditional insurer space. This warrants attention given the ability of banks to integrate life insurance into trusted and digitised banking systems as part of a more holistic financial services offering, as well as integrate insurance offerings into their customer rewards programmes  this is likely to become increasingly important when customer cashflow is under pressure.The SA-csi for Life Insurance is the most comprehensive survey of customer satisfaction, and is a causal model that links customer expectations, perceived quality, and perceived value to customer satisfaction (the SA-csi score), which in turn is linked to customer complaints (and recovery), and customer loyalty intentions. As a strategic tool for gauging the competitiveness of individual firms and predicting future profitability, an organisations customer satisfaction performance, as measured by the SA-csi methodology, provides a predictive indication of how well the firm will perform in terms of future revenue and earnings growth. Supported by both the scientific and practitioner community, the SA-csi is the first independent, comprehensive national customer satisfaction index with international comparability in South Africa and has collected data from more than 400,000 consumers since its inception in 2012. The SA-csi forms part of a global network of research groups, quality associations and universities that have adopted the methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) via its Global CSISM programme.
Eighteen new cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed by City of Laredo and Webb County officials in their latest update Wednesday. The added cases bring the city's total to 652 positive cases.

Over the last three days, 58 positive cases have been announced by city officials, including a record-high of 26 on June 9. Since the start of June, 109 cases have been confirmed by city officials. The cases in June thus far account for 16.71 percent of the total number of positives.

Laredo officials reacted to the spiking number of cases, offering explanations for increasing numbers being seen recently.

Interm Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator Ramiro Elizondo suggested that the cases are due to efforts undertaken to resume business as usual in Texas.

"In my opinion, it has to do with the reopening of the state," Elizondo said. "We were one of the strictest in the state [for coronavirus restrictions]. For us to be reporting such cases, it tells me that we are not implementing these measures anymore."

Elizondo urged Laredoans to keep following social distancing measures and continue to wear protective equipment, such as face masks, in public despite the removal of measures that would fine or jail persons who do not.

Laredo Health Authority Dr. Victor Trevino also said gatherings as a result of Memorial Day could have played a part.

Acting Health Director Richard Chamberlain attributed the numbers to increased testing throughout the city.

According to Chamberlain, an increasing number of people have been referred for coronavirus tests in Laredo, including some patients that have been referred by local dentists as non-essential medical services open throughout the state.

Despite the fact that they might lead to increased numbers, free testing clinics will continue to be held throughout the city, including a free mobile clinic at the Sames Auto Arena from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Currently, 14 Laredoans are under treatment at Laredo hospitals with COVID-19. The number of hospitalizations has remained relatively stable, despite increasing number of hospitalizations reported across the state of Texas. Eight of the patients are currently under intensive care.

As of noon Wednesday, 5,715 tests have been submitted for COVID-19 in Laredo. Of those, 4,358 persons have tested negative.

705 tests are still pending results. However, 259 tests are older than 30 days and are presumed negative by city health officials, resulting in an adjusted pending number of 446.

457 persons previously infected with coronavirus have been cleared to return to the public by Laredo health officials. The number of coronavirus-related deaths remains at 20.

Active coronavirus cases, obtained by removing the number of recovered cases and deaths, stand at 175 total.
EDWARDSVILLE  While city officials started legislation moving through the approval process to take over Hadley Lane, at least one resident deplores the move as a case of too little, too late.

During Tuesdays public services committee meeting, aldermen voted in favor of a resolution to accept a deed of conveyance for the road. The disputed section is east of Montclaire Avenue/Grant Drive, not the adjacent and wider Hadley Avenue that runs west to Troy Road. Hadley Lane is 758.75 feet long and 20 feet wide with nine homes on Hadley Lane and three more on Hadley Court.

Residents Leo Sulentic and Dylan Jerrell claim Hadley Lane has been a city street since at least 1991, when the city constructively accepted the road during a utility project without any utility easements, so current acceptance is merely a formality. Jerrell continued, letting aldermen know that if they failed to approve this conveyance deed, litigation was the next logical outcome.

Well be filing a petition for declaratory judgment so its going to be costly to the city and therell be negative publicity regarding the city, Jerrell said.

His veiled threat did not sit well with two of the aldermen.

I dont take kindly to threats and I dont think thats necessary in this situation, Alderman SJ Morrison responded. I think its inappropriate. We are considering this because its the right thing to do.

More Information In a timeline dated March 13, Hadley Lane resident Leo Sulentic lays out his case for the city owning Hadley Lane. He claims all of the information listed below is public record: Sept. 12, 1973 - Hadley Lane annexed into the city of Edwardsville Sept. 27, 1991 - Hadley Lane warranty deed transferred from Bank of Edwardsville/Earl Wilson Trust to the city Oct. 10, 1991 - City's public services committee approves award for engineering services for Hadley Lane water main extension Nov. 5, 1991 - City council approves Hadley Lane water main extension Nov. 27, 1991 - City council approves contract to lowest bidder. Bids due Dec. 16, 1991 Dec. 9, 1991 - Quit claim deed filed Dec. 17, 1991 - Hadley Lane water main extension contract awarded to Eagle Excavation. Public services committee approves installation of streetlights on Hadley Lane Jan. 7, 1992 - City council approves streetlight installation on Hadley Lane Jan. 8, 1992 - City of Edwardsville receives property tax exemption on tax lot 14-1-15-13-14-301-069 (Hadley Lane) Feb. 18, 1992 - City council announces Hadley Lane Water Extension is complete Aug. 7, 2018 - Guaranty Title Company finds the apparent record owner of 14-1-15-13-14-301-069 is the city of Edwardsville, a municipal corporation in Madison County, Illinois See More Collapse

Alderman Jack Burns agreed, adding that they still have other city council members to persuade to vote in favor of this resolution. Jerrell denied threatening anyone; he replied he was just stating the next, natural progression of things.

In the 10-year period that I have been challenging Hal Patton and the city that Hadley Lane is a city street, the mayor, backed up by the city manager and the city attorney, has always claimed that it is not a city street, Sulentic wrote in a June 2 letter to a reporter. Patton was elected mayor in 2013.

To further bolster his point, Sulentic said the public works department salts the street, clears it of snow, removes overgrown brush along it and is currently in the midst of flushing its fire hydrant(s). Sulentic wants the road re-paved and the culvert over the creek repaired. At least six residents, mostly Hadley residents, either sent letters or left messages supporting the city accepting the road.

A reporter reached out to Patton for comment but received no response to Sulentics claims by Tuesday at deadline.

City Attorney Jeff Berkbigler said from the citys perspective, the deed was recorded in September 1991, but city staff and two independent surveyors could find no written records in 2009 and 2014, showing the city accepted the deed at any time since. Berkbigler added that this was a complicated and convoluted transfer among the Wilson Trust, two banks and the city. However, field inspections that show city-owned utilities have been installed under the 20-foot strip that is Hadley Lane, indicating the city constructively accepted the road at some point in the past.

Public Works Director Eric Williams said if the full council approves the resolution, his crews will first evaluate the culvert(s) over a creek to determine what work needs to be done to repair it or them, then Hadley Lane will be patched followed by an oil and chip treatment in July.

The resolution now goes to the full city council for action at its June 16 meeting. In other action, the committee unanimously approved the following items:

 A minor subdivision plat for Dixie Harr, second subdivision, an already developed site at 5090 Old Carpenter Road

 A sole source resolution for the purchase of rock salt from Gunther Salt Company for use at the citys water treatment plant during the second half of 2020 at a cost of $260,715

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at (618) 659-5735
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market Research Report by Crop (Cereals & Grains, Fruits & Vegetables, Oilseeds & Pulses, Plantation Crops, and Turf & Ornamentals), by Method (Fertigation and Foliar), by Type - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913967/?utm_source=PRN







The Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market is expected to grow from USD 1,568.25 Million in 2019 to USD 1,970.35 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.87%.



Market Segmentation & Coverage:

This research report categorizes the Controlled-Release Fertilizers to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:



On the basis of Crop, the Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market is studied across Cereals & Grains, Fruits & Vegetables, Oilseeds & Pulses, Plantation Crops, and Turf & Ornamentals. The Cereals & Grains further studied across Corn, Rice, and Wheat. The Fruits & Vegetables further studied across Brassicas, Citrus Fruits, and Roots & Tubers. The Oilseeds & Pulses further studied across Canola and Soybean.



On the basis of Method, the Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market is studied across Fertigation and Foliar.



On the basis of Type, the Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market is studied across Coated & Encapsulated, N-Stabilizers, and Slow-Release. The Coated & Encapsulated further studied across Polymer Coatings, Sulfur Coatings, and Sulfur-Polymer Coatings. The N-Stabilizers further studied across Nitrification Inhibitors and Urease Inhibitors. The Slow-Release further studied across Urea-Acetaldehyde, Urea-Formaldehyde, and Urea-Isobutyraldehyde.



On the basis of Geography, the Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market is studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region is studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region is studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region is studied across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.



Company Usability Profiles:

The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market including AGLUKON Spezialduenger GmbH & Co. KG, Agrium Inc., AgroBridge, ATS Group, Compo Expert, Greenfeed Agro Sdn. Bhd, Haifa Chemicals Ltd., Helena Chemical Company, Israel Chemicals Limited, Jcam Agri., Kingenta, Koch Industries, Scottsmiracle-Gro, SQM, and Yara International ASA.



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.



Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:

COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.



The report provides insights on the following pointers:

1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on sulfuric acid offered by the key players

2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets

3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments

4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players

5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments



The report answers questions such as:

1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market?

2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market during the forecast period?

3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market?

4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market?

5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market?

6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Controlled-Release Fertilizers Market?



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913967/?utm_source=PRN



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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CHENGDU, China, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Oxford and China's Sichuan University have jointly launched a center to bolster research cooperation on gastrointestinal cancer.

Representatives from the two sides signed a contract for the Sichuan University-University of Oxford Huaxi Joint Centre for Gastrointestinal Cancer during a recent video conference, according to a statement by Sichuan University.

The international collaboration started in June 2019. It plans to set up a gastrointestinal cancer center in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, and research platforms at the two universities. These units will work together in studying the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal tumors, as well as developing management strategies for treating cancer patients.

Li Yanrong, president of Sichuan University, said the joint center will be an open research platform where scholars from the two universities and their global counterparts can jointly carry out scientific research, launch talent-training programs, hold international academic conferences and publish papers.

"It will focus on cancer therapies and tumor marker development in order to provide better treatment options for patients," said Li, emphasizing the Sino-UK science collaboration as being in the global interest.

"How to better treat patients, prolong their survival time and improve their life quality are shared concerns of the researchers at the two universities," said Yang Li, director of the Gastroenterology Department at the West China Hospital of Sichuan University.

West China Hospital, also known as Huaxi Hospital, is a prestigious medical center in Chengdu. Its Gastroenterology Department is a national key discipline and national key clinical specialty administered by China's health authorities.

SOURCE Sichuan University
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

By Max Brooks

Del Rey. 304 pp. $28

---

Bigfoot holds a big place in my heart.

Two years ago, a congressional race in Virginia took a weird turn - I mean weirder than usual - when Democratic candidate Leslie Cockburn accused her Republican opponent, Denver Riggleman, of being a "devotee of Bigfoot erotica."

Cockburn claimed, "This is not what we need on Capitol Hill," which showed how little she knew about Washington.

With my well-trained nose for important news, I got Riggleman on the phone. I learned that his opponent was referring to a crude parody that he'd once made for some of his old Air Force buddies. "I do not believe that Bigfoot is real," Riggleman declared. "But I don't want to alienate any Bigfoot voters."

That bold strategy worked. Riggleman went on to carry the Yeti contingent and win the election in Virginia's 5th District. For me, the results were more mixed. The story I threw together about Bigfoot erotica was popular. In fact, after two decades of carefully reviewing literary fiction, it remains the most popular story I've ever published.

Joshua Blu Buhs knows my heartache. In 2009, he wrote a cultural critique titled "Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend." He ventured into the dark woods not to mock but to understand what drove these obsessed searchers and conspiracy theorists. "Love is never easy, and loving a thing as ambiguous, as unclassifiable, as derided as Bigfoot was especially difficult," he writes. "Like so many ogres, like any geek, Bigfoot was known by its appetite: its love could be all-consuming, devouring those things an enthusiast once held dear. Families, relationships, careers, all were sacrificed for the beast's love."

In other words, the myth satisfies such a primal need that if Bigfoot didn't exist, we would have to invent him.

Which brings us to Max Brooks' new book, "Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre." This marks a significant change for Brooks, who is a well-known expert on zombies, which are still widely disputed, like werewolves or climate change. In 2003, Brooks published "The Zombie Survival Guide," and his 2006 book "World War Z" was later made into a movie starring Brad Pitt.

With "Devolution," Brooks brings his considerable investigative powers to a cryptozoological controversy that has been raging in the Pacific Northwest for decades. "I will let you," he writes, "judge for yourself if the following pages seem reasonably plausible."

Cleverly, some of the elements of this story do seem reasonably plausible, which, as we've learned, is the key to any abominable conspiracy theory. Brooks includes factual footnotes, interviews with a park ranger and excerpts from Teddy Roosevelt's 1893 memoir, "The Wilderness Hunter." But the meat of the book is a document of somewhat more questionable provenance: a diary retrieved from the site of a grisly massacre in Washington state.

The author of this diary is a missing woman named Kate Holland. She and her depressed husband, Dan, were members of a small group of tech pioneers who joined a utopian community called Greenloop built in "a mountainous, primeval rain forest as treacherous as anywhere in North America." The six smart homes, powered by methane gas from the occupants' poo, are the epitome of the green revolution: "No more sacrifice, no more guilt." Physically removed from the troubles of the world while remaining linked by high-speed Internet access, the Greenloopers are free to enjoy "the best parts of both an urban and rural lifestyle."

Fortunately, the founders of Greenloop, a handsome tech guru and his yoga-teaching wife, have anticipated every contingency, so there is absolutely no way anything could go wrong.

Things immediately go wrong.

First, Mount Rainier erupts with a volcanic explosion. Kate writes, "It felt like a giant foot had kicked the house," which is a little too on the nose. That cataclysm sends out a tide of lava and boiling mud that cuts off the Northwest corner of the country. Greenloop is too far away to be threatened directly by the volcano, but the explosion takes down the community's Internet and cellphone service, which is tremendously irritating when you're trying to watch "Young Sheldon" or defend yourself against an emboldened band of carnivorous Sasquatches.

Only one of the Greenloop group is truly ready for what's coming: an older woman nicknamed Mostar who survived the Bosnian War. At the first sign of trouble, she starts rationing food, cutting spears from bamboo and offering wise advice like "People only see the present through the lenses of their personal pasts," which I'm assuming sounds more profound in Bosnian. The yoga instructor, meanwhile, wants to make sure no one hurts any of the forest animals. "They're just trying to eat," she says a few days before becoming a spandex-clad flank steak.

Given the monster stories set upon the world by Mary Shelley and other masters of the macabre, Brooks is trying to fill some awfully big shoes here. The results are uneven. We want our horror either campy or spooky, but for far too many pages, "Devolution" plods along a dull middle ground, not so much building suspense as venting it. We get the Crichtonesque warnings about relying too much on technology. We get the nervous declarations that there's nothing to worry about. We get the strange sounds that are probably just a raccoon BUT ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT A RACCOON.

Trouble is, all these conventions of the trapped-in-the-woods frightfest are now as well known as the Patterson-Gimlin film of that guy in the gorilla costume looking over his shoulder. Without considerably sharper writing, making us wait more than 100 pages for the inevitable reveal of our hairy antagonists is just cruel. As Chekhov once said, if there's a Bigfoot lurking in the forest in the first chapter, he must go off in the second.

Part of the problem is the diary format. We're stuck in Kate's limited perspective trudging through her flat prose. And we have to believe that Kate keeps taking time off from seeing her neighbors ripped limb from limb to jot down her reflections on the day's activities. "So much has happened," she writes. "Where do I even begin?"

But at least when the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) finally start attacking, the mayhem is satisfyingly ferocious and gory. Alas, if there's a lesson here, it's wasted on most of the Greenloopers: "Some of them realize, too late, that nature is anything by harmonious."

There's probably a great horror novel about Sasquatch out there somewhere, but I won't believe it till I see it.

---

Charles writes about books for The Washington Post and hosts TotallyHipVideoBookReview.com.
Thousands of scientists across the world stopped working on Wednesday to protest institutional racism, a strike that follows two weeks of demonstrations spurred by the death of George Floyd while in police custody.

More than 5,000 scientists and two prominent scientific journals shut down operations and pledged to use the day to address how racial inequalities in science produce bias in research and scholarship, and to focus on long-term plans to dismantle entrenched racism in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

"In the wake of the most recent murders of Black people in the US, it is clear that white and other non-Black people have to step up and do the work to eradicate anti-Black racism," the website for Shut Down STEM said.

"In academia, our thoughts and words turn into new ways of knowing. Our research papers turn into media releases, books and legislation that reinforce anti-Black narratives," the website said. "In STEM, we create technologies that affect every part of our society and are routinely weaponized against Black people."

Black and Hispanic workers are significantly underrepresented in the STEM workforce. In the U.S., only 9% of STEM workers are black and 7% are Hispanic, according to the Pew Research Center.

White people comprise nearly 70% of the STEM workforce and also have a higher median income than black or Hispanic workers.

TWEET

One research report shows that the already-low percentage of black students who receive bachelor degrees in physics  just 3.5%  has barely changed since 2006, despite the number of those degrees doubling in the past two decades.

"Black representation among physics faculty is non-existent at most institutions," according to a statement on the event's website, Particles for Justice. "It is widely known that Black students often feel unwelcome, unsupported, and even unsafe in their physics departments and predominantly white campus."

TWEET

Astrophysicist Brian Nord, who helped plan the strike, wrote in a statement that "This moment is about Black people and the conditions under which we live and work."

"We have spent millions of dollars building one of the most complex astronomical devices in the history of cosmological science, but you refuse to even open a book about how to build a healthy and inclusive community and a world where Black lives matter," Nord wrote.

TWEET

People on social media are spreading word about the strike with the hashtags #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM and #Strike4BlackLives.

STEM institutions including the American Physical Society and prominent scientific journals "Nature" and "Science" closed on Wednesday in solidarity with the strike.

"We recognize that Nature is one of the white institutions that is responsible for bias in research and scholarship," the journal wrote on Twitter. "We commit to working to end anti-Black practices in research."
[June 10, 2020] Finland has developed one of most advanced mobile markets in Europe

Sydney, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Finland outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Finland-Mobile-Infrastructure-Broadband-Operators-Statistics-and-Analyses Finland has developed one of most advanced mobile markets in Europe, and just as it was in the forefront of LTE developments so has it emerged as one of the pioneers in 5G. The regulator has auctioned spectrum in the 700MHz, 3.5GHz and 26GHz bands to enable network operators to extend the availability of LTE and 5G services nationally5G in Finland is crucial to realising the governments roadmap for providing data of at least 100Mb/s by 2025. Growth in the number of mobile subscribers has slowed, in line with the high penetration, while the market has shifted to mobile data and mobile broadband. To this end the network operators have concentrated on network upgrades, providing improved mobile broadband services to the 99% of the population already covered by LTE. Although market competition and regulated tariffs and termination rates have put pressure on operator revenue. This report provides statistics and analyses on the Finnish mobile market, including key regulatory issues, a snapshot of the consumer market, the growth of mobile data services and the development of emerging technologies and networks such as HSPA, LTE and 5G. Key developments: Regulator conclude 26GHz auction for 5G services;

Telia Finland launches a commercial 5G network;

DNA upgrades core and regional networks in preparation for 5G;

Telenor completes its acquisition of DNA;

Nokia and Telia deploy NB-IoT using spectrum in the 800MHz band;

Telia and DNA make progress with joint mobile network to deliver services in Northern and Eastern Finland;

Report update includes the regulator's market data to December 2018, telcos' financial and operating data to Q1 2020, recent market developments. Companies mentioned in this report: Telia, DNA, Elisa, Digita. Market analysis

Mobile statistics General statistics Operator market shares Mobile data Short Message Service (SMS) Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) Mobile broadband

Regulatory issues Spectrum regulations and spectrum auctions 450MHz 700MHz 800MHz 900MHz 1.8GHz 2.6GHz 3.5GHz 26GHz Roaming Mobile Number ortability (MNP) Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) Network sharing

Mobile infrastructure Digital networks 5G 4G (LTE) 3G Other infrastructure developments Machine-to-Machine (M2) Internet of Things (IoT)

Major mobile operators Telia Finland DNA Elisa Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)

Appendix  Historic data

Related reports



Table 1  Mobile data subscriptions by type  2006  2018

Table 2  Proportion of mobile data subscriptions by speed (Mb/s)  2014  2018

Table 3  Development of Telia Finlands mobile service revenue  2010  2020

Table 4  Development of Telia Finlands blended ARPU  2010  2020

Table 5  Change in the number of Telia Finlands mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Table 6  DNA annualised postpaid monthly ARPU  2007  2020

Table 7  Change in the number of DNAs mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Table 8  Growth in DNAs mobile revenue, by type  2013  2019

Table 9  Growth in DNAs mobile data traffic  2013  2019

Table 10  Change in Elisa Groups revenue  2010  2020

Table 11  Change in the number of Elisas mobile subscribers in Finland and Estonia  2010 - 2020

Table 12  Elisa mobile churn and proportion of data revenue  2008  2019

Table 13  Elisa mobile voice, SMS and data traffic  2008  2020

Table 14  Elisa mobile voice, SMS and data traffic  2008  2020

Table 15  Change in Elisas annualised ARPU  2010  2020

Table 16  Historic - Mobile subscribers and penetration rate  1995; 1997; 1999  2009

Table 17  Historic - Mobile revenue as proportion of total telecom revenue  1998  2009

Table 18  Historic - SMS messages sent and annual change  1999  2009

Table 19  Historic - Telia Finland mobile financial data  2005  2009

Table 20  Historic - Telia Finland blended ARPU  2003  2009

Table 21  Historic - Telia Finland mobile subscribers  2002  2009

Table 22  Historic - DNA annualised postpaid monthly ARPU  2007  2009

Table 23  Historic - DNA mobile subscribers  2007  2009

Table 24  Historic - Elisa mobile financial data  2004  2009

Table 25  Historic - Elisa mobile subscribers in Finland and Estonia  2004 - 2009

Table 26  Historic - Elisa annualised ARPU  2008  2009 List of Charts

Chart 1  Growth in the proportion of mobile revenue to total telecom revenue  2010  2018

Chart 2  Change in mobile network revenue  2006  2018

Chart 3  Change in mobile network tangible investment  2011  2018

Chart 4  Mobile subscribers and penetration rate  2009  2024

Chart 5  Calls and call minutes originating in mobile networks  2006  2018

Chart 6  Change in average mobile ARPU  2014  2018

Chart 7  Prepaid subscribers and proportion to total  2011  2018

Chart 8  Mobile market share of subscribers by operator  2006  2018

Chart 9  Growth in mobile data traffic  2006  2020

Chart 10  Growth in mobile data traffic  2009  2018

Chart 11  Decline in SMS messages traffic, annual change  2010  2018

Chart 12  Change in MMS messages traffic, annual change  2003  2018

Chart 13  Growth in the number of active mobile broadband subscribers, and penetration  2009  2024

Chart 14  MTRs by operator  2005  2020

Chart 15  Growth in the number of M2M connections  2012  2018

Chart 16  Development of Telia Finlands mobile service revenue  2010  2020

Chart 17  Development of Telia Finlands blended ARPU  2010  2020

Chart 18  Change in the number of Telia Finlands mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Chart 19  DNA annualised postpaid monthly ARPU  2010  2020

Chart 20  Change in the number of DNAs mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Chart 21  Growth in DNAs mobile revenue, by type  2013  2019

Chart 22  Growth in DNAs mobile data traffic  2027  2019

Chart 23  Change in Elisa Groups revenue  2010  2020

Chart 24  Change in the number of Elisas mobile subscribers in Finland and Estonia  2010 - 2020

Chart 25  Elisa mobile voice, SMS and data traffic  2008  2020

Chart 26  Change in Elisas annualised ARPU  2010  2020 List of Exhibits Exhibit 1  700MHz auction results  2016

Exhibit 2  2.6GHz auction results  2009

Exhibit 3  3.5GHz auction results  October 2018



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Finland-Mobile-Infrastructure-Broadband-Operators-Statistics-and-Analyses Nicolas Bombourg [email protected] Within Australia (02) 8076 7665 Outside Australia +44 207 097 1241

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A few days back, a desi TikTok rival app showed out of nowhere called Mitron. It became super popular with over 5 million downloads in just under a month, only to get removed from the Google Play Store. There's been a lot of speculation surrounding the app, including its origin as people say the founders copied the source code from a Pakistani company.

Well, the founders of the Mitron app have spoken to CNBC-TV18 and answered a bunch of questions. Here's everything that you need to know from the interview -

First of all, the founder of Mitron, Shivank Agarwal, is indeed an IIT Roorkee graduate. He says he always wanted an entrepreneurial journey and he loved to create services around content. The co-founder of Mitron, Anish, also answered the questions.

 MensXP/Karthik Iyer

Is the source code of Mitron app copied from a Pakistani Company?

To this they said they had purchased the app template from Envato, which is an Australian marketplace. They purchased and revamped the source code to meet their scalability and security requirements. The template which they happen to purchase from Envato was developed by a Pakistani company called Qboxus. However, they weren't aware of it since Envato is an open marketplace where anyone can list their template for others to purchase.

They also noted that the app is safe to use and their privacy policy now includes GDPR data protection rights. So all the documents are in place and the user's data is stored on AWS servers in Mumbai.

 CNBC TV18

What Was The Idea Behind The Mitron App?

The founders apparently wanted to serve the Indian consumers with an Indian platform where their data is safely stored on Indian servers. "Indian data should always be secured on Indian servers,' they said. The idea was to have an Indian social media platform that understood Indian community guidelines. And that's how the Mitron came to be. That being said, the Mitron app is now back on the Google Play Store, so you can download it if you want.
A Brazilian teenager has waived her anonymity to bravely speak out after surviving an eight hour kidnap ordeal during which she was sexually abused, brutally beaten, and nearly strangled to death.

Kalliny Trevisan, 19, said she chose to reveal her horrific experience to encourage other victims of aggression not to remain silent.

The teenager was about to enter her workplace at a pharmaceutical lab in Cotia, Greater Sao Paulo, when she was abducted at knife point at around 8am on June 1.

Cops used traffic monitoring cameras and signals from her mobile phone to track the route of the car driven by her assailant, named as Jose Wilker dos Santos, a 37 year old mason.

The courageous teen was found with her hands and feet bound with rope, a chain around her neck and her head covered by a cloth lying in the back seat footwell of a grey Chevrolet Meriva.

Brazilian teenager Kalliny Trevisan (pictured), 19, has waived her anonymity to bravely speak out after being sexually abused

Police officers using traffic monitoring cameras and signals were able to catch her assailant named as Jose Wilker dos Santos (pictured), 37

She explained to Bandeirantes TV on Tuesday why she has decided to talk about the vicious assault and the reasons for showing the ligature marks around her neck and bruises inside her mouth in a social media video.

She said: 'Cases like mine happen every day and I (want) other women, who have been through this, to have the courage to report it and to find the strength to move on.

'I want to show that the culture of rape and attacks on women are a real problem in our society.

'Today I am lucky to be alive. Many women don't survive. I really thought I was going to die. But I'm fine despite some bruises. You can see the red marks on my neck where he tried to hang me.

'I know that the psychological pain will last for a long time, but (I believe) I can deal with that.'

The aggressor kidnapped the victim around 8 am, after lying in wait outside her workplace.

Kalliny, who works as a logistics assistant and is also a part time model, was about to enter the office when the suspect jumped out of the parked car and abducted her at knife point.

She recalled: 'It was only a matter of seconds. I tried to resist but he had the knife to my neck.

Ms Trevisan said she was kidnapped by Santos (pictured) at around 8am outside her workplace in Cotia, Greater Sao Paulo. According to police, the suspect drove to a construction site where he allegedly sexually abused the victim

The teenager was found with her hands and feet bound with rope (right) and with a chain (left) wrapped around her neck on June 1

Ms Trevisan said that her head was covered by a cloth as she lay in the back seat footwell of the suspect's car. Pictured: Inside of the assailant's car

'He said he just wanted information about the company I worked for, because he was planning a break-in.'

However, she soon found out that she was the real target of the attack and the accused had been stalking her for nearly two weeks before launching his cruel plan.

Fortunately, her screams were heard by the building's security guards. But by the time they got to the scene she had already been taken captive.

Blurry footage from CCTV caught the partial outline of images showing the moment Kalliny was bundled into the back of a vehicle and driven off at high speed. Investigators claimed the suspect deliberately parked in a surveillance blind spot.

However, agents were still able to identify the license plates and contacted the accused's wife, the owner of the car.

She gave officers details of her husband's work address. In a race against time, cops launched a city-wide manhunt to capture the accused and save the victim.

The teenager spoke about her horrific ordeal on social media and showed the ligature marks around her neck (left) and bruises inside her mouth (right)

Ms Trevisan, who also works as a part time model, was about to enter the office when she was abducted at knife point

Kelliny's family desperately prayed that agents wouldn't be too late and kept up a barrage of phone calls to their loved one's mobile, which was being tracked for its location.

According to police, the suspect drove to a construction site where he worked and allegedly sexually abused and violently assaulted the victim over several hours. He kept her hidden in the car throughout the ordeal and allegedly threatened to kill her if she screamed.

The young woman revealed: 'I was too terrified to scream because I thought he had taken me to a location where he probably had accomplices and I couldn't be sure they wouldn't attack me too.

'I cried and begged him to let me go and not to rape me. But he tied my hands and feet. I remember thinking my worst fears were coming true. I thought I was going to die. I thought about my family and started saying my goodbyes.'

However, as the hours wore on the suspect left her in the car for a few minutes and it was then that she managed to loosen the ropes. But she didn't let her attacker see that she was no longer tied up when he returned.

The teenager said she had always been a person who stood up for social and political justice and her mission was to fight for the women's movement

This act probably saved her life because when the chain was allegedly wrapped around her neck, the brave teen was able raise her body up out of the back seat footwell and slip a hand under the noose, releasing the pressure on her throat.

At that point, the assailant seemingly backed off and got out of the car.

Kalliny claimed: 'He started putting tools into the boot. I saw he had a spade and I was sure his intention was to dig a hole to bury me.

'He got back into the car and was driving off when I heard people shouting at him to stop.'

The city wide manhunt came to a dramatic end with cops swooping in and apprehending the attacker.

The victim was found late afternoon, around 4pm, some three kilometres (roughly two miles) from where she been abducted.

A police spokesperson said: 'We didn't know Kalliny was still in the car when we approached it. We took the accused out of the vehicle and while we were talking to him, she started screaming from the back seat.'

Wilker, who already has passages with the police including one for attempted rape 19 years ago, has been detained in custody and will answer charges of kidnapping, imprisonment, sexual abuse and personal injury.

'I thought I was strong but after this I discovered strengths that I didn't even know I had,' Kalliny said.

She underwent tests at Pearl Byington Hospital and alongside the more serious injuries, was found to be dehydrated and weak after being staved of food and water for the duration of the atrocity.

'I've always been a person who has stood up for social and political justice and my mission has been to fight for the women's movement and for other minorities.

'Now I believe that it has become even more important for me to do so,' the resilient young woman said adding that she is still trying to process what happened to her and thanks everyone who intervened to save her life.

According to data from the Secretariat of Security, in April there were 661 cases of rape in the state of Sao Paulo.

And figures released by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, show cases of femicide increased by 41 per cent in the state of Sao Paulo, during March and April 2020, compared to the same period last year.
Africa has a rich history, but it cannot be told without some of its unforgettable scars such as apartheid in South Africa. What was the apartheid in South Africa? Apartheid was an era during the colonial times when the system institutionalized segregation based on race in South Africa and Namibia. Despite being in their ancestral land, Africans found themselves at the mercy of authoritarian white supremacists who ruled the land. It is an emotive topic that elicits a lot of emotions from Africans whose ancestors were victims of apartheid meted on them by the colonial government of the time. Whereas many people might be familiar with the concept of apartheid, they may not be aware of the many apartheid facts forming part of South Africas darkest moments in history.

Image: wikimedia.com

Source: UGC

Apartheid meant Afrikaans for separateness in a structural and institutionalized way. South Africa has come a long way in people enjoying their freedom. The country has developed and is among the leading economies on the African continent.

That said, even though there has been an effort to ensure reconciliation of people with those who wronged them in the past, many South Africans still remember what the apartheid era was like, and it is something they are not ready to let go. To this day, there is some considerable resentment of whites in the country even though governments have changed and the apartheid rule was abolished long ago.

Apartheid facts

Some of the apartheid in South Africa facts that still linger on the minds of blacks include:

1. Apartheid was made into law in 1948

Who started the apartheid? Systemic racial stratification started taking shape in South Africa when it was under the Dutch Empire in the eighteenth century. Although the culture of apartheid had been in existence long before, it took effect as a law in 1948. This was when apartheid began being institutionalized through policies and regulations that made life tough for Africans.

These changes coincided with the dawn of World War II and the Great Depression that ensued after that. As a result, the government was experiencing economic distress; hence the Afrikaner National Party adopted apartheid as its slogan. The government of the day separated the whites from the blacks and separated the blacks even further as a measure of minimizing the strength of their political movements.

2. All races were arranged in a hierarchy

To this day, few elements in the population believe that some races are superior over others, but the situation was a lot worse during apartheid. Sadly, in this conversation, Africans have always been at the bottom of the pyramid, and thus they were forced to treat whites as superiors.

During South Africas apartheid, the whites were considered the most superior, followed by Asians and multiracial individuals, and then the Africans were last. These facts about apartheid show how the system was designed to disadvantage blacks while empowering other races.

3. Resources were awarded based on race

Image: wikimedia.com

Source: UGC

It has been established that different races had different levels of superiority. What followed was to ensure there was minimum interaction of the races. Even though Africans were the owners of the land in South Africa, the whites made sure that those native Africans were limited in terms of land ownership through Acts such as the Glen Grey Act of 1894 engineered by Cecil Rhodes.

Africans were limited to fixed areas hence could not move with freedom. The white minority allocated themselves all the rich agricultural and urban areas hence controlling the means to rule those who lived under apartheid.

READ ALSO: Fact Check: Did South Africa grant Ghana a free visa?

4. 69 black people lost their lives in the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960

The Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 is an embodiment of the ugly face of apartheid explained as it happened in South Africa. Tired of how their lives had been suffocated by apartheid, especially with the enforcement of Pass Laws that denied Africans essential freedoms such as movement, the blacks decided to have a peaceful protest.

The protest intended to force the South African government at the time to abolish such laws that had propagated racial division. Unfortunately, the peaceful protestors lost their lives as police used excessive force, including live ammunition to put an end to the protests. A total of 69 unarmed blacks were killed by the police during that protest.

5. Public amenities could not be shared among different races

The situation during the apartheid era in South Africa was so dire to the point of there being an Act ensuring separation of amenities. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 was initiated to enforce the segregation of public facilities based on race.

This meant that things such as school, public transportation, hotels, and beaches could not be shared by Africans and whites. The division shows what was happening during apartheid to deny black Africans their dignity.

6. The ANC party was declared illegal in 1960

The ANC party of Africans was declared illegal in 1960. A year later, South Africa became a republic and chose to leave the Commonwealth. ANC was operating underground because it had been banned and the party launched a guerilla campaign. In response, President Botha dismantled some apartheid laws such as repealing the ban on interracial sex and marriages.

READ ALSO: Nzema: basic phrases and interesting facts

7. The process of repealing apartheid laws began in 1991

F.W. De Klerk took over from Botha as president of South Africa in 1989 and began the repudiation of apartheid. First on the agenda was to legalize the more than 30 political groups that had been previously prohibited, including the ANC.

It was not until 1991 that apartheid laws and racist restrictions were repealed and the government-initiated power-sharing talks between the state and 16 anti-apartheid groups. In 1993, De Klerk did apologize for apartheid saying he deeply regretted the loss of freedom and dignity inflicted on blacks.

8. The international community intervened to end apartheid

The South African government was adamant to end apartheid, but the international community was also not relenting on mounting pressure on the country to change. The United States of America and the U.K. were on the frontline imposing tough sanctions on South Africa for the gross human rights violations.

Some reforms had started during Pieter Bothas time, including the abolition of Pass Laws and allowing interracial marriages, but it was still not enough. Consequently, Botha was forced to step aside, giving way to F.W. De Klerk to take over.

READ ALSO: Women of Ghana: 25 amazing facts

9. Nelson Mandela became the leader of ANC in 1990

Image: wikimedia.com

Source: UGC

As F.W. De Klerk took over the leadership of South Africa, he joined hands with Nelson Mandela and started working on liberating the country from racial bondage. Mandela had been an anti-apartheid activist who was jailed for 27 years just because he was advocating for the freedom of blacks.

He was released in 1990 and became the leader of ANC. The two leaders oversaw the drafting of a new constitution that put an end to apartheid.

READ ALSO: Current affairs questions and answers in Ghana

10. Effects of apartheid are felt until now

Even with a new constitution that abolished apartheid and Africans taking over the leadership of the country, the effects of apartheid are yet to disappear in the country. To this day, it is the white minority who control most of South Africas wealth while the black majority languish in poverty. Racial animosity persists with factions in government calling for the state to take back land and property owned by the whites.

South Africa has made headlines in recent times due to xenophobia. Some South Africans have targeted and attacked other black foreigners living in the country. While many have been quick to condemn South Africans for attacking their brothers and sisters, there exist underlying factors leading to this behaviour. The majority of black South Africans are poor as a result of apartheid-era policies that denied them land and education. Understanding such apartheid facts is essential to put into perspective what blacks went through and the effects they have had to live with to this day.

READ ALSO: Visa Free Countries for Ghana in 2020 (A comprehensive list)

Source: YEN.com.gh
10.06.2020 LISTEN

A security analyst, Mr Adam Bonaa is demanding answers from the National Security operatives concerning the rambo-style arrest of Prophet Kwabena Owusu Agyei who is alleged to have threatened the EC Chair Jean Mensa and accused President Akufo-Addo in the murder of the Abuakwa North MP, JB Danqua Adu.

In a 10 plain questions to the National Security, Mr Bonaa questions if the alleged cannabis in the suspect's possession at the time of his arrest was not planted on him by the security operatives themselves and the humiliation of videoing the pastor which found it way onto the social media amid ridiculing.

The pastor was picked up in his private residence in the early hours of Tuesday, June 9 during an interview with news team from Hot Fm.

His arrest is warranted after he is found allegedly threatening to kill the Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson Jean Mensa.

In a Facebook Live church service streamed on Sunday, the pastor is alleged to have served a strong warning to the EC boss to stop the compilation of the new register indicating that if the register is allowed to be changed, the EC Chairperson will die.

According to him, during the June 4 revolution, it was the blood of the military that flowed and that what he is hearing this time around is that it is the blood of the Akyem mafia that will flow.

The pastor said should the EC Chairperson attempt compiling a new electoral roll, she will die at 12 mid-day without indicating the day.

He further descended on the Member of Parliament of Assin Central Kennedy Agyapong describing him as a "dirty mouth" and the ring leader in the murder of the Abuakwa North MP, JB Danqua Adu.

This angered Ken Agyapong who said on the Seat Show on Net 2 on Monday, 8 June 2020 that the pastor would be arrested and dealt with.

However, Mr Bonaa wondered: Are we in a Banana Republic? Which law says one can be pronounced guilty before he or she appears in court? Must National Security agents video Prophet Kwabena Owusu Agyei in the manner they did? Is Ghana no longer a rule-of-law country? What the suspect said is wrong but that cannot warrant this disrespect to rule of law by the arresting officers.

The security analyst then said: I have ten questions for National Security and the security fraternity in Ghana, which is headed by the President as the Chair of the National Security Council.

1. Why was the suspect not given the warrant to verify and authenticate if it's signed by a court, which court, date, name of Judge etc. issued it?

2. Why were his rights not spelt out clearly to him and asked to remain silent or whatever he says could be used against him?

3. Why was he not searched at the scene of the arrest?

4. Why was a relation of his not informed where they were taking him?

5. Are the NS agents aware the suspect is not guilty till a court says so?

6. Could the NS officers have planted the Naco on him?

7. Why video him posing with some herbs suspected to be Naco and publish it? Which law permits NS agents to humiliate suspects this way?

8. How did the NS agents know it was Naco?

9. Which lab tested the substance the suspect is holding and confirmed it was Naco?

10. Shouldnt the NS agents in the said video be rather detained for planting Naco on the suspect?

I am only asking questions. This could happen to anyone and this should not be happening under the leadership of human right lawyer President. I do not want to be a SPECTATOR; I want to be a CITIZEN as H. E the President, Nana Addo once proclaimed.
BrightEdge, LLC, the American Cancer Society's philanthropic impact fund, today announced its participation in the Series C funding round of Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused upon activation of innate immunity to treat cancer. The investment is BrightEdge's fifth since its formation in late 2018 to invest in companies developing promising cancer-related therapeutics.

Checkmate Pharmaceuticals' lead product candidate, CMP-001, is an investigational cancer immunotherapeutic that has been shown to reverse resistance to anti-PD-1 therapy in some patients. Checkmate is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, Mass.

"Checkmate has the potential to develop an immunotherapeutic focused on a population of patients with high unmet need," said Gary Reedy, American Cancer Society chief executive officer. "This is strongly aligned with the American Cancer Society's mission to save lives, celebrate lives, and lead the fight for a world without cancer."

This is BrightEdge's second investment in the melanoma space. In 2019, BrightEdge invested in Castle Biosciences (NAS: CSTL), a prognostic gene expression profile test that utilizes tumor biology to provide an individual risk of recurrence or metastasis for patients with melanoma.

BrightEdge is the American Cancer Society's donor-funded, philanthropic impact fund. The fund invests in for-profit companies developing novel cancer-focused treatments. BrightEdge's goal is to accelerate market delivery of promising cancer-related treatments through capital investment, market awareness and a shared commitment to eradicate cancer.

Checkmate raised $85 million in the round led by Longitude Capital. The capital will be used to fund clinical trials and company operations. BrightEdge is investing alongside Longitude Capital, Novo Holdings, Omega Funds, Medicxi, Sofinnova Investments, venBio, F-Prime Capital, Decheng Capital, Clough Capital Partners, and Sectoral Asset Management.

About BrightEdge: BrightEdge, LLC is the American Cancer Society's donor-funded, philanthropic impact fund. The fund invests in for-profit companies developing novel cancer-focused treatments. BrightEdge's goal is to accelerate market delivery of innovative oncology treatments through capital investment, market awareness, and a shared commitment to eradicate cancer. An investment or other financial vehicle of BrightEdge into a company does not constitute an express or implied endorsement of any products or services of the company by the American Cancer Society or BrightEdge. For more information, visit http://www.brightedgefund.org

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Free Speech Rules at York University Need Overhaul, Review of Rowdy Protest Finds

York University has work to do to make clear the boundaries of acceptable conduct regarding how it handles free expression on campus in relation to controversial topics, says an independent review of a violent protest at the university last November.

The review was launched after a Jewish student groups event featuring a panel discussion with former Israeli Defence Force soldiers was disrupted by a massive protest led by the Students Against Israeli Apartheid group.

The protesters, which included non-university groups, rallied to aggressively stifle the event and tried to block audience members from entering, while chanting Viva, viva intifada and holding signs and Palestinian flags.

In the course of my interviews and review of the written submissions, it became clear that there are important misunderstandings in some quarters of the University about the scope and limits of free expression, writes former Supreme Court justice Thomas Cromwell, who conducted the review at the behest of the university.

Some take an unduly broad view of the sorts of expression that should not be allowed on campus while some take an unduly broad view of their right to interfere with the expression of others.

Video footage shows the protesters crowded around the entrances to the hall where the event was held, chanting loudly and yelling threats. There were also clashes between Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students inside Vari Hall and in the hallways.

Violence broke out at a protest at York University Vari Hall on November 20, 2019. (Screen shot from BDS Report)

Even a casual look at the extensive video of the event shows what a dangerous situation existed in Vari Hall that evening, Cromwell wrote.

Although disrupted by the protest, the event was able to continue, aided by police guarding the doors and escorting attendees out after it was over.

Rowdy protests at events hosted by pro-Israel clubs has become common, making the issue one of the primary battlegrounds when it comes to free speech at universities.

Cromwell said the York protest is a reflection of widespread and deep tension concerning the scope and limits of free expression on university campuses.

While conducting his review, Cromwell said he heard complaints from both sides that the rules in relation to aspects of free expression at York were unclear or lacking altogether, which indicates that the University must strive for greater clarity and effectiveness of its policies.

When hosting events expected to be controversial, he advises that the university be more transparent about the process of reserving space for speakers, re-invigorate policies on racism and harassment when it comes to student group behaviour, and clarify its responsibility to defend both free speech and public safety.

He recommends that York define a set of procedures or a handbook to supplement its existing policy on free speech, develop training on the scope and limits of free expression, and clarify and strengthen the policy frameworks and decision-making processes when it comes to contested free-speech issues.

David Elmaleh, an attorney at Re-Law LLP, praised Cromwells review for providing some closure to the Jewish students who were distraught by the experience, and for discerning the issues in Yorks policies that need to be addressed.

There were extensive gaps in the universitys polices and procedures and we welcome Justice Cromwells comments on the need to correct those gaps, says Elmaleh.

However, he denounced the failure of York Federation of Students to participate in the review, despite repeated requests from Cromwell.

The student governments refusal to participate in this important process represents a grave failure in leadership and a profound embarrassment to the student leaders. Hate speech and discrimination must never be left unchecked on campus.

Lauren Isaacs, the director for Herut Canada, which organized the Nov. 20 event, is more critical of the review. I appreciate the sentiment, but in my opinion its all platitudes with no real plan to change or help the Israel clubs like mine.

Expecting protesters at the event, Herut enlisted outside security as a precaution. But Cromwell heard in his interviews that Heruts security conducted bag checks without the knowledge of York University Security Services.

Going forward, he said the university ought to make clear that use of volunteer security is absolutely prohibited and that those in such a role using force against anyone should be removed from campus.

Isaacs says this is wrong, given the lack of adequate protection she was provided for the event. Had I not had outside security myself, our guest speakers and our attendees would have been attacked. The security that was provided by the university was woefully insufficient.

The protest drew condemnation from Toronto Mayor John Tory and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, as well as Yorks president and vice-chancellor Rhonda Lenton, who said in a statement that shouting, threats of violence and attempts to intimidate community members are not consistent with the responsibilities we all share.

The aim of Reservists on Duty, the soldiers group that spoke at the event, is to counter the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and anti-Israel bias that is said to persist on college campuses, particularly during the controversial Israeli Apartheid Week, held annually on campuses across North America.

The Epoch Times contacted York University, York Federation of Students, and Students Against Israeli Apartheid for comment but didnt receive a response by press time.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 16:35:30|Editor: huaxia

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by Dana Halawi

BEIRUT, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Khan El Saboun, a 600-year-old Lebanese family business trading in organic soaps, targets China as an important market and seeks a bigger share of it.

The Lebanese soap maker has been exporting to Chinese mainland for the past four years. Now it plans to enter Hong Kong's skin care products market this year.

Amir Hassoun, owner of Khan El Saboun, says he has a chance to enter Hong Kong's market through a businesswoman at the second China International Import Expo in Shanghai last year.

"I was lucky enough to meet this lady who tried my products and loved them so she bought a quantity and distributed them among her friends and clients. She received a great feedback so she decided to buy a container to use them at her spa and sell them to her clients," Hassoun told Xinhua in an interview.

Khan El Saboun has been exporting to China at an average of five to six shipments per year valued between 50,000 U.S. dollars and 75,000 U.S. dollars each.

"We are expecting growth in our export to China by 35 percent next year," Hassoun said.

Khan El Saboun is specialized in soap making in various forms from aromatic and therapeutic soaps to essential oils, creams, and skin care products, all made naturally.

"Our products are made from ingredients that can be eaten," Hassoun explained.

Hassoun noted that China is the most important foreign market for his business partly because the Chinese people value the organic products and natural ingredients.

The COVID-19 outbreak worldwide did not prevent Hassoun from exporting his products as some markets continued to import products.

"We continued sending shipments by sea which is way cheaper so we will be adopting this route instead of the air transport from now on," he said.

While thousands of businesses could not sustain the economic and financial crisis prevailing in Lebanon and were forced to lay off thousands of employees in the past few months, Khan El Saboun still provides jobs for 250 workers.

"We have women who work on artistic products that are carved and wrapped by hands. We are keen to work on women empowerment to improve the social situation of our community in Koura, north of Lebanon," he said.

Khan El Saboun's business also includes a 30,000-square-meter Eco-village dedicated to organic plantations of medicinal plants used in the production of oils and soaps.

The Eco-village also has one of the biggest soap museums in the world that includes 1,400 different types of soaps and relevant products, and shows visitors the distillation and soap production process.

Hassoun is looking forward to taking part in the third China International Import Expo that will be held in November in Shanghai.

"It is an occasion we wait for every year," he said. Enditem
A bat in Lane County has tested positive for rabies, the states first such case in 2020, officials said Wednesday morning.

Lane County Public Health officials had the bat tested after it flew into a woman who was standing in her yard in Eugene.

The bat was stunned and fell to the ground after it hit the woman. She gathered the bat and reported the incident to the health department. The bat tested positive for rabies at Oregon State Veterinary Lab.

Rabies is found in bats in 49 states and is fairly common in Oregon bats.

The woman was given a rabies treatment preventatively. Studies have shown a human can get rabies from a small bite or scratch, and the health department recommends to get treatment if a person has exposure to a bat.

When a human is exposed, they should collect the bat, if safely possible, and submit it for rabies testing, the health department said. It is recommended to collect it using utensils instead of your hands.

To prevent contact with bats, the health department suggests making sure windows have screens and pets be let out before dusk, when bats feed. Bats are important to the ecosystem and should not be killed proactively.

--Alex Hardgrave | ahardgrave@oregonian.com | @a_hardgrave

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
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Real estate company Emami Realty Ltd will invest nearly Rs 225 crore to develop a 100-acre integrated township at Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh, a top company official said. The company will develop the township 'Emami Nature' in two phases. The first phase comprising 54 acres will be launched for sale this week.

"We are coming up with an integrated township at Jhansi. We will launch more than 200 plots and also develop villas in the first phase," Emami Realty CEO Nitesh Kumar told PTI.

The township, designed by Singapore architect firm, will have a total built-up area of 48.66 lac sq ft, of which 27 lakh sq ft in the first phase.

Emami Realty, the real estate venture of business conglomerate Emami Group, will invest Rs 223 crore to develop this township, Kumar said.

He said the development of the first phase will start in August this year. It will be completed over the next three years.

Asked about selling prices, Kumar said the plots are available in the price range of Rs 27-90 lakh, while villas will cost between Rs 55 lakh to Rs 1.3 crore.

"Jhansi is one of the prominent industrial district of UP which houses administrative headquarters of BHEL, Mysore Cement, Baidyanath Ayurvedic and Bharat Petroleum among others, but the city lacks quality living with planned development," Kumar said.

The company's township at Khailar in Jhansi is located on the outskirts of the city.

Kumar said the company would target both end users and investors to market this township.

He said the demand for housing is getting consolidated with branded and credible players.

Emami Group has so far delivered more than 24 prestigious residential and commercial projects, comprising 36 million sq ft area, primarily in Kolkata.

At present, it is developing projects mainly in Kolkata, Mumbai, Coimbatore and Chennai.
President Halimah Yacob at the 2019 President's Star Charity show. (FILE PHOTO: Relay Majulah)

SINGAPORE  Employment for persons with disabilities should be a national issue, instead of it being just an objective of welfare organisations and social service agencies, said President Halimah Yacob.

In a post put up on her Facebook page on Wednesday (10 June), Halimah wrote that she hopes the newly-formed National Jobs Council will review how Singapore can generate employment for persons with disabilities.

Persons with disabilities will benefit much more if they are mainstreamed in our job creation and job placement efforts, instead of being treated separately, she wrote in her Facebook post.

In my many conversations with parents of persons with disabilities, the lack of job opportunities for their children and the worry of how their children will sustain themselves after they are gone are often lifelong concerns.

Signing pledge to signal commitment

Halimah urged employers and organisations to sign the Enabling Employment Pledge to signal their commitment in doing more for the employment of persons with disabilities.

The pledge is part of this years Presidents Challenge, which is focused on empowering persons with disabilities.

At the start of COVID-19, we had partnered with over 100 hotels to provide training and employment to persons with disabilities, Halimah said in her Facebook post.

More than 100 organisations from the public, private and people sectors also signed an Enabling Employment Pledge to signal our joint commitment to do more in this area. I hope more employers will join us on this effort.

Opportunity to review national priorities

Halimah said that with the establishment of the National Jobs Council, which is headed by Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, it is an opportunity for Singapore to review its national priorities as it re-strategises where its economy is heading.

We need to gain a better perspective of where the jobs will be and how to make them accessible to Singaporeans, she said in her post.

Story continues

COVID-19 has brought about major disruptions and uncertainties. But the silver lining is that it is also an opportunity for us to review our national priorities. If we as a nation decide to define compassion and kindness as what we truly value, we can emerge from this crisis a better people.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

Other Singapore stories:

Six community cases among 218 new COVID-19 infections in S'pore; no local residents

Woman who allegedly abused, spat at KFC employee in NEX charged, to claim trial

Singapore on track to do 40,000 COVID-19 tests a day in coming months: Lawrence Wong

Every Singaporean who needs COVID-19 vaccine will get it at affordable price: Lawrence Wong
(Newser)  A Wisconsin gym has apologized for an "I Can't Breathe" workout that was apparently well-intentionedbut staggeringly misguided. Photos shared on social media show a whiteboard at the Wauwatosa branch of Anytime Fitness with a drawing of a kneeling black figure, the words "I Can't Breathe" and "Don't You Dare Lay Down," and a list of exercises. Co-owner Jen Dunnington tells TMZ that she "deeply apologizes" to the many people offended by the sign. She says a trainer intended to "honor" George Floyd, who repeatedly said he couldn't breathe as a police officer knelt on his neck for more than 8 minutes. She says the exercises were meant to "be a workout so hard that we felt what he felt."

story continues below

Corporate management issued a statement saying they were "shocked and devastated to see that one of our franchise locations chose to offer an 'I Can't Breathe' workout." They said they are sharing the incident with franchise owners worldwide as "an example of what not to do." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that "I Can't Breathe" has been chanted at protests worldwide over Floyd's death, including one involving hundreds of demonstrators in Wauwatosa days before the workout sign went up. (Read more Wisconsin stories.)
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There are bad cops and corrupt cops and racist cops and brutal cops. But the great majority of police officers are not bad or corrupt or racist or brutal. If they were, given the 375 million annual contacts that police have with citizens, our country would look very different.

Think about it for a moment.

Police officers generally perform thankless jobs. (How often do you thank the officer who pulled you over for speeding, let alone thank the officer who arrested you for committing a crime?)

Police officers do not get rich doing their jobs. (Have you ever heard someone say, Im going to become a cop so I can make a lot of money?)

Police officers risk their lives protecting us. (Yes, bad guys shoot at cops and try to kill them.)

Police offers do difficult jobs. (One of our sons-in-law is a police chaplain and has done many ride alongs, arriving at homes shortly after suicides or homicides, with devastated family members standing nearby.)

Yet in every community in our nation, we expect the police to be there if we have an emergency and call 911. That includes the police responding to calls reporting a domestic dispute or to calls reporting a neighbors dog barking in the middle of the night.

And if shots were fired in your neighborhood and there was no response, your first question would be, Where are the police?

Of course, none of this justifies or excuses police brutality. And none of this brings back George Floyd or Daniel Shaver (an unarmed white man shot by police while begging for his life) or others wrongfully killed. And none of this denies that some people become police officers because they are into power or control.

But it does remind us that the current demonizing of police is an unhealthy, unfair, and even dangerous trend.

First it was Lego stopping the promotion of its police sets. (It also shut down promotional campaigns and marketing for its toy sets that include . . . firefighters, criminals and even the White House.) In Legos own words, Our intention was to temporarily pause digital advertising in response to events in the US.

Next were the calls to defund the police, something rightly rejected as absurd and counterproductive (for example, see here and here.)

Now it is the Parmount TV network dropping the Cops show after 30 years (!) on the air. As David Ng wrote on Breitbart, Whatcha gonna do when the woke mob comes for you?

Cops  the long-running reality series following police officers on high-speed chases, drug busts, and other dangerous missions  has been cancelled after a more than 30-year run as anti-police sentiment continues to sweep through Hollywood following last months death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.

Oh, those evil cops!

And be sure that your kids dont play games like cops and robbers. Or, if they do play, remind them that cops and robbers are morally equivalent. Both are oh so bad.

Im aware, of course, that Americans hold to widely disparate views of the police based on the communities in which they live (and/or based on the color of their skin).

As the Pew Research Forum reported on June 5, Just a month before Floyds death, a Pew Research Center survey found that 78% of Americans overall  but a far smaller share of black Americans (56%)  said they had at least a fair amount of confidence in police officers to act in the best interests of the public. By contrast, large majorities of white (84%) and Hispanic (74%) adults expressed at least a fair amount of confidence. These views  and the wide racial and ethnic gap in opinions  had changed little over the prior few years.

This report yielded similar results to a Twitter survey I conducted on June 7, asking, Do you believe police brutality is the rare exception to the rule or fairly common?

Of the 818 who cast votes, 76 percent identified as white and 24 percent non-white. (I was only able to use these two categories in the poll.)

Of the white voters, 77 percent said that police brutality was rare and 23 percent it was fairly common.

Of the non-white voters, only 56 percent said it was rare while 44 percent said it was fairly common.

Either way, where there is a pattern of police brutality, it must be addressed, and where individual officers are guilty, they must be held accountable by the law. With great power comes great responsibility. And where police reform is needed, let it be actively pursued.

But cop is not a dirty word, and we should not allow the police force, as a whole, to be vilified and denigrated.

For the most part, despite the horrific and inexcusable exceptions, cops are only your enemy if youre trying to do wrong. If you want to do right, they are on your side.
SHELTON  The police chief says his department is investigating photos posted on the police unions Facebook page which the union describes as town officers changing clothes in the departments parking lot.

Police Chief Shawn Sequeira, in a post on the departments Facebook page, said he was informed about the images of men and women with their faces blocked out which were posted on June 4 on the Support the Shelton Police Union Inc. Facebook page. The pictures appear to show male officers changing their pants and female officers in their bras as they change their shirts.

At this time, I cannot disclose anything regarding this possible indecent exposure because there is an active investigation into this matter, Sequeira said in the post.

The Shelton Police Department does not promote or condone indecent exposure in any public place, added the chief. Members of the Shelton Police Department are required to maintain high standards of moral character, integrity and professionalism at all times.

When contacted Tuesday, Sequeira would not comment beyond saying he wants to maintain the integrity of the investigation.

Last month the union filed a grievance alleging their three female patrol officers were denied use of their headquarters restrooms while the 49 men had access. The police chief then limited use of headquarters locker rooms and bathrooms for both men and women and set up portable toilets for patrol officers in the parking lot.

Sequeira at the time said it was done for the health and safety of his officers and civilian employees in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Support the Shelton Police Union Inc. page said it put up the photos in response to Sequeiras edict.

On its face, it is laughable to think that being relegated to using portable bathrooms in the parking lot and public restrooms does much to enhance officers health and safety, the Facebook post said. Additionally, officers who may have been exposed to Coronavirus or are simply concerned by the potential of being exposed are not provided any decontamination process for their person or clothing, are offered the parking lot to change from these potentially exposed uniforms and must either store these items in their personal family vehicles or wear these items home should they need to be laundered.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
A Delta State senator, Peter Nwaoboshi, who was recently accused of contract fraud by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), has threatened to sue an aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, demanding a retraction and apology over a social media post he considers defamatory.

Mr Nwaoboshis lawyers wrote a letter to Lauretta Onochie on Tuesday, asking her to retract her post or face legal action.

This is not the first time the outspoken aide will be engaged in controversies over online posts.

The letter went out a day after Ms Onochie, a social media assistant at the State House, made a post on her Facebook page suggesting that the senator is guilty of allegations of contract fraud made against him by the NDDC.

A similar letter was also sent to Charles Odili, the NDDC spokesperson, who issued the statement accusing the senator of using 11 companies as fronts to secure for himself N3.6 billion contract in September 2016.

The spokesperson has been asked by the lawmaker to pay N1billion as damages or face legal action.

According to the statement issued on Sunday by Mr Odili, the contract was the biggest single case of looting of the commissions resources.

On Monday, Mr Nwaoboshi denied any involvement in the contract fraud.

He called for a holistic audit of the commissions account, saying only that would show that Godswill Akpabio, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, who plays a supervisory role in the operations of the NDDC, is the greatest beneficiary of contract awards and looter of the commission.

Ms Onochies post

Meanwhile, in her Facebook post entitled, NDDC  THE CHICKEN COMES HOME TO ROOST and published at 3:29 p.m. Monday, Mrs Onochie alleged that Mr Nwaoboshi had described himself as a thief at an event in Anioma, Delta state.

She alleged that all the 11 companies involved in the NDDC contract fraud are traceable to the lawmaker.

The contract sum was N3.6 billion. The revelations in the award of the said contract are mind-boggling, disturbing and appalling, as all eleven different companies/business names which were awarded the contract are owned by or traceable to one and the same person being Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi, but carrying on business under different names, the post read partly.

Senator Peter Nwaoboshi

No wonder Sen. Nwaoboshi and his cohorts are jittery about the ongoing forensic audit exercise in the NDDC and are doing everything to derail it, she added.

Irate senator

According to separate letters threatening legal actions issued by Mr Nwaoboshis lawyers, Daniel Bwala Chambers, and seen by PREMIUM TIMES, both Ms Onochie and Mr Odili were given 48 hours from the day of reception of the official documents to retract their statements and tender a public apology.

Mr Odili was asked to pay the sum N1 billion naira as damages for the harm done to my clients reputation by the press statement. Failure to do so will attract legal action.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr Odili had seen the letter or taken any action in it. He did not return requests for comments from PREMIUM TIMES, Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, in the letter addressed to Ms Onochie, the lawyers said the presidential aide has not only maligned the image of the senator by referring to him as a thief in her posts but also has ridiculed his integrity.

To say the least, the said libelous post is calculated to undermine him knowing that the Senate is carrying out a probe of the NDDC, the letter read.

It is our belief that for you to call him a thief without being convicted by a court of law has ridiculed the senators integrity. It is only a court of competent jurisdiction can pronounce someone a thief if found guilty of a crime.

The lawyers gave Ms Onochie an ultimatum of 48 hours to retract the post, which was still online as of 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Failure to comply will result in a lawsuit that will demand N2 billion for aggravated and punitive damages against the presidential aide, the lawyers said.

When contacted Tuesday evening, Ms Onochie said she is yet to see the letter and that the lawmaker would not dare send such a letter to her.

Is PREMIUM TIMES now the court where he should take such a letter to in the first place? she said, an indication that the presidential media aide is ready for a legal battle with the senator.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 11 2020

Being the governor of a capital city like Jakarta could certainly help Anies Baswedan remain in the limelight, and his strong leadership in the fight against COVID-19, which involved a high-profile squabble with the central government, could have easily won him support from the public.

But a new public opinion poll conducted at the height of the pandemic has shown that Anies has struggled politically, and in terms of electability rating, he is lagging behind his peers in West and Central Java.

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By Jun Ji-hye







The Ministry of Justice is pushing to revise a law to effectively prohibit corporal punishment at home as cases of child abuse, which sometimes resulted in death, continue to be reported.







The move comes after legal experts, including Seoul National University Law School Prof. Yoon Jin-soo, said the standing law, which allows parents to take "necessary disciplinary action" to teach their children, could be misinterpreted as allowing physical abuse as a legitimate punishment.







Yoon said discipline should be within boundaries that can be accepted as social norms, noting that action causing emotional and physical distress should not be included.







A committee of 10 legal experts, including Yoon, advised the ministry in April to remove from the civil law the clause regarding parents' rights to take disciplinary action against their children and replace it with the right to educate the children on acceptable behaviour.







In Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, a nine-year-old boy recently died after his father's common-law partner allegedly locked him in a suitcase for seven hours. The woman in her 40s was transferred to the prosecution, Wednesday.







In Changnyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, the mother and stepfather of a habitually abused nine-year-old girl were arrested by police. The girl had severe bruises to her face and body and cuts on her head.







The mother and stepfather reportedly told police they physically abused the girl because she was "naughty."







The ministry said it will hold a meeting on Friday with relevant institutions, including Save the Children, to collect opinions from experts on children's rights. The ministry will then draw up a draft proposal for revision of the law.







"We plan to submit the proposal to the National Assembly at the earliest possible date," a ministry official said. "We will continue to work to guarantee the human rights of children and establish a healthy family culture."


Iraq's PMF Destroys Daesh Stronghold Allegedly Used by Iraq Group Leader, Militia's Spokesman Says

Sputnik News

14:35 GMT 09.06.2020

CAIRO (Sputnik)  Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of Shia armed militias also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, in cooperation with the country's security service, have liquidated a large Daesh stronghold in the country's north allegedly used by the group's leader in Iraq, PMF spokesman Ali Hashem al-Husseini said on Tuesday.

"[The PMF and security forces destroyed] a large headquarters of ISIS, which contains rooms, supplies and equipment, as well as secret documents that cannot be disclosed in Al-Zarka sector, indicating that the headquarters belongs to the new ISIS leader in Iraq or a regional leader of the terrorist organization," Al-Husseini said, as quoted by the state Shafaq news agency.

Eastern areas of the Salah ad-Din province, as well as districts of the neighbouring province of Kirkuk, have almost been fully liberated from the Daesh* formations, except for some Daesh separated groups moving between the country's regions in an attempt to escape from the state's security forces, the spokesman added.

On June 1, the PMF stated that it had detained two senior Daesh members in the northern province of Nineveh.

On February 12, the Iraqi military announced the start of a new anti-Daesh operation dubbed "Iraq Heroes," or "Victory of Sovereignty," as part of the country's efforts to clear its territory of illegal terrorist formations.

Early in June, Iraq's Commander-in-Chief spokesman, Yehia Rasool, said that the second phase of the operation has begun in the northern Kirkuk and Salah ad-Din provinces.

In mid-May, the Iraqi armed forces launched a fresh wide-scale anti-terrorist operation, dubbed "Lions of al-Jazeera." The operation is taking place throughout the territory of Salah ad-Din, as well as throughout the Anbar and Nineveh provinces on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

On May 20, Iraq's National Intelligence Service detained Abdullah Qardash, one of the Daesh' senior leaders and a possible successor to Abu Bakr Baghdadi, who was killed in October.

A spokesman of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), Sabal al-Nouman, said that Qardash's arrest would help determine the group's funding resources and details on its further plans.

Following these developments, the CTS spokesman also said that another Daesh terrorist, Mouataz al-Jabouri, the so-called Iraqi governor within the Daesh terrorist group system, had been killed in an airstrike launched by the US-led international coalition in Syria's Deir ez-Zor.

*Daesh [ISIL, IS, the Islamic State] - a terrorist group banned in Russian and mane other countries

A Sputnik

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[June 09, 2020] Sungrow Forges a 100 MW Distribution Agreement with DAT in Vietnam

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sungrow, the global leading inverter solution supplier for renewables, announced that a 100 MW distribution agreement was forged with a reputed Vietnam-based company DAT Technology Co., Ltd. to supply PV inverter solutions for commercial & industrial (C&I) installations across Vietnam within a year. The PV inverter solutions to be supplied cover 50kW to 110kW which enable flexible configurations for different rooftops, and feature multiple MPPTs, offering optimal yields despite diversified orientations or shades. Equipped with a high protection capacity of IP66 and corrosion level of C5, the products can be resilient to harsh conditions such as scorching heat or frequent rainfall which is commonplace in the Southeastern countries. DAT is a best-selling distributor of vaiable frequency drives and solar inverters in Vietnam market with more than a decade of proven experience. "We're delighted to be an authorized distributor of Sungrow to better fulfill our mission of 'Satisfy your expectations'. We reckon that competitive technical-support, sales, after-sales services as well as the marketing edge that Sungrow offers are parament to our partnership," commented Mr. Tieu Van Dat, General Director of DAT.



"The 100 MW distribution agreement marks the beginning of our partnership with DAT. We're looking forward to powering more facilities and communities with state-of-the-art PV inverter solutions," said Dr. Thang Vu, Country Manager of Sungrow Vietnam. Sungrow keeps expanding distribution channels with multiple local partners. Dr. Thang also mentioned that the Company led the Vietnam solar market share with 35% in the utility-scale segment and 30% in the rooftop sector.

Sungrow retains robust growth in the first four months with overseas shipment value reaching USD$ 139 million despite the coronavirus effect. Notably, the Company never stops exploring and is planning a smart energy virtual show on June 15-19, unveiling more advanced technologies "you've never seen before" online, highlighted in the latest news. About Sungrow Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd ("Sungrow") is the world's most bankable inverter brand with over 100 GW to be installed worldwide as of December 2019. Founded in 1997 by University Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow is a leader in the research and development of solar inverters, with the largest dedicated R&D team in the industry and a broad product portfolio offering PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems for utility-scale, commercial, and residential applications, as well as internationally recognized floating PV plant solutions. With a strong 23-year track record in the PV space, Sungrow products power installations in over 60 countries, maintaining a worldwide market share of over 15%. Learn more about Sungrow by visiting www.sungrowpower.com. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200609/2824951-1 SOURCE Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd

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The Rajasthan government on Wednesday announced that interstate movement will be regulated in view of an unprecedented surge in Covid-19 cases in the state.

Under the new guidelines issued by the Home department - all persons going out of the state will need to obtain a pass for travel from the district collector and Superintendent of Police. If the permit is issued by a sub-divisional magistrate, Deputy SP or the local police station, then they have to inform the collector or SP.

According to the order signed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Rajeeva Swarup, counters will be setup at airports, railway stations and bus stands to provide on the spot passes after due verification of IDs.

For those traveling outside the state by road (other than scheduled bus), screening of persons of and verification of pass/ID will be done at the check post to be set up at the borders.

People traveling outside the state via flight, train or bus with prior reservation on June 10; and in case of emergency (death, accident in immediate family or hospitalization) will be exempted.

Guidelines of the ministry of home affairs for Indian nationals stranded outside will be followed for those arriving in the state through international flights. The people arriving by domestic flights, train or bus will be screened again. People driving in will be screened at check posts.

There has been a recent unprecedented upsurge in Covid19 cases in the state since the phased opening up of lockdown with effect from June 1. Also, it has come to notice of the state government that certain persons from hotspots and other areas, under the prevailing system of free movement, travelled outside the state after Covid testing and before their report was received, which turned out positive subsequently, posing threat to wherever they go, Swarup said in his order.

Keeping in view the efforts made by the state government till date for preventing the spread of Covid-19, and in the interest of public safety, it has become necessary to regulate the interstate movement of persons. Accordingly, the directions have been issued, which will remain effective till further orders and till such time that the present situation is reviewed, he said.

Rajasthan is the fifth worst-affected state in the country in terms of coronavirus tally after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Gujarat.

The western state reported 123 new Covid-19 cases till 10:30 am on Wednesday, taking its tally 11, 368, according to the state health department. This includes 256 deaths.

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Anna Kendrick is best known for her role in the Pitch Perfect films, but if you cast your mind back to the 2010s - you may recall she starred in Twilight.

Kendrick played one of Bella Swans human friends, a classmate called Jessica, and the actress recently compared filming the first movie in the series to a hostage situation and a trauma event.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Kendrick explained that the first Catherine Hardwicke-directed movie was filmed in Portland, Oregon.

She recalled that it was so cold and miserable and added, I just remember my Converse being completely soaked through and feeling like, 'You know, this is a really great group of people, and Im sure that we would be friends in a different time, but I want to murder everyone.'

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Despite that, she did add it was kind of bonding.

She said, There was something about it, like you go through some trauma event. Like you imagine people who survive a hostage situation, and youre kind of bonded for life."

Kendrick is far from the first Twilight star to allude (or in Robert Pattinsons case explicitly state) that they werent massive fans of the series, which was based on the Stephenie Meyer vampire romances of the same name.

As with Pattinson, she expressed some confusion over aspects of the story, including the fact that her character became valedictorian despite being very obviously not a good student.

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

However, it seems to have helped that Kendricks character throughout the films points out how strange the events occurring at Forks High School are.

She said, My whole job was just to go, like, 'This family of very pale people who we never see eating, they're really weird, right?

She did however explain that the cast grew closer on the set of the second film and also praised her co-star Kristen Stewarts acting skills, saying that she was so talented.

But Kendricks blunt reflection on the series seems mild compared to Robert Pattinsons recollections, as he has previously compared his character Edward Cullen to an axe murderer and very frankly told Access Hollywood that his pay couldve been better.

He also likened the books to author Meyers sexual fantasy and called her completely mad, and Twilight director Hardwicke also recalled in a DVD commentary of the films that Pattinson even ran out of the theatre during the first films premiere.
TDT | Manama

A Bahraini TV producer in his sixties has been arrested for laundering BD450,000, the High Criminal Court has heard. The defendant, who is also a businessman, is said to have used a Public Relations company to legalise the money which he earned by illicit means.

The accused man was taken under custody after police officers traced his activities, establishing evidence that he was involved in banned business activities. He reportedly created the company to deposit the money he was earning into its account in an effort to avoid suspicions and keep police eyes away.

Meanwhile, standing before the High Criminal Court is another man who has been accused of abetting the TV producers crimes. The second defendants bank account was also at the receiving end of transferred money by the TV producer. The pair have been ordered to remain in detention, pending the outcome of their trial. Their next hearing is on June 21.
Governor Ralph Northam has announced Virginia schools will receive $66.8 million through the federal

(GEER) Fund.

The money will go to expand distance-learning opportunities, fund services for students disproportionately impacted by loss of class time, and provide financial assistance to higher education students and institutions impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This funding will help Virginia provide high-quality instruction and continue the delivery of services for K-12 and higher education students during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Governor Northam. We are prioritizing this federal assistance to help address learning gaps caused by school closures, expand and improve internet connectivity, increase access to robust distance learning programs, and help students in need of additional financial assistance complete their postsecondary education and training.

The GEER Fund, authorized under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Recovery, and Economic Security

, gives states the flexibility determine how best to allocate the emergency assistance to meet their educational needs.

Governor Northam is distributing $43.4 in GEER funding for the following PreK-12 priorities:

 $26.9 million to support short-term and long-term initiatives expanding high-speed internet access to all communities in the Commonwealth, including providing laptop computers and Mi-Fi devices for students without home internet access;

 $10 million to expand early childhood education and child care programs in the Commonwealth, especially for children with academic and social-emotional needs;

 $3.5 million to support the expansion of the Virtual Virginia online learning program to provide content for elementary and middle school students; allow teachers in all school divisions to use the platform to create, edit, and share content as well as provide personalized virtual instruction for all students; and expand the Virtual Virginia Professional Learning Network, in partnership with the Virginia Society for Technology, to ensure that educators and technology-support personnel have the capacity and skills to meet the demand for quality online learning; and

 $3 million to cover unfunded costs for the continuation of school-based meals programs while schools remain closed, including hazard pay for school nutrition staff.

These initiatives will support efforts of PreK-12 schools to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on our most vulnerable students and increase the capacity of local divisions to continue instruction and critical support services during future emergencies, said Secretary of Education Atif Qarni. We will also allocate flexible funding to our institutions of higher education that will allow colleges and universities to address the unique needs of their students. We trust they will maintain a focus on equity by distributing funds and services to students who are facing monumental challenges due to the pandemic.

Approximately $23.4 millionone third of GEER fundswill be distributed throughout Virginias higher education system, with $18.3 million allocated to public and private four-year institutions and Richard Bland College. Of this funding, $14.5 million will be allocated to four-year public institutions and Richard Bland College, and $3.8 million will be allocated to private, four-year Tuition Assistance Grant (TAG) eligible institutions. All of these institutions will use the one-time funding to address immediate student financial needs, cover health and safety costs associated with COVID-19, and support activities that make online learning more accessible and equitable.

GEER funds totaling $4.9 million will be distributed to the Virginia Community College System to support the following initiatives:

 One-time funding to address immediate student financial needs;

 Last-dollar scholarships for displaced adults who enroll in stackable credential programs leading to jobs in targeted industry sectors; and

 Initiatives to extend internet access into parking lots on or adjacent to the 40 campuses to provide help connect students who do not have internet subscriptions at home.

The Governor will also distribute $175,000 of GEER funds among Virginias five higher education centers, which provide access to college degrees and job training for in-demand careers located in parts of the Commonwealth with fewer college and university resources.

GEER funding has been made available in addition to $587.5 million allocated to the Commonwealth in May under the federal CARES Act. This included $238.6 million from the Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief (ESSER) Fund for K-12 activities. Additionally, the CARES Act provided $343.9 million for higher education through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund.

In addition to allocating funding directly to every local school division, the ESSER K-12 funding includes a $23.9 million state set aside to fund state-level initiatives. In Virginia, these funds will be used to meet the needs of schools in regard to special education, instruction and assessment, student social and emotional health, and COVID-19-related health and safety in school buildings and facilities.
ABB will be hosting an investor webcast at 14:00 CEST today, June 10, at which CEO, Bjorn Rosengren, will be giving his initial impressions on the Groups strategy since he joined the company at the beginning of the year, as well as details on his immediate priorities. Highlights will include:

 ABB-OS evolves into new operating model ABB Way

 Clear focus on decentralized business model and 18 fully accountable divisions

 Prioritization of stability and profitability before growth

 Active portfolio management to play key role

 Combination of COVID-19 and oil price drop will lead to challenges over the coming quarters

 Group mid-term financial targets remain in place

 Divestment of Power Grids on track to be completed end Q2, 2020

 ABB on track to deliver $500 million ABB-OS cost savings

After my first 100 days as CEO, I can truly say: ABB has a good foundation to build on. Our technology and products are well aligned to key market trends and customer needs such as the electrification of transport, automated manufacturing, digital solutions and increased sustainable productivity, said Bjorn Rosengren. We will now leverage this strong position to create superior value for our customers, employees and shareholders. We will do this by evolving our decentralized business model, strengthening our performance management culture, putting stability and profitability before growth, and driving active portfolio management.

The companys mid-term financial targets of a 3-6 percent comparable revenue growth per year, an operational EBITA margin of 13-16 percent, ~100 percent cash conversion rate, 15-20 percent ROCE and EPS growing at a faster rate than revenue growth, remain in place. An update on the strategy, including long-term 2030 sustainability targets, will be provided later this year at the Groups Capital Market Day in November 2020.

Currently, ABB is still facing challenging quarters ahead due to the COVID-19 global pandemic and a drop in the oil price. This has led to a decline in demand, for example, in the automotive and power generation end markets, while travel restrictions and supply chain constraints also have an impact on business. Nevertheless, the Chinese market continues to recover, while the transport, food & beverage and data center sectors remain relatively resilient.

The health and safety of all our stakeholders remains the key priority in these difficult times, while we are also intensifying our efforts to mitigate the crisis by increasing our number of virtual customer visits, adjusting production capacity to demand and managing cash tightly, said Rosengren.

At todays event, CFO Timo Ihamuotila will comment on ABBs capital allocation priorities, which remain unchanged. The sale of the Power Grids business to Hitachi is expected to be completed at the end of the second quarter of 2020 and ABB remains committed to a share buyback program using net cash proceeds from the transaction. ABB is planning to execute this in an efficient and responsible way, taking account of the prevailing circumstances. Cash will also be returned to shareholders in the form of rising sustainable dividends per share and ABB aims to retain a single A credit rating.

Creating superior value through new operating model ABB Way

A key element of ABBs strategy to create superior value is the ongoing decentralization of the business model. ABB has successfully discontinued its longstanding matrix organization over the last 18 months, with more responsibility shifted to the four business areas of Electrification, Industrial Automation, Motion and Robotics & Discrete Automation.

Going forward, a new operating model called ABB Way will provide a governance framework of processes and policies, connecting the business areas and divisions to the corporate center and uniting the Group under the ABB brand. ABB Way is evolving from the current ABB-OS, which is on track to deliver the targeted $500 million cost savings, with the full run-rate benefit during 2021.

After having been successfully launched in 2016, the ABB Ability digital platform will also be managed by the business areas and no longer in the corporate center. This will enable them to create software solutions more efficiently and quickly. ABB Ability has more than 160 digital solutions, boasting top-tier software partnerships with Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprises and Ericsson, for example.

In a further step of moving operating activities even closer to the customer, ABB will empower 18 divisions comprised within the four business areas. More details on the divisions, as well as updated strategies for the business areas, will be provided at the Capital Markets Day in November 2020. ABB will continue to report its financial results based on the four business areas.

We will strengthen our performance management through a new scorecard system based on a very transparent and standardized set of KPIs. Here, I expect our management to focus on having a stable structure and profitability before embarking on growth, said Rosengren. The benchmark is for each of the divisions to be number one or two in its respective market segment.

As part of this new divisional focus, ABB will also further strengthen its ongoing portfolio review process to ascertain whether ultimately ABB is the best owner in terms of strategic attractiveness, value creation potential and structural fit.

Portfolio management will play an even more important role going forward and we will not shy away from fixing, exiting or growing divisions, said Rosengren. At the same time, no major acquisitions are planned by ABB in the mid-term.

As part of the ABB Way, corporate functions will focus on financial, strategic and governance activities in the future and have a reduced headcount of less than 1,000 employees worldwide. At the beginning of 2019, roughly 18,000 employees were still in corporate functions, the majority of whom were then gradually transferred into the business areas.

ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a leading global engineering company that energizes the transformation of society and industry to achieve a more productive, sustainable future. By connecting software to its electrification, robotics, automation and motion portfolio, ABB pushes the boundaries of technology to drive performance to new levels. With a history of excellence stretching back more than 130 years, ABBs success is driven by 144,000 talented employees in over 100 countries. www.abb.com

Important notice about forward-looking information

This press release includes forward-looking information and statements which are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about the factors that may affect our future performance, including the economic conditions of the regions and industries that are major markets for ABB. These expectations, estimates and projections are generally identifiable by statements containing words such as anticipates, expects, believes, estimates, plans, targets, on track or similar expressions. However, there are many risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information and statements made in this press release and which could affect our ability to achieve any or all of our stated targets. The important factors that could cause such differences include, among others, business risks associated with the volatile global economic environment and political conditions, costs associated with compliance activities, market acceptance of new products and services, changes in governmental regulations and currency exchange rates and such other factors as may be discussed from time to time in ABB Ltds filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Reports on Form 20-F. Although ABB Ltd believes that its expectations reflected in any such forward-looking statement are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that those expectations will be achieved.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005398/en/
Makana residents urged to help make masks for young children

Rhodes University Community Engagement (RUCE) has partnered with Facemasks4Makana to launch a campaign urging Makana residents to help make 1000 masks for children aged two to six years old.

Learners in Makana are set to return to schools and other childcare spaces soon. These learners will require masks that fit them properly, as many already available masks are mostly suitable for adults.

In Makhanda alone, there are about 78 Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres that fall outside the parameters of the formal education system who therefore wont receive Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from the government.

The need for these ECD centres and their learners to be protected led to the launch of the Makana ECD Masks campaign, a collaboration between RUCE and Facemasks4Makana.

Although children are less susceptible to COVID-19, all of them need to be adequately protected so that they do not carry the virus into their communities where there are vulnerable members such as grandparents or family members with co-morbidities, said Community Engagement Coordinator, Anna Talbot.

To distribute the masks, RUCE will work with their ECD partners site managers and the local ECD forum who will, in turn, hand out packs to families. A pack will include a story about COVID-19 (how its spread, how to prevent spread etc), a child mask, some information on data-free educational resources and a story in their mother tongue.

Patterns for the masks are available on RUCEs social media pages or contact Anna Talbot on a.talbot@ru.ac.za if you would like the patterns emailed to you or require more information about the campaign.

Source: RUCE

Please help us to raise funds so that we can give all our students a chance to access online teaching and learning. Covid-19 has disrupted our students' education. Don't let the digital divide put their future at risk. Visit www.ru.ac.za/rucoronavirusgateway to donate
A man passes by a telecommunication store. SKT, KT, LG U+ are expected to raise mobile plan rates as the National Assembly abolished the mobile phone service authorization act on May 20. Yonhap



By Kim Hyun-bin



Controversy is on the rise over the government's decision to abolish the terms and conditions of the Mobile Phone Service Authorization Act, which regulates mobile carriers from unilaterally raising prices.



One of President Moon Jae-in's key presidential pledges in 2017 was to reduce telecom plan prices, but many claim the government is moving in the opposite direction from the initiative as the terms and conditions of the act, which stood as a safeguard to prevent telecom companies' unilateral price hikes, was abolished by the National Assembly, May 20.



The authorization act made it mandatory for SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ to gain government approval before launching new telecommunications plans.



For example, if SKT wanted to launch a new rate plan, it needed to submit a provision to related government entities and through a maximum two months inspection approval could be given. But since this has been abolished, telecom companies will be free to decide rate plans on their own as long as they report 15 days prior to their introduction.



SKT, KT and LG U+ have welcomed the move claiming it will allow them to introduce more diverse mobile plans, which in turn will benefit customers, however, consumers and civic groups are skeptical as telecom companies will be free to form pacts to raise prices and increase their profitability.



The telecommunication market is dominated by SKT, KT and LGU+ accounting for over 90 percent of the market, while budget carriers hold the remaining 10 percent.



Due to these circumstances, criticism is on the rise that the three majors will form a pact to decrease competition and raise prices.



For years, telecom companies have been urging the government to abolish the act, claiming it prevented them from engaging in free competition. Now the regulation has been removed, the telecom companies need only to inform government entities, including the Ministry of Science and ICT and Ministry of Economy and Finance, 15 days prior to scheduled price changes.



"There has not been a case where telecom companies reduced prices although they did not need authorization, all they needed to do was to report the price reduction to the related entities," Ahn Jin-gul, head of the People's Livelihood Economy Research Institute said. "It is a lie to say that the terms and conditions of the Mobile Phone Service Authorization Act hindered their competition."



Many experts point out that it is impossible to conduct a proper review of proposed rate plans in just 15 days, as this is insufficient time to crosscheck with related government departments or hold an outside advisory on the issue, which will allow telecom companies to hike prices without restrictions.



"Looking at the market structure and outcome, it is difficult to say there has been active competition among the telecom companies," the Korea Information Society Development Institute said.



However, the Ministry of Science and ICT says there are safety measures in place if telecom companies conduct excessive price hikes.



"The new system allows revoking the proposal within the stated (15 day) term," Science and ICT Minister Choi Ki-young, said.





More smartphone users look set to switch over to 5G networks as most newly released smartphones will support 5G. gettyimagesbank
The standard operating manual for governments facing a social crisis is fairly simple: make empathetic noises and defer action until the heat dies down. Striking a task force can often do the job nicely. When absolutely necessary, call a public inquiry.

However, strategies of this sort will not quell the outpouring we have witnessed recently over the neglect and oppression of Black people in the criminal justice system. It has all been done before. For many years now, investigations, studies, reviews, probes and academic papers have scrupulously examined the problems and supplied the necessary answers.

In short, there is nothing left to say; there is everything left to do.

Thus far, public attention has focused on the front end of the system  policing. Grossly inflated police budgets have strangled available resources for recreational, social and educational programs designed to protect and nurture at-risk youth.

Rather than arming police with the latest in tactical gear, we must equip them with better training, sensitive to cultural realities and the potential for abuse toward racialized communities. Police practices that remain steeped in institutional racism will not change until officers have the training and the resolve to resist stubbornly antiquated modes of thinking.

Many of these shortcomings were identified in a 2017 report on police oversight by Justice Michael Tulloch. A top appellate court judge and a member of the Black community himself, Tulloch understood the shaky relationship that exists between racialized Canadians and police forces that are perceived as opaque and unaccountable. His 129 recommendations included many that were aimed at increasing transparency and accountability for the provinces police forces and the bodies that oversee their conduct.

Of these, a good many were poised to become law at the time Doug Fords Progressive Conservative Party came to power. Amid much bluster about the proposed legislation being anti-police, it was gutted.

In a particularly regrettable move, the province ignored a key recommendation that would have empowered the Special Investigation Unit to go well beyond investigating only serious injury or death cases and pursue a wider array of police misconduct allegations, such as perjury, obstructing justice and systemic racism or discrimination.

As Tulloch also urged in his report, extensive evidence that is uncovered during SIU probes should be accessible, regardless of whether charges resulted. Society cannot expect racialized communities to trust in police oversight when they are not able to assess the evidence that led to charges not being laid.

When a Black defendant is brought into a Canadian courtroom, they can still count on being surrounded by a sea of white faces. It is crucial that hiring and training programs be improved to bring greater racial diversity into the justice system so this will no longer be the case. This is particularly so with Crown prosecutors, who play such a central role in negotiating the plea agreements that resolve the vast majority of prosecutions.

As for the judiciary, no end of lip service has been paid to the need for diversity, yet the pace of change remains embarrassingly slow. Federal and provincial governments richly deserve the contempt of racialized communities for not backing up their words with action.

Yet, perhaps no element of the justice system cries out for reform and racial sensitivity more than sentencing. Many of the special considerations that are applied to Indigenous defendants should apply equally to Black defendants. Those whose lives and prospects have been adversely affected by systemic racism should have this life experience documented and considered by sentencing judges. The courts must encourage our justice system to examine the law through the lens of critical race theory.

None of these reforms will come into being without specialized training. Just as attention has focused on enhanced training in sexual assault in recent years, intensive training is just as vital for all justice system participants when it comes to anti-Black discrimination.

There is ample work ahead for all levels of government and no shortage of experts with whom they can consult  starting with those in the Black community itself. The only thing we are short on is time.
WAKEFIELD  Breaking down mental barriers and reimagining communications on how to combat climate change is integral to aligning people around the world, argues Norwegian psychologist Per Espen Stoknes.

Stoknes research into the psychology behind economics lifts the lid on why clear-cut science driving the message of urgent climate action continues to fall on deaf ears  especially in industries such as fashion and textiles.

Discussing concepts such as behavioural economics and analysing the messages of influencers such as Greta Thunberg, Stoknes joins Mike Schragger to outline five defence mechanisms deployed by people missing the message on climate action  and suggests an overhaul to the system that will be useful for change agents working in the apparel sector.

You can click here to listen to the podcast.

In conversation with Schragger, Stoknes  whos previously hosted a TED Talk addressing the psychology of economic choices  notes that there are five defences which people use when the topic of climate change arises which renders the messaging ineffective.

The first, the idea of psychological distancing, can be contrasted effectively against the very real threat posed by coronavirus to people around the world, which has prompted quick reactions. Its the idea that messaging doesnt resonate until it represents somewhat of an immediate threat.

In terms of time, we talk about the climate turning slowly, in decades and centuries, not days and weeks like we have with the coronavirus, Stoknes explains. So climate scientists have been stimulating this barrier by saying years: 2050 or 2100 in their communications, because that makes the human brain think this is far away, we dont have to deal with this now.

This distancing isnt just applicable to time but also space and between groups. As such, if an international CEO were to relay the details of melting ice caps in Antarctica, people may justify ignorance by insisting how different their lives are from a business tycoon, and how far away in the world they are from the polar regions.

Stoknes theory snowballs through four more defence mechanisms, from growing desensitised to the doomsday messaging of urgent climate action, to being in a state of dissonance whereby one might validate their decisions by alluding to anothers more environmentally harmful lifestyles, whether that be driving a bigger car for example. Ultimately, any one of these defences is effective in diluting the impact of the message.

He subsequently suggests a peer network approach to the task at hand in order to better resonate with people. By making it social, it has to do with what my friends are doing, or colleagues, neighbours, people that I want to be like. So, if we could change with some influential people, which would then spread, we could change the social norms, he notes.

There are three other frames we can use when communicating about climate-related issues. Those are health, insurance  managing the risk  and the opportunities for better lives with lower emissions, he concludes. Researchers have found that these are far more engaging frames than doom or sacrifice.

To listen to the full podcast, you can click here.
Lara Worthington (nee Bingle), 32, has proven herself to be one of Australia's most secretive stars, after keeping the recent birth of her third child under wraps for weeks.

While she and her actor husband Sam Worthington, 43, are yet to acknowledge the baby's arrival, fans were treated to a glimpse at the newborn last Friday when they stepped out in Los Angeles.

Over the past few months, Lara used a number of clever tricks to keep her growing baby bump - and her due date - out of the headlines.

Mum's the word! Lara Worthington (nee Bingle), 32, has proven herself to be one of Australia's most secretive stars, after keeping the recent birth of her third child under wraps for weeks. Pictured with husband Sam Worthington, 43

She remained largely absent from her popular Instagram page this year, uploading just three posts in 2020.

The first post - uploaded on February 15 - was a black-and-white selfie of Lara and Sam.

Lara's body was hidden from frame, as the photo cut off around above her shoulders.

There he is! While she and her actor husband Sam Worthington, 43, are yet to acknowledge the arrival, fans were treated to a glimpse at the newborn last Friday when they stepped out in Los Angele (pictured)

On April 10th, the cosmetics guru share a black-and-white photo of herself lying on a deck-chair in a bath robe, hair towel and face mask.

Once again, the mother-of-three made sure to strategically hide her body from view by cutting the image just below her shoulders.

Meanwhile, Lara strategically curated her Instagram Story posts so as not to include images of her body or any signs that she'd welcomed her third child.

Strategic: She remained largely absent from her popular Instagram page this year, uploading just three posts in 2020. The first post - uploaded on February 15 - was a black-and-white selfie of Lara and Sam (pictured)

Under wraps: On April 10th, the cosmetics guru share a black-and-white photo of herself lying on a deck-chair in a bath robe, hair towel and face mask - making sure to hide her body from view

For example, on April 5th, the proud matriarch shared a video of Sam chasing around their squealing sons inside their Los Angeles mansion.

Lara made sure not to turn the camera on herself as she filmed the chaotic scene nor discuss her pregnancy.

Then, on April 16th, she ordered herself a decadent bundt cake while in lockdown.

Behind the lens: Meanwhile, Lara strategically curated her Instagram Story posts so as not to include images of her body or any signs that she'd welcomed her third child. On April 5th, she shared a video of Sam chasing around their squealing sons inside their Los Angeles mansion

Once again, Lara chose not to film herself in the video, nor discuss the arrival of her third child.

Lara, who also shares sons Rocket, five, and Racer, three, with Avatar star Sam, also managed to avoid being photographed by paparazzi during her pregnancy thanks to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

The pandemic began sweeping the world during Lara's final months of pregnancy, meaning that Lara was easily able to avoid the spotlight inside her Los Angeles home.

What a treat! On April 16th, she ordered herself a decadent bundt cake while in lockdown - but made sure not to film herself

Meanwhile, famously private Sam had no trouble keeping the birth a secret as he doesn't have social media and rarely gives interviews.

Lara had confirmed her pregnancy in November after months of speculation, telling Vogue Australia: 'I'm having a boy, early next year. It's my third boy, and we're all very excited and very happy.

'I think any addition brings joy and happiness to the family, but more so when you can share it with the other boys. It's such a boy's club in my house!'

Lara and Sam began dating in 2013 and married in secret a year later.
Private sector will be allowed to use ISRO facilities and other relevant assets to improve their capacities: DrJitendra Singh

India PIB

Department of Space

Posted On: 09 JUN 2020 8:10PM by PIB Delhi

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that private sector will be allowed to use Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) facilities and other relevant assets to improve their capacities.

Briefing about India's achievement in the field of Space Technology during the first year of the 2nd term of the Modi Government, Dr Jitendra Singh stated that the Modi Government's 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' roadmap towards self-relied India, as spelt out by Finance Minister, envisages the initiative to boost private participation in Space activities. Indian private sector will be a co-traveller in India's Space sector journey.

Private companies to be provided level playing field in satellites, launches and Space based services. Future projects for planetary exploration, outer space travel will be open for private sector.

Updating about India's first ever Human Space Mission 'Gaganyaan' to be undertaken by ISRO, Dr Jitendra Singh said the selection of the astronauts was accomplished and their training in Russia had also started but got interrupted because of the Corona pandemic. He said the project would be followed up soon.

Inspired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Dr Jitendra Singh said that in the year that has just gone bye, ISRO launched a special programme for young school children called 'Young Scientists Programme - YUVIKA'. The programme is primarily aimed at imparting basic knowledge on Space Technology and its applications to the younger generations, he said.

Even during the Corona pandemic, ISRO scientists have been engaged in search of the best methods to provide essential medical devices, protective kits and other equipment.

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NW/SNC



(Release ID: 1630524)

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Democrats are demanding that police forces be abolished (or defunded) even though one would be crazy to think that a world without law enforcement would be desirable. Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender, on CNN, couldnt answer a simple question: if there are no police, what do you do if someone is breaking into your house?

CAMEROTA: "What if in the middle of the night my home is broken into. Who do I call?" BENDER: "Yes, I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors. And I know  and myself, too, and I know that that comes from a place of privilege." pic.twitter.com/WhubQ9yJIf  Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) June 8, 2020



Thats the nonsense. The sense comes from Republican Senate candidate Jason Lewis, this time on Fox News:

To the sense and the nonsense, we can add the breathtakingly hypocritical: Nury Martinez, the President of the Los Angeles City Council and (of course) a Democrat, is leading an effort to cut $150 million from the LAPDs budget. Onlyoopsit turns out that Ms. Martinez has had 24/7 security beginning April 4 at [her] home, almost always staffed by two officers. Provided, of course, by the Los Angeles Police Department, at a cost to taxpayers of an estimated $100,000.

#LATEST LA Council Pres. Nury Martinez, who introduced a motion to cut #LAPDs budget by $150 million, had a private LAPD protection detail camped at her home from April to June. It was called off the night we called to ask her team about it. Full story coming to @SpecNews1SoCal pic.twitter.com/1lv5ctqQEC  Natalie Brunell (@natbrunell) June 9, 2020



No doubt Ms. Martinez, like Ms. Bender, is quick to explain how the presence of police makes a neighborhood more dangerous. Only not hers.

UPDATE: Journalist Lara Logan responds to Lisa Benders moronic comment about privilege with a dose of reality:

I remember when I was being gang-raped & beaten by a mob in Egypt, would have been great to have a police force to call then. Would that have been my white privilege talking? Ive stood against racism all my life,dont have a racist bone in my body. My heart breaks https://t.co/U4USN1cMP6  Lara Logan (@laralogan) June 9, 2020



Via Ann Althouse.
A Los Angeles police officer has been charged with assault for punching an unarmed trespassing suspect more than a dozen times while arresting him.

Video from a bystander and cameras worn by officers shows officer Frank Hernandez pummeling suspect Richard Castillo on April 27 as he stood with his hands behind his back, as if he was going to be handcuffed.

Officer Frank Hernandez was charged with assault under color of authority, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The charge comes less than a week after thousands of protesters galvanized by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis called for the ouster of District Attorney Jackie Lacey for doing little to prosecute police officers for shootings and other violence on the job.

Black Lives Matter and other groups have criticized Lacey, who is black, for not bringing charges in hundreds of police shootings during her more than seven years running the largest local prosecutors office in the U.S.

LAPD officer Frank Hernandez can be seen pummeling the man on April 27 as he stood with his hands behind his back, as if he was going to be handcuffed

Lacey has said she has done the best she can but is up against laws that allow officers to use deadly force and make it difficult to bring charges. She said she's prosecuted more than 20 police officers for use of force and has the only pending case in the state for an officer-involved shooting.

Lacey is up for re-election in a campaign that has focused on prosecuting police brutality and criminal justice reforms.

Hernandez, 49, could face up to three years in county jail if convicted of the felony.

The union representing Hernandez issued a rare statement condemning what was portrayed in the videos.

LAPD Officer Frank Hernandez can be seen talking to the suspect outside Church of God of the Prophecy in East LA on April 27

Hernandez tells the suspect, Richard Castillo, to stand with his hands behind his back

The officer requests the suspect to put his hands behind his back but then things change

At least a dozen punches flew from the officers fist as the man stayed more or less still

The Los Angeles Police Protective League Board of Directors said: 'While we have a fiduciary responsibility to provide our members with assistance through the internal affairs administrative process, what we saw on that video was unacceptable and is not what we are trained to do.'

It was not immediately clear if Hernandez had a defense lawyer who could provide comment.

The incident occurred when police were called about a man trespassing in a vacant lot in the Boyle Heights neighborhood.

Hernandez and a female partner arrived, crouched through a hole in a chain link fence and approached the suspect, telling him to leave, according to videos provided by police. The man, who was wearing a Los Angeles Rams jersey, cursed at the officers but grabbed his bicycle and left the grassy plot.

The suspect is seen bending over to protect himself. Both the cop and suspected ended up with injuries

A witness was recording the incident from across the street. A fellow officer is seen calling over radio before more cops show up shortly afterwards

The female officer told him to be on his way, but after walking down a sidewalk past a church, the suspect told the officers he lived there.

'You don't live here anymore,' Hernandez said. 'Bye.'

The suspect then asked what Hernandez was going to do and said he wasn't afraid of him. Hernandez approached the man and told him to turn around.

'Aint nobody acting defiant,' the man said, as he continued to curse at the officer. 'Aint nobody getting crazy but you.'

After a brief scuffle when the man initially refused to put his hands behind his back, the suspect faced a fence and appeared to comply with the order. Hernandez grabbed the man's hands as if he was going to cuff him and then took a wild swing and punched the man in the right side of the head.

Hernandez then delivered a series of blows to the man's head, neck and body, cursing at him the entire time.

'This is a disturbing case of the illegal use of force at the hands of a police officer,' Lacey said in a statement. 'In this case, we believe the force was neither legally necessary nor reasonable.'

Hernandez has been stripped of police powers and assigned to home, the police department said.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: Three militants were killed in an ongoing gunfight with security forces in militancy-hit Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday. With this, 12 militants have been killed in three encounters with security forces in Shopian district in the last four days.

Defence spokesman in Srinagar Colonel Rajesh Kalia said that a joint cordon and search operation was launched by security forces in Sugoo area of Shopian district at around 1:45 am based on state police intelligence about presence of militants in the area.

He said that while searches were conducted in the village, security personnel established contact with militants at around 5:30 am. The militants hiding in the area fired on the troops, who retaliated and in the ensuing gunfight, three militants have been killed, the defence spokesman said.

He said that the joint operation was going on when reports last poured in. This is the third encounter in militancy-hit Shopian district in the last four days. In the three encounters, 12 militants including two commanders of Hizbul Mujahideen have been killed.

On Sunday, five militants of Hizbul Mujahideen including a commander Farooq Asad Nalli were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Reban area of Shopian district. The next day four more militants were killed in Pinjoora area of Shopian.

Shopian district alongwith three other south Kashmir districts of Pulwama, Kulgam and Anantang has emerged as a stronghold of militants after the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani on July 8, 2016.
It was an extraordinary sight: one of the largest local rallies in decades, held on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building, and not a single uniformed police officer was on hand.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 9/6/2020 (591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

It was an extraordinary sight: one of the largest local rallies in decades, held on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building, and not a single uniformed police officer was on hand.

Their services weren't needed.

An estimated 15,000 people attended the Justice 4 Black Lives rally June 5, one of many held around the world in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed in Minneapolis last month after a white police officer pinned him to the ground and knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

The Winnipeg rally was a powerful response to Floyds death and a bold statement against systemic racism in society.

Normally, an event of this size would attract teams of police; in cruiser cars, on foot, on motorcycles  eyeballing participants and gathering intelligence. Police would typically have one or two large vehicles parked on the south side of the building, ready to detain suspects in the event of arrests.

Their presence at protests like these in the past was, in most cases, automatic and expected.

But not on this June evening; there wasnt a cop to be seen anywhere on the legislative grounds. The only visible presence was a brief appearance by Air-1, the Winnipeg Police Service helicopter, which buzzed around early but was eventually called off.

There were police officers closing streets and managing traffic outside the protest area, but none  at least none in uniform  were present at the rally.

The reason was obvious: a police presence under these circumstances would likely have provoked a clash between cops and some protesters, a number of whom were wielding "defund police" placards. Their presence would have added fuel to the fire. It was the right decision not to attend.

What we saw instead was a peaceful protest that didnt need law enforcement to maintain order. There was anger and frustration in the crowd, but like most rallies in Winnipeg, those feelings were expressed without physical violence or property damage.

In an environment where society is now rethinking law enforcements role  whether we have too much of it, whether the size of police forces should be scaled back  we saw an example where traditional policing wasn't necessary.

Thats not to say police werent monitoring the event. They were, from afar, ready to deploy if the protest turned dangerous. But the fact a large protest occurred without them, and without incident, raises questions about how law enforcement resources are used in other circumstances.

Do we need police at every large gathering, at every Winnipeg Jets and Blue Bombers game? Is a visible, heavily-armed emergency response unit necessary at big events like the downtown Whiteout street parties?

Winnipeg has the fourth-largest police force in Canada per capita, among cities with populations of 500,000 or more.

At 181 officers per 100,000 people (down from 212 five years ago), is it the appropriate size? The number of calls to 911 continues to soar, well above the rate of Winnipegs population growth. But do we really need police making well-being checks, the second most frequent call after domestic disturbances?

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At the same time, Winnipeg has a high rate of violent crime, with its crime severity index measure on an upswing since 2015. Can we afford to cut the police complement (which has already been reduced and further civilian-ized in recent years) given that reality?

These are questions policymakers will be asking themselves going forward, as the issue of police resources, and how theyre used, reaches a new level of debate.

Trying to find the right balance between protecting society from genuine security threats and moving away from a policing style that can provoke as much as protect is no easy task.

We need police to respond to emergency situations, to investigate crimes and keep the public peace. But as we saw last week, sometimes, we dont need them to maintain order.

Winnipeggers showed they are capable of holding a large, peaceful rally without police looking over their shoulders.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
A teenage boy has been arrested and charged after a Shetland pony was found stabbed to death in a field.

Police were called to the scene behind Roman Camp Cottages in Broxburn, West Lothian, at 11am on Monday.

Officers said the pony, named Pepper, had been stabbed.

The teenager is due to appear at Livingston Sheriff Court on Tuesday.

A report has been submitted to the procurator fiscal.

A Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal spokesperson said: The procurator fiscal at Livingston received a report concerning a 15-year-old in connection with an alleged offence on 8 June, 2020.

After consideration of the facts and circumstances, Crown counsel instructed that the case be referred to the Childrens Reporter.

On Monday, a police spokesman said: Around 11am on Monday, 8 June, a Shetland Pony was found dead in a field behind Roman Camp Cottages, Broxburn.

The pony had been stabbed and this is believed to have occurred between 9pm on Sunday, 7 June, and 11am on Monday, 8 June.
We all know how annoying that glare can be. (Getty Images)

Summer time is approaching and with the good weather comes one slightly less enjoyable aspect of the sun - the glare.

With many of us still working from home, our semi-permanent set-ups are easily transferred outdoors on a warm day.

Havent we all worked from a paddling pool from time to time? No? Just us?

Working outside is all well and good, but what if the sun is shining too brightly for you to be able to see your laptop? Its a privileged problem to have, yes, and its one, one man has an answer to.

Tom Wood shared his cardboard box hack on LinkedIn, ensuring hell never have to squint to see his screen again.

His solution is simple. Find yourself a cardboard box around the same size as your laptop, turn it on its side and shove your laptop in there.

Read more: British people can travel to Italy this summer

We can see why you might have your reservations about whether or not it would work, but looking at Woods prototype we can only conclude that this is a stroke of genius.

Lets face it, weve all got enough boxes lying around from one too many online shopping orders right now. Why not put them to good use?

Wood said: The latest in Work From Home Technology When you are working from home and want to enjoy the sunshine, yet can't see your laptop screen because of the sun! Get yourself the latest Technological break through..... The Cardboard Box. I can top up my tan and work outside, without any issues.

It wasnt long before tens of thousands of people were sharing the status, clearly finding the hack useful.

Sure, the sunny weather mightve disappeared for a short while, but with the weather expected to get better, we can all learn a thing or two from this cheap and cheerful idea.

Read more: Heres why you shouldnt swallow swimming pool water this summer

One thing to note is that a good box needs ventilation holes.

One follower astutely asked how long it took for Woods laptop to overheat and turn off, to which he explained that the ventilation holes are essential.

Story continues

Its good to make sure the holes are poked in the bottom, too, since thats where the fan is on most laptops.

Im embarrassed that I didnt already come up with this myself, one suitably impressed person wrote.

Omg, genius. I have had this daily dilemma, another added.
A funeral director wearing full PPE looks at the American flag on the casket of a 90-year-old Korean War veteran who died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in a nursing home, in Denver, Colorado, April 23, 2020.

Rick Wilking/Reuters

In a new Insider poll, 18% of Americans said they knew someone who was hospitalized from the coronavirus, and 16% knew someone who died from it.

The racial breakdown of those numbers are stark: While 14% of white respondents said they knew someone who died from the disease, 26% of Black respondents did.

The pandemic has disproportionately affected Black Americans, from those who have gotten sick to those who have lost their jobs in the economic downturn.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

One in four Black Americans said they knew someone who died of the coronavirus, compared to 14% of white Americans, according to a new Insider poll.

Around 16% of all respondents said they knew someone who died from COVID-19.

The poll of 1,111 Americans highlighted racial disparities during the coronavirus pandemic. While the percentage of white and Black Americans who knew someone who was diagnosed with coronavirus was roughly the same, at 35% and 38% respectively, the disparity became apparent when it came to the percentage of people who knew someone who was hospitalized.

About 16% of white respondents said they knew someone who was hospitalized for coronavirus, compared to 27% of Black respondents.

The poll with SurveyMonkey was collected June 8-9, after many states lifted their coronavirus lockdowns.

Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus, Business Insider previously reported.

A report by researchers at amfAR, a non-profit focused on AIDS research, found that US counties in "which at least 13% of the population is Black account for 58% of COVID-19 deaths and 52% of cases nationwide," Business Insider previously reported.

In Georgia, where about a third of the population is Black, African-American patients accounted for 83% of coronavirus cases that required hospitalization.

As Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said in May, "Crisis can exacerbate existing inequalities."

Story continues

African Americans have higher rates of underlying health conditions like diabetes and hypertension that could put them at a higher risk for developing complications from the novel coronavirus.

Black Americans also disproportionately hold jobs deemed essential during the pandemic. While Black Americans make up 12% of the overall workforce, they account for 17% of frontline employees, according to a study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

And Black people are uninsured at nearly twice the rate of whites, according to US Census data.

Many inequalities in American society account for the coronavirus pandemic hitting Black Americans harder than white people, and the numbers merely begin to highlight reality.

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weigh its sample based on race or income. A total of 1,111 respondents were collected June 8-9, 2020, with a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points and a 95% confidence level.

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Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 09:03 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd79aaa 1 Politics press-law,Press-Council,press-freedom-in-Indonesia,omnibus-bill-on-job-creation,journalist,media-company,press-freedom,house-of-representatives Free

The House of Representatives Legislation Body (Baleg) is considering dropping proposed revisions to the Press Law from the omnibus bill on job creation. The proposed changes have been criticized by media groups as a threat to press freedom.

Some groups questioned the governments proposed revision during a hearing with representatives of journalist groups and media companies on Tuesday. They said the revision had nothing to do with the bills main objective of job creation.

Subagyo of the Golkar Party  the main supporter of the bill  suggested that the government revoke the proposed revisions, saying the local media industry needed rules to support their freedom.

"The Press Law should not be revised through the omnibus bill. In order to prevent further misinterpretations, the Golkar faction proposes that the provisions be dropped from the bill, said Subagyo.

Read also: Omnibus bill may threaten press freedom: Media groups

Media groups have been opposing the bill, which seeks to amend Article 18  among other provisions  of Law No. 40/1999 on the press.

The revision to Article 18 in the omnibus bill would increase fines for anyone hampering the press freedom to seek, obtain or disseminate information. It would also fine press companies that did not adhere to religious norms, morality or the presumption of innocence in reporting  or those that did not serve the right of reply.

Any violation of the provision will be punished with up to Rp 2 billion (US$141,920) in fines, according to the omnibus bill.

The proposed revision to Article 18 would also impose administrative sanctions on any media company that failed to obtain proper legal documents or to publicly list its address and the people in charge of the organization.

The specific administrative sanctions are to be outlined in subsequent government regulations (PP). Under the prevailing regulations, such a violation carries a potential Rp 100 million fine.

Read also: Guide to omnibus bill on job creation: 1,028 pages in 10 minutes

The Indonesian Television Journalists Association (IJTI) rejected the proposed provisions regarding administrative sanctions as well as the PP.

We ask that the House to drop them as they may open up the possibility that the government could control the press, IJTI chairman Yadi Hendriyana said. It is clearly stated in the Press Law that there should not be derivative regulations of the law. We also have the Press Council as our self-regulating body.

The association, however, said it had no problem with the proposed increase in fines, which they said could increase the press professionalism.

Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) chairman Abdul Manan had previously questioned the rationale for increasing the penalty to Rp 2 billion if a press company violated regulations.

He said such a punishment did not reflect the purpose of educating the public and could be used as a tool to intimidate the press.

Taufik Basari of the NasDem Party said the House would question the government about the purpose of the proposed revisions, as the measures could potentially add to the controversy surrounding the bill.

Read also: Omnibus bill on shaky ground after layoffs

We should make it as acceptable as possible and minimize the number of things leading to controversy. I dont see the connection between the bills objectives and the press, Taufik said.

"If the government's argument is not strong enough, we should drop [the press measures] and focus more on the main objectives.

Supratman Andi Agtas of the Gerindra Party echoed Taufiks concerns.

"We will discuss with the government whether the provision will be dropped. However, we are in the same spirit as the others  that the press already has the council to control itself, said Supratman.
DEAR ABBY: I divorced my wife 20 years ago, leaving behind two daughters. My older girl was 5 when I left, and due to my ex's lies, I wasn't able to see them.

When my older daughter turned 18, she contacted me. She confessed that she had been forced to lie in court, and we reconnected. At 19, she came to me pregnant. She asked if I would take her baby and asked that I tell no one, especially her mother. I agreed.

Last year, my daughter died in a car wreck. My granddaughter will turn 4. Should I go against my daughter's wishes, tell my ex and risk her taking her? Or should I let things remain as they are? My current wife and I are the only people who know.

 Secret in Virginia

DEAR SECRET: I urge you to discuss this matter with a lawyer because there may be legal ramifications. Your former wife has demonstrated she is the kind of person who would force a child to lie in a custody matter. Having done it once, she's capable of doing something equally underhanded. I am trying hard to come up with a reason why you should go against your daughter's wishes and disclose this to your ex, and I cannot think of a single one.

DEAR ABBY: I'm concerned about my daughter. She's 12 and wants to hang out with a 21-year-old male volunteer from her school. His mother works there, and I've known their family for a few years, although we've never socialized.

Recently, my daughter said she wants to meet him at a park to learn some skateboard moves. She tries to tell me it's harmless, that he just likes the skateboarding sport, but I am uncomfortable about the age difference and the fact that he works at her school. I don't know what to do. What's your advice in this situation?

 Stumped in Calilfornia

DEAR STUMPED: Although the young man's motives may be pure, I do not think your daughter should be meeting him at the park without supervision. Accompany her so you can gauge the situation. Because he is volunteering at her school, you should first check to see if that kind of fraternization is allowed because it may not be, and it could cost him his position.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

DEAR ABBY: Am I awful because I don't sympathize when people put their business on the internet? For example, I read some comments on YouTube, and this woman was talking about how "all men cheat." I told her maybe it's just all the men she opens her legs to. My account was suspended for a week because of it.

Another time, a man was talking about how none of his many kids talk to him. I asked what he had done to them that none of them speak to him, and he got mad. Abby, I'm not looking for trouble. I feel that if you can't take someone not kissing up to you, stop putting your business out there. Am I wrong?

 Straightforward in the West

DEAR STRAIGHTFORWARD: I think so. When traits were handed out, it appears someone forgot to give you a filter. I agree that some people overshare online and doing it comes with a risk. However, your comments weren't helpful; in fact, they were cruel. When a bee stings, its prey tries to swat it away, and that's what's happening to you. To avoid trouble, curb your impulse to comment, or be prepared to deal with the consequences that are sure to follow.
Four out of 2,284 passengers who landed at Bihars Bodh Gaya international airport after evacuation from different countries in the second phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, have tested positive for Sars-CoV-2, which causes coronavirus diseases (Covid-19).

Two of the four passengers to have tested positive for the virus had arrived from Qatar and one each from Oman and Saudia Arabia, said Gaya civil surgeon Dr Brajesh Kumar Singh.

The Gulf returnees to have tested positive for the virus belong to Bihars Gaya, Gopalganj, East Champaran and Muzaffarpur districts.

Results of five other samples sent to the Patna Medical College (PMCH) for reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), a confirmatory test for Covid-19, were pending, he added.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19

These passengers were tested on different dates after they landed at the Gaya international airport between May 31and June 6. They are presently undergoing treatment at the Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College Hospital (ANMMCH), which has been designated a Covid-19 special facility, added Dr Singh.

Four of the 11 samples sent for confirmatory test to the PMCH have been found to be positive, while two samples, which had tested positive on the TrueNat machine, have turned out to be negative. Five results are pending, said Dr Singh.

52 of the 2,284 air passengers to have arrived at Gaya were found to be symptomatic. Of them, 10 tested positive on the TrueNat machine, while another sample of a Covid-positive woman passengers husband, was also sent for confirmatory test to the PMCH, he added.

The Air India operated flights from nine countries to Gaya during phase-II of the Vande Bharat Mission, catering to around 2,500 passengers from Bihar and Jharkhand between May 18 and June 6, said Dilip Kumar, director of the Gaya international airport.

Our airport facilitated movement of 12 Air India aircraft from nine countries under Vande Bharat Mission, besides catering to special evacuation flights from Myanmar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman during this period, added Kumar.

Notably, 72% of Bihars 5,583 Covid-19 cases are among the migrant workers. Over 2 million migrants have returned to the state by 1,491 Shramik Special trains between May 3 and June 5, said Anupam Kumar, secretary, information and public relations department, Bihar.
Bengaluru, June 10 : Nominations of JD-S supremo and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and two ruling BJP's candidate Eranna Kadadi and Ashok Gasti were found valid for the June 19 Rajya Sabha biennial elections in Karnataka, a poll official said on Wednesday.

"State Legislative Assembly Secretary and returning officer M.K. Vishalakshi declared the nominations of all the four candidates valid after scrutiny," the Election Commission official told IANS.

Kharge, Kadadi and Gasti will get 44 votes each required to be elected while Gowda needs 10 more votes from the Congress to make up for the shortfall, as the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) has 34 legislators in the 225-member Assembly.

"Papers of Independent Sangamesh Chikkanargund, who filed on the last date of filing nominations (Tuesday), were rejected during the scrutiny, as he did not get letters of support from at least 10 legislators required to enter the poll fray," the official added.

Last date for withdrawal of candidates is on June 12. Voting and counting is on June 19.

The BJP has 117 legislators, including the Speaker and support of two Independents to vote for its 2 candidates.

With the term of the 4 four members -- the Congress' B.K. Hariprasad and Rajeev Gowda BJP's Prabhakar Kore and JD-S Kupendra Reddy ending on June 25, the Election Commission on June 1 notified the bypoll in the state for the Upper House of Parliament.

Deve Gowda, 87, lost in the May 2019 general elections from Tumkur to G.S. Basvaraj of the BJP.

Kharge, 77, a former Union Minister in the UPA government, lost in the May 2019 general elections from the Gulbarga reserved constituency to Umesh Yadav of the BJP.

Kharge was the party's leader in the Lok Sabha's previous term (2014-19).

It will be second time Gowda will enter the Rajya Sabha 24 years after he became its member as the Prime Minister of the United Front government in 1996-97, while it will be a debut in the upper house for Kharge after two terms in the Lok Sabha.

Kadadi, 50, hails from Gokak in the state's northwest Belagavi district. He is a strong leader of the politically dominant Lingayat community, which is the ruling party's vote bank and to which Yediyurappa too belongs to.

Gasti, 56, an advocate by profession, hails from the barber community and belongs to Raichur district in the state's northern region.
Sunil Bansal, a resident of Varanasi, was first tested for Covid-19 on May 17.

His sample returned a positive report on May 28, 11 days later. Since then, he has been in an isolation facility in the Pandeypur area of the city. Another sample of his was taken on June 5, when he was deemed cured. Its five days now, but the report hasnt come. I cant leave the centre until the report comes, said Bansal, a pharmacist who was on railway station duty when he tested positive.

The number  there are only 33 laboratories testing for Covid  and concentration (most are in the big cities) of testing facilities in Uttar Pradesh is making people wait for days to know their status.

Experts say this is worrying; they point to another cause for concern  UP has currently tested only 1,740 people per million residents, lower than the national average of 3,797 and far below other states. Maharashtra has done 4,730 tests per million for instance; Tamil Nadu, 8,206; and Rajasthan, 6,860.

To be sure, the state does average of 12,500 tests per day but this is well short of what is needed, the experts said. Uttar Pradesh has a population of 224 million, according to Census of India projections.

State surveillance officer Dr Vikasendu Agrawal said, UPs per case testing ratio is better than several other states. The state has reported 11,610 cases till now.

Bansals sample, like all other samples from Varanasi, are tested at Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The same lab also tests samples from Sonbhadra, Mirzapur, Jaunpur, Bhadohi, Ghazipur, Mau, Azamgarh and Ballia districts, which collectively have a population of about 25 million people. The lab can test a maximum of 330 samples in a day.

Delay in the test report is a double blow. First, an infected person may be moving around. Second, a cured patients stay may get prolonged in an isolation centre, said Sunil Yadav, president of the government pharmacist federation, Uttar Pradesh.

The situation at BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur is similar.

We test samples for seven districts in Gorakhpur and Basti and have a capacity of about 1,000 tests per day, said Dr Ganesh Kumar, principal of the college.

The Meerut testing centre, at Lala Lajpat Rai Medical College, tests samples from the adjoining districts of Baghpat, Saharanpur, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Noida, Bijnor and Hapur.

Out of the total 34,000 samples tested this far in the Meerut lab, 16,132 were from Meerut and 17,868 of other districts. On paper, the average time taken for testing samples is 68 hours, a little short of three days.

The lab at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC), Aligarh Muslim University, caters to the districts of Kasganj, Hathras, Etah, Mathura, Badaun and Aligarh.This lab has thus far conducted more than 16,000 tests.

In Agra, a hotspot of the coronavirus disease, the labs are at Sarojini Naidu Medical College and Jalma Institute for Leprosy & Other Mycobacterial Diseases. There are also three private labs. Cases from nearby districts too reach Agra.

Lucknow has seven government labs and the reporting time is between 24 and 36 hours for coronavirus samples. King Georges Medical University lab receives samples from districts also such as Barabanki, Gonda, Bahraich, Hardoi, Sitapur, Unnao, Ayodhya, Farrukhabad, Sambhal, Shahjahanpur, Kannauj and Hathras.

KGMUs microbiology lab tests around 1200 samples each day.

Despite the delays, the state is better off now than it was a few months back, according to a state health department officer who added that in February, UP sent samples to National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune and National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi.

It was only later that testing started at labs in KGMU, Lucknow and JLNMC, AMU, Aligarh . From mid- March, testing also started at medical colleges in Meerut, Agra, Prayagraj and Gorakhpur. Now, 22 government laboratories and 11 private laboratories are testing samples in the state. Still, the daily pendency of samples was 9,000, the officer added, asking not to be named.

Seven of Uttar Pradeshs 22 government labs are in Lucknow. They collectively conduct over 2,000 tests a day.

There are two labs each in Agra and Gorakhpur. The other districts with a lab are: Prayagraj, Jhansi, Aligarh, Noida, Meerut, Saifai (Etawah), Bareilly, Kanpur, Greater Noida, and Varanasi. Eleven other private labs were also allowed to test samples.

Uneven distribution of labs is a threat as we will fail to know the spread in districts where the lab facility is poor. But as people from there will migrate for work, the infection will spread to other places, said Dr PK Gupta, former president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Lucknow.

Principal secretary, health and medical welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad said the state government is increasing the testing capacity. Testing of samples started in four more hospitals on Wednesday, he added.

 The state government has decided to set up virology laboratories in all the 75 district hospitals and work on this has started, he said.

Surveillance officer Agrawal added: TrueNat Machines have been installed in all 75 districts and will be used for testing samples of suspected coronavirus patients. These are portable battery operated machines originally meant for the detection of tuberculosis.

UP reported the first coronavirus case on March 2 and till now about four lakh (400,000) samples have been tested.

Given the size of the state (UPs land area is 243,290 square kilometres, if it were a country it would be the 78th largest in terms of land area), it takes time for samples from some districts to reach hospitals.

One person carrying samples from Azamgarh to Varanasi will take over three hours to reach. And if all samples of the district are to be collected, the delay in samples reaching the lab could be 12 hours, which means the test report can take over 48 hours to reach the patient/doctor, added Dr Gupta.

Having one lab for five or seven districts is practically unworkable. Ideally, there should be one lab in each district or at least one lab between two districts, he added.

UP will have to get innovative with its testing, Dr Gupta said, suggesting antibody tests. Its a simple test and can tell the spread of virus authentically.

Dr RB Singh, former additional director (administration) in the state health department, said, Uttar Pradesh at present is not aware of where it stands in terms of coronavirus cases. In fact, only aggressive testing can tell this status. Hence, it should be increased swiftly so that we know the accurate number of cases.
The Louisiana Legislature last week approved sweeping vehicle tort reform in a state known for having some of the highest insurance premiums in the country and some of the largest court damage awards.

And that's where the consensus ends. What happens next is still very much up in the air.

Both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature passed the tort reform bill a week ago in an ongoing special session. Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has not yet signed the bill nor vetoed it.

The votes to override a possible veto are not there. Not only that, it isn't clear just when the time limit for Edwards to sign or veto the bill runs out. It might be this weekend; other interpretations of the law put it at the end of the month.

What does appear possible, according to sources who are closely watching the progress of the bill, is that even if Edwards vetoes the bill, there is enough area for agreement on several provisions that revised legislation will be crafted either in the current special session or a future session.

Doug Williams, an attorney with the Baton Rouge law firm of Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, and general counsel for the Louisiana Motor Transport Association (LMTA), said the insurance cost problems for the trucking industry in Louisiana, as well as for motorists, "has been bad. The cost of insurance has skyrocketed here because of our history of ever-growing damage claims."

When FreightWaves first spoke to Williams, he said the LMTA was in favor of the legislation. But the confusion that has ensued over some provisions led Williams to say this week that "more and more people are coming out against it."

The biggest issue now over whether Edwards will sign the legislation is a legal concept called "collateral source." It's complicated.

An example Williams gave is that if medical provider bills an insurer $125,000 for a procedure but subsequent negotiations knock that down to $50,000, is the $125,000 the basis for collecting medical costs, or is it the $50,000? In the past, the $125,000 would have been acceptable. The legislation seeks to change that.

Story continues

Mark Ballard, the reporter for The Advocate group of newspapers who have been covering the tort reform debate, offered the example of a person who had $5,000 in injuries but had also paid $1,800 in medical insurance costs in the prior 18 months. The question then is whether the payout would include the $1,800.

But it's even more complicated than that. As Ballard told FreightWaves, there is language in the final bill that says the payout based on the broader inclusion of costs "shall" be made. But the intention was that it "may" be paid. And that controversy may lead to a gubernatorial veto. One source who has been watching the proceedings closely said it is possible that Edwards will sign the bill but only after having reached an agreement with the Legislature that it will later pass a "patch" fixing this one provision.

The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry was one of the groups pushing tort reform. In a statement released after the bill passed, it acknowledged the "may vs. shall" issue, calling it a "problematic provision" and that LABI was working with legislative leaders to fix it.

But if there's a veto by the governor, the group said, "that same broad, bipartisan coalition is more than prepared to send additional measures to his desk during this special session, to ultimately fix Louisiana's broken legal system and lower auto insurance rates for all drivers in our state."

One of the most significant provisions in the legislation does not address "nuclear verdicts," massive awards that have been blamed far and wide for the alarming rise in truck insurance rates. Instead, it deals with smaller numbers, cutting to $5,000 from $50,000 the number of damages in a lawsuit that would bring in the possibility of a case being heard by a jury rather than a judge.

While runaway jury awards are the stuff of legend, Williams said he has found that it is often judges who dole out some of the biggest awards.

Williams said there is a history of plaintiff attorneys with what he called a "weak case" to keep the size of the suit they are filing under the $50,000 threshold because they think they may be able to get a better verdict from a judge rather than a jury.

"Let's just recognize that some judges are going to be more liberal than others," Williams said. "Maybe that just reflects the community. Some are conservative and some are liberal."

Being able to go to a jury at a lower threshold opens up the possibility or a "more reasonable settlement," Williams said.

Another part of the legislation has been referred to as the "direct action" statute. The current law allows a plaintiff to bring the defendant's insurance carrier in as a separate defendant. The changes in the tort legislation would prohibit that.

"There is a general belief that when you can't sue the insurance company directly, it becomes easier to settle," Williams said. Without that, juries tend to believe that a big award gets paid out of "just insurance money" and a lower settlement is possible, he added.

There is also a provision in the legislation to extend the time period for filing a lawsuit to two years from one year. Williams said he believes that extension will "encourage more settlements and reduce the cost of defense."

Another change is that the bill allows a judge to introduce into evidence whether the plaintiff was wearing a seat belt, Ballard said. Prior law blocked the introduction of that fact.

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
CBC

Progressive Conservative health critic David Brazil is calling on the province to release a plan detailing how they'll catch up on a massive backlog of appointments, surgeries and appointments in the health system due to the pandemic.

However, Health Minister John Haggie says ramping the system up depends on the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) available for healthcare workers. Globally, PPE is in short supply, and a stockpile in Mount Pearl expired and was never replaced.

"How do you catch up when you're falling further and further behind?" Brazil asked outside the House of Assembly.

"They need to come up with a massive plan that not only replenishes what they should have in stock, but makes sure we move ahead of where we need to be to catch up on the procedures that are necessary."

Brazil also claims there are companies in the province who have warehouses full of PPE, which the province hasn't purchased.

Gary Locke/CBC

"I'm talking millions of pieces of equipment here in Newfoundland and Labrador that can be purchased and is not being purchased," he said.

But Health Minister John Haggie said it didn't meet necessary standards.

"The worst thing we could do would be to put PPE into an acute care facility, only to find it did not do what it was supposed to do. And that would jeopardize the health of the staff who wore it, as well as the next patient they came into contact with," he said

Not stockpiling yet

Brazil also took aim at the province because a stockpile of PPE had expired, and much of it ended up in the trash.

"It's having a detrimental effect on the health care system when it comes to resuming procedures and getting back to full capacity," he said.

But the minister said they can't start rebuilding a stockpile yet because everything that's being delivered is being used.

Gary Locke/CBC

"At the moment our deliveries are light and late, and they are matching pretty well the burn rate we're using in the system at the moment," he said

Story continues

He said the global supply chain needs to stabilize before they can start stockpiling.

Prices skyrocket

Meanwhile, Haggie said the high demand is causing prices to skyrocket.

In January, he said, a gown cost $5 to $6, but now the same one costs more than $35. Haggie said with the health system using 3,000 gowns a day, the cost really adds up.

When it comes to masks, at the beginning of the pandemic, he said a plane load cost about $5 million.

Submitted by Doug Angel

"The last bargain deal we were offered, which fell through on the tarmac, was $45 million for the same amount," said Haggie.

The minister said that deal fell through because they couldn't inspect the product before purchasing it.

He said two local manufacturers have created a reliable source of face shields, which has taken the edge off, and other local manufactures are going through the certification process for gowns and gloves. An order of 32,000 reusable gowns has also recently arrived.

Haggie said, however, the province does have a stockpile of drugs worth $250,000, which are used to help COVID-19 patients in intensive care.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
HONOLULU - The U.S. Department of Defence approved travel to Hawaii by military personnel who were previously restricted by health regulations established after the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The department released a list Monday of green locations for travel that includes Hawaii, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday.

Defence Secretary Mark Esper signed a May 22 memo allowing personnel movement on a large scale if conditions are met.

The green designation follows Hawaiis easing of 14-day quarantine conditions for military personnel and family members travelling to the state under orders.

Hawaiis 14-day quarantine for arriving residents and tourists remains in place.

Hawaii, 37 other states and the District of Columbia meet the conditions to lift travel restrictions, subject to the assessment of conditions at individual military installations within these areas, the defence department said.

Hawaii has already experienced an increase in arriving military personnel who were classified as exceptions to a previous stop movement order by the Pentagon.

There were 1,125 military personnel arrivals in Hawaii during the first week of June. Another 1,191 travelled to the state in the last two weeks of May. The transition of service members to Hawaii is normally much greater during spring and summer, officials said.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which oversees operations in Hawaii, said last week that its own restriction of movement guidelines prohibit service members from going out for 14 days after arrival except for travel to places considered essential such as grocery stores, doctors or pharmacies.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.
San Francisco: Several Tesla workers at the Fremont production plant in California have tested positive for the coronavirus infection. The plant was reopened forcibly recently after defiant Elon Musk's insistence despite health warnings from the County.

According to a report in The Washington Post, two workers with knowledge of the situation was quoted as saying that "supervisors held meetings with their teams to disclose the company had reported several cases of the coronavirus, and the employees affected were told to stay home".

One of the workers said a supervisor confirmed two positive cases to a group at the Fremont-based seat assembly facility, the report added.

US President Donald Trump last month backed Musk in his fight with the local authorities in California as he reopened the company's electric car factory in Fremont that employs nearly 10,000 workers against the state guidelines.

Defying the stay-at-home order in place, Musk reopened Tesla factory, challenging the authorities to arrest him if he has defied the rules.

"Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me," Musk tweeted.

Later, Tesla and Alameda County came to an agreement allowing the company to restart production if it adhered to strict social distancing.

The worker told the Post that three people who had been quarantined because of potential exposure had returned to work, but those who tested positive haven't returned to the factory.

The Tesla California plant was shut on March 23 under a six-county order in the San Francisco area, which was extended through May 31.

Twitter soon reacted to the news pointing out at Musk's insistence on opening up the economy amid cooravirus lockdown.

Because Elon defied the law and shelter in place, because he said he had protections from this happening. , Antifa Supersoldier (@ex_Tesla) June 10, 2020

NOW you have employees that have tested positive for COVID-19. So you think you gone shut down the Tesla plant NOW??  #ImJustAskin LG (@LG71388655) June 10, 2020

So whats going to happen after tesla employee test positive in fremont factory??? Coz seems like Tesla dont care at all... well Im not surprise if theres more test positive NO social Distancing at all and adjustment happen except to wear mask !! @CNN @AlamedaCounty @GavinNewsom MochaFrappe (@MochaFrappe16) June 9, 2020

this is just so unfortunate, and was so preventable https://t.co/IEndJUVj7I Ryan Mac :upside_down_face: (@RMac18) June 9, 2020

It's almost as if Elon Musk should have adhered to the set guidelines to protect the health and safety of his workers instead of throwing a hissy fit on twitter. Like who could have seen this coming, besides the "fascist" medical professionals?https://t.co/W7FetzHeId Emma Locarnini :flag-ar: (@Miss_Worldwide9) June 9, 2020

And Tesla workers tested positive for coronavirus just days after the plant reopened in defiance of county shutdown orders https://t.co/p5pk4LmIFV Michael Sainato (@msainat1) June 9, 2020
A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a "Vaccine COVID-19" sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration

By Juarawee Kittisilpa

AYUTTHAYA, Thailand (Reuters) - Momentum is building behind Thailand's push to create its own coronavirus vaccine, with more manpower and resources dedicated to the effort amid hopes it could boost medical tourism.

Thai trials of an experimental vaccine using monkeys started last month, one of at least 100 potential vaccines being developed globally. The government is hopeful it will have a cost-effective vaccine ready for next year.

Bionet-Asia, a local firm working with the government and a top Bangkok university, has put all other activities on hold and dedicated 250 personnel and all of its labs, technology and production facilities to developing a COVID-19 vaccine.

"In the case of COVID, there is a global effort to speed up experiment, trials, to share information, share diagnostics and that's why we are in a position too, to move very fast," chief executive officer, Pham Hong Thai, told Reuters.

He said tests on animals had so far shown encouraging results and the next step would be seeking government approval for clinical trials involving humans.

With just over 3,082 cases and 57 deaths, Thailand has had some success in containing the coronavirus and eased many of its restrictions in response to low infection numbers.

It has been seven days without a case of local transmission, with all infections this past week found among quarantined nationals returning from overseas.

Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said it was important to channel all efforts towards the development of a vaccine and put Thailand on the medical map.

"Thailand has a good healthcare system, good medical practices. It will garner a lot of interest from tourists and investors and boost us as a medical hub," he said.

(Reporting by Juarawee Kittisilpa; Writing by Martin Petty, Editing by William Maclean)
Empirical evidence pertaining to many disruptive developments such as the invention of the World Wide Web, the growth of social media platforms, and the over-the-top content streaming industry, reveals that identifying and investing in these developing trends early could lead to multi-bagger returns.

Recent market developments, the improving regulatory outlook, and the latest transparency data released by Leafreport confirm the CBD industry has what it takes to become the next disruptive force in the global business world and grow into a multi-billion dollar industry in just a few years. Growth investors, therefore, should pay close attention to this space.

The Industry Outlook Is Promising

Two tailwinds are driving the CBD industry forward.

First, the many use cases of cannabidiol are taking the industry mainstream. Data from CBI Insights reveal that CBD products are used in the following business sectors.

Health and wellness

Food and beverages

Cosmetics

Haircare

Sports

Pet industry

The wide variety of use cases available for cannabidiol will help the industry grow as consumer awareness grows toward these products.

Second, the maturing nature of the industry which is evident from the latest data released by Leafreport gives reason to believe that consumer engagement will increase in the future as products are now becoming trustworthy. The chief executive officer of Clever Leaves, a company that produces medical cannabis, believes that transparency is one of the key considerations of CBD buyers. In an interview with Forbes, he said:

Consumers are getting more savvy on the benefits of CBD and they will begin to insist on knowing exactly what they are paying for and what they are getting when they purchase CBD products.

Leafreport revealed in a report that out of the 36 CBD products tested in its study, 26, or 72% of products, had CBD levels within 10% of what was stated in the label of these products, which is considered as a sign by many industry experts that the manufacturer is delivering the promised goods. The industry, in fact, has come a long way to overcome the transparency issues faced as recently as 2018.

Story continues

The Improving Regulatory Outlook

The legalization of cannabis is critical to the continued growth of the industry. Canada became the first G20 nation to legalize the use of cannabis products in 2018, and this led to a monumental shift in the market sentiment toward the CBD industry. Since then, the United States has made some noteworthy moves to approve the use of cannabis products for medical purposes.

According to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, a total of 33 states in the U.S. and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands have approved publicly available cannabis programs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on the other hand, is currently working in unison with the leading companies in this space to fast-track the approval process of cannabis drug products.

Elsewhere in Europe, Luxembourg is set to become the first country in this region to legalize the use of cannabis. This could mark the beginning of a new wave of optimism regarding the regulatory outlook for CBD products in the all-important European region.

As the industry matures, the transparency and accuracy of CBD products are bound to improve. This, in return, will be leveraged by industry participants to push regulators to speed-up the approval process of cannabis products around the world.

Best CBD Stocks To Buy

Its always a prudent idea to invest in the leading companies of a young industry as these first movers often build economic moats that bring in sustainable earnings in the long run. Here are three such stocks to consider.

Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB)

Aurora Cannabis (ACB) is one of the first players to enter the CBD industry and is among the leading companies in this sector as well. The primary business activity of the company is producing and distributing medical cannabis products. However, the company has diversified its business operations to sell vaporizers and herb mills as well, in a bid to boost its market dominance. Auroras recent investment in Reliva, a U.S. CBD company, is an indication of its plans to grow inorganically as well, which might prove to be rewarding in the long run.

Shares have remained under pressure in the last 12 months primarily as a result of macro-economic headwinds facing the cannabis industry, including the oversupply of legal cannabis in Canada and the black market that sells the same products at fraction of the cost. To counter these threats, Aurora launched a budget-friendly product line in February with prices as low as $5/gram with high THC potency.

This move will help the company face it off with illegal products, and consumers now have little incentive to purchase cannabis products from the black market. The company management has emphasized its commitment to bringing low-cost products to the market in the coming months as well, which should help Aurora establish itself as a top contender for the market share in the cannabis industry.

New store openings in Canada were delayed as a result of the spread of Covid-19, and this was a direct hit to Auroras strategy of expanding its scale to establish its presence in important regions such as Ontario. However, as the country reopens for business in the coming weeks, the regulators expect to authorize up to 20 new store openings per month. These new physical locations will boost the revenue of the company.

Aurora Cannabis has reported stellar growth in the last three years, supported by favorable macro-economic conditions. The company reported just $1.1 million in revenue in 2016 but in the last 12 months, Aurora brought in more than $217 million in revenue. This goes on to reveal the high-growth nature of its business operations.

Even though Aurora has a long way to go to become a profitable company, this can easily be achieved if revenue growth remains at elevated levels for a few years, which is likely to happen. The new store openings, low-cost products, and its acquisition of Reliva that allows them to enter the American market will act as catalysts for Aurora to become profitable in the next few years, and shares will follow earnings and trend higher in this period.

Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC)

Canopy Growth is another leading player in the industry that was hit hard in recent months. The company remains focused on optimizing its cost structure to improve margins and its focus is on introducing novel products such as cannabis-infused chocolates and beverages into the market. This strategy will likely help the company generate attractive revenue growth from its stores in Canada.

Canopy Growth is the largest cannabis player in Canada, and the company is capitalizing on its scale to reach new customers. Even though the company has grown its revenue from $1 million in 2014 to $283 million in 2019, the first calendar quarter of this year was disastrous as the company could not keep its stores open as Covid-19 continued to wreak havoc.

Similar to many other companies operating in this sector, Canopy Growth failed to gain momentum in recreational cannabis sales and reported a decline of 28% on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter. In addition to Covid-19, the strong black market in Canada played a major role in this decline. To overcome this threat and the oversupply in the market, Canopy Growth has decided to reduce production capacity by 40%, which seems to be the right decision to stabilize prices and reduce operating costs.

In other measures aimed at improving operating margins, the company is reducing its headcount by 200 employees in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. These bold measures are required to ensure the sustainability of the business and the company was criticized by many analysts in the past for not taking these steps. The company decided to shut down its hemp farming operations in New York as well. Because of the uncertain regulatory condition in the U.S., the company is now focusing more on its core markets such as Canada, which is a positive sign.

The company will unlock many growth opportunities through the novel products introduced into the market. Canopy Growth is aggressively pursuing opportunities in the cannabis-infused food and beverage market and the cosmetics industry, and this will set them apart from the competition in the coming years.

As business activities return to normalcy in Canada, Canopy Growths increased focus on this region will start paying off, and that would be the catalyst to drive the company forward in the coming years. Concentrating on its top market is a good strategy rather than to invest millions of dollars in all of its target markets when theres a significant level of uncertainty surrounding the regulatory approval of its products.

A quick look at the liquidity position of the company reveals that Canopy Growth will not be exposed to any liquidity traps at least until the end of this year as the company had more than $1.4 billion in cash as of March 31. This strong financial position will play a key role in helping Canopy Growth survive these difficult times and this is a luxury many new cannabis companies do not enjoy.

As many investors continue to look at the short-term woes, a contrarian investor might find Canopy Growth shares an attractive investment as the company is finally making important changes to its business structure that could help consolidate its leading position in Canada.

Aphria Inc. (APHA)

Aphria is another cannabis company with a strong liquidity position. The company is betting on its store openings across Canada to bring in meaningful revenue in the coming quarters and is one of the few companies that have continued to emphasize the importance of a strong omnichannel presence, which might play to the advantage of the company in the future. Aphria is investing to improve its e-commerce platforms, which is the right thing to do to address dynamically changing consumer habits.

The online presence of the company, in fact, helped report better-than-expected numbers for the fiscal third quarter that ended in February. While many cannabis companies struggled in this period, Aphria reported a 64% increase in net cannabis sales for fiscal Q3, which was driven by the sale of recreational cannabis products. This sets Aphria apart from other cannabis companies as its dependency on medical cannabis products is below the industry average.

Even though the majority of cannabis companies operating in Canada suffered from the oversupply in the market, things were different for Aphria in the previous quarter as the demand for its products far exceeded supply, which was confirmed by the management by highlighting the fact that the company had to buy cannabis from the wholesale market to cater to the additional demand. This is a very positive sign for investors and is proof that Aphria is slowly but surely grabbing market share in this billion-dollar industry.

Aphria is in good shape from a liquidity perspective as well. There are no debt maturities scheduled for this year and the company has a cash balance of over $500 million.

Aphrias business strategy is to price its products low to gain market share in this competitive industry and to improve its online presence. Going by the recently reported financial results, this strategy seems to be working. The expected increase in its market share will drive future earnings of the company. This, coupled with the expected revival of the Canadian cannabis industry in the latter part of this year, makes Aphria a good investment at the current price levels.

Conclusion

The CBD industry is benefiting from various macro-economic tailwinds and many companies representing this industry are increasingly focused on developing high-quality products that meet agreed-upon standards in testing and manufacturing. As the transparency of CBD products increases, so will the market value of the industry. The industry is on pace to mature in the next couple of years, which makes now the best time to be betting on the shares of companies that are driving the CBD industry forward.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

More From FXEMPIRE:
- Anne Waiguru was impeached by Kirinyaga MCAs over allegations of corruption and gross misconduct

- Women leaders have come out to defend her accusing the MCAs of failing to heed to a court order that stopped the exercise

- CS Margaret Kobia said Waiguru's impeachment was a sign that some Kenyans do not value strong women leadership

Women leaders have come out to defend Governor Anne Waiguru who was impeached by Kirinyaga County Assembly members over allegations of corruption and gross misconduct.

Among those who have come out to defend the county boss include Cabinet Secretary for Public Service and Gender, Margaret Kobia, who said Waiguru's impeachment was an indication that some people "do not value strong women leadership."

READ ALSO: Section of Talai elders say William Ruto's coronation ceremony was fake

Cabinet Secretary Margaret Kobia is in charge of the Ministry of Public Service and Gender. Photo: Margaret Kobia

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Pierre Nkurunziza's wife still receiving treatment in Kenya after testing positive for COVID-19

In a press statement issued on Wednesday, June 10, Kobia said she stood in solidarity with Common Women Agenda (COWA) in demanding due process to be followed before impeaching the county chief.

"It is unfortunate that Governor Waiguru's term is being cut short by an alleged impeachment. This is an indicator that some of us do not value strong women leadership,

"We are disappointed that the governor is being impeached during the fight against COVID-19 which is negatively impacting on social-economic development of the country," said Kobia.

READ ALSO: Mkurugenzi wa masuala ya vijana ODM, Ben Musungu apatwa na COVID-19

Kobia's sentiments were also echoed by Kitui governor Charity Ngilu who said Waiguru was being fought from her seat politically by "PhD machinations".

"The travesty visited upon Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru is one of the many crooked ways that PhD machinations are using to pull her down and we strongly condemn it," said Ngilu.

As earlier reported by TUKO.co.ke, Homa Bay woman representative Gladys Wanga came under fire from netizens after she also threw in the 'women card' in Waiguru's oust.

Kobia's statement has also attracted condemnation from Kenyans for bringing the gender aspect into Waiguru's impeachment.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Armed with a set of documents and a lawyer by her side, a teacher calling herself Anamika Shukla surfaced here on Tuesday, claiming innocence in the scam in which one woman appeared to have worked simultaneously for several schools.

Her dramatic appearance at the office of the Gonda basic education officer came on a day when state minister Satish Dwivedi reported some progress in the bizarre case in which it was initially thought that one woman had withdrawn Rs 1 crore over 13 months from 25 schools across the state. But the minister said on Tuesday that a probe has found that the same set of documents were used at six districts to draw Rs 12.24 lakh from nine schools. One woman called Anamika Singh was arrested in the case on Sunday. But the minister had said that day that he wasnt sure if this was the real Anamika Shukla. And now, another Anamika Shukla, has made a dramatic entrance in Gonda.

She presented all her educational documents. She told reporters, Through media reports, I came to know that a number of people used my marksheets and other documents to get a job, and were also working. Now, this has tarnished my image. So, I came here along with all documents. I also presented my case before the officer. Gonda Basic Education Officer Indrajeet Prajapati told reporters that the woman showed him all her documents. The official said the woman told him that she never worked at any of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas.

According to information, Anamika Shukla is one of the four daughters of Subhash Chandra Shukla, a retired Railways employee. Anamika Shukla is married and lives in Gonda. She had passed the UP TET and had applied for a teachers post in Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, Gonda, officials said citing the application submitted by Shukla. However, owing to personal reasons, she could not attend the counselling. As a result, she was not selected despite her name mentioned in the merit list. Earlier in the day, the basic education minister had said the same set of documents were used at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas in Baghapat, Varanasi, Kasganj, Amethi, Aligarh, Raebareli, Allahabad, Saharanpur, Amedkar Nagar.

In Kasganj, a teacher who got the job with the same name was arrested when she came to resign, the minister said, adding that the real Anamika Shukla was still untraceable.

He said the issue had come to light through the state governments Prerna digital framework on which all teachers give their details. The digital framework issues an alert when people with same details are found in other districts, he said, adding this matter came to light due to this system only.

Meanwhile, commenting on the issue, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi said the UP government should apologise to Anamika. Tagging a report on Shukla claiming that she was innocence, Priyanka on Twitter wrote, The system of loot under the nose of the UP government and their education department has targeted a common woman. This is the height of misrule. Anamika should get justice, She should get compensation for defamation. She should get a government job. Her entire family shoul get security, she demanded.
HOUSTON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GA Global Partners, LLC, Myron Bowling Auctioneers, Capital Recovery Group, LLC, PPL Group, and Terra Point today announced that the firms will conduct a real-time virtual public auction of the oil and gas production and processing equipment of Tri-Point, LLC on June 23, 24 and 25, 2020. Tri-Point is currently undergoing liquidation by order of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Prior to shuttering in March 2020, Tri-Point operated as a leading oil and gas production and processing company which provided custom engineered solutions to upstream and midstream customers in some of the most prolific shale plays in North America.

The three-day online auction event will feature five complete oil and gas processing fabrication facilities, as well as the equipment and parts inventory of Tri-Point located in Midland and Kountze, Texas; Loveland, Colorado; Elk City, Oklahoma; as well as its other locations in New Mexico, Wyoming and Pennsylvania.

Equipment for auction includes machinery, tools and metal fabrication equipment such as plate bending rolls, ironworkers, robotic welding cells, tank turning rolls, plasma cutting table, sub-arc welding cells, thermal profiling machine, press brake, vertical band saw, parts inventory, raw materials, and heavy equipment, and material handling items such as forklifts, pickup trucks, trailers and bridge cranes up to 50-ton capacity. "This sale encompasses a broad range of exceptional equipment," says Kevin Gamm of Myron Bowling Auctioneers. "In addition to the late model manufacturing equipment and rows of welding cells, the sale also features a valuable package of rolling stock, including a 2019 Kenworth Tractor with a Palfinger Crane, purchased new for $600,000."

"With over $30 million of finished goods, parts inventory and raw materials, each day of the three-day auction presents a tremendous opportunity for equipment end-user and dealer and manufacturers to make purchases on an extensive assortment of separators, heater treaters, tanks, valves and controllers, as well as steel bar, pipe, round stock and much more," adds Peter Wyke, Senior Vice President of GA Global Partners.

In addition to the auction offering, the company's intellectual property, including more than 12 patented and non-patented processes, trademarks and domains will be sold by sealed bid. Bids for the intellectual property are due June 11, 2020.

The virtual live webcast auction will take place on June 23, 24 and 25, 2020 starting at 9:00 a.m. CST. Only online bids will be accepted. Physical inspections will be held a day prior to each auction from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at each location and can be coordinated at other times. COVID-19 safety measures will be observed during inspections and pick-ups.

Interested parties can pre-register and view auction details here.

About GA Global Partners

For 40 years, GA Global Partners has been a leading asset disposition solutions provider to companies worldwide, leveraging real time digital technologies and proven marketing expertise to reach a broad network of qualified buyers around the world. From Fortune 500 companies to small business organizations in a variety of industries ranging from construction, manufacturing, and wholesale distribution to food and beverage, healthcare and consumer products, GA Global has demonstrated its ability to move assets quickly and efficiently for maximum return. GA Global is a subsidiary of Great American Group, a B. Riley Financial company.

About PPL Group

PPL Group is a leader in the industrial liquidation and auction business, with a focus on complete plant liquidations and auctions. PPL Group's auction arm, PPL Auction, brings decades of experience, having managed hundreds of business auctions across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and abroad. From highly specialized equipment, to entire plants, to multiple sites, PPL obtains the highest recovery value for the assets while meeting the seller's specific goals. We always produce auctions that match assets with the best purchasers.

About Myron Bowling Auctioneers

One of the nation's largest and most successful industrial auctioneering firms, Myron Bowling Auctioneers conducts approximately 80 auctions per year throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, serving privately and publicly held companies, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and other lending institutions and turnaround management companies. A founding member and former director of the Industrial Auctioneers Association, Myron Bowling is also a member of the National Auctioneers Association, Machinery Dealers National Association, and the Certified Auctioneers Institute.

About Capital Recovery Group

Capital Recovery Group ("CRG") is an auction and appraisal firm rooted in uncompromising integrity, quality, service, and fairness. Clients understand and appreciate that we have built our success on the single-minded focus and dedicated approach we bring to every project, no matter the size. Clients across global Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, private industry, government agencies, legal, accounting, and consulting professionals invest their trust in CRG.

About Terra Point

Terra Point is the preferred alternative construction and transportation equipment marketplace and live virtual auction platform. With over 50 years of construction, transportation and industrial auction experience, Terra Point serves clients across North America, utilizing the latest technologies available for marketplace & auction platforms. Engagements span from retail & consignment sales programs to principal acquisitions for single pieces of machinery to the largest packages in the market.

Contacts:





Auction Inquiries Media Inquiries Ryan Jesena, Marketing Director Jo Anne McCusker GA Global Partners B. Riley Financial [email protected] [email protected] (626) 319-3596 (646) 885 5425

SOURCE GA Global Partners

Related Links

https://gaglobl.com


Gov. Phil Murphy said the state should be ready to deploy the first group of new contact tracer hires next week, noting their efforts to reach out to people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus will only become more critical as the state relaxes restrictions on gatherings and business.

As we begin Stage 2 of our restart on Monday, new contact tracers will be recruited and trained, Murphy said Wednesday at his daily coronavirus briefing in Trenton. As more businesses come back online the following week, so, too, will more contact tracers. Each step of our restart will be accompanied by the on-boarding of new contact tracers.

Contact tracing is a public health practice where health officials interview someone who is positive for an infectious disease, such as hepatitis A or HIV, and then reaches out to their close contacts to advise them to isolate, get tested or seek treatment, depending on the virus. For coronavirus, close contacts are those who have been within six feet of the person for 10 minutes or more.

The governor also sought to allay fears about contact tracing, assuring the public that their health data would be kept secure and confidential, and that there will be no app tracking their movements, as some other countries have used.

Its been a month since Murphy announced the plan to establish a Community Contact Tracing Corps to assist the states 94 local health departments, some of which struggled to keep up with the caseloads at times.

Murphy said at least 1,600 new contact tracers should be on board this month, with the first group starting their 15-hour training Monday, the same day nonessential retail stores can fully reopen and outdoor dining will restart. Its possible the state could need as many as 4,000 if there is a resurgence of the virus, he said.

New Jerseys plan for contact tracing, announced May 12, followed earlier efforts from other states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Michigan to bring on more contact tracers. In the meantime, New Jerseys local health departments have found ways to triple their own workforce of tracers from 300 to 900 by relying on volunteers, other health officials and public employees borrowed from their usual jobs.

Camden County Environmental Health Specialist Onyi Udgh, left, and Disease Control Senior Field Representative Mary Ann Rahman make contact tracing calls at county health offices May 21, 2020.Phil McAuliffe | For NJ Advance Media

It hasnt been hard for New Jersey to find people willing to do contact tracing work. Since launching a portal where people could apply, the state received 50,000 submissions, Murphy said.

However, the first ranks of recruits are likely to be Rutgers School of Public Health graduate students and alumni, followed by other New Jersey college students, according to Rutgers. The job will pay $25 an hour, Murphy previously said.

The state is surveying local health departments to find out how many tracers they need, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said Wednesday.

The universitys Center for Public Health Workforce Development developed a training for the contact tracers, using a curriculum based on national training platforms that ensures confidentiality for all people interviewed, along with an understanding of New Jersey-specific cultural information, the university said.

Persichilli said the training will include cultural sensitivity, cultural bias and historical cultural awareness" to ensure interviewers are sensitive to the communities theyre contacting. Minority communities and vulnerable populations have been disproportionately impacted by the virus.

In May, Rutgers School of Public Health Dean Perry Halkitis said the school will be creating a kind of prototype for how to train tracers, so it can be scaled up and eventually managed by a third party, like a staffing company or nonprofit.

The state Department of Health has said it is soliciting proposals from vendors, organizations, and institutions to aid with recruitment, assessment, hiring, training and management of contact tracers, but they have not chosen a vendor yet.

The new hires would bring the total number of tracers to 2,500, getting the state fairly close to the rate of 30 contact tracers per 100,000 residents recommended by the National Association for County and City Health Departments.

The second part of the states contact tracing plan is implementing a new contact tracing database platform by Dimagi called CommCare, which is intended to simplify the inputting and sharing of data as necessary between health departments, including those in Pennsylvania and New York.

New Jersey is the first state to announce it will adopt the platform, which is already up and running in two California counties and in a handful of cities, according to Jonathan Jackson, Dimagis co-founder and CEO.

Persichilli said several health departments are piloting the software and it should be rolled out statewide by the end of the month. The governors staff has not responded to questions about the cost of the platform.

Dimagi and Murphy said the platform complies with federal health privacy law and all data will be encrypted for confidentiality.

To be clear: CommCare is the database that allows us to do this work effectively, it is not a tracking app. And, there is a huge difference there. CommCare doesnt track your cell phone, know your GPS location, or use any geolocation data, Murphy said.

The governor reminded the public of contact tracing scams, and said real tracers will never ask for social security numbers, financial information, immigration status or criminal history.

He said he hopes people will understand that sharing their personal health information with contact tracers is important.

I would just plead to folks, were doing this for your good and your family good and the greater community good, he said.

Murphy has said that along with ramped up testing, contact tracing could cost hundreds of millions of dollars every six months. The state is hoping for federal funding, but he said in May, Weve got to do it anyway, we have no choice."

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Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
A resident of Bihar has willed his property worth Rs 5 crore to his two elephants. Akhtar Imam, chief manager of the Asian Elephant Rehabilitation and Wildlife Animal Trust (AERAWAT), has been looking after the pachyderms Moti and Rani since he was 12 years old. He took the decision after one of them saved his life from some armed assailants.

"Once, there was an attempt of murder made against me. At that time the elephants saved me. When some miscreants armed with pistols tried to enter my room my elephant started trumpeting. It woke me up and I was able to shout and raise an alarm due to which the miscreants ran away," Imam told ANI.

"Animals are faithful, unlike humans. I've worked for the conservation of elephants for many years. I don't want that after my death my elephants are orphaned," he further said.

Also Read: Wild elephant death: Kerala govt orders probe; Ratan Tata, Kohli condemn incident

Bihar: Akhtar Imam, an animal lover from Patna, gives his entire property to his two elephants Moti & Rani. He says, "Animals are faithful, unlike humans. I've worked for the conservation of elephants for many years. I don't want that after my death my elephants are orphaned". pic.twitter.com/W64jYsED33 - ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2020

Imam's affectionate gesture towards his jumbos garnered much appreciation from Twitterati.

A user called this move as compensating for Mallappuram where a pregnant elephant died due to consumption of a firecracker-stuffed pineapple.
More courtrooms in the Bexar County justice complex will be opening this week, but judges and staff are still encouraged to work remotely as much as possible.

The judiciary sees public safety to be the most important thing as we plan on opening the courts, state District Judge Ron Rangel said.

There are still no jury trials and, because of social distancing, courts will be in session on alternating days on separate floors. But the courthouse will slowly be repopulated under a plan unveiled by Rangel last week.

Rangel, who presides over the 379th state District Court and serves as administrative judge for the civil, criminal and probate courts, noted that the courts will look different, compared with pre-pandemic days.

There are new barriers in courtrooms and common areas to ensure social distancing, plastic shields have been installed where there is likely to be face-to-face contact, signs in halls and waiting areas mark required 6-foot distances and hand sanitizer dispensers are located throughout the two court buildings  all designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Galleries of every court have already been marked off, every other row has been marked, and Xs placed where people cant sit, Rangel said.

Everyone in the buildings  including employees, visitors, defendants and attorneys  must wear masks.

The main part of the plan, created in conjunction with the states Office of Court Administration and the citys Metropolitan Health District, along with other local officials and the judiciary, calls for limiting the number of people on each floor and in each courtroom.

According to the plan, all personnel who have been able to work outside the justice center will be asked to continue doing so.

Rangel said that while more hearings will be conducted in person starting Monday, the preferred method will be by video.

No judges, court staff, defendants, attorneys or visitors will be allowed in the building if they have a temperature above 100 degrees.

Perhaps the biggest change is the number of defendants who will be brought in to courts at the same time.

Judges have agreed to alternate courts on separate floors to make sure there are as few people as possible in common areas, Rangel said, adding that criminal courts would have no more than five defendants brought in from the jail in the morning and five in the afternoon.

Rangel has created a schedule that designates jail docket days and in-session days for each court to help reduce the number of people in common areas.

The plan calls for anyone entering the buildings to be asked by court staff whether they feel feverish or are experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus, which include cough and shortness of breath, or whether they have been in contact with someone who has had the virus.

Rangel said courts will be thoroughly cleaned after each proceeding.

The courtroom updates are welcome but arent a surprise to Elva Abundis-Esparza, chief deputy for Bexar County District Clerk Mary Angie Garcia. The office put many of the same precautions in place right after COVID-19 caused in-person closures in March.

Our department cant close, Abundis-Esparza said. We have had masks, gloves, hand sanitizer since day one, and the county has been great about getting (these things) for staff. If I ask, I get them right away.

Rangel said he is unsure how many judges would be in their courtrooms as hearings ramp up this week; he said its up to individual judges to make that decision.

Judge Velia Meza of the 226th state District Court, for one, said she would continue to handle her courtroom matters remotely, as workers prepare the area in her courtroom.

The state is telling us to go slow, stay on Zoom, she said, adding that there are very strict conditions to opening.

Rangel said most judges have been embracing videoconferencing and he thinks the changes forced by pandemic restrictions have permanently altered criminal justice proceedings.

I do see that the new technology is going to alter a lot of the way certain types of hearings are going to be conducted, such as discovery, the way parties are conferring, he said.

But justice cannot be conducted completely from afar, he said.

Ultimately, it is not possible to run certain cases over remote technology, Rangel said. What I see happening is a hybrid of sorts  some handled remotely, or a combination.

Elizabeth Zavala covers county and state courts in San Antonio. To read more from Elizabeth, become a subscriber. ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863
The Merriam-Webster dictionary has announced it will redefine racism to include the concept of systemic racism, following a complaint by a recent college graduate.

Kennedy Mitchum, who graduated from Drake University in Iowa, had written to Merriam-Webster after she concluded that its definition was not sufficient to describe racism as currently experienced in the U.S.

I kept having to tell [people] that [Merriam-Websters] definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world, Mitchum told CNN. The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice  its the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans.

Merriam-Websters current definition describes racism as racial prejudice or discrimination, a belief in the racial superiority of a particular group, or a doctrine or political program based on racism. The dictionarys editorial manager, Peter Sokolowski, said that the definition would be updated to include an explanation of systemic racism, although the term would fall under racism supported by a political program.

I think we can express this more clearly to bring the idea of an asymmetrical power structure into the language of this definition, but its there, Sokolowski said. This is the kind of continuous revision that is part of the work of keeping the dictionary up to date, based on rigorous criteria and research we employ in order to describe the language as it is actually used.

The update will come after massive demonstrations over the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers.

In September 2019, Merriam-Webster announced that it had updated the definition of they to include individuals who conceive of themselves as neither male nor female.

More from National Review
As I returned from buying materials for a sign I planned to make, I saw people gathered at the corners of Main Street and U.S.Route 40 in Woodstown holding signs reading "Black Lives Matter.

I finished my sign as President Donald Trump finished up remarks about how the federal government would use force to to put an end to certain protests.

I joined the people on the street corner with my sign. I was shocked and appalled at the reactions our signs engendered. I estimate slightly over half of the drivers who passed us avoided eye contact and did not indicate any agreement with the signs. The other drivers honked horns, waved or gave a thumbs up. Oh yes, one woman did show us her middle finger.

I returned home as darkness fell, to learn that the protesters in Lafayette Park across from the White House had been peppered with tear-inducing pellets and shot with rubber bullets to make them leave the park.

I have watched the protests every night since George Lloyd was killed in Minneapolis. I have seen people make valid claims as to why they are protesting. They want to be treated as equal citizens in this country of opportunity. They want to go about their lives without fear of being shot by a policeman.

A Black protester I stood with said he wonders every day if today will be his day. He did not mean would it be a great day for his career. He meant would it be the day he got shot.

What has happened to our country? I know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance and to My Country Tis of Thee and "America the Beautiful. They promise a life worth living in a country worth celebrating and serving. How have we forgotten the lessons we learned in church about the love of all mankind?

Tell me: How can we work together to make this country what our songs and pledge promise?

Jean Hepner Jack, Woodstown

Amys the one in District 2

The first thing that struck me about Amy Kennedy, who is seeking the 2nd Dist. congressional seat, is her ability to listen intently and comprehend the thoughts being conveyed. She looks you in the eye, focused.

Now is the precise time when we need someone just like her to be our congresswoman.

Born and raised in South Jersey, she is married to former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island and is a mother of five. Her father, Jerry Savell, was an Atlantic County freeholder. Her mother, like Amy herself, was a teacher.

Raised in a working-class family, her uncle was a mailman. She told me about how he was one of the longest serving in the history of the postal service, as she listened and understood my experiences as a letter carrier.

In-person voting in the Democratic primary for this nomination takes place July 7, but the election has already begun, with mail-in ballots on the way.

Its up to us. We can rid ourselves of boss-run politics and the baggage that goes with it. Make your choice for president and U.S. Senate, then look to the right for Team Amy Kennedy in Column F of the Cumberland County ballot. In Atlantic County, its Column A, right under Joe Bidens name.

Don't be distracted by other ballot races. Come back to Amy Kennedys name, because nominating her is the way well win in the Nov. 3 general election.

Rich Raimonde, Vineland

Editors note: Kennedy is one of five candidates seeking the Democrats 2nd Dist. congressional nomination July 7. The others are Brigid Callahan Harrison, Will Cunnigham, John Francis and Robert Turkavage. The winner is expected to face incumbent U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, or a challenger for the GOP nomination, Robert Patterson, on Nov. 3.

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Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com

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State public health officials on Tuesday said the coronavirus outbreak at a North Bend prison has been resolved.

The minimum-security prison at one point had 25 infected inmates and three infected employees. It is one of four state prisons with confirmed cases of the virus.

A spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority said in an email that an outbreak is considered over 28 days after the date of the last onset of symptoms for people with confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases.

Meanwhile, the Oregon State Penitentiary, the states maximum-security prison in Salem, has seen a slowdown in new cases, said Christopher DiGiulio, the chief of medicine for the Oregon Department of Corrections. The prison has reported a total of one new confirmed case of coronavirus in the past three or four days, he said.

Previously, the state was reporting as many as 20 new cases in a single day at the Oregon State Penitentiary, he said.

Those days seem to be behind us for sure," DiGiulio said. The rate of new infections seems to have significantly slowed."

As of Tuesday, the total number of confirmed cases among inmates in Oregon stood at 167. Another 47 employees also have tested positive.

The outbreak at the Oregon State Penitentiary remains the largest in the state with a total of 168 cases among inmates and workers combined. Among inmates, 93 are considered recovered, DiGiulio said.

Santiam Correctional Institution in Salem and Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla also have reported confirmed cases of the disease. Santiam has eight cases and Two Rivers has one.

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Nurses and healthcare assistants account for more than half the health workers who have caught the coronavirus, new figures reveal.

Out of 8,018 health workers who tested positive at the end of May some 2,591 were nurses and 2,056 were healthcare assistants.

Therapists and other allied health professional made up a quarter of confirmed or probable cases.

The figures provided to health unions by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre show 483 doctors were infected, 6pc of the total, followed by 90 porters.

Read More

Just 1,515 of the 8,018 healthcare workers who were infected with the virus had recovered by the end of May.

A worker as young as 30 was among the seven healthcare staff who have died from the coronavirus.

Of the seven fatalities, six are confirmed and one probable among healthcare workers who ranged in age from 30 to 68.

Some 302 were hospitalised and 44 were admitted to intensive care.

Nearly one in five of health staff (1,577) who got the virus were working in nursing homes and 705 were employed in hospitals.

Another 335 were working in residential institutions and 198 in community or long-stay units.

Six in 10 are likely to have picked it up at work and others contracted the virus through close contact with an infected person, through travel and in the community.

Around 58 picked it up from a patient and 2,551 are "under investigation" to find the source.

The highest number of infections was reported in April and they have since declined.

Prof Philip Nolan of Maynooth University, who leads the team advising on the spread of the disease, said he did not believe there was a high infection rate in healthcare workers.

It was around 1pc, despite very high testing, said Prof Nolan.

He was responding to People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett.
The writer, a policy analyst studying economic and security issues, held senior positions in government and industry. He also specialises in the Chinese economy

At Galwan, the PLA found an unguarded but very strategic spot on the LAC and occupied it

The latest standoff on the India-China border represents an escalation not seen since 1962. We have had many standoffs since then, but it always involved differing perceptions about the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

In most sectors there is an overlap of these lines with the Indian and Chinese claim lines going well beyond each others LAC, sometimes by a few meters and sometimes by many kilometers. But we had tested Confidence-Building Mechanisms (CBMs) in place to keep the peace.

But the latest standoff at the Galwan Valley represents a PLA ingress into a hitherto undisputed area. By doing so, the PLA has thrown down the gauntlet. How does India now respond?

At Galwan, the PLA found an unguarded but very strategic spot on the LAC and occupied it. It now places it less than 2 km from the newly rebuilt strategic all-weather Durbuk-Daulat Beg Oldi road that supports the lone Indian outpost of DBO at the mouth of the Karakorum Pass. It happened in a sector supposed to be guarded by the home ministrys Indo-Tibetan Border Police.

Each year the PLA conducts an exercise on the Aksai Chin and its immediate forward areas along the LAC. Every year the Indian Army moves its reserves forward to check a possible PLA move.

This year the Indian Army, funked by the outbreak of Covid-19 in some formations in Ladakh, held off. The PLA just stepped in.

Just like the Pakistan Army occupied the Kargil heights in 1999. It was a gross dereliction of duties by the home and defence ministries. China has occupied a strategically vital bit of Indian territory.

The irony is that they have done a Doklam on us. We had objected to a Chinese road leading to the disputed meadow in Bhutan, which we rightly surmised would threaten the Siliguri Corridor, commonly referred to as Chickens Neck.

Here China has put another chickens neck under threat by claiming the all-weather road actually threatens it in Xinjiang.

We have left the border question to fester for much too long. It seems unresolvable now, with public opinion inflamed on both sides. There was a time when, with a little bit of give and take, this contentious and now protracted problem seemed solvable.

In 1960 Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, while visiting New Delhi, had suggested something akin to a status quo as a permanent solution.

This was repeated in 1982 by Chairman Deng Xiaoping to Indias ambassador in Beijing, G. Parthasarathy.

Once again it was offered during Rajiv Gandhis tenure as Prime Minister to the then Indian ambassador, A.P. Venkateshwaran, by then Chinese PM Zhao Ziyang.

When Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing in 1988, both countries decided to keep a permanent solution aside and focus on the immediate doables. All along India felt that the internal political situation would not allow the government of the day the room to go with it.

What is commonly referred to as the border dispute between India and China has now manifested itself into two distinct disputes.

The first is the dispute over two large and separated tracts of territories that we have agreed to leave for history to sort out. But what causes the frequent frictions between the two is that they do not agree on the LAC to separate the jurisdictions.

The perceptions of the LAC differ at many places. At some places just by a few meters, and elsewhere by tens of kilometers.

To minimise the inflammability due to active patrolling by security personnel of both sides, the two countries have a CBM in place. This is the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA), that sets out norms of behaviour for both sides.

The important things being that nothing of a permanent nature will be built on these disputed areas, and that the patrols will take all precautions not to confront each other. Which simply means, if they come face to face at any point, they will both withdraw.

The corollary to this is that the patrols will not tail each other either. The agreement also requires the local commanders to frequently meet and exchange views and sort out local differences across the table. This CBM is now in tatters.

For three long decades, since Rajiv Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping met in 1988 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the two countries have been meeting to discuss the border issue, but so far we have seen unwillingness by both sides to forget the past.

Since 2003, these talks were elevated to a high-level political dialogue between the two countries special representatives, in Indias case the national security adviser and in Chinas case an official at the level of state councillor.

The first meeting at this level took place between Indias NSA Brajesh Mishra and Chinese state councillor Dai Bing Guo.

We had the 22nd round of this dialogue between Indias national security adviser Ajit Doval and Chinas state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi in New Delhi in December 2019.

The BDCA is a major outcome of these talks and that had by and large worked.

The next logical step of these talks should be to agree on resolving the ambiguities in the LAC. But unfortunately, even that is now being weighed down by aggressive nationalism driven by the social media, which equates giving up with a national loss of face.

This is something increasingly very important to both countries. We will not be seen giving up anything, not even our obduracy and historical short-sightedness.

The immediate task now must be to get the PLA to leave Galwan without loss of face. On the other hand, this could be just the right opportunity for the two sides to settle new LACs in all the three sectors.

Both India and China are now relatively prosperous and militarily powerful. This has engendered aggressive new nationalisms, that has led to the hardening of hearts, and arteries too.

To add to our confusion, many strategic thinkers in India now labour under the illusion that when push gives to shove, the recent bonhomie between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will translate into active military and diplomatic cooperation.

They talk of a Quadrilateral  of the United States, Japan, Australia and India to face China. That is just deluding ourselves. When push comes to shove, we will stand alone.
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday morning brought back 108 consignments of polished diamonds, silver jewellery and pearls worth Rs 1,350 crore declared value belonging to diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi from Hong Kong, officials said, adding that it was one of the biggest seizures from abroad.

The agency said that the consignments weighing around 2,340kg were seized in July 2018 with the help of Hong Kong authorities on specific information and was brought to Mumbai on Wednesday after completing legal formalities.

The consignments were sent from Dubai to Hong Kong by the accused in July 2018, the time when the investigation against them was at its peak and they were trying to dispose of their assets, said the officials cited above.

The authorities were continuously engaged in discussion with various authorities in Hong Kong to bring back these valuables to India. Various modalities were finalised and after completing all the legal formalities these consignments have now been brought back to India, a statement by the ED said.

The agency will get the jewellery valued independently considering Modi and Choksi used to overvalue all their items in the retail market.

We believe that it wont fetch more than Rs 150 crore in the Indian market, said an officer, who didnt wish to be named.

Value of these goods has been declared to be Rs 1,350 crores (approx). These valuables include polished diamonds, pearls, pearl and silver jewelry etc. and were kept in the godown of a logistics company in Hong Kong, an official statement from the agency said. Earlier, ED had managed to bring 33 consignments of valuables worth Rs 137 crore belonging to Choksi in 2018 from Dubai and Hong Kong.

A second officer lauded Hong Kong authorities for their cooperation in last two years in the Nirav Modi case. We have had great cooperation from agencies in Hong Kong, who have not only allowed us to seize and bring the valuables to India but shared crucial information about Modi and Choksis companies too, the second officer said.

Another officer said that the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, involving Modi and his uncle Choksi, is the first case where ED has managed to bring property from abroad. The team of EDs Joint Director in Mumbai Satyabrata Kumar, who also investigated Vijay Mallya case, is responsible for bringing the property back to India.

On Monday, a Mumbai court allowed confiscation of Nirav Modis assets worth around Rs 1,400 crore under the newly enacted Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.

Both are wanted in Rs 13,578 crore PNB fraud unearthed in early 2018. While Modi is currently lodged in a prison in the UK as his extradition is being pursued by Indian authorities, Choksi is in Antigua and Barbuda.

Modi and Choksis lawyer Vijay Aggarwal refused to comment.
ALBANY, New York, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Transparency Market Research has now come up with a new research report that provides detailed information about the overall working dynamics of the global ventilation fans market. The research report offers actionable insights on the key market segments, prominent driving and restraining factors, geographical outlook, and the overall situation of the vendor landscape.

According to the research report, the global ventilation fans market is expected to showcase a healthy CAGR of ~5% over the course of the given forecast period ranging from 2020 to 2030. Given the rate of growth, the valuation of the market is expected to rise up to US$3 Bn by the fall of 2030.

Download PDF Brochure  https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=7975

Global Ventilation Fans Market  Key Takeaways

The global market for ventilation fans is segmented in terms of type of product, installation, end use sector, and region.

In terms of product type, the global market is being dominated by the segment of axial fan. The growth of the segment is primarily driven due to the growing demand for tube and propeller axial fans from different sectors such as industrial, commercial, and retail for variety of applications.

In terms of installation, the global market is being currently dominated by the wall mounted fans. However, it is projected that the segment of roof mounted fans will witness a promising rate of growth in the coming years of the forecast period due to their ease of installation and overall improved performance.

In terms of end use, the global ventilation fans market is being dominated by the commercial sector. The growth of the segment is due to the increasing construction and building activities occurring across different parts of the globe.

Explore a report with detailed research, incisive insights, and in-depth country levels estimations. Gain business intelligence on global Ventilation Fans Market (Product Type: Axial Fans [Propeller, Tube Axial, and Vane Axial] and Centrifugal Fans [Forward Inclined Blade, Backward Inclined Blades, and Straight Radial Blades]; Installation: Wall Mounted and Roof Mounted; and End Use: Residential, Commercial [Hotels & Restaurants, Malls & Shopping Centers, Hospitals & Medical Centers, Warehouses & Garage, and Others], and Industrial [Oil & Gas, Automotive, Food & Beverage Processing, Chemical, Industrial Manufacturing, and Others]) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2020  2030 at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ventilation-fans-market.html

Global Ventilation Fans Market  Key Driving Factors

One of the biggest driving factors for the growth of the global ventilation fans market rise in the construction and building activities across globe. With several development projects underway such as hotels, malls, residential buildings, commercial buildings, and other industrial applications, the growth of the market will remain consistent over the course of the given forecast period.

Another important driving factor for the market growth is the increasing demand from the industrial sector. Ventilation fans are needed in several industries to pump in fresh air and avoid risk of suffocation and spread of toxic gases.

Moreover, the government has also issued stringent employee security norms which requires industries to install upgraded systems in order to functions.

Such factors are thus projected to drive the overall growth of the global ventilation fans market in the coming years of the forecast period.

View Table of Content @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/7975

Global Ventilation Fans Market  Key Restraining Factors

The current outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has become a huge concern for the growth of the global ventilation fans market.

Due to the pandemic, nearly all the outdoor and building activities are shut down and thus, the demand for the fans has also gone down, affecting the market growth.

Global Ventilation Fans Market  Geographical Outlook

Currently, the global market is being dominated by the regional segment of Europe . The growth of the market is the issuance of strict safety guidelines by the governments in the region.

. The growth of the market is the issuance of strict safety guidelines by the governments in the region. It is projected that the regional segment of Asia Pacific is expected to witness a promising rate of growth in the coming years of the forecast period.

Analyze Ventilation Fans Market growth in 30+ countries including US, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Benelux, Nordic, China, Japan, India, and South Korea. Request a sample of the study

Global Ventilation Fans Market  Key Players

Key players operating in the global ventilation fans market include Panasonic Corporation, Nortek Inc., Systemair AB, Greenwood Airvac, Polypipe Ventilation, Vent-Axia, Airflow Developments Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Delta Electronics, Inc., and Titon plc. Companies operating in the ventilation fans market are extensively focusing on introducing innovative products in order to gain more market share.

Buy Ventilation Fans Market Research Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=7975<ype=S

Global Ventilation Fans Market: Segmentation

Ventilation Fans Market, by Product Type

Axial Fans

Propeller



Tube Axial



Vane Axial

Centrifugal Fans

Forward Inclined Blades



Backward Inclined Blades



Straight Radial Blades

Ventilation Fans Market, by Installation

Wall Mounted

Roof Mounted

Ventilation Fans Market, by End Use

Residential

Commercial

Hotels & Restaurants



Malls & Shopping Centers



Hospitals & Medical centers



Warehouses & Garage



Others

Industrial

Oil & Gas



Automotive



Food & Beverage Processing



Chemical



Industrial Manufacturing



Others

Ventilation Fans Market, by Region

North America

U.S.



Canada



Rest of North America

Europe

Germany



France



Italy



U.K.



Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China



Japan



India



Rest of Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

GCC Countries



South Africa



Rest of MEA

South America

Brazil



Rest of South America

Explore Transparency Market Research's award-winning coverage of the Global Factory Automation Industry:

Industrial Fans and Blowers Market  Rising demand for power consumption, owing to increased population, is driving the incorporation of power generation units such as nuclear power plants, hydro power plants, coal, and thermal power plants. Such power plants require industrial fans and blowers to supply air for combustion, supply fuel to burners, and circulate gases for better heat transfer. Additionally, solar and wind energy power plants require industrial fans to cool down the inverters and generators.

Electronically Commutated (EC) Fans Market  Smart synchronous permanent magnet motor (SSPMM) might act as a restraint to the ECM market. This motor provides higher efficiency and consumes less energy. The motor helps in doing away with the power conversion process after the motor is started. This saves energy and increases efficiency. SSPMM eliminates the use of electronics and uses coil for any surge in line. However, this technology is expensive.

Axial Fans Market  The global axial fans market is affected negatively as a result of changing raw material cost. The price of metal is volatile at the global level which restricts the growth of the axial fans market. Rising investment in cooling towers from developing economies including China and India is driving the market growth.

Mist Fans Market  One of the key factors driving the global mist fans market is rapidly increasing demand from the construction industry, as the development of residential and non-residential buildings continues to grow at a rapid pace. The increasing government spending on infrastructure and industrialization is anticipated to drive the mist fans market during the forecast period. The construction industry in Asia Pacific is projected to witness significant growth in the near future due to rapid urbanization, growing population, and favorable government plans for infrastructure development in the region.

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The natural gas industry is rapidly losing ground in the U.S. Northeast, beaten back by renewable energy, environmentalists, and stricter climate policy.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, signed an executive order at the start of 2020 that aimed for net zero emissions by 2050. The net zero by 2050 goal, although often non-binding, has quickly become a baseline platform for climate-inclined politicians.

But Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) recently called on the states Department of Public Utilities (DPU) to begin an investigation into a phase out of natural gas. In order to achieve net zero emissions, natural gas demand will likely need to be zeroed out by mid-century.

In order to do that, not only will electric power generation need to switchover to renewable energy, but gas-based residential and commercial cooking and heating will need to switch to electric. This leads to huge questions about the business model of regulated gas distribution companies, and about how to avoid the burden landing on low-income ratepayers. Low-income households will need support in transitioning their homes to clean energy.

The attorney general recommended a two-phased investigation. The first phase would require gas companies to submit detailed economic analyses and business plans that forecast future gas demand in a carbon-constrained economy. The second phase would focus on how to transition and phase out gas while protecting ratepayers.

The investigation is a sign that political winds continue to move against natural gas. The Attorney General has called the question on which the future of New Englands economy, our global climate, and the rule of law in the Commonwealth will turn: when and how are we going to wean our energy system off of fracked gas and other dirty fossil fuels as mandated by current law? Brad Campbell, President of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), said in a statement.

Story continues

Related: Why Big Oil Is Investing In India



National Grid, a major utility in Massachusetts, supports CO2 reduction goals and said we've done extensive work on gas supply and demand forecasting, and we'll leverage these learnings in the Commonwealth, according to Utility Dive.

Massachusetts joins California and New York as the third state to begin the process of phasing out natural gas. In fact, in California, some 30 cities have already banned natural gas in new buildings.

The gas industry is on the defensive on other fronts as well. AG Healey also recently filed an amendment complaint in a Suffolk Superior Court case against ExxonMobil, for the companys deception on climate change and the companys climate-related financial risks to investors.

While the outcomes of the Attorney Generals efforts are unclear, the gas industry suffered a more tangible blow in early June when a U.S. federal appeals court vacated an air permit for Enbridges controversial gas compressor station in Weymouth, Massachusetts.

The compressor station is under construction, but has been the target of a withering campaign by local community and environmental groups. The compressor station is not just a local matter. It would expand capacity on the Algonquin Gas Transmission system, adding more throughput for the entire northeast, essentially increasing the volume of Marcellus shale gas that can move into New England and even to eastern Canada. Against that backdrop, the compressor station is a proxy battle over the future of natural gas in the Northeast.

We remain committed to placing the Weymouth Compressor Station in service as soon as possible, in compliance with applicable regulations, to deliver much-needed natural gas to project customers, including local gas utilities in Maine and Atlantic Canada, Enbridge said in a statement.

Meanwhile, in May, New York rejected the Williams Pipeline that would have carried Marcellus shale gas through New Jersey and across the Atlantic Ocean to Long Island.

Related: Why Saudi Arabia Will Lose The Next Oil Price War



Marcellus gas production has been declining since late last year, weighed down by too much production, falling prices, and deteriorating economics. The upstream problems are compounded by the series of defeats the industry has faced downstream in the northeast.

The political winds are beginning to turn against gas. For years, the industry has sold gas as a boon for climate change, able to slash emissions by replacing coal. But more recent research has questioned that premise. Releases of methane  at the well head, as well as when gas is moved through pipelines and distribution networks  negate much of the climate benefit.

There is a heated debate about the precise volumes of methane that are emitted, but at the end of the day, the emissions are still significant. Meanwhile, solar and wind are often cheaper than new natural gas, and renewables backed up by battery storage will be cheaper than gas in the next few years.

With renewables now readily accessible and cost-effective, the political power of gas as a bridge fuel has evaporated and the industry finds itself on the defensive.

By Nick Cunningham for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

Read this article on OilPrice.com
The Hillside police chief was suspended by the township mayor yet again and he will take the issue to court, his lawyer said, continuing a saga of disputes between the two that has gone on for months.

Hillside Police Chief Vincent Ricciardi was suspended June 1, said his lawyer Ronald Ricci, over a stipend he requested in 2018 for a sergeant who worked as a training officer. Ricci said Mayor Dahlia Vertreese disciplined him after alleging town officials were misled by the chief since ranking officers could not receive the stipend.

Ricciardis attorney said he was informed that Lt. Matthew Cove is heading the police department, which consists of 70 full-time officers. Vertreese and Cove did not respond to phone calls to confirm and an email to the township attorney was unanswered.

Ricci said the mayor did not get permission from the town council or follow a hearing process to suspend the chief. A sergeant had previously received the same 8% stipend for 10 years and the blame should ultimately fall on the townships business administrator for approving the extra pay, the chiefs attorney said.

In this case, they paid it and then 18 months later they discovered they shouldnt have paid it and theyre blaming the chief," Ricci said. "But theyre not blaming themselves.

Ricciardi received a letter from the town saying he would be reinstated Tuesday and then suspended again the following day, his attorney said. The letter said he would be suspended for six months and then demoted to a lieutenant, according to Ricci.

Ricci was unsure why his client was being suspended again, but guessed it had something to do with a sharply worded letter sent June 3 to the township attorney. The letter said the mayor did not have the authority to suspend the chief.

This isnt the first time Ricciardi has been suspended.

He was mysteriously suspended for four days last fall but the mayor did not publicly give a reason. Ricciardi claimed months later in a tort claim - which his lawyer says is still pending - the mayor suspended him because he unknowingly appeared in a campaign flyer for a town school board member.

The New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Polices (NJSACOP) attorney sent a letter to acting Union County Prosecutor Lyndsay Ruotolo June 8 calling on her to intervene in the Hillside dispute. A spokesman for the prosecutors office said it could not confirm or deny details about the matter.

The letter called on Ruotolo to investigate the situation in Hillside. The NJSACOPs general counsel did not respond when asked if Ruotolo replied.

Vertreese became mayor in 2018 in a close run-off election. She penned a guest column in the Star-Ledger and NJ Advance Media last year that spoke out against the town council and claimed she was bullied.

Ricciardi was not appointed chief under Vertreeses tenure.

Former Mayor Angela Garretson, who is now a Union County freeholder, appointed Ricciardi after she demoted the towns then-chief, Louis Panarese. Panarese sued the township and settled for $281,000 last year.

State pension records show Ricciardi makes $168,680 annually.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
South Africa-based renewable energy startup Sun Exchange has raised $3 million to close its Series A funding round totaling $4 million.

The company operates a peer-to-peer, crypto-enabled business that allows individuals anywhere in the world to invest in solar infrastructure in Africa.

How's that all work?

"You as an individual are selling electricity to a school in South Africa, via a solar panel you bought through the Sun Exchange," explained Abe Cambridge, the startup's founder and CEO.

"Our platform meters the electricity production of your solar panel. Arranges for the purchasing of that electricity with your chosen energy consumer, collects that money and then returns it to your Sun Exchange wallet."

It costs roughly $5 a solar cell to get in and transactions occur in South African Rand or Bitcoin.

"The reason why we chose Bitcoin is we needed one universal payment system that enables micro transactions down to a millionth of a U.S. cent," Cambridge told TechCrunch on a call.

He co-founded the Cape Town-headquartered startup in 2015 to advance renewable energy infrastructure in Africa. "I realized the opportunity for solar was enormous, not just for South Africa, but for the whole of the African continent," said Cambridge.

"What was required was a new mechanism to get Africa solar powered."

Sub-Saharan Africa has a population of roughly 1 billion people across a massive landmass and only about half of that population has access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency.

Recently, Sun Exchange's main market South Africa  which boasts some of the best infrastructure in the region  has suffered from blackouts and power outages.

Image Credits: Sun Exchange

Sun Exchange has members in 162 countries who have invested in solar power projects for schools, businesses and organizations throughout South Africa, according to company data.

The $3 million  which closed Sun Exchange's $4 million Series A  came from the Africa Renewable Power Fund of London's ARCH Emerging Markets Partners.

Story continues

With the capital, the startup plans to enter new markets. "We're going to expand into other Sub-Saharan African countries. We've got some clear opportunities on our roadmap," Cambridge said, referencing Nigeria as one of the markets Sun Exchange has researched.

There are several well-funded solar energy startups operating in Africa's top economic and tech hubs, such as Kenya and Nigeria. In East Africa, M-Kopa sells solar hardware kits to households on credit, then allows installment payments via mobile phone using M-Pesa mobile money. The venture is backed by $161 million from investors including Steve Case and Richard Branson.

In Nigeria, Rensource shifted from a residential hardware model to building solar-powered micro utilities for large markets and other commercial structures.

Sun Exchange operates as an asset free model and operates differently than companies that install or manufacture solar panels.

"We're completely supplier agnostic. We are approached by solar installers who operate on the African continent. And then we partner with the best ones," said Cambridge  who presented the startup's model at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield in Berlin in 2017.

"We're the marketplace that connects together the user of the solar panel to the owner of the solar panel to the installer of the solar panel."

Abe Cambridge, Image Credits: TechCrunch

Sun Exchange generates revenues by earning margins on sales of solar panels and fees on purchases and kilowatt hours generated, according to Cambridge.

In addition to expanding in Africa, the startup looks to expand in the medium to long-term to Latin America and Southeast Asia.

"Those are also places that would really benefit from from solar energy, from the speed in which it could be deployed and the environmental improvements that going solar leads to," said Cambridge.
During the days of slavery in the United States, the Underground Railroad guided slaves to freedom to the promise land, Canada. Canada was always seen as a beacon by many others who immigrated to Canada in droves. My parents were one of the many immigrants from the Caribbean who came to this land of opportunity. They were inspired by many, but none more than former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Lest we forget, it was Pierre Trudeau, who in 1982, gave Canadians, against all odds, the Constitution Act, which included a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This included the many protection of legal rights and freedoms as well as the enshrinement of multiculturalism as the foundation of Canadian society.

This simple fact is one that his son Justin Trudeau might have used during his time of silence when asked about the protests in the United States and the death of George Floyd. The fact that he was silent for so long is the same problem that the majority of white Canadians have had for many years.

As a young Black lawyer, I was inspired by Pierre Trudeau and the hope he offered in our new Charter of Rights. I dedicated my life to playing a role in helping to bring it to life. I had no idea it would be such a long and difficult journey.

I remember my first job with the federal government developing a crime-prevention program for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I was told by the officer in charge that being Black would be a challenge to get the officers in Ontario to be part of the change. My response was give me an opportunity to speak to them. He did. This turned out to be an incredible experience for my personal development and an important step for the many police officers who welcomed me into their communities throughout Ontario. I thank you!

My next step was the Department of Justice Canada as a Crown attorney continuing my search for justice. However, for many Black lawyers, the great halls of justice unfortunately at the Department of Justice as well as Bay St. law firms and the legal profession are littered with many stories of racism and discrimination. Even Black police officers, some of whom I have had the opportunity to represent, tell the horror stories of the racism and discrimination they face. That was then, this is now.

This is not the time, as we have tried for decades, to spend convincing white Canadians that racism and discrimination exists in Canada. The ignited spontaneous combustion of Floyds murder is a wake-up call for Canada and Canadians. For one, it has taught us that a little spark and a little fuel combined with pent up anger, injustices, hatred, and poverty is a recipe for massive destruction.

What can each of us do is the big question. Canadians must first understand that Corporate Canada and other institutions have had a knee on the neck of many members of the Black and Indigenous communities for a long time. Let us begin by first shining the ethnic lens on our own society to see systematic racism that exists from our boardrooms to our courtrooms.

If you are the head of a major Canadian corporation and institution, you have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure that diversity and inclusion are not simply a checkbox within your organization. Start your next leadership meeting by saying, Black Lives Matter. A

ll research shows that diversity and inclusion bring economic returns to your organization, which is the goal of all companies. You can also begin by helping to break the glass ceilings on Bay Street, which stifle many young Black professionals and others.

Let us also work to change marginalized communities to opportunity zones by investing in these communities that are most burdened by systematic racism and lack of opportunities. Many corporate leaders are thinking, I cant do that. Fortunately for you, human rights legislation, employment law and the Canadian Charter of Rights already mandate many of these areas.

Governments also have a role to play. All levels of government are legally and constitutionally required to defund institutions that contribute or play a role in maintaining systematic racism, even in our cherished arts sector. It is time to stop blaming the victims and recognize that how governments spend their budgets is the best way to start achieving change.

A public statement by our leaders along with a national action plan to achieve economic opportunities for Black and Indigenous Canadians, rather than piece meal projects here and there, will send a strong message to all Canadians and the rest of the world. The photo opportunities and same old rhetoric will not satisfy the universal cry No Justice, No Peace.

There are some who will say these are just the rantings of another angry Black man. To them I say I am an angry Canadian. My question to them, however, is how could I not be? and more importantly, how can you not be?
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The Black Lives Matter movement and protests of police violence played a major role in the 2016 election, according to new research led by faculty from Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts, Northwestern University, and George Mason University.

And, the protests happening around the world sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minnesota who was killed in police custody, may prove to have a similar effect in the 2020 election, says Kevin Drakulich, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern who helped conduct the research.

The researchers, together with the American National Election Studiesone of the primary organizations that collects public opinion and political participation data from U.S. voterssurveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 3,600 U.S. citizens ages 18 and older.

They found that Black Lives Matter, a civil rights movement founded in 2013 to eradicate white supremacy and combat violence against Black people, and its subsequent backlash energized people to vote in 2016 and affected their choice of candidate.

According to the study, people who expressed concern about biased policing and support for the civil rights movement were more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee who positioned herself as a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. The study also found that people who expressed support for police were connected to votes for Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee who also repeatedly expressed support for police at his rallies and who accused the Black Lives Matter movement of "dividing America."

"The effect was substantial on both sides," Drakulich says. "There were a lot of people who were motivated by the BLM movement and the inequalities it raised, and there were a lot of people who were motivated against it."

Critically, the researchers also found that rhetoric related to "supporting police" was often coded language used by "voters concerned about the relative status of Black vs. White Americans," they wrote in their report.

They found that support for the police, in and of itself, didn't seem to have been an important motivation for voting for Trump. The researchers found that people who said they supported the police also tended to identify themselves as Republican and felt "racial resentment." The researchers define "racial resentment" as having "views [that] are primarily driven by social concerns about relative racial group positions," and that such resentment is "connected to both explicit and implicit indicators of racial animus."

Thus, the researchers found that "support for police" often served as a proxy for voters who harbor anti-black feelings and a fondness for the historic racial and class hierarchies in the U.S.

Researchers define this sort of proxy language as a "dog whistle," which they described as "speaking in code to a target audience." Such rhetoric, they wrote, "allows for politicians to speak about taboo subjects while retaining plausible deniability that they violated any social norms."

Drakulich points out that (now President) Trump tweeted "LAW & ORDER!" during the recent Black Lives Matter protests, but not during protests in April and May to reopen the U.S. economy. The reopening protests, during which armed civilians shouted anti-government slogans in public spaces, came after public health measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 shut down non-essential businesses.

Drakulich says that the president's timing is an indication that his tweets may serve as dog whistles to voters who oppose the Black Lives Matter movement.

"The context is important," Drakulich says.

In their study of the 2016 election, researchers queried voters about their attitudes toward the Black Lives Matter movement and toward police.

They found that people who felt "warmly" toward the police saw them as unbiased, and those who felt "coldly" toward the Black Lives Matter movement were all "substantially more likely to vote for Trump than people who expressed the opposite feelings."

The differences were particularly stark when the researchers compared people based solely on their feelings toward the movementthose who felt "coldly" toward Black Lives Matter had a 78 percent likelihood of voting for Trump, whereas those who felt "warmly" toward the movement had only a 12 percent likelihood of voting for him.

The U.S. today is in a remarkably similar situation as in 2016a pattern of extrajudicial killings of Black people has incited protests of racially biased police violence across the country, while counter-protests in support of police crop up in their wake.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has positioned himself as supportive of the civil rights movement, while Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has considered using the U.S. military to quell protests.

It's difficult to predict whether these circumstances, coupled with more deeply entrenched political divides and a pandemic that will likely change the way U.S. citizens vote, will result in a similar outcome in November, Drakulich says. But one thing is clear: Civil rights and racial equality are going to be "really important issues again for this election," he says.

"It was a little unclear to me even a few months ago the degree to which these issues would be important factors in this electionas they were in 2016," he says. "But now it is clear that yes, they will be."

More information: Kevin Drakulich et al. Race and policing in the 2016 presidential election: Black lives matter, the police, and dog whistle politics, Criminology (2020). Kevin Drakulich et al. Race and policing in the 2016 presidential election: Black lives matter, the police, and dog whistle politics,(2020). DOI: 10.1111/1745-9125.12239


Start-up Express Pitching Final winners photographed with jurors and guests.



Renowned stand-up comedian Vivek Mahbubani, the event host, talks to participating start-ups.



A distinguished judging panel witnessed the rise of new start-up success stories.

HONG KONG, June 10, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - Start-up Express, an entrepreneurship development programme organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), has returned for its third edition. The pitching contest under the programme successfully concluded today as a judging panel selected exceptional start-ups to participate in local and international activities to build connections, explore markets, seek partners and enhance brand awareness. In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Pitching Final was livestreamed online with a live polling of the "My Favourite Start-up Award", which was awarded to MICology.Stephen Liang, Assistant Executive Director of HKTDC said: "Start-ups have been affected by the economic downturn like much of the world but the true essence of entrepreneurship is persistence in the face of adversity. There can always be opportunities found amid what otherwise appears to be a crisis. Traditional business and consumption models are seeing a new normal amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which can in turn increase receptiveness to new ideas. With outstanding achievements in innovation and technology, local start-ups launched products and services to fight against the pandemic. The HKTDC will continue to support local start-ups in exploring business opportunities amid the pandemic-struck economy, and to promote the city's capabilities in innovation and technology to overseas buyers."Start-up Express offers global promotion, market explorationThe contestants propose innovative and disruptive solutions to transform business and social ecosystems through biotech, fintech, robotics, artificial intelligence, big data and the Internet of Things (IoT) and responded to questions raised by a distinguished judging panel and online audience. This year's juror line-up (listed below) witnessed the rise of new start-up success stories alongside online spectators:- Calvin Choi, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer, AMTD Group- Jason Chiu, Chairman, Hong Kong Startup Council- Cindy Chow, Executive Director, Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund- Duncan Chiu, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Radiant Venture Capital- Herbert Chia, Venture Partner, Sequoia Capital ChinaThis year's winners of the Pitching Final include: Arical, Arovia Hong Kong, BUG BROS BIOTECH, Gense Technologies, imBee, Inovo Robotics, Open Ocean Engineering, Return Helper, Shopkyo, SPES Tech and Wineworld Xplorer. (Click here https://bit.ly/2UsM30s for the list of wining start-ups and their profile)The start-ups will be invited to exploratory sessions, power meet-up sessions with successful business leaders, business-matching sessions and local events organised by the HKTDC, including Start-up Zones at the Asian Financial Forum, spring and autumn editions of the HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair and HKTDC Hong Kong International Medical and Healthcare Fair. The HKTDC will also bring the start-ups to the international stage by organising overseas missions and setting up Hong Kong Pavilions at international technology exhibitions - including CES in Las Vegas and MWC Barcelona.Double opportunities to build professional networksAMTD Group is the strategic partner of Start-up Express for a second year. Calvin Choi, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer said: "I am impressed by the innovative ideas and practical solutions presented by our city's young entrepreneurs in this year's Start-up Express Pitching Final presentation. This recurring programme serves as a valuable platform for participants to showcase their unique business ideas and demonstrate the innovative power of the young generation in Hong Kong."The current business landscape is full of challenges, but for start-ups that are agile and versatile in responding to changing conditions and market needs, they can definitely identify and seize the best out of available emerging opportunities."With the support of AMTD Group, the SpiderNet Award has been established to recognise the top performer selected by AMTD in the Pitching Final. The award aims to provide the winner with a unique and rare opportunity to access the resources and network of the AMTD SpiderNet eco-system. The winner will benefit greatly for its future development, and will also offer synergetic value to other entrepreneurs within the eco-system. imBee won the inaugural prize.Jason Chiu, Chairman, Hong Kong Startup Council, said: "In every entrepreneurial journey, there are bound to be challenging times and the strength of a true entrepreneur is the ability to fight through the hard times and learn from each setback. This year has been especially trying due to the health situation that has impacted businesses globally but these start-ups have shown the resilience to fight through the adversity and succeed."Mr Chiu added: "It has been great to see how this batch of start-ups have navigated the past few months to present themselves in a shining light, ready to embrace new opportunities on the international market through Start-up Express' unique support system. The programme helps entrepreneurs build connections and seek opportunities with potential investors and partners. I look forward to the winning start-ups joining HKStartupSociety and realise their dreams of not only excelling in Hong Kong but on the international stage."Helping Hong Kong start-ups expand markets and networksA key driver for Start-up Express participants has been the opportunity to enhance brand and media awareness, while also connecting with mentors, partners and investors through HKTDC-organised local and overseas events. This has provided start-ups with the chance to learn from experts and strengthen their core business.Start-Up Express past winners benefitting from new opportunities include Miscato Limited, which developed and patented smart aromatherapy solutions, and Quikec International Limited, which developed a one-stop cloud-based supply chain management solution.Michelle Fno, Founder & CEO of Miscato Limited, said: "HKTDC's strong network has helped us land interview opportunities with local and overseas media outlets, which in turn allowed me to share how my company developed our new series of antiviral smart aromatherapy products. Thanks to this increased exposure and HKTDC's support, we've since been able to capture new business opportunities and expand our clientele."Peter Li, President and Co-founder of Quikec International Limited said: "Start-up Express has provided us an opportunity to participate in different exhibition and international exchange events. This has helped us expand our client base and find excellent partners despite operating on a tight budget. For example, meeting with Duncan Chiu, a well-known investor, offered many valuable lessons for us as he offered suggestions on business-development strategy."HKTDC throws full support behind local start-upsThe HKTDC will continue to fully support the city's entrepreneurial ecosystem to maintain Hong Kong's status as a competitive business city and hub for innovation. To support enterprises, the HKTDC has launched the "HKTDC Transformation Sandbox (T-box)", offering free support on branding, e-commerce, manufacturing relocation and new market development. A "Voice of Start-ups" series has been launched on the HKTDC online platform to promote the success stories of local start-ups and to show how their creativity and versatility help them thrive and capture local and overseas business opportunities.In addition to organising Start-up Express, HKTDC will support start-ups by hosting the annual Entrepreneur Day in July. The Council will also set up dedicated start-up zones at its world-class trade fairs in Hong Kong to help local start-ups reach out to overseas buyers and suppliers for potential partnership opportunities.More informationStart-up Express: http://info.hktdc.com/startupexpress/en/index.htmlPhoto download: https://bit.ly/30ugiZ4About HKTDCThe Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body established in 1966 to promote, assist and develop Hong Kong's trade. With 50 offices globally, including 13 in Mainland China, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a two-way global investment and business hub. The HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to create business opportunities for companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the mainland and international markets. The HKTDC also provides up-to-date market insights and product information via trade publications, research reports and digital news channels. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Twitter @hktdc and LinkedIn.About AMTDAMTD Group is Asia's leading comprehensive financial services conglomerate, with businesses in investment banking, institutional asset management, strategic investment, virtual banking, corporate insurance brokerage, etc. and non-financial services areas to include property investment and hotel operation, K12 education, innovative technology, and digital investment. AMTD Group is a global Strategic Partner Associate of the World Economic Forum, and has been supporting the Singapore Fintech Festival since 2017.AMTD International (NYSE: HKIB; SGX:HKB), a subsidiary of AMTD Group and dual-listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Singapore Exchange, is the No. 1 independent investment bank in Asia and one of Asia's largest independent asset management companies, and is also a leading investment house in the financial and new economy sectors.AMTD Digital, a diversified digital technology platform under AMTD Group, operates in businesses covering digital financial services, digital marketing, media, and data intelligence, digital connectors and digital investment. Airstar Bank, one of the eight licensed virtual banks in Hong Kong, is the joint venture between AMTD and Xiaomi and a portfolio under this platform, and is also one of the earlier virtual banks launching its service.Media enquiriesPlease contact Creative Consulting Group or HKTDC's Communications & Public Affairs Department:Creative Consulting GroupWendy ChanTel: +852 3159 2962 / +852 6758 4869Email: wendy.chan@creativegp.comJune WongTel: +852 3159 2909 / +852 6986 5822Email: june.wong@creativegp.comHKTDCLeslie NgTel: +852 2584 4239Email: leslie.ss.ng@hktdc.orgBeatrice LamTel: +852 2584 4049Email: beatrice.hy.lam@hktdc.orgSource: HKTDCCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Welcome to the first episode of Military.com's new podcast, Left of Boom, hosted by Hope Hodge Seck, managing editor for news. Every day, our reporting team is out there covering the news affecting the military community. But we felt we wanted a place to go deeper on the topics you care about, and to let you hear directly from the legends and trailblazers and changemakers who have left their mark on the military. So that's what we'll do.

In this, our first episode, we'll talk to Joe Galloway, a war correspondent whose coverage of the Vietnam War helped shape how we remember and understand it. His book about the Battle of Ia Drang inspired the 2002 blockbuster We Were Soldiers, and he has been portrayed in film by no fewer than three A-list actors. Much more impressively, he's the only civilian to ever receive the Bronze Star for combat valor for heroism in Vietnam from the Army. Now he has a really special new book out, They Were Soldiers, about the incredible lives of various people who served in Vietnam.

Subscribe to the Left of Boom podcast:

iTunes | Google Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | Stitcher

Mentioned in this episode:

The following is an edited transcript of this episode of Left of Boom:

Hope Hodge Seck 0:00

Welcome to the first episode of Military.com's new podcast, Left of Boom. I'm Hope Hodge Seck, managing editor for news. Every day, our reporting team is out there covering the news affecting the military community. But we felt we wanted a place to go deeper on the topics you care about, and to let you hear directly from the legends and trailblazers and changemakers who have left their mark on the military. So that's what we'll do. In this our first episode we'll talk to Joe Galloway, a war correspondent whose coverage of the Vietnam War helped shape how we remember and understand it. His book about the Battle of Ia Drang inspired the 2002 blockbuster We Were Soldiers, and he has been portrayed in film by no fewer than three A-list actors. Much more impressively, he's the only civilian to ever receive the Bronze Star for combat valor for heroism in Vietnam from the Army. Now he has a really special new book out, They Were Soldiers, about the incredible lives of various people who served in Vietnam. Joe Galloway, It's an absolute honor to have you on the show.

Joe Galloway 1:02

Good to be with you, Hope.

Hope Hodge Seck 1:03

First of all, I hope you're staying well and safe. How are you spending your quarantine time these days?

Joe Galloway 1:09

Well, when I'm not doing Zoom, interviews and lectures, I've got a pile of books unread and I'm working my way through them.

Hope Hodge Seck 1:22

What are you reading right now?

Joe Galloway 1:23

I just finished reading one called Where the Crawdads Sing or something like that -- a novel about growing up and murder and all sorts of swamp things.

Hope Hodge Seck 1:38

Do you find you read more fiction than nonfiction in your spare time? Or is it a mix?

Joe Galloway 1:43

It's a mix. It's a mix. I try to keep my eye on what's what's good and military history, but I read a lot of fiction too.

Hope Hodge Seck 1:57

That's fantastic. So, as a journalist who has covered the military and spent a little time downrange, I counted a special treat to speak with you. I'd put you and probably Ernie Pyle on my short list of people whose feet I'd just like to sit at and sort of absorb everything that you know.

Joe Galloway 2:15

You're gonna make me blush.

Hope Hodge Seck 2:20

So selfishly, I have to ask, what do you think of the field of military reporting and war correspondents today? What is changed? What has stayed the same? And overall, how do you think we're doing at telling these important stories of conflict?

Joe Galloway 2:36

You know, the technology has advanced so far since Vietnam. I had to survive the battle and get out and ship my film to Saigon, get somebody to carry it for me on a military flight. I had to get on the military phone system, which was very creaky and went through about 12 different switch boards between the islands and Saigon. And there were priority 1, 2, 3 and 4, and reporters were at the bottom of 4, which meant any Spc-4 could knock you off -- until we learned to say, 'this is Col. Smith, Priority 2. But it would still take maybe four or five hours to dictate 400 words to my office in Saigon. You know, and you you saw technology in the Gulf War. I think Dan Rather had a 18-wheeler flatbed with 18 tons of equipment in Kuwait City so he could do an uplink, and the next time we went out everybody had a pocket satellite phone or two we said that at Knight Ridder we sent everybody into the field with two different sat phones on two different systems in case one went down, and one did go down during the war. So it was a good move. You know, I think about what it would have been like for Hal Moore in the Ia Drang battle. If I'd been sitting there on a sat phone and his bosses had been reading my stuff, probably, he would have stomped on my sat phone. He didn't need anybody looking over his shoulder, real time. And sometimes I wonder how much good our technology is doing for the military and for ourselves. I often thought that if I am good enough and the Buddhists are right, and I get to come back, I'd like to come back as the Times of London correspondent in Singapore in about 1856. And it would take three or four months for the P&O steamer to bring a letter from my boss in London, and three or four months for the steamer to take my response back to him. And I think that's about the right amount of time you need to correspond with your call.

Hope Hodge Seck 5:29

I like that. I'll ask just one follow up, which is when we kind of set aside the technology and talk about that important balance between accountability, holding the military accountable and telling the stories of the servicemen and women fighting downrange. How has that changed? And do you think that presents a different challenge today than it did in the Vietnam era?

Joe Galloway 5:56

I'm not sure. I think we've always tried to hold their feet to the fire when necessary. Back then, today, tomorrow. That's our job. The way the news is handled, the way news people are handled, varies from administration to administration. I think right now we're in a particularly challenged environment, when the commander in chief looks upon the media as the enemy. And I thought that the, the USS Theodore Roosevelt incident was very telling, in terms of the attitude of the higher-ups toward the truth and the news and how they handle their own captains. So, you know, I think it's a mixed bag. We've still got the same job to do, we have to do it to the best of our ability in pursuit of the truth. You know, more than 70 of my good friends died in Vietnam pursuing the truth. It has to be worth something very real and very costly to be willing to put your life on the line to find it, and expose it and write it and tell the American people what's really going on on the battlefield. What's going on on on aircraft carrier, what's going on around the world.

Hope Hodge Seck 7:43

That's profound, thank you. To change the subject slightly, I understand in addition to your other many accomplishments, you've been the special consultant for the Vietnam War 50th anniversary commemoration project from the Pentagon since 2013. Is that role ongoing? And what does that entail for you?

Joe Galloway 8:04

Well, it's been for me the same thing from the beginning to right now and continuing for this year, I think will will shut down my part of it at the end of this year. But what my assignment has been is to travel all over the United States, doing video interviews with Vietnam veterans, all ranks all branches, civilians, Army nurses, military nurses, and doctors, everybody. And these usually run between an hour and a half, two hours each. And unedited copy goes straight to the Library of Congress, Oral History archives. And I would tell you that I don't make a lot of money doing this and I really hate airports and airplanes and I'm on them all the time. But I think it's important I think it's important that we capture as many of these stories before they're all gone. My this generation of veterans is dying off faster than the World War II people did. It is, it is, and there are reasons for that, not the least of them Agent Orange and the fact that a lot of them came home and self-medicated. You know, 3.3 million Americans were in Vietnam and are in the Indo-China theater during the war. Obviously, not all of them carried a rifle and fought in the jungle, but they were 3.3 million, and I think we're down to about a million now. I just think it's important that 100 years from now, a researcher can walk into the Library of Congress and sit down, do original research on the Forgotten War and the voices of the men and women who were up to their eyeballs in that war?.Who knows, maybe some of the best books are still far out on the horizon. I get to have a little piece of that.

Hope Hodge Seck 10:19

As you're speaking, there's a little twinge of longing for what might have been, thinking about the the World War I veterans and even the World War II veterans who are now in their 90s and wishing that a project like the one that you've embarked on, could have been done for prior generations with the same degree of thoroughness.

Joe Galloway 10:42

I think they made a good faith attempt with some of the surviving World War II vets, but I don't know how far it went. taken me. This is, I guess, the seventh year, and we have about 800 interviews in the can and we had hoped, before this virus shut down all DoD official travel, we had hoped to get that up to about 1000 this year. And I don't think we're going to get anywhere near that. We'll see.

Hope Hodge Seck 11:20

Is this in fact, this project, how your book, they were soldiers came about? Did these stories come from these interviews that you're doing now?

Joe Galloway 11:30

Not at all, in fact.I would have been poaching beyond permission to do that. So my co-author who is a fella named Marvin J. Wolf, who I first met in Vietnam 55 years ago when he was a spec for photographer with the first Cavalry Division public affairs office and he was one of 14 Eyes and Vietnam, who earned a battlefield commission. He was moved from speck forward a second lieutenant. He did such a fine job. Marvin and I have been friends for all of those 55 years. And so our cooperation on this new book is very special. We both know what we're talking about and how to talk to the veterans. And this book is, the full title is They Were Soldiers: The Sacrifices and Contributions of our Vietnam Veterans, and this is profiles and interviews with 48 Vietnam veterans, some very famous, some not famous at all. And what we tried to do with this is, not look so much at the war they thought, but instead focus on the lives they have lived and the good they have done for their communities and our country since that war, and I just think it's long overdue. that's a that's a generation of veterans. That's pretty much been libeled and slandered, in the movies, in the press. You know, I remember the headlines, you know, crazy Vietnam veteran shoots up post office, stuff like that. That's not who they are. That's not who I marched with in the jungles. They weren't all, or even any of them Lieutenant Calleys except Lieutenant Calley and Captain Medina (officers accused of murder in Vietnam's 1968 My Lai Massacre). They weren't baby killers. They were kids. They were 19 years old on average. And the country called them, they answered. Just like their fathers and grandfathers had before them, and they went to do the best job they could, in a very bad place, and did it to the best of their ability. 58,400 of them died in the doing that job. And they came home to no welcome, no respect, very few honors, and just got on with their lives, but always thinking, How can I help? What can I do for my community? What can I do for my fellow veterans? What can I do for this country? And, you know, they may not have been the greatest generation, but by God, they were the greatest of their generation.

Hope Hodge Seck 14:53

So there were hundreds of thousands of stories that you could have included in this book. So how did you know it down to 48?

Joe Galloway 15:02

Well, Marvin and I sat down with our Rolodexes. And we thought we knew a lot of the stories already. What are the ones that are most interesting, that tell things that the American people ought to know about Vietnam veterans? And we just picked them out. And some agreed immediately and easily, because they knew us and they knew our reputations as tellers of the truth. And when we got started interviewing, we didn't know how many we were going to come up with. We thought maybe 50, ended up with 48. And it's everybody from General Colin Powell to Fred Smith, who founded FedEx, General Barry McCaffrey, and then a lot of people that you never have heard about, but should have, and just an honor to tell their stories or let them tell their stories. I just think it's something this country needs right now.

Hope Hodge Seck 16:14

I love the the variety, seeing all these stories and and who you chose to include. You've got a conscientious objector who served in a different role in Vietnam, and a dog handler. And as you said, several general officers, and both authors take pains in the book to talk about the the generalizations that are made that are untrue, as you said, you know, calling Vietnam veterans baby killers and sort of the way that they were despised and mistreated. I did want to ask, though, do any common threads emerge as you're taking these oral histories and listening to these stories of common ways that this shared experience, I guess, made a difference?

Joe Galloway 17:00

In the continuing thread of these individual lives, if there's a common thread or there are several common threads, the first that springs to mind is their shock, anger. And for some of them, bitterness and coming home to no welcome. You know, they we all saw the film of veterans getting off the ships in New York after World War II and parading down Broadway, and there was none of that for Vietnam veterans. They came home to a country that really was ripped in half by the war that they had been sent off to fight, and nobody wanted to talk about the war they had fought. Even your mom didn't want you discussing it at the dinner table. And and that was, I think, that was searing to most Vietnam veterans. And it took them a long time. They kind of went to ground just like they did in the jungle when, when the shooting started, and it took them a lot of years to finally come out, finally start going to unit reunions and doing things they knew where in order to help fellow veterans to help other people. There was there was some bad years in there.

Hope Hodge Seck 18:38

We;re very different culture now, and I'm grateful for the fact that Americans, by and large, have a much more respect and appreciation for what American service members do. And yet there are many fewer Americans who serve and I think there's less familiarity with who service members are and what it means to be in the military. What what are your thoughts on how the nation is doing today?

Joe Galloway 19:08

I think we need to reestablish national service, not a straight draft. I would say that every American kid, male and female on reaching the age of 18, owes their country two years of service. They get paid for it. You know, they do it honorably and finish the job. They get two years free college anywhere that will have them. They want to serve in the military, it's four years, and they get four years' free ride any college in America. But I'm big on choice. Peace Corps, establish a corps for the hospitals. Kids would work there. stablish an education corps that would work in the inner city neighborhood schools to try to upgrade the education these kids are getting. Even reestablish the old Civilian Conservation Corps, which built the national parks in this country. And nobody has really repaired them since they built them back in the 30s. So send them out there to fix the parks, different things that they couldn't do, but should do. Give them ownership of a piece of America. "I did this, I served. I built that. I help these people." I think it would be really a renaissance for the young people of this country, and a renaissance for the country itself, to see young people out doing what's normal in Europe. National Service, you owe something to your country. We owe a lot to this country we live in. And you know, the problem of this is that the generals and the Pentagon, they like it just like it is right now with a volunteer army. No turnover every four years, or not much. Consequently, nobody in Congress has really looked at this thing and tried to see if they could make a go of it. And I think that's a sad thing, sad commentary. That would probably do more to build a military that's more connected to the American people. During the time of the draft, I mean, maybe 90% of the kids who got drafted absolutely hated it. They had other things in mind to do, but they didn't really have a choice, they had to go. They had to do it. They may have absolutely hated the Army, but they did the job. And they finished it and they got out and they went off actually better people for having served. I've tried to tell young journalists, you know, the closer to the base of the flagpole you get, the better the people you meet. And I think that's true.

Hope Hodge Seck 22:32

You've been writing about, consulting about, living, breathing the Vietnam War and its history for decades now. And your contribution has helped to shape what we know about the war and what we think about it. And you know, perhaps this is sort of an obtuse question, but what is the staying power of this historical event? And how did it become your life's work after your time downrange in 1965?

Joe Galloway 23:00

Well, it did become a life's work because I nearly died in Vietnam more than once, because I'm alive today because soldiers laid their lives down so that I might live to tell their story. I walked out of the Ia Drang battle with a crushing weight on my shoulders. I knew that 80 young men had died, so that I could live to tell their story. I knew that I had an obligation to tell the truth about those soldiers, and all soldiers, all our troops. At the time, it seemed like a crushing obligation. I got used to it over the years, four tours in Vietnam. I kept going back to war, not because I loved war, I hate it. It's the most foolish of all man's doings there. The only good war is when you have to literally fight them off of your front law-- they've invaded you. The rest of it, we could have done without. So I have no great love of war, but I have a great love of soldiers, those who go to fight those wars, on our behalf, under our flag. You know, often these days, the politicians don't stand up and explain to the troops, why they need to go and risk their lives in this place or that place, or any of a dozen places where their lives are at risk. They just send them, so how does the soldier deal with that? Nobody has explained to him why it's really a good thing for him to go out with the rifle and kill other young men of a different color, in a different place, who think differently. It's just orders. What I noticed, and what I find really heartening is that in those circumstances, the soldiers, the troops -- because I include the Marines very much here -- they will fight and die for the people on their, right, the people on their left, the people who are covering their rear, that's enough. They're willing to die for each other and do, and, you know, Ronald Reagan said, the Vietnam War was a noble cause. Not really. There are no noble wars, but there are noble people who fight in those wars. And those are the people I care about. And those are the people that kept me going back, not for love of the actual war, but for love those who find it. And you know, the last few times I was out, I was in my 60s, and I'm still running up and down sand dunes behind 19-year-old Marines. And somebody would say, "Wow, why are you doing this?" And it's a reasonable question. But why I was doing it is because the kids would look at me and say, you know, if that guy can live through 40 years of wars, maybe I can make it.

Hope Hodge Seck 26:51

Oh my goodness. Incredible.

Joe Galloway 26:54

Yeah.

Hope Hodge Seck 26:57

Well, I would be remiss, particularly with my audience, if I didn't give you a chance to tell a story that I'm sure you've told many times. So you received the Bronze Star in 1998, for actions in 1965, what was that experience like? Especially because it was so such a unique action for you to be given that as a civilian, how did you respond to that news, and what does that award mean to you?

Joe Galloway 27:24

I would tell you that one day I was in the Boston area and the phone rang. The fellow on the other end said, "Mr. Galloway, I'm here in the Pentagon and I have your Bronze Star with V. We would like to present it to you." And I said, "I think you've got the wrong guy. I'm a civilian. I've always been a civilian." He said, "Oh, we know that. And you know, the JAGs have been working for two years on this thing to decide that we can actually do this. So we know you're a civilian. And we want you to come to Washington and we'll have Chief of Army information, present this medal to you in his office." And I said, "I don't think so. You're not giving me the medal for being a reporter; you're giving it to me for valor in combat, the actions of a soldier. If you're going to present this, either do it in front of soldiers, or just mail the damn thing to me." And he said, "Well, you got any ideas?" And I say, well, "General (Hal) Moore and I are going to be at Fort Bragg doing a lecture to the 82nd Airborne officers and NCOs, and I can't think of a better place to do it than there." He said, "Good. That's what we'll do." And that's what they did. I don't know if you can see it, but I wear the lapel pin every day I put this coat on, because that's not for me. That's for the 70 reporters and photographers who gave up their lives in Vietnam in pursuit of the truth. That's for my buddies. And I wear it proudly. This is the only medal for valor the U.S. Army ever presented to a civilian. But the Marines did it for three of my buddies in Vietnam for the same reason: rescuing wounded American troops under enemy fire. TMarines did it as soon as the war was over and Lyndon Johnson couldn't stop them anymore. The Army waited 30 years to give me mine, at two years with the JAGs searching all the ways not to do it.

Hope Hodge Seck 29:58

And I love that you held their feet to the fire when they actually made the phone call. You said, "if you're gonna do this do, it the right way."

Joe Galloway 30:05

That's absolutely right, and it was presented by -- he was a two-star then -- Keith Kellogg and, and Hal Moore was on the stage with me. And the two of them hung the metal on me and I couldn't have been more proud.

Hope Hodge Seck 30:24

That's an amazing story. Thank you for sharing. Since you're an avid reader and writer and I know the great retired general Jim Mattis talks about the importance of reading when it comes to war fighting and understanding history and strategy -- I was wondering if you had one or more than one book recommendations for my listeners?

Joe Galloway 30:45

Oh my god, I have to tell you that my library runs to about 5 or 6,000 books and I've read them all and there are you know, it depends on what you want. You want to know about war, James Webb's books: Field of Fire. David Halberstam's books, he wrote several really super books his Korean War one-year history that I believe he called The Coldest Winter was the last book. It is an excellent, excellent read. I would recommend highly my own book with the General Hal Moore, We Were Soldiers Once and Young. You know, someone a couple of years ago did a survey of 50 or 100 military historians to pick the 10 most important war histories of all time, and we made the cut. So it's worth reading, you might learn something.

Hope Hodge Seck 31:57

Well, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure of a conversation and a bucket list item for me -- I've always wanted to meet and speak with you. So thank you so much for your time and I wish you the best and stay healthy.

Joe Galloway 32:12

Thank you.

Hope Hodge Seck 32:16

Thanks for joining us again on Left of Boom. Joe Galloway's new book, co-written with Marvin J. Wolf, They Were Soldiers: The Sacrifices and Contributions of our Vietnam Veterans, went on sale in May from Nelson books. You can pick it up wherever books are sold. We'll have new episodes coming soon, so please hit subscribe and let us know what you think about the show in the feedback section. We also want to hear from you about future episodes: who do you want to hear from, and what military hot topics would you like us to tackle next? Let us know by sending us an email at podcast@military.com. And remember to stay up to date on all the news that matters to the military community every day, at Military.com.
A third of America's malls are going to shut permanently by 2021, according to one former department store executive, as their demise is accelerated due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"The mall has been losing ground for a long time, now it's losing ground faster," said Jan Kniffen, a current retail consultant and former exec at The May Department Stores, which was eventually folded into Macy's.

"I expect we are going to see at least 20% of the [inside of the] mall go. I expect to see a third of the malls go a lot sooner than we thought," he said Wednesday on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Initially, he was expecting roughly 33% of America's malls to go dark by 2030. Now, Kniffen thinks that will happen by next year.

There are still about 1,000 malls operating in the U.S. today, according to commercial real estate services firm Green Street Advisors.

A large majority of those malls are classified as so-called B- C- and D-rated malls, meaning they bring in fewer sales per square foot than an A mall. An A++ mall could bring in as much as $1,000 in sales per square foot, for example, while a C+ mall does about $320.

Per Green Street's analysis, there are roughly 380 C- and D-rated malls out of the 1,000. And those are considered the most at risk of going dark, permanently, as they don't generate enough sales to maintain the property and have greater vacancy rates. Green Street has said C malls "are not viable retail centers long term."

Macy's Chief Executive Jeff Gennette spoke to this reality on Tuesday, during a virtual fireside chat with Cowen & Co. analyst Oliver Chen.

"When you look at ... the bulk of those stores, they're in Green Street [A] malls," Gennette said, referring to the locations that Macy's plans to keep open longer term, as it shuts 125 stores over the next three years. "Fifty-one percent of our stores and 65% of our sales are in all A malls of Green Street. And they're the best malls in the country. They will stay, definitely, in my perspective, will stand the test of time."

"We've got highly motivated REIT developers that I think are best in class, and they're looking at remixing the tenant mix of these malls," Gennette added, referring to A mall owners such as Simon and Brookfield.

According to Kniffen, Macy's is here to stay, now that it has secured $4.5 billion in new financing to weather the Covid-19 crisis. "They are well secured through 2022, at least. They are going to be with us."

But the future for many other retailers is much less certain. Department store operator J.C. Penney is still trying to emerge from bankruptcy as a smaller business. Stage Stores could be forced to liquidate if it does not find a buyer. Signet, the owner of jewelry brands including Kay, Zales and Jared, said Tuesday that it will close as many as 400 locations, as its sales plummeted due to the pandemic. Even Macy's said it could "accelerate" its store closure plans, but it is still working through that with its landlords.

A record 25,000 store closures are expected to be announced by retailers this year, according to a report by Coresight Research. And about 55% to 60% of those closures will be in America's malls, it said.
ATLANTAStacey Abrams new book, Our Time is Now, pulses with a pressing call for action ahead of the November election. But despite the titles urgency, it also offers a long-term playbook to restructure the architecture of American democracy.

The Georgia Democrat explores the hard-earned lessons from her 2018 campaign against Republican Brian Kemp, and urges marginalized voters to tune into lower-profile contests in the unmentioned corridors of power we too often cede.

And it lays out prescriptions for expanding voting rights, an issue that Abrams put at the centre of her 2018 run for governor and the Fair Fight Action voting rights group she launched after her defeat.

She outlines the nations faults and fissures over ballot access using Georgia as a primary lens, with a blend of history, modern-day politicking and personal tales, such as a story about her late grandmothers reluctance to exercise her right to vote.

Voter suppression works its might by first tripping and causing to stumble the unwanted voter, she wrote, then by convincing those who see the obstacle course to forfeit the race without even starting to run.

Its bookended, in a way, around the 10-day drama that helped define Abrams to a national audience  the limbo between the 2018 election and a nonconcession speech that lionized her to many Democrats and infuriated many Republicans.

The morning after the election, with Kemp in the lead but the results still uncertain, she and her top advisers meet for breakfast to sort through their options at a meeting that had an air of unreality.

Eighteen months of campaigning. Three years of planning. And still no answers.

The next few days were a blizzard of emotions, Abrams wrote, as she tried to sort through options such as a possible legal challenge to contest the race. Though she tried to speed herself through the seven stages of grief, they seemed to attack me all at once.

Most of all, she wrote, there was anger, rage and its variations  a raw response that surprised Abrams, who prided herself in calmly navigating high-stress situations.

My temperament is low-drama and even-keeled, and, to be honest, sustained anger always struck me as a weakness. A person loses focus or, worse, becomes defined by that emotion alone. But I was mad and I couldnt shake it.

By the sixth day, when she began to acknowledge there werent enough outstanding votes to force a runoff with Kemp, the anger had melted to another sentiment.

She called it the plotting phase, and soon she scribbled at the basis of a trio of groups she founded on a yellow legal pad.

Now a potential vice presidential pick, Abrams advice to voters is to think big but start small. Urge strangers to register to vote. Introduce yourself to local public officials. Volunteer for a campaign  but ask to be assigned to the least likely voters.

Pick your lane, she wrote, and then invest in someone who thinks they are invisible.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:54:23|Editor: huaxia

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KIEV, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) executive board approved a 5-billion-U.S.-dollar loan to Ukraine and will send the first tranche of 2.1 billion dollars immediately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday.

"The new program will help overcome the challenges caused by COVID-19. In difficult times, the IMF proves that it is a reliable partner," wrote Zelensky on his twitter account.

According to local media, the IMF said in a press release that the new financing program should help Ukraine deal with problems caused by the pandemic by ensuring the payment of public debt and budget support. At the same time, it will help promote a set of key structural reforms to guarantee Ukraine's return to economic growth after the crisis ends.

The approved program will last for 18 months, rather than the originally planned three years.

At present, Ukraine is in dire need of external financing due to the pandemic, which has hit the Ukrainian economy hard. The National Bank expects Ukraine's GDP to fall by 5 percent in 2020, while the IMF forecast an 8.2 percent decline. Enditem
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday said it had brought back 108 consignments belonging to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi including polished diamonds, silver jewellery and pearls worth Rs 1,350 crore of declared value from Hong Kong.

Value of these goods have been declared to be Rs 1,350 crores (approx). These valuables include polished diamonds, pearls, pearl and silver jewelry etc. and were kept in the godown of a logistics company in Hong Kong, an official statement from the agency said.

The consignments weighing approx 2,340 kg were brought back to Mumbai on Wednesday, it added.

Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi are Indian businessman who are wanted by the authorities in connection with cheating Indian banks of thousands of crores. Nirav Modi, the main accused, in the Rs 23,780 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud, is currently languishing in a UK prison since March last year. India is attempting to get him extradited. His uncle Mehul Choksi, also accused of cheating Punjab National Bank (PNB), is currently in Antigua.

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The development comes a few days after a special Mumbai court allowed ED to confiscate Nirav Modis properties.

The ED official statement says these consignments had been sent to Hong Kong from Dubai in early 2018 and the ED had received a tip off in the month of July the same year.

The authorities were continuously engaged in discussion with various authorities in Hong Kong to bring back these valuables to India. Various modalities were finalized and after completing all the legal formalities these consignments have now been brought back to India. the release added.

Also Read: Political barbs fly over Niravs case

CBI has accused Modi of pulling a large-scale fraud upon the PNB by fraudulently obtaining Letters of Understanding (LOUs or loan agreements) while the Enforcement Directorate is pursuing the businessman for laundering of the proceeds of that fraud.

The ED claims to have earlier brought back 33 consignments of valuables from Dubai and Hong Kong linked to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi case. These were valued at around Rs 137 crore, said the agency.
Thousands of tourism firms have suffered heavily from Covid-19. Many of them have had to shut down, while others have to take extra jobs to earn a living and survive the current difficulties.

Viet Media Travel Corporation is a large travel firm, mostly providing outbound tours. The number of Vietnamese traveling abroad account for 70 percent of the companys total clients, while most of the remaining are domestic travelers and there are very few inbound tourists.





The travel firm once had over 1,000 workers in its heyday, including 500-600 tour guides, and revenue of VND1 trillion a year, serving more than 1 million clients.



However, Viet Media Travel was also one of the first companies suffering from Covid-19. According to Tran Van Long, its CEO, most workers have resigned from their posts.



The company has shifted to produce medical face masks and antiseptic liquid to earn its living during the current difficult days.



In Vietnam, thousands of travel firms are in the same situation.

If the pandemic cannot be contained by September or October, Vietnams outbound tourism will fall into extremely difficult situation and a number of tourism firms will go bankrupt.

Phung Quang Thang, director of Hanoutourist, said if the pandemic cannot be contained by September or October, Vietnams outbound tourism will fall into extremely difficult situation and a number of tourism firms will go bankrupt.



Thang estimates that there will be 40-50 million domestic travelers this year, and 25-30 million travelers from now to the end of the year. Vietnams tourism infrastructure, capable of receiving 80 million domestic travelers, now serve only 1/3 of the amount.



The supply is bigger than demand. Meanwhile, there are more and more independent travelers who book their air tickets and hotel rooms, and it is not easy for travel firms to sell tours.



According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), Vietnam had 2,022 international travel firms as of the end of 2018, including 788 joint stock companies, 20 joint ventures and 1,214 limited companies and private enterprises.



According to Vu The Binh, deputy chair of the Vietnam Tourism Association, the outbound tourism market is very attractive.



A report found that 10 million Vietnamese travelled abroad in 2019 and the market witnessed 20 percent growth rate annually. This explains why more and more outbound travel firms have been established in recent years. Around 70 percent of the 2,000 international travel firms provide outbound tours.



It is not easy to shift to domestic tours, Thang said. I am afraid that Vietnam will witness a wave of outbound travel firms going bankrupt, at least 50 percent of operational firms. "



Ngo Hoai Chung, deputy general director of VNAT, said he was worried about the development of the tourism industry after seeing nearly 10 international travel firms shut down each day because of the epidemic.

Ha Yen

Vietnam among leading global travel destinations for 2021 The website Traveller Australia has listed Vietnam among the top 10 safe and friendly overseas nations that Australians are most likely to be visiting during 2021.
Army officials have said they're willing to consider a proposal to change the names of bases named for confederate military leaders. But the president on Wednesday slammed the idea, saying he would not even consider it.

The 10 bases in question include some of the largest Army posts: Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Benning, Georgia, among others. While the fact that they honor generals who fought against the Union in the American Civil War has long been a point of controversy, a push to rename them has gained steam amid protests challenging systemic racism following the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody.

Read Next: Iran Has Backed Off of Challenging US Since Soleimani Killing, General Says

On Monday, the Army acknowledged that service secretary Ryan McCarthy was eyeing the idea, with the stipulation that he wanted support from local leaders and Congress for the name change.

But in a series of tweets, President Donald Trump voiced his unequivocal opposition to the idea.

"These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom," he tweeted. "The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!"

Trump, who has a long history of telegraphing policy via Twitter and who famously intervened in military policy by surprising generals with a tweeted plan to bar transgender individuals from military service, has gone sideways with military leaders this month over whether to invoke the Insurrection Act and send active-duty troops into U.S. cities to help quell violent protests.

Trump warned he'd send in active troops to "dominate" in places where order was breaking down, while Defense Secretary Mark Esper ultimately said he opposed using active-duty forces to support law enforcement.

Ultimately, the roughly 1,600 active-duty troops dispatched from Bragg and Fort Drum, New York, to the Washington, D.C., area returned to their bases without entering the District.

Regarding base renaming, however, Trump may not get the final say on the matter. Renaming the bases is within the purview of the secretary of the Army, although Congress and public opinion have had a say in the past.

According to the Army's History Division, a 1928 move to rename Fort George G. Meade in Maryland to Fort Leonard Wood was stymied when Pennsylvania legislators threatened to withhold Army funding. Fort Leonard Wood eventually became the name of an Army post in Missouri.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

Related: The Army Will Consider Renaming Bases that Honor Confederate Leaders
TDT | Manama

Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani participated yesterday in the virtual Donors Conference for Yemen 2020, which was hosted by the brotherly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in partnership with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The conference took place under the presidency of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah Al Saud, and with the participation of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik, Royal Court Advisor and King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre supervisor general Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabiah, and Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator undersecretary-general Mark Lowcock.

The conference was also attended by a number of foreign ministers, senior officials and representatives of countries and specialised international organisations. Addressing the conference, Dr. Al Zayani underlined Bahrains appreciation and support for the ongoing efforts of the UN to establish peace and security in Yemen, highlighting the call of secretary-general Guterres for a ceasefire so as to dedicate all international efforts to combat the coronavirus.

That call received an immediate response from the Arab Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen, which declared a comprehensive ceasefire.

He added that the initiative did not receive any response from the Houthis; rather, they continued their violations and breached the ceasefire and refused to cooperate with international humanitarian efforts to confront the spread of the coronavirus, despite the seriousness of the health situation and the weak health infrastructure in Yemen, which require urgent help from the international community.

The Foreign Minister also reaffirmed Bahrains support for the efforts of the Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths, and the importance of a political solution to the crisis in Yemen.
The fight against the coronavirus has started to quiet down in Washington as President Donald Trump showed support for a second stimulus check. The move garnered little response from fellow Republicans, however.

More support

Trump said that they would be asking for the second set of financial aid because once the recovery from the pandemic begins, it will be something far more substantial and more significant than what the country had previously seen, as reported by Debt.org.

The president's fellow Republicans, however, did not share a similar view of the second stimulus check as well as a payroll tax cut that Trump wishes to implement to help reduce the burden on the American economy that the coronavirus pandemic has severely hampered.

Senator Lindsay Graham said that she was not particularly enthused about the idea of distributing the second set of stimulus checks. Another senator, James Lankford from Oklahoma, said that he thinks the American government is not able to support sending checks month after month.

Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, had called the possibility of a second stimulus check as being unlikely.

According to AS, with the Democrat's proposal of distributing another round of $1,200 checks for every individual or a monthly $2,000 universal payment, the Republican-controlled Senate is in an unlikely position to approve the budget.

The Senate is currently focusing on reviving the newly reopened economy by supporting businesses and not individuals. Trump was thrilled that the number of unemployed decreased last month.

Kevin Hassett, the White House economic adviser, said that if the statistics remain the same for July or better, then the financial support will most likely be distributed to businesses.

Also Read: Second Stimulus Check Benefits and Worth: Is It $450 per Week or $1,200 a Month?

Details up in the air

White House aides expect that details regarding the final package, such as the size and scope, will not be completed before July. The details will also depend on how well the reopening of businesses will fare and whether the economy begins to recover from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Mitch McConnell said that the Heroes Act is not a serious piece of legislation and that if there were another bill, it would come from the Senate.

The second round of stimulus check, if approved, it would mean that officials made the decision to support schools and businesses in case of liability issues to keep them from being sued and a person gets infected with the coronavirus on their property.

McConnell said that a big part of going back to normal life is to avoid a second pandemic happening amid the first pandemic which he called the epidemic of litigation. He also noted that schools and businesses would be hesitant to reopen due to fears of being sued, saying it is one crucial issue that they need to address.

Republicans, however, are looking into providing an additional benefit to those who go back to work, such as a bonus check that would encourage people to start building the economy back up.

McConnell said that the issue of being paid more not to work than to work is counterproductive to what the government wants and what is good for the economy.

Related Article: Coronavirus StimulusCheck: Is the Second Round of Financial Aid Still Amounting to $1200?

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(Alliance News) -A The global economy is expected to contract 6% this year, even if a second wave of Covid-19 infections is avoided, with the UK set for the hardest hit, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation & Development on Wednesday.

"By the end of 2021, the loss of income exceeds that of any previous recession over the last 100 years outside wartime, with dire and long-lasting consequences for people, firms and governments," the OECD said in its latest outlook, entitled "World Economy on a Tightrope".

Global economic activity is expected to fall by 6% in 2020 and OECD unemployment to climb to 9.2% from 5.4% in 2019. If a second outbreak of Covid-19 emerges, gross domestic product could plummet 7.6% before rebounding just 2.8% in 2021.

In a previous report in March - at time when the outbreak had hit China but not yet the world's other large economies - the OECD had slashed its global growth forecast by half a percentage point to 2.4%, which would have been the worst performance since the 2008 financial crisis.

The economic impact of strict and relatively lengthy lockdowns in Europe will be "particularly harsh", the the Paris-based organisation said on Wednesday.

Eurozone GDP is expected to plunge over 9% this year and could fall 11.5% if there is a second hit.

In a single-hit Covid-19 scenario, UK GDP is expected to shrink 11.5% in 2020 - the worst of any single country covered by the OECD's forecasts for such a scenario. This would beat out Spain, Italy and France with forecast declines of 11.1%, 11.3% and 11.4% respectively.

In the case of a double-hit, UK GDP will tumble a staggering 14.0%, on OECD forecasts, which would be on par with Italy and on slightly more healthy than France and Spain, expected to contract 14.1% and 14.4% respectively.

Looking out, the OECD said risks around the UK's future relationship with the EU compound Covid-19-related uncertainty.

The US economy, the world's largest, is expected to shrink 7.3% this year, or as much as 8.5% if there is a second Covid-19 wave.

The least affected country should be South Korea, according to the OECD, with GDP falling just 1.2% in a single-hit scenario. Chinese GDP is slated to fall 2.6% barring a second wave.

In both scenarios, the global recovery, after an "initial, rapid resumption of activity", will take a long time to bring output back to pre-pandemic levels. The crisis will leave long-lasting scars - a fall in living standards, high unemployment and weak investment.

OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone said: "Extraordinary policies will be needed to walk the tightrope towards recovery. Restarting economic activity while avoiding a second outbreak requires flexible and agile policymaking."

By Lucy Heming;A lucyheming@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
The chief prosecutor on the case says the probe was closed because the main suspect, Stig Engstrom, died in 2000.

Sweden has dropped its investigation into the unsolved murder of former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was shot dead 34 years ago in Stockholm city centre.

The chief prosecutor on the case, Krister Petersson, said on Wednesday the case was closed because the main suspect, Stig Engstrom, had died in 2000.

Petersson said Engstrom, also known as the Skandia man because he worked for the nearby Skandia insurance company, had a strong dislike for Palme and his policies.

He was one of the first people at the murder scene and was briefly considered a possible suspect.

Since he has died, I cannot indict him, Petersson told a news conference.

Several other witnesses gave descriptions of the fleeing killer that matched Engstrom while others said he was not even at the scene.

Engstrom himself claimed to have been present from the beginning, spoke to Lisbet Palme and police, and attempted to resuscitate the victim.

Soon after the murder, Engstrom appeared in Swedish media and developed an increasingly detailed story of his involvement in the events and criticised the police.

He claimed those witnesses who had described the killer had in fact been describing him, running to catch up with police officers in pursuit of the assassin.

The police then labelled Engstrom as an unreliable and inconsistent witness and classified him as a person of no interest.

The night of the murder

Palme served as leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1969 until his death, and was prime minister between 1969 and 1976, and from 1982 to 1986.

He sought to live as ordinary a life as possible and would often go out without any bodyguards. The night of the murder on February 28, 1986, he had no protection.

Lisbet Palme was injured in the attack and later identified the shooter as Christer Pettersson, an alcoholic and drug addict, who was convicted of Palmes murder.

The sentence was later overturned after police failed to produce any technical evidence against him, leaving the murder an unsolved mystery. Pettersson died in 2004.

Palme, who cut a flamboyant, even boyish figure, had an aristocratic background but was known for his left-leaning views.

He was eyed with suspicion in conservative circles and by the United States. Among Swedes and in the Nordic region, he was much loved, but also hated.

Al Jazeeras Paul Rhys, reporting from Stockholm, said the Swedish society was still divided on Palme.

Although he was loved by the left for his progressive policies, Palme was hated by many on the right, he said.Even though there are flowers still being laid on his memorial [at the place of the murder], an element of that hatred has been seen while weve been here. Someone actually walked past and spat on his memorial.

More than 100 people have been suspected of his murder, and the unsolved case has been surrounded by conspiracy theories, ranging from foreign involvement to people with right-wing sympathies within Swedens police, to an act by a lone shooter.
"8 March Agreement Is Very important For Georgian Democracy"-Carl Hartzell - GeorgianJournal
Officers receive regular training, and are required by the department to step in and stop a colleague if their use of force isnt appropriate for the situation. Waugh said adrenaline flows when officers are caught in explosive situations. He said adrenaline can affect judgment, so officers are expected to intervene if their colleagues are using excessive force.

Councilman Randy Buschkoetter said hes been impressed by KPDs use of community policing to become familiar with the communitys residents and to build bonds, not barriers.

It was good to see officers recently helping to hand out free meals, Buschkoetter said.

He also asked about KPDs policy on investigating reported incidents when excessive force is alleged to have happened.

Waugh said KPD has a lieutenant assigned as the officer in charge of professional standards to hear citizens complaints and promptly investigate the allegations. Waugh said he receives the results from every investigation of that kind.

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While Waugh described KPDs efforts to prevent excessive use of force, representatives of the recently formed Kearney Intervention Team told the City Council about its goal of preventing other forms of violence.
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Financial Year 2021 is likely to be painful for consumer discretionary giant Titan Company as brokerages believe that normalcy can only be expected by the last quarter of this fiscal.

At a time when experts fear that the COVID-19 pandemic may trigger a shift in consumer behaviour in the way how they spend, Titan Company, being at the extreme end of discretionary consumption, has a lot to fight against.

The company on June 8 reported a 21 percent year-on-year growth in standalone profit due to strong operating performance and low base in the year-ago period. But higher tax expenses (up 58 percent YoY) limited bottom-line growth.

Revenue from operations fell 5.2 percent year-on-year to Rs 4,428.75 crore during the March quarter. "The company was impacted significantly in the second half of March due to COVID-19 pandemic with the shutting down of all stores," Titan said.

Meanwhile, data available on BSE showed one of the most prominent investors of India - Rakesh Radheshyam Jhunjhunwala - pared his stake in Titan during the March quarter of FY20.

Jhunjhunwala and his wife together held 4,90,50,970, or 5.53 percent, shares of Titan at the end of March quarter, against 5,93,76,220, or 6.69 percent, shares that they held at the end of December 2019 quarter.

Management remains positive amid challenges

The impact of COVID-19 on Titan's business is expected to remain for a longer time. In a conference call, the management of the company hinted that the firm will emerge stronger and consumer's trust in the brand will remain intact.

They highlighted a significant focus on cost-savings across rentals, ad spends and fixed costs and also reduction in working capital.

The management also sees a strong opportunity for growth in jewellery, watches and eyewear purely on account of their strong customer outreach programs and the overarching trust on Titan and Tata brand in these uncertain times.

As per media reports, after being shut for all of April, more than 1,400 out of the 1,800 stores of Titan have now opened.

Among the stores that have opened, the recovery in sales has been encouraging. Average daily sales in May have been around 60 percent of pre-COVID levels.

June is expected to be even better, but normalcy is expected only by the last quarter of this fiscal.

Management indicated despite the pace of store re-openings being healthy, June sales would be 3040 percent of earlier targets as the ramp-up in demand would be lower.

The first quarter of FY21 will be painful for the company. Brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services highlighted that Q1 FY21 would also take a hit due to the ineffective hedge on account of higher gold prices, which would be reversed in subsequent quarters. A one-off gold sale back to suppliers in Q1 FY21 is also expected, on which no profit would be made.

The road ahead

Brokerages have faith in Titan's long-term story but it is important to see how COVID-19 pans out for Titan going ahead and to what extent the management of the company succeeds in its attempt to counter the impact of the pandemic.

As per CNBC-TV18, with valuations at 54 times CY22 PE, CLSA has maintained a 'sell' call on the stock but raised the target price to Rs 855 from Rs 810, expecting normalcy for Titan to return in FY22.

"Consolidation benefit is visible and share gains and agile responses to challenges are encouraging. The company should be a late-cycle beneficiary," CLSA said.

CLSA underscored the concerns on the higher competition for Titan as gold prices rise.

Another global brokerage JPMorgan has a 'neutral' call on Titan, with a target price of Rs 1,020.

Domestic brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services also has a 'neutral' call on Titan, with a target price of Rs 965.

"While we remain believers in the structural topline growth story, which remains one of the best among Indian consumer plays, valuations are rich at 52 times FY22 EPS, leading us to retain our neutral rating," Motilal Oswal said.

"In addition to the COVID-19 impact, higher prevailing gold prices and the likely lower share of high-value studded jewellery would weigh on profitability. Moreover, managements reluctance to reduce staff costs, while good for longterm growth, would have an adverse impact on near-term profitability," Motilal Oswal said.

Brokerage firm Emkay Global Financial Services finds Titan better-placed to gain market share even as it reduced EPS estimates for FY21 and FY22 due to the delayed store opening.

"Titan seems best placed to gain against the competition, with a stronger rollout of online initiatives and wider portfolio. We reduce FY21/22E EPS by 21 percent/6 percent due to the delayed store opening," said Emkay.

The brokerage has maintained a 'buy' call, with a target price of Rs 1,100, based on 45 times Jun-22 EPS.

The road ahead for Titan is bumpy due to COVID-19. There are very dim prospects for the company during FY21, however, owing to its market share, aggressive marketing strategy and cost-saving measures, experts believe the company will bounce back in FY22.

The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
A New Jersey mayor who said at a rally Saturday that he was "pro-black for all the good black people" he knew on Wednesday sought to clarify his remarks following a backlash.

Hanif Denny, 27, who helped organize the anti-discrimination demonstration in Clark, about 13 miles south of Newark, said the event began with residents from neighboring towns  such as Rahway, where he lives  speaking about negative racial interactions they had experienced in Clark, including with police.

"Most of those who spoke shared their experiences and followed it with a plea for change," Denny said.

There was no plan for Mayor Sal Bonaccorso to speak during the demonstration outside of Clark's municipal building, Denny said.

"He was just supposed to be there to listen to the stories and then have open dialogue for future action in the town," Denny told NBC News on Wednesday.

Denny said 50 to 100 people attended the rally and that, while the crowd was diverse, the majority of participants were people of color.

Clark Township, N.J. Mayor Sal Bonaccorso. (Clark Township, N.J.)

He said it was not until a few of the participants realized that the mayor had been standing to the side, smoking a cigar and joking with a friend while people were "telling their emotionally devastating stories," that speakers addressed the mayor directly.

One woman at the demonstration told Bonaccorso: "It's not enough to say, 'I'm not racist.' You have to be anti-racist. OK? Pro-black," according to Denny and videos posted to social media.

She also asked the mayor: "Why is it so weird to be able to just say, 'I am pro-black'? I am pro-black doesn't mean that I'm not for all the people. That's the thing."

Bonaccorso then told the diverse crowd, "I am pro-black for all the good black people that I know in my life."

His remark drew audible displeasure from the crowd. Clark has a population of less than 16,000, according to the Census Bureau, which also reports 92.5 percent of the township's residents are white.

Story continues

Bonaccorso, a Republican, went on to say: "Hey, folks, listen. I can't say I am for anybody if I don't know you. I'm for people. Good people. Law-abiding, hardworking, good family, good friends. People with good intentions. If youre black, great. If you're white, great. If you're, Hispanic, great. It doesn't matter. I judge people on how you judge me.

"If you want to be my friend and stick your hand out, I'll shake your hand. I'll look you in the eye," he continued. "My family is Italian-American. When my grandfather came to this country, he was discriminated against."

Denny said the mayor's inability to even consider what the woman was saying in the moments leading up to his comment showed protesters "that he's just unwilling to budge in his beliefs and that those beliefs may be a true reflection of the town's beliefs since he has been the mayor there for the past 20 years."

In a statement posted to his Facebook page Wednesday afternoon, Bonaccorso said he has been mayor for a long time and is still learning.

"As a public official, I felt that it was my duty to speak to all of those present in hopes of fostering an atmosphere of goodwill and progress between the citizens of Rahway and Clark," he said. "I truly meant it when I told everyone in attendance, 'If I didn't care. I wouldn't be here.'"

He said his goal when he spoke was to reiterate and affirm that "we want Clark Township to be a place where everyone feels welcome."

"Looking back on what I said and seeing some of the public reaction to it, I see that I may have fallen short of that goal and I would like to clarify my answer to a questions that was posed," he said. "An attendee asked me, 'Are you pro black?' The answer is of course, and unequivocally, yes."

Bonaccorso said he also truly believes "that Black Lives Matter" and that the black people who live, work, visit or pass through Clark "are all an integral part" of what makes the township such a great place.

"I pride myself on the fact that I never judge someone based on their skin color; but, only on who they are as a person and how they treat others," he said. "I recognize that my remarks may not have accurately represented how I feel."
Abuja, June 9, 2020  Authorities in Nigeria should publicly disclose why they are seeking journalist Cletus Opukeme, and should not harass reporters over their professional connections, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

At about 3 p.m. on May 28, at the Nigeria Union of Journalists' office in Warri, a city in southern Delta State, police officers approached Mathew Omonigho, a correspondent with the privately-owned Daily Post newspaper, and asked him about Opukeme's location, according to a Daily Post report and Omonigho, who spoke to CPJ via phone calls and messaging app.

When Omonigho said he did not know where Opukeme was, the officers grabbed him, tore his trousers, cut his belt, forced him into a vehicle, and took him to the Warri police station, where they interrogated him about Opukeme's whereabouts, Omonigho said.

While Omonigho was in detention, four other reportersEdeki Igafe, with the government-owned News Agency of Nigeria, Christopher Odamah, with the Delta Trumpet newspaper, Onyekachukwu Meluwa, with the privately-owned Punch newspaper, and Francis Sadhere, with the privately-owned Business Day newspaperarrived at the Warri police station to investigate his arrest, and police then arrested them as well, Meluwa, Sadhere, and Odamah told CPJ. The journalists said police also questioned them about Opukeme's whereabouts.

Opukeme, the publisher of the privately-owned Daily Watch news website, told CPJ that he went into hiding after learning of the other journalists' arrests. He told CPJ he believes authorities are searching for him in relation to DailyWatch reporting on alleged corruption involving Godswill Akpabio, the minister of Niger Delta Affairs. He told CPJ that he is still in hiding as of today.

Opukeme said that in mid-May, Anietie Ekong, Akpabio's media aide, sent him threatening messages about his reporting, accusing him of writing false reports and saying he would deal with him.

In the evening of May 28, police released Omonigho, Igafe, Odamah, Meluwa, and Sadhere without charge, after interventions by the state commissioner of police, Hafiz Muhammed Inuwa, and the Nigeria Union of Journalists chairman, Michael Ikeagwu, the journalists said.

Nigeria's police must stop detaining and questioning journalists, and should disclose the reason they are pursuing journalist Cletus Opukeme, said Angela Quintal, CPJ's Africa program coordinator, in New York. The Nigerian press must be allowed to work freely, without police or other state agents harassing, arresting, and interrogating them.

Omonigho told CPJ that the police said they arrested him because he had a link to Opukeme and tried to compel him to reveal Opukeme's home address, which he said he did not know. He told CPJ he only knows Opukeme as a fellow journalist working in the area.

After seizing Omonigho's two phones, the officers said he must know Opukeme's location because his number was saved in his contacts list, Omonigho told CPJ.

Omonigho said that police officer also showed him a map application on a cell phone that they said was used to track cell phones locations. Earlier this year, CPJ documented how police in Nigeria have used phone surveillance to lure and arrest journalists.

Meluwa, Sadhere, and Odamah, who spoke with CPJ by phone and messaging app, said police also seized and searched their phones for Opukeme's number, and then detained them after finding it saved in three of their phones. They told CPJ that officers questioned them about why they had Opukeme's phone number, and asked about Opukeme's whereabouts, but said they told authorities that they did not know Opukeme's location.

Meluwa told CPJ that he was forced to sign a bond of one million naira ($2,591) for the release of all the journalists. The officers made Meluwa sign the bond because he was the only one who did not have Opukeme's phone number in his phone, Meluwa said.

Omonigho said he was forced to verbally commit to helping bring Opukeme into custody as a condition for his release. Police did not file any charges against any of the journalists, they told CPJ.

The journalists said that their phones were returned upon release, but they were told to return to the police station the following day; after doing so and waiting for three hours, the officers on duty said there was no information regarding their case and they were free to go, according to the journalists and a spokesperson of the Delta State police command, Onome Onovwakpoyeya, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.

Onovwakpoyeya told CPJ that she did not know the reason for the journalists' arrests.

Opukeme said that security officers in plain clothes questioned his wife, Kate Opukeme, about his location on May 29.

Opukeme's lawyer, Oghenejabor Ikimi, told CPJ by phone that he was informed of the threats by Ekong, and that his office was writing to Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission about the situation.

Omonigho told CPJ by phone that he received a call from a man who identified himself as Reuben Noah on May 29 asking him to help apprehend Opukeme, but did not elaborate or identify himself further.

CPJ's calls and messages to Ekong, Inuwa, and Frank Mba, a spokesperson for Nigeria's federal police, went unanswered.
WASHINGTON - Hundreds of protesters who minutes earlier had been dancing in the street fell silent when Kenithia Alston described the fatal shooting of her son by District of Columbia police.

Her voice breaking, Alston detailed a futile effort to get information about his killing and a more than year-long, unsuccessful fight to convince Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, to publicly release body-camera footage. During days of demonstrations in the nation's capital, Alston has repeatedly spoken to the crowd about the 2018 death of her son, Marqueese Alston, hoping to draw attention to the lack of transparency that activists have decried for years.

"Tell this mayor to release the body cam," Alston said Saturday, speaking from the bed of a truck where a band had been blasting go-go music. "We got 'Black Lives Matter' spray-painted across Lafayette Square. Do black lives really matter?"

With D.C. a focal point in nationwide protests and the D.C. Council on Tuesday approving a sweeping package of police reforms, Alston and activists are hoping the moment for change has arrived.

Among other changes, the emergency legislation unanimously approved by the city council mandates that the public release of body camera video from instances where city police use deadly force, including past cases.

D.C. police say officers fired at Marqueese Alston after he shot at them. His mother, who was allowed to view the body-camera video last year, said what she saw does not back up that account. She has long wanted the footage out in the open so people can make up their own minds.

D.C.'s police force was an early adopter of body cameras, launching a pilot program in 2014 in the wake of a shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo. By the end of 2016, the city's 2,600 patrol officers had cameras. At the time, officials said no other city had more officers wearing cameras.

Since the rollout, there has been debate in D.C. and across the country about who gets to see videos from the cameras. Proponents of public release argued it was hypocritical to adopt a program to increase transparency and at the same time block or make it difficult for the public to obtain the videos. Police said that they need to protect investigations and that the video does not always provide a full picture of events.

The law already allowed people to request video through D.C. police or a public records request, but many were denied when investigations were in progress. D.C. also allows people who are in the videos to watch them at a police station.

The mayor has had the authority to publicly release police body camera video "in matters of significant public interest" - which has generally meant cases that generate attention or outcry.

The emergency legislation, effective immediately, mandates that following a deadly or serious use-of-force encounter involving police, footage from body cameras be publicly released within 72 hours. The legislation sponsored by D.C. Council member Charles Allen, a Democrat, also requires the names of officers involved in those incidents be released.

The legislation, which includes other policy changes, will be in effect for 90 days, a period that can be extended for several months with a later vote. If the council wants to make the changes permanent, there will need to be standard legislative process that would include public hearings.

"We were on the leading edge when the body worn camera program started, and we were very proud," Allen said. "But five years later, a lot of other jurisdictions have passed us when it comes to transparency. It's time for us to step up."

"It woudn't have even gotten close to getting out of committee," said Allen, who chairs the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. "It is only the result of so many voices speaking out and building the political will."

Among the large departments nationwide that routinely make body-camera video public in critical police incidents include those in Baltimore, St. Louis and New Orleans. In the past week, Fairfax County, Va., police released body-camera video as they announced assault charges against an officer who used a stun gun on a man who did not appear combative.

"Why else would you have a police body-camera program if you're not going to make it public," said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. "If you're not prepared to do that, then you should think twice about implementing a body-camera program."

Bowser said at a news conference Monday that she broadly supported the legislation. But she also said officials "certainly think the body-worn camera program works."

Asked about complaints from families whose loved ones have been fatally shot by police, Bowser said: "I don't know that I could agree that questions have gone unanswered."

Marqueese Alston, who was 22 when he was killed, was living in D.C. and trying to find a job, his mother said. He has a daughter, who was then 2 years old.

Kenithia Alston said she learned about her son's death from a friend of his the night of the June 12, 2018, shooting. She said she did not hear from police until the next day, when officers told her that Marqueese Alston had been involved in "an incident," gave her the business card of a sergeant in internal affairs and a Google printout of the D.C. medical examiner's information, according to Emily Gunston, deputy legal director at the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, who testified before the D.C. Council last year.

"This is the only communication she received from the City for almost a year," wrote Gunston, who began working with Alston in March 2019. "Obtaining access to this video should have been a simple task."

It was only in August, after D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, a Democrat, met with Alston, that Bowser's office allowed Alston to watch the footage, Gunston wrote. Alston was permitted to bring three people. She declined to discuss her specific recollections of the video, but said she left unconvinced of the police narrative.

She said she still does not know the names of the officers who shot her son and fears returning to the neighborhood where his daughter, now 4, still lives.

D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said in an interview Monday that the officers who shot Marqueese Alston have been cleared by the department. He described Marqueese Alston as a "convicted offender armed with an illegal gun who shot at a police officer."

Two officers fired back in self-defense, the chief said, and a gun was recovered.

Marqueese Alston was on supervised release when he was killed, after serving 30 months in prison for an armed robbery.

Newsham said at the time that officers encountered Marqueese Alston during a saturation patrol effort targeting guns and repeat offenders in an area east of the Anacostia River that has for several years led the city in homicides.

In D.C., some say Marqueese Alston's case has too long been ignored. April Goggans, a core organizer of Black Lives Matter in the city, posted an emotional video Saturday from the protest in which she said she was "frustrated because none of these people know the names of the people who died right here."

"For the past hour, all I can think of is watching Marqueese Alston's body on the ground," she said. "And Mayor Bowser has never said anything."

Bowser did not directly address a question about Alston at a news conference in which she celebrated the Black Lives Matter mural painted on a street that leads to the White House.

She has released body-camera video in fatal incidents involving police at least four times since 2015, including footage showing the aftermath of the shooting of Terrence Sterling, a 31-year-old motorcyclist who struck a police vehicle with his bike while trying to elude a stop and was shot by an officer. The officer was not criminally charged but was fired by the department.

"The community just wants transparency," said public defender Quo Judkins, who protested with Kenithia Alston on Monday.

Kenithia Alston raised her fist and chanted with Judkins and dozens who gathered outside the D.C. Superior Court: "No justice, no peace!"

"I just want the truth," she said. "If my son did what the chief said, why won't they just release the footage?"

On Tuesday afternoon, Kenithia Alston beamed when she learned the D.C. Council had approved the body-camera measure. She said she did not know what the next step would be for her, but she planned to call her lawyer. The legislation requires the city to release the video by July 1.

"I'm like so grateful," she said. "I feel like this is one step closer to seeking my baby's truth."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 18:03:30|Editor: huaxia

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PRAGUE, June 9 (Xinhua) -- A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in the Czech Republic on Tuesday reprimanded President of the Czech Senate Milos Vystrcil for his planned trip to Taiwan.

Such a visit would mean a blatant support for the separatist forces and activities of the "Taiwan independence", which seriously infringes China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, violates basic norms of international relations and bilateral political commitments, and causes grave damage to the premise and political foundation for China-Czech cooperation, according to a statement from the Chinese embassy.

The Chinese side expressed strong dissatisfaction with and firm opposition to Vystrcil's planned visit, the statement said, adding that the Chinese side firmly opposes any form of official exchanges between Taiwan and countries that have diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.

Some Czech politicians brushed aside China-Czech relations and reciprocal cooperation by insisting on planning a so-called visit to the Taiwan region, the embassy noted.

They not only tried to undermine China's sovereignty on the Taiwan question, but even slandered the legitimate act of opposing their interference in China's internal affairs and safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity as an "interference" in Czech's internal affairs, falsely claiming that paying visits to Taiwan is to "safeguard Czech sovereignty."

What they have done flies in face of the basic facts and international morality, the embassy said.

There is only one China in the world and Taiwan is part of it. Both the United Nations and the European Union uphold the one-China principle.

The Czech Republic has always been committed to pursuing the one-China policy, the embassy said, urging some Czech politicians not to take the issues concerning China's sovereignty and territorial integrity as personal tools for political manipulation, but to put the common interests of the two peoples first, and return to the track of promoting the development of China-Czech relations and mutually beneficial cooperation.

Vystrcil announced earlier that he was planning a trip to Taiwan in late August. Enditem
In his final year before he was abruptly fired as the State Departments inspector general, Steve Linick kept running into a senior aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo  and the encounters werent always pleasant.

At times, the aide, Undersecretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao, would act in a professional manner, Linick told congressional investigators. At other times, Linick recalled, he tried to bully me.

Bulatao isnt just any colleague of the secretary of State. He is one of Pompeos best friends, dating back to when they met at West Point as members of the class of 1986. The two have been business partners. And when Pompeo went to lead the CIA, then later jumped to State, he gave Bulatao top positions at both institutions.

In the months since joining State, Bulatao appears to have emerged as an enforcer and a shield for Pompeo in ways that are now drawing attention from Democrats probing Linicks mid-May firing.

According to Linick, Bulatao tried to dissuade him from pursuing an investigation into how the secretary handled a Saudi arms sale, and at one point Bulatao implied he wanted to oversee a probe into Linicks office.

Linick said he told Bulatao and other top State Department officials that he was investigating Pompeo and his wifes use of department resources, even though Pompeo has said he had no knowledge of such a probe before he pushed for Linicks ouster. Linick also said Bulatao tried to draw him into department activities that Linick felt he could not get involved in without compromising his role as an independent watchdog.

Sometimes I felt he was unfamiliar with the role of inspectors general, Linick told lawmakers and their staffers last week about Bulatao, according to a transcript of his interview released Wednesday.

Asked about Linicks comments and Bulataos alleged treatment of him, Pompeo on Wednesday trashed the fired inspector general and suggested he disagreed with the longstanding tradition that such watchdogs operate independently of the institutions they examine.

Story continues

Steve Linick was a bad actor in the inspector general office here, the secretary insisted in a session with reporters. He didnt take on the mission of the State Department to make us better. Thats what inspector generals are supposed to do; they work for the agency head  thats me  and they are supposed to deliver and help make that organization better. Its not what Mr. Linick did.

Since taking over the State Department in April 2018, Pompeo has relied upon a tight-knit group of official and unofficial advisers, some of whom hes known for many years, and one of whom also is his wife, Susan. President Donald Trump fired Linick last month on Pompeos recommendation, and the storm of controversy that has ensued since has focused attention on this inner circle.

Linick was investigating the role Susan Pompeo has played at the department and whether she and her husband improperly used State Department staffers to run personal errands for them. One of those State staffers, Toni Porter, is another member of the inner circle who worked for Pompeo when he was a Republican congressman from Kansas as well as at the CIA.

Bulatao isnt even the only fellow West Point classmate to join Pompeo at State; Pompeos de facto chief of staff, Ulrich Brechbuhl, also is there. But its Bulatao whose actions are spurring the most public concerns on the Hill and who has publicly gone to bat for his friend and boss in the wake of Linicks firing.

Bulatao did not respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday. In an emailed statement, a State Department spokesperson called him a consummate professional who is well respected within the Department, across the interagency, and by congressional leaders."

The spokesperson added, "As Mr. Linick points out in his interview with Congress, he never felt pressured to change any of the findings or conclusions of investigations and he also stated he was never asked to stop looking into any investigations."

In a June 1 letter to House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, as well as in an interview with The Washington Post, he has offered reasons for Pompeos recommendation that Trump fire Linick.

A major reason, Bulatao has said, is that Linick had failed to follow instructions from State Department leaders on how to arrange a probe into his own office over alleged leaks to the media. Bulatao also said the department was concerned about the leaks in general, but it had no evidence that Linick was behind them.

Furthermore, Bulatao insisted in his letter that, ultimately, its up to the president whether to fire an inspector general. Because Mr. Linicks removal fell within the lawful prerogative of the executive branch, its difficult to understand why the Foreign Affairs Committee believes this action would warrant the time or resources contemplated by the committees several requests for transcribed interviews of department personnel, Bulatao wrote.

Linick disputes Bulataos account of how he handled the outside probe into his office, telling lawmakers that he kept State Department leaders apprised of the steps along the way. Linick also said Bulatao indicated he wanted to manage the scope and direction of that investigation into Linick and his team, which he deemed an improper breach of the office's traditional independence. The outside probe, eventually handled by the inspector general of the Defense Department, ultimately found no evidence that Linicks office was the source of the leaks.

Pompeo on Wednesday said he wasnt happy with those results. Theres still work going on, Pompeo said. I dont want to comment it  on it other than to say that we have asked for a more thorough investigation than Mr. Linick had permitted.

The leak in question involved a mid-September story published in The Daily Beast about some of the findings of a Linick-led investigation into political retaliation against career State Department employees. The story cited two government sources involved in carrying out the investigation.

Linick noted in his interview that by the time the story ran, his office had already shared a draft of the findings with the State Departments leadership. So there were people outside his office who had access to the findings.

Linick told congressional investigators Bulatao demanded that he stop looking into Pompeos decision to declare an emergency to push through an arms sale to Saudi Arabia against the will of Congress. Bulatao told him that he shouldnt be investigating a policy choice, Linick said. The former inspector general said he responded by saying that while his office couldnt make policy, it was permitted to investigate how a policy was being implemented.

When asked how Bulatao responded to that, Linick said, He just continued to push back. Linick, however, did say that Bulatao didnt say stop our work. I dont want to misstate. He said that we shouldnt be doing the work because it was a policy matter not within the IGs jurisdiction.

According to Linick, Bulatao was also among a handful of top aides to Pompeo who was told about the inspector generals investigation into the use of State Department resources by the secretary and his wife. Bulatao and others were told in late 2019, in part because the inspector generals office would be obtaining documents for its investigation, Linick said.

I wanted to make sure everybody was aware so that they wouldnt be surprised, Linick said, referring to the seventh floor  the section of the State Departments headquarters that houses the secretarys office.

When pressed on whether he meant he wanted Pompeo to know about the case, Linick wouldnt directly say yes or no, only that he wanted the entire seventh floor to be aware.

Pompeo told The Washington Post that he could not have pushed for Linicks firing to retaliate against him over that investigation because he didnt know about it. But current and former State Department officials say it beggars belief that neither Bulatao nor other aides would have mentioned such a probe to Pompeo.

Democrats now question the veracity of Bulataos account of Linicks firing in his June 1 letter. They also say that firing Linick undermined the intent of statutes intended to guard the independence of inspectors general. Besides, they note, Trump has sidelined several inspectors general in recent weeks, suggesting he is trying to reduce oversight and accountability of his administration.

I dont know him at all. I never even heard of him, Trump said of Linick when asked why he fired him. I was asked to [fire Linick] by the State Department, by Mike. The president also noted that Linick was an appointee of former President Barack Obama as another reason he fell from favor.

A Democratic congressional aide told POLITICO that, although their investigation is ultimately about Pompeos conduct, all roads seem to go through Mr. Bulatao, his close friend.

The question is, will Mr. Bulatao have the courage to tell his side of the story to Congress on the record, or will he keep hiding behind strongly worded letters? the aide said.

Current and former State Department officials who have engaged with Bulatao describe him as bright, quick to grasp details and not shy about making decisions. One current official said hed pleased many by greenlighting efforts to get funding for a new building for the Foreign Service Institute.

A former senior State Department official, though, said Bulatao often delegated many tasks to his deputy and acted more as a consigliere  or an all-around adviser  to Pompeo, meaning he didnt necessarily stick to the typical issues of logistics, facilities, technology and other aspects of the management undersecretarys role.

Bulatao has often praised Pompeo in public  once calling the secretary a great simplifier.

Pompeo is one of those people who can look at a very complex, very dynamic situation and get to the heart of what is the most critical thing that we need to answer in order to achieve the outcome, and that is a gift that not many people have, Bulatao said in a local media interview.

Bulatao and Pompeo have deep ties, having met as cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Pompeo made a mark at the institution, graduating first in their class. Bulatao grew up in rural Pennsylvania and he told senators during his confirmation process that both those roots and his time at West Point gave him enthusiasm for public service.

After West Point, Bulatao served as an active-duty infantry officer for seven years, and his deployments included Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield in Iraq. Along the way, he became an airborne Ranger  among the most elite troops in the Army.

He later attended Harvard Business School (Pompeo attended the law school there) and over the years has held a number of private sector jobs, including with the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. His bond with Pompeo remained strong enough that the two, along with Brechbuhl, teamed up to form Thayer Aerospace, a Kansas-based firm that made components for aircraft.

The three eventually went their separate ways, with Pompeo winning a House seat. But after Trump named Pompeo his CIA director, Pompeo asked Bulatao to join him in a newly recast role he called the spy agencys chief operating officer.

President Donald Trump with Bulatao during a swearing-in ceremony for incoming CIA Director Gina Haspel in 2018.

Bulatao took a businesslike approach to the assignment. In a speech to former CIA officers, Bulatao discussed his High Five priorities for the agency, including streamlining hiring, improving technology and finding new ways to protect staffers identities. A CIA account of the speech, dated March 9 2018, quotes Bulatao as saying, It gets into your blood, working here at CIA; its unlike any other place.

But within a few days of that account, Trump had fired then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and asked Pompeo to be his chief diplomat. Pompeo asked Bulatao to join him at the State Department.

It was roughly a year before Bulatao was confirmed for the undersecretarys job, however. Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a vocal Pompeo foe on Capitol Hill, put a hold on Bulataos nomination until after Pompeo agreed to hand over some material related to an investigation into political retribution at State.

Since officially assuming a spot at Foggy Bottom, Bulatao has largely avoided headlines until now. One notable exception: NBC News mentioned Bulatao in an investigation into Mina Chang, a young woman given a job as a deputy assistant secretary after allegedly inflating her resume.

NBC News said Chang leveraged social connections to people including Bulatao to get the position, but a spokesman for Chang denied Bulatao had any hand in her hiring. Either way, the story raised questions about hiring and vetting procedures at the State Department, where security clearances are needed to deal with an array of classified material.

Linick said Bulatao tried to engage him on a number of fronts he felt were inappropriate, though he suggested it may have been because Bulatao didnt understand the traditional independent role of an inspector general.

At one point, I met with him in 2019. Im not sure of the exact date, but he did ask me if I had plans to leave the Department at the end of the administration, Linick said. I told him that IGs are nonpartisan and typically stay through the change of administration, and he seemed surprised.

In his conversation with The Washington Post, Bulatao criticized Linick for not promoting the secretary of States professional ethos statement. When asked about this, Linick said he felt it was inappropriate to join in that initiative given his role as a watchdog of the department.

In another case, Bulatao asked Linick to help design the departments response to Covid-19, the Diplomacy Strong program, Linick said. And I did advise him that that wouldnt be appropriate for me to do that because we may be auditing the Departments efforts to address Covid-19.


Professor David Levine from the University of California, Berkeley, says a study of people in Spain and Italy has provided a shred of evidence that the BCG vaccination may protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The analysis found that among people born when Spain had a program for universal BCG vaccination, rates of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths were slightly lower compared with among people in Italy where no such universal BCG program was ever introduced.

Levine hopes the findings will encourage analysts to access more detailed data covering more outcomes by age and larger sample size to help provide more reliable data.

A pre-print version of the paper can be accessed on the server medRxiv*, while the article undergoes peer review.

Bacille Calmette Guerin vaccine (BCG) skin scars. Image Credit: MD_Photography / Shutterstock

BCG and COVID-19

According to Levine, evidence suggests that BCG (Bacillus CalmetteGuerin) vaccination against tuberculosis strengthens the innate immune system response against other diseases, possibly including COVID-19.

Bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. Illustration Credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock

Nations such as Italy and the United States, where BCG vaccination was never made universal, have higher reported rates of COVID-19, compared with nations where vaccination was made universal.

This led to randomized trials looking at whether vaccination protected against COVID-19 among health workers, but results were unreliable because countries with ongoing BCG vaccination tend to be under-resourced and would have lower COVID-19 testing rates.

Now, Levine has expanded on these studies by examining data from Spain, where universal BCG vaccination was carried out between 1965 and 1981. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 and mortality were assessed among cohorts born approximately a decade before and a decade after Spain ended the vaccination program in 1981. The results were compared with those from similar cohorts in Italy, where universal BCG vaccination was never introduced.

Similarities between Spain and Italy

Spain and Italy are similar in many ways, and before the COVID-19 outbreak, life expectancy was almost 83 years in both countries, which is among the highest in Europe. Both countries have good-quality healthcare systems that are mainly free of cost, and the nations have a similar age distribution, similar obesity, and diabetes rates, and a similar availability of hospital beds.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China, late last year, the pandemic quickly started spreading in Italy and Spain in mid-February, and by the end of March, both countries had the highest numbers of confirmed cases in the world.

At the time of our data collection, both nations had similar rates of mortality attributed to COVID and of COVID testing per million population, writes Levine.

What did the study find?

The study examined confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths using data available for 10-year age groupings in each country, with data from Spain covering up to 1st May 2020 and data from Italy covering up to 28th April.

In Italy, the number of confirmed cases among people in their 40s was 1.70 for each once case among people in their 30s. In Spain, the number among people in their 40s was 1.55 for each one case among people in their 30s.

Among those in the Spanish cohort that received BCG vaccination, the likelihood of a confirmed case of COVID-19 was significantly lower, with a relative risk of 0.962.

In Italy, the number of confirmed deaths from COVID-19 among those in their 40s was more than four for each one death among those in their 30s. In Spain, the number was just under three among those in their 40s for each death among those in their 30s.

Evidence suggested that the BCG cohort in Spain had lower mortality, with a relative risk of 0.929, although the small sample size meant this reduction in risk was not statistically significant.

A shred of evidence

These suggestive results provide a shred of evidence that BCG vaccinations help protect against COVID, says Levine.

However, the study uses coarse measures of exposure to BCG vaccination and broad age ranges, with no covariates aside from a basic adjustment for age distribution, he adds.

In short, an important reason for releasing this analysis is to encourage analysts with access to more detailed data to perform a regression discontinuity study with narrower bandwidth, says Levine.

He suggests that data on outcomes by age or year of birth would enable the analysis to be repeated using confirmed cases over a narrower bandwidth of ages such as 36-38 years and 40-42 years, for example: As the age window narrows, the study design becomes closer to a regression discontinuity design, which is more credible.

Levine concludes by saying it would also be useful to make comparisons with other nearby nations such as France and Portugal and to have additional data on other outcomes such as hospitalizations.

*Important Notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
LONDON - The protests that left much of the world in a haze of tear gas last year were slowed by a pandemic  until the death of George Floyd sparked a global uprising against police brutality and racial inequality.

From Hong Kong to Khartoum, Baghdad to Beirut, Gaza to Paris and Caracas to Santiago, people took to the streets in 2019 for the pursuits of freedom, sovereignty or simply a life less shackled by hardship while few prospered. It seemed as if the streets were agitated everywhere but the United States.

Now, after the death of Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who died in police custody when a white officer pressed his knee into Floyds neck for several minutes, protests rage around the globe.

Police or military brutality and racism are universal dynamics that are experienced in many societies.

The very nature of a protest suggests a fervent desire for change, the need to right a perceived historic injustice. Its a means to an end. But to what end? Depending on the government the activists are demanding change from, the results can be varied.

Demonstrations were held last week in solidarity with American protesters, but Floyds death also had resonance and reverberations far beyond U.S. shores because of those lives lost closer to home in similar circumstances.

As the coronavirus crisis eased in China, protesters in Hong Kong, the semi-autonomous territory, began to emerge again. And Beijing moved swiftly to quash the movement that caused unrest for months last year, enacting a national security law that would effectively end the existence of one country, two systems.

A democratic government that is amenable to the changes may enact legislation, or a change of leadership can be forced at the ballot box.

An authoritarian regime, however, does not often bend. Protesting against a dictatorship can be a life-or-death struggle which may even require activists to make a deal with the countrys military. Confronting tyranny can also backfire, the result a more dictatorial leader or a ruinous civil war.

Heres a look at some of the key protests of recent decades and what they achieved or failed.

AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS

The protests that erupted across a scarred U.S. landscape last week had the unusual characteristic of being largely leaderless and are still evolving, though the Black Lives Matter movement was focal. During the critical era of the 1950s and 60s, Martin Luther King Jr., who led the 250,000 strong March on Washington in 1963, and Malcolm X were colossal 20th century figures, representing two different tracks: mass non-violent protest and getting favourable outcomes by any means necessary. The Civil Rights Acts, initiated by the Kennedy administration, and Voting Rights Act were passed by the Johnson administration, which was sympathetic to tackling endemic racism in the nation. These were key inflection points. But social injustice and the Vietnam War continued to dominate the American decade and beyond, reaching a crescendo of civil unrest in 1968 which has been echoed in 2020.

Democrats in Congress are proposing an overhaul of police procedures and accountability, but like so much in Washington this has been snagged by partisanship. Key Democrats, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, are also distancing themselves from liberal calls to defund the police as President Donald Trump and his Republican allies blast the proposal.

THE IRON CURTAIN FALLS

Revolution was in the air in Eastern Europe in 1989, powered by a flowering of civil resistance to overthrow Communist rule. One-by-one, countries fell in a reverse-domino effect  Washington had always been concerned about the dominoes falling in the Soviet Unions favour. The final Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, laid the groundwork for this tectonic shift. The Berlin Wall fell and one-party rule was swept aside in East Germany, Poland and other states once cast as being behind the Iron Curtain, mostly bloodlessly  the exception being in Romania where the tyranny of Nicolae Ceausescu and his family was ended by a firing squad on Christmas Day. This period also included a Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, which was the historical antidote to the Prague Spring, a period of liberalization in embracing communism with a human face that was ruthlessly crushed by more than half a million Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops in 1968.

THE ARAB SPRING AND THE CURRENT REDUX

It was two decades before the world witnessed another wave of protests consume an entire region. This one was the first to be captured on a new digital platform, social media. After decades of dictatorship and kleptocracy, the Arab World became intoxicated by the heady mix of possibility and immediacy. And rulers did fall: in Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia in 2011. But only the latter transitioned to a democratic next chapter.

Egypt now lives under even more authoritarian rule, where all dissent is extinguished and thousands languish in prison. Yemen and Libya have been torn to shreds by conflict and humanitarian catastrophe. Syria exploded quickly from an uprising against the Assad dynasty to ruinous civil war which still continues with more than half million dead and millions displaced.

In neighbouring Lebanon and in Iraq, civil protests erupted last October against ruling elites. Lebanon is suffering a confluence of crises as it lurches on the cusp of national bankruptcy. In Iraq, too, where protesters had been killed in scores, the health care system is not equipped to deal with COVID-19 and the loss of oil revenue is hitting hard. Protests seem likely to reignite in both places.

THE SPIRIT OF 2019 AND 2020

Sudan captured much of what civil disobedience and protest can achieve  as well its painful cost with many killed and systemic rapes  as the fragile transition to a new era continues. The protest movement succeeded in ousting a longtime military strongman who faces genocide and war crimes charges. President Omar al-Bashir was toppled in April 2019, forcing the creation of a joint civilian-military ruling sovereign council. But the civilians are struggling to assert authority in the face of the militarys power.

Hong Kongs protests, which began one year ago this week, seemed to embody all the facets of democratic aspiration: But the clear intent of President of Xi Jinping and the overwhelming might of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army makes it ever more likely that the territory will be under Beijing rule much sooner than 2047 as agreed upon. The landmark 1997 agreement in which the British colony was formally handed over to China, had stipulated things would remain unchanged for 50 years.

___

Tamer Fakahany is APs deputy director for global news co-ordination and has helped direct international coverage for the AP for 17 years. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tamerfakahany.
Houston, June 10 : The funeral of African American George Floyd was held in the southern US city of Houston, where he was brought up and spent most of his life, two weeks after his tragic death in police custody in Minneapolis.

Hundreds of people came to say a final goodbye to Floyd at the Fountain of Praise Church on Tuesday. Memorial services had also been held for Floyd in Minneapolis and North Carolina, Xinhua news agency reported.

Beginning at around 11 a.m. Central Time (1600 GMT), the private funeral service celebrated Floyd's home-coming with over an hour of singing and praying, before families and friends took turns to share their memories of Floyd and his 46 years of life.

Former US Vice President Joe Biden sent his condolences to Floyd's family via video.

Speaking to Floyd's six-year-old daughter, Gianna, Biden said, "You're so brave ... No child should have to ask questions that too many black children have had to ask for generations: Why? Why's daddy gone?" "Why, in this nation, do too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life? " he continued.

"When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America," said the expected Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election.

Mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner announced at the funeral that he would sign an executive order banning city police from using chokeholds and strangleholds.

Officers will also be required to give a warning before shooting, he added.

"We honour him today," said Turner. "Because when he took his last breath, the rest of us will now be able to breathe." Floyd is expected to be laid to rest next to his mother, who he called out for during his final moment of suffocation as his neck was under a white police officer's knee.

Floyd's death has galvanized a movement in the country and beyond calling for racial justice and police reform. Protests have been held across the country in the past two weeks with tens of thousands showing up, which sometimes ended in late-night violence and looting.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria is lifting checks at its border with Italy and ending quarantine requirements for more than 20 European countries as of June 16, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said on Wednesday.

Austria draws many of its visitors from neighbouring Germany, with which it has already reopened its border, so the move will have a greater effect on Austrians, who will be able to return from summer destinations like Italy and Croatia without having to go into quarantine or show a negative test.

"We are opening Austria's borders to all EU, EFTA (European Free Trade Association) and EEA (European Economic Area) states with four notable exceptions - those are Sweden, Great Britain, Spain and Portugal," Schallenberg told a news conference.

He added that since Spain has said it will keep its borders closed until the end of June, the two countries could mutually lift restrictions on July 1. Restrictions on the other three will remain in place for the time being. Health Minister Rudolf Anschober cited Britain and Sweden's higher infection rates.

Austria, which borders eight countries, last week lifted checks for all of them but Italy, infuriating Rome. This move will ease tensions with its southern neighbour but it comes with what Schallenberg called a "partial travel warning" for Lombardy, the region with Italy's worst coronavirus outbreak.

"We very urgently warn Austrians against travel to this region," he said, without saying what that would mean in practical terms for anyone arriving in Austria from Lombardy.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Alison Williams and Giles Elgood)
A suspect in the disappearance of toddler Madeleine McCann attacked his British ex-girlfriend in a jealous rage, then hid waiting for her under the bed.

Christian Brueckner viciously assaulted the woman, who does not want to be named, after she hugged another man, by slamming her head against the wall of a ladies toilet at a bar in the Algarve.

Brueckner then broke into her flat and hid under the bed, waiting for her to return, but when she got back he calmly left, saying 'goodbye' on his way out, as reported by the Daily Mirror.

The couple ended their relationship in mid-2005, and he then embarked on a stalking campaign against her, but was never charged, despite Portuguese police being called out twice to deal with him.

She has now revealed the convicted paedophile could be responsible for killing Madeleine.

Christian Brueckner (pictured) viciously assaulted the woman, who does not want to be named, after she hugged another man

The victim, from Berkshire, told the newspaper: 'Until now I've refused to believe someone I was involved with could commit such a horrible and disgusting thing like hurting a child.

'But I'm not sure anymore. I'm starting to wonder if he did do it. And if he did, he needs to be really punished for it.'

'It's chilling to think my ex is suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann. I can't cope with it.'

Brueckner is at the centre of a major row in Germany over whether he should be freed as it emerged that a judicial error meant he was released from prison in 2018 and allowed to travel undisturbed through Europe for weeks.

The serial sex offender, who has a total 17 convictions and is being held in solitary confinement in a high-security prison in north Germany allegedly for his own safety, has now applied for early release after reaching the two thirds point of a drug dealing sentence on Sunday.

He has not been charged over Madeleine's disappearance in 2007 and cannot be held for it. Prosecutors admitted they didn't have enough evidence to question him.

Brueckner has not been charged over Madeleine's (pictured) disappearance in 2007

The 45-year-old first met Brueckner in the Algarve town of Lagos in late 2003 after spending a number of years in the Netherlands.

She landed a job at Taberna de Lagos restaurant - now called Sal e Companhia - and said Brueckner was 'very funny' and 'dressed nicely'.

The woman would stay at his house rented farmhouse on the outskirts of Praia da Luz, and said he was 'very charming' and 'chivalrous'.

But things started to change in 2004 when she met up with a male friend, and he had 'previously threatened the guy' for speaking to her.

The couple then began arguing and he said that 'English women are all lazy' for refusing to clean his house.

Brueckner then later that ear flew into a jealous rage at a bar called Metro Bar - now called Little Breakfast - on New Years Eve.

She said: 'Chris was at the bar and was drunk.

The victim landed a job at Taberna de Lagos restaurant - now called Sal e Companhia - and said Brueckner was 'very funny' and 'dressed nicely'

'Some really nice guys I'd made friends with came in from the bar next door to say happy New Year and gave me a hug.

'Chris just suddenly came round the bar in a crazy rage and dragged me out in front of everybody.

'He grabbed me by the neck, pulled me into the girls toilets and was ramming my head against the wall.'

She refused to talk to police and later was walked back home by some friends from the bar.

Brueckner came out from under the bed at her home and walked off, but the couple were back together just a few weeks later.

It was finally over when the woman found underwear in a bag belonging to him, but he then embarked on a stalking campaign against her.

She added: 'We had to call the police because he kept trying to get in,' she said. 'He was stalking me constantly.

'One day I was carrying a big tray of drinks and because I wouldn't talk to him he knocked them out of my hand and they went everywhere.

'The police were called and he was banned from coming inside.'

She added that she is happy to talk to the British police.

It's not the first time he has been accused of beating up woman as MailOnline revealed earlier today that he abused his 'naive' teenage girlfriend Nakscije Miftari and put her family through hell, her sister said.

Elder sister Azra Miftari revealed that Nakscije, now 25, has been interviewed by German detectives about the convicted paedophile and is under the care of a social worker.

Azra recalled how Brueckner, who had an 18-month relationship with Nakscije in 2014, was repeatedly cruel: 'He hit my sister. It was horrible for her.'
Businesses on the west side of the Birmingham metro area now have a resource as they navigate the coronavirus pandemic.

The Western Communities Redevelopment Alliance (WCRA) and the Five Points-West Business Alliance have launched the Western Small Business Accelerator, which will be offering Zoom webinars through the fall to help small businesses.

Jeremy Duckworth, WCRA executive director, said the accelerator currently has about 10 participating businesses stretching from east Birmingham all the way to Fairfield and Five Points West.

The accelerator combines the resources of the University of Alabama Culverhouse School LIFT program with the Midfield Chamber of Commerce, Fairfield Business Alliance and Bessemer Industrial Development Board.

Originally, the accelerator was focused on helping businesses with fundraising and growing. But since the pandemic-imposed recession began, efforts are more about survival, Duckworth said.

Were looking at making sure that businesses are bankable, he said. Well be talking about going after grants, SBA loans, working with traditional lenders. And theres also marketing. A lot of businesses dont have the first idea about how to run an ad campaign, how to utilize search engine optimization with Google, how to build a website. And a lot of those resources are free.

Frank Woodson, president of the Five Points West Business Alliance, said the accelerator will be the tool of choice to help businesses recover."

The heart of every economic recovery for a nation, a state, and a city has always been assisting the small business sector, but that we help it grow in order to put our neighbors back to work," he said.

For more information or to join the program, email Info@JeffCoWCRA.org.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Wednesday that the Lieutenant General Anil Baijal's orders would be implemented as this is no time for disagreements and agruments. LG Baijal had reversed the CM's orders to reserve Delhi hospitals only for Delhi residents.

"LG's directives will be implemented in letter and spirit, this is not the time for disagreements or arguments. Delhi government will follow the decision taken by the Centre and implement the orders of the Lieutenant General," said Kejriwal.

He however stated that if people from other states come to Delhi for treatment then the national capital would need far more beds than initially estimated. "If people from other states start coming to Delhi for treatment, we will need 1.5 lakh beds by July 31," said Kejriwal. This is a marked difference from the Delhi government's estimates that pegged the requirement for beds at 80,000 by end of July.

Kejriwal urged people to make it a people's movement to ensure social distancing and to wear masks just like the residents had done for odd-even scheme.

The CM said that Delhi is staring at a huge crisis that could unfold in the coming days. He added that data shows that there would be a significant increase in the number of cases in the coming days. "We have a big challenge ahead," he added.

On Sunday, CM Kejriwal said that only Delhi residents would be treated in Delhi government and private hospitals. He also mentioned the list of documents that would be accepted as proof of residence. The decision was overruled by LG Baijal who said that all Indians are equal hence must get the same treatment.

Also read: Coronavirus in Delhi: Jama Masjid likely to be closed again, says Shahi Imam
TORONTO, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Magna Terra Minerals Inc. (the Company or Magna Terra) (TSX-V: MTT) is pleased to announce that through its 100% owned Argentine subsidiary-Atala Resources S.A. (Atala) it has entered into an Agreement to sell its wholly owned Boleadora Project in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, to Oroplata S.A. (Oroplata) a subsidiary of Newmont Corporation (Newmont). The Boleadora Group of properties is a large greenfields exploration land package (approx. 55,000 hectares) encompassing 12 individual MDs or exploration licenses lying approximately 17 kilometres south-east of Newmonts Cerro Negro mine area in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Newmont (Oroplata) will pay Magna Terra (Atala) US$1 million as follows: $25k on signing and six installments totalling $975k payable within six years from the date of the Agreement. In addition, Newmont (Oroplata) has granted a 2% NSR to Magna Terra (Atala) on the Boleadora package. The royalty can be reduced to 1% by payment of US$2.5M by Oroplata to Atala at anytime, and the gross royalty payable is capped at US$20M.



Lew Lawrick, President & CEO of Magna Terra commented; We are very pleased to have entered into this agreement to sell Boleadora to Newmont. While it is a very large and early stage exploration package, its proximity to the Cerro Negro mine site makes it of strategic interest to Newmont from an exploration perspective. The bulk of the property package lies along trend of the NNW structural control that is an important geological feature at Cerro Negro. Including Boleadora into Newmonts regional Cerro Negro exploration program, along with the application of their proven exploration technologies, will add significant value to the project, and ensure that it is advanced in the near term.

Noyell Property Update

The Company is also pleased to announce that pursuant to an Option Agreement with Opus One Resources Inc regarding the Noyell Property (see press release dated April 12, 2019), Magna Terra has received an option payment of $50,000 (1,000,000 Opus One common shares and $11,900 cash). Magna Terra now owns 1,900,000 common shares of Opus One, and will continue to hold the shares for investment purposes.

About Magna Terra

Magna Terra Minerals Inc. is a precious metals focused exploration company, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. With the closing of the ExploreCo Acquisition, Magna Terra will have 2 district-scale, advanced gold exploration projects in the world class mining jurisdictions of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. The Company maintains a significant exploration portfolio in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina which includes its precious metals discovery on its Luna Roja Project, as well as an extensive portfolio of district scale drill ready projects available for option or joint venture.

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward Looking Information

Some statements in this release may contain forward-looking information. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words may, will, should, continue, expect, anticipate, estimate, believe, intend, plan or project or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Companys ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, failure by the parties to complete the Acquisition, the possibility that future exploration results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, changes in world gold markets or markets for other commodities, and other risks disclosed in the Circular and the Companys public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement.
DETROIT, MI  The Michigan Supreme Court is taking another look at the case of a suburban Detroit man who was sentenced to at least 17 years in prison for killing an unarmed woman on his porch in 2013.

The Associated Press reports the issue before the court is whether Ted Wafer's constitutional rights against double jeopardy were violated when he was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of 19-year-old Renisha McBride.

Wafer's attorney argues that murder and manslaughter contradict each other because murder requires malice while manslaughter doesn't under Michigan law.

If the Supreme Court agrees with Wafer, he likely would be eligible for a new sentence because his sentencing guidelines for murder were enhanced by the manslaughter conviction.

Wafer, now 61, was sentenced to at least 15 years in prison for murder, plus two years for use of a gun during a crime. He would be eligible for parole in 2031 after serving 17 years.

Wafer opened his front door in Dearborn Heights and shot McBride through a screen door. He said he was awakened by pounding before dawn and feared for his life, although he didn't call police. A jury rejected his self-defense claim.

No one knows why McBride ended up at Wafer's home about 4:30 a.m. Prosecutors speculated she may have been confused while seeking help hours after crashing her car about half a mile away in Detroit. An autopsy revealed she was drunk.

The court will hear arguments during its 2020-21 term, which starts in fall.
SPRINGFIELD  Police and the family of a teenager missing for nearly two weeks are asking for help to locate her.

Carmen Rios, 18, has not returned home since May 28. Her father reported her missing to police a few days later, said Ryan Walsh, police spokesman.

She may be in the area of Fort Pleasant Avenue or around Saratoga Street in the South End, Walsh said.

Anyone who has seen Rios or has any information on her whereabouts is asked to call the police main number at 413-787-6300 or the Youth Aid Bureau at 413-787-6363, he said.
The Australian Defence Force has outlined the physical differences between men and women in a graphic titled 'A woman is not a scaled-down man'.

Leaked materials obtained by ABC News from a Defence presentation in May show a female soldier, with accompanying notes on how women differ from men physically.

Leaked materials obtained by ABC News from a Defence Presentation show a female soldier under the heading 'a woman is not a scaled down man'

Some of the identifying features include the difference in women's skulls, which are 'smaller and not as thick' as well as 'shorter and smaller bones' in women's arms which are labelled a 'mechanical disadvantage'.

The chart also explains a difference in body temperature.

'Women have a higher body surface area to mass ratio, meaning they can lose heat quicker and at lower outside temperatures,' the presentation reads.

The Australian Defence Force is reviewing the range of equipment supplied to women (stock)

An ADF spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia said the graphic was part of a 'Women in Combat' presentation last month about the upgrade to women's uniforms, making sure they are properly tailored to the female frame.

This includes potential changes to helmets, boots, body armour and field equipment.

The spokesperson said they'd be taking on feedback from serving members to 'inform potential improvements to the equipment supplied to them.'

'Prior to media reporting the document had not been widely distributed and was not accessible to all Australian Defence Force (ADF) members,' the spokersperson said.

Recent figures from the Defence force show efforts to close the gender divide are slowly improving

Recent figures from the Defence Force showed that women made up 18.6 per cent of the armed forces, up from 17.9 per cent the previous year.

That was a similar percentage to the United States, where women make up 16 per cent of enlisted troops and 18 per cent of officers.

In China, the figure was less than five per cent.
Kenneth Branagh and Colin Farrell on the set of Disney's Artemis Fowl. (Photo: Disney)

Kenneth Branaghs adaptation of Eoin Colfers teen fantasy novel Artemis Fowl is launching on Disney+ on June 12. It tells the story of a precocious young boy who find himself thrown into a fantastical world of magic, fairies, dwarves and elves that co-exists alongside our own.

The film adaptation of Artemis Fowl was first announced in 2001 as Harry Potter fever was reaching fever pitch. Shooting had wrapped on Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire  the fourth installment in J.K. Rowlings blockbusting book series  was selling like hotcakes.

Every studio in Hollywood wanted a piece of the action, and many teen fantasy films were rushed into production, but Artemis Fowl took a while longer to come together and finally went before cameras in 2018. Originally scheduled for release in 2019, then pushed back to 2020, its theatrical release was eventually canceled as the coronavirus pandemic closed cinemas around the world.

However, one of its stars  Josh Gad, who plays the burglar dwarf Mulch Diggums  says comparisons to Harry Potter are unfair, but he hopes Artemis Fowl could fill the gap for Potter fans who miss the series.

I'm obsessed with Harry Potter. I grew up with the books, I grew up with the movies. There hasn't been a Harry Potter in a long time  new Harry Potter. This feels like the answer to that, Gad explained between takes when Yahoo visited the set back in 2018.

Josh Gad is Mulch Diggums in Disney's Artemis Fowl. (Photo: Disney)

I can't tell you how many people come up to me, who tell me how important the Artemis Fowl books were to them as a kid. In many ways, I think Artemis is almost the antithesis to Harry. Whereas Harry is an empty vessel, who's going on this journey of discovery. And there's an innocence, that along the way becomes a little bit darkened by his experiences.

In Colfers books, of which there have now been eight installments, young Artemis Fowl (played in the film by newcomer Ferdia Shaw) is presented as a young supervillain who is an antagonist to the world of fairies.

Story continues

Related video: Watch a new Artemis Fowl clip below...

Artemis develops into an anti-hero as the books progress, but many fans of the series have expressed surprise that the new film  or its trailers at least  seems to present him as a more traditional, Potter-esque hero.

Game of Thrones star Nonso Anozie, who plays Artemis Fowls right-hand man Domovoi Butler, concedes that changes have been made to the story for the big screen.

Ferdia Shaw plays Artemis Fowl and Lara McDonnell is Holly Short. (Photo: Disney)

Theres a few changes from the book to the film, Anozie explained. But I think what weve grasped in this, is that its an adventure right from the beginning. I mean, right from the start it really, really moves fast.

Changes to the source material come with Colfers blessing though, said director Kenneth Branagh.

We told him inevitably that weve  in the spirit of the book I believe  amended or changed a few things that are to do with the translation of a book into a film, especially for a first-time audience. As amazingly popular as theyve been, it will be the first time a lot of people will see it.

Book author Eoin Colfer, actor Ferdia Shaw and director Kenneth Branagh on the set of the Disney film. (Photo: Nicola Dove.  2020 Disney Enterprises, Inc.)

So weve all that in mind, and weve come up with a couple of things, and the first thing he said was God, I wish Id thought of that!

He added that he studied 90-minute thrillers while prepping the film to imbue the film with some brevity.

I hope that the film, like the books, is very rapid, very punchy and pacy, Branagh explained.

I think one of the ways in which [Coilfer] manages to keep us very intrigued by a series of beautifully improbable things is that he moves at a pace which means that ... even if  as it were  you disagreed with the conception, you are thrilled by the execution.

And you have times to breathe, but I think its going to be something that really, really grabs the audience and makes you move right from the beginning, and, you know, doesnt let you go until the end.

Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh on the set. (Photo: Disney)

Other major changes from the book include the gender-flipping of Commander Root, the leader of the fairy police force LEP-Recon, who is played by Judi Dench, despite being a man in the books. Domovoi Butler is described as Eurasian in the book, while Nonso Anozie is of Nigerian descent. His character also has a shock of white hair and bright blue eyes, and speaks with a cut-glass English accent, rather than Irish.

I think the look is so different, also to speak in an Irish accent would make it too extreme, adds Anozie.

Judi Dench stars alongside Josh Gad. (Photo: Disney)

Even Gads character, the kleptomaniac Mulch Diggums, has undergone a change. In the film hes a giant dwarf, rather than a typical one. He's like a dwarfed version of Han Solo, explained Gad. He's an outsider, looking for a way to fit in. He doesn't belong. And that's something that I think is very personal to him. He's searching for his place. And I think when he finds this ragtag group, he identifies them as similar to him, in a way that draws him.

However extreme Branaghs changes to the source material may prove, Gad argued that the film is sticking close to Colfers original vision.

Artemis starts, almost at the end of Harry [Potters] journey. And Artemis is wise beyond his years, he doesn't have the magical abilities of Harry. So [he] has to compensate for it with an intellect that allows him to tap into magic.

And at the same time, he's very manipulative. And he uses that manipulation in order to amass this incredible plot. The writer once described this book as, Die Hard with fairies. Well, the Alan Rickman character, in many ways, is Artemis Fowl himself.

The film, with Ferdla Shaw (left) in the lead role, is finally launching on Disney+ this month. (Photo: Disney)

And that's what's so unique about this world. Is when do you get to see a kid, who is essentially an anti-hero in many ways? And we're all trying to be one step ahead of him. But he has an uncanny ability to outsmart even the wisest amongst us. Which is why, when Mulch comes in, it's such a fun loophole.

Because he doesn't expect them to throw something like this at them. So it's really fun. And I think that again, it speaks to a crowd and an audience that is desperately longing for something to fill that void.

Artemis Fowl launches on Disney+ on June 12.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
UFC 251 will be held on July 11 on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and will include three title fights.

A welterweight match between Kamaru Usman and No. 1 contender Gilbert Burns is the main event. A rematch between champion Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway is the co-main, and a bout between Petr Yan and Jose Aldo for the vacant bantamweight title is also on the main card.

The UFC president told Yahoo Sports on Tuesday that a womens flyweight bout between former champions Rose Namajunas and Jessica Andrade will be on UFC 251, as will a bout between Amanda Ribas and Paige VanZant. The pay-per-view card will be held at the same time in the U.S. as it normally is, with a 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT start.

In other big news, White said the rubber match between heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic and No. 1 contender Daniel Cormier will be on Aug. 15 in Las Vegas as the main event of UFC 252.

A general view of the Octagon during UFC 242 at The Arena on Sept. 7, 2019, in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

The UFC will spend the entire month of July on Fight Island. White said only people associated with the UFC event will be on the island and that there will be no one else within 10 square miles.

These are the only guys who could pull this off and do it this quick, White said. What they are doing is incredible. They are creating this safety zone where were walled off from everyone. There will be a hotel, restaurants, training facilities, the fight venue, everything. This is going to be incredible.

White said after the July 11 pay-per-view, there will be Fight Night cards on July 15, July 18 and July 25. White said he does not have fights that are slated on those, but he listed a series of bouts he expects to be on those shows, including ex-middleweight champion Robert Whittaker versus Darren Till; Jack Hermanson versus Kelvin Gastelum, Fabricio Werdum versus Alexander Gustafsson and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira against Shogun Rua.

He said title fights between middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and Paolo Costa and a lightweight fight between lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and interim champion Justin Gaethje are also in the works.

Story continues

Its going to be a bad-ass summer, my friend, White said. These are ridiculous, very important fights and we made it happen. We got it done.

White said he doesnt expect to have to be quarantined after returning to the U.S. from Abu Dhabi.

A lot of the stuff that is coming out about [the coronavirus pandemic] is turning out to be bulls---, so I think by then, things will have loosened up, he said.

More from Yahoo Sports:
Misunderstanding in Georgian Parliament

By Malkhaz Matsaberidze

Georgia will hold parliamentary elections in late October 2020. However, much remains unclear about the election. It is unknown whether the constitutional changes will be implemented, it is unclear what the composition of the government will be before the elections and what the Georgian Dream's electoral list will be, or how long the opposition will remain united and what it will be able to agree on before the election.The public hearing of the constitutional amendments began on June 4th, and the discussion will continue in the second half of June but the future of the constitutional amendments is still unclear. The United Opposition also said it would not support constitutional changes without releasing Giorgi Rurua from prison. The government is not going to do that. Both sides blame each other for the possible disruption of the March 8th agreement.Against the background of these mutual accusations, it is noted that the government can make constitutional changes in case of mobilization of its own parliamentary deputies and the votes of independent parliamentarians. In the current situation, the issue of changes in the parliament may be raised in such a way that the results of the voting are still unclear.The issue of constitutional changes, despite its importance, was covered by the Prime Minister's topic last week. Giorgi Gakharia, the head of the Georgian government, visited the parliament twice in a row - once presenting a government report and the second time - at the request of the opposition. An ordinary citizen, watching the noisy argument between Gakharia and the opposition, remembers the insulting statements and the two main messages: "Everything is going well," says Gakharia, Everything is going South, replied the opposition.Suddenly, on June 3rd, information was spread about Gakharia's expected resignation in the coming days. According to backstage reports, Bidzina Ivanishvili, a leader in the shadow of the current government, has decided that Gakharia should resign (according to one version recently, according to another- a few months ago, before the outbreak of the Coronavirus epidemic.) Several possible candidates for the post of the Prime Minister have also been nominated.Prior to the announcement of Gakharia's resignation, it was rumored that Gakharia would join the opposition before the election and form his own political party. If Gakharia is really released from power and he stays in politics, he will really be able to gain the support of a certain segment of the electorate, presumably the people who are demanding a tougher policy towards the United National Movement.Last week, the issue of the Prime Minister was followed by great excitement among the opposition, but Giorgi Gakharia had nothing to do with it. The case concerned a possible prime ministerial candidate for the opposition if he wins the election. One of the opposition politicians named Giorgi Vashadze, which was followed by statements from several parties in the United Opposition that Giorgi Vashadze would not be considered a candidate for the post of Prime Minister.The statements were as harsh as if they had already won the election and really needed to elect a new prime minister. This dispute showed the weakness of the unity of the opposition.It seems that the opposition will not be able to reach an agreement on the common candidates of the MPs. This topic was actively discussed last week. Some parties, such as Lelo, have said they will field candidates in all majoritarian constituencies, while others have called on the United National Movement and European Georgia to be more lenient with small parties and support their proposals in majoritarian constituencies. Some urge that if not in all constituencies, Tbilisi may still agree on common candidates. So far, the opposition has agreed on only one thing - they will support the opposition candidates in the second round. But first the case must go to the second round.The nomination of many candidates by the opposition in the majoritarian constituencies gives a great advantage to the candidate of the government, because in his favor important finances and the entire administrative resource will be mobilised. Against the backdrop of the pre-election unrest, the government has made major macroeconomic predictions for parliament. It forecasts the country's economy to shrink by 4%, while the Georgian government's debt to GDP ratio will reach 58% by 2020 (the allowable limit is 60%), but it promises to be reduced to 54.5%.In 2020, the government will receive a foreign debt of 7.1 billion GEL, and the total foreign debt will reach a historical maximum of 30 billion GEL. This is obviously a very worrying indicator in the long run,But solving short-term tasks is more vital for the government - the 2020 parliamentary elections are at the door, and it is important that the current situation of ordinary voters in the crisis-stricken and impoverished country is relatively improved and motivated to support the government.
CAIRO - The United Nations on Wednesday said Libyas warring sides were fully engaged in military talks aimed at ending the fighting in the countrys west, calling the virtual meetings productive.

The U.N. support mission in Libya, UNSMIL, said it convened a meeting with a delegation from military commander Khalifa Hifters eastern-based forces on June 3, and another meeting Tuesday with a delegation from the U.N.-supported government.

Both meetings  which were conducted virtually  were productive and enabled UNSMIL to discuss with the delegations the latest developments on the ground, the mission said.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011 when a civil war toppled long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

Eastern-based forces under Hifter launched an offensive trying to take the capital of the western government, Tripoli, in April 2019. The chaos in the oil-rich country has steadily worsened as foreign backers increasingly intervened, despite pledges to the contrary, at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

The Tripoli-based forces, backed by Turkey, gained the upper hand last week after retaking the capitals airport, all main entrance and exit points to the city and a string of key towns near Tripoli. That forced Hifters fighters to withdraw  defeats that commanders painted as a tactical measure to give the U.N.-backed peace process a chance.

UNSMIL said it received both sides comments on a draft cease-fire deal presented by the mission Feb. 23. It did not elaborate on details of the draft, or the warring sides comments.

Airstrikes and grad rockets killed at least 19 civilians, including three women and five children, between June 5-8 outside the strategic coastal city of Sirte. The city is a former stronghold of the Islamic State group that Hifters forces captured in January, the mission said. At least 12 others were wounded, it said.

Libyan fighters allied with the Tripoli-based government earlier this week pressed their advance toward Sirte, the gateway to oil facilities in Libyas south. But they faced intensive airstrikes from Hifters Libyan Arab Armed Forces, that forced them to retreat.

The mission said it was particularly concerned by reports of escalation and mobilization around Sirte.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 00:17:15|Editor: huaxia

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Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, presides over a chairpersons' meeting of the 13th NPC Standing Committee in Beijing, capital of China, June 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese lawmakers met on Tuesday to study a recent speech made by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on the effective implementation of the country's newly adopted Civil Code.

The meeting of the Council of Chairpersons of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee was presided over by Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

Xi's speech elucidated the significance of the promulgation and implementation of the Civil Code and specified the requirements for promoting its implementation, according to the meeting.

The strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core is the fundamental reason for the successful compilation of the Civil Code, and will definitely promote its thorough and effective implementation, according to the meeting.

The meeting urged the NPC Standing Committee to follow Xi's instructions and work out measures for promoting the implementation of the Civil Code.

The meeting also decided to convene the 19th session of the 13th NPC Standing Committee from June 18 to 20 in Beijing and proposed the agenda of the session.

According to the proposed agenda, the legislature will deliberate drafts and reports including the draft law on administrative discipline and a draft revision to the Law on the People's Armed Police Force. Enditem
Theres nothing like the buzz of wandering into a beauty hall, inhaling air heavy with the scent of a hundred perfume testers, and being welcomed at a glossy beauty counter by uniformed staff keen to help you find the perfect shade of lipstick.

Thank heavens, then, that beauty emporiums are set to open their doors once more from Monday. Whether youre purchasing High Street or high end, shopping for make-up and skincare will now be strikingly different. We asked beauty stores and counters to give us the lowdown on the new world order

WILL MY FAVOURITE COUNTER BE OPEN?

Weve all got a favourite beauty counter, where the friendly lady always has just the right product for us to try. But will she be back from June 15 when shops open?

Chains such as Boots and Superdrug, which have remained open for medical essentials, will find it easier to open up beauty aisles straight away. But for stand-alone shops and department stores shuttered for almost a whole quarter, making things safe is a big job.

A number of department store chains we spoke to said they will only open a few stores at first. But the good news is that once a store is open, then most concessions within it should be, too.

Make-up mecca Space NK is opening 11 stores to begin with (pictured). However, shops will have to strike a balance between keeping things safe and keeping customers happy

John Lewis, which is opening 13 stores by June 18, says all its beauty counters will be open except Clarins  which wont open any counters until June 22.

However, shops will have to strike a balance between keeping things safe and keeping customers happy. New research from the NPD Group suggests 29 per cent of UK consumers would not queue to buy beauty products, while 35 per cent are not prepared to wait to test a product. Most wouldnt wait more than ten minutes at the most.

Were taking a phased approach to reopening, says Lesley Crowther, the UK and Irelands vice president of consumer engagement and retail at Estee Lauder Companies, which owns brands including Bobbi Brown and Jo Malone. We want to ensure all we do is in line with UK government and scientific guidance.

But if youre used to popping in to see your favourite sales adviser, you may find that, with only a certain number of staff allowed on the counter, they wont necessarily be there as often as before. The best way to find out if your local store is open is to go online.

Make-up mecca Space NK is opening 11 stores to begin with.

Space NK (pictured Claire Coleman) will offer a safe space to carry out no-touch consultations, so staff can help you identify the right shades and test products, as well as talk you through application

THE CHALLENGE OF TRY BEFORE YOU BUY

Trying cosmetics is crucial to get the right colour and consistency. But how can that work now?

Testers for make-up, fragrance and skincare will be removed from stores and reintroduced when it is safe to do so, says Joanna Rogers, VP of beauty at Boots. When they return, they wont be on display, but will be dispensed by an adviser with strict hygiene measures in place.

Perfumes will be spritzed on to an individual blotter, liquid foundations will be pumped into a disposable pot for you to try, and powders will be swiped with a single-use sponge and placed into a disposable pot.

The same is true at Estee Lauder counters. Initially there wont be any testers at all, says Laura Maxwell, director of sales and education. There will be empty packaging on display so customers can recognise products, and we will have an increased number of samples  mainly for skincare products  so consumers can take them away.

At Charlotte Tilbury counters, its a different story. You will still be able to test products but you will have to ask one of our artists, who will clean the product for you, give you a single-use applicator to try it with, and then clean the product again, post use, a spokesperson said. Space NK is offering a similar service.

Space NK is offering a similar service to Charlotte Tilbury whereby to test a lipstick there is a single-use swab

DIFFERENT SHADES OF AUGMENTED REALITY

Charlotte Tilbury, Mac, Bobbi Brown and Estee Lauder now have virtual try-on tools on their websites, apps and in-store digital displays.

These work via augmented reality, allowing you to use your webcam or phone camera to try different shades of eyeshadow, lipstick, mascaras and foundation on a moving image of yourself. Expect to be encouraged to whip your phone out in-store and interact with these new technologies  although advice will be at hand.

Well have tablets on counters at Estee Lauder that can be sanitised before and after use, and our beauty staff have been trained to help consumers try make-up virtually and advise on getting the right shades, says Laura Maxwell. But can an app really tell you what an eyeshadow will look like on, accounting for how thickly you apply it and the contours of your face?

At the moment, perhaps not. But Anna Marie Solowij, co-founder of Brandstand Communications and former beauty director of Vogue, predicts the crisis will mean tech improves rapidly. In a years time, it could be the best way to sample a new shade.

THE RETURN OF SKINCARE SAMPLES

Of course, one way you can still try products for real is by using individual samples containing just one or two days worth of product.

But beauty brands have varied wildly in their willingness to hand these out in the past. Some brands, such as Kiehls, are very generous, while others only gift them as part of a special promotion.

In recent years, small samples have fallen out of favour, not least because of environmental concerns about packaging. But theyre going to be a key tool under the new rules.

Most brands sample allocation is planned and ordered many months in advance, so with stores closed for nearly three months and planned promotions cancelled, there should be a surplus. Why not ask if you can try a few new products this way?

Beauty brands have varied wildly in their willingness to hand these out in the past (file image)

KEEPING THAT PERSONAL TOUCH

The magic of beauty counters comes from a combination of a dazzling array of products to try, and good advice on what suits you.

Charlotte Tilbury counters, which the brand calls its beauty wonderlands, are adored by women for being both friendly and glamorous. But how will it keep that going now? The answer lies partly in building relationships online.

We have increased the amount of social media how tos, so consumers can ask our artists questions while learning about the products, a spokesperson says.

Many beauty companies, including Guerlain, Caudalie and Clinique, have been offering free virtual consultations. Keeping a sense of occasion is important to Estee Lauder. Laura Maxwell says: All of our beauty advisers have done a lot of training to ensure customers feel welcomed and confident in safety measures, and can understand how things are going to work.

AM I ABLE TO GET A MAKEOVER?

Nope, sorry. One of the biggest protective behaviours against the virus is not touching our faces so, unsurprisingly, anything that requires a make-up artist to touch your face is a complete no-no. That doesnt mean you cant get advice, though.

Space NK will offer a safe space to carry out no-touch consultations, so staff can help you identify the right shades and test products, as well as talk you through application.

Anything that requires a make-up artist to touch your face is a complete no-no. That doesnt mean you cant get advice, though (file image)

CONTACTLESS BUYING IS THE FUTURE

There will be many of the same measures weve come to expect in lockdown, with one-way systems; staff wearing PPE in some stores; and screens protecting till points. Customers might be offered masks, too.

Some stores will accept cash, but most are opting for cashless payment and email receipts.

Estee Lauder Companies is ensuring all products are handed to the consumer over the counter. Space NK has introduced a new kerbside pick-up service for products bought via click and collect online.

Some stores will accept cash, but most are opting for cashless payment and email receipts (file image)

HASSLE-FREE PRODUCT RETURNS

Now that we cant try products so easily, returns are something beauty brands are going to have to take a more trusting stance on.

They may take a cue from online brands, by sending out samples and accepting returns without quibble.

Leighton Denny, who sells his products at ld-boutique.com, says if a customer complains a product has been damaged in transit, he wont ask for it to be returned. A photo will do  we trust our customers as they trust us.
Mumbai: The Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, interrogated by Mumbai Police on Wednesday (June 10, 2020) in connection with the two FIRs filed against him, called the cases against him as fabricated and fake.

Every case against me is fabricated, it is fake, said Arnab before entering Mumbai's NM Joshi Marg police station for the interrogation.

The two FIRs filed against Arnab Goswami:

1. Accused of making provocative comments on the Palghar lynching incident during his news show on April 29, 2020.

2. In connection with the gathering of the migrant workers in large numbers outside the Bandra railway terminus amid the coronavirus lockdown.

The Republic TV Editor-in-Chief is facing charges under Sections 120B, 153, 153A, 295A, 500 and 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Section 120B is related to a criminal conspiracy, while Section 153 is wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot and Section 153A is promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.

Section 295A is deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.

Section 500 is punishment for defamation and Section 505 (2) is regarding the statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes.

He reached the NM Joshi Marg police station at around on Wednesday and was reportedly grilled by the police officials for about two hours in his second interrogation in 40 days.

He said he was earlier interrogated for almost 12.5 hours and Republic TV's CFO S Sundaram was also questioned inside the police station at the same time for about three to four hours.

Arnab, while talking to reporters outside the police station, said, All these cases have been filed against Republic by Sonia Gandhi team, Vadra, and Congress.

We brought out the facts behind the conspiracy in Bandra case.

He added, This is the reward that is given in Maharashtra to bring out the truth and the facts behind a conspiracy. Youre called at a police station to explain your journalism.

"The truth is on my side. We will win. This is political harassment. This is pure and simple political vendetta, said Arnab.
A convicted paedophile and his partner were hounded out of a council house by furious neighbours just days after he had been forced to flee a home next to a school.

The sex offender, who has preyed on women and girls, fled a house in Hull that was just 40 yards away from a high school after vandals smashed windows and scrawled 'nonce' on his front door last Wednesday.

Two days later, after being moved to a council house seven miles away, the offender's neighbours were tipped off about his sordid past and surrounded his new home, forcing police to come to his rescue again.

Neighbours surrounded the home in Hull after learning about the occupant's history of sex offences. He had been moved out of another council home, close to a school, just two days before

Residents clapped and thanked officers as they escorted the man his partner from the house.

As the paedophile gets in the back of a police car, the person filming shouts: 'Go on, jelly belly. You're going again.'

Footage of the incident - filmed by an onlooker - was posted anonymously on social media last week and has gone viral with more than 100,000 views.

The man's partner then walks towards a nearby police van, dragging a dog by its lead and her leggings start to fall down as she climbs into the van - exposing her backside.

The sex offender was led away from his home in Hull last Friday as neighbours clapped

The laughing crowd hurls insults at her and cheers as the pair are taken away.

A separate clip showed the woman yank the dog by its neck as she lifted it into the van.

Locals were furious that a paedophile was housed on the same street as a school - which also backs on to a primary school.

Stacy Carter told the Hull Daily Mail: 'We want to know why they have put a paedo so close to two schools. He can see the academy from his kitchen window.

'The police told me I shouldn't judge people on their previous offences but what am I supposed to think?'

Another neighbour said anonymously: 'I am disgusted by what's happened and disgusted with the council for letting him move there, close to schools.

'They need to move him far away. He is a waste of space.'

A third added: 'Everyone round here is disgusted that he has been moved to an area with a primary and a secondary school.

'He tried to befriend us all but he has not been honest. I feel sorry for his neighbours who helped him when he first moved to cook his food.'

Neighbours laughed as the offender's partner's leggings fell down as she climbed into the back of a police van in Hull

Defending its decision, a Hull City Council spokeswoman said: 'We and the police are aware of the local action that has been taken against this tenant.

'Local authorities have a duty to provide accommodation for ex-offenders and there are very strict regulations in place regarding this.

'No property would be allocated without these strict criteria being met.

'Ex-prisoners live in all communities and if they are to be successfully rehabilitated they need to live a life free from harassment or threat of illegal action.'
George Floyd's six-year-old daughter has been offered a full scholarship to Texas Southern University (TSU) in hope a further education will help in her pursuit of 'solutions and generational progress'.

In a statement published on the school's website Tuesday  the day her father was laid to rest  the Board of Regents of TSU honored the memory of Gianna Floyd's father by approving a fund in conjunction with the Foundation Board.

It comes after Kanye West offered to set up a college fund for the little girl whose dad was killed when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes on May 25.

'TSU's executive and academic staff will prepare a place for Miss Floyd if she wishes to attend the University,' the announcement read.

The Texas Southern University Foundation is providing a privately-funded scholarship to Gianna Floyd. She is pictured with her mother Roxie Washington (right) at her father's funeral in Houston Tuesday

'We know that this gesture cannot take the place of her dad's loving presence, but we hope that it will contribute to easing her journey through life,' the board said about George Floyd and Gianna

Texas Southern University is located adjacent to the Third Ward where Floyd grew up in the housing projects and helped out in the community

Floyd was working in Minnesota when he was killed but the announcement notes him as being a 'lifelong citizen of the Third Ward' in Houston.

TSU is located adjacent to the Third Ward, a neighborhood that for decades has been a cornerstone of Houston's black community, although gentrified in recent years.

Texas Southern University, a historically black campus, has long held itself out as launchpad for those willing to strive.

But many residents struggle, with incomes about half the city average and unemployment nearly four times higher, even before the recent economic collapse.

First time freshmen at the college can get a maximum award of $14,000 in 2020, according to TSU's website.

'This Board is committed to education and understands that a college degree is one of many powerful steps toward a productive and successful life,' said Albert H. Myres, chair of the Board of Regents. 'We know that this gesture cannot take the place of her dad's loving presence, but we hope that it will contribute to easing her journey through life.'

Floyd  who was 46 when he died - was described as a 'revered graduate of Jack Yates High School'.

Gianna will likely not be headed to college for at least another 11 years but Myres said Floyd's 'powerful legacy will be strengthened by the offer of an educational pathway for his daughter'.

'The TSU Foundation is proud to provide this privately-funded scholarship to Ms. Floyd,' said chairman Gerald Smith.

Kanye West (left at a recent Black Lives Matter protest) previously offered to set up a college fund for Gianna, six. She is pictured on June 2 with her mother

The Board said they hope Floyd's 'powerful legacy will be strengthened by the offer of an educational pathway for his daughter'

'We know the value of an education in the pursuit of solutions and generational progress. We look forward to embracing her into the TSU family.'

Floyd's brutal killing in police custody has inspired protests around the world, calling for defunding of police departments and more money into education and housing.

On a wider level the demonstration demands that institutionalized and structural racism is actively dismantled 401 years after the first African slaves were brought to the US.

Although slavery has been abolished, African Americans are still more likely to be incarcerated for same crime as Caucasians. Activists argue that mass incarceration is another form of free labor and is simply an evolution of slavery.

Floyd spent a year at Texas A&M University in Kingsville.

More than once, Floyd ended up in handcuffs when police came through the projects and detained a large number of men, local teacher Tiffany Cofield told the Associated Press.

'He would show by example: "Yes, officer. No, officer." Very respectful. Very calm tone,' she said.

Texas Southern University, a historically black campus, has long held itself out as launchpad for those willing to strive. Albert H. Myres, chair of the Board of Regents (top left) and TSU Foundation chairman Gerald Smith (bottom right) shared statements on Tuesday

Floyd spent time in prison after pleading guilty to armed robbery. However friends said he transformed his life years ago and did missionary work with the church.

In Minneapolis, Floyd found a job as a security guard at the Salvation Armys Harbor Light Center - the citys largest homeless shelter.

Floyd left after a little over a year, training to drive trucks while working as a bouncer at a club called Conga Latin Bistro.

'He would dance badly to make people laugh,' said the owner, Jovanni Thunstrom. 'I tried to teach him how to dance because he loved Latin music, but I couldn't because he was too tall for me.'

Early this spring, Thunstrom cut Floyds job when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the club to close.

On the evening of Memorial Day, Floyd was with two others when convenience store employees accused him of paying for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, then called the police. Less than an hour later, some of his last words were 'I can't breathe, officer'.
Actor Cho Jin-woong in a scene from the film "Me and Me" / Courtesy of AceMaker Movieworks



By Kwak Yeon-soo



Jung Jin-young made an impressive directorial debut with mystery thriller "Me and Me." The actor-turned-filmmaker proves that his movie is certainly something of a novelty that will likely attract audiences.



Although uneven, the film balances everything from humor and tragedy to mystery to fantasy in the story that traces one man's lonely struggle to get his life back.



The film revolves around a police officer named Hyung-gu (played by Cho Jin-woong) who investigates a mysterious fire that took the lives of a married couple in a small town.



While trying to find out why there was a cage installed in the house and the couple were locked up in the attic, Hyung-gu becomes aware of the townspeople's secret related to their deaths.



One night, the townspeople invite Hyung-gu for a drink. The next day, he wakes up discovering that people refuse to recognize him for who he is  a police officer and a father of two.



Instead, the townspeople tell Hyung-gu he is a teacher and single. Having fallen into the world of delusions, Hyung-gu tries to wake himself from the nightmare.



Despite Jung's bold intentions, the plot is let down by loose threads and lack of clarity. With too many sub-genres thrown in and too little conveyed, it appears the creator did not think too much about communicating with the audience.





Actor Cho Jin-woong, who plays Hyung-gu in the film "Me and Me," speaks during a press conference for the film held at Lotte Cinema Konkuk University Entrance Branch in Seoul, Tuesday.
TEL AVIV - Israeli foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi, a former military chief, has said the government intends to advance President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan in "a responsible manner" that fits with the country's strategic interests.



The plan endorses Israel extending its sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank. Ashkenazi made the comment in meeting Wednesday in Jerusalem with his German counterpart Heiko Maas.



He added that Israel intended to do so while engaging in dialogue with its neighbours since the country ''wants peace and security'' and thanked the German government for declaring Lebanese armed group Hezbollah a ''terrorist organization'' earlier this year. According to anonymous sources cited by the Times of Israel, Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu is considering a ''mini-annexation'' without the Jordan Valley - at least initially, in the first phase - for parts of the Palestinian West Bank in early July. The sources said that the ''mini-annexation'' would include three large blocs of the largest, oldest and most stable Israeli settlements: Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel.



These are areas that are well-defined from a geographical standpoint and mapping of their borders. The first two are south and east of Jerusalem, while the third is in the northeastern part of the West Bank but connected to Tel Aviv suburbs. The sources noted that, if this happens, tension with Jordan over the Jordan valley would be avoided.



Jordan has already said that it is opposed to the move.
Iran is escalating its pressure on South Korea to release billions of dollars of oil-export revenue, arguing that Seoul is buckling to pressure from its US ally and illegally withholding funds needed to counter the Middle Easts worst coronavirus outbreak.

Abdolnaser Hemmati, the head of the Central Bank of Iran, said the actions of banks in South Korea were preventing Iran from using the money to buy foods and medicines, trade thats exempt from US sanctions.

It is appalling to see that Korean banks have conveniently neglected their obligations, common international financial agreements, and decided to play politics and follow illegal and unilateral US sanctions, Hemmati said in a written response to questions. Iran could launch legal action to gain access to the funds, he said, without naming the lenders in question.

Hemmati also didnt elaborate on the course of action that Iran may take. After sanctions were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran the following year managed to unlock over $6.4 billion of oil payments trapped in Indian accounts, using European banks as a clearing agent. The central bank has also filed lawsuits in Europe against financial companies that have withheld its money on the basis of court orders issued in the U.S.

Virus Resurgent

Iran announced earlier this month that it had received medicines valued at $500,000 from South Korea after two years of negotiations. At the time, Irans Foreign Ministry said the deal was approved by Washington. It also said South Korea was about $7 billion in arrears for oil exported before the Trump administration last year reimposed penalties on Irans crude sales.

According to the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, the drugs shipped were for the treatment of genetic diseases. This month, South Korea plans to ship Covid-19 test kits worth $2 million, it said.

We have been consulting with the U.S., Iran and the banks holding the frozen funds, seeking to make progress on this issue, said Koh Kyung-sok, a Foreign Ministry official. So far, weve been able to utilize some of the funds to expand humanitarian trade with Iran, and will continue to seek ways to increase such exchanges, he said by phone.

Iran reported a major outbreak of the coronavirus in late February and phased in restrictions to control the disease. The economic shock forced authorities to seek International Monetary Fund assistance for the first time since 1960.

S. Korea Asks US to Help With Its Trade Relations With Iran

Facing a widening budget deficit, and with its critical oil revenues drastically reduced by US sanctions, authorities eased the curbs on daily life and businesses on April 11. Infections have surged again, and the pathogen has now killed more than 8,000 people in the country.

Hemmati declined to say whether he had received an update from the IMF on the loan application. He said Iran is weathering the impact of the virus and even expects to see moderate economic growth by the end of the year.

Returning to South Korea, he said the two countries have been working on a special trade vehicle, similar to that established with the European Union, which would allow Iran to complete humanitarian transactions using the money locked in Korean banks.

The US, which abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal two years ago, has sought to stonewall the plan, according to Hemmati. President Donald Trumps so-called maximum pressure strategy against Iran aims to force its leaders into renegotiating the nuclear accord and ending their support for Hezbollah and Iraqi militias.

The EU mechanism -- known as Instex -- provides European companies with a trading vehicle to sell goods and services to Iran without using dollars, routing transactions through US banks, or moving money across the Iranian border. But its impact has been limited due to companies fears over the reach of American penalties.

Should Korean banks not adhere to their international agreements with us, we reserve our rights to take legal actions under international laws, Hemmati said.
It has long been our planets greatest and oldest murder mystery. Roughly 445 million years ago, around 85 percent of all marine species disappeared in a geologic flash known as the Late Ordovician mass extinction. But scientists have long debated this whodunit, in contrast to clearer explanations for Earths other mass extinctions.

The Ordovician one has always been a little bit of an oddball, said Stephen Grasby of the Geological Survey of Canada.

Now he and David Bond of the University of Hull in England say they have cracked the case in a study published last month in the journal Geology. Widespread volcanic eruptions unleashed enough carbon dioxide to heat up the planet and trigger two pulses of extinction separated by 1 million years, they report. If true, it places the first grand wipeout of life on Earth in good company: Many of the other major mass extinctions are also thought to be victims of global warming.

Scientists have offered a range of culprits  including toxic metals and radiation released from a distant galaxy  but the favored explanation has long been global cooling.
Against guaranteed 100 days of work, the national average is 50. The national average has crossed 50 days only once in the last four years.

Generating 100 days of work, guaranteed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for each household, has been a far cry so far, even as there is a demand for increasing the promised workdays to 200.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi recently criticised the Narendra Modi government for not paying heed to this demand.

The national average has crossed 50 days only once in the last four years (50.88 in 2018-19, when the country witnessed drought in some parts); for the ongoing FY21, average workdays stood at a little over 18 as of Tuesday.

Migrant worker Md Gulzar, from Godda in Jharkhand, highlighted this sorry state of affairs, saying: Majboori mein baahar jaana padta hai. Agar yehaan kaam milega to kyon baahar jayenge? Baahar mein kitna mushkil hota hai, ye humlog jaante hain. (We were forced to go out for a job. Why would we migrate, if we get a job (under MGNREGA) in our village? It is difficult to survive in other places).

The average is taken on the basis of households which have job cards and are active, and not those demanding work.

For instance, 144.8 million people applied for job cards, so far, in the current financial year, but only 138.1 million received those.

Of them, there only 78.8 million job cards are active.

Active job cards mean the person holding it in a household has worked for even one day in any of the past four years.

Experts say a little over 18 days of work has been provided to each household on an average in the current financial year and that demand would rise exponentially once monsoon spreads across the country.

Then, even 100 days will fall short of demand, they say.

Right to Food Campaign's Siraj Dutta, a social activist from Jharkhand, said an average 4.78 days of work has been provided to each active job-card households in the state in FY21, so far.

Usually, in a year, work is provided for around 40-45 days to each active households in the state.

He said active job cards are around 40 per cent of total cards issued.

Just 10 km from Ranchi, there is a surge in the demand for MGNREGA work as people have lost their usual occupation.

"The need is to provide work based on per person, and not per household, said Dutta.

Workers in Jharkhand narrated their poor condition during a webinar organised by the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a platform for 30 organisations.

Bokaro-native Soharai Marandi, 37, had been working at an iron casting plant in Karnataka.

However, he was forced to stop work once the lockdown was imposed.

Asked whether he received food during the lockdown, he said: Kiska kha rahe the, pata nahi. Baad mein pata chala ki hamara hi paisa kat gaya (I didn't know we were eating at whose expense. Later, I came to realise that money was deducted from my pending wages)."

The Centre has, so far, released Rs 29,904 crore for MGNREGA schemes against the sanctioned sum of Rs 32,220.46 crore.

The government had increased the allocation under the Act to Rs 1.01 trillion against Rs 61,500 crore budgeted for 2020-21.

Rajendran Narayan, assistant professor of Azim Premji University, said even in the pre-Covid era, the actual budget requirement under the MGNREGA was more than Rs 1 trillion.

After the influx of migrants, this extra allocation of Rs 40,000 crore is welcome but still inadequate.

"If MGNREGA work demand is met, I am sure by November or December, this additional allocation will also get exhausted.

The allocation has to be scaled up or else there could be cut down in work, he said.

In fact, the Congress president has demanded open-ended funding for MGNREGA schemes.
NORTHFIELD  The new owners of the Northfield Drive-In, an open-air theater straddling the Massachusetts-New Hampshire state line, plan to open Friday night.

Its tentative, owner Julia Wiggin said, and dependent on getting coronavirus protections in place and inspected, like no-touch bathrooms, touchless ticketing and a mobile app for ordering food.

Also unsettled is what the drive-in will show, with Hollywood largely having stopped new releases.

"Aren't you ready for a comedy?" Wiggin said. "I just want to turn it all off for a while and relax. Maybe something from Mel Brooks."

Brooks is best known for zany comedies like Spaceballs, The Producers and Blazing Saddles.

With indoor theaters closed for the foreseeable future, the long out-of-fashion drive-in is back. Drive-ins all over the country are opening to bigger crowds.

Wiggin and her husband, Steve Wiggin, bought the 15-acre Northfield Drive-In property from owner Mitchell Shakour on April 17 for $349,000 in a transaction first reported by the Keene Sentinel.

Built by former Buckland resident Carl H. Nilman, who owned a chain of drive-in theaters in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the Northfield Drive-In is one of the oldest of its kind in the country. The theater showed its first movie on Aug. 3, 1948: Thunder in the Valley, which was also known as "Bob: Son of Battle.

The Shakour family purchased the Northfield Drive-In in 1967 and operated it each summer until the sale.

Most of the theater is located in New Hampshire, where state rules will allow folks to get out of their cars and watch the movie, but they have to stay close to their parking spot.

Wiggin said shes also planning on hosting high school graduations.

We are going full-out getting ready for all of this, she said.
Bhopal, June 10 : Former minister in Kamal Nath government, Jitu Patwari, on Wednesday accused the Centre of conspiring to topple the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. He said no less a person than Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has admitted it.

Patwari told a press conference, "During the Indore visit on Monday, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accepted before his party's activists from Sanwer that he toppled the government at the instance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President J.P. Nadda." An audio clip in which Chouhan is allegedly heard making this claim is being widely circulated. The BJP has so far vehemently denied the Congress allegations of complicity in the collapse of the Kamal Nath government in March. Chouhan has been among the loudest in his denials.

He is purportedly heard saying in Hindi in the audio clip, "It was the central leadership which had decided that the government will be dislodged, else it would ruin everything".

"Tell me, was it possible to dislodge the government without Jyotiraditya Scindia and Tulsi Bhai? There was no other way," he is allegedly heard telling party workers at Sanwer. He visited the area on Tuesday.

Media has refrained from owning up the authenticity of the audio clip. The BJP or the Chief Minister have not reacted so far. The "Tulsi Bhai," referred to in the clip, is a Scindia loyalist and former health minister who had initiated action on the corona epidemic in the state. He joined the BJP along with him.

Congress spokesperson Narendra Saluja, "vouched for the authenticity of the clip" claiming that the party would release the video of the meeting if Chouhan disowned his voice in the audio.

"We were insisting for a long time that the conspiracy to topple Congress government was hatched in the state in collusion with the Centre. Chouhan has now accepted it. He can be heard saying he couldn't have become the chief minister without help from Jyotiraditya Scindia and Tulsi Silawat. He will do all that he can to ensure Silawat wins the by-election from Sanwer," Patwari said.

"Silawat sold himself despite being Health Minister during Corona times. We will not let such a person win a by-election at any cost," said the former minister.

"This was the man who was contesting elections for more than 30 years for Congress. How insensitive he has turned against his own people. Should he be allowed to win an election?" The Congress will now approach the Supreme Court after consulting experts on the matter. "We will also appeal to the President," the Congress members said.

"Chouhan accepted the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister consented to delay the lockdown to pull down the state government. The Congress has been consistently warning the epidemic spread throughout the country due to the operation to topple the MP government. Indore and other airports were also not locked down despite Rahul Gandhi's advice. We will complain to the President, because it is a criminal act," Patwari said.

"Chouhan visited Indore after the city had gone through 77 days of trauma. He had killed democracy and now comes to help a traitor win the election," the Congress said.

"By now our city had reached the sixth spot among the Corona-infected towns in the nation. More than 4,000 persons have been infected and 165 have died. When the chief minister arrived here, we hoped that he would formulate a strategy to deal with the pandemic and would offer condolence to the families of the deceased, but it was just a political mission for him," Patwari said.

"The patients were upset, the hospitals plundered them. Many have died for want of treatment. He has disappointed us all with his insensitivity. Indore people have watched him turn the visit into a joke. They will teach him a lesson. The Congress had conveyed through the collector a request for a delegation to meet the chief minister. He had no time," Patwari said further.

"Even through all this, the Congress has decided to stand with the administration in dealing with the pandemic. The government has left the people to fend for themselves while the pandemic has spread unchecked. The Congress government will carry out a public awareness campaign. Will distribute 25 lakh masks house to house. We are united to make the City number one in cleanliness, now we will stand together to beat Corona," said Patwari
Burma Alleged Arakan Army Members to Face Terrorism Prosecution in Mandalay

Alleged Arakan Army members appear at a court in Mandalay in October 2019. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy

Mandalay  Mandalay District Court on Tuesday decided to proceed with the lawsuit against alleged members of the Arakan Army (AA) and three others who were arrested with explosives and arms.

Ko Aung Lin Htet, Ko Myat Khaing, Ko Chan Nyein and Ko Kyaw Kyaw Phyo were arrested on September 10 last year at a house in Chanmyathazi Township, with 28 packs of gunpowder, 1,000 detonators and bomb-making accessories, 40 satellite phones, 30 binoculars and 25 GPS devices.

The police accused Ko Aung Lin Htet of being a warrant officer in the AA and Ko Myat Khaing and Ko Cha Nyein of holding the rank of lance corporal. Ko Kyaw Kyaw Phyo is a supervisor on the Shwe Pyi Thit highway bus. Two gem traders, Ko Moe Kyaw and Ko Win Thein, were arrested later.

All six are charged under the Counterterrorism Laws Articles 51 and 52 and face between five years to life in prison. They are being held in Obo Prison in Mandalay and were presented to the court in early October.

The court found out from the testimonies of the witnesses and the plaintiff that they are involved with the terrorist group and have explosives so the court decided to proceed with the lawsuit, said U Kyaw Kyaw Moe, the court spokesman.

Article 51(c) of the law states that anyone involved with a terrorist bombing attempt should face five to 10 years in prison. Article 52(a) carries three to seven years in prison for supplying bomb parts.

On the next hearing on June 23, two prosecution witnesses are due in court.

According to a prosecution lawyer, the court will decide how to proceed after hearing from the two witnesses.

After hearing the testimonies from the witnesses for a second time, the court will decide if the lawsuit should proceed, said lawyer U Myo Min Zaw.

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A corrections officer and a FedEx employee have been identified as among the counter-protestors seen on video taunting demonstrators at a protest in New Jersey by reenacting the death of George Floyd.

The two men were recorded screaming at peaceful protestors as they walked down a street in Franklin Township, New Jersey.

With American flags and a large Trump sign posted on pickup trucks behind them, one of the men appeared to kneel on the other while shouting, this is what happens when you don't comply with the cops" and at one point adding: It's his fault he's dead, not the cop!"

The performative counter protest could be seen as a reenactment of Mr Floyds death, who passed away last month after a white police officer in Minneapolis kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he pleaded for his life. Mr Floyd was a 46-year-old black man from Houston, Texas, and unarmed at the time of his death, which was captured on video and has since sparked global demonstrations against racism and police brutality.

Both of the men have been suspended from their jobs. Their counter-protest has since become the subject of condemnation from local officials, including the police chief, mayor and even Governor Phil Murphy (DNJ), who said in a statement: Mocking George Floyds murder in effort to belittle the calls for justice from our Black and Brown communities is repugnant.

The New Jersey Department of Corrections confirmed one of its employees was seen on the videos recorded by protestors mourning the death of Mr Floyd. In a statement posted to Facebook, the corrections department wrote: We have been made aware that one of our officers participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd.

It added the employee would be suspended and banned from state facilities pending a thorough and expedited investigation.

FedEx also posted a statement to social media confirming one of its employees were seen on the viral videos shared from the demonstrations, writing on Twitter: The [behaviour] depicted in the video, which involved a FedEx employee, is appalling and offensive.

The company continued: The employee in question was immediately removed from all FedEx work duties while our investigation is concluded and all internal procedures are followed.

Police Chief Brian Zimmer released a joint statement on Tuesday with Franklin Township Mayor John Bruno describing the brothers counter protest as revolting, adding: Without an understanding and mutual respect for all individuals, we can never aspire to create a united community based upon the idea of human respect and dignity for all.

Protests have continued for weeks in cities across the country, as demonstrators demanded justice for Mr Floyds killing and an end to institutional racism and excessive force against black and brown communities.

The city of Houston held memorial services for Mr Floyd on Tuesday.
An organisation that promised to expose sexual harassment in the workplace closes down less than two and half years after it launched.

NOW Australia, which was set up by 26 women including Tracey Spicer, announced on June 5 they would be shutting their doors.

The organisation was created in 2018 out of the #MeToo movement to stop sexual harassment against women.

One of their greatest achievements was a submission made to the Australian Human Rights Commission's (AHRC) National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, where many of their recommendations were adopted.

NOW Australia, which was set up by 26 women including Tracey Spicer (pictured), announced on June 5 they would be shutting their doors

A statement released by the organisation stated that they needed 'financial viability and stability' to achieve their dreams of 'better prevention, stronger regulation and more effective support'

A statement released by the organisation stated that they needed 'financial viability and stability' to achieve their dreams of 'better prevention, stronger regulation and more effective support'.

'We now find ourselves facing unprecedented times. The national funding landscape has changed dramatically,' the statement said.

'COVID-19 continues to impact individuals, families and businesses across the country. This has created an extremely precarious landscape and as a result, we have chosen to adopt a conservative approach.

'We have taken the difficult, but fiscally responsible decision to close down. The remaining funds are being shared on to YWCA and to Justice Connect to support their important work with the Gateway Project.'

The organisation said they didn't take the move lightly and thanked donors and supporters.

'To the survivors out there  we hear you, we believe you and we acknowledge the impact of your experience. Please know that the fight for workplaces free of sexual harassment continues,' the statement said.

Jane Caro, Tracy Spicer and L.J Loch march in the Sydney Women's March in 2017

Ms Spicer was one of the 26 people who founded the organisation and in 2017 she called on sexual assault survivors to share their stories.

Many disclosures were left unanswered and NOW Australia was forced to apologise. The actions were heavily criticised by Buzzfeed Investigations.

Ms Spicer told Daily Mail Australia in a statement: 'NOW Australia has been run by an independent board since mid-2018. While I was one of 26 women who founded the organisation, I stepped away more than 18 months ago. I have never been a member of that board.'

Sharna Bremner, the founder of the End Rape on Campus, said it was disappointing the organisation was closing but was unimpressed with their work.

'I'm pretty disappointed because it could have been something good had it been done properly, it was something a lot of people put a lot of hope a lot of money into,' Ms Bremner told the Daily Telegraph.

'It was harmful for people who were completely ignored  some of those people will not speak up and seek support ever again,' she said.
Markets are not reacting to macroeconomic risks the way they used to, and that's dangerous for investors, the chief executive officer of an investment firm said this week. "It's very hard to get a grasp of what the fundamental rationale is for this rally that we've seen and the valuations of markets at present," said David Sokulsky, CEO and chief investment officer of Concentrated Leaders Fund. Following a massive sell-off in March as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe, stocks have surged despite economic concerns. Sokulsky on Wednesday told CNBC's "Capital Connection" that economic and corporate fundamentals are "nowhere near as good as what the equity markets are pricing in." Jonathan Sheridan, chief investment strategist at Australian investment company Fiig, echoed that sentiment. Given the underlying economic data, the "huge risk-on tone" in markets "puzzles me," he said, adding that he doesn't see "any reason" for the recent rallies.

A trader walks in front of the New York Stock Exchange on May 26, 2020 at Wall Street in New York City. Johannes Eisele | AFP | Getty Images

Sokulsky said the market is "purely driven by speculation and ... excess liquidity in the system." Central banks and governments around the world have announced fiscal and monetary in various packages to support their economies, which have been thrown into crisis by the virus. "How institutional investors, fund managers and the rest of the participants react to that excess liquidity is just unknown," Sokulsky said. "At the moment we're just seeing markets on a runaway tear, which is creating as close to a bubble-like environment as we've seen since 2000." He also pointed out that markets are not behaving the way they used to in the past. Noting that there hasn't been market volatility in response to Beijing's plan for a national security law in Hong Kong, he said: "If this happened a year ago, markets would have been down 10% to 15% on this news." "This is why I say it's a dangerous environment, because at the moment, the markets are not ... responding to any of the macro risks that are out there. They're not responding as they would have a year ago." Instead, market movements are "momentum-driven" and based on liquidity from central banks, said Sokulsky. "It seems like the fundamentals and the risks actually just don't matter," he added. "All that matters is liquidity and momentum and, you know, that doesn't last forever."
WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans have tapped the lone black lawmaker in their ranks with drafting legislation to change police practices amid a public outcry and dramatic shift in opinion about law enforcement in the wake of George Floyd's death.

The fate of Floyd - a black man who was suffocated under the weight of a white police officer's knee more than two weeks ago - and the subsequent protests that flared across the country have prompted scrutiny of racial injustice in policing and demands for action.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday that he had asked Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., to lead a working group because he had experience "dealing with this discrimination that persists some 50 years" after the Civil Rights movement.

"The best way is to listen to one of our own who has had these experiences," McConnell said of Scott, who in a 2016 Senate speech described being racially profiled, including a time he was stopped by U.S. Capitol police who questioned whether he was a lawmaker.

The response to Floyd's death, more than previous protests of police violence against African Americans, has spurred a sea change in public opinion about racial discrimination in law enforcement.

Nearly seven out of 10 Americans believe Floyd's death is part of a broader systematic problem, an exponential increase since 2014 when 43 percent of Americans said the death of another black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., was indicative of a larger policing problem, according a Washington Post-Schar School poll.

Senate Republicans, increasingly nervous about holding their majority in November, seemed to sense a societal shift, announcing their effort a day after House and Senate Democrats unveiled a sweeping package of reforms, including a ban on chokeholds, establishment of a national database to track police misconduct and a prohibition on certain no-knock warrants, among other initiatives.

The House Judiciary Committee will hold the first congressional hearing on policing since Floyd's death on Wednesday, with Floyd's brother, Philonese, scheduled to testify.

"I think it's important for this nation to take a very powerful stand and position that says we're listening, we're hearing and we're reacting; we're responding in a positive, constructive manner that doesn't create a binary choice between supporting law enforcement and supporting communities of color," Scott told reporters. "I think you can actually do both."

The Senate GOP moves come as President Donald Trump has struggled in his response to policing and the civic unrest. The president has defended "the finest law enforcement anywhere in the world" while acknowledging some mistakes.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted a conspiracy theory against a 75-year-old man in Buffalo, who was pushed to the ground by police during a protest there. Most Republicans in Congress dodged questions about the president's tweet that seemed to side with the police over the injured civilian - including McConnell, who reiterated twice that he was focused on the package of proposals from Scott.

Scott's plan will include a bill he first sponsored in 2017 after the death of Walter Scott, a black man who was shot in the back by police in Charleston, S.C., which would require states to maintain a database anytime a police officer is involved in a fatal shooting of a civilian or risk losing federal funds.

The package would also include training for officers, such as de-escalation and perhaps bias training, and a national police commission that would help the government determine best practices for law enforcement agencies nationwide, rather than setting strict policing mandates at the federal level.

Scott told reporters he was working on a "separate track" from the White House but had been in discussion with officials there. Hours later, Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Ja'Ron Smith, a White House domestic policy aide who was closely involved in the prison overhaul bill that Trump signed into law in late 2018, visited Capitol Hill to meet with Scott.

Aides said senators would like to finish the legislative package by the end of this week.

Scott's working group includes two Republicans, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and John Cornyn of Texas, who are facing reelection in traditionally red states where Democrats intend to compete. Graham's Democratic challenger, Jaime Harrison, is an African American who outraised Graham in the first quarter of the year and is targeting Graham on issues of diversity.

"We're in a national crisis relating to civil rights and criminal justice. @LindseyGrahamSC leads the Senate committee that oversees these issues. And all we get is more political games," Harrison tweeted this week.

The group also includes Sens James Lankford, R-Okla., and Shelley Moore Capitol, R-W.Va., who are heavily favored to win their reelection bids.

Scott, who has worked on several criminal justice measures on Capitol Hill, briefed GOP senators about the contours of the emerging Republican plan at a closed-door party lunch on Tuesday. Most appeared to be on board with the outlines of the proposal, according to two officials familiar with the meeting, except Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

Paul stands to be an unusual figure in the policing debate. He has been an outspoken opponent of the militarization of police, joining with Democrats to ban the transfer of surplus military equipment to police departments - a key part of the House Democratic bill. But he is also under fire for single-handedly blocking quick action on an anti-lynching bill that passed the House in February and enjoys wide support in the Senate.

He told reporters Tuesday that he would be willing to work with Democrats on a bipartisan package but said they needed to make a bona fide effort to address his issues with the anti-lynching bill, which he says could be applied too broadly to minor crimes.

"If they're just going to make big speeches and condemn me and call me a racist or whatever they want to call me, how do they expect to get anything done?" Paul said.

There are no guarantees the Democratic-led House and the Republican-led Senate could agree on the specifics of a bill, and also no assurance from the White House that Trump would sign it - especially with mere months until the presidential election, when the parties are less inclined to work together.

Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said it was possible a draft Republican policing package could be released later this week and could reach the Senate floor before the end of the month.

The Republican bill, he said, would be more limited than the Democrats' bill that would institute a host of new accountability measures.

"Obviously theirs was a lot more far-reaching in some areas probably than what our members would be willing to support, but I do think . . . there's common ground to be found," Thune said.

But there will be discord within the more limited framework on the Republican plan, as well. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., contradicted his colleagues who are urging swift action on policing reforms.

"Anything that would reflect and impose on the law enforcement officers in America that they're not doing their job or they're somehow, it's all negative, as the Democrats are trying to declare, is wrong, and I would oppose anything that they propose," he said.

But some GOP senators appeared willing to entertain more aggressive reforms. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said he was seriously considering whether to back changes to the immunity doctrine, reversing a five-decade-old federal court precedent.

The Democratic proposal, long sought by civil rights advocates, would change "qualified immunity," the legal doctrine that shields officers from lawsuits, by lowering the bar for plaintiffs to sue officers for alleged civil rights violations.

"Most in our conference don't want to go that far, but I'm really going out to see if I can get a few others interested in looking at that," he said, saying that embracing the change would "show them, in our conference, we mean business."
A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: New orders in manufacturing 2021, November

Published: 10 June 2020

New orders in manufacturing fell by 13.0 per cent year-on-year in April

According to Statistics Finland, the value of new orders in manufacturing was 13.0 per cent lower in April 2020 than twelve months earlier. During January to April, orders decreased by 8.3 per cent from the year before. Orders have declined continuously for four months.

Annual change in new orders in manufacturing (original series), % (TOL2008)

In April, enterprises in all manufacturing industries received fewer orders than twelve months ago. In the chemical industry, new orders decreased by 1.3 per cent from the previous year. In the metal industry, orders declined by 13.5 per and in the manufacture of paper and paper products by 18.0 per cent from one year ago.

When interpreting these statistics, it should be borne in mind that they typically show strong fluctuations by month. Even new orders of substantial value are not examined over extended time periods but for the statistical reference month only.

Change in new orders in manufacturing 4/2019 4/2020

The index of new orders in manufacturing describes development in the value of new orders received by enterprises for commodities and services that are meant to be produced by establishments located in Finland. These statistics are based on non-probability sampling, in which the basic observation unit is an enterprise or a kind-of-activity unit. The sample comprises monthly 400 to 450 enterprises or their kind-of-activity units. Index point figures and annual change percentages are published monthly for four industry categories. The time series start from January 2005 and their base year is 2015 (2015=100). The index figures may become slightly revised as new data accumulate and enterprises report changes to their data. Due to supplementations, the latest 12 months are revised in the releases. A detailed description of the statistics and the calculation method are included in the quality description on the home page of the statistics.

Source: New orders in manufacturing 2020, April. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Jussi Haavisto 029 551 3341, Maarit Makela 029 551 3324, volyymi.indeksi@stat.fi

Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko

Publication in pdf-format (251.5 kB)

Updated 10.6.2020

Referencing instructions: Statistics: New orders in manufacturing [e-publication].

ISSN=1798-6737. April 2020. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 22.1.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/teul/2020/04/teul_2020_04_2020-06-10_tie_001_en.html
Election 2020 Election Authorities Prepare for Voting in Myanmars Roughest War Zone

A deserted market area in Paletwa, Chin State in February when fighting between the military and the Arakan Army was intense. / Aung Kyaw Htet / The Irrawaddy

PATHEIN, Ayeyarwady RegionThe Chin State election commission has said it is prepared to hold voting for the upcoming general election in Paletwa, where the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA) are engaged in ongoing fighting.

We have prepared to hold the election for all three parliaments in Paletwa, said Chin State election commission Secretary U Lin Kyaw, referring to the two Union-level houses and the Chin State parliament. We have arranged polling stations and the necessities for polling. We have made everything ready if the election is to be held in Paletwa.

The Union Election Commission (UEC) said that it will hold the general election in November as planned despite the COVID-19 health crisis.

There are a total of five parliament seats for Paletwatwo seats each in Chin State parliament and the Upper House, and one seat in the Lower House. The National League for Democracy won all five seats in the 2015 general election.

The AA was established in 2009 in Kachin States Laiza with the support of the Kachin Independence Army and in 2014 it announced its long-term plan to return to its homeland of Rakhine State.

It took steps to realize its dream the following year, with troops infiltrating the town of Paletwa, a remote area on the border of Chin and Rakhine states. The move led to the current war with the Myanmar military, also called the Tatmadaw.

In the years after the AAs initial return, few violent clashes were reported in Paletwa, but in November 2018, the conflict intensified. In February of this year, fierce clashes broke out between the two sides, forcing over 6,000 local residents from Paletwa and Samee towns into camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Skirmishes are still taking place along the Kaladan River and the border with Bangladesh, and over 3,000 ethnic Chin IDPs are still taking shelter at seven camps in urban Paletwa.

The UEC has asked the views of the Union governments office and the Defense Ministry. They have not replied yet, said U Lin Kyaw. The situation is different day-to-day on the ground, but we have made ready for the election, if the government says the election will be held.

There were 159 polling stations in Chin State in the 2015 general election, but the state election commission has added 12 more polling stations and prepared 171 for this November.

Chin National League for Democracy (CNLD) chairman Pu No Than Kap has urged the Myanmar military and the AA to cooperate as the local residents will be disenfranchised if fighting continues in Paletwa Township.

I want the election to be held in Paletwa. People will suffer if the election cant be held. So, I want to urge the Tatmadaw and the AA to help so that the election can be held and people can vote peacefully, he said.

The Myanmar military and the AA have clashed violently in the west of Paletwa, which covers the constituencies for three seats one each in the Lower House, Upper House and state parliament.

Military tensions remain high in the township, and the Myanmar military has blocked boat traffic on the Kalandan River and closed the road to nearby Matupi for security concerns.

We want the election to be held. Only then will there be representatives who will speak on behalf of us in three parliaments, said Paletwa resident Ko David. Without the election, our voices will be lost and so will our voting rights. So, I would like to urge all the organizations involved to work so that the election can be held in Paletwa.

There are 39 seats in parliament across Chin States nine townshipsnine seats in the Lower House, 12 in the Upper House and 18 in the state parliament. There are 340,000 eligible voters in Chin State, according to the state election commission. But the number of eligible voters in Paletwa Township is not yet known. There were over 60,000 eligible voters in the township in the 2015 general election.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 00:53:18|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China remains a top-three investment destination for 63 percent of respondents in the European Business in China Business Confidence Survey 2020, which was released Wednesday by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and the global consultancy firm Roland Berger.

Financial reporting of the Chamber's member companies for 2019 still showed significant downward trends, which is seen especially in the logistics, chemicals and petroleum, construction, and automotive industries, according to the survey.

"Despite the difficult global environment and uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, European companies overall remain strongly committed to China," said Denis Depoux, Global Managing Director of Roland Berger. "European companies are increasingly in China for China, both to meet growing domestic demand and to tap into its innovative ecosystem."

China now has the strength and experience to become a leading force in a global recovery, but this brings with it a significant responsibility, said Charlotte Roule, vice president of the European Chamber. She added that collaboration with the global community is urgently needed to upgrade and strengthen the rules-based order, guided by the principles of reciprocity. Enditem
Paytm has expanded Paytm Postpaid facility that offers the spend now, pay next month option to offline retail outlets and neighbourhood kirana shops keeping in mind that people are increasingly using digital transactions and contactless payments due to coronavirus.

Paytm postpaid service can be used at Reliance Fresh, Haldiram, Apollo Pharmacy, Croma, Shoppers Stop. This service enables customers to buy groceries, milk, and other home essentials from local shops.

Coronavirus India News LIVE Updates

Bills at Dominos, Tata Sky, Pepperfry, HungerBox, Patanjali, Spencers can also be paid by using Paytm Postpaid facility. Paytm's postpaid service is offered in partnership with two NBFCs with an instant credit line for various payments to Paytm app users.

Also read: Paytm reaches out to state govts on contactless food ordering at restaurants

Digital credit is offered to Paytm app users where one can 'spend now and pay the next month'. A credit limit of up to Rs 1 lakh monthly spends is offered by Paytm.

Here are details of the spend now, pay next month option

> Select users will be shown a postpaid icon in the financial services section.> Paytm has released three variants for users -- Lite, Delite and Elite.> Postpaid Lite will have a limit of Rs 20,000 and a convenience charge will be added to the monthly bill.> The credit limit for Delite and Elite users will be from Rs 20,000 to Rs 1,00,000 in monthly spends with no convenience charges.> The credit profile of the user will be assessed by a partner NBFC before offering the postpaid option.> Customer will have to complete online KYC with Paytm's partner NBFCs.> To view monthly spends via Paytm app, users will have an option to get through the passbook in this service.> The bill will have to be paid on or before the 7th of each month.

> Paytm will not charge any extra cost to activate any postpaid offer

Also read: Paytm claims telecom firms not preventing phishing; Delhi HC seeks Centre, TRAI response

The company in a blog said: "Our Postpaid Lite variant has been designed so that our users without excellent credit scores are also able to avail the convenience & benefits of this service."
A Texas Democrat introduced a bill that would bar President Trump from nuking hurricanes, a suggestion he reportedly made in closed-door meetings last year.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia unveiled the 'Climate Change and Hurricane Correlation and Strategy Act' earlier this month, telling The Washington Post that it was in direct response to an Axios report, which said Trump had floated the eyebrow-raising idea to senior Homeland Security and national security officials.

The bill bars a 'strategic weapon' from being used for 'altering weather patterns or addressing climate change.'

A Texas Democrat introduced legislation in response to President Trump suggesting last year that the U.S. could use nuclear weapons against hurricanes before they reached the country's shores. The president has denied that he made those remarks

Rep. Sylvia Garcia introduced the 'Climate Change and Hurricane Correlation and Strategy Act' on June 1, which coincided with the start of Atlantic hurricane season this year. Here a NOAA satellite captured an image of Hurricane Harvey in August 2017

In August 2019, Axios reported that during one of the hurricane briefings at the White House, the president said, 'I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?' he said of the storms.

'They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb insde the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it,' Trump said, according to Axios' source. 'Why can't we do that?'

The source recalled the briefer responding by telling Trump, 'Sir, we'll look into that.'

The source described the briefer as being 'knocked back on his heels.'

Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Texas Democrat, introduced a bill that would bar the president from using nukes on hurricanes

'You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting,' the source told Axios. 'People were astonished. After the meeting ended, we thought, "What the f***? What do we do with this?'

Trump, not surprisingly, took to Twitter to call the Axios report, 'Just more FAKE NEWS!'

'The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this,' he also said.

Garcia introduced the bill on June 1, which coincided with the start of Atlantic hurricane season.

'When I heard our president suggest that we needed to launch a nuclear weapon to disrupt a hurricane, my first thought was that's a really dumb idea,' Garcia told The Post. 'When we did the research, we found that others have thought of that idea before.'

The bill if signed into law - which is unlikely considering the GOP Senate and with Trump in the White House - would bar future presidents from making the move as well.

It's been referred to the House Armed Services committee, the Energy and Commerce committee and the Science, Space and Technology committee, though currently has no co-sponsors.

The bill comes as the Republicans eye Jacksonville, Florida, as a new convention site, after Trump and Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper couldn't come to an agreement that would allow the president to have a packed crowd when he wins the GOP nomination for the second time.

Due to coronavirus concerns, Cooper said he couldn't promise the Charlotte Republican National Convention could go on without some social distancing measures.

Now some of the main events might take place in Jacksonville - a hurricane-prone city on Florida's Atlantic coast.

In 2012, Tropical Storm Isaac delayed the start to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:16:35|Editor: huaxia

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WUHAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- A China-Europe freight train loaded with 35 containers of COVID-19 control and prevention materials departed Wuhan for Duisburg in Germany on Wednesday.

The materials, weighing 303.8 tonnes, included face masks, protective suits and surgical gowns which were all manufactured in Hubei Province, according to the China Railway's Wuhan bureau.

The train is expected to arrive in the German city in 15 days.

Tang Wanyi, who is with the bureau, said the station gave the green light to the train during scheduling and loading.

On May 9, the once virus-hit city sent another freight train loaded with anti-virus supplies to Belgrade. Enditem
Japan Tuesday offered Tunisia 4 million earmarked for the fight against the covid-19 pandemic.

The aid will also be used to bolster Tunisias heath sector through the identification of contagious diseases.

Tunisia has so far reported 1,087 cases including 982 recoveries and 49 deaths. The country has not recorded any new cases for seven consecutive days.

Japans donation follows that of France, 80 million, announced early this month. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD, last month loaned Tunisia 18.3 million.

The World Bank, IBRDs parent company, early last month announced $35 million destined to support the health ministry in its fight against the novel covid-19 and finance the purchase of medical equipment.

In addition to the World Bank, the IMF has approved a $745m loan to Tunisia. The European Union on its part granted the North African country 250 million while Italy pledged 50 million.

Since the pandemic outbreak, China has sent to Tunisia three shipments of medical supplies.
New footage shows a black man telling police that 'I can't breathe' - foreshadowing George Floyd - before he died in custody in Oklahoma City a year ago.

Derrick Elliot Scott pleaded with officers as they tackled him and forced him into handcuffs in 'troubling' body-cam footage released this week.

The phrase 'I can't breathe' has become a global rallying cry since footage of Floyd's arrest in Minneapolis ignited a blaze of protests against racism and police brutality.

Unlike Floyd, 42-year-old Scott was armed and an Oklahoma district attorney has already cleared the officers involved.

Derrick Elliot Scott is pinned down in Oklahoma City last year in newly-released bodycam footage which foreshadows the George Floyd video. The officers involved in this footage have been cleared of any wrongdoing

Oklahoma City police released the footage on Monday night under pressure from Black Lives Matter and media outlets.

The footage from May 2019 shows cops pursuing Scott after they identified him as the man 'brandishing a firearm' whom they had come to confront.

Scott tried to flee but was tackled to the ground on a patch of grass where police tried to handcuff him.

As he struggled with the cops and one officer threatened to Taser him, Scott said several times that 'I can't breathe'.

After the suspect is finally handcuffed and another officer arrives, one is heard saying that Scott is 'acting like he's unconscious'.

Police captain Larry Withrow said police had 'located a loaded firearm' in his trouser pocket when they searched him, but claimed they had 'immediately' called for medical help when he appeared to lose consciousness.

Scott later regained consciousness and became 'combative' by 'jumping and kicking at the officers' as paramedics tried to move him to a gurney, Withrow said.

Withrow said police and paramedics had performed CPR on Scott in the ambulance but that the suspect had later died in hospital.

Before the footage was released publicly, it was shown to Scott's family. His son Derrick Ollie said it was 'very troubling to watch'.

'They stood by and did nothing and acted as if he was OK, when he told them plenty of times that he couldn't breathe,' he said.

'They're laughing and joking like something is funny, when this man was struggling for his life.'

Pursuit: The footage from May 2019 shows cops pursuing Scott after they identified him as the man 'brandishing a firearm' whom they had come to confront

Scott was tackled by police on a patch of grass - as seen here from another officer's body camera - and struggled with officers as they tried to handcuff him

Police captain Larry Withrow said police had 'located a loaded firearm' in Scott's trouser pocket when they searched him, but claimed they had 'immediately' called for medical help when he appeared to lose consciousness (the paramedics are seen in wearing orange)

The phrase 'I can't breathe' has become a global rallying cry since footage of George Floyd's arrest in Minneapolis (pictured) ignited a blaze of protests against racism and police brutality

An autopsy report listed the probable cause of death as a collapsed lung and noted several conditions that likely contributed to his death, including physical restraint, recent methamphetamine use, asthma, emphysema and heart disease.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater cleared all of the officers involved last year after receiving a copy of the autopsy report.

'This guy runs from the police. He's got a 90 per cent occluded major artery in his heart,' Prater said.

'I mean, he's just a perfect candidate to die when you've got meth in your system and those kinds of physical ailments and then you fight with police.

'They didn't do anything wrong at all,' he said of the officers, who have since returned to regular duties.

George Floyd, who was unarmed and handcuffed, similarly pleaded for air as a white officer pressed a knee on his neck in Minneapolis on May 25. He later died.

The four officers in the Floyd case have all been fired and charged, with Derek Chauvin facing a second-degree murder charge.

Floyd's death has set off a wave of protests against racism and police brutality, including in Europe and around the world.
George Russell has admitted he has a keen eye on a potential Mercedes race seat for 2021.

Team boss Toto Wolff, who already works closely with the Mercedes development driver, has named the 22-year-old as a contender for the works seat.

"They are the best team, they have been so dominant," he told the German broadcaster RTL. "Who wouldn't want the chance in that car?

"Mercedes helped me in my development to win GP3 and Formula 2 and then helped me into Formula 1," Russell added.

Currently, he drives for the backmarker Williams, but he senses a chance to capitalise on the long seven-month break between grands prix.

Russell said Austria next month "could be the greatest opportunity of the year for us".

"A lot of people will make mistakes - the drivers, the mechanics, the engineers. We have to use that and make less mistakes," he smiled.

(GMM)
A manhole cover is a removable plate forming the lid over the opening of a manhole, to prevent anyone or anything from falling in, and to keep out unauthorized persons and material. Manhole covers are made from cast iron, concrete or mixture of both. These manhole covers are inexpensive, heavy and strong. The global manhole covers market will reach 4.37 billion USD by 2025 from 3.56 billion USD in 2018 at a CAGR of 2.98% during the period.

Request for Report sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/4010

Growth by Region

Asia Pacific will dominate the market owing rapid economic growth and infrastructural development with huge amount of investments. Europe and North America have significant share in the market and will grow at a slow rate as they are already developed regions.

Request for Report Discount: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/4010

Drivers vs Constraints

The growing construction sector is the major factor for the growth of the market. With a rising population and growing real-estate industry, the need for manholes has also increased. However, the long life of manhole covers makes the replacement rate of the manhole covers low, which decreases the demand for manhole covers.

Industry Trends and Updates

The manhole covers in Japan are being transformed from smelly and ugly image to elaborately designed and colorful manhole covers.
"End Racism Now" was the message demonstrators in Fishtown had for the city on Tuesday, painting the words in bold yellow letters on Girard Avenue, just outside Philadelphia polices 26th District headquarters. The painting is seen on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. Read more

People knelt along Girard Avenue with paint brushes, writing End Racism Now in bold yellow letters on the Fishtown street. The scene played out Tuesday night just outside the 26th District police station, near where protesters and neighborhood men armed with bats faced off last week.

Like anti-racism street paintings in other cities, the images from Philadelphia quickly spread on social media.

Organizer the Rev. John T. Brice, pastor of Olneys St. James United Methodist Church, called the event a phenomenal" step toward community healing for residents and police officers.

Some residents, however, had a different take, saying the demonstration amplified empty promises" and seemed like a public relations move by a police force that has yet to atone for its actions of last week.

 READ MORE: Philly police stood by as men with baseball bats protected Fishtown. Some residents were assaulted and threatened.

Conrad Benner, a lifelong Fishtowner and founder of the blog StreetsDept.com, said Wednesday that he had heard from at least a dozen residents who expressed an overwhelming frustration and disappointment in what yesterdays event was supposed to be.

He pointed to an online petition, started last week and signed by more than 33,000 people, that asks for the removal of the precincts Capt. William Fisher and an investigation of all officers involved in protecting and enabling the armed men who threatened residents amid protests.

What folks are asking for is police accountability, Benner said, and what they got last night was an event where they were asked to applaud the police, and police were not asked any critical questions about their behavior last week.

Hours after the painting, Philadelphia firefighters tried to wash the words from the street, at the request of the organizers, who didnt have a permit for a permanent display. It was a scene critics interpreted as another example of superficiality.

But Wednesday morning, the words were still there.

A spokesperson for Mayor Jim Kenney said the city has no intentions of removing it at this time." The Streets Department told Brice the mural can remain until it dissolves naturally.

When Troy Musto heard rumors that the message might have been washed away, he had to see for himself. Musto and his daughter, Stella, had helped paint it.

Im glad to see its still here, he said, standing with Stella near the letters.

We didnt come out here to paint last night for any PR stunt, we came to support Black Lives Matter, Musto said, adding that after a tumultuous week in the neighborhood, the Tuesday scene was beautiful.

Brice said he was hurt to hear some people call him a pawn for organizing and inviting law enforcement to participate. As a pastor, he said, he believes engaging with police officers does more to facilitate healing than ostracizing them.

The street painting was a grassroots effort, Brice said, that he and several other community members began planning Monday.

While Brice would have loved for the words to be forever etched in Fishtown, he said it would have taken more time for the city to approve a permit. Organizers didnt want to wait, he said, and lose the momentum of the peaceful anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Brice said he reached out to the 26th District about 5 p.m. Tuesday, shortly before the event began. He told police that the community was hurting, he said, and that he wanted to push for change.

As a few hundred people painted the message  as well as the names Donta Dawson and David Jones, two local victims of police brutality  police stood nearby, Brice said.

At one point, Brice said, he approached Fisher and asked him to be a part of the healing. Fisher then helped paint Floyds name.

Matthew 5:9 calls me to be a peacemaker, not a peacekeeper, the pastor said. I have to be intentional."

Brice said he understands residents anger and hurt, but doesnt think pushing out the captain or other officers is the solution.

Allowing Capt. Fisher to learn, to apologize, to take intentional steps  is what changes the heart of the community, he said.

Josh Miller, 27, of Northeast Philadelphia, said he showed up to Tuesdays event after seeing the impact that Washington residents had after they wrote Black Lives Matter on Pennsylvania Avenue. When police were given a platform to speak in Fishtown, Miller said, he had to walk away.

I didnt go there to hear police say Were going to work with the community and other empty promises," Miller said

Benner, 35, said many community members wish they could have been able to voice concerns to police at Tuesdays event.

This whole movement is about police accountability, and that precinct has yet to take accountability for anything they did last Monday, he said. Until that happens, no healing can begin.
Electronic tariff (e-tariff) platforms are gathering momentum across the world and there is a growing recognition that these instruments offer massive benefits both for Customs and trade. E-tariff platforms are designed to integrate all relevant information on regulatory measures applied to international trade transactions in one place for online consultation by all interested parties.

Realizing the benefits that such electronic tools can offer and in line with its modernization strategy, the Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA) has moved to establish a comprehensive e-tariff platform, with the support of the WCO under the framework of the EU-WCO Programme for HS in Africa, funded by the European Union. The official start of the project was announced at the kick-off meeting, held on 3 June 2020 in an online format, with the participation of representatives of the SRA, the WCO and a South African private company specialized in electronic tools for Customs.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Dumisani Masilela, Commissioner General of the SRA welcomed the support from the WCO and expressed the commitment of his administration to set up a modern platform through which stakeholders could be informed and kept up to date on the policies and practices in place. He expressed confidence that the project will contribute to the timely and efficient implementation of the HS, avoid revenue loss, and support the ongoing efforts of Eswatini to meet the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement commitments.

In her congratulatory remarks, the Deputy Director for Capacity Building, Mrs. Brendah Mundia conveyed the WCOs appreciation for SRAs keen interest to implement this important project. She reaffirmed the WCOs commitment to provide technical support and to assure the successful implementation of this important project

In order to give a comprehensive and efficient user experience to trade operators in Eswatini, the e-tariff platform will seek to include an interactive section on advance rulings to allow the submission of paperless online applications for rulings. A multidisciplinary team at the SRA has been assigned to coordinate this project and will ensure close collaboration with the Eswatini National Trade Facilitation Committee.

For more details, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.
An Abeokuta Magistrates Court in Ogun on Wednesday sentenced a 21-year-old man, Musa Anifowose, to two years in the correctional centre for raping an eight-year-old girl.

Mr Anifowose, who resides at Isale Iyemule, Ijebu Ode, was sentenced on a one-count charge of sexual abuse.

The Magistrate, I.O Abudu, said that all the evidences tendered in court had convinced the court beyond a reasonable doubt that the convict was guilty of the offence.

She sentenced Mr Anifowose to two years imprisonment without the option of fine

The magistrate also ordered that the convict be taken to the Oba correctional center to serve his jail term.

Earlier, the Prosecutor, Bukola Abolade, told the court that the convict committed the offence on May 1 at about 9:00 a.m., at No. 6, Agbaje Street, Sabo area of Ijebu-Ode.

Ms Abolade, a police Inspector, said the convict had carnal knowledge of the girl when she was sent on an errand by her mother.

She said the convict accosted the girl and forcefully took her to an abandoned building beside Sabo abattoir and had carnal knowledge of her.

When she got home, the mother noticed bloodstains on her cloth and upon inquiry, she told her mother what happened between her and the convict, she said.

According to the prosecutor, the offence contravenes Section 33 of the Child Rights Law of Ogun.(NAN)
London, June 10 : Britain will not extend its transitional links to the European Union (EU) beyond Dec. 31, a government minister said following the stalled talks between London and Brussels last week.

Penny Mordaunt, the British government's postmaster general told the House of Commons (lower house of parliament) on Tuesday that to agree to an extension would just extend the negotiating period with the EU and prolong uncertainty, Xinhua news agency reported.

Mordaunt, updating lawmakers on the fourth round of talks between the British government and the EU, said there had been no progress on principle issues during last week's talks.

"There are some very tough areas, one of them on fishing. We are asking for our (fishing) rights to be upheld and we are not wavering from that," she said.

Britain ended its membership of the bloc on Jan. 31 but is still following EU rules during a transition period until Dec. 31 to enable a permanent future trade deal to be reached. During this period, Britain would have to pay into EU funds but have no say in laws imposed by Brussels.

Mordaunt resisted a number of calls from opposition MPs to extend the transition period by up to a year.

She said the government wanted to agree on a deal as early as possible to enable businesses to make preparations.

"We need to conclude the negotiations and get a good outcome to give our citizens and businesses to prepare for new border arrangements. The people of Britain do not want to go back to uncertainty, they want clarity," she said, adding that a good deal is in the interests of both sides.

A report published Tuesday by think tank UK in a Changing Europe warned of the implications of going into 2021 without a Brexit deal on trade and future relationship issues, The Guardian newspaper reported.

Jonathan Portes, one of the authors, said: "COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit are major shocks for the UK economy. The interaction of the two is complex and unpredictable, with the potential to amplify some impacts while moderating others." "On balance, the pandemic probably does make the economic risks of exiting transition on January 2021 without a trade deal larger, but considerable uncertainties remain," Portes said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 23:38:20|Editor: huaxia

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ABUJA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 81 people were killed and seven others abducted when suspected Boko Haram militants attacked a village in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, said an official on Wednesday.

State governor Babagana Zulum told Xinhua that 13 others were wounded by the suspected militants who stormed the Faduma Koloram village in Borno's Gubio local government area on Tuesday.

The village head was among those kidnapped by the attackers who rode into the place on motorbikes, according to Zulum.

The armed attack on Tuesday was the third on that village in less than one month, said the governor who led state officials on an on-the-spot assessment of the damage caused by the suspected Boko Haram militants.

Many houses were razed and hundreds of cattle were also stolen by the suspected militants.

Zulum said the government will continue to support security forces to ensure the safety of the lives and property of the local people.

Local sources told Xinhua that the attackers had accused the villagers of sharing information with security agents about the Boko Haram group in Borno.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has been trying to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria, extending its attacks to countries in the Lake Chad Basin that includes Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Benin, and Niger. Enditem
Description

GIS - 10 June, 2020: In the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Blue Economy has assumed another dimension as the need to ensure food security, job retention, and sustainability are now among the highest priorities of our socio-economic development agenda, said the Minister of Blue economy, Marine resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Mr Sudheer Maudhoo, today, in Parliament during his budgetary intervention. In the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Blue Economy has assumed another dimension as the need to ensure food security, job retention, and sustainability are now among the highest priorities of our socio-economic development agenda, said the Minister of Blue economy, Marine resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Mr Sudheer Maudhoo, today, in Parliament during his budgetary intervention.

He highlighted that the fisheries sector, which is an important component of the Blue Economy, will have to assume new roles and responsibilities in view of the challenges ahead. It has to emerge as a major player in our food security strategy, to be one of the main sources of foreign currencies and to create sustainable employment, he said.

Mr Maudhoo underlined that the Mauritius Investment Corporation (MIC) will set the base for a fishing industry on a large scale in Mauritius. The MIC, he added, will invest massively in the fishing industry, more specifically in industrial pelagic and demersal fishing, which is expected to become a key pillar of our economy in the coming years.

He indicated that Government will reduce foreign fishing vessels in our Exclusive Economic Zone in a phased manner and will replace them by Mauritian vessels with the support of MIC and local investors. Our Tuna will go through the value chain for export which is expected to generate thousands of jobs and inflow of foreign currencies, he added. Furthermore, investors will be called upon to export 50 % of their catch to enable the country to generate foreign currency.

Other measures include:

To combat Illegal , Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing, the licensing conditions of foreign fishing vessels will be reviewed and the Vessel Monitoring System Regulations (2005) will be updated to provide for maximum usage of information gathered through this system.

Increase of semi industrial bank fishing vessels from 35 to 100 over the coming four years so as to boost the catch to 6,000 tons yearly. As a major incentive, Government is envisaging to allow them to export 40% of their catch.

The current grant scheme of Rs 12 million for semi industrial fishing vessels will be reviewed to allow more promoters to benefit from the scheme and to purchase vessels so as to increase the local fleet.

Attracting investors to explore the resources at St Brandon Island.

Provision of Rs 4 million for the purchase of 20 cannot.

Increase in the number of scholarships offered to children of fishers and revival of the Seafarers Fund.

Revamping of the Albion Fisheries Research Centre.

Minister Maudhoo also said that a single licence for chartered yacht calls in Mauritius will be introduced encompassing multiple berthing options. He indicated that as part of Governments initiative to boost ship registration and encourage the expansion of ancillary services, the niche market of yachting is now being targeted.

He also dwelt on the Inland Aquaculture Scheme which will give a boost to the Blue Economy sector. The Scheme openly invites, through its attractive taxation structure, investment which will see an 8-year tax holiday, he added.

Speaking about incentives for fishermen, Mr Maudhoo stated that Government has increased the Bad Weather Allowance from Rs 365 to Rs 425, representing an increase of 100%. Furthermore, a sum of Rs 25 million has been earmarked f or the dredging of La passe de Mahebourg and another Rs 5 million for the same exercise at Le Batelage, Souillac.

Other measures include:

Authorise fishermen's federations to buy or import their fishing equipment themselves so that they can benefit from a better price.

Review net sizes for seine fishing.

Review the closing and opening period of the seine fishery.

Allow seine fishermen to venture out of the lagoon.

Government Information Service, Prime Ministers Office, Level 6, New Government Centre, Port Louis, Mauritius. Email: gis@govmu.org Website: http://gis.govmu.org Mobile App: Search Gov
The National Park Service published new rules on Tuesday that will enable the resumption of hunting and trapping methods including baiting bear traps, killing grizzly bear cubs and wolf pups in Alaska's national preserves.

The big picture: The new policy reverses Obama administration regulations. Wildlife welfare groups have called the hunting practices that will be permitted starting July 9 "cruel." Hunting advocates and Alaskan state leaders criticized the Obama-era ban for eroding state's rights and encroaching on their livelihoods, the New York Times notes. Tribal groups opposed the previous rules for threatening "long sustainable management practices" and have welcomed the Trump administration's changes.
Songs made famous by Lionel Richie will be the basis for a new movie musical from Walt Disney Studios, according to Variety.

The movie is in the early stages of development with a tentative title of All Night Long, Variety said today on its website. The media outlet didnt reveal the source of its information, and said representatives for Richie and Disney had no comment.

However, Richie retweeted reporter Matt Donnellys tweet about the movie and added, Big things in the works!

Big things in the works!  https://t.co/PAYKrTUJDO  Lionel Richie (@LionelRichie) June 9, 2020

Variety added a few other details, saying Richie and his manager Bruce Eskowitz are producing the project with Dana Brunetti and Matt Del Piano of Cavalry Media. A script is in the works from Peter Chiarelli, who wrote the screenplay for Crazy Rich Asians," Variety said.

Richie, 70, was born and raised in Tuskegee, Alabama. He started his career with the Commodores in 1968 and achieved superstar status as a solo artist during the 1980s. Richies signature songs include Penny Lover, Truly, All Night Long, Hello, Three Times a Lady, Running With the Night, Say You, Say Me, Sail On, Stuck On You and Dancing on the Ceiling.

Richie has four Grammy Awards to his credit, as well as an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Since 2018, hes been a judge on ABCs reboot of the reality series American Idol." ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
Members of the public at Brown Thomas department store as it reopened in Dublin this morning Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

HUNDREDS of shoppers filed into Brown Thomas and Arnotts on the department stores first day of business since the pandemic.

Very few shoppers wore face masks today in either Brown Thomas on Grafton Street, or Arnotts on Henry Street in Dublin but a large number of staff in both stores wore masks and some in Arnotts even donned visors.

Social distancing queues formed outside both stores as they opened this morning and there was a steady trade.

The doorman at Brown Thomas greeted shoppers and cameras counted how many shoppers walked into the store, to ensure a minimal number at each time.

Read More

Door staff also welcomed customers at Arnotts and one smiling female worker offered a mother and her young daughter hand sanitiser as soon as they stepped in the store.

Managing director of Brown Thomas, Donald McDonald said: The amount of people on a wet Wednesday that have taken the initiatives to come to Brown Thomas is very positive, Im quite pleased.

Mr McDonald said he hoped this was a sign people want to get back to normality.

Expand Close Concierge at Brown Thomas department Store Shane Murphy following its reopening Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins / Facebook

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Whatsapp Concierge at Brown Thomas department Store Shane Murphy following its reopening Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

But we are very conscious of the safety element. The store would, he added, be ensuring that safety.

Customers can pre-book visits to the two stores via their websites and shoppers can also join virtual queues, receiving texts when they reach the top of the queue.

Lily Smith (16) was one of the first in the queue at Brown Thomas this morning.

The schoolgirl is celebrating her birthday today and her mother, Lucy, was treating her to a Prada bag for her special day.

The mother and daughter, from Swords, north Dublin, were delighted to be out for the first time in the city centre since lockdown.

Were really looking forward to shopping, Ms Smith said. Lockdown didnt bother me too much. We were able to do food shopping online and Lily was able to keep in touch with friends on the phone, so we got through fine.

Mother Mary Burns, 58, and daughter Fiona, 23, from Castlebar, Co Mayo, were in the city for official business and decided to pop into Brown Thomas for a browse.

Both were among the few customers seen wearing face masks and Ms Burns said shed come prepared for her trip with gloves and hand sanitiser too.

We like Brown Thomas, Mrs Burns said. We like make-up. You never know, well look at purses and bags. Its lovely to see people out and about.

Its good after being locked down for some time. We had family time at home and now Im working at home.

Fiona has lost her job but hopefully well get back to normal soon. I think people are waiting to see how things pan out before they come out. Some people are still nervous, especially older people.

But for the population of Ireland we havent had that many cases and now I feel more confident to come out.

One woman who was queuing outside of Arnotts told Independent.ie that she was looking forward to looking around the shops.

I took the day off work, an annual leave day, to come in shopping.

I'm 30 years shopping in Arnotts and I seriously needed a bit of retail therapy, there's a lot of stuff I need and shoes is top of the list.

Brown Thomas is operating a policy of encouraging customers not to touch items unless there is a necessity.

Clothes are being placed in quarantine for 24 hours after each wear. And garments are steamed and cleaned. While new technology will allow shoppers to virtually try makeup on.

There is also a click and collect area in the Brown Thomas carpark to allow customers to remain in their car to pick up items.

And some dressing rooms are sectioned off, to ensure social distancing while only a small number are permitted into store toilets.
Wayne Jones, 50, was tased, placed in a chokehold and shot 22 times by West Virginia police during a confrontation in March 2013

A federal court has ruled five West Virginia police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 50-year-old mentally ill black man should not be protected by immunity, in an 'extraordinary' ruling seven years after his death.

Wayne Jones was killed in Martinsburg, West Virginia in March 2013 after he was tased, placed in a chokehold and shot 22 times during a confrontation with police.

The man, who was schizophrenic and homeless at the time, had been stopped by an officer around 11.30pm for walking on the street instead of the sidewalk.

His death was ruled a homicide, but the officers involved, identified as Erik Herb, Daniel North, William Staubs, Paul Lehman, and Eric Neely, were never indicted.

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Jones, who was schizophrenic and homeless, had been stopped by a police officer for walking alongside the sidewalk. A district judge initially ruled the cops were protected by qualified immunity

Jones's estate later sued the city for damages claiming excessive use of force and alleged the city had failed to properly train and discipline police officers, but the suit was dismissed by a district court twice.

FEDERAL APPEALS COURT UNANIMOUS DECISION ON WAYNE JONES KILLING Wayne Jones was killed just over one year before the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of Michael Brown would onceagain draw national scrutiny to police shootings of black people in the United States. Seven years later, we are asked to decide whether it was clearly established that five officers could not shoot a man 22 times as he lay motionless on the ground. Although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split-second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives. Before the ink dried on this opinion, the FBI opened an investigation into yet another death of a black man at the hands of police, this time George Floyd in Minneapolis. This has to stop. To award qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage in this case would signal absolute immunity for fear-based use of deadly force, which we cannot accept. The district court's grant of summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds is reversed, and the dismissal of that claim is hereby vacated. Advertisement

On Tuesday, a panel of three judges on the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling in a unanimous decision, finding the 'district court had improperly considered the facts in the light most favorable to the officers, rather than the estate.'

Jones, who had been carrying a knife, had stabbed one of the officers during the incident, but had been incapacitated and lying on the ground when he was shot, the Judge Henry Floyd said.

The decision notes the officers could not be protected by immunity because law enforcement 'may not constitutionally use force against a secured, incapacitated personlet alone use deadly force against that person.'

'What we see is a scared man who is confused about what he did wrong, and an officer that does nothing to alleviate that man's fears. That is the broader context in which five officers took Jones's life.'

Judge Floyd also drew comparisons to the recent killings of black men by police in the US, including Michael Brown and George Floyd, saying: 'This has to stop.'

'Although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split-second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives.

'Before the ink dried on this opinion, the FBI opened an investigation into yet another death of a black man at the hands of police, this time George Floyd in Minneapolis. This has to stop.'

Judge Floyd said awarding qualified immunity would allow police to be protected over 'fear-based use of deadly force, which we cannot accept.'

According to an amended complaint in 2013, officers shot at Jones as he tried to get to his feet after he stabbed a cop in the torso with a pocket knife.

It was later revealed the wound was so minor, the officer didn't need medical treatment.

Judge Henry Floyd said awarding qualified immunity would allow police to be protected over 'fear-based use of deadly force, which we cannot accept.'

Lehman was the first officer to encounter Jones and fired his gun eight times. This was followed by Herb's five, Neely's four, Staub's three and North's two.

The officers were armed with Sig Sauer .45-caliber handguns that hold nine rounds in the magazine.

After the shooting occurred, Martinsburg police admitted they used projectile stun guns twice on Jones, which had little effect, and shot him.

The lawsuit also claimed Jones' body was left in a pool of blood for four hours before he was moved.

The complaint also states that, although the officers were placed on administrative leave following the shooting, they were given various maintenance jobs and trained for other positions at the department.
[June 10, 2020]

Qlik Announces Global and Regional Partner Awards

PHILADELPHIA, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Qlik  today announced the winners of its annual Global and Regional Partner Awards, which recognize the Qlik partner community for excellence in several different categories.



We are proud to acknowledge the achievements made in 2019 by Qlik partners, said Chris Moore, Senior Vice President of Global Partners and Alliances, Qlik. Last year our partner program and ecosystem helped Qlik capitalize on the growing enterprise need for modern data and analytics solutions to drive more value from data. Our global partner network continued to expand the adoption of Qlik through the cloud, while also growing interest in our data integration offerings to help customers successfully execute end-to-end data strategies.

Being selected Technology Partner of the Year by Qlik showcases that customers are increasingly benefiting from our joint value proposition of enabling analytics in the cloud, said John JG Chirapurath, General Manager, Azure Data, AI and Edge at Microsoft. We look forward to continuing our collaboration, with Qlik Data Integration accelerating the delivery of analytics-ready data to Azure Data Services, helping customers realize more value from their data.

Global Partner Award recipients include:

Technology Partner of the Year: Microsoft

Technology Partner Innovation: Snowflake

Corporate Social Responsibility Partner of the Year: Deloitte

MSP Partner of the Year Award: Deloitte

Solution Provider Partner Innovation: Mehrwerk li>System Integrator Partner Innovation: Cognizant







New Partner of the Year: Gain Insights

Solution Provider of the Year: DI Squared

System Integrator Partner of the Year: SDG Group

OEM Partner of the Year: Forcepoint



EMEA Partner Award recipients include:

New Partner of the Year: eCraft

Solution Provider of the Year: Inform GmbH

OEM Partner of the Year: Synertrade

Authorized Reseller of the Year: Effeqt

Asia Pacific Partner Award recipients include:

Master Reseller of the Year: K.K. Ashisuto

New Partner of the Year: Insight Technology

Solution Provider of the Year: Acumen

System Integrator Partner of the Year: NCS Singapore

Authorized Reseller of the Year: Avensys

Latin America Partner Award recipients include:

Partners received their awards at the Qlik Virtual Partner Awards Ceremony, which can be viewed here .

About Qlik

Qliks vision is a data-literate world, one where everyone can use data to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. Only Qlik offers end-to-end, real-time data integration and analytics solutions that help organizations access and transform all their data into value. Qlik helps companies lead with data to see more deeply into customer behavior, reinvent business processes, discover new revenue streams, and balance risk and reward. Qlik does business in more than 100 countries and serves over 50,000 customers around the world.

 2020 QlikTech International AB. All rights reserved. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated.

Media Contact: Derek Lyons

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 617-658-5310
By Aisha Jabbarova

Azerbaijan registered 315 new COVID-19 cases on June 9, brining the tally of infection cases to 8,191, the Cabinet of Ministers reported on its website.

Five people died and 229 patients recovered on June 9.

As of June 10, Azerbaijan, the nation of ten million, has registered 98 coronavirus-related deaths, while the number of recovered patients is 4,606.

Some 349,200 tests have been carried out in the country to this date, to reveal COVID-19 cases.

Azerbaijan registered its first COVID-19 case in February and imposed anti-coronavirus quarantine regime on March 24.

The number of infection cases surged after the relaxation of the quarantine regime on May 18, which lifted restriction on the residents movement.

On June 6-7, the country imposed a two-day weekend lockdown to curb the surge of COVID-19 cases.
Chairman William J. Hansen stated, "Today we announce the upcoming retirement of Harvey Nickelson from our Board of Directors. On June 30, 2020, Harvey will retire from our Board after serving diligently for the past eight years. We have been fortunate to be able to enlist Harvey's extensive banking knowledge and experience from a professional career spanning over 56 years. Harvey's retirement is the result of his recent move to Nevada to enjoy retirement with his wife. On behalf of the entire Board of Directors of Santa Cruz County Bank we wish Harvey a fond farewell."

Harvey Nickelson remarked, "I have truly enjoyed my eight years on the Board, and especially the success of the bank. However, it is time for me to enjoy a new adventure with my wife. I am proud of all the employees who make banking at Santa Cruz County Bank a great community experience. I will look forward to following the future successes of the Board and Santa Cruz County Bank in the years ahead."

In 1982 Harvey J. Nickelson founded Coast Commercial Bank, which was a highly regarded and well performing community bank. Harvey served as President and CEO of Coast Commercial Bank until 2003, then as a Marketing and Public Relations Consultant for Greater Bay Bancorp, which acquired Coast Commercial Bank. In his 56 year banking career, he has been recognized by numerous Chambers and community groups for his leadership, generosity and service in the community. Harvey most recently served as a Board Member of the Santa Cruz County Cancer Benefit Group.

ABOUT SANTA CRUZ COUNTY BANK

Santa Cruz County Bank was founded in 2004. It is a top-rated, locally-owned and operated, full-service community bank headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. The bank has seven branches-Aptos, Capitola, Cupertino, Santa Cruz (2), Scotts Valley and Watsonville  all of which are Green Business Certified in accordance with the Bank's commitment to the environment. Santa Cruz County Bank is distinguished from "big banks" by its relationship-based service, problem-solving focus, and direct access to decision makers. The bank is a leading SBA lender in Santa Cruz County and Silicon Valley, and a top USDA lender in the state of California. As a full-service bank, Santa Cruz County Bank offers competitive deposit and lending solutions for businesses and individuals; including business loans, lines of credit, commercial real estate financing, construction lending, agricultural loans, SBA and USDA government guaranteed loans, credit cards, merchant services, remote deposit capture, mobile and online banking, bill payment, and treasury management. True to its community roots, Santa Cruz County Bank has supported regional well-being by actively participating in and donating to local not-for-profit organizations.

Santa Cruz County Bank stock is publicly traded on the OTC marketplace under the symbol SCZC. Stock purchase orders may be placed online, through a brokerage firm, or through Market Makers listed in the Investor Relations section of the bank's website. For more information about Santa Cruz County Bank, visit www.sccountybank.com.

NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL RATINGS AND AWARDS

S&P Global Top 100 Community Banks: Santa Cruz County Bank ranked 4th in the nation out of more than 4,200 banks with assets under $3 billion based upon 2019 performance. The Bank has ranked in the Top 100 Community Banks by S&P Global for four consecutive years.

Financial Management Consulting (FMC) Group: Santa Cruz County Bank has ranked in FMC's top ten banks in California for the past five years.

The Findley Reports, Inc.: The Bank has received the top ranking of Super Premier by Findley for ten consecutive years.

Bauer Financial Reports, Inc.: Santa Cruz County Bank is rated 5-star "Superior" based upon its financial performance for every quarter in 2019.

American Banker Magazine: Santa Cruz County Bank ranked 13th out of 511 institutions in American Banker Magazine's "Top Performing 200 Community Banks & Thrifts in the United States" based upon 3-year average return on equity. The Bank ranked 4th out of 26 California banks. The Bank has ranked in the Top 200 Community Banks in the United States for seven consecutive years.

The Bank ranks 4th in the Silicon Valley for the number of SBA loans lent to Silicon Valley businesses for the SBA's 2019 fiscal year.

COMMUNITY AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, 2018 Business of the Year Award.

Farm Bureau of Santa Cruz County, 2018 Al Smith Friend of Agriculture Award for support of the agricultural industry and providing access to capital.

Second Harvest Food Bank, Platinum Award for 2019 Holiday Food & Fund Drive.

Santa Cruz Sentinel, 2019 Reader's Choice Award, Voted "Best Bank" in Santa Cruz County.

Good Times, 2019 Best of Santa Cruz County Award, Voted "Best Bank" for eight consecutive years.

Santa Cruz Waves Magazine, 2019 Swellies Awards, Voted "Favorite Bank" in Santa Cruz County.

This release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Such risks and uncertainties may include but are not necessarily limited to fluctuations in interest rates, inflation, government regulations and general economic conditions, and competition within the business areas in which the Bank is conducting its operations, including the real estate market in California and other factors beyond the Bank's control. Such risks and uncertainties could cause results for subsequent interim periods or for the entire year to differ materially from those indicated. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, which reflect management's view only as of the date hereof. The Bank undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

SOURCE Santa Cruz County Bank

Related Links

http://www.sccountybank.com


STOCKHOLM, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With reference to the press release dated 25th December 2019, where Navig8 Chemical Tankers Inc. declared the five-year purchase option on the chemical tanker "Navig8 Aquamarine", the transaction was successfully completed today. Following repayment of the bank debt on the vessel, the transaction will give net cash proceeds of about USD 9.7 million for Ocean Yield. The transaction is not expected to have any impact on the net results for Q2 2020.

Navig8 Chemical Tankers Inc. has also exercised the five-year option for the vessel "Navig8 Amessi" and that vessel is expected to be delivered towards the end of July.

CONTACT:

Company contact:

Eirik Eide (CFO), Tel +47-24-13-01-91

Investor Relations contact:

Marius Magelie (SVP Finance & Investor Relations), Tel +47-24-13-01-82

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/ocean-yield/r/completion-of-vessel-sale,c3128556

SOURCE Ocean Yield
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  Rains will likely fall in most parts of the Philippines starting Thursday as a low pressure area off Borongan, Eastern Samar may develop into a tropical depression in the next 48 hours, according to state weather bureau PAGASA.

Rainy weather is expected over most parts of the country especially in Luzon for tomorrow and Friday, PAGASA weather forecaster Robb Gile told CNN Philippines New Day on Wednesday.

Currently, both the LPA and the ITCZ it is embedded on are bringing scattered rain showers and thunderstorms in Marinduque, Romblon, Bicol Region, Caraga, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region, Central Visayas and Eastern Visayas, Gile reported.

The LPA is not yet affecting most of Luzon, including Metro Manila, so generally fair weather can be expected in the next 24 hours, with warm and humid weather to prevail in the morning, but rainy weather to be experienced in the afternoon or early evening, the weather specialist said.

Metro Manilas temperature can hover around 25 to 33 degrees, Gile said, but added it is expected to drop once the LPA moves toward Luzon.

The rest of country will also have temporary relief from heat due to the potential cyclone, he said.

The LPA is still triggering the southwesterly windflow "that is a precursor to the habagat, the specialist said.

If this weather system will continue to bring enough rainfall to more than half of the 13 sections of PAGASA stations in the coming days, perhaps next week, the bureau would declare the start of rainy season, he added.
Britain's property market is roaring back with sales surging by 137 per cent since estate agents reopened for business one month ago, it was revealed today.

Some 24,341 homes were sold last week as many buyers look to trade in their life in London for the regions as the UK gradually comes out of the coronavirus lockdown.

The average asking price of sales agreed over the past week was 6 per cent higher than the same week in June 2019 amid pent-up demand, according to Zoopla.

Sales in English regions have bounced back at a much faster pace than in London. Some 24,341 homes were sold last week as many buyers look to trade in their life in the capital

But the London market has so far failed to bounce back, with property sales in the capital 25 per cent lower than in the week ending March 8, just before the lockdown.

It comes as RightMove has seen a surge in searches for countryside properties with good transport links so people could work from home for at least part of the week.

Experts added that sales of higher-value homes priced at 1million-plus have rebounded strongly in recent weeks as buyers look to change their lifestyles.

They are reporting that buyers are looking to trade up to properties in the Home Counties, within commuting distance of work.

Demand for housing is now 54 per cent higher than at the start of March, but Zoopla said the usual seasonal spike of March to April shifted to May because of the coronavirus lockdown

And those who need to commute less frequently are 'flipping' second homes located in areas such as the Cotswolds and Devon, so that these locations become their main place of residence rather than a holiday bolthole.

The key figures in the UK housing market Demand for housing is now 54% higher than at the start of March, as pent-up demand returns to the property market

New sales agreed have rebounded and are just 12% short of the levels seen in early March as buyers return to the market and agree to new purchases

The number of new sales agreed has risen by 137% since the market reopened

At a regional level, new sales agreed are being recorded in regional housing markets across England.

London is lagging behind as buyers look outside the capital. Scotland and Wales continue to record low levels of new sales as their markets remain closed

The higher the price band, the greater the increase in the volume of sales agreed compared to pre-COVID; nationally, 1million home sales are 16% higher than in early March although they account for just 3% of overall sales agreed in the last week (to June 7).

Sales are higher across all price bands nationally but demand for housing has increased at a higher rate for higher value homes as homeowners look at trading up for more space or moving to a better location

The average asking price of homes being marked as sold subject to contract on Zoopla in the last week is 6% higher than a year ago. Advertisement

According to Zoopla, million-pound home sales are now 16 per cent higher across the UK than they were in early March.

However, this price bracket still accounts for fewer than 5 per cent of sales overall.

Zoopla said the number of new sales being agreed generally is currently around 12 per cent below levels seen in early March, although momentum has been growing.

It said that, while England's housing market is now back open for business after the market ground to a near-halt, London is lagging behind the rest of the country as buyers look outside the capital.

Richard Donnell, director of research and insight at Zoopla, said the coronavirus pandemic has 'brought a whole new group of would-be buyers into the housing market'.

He said: 'Activity has grown across all pricing levels, but the higher the value of a home, the greater the increase in supply and sales as people look to trade up.

'New sales in London are lagging behind as buyers look at commuting and moving into the regions.'

Bank of England data showed mortgage approvals for house purchases slumped in April to their lowest since records began in 1997, at just a fifth of their level in February, as prospective buyers were unable to visit properties for sale.

Mortgage lender Nationwide reported a 1.7 per cent monthly fall in prices in May, the biggest drop since the financial crisis in 2009.

Meanwhile, estate agent Savills said property markets in England's Home Counties locations, including Henley, Harpenden, Marlow, Farnham, Guildford and Sevenoaks, are particularly active.

It also said that in the Cotswolds, as well as Devon and Cornwall, there has been evidence of people looking to replace a second home with a larger family home.

At the same time, they are downsizing their family homes in London and the South East for smaller properties which they can use during the working week - thereby 'flipping' their main living arrangements.

Britain's property market is roaring back with sales surging by 137 per cent since estate agents reopened for business one month ago. Pictured: A file image of estate agent signs in London

Lucian Cook, Savills head of residential research, said: 'Without doubt, pent-up demand accounts for some of the bounce in transaction numbers, but it also tells us that for those buyers with stable incomes who've been able to shield their finances through the lockdown, there is still a pretty strong resolve around moving, including within London's domestic prime markets.

'These numbers also underscore the extent to which lockdown has caused people to re-evaluate what is most important in the space they occupy, with a greater focus on outdoor space and perhaps a home working space.

'This would explain the rise of the Home Counties, while those able to consider only an occasional commute are looking further afield - to the Cotswolds, Devon and Cornwall for family lifestyle reasons - with some retaining a London base for weekday use.'

Mr Cook added: 'This represents a window of opportunity for sellers, however, while transactions have ticked up, this requires pragmatism around pricing from both buyers and sellers, with the latter slightly softening their expectations on pricing.'
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration will not even consider renaming several U.S. military bases named after Confederate leaders.

The presidents announcement, which he made in a statement on Twitter that White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany then shared during a news briefing, comes a few days after Politico reported that Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy was open to renaming the services 10 bases and facilities named after Confederate leaders.

The Army bases have been under pressure to change their names, even prior to nationwide protests over generations of systemic racial injustice and the death of George Floyd. The renewed debate comes as several states and cities have removed Confederate statues, and after the U.S. Marine Corps banned the display of Confederate symbols.

These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory and Freedom," Trump tweeted. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!

The forts in question include Fort Bragg in North Carolina; Forts Benning and Gordon in Georgia; Forts Picket, A.P. Hill and Lee in Virginia; Fort Rucker in Alabama; Fort Polk and Camp Beauregard in Louisiana; and Fort Hood in Texas.

The New York Times editorial board last month accused the U.S. of celebrating white supremacy and to rename bases for American heroes, not racist traitors.

McEnany said the forts were some of the last places seen by American soldiers who fought and died overseas; renaming the institutions would dishonor their service, she argued.

Fox News John Roberts pressed McEnany on the issue, citing retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, who supports renaming bases because he finds it ironic that American soldiers are trained in facilities named after people who fought against the Union.

Fort Brag is known for the heroes within it, McEnany responded. Its an insult  to tell them that what they left was inherently a racist institution because of a name.

She went on to question where the country draws the line on renaming things, asking whether George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, all slave owners, should be erased from history. She noted news of Gone With the Wind, the 1939 Civil War epic film, was pulled from HBO Max because somehow that is now offensive.

She then reframed the issue into a political attack against the presidents likely foe in November, former Vice President Joe Biden. She cited previous reports that Biden sought support from segregationists in the fight against busing decades ago. She questioned whether the Biden Welcome Center on Interstate 95 near Newark should be renamed, and she ended the news conference.

While McEnany has directed many campaign-related questions to the Trump campaign, for which she used to work, her public attack against Biden on Wednesday was just one of several by White House aides while acting in their official capacities as executive branch employees whose salaries are paid by taxpayers.

The Hatch Act of 1939 bars on-duty executive branch employees, except for the president and vice president, from engaging in political activity directed at the success or failure" of a political party or candidate.

Henry Kerner, the Trump-appointed head of the Office of Special Counsel  which enforces the Hatch Act  told lawmakers last year that executive branch employees must be careful when they criticize people, including some who are running for office.

McEnany operates under the same federal laws and ethics codes that apply to Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, who Kerner recommended the president fire for repeated Hatch Act violations during official interviews and social media posts.

The (Hatch Act) specifically says shes not allowed to use her official authority when shed be speaking for the President in her official capacity in order to influence an election, Kerner said of Conway in House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing.

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Some cruise lines are hoping to set sail later this summer but with images of coronavirus-ravaged ships still fresh in many minds, the industry could face years of choppy water ahead.

The global cruise industry expected to carry 32 million passengers and take in $71 billion in revenue this year. That will fall by at least 50 percent this year, says Euromonitor International, a consulting firm. It took the industry three years to recover from the 2009 recession; this time, it will take longer, Euromonitor analyst Alex Jarman said.

"Unlike the previous downturn, the pandemic has put the safety of cruises into question," Jarman said.

Cruise lines stopped sailing in mid-March after several high-profile outbreaks at sea. More than 600 people fell ill aboard Carnival Corp.'s Diamond Princess while it was quarantined off the coast of Japan, for example. Fourteen passengers died.

Christina Kerby was trapped aboard a Holland America cruise ship in February after several ports in Asia refused to allow it to dock.

"I will take a cruise again someday," said Kerby, of Alameda, Calif. "Just not anytime soon."

Since they stopped sailing, Carnival, Royal Caribbean International and Norwegian Cruise Line  which control 75 percent of the market  have furloughed thousands of staff and obtained billions in bank loans to stay afloat. Major cruise companies weren't eligible for U.S. government loans because they're incorporated overseas.

Norwegian warned of a possible bankruptcy in early May, but then raised $2.2 billion through a sale of stock and debt. It now says it can withstand a shutdown for as long as 18 months. Smaller operators could have more trouble, experts say. Virgin Voyages, a new cruise line owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Group, has twice postponed its first sailing. Virgin Australia  an airline in which Branson holds a stake  filed for bankruptcy protection in April.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has prohibited cruises in U.S. waters through July 24. Operators in Europe and Asia could sail sooner; some German river cruises resumed last week. But most big cruise lines are using this time to refine their plans, upgrade their ships and figure out how to resume safely.

Norwegian says it's installing medical-grade air filters on its ships and adding medical staff, for example. Carnival is raising the temperature in its washers and dryers to make sure napkins and sheets are fully sanitized.

Cruise companies are talking to U.S. regulators, to foreign ports and to each other, said Brian Salerno, senior vice president for maritime policy at the Cruise Lines International Association, a trade group that represents 95 percent of ocean cruise companies. That doesn't always happen in the fiercely competitive business.

"A safety failure for one affects them all," Salerno said

Most cruise lines haven't announced their exact plans for reopening, even though they're accepting bookings. But some smaller companies are giving a glimpse into the future.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Windstar Cruises, which operates six ships  the largest of which carries 342 passengers  hopes to resume cruises in Tahiti in September. Among other things, the company plans to stagger boarding times to keep passengers apart; expand dining times and space diners out; serve passengers instead of offering buffets; and require crew to wear masks and train them to recognize COVID-19 symptoms.

Windstar's Chief Marketing Officer Betsy O'Rourke said the company expects bookings for 2020 to start picking up soon. Bookings for 2021 are already ahead of where they were this time last year.

"People who know and love cruising will be back," she said. "They have confidence in us to operate safely."

But some cruise lovers say they're just not ready.

Jonathan Adkins is a self-described "cruise junkie" who has been on more than 25 cruises. This year, he and his husband had booked a Caribbean cruise in March and a European cruise in July.

But the pandemic cooled his enthusiasm. Adkins doesn't want to share tight spaces until there's a COVID-19 vaccine. And he thinks cruise companies have handled the crisis poorly.

"I'm not comfortable doing business with them for a while," said Adkins, who heads a traffic safety organization in Washington. He doesn't think he'll cruise again until 2022.
Germany would allow 243 ill and under-age migrants from Greece to enter the country, Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer announced on Wednesday, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

In addition to siblings and parents, six minors who were unable to travel on the first flight with 47 unaccompanied children and young people in April, were also allowed to enter Germany.

At the moment, the development of the coronavirus crisis gives a possibility of the action, said Seehofer when presenting new border regulations on Wednesday.

To support Greece in a "difficult humanitarian situation" on the Greek islands and in particular to "improve the situation of children in the hotspots," the German government decided in March that at least 350 minors would be allowed to enter Germany, according to Germany's Ministry of the Interior.

According to Seehofer, Germany had also offered Malta and Italy to host 80 migrants each who had been rescued at sea.
Trump Hotel housekeeper claims she was fired for refusing to work Sundays, sues

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A former housekeeper is suing the operator of Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, claiming the business engaged in religious discrimination by firing her because she refused to work on Sundays.

Sonia Perez, 56, filed a lawsuit against Trump Ruffin Commercial Inc., the company that oversees the Trump hotels. She claims that the company required her to work Sundays after employees unionized in 2018.

The case is known as Torres v. Trump Ruffin Commercial LLC. The case was filed last Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

According to Bloomberg, Perez worked for the hotel from 2010 until 2015 without a problem since her schedule allowed her to take Sundays off to attend her non-denominational church.

But following the unionization of employees, her shift was changed so that she had to work Sundays. The lawsuit states that Perez refused to work on Sundays due to her sincerely held religious belief.

Perez maintains that she initially used attendance points she accrued to make up for her absences on Sundays. The complaint alleges that after Perez ran out of attendance points, she was fired for her Sunday absences.

The Christian Post reached out to the Trump Organization for comment. A response is pending.

Last year, a jury in Florida awarded a hotel dishwasher a $21 million settlement after she claimed to have been fired for missing work on six Sundays to attend church.

In February, an evangelical former postal carrier in Pennsylvania sued the U.S. Postal Service on accusations the agency punished him when he couldnt work on Sundays.

Perez's lawsuit comes as President Donald Trump, who owns the Trump Organization, has championed himself as a staunch proponent of religious liberty. His administration has pursued efforts to broaden religious freedom both domestically and abroad.

Following an executive order signed by Trump in 2017, federal departments have issued guidelines on how their agencies can best protect the First Amendment rights of Americans.

In May, the Department of Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia issued a directive calling for the department to uphold religious liberty for Americas workforce. The directive acknowledges the the central role that religion and religious freedom play in civil society.

Last week, the president issued an executive order telling the U.S. State Department to, among other things, budget $50 million annually to advance religious freedom internationally.

Trump also released an official message on June 1 in commemoration of the second annual Global Coptic Day observance, which is aimed at spreading awareness of the persecution faced by Coptic Christians in Egypt.

Critics have argued that Trumps religious freedom focus has been selective. They point to administration efforts, like the attempted curbing of refugees from some Muslim-majority nations and the decrease in the total number of refugees being resettled to the U.S. by the Trump administration.

A report by the Pew Research Center released last month found that many Americans believe that Trump has helped evangelical Christians more than any other social group, while also hurting Muslims more than any other group.

The Pew report found that while 43% of respondents believed that the administration had helped evangelicals, 48% of respondents believed that Trump has hurt Muslims more than others.
National Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sammi Awuku, has called on Ghanaians, especially the youth, not to allow themselves to be used as pawns in the hands of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) against the Electoral Commission's planned registration exercise.



Sammi Awuku condemned the opposition party for inciting their supporters and the citizenry against the exercise.



He said after meeting with some regional executives of the ruling party to educate them on the registration process.



In the Upper East, my attention was drawn to the fact that the NDCs General Secretary and Bernard Mornah have been there inciting the opinion leaders and the supporters of the NDC and PNC against the Electoral Commission...that people should resist it (registration exercise). Addressing the youth, I asked them not to be used as pawns in the hands of the NDC and its leadership because when they fall foul of the law, the NDC and Bernard Mornah will not even respond to their calls.



with Parliament giving the green light for the exercise to take off, we are asking Ghanaians and many of the youth that the NDC wants to use as agents of destruction to ask themselves very critical questions as to whether they are in a position to fight for themselves when they fall foul of the law? And knowing perfectly well that this NDC leadership cannot be trusted to come to their defence when they get into trouble, they should follow them impulsively, he stated.



Mr. Awuku also took the opportunity to educate the youth on the significance of having a new voters register.

Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/[email protected]









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The unification ministry said Wednesday that it will file a complaint with the prosecution against two North Korean defector groups for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, a day after the North cut off all inter-Korean communication lines over such leafleting.

The ministry said that it will also take action to revoke business permits granted to the groups, Fighters for Free North Korea and Keunsaem, accusing them of putting the safety of people living in border regions at risk by sending leaflets into the North.

"They have violated public interests by heightening tensions between the South and the North and by running squarely against the agreements reached by the leaders of the two Koreas, and also caused danger to the lives and safety of residents in the border regions," the ministry said in a press release.












Cabinet ready to present updated action program by week's end, will ask Rada to support it on June 18-19  Zelensky meeting with Cabinet, Rada reps, law enforcers

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky at a meeting with members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, representatives of parliamentary committees, as well as the leadership of law enforcement agencies informed that the government is ready to present an updated version of the action program by the end of this week.

He recalled that the Verkhovna Rada hadn't supported the first edition of the Government Action Program, the presidential press service reported.

"Parliamentary committees have made numerous remarks and suggestions. Much criticism came from the deputies of the Servant of the People. According to the prime minister, the government has carefully considered all constructive proposals and is ready to present an updated Government Action Program 2.0 to the Parliament this week," Zelensky said.
Lime Asset Management's office on Yeouido / Korea Times file



By Kim Bo-eun



An asset managing entity will be set up by the end of next month to take over the funds of the virtually defunct Lime Asset Management, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Wednesday.



The entity will be tasked with making payments to investors of Lime's funds as the hedge fund was determined to be unable to pay back investors due to mismanagement of funds. A wide range of irregularities were found in the company's management of investments.



Authorities said the decision to set up the entity was made to ensure investors are able to redeem their investments as quickly as possible.



Twenty distributors of Lime's funds including banks and brokerages have pooled 5 billion won to set up the entity. Authorities advised the firms to take part in handling the fallout of the Lime incident as they are suspected to be responsible for mis-selling Lime's funds.



Because Shinhan Financial Group's brokerage and bank units sold the largest amount of Lime's funds, it has become the largest shareholder of the entity.



Lime's distributors setting up the entity plan to complete the takeover of Lime's funds by the end of August.



The FSS said Lime faces heavy sanctions, citing the extent of its irregularities. The sanctions against the investment firm and its executives have yet to be finalized.



"We have determined that the sanctions are also important but measures to protect investors need to be taken first, so the procedures to take over funds and finalize sanctions will take place simultaneously," an FSS official said.



The official said sanctions may be finalized by the end of August.



The supervisory agency said it has inspected the brokerages that sold Lime's funds over allegations of mis-selling and will investigate banks on the same allegations beginning June 15.



The FSS said it will impose sanctions on Lime's distributors according to the findings of the inspections.


by Vladimir Rozanskij

The parish priest of the Dormition church in the center of Moscow has died. One of the most controversial starets, the 93-year-old Archimandrite Petr (Kucher), from the Bogoljubovo monastery also died: he exalted Stalin and Ivan the Terrible. On the advice of the doctors, Patriarch Kirill renounces public celebration of Pentecost Mass. Pilgrims in Velikoretsk rejected by the population for fear of infections.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Despite the optimism with which Russia also opens up to Phase 2 of the quarantine for Covid-19, the pandemic does not seem to lose strength, showing further peaks of infection: in the last 24 hours almost 9 thousand people have tested positive. Deaths are also growing, on which official information is clearly in short supply.

In the Orthodox Church there are further cases of death from the coronavirus. One of these concerns another Muscovite parish priest, the 65-year-old protoierej Mikhail Vasilev (photo 1), of the Church of the Dormition in the Sloboda of the Cossacks, in the center of the capital. The church, like other Russian churches, had been reopened for faithful since June 6, albeit with masks and distances. Father Mikhail was a spiritual assistant to the Army General Chief of Staff, and was in charge of the military base outside Moscow for the strategic artillery regiments.

On June 6, one of the oldest and most controversial starets of Russia, the 93-year-old archimandrite Petr (Kucher, photo 2), also died He was the spiritual father of the historic Bogoljubovo monastery in Vladimir, where the palace of Andrej Bogoljubskij, one of the most important princes of Kievan Rus in the 12th century, still stands. Petr was one of the most symbolic leaders of "patriotic orthodoxy", openly supporting monarchical and anti-globalist theses, exalting the "spiritual conquests of the Soviet era" and the greatness of Josif Stalin, "a guide given by God". In his church he regularly displayed the icon of Ivan the Terrible, whose canonization he sought.

In the diocese of Cherkasy in Ukraine, one of the youngest clerics of the patriarchate of Moscow died on June 5, the protoierej Dionisij Grunin (photo 3) only 34 years, after a few days of hospitalization in intensive care. At first the diocese had spoken of oncological disease, but in reality the young priest was victim of a virulent form of the coronavirus. Father Dionisij was pastor of the Church of the Mother of God "Joy of all the afflicted", at the clinic for the disabled in the city of Cherkasy. 18 of the 22 resident nuns have also become infected in the Alatyr monastery in the Chuvashja region, and thus also a substantial part of the male monastery in the same city. A few days ago the elderly metropolitan of Chuvashja Varnava (Kedrov) died of the virus. The Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar, also fell ill with coronavirus, and was hospitalized.

The same patriarch of Moscow Kirill (Gundjaev) has renounced the celebration of the solemnity of Pentecost last Sunday 7 June, on the advice of the doctors, and "not to compromise the solemn consecration of the church of Victory on 22 June", as stated in the statement of patriarchy. Until then the patriarch will celebrate only privately; on social media, several people are starting to propose appointing a "patriarchal lieutenant", given the prolonged absence of the head of the Russian Church from pastoral service.

The great pilgrimage of the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas ended in Velikoretsk, in which several thousand pilgrims from all over Russia participated, despite formal prohibitions for the danger of infection. Many villagers along the way refused to welcome them, quench their thirst and feed them, as would be the tradition, by hanging the notice "Quarantine - Entry forbidden to pilgrims" on the gates and gates (photo 4). The doctors from the town of Velikoretsk, the final destination of the procession, also refused to assist the pilgrims, and the grocery stores remained closed, leaving the faithful without food.
The Birmingham City Council has again extended the citys ordinance requiring people cover their nose and mouth while in public. The ordinance is now set to expire July 3.

District 3 Councilor Hunter Williams called the extension absolutely ridiculous. Williams voted against extending the ordinance. District 5 Councilor Darrell OQuinn did not vote on the item.

Its time to let this expire," he said. This makes absolutely no sense at all considering the data the health officer gave us last week.

Its black and brown people that are dying and here you are suggesting that we dont need it. Youre not a health professional, and if you heard Dr. Wilson last week, he said he would rather have the mask on, said District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt.

As of Tuesday, there have been 110 confirmed coronavirus deaths in Jefferson County, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health.

The ordinance defines a mask as a device to cover the nose and mouth of a person to impede the spread of saliva or other fluids during speaking, coughing, sneezing or other intentional or involuntary action. It doesnt require the masks be medical-grade, just that they cover the wearers nose and mouth.
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI  The theft of a construction backhoe in Muskegon has resulted in charges against a Newaygo man and the discovery of multiple other stolen vehicles, including large campers.

Authorities said the items are part of a suspected theft ring that covered several counties and several months.

The Caterpillar backhoe was taken the weekend of May 16-17 from Drummonds Meat Processing in the Ravenna area, which had contracted with the equipment owner to do some work, said Lt. Michael Herremans of the Muskegon County Sheriffs Office.

Citizens told authorities they had seen the backhoe driving down Apple Avenue and eventually at a gas station in Newaygo Countys Bridgeton Township, where it was being followed by a truck pulling a trailer, Herremans said.

An investigation, aided by surveillance video from the gas station and tips from Facebook users, led police to property in Newaygo County where renters said an backhoe had recently been brought, Herremans said. There, police found hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of construction equipment, campers and farm implements, he said.

Muskegon County Assist: On 05-18-20 deputies investigated the theft of a Caterpillar 426B Backhoe which was parked at... Posted by Newaygo County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday, 19 May 2020

Among the items recovered were two large campers reported stolen from Kent County, a dump trailer stolen out of Muskegon and other farm and construction tools only some of which have been connected to their owners, Herremans said.

It sounds like this is something that occurred over a four- to five-county area, Herremans said, adding that thieves seemed to have taken advantage of the lull in activity during the coronavirus shutdown.

The owner of the Newaygo County property also owns property in Muskegon County, where investigators found two large storage containers inside of which were multiple smaller hand tools that are also suspected of being stolen, Herremans said.

Matthew Empey, 30, of Newaygo has been charged in Muskegon County with larceny over $20,000 and larceny between $1,000 and $20,000.

Empey also has been charged in Newaygo County with receiving and concealing stolen property  the Caterpillar  worth $20,000 or more, said Newaygo County Prosecutor Worth Stay.

Others are being investigated, and the probes continues, Herremans said.

More on MLive:

Double drowning tragedy underscores danger of Great Lakes

Woman killed in hit-and-run crash was truly pure at heart

Muskegon superintendents preparing for different learning scenarios when school reopens
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 21:48:41|Editor: huaxia

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DAR ES SALAAM, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania's recent resolve to revive cultivation of sisal has perked smallholder farmers up in the east African nation of about 55 million people.

"The restoration of sisal farming marks the end of poverty to tens of hundreds of smallholder farmers who depended on the crop to earn money for paying school fees, medical bills and constructing decent housing," said Athman Kaoneka, a smallholder farmer and secretary of Magoma agricultural and marketing cooperative society in Korogwe district in Tanga region.

Kaoneka who leads the society with about 180 members of smallholder sisal farmers was reacting to the government's recent announcement to revive production of sisal.

The farmer said the society started farming sisal in 2000 but since then they have been frustrated as they faced various challenges, including unreliable market and poor prices for their sisal.

"We used to produce 200 tons from 2,015 hectares of sisal field. But with the government's support we are now planning to increase our production as we are assured of a reliable market with attractive prices for the crop," he said.

Saddy Kambona, acting director general of the Tanzania Sisal Board (TSB), told Xinhua in a telephone interview that the body had drawn up strategies aimed at reviving the crop.

The TSB plans to revive sisal production from the current 36,000 tons of the crop annually to 120,000 tons annually by 2025.

"First and foremost TSB will mobilize as many smallholder farmers as possible to start cultivating sisal," said Kambona.

He said they are planning to use the Brazil's model in growing sisal, adding that in Brazil, the world's leading sisal producer, the majority of sisal growers are smallholder farmers.

"We need to increase the number of smallholder farmers from the current 7,551 who produce about 8,600 tons of sisal annually to at least 150,000 farmers," said Kambona.

We are also planning to adopt hybrid seeds that mature within shorter period and are more resistant to hostile conditions and pesticides, said Kambona.

He said the TSB is also in the process of acquiring 20,000 hectares of sisal farms that had been abandoned by investors for quite a long time and the land will be distributed to smallholder farmers.

He said another strategy is acquisition of state-of-the-art machinery for processing sisal into various products such as carpets and decorations.

During its peak production in Tanzania in the 1960s, sisal earned the country handsome foreign exchange but production of the cash crop deteriorated to low levels due to poor management.

Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said the revival of sisal production is part of the government's plan to revive production of all strategic crops, including cashew nuts, tea, tobacco, cotton, coffee and palm oil.

Tanzania's leading sisal growing regions are Tanga, Morogoro, Kilimanjaro, Coast, Lindi and Mtwara. Enditem
The Madhya Pradesh government started preparations on Tuesday to run liquor shops whose licences were surrendered by contractors amid a standoff between the two sides on reopening the vends.

About 70 per cent contractors have surrendered their licences. They have refused to open their liquor vends for well over two weeks due to poor sale owing to the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak. This had put them on a collision course with the BJP government in the state.

The state government has now decided to run more than 1,000 liquor shops across the state till it finds new contractors in the rebidding process, as per officials.

On Thursday, hearing petitions of liquor contractors, the Madhya Pradesh high courts Jabalpur bench said that those who want to run the shops as per the state governments rules should file an affidavit within three days. It allowed the state government to go for rebidding of the remaining shops.

As per the officials of the state excise department, additional manpower is required to reopen and run the shops. It has asked the home guard department for assistance in smooth operation of these outlets. The revenue generated from these shops will be deposited in the sub-treasury of the district with the help revenue department officials.

In his letter to director general of Home Guard, dated June 7, excise commissioner Rajiv Chandra Dubey said, Execution of the (bidding) process after closure of liquor shops is expected to take 15 to 30 days. In the circumstances the department will have to run more than 1000 liquor shops. The department doesnt have sufficient staff to run such a big number of shops. At the same time, the department has to take action to control (sale of) illicit liquor too. Hence, it is requested that home guards be made available to the districts as per their demands.

The places where liquor contractors surrendered their licences include major cities like Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Gwalior too.

An excise department official who didnt want to be named said, It will take at least 3 to 4 days in making all the preparations for running the shops in the entire state.

In state capital Bhopal, district collector Tarun Kumar Pithode issued an order on Tuesday for 32 shops which make country made liquor and Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) to run. The shops will be run by the excise department personnel with a supervisor assigned to look after groups of two to four shops.

Talking to mediapersons, Dubey said, The process to run the shops has begun and these will be reopened by Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.

The excise commissioner said that safety norms at the shops like social distancing, sanitisation etc would be ensured.

The tug of war between the state government and the contractors has been going on for about a month. The contractors want the licence fees reduced given closure of shops due to Covid-19 and reduced sale after lockdown restrictions were lifted.

Liquor shops opened in the state on May 7 after 45 days, but since the state government didnt concede to the contractors demands to reduce the licence fee, about 30 contractors moved the high court.

The state government was expected to have a revenue of about Rs 10,500 crore in the present financial year through auction of liquor shops.
Sinn Fein Limerick City TD Maurice Quinlivan has branded the non-use of Private Hospital beds and facilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic as an outrageous misuse of taxpayers money.

Quinlivan was responding to a reply from Minister for Health Simon Harris which confirms that many of the private hospital beds had less than half occupancy or were not used at all. With Bon Secours Hospital Limerick at 15%

While having serious reservations about the eventual cost to the Irish taxpayer of the takeover of private hospitals, I, like many others, welcomed the HSE decision to substantially increase the capacity of public healthcare facilities to deal with the expected demand coming from the COVID-19 pandemic" Quinlivan said.

The Dail COVID-19 Committee was told that the cost of taking over the private hospitals will be roughly 300 million.

It is criminal therefore that resources and beds that became available from this hugely expensive deal had less than half occupancy or in some hospitals were not used at all with a very low usage of 15% here at Bon Secours Hospital Limerick.

I raised the issue with Minister Harris in the Dail of Bon Secours Hospital Limerick when I expressed my huge concern of the unused beds and the misuse of taxpayers monies. The figures remain unacceptably low at just 15% usage.

As a result of this deal, surgeries and many other specialist procedures were cancelled.

Quality of life operations, tests, and procedures continue to be on hold many because of health and safety reasons while COVID-free sites lay empty or underused.

Waiting lists, already long, have become even longer with screenings for cancers and other life-threatening diseases all but suspended while these beds and resources lie unused.

Priorities procedure like endoscopy, cardiology, cardiovascular, urology, and orthopaedics have all but stopped.

This is unacceptable and is simply criminal while beds and resource lie untapped and unused in these private hospitals.

The clear lack of planning for these beds demonstrates an inherent weakness in the HSE; that is unable to adapt, change and react to change and opportunities when they present themselves.
A good vitamin D status is beneficial both in cancer prevention and in the prognosis of several cancers, according to a new research review. The anti-cancer effects of vitamin D are especially pronounced in the prevention and treatment of colon cancer and blood cancers. In addition, high vitamin D responsiveness can be linked to a smaller cancer risk. Vitamin D responsiveness varies between individuals, affecting their need for vitamin D supplementation.

The review article, published in Seminars in Cancer Biology and written by Professor Carsten Carlberg from the University of Eastern Finland and Professor Alberto Munoz from the Autonomous University of Madrid, provides an update on the molecular basis of vitamin D signaling and its role in cancer prevention and therapy.

Vitamin D is commonly known for its crucial role in bone health, but the authors point out it also regulates the immune system, and its anti-cancer effects are mediated mainly by immune cells, such as monocytes and T cells. Vitamin D exerts its effects via the vitamin D receptor (VDR), which is a transcription factor involved in the expression and epigenetic regulation of numerous genes.

According to the review, studies focusing on the effect of vitamin D on different types of cancers provide the strongest evidence of its benefits in colorectal cancer and in blood cancers, such as leukemias and lymphomas. Vitamin D is important both for the differentiation of blood cells during hematopoiesis as well as adult stem cells in rapidly regenerating tissues, such as colon or skin. A too low vitamin D status leads to a suboptimal function of the VDR and in an increased risk that these cells are not fully differentiating and start to turn into uncontrolled growing cancer cells.

Even in other types of cancer, such as breast and prostate cancer, a low vitamin D status, measured as the level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the blood, has been associated with a higher cancer incidence and a poorer prognosis. However, vitamin D supplementation has not been consistently shown to reduce cancer mortality in randomized controlled trials. According to the authors of the review, the impact of vitamin D could be shown more clearly if the participants were stratified according to their individual vitamin D responsiveness and the health outcomes analyzed in relation to changes in individual vitamin D status.

Professor Carlberg's research group has earlier shown that individuals differ in their molecular response or sensitivity to vitamin D supplementation. For example, 25% of the Finnish population seem to be low responders, needing a higher dose of vitamin D supplementation to reach the full clinical benefit. In terms of cancer risk, being a high responder can be expected to have a protective effect.

According to the review, a good vitamin D status is beneficial in general cancer prevention. There is less evidence of its usefulness in the treatment of cancer.

###

For further information, please contact:

Professor Carsten Carlberg, carsten.carlberg (a) uef.fi, +358403553062

Review article: Carsten Carlberg & Alberto Munoz. An update on vitamin D signaling and cancer. Seminars in Cancer Biology. Available online 30 May 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcancer.2020.05.018
MBABANE  It would seem government has no new budget for the reopening of schools as head teachers claim to have been requested to use money allocated for free primary education (FPE).



They have also been requested to make use of money given to them to cater for orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs).

The head teachers have been requested to use the FPE and OVC money to cater for the needs that will come with the reopening of schools, mainly purchasing of items that would make schools ideal for learners in light of the coronavirus.



Most schools will require sanitisers, water tanks and cleaning material, among many other items.

All public primary schools get about E560 from government for each pupil under the FPE programme.

Most head teachers have raised concerns that they had been receiving information to the effect that they were supposed to use the money allocated to run schools to meet the COVID-19 demands.



The Ministry of Education and Training recently furnished head teachers with requirements for what is expected of them prior to the reopening of schools on July 1, 2020.

It should be noted that the reopening of schools would be staggered.



Form Vs will be the first to start lessons on July 1, followed by Form IIIs and Grade VIIs on July 15, as announced by Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini last Friday.



The gripe of most head teachers is that the money has already been utilised on other things during the first two months of the first term.

Government decided to close schools in mid-March as parents were apprehensive about the coronavirus.



Books



The head teachers said they had utilised the money to purchase books, pay support staff and the general running of the schools.

Most head teachers did not wish to have their names published.



One of them said a message was shared to him by a member who is part of the committee involved in preparing for the reopening of schools.

The message reads: The schools are mostly going to use their budgets to provide what is needed. The ministry and partners will assist where there is serious need.



The message further touched on two challenges, which are payment of the FPE and OVC grants which was said to be one factor that would delay the readiness of schools. The second challenge was that the Treasury Department was not paying on time for work already done and that would frustrate a lot of progress.



When other head teachers were reached for comment, they also said they had utilised the money they received from government when schools opened earlier in the year.

One of the head teachers explained that they normally received the funds in two tranches yearly. The first tranche is usually half of the total amount allocated for each pupil annually and the second is the balance.



Another head teacher shared that there were a lot of loopholes in what the ministry wanted them to do as they had been told that they were yet to be trained on the expectations regarding the reopening of schools.



At some point, the ministry said teachers will be expected to be in school two weeks prior to the reopening of schools. At the same time, we are almost in mid-month and we have not started anything in preparation for the schools reopening, but we have to be done by month end, noted a female head teacher.

She said she even reached out to her colleagues, seeking answers, only to find that they were also in the dark.



Chairman of the Education Cluster, Bhekibadla Magongo referred all questions to the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training Bertram Stewart.



Stewart said Cabinet had not advised the ministry on the position about the budget lines to be used to meet the demands for reopening of schools.

He said, however, information he had was that there was no new budget for such, except what was currently available in the government systems. We might need to reallocate in some instances, but that will depend on how cabinet will guide us on this matter, he said.



When questioned about the message that was circulating among the head teachers, Stewart said he would not comment as he had not met with the chairman to discuss the outcome of the latest meetings he had.



Maybe he is still going to brief us as a ministry, he added

Some of the guidelines given by the ministry prior to reopening schools is the setting up of isolation areas, making visible emergency phone numbers (COVID-19 call centres, police, fire, education, etc) and install, social distancing floor signs or markings in every classroom and meeting area, among others.



Exhausted



The President of the Eswatini Principals Association, Welcome Mhlanga, also confirmed that most schools had already exhausted the money allocated by government for FPE. He said he had not seen the message making rounds, but could only confirm that government was not clear as to where they were to get the money to comply with the COVID-19 regulations and standards as stipulated by the Ministry of Education and Training. Mhlanga said what would help the situation was government coming out clear on what was provided and expected of head teachers.



The only thing we can emphasise is for parents to pay on time so that we have available funds should the need arise, he said.

According to the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), there was never a budget to cater for the reopening of schools.

SNAT President Mbongwa Dlamini, said they questioned government several times about the allocated budget, but they never got a response.

We were simply told to work, he claimed.
HOBART  It's evident there's a need for Safe Haven Baby Boxes.

In the last 30 days, we've had three babies surrendered to us, and that is just amazing, said Monica Kelsey, founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes.

The newest baby box was put in service Tuesday at Hobart Fire Station No. 2, 2411 W. Old Ridge Road.

To unveil the nation's 27th Baby Box, Kelsey, Mayor Brian Snedecor and Bob Scott, the former EMS director in Hobart, each placed their hands on it and prayed.

If the box is ever used, Kelsey prayed that the mother finds peace by knowing the child is safe.

Snedecor also asked God to raise that baby up to be a mighty warrior. He also thanked Kelsey for her inspiration and vision to help make the Baby Box a reality.

The city officials, firefighters and others at the ceremony raised their hands in the air as the three prayed.

Snedecor told those in attendance that the project is a fulfillment of a dream for Scott.

Scott started the project before he retired last year, and he continued to work on it after he left the Fire Department.
China does not present a military threat to world peace, the European Unions top diplomat told reporters on Tuesday.

Josep Borrell, chief of foreign affairs for the E.U., made the remarks after a three-hour conference call with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. The discussion came amid rising tensions between European powers and China brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

China has a global ambition but at the same time I dont think that China is playing a role that can threaten the world peace, Borrell said. They committed once again that they want to be present in the world and to play a global role but they dont have military ambitions and they dont want to use the force to participate in military conflicts.

In their discussion, Wang and Borrell reiterated points of agreement between the E.U. and China, including their common support for the Iran nuclear deal that the U.S. withdrew from in 2018. The conference was also intended to prepare for future discussions between European and Chinese leaders regarding a joint investment agreement, in which the E.U. hopes to secure equal treatment for its companies operating in China. Currently, China requires certain E.U. businesses to share expertise while operating in the country.

Borrells statements come against rising suspicion of Chinese economic and military power within the E.U. In construction of new 5G telecommunications networks, German firms have recently limited their use of technology from Huawei, which the U.S. has said can spy for the Chinese government. Additionally, medical equipment supplied by China to fight coronavirus outbreaks in Europe has proven faulty in many instances.

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(CNN)  If you've ever rushed to share an article before making it even this far into it, Twitter would like you to do better.

The next time you try to share a link on Twitter, you might get asked if you would like to open it first. That's a new feature the social network plans to test with Android users, in the company's latest move to combat the spread of misinformation on the platform.

The pilot is designed to slow down the pace at which content goes viral, a phenomenon Twitter's product lead, Kayvon Beykpour, said "can be powerful but sometimes dangerous."

The new feature, announced Wednesday, builds on other recent efforts from Twitter to crack down on harmful content and misinformation. In March, Twitter expanded its misinformation policies to prohibit statements that contradict official guidance from public health authorities addressing the coronavirus pandemic. In May, Twitter rolled out new warning labels for misleading claims. Later that month, it flagged two tweets by President Donald Trump and sought to provide more context on his claims about mail-in voting.

There isn't much public data to show how common no-click sharing may be among Twitter's userbase; the company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Some in the media industry report that Twitter has generally been a poor source of reader traffic, suggesting that users often don't click through to read the articles they share.

As with so many efforts by social media companies to improve their platforms, it could create new problems and uncertainties. For example, will asking users to read articles containing conspiratorial ideas lead them down a rabbit hole of misleading content and give questionable publishers free eyeballs? And could the system be gamed to drive higher click-throughs on sponsored content or spammy material?
Six days after allowing travellers from other neighbouring nations, Austria would now be reopening its borders to Italy starting next week, international media reported. However, Italian travellers would still be obliged to stay 14 days in isolation amongst other restrictions before proceeding further. On the other hand, travellers from 20 other European nations would now be allowed to enter the country without quarantine.

Read: Germany Aims To Lift Travel Warning For 31 European Countries From June 15

Starting from June 16, Austria in a move to restore normalcy would lift controls on travel from more than two dozen nations including Croatia and Greece. This would mean that all travellers arriving from those countries would neither have to go through14-day quarantine nor show a negative trend. Austria which borders eight nations last week lifted borders restriction with all its neighbours except Italy citing coronavirus risks. In retaliation, Rome accused Vienna of adopting 'individualistic solution and damaging image with the European Union.

Sweden travellers to undergo isolation

However, along with Italy, controls on travel would continue on travellers from Sweden. Despite rising cases, Sweden did not impose a nationwide lockdown. Meanwhile, experts are now speculating Vienna to completely lift quarantine requirement for Italy. According to John Hopkins University, Austria has till now reported 17,005 positive cases and 673 deaths. Italy, meanwhile, has reported 235,561 cases and 34,043 deaths.

Read: COVID-19: Italy Reopens Borders To Europe, Scraps Mandatory 14-day Quarantine Rule

Italy, on the flip side, reopened its borders to visitors from European nations on June 3 to revive tourism after months of movement ban due to coronavirus, as per the local reports. In March, the Mediterranean nation emerged as the global epicentre of the malignant COVID-19 disease with one of the highest death tolls and confirmed cases in the world. Now, with a challenge to beckon tourists in order to rescue the travel industry, the country declared unrestricted travel and scraped the 14-day mandatory quarantine.

As per a media report, Romes Leonardo da Vinci airport resumed all domestic and international flights in the final phase of the coronavirus lockdown ease, allowing the families and loved ones to finally reunite. As a first European country to throw its borders wide open to visitors, while the pandemic still looms, Italy aims to boost its collapsed tourism industry.

Read: GRZ Vs SLZ Dream11 Prediction, Team, Top Picks, Austrian Bundesliga Live

Read: COVID-19 Lockdown: Switzerland To Lift Travel Restrictions On EU, UK From June 15
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu saw its biggest spike in COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with 1,927 people testing positive, of whom 1,392 are in Chennai. With this, the number of cases in Tamil Nadu increased to 36,841. Also, 19 more people died in the state taking the toll to 326.

The new cases included 30 people who returned from other states and countries -- four each from Delhi, Kerala and Karnataka, eight from Maharashtra, three from Andhra Pradesh, one each from Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maldives and Saudi Arabia and two from Kuwait.

Chennai's neighbouring districts also saw a high number of cases, with 182 in Chengalpattu, 105 in Tiruvallur and 33 in Kancheepuram.

With the number of cases rising in Chennai, beds in four Government Medical College Hospitals in Chennai are almost full and the Health Department is increasing the bed strength in various hospitals.

The creation of additional beds means the state also has to increase manpower and infrastructure. Health Secretary Beela Rajesh handed over appointment orders to doctors for COVID-19 duty at the Directorate of Medical Education campus.

Meanwhile, a press release from the Health Department said the state appointed 665 post graduate non-service doctors with a monthly salary of Rs 75,000 and MBBS doctors with a monthly salary of Rs 60,000. The department also appointed 365 lab technicians with a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 and 1,230 multi purpose health workers with a monthly salary of Rs 12,000. All were appointed on contractual basis for three months.

The city also reported 19 COVID-19 deaths. Four people died without comorbidities. The youngest was a 38-year-old man from Chengalpattu who died at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, a day after his sample tested positive.

The state also tested 16,667 people on the day. "Also, 1,008 people were discharged following treatment, said a media bulletin issued by the Directorate of Public Health.
By Michael LaSusa and Mackey Pendergrast

Instead of enjoying graduations and field days, students and teachers in New Jersey are laboring behind computer screens to move through curricula designed for a different context. But taking an instructional program intended for brick-and-mortar classrooms and recasting it in a virtual environment need not be a hastily executed shot in the dark. On the contrary, a purposeful approach rooted in established research in neuroscience and developmental psychology can guide school districts through this unprecedented shift to virtual learning. We see opportunities for reimagining and improving teaching and learning, both inside and outside the physical classroom.

The first opportunity involves instructional delivery. It is tempting to think that the best approach to virtual learning is to imitate a typical school day, with teachers and students logging on to their electronic classrooms at the same time as if they were all together. We do not think so. Those who have spent their careers working in preK-12 classrooms know how much skill and intentionality it takes to shepherd 20+ students through their learning -- managing behaviors, gauging understanding, and involving pupils meaningfully in lessons. This is difficult under ideal circumstances. When teachers are working with a class of students from their homes and through their screens, it is impossible.

Brain research explains why. In order to learn, the brain must be able to focus on one stimulus at a time. Attention is a limited capacity resource; there is only so much bandwidth available to select and attend to information. One of the biggest obstacles to learning, therefore, is cognitive overload.

In an online classroom, cognitive overload is a given: students are looking at a small screen divided among images of their classmates, teacher, and whatever instructional visuals the teacher may present. They must input and process all of that stimuli while at the same time listening, taking notes, and reflecting on the lesson content or others commentary. Additionally, students must contend with a host of possible distractions in their immediate environment -- cell phones, barking dogs, runaway siblings -- over which the teacher has no control. The brain needs focused attention long enough for the information to enter into the working memory. Virtual learning should seek to avoid cognitive overload by reducing unnecessary stimuli that compete with that attention. Thats a vote against lengthy periods of whole-class synchronous virtual instruction.

So what is the best method? To address this question, we need to look no further than to our students. Ask any kid how they figure out how to do something, and they will likely give you the same answer: YouTube. Whether its learning how to make a Rainbow Loom bracelet, memorize Steph Currys best moves, or play the chords to Living Colours Cult of Personality, YouTube is the go-to resource. Similarly, Khan Academy did not become a household name by brokering live tutoring sessions for groups of 25 students. Rather, founder Salman Khan realized that providing students with digestible video segments of mathematics content enabled students to work at an individualized pace, hit the pause button when necessary, and replay key moments as often as needed.

Think of the brain as a hiking path in a forest. Every time you travel down that path it becomes firmer and easier to discern. Similarly, every time a student rewatches a video clip to understand something more completely, to find a missing step, or to think slowly or rehearse, the neural connections and pathways are firming up in the brain, something neuroscientists call encoding and retrieval. A brain that is focused and relaxed is a brain that is ready to learn.

Dont students need to connect directly with their teachers and classmates? Of course! If the front end of virtual learning should rely on video content produced by teachers or thoughtfully selected from existing online platforms, the back end should focus on small group and individualized instruction. To accomplish this, teachers should use video conferencing apps to follow up with small groups of students, take questions, and check for understanding. This is also the place where teachers can encourage students to move through the learning pit-- that crucial stage of cognitive struggle where learners build their capacity and the brain embeds learning more concretely for future retrieval.

The second opportunity is for schools to permanently break away from the tyranny of time. Our current schooling structures date to the 19th century and our concept of credits and attendance are centered on those structures, including the Carnegie Unit -- an attempt to quantify how much seat time a student needs to acquire the material of a course.

Based on the need for seat time, the high school day is too long. We are hearing directly from our students during this prolonged school closure that they are sleeping more and feeling healthier. It is perverse that it has taken a pandemic to provide our adolescent students with a basic life need: sleep. Any conceptualization of schooling that aligns with brain research must afford students sufficient time for both sleep and exercise, both are essential ingredients for deep learning. When this school closure ends, we should leverage what we have learned, reduce the length of the school day, and rethink the demands of time that we impose on our students.

A final opportunity in this national experiment is to seize a salient takeaway: that going to school is vital to children. We need students to gather and learn how to navigate social relationships. We need students to interface with positive adult role models. We need students to take part in extracurricular programs that impart critical life skills.

When school resumes, we will better appreciate what we have been missing, but we should build upon what we have learned. After Hurricane Sandy, we better fortified New Jersey. We raised homes along the shore. We installed generators at critical facilities. We revised building codes. We should now take the same approach with our public schools.

We should make our instructional design stronger, better aligned with how the brain actually learns, and more conducive to helping students become independent learners. This will be crucial to position us for the next school closure and also to enable us to better serve our students at all times. Lets use this experience to fortify New Jersey again, this time for our children.

Michael LaSusa is the superintendent of schools in Chatham and was the 2018 New Jersey Region One Superintendent of the Year.

Mackey Pendergrast is the superintendent of schools in Morristown and is the 2020 New Jersey Superintendent of the Year.

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Defendants were not even aware of this suit until after an ex parte order had been issued, and Plaintiffs did not provide formal notice of the complaint and temporary injunction order until  both had been released to the media, Deputy Attorney General Samuel Towell wrote in Wednesdays filing on behalf of Herring and other lawyers in the office.
Valmet Oyjs press release on June 10, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. EET



Valmet will supply cooking and fiberline to Guangxi Sun Paper Co., Ltds new Beihai mill in China. The pulp mill will have a capacity of 800,000 air dried tonnes per year of bleached hardwood kraft pulp.

The order is included in Valmet's orders received of the second quarter 2020. The value of the order will not be disclosed.

Valmets delivery is part of Sun Papers new greenfield mill in Beihai, which will eventually have a total pulp and paper capacity of 3.5 million tonnes annually. This order complements the fine paper machine, automation and recovery boiler order which Valmet announced in April 2020.

Our overall target of the project is to build a world-class mill. We wanted to choose advanced and reliable technology that has little impact on the environment at the same time as it performs with high quality and efficiency and has low operating costs. We chose Valmet because they met our goals well in this project. We have also had good collaboration in all previous projects, says Yanjun Cao, Vice general manager, Sun Paper.

We had many discussions with the customer, and we managed to offer a concept that fits their needs well with a tight delivery schedule and long-term cooperation. All our earlier pulp mill references were also contributing factors to this important order, says Xiangdong Zhu, Area President, China, Valmet.

The cooking and fiberline will feature leading process technology, including the latest developments in our continuous cooking technology, to reach excellent efficiency in energy and raw material utilization. A high end-product quality with low effluent flows and high environmental performance will be secured with the latest generation of TwinRoll wash presses throughout the fiberline in combination with Valmets screening, oxygen and bleaching technology, says Eva Engelfeldt, Senior Sales Manager, Fiber Processing Business Unit, Valmet.

Story continues





Sun Papers new greenfield mill in Beihai will eventually have a total pulp and paper capacity of 3.5 million tonnes annually.

Information about Valmets delivery

The scope of Valmets supply includes main equipment and process design for continuous cooking, deknotting, screening, brown stock washing, oxygen delignification, and three stage ECF (elementally chlorine free) bleaching. Corresponding spare parts and site services are also a part of the scope.

Information about the customer Sun Paper

Sun Paper is one of the subsidiaries of Shandong Sun Holdings Group, which was founded in 1982. Currently Sun Paper has two mills in Chinas Shandong province. The company also operates a mill in Laos with a 300,000 tonnes/year dissolving pulp line and a 400,000 tonnes/year recycled pulp line. In July 2019, Sun Paper established a wholly owned subsidiary, Guangxi Sun Paper, to build an integrated pulp and paper mill in Beihai.

VALMET

Corporate Communications

For further information, please contact:

Xiangdong Zhu, Area President, China, Valmet, tel. +8613801795775

Eva Engelfeldt, Senior Sales Manager, Pulp and Energy business line, Valmet, tel. +46 706 80 52 19

Valmet is the leading global developer and supplier of process technologies, automation and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries. We aim to become the global champion in serving our customers.



Valmet's strong technology offering includes pulp mills, tissue, board and paper production lines, as well as power plants for bioenergy production. Our advanced services and automation solutions improve the reliability and performance of our customers' processes and enhance the effective utilization of raw materials and energy.



Valmet's net sales in 2019 were approximately EUR 3.5 billion. Our more than 13,000 professionals around the world work close to our customers and are committed to moving our customers' performance forward - every day. Valmet's head office is in Espoo, Finland and its shares are listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki.

Read more www.valmet.com , www.twitter.com/valmetglobal

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Kyle Sandilands has revealed that he's often mistaken for Santa Claus.

The shock jock made the hilarious confession on Wednesday's The Kyle and Jackie O Show.

'Do you get that a lot?' asked his co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson, to which Kyle responded: 'Yes, little children'.

'Do you get that a lot?' Kyle Sandilands has revealed that he's often mistaken for Santa Claus by young children

He continued: 'If they're about three or four, they just point and go "Santa!"'

Kyle has dressed up as Santa Claus on several occasions over the years.

While he was still dating ex-girlfriend Imogen Anthony, the former couple participated in a couple of sexy Santa-themed photo shoots.

Flashback: While Kyle was still dating ex-girlfriend Imogen Anthony, the former couple participated in a couple of sexy Santa-themed photo shoots. (Pictured together)

In one, Kyle dressed up as old St. Nick while Imogen posed next to him in raunchy red lingerie.

In another image, he gave Imogen a piggyback while wearing a red Santa hat.

In 2018, Kyle dressed up as Santa again, while Jackie dressed as Mrs Claus.

Wild ride! In another image, he gave Imogen a piggyback while wearing a red Santa hat

The pair were in costume for KIIS FM's annual toy drive, which raises money to buy toys for the Sydney Childrens Hospital.

Last year, Kyle came under fire for making vulgar comments about the Virgin Mary on The Kyle and Jackie O Show.

After receiving backlash for the blasphemous blunder, he later issued an 8 minute apology on air.
Du Meng's works at her exhibition, Embers

Artist's Bio

Du Meng lives and works in Beijing. She was born in 1986, and she graduated in 2008, with a bachelor's degree in visual communications, from the School of Design, under the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 2013, she completed her master's degree at the School for American Crafts, under Rochester Institute of Technology. She was an artist in residence and Adjunct Professor at the university between 2013-2016. She received the "honorable mention" at the International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa, held in Japan in 2016. She was named the 2018 "Saxe Emerging Artist" during the lecture presentation of the 48th Glass Art Society Conference, held in Italy.

Du Meng

Ten years ago, Du Meng moved from Beijing to New York, and then she began studying the art of glass  from scratch  at Rochester Institute of Technology. She was the first Chinese student enrolled in the university's glass program. In 2016, Du returned to China and became an independent glass artist. The young woman, who is regarded by many to be good at "telling stories via glass," uses her works to record the precious memories and experience by she and the people around her.

I Hope Everything Is Fine with You, 2019 [Photo by Lin Peichao]

In early 2019, Du's grandmother passed away. One of Du's friends also had a sad experience, which inspired Du to think about the emotional bonds between people and their loved ones. She created a series of "letters" from sheet glass. "When you hold the glass and let sunlight shine through it, you will see the glass reflecting images about your surroundings," Du says. The series of specially made "letters" was displayed in her latest exhibition. Du's latest solo exhibition, Embers, opened at New York-based Fou Gallery, in the United States, near the end of November 2019. Talking about the exhibition's theme, and her works displayed at the exhibition, Du told Women of China, "I visited Lybster, a city in northern Scotland, to attend a conference in August 2018. The place was so wide and open, which gave me a seemingly 'boundless' field of vision, and made me feel quiet." Also in 2018, Du visited the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Latvia, in December. She was impressed by the marvelous windows, decorated with colored Stain glass, in the academy's old building. She started to consider the possibilities of creating something from sheet glass.

Bai, 2013 [Photo by Elizabeth Torgerson-Lamark]

One decade ago, Du coped with a series of hardships after she began studying, with very little foundation, in the glass program in Rochester. She was lonely and homesick. She made several glass figures of a girl who lowered her head and kept her eyes closed. "I received a long letter from my professor, who watched my works and said he could feel that I had gained a lot from my class after one year of studies," Du recalls. She was touched and encouraged by her professor's feedback.

For her graduation exhibition, in 2013, Du displayed glass works that showed images she had often seen during her childhood in Beijing, such as white cloth shoes, swallows and begonia flowers. Her works won praise from her teachers and classmates.

Between 2014 and 2016, Du created many works when she was an artist in residence in Rochester. One Day, a set of glass figures of five girls, was the last work she completed before she moved back to China. The five girls form a circle. If you look at them from clockwise, and from the girl standing first from left, you will find the patterns on the girls' dresses gradually fade away, but that more and more leaves and flowers grow on the girls' bodies. The leaves and flowers represent the things that inspired Du during her years overseas.

Chinese Flowering Crabapple Quietly on the Ground, 2014 [Photo by Elizabeth Torgerson-Lamark]

Du spent a year working in a glass manufacturing plant in Nanxun, an old town in East China's Zhejiang Province, after she returned to China. She started to combine glass with other materials when she created works. "If people are curious about my works, and if they ask why I have made glass in this way, I think it will be more helpful for them to develop an interest in glass, and in the art of glass," Du says.

Photos supplied by Du Meng and Fou Gallery

(Source: Women of China English Monthly January 2020 issue)
Victims of domestic abuse could be entitled to paid leave under a Government crackdown on the crime.

The measure would help employees keep their jobs and maintain economic independence while escaping violent partners.

The proposed regulations would give victims time to seek professional help, attend police or court appointments, move house and support their children.

The proposed regulations would give victims time to seek professional help, attend police or court appointments, move house and support their children. Pictured: Stock photo of a woman upset

The proposal is part of a ministerial review of employment rights looking at what more could be done to support domestic abuse victims at work.

Nicole Jacobs, the independent Domestic Abuse Commissioner, said: When done effectively and sensitively, employers can play a pivotal role in supporting survivors to rebuild their lives.

The Domestic Abuse Bill will introduce a new statutory definition of domestic abuse which, for the first time, includes a reference to economic abuse  where abusers deny their partners access to food, money, clothes and transport.

One in five victims take time off work due to abuse - risking them becoming even more dependent for money on their tormentors.

Research shows that 30 per cent of women - about five million - and 16 per cent of men, or 2.5million, experience domestic abuse during their lives.

One in five victims take time off work due to abuse - risking them becoming even more dependent for money on their tormentors. Pictured: Stock photo of man nervous at the office

Business Minister Paul Scully launched the review as flagship legislation which seeks to clamp down on the scourge progresses through Parliament.

He said: 'Domestic abuse may occur in the home, but its impact stretches into every aspect of survivors' lives.

This review aims to give employers the confidence and knowledge to support workers affected by domestic abuse.'

Safeguarding Minister Victoria Atkins said: 'Domestic abuse is an abhorrent crime which often strips victims of their independence and denies them the opportunity to succeed and thrive.'
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: This is our regular report on hedge funds and alternative asset managers who are successfully protecting assets and outperforming the markets during the first months of 2020.

European equities rebound RWC's Pensato Europa Absolute Return Fund is up 3.7% year to date, according to performance information for investors reviewed by Opalesque. The long/short strategy invests in European companies that are undervalued relative to their fundamentals. The strategy came under the RWC banner in 2017 after the investment team joined from Pensato. Graham Clapp and Ed Rumble lead the investment team and have built on the strategy over 30 years. The second half of the year could be a positive one for European Equities. A recent analyst note from Bank of America suggests that European stocks could rise another 10% before the end of September as cities and companies across the continent begin to reopen. European stocks have already bounced back 38% from their March trough. The analysts suggest that recovery will be uneven at first as some industries will be able to get back to work faster than others. Sustainability as an edge LGT Capital Partners Sustainable Equity Market Neutral Fund is up 3.4% year to date. The strategy is an actively managed global portfolio with a market neutral allocation. The fund builds on existing long-only sustainable equity capabilities. LGT has a long track record in sustainable equity investing. LGT looks for companies with strong market positions, which can participate in structural trends that will drive long-term growth. According to fund information for investors reviewed by Opalesque, the process results in a concentrated portfolio of 30-70 stocks, depending on the strategy selected, which benefit from a compelling combination of ESG and traditional financial return drivers. The Princely House of Liechtenstein has been the owner of LGT for over eighty years. LGT is the largest Private Banking and Asset Management group in the world to be owned by a family. A month ago, LGT announced that it would be changing the structure of its business. LGT Private Banking, LGT Capital Partners, and Lightstone, the three business units of the current LGT Group, will be held directly by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation and operate as independent pure-play companies in their fields. The decision came alongside the retirement of H.S.H. Prince Philipp von und zu Liechtenstein, who will step down from his role of Group Chairman. H.S.H. Prince Max von und zu Liechtenstein, Group CEO since 2006, will become Chairman of the three new companies. In a statement, LGT said that each new company has amassed enough unique expertise and size that each practice area could function on its own. LGT Capital Partners has $60 billion in assets under management from more than 550 institutional clients in 37 countries. The alternatives arm of LGT group plans to expand its global reach and further develop its product offering for institutional investors as a standalone business. *** Last issue of The Corona Fighters Report: Report 42. Opalesque's Corona Fighters reports are open articles. To see all past reports, type Corona Fighters in our search engine: www.opalesque.com/index.php

*** Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. Opalesque has not verified this information and gives no warranty of accuracy or completeness. Past performance is not indicative of future results. See our Terms & Conditions for more information. ***

WEBINARS: Meet 10 fund managers and learn how and why their strategies delivered positive returns and/or protected capital during the Corona led market meltdown! Each webinar lasts an hour and features five managers. "A well-chosen topic of discussion and a great set of speakers to hear and learn from."

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If you or someone you know is facing eviction, CNBC Make It would like to hear from you. Please email money reporter Alicia Adamczyk at alicia.adamczyk@nbcuni.com.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. was experiencing what housing experts and advocates deemed an eviction crisis. More than 2 million people face eviction each year, far more than the number of people who faced foreclosure at the height of the 2008 mortgage crisis.

Experts expect the eviction crisis to get far worse in the coming months. The Covid-19 economic recession has hit renters especially hard. They make up a disproportionate share of service sector jobs, an industry that has been decimated as a result of the coronavirus shutdowns.

In fact, between March 25 and April 10 of this year, nearly half of renters aged 18 to 64 reported that they were having trouble paying their rent or utilities, were food insecure or couldn't afford needed medical care, according to the Urban Institute.

Thousands of tenants have been missing rent payments over the past few months. People of color have fared worse than white renters due to the disproportionate job loss in their communities, the Urban Institute reports. About 25% of black and Latino renters reported not paying or deferring rent in May, compared to 14% of white renters.

To keep people in their homes, the federal government banned evictions in federally assisted properties through July 25, and some cities and states, including Massachusetts, New York and Michigan, put their own temporary eviction moratoriums in place. But many of those bans begin expiring this month depending on the state, according to Princeton University's Eviction Lab, which tracks evictions across the country.

Plus, the extra $600 per week in federal unemployment benefits is set to expire at the end of July. That extra money is "what has been allowing many people who have lost their jobs to continue paying rent," Solomon Greene, a senior fellow in housing policy at the Urban Institute, tells CNBC Make It. Coupled with the end of eviction moratoriums, the U.S. is likely to experience an uptick in evictions nationwide in the coming weeks.

Evicting people in the middle of a global health crisis puts them at greater risk of contracting and spreading Covid-19, turning "a catastrophe into an apocalypse," Aaron Carr, founder and executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative, tells CNBC Make It.

"A lot of people could be on the streets," says Carr. "Especially in places like New York City that already have a homeless problem, it could turn into a homeless nightmare."

Eviction also has long-term  in some cases, multi-generational  financial consequences for individuals and families, Alieza Durana, a writer with the Eviction Lab, tells CNBC Make It. It can ruin a tenant's credit for many years, making it harder for them to find a new place to live. It also takes a mental and emotional toll on those affected, and hits minority communities, particularly women of color and their children, especially hard.
Former vice president Joe Biden has secured enough delegates in the Democratic nominating contest to clinch the party's presidential nomination, according to Edison Media Research.

The milestone is largely symbolic, since all other major candidates stopped campaigning in April.

"It was an honor to compete alongside one of the most talented groups of candidates the Democratic party has ever fielded," Biden said in a statement issued last Friday, when his campaign determined that he had crossed the delegate threshold. "I am proud to say that we are going into this general election a united party."

Biden launched his run in such a large field that, for much of last year, many thought no candidate would win the nomination outright, setting up a possibly contested convention.

Instead, Biden became the presumptive nominee much earlier in the calendar than other recent Democratic candidates, providing him extra months to retool his campaign for the general election.

But Biden also faces challenges no other nominee has had, including a series of cascading crises that have transformed the political landscape. The novel coronavirus pandemic shut down the country for months, causing an economic crisis with jobless numbers in the double digits.

And now the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after Minneapolis police officers pinned him to the ground, has caused a wave of massive demonstrations in cities and towns across the country.

In response, Biden has shifted his message from restoring norms shattered by President Donald Trump to a broader call for societal and government change. "We aren't just building the movement that will defeat Donald Trump, we are building the movement that will transform our nation," Biden said in his statement Friday.

When Biden entered the presidential race last year he joined a historically large and diverse field of competitors.

Though he led in national polls for much of the campaign, Biden's candidacy stalled in early states. He finished fourth in Iowa, behind Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Then he dropped to fifth in New Hampshire - with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., joining the group of candidates with better finishes. No Democratic candidate had ever gone on to become the nominee after finishing below second in the Granite State.

Biden began rebounding in the next contest, finishing second in Nevada. Then he clobbered the field in South Carolina, largely due to support from black voters, many of whom saw him as the strongest candidate to defeat Trump. Moderate candidates quickly lined up behind Biden, letting him plow through the next set of states.

By April, Biden's top competitors had all endorsed his candidacy, including Sanders, who officially endorsed him in April with a joint video. Wooing Sanders's intensely loyal followers remains a priority for Biden. He's convened six policy panels that include Sanders's most influential backers, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Biden also pledged to name a female running mate, an appeal to female voters who make up the majority of the Democratic electorate.

"I am going to spend every day between now and November 3 fighting to earn the votes of Americans all across this great country so that, together, we can win the battle for the soul of this nation, and make sure that as we rebuild our economy, everyone comes along," Biden said.
A federal judge on Tuesday granted a stay of execution for a Texas death row prisoner who was scheduled to die next week.

Ruben Gutierrez, who turns 43 on Wednesday, has maintained his innocence in the 1998 slaying of a trailer park owner in Brownsville.

His attorneys have long sought to test the available evidence for DNA to show whether he was responsible for the crime. His attorneys also argue that the states policy that blocks chaplains and spiritual advisers from entering the execution chamber violates his constitutional rights. Gutierrez wants a Christian chaplain to accompany him to his execution.

The Court concludes that Gutierrez has made a showing of likelihood of success on the merits of at least one of his DNA or execution-chamber claims, according to the ruling made by Brownsville Federal District Court Judge Hilda Tagle.

The Texas Attorney Generals Office has appealed the ruling to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Gutierrezs lawyer, Shawn Nolan.

In a case with no physical or forensic evidence against him, to execute Mr. Gutierrez without conducting DNA testing would be the ultimate violation of his civil rights, Nolan said in a statement. Additionally, the state is refusing to allow Mr. Gutierrez to have a Christian chaplain accompany him into the execution chamber, in violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (The Texas Department of Criminal Justice) cannot just pick and choose which of its own rules and which constitutional rights apply to a prisoner and it should not attempt to conduct an execution under these circumstances.

TDCJ spokesman Jeremy Desel declined to comment on Tuesdays ruling.

Gutierrez was sent to death row following the 1998 slaying of Brownsville trailer park owner Escolastica Harrison. Court records say she stashed about $600,000 of cash inside her home because she didnt trust banks. She was fatally stabbed during Gutierrezs attempt to steal the cash with two other accomplices.

Gutierrez was originally scheduled for execution in 2018, but a judge granted a stay when his then-attorney asked to be taken off the case.

His execution was rescheduled to June 16. Nolan continued to argue in federal court for DNA testing and a Christian chaplains presence in the execution chamber. A judge agreed to review those claims in a June 2 memorandum.

Ahead of Tuesdays decision, Gutierrezs attorneys also separately requested a stay of execution from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, this time for complications related to COVID-19. That motion is still pending.

julian.gill@chron.com
SAO PAULO, June 9 (Reuters) - Brazil airline Gol said on Monday it is consuming about 10 million reais ($2.05 million) per day, as the airline tries to keep its finances stable during the coronavirus crisis.

Gol said this figure was better than an originally estimated cash consumption of 12 million reais per day. ($1 = 4.8685 reais) (Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun)
Washington

Philonise Floyd challenged Congress Wednesday to "stop the pain" as lawmakers consider a sweeping law enforcement overhaul, so his brother George won't be just "another name" on a growing list of those killed during interactions with police.

Floyd's appearance before a House hearing came a day after funeral services for George Floyd, the 46-year-old Minnesota man whose death has become a worldwide symbol in demonstrations over calls for changes to police practices and an end to racial prejudices.

"I'm here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain," Philonise Floyd told the hearing room.

Choking back tears, he said he wants to make sure that his brother, whom he called "Perry," is "more than another face on a T-shirt. More than another name on a list that won't stop growing."

Floyd challenged lawmakers, "Be the leaders that this country, this world, needs. Do the right thing."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler gaveled in the session as Democrats review the Justice in Policing Act, a package of proposals amid a national debate on policing and racial inequity.

Lawmakers also heard testimony from civil rights and law enforcement leaders as Congress considers the changes to police practices and accountability after Floyd's death in police custody and the mass protests that followed.

"Today we answer their call," Nadler said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi watched from the hearing audience, and the House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy joined on the dais.

Republicans are criticizing activists who want to "defund the police"  a catch-all term for re-imagining law enforcement, but one that President Donald Trump and his allies have seized on to portray Democrats as extreme as GOP lawmakers rush to come up with their proposals.

"The American people understand that it's time for a real discussion," said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the panel. But he said what they also understand is that "it is pure insanity to defund the police."

For two hours, witnesses described what one called a "lynching" over what happened to Floyd on May 25, and others placed his death alongside those of other black Americans that have created a tally becoming difficult for lawmakers in Congress to ignore.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is leading the legislative effort, said the proposed changes reflect a nation coming to grips with a history of racial injustice.

"This is about the kind of America we all want to see," Bass said.

Philonise Floyd's testimony captivated the room as he recounted what he saw in the widely viewed video as an officer pressed a knee into George Floyd's neck while other police stood by.

One officer is now charged with murder, and three others also face charges.

"He didn't fight back. He listened to the officers. He called them 'sir,'" Philonise Floyd said. "He still called them 'sir' as he begged for his life."
Norfolk, Va.

The U.S. government will try to stop a company's planned salvage mission to retrieve the Titanic's wireless telegraph machine, arguing the expedition would break federal law and a pact with Britain to leave the iconic shipwreck undisturbed.

U.S. attorneys filed a legal challenge before a federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia, late Monday. The expedition is expected to begin by the end of August.

The Atlanta-based salvage firm RMS Titanic Inc. said it would exhibit the telegraph while telling the stories of the operators who broadcast the sinking ship's distress calls.

The company plans to recover the radio equipment from a deck house near the Titanic's grand staircase. The mission could require an underwater vehicle to cut into the rapidly deteriorating roof if the submersible is unable to slip through a skylight.

U.S. attorneys argue the company can't do that. They say federal law requires the firm to get authorization from the secretary of commerce before conducting salvage expeditions "that would physically alter or disturb the wreck."

The agreement with the United Kingdom, they add, regulates entry into the hull sections to prevent disturbances to the hull and "other artifacts and any human remains."

The international agreement calls for the Titanic to be recognized as "a memorial to those men, women and children who perished and whose remains should be given appropriate respect," the government's filing states.

The Titanic was traveling from England to New York when it struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew. Distress calls to other ships that were made by the Marconi wireless telegraph machine are credited with helping to save hundreds of people on lifeboats.

The U.S. filed its arguments with the same federal judge who ruled last month that the salvage firm could dive to recover the telegraph equipment. The Titanic wreck site sits on the floor of the North Atlantic about 400 miles off Newfoundland, Canada.

In May, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith agreed with the salvage firm that the telegraph is historically important and could soon disappear within the rapidly decaying wreck. Smith wrote that recovering the telegraph would contribute to preserving the legacy of the ship and its passengers.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration represents the public's interest in the shipwreck. The agency argues that federal laws and international agreements should apply to the wreckage. The salvage firm disagrees, claiming that hundreds of years of maritime law give authority to the court.

"NOAA seeks to jettison the law of the sea, developed over centuries," the company argued in legal filings earlier this year.

George Rutherglen, a law professor who teaches admiralty law at the University of Virginia, said the case is likely far from over.

Depending on how Judge Smith rules on NOAA's status as a party to the case, Rutherglen said, the U.S. government could try bringing its case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Rutherglen also said that granting the firm's request could open the door to further salvage requests.
The long-standing wrangle over voting rights and election security in the US came to a head in Georgia on Tuesday in a messy state primary vote amid partisan finger-pointing from all sides.

The primary offered an unsettling preview of a November contest when battleground states could face potentially record turnouts.

Many Democrats blamed the Republican secretary of state for hours-long lines outside polling booths, voting machine malfunctions, provisional ballot shortages and absentee ballots failing to arrive in time.

Democrat Joe Bidens presidential campaign called it completely unacceptable. Georgia Republicans deflected responsibility to metro Atlantas minority and Democratic-controlled counties, while President Donald Trumps top campaign attorney decried the chaos in Georgia.

It raised the spectre of a worst-case November scenario: a decisive state, for example Florida, remaining in dispute long after polls close, as Mr Trump, Mr Biden and their supporters offer competing claims of victory, or question the elections legitimacy, thus inflaming an already boiling electorate.

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots (Ron Harris/AP)

I feel like were struggling as a country right now to hear people who really need to be heard, said Atlanta resident Ross Wakefield, a 28-year-old white software engineer who waited nearly four hours to vote and watched others leave the line.

This does not give me a lot of confidence that were doing that.

At Mr Trumps campaign headquarters, senior counsel Justin Clark blamed Georgias vote-by-mail push amid the Covid-19 pandemic, alluding to the presidents unfounded claims that absentee voting yields widespread fraud.

The American people want to know that the results of an election accurately reflect the will of the voters, Mr Clark said.

The only way to make sure that the American people will have faith in the results is if people who can, show up and vote in person.

Story continues

Rachana Desai Martin, a top Biden campaign attorney, called the scenes in Georgia a threat to democracy.

We only have a few months left until voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian  and every American  is able to safely exercise their right to vote, she said.

Ms Martin stopped short of assigning blame, but two Georgia Democrats on Mr Bidens list of potential running mates pointed at Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who led the selection of Georgias new voting machine system and invited every active voter to request an absentee ballot.

Fearing defeat in November, President Donald Trump has campaigned hard against mail-in voting (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted at Mr Raffensperger about problems in pockets of metro Atlanta.

Is this happening across the county or just on the south end, the Democrat asked, referring to an area with a heavily black population.

Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor and an Atlanta resident, tweeted that Georgians deserve better and that Mr Raffensperger owns this disaster.

Ms Abrams established herself as a voting rights advocate after she refused to concede her 2018 race because of voting irregularities when her Republican opponent, the now governor Brian Kemp, was secretary of state.

Voting rights groups, including Ms Abrams Fair Fight Action, said Georgias experiences justify their efforts to combat what they describe as a coordinated GOP push to restrict ballot access. Fair Fight, Priorities USA and American Bridge earlier this week announced a Voter Suppression Watch partnership.

Trump is already trying to extend this culture war by creating fear around vote-by-mail, said Aneesa McMillan of the Priorities political action committee.

She noted the Republican National Committees plans to recruit thousands of poll watchers now that the GOP is no longer under a court order banning the practice that Democrats equate to voter intimidation.

We have to learn our lessons, not just from Georgia, and protect the entire process, Ms McMillan said.
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According to a new study Published Report The global Epoxy Resin Market size is expected to reach USD 11.28 billion by 2026 according to a new study by Polaris Market Research. The report Epoxy Resin Market Share, Size, Trends, Industry Analysis Report By Raw Material (DGBEA, DGBEF, Novolac, Aliphatic, Glycidylamine, Hardener); By Application (Paints & Coatings, Wind Turbine, Composites, Construction, Electrical & Electronics, Adhesives, and Others); By Regions, Segment Forecast, 2020  2026 gives a detailed insight into current market dynamics and provides analysis on future market growth.

Epoxy resins are significant raw materials to various end-use chemical compounds where each significant molecule is attributed a unique opportunity to convert to a useful thermosetting product. The major end-user industries for epoxy resins include electronics and paints and coatings followed by adhesives, composites, wind turbines and others.

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Epoxy resins find extensive use in powder coatings applied to automotive and appliances parts, in solvent-dipped coatings applied to substrates in corrosive environment and water-based coatings as electrodepositing primers in automobiles.

Epoxy resins possess favorable properties such as high thermal stability, mechanical strength, resistivity, adhesion, electrical, mechanical and heat resistance that makes it ideal choice for use in laminates, jewelry and insulators.

Epoxy coatings are widely known for their use in manufacture of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). The rapid conglomeration and urbanization of the world has led to development of the electronics industry with manufacture and design of such electronic products leading to growth of epoxy resins.

Furthermore, expansion in construction industry and complete makeover of older structures to newer structures with feature-rich coatings gaining attraction, epoxy resin has successfully revamped the paints and coatings industry.

Technological advancements in this market has been a vital factor with bio based type making use of natural sources. Restraints to epoxy resin market include constantly changing market price of raw materials, threat of substitutes and adverse health signs related to epoxy resins such as Bisphenol A (BPA).

Asia pacific market is likely to grow at a fast clip with China having been witness to rapid splurge of paints and coatings and hence the largest coatings production country in the world. Furthermore China has added facilities in the past decade essaying sharp growth.

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For these reasons let out, and growth in ASEAN countries and India and China have made Asia Pacific a marked region.. North American markets are concerned over leaching and advocates lower leaches per level. Western Europe has high demand in epoxy coatings for its role in marine and maintenance coatings.

The key players in epoxy resins coating market include Dow DuPont, BASF SE, 3M, Huntsman Corporation, Aditya Birla Chemicals, and Sika AG. Huntsman Corporation, Aditya Birla Chemicals, Covestro and Hexion. Huntsman, Olin and Hexion are potentially strong western producers of epoxy resins with interest in North America and European Market.

Polaris Market Research has segmented the global epoxy resin market report on the basis of formulation type, application, and Region:

Formulation Type Outlook (Revenue USD Millions, 2015  2026) DGBEA DGBEF Novolac Aliphatic Glycidylamine Others

Application Outlook (Revenue USD Millions, 2015  2026) Paints and Coatings Adhesives Composites Electrical and Electronics Wind Turbines Others

Regional Outlook (Revenue USD Millions, 2015  2026)

North America U.S. Canada

Europe UK France Germany

Asia Pacific India China Japan

Latin America Mexico Brazil

MEA

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A doctor, a pediatrician, is claimed to have succumbed to Covid-19- related stress in Hassan on Tuesday.

A post on the Facebook page of Karnataka Medical Association (KMA) reads: Sorry to say this. Today, we lost young doctor Dr Shivakiran, pediatrician in Hassan, due to Covid stress. He had just finished flu clinic duty last week. Since three months, there is no holiday for doctors in Karnataka. He was having headache for one week, while on duty. Five days back, he collapsed while on duty. Later, he was found to have CVA and hematoma. He underwent surgery and was on ventilator. But, today morning, he passed away.

The post is shared by a few hundreds of people on their social media platforms. The post has also evoked a few hundred reactions.

Dr H N Ravindra, former president of Karnataka chapter of Indian Medical Association (IMA) explained that CVA is cerebrovascular accident and hematoma is localised bleeding outside blood vessels, due to either disease or trauma, including injury or surgery.

However, Dr Ravindra said, the claim of the KMA page is false and the death is not related to Covid stress.

It is true that 48 years is not the age to die. Dr Shivakiran was posted at the Taluk Hospital of Alur. According to family sources, Dr Shivakiran was suffering from headache for over a fortnight. Following a heart attack, he was hospitalised a few days back and he was under treatment, he said.

Hassan District Health Officer Dr K M Satish Kumar said, Dr Shivakiran was also on Covid duty for some time, but the claim on the KMA page that doctors are not given leave since three months, is false.

Government doctors were asked not to take leave unnecessarily. Some doctors have worked even on Sundays, in the interest of patients, as some private clinics and hospitals were not open. Doctors have taken leave, citing health or other reasons. The death of Dr Shivakiran is not related to Covid stress, he said.
Undercover police arrest and handcuff a pro-democracy demonstrator (C) during a pro-democracy protest in Mong Kok district of Hong Kong on May 10, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images)

Australia Should Fast Track Powerful Laws to Sanction Chinese Officials Involved in Passing Hong Kong Security Law

Australia should fast-track new laws to give the government power to sanction and freeze the assets of Chinese communist officials involved in passing controversial security laws over Hong Kong.

Michael Shoebridge, a defence expert at the Australia Strategic Policy Institute told The Epoch Times that like the Tiananmen Square massacre this was a moment for democratic nations to act.

The right approach is to use targeted sanctions against the Beijing and Hong Kong authoritiesindividual officialsto freeze their assets in other jurisdictions and to not have them travel to other jurisdictions, he said.

Shoebridge advocated for a system to publicise the enormous personal wealth of Chinese Communist Party leaders (and close family members) as well as members of the regimes rubber stamp legislature the National Peoples Congress who voted to approve the national security law.

Chinese officials are well-known for sending family members, relatives, and vast wealth and assets overseas.

Countries without Magnitsky Act style legislation, need to put in legislative tools in place, Shoebridge said. This is a matter for cooperative international action, with a number of countries acting together.

Australias Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade is conducting an inquiry into whether Australia should implement laws similar to the Magnitsky Act in the United States.

The Act is named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who exposed major tax fraud committed by Russian officials to the tune of US$230 million. He was subsequently imprisoned, tortured, and died in 2009 after a year in a Moscow prison.

Bill Browder, a financier, began campaigning for legislation targeting the officials responsible for Magnitskys death.

The laws give a country the power to sanction officials found to be involved in human rights abuses. Sanctions include freezing assets and banning officials, as well as family and relatives, from travelling to the country.

Since implementing the law in 2012, the United States has imposed sanctions on 94 individuals and 102 entities from 24 countries.

Browder told the ABC on Dec. 5, 2019, the law is a very powerful tool because human rights abusers will generally look for locations overseas to put their families and keep their money. If these options are closed to them it creates a disincentive to commit further acts.

Michael Danby MP, introduces the Magnitsky Bill in the Lower House of the Australian Parliament on Dec. 3, 2018. (Parliament of Australia)

Browder said an inquiry around Magnitsky is particularly relevant now in light of ongoing issues in China, including the Uyghurs and the Hong Kong situation.

Shoebridge also called for Australia to open refugee channels for Hong Kong residents fleeing the city, citing similar action taken by previous Prime Minister Bob Hawke in response to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

The 20,000 Chinese citizens granted asylum in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen massacre have become some of our most talented, productive citizensas well as sources of insight into China, he said.

It will be the same case if we, along with other democratic nations who oppose the ruthless oppression of Beijing  take in Hong Kong people fleeing Beijings repression.

Beijing passed sweeping national security laws on the city of Hong Kong on May 28, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the law would curtail the Hong Kong peoples liberties and dramatically erode Hong Kongs autonomy and the system.

The United States responded a day later with a suite of actions targeting the regime in China, including removing Hong Kongs special economic status, taking action on Chinese graduates with links to the regimes military, launching a review of Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, and sanctioning officials involved in implementing the national security law.
UPDATE: In another incident near the Alaskan coast, U.S. fighter jets have yet again intercepted four more Russian aircraft that entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which happened on Saturday, June 27.



According to The Hill, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has confirmed the incident involving U.S. F-22 fighter jets and four other Tu-142 reconnaissance jets.

According to the report, the Russian planes did not enter Canadian or American territory, but they did remain in the ADIZ for around eight hours.



The incident comes days after a similar event happened, making it the fourth this month alone.

Previous incidents were reported last month, May, as well as in April and March of this year.



"This year alone, NORAD forces have identified and intercepted Russian military aircraft including bombers, fighters, and maritime patrol aircraft on ten separate occasions when they have flown into the ADIZ, " said NORAD Commander Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy.

He assured the public that despite the ongoing global health crisis, they are capable of a "no-fail" mission to protect the country.

A report on Wednesday, June 10, confirmed that U.S. fighter jets had intercepted four Russian nuclear-capable bombers during a routine flight over neutral waters near Alaska.

Russian Nuclear-Capable Bombers Intercepted

According to Reuters, the four Russian Tupolev Tu-95MS bombers had an 11-hour flight that complied with the international law, citing the RIA news agency and the Russian Defence Ministry.

U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter jets intercepted the aircraft and escorted them during some stages of their flight.

Read Also: U.S. Army's Latest Published Photo Online Reveals Plan of New Hypersonic Weapon

Previous Interactions

This was the second time it happened since April, according to a report by FOX News, as a similar incident occurred back then when U.S. F-22 stealth fighter jets intercepted two Russian patrol aircraft that were flying near their territories.

The news was confirmed by the NORAD commander on Fox & Friends.

"We're ready 24/7," said Air Force General Terrence O'Shaughnessy pertaining to these incidents.

Last month, an American spy plane flying over the Mediterranean sea was intercepted by two Russian fighter jets that "flew in an unsafe and unprofessional manner," according to the statement released by the U.S. Navy on May 26.

Furthermore, the statement from the U.S. Navy said that the interaction between the two aircraft was "irresponsible" despite the fact that the Russian plane was operating in international territories.

"We expect them to operate within international standards set to ensure safety," the statement concluded.

The United States and Russia to Begin Nuclear Arms Control Talks

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Russia will begin their nuclear arms control talks this month as the remaining treaty between the two countries is about to expire in February, according to a recent report by TechTimes.

The negotiations have already been agreed on by the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as well as the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea.

The two will meet in Vienna to begin the talks, starting this June 22.

Nevertheless, Russia warned the U.S. that their insistence on including China in the negotiations could "scuttle efforts.

Read Also: [HACKERS] 50,000 Computers Infected by Fake Recovery Tool 'Stop DJVU Ransomware'; Honda Operations Attacked by Ransomware

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Heidi Crowter is a truly remarkable activist for disability rights. A 24-year-old woman with Down's syndrome, she has initiated a campaign to defend the human rights of other disabled people and in particular the right of Down's babies to be born alive, and not routinely aborted, as is the current practice in Britain.

Her phenomenal campaign in Britain, has acted as an anchor for a DUP motion in the Assembly, which opposed abortion on the grounds of serious disability, such as Down's syndrome.

Her campaign has suddenly awakened a national debate about disability and abortion, that has been ignored for too long.

Public opinion in Britain is now having to come to terms with the hitherto unmentionable elimination of Down's babies before birth.

The debate on this motion in the Assembly was its finest since restoration. There were outstanding contributions from the DUP's Joanne Bunting and Paul Given, SDLP's Dolores Kelly and UUP's Rosemary Barton.

All presented their views with dignity, compassion and intelligence. Oddly, the debate received sparse coverage on the BBC.

Now the British government must seriously heed this significant cross-party vote and withdraw (at least temporarily) its abortion regulations, that are out of keeping with the majority view of the Assembly.

The British government has unintentionally united the Assembly in opposition to its abortion regulations, that it undemocratically imposed upon us last year.

Ironically, the opposition to this imposition by the British government has been lead by the DUP. Paradoxically Sinn Fein have supported this legislative imposition by the imperial parliament at Westminster.

However the DUP with the support of most of the Ulster Unionists and most of the SDLP, successfully passed their motion demonstrating the opposition of the majority of the Assembly against abortion on the grounds of non-fatal serious disability.

It was a very important rejection by our Assembly of the most egregious aspect of the abortion regulations, that the Westminster parliament has foisted upon us.

Despite the fact that abortion is a devolved matter for the Assembly to deal with, abortion legislation was passed at Westminster last year in the final months of that parliament.

The abortion law was passed contrary to the devolution settlement that underpins the Good Friday Agreement.

This sensitive area of public policy was and remains, a matter exclusively for the local legislature, as determined by the European Court of Human Rights.

The draft abortion regulations are of an extreme kind and will permit abortion up to birth on the basis of serious foetal disability, as no gestational time limits are referenced in the legislation.

This is unparalleled in Europe and makes us the recipient of the most permissive abortion law in Europe by courtesy of the British parliament. Even if one supports the introduction of abortion here, you would find this aspect of the regulations to be repugnant.

Secretary of State Brandon Lewis wrongly claims that the regulations are human rights compatible. He also in a cavalier manner has dismissed the Assembly vote.

But these regulations are not compatible with the obligations that the UK has signed up to under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Under that convention signed up to in 2009, the UK has pledged to protect the rights of disabled people. To discriminate between able bodied and seriously disabled babies regarding abortion, is therefore incompatible with the convention.

The UN Committee, that monitors the convention's compliance in the UK, has recommended that the UK's abortion law be amended : "...without legalising selective abortion on the ground of foetal deficiency."

Under the 1967 Act (as amended in 1990 ), the law permits the abortion of babies beyond 24 weeks, if there is a serious foetal disability. But draft Regulations 7 and 13 reflect that same deficiency and yet the Government has persisted in imposing that provision here.

As Joanne Bunting highlighted in her forensically brilliant proposal speech in the Assembly debate, former Lord Chief Justice Lord Kerr has indicated in a non-binding Supreme Court judgment, his judicial concern about the compatibility of this disability provision with the UN Convention on Disability.

So not only have Westminster unconstitutionally and undemocratically imposed their abortion regulations, but they have imposed regulations, that are potentially, incompatible with the UK's Human Rights obligations under the UN Convention.

These abortion regulations will be voted as a whole in Parliament this week.

There will be no chance to amend them and there is no method of selectively opposing them. Therefore there is a heavy onus on all MPs (even those who support abortion in principle) to vote against them.

Heidi Crowter has implored the Government: "...not to ask MPs to vote for regulations that contain discriminatory provisions that tell people like me that we should not exist."
According to information released by the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet on June 8, 2020, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and elements of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG), deployed from San Diego, June 8, in support of global maritime security operations.

According to information released by the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet on June 8, 2020, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and elements of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG), deployed from San Diego, June 8, in support of global maritime security operations.

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U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) departs Naval Air Station North Island June 8,2020. Nimitz and elements of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG), deployed from San Diego in support of global maritime security operations. (Picture source U.S. Pacific Fleet)

Prior to deploying, the strike group completed a composite training unit exercise (COMPTUEX), designed to fully integrate units of a carrier strike group, while testing a strike group's ability as a whole to carry out sustained combat operations from the sea. Ships, squadrons and staffs were tested across every core warfare area within their mission sets through a variety of simulated and live events, including air warfare, strait transits, and responses to surface and subsurface contacts and electronic attacks.

A CSG is capable of deploying anywhere in the world at a moments notice to meet the needs of the country and its allies. In addition to conducting maritime security operations whenever and wherever called upon, NIM CSG units will participate in cooperative engagements, multilateral exercises and unit-level training, designed to improve capability and capacity among Navy units and partner nations in the regions they may operate in.

In addition to Nimitz, Nimitz CSG deploying units include Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) and Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 9, which includes Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Sterett (DDG 104), and USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114). CVW-17 consists of the Lemoore, California-based Kestrels of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 137, Mighty Shrikes of VFA 94, Fighting Redcocks of VFA 22; the San Diego-based Death Rattlers of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 323, the Whidbey Island, Washington-based Cougars of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 139, the Point Mugu, California-based Sun Kings of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 116, and the San Diego-based Indians of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 6, Battlecats of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 73 and Providers of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VRC) 30.

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) carry seven different types of aircraft with a total complement of more than 90 fixed wing and helicopters including F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter aircraft, F/A-18C Hornets, Boeing EA-18G Growlers electronic warfare aircraft, Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeyes carrier-capable tactical airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft, Sikorsky MH-60S Seahawks naval helicopter, MH-60R Seahawks naval helicopter and Grumman C-2 Greyhound cargo aircraft.

The U.S. Navy USS Nimitz CVN 68 has a crew of up to 5,000 sailors. It has a displacement of 100,020 tons and is powered thanks to two Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors, 4 steam turbines and 4 shafts. It can reach a maximum speed of 31.5 knots (58.3 km/hr). The armament of the USS Nimitz includes two Sea Sparrow, two RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, two PHALANX CIWS (Close-In Weapons System) Gatling guns, four MK 38 25mm automatic cannon turrets and ten .50 caliber machine gun turret emplacements.
Two top European Union officials have rejected suggestions that sanctions imposed on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine could be lifted during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the restrictive measures "do not impede Russias capacity" to combat the epidemic, according to a letter seen by RFE/RL.



In a letter dated May 26 and addressed to a group of European lawmakers, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel wrote that the sanctions adopted in 2014 are deliberately narrowly framed in order to limit the risks of unintended consequences or harm to the wider population.



None of the measures foresees a prohibition on the export of food or medicines, vaccines or medical equipment, they said.



The letter was addressed to 19 members of the European Parliament who had accused Russia of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to try to get sanctions reviewed or lifted.



"Russian authorities by pursuing such public relation campaigns as sending poorly applicable humanitarian aid to Italy, as well as misinterpreting the statements by the UN officials, might try to sway the position of the EU and its member states leadership regarding the sanctions," the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated April 3 and addressed to von der Leyen, Michel, and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

The move came after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed during a Group of 20 (G20) videoconference in March that a freeze be placed on economic sanctions on "humanitarian" grounds to allow countries to better combat the coronavirus.



The EU sanctions were first imposed in 2014 in response to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and Moscow's fomenting of conflict in eastern Ukraine.



In March, the EU prolonged by six months asset freezes and visa bans on 175 individuals and 44 entities that the bloc believe has undermined the territorial integrity of Ukraine.



EU leaders are also expected to agree to prolong economic sanctions against Russia, which mainly target the country's energy and banking sectors, during a videoconference scheduled for June 19.



Separately, EU ambassadors on June 10 agreed to extend the bloc's investment ban on Crimea by another year.



Russia has reported more than 493,000 coronavirus infections, the third-highest number of cases in the world after the United States and Brazil, with over 6,300 fatalities.



But critics have cast doubt on the low mortality rate and accused authorities of underreporting to play down the scale of the crisis.
By PTI

AHMEDABAD: A case was registered against a COVID-19 patient, who had allegedly escaped from a facility in Gujarat's Ahmedabad city, and brought back after nearly 24 hours, an official said on Wednesday.

A 30-year-old patient admitted at a COVID-19 Care Centre at Samaras Hostel gave a slip to the medical staff and managed to escape on Tuesday, sub-inspector Kamlesh Choudhary of University police station said.

"The patient was admitted to the facility on June 3 and escaped on Tuesday evening. A doctor from the centre lodged an FIR against him last night," the official said.

A medical team brought the escapee back after nearly 24 hours, he added.

An offence has been lodged against the man under section 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the IPC and section 3 (to disobey order) of the Epidemic Diseases Act, he said.

The COVID-19 care centres are set up to monitor the condition of asymptomatic patients and those who have mild symptoms of the disease.
Prominent machine tool manufacturers are focusing their efforts towards the fast growing automotive and transportation sector, to minimize losses immediately after the pandemic subsides.

ROCKVILLE, MD / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / The machine tools market is projected to surpass a valuation of US$ 99 Bn, with a steady growth rate through the forecast period (2020-2030). With the widespread impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, manufacturing and machining activity has come close to stalling, following a drop in new orders, closure of factories, and multiple supply chain disruptions. These trends are anticipated to moderately affect the machine tools market through the outbreak.

Despite the fast-growing concerns of a recession, a number of suppliers are now restarting operations. However, demand for machine tools continues to remain uncertain. This will hurt inventories, imports, jobs and order backlogs in the industry in the near term.

"The rising trajectory of COVID-19 cases around the globe will slow economic recovery. Also, companies in Europe and China are going through a decline in sales of machine tools, and international trade. On the other hand, the recovery of the Chinese market will help in recovery of the overall industry in the coming months," says the Fact.MR analyst.

Request a sample of the report with 250+ pages to gain comprehensive market insights at-

https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=4348

Machine Tools Market - Key Takeaways

Milling machines will contribute substantially to global revenue streams, owing to applications in multiple verticals.

CNC machine tools, are rapidly gaining traction, on back of high demand for automated metalworking systems.

Applications in the automotive industry remain a key area of market developments.

Asia Pacific will account for a dominant share of the machine tools market, driven by a strong metalworking industry in the region.

Machine Tools Market - Key Driving Factors

Story continues

CAD/CAM and IoT innovations will play major roles in the development of machine tools.

Extensive applications of machine tools in railways, automotive, defense, and aerospace applications are set to drive growth opportunities.

Rise in the number of metalwork process facilities on a global scale has resulted in increased demand.

Maintenance, repair, and operations of heavy-duty, fixed machine tools will sustain market demand.

Machine Tools Market - Key Constraints

Dependence on operator skill for end-product accuracy and resultant errors, hampers market growth.

Shortage of adequately skilled manpower, is also a challenge for the industry.

The Anticipated Impact of COVID-19

The manufacturing industry has been highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 crisis. The impact of the outbreak has been unprecedented. Demand for machine tools and supply chains are anticipated to be severely impacted. The disruptions in Chinese industry and the overall demand for metalworking products are key concerns.

The shut-down of non-essential services and industry is expected to hit the manufacturers of metal products. The pandemic has also resulted in changed consumer behavior. Further, shortage of cash flow will also impact the market in the coming months. Demand is gradually expected to recover post the pandemic.

Explore the machine tools market report comprising 92 figures, 72 tables and the table of contents. You can also find a comprehensive market segmentation on https://www.factmr.com/report/4348/machine-tools-market

Competition Landscape

The machine tools market is largely fragmented. Top manufacturers in the machine tools market include but are not limited to Chiron Group SE, Doosan Corporation, Schuler AG, AMADA Co, Ltd., Hyundai WIA Corporation, Makino, OKUMA Corporation, Komatsu Ltd., Jtekt Corporation, DMG Mori Aktiengesellschaft, and GF Machining Solutions. Market players are investing in the development of customized offerings alongside standard options to keep up with evolving consumer requirements. Further, mergers, acquisitions, expansions, and product development are high on priority.

For instance, in 2019 OKUMA corporation opened a new high accuracy, double column machining center for press die manufacturing. Similarly, AMADA Co. has invested in next-gen robotics systems for automated and unmanned operations.

More About the Study

The Fact.MR's market research study provides comprehensive insights on machine tools market. The market is broken down in terms of product type (metal cutting and metal forming), end use (automotive & transportation, electrical & electronics, machinery, and general manufacturing), across six key regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, and MEA).

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https://www.accesswire.com/593394/Studying-the-COVID-19-Effect-Disruptions-in-Imports-from-China-to-Hurt-Machine-Tools-Sales-during-Outbreak-Says-FactMR-Report




The death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis has upended the United States and has resulted in a civil uprising not seen in over half a century. This has come as the nation is reeling from a deadly pandemic that has taken the lives of 100,000 people and an economic crisis not witnessed since the Great Depression.

While most protests since the killing of George Floyd have been non-violent and have enjoyed majority support in the US, there have been some that have turned violent, with incidents of vandalism and looting.

Some Black public figures and the authorities in various US cities with sizeable Black communities have condemned the property damage resulting from some of the protests, including Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Georgia and Mayor Melvin Carter of St Paul, Minnesota.

But the real problem the country is facing is by far not these material losses. Mass protest action that sometimes leads to looting and property damage is a natural and logical response to decades of police brutality and impunity.

Focusing on these limited violent acts takes attention away from the real issue at hand here: the systematic impoverishment and socioeconomic marginalisation under a racially unjust system and the long history of abuse by law enforcement in communities of colour  which has continued during these protests.

Whether in Minneapolis in 2020 or in any other social conflict, upheaval, rebellion or revolution in world history, the violence inherent in the oppression of a people, the subjugation of a group or the perpetration of injustice against them produces violent responses. The French Revolution, complete with guillotines, was violent, as were the Haitian and Algerian struggles for liberation from France, and the anti-colonial revolts in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Similarly, enslaved Black people in the US sought their liberation through insurrection and fighting in the Civil War, which were not tame or subdued affairs, but rather inherently violent. When people  through pain and suffering, frustration and trauma  have been denied their rights and deprived of their humanity, and believe they have no recourse, they are left to feel they must take matters into their own hands.

As Malcolm X said, A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way.

The American civil rights movement, for all its purportedly non-violent underpinnings, relied on the Deacons for Defence and Justice, an armed self-defence group that protected activists from Ku Klux Klan extremists. Similarly, the Black Panther Party sought to keep their community safe from police violence and racism through militant self-defence, community-based empowerment programmes, and multiracial working-class solidarity.

Further, the urban rebellions of the 1960s  triggered by acts of police violence similar to the killing of George Floyd  were also violent and came in response to institutional racism and poverty.

Martin Luther King understood what gives rise to riots, the social and economic deprivation existing in marginalised communities, and the priority that some white people placed on tranquillity over justice. A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? he asked, noting that postponing justice would guarantee recurring violence and riots. It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.

Similarly, the current unrest is not just a reaction to the police killing of George Floyd. This moment is far greater than a Black man who suffered the ultimate injustice of losing his life at the hand of the police.

The protests in the streets of many American cities are in response to decades of systemic racism and state-sponsored violence, which have persisted despite the achievements of the civil rights movement.

They are a reflection of pent-up anger, frustration, grief and trauma in communities seeking justice for racialised oppression, which today is not only embodied in the tragic death of George Floyd but also in the deaths of tens of thousands of Black people from COVID-19 due to decades of severe health inequities and socioeconomic precarity.

Over five decades since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, white average wealth is 6.7 times greater than Black average wealth. Black people are 12 percent of the population but 26.4 percent of people killed by the police. Black drivers are 20 percent more likely to be stopped by the police than white drivers; Black students from kindergarten through the 12th grade are 3.8 times more likely to receive suspensions from school than their white counterparts.

While facing continuing socioeconomic marginalisation and police harassment and violence, Black people are also prevented from addressing many of the issues that plague their communities through the ballot because of raging voter discrimination.

For example, since a 2013 US Supreme Court ruling weakened the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, at least 17 million voters were purged from voter rolls between 2016 and 2018 alone, and typically these voters are disproportionately Black and poor. This, in addition to various local and state legal barriers, has resulted in high levels of disenfranchisement of Black voters.

In a country that wages racial violence against Black people daily, it is no wonder that some  feeling powerless to change the system that oppresses them  would consider resorting to destruction of property.

While the media has extensively covered damage that businesses have suffered, it is important to point out that protesters have also attacked what they see as symbols of oppression, including the statue of Frank Rizzo, the former mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvani  a racist known for his brutal police tactics against the Black community  and the statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee and the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

The overwhelming media focus on looting and rioting across the US has taken attention away not only from the realities that Black communities continue to face, but also from persisting police violence against the very demonstrations (including peaceful ones) condemning it.

The police have committed heinous acts of brutality and used excessive force against protesters across the country, from forcefully dispersing peaceful protests by using rubber bullets and tear gas to assaulting and arresting protesters.

In only a few cases, policemen have been held accountable. In Buffalo, New York, two police officers were charged after shoving a 75-year-old man to the ground, causing him head injuries. In Philadelphia, a police inspector was charged with assault for beating a protester with a metal baton on the head. The victim, a 21-year old Temple University engineering student, required 10 staples and 10 stitches in his head. In Louisville, Kentucky, the head of police was fired after officers opened fire while dispersing a gathering, shooting dead 53-year-old David McAtee.

In various cities, police officers have also targeted journalists even when they have clearly identified themselves as such, with some suffering injuries, including one photographer who lost vision in her left eye after being shot with a rubber bullet.

Meanwhile, more than 11,000 people have been arrested during protests across the country.

In their assault on protesters, the police have been backed by the deployment of the National Guard to a number of states. US President Donald Trump went even further and threatened to deploy the US military and shoot looters.

The violent reactions of the police and the US presidency are rooted in the very same system of oppression that led to George Floyds death and the mass protests across the country.

As a purveyor of violence at home and abroad, Americas chickens have come home to roost. America is on fire, and the arsonists are agents of the state, stoking the flames with gasoline.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Nigerian authorities should immediately release journalist Saint Meinpamo Onitsha, drop all charges against him, and reform the countrys cybercrime act to ensure it is not used to prosecute the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On June 4, officers with Nigerias State Security Services detained Mr Onitsha, founder of the privately owned Naija Live TV news website, in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa state, after he responded to a summons for questioning, his lawyers told CPJ by phone and messaging app.

Mr Onitsha told CPJ on June 3 that he received the summons, and said it involved his May 2 reporting on the alleged collapse of a COVID-19 isolation centre in Nigerias northern Kogi State.

He said he believed it also may be connected to a December 2019 report published by Naija Live TV alleging that a court had ordered the arrest of Bayelsa Deputy Governor Lawrence Erwhudjakpo.

After he was detained, the SSS charged Mr Onitsha with violating Nigerias cybercrime act and arraigned him at a federal court, according to his lawyer Benjamin Ogbara, and a copy of the charge sheet, which CPJ reviewed.

Mr Ogbara told CPJ that authorities set bail conditions that were too strict, and said that Mr Onitsha is still in detention.

The journalist is due to appear again in court on June 17 and 18, Mr Ogbara and another of Mr Onitshas lawyers, Wisdom Meni Adike, told CPJ.

If convicted, Mr Onitsha could face up to three years in jail and a fine of up to 7 million naira ($18,328) under the law, which CPJ reviewed.

Saint Mienpamo Onitsha should be released immediately and permitted to continue his work. Nigerias Department of State Services should be protecting the public, not arresting journalists for reporting on matters of public interest, said Angela Quintal, CPJs Africa program coordinator, from New York.

How many journalists need to be prosecuted under Nigerias cybercrime act before it is reformed by lawmakers? One is too many, and its repeated use in this way is an outrage.

According to the charge sheet, Mr Onitsha is accused of violating section 21 (1) (b) of the 2015 cybercrime act for his reporting on the isolation centre.

That section criminalizes sharing messages via a computer or network system which they know to be false for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another person.

CPJ has repeatedly documented the use of Nigerias cybercrime act to prosecute journalists for their work.

Mr Ogbara told CPJ that authorities granted bail on June 5, but required a bond of 2 million naira ($5,163), a surety from a senior civil servant, and a surety from a land owner in Bayelsa state, and said Onitsha was unable to meet those requirements.

Previously, on May 9, masked SSS officials took Mr Onitsha from his home, drove him around for several hours, and then detained him for five days while they questioned him about the May 2 COVID-19 article and the December article about Mr Erwhudjakpo, as CPJ documented at the time.

On May 12, officers released Mr Onitsha without charge, after coercing him into apologizing for the articles, he told CPJ at the time.

Mohammed Onogwu, a media aide for the Kogi state governors office, declined to comment on Mr Onitshas arrest in May when contacted at the time. When CPJ called him again on June 10, the call did not go through.

Doubra Atasi, a spokesperson for Mr Erwhudjakpo, did not respond to CPJs calls and text messages regarding his detention. In May, Mr Atasi told CPJ that Mr Erwhudjakpo had not filed a case against Mr Onitsha.

The spokesperson for the SSS Peter Afunaya did not respond to calls and text messages from CPJ seeking comment.

SOURCE: COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS www.cpj.org
WASHINGTON  A day after burying his big brother George, Philonise Floyd had a direct message for lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday: fix a criminal justice system that has too often led to the harassment and killing of African Americans at the hands of police.

"Im tired. Im tired of the pain Im feeling now and Im tired of the pain I feel every time another black person is killed for no reason," Philonise Floyd told members of the House Judiciary Committee. "Im here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired."

The hearing was held two days after congressional Democrats laid out an ambitious menu of systemic changes they want to see enacted. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would bar chokeholds, create a registry to track officers with serious misconduct records, and lift certain legal protections that now make it hard to go after officers in court for using excessive force.

Philonise Floyd fought back tears as he spoke about the "big brother" that he never got a chance to say goodbye to last month, after he died in Minneapolis police custody. One of the officers, Derek Chauvin, is facing second degree murder charges, for keeping his knee pressed to Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes as he gasped for survival. Three other officers also face charges.

Floyd challenged lawmakers to make sure his brother's death would not be "in vain."

"This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough. Be the leaders that this country, this world, needs. Do the right thing," he told lawmakers. "The people elected you to speak for them, to make positive change. Georges name means something. You have the opportunity here to make your names mean something, too."

'Youre changing the world': Read Philonise Floyd's opening statement

Philonise Floyd wore a black mask that featured a picture of his brother and the words "I can't breathe," which were among George Floyd's last.

Story continues

George Floyd's death  and recent deaths of unarmed African Americans at the hands of police around the country  have ignited two weeks of national protests calling for dramatic changes in the way the police train and discipline their officers.

Liberal activists have even called for "defunding" law enforcement agencies but the legislation Democrats rolled out this week does not include such steps.

"Millions of Americans now call out 'I can't breath' as a rallying cry in the streets all across our country, demanding a fundamental change in the culture of law enforcement and meaningful accountability for officers who commit misconduct.," said Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat who chairs the Judiciary panel. "Today we answer their call."

On Monday, congressional Democrats unveiled a package of sweeping reforms as part of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020.

Armored members of the Minneapolis State Patrol stand guard in an intersection in front of burned out buildings in the Third Precinct of Minneapolis on Friday. The area was rocked by looting and widespread destruction overnight by protesters and rioters following peaceful gatherings for most of the day. Protesters were demanding justice for the death of George Floyd, who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck. Friday, May 29, 2020

The bill calls for mandatory dashboard and body cameras, an end to police chokeholds as many departments have already enacted, and the creation of a national registry to track officers with a record of misconduct.

Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who knelt on George Floyd, had more than a dozen complaints filed against him for police misconduct during his career.

Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., said a registry would provide needed accountability.

"When troubled officers leave or are fired by one agency, they move to another  a system where police officers evade sanction simply by moving jobs," he said. "We don't accept this for doctors who care for us. We don't accept this for lawyers who defend us. And we shouldn't accept this for officers who protect us."

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said he doesn't oppose such a registry. But he blamed police unions as a larger impediment to police discipline.

"Having a database is not going to get someone fired who ought to be fired," he said. "The sooner we get bad cops off the force, the sooner there will no longer be bad apples to spoil the whole barrel."

The bill also would bar the use of "no-knock" warrants for drug cases and end qualified immunity for police officers, making them personally liable for constitutional violations such as excessive force.

More: Democrats unveil sweeping police reform bill, honor George Floyd with 8 minutes, 46 seconds of silence

Wednesday's hearing, which featured witnesses from law enforcement, civil rights groups and legal organizations, was the first step in moving the bill. The measure could be passed out of committee as early as next week and brought to the floor before the end of the month, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters Tuesday.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, pushed back during the hearing, calling Floyd's death "as wrong as wrong can be," but criticizing Democrats' response as a gross overreach that smears all officers as bad cops.

"The vast majority of law enforcement officers are responsible, hard working, heroic first responders," Jordan said. "They're the officers who protect the Capitol, protect us every single day, they're the officers who rushed into the (World Trade Center) twin towers on 9/11. They're the officers in every one of our neighborhoods in every one of our communities. Every day, every night, every shift, they work to put their lives on the line to keep our community safe."

As a counterpoint, Republicans invited Angela Underwood Jacobs, whose brother David Patrick Underwood was a federal law enforcement officer was shot and killed while providing security at the U.S. courthouse in Oakland during a protest last month over Floyd's death.

"There's a big difference between peaceful protests and violence and attacking innocent people," Jordan said. "And there is certainly a big difference between peaceful protests and killing police officers."

Minutes after Jordan finished speaking, President Donald Trump, who has been a target of anger from protesters, tweeted out his praise for the congressman's comments, saying "This Radical Left agenda is not going to happen."

Great statement to Congress by @Jim_Jordan concerning Defunding (not!) our great Police. This Radical Left agenda is not going to happen. Sleepy Joe Biden will be (already is) pulled all the way Left. Many, like Minneapolis, want to close their Police Departments. Crazy!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

Underwood told lawmakers how heartbroken she was that she'd never see her brother's smile or hear his infectious humor again.

"This is bigger than a black, white or blue issue," she said. "This is a humanity issue. When those in a position of authority, choose to abuse their power. That is the very definition of oppression. And when innocent people are harmed in the name of justice. No one prevails, we all lose."

Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, arrives at the House Judiciary Committee hearing to testify on policing practices and law enforcement accountability on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, June 10, 2020, in Washington.

Republicans are crafting their own response led by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone GOP African American in the Senate.

Scott told reporters Tuesday he supports some elements in the House bill, including a federal lynching ban, increased requirements for body cameras on officers, more anti-bias training, and greater federal oversight of local police departments.

But he said he's reluctant to mandate an end to police tactics such as chokeholds and no-knock warrants.

"I basically shy away from telling local law enforcement: 'you shouldn't do that' or 'you can't do this,'" Scott told reporters on Capitol Hill. "I think their bill has a tendency to be seen as perhaps a nationalization of some of the underlying issues or techniques. With 7,000-plus jurisdictions, it's really difficult for me to think that we here can figure out the best utilization though I would support some of the outcomes that (Democrats) are looking at."

More: Joe Biden among speakers demanding justice at funeral service for George Floyd, whose death rocked the world

Neither of the approaches would include "defunding" police agencies which some left-leaning groups and progressive lawmakers have demanded.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, called Floyd's death "a shock to the conscience" and told the committee there's "no denying changes in policing must be made."

But he said slashing police budgets would be counterproductive because training programs designed to help officers identify bias and de-escalate volatile situations would be casualties of such cuts.

"The overwhelming majority of cops are good people," Acevedo said. "They are faithful public servants who put their uniform on every day, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice."

Trump and some congressional Republicans have seized on the proposal to paint the larger call for reform as radical.

More: What does 'defund the police' mean and why some say 'reform' is not enough

Philonise Floyd told lawmakers that if the death of his brother he called Perry "ends up changing the world for the better  and I think it will; I think it has  then he died as he lived."

"I didnt get the chance to say goodbye to Perry while he was here. I was robbed of that. But, I know hes looking down on us now," he said. "Perry, look at what you did, big brother. Youre changing the world. Thank you for everything. For taking care of us when you were on Earth, and for taking care of all of us now. I hope you found mama and can rest in peace and power."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: George Floyd's brother Philonise testifies before Congress on police
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The Bureau of Internal Revenue has directed online sellers and other digital-based businesses to register their activities, declare previous transactions and settle their corresponding taxes no later than July 31.

"This Circular is issued to give due notice to all persons doing business and earning income in any manner or form, specifically those who are into digital transactions through the use of any electronic platforms and media, and other digital means, to ensure that their businesses are registered pursuant to the provisions of Section 236 of the Tax Code, as amended, and that they are tax compliant," read the agency's memorandum circular dated June 10.

The circular also covered payment gateways, delivery channels, internet service providers and other facilitators.

The BIR asked these businesses to register their activities or update their registration status by end-July.

"Likewise, they are encouraged to voluntarily declare their past transactions subject to pertinent taxes and pay the taxes due thereon, without corresponding penalty, when declared and paid on or before the said date," the circular stated.

Entities who fail to perform these activities on time shall be meted with applicable penalties under the law and existing revenue rules and regulations, said the tax-collecting body.

The BIR also advised newly-registered businesses to comply with the Tax Code's provision as amended and other relevant issuances on tax revenue as stated in the circular.
Mom of Overland Park teen killed by police questions department's 'ban' on shooting into vehicles OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - It's been two years since an Overland Park police officer shot and killed 17-year-old John Albers as he backed out of his driveway. John Albers and George Floyd may not have shared the same skin color, but their families share a similar pain.

Even in the suburbs, among middle-class families, we're seeing frustration and complaints against the police emerge . . . Here's a high profile case from the suburbs finding commonality with so many angry, urban activists . . . Read more:
OTTAWACanadian researchers are reporting a spike in online engagement with far-right extremist content under the COVID-19 lockdown, adding to worries the fear and frustration caused by the pandemic could lead more people to radicalize.

Moonshot CVE, a U.K.-based counter-extremism research firm, observed a significant uptick in Canadians seeking out extremist content online in six Canadian cities during the lockdown, including Toronto and Ottawa.

Were all on the internet more, so its not surprising that people with an interest in extremist groups and that sort of thing would also be more plugged in, said Micah Clark, Moonshots program director, in an interview.

The Moonshot team tracked searches for violent far-right keywords in the six weeks leading up to the countrywide lockdown, and for the following six weeks when Canadians were largely confined to their homes.

They found a statistically significant increase in searches in post-lockdown Montreal-Laval, Ottawa, Edmonton and Calgary. Toronto and Vancouver both saw increased search volume, but to a lesser degree.

The companys findings mirror what researcher Barbara Perry has observed among Canadas far-right fringe. While its difficult to say how many more Canadians are turning to extremist content, Perry  an Ontario Tech University professor and one of Canadas leading researchers on far-right extremism  said there has been a dramatic increase in engagement online.

Perry said with people being confined to their homes during anxious times, many are turning to the internet for answers.

(People) are looking for explanations, looking for accounts for where this came from, why  This is how people are landing on some of these conspiracy theories associated with some of the far-right groups, Perry said.

Multiple discrete factors may be playing into the increased attention into far-right content during the pandemic, according to both Perry and Clark.

Canadians, who already spend more time online than most, have been locked in their homes. At the same time, misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 have been circulating across social media channels. Clark said that Canadian search trends show people are searching for engaging far-right content, like podcasts and racist video games.

That resonates with me partly because I recognize my own search patterns in it. Were all trying to seek more lively content (during the lockdown), if you will, so I think thats part of it, said Clark.

Government-imposed lockdowns have rallied anti-authority and antistate groups who have bristled under the public health restrictions. This has come to a head especially in the United States, where armed protestors have taken their grievances to state capital buildings.

The New Jersey Department of Homeland Security and Preparedness has suggested that far-right groups are leveraging the crisis to spread their anti-government extremist messages, intimidate law enforcement, and force governmental change.

At the same time, the anti-police brutality protest movement that has risen up in both Canada and the United States has focused white nationalists on some of their favourite targets  the Black Lives Matter movement and Antifa, groups of anti-Fascist protesters that U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to list as a terrorist organization, despite not being an organization at all.

The three factors have created what Perry calls an imperfect storm for far-right recruitment in Canada.

Theres nothing that extremists like more than a crisis, and theyre certainly taking advantage of it, Perry said.

Some of those factors were echoed in a recent report from the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, an international NGO dedicated to countering violent extremism  and suggests the problem isnt limited to far-right extremists.

In a survey of 50 local NGOs in eight developing countries, the fund found that the closure of schools and recreation facilities meant children are spending more time online, where their frustration, combined with a rapid growth of online vitriol, makes them more vulnerable to online radicalization.

The diversion of resources away from community policing to quelling protests in some countries has further eroded public trust in the state, the fund found.

The organization also warned that the knock-on impacts of the pandemic  unemployment, school closures, and the temporary ban on religious and cultural gatherings  may exacerbate some of the underlying drivers for radicalization to violent extremism.

Read more about:
No online classes for children from KG to 5th std: Karnataka govt

India

pti-PTI

Bengaluru, June 10: Amid complaints about conduct of virtual classes, the Karnataka government on Wednesday decided to stop online classes for children from Kindergarten (KG) to class 5.

"Two decisions have been taken-online classes for LKG, UKG and primary classes should be stopped immediately. Also, collecting fees in the name of online classes should be stopped immediately," Primary and Secondary Education Minister S Suresh Kumar told reporters here.

China says reached positive consensus with India on border issue | Oneindia News

Top official explains why COVID-19 deaths are occurring in Karnataka

He said, several complaints have been received regarding online classes, and he held discussions with experts, a body of private educational institutions and officials in this regard, and every one was of the opinion online classes cannot be an alternative to physical classes.

Discussions were also held on how to engage children during this period, with no clarity over the reopening of schools, he said.

A committee has been constituted under the leadership of Prof M K Sridhar to prepare guidelines on how to engage students and increase their knowledge, the minister said. There has been pressure on the government to act, as parents have been complaining about online classes conducted by private schools even for kindergarten kids.

Further stating that the government had already issued a circular asking educational institutions not to hike fees on humanitarian grounds considering financial constraints of several people due to the COVID-19 pandemic and induced lockdown, Kumar said, if schools decide to reduce the fees amount, it will be a "very welcome move."

He noted that from June 25 SSLC (Class 10) exams were starting. Before taking the decision he had consulted people from all walks of life, experts, representatives of political parties, the minister said.

No institutional quarantine for Maharashtra returnees: Karnataka health minister

"From June 25 to July 4, the exams will be held and safety of children is our utmost priority and we are taking all necessary steps in this regard. Preparations for the exams are on in all districts, micro-level planning is being done," he said, adding that Health, Transport and Home Departments have joined hands with Education department in this regard.
A disabled man in an interable couple has joked about the proportion of his private parts while opening up about intimacy with his loving abled-bodied girlfriend.

Shane Burcaw, 27, from Pennsylvania, was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a neuromuscular disease that causes muscles to deteriorate over time. He has been in an electric wheelchair since he was two years old and can barely move his legs, arms, and hands.

Him and his fiancee Hannah Aylward, 23, answered fans' questions about how they manage intimacy in their interabled relationship in their latest video shared on their popular 'Squirmy and Grubs' YouTube channel.

In the Q&A, Shane quipped his private parts were not proportionate to his small body, and made his beloved burst with laughed as he assured viewers 'everything down there' works 'wonderfully.'

Shane Burcaw, 27, from Pennsylvania, who was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, discussed his 'manhood' during a Q&A with his able-bodied girlfriend Hannah Aylward

The couple's relationship started when Hannah reached out to the writer and public speaker after watching a documentary that 'The Office' actor Rainn Wilson produced about his life.

In the email, she complimented Shane on his sense of humor and his writing before admitting that she thought he was very cute. They got to know each other through FaceTime calls and text messages and eventually fell in love.

Shane and Hannah launched their YouTube channel to better educate people about interabled relationships, and to combat the taboos and stereotypes that they often come up against.

In a new series of videos, they are opening up specifically about the more intimate aspects of their romance, answering questions about their sex life in an attempt to disprove the 'damaging stereotype' that interabled couples don't have sex.

When one of their followers asked whether his 'private parts' were normal and could function, the couple made sure to clear any doubt about Shane's performance.

'Yes to both of those questions,' Hannah replied.

'A lot of people think that because you have a muscle wasting disease, that it's different, but it is not,' she added.

Shane was quick to joke about the subject, stating his manhood was more than adequate.

In their latest video in a series about intimacy in their relationship, Shane joked everything 'works, feels and is wonderful,' as Hannah laughed

'I don't know how to phrase this,' he said, 'but my head is not proportional to the size of my body and one other part of me is not quite proportional.'

Hannah scoffed and laughed as he added: 'I'll let you assume what it is, it's not my toes.'

He went on to say he made it clear to Hannah when they started dating that she had nothing to 'worry' about.

'I told you: Everything down there works and looks and is wonderful,' he quipped.

Hannah was quick to reply he had in fact not used the word 'wonderful,' before admitting he had used 'fantastic' instead.

The couple have decided to share information about their sex life to educate other on what physical love was like for interabled couples.

When launching the series of videos, they gave a swift disclaimer to their family and friends 'not to watch' or not to discuss its contents with them.

Hannah said she could confirm everything 'worked,' before Shane added that one particular part of his body was not proportionate to his frame

What is Spinal Muscular Atrophy? Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a genetic condition that makes the muscles weaker and causes problems with movement. It's a serious condition that gets worse over time, but there are treatments to help manage the symptoms. Typical symptoms include: Floppy or weak arms and legs movement problems  such as difficulty sitting up, crawling or walking twitching or shaking muscles (tremors). B Bone and joint problems  such as an unusually curved spine (scoliosis) Swallowing problems and breathing difficulties SMA does not affect intelligence or cause. It's not currently possible to cure SMA, but research is ongoing to find possible new treatments. Source: NHS.uk Advertisement

The couple have dedicated two videos to discussing their 'intimacy' to open people's eyes to the reality of sex and disability.

Shane explained that while they have made it a point to keep their private life private, there is a lot of misinformation and stigma surrounding disability and intimacy that they wanted to dispel.

In the first part of the series, they used the word 'intimacy' as an umbrella term to 'refer to any number of sexual acts' to keep from divulging too much.

'When we say intimacy, we mean sex. We mean other sexual acts,' Shane noted.

The couple has previously spoken about their desire to have children together, with Shane explaining in an old post on his blog that he is 'perfectly capable of having sex.'

'I get boners and my boners shoot sperm, so having kids is a real option,' he wrote at the time.

'A lot of people assume it doesn't exist,' Hannah said of the physical side of their relationship in their first intimacy-focused Q&A.

The couple met three years ago over email and are now happily engaged. They wanted to shed light on their relationship by creating their Youtube channel Squirmy and Grubs

Two become one: Hannah said she knows Shane's body as well as she knows her own

'That's a really damaging stereotype for all disabled people when you assume that disabled people aren't sexually active.'

In that same video, the couple also shut down suggestions that Shane is 'fragile', putting an end to any suggestion that his condition makes it impossible for them to be intimate.

Hannah admitted that she was somewhat afraid of hurting Shane when they first started dating, saying she would ask to move any part of him before doing so.

'I remember you being like, "I don't want to break you,"' Shane recalled, joking that he would tell her: 'Just break me, go ahead.'

Hannah noted that he is 'a lot less fragile' than he looks, while he added that he is also very mindful' of his own safety. Even after years together, he still reminds Hannah to be careful when she is putting his socks on for him.

'Shane is very cautious about his body movements  and you verbalize it,' she said. 'I pretty much know how every single part of your body can move and to what extent and to what direction. I know his body as well as I know mine now.'

The couple did, however, admit that years ago Hannah had him screaming in pain 'at the end of intimacy' after she leaned in to give him a kiss and squished his elbow.

Hannah, pictured in Prague with Shane, said she wanted to bust the myth that disabled people and able people could not share fulfilling sex lives

Changing minds: The couple explained that there is a lot of misinformation and stigma surrounding disability and intimacy that they want to dispel

Another fan asked if their sex life has benefitted from their need for constant verbal communication, and they both agreed that able-bodied couples should strive to be just as communicative.

'I think our intimate life does benefit from that and saying what both of us want and figuring out how to get it,' Hannah said. 'Because I think a lot of the time if you're doing cookie-cutter whatever, it might not be completely what both people are dreaming of having.'

Shane added: 'When I'm on the giving end of intimacy, I am very prone to be like, 'Is this good? Is this fine? How's this? Is this alright?" Hannah is often like, "Shut up."'

Someone else asked if Hannah feels like she is the 'dominant' one in the relationship because she has to comfort Shane and initiate intimacy, but she insisted that isn't the case.

She explained that her husband-to-be has a 'very outgoing personality' and is really affectionate. While he can't get up to give her a hug, he will call her over and ask her to lean in so he can kiss her or hold her hand.

'I like to be physically affectionate,' he said. 'I am always doing whatever I can to embrace Hannah.'

When the duo first met online, Hannah says Shane's disability didn't even factor into the conversation.

Affectionate: While Shane can't get up to give Hannah a hug, he will call her over and ask her to lean in so he can kiss her or hold her hand

The couple are determined to dispel myths about intimacy in inter-abled relationships in their new YouTube series

In fact Hannah, who is a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, never mentioned Shane's disability when she first emailed him three years ago while he was living in Pennsylvania.

In the email, she complimented Shane, who writes books and attends talks about his disability, on his sense of humor and his writing before admitting she thought he was very cute.

'I knew right away that I needed to know this person,' Shane said.

'Ill never forget the way my heart felt so light and beat so rapidly as I willed my atrophied fingers to type out a response as quickly as they could manage.'

The relationship blossomed to include long FaceTime calls and text messages until both realized they were very much in love with each other.

Hannah visited Shane first in Pennsylvania where they spent four days getting to know one another. Both then realized they wanted to make a long distance relationship work.

In 2018, the couple moved in together in an apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota, so Hannah could finish up her final years at her university.
The Iraqi Health Ministry on Tuesday confirmed 787 new cases of COVID-19, raising the total number to 14,268 in the country, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

The ministry said in a statement that 22 more people died from the coronavirus during the day, bringing the death toll to 392, while 5,831 patients have recovered.

The new cases were detected after 10,711 testing kits were used across the country during the past 24 hours, out of 322,691 tests carried out since the outbreak of the disease in Iraq.

Earlier in the day, Deputy Health Minister Hazim al-Jumaili said in a statement that the ministry is planning to resort to home quarantine if the beds in the hospital would be not enough for the increasing infections.

"Currently there are enough beds allocated for people infected with coronavirus in Baghdad and the other provinces, and the home quarantine will be applied if there is a need for such procedure," al-Jumaili noted.

On June 6, the Higher Committee for Health and National Safety, headed by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, took several measures including the imposing the full curfew until June 13 until a partial one starts on June 14.

The committee also decided to ban the inter-province travel for all except the health, security and public service personnel, and ordered security forces to tighten the control of the implementation of health restrictions.

China has been helping Iraq with the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

From March 7 to April 26, a Chinese team of seven medical experts spent 50 days in Iraq to help contain the disease, during which they helped build a PCR lab and an advanced CT scanner in Baghdad.

China also sent three batches of medical aid to Iraq.
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on Monday a plea seeking cancellation of bail to controversial RJD leader Shahabuddin.

Chandrakeshwar Prasad of Siwan had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging Patna High Court's order granting bail to the former RJD MP Shahabuddin. The petition has been been filed through lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan said, "Today the appeal has been filed from the side of the children of whose murder Shahbuddin is accused."



"The SC has said that the hearing will be done on Monday," he added.



"In minimum two cases Shahbuddin has been sentenced to life imprisonment. It was wrong to give bail to Shahbuddin when so many cases are filed against him," he also said.

Chandrakeshwar's three sons were allegedly murdered on the behest of gangster-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin.



Earlier, Siwan Police had provided additional security to 20 people who face a threat to their lives after the release of former RJD MP Mohd Shahabuddin from jail. The witnesses whose security cover was enhanced included Chandrakeshwar Prasad.

Here is what Chandrakeshwar Prasad said after filing the appeal:



#I didn't ask for 'chanda' as Shahbuddin is saying, I am asking for govt help. We have given affidavit and have also signed on the documents



#You should either keep such a person out of Bihar or give him the capital punishment



#We would request CBI too



#We are old and surviving on medicine



#Our family has been ruined



#We live while waiting to die, however we are still scared



#We want compensation; we want govt to help us



The return of former politician and murder accused Mohammad Shahabuddin to Bihar's Siwan has struck fear in the hearts of the family of those he allegedly killed. Chandrakeshwar Prasad had said earlier that terror had returned to Siwan.



"People are now living in terror. Where will we go leaving Siwan? Somehow we are eking out a living. We don't have any support. If God wants we will live, otherwise we will die. Shahabuddin can attack me as well. We never thought that he will kill my third son also, after killing my other two sons," he said.



Mr Prasad's two sons, Satish and Girish, were killed in an alleged acid attack in 2004. Their brother Rajiv, who was an eyewitness in the case, was killed in 2014 just days before he was set to depose against Shahabuddin.

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Seven Nigerians arrested for online scam

Police in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue have arrested 11 suspects, including four Vietnamese and seven Nigerians for cheating and illegally appropriating property, worth over 120 billion VND (5.17 million USD), from Vietnamese citizens online.









Ogo Emeka Donal at the police station (Photo: VNA)



According to the police, the suspects are Ugochukwu Samuel Nnaemeka, 24; Stanley Chidiebere Umed, 29; Nnaka Chibuzor Frankline, 36; Chimezie Ebuka Samuel, 28; Chukwugekwe Godwin Ajearo, 34; Ugochukuwu Okechukwu James, 35; Ogo Emeka Donal, 35; Ngo Hai Nghi, 24; Vu Ai Linh, 24; Dao Dang Vu, 33; and Pham Ngoc Duy, 36. All of them live in Ho Chi Minh City.



The police said a woman, who lives in Hue city, informed the police in April 2020 that a foreigner had stolen 3.9 billion VND (168,000 USD) from her.



After receiving the report, police started to investigate and found that the womans money was transferred to a number of bank accounts. However, all withdrawals were made at ATMs in HCM City.



About 15 days later, the police identified Dalaxy Dave, a Nigerian currently living in Cambodia, as the ringleader of the gang.



Dave contacted Vietnamese citizens on social media and gained their trust. He pretended to be a US soldier and asked to send valuable gifts to his Vietnamese friends or invited them to invest money in business projects in foreign countries.



Dave also ordered his accomplices in Vietnam to illegally access Facebook accounts to purchase items online and send links asking the sellers to provide OTP codes to steal money from their bank accounts.



The suspects also pretended to be police and procuracy officers to call victims and tell them to send money to the suspects bank accounts.



When they successfully stole money from the victims, Dave would tell his accomplices to withdraw the money and send it to him. The accomplices would also receive an amount from the illegally appropriated cash.



The police seized 53 fake ID cards and many mobile phones used for the scam at the suspects homes.



Colonel Dang Ngoc Son, Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Public Security, said the investigation was difficult because the suspects used sophisticated tricks to hide their crimes.



However, the local police cooperated with the Ministry of Public Security and Departments of Public Security of provinces and cities to arrest them.
HAIKOU, China, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- China's master plan for the Hainan free trade port, released on June 1, has boosted the appeal of the southern island province to global investors.

The global investment service hotline, set up by Hainan International Economic Development Bureau, has been hotter than ever in the past week.

"We received over 200 calls a day," said Lei Ting, head of the bureau's information and media relations division.

Lei said the calls came from more than 20 countries and regions, including the United States and Britain, and their consultations were mainly about investing in the province's high technologies, medical and health care, import and export trade, and tourism.

Han Shengjian, director of the bureau, said the new policy's focus on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, as well as the free cross-border flow of funds and personnel, was quite attractive to foreign-funded enterprises.

Many enterprises have expanded their operation into Hainan. Deloitte China, which set up its Hainan office in January, is one of them.

"We expect a lot in Hainan. The policy of the free trade port will bring us lots of business opportunities," said Deloitte China partner Eric Lin. He said the auditing and consulting firm will see more customers from companies that choose to settle in Hainan and launch global businesses from there.

Fosun Tourism Group in April inked an agreement with the government of Sanya, a resort city in Hainan, to expand a tourist complex.

Qian Jiannong, board chairman and chief executive officer of the Fosun Tourism Group, highlighted the construction of a law-based, international and convenient business environment as mentioned in the plan.

Shen Xiaoming, governor of Hainan, said Monday that Hainan pays special attention to creating an open, transparent and predictable business environment.

The government must also respect enterprises and entrepreneurs and let them be the final judge of the local business environment, Shen said at a press conference held in Beijing.

Liu Cigui, Party Secretary of Hainan, extended a warm invitation to global companies and talents at the same event.

"Investors and talents from all over the world are welcomed to invest in Hainan, participate in the construction of the Hainan free trade port, and share China's development opportunities and the fruits of China's reform and opening-up," said Liu.

SOURCE Hainan International Economic Development Bureau
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The global air brake system Industry is expected to grow at a steady CAGR of 4.3% over the forecast period from 2018 to 2023, according to the latest research report from Market Research Future (MRFR). The global air brake system market is mainly driven by the growing demand for air brakes in commercial vehicles and the growing production of commercial vehicles around the world. The MRFR report provides a detailed insight into the major drivers and restraints affecting the global air brake system markets growth, the leading players operating in the market, and the major segments likely to dominate the market in the coming years.

Air brake systems are braking systems that use compressed air to stop the vehicle, in contrast to hydraulic braking. Air brake systems provide a higher braking efficiency than hydraulic braking, but require a larger area than hydraulic brakes to accommodate the piping required for the compressed air system to function properly. Due to this, air brake systems are mostly used in commercial vehicles, whereas hydraulic braking systems are preferred in smaller, passenger vehicles.

The growing demand for commercial vehicles in developing countries around the world is likely to be a major driver for the global air brake systems market over the forecast period. The increasing demand for infrastructure expansion, including roadbuilding, in countries such as India, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines has driven the demand for commercial vehicles. Latin American countries such as Brazil are also likely to exhibit a growing demand for commercial vehicles over the forecast period, leading to a growing demand from the global air brake system market. On the other hand, the high manufacturing costs of air brake systems could lead to a growing demand for alternative braking systems such as hydraulic brakes.

Competitive Analysis:

Leading players in the global air brake system market include TSE Brakes, Sorl Auto Parts, Federal-Mogul Corporation, Nabtesco, Wabtec Corporation, ZF, Haldex, Meritor, WABCO, and Knorr-Bremse.

In March 2019, New York Air Brake opened a new manufacturing center at Summit Corporate Center. The facility has an area of 100,000 sq ft, with provisions for further expansions of 50,000 sq ft.

Segmentation:

The global air brake system market is segmented on the basis of component, brake type, vehicle type, application, and region.

On the basis of component, the global air brake system market is segmented into compressors, reservoirs, foot valves, brake chambers, and others, including air dryers, rotors and pads, and slack adjusters.

On the basis of brake type, the market is segmented into air disc and air drum. Air disc systems are likely to dominate the global air brake system market over the forecast period due to the higher efficacy of disc brakes.

On the basis of vehicle type, the air brake system market has been segmented into passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Commercial vehicles are likely to dominate the global air brake system market over the forecast period due to their growing demand across the world.

Based on application, the air brake system market has been segmented into on-road and off-road vehicles.

Regional Analysis:

North America is likely to dominate the global air brake system market over the forecast period due to the increasing demand for technologically advanced air brake systems in commercial vehicles in the U.S. and Mexico. The increasing emphasis on driver safety in commercial vehicles in North America is likely to be a major driver for the air brake system market in the region over the forecast period. Furthermore, the growing production of commercial vehicles in North America is likely to drive the air brake system market in the region over the forecast period.

Asia Pacific is also likely to play a major role in the global air brake system market over the forecast period due to the growing demand for and production of commercial vehicles in countries such as China and India. The growing government support to infrastructure expansion projects in these countries is likely to drive the demand for commercial vehicles, thus driving the air brake system market in the region.
Watching protesters roll the statue of the 17th century slave trader Edward Colston into the sea I was consumed with mixed feelings. Colston made his fortune in the slave trade.

His money flowed from misery. When he died he left much of his wealth for the betterment of Bristol and its citizens, where he lived. Slavery is amongst the greatest stains on humanity - so it is hard to reconcile Colston, the profiteer of human trafficking and Colston, the benevolent philanthropist.

Unravelling history from the sins of that time is not an easy process.

Throwing a statue into the sea may be momentarily satisfying; it may even provide a useful release for anger but it will not change ingrained racism, sectarianism or discrimination within society. Education will do that.

As the Colston statue met with a watery grave, it did not take long for calls for the removal of the statue of the pro-slavery advocate and revered Irish nationalist leader John Mitchel.

Mitchel was undoubtedly a racist and white supremacist - we have his own warped words to prove it. He believed blacks were "an innately inferior people". He wanted the Confederacy to be proud of slavery as an institution and even when Southern generals wanted to recruit African Americans into the army during the American Civil War, so ingrained was the bigotry of Mitchel that he spoke against it.

I have always been aware of the historical political machinations of John Mitchel. In the hierarchy of my Irish nationalist icons he is best left at peace in his grave. His articulate advocacy for Irish nationhood was to my mind totally negated by his inability to understand any shared sense of international brotherhood or common humanity.

Unlike other Irish republicans before and after him, it is doubtful whether Mitchel could truly embrace the true spirit of republicanism - liberty, equality and fraternity for all. He was essentially a bigot when it came to race.

The Mitchel statue was erected in Newry in the mid-1950s - around the same time when the rest of the world was hearing of Rosa Parks, the woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama and sparked the civil rights movement. A bizarre act even by the standards of Ireland then.

Mitchel has always been the embarrassing relative within the Irish nationalist narrative. There have been others who have been equally controversial, most notably Sean Russell, the IRA leader (who also has a statue) whose pro-Nazi sympathies exposed his blindness to the concentration camps.

But would throwing the John Mitchel statue into the Newry Canal prove anything in 2020?

No, it would not. Again education would.

Mitchel was not uniformed. Thomas Moore wrote against slavery in his poems. Daniel O'Connell, the liberator, was one of Europe's best known advocates against slavery and Mary Ann McCracken was still out handing out anti-slavery leaflets in Belfast at 90 years of age.

The young man who started a petition to have John Mitchel Place (where the statue is located) renamed admitted that he passed the statue as a school boy and knew nothing about his support for slavery.

But when we are taught a myopic view of history it is inevitable that parts which don't suit the narrative will be left out or skipped over. (Those who want to know more about John Mitchel, should read Anthony Russell's book on Mitchel - Between Two Flags).

John Mitchel was both mercurial and menacing. His statue should remain but with fresh context added to the text on the plinth which explains the extent of his odious support for slavery. Much more difficult to change is the non-sectarian Foresters Club and local GAA club which bears his name.

Recent experience has taught us the mis-naming of play parks and the creation of new memorials to contested/controversial events or people are fraught with both danger and hurt.

But John Mitchel is not the only historical character with a shameful past.

What of other figures from the past, such as Sir Arthur Chichester, the founder of modern Belfast? Chichester was a blood thirsty character who pursued a scorched earth policy to destroy the native Irish population for the Plantation and women or children were not spared his lust for gore. Like Mitchel, we have his own testimony to bear witness to his genocidal tendencies. One of Belfast's main thoroughfares bears his name, though few will know how terrifying or horrific his actions were.

And then what of Lord Kitchener, who was the acclaimed military leader of the First World War? Prior to the Great War, he was known as the Butcher of Omdurman in the Sudan.

Even a young Winston Churchill criticised his policy of shooting wounded opponents. One journalist present described the scene "not so much a battle but an execution". Kitchener also oversaw the death of some 26,000 Boer women and children in his concentration camps in South Africa, which again was due to his reckless military tactic of burning down all Boer farms. Hardly someone worthy to have a street named after him in Belfast?

Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist who paved the way for the apartheid system by raising the bar against black voters, recently had his statue on a university campus covered with a bucket of faeces before authorities had him boxed over. And yet some of the most prominent statesmen, thinkers and writers across the world boast of being Rhodes scholars and it seems as if the history of their patron sits lightly on their shoulders - these include Susan Rice, Nicolas Kristof and Bill Clinton.

The reality is that most historical characters come with flaws and some of those flaws such as involvement with the slave trade are as irredeemable and unforgiving now as they were then. The legacy of slavery and all its consequential inequalities run deep amongst black communities to this day. Even this recent pandemic has highlighted the social/health inequalities and disparities which exist for many in the black and Asian communities who suffer disproportionately from Covid-19.

It is all too easy to bandwagon an event or a cause. Slavery doesn't just cast a long shadow - it is an indelible stain on society because it still goes on in full sight in our nail bars, car washes, domestic service, farm labouring, massage parlours and prostitution. It doesn't disappear because some 17th century plonker is pulled down from his pedestal. History is what it is for better and for worse. We should understand the origins of our street names and recognise the full narrative behind our statues.

But better to put political energy into tackling modern slavery and the inequalities which cause it, than letting history repeat itself.

Dr Tom Kelly is a political commentator and writer
I wouldnt say all current officials work is ideal or they are the saints of all saints. This is what Governor of Kotayk Province of Armenia Romanos Petrosyan told reporters in parliament today.

People make mistakes, including officials, but those mistakes shouldnt have an impact on our rating and the outcomes of our work. Brilliant evidence of this are the changes of heads of government agencies that have taken place over the past year-and-a-half, he said and added that he admits that the authorities rating might have dropped.

I dont rule out the fact that our rating might have dropped due to the threats of the pandemic and the economic consequences, but we are completely doing what the people have trusted us to do. Demanding the governments resignation in the current conditions is a blow to not only our political force, but also the security of the state and people. Lets overcome the pandemic with honor and then sit around a table and talk with arguments.
Islamabad:

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will hold consultations with Hurriyat and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) leaders on Friday before leaving for the US to address the UN General Assembly where he is likely to raise the Kashmir issue.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will come here in Muzaffarabad on Friday before leaving for New York. He will consult the Kashmiri leadership regarding his speech at the UN session, PoK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider said.

He said the premier will hold separate meetings with PoK legislators and a delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, PoK chapter.

The prime minister wants to take the Kashmiri leadership into confidence over the content of his speech to be delivered at the UN General Assembly session on September 21, the DawnNews quoted him as saying.

Haider said the gesture would send a positive message across the Line of Control (LoC). Sharif is likely to leave for the US on September 17.

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If you've ever encountered a severe weather forecast, odds are it originated from the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. The colorful bullseye risk maps, tornado and severe thunderstorm watches, thunderstorm outlooks - they all come from SPC. It's the center of the meteorological universe for severe weather so to speak; their products are viewed thousands of times a day.

But in recent years, the agency has come under scrutiny for how they communicate severe thunderstorm risk, many meteorologists arguing their longstanding risk scale is as confusing as it is helpful. Some feel the system needs to be scrapped and overhauled, while others think changing things could be even more counterproductive. Now, emerging social science research suggests that there are bonafide issues - but the path towards remedying them remains unclear.

---

The topic of debate? Whether the words assigned to risk categories to describe severe thunderstorm potential - marginal, slight, enhanced, moderate, or high - are adequately descriptive, or inherently confusing. It's a classification scheme that's been around in some capacity since at least the 1970s, expanded to include the addition of the "marginal" and "enhanced" categories in 2014. As one moves up the scale, the severe weather risk understandably increases. High risks are reserved for the most dire tornado and damaging thunderstorm outbreaks.

It's been shown time and time again, however, that the general public doesn't understand the categories. Is a slight risk or a marginal risk more significant? And why is moderate risk not in the middle? What's an enhanced risk? Meteorologists know the system like the back of their hand. But the public does not.

That's according to Alex Forbes, an undergraduate at Mississippi State University. He worked on research for his senior capstone project aimed at probing the effectiveness of the SPC's categories. His findings reveal the ongoing struggle.

---

As part of his project, Forbes asked nearly 4,000 respondents to rank the presumed order of the SPC's five categories based on their implied severities. On the whole, respondents got 4 out of the 5 categories wrong.

On average, participants felt that a "marginal risk" was worse than a "slight," and that "moderate" sounded less threatening than "enhanced." In fact, only one category - the "high risk" - was found to be readily understood by the majority those surveyed; otherwise, respondents correctly ordered all the other categories less than 40% of the time. Forbes was blown away by the results.

"Most of the people who took it at least see weather information on a regular basis," said Forbes, who enlisted the help of more than 400 broadcast meteorologists in sharing the link to his survey on social media.

"I asked people to give me their ZIP code; I had over two thousand participants from Alabama, one thousand from Arkansas, 419 in Tennessee, and more than three hundred in Georgia."

---

Forbes' results were surprisingly similar to those of Sean Ernst, who is tackling the problem as part of his master's thesis at the University of Oklahoma. He also found that most people associate a "moderate" risk as a middle-of-the-line threat, and noted that most also felt that a marginal risk is more significant than a slight.

"These things came from military and government uses, and have since proliferated to the general public," said Ernst. "They were never designed necessarily with the general public in mind."

Forbes agrees.

"The SPC outlook was never meant for public consumption," he said. "It still isn't to this day. The only reason it's published is because [the SPC is] required to by federal law as a federal agency."

---

Prior to the advent of modern-day internet, the Storm Prediction Center's forecasts were primarily reserved for use by regional National Weather Service offices and emergency management partners. Only in recent years have their outlooks and discussion migrated to the mainstream. Nowadays, they're also commonly broadcast by media outlets.

"Initially the products were geared towards internal government use," said Patrick Marsh, chief of science support at NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, in an interview. "They even had a logo on them that said 'for internal government use.'"

Marsh explained that the outlooks are drawn heavily upon by emergency management and community officials for planning purposes. Craig Fugate, former administrator of FEMA and previously the director of Florida's Emergency Management Decision, played a role in strengthening this link after prescient forecasts by the SPC leading up to the deadly February 22-23, 1998 Florida tornado outbreak.

"When he became administrator in 2008 with the Obama administration, he pushed FEMA to be proactive and really be engaged based on the forecast of the [meteorological] community," said Marsh. "That really set the stage with the National Weather Service and SPC, and for being more proactive than reactive."

Marsh explained that emergency managers over time had become used to SPC's way of doing things. It was a system that, for the most part, worked well.

"Emergency managers on the Plains and [in] the Southeast have a high propensity to deal with severe weather, and have become accustomed to SPC forecasts that we were putting out," said Marsh. "They became familiar with the terminology of the slight, moderate, and high risks."

Marsh said that, once emergency managers experienced enough slight, moderate, and high risk days, they were largely able to anticipate the coverage and magnitude of impacts heading into an event. The system worked as intended.

Eventually, the SPC found that one of their categories - slight risk - was too broad, encompassing lower-end and more widespread events. After reviewing feedback from emergency management, they broke it into three categories: marginal, slight, and enhanced. That's when public confusion really ramped up.

"There is no real word that fits between 'slight' and 'moderate' that works," said Marsh. "'Enhanced' showed a little bit more promise. But SPC knew there was going to be a problem there. The words aren't perfect."

---

That confusion about the three middle tiers may lead the public to conflate, under-prepare, or overestimate a risk - the latter of which can result in taking future events less seriously.

But it raises questions surrounding the role of SPC's outlooks, which were originally intended for use by primarily meteorologists and emergency managers. If the status quo works for emergency managers - but not the public - should changes even be made, considering towards whom the product was aimed in the first place?

Some feel that the outlooks should be designed with the public in mind. Others suggest that the onus lies on broadcast meteorologists, whose job they argue it should be to translate SPC's outlooks into something consumable by the public.

---

The Storm Prediction Center's forecasts have routinely verified with impressive accuracy. But making a forecast is only half the battle.

"You can have a perfectly accurate forecast," said Ernst, "but a forecast has no value unless a user can make an educated decision based on it."

Making a forecast - and clearly communicating it - are two sides of the same coin. But who is responsible for "translating" those well-serialized outlooks into layman's terms?

Susan Jasko, a senior research scientist at the Center for Advanced Public Safety at the University of Alabama, explained the challenges of producing something that fully encapsulates the needed precision and science, but is also accessible to those without extensive user background or scientific aptitude.

"Think of any technical profession where there's an inside loop of language and understanding and training and experience," said Jasko. "You take any piece of that and put it into a larger knowledge kind of area that isn't so technically focused. . . it's going to take on a life of its own."

Jasko said that, no matter how accurate a piece of information is, its effectiveness is limited if the consumer doesn't have the expertise to interpret it.

"It's going to be understood in the context it's received, not in how it's produced," said Jasko. "Things get lifted and then they get misunderstood. The interpretation is always in the eyes of the receiver. "

Jasko argues that the solution is not necessarily within overhauling the product for public use, but instead in finding ways to more effectively communicate the information it contains - whether that be internally at SPC or through the media.

"I think it's an internal, powerful tool. People like [emergency managers] rely on this kind of information. . . to help them make the kind of judgements they have, and influence other people's decision making," said Jasko. "It's an incredible chain. Whatever we do we, need to be exceedingly careful to not damage that."

She says that in many ways, the communication could best start with broadcasters.

---

Turning to broadcasters to lead on this matter has been a common theme. Ernst referred to broadcasters as the "conduit through which this information reaches the public."

Forbes said he's seen a lot of television stations experimenting on their own in trying to find best ways to communicate Storm Prediction Center outlooks, with varying degrees of success.

"To broadcasters, I would say drop the [category] names," said Forbes. "Unequivocally, don't use them."

Forbes instead recommended on-air meteorologists convey categorical risk with the 1 to 5 scale that corresponds to the outlook tiers, comparing that ease of communicability to that of hurricanes.

"I've never had a person ask me if a Category 5 is worse than a Category 1," he said. "It's straightforward; the higher the number, the higher the threat."

"The colors look pretty good," said Ernst, whose research project included probing alternate methods of communicating risk. "People are actually doing pretty well with the colors. Usually the colors are making a bullseye, but even alone people interpret the colors pretty well."

Presenting the risk information effectively may vary from one television station to another says Eric Snitil, chief meteorologist at WROC in Rochester, New York. He says it boils down to understanding the needs of local viewers.

The broadcast meteorologist is the "best resource for understanding exactly what his/her audience is going to digest best," wrote Snitil.

---

For their part, the Storm Prediction Center has been making a concerted effort in the nearer term to cater to their growing, public-facing audience - even if public consumption had never been the agency's original intention.

"It's something that's been on our list, to develop a more public facing and public friendly," said Bill Bunting, SPC's chief of forecast operations. "You see that more incrementally with the publicly focused summary."

In the past several years, the SPC has begin offering parallel products with simplified language, including public severe weather outlooks, during higher-end events. Their graphics have also been amended to include a 1 through 5 colorized scale.

"You might notice our forecasters, or at least some of them, [are] starting to say more like 'a moderate level 4 risk,'" said Bunting. "We're seeing signs the anchoring [in numbers] is taking place as well."

But the SPC knows it's a temporary fix to a permanent problem, aware of the growing need to make their information accessible to the public.

"We're all about trying to make the best possible product and communicate the threat," said Marsh.

---

Eventually, the SPC hopes to adopt a more permanent solution - one that will be arrived at after considerable partnership with social scientists. Right now, they're not ruling anything out - but they know they have one chance to get it right.

"We only want to do [a] big change once," said Marsh. "We're actively engaged in trying to solve this problem."

He said that the Storm Prediction Center "has been hesitant to engage in the idea of changing words" like marginal and enhanced but is exploring all options at this point.

Jasko says that any large changes would likely require an education campaign to get the public up to speed.

Whatever the solution, meteorologists and the public alike unanimously recognize the importance of severe weather forecasting, and the strides the science has made in recent years. Bunting hopes that momentum will continue.

"Our system has been pretty successful," he said. "We want to build on that past success and make it even better."
There are a lot of incredible emotions that were shared on that call by fellow aldermen. Now all of them dont feel secure or safe coming together with their colleagues because of one individual who decided to illegally tape a conversation that was intended to be a private conversation among all of us, Lightfoot said. Shame on him. Shame on him. Thats what I say.
Kapsaret MP Oscar Sudi has sensationally pleaded with President Uhuru Kenyatta to spare William Rutos life in his bid to crush the DPs presidential ambition in 2022.

Speaking at a media briefing in Eldoret, the outspoken MP alleged that the State is targeting DP Rutos assets as well as those of his allies.

You have pushed DP Ruto to the wall in so many ways but now I am pleading with President Kenyatta that please do everything you want but spare his life and that of his family, Sudi said.

We know you have forcefully taken the Ruai land from Ruto. He has two houses in Nairobi which you can also take. You can even take his home in Sugoi and all his businesses but we plead that you spare his life, he added.

According to the legislator, DP Ruto and his allies worked hard for Uhuru but the President is treating his deputy like trash.

Those frustrating Kenyans should not think they are above God and will live forever. If they are lucky they will only live for a maximum of 115 years, Sudi said, adding that the DP has opted to remain silent amidst all kinds of intimidation and threats to his life.

At the same time, the vocal MP claimed that during the recent Jubilee parliamentary group meeting at State House, the President threatened MPs.

You even told us that someone had told you that you look like your father but you behave like your mother. You called us at State House and used all types of language to abuse us, including threats. We accepted that and for me, I will never go back to State House, he said.

Sudi also alleged that the fight against coronavirus was being used politically and that is why bars can operate but not religious places.

They think if they open churches then Ruto will have a platform to speak. They can continue cheating us with fake Covid-19 numbers but in the end, they will have to open even the churches, Sudi said.
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WASHINGTON - The Taliban have not yet met conditions required for a complete U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by next May as envisioned in a U.S.-Taliban deal signed in February, the commander overseeing U.S. forces there said Wednesday.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said the U.S. is ahead of schedule for an initial drawdown by July to 8,600 troops. Another U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss details and so spoke on condition of anonymity, said troop levels are now below 9,000, compared with about 12,000 in February.

McKenzie stressed, however, that going to zero troops by May is dependent on conditions.

Those conditions would be: Can we be assured that attacks against us will not be generated there? And as of right now ... frankly, if asked my opinion, those conditions have not been fully met, he said in a video conference hosted by the Middle East Institute in Washington. McKenzie spoke from his headquarters in Florida.

McKenzies skepticism comes as President Donald Trump focuses on an early troop exit that would fulfil his frequent promise to get the United States out of Afghanistan. Trump has said U.S. troops are acting as police in Afghanistan and should get out of a conflict that is now almost two decades old.

In late May, Trump called for a quick return of American soldiers and urged Afghan forces to step up in the defence of their country. He tweeted: Bring our soldiers back home but closely watch what is going on and strike with a thunder like never before, if necessary!

Trump has often complained about the enormous cost of the war, which began in October 2001 with a U.S. invasion to topple the Taliban from power. The presidents impatience, and speculation that he may order that all U.S. troops leave by the November election, has caused some angst on Capitol Hill.

Four members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including the panels vice chairman, Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia, wrote Tuesday to the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, asking that he provide an update on intelligence planning for Afghanistan if a decision is made to pull out by November.

A rushed and premature withdrawal would also risk losing the gains we have achieved in Afghanistan, not only in counterterrorism but also in building Afghan governance and military forces, they wrote. Our nations intelligence professionals have spent nearly two decades establishing security arrangements with our Afghan partners. Now it is incumbent upon our government to give them the time and space to prepare for an orderly, conditions-based drawdown, in conjunction with military and diplomatic counterparts.

The Taliban had provided sanctuary for al-Qaida, which used Afghanistan as a base for plotting the 9-11 attacks.

The threat to the United States is not the Taliban. It has never been the Taliban, McKenzie said. Its the entities that they allow to live in Afghanistan that threaten us. He mentioned the Islamic State groups Afghan affiliate and al-Qaida.

We believe the Taliban actually are no friends of ISIS and work against them, he said, referring to the Islamic State group. It is less clear to me that they will take the same action against al-Qaida.

McKenzie said the Trump administration is engaged in very robust dialogue internally and with NATO and coalition partners as we evaluate the way forward in Afghanistan.



Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
North Korea cut off all communication channels with South Korea on Tuesday, referring to it as payback for the "enemy." The measures came just five days after a shrilly worded demand by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister Yo-jong to stop activists from sending propaganda leaflets attached to helium balloons across the border. North Korea said the latest measures were only the "first step," which suggests additional steps may be in the works, including the closure of an inter-Korean liaison office in the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

Just hours after Kim Yo-jong issued her statement last week, the Unification Ministry obligingly said it was preparing to outlaw the balloon campaign and driveled about pollution in the demilitarized zone and harm to "national security" to justify this nonsense. In an alarming echo of former dictatorships, ex-Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, who mentors President Moon Jae-in on inter-Korean policies, urged the government to "mobilize troops" to stop the balloon campaign. Some ruling party lawmakers even denounced North Korean defectors who were recently elected as lawmakers here as "antisocial" for supporting the campaign. The government and ruling party all kowtowed to Kim Yo-jong's demands, but what good did it do them? None. Seeing that it had gotten traction, North Korea continues to escalate its attacks. Mass rallies against South Korea were orchestrated in several North Korean cities. It is as clear as daylight that the propaganda leaflets, which have been floating across the border since time began, are just an excuse for North Korea to resort to its usual provocations.

Why the sudden ire? North Korean leader Kim Jong-un mentioned "handling the pressing issue of how to guarantee Pyongyang residents' livelihood" during a politburo meeting, which is unprecedented. This suggests that living conditions have deteriorated even in the North Korean capital, where the elite live, to such an extent that a diversion is urgently needed to quell possible unrest. North Korea sealed off its border with China earlier this year to stem the spread of coronavirus, with the result that trade dropped more than 80 percent, and on top of U.S.-led sanctions that means another famine could be in the offing. That means the kerfuffle could be a masked overture to the Moon administration, so that if the balloon campaign is stopped as a token concession, it can then milk Seoul for aid. The North often screams or fires missiles when it just wants to say hello. But more likely it is simply a piece of theater for internal purposes.

The Moon Jae-in administration has been completely duped by North Korea, eagerly touting Kim Jong-un's imaginary willingness to scrap his nuclear weapons and setting up various photo-ops between the U.S. and North Korea as well as inter-Korean summits. But Kim made it clear eventually that he has no intention to scrap his nuclear weapons and vowed just recently to bolster the North's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. He fired more than 10 new missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and referred to them as a "warning" to South Korea.

And still the Moon administration floated increasingly absurd proposals of inter-Korean cooperation that are not only impossible under international sanctions but met with deafening silence from the North. It scrapped sanctions against North Korea triggered by the North's sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan in 2010, explained a recent shooting at a border post as an "accident," and tried in every other way to appease the North. Yet North Korea has a single track record -- to extend an olive branch only when it needs handouts. If it was genuinely interested in peace, it would long have stopped its frantic and expensive weapons development that is starving the population. The South Korean government remains lost in Cloud Cuckoo Land.


WASHINGTONOne of the first legislative proposals Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats talked about after George Floyds death was a bill from Florida Rep. Frederica S. Wilson to create a commission to study a range of societal issues impacting Black men and boys.

But Wilsons bill, called the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Act, was not included in the 134-page policing overhaul legislation Democrats unveiled Monday. Thats because Democrats are planning to move the measure through the House as a stand-alone bill.

Pelosi announced plans for a vote on the commission bill alongside Wilson during an appearance Wednesday on the Whats on Your Mind show on Hot 105, a South Florida radio station owned by Cox Media Group. Wilson represents northwest Miami-Dade and southern Broward counties.

Well have cultural (initiatives), Congresswoman Wilsons bill, the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, coming up, as well as a commission on racism and transparency and truth, Pelosi said.

The California Democrat said even before the tragic martyrdom of George Floyd happened, Democrats have been working on policy proposals to address the underlying causes of systemic racism, like disparities in health care, education and access to jobs and business loans.

Wilsons bill is expected to get a vote in the coming weeks but exact timing has yet to be determined, according to leadership aides.

The bill would establish the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys under the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to study systematic conditions impacting Black males including homicide rates, arrest and incarceration rates, poverty, violence, fatherhood, mentorship, drug abuse, death rates, disparate income and wealth levels, school performance in all grade levels including post-secondary levels and college, and health issues.

The commission would be compromised of 19 members to be appointed by congressional and executive branch leadership. It would meet at least quarterly and submit annual reports addressing those issues, as well as recommendations on how to alleviate and remedy the underlying causes of the conditions, according to the bill text.

Wilsons office did not respond to an interview request.

Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, sponsor of a Senate companion measure, said the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys will be part of Senate Republicans response to Floyds death.

It is included, whether we do it as a stand-alone or we do it as part of Tims package or both, he said, referring to policing legislation South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott is putting together.

Scotts office did not respond to a request for comment.

Rubio did not indicate a preference between including the bill in Scotts package or the Senate moving it separately, but he noted that the House is looking to pass it as a stand-alone measure.

Theres not strong opposition from anybody on it, so its just a question of how do we get it done, he said.

Wilson and Rubio served together in the Florida Legislature and modelled their commission bill on a measure the legislature passed in 2006.

Rubio was speaker of the Florida House and Wilson was a state senator when the Legislature passed legislation establishing the Florida Council on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys. The group is still active, according to its website.

Thats something thats worked really well in Florida, we created it when I was speaker and I think its a model we could replicate nationally, Rubio said.

Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California were the only original cosponsors of Rubios bill. After Floyds death, 11 Senate Republicans, including Scott, signed on as cosponsors.

The House version of the bill has 151 cosponsors, only one of which is a Republican. Florida GOP Rep. Bill Posey, who served with Wilson as a state senator when the Legislature passed the measure establishing the Council on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, was an original co-sponsor.
The University of Illinois Chicago and Springfield campuses have proposed dropping the ACT and SAT test requirement next year because of uncertainty about how exams will be administered during the coronavirus pandemic  a change that scores of colleges have already implemented to prepare for continued disruptions to the admissions process.

U. of I. trustees are expected to vote on the recommendation at a virtual meeting Wednesday afternoon. A memo submitted to the board outlining the change says it would apply only to incoming freshman at UIC and UIS seeking to enroll in Fall 2021.

The current nationwide COVID-19 pandemic has prevented large numbers of high school students from taking standardized tests due to various restrictions imposed by states that not only have closed high schools but also, among other things, have prohibited gatherings of a certain size, the memo says. Although there has been consideration of providing in-home exams this summer, those plans are currently on hold, in part because many students do not have the necessary computer technology or reliable internet connection to take advantage of this option.

Admissions requirements vary by campus, but the schools have considered test scores as part of applications since the 1970s and students are typically required to send their ACT or SAT scores.

At U. of I.s flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign, the states largest university with more than 52,000 students, discussions about the measure still need to take place within the academic senate. The item is set to be addressed at a meeting later Wednesday.

This is a one-year adjustment because of the pandemic, Tom Hardy, spokesman of the University of Illinois System, said in an email. Beyond 2021, he said, there are no plans to drop standardized testing from the admissions process.

The debate over the use of standardized tests in college admissions predates the pandemic, but discussions have resumed with renewed urgency as schools scramble to revise their procedures and accommodate students. So far, some schools have extended decision deadlines from the traditional May 1 date, granting students more time to make a final choice about where to study in the fall -- if they are allowed to return to campus.

Well before the pandemic, many schools had begun moving away from standardized tests, citing inequities that favor wealthier and often white students who can afford tutoring and additional help to boost their scores. Others have questioned whether the tests can accurately predict a students success at the college level.

The University of Chicago, for example, dropped its testing requirements in 2018, becoming the first premier school to join the test-optional movement. At U. of C. and other test-optional institutions, students can submit exam results if they choose, but they are not required, and applications are viewed more holistically. Admissions officers rely on other factors, such as grades, extracurricular activities and letters of recommendation.

Indiana University recently finalized a new test-optional policy that had been in progress since late 2019. The policy goes into effect for undergraduate applicants seeking to enroll in the 2021 term and afterward. A statement on IUs website says the school made the change because some applicants may feel that their standardized test scores do not accurately reflect their academic potential.

The pandemic, however, has infused discussions about standardized tests with practical considerations as well. When high schools shut down this spring, many students didnt have a place complete the exams. Schools are often the only location where students can take the tests for free, but both the ACT and the College Board, which administers the SAT, canceled test dates in March, May and June. Chicago Public Schools did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether its facilities will be used as testing centers this summer.

Now a growing number of private and public universities are announcing plans to ditch standardized tests for at least the next admissions cycle, which affects rising high school seniors.

The U. of I memo cites a number of schools that have adjusted application requirements amid the outbreak such as Harvard, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Oregon and the University of Washington. The memo does not explicitly mention challenges for low-income, first-generation or minority students that are often referenced in the debate over standardized tests.

Some schools, such as the University of California, recently announced longer commitments to reform test-based admissions. The public university system will suspend the standardized test requirement for all in-state applicants through 2024. If the university does not develop a new assessment as a replacement by 2025, UC will cease using tests for good.

In downstate Peoria, Bradley University also adopted a test-optional policy in May. In addition to easing the strain on students affected by COVID-19, the move will provide greater access to a broader, more diverse applicant pool of students, according to a statement from Justin Ball, vice president for enrollment management.

While there might be opportunities for students to take tests in the fall, its unclear if schools will allow for a large number of students to complete the time-consuming tests at their indoor facilities.

The College Board canceled national testing days for the SAT on March 14 and June 6 because of safety concerns. Starting in August, College Board will offer the SAT and/or SAT Subject Test sittings every month for the rest of 2020, according to its website.

The College Board has previously announced a plan to offer at-home SAT tests, but reportedly recently scrapped the idea, citing concerns that not all students would have steady internet access to complete the three-hour exam. The announcement followed complaints from students who took Advanced Placement tests at home this year and encountered technical glitches, some saying they couldnt submit their final answers through the online system.

The ACT canceled its April exam but allowed some testing centers to offer it in June. The next test will be offered in July and ACT is in close contact with test centers regarding their ability to administer the test, according to its website. ACT said it is also developing online and at-home testing options, but those wont be available until September, the website said.

Will there be a second COVID-19 surge in Illinois? These are the stats to watch.

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- Museveni noted cases of new infections have been on the rise in the recent past after citizens decided to flout government measures

- The president said Uganda was able to manage the virus at the initial stages because people then adhered to the safety measures strictly unlike what was being witnessed currently

- He urged the ministry of health to expand the 9,000-bed capacity facility it was setting up to 40, 000-bed capacity in preparation for the worst case scenario

- Uganda has confirmed 657 cases of coronavirus so far

President Yoweri Museveni has said his government will not take responsibility if Uganda will start witnessing coronavirus deaths in the coming days.

Museveni noted cases of new infections have been on the rise in the recent past after citizens decided to flout government measures and embarked on their normal lifestyle.

READ ALSO: Nairobi: Uber driver advertises employer's car in local dailies, sells it at KSh 248K

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has told Uganda he won't be responsible for coronavirus deaths. Photo: Yoweri Museveni.

Source: Facebook

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Speaking on Tuesday, June 9, during the national heroes celebration day at State House in Entebbe, Museveni said Uganda was able to manage the virus at the initial stages because people then adhered to the safety measures strictly unlike in the present time.

"People are not wearing face masks and observing social distance. When I pass through town, I see people are not bothered, they say after all nobody has died. When you die don't say Museveni has not told us. There is nothing we have not told you," he said.

Uganda is yet to record coronavirus fatalities - a scenario Museveni attributed to low numbers of infections that have allowed doctors to concentrate on affected patients and give them maximum attention and care.

With the numbers now increasing, the Uganda leader expressed concern the country could soon start witnessing deaths since doctors and available health facilities might be overwhelmed.

"I urge those whose businesses have opened up to observe all the safety measures, please keep social distance, wear face masks and wash your hands regularly...if these cases will continue to increase them they will overwhelm even the big place we have prepared," he added.

He urged the ministry of health to expand the 9,000-bed capacity facility it was setting up to 40, 000-bed capacity in preparation for the worst case scenario.

Museveni expressed confidence Ugandan scientists were likely to get coronavirus vaccine even ahead of their European counterparts.

He, however, blamed the delay in the process to rampant corruption among senior officials involved in the research.

"We can get COVID-19 medicine before Europeans get it if we get rid of parasites within the country. They should go to hell," he said as quoted by Daily Monitor.

Uganda has confirmed 657 cases of coronavirus so far.

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24 patients discharged as Kenya's Recoveries rise to 873 | Tuko TV

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The Madras High Court on Wednesday declined to grant an interim stay on online classes conducted by schools for students.

Observing that continuation of online education without sufficient guidelines is a matter of larger public importance, the court issued notice to the Centre and the state government and posted the matter to June 25 for filing counters.

A division bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and R Suresh Kumar issued the notice while hearing a petition seeking to restrain educational institutions from conducting online classes without framing proper schemes and guidelines.

Government pleader V Jayaprakash Narayan submitted that the state has not yet permitted the conduct of online classes by schools and colleges.

The institutions were also restrained -- through a government order -- from demanding fee,he submitted.

Senior counsel S Prabhakaran for the petitioner requested the court to pass an interim order restraining educational institutions from conducting such classes.

The court, however,directed the Centre and the state government to file a report on the availability of any guidelines governing such online classes and adjourned the hearing to June 25.

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On May 31, 19 Chicago residents were killed. This was the single deadliest day in Chicago in six decades, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The labs data doesnt go back further than 1961.

From 7 p.m. Friday, May 29, through 11 p.m. Sunday, May 31, 25 people were killed in the city An additional 85 were wounded by gunfire, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

According to Chicagos mayor Lori Lightfoot, on May 31 Chicagos 911 emergency center received 65,000 calls for all types of service  50,000 more than on a usual day. The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a radical activist and pal of the infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obamas one-time pastor, complained that it was open season last weekend in his neighborhood and others on the South and West sides. Pfleger said:

On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, Hey, theres no police anywhere, police aint doing nothing, I sat and watched a store looted for over an hour. No police came. I got in my car and drove around to some other places getting looted [and] didnt see police anywhere.

That same Sunday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot held a conference call with citys alderman. Not surprisingly, the alderman complained about the lawlessness and violence in their wards. You can listen to a recording of the meeting here.

Alderman Michelle Harris (8th Ward) asked: What are we going to have left in our community? Answering her own question, she said: Nothing. My major business district is shattered. Why would Walmart or CVS come back to our communities?

Why, indeed.

Alderman Susan Sadlowski-Garza begged Lightfoot for help. My ward is a sh*t show; they are shooting at the police, she said before beginning to cry. Sadlowski-Garza told the mayor she was scared.

Lightfoot responded: This is a massive, massive problem. People are just f*****g lawless right now. She told the aldermen that officers were in armed combat with criminals on the West Side, and were making progress only after bringing in heavy equipment and stronger pepper spray.

Her most interesting exchange was a profanity-laced confrontation with Alderman Raymond Lopez. He told Lightfoot that the city was unprepared for the demonstrations:

When downtown is in lockdown, our neighborhoods are next, and our failure to fully get ready for whats going on in the neighborhoods, were seeing this destruction, and were thinking that its going to somehow end tonight. We have seen where, in other cities, this has gone on for days; and we need to come up with a better plan for days, at least for the next five days, to try and stabilize our communities.

Lopez continued:

Once theyre done looting and rioting and whatevers going to happen tonight, God help us, what happens when they start going after residents? Going into the neighborhoods? Once they start trying to break down peoples doors, if they think theyve got something. Ive got gangbangers with AK-47s walking around right now, just waiting to settle some scores. What are we going to do, and what do we tell residents, other than good faith people stand up? Its not going to be enough.

Lightfoot tried to duck Lopezs inquiry. When that didnt work, she resorted to profanity. I think youre 100% full of sh*t, is what I think, Lightfoot said.

F*** you, then, Lopez responded. Who are you to tell me Im full of shi*?  Maybe you should come out and see whats going on.

Lopez claims that Lightfoot worked with gang members to protect selected areas against looting. She denies the allegation.

The feud between Lightfoot and Lopez is emblematic of tension between Chicagos Black and Latino communities. Lightfoot acknowledged that the demonstrations and rioting have exacerbated tensions between the two groups.

According to one source, the Latin Kings sent a message to the police that they would take care of the rioters, and that the police were not needed. Thus, Chicago may have faced the prospect of war in the street between Latinos and Blacks.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned (or reminded of) from the events described above. Among them are these:
Houston, June 11 : The brother of the African American man whose death in police custody has sparked global protests, has urged the US Congress to pass reforms on police brutality and "stop the pain".

Philonise Floyd told a House hearing that his brother George could not become "another name on a list", the BBC reported.

"Be the leaders that this country, this world, needs," Floyd said.

George Floyd died in Minneapolis in May as a white police officer held a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The final moments were filmed on phones.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee have been listening to testimony from civil rights activists and law enforcement officials, a day after the funeral service of George Floyd, 46, in Houston.

The committee plans to send a bill to the floor of the Democrat-led House by July 4 on combating police violence and racial injustice.

It comes amid a nationwide - and in many cases international - debate on police practices and accountability, and more generally on racial inequity.

"I'm here to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain," an emotional Philonise Floyd, 42, told lawmakers. "George called for help and he was ignored. Please listen to the call I'm making to you now, to the calls of our family and the calls ringing on the streets of all the world.

"The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough." In tears, Floyd later added: "His kids had to watch that video. It just hurt... you don't do that to a human being... His life mattered. All our lives matter. Black lives matter. I just wish I could get him back. Those officers, they get to live." Democrat committee chairman Jerrold Nadler said: "We must remember that [George Floyd] is not just a cause, a name to be chanted in the streets. He was a man. He had a family... we mourn his loss." The Democrat-proposed bill would make so-called police chokeholds illegal, enforce anti-racism training, bar sacked officers from switching to another force and make it easier to prosecute abuse.

Republican committee representative Matt Gaetz said that although elements needed to be "fine-tuned", "you will be able to count on Republican co-operation as we hone these ideas and hopefully pass them and get them to the president's desk".

A spokesperson for Mr Trump said on Wednesday that the president would have "proactive policy prescriptions, whether that means legislation or an executive order".

As the House hearing was taking place, the police chief in Minneapolis said that his department "absolutely" could be reformed and vowed not to let George Floyd's death be in vain.

Medaria Arradondo said one reform would be to introduce a new early warning system to identify the conduct of police officers.

On Sunday, a majority of the city council's members vowed to disband the police department and replace it with a new model of public safety.

"Defund the police" has been a rallying call for many protesters nationwide. It has been opposed by both President Trump and his Democratic challenger in November's election, Joe Biden.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 22:01:54|Editor: huaxia

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YAOUNDE, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Cameroon's House Speaker of National Assembly Cavaye Yeguie Djibril on Wednesday called for national solidarity to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Fighting the coronavirus challenges us all. United we stand, divided we fall," Cavaye said during the opening plenary of the June session of the National Assembly, adding that all Cameroonians must adhere to what he described as "sacred union" to fight the pandemic.

He said Cameroon was on the right path to combating the disease but warned that people were still disrespecting social distancing.

In the coming days, all members of parliament will begin "an initiative" to support efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus in the country, he said.

Cameroon health authorities have reported to date more than 8,500 COVID-19 cases. Enditem
An investigation is underway after a man was shot Tuesday in Birminghams Collegeville community.

The shooting happened just after 1 p.m. in the 3300 block of Fred L. Shuttlesworth Drive.

Sgt. Rod Mauldin said the male victim was taken to UAB Hospital with life-threatening injuries. Details surrounding the circumstance of the shooting werent immediately available.

There are no suspects in custody and the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
ST. LOUIS  Patrons have another chance to view Saint Louis Art Museums exhibition Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalireopens, which closed prematurely because of the new coronavirus pandemic.

The exhibit will reopen June 16 and extend through Labor Day; tickets are on sale now.

Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dali is a groundbreaking exhibition that examines, for the first time, the international legacy of French painter Jean-Francois Millet (18141875). Millet was a pioneer in developing innovative imagery of rural peasantry, landscapes and nudes, and his work had a deep impact on later generations of artists.

In the late 19th century Millet was arguably the best-known modern painter, and his works sold for the highest prices of any modern pictures at auction. Today Millet is less well known, and this exhibition seeks to revive his importance and recognize his radicalism.

Millet and Modern Art creates an alternative and fresh narrative for the history of modern art that begins with his work. Millets imagery is situated within the context of work by a wide range of artists whom he influenced, including Vincent van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, Giovanni Segantini, Winslow Homer, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch and Salvador Dali.

The exhibition is co-curated by Simon Kelly, curator and head of the department of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, and Maite van Dijk, senior curator at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Visitors can enhance their Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dali experience with a free audio guide, accessible on electronic devices, featuring expert commentary on 19 works in the exhibition.

Visit www.slam.org for more information.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Hugs and kisses are prohibited because visitors must stay at least six feet away from their loved ones.

Patients can only have one visitor at a time for a maximum of four hours.

And visitors are only allowed from noon to 6 p.m.

Those are some of the rules of a new hospital patient visitation policy being tested out at St. Josephs in Syracuse and 20 other hospitals statewide. The pilot program which began May 26 may eventually be rolled out statewide to all hospitals which banned most visitors in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Its a sneak peak at what we think visitation will look like going forward, said Frank Panzetta, director of patient and community relations at St. Joes.

The pilot program was only supposed to last two weeks. But the state notified St. Joes and the other participating hospitals Friday they can continue the visitation program indefinitely, Panzetta said.

Its wonderful to be able to come back a little bit to the way things used to be, he said.

Not being able to visit hospitalized loved ones has been difficult for the community, according to Panzetta. So when the opportunity presented itself to reopen that door a little bit, we were happy to do it, he said.

Before the pandemic St. Joes had a loose visiting policy. Some visitors came as early as 9 a.m. and into the night. There was no official visitation start and stop time. St. Joes like many hospitals moved to a very liberal model and it worked for the most part, Panzetta said. The hospital suggested patients limit visitors to two at a time, but did not rigidly enforce the limit. Visitors were free to go the cafeteria or take a walk in the hallways to stretch their legs.

All that has changed.

Visitors must be at least 18. Every visitor gets their temperature taken and screened for Covid-19 symptoms in the lobby. They must wear a hospital-issued face mask, not one they bring with them. Anyone visiting a Covid-19 patient also must wear gloves and a gown. All visitors are shown how to properly use hand sanitizer.

If two or more people come together to visit a patient, only one at a time can visit. The others must either leave the hospital or wait in the lobby.

Visitors cannot go to the cafeteria or wander around the hallways. They must stay in the patients room and practice social distancing. They must leave the hospital when the visit ends.

There are some exceptions to St. Joes visitation restrictions. Expectant moms, for example, can be accompanied during labor by their partner or another support person and a doula.

We are doing everything we can to make sure our visitors and patients are safe, Panzetta said.

St. Joes has been getting about 200 visitors a day, down from about 600 a day before the pandemic.

Patients are happy they can now have visitors, especially patients admitted to the hospital from nursing homes which have not lifted their visitation bans. Panzetta said patients from nursing homes are grateful to visit with loved ones they have not seen in months.

James T. Mulder covers health news. Have a news tip? Contact him at (315) 470-2245 or jmulder@syracuse.com
World-renowned stroke specialist Dr. Thomas Devlin has wound up at CHI Memorial after an abrupt departure from rival Erlanger Health System.

CHI Memorial officials said in announcing the coup, "CHI Memorial is an award-winning provider of stroke services for the Chattanooga region. As a recipient of the American Heart Associations Get with the Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus and Target Stroke Elite Plus Honor Roll awards, our physicians and advanced practice clinical team have aggressively worked to provide the region with the highest quality stroke care.

"Chattanooga Neurology Associates physicians Sharon Farber, MD, Tareck Kadrie, MD, Howard Kraft, MD, Gabriel Tallent, MD, and Nathan Wyatt, MD, in partnership with CHI Memorial physicians Adele Ackell MD, Roza Adamczyk, MD, and Judy Huang, MD, and Louann Johnson, NP, have worked in concert for years to provide patients with an efficient and coordinated system of care, improved health outcomes, and exceptional patient care.

"Dr. Devlin began his professional career at CHI Memorial in 1997 and now returns after building a strong nationally recognized stroke program as director of Neuroscience at Erlanger Health System and the University of Tennessee College of Medicine."

"Dr. Devlin has an international reputation based on his clinical care skills and development of key medical breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating stroke. In recent years Dr. Devlin and his team have partnered with innovators from around the world to advance technologies for stroke diagnosis and treatment. He currently serves as the lead physician on numerous international projects including the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to diagnose stroke very rapidly and at low cost, and in developing improved clot busting medication for stroke. His research team is also widely known for their current work developing new stem cell treatments and other pharmaceuticals that act as 'neuroprotectants' for stroke victims. In doing so, Dr. Devlins work has led to the branding of Chattanooga internationally as a city ideal for advanced neuroscience medical research.



"In addition to advancing stroke services, Dr. Devlin will partner with CHI Memorials Center for Healthy Aging and professional staff to strengthen the Dementia-Alzheimers programs and offerings and establish new practices to close gaps in coverage that exist in the Chattanooga region."

Dr. Devlin said, I am extremely proud of the accomplishments of our neurology team over the past 20 years. This talented group has provided top-notch clinical care to our region, and our research in stroke has played a pivotal role in ushering in todays advanced medical treatments on a global scale.

I look forward to working with the CHI Memorial team of clinicians and administrators to write the next chapter in the history of Chattanooga neuroscience care. The close alignment of CHI Memorial with CommonSpiritHealth and its esteemed Arkansas Neuroscience Institute and Barrow Neurological Institute will provide my team with a unique opportunity to partner on national bio-medical research and improved patient care initiatives by virtue of this formal relationship with many of the best hospitals in the United States. Building on years of past success of our team, Im tremendously honored to serve as the physician executive for Neurosciences at CHI Memorial.

Dr. Devlin will join CHI Memorial in September with offices located on the eighth floor of the Missionary Ridge Medical Tower, 725 Glenwood Dr.

Janelle Reilly, market CEO, CHI Memorial, said, Today, we are pleased to share our vision to accelerate the development of a preeminent regional stroke center at CHI Memorial with the appointment of Thomas Devlin, MD, PhD, as physician executive of Neurosciences. At this transformational time in the history of health care, the combined strength of Dr. Devlins visionary leadership and CHI Memorials excellent system of care will join together to pursue the designation of Comprehensive Stroke Center, the highest designated standard of care for regional stroke centers.

The announcement comes on the heels of Dr. Melanie Blake, a highly regarded internist, leaving Erlanger for CHI Memorial.
Matthew McConaughey is at Hollywood's frontlines of change.

The 50-year-old A-lister appeared with broadcaster Emmanuel Acho on his talk show Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man amid a time of social unrest following the police killing of George Floyd, and the demonstrations against racism and police brutality that have resulted.

The Uvalde, Texas native said his objective was 'to learn, to share and listen - to discuss some common grounds between us, but also expose differences between us.'

The latest: Matthew McConaughey, 50, appeared with broadcaster Emmanuel Acho on his talk show Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man amid a time of social unrest following the police killing of George Floyd

He continued: 'I'm here to have a conversation hopefully promote more conversation and with the end goal being that we take the time we are now in to constructively turn the page in history through some righteous and justifiable change.'

Acho told McConaughey the the most accurate and least offensive term to call a black person is black.

'There's some black people that don't identify as being African because that heritage got stripped from them,' he said.

The Oscar-winner complimented Acho of his previous debut edition of the show, which he said 'gave [him] new context' and 'insight' and made him think of the why in regards to many of the social issues plaguing the United States.

Looking to learn: The Oscar-winner said his objective was 'to learn, to share and listen - to discuss some common grounds between us, but also expose differences between us'

Insight: Acho told the Lincoln Lawyer actor that 'you have to acknowledge there's a problem so that you can take more ownership for the problem

He said, 'I'm also telling you our values and I feel them deteriorating across-the-board.

McConaughey, who won an Oscar for Best Actor in 2014 for Dallas Buyers Club; asked Acho, 'How does someone like me; how can I do better as a human? how can I do better as a man? how can I do better as a white man?'

Acho told the Lincoln Lawyer actor that 'you have to acknowledge there's a problem so that you can take more ownership for the problem.

'You have to acknowledge implicit bias; you have to acknowledge that you'll see a black man and for whatever reason, you would view them as more of a threat than the white man - probably because society told them to.'

The Dazed and Confused actor, who has three children with wife Camila Alves - Levi, Livingston and Vida - said that 'Equality - the definition of equality, what equality is, and what equality is not - it's been an American issue forever and we continue to work and grow and evolve and debate what the definition of equality should be.'

Key takeaway: Acho told the Lincoln Lawyer actor that 'you have to acknowledge there's a problem so that you can take more ownership for the problem'

Looking to learn: McConaughey, who won an Oscar for Best Actor in 2014 for Dallas Buyers Club; asked Acho, 'How does someone like me; how can I do better as a human? how can I do better as a man? how can I do better as a white man?'

Acho said he didn't think there was equality in America in the wake of slavery, pointing to issues such as voter suppression, systemic injustice and inferior school systems.

The episode drew praise from a number of viewers, including Kansas City Chiefs great Jamaal Charles, who called it 'so powerful' in a tweet.

The famed running back added: 'I was like a little kids listening with open heart Red heart. I love it. Keep up the great work.'

Actor Liam Brian said that the chat was 'another excellent conversation,' while journalist Chris Franklin said the discussion truly is a must watch.
In the first three months of 2020, opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts continued to steadily decline, health officials said Wednesday, indicating a 5.7% decline compared to the same period last year.

There were 467 confirmed and an estimated opioid-related overdose deaths in the first three months of 2020 - an estimated 28 fewer deaths compared to the same period in 2019, the state Department of Public Health said.

That time period overlaps with the coronavirus pandemic, which brought major changes to daily life in Massachusetts starting in March, including an advisory from Gov. Charlie Baker for residents to stay at home.

From the earliest days of the pandemic, we have worked quickly to implement innovative solutions that keep people struggling with substance use connected to the treatment and recovery services they need, said Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders. Moving forward we must remain vigilant in our efforts to reduce the impact of the opioid epidemic.

Amid the pandemic, the Department of Public Health has provided more than 13,000 naloxone kits and more than 1,000 survival kits that include naloxone to help reduce the risk of accidental fatal overdoses by populations considered at high-risk, including people recently released from incarceration. The department has also worked to expand access to telemedicine in licensed facilities, including providing counseling, group support services and referrals to treatment, according to a news release.

As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, we have taken action to ensure that crucial substance use disorder treatment and recovery systems remain available in the ongoing fight against opioid addiction, said Gov. Charlie Baker. While we remain encouraged that opioid-related overdose deaths continue to decline from their peak four years ago, we will continue to carefully consider and monitor any impact the social isolation practices that are helping us fight the virus may have on the battle against opioid addiction.

Preliminary data indicates there were 2,015 confirmed and estimated opioid-related overdose deaths. That number is a 4% drop from the 2016 peak of 2,102 deaths, according to the news release.

The use of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, has continued to increase through 2019 while the use of heroin has been declining since 2014, the state said. The presence of prescription opioids continues to trend downward.

Though fentanyl use continues to rise, the 2019 opioid-related overdose death rate of 28.9 per 100,000 people is about 6% lower than the 2016 rate of 30.6 per 100,000, DPH said.

Communities that have seen a notable decrease in opioid-related overdose deaths from 2018 to 2019 include Lowell, Worcester and Gardner. Middlesex County has marked its third consecutive year with declining opioid-related overdose deaths, the news release said.

Additionally, Norfolk County had 40 fewer opioid-related overdose deaths in 2019 compared to 2018, a 23% decrease, the state said.

But, both Bristol and Plymouth counties saw an increase in opioid-related overdose deaths in 2019 compared with 2018, according to DPH.

Men account for 74% of all opioid-related overdose deaths, DPH said, and between 2018 and 2019, the confirmed opioid-related overdose death rate for black and Latino men increased, while the rate decreased for white as well as Asian and Pacific Islander men.

The confirmed opioid-related overdose death rate for women increased in 2019 compared with the year before, the state said, adding that death rates for black women increased while the rate for white and Hispanic women decreased.

In the first quarter of 2020, more than 213,000 people in Massachusetts received prescriptions for Schedule II opioids, nearly a 45% decrease from the first quarter of 2015, when 390,532 people were receiving these prescriptions, according to DPH.

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The Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensa Bonsu has justified the persistence of the Electoral Commission for a new voters register for the 2020 polls.

His comments follow the approval and maturity of the Public Elections Amendment Regulations (C.I 126).

The Electoral Commission is the custodian of their own document and they are telling us that the Charlotte Osei-led Commission who were charged with that responsibility could not do that and they have inherited a more or less contaminated system, he said on Eyewitness News.

Mr. Mensa Bonsu also attributed the seeming division in the House over new requirements for the compilation of a new voters register to partisanship.

Parliament had to vote on Tuesday, June 9, 2020 , to allow the Electoral Commission (EC) to use the Ghana Card and Passports as the only forms of identification for persons registering to vote.

The vote occurred after the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye, granted a request from the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu for a division.

The legislators voted in a 102 to 96 decision in favour of the amendment of the Constitutional Instrument.

The Majority Leader felt the House was unable to reach a consensus on the new requirements because some members of Parliament had politicized issues surrounding the amendment of the Constitutional Instrument (C.I) empowering the EC to organise elections in the country.

One expects that especially at the level of committee business, there will be less partisanship. Unfortunately, in this particular matter that was referred to the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, partisan politics have already been taken. The Subsidiary Legislation Committee has been polarised and indeed there was a line drawn on party lines. We have had to contend with it and deal with the substance.

The Subsidiary Legislation Committee, which considered the amendment, could not arrive at a consensus as to whether the exclusion of a driver's license and the existing voter ID from the amendment was constitutional.

But according to its report, it recommended by majority decision the passing of the amendment.

Per the Constitutional Instrument that was first put before Parliament, a person who applies for registration as a voter shall provide as evidence of identification one of the following: a passport, a national identification card, or one voter registration identification guarantee form as set out in Form one of the schedule that has been completed and signed by two registered voters.

The Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga, had attempted getting the House to reject the amendment through a motion that was rejected by the Speaker of Parliament.

The National Identification Authority will also begin issuing the remaining printed Ghana Cards on June 10.

This has led to concerns from observers and political stakeholders who claim that a significant number of Ghanaians will be disenfranchised because the National Identification Authority is yet to complete its registration exercise.

Minority MPs and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have also accused the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) of conniving with the EC and the NIA to rig the 2020 elections.

----citinewsroom
By Express News Service

VIJAYAPURA: Evading interstate checkposts, many migrants and residents of border areas of Karnataka and Maharashtra slip past policemen and make their way illegally through the dry Bheema riverbed. Hundreds of people crossing the borders on two-wheelers and barefoot, without valid passes and permissions from the authorities, are a common sight at the Bheema river, which runs as a border between Karnataka and Maharashtra, in Chadachan taluk of Vijayapura.

With an increase in migrants entering Karnataka through the inner routes, residents of villages located on the banks of the river are afraid of getting infected by the virus. The police, in association with the district administration, have set up interstate checkposts, and deployed personnel. Only vehicles with valid passes are allowed to enter and exit the interstate border.

As institutional quarantine is mandatory for travellers coming to Karnataka from hotspot states, mainly Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, they want to avoid it and opt for inner roads, and beds of streams and rivers to cross the border, a source said. Among the 67 active cases in the district, 85% have travel history to Maharashtra. Additional SP Ram L Arasidi told TNIE, We will increase patrolling along borders and deploy men in the villages along the river bank. Those caught illegally crossing the border will be put in institutional quarantine, he said.
Bulandshahr:

A cattle merchant was robbed of Rs 20 lakh by motorcycle-borne persons at Meerpur village, about 25 km from here, police said on Friday.

According to SP (Rural) Pankaj Pandey, the merchant, Akram, was on his way to a cattle fair at Etmadpur of Agra with a bag containing Rs 20 lakh for purchasing cattle.

He was intercepted in an alley of the village by six bandits riding on two motorcycles, who snatched the bag from him at gunpoint. A case has been registered in this regard and police is combing the area, the SP said.

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India is still concerned over continued Chinese military deployment in rear positions near Ladakh despite its disengagement at three locations in the union territory (UT).

Army personnel from both sides (India and China) have disengaged from Galwan valley area (Patrolling Point 14), Patrolling point 15, and Hot Springs (Patrolling Point 17) in Eastern Ladakh area by 2-2.5 kilometres.

"Heavy Chinese deployment, including 10,000 troops in the rear positions along with their heavy artillery, tank regiments, and fighter bomber squadrons is the main matter of concern. This build-up has to end and troops have to be de-inducted by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to end the tensions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC)," senior government sources told India Today TV.

Also Read: India-China row: Chinese fighters fly close to Ladakh, India keeps a close eye

The sources added that although Chinese troops have disengaged and soldiers on the Indian side were also retreating from three areas, tensions still prevail and will end only once de-induction starts. They further stated that the Chinese build-up in its rear areas with tanks and artillery remained intact with no signs of de-escalation.

Officials said the issue would be brought up at senior-level military talks between the two countries, slated to take place in the next 10 days.

India and China are conducting confidence-building measures before beginning Major General-level talks that are likely to start on Wednesday (June 10). Other talks at ground locations will also take place shortly.

Since the standoff that began between India and China in the first week of May (last month), followed by a violent clash in Pangong Tso lake, both the countries have been looking to find a solution to the ongoing dispute in Eastern Ladakh.

Also Read: Eastern Ladakh border dispute: Indian, Chinese armies to resolve issue through talks

The trigger for the face-off was China's stiff opposition to India laying a key road in the Finger area around the Pangong Tso Lake besides construction of another route connecting the Darbuk-Shayok-Daulat Beg Oldie road in Galwan Valley.

During their military-level talks on June 6, India and China agreed to follow the broad decisions taken by their leaders in the Wuhan summit in 2018 to ensure peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

On June 6, Lt General Harinder Singh, the general officer commanding of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Commander of the Tibet Military District Maj Gen Liu Lin held an extensive meeting.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it.

Also Read: China deceives India in Ladakh; mobilises forces on mud trucks
By PTI

SHILLONG: Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in a letter to Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has expressed concern over the "slow progress" of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in the state, officials said on Wednesday.

The northeastern state was allocated Rs 86.02 crore in 2019-20 but due to the "slow progress" of work, Rs 43.01 crore was released, out of which the state could utilise only Rs 26.35 crore, they said.

As announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 15, 2019 the states are implementing JJM with an aim to provide potable drinking water to every rural household through household tap connections (FHTCs) by 2024.

The Union minister has urged the chief minister to "take up works immediately in a campaign mode in 3,891 villages" in the state reported to have piped water supply schemes.

There is a need for proper planning to achieve the goal of JJM within the time frame with focus on augmentation of the existing water supply systems to provide tap connections to remaining households, he said.

"Priority is to be given to saturation of villages in aspirational districts, SC/ ST dominant villages/ habitations and villages covered under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana," Shekhawat said in the letter.

Under the Jal Jeevan Mission, funds are provided by the Centre based on output in terms of household tap connections provided and the utilisation of available funds.

Against the target of providing tap connections to 1.17 lakh households in 2019-20, only 1,800 tap connections were given, according to Jal Jivan Ministry officials.

The Union Jal Shakti minister has also assured the chief minister of his full support to make the state a 100 per cent FHTC state by December, 2022.

The Union minister informed Sangma that allocation for Meghalaya has been increased to Rs 174.92 crore in 2020-21.

Besides this, an opening balance of Rs 17.46 crore, an assured availability of Rs 192.38 crore of Central fund with matching state share, Meghalaya will have Rs 216 crore during 2020-21 for implementation of JJM, the official said.

Shekhawat stressed that providing potable water to every rural household is a national priority and the state should make efforts to accomplish the goal in a time bound manner.
Good faith coverage disputes over pandemic-related business interruption coverage dont have to be fought out in courts, and retroactive rewrites of business interruption coverage language are unfair, according to a plaintiffs lawyer who represents restaurants.

John Houghtaling, II, a lawyer for Gauthier Murphy & Houghtaling, in Louisiana who represents the Business Interruption Group, told Carrier Management last week that the idea of a federal subsidy program, which would reimburse insurers that voluntarily pay pandemic-related business interruption claims filed under policies with virus exclusions, is a win-win proposition that he believes will soon be introduced as a draft legislation.

Houghtaling, who also proposed such a program at a House Small Business committee virtual forum back on May 21, agrees that there has been some confusion about what the proposal is all about. We expect to have bipartisan support in the House and Senate from those that understand it. However, there is a big misunderstanding. Were hopeful that once its introduced, there is an understanding of it, he said.

During a half-hour phone interview last week, he corrected some misconceptions about the proposal and said that he fully expected a Democratic congressman to introduce a bill based on the idea in the near future. (Carrier Management had not received confirmation of impending introduction from the potential bill sponsor at press time.)

What It Says

In a nutshell, the BIG proposal would allow insurers to opt into a program under which they agree to pay losses under business interruption policies that have some language containing the word virus, and where insureds and insurers have realistic arguments for and against coverage.

In Houghtalings mind, battles over ambiguous language shouldnt enrich plaintiffs lawyers or defense lawyers.

My proposal is that if an insurance company has put the word virus somewhere into the policy, and is arguing that thats excluding everything for a pandemic, then that carrier is not compelled to but can voluntarily pay it now and receive reimbursement for the claim amount and the claim expenses, he said.

What were offering is cheaper for government, for businesses, for employees, and for insurance companies. It will be better for the government to have these companies stay in the economy than to go bust. It will be better for employees not to be on unemployment line, but to have their jobs. It will be better for the insurance companies to have an outto have some subsidy for this, rather than turning it over to the expensive lawyers. Itll be better for the businesses to have the limited coverage.

No one is getting shortchanged or overcompensated with this plan, he said, explaining that a business interruption policy is exactly measured to what businesses need. Your payroll is in there as a line item. Your rent is in there as a line item.You pay dollar premiums for certain amount of coverage, which is just necessary to keep your lights on. So its a proper measure, he said. By contrast, a lot of relief programs fall short because theres been windfalls for companies that dont need it. Theres nothing for companies that do.

Houghtaling continued: If all this gets turned over to fighting lawyers, the lawyers make the money. And Ive got to tell you, it is against my own self-interest because I am one. But in this particular case, I am going to be litigating over the ashes of my best friends in my life who happen to be in the restaurant and hospitality business, he said.

Part of the responsibility for the shutdown is the government. Part of the [problem] may be from the insurance companies not being clear on their contracts and not using the word pandemic when they should have. Lets come with an equitable solution that will be cheaper, he said.

What It Doesnt Say

Insurers that have clear language in their policies wouldnt be included in the proposed federal reimbursement program, Houghtaling said.

If you clearly excluded pandemics, you excluded pandemics. If you use the word pandemic and you excluded it, its obvious. Youre out, he said, noting that insurers dont need any assistance for coverage denials in these cases.

If you dont have any exclusion for viruses or pandemics or anything, youre not part of the program either.

Its the ones in the middle where it may be ambiguous, and theres going to be litigation over, he said. As long as the word virus is in the policy that excludes some coverage, we wouldnt have a debate where it applies or what it applies to.

Its policy specific, not company specific, he said, when asked about insurers that wrote some policies that contain virus exclusions and other policies where insurers simply contend that language requiring direct physical loss of or damage to property from a covered cause of loss supports claims denials.

It would not apply to where theres no mention of pandemic or virus in it whatsoever.The program would not be appropriate to thatthis is the way we view itbecause thats not an argument. Its a baloney argument, he said, referring to carriers contention that COVID-19 doesnt impact property. Its not a true argument. Its a lie. And its not going to go anywhere in the courts. This is going to be decided very quickly. I filed the first declaratory judgment [action] in the world on this issue, he said.

My feeling is its inappropriate to subsidize an insurance company that has collected policy premiums when they clearly owe [coverage]. It is also inappropriate to subsidize for policies that clearly exclude it, he said. The program is for the ones where theres some ambiguity. It applies where theres a good faith dispute.

Still, there is document on BIGs website that describes the proposal as follows: Those that opt in must pay B.I. [business interruption] claims on policies without virus exclusions. If they do so, insurers can apply and receive reimbursement on B.I. claims and claims expense that are subject to virus exclusion. (emphasis added)

Houghtaling explained that the first sentence has been reconsidered in the latest workup of the BIG proposal.

We were thinking initially about not allowing an insurance company to go into a program unless they paid all the other policies, he said. The revised thinking says, Lets forget about that because its too hard to force somebody to do something. Lets just make it voluntary.

For the insurers hanging their hats on direct physical loss of or damage to property language to say they dont have to pay claims, let them hire a lawyer and waste money on lawyers and get their clock cleaned. But the ones where you have an ambiguous situation should be able to opt in.

Summing up, Houghtaling said: What the insurance industry should do is to pay the policies that they owe; they should deny the policies they dont owe. In between those extremes, if there are ones that they fight about, that we can have arguments on both sides [about], what were suggesting is lets solve this issue now. The alternative is spending years in court and billions of dollars on legal fees after people have been put on unemployment lines, [businesses] have gone bankrupt with the domino effect of mortgage and lease defaults rippling through the economy.

Not Retroactive; Not Prospective

The lawyer, who has filed cases on behalf of Oceana Grill against Lloyds and on behalf of Thomas Keller Restaurant Group against The Hartford, said that lawmakers who had been seeking to retroactively knock out exclusions in existing policies now realize this cant go backwards.

Other proposals seek to deal with pandemic-related business interruption coverage prospectively, he said, seemingly referring to the Pandemic Risk Insurance Act introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) a few weeks ago, and the Business Continuity Protection Program, supported by insurance industry trade groups. Although he did not mention either by name, he said a prospective plan is something that doesnt help us now. Its leaving this problem in the middle of what do we do for people now that have bought these policies that believe that they applywhere they may apply but weve got to litigate them?

The insurance industry is coming up with arguments. Some may have merit; some have no merit. For example, COVID-19 doesnt impact property. That is hogwash. Contamination, where I cant use something, is a loss to property in all the case law.

Houghtaling is particularly incensed by situations like the one he says client Keller faces, having bought a policy that actually has a virus inclusion. Not only does it not exclude pandemics or viruses, but it has affirmative coverage for cleanup, and theyre denying him, the lawyer contends. Theyre denying policies that not only are all-risk policies that have no exclusion, that have specific civil authority coverage, but theyre actually denying policies that have affirmative coverage.

For policies that where contamination cleanup is a covered cause of loss, he contends, civil authority coverage is triggered. It triggers the entirety of the other coverages. You have to look at the words of the contract, he said.

The insurance industry keeps saying, Dont change our policies, but theyre misrepresenting what the policies say. Thats the part that I find to be morally reprehensible, he said.

I agree with the insurance industry that any legislation to retroactively change the wording of contracts I do not believe is either constitutional or fair, nor do I think it works. Ive seen these attempts before, and I dont think that theyre fair. John W. Houghtaling, II Business Interruption Group

Still, Houghtaling said he agrees with a lot of the what the industry has to say, using the testimony of Sean Kevelighan, CEO of Insurance Information Institute, to highlight areas of agreement he had with Kevelighan when both men testified at the Small Business committee virtual forum last month. We agree that we should not retroactively change policies, he said, referring to Kevelighans assertions that any efforts to retroactively rewrite business interruption policies are not only unconstitutional, but would imperil the insurance industrys ability to pay [other] covered insurance claims. We agree that policyholders and the insurers should live by the terms of them, he said, noting that Kevelighan also said that some policies, which do not exclude viruses, should be enforced as written.

The only stark disagreement is one of fact, which is that the insurance industry is denying that the coronavirus contaminates property, he added.

What were trying to do is to have something that is pro-consumer and pro-insurance company.

Were not against the insurance industry.Were not asking for policies to be changed, he said.

Topics Carriers Legislation Claims Property Market
Chesapeake Dr., 3100 block, 1 p.m. May 24. Rescue personnel were treating an unconscious man. After he regained consciousness, he became disorderly, refused to follow officers commands, and actively resisted by striking an officer and attempting to strike another officer. After a brief struggle, the man was detained, and it was determined he was under the influence and in possession of suspected narcotics. He was taken to a hospital with minor injuries. The 42-year-old Dumfries man was arrested and charged with two counts of assault and battery on law enforcement, possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and intoxicated in public.
New Delhi: Actors Sushant Singh Rajput and Varun Sharma`s former manager Disha Salian died on Monday night by allegedly committing suicide. As per news agency ANI, Disha jumped off the 14th floor of a building in Mumbai`s Malad. The exact reason behind the suicide is yet to be ascertained. However, after interrogating her close friend, police said that Disha was suffering from depression for the last few days.

Soon after the news broke, Sushant and Varun took to their respective social media accounts to offer their condolences.

"It's such devastating news. My deepest condolences to Disha's family and friends. May your soul rest in peace," Sushant wrote.

While Varun shared an old photo of himself with Disha and said, "Am at a loss of words. Speechless, numb. It all looks unreal. So many memories. Such a lovely person and a dear friend. You always wore that smile every day and with such kindness, you dealt with everything that came your way. You will be deeply missed. Prayers and strength to the family. I still can't believe Disha you're gone. Gone too soon."

Actors such as Sonakshi Sinha, Mouni Roy, Prateik Babbar and Aayush Sharma also mourned Disha by offering their condolences on Varuns post.

Nushrat Bharucha said, "Shaken. Just sunk hearing this really.. Don't know how to believe you are gone.. My thoughts and prayers with your family, whose grief I cannot even begin to fathom.. may you rest in peace Disha. Lots of love."

Shaken. Just sunk hearing this really.. Don't know how to believe you are gone.. My thoughts and prayers with your family, whose grief I cannot even begin to fathom.. may you rest in peace Disha. Lots of love. pic.twitter.com/dGjcqSvovw  Nushrat Bharucha (@NushratBharucha) June 9, 2020

Comedian Bharti Singh, whom Disha had reportedly managed earlier, also condoled her death with an old photo.

Apart from Sushant, Varun and Bharti, it is being said that Disha has also managed Rhea Chakrabortys work.
In light of all that is taking place in our state and in this country, I think its necessary to say that as a person of color, I live in a predominantly white community and I love the goodness of the majority of people around me. Are we perfect? No, but I notice that when I smile at people they smile back. Can we do better? Absolutely, but I can walk into my city police department and the chief will take the time to sit and have a meaningful conversation with me. The experience Ive had with unethical and illegal conduct connected to my county law enforcement, Ive chosen to handle, legally, in federal court  because thats where I believe it makes the most sense to fight that battle.

As a country, we have to get to a place where those who feel they dont have a voice are able to realize that they DO. There is always SOMEONE who sees things the way you do and is willing to help amplify your voice. Sadly enough, that also applies to people who have immoral and unethical agendas as well.
Analysts for Standard & Poors Global Ratings shared a view that U.S. underwriting losses from COVID-19 would fall in the $15-$30 billion range.

However, risk officers speaking at a rating agency conference last week said the estimate is light.

S&P Director Stephen Guijarro revealed the rating agencys projection, which is based on its research and information gathered from S&Ps rating universe, during an introductory session of the S&Ps Annual Insurance on Thursday, taking place virtually this year for the first time. Guijarro said the estimate is limited to the U.S.-only. It also assumes virus exclusions in commercial property policies with business interruption coverage will hold and that legislative efforts to ignore them will fail, Guijarro said.

If these efforts were to gain any momentum or shelter-in-place restrictions were to be extended, these losses estimates could materially alter, he said, noting that right now, the range is equivalent to a medium-to-large-sized catastrophe.

The storm has made landfall but it hasnt finished.

Sean Ringsted, Chubb

Sean Ringsted, executive vice president, chief digital officer and CRO for Chubb Group, said, We think its going to be the largest insured loss thats [ever] been, without putting a specific number on his view during a later session of the conference. The event has global impact, not just in the U.S., he said, pointing out an important limitation of the S&P estimate, as well as the uncertainty around liability lines of business.

The storm has made landfall but it hasnt finished, Ringsted said, noting that its part medical catastrophe and part economic catastrophe, with the latter set to play over 12-18 more months.

Greg Richardson, chief risk and strategy officer for TransRe, puts underwriting losses at a number a little worse than S&P, but agrees with the S&P conclusion that they will be manageable.

The insurance industry, especially the P/C reinsurance segment, is all about volatility. So, weve been battered by extreme events every few years for the past 20 or 30 years. I think we understand risk. Were prepared for it, he said. Its manageable within our balance sheets, within our capacities. [But] it opens our eyes to things that maybe we didnt expect to happen.

In particular, Richardson gave the example of one well-known very, very proud and good insurance company, not an American one [that] has been in the headlines because of commercial business interruption insurance policy wordings. They went to enormous pains in that wording to eradicate any sort of coverage from cyber riskRoll the tape back a year, and everybody was talking about cyber so much, you just got sick of it.

The carrier thought so obsessively about cyber that it left the door open to disease pandemic exposure, he said, reporting that the word virus appears in this unnamed carriers policies in the context of cyber risk rather than human communicable disease.

We dont think even the most aggressive plaintiffs bar would try to ascribe fault to most insureds. Greg Richardson, TransRe

More generally, Richardson said, that because the pandemic touches on every aspect of life, it also touches on every aspect of P/C insuranceand life insurance. It transcends all lines of business, he said, revealing that for TransRe, the most immediate impact was on the event cancellation line. Those were pretty obvious and we understand the losses but it was a nice little pop in the jaw for us. Ill be honest with that, he said, referring to event cancellation losses.

For other lines, there are elements of uncertainty for primary carriers and reinsurers, he said. To the extent commercial BI [business interruption] is in property-cat contracts, that would be something we certainly did not model or price for as an industry, he said.

While TransRe writes twice as much casualty reinsurance business as property business, Richardson said hes not too worried about COVID casualty exposures. We dont think even the most aggressive plaintiffs bar would try to ascribe fault to most insureds, he said.

In terms of industry losses, he said he falls somewhere between S&P and Ringsted without giving a specific figure but noting that two downside risks play into this assessment: the financial downside which affects the liability side and the asset side, and the unknown around legislative and legal risk around commercial BI.

Those are big unknownspotentially, if not black swans, brown swans that are lurking.

During a later panel featuring industry CEOs, S&P polled the audience watching the virtual conference to give their views of ultimate losses, polling twiceboth before and after industry executives spoke. It didnt matter that the CEOs said that policy wordings for business interruption would hold given facts and the weight of historical case law in between the two polls. In both, only about 35 percent of attendees agreed with S&Ps $15-$30 billion range. Roughly 56-57 percent indicated that they believed the figure would surpass $30 billion.

Photo: A sign tells patrons We are closed until further notice in Port St. Lucie, Florida, Wednesday, March 29, 2020. (AP Photo/NewsBase)
Greece and Austria prepare to lift restrictions for Italian tourists.

Austria will reopen its border with Italy from 16 June as the country relaxes its coronavirus restrictions, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

The news was announced by Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg who said that a travel warning would remain in place for Lombardy, the north Italian region hardest-hit by the covid-19 crisis.

Schallenberg also invited Austrians to "not forget common sense when packing" for their summer holidays abroad.

Separately, Greece is to gradually lift all restrictions on Italian tourists entering the country by the end of this month, reports ANSA.

Greece's foreign minister Nikos Dendias, speaking after discussions in Athens with his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio on 9 June, said the move was based on Italy's "radically improving" coronavirus situation.

Italy reopened to visitors from the European Union and Schengen area countries on 3 June as the country begins a tentative return to international tourism following three months of covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

As European Union states reopen their internal borders, the external borders of the EU will be reopened in a second phase starting from 1 July, the EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell announced on 10 June.
A man from Haryana, angry after her married daughter eloped with her lover, hacked two people to death in Rajasthan, the police said. One of the persons he killed was the brother of the man her daughter eloped with, the police added.

The incident happened in Jhunjhunu district on Monday night.

The accused has been identified as Anil Jat. He killed Deepak Kumar (20) and his friend Naresh Kumar (19) while they were sleeping on the terrace of Deepaks house. Their bodies were found stained in blood by Deepaks father Rajveer at around 4 am, the police said.

Rajveer immediately informed the police about the incident after which dog squad was called for investigation and senior police official also reached the spot. The axe Jat used was also recovered a few metres away from the spot.

During preliminary investigation, it was revealed that the daughter of the accused Anil Jat, native of Mahendragarh district in Haryana, had got married in Lalamandi village of Buhana town. She is allegedly absconding with another son of Rajveer identified as Krishna and things were not good between the two families. On June 2, the in-laws of the Anils daughter had reported her missing. We further collected evidence and detained him, said Gyan Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Buhana (in Jhunjhunu district).

The police said that Anil Jat came from Haryana on a bike. The accused movements was also captured in a CCTV placed in Buhana police station area. After his bike got stuck in the partially constructed road, Anil walked till Rajveers house and killed both the young men sleeping on the roof. While fleeing the spot the axe fell at some distance from his hand, Singh added.

The official further added that when questioned, Anil said that once he is released from the police custody he would kill the daughter and her lover too. The accused also wanted to kill Rajveer but he was not able to find him. Jat told that I have lost my prestige in society because of Rajveers son and I will take revenge, the Buhana DSP told.

The deceased Deepak had one brother Krishna and one sister. While his sister is married, both brothers were unmarried. Deepaks along with his best friend Naresh Kumar wanted to get into the armed forces and were preparing for that. The police said that both used to wake-up early in the morning and used to go for jogging together in the village and thats why Kumar used to sleep at Deepaks home.
Living in close proximity to oil and gas operations may increase the risk of preterm birth, according to new research on births in California's primary oil-producing region. The work could inform discussions about the state's implementation of setbacks from oil and gas extraction facilities.

Researchers examined 225,000 births from mothers who lived within about six miles of oil and gas wells in the San Joaquin Valley from 1998 to 2011. The results show that women who lived near wells in the first and second trimesters were 8 to 14 percent more likely to experience a spontaneous preterm birth -- one that would otherwise be unexplained -- at 20 to 31 weeks. Spontaneous preterm birth, in which a pregnancy ends before 37 weeks of gestation, is the leading cause of infant death in the United States.

The study, published June 5 in Environmental Epidemiology, adds to a small body of population-based research aimed at better understanding how environmental factors may affect the health outcomes of pregnancy, and it is among the first to investigate a potential link between residential proximity to oil and gas operations and spontaneous preterm birth in California. About 17 million people in the United States live within one mile of an active oil or gas well, including 2.1 million in California.

"There's some evidence that environmental exposures increase risk of preterm birth, but this particular exposure -- oil and gas -- has received very little attention in California, despite having millions of people living in close proximity to wells," said lead author David Gonzalez, a PhD candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "We're getting a sense that this does potentially have an adverse effect on health outcomes of pregnancy."

The analyses focused on how exposure to wells may affect spontaneous preterm births. Therefore, the researchers excluded multiple births and women who had medical conditions associated with early delivery, like maternal preeclampsia. Of about 225,000 birth outcomes analyzed over a 13-year period, 28,000 were spontaneous preterm births. The negative impact of living near a well appeared strongest among women who were Hispanic, Black or had fewer than 12 years of education.

"For me, the higher risk for the Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black women is an important signal and it makes me want to ask more questions," Gonzalez said.

The new findings differ with those from another recent study from the University of California, Berkeley, which found that living near oil and gas operations throughout the state may increase the risk of low birth weight and small gestational age -- but not preterm birth. The Stanford researchers note that one thing they did differently was to look only at cases of spontaneous preterm births, which the UC Berkeley group did not do.

"The causes of preterm birth, particularly those that occur spontaneously, remain a mystery. If you group all types of preterm births together, it makes it very hard to identify possible causes," said senior author Gary Shaw, DrPH, a professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "We looked exclusively at spontaneous preterm with our best efforts to look at narrower slices of when babies were born."

While previous studies on birth outcomes in Pennsylvania, Texas and Colorado have focused on unconventional natural gas extraction (commonly known as fracking), most wells in California are drilled using conventional methods. The researchers only analyzed wells that were active or in the preproduction stage -- when the wells were being constructed -- since those are expected to have the most emissions. The analyses included about 83,000 wells, 12,000 of which were in preproduction. They included mothers living within six miles of a well into their analyses of the highest risk of exposure.

"California is considering regulating how close to sensitive sites like schools these wells should be allowed to operate. I think this paper is strong evidence that we need to think carefully about that decision," said co-author Marshall Burke, an associate professor in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford Earth. "A key next step, I think, is finding out explicitly how close you need to be to a well for it to cause harm."

The researchers also hope to further explore why living near a well could be associated with a spontaneous preterm birth. Residents near wells may be exposed to a range of environmental contaminants and stressors. For example, they could be breathing in chemicals used in extraction, experiencing stress from drilling noise, drinking contaminated water or breathing in higher levels of particulate matter in the air around such sites.

"We don't understand what causes preterm birth, but we understand that certain factors increase your risk, and environmental exposures are among those factors," Gonzalez said.
Authorities in Oklahoma are investigating the arrest of two black teenagers who were accused by white police officers of jaywalking in a Tulsa neighborhood.

Tulsa police on Tuesday released two body camera videos of the officers who handcuffed two black teenagers on June 4 around 5 p.m. for allegedly jaywalking after a video of their arrest went viral on social media.

In one video, two officers approach the pair from behind who can be seen walking in the middle of the street in what appears to be a residential Tulsa neighborhood.

Tulsa police on Tuesday released two body camera videos of the officers who handcuffed two black teenagers on June 4 around 5 p.m. for allegedly jaywalking after a video of their arrest went viral on social media

Within seconds of contact, an officer begins trying to restrain one of the teens without even informing him of what he's done.

The video shows both officers forcing the teen down to the ground, finally telling him that they are detaining him for jaywalking.

The other teen can be heard asking the officers why they are choking the teen. He then tells his friend who's on the ground lying on his stomach to 'chill out.'

An officer handcuffed the teen on the ground as the other teen asked the officers why the teen was getting arrested.

Within seconds of contact, an officer begins trying to restrain one of the teens without even informing him of what he's done

It was not immediately known if the teens were issued a citation or formally charged

'All he was doing was jaywalking,' one officer responds to the teen. 'We just want to talk with him. Then he had to act a fool like that.'

The officers later handcuffed the other teen, too. The clip continues with the disgruntled teen repeatedly calling the officers 'racist' for their behavior.

It was not immediately known if the teens were issued a citation or formally charged.

Tulsa police said the arrest is under investigation by the department's Internal Affairs Unit.

Tulsa police said the arrest is under investigation by the department's Internal Affairs Unit

The video prompted a response from Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, who declared that he wanted every kid in Tulsa to 'feel safe to walk down the street in their neighborhood.'

'No Tulsa kid should have to fear being tackled and cuffed for walking down the street. I viewed that footage last night more as a parent than a mayor,' he said in a Wednesday morning Facebook post.

'I know the officers in that unit focus on removal of illegal guns from the streets, but the goal of that work should be that families feel safe in their neighborhood. This instance accomplished the opposite.

'This specific instance is under investigation, but I am also going to work with Chief Franklin to review the way that unit goes about its work in general. We can do better.'
(Editors note: This story has been revised. The original version incorrectly reported the state Health Department did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.)

Syracuse, N.Y.  New Yorks nursing homes say a state mandate requiring them to test all their workers twice a week for Covid-19 is too costly and no longer necessary because they have taken enough steps to protect residents from the virus.

Three industry groups sent a letter Tuesday to Dr. Howard Zucker, the states health commissioner, asking him to drop the testing mandate ordered last month by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The testing policy   creates significant economic and practical burdens that inhibit, and often detract from, our ability to provide safe and quality care to our residents, the letter says. It was signed by Stephen Hanse of the New York State Health Facilities Association, Michael Balboni of the Greater New York Health Care Facilities Association and Neil Heyman of the Southern New York Association.

Advocates for the elderly blasted the request.

Bill Ferris, a lobbyist for AARP New York called the testing mandate a life-saving policy.

When this virus gets in a nursing home its a killer, he said. If one person is infected it can spread through a facility like fire through dry grass and thats unacceptable.

Brian Lee of Families for Better Care, a national group that advocates for nursing home residents, said more, not less, testing is needed.

They should be doubling down on their testing efforts, not making excuses, Lee said.

The state Health Department said the more than 423,000 tests conducted on nursing home employees over the past three weeks have saved lives.

Nobody is more aggressive than New York State when it comes to testing," the department said in a statement. "We are reviewing our data and information from multiple stakeholders, including this letter, and we remain as committed as ever before on protecting our most vulnerable populations and the front line workers who support them.

About 6,100 New York nursing home residents  69 of them in Onondaga County  have died of Covid-19 as of June 9, according to the state. Those residents account for about one-quarter of New Yorks 24,348 Covid-19 deaths.

Hanse estimated it costs about $32 million to test New Yorks 160,000 nursing home workers twice a week. Those costs are unsustainable, he said. Most commercial insurers are refusing to pay for the tests even though they are required to by the federal government, he said.

Hanse said nursing homes now have enough face masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment  PPE for short -- to safeguard residents and staff. As long as you have PPE and utilize it properly, that is significantly eradicating the spread of Covid-19 in nursing homes, Hanse said.

His groups letter says nursing homes have designated Covid-19 areas to ensure safe care of residents with and without the virus.

Hanse said nursing homes at a minimum would like to see the state reduce the testing requirement to once a week as recommended by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Lees group is advocating for the deployment of rapid testing machines to every nursing home in the nation so they can test staff, residents and residents families. The group wants the federal government to use the $226 million it has collected in fines from nursing homes over the past three years to pay for the testing machines.

Testing is the only thing thats going to abate the crisis in nursing homes until we have a vaccine, Lee said.

James T. Mulder covers health news. Have a news tip? Contact him at (315) 470-2245 or jmulder@syracuse.com
The advocacy group Campaign Zero has been pushing a series of proposals to police departments that it says can be implemented at little or no cost and will drive down police violence by 72 percent.

But the campaign has been criticized by other activists who say its proposals are not enough and that its distracting from more radical reforms. And now Campaign Zeros founders are apologizing, saying that they acknowledge their #8cantwait reform package has detracted from the larger conversation about police violence.

Unfortunately, the rollout of the campaign and the messaging around it were flawed and detracted from the broader, transformative conversation happening at this moment, wrote Campaign Zero co-founder Samuel Sinyangwe in a statement posted to Twitter Tuesday evening.

The initiative was rushed, and despite calls from myself and [co-founder] Brittany Packnett Cunningham to slow things down, it went out anyway. It was built, framed, released and managed through processes and by people that I have not worked with before and that did not reflect the way I have done this work to date."

And in a statement posted to Medium on Tuesday, Cunningham said that she left the group last week.

Fair questions have now been raised about the analysis underlying the #8cantwait initiative, she wrote.

I have listened to the frustrations regarding the rollout generally and the questions raised about the data analysis specifically. My experience is not in data science and these concerns were new to me  but given what I have now become aware of, I chose to resign and to focus on other important work, for and with our most marginalized communities.

A similar statement was posted to the groups website: While we are proud of the impact we were able to make, we at Campaign Zero acknowledge that, even with the best of intentions, the #8CANTWAIT campaign unintentionally detracted from efforts of fellow organizers invested in paradigmatic shifts that are newly possible in this moment. For this we apologize wholeheartedly, and without reservation.

Story continues

Campaign Zero had said the #8cantwait proposals are based on science, but the data behind them has drawn criticism.

Jennifer Doleac, an economics professor at Texas A&M University and director of its Justice Tech Lab, wrote, #8cantwait is not evidence-based. Their recs might be good steps, but please dont pretend that the data proves they work. We do not know if they work yet. Brilliant marketing strategy though, Ill give them that.

Fellow Campaign Zero co-founder DeRay Mckesson has been promoting the #8cantwait reforms on a number of platforms and earned endorsements from Oprah Winfrey, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and former President Barack Obama. McKesson spoke to GQ about the project last week.

The hard part is this analysis and data is new and the first of its kind, McKesson said.

And the police say, If you restrict our ability to use these types of force, you make us less safe. That actually isnt true. In cities where there are more restrictive-force policies, the police are actually safer, and communities are actually safer. The police will also say things about crime being rampant if they cant use force. Thats not true either.

Protesters block Tremont Street in Boston in a small standoff with police after a larger protest to call for police department reform. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)

As of Wednesday morning, Mckesson had not issued a statement in line with Sinyangwe and Cunningham.

The eight suggestions from the campaign include banning chokeholds and strangleholds, requiring deescalation and a warning before shooting, and a ban on shooting at moving vehicles.

Sinyangwe and Cunningham received praise for their statements from other police reform activists, but many wondered if donations to Campaign Zero would be returned or rerouted to groups calling for more aggressive reforms as part of the acknowledgment.

Activists pushing for the defunding or total abolition of police departments have insisted that #8cantwait would dilute the energy from the nationwide protests that have erupted since the death of George Floyd late last month. Critics have also said that the proposed reforms allow police unions and politicians to sidestep demands to fundamentally rethink law enforcement.

They point out that many cities have already adopted some or all of the suggestions and still have issues with police violence. And these activists argue that funding must be rerouted from police departments to social workers, drug counselors, mental health experts, and funding for schools and housing.

For example, officials in Portland, Ore., announced last week they would be canceling a plan to have officers in schools and will reroute the $1 million that was going to pay for it to a community-driven program.

It is an attempt to solve the problem, as former Dallas Police Chief Donald Brown said in 2016, of the police being asked to do too much, most of which they are not prepared to handle.

Were asking cops to do too much in this country, Brown, who is now the Chicago police superintendent, said.

We are. Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it.  Here in Dallas we got a loose dog problem; lets have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, lets give it to the cops.  Thats too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Taking inspiration from enzymes in nature, this new molecule can assist reactions for hydrogen-based energy generation and fuel production along with hydrogenation, giving new insight into enzyme mechanisms

Scientists from Kyushu University and Kumamoto University in Japan have developed a new catalyst capable of assisting three key reactions for using hydrogen in energy and industry. Inspired by three types of enzymes in nature, this research can help elucidate unknown relationships among catalysts, paving the way for efficient use of hydrogen gas as a next-generation energy source in the future.

Producing only water when used in a fuel cell to generate electricity, hydrogen holds great promise as a clean energy source to meet environmental challenges faced around the globe. One key for establishing hydrogen as a next-generation energy source is the development of catalysts--chemicals that assist and accelerate reactions without being consumed in the process--that help use it efficiently.

Catalysts play a role not only in splitting hydrogen molecules to generate electricity in fuel cells but also in putting hydrogen atoms together to form the fuel. Hydrogen also has many applications in the chemical industry, often being attached to molecules through the process of hydrogenation to modify their properties.

Nature has already developed its own set of biological catalysts, known as enzymes, capable of these same fundamental reactions. However, each of these three reactions requires a different type of enzyme, and these hydrogenase enzymes can be grouped by the metals they contain: an atom each of nickel and iron, two atoms of iron, or a single atom of iron.

Taking inspiration from nature, research teams led by Seiji Ogo from Kyushu University and Shinya Hayami from Kumamoto University now report in the journal Science Advances that a single catalyst can perform all three roles.

"Looking closely at key structures of the three types of hydrogenase enzymes in nature, we were able to design a molecule that could mimic all of these structures depending on where hydrogen attaches to it," said Ogo, professor of Kyushu University's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

The catalyst the scientists developed contains nickel and iron as the key metals. Depending on reaction conditions, hydrogen atoms will connect to the molecule in a slightly different way, leading to a twisting of the molecule that puts it in a configuration best suited for one of the three types of reactions.

While the enzymes in nature rely on different sets of metals to accomplish these reactions, the newly developed catalyst takes advantage of the molecular twist being enough to switch between structures similar to those of the three types of enzymes, thereby obtaining similar functions without changing the metals.

"In a way, we've created a molecule with a steering wheel on it," explains Ogo. "By turning the steering wheel and twisting parts of the molecule, we can turn it into three different types of catalysts--one for fuel cells, one for hydrogen production, and another for hydrogenation."

"This has allowed us to unravel three functions that were previously intertwined."

While the molecule may not be suitable for practical applications at present, it points toward the possibility of developing a single catalyst with multiple uses. More importantly, the better understanding of the catalytic processes afforded by this molecule can give crucial insight into natural enzymes and the development of future catalysts for realizing a hydrogen-powered society.

###

For more information about this research, see "[NiFe], [FeFe], and [Fe] hydrogenase models from isomers," Seiji Ogo, Takahiro Kishima, Takeshi Yatabe, Keishi Miyazawa, Ryunosuke Yamasaki, Takahiro Matsumoto, Tatsuya Ando, Mitsuhiro Kikkawa, Miho Isegawa, Ki-Seok Yoon, and Shinya Hayami, Science Advances, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz8181

This research has been carried out as a part of the research supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) for CREST Grant Number JPMJCR18R2 and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research, Grant Number JP26000008, "New Energy Sources from Hydrogenase-Photosynthesis Models," by Professor Seiji Ogo and his research group at the Center for Small Molecule Energy (Seiji Ogo, head of the center), Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, as well as the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER, Petros Sofronis, director of the institute) base of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) established by MEXT, and Fukuoka Industry-Academia Symphonicity.
The electoral commission, INEC, has approved direct primary for the All Progressives Congress (APC) to select its candidate for the September 19 governorship election in Edo State.

The APC headquarters had approved direct primary while the Edo chapter of the party wanted indirect primary. Direct primary involves voting by all members of the party while only delegates vote in indirect primary.

The primary is fixed for June 22 amidst the feud between the Edo governor, Godwin Obaseki, and his predecessor and APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole.

Mr Oshiomhole is believed to be backing another APC aspirant, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, for the partys ticket.

According to an INEC statement released on Tuesday, while APC will be conducting direct primary, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and 13 other parties have opted for indirect primaries.

The other parties that will conduct indirect primaries include: Action Alliance, (AA), African Action Congress, (AAC), African Democratic Congress (ADC), Action Democratic Party (ADP), All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Allied Peoples Movement, (APM), All Peoples Party (APP), Labour Party (LP), Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), National Resistance Movement, (NRM), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Young Progressive Party (YPP), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).

Festus Okoye, the INEC spokesperson, appealed to the various political parties to conduct their primaries in full compliance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and Electoral Act 2010 law.

He also urged political parties to eschew violence and conduct their activities in the best traditions of electoral democracy.

In accordance with Sections 85 and 87 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), 15 out of the 18 registered Political Parties have notified the Commission of their intention to conduct primaries for the purpose of nominating candidates for the Edo State Governorship election slated for 19 September 2020.

The Commission appeals to the various Political Parties to conduct their primaries in full compliance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Political Party Primaries (2018) and the INEC Police COVID-19 Pandemic of 21 May 2020.

Conducting Elections in the context of political parties Parties must shun all acts capable of breaching the peace and unsettling the peace and order of the State and jeopardizing the health and safety of party members, election officials and observers.

Mr Okoye added that the commission will work collaboratively with all the security agencies to ensure a good electoral environment for the conduct of elections.
DHAKA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China has controlled the COVID-19 epidemic with great efforts and sacrifices that now offer great learning for the world, Bangladesh Doctors' Foundation chief said.

In an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Nirupam Das, chief administrator of Bangladesh Doctors' Foundation, said the tremendous efforts and the great leadership of the Chinese government have been seen.

COVID-19 is now the main concern of the whole world, he said, adding that it is creating havoc all over the World.

"China has controlled this devastating unknown virus with tremendous potentiality within three months," said the chief administrator of the professional forum of 70,000 doctors and 28,000 medical students in Bangladesh.

"Coordinated action plans, synchronized working plans of different authorities, and a good leadership are behind this success."

With reference to the white paper on the China's battle against COVID-19, he said, "It is a great learning for the whole world."

The physician further said stigmatization and politicization of the virus will create anarchy in the world.

"Now we need a proper action plan to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic."
A Torrington man has pleaded to charges in connection with a Dec. 13, 2019, shooting.

Jaeden Trey Redder, who was charged with felony aggravated assault and battery in the Dec. 13, 2019, shooting of a Torrington man, Austin Peters, has worked out a plea deal with the prosecuting attorney.

Peters had been shot in the stomach. According to an affidavit filed in court, two witnesses told police they saw Redder put a Glock 19 to Peters head while he was seated. Both witnesses said they saw Peters grab the gun and pull it toward his stomach and the gun went off.

After the shooting, the two witnesses went with Redder, drove to the country and threw out the gun. The witnesses took officers to the location where the gun was tossed out and it was found.

Redder will plead guilty to two lesser charges. On Tuesday, June 2, he pleaded guilty in Eighth Judicial Court before Judge Patrick Korell to possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent, a felony, and a misdemeanor count of reckless endangering.
A Warren police officer remains on administrative leave amid an internal investigation of his arrest of an Amazon delivery driver who parked the wrong way on a residential street while delivering a package.

Cellphone video of a portion of the incident shows the motorcycle officer arresting the driver Tuesday afternoon on the grass at a home in the 11300 block of Engleman Road.

The officer, whose name has not been revealed by police, called for backup support. Another officer assigned to the traffic enforcement division arrived a short time later, and other officers followed. The handcuffed driver was then led into a patrol car and taken to the police station.

Neighbors reported they thought the officers actions were aggressive for taking the Amazon driver to the ground when the driver didnt immediately provide his drivers license.

Video from the traffic enforcement officers motorcycle provides a more complete account of what happened, Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer said Wednesday.

The officer had a legal reason to contact the driver, as he was parked illegally. The officer attempted to speak with the driver, informed him of the violation and requested his drivers license, Dwyer said.

The police commissioner said the Amazon driver, identified as a 23-year-old resident of Detroit, became argumentative and refused 11 requests by the officer to provide his drivers license. When the officer attempted to place the driver under arrest, the man was not cooperative and refused the officers demands to put his hands behind his back, resulting in a physical struggle, Dwyer said.

The officer took the driver to the ground to gain control of him and the situation for everyones safety before it escalated further, the citys top-ranking police administrator said.

The officer and the delivery driver were not injured during the altercation and neither requested medical attention.

The driver was ticketed for illegal parking and released from custody at approximately 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dwyer said. He had a drivers license in his possession, police said.

At one point in the police video before the arrest, the officer is heard saying: Youre on the wrong side of the road.

Detectives plan to seek a warrant from the Macomb County Prosecutors Office charging the driver with resisting and obstructing a police officer, failure to obey a lawful command and refusing to provide a drivers license.

Separately from the criminal investigation, the review of the officers actions by the Internal Affairs Division may take up to two weeks, Dwyer told The Macomb Daily. He did not provide the officers name but said he is a 19-year veteran of the force.

As part of the internal probe, police will interview people who reside close to where the arrest occurred, near 10 Mile and Hoover roads.

From when my sister walked in the house and then walked back out, the cop had him on the ground and had him cuffed and was calling for backup, Jim Michaels told WJBK-TV (Fox2) on Tuesday. Several of the neighbors spoke with the cop saying that the kid hasnt done anything, and the cop is like, Well, he was parked the wrong way.'

Geri Cheatem said the Amazon driver was polite while delivering the package to her neighbor and offered to put it on a chair because it was a little bit heavy. She said the young male driver was on the ground with arms extended and wallet in hand with the officer telling him, Put your hands behind your back, put your hands behind your back.

He was scared. He was scared, Cheatem told Fox 2, and I dont blame him.

During the internal probe, the officer will continue to collect his pay. That is common procedure at the start of any internal review. Disciplinary action in the case, if any, rests with the police commissioner and could range from termination to exoneration.

At the request of city councilmembers, Dwyer noted that traffic enforcement officers have been increasingly looking for violations by delivery drivers, including offenses such as speeding, failing to stop at stop signs and parking on the wrong side of the street.

This whole incident could have been avoided if he had just given the officer his drivers license. Its possibly he would have just got a warning, Dwyer said.

We see what others see in these videos, and its unacceptable, said Deborah Bass, a spokeswoman for Amazon. We expect a swift investigation and full accountability for those involved. Amazon will deploy all necessary resources to investigate the matter with our Delivery Service Provider, as well as to represent and support the driver.

The officer who arrested the Amazon driver Tuesday is white and the suspect is black. Thus far, there are no indications or allegations from witnesses that race was a factor in the incident, the police commissioner said.

After learning about the arrest, Mayor Jim Fouts publicly reacted quickly Tuesday afternoon, calling the officers actions disgusting and saying he ordered Dwyer to immediately fire the officer.

On his own Facebook page and in a press release, the mayor wrote: There was an outrageous and unacceptable physical altercation with a Warren Police officer involving a young African-American delivery man for Amazon to a Warren home today. I have spoken with Police Commissioner Bill Dwyer and have ordered that this officer be terminated immediately. I have zero tolerance for this disgusting act against an innocent person. If the last two weeks have taught us anything, it is that bad behavior by ANY police officer will not be tolerated! And Im calling on the Macomb County Prosecutor to look into this situation to see if charges should be brought against this individual and the U.S. Attorney if this was a civil rights violation.

The policy of the Warren Police Department and the training provided to every officer is to deescalate every situation. This officer did not follow policy or his training and is not fit to serve the citizens in Warren, the mayor said in the post, concluding it with BLACK LIVES MATTER!!

At Dwyers request, Fouts later pulled down that Facebook post and asked to withdraw the news release.

The mayor followed with a new statement on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon with no mention of discipline or the potential for a criminal investigation of the arresting officer, saying: I await further details based upon additional information. I received several phone calls earlier regarding this incident requiring me to make a statement that any type of aggressive behavior is not tolerated. I was upset that one individual could possibly besmirch the fine reputation of Warren police officers.
The ex-boyfriend of Sydney dentist Preethi Reddy, who he killed after the pair attended a dental conference, purchased a suitcase, rubbish bags, cleaning products and towels the day she died, an inquest has heard.

The coronial inquest heard Dr Reddy met Tamworth dentist Harshwardhan Narde in 2014 and they would continue an on-and-off-again relationship until 2018. While the couple had broken up, Dr Narde was not convinced the relationship was over.

But Dr Reddy had met another man and the pair were planning a future together.

Dentist Preethi Reddy has been remembered as an elegant, witty and kind person at Wednesday's coronial inquest into her death.

The "elegant, social, kind and witty" dentist was reported missing after she did not return home on March 3, 2019. The 32-year-old's body was found in a suitcase two days later in her car in Sydney's east.
The shares of Hormel Foods Corp (NYSE:HRL) nabbed a record high of $51.53 on march 18 while most of U.S. equities were selling off. Today, the company entered into an underwriting agreement according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), while Vice President James M. Splinter sold 40,000 shares of HRL, according to an SEC filing. As HRL continues to trade sideways as it has for the last two weeks, there's reason to believe this static price action could at the very least continue, and possibly lead to more upside.

More specifically, Hormel Foods stock pulled back to within one standard deviation of its 40-day moving average, following an extended period above the trendline. According to Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White, five similar signals have occurred within the past three years, after which the equity averaged a one-week gain of 1.24%, with 80% of the returns positive positive.

So at the very least, a move of similar magnitude from its current perch at $48 would mean more sideways trading for HRL. Longer term, the shares are up 14.6% in the last 12 months, yet there is pessimism abound among analysts and short sellers that could possible fuel a breakout.

HRL Chart June 10

As alluded to above, analysts have been advancing with caution. Of the seven brokerages in coverage, five rate it a tepid "hold," and there are zero "buy" ratings to be found. Plus, the 12-month consensus price target of $43.44 is a 9.5% discount to its current position. Meanwhile, short sellers are exiting at a noticeable rate. Short interest fell by 8% during the two most recent reporting periods to 26.56 million shares. Still, this represents a healthy 9.5% of HRL's total available float, so more pessimism could be unwound if shorts continue to exit the building.

Whatever the motivation, Hormel stock's Schaeffers Volatility Index (SVI) of 25% is higher than just 11% of all other readings from the past year. This means options players are pricing in relatively low volatility expectations at the moment.
By AFP

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will hold parliamentary elections on August 5, more than three months late because of the coronavirus, the election commission said Wednesday after health authorities gave their approval.

Sri Lanka has been steadily lifting lockdown restrictions, although a night-time curfew remains. Schools will re-open later this month and foreign tourists will be allowed from August 1.

A mock election will be held this weekend to test new health measures that will be implemented at polling booths and counting centres, commission chairman Mahinda Deshapriya said.

The vote was originally due on April 25 but was put off and then postponed indefinitely because of the coronavirus, which has killed 11 people in Sri Lanka and infected almost 2,000, according to official data.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had been hoping the elections would give his party a two-thirds majority in parliament, allowing it to change the constitution and secure him wider powers.
Jyotiraditya Scindia surprised political pundits and novices alike when he switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in March along with his supporters, bringing down the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. The move massively altered political equations in both parties.

These changed equations are giving a tough time to the BJP and Congress as they prepare for bypolls to 24 assembly seats, 16 of which are in the Gwalior-Chambal region, the citadel of Jyotiraditya Scindia. The Congress had swept 26 out of the 34 seats here in the 2018 assembly polls.

With the defection of leaders, several established politicians are finding it difficult to cope with the altered scenario in their own parties.

The latest is former deputy leader of opposition in the assembly Chaudhary Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi, who had deserted the Congress to join the BJP in 2013. He returned to the Congress last year and is a ticket aspirant

Interestingly it was Jyotiraditya Scindia who had facilitated his return. Though Chaturvedi could not secure a ticket in 2018, he is again in the hunt from the Mehgaon seat in Bhind. But his old rival Ajay Singh, the former leader of opposition, contested his ticket in front of state Congress committee chief Kamal Nath recently. He was backed by another Bhind senior MLA, Dr Govind Singh.

Chaturvedis problems multiplied as senior leader Digvijaya Singh openly opposed his ticket on Sunday. Stung by this, Chaturvedi on Monday hit back, asking in which capacity Digvijaya Singh was opposing him.

Besides, in an interesting development, Guna MP Krishna Pal Singh Yadav, who defeated Scindia in 2019, has expressed his anger at the former Congress leader being accommodated in the BJP. As former Congress minister Sachin Yadav visited Ashoknagar on Monday, KP Yadavs brothers, Mahendra and Ajay, not only met the ex-minister, but also attended a Congress meeting.

Scindias close aide Tulsi Silawat who resigned as MLA from the Sanwer seat is also facing opposition. Former Ujjain MLA Premchand Guddu, who had left the Congress to join the BJP in 2018, recently made a comeback and is said to be sure of a ticket from Sanwer. Besides, Rajesh Sonkar, ex-MLA of BJP from Sanwer, is also not too pleased with Silawats entry into the BJP.

Moreover, ex-minister of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet, Deepak Joshi, is also vying for a ticket against Manoj Chaudhary who defeated him on a Congress ticket and recently resigned to join the BJP.

The Congress has expelled several partymen to flush out Scindia loyalists from the organisation. It sacked ten party leaders in Anuppur on Tuesday. Ex-MLA from the region Bisahulal Singh left the Congress in March.

Suggesting that all isnt well in the Gwalior-Chambal region, state home minister Narottam Mishra, who is considered to be the man who staged the coup by the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, had visited Gwalior on Sunday and met five senior party leaders. Though he denied any resentment, his visit was widely seen as an effort to contain internal damage.

Political analysts believe that the internal discord will pick up in both the parties once the ticket distribution process inches closer.

Besides, allocation of ministerial berths is also giving anxious moments to several BJP leaders. The aspirations are high for these berths which is why cabinet expansion has been deferred repeatedly. Most of the 22 MLAs who joined the BJP recently are hopeful of a place in the cabinet.

Governor Lalji Tandon left for Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, indicating that the cabinet expansion process has been deferred further.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The West Virginia Senate president who was dogged by teacher protests at the statehouse lost to a teacher in his Republican primary reelection bid Tuesday.

Senate President Mitch Carmichael was defeated by Amy Nichole Grady, a teacher from Mason County who snagged the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers West Virginia chapter. In November, Grady will face Bruce Ashworth, a roofing business employee who was unopposed in the Democratic primary. The seat is expected to remain in Republican hands.

Carmichael congratulated Grady on the win via Twitter, saying he looked forward to supporting her campaign in the general election in November to ensure our district continues to have a leader who will always fight for conservative values.

Carmichael, a Jackson County Republican, has been the target of dozens of teachers who packed the state capitol to protest his proposals to create the states first charter schools. He has also publicly feuded with Republican Gov. Jim Justice over the issue.

Earlier this year, Carmichaels Senate GOP leadership had many of its high-profile bills fail, including a proposal to create a new intermediate appeals court, a measure to cut subsidies for greyhound racing and a bill to cut a tax on manufacturing businesses.

Grady has called herself a Pro-life, Pro-2nd Amendment conservative teacher who is fed up with self-serving elected officials.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are a black man or woman living in the US in 2020. How could you not believe that racism kills? If you are black, you need not imagine anything. You know it very well.

You dont need to see the video of George Floyd, a police officers knee on his neck as he struggled for his dying breaths, to know that US black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than are white people.

You don't need to hear the racial statistics on COVID-19 to know that black people have been affected disproportionately  the same is true of eight of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States. Even before the pandemic, black life expectancy was 3 years shorter than white.

Historically, blacks have been portrayed in the US as aggressive, violent, criminal, and intellectually inferior to whites. These messages can be seen in negative tropes such as the angry black woman and the criminal, hyper-sexualized black man. We have seen these images in films, television, and even social media. Negative portrayals of blacks actively perpetuate stereotypes, implicit bias, and antiblack racism, which ultimately plays a role in perpetuating systems of racial power and privilege that are oppressive to blacks.

Many blacks are redlined into densely packed, crime-ridden urban areas. Stuck in underfinanced, substandard schools. Subjected to silent environmental catastrophes, like lead hidden in pipes and on walls.

But recent events like the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man chased and killed by armed white men as he jogged through a south Georgia neighborhood, could not be ignored. Especially because there was video.

Rayshawn Ray, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and fellow at The Brookings Institution said black people are often victims of over-policing. For example, he said, 80 to 90 percent of the arrests for breaking social distancing rules in New York City were of blacks or Latinos.

For many blacks, the line between police brutality and their sufferings in the COVID-19 pandemic is not a tenuous one. An Associated Press analysis of state and local data showed black Americans are dying at a far greater rate than would be expected, given their share of the population.

Pre-existing conditions in the black population have been cited, but Ray said those conditions often can be blamed on circumstances beyond their control  poverty, environmental ills, a lack of green space for exercise and of decent grocery stores that offer healthy foods.

As essential, low-paid workers, they had to labor through the pandemic, often with little protection. But when they got sick, they were not so essential. A study found that black people seeking testing or treatment for COVID-19 were six times more likely to be turned away than whites, Ray said.

He said theyve had to rely on a health care system that has long failed them: fewer and more distant hospitals, urgent care centers and specialists, and pharmacies that are understaffed and understocked.

How bad is black health care? In a 2010 study, sociologist Evelyn J. Patterson found that while prison generally shortened the lives of white inmates, incarcerated black prisoners had lower death rates than those on the outside. Mostly, she concluded, it was because they received better health care there.

None of this is new. The statistics on black mortality, the accounts of black killings at the hands of the police and others, have played out over generations, not weeks.

The Rev. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, said death by racism goes back to the founding of the country. It is a wound, he said, that has caused untold suffering over the centuries.We only discuss it and deeply probe it at a moment like this, he said.

Far too many black Americans remain trapped in a vicious cycle of anger, fear and hopelessness. And they will remain so until more white Americans come to grips with the countrys past and seek to repair what has been broken.

American nation will remain stuck until it redesign the systems that have kept its citizens divided for generations: a housing system designed to keep them apart; a criminal justice system designed to keep black people in check; a financial system designed to keep money in white hands; an economy that benefits the top 1 percent at the expense of workers; an education system that separates rich children from poor; a health care system that leaves too many without basic care; a political system designed to make voting a privilege and not a right.

Despite the protests, most black people will continue to miss out on their share of US prosperity, and go on earning less than white people. Many will still lack the chance to better themselves, and they will still be forced to send their children to inadequate schools. They will still be less likely to be covered by health insurance, have a lower life expectancy and they will be more likely to end up in prison, and for longer sentences. Allofthissimplybecausethey'renotwhite.
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Agriculture Minister Inam Karimov held discussions on perspectives of Azerbaijans agrarian and agri-food sector during the post-pandemic period with French Entrepreneurs Organization (MEDEF) on June 10.

During the online meeting, the sides exchanged views on the governments priorities in the agriculture sector, modernization in this sector, development of exports and financial support to agricultural sector within the context of diversification of the economy.

Heads of 34 companies from the two countries participated at the meeting.

Philip Gautier, CEO of MEDEF International, Azerbaijani Ambassador to France Rahman Mustafayev, French Ambassador to Azerbaijan Zacharie Gross, Director of the European and Asian Division of MEDEF International for Bogdan Gadenne-Feertchak, Azerbaijani Embassy official Suliddin Mammadov, Director of Agrarian Research Centre Firdovsi Fikretzade also took part in the video meeting.

Minister Inam Karimov provided the participants with detailed information on state support for the agricultural sector. The minister said that agriculture was the least damaged sector in the country's economy due to preventive measures taken by the government.

Azerbaijani Ambassador to France Rahman Mustafayev spoke about the diversification of the economy in the country, noting that agriculture and agro-industry are among the priority areas. The ambassador also emphasized the importance attached to the development of the non-oil sector and the wide potential of relations between the two countries in the sector of agriculture.

It should be noted that the online meeting has been organized as a continuation of relations with the Ministry of Agriculture during the recent visit of coworkers of the French Association for the Development of International Exchange of Food and Machinery in Agriculture (ADEPTA) and the French-Azerbaijani Business Council MEDEF International to Baku.

MEDEF International has been cooperating with Azerbaijan since 1992. MEDEF International offers a high-level, privileged platform, information and collective support to French companies interested in the Azerbaijani market within the framework of the French-Azerbaijani Business Council.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Photo from Getty Images

SINGAPORE  A woman who operated a massage establishment and provided masturbation services to a male customer during the circuit breaker period was fined a total of $22,000 on Wednesday (10 June).

Jin Yin, 55, was caught while providing the service to the male customer at In-Style Beauty Salon three days after the circuit breaker came into effect on 7 April.

She pleaded guilty to one count each of operating a massage establishment without a license and for failing to ensure that her non-residential premise was closed to entry by any individual during the circuit breaker period - when all non-essential businesses were required to close. Another similar offence under the Massage Establishments Act was taken into consideration for sentencing.

The male customer, 67, came across an advertisement on online platform Locanto, which advertised massage and masturbation services. He then called the salon on the morning of 10 April and made an appointment with Jin that afternoon for a two-hour package priced at $150 for massage and masturbation services.

Jin had been informed on 9 April by a WhatsApp text that her salon could not operate during the circuit breaker as it was not an essential service. However, she told the male customer that she was still open for business and even confirmed that she was open all the way, as per normal.

When the (male customer) asked if it was safe to go down to the salon, fearing police checks, (Jin) sent him a text message to assure him saying that she was working close door, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Jane Lim.

The customer arrived at the salon at about 1pm and paid $150 for his service. He was brought to the back of the shop where he removed his clothes and lay down on a massage bed naked. Jin then applied baby oil on him and proceeded with the service without wearing gloves.

Meanwhile, the police received two reports from a resident in the vicinity on 10 April complaining that Jins outlet was still in operation.

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Acting on the reports, police officers were dispatched to the salon, located at Block 34 Upper Cross Street, which also has residences in the upper floors of the block. Officers arrived at the outlet at about 1.35pm and observed a closed sign on the door, with the outlet appearing to be empty of movement or persons. The police officers then left the area.

Officers returned to the area at 2.30pm the same day and observed that though the outlet still appeared to be closed, cool air  from the air-conditioner  was coming out of the unit. They knocked on the door but only got a response 10 minutes later, when Jin opened the door.

Officers entered and saw the male customer sitting on a massage bed. Both he and Jin were not wearing masks. The customers two-hour package was not yet completed when the officers arrived.

Investigations revealed that Jin had also not taken any precautions, such as taking the customers temperature when he first arrived, obtain his details for contact tracing or ask for his travel history. The customer had in fact used a fake name that day.

Not the first time accused is before the courts: Prosecution

Jin had previously been convicted, in 2014 and 2016, for operating the same salon without a license, she was fined $1,800 and $1,000 respectively on each occasion.

Asking for a fine for Jin, the prosecution said that there was physical contact between Jin and her customer, which increased the risk of infection. However, the prosecution noted that since only one person entered the outlet and it wasnt for a long duration, a jail term was not warranted.

Nevertheless, Jins offence was premeditated and she did take steps to conceal her business, said DPP Lim.

Jin, who was unrepresented, told the court through a Mandarin interpreter tearfully, It is not my wish to commit such an offence but I was forced by circumstances. My mother back in hometown was ill, and because of cancer, died in September last year.

She said she would not be able to afford the fine as she was still supporting her schooling daughter in China.

She added that she was not providing masturbation services initially, but was maintaining the health of kidney. The masturbation service came about as the customer requested for a frontal massage, she claimed. I often returned to China to look after my mother who was unwell. I engaged two other ladies and they never performed such an act, she added.

Judge gave due weight to circumstances

In mitigation, Jin asked for a lower fine as business was bad and she no longer engaged the other two women.

Its just myself to earn money to support my daughter. I am running the business on my own to support a living for my child... I would not go into this trade to do this if I were not in heavy debt. I beg you, just look at me now, she pleaded with District Judge Bala Reddy.

In sentencing Jin, DJ Reddy noted Jin had not taken precautions and that Jin had previous convictions. He agreed with the prosecution that a jail term was not warranted but that the sentence ought to reflect the severity of the potential harm that may have been caused should the business not have been discovered.

Being the owner of the business, Jin could potentially bring human traffic to the salon especially with the advertising she did.

I have given due weight to her mitigation, and her early plea of guilt. Having considered that, Im of the view that a fine of $15,000, in default six weeks of jail, for the Massage Establishments Act charges would be amply justified given multiple breaches for similar offences, said the judge, who also imposed a $7,000 fine for the circuit breaker breach.

For carrying on a massage establishment without a license, Jin could have been jailed up to five years and/or fined up to $20,000, as a repeat offender.

For failing to ensure that her non-residential premise was closed to entry by any individual, she could have been jailed up to six months and/or fined up to $10,000.





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Related stories:

COVID-19: 3 men charged for breaching circuit breaker measures, including abuse of officers



Woman who sneezed on another during COVID-19 circuit breaker period charged in court



Charged: Man who hurled racist remarks, another who slapped petrol station attendant



COVID-19: 2 Singaporeans, 1 American charged for breaching Stay-Home Notices



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This creates an unusual situation for two countries with strong trade relations, and only goes to add to growing suspicions in Australia, the world's most China-dependent economy, that the tariff and bans were punishment for Canberra's political support for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus.

Since the moves last month, China has also thrown two more trade-related sanctions at Australia. Last weekend, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a warning against travel to Australia due to a significant increase in racist attacks on "Chinese and Asian people", and on Tuesday, the Ministry of Education issued a warning to its students looking to continue their studies at Australian universities when spring semester starts in July.

During a radio interview on Monday, Birmingham expressed his disappointment again at not being able to speak with Zhong despite trying several times to place a call. It is understood Birmingham's request for a phone call "could not be facilitated at this time".

"Unfortunately our requests for a discussion have, so far, been met negatively, that's disappointing," Birmingham said.

"As I've emphasised publicly, time and time again, Australia is open to have difficult discussions on matters upon which we may disagree with other countries but will do so respectfully, thoughtfully, calmly. And it's unfortunate when other nations won't respond or reciprocate in kind."

An Australian citizen responded on social media saying that, "the Chinese minister is going to keep ghosting Birmingham".

In reality, it is highly unlikely China has any intention to sever ties completely by quietly disappearing and ignoring Australia " the modern phenomenon of ghosting when one party ends a personal relationship by halting communication without an explanation " but the silent treatment is part of a new Chinese art of war, experts said.

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The Chinese government's typically subtle approach to foreign relations championed by Deng Xiaoping " known as taoguang yanghui in Chinese that involves keeping a low profile " was now history, said Bucknell University professor of political science and international relations, Zhiqun Zhu.

The change in attitude started in 2010 when China's gross domestic product surpassed that of Japan and after Beijing successfully hosted the 2008 Olympic Games. The boost in Chinese nationalism led to a decade-long internal debate of whether China should continue to keep its head down, but it was now clear cooler-headed scholars and officials have been outvoted, Zhu said.

"Snubbing Australia is part of this assertive diplomacy. It's a manifestation of China's changing attitude toward Australia. Tariffs are not the only issue between the two countries. It is clear that China is unhappy with Australia's recent moves to become part of the Trump administration's anti-China campaign," Zhu added.

China has a long list of complaints about Australia's policies, Zhu said, including its navy's participation in military exercises with the United States in the South China Sea, its ban on Huawei from its 5G infrastructure, the endorsement of a statement against Beijing's proposed national security law in Hong Kong, and political support for US senator Marco Rubio's call for the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

"From China's perspective, the current Australian government has been enthusiastic in supporting the Trump administration's high-handed approach to China. So China cannot conduct business as usual with Australia," Zhu added.

"A lot of things unfriendly toward China are happening at the same time, so from Beijing's perspective, this trend has to be stopped. So yes, Beijing's snubbing of Canberra is a strong and clear message to Australia: don't follow the Trump administration too closely and make China-Australia relations difficult.

"China and Australia have their own interests in the dynamic relationship, and they should manage the relations by themselves, unaffected by others."

Richard Maude, Asia Society Australia senior fellow and a former deputy secretary of the Indo-Pacific Group at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the change in China's harder stance towards Australia developed further when the Spratly Islands dispute in the South China Sea started around 2012.

"The political level relationship between Australia and China has been cool for some time. Much of the normal dialogue between the two countries has been put on hold by China. Not taking phone calls is simply more of the same," he said.

"China's recent Wolf Warrior diplomacy is simply the most recent iteration of a now long-standing shift towards a more aggressive, zero-sum Chinese foreign policy."

According to Ben Lowsen, a Chinese security specialist who is also an adviser to the US Air Force's strategic studies group, Checkmate, the momentum in this new and more assertive foreign relations policy, the so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy, named after a set of films in which Chinese fighters defeat Western-led enemies, has been accelerated by a more outspoken Chinese leader in Xi Jinping. He is known for grander policies " such as the Belt and Road Initiative " compared to his predecessors.

As Chinese politicians tend to "work towards the chairman", Xi in this case, the more aggressive approach they have taken towards countries like Australia is in keeping with the good graces of their leader, Lowsen said.

Zhong's behaviour towards Birmingham was therefore not surprising, especially given his comments about Australia's "100 anti-dumping investigations" against China in comparison to the single barley tariff China has against Australia, Lowsen added.

"Not returning Birmingham's phone calls shows two things. Xi does not intend to alter the tariffs at present, continuing pressure on Australia, and Zhong is stressing the seriousness of the 'insult' to his Australian counterpart," Lowsen said.

"Typically, officials will answer a counterpart's request with a yes or no, but sometimes will say they are still considering it. My experience with China is that this period of consideration can last for some time, even indefinitely, presumably because the decision maker feels the time is not yet right for either a yes or a no.

"Emphasising displeasure shows Beijing's determination to pressure Canberra to change its tune on the Covid-19 investigation."

Time will tell if China relents on its barley tariff against Australia, especially if it can get something else from Australia either in a form of an image boost or compensation, Lowsen added.

The strain lasted six years, during which no bilateral meetings were held and China placed restrictions on imports of Norwegian salmon before they were lifted in 2016.

China will definitely continue its more hardened diplomatic approach and punish countries when they take decisions Beijing does not like, a by-product of its rising power, experts said, but whether it will be effective is debatable.

"This new approach is still being developed," Zhu said.

"Whether China is 'killing the chicken to scare the monkey' is up to other countries to interpret," Zhu said, using an ancient Chinese saying meaning to punish a small entity to warn a larger one. "Still, the message of unhappiness and punishment is clear.

"Hypocrisy and double-standards are clear, which weakens the West's criticisms of China. At the core is the West's unwillingness and unreadiness to accept the rise of China, a non-democracy and a non-Western ally."

However, with respect to Australia, this retaliatory attitude could backfire, according to Maude.

"It is a counterproductive way of managing differences. It simply hardens government and public attitudes in Australia against China," he said.

Lowsen added that the new diplomatic repertoire of "working towards Chairman Xi" could come off as being off-putting and having a chauvinistic edge.

But whether it is China, Australia or even the US which offers the olive branch first, the forces that are driving a decoupling of the West from China, led by the US, appear to be in full motion.

"There may be nothing that can stop it. The alternative is a re-set that brings the temperature down and finds space within an inevitably more competitive relationship for cooperation on some issues," Maude said.

"To get to that point will require strong leadership and shifts in policy from both China and the US."

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
(Newser)  After 31 years on TV, Cops has been ordered to turn in its badge. Paramount Network, which removed the reality show from its schedule during nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd, says it won't be coming back. "Cops is not on the Paramount Network and we dont have any current or future plans for it to return," a network spokesperson tells the Hollywood Reporter. The show aired on Fox for 25 seasons before moving to SpikeTV, Paramount's forerunner, in 2013. A new season had been set to debut on Monday.

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Cops, which often featured police stings or chases, was already facing criticism for dubious practices chronicled in the "Running From Cops" podcast, Variety reports. Dan Taberski looked at how police officers sometimes coerced suspects into signing releases for the showand at how producers allowed law enforcement to remove anything they didn't want the public to see. The A&E Network has also pulled episodes of LivePD, though the show hasn't been canceled as yet, reports the Guardian. (Read more television stories.)
In May 2019 I visited Willmar High School to research a column about its transformation since my boyhood and found that its student body comprised young people from some 30 countries across Latin America, the Middle East and Asia  and nearly half the town of 21,000 was made up of Latinx, Somali and other East African and Asian immigrants.

Have no illusions; necessity was the mother of inclusion. Willmar, like so many Minnesota towns, needed workers at all skill levels. But thats often how walls first get broken down. Towns in Minnesota today that cannot manage diversity know that they will most likely wither. And they are seeing places like Willmar and St. Louis Park, which still have plenty of racial issues to manage, thrive by becoming more diverse.

As I noted in my book, Minnesota nice  the states informal motto  covered for a lot of structural racism and police brutality over the years, and still does. George Floyds death was not a freak event. But its also true that the state is full of people who want to get caught trying to reverse that. (Check out the Itasca Project and the Northside Achievement Zone as just two among many examples.) Floyds killing has shown them that the effort needs to get into a whole new gear, though.

And that brings me back to our national motto. It was easy to say Out of many, one when most of the many were white and from Europe and when the black and brown minority was small and formally and then informally not treated as equal members of the one.

But as St. Louis Park and Willmar testify, even a state like Minnesota is now just so much more diverse. And like the country, its major cities will become minority majorities over the next two decades. Unfortunately, this new level of diversity, rather than being a source of our strength, has lately become a source of paralysis.

That is how we got into Out of many, none.

Our founders created a system of divided powers, but they assumed that politicians would in the end compromise to get stuff done. Lately, however, polarization has become so tribal that compromise is impossible and the system has frozen into a veto machine, the political scientist Frank Fukuyama observed. So, we cant do anything big or hard  or together  anymore.

As many people point out, it wasnt symmetric polarization, Fukuyama said in a Zoom discussion for The American Interest. Theres been a shift clearly to the left by the Democratic Party, represented by Bernie Sanders, but the real thing that changed was a shift by the Republican Party to a position that was very unfamiliar to Reagan Republicans, in which the state itself became the enemy for a lot of the Tea Party wing of the party. And then its captured by the Trump wing that was kind of an identitarian right-wing nationalist group. And that has led, I think, to the current crisis that were in, where fundamental decisions are really deadlocked.
STOCKHOLM - Sweden on Wednesday dropped its investigation into the unsolved murder of former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, who was shot dead 34 years ago in downtown Stockholm, saying that decision was made because the main suspect died in 2000.

Palme was gunned down on Feb. 28, 1986, after he and his wife Lisbet Palme left a movie theatre in the Swedish capital. The murder shocked the nation and shook the Scandinavian countys image as being so safe and peaceful that politicians could wander around in public without protection.

More than 100 people have been suspected in the crime and the unsolved case has generated scores of conspiracy theories, with possible villains ranging from foreign governments or rogue Swedish police with right-wing sympathies to an act by a lone shooter.

The investigation was being closed because the main suspect, Stig Engstrom, died in 2000, the cases chief prosecutor, Krister Petersson, told a news conference in Stockholm on Wednesday.

Stig Engstrom is deceased, and therefore I am not able to start proceedings or even interview him, that is why I decided to discontinue the investigation, Petersson told reporters. Since he has died, I cannot indict him.

Hans Melander, head of the investigation, told the news conference that 134 people had confessed the murder  29 directly to the police  and some 10,000 people had been questioned during the 34-year probe.

I am completely convinced that there are other people who believe in other solutions, but as Krister (Petersson) says, this is what we came up with and believe in, Melander said.

Marten Palme, the son of Olof and Lisbet Palme, told Swedish radio that I also think Engstrom is the perpetrator.

The fact that a countrys prime minister was murdered is a national trauma. I now have a hope that the wound can heal, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, a Social Democrat like Palme, told a later news conference. A thorough work has been carried out by the prosecutors and they have gone to the bottom of it ... The best thing would have, of course, been through a conviction.

Deputy prime minister Isabella Lovin of the small Green Party said the unsolved killing is still a wound in Sweden.

Palme, who cut a flamboyant, even boyish figure, had sought to live as ordinary a life as possible and would often go out without bodyguards. The night of the murder he had no protection.

The prime minister had an aristocratic background but was known for his left-leaning views and was eyed with suspicion in conservative circles and by the United States. Among Swedes and in the Nordic region, Palme was a divisive figure, much loved but also despised.

At the time of the slaying, the 52-year-old Engstrom was reportedly one of the first people at the murder scene and was briefly considered a possible suspect. He had a military background, was member of a shooting club, often worked late and had drinking problems, Petersson said. Also known as the Skandiamannen because he worked in the nearby Skandia insurance company, Engstrom had a strong dislike of Palme and his policies.

Yet Engstroms actions on the night of the murder are unclear. Several witnesses gave descriptions of the fleeing killer that matched Engstrom, while others said he wasnt even at the scene. Engstrom himself claimed to have been present from the beginning, said he spoke to Lisbet Palme and police and attempted to resuscitate the victim.

Soon after the murder, Engstrom appeared in Swedish media and developed an increasingly detailed story of his involvement in the events that night, even criticizing the police investigation. He claimed witnesses who had described the killer had in fact been describing him as he was running to catch up with police officers in pursuit of the assassin.

The police then labelled Engstrom as a unreliable and inconsistent witness and classified him as a person of no interest.

Lisbet Palme was injured in the attack and later identified the shooter as Christer Pettersson, an alcoholic and drug addict who was convicted of Palmes murder. The sentence was later overturned after police failed to produce any technical evidence against him, leaving the murder an unsolved mystery. Pettersson died in 2004.

Immediately after Palme was killed, thousands of Swedes flooded the scene of his death with red roses, a symbol of his Social Democratic Party, building a metre-high wall of flowers.

In Sweden, the Palme murder has been an open wound for decades.

Another later painful reminder of Swedens lost innocence came in 2003, when Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in a Stockholm department store, also not protected by bodyguards. In 2004, Mijailo Mijailovic, who confessed to the fatal stabbing, was convicted of murder and sentenced to be confined in psychiatric care.

The unsolved Palme slaying also evoked another Swedish mystery: the disappearance of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who vanished in 1945 after helping at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews escape the Holocaust by giving them Swedish passports. In 2016, the diplomat, who is believed to have died in Soviet captivity, was pronounced dead by Swedish authorities, 71 years after he disappeared under unclear circumstances.

Melander, the chief investigator, labelled it one of the worlds largest investigation and compared it to probes into the 1963 murder of John F. Kennedy and the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. A total of 270 people were killed.

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A previous version of the story corrected the spelling of the prime ministers wife to Lisbet, not Lisbeth.
KYIV, Ukraine  For weeks, more than 100 foreign genetic parents of babies born to surrogate mothers in Ukraine have been waiting nervously, prevented by Ukraines rigid coronavirus restrictions from entering the country to pick up their newborns.

But the government has been granting some exemptions, and on Wednesday, having gone through a mandatory quarantine, 11 couples from Argentina and Spain were joyously united with their newest family members. It was a first step in whittling down a backlog of babies born into Ukraines surrogate motherhood industry during the pandemic that some officials have said could swell to as many as 1,000.

It was like a dream, Andrea Diez, a mother from Argentina, said Wednesday after she was handed her baby at a news conference hosted by a surrogacy agency, Biotexcom.

Biotexcom, which has faced criticism over the backlog, staged the event for maximum effect, bringing out the babies and uniting them with their joyful parents for the first time.
El canciller @GMeza_Cuadra participo en un dialogo con los Cancilleres de Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Marruecos, Republica de Corea y Singapur, para evaluar la situacion del #COVID19 en sus paises y en el ambito internacional.
Actress Sri Reddy has yet again made it to the headlines, this time with a special birthday wish for Nandamuri Balakrishna aka Ballaya. On the occasion of the latter's 60th birthday, the sultry siren of Tollywood took to her social media handle to wish the actor, while taking a dig at Megastar Chiranjeevi and his family. She wrote that Balakrishna doesn't need a Padma Shri as his smile is the biggest award. She also added that the actor hits on the face 'out of love' but not like the Mega family, who take the bread out of people's mouths.

Her Facebook post read, "Industry simha swapna,nata ratna,telugu priya,the great human being in social service..no need of padma Sri,ur smile only a big award..living legendary actor bala krishna garu happy birthday god bless u..prema tho chempa midha kodathav thappa,mega family laga, kadupu midha kottadu e bangaru konda..pedha prajala aakali ,arogyam alochinche mudhula mamayya ma baalayya.." Well, the fans of Ballaya are happy with the actress' straight forward comment on Ballaya.

Earlier in the day, Chiranjeevi took to his Twitter account to wish Balakrishna. He wrote, "Dear #NBK as U turn the magical 60, I fondly reminisce on Ur amazing journey. Happy Birthday." It is to be noted that Ballaya wasn't happy with the recent TFI's meeting with the Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao. A video of an irked actor had circulated on social media, wherein Balakrishna was seen lashing out at a media person, who asked his views about the meeting spearheaded by Chiranjeevi. The actor was also heard using abusive and unparliamentary language in public. Well, we will have to wait and watch if Sri Reddy's comment adds fuel to the fire between the two senior actors.

Balakrishna Looks Intense As He Fights For Justice In BB3's First Roar!

Balakrishna Declines Chiranjeevi's Invitation To Attend Meeting With AP CM Jaganmohan Reddy?
Loan of US$ 25 million to expand access to finance for Armenian businesses amid Covid-19 crisis

Strengthening resilience of real economy and financial sector

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing a US$ 25 million loan to InecoBank, a longstanding partner bank in Armenia, for extending support to private companies that have been affected by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

InecoBank is well placed to channel EBRD funds to companies that are going through this unprecedented period of volatility. Getting financial help to businesses and providing uninterrupted lending is essential for keeping the economy going, said Dimitri Gvindadze, EBRD Head of Armenia.

Inecobank has been financing businesses in all sectors in Armenia for about 25 years. Amid the pandemic the bank is standing by its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients and, through tailored solutions, helping them overcome financial difficulties caused by the crisis. The funds from the EBRD will be used to continue supporting the SME sector.

In this emergency situation we will be able to continue offering special support programmes for the core range of businesses in our economy to weather the current difficulties and create a brighter future, and this is once again possible through cooperation with the EBRD, one of our key partners for many years, said Aren Naltakyan, CEO of Inecobank.

The EBRD remains an important partner in Armenia during the Covid-19 crisis and the new financing is part of the efforts to help combat the impact of the coronavirus and support the recovery.

The EBRD is committed to providing support worth 21 billion over 2020-21 to the 38 economies where it currently invests. The support includes a Resilience Framework for existing clients, offering short-term liquidity and working capital.

The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Armenia. The Bank has invested more than 1.5 billion across 183 projects in the country to date, where it is supporting private sector development and the transition to a sustainable, green economy.
A cancer sufferer who was shoved to the ground by an aggressive cop in Buffalo has denied connections with Antifa after President Donald Trump tweeted the conspiracy theory online.

President Trump claimed 75-year-old Martin Gugino, from Amherst, Massachusetts, seen on video getting shoved to the ground by Buffalo police during a Black Lives Matter protest fell 'harder than he was pushed' and suggested he had connections to Antifa.

Trump tweeted Tuesday morning: 'Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN.'

Kelly Zarcone, attorney for Mr Gugino told TMZ that President Trump is wrong to draw links between her client and the radical left group, adding that Mr Gugino had been seriously injured.

Zarcone said: 'Martin is out of ICU but still hospitalized and truly needs to rest. Martin has always been a peaceful protester because he cares about today's society.'

Scroll down for video.

An elderly man was seen approaching Buffalo police officers in riot gear outside of City Hall on Thursday

She added: '[Mr Gugino] is also a typical Western New Yorker who loves his family. No one from law enforcement has even suggested anything otherwise, so we are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him.'

Trump's tweet referenced a report on the right wing One America News Network with close-up, slowed footage of the incident while voice-over from a correspondent touts possible connections to Antifa, a group Trump has said wants to label as domestic terrorist organization.

The report claims that the incident 'could be the result of a false flag provocation by far left group Antifa.'

It cites information that appeared on the Conservative Treehouse blog which identifies Mr Gugino as a 'well-known activist.'

President Trump tweeted that 75-year old Martin Gugino 'fell harder than was pushed'

The president added that he agreed with at least part of what was put forward by the broadcast on a network he regularly touts. 'I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?' Trump asked.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ripped the president Tuesday for issuing a 'reckless, irresponsible, mean, crude if there was ever a reprehensible, dumb comment.'

'And from the president of the United States at this moment of anguish and anger. He pours gasoline on the fire. If there was ever, if he ever feels a moment of decency, he should apologize fr that tweet,' Cuomo added.

He called it 'wholly unacceptable' and said there was 'Not a piece of proof. Personally disparaging when the man is still in the hospital. Show some decency, some humanity,' he continued.

Trump's tweet  again siding with police after repeatedly calling for 'law and order' amid protests over the death of George Floyd  comes despite advisors inside and outside the White House counseling him to address racial discrimination.

Martin Gugino, a longtime peace activist from Amherst, had been at a protest at Niagara Square near Buffalo City Hall when he was pushed. He hit his head on the ground causing it to bleed

The OANN correspondent identifies himself as Kristian Rouz, who has been revealed to simultaneously be working for Kremlin-backed Sputnik news. The Daily Beast previously reported that Rouz was born in Siberia, graduated from Novosibirsk State University, and moved to the U.S. in 2017.

Mr Gugino texted USA Today after being asked about Trump's tweet. 'No comment other than Black lives matter. Just out of the ICU. Should recover eventually. Thx,' he wrote.

Earlier, Ms Zarcone said: '[Mr Gugino] has acknowledged and sincerely appreciates the tremendous outpouring of support he has received nationwide. Martin and his family continue to request privacy as they focus on Martin's health and recovery,' lawyer Kelly Zarcone said, WGRZ reported.

Rival former Vice President Joe Biden pounced on President Trump for the tweet Tuesday afternoon.

'My Dad used to say there's no greater sin than the abuse of power. Whether it's an officer bloodying a peaceful protester or a President defending him with a conspiracy theory he saw on TV. I'm a Catholic  just like Martin,' Biden said.

'Our faith says that we can't accept either,' he added.

Two police officers who shoved him last week in an incident captured on dramatic video have pleaded not guilty to assault. Video of the incident shows Mr Gugino bleeding on the pavement as a group of officers walk by.

Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe were charged with assault in the second degree Saturday morning.

Aaron Torgalski (left) and Robert McCabe (right) pictured in their mugs. They were each charged with one count of assault in the second degree in a court hearing Saturday morning over the shocking incident that left peaceful protester Martin Gugino in a 'serious condition' in hospital

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said Gugino was an 'agitator', seen here petitioning for the closure of Guantanamo Bay

In this image from video provided by WBFO, a Buffalo police officer appears to shove a man who walked up to police Thursday, June 4, 2020, in Buffalo, N.Y. Video from WBFO shows the man appearing to hit his head on the pavement, with blood leaking out as officers walk past to clear Niagara Square. Buffalo police initially said in a statement that a person 'was injured when he tripped & fell,' WIVB-TV reported, but Capt. Jeff Rinaldo later told the TV station that an internal affairs investigation was opened

Former White House press secretary for George W. Bush Ari Fliescher

Jesuit priest and editor at large of America Magazine said 'Martin Gugino is a peace activist'

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said Mr Gugino was an 'agitator' who tried to work up the crowd and had been asked to leave the area 'numerous' times.

The OANN report zeroed in on footage of the man waving his phone while coming in close contact with members of a Buffalo police unit during the protest.

All 57 officers on the Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response Team resigned from the squad on Friday in support of their colleagues who were suspended over the incident.

The report Trump tweeted says video 'appear to show Gugino using a police tracker on his phone trying to scan police communications during the protest.' It describes it as an 'old trick used by Antifa' to locate police officers and plan violent activities' and was 'supposedly using the communication to black out police technologies.'

The report says mainstream media continued to 'push the narrative of so-called police brutality.'

Two prominent Republican senators turned down the chance to criticize the president when asked about his tweet. 'I didn't see it. You're telling me about it. I don't read Twitter. I only write on it, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN. Added Texas Sen. John Cornyn: 'You know, a lot of this stuff just goes over my head.'

Former Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona did weigh in. 'This was a 75 year-old-man shoved to the ground, left bleeding from a head wound. Trafficking in conspiracy theories like these is beneath your office, Mr President,' Flake wrote.

'Most of us up here would rather not be political commentators on the president's tweets,' said South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune, a Senate party leader.

Thune added: 'Its a serious accusation, which should only be made with facts and evidence. And I havent seen any yet.'

There are multiple holes in the conspiracy theory. There have been multiple actual instances of police using force to subdue protesters, which limits the utility of Mr Gugino deliberately falling backward onto his head, putting himself in a situation which could cause brain damage or death.

It cites newly released videos but merely captures days-old videos that have already been published, the Washington Post noted. The video itself contains no evidence Mr Gugino was somehow capturing information with his cell phone. It also fails to substantiate the claim that antifa makes use of the tactic or otherwise connect Mr Gugino to antifa, a favorite target of Trump's.

Mr Gugino has been undergoing chemo treatments for cancer, Vicki Ross of the Western New York Peace Center and Latin American Solidarity Committee told the Associated Press.

Martin Gugino's history of peaceful activism Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old man who got pushed to the ground by Buffalo police and who Trump accused of possibly being in on a 'set up' has a long history of activism for a range of causes. The resident of Amherst in upstate New York outside Buffalo has been involved with the Western New York Peace Center. 'He's a gentle person who really believes that he must stand up for what he thinks is right,' his friend Terrence Bisson told the Buffalo News. He has advocated for closing the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, climate change, and other issues. He has protested the treatment of child immigrants at the southern border. Martin Gugino pictured with actor Ed Asner Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown called him an 'agitator' and President Donald Trump claimed after watching a video where Buffalo police shoved him that Gugino 'fell harder than was pushed.' Trump tweeted that Gugino 'could be an ANTIFA provocateur' but did not provide evidence of a connection to the loosely-defined left-wing group. 'He's the last person you would want to push down. He's the kind of person who you would want to speak up,' said Bisson. 'He'd never shout or oppose someone. He would ask questions if he thought something was not right,' Bisson told WKBW. The day before he got pushed by police, he posted a tweet that said 'F*** the police.' On June 4, he tweeted: 'Protests are exempt from curfews because Congress (and mayors) may make no laws that abridge the right of the people peaceably to assemble and complain to the government. The government should receive the complaint with thanks, not arrest the people or beat them.' He has been photographed holding signs dealing with detention of immigrants and Guantanamo. Advertisement
The former vice president Joe Biden has led calls for racial justice as he spoke at the funeral of George Floyd, whose death at the hands of police has sparked worldwide protests for equality.

His funeral was both personal and political. Inside the cavernous Fountain of Praise church in Houston, Texas, gospel songs played as images of Mr Floyd were shown on a large screen, interspersed with video from the marches inspired by his death.

Speaking to the church by video link, Mr Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate in Novembers election, addressed Mr Floyds six-year-old daughter.

When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America. Then, Gianna, your daddy will have changed the world, he said.

We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul, from systemic abuse that still plagues American life.

Zsa Zsa Floyd pauses near the casket of her brother George during a funeral service for him at The Fountain of Praise church in Houston, Texas (AP)

In an emotional eulogy, Mr Floyds niece, Brooke Williams, paid tribute to her uncle and issued a call to action.

My uncle was a father and a brother. He always moved people with his words, she said, fighting to hold back tears. That officer showed no remorse while watching my uncles soul leaving his body.

I can breathe. And as long as Im breathing, justice will be served, she continued. Someone said make America great again, but when has America ever been great? This wasnt just a murder, this was a hate crime.

Mr Floyd, 46, was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who placed his knee on his neck for more than eight minutes, despite his persistent pleas that he could not breathe.

In death, Mr Floyd became a symbol of the racial injustice that has haunted America for hundreds of years, and the face of an anti-racism movement that has spread around the world.

Mr Floyds death was just one in a long line of violent racial killings that shocked the US, but have so far failed to move it to action. His family was joined by the relatives of some of those other victims at the ceremony: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin.

The Rev Al Sharpton paid tribute to the relatives during his eulogy.

He told mourners: This is a time that we need to understand that they are going to do everything they can to delay these trials and delay the countability and try to wear this family down.

Many that are standing and coming today ... will not be here for the long run. We must commit to this family, all of these families ... that until these people pay for what they did, we are going to be there with them. Lives like Georges will not matter until somebody pays for the cost of taking their lives.

Mass demonstrations have rocked the United States in the two weeks since he was killed, but they have also spread around the world, to London, Paris and Berlin.

More than 6,000 people came to the same church on Monday for a public memorial. Today, a smaller crowd gathered for the private ceremony, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Mr Floyds last words: I cant breathe.

Gary Birch, 55, travelled seven hours by car from Oklahoma City to pay his respects.

We wanted to show our support because this is going to be part of history. The word has changed. We just wanted to be here, he said outside the church.

Hopefully one day we can get to a place where racism isnt part of this country. Right now its still very alive. We have to fight against it.

In a busy day of tweeting, Donald Trump had not mentioned Mr Floyds funeral by the time it was under way, instead focusing on issues including the police response to protests, insulting his former defence secretary James Mattis and spreading a conspiracy theory about a man in his 70s who was pushed to the ground and seriously injured while talking to police in Buffalo, New York.
The Arctic covers about 20% of the planet. But almost everything hydrologists know about the carbon-rich soils blanketing its permafrost comes from very few measurements taken just feet from Alaska's Dalton Highway.

The small sample size is a problem, particularly for scientists studying the role of Arctic hydrology on climate change. Permafrost soils hold vast amounts of carbon, which could turn into greenhouse gasses. But the lack of data makes it difficult to predict what will happen to water and carbon as the permafrost melts due to warming temperatures.

New research led by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin may help solve that problem.

The scientists spent the past four summers measuring permafrost soils across a 5,000 square-mile swath of Alaska's North Slope, an area about the size of Connecticut. While working to buildup a much-needed soil dataset, their measurements revealed an important pattern: The hydrologic properties of different permafrost soil types are very consistent, and can be predicted based on the surrounding landscape.

"There is a vast swath of land that is eminently predictable," said Michael O'Connor, who led the research while earning his doctoral degree from the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. "Our paper shows that over an enormous study area, these very simple patterns in these properties hold true."

The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Co-authors include researchers from the Jackson School, UT's Cockrell School of Engineering, Utah State University and the University of Michigan.

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The researchers examined nearly 300 soil samples from different types of terrain. They found that soil types and their thickness are closely associated with the landscape, with the researchers classifying the landscapes into five categories based on the dominant vegetation and whether the environment was on a hill slope or near the bottom of a river valley.

They also found that each of the three soil types had distinct properties that impacted how easily the soil could transfer heat and water -- which determine how carbon dioxide and methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, are released.

The findings will allow scientists to look to the landscape to understand how carbon and greenhouse gasses are moving through the soil below.

While the study does not make predictions about carbon release, co-author Bayani Cardenas, a professor in the Jackson School's Department of Geological Sciences, said that it provides a research framework.

"Our data fills a knowledge gap that has been around for 30 years," Cardenas said. "The community studying permafrost and climate change will appreciate its inherent value."

Permafrost locks away about as much carbon as what is already in the atmosphere. However, until this study, climate modelers lacked direct permafrost soil information, with the research record limited to about a dozen samples taken along the Dalton Highway and engineering reports that studied permafrost for road and pipeline construction.

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Improving the data available to climate scientists was the primary motivation behind the permafrost collection campaign, said O'Connor. The North Slope of Alaska is almost pure wilderness. The research team relied on a helicopter to get around and an 18-inch breadknife to slice blocks of soil from the earth.

"We were in some places that probably no human had set foot on." Cardenas said.

Finding a pattern between the landscape and the permafrost soil patterns did not come as a surprise. Plant ecologists working in the region had mentioned it anecdotally. But the newly published data is something the entire research community can draw on.

Cathy Wilson, a hydrologist and climate modeler at Los Alamos National Laboratory who also conducts permafrost research in Alaska, said that the study is a big step for climate models, and that she is looking forward to applying study techniques in her own work.

"This allows us to really start to scale-up this valuable information on soil properties to at least the North Slope, the foothills of mountain ranges, and beyond," she said.
BETHALTO  1st MidAmerica Credit Union delivered $20,000 in grant funds to community organizations and businesses in partnership with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago to help relieve the impact of COVID-19 in their communities.

We jumped at the opportunity to funnel money into our local communities, said Amber Scott, Vice President of Marketing at 1st MidAmerica Credit Union.

The 1st MidAmerica team submitted the grant requests and was able to send out checks to 14 organizations this past week. Phone discussions with the recipients mirrored the humble and grateful attitudes of the local owners, directors, and volunteers that will make the most of the grants.

We have watched businesses like Sammis Sandwiches feed people who have lost their jobs and organizations like Senior Services Plus increase their meal deliveries to seniors, Scott said. Through these grants, we were able to support nonprofits that are helping to feed local residents in need, as well as businesses that are choosing to use their time and talent to impact our communities positively.

It was through local news stories that the credit union team became aware of the work happening at businesses like Alterations by Barb and Morrisons Irish Pub. They were also aware that many of the local food pantries were inundated with requests from residents who were in need. In its letters to the beneficiaries, the credit union expressed its teams appreciation and encouraged the organizations to continue their outreach.

Grant recipients included Senior Services Plus, Sammis Sandwiches and Norbs, the Family Treehouse (TWIGS), Glen-Ed Pantry, Morrisons Irish Pub, Soup N Share Outreach Program, Northeast Community Fund, Alterations by Barb, Operation Blessing, Crisis Food Center, Joes Pizza, Community Hope Center, Salvation Army  Jersey County Extension, and the Illinois Credit Union Foundation.
Mumbai, June 10 : Actor Chandan Roy Sanyal says shooting for the independent film "Chippa" was very difficult.

"Working on this film was very difficult, when you are shooting for an independent film it is a run for time. I remember shooting for 24 hours continuously at multiple locations," said Chandan.

"The climax scene of the film which was one of the most important ones, I was supposed to breakdown, the whole scene was to be shot in a run-down toilet and it was very filthy. But what has to be done has to be done. It was also difficult because I was sleep-deprived, hungry, and extremely exhausted. This scene is being appreciated and I couldn't be happier," he added.

"Chippa" is a story about the aspirations of a 10-year-old boy who lives on the streets, told through a journey he takes into an enchanting world that he creates for himself on one wintry night in Kolkata.

Directed by Safdar Rahman, it stars Sunny Pawar as Chippa, along with Joyraj Bhattacharya and Sumeet Thakur. The film is streaming on Netflix.
The Austin Police Department on Monday released a body camera video that showed William County Sheriff's Office deputies pursuing 40-year-old Javier Ambler on March 28, 2019, a little after 1 a.m. Ambler was heard saying "I can't breathe," several times in the video, which is now under investigation.

Based on an incident report of the sheriff's department, Ambler was unable to dim the headlights of his car while driving past a deputy. He allegedly attempted to flee, leading officers on a pursuit of more than 20 minutes that ended up in Austin.

Ambler, as indicated in the custodial death report of the office of the Texas Attorney General, "Bump into with three fixed objects on and off the roadway."

The 14-Minute Video Footage

The body camera video footage, which lasted for 14 minutes was able to capture the instants the deputies stopped their vehicles. The moments when they started to walk toward Ambler were capture, as well.

Based on the documents CNN was able to obtain, the video also showed Ambler exiting his car with both hands up. He was unarmed. Neither he was intoxicated, according to the document.

According to the case report of the Williamson County Sheriff's Office, officers attempted to handcuff the black man. However, they said, the black man "resisted and pushed back on the officers" while refusing to follow orders made verbally.

The video showed a seemingly distressed Ambler. As he was handcuffed by officials, he is heard in the video saying, and he had "congestive heart failures." Many times in the footage too, Ambler's voice is heard as he said he could not breathe and that he was not resisting.

A few minutes into his apprehension, reports indicated, officers realized that Ambler was unresponsive-his voice could no longer be heard on camera.

Not long after, police reportedly took handcuffs off Ambler. More so, CNN reported, officers are heard in the video as they administered "CPR compressions" until the arrival of medical units on the scene.

Ongoing Investigation

According to the Texas Attorney General's death report, the manner of death of Ambler was considered a homicide. One of the conditions that caused his death, as listed on the report included "hypertensive cardiovascular disease linked with morbid obesity and congestive heart failure."

According to the Office of Professional Standards in the Williamson County Sheriff's Department, WBAL TV-11 also reported, following review of the video proof, OPS has come up with a conclusion.

Specifically, the department concluded that "primary deputy 'JJ' Johnson," along with the assisting officers, acted accordingly in line with the guidelines included in the WCSO rule. The conclusion also indicated that they used "objective reasonableness" in terms of the level of force used.

The Travis County District Attorney is tasked to heading the investigation of Ambler's fatal arrest. Margaret Moore, the District Attorney, on Monday, said, the footage from the body camera came from a police officer in Austin who responded to the scene. She also said, no officers in Austin are being investigated.

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Far earlier than anticipated, in the midst of a widespread reckoning over policing  including controversies over anti-Black racism, officer use-of-force and billion-dollar budgets  the seven-member civilian Toronto police board is suddenly searching for a new leader.

And thats without throwing a pandemic into the mix.

With Mondays sudden resignation of outgoing Toronto police chief Mark Saunders, the top cop chair will be vacant by August, eight months early and amid impassioned  and mounting  calls for reform, reduced budgets and even the abolishment of policing as we know it.

At the best of times, the chiefs role is challenging to fill, traditionally requiring a candidate who can manage cops and politicians, commands the respect of rank and file  typically via years of frontline experience  and can uphold public trust. Now, with a blinding spotlight on policing and deafening calls for change, the task carries an ever-greater weight, and must contend with the possibility some may not want the pressure cooker job.

In other words, the stakes are high.

We need a new chief that will recognize the gravity of the moment, and not waste the potential for meaningful progress that the current calls for reform provide, says Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a University of Toronto criminologist who researches policing and race.

The task of choosing the citys next police chief falls to the board, including Mayor John Tory. Before Saunders announced his resignation, the board had taken early steps to begin the search for a new chief, deciding last month that they will hire an executive search firm.

I have hope that the board can read the room on this one, Owusu-Bempah said. If they dont, theyll lose more support and respect from an already skeptical public.

The board assured in a statement this week that their selection process will include public consultation in a meaningful and proactive way.

John Sewell, former Toronto mayor and member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, said in an interview Tuesday that it wasnt enough, calling on the board to upend the typical practice and suggesting they bring in an engaged and diverse group of community members to help make the decision. It may be the only way to bring in a change-maker, he said.

Weve got to get someone who can make systemic change. We havent had someone who can do that for a long time, Sewell said.

That includes, first and foremost, selecting a chief that can accept some hard realities about anti-Black racism  including that members of the Black community are 20 times more likely to be shot dead by Toronto police than a white person, said Dr. Notisha Massaquoi, who has served as the Toronto police boards co-chair of the anti-racism advisory panel.

We need a police chief that understands that these are not mistakes or coincidences relegated to a few bad cops,  she said. That this over-representation is a habit that is based on widespread systemic anti-Black racism in the Toronto Police Service.

This chief, Massaquoi said, needs to require the dismantling of the TPS as it now exists and that the lives of Black people in Toronto are worth doing that for.

Audrey Campbell, former president of the Jamaican Canadian Association, agrees. As former co-chair of the Toronto polices Police and Community Engagement Review (PACER), Campbell said she knows first hand of the issues that officers and civilians are facing within the organization.

At this moment, we need someone with a deep understanding of anti-Black racism and how it manifests in law enforcement, and who will be courageous and willing to confront it head-on and address issues internally to dismantle it, she said.

Since the creation of the Metro police department in 1957, the Toronto police board has always chosen an insider, whether it was a long-time cop like Saunders  who was with the Toronto police service for 37 years and never switched jerseys, he said Monday  or a former city cop whod sought promotion at other services before returning to lead in Toronto, such as Julian Fantino, who headed York Regional Police Service before becoming top cop in 2000.

One potential candidate in the latter category was, until Tuesday afternoon, former Toronto deputy chief Peter Sloly, who in 2015 was perceived as the progressive option but was passed over in favour of Saunders cops cop appeal. But he quickly quashed all speculation that hed return to Toronto, tweeting that he made a commitment to this City of Ottawa, the Board and the (Ottawa Police Service) members and I will fulfill that commitment.

The calls for change could signal the desire to go outside policing altogether, said University of Toronto criminologist Julius Haag. There is a case to be made for appointing a civilian director or administrator to oversee the police, he said.

If the city and the board are serious about defunding and disarming the police, then they need to appoint someone who shares that vision and has the experience and capability to implement it, he said. I question whether a candidate drawn from the police sector would fit that role.

Several policing experts and community advocates stressed the vital importance of community policing, saying the next chief must embody a commitment and openness to structural changes that prize prevention over reactionary crime fighting.

Traditionally within policing, chiefs have a background in tough as nails units, said Norm Taylor, a policing and public safety expert. The mentality there, he said, is that its more important for a police leader to spend time in these units than community policing.

We need a leader who will recognize that community policing isnt an adjunct to the job, he said. In Toronto, it is the job.

Jennifer Chambers, executive director of Empowerment Council, an advocacy group for clients of addictions or mental-illness services, said the next chief needs a sense of responsibility that extends beyond the service to the city as a whole.

Heads of organizations are often hired to be empire builders, but that is the last thing that Toronto needs of its police chief right now, she said.

Chambers noted that a lot of police resources go to calls on people in crisis, but what these individuals need are community-based services.

It is the perfect time for a chief who will go beyond lip service, to support services that could prevent people from being in crisis in the first place, she said.

Post-pandemic, times will be especially hard, she said, and some of the resources going to the police budget could help Toronto more going to meet basic human needs.

But while many see the potential for change with a new chief, others say far more needs to be done to achieve significant reform.

Change requires systemic subversion, not substitution at the top. You cant subvert the system simply by replacing the chief, said Annamaria Enenajor, a Toronto-based criminal defence lawyer.

You have to look at where policing culture develops, adding that the police union has incredible power.

Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack said Monday that the board now faces a significant challenge attempting to find a chief whowill be both accepted by the rank and file and by the public.

Its possible no such candidate exists  possibly because the stars have aligned in a way that makes it way easier to radically redesign society and move away entirely from the current policing model, said Sandy Hudson, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto and a law student at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Hudson is calling for far bigger changes than a police chief swap  including defunding the police and creating an entirely new form of emergency service.

We really have to stop deluding ourselves that who is at the top makes any difference, she said.

Clarification - June 12, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that said the Toronto police board hired a search firm last month. In fact, the board decided to hire a search firm last month, but have not yet done so.

Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing for the Star. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis

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The Commonwealth Secretary-General has welcomed new legislation in Seychelles that will help curb violence against women and girls.

President Danny Faure signed the Domestic Violence Act after it was unanimously passed by lawmakers, outlining tougher action against domestic abuse, better protection for victims, and penalties for perpetrators as well as rehabilitation.

The Act will play a critical role in reducing the number of annual reported cases, which have tripled since the year 2000. More than 5,400 cases were registered at Family Tribunal between 2009 and 2019.

Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said: The unanimous passing of the new Domestic Violence bill by the National Assembly of Seychelles, which has now been made law, must be recognised and commended. It sends a powerful message that violence against women and girls is wholly unacceptable and detrimental to society. The timing could not be more critical with the increase in reported incidents of domestic violence across the globe under COVID-19 lockdown measures.

This milestone is the culmination of dedicated work by the Government and I am pleased the Commonwealth Secretariat was able to provide relevant support along this journey.Seychelles Minister of Family Affairs, Mitcy Larue, who presented the bill to the National Assembly stated: As a country, we have the obligation to safeguard all sectors of our society. It is our wish that with this proposed legislation, we bring a new culture and a new way of living and being.

[We hope to] consolidate the services that already exist, bring into being new ones, as well as reinforce education at all levels of the family and ensure we train our professionals and technicians to be able to implement the different facets of this new law.

Since 2017, the Secretariat has pioneered ground-breaking research to estimate the direct and indirect costs of violence against women and girls (VAWG). The methodology was applied to Seychelles, revealing that overall costs to the economy were about 4.6 per cent of GDP in 2016  one per cent higher than the countrys annual budget for education.

The Commonwealth Secretariat also worked with the Ministry of Family Affairs to review national policy and legal frameworks for gender-based violence and train local experts. It supported the Attorney Generals Office in its work to finalize the draft Domestic Violence Bill that was finally tabled in parliament. More projects are in the pipeline that aims to bring an end to violence against women and girls, as well as a positive economic impact on the country.
Seventy-seven MPs voted in favour of the motion, which demanded compensation from France over its colonial past.

Tunisias parliament has rejected a motion calling on France to apologise for crimes committed during and after colonial rule, following 15 hours of debate.

The bill, which demanded compensation to the Tunisian state and to all those who suffered the pain of colonisation, was put forward by the centrist Al-Karama coalition, which holds 19 of the 217 seats in parliament.

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Legislators from the bloc attended the session, which ran into the night, wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan: Murder and torture, the brutality of French colonialism.

Seventy-seven votes were cast on Wednesday in favour of the motion, far short of the 109 votes needed for it to pass  a tall order, given the deep divisions among members of Tunisias parliament.

We are not animated by any bitterness or hatred, but such apologies will heal the wounds of the past, Seifeddine Makhlouf, president of Al-Karama, said.

He used the example of Germany, which apologised to France after the Nazi occupation, noting that the two countries are now allies and the leading partners in Europe.

However, Makhlouf provoked an outcry when he attacked the first president of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, calling him the servant of France.

Lawmaker Mustapha Ben Ahmed of the Tahya Tounes party said: We are for the most part the children of Bourguiba, who led the liberation struggle of the country after long years of imprisonment and deportations and built modern Tunisia by generalising education and by emancipating women.

Opponents argued that such a move would spell economic disaster, given that France is Tunisias top trade partner and foreign investor. Some one million Tunisians also live in France.

The leader of moderate Islamist party Ennahdha was among those who said the motion could harm Tunisias economic interests and its most important international alliance. Others noted Tunisias years-long economic crisis and 15 percent unemployment rate and said the motion was too hastily prepared.

We are not going to feed Tunisians with such motions, said Osama Khelifi, of the Qalb Tounes party.

The North African country was a French protectorate from 1881 until it gained independence in 1956. A year later, it was declared a republic with Bourguiba as its president.

He was overthrown in a bloodless coup in 1987 following allegations that he had become senile, and after doctors declared he was unfit to rule.

Then-Prime Minister Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was appointed president, a post he held until he was removed in the countrys 2010-2011 uprising.

The uprising was the trigger for similar revolts that toppled autocratic leaders across the region in a wave of protest dubbed the Arab Spring.
George Floyd's name is written on a boarded-up window at Oakland's Fox Theater on May 30. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

Elisse Douglass knew she had to do something.

Almost two weeks ago, she took a walk over to Broadway in rapidly gentrifying downtown Oakland and started counting the many Black-owned businesses that had been damaged after a peaceful protest for George Floyd turned into something very different.

Windows and glass display cases were shattered. Merchandise had been ripped off. Graffiti was everywhere.

My real estate brain was kind of like, small businesses are struggling," said the 32-year-old Douglass, who is Black and spends her days working with small retailers trying to reopen after the coronavirus outbreak. "These extra costs are going to be hard for people to handle right now."

Indeed, a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Black-owned businesses were hurt the most by the shutdown, with 41% of them closing permanently between February and April. What's more, 95% of Black-owned businesses are sole proprietorships, making them ineligible for many federal relief programs.

Given this, it might be tempting for some to buy into the narrative that the protests have only made matters worse that taking to the streets has merely been a self-defeating exercise of (supposedly) Black people destroying the Black economy in the name of Black lives.

President Trump has certainly insinuated as much by tweeting about "looting" and "law and order."

None of this is true.

The economic pain from the coronavirus has been deep. But it's the righteousness of the protests, including the few that turned violent, that seems to have galvanized the broader American public to support Black-owned businesses in way so dramatic that I'm fairly certain it wouldnt have happened otherwise.

Apparently, there's nothing like a smashed window and graffiti to clearly convey the need for help.

It's help, quite frankly, that has been needed for decades. It's just that the recent unrest has shined a light on entrenched discriminatory practices, including access to capital, that have kept Black business owners on unequal footing with their white counterparts and widened the wealth gap.

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So now sales are up, as lists of Black-owned businesses have continued to circulate on social media. And far more than the usual suspects have shown up to donate to relief efforts.

Perhaps nowhere in California is this more the case than in Oakland, where the owners of Queen Hippie Gypsy have experienced it all firsthand.

As people gathered the last Friday of May, Lilliana Ayers and her husband, Kyrah, decided against boarding up their shop on 14th Street near Broadway, wanting it to be a "light for the movement." The next morning, they found the window smashed in, right over an image of Tommie Smith holding a gloved fist aloft in a Black power salute during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Lilliana, like almost everyone I spoke to in Oakland, insisted that the people who trashed her business had nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Queen Hippie Gypsy had been doing well before the coronavirus outbreak. And now, with people perhaps moved by photos of the damage on Instagram, online sales of healing crystals and yoga apparel have been climbing steadily, particularly among new customers.

"We've seen people from every race, religion," Lilliana said.

After seeing the destruction along Broadway, Douglass was so overwhelmed with the desire to do something that she started a GoFundMe campaign. A relative newbie to such activism in a city with a long and proud history of it, she had expected to raise a mere $5,000. But in a matter of days, the campaign went viral and she had raised more than $100,000 for Black-owned businesses desperate to clean up what vandals had left.

"It really started as just a personal effort," Douglass said. "I'm actually really overwhelmed by the response."

Meanwhile, Oaklands African American Chamber of Commerce had already been raising money to help Black-owned businesses recover from the shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus  one that, if you'll recall, was longer in the Bay Area than in Los Angeles.

Now that pot of money  to be doled out in grants ranging from $5,000 to $100,000 to recipients who agree to take business management training  also will be used to help fix damage from the protests.

Cathy Adams, the chamber's president and CEO, said she was well on her way to reaching a goal of $1 million, and now is working connections with corporations and friends with celebrity friends to raise more money.

"This is what coming together looks like," Adams said. "Where Black-owned businesses might have seemed invisible before, people are showing up from everywhere."

The question, of course, is, will this last? Not just in Oakland but across California. Once the news cycle moves away from getting justice for George Floyd and defunding police departments over the seemingly endless scourge of brutality and systemic racism, will Black-owned businesses fall back into relative obscurity?

Adams is optimistic that won't happen.

She told me about conversations she'd had with bank executives, who have pledged to reexamine their lending practices, which too often leave out would-be business owners who are Black who then have to cobble together start-up money from friends and family.

"I think were going to see a change," Adams said. "White people will continue to invest in our businesses."

Douglass is optimistic, too.

Beyond raising money from the masses, she has managed to help create new networks of people who want to help. She started a database so people could offer their services as volunteers. One popular request has been for marketing and advertising, as business owners try to lure old customers back and keep new ones.

Other connections have been more direct, with Black people helping Black people  artists, for example, who have painted murals on the plywood covering the doors and windows of businesses. Then there was the owner of a wig store in east Oakland who had extra inventory that she needed to donate as she worked to clean up after being ransacked. Douglass reached out to her burgeoning network and helped connect the owner with the operator of a transitional housing facility for Black women.

"It really speaks to the power of the Black community," she said, "and why we do this work in the first place so they can continue to be the infrastructure for our culture."

Still Douglass harbors no illusions of the hard road ahead for Black-owned small businesses and for Black people, in general, who continue to lag white people when it comes to both income and wealth.

"It's easier to fix windows than to fix a system built on racism."
Zapata County has recorded its 11th and 12th confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to county officials.

Patient No. 11 was reported on June 3. He is a man in his 40s. The transmission mode was community acquired.

Patient No. 12 was reported on Monday. He, too, is a man in his 40s. His transmission mode was by contact with a positive.

Both patients are isolated. Overall, Zapata County has 12 positives, eight recovered and 43 tests pending as of Tuesday.

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is supporting Zapata County in identifying any close contacts of the patient, so they can be isolated and monitored for symptoms, according to County Judge Joe Rathmell.

Health officials reminded the public that they are conducting contact investigation on people who have tested positive to determine possible exposure to others.

If the health department has not contacted you, there is no need to take any action at this time, Rathmell said.

County and state health officials asked the community to practice social distancing and staying home. Officials recommended the following measures:
ISTANBUL  Relations between President Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were in the worst state anyone could remember 10 months ago, veering toward armed clashes between their armies across the Syrian-Turkish border, while Mr. Trump threatened to annihilate Turkeys economy.

But these days, as the coronavirus threatens recession and rallies their opponents, both men are under pressure at home, with not many friends abroad, and may feel the need of some friendly comfort. This week, according to the Turkish account, they shared a few jokes during a phone call.

To be honest, after our conversation tonight, a new era can begin between the United States and Turkey, Mr. Erdogan said during a television interview afterward on Monday.

Relations between the two leaders have long blown hot and cold.

A Turkish court sentenced a U.S. consulate employee to eight years in prison on a terror-related charge on Thursday, a setback for U.S. officials who have been struggling for three years to exonerate three U.S. employees who they say are being used as political hostages.
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Earlier this year, the New Jersey State Police refused to identify a trooper who had been separated from the force for racially insensitive behavior.

They would not say what the behavior was, or whether the trooper had resigned or had been terminated.

Internal affairs records involving bad cops are not public in New Jersey. The only way that information ever gets out is if an officer appeals a disciplinary action and the matter reaches the state Civil Service Commission or the Office of Administrative Law, or if those records become exhibits in a civil or criminal proceeding.

But proponents of greater government transparency say a bill in New York, which quickly passed through the Legislature in Albany on Tuesday in reaction to the widespread police brutality protests now sweeping the nation, should be a guidepost for lawmakers here. Those same proponents see transparency as one of the first and most necessary steps that must be taken for there to be meaningful police reform in the wake of the nationwide protests after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

New Jersey has continued to shield the identities of police officers accused of serious misconduct from public view. In fact, the Attorney Generals policy even prevents the public from learning the identity of those officers who have received serious discipline, said Alexander Shalom, Director of Supreme Court Advocacy for American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. The public can learn about allegations of misconduct against lawyers, judges, plumbers and manicurists. We deserve no less for the profession we empower to carry weapons and use force.

Shalom said that if the state Attorney General does not take action to provide necessary transparency in law enforcement, the Legislature can and must.

Its time to reimagine policing in New Jersey, said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.

At issue in New York was the move to repeal a decades-old law that allowed the police to keep the disciplinary and personnel records of officers secret. Known as Section 50-a for its place in New York States Civil Rights law, the law was passed in 1976 to prevent defense lawyers from using accusations of abuse or misconduct in an effort to undermine the credibility of an officer testifying in a trial. Police unions have repeatedly pushed back against any efforts to open records.

But the statute came into sharp focus even before the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, after an NYPD officer was charged in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, and his disciplinary history was blocked from public release.

Here in New Jersey, similar disclosure restrictions have also banned the release of such information.

When an internal affairs investigation found Elizabeths longtime police director had abused black and female staff with racist and sexist slurs, for example, the Union County Prosecutors Office refused to release its report.

After a Newark police officer repeatedly shot at a fleeing vehicle in a January high-speed chase, killing the driver and critically injuring a passenger, the acting Essex County prosecutor said he had serious questions about the officers conduct. But the name was kept secret for four months until he was indicted.

The refusal of authorities to identify the New Jersey State Trooper who is no longer on the force because of what was termed racially offensive behavior is now before the state Supreme Court, in a case joined by a coalition of 16 media outlets  including NJ Advance Media  who have argued that the secrecy surrounding the troopers termination is a violation of state records law.

The lawsuit came after the disciplinary action involving the trooper was disclosed in an annual report of the State Police Office of Professional Standards, which did not offer any specific details, including his or her name.

In 2017, open records advocate John Paff filed a public records request seeking additional information, citing New Jerseys Open Public Records Act, which states that an individuals name, title, position, salary, payroll record, length of service, date of separation and the reason therefor, and the amount and type of any pension received shall be a government record.

State Police denied the request, claiming Paff sought privileged information.

Both a Superior Court judge and an appeals panel upheld the denial, but the state Supreme Court agreed last fall to take up the case.

CJ Griffin of Pashman Stein, who filed a lawsuit on behalf of Paffs group, Libertarians for Transparent Government, said its important that members of the public know when officers have engaged in misconduct.

Was he permitted to resign in lieu of termination and is now working someplace else, asked Griffin, a public records attorney.

Griffin added that New Jerseys public records law shields more than rogue police officers.

If a document is an investigatory record, its secret forever in New Jersey. Here, every record relating to crimes committed is exempt from access. Its a real problem, the attorney said.

State Senate Majority leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, has sponsored a bill (S1482) that would require law enforcement agencies to provide internal affairs and personnel files of law enforcement officers to other agencies under certain circumstances.

But the Legislature has not moved yet to open up disciplinary records to the public, as has been done in many other states, according to Griffin.

The Senates Law and Public Safety Committee in the coming weeks will be holding hearings on police reform, according to Sen. Linda Greenstein, D-Middlesex, who chairs the committee. The immediate focus will be on use of force guidelines, police training, and proposals by Grewal to create a licensing system for police officers.

Greenstein said the issue of public disclosure of police disciplinary records is not currently being considered, but said it might ultimately be part of the discussion.

At his daily press briefing on Wednesday, Gov. Phil Murphy said he was not familiar with the specific steps New York was taking.

But I think as we reimagine what law enforcement looks like, and the relationship between law enforcement and the communities, and try to get to a place that weve never been before, I think about everything has to be on the table," the governor said.

Weinberg said her measure, which failed to get through the Legislature in the last term, was aimed at stopping cops who get into trouble in one town, only to resign and find a job in law enforcement elsewhere.

She conceded that she had some hesitancy as to the public release of personnel records when there is an ongoing investigation.

I understand the need for secrecy, the lawmaker said. But Ive been an outspoken advocate for public transparency in all matters. Everything should be open, particularly where it comes to people who keep us safe, but have authority over us.

NJ Advance Media staff writers Brent Johnson and S.P. Sullivan contributed to this report.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com.
Alex Almeida was working on his Jeep Sunday afternoon when his girlfriend showed him a Facebook post that was circulating through Worcester fast.

The post was made by a garage owner in Worcester.

You wont believe what the other Steves on Shrewsbury Street said and whats going on, Almeidas girlfriend told him.

Riot was supposed to come up Shrewsbury Street tonight. Didnt happen and for all your sake Im glad it didnt happen cause you would all get a warning shot and 1 in the face and on your way to hell, im (sic) fed up with this s - - - you are all so lucky, the post read.

The hashtag whitelivesmatter followed the post.

The person who made the post was Steven Eckland, owner of Steves Auto Repair & 4x4 on Shrewsbury Street.

Almeida then shuddered. The garage he works for is called Steves Automotive Imports and it is located on Chandler Street. Sometimes people confuse the two shops due to similar names, but the businesses are not related.

A search of the phrase Steves Auto  Worcester would bring up both shops as the first two results on Google.

Almeida noticed Sunday night after a screenshot of Ecklands post circulated across Facebook that only the Chandler Street shop was being highlighted in Google searches. The other garage on Shrewsbury Street didnt have a live Facebook page anymore either.

The backlash began, but people had the wrong garage. People were urging one another to give Ecklands garage a bad review, but the Google search results confused people.

Before Sunday, Steves Automotive Imports on Chandler Street only had about 20 reviews and a 4.3 rating on Google. By Sunday night, there were nearly 100 reviews and the rating dropped to 2.

I was like, oh no. Our reviews had almost quadrupled and our rating had dropped, Almeida said.

Steve Karantzoulidis, the owner of Steves Automotive Imports, was crushed. He moved to America from Greece at age 20 and started the garage three years later. During the pandemic, he had to lay off his staff for two months and work by himself.

I teach my kids to be successful and to be good to people and not discriminate, Karantzoulidis said, as he discussed the diversity in his own family.

Karantzoulidis, 63, condemned the post made by the other garage owner. His garage, which opened in 1982, was being called racist and disrespectful. His son, Nick, and Almeida then began to try to stop the misdirected backlash.

One person posted on Facebook that Steves Automotive Imports had a racist owner hoping to shoot protesters. There are better shops around that arent racist, the post read, directing ire at the wrong garage.

Nick Karantzoulidis and Almeida began responding to Facebook threads making sure people knew the two garages were completely different businesses. They went on Google and flagged the reviews discussing the other garage on Shrewsbury Street.

On Monday, a post went up on Steve's Automotive Imports Facebook page.

It read, To our loyal customers, friends, and the new friends we've had the honor of talking to today. Over the last couple of days, there has been some confusion between our business and a different Steve's located on Shrewsbury st. We want to make it explicitly clear that the recent negative reviews and statements coming from that business do not align with our beliefs and how we operate business at Steve's Automotive Imports. We value our customers and show respect to every single person who walks through our doors.

To our loyal customers, friends, and the new friends we've had the honor of talking to today. Over the last couple of... Posted by Steves Automotive Imports Sales & Service on Monday, June 8, 2020

By Wednesday, the rating was back up to a 3.4 and there were 18 reviews listed by noon. Some of the reviews by people made it clear: The Chandler Street garage was not responsible for the controversial post on social media about rioters.

Everything is so social media-driven but youd hope people would have seen the garages had different addresses, Nick Karantzoulidis said.

Eckland issued a statement to MassLive after a reporter contacted him for comment.

No words that I can say can undo what I posted on Facebook, he said in an emailed statement. I used hurtful and ignorant words and for that I am truly apologetic. As a small business owner, I took my fear of my business being threatened and addressed it in an inappropriate and hurtful manner. Im going to take time to educate myself on the Black Lives Matter movement and plan on supporting in whatever way that I can.

Protests across the country have taken place after the killing of George Floyd.

Floyd died on May 25 in Minneapolis. A video showed Floyd being pinned down by former police officer Derek Chauvin. Floyd can be heard saying that he cant breathe.

Chauvin and three other officers involved in Floyds death were fired. Previously, Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. The charge was upgraded to second-degree murder.

The three other officers involved, Thomas Lane, J.A. Kueng and Tou Thao, have also been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Steve Karantzoulidis said business is beginning to pick back up since the pandemic began. His employees are back at work, including Almeida, who began working there as a junior in high school.

We agree with the peaceful protest, Almeida said. We try everything in our power to help out our community. No matter who comes in through that door, we try to treat them fairly. To see that come crashing down hurt.

Ecklands shop still shows up on Yelp. As of Wednesday, it had a 1-star rating. Photos shared in the review section were similar. It was a screenshot of Ecklands post.
The Famous London casino The Ritz Club - which opened in 1998 - and hosted celebrities including Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Bill Clinton will not reopen after lockdown, leaving members 'devastated'.

The famous gambling establishment had temporarily suspended casino operations on March 19, just before the UK entered lockdown.

The Club is part of the world famous Ritz Hotel, which Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay sold in March, with their associate and former Qatari PM Sheikh Hamad Bin-Jaber al-Thani understood to have been in the final bidding stages.

The Ritz Club casino (pictured) will close its doors permanently, it has been announced today

Pictured: Former Ritz owners Sir David Barclay (L) and his twin brother Sir Frederick posing after receiving their knighthoods from the Queen at Buckingham Palace

Today an email sent by the club to its prestigious members yesterday said: 'Regrettably, we now write to inform you that The Ritz Club is permanently closed and will not be re-opening.'

One disappointed club member reflected on the news, and said: 'As members, we are devastated to hear of the closure of The Ritz Club London.

'There is no other casino in the UK that is as prestigious and respected as The Ritz and we don't have anywhere else for us to take our gambling now.

Left, Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra leave the casino and, right, actor Sophie Turner a the club

'We got the email yesterday to say it has closed but I have since heard rumours that the casino has gone into administration.

'The club has several billionaire clients who spend their time and money there often, the casino is always full of business tycoons who like to gamble.

'I myself have been a member of The Ritz Club London for a few years and have gambled tens of thousands in the casino. It's a shock and a real shame to hear it has closed - it will be missed.'

The Ritz Club (pictured) is closing much to the devastation of the casino's members

The venue was brought under the ownership of the Ritz Hotel owners in 1988. But the space itself has been operating since the early 1900s.

During World War II it was known as the nightclub La Popote and the interior simulated a combat dugout with sandbags strewn about the venue.

After it became The Ritz Club, the Queen Mother annually presented the Waterford Crystal Trophy to the winners of The Ritz Club Trophy Stakes at Ascot.

Dame Shirley Bassey chose the venue to launch her record The Performance in 2009 - her first album in 20 years.

Pictured: The Ritz Club in Mayfair, central London

In January this year, the billionaire then-owners of The Ritz, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, injected 8million into its loss-making casino as they sought a buyer for one of the world's most famous hotels.

The Barclay were reportedly assessing offers from a number of Middle Eastern investors who could pay up to 800million  6.1million per bedroom  for the five-star hotel in London's West End.

Company documents revealed that the 84-year-old brothers ploughed 8million into the Ritz Club, the gambling salon based in the hotel's former ballroom, after firing the starting gun on the sale process.

The casino has not made a profit since 2016 due in part to increased regulation and a drop in the number of wealthy gamblers from the Far East.

The investment was made to cover trading losses after the Ritz Club posted an 8.9million pre-tax loss for the year to December 31, 2018. The previous year, when the casino lost 11.3million, the Barclays invested 10million.

The Barclays, who are worth a combined 8billion, also own the Telegraph newspapers.

The Ritz Club London has been approached for a comment.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:25:54|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has said no ethnic group should be left behind in the country's fight against poverty, in its building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and in the drive toward modernization.

Xi made the remarks during his inspection tour in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as the country is expected to eradicate absolute poverty this year.

Xi has visited many underdeveloped areas with a high concentration of ethnic minorities during his inspection tours in recent years. He replied to a letter from people of the Dulong ethnic group last year and issued an instruction on the poverty elimination of the Maonan people this year. Both ethnic groups have shaken off poverty.

Xi's Ningxia tour this week also reminded the public of his visit to the same region in 2016 which saw him talking with villagers about their lives. "There are still some 50 million Chinese struggling with poverty, and by 2020, they must be all lifted out of poverty. This is my top concern now," Xi said during the Ningxia tour four years ago.

The figure was reduced to about 5.51 million at the end of 2019. Some ethnic groups have leapfrogged to development, from the primitive stage to moderately prosperous life.

The remaining task to crack the "hardest nut" in the final push is difficult, especially when China's development faces uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a global recession.

But in a country that upholds people-centered philosophy, the economic and social fallout from the pandemic will not derail efforts to take good care of its people, young and old, women and men, and those of any ethnic identity.

In the homestretch of the world's biggest poverty-relief project, China is making all-out efforts, including making favorable policies, enhancing financial support, enlarging sales of local products and stepping up coordination between the more prosperous eastern areas and less developed western areas.

A basic requirement is to ensure adequate food and clothing, guaranteed access to compulsory education, basic medical services and safe housing for all poverty-stricken people.

When the goal is met this year, it will be the first time in the history of the Chinese nation that absolute poverty is comprehensively eliminated.

That may help explain the result of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.

According to the survey, China tops the 2019 global rankings of the level of satisfaction with government performance, with over 86 percent of the Chinese surveyed expressing satisfaction, far above the global medium of 47 percent. Enditem
New Delhi, June 10 : After it came to light that the real Anamika Shukla was still unemployed and her documents had been misused by the culprits who were being identified, the Congress on Wednesday attacked the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, saying that the Brahmins in the state were being tagetted.

Congress Working Committee member Jitin Prasada in a statement said, "Why Brahmins are subjected to injustice in the Yogi government, first Anamika Shukla was deprived of job despite being eligible and then targeted and maligned. She should be immediately given a job," He has alleged that there is bias against the community and said, "In the Yogi government many Brahmins have been killed with no action taken by the government and during lockdown too the Brahmins were murdered." The Congress leader alleged, "While it has become a fashion to degrade the community and Brahmins are being targetted for all the wrong reasons in the state, even in those incidents where Brahmins are not responsible." The real Anamika Shukla in whose name a teacher was allegedly drawing salary from 25 places and drew more than Rs one crore is unemployed and belongs to the Gonda District of Uttar Pradesh.

Anamika Shukla went to meet officials on Tuesday in Gonda where she said she applied in many places, but could not attend counselling and now a scam has been unearthed.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi tweeted in Hindi on Tuesday, "UP government should go and apologise to Anamika Shukla, she is living in poverty and doesn't know what is hapenning in her name.

"In this systemic looting under the UP government and its Education Department, one ordinary woman was made a victim....Anamika should be given justice. She should be compensated for the defamation. Give her a job, and security to her family," added Priyanka Gandhi.

The police on Saturday had arrested a woman who had claimed to be Anamika Shukla and had got a teacher's job. The accused had allegedly worked in 25 schools for months and withdrawn over Rs one crore in salaries for more than a year till February last.

Kotwali SHO Ripudaman Singh had said that the police was questioning the accused.

The imposter woman had sent her resignation letter to the Kasganj Basic Education Officer through a friend on Saturday, but the latter was detained at the office. Later, the officer sent some staff who caught hold of the accused woman on a road and handed her to the Soro police station.
Political Reporter

Caitlin Byrd is a political reporter at The Post and Courier and author of the Palmetto Politics newsletter. Before moving to Charleston in 2016, her byline appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times. To date, Byrd has won 17 awards for her work.
The woman found dead at Gifford Pinchot State Park on Monday was supposed to wrap up a camping trip on the property the day before.

Park rangers called Pennsylvania State Police to the Warrington Township park around 11:30 a.m. Monday after finding an abandoned vehicle and belongings on a campsite.

These belonged to 37-year-old Lauren M. Gallagher, of Broomall, Pennsylvania, and an unidentified woman with whom shed been camping. The pair was supposed to check out the day before, state police said.

Troopers later found Gallagher dead in a wooded area of the campsite. The other woman was taken to York Hospital in unknown condition.

The public isnt thought to be in any danger, York County Coroner Pamela L. Gay said on Monday.

State police are investigating the circumstances of Gallaghers death. Anyone with information can call 911 or the state polices York barracks at 717-428-1011.

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A Benner state prison inmate who was serving a life sentence for murder died by suicide Saturday, the Centre County coroners office said Tuesday.

James Dellavechia, 81, was found unresponsive in his cell about 1:40 p.m. Saturday and died about 2:55 p.m. at Mount Nittany Medical Center, the state Department of Corrections said.

Dellavechia was convicted of fatally shooting Scott Robins, 42, in an October 2011 noise dispute in Delaware County, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dellavechia was upset about noise from his neighbors construction project that disturbed his slice of heaven, according to the Inquirer. Robins had the necessary permits and was building his shed during approved hours.

Robins was shot multiple times, and his stepdaughter Kristen Snow was critically wounded. Dellavechia denied the shooting, saying he had no memory of the killing.

He had been at the prison since September 2013.

If you or someone you know is suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255.

By Bret Pallotto, Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.) (TNS)
How A Woman Helped Deliver Over 500,000 Masks To Healthcare Workers: BUST Interview

Liz Klinger knew there was a problem. It was the beginning of March, and the Bay Area native was starting to hear reports about personal protective equipment (or PPE) shortages on the news as coronavirus started to spread in the United States. Klinger called her mom, a nurse in the Bay Area, to ask about how conditions were at her hospital. She didnt have a mask. Realizing her moms situation was widespread, one Thursday night Klinger jumped on a Zoom call with Alper. After some hours and a couple glasses of wine, they created Mask Match.

The site matches up donors with extra to healthcare workers, so they can ship the masks directly where theyre needed. These masks range from homemade masks to extra N95s. So far, Mask Match has facilitated the delivery of over 500,000 masks to healthcare workers across the United States and Canada from over 350 volunteers. BUST spoke with Liz over the phone about how she made Mask Match a reality, and what its been like to run for the past couple of months.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I know your mom is a nurse and you saw a need for masks, but how did the specific idea of matching masks come to you?

Chloe [Alper] and I both have backgrounds in supply chains. For Chloe, her company works with the medical supply chain. For myself, Im a co-founder of Lioness, and we do biofeedback vibrators, so Im pretty familiar with advanced electronics manufacturing. When there are different problems with supply shortages of components youve run out of and everyones competing to find that one component, whether it be iPhones or smart vibrators, it can be pretty disruptive to making and shipping products. So when we heard about the mask shortage, we were like, this is going to be really bad. And this is not just a component to make more iPhones or vibrators, it's literally something that is a lifesaving device for healthcare workers. So we were just like, okay, this is going to be a complete cluster and the best and the easiest sources of masks, as we were kind of thinking it through, are the masks that are in our homes and in our closets, our garages, our workshops, or that some of our small businesses have too that they may not be using because of the shelter-in-place. And in this timeframe where we can't wave a magic wand and have these masks appear, we can have a supply and a sort of this bandaid for this in-between time until the supply chain that works itself out.

What was that timeline like from conceiving the idea to making it a reality?

Basically, we started seeing this could be a problem at the beginning of March. And then Chloe and I just decided to get something started, so it was literally a Thursday night Zoom call, just like screen-sharing and making the website and it launched pretty much that night. Really once you have an idea, and you know how to set it up, its pretty easy to adjust and make things happen from there. After that, we got a lot of pickup and attention from people who were interested in donating and helping and healthcare workers who werent getting masks. They were literally restapling the elastics on their masks to reuse them which is just scary.

Had you ever done anything with that kind of quick turnaround before?

I work in and around and with other startups, so it kind of felt like one of those like hackathons, but this one actually could have like can have an impact on people.

Did you face challenges when developing the website or after you got it up and running?

Scaling the system was a big challenge for us. Fortunately, we partnered up that weekend after launching with two software engineers that were able to help build up this entire system to work with hundreds of volunteers and help match hundreds of thousands of masks. But in that time between figuring out like, okay how do we take all this from a spreadsheet and doing it all manually to make it faster and more effective, that was definitely challenging.

Were you at all surprised by the response Mask Match received?

Not at all. I think theres a lot of us that feel helpless about the situation. And doing something like this is where if you already have masks, you already have something. Its a really easy way for people to feel like theyre doing some good in a terrible situation. One of the things we did is we set up a program so that donors dont have to leave their homes in order to be able to ship out the masks, which was really key early on when everything was shelter-in-place. USPS has an option to do click and ship where you can package up anything, put a label on it, and the post office can pick it up from your door or mailbox and deliver it straight to the healthcare worker who needs the mask. So it helps for a lot of people who like either didn't want to bother the hospitals or may have been afraid to go to the hospital or otherwise go outside, or if they're unable to go outside and still be able to help.

Why is it important that masks are given directly to healthcare workers?

In my mom's experience and in other healthcare workers experiences, sometimes the particular department or the particular hospital had masks, but they weren't giving them out or they weren't allowing workers to bring masks from the outside. Over time, certain hospitals changed policies as the situation progressed, but at the time it was like, even if like you got masks to certain places, they wouldn't be going to the health care workers. It empowered the healthcare workers to have at least some options for what they can do to protect themselves, to protect their patients and their families.

When the masks are matched, are certain areas or facilities prioritized?

Basically its a mix of the high need. Were finding that a lot of the places with the highest need were smaller clinics, the EMS, the assisted living homes, Indian Health Services, prisons  places that are basically smaller and more likely to be at the end of the line for mask distributions or shipments. We also listened to people writing in. One of our volunteers is a superstar, and she went into it and dug and did the research and reached out to the heads of the different Indian Health Services. We were able to direct at least 60,000 different types of masks to five different clinics in the Navajo Nation. Basically, when matching we were figuring how to be as impactful as quickly as possible, and make it easy for the donors to help.

Have you heard any stories from healthcare workers or donors whove exchanged masks through Mask Match?

Oh gosh, a lot. One of the ones that were pretty proud of was there was a hospital in Mississippi that got hit by apparently one of the largest tornados U.S. history. I think about 60 healthcare workers at the hospital lost their homes. It sounded like a pretty tough situation because you have a bunch of volunteers coming in from Georgia and Louisiana and the surrounding states to help, but no one had masks and everyone's coming close to each other. They had a couple of COVID cases. One of their employees wrote into Mask Match the week before and followed up after the tornado. We had a donor with a small business and we were able to direct a portion of 165,000 masks that he had. We were excited to connect those dots together of a business owner in Ohio to a hospital in Mississippi.

Thanks so much for your contribution @slothier! We'll help you get them to a healthcare worker who needs them now https://t.co/EmjG3tgJbr  Mask Match (@MaskMatch) May 28, 2020

In general, just all the people who have been donating and helping really span the age range. Weve had Eagle Scouts doing their senior projects and making masks. Theres Granny Laurel on Twitter documenting her process and giving updates on her mask donations. Theres a family in Brooklyn whos a seamstress family, who was donating masks while they were stuck in the workshop. It's just really cool to be able to see like the age range and all the different people from all walks of life around the country who are coming together to be able to help all these different people around the country. You don't have to be like anyone special, you know? You can just be yourself and help someone save a life.

It really creates this sense of connection too when were all stuck inside.

Yeah, I mean, you asked about where I got the idea and part of my thinking was from Reddit Gifts [ed: an online gift exchange between strangers on Reddit]. I was thinking about that in terms of the sentiment of people being able to do nice things for strangers and just the desire that we have to like help other people, delight other people and just connect with other people that we may not know. And especially I think with something like this, where it's literally a life or death situation, being able to empower people to help someone who really needs it so that they can help other people, it's almost like having this chain people helping each other. I think thats really powerful right now, especially in a time where a lot of us are stuck at home or going into situations that might make us feel really uncomfortable or anxious.

How long do you plan on running this program?

As long as we need it. I'm hoping that Mask Match becomes unnecessary. Really, with the supply chain, it really should be correcting itself ideally. But its hard to say. Theres so many other needs in the healthcare system and so many other things that can be done, that there could be a future there. I have no idea. My main focus is just making sure people get protection if they need it.

If youre interested in donating masks or know someone in need, visit Mask Match here.

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Bennett dodging debate, Cawthorn says

Madison Cawthorn

Congressional candidate Madison Cawthorn says his opponent in the runoff for the Republican nomination is dodging his efforts to meet face to face in a debate, accusing her of a "Joe Biden strategy."

Cawthorn, a Hendersonville native, and Lynda Bennett are vying for the nomination for the seat that became vacant when U.S. Mark Meadows resigned to become President Trump's chief of staff. Early voting is under way and the runoff Election Day is June 23.

Bennett has ramped up a heavy air war against Cawthorn, running TV spots that say he lacks the experience to serve in Congress. Cawthorn, with less cash on hand, issued a news release on Tuesday challenging her to debate.

"The people of Western North Carolina deserve to have a representative who will stand and fight, one who will passionately articulate what they believe in and defend the cause of conservatism," he said in the news release.

A live debate "is not her strong suit," Cawthorn said in an interview last week at his campaign headquarters. "In my mind if you're not willing to show up and put on display the way you can defend conservatism or be willing to open yourself to tough questioning from constituents then how are you going to be able represent them in Washington?"

Jane Bilello, a Tea Party activist from Flat Rock who was handbilling for Bennett at the Board of Elections on opening day of early voting last week, defended her candidate's record.

"She's had 35 years of business experience," Bilello said. "She's run three businesses, she's made payroll, she's an entrepreneur, she has volunteered extensively in the community. She's got 35 years of a stellar reputation of giving back to the community."

Bennett, she added, has support that will enable her to become effectively immediately if she wins the job.

"She's got all of these folks behind her and these are all of Trump's allies, inner circle," she said. "She's already got a built-in support system so when these businesses get up and running they've got somebody that they can talk to. She's been meeting with a lot of these businesses, whether it's restaurants or car dealerships, on getting up and running (and asking) 'What is it that you need that we can help you with?' I know she's helped several of them already."

Cawthorn said Bennett avoids large settings.

"I've never seen her at a town hall with more than four people because she's not doing very many," he said. "I think it's a Joe Biden strategy. Our best way to attack her is just to directly quote her. Whenever she opens her mouth, it's a win for us."

What would he ask Bennett if she agreed to a debate?

"My question would be, Why do you value D.C. politicians' opinions over that of constituents in Western North Carolina? She literally said, 'Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Mark Meadows  they're all going to be up there holding me accountable if I mess up. They'll say, Lynda get your head on straight.'

"I'm going to be accountable to people of Western North Carolina," he said. "That's why I only accept local endorsements."

Cawthorn has been endorsed by more than 40 county commissioners, sheriffs and school board members.

"Whenever you allow somebody to help you get into office, you're going to have to pay the piper. One day they're going to knock on the door and say, 'Hey, I need you to vote this way.' You will be voting for something that benefits his constituency instead of your own ... If you owe anybody other than the people of Western North Carolina, you're not going to be doing your job right."

"The majority of her money comes from out of state," he added. "She only had 15 individual donors, one of them being Mark Meadows, from Western North Carolina, whereas I had over 3,000. She has a very short list of donors."

Campaign reports showed that Cawthorn had $388,216 in campaign money and spent $366,070 with $22,146 cash on hand. Although he raised $65,000 from individuals, the vast majority of his war chest, $311,000, came from his loan to the campaign, according to his campaign's March 31 report with the Federal Elections Commission. Bennett had raised $215,211 and spent $133,806, leaving $81,405 cash on hand. She had $87,000 in contributions from individuals, the FEC said.

Bilello said a debate would not serve the interest of the Republican Party.

"A debate between two Republicans is nothing more than giving fodder to the left," she said. "You're giving them talking points for November. They're both going to stand on the same principles. There's no getting around it. The only difference between the two of them is Lynda's got 35 years of stellar business experience, raised two kids. It's nonsensical to have something like that. Forums are wonderful because people can come and they can sit there and ask her any question they want to ask."
Conditions of availability or consultation of the preparatory documents

Regulatory News:

ENGIE EPS S.A. ("ENGIE EPS" or the "Company") (Paris:EPS), a technology pioneer and an industrial player in the field of energy storage systems and e-mobility, whose securities are admitted to trading on the regulated market of Euronext Paris (EPS:FP), informs its shareholders that, in accordance with the Article 4 of the Ordinance No. 2020-321 of 25 March 2020, its mixed general meeting (the "AGM") will be held, without the shareholders and other persons entitled to attend being physically present, on Wednesday 1 July 2020, at 28, rue de Londres, 75009 Paris, at 10:30 a.m.

The preliminary notice of meeting (avis de reunion) serving as notice of meeting (avis de convocation) has been published in the Bulletin des Annonces Legales Obligatoires "BALO" on 27 May 2020 bulletin n64. It includes the agenda, the draft resolutions as well as details on attendance and voting modalities for this AGM. The preliminary notice of meeting, together with the Board of Directors' report on the draft resolutions and legal information, are now available on the Company's website www.engie-eps.com, under the section Investors Annual General Meeting 2020

The preparatory documents of this AGM are made available to the shareholders and will be retrievable on 10 June 2020 on the Company's website www.engie-eps.com in the same section, in compliance with legal and regulatory provisions.

The AGM will be recorded in its entirety and this recording will be available on the ENGIE EPS website under Investors Annual General Meeting 2020. An investor live webcast with interactive Q&A session will take place after the AGM, starting at 11:30 am the dial-in, webcast link and the presentation will be available on the Company's website www.engie-eps.com under Investors Annual General Meeting 2020.

The 2019 Universal Registration Document has been filed with the French Autorite des marches financiers on Thursday 30 April 2020 under registration number nD.20-0439. It is available to the public, in compliance with legal and regulatory provisions, and may be consulted on the Company's website www.engie-eps.com, in the section Investors Regulated Information Corporate Documents

The 2019 Universal Registration Document includes in particular the statutory accounts of the Company, the consolidated financial statements of ENGIE EPS group, the statutory auditors' reports and their fees as well as the annual financial report.

ABOUT ENGIE EPS

ENGIE EPS is an industrial player within the ENGIE group that develops technologies to revolutionize the paradigm shift in the global energy system towards renewable energy sources and electric mobility. Listed on Euronext Paris (EPS:FP), ENGIE EPS is listed in the CAC Mid Small and the CAC All-Tradable financial indices. Its registered office is in Paris and conducts its research, development and manufacturing in Italy.

For more information: www.engie-eps.com

ABOUT ENGIE

Our Group is a global reference in low-carbon energy and services. In response to the urgency of climate change, our ambition is to become the world leader in the zero-carbon transition "as a service" for our customers, in particular global companies and local authorities. We rely on our key activities (renewable energy, gas, services) to offer competitive turnkey solutions.

With our 170,000 employees, our customers, partners and stakeholders, we are a community of Imaginative Builders, committed every day to more harmonious progress.

Turnover in 2019: EUR 60.1 billion. The Group is listed on the Paris and Brussels stock exchanges (ENGI) and is represented in the main financial indices (CAC 40, DJ Euro Stoxx 50, Euronext 100, FTSE Eurotop 100, MSCI Europe) and non-financial indices (DJSI World, DJSI Europe and Euronext Vigeo Eiris World 120, Eurozone 120, Europe 120, France 20, CAC 40 Governance).

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005286/en/

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Press and Media: eps@imagebuilding.it

Investor Relations: ir@engie-eps.com

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You can leave your umbrella at home for today, but rainfall is in the forecast for Miami starting on Monday, according to the seven-day forecast from drone-powered weather service Saildrone. Tuesday's forecast shows the greatest likelihood of rain at 90 percent, with expected rainfall of 1.09 inches.

The next few days will also see warm temperatures, expected to last through Tuesday. The weather will bring a high temperature of 89 degrees on Wednesday.

Skies will be partly cloudy today and cloudy on Saturday. Winds will reach a modest high of 14 mph on Saturday, while today will be calmer with a top speed of just 7 mph.

This story was created automatically using Saildrone's local weather forecast data, then reviewed by an editor. We also incorporate historic weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.
Former boss of the Curragh Racecourse boss has been appointed as chief operating officer of Al Shaqab Racing which is run by a member of the ruling family of Qatar.

Paul Hensey was CEO of the Curragh Racecourse and Training Grounds for 15 years up to 2016.

He has been CEO of Rifa Mustang Europe for the past three years.

Al Shaqab is the racing and breeding operation of Sheikh Joaans private thoroughbred racing, breeding and Arabian operation, which has bases in Qatar, France and Britain.

Mr Hensey was succeeded at the Curragh by Derek McGrath who oversaw the multi-million euro redevelopment of the home of flat racing.

Leopardstown Racecourse CEO Pat Keogh was appointed to the top job at the venue last July.

Mr Hensey said of his new appointment: Al Shaqab Racing is one of the foremost racing and breeding operations in the world and I am delighted to be joining the company at this exciting time in its development.

"I look forward to meeting the extended Al Shaqab team and to working with them to achieve further success for Al Shaqab Racing.

Al Shaqab general manager Khalifa Al Attiya said: Paul has a wealth of experience within the industry and we are looking forward to working with him as we continue to grow Al Shaqabs racing and breeding operation worldwide.
Irish Distillers has confirmed that Brian Nation will leave his role and that master of maturation Kevin OGorman will replace him as master distiller at Midleton Distillery.

Theres BIG news coming out of Ireland today, as one of the most coveted positions in world whiskey has changed hands. Midleton Distillery has a new master distiller: Kevin OGorman. The Cork native, who is a technology graduate from The University of Limerick and holds a diploma in distilling from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, replaces the outgoing Brian Nation, who has held the role since 2013.

Those are some shoes to fill. OGorman is being charged with protecting the heritage of the worlds most famous Irish whiskeys. While also ensuring that the quality of all new pot and grain distillates produced at Midleton doesnt drop. Oh, and with handling future innovation. I thought I had it hard writing intros for The Nightcap when Sam Smith isnt available.

But OGorman should be more than up to the task, as anybody who has worked with Irish Distillers in recent years (just the once or twice for me) will know already. Hes been with Midleton since 1998, initially working as a distiller under the tutelage of master distiller emeritus Barry Crockett. Maturation then became his primary focus, honing his skills under then master of maturation Brendan Monks before assuming the role himself following Monkss retirement in 2007. Youve probably admired his work already if youve enjoyed new brands like Method and Madness and brand extensions in the Jameson, Redbreast, Powers, Midleton Very Rare and Spot ranges. Essentially, he travelled the globe sourcing quality casks from renowned cooperages, while overseeing the maturation process across the portfolio. Which sounds like too good a role to pass up, until you remember hes going to master distiller for Irish Distillers.

Since starting my career in Irish Distillers in 1998, I have been lucky to learn from masters like Barry Crockett and Brendan Monks about the intricacies of the whiskey production, from grain to glass, OGorman says. Of course, Brian Nation and I have also worked very closely together on distillation and maturation for the past 10 years and he will be missed by all his friends at Midleton Distillery. I am excited to use my experience to drive the sector forward by producing innovative new whiskeys that will delight whiskey fans over the coming years.

The wonderful Brian Nation, meanwhile, will leave to join the OShaughnessy Distilling Company, which is set to open its distillery in Minneapolis next summer. The distillery was founded by cousins Patrick and Michael OShaughnessy, who want to honour the familys Irish-American heritage and take inspiration from Irish whiskey, so Nation should be right at home. Were very excited to see what he does and wish him all the best. We heartily enjoyed your work. If you fancy inviting over at any point, were there. Just so you know. In case it ever comes up.

As I step down from the position of master distiller, I am struck by what an incredible honour it has been to hold this role, he commented on the succession. I have been fortunate to work with a fantastic team at Midleton for the past 23 years and have experienced enormous change, development, and innovation, from the recent expansion of our distillery to the development of new distillate styles in the Micro Distillery. I am delighted to see Kevin take on the role of master distiller. I know that, under his leadership, the quality and reputation of Irish Distillers portfolio will continue to flourish long into the future.

Hear, hear. We look forward to seeing what OGorman does with all things Midleton. I think its fair to say we can all look forward to a lot more delicious Irish whiskey in the future.
Two weeks after Forbes exposed Kylie Jenner for allegedly faking financial documents to be the "youngest self-made billionaire," the mogul's cosmetics fulfillment center, which manufactures her cosmetics, has laid off six of its senior employees.

As per the Sun, Seed Beauty, the company that partnered with Kylie in 2016 and has a 200,000 square-foot campus in California, has made further changes in the reality star's business operations.

Kylie Cosmetics is manufactured and packaged by Seed, which also created her sister's, Kim Kardashian West, makeup line, KKW Beauty.

Seed also manufactures Colourpop Cosmetics, the cheaper version of Kylie Cosmetics.

A source told the British tabloid, "Most of the senior management has been laid off from the Seed Beauty side of Kylie Cosmetics."

"Around six members of staff, who also dealt with other brands, were let go less than two months ago, including the Vice President of Manufacturing and other high-paid employees."

The source further claims, "They were told it was because of the pandemic, but everyone had been expecting a shakeup after the Coty acquisition."

Beauty giant Coty has reportedly purchased a 51% stake in Kylie Jenner's company.

Last week, Kylie Cosmetics CEO had also stepped down from his official position, weeks before he was due to start finally.

Christoph Honnefelder was announced as the new CEO of Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin in January, saying that he would begin working with the brands soon.

According to reports, Honnefelder left for "personal reasons."

Kylie Jenner even welcomed him on board and said she was excited, according to her statement.

President of Luxury Brands Simona Cattaneo will reportedly take over from Honnefelder the CEO role to "build a strong foundation to support our strategic partnership with Kylie Jenner."

Kylie Jenner is also facing backlash online after revealing that only 13% of Kylie Cosmetics are black.

The entrepreneur joined other beauty brands over the weekend, disclosing the number of black employees at her company as part of the Pull Up for Change initiative, which was started by black CEO and founder of UOMA Beauty, Sharon Chuter.

The "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star shared on Instagram revealing that 47% of the Kylie Cosmetics employees are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color,while 53% are white. 100% are women-identifying.

The company also mentioned that its leadership only consists of her and her mom, Kris Jenner.

Social media users were quick to call out the mom of one for the low number of black employees.

"Only 13% black? Damn. Also, only all being women-identifying isn't that progressive."

Another commenter also mentioned how she only saw one black model when scrolling through Kylie Cosmetics' Instagram page.

Aside from the employee-related backlash, Kylie and the rest of her sisters have a history of being accused of cultural appropriation for styling their hair in braids and cornrows.

"13% black employees when all this family has done is appropriate our culture," one person commented.

According to the person handling the company's Instagram account, they are said to be making plans to bring in more black content creators and influencers.

They promised to do better and promote diversity within Kylie Cosmetics.

READ MORE: Kylie Jenner, Travis Scott 'Almost Back Together' As They Self-Isolate in One Home
- For the year 2019, the Bank of Ghana recorded a profit of GHc1.8 billion

- In the preceding year, it recorded a loss which was half the result posted in 2019

- Its board of directors has, however, decided not to announce dividends for the year

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) recorded a profit of GHC1.8 billion for the year 2019, YEN.com.gh has learned.

The 2019 result was twice the operating loss the central bank recorded in the preceding year.

The realization of profit was attributed to the strong performance it posted for the year under review.

READ ALSO: Bank of Ghana suspends the payment of dividends by banks for the 2019/2020 operational year

The BoGs income from fee and penalties charged to commercial banks, interests among others, was GHC5.85 billion in 2019, compared to GHC3.12 billion in 2018.

A report by citibusinessnews.com shows that BoGs expenditure items such as personnel costs, rent, repairs and renewals increased from GHc3.92 billion to GHc4 billion between 2018 and 2019.

However, it recorded more income for 2019 and this led to the profit recorded for the year.

YEN.com.gh understands that BoGs total assets increased by 16% within the one year period; from GHc59 billion to about GHc69 billion.

This was composed of securities such as long-term government bonds, which topped with a share of GHc46.2 billion, followed by cash and balances with correspondent banks at GHc7.4 billion.

Balances with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recorded the third-highest of GHc5.34 billion.

Despite the strong performance posted by the central bank in 2019, its board of directors did not approve the payments of dividends for the year.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) spent GHC306 million to print new Ghana cedi notes in 2019.

This represents a 108% increase from 2018 when GHC147 million was spent on printing new notes.

The BoG revealed in its 2019 annual report that GHC276 million was spent on the GHC200 notes while GHC149 million was spent on the GHC100 notes.

READ ALSO: Bank of Ghana explains why it suspended payment of dividends by banks

Enjoyed reading our story? Download YEN's news app on Google Playstore now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

Newly-built Tema Motorway Interchange opened to traffic | #Yencomgh

Want to be featured on YEN.com.gh? Send us a message on our Facebook page or on Instagram with your stories, photos or videos

Source: YEN.com.gh
A hilarious new online gallery has compiled the humorous moments from parents revealing their children doing the silliest of things.

The photographs, shared by parents from around the world, will leave anyone howling, as they show hilarious youngsters apply their logic to the most ridiculous of circumstances.

The viral online gallery, compiled by BoredPanda, features children in the silliest of circumstances, from accidentally swallowing a penny to dressing up as a pair of trousers.

And while some left parents chuckling, others left neighbours feeling bemused. Here Femail showcase the best...

People from around the world have been sharing the hilariously silly moments from their children (pictured, one person, from an unknown location, shared an x-ray of someone who had accidentally swallowed a penny while trying to demonstrate how they had swallowed a key)

At least it's an easy DIY costume! One father, from the US, shared a snap of his son dressing up as a pair of trousers for Halloween

Another parent, whose location is unknown, posted a snap of their toddler having a tantrum after they stopped her from drinking dangerous chemicals

Who wants a pool anyway! Another parent, whose location is unknown, shared a snap as their son bathed in a bucket instead of their new outdoors pool

I promise it's not here to stay! One man shared a snap of his uncle after putting a wig on his son's head and told him it was permanent

I can see you! Another parent, believed to be from the UK, shared a snap of their son playing hide-and-seek

'I'm sorry'! One mother, believed to be from the US, revealed her son had been left confused with a condolence card

A magical painting! One person, believed to be from the UK, shared the hilarious snap of her nephew's attempts to draw Harry Potter in a joint art project

A sly deal? One person, believed to be from the UK, shared a snap of their nephew's crafty plan to switch a fake Nintendo for their confiscated games console

She's going places! Another parent, believed to be from the US, shared a snap as their daughter head out the door after they brought their new baby home for the first time

But which side is best? One father revealed the hilarious conversation he'd had with his son about buttering his toast

One parent, believed to be from the US, revealed the 'insane' game that her sons would play together as children
Story and video from SWNS

Birdwatchers were all of a flutter this week following the sighting of a rare visitor to these shores.

A Blyth's Reed Warbler - a migratory bird normally found in Asia and eastern Europe - was spotted at a nature reserve in the Humber Estuary.

Photographer Calvin Taylor Lee was able to get these stunning shots of the bird at the Far Ing national nature reserve in the early morning.The bird was resting on a branch of hawthorn bush.

He said: "I managed to get a few shots at around 6.30am."There were lots of people who came to see it, before it flew away.

"The bird, which feeds on insects, breeds in northern Asia, northern Africa and normally migrates to Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka rarely visiting western Europe."
The Trump administration is preparing sanctions on as many as 50 oil and fuel tankers as part of an effort to cut off trade between Iran and Venezuela, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The sanctions would be imposed through the Treasury Department and are intended to avoid a U.S. military confrontation with the countries, the person said on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration is trying to deter Irans support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who last month defended the right to freely trade with Iran. Both countries are under crippling U.S. sanctions.

TENSIONS: Iran issues warning to U.S. over Venezuela-bound tankers: IRNA

Targeting the tankers would mark an escalation of efforts by the U.S. to disrupt trade and money flowing between the two countries as they forge an increasingly close relationship.

The U.S. is also weighing sanctions on a company run by Colombian businessman Alex Saab Moran, who has links to the Maduro regime, the person said. The Wall Street Journal reported the expanded program earlier Tuesday.

A Treasury department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Venezuela, home to the worlds largest oil reserves, is nearly out of gasoline following years of mismanagement and U.S. sanctions on its oil. Over the past few months, authorities have imposed rationing at gas stations nationwide, handing control over to military personnel.

Socialist leader Maduro recently thanked Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei for the deliveries, saying Venezuela has good and brave friends in the world. He defended the deal as part of a previous cooperation agreement.

FUEL FIX: Our energy news. Your inbox. A perfect combination.

Irans foreign ministry has said any attempt by the U.S. to stop the trade will be met with a swift and decisive response.

While any increase in shipping sanctions would drive up freight rates, the impact would be cushioned by the slump in demand caused by the pandemic and production cuts, said Randy Giveans, senior vice president for equity research at Jefferies LLC in Houston.

You can expect to see as high as a 30% rise in tanker rates from current levels, he said. Rates doubled when the Trump administration slapped sanctions on some subsidiaries of Chinas COSCO Shipping Corp. in September, according to Giveans.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 13F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 13F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.
TORONTO - Premier Doug Ford got tested Wednesday for COVID-19, a day after his education minister came into contact with someone who was infected  despite the minister's test coming back negative.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, right, and Health Minister Christine Elliott pose for a photo with a health-care worker while handing out bagged gifts from Prince Edward Island at Birchmount Hospital, in Scarborough, Ont. on Monday, June 8, 2020. Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott are being tested for COVID-19 after Education Minister Stephen Lecce came into contact with someone who has the virus. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO - Premier Doug Ford got tested Wednesday for COVID-19, a day after his education minister came into contact with someone who was infected  despite the minister's test coming back negative.

Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott held a joint news conference Tuesday with Stephen Lecce to announce a child-care reopening plan, and Lecce's office said he was notified the same day that he had come into contact with a someone with COVID-19, so he got tested.

As a result, Ford and Elliott cancelled their usual daily news conference and the premier's office said they were monitoring themselves for symptoms and getting tested while awaiting Lecce's results.

Not long after the colleges and universities minister began a solo appearance at the daily briefing, Lecce's office said his test result came back negative.

Ford spokeswoman Ivana Yelich said Ford still got tested for COVID-19 "out of an abundance of caution."

Public health officials have not recommended getting a COVID-19 test immediately after possible exposure.

"If you are worried about possible exposure to a person with or under investigation for COVID-19, based on evidence and the incubation period of the virus, we suggest individuals get tested 4 to 8 days after potential exposure," Toronto's Michael Garron Hospital writes on its website.

Neither the premier's office nor a spokeswoman for Lecce would say how he came into contact with a positive case, or why his possible exposure wasn't made public sooner.

The premier's office would also not confirm if Ford was in self-isolation while awaiting Lecce's test results.

His nephew, city councillor Michael Ford, recently tested positive for COVID-19, but Premier Ford hadn't seen his nephew in more than two weeks, a spokeswoman said.

Colleges and Universities Minister Ross Romano took to the podium alone Wednesday to announce that limited in-person education and training could start on post-secondary campuses starting in July.

The summer session will be for students "in areas of high labour market demand"  such as nursing, personal support worker, welding and engineering  who need to complete a lab or practicum course component to graduate.

There will be strict limits on the number of students per campus, the government said.

Ontario reported 251 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, and 11 more deaths.

That brings the province to a total of 31,341 cases, including 2,475 deaths and 25,380 resolved cases  551 more than the previous day.

Jen Zoratti | Next A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

The uptick in resolved cases means there are 300 fewer active cases over the previous day, and today marks the first day the percentage of resolved cases in the province is over 80.

Elliott says in a tweet that 59 of today's new cases are related to an outbreak in southwestern Ontario and the "vast majority" of the others are in the Greater Toronto Area.

Most regions of the province outside of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area as well as some border communities are set to enter Stage 2 of reopening on Friday.

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 continued to steadily decline, from 600 the previous day to 580 today  the lowest number since early April.

The number of people in intensive care rose slightly while the number of people on ventilators decreased slightly.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 8, 2020.
YINCHUAN, June 9 (Xinhua) -- A batch of medical supplies donated to Colombia by the government of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region left Yinchuan, the regional capital, on Tuesday.

The supplies, including 500 protective suits and 15,000 surgical masks, will be sent to Casanare in Colombia via the Embassy of Colombia in China, to help fight COVID-19.

So far, Ningxia has donated medical supplies to friendship cities and regions of nine countries.
Image: Derek Chauvin (Hennepin County Jail / via AFP - Getty Images)

MINNEAPOLIS - The police officer shown on video kneeling on the neck of George Floyd prior to his death in custody was in talks to strike a plea bargain before his arrest, officials said Wednesday.

The legal team for Derek Chauvin, who was fired from the Minneapolis police force after Floyd's detainment and death on May 25, was in negotiations with the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and the federal prosecutor, said Chuck Laszewski, spokesman for Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.

Ultimately, the negotiations failed, Laszewski said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on the matter Wednesday.

Chauvin was arrested May 29 and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. A charge of second-degree murder was added on June 3. Three other officers at the scene of Floyd's detainment were also arrested on June 3 and charged with aiding and abetting murder.

The negotiations for a plea deal for Chauvin were why a widely-watched news conference was delayed by almost two hours on the day the former officer was arrested, according to Laszewski. The spokesman would not specify why a plea agreement was not reached or what offer may have been on the table.

I thought we would have another development to talk to you about, but we dont, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said at the start of that press conference.

Eric Nelson, a defense lawyer for Chauvin, declined comment to NBC News on Wednesday.

Floyd's death, recorded by police body cameras and cellphones of passersby, ignited protests across the globe against systemic racism and police brutality.

The state of Minnesota has launched a sweeping civil rights probe of the Minneapolis Police Department and the city has vowed to dismantle the department.

Gabe Gutierrez reported from Minneapolis and David K. Li from New York
The young girl in white squared herself at the podium above George Perry Floyd Jr.s casket and looked out at the hundreds of masked mourners who had gathered to honor her uncle.

My name is Brooke Williams, she said. I can breathe. As long as I can breathe, justice will be served for Perry.

After weeks of tumult over Floyds death beneath a police officers knee in Minnesota, his relatives and friends gathered in southwest Houston at The Fountain of Praise to mourn. They grieved a son of Third Ward, an everyday man whose death made him an international force against police brutality. They called out his brutal end.

The officers showed no remorse watching my uncles soul leave his body, Williams said, her voice filled with the resolve that has fueled hundreds of thousands of marchers. He begged and pleaded many times, just for you to get up, but you just pushed harder.

But despite the pain, the funeral felt different from the last two weeks. It was a homegoing.

The private ceremony livestreamed to the public was a full-throttle four-hour service filled with huge-voiced gospel and a succession of pastors and politicians exhorting the congregation. It was a moment of shared grief and shared resolve, of hope and remembrance; a chance to honor a Houston son.

But also a moment of witness, and an indictment.

Why must this system be corrupt and broken? Williams asked.

Condemnation of Trump

Other mourners echoed that raw emotion, condemnation ringing from the pulpit during the service.

This was not just a tragedy, said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered the eulogy. It was a crime.

Sharpton, robed in white, took the pulpit in the fourth hour of the service. He packed in eulogy, history, an attack on racism, and a fierce indictment of the Trump administration, including the recent clearing of protesters near the White House so that President Donald Trump could pose in front of a church with a Bible.

Youre scheming on how you can spin the story rather than you can achieve justice, he said.  To clear out peaceful protesters and then take a Bible and walk in front of a church and use a church as a prop  wickedness in high places.

He paused during the eulogy and asked those in attendance to recognize the family members of other black victims of violence.

Sharpton asked them to stand one by one: the mother of Trayvon Martin, the mother of Eric Garner, the sister of Botham Jean, the family of Pamela Turner, the father of Michael Brown and the father of Ahmaud Arbery. Applause built with each name.

All of these families came to stand with this family, Sharpton said. Because they know better than anyone else the pain they will suffer from the loss they have gone through.

He criticized Trump for calling for a tough approach to protests against police brutality instead of trying to bring the country together.

When some kids wrongly start violence that this family doesnt condone, the president talks about bringing in the military, Sharpton said. But hes not said one word about eight minutes and 46 seconds of police murder of George Floyd.

In a videotaped address, former Vice President Joe Biden offered his condolences to Floyds family. He said the pain of the moment would become a purpose for Floyds loved ones to change the world.

No child should have to ask the question that too many black children have had to ask for generations: Why? Why is Daddy gone? the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said. When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America, he said.

When he spoke, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Floyds death and the outpouring of anguish that followed had prompted politicians across the nation to new action.

We honor him not because he was perfect, but we honor him today because when he took his last breath, the rest of us will now be able to breathe, Turner said.

Now Playing: From Al Sharpton and Joe Biden to the mayor of Houston and family members, George Floyd's funeral service was full of powerful and inspiring speeches that touched on memories of Floyd's life and the need for change. Video: Laura Duclos Houston Chronicle

He promised to sign an executive order implementing several police reforms, including banning the use of chokeholds, requiring Houston police officers to warn suspects before shooting, requiring them to try to de-escalate situations.

He also praised the family for seeking justice for Floyd while at the same time asking people all around the world to protest peacefully.

We owe a great deal of gratitude to this family, he said. And I want to say thank you. By the end his voice was rising with each word to applause.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, also acknowledged the throngs of protesters who have filled the streets over the few weeks.

Many of them could not be in this place. They are black and brown. They are Asian. They are white, she said. They are protesting and marching, and Im saying, as a mama, I hear your cry.

Thank you, George

In addition to the congregation inside, mourners gathered outside.

Garland Victor, 52, of Katy, sat outside of the church, blasting the livestream of the services through his motorcycle.

He felt compelled to attend, he said.

This coulda been me, my son, my father, Victor said. I just want to be here for support in any way, shape, form or fashion.  If it was me in that casket, Id appreciate any and everybody just letting me know my life meant something.

Terrance Burney, 36, held a sign that read We See Greatness in You and We Will Breathe.

He stood outside the churchs glass windows, hoping Floyds family and those entering might see his messages.

Were tired of not breathing, said Burney, an organizer originally from Detroit. He said he attended protests in Minneapolis and threw community events in Los Angeles, where he now lives. Monday night, he flew into Houston hoping to spread positivity at Floyds funeral, and planned to return home Tuesday night.

Were tired of seeing these things, Burney said, referring to police brutality. We need a big change and reform. But big dreams, he said, require group effort.

Another out-of-town mourner, Nuredin Giayash drove from Tulsa, Okla., to honor Floyd.

Floyds death made me cry and made me sick, Giayash said.

The 64-year-old, who was born in Libya, is hoping Floyds death signals a turning point.

You have to stand out for justice, he said. Without justice, no peace, no life, no dignity, no living together. We have to make a difference.

Florence Bamidele-Orji, 57, a Houston resident originally from Nigeria, waved goodbye to the hearse that carried Floyds casket.

Thank you, George. Great warrior! she yelled, as the hearse passed. Thank you for bringing us together.

Were fighting for you

In the minutes after the hearse passed into Silver Lake Community Church, some in the crowd grew restless and spilled into the intersection. The crowd took turns chanting Floyds name and black lives matter! fanning themselves with homemade posters and wiping sweat from their eyes.

The crowd quieted as the procession began the final mile to the grave site.

Four men in pressed black suits led the procession, followed by about a half-dozen Pearland Police Department bicycle officers and four other suited escorts. Two white horses, each adorned with a simple black feather head covering, pulled the windowed carriage hearse. Floyds golden casket gleamed inside.

Onlookers perched on the median and along the road, standing nearly shoulder to shoulder on one side for more than a mile. They waved at the cars in the procession, while others held their fists in the air in solidarity.

We love you, one woman in the crowd shouted toward the first black SUVs to follow the hearses. A woman in the car nodded and waved. Were fighting for you, and we wont stop!

Some in the processional held their fists outside windows, and others gestured for cheers. Many looked somber, clutching tissues and acknowledging the crowds support with weak smiles.

Delayne Green had been upset about high-profile instances of police brutality against black men in the past, but something in her changed after watching the video of Floyd struggling on the pavement. The time that ticked by without mercy, she said, flicked a switch in her mind.

There was no mercy. There was just no mercy, Green said. No human deserves to die that way; I dont care what color your skin is.

Greens 2-year-old son, Kristian, bounced around on her lap, wriggling to reach another binky to pop into his mouth. She said she followed all the rules people tell you to when having a kid  she waited until her finances were in order and until she was confident she could raise a thoughtful young man. But now she worries for him, and her husband, too.

No matter how much we raise him in the church, or how kind we teach him to be, hes still going to be seen in some peoples eyes as a threat, Green said.
The father of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has said UK policing is still 'institutionally racist' and black people are 'treated as second-class citizens'.

Neville Lawrence, 78, also praised the tearing down of statues such as that of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during the mass protests triggered by the death of George Floyd in police custody.

His son Stephen was stabbed to death aged 18 on April 22, 1993, in a racist attack in south-east London for which charges against the killers were initially dropped.

Neville Lawrence, the father of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, has said black people are 'still being treated as second-class citizens' following the death of George Floyd

Neville told The Guardian black people are being treated as second-class citizens 'not only in this country but all over the world'.

Referring to the death of Floyd in Minneapolis, he commented: 'When I saw the news, tears came out of my eyes.

'I did not believe someone could do that when others stood by and watched.'

The 78-year-old said he 'totally disagrees' Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick's announcement that the force is no longer institutionally racist.

Neville and his wife Baroness Doreen Lawrence fought for justice after charges against her son's killers were at first dropped, with Nelson Mandela even meeting Doreen in London following the murder.

Stephen's death, and the controversial police investigation, became a watershed moment in British race relations and led to the Metropolitan Police being publicly damned as 'institutionally racist'.

It comes as Britain's head of counter-terrorism Neil Basu says 'we still have a long way to go' and notes the importance on 'highlighting the differences' between policing in the US and UK.

In an internal message to colleagues, Basu said: 'We are not the same, because unlike America we overwhelmingly police by consent, and not by force.

Neville Lawrence, 78, also praised the tearing down of statues such as that of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol (pictured: an empty plinth where the statue once stood)

It comes as Britain's head of counter-terrorism Neil Basu, pictured above, notes the importance on 'highlighting the differences' between policing in the US and UK (file photo)

'And so we cannot directly compare policing in the UK to that of our counterparts in the USA.

'But what we are seeing in America, and here in the UK, too, is anger directed not just at police brutality but the racial bias built into the very fabric of our institutions and society - perhaps best illustrated in the UK by the huge disparity in young black men in the criminal justice system.'

He added: 'I want to say a profound thank you to those officers policing these protests in the UK, and for the restraint, dignity and empathy many showed under real pressure. You walked the thin blue line with grace, and I salute you.

'UK policing is built upon the values of courage, integrity, professionalism and compassion. But these words only carry meaning if we act on them.

'Professionalism, born out of experience, skill and training, prevents us from applying pressure in a dangerous way when restraining suspects and people in mental health crisis.'

Demonstrators hold placards as they protest for the removal of a statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes on the outside of Oriel College in Oxford, following the death of George Floyd

Workers use a crane to take down the statue of slave owner Robert Milligan at West India Quay, east London, as Labour councils across England and Wales will begin reviewing monuments

Meanwhile, workmen were yesterday seen uprooting a statue of Robert Milligan from its spot on West India Quay in London's docklands to cheers from spectators.

Protesters had drawn up a hit list of 60 'racist' monuments to be taken down, including Milligan's.

Amid growing pressure to act, the charity Canal and River Trust worked with the Museum of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to remove the bronze figure of the Scottish merchant who owned 526 slaves at his Jamaican sugar plantation.

And in Oxford more than 1,000 demonstrators have demanded the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes, an imperialist who provided philanthropical support to Oriel College in Oxford University where the monument stands.

All 130 Labour councils have said they would examine the appropriateness of any monuments linked to colonialism and the slave trade in their authorities.

Earlier, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan ordered a review of murals, statues, street art and street names across the capital in response to the mass protests.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  A gaping $2 billion hole in New Mexicos budget would be plugged using a mix of federal stimulus funding, cash reserves and spending cuts under similar plans unveiled Wednesday by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and a key legislative budget committee.

The solvency proposals will be the focus of debate during a special session that will start next Thursday, although Lujan Grisham indicated that several other issues could be added to the agenda.

The Democratic governor also said her solvency plan would largely protect public schools from budget cuts while leaving the states cash reserves at about 12% of spending levels  or about $873 million.

I think its an incredibly responsible approach, Lujan Grisham said during a Wednesday news briefing with reporters. I feel as good as I can that were going to be in the best possible position.

In response to the states worsening budget situation, both solvency plans would trim approved salary increases for teachers and state employees that are scheduled to take effect July 1.

Under the governors proposal, the pay raises would be cut in half, from 4% to 2%. Under the plan unveiled by the Legislative Finance Committee, they would either be reduced to 1% or scrapped.

In addition, the LFC staff recommended eliminating the $17 million for a tuition-free college program that Lujan Grisham pushed for during this years 30-day legislative session. That funding would be left intact under the governors approach.

But the governors and the LFCs solvency plans align in many other areas. Both call for canceling some approved road construction and other infrastructure projects and reducing the funding for a newly approved early childhood trust fund by $20 million  from $320 million to $300 million.

Lujan Grisham said the special session is probably not the format to address proposed tax hikes and other revenue-generating measures, including a plan to legalize recreational marijuana for adult users that she has said could generate $100 million a year for the state.

Such tax measures will most likely be debated in January, when lawmakers could have to take additional budget-balancing steps.

Some really heavy lifting is going to have to take place in January to stabilize revenues, said Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, the LFCs chairman.

Smith was defeated in last weeks primary election by fellow Democrat Neomi Martinez-Parra of Lordsburg and will no longer be a legislator when the 2021 session rolls around.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, one of five legislators to vote against adopting the LFCs solvency plan, described the proposals as election year patch jobs.

These proposals do absolutely nothing to solve the real problem, which is reckless, out-of-control spending, Harper told the Journal.

He pointed out that some Republicans had expressed concern about state spending growth over the past two years. He also said he thinks a Democratic-controlled Legislature will turn to big tax hikes next year to address falling revenue levels.

Changed outlook

New Mexico lawmakers were sitting on a projected budget surplus when they approved a $7.6 billion spending plan in February for the fiscal year that starts in July.

But the states financial outlook has changed dramatically over the past three months, due to the one-two punch of falling oil prices and a business slowdown due to the coronavirus, and LFC staffers said Wednesday the budget plan will have to be pared back significantly.

Based on new estimates released Wednesday by executive and legislative economists, the state is now projected to collect about $5.9 billion in revenue during the coming budget year  down from $7.9 billion that was projected in December.

Were going to have to be very, very careful about what we can afford, said Sen. Roberto Bobby Gonzales, D-Ranchos de Taos.

In all, the $7.6 billion budget would be scaled back by $586 million to $652 million under the two solvency plans.

Both plans would reduce the size of the annual spending bill to about $7 billion  roughly the same level as the current years spending.

In addition to drawing down cash reserves, the solvency plans also hinge on the state using about $725 million from a federal coronavirus relief package to backfill state agency spending.

Although Congress did not explicitly provide states with that spending flexibility when it approved the relief package, Lujan Grishams chief of staff, John Bingaman, said Wednesday that the Governors Office is confident the spending will be deemed allowable.

Top state officials also said there are signs that New Mexicos economy could recover quickly, even though the state has lagged in emerging from past recessions.

Were going to be on the rebound, I believe, a lot quicker than we have in the past, Lt. Gov. Howie Morales said during Wednesdays discussion with reporters.

Other issues

Although the special session will focus on budget adjustments, Lujan Grisham said Wednesday that she plans to add several other issues to the sessions agenda.

That could include making about $180 million in grant funding available to New Mexico local governments and Native American tribes, which have been hit hard by the COVID-19 outbreak.

In addition, Lujan Grisham said the Governors Office is working on an aid package for businesses bruised by the pandemic. The package would be funded by earmarking roughly $500 million from the states Severance Tax Permanent Fund.

New Mexicos election system could also be addressed, after more than 1,300 absentee ballots were received too late to be counted in last weeks primary election.

Changes under consideration include extending the deadline for absentee ballots to be received and allowing for the November general election to be run as a mail-in election, Lujan Grisham said.

Its something I care about, and I think its necessary, she said. New Mexicans should expect that we will have something together that will get final shaping in the special session.
Photo: David Wylie/okanaganz.com

My mini-fridge is stocked with cannabis drinks.

Getting them in the first place, however, was difficult. The main challenge youll come across while trying to stock up is cannabis equivalencies  thats the amount of cannabis said to be contained in Cannabis 2.0 products.

Houseplants Grapefruit Sparkling Water, for instance, has the equivalency of 5.1 grams of cannabis per can  though they only contain 2.5 mg of THC per drink.

Since The Cannabis Act prohibits purchases over 30 grams of cannabis (or the equivalent thereof), youll only be able to buy up to five drinks per order. You cant even get a six pack.

While stores could sell you more by ringing through multiple orders, youre breaking the law by having more than 30 grams of cannabis with you at a time. Even more cumbersome is that if youre ordering the drinks online, through the BC Cannabis Store for instance, youll have a $6-shipping fee tacked on to every order.

Reign Drops keep falling

Im not the only person to grumble about it.

One local cannabis store owner says the wonky laws mean a customer can purchase 70 units of Redecan Reign drops in one order, equaling about 60,000 mg of THC.

Personally, I ordered five 2.5 mg Houseplant drinks, which totalled 25.5 grams of cannabis; I then filled my basket with six 10-mg Bhang dark chocolates, which totalled 3.96 grams of cannabis  for a grand total of 29.46 grams, just under the 30-gram limit.

Do you see the stupidity of current cannabis equivalencies?

Yes, Canada is building a roadmap for the world to follow. But this little bit of regulation is a clogged up intersection that needs to be replaced with a free-flowing roundabout.

How do they taste?

As for the drinks themselves, Ive tried Tweeds Houndstooth and Soda and its Bakerstreet and Ginger. Ive also tried Houseplant Grapefruit and Sparkling Water, and Everies Lemon and Lime drink.

The Houseplant drink is far and away my favourite. The grapefruit smell is pleasant and the taste is fresh and makes it easy (too easy?) to knock a few back.

The Houndstooth and Soda tasted a lot like nutmeg and weed  on its own, its not an overly appetizing flavour. Some have suggested adding some fresh lime to brighten it up.

The Bakerstreet and Ginger was much nicer than its bland counterpart, perhaps because of the significant difference in the amount of sugar.

Having only small amounts of THC per drink, I was pleasantly surprised to feel a gentle effect off of two drinks.

Lastly, the Everie drink tasted great, but at only 10 mg of CBD, it had pretty much zero effect.

But wait theres more

Kelownas own THC BioMed just announced Thursday it has shipped Canadas first cannabis shot, THC Kiss. They come in 30 ml bottles, in other words, a fluid ounce.

The first order is available in B.C., with the second order to Saskatchewan.

Meanwhile, Canopy Growths first Deep Space drinks have reached consumers in Newfoundland and Ontario; they just arrived in B.C.

Each drink contains 10 mg of THC and have a lower cannabis equivalent, allowing people to buy up to nine of them at one time. (Star Trek nerds, like me, may be tickled at the wordplay of Deep Space Nine.)

Early reports from Ontario have put a bit of a damper on my excitement, calling it, Regret In A Can.

Reddit user Vulcan905 posted his scathing thoughts on the vile liquid from hell.

It smells exactly like it tastes: like a freakish combination of melted Jolly Ranchers, flat RC Cola, and some type of cleaning fluid, says the reviewer. It's so impossible to drink, I can only tolerate tiny sips. Why did I get five cans of this? Because I'm stupid. How am I going to finish this one can? HOW am I going to get rid of the remaining four cans? Do I foist it on unsuspecting guests by showing them the latest cannabis drink? Here, try this, you'll love it.

If 2020 was a cannabis beverage, this would be it.
Khmer Krom villager Huynh Dang Diep was arrested by the Vietnamese government for his involvement in a violent clash in May, 2020 over a land dispute dating back to the 1970s.

Vietnamese authorities in Kien Giang province have arrested a Khmer Krom minority family of six for their involvement in a violent confrontation during a forced eviction last month, relatives told RFA Tuesday.

After their arrest on Sunday, the six were questioned for several hours before five of them were released, while the last member of the family remains in custody.

Witnesses told RFAs Vietnamese Service on May 11 that 10 farmers were injured May 5, as the police in Kien Giang provinces Phu My district confiscated digging vehicles, with police using batons and tear gas, and the Khmer Krom farmers hitting back with rods and throwing mud.

Video posted on Facebook documented the violence at Giang Thanh commune, which broke out when the police attempted to remove the digger belonging to the family of local Khmer Krom farmer Huynh Van Dat as he and other farmers were planting crops.

The government claims the land is part of a conservation area, but the Khmer Krom, ethnic Khmer native to what is now southern Vietnam, say they have been farming the paddies since the 1970s.

RFA could not reach the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh for comment Tuesday. There has been no comment on the case from the government in Hanoi.

Cambodia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Kuy Kuong also could not be reached for comment but he previously said that Cambodia can not interfere into Vietnamese affairs.

Huynh Thi Hau, one of the six Khmer Krom who were arrested on June 7, told RFAs Khmer service that she and four others were released after being questioned about their involvement in the land dispute last month. She said that 50 riot police came to her house armed with electric batons, handcuffing her family and taking them to the police station.

Huynh was at the time carrying her baby, she said, but despite her pleas she too was handcuffed.

They handcuffed my husband while he was lying on the ground. I was holding a baby only 1  months old, but they pushed me to the ground and handcuffed me, she said.

She said that her brother Huynh Dang Diep is still being detained.

According to Huynh Thi Hau, authorities accused them of revolting and encroaching on a government tract of land of about 3,000 hectares (11.6 square miles).

She said that police have not informed the family of her brothers whereabouts. She said that her brother did not encroach on the land, but was hired to prepare rice paddies for cultivation by the other villagers.

Sonn Chang, a villager who hired Huynh Dang Diep, told RFA that the Huynh family was poor and did not have a claim on the land.

[Huynh Dang Diep,] the villager who was arrested, did not have land. We hired him. The government should resolve the case with us instead, he said.

Following the arrests, many villagers went to the police station to demand the release of the family, but authorities did not confirm their whereabouts.

Cambodian Rights groups respond

Several rights groups outside of Vietnam are engaging Vietnamese authorities to petition for Huynhs release.

We are planning to release petitions to the Vietnamese government to release the villager, Son Chhum Chuon, secretary general of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom for Human Rights and Development Association, told RFA.

The Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation, which is based in California, also called on the Vietnamese government to release Huynh.

The Federations Information Department Director Son Yoeng Ratana said he is shocked the Vietnamese government has failed to resolve land issue for the villagers and instead arrested them.

[The situation] is very unjust for the Khmer Krom people, he said.

They are suffering because they lost their land and now Vietnamese authorities arrested them, he said.

He said that the arrest is a tactic to scare other villagers from demanding the land back.

The Khmer Krom face serious restrictions of freedom of expression, assembly, association, information, and movement in Vietnam, according to U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

The Vietnamese government has banned Khmer Krom human rights publications and tightly controls the practice of Theravada Buddhism by the minority group, which sees the religion as a foundation of their distinct culture and ethnic identity.

Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Some of the world's largest, most spectacular and unheralded mammals are silently slipping away, species like Tibetan wild yaks and Patagonia's huemul, Bhutan's takin and Vietnam's saola. Even Africa's three species of zebras and wildebeest have suffered massive reductions over the last several decades.

The reasons for these losses are more than disease and habitat fragmentation, deforestation or wildlife trade, according to researchers. Ultimately, the cause is rampant human population growth. And unless human behavior changes in unprecedented ways, these scientists warn that future communities of these mammals will never resemble those of the recent past or even today.

The findings are based on a new study, "Disassembled food webs and messy projections: modern ungulate communities in the face of unabating human population growth," published June 9 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Joel Berger, lead author of the study and a professor at Colorado State University, said that the time for action is now, and that touting past conservation achievements does little to better humanity's future.

"We all must realize we're members of a broad, beautiful and living planet, and we must find ways to subsist in this together or suffer more severe consequences than what we already see," said Berger, also a senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). "For many assemblages of animals, we are nearing a moment in time, when, like Humpty Dumpty, we will not be able to put things back together again." Berger is also the Barbara Cox Anthony University Chair of Wildlife Conservation at CSU.

Analyzing ecological, human disruptors

In this study, the research team -- which also included Alejandro Vila, the director for Science for WCS's Patagonia Program; Cristobal Briceno, a professor and veterinarian at University of Chile; and Joanna Lambert, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder -- analyzed direct and indirect disruptions that lead to the changing roles of mammals in global ecosystems and noted how the nature of ecological interactions has changed and will do so, on an even larger scale, in coming decades.

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More specifically, they looked at what has transpired with the huemul in Patagonia, takin in Bhutan, wild horses in deserts, wolves and coyotes in North America, and the inevitability of change in big ecosystems as large carnivores are extirpated.

Scientists said this is happening as the human population increases it footprint on land.

"Even in the remote reaches of the Himalayas, stray and feral dogs, a direct result of human intrusions, wreak havoc on wild and domestic species of high economic value and cultural importance," said Tshewang Wangchuk, a study co-author, conservation biologist and president of the Bhutan Foundation.

Humans only recently colonized parts of the Himalayas, areas where ice has receded due to warming temperatures. Yet, the authors also point to human population change at a global scale. In 1830 when Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy captained his ship, the Beagle, through the Magellan Straits of South America, fewer than 1.2 billion people inhabited Earth. By Earth Day in 1970, there were more than 3.5 billion.

Today, only 50 years later the world's population approaches eight billion. Livestock and humans now constitute a staggering 97 percent of the planet's mammal biomass.

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Food webs irretrievably altered

The research team said worldwide food webs have become irretrievably altered by humans, with little hope to reconstitute even recent past conditions or to put back the ecological functions once created by native species.

Feral pigs, for instance, exist today on every continent except Antarctica, and in 70 percent of the states in the United States. These animals disrupt fish, reptiles, birds and other small mammals, plants and soils. In addition, climate change warms the oceans, which in turn foments marine algal blooms, reducing fishery catches. With less demand for fish, a consequent uptick in wildlife poaching on land occurs.

The scientists also documented how an appetite for fashion like cashmere increases imports to the west from Mongolia, India and China, resulting in economic incentives for desert pastoralists to produce more domestic goats in central Asia. These goats compete for food with native species and are in danger due to increasing numbers of dogs in these areas. The dogs are not only predators but also carry diseases, which jeopardizes endangered species like snow leopards, kiang and Przewalksi's gazelle.

Use 'ecological grief' to implement action

Berger and the study authors suggest that despite the grim findings, all is not yet lost.

The world has remarkable protected areas including: Serengeti and Kruger National Park in Africa, Yellowstone and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in North America, Madidi National Park in Bolivia, the Patagonia Ice Fields of Chile and Argentina, Chang Tang Nature Reserve in China, and Northeast Greenland National Park, the world's largest national park.

And although food webs with large mammals will be different from those of the past and operate differently today, there are options to shape the future.

"It is not too late and we simply do not have the luxury of time to mourn what we have lost," said Lambert. "We need to use our ecological grief to implement action and honor the exceptional biodiversity that remains. This can be done by protecting large tracts of the planet's wild places."
(Natural News) According to J.M. Phelps of OneNewsNow.com, Massive amounts of precursor chemicals coming from China are being used to supply super-labs in Mexico for the production of methamphetamines and more  and America is being harmed in the process.

(Article by Jose Nino republished from BigLeaguePolitics.com)

OneNewsNow reached out to a former head of the Special Operations Division (SOD) of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to inquire about the global drug trade, where China uses precursor chemicals to illegally manufacture narcotics and psychoactive substances. According to Derek Maltz, Chinas involvement in the global drug crisis is an underreported story and that its been going on for years and the average person doesnt even realize it.

However, Maltz acknowledged that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the DEA did an amazing job cutting off the ability for mom and pop labs [in the U.S.] to produce meth. During that timeframe, the importation of precursor chemicals into the U.S. used to produce meth was successfully targeted.

As a consequence, the former DEA executive claimed that drug-dealing kingpins like Chapo Guzman and other competitors saw this development as a golden opportunity to make a killing  so  they started bringing in massive quantities of precursor chemicals from China and other countries in Asia.

According to Maltz, the precursor chemicals were brought into Mexican ports to be sent off to various super-labs across the nation.

Cartels started dominating the methamphetamine production business inside of Mexico, Maltz explained. Cartels like the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel built super-labs in Mexico to produce massive amounts of methamphetamines, up to seven tons of meth every three days. He also noted that higher volumes of meth have been produced in those labs for a while.

Although the majority of the focus has been placed on fentanyl, Maltz argues that the meth crisis in America is exploding. While meth may not be claiming American lives at the same rate, he contends that the drug is causing bigger problems across America.

The cartels also came to the realization that the synthetic drug market was a way to increase their profits, Maltz highlighted.

[Cartels] started looking at this as a business opportunity, asserted the former SOD director. He called attention to the fact that K2 and spice became commonplace names of these kinds of drugs about a decade ago. In the present, similar chemical compounds are being exported from China to Mexico.

The Chinese are now seeing an opportunity to make massive amounts of synthetic drugs which will eventually be sold in America, he continued. China has more than 150,000 chemical companies, and the country is making millions of dollars from the sale of these poisons, Maltz added.

Not only are the Chinese profiting from precursor chemicals and synthetic drugs, but they are [also] making bigtime amounts of fentanyl  and the Mexican cartels are buying it directly, he continued. Maltz claimed that China is also shipping some of these chemicals directly to customers using the U.S. postal system. Many websites in China are selling these chemicals.

The Chinese are dominating the money laundering services business for the cartels in America, he asserted, detailing how its very difficult for law enforcement to infiltrate ethnic Chinese groups.

The former DEA official said that a large number of informants are Spanish-speaking, in addition to undercover agents who can infiltrate Mexican-connected organizations.

[But] law enforcement doesnt have an unlimited cadre of informants and undercover agents that speak these [ethnic Chinese] languages, he told OneNewsNow. As a consequence, law enforcement has a more difficult time infiltrating these groups. In the meantime, drug traffickers continue to profit handsomely through a complex trade-based money laundering scheme which China manages.

America is a big adversary to China, so its not far-fetched to think the Chinese are purposely killing Americans and making millions of dollars while doing it  and weakening their adversary America by destroying communities and families, he contended.

Maltz described the alliance between Mexican cartels and China fascinating  and he believes it is unfortunate that America is having to allocate so many resources to tackle this problem.

Its amazing, he concluded, that no one is reporting this ongoing Chinese business arrangement with the cartels designed to make a lot of money and to hurt America at the same time.

With these facts in mind, the U.S. should strongly consider restrictive migration policies in order to stem the bleeding from its mass migration policies.

By cutting off immigration, criminal syndicates will have less co-ethnics to potentially recruit from, while also encouraging further assimilation among migrant groups.

Diversity is not a strength and continuing the post-1965 Immigration Act policy prescriptions will lead to institutional breakdown.

Read more at: BigLeaguePolitics.com and DrugCartels.news.
"The Best investment on Earth is Earth." Louis Glickman

Warner Real Estate to Sell

Two Prime Land Tracts at Auction

WOODSTOWN, NJ  Warner Real Estate & Auction Company, a leading real estate firm in New Jersey, has been selected by a large investor to administer the immediate sale of 7 acres of developable land in Egg Harbor Township and a prime corner lot in Franklin Township at the signalized intersection of CR 538 (Coles Mill) and CR 555 (Tuckahoe Road) at auction.

The Franklin Township corner lot is an investment opportunity you cant miss out on with a starting bid of only $1000 and selling regardless of price. This 0.85 acre corner lot at a signalized intersection is in the Neighborhood Commercial zoning district with a variety of permitted uses including retail, restaurant, bar, child-care, professional offices and more. Warner, located in Woodstown, NJ, will sell this property through an online auction beginning at 8:00am on June 18th and will end at 10:00am on June 24th.

The 7 developable acres in Egg Harbor Township is surrounded by residential subdivisions, Egg Harbor Township High School, Community Centers and offers 592 +/- feet of road frontage on busy commuter road linking Somers Point to the Black Horse Pike and Egg Harbor Twp. Retail shopping. This property sells at or above a bid of $50,000! Warner will sell this property through an online auction starting at 8:00am on June 18th and ending at 10:15am on June 24th.

According to Rich Warner, president and founder of Warner Real Estate and Auction Company, with the current volatility in the stock market this a perfect time to diversify and buy hard-assets and name your price. Furthermore, as Will Rogers astutely stated, dont wait to buy land, buy land and wait.

Properties may be accessed for inspection at your leisure. Closing will be on or before 30 days from the conclusion of the online auctions. Properties are being sold in AS-IS condition with no contingencies and the buyers receive insurable titles, free and clear of all liens and encumbrances. Detailed property information packages, property descriptions and video tours are available online at WarnerRealtors.com .

Warner Real Estate and Auction Company specializes in land and farm sales, investment properties, commercial and residential properties in New Jersey. To learn more about Warner Real Estate and Auction Company, visit: WarnerRealtors.com.
Prayagraj/Varanasi, June 10 : Even as life returns to normal in most parts of Uttar Pradesh in 'Unlock 1', the lockdown continues for boatmen in Varanasi and Prayagraj.

Around 3,000 boatmen in Prayagraj and over 5,000 in Varanasi are not being allowed to take their boats into the river.

"As it is, tourists are not coming and even the local people are not going to Sangam for a holy dip. The few that come here, go back because we cannot take them to the confluence area," said Raju Nishad, a boatman in Prayagraj.

He said he did brisk business in the summer months when people came to the city during holidays and took a boat for a holy dip.

"I used to earn up to Rs 500 to Rs 700 per day but now I have used up all my savings and there is no earning. There is no hope either because once monsoon sets in, people will not venture near the river," he said.

The Allahabad Navik Sangh, an association of boatmen, has appealed to the district administration to allow them to ply boats.

Usually, around 1,500 boats are permitted to ply on Sangam and at least two boatmen work on a single boat which takes the number of 'active' boatmen to 3,000.

"We have told the district authorities that we are ready to maintain social distancing and restrict the number of people on a boat to five. We will also ensure that every passenger wears a mask," said Pappu Nishad, president of the Navik Sangh.

IG (Prayagraj range) K.P. Singh, when contacted, said he would discuss the matter with the district authorities and take action accordingly.

In Varanasi, boatmen faced a similar predicament.

With foreign tourists missing, their means of livelihood have dried up since the local people do not normally hire boats.

District officials remained evasive on the issue.
Tear gas is fired at protesters who marched on the Vine Street Expressway, blocking traffic in Philadelphia on June 1. Read more

As protests over the killing of George Floyd continued into a second day in Philadelphia during the last weekend of May, Mayor Jim Kenney and other top city officials made a decision: Police could use tear gas to control the crowds of demonstrators.

That broad authorization came as protests escalated in West Philadelphia on May 31, Managing Director Brian Abernathy said during a City Council budget hearing Wednesday.

The decision of whether and when to use less than lethal munitions, which includes tear gas, was left to police supervisors on the ground, Abernathy said. Kenney was not involved in specifically authorizing the use of tear gas on protesters who marched onto the Vine Street Expressway on June 1, a city spokesperson said, and learned of the incident shortly after it happened.

That explanation came during a hearing in which Council members questioned the police response to civil unrest, and advocated for changes to the department. Council members described a chaotic scene on the first night of protests May 30, during which neighborhoods were left unprotected during looting because police officers were concentrated in Center City and 911 calls did not go through.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said the department had launched internal reviews of the use of tear gas and other tactics, and is reviewing its overall use-of-force policies. And Abernathy, who oversees the Police Department and told Council that he had underestimated the anger and rage and frustration of folks that Im hired to serve, pledged to reform the police and increase transparency.

 READ MORE: Will Philly dismantle the Police Department for a new public safety system? Its unlikely.

The hearing unfolded amid the 12th day of protests in Philadelphia spurred by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Demonstrations have been peaceful for several days, and crowds have decreased in number since Saturday, when thousands of peaceful marchers filled the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The Pennsylvania National Guard, which had been deployed in the city since June 1, packed up to leave but would remain on call, a city spokesperson said Wednesday.

The use of less than lethal munitions to respond to protests was authorized May 31 by Kenney and the rest of the citys unified command group, Abernathy said. That group includes Kenney, Outlaw, Abernathy, Chief of Staff Jim Engler, Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel, City Solicitor Marcel Pratt, and First Deputy Managing Director Tumar Alexander.

It was left to the commander on the ground to make the determination as it was deemed necessary, Outlaw said.

Councilmember Helen Gym, who asked about the use of tear gas on the expressway during Wednesdays budget hearing, said she marched in a protest on the same highway 20 years ago and police did not respond with force. She asked the administration Wednesday to commit to ending police use of tear gas and rubber bullets on demonstrators.

Abernathy declined to make that commitment and said he does not want to take out tools from the tool bag available to officers in emergencies.

That limits options, and would actually create some challenges and increase the likelihood of inappropriate use of force," Abernathy said.

 READ MORE: Philly City Council members call for police to stop using tear gas and rubber bullets

Council members also questioned other aspects of the police response. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas said when he attempted to call 911 during the first night of protests on May 30 he could not reach an operator.

No one was home, he said. I called 911 myself, multiple times. Probably 10 times that night.

Thomas said he went out to witness the protests and violence, and encountered a woman who had been shot and was trying to call 911. After repeated unsuccessful attempts, he said, the woman drove to the scene of protests to find police and seek help.

I dont want to make people frantic or anything like that, but Im 100% sure, Thomas said when asked by Outlaw to clarify whether 911 operators failed to answer his calls.

Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., meanwhile, questioned the strategic choice for police to respond only to Center City the first night of protests as looting unfolded in several neighborhoods.

How did we decide that Center City was where we were going to draw the line, and not in my commercial corridors? Jones asked. Not in the districts where tens of thousands of people like me felt helpless?

Outlaw said that response is also under review, and that the decision was made in the moment to send police to the location with the most people.

I dont want you or anyone in our community or in our city to believe that there was preference given to a specific neighborhood simply due to its location, she said.

As activists and protesters in Philadelphia and across the country continue calling for defunding police or eliminating police forces, City Council members on Wednesday largely expressed support for Outlaw, who began as commissioner in February.

The commitment to support you is real, Council President Darrell L. Clarke said. It continues to be real. We want you to succeed.

Council called for police reforms this week, and Kenney on Tuesday announced his own list of proposed reforms. He also said he would work with Council to eliminate a planned increase to the Police Department budget, after initially proposing $19 million more than was approved for police last year.

 READ MORE: Mayor Jim Kenney gave cops raises and shielded them from coronavirus layoffs. Protesters arent happy.

Details about the police budget remained unclear Wednesday. Outlaw said she hopes to spend $1.9 million for body cameras in the next fiscal year, and pay for implicit bias and anti-racism training for officers. The department also must pay for raises for officers as part of a one-year contract extension, she said, but added that those expenses can be largely offset by decreasing police overtime.

Outlaw warned that significant cuts would require staffing reductions.

Its not like we came to the table saying, 'Oh, and wed like all these great toys, she said.

Staff writer Chris Palmer contributed to this article.
Heres a laugh: Washington intends to tell New York how to do policing.

The federal government has one premier law-enforcement agency, the FBI, and a sprawl of more specialized police forces  DEA, ATF, IRSs criminal-investigation division, etc. These bureaucracies are dwarfed in size and scope by big-city municipal police departments, such as the NYPD. They are also, to be blunt about it, reeling at the moment because they dont do their jobs very well: long on politicized arm-twisting, short on due process.

The FISA court recently found federal intelligence agencies guilty of an institutional lack of candor in dealing with the tribunal. That conclusion has only been bolstered by Justice Department reports outlining stunning abuses of power by the FBI, serial lying and leaking by top officials, fabrication of evidence, and investigations launched on a dearth of predication and furthered by entrapment tactics and perjury traps. We never did get to the bottom of the Justice Departments Fast and Furious scandal, in which the ATF allowed illegal firearms transfers into Mexico  evidently hoping to fuel a political narrative against the Second Amendment but succeeding only in fueling violent Mexican gang crime that claimed the life of a border-patrol agent. A federal appeals court echoed a district judge in New Orleans, who was appalled when Obama Justice Department lawyers anonymously led a race-baiting press campaign to undermine the trial rights of indicted police officers and then misled and stonewalled investigators who tried to find out what happened. And speaking of misleading and stonewalling, they explain why we never got accountability for the bare-knuckles tactics the IRS used to harass conservative groups.

Thats just a thumbnail sketch. We could go on. Id rather not go on, because these incidents sully the reputations of thousands of agents who go about their work honorably, day in and day out. But these incidents represent management failures, misfeasance and malfeasance at the high echelons of federal law enforcement. It is thus doubly important to highlight them because, in the wake of the George Floyd killing and the uproar that followed, the federal government is now presuming to dictate how state and local police forces must do their jobs.

Story continues

The federal government cannot even run its own limited law-enforcement missions properly. Where does it get off micromanaging policing on a nationwide scale, which deals with community-safety issues that are outside the federal ken? As Heather Mac Donald points out, the NYPD has driven homicide in the nations biggest city down by 86 percent since 1990, saving tens of thousands of lives, mostly in minority communities previously plagued by violent crime. Can any federal police force boast of such an achievement?

Dont be drawn in too much by the Defund the Police gambit now being pushed by the hard Democratic Left and its allied Black Lives Matter demagogues. To be sure, this is going to be a long-term problem because, while broadly acknowledged as lunacy (at least when the cameras arent rolling), it is becoming  like the inane Green New Deal  a litmus test for political viability in the Democratic Party. This is what happens when a partys mainstream decides it needs the tiger it has by the tail . . . pretty soon, its not the mainstream anymore. In just a cycle or two, Bernie Sanders and AOC go from fringe socialists to elder statesman and policy guru.

The Lefts plan is not to defund the police. It is to denude the police  to strip them of their capacity to act and their legitimacy as keepers of the peace.

The plan is not new. I outlined it many times during the Obama presidency, during which the Justice Department made it a priority to supplant the intelligence-based, broken-windows approach to policing  the approach that gave America an unprecedented generation of record-low crime and safe urban streets.

Intelligence-based policing scrutinizes dynamic ranges of data points to deploy the police where the crime is. It is driven by offense behavior. In stark contrast, progressive-fantasy policing pretends that the police encounter minority suspects, particularly black men, because the police are institutionally racist, not because these suspects are responsible for a high percentage of crime  much higher than their demographics proportions of the total population.

Consequently, progressives theorize that police should back off from investigative activity in criminal hot spots, which is distorted into racial profiling. Instead, cops are told to rely on community leaders  typically allied with big-city Democrats  to be their eyes and ears. In this, Democrats can always rely on a mass of Republicans, who echo their tropes about our carceral state and the desperate need for criminal-justice reform  as if the prisons were teeming with non-violent marijuana tokers rather than hardened criminals with long records (reflecting the systems practice of pleading serious offenses down to petty ones, the better to get criminals back on the street more rapidly).

The defunding rhetoric aside, the idea is not to make municipal police departments disappear. It is to bludgeon them with federal dollars collected from the taxpayers who most need competent policing. As Ive detailed, a big part of the strategy is Justice Department civil-rights litigation. The Justice Department uses controversial police incidents as a pretext to open pattern or practice investigations and sue municipalities or their police departments under a pernicious Clinton-era civil-rights law. Since municipalities cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with the Justice Departments $30 billion annual budget, they are pressured into consent decrees, often with federal monitors, in which they agree to adopt the Lefts approved police practices.

This had momentum during the Obama years, but it is a gradual process that can be slowed by the election of a more law-and-order-oriented administration (which tends to happen when the public has had its fill of what progressive policies yield on the streets). The more sweeping approach is percolating in Congress now: Washington-prescribed transformation of the nations police departments, using the threat that federal funds will be withheld if the Lefts preferred reforms are not made. (Wait, you are saying to yourself, isnt that what Democrats were calling extortion five minutes ago when President Trump was threatening sanctuary cities? Youre not wrong.)

It is not just that the federal law-enforcement agencies for which Washington is actually responsible are mired in scandal right now. We must remember that the revolution in policing practices that ushered in an era of low crime, domestic tranquility, and economic prosperity was driven by city and state police departments, not Washington.

Policing is a human endeavor. There are always going to be instances of abuse, whether at the federal, state, or municipal level. There will inevitably be occasional abuses, such as George Floyds senseless killing, that shock the nation. On the whole, though, the federal glass house should keep its stones to itself. The United States is a vast, variegated country. The best policing is sensitive to the different concerns of the diverse communities it reflects, protects, and serves. There is nothing prudent about forcing one-size-fits-all federal standards on it.

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The body of an unidentified man was deposited at Avenor near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle by floodwaters following the rainstorm that hit parts of Accra on the night of Monday, June 8, 2020.



When GhanaWeb visited the scene around midmorning today, June 9, 2020, the body of the middle-aged man was seen lying beside a drain with residents saying the police were yet to report to the scene despite a call placed to them in the early parts of the morning.



Some of the residents who spoke to GhanaWeb said the body was sighted by the drain around 5:00 am in the morning.



As usual of the rainy season, major parts of the capital city were flooded after Monday nights rainstorm. Some of the worst affected areas included Achimota, Adabraka, Dome, and Avenor.



At Christian Village in Achimota a fence wall adjoined to the kiosk a family was sleeping in during the rain broke on kiosk killing two members of the family. The victims as filed in a GhanaWeb report were an 18-year-old Senior High School Student and a 24-year-old lady.







Source: Ghanaweb









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Maintaining social distancing boundaries to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus is challenging for all but is even more so for those living with dementia. As such, Snow will address how to recognize the signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety in those living with dementia, and will help caregivers recognize and respond more accurately to unwanted effects of social isolation to reduce the chances for escalation and 'non-helpful' hospitalizations.




Jaipur, June 11 : Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on late Wednesday accused BJP of indulging in horse trading in Rajasthan to destabilise the government here and said that BJP wants to repeat the Madhya Pradesh story in Rajasthan too.

"One of our MLAs was offered Rs 25 crore, 10 crore in advance and 15 crore later as horse trading, but he informed us on time. We have been tipped that a huge cash amount has been transferred from Delhi to Jaipur recently which has been informed to us by investigative agencies," Rajasthan CM said after coming out of Shiv-Vilas Resort where 90 MLAs, both Congress and independents, were camping since evening.

Initially, these 90 MLAs were shifted to this resort situated at Delhi road fearing poaching, but late in the night these MLAs were asked to go back home.

In between, they had an elaborate meeting in presence of veteran leader Randeep Surjewala.

CM Gehlot said the party workers and independents shall meet on Thursday again as Congress candidate for Rajya Sabha, KC Venugopal shall also be coming to Jaipur. Also Rajasthan Congress in-charge Avinash Pandey will also be present during the meeting.

CM further said that I am proud to be the chief minister of state where our MLAs can not be bought.

He further accused the Narendra Modi government and said that a concocted plan was made to postpone Rajya Sabha elections earlier.

"Modi government pressurised Election Commission to postpone the election as MLAs horse trading had not been done in Rajasthan and Gujarat by then." Corona infection was there earlier too and it is still there, he commented.

After giving this statement, Gehlot also left from Shiv-Vilas Resort.

Earlier, political activities were at its peak on Wednesday. In the evening, CM called all MLAs to CMR for a meeting, who were later shifted to the resort.

Meanwhile, the Congress whip Mahesh Joshi lodged an official complaint with Director General of police, ACB demanding a strict action against BJP workers for trying to lure away the Independent MLAs with money power.

Joshi, in his letter addressed to the DG ACB, said, "On the lines of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, there has been an information coming via our reliable sources about efforts being made by the BJP to destabilise the government in Rajasthan by luring Congress as well as Independent MLAs who are supporting our government." This despicable attempt is not only against democratic values but also against people's expectations. This is illegal, unethical, condemnable and invites legal action. Strict action should be taken against those involved in such a despicable crime who are trying to lure people's representatives and destabilise the government," the letter said.

Meanwhile, BJP state president Satish Poonia told IANS, "This is just propaganda made by Congress workers. I openly challenge them to come out with proof confirming their allegation." It needs to be mentioned here that Rajya Sabha elections are being scheduled on June 19 for 24 seats out of which three seats are in Rajasthan and MP and four are in Gujarat amongst others.

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Nothing is as it seems. That's what I realized with growing apprehension as the beautiful, sunny day turned suddenly into a nightmarish blizzard. We were on horseback 14,000 feet up in the mountains of Afghanistan, and I quickly tucked my camera away to protect it. I was now too cold to take pictures and balance myself on my horse, where one slip could have easily plunged me thousands of feet below. Along with two other journalists, I was on my way to cover a war that was about to engulf the region, stemming from the attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon six weeks earlier. Our lives were at the mercy of fate and in the hands of Afghan guides we had met the night before. They were our only option to get us through this dangerous mountain pass and to our destination. We paid them $60 per horse.

I was a staff photographer for The Washington Post, and this assignment was the first time I had ever worked with digital cameras. At that point, they produced mediocre images as far as I was concerned, but with a computer and a satellite phone that transmitted at 14.4k baud rate, it was the only way to get photos back to my paper from this faraway place. I did bring a film camera, too, and had already shot a couple of rolls. But they would be my last: As the danger of my assignment increased, every photo counted, and I no longer had the luxury to shoot film.
Kylie Jenner surprised fans on Tuesday when she appeared in a snapshot taken during BFF Stassie Karanikolaou's 23rd birthday bash on Monday evening.

In the the photo - shared with Stassie's 8.2million followers - the 22-year-old Kylie Cosmetics CEO ignored social-distancing rules as she fearlessly cozied up to her crew.

Kylie's party appearance comes just days after she was spotted at LA nightclub Bootsy Bellows sans mask with sister Kendall Jenner's pal Fai Khadra.

DailyMail.com reached out to Kylie's representative for comment.

Surprise: Kylie Jenner surprised fans on Tuesday when she appeared in a snapshot taken during BFF Stassie Karanikolaou's 23rd birthday bash on Monday evening

Kylie, Stassie, and the rest of the party attendees wore matching black sweatsuits with 'Stassie Turns 23' printed across the front in red and white lettering.

Kylie rocked her signature brown eyeshadow and winged liner look, which she paired with a flattering neutral nude lip.

Her shoulder length tresses were neatly parted down the middle and meticulously straightened in order to draw attention to her trendy blonde streaks.

Cozying up: In the the photo - shared with Stassie's 8.2million followers - the 22-year-old Kylie Cosmetics CEO ignored social-distancing rules as she fearlessly cozied up to her crew

Down low: Though Kylie kept her snaps and videos of the shin dig to a minimum, she did capture a picture of a set of custom Stassie pillows resting on a couch in the model's backyard

'missing liv and taylor but these are my humans.. i appreciate you all more than you know  thank you for a special night,' captioned Stassie on the group photo.

Though Kylie kept her snaps and videos of the shin dig to a minimum, she did capture a set of custom Stassie pillows resting on a couch in the model's backyard.

But of course, being the birthday girl, Stassie did not hold back on capturing every moment of her special night.

Stassie had various cakes, cupcakes, and cookies displayed around her home that featured her face printed on them.

Capturing every moment: But of course, being the birthday girl, Stassie did not hold back on capturing every moment of her special night

Custom goods: Stassie had various cakes, cupcakes, and cookies displayed around her home that featured her face printed on them

She also had 'Reactivating Serums' from Concierge LA made available for each party guest, which is presumed to help with the after effects of alcohol consumption.

The quarantine party's colors scheme was red, black, and white, so chocolate covered strawberries and gourmet cookies were decorated to match.

Jenner paid homage to her childhood best friend on Tuesday afternoon by sharing a plethora of portraits of the pair taken through the years on Instagram.

Birthday tribute: Jenner paid homage to her childhood best friend on Tuesday by sharing a plethora of portraits of the pair taken through the years on Instagram

Sister: 'Happy birthday to my fairy 42 sister @stassiebaby!!' began the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star. 'You are the rarest of all time.. truly a gift to this world'

'Happy birthday to my fairy 42 sister @stassiebaby!!' began the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star. 'You are the rarest of all time.. truly a gift to this world.'

Kylie then added, 'And the best aunty to my babygirl [Stormi]. i can't believe we are celebrating your 23rd birthday.

Followers loved the images which included the two dressed as Playboy Playmates, in Chanel crop tops, in swimwear, matching minidress and in glam gowns all done up for Christmas.

Bunnies: Followers loved the images which included the two dressed as Playboy Playmates, in Chanel crop tops, in swimwear, matching minidress and in glam gowns all done up for Christmas

Cherish: 'I cherish every year we've spent together and i thank God for putting you in my life. i wouldn't be able to do it without you. I have your back till the end of time. today and every day.. we celebrate you,' concluded Kylie on Instagram

'I cherish every year we've spent together and i thank God for putting you in my life. i wouldn't be able to do it without you.

'I have your back till the end of time. today and every day.. we celebrate you,' concluded Kylie.

Back in April, Kylie was slammed online for allowing Stassie to come and go as she pleased from her $36.5M mansion in Holmby Hills, California amid COVID-19.

And during Sunday's nightclub outing, Kylie once again flouted social-distancing as she linked arms with family friend Fai while heading to Bootsy Bellows, a club that is said to have opened just for them.

Party time: Kylie's appearance at Stassie's party comes after she was criticized on Sunday for attending LA nightclub Bootsy Bellows sans mask with sister Kendall Jenner's pal Fai Khadra (pictured in Malibu earlier on Sunday)

Celebration: The pals were seen walking into Bootsy Bellows together, and were said to have stayed until 1:20am in the morning

The pals were seen walking into Bootsy Bellows together, and were said to have stayed until 1:20am in the morning.

Kylie showed off her incredible physique in an all-black outfit, and looked to be dressed up for a night of clubbing.

Palestinian model Fai, also in black, is known as being a close friend of Kylie's sister Kendall, as well as Gigi Hadid and Selena Gomez.

Earlier in the day, Kylie and her pal were pictured dining out in Malibu as they arrived for some food at celeb hot spot Nobu.
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Nine states are seeing spikes in the number of people that have been hospitalized for COVID-19 since Memorial Day as Arizona's health department told hospitals to activate coronavirus emergency plans to prepare for a surge in new cases.

Coronavirus hospitalizations have been increasing in at least nine states - mostly in the south and south-west of the country - over the past two weeks.

Arizona, Texas, North Carolina and Utah are among those that have seen record spikes in hospitalizations since the coronavirus pandemic broke out in mid-March.

South Carolina, parts of California, Oregon, Arkansas and Mississippi have also seen an uptick in the number of people being hospitalized.

The increase in hospitalizations in those nine states has occurred as states reopened and large gatherings were held across the country over the Memorial Day weekend.

All of those states, apart from Mississippi, are now virus hotspots after also seeing increases in the number of infections in the past week.

The uptick, which could lead authorities to reimpose or tighten public health restrictions, complicates efforts to reopen the economy that has been devastated by stay-at-home orders that were in place across much of the US.

More than 112,000 Americans have now died from coronavirus and 1.9 million have been infected in the past three months.

ARIZONA: The number of positive or suspected hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Arizona has been increasing since May 26 and surged last week to record highs of more than 1,200 each day

ARIZONA:

Deaths: 1,076 - Cases: 28,296

Arizona, which was among the first states to reopen from lockdowns in mid-May, has seen a surge in hospitalizations and cases in recent weeks.

The number of positive or suspected hospitalized COVID-19 patients has been increasing since May 26 and surged last week to record highs of more than 1,200 each day.

It prompted Arizona's state health director Cara Christ to urge hospitals on Saturday to 'fully activate' its emergency plans - a message last sent on March 25 when the pandemic was taking hold.

Arizona's largest medical network Banner Health warned on Monday it was reaching its capacity in intensive care unit beds and said ventilated COVID-19 patients have quadrupled since May 15.

Currently in Arizona, there are 1,258 intensive care beds in use and 400 beds available. There are 1,192 ventilators available across the state and 641 currently in use.

The state saw its infections increase more than 90 per cent last week and deaths rose by 30 percent.

Arizona currently has more than 26,000 cases and over 1,000 deaths.

In Arizona, a 'cavalier' exit from the state's successful stay-at-home program has caused the sudden case surge, according to former state health chief Will Humble.

Humble said Governor Doug Ducey let Arizonans voluntarily follow Centers for Disease Control guidance but must now impose measures like mandatory face mask use inside public spaces. A failure to do so will leave Ducey with two drastic choices, he added.

'He's going to have to either A) implement a field hospital plan, B) do another stay-at-home order, or C) both,' said Humble, head of health professionals organization the Arizona Public Health Association.

Ducey last week told a press briefing that the increase in cases was to be expected due to a rise in testing.

TEXAS: Texas set a record-breaking high for coronavirus hospitalizations with 1,935 patients admitted on Monday just one month after the state reopened early

TEXAS:

Deaths: 1, 867 - Cases: 78,130

Texas set a record-breaking high for coronavirus hospitalizations with 1,935 patients admitted just one month after the state reopened early.

Texas reported a record-breaking number of COVID-19 hospitalizations on Monday. It compares to the previous record set on May 5 when 1,888 hospitalizations were recorded.

New infections in Texas have increased by 71 per cent over the past two weeks, according to the 14-day trend line provided by state health officials.

Although hospitalizations are on the rise, Texas has more than 1,600 a intensive-care beds and 5,8000 ventilators available for ill residents.

The state has seen cases increase by nearly 20 percent in the past week, while deaths have declined nearly 5 percent in a week.

Texas currently has 74,000 cases and 1,800 deaths.

NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina saw its hospitalizations spike to a record high on Monday when 774 coronavirus patients were admitted. The number of people being admitted has been gradually increasing since Memorial Day when 621 hospitalizations were reported

NORTH CAROLINA:

Deaths: 1,068 - Cases: 37,228

North Carolina saw its hospitalizations spike to a record high on Monday when 774 coronavirus patients were admitted.

The number of people being admitted has been gradually increasing since Memorial Day when 621 hospitalizations were reported.

The state currently has 453 out of 3,223 intensive care beds available. There are currently 2,314 ventilators available, or 72 percent, in the state.

The state has seen its cases increase nearly 30 percent in a week.

There are currently more than 37,000 cases and over 1,000 deaths in the state.

ARKANSAS: Arkansas currently has 173 people hospitalized for COVID-19. It compares to the 92 that were hospitalized on May 25. As of Monday, there 46 coronavirus patients on ventilators

ARKANSAS:

Deaths: 161 - Cases: 10,080

Arkansas has seen a huge surge in the number of hospitalizations. The state currently has 173 people hospitalized for COVID-19. It compares to the 92 that were hospitalized on May 25.

As of Monday, there 46 coronavirus patients on ventilators.

State health officials say despite the increase, hospitals remain below capacity.

Cases in Arkansas have increased more than 63 percent in the last week. The state currently has more than 10,000 infections and 160 deaths.

UTAH: Utah's hospitalizations have more than doubled in the last two weeks. The state, which currently has recorded a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations on June 1 with 23 patients admitted

UTAH:

Deaths: 127 - Cases: 12,559

Utah's hospitalizations have more than doubled in the last two weeks. The state, which currently has recorded a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations on June 1 with 23 patients admitted.

There are currently 126 patients in hospital with COVID-19, according to the Utah's most recent data.

Utah has seen its cases, which now top 12,000, increase by more than 60 per cent in a week.

At least 287 of the state's 2,269 new cases were tied to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in Cache County.

SOUTH CAROLINA: South Carolina's hospitalizations have spiked in recent days. Across the state, 12 counties have reached a current capacity of 75 percent or more. Hospitalizations on Monday surged to 541, which was up from the 482 patients recorded two days earlier

SOUTH CAROLINA:

Deaths: 568 - Cases: 15,228

South Carolina's hospitalizations have spiked in recent days.

Across the state, 12 counties have reached a current capacity of 75 percent or more.

Hospitalizations on Monday surged to 541, which was up from the 482 patients recorded two days earlier.

Infections in South Carolina are up more than 37 percent in the last week. The state currently has more than 15,000 cases and over 560 deaths.

MISSISSIPPI: Hospitalizations in Mississippi have also been increasing with 444 people in hospital as of Monday. Of those patients, 171 were in intensive care and 100 were on ventilators

MISSISSIPPI:

Deaths: 847 - Cases: 18,123

Hospitalizations in Mississippi have also been increasing with 444 people in hospital as of Monday.

Of those patients, 171 were in intensive care and 100 were on ventilators.

The state saw another surge in hospitalizations on May 27 when 476 people were admitted.

There are currently more than 18,000 infections across the state and over 840 deaths.

CALIFORNIA: The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in California has been increasing over the last two weeks. There are currently 3,257 patients in hospital with COVID-19 and 1,103 in intensive care. It compares to March 30 when there were 1,307 patients in hospital and 545 in ICU

CALIFORNIA:

Deaths: 4,753 - Cases: 137,060

The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in California has been increasing over the last two weeks. There are currently 3,257 patients in hospital with COVID-19 and 1,103 in intensive care.

It compares to March 30 when there were 1,307 patients in hospital and 545 in ICU.

There has been a surge in hospitalizations in Sacramento County, according to health officials.

'Many of the cases that are showing up in hospitals are linked to gatherings that are taking place in homes - birthday parties and funerals,' said Olivia Kasirye, public health director of Sacramento County.

Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations spiking in parts of California has prompted officials to place counties - including Sacramento - where half its population lives on a watch list.

More than 18 million of California's 39 million residents live in counties now on the watch list, including Los Angeles, Santa Clara and Fresno.

Infections are up two percent in the past week in California. Deaths are down nearly six percent compared to the previous week.

There are currently more than 137,000 cases and over 4,700 deaths across the state.

OREGON: Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have spiked by 40 percent in the last week. On Monday, the number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus increased to 65 - up for the 46 that were recorded on June 2

OREGON:

Deaths: 169 - Cases: 4,988

Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have spiked by 40 percent in the last week.

On Monday, the number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus increased to 65 - up for the 46 that were recorded on June 2.

Oregon is among the states that have recored the lowest infections and deaths across the country throughout the pandemic.

The state currently has over 4,900 cases and more than 160 deaths.

Where COVID-19 is on RISE: Six states see rise in deaths in a week and 22 states see weekly increase in infections

Louisiana and Arizona have seen the number of deaths increase by more than 30 percent in the last week compared to the previous seven days, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the COVID Tracking Project.

Ohio and Florida saw fatal cases increase by more than 15 percent and Indiana saw deaths go up by seven percent in a week.

Michigan also recorded a spike in deaths - up 53 percent - after the state reported 240 probable deaths on June 5.

Arizona recorded an increase of more than 90 percent in new cases in the week ending June 7 compared with the previous seven days, according to a Reuters analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project.

Michigan saw a 158 percent increase in new cases last week due mainly to the state reporting 5,000 probably cases on June 5.

Arkansas, Utah, New Mexico and Massachusetts all saw weekly increases of more than 40 percent and new cases in Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina all rose by more than 30 percent in the past week.

Deaths in Michigan, Louisiana and Arizona have increased by more than 30 percent in the last week. Michigan's increase was due, in part, to the state reporting 240 probable deaths on June 5

THE STATES WHERE COVID-19 DEATHS INCREASED IN THE LAST WEEK State Total deaths New deaths Weekly increase Michigan* 5,895 404 +53.6% Louisiana 2,936 145 +43.6% Arizona 1,044 138 +30.2% Ohio 2,377 222 +19.4% Florida 2,786 252 +15.6% Indiana 2,303 169 +7.0% * Michigan added 240 probable deaths on June 5.

In New Mexico, about half of the new cases were from one prison in Otero County, state health officials said. Utah said at least 287 of the state's 2,269 new cases were tied to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in Cache County.

Florida attributed its increase to more testing, while the other states have not commented on the increase in cases.

New cases in Texas were up 19 percent in a week, according to the analysis.

Michigan's cases soared more than 150 percent last week due to the state including nearly 5,000 probable infections.

The increases comes after all 50 states at least partially lifted coronavirus lockdown measures last month.

Some of the new cases are linked to better testing but many stem from loosened public health restrictions that have allowed people to gather in groups and go inside stores to shop.

Health officials believe other cases have been passed along by people not following social-distancing recommendations.

The number of new infections in the first week of June rose 3 percent in the United States, the first increase after five weeks of declines.

Infectious disease experts have warned that large protests held in major US cities after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis two weeks ago could touch off a new outbreak of the disease.

Officials have said it is too soon to see whether cases will also spike in the wake of the protests.

Twenty one US states reported weekly increases in new cases of COVID-19 with Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posting rises of 40 percent or higher for the week ended June 7 compared with the prior seven days, according to an analysis that shows data as of Sunday each week between March 1 to June 7

STATES WHERE COVID-19 CASES INCREASED IN THE LAST WEEK STATE TOTAL CASES NEW CASES WEEKLY CHANGE Michigan* 64,413 7,016 +158.1% Arizona 26,889 6,953 +93.3% Arkansas 9,426 2,173 +63.3% Utah 12,066 2,269 +61.5% Massachusetts 103,436 6,471 +50.8% Florida 63,938 7,775 +46.8% New Mexico 8,800 1,176 +41.9% Kentucky 11,287 1,583 +39.7% South Carolina 14,286 2,425 +37.4% Oklahoma 7,150 644 +37.3% North Carolina 35,546 6,957 +29.6% Nevada 9,649 1,056 +28.3% Missouri 14,553 1,406 +21.3% Texas 74,978 10,691 +19.6% Georgia 51,898 4,912 +18.4% Tennessee 26,381 3,375 +18.0% Louisiana 42,816 2,900 +5.6% New Hampshire 5,019 474 +3.9% South Dakota 5,438 445 +3.5% California 128,812 18,229 +2.0% Connecticut 43,968 1,767 +2.0% *Michigan added nearly 5,000 probable cases on June 5

Infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci issued a grim assessment of the coronavirus, calling the ongoing pandemic his 'worst nightmare' and insisting the fight against its spread is far from over

Dr Anthony Fauci admits coronavirus has become his 'worst nightmare' and 'it is not close to over yet'

Infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci issued a grim assessment of the coronavirus, calling the ongoing pandemic his 'worst nightmare' and insisting the fight against its spread is far from over.

'In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world,' Fauci said of COVID-19 during a virtual appearance at a Biotechnology Innovation Organization conference. 'And it isn't over yet.'

The White House advisor said although he knew it was possible for a devastating outbreak like this could occur, he was surprised by how 'rapidly he took over the planet'.

'An efficiently transmitted disease can spread worldwide in six months or a year, but this took about a month,' Fauci said.

Fauci continued that still so little is known about the virus, how it can be contracted or spread and the specific impact it may have on the human body.

He said the coronavirus is far more complicated than HIV  a disease he has dedicated his career studying  because of its varying degrees of severity, ranging from asymptomatic carriers to patients who develop fatal conditions.

'Oh my goodness,' Fauci responded. 'Where is it going to end? We're still at the beginning of really understanding.'

The nation's top coronavirus expert added that vaccines will be the only way to completely curb the coronavirus' spread, however he did voice confidence that an antidote would be found soon.

Fauci said he's expecting 'more than one winner in the vaccine field because we will need vaccines for the entire world - billions and billions of doses,' he said.

'I'm very heartened by the fact that the industry has stepped to the plate  very much differently than what we saw with SARS,' Fauci continued. 'The industry is not stupid  they figured it out. SARS had a degree of transmissibility that it burned itself out with pure public health measures. No way is that going to happen with this virus.'

The doctor said COVID-19 shines a 'bright light' on the health disparities in the US, warning that as the country begins to rear its head from the public health crisis, resources must be readily available for the most vulnerable communities.

Fauci identified African Americans as a particularly vulnerable group, who, because of a number of different factors - including socioeconomic and employment  have been 'getting hit with a double whammy' of the virus.

'[African Americans] have a greater proportion of jobs that don't allow them to sit in front of a computer and do telework. They're out there, they're doing a lot of things physically where you to have interact,' Fauci said.
Photo: The Canadian Press Taniyah Pilgrim speaks of her experience in a confrontation with Atlanta Police Officers during a press conference by the Fulton County District Attorney's Office in Atlanta, Monday, June 2, 2020. Six Atlanta police officers have been charged after a dramatic video showed authorities pulling Pilgrim and Messiah Young from a car during protests over the death of George Floyd. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Two more Atlanta police officers were fired Wednesday over an incident in which two college students were pulled from a car in traffic during a large protest against police brutality, authorities said.

Sgt. Lonnie Hood and Officer Armon Jones were fired as a result of their involvement in the May 30 incident, police spokesman Sgt. John Chafee said in an email.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and police Chief Erika Shields previously announced the firing, less than 24 hours after the encounter, of two other officers who were involved. The four fired officers and two others face criminal charges stemming from the incident.

Body camera footage shows a group of Atlanta police officers confronting 22-year-old Messiah Young and 20-year-old Taniyah Pilgrim in a car in downtown traffic caused by protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Video shows the officers shouting at the students, firing Tasers at them and dragging them from the car. Throughout the confrontation, the couple can be heard screaming and asking what they did wrong.

The two students are rising seniors at historically black colleges near downtown Atlanta, Young at Morehouse College and Pilgrim at Spelman College.

Hood is charged with aggravated assault against both Young and Pilgrim for using a Taser against both of them, an arrest warrant says. He is also charged with simple battery for violently pulling Pilgrim from the car and throwing her down on to the street, a warrant says.

Jones is charged with aggravated battery for hurting Youngs left arm when he dragged him from the car and slammed him onto the street, a warrant says. He also is charged with pointing a gun at Young. Young suffered a fractured arm and a gash requiring two dozen stitches.

The two officers who were previously fired  Investigator Ivory Streeter and Investigator Mark Gardner  filed a lawsuit Monday against the mayor and police chief alleging violations of their due process rights. Gardner and Streeter are each charged with aggravated assault for using their Tasers on the couple, arrest warrants say.

The other two officers facing charges remain on administrative leave, and the investigation remains open, Chafee said.

Willie Sauls is charged with aggravated assault for pointing a Taser at Pilgrim and with criminal damage for repeatedly hitting and damaging the drivers side window of the car, according to warrants.

Roland Claud is charged with criminal damage for breaking the cars window, a warrant says.

All of the charged officers are black except for Claud, whos white. Atlanta Police Department sworn personnel is about 61% black, according to 2019 numbers provided by the department.
Iran has sent to Venezuela a shipment of medical aid to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic after it succeeded to supply the Latin American country with much-needed fuel last month despite US threats.

Venezuelas Minister of Planning Ricardo Menendez announced the aid shipment, which includes testing kits, London-based The New Arab reports.

It is unclear when the load medical aid was sent but it comes at the time the South American country, according to a study by Johns Hopkins University, reported 2,377 coronavirus infections and 22 deaths.

Caracas, which has been under US sanctions and in difficult economic situation due to lack sufficient revenues, is grappling with disastrous medical conditions of its population and lack of medial infrastructure to cope with the respiratory disease.

The humanitarian aid is the latest gesture in the increasing relations between the two US-embargoed countries. Iran last month docked five oil tankers at Caracas at the demand of the Venezuelan regime.

The tankers defied US threats to thwart the oil trade between the allies.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last week said he would personally go to Tehran to thank the Islamic Republic for the oil supply.

Iran also indicated that it was poised to send more supplies if requested. Menendez said Venezuela and Iran plan to set a broad development agenda against imperialism, The New Arab reports.
SPRINGFIELD  A state lawmaker is urging Springfield to do more to help rural small businesses hurt by COVID-19 restrictions.

The call comes after Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity announced the first round of grants from the Downstate Small Business Stabilization Program. Officials said $1.3 million will be handed out to 65 businesses in 28 downstate communities.

State Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon, said thats not nearly enough, considering the program contains around $20 million in available funds.

We saw only 65 businesses in the entire state who qualify for these, Demmer said. You think about the 90 counties or so that this [program] would cover, thats not even one business per county. This was supposed to be a targeted program specifically for small and rural communities. And weve seen very, very little support go to those communities so far.

Demmer, who also serves as Deputy House Republican Leader, said in his hometown of Dixon, only four of the 52 applicants were approved. He said the whole process has been time-consuming, taking up valuable resources of business owners.

It was an incredibly complicated process and included things like public hearings and votes by the city council and 80-page applications per business, Demmer said. One of the challenges is that the guidance changed a few times. Some businesses submitted applications for these grants only to find out that the rules changed mid-stream.

According to Demmer, many of the denial notices carry dates from late April and May, meaning officials reviewed those applications long ago and then made businesses wait for an answer.

That was very frustrating to me, Demmer said. If you put yourself in the shoes of a small business owner, youre trying to figure out what you can afford to do. Can you keep the lights on in your business? Can you keep an employee on, or do you have to lay additional people off? Every day matters right now.

Demmer is also critical of certain provisions of the program, such as the exclusion of sole proprietors and other businesses being turned down for insufficient length of business operation.

Thats focusing more on the arbitrary rules of a grant program, instead of focusing on what the intent is here, which was to provide financial assistance to small businesses who suffered significant financial burdens because of the stay at home orders, Demmer said.

More than $18 million dollars remains to be awarded, with rural small businesses eligible for grants of up to $25,000 dollars each.

New applications are being accepted for the program, but Demmer argues that officials should re-examine the paperwork they already have.

Some of the folks who needed it most desperately have already closed, Demmer said. I think we should really try to focus on people who looked at this early on in the process as a needed lifeline and not those who waited until the second or third round to decide that they might want to apply.
Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE Updates: NHRC issues notice to Delhi Government & Union Health Ministry over serious allegations about COVID mismanagement including non-availability of beds, inadequate number of tests, increasing deaths, delay in last rites of the deceased in Delhi: National Human Rights Commission

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Since the onset of June, the country has also been witnessing over 200 COVID-19 fatalities each day. Also, the country has registered over 9,000 coronavirus cases for the sixth day in a row.

The toll due to the coronavirus infection rose to 7,471 and the cases mounted to 2,66,598 in the country on Tuesday. A total of 336 new COVID-19 fatalities and 9,987 cases were reported in the last 24 hours till Tuesday 8 am, according to Union Health Ministry data.

The statistics differ from the daily figures provided by the government, which has virus-related deaths across the UK at 40,597. Those are based on initial cause of death assessments by doctors.

Britain's statistics agency says the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the UK has risen to 50,107, reports AP. The updated figures from the Office for National Statistics are up to the week ending May 29 and are collated from death certificates, which can take a couple of weeks to be issued.

The order says the decision has been taken to provide first-hand information to people about the position of vacant beds in the city government hospitals and private facilities.

It comes in the wake of several families, whose members may have been a positive or suspected case of COVID-19, alleging that they were turned away by various hospitals despite beds being available.

Delhi government hospitals and private facilities here will now have to prominently display information about the availability of beds on a flex board at their main gates, according to an official order Tuesday.

He was allegedly vomiting and suffered from dysentery, according to his uncle Sheikh Mofijul, who was also travelling with him, police said. He died on Monday while travelling on the train, but the body was taken off after the train reached Malda, Mofijul claimed.

Sheikh Khatip, a resident of Chandpur village under the Pukuria police station in Malda was travelling from Alleppey in a Shramik special that was on way to New Jalpaiguri in north Bengal, police said.

A 30-year old man died while travelling on a Shramik train from Alleppey in Kerala to Malda town on Tuesday, a government railway police official said here.

Alleging large-scale corruption in the procurement of masks, personal protection equipment (PPE) and other paraphernalia, state Congress president Niranjan Patnaik said he would move the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the Lokayukta for a thorough probe into the matter.

Stepping up the attack on the BJD government in Odisha over its response to the coronavirus outbreak, opposition Congress and BJP on Tuesday alleged a mega scam in the purchase of medical equipment and sought a clarification on the matter from Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Delhi on Wednesday reported 1,366 new COVID19 cases, taking the total number of cases in the National Capital to 31,309, including 18543 active cases, 11861 recovered/discharged/migrated and 905 deaths, according to the latest bulletin from the Delhi Health Department.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said there is more than enough food to feed the world's 7.8 billion people, but our food systems are failing.

The UN secretary-general is calling for immediate action to avoid a global food emergency, saying more than 820 million people are hungry, about 144 million children under the age of 5 have stunted growth, and the COVID-19 pandemic is making things worse.

It also said the standard operating procedure of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for religious places should be meticulously complied with by managements of religious institutions.

On Tuesday, an order issued by the Punjab's Home Department said, It has now been decided to allow community kitchens (langar) and serving of prasad at religious places, subject to the condition that physical distancing norms and all COVID hygiene precautions while preparing and distributing food shall be strictly followed.

The Punjab government on Tuesday allowed langar and the distribution of prasad at religious places, revising its earlier lockdown guidelines.

On Tuesday, Mumbai crossed 50,878 coronavirus cases, which was around 700 more than China's Wuhan, where the global pandemic first surfaced in December. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Wuhan is 50,333, including 3,869 deaths. Maharashtra meanwhile stands at 90,000 cases, ahead of the 84,000-plus cases in China, remains the worst affected state in India

One more person died of coronavirus in Assam on Tuesday as the infection count crossed the 3,000-mark with 215 fresh cases. According to Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, five people have died of the virus in the state so far while the infection count stands at 3,050. The fresh death was reported from Karbi Anglong district on Monday.

Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 72.37 lakh people and claimed over 4.11 lakh lives so far, according to the Johns Hopkins University. As many as 33.70 lakh people have recovered.

Senior DMK MLA and party's Chennai west district secretary J Anbazhagan died at a hospital in Chennai on Wednesday morning, reports New18. He was undergoing treatment for the virus. Anbazhagan is the first legislator to die for COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu and was a three-time MLA.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Wednesday questioned the Delhi government over its earlier decision on reserving Delhi hospitals only for 'Delhiites'. He took to Twitter saying, "In my Delhi nobody is an outsider"

"We have increased the testing capacity to 1.4 lakh per day. So far, we have 789 laboratories (553 government and 231 private labs). A total of 50, 30,700 samples have been tested till 6 June evening," an ICMR official said.

Till 6 June, a total of 50, 30,700 samples were tested across the country. Another 1, 41,682 have been tested in the past 24 hours, ICMR officials said.

Over five million RT-PCR tests to detect SARS-CoV-2 - the virus behind COVID-19 pandemic - have been done across the country, India Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said.

The toll due to the pandemic reached 3,289 with 120 deaths being reported during the day, he added. 1,663 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery, taking the total of recovered patients to 42,638, the official said.

In Maharashtra, 2,259 more individuals tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, taking the total of cases in the state to 90,787, a health official said.

The figure includes cases involving active cases, foreign nationals, patients who have recovered and the COVID-19 toll.

The total confirmed COVID-19 cases in India has risen to 2,76,583, according to the latest data released by the health ministry on Wednesday.

India registered a total of 9,985 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the overall count across the country to 2,76,583 on Wednesday, according to the health ministry.

As many as 7,745 COVID-19 deaths were registered across the country as of Wednesday after 279 more individuals succumbed to the viral infection in the past 24 hours, said the health ministry.

Total number of cases in the country is now at 2,76,583, including 1,33,632 active cases, 135206 have been cured/discharged/migrated and 7745 death, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The COVID-19 recovery rate in the country is 49 percent after 1,35,206 patients were cured of the infectious disease, said the health ministry on Wednesday.

After 1.35 lakh COVID-19 patients were cured of infectious disease as of Wednesday, India's number of recovered cases exceeded the active ones for first time. There are 1,33,632 active cases across the country.

The hybrid session would allow some MPs to be present physically in Parliament with the remaining ones attending it virtually.

With neither the central hall of Parliament nor the Vigyan Bhawan plenary hall large enough to seat all the MPs while maintaining a minimum distance of one metre, the presiding officers of both houses are learnt to have been exploring options of holding a 'hybrid' session of Parliament or a virtual one, the sources told PTI.

The prospects of a routine session of Parliament have come under question with existing government buildings found inadequate to accommodate all members of Parliament if COVID-19 physical distancing norms are to be followed, according to highly-placed sources.

No new COVID-19 case reported in Maharashtra Police in the last 48 hours. Total coronavirus cases in the force stand at 2,562, toll at 34, said the poloce force on Wednesday.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Member of Legislative Assembly J Anbazhagan, who was suffering from the novel coronavirus, passed away at a private hospital in Chennai on Wednesday.

As many as 18,325 patients have recovered in the state so far.

Tamil Nadu remained the second worst COVID-affected state in the country with 34,914 confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the latest data from the Union Health Ministry, the state has reported 307 COVID-19 deaths so far.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus in Pune is at 10,012 with 442 people succumbing to the viral disease till now, said the health officials on Wednesday.

Keni, who was the corporator of Kalwa under the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC), tested positive for COVID-19 14 days ago and was put on a ventilator support at a private hospital in Mumbai.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator Mukund Keni died of the novel coronavirus disease late at night on Tuesday.

Odisha reported 3,250 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday after 110 more individuals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, said health officials. The figure includes 1,106 active cases.

Of the total 3,250 COVID-19 cases in Odisha, 2,133 patients have been cured of the infectious disease so far, said health officials on Wednesday. This takes the recovery rate in the state to 65.6 percent.

"If one person gets infected, it takes around 2 weeks for him/her to cure and during this period they infect nearly 2-10 other people. Considering the present situation, it's expected that in next 12-15 days, there'll be around 30,000 more cases," said Jain.

Taking in accordance the current situation in Delhi, it is likely that there will be around 30,000 more COVID-19 cases in the next 12-15 days, said health minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday.

As many as 256 patients have lost their lives to the viral disease in the state.

Rajasthan registered a total of 11,368 confirmed coronavirus cases after 123 more people tested positive for COVID-19 till 10.30 am on Wednesday, said the state health department.

"The man, about 45 years of age, died at a Bareilly hospital on Tuesday. He was admitted there two days ago," Chief Medical Officer Yashpal Singh said.

The victim used to live in Delhi and work as a tailor, they said, adding that he had fled a Ghaziabad hospital and reached his sister's place in Badaun two days ago.

A man has died while undergoing treatment for COVID-19 infection in Bareilly, days after escaping from a Ghaziabad hospital where he was initially admitted, officials said on Wednesday.

Five more persons have tested positive for COVID-19 in Mizoram, taking the state tally to 93. reports PTI. Of the total 93 COVID-19 cases, 92 are active as only one person has recovered from the disease.

Rajasthan has closed its borders due to increasing COVID-19 cases, ANI has reported. No person will be allowed to enter the state. Those who wish to leave need to take prior permission, the report adds.

At a review meeting of the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Corridor on Tuesday evening, Thackeray said separate zones of industries should be created along the corridor and all facilities required by units should be provided there. The Samruddhi Corridor is a 701-km-long expressway being constructed to cut short the travel time between Mumbai and Nagpur.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has stressed the need for decentralisation of new industries in the state in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.

The findings were first reported in April by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a preprint, prior to traditional academic validation provided by a medical journal.

Gilead Sciences Incs antiviral drug remdesivir prevented lung disease in macaque monkeys infected with the new coronavirus, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Tuesday.

Kejriwal also said he was constantly thinking of ways to tackle the coronavirus numbers in Delhi when he was in quarantine. He urges people to wear masks, follow physical distancing guidelines and make this a peoples movement and likens this to the odd-even scheme.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addresses the media about the coronavirus situation. Thank you for your blessings and wishes, have tested negative for the coronavirus, he said.

Lt Governor Anil Baijal had directed the government and medical authorities in the National Capital to ensure that treatment was not denied to anybody on the grounds that they were not residents of the city.

He also noted that on Monday, the Centre  the Lt. Governor  overturned Delhis Cabinet decision that Delhi government hospitals be reserved for people of Delhi. "This is not the time for disagreements. We will abide by whatever decision Lt. Governor has taken," he said.

The Delhi chief minister on Wednesday said that projections have shown that coronavirus will spread rapidly in Delhi. "We will require around 80,000 beds by 31 July," he said.

He also said, "I am requesting neighbouring states to make adequate arrangements there so that more people do not have to come to Delhi. I am sure they are also doing their part."

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal while giving a presser on COVID-19 situation in Delhi on Tuesday praised the media for highlighting the problems faced by coronavirus patients in Delhi. He also said that directives of Anil Baijal will be implemented in letter and spirit, saying this is not the time for disagreements or arguments with Opposition parties.

The Jama Masjid may have to be closed again due to the deteriorating coronavirus situation in Delhi, the mosques Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari said, reports PTI. This comes after Shahi Imams secretary Amanullah died due to COVID-19 on Tuesday

128 new COVID-19 cases have been reported in Bihar, taking the total confirmed cases to 5,583, said the state health department on Wednesday.

"In normal time, 50 percent patients come from outside Delhi for treatments. So going by that calculation we need about 1.5 lakh beds by July. I will personally oversee stadiums being turned into quarantine centres. In last eight days, Delhi hospitals admitted 1,900 people. Around 4,200 beds are vacant in hospitals," said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal during a press briefing on Wednesday.

This is not the time to do politics, we all have to fight COVID-19 together said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Lt governor's order reversing Delhi government's decision on reservation of hospitals.

"We will try our best to make arrangements to provide treatment to all, we all have to fight COVID-19 together," said Kejriwal.

Delhi has to arrange for 1.5 lakh hospital beds by July-end if people from other states start coming to the National Capital for COVID-19 treatment, said chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday.

With 136 more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh in the past 24 hours, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state climbed to 4,126, said the health department on Wednesday.

82 personnel of State Reserve Police Force have also tested positive for COVID-19 so far, the news agency further reported.

A total of 1,908 Mumbai police personnel have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, ANI reported on Wednesday. As many as 905 cops have been cured of the viral infection, while the toll has risen to 21.

In a series of tweets in Marathi, Sule has said those involved in the business are facing economic hardship due to closure of barbershops and salons amid the lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and MP Supriya Sule urged the Maharashtra government to allow barber shops and salons to reopen.

The staff had come in contact with a pregnant woman who recently underwent a cesarean section at the hospital and were placed under quarantine after her report for COVID-19 came positive, they said.

Nineteen staffers, including two doctors, at Udhampur district hospital in Jammu and Kashmir tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, officials said.

Interventions to reduce the coronavirus spread in Europe have brought down infection rates down by an average of 81 percent compared to pre-intervention times, the Nature report claims.

In the first study, published in Nature on 8 June, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley report that shutdowns prevented or delayed an estimated 531 million coronavirus infections across six countries  China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France and the United States. A second study by scientists at Imperial College London estimates that shutdowns saved about 3.1 million lives across 11 European countries.

Two new studies have pointed to the effectiveness of lockdowns around the world, claiming that proper implementation in some countries has reduced the transmission of coronavirus and controlled its rapid spread, saving millions of people from being infected in the still-raging global pandemic.

After 42 more people tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Assam till noon on Wednesday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state climbed to 3,092, said health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Nearly 49 million more people are likely to fall into extreme poverty this year due to the COVID-19 crisis and every percentage point drop in the global GDP would mean hundreds of thousands of additional children will have stunted growth, warned UN chief Antonio Guterres, calling on countries to act immediately to ensure global food security.

Meanwhile, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Aurangabad rose to 2,264 on Wednesday after 114 more people tested positive for the disease, a district official said.

All the new patients are asymptomatic and they have been quarantined at facilities set up in the jail premises, the official said.

Reports of 14 jail staff members, including two officers, came out positive on Wednesday, a senior prison official said.

As many as 14 staff members of the Harsul jail in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district have tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, a prison official said.

"Karnataka crossed 4 lakh tests mark on Tuesday. So far, we tested 4,00,257 samples in 71 COVID-19 testing labs across the state with a positivity rate of 1.4 per cent," he said.

Sharing the daily COVID-19 bulletin on his Twitter handle, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said till Tuesday 4,00,257 samples were tested in 71 COVID-19 testing labs across the state.

The Karnataka government on Wednesday said that the COVID-19 tests conducted in the state has crossed the four lakh mark, while the recovery rate remained at 44 percent.

So far, as many as 500 people have recovered, it said.

The number of people who have died due to the infection in Nagpur till now is 14, the district information office (DIO) said in a statement.

Sixty-one people tested COVID-19 positive in Nagpur district of Maharashtra on Wednesday, taking the overall count of such patients to 840, officials said.

"Out of 1,450 samples tested for COVID-19, 26 people found positive," Deb said in a tweet.

Of the fresh cases, 18 were reported from Sepahijala district, six from Tripura South and two from Khowai.

Twenty-six more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Tripura on Wednesday, taking the total number of cases in the state to 867, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said.

The matter has been reviewed and it is now decided to reiterate that all CGHS empanelled hospitals, which are notified as COVID-hospitals by state governments shall provide treatment facilities to CGHS beneficiaries as per norms of the scheme, for all Covid-19 related treatments, said the health ministry.

Action would be initiated against all CGHS empanelled hospitals designated as COVID-19 and COVID-19 facilities for denying treatment to coronavirus infected patients and to those suffering from other diseases, the Union health ministry said.

The new patient is a high-risk contact of a 72-year- old person who had earlier tested positive for the virus, he added. "One high risk contact of a positive patient has tested positive for COVID-19 in Shillong. Person is under medical supervision," the chief minister tweeted.

One more person has tested positive for COVID-19 in Meghalaya, taking the state's overall count to 44 on Wednesday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said.

This is the 14th COVID-19 death in the paramilitary or Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs).

A 35-year-old BSF jawan succumbed to the novel coronavirus in Delhi on Wednesday, PTI quoted officials as saying. With this, the COVID-19 toll in the force climbed to three.

With 23 more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state climbed to 1,560, said the Directorate of Medical Health and Family Welfare, Uttarakhand.

Severe cases of COVID-19 are believed to be triggered by an over-reaction of the immune system, known as a cytokine storm, and researchers are investigating whether drugs that suppress certain elements of the immune system can play a role in arresting a rapid escalation of symptoms.

Two drugs used to treat inflammatory diseases and cancer are being tested as potential therapies for patients with COVID-19, the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford announced on Wednesday.

As part of its efforts to ramp up the testing capacity, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had approved the use of TrueNat system for conducting coronavirus tests.

To ensure quick COVID-19 test results, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday asked officials to make TrueNat machines available in all 75 districts of the state by 15 June.

"Starting immediately, Phase 3 of VBM will have 80 flights to Europe (2 daily flights to London & 2 to other European destinations) between now & 30 June; & 10 more flights to US-Canada in addition to 70 already announced," he said.

Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission will be launched on Wednesday.

Telangana reported 191 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of infections to 4,111. Eight new deaths were also recorded as the toll reached 156.

Punjab: Farmers in Amritsar have begun sowing paddy. Satnam Singh, a farmer says, "We are finding it very difficult to employ labourers for sowing as migrants have left for their home states & local labourers are comparatively more expensive". pic.twitter.com/iJnQEw6ImN

Farmers in Amritsar have begun sowing paddy. Satnam Singh, a farmer says, "We are finding it very difficult to employ labourers for sowing as migrants have left for their home states & local labourers are comparatively more expensive".

Reports said that Maharashtra health minister Anil Deshmukh inaugurated a 50-bed COVID-19 care centre for police personnel at the "Navi Mumbai police headquarters in Kalamboli as police personnel who have died due to the coronavirus infection rose to 35 on Wednesday," News18 reported.

"Like we imposed the lockdown in phases, it will have to be lifted in a phased manner. The danger is yet to pass. But, we cannot bring the economic cycle to a grinding halt even as we fight coronavirus," the statement added.

The Maharashtra CMO said that the state government is taking cautious steps for Mission Begin Again.

Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu said that two more patients have recovered and were discharged on Wednesday. Both of them have been sent for 14 days home quarantine. Total positive cases in the state now stand at 61, including ffour recovered.

200 new cases of coronavirus were reported in Madhya Pradesh today, taking the case count to 10,049. Seven more casualties were also reported, taking the state's toll to 427.

The BMC said that 1,567 more coronavirus cases and 97 deaths reported in Mumbai on Wednesday. Total number of cases in the city is now at 52,445, including 23,693 recovered/discharged, 26,897 active cases and 1855 deaths.

An official statement later said the leaders discussed the potential areas in which India and Israel could expand their cooperation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, including research and development efforts in the fields of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

"India-Israel partnership will grow ever stronger in the days to come," he said.

"Had an excellent conversation with my friend PM @netanyahu about how India-Israel can collaborate in the post-COVID world," Modi tweeted.

During their telephonic conversation, Modi also congratulated Netanyahu on assuming the prime ministerial office for a record fifth time.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday discussed with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu the potential areas in which the two countries can expand cooperation in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, including research and development efforts in the field of vaccines.

"Department of Pharmaceuticals has approved the lifting of ban on Export of Hydroxychloroquine API as well as formulations. Manufacturers except SEZ/EOU Units have to supply 20% production in the domestic market. DGFT has been asked to issue formal notification in this regard: Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Sadananda Gowda," News18 reported.

"He said the Delhi government is preparing for the "foreseeable situation of June 30", and for that, preparations are being made for Covid-19 infrastructure in stadiums, banquet halls, and hotels," the report added.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday said the government will arrange 15,000 beds for COVID-19 patients by 20 June, India Today reported.

Coronavirus Outbreak LATEST Updates: NHRC issues notice to Delhi Government & Union Health Ministry over serious allegations about COVID mismanagement including non-availability of beds, inadequate number of tests, increasing deaths, delay in last rites of the deceased in Delhi: National Human Rights Commission.

A Shiv Sena corporator from Mira Bhayandar and his mother, who had tested positive for coronavirus, succumbed to the infection, News18 reported.

As many as 5,991 patients were cured of #COVID19 in last 24 hrs. Total number of patients recovered to 1,35,205, while total active cases is now 1,33,632.For the first time,total no.of recovered patients has exceeded active cases. Recovery rate now stands at 48.88 percent, the Centre said.

Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission will be launched on Wednesday.

"Starting immediately, Phase 3 of VBM will have 80 flights to Europe (2 daily flights to London & 2 to other European destinations) between now & 30 June; & 10 more flights to US-Canada in addition to 70 already announced," he said.

To ensure quick COVID-19 test results, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday asked officials to make TrueNat machines available in all 75 districts of the state by 15 June.

As part of its efforts to ramp up the testing capacity, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had approved the use of TrueNat system for conducting coronavirus tests.

A 35-year-old BSF jawan succumbed to the novel coronavirus in Delhi on Wednesday, PTI quoted officials as saying. With this, the COVID-19 toll in the force climbed to three.

This is the 14th COVID-19 death in the paramilitary or Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs)

The Karnataka government on Wednesday said that the COVID-19 tests conducted in the state has crossed the four lakh mark, while the recovery rate remained at 44 percent.

Sharing the daily COVID-19 bulletin on his Twitter handle, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said till Tuesday 4,00,257 samples were tested in 71 COVID-19 testing labs across the state.

"Karnataka crossed 4 lakh tests mark on Tuesday. So far, we tested 4,00,257 samples in 71 COVID-19 testing labs across the state with a positivity rate of 1.4 per cent," he said.

Nearly 49 million more people are likely to fall into extreme poverty this year due to the COVID-19 crisis and every percentage point drop in the global GDP would mean hundreds of thousands of additional children will have stunted growth, warned UN chief Antonio Guterres, calling on countries to act immediately to ensure global food security.

A total of 1,908 Mumbai police personnel have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, ANI reported on Wednesday. As many as 905 cops have been cured of the viral infection, while the toll has risen to 21.

82 personnel of State Reserve Police Force have also tested positive for COVID-19 so far, the news agency further reported.

Delhi has to arrange for 1.5 lakh hospital beds by July-end if people from other states start coming to the National Capital for COVID-19 treatment, said chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday.

"We will try our best to make arrangements to provide treatment to all, we all have to fight COVID-19 together," said Kejriwal.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal while giving a presser on COVID-19 situation in Delhi on Tuesday praised the media for highlighting the problems faced by coronavirus patients in Delhi. He also said that directives of Anil Baijal will be implemented in letter and spirit, saying this is not the time for disagreements or arguments with Opposition parties.

Rajasthan has closed its borders due to increasing COVID-19 cases, ANI has reported. No person will be allowed to enter the state. Those who wish to leave need to take prior permission, the report adds. Rajasthan registered a total of 11,368 confirmed coronavirus cases after 123 more people tested positive for COVID-19 till 10.30 am on Wednesday, said the state health department.

As many as 256 patients have lost their lives to the viral disease in the state.

A total of 1,24,369 cases have been registered in Maharashtra under Section 188 of IPC since 22 March for violation of coronavirus-lockdown norms, said the police on Wednesday.

The police force further said that 846 accused have been arrested in cases of assault on cops.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator Mukund Keni succumbed to the novel coronavirus disease late at night on Tuesday after 14 days of staying on ventilator support.

Keni, who was the corporator of Kalwa under the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC), tested positive for COVID-19 14 days ago and was put on a ventilator support at a private hospital in Mumbai.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Member of Legislative Assembly J Anbazhagan, who was suffering from the novel coronavirus, passed away at a private hospital in Chennai on Wednesday.

After 1.35 lakh COVID-19 patients were cured of infectious disease as of Wednesday, India's number of recovered cases exceeded the active ones for first time. There are 1,33,632 active cases across the country.

India registered a total of 9,985 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the overall count across the country to 2,76,583 on Wednesday, according to the health ministry.

As many as 7,745 COVID-19 deaths were registered across the country as of Wednesday after 279 more individuals succumbed to the viral infection in the past 24 hours, said the health ministry.

India registered a total of 9,985 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the overall count across the country to 2,76,583 on Wednesday, according to the health ministry.

Delhi government hospitals and private facilities here will now have to prominently display information about the availability of beds on a flex board at their main gates, according to an official order Tuesday. It comes in the wake of several families, whose members may have been a positive or suspected case of COVID-19, alleging that they were turned away by various hospitals despite beds being available.

On Tuesday, Mumbai crossed50,878 coronavirus cases, which was around 700 more than China's Wuhan, where the global pandemic first surfaced in December. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Wuhan is 50,333, including 3,869 deaths. Maharashtra meanwhile stands at 90,000 cases, ahead of the 84,000-plus cases in China, remains the worst affected state in India.

Since the onset of June, India has been witnessing over 200 COVID-19 fatalities each day. Also, the country has registered over 9,000 coronavirus cases for the sixth day in a row.

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said India is better positioned in the fight against COVID-19 compared to other nations but warned against complacency even as a record rise in coronavirus cases in the country pushed the overall number of infections to 2,66,598 and toll to 7,471.

The health ministry said central teams have been deployed in 15 states and UTs with districts or municipal bodies witnessing a major spurt in cases to assist the local administrations in containment and management of the outbreak.

India reports 9,987 new cases in 24 hours

The toll due to the coronavirus infection rose to 7,471 and the cases mounted to 2,66,598 in the country. A total of 336 new COVID-19 fatalities and 9,987 cases were reported in the last 24 hours till Tuesday 8 am, according to Union Health Ministry data.

India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global coronavirus case count has climbed to 71,64,393 while the toll has reached 407,818.

The number of active novel coronavirus cases in India stands at 1,29,917 till Tuesday 8 am. So far, a total of 1,29,214 people have recovered with 4,785 patients having been cured in the last 24 hours. "This takes the total recovery rate to 48.47 percent," the ministry said.

Of the 266 new deaths reported till Tuesday morning, 109 were in Maharashtra, 62 in Delhi, 31 in Gujarat, 17 in Tamil Nadu, 11 in Haryana, nine in West Bengal, eight in Uttar Pradesh, six in Rajasthan, four in Jammu and Kashmir, three in Karnataka, two each in Madhya Pradesh and Punjab and one each in Bihar and Kerala.

Out of the total fatalities, Maharashtra has reported the highest with 3,169 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,280 deaths, Delhi with 874, Madhya Pradesh with 414, West Bengal with 405, Tamil Nadu with 286, Uttar Pradesh with 283, Rajasthan with 246 and Telangana with 137 deaths.

Maharashtra also accounts for the highest number of confirmed cases at 88,528 followed by Tamil Nadu at 33,229, Delhi at 29,943, Gujarat at 20,545, Uttar Pradesh at 10,947, Rajasthan at 10,763 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,638, according to the health ministry's data updated in the morning.

The ministry's website said that 8,803 cases are being reassigned to states and "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR".

Central teams deployed in 50 districts, municipalities

High-level central teams have been deployed in 50 districts and municipal bodies spread across 15 states and Union Territories witnessing high case load and high spurt of cases, the health ministry said.

These multi-disciplinary central teams are helping states and UTs address challenges like testing bottlenecks, low rates of testing, high confirmation rates, risk of capacity shortfall over the next two months, potential bed shortage, growing case fatality rate, high doubling rate and sudden spike in active cases, the ministry said.

The states and UTs where these teams have been deployed are Maharashtra (seven districts/ municipalities), Telangana (four), Tamil Nadu (seven), Rajasthan (five), Assam (six), Haryana (four), Gujarat (three), Karnataka (four), Uttarakhand (three), Madhya Pradesh (five), West Bengal (three), Delhi (three), Bihar (four), Uttar Pradesh (four), and Odisha (five).

Meanwhile, Vardhan chaired the 16th meeting of the high-level group of ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 which reviewed the containment strategies pertaining to the pandemic via video-conferencing here, health ministry said.

As the country entered the "Unlock 1.0 phase" where malls, offices and restaurants have opened in many state outside containment zones, Vardhan stressed that people need to be more disciplined and adopt appropriate behaviour to ensure norms of physical distancing, use of face covers, hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette are followed.

State-wise updates

Many states and Union Territories continued to show a spurt in cases through the day.

Odisha's COVID-19 case count crossed 3,000 as 146 more people tested positive for the infection. These new cases include 49 NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) personnel and 12 ODRAF (Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force) personnel, who tested positive after returning to the state from West Bengal, where they had gone for restoration work in the wake of Cyclone Amphan.

The Meghalaya government withdrew its earlier order that allowed religious places to reopen doors to devotees from 14 June, and said congregations of any kind would have to be avoided for the time being, given the unrelenting rise in COVID-19 cases. Four new coronavirus cases have been detected in the state since Monday, increasing the tally to 40  three times of what it was during the second week of May.

Andhra Pradesh saw its case count cross 5,000 with 216 fresh cases, while its death toll rose to 77.

Uttar Pradesh reported its highest single-day spike of 18 COVID-19 deaths, taking the toll to 301, while 388 new cases detected today pushed the case count to 11,335.

Kerala continued to reel under the impact of returnees testing positive for COVID-19 as 91 fresh cases were reported in the state on Tuesday, taking the total number of people under treatment to 1,231. Of the fresh cases, as many as 53 came from abroad while 27 from other states. Ten people contracted the disease through contact, the state government said. The total COVID-19 cases in the state rose to 2,095 and the toll remained unchanged at 16.

The virus also reached the Union Territory of Daman which was a green zone till nowas two persons recently returned from Mumbai tested positive.

Tamil Nadu registered a single-day record increase of 1,685 cases, taking the number of coronavirus infections to 34,914, while 21 more people died to take the toll to 307. Chennai's own tally rose to 24,545 with 1,242 new cases.

Maharashtra, the worst-hit state, reported 2,259 new cases to take its tally to 90,787, while its death toll rose by 120 to 3,289. More than 1,000 new cases were reported in Mumbai alone, pushing its tally past 50,000, while the death toll rose by 58 to 1,758.

A 55-year-old deputy commissioner of the city's municipal corporation died on Tuesday, a day after testing positive for the novel coronavirus. However, according to PTI, BMC sources said the exact cause of death was not known yet, and the official was not involved in any fieldwork related to the pandemic.

Gujarat, another badly hit state, reported 470 new cases, including 331 in Ahmedabad. The state's tally has now risen to 21,044, while its death toll has mounted to 1,313. Ahmedabad alone now has 14,962 cases, while Surat has 2,207 and Vadodara 1,360.

The Himachal Pradesh Police Headquarters was sealed while Director General of Police Sanjay Kundu and about 30 other police officials home-quarantined themselves on Tuesday as a man who had met the police chief died of coronavirus, an official told PTI.

Delhi case count may reach 5.5 lakh by 31 July, says Dy CM

In Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the National Capital may see its own case count reach 5.5 lakh by 31 July at the current rate of doubling of cases of 12.6 days, from nearly 30,000 at present.

He, however, said that central government officials have maintained there was no community transmission of the novel coronavirus virus in Delhi.

Meanwhile, Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said the source of infection is "not known" in nearly half of the fresh cases being reported but assured that the Kejriwal government is making all the preparations to handle the huge rush of patients estimated by June end.

A Delhi government panel has suggested using Pragati Maidan and various stadiums in the city as makeshift COVID-19 facility to deal with the surge in the number of cases, an official said.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who had gone into self-quarantine on Sunday after he developed a sore throat and fever, has tested negative for COVID-19. He was tested on Tuesday morning. The fever has subsided and he is now feeling well, an official said.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia has, however, tested positive for COVID-19 and has been admitted to a private hospital in the National Capital. His mother Madhavi Raje Scindia has also tested positive.

Disinvestment secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey has also tested positive for COVID-19 and is under home quarantine, sources told PTI. He got himself tested after developing mild fever and was found to be infected by the dreaded coronavirus.

Consequently, some other officers of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) have also gone for home quarantine, while its office has been sealed for sanitisation. This is the third case in the department.

With inputs from PTI
Chahid El-hafed, June 9, 2020 (SPS) - As one of the most important figures in the contemporary history of Western Sahara, the Saharawi people have commemorated, today, the 44th anniversary of the death of El Uali Mustafa Sayed founder of the Frente POLISARIO, with political-cultural acts to remember his legacy and renew the commitment to fight and take the oath with the martyrs of the revolution

The Uali was born in 1948. He was a young man ahead of his time and had a vision of the future, he was a man who was convinced.

He leaded the front line of fighting, by example, a fact that made many men join him without hesitation. He was a man with deep convictions and an unequaled capacity for sacrifice.

He knew our society deeply and because of its simplicity he spoke to both the old man and the child, which gave him great sympathy within our society. He was a man who did so much in such a short time that we were undoubtedly in the presence of a genius.

On February 27, 1976, the last Spanish soldier left the Western Sahara, and that same day in the town of Bir Lehlu, El Uali proclaimed on behalf of the Frente POLISARIO, the Democratic Saharawi Arab Republic (RASD) before various media, being he himself elected as its first president.

The Uali, founder of the Frente POLISARIO, died in combat on June 9, 1976, returning from an attack on the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, in the midst of the armed conflict of the Saharawi people against the occupation of their territory by Mauritania and Morocco, after the illegal and illegitimate "Madrid Agreements" and the hasty withdrawal from Spain, at the end of 1975. In his memory, this date has been declared "Martyrs' Day", a holiday that honors the memory of all Sahrawis who fell in the war for independence. SPS

125/090/TRA


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The objective of this first meeting series was to lay a foundation as it regards the basic functioning of government and its services.





Six presentations were given on the internal procedures of: Disaster Management, Personnel Affairs, the Public Service Center, Department of Records and Information (DIV), Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Facilities.





The overall intention of the series falls in line with the objective of the platform: which is to synchronize policy efforts, share information, build capacity and ultimately elevate the effectiveness and functionality of the entire government apparatus by strengthening the policy level: Connect, Share, And Progress!





Overall the policy platform will enhance operational governance by ensuring that all policy workers throughout government is apprised of basic operational aspects within government. The series will continue for the next consecutive three Thursdays.





As part of a mini-series, the Department of Interior and Kingdom Relations (BAK) organized a policy platform meeting on Thursday 4th June, at the Governments Administration Building.
Trump's statement that "we will not even consider" changing the names came three days after a spokesman for the U.S. Army said, "The secretary of the Army is open to having a bipartisan conversation regarding the renaming" of 10 Army bases named after Confederate generals who had served in the U.S. Army, the nation's oldest service branch.

"Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!" Trump wrote in a tweet condemning the suggestion.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that U.S. Army bases named after generals who fought for slave-holding states of the Confederacy in the Civil War will not change their names.

On Tuesday, retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, a former CIA director, wrote an article in The Atlantic calling for the removal of the Confederacy-linked names , which was topped by the words: "It is time to remove the names of traitors ... from our country's most important military installations."

A push to take the names of the Confederate general leaders off of U.S military bases has gained renewed force after the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a black man, after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The Confederate states seceded from the United States in 1861 and fought a bloody, unsuccessful four-year war against the Union states in an effort to maintain the institution of using enslaved black men, women and children to perform labor.

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks and sign the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday.

Trump, in a multitweet post, rejected that idea, by contending that the Confederate names of the bases have become part of the nation's great "heritage."

"It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom," Trump wrote on Twitter.

"The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations," the president wrote.

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The White House's Twitter account later posted a video from Trump's spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany to reiterate his position.

White House tweet

McEnany also told reporters, "To suggest these forts are somehow inherently racist and their names need to be changed is a complete disrespect to the men and women, who, the last bit of American land they saw ... and lost their lives, were these forts.

On Tuesday, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said the Navy would bar the Confederate battle flag from being displayed in a variety of places.

Tweet

"The order is meant to ensure unit cohesion, preserve good order and discipline, and uphold the Navy's core values of honor, courage and commitment," U.S. Navy Cmdr. Nate Christensen, spokesman for Gilday, the chief of Naval Operations, wrote in a statement Tuesday.

However, the Navy's USS John C. Stennis supercarrier is named after a U.S. senator from Mississippi who was a zealous supporter of racial segregation.

A Navy spokesman had no immediate comment when asked if renaming the Stennis is being considered.

The Marines earlier in the week ordered the removal of Confederate flags from that service branch's installations.

Trump's top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, told reporters on Wednesday that "I don't believe nowadays we have systemic racism" in the United States.

But the NAACP, a leading civil rights group, has called for removal of all symbols of the Confederacy, including the names of military bases, which it notes have been defended by "Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and white nationalists ... as an innocent representation of their 'American Heritage.'"

"We know that these symbols glorify treason and a hateful history of white supremacy and black subjugation," the NAACP says on its website.

"In order for our country to move forward  to become a nation united and free from inequity and bigotry  we must remove Confederate symbols from the parks, schools, streets, counties, and military bases that define America's landscape and culture."

At The Pentagon, the Defense Department's massive headquarters, less obvious remnants of a racist history persist.

While the Pentagon was the first building in Virginia to be desegregated, its five-story, 34-acre compound was built years before with 284 bathrooms in order to keep white and black workers segregated.

Petraeus, in his Atlantic article, wrote, "When I was a cadet at West Point in the early 1970s, enthusiasm for [Confederate] Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson was widespread."

"We were not encouraged to think deeply about the cause for which they had fought, at least not in our military-history classes. And throughout my Army career, I likewise encountered enthusiastic adherents of various Confederate commanders, and a special veneration for Lee," Petraeus wrote.

He added that the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to this day "honors Robert E. Lee with a gate, a road, an entire housing area, and a barracks, the last of which was built during the 1960s."

"A portrait of Lee with an enslaved person adorns a wall of the cadet library, the counterpoint to a portrait of Grant, his Civil War nemesis, on a nearby wall."
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TACOMA  The Stericycle hazardous waste facility in Tacoma has agreed to settle $2.2 million in penalties issued in 2019 by the Washington Department of Ecology, the department said in a press release.

The facility, formerly owned by Stericycle, has since changed ownership and is now a Clean Earth company. It collects, manages and disposes of hazardous waste generated by households, industries and businesses.





. . .
Stepping up the attack on the BJD government in Odisha over its response to the coronavirus outbreak, opposition Congress and BJP alleged a mega scam in the purchase of medical equipment and sought a clarification on the matter from Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Alleging large-scale corruption in the procurement of masks, personal protection equipment (PPE) and other paraphernalia, state Congress president Niranjan Patnaik said he would move the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the Lokayukta for a thorough probe into the matter.

Coronavirus India News LIVE Updates

He claimed that the Odisha State Medical Corporation Ltd (OSMCL) had procured 30 lakh face masks from a Tamil Nadu-based private company at a cost of Rs 16 per piece, while other states purchased the same at a maximum price of Rs 8.

While other states are procuring masks at Rs 8 per piece, the BJD government bought 30 lakh masks at double the price. Instead of paying Rs 2.40 crore, they paid Rs 4.80 crore. The government has scammed even life-saving medical supplies. An independent probe must find out as to who pocketed the huge amount, Niranjan demnaded.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Similarly, RT-PCR machines were also purchased at three times its price, he alleged, adding while such machines that cost around Rs 4-5 lakh have been bought at Rs 12.84 lakh, PPE kits have been purchased at exorbitant prices.

The health minister is required to respond to the allegations, but he is seeking to pass the buck, the Congress leader said.

Though the Congress is not demanding the resignation of the chief minister over the matter, the party wants him to come out with a clarification as to whether there have been irregularities in the procurement of medical kits and equipment. We also demand resignation of ministers and anyone involved in corruption, he said.

Besides moving the CVC and the Lokayukta over the issue, the party will submit a collective memorandum from all districts to the governor, Niranjan said, adding the Congress will launch a massive protest and hit the streets if immediate action is not taken.

Attacking the BJD government in the same vein, BJP state General Secretary Lekhashree Samantasinghar alleged that a huge scam has taken place in the purchase of COVID-19 test kits and medical equipment, and demanded immediate action against those involved.

Large-scale irregularities involving crores of rupees have been committed at a time when the government is required to work sincerely with commitment in order to save the people from the deadly coronavirus, she said.

Refuting the allegations levelled by the opposition parties, BJD spokesperson Sasmit Patra said at no point in time has Odisha purchased masks at more than the rates fixed by the central government. Therefore, any question regarding irregularity does not arise, he said.

Stating that COVID-19 is a worldwide pandemic that has created a medical emergency, Patra said the war is not yet over. This situation requires a mature response. We expect the same from Congress and BJP, he said.

The entire country is praising the efforts of Odisha. The Congress and the BJP should not to do cheap politics and belittle the efforts of 4.5 crore people of the state, the Rajya Sabha member added.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
The team is trying to catch the culprit who poisoned Chief Seo. A video showed a person that could be a lead to Michael's identity.

Director Ok Chul is asking for assistance from Director Myeong, but he got threatened instead. Team leader Dong visited Chan Mi to let her identify if the man in the video is Michael. Seok Ho was furious about why Dong needs to disturb her while she tries to recover.

As they tried to argue inside the hospital room, Chan Mi walked out and headed to the hospital exit area. Ye-Eun accompanied her as they went to her house. She is looking for any file that leads to Michael's whereabouts. Ye-Eun stopped her and made her understand to let go of her long time revenge of the suspect. They need to move on and forget about Min Seok's death.

Seok Ho searced for Chan Mi and led him to find in her house. He invited her to eat for their favorite ramyeon with rice cakes. He encourages Chan Mi to work back at HITECH. He is jealous of Dong, who's Chan Mi's ex-boyfriend. They learned that Director Myeong might be responsible for Seok Ho's father's death. Seok Ho requested Chan Mi to hold his hand to console him over what happened.

The Good Casting team gathered at the NIS office and discussed the ledger and Director Myeong's involvement.

Ye-Eun gets another task from the agency's director to let Kang Won signed the termination of his contract. If it isn't successful, she will lose her job. Kang Won learned from his agent that Ye-Eun got fired because of him. He went to the company and met Ye-Eun and the director. He advises them that he will sign the annulment of the contract as long as Ye-Eun continues to work.

Ye-Eun felt happy to witness Kang Won protecting her from her rude co-worker and fought for her position in the company.

Director Myeong persuades Shim Hwa to join with him as they work together for HITECH. They will work to get the CEO position and outcast Seok Ho.

Shim Hwa saw Seok Ho walking in the lobby with Chan Mi. She gets more furious, knowing Chan Mi's termination is on halt as Seok Ho's requested.

Byun Woo heard of Director's Myeong restaurant booking, as he informed Seok Ho they decided to go together. Later that night, Seok Ho and Byun Woo booked a room beside Myeong's reservation. They eavesdrop on Myeong's meeting with Ok Chul, while the Good Casting team is waiting and spying outside the restaurant.

Myeong learned someone booked the room beside them. He went ahead barge to find whose the customer behind them. Seok Ho and Byun Woo ran outside to escape from Myeong. Byun Woo and Seok Ho escaped as they get inside the freezer van. They almost freeze to death, but luckily, Chan Mi found them.

Seok Ho shared with the Good Casting team the details they got from Myeong's meeting with Ok Chul. They need to get the information that Myeong discussed the date he is working with Ok Chul.

Chief Seo is alive and in custody with the NIS safe house. He can't go out as Myeong is after him. But another accomplice bargained Seo's hideout for money. Myeong learned about it and abducted Seo right away. Little did they knew that the Good Casting team is on their tail to meet Myeong.
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijan has provided humanitarian aid worth $25,000 to Yemen, local media reported with reference to the Foreign Ministry's press service on June 10.

In connection with the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, upon President Ilham Aliyev's instructions, the Cabinet of Ministers has allocated $25,000 to provide humanitarian assistance to the country, reads the report.

According to the estimates of the United Nations, $2 billion is needed to meet humanitarian needs in Yemen, including the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic during the current year.

At present, 24 million people in Yemen, which means 80 per cent of the total population, are in need of humanitarian aid.

Earlier, on June 9, President Ilham Aliyev said that Azerbaijan made individual donations to the World Health Organization, and humanitarian assistance to 29 WHO member countries, including $5 million to Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Facing the times that we find ourselves in, we often have more questions than answers. I know I do. There are other times, however, where we believe we have everything figured out, but things dont always seem to go according to plan.

It may have been the latter scenario that a handful of eyewitnesses found themselves, in what may be the greatest story ever told. To set the scene, we have to travel back in time over 2000 years ago.

So, a man who claimed to be divine was falsely accused and sentenced to death without a proper trial. Eyewitnesses at the scene saw him die an excruciating death by crucifixion that lasted approximately six hours. After his body was then buried in a borrowed tomb, the eyewitnesses returned home. Three days later, it was reported by these same eyewitnesses that the tomb was now empty.

The four Es

I was talking with former atheist turned apologist Lee Strobel recently, with whom I had the wonderful opportunity to discuss this very event that happened in history. According to Strobel, he characterises this particular event in history to what he calls four Es. Firstly, the Execution was an undeniably historical fact, and the eyewitnesses confirm that he was dead at the scene.

Secondly, Early accounts show written evidence to support the claim that his body was buried nearby. Thirdly, the Empty tomb is proof that no one, since that particular date in time, has ever been able to locate his body. Fourthly, the Eyewitnesses spread this message far and wide, and their testimony has become recorded in the bestselling book of all time, known as the Bible.

So how is it that Jesus is often the most questioned figure in human history?

As Strobel tells me, he also began his journey as a legal editor for the Chicago Tribune asking similar questions regarding the authenticity of Jesus death and resurrection, until, one day, he decided to find out the facts for himself. Over the span of two years, the amount of evidence collected, the first-hand accounts uncovered, and the testimonies identified, led to one irrefutable fact that the story of Jesus, his death and his resurrection was in fact, completely true.

This changed everything for Strobel and put him on a life trajectory he never imagined.

Our future secure

In life, we often have some things that we can see coming, and others that are completely out of the blue. There are challenges that bring us to our knees, literally. But in the moments when we fall, we can often find the courage to rise again.

Perhaps there are times when you cant see the end from the beginning. It may be that you wish you knew a hope beyond the circumstances you find yourself in. Strobel confided that, at times, we start to have what I call spiritual amnesia...but we can have living hope that is, in fact, tied to the resurrection. It is this hope that causes us to look beyond our circumstances to a future hope that helps us acknowledge the past and move forward in the present.

When I said, My foot is slipping, your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy (Psalm chapter 94 verses 18-19).

Our future is always secure when we know the One who is in control.
That just shows we dont give a damn what the police have to say, Newsham said of the council, agreeing with the mayor that his department has already made important reforms. Were just going to do what we think is right. . . . This unilateral legislation in knee-jerk fashion, considering the history of reform the MPD has went through, is concerning.
Supertrawlers should be banned from fishing in UK owned Protected Marine Areas, according to Greenpeace, who say the giant 'factory ships' are 'destructive'.

The controversial fishing vessels can be more than 328 feet long and 'vacuum' up huge quantities of fish every day as they move through the water.

A Greenpeace study found that 25 supertrawlers - none of which are UK owned - spent nearly 3,000 hours fishing in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in 2019.

Their presence off the UK coast has led to fears over fishing stocks and a potential spike in the number of dolphin deaths, study authors claim.

A Defra spokesman said the EU Common Fisheries Policy restricts our ability to implement tougher protection, but they say leaving the EU will change that.

A Greenpeace study found that 25 supertrawlers - none of which are UK owned - spent nearly 3,000 hours fishing in marine protected areas (MPAs) in 2019

Among the giant trawlers in British marine protected waters was the Dutch-owned Margiris - a 465ft mammoth that was once banned from Australian waters

Marine Protected Areas provide protection for important marine ecosystems and species, including porpoises and reefs.

Among the giant trawlers in British marine protected waters was the Dutch-owned Margiris - a 465ft mammoth that was once banned from Australian waters.

One of the areas most heavily fished in by supertrawlers in 2019 was the Southern North Sea zone, off the east coast of England.

This was created as a way to safeguard porpoises that were living in the area.

Chris Thorne, Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said urgent change is needed and new, stricter restrictions on activities in these protected areas.

'Our Government allowing destructive supertrawlers to fish for thousands of hours every year in Marine Protected Areas makes a mockery of the word 'protected'.

'Even an hour of supertrawler activity inside an ecologically sensitive marine environment is too much, let alone almost 3,000,' said Thorne.

Greenpeace say for the UK government to be taken seriously as a leader in marine protection, it needs to ban supertrawler operations in the Marine Protected Areas.

'Will our Government heed the recommendations of the Highly Protected Marine Area review and seize the historic opportunity Brexit provides to fix the UK's broken network of Marine Protected Areas,' said Thorne.

He said he hoped the government wouldn't allow the 'flawed status quo to continue'.

A Defra spokesman said the UK is a global leader in the fight to protect British seas with the Blue Belt of protected waters that are nearly twice the size of England.

'The Common Fisheries Policy currently restricts our ability to implement tougher protection, but leaving the EU and taking back control of our waters as an independent coastal state means we can introduce stronger measures.'

Supertrawlers should be banned from fishing in protected marine areas in UK owned waters, according to Greenpeace, who say the giant ships are 'destructive'

Greenpeace say for the UK government to be taken seriously as a leader in marine protection it needs to ban supertrawler operations in the Marine Protected Areas

Greenpeace investigators used AIS tracking data from the Lloyds Register for all fishing boats over 328ft to assess the amount of time spent fishing in UK MPAs.

In total, supertrawlers logged 2,963 hours fishing in UK marine protected areas in 2019 (the equivalent of 123 days), Greenpeace said.

The MPAs where supertrawlers spent the most time fishing last year were Wyville Thomson Ridge (off the Shetlands), Geikie Slide and Hebridean Slope (off the Hebrides) and Offshore Overfalls (south coast).

They also spent time in the Faroe-Shetland Sponge Belt (off the Shetlands), Darwin Mounds (off the Hebrides) and Southern North Sea (east of England).

The Wyville Thomson Ridge was overwhelmingly the worst affected MPA, with over 2,000 hours spent fishing there by supertrawlers.

Greenpeace said this is because of the concentration of the Russian supertrawler fleet's activity there.

The organisation has today launched a petition calling on the Government to ban the huge ships from in MPAs and called on lawmakers to use new-found post-Brexit powers to put a stop to supertrawlers fishing in MPAs.
During a week when it feels more timely than ever, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is preparing to install "Soul of A Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power in record time. The landmark exhibition, which explores what it meant to be an African American artist during the 1960s and 70s, will be on view in Houston June 27-Aug. 30.

Originally scheduled to open in April as the last stop on a three-year national tour, Soul of a Nation was stranded at San Franciscos de Young Museum during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organized by the Tate Modern in London, the show features work created by more than 60 Black artists during the revolutionary decades of American history that began with the Civil Rights movement and extended to the emergence of identity politics in the early 1980s.
Coronavirus outbreaks continue to ravage food-processing plants across the United States with more than 1,000 cases confirmed in at least 60 facilities outside the meatpacking industry.

While much of the national focus has been on meatpacking plants, several of which have become high-profile hot spots for the virus, other food-processing facilities are also being hit.

With no federal agency compiling the number of cases in the nations food production facilities and no enforceable federal safety regulations in place to keep workers protected, it is likely the number of cases is much higher, Bloomberg reports.

Food shortages loom for the U.S. unless greater protections are introduced to battle the spread of coronavirus among the countrys 1.7million workers at food and beverage manufacturing facilities, experts warn.

Coronavirus cases in the country's food-processing plants continue as calls mount for the federal government to introduce emergency safety guidelines to keep workers protected. Pictured, a worker enters the Seaboard Foods hog processing plant in Oklahoma

The top ten coronavirus outbreaks in food-processing plants as of June 8

According to new data compiled by the Environmental Working Group, coronavirus outbreaks in food processing plants are not yet as pervasive as they are in meatpacking facilities but are still on the rise.

With no figures compiled nationally, the organization searched through media reports between March 14 and June 8 and found at least 1,193 COVID-19 cases in 60 food processing plants.

The cases included workers at industry giants such as Kraft Heinz and Birds Eye as well those as smaller brands such as Fairmont Foods.

Among the largest outbreaks listed was Steven Roberts Original Desserts in Aurora, Colorado, where they are at least 115 cases are reported among workers.

There were also 107 cases reported between two Ruiz Food facilities in California and 104 cases in a Birds Eye facility in Darien, Wisconsin.

According to separate survey carried out in May of union locals representing 79 plants by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 35 percent of food processing and dairy facilities have confirmed at least one coronavirus case.

The survey also found that 80 percent of employers werent testing for coronavirus and 25 percent of the workplaces did not allow for social distancing.

As cases in these facilities continue to rise, the Environmental Working Group has warned that tight working conditions make workers more susceptible to the spread of coronavirus and there will be drastic effects to the food supply chain if more and more workers are allowed to become sick.

Our food supply chains could quickly unravel, causing food prices to spike and increasing the number of Americans who struggle with hunger, the group states in its report.

Conditions within the facilities themselves dont allow for social distancing with immigrant labor forces also living in cramped conditions, Bloomberg reports.

As a general rule, the further back you go in the supply chain, he more difficult it is to have proper social distancing and protective gear, Kevin Kenny, chief operating officer of Decernis, an expert in global food safety and supply chains, said.

Fruit, vegetable, nut and meat processing is a low-margin business.

While the focus has been on larger outbreaks in meatpacking plants, workers in fruit-processing facilities are also concerned for their safety. Pictured Borton Fruit in Washington

A worker at Borton Fruit, pictured, told Bloomberg that people continue to come to work even if there are fears they are infected as they need the jobs to provide for their families

The impact of the tight conditions in the facilities on the spread of coronavirus can be seen in Yakima, Washington, according to Bloomberg.

The county is an agricultural hub with many workers still packed into crowded workplaces. It also has the highest per capita infection rate on the West Coast.

Workers in Americas food processing plants are disproportionately people of color who earn less than $40,000 a year, state the Environmental Working Group, and many are ineligible for sick leave if they did catch the coronavirus.

While The Families First Act, passed by Congress in March, requires some food industry employers to provide two weeks of paid sick leave, many are exempt from the requirement.

The lack of paid sick leave has left some workers deciding to continue to head into their workplaces even if they fear the have already been infected.

People are infected, and they come to work. They keep quiet about it, Paula Zambrabna, a fruit sorter in Borton & Sons in Yakima, Washington, told Bloomberg.

We live from our work. We are surviving from our wages. If we have children, how will we feed them?'

Even in fruit-processing plants such as this Allan Brothers facility pictured, it is hard for workers to maintain social distancing with the workplace

And the increase in cases is only set to worsen as more than half a million seasonal migrants spread across the nation as the summer harvesting season ramps up.

Unions and advocacy groups have slammed employers for not doing enough to protect worker by providing safety equipment including face masks and gloves.

They state that many facilities only began distribution when cases had already been reported.

According to the Teamsters Union, there has been a marked decline in the number of cases in union-represented facilities as more robust safety procedures have been implemented but the same is not being done in those plants not represented by a union.

The Centers for Disease Control and Protection previously issued guidelines for how plants could deal with the spread of coronavirus but companies are under no obligation to implement them.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Department of Agriculture have not issued emergency standards that would enforce the CDC recommendations, increasing safety for workers.

Employers have argued that they have battled against shifting advice from authorities who initially told them masks were unnecessary at the start of the outbreak and should be kept for healthcare workers.

Yet the Environmental Working Group warned that if action isn't taken now and more and more workers continue to get sick, it could dramatically increase the cost of food, affecting vulnerable American families.

The country has already experienced a record rise in the price of beef, Bloomberg reports, after some of the nations largest plants were forced to close due to large-scale outbreaks although this is being to now return to normal.

Food prices are mostly driven by the cost of labor, transportation and marketing, not by the wholesale price of ingredients. Even though the salaries earned by food processing workers can be near or below the poverty line, the cost of labor is often a major factor in the price of food,' said the Environmental Working Group.

According to the USDA, food already accounts for 12 percent of household spending, but the poorest Americans spend about one-third of their income on food.

The organization has called on the federal government to do more to protect food industry workers.

Food processing workers, who are disproportionately people of color, are taking enormous and largely avoidable risks to keep the rest of us fed, but the Trump Administration has failed to ensure they are safe,' said Environmental Working Group senior vice president for government affairs, Scott Faber.

The warning comes as 22 states are seeing an increase in new COVID-19 cases as reopening continues.

Arizona has seen infections increase by more than 90 percent in a week, while Arkansas and Utah have gone up more than 60 percent. Massachusetts, Florida and New Mexico's cases have increased by more than 40 percent compared to the week prior.

Michigan's cases soared more than 150 percent last week due to the state including nearly 5,000 probable infections.

Among the states with increases was New Mexico where at least 287 of the state's 2,269 new cases were tied to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in Cache County.

The increases comes after all 50 states at least partially lifted coronavirus lockdown measures last month.
Loveless is no stranger to overcoming a challenge.

After years of working as a mortgage professional and traveling underwriter, Loveless was deemed permanently disabled due to double carpal tunnel syndrome.

However, when a judge told her that "no one will ever hire you again because of the percentage of use of your hands that you have. You don't meet the criteria," Loveless reflected on her adversity turned opportunity.

She had seen what was lacking in the business travel lodging market, specifically how staying in a hotel for a long period of time can get old fast. She then started her business, PKL.

"My brain works, and my mouth works. There must be something I can do," she said.

Since starting, PKL has been increasingly growing to serve the demand in the Reno market, even with the ongoing coronavirus impact on the economy.

Reno has had a long history of the same options for temporary workforce lodging: hotels and extended-stay hotels, traditionally with a packet of meal vouchers.

The drawbacks can add up when staying for months in a hotel: absence of a kitchen, lack of community and risk of being located in a food desert.

That's where PKL comes in.

The short-term housing options PKL offers provide better price points for corporations as well as a better experience for the workers.

"PKL's dedication to providing the highest-quality workforce housing in Reno has saved me countless hours of coordination, improved the morale of employees and has provided exceptional value to my organization," said Seth Alexander, project manager of Ames Construction.

Through both their direct booking and Super Host status on Airbnb (with a 4.8-star average and more than 300 stays), they have grown more than 300 percent in gross sales over the past 12 months with eight locations throughout Reno, Sparks, south Reno and Carson City. Their newest location is "Workforce Rental Row" on Dickerson Road.

PKL has worked hard to not only fulfill a need in Reno but provide its signature "wow factor" as well.

It's about providing people that home-away-from-home experience. In fact, PKL does not hire outside designers. Every space is personalized by Loveless because it's proven to be a creative outlet that brings her joy.

"However, we do hire locals through Chartwell Staffing Solutions for all our moving, cleaning and repair work," she said.

More than anything, Loveless sees herself as a longtime member of the Reno community and has been paying attention to what's been happening with the Black Lives Matter movement locally and beyond.

She has experienced first-hand the false assumptions people make about the nature of her business because of the color of her skin.

"You can't pigeon-hole someone because of what they look like," Loveless said.

That's why this national conversation is so important to have, including in Reno.

"It's really important that we don't pull back into our little corners and say, 'Well, this is my experience, and this is your experience, and they can't work together,'" Loveless said. "It's only by having those conversations that things will improve."

About PKL Homes: PKL Homes is a short-term workforce rental operator based in Reno, NV. Founded in 2017, PKL has served clients such as Reno Aces, Reno1868 FC, H&T Nevada, Ames Construction, RC Strong Construction, and ALE Solutions. PKL is Local Emerging Small Business Certified by the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development, with the triple designation of being a disadvantaged-, minority- and woman-owned business. PKL also is a Gold Investor with EDAWN. In addition, PKL supports St. Michael's Food Pantry in Stead, St. Vincent's Thrift Store in Reno, Red Chair in Reno, and Stellar Consignment in South Reno.

Yeves Perez

PKL Homes

775-525-8132

[email protected]

SOURCE PKL Homes

Related Links

https://www.pklhomes.net


[June 10, 2020] Smarsh Introduces Capture and Archiving Support for WhatsApp and WeChat

Smarsh, helping customers get ahead - and stay ahead - of the risk within their electronic communications, today announced capture and archiving support for WhatsApp and WeChat, two prominent secure messaging applications that are undergoing rapid enterprise adoption. Organizations must capture, retain and review employee communications in support of regulatory retention and oversight obligations. This content also needs to be available for search and production in case of litigation, early-case assessment or investigation. Most regulated organizations prohibit employees from using WhatsApp and WeChat for business purposes because they cannot reliably capture content from the encrypted communications networks. However, by doing so, these organizations lose out on a critical opportunity to communicate directly with customers. "WhatsApp and WeChat are incredibly popular, global consumer messaging channels that are increasingly being used for business purposes, especially as organizations are supporting suddenly-remote workforces," said Adam Miller-Howard, Smarsh Vice President, Business Development. "Smarsh customers now have the unique ability to capture, preserve and review content from these appliations, addressing longstanding compliance, e-discovery and governance challenges. This enables Smarsh customers to adopt communication networks that drive productivity and profitability."



Content captured from WhatsApp and WeChat is supported in native format in the Smarsh Connected Archive, or it can be exported to a legacy solution. Message data, along with metadata, is indexed, retained and available for supervision, legal review or export. Smarsh customers can consolidate their compliance and e-discovery efforts, and reduce their cost and complexity, by integrating WhatsApp and WeChat content with all their other electronic communications. Smarsh supports the largest capture coverage in the industry and provides archiving support for more than 80 communications channels, representing email, social media, mobile/text messaging, instant messaging/collaboration, websites and voice.

Smarsh capture and archiving solutions for WhatsApp and WeChat are available immediately. For more information, please visit https://www.smarsh.com/channel/whatsapp and https://www.smarsh.com/channel/wechat. About Smarsh Smarsh helps financial services organizations get ahead - and stay ahead - of the risk within their electronic communications. Smarsh has established the industry standard for the efficient review and production of content from the diverse range of channels that organizations now use to communicate. With innovative capture, archiving and monitoring solutions that extend across the industry's widest breadth of channels, customers can leverage the productivity benefits of email, social media, mobile/text messaging, instant messaging/collaboration, websites and voice, while efficiently strengthening their compliance and e-discovery initiatives. A global client base, including the top 10 banks in the United States and the largest banks in Europe, Canada and Asia, manages billions of conversations each month with the Smarsh Connected Suite. The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon with nine offices worldwide, including locations in Silicon Valley, New York, London and Bangalore, India. For more information, visit www.smarsh.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005179/en/

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Silchar : , June 10 (IANS) Bollywood Actor and producer Sonu Sood has again turned into a good samaritan for 180 stranded migrant workers from Assam.

In yet another kind gesture, Sood arranged an Air Asia flight to send 180 Assamese migrants to return home after they were stranded when Cyclone "Nisarga" hit Mumbai last week.

The actor booked an Airbus of the budget airline Air Asia that left from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to Silchar (southern Assam), Kumbhirgram airport late Tuesday.

"When we contacted Sonu Sood after cyclone Nisarga hit Mumbai and we became stranded at the Mumbai railway station, the kind hearted actor helped us by providing food and shelter for more than a week. He later arranged a flight which took us to Silchar," 34-year-old Kabir Ahmed told IANS.

Another migrant worker Juber Ahmed (22), said: "We tried to board a Assam bound train, but failed. After we were stranded at Mumbai railway station, we sent a video to the actor and requested him (Sonu Sood) to help us. Some journalists asked us to do so." "When the flight left from Mumbai airport for Silchar, Dada (Sonu Sood) was himself present at the airport to bid us adieu," Juber said.

The 180 migrants, including four women and a child of southern Assam and Hojai (in central Assam) were working in different hotels, restaurants, private security organisation in Pune and during the lockdown they had reached Mumbai to board a train to return to Assam.

Kabir said: "When we lost jobs a few weeks after the lockdown began, we had to stay day and night under the flyover, in front of the hospitals, malls and even at footpath and under the trees. We could not manage food on most days before the actor started providing us food and shelter since June 2." Soon after the return of the 180 migrant workers to Silchar, the health and district administration officials took their samples for COVID-19 and sent them to the institutional quarantine center at different places.

Sonu Sood had earlier arranged to send several hundred stranded migrant workers to their homes from different parts of the country.

(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujit.c@ians.in)
The visit to Co Kildare, and surrounding areas, by Prince William and Princess Kate, just as Covid 19 was starting to hit Europe is likely to cost the Irish taxpayer over 1million.

The Irish taxpayer will be paying for this in the midst of the Royal controversy, which involves allegations of sexual abuse.

Prince Andrew is refusing, according to media reports, to cooperate with US investigations, into alleged sexual relations with a 17-year-old female.

Last summer, US prosecutors charged Jeffrey Epstein with one count of sex trafficking of a minor and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. After pleading not guilty to the charges, Epstein was denied bail, and was later found dead in his Manhattan jail cell. The cause of death was ruled a suicide.

Over the past months, the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, has issued several statements about Epstein, and in November, he recorded an interview at Buckingham Palace about their relationship in an interview with journalist Emily Maitlis.

Following enormous public criticism of their conversation, in which Prince Andrew said he did not regret his friendship with Epstein, the Queen's son voluntarily stepped back from his royal duties.

Among other contacts of Jeffrey Epstein were Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and President Donald Trump, among many high profile and well established contacts.

The pressure is now on the Royal family to issue a statement in connection to the allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, that are being put to Prince Andrew.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 12:51:37|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. lawmakers have been working on reforming policing policies, amid rising concern over police brutality in the nationwide protests following the death of black man George Floyd in police custody.

In Minneapolis, where four former police officers were charged over their involvement in the death of Floyd, four City Council members on Monday outlined a plan that saw community-based programs as a replacement for police department.

The city council on Sunday voted to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), which has long been accused of racism.

According to the newly-proposed plan, the community-based programs will focus on reducing violence and limit the need for an armed law enforcement response.

The reform could take a year before a new apparatus for public safety takes form, a council member said.

"Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed, and will never be accountable for its actions," members of the council said in a statement.

Floyd died on May 25 at the hands of four officers of the MPD, with one of them keeping his knee down on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes. All of the four officers have been fired, facing criminal charges.

In Albany, New York State lawmakers on Tuesday voted to repeal a decades-old provision that had kept police officers' disciplinary records secret, making the records and misconduct complaints transparent.

The measure is among a package of bills at the state legislature targeted at addressing police brutality. On Monday, the lawmakers already passed bills to ban chokeholds in law enforcement -- as was applied in Floyd's case -- and make false race-based 911 reports a hate crime.

On a national scale, Democratic leaders of the U.S. House and Senate on Monday introduced legislation aiming to reform policing policies in the country.

The legislation, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, was announced at a news conference attended by Chair of Congressional Black Caucus Karen Bass, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, among other senior Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill.

"We cannot settle for anything less than transformative structural change," Pelosi said when introducing the bill. "Police brutality is heartbreaking reflection of an entrenched system of racial injustice in America. True justice can only be achieved with full comprehensive action."

According to the text of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020 cited by U.S. media, the bill will make it easier to prosecute police misconduct and recover damages caused by law enforcement.

It will create a National Police Misconduct Registry, mandating state and local law enforcement to turn over data on the use of force related to such factors as race, gender, disability, religion and age, while preventing "problem officers from changing jurisdictions to avoid accountability."

The proposed law will ban certain policing tactics, require that federal police officers wear body and dashboard cameras, and set restrictions on the transfer of military-grade weaponry to state and local law enforcement.

As part of the legislation effort, House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing Wednesday on policing practices and law enforcement accountability. Philonise Floyd, George Floyd's brother, is among the witnesses to testify at the hearing. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 18:40:29|Editor: huaxia

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Members of a Chinese anti-epidemic medical expert team to Palestine attend a departure ceremony at Jiangbei International Airport in Chongqing, southwest China, June 10, 2020. The medical expert team, organized by China's National Health Commission and formed by Chongqing municipal government, left Chongqing on Wednesday for Palestine to help its fight against COVID-19. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)

BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has sent a team of medical experts to support Palestine's efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced Wednesday.

The team, which left Wednesday noon, has been put together by the National Health Commission with the members selected by the Chongqing Municipal Health Commission, Hua said. Enditem
We emerged from the Churchill War Rooms, squinting in the sunlight as we left 1945 behind and entered present-day London.

That was amazing, my husband said as he went over details of Churchills documents, the Map Room, and the Transatlantic Telephone Room disguised as a private toilet. The best part was that I didnt have to plan getting here at all.

He was right. Every year, for my husbands birthday, I plan him a surprise trip as his gift. He gets to show up and enjoy a mini-vacation tailored specifically for him, no preparation required.

The Map Room within the Churchill War Rooms in London. (Courtesy of IWM)

I think one of the best things about birthdays is that they give us a chance to celebrate the people we love and the reasons why we love them. My husband Andrew loves to travel. He is always up to go anywhere. However, he hates to plan. He gets stressed out by the details of accommodation and travel arrangements. The number of places to go and things to do can overwhelm him to the point where planning a trip feels more stressful than fun.

A few years ago, I realized that one way I could celebrate him on his birthday was to take him somewhere hes always wanted to go, but plan it all so he wouldnt have to. I picked a secret destination I thought he would love, booked accommodations, and planned our itinerary. When his birthday finally arrived, I packed our bags in the car, handed him a hot coffee and a folder containing the location of his surprise destination: London.

I gave him details as the trip unfolded, so that each day and destination was a surprise. He would find out where we were going to eat as we headed there, where we were staying only as we walked up to the Airbnb. Andrew was able to enjoy a vacation tailored specifically to him without planning a bit of it, and I got to be the one to plan an exciting surprise.

Britains leaders plotted the Allied route to victory during the Second World War from the Churchill War Rooms in London. (Courtesy of IWM)

The trip was so much fun that its become a yearly tradition for us. Its a wonderful way to give an experience as a gift, and Andrew loves knowing at least once a year he wont have to navigate car rentals or sift through hundreds of Airbnb options to get away.

If a birthday trip would make a great gift for someone you care about, here are a few tips to get your planning underway.

Plan a trip around what they love. Andrew loves history, so every trip Ive done has been a historical destination. Weve traveled to the monuments in Washington, D.C., to the French and Indian War Fort Necessity near Pittsburgh, to Dwight D. Eisenhowers home at Gettysburg. Every trip we plan has some kind of historical element as the central theme. Does the person youre planning for love a certain type of food, or music, or climate? Picking something they love makes the trip feel truly special.

Write out an itinerary. One of the early birthday trips I planned for Andrew was a day trip to St. Malo, France, while we were staying with family in the English Channel Islands. I thought that we would just arrive on the ferry in the morning, walk around, and figure out what we wanted to do as we went. The combination of old, winding streets and our abysmal understanding of French made the city feel overwhelming, and we spent most of the morning just trying to orient ourselves.

Ive solved this problem by creating a thorough itinerary. These itineraries are flexiblemeant to serve more as a guide than a hard timeline. I put together sights and activities that are close in proximity to one another, and a couple of restaurants to choose from. This way I can offer a few choices without feeling like there is too much to pick from.

Add in personal, memorable surprises. Andrew has read almost every biography that exists about George Washington. When we went to D.C., I knew that we had to visit Washingtons home, Mount Vernon. We could have driven there, but I wanted to find a way to make our journey more memorable. I found the Potomac Riverboat Company, and realized we could travel via boat, almost straight from our Airbnb to Mount Vernon. It was such a fun, special surprise for Andrew. I also knew that he had never toured the Capitol, but I wanted him to have a personalized experience. I contacted a friend who worked for a congressman, and she gave Andrew and me a private, behind-the-scenes tour.

The Dining Room at the Mount Vernon Mansion. (Courtesy of George Washingtons Mount Vernon)

As you think about how to plan a trip for someone you love, think about what extra things you could throw in that would really make the trip stand out.

You dont have to break the bank for it to be special. Some years, these birthday trips have taken up a significant amount of our yearly travel budget, but other years, I prefer to go smaller and stay closer to home. When we went to Pittsburgh last year, I cut costs by staying with friends rather than a hotel or Airbnb. One year, we visited a battlefield close to us Andrew had never seen, and I packed a picnic lunch of Andrews favorite foodItalian subs and chocolate chip cookiesto enjoy while reading about the battles history.

Far more special than an elaborate trip is showing that you know and care about the person youre planning for. Coming up with a few personalized ways to make the day or trip about the person you love will go a long way.

I didnt have to take my husband to the Churchill War Rooms for him to have a special birthday. But making the effort to plan such a surprise for him gave us both memories to enjoy for years to come.

Rachael Dymski is an author, florist, and mom to two little girls. She is currently writing a novel about the German occupation of the Channel Islands and blogs on her website, RachaelDymski.com
Most Americans believe Trump has worsened race relations since the killing of George Floyd: poll

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Around two-thirds of Americans believe that the response of President Donald Trump to the killing of George Floyd has largely worsened racial tensions in the United States, according to a recent poll.

An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted last week found that 67% of respondents believe that Trumps response to the Floyd killing has mostly increased tensions, versus 18% who believe it has mostly decreased tensions and 15% who were unsure.

Among white evangelical Christians, 40% said that Trumps response had increased tensions, while 35% said it decreased tensions, and 25% said they were unsure.

The response also varied greatly among party lines, as 92% of Democrats responded that his response has mostly increased tensions while only 29% of Republican respondents agreed.

Further, 41% of Republicans said Trump had mostly decreased tensions, versus 4% of Democrats and 12% of respondents who identified as independent.

Of those surveyed, broken down by political, racial, economic, and educational lines, no group had a majority of respondents say they believe that Trump had decreased racial tensions.

The group most likely to believe that Trumps response had decreased tensions were Republican women, in which 44% said that they felt he had. The rest were evenly split between saying he increased tensions and responding that they were unsure.

Data for the poll was drawn from a sample of 1,062 United States adults conducted June 2-3, with a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

The poll was taken after the president made his controversial decision to walk over to the historic St. Johns Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., and give remarks while holding a Bible.

In advance of his arrival, U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops cleared the pathway from the White House to the church, which included peaceful protesters, using smoke canisters and, according to some, tear gas.

Many, including Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, denounced Trumps decision to be in front of the church, and the manner in which protesters were cleared out.

Budde said she did not support the presidents incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation.

In faithfulness to our Savior who lived a life of non-violence and sacrificial love, we align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd and countless others through the sacred act of peaceful protest.

Trump has stated that Floyd's death will "not be in vain" and that America must "extinguish forever such racist abuse." His response to the rioting and looting, however, was denounced by some and censored by Twitter. Trump had called the rioters in Minneapolis who set fire to a police station, among other buildings, "thugs" and tweeted, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said his government will implement Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal's order overturning the decision on the reservation of Delhi government-run and private hospitals for Delhiites.

New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said his government will implement Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal's order overturning the decision on the reservation of Delhi government-run and private hospitals for Delhiites.

Addressing an online media briefing, he said data shows that COVID-19 cases will significantly increase in Delhi in the coming days.

Follow LIVE Updates on Coronavirus Outbreak here

Delhi will need 1.5 lakh beds by 31 July once people start coming to the city for treatment from other states, Kejriwal said.

He said that out of the 1.5 lakh beds, it is estimated that 80,000 beds will be required for Delhiites.

"We have a big challenge ahead. We all have to fight against COVID-19 together," the chief minister said.

The AAP government will try to make arrangements to provide treatment to all, he said, asking people to make the fight against the novel coronavirus a mass movement.

This is not the time to do politics. We all have to fight COVID-19 together, Kejriwal said.

He said that so far, 31,000 COVID-19 cases have been reported in Delhi and of these, 18,000 cases are active.
Updated today at 11:41 a.m.: The Madison County Commission voted Wednesday to seek permission to remove the Confederate statue outside the courthouse in downtown Huntsville.

The commission unanimously approved a resolution to seek a waiver from the state committee charged by a 2017 law to review requests to remove historical structures.

All seven commissioners spoke briefly in support of moving the statue before the vote.

Commission Chair Dale Strong said he believed removal is fair and works for the people of all of Madison County.

Commissioner JesHenry Malone, who introduced the resolution the commission approved, said discussion of removing the statue has been ongoing for weeks with the city of Huntsville to identify the best resolution. Removal of the statue, Malone said, makes Madison County more inclusive.

We all want the same thing, Commissioner Phil Riddick said. We want to do it legally.

Full resolution approved this morning by Madison County Commission concerning removal of Confederate statue outside courthouse. pic.twitter.com/VlAi2h9Z1Z  Paul Gattis (@paul_gattis) June 10, 2020

According to state law, the review committee has 90 days after receiving the application for a waiver to render a decision. However, the state law makes no provision for the removal or relocation of monuments or statues that have been in place for more than 40 years. The provision is only for historical markers that have been in place for between 20 and 40 years.

The resolution said that the commission is working with the city of Huntsville in a joint effort to identify a new location for the statue as well as potential funding sources to avoid the outlay of public money to pay for the process.

The City of Huntsville pledges to work hand in hand with the Madison County Commission to help them find a suitable home for the monument in an appropriate historic context," Mayor Tommy Battle said in a statement following the commission vote.

I am proud of the actions taken by the Madison County Commission to begin the process of relocating the statue. I am introducing a resolution in support of this effort at Thursday nights City Council meeting," Huntsville city council President Devyn Keith said in a statement.

Not everyone who spoke at the commission meeting today supported moving the statue. Willilam Tuminello of Huntsville told commissioners the statue is not about slavery and shouldnt be moved without a vote of the public. Zach Magnusson of Toney said he is the descendant of Confederate soldiers "who answered the call of their state to defend it against invasion by a foreign power.

Their cause was political independence, and I am proud to be descended from those men, Magnusson said. If you move this memorial, you will do so in violation of the laws of the state of Alabama and your oaths of office. You will make plain that Madison Co is not governed by the rule of law but by mob rule. I earnestly request that you do your duty and that my ancestors war memorial be protected and preserved where it is as it is.

Shortly after the commission vote, a small group of protesters was gathered next to the statue on the courthouse steps.

David Odom, president of the Tennessee Valley Progressive Alliance, said he was happy to see the county commission taking action in regard to the statue.

But we feel like this is a delay tactic and this is them passing the buck, he said. Theyre trying to hit pause on everything for 90 days and then let the state tell the people no.

Odom held a handmade poster that was drawn to look like a $25,000 check to the county. The community donated the money, he said, to cover the fine the county would face if it took down the statue immediately.

We can remove it today, he said. All we need is a small crane and a flatbed truck. The county could remove it today.

David Odom, president of the Tennessee Valley Progressive Alliance, holds a handmade poster that was drawn to look like a $25,000 check to the county.

Before the commission vote, Malone made reference to efforts in Birminghams Linn Park on May 31 when a chain was wrapped around a Confederate monument in an effort to bring it to the ground. Multiple attempts failed, though the monument was removed the next day by the city of Birmingham.

I will tell you, it is not our intention to back a pick-up truck to the statue, wrap a chain around it and pull it down, Malone said. I believe our community is much, much bigger than that.

Remus Bowden, of Huntsville, held an End Racism Now poster as he sat near the statue. He said he believes county leaders want to keep the monument.

Its a slap in the face to their citizens, he said.

Jackie DeJesus called on her fellow Huntsvillians and Madison County residents to support removing the statue.

This hurts a lot of people, she said of the monument. If it hurts anybody, it should hurt all of us.

Original story: The Madison County Commission will consider a resolution at Wednesday mornings meeting that could lead to the Confederate statue located outside the courthouse to be removed.

The statue, erected in 1905, was a target of protesters in Huntsville last week who marched the streets in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd as well as protesting police brutality.

Efforts have also been made in recent years by grassroots organizations to remove the statue. One group, Tennessee Valley Progressives, said it has raised the $25,000 that would cover a fine for removing the statue without complying with state law.

Related: Huntsville city council president backs removal of Confederate statue at courthouse

Related: More voices say take down Madison County Confederate monument; group offers to pay fine

The commission is seeking at the meeting to comply with that 2017 Alabama law that protects historical structures. According to the law, an entity controlling a historical structure can seek a waiver from a committee created by the law to remove a historical structure.

Thats the resolution being introduced by Commissioner JesHenry Malone. But there is no provision in the law to remove or relocate a historical structure that has been in place for more than 40 years.

The law said that the controlling entity must submit a resolution  which is before the commission today  as well as written documentation about the historical significance of the structure, commentary from historical groups as well as the general public and a written statement of fact of new developments concerning the structure that were not previously known that the committee should consider.

If the waiver is granted to remove the statue, the law said that the review committee may speak on preserving it.

Several organizations have called for the statue's removal, including the Committee of 100, Downtown Huntsville Inc. and the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society as well as a group of Huntsville faith leaders.

Confederate statues or monuments were removed last week in Birmingham and Mobile and while protesters toppled a statue of Robert E. Lee in Montgomery. The University of Alabama on Monday announced three Confederate plaques on display at the Tuscaloosa campus will be removed by decision of the UA System Board of Trustees.

The monument, largely obstructed from view by a magnolia tree, was put in place by the Daughters of the Confederacy.

In memory of the heroes who fell in defence of the principles which gave birth to the Confederate cause, the base of the statue says.

Updated today, June 10, 2020, at 1:12 p.m. with clarification about the 2017 Alabama monuments law and with new information throughout.
ATLANTA, GA, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gray Television, Inc. (Gray) (GTN) today announced the promotions of Lori Bruffett and Scott Sanders to General Manager positions.

In Waco-Temple-Bryan, Texas (DMA 82), Gray promoted Lori Bruffett to General Manager of KBTX, the local CBS affiliate for the eastern portion of the market effective June 1st. Lori started working at KBTX as an Account Executive in July 1988. She became the stations General Sales Manager in May 2011, and she has served as KBTXs Station Manager since January 2014. Over these past 32 years, Loris dedication and commitment have been instrumental in leading KBTXs mission to provide outstanding service to the entire Bryan/College Station community.

In Myrtle Beach-Florence, South Carolina (DMA 97), Gray named Scott Sanders as the new General Manager of NBC affiliate WMBF, effective June 29th. For the past 12 years, Scott has served as Director of Sales for Grays WIS, which is the NBC affiliate for the Columbia, South Carolina, market. Prior to WIS, Scott was the Regional Director of WRLH in Richmond, Virginia, and WTVZ in Norfolk, Virginia, and the General Manager of WTVZ. Earlier, Scott spent five years as the National Sales Manager for KTVU in San Francisco, California.

About Gray Television:

Gray currently owns and/or operates television stations and leading digital properties in 93 television markets that collectively reach approximately 24 percent of US television households. Over calendar year 2019, Grays stations were ranked first in 68 markets, and first or second in 86 markets, as calculated by Comscores audience measurement service. Gray also owns 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

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Website: www.gray.tv



Kevin P. Latek, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Development Officer, 404-266-8333
A memorial to Queen Victoria in Leeds has been defaced with the words racist and slave owner following a wave of Black Lives Matter protests.

The monument, situated at Woodhouse Moor in the Hyde Park area of the city, has also been spray-painted with the words educate, colonise, justice and Black Lives Matter.

The memorial  designed by sculptor George Frampton  features a large stone plinth with a sculpture of the monarch on top.

A Queen Victoria statue in Leeds was defaced with various slogans. (SWNS)

The statue was daubed with phrases like 'Black Lives Matter' and 'educate'. (SWNS)

It was first erected outside Leeds Town Hall in 1905 and was later moved to another site in the city.

Leeds City Council say it supports freedom of speech but that the graffiti will be removed.

Read more: LBC presenter's comments to black panellist on TV condemned by Labour MP

Graffiti saying 'slave owner' was daubed across the statue. (SWNS)

The incident comes after a statue of slave owner Robert Milligan was removed from its plinth at West India Quays in the Docklands.

It also comes days after a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down during an anti-racism protest in Bristol.

Queen Victoria became the monarch in 1837, four years after parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act.

Her reign, which lasted until 1901, saw a huge expansion of the British Empire, making it the most powerful nation in the world.

The statue is situated at Woodhouse Moor in Leeds. (SWNS)

Queen Victoria became the monarch in 1837, four years after parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act. (Getty)

A number of campaigns have been set up in recent days to remove statues of historical figures with links to slavery, such as Cecil Rhodes and Sir Thomas Picton.

More controversial statues could be taken down after a raft of councils vowed to review such monuments amid anti-racism protests across the country.

Read more: Madeleine McCann died shortly after she was kidnapped

Labour-led councils across England and Wales have agreed to work with their local communities to look at the appropriateness" of certain monuments and statues on public land and council property.

The review, announced by the Local Government Association's Labour group, came as the killing of George Floyd in the US continued to provoke demonstrations against inequality.

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HOUSTON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- KBR (NYSE: KBR) announced today it won multiple prestigious NASA awards for its work with the agency's small business programs in 2019. KBR received the Mentor-Protege Agreement of the Year for the Agency-level NASA Small Business Industry Awards. NASA also honored KBR as the Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year for the Center-level NASA Small Business Industry Awards.

"KBR values its small business partners and recognizes our combined efforts will forge the future of space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research," said Byron Bright, President, KBR Government Solutions U.S.

"Pioneering space is a collaborative effort. KBR works with high-performing small businesses to reach for the stars and beyond," said Bright.

NASA honored KBR as the recipient of the Mentor-Protege Agreement of the Year, recognizing the company as the agency's best overall mentor-protege agreement.

Nominated by Johnson Space Center (JSC), KBR received the award for its mentorship of JES Tech, a woman-owned small business. As part of its three-year agreement, KBR provides JES Tech with guidance in occupational medicine and health, environmental laboratory services, quality management, job architecture, business development and other areas.

At JSC, KBR also supports spaceflight operations development, preparation and execution; mission systems support; and human spaceflight activities. KBR experts staff flight discipline consoles in the Mission Control Center and assist with a broad spectrum of operations for NASA's current human spaceflight program.

KBR received the Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year award at Ames Research Center (ARC) for its overall contract performance, participation in NASA-related outreach events, sound small business practices and use of small business contractors. KBR's services at ARC include scientific research, technology and application development and program management solutions.

"This year's winners are dynamic individuals and companies that provide unparalleled support to the agency, and thankfully they are the tip of the iceberg," said NASA's Associate Administrator of the Office of Small Business Programs Glenn Delgado in a recent NASA story. "The small business community is overflowing with exceptional companies that are reaching new heights with creativity and innovation."

Last year, NASA also recognized KBR for its work with the small business community. KBR won the 2018 Mentor-Protege Agreement of the Year at the agency-level, and the Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year at the center-level at both JSC and Goddard Space Flight Center.

KBR has provided mission-critical space support services to NASA and other customers for more than 60 years. It currently operates at 11 NASA centers and facilities and is one of the world's largest human spaceflight support organizations. Known for excelling in complex and extreme environments, KBR provides engineering solutions for the needs of today and tomorrow, safely and efficiently.

About KBR, Inc.

KBR is a global provider of differentiated professional services and technologies across the asset and program lifecycle within the Government Solutions and Energy sectors. KBR employs approximately 37,000 people worldwide (including our joint ventures), with customers in more than 80 countries, and operations in 40 countries, across three synergistic global businesses:

Government Solutions, serving government customers globally, including capabilities that cover the full lifecycle of defense, space, aviation and other government programs and missions from research and development, through systems engineering, test and evaluation, program management, to operations, maintenance, and field logistics

Technology Solutions, featuring proprietary technology, equipment, catalysts, digital solutions and related technical services for the monetization of hydrocarbons, including refining, petrochemicals, ammonia and specialty chemicals, as well as inorganics

Energy Solutions, including onshore oil and gas; LNG (liquefaction and regasification)/GTL; oil refining; petrochemicals; chemicals; fertilizers; differentiated EPC; maintenance services (Brown & Root Industrial Services); offshore oil and gas (shallow-water, deep-water, subsea); floating solutions (FPU, FPSO, FLNG & FSRU); program management and consulting services

KBR is proud to work with its customers across the globe to provide technology, value-added services, integrated EPC delivery and long-term operations and maintenance services to ensure consistent delivery with predictable results. At KBR, We Deliver.

Visit www.kbr.com

Forward Looking Statement

The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding future financial performance, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the outcome of and the publicity surrounding audits and investigations by domestic and foreign government agencies and legislative bodies; potential adverse proceedings by such agencies and potential adverse results and consequences from such proceedings; the scope and enforceability of the company's indemnities from its former parent; changes in capital spending by the company's customers; the company's ability to obtain contracts from existing and new customers and perform under those contracts; structural changes in the industries in which the company operates; escalating costs associated with and the performance of fixed-fee projects and the company's ability to control its cost under its contracts; claims negotiations and contract disputes with the company's customers; changes in the demand for or price of oil and/or natural gas; protection of intellectual property rights; compliance with environmental laws; changes in government regulations and regulatory requirements; compliance with laws related to income taxes; unsettled political conditions, war and the effects of terrorism; foreign operations and foreign exchange rates and controls; the development and installation of financial systems; increased competition for employees; the ability to successfully complete and integrate acquisitions; and operations of joint ventures, including joint ventures that are not controlled by the company.

KBR's most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K, any subsequent Form 10-Qs and 8-Ks, and other U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss some of the important risk factors that KBR has identified that may affect the business, results of operations and financial condition. Except as required by law, KBR undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason.

SOURCE KBR, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.kbr.com


AVL has apologized to the Vanuatu Daily Post after one of its security officers forced a DP journalist to delete photos of a recent repatriation flight. Photo: Kizzy Kalsakau
A murderer who strangled his girlfriend with a pair of pants just weeks after she underwent brain surgery has been jailed for 22 years.

Shea Sturt, 33, was in a drug-induced psychotic state when he killed 31-year-old Caitlin O'Brien at their Melbourne home in June 2019.

Ms O'Brien, a nurse who had a brain tumour removed a month earlier, was stabbed with scissors, smothered with a pillow and strangled with tracksuit pants.

Caitlin O'Brien, 31, (pictured) was stabbed with a pair of scissors and strangled with a pair of pants by her boyfriend Shea Sturt, 33, at their Melbourne home in June 2019

Sturt (pictured) was sentenced to 22 years jail in Victoria's Supreme Court on Wednesday

Sturt, who was violent toward Ms O'Brien throughout their relationship, had been having delusions before the murder, believing he was Jesus and that his neighbours were worshipping Satan.

The pair had been together since they were teens and Sturt had a prior conviction for assaulting her in 2010 and in 2017

Ms O'Brien said Sturt had been violent toward her for seven out of their 10 years they'd been together.

On June 23 last year, during a discussion about the end of the world, Sturt attacked Ms O'Brien.

He ripped off her pants to see if he 'still felt anything' for her and held her down but she managed to get away and ran to the bathroom clutching a pair of scissors.

However Sturt overpowered her and stabbed her repeatedly before smothering her with a pillow.

He tied tracksuit pants around her neck, showered and placed her credit card on her chest before leaving.

Sturt went into the city and spoke to police outside Flinders Street Station, confessing he had killed Ms O'Brien.

He told police he'd been manic for a few days. When officers told him he'd be charged with murder he replied 'cool'.

About a month before she died Ms O'Brien had a brain tumour removed (pictured) but always lived in fear of her violent and increasingly erratic boyfriend

Justice Beale told the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday that Sturt was remorseful for his actions against Ms O'Brien and this episode was different because of the drug-induced psychosis.

Justice Beale said the drug use wasn't an aggravating feature of the crime because he couldn't be satisfied Sturt knew his cannabis use would cause the psychosis.

Sturt told doctors using cannabis was 'like a cure-all' and it 'made me treat Cait better'.

Justice Beale said it wasn't Sturt's fault he had a schizo-type disorder, but said there were other ways he could have treated his anxiety.

He found there was a reasonable prospect Sturt could be rehabilitated.

Outside court Martine O'Brien said the family lost two people on the day her sister died and she hoped Sturt gets the help he needs.

She said she wants Ms O'Brien's legacy as a nurse to live on and they hope to work with hospitals to honour her memory.

Sturt will be be eligible for parole after serving 16 years.
Her comments came a day after Shah, addressing a virtual rally for West Bengal, accused Banerjee of 'insulting' migrant workers returning to the state on Shramik Special trains by calling the trains 'Corona Express

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday denied having called 'Shramik Special' trains, ferrying migrant labourers back home,"Corona Express" as alleged by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, insisting it was the people who gave that name to crammed-to-capacity trains.

Her comments came a day after Shah, addressing a virtual rally for West Bengal, accused Banerjee of "insulting" migrant workers returning to the state on Shramik Special trains by calling the trains 'Corona Express', and asserted that migrant workers will ensure the "exit" of her government in the 2021 Assembly polls.

"More than 11 lakh migrants have returned to Bengal. I never called the migrant special trains 'Corona Express'. It was the common people who gave them that name," she told reporters.

Claiming that the reason for initially stopping the trains carrying migrant workers back to the state was "misunderstood and misinterpreted", Banerjee said people started calling the Shramik Special trains Corona Express as those with the capacity to accomodate 2,000 people were ferrying 3,000 to 4,000 labourers in cramped bogies.

She said that the state government, which had earlier decided to request for 225 trains, has now asked for 30 more in view of a large number of migrant workers wanting to return home.

"I request all of you not to sensationalise everything. Train services had been kept suspended because of one reason - so that people are not packed closely into a small space as the corona infection may spread," she said.

Criticising the Centre for going ahead with an "unplanned lockdown", Banerjee said the "migrant crisis" could have been averted had the Union government plied Sharmik Special trains to send back migrants labourers beforehand.

"If you (the Centre) had run the Shramik Express trains for seven days and sent the migrant workers home before announcing the lockdown, then these people would not have suffered for three months", Banerjee said.

The issue of bringing migrant workers back to Bengal has snowballed into a major political row in the last few weeks with the BJP and the Centre alleging that the state government is not keen to take them back. The TMC dispensation has rebuffed the claim.

Banerjee had earlier hit out at the railways for sending trains packed with migrant workers "completely disregarding" social distancing norms. She wondered whether the railways was running "Corona Express" trains to her state.

Banerjee had blamed the influx of migrant labourers for the surge in the number of coronavirus cases in the state. "We were successful in controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the last two months, but now it is increasing as many people are coming from outside. The railways is sending migrants in jam-packed compartments.

"We are paying for 235 trains but then why are two to three people being made to sit on one seat? The railways, in the name of Shramik Special trains, are running 'Corona Express' trains. The people are calling these trains 'Corona Express," the TMC chief, a strident critic of the Modi government, had said.
Forty court hearings have been so far held in the trial of former Tehran Deputy Mayor, Issa Sharifi on charges of corruption, the spokesman of the Islamic Republic Judiciary, disclosed on Tuesday, June 9.

Gholam-Hossein Esmaeili said the hearings, with eleven defendants, are underway in the Armed Forces Judicial Court. He stopped short of identifying the other suspects but promised that the judge would soon issue a verdict.

Sharifi, a long-time associate of the Islamic Republic's former Police Chief, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf (Ghalibaf), also served as his deputy while he was the Mayor of the Iranian capital city, Tehran (2005-2017).

Qalibaf assumed the position of the Speaker of Majles (Iranian parliament) on May 28, 2020, despite the fact that his name has been associated with a string of corruption cases.

Issa Sharifi was arrested in September 2017 and was charged with "financial" crimes, after his boss Qalibaf lost his position as mayor.

The Chairman of the Tehran City Council, Mohsen Hashemi, announced on July 6, 2018, the head of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran had been assigned by the Islamic Republic Supreme Leader to investigate charges against Issa Sharifi and five others accused of a 100 trillion rials financial corruption, amounting to almost $3 billion at the time.

Hashemi maintained that the case was connected to financial transactions of an economic entity, Yas Holding, a subsidiary of the Sepah (IRGC) Cooperative Fund.

However, the Armed Forces Judiciary, which is investigating Mr. Sharifi's case, announced on June 25 last year that he had been charged with "espionage."

Nonetheless, the Judiciary officials have not yet commented on the details of the charges.

In his press briefing on Tuesday the spokesman Esmaeili also mentioned a case of 650 billion rials (about $15.5 million) financial corruption, which some journalists believe is related to Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

The case was initially revealed by a prominent conservative, Mostafa Mir Salim who was recently re-elected as a representative of Tehran to parliament, the Judiciary spokesman said.

According to the spokesman, the Judiciary "invited" Mir Salim to come forward, which he accepted, testified, and delivered his evidence and documents to the authorities.

In a radio interview on May 27, Mir Salim said that one of the chairmen of the parliamentary commissions received the 650 billion rials to take back a motion concerning probe and investigation into the financial corruption case.

While Mir Salim refrained from mentioning details many journalists believe that the case is related to a motion presented to the previous parliament for investigating financial corruption in Tehran's municipality under Qalibaf. The motion, the journalists say, was taken back and shelved in March 2016.

In the meantime, a fundamentalist media activist Mohammad Mohajeri has written in a brief note that "Mr. Qalibaf's opponents have targeted him and blamed him," therefore, the case should be clarified transparently.

"If such an accusation is true", he said, "Qalibaf would resign from parliament."

Nevertheless, Qalibaf has not yet personally commented on the matter.

In one of the most recent cases revealed by Tehran City Council member Morteza Alviri, it was said that the Iranian judiciary is investigating twelve corruption cases dating back to Qalibaf's term of office as Tehran's mayor. One of these cases, Alviri said, involves at least 200 trillion rials (about $4.8 billion). Some of Qalibaf's aides are currently in jail on charges of financial crimes.
BLOOMINGTON  Drugs, money, guns and Christopher Harrisons choice to chase and shoot two men who robbed him at his home led to the men's murder, prosecutors said Tuesday in the opening day of the Normal mans trial.

Harrison, 20, faces six counts of murder in the deaths of Joseph Gardner, 20, and Reginald Hart Jr., 19, both of Bloomington, who were shot more than 20 times on April 25, 2018, near the entryway of an apartment building along East College Avenue.

Harrisons defense attorney Kevin Sanborn responded that the choice made by Gardner and Hart to commit armed robbery ultimately caused their own deaths.

Chris gave chase. Chris shot them and when they were shot, they were armed, Sanborn said. He killed them, yes. The argument here is about whether he was legally entitled to.

In his opening statement, Sanborn read from a series of text messages between Gardner and Hart in which they reportedly planned to rob Harrison at his apartment where he lived with his family, using Gardners sawed-off shotgun and a handgun taken from Harts mother.

Assistant States Attorney David Fitt told the jury Harrison could have chosen to stay inside and lock the front door to his mothers apartment when Gardner and Hart fled the robbery. He also could have let the security door close behind them at the end of the complexs hallway.

The defendant took matters into his own hands, the same hands that held his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle when he chose to pursue them out into the hallway, Fitt said of Harrison, who was 17 at the time.

Gardner was struck by 13 bullets and Hart was struck by eight, and all the wounds were on the backs of the victims bodies, Fitt said. In total, 27 shots were fired.

The two victims were found near the bottom of a staircase on the ground floor just inside the building at the Lancaster Heights complex where Harrison lived on the second floor.

They were dead before police could arrive, Fitt said. Family members in the courtroom stifled sobs as the attorney described their injuries.

Fitt told the jury Harrison was a drug dealer. Harrisons older brother, Noah Harrison, testified Tuesday that was why he let Gardner and Hart into the apartment even though he didnt recognize them.

Chris Harrison wasnt shy about being a drug dealer. He was proud of it. He flaunted it on social media, Fitt said, mentioning the defendants Snapchat videos which the state will use as evidence later in the trial.

Gardner and Harrison had made a previous drug deal and an arrangement for selling drugs and later splitting the profits, but the relationship sours after April 20, 2018, Fitt said.

Messages read from a text conversation between Gardner and Hart indicate Gardner planned to break their deal and keep everything.

Based on evidence from the crime scene, attorneys and a police witness said the victims stole a gun, money, a backpack, a hat and drugs from Harrison on the night they were killed.

Noah Harrison said that not long after they went to his brothers bedroom, Gardner and Hart ran out tripping all over each other, as Harrison chased them holding a very large gun. The commotion pulled his attention from a video game.

Later he identified his brother as the shooter and told police, The two individuals tried to rob him and so he just killed them.

Ronald Stoll, a Normal police officer, testified Chris Harrison later exited his apartment with his hands raised.

Harrison's mother, who previously had been sleeping, also walked out holding his girlfriends 6-month-old child whom Chris Harrison had been baby sitting.

This is the worst night of my life. I cant even watch a baby right, Chris Harrison said to police, according to an interview transcript read by Assistant States Attorney Jeff Horve.

Contact Kelsey Watznauer at (309) 820-3254. Follow her on Twitter: @kwatznauer.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 19:51:57|Editor: huaxia

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DAKAR, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Senegal on Wednesday reported 124 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total in the country to 4,640.

Of the 124 new cases, 109 are follow-up contact cases and 15 community-transmission ones, said Marie Khemesse Ngom Ndiaye, director-general of public health at the Ministry of Health and Social Actions.

A total of 1,205 tests were carried out in the previous 24 hours, Ndiaye told a daily briefing on the pandemic.

No additional imported cases was reported on Wednesday, after registering imported ones for several days at Blaise Diagne International Airport.

Total recoveries rose to 2,885 after 76 more patients were discharged from hospital; the number of patients in intensive care units leapt from 12 to 18.

The number of deaths related to COVID-19 remains at 52 in Senegal, which reported its first confirmed case on March 2.

The government has eased some restrictive measures imposed to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, but a state of emergency and suspension of international air travel will remain in force until June 30. Enditem
Tourists take part in a night tour at the Longmen Grottoes scenic area in Luoyang, central China's Henan Province, June 8, 2020. The Longmen Grottoes scenic area has introduced night tour programs since April 10 to meet tourist needs. Tourists can visit some of the finest Chinese Buddhist art here. (Xinhua/Li An)
(Alliance News) - Restaurant Group PLC on Wednesday confirmed plans to shutter 125 restaurants and seek rent reductions on a further 85 in its Leisure estate via a company voluntary arrangement.

On Monday, Restaurant Group had said it was in talks with its landlords over potential restructuring options amid "exceptional challenges" and "unprecedented operating environment".

Last week, it was reported that a "large number" of Frankie & Benny's outlets would remain closed after lockdown. The BBC said a staff email was sent to managers in the group's Leisure division, saying many sites are "no longer viable to trade and will remain closed permanently".

In March, Restaurant Group was forced to shut a majority of its Chiquito Mexican-style outlets, as well as its Food & Fuel chain of pubs in London, after these fell into administration.

On Wednesday, the company said the CVA will relate to The Restaurant Group UK Ltd, which comprises mainly Frankie & Benny's outlets as well as some Chiquito sites and other Leisure brands. The arrangements will have no impact on Wagamama, Airport Concessions and Pub operations, the company noted.

A "comprehensive" review of the Leisure estate portfolio has identified 210 trading sites that are either underperforming, on unfavourable lease terms or not expected to generate future profitable returns. Of these, 125 have been selected for closure in the short-term, with the balance of 85 sites to seek a reduction in rental costs and revised lease terms.

It also will allow the company to exit about 25 restaurants which have already been closed.

There are around 65 Leisure sites which will be unaffected by the CVA.

"The issues facing our sector are well documented, and we have already taken decisive action to improve our liquidity, reduce our cost base and downsize our operations. The proposed CVA will deliver an appropriately-sized estate for our Leisure business to ensure we are well positioned despite the very challenging market conditions facing the casual dining sector," said Chief Executive Andy Hornby.

The company said the proposals reflect its approach to ensuring a long-term sustainable business for all stakeholders in the face of unprecedented disruption to the UK's casual dining sector.

The British Property Federation said it had been talking to The Restaurant Group before it proposed the CVA, but it would be up to individual landlords to decide how to vote on the deal.

The federation's chief executive Melanie Leech said: "These situations are never easy, particularly now for the retail and hospitality businesses on our high streets at the sharp end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Property owners, however, need to take into consideration the impact on their investors, including the millions of people whose savings and pensions are invested in commercial property, as they vote on any CVA proposal."

Restaurant Group shares were trading 3.5% lower in London on Wednesday at 68.10 pence each. The stock was above 166p at the start of 2020.

By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
A Lebanon County man sold the drugs another injected before overdosing and dying nearly three years ago, Pennsylvania State Police said.

Authorities are looking for Yamil Alexis Rivera-Magdaleno, a 26-year-old Lebanon resident accused of selling the drugs that killed 40-year-old Ervin Lawrence Allen, of Grantville.

Allen overdosed at an East Hanover Township home on Nov. 20, 2017, state police said.

Rivera-Magdaleno is charged with drug delivery resulting in death, possession with intent to deliver and involuntary manslaughter.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to contact the state polices Harrisburg barracks at 717-671-7500.

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Me Agbor Nkongho M L Simo

Prominent lawyers, academics, and human rights organisations in Canada have written to Cameroons Head of State President Paul Biya and to the Head of Government Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute over the termination of the contract of Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor alias Agbor Balla, Instructor at the English Law Department of the University of Buea, UB.

Authorities claim that Agbor Balla was dismissed on grounds that he breached university guidelines when he set an exam question on the socio-political situation in Cameroons North West and South West Regions.

But Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada jointly with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, Centre for Free Expression among others say it is their respectful view that Agbor Nkonghos dismissal is contrary to Cameroons commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms as enshrined in regional and international human rights treaties to which it is a party.

The group of lawyers, academics, and non-governmental organizations from Canada tell President Paul Biya and Prime Minister Dion Ngute Joseph that they are dismayed and concerned over the dismissal of human rights lawyer Mr. Felix Agbor Nkongho (also known as Agbor-Balla) on 6 May 2020 from his position as a lecturer at the University of Buea.

We are writing to respectfully request the immediate reinstatement of Mr. Agbor Nkongho to his position as lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Political Science of the University of Buea, with all attendant rights and privileges, write the group.

They hold that the dismissal and its implications for Agbor Nkonghos safety and academic freedom raise concerns for freedom of expression in Cameroon, given the history of harassment and retaliation to which Agbor Nkongho has been subjected in the context of widely reported human rights violations in the Northwest and Southwest regions of the country. They add that these concerns are rendered more serious in light of Agbor Nkonghos role as a human rights defender and prominent civil society leader, including his advocacy for international human rights in Cameroon at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2018 and 2019.

The Canadian lawyers, academics and rights advocates understand that Agbor Nkonghos dismissal was the result of a written examination in which he and his two co-lecturers asked their students to engage in scholarly discussion of the Anglophone crisis. They say the University of Buea launched disciplinary proceedings against Agbor Nkongho and summoned him before a disciplinary panel for non-compliance of professional obligations without adequate notice, which led to his immediate dismissal without opportunity for a full and fair hearing.

The disciplinary panel reportedly proceeded in absentia, and it appeared that a decision to dismiss Mr. Agbor Nkongho had already been taken prior to the hearing date. The university launched no such procedures against his co-lecturers, they tell President Biya.

They are concerned about the systematic harassment of Agbor Nkongho and the restriction of his freedom of expression and civil liberties. His dismissal appears to be a form of retaliation against him for his peaceful exercise of academic freedom.

They remind government of the provisions of the 1998 United Nations (UN) Declaration on Human Rights Defenders which requires Cameroon to ensure that everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to participate in peaceful activities against violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure the protection of human rights defenders against any retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of their legitimate exercise of their internationally-protected rights.

The letter dated June 9, 2020 reads in part: It is our respectful view that Mr. Agbor Nkonghos dismissal is part of a pattern of intimidation and aggression towards him for his human rights advocacy. On January 17, 2017, after participating in a peaceful protest for the protection of the rights of the Anglophone minority, Mr. Agbor Nkongho was arbitrarily arrested and detained on charges of terrorism, civil unrest, treason, and jeopardising the peace and unity of the Republic of Cameroon by the Military Tribunal of Yaounde.

While all charges were ultimately dropped and Mr. Agbor Nkongho was released through Presidential Decree, he spent eight months in prison. In the most recent incident, the disciplinary procedures launched against Mr. Agbor Nkongho were based on academic work that engaged in discussion of Anglophone rights. As such, this dismissal raises serious concerns for similar retaliation and the escalation of unlawful reprisals in the future.

We join other human rights advocates and experts in our condemnation of Mr. Agbor Nkonghos dismissal as a form of unlawful reprisal against him. Mr. Agbor Nkonghos dismissal has been characterized as censorship by Human Rights Watch and has been condemned by the Human Rights Foundation, the Observatory for the International Federation for Human Rights and the Scholars at Risk Network. We also remind you of the appeal made to the Cameroonian government on 28 April 2020 by several UN Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups to strongly condemn all retaliation against human rights defenders such as Mr. Agbor Nkongho.

We urge you to make a public statement to the Government of the Republic of Cameroon, the University of Buea and to the international community declaring that all human rights defenders, including Mr. Agbor Nkongho, have the right to academic freedom and freedom of expression. We also urge you to call on Mr. Jacques Fame Ndongo, Minister of Higher Education, and Mr. Horace Manga, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buea, to:

Order the immediate reinstatement of Mr. Felix Agbor Nkongho (also known as Agbor-Balla) in his full capacities as lecturer at the University of Buea, Faculty of Law and Political Science.

We further urge you to: Ensure that the rights of peaceful human rights defenders are respected, protected, and fulfilled in all circumstances, without any hindrance or fear of reprisals;

Guarantee in all circumstances the freedom of expression of all human rights defenders and human rights organisations in Cameroon and take action to ensure that no individual or organisation faces reprisals for their legitimate human rights activities;

Uphold and implement in all circumstances the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, in particular its Articles 1, 6 and 12.2;

Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with all international human rights treaties ratified by Cameroon.

The authors of the letter say they stand ready to provide any additional information or support that government may require. The correspondence is signed by:

David Robinson, Executive Director / Directeur general of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (Association canadienne des professeures et professeurs d'universite) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada;

James L. Turk, Director, Centre for Free Expression, Faculty of ommunications and Design, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada;

John Packer, Director, Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa  Neuberger-Jesin Professor of International Conflict Resolution, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada;

Catherine Morris, Executive Director, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada Vancouver, BC, Canada and Yonah Diamond, Legal Counsel, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The letter is endorsed by eleven prominent lawyers, academics and civil society advocates. Copies of the letter were dispatched to several government departmental heads including the Minister of State Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the Minister of State in charge of Justice Laurent Esso, the Minister of State in charge of High Education Jacques Fame Ndongo, the Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buea Ngomo Horace Manga and several diplomatic officials.
The heir to the now defunct Italian throne has announced his plans to run for political office.

Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, 47, who lives in Milan and is known as the 'Pasta Prince', due to his career running food trucks in LA, tweeted his intention to run for office yesterday.

The colourful royal is the grandson of Umberto II, the last reigning king of Italy, who was deposed in 1946 when the country became a republic.

Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, 47, who is known as the 'Pasta Prince' due to his career running food trucks in LA, tweeted his intention to run for office yesterday. He is pictured with his wife Princess Clotilde Courau at the 2013 Oscar Vanity Fair party

He now runs a catering business called Prince of Venice and has lead a colourful life in the public eye, claiming to have undergone a six-month affair with Kate Moss and starring on Italy's version of Strictly Come Dancing.

In a video statement released on Twitter yesterday, Emanuele discusses Italy being in crisis before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and says he hopes to build a 'promising future' but does not state which role he is planning on running for.

He has previously discussed his desire to set up a royalist party to advocate for restoration of the monarchy in Italy.

Prince Filiberto is the only child of Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, heir to the now defunct throne of Italy.

In a video statement released on Twitter yesterday, Emanuele discusses Italy being in crisis before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and says he hopes to build a 'promising future' but does not state which role he is planning on running for. Pictured in Milan last year

The family were exiled from the country for 50 years, only being allowed to return to in 2002.

On his return to the country, he has became a major TV personality and appeared on Ballando Con Le Stelle, Italy's version of Strictly Come Dancing, winning it in 2009.

But he's had problems with drugs and confessed last year that he only managed to overcome his addiction with the help of his family.

In 2010, the controversial Prince claimed he had a six-month affair with Kate Moss.

The family were exiled from the country for 50 years, only being allowed to return to in 2002. On his return to the country, he has became a major TV personality and appeared on Ballando Con Le Stelle, Italy's version of Strictly Come Dancing, winning it in 2009. He is pictured in Milan in 2018

The former hedge fund manager, told how Sixties star Marianne Faithfull brought the pair together, by taking Miss Moss to Filiberto's house on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

The Prince, who is now married to French actress Clotilde Courau, claimed: 'Before meeting Clotilde, I had a lot of fun.

'About eight years ago, I had a relationship [with Kate Moss] and it lasted six months.

'Then our relationship ended because that's how things go, but I remember her as a very passionate lady.

Kate Moss has never spoken about the claims.

In 2010, the controversial Prince claimed he had a six-month affair with Kate Moss. He is pictured in LA in 2018

Just a year after his alleged affair with Kate Moss, he tied the knot with French actress Clotilde Courau in a glamorous ceremony at the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome.

Prince Albert II of Monaco and the Duke and Duchess of Castro, were among the 1,200 guests in attendance.

In 2019 between 200,000 and 500,000 worth of jewellery was stolen from their home in Paris while they were on holiday in Italy, amid a string of high-profile robberies in Paris, including one of Kim Kardashian.
AUBURN, Ala., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Chicken Salad Chick, the nation's only southern inspired, fast casual chicken salad restaurant concept, announced today it will be debuting in Indiana with its newest restaurant in the Louisville suburb of Jeffersonville. Marking entrance into the brand's 17th state and first in the Louisville market, the Jeffersonville restaurant highlights Chicken Salad Chick's accelerating development efforts across the Midwestern region, including Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Indiana. The Jeffersonville restaurant, which is located at 1520 Veterans Parkway, will celebrate its grand opening on June 16 and will offer free chicken salad for a year to the first 100 guests. Those awarded will be properly distanced and will receive a designated return time upon arrival to spread out the number of guests at the restaurant throughout the day.

As Indiana continues to reopen, Chicken Salad Chick is closely following state guidelines and will open the Jeffersonville restaurant at limited capacity with social distancing measures in place. Additionally, all employees will be wearing masks and gloves, as well as practicing proper handwashing and food safety protocol. For guests who prefer to take their chicken salad to-go, the Jeffersonville restaurant has a drive-thru for added convenience and also features outdoor seating.

"The pandemic delayed grand opening plans for many of our restaurants, as it did for all other restaurants, and we're thrilled to finally see them opening their doors," said Scott Deviney, CEO of Chicken Salad Chick. "Our new franchise owners, Karen and Jon Riddle, have been creating great buzz in Jeffersonville and the surrounding Louisville area through their community involvement, as residents get to know we aren't just offering fresh chicken salad, but also providing an unmatched hospitable experience and meaningful community connection. Following the opening in Jeffersonville, we expect to further expand our presence in the region with additional locations in Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky in the coming year."

During grand opening week, guests will experience the southern hospitality that Chicken Salad Chick is known for, with modified giveaways and specials that include:

Tuesday, June 16  Free Chicken Salad for a Year  The first 100 guests will receive one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per month for an entire year, with one of those lucky guests randomly selected to win one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per week.* Any guest not part of the first 100 in line can make an in-store purchase and enter for a chance to win free chicken salad for a year.**

 Free Chicken Salad for a Year  The first 100 guests will receive one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per month for an entire year, with one of those lucky guests randomly selected to win one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per week.* Any guest not part of the first 100 in line can make an in-store purchase and enter for a chance to win free chicken salad for a year.** Wednesday, June 17  The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free Chick Special redeemable on the next visit.***

The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free Chick Special redeemable on the next visit.*** Thursday, June 18  The first 50 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free Chick tote bag.****

The first 50 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free Chick tote bag.**** Friday, June 19  The first 50 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free Chick tumbler.****

The first 50 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free Chick tumbler.**** Saturday, June 20  The first 50 guests to purchase two large Quick Chicks will receive a free large Chick cooler.

The Jeffersonville restaurant is owned and operated by first-time Chicken Salad Chick franchise owners Jon and Karen Riddle of Derby City Chicks, LLC. The husband-and-wife team were introduced to the concept five years ago while on vacation in Destin, Florida and when they saw that Chicken Salad Chick valued serving others and enriching lives as much as the quality of their delicious, made-from scratch chicken salad, the Riddles knew they had to bring Chicken Salad Chick to Indiana. Jon and Karen, who previously served as a data analyst and HR director respectively, will operate the Jeffersonville restaurant alongside their two kids, Eric and Ellie, and have plans to open an additional restaurant in Louisville in the next few years.

"While our grand opening plans may have been on hold, we made it a priority to start serving our community as soon as we were ready," said Karen Riddle. "For the past two months, our team has delivered nearly 1,000 pounds of our chicken salad to residents in the greater Jeffersonville area and have donated meals to nearly 100 local institutions, including hospitals, nursing homes, food pantries, pharmacies, schools, and more. It's been an honor to give back to a community that has supported us before we've even opened our doors and are thrilled to now officially welcome guests into our restaurant."

The Chicken Salad Chick concept was established in 2008 by founder, Stacy Brown. With more than a dozen original chicken salad flavors as well as fresh side salads, gourmet soups, signature sandwiches and delicious desserts, Chicken Salad Chick's robust menu offers a variety of options suitable for any guest. Under the leadership of CEO Scott Deviney and the Chicken Salad Chick team, the company now has more than 155 restaurants currently open in 17 states and remains a standout brand within the fast casual segment.

Chicken Salad Chick in Jeffersonville will be open Monday  Saturday from 10:00a.m.  8p.m. For more information, visit www.chickensaladchick.com. Follow Chicken Salad Chick on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest news and trends.

*Guests should arrive between 7-10am to get checked in. The first 100 guests will be assigned a number and designated return time between 9:45-11:15am. Upon return, guests will make a purchase of "The Chick" or anything of greater value and scan the code '1st 100 Spot' on the CravingCredits app to officially secure your spot. If you are late, or miss return time, your spot will be awarded to next in-line. Guests must be 16 years or older, redemption begins 6/22.

**Eligible winners must be 16 years or older and are required to download the Craving Credits app. 10 winners will be drawn at the end of the day. Redemption will start 6/22.

***Guests should arrive between 7-10am to get checked in. The first 100 guests will be assigned a number and designated return time between 10:00-11:15am. Upon return, guests will make a purchase of a Chick Special and will receive their redeemable coupon at the register. If you are late, or miss return time, your spot will be awarded to next in-line.

****Guests should arrive between 7-10am to get checked in. The first 50 guests will be assigned a number and designated return time between 10-10:45am. Upon return, guests will make a purchase of the Chick Trio and will receive their prize at the register. If you are late, or miss return time, your spot will be awarded to next in-line.

For more information on giveaways and specials, visit https://www.facebook.com/ChickenSaladChickJeffersonville/

About Chicken Salad Chick

Founded in Auburn, Alabama, in 2008, Chicken Salad Chick serves full-flavored, Southern-style chicken salad made from scratch and served from the heart. With more than a dozen original chicken salad flavors as well as fresh side salads, gourmet soups, signature sandwiches and delicious desserts, Chicken Salad Chick's robust menu is a perfect fit for any guest. Today, the brand has more than 155 restaurants in 17 states and is continuing its rapid expansion with both franchise and company locations. Chicken Salad Chick has received numerous accolades including rankings in Franchise Times' Fast & Serious and Fast Casual.com's top Movers and Shakers for the third consecutive year and Franchise Times' Dealmaker Awards and Franchise Business Review's Top Food Franchises in 2020. See www.chickensaladchick.com for additional information.

Contact:

Shana Rosenthal

Fish Consulting

954-893-9150

[email protected]

SOURCE Chicken Salad Chick

Related Links

http://www.chickensaladchick.com


June 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Tuesday it would distribute about $25 billion to hospitals that have not previously received relief funds as they grapple with a rise in COVID-19 cases.

The agency said it would provide about $15 billion of the total to hospitals serving patients covered by federal Medicaid program for low-income individuals and children's health insurance program, and $10 billion to safety net hospitals that treat patients regardless of their insurance status.

The U.S. government has earmarked $175 billion for hospitals and medical providers to meet the increased expenses from rising COVID-19 cases and cover lost revenues due to suspension of medical procedures and routine visits.

The largest for-profit U.S. hospital chains such as HCA Healthcare Inc and Tenet Healthcare Corp appear to be benefiting disproportionately from the relief funds, while smaller hospitals struggle to stay afloat as they await aid, Reuters reported on Tuesday. (https://reut.rs/2ML12i4)

The latest funding would include hospitals that did not receive aid from the government's initial payout of $50 billion, the agency said.

"HHS is using funds from Congress, secured by President Trump, to provide new targeted help for America's safety-net providers and clinicians who treat millions of Medicaid beneficiaries," HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.

HHS has been under media scrutiny for its prior relief fund allocation and the bar has moved higher on the new distributions, wrote Stephens analyst Scott Fidel.

Safety net hospitals will receive between $5 million and $50 million, which will be sent directly to the hospitals via direct deposit. The fund distribution would occur this week, according to the agency.

(Reporting by Saumya Sibi Joseph in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
President Donald Trump said his administration won't rename U.S. military bases that honor leaders of the Confederacy, abruptly ending deliberations within the Pentagon on the matter.

"The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars," Trump said Wednesday in tweets. "Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!"

An Army spokesman said earlier this week that the service's secretary, Ryan McCarthy, was open to changing the names of bases such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Hood in Texas. Politico reported that Defense Secretary Mark Esper also supported the discussion.

Politico reported the suggestion had gained momentum in the Pentagon in response to civil unrest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed in Minneapolis police custody last month.

Trump has shown hostility toward protests over Floyd's death, blaming rioting and looting that has accompanied some of the demonstrations on leftist "Antifa" groups he's called terrorists and threatening to use the military to quell the unrest.

Trump's tweets on the issue of renaming military bases is a sign of further distance between the president and Esper, who surprised his boss last week by publicly expressing reticence about using the military against protesters.

Asked about the president's tweets on Wednesday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said "to suggest that these forts were somehow inherently racist, and their names need to be changed, is a complete disrespect to the men and women."

The comments came a day after retired Gen. David Petraeus called in an op-ed in The Atlantic for military bases named after Confederate officers to be renamed. In the commentary, Petraeus noted that he served at several of those forts, including Fort Bragg, Fort Pickett and Fort Polk.

Earlier Wednesday, the president's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow dismissed the idea that the U.S. suffers from "systemic racism." Demonstrators against Floyd's death have accused American police of engaging in systematic brutality against people of color and have demanded sweeping reforms to U.S. law enforcement agencies.

"I don't believe nowadays we have systemic racism," Kudlow told reporters at the White House.

The White House is under pressure to address civil unrest over the death of Floyd. Protesters in cities nationwide have accused police of systematic brutality against people of color and have demanded wide-ranging reforms.

Kudlow, who is white, said the White House is "looking at" an executive order on the matter. "We're studying possible reforms," he said.

Kudlow attributed high-profile cases of police brutality to some "very bad apples" and touted the Trump administration's record setting up tax-advantaged "Opportunity Zones" in low-income neighborhoods and providing funding to historically black colleges and universities.

The White House said earlier that Trump will "discuss solutions to historic economic, health and justice disparities in American communities" at a roundtable event in Dallas on Thursday before a fundraiser. The statement didn't use the word "race" or "racial" to describe the issues the president would address.
Samsung launched the Galaxy A01 last December, and so far it's been the most affordable member of the new A family. That's set to change soon, though.

The Korean company is working on a version of the A01 that's even lower-end, and thus should be even cheaper. Not just that, but this one will sport what is a rare unicorn in the smartphone world these days: a removable battery (with 3,000 mAh capacity).

The battery itself surfaced a while back, and now the handset has been spotted in the Geekbench database. We only know it by its model number, SM-A013F. For reference, note that the A01's model number is SM-A015F.

The A013F has been rumored to launch as the Galaxy A01e, but that would break with Samsung's naming traditions, which would have an "e" iteration of the A01 have the model number SM-A012F instead.

So it's unclear what exactly this device will end up being called, but with its 1GB of RAM and MediaTek MT6739 SoC (with a 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU), it is bound to be dirt cheap. It might end up being released only in specific markets, we'll have to wait and see.

Source | Via 1 | Via 2 | Via 3
(Photo : Photo by Panos Sakalakis on Unsplash ) WARNING: 'Worm' Found in Windows 10 Computers and Its a Privacy-Threat, Says Homeland Security (Photo : Photo by Kaur Kristjan on Unsplash) WARNING: 'Worm' Found in Windows 10 Computers and Its a Privacy-Threat, Says Homeland Security

A "worm" may be infecting your Windows 10 computer with a virus, warns the United States Department of Homeland Security. If you remember the massive 2017 Russian cyberattack called "WannaCry," reports said that it has similarities with this new "wormable bug." Here are the things it can do, but also things you can do to prevent it.





'Worm' Found in Windows 10 Computers; Here's What it Can Do to You

On Tuesday, June 9, DailyMail UK reported a new bug that may be affecting users' privacy on Windows 10 devices. This was after exploit code was published online said to be used by the hackers to easily infiltrate anyone's device.

The exploit, called SMBGhost, is a high-quality computer bug that even hackers may take time before successfully executing. Homeland Security warns that the bug has a "wormlike" nature of exploitation.

It means that once hackers take hold of SMBGhost and successfully execute it, it allows malicious cyber actors to download malware and target the main system of Windows 10. Worse, the bug can enter the system of anyone's Windows 10 without you even knowing.

"Although Microsoft disclosed and provided updates for this vulnerability in March 2020, malicious cyber actors are targeting unpatched systems with the new PoC, according to recent open-source reports," said the security agency.

Who first discovered this 'worm'?

Before Homeland Security took action, a researcher already shared the code on Github which saying, "It was written quickly and needs some work to be more reliable.' Using this for any purpose other than self-education is an extremely bad idea," according to TechXplore.

The Windows bug is located in the Server Message Block (SMB) of the system. This is one of the most important parts of a computer since this is where files, printers, and other accessories are linked through local networks.

So if one person gets this malicious worm inside their computer, it could create a massive domino effect with other users.

What to do to stop this bug?

Just in case you feel that your device already has the "worm" bug, Homeland Security advises you to download a strong firewall to "block server message block ports from the internet and to apply patches to critical- and high-severity vulnerabilities as soon as possible."

Another advice is to be aware of websites that you use every day. There's a bigger chance that this bug poses a simple pop-up that may enter your computer, without you knowing.

You don't want the "WannaCry"-- encrypted data on more than 200,000 Windows computers in 150 countries and issued demands ransom using Bitcoin cryptocurrency-- to happen again.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Sue Ogrocki, STF / Associated Press Two Hill Country politicians are under fire for controversial comments they made Tuesday as racial tensions throughout the country run high. The mayor of Woodcreek, a small town about 66 miles northeast of San Antonio, deleted a Facebook post in which she wrote Black Lives Matter was "a Socialist attempt to take over our lives, using guilt and shame."

In Kerr County, a county commissioner said on his radio show that George Floyd, who died while in police custody, did not deserve the funeral he received, calling him "basically a thug."

Woodcreek mayor

A Hill Country mayor faced criticism for a series of Facebook posts about Black Lives Matter, including one in which she labeled the movement "a threat to our lives."

Gloria Whitehead, mayor of Woodcreek, penned the since-deleted posts on Tuesday, according to The Wimberley View.

Whitehead repeatedly said "I'm not a racist" in several follow-ups to her original post, which called Black Lives Matter "a Socialist attempt to take over our lives, using guilt and shame."

After noting that a relative's salon in Delaware had recently been damaged, Whitehead linked Black Lives Matter to communist groups and the Weather Underground.

The View reported that the mayor's posts spurred hundreds of comments, many calling Whitehead racist and requesting her resignation.

City officials were not immediately available for comment Wednesday.

The Woodcreek city council adopted a social media policy in 2019 that advises the mayor and councilmembers to "keep postings factual and accurate" and "consider content carefully, because postings are widely accessible."

Before deleting the posts, Whitehead defended her statements.

"I don't support the BLM Group...for my personal reasons and research over many years and just like that I'm a Racist," the mayor wrote. "...and have unmercifully been vilified. Let me be clear, I do not support, BLM, the Movement. Never have I ever said that Black Lives do not matter.

"Do not misquote me nor change the dialogue. To the contrary..All Lives Matter. AND..I AM NOT A Racist..You can call me a Racist all day long and I'll still not bow to the BLM idealogy."

State Representative Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, responded to Whitehead on Facebook, writing, "As a fellow elected official, I am disappointed to see this."

"Your words, intentionally or not, do harm to our black community members," Zwiener said. "Please take the time to understand why. If you want to learn more about why this is harmful, I am happy to sit down and help you through this work. Black lives matter, full stop, and every single person in power should be stepping up to make sure theyre treated as such."

Kerr County Commissioner

A Kerr County Commissioner said George Floyd, who died in police custody and sparked a global push for police reform and social justice, didn't deserve any of the "accolades" he received during a memorial service attended by thousands Tuesday in Houston.

Along with being an elected Republican official of Kerr County, about an hour outside of San Antonio, Pct. 1 Commissioner Harley Belew also hosts a radio segment on the Hill Country Patriot. The day before Floyd was buried, he shared his opinions on his death and the memorials planned in Houston.

Audio from the radio show was recorded by Kerrville United, a volunteer-run website geared toward news in the area.

Belew opened the show by calling Floyd "basically a thug." He opposed the Floyd's funeral because he said others were "denied" having services for their loved ones due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Someone that dies with a knee on their neck has probably done something wrong to get the cops called there and thats what people are not talking about," Belew continues. I was waiting to see how this was going to play out. I figured it was going to be one of these Michael Brown deals, and, of course, it has been.

Brown, 18, was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in 2014. The shooting also prompted protests in the St. Louis area for a week after the shooting and then again when Wilson was not indicted.

Belew went on to call Floyd a "useful tool" in pushing a "message."

"George Floyd does not deserve the funeral he's getting, he does not deserve the accolades," he added.

The commissioner could not immediately be reached for comment. On his personal Facebook page, he penned a public post the same day of the radio segment saying he believes the "human race" is the only race and he has "no idea why we're not all the same color."

Discussion within the county, which encompasses Kerville, is mixed with support for Belew and disdain. Some suggested running him "out of town" for the "stunt." Another resident called on County Judge Rob Kelly to address Belew's behavior.

"What he (Belew) said is what he said, I didn't say it," Kelly said when reached by phone, then declined to comment further.
Its been nearly three months since Manitoba restaurants closed their doors to the public, marking the beginning of a turbulent new era. Even before the provincial government told them to, many local restaurateurs proactively closed their dining rooms, unsure when customers would return to the table.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 9/6/2020 (591 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its been nearly three months since Manitoba restaurants closed their doors to the public, marking the beginning of a turbulent new era. Even before the provincial government told them to, many local restaurateurs proactively closed their dining rooms, unsure when customers would return to the table.

New research released Tuesday by Dalhousie University and the Angus Reid Institute sheds some light on an answer and, apparently, Manitobans are among the most eager in the country to return to their favourite establishments.

Twenty-one per cent of Manitoba respondents said they planned on going out to eat at a restaurant "as soon as possible"  second only to Quebec (26 per cent)  while 46 per cent said they were likely to do so over the summer, the highest proportion of any province. As well, fewer people in Manitoba (18 per cent) than anywhere else said they would wait until the second wave of COVID-19 has passed before dining out in person.

"Canada is pretty split: half the people intend to go out this summer, and the other half plan to stay home," said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food distribution at Dalhousie who contributed to the study.

Comparatively speaking, he said Manitoba and Saskatchewan residents seem less concerned with the health risks of dining out than people in the rest of the country. A national average of 48 per cent of respondents said they had no plans to avoid restaurants. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, about 60 per cent said so.

While its difficult to accurately gauge why poll respondents in the two Prairie provinces are more confident, Charlebois suggested it might have to do with comparatively low case counts of COVID-19 and their governments respective reopening schedules. When the survey was conducted on June 2, both provinces were already entering their second months of reopening non-essential businesses, including restaurant patios; other provinces still havent allowed restaurants to reopen, even at limited capacity.

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The bulk of respondents who said they planned to avoid restaurants said their feeling was based on the physical layout of the establishment. Nationally, a negligible but not insignificant three per cent of respondents said they didn't think they would ever go back to a restaurant again.

Another question posed in the survey  which had 1,505 respondents and which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20  asked what Canadians expected to see when they did finally return to restaurants. Nationally, four of five respondents expect to see personal protective equipment such as masks and visors worn by staff, and 36 per cent expect slower service.

Charlebois said it's clear Canadians expect creative measures from restaurateurs to encourage a safe experience: 12 per cent expect dummies to be placed around dining rooms to ensure adequate distancing between customers.

A bright spot of the survey was that Canadians seem especially eager to patronize independent establishments once theyre ready. About two-thirds of respondents said they plan to visit an independent restaurant during their first outing, as compared with 39 per cent who said they plan to visit a franchise. Those intentions, if they materialize, could help cushion the blow suffered by indie restaurants, which were impacted in unique and difficult ways by the pandemic.

"That (result) was a pleasant surprise," said Charlebois. "There is a recognition that COVID-19 has been unfairly impactful on independent restaurant operators, unlike chains which rely on large resource networks."

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca
YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. Healthcare Minister of Armenia Arsen Torosyan had a video conference with Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Healthcare Ministry of Armenia, the sides discussed joint works, as well as the possibilities for partnership against the coronavirus pandemic that has become a key issue in the recent months.

Minister Torosyan presented the situation in Armenia over coronavirus, the works done and being done, as well as the planned activities.

During the video-conference the interlocutors discussed a broad scope of issues, starting from the change of behavior of people until narrow professional issues.

Hans Kluge once again expressed readiness to assist Armenia's anti-pandemic measures by all possible tools of the organization.

Editing and Translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
The water at the 113-hectare Lonar Crater Lake in Buldhana district turned reddish-pink over the past week. A similar phenomenon was reported from the Talawe wetlands in Navi Mumbai on May 16 as one section of the wetland patch had turned pink.

In the Lonar case, after local residents shared photographs with the Maharashtra forest department, the latter on Wednesday asked the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur to assess why there has been a change in colour.

We will be collecting water samples and sending it to NEERI soon. We will know the exact reason within two weeks, said MS Reddy, additional principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) and field director, Melghat Tiger Reserve.

Other officials said some local residents had informed the department about a similar change in water colour last year during this period as well. The colour, however, was not this dense. Although this needs to be verified by scientists, but this is most likely due to algal growth. During late summer season when water levels reduce and there is high salinity, an algal bloom results in such changes in colour, said Nitin Kakodkar, principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), Maharashtra.

There are several examples of such a phenomenon across the globe due to high salinity and action by algae, but it needs to be confirmed based on scientific studies, said Reddy.

In Talawes case, researchers and microbiologists had attributed the change in colour to vigorous growth of algae or bacteria (halobacteria) growing in an extremely high saline environment having beta-Carotene, which gives this type of characteristic colouration to the water.

The uniqueness of this lake is that it is alkaline as well as saline at the same time, and the water level parameters change as we move from one end to the other making it a complex ecosystem home to large biodiversity, said Kakodkar.

Located 500km from Mumbai and over 90km from Buldhana city, the oval-shaped Lonar Lake is a part of the 383-hectare Lonar Wildlife Sanctuary declared on June 8, 2000 as part of the Deccan plateau. The lake has an average diametre of over 6,000 feet, while it is 449 feet deep. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, it was said to have formed as a result of a meteorite impact that occurred between 35,000 and 50,000 years ago. It was identified as a unique geographical site by a British officer C J E Alexander in 1823, and also declared a notified National Geo-heritage Monument in 1979. A combined area of 366-hectare of Lonar Lake and surrounding regions was first proposed to be declared as a Ramsar site, a wetland of ecological importance, in 2017 by the state forest department. The area is expected to soon be declared as a Ramsar site as the final documentation process is underway, said a joint secretary from the Union environment ministry.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-09 21:15:39|Editor: huaxia

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Aerial photo taken on April 4, 2020 shows the Atlantis resort in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province. (Xinhua/Zhang Liyun)

HAIKOU, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China's master plan for the Hainan free trade port, released on June 1, has boosted the appeal of the southern island province to global investors.

The global investment service hotline, set up by the Hainan International Economic Development Bureau, has been hotter than ever in the past week.

"We received over 200 calls a day," said Lei Ting, head of the bureau's information and media relations division.

Lei said the calls came from more than 20 countries and regions, including the United States and Britain, and their consultations were mainly about investing in the province's high technologies, medical and health care, import and export trade, and tourism.

Han Shengjian, director of the bureau, said the new policy's focus on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, as well as the free cross-border flow of funds and personnel, was quite attractive to foreign-funded enterprises.

"These are what global investors value most and what will project Hainan toward the highest level of opening-up in the world," Han said.

Aerial photo taken on April 11, 2020 shows the expansion project of Haikou Meilan International Airport in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

Many enterprises have expanded their operation into Hainan. Deloitte China, which set up its Hainan office in January, is one of them.

"We expect a lot in Hainan. The policy of the free trade port will bring us lots of business opportunities," said Deloitte China partner Eric Lin. He said the auditing and consulting firm will see more customers from companies that choose to settle in Hainan and launch global businesses from there.

Fosun Tourism Group in April inked an agreement with the government of Sanya, a resort city in Hainan, to expand a tourist complex.

"The construction of a free trade port is an unprecedented opportunity for Hainan to become one of the most attractive places for global investors," said Qian Jiannong, board chairman and chief executive officer of the Fosun Tourism Group.

Aerial photo taken on April 8, 2020 shows the Xiaochantan dock in Yangpu, south China's Hainan Province. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)

Qian highlighted the construction of a law-based, international and convenient business environment as mentioned in the plan.

"We've benefited from Hainan's improving business environment in recent years, but Hainan still has a long way to go to meet the requirements of a free trade port," he said, adding it is the main reason for them to be optimistic about Hainan's prospects.

Shen Xiaoming, governor of Hainan, said Monday that Hainan pays special attention to creating an open, transparent and predictable business environment.

The government must also respect enterprises and entrepreneurs and let them be the final judge of the local business environment, Shen said at a press conference held in Beijing.

Liu Cigui, Party secretary of Hainan, extended a warm invitation to global companies and talents at the same event.

"Investors and talents from all over the world are welcomed to invest in Hainan, participate in the construction of the Hainan free trade port, and share China's development opportunities and the fruits of China's reform and opening-up," said Liu. 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-09 21:54:39|Editor: huaxia

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File photo shows Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

China and the Philippines are good neighbors with profound traditional friendship, Xi said, noting that over the past 45 years of diplomatic relations, China-Philippines ties have made remarkable progress.

"I attach great importance to the development of China-Philippines ties," Xi said.

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that he is willing to work with his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte to continuously lift their countries' relationship of comprehensive strategic cooperation to new levels.

"I attach great importance to the development of China-Philippines ties," Xi said when exchanging congratulatory messages with Duterte to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Both China and the Philippines are at a critical moment for development, Xi stressed in his message, noting that the two countries share broad prospects for cooperation.

People line up for a grocery store in Manila, the Philippines on June 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali)

Xi said China feels empathy for the Philippines amid the COVID-19 epidemic, and is ready to work with the Philippine side to overcome the difficulties together.

China and the Philippines are good neighbors with profound traditional friendship, Xi said, noting that over the past 45 years of diplomatic relations, China-Philippines ties have made remarkable progress.

In recent years, in particular, Xi said, the two countries have deepened their political mutual trust, continuously expanded cooperation in various areas, and achieved fruitful results in Belt and Road cooperation, bringing concrete benefits to the two peoples and contributing to regional stability and development.

In his message, Duterte said friendship and kinship between the Philippine and Chinese people have been lasting for a thousand years. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1975, the friendship between the two countries has developed steadily.

Vehicles are stuck in a traffic jam in Manila, the Philippines, June 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali)

Currently, global security and stability continue to face challenges and non-traditional security threats such as the COVID-19 epidemic have become increasingly prominent, he said, noting that it is of great importance to further consolidate Philippines-China partnership.

Duterte said the Philippine side takes China as a close neighbor and an important partner, and is ready to deepen bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperation and facilitate peace, development and prosperity of the two countries by upholding the principle of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation. 
This organizational change allows Mosaic to further integrate its U.S. business and deepen its relationship with parent company Acosta, while offering comprehensive strategic solutions for its clients. This Acosta-Mosaic partnership better enables the team to uniquely create effective end-to-end sales and marketing programs that help clients get products on to the shelf, then off the shelf and into consumers hands. In addition to being a key conduit between Acosta and Mosaic, Lee will focus on continuing to build Mosaic's Shopper Marketing retailer knowledge base, integrated omnichannel marketing practice and multi-cultural marketing capabilities.

"We are delighted to have Lee in this new role at Mosaic. A visionary strategist and inspiring leader, she is uniquely positioned to bring the experiential and shopper marketing worlds together into one integrated offering. This move allows us to have a more integrated strategic business approach as the consumer landscape continues to evolve," says Stephen Kremser, Chief Operating Officer over Acosta's Marketing, Foodservice & European Divisions, Mosaic's parent company.

With more than 20 years of experience in marketing, Esmond is uniquely positioned to marry Mosaic's legacy of retail knowledge and executional excellence with technology and artificial intelligence to deliver more efficient, strategic recommendations across all of a brand's dimensions. She is an expert in bringing digital, shopper and experiential together to create programs that grow basket, mind and market share for her clients.

"I am honored to take on this new role and bring the experiential and shopper worlds together for Mosaic and its clients," says Esmond. "The way we discover and purchase new products has changed tremendously  brands must adapt or fade into oblivion, which presents a whole new set of challenges to our clients. To me, this challenge is an exciting one and I could not be more excited to navigate the new shopper marketing world with our people and our clients."

Based in Bentonville, Arkansas, Esmond also co-leads of Mosaic's U.S. experiential practice, leading CPG and mass retail teams, while also serving as a strategic partner to Acosta's Chief Customer Officer.

About Mosaic North America

Mosaic is North America's only integrated experience design agency that builds brands in dimension to make the world a better experience. Mosaic designs and executes integrated experiences that make brands more valuable in-store, online and in the community. For more information, visit www.mosaic.com.

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The United Kingdom and the European Union announced that they have made progress in their goal to broker a trade deal post-Brexit, Friday.

Michael Barnier, the chief Brexit negotiator of the EU said that there are four specific points that encompass that "political declaration" of the relationship of both parties in the near future that was not met, during a press conference.

Moreover, he stated that the agreement that was signed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson back in January will remain as a single valid reference and relevant precedent in the ongoing negotiation.

He also called out the British party saying that what was written in the deal was signed and agreed on by both sides but the brits have failed to follow some provisions.

However, Daily Express reported that David Frost, who is the UK's Brexit negotiator tried to soft-pedal the document's significance and told journalists that not everything in the agreement should be passed onto the legally binding deal.

Read also:The UK Leaves the EU: How Brexit Will Affect Canadian Visitors

No Extensions

Even with the deadlocks in the trade talks, the UK has insisted that there will be no extensions that will be placed on the table anymore. Thus, this means that there is a big possibility that by the end of the year, the UK will no longer broker a trade deal with the EU on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms.

In a report by the Guardian, Penny Mordaunt, UK's paymaster general spoke in the House of Commons about updates regarding the Brexit talks and affirmed that alongside Michael Gove, she will be emphasizing that the country will no longer allow an extended period of transitions.

This, however, led to some conclusions and assumptions that the government is behaving rashly, thus they are rushing a trade deal.

She also added that the country is already hoping to have the deal sealed by autumn this year. She also stated that money from the coffers of the EU can be diverted by the government in order to boost the British Economy.

In addition, she stressed that there is a possibility that no-deal will be brokered, thus, they have already kept the planning for a no-deal on the table. She also noted that it would be wise for the country to be ready for every possible scenario.

Meanwhile, Duchy of Lancaster's shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves insisted that the government should honor the deal that was promised and signed bu PM Boris Johnson. One of the major issues of the trade deal at the time is the request of the EU to have access to the fishing waters of the UK.

In 2017, a report claiming that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron were trying to broker a deal with the EU which was less formal and was focused on the goal of salvaging the relationship of UK with Brussels. During that time, a source said that there was a serious attempt to block the Brexit.

Related article: French Fishermen Threaten To Block Ports If Post-Brexit Fisheries Trade Deal Is Still Off The Table

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Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, speaks to Ben Crump, civil rights attorney representing George Floyd's family during a break in a House Judiciary Committee hearing to discuss police brutality and racial profiling, in Washington, DC, U.S. June 10, 2020. Greg Nash/Pool via REUTERS

A brother of George Floyd took his grief to the US capital on Wednesday with an impassioned plea to Congress not to let his brother die in vain, lamenting that he "didn't deserve to die over $20."

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee held the first congressional hearing to examine issues underlying civil unrest - racial injustice and police brutality - that erupted following George Floyd's May 25 death after a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. .

The Democratic-led House is moving forward with sweeping reform legislation while Senate Republicans craft a rival plan.

Floyd, a Houston native who had worked security at nightclubs, was unarmed when taken into custody outside a corner market where an employee had reported that a man matching his description tried to pay for cigarettes with a counterfeit bill.

"George wasn't hurting anyone that day. He didn't deserve to die over $20. I'm asking you, is that what a black man's worth? $20? This is 2020. Enough is enough," Philonise Floyd, 42, of Missouri City, Texas, near Houston, told the lawmakers. "It is on you to make sure his death is not in vain."

He buried his brother on Tuesday and became emotional at the witness table while describing how they had not been able to say goodbye.

"I'm here to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain," Floyd testified. "George called for help and he was ignored. Please listen to the call I'm making to you now, to the calls of our family and the calls ringing on the streets of all the world."

It was not clear whether Democrats and Republicans will be able to overcome partisan differences to pass legislation that President Donald Trump would be willing to sign.

Officer Derek Chauvin, who was fired after the incident, has been charged with second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter. George Floyd and Chauvin both worked as security personnel at the same nightclub.

Philonise Floyd said Chauvin knew his brother and killed him "just because he didn't like him," adding that "it has to have something to do with racism."

Expand Close Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, speaks during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S. June 10, 2020. Brendan Smialowski/Pool via REUTERS / Facebook

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Whatsapp Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, speaks during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S. June 10, 2020. Brendan Smialowski/Pool via REUTERS

"So, for him to do something like that, it had to be premeditated and he wanted to do that," he added.

The emotionally charged hearing had lawmakers and witnesses expressing sorrow over Floyd's death, the latest in a long string of killings of African-American men and women by police that have sparked anger on America's streets and fresh calls for reforms.

Political divide

The hearing also highlighted divisions in Congress and the country between those who want sweeping changes to policing practices and those who defend the work of law enforcement and blame any problems on, as one Republican lawmaker put it, a "few bad apples."

Representative Jim Jordan, the committee's top Republican, said Americans "understand it's time for a real discussion, real debate, real solutions about police treatment of African-Americans." He also praised Trump's response to Floyd's death and subsequent protests. Trump has called for a militarised response to protests and has touted "law and order."

The committee is preparing to shepherd the Democratic legislation to the House floor by July 4.

"While we hold up human rights in the world, we obviously have to hold them up in our country," said Representative Karen Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which crafted the legislation.

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Angela Underwood Jacobs, a Republican witness whose police officer brother was slain during rioting this month, urged lawmakers to promote a just society by investing in education, housing and job creation.

The Democratic legislation has put Republicans on the defensive, prompting them to showcase support for law enforcement and to accuse Democrats of wanting to "defund" the police, an approach touted by some activists on the left but opposed by top Democrats.

The legislation would ban police chokeholds and no-knock warrants, allow victims and their families to sue police for damages, restrict the use of legal force, require police body cameras, make lynching a federal hate crime and take other steps to rein in misconduct.
Lanao del Sur residents board a bus at Laguindingan Airport in Misamis Oriental, Philippines, after their provincial government chartered a plane and six buses to bring them and scores of others home from Manila where they were stranded for months during the COVID-19 lockdown, June 6, 2020.

The Philippines still lacks enough laboratories to test people for the coronavirus but is speeding up efforts to boost its testing capacity ahead of an expected surge in Filipino workers returning from abroad, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

At present, only 42 labs across the country are accredited to conduct COVID-19 tests, officials said.

We are still aggressively pursuing the establishment of more laboratories because we dont have enough, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a radio interview, transcripts of which were released by his office.

So we need to improve not just the not just the capacity but also to make sure that they have all supplies so that they can maximize their capacities, he said.

The anticipated return of hundreds of thousands Filipino expatriate workers within the next three months, because of an economic slowdown caused by the global pandemic, could complicate the governments COVID-19 testing efforts, Roque said.

He said the government already had taken plenty of remedial measures, including opening other international airports apart from the main one serving Manila. Employment agencies, as well as the returning overseas workers, themselves have also been given the liberty to pick the testing center of their choice, as the country prepares to screen expatriates coming home for the contagious virus.

This is actually to ease the backlog. And the reason is, we are expecting as many as 300,000 OFWs to come home in the next three months, Roque said, using the acronym for overseas Filipino workers.

The anticipated surge of workers returning home as the number of COVID-19 infections continues to rise could create a scenario pushing the government to again implement strict quarantine measures  barely two weeks after relaxing lockdown rules.

Although the government has accelerated coronavirus testing in recent weeks, less than 1 percent of the Philippine population has been tested, according to statistics from the Department of Health.

As of June 4, a total of 396,914 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted on 366,423 individuals, a significant increase from 83,551 tests recorded on May 26, the state-run Philippine News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Metropolitan Manila, the Philippine capital region with a population of about 16 million people, has always been the epicenter of the virus, Roque said.

Although indicators appear to be improving, the reality is numbers remain high and are increasing in Metro Manila, he said, as an interagency task force on COVID-19 prepared to meet to tackle the issue Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, the health department reported 10 additional deaths from the virus, bringing the toll to 1,027 in the Philippines. There were also 740 new cases reported, with the total number of nationwide infections now at 23,732. Over the past two days, the department reported more than 1,000 new cases.

We cannot afford a second wave, Roque said, emphasizing that if the government loosened its health protocols, more cases would be reported.

He said that the mayors of Manila and nearby cities that make up Metro Manila had been authorized to implement local lockdown measures in their areas.
HK needs '2nd return': official

Global Times

By Zhang Hui and Leng Shumei Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/9 0:03:41

City's main problems 'not economic, but politics'

Hong Kong needs to "return to China for a second time," the deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council said on Monday, citing views from an international scholar as he addressed the city's current issues of governance and recognition of national identity.

Zhang Xiaoming made the remarks at an online symposium of the HKSAR government to mark the 30th anniversary of the Basic Law.

Citing Zheng Yongnian, a professor at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore, Zhang said we have encountered roadblocks and challenges in implementing the "one country, two systems," including limitations of the top level system design and deficiencies in practical work. The problems are prominent in Hong Kong's governance and the will of the people, he said. Zhang said that Hong Kong's main problems are not economic or people's livelihood, but politics. On the fundamental question of what kind of Hong Kong we should build, there are serious differences and even clashes, Zhang said.

Opposition parties and external forces attempted to turn Hong Kong into an independent or semi-independent political entity, an anti-China bridgehead, and a pawn of the external forces to contain China's development, which is a major contradiction affecting the complete and accurate implementation of "one country, two systems" and Hong Kong's long-term prosperity and stability.

Zhang said the central government was forced by Hong Kong opposition parties and radical separatists to take action, and they have mistaken the restraint and the tolerance shown by the central and the SAR government as weakness, and have gone too far.

The National People's Congress (NPC) passed on May 28 the decision to establish and improve the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for Hong Kong to safeguard national security. The transfer of Hong Kong in 1997 is the handover of sovereignty; a second handover is a historic process aimed at including the city into the country's administrative system, said Li Xiaobing, an expert on Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan studies at Nankai University in Tianjin.

Li said in the past 23 years, the central government believed in initiative efforts in Hong Kong to implement "one country, two systems," but the governance crisis in Hong Kong in recent years, including the Occupy Central movement and the anti-extradition bill protests, made the central government determined to solve the problems in Hong Kong.

The national security law will not shrink the space of "one country, two systems," said Zhang, adding that "instead, the more solid the bottom line of national security, the more space for 'one country, two systems.'"

Hong Kong will restore stability, and its business and investment environment will be improved after the law is implemented, Zhang said.

Tian Feilong, a Hong Kong affairs expert at Beihang University in Beijing, told the Global Times that in the future, more legal efforts, policies and measures, including stricter constitutional supervision over the city's legislation, administration and judiciary, as well as those to promote and protect the basis of the city, would be launched.

The national security law is the first step to approach a second return of Hong Kong, and the central government still has to do a lot in studying and promoting the systematic and social establishment in terms of education, judiciary, media, youth and supervision over autonomy, Tian said on Monday.

Many Hong Kong residents misunderstand "one country, two systems" because they relied too much on a single-faceted interpretation of the Sino-British joint declaration to stress that the lifestyle in Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years after 1997, but ignored the premise of one country. Thus, some of them opposed one country, were against two systems and even took Hong Kong as an independent political entity, said Tian.

Analysts have called on Hong Kong to establish a new educational system to fit into the "one country, two systems," and several Hong Kong education officials said a comprehensive review of Hong Kong's education and assessment system was being undertaken to set things right under the principle of "one country, two systems."

On Monday, Secretary for the Civil Service in Hong Kong Patrick Nip Tak-kuen said under the "one country, two systems," civil servants of Hong Kong are also civil servants of the country, and they cannot just focus on Hong Kong alone in policy considerations, nor should they hold a hostile attitude toward the country, Hong Kong media reported.

Since April, the Hong Kong government has rolled out a series of promotional activities, including online games, exhibits, quizzes, books and a video series to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the Basic Law.

Adopted on April 4, 1990 by the 7th NPC and implemented on July 1, 1997 when the Hong Kong SAR was established, the Basic Law is the constitutional document of the region.

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A sixth person has been charged after a house party plunged into chaos as masked gatecrashers stormed in and stabbed multiple guests on the dance floor.

Emily Brinsmead had been celebrating her 18th birthday at her home in Northmead, western Sydney, on August 3 last year when the party was suddenly disrupted.

She had invited around 50 guests, including family and friends, who were all enjoying themselves until a group of masked men stormed in through the backyard.

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A sixth person has been charged after a house party plunged into chaos as masked gatecrashers stormed in and stabbed multiple guests on the dance floor

Emily Brinsmead (pictured) was celebrating her birthday with a party at her home Redbank Rd, Northmead in Greater Western Sydney

A 17-year-old boy was stabbed in the back before a 19-year-old man was also stabbed in the shoulder and back.

Another 19-year-old man came to his friend's defence before the intruders allegedly slashed his hand open with a knife, NSW Police say.

All three victims were treated at the scene by paramedics before being taken to Westmead Hospital in a stable condition.

One of the teens required surgery while another suffered fractured ribs.

A 20-year-old man was on Tuesday arrested at a Colyton home and charged with three counts of reckless wounding in company.

He is due to appear at Mt Druitt Local Court on Wednesday.

Detectives from Parramatta Police Area Command established Strike Force Bogota to investigate the incident.

Officers were told an argument had taken place after a group gatecrashed the party.

There were 50 guests, including family and friends, who were all enjoying themselves until a group of masked men (CCTV footage of them) stormed in through the backyard

She had invited around 50 or so guests, including family and friends, who were all enjoying themselves until a group of four men stormed the backyard

The other five alleged offenders - males aged 21, 20, 17 and two aged 19 - have previously been charged and will appear in court throughout June and July.

The Colyton man is the sixth person to be arrested in relation to the horrific house party incident, after five people were charged last year.

A 21-year-old was arrested at a Glenwood home on August 30, charged with affray, three counts of wound person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, reckless grievous bodily harm in company and reckless wounding in company.

He is due to appear at Parramatta Local Court on Thursday.

Emily Brinsmead

A 20-year-old man and 17-year-old male were arrested and charged on October 10 and are due to appear at Parramatta District Court on June 26 and a children's court on July 17 respectively.

On October 11 a 19-year-old man was arrested at Box Hill and charged with three counts of reckless wounding in company.

He is due to appear at Parramatta District Court on June 26 alongside his co-accused.

Another 19-year-old man was charged with three counts of wounding a person with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, reckless grievous bodily harm in company and reckless wounding on October 16.

His court appearance is set for June 18.
Brianna Secreto's job shut down temporarily due to protests in Philadelphia after the death of George Floyd, a black man killed when a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes. As a result, she's losing hours at work, and it's eating away at her paycheck.

The 28-year-old convenience store worker was preparing for a typical evening shift last week when her boss called to say, "Don't come in. Were shutting down the store," she said.

The location remained closed during her shift for the next three days as violence rocked the area.

"Closing threw me for a loop," Secreto said. "We were supposed to be 'essential.' We didn't even shut down because of the pandemic, but we closed for this."

The fallout from ongoing protests is posing a new threat to essential workers during the pandemic.

Most businesses and workers seem to be in favor of the message behind the rallies for equal treatment of black people. However, unforeseen curfews and sporadic acts of violence have had adverse consequences for the workers society relied on during the coronavirus lockdown.

Pulled over while connected: Siri can quietly video record the police

Curbed hours caused chaotic work shifts at grocery stores. Some mass transit options were nixed during the late hours, posing an additional challenge for employees heading home after dark. And sudden curfews meant Uber and Lyft drivers lost money when they were unable to pick up passengers.

"When you're closing stores and cutting hours due to civil disobedience, no one is winning," said crisis management expert Ronn Torossian who is at the helm of 5W Public Relations firm. "It's affecting the workers and the retailers. No one is making money."

Many stores have adjusted operating hours throughout the country in anticipation of protests. Most citywide curfews were recently lifted, but changes to operating hours persist for some retailers.

Story continues

A heavy police presence outside of Pittsburgh's East Liberty Target on Monday night.

Target, for example, announced plans to shorten the hours of about 200 stores in the U.S. as protests and looting spread.

Retailers and grocery stores cut back hours primarily in Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta and South Florida, according to data provided by the grocery delivery company Shipt. Metro areas surrounding Dallas and Birmingham, Alabama, have also been subject to curfews as a result of protests, according to Shipt data.

Even after restrictions and curfews are lifted, the financial losses for workers remain.

Secreto said shes worried about mounting bills, especially if riots pick back up. The hours I lost are basically gone. Its hard," Secreto said.

Nysear Oliver-Stidem, 21, occasionally delivers meals ordered via Uber Eats after he gets off work from his full-time job at a liquor store in Philidelphia. But he couldnt pick up orders last week due to a citywide curfew.

It affects me a little bit, but Im lucky that I have another job on the side, Oliver-Stidem said.

On a typical Friday night he could make up to $100, he said. But last Friday he didnt make a cent since drivers couldnt be outside after a certain hour.

Demonstrators protest Saturday, June 6, 2020, near the White House in Washington.

The delivery platform Chowbus said its service volume dropped 6% due to protests in early June, as partnering restaurants in New York and Los Angeles closed early due to safety concerns for drivers.

Despite shocks to their pocketbooks, workers said they are more bothered that their jobs are closing and altering hours due to protests but failed to adequately take precautions against coronavirus on the job.

COVID-19 claims lives of grocery workers: Thousands more may have it

Several people took to Twitter to point out that their job boarded up quickly in anticipation of riots, but provided little assistance for workers required to show up with a deadly respiratory illness in the air.

My job closed early for a protest but didnt close one day for the coronavirus!   S U N F L O W E R  (@JstAshrenee) June 2, 2020

"While they're closing to protect their assets from any type of looting, they havent provided any security for their workers, said Kim Cordova, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in Colorado.

UFCW is a labor union that represents over 1.3 million retail and food workers in the United States and Canada.

Cordova said some grocery store employees had to commute to and from work in the middle of protests that grew violent because owners asked staff to stock shelves while the doors were closed to riots.

They closed to protect the structure of their store from break-ins, but didnt close to protect workers from COVID, Cordova added.

Local labor unions have worked with business and community leaders to keep the stores open, according to the UFCW.

With stores closed early, more grocery store, restaurant and retail workers have had more time to partake in the protests which were fueled by the police killing of Floyd.

Jessica Lance's bartending jobs temporarily closed early, giving her time to go a Black Lives Matter protest in Fort Worth, Texas. She lost roughly $600 in tips and hourly work but was happy to advocate for a cause she believes in.

"Everything stayed peaceful during the protest," Lance said. "But I did have to pay my rent late."

Follow Dalvin Brown on Twitter: @Dalvin_Brown.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Workers lose pay during protests as stores curb hours, honor curfews
Export Bahrain, a key initiative of the national SME Development Board, has facilitated over $32 million worth of exports across more than 26 various product and service categories to over 32 markets worldwide in a span of 18 months.



The initiative reinforced and increased export opportunities for current, and potential exporters which included over 25% of exporters entered new markets and over 30% were first-time exporters, where over 15% represented service exports.



In line with Export Bahrains commitment to ensure that Bahraini companies embrace world markets, multiple sectors were assisted to export various product and service categories. The initiative played a critical role in extending Bahraini local products and services to other markets and positioning them as future competitors among other global brands.



Till date, Export Bahrain has helped exporters to reach global markets including - GCC, Europe, Asia, MENA, Africa as well as the Northern and Southern America.



Exporters can tap into substantial export opportunities and access global markets quickly and efficiently through Export Bahrains solutions, which simplifies the entire exporting process. The solutions and channels provided are designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses interested in expanding their products, services and even presence beyond Bahrain. Export Bahrain is continuing to expand and diversify its suite of export provision solutions to create an enabling environment for current and potential exporters.



Furthermore, Export Bahrain provides resources and solutions that are accessible to all businesses seeking to grow their activities internationally and enables exporters throughout their entire export journey. Amidst these challenging times, Export Bahrain continues to create opportunities for SMEs and local businesses to maximize their success. Additionally, it will continue to create new outlets, while building the right partnerships with key strategic entities, and business partners.



Zayed R Alzayani, Bahrains Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and Chairman of the national SME Development Board, said: During the past 5 months alone, Export Bahrain has facilitated over 40 exports worth over $16 Million to 8 markets, surpassing 2019s export services figures and facilitating over $ 32 Million in exports over the past 18 months. Complimenting the success, drive and energy of businesses entering global markets, Export Bahrain will continue to work with national businesses and SMEs in particular to achieve significantly greater growth prospects, more resilience and increased profitability.



A key objective of Export Bahrain is to promote and encourage the export of Bahrain based products and services with national content as we showcase our national offerings to a global audience. We are proud of our internationalized businesses and exporters where we will extend every effort through export Bahrain to promote the commercial brand of Bahrains offerings globally and continue to assist both new and existing exporters.



We believe the majority of businesses in Bahrain can be product or service-based exporters or build their commercial presence in other markets using Bahrain their hub thereby creating continued economic growth and creating new jobs and opportunities for the economy, he added.



Dr Nasser Qaedi, Chief Executive of Export Bahrain, said: As we continue to aggressively grow Export Bahrainis export assistance to businesses in the country and celebrate their success, our 100% growth in export values during the first few months of the year compared to the previous year represents a key milestone which we will continue to build upon.



Despite the challenges that many businesses are facing globally, Export Bahrain has facilitated over $ 16 million over the past few months where our key mission is to assist businesses navigate around the many potential international opportunities available to them and thus reinforcing the Kingdoms position as a highly competitive export hub of products and services to markets across the globe. We are continuing to ensure that our solutions cover all critical areas for businesses looking to go global by providing export solutions in insurance, shipping, logistics, deal facilitation, e-commerce, internationalization, market information, and many others that can assist all businesses extend their reach beyond the local market.



Export Bahrain will continue to ensure that product and services exporters in Bahrain gain every competitive advantage to succeed. Especially during this time, to achieve their international growth. We customize our solutions for every business to assist them navigate towards target internationalization opportunities, our services are designed to add tangible value to exporters and internationalizing businesses by lowering costs, building effective relationships with international buyers and assisting them access new markets and new audiences for their products and services, he added.



We have spent a significant amount of energy building fruitful international partnerships that can assist businesses in almost every market across all continents in order to assist companies build effective long-term commercial links that now positions Bahrains products and services in the hands of consumers in over 32 markets and growing. We are keen to showcase the ample opportunities available to all businesses in Bahrain that exporting is a necessity to fuel growth and for companies across all sectors to take advantage of our services and solutions to access new opportunities and accelerate their growth.



Export Bahrain will be announcing numerous new partnerships and solutions that will further provide expanding opportunities and solutions to SMEs in the coming weeks and months ahead and we welcome all businesses who are interested in expanding their global reach to contact us, Dr Qaedi concluded.  TradeArabia News Service
JERUSALEM  Israels Supreme Court on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a 2017 law that would have allowed for the retroactive legalization of thousands of Jewish homes built on occupied West Bank land privately owned by Palestinians, a law so provocative that few believed when it was passed that it would survive judicial review.

The law, whose implementation was frozen because of a Supreme Court injunction issued shortly after it passed, would have paved the way for the wholesale expropriation of Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank on which nearly 4,000 homes had been built, both in authorized settlements and in illegal Jewish outposts.

Those homes  already viewed as illegal by most of the world under international law, for having been built in occupied territory  will now remain illegal under Israeli law as well, and Palestinian landowners will be able to proceed with lawsuits seeking to evict the people living in them and recover their property.

The ruling drew predictably divided responses from Israels polarized political class, with those on the center-left calling it a bold affirmation of judicial independence, and right-wing leaders calling it fresh evidence of why the legislature needed to grant itself the power to override Supreme Court decisions.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal met Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday to discuss the Covid-19 pandemic in the capital as 1,501 new cases took the tally to 32,810.

The death toll climbed to 984 with 48 more people succumbing to the disease, the Delhi governments health department said.

It said that 384 people were cured or discharged on Wednesday taking the total number of discharge to 12,245.

Kejriwal who tested negative for Covid-19 on Tuesday, said Shah assured him of all cooperation.

Met Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Discussed the situation on corona in Delhi in detail. He assured of all cooperation, Kejriwal tweeted after the meeting.

Earlier in the day, Kejriwal said Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijals order not to reserve hospital exclusively for the capitals residents will be followed in letter and spirit.

The chief minister said it was not a time for disagreements.

Given the scale of the pandemic, the Delhi governments projection estimates 44,000 cases by June 15 and 5.5 lakh cases by July 31.

On Wednesday, Baijal also ordered all major hospitals in the national capital to prominently display the availability of beds and room charges outside their establishments in large letters on the LED boards.

The state health department has been asked to ensure that the data displayed on these boards is in sync with the data on the government portal.
Brad Pitt is still known as a ladies man even amid the quarantine period. The "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" actor is being linked with numerous women, aside from former wives Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston.

He is reportedly undergoing lockdown with Alia Shawkat. The pair share a friendship and have been alleged with dating rumors and are now apparently living in the same roof.

Pitt still believes that the relationship he shares with the actress is nothing but platonic. However, a source indicated that it is Pitt's season where his mere concern is to be happy. He took it upon himself to go beyond worries and let Shawkat live with him in his villa.

He and "Arrested Development" actress Shawkat have been persistently captured by paparazzi numerous times. Shawkat visited Pitt regularly in his residence.

News circulated Pitt that he was rekindling his romance with Jennifer Aniston. On the other hand, Angelina Jolie has been pressurizing him with a legal suit worth $100 million.

People across the globe are in turmoil due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Lockdown measures have been established in almost every nation. Citizens are demanded to not go outside their houses to contribute towards flattening the curve of novel coronavirus cases. It was initially alluded that Pitt and Aniston were living together in quarantine, but images surfaced Shawkat appearing in front of the actor's villa with a different story to tell.

The source added, "He's even happier waking up every morning with her beside him. He's really missed that intimacy, the trust and the connection (that comes with) having a partner that he can confide in," Ace Showbiz reported.

Also Read: Brad Pitt Said Touching Words About Jennifer Aniston Before Affair With Angelina Jolie

Also, Shawkat reportedly was with Pitt during her birthday celebration and is seemingly moving beyond that. The "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" actor now gets to wake up every morning next to Shawkat, according to Koimoi.

"InTouch Weekly" reported that Aniston is aware of Shawkat and Pitt's association. With her reconnection with her former husband, the "Friends" actress cannot disapprove of them because they are not exclusive.

Upon giving Pitt a long time to decide, she could quite foresee the future.

Up News Info reported, "She knows about Alia, but Jen and Brad were not exclusive. And who can say that he's out of the picture just because Brad is with Alia? You can never count Brad and Jen."

His friends suggested to officially make their relationship public, but it is seemingly happening by itself which Pitt prefers, the source said. After his marriage downfall with Jolie, he wants to start a new relationship gradually.

Wearing casual clothes, Shawkat was spotted riding a bicycle outside Pitt's gated community in Los Feliz. She was donning a blue trench coat, checkered red top, and white trousers.

The source dished, "What he had with her was the least he expected, but after the long, painful time, he finally seems to have arrived."

Unfortunately, celebrity reports fack-checker website Gossip Cop has debunked the narrative. They claimed that Pitt and Shawkat only share a platonic relationship, connected by art and nothing beyond that.

Related Article: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Getting Closer Again? Daughter Shiloh Bridge Parent's Broken Relationship

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ANN ARBOR, MI - An Ann Arbor Public Schools principal said a police report filed by the district alleging she authorized extra pay for a janitor with whom she had a sexual relationship is substantially false," tarnishing her name and reputation.

New exhibits in a federal lawsuit filed June 5 allege Lawton Elementary Principal Shannon Blick, who was placed on leave in April 2019, had authorized paying janitor Willie Johnson wages to be a lunch room supervisor, in addition to wages he earned through his contracted employer, ABM Custodial Company.
S Kumaresan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: After eight days of treatment, DMK MLA J Anbazhagan succumbed to "severe Covid-19 pneumonia" at the Dr Rela Institute and Medical Centre here on Wednesday. He is the first legislator in the country to have died of the viral infection.

Anbazhagan was admitted to the hospital with severe acute respiratory distress on June 2 and tested positive at the time of admission. He had been involved in party activities and made public appearances till May 27, participating in the DMK's 'Ondrinaivom Vaa' initiative, and distributing relief materials to people.

He was put on a ventilator on June 3. He was being weaned off the ventilator when his condition worsened again, a statement from the hospital said on June 8. He was declared dead at 8.05 am on Wednesday, which was, incidentally, his 62nd birthday.

His last rites were performed at the Kannammapet burial ground. Hundreds of DMK cadres were in attendance and the police had a tough time regulating the crowd.

Meanwhile, DMK president MK Stalin and other senior leaders paid floral tribute to Anbazhagan's portrait at Anna Arivalayam, the party's headquarters in the city.

Stalin had earlier visited the hospital before Anbazhagan's death was announced. The DMK has cancelled all its events for the next three days and lowered the party flag to half-mast.

Anbazhagan was one of the party's most prominent faces in Chennai and his death has come as a huge blow to functionaries.

The three-time MLA was elected from the Chepauk-Triplicane constituency in 2011 and 2016 and from T Nagar in 2001. He was one of the most outspoken leaders in the party and enjoyed great cadre support within the party.

DMK Rajya Sabha MP, P Wilson, told New Indian Express that the deceased MLA had been instrumental in getting a CBI inquiry into the illegal sale of gutka and pan masala in the State.

"Anbazhagan fought the crucial gutka case in which there was collusion among politicians, bureaucrats from Central and State government departments and Corporation officials. He fought the case in the Supreme Court and succeeded," Wilson said. As the powerful secretary of the partys Chennai West District unit, Anbazhagan was known for not mincing words during the party's internal meetings. He also maintained cordial relationships with party leaders from rival parties.

T Nagar MLA, VP Kalairajan, who recently joined the DMK, described Anbazhagan as a good human being.

"Though I defeated him in the 2006 election in T Nagar, he arranged a grand welcome for me when I joined DMK. He also supported me in carrying out party activities," he said. Saidapet DMK MLA Ma Subramanian said Anbazhagan was always approachable to his constituents and party cadres.

T Mari, a DMK supporter from Chepauk, said Anbazhagan had never missed a meeting or function organised by party workers. "He treated all party workers as equals, which gained him support among the cadre and people," he said.

Anbazhagan was known to speak his mind even in the State Assembly. He was briefly suspended from Assembly this January after he tore up a copy of Governor Banwarilal Purohit's address to the House and placed the pieces of paper on the table of Speaker P Dhanapal.

Throughout his political career, Anbazhagan identified himself as a follower of the late DMK leader M Karunanidhi.

His father Jeyaraman, popularly known as Pazhakadai Jeyaraman, was a frontline functionary of the party since its launch in 1949. He was a prison-mate of DMK president MK Stalin when they were both imprisoned under MISA during the Emergency.

Anbazhagan was appointed as DMK's youth wing organiser for T Nagar area in 1987. Later he became the DMK's T Nagar unit secretary in the early 1990s after his father's demise. He was elected as South Chennai district secretary in 2002.

Anbazhagam is the fifth DMK MLA in the 15th Assembly to have died. The others are former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi (Thiruvarur), K Radhamani (Vikravandi), KPP Samy (Tiruvottiyur) and S Kathavarayan (Gudiyatham).
Iraqi PMU hits major command center of Daesh

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 09 June 2020 3:58 PM

Iraq' Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) says it has hit and destroyed a major command center of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group in an offensive in the north-central parts of the Arab country.

In an interview with the Arabic-language Shafaaq news agency on Tuesday, Ali Hashem al-Hosseini, a spokesman for the PMU, said communication devices were recovered and some intelligence was obtained at the site.

The offensive was launched to eliminate the remnants of Daesh in the east of the Salahuddin Province and parts of Kirkuk Province, Hosseini said, adding that scores of Daesh terrorists were killed in the operation.

He said the areas were now free from the presence of Daesh terrorists, and the small number of the terrorists who managed to survive were not on the run.

In a separate report, the PMU announced that its fighters had foiled a Daesh attack on Iraqi oil installations in eastern Iraq.

Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters have played a major role in the liberation of Daesh-held areas in Iraq ever since the terrorist group launched an offensive in the country in mid-2014.

In November 2016, the Iraqi parliament voted to integrate the PMU into the military.

Iraqi armed forces, including the PMU, managed to remove Daesh from all of its urban strongholds in the country, and former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the total defeat of Daesh in the Arab country in late 2017.

However, the remnants of the Takfiri group conduct sporadic attacks and attempt to regroup.

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Point Pleasant Beach will be adding more cops and the mayor vowed to issue citations for public drinking and other violations after thousands gathered for a party in the Jersey Shore town on Tuesday, requiring police from neighboring towns to be brought in for crowd control.

Mayor Paul Kanitra took to Facebook on Wednesday and said the youthful partiers left trash everywhere, drank alcohol and smoked marijuana in public, changed clothes in residents yards and were seen urinating in bushes.

We had a bunch of disrespectful young people looking for a good time and not caring at all how they acted in the process, Kanitra said in a video. Our town was treated like an absolute toilet yesterday.

Police Chief Joseph A. Michigan said the crowds began arriving in the late afternoon as the beaches were closing.

Due to the size of the crowds, which was estimated to be in the thousands, the Point Pleasant Beach Police Department requested mutual aid from surrounding police departments and other agencies, Michigan said in a statement.

Michigan said police were investigating to find out who organized the event.

On Tuesday, Kanitra said police from multiple towns had been called to ensure a calm and orderly disbursement of the crowd.

Kanitra said there was no evidence of property damage, no civil unrest and no major crimes committed.

But the mayor said the party was unannounced and the gathering was a clear violation of social distancing requirements.

In video posted to Instagram, the partygoers were not wearing masks or following other social distancing practices set in place by Gov. Phil Murphy at the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

The mayor said Tuesday evening that no arrests had been made and that the gathering was not a protest of any kind.

However, social media posts stated there had been arrests and video from the scene showed officers blowing whistles and herding people off the beach.

On its Facebook page Wednesday afternoon, the Point Pleasant Beach Police Department posted three arrests and three summonses from Tuesday, all of them involving men and women in their 20s from out of town, and most for minor offenses alleged to have occurred within a block of the boardwalk. The charges included possession of under 50 grams of marijuana, a DWI charge, drinking in public, and underage possession of alcohol.

The Facebook post about the incidents did not specify a time of day or indicate whether the suspects were in town for Tuesdays gathering on the beach, and police officials did not respond to requests for comment.

After videos of the event circulated on social media, Kanitra posted his own 3-minute video to his Facebook account on Wednesday, denouncing racist comments about the party.

I personally wont tolerate any residents or anyone else for that matter bringing up the color of anyones skin when were talking about yesterdays situation, he said. "The bottom line is Point Pleasant Beach is not going to be anyones dumping ground, regardless of where theyre from or what they look like. At the heart of yesterdays matter, we had a bunch of disrespecting young people looking for a good time and not caring at all how they acted in the process.

Kanitra said 30 more police officers will begin patrolling Point Pleasant Beach on June 20, and promised they would write tickets or arrest anyone committing creating quality-of-life crimes or violating local or state laws.

If we dont want to be a spring break type destination and we want to keep young idiots from scaring away respectful families, then things need to change right now, Kanitra said.

PPB Response to Unauthorized Beach Party I wanted to take a minute to personally address the photos and videos circulating from yesterday's beach party and our path as a town going forward. Chief Michigan will be issuing a separate statement with the particulars of the situation and the law enforcement response in the next hour. Posted by Mayor Paul Kanitra on Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Staff reporter Steve Strunsky contributed to this report.

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Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Burma Myanmars Fifth COVID-19 Lab to Operate in Shan State From July

Health workers collect COVID-19 swabs from a quarantine center in Yangon in June. / Htet Wai / The Irrawaddy

Yangon  Myanmars fifth COVID-19 laboratory is close to opening in the Shan State capital, Taunggyi, and is expected to conduct tests from next month.

The fourth coronavirus lab in Mon States capital, Mawlamyine, started conducting COVID-19 tests on June 2.

Dr. Thuzar Chit Tin, the health director of Shan State, told The Irrawaddy that the COVID-19 laboratory was opened at Sao San Htun Hospital in late May.

She said the state government spent approximately 129 million kyats (US$93,000) preparing the lab with machines donated by China

The lab would conduct 200 tests per day for the whole state and neighboring Kayah State, she said.

Having a lab in the state would allow control programs to be conducted more easily and reduce delays, said Dr. Thuzar Chit Tin.

Previously swab samples were being sent to Yangon, leading to three-day waits for results and high transport costs.

The health ministry said as of June 8, 3,344 people have been quarantined across Shan State with nine positive COVID-19 tests.

After no transmissions within Myanmar for two weeks, a 30-year-old public health officer in Muse on the Chinese border in northern Shan State tested positive for COVID-19 on June 2. She had no travel history or contact with known COVID-19 patients.

More than 40 people who had contact with her tested negative, according to Dr. Thuzar Chit Tin.

On June 9, a 30-year-old man from Hsi Hseng Township in southern Shan State tested positive for COVID-19 while under quarantine.

The state health team said it was tracing those who had contact with the patient to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Dr. Thuzar Chit Tin said a COVID-19 lab would be opened in Lashio, the biggest city in northern Shan State.

But there are budgetary problems involved with building the lab at a cost of more than 300 million kyats (US$216,000) for machines donated by China.

There are two COVID-19 labs testing civilians in Yangon and one in Mandalay.

As of Monday, Myanmar has brought home 3,356 nationals who are stranded at more than 10 countries, including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, UK and US.

Thousands of migrants from Thailand have returned each day since May 23.

The health ministry said all returnees have been ordered to be quarantined for 21 days at quarantine centers and in home isolation for seven days.

Dr. Than Naing Soe, Myanmars health ministry spokesman, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that around 2,000 COVID-19 tests are being completed on returnees each day.

As of Sunday, 48,255 people have been quarantined at quarantine centers across the country, according to the ministry.

It said it had conducted 40,600 COVID-19 tests. There have been 246 COVID-19 cases, six deaths and 159 recoveries recorded by Wednesday morning.

You may also like these stories:

Myanmars Health Minister Warns of COVID-19 Outbreak Threat Despite Infection Decline

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WATERLOO  As the positive impact of social distancing flattens the curve for confirmed COVID-19 cases in Northeast Iowa, MercyOne has resumed select critical services, elective surgeries and procedures.

A phased approach began May 18 as the health care provider monitored the local decline in COVID-19 cases, the availability of testing supplies, and other factors. After three weeks, providers are now seeing patients return for care.

Weve enhanced safety precautions already in place in order to provide the safe, excellent care we know our patients and communities need, said Jack Dusenbery, president and CEO of MercyOne Northeast Iowa, in a news release. Weve been taking a thoughtful, phased approach to resuming select services and are following CDC and state COVID-19 guidance to provide a safe environment for patients and colleagues.

Enhanced safety measures at MercyOne include:

Pre-appointment phone screening for all patients.

Everyone entering the building must be wearing a mask before being screened for symptoms.

Visitor restrictions and limited access continue currently.

The following visitor exemptions may be made on a case-by-case basis:

Children admitted to the hospital, maternity units, patients receiving end-of-life care as determined by medical professionals.

Patients needing assistance  including transportation, translation or mental/physical support  at an outpatient visit, surgery and/or procedure.

For approved exemptions, only one visitor per patient is permitted who must be 18 or older; an immediate family member, power of attorney, guardian or patient representative; and healthy with no symptoms of illness including respiratory or fever.

In addition, all patients scheduled for a surgery (and some procedures) are being tested for COVID-19 within 24-72 hours of care, depending on the service. If a patient tests positive, the procedure will be postponed until a negative result is obtained, unless it is urgent, impacting the patients quality of health.

MercyOne continues to provide Virtual Visits as an option for receiving care.

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Luohu Party chief Luo Yude made an inspection tour of Lufeng on June 5 to urge Luohu's civil servants helping the former place with its poverty alleviation work to make all-out efforts to ensure all impoverished residents there are lifted out of poverty by the end of this year as required by the central authorities.







He was accompanied by two senior officials of the Luohu government, Lai Jianhua and Zuo Jinping.





During the tour, the district signed a cooperation agreement with Lufeng aiming to promote poverty alleviation through stimulating consumption, and also donated three million yuan ($423,908) in poverty alleviation funds.





Luohu has helped Lufeng found 19 grassroots Party branches to better serve local residents' practical needs, along with 32 industrial bases that have helped 3,488 low-income families to increase their income. Luohu has also helped 8,561 Lufeng residents find jobs and assisted local farmers to sell 55 batches of different kinds of agricultural products in cities in the Pearl River Delta.





Luohu also pays special attention to helping Lufeng improve its public services and public goods in education, medical care, housing, etc. So far, all poverty-stricken families have been covered by basic medical insurance, and are living in safe houses.





All the 26 villages in Lufeng have seen a dramatic increase in income of their 17,799 residents forming 3,918 families. The average annual disposable income per person has increased 3.5-fold compared with the level before Luohu's involvement, reaching 14,200 yuan.





Wu Yumin, Lufeng Party chief, appreciated Luohu's assistance, saying it had been of tremendous help in terms of personnel, funds and materials.





He acknowledged the dedication and performance of the work team Luohu had sent to the 26 villages, and hoped the two sides can further consolidate the achievements of their cooperation, and take advantage of their strengths to deepen their industrial cooperation.





Luo Yude said the tasks remained urgent, and all relevant departments of Luohu must closely cooperate with their partners in Lufeng, and tap into the economic complementarity of the two sides to make their partnership more sustainable in the long run.




Colo. voters to decide on late-term abortion ban in November referendum

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Colorado voters will soon get to decide whether to pass a pro-life measure that would ban most late-term abortions.

Known as Initiative 120, the proposed measure would ban abortions after 22 weeks into a pregnancy, with an exemption for life-threatening medical emergencies.

On Monday, the secretary of states office confirmed that the Due Date Too Late campaign had collected enough valid signatures to get the proposed measure on the November ballot.

In order to qualify for the ballot, pro-life advocates had to get a minimum of 124,632 verified signatures in support of the initiative. The campaign ended up getting over 153,000 confirmed signatures.

Lauren Castillo, spokesperson for the campaign, said in a statement released Monday that the inclusion of the measure on the November ballot was an incredible victory.

 our dedicated volunteers  worked tirelessly to ensure that Coloradans will have the chance to vote to save lives from late-term abortion in November, Castillo said.

The numbers handed in are indicative of the overwhelming support for Initiative 120 and we are prepared and excited for the next step in the campaign.

Morgan Carroll, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, denounced the proposal to end late-term abortion, calling it a cruel, calculated proposed ballot measure.

Carroll said, 120 allows for no exceptions for cases of incest, rape, fetal diagnosis, or domestic violence, and is just another attempt to take away a Coloradans ability to control their own body."

In April 1967, Colorado became the first state to legalize abortion, passing a bill allowing it in certain circumstances and with the approval of a three-doctor panel.

Presently, Colorado does not have any restrictions on late-term abortion, although the state does require parental notification for a minor and that a licensed doctor perform the procedure.

Earlier this year, the Colorado House of Representatives killed two bills that would have banned late-term abortion and required doctors to provide medical care to babies born alive after an abortion.

Both bills died in the Colorado House Veterans and Military Affairs Committee following hours of debate and testimony in which the abortion procedure was graphically described.

In 2008, Colorado voters overwhelmingly defeated a proposal, known as a Personhood Amendment, which would have legally identified a fertilized egg as being a person.
Queen Elizabeth has brought out her summer wardrobe. In a new portrait that was released on June 10 to celebrate Prince Philips 99th birthday, the Queen wore a floral print dress with some of her favorite accessories.

The portrait, which was taken earlier this month, shows the Queen and Philip in the courtyard of Windsor Castle - where they have been staying since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March.

Angela Kelly, who has been the Queens personal advisor, curator and senior dresser since 2002, was behind this latest look.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh pictured 1/6/2020 in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle ahead of his 99th birthday. The Queen is wearing an Angela Kelly dress with the Cullinan V diamond brooch. The Duke is wearing a Household Division tie / PA

Sticking to HRHs preferred pastel palette, Kelly designed a long-sleeved, mint green dress with a bright yellow floral print pattern.

For an added pop of color, the Queen wore a bold fuchsia lipstick. Her go-to accessories - a pearl necklace and diamond brooch - rounded out the look.

Queen Elizabeth wears the Cullinan V diamond brooch to Princess Eugenie's wedding, 2018 / Getty Images

Though its hard to spot, the Queen wore her Cullinan V diamond brooch on her left shoulder in the portrait.

The 18.8 carat brooch features a heart-shaped diamond at its center and it was originally worn by Queen Mary in 1911. Since Queen Elizabeth inherited the Cullinan V brooch in 1953, it has been in regular rotation, with the Queen also wearing it to Princess Eugenies 2018 wedding ceremony.

Queen Elizabeth II during her address to the nation earlier in April during the coronavirus epidemic / PA

The Queens latest portrait marks a more casual appearance than weve seen her in the months since the coronavirus pandemic began. While all in-person engagements have been canceled, Queen Elizabeth has made several televised addresses to the nation dressed in more formal, monochromatic looks.
East Ridge officials have decided to postpone a planned community on police issues, citing concerns with the spread of coronavirus.

Officials said, "Due to the state of Tennessee Governors Executive Order #38 which pertains to COVID-19 guidelines, in particular item 6d, the East Ridge Community and Senior Center cannot yet open for meetings and activities.

"After review of the Executive Order by City Manager Chris Dorsey, the Community Meeting for the East Ridge Police Department must be postponed until a later date. The health and safety of our citizens is very important to the city of East Ridge and the Police Department."

The meeting was originally set for March 19, then moved to June 17.

The department had invited all residents and business owners to attend a meeting at the East Ridge Community Center.

Officials earlier said, "There have been a lot of changes at the police department since the beginning of the year, and this is a chance for us to get to know you better as well as a chance for you to get to know us better.

"We will introduce some planned upcoming initiatives and we would welcome your input as to where you would like to see us improve. Our mission is to create a safer East Ridge for our citizens and visitors by reducing crime, preserving the peace, and protecting lives and property. We will be asking for your ideas on how we get there together."

Officials earlier said the meeting would be set up to allow for social distancing and attendees would be encouraged, but not required to wear a mask.
Britain should respect China's legitimate right to safeguard national security in HK: Chinese FM

Global Times

Source:Xinhua Published: 2020/6/9 8:30:49

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed hope that Britain will respect China's legitimate right to safeguard national security in Hong Kong during a phone conversation on Monday with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

China and Britain, as two major countries with global influence, share the common responsibility of safeguarding world peace and development, Wang said, adding that strengthening mutually-beneficial cooperation in a wide range of fields between the two sides is in the fundamental and long-term interests of the two peoples.

Noting that international peace and strategic stability are disrupted and damaged by unilateralism, Wang said the two countries shoulder the responsibility of upholding multilateralism and jointly safeguarding the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law.

Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal affairs and no outside interference is allowed, Wang said, pointing out that maintaining national security in Hong Kong concerns China's core interests, thereby a major issue of principle that must be adhered to.

The central government is responsible for upholding national security in China, as is the case in any other country, Wang said.

While the central government authorizes the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to enact laws on its own to safeguard national security through Article 23 of the Basic Law, it does not change the fact that safeguarding national security is within the purview of the central authorities, Wang said.

Faced with the actual harm and serious threat to the national security in Hong Kong, the National People's Congress (NPC) has decisively introduced new national security legislation for application in Hong Kong, which will help fill the obvious loopholes and long-term deficiencies in such area for Hong Kong as soon as possible, he added, adding that such a move is reasonable, legal and imperative.

Wang stressed that the national security legislation for Hong Kong aims to better implement "one country, two systems," adding that Article 1 of the decision passed by the NPC makes clearly that the principles of "one country, two systems," "Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong" and a high degree of autonomy will be fully and faithfully honored.

This is another solemn commitment made by China's highest organ of state power to uphold the principle of "one country, two systems" in the highest legal form of NPC legislation, Wang said, adding that China will never accept the groundless accusation that the national security legislation will change "one country, two systems."

Wang said the national security legislation for Hong Kong targets a very small number of "Hong Kong independence" separatists and violent elements, adding that the legislation will better ensure various rights and freedom of Hong Kong citizens, and also make all law-abiding foreigners feel more at ease working and living in Hong Kong.

The current capitalist system in Hong Kong will not change, nor will its rights to a high degree of autonomy enjoyed under the Basic Law, or the way of life of the Hong Kong citizens, Wang said, adding that the national security legislation will only improve Hong Kong's legal system, social order and business environment.

Calling the national security legislation a litmus test, Wang said, if one expects lasting peace and stability in Hong Kong, they should support rather than worrying about the legislation; If one wants "one country, two systems" to go a long way, they should support rather than opposing the legislation.

Both as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Wang said, China and Britain should set an example in abiding by the basic norms of international relations and not interfering in other countries' internal affairs.

Looking back on the history of China-Britain relations, China has never interfered in Britain's internal affairs and has never pointed a finger at Britain's domestic affairs, Wang said.

China hopes that Britain will respect the Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the Basic Law enacted in accordance with the Constitution, respect China's legitimate right to safeguard national security on its territory, and respect the Chinese central government's administration of Hong Kong under the principle of "one country, two systems," Wang said, adding that the British side must adopt a cautious attitude on this affair.

For his part, Raab said Britain is committed to developing a strong bilateral relationship with China, expressing belief that after the COVID-19 pandemic, the two sides will further strengthen cooperation on major international and regional issues including climate change and Iran's nuclear issue.

Within the framework of a mature Britain-China relationship, the two sides can have a candid exchange of views on any topics, Raab said, adding that Britain is willing to deliberate on the contents of today's in-depth exchanges, and continue to communicate with China in the spirit of mutual respect.

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Secretary General congratulates the President of Montenegro on third anniversary of accession to NATO

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Jun. 2020

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed President of Montenegro Milo ukanovic at NATO Headquarters on Tuesday (9 June 2020) and congratulated him on the anniversary of his country's accession to the Alliance three years ago.

Mr. Stoltenberg noted that NATO membership has been good for Montenegro's security and prosperity and that investment by other Allies in Montenegro has more than doubled since accession. He said that being part of NATO has also helped Montenegro through the COVID-19 pandemic, mentioning the support provided by Allies with airlift, medical supplies, financial assistance and other items.

Stressing that the security challenges that the Alliance faced before COVID-19 have not gone away, the NATO Secretary General said that NATO will "continue to ensure this health crisis does not become a security crisis" and that NATO forces remain ready and vigilant.

"During this pandemic, both state and non-state actors have used disinformation and propaganda to try to undermine our Alliance and our democracies. In NATO we have worked together to identify, expose, and counter disinformation. Those who try to divide us will not succeed", Mr. Stoltenberg said.

The NATO Secretary General stressed that Montenegro continues to be a highly valued Ally contributing to Euro-Atlantic security, including to NATO's KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, to the NATO multinational battlegroup in Latvia and to the NATO training mission in Afghanistan.

"Just as NATO can count on Montenegro, Montenegro can count on NATO. NATO air policing ensures your skies are safe, with jets from Italy and Greece. And through a Trust Fund, we are helping to destroy surplus ammunition in Montenegro", Mr. Stoltenberg said.

Montenegro joined NATO on 5 June 2017.

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The coronavirus pandemic has worsened mental health unlike 'anything seen in recent years', especially for young women, a new study reports.

Around 7.2 million people in the UK aged 16 and over are experiencing at least one mental health issue much more than usual', the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.

The crisis has exacerbated inequalities in mental health, with young women aged between 16-24 the worst affected, the research institute reports.

Overall, the crisis has nearly doubled the deterioration in mental health from just a few years prior, the institute concluded, based on data from nearly 12,000 people.

Almost a quarter of respondents reported experiencing at least one mental health problem more than normal, up from just 10 per cent in the most recent pre-crisis data.

The scale of this deterioration in mental health is of a magnitude 'unlike anything seen in recent years', IFS has said.

COVID-19 has had substantial negative impacts on mental health across the population. The biggest impacts have been on the gender and age groups  broadly women and the young  that already had relatively low levels of mental health, IFS said

35.7 per cent of women aged 25 to 34 and 35.2 per cent of women aged 16 to 24 reported the highest rates of experiencing a mental health issue much more than usual

The impact of the pandemic on overall mental health scores is nearly double the deterioration seen between 2014-15 and 2017-18.

'The effects of COVID-19 and the associated lockdown on mental health have been very big indeed,' said Xiaowei Xu, a senior research economist at IFS.

'Young people and women, already at more risk of mental health problems, have experienced particularly big impacts on their mental health.

'These impacts need to be weighed alongside economic and other health effects of policies as we move out of lockdown.

'It will be important to monitor changes in mental health and to make sure that appropriate support is given to those who are struggling.'

The young have seen significantly greater deteriorations in their mental health than have older groups, and women more than men

The London-based research institute's study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, used new data collected by the University of Essex at the end of April in the midst of the stringent lockdown rules in the UK.

The data covers nearly 12,000 people who had been asked questions about their mental health annually over several years and who were asked the same questions again in April this year.

Almost a quarter of respondents reported experiencing at least one mental health problem much more than normal, up from just 10 per cent in the most recent pre-crisis data.

The share of people who report experiencing at least one mental health problem much more than usual has more than doubled, from 10 per cent to 24 per cent for those aged 16 and over, it found.



While mental health has worsened across all age and gender groups, young women have seen the most worrying declines during the pandemic, which has severely cut contact with friends and family.

35.2 per cent of women between the ages of 16 to 24 had at least one mental health problem much more than usual' this April, up from 17.7 per cent prior.

This figure was even higher for women aged 25 to 34  35.2 per cent, up from 14.3 per cent, which was the projected figure for April had the pandemic not occurred.

The older male age groups recorded the smallest rates of experiencing mental health problems more often in April 2020, the data showed.

The study also assigned age groups different health 'scores', with higher scores indicating poorer mental health.

Once again, females aged 16 to 24 were the worse off, followed by males aged 16 to 24, females aged 25 to 34 and females 55 to 64.

Young women are most affected and older men are least affected, according to overall mental health 'scores'

Overall, the share of people who report experiencing at least one mental health problem much more than usual has more than doubled.

The findings suggest an additional 7.2 million of people aged 16 and over in the UK may be experiencing a mental health problem more frequently.

Key workers had less of a deterioration in mental health, the study also found, while those who were laid off, had young children or had Covid-19 symptoms had greater deterioration.

While being furloughed was associated with a deterioration in mental health, stemming from concerns over falling earnings.

Future data will be collected monthly over the next year, helping researchers determine how permanent the effects of lockdown are.

IFS will assess the effects and the 'extent and speed at which different groups are able to bounce back as the distancing restrictions unwind'.
Shippeo, the European leader in Real-Time Transportation Visibility, now tracks shipments in more than 62 countries. Since January this year and the deployment of large international customers, the company has rapidly expanded shipment tracking capabilities into 21 new markets, across all EMEA, with a growing focus on Africa, CIS countries and Northern Europe.

"We've achieved terrific momentum with our international carrier integrations, allowing us to increase our tracking capabilities for our global customers considerably" says Lucien Besse, Chief Operating Officer at Shippeo. "We've always strived to be the global transportation visibility partner of choice and it's pleasing to see this becoming a reality."

The company expects the pace of integration with carriers to continue, as companies seek holistic visibility solutions that present a snapshot of their supply chain activities in real-time, across regions. The latest achievement reflects the team's ability to quickly adapt to the needs of their global customers and opens the doors to new customers from further afield.

Shippeo's Onboarding Automation Center, the new and easy automated onboarding system for carriers, allows shippers and 3PLs to onboard their carriers and multiple subcontractors effortlessly. The platform guides carriers through 'self-onboarding', providing them with dedicated assistance when needed from Shippeo's Carrier Operations team. With representatives speaking 20 languages, Shippeo handles the technical integrations throughout the entire carrier onboarding process.

These new enhancements to international tracking capabilities complement ocean and Parcel Tracking services, launched in 2019. With Shippeo Ocean Tracking, direct integrations with ocean carriers as well as terrestrial and satellite AIS tracking allows Shippeo to provide the real-time location of all merchandise travelling along waterways, coastlines and across oceans as well as within port terminals themselves, where a majority of delays occur. Shippeo Parcel Tracking gives companies visibility into their last-mile deliveries by allowing direct integrations with leading courier and parcel carriers across regions.

The Shippeo Multimodal Visibility Platform is connected to more than 500 TMSs, Telematics, AISs, and Parcel APIs, to give customers a granular view of all their transportation activities within the same tool. Serving more than 60 leading large companies such as Schneider Electric, Faurecia, Saint-Gobain, Thyssenkrupp and Eckes Granini, Shippeo has doubled its network of integrated carriers to 140,000 in the past 12 months.

More information

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005011/en/

Contacts:

Press

Celine Bonniot, celine.bonniot@shippeo.com
South Carolina police are looking for a man who broke into a closed Waffle House around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, staked out a booth, went into the kitchen and made himself something to eat.

Police say this man broke into a Waffle House and cooked himself some food.

Surveillance camera stills released by the Georgetown County Sheriffs Office show the man moving around inside the Murrells Inlet restaurant, as well as a dark-colored sedan sitting outside.

This car was sitting outside the Waffle House as the man was cooking and dining.

He came in through the front door, according to police, and just sat down at first, before heading to the kitchen -- a process he repeated twice more.

After filling up, he then left the establishment, taking some pairs of sani-gloves with him, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Anybody who can ID the suspect is encouraged to contact the Georgetown County Sheriffs Department at (843) 546-5102.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The government of Canada is donating 44.5 million to boost the supply of N95 masks and sustain reproductive health services in the Philippines in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, it announced Wednesday.

In a statement, the Canadian government said it will provide 1.1 million Canadian dollars' worth of assistance to Manila. This will be split into 120,000 pieces of N95 masks used by medical frontliners worth about 29.5 million, and about 15.2 million funding for the "unhampered provision of sexual and reproductive health services" amid the coronavirus crisis.

In total, Canada has extended a CAD$4.5 million (about 167 million) in-kind contribution to six states within Southeast Asia.

"This investment complements ongoing response activities, including the establishment of an emergency hotline for health services and gender-based violence, procurement of PPEs for barangay health workers, and distribution of family planning information materials," the Embassy of Canada in the Philippines said in a Facebook post.

Canada's government has been supporting the Sexual Health and Empowerment Philippines project of the nonprofit group Oxfam, which earlier received CAD$17.8 million (about 663.2 million) in funding to support about 85,000 women and adolescents in "disadvantaged" regions. The program also tackles gender-based violence in the country, mainly directed towards women and young girls.

Canada said the Philippines is also expected to receive COVID-19 testing equipment, kits, and laboratory tools from a global project with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Philippines has been relying on local and foreign donations, as well as big-ticket loans to boost funding for its COVID-19 response.

RELATED: PH foreign loans, grants for COVID-19 response reach $4.86B as of mid-May

TIMELINE: The COVID-19 response money trail
The global spread of coronavirus in 2020 prompted a record plunge in the U.S. stock market, and the impact has been spread unevenly across sectors and geographies.

Consumer-facing services such as leisure, retail, tourism and car production have been very hard-hit, according to Capital Economics. But others, including IT and financial services, food and pharmaceutical production have fared much better during the crisis.

Coronavirus Impact On Europe, US, Asia: The data shows there is a significant variation in how the virus has affected economic activity.

For example, southern Europe was hit very hard, with the U.S. suffering somewhat less and some Asian economies relatively unscathed, Jennifer McKeown, head of the global economics service Capital Economics, said in a note.

In the first quarter of 2020, China was easily the most affected of the major economies, followed by France, Italy and Spain, she said.

China is experiencing a rebound, and South Korea and Japan are suffering relatively modest declines, McKeown said.

Italy, France and India seem to be enduring plunges in activity of 20% or more in the second quarter, the analyst said.

Benzinga is covering every angle of how the coronavirus affects the financial world. For daily updates, sign up for our coronavirus newsletter.

US, Japan, Germany Offer Biggest Direct Stimulus: Another factor that could explain some of the variation in the economic effects of the virus is the policy response, McKeown said.

This factor will be a crucial determinant of the pace of recovery in the months ahead, she said. For example, the U.S.Federal Reserve has offered generous business loans intended to keep the economy functioning, the analyst said.

The U.S, Japan and Germany have all offered the biggest direct fiscal stimulus packages among the major economies. In contrast India, Russia and Brazil have been relatively slow to offer fiscal support, according to Capital Economics.

Story continues

Japan Contains The Virus: Japan appears to have contained the virus relatively well, necessitating only a short lockdown and resulting in more modest effects on activity, McKeown said.

Industrial production, [in Japan] for example, fell by 8.4% m/m in April compared to a 17.9% slump in Germany. Various other Asian economies have exhibited similar resilience, including Korea and Taiwan.

India, which has seen a surge in cases and a stringent lockdown, looks set to experience a slump in activity of a similar magnitude to that of Europe, the analyst said.

A number of economies that are reliant on tourism and leisure, including Turkey, Egypt and much of Southern Europe, are likely to experience sustained weakness, McKeown said.

Economies that have been unable to offer adequate or appropriate policy stimulus will also be slower to return to business as usual, according to Capital Economics.

Beware Of Renewed Outbreaks: The likelihood of renewed outbreaks is very difficult to gauge right now, but it will limit the pace of recovery in major advanced economies and some emerging markets, McKeown said.

More modest future waves of the virus will result in containment measures being reinstated to some extent, she said.

Related Links:

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Central Banks Around The World Coordinate As Coronavirus Paralyzes Economies

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Graduating seniors across Massachusetts celebrated with a virtual ceremony Tuesday night, hearing from celebrities, athletes and Gov. Charlie Baker, as traditional commencement ceremonies have been postponed or canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Im so happy for you. Im so excited for you, said actress and comedian Jenny Slate.

The actress was born and raised in Milton. She has since appeared in Zootopia, The Secret Life of Pets and more.

In her speech she also encouraged graduates to go vote.

I hope that as you go out into the future, you, our new adults, that you vote, please she said. And that you use your voices to make this world a sweeter, more just and safer place.

The message comes as protests are happening across the country, including Massachusetts, against police brutality and racial injustice.

Groups have also been raising awareness of the need to vote, and getting people registered at record rates just months out from the general election in November.

Protesting is one of the highest forms of civic participation, Rock the Vote said in a statement last week, according to CNN. As we fill the streets with our bodies and risk everything to be heard, let us also prepare to shock the system in November by filling ballot boxes with our votes.

Last week, the organization saw more than 80,000 new voters register through its site, Carolyn DeWitt, president and executive director of Rock the Vote, told CNN.

And Slate is not the only one to call on graduating seniors to vote during this time.

Former first lady Michelle Obama also called on 2020 graduates to vote in a virtual commencement address.

Graduates, anger is a powerful force. It can be a useful force, but left on its own, it will only corrode and destroy and sow chaos on the inside and out," Obama said. But when anger is focused, when its channeled into something more, oh, that is the stuff that changes history.

Related Content:
Everyone must draw lessons one year after anti-extradition bill protests: Carrie Lam

Global Times

Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/9 13:03:40

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that everyone, including herself and members of the Legislative Council, must draw lessons as Hong Kong has gone through many difficulties and serious situations in the past year since the anti-extradition bill protests, which evolved into months-long street riots.

Lam said that Hong Kong cannot afford chaos, and that Hong Kong people want a stable environment and happy normal lives, especially in the face of the global economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This has been the common wish of Hong Kong society in the past 12 months, Lam said.

As for the national security law for Hong Kong, Lam said that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government will fully cooperate with the central government and is about to establish an effective enforcement mechanism. She appealed to every citizen who cares about national security to express their views on the law.

The National People's Congress, which is China's top legislature, approved on May 28 a decision to establish and improve the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the HKSAR to safeguard national security.

Lam also condemned the few people who smeared the legislation and incited residents to strike on Sunday.

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In an effort to assist stranded Ghanaians in the UAE get home, Emirates plans to operate two flights from Dubai to Accra on 12 and 16 June. Flights can be booked via the Ghanaian Embassy in the UAE.



Only citizens of Ghana who meet the entry requirements of the destination will be allowed to board. Passengers will be required to comply with all requirements of the destination country.



Similar to other repatriation flights that Emirates has operated thus far, for health and safety reasons, the airline will offer a modified inflight service that reduces contact and the risk of infection. More information is available on emirates.com.



Passengers will be required to apply social distancing guidelines during their journey and wear their own masks when at the airport and onboard the aircraft. Travellers should arrive at Dubai International airport Terminal 3 for check-in, three hours before departure. Emirates check-in counters will only process passengers holding confirmed bookings.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/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
Boris Johnson was under huge pressure on Wednesday night to cut the two-metre social distancing rule.

MPs and industry leaders warn that keeping the restriction in place could sink tens of thousands of businesses. Campaigners say it stops schools reopening properly while pubs and restaurants fear going bust.

The World Health Organisation recommends a one-metre restriction  guidance followed by France, Denmark and Singapore.

According to a Downing Street source the Prime Minister instinctively wants to make the switch but is nervous about a second wave of coronavirus. Most of his scientific advisers are thought to want to stick to two metres until infections fall further.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak held a 90 minute session with the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers yesterday where he is said to have backed their calls to slash the two-metre rule to save jobs.

Damian Green, a Tory former Cabinet minister, insisted however that other countries had managed safely with one metre. I would combine it with much greater mask-wearing, he said. If we dont do this it will be the end for many pubs and restaurants.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured) was under significant pressure on Wednesday night to reduce the two-metre social distancing rule to just one-metre

Britons have been sticking to the two-metre rule in public situations, like queuing to enter the supermarket (pictured), but MPs fear tens of thousands of businesses could crumble due to the rule

Iain Duncan Smith, a former Tory leader, said: The number one and single most important priority to unlock the economy is getting the distance down to one metre.

The difference between one and two metres is the difference between opening the economy properly and seeing it bump along at the bottom without being able to bounce back. The hospitality sector simply cant make a living at two metres.

Its restrictive at one metre but at least they can come close to making it work. And its impossible to run public transport properly at two metres.

Reducing the rule to just one-metre would allow pubs and restaurants (pictured) to reopen while schools could also be able to reopen properly

John Redwood, another Tory former Cabinet minister, added: The WHO and many other countries propose one or 1.5 metres as safe social distancing. Its time we agreed as two metres makes economic recovery very difficult.

The Nationwide Caterers Association, which represents cafes and restaurants, said failure to act could sink tens of thousands of businesses.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said: Opening with a two-metre social distancing rule would see many venues operating at around 30 per cent capacity, which would be completely unviable for almost every business.

Reducing the distance to one metre would allow businesses to operate at around 70 per cent capacity, which might allow them to at least break even.

The British Retail Consortium said many shops would be unable to make money under a two-metre rule, while the British Coffee Association said one metre would make operations for coffee shops more manageable.

Professor Robert Dingwall, a leading member of the Governments New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, said: I have been arguing for several weeks in support of reducing the physical distancing requirements from two metres to one metre.

'There is good evidence from the physical sciences that any difference in risk between these distances is minimal  and that one metre still leaves a safety margin.

Indeed there are situations in which it could probably safely be reduced if contacts are relatively brief or indirect.

Moving to one metre would allow four times as many people into any given space, contributing greatly to the re-opening of schools and the general revival of economic activity.

Campaigners say Mr Johnson cannot delay if the plan to reopen schools is to be salvaged, because reducing the distance will enable more children to fit in classrooms.

The more schools that open, the more parents would be able to go out to work. The WHO advises a gap of one metre but Sage, the Governments scientific advisory body, is still sticking to the two-metre minimum.

The World Health Organisation recommends that a one-metre rule is sufficient, but Sage, the government's scientific advising body is maintaining the need for two metres

Yesterday, the Prime Minister appeared to gave his strongest hint yet that he was considering relaxing the rule, telling MPs: Clearly, as the incidence of the disease comes down, as I think members of Sage would confirm, the statistical likelihood of being infected, no matter how close or far you are from somebody who may or may not have coronavirus, goes down.

But later, in his press conference, Mr Johnson said there was a balance of risk to be struck.

Asked whether he was prepared to go against his scientific advisers to ease the lockdown faster, Mr Johnson said: The infection rate is not down as low as I would like and I have to be very mindful of the risk of new outbreaks.

We must proceed cautiously and I think that is shared with the overwhelming majority of the public. They want us to get on but get on in a cautious way, and thats what were doing.

A Cabinet source said that Mr Johnson hoped to relax the social distancing rule, adding: Instinctively he wants to do it because he can see the difficulties it is causing. He is getting closer to a decision but it is very difficult.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the Governments chief scientific adviser, said yesterday that two metres was not a scientific rule but a risk-based assessment.

One metre is plenty: Professor who sits on Government advisory group insists risk of catching coronavirus is 'very small' even at close quarters

By Sophie Borland, Daily Mail Health Editor

The risk of contracting coronavirus is very small even at only one metre, a leading scientist claimed yesterday.

Professor Robert Dingwall, who sits on the Governments New and Emerging Virus Threats Advisory Group, warned that the current two-metre rule was wreaking economic devastation.

He said the risks of reducing the distance to one metre or one-and-a-half metres needed to be set against all the other harms caused by the lockdown and shop closures.

Professor Robert Dingwall (pictured), who sits on the Governments New and Emerging Virus Threats Advisory Group is one of many experts saying that a one-metre social distancing rule is enough

Only last week a major Lancet study found that standing more than a metre from someone reduced the chance of virus infection to 3 per cent, compared to 13 per by standing closer than a metre.

The research, part-funded by the World Health Organisation, also concluded that standing two metres away lessened this risk even further to just over 1 per cent.

Professor Dingwall, who is based at the school of social science at Nottingham Trent University, stressed that the 3 per cent risk infection rule of more than one metre was still very small.

Its a question of relative risk, he told the BBCs Today Programme. Even the problematic Lancet study that was published last week was saying you are moving from a tiny risk at two metres to a very small risk at one metre.

You have to set that against all the other harms that are being done by the economic devastation that is wreaked by the two metre rule, the deaths that will be attributable to the lockdown itself and to the social and economic disruption that it is causing.

Even at one metre it is clear there is a significant margin of safety.

The work on transmission in naturally occurring environments suggests that it is very rare for particles to travel much more than half a metre so you have that safety margin built in.

The jury is still out on this one but theres a significant body of opinion that thinks airborne transmission may not be that important compared with what you pick up on your hands and transfer to your own face.

The UKs two-metre rule is out of step with the World Health Organisation as well as countries such as France, Denmark and Singapore who all say keeping one metre apart is safe.

Only in the UK (pictured) are people recommended to follow the two metre distancing rule, with the World Health Organisation stating that one-metre spacing is sufficient

Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Australia on the other hand impose social distancing guidelines of one-and-a-half metres.

Professor Linda Bauld, an expert in public health at the University of Edinburgh, said the Government should only reduce the rules to one-and-a-half metres, no less.

She added: If they are going to reduce it I can understand from a practical perspective why two metres is difficult but it would be putting more people at greater risk if we go right down to a metre.

My personal view would be that there is not insignificant benefit for keeping it at 1.5metres rather than going down to a metre.

Professor Bauld referred to lab research which had shown that the chances of droplets falling on someone who coughed or sneezed were higher if they were standing less than one-and-a-half metres away.

But she said: Its not all about the science, its also about politics and the economy.

If a pub or a shop goes out of business then people lose their jobs and that has health consequences.

Last month the medical director of Public Health England, Professor Yvonne Doyle, said the two-metre rule was the subject of continued investigation.

She told MPs on the Science and Technology Committee: Its a learning experience internationally and we are aware of the international differences.
Petrol price on Wednesday was hiked by 40 paise per litre and diesel by 45 paise. This is the fourth increase in rates in a row since oil companies on Sunday started revising prices in line with costs, after an 82-day gap.

Petrol in Delhi was hiked to Rs 73.40 per litre from Rs 73 on Wednesday, while diesel rates were increased to Rs 71.62 a litre from Rs 71.17.

In four hikes, petrol price has gone up by Rs 2.14 per litre and diesel by Rs 2.23.

In Mumbai, both petrol and diesel were increased by 43 paise litre on Wednesday. In Mumbai, petrol prices stood at Rs 80.40/litre, and diesel prices at Rs 70.35/litre.

Latest petrol, diesel prices in top cities:

Delhi: Petrol Rs 73.40/litre ; Diesel Rs 71.62/litre

Petrol Rs 73.40/litre ; Diesel Rs 71.62/litre Mumbai: Petrol Rs 80.40/litre; Diesel Rs 70.35/litre

Petrol Rs 80.40/litre; Diesel Rs 70.35/litre Chennai: Petrol Rs 77.55/litre; Diesel Rs 70.24/litre

Petrol Rs 77.55/litre; Diesel Rs 70.24/litre Kolkata: Petrol Rs 75.36/litre; Diesel Rs 67.63/litre

Petrol Rs 75.36/litre; Diesel Rs 67.63/litre Bengaluru: Petrol Rs 75.77/litre; Diesel Rs 68.09/litre

Petrol Rs 75.77/litre; Diesel Rs 68.09/litre Hyderabad: Perol Rs 76.20/litre; Disel Rs 70/litre

Perol Rs 76.20/litre; Disel Rs 70/litre Gurgaon: Petrol 72.86/litre; Diesel Rs 64.90/litre

Prices were raised by 60 paise per litre each on both petrol and diesel on Sunday as well as on Monday. The key reason behind the increase in fuel prices is that oil PSUs had put daily price revisions on hold soon after the government on March 14 hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 3 per litre each.
Former pupils of a school named after Edward Colston have written an open letter slamming its headteacher for 'defending' the 17th century slave trader in an email to worried parents.

Alumni of Colston's School in Bristol condemned the message to parents by head Jeremy McCullough for appearing to show 'support' for Colston.

The email was sent hours after the controversial figure's statue was pulled down and dumped it in the River Avon by Black Lives Matter protesters on Sunday.

Mr McCullough's email begins by acknowledging social media posts that could have been interpreted as 'threats' against the school, before questioning the extent of criticism Colston is facing.

He argues that, while there is 'no doubt' Colston was responsible for 'many deaths', during his own time his 'business interests' would not have been thought of 'so negatively'.

He adds: 'Indeed, a great many people in Bristol, around the UK and all over the world, profited from this dreadful business. So why is Edward Colston perceived to be such a terrible figure.'

An open letter that was circulated on social media, which gave former pupils the chance to sign it and submit it themselves, condemned the headteacher's email.

Their letter accused Mr McCullough of using a 'racist argument' to defend the school's name and Colston's behaviour - and called on the school to rename themselves to show support for BAME students in a 'very racist world'.

Mr McCullouch has since said a name change is something they are 'looking into'.

Alumni of Colston's School in Bristol condemned the note to parents penned by head Jeremy McCullough for appearing to show 'support' for Colston

Mr McCullough's (pictured) email says: 'There is no doubt that [Colston] was involved and was directly or indirectly responsible for many deaths and many ruined lives. Everyone in Bristol knows that this was wrong'

Mr McCullough's email says: 'There is no doubt that [Colston] was involved and was directly or indirectly responsible for many deaths and many ruined lives. Everyone in Bristol knows that this was wrong.

'However, in the Bristol of Edward Colston's time his business interests would not have been thought of so negatively.

'Indeed, a great many people in Bristol, around the UK and all over the world, profited from this dreadful business. So why is Edward Colston perceived to be such a terrible figure.'

The headteacher claims students 'struggle' to name others who profited from slavery when he 'challenges' them to do so.

He argues this is because Colston did a lot of good while others simply 'disappeared with their profits'.

Mr McCullough wrote: 'I tend to think the only reason that Colston's name is so reviled is because it is one of the only ones that anyone knows, and, paradoxically, it is only known because of the good he tried to do.

'We try to explain to the students that these good deeds do not make what he did look okay in any way, and we can be unhappy with what he did but still be happy that our school exists today.'

Edward Colston founded Colston's School in 1710 and it incorporates a lower school for three to 11-year-olds and an upper school for ages 11 to 18-year-olds

Edward Colston founded Colston's School in 1710 and it incorporates a lower school for three to 11-year-olds and an upper school for ages 11 to 18-year-olds.

Ex-pupils have reacted angrily to the upper school headmaster's email and a number of them joined to pen an open letter to condemn it.

One of them shared the letter into a Facebook group for students to drum up support, and she asked fellow members to sign it.

She said: 'I went to Colston school in Bristol, yes that Colston.

'This was the headteacher's response to the BLM movement and their removal of the Colston statue. He openly supports and defends the notorious slave trader.

'Myself and a few other former students have written him a letter condemning his words and inaction. Please read it and sign.'

The Google Doc began by asking the reader how they would feel if they had to go to a school with 'a statue glorifying [Colston] in the stairwell' and 'his name above the gates'.

The statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston falls into the water after protesters pulled it down and pushed into the docks in Bristol, June 7

It then addresses Mr McCullough and says his letter showed a 'disregard for the feelings of the BAME community' at the school and that it 'defends' the slave trader.

It says: 'You ask ''why Edward Colston perceived to be such a bad figure?'', as if this status is underserved.

'If you do not understand why this is such a horrific thing, then you don't understand what slavery was and how it still shapes our society today.'

The letter then targets Mr McCullough's comments regarding Colston's name only being known 'because of the good he tried to do'.

It said: 'It is not, as you suggest, because other traders were not as philanthropic as Colston. It is because this IS NOT TAUGHT!

'You would not expect students to explain Pythagoras' theorem without having ever been taught it, so why do you ask them this?

'You are deliberately setting them up for failure to substantiate your racist argument.'

Alumni of Colston's School in Bristol condemned the note to parents penned by head Jeremy McCullough for appearing to show 'support' for Colston

The email (pictured) was sent just hours after the controversial figure's statue was pulled down and dumped it in the River Avon by Black Lives Matter protesters on Sunday

It also used Adolf Hitler and Jimmy Saville as reference points to further the argument that the school should not continue to be named by someone whose negatives outweigh their positives.

The letter did go on to praise McCullough for his acknowledgement of modern slavery and suggested that he has a large role to play in ensuring the lessons of the past are learned.

It concluded by saying: 'We should not glorify the atrocities that underpin the founding of the school, but instead condemn them.

'Rename the school, give the statue to a museum, teach students the full truth of slavery and how it affects their lives today.

'Please support your BAME students in what is still a very racist world.'

Colston's School declined to comment on the email the letter addresses, but they did confirm it was sent by the headmaster to parents on Sunday evening.

Mr McCullouch has since said a name change is something they are 'looking into' and they released a statement on the school's website on Monday.

The statement said: 'The name and statue of Edward Colston have been divisive topics in Bristol for a very long time and we are conscious that different people have different thoughts on whether statues should be removed or names changed.

'Colston's School, unlike the statue that was recently torn down, was not named in honour of Edward Colston. The statue was erected by the people of Bristol over a hundred years after his death and, at a time, when the slave trade had been abolished. This school was actually founded by him in 1710 and was in operation during his lifetime.

'The view of the school community has tended towards the desire to educate about what Colston did and to do our very best to ensure that our students understand how they can play an active part in making the world a better place. Indeed, we see that as one of our responsibilities.

'We teach our children explicitly about the Atlantic slave trade and Edward Colston's role in this. We also teach about modern day slavery and work hard to develop young people who are inclusive and open to others.

'Many millions of people have been deeply affected by the events in the USA, across the UK and in Bristol these past few weeks and the school was already engaging with its community to see how we could contribute positively to these discussions and the anti-racist agenda.

'Events of Sunday afternoon brought this even closer to home. We are committed to supporting our BAME students, their families, our colleagues and other stakeholders. We will continue, through the education we provide, to play our part in bringing about an end to all forms of prejudice that impact on so many people in Bristol and across the world.'
Bombay high court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to a sub-inspector attached to Ghatkopar police station booked for divorcing his second wife by pronouncing talaq by sending the messages thrice on her cell phone.

Justice Bharati Dangre granted pre-arrest bail to Yusuf Usman Shaikh on a personal bond of 25,000.

The complainant had alleged that the police sub-inspector though married and having two children from his first wife, solemnised marriage with her as per Muslim custom and practice in December 2018, and she has delivered a baby girl a year later. She further alleged that Shaikh then sent three messages on her mobile pronouncing Talaq and declaring that it resulted into the dissolution of their marriage and thereafter started avoiding her and refused to take care of the newborn

daughter.

Apart from invoking section 3 of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 which penalises divorce by pronouncing talaq by spoken or written words or by electronic means, Ghatkopar police had also invoked charge of rape against Shaikh.

Justice Dangre, however, found that the charge of rape was not sustainable, as the complainant was not forcibly made to enter into a sexual relationship since the woman herself claimed that they had performed marriage as per the Muslim customs.

As regards the charge under section 3 of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, the judge said the offence was bailable - and therefore the police sub-inspector was entitled to pre-arrest bail.
Chinese oil trading companies are mulling over a halt in chartering tankers that have called at Venezuelan ports over the past year as Washington steps up sanctions against the Caracas government, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources from the shipping industry.

This time, the focus of attention of the U.S. administration is shipping companies and more specifically, tanker owners and users. The vessels will be added to a blacklist, according to plans, and some that are en route to Venezuela are already turning back, according to the Reuters sources.

Anything on the potential sanctions list will just become toxic, one of the sources said. No one will touch it until its clear what the rules will be.

Bloomberg, meanwhile, cited another unnamed source who said Washington was planning to add as many as 50 tankers to its blacklist and will seek to cut off oil and fuel trade between Venezuela and Iran.

According to a brokerage that Reuters spoke to, there were as many as 77 tankers that have called at Venezuelan ports over the past 12 months, which puts them at risk of being blacklisted.

Related: Why Saudi Arabia Will Lose The Next Oil Price War

The two countries, who are both suffering severe U.S. sanctions already, have been forging a close relationship, with Iran supplying five tankers of fuel to the fuel-starved South American nation, as well as equipment and workers for its refineries.

Venezuela is in the grips of a major gasoline shortage as refineries are unable to operate at run rates higher than 10 percent because of a shortage of diluents necessary for the production of fuels as well as an urgent need for repairs.

At the time when the first tankers with Iranian fuel began arriving in Venezuela, Washington officials said the U.S. administration was considering retaliation for the move but declines to provide any details. The tanker blacklisting seems to be that retaliation.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Robert Rykken was working at an auto body repair shop in Damascus when his boss suggested he apply for a job as assistant chief for a local rural fire department.

Then 25, Rykken took the advice and landed the position.

For the next 33 years, Rykken helped oversee Boring Fire District No. 59 in Clackamas County.

His approach to work and life was simple, said Linda Rykken, his wife of 61 years.

He was cheerful and he was very truthful, very honest, she said. Everyone liked Bob.

Rykken died May 8 at a Tigard rehabilitation center about a week after he was diagnosed with coronavirus, said Linda Rykken. He was 83.

Rykken, known by his friends as Bob, had advanced dementia. Signs of the condition emerged in 2014. By 2018, he was transferred from the couples home to a care facility.

Born in Billings, Montana, Rykken moved to Winston Road in Damascus when he was a boy. He spent the rest of his life in the small community.

He graduated from Gresham High School and attended Portland State University.

He and Linda married when she was 19 and he was 21. The two met years earlier after Bob spotted Linda while he was out for a drive. She, too, lived in Damascus.

He drove by in his 1936 Chevrolet, she said. I was out picking raspberries and he took a good look and here he was at our door asking if I could go to the movies in Damascus on a Saturday night.

Her mother approved.

We had been together ever since, she said.

The couple raised two children, Robbalee and Neal. Linda Rykken recalled happy memories of family camping and fishing trips to eastern Oregon, the Deschutes National Forest and Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington.

At the end of the day, theyd eat the trout theyd caught, she said.

He loved his job with the fire district, his wife said. Years ago, he had a Plektron radio that would crackle with the address of fire calls.

It would go off if there was a fire at night and he would get up and rush out of here, she said.

Said Neal Rykken of his father: He was a definitely a solid part of this community.

Rykken retired in 1994. The couple spent many years traveling to Arizona to work as camp hosts in the Roosevelt Lake area.

His daughter recalled her fathers love of old cars and how hed once refurbished a 1964 Mustang for her. The two enjoyed watching the Indianapolis 500 together, she said.

She said her father had an easy-going manner that made him fun to be around.

He loved people and people loved him, Robbalee Stiles said. He would talk to just about anybody.

In the months before his death, Rykken, the jokester with a soft spot for vintage Corvettes, no longer recognized his wife or Hank, his beloved Labrador-hound mix that used to bound down the halls of the nursing center where Rykken lived.

Its such a cruel disease, Linda Rykken said.

Restrictions imposed by coronavirus meant Rykken didn't get to see her husband in his final weeks.

The family managed to pull off a small memorial on June 2 on the Winston Road property where he was raised. He wanted his ashes buried under the massive Douglas fir he and his cousin, Allan Stensvad, used to play under as boys.

Stensvad, a retired pastor, attended the gathering and read aloud Psalm 23.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Rykkens family each placed a red rose atop the ashes.

It was, his wife recalled, a beautiful day.

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
KCPD's new approach at protests has calmed crowds, eased tension, protesters say KANSAS CITY, Mo. - As protests continue, tensions are starting to ease between protesters and police in Kansas City. The Kansas City Police Department said its been taking a different approach in response to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. " They've been escorting the march, which is all we've asked them to do all along," protester Sophia Flowers said.

#BlackLivesMatter continue to protest throughout the citythe gatherings are smaller and there hasn't been any violence in a few days.Here's part of the reason why . . .
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The White Supremacists are the individuals and the groups that believe in the supremacy of the white race. They oppose immigration and advocate the expulsion of the non-whites from the country.





by Ali Sukhanver





As a nation, if the Americans were narrow-minded and prejudiced with reference to the racial discrimination; Barack Obama would never have been elected the President of USA. At individual or personal level this discrimination does exist in a very harsh rather rigid way but this attitude is very common all over the world in almost all countries. So same is the situation in America too; some of the Whites dislike rather hate the Blacks and vice versa. A report on racism in America says, Racism in the United States has existed since the colonial era, when white Americans were given legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights while these same rights were denied to other races and minorities. European Americansparticularly affluent white Anglo-Saxon Protestantsenjoyed exclusive privileges in matters of education, immigration, voting rights, citizenship, land acquisition, and criminal procedure throughout American history.









In other words, it could be said that racial hatred and disliking is a part of the American society but education, scientific advancement, technical achievement and an overall superiority of the American people in the field of economy has simply buried these negative passion somewhere in the depth not so deep. In spite of the fact that these riots have a lot of hidden positivity too but at the same time they have simply peeled off the widely honoured mask of decency, politeness and civility from the face of the American society. Certainly the countries which have been ranking the US as their god-father with a never-declining ultimate authority will have to review their point of view now.





After the murder of a black man in police custody, the recent reaction of the American people has proved another thing also; in a state of aggression and anger, all the nations behave in the same way. The same burning of police vehicles, looting of shops, raising of slogans, attempt of trespassing the official residences of President Trump and an overall lawlessness could be observed there which we have observed in Pakistan, India and in so many other countries so many times. Is all this agitation simply a protest against the murder of a Black American or it is a reaction against police brutality; if George Floyd were not a black man and if the policeman were not a white-man, would the people have reacted in the same way; these questions are also very important. And above all is the question; would things have proceeded the same way if 2020 were not the election year and if Mr. Donald Trump was not the President.





Surely the story behind seems somewhat different. The Trump Administration is openly blaming that Far-Left Extremists are airing and fueling the protests against murder of George Floyd. In an interview with some media group, Attorney General William Barr said, Unfortunately, with the rioting that is occurring in many of our cities around the country, the voices of peaceful protest are being hijacked by violent, radical elements. According to the VOA, there could be four different extremist groups which are trying to add to the intensity of protest. These groups include the White Supremacists, Boogaloo Boys, Antifa and the Anarchists.





The White Supremacists are the individuals and the groups that believe in the supremacy of the white race. They oppose immigration and advocate the expulsion of the non-whites from the country. Many of the members belonging to this group have carried out deadly shootings in recent years; say police reports. They are the people who wish to accelerate a race war just to create an air of fear and fright for the African-Americans. According to Christopher Wray, an FBI Director, most of the FBI's domestic terrorism investigations involve members of this white supremacist group. Boogaloo Boys is an anti-government militia movement. They are in fact an online community of pro-gun activists. Though they promote themselves as libertarians fighting tyranny but analysts are of the view that the Boogaloo Boys are just another Edition of the White Supremacists. Then comes the Antifa; the anti-fascist movement. The members of Antifa are far-left activists opposed to neo-Nazis and other extremist groups; it is an extreme anarchist-communist movement, says the Voice of America in a report. At the very bottom of the list come the Anarchists. They are not a very well organized group but they are there with the only consideration; how to sow chaos. It is also said that the history of the Anarchists dates back to 1901 when an anarchist assassinated William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States. In short when the Trump administration talks of the far-left extremists, it means the fingers are pointing towards all these four groups.





By putting blame on the far-left extremists, the Trump administration has, however, admitted that even USA is not free of the extremists and their extremism. Astonishingly for more than two decades, the USA has been admonishing rather reprimanding almost all Muslim countries for their alleged extremism; sometimes punishing them in shape of putting sanctions and sometimes in form of imposing bans of different types on them but it could not keep a vigilant eye on the extremism nurturing inside its own boundaries. This criminal negligence of the US authorities is the actual root cause of the present series of pathetic events and incidents.
She was an anomaly. Devoid of most of the usual corps of long-distance visitors, the pier crowd on reopening day seemed to be distilled to an essence: residents from the adjacent Streeterville neighborhood who like the long walk on a long pier (or who dont like the still-closed lakefront) and folks in driving distance thrilled to be doing something that felt vacation-esque.
The Harris County District Attorneys Office on Tuesday dismissed almost 800 cases filed against protesters arrested during the George Floyd demonstrations last week in Houston.

In total, prosecutors dropped 796 charges filed against 654 protesters, District Attorney Kim Ogg said. Many of those cases were cited in court filings as being dismissed in the interest of justice.

Charges still remain against 51 adults and one juvenile accused of 35 misdemeanors and 19 felonies, Ogg said. Those include weapons offenses and charges of aggravated assault of a peace officer.

Prosecutors made their decisions by looking at people who sought to do harm (to) others and property vs. those arrested for simple civil disobedience, according to a news release.

The job of the prosecutor is to seek individualized justice in every case, Ogg said. While probable cause existed for the arrests of those people who refused to disperse after being ordered to do so by police, our young prosecutors worked hard to identify the few offenders who came to inflict harm on others and intentional damage to property.

The dismissed cases were nonviolent misdemeanors, mostly obstructing a highway and trespassing.

Houston police had announced at least 673 arrests during several days of protests after the death in Minneapolis of Floyd, who was buried Tuesday in Pearland. Some of those charges included aggravated assault on peace officers, criminal trespass, evading arrest, obstructing a roadway and criminal mischief.

Monique Sparks, of the Houston Protestors Defense Team, commended the DAs office for dismissing some charges. She said her group, which is representing protesters for free, is now focused on expunging charges from their clients records.

What it shows is that our DAs office is on board with what the Constitution says, Sparks said. We think this is a good start.

The protesters will be informed of avenues to take if they want to file civil lawsuits, Sparks said. The district attorneys office will work to help expunge the cases from the protesters records, although they might need representation to do so, Ogg said.

Dane Schiller, a spokesman for her office, stressed police established probable cause in these cases to warrant the filing of criminal charges. However, most of those charged were first-time offenders and we believe the overwhelming majority went to demonstrations with the intent to merely exercise their First Amendment rights, not to commit crimes.

Sarah Wood, policy director at the Harris County Public Defenders Office, noted that the expunctions cost hundreds of dollars  both for hiring a lawyer and in state filing fees.

Its never the wrong time to do the right thing, but the mass dismissal signals how the charges were unjustified in the first place, Wood said. Putting hundreds of peaceful civil rights protesters through such an ordeal does not exactly inspire confidence in the system. Despite the dismissals, the original charging decisions brought by HPD and the DA caused serious harm to our community.

Some of the arrested protesters have complained of mistreatment by the police, including false arrests during peaceful protests and limited access to food and water while being held in a gymnasium before being transported to the Harris County Jail.

Houston police spokesman Kese Smith has said that the arrestees were given multiple warnings before being taken into custody, or were being violent. He denied allegations about poor conditions at the gymnasium.

samantha.ketterer@chron.com
(Bloomberg) -- Oil rose in a late rally ahead of inventory data due later Tuesday and after Libya once again closed its top oil field shortly after reopening.

Crude traded for a loss for most of the session as the market grapples with a surplus of fuels, most notably diesel. But demand optimism got a boost when New Jersey lifted its stay-at-home order and increased gathering limits. New Yorks Westchester and Rockland counties entered the second phase of reopening Tuesday, while Long Island is set to do so on Wednesday, and New York City reached a milestone on testing.

In the latest set of preliminary data on implied demand from the Energy Information Administration, gasoline consumption in the U.S. advanced for a second week, while distillates, including diesel, took a step backward. Usage of those fuels is about 20% below year-ago levels while jet fuel consumption is down much more, almost 80%.

API and EIA anticipation were the drivers of the rally, said Tom Finlon of Houston,-based GF International, referring to oils rally late in the session to close near $39 a barrel.

Refineries -- particularly in Europe and the U.S. -- are trying to make as little jet fuel as possible because demand from the aviation industry still remains far below where it was before the pandemic struck. And that means producing more diesel. Similarly, refineries cannot meet a recovery in gasoline consumption without boosting their overall processing rates -- and that too brings more diesel.

Crude has rebounded since dropping below zero in April as output cuts by the OPEC+ producer alliance reduced a global glut and demand picked up following the easing of lockdown restrictions in some countries. However, with a surplus of fuels swamping the market, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has turned bearish on oil in the short term due to poor returns from refining.

The weight of the relative value of distillate is slowing a price advance, said Finlon.

The American Petroleum Institute reported that U.S. crude inventories rose by 8.42 million barrels the week ended June 5, according to people familiar. If the Energy Information Administration confirms the build it will be the biggest expansion since late April. The industry organization also said that distillate supplies rose 4.27 million barrels.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia decided to end additional supply curbs this month, and that means the cartels total supply reduction this month of almost 11 million barrels a day will taper gradually in the coming months.

Iraq has asked some Asian refiners to consider forgoing prompt shipments of its Basrah crude, raising speculation that OPECs second-biggest producer is trying to comply with pledged output cuts. The country and some others were recently pulled up by Saudi Arabia and Russia for pumping above their quotas.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
A picture taken on June 3, 2020 shows an oil refinery in Libya's northern town of Ras Lanuf. - Libya's National Oil Company said Monday it had restarted production at Al-Fil oil field, closed since January by the forces of eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar. The NOC's announcement came a day after output resumed at Al-Sharara oil field, the country's largest, following a string of victories against Haftar by forces backing Libya's Tripoli-based unity government.

Libya's National Oil Corporation has declared force majeure on exports from its largest oil field Tuesday, after a militia group shut it down just days after it resumed production following a six-month blockade.

"The armed group, which came from Sebha, stormed the Sharara oil field and pulled their guns on civilian unarmed workers, coercing them to stop production at the field at dawn," the state oil company said in a statement.

Workers at the massive Sharara oil field have shut it down at the demands of the armed group's leader Mohamed Khalifa, who is linked to the renegade general Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army, the instigator of a violent power struggle with Libya's UN-recognized government that's lasted more than a year. Haftar's forces pulled back in May after a prolonged campaign to capture the capital Tripoli failed.

Oil prices saw a slight "last-minute injection of upward buying pressures" Tuesday on the Libya news and worries over its stability, Stephen Brennock, an oil analyst at PVM Oil Associates, wrote Wednesday morning. "A few days after returning from a multi-month shutdown, the Sharara field went offline only to restart and suffer a second stoppage in the space of a few hours."

"Simply put, a sustained recovery in Libya's oil production is not currently on the cards."

Libya's southwestern Sharara field previously had a 300,000 barrel per day output, and was resuming production gradually after reopening on Saturday. It's now in renewed jeopardy after a long period of shutdown that began in January amid fighting that took the majority of the OPEC state's oil production offline.

As warring factions within the country attempted to use the key commodity to seize control, output in Africa's third-largest oil producing nation plummeted in late January from around 1.2 million bpd to just over 320,000 bpd and is now estimated to be around a mere 90,000 bpd. The crisis exempted Libya from OPEC's production cut agreement meant to stabilize oil prices.

The country's petroleum sector represents 95% of its export earnings and 60% of its GDP.
By Express News Service

COIMBATORE: By the time the volunteers reached the Sundakkamuthur graveyard on Tuesday to rescue an abandoned woman, she had spent three days there. Three days of neglect and despondency had taken their toll. The woman was neither coherent nor active.

The woman, later identified as Vijaya (55), has been admitted to a night shelter run by the city Corporation. She has been quarantined, and further steps would depend upon the outcome of coronavirus tests. Vijaya spent three days at the graveyard, surviving off the largesse of the locals, who were wary of getting too close to her. Claims of the people suggested that she was brought to the graveyard in a van by her relatives, who abandoned her there. Officials were trying to trace her relatives and ascertain the cause.

A volunteer associated with the rescue, Ragavendran, told TNIE that he learnt about the issue from a friend. After confirming the incident, I alerted Namma Covai Forum, a WhatsApp group, he said.

After Namma Covai Forum took up the issue, TMMKs medical wing too got involved. They rescued the woman and admitted her to a night shelter at RS Puram. District secretary of TMMK medical wing H Mohammad Ashiq said that they found the woman in a pitiable condition.

She was taken to the ESI hospital in an ambulance for coronavirus infection test. She has been quarantined at the shelter, he added. President of Malarumvizhigal (NGO) K Gangadharan said her health is being monitored. Malarumvizhigal manages the night shelter, he added.
Swedish police said on Wednesday they were investigating reports of gunshots having been fired at a shopping mall in the Stockholm suburb of Kista.

Police said in a brief statement it was unclear if anybody had been injured in the incident. In an update, police added it had begun a preliminary investigation into suspected robbery.

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While an expert committee had said Delhi would need over 40,000 beds by the end of July to treat Covid-19 patients, the Delhi government has said it envisions requiring 150,000 beds, after factoring in outstation patients who arrive in the city.

The Delhi government has been working on scaling-up health infrastructure at a rapid pace owing to the steady increase in the number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the city. So far, there have been 31,309 cases of the contagious infection, which has also claimed 984 lives in the national capital.

Data shows Covid-19 cases will significantly increase in Delhi in the coming days; we have a big challenge ahead. Now, we will need a total of 1.5 lakh beds after factoring in those coming from other states. I will get started on this and go to stadiums, banquet halls and hotels to make arrangements. We will try everything, do whatever we can to ensure enough hospital beds in Delhi, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Wednesday.

Not only is the government working on getting more private hospitals on-board, but it is also planning on expanding its own healthcare infrastructure to match the need.

The government is in the process of procuring 30,000 additional beds, according to a senior official from Delhis health department. Of these, around 1,200 hospital beds will be in the three newly constructed hospitals in Burari, Ambedkar Nagar, and Dwarka, which are still to open.

The construction of the hospitals in Ambedkar Nagar and Burari are finished and the out-patient department of the Dwarka hospital is also ready to be opened up. So, around 1,200 of these beds will be placed in these three hospitals, with the rest being utilised for the make-shift hospitals the government plans to set up in stadiums, banquet halls, and AC halls, the official said, asking to stay anonymous.

A committee, headed by divisional commission Sanjeev Khirwar has so far suggested the possibility of adding the beds in Pragati Maidan, Talkatora Indoor stadium, Thyagaraj Indoor stadium, Indira Gandhi Indoor stadium, Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, Dhyanchand National Stadium. The government plans to do this by mid-July, another official said.

The move is expected to boost Delhis health infrastructure in a matter of.

The five-member panel set up suggest measures to augment the citys health infrastructure headed by Dr Mahesh Verma had said most beds should be equipped with oxygen or ventilators, necessary to treat patients with severe Covid-19 symptoms. The governments plan is to add 500 ventilators by mid-July. Of these, 200 are expected to come from the Centre.

The Centre has already provided 75 ventilators that are to be installed in Lok Nayak hospital. Another 75 of the 200 promised ventilators are soon to arrive. In addition, the Delhi government will procure 300 more ventilators. The ventilators will be placed in the hospitals, with oxygen concentrators and high-flow nasal canula attached to oxygen cylinders providing support in the make-shift hospital, the first official said.

Currently, there are about 306 ventilators in government hospitals, according to the first doctors panel set-up in March headed by Dr SK Sarin, director of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences.

All such make-shift hospitals will be linked to existing hospitals for quick transfer of patients in case someones condition deteriorates. To provide oxygen in the make-shift hospitals, the government has already ordered 2,000 oxygen concentrators  a device which selectively removes nitrogen from the ambient air to concentrate it to 93% oxygen and provide a flow of about 5lts/min. The government is also in talks with manufacturers of oxygen cylinders to ensure adequate supply, the official said.

The government has also ordered 15,000 pulse-oxymetres that will help the doctors in monitoring the oxygen concentration of patients not only in hospitals, make-shift hospitals, but also those under home isolation

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United Nations, June 10 : United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the number of people who are acutely food or nutrition insecure will rapidly expand.

"There is more than enough food in the world to feed our population of 7.8 billion people. But, today, more than 820 million people are hungry. And some 144 million children under the age of five are stunted -- more than one in five children worldwide. Our food systems are failing, and the COVID-19 pandemic is making things worse," the UN chief said in his video message for the launch of UN policy brief on the impact of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The secretary-general warned that unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that "there is an impending global food emergency that could have long term impacts on hundreds of millions of children and adults." "This year, some 49 million extra people may fall into extreme poverty due to the COVID-19 crisis," he said.

Every percentage point drop in global gross domestic product means an additional 0.7 million stunted children, he said. "Even in countries with abundant food, we see risks of disruptions in the food supply chain." "We need to act now to avoid the worst impacts of our efforts to control the pandemic," the UN chief noted.

To tackle the dire situation, Guterres urged the international community to "mobilize to save lives and livelihoods, focusing attention where the risk is most acute." "That means designating food and nutrition services as essential, while implementing appropriate protections for food workers," he said.

"It means preserving critical humanitarian food, livelihood and nutrition assistance to vulnerable groups," said the secretary-general. "And it means positioning food in food-crisis countries to reinforce and scale up social protection systems." "Countries need to scale up support for food processing, transport and local food markets, and they must keep trade corridors open to ensure the continuous functioning of food systems," said Guterres. "And they must ensure that relief and stimulus packages reach the most vulnerable, including meeting the liquidity needs of small-scale food producers and rural businesses." The UN chief also called for efforts to "strengthen social protection systems for nutrition." "Countries need to safeguard access to safe, nutritious foods, particularly for young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, older people and other at-risk groups," he said. "And they need to adapt and expand social protection schemes to benefit nutritionally at-risk groups." "This includes supporting children who no longer have access to school meals," he added.

Guterres also called for investing in the future.

"We have an opportunity to build a more inclusive and sustainable world. Let us build food systems that better address the needs of food producers and workers," he said.

"Let us provide more inclusive access to healthy and nutritious food so we can eradicate hunger," said the secretary-general.

The UN chief warned efforts must be made to "rebalance the relationship between food systems and the natural environment by transforming them to work better with nature and for the climate." "We cannot forget that food systems contribute up to 29 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, including 44 per cent of methane, and are having a negative impact on biodiversity," he said.

"If we do these things and more, as indicated by the brief we are launching today, we can avoid some of the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security and nutrition -- and we can do so in a way that supports the green transition that we need to make," said the UN chief.
ICMR's serological survey, whose findings will be made public next week, suggests that the rate of contagion may be a lot higher in most-affected cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune.

Sohini Das and Ruchika Chitravanshi report.

IMAGE: Suspected COVID-19 patients wait to be admitted after being shifted from Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital to LNJP hospital in New Delhi, on Tuesday. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

India could be witnessing a much wider spread of coronavirus infections and the rate of contagion may be a lot higher in most-affected cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune, according to reports based on a critical serological survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) across 69 districts.

The survey report is likely to be made public early next week.

The survey will help understand the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in India's population and, thus, also impact the country's unlocking strategies.

The preliminary findings from the survey were shared with the Union cabinet secretary and also the Prime Minister's Office.

The serological (blood) test detects the presence of coronavirus antibodies in a person and indicates whether he/she had contracted the virus.

It is especially helpful in understanding the spread among asymptomatic people.

Some media reports suggested that in several containment zones in high-prevalence districts, 15-30 per cent of the residents could be exposed to the virus.

Many of them may have quietly recovered.

A senior scientist in the ICMR said the findings will be made public once the data from all the districts is collected.

The Amphan-hit West Bengal could not send its data earlier.

"We will make the report public once we are able to analyse the entire dataset. It can be out early next week," he said.

The data from at least seven or eight districts is yet to be analysed.

A public health expert from Ahmedabad said while India has not officially accepted it is witnessing community transmission, the infection, at least, is in the local-transmission mode.

"The serosurvey will show the extent of infection among asymptomatic people. The RT-PCR testing of symptomatic people is only the tip of the iceberg, as most people are asymptomatic," he said.

As of June 2, more than 34,000 individuals had been tested as part of the survey.

Samples were collected from 10 hotspot cities -- Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Delhi, Kolkata, Indore, Jaipur, and Chennai.

The ELISA test developed by the Pune-based National Institute of Virology having higher levels of accuracy is being used for the survey.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump will kick off his first political rallies in more than three months in Tulsa, Oklahoma  a city with a brutal history of racial violence, on a date set aside to mark the end of slavery.

The selection of a rally in Tulsa, site of a 1921 massacre by whites that claimed at least 100 black lives, on June 19  or Juneteenth, the date honoring the Emancipation Proclamation  did not go unnoticed.

"99 years ago a white mob massacred hundreds of Black people in the Greenwood District of Tulsa," tweeted Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass. "The most racist President of my lifetime knows exactly what message hes sending when he goes there on Juneteenth."

Trump told reporters "they've done a great job with the COVID" in Oklahoma, one of the reasons he picked Tulsa to lead off a string of rallies also planned for Texas, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina.

The last three of those states are key battlegrounds that could decide whether he remains in the White House. In scheduling the rallies, Trump is entering a new phase of the race in which he has fallen behind Democratic challenger Joe Biden in several states.

"We're going to start our rallies back up now," Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. "We've had a tremendous run at rallies. ... It's been an amazing thing to behold."

Tulsa is the site of one of the most notorious acts of racial violence in American history, the 1921 attack by a white mob on a predominantly black neighborhood that killed hundreds of people, most of them African-American. The attack centered on a prominent area known as "Black Wall Street."

Trump's Tulsa rally is being scheduled on Juneteenth, a holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.

"So maybe they just didn't get the significance of June 19 and Tulsa put together," said Michael Tomasky, editor of "Democracy: A Journal of Ideas." "But if they did  it's a sick, vile, aggressively white supremacist gesture."

Story continues

Katrina Pierson, senior advisor to the Trump Campaign, said in a statement : "As the party of Lincoln, Republicans are proud of the history of Juneteenth, which is the anniversary of the last reading of the Emancipation Proclamation."

Her statement did not mention the Tulsa attack on black citizens in 1921.

Olivia Hooker, one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa riot, recalled the terror of the attack in a 2017 interview with the Journal News of New York.

They were furious when they came in our home and my mother was cooking and not running away," she said. "They took the food and dumped it in the mud and then they came back and took her nice flaky biscuits out of the oven and dumped them out on the dirt... We were hiding under the table where she put us and we could see all this; well, it didnt astonish my older sister and brother because they knew about things."

Historians are still learning things about the Tulsa attack, which featured prominently in the HBO series "Watchmen." Just last year, researchers discovered what appeared to be a mass grave of victims from the massacre.

Tulsa and the others will be Trump's first rallies since a March 2 event in Charlotte, North Carolina, right before nationwide lockdowns to limit the spread of COVID-19. Since then, the presidential race has been transformed by Trump's handling of the pandemic and nationwide protests sparked by a police killing of George Floyd, an African American man who died when a white Minneapolis police office knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Trump has long been itching to return to the campaign trail and has credited rallies  and television coverage of them  with fueling his 2016 win over Democrat Hillary Clinton. He and his aides hope revival of them will improve his standing as polls show Biden building a steady lead over the incumbent.

The president said there will be future rallies in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina  all states he carried in 2016 but which are expected to be closely contested this time around.

The campaign is also planning a rally in Texas, he said, a state that is viewed as reliably Republican but where recent polls show a tight race with Biden.

Officials declined to discuss details of the rallies, including how they might assure the safety of Trump's crowds as the coronavirus continues to spread. They would not say whether masks or social distancing would be required, though Trump said "they've done a great job with COVID, as you know, in the state of Oklahoma."

BIG DEMAND! Starting up again soon, maybe next week! https://t.co/ToNLAGl5Fz  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2020

Some analysts questioned whether the rallies will help Trump much  after all, they are held mainly for the benefit of him and his most fervent supporters. Critics also said Trump may be risking the health of his fans.

"I think hes going to wind up with more of his core base voters getting COVID-19 and dying," said Liz Mair, a Republican strategist. "Which is a bad way to win an election."

President Donald Trump at his most recent political rally, March 2 in Charlotte.

Frank Luntz, a pollster and communications adviser, said the rallies will probably be both good and bad for Trump  good in that he will likely draw huge crowds and prove he retains intense support; bad in that he'll be given the chance to say things that will be used against him with undecided voters he desperately needs to win over.

"He doesn't have the messaging or the discipline to reach the people he needs," Luntz said.

More: Trump seeks to tie Biden to 'defund the police' demands even though former vice president rejects idea

More: 'Law and order': Trump returns to 2016 theme as violence spreads after George Floyd death

More: White House mood darkens as Trump battles with James Mattis, criticism over Bible photo op

The campaign is also looking at rallies in a series of battleground states in the months ahead, particularly the ones that Trump narrowly carried in 2016 and provided him the margin of victory over Clinton in the Electoral College.

That group includes Florida as well as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, officials said.

It also includes states where Trump was once considered a heavy favorite, such as Ohio, Georgia and Arizona. Polls now show close races in those states. Things also look tight in Republican-run Texas; Trump is headlining a fundraiser in Dallas on Thursday.

North Carolina was to have been the state where Trump accepted re-nomination by the Republican Party. But the president and his aides said the acceptance speech will be moved elsewhere because North Carolina will not permit a capacity crowd because of concerns about the spread of coronavirus.

Instead, Trump said he will rally in North Carolina "at the appropriate time."

While Trump is seen as struggling in polls right now, aides are quick note that Clinton led in polls late in the 2016 election. Trump loves the rallies as a chance to deliver his message unfiltered, aides said.

The Real Clear Politics website poll averages give Biden an 8 percentage point lead over Trump nationally. Poll averages in states give Biden leads of more than 3 points in the pivotal states of Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, and Arizona, all within the margins of error of most polls.

"The great American comeback is real and the rallies will be tremendous, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. Youll again see the kind of crowds and enthusiasm that sleepy Joe Biden can only dream of.

Democrats said they are unconcerned about Trump's rallies because they appeal mainly to people who already support him  and Trump's off-the-cuff rants and attacks on opponents may turn off moderates.

"The things Trump says to fire up the crowds at his rallies turn off swing voters, so this isnt going to help him with the people who have been leaving him," said Josh Schwerin of Priorities USA Action, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.

Anthony Scaramucci, once Trump's communications director and now a fierce critic of the president, said the rallies "will help him psychologically," but the election itself will be decided by issues.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump plans rallies in Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, NC
In adherence to the social distancing guidelines due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 193 UN member states have been allotted different time slots to cast their ballots next week in the General Assembly Hall for three crucial elections, including the non-permanent members of the Security Council for which India is a candidate.

General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande has informed the member states that the election of his successor, President of the 75th session of UN General Assembly, election of non-permanent members of the Security Council and election of members of the Economic and Social Council will be held simultaneously on June 17 from 9:00 am in the General Assembly Hall.

Eight time slots have been allocated to Member States to cast their ballots in the General Assembly Hall starting at 9 am, in adherence to social distancing guidelines. The voting will continue till 1pm with an additional 30-minute time slot for voters who are unable to visit the GA hall during the specific time slot communicated to them.

The time slot for India to cast its ballot is 11:30 am-12noon. Muhammad-Bande will oversee the proceedings in the General Assembly Hall and the tellers will also be observing the whole process. A letter will be circulated to all Member States at least one working day prior to the round of secret balloting for the elections to notify them of the names of candidates for the elections, communicated to the UN Secretariat at least 48 hours prior to the elections.

The special voting arrangements have been as large in-person meetings at the UN Headquarters remain suspended due to COVID-19 related restrictions. India is a candidate for a non-permanent seat from the Asia-Pacific category for the 2021-22 term. Its victory is a given since it is the sole candidate vying for the lone seat from the grouping. New Delhi's candidature was unanimously endorsed by the 55-member Asia-Pacific grouping, including China and Pakistan, in June last year.

Canada, Ireland and Norway are vying for two seats in the Western Europe and Other countries category, Mexico is the only candidate for the one Latin America and Caribbean seat and Kenya and Djibouti will contest the seat available for the African group. Previously, India has been elected as a non-permanent member of the Council for the years 1950-1951, 1967-1968, 1972-1973, 1977-1978, 1984-1985, 1991-1992 and most recently in 2011-2012. India has been at the forefront of the years-long efforts to reform the Security Council saying it rightly deserves a place as a permanent member of the Council, which in its current form does not represent the geo-political realities of the 21st Century.

Each year, the General Assembly elects five non-permanent members (out of 10 in total) for a two-year term. The 10 non-permanent seats are distributed on a regional basis - five for African and Asian States; one for Eastern European States; two for the Latin American and Caribbean States; and two for Western European and other States. PTI YAS RS RS
The statue of Edward Colston is to be fished out of a river and put on display in a museum, it has been confirmed today.

The monument, which had stood in the city centre since 1895, was pulled down and hurled in the River Avon during Black Lives Matter protests on Sunday.

As some 10,000 protesters gathered in the city, footage showed demonstrators heaving the monument down with ropes before cheering and dancing around it.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live today, Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees confirmed the bust will be fished out and put on display locally, though did not say when this would happen.

The statue will be placed alongside placards from the recent protests to help educate about the story of slavery and the fight for racial equality.

The monument, which had stood in the city centre since 1895, was pulled down and dumped in the River Avon during Black Lives Matter protests

A protester stands atop the fallen statue of Bristol-born English merchant, slave trader, and Member of Parliament Edward Colston

Crowds packed side by side at Bristol's harbour this afternoon to watch the statue as it was thrown into the water

Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees has now confirmed the bust will be fished out and put on display

The statue had been a hotly contested subject of controversy and the most recent petition to remove it garnered more than 11,000 signatures.

Along with the tobacco trade, Colston's wealth helped to develop Bristol in the 17th century. He used a lot of his riches, accrued from his extensive slave trading, to build schools and almshouses in his home city.

The Mayor also revealed that historians and local experts will be commissioned to 'look into the city's past'.

Mr Rees said 'Bristol's true history will be researched by a new commission so the city can better understand its story'.

The members of the commission who will spend time delving in Bristol's history will be announced at a later date.

The future of the plinth the statue stood on will be decided by a democratic consultation, Bristol City Council also confirmed.

The council said it had received numerous suggestions including tributes to local icons and revolving artworks.

The future of the plinth the statue stood on will be decided by a democratic consultation

Protesters tied ropes around the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol city centre, before tearing it to the ground on Sunday

Once the statue was on the ground, protesters began to pose next to it, placing their knees on its neck in protest over the death of George Floyd

The statue will be placed alongside placards from the recent protests to help educate about the story of slavery and the fight for racial equality

This comes as former pupils of a school named after Edward Colston have written an open letter slamming its headteacher for 'defending' the 17th century slave trader in an email to worried parents.

Alumni of Colston's School in Bristol condemned the message to parents by head Jeremy McCullough for appearing to show 'support' for Colston.

The email was sent hours after the controversial figure's statue was pulled down and dumped it in the River Avon by Black Lives Matter protesters on Sunday.

Mr McCullough's email begins by acknowledging social media posts that could have been interpreted as 'threats' against the school, before questioning the extent of criticism Colston is facing.

He argues that, while there is 'no doubt' Colston was responsible for 'many deaths', during his own time his 'business interests' would not have been thought of 'so negatively'.

Alumni of Colston's School in Bristol condemned the note to parents penned by head Jeremy McCullough for appearing to show 'support' for Colston

He adds: 'Indeed, a great many people in Bristol, around the UK and all over the world, profited from this dreadful business. So why is Edward Colston perceived to be such a terrible figure.'

An open letter that was circulated on social media, which gave former pupils the chance to sign it and submit it themselves, condemned the headteacher's email.

Their letter accused Mr McCullough of using a 'racist argument' to defend the school's name and Colston's behaviour - and called on the school to rename themselves to show support for BAME students in a 'very racist world'.

Mr McCullouch has since said a name change is something they are 'looking into'.
Howell Michigan Podiatrist & Foot Doctor Tomasz Biernacki discusses Achilles tendinitis and heel pain treatment. It is possible that the people who develop flat feet and plantar fasciitis can have further knee pain, hip pain and lower back pain. This can lead to permanent arthritis and difficulty wearing shoes or walking.

Howell, Michigan foot doctor and podiatrist Tomasz Biernacki discusses plantar fasciitis, heel pain & Achilles tendonitis. At Advanced Foot & Ankle Specialist of Michigan the focus is on non-surgery treatment vs. the need for surgery in Livingston County. Patients rarely, if ever, will need surgery after trying some of the non-surgery treatment available. There have been amazing advances in non-surgical treatment, states Dr. Tom Biernacki.

Dr. Tomasz Biernacki states that, If plantar fasciitis, heel pain and Achilles tendinitis are caught relatively early, this will prevent permanent arthritis from developing. This can keep the foot from being unable to fit into good supportive shoes in the future.

Plantar fasciitis, heel pain and Achilles tendinitis are all related to each other. These are structures related in keeping you walking normally while they insert into the bottom in the back of the heel. If one of these structures is tight or injured, it will prevent the other ones from working as well. This can then lead to knee and hip pain if not corrected. Dr. Tom Biernacki says, Through simple office treatments, low cost orthotics and stretching devices we have had a lot of success rapidly improving foot pain.

Dr. Biernacki further states, It is estimated that the people who develop flat feet, plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis can then have further knee pain, hip pain and lower back pain. This can lead to permanent arthritis and difficulty wearing shoes or walking.

The podiatrists and foot doctors at Advanced Foot and Ankle Specialists of Howell Michigan have developed a treatment algorithm for diagnosing and treating foot and ankle pain with both surgery and without surgery. Most of the time treatment can be achieved without having to pursue surgery or any type of expensive treatment plans or methods.

Dr. Tomasz Biernacki is a practicing podiatric foot and ankle surgeon at Advanced Foot and Ankle specialists of Howell Michigan and Advanced foot and ankle specialists of Howell Michigan and Brighton Michigan pride themselves on providing comprehensive the care and working as a multispecialty team. The four doctors at this practice are on staff at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Livingston, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Brighton, and St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Ann Arbor. Working as part of this large multidisciplined team, they can work with internal medicine doctors, primary care doctors, endocrinologists and vascular surgery specialist to provide comprehensive care.

Advanced foot and ankle specialists have four different doctors within their practice: Dr. Tom Biernacki, Dr. John Stevelinck, Dr. Marc Bonanni and Dr. Danielle Meyka-Blanchard. All podiatrists foot doctors are on staff at St. Joseph Mercy hospitals in Ann Arbor, Howell and Brighton Michigan. They pride themselves on serving Livingston County and Washtenaw County.
The TV series "Dear White People," "When They See Us" and "Orange Is the New Black" have all tackled issues of racism and police violence, which are rarely explored on the small screen.

In particular, three individual episodes from these series might be worth watching again in the aftermath of the death of American George Floyd. Not only are they moving, but these heart-stopping episodes also offer a glimmer of hope, and at least some encouragement for the belief that change is possible.

Dear White People

In this violent but sadly familiar scene for black citizens from the fifth episode of the series, an argument breaks out at a party between a black student, Reggie, and a white student, Addison. During the ensuing altercation, campus police officers arrive and order only Reggie to show his ID. When he refuses, supported by his classmates who confirm his identity, one of the officers pulls out his gun. Time stands still. Reggie trembles with fear, as does the audience. The distress in his face brings tears to the eyes of his friends. Everyone is stunned to realize just how vulnerable the life of a black man can be. Unharmed but traumatized, Reggie leaves the party and finds himself leaning against his bedroom door, crying. The injustice of what has happened is just too much. It is a terrible reality accurately captured here by Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins.

When They See US

The trailer alone is a gut-wrenching reminder of this appalling story. In the mini-series based on the Central Park jogger case, director Ava DuVernay retells the story of five ethnic-minority teenagers wrongly accused of raping a white woman in 1989. The four African-Americans and one Hispanic American were convicted following one of the most high-profile trials in US history. In the first episode, fear is already taking hold among the falsely accused teenagers and their families who are frightened by an obviously racist police force. The moment of their arrest marks the beginning of a long struggle to expose the truth and an intolerable injustice simply based on prejudice. All the more chilling is the fact that the series is based on a true story.

Orange Is the New Black

In the Netflix series, which broke new ground in denouncing prison violence, racism is always close at hand. However, in the fourth season the issue brutally comes to the fore, when one of the inmates, Poussey Washington, is killed by a prison guard. Episode 12 begins with the inmates of Litchfield standing on tables to protest against the abusive Captain Piscatella and refusing to move until he has resigned. When the area is cleared by reinforcements, Poussey is pinned down by Officer Bayley, who suffocates her by keeping his knee on her back. This scene was first broadcast in June 2016, almost four years before George Floyd's murder.
A new coronavirus drug is newly registered in Russia that said to ease the pain of virus patients experiencing inflammation complications. Though it is not a vaccine, this drug may treat a sick person to feel less pain during COVID-19 treatment. Until a vaccine comes into the world, this might be helpful for most infected people.

Russia has a new formulated COVID-19 drug that eases the pain of patients

As reported via CGTN, a newly-registered COVID-19 drug is set to be made available in the market. The drug, Levilimab, is made by Russian scientists and produced in the BIOCAD biotechnology company in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Just to clarify, this drug is not a vaccine to totally cure patients with Coronavirus. However, it does help to curb the so-called "cytokine storm," a common complication from COVID-19 when the sick person's immune system overreacts to the virus, and the excessive inflammation leads to a deadly result.

The developers said that the drug may help to ease the pain that COVID-19 patients had been experiencing in the hospitals, hopefully, with just enough time for other scientists and experts to find the best cure against the Novel Coronavirus, before its too late.

Ekaterina Trifonova, head of the infectious ward at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, said that the drug helped many of their patients to increase the speed of recovery compared to their foreign counterparts.

With the first two-week trial of Levilimab, 10 people were already discharged from their hospital out of the 45 COVID-19 patients who got tested with the drug. Other patients also felt a satisfactory level of pain when they were injected with the medicine.

"The highlight of Levilimab is that it can be administered not only to patients already in a serious condition but used as a prophylactic to prevent the "cytokine storm" from occurring and allowing the patient to avoid intensive care and lung ventilation," said Dmitry Morozov, general director of Biocad, the biopharmaceutical company behind the drug.

Russia also has its first antiviral drug called Avifavir

Levilimab isn't the only COVID-19 drug that Russia can be proud of. A week earlier, the country also approved its first antiviral drug called Avifavir.

This drug helps to seek "high efficacy in treating patients with coronavirus during clinical trials." As reported, Avifavir can treat COVID-19 patients within four days of treatment, compared to the nine-day standard operation in most countries.

The first batch of the antiviral drug will be delivered to hospitals in Russia and will be given quickly to patients, with no charges. But, it must be used with a doctor's supervision.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
So far only a small minority of patients were infected inside Zimbabwe as a result of infection within the community, and even here the health authorities in most cases have been able to follow the infection chain and halt infection after a maximum of three steps.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 01:04:06|Editor: huaxia

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HONG KONG, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Opinions from the Hong Kong compatriots will be extensively heard in the process of the national security legislation for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), an official of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee said here Wednesday.

The relevant laws to be made for the HKSAR to safeguard national security will be national laws that are drafted in accordance with the country's Constitution and relevant legislation provisions, said Zhang Yong, deputy head of the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the NPC Standing Committee.

The drafting will be carried out in a scientific, democratic and law-based manner, and opinions from people of all walks of life in the whole country, including the Hong Kong compatriots, will be extensively heard, said Zhang, also deputy director of the HKSAR Basic Law Committee under the NPC Standing Committee.

Zhang made the remarks at a symposium attended by dozens of representatives from various sectors in the Hong Kong community to hear their opinions on the legislation.

The NPC Decision on Establishing and Improving the Legal System and Enforcement Mechanisms for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to Safeguard National Security, an important and legally binding decision made by the highest organ of state power, has granted the NPC Standing Committee both the power and responsibility for the legislation, he said, adding that the working bodies of the NPC Standing Committee will spare no efforts to finish the drafting as soon as possible.

Song Zhe, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, pointed out at the symposium that the national security legislation for Hong Kong targets the small minority involved in crimes and activities seriously endangering national security.

The process of the legislation will take into account the differences in systems and legal systems between the mainland and Hong Kong, and will not affect the legitimate rights and freedoms of the vast majority of Hong Kong residents or the legitimate interests of foreign investors here, Song stressed.

To establish and improve at the state level the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the HKSAR to safeguard national security is a prudent decision made by the central authorities in the light of the developments in Hong Kong, he said, noting that the legislation's fundamental purpose is to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, maintain Hong Kong's long-term peace and stability, and ensure the sustained success of "one country, two systems."

The symposium was hosted by a coalition which was launched last month and co-sponsored by more than 1,500 representatives from various sectors of the Hong Kong society.

The Hong Kong Coalition, with two former HKSAR chief executives Tung Chee-hwa and Leung Chun-ying, both vice chairmen of the National Committee of the Chinese People's political Consultative Conference, as its chief conveners, aims at uniting the community and finding a way out of the current predicament for Hong Kong. Enditem
Stampede at Vaishno Devi shrine: Jitendra Singh rushes to Katra to take stock of situation

Private sector will be allowed to use ISRO facilities to improve their capacities: Dr Jitendra Singh

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, June 10: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh has said on Wednesday private sector will be allowed to use Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) facilities and other relevant assets to improve their capacities.

While briefing about country's achievement in the field of space technology during the first year of the second term of the Narendra Modi Government, the Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Singh on Tuesday said, the Modi Government's 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' roadmap towards self-reliant India envisages the initiative to boost private participation in space activities.

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

ISRO readying low cost smaller rocket to carry satellites weighing 500 kg

The minister said, Indian private sector will be a co-traveller in India's Space sector journey and future projects for planetary exploration will be open for them.

Also, private companies will be provided level playing field in satellites and space-based services.

Informing about India's first-ever Human Space Mission 'Gaganyaan' to be undertaken by ISRO, Dr Singh said the selection of the astronauts was accomplished and their training in Russia had also started but got interrupted because of the Covid19 pandemic but ensured that the project would be followed up soon.

He said, during the first year, ISRO launched a special programme for young school children called 'Young Scientists Programme - YUVIKA'. The programme is primarily aimed at imparting basic knowledge on Space Technology and its applications to the younger generations.

The Minister said, during the coronavirus pandemic, ISRO scientists have been engaged in search of the best methods to provide essential medical devices, protective kits and other equipment.

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Story first published: Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 10:24 [IST]
A 115-ft tower at the unfinished Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant suffered 'structural damage' today, throwing a huge dust cloud into the air.

EDF, which is building the plant, has denied eyewitness claims of an explosion, and confirmed that no one was injured at the 7.30am incident.

The energy supplier is now investigating the events of this morning which occurred at the plant, due to be completely constructed in 2025, near Bridgwater.

A spokesman for EDF said: 'At around 7.30am a silo in the concrete batching plant at Hinkley Point C suffered structural damage, releasing a dust cloud around the area.

The 115-ft tower, which weighs 5,000 tonnes, suffered 'structural damage' at 7.30am when onlookers said they heard what sounded like an explosion

'Nobody has been injured and the emergency services were not required. An investigation is underway to understand the cause of the event.'

The silo contains ground-granulated blast-furnace slag which plays a 'pivotal role' in the plant's construction by reusing the material within its concrete.

Ground-granulated blast-furnace slag is obtained by quenching molten iron slag from a blast furnace in water or steam to produce a glass, granular product.

This product is then dried and ground into a fine powder, which explains why there was a large dust cold when the silo collapsed.

State-owned French supplier EDF is building two new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point C to provide low-carbon electricity for six million British homes.

EDF has denied there was an explosion, and said no one was injured. The energy supplier is now investigating the incident near Bridgwater, Somerset

Construction of the nuclear power plant was officially approved in 2016, with EDF wanting to build another station at Sizewell in Suffolk.

Financing for Hinkley Point C, which is expected to cost more than 20billion, is being split between EDF and state-owned Chinese General Nuclear (CGN).

CGN, which was invited to assist the construction of Hinkley Point C by David Cameron, was blacklisted by the US government for espionage last August.

In May, a senior US official told the Mail on Sunday that CGN's involvement in UK power generation would jeopardise Britain's political independent for many decades.

State-owned French supplier EDF is building two new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point C to provide low-carbon electricity for six million British homes

Dr Christopher Ford, the US State Departments assistant secretary for non-proliferation and international security, warned that CGN is closely linked to the People's Liberation Army, the Chinese Communist Party's military.

One of the companys top engineers has previously been convicted and jailed in the US for running a spy network at the behest of Beijing.

In an appeal to the Government, which was criticised by the US for initially allowing Chinese telecoms company Huawei to help build up Britain's 5G network, Dr Ford said: 'We are trying to discourage our friends and partners from engaging with a Chinese nuclear company that is known for such acts.'

Work on Hinkley Point C has continued throughout the coronavirus crisis, as workers previously warned about the perceived lack of social distancing measures.
Hanoi houses hang out national flags during the National Day holiday on September 2, 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

The labor ministry has rejected a proposal to extend the National Day holiday this year from one to five days, citing productivity reasons.

Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung on Wednesday said the extension would require careful consideration of its possible impacts.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) and many tourism businesses had recently called for extending the National Day holiday on September 2 from Wednesday to the weekend to boost domestic tourism, which has been hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dung said since the first Covid-19 cases were detected in January the country has taken a series of measures to prevent infection like letting people work and study online, social distancing and a ban on public gatherings of more than two people.

As a result, there have been too many days off already, he said.

"It is time for us to simultaneously fight the disease and restore production and the labor market. We must maximize production to boost economic growth."

Besides, schools usually open for the year in the first week of September, and extending the National Day holiday would disrupt the opening, he said.

"Due to such fundamental reasons, the ministrys stance and my personal one is to disagree with the holiday extension proposal. I informed the prime minister, and he also agreed with me."

Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Hai.

National Day commemorates President Ho Chi Minhs reading of the Declaration of Independence in Hanoi on September 2, 1945.

From 2021 there will be an extra day off for the National Day, either before or after.

The tourism industry has lost an estimated $7 billion in revenues due to the pandemic in January and February, according to data from the General Statistics Office.

That was before the country suspended international flights on March 25.

Vietnam has had 332 Covid-19 cases so far, 15 of them active and all other patients recovering.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

German government supports local companies in their desire to establish or enlarge business relations with Kazakhstan, an official source at the German Federal Foreign Office told Trend.

The official said that within the framework of Kazakhstans President Kasyym Jomart Tokayevs visits to Germany in December 2019 and February 2020, he met high-ranking representatives of German companies as well as business associations.

"A number of investment projects was agreed upon on these occasions and we noticed a growing interest in Kazakhstan as an investment destination," the official said.

Similarly, the official said, investment relations between the two countries are well developed.

"Right now, 600 companies with German share operate in Kazakhstan. The overall volume of German direct investments stands at 481 million and we are confident, that there is room for growth," the official said.

"The support is offered through advice, including the broad information provided by Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI), as well as via established instruments, i.e. export credit guarantees," the representative said.

---

Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
For days now, we've been inundated with politicians, talking heads in the mainstream media, and representatives of Black Lives Matter insulting the police, describing them as brutal, and implying that they're mass murderers, determined to wipe out large swaths of America's black population. Many police departments have responded by backing down, whether they've taken a knee, crawled on the ground, or abandoned their precincts to the mob. In New York, though, at long last, one police officer has finally spoken up and it's magnificent.

A little background is useful to put in perspective just how disgraceful the wholesale verbal attacks on America's police have been. To begin with, America has approximately 330 million people. Of those, 1314%, or roughly 39.6 million to around 42.9 million, are black.

America also has 796,000 police officers. Of those, 13.3% are black. In other words, blacks are represented in the police force in numbers almost perfectly matching their overall representation in the American population.

In 2019, according to the Washington Post's comprehensive list of police shootings in America, police shot and killed 1,003 people, 249 of whom were black and 55 of whom were unarmed. Cross-referencing "black" with "unarmed" reveals that police shot 14 unarmed black people. According to the percentage calculator, those unarmed black victims represented between 0.000035% and 0.000032% of the black population in America.

Here's a little more information based upon reviewing the links in the WaPo database. Three of the fourteen officers involved in those shootings were criminally charged. Another one of the shootings was clearly an accident, while one death remains murky. As for the other nine deaths, all involved situations in which the decedent, although not armed with a gun, violently attacked officers.

Several involved assaults with cars. One person tried to choke the officer. With the other attacks, we know only that the officers reasonably thought their lives were at risk. One man was so violent that he could not be subdued with a taser, and he sent two police officers to the hospital. In another case, having watched the decedent attack the police, a witness said the shooting was justified.

What these data mean is that, in 2019, at most 0.000007% of American blacks died at the hands of police whose conduct was so heinous as to be criminal. Another 9 deaths (0.00002%) were considered entirely justifiable against people who violently attacked the police.

The above numbers are vanishingly small, although that does not mean there aren't rogue police who abuse their power. (If you're interested in learning about a corrupt police department engaged in wanton abuse, I recommend License to Kill: The Murder of Erik Scott by SENTINEL and Mike McDaniel.) They do mean, though, that most police bravely intervene in violent situations without killing people. You are being lied to when you're repeatedly told that police are engaging in an orgy of shooting black men in numbers so appalling that it's practically a genocide.

I mention all this as a prelude to a speech that Mike O'Meara, the president of the New York Police Benevolent Association, gave. This is the first time we've heard from a police representative who is not a politician. That's why O'Meara didn't virtue-signal the way the police chief in Webster, Massachusetts, Michael Shaw, did, by lying down and pretending to be George Floyd:

In an incredibly powerful moment, Police Chief Michael Shaw, urged by chanting, joins the crowd laying face down on the pavement @telegramdotcom pic.twitter.com/nkuDPeODzo  Ashley Green (@agreenphotog) June 6, 2020

Contrary to Ashley Green, this was not a powerful moment. A police chief whose responsibility is the safety of his entire community chose appeasement. Shaw has just announced that the police in his community no longer have the moral authority to address crime.

O'Meara is not an appeaser. He is proud of the work that he and the other police in New York City do, and he has nothing but contempt for those political figures who are abandoning the police to appease the mob. To make his point that the New York Police Department is a force for good, O'Meara, who also believes that facts matter, notes that the police have an average of 375 million interactions every year with New York's 8.3 million citizens, with "overwhelmingly positive responses."

375 million interactions with the public every year. 375 million interactions. Overwhelmingly positive responses. Overwhelmingly positive responses. But I read in the papers all week, we all read in the papers, that in the black community mothers are worried about their children getting home from school without being killed by a cop. What world are we living in? That doesn't happen! It does not happen! I am not Derek Chauvin. They are not him. He killed someone. We didn't. We are restrained. And you know what, I'm saying to all the cops here. Because you know what? Everybody's trying to shame us. The legislators. The press. Everybody's trying to shame us into being embarrassed about our profession. Well, you know what? This [holding up a badge] isn't stained by someone in Minneapolis. It's still got a shine on it. And so do theirs. So do theirs. Stop treating us like animals and thugs, and start treating us with some respect. That's what we're here to say. We've been left out the conversation. We've been vilified. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. Trying to make us embarrassed of our profession. 375 million interactions overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly positive. Nobody talks about all the police officers that were killed in the last week in the United States of America, and there were a number of them. We don't condone Minneapolis. We roundly reject what he did as disgusting. Disgusting. It's not what we do. It's not what police officers do. Our legislators abandoned us. The press is vilifying us. Well, you know what, guys? I'm proud to be a cop. And I'll continue to be proud to be a cop until the day I retire. And that's all I have to say.

The police are the ones who come running when people in the big city are in trouble. Once the left is through with the police, 375 million calls for help will go unanswered. People who are lambasting the police ought to try imagining what their odds of survival will be in the feral wasteland in which they find themselves.
South Africa: National Assembly passes Sexual Offences Amendment Bill

Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola has welcomed the National Assemblys decision to pass two amendment bills to remedy laws, which have had deeply layered patriarchal effects on society.

The amendment bills, namely, Prescription in Civil and Criminal Matters (Sexual Offences) Amendment Bill and Recognition of Customary Marriages Bill will head to Parliament for consideration.

The Prescription in Civil and Criminal Matters, popularly known as the Sexual Offences Amendment Bill, paves the way for the prosecution of all sexual offences, regardless of the lapse of time.

The Sexual Offences Bill seeks to empower survivors, who often suffer in silence and either never disclose the offences at all - with the perpetrator escaping all consequence - or they only disclose over varying periods of time.

According to the 2018/19 Statistics South Africa Victims of Crime Report, the percentage of victims of sexual offences, who reported at least one incident, is 88%.

The Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services believes that amendments such as these will encourage survivors of sexual offences to report these matters, even if the incidents took place many years ago, so that perpetrators of sexual offences are not met with impunity.

It means that these crimes can be prosecuted, irrespective of when the crime took place, said the Justice Department.

The amendment bill also ensures that crimes, which relate to the common law offence of bribery and the offence of corruption in terms of the Corruption Act, are also no longer subject to a time limitation in order to institute a prosecution.

Recognition of Customary Marriages Bill

In terms of section 7(1) of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act (RCMA), customary marriages entered into before the commencement of the RCMA are governed by customary law.

In terms of this Act, wives have no right of ownership and control over marital property, which right is reserved solely for the husband.

The amendment of the RCMA now provides that where a person is a spouse in more than one customary marriage, entered into before the start of the Act, will have joint and equal ownership and other rights, as well as equal rights of management and control over marital property.

With the amendment, all monogamous customary marriages, whether they were entered into before or after the commencement of the RCMA, are in community of property, unless the spouses specifically determine otherwise by means of an ante-nuptial contract.

Our constitutional democracy places emphasis on equality. This must permeate all aspects of our society. As the Womens Charter declares, the level of civilisation, which any society has reached, can be measured by the degree of freedom that its members enjoy.

As a free and democratic society, we must forge ahead with great speed to ensure that in all facets of society, the status of women is attuned to the expectations of our constitutional democracy, said Lamola on the passing of the bills by the National Assembly.

The amendment bills will head to the National Council of Provinces for consideration.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-10. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 01:15:21|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The inspection tour to the Yellow River by President Xi Jinping reflects the great importance he attaches to the ecological environment amid the country's pursuit of high-quality development.

It is the fourth visit by Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, to China's "Mother River" in a year.

The protection of the Yellow River is critical to the great rejuvenation and sustainable development of the Chinese nation. That explains why China has set the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin as a major national strategy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

The 5,464-km-long waterway is the cradle of Chinese civilization. The river feeds about 12 percent of China's population, irrigates about 15 percent of arable land, supports 14 percent of national GDP, and supplies water to more than 60 cities.

Following his previous visits to Gansu Province last August, Henan Province last September and Shanxi Province in May, all of which are located in the Yellow River Basin, Xi, on Monday afternoon, inspected Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where he visited a section of the Yellow River in the city of Wuzhong to learn about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the river.

The dike project of this section is aimed at tackling problems of floods, severe river course changes and bank collapses. The project is also used for river course arrangement, environmental management and afforestation, significantly improving the ecology along the Yellow River.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

It exemplifies how the national strategy is transforming from a blueprint to concrete practice and shows the determination to protect the ecological environment of the Yellow River.

The peace of the Yellow River is significant to the stability of China. The country has stepped up efforts in conserving water source, controlling water and soil loss, solving pollution, improving industrial structure, as well as preserving and promoting cultural legacies of the Yellow River.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Xi's frequent tours to the Yellow River indicate that more efforts are expected to be made in strengthening ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin.

Ecological protection is an important guarantee that comes before development in China. The protection of the Yellow River reflects the concept reiterated by Xi that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. 
A young Aboriginal man was pepper sprayed and tasered inside a police station for refusing to be handcuffed while demanding a lawyer despite telling officers he had a heart condition and could die.

Johanness Manggurra, 24, was told he was under arrest because of a mistake in his parole when he visited the Numbulwar police station in the Northern Territory, to discuss unpaid fines on August 27, 2019.

Footage from a camera worn by a junior officer showed Manggurra refusing to be arrested and biting a senior sergeant.

The evidence was used against him last year and resulted in a six-month jail sentence for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.

Johanness Manggurra, 24, was tasered by Senior Sergeant Tony Bennett after resisting arrest

The video was used again as evidence against police at a Darwin Local Court hearing in March with lawyers arguing the force used during the arrest was unlawful.

Footage shows junior officer Constable David Woodbury telling Manggurra he was under arrest because of a 'confusing' issue with his parole, the ABC reported.

Police agreed to call a lawyer after the prisoner made three requests to speak with one, but they said they would have to arrest him first.

Manggurra became visibly upset when he realised the officer was holding handcuffs.

Senior Sergeant Tony Bennett threatened to use pepper spray when Manggurra, who speaks English as a second language, backed himself into a corner in fear.

Manggurra started yelling for his partner in his traditional language, as she can be heard yelling back from outside the station.

Sergeant Bennett used pepper spray on Manggurra after he punched himself in the face three times

The officers told Manggurra to turn around and put his hands behind his back.

Sergeant Bennett drew a taser when the prisoner refused to comply.

'Don't do that, my heart is f***ed ... don't do that, my heart, that will f***ing kill me, please,' Manggurra cries.

He became increasingly distressed and repeatedly asked the sergeant to put the Taser away, fearing for his life while huddled in the corner.

Manggurra started screaming and punched himself in the face three times, before sergeant Bennett said 'I've had enough of this' and used the pepper spray.

The prisoner then jumped on a table and reached for a smoke alarm hanging from the roof - which officers later claimed could have been used as a weapon.

Manggurra let go of the alarm, jumped off the table and moved back into the corner of the room, before the the senior sergeant used his Taser.

Manggurra then jumped on a table and reached for a smoke alarm hanging from the roof - which officers later claimed could have been used as a weapon.

Both officers wrestled with the prisoner on the floor, who drew blood when he bit sergeant Bennett on the hand.

'I'm gonna f***ing thump you, don't you f***ing bite me,' sergeant Bennett warned.

Manggurra was eventually carried to a cell.

Local Court Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris found Manggurra was tasered more than once in the initial hearing last year, but believed the force used during the arrest was necessary.

'It's hard for police in remote stations when there's only two of them there... they are just two people who are trying to do their job,' she said.

'All [Manggurra] had to do was turn around and give them his hands.'

Manggurra was eventually carried to a cell. Pictured: officers holding his ankles after he was tasered

Sergeant Bennett told the court he used a taser because he was concerned for the safety of him and his colleague, and the prisoner.

He also said he did not believe Manggurra had a heart condition and ordered a health assessment after the arrest.

Manggurra was jailed for resisting arrest, assaulting an officer and disorderly conduct.

But North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency lawyer Patrick Coleridge said the situation was mishandled.

'If the police had offered him an interpreter and if the police had offered or allowed him an opportunity to speak with a lawyer, it's entirely possible that none of what occurred subsequently would have occurred,' he said.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted police for comment.

The case will be heard in the Northern Territory Supreme Court in July.
The merger, which would combine two of the top food deliver services in the U.S. and Europe, comes after Grubhub's talks with Uber fell through amid concerns over antitrust scrutiny. Though both parties had agreed on a price ratio, the companies remained concerned about likely antitrust pressure and could not come to an agreement on how Uber would support Grubhub through the regulatory process, CNBC's David Faber reported earlier Wednesday . Uber shares were down slightly after hours following the announcement.

The deal gives Grubhub shares an implied value of $75.15, implying a total equity value of $7.3 billion on a fully diluted basis. Shares of Grubhub spiked more than 7% during after hours trading.

Uber offered 1.925 shares for each Grubhub share, valuing Grubhub at a volume weighted average price of about $70 per share and a Wednesday close value of $67.04, according to people familiar with the matter. Just Eat Takeaway offered 0.67 shares for each Grubhub share, an implied value of $75.15 for each Grubhub share based on June 9's 98.60 Just Eat Takeaway closing price. Still, Just Eat Takeaway shares fell more than 10% on Wednesday's news, lowering the offer to about $65.17 per Grubhub share.

Just Eat offered a small premium to where Grubhub is currently trading, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC prior to the deal's announcement. As of market close Wednesday, Grubhub shares traded around $59 per share, giving it a $5.4 billion market cap.

"Like ridesharing, the food delivery industry will need consolidation in order to reach its full potential for consumers and restaurants," an Uber spokesperson said in a statement. "That doesn't mean we are interested in doing any deal, at any price, with any player."

Grubhub's deal with Just Eat is unlikely to garner as much regulatory attention as its possible combination with Uber. The proposed Uber-Grubhub deal would have combined two of the three largest food delivery companies in the U.S.

The companies said they expect the deal to close in the first quarter of 2021. Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney will join Just Eat's management board and lead the combined business in North America. Two Grubhub directors will join Just Eat's supervisory board, according to the release.

The British competition authority just gave the green light in April for Britain's Just Eat and Netherlands-based Takeaway to combine. At the time, the British Competition and Markets Authority said it was unlikely Takeaway would have been able to re-enter the British market in a significant way on its own without the merger.

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WATCH: Dark kitchens: Where does your food delivery really come from?
By AFP

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait wants to slash the migrant proportion of its population from 70 to 30 per cent, state media said Wednesday, with the prime minister vowing to "resolve the demographic imbalance".

Like its Gulf Arab neighbours, oil-rich Kuwait has a large foreign population mostly made up of Middle Eastern and Asian workers.

Out of 4.8 million inhabitants, some 3.3 million are foreign nationals, said Prime Minister Sabah Al-Khaled al-Hamad al-Sabah.

"The ideal demographic situation would be that Kuwaitis make up 70 per cent of the population and non-Kuwaitis 30 per cent," he told a gathering of local newspaper editors.

"So we face a big challenge in the future to rectify this demographic imbalance."

Like its neighbours, Kuwait's state budgets have been slammed by tumbling oil prices sparked by the novel coronavirus pandemic, pushing it to seek ways to provide more jobs to its own citizens.

State-owned Kuwait Airways said last week it would lay off 1,500 expatriate employees due to "significant difficulties" caused by the pandemic.
Bansy Kalappa By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Former PM HD Deve Gowda filed his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha seat on Tuesday, with his partys 34 seats. This is the second time he is going to the Upper House -- during his first stint, he was elected PM in 1996. Political watchers recall a strange series of coincidences: In 1994, Gowda was elected chief minister with 115 members, and the Congress came a poor third with 34 seats, just like the JDS position now.

Curiously, Mallikarjun Kharge, who now joins Gowda in the RS, was leader of the Congress in the Assembly. Then, it was former DyCM SM Krishna, who was defeated from Maddur, who got Gowdas support to enter RS. Krishna went on to become CM and later, Union External Affairs Minister. This is the fresh lease that JDS seeks for Gowda. KPCC chief DK Shivakumar was then independent MLA from Sathnur.

In another twist, Prabhakar Kore, then in the Congress, was the RS favourite with the full support of former PM Narasimha Rao, but was pipped at the last minute by Krishna; this time, he is in the BJP and his party has decided on a new face. Asked about this, Kore only said, What to do?!
One of the unexpected side effects of the coronavirus shutdown may be the permanent elimination of cash tolls and human toll takers on the Bay Areas seven state-owned bridges.

Thats been in the works for some time, but the plan was to make it happen by the mid-2020s. However, toll takers were taken out of their booths when the pandemic hit, and the agency that runs the bridges thinks there will soon come a time when theyll be gone for good.

We have the opportunity to move faster, and we are going to take it, said Amy Worth, a member of the Bay Area Toll Authority.

Andrew Fremier, deputy executive director of operations for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said his team hopes to have an all-electronic, cashless toll plan for the authority to examine within months. The goal, he said, is to be ready to go by the end of this year.

The Bay Areas 250 toll collectors may return to their booths for a while, but their long-term future is up in the air.

We are doing some occupational retraining for some of them to report to different positions elsewhere, said Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney.

Originally, the plan was to get rid of toll plazas at the bridges before going all-electronic. But COVID-19 is flipping that plan, said transportation commission spokesman Randy Rentschler. Now we plan to eliminate cash payments first.

The Golden Gate Bridge, the only bay span that is not run by the state, went all-electronic in 2013. The Bay Area Toll Authority was going to make the switch starting with its smaller bridges, such as the Benicia and Antioch bridges, beginning in 2022. The plan was to work up to the big one, the Bay Bridge, three to five years after that.

The pandemic, however, upended that timetable. On March 10, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the Bay Areas toll takers out of their booths.

There was concern that handling money and working in such close quarters without protection could lead to a spread of the virus, Ney said.

Overnight, the Antioch, Carquinez, Benicia, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, San Mateo and Bay bridges went cashless. Toll takers were replaced with the same overhead cameras used in the FasTrak and car pool lanes that record vehicles license plates as they pass through the toll area. A bill arrives in the mail for those without FasTrak.

It was all done without the benefit of new equipment or much planning.

And with no apparent confusion in driver or operational function, Fremier said.

The conversion was made easier, in part, because traffic on the bridges plummeted by 70% in the first weeks of the shutdown. That meant the billing system wasnt instantly swamped.

Its not been perfect, for sure, but the lower volume of traffic made it not as bad as it could have been, Rentschler said.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

In recent weeks, officials have watched the system with crossed fingers as traffic rises closer to pre-pandemic levels. So far, theyve seen few problems.

I have no concerns about the technology holding up when the volume of cars returns, said Fremier.

He said the billing department, however, needs work  only half the 1.8 million toll notices sent out since March have been paid. If the toll takers arent temporarily brought back while the collection system is beefed up, officials fear they could lose out on at least $10 million.

Which is why we are looking at what needs to be done to safely allow the toll collectors to return, at least for now, Fremier said.

Still, officials say the time for an all-electronic system is just about here.

COVID-19 has accelerated many changes in society that were already taking place, including cashless tolling, Rentschler said. Frankly, weve been taking this transition too slow, as cash payers mix up with FasTrak payers. It just slows everyone down.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KGO-TV morning and evening news and can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier
Bethlehems OraSure Technologies, a tech company that gained notoriety years ago with its rapid HIV test, has been awarded a $629,217 federal contract to develop an oral coronavirus antibody test.

This is OraSures second COVID-19-related contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It will enable OrasSure to file for special authorization from the FDA with hopes of having the antibody test debut this summer in the U.S.

If successful, this would be the first oral fluid-based COVID-19 antibody tests available with automated assays. The test would boost laboratory antibody testing capacity.

The coronavirus pandemic is complicated and fast moving. It will take a variety of tests to get it under control," OraSure President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen S. Tang said in a news release. Understanding who is contagious and who has potentially protective antibodies will be crucial as the country continues reopening the economy and returning to everyday life."

Coronavirus antibodies can be detected within one to three weeks after the onset of symptoms, according to OraSure.

Current antibody tests on the market have faced a slew of accuracy concerns and it still remains unclear if someone with antibodies is immune from the virus.

The hope is that antibody tests can help identify people whove contracted COVID-19, even those who showed no symptoms, and potentially allow them to return to work or other activities safely without fear of getting sick again.

OraSure says its test meets an urgent need to screen the population, especially health care workers, for past asymptomatic infection and potential immunity against the new disease.

We believe that the combination of the OraSure antibody and antigen tests along with our sample collection capabilities, can give people insight into their COVID-19 status across the infection spectrum, Tang said.

Heres how the test would work: human antibodies would be collected from oral fluid via a wand and pad and placed into the OraSure oral fluid specimen collection device buffer for storage and transport to a lab for testing.

The company notes the test is easier and pain-free compared to the deep nose swabs COVID-19 testing uses and serology antibody testing blood draws.

If the test obtains FDA emergency use approval, samples could be collected in a doctors office, lab or testing facility. It could be amended to allow for an in-home or self-collection test.

If development and testing are successful, OraSure hopes to obtain federal approval this summer.

OraSure notes that in-home testing promotes social distancing and minimizes healthcare workers exposure to sick patients.

In April, the company announced another federal contract to develop a rapid in-home COVID-19 self test.

OraSure is also working with laboratories and researchers to demonstrate the effectiveness of some of its molecular sample collection technologies for coronavirus testing. To date, three of its collection devices have been incorporated into assays that have received FDA emergency use authorization.

OraSure, which has its headquarters at 220 E. First St. in Bethlehems Southside, has worked with the federal government in the past on developing testing for ebola and on other public health initiatives. OraSure got its start in 1987 as Solar Care Technologies at the Ben Franklin TechVentures business incubator at Lehigh University. Its focus back then was developing sunscreen towelettes.

Its OraQuick HIV Self-Test is a rapid, point-of-care test that allows an individual to detect antibodies to both HIV-1 and HIV-2 with an oral swab, with results in as little as 20 minutes.

Tell us your coronavirus stories, whether its a news tip, a topic you want us to cover, or a personal story you want to share.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com.
Those who enter the country will have to stay in isolation for five days and pass the test once again, - Ukraine's State Border Guard

Citizens who want to cross the Slovakian border and enter the country are obliged to provide the negative PCR test results for coronavirus. Ukraine's State Border Guard reported that on June 10.

The procedure of crossing the border by foreign citizens changes since today (June 10).

The territory of the Slovak Republic is open for those who own a permanent or temporary permission for residence and those who have the papers from a competent ministry. The citizens who cross the border should also show border guards PCR negative test results for Covid-19. The test results should be translated either in Slovakian, Czech, English or German.

The results of tests should not be older than 96 hours of age.

Those who enter the country will have to stay in isolation for five days and pass the test once again.

There are three operating checkpoints on Ukraine-Slovakia border.

As we reported earlier, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) allocated an extra one million dollars to Ukraine for expenses tied with Covid-19 pandemic.
Rome: More than half of people in the epicentre of Italy's coronavirus outbreak have been infected, and the region has the highest rate of antibodies yet discovered, a study has found.

The city of Bergamo and its surrounding province were hit hard after the virus was first detected in the country in late February, although the virus is believed to have been present in the region since at least January.

Local newspaper Eco di Bergamo ran pages and pages of obituaries as the crisis worsened in northern Italy. Credit:AP

Blood tests carried out on more than 20,000 people in the area between April 23 and June 3 now reveal that 57 per cent had COVID-19 antibodies. Among medical staff, it is 30 per cent.

The study suggests that the area may be approaching coronavirus herd immunity levels - experts suggest that may be about 60 to 65 per cent. The theory is that if a certain percentage of the population is immune to an infectious disease, it will stop spreading.
By ANI

MOSCOW: China's ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, on Wednesday blamed western nations for standing behind the unrest in the Asian country's special administrative region of Hong Kong.

"I can say frankly that all these demonstrations, protests, all this chaos are organized by the West," Zhang said at a news conference held at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.

The ambassador went on to claim that "Americans and Westerners" are funding, arming and training the Hong Kong protesters.

"They are doing this vague situation precisely to split China, to create difficulties for the development of China," Zhang said.

READ| Hong Kong Timeline: A Year of Protests

Wide-scale protests have been taking place sporadically in Hong Kong since June 2019, with protesters claiming to oppose Beijing's increasing influence on the special administrative region.

The latest wave of protests was caused by the Chinese central authorities' plans to pass a security bill for Hong Kong.

The legislation, which bans secessionist activities, among other things, is seen by regional residents as undermining their liberties. However, both Hong Kong's leadership and the central government say the legislation would not affect the legitimate rights of regional residents.

Beijing maintains that the unrest in Hong Kong is a result of international interference and claims to respect the "one country, two systems" principle.
Members of one of Nigerias main medical unions say they will go on strike from Monday following frustration over pay and a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).



Inhumane and hopeless is how the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors has described the situation for some medics in a strongly-worded statement.



They are calling on their members to stop providing all medical services including emergency care and coronavirus treatment.



A nationwide strike will affect isolation centres where coronavirus patients are being treated as well as hospitals and other medical facilities.



Resident doctors make up one of the largest percentage of healthcare workers in state-run specialist hospitals.



Other concerns include a weak healthcare system and doctors families being left without life insurance in the event of their death.



Africas most populous nation has had 361 confirmed deaths linked to coronavirus.



However, there are concerns that there may be more and that the virus is spreading undetected.

Source: BBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  The government of India is assuring the Philippines that it will have a steady supply of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which is used in the treatment of some COVID-19 patients.

In a 25-minute phone call on Tuesday night, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also assured President Rodrigo Duterte of the supply of affordable medicine and COVID-19 pharmaceutical products, according to Malacanang.

Malacanang said Modi also told Duterte that the Philippines will definitely benefit from the COVID-19 vaccine that India is developing.

Hydroxychloroquine is among the drugs in the World Health Organization-led solidarity trial against COVID-19. Use of the drug in the trial was briefly halted over safety concerns, following a study which suggested a higher mortality rate among patients treated with it.

The Philippines has resumed using hydroxychloroquine in the solidarity trial after the WHO concluded that there are no reasons to modify the trial protocol.

READ: Head of PH's COVID-19 drug trial calls for more participants

India is one of the top producers of hydroxychloroquine in the world and is exporting the drug to a number of countries.

CNN Philippines' Triciah Terada contributed to this report.
A hot potato: Just when you thought that Intel's largely undocumented CPU master controller didn't have any more flaws, two more have been revealed by security researchers at three universities. On a positive note, this time the issues are fixable and there's no evidence the new vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild.

Security researchers revealed details about a new vulnerability in Intel processors that allows hackers to take advantage of the way multi-core architecture works in order to grant access to sensitive data on compromised systems. The findings were published by academics at the University of Michigan, the VU University of Amsterdam, and the University of Adelaide in Australia, who produced proof of concepts for two different attack methods dubbed SGAxe and CrossTalk.

The first appears to be an advanced version of the CacheOut attack revealed earlier this year, in which hackers could extract contents from the CPU's L1 cache. Researchers explain that SGAxe is a result of Intel's failed attempts at mitigating side-channel attacks against Software Guard Extensions (SGX), which is the dedicated area of a CPU that's supposed to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of code and data that is being processed.

By using a "transient execution attack," an attacker can essentially recover the cryptographic keys stored in SGX, which are then used to "decrypt the long term storage of the quoting enclave, obtaining the machines EPID attestation keys." Attestation keys are used to protect the security of things such as financial transactions and DRM-protected content.

The second attack is of the Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) variety and can be performed against data that is being processed by the CPU's Line Fill Buffer (LBF). The idea here is that by exploiting a "staging buffer" whose contents are accessible to all CPU cores, a hacker can use a specially crafted piece of software that runs on one core to compromise the private keys that guard the code and data of software running on a separate core.

The flaws affect several Intel CPUs released between 2015 and 2019, including some Xeon E3 (E5 and E7 have proven immune to the attacks). Intel said in its June security advisory that it's highly unlikely anyone would be able to perform these attacks outside of lab settings. The company will, however, release a microcode update as soon as possible and will also invalidate previously signed attestation keys.
The June 10 protest that was set to march through several streets in Southgate has been postponed due to anticipated poor weather conditions.

It now will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. June 12, beginning at the Southgate Police Department, 14710 Reaume Parkway.

The protest scheduled to kick off at 5 p.m. June 11 at Young Patriots Park, 14133 Civic Park Drive, in Riverview, is still on as planned.

Both protests come more than two weeks after the alleged homicide of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, who was captured on cellphone video as a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes until he was unresponsive. Three other officers, who also are white, stood by and did not intervene. All four have been charged in connection with his death.

The incident, which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has sparked protests all over the world.

Giacomo Galofaro and LaTevin Smith are co-organizers of the Southgate march.

That march will leave the police department and go to Dix-Toledo, Richmond Street, Eureka Road, Fordline, Superior, back to Dix-Toledo and Veterans Parkway before being back at the police station.

Smith, a Taylor resident, said the march is an important event for all people.

This is not just for George Floyd; its for police brutality everywhere, Smith said. The world heard George Floyds cry.

At some point during the march, Smith said they will lay down for the same length of time that Floyd was on the ground, with four grown men on top of him.

He said its time for people to stand up in peaceful protest against police brutality.

Participants in the Riverview march will begin assembling near the reflection pond to peacefully protest systemic racism.

It will begin with a nondenominational prayer for peace, led by a Downriver member of the clergy.

Following the prayer, participating protesters will exit the park on Sibley Road and march down to Fort Street.

Protesters will then turn left on Fort Street and march to the intersection of Pennsylvania Road. Once at Pennsylvania, those marching will stand for about 15 to 20 minutes holding signs along the side of the road so they can be seen.

The march will turn back up Fort Street, turn onto Williamsburg, and then everyone will gather at the Riverview Police Department for an 8 minute and 46 second moment of silence.

After that, the march will return to Young Patriots Park for an open mic session and candlelight vigil recognizing all the lives lost to police brutality.

We welcome all members of the community to participate, but the focus of the open mic and the event as a whole is to elevate and support black voices and their experiences, said Trenton resident Nina Baldwin, an organizer of the event and recent Central Michigan University graduate.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-12th District) and state Rep. Darrin Camilleri (D-Brownstown Twp.), have confirmed they will be attending, according to organizers.

Other coordinators added their thoughts on the event.

At the open mic, we want to invite the voices of our black brothers and sisters to be heard through song, poetry, prayer, and more, said organizer Alize Knudsen, a current Central Michigan University student.

The organizers of the event are calling for protesters to remain peaceful at all times.

Organizers have set rules for all participants that include no weapons, illegal activity, or violent attempts to provoke law enforcement.

The Riverview Police Department has been notified of the protest and have offered to direct traffic during the march.

The level of engagement weve seen coming out of the Downriver community has been really encouraging, said organizer Lucy Moberly, a Trenton resident and recent University of Maryland graduate. I think its important that these protests happen in the suburban communities as well, where too often both overt and covert racism go unchecked.
Clickbait emails, URL shortening services and phishing messages -- that's how a small and unheard of Delhi-based company named BellTroX allegedly ruled the 'hack-for-hire' world of 'cyber mercenaries', which targeted thousands of individuals and hundreds of professionals. The company, owned by its director Sumit Gupta, is officially an independent firm of "transcriptionists, designers, developers" but its secret hacking operations spanned across Europe and the US.

A report by Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada, on Tuesday concluded that BellTroX is behind an organisation of hackers (named Dark Basin) that spied on over 10,000 email accounts for several years. Its victim included judges, politicians, journalists, gambling tycoons, environment groups, among others.

Though Sumit Gupta has denied any wrongdoing, his chequered past -- he was charged by US authorities in a hacking case in 2015 -- and the tracking of hacking operations by Dark Basin alleges he could be the mastermind behind several hacking cases.

Sumit Gupta's Twitter handle. He is not active on Twitter since 2013. The company website has also been taken down since the row erupted.

Gupta runs his company from a small place in Sant Nagar area of Burari, New Delhi. Its LinkedIn profile suggests BellTroX InfoTech Services has grown into one of the world's premier transcription and digital dictation provider for numerous "hospitals, clinics, expert witnesses, independent practitioners and commercial organisations".

The official address of BellTroX InfoTech Services

It also offers a "cost-effective, accessible solution" to its clients at "unbeatable prices". "BellTroX wants to establish itself as a Consulting Market Leader by developing productive relationships, synergies and partnerships with the people we work with. By pioneering new ideas, embracing change and developing new ways of doing things," says the director's message on its website. Another company named Suvidhi KPO (OPC) Private Limited has also been registered with the same name.

Allegations against BellTroX

Numerous technical links unearthed during the investigation suggested Dark Basin is linked to BellTroX. Its employees focused on email penetration, exploitation, corporate espionage, phone pinger and cyber intelligence operations. As per the report, BelltroX used to send malicious emails to its targets to get their crucial information. The malicious emails ranged from horoscopes to porn spam messages.

Depending upon the severity of the case, BellTroX allegedly used to send messages ranging from imitating colleagues or relatives and sending Facebook login requests to graphic notifications and messages asking the target to unsubscribe pornography credentials.

What is Dark Basin

Dark Basin is a hack-for-hire group that targeted thousands of individuals and hundreds of institutions in six continents. Targets include advocacy groups and journalists, elected and senior government officials, hedge funds, and multiple industries. Dark Basin extensively targeted American nonprofits, including organisations working on a campaign called ExxonKnew, which asserted that ExxonMobil hid information about climate change for decades.

BellTroX's India connection

Citizen Lab has said "with high confidence" that Dark Basin is linked to BellTroX InfoTech Services. It also found that timestamps in hundreds of phishing emails assessed by it were consistent with working hours in India's UTC+5:30 time zone.

The same timing correlations were found by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in a prior investigation of phishing messages targeting net neutrality advocacy groups. Several of Dark Basin's URL shortening services had names associated with India: Holi, Rongali, and Pochanchi.

Several BellTroX employees used personal documents, including a CV, as bait content, when testing their URL shorteners. They also made social media posts describing and taking credit for the attack techniques containing screenshots of links to Dark Basin infrastructure.

Also read: This Indian cyber firm spied on politicians, investors worldwide
NEW DELHI, June 10 (Reuters) - Singapore replaced the United States as India's biggest overseas market for engineering parts in April, with exports rising 95% to $553 million from a year earlier, a trade body said on Wednesday, as statistics are upended by coronavirus lockdowns.

India's overall engineering exports, comprising industrial machinery and auto parts, constitute nearly a quarter of total goods exports, contracting in April and May due to the coronavirus and weak global demand, traders said.

"Singapore has replaced the U.S. as the number one destination for Indian engineering exports," said Ravi Sehgal, chairman of the India'a Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC).

Engineering exports to China were up 19% year on year to $173 million, he said.

However, total engineering exports were down 63.9% in April to $2.31 billion from $6.4 billion, the EEPC said. In April, for which latest data is available, engineering exports to the United States declined 75% to $222 million.

India is due to release monthly trade data for May next week and is widely expected to report another fall in exports.

Singapore imports electrical machinery, components, aircraft and ship parts and non-ferrous metal from India, the trade body said, adding there was a more than five-fold rise in exports of non-ferrous metal to Singapore in April from a year earlier.

Over the last few years, Singapore has emerged among the top 10 destinations for Indian engineering exporters, with exports of more than $80 billion in 2018/19. (Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Nick Macfie)
B ritain could quickly beat coronavirus but needs at least another four weeks of intense lockdown, according to a professor who advised New Zealand on defeating the infection.

Michael Baker, a public health expert at the University of Otago, also told how New Zealand switched in the nick of time from following the US, UK and World Health Organisation on Covid-19 to adopt more successful Asian models.

He questioned why the UK lockdown was being eased at the same time a 14-day quarantine for arrivals had been imposed, arguing both were needed to eliminate the virus.

New Zealands premier Jacinda Ardern this week announced that almost all coronavirus restrictions were being lifted after no new cases of Covid-19 were reported for more than 14 days.

Prof Baker said this had been achieved with a ban on foreign arrivals, testing and contact tracing and an intense lockdown.

He told BBC radio: In the nick of time we looked to Asia and we followed their models which was treating this more like a SARS virus.

Britain is a far more densely-populated and more globally-connected than New Zealand.

The French government today revealed it is considering ending emergency measures on July 10 as new cases and deaths continue to fall.
Chinese border police guard the border crossing at Muse in Myanmar's northern Shan state, May 12, 2020.

Myanmar traders in northern Shan state said Tuesday that their cross-border business has been stymied by Chinese authorities who abruptly froze bank accounts at Chinese financial institutions after suspecting that some of their clients had engaged in illegal activities in Yunnan province.

Many Myanmar traders have Chinese bank accounts to facilitate cross-border trade transactions.

The move is another blow for Myanmar traders whose businesses have been hit hard this year by restrictions on cross-border trade and countermeasures in both countries to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Those efforts have halted the flow of buyers to land borders, where truck traffic flows under cumbersome restrictions.

One Myanmar trader who wanted to remain anonymous said some of his colleagues transferred money from Yangon to purchase Chinese commodities, but they could not complete the transactions because the corresponding bank accounts had been closed.

So far, I havent heard of any major damage among traders, but it must be damaging for money changers, he said.

Sai Kyaw Thein, a lawmaker from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) party who represents the Muse township constituency across the border from China, told RFA that he has not heard any complaints from Myanmar traders about the suspension of Chinese bank accounts.

But Sai Tun Ko Ko, secretary of a Muse-Namhkam border traders organization, said he received a report from a member company whose bank account had been frozen.

Government is suspicious

A trader in the Chinese border town of Ruili, across the Shweli River from Muse, told a different story, however.

The money changers have been arrested, said the woman, who declined to give her name. She added that the 10 Chinese nationals who were apprehended are being questioned by police.

Chinese traders who use the money exchange services could be linked to online gambling businesses or be selling fraudulent products, she said.

Now, the Chinese traders cannot go to the Myanmar side of border, but they are still selling the products on the internet, she said adding that that some online stores have facilitated sales schemes.

The government is suspicious of their bank accounts, the trader said.

The woman also said that it is possible that some bank accounts belonging to Myanmar traders have been suspended, but that she had not come across any yet.

Neither the Chinese Embassy in Yangon nor Myanmar border authorities is aware of the forced account closures, sources said.

RFA contacted Chinese Embassy in Myanmars commercial capital on Tuesday, and an official said no one there was prepared to respond to questions.

Myanmar traders, meanwhile, have warned others who use Chinese banks in border regions to be more cautious now that several financial institutions and currency exchange businesses have been suspended since June 4.

Chinese police have been interrogating clients who go to the banks to withdraw money, they said.

In 2017, three Chinese banks with local branches in Myanmars border area froze 132 bank accounts owned by Myanmar businesspeople who traded in the area, claiming that their funds were linked to illegal activities such as smuggling, gambling, and drug dealing.

Without warning, Chinese authorities blocked deposits worth an estimated 40 billion kyats (U.S. $28.8 million) in a dispute that required two weeks of negotiations to resolve.

Reported by Kan Thar for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Protocol documents, PPE and clothing quarantines have all been among the logistical challenges faced by Dundalk man Peter Jackson, regional retail manager with St Vincent de Paul, as he prepared to open the charitys shops this week.

St Vincent de Paul announced last week that it was to open 100 of its 234 Vincents shops across the country yesterday, June 8, including Dundalks Clanbrassil St and Castletown Road outlets as well as the shop in Dunleer. For now, the Jocelyn St shop will remain closed.

From the day this was announced on the 14th of March we have been as thorough as we can to ensure that we can get the shops open as soon in order to generate money for our visitation conferences, Peter explained to the Democrat this week.

For some, the opening of these shops is a chance to bag a bargain and a symbol of normality returning but for St Vincent de Paul, it is the renewal of a vital source of income.

If we dont have any donations, we dont have any shops and we cant make money for our visitation conferences, Peter states. The visitation conferences are the individual committees that distribute funding in the local communities.

Their work is at the heart of St Vincent de Paul and last year 98m was spent by these conferences across Ireland.

So much good work is done in communities but you dont necessarily hear about it, Peter says, underlining the core principle of confidentiality in SVP.

With two of the three Vincents shops in Dundalk opening yesterday, Monday, there has been a daunting list of logistics to sort out before the doors could be unlocked.

The organisation created its own back to business protocol, a Covid-19 policy and all staff will sign a self-declaration form before they come back to work to say that they havent been in contact with anyone with the disease.

Managers have undergone an infectious disease course and the certificates will be on display in stores. Sneeze screens, gloves and masks for staff and volunteers and hand sanitisers at entry points are all in place.

Pre-Covid-19, up to 250 bags of donations were being made through the Clanbrassil St store every day.

When the shop opens this week, donations will be processed in a very different way.

In Clanbrassil St, we will receive donations at the back of the shop, someone at the back door to make sure that people are not going to be queuing with donations, Peter explained. Donations will be placed in a van and taken to the Jocelyn St shop where they will be stored in quarantine for 72 hours based on World Health Organisation recommendations.

After 72 hours we can be 100 percent sure that the virus is dead, Peter states.

Customer numbers will be restricted to all stories and signage will be in place reminding people about social distancing.

The main thing is that we want to keep everyone safe, both our staff and our customers, Peter explains.

The sad reality is that more and more people will be calling on SVP for help in the coming months as the economic impact of Covid-19 hits home.

We are going to be busier than ever both in visitation conferences and in our shops, Peter states.

Theres going to be a difficult couple of months ahead to make sure we dont put anyones health in jeopardy and make sure we get a few quid in for our visitation conferences.
Sudan on Tuesday said it would hold "daily meetings" with Egypt and Ethiopia to ease tensions over a mega-dam being built on the Nile after a war or words between Cairo and Addis Ababa.

"It was agreed to continue daily meetings, except on Friday and Sunday, to reach consensus on the remaining points," Sudanese Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas said.

He spoke in Khartoum after a five-hour meeting with his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts failed to make any progress in the negotiations amid tensions between Cairo and Addis Ababa.

Earlier Tuesday, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi strongly rebuked Ethiopia accusing Addis Ababa of stalling negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and moving ahead with plans to start filling the reservoir before reaching a deal.

"A timeline must be set to finish up negotiations, so it does not turn into a new tactic of stalling and shirking responsibility from the 2015 Declaration of Principles which all three countries agreed to," Sisi's office said in a statement.

The agreement signed by Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan paved the way for diplomatic talks after Addis Ababa began construction of the dam nearly a decade ago.

The strongly-worded statement from Sisi's office said Ethiopia's position was "inconsistent" with its legal obligations and "casts a shadow over the negotiations".

It came on the day the three countries resumed talks, after Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok coaxed Egypt and Ethiopia to resume negotiations to resolve their differences.

But Egypt said the invite "comes three weeks too late" as Ethiopian authorities had already "signalled their intention to move forward with filling the reservoir of the Renaissance Dam without reaching an agreement".

'Fill the Dam'

Sudan's Minister of Water Resources Yasir Mohamed takes part in a video meeting on the Ethiopian dam project. By ASHRAF SHAZLY (AFP)

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told lawmakers on Monday that his country would stick to its plan to soon begin partial filling of the reservoir which can hold 74 billion cubic metres of water.

"The dam is a project that will pull Ethiopia out of poverty. Ethiopia wants to develop together with others, not hurt the interests of other countries," he said.

In mid-May, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew accused Egypt of being obstructionist and said his country "does not have a legal obligation to seek the approval of Egypt to fill the dam".

Three observers from the United States, European Union and South Africa took part in Tuesday's meeting held via videoconference.

Following several failed rounds of negotiations, the United States and the World Bank sponsored talks from November 2019 aimed at reaching a comprehensive agreement.

Both Khartoum and Cairo fear the 145-metre-high (480-foot-high) dam will threaten essential water supplies once the reservoir starts being filled in July as planned by Addis Ababa.

But while Egypt, which is heavily dependant on the Nile, worries about its share of the water, Sudan hopes the dam could provide much-needed electricity and help regulate flooding.

The 6,600-kilometre-long (3,900-mile) Nile is a lifeline supplying both water and electricity to the 10 countries it traverses.

Its main tributaries, the White and Blue Niles, converge in the Sudanese capital Khartoum before flowing north through Egypt to drain into the Mediterranean Sea.
The United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are urging that governments and others unite in developing a ``people's vaccine'' to protect everyone against the coronavirus.

Their appeal came ahead of a vaccine summit in London organized by the Global Vaccine Alliance that is seeking to mobilize billions of dollars of funding for a COVID-19 vaccine.

The ``people's vaccine'' should protect the affluent, the poor, the old and young, said a statement by the U.N. and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. That is a ``moral imperative that brings us all together in our shared humanity,'' it said.

It said the pandemic is also raising risks of other diseases as it disrupts childhood immunization programs, leaving at least 80 million children under the age of one at risk of diseases like measles, diphtheria and polio.

The urgency of finding a way to stem outbreaks was evident as India on Thursday reported yet another record number of new infections, at 9,304, with 260 deaths in the previous 24 hours.

India's tally of COVID-19 fatalities surpassed 6,000 and its number of infections has risen to nearly 217,000, the Health Ministry said. That makes India the seventh worst hit by the pandemic.

Neighboring Pakistan reported over 4,000 new cases and said 82 more people had died, raising its death toll to 1,770. On Thursday, as many as 901 COVID-19 patients were listed in critical condition in Pakistan hospitals.

The spike in infections comes weeks after Prime Minister Imran Khan overrode warnings from experts and eased a lockdown. Officials have blamed the public for not adhering to social distancing regulations.

As countries such as New Zealand and Australia mark progress in containing the pandemic and work on plans to resume some international air travel, others are having to step up precautions.

North Macedonia reintroduced stringent restrictions on movement in its capital, Skopje, and three other areas after confirming 101 new infections as of Thursday.

In the U.S., where a wave of protests is adding to concerns over possible additional outbreaks, new cases of the coronavirus have been surging just weeks after many businesses were allowed to reopen.

Arizona officials reported nearly 1,000 new cases Wednesday amid a surge in hospitalizations, a little over two weeks after Gov. Doug Ducey ended his stay-at-home order. The state has now tallied more than 22,000 cases and 981 deaths.

Utah's state epidemiologist issued a renewed plea Wednesday for people to maintain social distancing and exercise caution after state figures showed an average of about 200 new cases a day last week, the highest weekly average by far since the pandemic began.

South Carolina has logged its three highest daily case counts in the past week. The two highest death counts have occurred in the last week -- 20 deaths on May 27 and 17 deaths on Wednesday.

The percentage of positive tests averaged over 14 days and 28 days are both rising, which health officials use to determine if the spread of the virus is under control.

As of Thursday, more than 6.5 million people worldwide have been confirmed infected with the coronavirus and more than 386,000 have died, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual number of infections is thought to be much higher, due to limits on testing and many asymptomatic cases.

Both in the U.S. and around the world, it is the poorest and most vulnerable who have been the hardest hit, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video message.

The millions of people on the move including those forced to flee their homes because of violence or disaster and migrants ``face three crises rolled into one,'' he said.

A health crisis in conditions where social distancing is ``an impossible luxury'' and health care, water and sanitation are often hard to find is made worse by their economic plight and by pandemic-related restrictions on movement, he said.

Fear of COVID-19 has also led to ``skyrocketing xenophobia, racism and stigmatization'' and greater risk of gender-based violence, Guterres said.

He urged governments ``to remove unwarranted barriers'' for people on the move and ensure that they are given COVID-19 testing, treatment and vaccines because ``no one is safe until everyone is safe.''

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Roy is slated to bring this excitement to his debut Tamil film Bhoomi, in which he plays the antagonist

Ronit Roy has taken the industry by storm with his immaculate portrayals of characters which have some grey shades to them. When asked why he chooses such characters, the actor explains that they are more like real people.

There is no person with all black or all white shades in their character. A human being can be categorised as good and bad, but some people have more good than bad shade and vice versa. Everybody in this world is grey, thats what the human mind is all about. You never think in black or in white, he explains, adding that he finds morally ambiguous characters exciting to play.

Roy is slated to bring this excitement to his debut Tamil film Bhoomi, in which he plays the antagonist.

Its a beautiful script. I am playing the villain and the role that I play shows deceitful truth of the corporate world. The director was keen that I should mouth my dialogues in Tamil, so I had to learn my dialogues in Tamil and have spoken them in Tamil itself, he shares.

The actor is also slated to have a pivotal role in Yash Raj Films Shamshera, which stars Ranbir Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt, among other Bollywood bigwigs. Set in the 1800s, the Karan Malhotra directorial is about a dacoit tribe who battle the British for their independence.

When asked if this role will be a grey character as well, he remains tightlipped. I am not at liberty to discuss that film, he asserts, adding that he is not sure about YRFs plan to release the movie as well.

Additionally, Roy is also keeping his connection to his television roots alive by working on the third season of Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain with Ekta Kapoors ALT Balaji. When asked if it feels like a homecoming, the witty actor quips, Its only called a homecoming if you have left the home in the first place. I have been constantly working with ALT Balaji; I have no qualms in saying yes whenever Ekta offers me a role. It is one level up every time work comes from Balaji and I am thankful to Ekta for trusting me with the kind of characters that she offers me. I have no doubt my next work with Balaji is going to be spectacular, he sums up.
A surge of young people with painful purplish lesions on their toes in Madison and around the country has stumped doctors, with the phenomenon coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic but most patients testing negative and showing no other symptoms.

Now UW-Madison researchers are studying patients around Wisconsin with the condition, dubbed COVID toes. The hope is that their immune systems might fight the coronavirus in a way that could help COVID-19 patients.

About 40 children, adolescents and mostly young adults with the skin condition have been seen since mid-April at UW Health, instead of the one or two cases of the purplish lesions that normally arise each year, said Dr. Lisa Arkin, an assistant professor of dermatology and pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

We want to try to understand what is keeping them (otherwise) healthy, said Arkin, who is leading the study.

It may be that patients with COVID toes release high levels of type 1 interferon  an immune system protein associated with the rare skin condition, known as chilblains  to fight off the coronavirus.

Patients with severe COVID-19 typically have low levels of type 1 interferon.
The World Health Organization moved Tuesday to clarify its position on whether people without symptoms are widely spreading the new coronavirus, saying much remains unknown about asymptomatic transmission.

A comment by a WHO official on Monday - calling such asymptomatic transmissions "very rare" - touched off a furious scientific debate over the unresolved question and attracted widespread criticism of the organization.

Less than 24 hours later, the WHO convened a special news conference to walk back its comments, stressing that much remains unknown. But the comment from Monday had already spread widely and been seized upon by conservatives and others to bolster arguments that people do not need to wear masks or maintain social distancing precautions.

The episode sparked criticism of the WHO's public health messaging and highlighted just how fraught and easily politicized such work remains months into the pandemic.

Calling the controversy "a misunderstanding," Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO's emerging disease and zoonosis unit, said that during the news conference Monday, she was trying to respond to a journalist's question when she said asymptomatic transmission was "very rare."

"I wasn't stating a policy of WHO or anything like that," she said. "We do know that some people who are asymptomatic, or some people who do not have symptoms, can transmit the virus on."

It was not the "intent of WHO to say there is a new or different policy," added Mike Ryan, head of emergency programs for the WHO. "There is still too much unknown about this virus and still too much unknown about its transmission dynamics."

While asymptomatic transmission does occur, no one knows for sure how frequently it happens. Studies and models have suggested many of those infected never show symptoms. And it remains an open question whether they are a large force driving transmission. Some countries using contact tracing to work backward from confirmed cases have not found many instances of asymptomatic spread, WHO officials noted.

At the same time, WHO officials acknowledged on Tuesday that some modeling studies have suggested as much as 41% of transmission may be due to asymptomatic people.

Adding to the confusion are differing definitions of what it means to be asymptomatic complicate matters. Some people who are infected never show symptoms - experts would considered those truly asymptomatic cases. But some show symptoms later and could be spreading the virus before those symptoms manifest - they would be considered pre-symptomatic cases.

Further complicating matters is the fact that for some people, symptoms are so mild - or manifest themselves in less expected ways such as diarrhea or muscle aches, instead of the more well-known fever and cough - that people aren't aware of them until later on.

"It's a mess. I don't know why they would say asymptomatic transmission is very rare when the truth is we simply don't know how frequent it is," said Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. "And it doesn't change the facts we do know, which is that this virus is very transmissible and is very hard to combat."

The episode highlights how much remains uncertain about the novel virus, the difficulty of communicating that uncertainty, and the desire among the public for any new data to bolster a chosen stance on pandemic response.

The question of whether asymptomatic people are helping drive the virus's spread is critical - and part of the U.S. government's stated reasons for directives to engage in social distancing and mask wearing and to impose shutdowns. Because asymptomatic spread is one way some researchers believe the virus is circulating, even people at low risk for the disease or who don't show symptoms are warned to behave as though they are infected.

With so much still unknown about asymptomatic infection and transmission, many scientists said the WHO was irresponsible to speak so definitively because it can erode people's willingness to take such precautions.

"In a way, it's debating semantics because in a practical sense, there is no difference between people who simply haven't developed symptoms yet and are infecting others, and those who are truly asymptomatic. It looks the same in the early stages," said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California at San Francisco.

Others expressed support for the WHO, noting the difficulty of communicating scientific nuance and uncertainties during the pandemic. Some praise the WHO for continuing - unlike the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House - to hold regular briefings to update the public.

"Worth keeping in mind that WHO staff . . . have been running at top speed since early Jan.," Devi Sridhar, a global public health expert at the University of Edinburgh, said in a tweet. "Doing daily press briefings & assisting countries while under fire from all corners. They must be exhausted like all of us & need some support."

On Tuesday, CDC officials attributed the controversy to "misinterpretation of a quote from WHO" and confusion among the public between asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic cases. CDC spokesman Scott Pauley said it remains essential that people wear masks. "We know some people without symptoms may be able to spread the virus. That is why measures like cloth face coverings in public are so important."

Meanwhile, a study published Tuesday by the CDC on an outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt that infected 1,100 crew members provided scientists with a critical test case into the asymptomatic and close-quarters spread of covid-19 among a relatively healthy and young population. The CDC study of 382 young adult service members aboard in April found that one in five who tested positive reported no symptoms, while those who took preventive measures, such as face coverings and social distancing, reduced their risk of contracting the coronavirus.

It remains unclear, experts say, how asymptomatic transmission may be occurring. In people with symptoms, coughing or sneezing shoots droplets widely. Some have theorized that, in people not showing symptoms, the virus could be spreading through loud talking, singing or shouting.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"I worry that with so much unknown, if we as public health experts overstate asymptomatic transmission as the main reason for policy, it could come back to bite us," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Health Security. "We are telling people to wear masks, for example, because there is belief it can stop some of the infections. At the same time, we need to be careful not to state things in absolutes and to tell to people we are waiting for more studies."

There could be reasons to wear masks even if asymptomatic transmission proves to be rare, experts note, because many people aren't aware of symptoms when they first appear. Masks can also protect wearers from touching their nose and mouth and becoming infected.

In her initial comments, Van Kerkhove didn't entirely dismiss the occurrence of asymptomatic transmission but said initial unpublished data from contact tracing in some countries suggests it's rarer than thought. Within minutes, that comment was amplified by some news outlets.

"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing," Kerkhove said in her initial comments. "They're following asymptomatic cases. They're following contacts. And they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's very rare."

Kerkhove pointed to a document published last week by the WHO that updated guidance on mask wearing based on the latest research. The document cited contact tracing in China that suggests asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people are "much less likely to transmit the virus than those who develop symptoms." But those findings are based on sample sizes of fewer than 100 people - not considered rigorous evidence by most scientific standards.

Experts pointed out other problems with the WHO's initial statement.

"All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19," the Harvard Global Health Institute said in a statement Tuesday. "In fact, some evidence suggests that people may be most infectious in the days before they become symptomatic."

An influential study published in April in the journal Nature found evidence that people can be very infectious roughly two days before symptoms appear. The study estimated that 44% of infections are coming from people not yet showing symptoms.

Another paper published last week in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal reviewed 16 of the most relevant studies of asymptomatic infection. It found that a likely rate of 40% to 45% of those infected don't have symptoms. But that paper concluded that every study on the subject has been "imperfect in many ways." One problem is relying on patients to report symptoms because they are not always aware that the tickle in their throat, for instance, is the onset of the virus.

The ideal study of asymptomatic transmission has yet to be done, said Topol, one of the authors of the Annals paper. Instead of relying on self-reported symptoms, such a study might use genomic sequencing to trace and confirm the exact path of the virus from person to person.

"At this point, we simply don't know how much asymptomatic transmission happens," Topol said. "Sometimes, it's important to just say that."

- - -

The Washington Post's Paige Winfield Cunningham and Lena H. Sun contributed to this report.
Students were let back into Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School on Monday and Tuesday to retrieve their personal belongings from their lockers.

Precautions were in place to stop the spread of COVID-19 virus.

Schools have been closed to the public since mid-March because of the COVID-19 pandemic state of emergency measures.

With in-classroom classes officially cancelled for the rest of the school year, local schools have been making arrangements to allow students, teachers and parents in to collect their personal items this month.
Former Labour MP Eric Joyce has appeared in court charged with making an indecent photograph of a child.

Joyce, 59, who was MP for Falkirk in Scotland between 2000 and 2012, was given unconditional bail.

He will next appear at Ipswich Crown Court for a pre-trial hearing on July 7.

The former shadow minister, of Worlingworth, Suffolk, was arrested in November 2018.

Former Labour MP Eric Joyce has appeared in court charged with making an indecent photograph of a child

The charge against Joyce, pictured, alleges that between August 7, 2013, and November 6, 2018 he made an indecent photograph of a child.

Prosecutors allege that the file, found on a device, was a movie file classed as a Category A image.

He left Labour to serve as independent MP for Falkirk in 2012, stepping down before the 2015 general election. He spent 21 years in the army, rising to major,
COLUMBUS, OH  Police should be barred from using tear gas to disperse protesters, a coalition of Democratic lawmakers said this week. The group urged Gov. Mike DeWine to immediately prohibit the use of tear gas due to its dangerous health effects.

Following George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, protests erupted throughout Ohio and have continued for nearly two weeks. During some of those protests, police used tear gas, mace and pepper spray to disperse peaceful protesters, the coalition of Democratic politicians said.

"Over the past few weeks we have seen peaceful protesters being subjected to militant police violence via rubber bullets, baton beatings, and tear gassing mass gatherings of peaceful protesters. This isnt the 1960s or a war-torn country. This is 2020 in the United States of America. This is Ohio," said state Rep. Janine Boyd from Cleveland Heights.



In a letter to DeWine, the group argued that use of tear gas exacerbates the effects of COVID-19, violates human rights and could have dangerous health effects for protesters. The group cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, which indicated sustained exposure to tear gas could cause blindness, miscarriages and severe chemical burns to the lungs.

"During the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Aubery protests, protesters showed up with anti-racism signs to peacefully protest, but interactions between police and protesters escalated without justification. Meanwhile, during the Reopen Ohio protests, protesters were armed with semi-automatic weapons, racist and anti-Semitic paraphernalia and other weapons of war, yet there was zero response from law enforcement," the letter to DeWine said.

DeWine deployed the Ohio National Guard to two major cities, Columbus and Cleveland, following a weekend of unrest which saw buildings destroyed and police cruisers burned. However, many other protests in Ohio, and in Columbus and Cleveland, have been peaceful.

Story continues

The protests have focused on a single demand: reform of law enforcement in Ohio.

To that end, DeWine has vowed to improve transparency and accountability for police departments. The governor said Tuesday he was starting a new initiative to recruit more women and people of color into law enforcement. He also expressed interested in creating a database of police officers accused of misconduct.

Ohio House Democrats have proposed sweeping police reform legislation, which includes a prohibition on using tear gas on protesters.

This article originally appeared on the Cleveland Heights Patch
Medical staff carry a box at the Jinyintan hospital in Wuhan, China, January 10, 2020.

Darley Shen/Reuters

Satellite and internet search data suggest that the coronavirus may have begun spreading in Wuhan, China, as early as August 2019.

According to a new Harvard study, traffic at six major hospitals in Wuhan increased in fall 2019.

People in Wuhan also began searching online for information about coughs and diarrhea  symptoms associated with COVID-19.

But the research is not conclusive and has not yet been peer reviewed.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Most of the world didn't know about China's mysterious new coronavirus outbreak until January, but people at its epicenter started to behave like there was a new respiratory virus long before that, new research shows.

As early as August 2019, residents of Wuhan, China, were flocking to the city's major hospitals and searching the internet for information about coronavirus-like symptoms, according to a study published Monday in Harvard University's online repository.

Examining 111 satellite images of the parking lots of six major hospitals in Wuhan, the researchers found a significant uptick in traffic starting September and October 2019.

At the same time, the Chinese search engine Baidu saw a spike in searches for "cough" and "diarrhea" in the Wuhan region. Though coughs are typical of many viruses that circulate in the fall, the diarrhea that afflicts some COVID-19 patients is unique among respiratory illnesses.

"Something was happening in October," Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School who led the research, told ABC News. "Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic."

The researchers have submitted the study to the journal Nature Digital Medicine, where it is currently under peer review, according to ABC.

A 2-year high in Wuhan hospital traffic

Story continues

An inpatient building at the Jinyintan hospital in Wuhan, China, January 20, 2020.

Darley Shen/Reuters

Experts and officials have long believed that the coronavirus pandemic began with a handful of infections in Wuhan in December. However, more and more evidence suggests the virus may have emerged earlier than that and spread across the globe far more quickly than anyone realized.

China's government has traced the first COVID-19 case to November 17, according to the South China Morning Post. The new Harvard research suggests the virus may have been spreading through Wuhan long before that.

In August 2019, the Baidu search engine saw "a unique increase in searches for diarrhea, which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data," the researchers wrote. Months later, it would become clear that some coronavirus patients develop gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea before they even get a fever.

Similarly, a research paper released in February reported "abnormal spikes and increases" in uses of the terms "SARS," its Chinese equivalent "Feidian," "coronavirus," "shortness of breath," "dyspnea," and "diarrhea" on social-media platform WeChat starting November 17.

In October and November, satellite imagery also revealed increased traffic in Wuhan hospital parking lots, according to the Harvard researchers.

"More cars in a hospital, the hospital's busier, likely because something's happening in the community, an infection is growing and people have to see a doctor," Brownstein told ABC. "We saw this across multiple institutions."

Some of the hospitals showed a 90% increase in traffic from the same time period in 2018, according to ABC, which reviewed the researchers' data independently.

Tom Diamond, president of Remote Sensing Metrics, which analyzes satellite data and worked with the researchers, told ABC that "at all the larger hospitals in Wuhan, we measured the highest traffic we've seen in over two years during the September through December 2019 time frame."

"Our company is used to measuring tiny changes, like 2% to 3% growth in a Cabella's or Wal-Mart parking lot. That was not the case here. Here, there is a very clear trend," he added.

The science is still unclear

Medical workers in protective suits attend to coronavirus patients at the intensive-care unit of a designated hospital in Wuhan, China, February 6, 2020.

China Daily CDIC/Reuters

Infectious-disease experts who weren't affiliated with the study have cautioned that its results don't necessarily mean that the coronavirus was spreading through Wuhan in the early fall. Correlation, after all, does not mean causation.

"I don't know about the August start," Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Reuters. However, he said, "it's clear this had been spreading for some time before it was recognized and reported to the World Health Organization in December."

Using satellite and search engine data to track new disease outbreaks "is an interesting idea with some validity," Paul Digard, chair of virology at the University of Edinburgh, told Reuters. But he said the research would be more convincing if it included similar satellite data from hospitals in other Chinese cities.

By focusing only on Wuhan, the outbreak's known epicenter, "the study forces the correlation," Digard said.

Still, if used properly, behavioral evidence like internet searches and hospital traffic could help researchers study infectious diseases.

"This is all about a growing body of information pointing to something taking place in Wuhan at the time," Brownstein said. "Many studies are still needed to fully uncover what took place and for people to really learn about how these disease outbreaks unfold and emerge in populations."

Read the original article on Business Insider
MILAN, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

Article and slides can be found at https://www.athero.org/activities/survey or contact Karen Foy (karen.foy@athero.org)

A new survey by the International Atherosclerosis Society (IAS) provided a 'snapshot' of the gaps in knowledge among clinicians that limit best practice. This web-based survey was carried out in countries representing different regions of the world: Japan, Germany, Colombia and the Philippines. In Japan, the survey was a follow-up to an initial survey in 2017. Overall, 1,758 clinicians, 508 in Japan, 500 in Germany, 345 in Colombia, and 405 in the Philippines, took part in the survey. Participants were selected randomly from existing databases in each country and invitations to participate were sent to physicians from five medical fields:

Cardiology

Diabetes/metabolism/endocrinology

Neurology/neurosurgery/stroke medicine

Nephrology

General medicine.

All had experience of treating patients with high cholesterol.

This survey demonstrates that as difficulty elevates when treating patients, such as moderate and high-risk patients, a greater degree of uncertainty exists in the approach to care. Additionally, while most clinicians believe they treat elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol according to the guidelines, only half know the targets in high-risk patients. This lack in understanding of the guidelines deters the best treatment of LDL cholesterol, a major risk factor for cardiovascular events.

This survey highlights gaps in beliefs and behavior among physicians in all four countries, resulting in the following take-away messages:

With the exception of FH, physicians are uncertain about how to manage higher- risk patients who may benefit from aggressive approaches to LDL-C lowering.

There is concern about potential adverse effects on cognitive, renal and hepatic function, and risk for new onset diabetes with statin use to lower LDL-C levels. Haemorrhagic stroke is the main concern as LDL-C levels go lower. In particular, more than one in three clinicians was uncertain about the risk of haemorrhagic stroke with such low LDL cholesterol levels.

Despite recent guidelines recommending target LDL cholesterol levels below 50 mg/dL or 1.29 mmol/L in very-high-risk patients more than one-third of clinicians had no opinion about the safety of low LDL cholesterol levels.

Failure to treat LDL cholesterol adequately is the number one cause of the high residual cardiovascular risk that persists in all regions of the world.

Clearly we need a CALL TO ACTION, as there is an urgent need for education programs to clarify the information in the guidelines and overcome barriers in practice, an action very much in line with the mission of the IAS to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease,' commented IAS President Dr Raul Santos, Heart Institute -InCor, University of Sao Paulo Medical School Hospital, and Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

This survey was supported by an unrestricted grant from Amgen. The Philippine Lipid and Atherosclerosis Society received an in-kind support from Merck Sharpe & Dome (Philippines) in setting up the platform.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178589/International_Atherosclerosis_Society_Logo.jpg
In yet another operational success, security forces gunned down five militants in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on Wednesday, taking the number of ultras killed in the last four days to 14, police said.

Srinagar: In yet another operational success, security forces gunned down five militants in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on Wednesday, taking the number of ultras killed in the last four days to 14, police said.

A cordon-and-search operation was launched in the Sugoo area of Shopian in south Kashmir in the morning on receiving specific information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

He said the operation turned into an encounter after the militants fired upon a search party of the forces, who retaliated.

Two militants were killed in the initial exchange of fire and the forces had gunned down three more by the time the last reports came in.

This is the third major encounter in Shopian in four days. Nine Hizbul Mujahideen militants, including a self-styled commander, were killed in two gun battles with the security forces on Sunday and Monday.
As the world continues to grapple with coronavirus pandemic with the infections crossing the seven million mark and over 400,000 deaths due to Covid-19, at least nine countries have declared themselves to be free from the virus.

Here is a list of these nations:

1. New Zealand

On June 8, New Zealand announced that the last of its coronavirus patients had recovered with its health officials saying there were no active cases of Covid-19 in the country. The Pacific island nation reported just over 1500 corona patients including 22 who died.

The country had enforced a strict lockdown for nearly seven weeks, in which most businesses were shut and everyone except essential workers had to stay at home.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced lifting of all coronavirus measures in the country from June 9, barring border closure restrictions.

2. Tanzania

Tanzanias president on Sunday claimed that his country is free of the coronavirus because of the power of prayer. However, the claim came six weeks after the African nation stopped publicly updating virus data.

Corona in our country has been removed by the powers of God, President John Magufuli declared at a church service on Sunday.

Tanzanias number of-19 cases has been stuck at 509 for six weeks as health officials, opposition figures and some neighbouring countries worry that cases in the East African nation continue to climb. Opposition figures have estimated that cases could be in the tens of thousands.

3. Vatican

The Vatican said on June 6 that there were no more cases of Covid-19 within its population after all its 12 patients recovered. The Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement that the last person found to have been infected with the coronavirus in recent weeks had tested negative. The city state did not report any deaths.

A day later, Pope Francis addressed the faithful for the first time in Saint Peters Square since the health emergency began.

4.Fiji

Fiji declared itself free of coronavirus in the first week of June after all 18 people who had tested positive recovered from Covid-19. Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said Friday that the South Pacific island nation had just cleared the last of its active patients.

He wrote on Twitter: And even with our testing numbers climbing by the day, its now been 45 days since we recorded our last case. With no deaths, our recovery rate is 100% He added: Answered prayers, hard work, and affirmation of science! Fiji, which has a population of 900,000, imposed a lockdown in certain areas in April and put in place ongoing border restrictions.

5.Montenegro

Sixty nine days after its first reported Covid-19 case, Montenegro declared itself coronavirus free on May 24, the first European country to do so. It reported 324 confirmed cases of COVID-19 illness and nine deaths.

6.Seychelles

The island nation claimed virus-free status as early as May 18 after its health ministry announced full recoveries. It reported 11 confirmed cases but no deaths.

7.St Kitts and Nevis

The West Indies nation became coronavirus free on May 19 when all its 15 confirmed Covid-19 patients reportedly recovered. The government said all cases had travel history.

8.Timor-Leste

The island country declared itself Covid-19 free on May 15 following the recovery of its 24th and final confirmed case. The country did not report any death from the virus.

9.Papua New Guniea

The Pacific nation declared itself free of the coronavirus on May 4. It had 24 cases of Covid-19 and no deaths from the virus.
Weather Alert

...Bitterly cold temperatures are forecast for the North Country tonight... Another round of cold temperatures are expected tonight with low temperatures generally dipping to between 10 and 30 below zero. Although winds will be light to calm, protect against hypothermia and expect to need multiple layers of clothing if heading outdoors. Running or even a brisk walk in these conditions could result in frost bite on exposed skin.
Sheriffs Deputy Wounded as Shooter Opens Fire Near Police Station in California

A sheriffs deputy in Central California was shot and injured after someone opened fire on a police station on Wednesday, authorities said.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Sgt. Steve Odom told the Associated Press that the incident occurred at around 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday in Paso Robles.

The sheriffs office also said that deputies and the California Highway Patrol responded to the shooting, injuring one deputy, who is in serious yet stable condition.

At around 9 a.m. local time, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Office wrote that there was an active shooter downtown, adding: The Sheriffs Office is asking anyone in the Paso Robles downtown area to shelter in place at this time. This is an active situation.

Urgent: Active Shooter in downtown Paso Robles.

The Sheriffs Office is asking anyone in the Paso Robles downtown area to shelter in place at this time. This is an active situation.  SLO County Sheriff (@SLOSheriff) June 10, 2020

The shooting comes following a wave of anti-police sentiment following peaceful protests, riots, acts of arson, and vandalism in the wake of George Floyds death in Minneapolis while he was under police custody. The incident also sparked calls to defund the police or abolish police offices in general, which was shot down by Republican and Democratic officials, although some city council members in Minneapolis and Seattle have expressed a willingness to dismantle police departments.

The anti-police sentiment has also drawn rebuke from police unions, including the NYPD union. Pat Lynch, president of the largest of the unions, the Police Benevolent Association in New York City, said that his officers have been abused and attacked, while adding that bail reform laws have made it difficult to prosecute criminals.

Urgent: Active Shooter situation in Paso Robles.

Searching for armed man who fired at Paso Robles PD this morning.

Deputies & CHP responded to the incident.

One Deputy shot. He is in serious but stable condition.

If near downtown Paso Robles you are asked to shelter in place. pic.twitter.com/7tpZQD4urR  SLO County Sheriff (@SLOSheriff) June 10, 2020

Lynch noted that in the past week, 40 people were shot across the city, noting that there were seven people shot in the span of about 10 minutes in Brooklyn on Monday.

Everybodys trying to shame us into being embarrassed about our profession, added Mike OMeara, the head of the New York State Association of PBAs. Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect.
Previously, the court allowed law enforcers to bring the ex-president for questioning by force if he fails to report.

Ukraine's fifth president, Petro Poroshenko, on Wednesday morning came for interrogation to the State Bureau of Investigation.

Earlier, the SBI reported that Poroshenko was summoned for 11:00 on June 10 as a witness in the case probing eavesdropping of international negotiations with the participation of the ex-president's participation.

Later, the court allowed law enforcers to bring the ex-president for questioning by force if he fails to report.

Outside the SBI Headquarters in Kyiv, Poroshenko was met by his fellow party members, MPs, and journalists. After speaking to reporters, the fifth president went inside the SBI office, presumably for questioning.

Read alsoRFE/RL: Poroshenko fails to appear for questioning as witness in illegal transfer of paintings

Poroshenko did not respond to previous summons to report for the SBI questioning.

The latest summonses for questioning that Poroshenko's legal team claims were never properly delivered relate to the case of the alleged artwork smuggling and the one about the circumstances of the alleged eavesdropping of presidential conversations at his office (initiated in the wake of the recent leaks of what purportedly is communications between Poroshenko and U.S. officials, including former Vice President Joe Biden and ex-Secretary of State John Kerry).
We saw additional ridership on Saturday, but it was still down more than 80 percent from last year, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said. Some trains were more crowded than recommended under social distancing guidelines, and its important to note that Metro cannot guarantee social distancing space will be available because theres no way to know how many people are coming, from where and when.
Arrests of three power plant staff follows fuel reservoir collapse in Siberias Norilsk that polluted soil and waterways

Russia has arrested three power plant staff after more than 21,000 tonnes of diesel leaked into the soil and waterways in Siberia.

The arrests came on Wednesday, weeks after the spill took place on May 29 after a fuel reservoir collapsed at a power plant operated by a subsidiary of metals giant Norilsk Nickel in the city of Norilsk beyond the Arctic Circle.

The Investigative Committee, which is probing the accident, said it had arrested the director of the power station, Pavel Smirnov, along with two engineers on suspicion of breaching environmental protection rules. If charged, they would risk up to five years in prison.

The Committee said the fuel tank had required major repairs from 2018, but the suspects continued to use it in breach of safety rules.

As a result the accident occurred, the investigators statement said.

In materials distributed on Tuesday, Norilsk Nickel said the fuel reservoir was built in 1985 and underwent repairs in 2017 and 2018 after which it went through a safety audit.





The company considers this measure to be unjustifiably harsh, the press service said in a statement to RIA Novosti news agency, citing Vice President Nikolai Utkin.

He said those arrested are cooperating with law enforcement authorities and now they would be much more useful at the scene of the clean-up operation.

Emergency situation

President Vladimir Putin declared an emergency situation and Norilsk Nickel head Vladimir Potanin told the president the company would pay for clean-up efforts estimated at $146m.

Regional officials have said despite efforts to contain the fuel leak using booms on the surface of a river, it has now reached a freshwater lake that is a important source of water for the region.

The pollution could now flow into the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia, which Greenpeace Russia expert Vladimir Chuprov told AFP news agency would be a disaster.

Norilsk Nickels first vice president denied the spill had reached the lake on a conference call on Wednesday, saying the company did not find contamination there.

The metals giant has said the accident could have been caused by global warming thawing the permafrost under the fuel reservoir.

The company has acknowledged it did not specifically monitor the condition of permafrost at its sites.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 9) Congress is seeking a probe into the sudden spike in bogus accounts on social media platform Facebook.

Muntinlupa Rep. Ruffy Biazon said on Wednesday that he has filed House Resolution 968 seeking to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation into the proliferation of the clone accounts from the platform, which opens up its users to "a slew of exploitations" like online bullying, harassment, identity theft, violations of privacy and others.

The resolution was filed on Tuesday, June 9.

Biazon, senior vice chair of the House committee on national defense, also called on the government to create a joint task force composed of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group, the National Privacy Commission, and other related agencies.

"The new normal would increase reliance in social media platforms...and it is therefore incumbent upon the government to ensure the safety of its users through the protection of their private data," Biazon said.

On Tuesday, Senator Francis Kiko Pangilinan filed Senate Resolution No. 444, directing an appropriate Senate committee to conduct an inquiry into the proliferation of the fake profiles, noting how these pages have been using the identities of students, government officials, and other users.

Pangilinan said the inquiry will also help determine the possible regulation of social media platforms in accordance with the policy that respects the rights and freedoms of all Filipinos guaranteed by the Constitution.

There is a need to look into our existing laws to increase the extent of liability and possible regulation of service providers or content hosts such as Facebook and other social media platforms, the resolution read.

Meanwhile, Quezon City Representative Anthony Peter Crisologo filed House Resolution no. 964 urging all appropriate committees, especially the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology, to investigate the matter.

Crisologo said that the emergence of the fake accounts is compromising public rights, and that these might be used for illegal activities.

"One of the strategies of the government to combat the spread of COVID-19 is through information dissemination using various platforms including social media. The circulation of false information could destroy the integrity of the information ecology of the country and could worsen the current public health crisis, he said in a statement Tuesday.

He said is it also important to know the intention behind the creation of these accounts to know what action to implement. Crisologo also pushed Facebook Philippines to explain the incident and review their rules to ensure users protection.

Bogus, duplicate, and empty accounts first surfaced on Facebook over the weekend, with various sectors voicing out security and safety concerns.

Groups say the incident can be linked to the recent backlash against the controversial anti-terrorism measure, as some students particularly vocal critics of the government said they have been receiving threats from the said dummy accounts.

Both the Justice Department and Facebook said they will be investigating the issue.

Officials have meanwhile cautioned citizens to remain vigilant, and to continuously report suspicious accounts to the social media platforms data protection team.
North Adams Schools Mull Reconfiguration, Closure Scenarios



The School Committee reviews budget scenarios at a virtual workshop on Monday. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  School officials are bracing for a worst-case budget scenario that could mean the closure of one of the three elementary schools.

At minimum, the district is anticipating reductions in positions. There's also the possibility of the reconfiguration of Brayton and Greylock schools.

But the end result is unknown at this point until the state can give the district concrete aid numbers.

"These are really just possibilities and considerations, and therefore subject to change based on the discussions that will be had tonight," Superintendent Barbara Malkas told the School Committee on Monday. "However, with that said, you know, COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the state and local economy as well as the national economy, and one could even say the global economy. And because of that, we are looking at some pretty significant deficit, as we go into planning for the FY21 budget."

State officials have warned school districts to be prepared for a minimum of 10 percent cuts across the board as revenues have fallen precipitously because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Last week, the School Committee was provided for a general outline of cuts at 10, 12.5 and 15 percent.

A 5 percent cut equals from $800,000 to $1 million out of the budget. The first option, at 10 percent, would be a budget cut of $1,803,408. With estimated offsets of $1,196,049 from stimulus money, school choice funds, federal grants and special education tuition, the spending reduction would actually be $607,359.

Second scenario at 12.5 percent would be cuts a lot deeper at $2,254,259. Using the same estimated offsets, the spending reduction would be $1,058,210 and would require reductions in educational staffing.

The third at 15 percent would be a $2,705,111 cut, for a total of $1,509,062 in budget reductions and would mean the closure of an elementary school.

"I do want to say that our budget scenario priorities include, certainly always to the greatest extent possible, preserving our instructional integrity," Malkas said. "The district has made significant progress and improvement these last few years. I'm really looking to preserve those budgetary items that have been added, particularly in areas of personnel that are going to help us continue to move forward, even through this particular crisis."

The options were also based on data and enrollment projections and the way that resources might be reallocated.

"And, you know, with our difficulty in attracting highly qualified candidates, we really wanted to try to create budget scenarios where we limited the number of new staff that we were identifying for a reduction in force," she said, while at the same time abiding by state law and bargaining unit contracts.

Teachers with three consecutive years are awarded professional teacher status, while those without have to be notified in writing by June 16 if they may not be called back. In addition, any licensure waivers end with the school year.

All three scenarios would include shifting educators according to licensure and seniority.

Malkas and Business Administrator Carrie Burnett laid out the reasoning for the three options that get progressively more drastic as the cuts increase.

The 10 percent reduction would include: reductions in Central Office, Brayton and Greylock; changes to programs and capital outlays, and the elimination of raises for professional staff. Reduced positions are those that are not currently filled, resignations and retirements. It would also include the reorganization of the E3 Academy and the Northern Berkshire Academy.

That means one full-time equivalent teacher each at Brayton and Greylock elementary schools and not filling one Spanish teacher, who is retiring. The district would use an online program for the time being. It would also mean the loss of a .5 equivalent chorus teacher, one job specialist, one special education teacher at Greylock and a .5 equivalent instrumental teacher for Colegrove and Drury.

Four full-time equivalent van drivers would also be reduced. Malkas said the use of Transfinder software has created a better route system and some of the vans are old and will not be replaced.

The 12.5 percent reductions would mean restructuring two elementary schools.

Brayton would become a pre-K to Grade 2 school with four sections of each grade level, representing a 12-section school and Greylock would move from a Grade 3 to 6 school with three sections at each grade level, therefore also having 12 sections.

This would mean a reduction of four full-time equivalent teachers, four full-time equivalent paraprofessionals and 18 teaching assistants.

"The enrollments at Colegrove [Park Elementary] are very stable and at a capacity," Malkas said. "Doing this reconfiguration would ensure that class sizes are consistent across the district."

The 15 percent reduction would mean closing a school and would include reductions of principal, dean of students, special education coordinator, school adjustment counselor, clerical paraprofessional, two custodians and four full-time equivalent cafeteria staff (although those come out of the food services budget).

Drury High School is the least affected by these scenarios but Malkas warned if they moved past a 15 percent cut, it would begin to impact programs.

"If we were to go significantly below a 15 percent level fund, we are no longer able to consider consolidation, reallocation and consolidation alone," she said. "That is when we start to look at ... how do we protect the instructional core, and what programs are up for not being renewed.

"Rght now we have the music program, we have the arts program, we have PE programs in every one of our elementary schools. We have maintained a foreign language program at the high school, as well as arts and music program at the high school. Those programs we could consider if we had to go much beyond the 15 percent below level fund, then we're starting to pick and choose based on enrollments."

School Committee member Heather Boulger said she was hoping for more cuts in administrative costs, referring to the fact that "district leadership and administration" goes up 2.16 percent in every scenario.

"I can't in good conscience, even support an increase of 2 percent in administrative costs when we're laying off eight-10 teachers and scenario one," she said. "I just I guess I would have liked to have seen a scenario where maybe we looked at sharing some of the deans of students within the schools, or any other support staff that are more administrative in nature. Instead of taking her away from direct teaching."

Committee member Ian Bergeron agreed that "the optics on that last slide are terrible, but in all three scenarios a 2 percent increase?"

Malkas said there are only four administrative positions in Central Office at this point, herself, Burnett, Director of Student Support Services Thomas Simon and Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Kimberly Morandi-Roberts, three of which are required by state law. Two staff posts  an instructional technology coordinator and clerical paraprofessional  were eliminated.

The bulk of the increase is for a $12,000 legal services contract for special education. Only nonprofessional staff got a cost of living increase; no professional staff will get any raises.



Scenario 3 would include the closing of a school. Boulger said she meant administrators in general and asked if there was a chance for combining positions such as deans and special education coordinators.

Malkas said there wasn't much difference in the caseloads between elementaries and the high school. Both the deans at the high school have different responsibilities, she said, that would be difficult to combine.

"I will say that we've worked so hard to really create a tiered system of supports around how we work with our students who have behavioral needs," the superintendent said. "There are folks who have an integral part in doing that work, the deans of being one of them and the school adjustment counselors being another.

"And I just don't know if by removing or sharing those positions we actually undermine the instructional integrity."

But, she conceded, "we're going to have to think long and hard about all of these when we ultimately have to decide."

Committee member Tara Jacobs was most concerned with losing programming, particularly in the arts and music, that are important for children's social and emotional growth and achievements.

"It's difficult to return services once they've been lost so I want to make sure we're preserving services that matter to our community and to our kids, for the time we are able to return to a more normal way of operating," said Jacobs. It's a unique time because of the pandemic apart from the budget issues, she continued, "I just want to make sure that we're maintaining important programs while we're making these decisions, and how they're being maintained because if they're shifting to after-school that, to me, puts them in danger of being question marks as opposed to definitive programs."

She advocated for a resolution to the Legislature similar to the one approved by the committee before at the start of the meeting that called for the federal government to provide more funding relief for education on par with that during the Great Recession. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 had provided $100 billion while the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided only $13 billion of its $2.2 trillion for education stabilization funding.

Educators and school officials have been calling on the Legislature to increase funding for several years, saying public schools and colleges have been underfunded to the tune of $2 billion.

The committee also discussed the use of school choice funding, which would be $265,000 for fiscal 2021.

Burnett said the school choice account is projected to be $1.3 million by June 30, 2021. Currently there is $1.7 million. The district hasn't used the allocated school choice funds completely for this year but is waiting to see where it will end up regarding salaries and COVID-19 expenses.

Jacob suggested the committee could dip farther into the account with the understanding that it can't be a long-term solution.

"We can definitely look at those scenarios and take that into consideration as an offset to some of the things that we talked about," Burnett said.

Mayor Thomas Bernard said they did have to keep the short term and long term in mind.

"The notion that we're not going to have to dig deep into this revolving account next year is probably not realistic," he said. "What we use now to stave off pain might limit our ability to do that in the future."
BAY CITY, MI - Despite restrictions lifting around the state during the coronavirus pandemic, the Bay County Board of Commissioners got a reminder during a regular meeting about the risks of COVID-19.

Bay County Health Department Director Joel Strasz informed the Bay County Board of Commissioners during the Tuesday, June 9 regular meeting that there was a recent spike in COVID-19 cases. The increase stems from what Strasz referred to as an outbreak among the employees of an outside flood cleanup company.

The companys employees were from out of state and were residing temporarily in Bay County as they assisted with the ongoing flooding cleanup efforts after Midland faced historic flooding and dam failures.

We are working with officials from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, were working with this company as well as folks in Midland as well, said Strasz.

Despite recommendations from the Bay County Health Department, the affected employees were reported by Strasz as having returned to their home state.

There is a number of employees with limited English proficiency and a number of them, contrary to the guidance that we provided to quarantine and isolate themselves, they actually returned to their home state of Texas," said Strasz.

Strasz did not elaborate further on any identifying details surrounding the company or employees.

I dont really want to comment more on this other than that there was a spike over the weekend in the number of positive of cases and its related to these individuals that tested positive," he said.

Looking back at last weeks trends, an upward trend is shown in Bay Countys COVID-19 case data but Strasz did not state what percentage of numbers are directly related to the companys outbreak and on which days the companys cases were reported. A spike of 10 cases was reported on June 3 and 11 cases on June 6.

Strasz said, "Were hoping to get this situation resolved fairly soon and once again, underlining the fact that this virus is very very serious, a very serious thing. Were not over this yet and it can spread very very easily.

Currently Bay County is reporting 345 positive COVID-19 cases, 46 pending cases, and 26 deaths. So far 280 cases are being reported as recovered with 546 negative cases being discovered during testing.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Read all of MLives coverage on the coronavirus at mlive.com/coronavirus.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

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Michigan coronavirus stay-at-home order lifted: Heres what opens when

Coronavirus clips wings of Bay City Fathers Day fly-in pancake breakfast

Bay County and Bay City facilities reopen to the public after coronavirus closures

Bay City Rockin the River boat races and concerts in Bay City canceled for 2020
PASO ROBLES, Calif. - A central California sheriffs deputy was shot in the head early Wednesday in an ambush attack by a gunman intent on harming or killing police, authorities said.

It follows two recent deadly shootings targeting officers in California.

The shooter on Wednesday, who has not been captured, opened fire around 3:45 a.m. on a police station in Paso Robles, said San Luis Obispo County Ian Parkinson.

The deputy was struck while responding to the shooting and his partner dragged him to safety and returned fire, Parkinson said. The bullet remains lodged in his head and hes in serious condition, he said.

We feel that this was an ambush, that he planned it, that he intended for officers to come out of the police department and to assault them, he said.

Investigators later found the body of a man near railroad tracks several blocks away. He was shot at close range and the homicide is related to the other shooting, officials said.

An hours-long search of downtown Paso Robles ended without an arrest. Officials planned to release a sketch of the suspect.

The shooter, a man with dark hair in his 20s or 30s, fired at the Paso Robles Police Department around 3:45 a.m. while officers were inside, he said. Gunfire occurred over a span of some minutes, Cipolla said.

Two sheriffs deputies were fired upon when they arrived on the scene, wounding one. His partner returned fire, said sheriffs spokesman Tony Cipolla.

The Paso Robles Police Department tweeted that shooting stopped by 4 a.m. Paso Robles, a city of about 32,000 residents, is set in the hills of Californias central coast wine region about 175 miles (280 kilometres) northwest of Los Angeles.

Santa Cruz County sheriffs Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38, was killed and another deputy was injured Saturday in the community of Ben Lomond in an attack allegedly carried out by an Air Force sergeant armed with homemade bombs, an AR-15 rifle and other weapons.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said the suspect, Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo was intent on killing officers.

Carrillo was wounded and was being treated for a non-life-threatening injury.

The FBI is investigating whether Carrillo, 32, has links to the killing of a federal security officer who was shot outside the U.S. courthouse in Oakland during a protest against police mistreatment of black people on May 29.

___

This story fixes a typo in Sgt. Gutzwillers age to 38.
SpaceX's mission on May 30 in collaboration with NASA made history as the astronauts who boarded the spaceship became the first humans whose trip to outer space was sponsored by a private company.

It was the initial flight for commercial space travel in the world. The historic event proves that outer space tourism, or traveling to outer space for leisure, could be feasible in the following years. This also means a potential boom in the partnership between NASA and SpaceX.

NASA's Partnership with Private Companies for Space Travel

Elon Musk's SpaceX is not the only private firm that NASA is collaborating with for commercial travels to outer space.

Two other companies will be in a friendly competition with SpaceX for NASA's Artemis Program which aims to send the next man to the moon and the first woman to land on the moon, based on an article. Dynetics and Amazon's Blue Origins are the two companies that will be tasked to make a ship for the Artemis Program. NASA plans to conduct the launch in 2024.

According to an article, Elon Musk supports healthy competition as it will inspire the players chosen to take part in the project to make use of their innovative skills.

After the success of the Artemis Project, NASA plans to set the next mission for space travel to Mars where Elon Musk believes will be a future for the potential start of a civilization of another planet in the solar system.

The Spaceship

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket had taken more or less 19 hours to take the two astronauts to the International Space Station, according to an article. Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, the two astronauts who manned the rocket had tested the manual controls of the rocket even if it can run on automatic mode.

Hurley and Behnken will be in the International Space Station for a few months before going back to earth.

Earlier, the original schedule of flight for the mission had been canceled due to uncontrollable conditions. SpaceX and NASA had decided that the weather condition was not fit for a rocket to safely launch.

Check these out:

NASA's New Opportunity Through Collaborations with Private Companies

It was reported in an article that NASA's Space Shuttle Program had been terminated in 2011. It means that many astronauts from across the globe had to travel to Russia to go to outer space. It was recorded that Russia has an operational space station.

However, now that NASA found a way to get their astronauts back to outer space without needing to travel to Russia, their partnership with private firms had helped a lot at reviving space travel from American soil.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 01:53:48|Editor: huaxia

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A medical worker uses a test kit made in Morocco to diagnose COVID-19 virus in Rabat, Morocco, on June 9, 2020. The Moroccan health ministry on Tuesday reported 135 new infections with COVID-19, bringing the total number of cases in the North African country to 8,437. (Photo by Chadi/Xinhua)

RABAT, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The Moroccan health ministry on Tuesday reported 135 new infections with COVID-19, bringing the total number of cases in the North African country to 8,437.

The number of the recoveries increased to 7,493 after 85 new ones were added, said Mouad Mrabet, coordinator of the Moroccan center for public health, at a press briefing.

The COVID-19 death toll grew to 210 after two new fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours, Mrabet added.

The coronavirus' death rate in Morocco stabilizes at 2.5 percent, with the recovery rate at 88.8 percent, the official noted.

China has helped Morocco in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 14, China Development Bank donated a batch of supplies to the North African country, including respirators and medical protective masks.

China's Guizhou Province has also donated 15,000 surgical gloves, 20,000 medical masks and 2,000 protective suits to help protect Moroccan medical workers fighting the pandemic. Enditem
Race through the latest John Grisham and enjoy Lily Kings new study of a woman rallying through grief.

Fiction

1. Writers & Lovers by Lily King is published in hardback by Picador. Available May 28

Lily King perfectly captures the ennui of life as you age out of your twenties, into those slightly more grown-up years  especially when the direction youre going in isnt what youd imagined for yourself. In Writers & Lovers Casey is waitressing while trying to outrun huge debts and finish her novel, but shes also wading through grief over her mothers sudden death, and the anguish of a broken love affair.

Then she finds herself torn between two men, Silas, young and inconsistent, and Oscar, older, who comes with two kids. King is unfailingly astute, be it on the casual pain people can obliviously inflict upon you, to the flickering memory of a family members transgression, or the salvation enthusiastic, supportive friends can provide.

And the prose is visceral, reading it you can feel the anxiety Casey feels buzzing in her limbs, the fury she has for incompetent chefs, and the onslaught of tears she tries to out-pedal on her bike. Witty and affecting, Writers & Lovers explores where grit can get you, even when everything appears to be falling apart.

9/10

(Review by Ella Walker)

2. Camino Winds by John Grisham is published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton. Available May 28

After a hurricane devastates Floridas Camino Island, bookstore owner Bruce Cable finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation. Soon a mysterious drug, a billion-dollar care company and multiple contract killers appear from the shadows in a fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable read. Camino Winds is the second instalment in this series, and it is good to be back on the island. Luckily its different enough from its predecessor to feel fresh and new, while Cable is a likeable protagonist that has been more fully developed this time around. The novel has enough plot twists to keep you engaged without it feeling exhausting. Another compelling read from Grisham, and will satisfy old fans and please new readers alike.

8/10

(Review by Megan Baynes)

3. Latitudes Of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup is published in hardback by riverrun. Available now

So far in 2020, its been hard to forget that humanity has yet to escape the rhythms of the natural world. In that sense, Shubhangi Swarups debut novel, Latitudes Of Longing, very much fits the zeitgeist, though that alone is a poor summary. It is a thoughtful, even philosophical, book and the result of years of immersive research in the locations described, from the islands of the Indian Ocean to the high Himalayas.

The tectonic changes of the landscape are as much a part of the drama as the triumphs and disasters of the human characters. Their stories unfold movingly in four sections, each with only a loose connection to the last and each set in a different corner of the Indian subcontinent. The ecological and geological richness of their surroundings enhances, rather than overwhelms, the emotional intensity of the characters. A unique and rewarding read.

8/10

(Review by Joshua Pugh Ginn)

Non-fiction

4. Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman is published in hardback by Bloomsbury. Available now

Rutger Bregmans Utopia For Realists, proposed a universal basic income. So its fair to say the Dutch historian is not afraid of ruffling a few intellectual feathers. In Humankind, he sets out to disprove the idea that humans are naturally bad.

He identifies an epidemic of cynicism infecting figures in every generation, from Hobbes to Dawkins, who would have us believe we are inherently selfish. He uncovers a real-life Lord of the Flies scenario in 1960s Tonga, finding no tribalism, no murder, but a group of boys who survive through cooperation.

It seems Rousseau was right: were naturally good but corrupted by society. Want compelling evidence most soldiers dont actually fire their guns at the enemy? He has it. Proof the most famous psychological experiments showing our capacity for evil are unreliable? Ditto. The reader emerges from this book with a new respect for humanity and a practical sense of how to make the most of our natural talents.

9/10

(Review by Rachel Farrow)

Childrens book of the week

5. Storm by Nicola Skinner is published in hardback by HarperCollins Childrens Books. Available now

Storm is a highly original and humorous novel by the author of the acclaimed Bloom. Frances Frida Ripley (or Frankie for short) experiences a short life, an untimely death, and something very extraordinary in between. After being born in a storm to woefully unprepared parents, she grows into a fiery child with a permanent temper  who then loses her life in a freak natural disaster that wipes out her whole town.

Waking up over 100 years later as a poltergeist, she finds plenty more things to be angry about, including tourists invading her personal space. She is befriended by a boy called Scanlon, who has the ability to see ghosts, but there are those who want to trap ghosts and exploit them. Scanlon must pick a side, and Frankie must find a way to harness the storm inside her

This is a funny, surprising and gripping read that mums and dads will enjoy as much as you.

9/10
(Photo : Alexander Antropov from Pixabay) A research from Japan suggests that life's building molecules might have come from ancient asteroids.

A new study has found the emergence of amino acids, which serve as the building blocks of proteins and life, on impact sites of ancient asteroids in the ocean, demonstrating the role of meteorites in the creation of life here on Earth and potentially in Mars.

The Foundation of Life Came From Meteorites?

In a report by Knowridge Science Report, a group of researchers from the Tohoku University, Osaka University, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), and the Center for High-Pressure Science & Technology Advanced Research (HPSTAR) came to their conclusion by simulating the reactions that occur when a meteorite crashes into the ocean.

In order to do this, the team investigated the reactions between water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and iron in a laboratory impact facility with the help of a single-stage propellant gun.

They used both nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the experiment as the sources as these gases are believed to be the two significant components of the atmosphere that existed on the Hadean Earth more than four billion years ago.

"Making organic molecules form reduced compounds like methane and ammonia are not difficult, but they are regarded as minor components in the atmosphere at that time," said Yoshihiro Furukawa, the lead author from Tohoku University.

Read Also: Mysterious Radio Bursts Coming from Space have a 'Repeating Pattern' Every 157 Days, Astronomers Say

Formation of Amino Acids

Through the simulation, the scientists were able to discover the formation of amino acids like alanine and glycine, which are the direct constituents of proteins that catalyze into many different biological reactions.

"The finding of amino acid formation from carbon dioxide and molecular nitrogen demonstrates the importance of making life's building blocks from these ubiquitous compounds," the researcher further said.

Another exciting thing about the study is that it supports the theory that life's building molecules came from space through extraterrestrial delivery, including meteorites.

In a way, it could mean the possibility that life as we know it came from space rather than endogenous formation.

Did the Same Reactions Happen in Ancient Mars?

Nevertheless, another interesting theory came with the study: the same building blocks of life might have potentially existed in a much younger Mars when it had an ocean, as carbon dioxide and nitrogen would have been likely the main constituents of gases in its atmosphere then.

The theory that Mars once had water is widely accepted by different scientists and astronomers, with research from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) backing up the claims.

Their research even suggested that Mars had more water than Earth's Arctic ocean.

With that, could meteorites that crash-landed on an ancient Martian ocean have brought the same building blocks of life that appeared here on Earth?

If Furukawa is to be asked, he believes "further investigation" will be required to reveal the role of meteorites that impacted our planet and possibly of Mars billions of years ago and how it was able to bring complex biomolecules here and on the Red Planet.

The results of Furukawa and his team's research is available on their paper that has been published in Nature journal, Scientific Reports.

Read Also: Ships Have Been Sailing in Circles and Some Believe it Could be Due to the Earth's Pole Reversal

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
India's largest brokerage firm Zerodha on June 9 introduced a mandatory time-based one-time password (TOTP ) to wall up against a recent surge in phishing frauds.

Since the COVID-19 lockdown in late March, illicit pages of top brokerages had been set up that mimic the look and feel of the login pages of their trading platforms, Zerodha said.

These links are then sent to unsuspecting investors via SMS messages, emails or social media with contact data stolen from various sources.

To prevent such frauds, Zerodha had temporarily blocked trading in all illiquid risky contracts. TOTP is its way to keep its investors and their data safe.

"TOTP stands for 'time-based one-time password'. Unlike a traditional OTP that is delivered to you via email or SMS, a TOTP is generated by a TOTP app that is already on your phone," the brokerage said in a blog post.

"This TOTP is valid only for a short duration (usually 30 seconds) and is regenerated every 30 seconds."

To directly set up TOTP, you'll need to login on Kite web. Once you set it up, you can log in using this TOTP on the web as well as mobile.

You have to use apps like Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or Authy on your mobile phone to generate a 6-digit TOTP for every login.

A step by step guide:> Log into Kite, and click on your client ID on the top right-hand corner of the page and select My Profile from the drop-down;

> Click on Password & Security;

> Click on Password & Security;

> Enter the OTP received on your registered email ID;

> Install Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator or Authy on your phone. You can find this on the Play Store or iOs;

> Select scan a barcode under the add account option and click on 'Begin';

> Allow access to your phone camera and scan the bar code shown on the profile page on Kite. Once you scan it, the account will be added to your authenticator app. Enter the OTP shown on the app on Kite along with your password and click on Enable.

> Once you click on Enable, youll get a notification confirming the TOTP set up;

> You will have to enter the TOTP shown on your authenticator app instead of PIN from the next login onward.
Tamil Nadu, the second worst hit state in terms of coronavirus positive cases, has fixed ceiling prices for treatment of COVID-19. While critical patients will have to pay Rs 15,000 per day for treatment in a private hospital, non-critical patients cannot be charged more than Rs 7,500 a day by the healthcare providers of the state, the government has said.

In a recent directive, the government also added COVID-19 treatment and testing packages to the Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme (CMCHIS), thereby making it available to the beneficiaries of the scheme. The government stated that the decision to put a ceiling price on the treatment of COVID-19 was taken after increasing complaints of private hospitals charging exorbitant amount from COVID-19 patients. Tamil Nadu has 34,914 confirmed COVID-19 cases at the moment.

As per the approved package, for non-critical COVID-19 patients, the empanelled hospitals can charge Rs 5,000 per day for treating CMCHIS beneficiaries. Depending on the type of hospital and nature of treatment, the per day cost in case of a COVID-19 patient in critical condition under CMCHIS can vary from Rs 9,000 to Rs 15,000. An additional amount of Rs 2,500 for RT-PCR testing and Rs 500 if the test is conducted through a home visit can also be billed under CMCHIS.

For the general public undergoing non-critical COVID-19 treatment in private hospitals, the per day charges will be either Rs 5,000 or Rs 7,500 depending on the grade of the hospital. For critical care, the charges have been fixed at Rs 15,000 per day for all types of hospitals.

The beneficiaries of Tamil Nadu Pensioners' Insurance Scheme will also be charged the same way by hospitals. The state government said it has been taking several measures to combat COVID-19 pandemic. This includes a notified list of government hospitals and government medical colleges, district health quarters hospitals and key sub-district hospitals that are offering free COVID-19 treatment. In addition it has also notified a list of private medical colleges and hospitals that offer COVID-19 treatment. The list will be modified from time to time, the government order said.

States like Maharashtra and Gujarat, where COVID-19 infections are as severe as Tamil Nadu have also announced cap on treatment and testing charges. While there are 90,787 cases in Maharashtra, the number of confirmed patients in Gujarat till June 9 is 21,014. Delhi, which has the third highest number of COVID-19 cases, stands at 31,309.

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: Private hospitals launch home care packages for mild cases
[June 10, 2020] WidePoint to Showcase TM2 Solutions at ATARC's The Role of Emerging Technology in the Federal Emergency Response Summit

FAIRFAX, Va., June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WidePoint Corporation (NYSE American: WYY ), the leading provider of Trusted Mobility Management (TM2) specializing in Telecommunications Lifecycle Management, Identity Management and Digital Billing & Analytics solutions, is participating in the ATARC 2020 Virtual Technology Showcase on June 11, 2020. The theme of ATARCs 2020 conference is The Role of Emerging Technology in the Federal Emergency Response. Leaders from the federal IT community will gather at the ATARC Virtual Summit to discuss the challenges their IT ecosystems have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attendees will learn about technology breakthroughs in mobile/digital, security, artificial intelligence, cloud & infrastructure, and DevOps. The technology showcase will feature innovative products and solutions from private industry that provide government agencies with greater mission efficiency. During the event, WidePoints Telecom Lifecycle Management and Mobiliy Managed Services solutions will be featured in Mobile/Digital, and WidePoint-ORCs Identity Management solutions will be featured in Security.



Jin Kang, CEO of WidePoint stated: Attending ATARCs conference alongside other innovative industry leaders and partners provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate to peers and prospects how our technology solutions have continued to deliver for critical mission agencies during the pandemic. WidePoint is currently supporting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, among others, with their IT response. We appreciate that ATARC has created this unique event to enable WidePoint and other technology providers an opportunity to share our solutions and success stories with the government and with other industry leaders. To learn more about the event, https://atarc.org/event/emerging-tech-pandemic-2020/

About WidePoint WidePoint Corporation (NYSE American: WYY) is a leading provider of trusted mobility management (TM2) solutions, including telecom management, mobile management, identity management, and digital billing and analytics. For more information, visit widepoint.com . About ATARC The Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides a collaborative forum for government, academia and industry to resolve emerging technology challenges. ATARC also introduces innovative technology from academic research labs to the Federal government and private industry. For more information, visit, www.atarc.org . Investor Relations: Gateway Investor Relations

Matt Glover or Charlie Schumacher

949-574-3860

[email protected]

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Shailesh Maingi is the founder and CEO of Kineticos Life Sciences, a boutique advisory focused on strategy, licensing and commercial product launch that he established in 2007. In 2019 he founded the Kineticos Disruptor Fund, which launches and funds early-stage biotech companies focused on oncology and therapies for neurodegenerative and rare diseases. The Kineticos Disruptor Fund has recently launched Inceptor Bio, a biotech incubator/accelerator hub.

Shailesh has served on the board of directors of a number of biotech companies, including Gallus Biopharmaceuticals, a biologics CDMO, and Locus Biosciences, a CRISPR gene editing start-up. Additionally, Shailesh founded InVincible Cancer Research Fund, a non-profit supporting cancer research. Shailesh earned a B.S. in Chemistry from UNC, Chapel Hill and an MBA from Golden Gate University, and currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"Having known Shailesh for 10 years, I am excited to have him bring his broad industry knowledge, sharp intellect and strategic expertise to our board of directors as we build the leading microbiome CDMO," said Mark Bamforth, president and CEO at Arranta, in a welcome announcement.

"I am delighted to partner with Mark, the board, and the team at Arranta Bio, following his success with Brammer Bio and Gallus Biopharmaceuticals. This is an exciting time for the microbiome sector which is poised to deliver meaningful products that improve healthcare. I look forward to supporting Arranta Bio's leading role in serving this field," Shailesh Maingi said.

Almost 200 companies are actively exploring the linkage between diseases and the microbiome  millions of bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses that live inside and on the human body  in order to identify therapeutic targets. Scientists have called it the second genome; in fact, the number of genes in the microbes making up one person's microbiome is estimated to be at least 200 times the number in the human genome.

In the past decade, the industry has experienced a rapid acceleration in scientific understanding of the composition and functions of gut microbiota. Arranta is proud to be the leading CDMO focused on supporting the supply needs of these innovator companies.

actALIVE is a registered trademark of Arranta Bio.

About Arranta Bio

Founded in 2019, Arranta Bio is a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) specifically established to focus on serving companies seeking to develop and commercialize therapies targeting the human microbiome. In November 2019, Arranta Bio acquired Captozyme  the leader in process development and clinical contract manufacturing for microbiome pioneers  whose experienced team has worked with and developed processes for over 135 different species spanning 85 different genera of live biotherapeutics since 2009. Headed by a management team and technical experts with a proven track record in both process development and contract manufacturing through fermentation to lyophilization and encapsulation of live biopharmaceuticals, Arranta Bio offers the knowledge and resources necessary to help clients develop and manufacture promising new microbiome therapies to meet the needs of patients. Additional information about Arranta Bio is available at www.arrantabio.com. Enquiries can be sent to [email protected].

About Ampersand Capital Partners

Founded in 1988, Ampersand is a middle market private equity firm dedicated to growth-oriented investments in the healthcare sector. With offices in Boston, MA and Amsterdam, Netherlands, Ampersand leverages a unique blend of private equity and operating experience to build value and drive superior long-term performance alongside its portfolio company management teams. Ampersand has helped build numerous market-leading companies across each of its core healthcare sectors, including Avista Pharma Solutions, Brammer Bio, Confluent Medical, Genewiz, Genoptix, Talecris Biotherapeutics, and Viracor-IBT Laboratories. Additional information about Ampersand is available at www.ampersandcapital.com

Arranta Bio Media contact:

Guy Tiene

That's Nice LLC

T: +1 212 366 4455

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Arranta Bio
The mainframe has remained a staple in large enterprises for more than 50 years, but as the technology continues to mature, organizations must find ways to modernize their approach to the next generation of z/OS and the people they employ to manage it.

Infotel, a leading global software vendor of data performance and optimization solutions for Fortune 500 enterprises, today announced sponsorship for an IBM Systems magazine webinar titled Preparing Enterprise IT for the Next 50 Years of Mainframe. With the mainframe now in its mid-50s, Infotel guest speakers will discuss concerns about continued support for the modern mainframe and tools to help close the IT skills gap that the industry is currently experiencing on the platform. The webinar will take place Wednesday, July 22, 2020, and will feature Infotels Senior Management Consultant, Colin Oakhill and global Db2 expert, Craig S. Mullins, of Mullins Consulting.

The mainframe has remained a staple in large enterprises for more than 50 years, but as the technology continues to mature, organizations must find ways to modernize their approach to the next generation of z/OS and the people they employ to manage it, said Jeff Castella, Infotel Corp. managing director of software. We have seen a lot of mainframe changes over the past 40 years and are excited to share what we believe is in store for the platform in the years to come.

Infotels webinar will focus on securing the future viability of the mainframe and tools to help manage working within the constraints of a shrinking mainframe workforce. While the mainframe has stood the test of time, powering 70% of the Global 500 and processing billions of transactions every day, it faces challenges as seasoned developers retire at high rates with few skilled resources to replace them. According to a study from Forrester Research, 23% of all enterprise mainframe developers retired between 2013 and 2018, and 63% of these job openings have yet to be filled. The jobs market impact from coronavirus will further escalate this skills gap putting more pressure on Fortune 500 organizations to support the platform.

For the mainframe and its support for the Fortune 500 to survive, organizations must adapt. In this webinar, Infotel will discuss embracing Agile and DevOps methodologies and leveraging automation for faster application production. With growing demands being placed on a shrinking workforce, adopting an accelerated app development methodology is essential for keeping the mainframe up to date. To register for the webinar click here.

IBM Systems magazine and Infotel Corp. webinar details:

-Title: Preparing Enterprise IT for the Next 50 Years of Mainframe

-When: Wednesday, July 22, 2020 | 1:00 p.m. ET / 12:00 p.m. CT

-Speakers: Craig Mullins, Mullins Consulting Db2 expert and Colin Oakhill, Infotel senior management consultant

-Register: Click here

-Speaker information: Craig S. Mullins | Colin Oakhill

About IBM Systems Magazine

On behalf of IBM, MSP TechMedia publishes two magazinesIBM Systems magazine, Power Systems edition, and IBM Systems magazine, IBM Z. The monthly Power Systems edition reaches approximately 50,000 readers who own or work on Power Systems servers running IBM i, AIX and Linux. The Mainframe edition is delivered to approximately 25,000 IBM mainframe customers every other month. Each magazine is also available as a digital version that is free worldwide. More info on IBM Systems magazine can be found here.

About Infotel

Infotel Corp., based in Tampa, Florida, is a software vendor and IT consulting firm specializing in data performance and optimization solutions for the Mainframe z/OS platform. For more than 40 years, Infotel has delivered proven solutions to help clients improve their data management systems. For more information on Infotel Corp., please visit https://www.infotel.com/us/.
"We have come up with a plan that offers a unique solution to protect the health of Maine people and visitors, while allowing opportunities for safe tourism and supporting businesses," said Maine Department of Economic & Community Development Commissioner Heather Johnson.

"Keep Maine Healthy" relies on three cornerstones:

Testing as an Alternative to Quarantine: details the testing requirements for out of state visitors to forgo the 14-day quarantine. Increased Symptom Checking: outlines the state's plan to encourage symptom checks through state, local systems and the private sector. Supporting Local Public Health and Prevention Efforts: details how the state will partner with municipalities to develop and implement their own COVID-19 prevention and protection, incentivizing efforts by reimbursing municipal costs associated with public health education and prevention activities.

Maine's tourism industry faces unique challenges in the face of COVID-19: nearly half of Maine's summer tourists typically come from Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey where the prevalence of COVID-19, when adjusted for population, is eight to eleven times higher than Maine's. Additionally, Maine has the nation's highest percentage of housing that are vacation homes and a short summer season, meaning solutions like capacity constraints do not work.

Despite these distinctive challenges, Maine has worked on a solution that will allow the opportunity for visitors to enjoy Maine, support businesses and protect the health of Maine people.

Commissioner Johnson pointed to recent consumer sentiment studies that indicate people will travel to locations they feel are safe.

"The 'Keep Maine Healthy' plan is indicative of the core values of the Maine brand  resiliency, reliance on ingenuity, and the pristineness of our natural resources. Some of the very reasons visitors travel here," added Commissioner Johnson.

SOURCE Maine Department Of Economic & Community Development
The authorities of the Zakarpattya region intend to create a separate area with the center in Berehove, where Hungarians make the most part of the local population. This is mentioned in the joint statement of the regional NGOs, released on the Zakarpattya online website.

"Another district, the Berehove district with the center in Berehove, appeared in the perspective plan of zoning Zakarpattya region. Another unbelievable coincidence is that the territory of that area matches the borders of the residence area of ethnic Hungarian. Therefore, the demand to create, in fact, an ethnic Hungarian area, which has been promoted by Hungarians in Zakarpattya (...) becomes reality", the activists said.

They pointed out that on June 1, 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers issued the draft decree indicating there would be five districts (Berehivsky, Mukachivsky, Tyachivsky, Uzhgorodsky, and Khustsky) - instead of four, as it was agreed on previously.

Those who signed the statement claim that such actions of the government create a threat for Ukraine's territorial integrity, and also make an international provocation.

Previously, Hungary repeatedly demanded to restore the rights of Hungarians living in Zakarpattya. Budapest claims it's a necessary condition to lift the block on Ukraine's path to NATO.
While FDI firms continue to report losses, they keep expanding operations in the country.

Transfer pricing among foreign-invested firms operating in Vietnam is increasing at an alarming rate, evidenced by the fact that while foreign-invested companies report losses, the majority of their Vietnamese peers in the same fields are generating profits, especially in garment and footwear, according to Doan Xuan Tien, deputy State Auditor General.

Deputy State Auditor General Doan Xuan Tien says transfer pricing among FDI firms operating in Vietnam is increasing at an alarming rate. Photo: VGP.

So far, nearly 50% of foreign direct investment (FDI) firms in Vietnam said they are operating at a loss, said Tien at a conference on June 9, for which he attributed transfer pricing, among other reasons, to this issue, the governmental portal reported.

The issue causes losses of up to hundreds of millions of US dollars to the state budget, Tien stressed, adding FDI firms make up 20% of GDP, 25% of total social investment, 40% of industrial production value, and 50% of external trade.

Many investors are looking for ways to transfer obsolete machines and equipment to recipient countries, including Vietnam, Tien added.

The consequence is that it is very difficult to evaluate the real value of these machines. This practice implies environmental pollution, low product quality and high costs, he stated.

Tien attributed the growing trend of transfer pricing to Vietnams shortcomings in managing FDI projects, including a lack of consistency between the target and action to attract FDI; the countrys incentive policies to attract FDI do not base on competitive advantages of each province and city; ambiguity in administrative process to apply for such policies; among others.

Notably, in Ho Chi Minh City, nearly 60% out of 3,500 FDI firms have been reporting losses for many years, and in Binh Duong province, the rate is 50% in the 2006  2011 period.

Tien, however, noted while FDI firms continue to suffer losses, they keep expanding operations here.

Tien pointed to an example of Coca-Cola, saying since its first presence in Vietnam in 1992, the US firm has reported an accumulated loss of VND3.76 trillion (US$162.93 million) by December 2012, exceeding its original investment capital. In fact, Coca-Colas production capacity has been growing at an average pace of 20% annually.

Another case is Metro Vietnam, which has increased its registered capital to US$301 million after 12 years operating in the country. However, the firm reported accumulated losses of VND1.65 trillion (US$71.5 million), and a profit of VND173 billion (US$7.5 million) in 2010. Nevertheless, Metro Vietnam has expanded nationwide with 19 retail supermarkets.

Nguyen Mai, chairman of the Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIE), commented outdated machines and technologies used by FDI firms are causing overuse of energy and severe level of pollution.

Deputy State Auditor General Tien suggested it is essential for State Audit of Vietnam to enhance efficiency during the auditing process, while there should be more clarity in legal framework regarding the audit.

Nguyen Thi Phuong Hoa from the National Economics University suggested government agencies could disclose the audit results related to cases of transfer pricing, as a warning to those violating transfer pricing regulations.

Hoa referred to UK experience in dealing with Starbucks act of transfer pricing for 13 years. The publication of the audit results led to a widespread boycott by UK customers towards Starbuck and this business eventually had to repay the tax arrears of between US$6.3 and US$7.6 million in 2012. Hanoitimes

Hai Yen

Transfer pricing focus in store for overseas-invested groups The extent of economic restraints caused by COVID-19 now cannot be known, but the Vietnamese economy will not grow as was estimated until recently.
Scammers began capitalising on coronavirus to con victims out of cash almost as soon as the disease started spreading worldwide.

Fraudsters have been knocking on our doors, infiltrating our email inboxes and telephoning us in our homes  using the fear and confusion to steal from us.

But today Money Mail can expose how a shocking security flaw at the heart of the Government's flagship test and trace programme puts us at even greater risk of fraud.

A scam known as spoofing allows callers to choose what number is displayed on the recipient's phone. It means fraudsters can make it appear as if they are from the NHS

Our investigation shows how it is possible to replicate the 'secure' NHS phone number used in every call within just 30 seconds using a website found through a simple Google search.

The deception, known as spoofing, allows callers to choose what number is displayed on the recipient's phone.

It means fraudsters can make it appear as if they are from the NHS  when actually they are calling from an entirely different number.

And those contacted genuinely from the official 0300 number cannot phone back to check it  because the line does not accept incoming calls.

Fraudsters are telling victims they have been exposed to an infected person and have to pay 50 for a Covid-19 test kit

Using this veneer of legitimacy, criminals can target vulnerable and elderly victims, trick them into divulging personal information and then plunder their bank accounts.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to be contacted under the Test and Trace programme, which aims to limit the spread of coronavirus by finding those who have come into contact with someone who has become infected and telling them to isolate.

But last night, police chiefs and MPs warned that it is 'hopelessly open to fraudsters'. On Facebook, there have already been warnings about calls being made by scammers purporting to be from NHS Test and Trace.

Fraudsters tell victims they have been exposed to an infected person and have to pay 50 for a Covid-19 test kit.

The swindlers claim that failure to provide debit card details to pay for the test is a criminal offence. But the claims are a complete scam  all tests are free in Test and Trace.

Money Mail has previously revealed how call spoofing is an easy but devastating ploy used by scammers to pose as banks, tax officials and other government bodies to steal hundreds of millions a year from victims.

In 2018 we reported how an elderly woman lost 20,000 after taking a call from a man purporting to be from Barclays. He told the 88-year-old that fraudsters were attempting to raid her account.

And the other corona tricks to look out for Doorstep danger Communities are being warned of a rise in criminals preying on older or vulnerable people isolated from family and friends. Fraudsters are reportedly gaining access to homes by offering to take residents' temperatures or to sell virus tests, masks and hand sanitiser. National Trading Standards has also warned of criminals posing as charity workers and volunteering to do people's shopping. The agency has urged people to be vigilant and ask for ID from anyone who claims to represent a charity. Fake Businesses Fraudsters are also targeting cashstrapped businesses applying for emergency funds. Cyber-criminals send emails purporting to be from HMR C, asking firms to give out bank details in order to access the Government's coronavirus job retention scheme. Scammers are also posing as the police and issuing fines to businesses via email for 'trading unlawfully' during the pandemic. Phishing on rise These are emails that try to trick recipients into clicking on links that download viruses or give away passwords. Action Fraud has flagged messages mimicking organisations such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. As world leaders announced economic stimuli to mitigate losses, reports of fake messages from HMR C offering 'goodwill payments' of up to 258 surfaced almost immediately. When schools closed, the Department for Education warned of a scam email designed to steal bank details. Councils soon began warning of a text scam trying to dupe residents into paying fake fines for breaking lockdown rules. Holidaymakers are also told to be wary of scam websites set up to claim refunds on cancelled trips. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI ) flagged an email pretending to offer 500 Aldi vouchers. Action Fraud reported a similar scam in Tesco's name. CTSI lead officer Katherine Hart says: 'This kind of scam is an old one, but scammers have updated the theme to reflect the coronavirus pandemic.' Savers targeted Savers have been urged to avoid making rash pension decisions as criminals look to exploit fears over market turmoil. Some phishing emails have targeted investors starved of income. Others advertise 'early access' pension offers, according to Tom Selby of AJ Bell. Many claim to guarantee sky-high returns. This month, the Pensions Regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Money and Pensions Service issued a joint statement urging people not to make snap decisions about pensions in the crisis. Meanwhile, Britons have been swindled out of more than 800,000 attempting to buy fake masks online, says the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. Criminals are also reportedly flogging potentially harmful hand sanitiser containing glutaral (or glutaraldehyde), which was banned for human use in 2014. Miracle cure lies Don't sign up for virus testing kits, vaccines or miracle cures. Only the NHS is providing certified tests and there are currently no vaccines or cures. Anyone self-isolating and running low on food or medical supplies should contact their council. Do not accept services being offered by strangers. Government departments and health agencies will not send emails with links to click on and if you're getting an email from an organisation you are already a member of, it will normally address you by name. Check the source of emails and the information it is providing by going to the relevant official website  for example, the gov.uk address. If you think you have been a victim, report it to Action Fraud (0300 123 2040). You can also tell your bank or credit card provider if you have transferred any funds by mistake. Never hand over personal information, such as your bank details, to someone who has called you out of the blue  even if they say that they are from a legitimate organisation.

When she asked him to prove it was a genuine call, he said he would ring back using the number on the back of her card.

When he did, the real Barclays customer services number flashed up on the victim's phone so she believed he was who he said he was and transferred the money as instructed.

Despite the easy abuse of the system, the NHS lists the 0300 number on its site and stresses that only Test and Trace staff will call from it.

How to beat the blaggers If you receive a call from test and trace and suspect it might be a scam, or would rather not take the risk, ask for an email or a text instead. The message should direct you to: https://contact-tracing.phe.gov.uk/ While it is possible for criminals to fake official phone numbers, they cannot fake official website addresses. The address bar should also have a small padlock symbol next to it, showing that the website connection is secure. If you see a different address, close the window immediately. Remain vigilant, however, as fraudsters sometimes buy web addresses very close to the real address to dupe victims. Genuine tracers will be able to provide you with an account ID during the call, or it will be in a text or email sent to you.

It says information patients provide during the subsequent conversation will be held in 'strict confidence'.

However, West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, David Jamieson, says it is 'staggering' that the Government had made the number public so that criminals could clone it and use it.

He says: 'It presents a serious danger to ordinary people, particularly to those who are just that little bit more vulnerable.

'At the lowest level it's open to pranksters and people playing tricks, and, at a more serious level, to those perpetuating hate crime or harassing people. At a very serious level, it opens the door for criminals to contact people and attempt to get very sensitive information from them.

'It's absolutely fraught with risk. They haven't thought it through.'

Soon after Test and Trace's launch late last month, warnings appeared on social media that scammers appeared to be exploiting it.

The Mail tested these concerns with a spoofing service which allows people to change their caller ID.

The site, which we are not naming, describes itself as a tool for making prank calls, explaining: 'You can change your caller ID, so when you call someone he sees on his caller ID display the number you selected.'

It sounds like harmless fun, but for just 75p per minute, plus an access charge, reporters were successfully able to use the site to call a mobile phone and make it look as if the call was coming from the NHS Test and Trace number.

Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, has previously insisted that people would be able to know if they were being called by Test and Trace as 'it will be very obvious in the conversation that you have with them that they are genuine'.

But Rosie Cooper, a Labour MP and member of the Social Care Select Committee, says: 'You wouldn't know by just talking to someone, so you would need a number to go back to. I'm absolutely shocked by how easy it is to pretend to be from Test and Trace.

Spoofing allows callers to choose what number is displayed on the recipient's phone, meaning fraudsters can make it appear as if they are from the NHS

'The whole system seems to be undermined by the fact that there's no way of verifying callers. How do you know it's genuine?'

On its website, the NHS makes clear that the Test and Trace service will not ask for bank details or payments, details of any other accounts, such as social media, or to set up a password or a PIN number over the phone  or to call a premium rate number, such as those starting 09 or 087.

But Mr Jamieson says, while correct, this advice was about 20 years out of date.

'The fraudsters are well beyond that stage,' he says. 'Where they are now is offering people to click onto a website and that's when they'll probably invade your computer and steal your identity and possibly be able to drain your bank account within half an hour.

'The fraudsters are far more sophisticated than the advice that is being given out by the Home Office.' Action Fraud says that scams involving the virus have already claimed more than 5 million from victims.

In Scotland, the phone number used to call people on in its equivalent 'Test and Protect' strategy has not been announced publicly.

However, concerns have still been raised by consumer campaigners and Age Scotland that it could be hijacked by fraudsters who call claiming to be from the service  to obtain private information.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon promised that the Scottish Government would take steps to ensure security.

Last year a Daily Mail investigation revealed how a gang of fake taxmen operating from India were spoofing genuine HMRC numbers to target 10,000 UK victims a day.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman says: 'NHS Test and Trace is vitally important to prevent the further spread of Covid-19. We have been working with the police and the National Cyber Security Centre, who have advised on measures to keep the public safe.

'Official NHS Test and Trace contact tracers will never ask you for financial details, PINs or passwords. They will also never visit your home.'

moneymail@dailymail.co.uk
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A teenager is missing after he went for a morning swim in the San Jacinto River in northeast Harris County.

The boy went into the river some time Wednesday morning but never came out, according to the Harris County Sheriffs Office. Now, deputies with the HCSO Marine Unit are in the water searching for the boy.
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Education is crucial for many refugees: a way out in the future, a way to get a job. But how can people get a tertiary education in a refugee camp, where challenges  such as a lack of infrastructure  are everywhere? It's possible, as long as the education programmes are tailored to the needs of the refugee students.

In today's episode of Pasha we hear from Paul O'Keeffe, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva. We also ask some refugees at Kakuma in Kenya about the challenges they face and how their higher education journey is progressing.

Read more: University education in refugee camps must meet refugee needs

Photo: Young man practising plumbing in Don Bosco vocational training centre. Tertiary education for refugees By Adriana Mahdalova Shutterstock

Music Happy African Village by John Bartmann, found on FreeMusicArchive.org licensed under CC0 1 .

Music Box & Sunshine by Daniel Birch found on Freesound licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial License.

By Ozayr Patel, Digital Editor
Taking strict containment measures, Chinese companies have both advanced progress of overseas projects and secured the health of their overseas employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is very considerate of you and Im sure we could defeat the epidemic guided by your successful experience, said Salim, an Algerian engineer working for a project in Algeria undertaken by the Third Construction Co., Ltd. of China Construction Third Engineering Bureau.

He praised the Chinese companys practice when talking to Li Fei, deputy head of the companys pandemic containment team over the phone, right after learning that the company allowed its employees to work from home during the pandemic for the sake of their safety.

The pandemic containment team was established immediately after Algeria reported the first pneumonia case on February 25, Li introduced. The company required all of its employees, both Chinese and foreigners, to report their health conditions on a daily basis, and distributed masks to them. Besides, the company also requested its employees to disinfect offices, cafeterias and vehicles.

We didnt dismiss anyone amid the pandemic. We did our best to ensure the safety of all our foreign employees and help solve their problems, said Li.

Since some of them dont have fixed residence or source of income during the pandemic, our company provided them with free accommodation and meals, Li introduced.

Besides, the company also offered them with new jobs to work as patrols in a bid to support them with stable income.

Since Africa was hit by the pandemic, Chinese engineering projects in Africa have become a front for China-Africa joint efforts to fight the disease, where Chinas anti-pandemic experience was promoted by Chinese constructors.

The Caculo Cabaca hydropower project in Dondo, Angola undertaken by China Gezhouba Group Co., Ltd. (CGGC) is the largest hydropower station constructed by a Chinese enterprise in Africa. Once completed, it is expected to offer more than 40 percent of the countrys electricity supply and greatly promote local economic and social development.

Over 200 Chinese employees and about 200 foreigners work on the construction site, said Peng Zhan, director of the projects quality and security inspection department, adding that it wasnt really easy to prevent the spread of the virus while ensuring the progress of the project.

Drawing on the experience of Chinese communities in combating the virus, the company divided the construction areas and lodging houses into 7 independent units. Each unit is equipped with a specially-assigned employee who records and reports the health conditions of the employees in the unit and monitors the disinfection and prevention work.

The anti-epidemic measures have achieved remarkable results, with no suspected or confirmed cases found within the project, Peng noted.

For the 475 local employees working for the Mekelle water supply project, another CGGC project in Ethiopia, preventative materials were extremely scarce commodities. To cope with the situation, the material buyer at the project department Yuan Xianchao contacted his colleagues back in China and purchased 100,000 masks and other supplies for the local employees.

We are at ease with you here, said an Ethiopian employee after receiving masks and disinfectant from his Chinese employer.

As the local testing and medical resources are limited, we have strictly followed the practices at home to prevent the virus and ensure safety, said Li Fengbiao, manager of the Mekelle water supply project.

According to him, temperature taking, hand washing, disinfection and registration have been developed into a routine at the construction site.

Besides, it also locked down the lodging houses of the employees, asked them to work in shifts and separated the construction areas. The locals trusted Chinas experience and were willing to cooperate, Li said.
An Australian cosmetic surgeon has revealed that three times more men than usual have come into her clinic for penis enlargement surgery since the lockdown restrictions eased.

Dr Naomi McCullum is the founder of The Manse Clinic in Sydney's opulent eastern suburbs and was forced to shut aesthetic services from March 25 in line with the coronavirus health orders.

She was able to re-open for most procedures in early May, and bring back skin and laser appointments from June 1, but has been left baffled by the amount of male clients coming in for an augmentation.

'I cannot explain why but we've had a significant increase in the number of penis enlargements we perform per week at The Manse post-COVID,' Dr Naomi told FEMAIL.

Dr Naomi McCullum (pictured) is the founder of The Manse Clinic in Sydney's opulent eastern suburbs and was forced to shut aesthetic services from March 25 in line with the coronavirus health orders

'I cannot explain why but we've had a significant increase in the number of penis enlargements we perform per week at The Manse post-COVID,' Dr Naomi told FEMAIL (stock image)

Perhaps, she said, it has to do with the amount of time Australians have been spending at home - and in the bedroom.

Men can expect up to a 30 per cent increase in girth after undergoing the procedure, which uses dermal filler for the penile augmentation.

The effects of the dermal filler last up to two years - and there are no changes to the function of the penis.

The $7,700 procedure takes 45 minutes to do and there is no downtime for the patient, although they are asked to refrain from sexual intercourse for a week.

The $7,700 procedure takes 45 minutes to do and there is no downtime for the patient, although they are asked to refrain from sexual intercourse for a week (A cosmetic surgeon from The Manse)

What is involved in penis enlargement surgery? Clients are provided with a strong numbing cream to apply before they meet with the doctor who will go through the procedure. 'In short (no pun intended), this procedure is performed by placing dermal filler under the superficial tissue that surrounds the penile shaft,' Dr Steve Crimston said. 'The outcome of this is a thicker and somewhat more aesthetically impressive penis. Importantly, the procedure is focused primarily on enhancing penile circumference and this "thickening" effect is maintained in both the flaccid and erect state. 'The dermal filler also tends to provide an increase in length through the "scaffolding" of the superficial fascial tissue thus inhibiting retraction. 'This effect however is not preserved in the erect state and therefore this is not a treatment that will increase the erect length of the penis. 'The aim therefore, is to achieve an aesthetically larger and thicker penis without comprising any functional properties such as sensation or erectile strength.' Dr Crimston said the effects of dermal filler last up to two years - and it functions like a regular penis. Advertisement

In general The Manse in Paddington has seen a huge influx of new patients since reopening and is completely booked out - as is the brand's new cosmetic clinic in Sydney's CBD.

'We didn't realise that demand would be as great as it has been,' Dr Naomi said.

'Our doctors specialise in face design, so patients are usually not just booking in for one area.

'We are managing their beauty and ageing holistically, so usually it's a combination of antiwrinkle injections, dermal fillers, double chin dissolving injections, threadlifts, skinboosters, lasers, IPL, resurfacing and platelet rich plasma.'

Dr Naomi has noticed that plenty of the patients she has seen in the last month have been choosing procedures that require more downtime (one of her clients pictured)

Dr Naomi said people who were overdue for their treatments were getting frustrated when The Manse had to reschedule them, but they understood that it was for the good of the community

Dr Naomi has noticed that plenty of the patients she has seen in the last month have been choosing procedures that require more downtime.

'They're less worried about the bruising or the swelling from injectables or the downtime from skin procedures because they are "working from home" and are more hidden from their colleagues,' she said.

'Patients are making the most of the current normalisation of mask wearing, so if they have their lips or their nasolabial folds done, they can wear a mask for the next couple of days while the swelling calms down.'

For many 'hardcore beauty achievers' the coronavirus restrictions left them feeling unhappy and 'not themselves' because they couldn't get the regular check ups they desired.

For many 'hardcore beauty achievers' the coronavirus restrictions left them feeling unhappy and 'not themselves' because they couldn't get the regular check ups they desired

Dr Naomi said people who were overdue for their treatments were getting frustrated when The Manse had to reschedule them, but they understood that it was for the good of the community.

'Cosmetic doctors make such a difference to people's mental state with our treatments, and in the first month when we returned, the main feeling from our patients was one of gratitude, which makes it very rewarding for us,' she said.

'They consider our clinic and team part of their "normal life" and felt more happy and free when they could get back to their routine, with us looking after their beauty and age management.'
London, June 10 : A verdict on Manchester City's appeal against UEFA's decision to ban the club from European competitions could be announced in July, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said on Wednesday.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport set the target of "during the first half of July" to publish the decision of its three-judge panel.

The three-day hearing between City and UEFA was conducted by video conference and concluded on Wednesday.

"At the end of the hearing, both parties expressed their satisfaction with respect to the conduct of the procedure," read a statement from CAS following the hearing.

"The Panel of arbitrators in charge of the matter, composed of Mr Rui Botica Santos (Portugal), president, Prof. Ulrich Haas (Germany) and Mr Andrew McDougall QC (France), will start its deliberations and prepare the Arbitral Award containing their decision.

"The decision is expected to be issued during the first half of July 2020. The exact date will be communicated in advance." City were slapped with a two-year ban earlier in the year for breach of Financial Fair Play rules between 2012 and 2016. UEFA's Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) also said City had failed to cooperate with the investigation.
The Laois Culture Team has creatively curated a very special programme of virtual cultural and creative activities for the national day for children taking part in Cruinniu na nOg this year.

Cruinniu na nOg is a national day of creativity for children and young people which celebrates and encourages participation in culture and creativity through performance, workshops, readings, screenings and special events.

"Its a day for doing, making and creating," say Creative Ireland.

Laois children and teenagers are taking part and at different times on Saturday, June 13 Laois children are invited to join in a range of creative activities for young people aged 4 - 18 and their families.

The day features Laois Series - A Sense of Place - a new video involving a creative exploration, interpretation and reflection by 26 children and young people (ages 8-18) from across Laois. The Laois Culture Team says the work tells the story of their sense of place using the mediums of dance, theatre and music as well as discovering their sense of place in relation to biodiversity and their local library in this time of social distancing and isolation.

The participants are involved with the Laois Youth Theatre, Laois Youth Dance Ensemble, the Laois County Library Service, students of Music Generation Laois and members of the Irish Wildlife Trust Laois-Offaly Branch.

Michael Fortune, an artist and folklorist, has taken their work and produced a video work which will be showcased for Cruinniu na nOg on the Creative Laois Youtube Channel.

The day also features traditional song workshops. Aileen Lambert brings traditional songs and singing to the Cruinniu na nOg programme. Aileens songs are aimed at children aged 4-7 and 8-12.

Another highlight is the Music Generation Laois Open Mic Night.

"Weve had a great response to our call-out for entries for the Music Generation Laois Open Mic Night," says the Laois Culture Team.

The event starts at 8pm on Saturday on the Creative Laois YouTube Channel.

"t is the final event of Cruinniu na nOg and we are really looking forward to showcasing the original compositions from 12 to 18-year-olds around the country.

Events on the day will take place on the Creative Laois YouTube Channel and the Creative Laois Facebook page .

For details of all events for Cruinniu na nOg visit laois.ie/cruinniu2020 or the Creative Laois social channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Creative Ireland is a Government initiative to promote culture and creativity at local level. It is delivered in Laois by the Laois Culture Team, which includes representatives of the Laois Arts Office, Laois Heritage Office, Laois Library Service, Dunamaise Arts Centre and Music Generation Laois.

Cruinniu na nOg is just one of the Creative Ireland projects in Laois this year.

For full details of all projects undertaken in Laois in 2019 and underway for 2020, see the Creative Ireland website.
Getting out of the military can be difficult. For many, it can feel like they have to start a new life with an unhelpful skill set that few people understand.

Robert Pinholt learned that it doesn't have to be that way. Veterans just need guidance -- and a couple hours of transition assistance classes aren't enough. So he founded Claymore Operations to help military members get that kind of mentorship.

Pinholt served in the U.S. Army's famed 10th Mountain Division and deployed to Afghanistan between 2006 and 2007. He left the service in 2007, confident that he had a plan for what he wanted to do.

It wasn't a good plan, but he didn't know that.

Photo taken in Afghanistan, 2006-2007 with the 10th Mountain Division. (Courtesy of Robert Pinholt)

Like many separating veterans, it took years for him to realize the direction he was headed wasn't taking him to where he wanted to be.

Then, he met Gayle Westapher, a career executive in growing and directing nonprofits and a fellow Texan.

It was Westapher's mentorship that got Pinholt back on track.

"I wish I had it sooner," he said. "And by sooner, I mean even before I got out of the Army. I even saw the guys that I knew in the Army who could have benefited from it as well."

Pinholt said that veterans from every branch get out and believe that they have to start their lives over from scratch. He added that the military gives its people skills they may not realize they even picked up from their time in service.

To help his fellow veterans realize their strengths, he co-founded Claymore Operations, a Dallas-based nonprofit designed to link service members with mentors who will help them make the most of their time in the military and navigate the rocky waters of transitioning to civilian life.

His partner in that endeavor is his own mentor, Westapher, who helped him realize his values.

"I learned leadership skills and a lot of other intangibles that are valuable in the workplace," Pinholt said. "I didn't realize it at the time, so I started Claymore Operations to connect warfighters with people who have wisdom to share."

Army veteran and founder of Claymore Operations Robert Pinholt. (Claymore Operations)

The idea is that mentorship can show military members the valuable experiences and skills they're picking up every day they serve in the military. The mentor helps them develop a plan for what will happen once they leave the military. Most importantly, it helps soon-to-be veterans build a support network and a professional network as they transition to civilian life.

It doesn't matter what a service member does in the military, what they choose to do in their post-military career or where in the world they're stationed. Claymore Operations wants to connect a mentor to any veteran who wants one.

Claymore Operations' mentors are all volunteers, and that's important to Pinholt, because it means they're personally invested in the person they're mentoring.

The formula pairs a military member or recently separated veteran with two mentors: one who is a veteran and one who was never in the service. The founders believe it gives the military member both perspectives.

"It's like crossing a bridge," Pinholt said. "You don't know what's on the other side. The veteran mentor has crossed that bridge and can help you cross. The civilian mentor doesn't know what's on the military side of the bridge, so he doesn't entirely understand that side. But that puts him in a unique position to help the warfighter understand the civilian side better."

Each "warfighter" (as Pinholt calls Claymore Operations' mentees) gets two mentors dedicated solely to them, so the focus stays on the individual veteran.

There's no cost to be a mentor or a mentee. Claymore Operations wants applicants to start engaging as early in their career as possible -- even if they aren't in the military yet.

"You don't know what you don't know," Pinholt said. "We never want to be just a phone number to call. My goal is to connect those who don't know with talented people to get them through their military career and take advantage of every opportunity that arises."

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

Want to Know More About Veteran Jobs?

Be sure to get the latest news about post-military careers as well as critical info about veteran jobs and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox.
He's rumoured to be dating mother-of-two, Amanda King following his split from wife Rose over two years ago.

And on Thursday, former Today show weatherman Steve Jacobs did little to dispel the speculation as he stepped out for brunch in Sydney's Bronte with the blonde.

The 53-year-old appeared in high spirits as he walked to a nearby cafe with Amanda and her adorable pet pooch.

The woman making Stevie smile again! Ex-Today show weatherman Steve Jacobs enjoyed a brunch date with 'girlfriend' Amanda King in Sydney's Bronte on Thursday

Steve, who shares two children with ex-wife Rose, cut a casual figure in a pair of black jeans, a grey knitted jumper and a black denim jacket.

Amanda showed off her trim figure in a pair of cropped leggings from P.E Nation, which she teamed with a black hoodie and a puffer vest.

She appeared to be makeup free and wore her short locks out and tucked under a black visor.

Relaxed: Steve, who shares two children with his ex-wife, cut a casual figure in a pair of black jeans, a grey knitted jumper and a black denim jacket

At one point, the pair leaned in close as they appeared to look at something humorous on Steve's phone.

The outing comes after the pair sparked rumours that they were dating last year.

On October 26, they were pictured looking flirty during a boozy picnic at Bronte Park.

More than friends? The outing comes after the pair sparked rumours that they were dating. On October 26, the pair were pictured looking flirty during a boozy picnic at Bronte Park

The TV host later told Daily Mail Australia that their relationship was strictly platonic.

'Sorry to disappoint, but there's nothing romantic happening between the two of us,' he said. 'We're great mates.'

Steve was previously married to TV presenter Rose Jacobs, who is the mother of his two daughters, Isabella, eight, and Francesca, six, but they separated in 2017.

'There's nothing romantic happening': The TV host later told Daily Mail Australia that their relationship was strictly platonic

They split just months after relocating to Vanuatu in what friends described at the time as a 'last-ditch attempt' to save their seven-year marriage.

'I think there were a few people who sensed something was up when they moved to Vanuatu,' a friend told Daily Mail Australia in 2018.

'The sea change was basically a last-ditch attempt to make things work, but it wasn't to be unfortunately.'

Moving on: Steve was previously married to TV presenter Rose Jacobs (pictured), who is the mother of his two daughters, Isabella, eight, and Francesca, six, but they separated in 2017

Steve famously quit the Today show in 2016 to work on his marriage, before returning to the network in 2017 as a weather presenter on Weekend Today.

He rejoined the main Today show for its 2019 relaunch, but was let go later in the year and replaced by Tim Davies.

In April, he joined Nine's radio station Magic 1278, hosting a new breakfast program focusing on music from the '70s, '80s and '90s.
Seattle police hold batons as they form a line in front of the department's headquarters downtown during a protest calling for a 50% defunding of the Seattle Police Department and investment in community based solutions in Seattle, Washington, U.S. June 3, 2020.

REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

A June 8-9 poll of some 1,100 Americans found that 58% believe the police response to civil unrest has been "disproportionate."

Just 14% said police acted appropriately, while another 16% said their approach was "less severe than it should have been."

Over 25% of respondents who are "definitely" voting for President Donald Trump also believe the police used disproportionate force. But of respondents from the same category, 41% said the response was "less severe than it should have been"; 25% said "much less severe."

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A majority of Americans believe the police response to civil unrest has been "disproportionate," according to an Insider Poll conducted by SurveyMonkey.

But there is a stark partisan divide: Democratic voters are overwhelmingly convinced that law enforcement has gone too far, while some Republicans believe the response ought to have been even tougher.

Overall, 38% of respondents described the law enforcement response to unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd as "very disproportionate," while another 19% said it was "somewhat disproportionate." Just 14% said police acted appropriately, while another 16% said their approach was "less severe than it should have been."

Conducted June 8-9, the poll of 1,100 people found that those who are "definitely" voting for Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden are the most likely to think that police behaved badly: 84% said the law enforcement response was over the top.

Of respondents who are "definitely" voting for President Donald Trump, 27% believe the police used disproportionate force. But 16% said the response was "less severe than it should have been", and 26% said "much less severe." Another 21% of definite Trump voters thought the police response to protesters was appropriate.

Story continues

Trump has encouraged governors to "dominate" protests with intense law enforcement responses. When peaceful protesters marched outside the White House last week, riot police and National Guard troops fired tear gas and flash grenades to clear the way so Trump could get a photo op.

Biden criticized the move, and said he will "seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country  not use them for political gain."

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weigh its sample based on race or income. A total of 1,111 respondents were collected June 8-9, 2020, with a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points and a 95% confidence level.

Read the original article on Business Insider
One staffer told the Office of Inspector General Joseph Ferguson that to determine if an investigative file was complete, they would simply look to see if it seemed thick enough  and if it was too thin, they would search digital records, according to the report.
Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu says an NDC government will make it possible for all Ghanaians who turn 18 to get onto the electoral roll instantly.

According to him, this will be done in the first 100 days of a prospective NDC government in 2021.

This, he says will be done by opening up the offices of the Electoral Commission (EC) to allow for citizens to have access to register.

He made this known in an interview in Parliament after the House passed the Public Elections Amendment Regulations (C.I 126) on Tuesday, June 9, 2020.

Within 100 days of President Mahama being declared the winner of the 2020 election, we will make it natural for any Ghanaian attaining 18 years to walk freely to any office of the [Electoral] Commission to be registered as a citizen of Ghana, Mr. Iddrisu said.

The EC normally has a fixed window to allow citizens to register to vote.

Ahead of the 2020 polls, it has set Tuesday, June 30, 2020, to begin its latest leg of voter registrations.

The run-up to elections in Ghana is normally accompanied by controversy over the integrity of the electoral roll.

Then an opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) called for the compilation of a new voters' register in 2015 describing the existing one as lacking credibility.

Current Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia notably alleged that there were more than 76,000 Togolese nationals registered in Ghana to vote.

The questionable credibility of the current electoral roll is one of the reasons the Commission has changed the law to limit the valid identification for registration to the Ghana Card and the Ghana passport.

The EC is currently in court with the NDC over the matter and has described the old voter ID as a fruit from a poisoned tree and a breach of Article 42 of the Constitution.

It also cited the court's judgement in the Abu Ramadan case, where it indicated that the use of the National Health Insurance Card to register a voter is inconsistent with Article 42 of the constitution and therefore void.

As part of the fallout from the Abu Ramadan case, over 56,000 names registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards were deleted from the register in line with a Supreme Court order, because the NHIS card is available to non-citizens.

---citinewsroom
Click here to read the full article.

PARIS  Zara owner Inditex reported a 44 percent drop in sales over the first quarter, a period that saw the closure of the vast majority of its stores around the world due to the coronavirus crisis, and pledged to further invest in online services.

The Spanish fast-fashion retailer, which also owns the Stradivarius, Massimo Dutti and Bershka brands, plans to invest 1 billion euros in bolstering its online platforms and 1.7 billion euros integrating the stores into the digital system over the next two years.

More from WWD

The plans, coming from a nimble and highly sophisticated retailer, highlight the extent to which COVID-19-related store closures have served to speed up the development of digital channels for retailers around the world, and prod hesitant consumers to embrace purchases over the Internet.

Online sales were up 50 percent in the third quarter, soaring 95 percent over the month of April. E-commerce is expected to account for more than a quarter of total sales in 2022, compared to 14 percent last year, noted Inditex.

Sales over the first quarter came to 3.3 billion euros, despite the closure of 88 percent of its store network. Gross margin remained constant at 58.4 percent of sales, the company said. The net loss over the quarter came to 409 million euros, a figure dragged down by a 308 million euro provision to invest in digital systems and integrating store networks.

In a sign of its resilience, thanks to a flexible model that allows it to adapt production quickly, operating expenses were down 21 percent and the cash position remains firm, if slightly lower, at 5.8 billion euros compared to 6.7 billion in April last year.

The retailer produced and procured medical and health equipment, including medical garments, to help Spain battle COVID-19.

Our priority through the crisis has been and continues to be the health and safety of our customers, said Inditex executive chairman Pablo Isla.
Job Title: Project Manager

Organisation:

Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation (ICCO)

Duty Station:

Uganda

Ref No:

PM-CFP

About US:

ICCO Cooperation is

a faith-based non-governmental organization for development cooperation,

established in 1964. In 2012 we formed a cooperative. The founding members are

Edukans, the Protestant Church of the Netherlands and the association coPrisma

About Project:

The Connected Farmer Project offers the services of a digital platform to 1200 plus farmers in the West Nile area. It addresses the UNCDFs main goals of Leaving no-one behind in the digital era, by especially focusing the program on females and youth employment and training in Farmer based Organisations, Cooperatives and as Digital Entrepreneurial Agents (DEAs), also known as Digital Village Advisors (DVAs). It will provide farming households in Northern Uganda with access to digital Agricultural services from farming inputs, loans, insurance, harvesting aggregation and storage, transport logistics and contracting with off-takers.

Job Summary: The Project Manager is responsible for the

smooth running of the Connected Farmer Project team in West Nile, brings

specialist skills and knowledge relating to ICCO themes. The Project Manager is

overall responsible for project implementation, budget control, project planning, developing a follow-up

phase, supporting operational activities, and establishing and enhancing

relations with the local consortium partners as well as representative of

donors and the Ugandan authorities within the specific project region, West

Nile, in Uganda.

The project manager

will ensure that the Connected Farmer Project is delivered effectively and

efficiently in line with ICCOs vision and mission and themes as well as the

project description as approved by the donor. He/she will be responsible for a

smooth project operation in line with ICCO MASP and regional/country

strategies, policies, and procedures. This function contributes to the efforts

of the program- finance and operational department of the ICCO Uganda Country

Office; to the quality and consistency in relationships with donors and

consortium members; to country office planning, managing funds and project

implementation.

The Project Manager

reports to the ICCO Uganda Country Manager. He/she liaises with the Finance and

Administration unit (FOAM appointed for Uganda), Regional HR, and the regional

and international specialists/advisors.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Project Direction

 Keep up to date with the Political Economic

Social Technical situation of the project region as well as relevant

developments affecting the project environment and incorporate these

developments into effective project management and guidance.

 Prepare and develop follow up phases and

progressive scaling of the project

Project implementation

 Implement with our consortium partners the

subsequent project objectives:

 Validate and train farmers (including bulk upload of previously profiled

farmers)

 Analyse performance of farmer organizations

and prepare strengthening strategies, specifically on business records,

payments management, and inventory management to improve operational efficiency

 Enable market linkage and traceability

applications for the Farmer Organizations agri-value chain management by

integrating its farmers, input suppliers and off-taking enterprises

 Support

Farmer Organizations to manage

and support a Cohort of farmers to increase their crop yields and sales to

off-takers.

 Link stock management and bundled access to

inputs (seeds, fertilizers, extension advice and insurance) to other Input and

logistic service providers via e-vouchers. Link credit services for farmers to

redeem against their inputs at the Farmer Organizations and Cooperatives.

 Collaborate with donors and technical

partners that support the project and see to it that there is a common

understanding on project outputs/outcome.

Project Monitoring

 Develop clear quarterly and annual work plans

and budgets

 Check budget vs expenses vs output and impact

and workplans continuously and approve payment within mandates

 Analyse the relation (check and balance)

between narrative and project financial report inform the country manager

immediately on cases of fraud and/or corruption or over  / under spending more than the norm, affecting

the program results

 Ensure that project reports are delivered on

time and are of good quality, according to ICCO standards

 Build Capacity of project team / partners

where needed for improved quality outputs of programs.

 Keep good relations with donors and submit

timely draft reports as required by ICCO and donors to the CM.

Representation/Networking/Fundraising

 Establish contact with representatives of

consortium partners, UNCDF, INGOs and funding institutions based in the region;

participate and represent ICCO in networks where relevant

 Represent ICCO at local government level:

maintain and strengthen contacts with the relevant ministries and local

authorities

 Assist the Communications department with

information on project and campaign issues and visits of volunteers, press and

benefactors etc.

 Assist in developing proposals at the request

of the CM;

 Actively promote and brand ICCO initiatives

wherever appropriate and possible;

 Capture results of the programs and program

data in PROMEVA.

Project Office Operation

Finance

 Ensure that ICCO finance policies are being

implemented

 Act as signatory to the project office bank

account

 Initiate payments related to the operational

budget and ensure timely submission of quarterly/annual reports (signed off)

and budgets

 To monitor in close collaboration with the

Regional Office the annual budget spending in relation to the approved annual

budget.

 Assist in audits of project finances

Legal Affairs

 Ensure that the project works within the

legal framework and abides by the rule and regulations of the country

(including but not limited to tax and statutory deductions).

Human Resource

 Liaise with Regional HR and keep policies

(manuals) up to date and in line with the country laws and regulations

 Conduct Performance appraisals of staffs

under his/her responsibility in line with ICCOs policy

 From own practice formulate advice for

improvement of performance of the project team and organizational improvement

(on quality management and knowledge management).

 Ensure staff and visitors safety and keep CM

informed about safety and security as

per the country safety manuals

 Create a conducive working environment and

keep staff up to date on the organizational developments

 Perform other duties as relevant for the

country office (e.g. give input to policies, provide strategic advice on

programmes, provide feedback on annual plans or reports, contribute to

fundraising efforts etc.)

 Manage local project related security matters

and advise on updating the security plans

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

 Masters degree in development studies or

related field.

 Extensive (5- 7 years) experience in project

management with International NGOs and knowledge of private sector development

in African context;

 Proven track record of effective

project/program management

 Specialist skills and knowledge relating to

organisation development and preferably digital services to the farming

community

 Experience in working and coordinating with

international and national partners, private sector, government and donor

agencies.

 Excellent project planning, organizational,

interpersonal and communication skills.

 Demonstrated ability to communicate, take

direction, assume leadership and make rational decisions while working remotely

from country leadership.

 High motivation, initiative and adaptability

in a challenging working environment.

 Strong skills in managing a team with

different cultural backgrounds, abilities and technical knowledge

 Entrepreneurial and commercial thinking

 Ability to work independently under pressure

and proactive work style

 Affinity with the protestant character of

ICCO Cooperation: adhere to ICCO values and principles

How to apply:

All Interested and

qualified candidates should apply online at the link below

Click

Here

The ICCO regional

office HR manual and regional office terms of employment is applicable

regarding the terms of employment. Travel within the

country as and when needed

Deadline: Friday 15th June 2020 by 5:00 pm

For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline
Philadelphia is pushing ahead with plans to building a new 22nd District police station on West Diamond Street in North Philadelphia.The Historical Commission will review the latest design by Ballinger on June 12. Read more

After Mayor Jim Kenney spirited the bronze statue of Frank Rizzo from the steps of the Municipal Services Building last Wednesday, cheers rippled through the crowds that were assembling in Philadelphia for another day of protest. At long last, a hated symbol of police brutality and racial division was gone. But only a few hours later, the Art Commission sat down to consider the creation of a different symbol of police power: a new station house in North Philadelphia, one of the citys poorest neighborhoods.

As the nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd have gathered steam and public support, the message has expanded from calls to end police brutality to demands for reductions in bloated police budgets. Defund the police is now a rallying cry. Those calls are resonating. On the same day that Kenney removed the statue of the former mayor and police commissioner, Los Angeles announced that it would redirect at least $100 million from the police budget to other programs. The Minneapolis City Council went even further, and voted to disband the department and reconstitute it in another form.

In Philadelphia, 14 of the 17 City Council members also are calling for a major overhaul of police practices. They issued a joint letter Monday demanding a rebalancing of budget priorities away from police and prisons, which now consume a quarter of the city budget. To his credit, Kenney responded almost immediately, slicing $19 million from the Police Departments allocation.

Even with those cuts, the mayors latest budget, which was hastily drawn up to account for pandemic-induced declines in revenue, still prioritizes policing over almost every other neighborhood service the city offers. When you look at what will be hacked from the citys housing programs, parks and libraries, the nips and tucks to the police budget look like a token gesture.

Meanwhile, Kenneys initial budget recommended increasing the departments construction spending by $11 million to $62 million. A good chunk of that money will be used to build a new home for the 22nd District, which covers a vast band of North Philadelphia between 10th and 33rd Streets. The two-story building will cost at least $20 million. It will be located in the West Diamond Street corridor, at the western end of North Philadelphias most significant historic district, an imposing stretch of vermilion-colored townhouses, stately brownstones, and monumental stone churches. Most of the design work is done, and the project will be presented to the Historical Commission for a final review on Friday.

The Historical Commission, unfortunately, only has the power to evaluate the police station on its architectural merits, and the design is the least important thing wrong with this project. Given the long-overdue conversation about police practices and spending  not to mention the pain that will be inflicted by Kenneys austerity budget  it is hard to believe the city is still pushing ahead with this costly new station house.

On top of that, it appears that many neighborhood residents were left out of the decision-making process  as is often the case with matters involving police. While city officials held an informational meeting last fall with St. Elizabeths Registered Community Organization, that is just one of several civic groups that dot the neighborhood.

I spoke to four neighborhood residents  all of them longtime activists  and each told me they were never consulted about the location of the new police station, the selection of the architect (Ballinger), or the design of the building. They are appalled that the city wants to put a beige brick building into a historic district renowned for its rich red brick and that the police station will be flanked by two enormous surface parking lots.

The first time I saw the design was in the newsletter that [Council President] Darrell L. Clarke sends out, Gail Loney told me. A block captain for the 2200 block of Lambert Street, Loney lives one street north of the police station site. Clarkes office knew I was looking for a meeting. Every time I saw his aide, Id ask him about it.

Both Jackie Wiggins and Judith Robinson, who are members of the 32nd Ward Committee, which does double duty as a neighborhood civic group, also told me they were never invited to the meeting with St. Elizabeths. Even if they had attended, a single community meeting is hardly enough for a project of this magnitude.

Clarke, who is Council president as well as the representative for North Philadelphia, did not respond to requests for comment, but it seems unlikely that this project would be going forward without his blessing. Because of Philadelphias antiquated tradition of councilmember prerogative, the Kenney administration would have needed his sign-off in 2018 to acquire the land for the police station.

Nor would any city officials speak to me on the record about the project. One insider did tell me privately that the station is a good project that will offer several public amenities  a community meeting room, a small plaza, a public ATM, an art installation, and bike racks.

While those gestures are nice, theyre hardly a compelling case for this project. Like so many recent government buildings in Philadelphia, the police station design looks bloodless and dull next to the exuberant 19th century buildings that surround it. The site, between 21st and 22nd, is just a few blocks west of the magnificent Church of the Advocate, a soaring French Renaissance cathedral. While police stations certainly need parking for squad cars and commuters, the two enormous surface lots will do nothing to make Diamond Street more walkable. They merely demonstrate the citys willingness to squander land in North Philadelphia.

Then there is the issue of whether the city really needs a new home for the 22nd District. The existing station house at 17th and Montgomery opened in 1961. A large Modernist building, it also has a community room and two parking lots. Several people familiar with the station say it is cramped and unpleasant. In a time of austerity, its worth asking if it can be renovated at a lower cost.

We need to do a global revaluation of how we allocate resources, said Democratic State Sen. Sharif Street, who represents North Philadelphia in Harrisburg. Instead of always giving police projects top priority, he suggested that a portion of their budget might be better spent on social workers, job training and other programs that would steer people away from criminal activities. Thats the same argument made by supporters of defunding police departments.

Its also worth noting three other police stations are within a few blocks of the Diamond Street site, run by Temple University, the Philadelphia Housing Authority, and SEPTA. How come you got all this police power and youre not reducing murders?" asked Robinson.

The 22nd District project isnt the first time in recent years that the city has poured money into an expensive police building. Three years ago, Kenney announced that he was scuttling a Nutter administration plan to move police headquarters to a historic building at 46th and Market, even though more than $50 million had already been spent on renovations. Instead, he made a deal with developer Bart Blatstein to turn the former Inquirer Building on North Broad Street into the departments home base. Thats costing the city an additional $280 million.

Were always being told what is to be done in our neighborhoods, Loney complained. Im tired of taxation without representation.
LOS ANGELES  Asylum-seeking migrants locked up inside an Arizona Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center with one of the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases say they were forced to clean the facility and are "begging" for protection from the virus, according to a letter obtained exclusively by NBC News.

"This is a life or death situation," said a translation of their message, dated May 18, and sent to the Florence Immigrants & Refugees Rights Project, a legal advocacy group that has filed a lawsuit on behalf of migrants in the facility.

The migrants appealed for help to the advocacy group from inside one of 24 tanks in the La Palma Correctional Center outside of Phoenix, which is operated for ICE by the for-profit company CoreCivic. Most of the 'tanks' hold 120 individuals each, although six hold only 60. CoreCivic told NBC News that no unit currently holds more than 100 detainees.

Click here to read the letter.

In a statement to NBC News after this story was published, CoreCivic disputed the claim that detainees are forced to work in the facility.

"Claims of forced work are false. Detainees are permitted to participate in voluntary work programs. Should they choose to participate in these programs, proper personal protective equipment (PPE) was and is provided for the task at hand," said a spokesman for the private prison company.

ICE's official count says that as of June 7, 78 detainees have tested positive at La Palma, with 14 cases currently under monitoring and zero deaths.

CoreCivic said it has no current active cases of COVID-19 in the facility and that all positive cases are considered recovered.

Related: Detainee transfers have led to COVID-19 outbreaks in facilities in at least 5 states. Despite limited testing, over 1,400 detainees have tested positive.

The migrants say the facility forced detainees in inadequate personal protective equipment to clean and work in the facility's kitchen despite their fear it was a prime point for spreading the virus inside the center due to crowding at meal times. When some migrants protested, the letter says, they were punished with verbal threats and indefinite lock-ins. On one day when migrants resisted working in the kitchen, some were "sent to the hole," otherwise known as solitary confinement.

Story continues

CoreCivic said that detainees who work in the kitchen are "equipped with hair and beard nets, gloves, and since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, face masks." A spokesman for the company also denied that detainees were punished with verbal threats or indefinite lock-ins and said solitary confinement does not exist in its facilities.

"We do have various security levels and safety needs for restrictive housing, but this should not be confused with 'solitary confinement,'" the spokesman said.

CoreCivic has said it is required to follow ICE detention standards and ICE has said its standards permit the use of "administrative segregation" as a last resort.

Two migrants described being asked to clean the trash from the nurses' office, where sick patients were treated. One said he was asked to clean the feces-covered cell of a mentally ill detainee without gloves.

Other allegations include guards not wearing adequate equipment to prevent infection as they passed from one cell to another and "no measures for social distancing" while immigrants lined up for food.

CoreCivic said its personnel are required to wear a face mask while working and the current low population at the facility means "anyone is capable of social distancing should he or she choose to do so." The company's spokesman added that social distancing is encouraged by staff, on posted flyers, town hall meetings and over the television system.

CoreCivic also said the room designated for attorney/client meetings has ample space to maintain social distancing  but most [clients] are utilizing other means in which to communicate.

The detainees also described unsanitary conditions, like lockdowns that lasted for three days with no access to showers. The migrants say they were given two "disposable masks of very poor quality in the month of April" and received "2 cloth masks" in May. They also say they did not receive basic hygiene supplies, like toilet paper, on weekends.

Meals that detainees say they were provided after the kitchens at the La Palma Correctional Center closed on May 15. (Florence Immigrants and Refugees Rights Project)

CoreCivic said the lockdowns detainees describe are being confused with measures put in place to stop the spread of infection. The company disputed the claims that detainees have gone three days without access to showers or do not receive toilet paper on weekends. The spokesman also said detainees can replace their face masks at any time upon request.

The migrants say that after the kitchen closed due to COVID concerns in mid-May, they were served sandwich boxes that included two slices of "rotted" ham with bread.

CoreCivic said it has "received no complaints or notifications that there has been any issue with the freshness of the food being served." CoreCivic said detainees are provided three meals a day, two of which include a hot entree.

Lawyers for 13 migrants, held in both La Palma and nearby Eloy Detention Center, which has 13 positive cases, described the facilities in a federal lawsuit filed Monday as "tinderboxes on the verge of explosion." The lawsuit says the migrants are being unlawfully detained because their asylum hearings have been delayed and asks ICE to release the migrants because of the risk of COVID-19 infection. ICE has released more than 1,300 detainees on similar grounds after its own reviews or court orders.

"Our clients have told us over and over again it's impossible to practice social distancing in detention," said Laura Belous, an advocacy attorney with the Florence Project, which filed the lawsuit along with the ACLU, the ACLU of Arizona and the law firm Perkins Coie. "It's impossible to maintain that six feet of distance when the telephone you're sitting on to talk to your lawyer is one to three feet from the other guy on the phone. When you're in communal showers. When 40 to 50 guys are touching the same door. That disease is going to spread like wildfire. And the fact is, it has."

"People shouldn't have to choose between their health and an immigration case," said Belous. "This is a situation that was completely avoidable."

In response to an inquiry from NBC News, an ICE spokeswoman said, "As a matter of policy, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on pending litigation."

The spokeswoman added that ICE has been following CDC guidelines related to COVID-19 and "the health, welfare and safety" of detainees is "one of ICE's highest priorities."

NBC News earlier reported that ICE's practice of transferring detainees around the country without extensive testing had led to coronavirus outbreaks in five states.

Julia Ainsley reported from Washington.

This story has been updated since publication with a statement from CoreCivic.
Coming out of the COVID-19 crisis by creating a society thats more equitable and balanced is a conversation thats gaining ground in chat rooms and board rooms alike. Its also the thrust of a just-announced new book by former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney: Value(s): Building a Better World for All.

Carneys debut book has just been signed to Penguin Random House imprint Signal Books in Canada for simultaneous publication in spring 2021 in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.

In recent decades, many countries have been moving, subtly but relentlessly, from market economies to market societies, where the price of everything is becoming the value of everything, Carney said in a statement.

But when pushed during the COVID crisis, weve prioritized the health of the most vulnerable and supported each other, acting as an interdependent community, not as independent individuals. Now we have the chance for our values to shape our possibilities, creating a dynamic economy that works for all and sustainably over time.

During his 12 years as a G7 central bank governor  he was Bank of Canada chief between 2008 and 2013 before being tapped to perform the same role in the U.K.  Carney witnessed the collapse of public trust in elites, globalization and technology; the challenge of the 4th Industrial Revolution and the alarming threat of climate change to the global economy. In Value(s), he intends to draw on the turmoil of the past decade to explore how these challenges ultimately reflect a common crisis in values.

Signal Books says the goal is to provide the framework for a world that works for all, defining a new way forward for individuals, businesses and governments, and heralding a society that values what matters; a society for humanity restored.

This book is going to provoke an enormous amount of debate and discussion while raising difficult questions about the relationship between the global economy and the citizenry, said Kristin Cochrane, CEO of Penguin Random House Canada.

Carney, who was born in Fort Smith, NWT, is currently the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance as well as British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons finance adviser for the UN Climate Change Conference in 2021.

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I'm leaving the brand and political party of Smer to its founding father, he said.

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Former Prime Minister and incumbent Deputy Speaker of Parliament Peter Pellegrini will leave the Smer party soon.

Fico or Pellegrini? Former prime ministers fight to lead Smer Read more

He announced his decision at the June 10 press conference held in his hometown of Banska Bystrica.

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It is one of my hardest political decisions, Pellegrini said.

Despite the departure, he will always acknowledge spending 20 years in the party.

It is a brand that belongs among the most successful political parties in Slovakias history, Pellegrini told media. We have something to be proud of. But if we want to be honest, we have to say that we also made mistakes.

Establishing new party
Boeing is closing in on a key milestone toward returning its beleaguered 737 Max to the commercial market, targeting later this month for hosting US regulators on a flight to test the jet's upgraded systems.

The company separately is notifying airlines of an important fix to the grounded jetliner's wiring, said two people familiar with the planning who asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters. A draft of revised pilot training for the plane, which has been parked around the world since March 2019 as a result of two fatal crashes that killed 346 people, is also being shared with airlines, the people said.

The 737 Max has been grounded since March 2019 after a pair of fatal crashes. Credit:AP

The moves were strong indications that Boeing is finally nearing the end of the jet's 15-month grounding and controversy that has engulfed the company after the two fatal crashes.

"For Boeing, it could close a chapter that's gone on longer than they wanted and kill a lot of speculation in the marketplace that the plane will never fly again," said George Ferguson, analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
FILE PHOTO: Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn attends a news conference at the Lebanese Press Syndicate in Beirut

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) - Lawyers for the former Green Beret and son wanted by Japan for helping former Nissan Motor Co boss Carlos Ghosn flee the country on Monday argued U.S. authorities wrongly arrested them for aiding a crime that they say does not exist in Japan: bail jumping.

Lawyers for Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, in a motion asked a federal judge in Boston to quash the U.S. warrants issued last month for their arrests or release them on bail while their extradition case proceeds.

U.S. authorities arrested the Taylors in May at Japan's request for allegedly smuggling Ghosn out of the country in a box while he was out on bail awaiting trial on financial charges.

Their lawyers on Monday argued that neither bail jumping nor helping someone do so are crimes in Japan.

The defense attorneys said that fact is "so far beyond dispute that the Japanese government has begun considering whether it should amend the law to make such conduct a crime."

While Japan has issued arrest warrants for the Taylors, their lawyers said the crime stated in the Japanese warrants is an immigration offense, a non-extraditable misdemeanor.

The lawyers added that neither Taylor, including Michael, a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran who founded a private security company, pose a flight risk requiring them to be held without bail.

The Justice Department and Japanese embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. authorities arrested the Taylors in Harvard, Massachusetts, on May 20 at the request of Japan, which in January issued arrest warrants for both men in connection with facilitating the Dec. 29, 2019 escape.

Ghosn fled to Lebanon, his childhood home, while he was awaiting trial on charges that he engaged in financial wrongdoing, including by understating his compensation in Nissan's financial statements. He denies wrongdoing.

(This story corrects headline to 'ex-Nissan boss')

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
Stassi Schroeder has been dealt another blow following her axing from Vanderpump Rules.

The reality TV star's popular podcast Straight Up with Stassi has been removed from all streaming platforms in light of Schroeder's previously admitted 'racially insensitive' behavior.

'We recently learned of racially charged and inappropriate actions by Stassi Schroeder during one of her previous projects,' wrote the show's broadcaster Radio.com in an Instagram post on Tuesday.

Gone: Stassi Schroeder's popular podcast Straight Up with Stassi has been removed from all streaming platforms in light of Schroeder's previous admitted 'racially insensitive' behavior

The statement continued: 'In light of this, Radio.com has made the decision to part ways with her. We take these matters very seriously and condemn these actions.'

'Straight Up with Stassi has been removed from our portfolio.'

Recaps of the podcast are still available on the 31-year-old's personal website.

The action likely stems from accusations by Stassi's African-American co-star on Vanderpump Rules, Faith Stowers, who claimed that Schroeder and another white cast member Kristen Doute filed a false police report against her for a crime she did not commit.

Statement: 'We recently learned of racially charged and inappropriate actions by Stassi Schroeder during one of her previous projects,' wrote the show's broadcaster Radio.com in an Instagram post on Tuesday

Accused: The action likely stems from accusations by Stassi's African-American VR co-star Faith Stowers, who claimed that Schroeder and another cast member Kristen Doute filed a false police report against her for a crime she did not commit. Stassi seen here in January 2020

'Lack of judgement': Vanderpump Rules star Lisa Vanderpump made her own statement on the matter on Wednesday

Schroeder's latest setback comes after Bravo host Andy Cohen addressed the firing of four Vanderpump Rules cast members over their past racist actions being recently brought to light.

Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni have all been axed by Bravo, after their past racist comments resurfaced.

Andy, 52, spoke about Bravo's decision Wednesday on his SiriusXM channel Radio Andy saying 'I absolutely support Bravo's decision, I think it was the right decision' while also pointing out, 'I don't produce the show.'

Speaking out: Andy Cohen has addressed the firing of Vanderpump cast members over their past racist actions being recently brought to light.

The father-of-one said: 'There's so much happening in the Bravo universe. I will say this: so much talk about Vanderpump Rules and then of course the reunion ended up airing last night.'

'I will say this about what happened. I absolutely support Bravo's decision, I think it was the right decision, and I want to remind people because I've been getting so many tweets and messages and whatever about Vanderpump Rules and about Southern Charm and other shows'

'I am not, I don't - I feel like I remind people this all the time - I'm not in charge of programming at Bravo anymore. I am not an Executive Producer of Vanderpump Rules. I don't have anything to do with the show except I love it and that I host the 'reunions.'

In the firing line: Stassie Shroeder has been axed from Vanderpump Rules over her past racist behavior

He added: added, 'I don't produce the show so what I want people to know is I have no say in hiring and firing.'

Andy used to work as a top executive for Bravo before stepping down to produce his own show Watch What Happens Live.

Stassi, 31, and Kristen, 37, have starred on the reality show since its inception in 2013 while Max, 27, and Brett, 31, were newcomers on the most recent season eight.

They're out: Vanderpump Rules stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute have been fired by Bravo after their racially-charged prank that targeted co-star Faith Stowers

Most damning: Stassi called the cops on her black former costar Faith Stowers  whom she didn't like  in an effort to get her in trouble on a previous season of the show; Faith is seen in 2016 above

Speaking out: Stassi said she's refocused her mentality amid the career crisis, which has seen her lose sponsors and admit to 'racially insensitive comments'

Arguably one of the most popular stars of the series, which follows the staff at Lisa Vanderpump-owned SUR restaurant in West Hollywood, Stassi has come under fire for a disturbing racist stunt, along with racially-insensitive remarks she has shared online in recent years.

The outspoken blonde has since been dropped by her agent, publicist and several sponsors after her and pal Kristen's racially-driven stunt against black co-star Faith Stowers came to light.

A spokesperson for Bravo and Evolution Media confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that Stassi, Kristen, Max and Brett 'will not be returning to Vanderpump Rules'.

Scandal: Stassi parted ways with both her agent and her publicist after previous racist remarks and behavior has resurfaced

Stassi also made offensive comments on a previous podcast episode where she was heard speaking negatively about black people and claiming they ask for special treatment in Hollywood.

On Tuesday afternoon, Faith said felt 'vindicated' after their firing, in a new interview with Page Six.

'I feel so vindicated studios and production are able to see blatant racism and make these positive changes and help move the race forward - help with the fight forward,' Faith told the outlet.

Apologetic: Newcomers Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni have also been dropped by Bravo. They apologized last week for past racist tweets on the Vanderpump Rules reunion

The 31-year-old star continued: 'I was in the middle of prayer and I felt a sense of - I know it sounds corny - I felt a sense of glory. I felt God's presence and I'm seeing now [that the news has been revealed] maybe that is what that was.'

Adding: 'He gave me a sign of optimism meant to be hopeful and showing that all of this was worth it.'

Faith said that she 'was ready to put myself in the line of fire because I don't know what will happen if I don't say anything, but I'm glad I did.'

'Now I'm seeing Bravo follow suit, releasing women that have given crazy ratings for them because they want to be on the right side of history and I'm seeing people are finally hearing us,' Faith said to Page Six.

She also said that she hopes networks and production companies are 'ready to hire casting directors and producers of color to make sure there changes are not just a one-time thing.'

Faith added: 'I hope they use this time that they have now to educate themselves to why this happened to them and try to use [their] voice later for real change.'

After losing several endorsement deals over the past week, Stassi has now been forced to part ways with both her agent and her publicist, Variety reported Monday.
The investment firm KKR has completed its purchase of OverDrive. On Christmas Eve, KKR announced it had reached an agreement to acquire the digital reading platform from the Japanese conglomerate Rakuten. The deal was expected to be closed in the first quarter of 2020; it is not known whether the pandemic caused a problem in completing the agreement.

With the sale completed, we are excited to begin working on the opportunities to grow our digital content platform with KKRs support, said Steve Potash, OverDrive founder and CEO, in a statement. We are pleased to have an investor with global resources that knows our industry, believes in our mission and is committed to helping us and our library and school partners succeed.

In addition to OverDrive, KKR owns RBmedia, one of the largest independent publishers and distributors of audiobooks. The OverDrive acquisition, like that of RB, was overseen by Richard Sarnoff, one-time executive at Random House who also was president of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments until leaving for KKR in 2011.
N otorious prisoner Charles Bronson wants his next Parole Board hearing to be in the full public glare as he mounts a fresh bid for freedom.

The 67-year-old inmate, who has spent most of his adult life behind bars, has taken High Court action in a bid to open up the process when his release for prison is next considered.

Bronson, now going by the name Charles Salvador, has waived his right to privacy and believes there is a high public interest in how the Parole Board decides his fate.

However the Ministry of Justice is resisting Bronsons open justice challenge, saying there are clear and proportionate reasons for hearings to be in private but there are measures in place to provide openness and transparency of decisions made.

Bronson is currently serving a life sentence after taking a teacher hostage in prison, and has been through six Parole Board hearings without release since his minimum term expired in 2003.

His barrister, Matt Stanbury, acknowledged in written submissions to the High Court that Bronson is one of the UKs longest serving and most notorious prisoners, having spent the vast majority of the last 45 years in prison.

He was locked up in 1974 for armed robbery and gained notoriety as his term of imprisonment was extended repeatedly thanks to attacks on fellow inmates and guards.

After a brief stint of freedom in the late 1980s, Bronson was locked up again for planning another robbery, and he was handed the life sentence in 2000 following a prolonged siege that left the victim psychologically traumatised.

Bronson, currently a Category A prisoner at HMP Woodhill, insists he is now a changed man and can be trusted not to reoffend if released from prison, with a Parole Board panel in 2017 saying it was impressed by the sincerity of your belief that you have changed and matured, and accepts that you are likely to be correct in that belief.

The panel noted positive good behavior but found Bronson would pose a risk to the public if released and was not ready for a move to a lower security prison.

Before such a move could be considered compatible with protection for the public, it would be necessary for you to demonstrate that you can interact with fellow prisoners in an appropriate manner, without over-reacting to the inevitable frustrations and provocations that are likely to arise in normal association with others, it said.

Setting out his argument, Mr Stanbury said new rules on the conduct of Parole Board hearings - brought in last year in the wake of the botched decision to free Black Cab Rapist John Worboys - blocked public access and thwarted open justice.

He said there is an intense amount of legitimate public interest in Bronsons case, thanks to the length of time he has been locked up, the 2009 film starring Tom Hardy, Bronsons trial and acquittal in 2018 over a claim he had tried to attack a prison governor, and his marriage in 2017 to the late actress Paula Williamson.

Bronson argues there is an argument for open justice in process, particularly around how the Parole Board makes its decisions and how someone could remain imprisoned for most of 45 years.

(He) wishes for his oral hearing to take place in the full public glare in order that the principle of open justice can be observed, said Mr Stanbury. He is one of the longest serving prisoners in the UK and for that reason, amongst others, there is substantial public interest in his case.

Jason Pobjoy, representing the Justice Secretary, insisted that reforms to the Parole Board process have allowed for observers of a hearing, subject to the agreement of the panel chair.

There is no limit, in principle, to the number of individuals who can be admitted, and no restriction, in principle, on who those individuals might be, he argued.

It could include members of the public and/or members of the press.

He said the Parole Board has pledged to open up its decision-making process, but added: There are clear and proportionate reasons why Parole Board hearings are heard in private, subject to a discretion to allow observers to attend.

Bronson is seeking permission to bring a judicial review of the rules governing Parole Board hearings. His challenge is due to be heard in the High Court this morning by Mr Justice Swift.

If successful, the Parole Board may be forced to hold other hearings in public where a prisoner has waived the right to privacy.
INTRODUCTION

Dear Media Practitioners

We have met here today to address some pertinent issues that have been raised and which have affected the roll out of the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS).

INACCESSIBLE SYSTEM

For a few hours after deployment the system was generally inaccessible (screen shots available)

Answer: ICUMS has been online, accessible and in use since day one of its deployment

Remarks: This situation was remedied on Day 1

IMPORTER TAX IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (TIN) CHALLENGES

Information about the importer at the entry of his or her TIN should automatically populate for continual process of clearance. This is the basis for which one begins a declaration but unfortunately it has been fraught with challenges till this day.

Remarks: Though solutions have been attempted, this has become a recurring challenge of the ICUMS since its inception (Refer No. 16 of Takoradi report attached) leading to a manual solution of importer TIN recapture. It must be noted that this cannot be a solution for a digitized system.

Answer: TIN has been working since day one of its deployment with some level of challenges on the first day, but were resolved on 2 June, 2020.

NO BENCHMARK FOR DELIVERY TIME

ICUMS per the Trade Facilitation Agreement with Ghana Link has no SLA (Service Level Agreement) indicating process delivery times with which every other stakeholder can plan. Thus declarations can get locked up in the system for weeks with no benchmark for redress.

Remarks: Solutions have generally been on a piecemeal approach. Declarants have had to approach the technical teams at the command center for solutions.

Answer: ICUMS is an end-to-end customs clearance system, which is not the case with the previous systems (PAARS and GCNet/GCMS), which had segmented Service Level Agreements (SLA). It is the expectation of GRA that by year-end, it will take 48 hours to clear cargo from date of cargo discharge to cargo release at sea ports, whilst it will take less time for air and land frontier operations.

RESORT TO MANUAL PROCESSING

ICUMS as we speak has not been fully integrated with other players in the chain i.e. Terminals, Shipping Lines, Ground Handlers and some Courier stations. This has led to the re-emergence of manual processes of release to our chagrin

Answer: ICUMS is a fully integrated port community, single window and e-clearance system. At the moment, we have registered all Shipping Lines/Agents, Terminal Operators, Container Freight Stations, Licensed Customs House Agents, Freight Forwarders, Bonded Warehouses/Free Zones Operators and other port community players. We have enrolled in excess of 6,000 port community users. All processes are fully automated.

In the workaround for the management of BOEs that were started in the previous systems (PAARS, GCNet/GCMS), Customs notifies Shipping Lines/Agents and Freight Forwarders to issue Delivery Orders when duties have been confirmed paid.

SECURITY

Consolidators (Break Bulk)

The back-end operations of one consolidator exposes the transactions of other consolidators in form and substance. Consolidator A, when he or she logs in is able to see the operations of other consolidators in real time.

Remarks: This is an anomaly because releases can intentionally or unintentionally done for whatever effect. For a superior system of this sort, confidentiality is key to trust.

Absence of Administrators Control

There are no administrative controls. The systems log-in architecture stops the administrator from having any oversight controls once a log-in credential has been created for the Assigns. (Refer No.12 of Takoradi report attached)

Remarks: This is a serious anomaly. The administrator must necessarily be able to view and effect audits of every single declaration done.

Answer: ICUMS has clear isolation of data and data privacy and this is strictly enforced. Transactions of one entity cannot be accessed by another agency.

In addition, there is clear control of work, such that even users in the same company are not able to see one others work unless assigned supervisor role. The administrators of a company can create, assign roles, suspend, revoke and delete a user.

SYSTEM CALCULATOR CHALLENGES

There seems to be a huge problem with the computation of figures in ICUMS, and of particular interest is that of vehicle declarations. We also have noticed a trend of Customs Validated Duty Declaration Documents with figures which defy reason. Below are a few examples:
Multiple infected individuals with different strains of coronavirus acted as 'seeds' for the outbreak of the disease in California, one of the hardest hit state in the US, as early as January, a new study suggests.

The origin and early spread of coronavirus in the US remains a subject of debate and controversy. If health experts can identify the cracks in monitoring efforts that allowed the virus to slip through, perhaps they can be better prepared for the next pandemic.

A new analysis of viral genomes from the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that at least seven different strains arrived and spread in the state - including one strain that was most likely transmitted from a single passenger on the Grand Princess cruise ship to 700 others onboard.

Those disparate entry points of the virus also underscore where even fast-acting California failed to detect outbreak and trace the contacts of early cases.

Improving screening and contact tracing is crucial again as US cities reopen and human-to-human contact itself increases.

A graphic from the UCSF study shows how at least seven individuals imported different strains of coronavirus to Northern California counties and the Diamond Princess cruise ship

Like any virus, SARS-CoV-2 has mutated and splintered into various lineages around the world.

In comparison to other viruses, coronavirus has evolved relatively slowly - but it has still outpaced health systems' detection and tracking in the US.

Coronavirus has now infected nearly two million Americans, killing more than 110,000.

In California alone, nearly 135,000 people have been infected.

And according to the new UCSF analysis, they've caught any one of seven different strains, imported to the state by as many sources.

The first coronavirus case in the US was confirmed in Washington state on January 20.

That patient, a man in his 30s who had recently travelled back to his home in Snohomish County from Wuhan, China, had been keeping up with reports of the virus emerging there, as well as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) information about the new coronavirus.

Nearly 135,00 Californians now have coronavirus - and the new research suggests individuals with the virus arrived long before the first case was confirmed, pointing out gaps in the state's testing and tracing practices (file)

He was a model patient, isolating himself, calling his doctor before turning up to the clinic for an exam, and providing a list of his contacts.

Several genetic analyses have suggested that this patient was not the source of most subsequent coronavirus outbreaks in the US - thanks in part to his own behavior and swift efforts of local health officials .

But the new UCSF study suggests it still wasn't enough to keep that strain from reaching California.

Their testing of just 36 patients in nine California Counties and the Grand Princess cruise ship revealed the seven different strands of coronavirus - including so-called WA1, the variation first detected in Washington.

But their analysis suggested that it wasn't that one strain that spread like wildfire in the state - or any, for that matter.

UCSF researchers suspect that a single person who unwittingly carried coronavirus on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship (pictured) led to the infections of 712 people

Instead, their genetic sequencing suggested there were several separate 'seeding' events - disparate introductions of single cases that triggered distinct spreading events.

After initial federal resistance to lockdown orders, California was praised for closing down businesses and enacting social distancing swiftly. Governor Gavin Newsom issued a 'shelter-in-place' order on March 20.

Still, that was nearly a month after the first instance of community spread was identified in the state.

The new study is the latest to suggest, however, that coronavirus was spreading California (and elsewhere, according to other research) before any cases were detected there.

UCSF's team estimates that the first seed of the virus was planted in California as early as late January - although some state outbreaks were very limited, with one in Solano County leading to only three total infections.

But others spread silently, to as many as the 700 people aboard the Diamond Princess.

'We simply did not have the infrastructure to do the detecting that would have been needed,' lead study author Dr Charles Chiu told CNN.

He and his co-authors go so far as to suggest that the evident difficulty of tracing individual introductions of the virus to a community may necessitate longer term suspension on non-essential travel.
A bill designed to prevent auto insurance companies from raising rates for deployed members of the U.S. military has been signed by Louisianas governor.

Gov. John Bel Edwards signed Senate Bill 16 by Sen. Jay Luneau, a Democrat from District 29, a proposal that received unanimous support in the Legislature, the governors announcement said.

Specifically, the SB 16 prohibits the determination of rate classifications based on the deployment of the insured in the military for at least six months, except for the provision of rate discounts for military personnel.

In a statement, Edwards expressed his appreciation for Luneau for sponsoring the bill, saying it effectively ends the so-called Patriot Penalty and guarantees that our military heroes are not charged higher auto insurance rates.

Edwards said there is still work to be done to lower Louisianas too-high auto insurance rates. For instance, in Louisiana, auto insurance companies can still legally increase rates based on a persons gender, credit score and marital status. While these injustices remain, I am happy that we have at least crossed another  being deployed  off of the list, he said.

The consumer advocacy group, Consumer Federation of America (CFA) applauded the governor for signing the bill. In a media release, CFA said the group earlier this year had called on states to take action after it was revealed that, in several states, GEICO would charge higher auto insurance rates to military servicemembers if they had dropped their coverage during a deployment.

Its outrageous that any auto insurer would punish servicemembers, because they dropped coverage while deployed overseas, CFAs insurance expert Doug Heller said in the release. While this patriot penalty is still allowed in many states, it has been ended in Louisiana and Governor Edwards and Senator Luneau should be applauded for standing up for consumers and soldiers.

The CFA noted that in March Vermont found the patriot penalty to be unfair discrimination and banned its use. California, CFA said, has long-banned insurers from surcharging drivers based on a break in coverage, whether due to deployment or other reasons.

SB 16 was part of a package of auto insurance reform bills supported by Edwards during the Louisiana Legislatures regular session. Other reform legislation backed by the governor include:

SB 13 prohibits insurance rate determinations based on risks classified by the gender of an insured over the age of twenty-five.

SB 14 prohibits insurance rate determinations based on risks classified by credit score/rating.

SB 15 prohibits insurance rate determinations based on risks classified due to the fact that the insured is a widow or widower.

SB 13, 14 and 15 were referred to the Senate Committee on Insurance but did not pass out of that committee.

The Legislature on June 1 passed an auto insurance reform bill aimed at limiting damage claims following car accidents. SB 418, also known as the Omnibus Premium Reduction Act of 2020, was a priority for Republican lawmakers, insurers and business interests but Gov. Edwards has not yet signed it.

Topics Auto Louisiana
The senate has confirmed Lamido Yuguda, a former director at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as the director-general (DG) of the Se...





The senate has confirmed Lamido Yuguda, a former director at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as the director-general (DG) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).





The upper legislative chamber also confirmed Reginald C Karausa, Ibrahim D Boyi, and Obi Joseph as full-time commissioners of SEC.





They were confirmed after Ibikunle Amosun, chairman of the committee on capital market, presented his report.





The committee recommends that the senate confirm the four nominees as appointed by Mr President, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Amosun said.

But before the question was put on the nominations, Albert Bassey Akpan, senator representing Akwa Ibom north-east, reminded his colleagues of a petition the Akwa Ibom caucus had filed against Yuguda.





The Akwa Ibom senators had wanted Mary Uduk, acting SEC DG, to be confirmed. Uduk has been acting as SEC DG since Mounir Gwarzo was suspended two years ago.





In response, Amosun said the petition does not stop the work of his committee since they complained about being short-changed.





That petition will not hinder our work. They complained about being short-changed, he said.





Senate President Ahmad Lawan said there was no a need for the ethics committee to present a report on the petition.





The senate then went ahead to confirm the nominees.
Official data shows that an average of 32 calls were placed each hour to Mexico's 911 line to report violence against women during the first two months of the country's nationwide coronavirus shutdown order.

According to National Public Security System, the 911 calls increased by 52 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's administration declared a shutdown to combat the spread of the ravaging virus. It went into place March 23 and was lifted May 30.

Women hold crosses during the national women's strike 'A Day Without Women' at Mexico City's main square, the Zocalo, on March 9, 2020

Women chant as part of a 'human chain' of around 200 women calling for an end to gender violence, on the eve of International Women's Day in central Mexico City on March 7, 2020

Throughout the first 61 days of the preventive measure, which called for the strict enforcement of social distancing, a total of 47,893 calls reported violent incidents against women.

During one incident in March, a woman in the southwestern state of Oaxaca called 911 during a domestic violence altercation. Her son intervened and was killed by her aggressor, according to Mexican newspaper El Universal.

'These are the cases that we have learned,' said Esmeralda Lecxiur, the president of the Veracruz-based Lawyers with a Perspective.

'Imagine how many figures we have not discovered because the women can't go out and ask for help. Those of us who are part of civil society do everything, accompany and direct those who we can support. But the question is, what is the government doing? The answer is that, with very few exceptions, they are not responding.'

An actress walks near a line of red shoes representing murdered women, as part of a performance during the national women's strike 'A Day Without Women' in Mexico City on March 9, 2020

The government reported 665 women were victims of homicides over the first two months of the lockdown, an increase from 616 who were killed last year.

Of the 665 homicides that were reported during the first two months, 144 were carried out by men.

Health officials reported 9,779 coronavirus deaths and 87,512 confirmed cases during the government's COVID-19 lockdown order.

Overall, the deadly bug has been responsible for the deaths of 14,649 people and produced 124,301 confirmed cases.
Britain

Carmaker Honda hit by cyberattack

LONDON  Japanese carmaker Honda said Tuesday that it has been hit by a cyberattack that disrupted its business in several countries, though it expects the overall impact to be contained.

The company said in a statement that a cyberattack has taken place on the Honda network. It said there was no breach of data but that it is working to minimize the impact and to restore full functionality of production, sales and development activities.

North Korea

Communications with South Korea are cut off

North Korea said Tuesday it was cutting off all communication channels with South Korea, a move experts say could signal Pyongyang has grown frustrated that Seoul has failed to revive lucrative inter-Korean economic projects and persuade the United States to ease sanctions.

The Norths Korean Central News Agency said all cross-border communication lines would be cut off at noon in the first step of the determination to completely shut down all contact means with South Korea and get rid of unnecessary things.
New Delhi, June 10 : India's deepening ties with the United States, other powerful western bloc and the recent development of occupying an important position at World Health Organization (WHO) amid the global Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a "panic in the Chinese hierarchy", top sources in the security establishment said on Wednesday.

Beijing, the sources observed, seems apprehensive that India, in order to strengthen its ties with the US and other countries, might use its new found position at the WHO to implicate China of being responsible for spreading the Covid-19 virus.

"It is possible that the current face-off in Eastern Ladakh could also be related to diverting the internal pressures being faced by Chinese President Xi Jinping due to the mishandling of the Covid-19 spread and worsening of the economic situation," source stated.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party through its mouthpiece Global Times had indirectly upped its aggressive and dominating mentality ahead of the India-China military interaction at the Chusul-Moldo meeting point on June 6. On June 5, China through this newspaper had stated that India should not be instigated by the US or the media hypes.

A source noted that it seems it is part of China's strategic messaging to the US partners on the inevitability of a Sino-centric Asia, and for India to stop ganging up against China or face the consequences from a predatory great power.

"Chinese provocations can also be seen in the context of Beijing's assertive position on the South China Sea, its keenly promoted Belt and Road Initiative (which India refused to join), and vigilance in the Indian Ocean where a string of Chinese naval posts have been set up," he said.

Recently, the tensions between China and the West have been heightening over a range of issues -- WHO investigating on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, new legislation in Hong Kong, China imposing steep trade tariffs on Australia, as also a close confrontation between Chinese Navy and the US Navy in the South China Sea.

"And the India-US relations are on a high, but to say Washington is looking to the China-India dispute in order to gain from it could be an overstatement," the sources said.

India and China relations had strengthened with the two informal summits between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in the past.

Over the years, China has not only become India's largest trading partner, but both the countries have also started to cooperate on a range of international issues like trade, climate change, unfair regulations of the World Trade Organization towards developing nations and reform of the global financial order.

Also, India and China are part of a number of important world forums including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

India has never joined a group or forum for going against the interest of a third nation.

The sources further pointed out, "The People's Liberation Army should also not attempt to undertake any kind of military misadventure on the false pretext that they are better and the Indian forces are akin to the 1960s." "Indian armed forces in 2020 are much more modernised and equipped, and PLA should not take India lightly. Today India is a nuclear power with the third-largest army in the world and an air force and navy comparable to world standards," said a top official.

"Let us also not forget that Indian military is battle-hardened unlike the Chinese -- Indian Army has been engaged in two full-fledged wars and one limited but significant conflict with Pakistan since 1962; in two of these three, India scored decisive victories, with the 1971 War being a magnificent display of India's military prowess and execution," the source said.

Multiple top officers of the government stated that China should not take the risk of even a skirmish as no one can guarantee that it would remain confined to just the India-China border.

"Let both nations exploit this opportunity to resolve the border issue once and for all. Let both of them exchange the maps and delineate the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as a first step, rather than conduct a bullying media campaign against each other," the officers said, making it amply clear that India wants to resolve the dispute with neighbouring countries through peaceful means.

"But it will also not accept any bullying on any pretext. India is strong to defend its borders and to ensure its territorial integrity. India will not turn its back to the threat posed by the aggressive moves at its borders," the officers further added.

(Sumit Kumar Singh can be reached at sumit.k@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Pippa Middleton looked relaxed as she took Arthur, 19 months, to try his new scooter in a London park today.

Kate Middleton's sister, 36, opted for a leather and shearling aviator jacket in the cooler weather, teaming it with ripped jeans and trainers.

Meanwhile little Arthur looked stylish in shorts - a royal favourite for toddlers - and a quilted blue jacket.

Pippa was seen looking on proudly, as the toddler balanced on his new gadget, just a week after they were first seen since the lockdown was imposed in March - with Arthur seen walking independently for the first time.

Pippa Middleton looked relaxed as she took Arthur, 19 months, to try his new scooter in a London park today

Kate Middleton 's sister, 36, opted for a leather and shearling aviator jacket in the cooler weather, teaming it with ripped jeans and trainers

Pippa looked in good spirits, wearing her hair in a low ponytail as she kept a close eye on the toddler.

Arthur was seen confidently whizzing around the park, at one point helped along by his mother.

At one point she brought out a miniature pushchair for the little boy to play with, as they made the most of the outdoor space.

The outing appeared to be a solo one for the duo, with Pippa's husband James Matthews, brother of Made In Chelsea star Spencer Matthews, not spotted.

Kate was seen looking on proudly, as the toddler balanced on his new gadget, just a week after they were first seen since the lockdown was imposed in March - with Arthur seen walking independently for the first time.

Meanwhile little Arthur looked stylish in shorts - a royal favourite for toddlers - and a quilted blue jacket

Pippa and husband James Matthews welcomed their baby boy weighing 8lb and 9oz at the private Lindo Wing, at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, in October 2018, and she is regularly spotted balancing her motherly duties with her gym routine.

Arthur has the middle names Michael and William. The name Michael is a touching tribute to Pippa's father and her husband's younger brother who died while climbing Mount Everest in 1999.

Michael Matthews went missing on the mountain's infamous Death Zone while he was trying to become the youngest Briton to climb the worlds highest peak.

Following his tragic death, brother James Matthews accompanied by wife Pippa have become committed to fundraising for poverty-stricken areas in Africa and Asia through the Michael Matthews Foundation.

Pippa looked in good spirits, wearing her hair in a low ponytail as she kept a close eye on the toddler

Arthur was seen confidently whizzing around the park, at one point helped along by his mother

The outing appeared to be a solo one for the duo, with Pippa's husband James Matthews, brother of Made In Chelsea star Spencer Matthews, not spotted.

At one point she brought out a miniature pushchair for the little boy to play with, as they made the most of the outdoor space
A day after Union home minister Amit Shah took a jibe at West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for dubbing Shramik Special trains as Corona Express, Banerjee on Wednesday issued a rejoinder saying that the term was not her coinage and she was merely voicing the peoples opinion.

Banerjee also announced that the period of institutional quarantine for migrant workers returning from Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu was being reduced to one week from 14 days. They would be tested for Covid-19 within that period.

I never coined the term Corona Express. I said that the public was saying so, Banerjee said while adding that had the BJP-led union government run the Shramik Special trains for a week before announcing the pan-India lockdown then labourers would not have suffered for three months.

ALSO READ | Amit Shah targets Mamata Banerjee on CAA, Covid-19

Shah, while addressing Tuesdays virtual rally had said that the term Corona Express, which Banerjee had used to refer to trains ferrying migrant workers, will turn into an exit express for the Trinamool Congress in Bengal.

In May, while pinning the blame of rising coronavirus cases in the state on the railways, Banerjee had accused the national carrier of running Corona Express trains and not Shramik Specials. The chief minister had accused the railways of packing in more than 2,000 migrants in one train against the capacity of 1,200, instead of increasing the frequency and number of trains to cater to the rush.

Around 11 lakh people, including migrant labourers, have entered the state in trains and buses during the lockdown. Another 30,000 is expected to arrive in the next three days in 22 trains, taking the total number of trains to Bengal to 255.

Banerjee also said that state government offices will now operate in two shifts to bring down the rush during office hours, which is frequently leading to overcrowding in buses. Kolkata, with 3,018 cases out of the 8,985 cases in Bengal till June 9, has been registering the highest spike in Covid-19 cases every day.

ALSO READ | West Bengal remains the only state where political violence is propagated: Amit Shah

While the first shift would operate from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm, the second shift would operate from 12:30 pm to 5:30 pm. Previously, government offices used to run from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm.

I would also urge the private sector to allow their employees to work from home to reduce the rush on the roads and public conveyance. Only those employees must be allowed for whom it is absolutely necessary to come to office. The rest 50% to 70% of the work force can work from home. This is my appeal, she said.
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Linkedin Camille Bouissou and Fiachra Gibbons (Agence France-Presse) Paris  Wed, June 10, 2020 15:05 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd9b12f 2 Art & Culture mural,JR,George-Floyd,Adama-Traore Free

A huge mural by French street art star JR was unveiled in Paris on Tuesday paying tribute to George Floyd and Adama Traore, a young black man who died in police custody in France.

Traore's death four years ago has become the focus of renewed protests across France over claims of police racism and brutality following the anger unleashed in the US after Floyd was killed in similar circumstances in Minneapolis last month.

Some 20,000 people rallied in front of a courthouse in Paris last Tuesday to demand justice for Traore and Floyd, defying a coronavirus ban on public gatherings.

And a further 23,000 attended demonstrations across the country on Saturday calling for an end to police violence. More French protests were called Tuesday as Floyd was laid to rest in Houston, Texas.

Oscar-nominated black French film director Ladj Ly -- whose movie "Les Miserables" also tackles the fraught relations between ethnic minorities and the French police -- told reporters that "the mural is there to pay homage both to Adama and George Floyd."

Students at Ly's Kourtrajme film school in a deprived Paris suburb worked with JR -- Oscar-nominated himself along with Agnes Varda for the 2017 documentary "Faces Places" -- on the huge photo montage in central Paris.

Read also: 'It's all about love': Oakland artists pay tribute to George Floyd with murals

Faced with rising anger over the behavior of French police, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Monday that a controversial choke hold used to subdue suspects was being banned.

Racist insults and comments made by officers on private police Facebook pages have added to public unease.

Traore, 24, died in 2016 after he was pinned to the ground after a routine identity check with the combined body weight of three arresting officers, according to the testimony of one of them.

Last Friday, French medical experts said Traore did not die of "positional suffocation", ruling out the officers pinning him to the ground as the cause of his death.

But a new probe commissioned by the Traore family said his death was caused by the arrest technique.

At a press conference to unveil the mural on Tuesday, Traore's sister Assa renewed the family's call for "the police officers to be brought to justice" for what they did to her little brother.

The family had earlier refused to meet Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet until concrete steps were taken.
COVID-19 Offers 'World of Opportunity' For Spies, Terrorists Australian Spy Boss Says

By Phil Mercer June 09, 2020

Australia's spy chief is warning of a surge in espionage, extremist propaganda and cyber-crime during the COVID crisis.

Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) boss Mike Burgess says with more Australians at home and online during lockdowns, spies, criminals and terrorists have been increasingly active.

COVID-19 has given hackers, criminals and terrorists "a world of opportunity" to exploit Australians online during lockdowns. That is the view of ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. Its job is to prevent espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference and politically motivated violence in Australia.

It believes that extremist groups have spread their ideology and tried to radicalize Australians. Other common scams include phishing for personal information, online shopping fraud and the theft of pension funds, as well as fake cryptocurrency and celebrity endorsements. There are also allegations that foreign governments have used the pandemic to covertly gather sensitive information online.

In a podcast with the Institute of Public Administration Australia, a non-partisan research body, ASIO chief Mike Burgess said the coronavirus pandemic has provided opportunities for criminals and extremists.

"We have seen more people at home, and as they are at home they are online and we have seen increased chatter in the online world when it comes to the spread of extremist ideology attempting to radicalize people, so we have seen more of that just as we have seen more criminal behavior online; cyber crime, which is well reported by other agencies," he said.

Burgess also criticized tech companies for resisting requests by security agencies to access information in cyberspace. Analysts say his comments are a strong hint that Australia's intelligence community wants new powers to access end-to-end encrypted content. The technology is used for various legitimate reasons, including commerce and banking.

The ASIO boss said there was a need for the balance between privacy and security to be reappraised in favor of law enforcement and national security. It is a move described by civil liberties campaigners as a "power grab."

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John Cena has donated $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter.

The 43-year-old pro wrestler/actor, with the seven-figure total, matched the BTS for a movement called #MatchAMillion.

The West Newbury, Massachusetts native tweeted: 'Very happy to join #BTSARMY in efforts to match BTS' tremendous donation #ARMYMatch1M.'

Just keeps showing up: John Cena, 43, donated $1 million to Black Lives Matter, matching the BTS for a movement called #MatchAMillion

In a subsequent tweet Cena - who's one of Hollywood's most charitable celebs with both his time and money - credited the K-Pop musical outfit and their fans for channeling their efforts toward the critical social cause aimed against eliminating racism and police brutality.

'One of the many reasons I respect BTS ... thank you #BTS and BTSARMY,' the 16-time WWE world champ said.

Cena took to social media Tuesday with a statement on the issues, and the growing pains that are inevitable en route to a societal sea change.

'Change is never easy because it takes us admitting that our efforts and methods may be flawed to a point of severe distortion,' said the WWE superstar-turned-Hollywood action hero. 'Be brave and open minded in these moments. Welcome ideas and limit excuses. Change is uncomfortable but can yield much more joy for all in the long run.'

Speaking out: Cena took to social media Tuesday with a statement on the issues, and the growing pains that are inevitable en route to a societal sea change

Respect: Cena paid homage to BTS and its fan base for its efforts

Cena's philanthropic effort - he's been a prolific presence for the Make-A-Wish Foundation - was lauded by fans, as one Twitter user wrote, 'John cena said you cant see me but sir... i saw that you opened your purse and donated a cool million dollars to black lives matter YESSIRRR.'

Another wrote, 'John Cena is what Hulk Hogan pretended to be his whole career' five years after a racist rant from Hogan publicly surfaced.

Feedback: Fans commended Cena's efforts, as he's routinely given his time and money to good causes

Giving back: The compassionate celeb has passed the 600 mark in granting wishes to children in health battles, according to the Make-A-Wish Foundation

Black Lives Matter was initially established in 2013 following the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin and has been essential in the international spate of demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd May 25 in Minneapolis.

Cena was also linked to a $40,000 donation made to a crowdfunding effort for the family of the late Shad Gaspard, TMZ reported last month. The account of the anonymous donation was 'CTC RIP,' which many linked to Cryme Tyme Cenation, a 2008 team of Cena and Cryme Tyme's Gaspard and JTG (Jayson Anthony Paul).

Gaspard tragically perished in April in Venice Beach, California while trying to save his son from drowning.

Admirable: Last month, Cena visited David Castle, a seven-year-old fan from Odessa, Florida who is bravely battling stage four cancer
With the very low levels of viral transmission seen in some countries, the pandemic would eventually die out in lockdown scenarios, the studies conclude.

Two new studies have pointed to the effectiveness of lockdowns around the world, claiming that proper implementation in some countries has reduced the transmission of coronavirus and controlled its rapid spread, saving millions of people from being infected in the still-raging global pandemic.

In the first study, published in Nature on 8 June, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley report that shutdowns prevented or delayed an estimated 531 million coronavirus infections across six countries  China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France and the United States. A second study by scientists at Imperial College London estimates that shutdowns saved about 3.1 million lives across 11 European countries.

Interventions to reduce the coronavirus spread in Europe have brought down infection rates down by an average of 81 percent compared to pre-intervention times, the Nature report claims.

In all the countries examined, the value for R naught  an estimate for how many people an infected person might transmit the virus to  was less than one. This means that each infected person passed the virus on to less than one person, on average. With the level of viral transmission as low as this, the pandemic would eventually die out in lockdown scenarios, the study concludes.

Back when the cases of COVID-19 first started to spike in early 2020, governments of countries like China, the United States, and Italy put measures in place  social distancing, shutting shops, schools, restaurants, and restricting travel. While the shutdowns disrupted economies globally and came with job losses and pay cuts, it was unclear how effective these measures really were at what they were meant to do: curb the virus spread.

These control measures have worked, Alun Lloyd, a mathematical epidemiologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who was not involved in either study, told ScienceNews. "(Lockdowns) have saved or delayed many infections and deaths.

That said, with countries now easing restrictions and moving to reopen the economy, residents of these very same countries could be looking at a new surge of positive cases, experts say.

"There is a very real risk if mobility goes back up there could be a second wave coming reasonably soon, in the next month or two," said Dr Samir Bhatt reportedly said at a news briefing on 8 June.

"Were very far from herd immunity," Dr Seth Flaxman, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, added. The risk of a second wave happening if all interventions and all precautions are abandoned is very real."

Herd immunity is a form of indirect protection from an infectious disease on the prowl, which takes effect when a large percentage of the population in a region or country has become immune to an infection  either via vaccination or previous infection/exposure to the infection. Therefore, it cuts the risk of transmission among the population at large, offering a degree of protection to individuals who are not immune to it.

So far, around 5 percent of the population in hard-hit places like Italy and Spain have been infected, according to the researchers. They estimate that around 70 percent of people would need to be immune to achieve herd immunity.

Also read: After eventual lifting of lockdown, behavioural science must form key part of India's COVID-19 response
Autistic non-verbal teenager William Callaghan, 14, has been miraculously found alive

A hero volunteer who rescued a non-verbal autistic teenager missing in treacherous bushland packed chocolate for the search after the boy's mother revealed it was one of his favourite foods.

William Callaghan disappeared into the wilderness at Mount Disappointment in Victoria during a camping trip when his father and brother.

He spent two night alone and barefoot and temperatures plummeted to -2C.

Emergency services expressed concern for the 14-year-old's welfare given the conditions, but on Wednesday a lone volunteer who joined the search found him about 20 minutes away from the summit.

Ben Gibbs, himself a father, said he joined the search with more than 450 others because he knew the area well. He'd been visiting since he was a boy and thought he could offer a unique approach.

He packed extra socks and some chocolate bars for the expedition after William's mother, Penny, told volunteers he would be less scared of people if they had food for him.

'He will be seeking food. He loves his food... if someone is there he's not going to shy away from approaching someone for food. He won't ask them - he can't, he's non-verbal - so he won't, he might just try to grab it,' she said.

She explained he was very food motivated, and that chocolate was one of his favourite snacks.

William Callaghan (left) is seen at the base camp at Mount Disappointment where he is comforted by his mum's partner Nathan Ezard

Rescuers are having to search through thick scrub and are playing William's favourite music in the hope he responds

Mr Gibbs said William was thrilled to get his hands on the chocolate when he was found.

'He didn't seem bothered by me,' he revealed. 'He was just happy to get the chocolate. I put some socks on him and a jacket, and after he ate half the chocolate bar I carried him out.'

Mr Gibbs also discussed Thomas The Tank Engine with William to coax him from the bush. It is his favourite show.

In desperation, emergency services had begun playing the theme music from the show on loudspeaker through the forest in an attempt to encourage him to come out of hiding.

But Mr Gibbs stumbled upon William off the beaten track after opting to go 'a bit deeper'.

'I have been coming up here since I was a boy. I saw where the guys tagged where they did some searching previously, so I dropped in a bit deeper than that,' he told Channel Nine.

'I was just wandering through the bush and it was quite thick so I was just breaking my way through it and then he was just like about 15 metres from me just standing there.

William Callaghan (left) is carried by his mum's partner Nathan Ezard at the base camp at Mount Disappointment on Wednesday

Volunteer Ben Gibbs is being hailed a national Australian hero after finding William Callaghan in think bush near the summit of Mount Disappointment

William Callaghan, 14, (pictured) a teenager with non-verbal autism, went missing on Mount Disappointment in Victoria around 2.20pm on Monday

'He was really angelic - just, just standing there. Standing and looking... He looked in reasonable health, he wasnt shivering too bad.'

Ms Callaghan said William had communicated that he was confused, scared and that his 'body feels weird'.

Emergency services at the scene said given the conditions, it was incredible he walked away with just cuts and scratches.

Mount Disappointment was named so after British explorers in 1824 made the summit in the hope of spotting Port Phillip Bay

Emergency service personnel attend a briefing at the base camp at Mount Disappointment in Victoria on Wednesday

William Callaghan after his rescue on Mount Disappointment on Wednesday. He is carried by his mum Penny

'It is quite incredible to survive the elements in the cold. He has come up relatively unscathed, from the cold. It is a fantastic result,' emergency registrar Dani Bersin told the Herald Sun.

William is reportedly alert, warm and has already asked for his favourite food: McDonalds.

Ms Callaghan told reporters she would sort that out promptly and start planning a family holiday to celebrate.

Both Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Prime Minister Scott Morrison commended the actions of volunteers and emergency services in the search.

'It might be named Mount Disappointment, but there's absolutely nothing disappointing about today,' Mr Andrews said.

Mount Disappointment was named so after British explorers in 1824 made the summit in the hope of spotting Port Phillip Bay.

Hundreds of volunteers (pictured) searched Mount Disappointment overnight and continued on Wednesday

Penny Callaghan (left), mother of William Callaghan, and Nathan Ezard prior to a press conference at the base camp at Mount Disappointment in Victoria on Wednesday

William Callaghan enjoys something to eat after his two-day ordeal in the mountains

Unfortunately, the mountain's many trees prevented it, resulting in their 'immense disappointment'.

Melburnians had shivered through the city's coldest morning since August 2018 on the night William went missing - the coldest June morning since 2015, putting immense pressure on search teams to find William as soon as possible.

Rescuers had never given up hope of finding William alive, though Senior Sergeant Greg Paul said rescuers were fighting against time.

'It can take a long time to find someone if they are lost in this terrain,' he said.

'We all have limitations, this time of year especially. There is no sugar coating it, it is life-threateningly cold.'

Temperatures in the area were not as cold as initially expected last night, giving some relief to search efforts after the freezing conditions on Monday.

It was about 6C on the summit where William was last seen but temperatures in the surrounding valleys would likely have been freezing.

Hundreds of SES volunteers, police and the community are searching for William in thiock terrain

Corbin Mundy, 17, and his dad pose for a photograph before joining the search for missing teenager William Callaghan at Mt Disappointment in Victoria

Thermal imaging was being used to try and track the missing teenager
By Rami Ayyub

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel's Supreme Court struck down a law on Tuesday that had retroactively legalised about 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

A nine-judge panel voted to repeal the 2017 measure, under which settlers could remain on land if they built there without prior knowledge of Palestinian ownership, or if homes were built at the state's direction. Eight voted in favour and one against.

Rights groups say the measure, which was frozen soon after passage while the court heard petitions against it, had legalised more than 50 settler outposts built without government approval.

The law "unequally infringes on the property rights of Palestinian residents while giving preference to the proprietary interests of Israeli settlers," Chief Justice Esther Hayut wrote in the panel's ruling.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party said it was "unfortunate" that the court had intervened on "an important law for settlement activity and its future" and that it would work to re-enact it.

But Likud's new coalition partner, Blue and White, said the law "in its format runs counter to the constitutional situation in Israel, and its legal problems were known at the time of its approval".

"We respect the High Court's ruling and (will) ensure it is implemented," Blue and White said.

Under Netanyahu, the government has pledged to extend sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians seek for a state.

The government is due to begin discussing the de facto annexation on July 1, but it is unclear whether Israel's main ally, the United States, will give the step the green light.

The Palestinians have rejected U.S. President Donald Trump's peace blueprint, under which most of Israel's settlements would be incorporated into "contiguous Israeli territory".

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
The Delhi government on Tuesday (June 9) announced its decision to withdraw the special corona fee of 70% on all categories of liquor from June 10 (Wednesday). The decision taken by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led government means that alcohol will be sold cheaper in the national capital from Wednesday onwards. But Value Added Tax has been increased from existing 20% to 25% on all categories of liquor sold in the jurisdiction of Delhi with effect from Wednesday.

On May 15, a notice was issued by the Delhi High Court to Delhi government on increasing levy of 70 percent "special corona fee" on the MRP of all liquor brands.

The Delhi government had imposed the "special corona fee" on alcohol, a day after allowing re-opening of 150 state-run liquor vends in the city from May 3.

The Delhi government had also launched an e-token system for the sale of liquor to check the overcrowding of alcohol buyers at shops. "To curb violations of social distancing norms, crowding and law and order issues during the sale of liquor in the city, the Delhi government decided to introduce the e-token system," said the Delhi government statement. It also issued a web link where people can go and purchase the e-token for the liquor.

Notably, while the shops under the Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation have sold liquor worth Rs 86.5 crore between May 4 and 30 and the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation recorded sale worth Rs 47.6 crore during the same time period.

The shops under Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited and the Delhi Consumers Cooperative Wholesale Store sold liquor worth Rs 45.2 crore each during the same period.
Egyptians see the relationship between the current protests in the United States and the 25 January Revolution in Egypt from a different perspective than the Western media, writes Azza Radwan Sedky

Many a time, journalists in the New York Times and I do not see eye-to-eye. A case in point is a recent article in the Times entitled In Egypt, images from American protests evoke a lost revolution by US journalist Declan Walsh. Had he not used the word lost in the headline, he would not have got much attention, but it was there to corroborate his calculated intent. The aim is clear: to provoke animosity towards Egypt.

So, lets first focus on the word lost. A lost revolution entails that what was supposed to come out of it did not transpire and that the situation today is as bad if not worse than what it was before it took place. That is exactly what the Times is saying, and the word lost gets that message across.

The writer compares the wave of public anger occurring across the US today to Egypts 2011 Revolution. He equates injustices that occurred in Egypt to police brutality and oppression in the US, both leading to a buildup of fury like no other. Is this a valid comparison? In a certain way it is. That memories of 2011 have been revived in the minds of Egyptians is true, but that is as far as the comparison goes, since Egyptians see the resemblances from a different perspective altogether that is not close to the articles viewpoint.

When protesters in Cairos Tahrir Square called for bread, freedom and justice in 2011, Egyptians were ecstatic, but when looters and rioters exploited the situation to burn and destroy, forcing vigilant people to stand on guard throughout many nights as the venom spewed, Egyptians were disheartened, and solidarity waned. As much as Egyptians abhor injustice, they also loathe chaos and turmoil. They want to forget that part of the revolution, not be reminded of it.

The same grief is reflected towards the current situation in the US. What is happening in the US today has resulted from years of police brutality and blatant racism stemming from discrimination against African-Americans and others. And when injustice prevails, the backlash is horrendous. As George Floyd lay choking to death, all the citizens of the world, including Egyptians, felt devastated, but when pandemonium broke loose they also empathised with those who had had their stores looted and properties burned. Images of flames, tear gas and anguish are not scenes that Egyptians want to remember.

When the US magazine The Atlantic asks, how should the oppressed respond to their oppressors, the implication is that there should be toleration of destruction. I disagree, as sowing chaos can only backfire. Non-violent, peaceful demonstrations, or a single person repeating Floyds words I cant breathe, leave everyone visibly and empathically moved, but the current disarray has left many sitting on the fence, such as when Egyptians were confronted with police stations torched, security withheld and citizens mobbed during the 2011 Revolution.

Egyptians are drawing comparisons between the two events, but they are also telling Americans to watch out and be forewarned: the ramifications of disorder are not pleasant. As police officers in the US attack rioters and as white racists roam around carrying arms, some tweets have spoken to this, with many saying watch out, citizens of the US, avoid getting into further trouble.

Other tweets have included dont these photos of chaos remind you of something horrid? Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence  WHAAT? The army will be called in. Isnt the army supposed to remain at the borders? The latter is a tongue-in-cheek reference to how the Western media reacted when the Egyptian army was called in during the 2011 Revolution. A darker tweet has been drink from the same bitter cup.

Amidst everything that is occurring in the US today, Walsh believes in American democracy. The US has a free press and follows the rule of law, he says. More importantly, it has no dictator to topple, he adds, insinuating that Egypt does not have a free press, does not follow the rule of law and does topple its leaders. US President Donald Trump is no dictator, he says, though I have seen many articles in the US calling on him to go, making one wonder whether in the US there is a lost revolution.

Walsh makes an astonishing comparison between Egypts president Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and Trump in his article. As protesters burn American cities, Trump seems set on emulating his [Al-Sisis] spirit, if not his methods, he says. If this is not double standards, I do not know what is. The comparison is disdainful and false. Trump speaks ill of anyone who does not accept his rule, has fired every intelligent being on his staff, has attacked and broken ties with countries that have acted independently, has annulled and spoken ill of many worthy agreements and has aired his racist views. Any comparison with Al-Sisi is delusional. I wish Trump would emulate Al-Sisi, as this would in fact do wonders for the US and remind its citizens of the meaning of respect.

The writer cites the views of those who oppose Al-Sisi. Amongst others, he quotes novelist Ahdaf Soueif, who writes for the UK newspaper the Guardian, Belal Fadl, who now lives in New York City and Nancy Okail of the US think-tank the Tahrir Institute in Washington, who was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison in the court case involving local and foreign NGOs in Egypt. Only once does he cite a single unidentified supporter of Al-Sisi.

For some Egyptians, the turmoil in America is an unwelcome reminder of the chaotic period in Egypt that only ended when Al-Sisi took over. Theyve looted shops and torched police vehicles, noted one Al-Sisi supporter on Twitter. All they need is a Battle of the Camel and to torch the Scientific Institute, references to incidents of violence and destructiveness that took place in Egypt in 2011.

Even when he cites a supporter of Al-Sisi in his article, Walsh adds his own spin, writing noted one Al-Sisi supporter. Take it from me, New York Times readers, this is the sentiment of most Egyptians, not just one Al-Sisi supporter. This article follows the course the Times has set for itself on Egypt, but, like its other prejudiced articles, it should not be taken seriously. Impartial reporting, it is not.

The writer is an academic and political analyst. She is the author of Cairo Rewind on the First Two Years of Egypts Revolution, 2011-2013.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 11 June, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - ATEX Resources Inc. (TSXV: ATX) ("ATEX") is pleased to announce that its Board of Directors has appointed Dr. Raymond Jannas to the position of President and CEO. Carl Hansen, the current President and CEO, will remain with ATEX taking on the role of Non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.

"On behalf of ATEX's Board of Directors, I am very pleased to welcome Dr. Raymond Jannas as the CEO," said Carl Hansen, Chairman. "Dr. Jannas has an unparalleled wealth of exploration experience throughout Latin America, having made significant discoveries while working with a number of major gold companies. We believe that the execution of the ATEX's business plan under Dr. Jannas' leadership will be the best path forward to maximize value for shareholders."

Dr. Jannas stated: "I am excited to be leading ATEX and working closely with the Board to build on the initial progress it has made at its Valeriano copper gold project as well as to grow ATEX's portfolio of exploration assets in Chile and evaluate expanding to other countries in Latin America."

Dr. Jannas' Biography

Dr. Jannas, a resident of Santiago, Chile, has over 35 years' experience in the mining geology and exploration industry focused largely in Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. He has held senior positions with Gold Fields, Barrick Gold, LAC Minerals, Hochschild Mining and Metallica Resources. Dr. Jannas headed exploration teams that led to the discovery of major mineral deposits Pascua-Lama, El Morro and Cortadera in Chile, and Choco 10 in Venezuela. He also was responsible for the acquisition of the Cerro Corona project in Peru for Gold Fields. Dr. Jannas has a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

In conjunction with his appointment, Dr. Jannas has been granted 250,000 stock options. Each option has a five-year term and is exercisable at $0.15 per common share.

Story continues

About ATEX Resources Inc.

ATEX is a minerals exploration company focused on the acquisition, development and monetization of projects throughout the Americas. ATEX's flagship property is the Valeriano copper gold project located in the northern portion of Chile's prolific El Indio Belt.

On behalf of ATEX Resources Inc.

Carl Hansen, Chairman

For more information, email info@atexresources.com or call 604 684 7160.

Forward Looking Information - This new release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57587
Class 12 result would be delayed and would not be declared on 10 June, reported the news website quoting Maharashtra school education minister Varsha Gaikwad

Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education will not release Class 12 results today. MSBSHSE Class 12 result has reportedly been delayed due to pending evaluation work.

According to Nagpur Today, state education minister Uday Samant hinted that MSBSHSE HSC result would be delayed. Earlier, the Uddhav Thackeray government had planned to announce the Class 12 results by 10 June.

Class 12 result would be delayed and would not be declared on 10 June, reported the news website quoting Maharashtra school education minister Varsha Gaikwad.

The delay is being caused as evaluation process in the state started late due to the coronavirus pandemic. The checking of answer sheets began on 18 May and the process is being closely monitored by the board.

MSBSHSE is currently collecting answer sheets from post offices and exam centers to be delivered to teachers for checking. MSBSHSE HSC result could reportedly be delayed by a month and is expected to be announced in the first week of July.

Last month, MSBSHSE decided to award average marks to all the students of SSC (Class 10) examinations for the Geography paper which was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The board had on 13 April cancelled the pending Geography paper of Class 10 students.

The board informed that marks attained by students in the other five subjects would be considered to draw an average score for Geography.

Class 10 geography paper was scheduled to be conducted on 23 March and around 17 lakh students in the state were to take the exam.

The board also cancelled the papers for vocational subjects which are offered to Children with Special Needs and are conducted 2-3 days after the board exams.

Marks in these vocational subjects will be provided using the same rule of average score.

Class 10 results are also yet to be announced.
Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright's luxury new 1.3million mansion in Essex briefly caused concern recently, when the land was tested for asbestos.

The lovebirds, both aged 33, bought their sprawling farmhouse back in October, and gained council approval to raze the existing property and build their new home.

However, The Sun has revealed that part of the condition of the approval was ensuring that the land on the former working farm wasn't contaminated with asbestos, which is has since been proven to be free of.

Concerns: Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright's luxury new 1.3million mansion in Essex briefly caused concern recently, when the land was tested for asbestos. Pictured in March

According to the publication, an independent report on the property reads: 'According to the councils records the above application is considered potentially contaminated due to its location within an agricultural land area

'Identification of asbestos containing materials (ACMs) were not covered under the remit of the DTS, so there remains the possibility for ACMs in parts of the buildings planned for demolition, generating a potential high risk to end users from fibres in soil and to site workers.

'Due to the proposed use of the land being of a sensitive nature I recommend that the stand- alone condition SCN60  Unexpected Contamination is attached to any approval granted.'

Dream home: The couple, both aged 33, bought their sprawling farmhouse back in October, and gained council approval to raze the existing property and build their new home

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Michelle Keegan for comment.

The couple's sprawling new home will feature a huge swimming pool, bar and make-up room, floor plans have revealed.

Posted on Epping Council website and being designed by Essex-based company MP Architects, the stunning plans show the couple's incredible vision, which also features a playroom for any future kids.

The duo bought the home for 1.3million in October and it was revealed in January that they plan to demolish the four bedroom Essex farmhouse to create the sensationally lavish new house with 'classical design'.

Lavish: Their planning agent previously said, 'This new house has been carefully designed so that it is similar in area and volume to what is currently on the site'

Earlier this year, they submitted plans to knock down their home and replace with a sprawling Georgian-style mansion - details of which can be seen online.

While the couple had no objections from neighbours, they withdrew requests for 'demolition of an existing stable building' to build a 'one-bedroom annexe'.

Images of the ground floor show the home is set to give a nod to both their love of work and play, with a gym and bar placed either side of the huge kitchen.

The hub of the home is certainly the kitchen, which runs the entire length of the back of the house and includes a living area and island.

The first floor meanwhile shows an equally impressive plan, with a balcony extending from the master bedroom, which includes a dressing room and make-up room.

Exciting times! Set on sprawling grounds, the rear of the house boasts a swimming pool plan while the vast drive is set to accommodate a plethora of cars

Every bedroom features an en suite while cupboards are littered through the floor. The first floor features three bedrooms.

Second floor plans show two more bedrooms and further en suites.

Set on sprawling grounds, the rear of the house boasts a swimming pool plan while the vast drive is set to accommodate a plethora of cars.

Their planning agent previously said: 'This new house has been carefully designed so that it is similar in area and volume to what is currently on the site.

'The new house will sit further back on the site and will create a much more functional family dwelling for our clients.

Happy days! On starting a family after moving into their dream home, Mark previously said, 'We say we're going to try [for a baby] every year but something comes up with work'

'The existing house has been extended several times and is not functional, therefore a new house would be a better use of the site.'

On starting a family after moving into their dream home, Mark previously said: 'We say we're going to try [for a baby] every year but something comes up with work...

'So it'll be Michelle filming in South Africa and then I got the job in Los Angeles  so we think, right, we'll try next year. It'll be around December or January, we'll talk about it and we'll go from there.

'With kids, I used to want three or four. But now, I'm 31, we're not having kids any time before 32. I think we could have two or three. Twins would be great because you're getting two out of the way at once!
The upheaval triggered by the coronavirus pandemic shuttered businesses and thrust workers into the unemployment lines.

Yet the economic turmoil largely hasnt spilled over into bankruptcy court, where financially distressed companies and individuals often seek refuge from creditors.

Bankruptcy filings in the San Antonio area actually have plunged since shut-down orders took effect in mid-March.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

Overall, bankruptcies  businesses and individuals combined  slid to 142 in April, a more than 50 percent drop from the 296 recorded in the same period a year ago. May saw 179 filings, down 41 percent from 304 a year ago.

Those were the fewest number of cases filed in April and May in at least 20 years, according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Texass clerks office.

Ive been sitting here for three months with no phone (ringing)  nobodys been calling me, San Antonio bankruptcy lawyer Heidi McLeod said with a chuckle. You have to pick it up every once and a while (to check), is it still on?

On their face, the numbers arent surprising given the array of financial assistance that has been extended to the jobless, renters, homeowners and business owners over the last few months.

The relief includes:

$600 a week in federal stimulus payments for the unemployed. Thats on top of as much as $521 a week in unemployment compensation from the state.

A moratorium on evictions. Also, San Antonios emergency housing assistance program set aide $25 million for rental and mortgage assistance. Bexar County earmarked $9 million for rental assistance.

Mortgage and tax foreclosures were halted for the last few months. Many lenders also offered payment deferrals and loan modifications for borrowers who couldnt make mortgage or car payments.

Thousands of area businesses received Paycheck Protection Program loans through the federal CARES Act to cover payroll, mortgage interest, rent and utility costs. The loans can be forgiven if certain requirements are met.

Bankruptcy often is driven by pressure from creditors, McLeod said, so the financial relief eased much of that pressure.

If nobodys having anybody repo their car, or sell their house, or kick them out of their lease, then thats going to naturally affect keeping people from filing bankruptcy, because theyre not going to need to, San Antonio bankruptcy lawyer Ron Smeberg said.

That was evident with Chapter 13 filings, a popular way for those struggling with debt to save their homes from foreclosure. With no foreclosure auctions in April, May or June in Bexar County, Chapter 13 filings fell by more than 70 percent in April and May.

Just 22 Chapter 13 filings occurred in April, compared with 104 in the same month last year. May had 28 cases, down from 97 a year ago.

Texas Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

The drop in bankruptcy filings may be fleeting, however.

Through the first eight days of this month, 25 Chapter 13 cases were filed in the San Antonio area  almost as many as in all of May.

Some of the government relief has ended, or is nearing an end  unless its extended. The Texas Supreme Court ended the moratorium on evictions. Foreclosure moratoriums on mortgage loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expire at the end of the month.

PPP loans are only meant to cover eight weeks of payroll and expenses. The $600 weekly payments for the unemployed run out next month.

The extra $2,400 a month the unemployed have received has allowed them to weather the storm, San Antonio bankruptcy lawyer J. Todd Malaise said. But, when that money goes away and they havent got a job, I think well see (an upward) spike for Chapter 7s.

A Chapter 7 filing allows a debtor to wipe out unsecured debts such as credit card and medical bills.

Borrowers, though, can request a six-month forbearance if their loan is backed by the government. The forbearance may be extended by an additional six months.

Businesses bankruptcies, meanwhile, also have tumbled. Fifteen businesses filed in April and May each, versus 27 and 30 in the same months last year. The figures are reorganizations and liquidations combined.

Smeberg expects a tidal wave of business bankruptcy filings in the next three to six months.

All these Band-Aids arent addressing the real issue as to what extent people are going to go back and use these businesses, he said. Even if 80 percent of the people go back to the restaurants, 20 percent of your business drops in an (industry) where the margin already isnt very high. Its going to be devastating.

Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. To read more from Patrick, become a subscriber. pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD
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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, June 12, 2020 08:34 588 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd96569 1 Business pre-employment-card,labor-market,workers,unemployment,workforce-in-indonesia,COVID-19,coronavirus Free

Recipients of funds and training under the governments preemployment card may not be able to practice the skills they learn through the program because the labor market has not recovered, experts say.

Tadjudin Nur Effendi, an expert on labor issues from Gajdah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said the ongoing transition toward the so-called new normal, with regional administrations easing coronavirus restrictions, had yet to create new jobs.

I do not think that [people getting back their job] has taken place, because demand in the labor market is still low, Tadjudin told The Jakarta Post in a phone interview on Tuesday.

The comments come as around 400,000 people or 60 percent of preemployment card recipients have completed their first training, according to Panji Ruky, the director of communication, partnership and ecosystem development for the preemployment card program.

With many nonessential businesses shutting factories, the coronavirus restrictions have forced more than 1.7 million people out of work as of May 1, according to data from the Manpower Ministry. More than half of them were formal-sector workers furloughed by their employers.

In line with the ministrys report, a survey on the programs eligible recipients by the National Team for Accelerating Poverty Alleviation (TNP2K) found that 80.8 percent of the respondents were unemployed in May.

In January, only 37.6 percent of them told the survey they were unemployed, which suggests that they lost their jobs due to the pandemic.

Luhur Bima, a researcher at SMERU Research Institute, said firms were most likely to employ people they previously furloughed.

Employers will be very cautious in restarting their business activity, so demand for labor amid the transition may not increase significantly, Bima told the Post.

With a budget of Rp 20 trillion (US$1.4 billion), the government introduced the preemployment card in mid-April to help 5.6 million people whose job or small businesses were hit by the pandemic. The government estimates that 3 to 5.2 million people may lose their jobs because of the severe economic impact of the pandemic.

People affected by the pandemic are mostly young and educated, in line with the surveys finding that 88 percent of the respondents were below 35 years of age and 59 percent were senior high school or vocational school graduates.

The unemployment rate was highest among people aged 15 to 24 years, which stood at 16.28 percent in February, an increase of around 1 percentage points from a year earlier.

Deni Purbasari, the executive director of the preemployment card program, maintained that the program was not misdirected, despite criticisms of its relevance to train the workforce at a time when employers are not hiring.

If they are unemployed, young and educated, they are obviously a wasted resource, Denni said in a virtual briefing on Monday. We have to make sure that this jobless generation is learning something while the job market plunges.

The survey found that 3,185 of the respondents, an overwhelming majority, hoped they would get new skills from the program, which partners with eight online learning platforms, including e-commerce giant Tokopedia.

The most popular training courses in the program are languages, entrepreneurship skills, digital marketing, makeup, coffee brewing and information technology, said Panji of the programs management team.

The government offers Rp 600,000 in monthly aid as an incentive to encourage people to take the training, but those funds will only be disbursed once the recipient completes a course. Recipients are free to choose how to spend the money.

In the survey, 4,105 respondents said they would use the aid to make ends meet, clearly in line with the backdrop of losing income.

The second-most stated use of the aid was as capital to start a business, followed by funds to find a new job and for savings. Only 611 respondents told the survey they would use it to pay back debt.

Panji said Monday that the survey did not evaluate the impact of the preemployment card on job placement rates of the recipients, because that would require a more rigorous analysis.

We have to see the preemployment card in the pandemic context with a semi-social assistance mission, Panji said at the same briefing. One of the achievements is disbursing the assistance and the feedback from recipients.

As few as 7.7 percent of the respondents considered the training ineffective, some of them arguing that the absence of in-person learning compromised the effectiveness.

Despite the transition period, Panji said his office had not decided when to start conducting in-person training.
Image: Reuters

The killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 has led to protests across the globe demanding equal opportunity and standard of life for black people.

The unfortunate episode has also reignited the debate around racism and how it seeds and grows, manifesting differently in different demographies.

While netizens engage in the battle of hashtags  #BlackLivesMatter vs AllLivesMatter  on social media, a 22-year-old decided to bring about change differently.

Kennedy Mitchum, who recently graduated from Drake University in Iowa, went a few steps ahead and emailed Merriam-Webster to tell the dictionary publisher that their definition of racism was inadequate.

She lives in Florissant, Missouri, a few miles away from Ferguson, where protests against the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 had intensified the Black Lives Matter movement.

Having been a part of many conversations on racism and injustice, she said people used to often point out the 'dictionary meaning' to her in order to prove that they are not racists.

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of racism is: A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

Mitchum told CNN, "I kept having to tell them that definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world."

"The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice, it's the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans," she added.

After writing a few mails, editor Alex Chambers agreed to revising the definition of racism in the Merriam Webster dictionary.

In her mail, Mitchum had reportedly asserted that the definition should include the fact that there is systemic oppression upon a group of people.

Its not just, Oh, I dont like someone, she added.

Responding to the 22-year-old, Chambers said, This revision would not have been made without your persistence in contacting us about this problem. The revision to the entry is being drafted and will be added to the dictionary soon, the response read.



Alumna Kennedy Mitchum knew there was more to racism than what appeared in @MerriamWebster's dictionary.

Its not just disliking someone because of their race, she said. Read the dictionarys full response below. pic.twitter.com/0Yen4TrvuJ  Drake University (@DrakeUniversity) June 9, 2020

Drake University shared the email on their Twitter handle:

A jubilant Mitchum said she hoped this vocabulary change would bring about more productive conversations around race, and help change the world and how people view things.
After a trip to Nepal, 19 Vietnamese remain stuck in a lockdown aimed to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Of the group, 16 are stuck in Kathmandu, with three others in two different provinces," Phuoc Loc, a representative in contact with the Vietnamese Embassy in India, told VnExpress.

Loc arrived in Nepal on March 9 to climb Everest and visit Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. At the time, Vietnam had recorded its 17th Covid-19 infection, with all 16 previous cases having been treated successfully. In Nepal, only one case was reported.

After flying to Annapurna Base Camp on March 20, Loc decided to book a flight to Vietnam the following day, instead of going to Lumbini. However, the flight was canceled as the South Asian country implemented travel restriction on March 24.

"I did not expect that Nepal would implement its coronavirus lockdown that quickly," he said.

In Kathmandu, Loc has been staying with a local family, whose incomes are decreasing due to the pandemic. As Hindus eat no beef or pork, Loc survived on chicken, goat, potatoes and beans.

A man sits in front of a closed tea shop in Kathmandu on April 5, 2020. Photo by Shuttlestock/Corey OHara.

Paying around $300 per month in utilities and for food, the traveler lost six kilograms in two months.

Loc struggled to remain at ease as the number of Covid-19 infections in Nepal reached 3,700, with 14 deaths. Rumor has it "the virus falls asleep after 5 p.m.," so many Nepalese venture out after dusk, spit and rarely wash their hands, often used to eat.

While Loc can afford local living costs, many other Vietnamese in the group have to rely on free food handed out at local restaurants.

With several countries easing their lockdown, Loc's group plans to fly to Bangladesh, where several Vietnamese, some from Sri Lanka, have been stuck, before flying home. The cost is estimated to hit $1,500 per traveler.

Around 5,000 Vietnamese have been repatriated amid the pandemic. The Vietnamese Embassy in India has also contacted Loc's group, though it has yet to confirm their repatriation flight.

"I want to return to Vietnam soon because I am concerned about my health, and work is waiting at home," Loc lamented.
There's this concern I have. And as a professional audience member, it's been on my mind a lot lately. I'm concerned that the nonprofit theater industry won't learn. In the decade that I've covered theater, I see that the industry has become content with patting itself on the back and making gestures  but it hasn't learned.

What annoys me is the industry's self-delusion. Theaters think that because they produce a play each season by a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) artist, they've done enough. They think that because they commit to "colorblind casting" a 50-year-old play, they've done enough. They think that because they've done an all-Black production of a white classic, they've done enough. They think that because they've sent out a statement of solidarity, they've done enough. They haven't done enough. They never have. Not by a long shot.

It's no secret that most of New York's monolithic nonprofit theaters are run by the same people who've been in their positions for decades. It's no secret that they are mostly the same gender and skin color. They're the people who've produced Pulitzer winners and helped shepherd their companies into multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art venues that still have too few bathroom stalls for female-identifying audience members.

They're the ones who sent out Black Lives Matter solidarity statements but only seem to produce one show each season by Black or Asian or Latinx or Middle Eastern playwrights. (It's always "or"; it's never "and.") These plays always seem to be produced in venues with monikers like "Stage 2" or "Black Box" attached to their names.

The fact of the matter is, you can count on two hands the total number of BIPOC writers produced in the last decade on the main off-Broadway stages of Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Lincoln Center Theater combined. That total dramatically increases when you look at their smaller venues.

You know they think they've done enough because their season announcements tell you so. If they didn't think they'd done their job with just one play  one  by a BIPOC artist each season, they'd theoretically produce more. They'll feel like their diversity mission is accomplished because that production got rave reviews, the kind of notices they hadn't seen for their productions about affluent white families fighting in their spacious pied-a-terres.

Clea Alsip, Will Swenson, German Jaramillo, John Larroquette, and Tina Benko in John Guare's Nantucket Sleigh Ride at Lincoln Center Theater's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre.

( T Charles Erickson)

But then they'll just go back to putting on those kinds of plays, the ones that get mediocre reviews and walkouts at intermission, because it's easy. It's safer than producing work that will lead to hard conversations that no one seems equipped to have because the managerial staff at most of these nonprofit theaters is collectively white. I've interned at these companies. I've seen what their rehearsal rooms look like at press events, and what kind of crowds they draw on opening nights.

Awards nominators will have to sit through the pied-a-terre play five times a season at most every nonprofit theater in New York City. I know from experience. I'm president of the Outer Critics Circle, one of the main awards-giving bodies for Broadway and off-Broadway theater. We collectively hate these plays. These plays largely inspire nothing in us but a desire to never go to the theater again. You can tell by their body language that the paying audience does too.

But then we'll see a play in a "Stage Two" or an "Upstairs" or a "Black Box" that was written by a Black writer, or an Asian writer, or a Latinx writer, and it will feel current and exciting and socially important. Not just that  it will feel like a play that will stand the test of time. We'll shout from the rooftops how good it is. We nominate it like crazy. And it won't win anything from us. It won't win a Drama Desk Award. Maybe it'll get an Obie.

How is that possible, especially for plays that are roundly praised? It's because our voters won't get to see the shows in the Stage Twos, which, as we've already established, are pretty much the only spaces where theaters present work by writers of color. These spaces often seat fewer than 100 people, and with their patrons and subscriber ticket holds, the theaters just "can't offer tickets to multiple voting bodies." "It's physically impossible," we're told. "Financially, it just wouldn't work."

I've heard all of those excuses as I fought, often to no avail, to get my voters seated for plays like Ming Peiffer's Usual Girls and Donja R. Love's Sugar in Our Wounds and Jackie Sibblies Drury's Marys Seacole. For the theaters, the nomination is the win  they can use it in their promotional materials to get donations and federal funding. And if the shows are selling out, they don't need voters to come see it. For BIPOC playwrights, who are often relegated to the secondary spaces because they're continually viewed as "emerging" (and therefore, not yet ready for the primetime of the main stage), it's just another bit of unfairness. A nomination is good for writers, but a win could lead to a stepping stone that a nomination just couldn't.

There are two ways these theaters can respond. The first is that they can put their money where their statements are. They can soul-search and hold themselves accountable by making changes. At the most basic level, they can commit to presenting more than one show a season by a writer of color. They can hire more diverse artistic teams and staff members. They can commission more writers of color with the multiple endowments that all of these theaters have. They can build a model that gets BIPOC artists in the room, in positions that aren't prefixed with "associate" or "assistant." As Rachel Chavkin said in her 2019 Tony speech, "This is not a pipeline issue. It is a failure of imagination by a field whose job is to imagine the way the world could be." These theaters can make it their mission and adhere to it and build the theater of the future.

Or they can do the bare minimum. They'll hire a diversity coordinator for a month and arrange an unconscious-bias workshop and add a board member who happens to be Black. Rather than program a play about an affluent white family whose long-simmering hatred comes to a head while they're sequestered during the Covid crisis, they'll choose the "woke" option and present a play about a Black family reckoning with current history instead. And then they'll just return to doing what they usually do, falling back into the same patterns they've always fallen into.

The second option is a very depressing thought, and it's not something that we can let happen. This is the thing that concerns me. These theaters have to institute the real change that they've been promising for decades. The bare minimum isn't enough. It was never enough. And hopefully, they've finally realized it. Because once they do, then the great work will really begin.

April Matthis in Lydia R. Diamond's Toni Stone, one of the handful of plays by a Black writer produced at Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre in a decade.

( Joan Marcus)

David Gordon has covered the New York theater industry for a decade. He is Senior Features Reporter at TheaterMania and President of the Outer Critics Circle.
- Governor Anne Waiguru asked the court to issue an order barring any authority from discussing her removal

- The politician claimed the manner in which she was ousted despite an existing court order sub-judice

- Her fate will now lie in the hands of the Senate which will review grounds to justify the impeachment

Embattled Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru has taken the battle against her impeachment to the corridors of justice.

In a notice of motion filed on Wednesday, June 10, Waiguru asked the court to declare her ouster null and void pending hearing and determination of the case.

READ ALSO: Stop insulting us when we visit State House, respect elders - Oscar Sudi tells Uhuru

Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru distributing foodstuffs to needy families in her county. She moved to court to challenge her ouster. Photo: TUKO.co.ke.

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Waiguru out: Gladys Wanga asks govt to quarantine MCAs who slept in room to plot impeachment

The county boss also asked the court to issue conservatory orders stopping the county assembly and any other authority from discussing or acting upon her impeachment.

The first time politician said the manner in which her removal was commenced and effected had disregarded another order which she obtained two days before the June 9 ouster.

READ ALSO: Angry Kenyan accuses IG Mutyambai of staying mute amid spike in police brutality, he fires back

READ ALSO: Kibera residents fight against coronavirus featured on National Geographic

"Pending the inter-parties hearing and determination of this application, this honorable court does issue a conservatory order stopping the respondents, any body or authority from discussing, seizing, deliberately or otherwise acting upon the impeachment motionin respect of the applicant," she stated.

On the day before Mutira MCA Kinyua Wangui tabled the motion, Waiguru had vowed not to move an inch as she had successfully obtained an order against the motion.

READ ALSO: Pierre Nkurunziza's wife still receiving treatment in Kenya after testing positive for COVID-19

Section of Kirinyaga MCAs. 23 of them supported Waiguru's impeachment motion. Photo: Kirinyaga county assembly.

Source: UGC

"I sought and obtained a clear court order from the High Court stopping any proceedings by the assembly on the impeachment motion until the numerous issues that we raised with the court are determined.

For some inexplicable reason, the members pushing this motion believe or have been led to believe they are above the law. I shall not be bullied. My single and unceasing interest is to serve the people who elected me," she reiterated.

The politician's fate will now lie in the hands of the Senate which will review grounds to justify her removal besides inviting her accusers to build their cases against her.

At least 23 out 33 Kirinyaga MCAs voted in support of the impeachment, while four excused themselves.

The others did not show up for the heated afternoon debate.

The governor was accused of embezzling county funds, violating the constitution, undermining the proper functioning of the county assembly and conflict of interest.

Should the Senate uphold the decision, Waiguru will be the second county chief to be sent home in a similar fashion after ex-governor Ferdinand Waititu.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

I married a man every woman wanted - Pastor Joan Chege | Tuko Talks | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Kabul: Through decades of coups, invasions and endless war, Afghans tuned their radios to Radio Afghanistan every morning at 7 and every afternoon at 4.05 to hear the names of the newly dead. One of the voices they often heard reading those death notices belongs to Mohamad Agha Zaki, at the mic for the state broadcaster for more than 42 years now. For much of that stretch, his counterpart at the station has been Ziauddin Aziz, the clerk who rushes to Zaki with the messages the public brings to the stations small 'death advertisements' window.

Above image: Mohamad Agha Zaki in the morning sun in his office at RTA radio in Kabul on 28 April, 2020. He has worked for the state broadcaster for 42 years. Image courtesy Jim Huylebroek  20xx The New York Times Ads today? Zaki, half asleep, asked on a recent dawn after opening the door to Azizs knock. Outside, birds chirped and the new days soft light covered the peaks of the tall pine trees in the stations compound in Kabul, the capital. No, said Aziz, who had waited behind the door in the kind of deference saved for masters of a different era. They had gone weeks without anyone arriving at the little window  just four ads in 40 days, though certainly many more had died. The senior announcer had been asleep on the couch in the 'Anchors General Department' overnight. But his waking there felt like a ceremony replayed over decades, the couch and pillow indented with his shape, worn in over time.

In this photo: The glass display with photos of about 300 'Beloved Anchors, from Yesterday to Today,' among them the young Mohamed Agha Zaki, at the RTA radio recording studio in Kabul on 28 April. Image courtesy: Jim Huylebroek  20xx The New York Times On the wall, behind a large desk, was a glass display with about 300 photos, bearing the title Beloved Anchors, from Yesterday to Today. Some are dead, many are abroad. Zaki  who started at the radio as a 20-year-old student of literature  is there in black and white, clean-shaven, his mustache dark and his hair nicely combed. And Zaki is still here, in the room, his beard white and down to his chest, his eyes tired. In this room, time blurs, and history manifests as a series of isolated radio announcements to the nation. When Zaki tells the story, it is as if he has been waiting on that couch all these decades, fulfilled only when someone rushes in to bring him to the mic for another chapter. I was lying down here, he began, describing a late night in 1979 when one communist-backed president was killed and another took over, decrying his assassinated predecessor as the child of American imperialism. A party official came and instructed Zaki to get behind the mic. Announce that the second round of the peoples democratic national revolution has succeeded, Zaki said, putting on his broadcast voice as he recalled the wording. In the 1990s, he was here when guerrilla factions came to power after the collapse of the Soviet-backed government and immediately started fighting each other. Some days, as many as 20 mortar shells landed at the stations compound or nearby. One evening, one faction dragged him from the radio studio and put him in front of the TV cameras  they couldnt find one of the usual anchors to read the 8 oclock news. Whoever took control of this radio, they had the government  this is how important this radio was, said Zaki, now 62. And through all those years, people brought their death notices.

Above image: The tiny window through which 'death advertisements' were received at RTA radio in Kabul. Image courtesy Jim Huylebroek  20xx The New York Times In the preparations after death, one of the first things families would do was task a literate member to draw up an announcement and pedal it to the stations little window. The format was always the same: Listing all the male relatives, from closest relation to furthest, and  as if building suspense  ending the announcement with the name of the dead and the time and place of burial and memorial. But if the deceased was a woman, she did not get the dignity of her name  she was always the wife of so and so, the mother of so and so. The ads were an indication of status, too  the longer your announcement, the bigger your tribe. One ad had 125 names among the cousins alone, said Aziz, the clerk. If someones name was forgotten, they would argue with the family, What was my crime that you left out my name? I am here helping with your funeral and memorial and my name is not in the ad, Aziz said. Each phase of conflict in Afghanistan has had its predominant cause of death. Once it was the indiscriminate mortar shells of the civil war fought over Kabul. More recently, it was suicide bombings. Old age, yes, that still appeared at times. No matter the cause, the announcement format remained plain, the details of death edited out. But those behind the window knew.

Above photo: A woman mourns by a grave at a cemetery in Kabul on 5 May, 2020. Jim Huylebroek  20xx The New York Times At night, if we heard in the news that in this part of Kabul there was a suicide bombing, we would come earlier the next morning knowing the ads would arrive for sure, Aziz said. There was an era when the 'death advertisements' broadcast would frequently continue on for nearly double its hour-long slot, Aziz rushing dozens of times to the studio with the latest arrival. The live broadcast had to go on uninterrupted. Once the last death was read and people heard the concluding recitation of the Quranic prayer  We belong to God, and to him we return  the radios switched off. People moved about their lives. Now, that all seems gone. It is not that people are not dying  it is that the program, and the radio itself, are. One blow was the advent of Facebook and other social media, where notices are easily disseminated for free. Another was a fivefold rise in the price of ads per word, from one afghani to five, or about $6.50 for every 100 words. Then came coronavirus, restricting movement and discouraging large gatherings. The deaths pile up in depressing number, just without the honor of a radio announcement. One of the loudest death knells for the program was a physical barricade. The RTA compound and US Embassy are side by side. Over the past decade, Kabuls diplomatic neighborhood has become so barricaded with blast walls and checkpoints that the public can barely get to the station anymore. About three years ago, the station was forced to relocate the little 'death advertisements' window.

The tiny window through which 'death advertisements' were received at RTA radio in Kabul. Image courtesy: Jim Huylebroek  20xx The New York Times The department of receiving death advertisements, formerly adjacent to the US Embassy, has shifted to the western side of Radio Television Afghanistan, its entrance now through Street 14, the radio repeatedly informed. But people still lost their way. On many occasions, relatives of the dead arrived at the new location after the broadcast was over, having searched an hour for the new little window in the maze of blast walls and checkpoints. These days, there is a different kind of regime change at the state broadcaster, Radio Television Afghanistan. A young director, brought in from the BBC, is trying to pull it into modern times. Hes busy improving the television sides quality to HD, retraining journalists in new products, and trying to usher the old institution into a new era of drone cameras and slick mobile content.

In this photo: Ismail Miakhel, the new director of RTA, looks on during a news broadcast in the TV recording studio which is housed in an auditorium in Kabul on 29 April, 2020.  20xx The New York Times I am trying to rebrand RTA for the younger generation, Ismail Miakhail, the new director, said. Aziz, 42, still begins his mornings before the city wakes up, arriving on his scooter to pray the dawn prayer at 4 am in the nearby mosque before pulling into the RTA to open shop. He makes about $185 a month, overtime included. Mostly, he opens and closes without any new entry on the ledger.

Above photo: An RTA news broadcast in the TV recording studio which is housed in an auditorium in Kabul.  20xx The New York Times But for Zaki, who said hes ready when retirement comes, why not stick with the glory of the past? Time in these studios is a blur of triumph and tragedy anyway. Whats wrong with adding a bit of denial? People still listen to the radio  in the rural areas, in the mountains, in the villages, Zaki said. Because this is the language of the nation. *** Banner image: Ziauddin Aziz (left) with a sound engineer in the RTA radio recording studio in Kabul on 28 April, 2020. Image courtesy Jim Huylebroek  20xx The New York Times Mujib Mashal c.2020 The New York Times Company
Ranchi Archdiocese celebrated Trinity Sunday distributing food ration and sanitation kits to impoverished cycle rickshaw pullers have been left without a livelihood under Indias Covid-19 lockdown.

By Robin Gomes

On Trinity Sunday, the Church celebrates the mystery of the Three Divine Persons in One God - the Father, the Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit  the most fundamental tenet of the Christian faith.

Love of the Trinity

During his midday Angelus prayer on Trinity Sunday in the Vatican, Pope Francis stressed the dimension of love of this holy mystery. God the Father loves the world so much that, to save it, He gives what is most precious to Him: His only-begotten Son, who gives His life for humanity, rises again, returns to the Father and together with Him sends the Holy Spirit, the Pope said. The Trinity is therefore Love, all in the service of the world, which He [God] wishes to save and recreate, he said.

It is in this spirit that the Catholics of Ranchi, in Jharkhand state in eastern India, lead by their Archbishop Felix Toppo, organized a charity event at the citys Loyola Grounds. They distributed food rations along with personal protective equipment (PPE) to more than 1000 rickshaw pullers.

Livelihood affected

A cycle rickshaw in India is a 3-wheeled cart to ferry two passengers. The flatbed version of the cycle rickshaw is used to transport goods. A common form of transportation, the cycle rickshaw is a source of employment for many.

Pope Francis was offered a ride in a cycle rickshaw in Dhaka, Bangladesh on December 1, 2017, during his visit to the country (see photo gallery).

When the Indian government ordered a nationwide lockdown on March 24 to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of daily wage earners in India were suddenly deprived of their livelihoods, including rickshaw pullers.

They have been allowed to ply with the government gradually easing the strict Covid-19 measures.

Sharing God's love with poor

While handing the rickshaw pullers the kits, Archbishop Toppo explained that the Church understood their pain and suffering over the last 70 days when they could not ply their trade and feed their families.

He said the Catholic Church was providing them food and other essentials in a spirit of sharing Gods love with them. He offered a common prayer for the safety of their families and thanked the benefactors who made it possible for the Church to help people in need.

Auxiliary Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, explained that the rations were being distributed to all the needy cycle rickshaw pullers without distinction of religion, caste or tribe.

The bedraggled rickshaw pullers and their vehicles spoke much about the ravages that the lockdown has caused them and their families.

Each food packet contains rice, cooking oil, lentils, grams, soya beans and condiments and spices. Each PPE kit contains reusable masks, reusable gloves, sanitizer and soap. The aid packets also carried a small message: May God Bless you.

Ranchi Catholics in the forefront during Covid-19

The Catholic community of Ranchi Archdiocese has been in the forefront of relief work during the COVID 19 crisis, reaching out to all categories of people in difficulty. It has been running shelters for stranded migrants for over two months. These shelters will gradually roll back its services as the migrants return to their homes.

For nearly two weeks, the Sisters of St. Anne, the Missionaries of Charity sisters of Mother Teresa, Catholic youth volunteers of the archdiocese had been distributing dry food packets to thousands of travelling migrants.

Even in remote villages, where people are facing great hardships, priests, nuns and the lay faithful have been distributing rations to thousands of needy families. The Catholic Church has provided PPE kits also to thousands of policemen and public utility workers.
A South Australian wine company has remastered the 'goon sack' by launching a fancier version of the boxed wine.

Delinquente Wine Co is now selling 1.5 litre 'premium quality' boxes of the High Crimes limited edition wine for $45 each.

Due to popularity and customer demands the product has already sold out online, but will be available to purchase from bottle shops from next week.

The product is a Nero d'Avola, which is a type of Italian red wine grape grown on 'certified organic and biodynamic Bassham vineyard' in South Australia's Riverland region of Barmera.

Delinquente Wine Co is now selling 1.5 litre 'premium quality' boxes of the High Crimes limited edition wine (pictured), but it's currently sold out online due to swift popularity and customer demands

The product is a Nero d'Avola  a type of Italian red wine grape grown on 'certified organic and biodynamic Bassham vineyard' in South Australia's Riverland region of Barmera

What is the best wine to drink with your favourite pizza? Margherita With aromatic notes of fresh basil, fresh tomatoes, and mozzarella, a rose is the perfect Margherita pizza wine pairing. However, red, whites and roses all work with this classic pizza, so it is often more about picking the wine based on your environment. Pepperoni Because of the strong flavour and fat content of pepperoni, you'll need a strong wine with intense flavours to counterbalance. Sangiovese is a classic choice as the most popular red grape of Italy, and Cabernet Franc is a good alternative. Hawaiian Pizza Ham and pineapple covered in cheese pairs nicely with a Riesling, which has its own combination of sweetness and acidity, with aromas of tropical fruits, flowers, and minerals. The acidity of Riesling acts as a palate cleanser and the sweetness will elevate your ham pineapple experience to a new level. Alternatively, sparkling wines, especially those on the dry side, will complement the sweetness of the Hawaiian. BBQ Chicken Pizza The BBQ sauce that serves as the base of this pizza has a sweeter, smoky kick that pairs well with a fruit-forward wine, like most types of Pinot Noir. BBQ sauce is a bold, powerful flavour that takes over the rest of the pizza, so you're going to need a bold wine to go along with it. As well as Pinot Noir, you can try a Sangiovese, which is also great for cleansing the palate, or an Argentine Malbec. Mushroom Pizza The earthiness of this pizza is supported by a savoury, complex wine like Chianti. Pinot Noir is also a great match, as both Pinot and mushrooms are earthy and spicy. A little oregano makes the match even better. Any Traditional Pizza For all the pizza lovers, a Nero d'Avola is a great choice. Most pizzas have a tomato and cheese base that works wonderfully with an Italian-style, medium-bodied red wine. The Nero d'Avola will beautifully balance the acidity of the tomatoes while complementing the cheese. Advertisement

Nero wine thrives in hot, dry heat, and so the Riverland is an ideal climate to make the product.

Winemaker Greg Grigoriou told Broadsheet the High Crimes beverage has 'the most beautiful fruit character' and is 'very reminiscent of sour cherry'.

'It's got a beautiful colour, a very luminous purple. You get that little bit of tannin, that crunchiness, that acidity - it's perfect for pizza and pasta,' Mr Grigoriou said.

Mr Grigoriou said the wine was a 'crash test dummy' to see whether customers enjoyed the product or not.

Due to swift popularity and customer demands the product has already sold out online, but will be available to purchase from bottle shops from next week

The detailed artwork on the box itself was created by Jason Koen and features several characters, including a dog, frog and tree house

The detailed artwork on the box itself was created by Jason Koen and features several characters, including a dog, frog and tree house.

Jason Koen has been the brand's go-to artist for nearly a decade.

Speaking to FEMAIL previously, the cellar director from Cellarmasters, Christine Ricketts (pictured), said Nero d'Avola is the perfect match for most traditional pizzas and tomato based dishes

'We want to see how it goes, how our packaging works, and what people think of it. If people get behind it, we've got a few other wines that are slated for bag-and-box,' Mr Grigoriou said.

The High Crimes wine will be stocked at P&V Wine & Liquor Merchants, Drnks, Winona and Native Drops in Sydney, and McCoppins, Mr West and Meatsmith in Melbourne.

Speaking to FEMAIL previously, the cellar director from Cellarmasters, Christine Ricketts, said Nero d'Avola is the perfect match for most traditional pizzas and tomato based dishes.

As most pizzas have a tomato and cheese base, it works wonderfully with an Italian-style, medium-bodied red wine.

'Try Nero D'Avola, a red wine made of a Sicilian grape, with soft tannins and strong fruit flavours,' Christine said.

'The wine will beautifully balance the acidity of the tomatoes while complementing the cheese.'
MOSCOW, June 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev participated in the launch of a regional network of soil laboratories in the Middle East and North Africa (RESOLAN NENA) as part of a joint project with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

RESOLAN NENA will be part of a global network of 368 soil laboratories launched in November 2017 in order to facilitate the exchange of experience between laboratories from all around the world and to implement a programme to develop soil science.

At the regional level, the network will facilitate interaction between new and existing laboratories created within the project with the aim of providing support to farmers on sustainable agriculture, as well as collecting information for the development of global standards in this field.

The regional network will include 53 laboratories from 19 countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Other states in the region will join the network in the future.

Eduardo Mansur, Director of the FAO's Land and Water Division, noted that the creation of RESOLAN NENA is a very important step that will help coordinate actions to ensure sustainable land use at the regional and global levels.

"Given the environmental problems associated with global warming, as well as the socioeconomic problems stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, now is the best time for all of us to come together and take part in this global sustainable agriculture initiative," said Mr Mansur in thanking Mr Guryev and PhosAgro for their assistance in implementing initiatives related to the creation of RESOLAN.

PhosAgro's CEO, in turn, thanked the FAO for the honour of being the first Russian company selected to implement a global soil protection initiative.

"The goals of PhosAgro and of the FAO are in complete accord: to guarantee populations access to safe, high-quality food; to give farmers the opportunity to make effective use of their land by growing environmentally friendly products; and to protect the soil from degradation and destruction," said Mr Guryev in his opening remarks to the heads of regional laboratories.

He noted that, guided by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, PhosAgro helps ensure food security in Russia and around the world: PhosAgro's high-performance, environmentally friendly fertilizers are in high demand in more than 100 countries spanning all of the world's inhabited continents.

"Given the project's potential, PhosAgro will continue to support the FAO in creating a single global mechanism to promote technology and knowledge in the area of sustainable agriculture.

"We will make every effort to ensure that the project continues to make headway, thereby helping farmers grow clean crops efficiently and without accumulating pollutants in soils," said Mr Guryev.

About PhosAgro

PhosAgro (www.phosagro.com) is one of the world's leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers in terms of production volumes of phosphate-based fertilizers and high-grade phosphate rock with a P2O5 content of 39% and higher. PhosAgro's environmentally friendly fertilizers stand out for their high efficiency, and they do not lead to the contamination of soils with heavy metals.

The Company is the largest phosphate-based fertilizer producer in Europe (by total combined capacity for DAP/MAP/NP/NPK/NPS), the largest producer of high-grade phosphate rock with a P2O5 content of 39% and one of the leading producers of MAP/DAP globally, one of the leading producers of feed phosphates (MCP) in Europe, and the only producer in Russia, and Russia's only producer of nepheline concentrate (according to the RAFP).

PhosAgro's main products include phosphate rock, 39 grades of fertilizers, feed phosphates, ammonia, and sodium tripolyphosphate, which are used by customers in 100 countries spanning all of the world's inhabited continents. The Company's priority markets outside of Russia and the CIS are Latin America, Europe and Asia.

PhosAgro's shares are traded on the Moscow Exchange, and global depositary receipts (GDRs) for shares trade on the London Stock Exchange (under the ticker PHOR). Since 1 June 2016, the Company's GDRs have been included in the MSCI Russia and MSCI Emerging Markets indexes.

More information about PhosAgro can be found on the website: www.phosagro.com.

*By total volumes of fertilizers supplied and by the simultaneous fertilizer storage capacity.

Related Links

http://www.phosagro.com/



SOURCE PhosAgro
Janet Street-Porter spoke out in support of J.K.Rowling during a live TV debate with transgender former EastEnders actor Riley Carter Millington on Wednesday.

The Harry Potter author, 54, came under fire when she tweeted about an article entitled 'Creating a more equal post COVID-19 world for people who menstruate' on Friday.

Rowling wrote: ''People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?'

Support: Janet Street-Porter spoke out in support of J.K.Rowling during a live TV debate with transgender former EastEnders actor Riley Carter Millington on Wednesday

Appearing on Loose Women, Janet, 73, stood up for the 'highly intelligent' writer during a debate with Riley, 25, who was the first transgender actor to play a regular transgender character in British soap history back in 2015.

Riley, who played Kyle Slater on the soap, said: 'I think people like J.K. Rowling needs to recognise the influence that they have and how detrimental their words can be, as well as influential, and what theyre tweeting is going to affect a lot of people.

'So for her retweeting this article, and kind of invalidating anyone who does not menstruate, which also included cis-gendered women.

'Cis-gendered is someone who was born female and recognise and are happy with being female, that they were assigned at at birth.

Backlash: The Harry Potter author, 54, came under fire when she tweeted about an article entitled 'Creating a more equal post COVID-19 world for people who menstruate' on Friday (pictured November 2018)

Debate: Appearing on Wednesday's Loose Women, Janet, 73, stood up for the 'highly intelligent' writer during a debate with Riley, 25, (right) who was the first transgender actor to play a regular transgender character in British soap history back in 2015

'So shes also isolating people like that as well as trans people or non-binary people because at the end of the day, not everyone, has the bodily function to menstruate, or have children, and does that mean that makes them less of a woman?

'So shes really categorising and marginalising a minority group that is really at risk of discrimination and bullying.

'And you know, trans people are killed trying to live their lives. So the fact that shes marginalising them by saying the other word for it, is absolutely ridiculous. If anything, its very ill-timed and distasteful with whats happening at the moment.'

Responding to Riley's thoughts, Janet respectfully said the writer was entitled to her opinions and said this shouldn't detract from her achievement of writing books that entertain millions around the world.

Candid: Riley, who played Kyle Slater on the soap, said: 'For me personally at the end of the day, I think people like J.K. Rowling needs to recognise the influence that they have and how detrimental their words can be'

Way back when: Riley is pictured as Kyle on EastEnders back in 2016 (with Lacey Turner)

She said: 'I hear what youre saying but at the end of the day, Jo Rowling is a writer whos entitled to her opinions that you may not agree with, shes a woman whos given over 20 million to charity, and shes a woman Ive met several times, a highly intelligent woman.

'Can you not divorce the fact that she might have opinions you may find distasteful, but she writes books that gives pleasure to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

'Now in our society, people are going to hold opinions that you might not agree with, but surely its live and let live?'

In response to Janet's defence, Riley said: 'I definitely agree, shes a very intelligent woman, and I wouldnt say she isnt.

Debate: Responding to Riley's thoughts, Janet respectfully said the writer was entitled to her opinions and praised her for writing books that entertain millions around the world

'However, the fact that you touched upon there. Shes created this world for millions of people and particularly because the series started a long long time ago, she has been able to influence so many people.

'But with these comments, and with the young people that look up to here, she has damaged that.

'And for someone of a young age, and suffering with an identity crises and is seeking out validations, as many trans or non-binary people do, unfortunately, we do seek validation from people to say whether we are worthy.

'Its just something that we do seek.'

Riley left the show in 2016 after producers were said to have believed his character storyline had 'reached a natural end'.

She said: 'Can you not divorce the fact that she might have opinions you may find distasteful, but she writes books that gives pleasure to hundreds of millions of people around the world

The debate comes five days after Rowling ignited a social media backlash with her comments about transgender people.

The British writer followed up her menstruation tweet in a thread: 'If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.

'I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth.'

She continued: 'The idea that women like me, who've been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they're vulnerable in the same way as women - ie, to male violence - 'hate' trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - is a nonsense.

'I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them.

Discussing: JK Rowling went on an extraordinary rant on Twitter last week

'I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so.'

In December, Rowling discussed the trans community, in a move which earned her the label of trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF).

Her most recent comments were met with backlash from many fans and followers, as well as some notable names like Jameela Jamil, Sarah Paulson, Jonathan Van Ness and more.

Jameela Jamil challenged her to put her money where her mouth is, tweeting her a GoFundMe link for homeless Black trans women in Atlanta.

Taking a stand: Daniel Radcliffe slammed the Harry Potter author JK Rowling over her comments about transgender people

She wrote: 'Hey JK as you claim to support trans rights and this is a historical moment where we are globally discussing the impact of white supremacy on Black People, please share some of your $650million mega wealth with this charity.'

Sarah Paulson wrote, 'Word. Goodnight and shut up @jk_rowling' while retweeting creative producer Ben O'Keefe.

He wrote: 'This woman is complete scum. Shut the f*** up you transphobic f***. You don't know or love any trans people if you won't even acknowledge their existence...

'Thanks for ruining the books of my childhood. Just stop talking. We know you're a TERF. You don't need to keep doing this.'

Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe wrote: 'I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused' in response to JK Rowling's Twitter rant about using the word woman

He went on: 'Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people'

This is not the first time she has come under fire over the topic, liking a 2018 tweet that referred to transgender women as 'men in dresses.'

At the time, a spokesperson told The Sun that Rowling's like was a 'clumsy and middle-aged moment.'

She previously confirmed suspicions of her transphobic views back in December, while showing support for Maya Forstater, who lost a court case against her former employers after they fired her over transphobic comments.

Rowling tweeted: 'Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you...

'Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill'.

Elsewhere, Jonathan Ross backtracked on his comments about J.K. Rowling, after he defended the Harry Potter novelist's remarks about transgender people.

The chat show host, 59, took to Twitter on Monday evening to admit that his 23-year-old daughter Honey had helped him see things from a different view.

This comes after Honey slammed Rowling for her comments about the use of the word woman, despite her famous father defending the author.
Former Minister of Roads and Highways, Hon. Inusah Fuseini has added his voice to the never-ending Running Mate chronicle of the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), with the hint that the party has already selected John Mahama's partner for the 2020 election.



According to him, the decision for not announcing the Running Mate has to do with the fact that the NDC cannot do a rally to outdoor him due to the imposition of ban on public gatherings by President Nana Akufo-Addo.



Speaking on Okay FMs 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Inusah Fuseini explained that the purpose of announcing the Running Mate will not yield its intended result as he cannot make any impact in the party at the moment; hence, the delay in announcing him to the public.



We have already selected our Running Mate but we wont mention the name now. The Running Mate is supposed to partner the Presidential Candidate and so we have to outdoor the person and the practice has been that after the outdoor of the Running Mate, there must be a rally as it was done for all the Running Mates we have had in the past . . .



 . . Nana Akufo-Addo says we cannot do political rallies and campaigns and so if you announce your Running Mate right now, what will be the purpose? What will he be doing? Is he going to sit down idle doing nothing? It will not add any impact to the party and that is why John Mahama is taking his time, he explained.



He, however, assured that former President John Dramani Mahama knows the person to partner him for the battle in the upcoming December 7 polls, adding that the party will not be pushed by the ruling NPP to name a Running Mate just to sit in the house.



He reiterated that the NDC will not be compelled to the point of naming their Running Mate so long as the ruling NPP has not done a public declaration that President Nana Akufo-Addo will be their Presidential Candidate in spite of the fact that they know time has elapsed.



Talking about the characteristics of John Mahamas Running Mate, Inusah Fuseini said he is a credible, trustworthy and hardworking person and not a talkative leader.



The three things I can say about our Running Mate is that when we announce our Running Mate, you will see that the person is somebody who is credible; he has credibility, and because of the credibility, the people of Ghana can trust him. If we give victory to John Dramani Mahama and his Running Mate, we will be satisfied with their work. He will get the work done. We elect political leaders to get the work done and not come to become talkatives . . . he will be credible, trustworthy and hardworking," he mentioned.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Arlington City Council voted 6-3 Tuesday night to reject French oil major Total's request for a permit to drill three controversial natural gas wells a just hundreds of feet from a day care center in a predominantly Latino and African-American neighborhood.

Total obtained a state permit last year to drill a new horizontal well off State Highway 360 and East Pioneer Parkway but still needed a city permit before the project could move forward. The permit vote on the wells came two hours after the city council approved a resolution against racism and another decrying how the coronavirus disproportionately affects minorities.

Total officials could not immediately be reached for comment but during a Tuesday night presentation, the company's Regional Government Affairs Manager Kevin Strawser said the company planned to use an electric-powered drilling rig that would reduce noise and pollution. The company, he said, also pledged to drill more than the 600-foot distance required from homes and businesses and that there have been no environmental violations at the site over its 10-year history.

Drilling Down: Hydraulic fracturing inside the DFW Metroplex

More Information Arlington City Council Drilling Permit Vote The Arlington City Council voted 6-3 Tuesday night against issuing a permit that would have allowed French oil major Total to drill three new natural gas wells hundreds of feet away from a day care in a predominantly Latino and African-American neighborhood. Here's the break down: For: Helen Moise

Andrew Piel

Ignacio Nunez Against: Mayor Jeff Williams

Sheri Capeheart

Marvin Sutton

Robert Shepard

Victoria Farrar-Myers

Barbara Odem-Wesley Source: City of Arlington See More Collapse

Oklahoma oil company Chesapeake Energy originally drilled the site in June 2010 but sold the lease and others in the area to Total in September 2016. The neighborhood surrounding the drilling site is 63 percent Latino and 14 percent African-American with 30 percent of the people living below the poverty limit, according to U.S. Census figures.

In her testimony, Wanda Vincent said she has owned and operated the Mother's Heart Learning Center caring for neighborhood children ages six weeks to 12 years old over the past 17 years. Sharing a fence with Total's property, Vincent said the site is visible from the day care's playground. Although her business and the natural gas production site have been neighbors for more than 10 years, she is against Total drilling the three new wells.

"Can you guarantee me 100 percent that you're not putting any of us in harm's way now or in the future," Vincent asked. "I understand that we may not see the consequences of this now but can you guarantee to us we won't see it in the future? If you can't guarantee that to us, we don't need additional wells. And to be honest, this company should have never been approved to be the backyard of a children's learning center."

Fuel Fix: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox

Arlington City Councilman Ignacio Nunez, who represents the district where Total's lease and the day care are located, voted in favor of issuing the permit. State law, he said, prohibits municipalities from banning drilling and hydraulic fracturing within city limits, but the city could control noise and traffic at the site.

"If I had my way, I'd ban fracking in Arlington and would have never allowed it because I know what it can do," Nunez said. "But if we vote unanimously tonight and if we vote to ban it, I guarantee that we're going to be in court. And that's a problem. We don't have $500,000 or $1 million dollars to take this all the way to the Texas Supreme Court."
A man linked to one of the worst industrial fires in Melbournes recent history is now facing multiple criminal charges for allegedly creating the massive illegal stockpile of chemical waste that sparked the blaze and the environmental contamination it caused.

Graham Leslie White and his company, Delacor Pty Ltd, have been charged with a total of 34 counts of permitting the dumping of industrial waste at the factory in West Footscray, causing or permitting the pollution of a local waterway, and causing an environmental hazard.

Graham White outside court in 2019. Credit:Chris JHopkins

Other charges laid against the business by the Environment Protection Authority include aggravated pollution.

The West Footscray fire  the biggest industrial blaze since the Coode Island disaster of 1991  burnt for more than a week, spreading toxic plumes of smoke across the western suburbs and forcing the closure of businesses and schools, and seriously contaminating nearby Stony Creek.
Blair, who is founder and executive chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which is currently devoting its efforts towards the response to Covid-19, was speaking ahead of his address to the 2020 virtual CogX Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI and Breakthrough Technology.

Blair also said that the political situation involving current Prime Minister Boris Johnson's senior aide, Dominic Cummings, who faced pressure to resign after allegedly breaking government lockdown rules, had caused "a big credibility problem for the government."

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair has told CNBC that some of the rules put in place by the U.K. government in response to the Covid-19 crisis are not very clear, including the 14-day quarantining of all travelers to Britain, and changes to plans for schools reopening.

"The main thing is to have the rules clear, and some of them, frankly, like the ones of quarantining when people come into the country now, are really not very clear," he said.

"And then there's been changes over what we're doing with schools and so on. The most important thing in this situation is to have a grip and all the different aspects of it being dealt with by competent people with the right mix of skills, but the other thing is constantly to explain to people why you're doing what you're doing and explaining the calculus of risk."

The U.K. government was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

In office between 1997-2007, Blair said he had a lot of sympathy as a former prime minister for "the toughest challenge I've ever seen government have to face." But he added that it was important to understand what was necessary to put in place a "containment infrastructure" to minimize the consequences of the virus and get out of lockdown as fast as possible.

"At the heart of it, in my view, is this issue of mass testing, and the government started by saying that they wanted mass testing, and now it's not really clear to me that they're still going for that,' he told CNBC.

Blair said the economic impact of Covid-19 was "vast" and that accelerating efforts to develop a vaccine, and testing to make people aware of their disease status, would help build confidence and get the economy moving again.

During his time as prime minister, Blair collaborated closely on global crises with former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Asked about global cooperation and how he felt President Donald Trump was handling the response to Covid-19, Blair said global coordination was essential to share data, vaccine developments, testing capabilities and measures to reflate the global economy.

"It's about recognizing that there's certain points of cooperation that's in everyone's interest to do. And even if the America-China relationship is now going to a much more hostile place, which I think is inevitable now, you still need to reserve, even in that relationship, space for cooperation where it's necessary," he said.

The former leader also acknowledged that a U.S election year was the worst time to be dealing with a crisis in the country, "because the politics are so overwhelming, particularly in a tight-fought race, obviously it's the backdrop for any decision making,' he said.

Trump has postponed this year's meeting of the G-7  made up of the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Italy, Germany and Japan - until at least September. He has also said he would like to invite Russia, Australia, South Korea and India to join an expanded summit, to reportedly build an alliance against China.
Cory Gardner was between a government meeting with local officials, a Douglas County hailstorm and running for U.S. Senate on Friday afternoon. He has to return to Washington on Monday after time with his family and time making the case for why he, and Republicans, deserve more time in control of the country.
[June 10, 2020] Flatfile Raises $7.6M from Two Sigma Ventures, Google's AI Fund, and others To Make Data Onboarding Easy for Enterprises

The new funding will be used to accelerate customer acquisition and launch its new enterprise focused offering, Concierge. DENVER, June 10, 2020 /CNW/ -- Flatfile, known for its drop-in spreadsheet importer, today announced $7.6 million in Seed funding led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from previous investors including Afore Capital, Designer Fund, and Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused venture fund, as well as new investors HNVR, Work Life Ventures, Quiet Capital, Basecamp Fund, and Soma Capital. The funding coincides with the launch of Concierge, its newest product focused on data onboarding for large enterprises. Founded in 2018 by David Boskovic (CEO) and Eric Crane (COO), Flatfile's mission is to remove barriers between humans and data. The company's software products focus specifically on solving the problem of data onboarding, the process businesses use to accept data from other organizations. Boskovic adds, "This problem is so challenging that traditional data companies have ignored it for decades. That leaves data onboarding primarily in the hands of overwhelmed services teams. At Flatfile we're coupling simple, human-focused experiences with advanced machine learning to exponentially accelerate the ability for organizations to adopt new technology." Flatfile's initial product offering, Portal, serves as an elegant import button that is easily embedded in software applications via a JavaScript snippet. Hubspot, Toast, Housecall Pro, among hundreds of other organizations rely on Flatfile Portal to provide their users with an inuitive data import workflow. Utilizing machine learning, Flatfile automatically learns how imported data should be structured and cleaned, enabling customers and teams to spend more time using their data instead of fixing it.



"We're already saving users more than 10,000 hours per month with AI-assisted, self-service data imports," Crane said. "We knew we could apply that learning to more complex data transactions, where a single data onboarding project today takes weeks or even months." Flatfile's new product, Concierge, is designed with enterprise-scale data onboarding in mind. It provides secure workspaces for collaboration between organizations, allowing customers to manage complex data ingestion challenges for the hundreds or thousands of organizations they serve. Concierge reduces the time and effort required to transmit, normalize, and validate complex data sets in a no-code environment that can be configured in minutes, all while retaining the benefits of Flatfile's underlying data healing API.

"Simplifying data onboarding is just the tip of the iceberg," adds Frances Schwiep from Two Sigma Ventures, who started her career as a data scientist. "There are an infinite number of ways humans can upload bad data, and it happens all the time. Data sharing and collaboration remains a massive headache and unsolved problem within the enterprise. Flatfile's Concierge platform has the potential to be an industry-defining solution." With Concierge, implementation and customer service teams no longer have to manually restructure, correct, and email data back and forth with their customers. Gone are the days of writing Excel macros, reconfiguring Python scripts, and poring through seemingly endless rows and columns of data. Concierge lends transparency, efficiency, and security to an enterprise data onboarding process from which they have long been missing. After extensive product testing and research, Flatfile is now actively rolling new customers off of its Concierge waitlist. Sign up to join the ranks of esteemed businesses in a world of data onboarding bliss. About Flatfile

Flatfile's mission is to remove barriers between humans and data. With AI-assisted data onboarding, they eliminate repetitive work and make B2B data transactions fast, intuitive, and error-free. Flatfile automatically learns how imported data should be structured and cleaned, enabling customers and teams to spend more time using their data instead of fixing it. Flatfile has transformed over 300 million rows of data for companies like ClickUp, Blackbaud, Benevity, and Toast. To learn more about Flatfile's products, Portal and Concierge, email [email protected] or get started for free at flatfile.io. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/flatfile-raises-7-6m-from-two-sigma-ventures-googles-ai-fund-and-others-to-make-data-onboarding-easy-for-enterprises-301073745.html SOURCE Flatfile

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The Inuvialuit have unveiled an ambitious plan to begin producing liquefied natural gas (LNG) to move the region into a more energy-independent future.

The Inuvialuit Petroleum Corporation (IPC) is teaming up with Ferus Natural Gas Fuels to advance the Inuvialuit Energy Security Project. Ferus is owned by a Houston-based investment fund called the Energy and Minerals Group.

According to an announcement on the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation's website on Tuesday, the plan is to tap into the Tuk M-18 natural gas well and build a plant to convert the gas into liquefied natural gas that can be trucked to Inuvik and other communities.

The Tuk M-18 well is located 24 kilometres south of Tuktoyaktuk. It was drilled by Devon Energy and Petro-Canada almost 20 years ago and is part of the massive gas reserves in the Beaufort-Delta region that were left stranded when Esso and its partners abandoned their Mackenzie Gas Project.

Devon and Petro-Canada said the well has well over 200 billion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.

You couldn't do it without that road. - Doug Matthews, energy consultant

If the project goes ahead, it will be the first natural resources enterprise spurred by construction of the all-weather Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway.

"You couldn't do it without that road," said Doug Matthews, an energy analyst and principal of Matthews Energy Consulting. "The local market, which is Tuk, is not big enough to cover the costs of developing that field. With the road, you can reach other markets, which changes the economics of the project quite significantly."

Matthews said, though Inuvik is the biggest market in the region and key to the project's success, once the natural gas is liquefied it could also be shipped to other communities by truck or barge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, ideally, provide a cheaper alternative to diesel.

Matthews said the project would be a good candidate for federal support because it would produce greener energy, stimulate the economy in a region that is depressed and stimulate indigenous business development.

Story continues

Aiming for production in 2 years

According to the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation's announcement, the IPC plans to complete the design of the gas plant this fall and develop cost estimates for the project that will inform a final decision on whether to proceed or not. If the project moves ahead, regulatory applications will be submitted by the end of this year.

If all goes according to plan, construction of an all-weather road to the well will begin prior to the spring thaw in 2021. Construction and commissioning of the plant will be done in the fall and early winter of that year. The partners would begin shipping liquefied natural gas in the spring of 2022.

In the announcement, the IPC says the project would replace the diminished Ikhil gas well that supplies some of Inuvik's energy needs, reduce reliance on expensive southern fuel, create business opportunities in the region and lower the cost of living.

CBC called and emailed the IPC and emailed the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) for more information about the project but no one was available to talk about it.

The Ikhil well began declining sooner than expected. Much of Inuvik's gas is now being trucked in from British Columbia.

People in the region have been talking for many years about tapping into the trillions of cubic feet of gas that have been discovered in the region.

Senate of Canada/Jade Theriault

Three years ago, IRC chair Duane Smith said the corporation was looking at five to seven wells near the highway. Smith said the IRC had contacted the companies that had rights to the wells and requested more data on them.

Five years ago, then Inuvik mayor Floyd Roland, talked about it to the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources.

Roland told the committee the M-18 well could be the beginning of a new liquefied natural gas industry in the region. The former premier said the territorial government spends $150 to $200 million to supply fuel to the region annually. He said an LNG plant would cost about $400 million to build and could be financed if the territorial government committed to buying the gas it produced.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 08:08:13|Editor: huaxia

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by Xinhua writers Gao Lu, Chang Yuan

HOUSTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- As a final farewell, family members and friends gathered on Tuesday at a private funeral in Houston, Texas and shared their sweet memories of 46-year-old African American George Floyd, who was suffocated to death in police custody two weeks ago.

Floyd's niece Brooke Williams touched the audience's hearts with her emotional speech, appealing for "no more hate crimes."

She said she saw no remorse in the white police officer when he pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes, "watching my uncle's soul leave his body."

"This is not just a murder, but a hate crime," she added.

A short film was played at the funeral, showing a montage of Floyd's photos depicting his life and also the protests around the world following his death.

Though the funeral was meant to be a private event mainly for Floyd's family members, friends and school mates in Houston where he grew up and spent most of his lifetime, half of the 500 guests were public figures who came to pay their respects.

"We honor him because when he took his last breath, the rest of us are now able to breathe," said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, declaring June 9 as "George Floyd Day" in the city.

In a pre-recorded video broadcast at the funeral, former Vice President Joe Biden sent condolences to Floyd's family whom he met before the funeral.

Talking about racial equality in the country, Biden said, "Why in this nation do too many black Americans wake up knowing they could lose their life in the course of just living their life?... When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America."

The funeral was held at the Fountain of Praise Church, where Floyd and his family used to worship when he lived in the city.

Due to social distancing requirements, only about 500 guests attended the funeral. But people from the city and other places gathered around the church in the heat prior to the funeral to pay respect to Floyd.

After the funeral, Floyd's golden casket was transported in a car and then in a white horse-drawn carriage to a Houston cemetery where he was buried next to his mother.

The family requested total privacy when they lay Floyd to rest.

Along the way from the church to the burial site, hundreds of people waited to say farewell to Floyd. Many road railings were decorated with ribbons and flowers.

A public viewing for Floyd was organized on Monday at the same African American church in Houston, bringing more than 6,300 people to pay tribute.

Last week, two memorials were held in Minneapolis, Minnesota where Floyd died, and Raeford, North Carolina where Floyd was born.

Hundreds of people paid their tribute to Floyd by laying wreaths at the memorials.

Floyd moved from North Carolina to Houston's Third Ward community as a baby, and grew up and spent most of his lifetime in the fourth largest U.S. city which he called "home."

Demonstrations and riots have spread to cities across the United States after a video went viral of George Floyd being suffocated to death by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25.

Since Floyd's death, Houstonians have remembered him in various ways in his community where the grief can still be felt.

Last week, a "big Floyd" mural was painted on the wall in the Third Ward by a local artist. People of all colors came to pay tribute, sending flowers, cards and balloons.

"I feel like I'm coming by to pay my respect," Eryka Gomez told local TV KPRC 2. "It's sad. It's a loss for the community."

Also in Houston, a big sign painted with his name was seen at a busy intersection of highways. Video clips from the Internet showed that a big sign written with the words "George Floyd" replaced an old iconic sign of "Be Someone." Enditem
Demonstrators denouncing systemic racism in law enforcement and calling for the defunding of police departments kneel in Maria Hernandez Park in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City on June 5, 2020. (Scott Heins/Getty Images)

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Arrives in America

Commentary

Most of the time we see eventsas St. Paul famously wrote in 1 Corinthians, through a glass, darklybut there are times in American history that allow us to experience moments of clarity. The scales fall from our eyes; our blindness is briefly healed, and we can see the nature of our enemy illuminated by the light of truth.

Such a momentwe thoughtcame with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A country that only a few months before had been squabbling over the results of the contested and prolonged election of 2000 (a battle precipitated by the Democrats refusal to accept their narrow loss in Florida and thus in the Electoral College) suddenly came face to face with an existential enemy.

For a time, patriotism united the country as Democrats would hold hands with Republicans and sing God Bless America. But the Democrats partisan rancor quickly returned, and hasnt stopped since.

Meanwhile, despite the prolonged U.S. military commitment in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the terror attacks continued and have never really stoppedas the shooting last month at the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi illustrated. So much for clarity.

Riots

Now we have another chance. Over the past few weeks, weve seen a series of extraordinary and unfortunate events, beginning with the overreaction to the Chinese Communist Party virus, which involved seriously damaging the economies of the West for what has turned out to be a disease affecting chiefly the elderly, especially those in petri-dish nursing homes.

Stay-at-home orders, blatantly unconstitutional, were issued by state governors in clear defiance of the Bill of Rights, based on the say-so of a couple of doctors no one had ever heard of a few days before. Panic swept the land as social distancing (more accurately, anti-social distancing) took hold, marked by hysterical hall monitors screaming at passing joggers and innocent beachcombers.

Then came the death of George Floyd, an ex-convict, in police custody in Minneapolis. In short order, rioting broke out as the Black Lives Matter movement opportunistically made common cause with the largely white Antifa movement (whose flag is essentially a replica of that flown by the violent German Communists of Antifaschistische Aktion in the early 1930s), and then the looting began. Stay at home was forgotten. The rioters were given a pass by the Democrats and the media.

President Trump called for federal troops to put down what was clearly an insurrection, using as its fig leaf Floyds unlawful death. Many Democratsand some Republicansinexplicably sided with the violent protesters and watched their cities burn.

Maoism

The media, fully on board with anarchy, helpfully called these largely peaceful demonstrationsignoring its former hall-monitor approach to ratting out average Americans who objected to the lockdowns and instead celebrating masses of people in the streets. Public health, they gravely explained, was more endangered by racism than the CCP virus.

When the New York Times had the effrontery to run an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), defending the invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807 in controlling the riots, the newspapers black and minority staffers rebelled. The Times publicly apologized, then relieved the two editors responsible of their duties.

When the Philadelphia Inquirer had the nerve to run a photo of some burning structures with the headline, Buildings Matter, Too, the managing editor promptly lost his job. A headline published in Tuesdays Inquirer was offensive, inappropriate and we should not have printed it. We deeply regret that we did, groveled the paper. What was offensive about it remains unclear.

For the first time in their history, Americans are getting a taste of what Maos Great Cultural Revolution in China was like: it is not enough to ruin a mans livelihood, you must also make him crawl on his belly like a worm and make him eat the humiliation.

It gets worse. The Democrat leadership, headed by Nancy Pelosi, knelt en masse in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, like penitents at a religious revival. Some National Guardsman danced with the protesters. Cops bent their knees as well. A police chief in Webster, Mass., even prostrated himself on the ground before a howling mob.

Meanwhile bail reform means that in cities like New York and Chicago, those arrested spun through a revolving door and were right out back on the streets, ready to throw one more brick through a glass window.

Out and Proud

Civil disorder and the elimination of authority are par for the course for the neo-Marxist Left, which has been seeking just this day since the student protests and race riots of the 1960s. Barack Obamas famous promise in 2008 that we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America was heard by well-meaning Americans as a platitudinous synonym for change that would address some lingering racial and social issues within an overall patriotic context.

What the radical Left heard, however, was that the United States was a fundamentally illegitimate country, and that change, in the form of revenge, was on its way.

Now its here. The Communists and their allies are out and proud. They no longer feel the need to hide who they are, or what they plan to accomplish once the hated Trump is defeated or driven from office this year, or what they have planned for the American people.

Having weaponized a sizable percentage of Millennials against their parents and their country, they now prosecute older individuals for insufficient zealotry on behalf of BLM; the head of Chicagos famous Second City comedy club, Andrew Alexander, professionally defenestrated himself the other day, resigning for failing to create an anti-racist environment wherein artists of color might thrive. I am so deeply and inexpressibly sorry.

The callow but violent youth and those who so gleefully manipulate them now proclaim that speech is violence and, simultaneously, that silence is violence as well. In their zest to destroy the country as foundedsoon enough theyll get to pulling down the entire Constitution along with all the statues they hatethey are hastening the world George Orwell described in his dystopian novel, 1984.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

Self Loathing

But this is always the totalitarian way, from the French Revolution to the Bolshevik Revolution to Maos Cultural Revolution. The world must be born anew.

Accordingly, we now hear calls to defund and even disband police departments, not just in Minneapolis but all over the country. The lie that police are waging a war on black men has finally stuck, but that hasnt stopped the BLM forces from defacing the Boston monument honoring the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment which fought with distinction in the Civil War, its heroics memorialized in the 1989 film Glory.

In sum, the United States has descended into a particular hell of self-loathing in which no idea is too ridiculous, and that the pace of changeby which they mean destructionmust ever quicken until (as all Leftist revolutions always do), the show trials begin, Robespierre goes to the guillotine, Trotsky gets an axe in his head, Madame Mao gets arrested, and Ceausescu gets stood up against a wall and shot.

The Left calls this reform. But its not. Its revolution. Just as they tried to do half a century ago, they mean to destroy the countryby any means necessary, as their slogan goes. Will we let them?

Weve been through periods of violent anarchy before. There were the New York City draft riots of 1863, the Civil War itself. Between 1865 and 1901, three Republican presidents were assassinated: by a southern Democrat (Lincoln), a member of the socialist Oneida sex cult (Garfield), and an anarchist (McKinley). And then there was the near-decade of rioting that began with Watts and ended with Kent State.

Back then, however, our institutions still functioned, and there were enough patriotic Americans to regain control. The question is: are there still? To kneel before anyone but God is to show submission.

Time to look closely, and see clearly the faces that mean to finish you.

Michael Walsh is the author of The Devils Pleasure Palace and The Fiery Angel, both published by Encounter Books. His latest book, Last Stands, a cultural study of military history, will be published in December by St. Martins Press. Follow him on Twitter @dkahanerules.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Citigroup Vice Chairman Ray McGuire implored corporate leaders Wednesday to take real steps to combat systemic racism following the death of George Floyd.

"We welcome the millions of dollars. We welcome the relatable messages, but we need to do more," McGuire said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "This is a defining moment in the course of American history, and we ought to take that moment. Otherwise, it will have been another sad day in the neighborhood."

McGuire, one of the most prominent black executives in finance, said Floyd's death and the subsequent wave of protests and activism have the potential to create lasting change. He pointed to the diverse backgrounds of protesters across ages and races.

"Maybe this time is different because there's no confusion. We saw cold-blooded murder," McGuire said, referring to the video of Floyd laying on the ground with a white Minneapolis police officer's knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd cried out that he could not breathe. All four officers involved in the Memorial Day arrest have been fired and criminally charged.

McGuire said his 7-year-old son asked his wife about the video, saying, "'Mommy, is he going to do that to me? And Mommy, will he do that to you? Will he do that to Papa?'"

McGuire, chairman of Citigroup's banking, capital markets and advisory business, said Floyd is part of the "innocent dead, from Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin to Ahmaud Arbery to Breonna Taylor to Eric Garner."

Now, after Floyd's funeral Tuesday in Houston, McGuire added: "Let this not just be another stop by another grave marker."
Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

The Houston Police Officers Union and the City of Houston are negotiating a new contract that will go into effect in January 2021. We have a rare opportunity to ensure that Mayor Sylvester Turner and Police Chief Art Acevedo make significant changes to this contract, especially two articles under the current contract between the Houston Police Officers Union and the City of Houston, that essentially give the union the power to clear their fellow police officers of any misconduct.

Under Article 30 of the contract, when a complaint is filed against an officer, the accused officer receives all copies and files associated with the complaint against them. They then have 48 hours to review the complaint against them, talk to a lawyer, and get their story together. All of this happens before they are required to give a statement to their supervisor. This 48-hour rule insulates them from questioning and gives cops a privilege that no civilian gets.
On 3 June, Amul released a social media post that read Topical Post: About the boycott of Chinese products. With its usual wit, Amul creative showed the iconic Amul girl gesturing stop to a Red Dragon because dragons are part of Chinas mythology and red is the colour of its flag and associated with communism. The text in the topical post read Exit the Dragon? which harkened back to popular Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon released in 1973.

The Tweet was widely shared across social media platforms until users noticed that it had been blocked by the platform. There was an immediate outcry as Twitterati believed that Amuls post had been blocked due to influence from China. A call to boycott Twitter was immediately taken up.

On 6 June, Managing Director of GCMMF R S Sodhi personally came to the rescue of the platform and clarified Had a call from Shari Manish Maheshwari MD Twitter India, clarifying the issue that the account was blocked due to technical reasons and not in relation to the content published.

Had a call from Shari Manish Maheshwari MD Twitter India ,clarifying the issue that the account was blocked due to technical reasons and not in relation to the content published. @Amul_Coop @TwitterIndia  R S Sodhi (@Rssamul) June 6, 2020

By then, the news had been carried by several news portals and Twitter had generated some bad press and negative sentiment from Indian consumers.
MONTREAL, June 10, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - The Medicom Group, ("Medicom"), one of the world's leading manufacturers of surgical and respiratory masks, has announced plans to open a second mask production facility in France. The plant will be established as Medicom Kolmi-Hopen Engineering and will help the company serve incremental demand across Europe as Medicom continues to invest around the globe to ensure proximity of mask production to end markets.

Kolmi-Hopen is the European arm of the Medicom Group and France's leading producer of surgical and respiratory masks. Medicom acquired the current production facility in Saint-Barthelemy-d'Anjou near Angers in 2011 as part of a strategic initiative to diversify mask production around the world.

At the beginning of the year, French President Emmanuel Macron visited the Kolmi-Hopen plant and took the opportunity to confirm his willingness to protect French industry and the independence of the personal protective equipment supply chain. With 11 new lines and an optimized production schedule, mask production at the two sites in Angers will have tripled in five months.

With the opening of a second mask and PPE production facility in Beaucouze, also near Angers, at the beginning of July, Medicom will have the capacity to meet its commitments to its historical customers and to respond to requests from various European governments.

Resuming supply to customers outside France

Initially, production at the new Medicom plant in Beaucouze will be dedicated to the company's historical customers, including those outside France who the company was unable to serve while respecting the requisition ordered by the French government. Following the lifting of trade barriers at the end of May, Kolmi-Hopen can resume supplying customers in 26 European countries, as well as in Canada and Hong Kong.

"We are proud of our partnership with the Government of France that worked with us to increase efficiency, increase output and reduce the distribution time of critical equipment for front line workers," said Kolmi-Hopen General Manager Gerald Heuliez. "With that progress, along with the establishment of the new manufacturing plant in July, we will be able to resume supply to other customers and markets."

Continued global expansion

"One of our key strengths is our diversified manufacturing footprint across the globe and our willingness to invest to set up local production such as recently announced in Canada, Singapore and now with a second facility in France," stated Global Chief Operating Officer Guillaume Laverdure.

With three decades of scientific expertise, an extensive global network of raw material suppliers and ten fully controlled manufacturing facilities, including recently opened or announced facilities in Canada and Singapore, Medicom is uniquely positioned to help meet the exponential demand for products like face masks during worldwide health crises like the current coronavirus pandemic and beyond.

About Medicom

The Medicom Group is one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of high-quality, single-use, preventive and infection control products for the medical, dental, industrial, animal health, laboratory, retail and health and wellness markets. Medicom distributes infection control products under the Medicom, Ritmed, Ocean Pacific, Kolmi and Hopen brands, as well as under the recently acquired Hedy brand. Medicom operates under the Kolmi-Hopen company in Angers, France, Medicom Asia in Hong Kong and KHM Engineering in Singapore.

Medicom has extensive experience in responding to the demand for personal protective equipment in the event of a pandemic. Medicom was founded in 1988 in response to the urgent need for medical gloves for healthcare professionals during the global HIV crisis. Since then, the company has been a reliable supplier of infection control solutions during multiple epidemics, including avian flu, SARS, H1N1 and Ebola.



For more information about Medicom and their comprehensive portfolio of infection control solutions, including an extensive range of medical face masks, please visit Medicom.com.

For more information about Kolmi-Hopen, please visit Kolmi-Hopen.

SOURCE AMD Medicom Inc.

Related Links

www.medicom.ca


The prospects of a routine session of Parliament have come under question with existing government buildings found inadequate to accommodate all members of Parliament if COVID-19 physical distancing norms are to be followed, according to highly-placed sources.

New Delhi: The prospects of a routine session of Parliament have come under question with existing government buildings found inadequate to accommodate all members of Parliament if COVID-19 physical distancing norms are to be followed, according to highly-placed sources.

With neither the central hall of Parliament nor the Vigyan Bhawan plenary hall large enough to seat all the MPs while maintaining a minimum distance of one metre, the presiding officers of both houses are learnt to have been exploring options of holding a 'hybrid' session of Parliament or a virtual one, the sources told PTI.

The hybrid session would allow some MPs to be present physically in Parliament with the remaining ones attending it virtually.

The sources said one of the options discussed is to enable attendance in the Chambers of both the Houses of only those many members who can be accommodated according to social distancing norms by drawing up lists of such members whose participation in various items of business is required on a daily basis.

The monsoon session of Parliament is normally held in the month of July.

At a meeting convened by Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the secretary generals of both houses are learnt to have told the presiding officers that neither the central hall nor the Vigyan Bhawan plenary hall have a seating capacity to accommodate all MPs together.

The meeting was convened to review various options for holding the ensuing monsoon session of Parliament.

Briefing Naidu and Birla on various possibilities, the secretary generals reported the outcomes of their assessment of seating capacity in the Chambers of both the Houses, the central hall of Parliament and the plenary hall of Vigyan Bhawan.

They informed that while the Rajya Sabha Chamber can accommodate about 60 members as per the norms of social distancing, the Lok Sabha Chamber and the central hall are adequate enough for a little over 100 members.

They said even if the members were to be accommodated in the galleries, the total seating capacity would be much less than the required if all members were to be accommodated.

Naidu and Birla directed the two top officials to examine in detail various issues related to enabling virtual participation of members in the proceedings of both houses.

This includes the maximum capacity available for enabling such virtual participation of MPs, the feasibility of enabling the participation of members as per the rules of business of both the Houses and other technical issues.

Regarding virtual meetings of the parliamentary committees, it was explained that any change in the rules concerning such meetings required a motion to be carried in both the Houses of Parliament.

The Parliament officials also informed the presiding officers of certain other limitations if the central hall and Vigyan Bhawan were to be used for the session.

These included non-availability of the air-conditioned facility during the day in the Central Hall and problems of enabling simultaneous interpretation service.
PHOENIX, AZ - June 10, 2020 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Breaking cannabis / CBD Stock News American Green (OTC:ERBB) announced today that the strategic shifts that began in 2019 are now paying dividends in every division. According to David Gwyther, president of American Green, "During 2019 and early 2020, the company had to make changes in every division to accommodate the changing marketplace. I'm pleased to report that those changes resulted in each division's revenue improvements compared to the same periods over the previous year."

VP of CBD Worldwide Sales, Kevin Davis, said, "The key to the success of the American Green Online CBD Store is a combination of Top-Shelf Customer Service, The Integration of Technology, Competitive Pricing, Easy Payment Options, and Product Selection. Since our online CBD Store first opened 3 years ago, our growth has been primarily driven by our extreme sensitivity to customer feedback -- by listening very, very carefully. Whether that means incorporating a capability to quickly respond to customer questions via email or phone, and making damn sure our customers know that they're getting the best CBD available and are 100% satisfied, even if that means staying on the phone with them until they get all the information they need."

"Every customer is unique to us and when our store employees show them the courtesy of our unrushed time -- whether by email or phone, it is the only way we know of guaranteeing that our loyal base returns to us. Other companies talk about achieving goals like these, but we, at the American Green CBD Store live this 'customer-driven lifestyle' every day," concludes Kevin.

According to Bryan Croteau, American Green's VP of Grow Operations, "As the world comes out of quarantine and things get back to the 'new normal,' American Green's 'Sweet Virginia' is turning out some of the highest grade cannabis found in Arizona and is hard at work upgrading its production facility while producing American Green's newest cannabis product line. Our Sweet Virginia facility is proud to announce that the first wave of American Green Full Spectrum Solventless Concentrate products have hit the retail shelves at the Kind Meds licensed dispensary located at 2152 South Vineyard, Suite 120, Bldg 7, Mesa AZ 85210."

American Green's Sweet Virginia grow operation is most proud of its Ice-water-extracted Bubble Hash which is also known as "Full Melt," because it leaves no residue when compared to standard hash which has been made the same way for hundreds of years. According to Mr. Croteau, "Our special process manually removes the THC trichomes using nothing but ice and water and produces one of the safest and most natural concentrates available anywhere. If you are a current medical patient in the State of Arizona, we highly recommend a trip to Kind Meds for an opportunity to taste our best grown flowers in the form of concentrate! I would call first before making the trip to ensure that the American Green Bubble Hash has not been sold out, as we anticipate high demand for this premium product."

The Sweet Virginia Grow has also recently added 10% of canopy space as an additional flower room thus enabling the operation to increase its revenues by about 10% per annum. This new space will allow for production of an extra 240 plants every 8 weeks. We are also constantly streamlining tasks to be as efficient as possible, which has allowed us to cut our current payroll costs by about 12% when compared to last quarter.

The American Green Machine (AGM) Division has been working to add new features to its Smart Vending Kiosk such as lower risk touchless shopping which will allow vending customers to utilize a QR Code and be able to use their own cell phone to interact with our AGM Kiosk. Employing "Covid-19 Sensitivity," customers will no longer need to touch the machine to view the AGM's products with the goal of allowing customers to complete their entire transaction on their smartphone. This new feature has been designed to be "backwards compatible" thus enabling the feature to be available for existing machines already in service and is now ready to rollout. According to AGM Division VP, Lindel Creed, "We are very excited with the progress of the AGM kiosk as sales increase this year and more customers become convinced that the AGM is the best verified vending system on the market."

If you are an experienced vending route operator serving a major market and wish to add a complete line of fully legal CBD products to your existing route, you should contact Mr. Lindel Creed at American Green's AGM Vending Division located in Gastonia, North Carolina. You can email Lindel at lindel@americangreen.com or call him on his direct line at 704-718-3158.

Shareholders and interest holders may also stay current with American Green Updates:

American Green's Main Website at www.americangreen.com

Twitter: @American__Green (two underscores), or

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/americangreenusa\

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/americangreenusa/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/magicalnipton/

About American Green, Inc.

American Green, Inc. became, in 2009, America's second publicly-traded company in the cannabis industry. American Green now, with its more than 50,000 individual certified shareholders, is one of the largest (in shareholder count) in the cannabis sector. American Green's mission is to lead the cannabis and premium CBD industry. Leveraging our team of professionals in cultivation management, manufacturing, extraction, wholesale, retail, and community outreach, we strive to develop sustainable initiatives in the cannabis-adjacent and CBD industries, laser-focused on adding company and shareholder value.

For more information

Contact:

American Green, Inc.

Investor Relations

2902 W. Virginia Ave

Phoenix, AZ 85009

480-443-1600 X555

investor@americangreen.com

NOTES ABOUT FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Except for any historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission reports and filings. Certain statements contained in this release that are not historical facts constitute forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created by that Act. Reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements because they involve unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as estimates, anticipates, projects, plans, expects, intends, believes, be should and similar expressions and by the context in which they are used. Such statements are based upon current expectations of the Company and speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which they are made.

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The global automotive wiper system market is predicted to grow at a 5.6% CAGR over the forecast period (2018-2023), states the new Market Research Future (MRFR) report. A wiper system is a tool or device in a vehicle used to remove debris, ice, snow, and rain from a windshield or windscreen. An automotive wiper is powered either by a pneumatic power or an electric motor.

Wiper systems are a vital part of a car that comprises of two wiper arms and wiper drive. They are made from fabrics, metal, plastics, and molded substrates. Latest technologies are being introduced in the market for reducing noise and improving the effectiveness of the wiper system such as removing of dust and cleaning of water.

Various factors are propelling the automotive wiper system market growth. These factors, as specified by the Market Research Future (MRFR) report, include growing production and sales of cars across the globe, increasing disposable income in India as well as China, increasing adoption of rear wipers in SUVs, rise in GDP, improved standard of living, and growing demand for driver and vehicle safety. Additional factors boosting market growth include rising automotive R&D spending, technological advancements, demand for smarter auto components, use of sensors in wiper system, the ever-present threat of car accidents, growing population, demand for electric cars, and an improving economy.

On the contrary, complex design of systems, lack of skilled drivers, and lack of standard protocols for developing automotive wiper systems are factors that may impede the automotive wiper system market growth over the forecast period.

Market Segmentation

The Market Research Future report provides a wide segmental analysis of the automotive wiper system market based on propulsion, vehicle type, application, motor type, and arm type.

Based on arm type, the automotive wiper system market is segmented into pantograph arm and synchronized radial arm.

Based on motor type, the automotive wiper system market is segmented into brushless, brush, and stepper.

Based on vehicle type, the automotive wiper system market is segmented into commercial vehicle and passenger car. Of these, the passenger car will have the largest share in the market over the forecast period.

Based on propulsion, the automotive wiper system market is segmented into electric vehicle and ICE. Of these, the electric vehicle segment will dominate the market over the forecast period.

Based on sales channel, the automotive wiper system market is segmented into aftermarket and OEM.

Regional Analysis

Based on the region, the automotive wiper system market report covers growth opportunities and the latest trends across the Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, North America, and the Rest of the World (RoW). Of these, the APAC region will lead the market over the forecast period. This is due to the increasing production of automobiles in Japan, Korea, India, and China. Besides, increasing purchasing power of consumers, growing population, infrastructure development across this region, and growing industrialization are accelerating market growth.

The automotive wiper system market in Europe is predicted to have significant growth over the forecast period. This is due to the growing number of light vehicles and stringent regulations all across the European Union.

Key Players

Leading players profiled in the automotive wiper system market report include Mitsuba Corp. (Japan), B. Hepworth and Company Limited (UK), Am Automotive (US), Pilot Automotive (US), DENSO Corporation (Japan), Magneti Marelli (Italy), WAI Global (US), DOGA Automotive (Spain), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), and Valeo S.A. (France) among others. The key players have adopted different strategies to make a foothold in the market, such as acquisitions, mergers, partnerships, research and development, and more.

April 2019: Valeo, a leading auto component manufacturer has opened a new wiper motor manufacturing facility at Vallam, Chennai. This plant will manufacture rear wiper motors that will cater to the needs of the aftermarket and OEMs segments. Currently, this facility makes left-hand motor for specifically sufficing the needs of the OEM as well as possess the capability of producing medium and short version wiper motors.
Incumbent Kirsten Baesler will advance to the November ballot along with one other candidate after securing the most votes in a three-way race for state superintendent of public instruction.

Underwood Superintendent Brandt J. Dick appeared to land the second spot in Tuesday's primary election and also advance.

With all 422 precincts reporting, Dick had 26% of the vote and Minot resident Charles Tuttle had 20%. Dick appears to move on to the general election, though about 41,000 mail-in ballots had yet to be returned on Tuesday from about 196,000 sent out statewide, according to Deputy Secretary of State Jim Silrum. County canvassing boards meet Monday to certify election results.

Baesler easily advanced after securing 54% of the vote. Nearly 138,200 people voted.

I am grateful for the strong support of North Dakotans and the renewed trust theyve placed in me as the state school superintendent, Baesler said in a statement. Together with families and local leaders, we will reopen our schools and embrace new opportunities for our young people. I look forward to earning the support of voters again in November.

The superintendent will oversee the instruction of 114,000 public K-12 students across the state. The four-year term begins Jan. 1.

The position also entails seats on a variety of state boards such as the Board of University and School Lands and the Teachers Fund For Retirement Board.

Baesler, a Mandan resident, was elected superintendent in 2012. She previously served on the Mandan School Board, including as president, and she has held several teaching and administrative jobs with Bismarck Public Schools.

Baesler pled guilty to a misdemeanor DUI charge earlier this year after she was arrested in February in Mandan for drunken driving. She was sentenced to pay $750, serve nearly a year of unsupervised probation and complete any recommended treatment.

Her arrest, in part, prompted the North Dakota Republican Party to delay its letter of support for a superintendent candidate until after the primary.

Baesler has been in the spotlight this spring during the coronavirus pandemic as she has led schools through a statewide closure. She is a frequent guest at Gov. Doug Burgums virus-related press conferences.

Dick lives in Bismarck and has spent 25 years working in education, holding roles as district superintendent, college adjunct professor, principal and teacher.

He also has served on various boards and advocated for rural schools on issues under consideration by the state Legislature.

This is Dicks first time running for public office. In past interviews, he has told the Tribune that he expects the state superintendent will have to deal with budget cuts in the future, the result of declining state revenues amid the pandemic. He said he would like to see local school districts have greater say in responding to the crisis.

"Thank you to all that voted for me," Dick said in a Facebook post. "Now to work the next 5 months. Look forward to getting out and meeting with you. Spread the word!"

Tuttle made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House in 2018. He has worked as a ballot measure activist, a newspaper marketer and manager for a clothing retailer, and he has been self-employed for 20 years.

He told the Tribune he ran to improve proficiency outcomes in schools and to allow local school boards greater say over curriculum.

Tuttle was convicted of assault in 2003. He disputes a finding by an Ohio court in 2001 that he had sexual contact with a child. No criminal charges were filed over the matter. Tuttle attributed his legal issues to "ugly" and "despicable" custody and divorce matters.

Reach Amy R. Sisk at 701-250-8252 or amy.sisk@bismarcktribune.com.

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A primary school in the remote mountains of Quang Ngai Province in central Vietnam has built an obstacle course in the schoolyard and is using electric toy vehicles to teach its students about traffic safety and regulations.

Thanks to the dedication of the schools headmaster, the ethnic minority children have a chance to excitedly learn traffic rules through the simulation.

Roads, traffic lights and traffic signs are recreated to be completely similar to real-life ones in the schoolyard of Tra Tap Primary School, an ethnic minority day-boarding school in Quang Ngais mountainous district of Nam Tra My.

The schools Ca Dong ethnic minority students can now learn traffic rules while driving electric toy vehicles around the schoolyard.

The man behind the idea is Tra Taps headmaster Le Huy Phuong, who had thought of the idea for a long time before being able to turn it into a reality.

Phuong built the traffic simulation model at no cost to the school budget, having raised funds from donations made after his plea on social media.

Although the transport infrastructure of the Quang Nams mountainous regions has improved considerably in recent years, the local ethnic minority peoples awareness of road rules is still limited, Phuong told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

The situation is made even more difficult as most of Tra Taps students are not familiar with urban transportation systems.

We wanted to build a traffic simulation within the schoolyard through which the students can be taught traffic rules, Phuong said.

A student sits on an electric toy car stopped at a crossroads in an obstacle course in the schoolyard at Tra Tap Primary School in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre

After some preparation, the school started to build the simulation model at the beginning of 2020, taking advantage of the time the school was closed because of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The entire funding was VND50 million (US$2,150) raised from donors.

Workmen were hired to construct the obstacle course consisting of traffic signs, traffic lights, one-way roads, a roundabout, median strips, and pavements.

Apart from the traffic simulation, trees and greenery were also planted in the schoolyard to provide shade and resemble real roads, according to the headmaster.

The urban-like traffic simulation model was completed in April after a few months of construction.

Since its completion, the school has been teaching one lesson every week on practical road rules as well as traffic safety.

Ca Dong ethnic minority students walking on the schoolyard that has been turned into a traffic simulation model to help them learn about road regulations at Tra Tap Primary School in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre

Through the simulation of transportation systems, the teachers guide their students on how to operate vehicles safely and to comply with the signs and traffic lights.

If we want to reduce road accidents, we have to teach the children the knowledge of traffic rules. We would like to help them to comprehend the road rules through the traffic simulation, said Phuong.

Phuong recently ordered ten electric toy vehicles including toy cars, toy bikes and electric bicycles at the cost of nearly VND18 million (US$775) to help his students learn by playing with them.

We are very excited to be able to drive the toy vehicles while being taught traffic regulations, said Ho Tuan Vu, a fourth grader.

Nguyen Thi Thao, a teacher at Tra Tap, said the traffic simulation not only makes the schoolyard more lively but also helps the pupils understand road rules effortlessly.

The fact that the children dont have to learn the traffic regulations on paper makes them eager to take part in the lesson on the subject. All of this is thanks to headmaster Phuongs devotion to the schools pupils, Thao said.

Two students drive electric toy bikes on an obstacle course in the schoolyard at Tra Tap Primary School in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre

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-- Portland's police chief Jami Resch resigned amid mounting criticism over her handling of protests sparked by the death of Floyd.

-- Outrage over Floyd's death has fuelled worldwide marches, with protesters calling for an end to racism and police abuse.

-- Floyd's death serves as a chilling reminder that racial discrimination seems to be showing no signs of improvement among the American population.

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Portland's police chief Jami Resch resigned on Monday amid mounting criticism over her handling of protests that shook Oregon's largest city as part of a global movement sparked by the death of George Floyd, an African American who died due to police brutality.

"I have listened and our community and you have said show us change," she tweeted. "It starts with trust. This change in leadership comes from my heart."

Resch was just six months into her job as top cop when making the surprise announcement. She has asked for Chuck Lovell, an African-American lieutenant, to replace her.

The shakeup came as police departments across the United States have faced upheaval following Floyd's death, which has forced a reckoning of police brutality towards African-Amerians.

"I felt like if I in some small way could be the start for some community healing, it was my duty to do that," Lovell told a press conference.

DEVELOPMENT IN U.S.

In Floyd's hometown of Houston in Texas, a six-hour public viewing for him was held was in the Fountain of Praise Church.

Hours before the viewing began, people from across the country waited in long lines in scorching heat outside the church to pay their respects to Floyd's coffin, the final stop of a series of memorials in his honor.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25 after being pinned by the neck for nine minutes by a white officer's knee while pleading "I can't breathe."

A woman takes part in a protest against the killing of George Floyd in Istanbul, Turkey, June 5, 2020. (Photo by Yasin Akgul/Xinhua)

Doreatha Walker, an African American woman, came on behalf of her family.

"If you don't stand for something, you fall for anything. George Floyd didn't deserve to die the way he did," she told Xinhua. "We have to stand up against police brutality. We have to stand up against racism. I'm here today and I don't care about the heat because all of these have to stop."

Walker said her daughter and niece attended the protests in Houston in the past few days. Showing up to represent them, she said inequality and injustice must be replaced by equality and justice in the country.

"If I want to go to another city or state, I should be able to live in peace and harmony, not worry because of the color of my skin," she said.

Though the Democrats are proposing to overhaul legal protections for police and to fight systemic racism in the law enforcement following Floyd's death, huge crowds gathered in major U.S. cities with a largely peaceful mood prevailing over the demonstrations.

The vibrant atmosphere was marred on Sunday when a man drove a car into a rally in Seattle and shot and wounded a protestor who confronted him. The suspect, Nikolas Fernandez, was charged with assault on Monday.

Protesters take part in a rally to protest over the death of George Floyd on Foley Square in New York, the United States, May 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Separately, Virginia prosecutors said on Monday a man facing charges for driving his pickup truck into racial equality protesters is a local leader of the Ku Klux Klan, a domestic terrorist organization founded shortly after the United States Civil War ended.

Harry H. Rogers, 36, was charged with assault and battery, malicious wounding and felony vandalism, the Henrico County police department said in statement.

SWELLING PROTESTS

Outrage over Floyd's death has fuelled worldwide marches, with protesters embracing the Black Lives Matter message and calling for an end to racism and police abuse.

Dozens of people gathered on Monday outside the U.S. embassy in Turkish capital of Ankara over the death of Floyd.

Protesters chanted slogans such as "Stop racism" and "We can't breathe," calling on American authorities to "urgently stop all human rights abuses and deploy efforts to fundamentally reform the system against racism."

People take part in a demonstration to pay tribute to George Floyd in Paris, France, on June 6, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua)

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner pledged to stamp out racism and police violence and unveiled a series of measures to improve police forces' ethics amid growing public anger at police brutality.

"Racism has no place in our society and even less in our Republican police. I will not let the hateful actions of some stigmatise all," Castaner told a press conference. Some 23,300 people in France joined Saturday's "Black Lives Matter" protests.

In Brussels, more than 10,000 people demonstrated on Sunday at Place Poelart in the city center. Protesters of all ages and ethnic backgrounds chanted "Black Lives Matter," "No Justice, No Peace."

"The murder of George Floyd has visibly awakened many people," Brussels Times newspaper quoted Ange Kazi, spokesperson of the Belgian Network for Black Lives Matter, which called for the protest, as saying. "Many people are fed up with police violence, which systematically affects Blacks," she said.

Thousands of people went down on their knees on the streets outside the U.S. embassy in Ireland, the third of its kind following the killing of Floyd, demanding a systematic change to the deep-rooted racism in the United States and other countries.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that all Canadian police should be equipped with body cameras as a simple way to address complaints of racism and brutality.

"With the many disturbing reports of violence against black Canadians and indigenous people, we know that we need to do much more," Trudeau said at a press conference in Ottawa. "We need to do it now."

Trudeau and his ministers took a knee in solidarity with the demonstrators who were marching against racism and police brutality in Ottawa on Friday.

Demonstrators participate in a "Black Lives Matter" protest in Brussels, Belgium, June 7, 2020. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

The World Health Organization (WHO) also expressed its full support to the global movement against racism, but highlighted the importance for protesters to take preventive measures against COVID-19.

"WHO fully supports equality and the global movement against racism. We reject discrimination of all kinds. We encourage all those protesting around the world to do so safely," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a virtual press conference.

DOUBlE STANDARDS

Racism has been a chronic problem in the United States, with a history almost as old as the country itself. Floyd's death serves as a new, chilling reminder that racial discrimination seems to be showing no signs of improvement among the American population.

In a report released in April by the Pew Center, 58 percent of Americans surveyed in 2019 said race relations in the United States are bad, and few of those see any improvement in such relations. Some 56 percent think the current administration has made race relations worse.

The ravaging coronavirus pandemic, meanwhile, has served to highlight the long tradition of racial inequality in the United States, after recent data compiled by the non-partisan APM Research Lab revealed that African Americans are suffering a disproportionate share of the negative health and economic impacts of COVID-19.

A demonstrator holds up a sign as police pass by in Chicago, the United States, June 6, 2020. (Photo by Chris Dilts/Xinhua)

With a death toll of more than 20,000 or about one in every 2,000 of the entire U.S. African American population, African Americans are dying at a rate of 50.3 per 100,000 people, compared with 20.7 for whites, 22.9 for Latinos and 22.7 for Asian Americans, the data showed.

Moreover, African Americans are facing an ever higher risk of dying at the hands of police due to the color of their skin. According to Mapping Police Violence, a research and advocacy group, black Americans are 2.5 times as likely to be killed by law-enforcement officers as white Americans.

"More than 1,000 Black people die at the hands of police in the U.S. every year," the Nelson Mandela Foundation last week.

"Mass incarceration, predictive policing, targeted surveillance and a host of other tools render Black lives more vulnerable than all others," said the foundation, which was established in 1999 to promote freedom and equality.

Zivadin Jovanovic, former foreign minister of Yugoslavia, told Xinhua the death of Floyd and the U.S. response to ensuing protests demonstrated double standards in the country's policies on certain rights it has been insisting on around the world.

"The rights are acceptable for them only in their objective to dominate globally," he said.

Jovanovic noted that racial discrimination is deeply rooted in the history of the United States' socio-economic and political practice, and segregation is still visible in the distribution of wealth and availability of health protection.

A delivery man wearing a face mask rides past the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, the United States, May 27, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

Indonesian political analyst Irwansyah said that the death of Floyd reveals the double standards of Washington, adding that the protests are caused by not only racism, but also other factors such as economic inequality and the failed COVID-19 response.

The sentiment was echoed by Turkish expert Deniz Zeyrek, who pointed out that the anger of demonstrators is not only about the situation of African Americans or the death of Floyd, but also about the whole social problems in the United States.
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Travel reservations are also applied to 160 countries, including Russia and Belarus

Germany recommends its citizens to abstain from visiting Ukraine until the end of summer Open source

The German government recommends its citizens to withhold from visiting Ukraine and more than 160 countries outside the European Union until the end of the summer. This was reported by Deutsche Welle.

"Amidst the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, the German government has recommended to refrain from travelling to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and more than 160 countries outside the European Union until the end of the summer," the statement said.

It is noted that exceptions are possible for countries, restrictive measures of which have led to significant coronavirus containment. Statistics on the number of infected, the effectiveness of the health care system, hygiene rules, repatriation opportunities and security measures for tourists will be taken into account.

As we reported earlier, citizens who want to cross the Slovakian border and enter the country are obliged to provide the negative PCR test results for coronavirus.

The procedure of crossing the border by foreign citizens changes starting from June 10.
A statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled, set on fire and thrown into a lake amid anti-racism demonstrations in Virginia overnight.

The monument to the Italian explorer, which had been positioned in Richmonds Byrd Park until Tuesday night, was brought down amid chants to tear it down.

Protesters soon dislodged the 93-year-old monument with ropes before the statue was set alight and rolled into Richmonds Fountain Lake.

The empty pedestal, which had been earlier targeted with spray paint, carried one sign that read Columbus Represents Genocide, reported Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Some 1,000 people are believed to have attended Tuesday nights demonstrations, which honoured native Americans.

It remains unclear whether the Byrd Park protesters had planned to topple the 8-foot statue in advance.

There was no police presence in the park, said the paper, but one police helicopter was seen circling the area.

News outlet NBC 12 also said its photographer at the protest was told to leave the park on Tuesday night when the statue was toppled.

One activist had told the crowd: We have to start where it all began, said the Times-Dispatch. We have to start with the people who stood first on this land.

Columbuss transatlantic voyages unlocked an entire continent for European colonisation, and turned the Italian explorer into a modern symbol of conquest and violence for native Americans.

The Richmond statues fate follows that of British slave trader Edward Colston, whose statue was toppled and thrown into Bristols harbour last weekend as anti-racism protests spread worldwide.

Protesters and activists across the US have also called on local leaders to remove controversial monuments erected in honour of Confederate leaders.

Virginia governor Ralph Northam had ordered the removal of another Richmond statue last week, before those plans were blocked on Tuesday.
Following an attack by Hurras al-Deen, Russian and Syrian warplanes conducted a number of airstrikes on frontline positions in the al-Ghab Plain area writes Al-Masdar.

The Russian and Syrian air forces intensified their flights over Idleb Governorate on Tuesday, as they respond to the latest attacks by the jihadist forces in the al-Ghab Plain area.

According to a field report from northwestern Syria, the Russian and Syrian air forces launched strikes inside Hama and Idleb governorates, with the primary target being the militant forces along the frontlines.

The report said the Russian and Syrian warplanes heavily targeted the positions of the Turkistan Islamic Party, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and Hurras al-Deen, which are the primary jihadist groups in northwest Syria.

These airstrikes by the Russian and Syrian air forces come just hours after Hurras al-Deen launched a powerful attack on the Syrian Arab Armys positions near the town of Tanjara in the al-Ghab Plain.

The attack resulted in heavy losses for Hurras al-Deen, who later withdrew their forces following the arrival of Syrian Arab Army reinforcements and Russian airstrikes.

On a different note, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria reported that an explosive device was detonated under a Russian military vehicle in the Kobani area near the Turkish border on Tuesday.

The reconciliation center told reporters that, unknown persons this morning tried to block the patrol of the Russian military police in the area, where, an explosion occurred under one of the patrol vehicles at the last point on its path.

The center added that, no one was injured as a result of the detonation of the improvised explosive device.

No group has claimed responsibility for this attack.

Tuesdays attack against the Russian military marked the first time this month that they have been targeted during their patrols in northern Syria.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
South Korea is struggling to contain a spike in new coronavirus cases in Seoul, with the outbreak in the capital now spreading faster than at any point during the pandemic so far.

The country reported 50 new cases on Wednesday, of which 40 were locally transmitted in the Seoul metropolitan area, where significant clusters of infection have been linked to nightclubs, warehouses and religious gatherings.

The spike has proven to be persistent, with a rolling average of Seoul government data showing between 18-20 new cases added each day since Sunday, according to a Yonhap analysis. The previous peak in Seouls daily average was 17 on 14 March.
COVID-19 infections in younger people are on the rise in certain hotspots across the GTA and Hamilton, according to provincial data, medical officers and researchers  especially in Toronto and Peel, both of which have seen a recent increase in reported cases among 20-somethings in recent weeks.

Public health units are now investigating this emerging trend to better understand whats driving this apparent demographic shift in the provinces COVID epidemic, which is now largely centred in the GTA.

While some suspect it could reflect a change in testing patterns, medical officers and health workers are pointing to other factors like workplace outbreaks, housing arrangements and lockdown fatigue coupled with an invincible attitude amongst younger people who might feel insulated from COVIDs worst effects  even though deaths and severe outcomes have been reported in these age groups across the province.

We know for this age group there tends to be a little bit more of a feeling that you may not be at as much risk, said Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, medical officer of health in Hamilton.

A hypothesis were exploring is that this is the age group that is choosing not to necessarily follow the strong recommendations that we have, said Peel regions medical officer of health, Dr. Lawrence Loh.

Ive seen a lot of lax behaviours, said Kendra Leo, an emergency room nurse at Humber River Hospital, who also works as a contact tracer in the GTA. Typically, if theyre not getting that sick, then its not a big deal to them  but the reality is that sometimes they do. Ive seen people in their 20s who are very, very ill, with no other health problems.

A Star analysis of publicly available provincial data shows that in the last two months, the percentage of COVID cases grew among people aged 20 to 29 when looking at just cases acquired in the community, a trend largely fuelled by upticks in Toronto and Peel. For example, on April 5, this age group accounted for 14 per cent of all cases province-wide; on June 5, they made up 18 per cent of the total.

This analysis is supported by unpublished research led by University of Guelph engineering professor Ed McBean, who analyzed age trends in Ontarios daily case counts. McBeans group found that while the curve was flattening for other age groups, the number of daily cases in under-20s was still rising, especially in Peel and Toronto.

Whereas if you look at the older age categories, youd see that they reached their peak predominantly in mid-April, and theyre starting to decline, said graduate student Brett Snider, who contributed to the research.

In Toronto, people aged 20 to 29 made up 17 per cent of total cases in March, when the epidemic first started taking hold across the province. In May, this group accounted for 20 per cent of total cases that month and in June, they currently make up a quarter of all cases, according to Toronto Public Health. By contrast, the proportion of cases among 30-somethings has remained stable at 19 per cent when comparing March with June.

We have to make sure we all take precautions, said Dr. Vinita Dubey, associate medical officer with Toronto Public Health. Most young people may recover, but not all of them. Some will have severe illness.

And when they do get sick, they have a chance of spreading it to someone who might not do as well as them.

Dubey said some of the increase could be related to younger people returning to work as provincial restrictions eased, noting TPHs earlier observations of COVID-19 workplace clusters. Social interactions could also be a driver, though she said its often hard to pinpoint one particular event that led to someones illness.

Though some experts worried crowds at Trinity Bellwoods Park on May 23 would lead to a spike, Dubey said Toronto Public Health hasnt drawn that conclusion.

What is clear is that more people can identify the person who may have given them the virus compared to earlier in the pandemic, she said.

Since May 18, 65 per cent of community cases, in all ages, have identified a close contact with COVID-19  a colleague, friend or family member, for example. Before May 18, about 50 per cent of community cases were from a close contact.

Most people are getting this illness from another person; the interactions they are having, in whatever surrounding, is what is leading to an infection.

In Peel region, the COVID epidemic has gone through three waves, as it has in many other municipalities, according to Loh. The first, beginning in March, mostly affected working-age people, 20-59 and then as people began to self-isolate, the epidemic moved into seniors residences and long-term care.

Since early May, the epidemic has flipped back into the community  and Peel started to see more infections in younger people, especially in Brampton, Loh said.

A Star analysis of provincial data shows that on April 8, people in the 20-29 age group made up 13 per cent of cumulative cases in Peel; today, they account for 18 per cent.

He believes this uptick is being partly driven by an increase in outbreaks in industrial job sites where younger people tend to be employed.

But he is also comparing his public health data with enforcement data, which shows that younger people might be more prone to flouting the rules and advice around distancing, he said.

There have been numerous enforcement actions that have been taken by our municipal bylaw enforcement partners on illegal backyard gatherings (and) parking lot gatherings, where people are not respecting physical distancing and are not respecting the limitation on the size of groups.

In Hamilton, health officials are rolling out a new social media campaign aimed at changing the behaviour of 20-somethings, who now account for 43 per cent of total cases over the last 10 days.

Richardson told reporters at a virtual press conference Tuesday that the social media campaign will talk more about what (younger people) can do rather than what they cant. She said contact tracing in the city suggests 20-somethings are not fully and consistently sticking to things like physical distancing, hand washing and wearing a cloth mask, when commuting to work or when theyre in a recreational or social environment.

Younger people also sometimes have roommates, she said, and it can be hard to socially isolate properly from them.

One concern with more young people getting infected is that they could unknowingly spread the disease to loved ones who are more at risk, Richardson cautioned. So one way or another its very important to control the spread.

She added that its also important to remember that young people are not immune to COVID's more serious effects. While Hamilton has yet to see severe outcomes in younger people, there are cases where peoples symptoms linger for long periods, she said.

Publicly available data shows there have been three deaths due to COVID-19 in people aged 20 to 29, and 94 hospitalizations across Ontario. There havent been any deaths in people under 20, but 20 patients in this age group have ended up in hospital.

At Humber River Hospital, Leo recalls one patient in her early 20s who was a candidate for mechanical ventilation when they transferred her to another hospitals intensive care unit.

She called 911 because her lips turned blue and she was in severe respiratory distress, she said. She was (otherwise) a healthy, young girl. Weve had quite a few of those, that just boggles your mind.

When asked about the rise in younger people, health ministry spokesperson Hayley Chazan said its something the province is keeping a close eye on.

At a press conference Tuesday, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Torontos associate medical officer of health, said there are probably a number of factors.

I would think part of it is that weve opened up testing to people with less severe symptoms, in fact, with no symptoms, she said. And so, were probably picking up milder cases in young people. Theyre probably coming forward for testing where they didnt before.

McBean, the University of Guelph researcher, doesnt think the jump in cases among younger people is due to relaxed testing guidelines  if this were the case, other health units would be seeing a similar pattern, he noted.

According to a new analysis by the #HowsMyFlattening project, a volunteer-driven research group, the uptick in the number of Ontarians aged 20 to 39 testing positive for the virus seems to have accelerated after May 10, Mothers Day.

Farbod Abolhassani, website development lead for the project and adjunct faculty member at the U of Ts Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said while there is a notable rise in younger people testing positive, whats driving it is unclear.

The data is only as good as who is being tested. In the 20-somethings age group, yes there has been a peak in them testing positive. But we dont know who those people are. Do they work at a factory? Are they health-care workers?

As Ontario relaxes restrictions, Dubey said its just as critical for people to take proper measures as at the epidemics peak.

And while Ontario will, as of Friday, allow gatherings of groups of 10, people of all ages need to maintain a physical distance from anyone outside their households, even while wearing a mask, she said.

Wearing a mask does not give you a licence to keep close to other people, she said.

With files from Rachel Mendleson
Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and other members of Congress raise their hands in response to a reporter's question during a news conference. (Caroline Brehman / Associated Press)

Nearly 30 years ago, Karen Bass and other activists in South Los Angeles expected the beating of Rodney King  because it was videotaped  to spark a movement to reform policing.

In the wake of the latest act of police brutality caught on video, Bass  now a powerful Democrat in Washington  is hoping to use the national outcry to finally enact the federal policing reforms that failed to materialize after 1991.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) put Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, in charge of the Houses response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. On Monday, Bass introduced a bill that shell have to shepherd through the House and potentially through negotiations with congressional Republicans and the White House if it is to be signed into law.

Its a formidable task, given the gridlock that has frozen legislation in the Democratic-led House, Republican-led Senate and unpredictable White House. And her message risks being co-opted by progressive Democrats, who have called to defund the police, and Republicans who are hoping to paint the Democratic effort as extreme.

Protests sparked by Floyds killing have given rise to a swelling, nationwide movement that cuts across virtually all aspects of American society. Its a moment Bass is determined to capture.

People see that this issue is not an issue that only affects, and should only be responded to, by Black people, Bass, a fifth-term Democrat, said in an interview. I am very encouraged that that really pushes the country to an inflection moment where maybe we can actually accomplish something significant.

Republicans have not embraced Bass bill, but many have said they want to enact policing reforms. House and Senate Republicans plan to introduce their own bills as soon as this week.

The Democrats bill would make it easier for people to sue a police department if their civil rights are violated and for police to be prosecuted for criminal behavior. It would set up a national network to track police misconduct to prevent fired officers from getting rehired in a different jurisdiction, make lynching a federal hate crime and ban chokeholds and neckholds among federal officers.

Story continues

Bass, 66, traces her interest in policing reforms to when she was a 19-year-old civil rights activist in South Los Angeles. She and other activists were harassed by Los Angeles police officers, she says, recounting vandalism to her car and multiple break-ins at her house. Bass said they infiltrated her protests to try to stir up violence and the chokehold was common.

The police chief at the time said the reason Black people died from the chokehold was that we didnt have the same veins in our neck as 'normal people,' she said. So I didnt have a choice. If you were going to be an activist in Los Angeles in 1973, you had to be involved in police abuse because the police were always abusing us.

By 1990, she had become a physicians assistant. Shaken by the crack epidemic, she co-founded the Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment, a multiracial group that aimed for treatment and intervention rather than arrests and prison sentences.

Part of that new take on the war on drugs was a push back on the heavy policing measures that then-Chief Daryl Gates used in South Los Angeles to control the crack epidemic. Bass helped pass a City Charter measure in 1992 to change LAPD's structure and create civilian review of officer misconduct.

Bass served on committees that investigated allegations of local police abuses. Every major push has had her stamp on it, including the effort to reform the Los Angeles Police Department in the early '90s, said L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. Shes well initiated and deeply experienced.

When Rodney King was beaten by LAPD officers and it was caught on video, Bass saw an opportunity to prove to the world what was happening on her streets.

Of course, we felt terrible that he had been beat up. But we were happy that finally, finally, the world would see what happened, she said. We thought it [would be] over  all the things that we had worked for 20 years before. We never had evidence. Now we had evidence.

What she didnt realize at the time was that the video would become just the first viral video of police misconduct. Many more would follow as cellphone cameras became more common. A commission was established to study LAPD reforms. But most of the recommendations were not enacted until years later, if at all.

She felt personally responsible in 1992 for the civil unrest that broke out in her community after the police officers were found not guilty of beating King.

"I was just devastated. I felt that I had not done my job," she recounted in a 2011 book, "Million Dollar Conversations." The activists "failed because if we had succeeded, people would not have been rioting. They would have come together to bring about change."

This time, Bass says, people from all walks of life are demanding change. But even now, there are reasons to be skeptical that Congress can enact meaningful police reforms. President Trump on Tuesday tweeted  without evidence or providing specifics  that a 75-year-old man who was shoved to the ground by two police officers in Buffalo, N.Y., may have been an ANTIFA provocateur and the incident could have been a set up. The officers have been charged with felony assault, and the man remains hospitalized. It was not a positive sign for bipartisan negotiation.

But Trump's chief of staff, former Rep. Mark Meadows, met with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on Tuesday about possible legislation.

Hopefully we can be responsive with real legislation, or action," Meadows said.

There is wide support for a federal ban on the chokehold and making lynching a federal crime. But allowing people to sue police departments and officers faces more skepticism among Republicans.

Bass will also face resistance from progressive groups, as well as fellow Democrats such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), because of her refusal to embrace calls to "defund the police."

Bass and the majority of congressional Democrats dont support the idea of defunding or eliminating police departments, and the slogan "defund the police" has come to mean different things to different people. Some see it as a call to redirect portions of police budgets to other community resources in an effort to decrease crime. Bass' bill does not eliminate any funding for police departments, but she supports the idea of spending more money on programs that prevent crime.

Proponents of the bill will also have to find a way to maintain public pressure on lawmakers to act in a world in which cable TV news may quickly move onto another issue. The Congressional Black Caucus plans to continue to do virtual town hall meetings, Bass said.

When and if negotiations on a reform bill take place, Bass is expected to play a central role. Its a somewhat familiar place for Bass. As leader of the state Assembly during the Great Recession, she was recognized nationally for working with Republican leaders and GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to turn the states economy around.

Shes got the long view of where weve been, where weve missed opportunities ... where we pushed too hard, where we didnt push hard enough, said L.A. City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who took over Community Coalition when Bass was elected to the state assembly.

Bass' prominent role comes as Washington Democrats have quietly begun speculating about who may become speaker when Pelosi  who considered retiring in 2016  steps down. Bass is frequently named in that mix.

"She has the temperament. She has the knowledge of the caucus. She has the understanding of the rules. And I really cant point to a member who says they either dont like her or cant stand her," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

On the policing bill, Bass could be uniquely positioned to craft a compromise, given the position of respect she holds with House Democrats and her relationships with congressional Republicans.

"What was important to me was her role as chair of the caucus and her vision and knowledge of what we needed to do -- [that it] was understood both within the Congress and outside the Congress, and I think that has been accomplished," Pelosi said in a brief interview.

Bass also enjoys a surprising friendship with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), a rarity in the increasingly partisan Washington. It was forged after the two bonded when they sat near each other in the Assembly. McCarthy says he predicted that she would become Assembly speaker before she landed the job, making her the first African American woman to lead a state legislature.

McCarthy has not commented publicly about Bass' bill, but he said in an interview Monday that he was optimistic about finding common ground with Democrats and praised Bass' ability to negotiate between Republicans and progressive Democrats.

She can have a very smart approach. I know that she would want to make law, make change and not just make a statement, he said.

Bass, who has a liberal voting record, laughed when questioned about her bipartisan friendship with McCarthy and other Republicans, who are often seen publicly sparring at congressional hearings.

"Sometimes there is a little bit of theater attached to that," she acknowledged. "You dont necessarily see us afterward when were talking and joking."

But those relationships may prove vital. Getting such high stakes legislation through a divided Congress will require getting many disparate outside voices on board; the old guard civil rights leaders, the Black Lives Matter demonstrators who have led the movement in the streets, the police departments that have squared off with them, mayors and police unions. Harris-Dawson said Bass' relationships across that spectrum built from decades of work may bring some unexpected forces to the table.

She has a real gift for having tough conversations, Harris-Dawson said. There is a way in which [her] sort of genuineness, the seriousness of purpose, the no-bull just touches people, so they respond very positively.
Online payments are often synonymous with card payments, but today a startup that's built a profitable alternative, based around making and taking payments by way of a bank transfer, is announcing a round of funding amid a surge of growth.

Trustly, a startup from Sweden that has built a platform to make it as easy (and competitive) for merchants to accept bank transfers as it is to take card payments to complete online transactions, is today announcing that it has raised a significant round of funding from a group of investors led by BlackRock.

In an interview, Trustly's CEO Oscar Berglund said the company and its investors are not disclosing the exact amount of the investment, but we understand from reliable sources that the deal values the company -- which is profitable and had revenues of more than $150 million last year -- at over $1 billion, and that it will give BlackRock and others participating in the investment (including Aberdeen Standard Investments, funds managed by Neuberger Berman, the Investment Corporation of Dubai and RSIC) a minority share in the business.

For some further background, private equity group Nordic Capital essentially acquired Trustly in 2018 for 700 million ($794 million at today's rates). This deal represents a partial exit. From what we understand the base valuation also rose with this transaction.

That's both on the back of growth -- both organic and also inorganic, as it merged with U.S. rival PayWithMyBank, last year, to expand its network to touch 600 million consumers -- and Trustly's impressive list of customers. That list has more than 6,000 merchants today and also includes Facebook, where you can find its logo to let people buy ads and pay via Trustly; AT&T, which lets people pay bills using the network; Alibaba.com for making purchases in Europe; topping up PayPal accounts in a number of countries; and sending and receiving money via TransferWise.

This also essentially puts this investment in the hundred/hundreds of million/s range.

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Trustly's growth comes amid a bigger picture of how e-commerce is evolving as it continues to mature and become more ubiquitous -- a trend that has been accelerated in the last several months as many have turned away from physically making purchases because of social distancing measures.

When many of us think of online payments, we usually associate the process with using credit or debit cards, or maybe logging into a mobile wallet to complete a transaction. But the reality is that payments are a much more fragmented business, with consumer and merchant preferences changing with each region and including a wider range of options than simply Visa, Mastercard, Amex and PayPal or some other wallet.

Bank transfers as a method of payment are not at all common in some markets, especially those where cards have become ubiquitous. For example, in the U.K. only about 5% of transactions online are made this way.

But in other markets, this is a very common and well-used route. In Austria, Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland, a majority of consumers prefer to pay via bank transfer -- respectively the rates are 50%, 50%, 40%, 60%, 45%, Trustly tells me, basing its figures on a number of data sources including some of its payment partners, Adyen, PPRO, Global Data and Worldpay.

And Berglund said that the picture is a positive one for Trustly -- and other companies that it competes with, including Klarna (another startup "unicorn" from Sweden, as it happens) -- because it seems that bank-based transfers as a payment method is on the rise.

There are multiple reasons for that shift. Perhaps most obviously, we've seen a lot of security issues around card usage, including too many stories of malicious hackers breaching businesses' network security and stealing data and card numbers, and other kinds of card fraud. Even as more watertight procedures are put into place (such as mandatory chip-and-pin transactions in many countries), there remain loopholes and also general unease among consumers.

On top of that are changing tides in consumer-focused financial services. Specifically, thanks to the rise of mobile apps and a plethora of startups that have built "challenger banks" to provide more user-friendly banking, consumers today want and expect more control over their finances.

Using credit cards for many represents a departure from that, given that they are designed to help you spend more than you might actually have to spend, so that you can pay back in increments with interest. And, I'd argue, even debit cards can be a departure from transparency, as you are still not seeing your account balance in real time when you make purchases, and many people have overdrafts in place to again spend more than they actually have to spend.

"I think that bank transfers plays into the younger generation of millennials who just consciously dont want to get into the debt trap, while also being used to everything being done in real time," Berglund said.

If the story for end users -- be they the consumers doing the buying or the merchants doing the selling -- is all about transparency, easy user interfaces and simplification, it's because the work under the hood remains very complex and fragmented. Such is the case here as well.

Trustly's network, Berglund explained, is based around Trustly itself setting up its own business accounts across a wide range of banks around markets where it is active.

When a user elects to pay by bank transfer, it essentially goes through whatever interface his/her own bank uses when interacting with it directly, which then routes the payment through Trustly's network to be paid into a merchant's account.

The system is as secure as an individual's own online banking interface, which typically will use two-factor authentication to complete a transaction, unlike most card transactions. Berglund says that for this reason, the company has not experienced any of the kinds of breaches or frauds that you see in card payments.

In terms of Trustly's business model, it is a customer of the banks, while the merchants are its customers: it charges a transaction fee to merchants that use the Trustly network to receive payments, and Berglund said that the percentage varies but is essentially lower than what they would pay for card-based transactions.

But because payments are complex, this is not the full story. In addition to working with merchants directly, Trustly also integrates with a number of third parties like Worldpay, PPRO, Rapyd and others that use these latter services to integrate a number of payment options through a single API (rather than multiple APIs or integrations) into their check-out stack.

And Berglund added that it's looking like it might be taking on another new wave of customers going forward. Banks themselves are exploring ways of providing more services to merchants who bank with them, and so Trustly is talking to some of them to sell on Trustly's product as part of that (but not as a white-label, but branded solution).

The reason it's not replicated is the same reason it's hard to build any financial service from the ground up: Trustly has put in place not just a banking network but the integrations around it, plus the customer service it provides to merchants around the business of payments. That makes it hard to replicate, he added. "You have a huge platform here in the middle of this business, not unlike the platforms that exist for card payments," he said. "It's a big system all in all."
Andy Cohen thinks Bravo was right to fire four "Vanderpump Rules" stars over their past racist behavior.

"Theres so much happening in the Bravo universe. I will say this  so much talk about 'Vanderpump Rules' and then of course the reunion ended up airing last night," Cohen, 52, said on Wednesday's episode of his "Radio Andy" program on SiriusXM. "I will say this about what happened. I absolutely support Bravos decision, I think it was the right decision."

Cohen also noted that he's "not in charge of programming at Bravo anymore" and not an executive producer of "Vanderpump Rules."

"I dont have anything to do with the show except I love it and that I host the reunions. I dont produce the show, so what I want people to know is I have no say in hiring and firing," he said.

Kristen Doute's James Mae Launch Party (Phillip Faraone / Getty Images)

Earlier this week, Bravo announced that it had fired cast members Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute after learning the pair had called the police on co-star Faith Stowers for a crime she didn't commit. The network also announced that new cast members Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni won't return for season nine after past racist tweets of theirs were discovered in January.

OK! Magazine's Pre-Oscar Party In Support Of Global Gift Foundation - Arrivals (J. Countess / FilmMagic)

Stowers, 31, revealed in an Instagram Live chat earlier this month that Schroeder, 31, and Doute, 37, reported her to the police in 2018 after reading a Daily Mail article about a black woman who was allegedly drugging and robbing men in Hollywood.

"There was this article ... where there was an African American lady," Stowers said. "It was a weird photo, so she looked very light-skinned and had these different, weird tattoos. They showcased her, and I guess this woman was robbing people ... And they called the cops and said it was me. This is like, a true story. I heard this from actually Stassi during an interview."

After Stowers revealed what Schroeder and Doute had done to her, the pair apologized on Instagram.

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Schroeder wrote, in part, "What I did to Faith was wrong. I apologize and I do not expect forgiveness. I am also sorry to anyone else that feels disappointed in me. I am going to continue to look closer at myself and my actions  to take the time to listen, to learn, and to take accountability for my own privilege."

Schroeder has also been dropped by her agency, UTA, and her public relations firm, Metro Public Relations.

In her apology, Doute said her actions against Stowers were not "racially driven."

"Although, my actions were not racially driven, I am now completely aware of how my privilege blinded me from the reality of law enforcements treatment of the black community, and how dangerous my actions could have been to her," Doute wrote. "It was never my intention to add to the injustice and imbalance. I'm ashamed, embarrassed, and incredibly sorry. I will do better. I have to do better."

Hours after Bravo announced the firings, Stowers told Page Six she felt "vindicated" by the network's decision. "I feel so vindicated studios and production are able to see blatant racism and make these positive changes and help move the race forward  help with the fight forward," said the reality star.

"I was ready to put myself in the line of fire because I dont know what will happen if I dont say anything," she added, "but I'm glad I did."

Stowers noted that Bravo's decision was especially significant since Schroeder and Douter were two of the show's most popular stars. "Bravo is releasing women that have given them crazy ratings because they want to be on the right side of history," she said, "and I'm seeing (that) people are finally hearing us."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jun. 10

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

Three more lethal coronavirus cases were reported in Kazakhstan, bringing the total to 61, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstans Ministry of Healthcare.

Two of the cases were reported in countrys Turkestan region (men born in 1962, 1948), whereas one more case was reported in Pavlodar region (patient, born 1962).

The first two cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Kazakhstan among those who arrived in Almaty city from Germany on March 13, 2020.

The total number of coronavirus cases confirmed in Kazakhstan since the virus was first confirmed in the country amounted to 13,319 cases. This includes 8,015 people who recovered from the coronavirus, and 61 patients who passed away.

---

Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
Five Australian universities have nabbed a spot in the top 50 global rankings this year.

The Australian National University was again crowned the country's top institution, coming in tied at 31st.

The rankings come as inflows of international students  and especially Chinese students  are at risk, raising questions over the sustainability of current student fees and the research teams they pay.

Visit Business Insider Australia's homepage for more stories.

Australia's universities have again batted above their average, retaining their place in this year's global rankings.

Despite falling two places, the Australian National University (ANU) again took out Australia's top post, ranking 31st and tying with London's King College and Montreal's McGill University in the 2021 QS World University Rankings.

University of Sydney's hallowed halls improved by the same margin to rank 40th and just beat out the University of Melbourne at 41st.

Rounding out the top 50 was the University of New South Wales and the University of Queensland, placing 44th and 46th respectively. They were followed by Monash (55th), University of Western Australia (92nd), University of Adelaide (106th), UTS (133rd), and Wollongong (196th) in the top 200.

However, while the country's tertiary education sector might celebrate the plaudits, it comes at a difficult juncture for the universities themselves. Most excelled when it came to internationalism which in turn helped buoy their overall scores  but it now may be threatened as Chinese students are warned from attending Australian institutions.

If those students were to heed their government's warning it would threaten to turn off a $12 billion student fees tap, which has helped Australian universities, in turn, pump money into research and help institutions climb the rankings.

"While spending that money on research may make universities look good, it really does very little for the classroom experience," University of Sydney associate professor Salvatore Babones told Business Insider Australia.

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"The universities that have gone the whole hog on international students have marched up the research rankings by buying international research teams in areas of high impact research. It's nice for rankings but it doesn't really make any difference to your ability to educate students."

One metric that continues to be in decline is teacher-to-student ratios. Thirty-four of Australia's declined in this respect in the last 12 months according to the rankings. Instead, larger class sizes have been met with a string of staff and course cuts at universities around the country as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The University of Sydney cut close to 10% of its arts and social sciences courses in May, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. RMIT, La Trobe and Deakin University meanwhile laid off hundreds of "non-essential" staff, while hundreds more at Monash could soon follow.

It could see some of Australia's most prominent universities which depend on international students, struggle to maintain their strong rankings in coming years.

Elsewhere on the list MIT once again took out the number one spot for a record-breaking ninth year in a row, with Standford, Harvard, Caltech and Oxford rounding out the top five. The United States and the United Kingdom continued to dominate the rankings, collecting 43 of the top 100 spots between them.
The emergency authority provided to the executive branch in statute has for decades included a requirement for the governor to obtain Council of State concurrence on certain actions, including shuttering businesses around the state, Gunn said.

The spirit of requiring Council of State concurrence in this bill is the notion that one person should not have unilateral, unchecked power to close every establishment in all 100 counties without at least a basic check on that power.

Cooper officials have not respond when asked the governors viewpoint on the issue. Cooper has said he is willing to discuss executive orders with the council, but not allow it to oversee his decisions.

Cooper administration attorney Ashleigh Vargas told Charlotte TV station WBTV in an email that the governor and the secretary of DHHS have the authority to do this  issue Executive Order No. 118  under state public health and emergency powers law.

According to a June 1 report by WBTV, which obtained Council of State emails through a public records request, five GOP members said they were not given enough time to consider the food and beverage restrictions before Cooper issued the order.
With 266,598 cases, India has already overtaken Covid-19's alleged birthplace, China (around 83,040 patients), France (150,315), Turkey (170,132), Iran (171,789), Germany (184,193), Peru (191,758), Italy (234,998) and Spain (241,550) as on June 8.

India is now just an arm's length behind the UK current tally (total 286,198 cases), with Russia way ahead (476,658), preceded by Brazil (672,846) and the current coronavirus global headquarters, USA (1,915,712).

According to the Worldometer Covid-19 data for the past one week, the UK recorded 1,653 new cases (June 2) compared with Maharashtra's 2,287 on that day.

Similarly, on June 3, UK notched 1,871 more patients (Maharashtra 2,560), on June 4, UK 1,805 (2,933), June 5 UK 1,650 (2,436), June 6 UK 1,557 (2,739), June 7 UK 1,326 (3,007) and June 8 UK 1,205 cases (Maharashtra 2,553 patients).

Just nine days after the first confirmed cases in Maharashtra (March 9), Covid-19 claimed its first victim in Mumbai (March 17),

In three months, the virus has devoured 3,169 people in the state, including 1,702 in the country's commercial capital, with a dubious distinction of being "India's corona capital".

Since over the past fortnight, Maharashtra has been recording 75-plus fatalities, often shooting above 100, and new patients over 2K daily, with the previous single-day highest figure of 3,041 infections notched on May 24.

Despite climbing onto Covid-19 bandwagon belatedly -- India's first case was recorded on January 30 in Kerala, Maharashtra's first case came only on the 38th day, on March 9 -- but thereafter, this state quickly broke all records to grab the top slot in the country now.

In fact, for several days -- around April 10 -- the state had notched the highest "mortality rate" in the world, as per official figures, in terms of the number of the deaths per hundred infections, (IANS - April 14).

Due to a series of stringent measures and interventions, the state successfully tamed the virus by bringing down the death rate to 3.57 per cent -- but it is still much higher than India's mortality rate of 2.80 -- while the global average stands at 5.78 per cent, today.

What started innocuously in Pune on March 9, followed by Mumbai on March 10 and Nagpur the following day -- each city having an international airport -- the coronavirus pandemic has today spread to all 36 districts in the state.

From just two cases on March 9, a month later (April 9), Maharashtra had shot up to 1,364 patients and 97 deaths, then (May 9) zooming to 20,228 cases and 779 fatalities. A month later today, the state's patient tally is 88,528 (overtaking China) and deaths are 3,169, presenting a grim scenario.

As the number of patients and fatalities soar, hospitals, morgues, cemeteries or crematoria face a tough time coping with the Covid-19 rush.

There are nightmarish videos of bodies kept on beds next to patients in Sion Hospital, 2-3 patients crammed on a single bed, others lying on floors, instances of overburdened doctors or nurses reportedly abandoning their duty posts, leaving the patients at the mercy of the virus, or patients fleeing isolation centres.

Following an expose of one such incident by IANS (May 6), Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar rushed to the Sion Hospital and ordered a probe after which the Dean was shunted out.

The state government also cracked the whip by transferring the then BMC Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi, and effected a big shakeup in the civic administrative setup to combat Covid-19.

Mumbai Congress Vice-President V.P. Singh said that if India had acted in time by banning all international flights after the first positive case was detected in Kerala (January 30), the ongoing long lockdown could have been avoided.

"In the shutdown, only the poor, middle-class or migrants are suffering with little or no help from the authorities. The affluent classes stay cosy even during the shutdown, but the rest stare at grim prospects of their very survival post-lockdown," Singh told IANS.

The virus has spared none in the state -- commoners to Bollywood celebs and even two Cabinet Ministers -- as it gallops at full speed and the global scientific community trudges to develop basic vaccines or medicines.

There have been some silver linings, too, with a whopping 40,975 patients fully cured and the state notching an impressive 46.28 per cent recovery rate, and over 75K beds available as on date.

Simultaneously, a whopping 591,496 people are in home or institutional quarantine and there are 3,510 containment zones across the state, as the crucial monsoon challenge lurks round the corner.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)

--IANS

qn/prs






Haiti - FLASH : 1 confirmed case of Covid-19 every 7 minutes on average





The Ministry of Public Health informs that 124 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Haiti (the day before : 204), for a total of 3,662 cases throughout the national territory (40.5% of women and 59.5% of men) since the first case (March 19, 2020 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html ) .



2 new deaths have been reported in the West including 1 child under the age of 9 and 1 adult, bringing the national total to 56.



Active cases : (less death and recovery): 3,582 cases (+ 3.53%) +122 in 24 hours (the day before: +201)



Statistics :

On the last 3 reports including this one (614 cases) the average is 1 confirmed case of Covid-19 every 7 minutes.



Over the last 32 days (3,615 cases) the average is 1 case every 12 minutes.



Number of suspected cases investigated since March 19 : 7,619 cases +168 in 24 hours (the day before: +100)



All the details in our daily report of 11 am.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30985-haiti-covid-19-daily-report-june-9-2020.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30979-haiti-flash-nearly-500-new-cases-in-48-hours.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html



S/ HaitiLibre


















Any new Spike Lee movie is exciting because theyre always unpredictable. Not every ambitious idea works. Every once in a while you end up with a She Hate Me, but you never know when a BlacKkKlansman is right around the corner. Da 5 Bloods is neither extreme, but it is an exciting debut for the filmmaker as one of Netflixs acclaimed A-list directors. And its way better than Martin Scorseses Netflix movie, The Irishman.

Da 5 Bloods go back to Vietnam

Vietnam Veterans Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) and Eddie (Norm Lewis) return to Vietnam in present day. They want to find the body of their fifth Blood, Norman (Chadwick Boseman) and the military gold they stashed during their tour. They lost track of it when the area was napalmed, but recent mudslides uncovered one of their landmarks.

L-R: Jonathan Majors, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Norm Lewis, Clarke Peters, Delroy Lindo | David Lee/Netflix

The Treasure of Sierra Madre showed how the very objective of the mission complicates the return trip. That was three men, and this is four plus Pauls son David (Jonathan Majors). Add to that the black experience and Vietnam of yesterday and today and Da 5 Bloods has added many more flammable chemicals to the powderkeg.

Da 5 Bloods is no treasure hunt

Just being back in Vietnam brings some old issues back to the surface. Otis gets to visit the woman who bore his daughter after he left. An encounter with a street vendor reopens old wounds for Paul. They also see the Vietnamese people are still suffering decades after the occupation. Lee plays Flight of the Valkyries early in the film, as if hes reclaiming the composition from Apocalypse Now. Its not over a helicopter attack though.

They find the gold in a rather uncerimonious, anticlimactic way. Thats probably the point. Finding the gold is the least of their struggles, although it would have been nice if it were somewhat of a challenge. Lugging gold bars through the jungle is harder, but the jungle is full of other dangers for five old veterans. The audience may anticipate those dangers before the characters do, but there are still effective sequences where Lee builds the tension.

L-R: Isiah Whitlock, Jr,, Norm Lewis, Clarke Peters, Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors | David Lee/Netflix

Like Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the biggest challenge is each other, compounded when other interested parties cross their path and the five Bloods disagree with how to deal with them. Some encounters are more believable than others, but even the outlandish ones are provocative. The violence is super graphic, when it comes, really shoving it in your face.

The Spike Lee style

If the description sounds like a typical war heist like Three Kings or Triple Frontier, rest assured Da 5 Bloods is still a Spike Lee movie. Youll recognize Lees style, but he applies it to this specific context the way he makes every movie unique, yet of his body of work.

Lee bookends Da 5 Bloods with real life footage of the Vietnam War, protests, events like the Kent State shooting, historical figures speeches and other context. He frames this story with real events, showing that black soldiers fought in several U.S. wars. They were promised freedom that the U.S. never quite delivered.

L-R: Spike Lee, Clarke Peters, Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Norm Lewis | David Lee/Netflix

Even during the narrative, Lee will cut to a still photograph in the middle of a scene. Or a historic portrait. Or a Donald Trump rally, with Lees own graphics added. Lee doesnt hide how he feels. He only does one of his trademark dolly shots and saves it for the end, but its still there.

Da 5 Bloods on your screen three ways

Lee also plays with how youre going to see Da 5 Bloods on your TV. He shot the film in three different aspect ratios. The Vietnam War flashbacks are a 4:3 square in the center of your screen, like old television sets. The present day scenes begin as widescreen, clear digital cinematography with bars on the top and bottom to simulate a movie screen. Once the Bloods go hunting for the gold, it fills the whole 16 x 9 screen.

It is an effective technique that creates different feelings, different levels of comfort or discomfort, in concert with the performances on screen. You also always know when you are in the story thanks to the dimensions of the picture.

Da 5 Bloods | Netflix

Da 5 Bloods may get bogged down in some character tangents and some far fetched plot points even by the standards of an outrageous story. Lee just plows through them regardless and thats part of his power. Hes balancing messages, feelings and story, and will emphasize one over the others at any given point. It works because he means it each time.
Intimate hygiene has shed its effeminate overtones as the general level of personal hygiene has become prevalent. Men consider grooming an equally important exercise for maintaining an attractive and presentable image. Such changes in consumer perceptions are anticipated to elevate the men's intimate care products market to a higher pedestal in the future.

DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / June 10, 2020 / Gender roles have undergone a paradigm shift since the past several decades. As generations progress, existing notions about personal care and hygiene are transforming simultaneously. Masculinity is no longer confined to the idea of mere toughness or muscle building, in the same way as femininity is no longer confined to beautification or docility.

In the present era of environmental changes and elevated pollution levels, intimate hygiene is a top priority of all consumers, irrespective of one's gender. Lack of proper hygiene is a major cause of several skin ailments and fungal or other pathogenic infections. To avoid this, spending on intimate hygiene has increased.

As cultural norms undergo paradigm shifts, there is greater acceptance of men willing to invest in intimate hygiene products, especially among the millennial generation. While the shift is gradual, the long-run will see an increased number of men extensively utilizing personal care products.

While being tough is still lauded as the primary masculine attribute, being well groomed has surmounted this trend. Based on these factors, the global men's intimate products market shall register a double-digit CAGR over the forecast period from 2020 to 2030. However, manufacturing shortfalls occurring due to supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 may hinder growth prospects across the near-term.

"Tapping into the rapidly morphing gender perceptions, market players are leveraging their production by virtue of product innovations and extensive marketing strategies to attract potential male customers. This is significantly heightening revenue prospects and profit earning opportunities for these players," concludes an analyst at FMI.

Request a report sample with 300 pages to gain in-depth analysis about the market at https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-11621

Global Men's Intimate Care Products Market- Key Takeaways

Increasing emphasis on digital marketing is anticipated to bolster the men's intimate care products market, attributed to a large online customer base;

East Asia emerges as the kingpin in the men's intimate care products market, attributed to a strong market presence of prominent players in the region; South Asia shall emerge as a lucrative hub due to changing cultural perceptions;

Shaving care, wipes and creams/moisturizers are expected to sell like hot cakes, attributed to the fact that a majority of the men spend on skincare;

A CAGR of more than 10% is predicted for the men's intimate care products market during the forecast period.

Global Men's Intimate Care Products Market- Key Driving Factors

Market players are increasingly recruiting male celebrities to expand their product outreach to potential customers and stimulate greater demand.

Expenditure on innovative marketing strategies and awareness campaigns regarding the importance of maintaining intimate hygiene are leveraging the men's intimate care products market.

Specific male grooming clubs and salons are becoming commonplace, driving market demand for male cosmetics and skin care products.

Global Men's Intimate Care Products Market- Key Restraints

Although cultural perceptions have changed, several countries still frown upon on the idea of men's intimate care products owing to the prevalence of conservative notions of masculinity, restricting market penetration.

Limited shelf space for male care products due to limited production is hindering the growth prospects of men's intimate care products market.

Anticipated Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has leveraged the usage of personal hygiene products. This is in the wake of maintaining a clean, safe and sterile environment in order to contain the spread of the deadly pathogens. Basic hygienic practices such as hand washing and sanitizing and frequent bathing to remove any pathogens attached to the body have become commonplace.

This new awareness has also uplifted the demand for specific personal care products. Demand for products such as intimate wash for skin care, creams and moisturizers have registered an uptick throughout the duration of the pandemic. However, supply chain disruptions have generated shortfalls in the demand-supply equations as manufacturing units have been operating at reduced capacities, resulting in restricted output.

However, with several countries easing lockdown restrictions, factories are reverting to their normal capacity, bridging the demand-supply gap. Moreover, digital marketing has taken precedence over traditional marketing, allowing vendors to reach a wider customer base. Online shopping platforms such as Amazon and eBay have provided a hot bed for the sales of men's intimate care products.

Additionally, growing e-commerce platforms will provide a greater level of comfort while purchasing these products. Thus, while the short-run projections may stunt growth, the overall forecast for the men's intimate care products market is slated to remain positive in the future.

Explore the global men's intimate care products market report consisting of 181 illustrative figures, 112 data tables and the table of contents. You can also find a comprehensive market segment on https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-11621

Competition Landscape

The global men's intimate care products market is characterized by the presence of a plethora of vendors, making the market quite fragmented. Domestically, a host of new players are entering the market. Some prominent players include, but are not limited to L'Oreal S.A., Reckitt and Benckiser, Colgate Palmolive, Procter and Gamble, Church & Dwight, Godrej Industries, Coty Inc., and Natura & Co., among others. Product launches, celebrity endorsements, digital marketing, promotional activities and research & development provide firm foundations for a robust market presence. For instance, L'Oreal S.A. signed up the famous James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan as the company's male care products brand ambassador since 2008. Due to this, the market penetration of men care products has increased markedly.

Get Valuable Insights into Men's Intimate Care Products Market

Future Market Insights, in its new offering, provides an unbiased analysis of the global Men's Intimate Care Products market, presenting historical demand data (2015-2019) and forecast statistics for the period from 2020-2030. The study divulges compelling insights on the Men's Intimate Care Products market based on the product (washes, wipes, antiperspirants, creams/moisturizers, shaving care, and others), packaging (tubes, bottles, roll on, sticks, aerosol cans and others), nature (organic, and conventional), and sales channel (departmental stores, direct sales, online stores, mono brand stores, drug stores, convenience stores, others) across seven major regions.

About Retail & Consumer Products division of FMI

Expert analysis, in-depth insights, and strategic recommendations - the Retail & Consumer Products team at Future Market Insights helps clients from all over the globe with their unique business intelligence needs. With a repertoire of over 500+ reports, the team has analyzed the consumer goods industry lucidly in 80+ countries for over a decade. We provide end-to-end research database on retail & consumer products market and consulting services; reach out to explore how we can help.

About Future Market Insights (FMI)

Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading 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. FMI's latest market research reports and industry analysis help businesses navigate challenges and take critical decisions with confidence and clarity amidst breakneck competition. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. A team of expert-led analysts at FMI continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of industries to ensure that our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.

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View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593400/Changing-notions-of-Masculinity-Drives-Market-Growth-of-Mens-Intimate-Care-Products-to-Gain-Positive-Traction-throughout-the-Forecast-Period
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 02:30:34|Editor: huaxia

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Josep Borrell Fontelles, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, attends the 10th round of the China-EU high-level strategic dialogue via video link, in Brussels, Belgium, June 9, 2020. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday co-chaired the 10th round of the China-EU high-level strategic dialogue via video link with Josep Borrell Fontelles. (European Union/Handout via Xinhua)

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- During their 10th round of high-level strategic dialogue Tuesday, China and the European Union (EU) agreed to develop closer ties on a range of issues.

The dialogue, which was held via video link, was co-chaired by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Josep Borrell, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

With cooperation and consensus always greater than competition and differences, China and EU are long-term, comprehensive, strategic partners, said Wang, noting that both sides should take the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations as a new starting point for developing closer ties.

He called on the two sides to push forward relations in the post-pandemic era, promote high-level exchanges, and make good preparations for the China-EU summit and the China-EU leaders' meeting.

"We should jointly accelerate the resumption of work, maintain the stability of the supply chain and industrial chain, facilitate the exchange of experiences on public health and emergency management, make concerted efforts in research on vaccines and medicines, and boost cooperation with Africa in the fight against the pandemic," Wang said.

Emphasizing the importance of communication and coordination on macroeconomic policy, Wang called for openness in cooperation, and the completion of negotiations on bilateral investment agreements as scheduled.

He expressed his hope that both sides would consolidate their consensus on safeguarding multilateralism and strengthen cooperation under multilateral frameworks, including the UN.

Wang also reiterated the Chinese government's principles and stance on Hong Kong affairs.

For Borrell's part, he said EU has high expectations for its relations with China and will make efforts to ensure closer ties. Both EU and China are firm supporters of multilateralism, he said, and EU welcomes China's active participation in international cooperation.

The two sides also had an in-depth exchange of views on issues of common concern. Enditem
Former Wall Street Journal editor in chief and current editor at large for the publication, Gerard Baker, was reassigned to the opinion section Tuesday after complaints from other staff members over his columns

A former editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal has been reassigned after complaints from staff regarding a column in which he alleged that black people commit the most hate crimes.

A letter of complaint from staff members was sent to newsroom leaders on Monday, the New York Times reports, citing the column and the social media activity of Gerard Baker, who has worked as an editor at large at The Journal since he left the top job in 2018.

The letter, sent from the union representing the Wall Street Journal employees, claimed that Baker had broken the social media policy for employees working in the news section.

He has now been reassigned to the opinion section where social media activity is not under the same stringent set of rules.

The board of the Independent Association of Publishers Employees sent the letter Monday to the Wall Street Journals current editor in chief Matt Murray and its new publisher Almar Latour.

It singled out a May 15 column by Baker entitled 'The Often Distorted Reality of Hate Crime in America' which it said did not align with the standards meant to be maintained by those working in the news section of the company.

The column outlines the death of unarmed black jogger Ahmaud Arbery who was shot and killed by two white men in Georgia in February.

Gerard Baker, pictured, was classified as a member of the news department at the publication which angered other staff in the section who believed he was not upholding standards

Arberys death had sparked outrage as the two men were not arrested or charged with his death until a video of the killing emerged months later.

Baker compared Arberys death to the killing of an elderly white couple by a black man in May and criticized the lack of media attention it was given.

He continued to allege that black people are more likely to be the perpetrators of hate crimes than white people.

The letter from the I.A.P.E criticized Bakers argument and claimed that the only proof he gave for the claim were his own calculations.

According to the New York Times, the complaint letter read that the column in question 'posits the highly controversial argument that black people commit more hate crimes than white people' and the to '"prove" that he uses only his own single weighted statistical calculation, with no attribution or context from experts either to support the idea or provide contrary views'.

The letter added that staff expect Baker to be held to the same standards as other members of the news section.

Baker had remained classified as a member of the news department since his move to editor at large despite expressing opinion in his weekly column.

The Wall Street Journal said in a statement to the New York Times that reassigning Baker was already being discussed before Mondays letter of complaint.

'Conversations about Gerrys move to Opinion have been underway for some time,' a spokeswoman said.

'His new, expanded role will include podcasts and other projects.'

Within the complaint from staff members, Gerard Baker's social media use was also cited

He is now a member of the opinion staff and will work under editorial page editor, Paul A. Gigot.

Here, he will not have to abide by the same rules as the newsroom and will be given more leeway with his social media posting.

Baker worked as the Wall street Journals editor in chief for five-and-a-half years before moving on to become a weekly columnist and working as editor at large.

During his time in the top role, the paper was involved in breaking information on payments allegedly made by President Donald Trump to women who had sexual relations with him.

His tenure as editor in chief was not without its own controversy, however, after he accused his staff of adding commentary to their reporting on Trump.

Staff pushed back and the tension resulted in dozens leaving for other publications.

Bakers reassignment comes days after the resignation of James Bennet, 54, the former editorial page editor at the New York Times.

Baker's reassignment comes after the resignation of former editorial page editor at the New York Times James Bennet (pictured left) and The Philadelphia Inquirer's top editor Stan Wischnowski (pictured right) after uproar over content published about George Floyd protests

He left after staff were angered with him over the publication of an op-ed calling on the use of the military to disband George Floyd protests from Senator Tom Cotton.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's top editor also resigned on Saturday after an uproar over a headline lamenting damage to businesses amid turbulent protests denouncing police brutality against people of color.

The newspaper announced that Stan Wischnowski, 58, was stepping down as senior vice president and executive editor.

The Inquirer had apologized for a 'horribly wrong' decision to use the headline, 'Buildings Matter, Too,' on a column about looting and vandalism on the margins of protests of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer.
What will post-pandemic states across the planet look like? Arundhati Roy, one of the few voices of reason during these disquieting times, has argued that the coronavirus pandemic is a portal, a gateway into a different world where much of what we have come to take for granted about the nation/state may soon be radically altered. If such a prediction is to prove prophetic, then the transformation of countries is likely to be shaped by the emergence of the digital republic, a place where the internet is all-encompassing, where everything that needs to happen for a society to function effectively, happens online.

Notwithstanding the enormous infiltration of the internet into so many of our daily lives over the last decade or so, the digital framework of apps and websites still needs supplementing by its counterparts in the physical realm in order for all of us to get on with life. The lack of integrated online services in key sectors like education, healthcare, and finance (to name a few) along with the presence of the digital divide means that the internet is far from being a self-sufficient instrument of modern existence, be it in the West or in the Global South. No matter how much time we spend scrolling through Instagram or hosting a Zoom party, we still cannot afford to live online.

Towards a fully digital republic

Owing to COVID-19, all of that may be set to change. A digital existence may no longer be limited to virtual socialisation and a handful of transactions and registrations, for in the age of social distancing, the nation-state could become entirely digital, or at least kick-start a movement towards a more comprehensive digital setup.

Interestingly, in order for such a transition to take place, we do not have to create an abstract ideal of a digital utopia, for a near-perfect model already exists. Situated on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe is Estonia, which has, since gaining independence from the erstwhile USSR in 1991, become the worlds first (and till date only) digital republic.

Having recorded less than a hundred deaths from the coronavirus, Estonia started to ease down its lockdown measures in May, opening alongside neighbouring Lithuania and Latvia the first travel bubble within the European Union. While such changes have been welcomed by Estonians, they do not represent a full-fledged resumption of normality, because of the simple reason that normality was never disturbed significantly in Estonia in the first place, thanks to its remarkable digital synergy.

On March 13, the Estonian government announced a state of emergency on account of COVID-19. In a matter of hours, a hackathon was unleashed across the country as expert units embarked on a mission to tackle all pandemic related issues within a matter of 48 hours, all online. Such an initiative was feasible since 99 per cent of all government services can already be availed digitally in Estonia, which was the first country to hold elections over the web in 2014.

In the last parliamentary polls conducted in March 2019, 44 per cent of Estonians cast their votes online. According to the governments estimates, Estonias fully integrated digital system saves more than 800 hours of working time annually. From doctors appointments to passport renewal, from grocery shopping to tax payments, each component of civil society has been digitised. This means that, technically speaking, Estonians need to step out of the comfort of their homes only in three cases- to marry, divorce, or purchase and sell real estate.

How Estonia got it right

All the above systems work seamlessly courtesy the unique electronic IDs allocated to each citizen and the presence of digital signatures for authentication, which have become legally binding since 2002.

The fundamental question at this stage is if all online activity is routed through a single ID, how does Estonia ensure cyber security and prevent the misuse of digital data? The solution lies in two plain yet powerful mechanisms.

The first is the once only principle that mandates that only one governmental department has access to one kind of data. For example, Estonian addresses are recorded only in the population register, which means that any other authority wanting to obtain these addresses must resort to the register. Decentralisation of information provides a massive safeguard against hacking and tech-terrorism as it does not allow the perpetrators of cyber crime to unlock multiple conduits of data in one fell swoop.

The second aspect involves something known as digital by default, wherein all information entered on paper is converted into a digital format to offer better protection. This facilitates the maintenance of digital logs through which one can find out who has accessed ones digital profiles. Such transparency goes a long way in addressing the imbalances of power that usually play out between the state and its people or between those at opposite ends of the social pyramid.

Replicating the Estonian approach

But can other countries replicate Estonias digital infrastructure without hiccups? The simplistic answer is no, for most nations have a panoply of problems, ranging from socio-economic fault lines to administrative reluctance to a lack of public consensus regarding the digital domain, issues that did not significantly perturb a largely homogeneous Estonia.

For example, the Estonian plan of digital immunity passports (likely to be underway soon) as a form of screening against the pandemic has already provoked widespread criticism in the United Kingdom, while contact tracing applications for the coronavirus like Indias Aarogya Setu have proved hackable and subject to grave privacy concerns.

The key to tackling such hurdles is not to abandon the digital possibilities altogether, but to cultivate trust through responsible policy-making, to make public officials and the common man E-literate, and to incorporate discussions on digital issues in every sphere of society, something Estonia has been able to do with aplomb.

However, it is vital to remember that even in Estonia, the digital makeover was not an overnight success. The ambitious digitisation blueprint was drawn up originally in 1994, and it was not until five years later that the first fruits of that endeavour were realised. The move to the internet in Estonia was primarily motivated by a dearth of resources and a desire to curb spending, both of which are strong incentives at present for various national governments to usher in a digital revolution.

Challenges ahead

While no uniform predictions can be made about the post-pandemic digital republic, it is certain that the internet will prove to be a game-changer in whatever new order emerges from the current chaos. Journalist and author Naomi Klein has already highlighted the insidious possibilities underpinning such a digital order through her dissection of the no-touch technology that New York bodies and tech giants like Google are intending to create in the form of a Screen New Deal that Klein believes could bring every single service to the fingertips (quite literally) of those New Yorkers who can afford it, even as the suffering of the blue-collar precariat  toiling away in ruthless environments like Amazons warehouses  is made invisible.

In another grim prognosis of a digital future, historian Yuval Noah Harari has forecasted how everything from our blood pressure to our intuitive responses to politicians can form a part of state surveillance through futuristic technology capable of getting under our skin in more ways than one.

In light of such concerns, it becomes incumbent on governments across the globe to ensure that the digital facilities that are introduced or enhanced in the wake of the novel circumstances are not only efficient and user-friendly, but also inclusive, with the data distributed among independent authorities instead of a singular administration.

Replicating the Estonian model should not merely consist of adopting the right tools that have heralded the worlds first digital republic, but also involve the right temperament that is required to guarantee that the digital portal of tomorrow will not exploit or disconnect those that have already been compromised through decades of iniquitous life offline.

(Priyam Marik is a freelance journalist writing on politics, culture, and sport. He is also a published poet who can be found sampling new cuisines, debating and cheering for FC Barcelona when he's not writing)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the authors own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.
A number of entities are working together to assess the soil and sediment deposits along the areas riverbanks to understand the environmental impacts of a record-breaking flood.

The entities include Dow, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE).

A heavy rain event that began Monday, May 18, caused heavy flooding and multiple dam failures upstream from the 1,900-acre Dow plant in Midland, which is located just north of the Tittabawassee River. In 2012, work began on a Superfund Site, which was established by the EPA to monitor and cleanup the environment from decades of historical industrial practices that resulted in contamination.

Now, newly deposited sediment is being removed from hard surfaces in public parks and boat launches, and EGLE and Dow have taken samples of deposited sediment along the Tittabawassee River. Samples will continue to be taken as water levels recede in the Saginaw River.

Al Taylor, manager of the hazardous waste section in the materials waste management division of EGLE, said during the coronavirus pandemic, things tend to take longer, but EGLE paid for expedited sample analysis, and they expect to see those results in about two weeks. As a regulatory body, they will verify the sample results taken by Dow as well.

Mary Logan, remedial project manager, said the EPA is relying on Dow and EGLE to take samples and report back to the agency. She said typically, the results of testing done at the Superfund Site are made publicly available through high level summaries.

During this most recent flood, one of Dows brine ponds was found to have mixed with flood waters at the Dow Michigan Operations Industrial Park, but the company reported there was no product releases. The EPA stated, based on testing and assessments conducted by Dow, the flooding caused only minor environmental impacts.

Based on kind of some initial reports by Dow, (which have) yet to be verified by the agencies, it seems like the banks that were stabilized performed very well, Taylor said. But again, we have a regulatory role and weve got to verify that ourselves. Dows going to provide the information and were going to be out looking at those bank ourselves.

Testing will show whether the newly agitated sediments contain toxic chemicals like cancer-causing dioxins or furans known to be in the area, as well as household toxins like heavy metals, herbicides, pesticides, and the concentration of those.

We were getting flooding in peoples houses, garages, barns, businesses, junk yards and things like that ... untreated wastewaters  all of that is a potential contamination threat, Taylor said.

However, as Logan stated, the Superfund Program is set up to only address site-related contaminants.

So, if a contaminant came from something that was not the Dow plant or the dioxins, we would have to look at what other legal authorities we have if we need to take any kind of actions on those, she said.

To put the data together to get a full picture of how the environment in the area was affected, and where toxins might have been redistributed, Logan said it will take a couple months.

Just as the industrial contamination took place over many years, so will the cleanup, Taylor added.

Taylor said though this flood event was extreme and will likely require additional monitoring, he noted its just another piece in the cleanup story as site remediation has taken place in the Great Lakes Bay Region for years as part of the Superfund Program.

Dow does not get to walk away from these banks these stabilized banks  these are always going to require maintenance and monitoring to ensure that they stay in place. Taylor said. And ensure that the banks that have dioxins in them that havent been stabilized because theyre currently stable, they can become unstable in the future. Rivers tend to move, I mean thats what they do. So, this is a long-term commitment for everybody.

According to the EPA, the off-site contamination extends more than 50 miles downstream from Dows plant through both the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers. The EPA has the lead role on these cleanup projects, however EGLE does a lot of the sampling and oversight work and offers technical support and feedback to EPA. Dow is required to conduct sampling and remediation efforts and report back to the agencies.

As part of the program, contaminated soil in riverbanks or in the floodplain, including on residential properties, is either capped with clean soil or removed and replaced with clean soil. To track the progress of this work and determine whether remediation efforts are effective, annual or biannual sediment monitoring, fish monitoring and bank stabilization assessment occurs after spring flooding in the same spots every year.

Taylor said its important to take samples from the same locations each year, however, some of those locations are still under water and so sampling will continue as water recedes and those sites become accessible.

Nature doesnt always cooperate, he said.

Normally a two-person job, due to the pandemic, EGLE has one person taking incremental composite sampling in Midland right now.

As for what sample results will show, Taylor said its possible that chemical concentrations in the areas soil could have increased or decreased, since the flood came from upstream of the Dow Superfund Site. He said if enough clean sediment mixed with contaminated sediments then the concentrations would be diluted. However, just as possible, Taylor said previously stable riverbanks could have been eroded, releasing contaminants downstream.

We probably may have been set back a little bit by this, but were also going to learn from it and if necessary, (put a) more robust system in place, Taylor said.

Logan said shes heard concerns about whether contaminated soil on properties has been exposed but because most of it had been taken away and replaced, its more a question of what got newly deposited.

Though testing efforts are underway, and Dows preliminary reports dont show any immediate concerns, local environmental advocate groups are concerned about the integrity of the Superfund Site. In a recent announcement, a group of signatories such as the Lone Tree Council and The Ecology Center called for transparent and aggressive action to identify safety threats and relay them to Mid-Michigan residents.
Follow your passions, wherever they may be

James Dumay talks about his experience founding his own gin distillery, making his mark on the Australian craft gin market, and his work with drinks design specialist Denomination

James Dumay Wildspirit Distilling Co.

James Dumay isnt new to the drinks trade. His family has a long connection to the hospitality industry and in 2011 they founded Dad & Daves Brewing, an independently owned and operated family craft beer business. In 2019, having started experimenting with gin infusions a few years prior, James founded Wildspirit Distilling Co. The distillery focuses on innovative flavour combinations as well as promoting the craft of gin, and this is where Jamess desire to experiment and push boundaries really came into its own. Here he talks about his experience founding Wildspirit.

You and your family have considerable experience when it comes to making great craft beer. What made you pivot from brewing beer to distilling gin?

We havent pivoted  we now make both craft beer and spirits! My brother Dave started the Dad & Daves brewery back in 2011, and I joined the business last year to develop Wildspirit after 15 years in high technology. Over the past ten years, Ive had a deepening love affair with gin, amaro, cocktails and wine. Creating my own unique spirits didnt seem out of range of my abilities, so I thought Id give it a go. It made a lot of sense to setup with my brother: his production knowledge is incredible, and he already had premises, licensing, suppliers and customers.

Has it been a challenge finding your place in the industry, especially at a time when the craft gin market is beginning to look a little crowded?

Its been a rocky 12 months for distilleries and breweries in Australia. Last year we had terrible bushfires sweeping our nation. Our countryside, cities, beaches, and homes were in a cloud of smoke, with ash falling from the sky from fires hundreds of miles away. Then came destructive floods, and now a pandemic. Declining tourism, rock-bottom consumer confidence and a complete economic shutdown has been the biggest leftfield challenge for us all so far. As I tell Dave, survival is a competitive advantage.

We get a lot of cut-through with customers because we have a brand, packaging and product that stands out on shelf and easily piques peoples interest. Youve got a split second as the customer looks at the shelf, picks a bottle and takes a look at the label. Being that bottle is what makes branding and packaging design so important.

The other challenge is consumer awareness of the Australian craft spirit category. Less than 1% of all spirits consumed in Australia are Australian-made. Think about it this way: growing consumption to an achievable 2% doubles the market for all producers. The more we can do together as industry partners to increase consumption of the category, the more room there is for producers to operate.

From a competition point of view in craft spirits, you should be worried about international players like Pernod Ricard, not Four Pillars or the micro distillery down the street. Youre in the same boat.

How did your relationship with drinks design specialist Denomination help you find your place and cut through in such a competitive market?

As a complete newbie to the spirits industry, I was looking for an agency that could make our product stand out and navigate the increasingly complex market psychology of craft spirits. I began my search and found Denominations portfolio, which was full of recognisable brands that Ive consumed for years, or had left a positive impression on me when I was in the liquor store. I wanted that same magic for Wildspirit.

Working with Rowena Curlewis [Denomination CEO] and her team was incredibly fun and a massive learning experience. Everything from the first brief, naming the distillery, early design work, and project delivery was extremely professional. The thing that impressed me the most is how they pushed me on things they believed in and didnt cave when I pushed back. I have an incredible amount of respect for when an agency says they believe in something and they are brave enough to explain to me how Ive got it wrong. And they were right: weve won two packaging awards for Bloody Merry Gin, the first being at the Australian Gin Awards in 2019 for Best Bottle in Show, and the second was a silver medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2020. This is an agency you can trust with your brand and have them come back with a brilliant result.

When you first started making your own gin infusions, what sort of flavours did you come up with? Anything that should be avoided at all costs?

Ooh, thats a tricky one. I think my biggest mistake was not realising just how much flavour could be packed into a single gram of a botanical. Id make all these overpowered  and undrinkable  infusions until I worked out a magic ratio. Most distillers have these, and they are highly kept trade secrets. You sort of have to earn your wings figuring out what works and what doesnt on your own. I think anise or liquorice flavours are really tricky. They tend to overwhelm the entire palate if you are not careful. Infusions are often like that, dial down one flavour and it allows other softer, more delicate flavours to take more of the front stage. Our Unpeeled Mandarin gin uses a small amount of anise myrtle [a liquorice-flavoured leaf native to Australia] and needed to be offset by sweetness and spice to get the balance right. My advice to new distillers: you probably need less than half of what you think you should use.

Wildspirit describes itself as delectably unexpected; what makes your company different to other distilleries?

Its flavour you can taste, through your tonic or cocktail, that makes the difference. Thats not to say our flavours are overpowering, but I really want the everyday person drinking our spirit to be able to taste what we use to flavour the spirit. Distillers will often produce something that tastes fantastic as a straight spirit but gets completely drowned out when you start mixing it. And thats exactly how 99% of your customers are going to drink it and what we design for. I usually start thinking about how I want it mixed and work backwards from there. You end up with something that tastes fantastic mixed or on its own and a drink thats going to keep your customer coming back for more.

How has the brand strategy helped your business in terms of expansion and new flavour profiles?

We were very careful to ensure that we were not creating a design for a bottle, but a brand we can use across a range of products, and that it had to be markedly different from our Dad & Daves craft beer brand. Craft beer and spirits are a bit like oil and water in some respects: different customers, drinking occasions, and preconceptions about skill and effort to produce. Use of line drawings on white, with splashes of colour representing a flavour or primary botanical, really sets us apart from other brands who often use a tried and tested English spirit style design. We have a consistent design system that is uniquely ours.

Can you tell us a bit about what Wildspirit is working on at the moment? Can we expect any new expressions soon?

Were working on a seasonal citrus gin range called Unpeeled, which Im really excited about. Its a limited release, with only a few hundred bottles per release, and its online only. Australia is incredibly blessed to have such a great growing range for citrus, and famers are growing some incredible native varieties, such as red desert and finger limes, and some fantastically rare foreign fruit such as yuzu, sudachi, calamansi and rangpur lime. Our Unpeeled Yuzu Gin has just been released and it uses botanicals I havent worked with before. I love it so much.

The hard seltzer category is huge in the United States and there is anticipation of it being the next big thing in Australia this year. This is why weve released our own range we call Wildspirit Alcoholic Sparkling Water in four flavors: Magic Mango, Luscious Lime, Pure Passion and Royal Raspberry. Each can is one standard drink and less than 90 calories, which is perfect for those looking for responsible refreshment where its easy to count calories and alcohol intake. Weve made the profile of these drinks quite dry, rather than sweet, which runs contrary to the ready-to-drink category as a whole, and makes the product very easy to drink. The word seltzer isnt well known in Australia, but flavoured sparkling water is a well-known consumer category already, and we find that this helps consumers get the concept quicker. And so far, they love it. Its going to be a fun summer!

What would you be doing now if youd never ventured into the gin industry; was there another career waiting in the wings?

Id probably still be living in perpetual jetlag flying between Sydney and San Francisco, spending my days in video conferences and moving little project management cards across the screen. Dont get me wrong  it has its benefits!

I think if I wasnt producing alcohol, Id love to go back to school and learn product design. Why have one career, one passion in your life, when you could have two, three or four? My advice to anyone is to stretch yourself, follow your passions wherever they may be. With hard work and making the right professional connections and friendships, anything is possible.

For more information, visit Wildspirit's website.

10 June 2020
Local oil and gas producer California Resources Corp. this week sounded its most urgent alarm yet that the company might not survive the COVID
NEW YORK, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Photocatalyst market is forecast to reach USD 5.23 Billion by 2027, according to a new report by Reports and Data. The growing demand for photocatalysts as a self-cleaning material in the construction industry due to their low maintenance cost is expected to stimulate growth.

Currently, the industry is in its infancy, with few manufacturers. Japan is expected to lead the industry due to the rapid adoption of technology. Besides, the high R&D investments linked to the product, coupled with several patents by Japanese researchers, are key factors contributing to the steady growth. The industry was dominated by TiO2 (Titanium dioxide) photocatalysts due to early research on this product. However, manufacturing sector initiatives to develop innovative photocatalyst materials using zinc oxide (ZnO) and cadmium sulfide (CdS) are likely to replace the existing material and result in the market growth over the forecast period.

Request free sample of this research report at: https://www.reportsanddata.com/sample-enquiry-form/3180

The product can break down organic compounds, making them suitable for air purification and water treatment applications. Also, in building and construction, technology, thanks to its self-cleaning mechanism, acts as a barrier against dust and stains, which should propel growth over the next eight years. A high initial investment in commercial photocatalyst manufacturing coupled with proprietary technology over existing technology by manufacturers and researchers, should be the main barriers for new entrants. However, a vast scope in R&D for the development of innovative technologies should force new players to invest in the business.

The COVID-19 impact:

Increasing consumer needs for air and water purification due to growing awareness towards hygiene because of COVID-19 are going to propel demand soon. But supply chain disruptions and production shutdowns have resulted in a downgraded outlook for the Self-Cleaning in the construction industry segment, which is a significant market for Photocatalyst application, which will have short-term impacts on market sales that could have lasting effects. While the industry expects things to return to near normal state well before the end of 2020, negative demand shock caused by the crisis is likely to last.

To identify the key trends in the industry, click on the link below: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/photocatalyst-market

Further key findings from the report suggest

Titanium dioxide has accounted for over 47.2% of world demand as the compound is inexpensive and has high chemical stability due to which it is a preferred material as a photocatalyst in several application industries.

The self-cleaning application has dominated the photocatalyst market and is expected to be the fastest-growing application, accounting for 57.5% of total demand in 2019 due to its superior property, including the removal of unwanted plants.

Demand in Europe was estimated at USD 0.37 billion in 2019 and is anticipated to witness significant growth over the forecast period due to the economic recovery and growth of the building and construction sector in the region.

was estimated at in 2019 and is anticipated to witness significant growth over the forecast period due to the economic recovery and growth of the building and construction sector in the region. Europe is a large consumer of photocatalysts. Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are relatively secondary markets; however, these regions offer lucrative opportunities in the photocatalyst market.

is a large consumer of photocatalysts. and the and are relatively secondary markets; however, these regions offer lucrative opportunities in the photocatalyst market. Photocatalysts, including zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, can provide security against air pollutants such as formaldehyde, VOCs, microbes, and ammonia. Besides, the applications of these photocatalysts are available for components such as air filters, air conditioning, and ventilation.

Oxides sharing a band gap and similar chemical and physical properties can be used as photocatalysts. According to the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, oxides such as Bi2WO6, Fe2O3, WO3, and Nb2O5 can be used as photocatalysts. However, currently, it is in the research phase.

Key participants include TOTO Corporation, JSR Corporation, Showa Denko K.K., Kronos Worldwide, Inc., Ishihara Sangyo Kaisha , Ltd., BASF SE, CRISTAL, Green Millennium, Nanoptek Corp., and TiPE, among others.

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For the purpose of this report, Reports and Data have segmented into the global Photocatalyst market on the basis of Type, Form, Application, and Region:

Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Titanium Oxide

Zinc Oxide

Tin Oxide

Cerium Oxide

Form Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Powder

Solution

Granules

Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Self-Cleaning

Air Purification

Water Purification

Others

Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

North America

U.S

Europe

U.K



France

Asia Pacific

China



India



Japan

MEA

Latin America

Brazil

Browse more similar reports on Catalysts and Enzymes category by Reports And Data





Industrial Catalyst Market: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/industrial-catalyst-market

https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/industrial-catalyst-market Phase Transfer Catalyst Market: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/phase-transfer-catalyst-market



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Children in a displaced persons camp in Yemen's western province of Hodeida. UN chief Antonio Guterres warns that hundreds of millions of people face extreme hunger in the wake of the coronavirus. (AFP/Khaled ZIAD)

"Our food systems are failing, and the COVID-19 pandemic is making things worse," the UN chief said in a statement accompanying a report by the world body.

"More than 820 million people are hungry," he said. "Some 144 million children under the age of five are stunted - more than one in five children worldwide."

He warned that "this year, some 49 million extra people may fall into extreme poverty due to the COVID-19 crisis.

"The number of people who are acutely food or nutrition insecure will rapidly expand," he said.

"Unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that there is an impending global food emergency that could have long term impacts on hundreds of millions of children and adults."

Guterres called for better protection for workers in the food sector, for humanitarian aid deliveries to be safeguarded and for support for food producers and distributors to avoid interruptions to the supply chain.

He also wanted more emphasis placed on nutritional programs, including aid to children who lack access to school meals.

The UN chief said it was possible to develop healthy and nutritional food to help eradicate world hunger.

In April, the UN raised the alarm about a potential explosion in the number of people at severe risk of hunger because of the coronavirus pandemic.
PASADENA, Calif., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pasadena Police Officers Association (PPOA) express their condolences to the family of Mr. George Floyd and send their strong condemnation on how he was killed while in Police Custody for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The PPOA is grateful and thankful to all in the Pasadena community for their outpouring of continued support and for the mostly peaceful, non-violent demonstrations. The Pasadena Police Officers Association have worked hard for over seven years to enhance community and race relations in addition to much more.

"The PPOA has worked collaboratively with the City Staff, Police Department, City leaders and others to do our part: time and time again whether it was to play a role reorganizing the department or continue to train our Police Officers to lead as the best in L.A. County, our State and Country we are working constantly on positive improvements and change," said Roger Roldan, President of the Pasadena Police Officers Association. "From focusing on de-escalation, looking for alternatives to reduce the use of deadly force, increasing verbal and interpersonal skills, developing or using methods to be able to, at times, use non-lethal techniques or de-escalation when encountering weapons and dangerous calls for service: by employing wrestling and ground techniques  Pasadena Police lead with that and more," said Roldan a decorated Sergeant with 23 years of service as a police officer with the Pasadena Police Department and a proud, honorably discharged Marine Corps Veteran (1989 to 1993) of Latino descent.

"We are not Minneapolis and proud of the work we do day in and day out to support our community and all who live, work and visit here," said David Llanes, a decorated 27-year police veteran, 24 years with the Pasadena Police Department who is a proud Officer of Asian Pacific Islander (API) descent.

"The Pasadena Police strongly support the community, their elected leaders and the excellent working relationship we have with Chief of Police John Perez and City Manager Steve Mermell," said Sam De Sylva, a decorated Police Sergeant 19 years of career service with the department who is a proud Sri Lankan member of the Indian American Community. "We are a highly diverse, motivated, well trained and supported police association and force with overall (sworn and non-sworn) 30.73% females, 43.94% Hispanic, 12.13% African American, 8.36% Asian and more," said De Sylva.

"The public needs to know we are imperfect humans and have to make split-second decisions. Sometimes errors occur, but that is different than willful misconduct or actions that are illegal, immoral, violate department policy or go against our training and sworn oath to protect and serve," said Llanes.

"The strong and immense bond peace officers/first-responders have with each other as do other close-quarter working professions goes both ways," said Maclaurin "Mac" Adesina, a decorated Corporal with 21 years in law enforcement, 15 years with the Pasadena Police Department and proud member of the African-American community. "Our strong desire to do a superlative job on duty -- then safely, healthy each day with minimal physical and mental injuries go home to our loving families is also balanced with the fact we just don't stick up for other peace officers during life-threatening calls for service [with people who knowingly or unknowingly want to harm the public and/or us]: we expect each and every one of our brother and sister Peace Officers to do it better and cleaner than any other profession or department. When one does it wrong or poorly we all look bad. We believe in accountability both ways and expect leaders to lead," further said Adesina.

Last year the PPOA and Chief Perez reviewed the excellent efforts the Chief, City Manager, PPOA and department put forth:

From the Chief's Advisory Board (made up of many community advocates, ACLU, Churches, and NAACP);

The PPOA feeding the community through local charities and volunteering with Harvest Ministries to deliver hot meals to our seniors, during the pandemic.

Engaging and supporting community leaders.

Releasing critical incident BWC video.

The PPOA Law Enforcement Consultant Peter Mitchell and Performa Labs (a Cie company) launched a pilot program with the PPOA and PPD: to lend real-world expertise in creating a technology-based training tool focused on de-escalation, keeping in mind the safety of the Community and Officers as the highest priorities.

(a company) launched a pilot program with the PPOA and PPD: to lend real-world expertise in creating a technology-based training tool focused on de-escalation, keeping in mind the safety of the Community and Officers as the highest priorities. Internal training, de-escalation.

Community engagement beyond most other police agencies .

Constantly exceeding state law and most police departments' training curriculum and expectations.

Using daily de-escalation efforts at a time when a large number of weapons are being taken off the streets. As an example, more guns were taken off the streets during a certain month than days in the month -- however, that doesn't exclude us from being accountable for our actions and our policing culture.

Having internal discussion, ongoing training, and teaching our sworn officers the value of respect through de-escalation so we are achieving much, but that is never enough -- officers are taught in the department to intervene to stop bad conduct and to report it. We have more to do, more to accomplish.

The department mindset must be in line with the community so our goals on crime, safety, and the fear of crime, are the same and not opposite. The outcome has been positive with a 50% decline in use of force, increase in implicit bias and communication training, and a 70% drop in the use of a certain type of force techniques. This is not enough but we are continuing our efforts.

Having a BWC video program for three years and we regularly release video as well as use it to train all personnel for review. We provide implicit bias training and closely screen our recruits as well as try and ensure they come from our local neighborhoods.

"During these incredible troubling and dangerous times we wanted to let you the public know what we thought of the tragedy of Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis plus lending our voice to what we have done for the past, current and future improvements in Pasadena," said Roger Roldan, PPOA President. "We stand strongly by our excellent working relationship and valued city leaders such as the City Manager Steve Mermell, Chief of Police John Perez, some other City Employees and our City Council. We have a world-class City Council with thanks to all of them for their service. We close with special thanks for years working with our leaders: Victor Gordo, Gene Masuda, Steve Madison, Andy Wilson. Also on the Public Safety Committee with thanks to John Kennedy, Tyron Hampton and Terry Tornek. To incoming Councilmember Felicia Williams. Sending thanks to retiring Councilmember Margaret McAustin for her service.

https://pasadenapoa.com/ . The public is asked to please like, share on the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ThePPOA/ . Charitable Donations may be sent to: http://pasadenapoa.com/donate



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In the 1970s, David Dukethe suit-wearing grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klanwas looking to make white supremacy mainstream. As Duke fashioned his own movement, he took notice of the fight for black equality, a crusade he considered offensive but highly effective. He wanted to sell the idea that white nationalism was an equal and opposite force to the push for black civil rights.

In September 1977, a Chicago television host named Steve Edwards gave him the opportunity to make that case in an hourlong televised debate. Dukes opponent was Jesse Jackson, a man widely seen as Americas most influential black leader.

Jackson and Duke went back-and-forth in an increasingly hostile fashion. But no matter who said what, the broadcast was a triumph for Duke. He was being presented as a spokesman for white America, someone whose ideas were worth batting around. Jackson, meanwhile, didnt need this platform. But as he explained to Edwards, he had his reasons for going on TV with a blow-dried bigot. Listen to a portion of the debate, and Jacksons rationale for doing it, below.

Their fears can be played upon by demagogues. Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio. Here is a link to the audio instead. Play Pause Loading...

You can listen to rest of Episode 2 by subscribing to Slate Plus.
Apple is expected to launch a trade-in program for Mac at retail stores in the U.S. and Canada. Customers will be able to trade-in their Macs at the retail store and get credit for a new purchase.

Customers will be able to trade-in Mac starting from June 15th in the United States and June 18th in Canada. Apple has been offering iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch trade-in at stores from quiet some time. Earlier, customers had to use Apples website to trade in their Mac. In this case, customers had to ship their Mac to Apple and once approved they would receive a gift card

The Cupertino, Californiabased technology giant informed retail employees that the new program will begin on June 15 in the U.S. and June 18 in Canada, according to people familiar with the matter. Customers can exchange a Mac for credit toward a new computer or apply the trade-in value to an Apple gift card.

Trading-in devices at Apple Store might not fetch the best price. However, it is one of the most effortless ways to sell your Apple product and buy a new one. Apple will take care of everything and you dont have to worry about searching and responding to buyers.

The new Mac store trade-in is expected to help Apple increase Mac sales. That said it might take a while for sales to pick up since most of the Apple Stores are closed due to COVID-19 situation. Over the weekend Apple also announced an interest free financing scheme for Mac and iPad purchases on Apple Card. If you have an old Mac lying around, perhaps now is the time to exchange it for store credit.

[via Bloomberg
By Trend

Leaders of European Council, Eastern Partnership countries are to reiterate and confirm the strategic importance of the Eastern Partnership (EaP), Trend reports with reference to the European Council.

President of the European Council Charles Michel will convene the Eastern Partnership leaders' video conference on June 18, 2020, within the framework of which the heads of state or government of the 27 European Council member states and leaders from the Eastern Partnership countries will be brought together:

The meeting will be chaired by the president of the European Council. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and High Representative Josep Borell will also participate in the video conference.

The leaders will reiterate and confirm the strategic importance of the Eastern Partnership (EaP). They will also stress the importance of solidarity at the time of the COVID-19 crisis including the EU's substantial support to address the impact of the outbreak in the EaP region, the report said.

In addition, the leaders will discuss the EaP's long-term policy objectives and the development of the post 2020 deliverables to be endorsed in a physical summit in early 2021.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
London, June 10 : After Covid-19 led to the cancellation of its in-person events this year, starting with Mobile World Congress Barcelona, industry association GSMA is planning to host a new digital events series.

The first event in this series, GSMA Thrive China, will take place from June 30 to July 2, the association said on Tuesday.

Those who want to attend GSMA Thrive China 2020 keynote and online sessions will not have to pay any charge, it added.

"At a time when connectivity has never mattered more, the GSMA is excited to offer a new online stage. This is the first of a series of exciting enhancements to achieve GSMA's Vision: to unlock the power of connectivity so that people, industry and society thrive," John Hoffman, CEO GSMA Ltd., said in a statement.

Besides keynote addresses and online presentations, the event will also include panel sessions.

Executives scheduled to headline the three-day virtual programme include Huawei Rotating Chairman Guo Ping, China Telecom CEO Ke Ruiwen and Qualcomm Inc. President Cristiano Amon, among others, GSMA said.

The announcement comes amid reports that the cancellations of its in-person events left major holes in finances of the leading mobile industry association.

The Covid-19 impact is reportedly leading to the reduction of about 20 per cent of its workforce.

"We are heartbroken that these reductions will impact around 20 per cent of our current workforce," a GSMA spokesperson was quoted as saying by news website Telecoms.com on Wednesday.
Britain's town centres are recovering from the coronavirus lockdown much faster than big cities, new research has revealed.

Data released today found the average number of people out and about in the UK's largest towns and cities was just 22 per cent of pre-lockdown levels in the last week of May.

But footfall was much higher in towns compared to cities, with activity levels in Aldershot, Hampshire at 57 per cent of numbers seen before draconian measures were announced in March.

This compares to much lower figures in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester - all of which were found to be at just 16 per cent of pre-coronavirus numbers.

In Cardiff, the quietest city for footfall, the figure was 11 per cent.

In Aldershot, Hampshire (pictured before lockdown) footfall recorded by Centre for Cities was at 57 per cent of numbers seen before lockdown measures were announced in March

Data also found that in Aldershot, which had the heaviest levels of footfall, 20 per cent less people in the town centre were coming from outside the area than before lockdown

The research was compiled by Centre for Cities on its High Streets Recovery tracker, which uses anonymised mobile phone data to illustrate how Britain's high streets are easing from lockdown.

Though the data shows all 63 cities and towns analysed saw a sharp drop in footfall as a result of the pandemic, it clearly reveals some areas are seeing activity return more quickly than others.

Which towns and cities are recovering from lockdown the fastest? Data recorded by think tank Centre for Cities on its High Streets Recovery tracker uses anonymises mobile phone data to reveal how quickly Britain's towns and cities are returning to pre-lockdown activity levels. The figures for the last week of May are compared to footfall before the crisis. 1. Aldershot - 57 per cent 2. Southend - 53 per cent 3. Basildon - 49 per cent 4. Worthing - 48 per cent 5. Blackpool - 47 per cent 6 to 8. Birkenhead, Mansfield, Slough - 45 per cent 9. Blackburn - 43 per cent 10. Burnley - 42 per cent Advertisement

It comes as Business Secretary Alok Sharma yesterday confirmed that all non-essential retailers will be allowed to lift their shutters on June 15 as expected.

The Government has, however, refused to budge from the two metre social distancing rule businesses are saying is killing their recovery.

The fastest-recovering areas in Britain include Southend and Basildon in Essex, which saw levels at 53 per cent and 49 per cent of pre-crisis footfall respectively.

In Southend today, takeaways, chemists and food shops were open as shopkeepers explained the high street had been busy until the weather took a turn.

Robins Pie and Mash shop said it is selling hundreds of meals a week as more and more people venture back to the town centre.

Manager Rocky, 45, told MailOnline: 'It has been very busy, extremely busy.

'We started doing takeaways at the very start when this all started and there was no-one else open, not one, not McDonald's or KFC for that matter.

'We are very famous and when we started takeaway and collection people were going crazy, I wasn't expecting that.

'It is starting to get better, but not like it was. I think it has dropped off because they stopped people coming to the beach.

'People didn't follow the rules, it has been mad. At one point the police had to come and stop parties that were happening.'

Damon King, kitchen manager at Beaches Cafe, said the eatery had until recently welcomed 'a lot of people' due to the weather, which has turned much cooler and wetter since Britain was enjoying highs of up to 82F (28C) in the days up to June 2.

'We have seen a lot of people here, there has obviously been a bit of a drop,' he said. 'A lot of people are starting to come down here to the beach, but it is a bit of a worry.'

In Aldershot, which recorded the heaviest footfall in the last week of May, tradesmen began to open up shop in hopeful anticipation of being able to re-open fully from July 4.

Pinar Keay, the owner of P&R Cafe, had re-opened as just a takeaway three weeks earlier, at the end of May, to pre-emptively drum up some business.

In Aldershot, which recorded the heaviest footfall in the last week of May, tradesmen began to open up shop in hopeful anticipation of being able to re-open fully from July 4

The manager of chain store Cake Box told how they had closed up at the start of lockdown, only re-opening on May 5

The 47-year-old said: 'I have opened as a takeaway only in the meantime, so that people will know I'm open for business before then.

'My usual customers are coming back slowly, we are not yet fully open and back to normal. I have moved all the tables one metre apart anyway. The number of customers I have is maybe half at the moment compared with before lockdown.'

Asked what she would say if the Government imposed a longer lockdown, Ms Keay said: 'I am not going to be happy.'

Bakery Cake Box had also reopened as the country eased from lockdown on May 5, but manager Sunita Dhutti said customers 'are not buying as much as they used to.'

'We do have customers but obviously due to the social distancing they are not buying as much as they used to buy,' she said.

'They go for the smaller amount rather than the party cake or the wedding cake. We usually get really busy this time of year because of the wedding season. This year we have had nothing.'

Other areas recovering quickly include Worthing in West Sussex, at 48 per cent, Blackpool at 47 per cent and Birkenhead, Mansfield and Slough which all recorded average footfall at 45 per cent of normal levels.

In Cardiff, the quietest city for footfall, movement in the centre was 11 per cent of previous levels

Cardiff has also seen a dramatic change in origin of visitors since lockdown, with only 38 per cent now coming from outside the city compared to 70 per cent before the pandemic

In contrast, London saw the sixth lowest activity levels in the last week of May compared to pre-lockdown levels, recording just 15 per cent.

Edinburgh, Glasgow and Birmingham were also at the lower end of the scale, with footfall at 13 per cent and 14 per cent of the norm respectively.

Data also found that in Aldershot, which had the heaviest levels of footfall, 20 per cent less people in the town centre were coming from outside the area than before lockdown.

Instead, those out and about were largely starting their journey inside the town centre itself. Another 31 per cent were arriving from the town's suburbs.

Cardiff has also seen a dramatic change in origin of visitors since lockdown, with only 38 per cent now coming from outside the city compared to 70 per cent before the pandemic.

Almost half of those in the city centre now come from the suburbs, compared to 28 per cent before the lockdown was enforced in March.

In London, only 17 per cent of visitors are now arriving in the city from outside the capital, compared to 55 per cent before lockdown.

London saw the sixth lowest activity levels in the last week of May compared to pre-lockdown levels, recording just 15 per cent

The fastest-recovering areas in Britain include Southend in Essex, which saw levels at 53 per cent of pre-crisis footfall

In Southend today, takeaways, chemists and food shops were open as shopkeepers explained the high street had been busy until the weather took a turn

Instead, 54 per cent of visitors are from the suburbs and 29 per cent are arriving from within the city centre itself.

The capital has also seen a dramatic fall in the number of workers travelling from outside the city, with only 12 per cent recorded in the last week of May compared to 48 per cent before lockdown.

Almost half of those working in the city are now coming from within the capital itself, with 43 per cent travelling in from the suburbs.

Which towns and cities are recovering from lockdown the slowest? Figures compiled by think tank Centre for Cities on its High Streets Recovery tracker compares footfall data for the last week of May to pre-lockdown levels. 1. Cardiff - 11 per cent 2. Edinburgh - 13 per cent 3 to 5. Oxford, Glasgow, Birmingham - 14 per cent 6. London - 15 per cent 7 to 9. Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool - 16 per cent 10. Norwich - 18 per cent Advertisement

Andrew Carter, chief executive at the Centre for Cities, told MailOnline: 'The economic consequences of Coronavirus are being felt very differently across the country. Many of our biggest cities  where millions of people live and work  may struggle to recover quickly from this crisis, particularly when compared to smaller cities and towns.

'One potential reason for this is likely to be the fact that few people living in larger cities such as Birmingham or London will currently be traveling into the centre for essential food shopping.

'The Government should consider ways to boost demand for non-essential services on the high streets once they reopen next week - VAT cuts and cuts to alcohol duty are one way to support retailers and pubs.'

It comes as transport data yesterday suggested Britons appear to be heading out less despite the coronavirus lockdown rules being eased, with traffic congestion down during rush hour and fewer people going out to do shopping.

Figures from TomTom showed congestion levels in the capital were at 20 per cent at 7am on Monday, down from 21 per cent at the same time the previous week - and then at 21 per cent at 8am, down from 22 per cent.

Meanwhile, Apple's mobility index based on its Maps app has found fewer people in London were requesting directions for driving, public transport and walking in the first week of June compared to the last of May.

And footfall data from Springboard showed an 11 per cent fall in people going out to shop on Monday compared to the previous week, with numbers also down for every day back to and including June 3.

In London (pictured, Oxford Street in April), only 17 per cent of visitors are now arriving in the city from outside the capital, compared to 55 per cent before lockdown
The California agency that regulates Uber and Lyft said in an order Tuesday that ride-hail drivers are employees under AB5, the states new gig-work law, marking a significant development in the battle over drivers status.

Separately, in a recent letter to the ride-hailing companies, the agency said they must get workers compensation coverage for their drivers by July 1, the date set in AB5, or face consequences such as fines or even having the agency cancel, revoke or suspend their operations.

For now, TNC drivers are presumed to be employees and the commission must ensure that TNCs comply with those requirements that are applicable to the employees of an entity subject to the commissions jurisdiction, wrote Genevieve Shiroma, a commissioner with the California Public Utilities Commission. Her order, which was designed to lay out the scope for future issues, used the acronym for transportation network companies, which is what the commission calls ride-hail operators.

Shiroma noted that the issue is contentious, with a lawsuit by the state and three cities seeking to force the companies to reclassify drivers; an upcoming ballot measure sponsored by Uber, Lyft and other gig companies that would exempt their drivers from AB5; lawsuits by drivers seeking reclassification; and a lawsuit by Uber and Postmates seeking to halt enforcement of AB5 against them.

The presence of these lawsuits and ballot measure does not mean that the commission can abdicate its regulatory responsibility over TNCs, she wrote. As a matter of California constitutional law, the commission is tasked with enforcing those laws applicable to the entities subject to its jurisdiction until such time as a higher court, the legislature, or the public through their right to vote, determine otherwise.

Uber and Lyft both pushed back and said their ballot measure, which voters will weigh in on in November, provides a better approach.

The commissions presumption is flawed; drivers are correctly classified as independent contractors and overwhelmingly want to remain independent contractors  71% in the latest independent poll, even after the impacts of COVID, Lyft spokeswoman Julie Wood said in an email. She referred to a study the companies commissioned showing that under an employment model, only 10% to 20% of gig drivers and couriers would be able to continue working.

Uber remains committed to expanded benefits and protections to drivers, it said in a statement. If California regulators force rideshare companies to change their business model it could potentially risk our ability to provide reliable and affordable services along with threatening access to this essential work Californians depend on.

When did the (commission) get authority to oversee labor law? Stacey Wells, a spokeswoman for the ballot campaign, said in an email. This is an outrageous political stretch and not what drivers want.

On the other hand, some of the entities pursuing Uber and Lyft on the issue applauded the order.

We have long maintained that Uber and Lyft are misclassifying and exploiting their drivers, and we intend to prove that in court, said Meiling Bedard, a spokeswoman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who joined with California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the city attorneys of Los Angeles and San Diego in suing the ride-hailing companies last month. To the extent that the California Public Utilities Commission takes the position that Uber and Lyft drivers are employees, they join a long list of government entities and regulators that have consistently and correctly reached that same conclusion.

In an order on Dec. 19, Robert Mason, an administrative law judge with the commission, asked Uber and Lyft for detailed responses on why they think their drivers should not be employees.

Most of Shiromas 18-page order dealt with other issues, such as the handling of sexual harassment and sexual assault claims, confidentiality issues, and autonomous vehicles.

The one practical change due to reclassification the order discussed is that the companies must provide drivers with workers compensation coverage, either from a third-party insurer or by self-insuring.

In addition ... what additional (employment) requirements should the commission impose on TNCs? the order asked without elaborating.

Workers compensation is no small matter. For high-risk professions such as driving, it can be pricey.

The ballot measure backed by Uber, Lyft and others says the companies would provide a form of occupational accident insurance similar to workers comp.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

In a June 2 letter to the ride companies, Doug Ito, director of the CPUC consumer protection and enforcement division, reminded them of the July 1 deadline that AB5 set for companies to get workers comp coverage for people deemed to be employees under the law.

The letter laid out consequences for not complying, noting that the PUC is authorized to cancel, revoke or suspend a carriers operating authority, and to fine a carrier, for violations of the states charter-party carriers act.

Philip Macafee, a manager at QuickSilver TownCar in San Bruno, said that workers comp for its six drivers, who are employees, costs about 20% of their paychecks.

Macafee runs a website, RideShareJustice, seeking to promote the use of technology in ground transportation in a way thats fair to existing industries, such as his livery service.

The PUC has a tremendous power here in California, Macafee said. They have the authority to create rules on their own to protect the public.

His view: Requiring Uber and Lyft drivers to be employees could drive the companies out of the state entirely because of the high costs involved, including paying for time when drivers are logged into the app and awaiting ride requests.

I dont see them being able to sustain a business model here, because of the costs of workers comp, idle time waiting for jobs, and the supervisorial responsibilities, he said.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
YES

by Saska Graville menopause expert

No man would ever pick clean toilets in Central London as his Mastermind specialist subject. But I would, and my score would be impressively high.

As the owner of a midlife bladder, I need to know where I can pop to if Im out and about for more than a couple of hours. Top tip: a McDonalds will always have a clean loo.

Midlife women around the country will have the equivalent knowledge about their areas, as urinary incontinence affects up to 40 per cent of us. Symptoms range from the inconvenient (frequent loo stops) to the debilitating (not being able to get to the loo in time).

Menopause expert Saska Graville (pictured) said she needs to know where she can pop to if she is out and about for more than a couple of hours

No one in charge of Loo Lockdown thought of that, of course. Or should I say no man in charge of Loo Lockdown, because a woman would have understood the implications of shutting not just public toilets, but the department stores, pubs and cafes that so many of us rely on.

All the jolly things we can do again  seeing friends in parks, going for long walks  are still off limits to many women due to a lack of loos.

If 40 per cent of middle-aged men felt they couldnt be away from home for more than an hour or so without being caught short, would we be having this debate? Of course not. But no man has ever had to plan an afternoons walk around where to find the best comfort breaks, or have a safety stop before a car journey.

No man has ever looked at a trampoline at a childrens party and thought Better not for personal reasons. And if a man does get caught short, the physical logistics are pretty straightforward. Not so for women.

So yes, this is very much a womens issue. Female incontinence is caused by a weakening of the pelvic floor. Its common in midlife, thanks to a drop in oestrogen. And though public loos may be closed, biology doesnt stop.

I know its a question of hygiene, due to Covid. But while we cant control how often facilities are cleaned, we must trust that women can alter their habits regarding hand-washing and touching taps or flushes.

When High Streets start opening up, I will return with caution to my trusted loo stops. Until then, access to clean public toilets is the only way to avoid having to resort to a more adventurous option during my walks on Hampstead Heath. Im not happy about this, but the only alternative is being virtually housebound.

So come on gentlemen, have a little solidarity. We all feel the call of nature. Lets get public toilets reopened.

Saska Graville is founder of mpoweredwomen.net, a wellbeing site for midlife women.

NO

by Linda Kelsey former editor of Cosmo

Like many women, Ive spent much of my adult life on the lookout for the nearest loo.

I am shameless about walking into posh hotels in Mayfair, or in Rome or Paris when on holiday, and heading straight for the powder room with the confidence of a long-standing guest.

By comparison, Ive always avoided public loos, as they are generally not well looked after and I half expect to pick up something nasty.

So its not surprising that these facilities have needed to be shut during the coronavirus crisis, given how unhygienic they can be at the best of times. For heavens sake, lets not turn this into a feminist issue.

Linda Kelsey (pictured) said like many women, she has spent much of he adult life on the lookout for the nearest loo

As far as Im concerned its a gender-neutral problem. If, for example, you suffer from Crohns disease or colitis, or youve just scoffed a dodgy curry, theres no difference between your urgent requirements whether youre a man or a woman.

I accept we need more loos for women than men in theatres, for example  its a wonder one ever gets to the second half with those queues snaking through the foyer.

But the reasonable, feminist argument that planning of public loos discriminates against women doesnt hold water as far as the current situation is concerned. Its an emergency after all, and we have to knuckle down and cope with the temporary restrictions.

Admittedly, my partner is more relaxed about a foray into the bushes to answer the call of nature than I am, but if needs must, I will do whats necessary. Rather than giving this sensitive topic a sexist slant, the only approach worth taking is a practical one. Far better for women to try to work out their needs in advance, and restrict their fluid intake. It makes more sense to work on your pelvic floor muscles than expose yourself to catching Covid-19.

As lockdown restrictions reduce and the demand for public toilets grows, we need a plan for social distancing, frequent cleaning schedules and compulsory hand-washing  hopefully a lesson most of us have learned by now.

And no one should go near a public loo without hand sanitiser to use after touching a flush or tap.

But the issue of how soon to reopen public facilities should have nothing to do with gender or cries of discrimination, and all to do with the safety of the public.

I think everyone should avoid public toilets like the plague (or rather Covid-19) for the foreseeable future. And I say that as a feminist.
As Nepals parliament took the first step on Tuesday to formalise the countrys new political map that has set up a row with India, foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali made another request to New Delhi for dialogue.

Gyawali told news agency AP that Kathmandu wanted to sit across the table with India for formal negotiations so that the two countries with a very unique type of partnership could develop a more inspiring relationship.

New Delhi hasnt responded to requests for foreign secretary-level talks made after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli cabinet hurriedly passed a new political map that counts Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura as its own.

Senior government officials told Hindustan Times that Kathmandu shouldnt expect any dialogue on the three Indian territories either.

Once Nepal drew the red lines on the map to serve its domestic and foreign interests, there was nothing to talk about, he said.

In Kathmandu and New Delhi, PM Oli - who came to power on the nationalistic agenda - has been widely perceived to have rushed through the new political map to whip up ultra-nationalistic sentiments to consolidate support within the ruling Communist Party of Nepal. That sentiment, quite similar to his election rhetoric, targets New Delhi.

Also Read: The costs of anti-Indian nationalism in Nepal | HT Editorial

Domestic politics apart, the map also helps KP Oli score points with Beijing, Nepals other giant neighbour.

It hasnt gone unnoticed in New Delhi that KP Oli had timed the new political map around the same time India and China were engaged in a standoff in the Ladakh sector.

Nepal, and PM Oli have a track record of trying to steer the India-China rivalry to his advantage. But increasingly, analysts in Kathmandu concede that Chinas influence over Kathmandu was rising rapidly.

In some ways, one analyst in Kathmandu said, China, which poured millions of dollars in Nepal, has gradually encircled the himalayan nation.

Chinese investments in Nepal started to surge from 2008 when Kathmandu switched from a monarchy to a republic in 2008.

By 2014, China outranked India in terms of total investment. In 2015-16, China contributed 42 per cent of the total FDI to Nepal.

According to the latest available data, China has again surpassed India as top investor in Nepal in the first quarter of 2019-20 with a total pledge of $ 88 million FDI representing 93 per cent of total committed FDI of $95 million. Britain came next with $ 1.85 million followed by Indias $ 1.76 million.

Nepal is also getting a second Chinese cement plant being set up with $ 140 million investment; the first was Hongshi Cement.

This increase is also seen in Chinese overseas development assistance where China overtook Indian aid in 2015, growing steadily from $ 19 million in 2010-11 to $ 38 million in 2014-15 as compared to Indias $22 million.

Nepal has also been nudging Beijing to build projects worth an estimated $ 3 billion via a grant, not the soft loan that China has agreed to. If Nepal does eventually sign off on the soft loan, it would dwarf other Chinese loans including the ones extended to build Pokhara international airport and the Trishuli 3A hydropower project.

The Chinese influence was on display earlier this year also when its mission in Kathmandu rebuked the Nepal media on February 19, and accused The Kathmandu Post editor of ulterior motives because the newspaper had published an article critical of Chinas handling of the coronavirus virus. The public reprimand, ironically, coincided with Democracy Day of Nepal. But there were no protests from the Oli government who is seen to pursue a nationalist agenda.

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By Josh Smith

SEOUL, June 10 (Reuters) - The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is taking a leading role in a new, more hard-line pressure campaign against South Korea, highlighting what analysts say is a substantive policy role that goes beyond being her brother's assistant.

Believed to be in her early 30s, Kim Yo Jong is the only close relative of the North Korean leader to play a public role in politics.

During the 2018-2019 flurry of international diplomacy, Kim Yo Jong garnered global attention by leading a delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Later, she was often seen dashing about to make sure everything went well for her older brother, including holding an ashtray for him at a train station on his way to a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam.

But this year, Kim has taken on a more public policy role, cementing her status as an influential political player in her own right.

"Prior to this, Kim Yo Jong was portrayed in state media as Kim Jong Un's sister, his protocol officer, or one of his accompanying officials," said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former North Korea open source intelligence analyst in the U.S. government. "Now, North Koreans know for sure there is more to her than that."

Kim has worked behind the scenes in North Korea's propaganda agencies, a role that led the United States to add her to a list of sanctioned senior officials in 2017 because of human rights abuses and censorship.

In March, state media carried the first ever statement by Kim, in which she criticised South Korean authorities. That was followed by several more, including a response to comments by Trump, and last week, a warning that the North would cut communications with South Korea.

Lee said Kim's statements have a unique style, showcasing her wit and underscoring her powerful position.

"In addition to the harsh words and sarcasm, they can be bitingly witty in ways that the other statements are not," Lee said. "She seems to have more leeway in crafting her statements, which of course is not surprising."

When state media announced on Tuesday that the hotlines between North and South Korea would be severed, they said Kim Yo Jong and a longtime hard-liner, Kim Yong Chol, championed the decision at a meeting.

Story continues

This rare explanation of a policymaking process portrayed Kim Yo Jong as "a very substantive person," said Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the Stimson Centre, a U.S.-based think tank.

Madden said this new portrayal of Kim in state media may be a subtle dig at international analysts who have cast doubts on her ability to wield influence in the North's male-dominated society.

"They clearly have high hopes and expectations for her," he said. "Not necessarily the next leader, but something of a king maker nonetheless." (Reporting by Josh Smith. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10) - The Philippine National Police (PNP) said crime incidents "dipped sharply during the 84 days of community quarantine in the country.

The eight focus crimes are murder, homicide, physical injury, rape, robbery, theft, carnapping of vehicles, and carnapping of motorcycles.

The PNP reported that such crime incidents dropped by 57 percent from 13,004 cases from Dec. 24, 2019 to March 16, 2020, the incidents plunged to 5,652 cases from March 17 to June 8.

The quarantine did not deter the PNP from pursuing criminals as we conducted numerous operations all over the country, PNP chief Gen. Archie Gamboa said in a statement.

Courtesy of Philippine National Police

Meanwhile, the focus crime rate also went down in Luzon by 61 percent, from 6,922 cases to 2,720 recorded during the same period.

Likewise, it slipped down in the Visayas to 54 percent, from 3,344 to 1,546 incidents.

Mindanao also showed a decline in incidents by 49 percent, from 2,738 to 1,386.

In a related development, the Joint Task Force COVID Shield reported that a total of 193,779 quarantine violators have been warned, fined, and arrested. Of this number, 126,038 are from Luzon, 34,370 from the Visayas, and 33,371 from Mindanao.

The police also arrested 885 suspects for hoarding and profiteering of essential goods during the quarantine, while 15,119 public utility vehicle drivers were arrested.
VANCOUVER, June 9, 2020 /CNW/ - The Digital Technology Supercluster announced its co-investment into a $2.5M project to deliver a suite of interactive digital therapy tools to healthcare organizations for readily accessible and personalized mental health care for their workers.

Led by Starling Minds, one of Canada's leading online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) platforms, the project will deliver to healthcare organizations an engaging, scalable, cost-effective, and proactive suite of digital mental health tools. The tools will be immediately available to help healthcare workers combat both personal and workplace stressors unique to their profession and compounded by extraordinary situations like COVID-19.

This project aims to establish a strong foundation for healthcare organizations to safeguard frontline workers' mental health, who are the foundation of a high-functioning healthcare system.

"The co-investment in this project from the Digital Supercluster and Federal government demonstrates a strong commitment to the mental health of Canadian healthcare workers. We are honoured to be a chosen solution to help make mental health as common and accepted as physical fitness," says Peter Oxley, Chief Executive Officer at Starling Minds. "Thank you to Navdeep Bains, Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry, and the Digital Technology Supercluster for their endorsement in our technology and our team and mission."

"We are deeply grateful to organizations such as Starling Minds for supporting Canadians impacted by the complex mental health challenges that COVID-19 has created," said Sue Paish, CEO of the Digital Technology Supercluster. "By leveraging collaborative innovation we can create and deliver life-changing technologies to address the psychological impacts COVID-19 has had on our healthcare workers, our communities, and workforces, now and for future pandemics."

Starling has already helped thousands of individuals improve their mental health by providing cost-effective, timely, on-demand access to digitally-delivered CBT through an employer, union, or insurance provider. Approximately 80% of healthcare workers within Starling's COVID-19 program found that the digital CBT therapy tools help combat stress, anxiety, and worry during pandemics.

Dave Keen, Executive Director, Workplace Health at Fraser Health, Canada's largest health authority shares, "We are proud to contribute to this project to help address the challenges facing the healthcare sector. Healthcare workers are fundamental to keeping our healthcare systems, communities, and citizens healthy and safe. Protecting their mental health will be essential in those efforts."

Starling Minds' solution will be available to Canada's healthcare organizations to support the mental health of all healthcare workers. Learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic will be applied to help prepare for future disasters and pandemics in a cost-effective and scalable manner across key sectors of the workforce.

To learn more about Starling's Digital Supercluster Project, go to https://www.digitalsupercluster.ca/supercluster-using-digital-technologies-to-create-a-safe-return-to-work-environment-and-supports-for-mental-health-wellness/ .

ABOUT STARLING MINDS

Starling Minds is a leading digital mental health platform that empowers organizations to cost-effectively support the wellbeing of their most important asset - their workforce. By using personalized and digitally-delivered Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) available on-demand, Starling helps to overcome barriers that prevent most people from seeking mental health support - cost, access, and stigma.

ABOUT DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY SUPERCLUSTER

The Digital Technology Supercluster solves some of industry's and society's biggest problems through Canadian-made technologies. We bring together private and public sector organizations of all sizes to address challenges facing Canada's economic sectors including healthcare, natural resources, manufacturing and transportation. Through this 'collaborative innovation' the Supercluster helps to drive solutions better than any single organization could on its own. The Digital Technology Supercluster is led by industry leaders such as D-Wave , Finger Food Advanced Technology Group , LifeLabs , LlamaZOO , Lululemon , MDA , Microsoft , Mosaic Forest Management , Sanctuary AI , Teck Resources Limited , TELUS , Terramera , and 1Qbit . Together, we work to position Canada as a global hub for digital innovation. A full list of Members can be found here .

ABOUT THE COVID-19 PROGRAM

The COVID-19 Program aims to improve the health and safety of Canadians and support Canada's ability to address issues created by the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, the program will build expertise and capacity to anticipate and address issues that may arise in future health crises, from healthcare to a return to work and community. More information can be found here .

SOURCE Starling Minds Inc.

For further information: [email protected]; To request more information: Janet Pun, Marketing Manager, Ph: 778-751-3083, Email: [email protected]; For Digital Technology Supercluster related requests: Elysa Darling, Ph: 587-890-9833, Email: [email protected]

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40 cities and counties in east Chinas Anhui province have been awarded the title of provincial civilized cities recently, local authorities said on Tuesday.

The civilized cities included Chuzhou, Suzhou, Huangshan, Xuancheng and Hefei.

Another 22 counties were nominated for the title.

Meanwhile, Wangjiang, Dingyuan, Shitai and six other counties received the title of provincial civilized counties, and 32 districts including Baohe, Xiangshan and Jinghu were named provincial civilized districts.

In addition, 515 civilized townships and villages as well as 1,629 civilized organizations were awarded.

The move aimed to encourage all administrative regions and organizations to promote cultural and ethical progress.




Residents of Jasikan, Kpeve, Have, Hohoe, Nkonya and other adjoining communities in the Oti and Volta regions have described the bad nature of their roads, particularly the Eastern Corridor Road as One Road One Dam.

According to drivers and motorists who ply the road daily, the bad nature of the roads is affecting quality education and job opportunities in the region.

Dust engulfs road from Peki, Todome to Have

Some of the residents complain about politicians who capitalise on their weaknesses to win power but neglect them after winning power.

A tour to the area revealed that many of the residents find it difficult to transact their day-to-day routine to provide food for their families because of the muddy road.

Traders and farmers equally complain about the roads because they found it difficult to transport their harvest to bigger cities for market.

Drivers who are able to move to and fro in the region told Starrfm.com.gh that they spend much on spare-parts when their vehicles develop faults. Those who are unable to fix theirs are rendered jobless.

Truck driver drives through muddy pool at Satrokofi

The road from Peki to Kpeve is nowhere near standard. Due to this, the inhabitants find it difficult to market their products. The whole town has been engulfed in dust. One could literally taste dust after breathing the air during a journey in the area. Same applies to some parts of roads at Have.

The master of all potholes could be attributed to Hohoe roads. Residents of Satrokofi in the Oti Region just after Hohoe describe their roads as One Village One Dam.

Some Satrokofi inhabitants avoid boarding cars when the rains begin because they cannot complete the journey anyway  huge ponds along the roads render the road difficult to ply.

One woman, who spoke to Starrfm.com.gh said some people capitalise on the bad nature of the road to help drivers whose cars get stuck during their journey for money.

The state of the bad roads has made businesses slow down making it difficult for us to fend for ourselves, another woman lamented.

The drivers and motorists also complained of waist pains.

Normally, it takes 30 to 40 minutes to drive from Hohoe to Jasikan, but drivers are using almost two hours to complete the same distance currently.

The residents, therefore, pleaded with the government to fix their roads to boost economic activities in the area.

---starrfmonline
Andree Goodall 'chuffed' to receive note from Number 10

WHEN the Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds announced the birth of their son Wilfred, they received letters of congratulations and gifts from around the world, including a specially-made outfit from Upper Bucklebury resident Andree Goodall.

Mrs Goodall designs and makes outfits for babies and young children  under the name Isla Boo  from her home, and she knew straight away which fabric she would choose to make baby Johnson a romper suit.

Mrs Goodall said: I made it as soon as I heard they had the baby as I wanted to personally gift them something to show my support.

I addressed a letter to him and Carrie wanting to wish them well.

I told him the fabric was organic and came from a small business owner like myself, Rachel Day from Fred & Bear, [based in Tavistock] and that she designed and printed it.

The print depicts London buses and the Queens guards in their signature red uniform and black bearskin hats.

I said I thought the print was very appropriate for his baby.

During lockdown, Mrs Goodall - who is often seen at the artisan market in Newbury and rents a space in Pandoras Emporium in Faraday Road - has been kept busy supplying outfits to all her customers.

She said: It was a spur of the moment thing and I didnt really expect to hear anything from them.

To Mrs Goodalls surprise a note arrived this week from Number 10 Downing Street and signed by Mr Johnson.

The note reads: Many thanks for your lovely message of good wishes. We both feel very excited and lucky. Best wishes Prime Minister

She said: Im just chuffed to know they received it.

And now shell be looking out for any sightings of baby Wilfred perhaps dressed in her bespoke outfit.

It is for age three to six months, so will be a bit big yet, said Mrs Goodall. But it would be amazing if he gets to wear it one day.
The extraordinary take-up of Bounce Back loans will result in 'absolutely massive bad debts' for taxpayers, a think-tank told MPs.

As official figures revealed firms have borrowed almost 24billion under the scheme in just over a month, Giles Wilkes, senior fellow at the Institute for Government, said the vast sums being dished out 'raises an incredible red flag'.

Giving evidence to MPs on the Treasury committee, Wilkes expressed concerns that much of the money will not be repaid.

Time bomb: Official figures reveal firms have borrowed almost 24bn under the scheme in just over a month

'As time passes guarantees and subsidised lending from the state can start damaging the fabric of the economy if you simply keep alive companies that should not be kept alive or won't be sustainable,' he said.

'You're simply sending money away that you won't get back.'

Wilkes said he was particularly concerned by the Bounce Back loan scheme, where up to 50,000 is fully underwritten by the Government, which means taxpayers are on the hook if loans are not repaid.

He said: 'I don't think anything has ever sold so quickly. Already we're talking about absolutely massive bad debts.'

So far 23.8billion has been lent to 780,000 businesses since the Bounce Back loan scheme began on May 4.

In total, 35billion has been lent to 830,000 businesses through support schemes.

The Treasury says 8.9m furloughed workers are being supported by the job retention scheme at a cost of 19.6billion.

Meanwhile 2.6m claims worth 7.5billion have been made for the self-employed income support scheme.
The Ministry of Justice is moving to revise the law that gives parents the right to use physical force for their children's education. Korea Times file



By Jung Min-ho



The government will press ahead with revising the law that gives parents the right to use physical force for their children's education as part of its effort to better protect the rights of minors.



The Ministry of Justice said Wednesday it will draft a bill to ban corporal punishment by parents next month as it pushes to revise Article 915 of the Civil Law that guarantees parents the right to use corporal punishment on their children.



The ministry plans to come up with its final draft and propose it to the National Assembly by the end of August.



Critics of the clause, which was adopted in 1960, say it is often used to justify the violence of abusive parents. They also point out that the clause conflicts with the child welfare law that prohibits legal guardians from "inflicting physical or mental pain" on their children.



The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has urged the Korean government to revise laws and regulations to outlaw any use of physical force on minors.



"Child abuse cases in recent years have highlighted the need to ban corporal punishment," the ministry said. "We will hold a meeting to collect opinions from experts in children's rights and adolescents themselves on June 12 before drafting proposals."



According to a Ministry of Health and Welfare survey last year, more than 60 percent of respondents said corporal punishment was "never needed" or "unnecessary" for children's education.



More than 39 percent said corporal punishment was "necessary" or "somewhat needed." In practice, however, it is disappearing fast: only 3.6 percent said they actually used it.


Official residents of Gibraltar and Spain are now able to cross the border again, following direct contact between the chief minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, and the Spanish Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, as announced by the Gibraltar government on Wednesday.

Those crossing the border from either side will be asked to show an ID card or residence card to prove that they are officially resident. A passport is not sufficient without proof of residency.

The authorities are also stressing that anyone crossing the border into Gibraltar or into Spain must comply with the current coronavirus restrictions and should familiarise themselves with these beforehand.

Also, of course, if anyone is experiencing symptoms that could be coronavirus, they should self-isolate at home and not try to cross the border.
Three workers at General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri are confirmed to have COVID-19, according to a company statement released Monday. Over 4,000 hourly and salaried workers are employed across three shifts at the plant, building the profitable Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize trucks, along with the Chevy Express and GMC Savana vans.

The company said in the statement, We believe there is very little risk that anyone inside the plant has been exposed to the virus at work because everyone, including the individuals, have been following our extensive, multi-layered health and safety procedures.

Oh, its going to be more, a veteran worker at the plant told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, dismissing GMs claim. Imagine how many could be infected. Two of the [infected] people last worked on June 3rd, and GM didnt tell us for five days. Most were questioning that and wanting them to close down for 14 days because its so many folks there, you can easily come in contact with those who were infected and those that came in contact with them.

GM Wentzville Assembly

She said that management only briefly paused production when they announced the first case. They read us a statement saying we werent at risk, that they have everything in place to protect us. A little while after, supervisors came back to say another case was confirmed.

The auto companies and their accomplices in the United Auto Workers union, having forced workers back into the plants with criminal recklessness last month, are now doing their best to cover up the further spread of the virus, releasing no tallies of the number of cases or deaths.

In the weeks prior to the production restart at plants owned by the Detroit-based automakers across the US on May 18, the UAW worked with company executives and state governors, including Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, to organize a return to work without serious safety measures or comprehensive testing in place, despite the ongoing spread of the pandemic.

A worker at GMs assembly plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee expressed the widely held belief that the return to work was premature, saying, I think it was way too early [to restart], just as many of my coworkers do. Here in Maury County, [case] numbers are rising but we are just line dogs to these big companies.

[GM CEO] Mary Barra had the audacity to say how she and upper management were working from home to stay healthy and safe, and we, the workers who build these quality vehicles to make them their millions, all the while we all were in these plants STILL working as THEY stayed safe. They do not care, nor will they ever.

Prior to the production restart, the UAW undertook a PR campaign on behalf of the companies, telling workers that effective personal protective equipment (PPE) and social distancing measures would be in place and that the plants would be cleaned according to CDC guidelines each day.

Other measures such as daily wellness questionnaires and temperature checks have also been touted, but offer little more than a false sense of security, as these do not identify asymptomatic carriers of the virus, which the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates account for 35 percent of those infected.

The UAW and corporations are well aware that without mass rapid testing and contact tracing programs, there is no way to effectively limit the spread of the disease in the auto factories, but they insist on keeping plants open under unsafe conditions in order to ensure the flow of profits continues uninterrupted.

Until we have a vaccine thats out there 100% and more testing is available over the next few months, then I think well still have cases, Ford Chief Manufacturing Officer Gary Johnson told Bloomberg earlier this week.

Once again revealing the procorporate character of the UAW and its indifference to workers lives, President Rory Gamble recently told Automotive News, We see ourselves probably in this mode for another year, realistically maybe a year and a half. Were dug in for the long haul.

Gamble admitted the testing delays mean the virus could quickly spread undetected at plants. Theres too much lag time in getting results back. While youre waiting on the test results to come back, you could contract the virus. He went on to refer to the spread of the potentially lethal virus among autoworkers as glitches in the companies restart.

Neither the UAW nor the auto companies have indicated a timeline for implementing rapid testing on a mass scale, although UAW officials all received testing before returning to their comfortable office jobs. Both company executives and union officials continue to make vague promises about increasing testing when available, while the vast majority of workers enter the plants every day not knowing if they or their coworkers are carrying the virus.

There is no reliable, scalable test currently available to test asymptomatic employees every day, Mark Stewart, Chief Operating Officer of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles North America, said in a statement to the Detroit Free Press. We will continue to monitor new developments in testing and will look for more capability if it becomes available.

Gamble, in a recent UAW press release, made the worthless pledge, In terms of testing, we continue to be resolute in asking for as much testing as is possible at the current time. We are asking for a commitment for full testing as soon as it is available.

Epidemiology Professor Michael Mina of Harvard Universitys T.H. Chan School of Public Health told Automotive News that rapid testing at the necessary scale for the auto industry is likely months away.

Implicitly pointing to the conflict between the needs of workers for mass testing and the companies bottom lines, the News noted, Cost could make widespread distribution an issue, unless companies receive financial assistance and the price per test continues to fall.

Union officials are increasingly nervous over the unrest brewing among workers and are desperate to head off a new wave of walkouts and job actions like those which led to the shutdown of the industry in March. Seeking to placate widespread anger, UAW Local 249 at Fords Kansas City Assembly Plant recently asked workers on Facebook to submit individual safety concerns to the union directly, claiming that it would begin to write safety complaints on behalf of workers, knowing full well they will have no substantive effect on the companys policies.

The virus is by no means confined to the Detroits Big Three auto plants. Workers at electric carmaker Teslas plant in Fremont, California recently learned in meetings with their supervisors that at least two of their coworkers at the plant tested positive for COVID-19, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle. The Fremont plant, where 10,000 workers build Tesla cars, was opened for production on May 11 by billionaire CEO Elon Musk in defiance of local government orders, which were ultimately shelved in the face of Musks threats to move Tesla to another state.

No social distancing at all when clocking in/out [because] people are in a hurry to go home or get back to their work station, a Tesla seat assembly worker told the Washington Post. Managers dont say anything to the associates, he continued, [because] theyre not doing it either. Its like nothing but with a mask on.

Any decisions about workers protection from the disease that are left in the hands of the corporations and unions will be made in the interests of profit, not those of workers.

To defend their lives and those of their families, workers require new organizations, independent rank-and-file safety and health committees, to take up the demands for universal testing, adequate PPE, shorter shifts and longer breaks, with no reductions in pay for those affected by shutdowns. With the advice of trusted public health experts, workers must exert oversight over health and safety measures in the plants and retain the right to stop production when conditions are deemed unsafe.

The opposition of workers to working in plants which have been transformed into death traps coincides with the mass multiracial and multiethnic demonstrations around the world against police brutality carried out by the state against the entire working class. The fight for safe working conditions must be fused with the struggle against police violence and for all the democratic and social rights of the working class based on a socialist program.
A Northern Territory police officer has been sacked over his role in printing and trying to sell clothing deemed 'disgraceful' referring to the fatal police shooting in Yuendumu of indigenous 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker.

The 61-year-old was suspended in early April when an image of a singlet with the slogan 'Don't wanna get shot ... Don't stab a cop! ... #BlueLivesMatter' was shared widely over social media.

NT Indigenous man David Cole shared it and told National Indigenous TV at the time that the image 'exacerbates the trauma we feel when dealing with police.'

A Northern Territory police officer has been sacked over his role in printing and trying to sell clothing deemed 'disgraceful' referring a fatal shooting in the Northern Territory

NT Police Constable Zachary Rolfe, 28, was charged with one count of murder over the shooting last November but intends to plead not guilty.

His defence is expected to allege that he had responded to Walker acting violently against him and trying to stab his partner when they tried to arrest him in the remote community in central Australia.

The issue has been a divisive, emotive one in the Territory with many police officers supportive of Constable Rolfe.

It prompted protests around Australia over the treatment of Aboriginal people by police and deaths in custody.

Another protest is planned in Darwin this week, prompted by the Blacks Lives Matter global action over the death of African American man George Floyd while being arrested in Minneapolis.

The singlet referred to the fatal police shooting of indigenous 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker (pictured) in Yuendumu in 2019

NT Indigenous man David Cole shared it and told National Indigenous TV at the time that the image 'exacerbates the trauma we feel when dealing with police' (a protest in 2019 over the shooting is pictured)

Northern Territory Police said in a statement on Wednesday that a 61-year-old male police officer had been dismissed from the force.

'The officer had been suspended from duty without pay in April for serious breaches of discipline pursuant to the Police Administration Act 1978.'

He was originally suspended after the NT Police Professional Standards Command found he was 'allegedly responsible for the production and distribution of clothing that displayed highly inappropriate content'.

In a statement at the time NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker condemned the 'highly inappropriate content'.

'[The Commissioner] offers his sincere apology to the community for the actions of the individual or individuals who have created the material that has appeared.'

Assistant Commissioner Michael White said at the time 'the actions of the officer were disgraceful'.

'For a serving officer to be involved in this behaviour brings disrepute to the entire police force and this behaviour is unacceptable.

'I reiterate the Commissioner's apology to the community for the conduct of this member.'
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 14:59 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd9a819 1 National Sexual-assault,sexual-abuse,sexual-abuse-victims,violence-against-children Free

A 45-year-old man from Samarinda, East Kalimantan, was arrested for alleged sexual assault against a 5-year-old girl at a daycare operated by his wife.

Samarinda Police crime investigation head First Insp. Apdilla Dalimunthe said the police had conducted an initial investigation and named E as a suspect.

"An initial investigation and [current] evidence have led to the suspect," Apdilla said as reported by kompas.com.

The case came to light after the 5-year-old girl's recent behavior made her mother suspicious.

"She cried a lot and refused to be taken to the daycare," the mother, who refused to be identified, said on Sunday. "She often wakes up at night and screams."

The mother became more suspicious after finding wounds on the toddler's stomach and genitals when giving her a bath.

After her mother had persuaded her to tell her what had happened, the girl reportedly revealed that she had been sexually abused.

"My daughter finally told me that she was abused four times by E. He gagged her and threatened her not to tell anyone," she said.

She then reported E to the police on Tuesday and had her daughter physically examined.

"A physical examination found signs of sexual assault on my daughter," she said.

She claimed that, after the report, she had been contacted numerous times by E's family wanting to give her money to settle the case out of court.

"I don't want to [settle the case out of court]. They said they wanted to meet me to give me money for my daughter's treatment and as compensation, but I refused," she said. "I want this case to be investigated thoroughly and the perpetrator brought to justice."

Apdilla said E was currently charged under Article 82 of Law No. 35/2014 on child protection, which carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine of Rp 5 billion (US$355,899). (nal)
The Russian economy ministry is pushing back against the nations planned ban on cryptocurrency.

In a letter to the countrys parliament, the nations Ministry of Economic Development criticized a package of draft bills recently introduced by lawmakers. If passed, Russia would at last have its first regulatory regime for crypto and digital assets  but would also effectively ban any businesses facilitating crypto transactions.

According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, which obtained the letter, the ministry points out that people will still be able to buy crypto assets elsewhere, but the current version of the bills would not allow the government to protect their rights. Crypto-oriented businesses would also be driven outside of the country, harming the economy.

Instead, the new rules should take a different approach and work on creating a controllable cryptocurrency market in Russia, the ministry argues, according to the report.

The regulatory landscape around cryptocurrency has been quickly shifting across the world in the last year, with authorities and regulators paying closer attention to the industry, and the industry looking for ways to comply (or occasionally not). Yet, while Russia is a significant crypto market and the motherland of many blockchain developers, it has opted for an ultra-conservative approach, led by the countrys central bank.

The more conciliatory stance on cryptocurrency from a government ministry, however, might be a sign Russia could yet tone down its hostile approach, which recently led to a loud outcry from the local crypto industry.

Marijuana treatment

The draft legislation, introduced in late May as a supplement to the previous bill on digital assets, deems illegal any activities facilitating the issuance of, and operations with, virtual currencies and if Russian servers or websites registered by Russian providers are used.

Story continues

Related: Russias Economy Ministry Calls for Controllable Market Rather Than Crypto Ban

This includes purchasing crypto for fiat currency and accepting it as a payment. However, owning crypto is legal if its inherited, transferred as a result of bankruptcy proceedings or seized as a result of a court decision. Also included is the potential to issue digital securities, but that must be done under the full control of the central bank.

The Bank of Russia does not understand how to control crypto. Rule number one: if you cant control something, ban it, a source in the cryptocurrency mining industry, who participated in the working group drafting the bill and asked not to be named, told CoinDesk.

For many crypto businesses, the bills would not actually change much, the source added, as even now, exchanges and over-the-counter services with Russian origins prefer to register in other jurisdictions. And large amounts of cryptocurrency in the country are often purchased for cash.

Sarkis Darbinyan, an IT-focused attorney at Moscow-based law firm the Digital Rights Center, believes that if the law is passed inits current form, cryptocurrency in Russia is going to go from the grey zone into the darkness of the digital underground.

In fact, bitcoin gets the same status as marijuana. You can use it in a limited fashion under the close eye of the state, but cant talk or write about it, Darbinyan said.

Under the draft law, he continued, crypto owners would have to report their holdings for tax purposes, and that information would be readily available for the countrys law enforcement agencies. In the Russian reality, only a crazy person would choose to keep the police posted about the state of their crypto accounts, Darbinyan said.

Threat to miners

The proposed regulation looks problematic for Russias crypto miners, too. While mining is not explicitly mentioned in the draft, the draft bills ban on the digital asset issuance is likely to cover the sector.

This draft has been in the works for three years. We suggested some options to legalize crypto mining back in 2019 that was a lot of work, but it all got thrown out the window, the industry source said,. The mining industry in Russia is yet not big enough to have strong lobbyists to help push their case, they added.

Compounding matters, miners cant be as nimble as over-the-counter brokers in shifting to other jurisdictions because relocating a building full of mining machines is a much greater logistical problem than moving an office.

However, bigger mining entities in Russia, which tend to keep their businesses secret, might have a quick and easy fix for their pending legal troubles. You register a company abroad, say, in Hong Kong. This company puts the miners in a data center in Russia, and the Russia-registered company is not issuing crypto, the source said.

But not everyone can afford such tricks, and small miners may be forced to close or operate illegally. Everyone who has less than $50,000 worth of mining equipment will be swept out of the market into the black  not even grey  zone, they warned.

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WASHINGTON  A former federal judge appointed to review the Justice Departments motion to dismiss criminal charges against President Donald Trumps former national security adviser Michael Flynn said there was evidence of a gross abuse of prosecutorial power and that the request should be denied.

Former U.S. District Judge John Gleeson said in a filing Wednesday that the government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President. He urged the judge handling the case to deny the motion and argued that Flynn had committed perjury.

Gleeson was appointed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in a special role to weigh in on the case, but it will ultimately be up to Sullivan and potentially an appeals court whether to accept the Justice Departments motion to drop the case.

Flynn pleaded guilty, as part of special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation, to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period.

In January, Flynn filed court papers to withdraw his guilty plea, saying federal prosecutors had acted in bad faith and broken their end of the bargain when they sought prison time for him.

Initially, prosecutors said Flynn was entitled to avoid prison time because he had cooperated extensively with the government, but the relationship with the retired Army lieutenant general grew increasingly contentious in the months before he withdrew his plea, particularly after he hired a new set of lawyers who raised misconduct allegations against the government.

But the Justice Department filed a motion last month to dismiss the case, saying the FBI had insufficient basis to question Flynn in the first place and that statements he made during the interview were not material to the broader counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Officials have said they sought to dismiss the case in the interest of justice, upon the recommendation of a U.S. attorney who had been appointed by Attorney General William Barr to review the handling of the Flynn investigation.

Gleeson slammed the Justice Departments motion to dismiss the case, saying the arguments from prosecutors were riddled with legal errors.

The Governments ostensible grounds for seeking dismissal are conclusively disproven by its own briefs filed earlier in this very proceeding, Gleeson wrote. They contradict and ignore this Courts prior orders, which constitute law of the case. They are riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact. And they depart from positions that the Government has taken in other cases.

Sullivan also asked Gleeson to explore whether he should hold Flynn in criminal contempt for perjury.

As part of his plea, Flynn had to admit in court, under oath, that he lied to the FBI and violated federal law. It is a crime to lie under oath in court.

In the filing, Gleeson said it was clear that Flynn had committed perjury and should be punished but that it should be a factor considered at his sentencing, as opposed to additional charges being brought against him.

This approach  rather than a separate prosecution for perjury or contempt  aligns with the Courts intent to treat this case, and this Defendant, in the same way it would any other, Gleeson wrote.

Gleeson was a federal judge in New York for more than two decades. Before becoming a judge, he had been a federal prosecutor and handled numerous high-profile cases, including the case against late Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. Hes been in private practice since 2016.

A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments Friday about Sullivans refusal to immediately dismiss the case. Flynns attorneys have asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to step in and force Sullivan to end to the case. They have also accused the judge of being biased, arguing he overstepped his authority when he did not immediately grant the Justice Departments request to dismiss the case.

Sullivan has separately scheduled arguments on the dismissal motion for July 16.
By Trend





The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Uzbekistan increased by 99 to 4,547, Trend reports on June 10 with reference to the Ministry of Health.

To date, 3,459 patients have fully recovered in the country, 18 have died.

The Special Republican Commission for the preparation of a program of measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Uzbekistan has extended the quarantine until June 15, 2020. Since May 15, the commission has lifted some restrictions on certain activities in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan has divided the country into certain "red", "yellow" and "green" zones, with regards to the level of COVID-19 pandemic spread level. On June 4, The Special Republican Commission updated the list of "red", "yellow" and "green" zones.

By decision of the Special Republican Commission from June 15 in "green" and "yellow" regions will resume the activities of catering, kindergarten and clothing markets.

The "red" zones include Kungrad District of Uzbekistan's Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic; Shafirkan district of Bukhara region; Zarafshan city, Kanimekh and Khatirchin districts of Navoi region; Namangan city, Turakurgan and Uychin districts of Namangan region, Sardoba district of Syrdarya region; Samarkand city, Akdarya, Paiaryk, Pastdargom, Urgut, Samarkand and Taylak districts of Samarkand region; Sariasi district of Surkhandarya region; Tashkent city, Bekabad, Zangiota, Kibray, Yangiyul and Yukori Chirchiq districts of Tashkent region.

The "yellow" zones include Nukus city of Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic; Gijduvon, Karakul districts and Bukhara city of Bukhara region; Norin District of Namangan region; Jomboy and Ishtikhan of Samarkand region; Angren, Chirchik, Nurafshan, Akkurgan, Bukin, Chinaz, Urta Chirchik and Kuyichirchik districts of Tashkent region.

The "green" zones include Jizzakh, Fergana and Kashkadarya regions and other non-mentioned districts.

The first case of coronavirus infection in Uzbekistan was detected on March 15 in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Virology; it was an Uzbek woman who returned from France. The Ministry of Health later announced that her son, daughter, husband and grandson also tested coronavirus-positive.
The United States government has committed more than $11 billion aimed at fighting the COVID-19 pandemic abroad, including vaccine research, funding for preparedness efforts, humanitarian aid, and more. Of this total, the State Department and USAID alone have provided more than $1 billion in foreign assistance to date. An additional $4 billion has been donated by U.S. private businesses, non-profit groups, charities, faith-based organizations and individuals.

U.S. Agency for International Development Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick noted that in Africa our U.S. government assistance includes more than $361.1 million to 39 countries, in addition to regional programming across West Africa and the Sahel.

In Nigeria, USAID is providing more than $41 million to help the country respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are bolstering risk communications, providing clean water, and helping implement practical solutions to stem the spread of the virus, said Deputy Administrator Glick in a recent speech.

In South Africa, the United States recently delivered 50 ventilators to assist the nation with its national response to COVID-19. These ventilators reflect state-of-the-art U.S. technology and will give South Africa flexibility in treating patients affected by the virus.

All American assistance programs, stressed Deputy Administrator Glick, reflect American values and Americas commitment to free markets and free people. Our foreign assistance has always been designed to promote national sovereignty, prosperity, democratic governance, accountability to citizens and individual rights.

But this assistance model is not universally shared. The Chinese Communist Party reflects a different philosophy altogether. The Chinese governments assistance program has nothing to do with development, and has everything to do with intimidation, influence, resources, and power, warned Deputy Administrator Glick.

This is especially evident on the African continent.

The [Chinese government] assistance programs aim not to free nations from subsistence, debt and foreign influence, but rather to make them more dependent on the Chinese Communist Party[s] capital, corporations, labor, and strength, said Deputy Administrator Glick.

We believe [the American] approach to assistance stands in stark contrast to the model put forward by Beijing, said Ms. Glick. Beijing promotes a Journey to China-Dependence while the USA offers a Journey to Self-Reliance. And we have the record to prove we have the better case.

America has always been the leader in global health and humanitarian assistance and will continue to lead in the global response to COVID-19, including in Africa.
People on ventilator support in Delhi saw only 2-fold rise from Jan 1-14: Data

3-kg bomb at Delhi flower market: Police yet to zero in on any suspect

How bad could the Coronavirus pandemic get in Delhi?

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, June 10: The coronavirus situation in Delhi is worsening with the emergence of several incidents of people unable to get treatment on time for Covid-19, even as CM Arvind Kejriwal keeps trying to portray publicly that the situation is under control.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led government, which had said it would follow a 5T plan (testing, tracing, treatment, teamwork and tracking) to limit the growing number of cases, is now struggling.

Eight labs have been stopped from testing for Covid-19 with investigations pending against them. People are finding it difficult to get themselves tested.

Delhi Coronavirus: Will stadiums be converted into makeshift Covid hospitals? | Oneindia News

Mathematical models of the progression of COVID-19 show it would be "possible" for Delhi to have 5.5 lakh cases by the end of July.

Display covid beds availability at main gates, Delhi govt asks hospitals

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has warned that coronavirus cases in the national capital could reach 44,000 by the middle of this month, 1,00,000 by June end, 2,50,000 by mid-July and 5,50,000 by July end.

However, the central government has ruled out that there's no community transmission of Covid19 in the state. The doubling rate of coronavirus infections in Delhi is 12 to 13 days.

However, state health minister Satyendar Jain on Monday had hinted that the Capital's doubling rate of 14 days, and, thus the city could see 56,000 cases after two weeks.

in 50 per cent of the cases, the source of infection is "not known" in nearly half of the fresh cases being reported.

The national capital will need 6,600 beds by mid-June, 15,000 by end-June, 33,000 by mid-July and 80,000 by the end of next month.

"This is the reason the Delhi cabinet had decided to reserve the beds only for the city residents but it was overturned by the LG [Lieutenant Governor]. Now, who will take the responsibility if the cases keep on increasing and the beds are full?" asked Sisodia.

According to reports, 8,821 hospital beds, 582 ICU beds, 468 ventilators and 3,590 beds with oxygen support were currently available for Covid-19 patients, 500 additional beds had been earmarked in state-run health facilities while a new hospital in Burari with 450 beds would be ready by June 20.

Another 2,000 beds are likely to be added by June 15 by linking more star hotels with hospitals.

Hospitals only for Delhi residents

The Kejriwal government had issued an order on Sunday that Delhi government and private hospitals will be reserved for residents of the capital.

Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Monday overruled the two controversial orders of the AAP government on reserving Delhi government-run and private hospitals in the national capital for Delhiites and allowing COVID-19 test of only symptomatic patients.

Mismatch between app data and ground reality

The data provided by the app, which shows the number of available and occupied beds in hospitals in the national capital did not match with the ground reality. Several people complained last week that while the app shows that hospitals have beds, they or people they know have been denied admission in these places.

The app has been a failure. There are many such cases in Delhi, where Covid-19 patients are not able to get treatment on time.
Homeowners are being warned of a rise in rogue estate agents exploiting desperate families who need a quick sale during the coronavirus pandemic.

Experts say they have seen a surge in misleading advertising from agents who promise to sell properties within weeks.

In reality, homeowners face losing tens of thousands of pounds from the sale of their home or being tied into expensive long-term contracts with 'quick sale' firms.

There are fears more could be caught out as market turmoil pushes those who need to sell their home because of debt or ill health into the hands of unscrupulous agents.

Experts say they have seen a surge in misleading advertising from estate agents who promise to sell properties within weeks

Residential property transactions were down 53 per cent in April compared with last year, according to HMRC.

But Gavin Brazg, founder of property website TheAdvisory, says there has been a 22 per cent increase in visitors to the firm's 'how to sell fast' guide compared with its standard 'how to sell' guides since the housing market reopened.

Some cash home-buying companies offer a legitimate service to those in a rush to sell.

But investigators at National Trading Standards say others pose as buyers but merely list the property with online portals such as Rightmove.

The seller agrees to a reduced price without realising there is no guarantee of a sale.

Other sellers agree to a significant discount before finding their property has in fact been advertised at full market value so the agent can pocket the difference.

Families have even been made to sign a power of attorney, giving the agent the right to spend money upgrading a property by using the funds the seller received from the sale of their home.

A quick sale? Not for us A couple trying to sell their farmhouse because of ill health say they have been 'left in limbo' after being targeted by a 'quick-sale' estate agent. Sharon, 58, and Mark Batchelor, 60, had spent more than 250,000 renovating their home in Ystalyfera, South Wales. They needed a quick sale after Mark's multiple sclerosis began to worsen and the property became unmanageable. No sale yet: Sharon, 58, and Mark Batchelor, 60, had spent more than 250,000 renovating their home in Ystalyfera, South Wales Last August, they listed it with Purplebricks at 539,000. But after a few weeks they received a letter from Sell Quick, which Sharon says claimed the firm could buy the property at market value. But she says when she called Sell Quick, they told her they could only buy it for 480,000, but she could get a better price from Express Estate Agency (EEA), which is run by the same family, who would market the property. Sharon says an EEA sales representative told them he could sell it for 525,000 within 30 days. But the retired safety officer says the firm uploaded poor-quality photographs and failed to mention the property was a smallholding with facilities for livestock. The couple asked for the advert to be removed on December 10 but it remained live until February 27. They couldn't use another agent during that time because of a 24-week exclusivity clause in their contract, and have been unable to sell since due to Covid-19. Sharon says: 'It's a case of them making all these promises and then you're left in limbo.' Mark Brogan, of Manchester-based EEA, says it was clear the Batchelors were entering into a 24-week agreement and that EEA's 'sole selling' agreement has been approved by The Property Ombudsman. He says EEA aims to sell in 30 days but is 'very confident' it never guaranteed this to the Batchelors. He says he is 'satisfied' the firm 'reacted swiftly' to Sharon's complaints about the advert and all fees have been refunded. There is no suggestion either firm acted illegally.

One homeowner, who didn't want to be named, tried to sell their father's bungalow through a quick-sale estate agent because they needed the cash to pay care home fees.

But the agent reduced the asking price from 210,000 to 195,000 without their knowledge, while charging 8,000 in fees.

The property was listed in August last year but has still not been sold, despite the agent promising to secure a deal within four weeks.

To make matters worse, the seller could not pursue alternatives because until recently they had been tied into a nine-month contract with the agent.

Residential property transactions were down 53 per cent in April compared with last year, according to HMRC

Mark Hayward, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), says he has seen a rise in online quick-sale adverts since the housing market reopened.

He adds: 'If house sales are difficult, some people will find themselves in situations that prompt them to look at quick-sale options.

But there are many pitfalls.' He says customers should check whether agents are signed up to redress schemes such as The Property Ombudsman, or are members of the NAEA.

Alison Farrar, operations manager at the National Trading Standards Lettings & Estate Agency Team, warns against 'agents who break the law and deliberately mislead sellers'.

She says: 'The reopening of the housing market and changes to people's circumstances mean we expect to see more people looking to sell their property quickly  and more turning to specialist 'quick-sale' estate agents to help expedite the process.

'National Trading Standards is warning anyone considering using a quick-sale agent to get an independent solicitor to look at the paperwork and explain the implications of any agreement.'

m.dilworth@dailymail.co.uk
A Footlocker in New York City was literally protected by "Guardian Angels" from being looted by rioters.

"Guardian Angels", is the name of the volunteer group who made the headlines after they were taped protecting a shop from being looted from amid the riots and protests that have erupted in the city.

According to The New York Post, the group, led by their 66-year-old founder, Curtis Sliwa stood outside the Footlocker, situated near Washington Place and Broadway. They started to set up their protection detail around 10 o'clock on Tuesday night.

In the video, it was seen that the Angels dressed in their signature hats and jackets served as human barriers and shielded the store from looters who tried to get inside. It was also seen on the footage that one of the would-be looters smashed an abject that appeared to be a cane on the head of a Guardian Angel. Some people also threw stuff at them which included, garbage and bicycles.

An Angel Injured Amid the Battle

In a report by Fox, Sliwa said that the confrontation and their efforts to protect the store was a victory. However, he also stated that one of the Angels received a blow to the head that cost him his vision. The said Guardian Angel, was identified as Aram Sabet sustained injuries such as a broken sinus, nose and eye socket and needed 48 stitches.

Read also: 64-Year-Old Woman Arrested for Blocking Protesters, Spitting on Black Man's Face

In an interview with the news outlet, Sabet said that the main group of looters did not give up easily and even stated that they were only taking what was rightfully their property. The looters also made it a point that they would get into the store no matter what happened.

Sabet also narrated that when he told the rioters that they are only trying to help the community, things got violent and they suddenly were at the receiving end of items that people were throwing. Aside from this, he also stated that people started hitting them. He also noted that it has come to a point when a flare gun was shot at them, but thankfully missed.

According to Sliwa, their group has already been focused on helping out and stopping hate crimes that have been rampant against the Asian community ever since the coronavirus outbreak started. He said that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, they have mostly situated themselves in Chinatown in order to protect Asians from being victims of hate crimes.

However, during the night that the video was taken, they were on their way to Broadway when they heard that looters were trying to bust inside a Footlocker. Thus, they immediately decided to protect it and rushed to the location.

Sliwa also said that they were already defending the store for hours before things escalated to become very violent with looters already began throwing bottles of liquids and bricks at them. He, however, emphasized that they have already trained to face these kinds of things and that they do not fold easily. The guarded the store since they wanted to make a difference in the neighborhoods that have been engulfed with riots ever since protests on George Floyd's death started.

Related article: Teen Spent 10 Hours Cleaning Up After Protest, Rewarded a Mustang and Scholarship

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AKRON, Ohio  Former Akron Art Museum employee Michael Murphy on Wednesday strongly denied allegations made against him by another former museum employee in a lawsuit she filed against the museum and its former director late Monday in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas.

The lawsuit, filed by former museum security guard and art-handler Jenelle Alverson, alleges that the museum and its then-director, Mark Masuoka, created a hostile work environment and failed to address her complaints over gender discrimination.

Instead, she said the museum retaliated against her for raising complaints and made her feel forced to resign in 2019.

Alversons complaints are related to allegations of racism, sexism and bullying of employees by managers that occurred while Masuoka was director. Masuoka resigned from the museum May 18. He has denied the allegations against him.

The museum said it addressed the allegations after substantiating some complaints by employees, but it would not discuss any changes because they involve personnel.

In her lawsuit, Alverson said that early in her employment as a security guard, which started in 2013, Murphy, her then-supervisor, slowly walked in a circle around [her] and slowly looked her up and down. She said Murphy called her baby, and expected her to respond to this nickname for her.

Alversons lawsuit said that on another occasion, in 2014, Murphy trapped her behind her desk and interrogated her about her body, her workout routines and her love life.

The suit names the art museum and Masuoka as defendants.

The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com attempted to reach Murphy through the museum for a story Tuesday about the lawsuit, but the museum declined to respond.

On Wednesday, Murphy provided cleveland.com with a written response to all the allegations. Here is his complete response:

I am responding to a Cleveland.com article naming me in a law suit filed against past CEO Mark Masuoka of the Akron Art Museum. I first want to say that Jenelle Alversons accusations against me, Sherry Streb and Mark Masuoka on this matter are completely untrue and this is an evolving fabricated story.

The original complaint against me was that I was asking her personal questions, which then and now are untrue. Her security supervisor told her that I wanted her reassigned from security and then after came the false complaint against me.

This is no different than the white female caller on the black man in Central Park NY this is the type of racism I dealt with from some employees at the Akron Art Museum.

Mark Masuoka promoted me to Director of Operations shortly after he took over as CEO. I had been the facilities manager at the Art Museum since 2007. He was impressed with the diversity that I had in my department (building services) also the ideas I had about moving the museum forward and serving the community so he promoted me.

For the record I am African American, I immediately received backlash after my promotion from certain employees as I made changes in the security department and Jenelle was one of those employees.

The security department was not diverse at that time and was the source of many public complaints of coded language and people of color especially African Americans being followed while in the galleries at the museum.

I made sure in the hiring process that qualified African American applicants that were previously excluded before were not under my leadership. I changed the dress code and changed the way they interacted with the public. I consulted with museums in other cities that had diverse demographics and I made the security department more diverse.

As the highest ranking African American employee at the Akron Art Museum I didnt have the luxury of being inapproiate or incompetent. I knew my success would keep the door open for diversity and inclusion and I felt that I was a bridge for the African American community.

I took this responsibility seriously. There was a culture and climate already there that Mark inherited at the Akron Art Museum. Peter Drucker is quoted saying Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast that same statement is true for Akron Art Museum.

I separated from the Art Museum in 2016 due to an autoimmune condition. I never was questioned about any events that supposedly concerned me after that time I am quite appalled that my name would be used and my reputation would be called into question without even speaking with me about the allegations.
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According to Market Research Future (MRFR)s latest report, the global autonomous vehicle ECU market is projected to thrive at a moderate CAGR over the forecast period 2018 to 2023. The developmental opportunities of the automotive sector coupled with the rising demand for autonomous and semi-autonomous cars are expected to propel the expansion of the market in the forthcoming years.

According to a report published by the World Health Organization (WHO), around 1.35 million people die in road traffic crashes every year. Road safety is has raised red flags globally that has led to the enforcement of certain mandates such as the installation of advanced safety systems and anti-lock braking system (ABS). These are anticipated to expedite the growth of the autonomous vehicle ECU market as ECUs are highly utilized for controlling autonomous functions of a vehicle. In addition, the rising demand for advanced driver assisted system in vehicles is further expected to revolutionize the future trajectory of the market.

The strengthening global economy has led to a shift towards the adoption of autonomous cars. This, in turn, is anticipated to augment the global autonomous vehicle ECU market over the next couple of years. Furthermore, the technological advancements in the automotive sector are poised to have a favorable influence on the expansion of the global market over the review period.

Market Segmentation:

By application type, the global autonomous vehicle ECU market has been segmented into autonomous vehicles and semi-autonomous vehicles.

By vehicle type, the autonomous vehicle ECU market has been segmented into passenger car, light commercial vehicle, and heavy commercial vehicle.

Regional Analysis:

The global autonomous vehicle ECU market, by region, has been segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World (RoW). North America has been projected to secure the pole position in the global marketplace. The rising demand for advanced safety, comfort and convenience systems is forecasted to lead the expansion of the autonomous vehicle ECU market in the region over the next couple of years. The U.S. and Canada are anticipated to contribute significantly to the development of the regional market. In addition, the boosted sales of vehicles coupled with the increasing installation of ECUs are expected to favor the proliferation of the autonomous vehicle ECU market in the region.

Europe is expected to grow substantially over the next few years owing to the boom witnessed in the automotive sector. In addition, Asia Pacific is also likely to exhibit positive growth in the upcoming years. The region has been witnessing an upsurge in demand for automobiles backed by increasing purchasing power. This, in turn, is anticipated to catalyze the expansion of the autonomous vehicle ECU market in the region.

Competitive Dashboard:

Some of the key players operating in the global autonomous vehicle ECU market are Bosch (Germany), Continental AG (Germany), Intel Corporation (U.S.), Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan), Nvidia Corporation (U.S.), ZF Friedrichshafen AG (Germany), NXP Semiconductors N.V. (Netherlands), Renesas Electronics Corporation (Japan), Infineon Technologies AG (Germany), and Autoliv Inc. (Sweden).

Industry News:

In February 2019, Wave Computing, a company that is accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) from the datacenter to edge, announced the launch of its MIPS processor technology for vehicles that are equipped with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

In February 2019, Renesas Electronics Corporation, a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer, has announced the introduction of its microcontroller (MCU) with embedded flash that facilitates the integration of hardware-based virtualization-assisted function. The technology has been designed to accelerate automotive ECU integration.

In January 2019, SafeRide Technologies, an automotive cybersecurity company, has announced the introduction of vXRay which is an anomaly detection and behavioral profiling technology for Security Operation Centers (SOC) of connected vehicles.
By Richard D. Wolff, Professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York. Wolffs weekly show, Economic Update, is syndicated by more than 100 radio stations and goes to 55 million TV receivers via Free Speech TV. His two recent books with Democracy at Work are Understanding Marxism and Understanding Socialism, both available at democracyatwork.info. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Capitalism has always had business cycles. The capitalist enterprises that produce goods and services are distinctively organized around the conflicted relationship of employer and employees and the competitive relationship of markets. These central relationships of capitalism together generate cyclical instability. Wherever capitalism became a societys economic system over the last three centuries, business cycles recurred every four to seven years. Capitalism has mechanisms to survive its cycles, but they are painful, especially when employers fire employees. Widespread pain (unemployment, bankruptcies, disrupted public finances, etc.) brought the label crisis to capitalisms cyclical downturns. Only on special occasions, and rarely, did the cyclical crises in capitalism become crises of capitalism as a system. That has usually required other non-economic problems (political, cultural, and/or natural) to reach crescendo peaks around the same time as a cyclical economic downturn. Today is a time of crisis both in and of U.S. capitalism.

U.S. economic policy now focuses on what is already the worst business cycle downturn since the 1929 crash. As data accumulate, it may well prove to be the worst in global capitalisms entire history. Forty million jobless U.S. workers find incomes lost, savings disappearing and over-indebted family finances worsening.

Todays mass unemployment also threatens those still employed, the remaining 120 million members of the U.S. labor force. Mass unemployment always invites employers to cut wages, benefits and working conditions. If any of their employees quit, many among the millions of unemployed will accept those abandoned jobs. Knowing that, most employees accept their employers cuts. Employers will justify them as required by the pandemic or by what they say are its effects on their profits.

Led by Trump and the Republicans and tolerated by the Democrats leaders, U.S. employers are intensifying class war against workers. That is what mass joblessness accomplishes. On one hand, Washington bails out employers with trillions of dollars. On the other, Washington enables (by funding) a mass joblessness that directly undermines the entire working class. Germany and France, for example, could not allow such joblessness because of their labor movements and socialist parties social influences. In sharp contrast, the predictable results of mass joblessness in the U.S. are deepening social divisions, renewed racism, social protests, and government repression (often violent).

A desperate president fears electoral losses because his government failed to prepare for or prevent (1) a bad virus or (2) a capitalist business cycle downturn or (3) their catastrophic combination. White supremacy, police brutality, mass media control, and so on serve Trumps efforts to mobilize his political base. So do his attacks on foreign scapegoats aimed to distract blame from his government and from system failures. These include immigrants, China, the WHO, Iran, former European allies, etc.

All these tactical maneuvers by the Trump/GOP regime provoke oppositions. However, they remain dispersed and unorganized politically. Instead of mobilizing and coordinating them, the Democratic Party leadership does the reverse. It undermined the Bernie Sanders movement, especially by splitting it from a large part of the middle-income African American community. By thereby blocking, if only temporarily, a powerful emerging opposition, Democratic Party leaders deterred mass opposition to bailouts, unemployment, minimal COVID-19 testing, and all the governments other failures. They just want to win the November 2020 election. Bidens vague return to normal promises are offered as soothing antidotes to the Trump/GOPs crisis-wracked, fear-mongering divisiveness. Trump plunges ahead with a radically pro-capitalist agenda coupled with reactionary cultural and political warfare against civil rights and liberties. It is the old GOP strategy but a much more extreme version. The Democrats counter with reactionary responses: a revived Cold War (against Russia and/or China) and a domestic safety less shredded than what the GOP plans. Culture wars are perhaps the only realm where Democrats sense some votes in not caving further to right-wing pressures.

Alternating Democratic and Republican governments produced todays impasse. Global isolation accompanies the U.S.s declining economic and political footprints. Its technological supremacy is increasingly challenged globally and especially in and by China. Efforts to break that challenge have not succeeded and will not likely do better in the future. Further China-bashingpursued by both major partieswill only slow global economic growth just when many circumstances converge to make that the least desirable future. Record-breaking levels of government, corporate and household debt make the U.S. economy exceptionally vulnerable to future shocks and cyclical downturns.

The U.S. population below 40 years of age struggles increasingly with unsustainable debts. The jobs and incomes it faces have already undermined access to the American Dream they were promised as children. Nor have they much hope for the future as todays pandemic-cum-crash imposes more hardships on them. That protests surge, provoked further by government repression, should surprise no one.

Repeated polls where half the young prefer socialism over capitalism reflect growing antipathy to their deteriorating capitalist reality. In the Cold War-shaped U.S. school system since the late 1940s, socialisms substantive theories and practices were not seriously taught. Debates among socialists over how socialism was changing or should change remain largely unknown. Todays growing interests in critiques of capitalism and in socialisms varieties reflect young peoples rejection of Cold War taboos as well as a capitalism that has failed them.

No return to normal after the combined systemic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and capitalist depression is likely. Many want no such return because they believe that that normal led to both the pandemic and the economic crash. They also believe that the managers of that old normalcorporate CEOs in both their private and governmental positionsshould face tough public scrutiny and opposition because of where that normal led and where it will likely lead again.

Those managers are not solving the problems they helped to create: utterly inadequate testing for the virus, bigger-than-ever bailouts for the biggest banks and corporations, mass unemployment, and deepening wealth and income inequalities.

Why then keep those managers in power? We should not expect different results from them now than when conditions were normal.

Of course protests flared up in and around African American communities. Beyond their long history of suffering social and employment discrimination and police oppression, it is important to remember that those communities suffered worst in the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Their unemployment then shot up, they lost homes disproportionately to foreclosures, etc. They have died from the coronavirus significantly more than white communities. Because of disproportionate reliance on low-paid service sector jobs, they have once again suffered disproportionately in 2020s crash of U.S. capitalism. When a president then blatantly panders to white supremacy and white supremacists, while making and repeating racist comments, the ingredients are in place to provoke protests. However useful for Trump/GOP electoral campaigns, social protests and oppressive police responses add sharp social conflicts to the already disastrous combination of viral pandemic and economic crash.

Trump is a product and sign of U.S. capitalisms exhaustion. The long, cozy governmental alternation between GOP and Democrats after the trauma of the 1930s Great Depression had achieved its purpose. It had undone FDRs redistribution of wealth from the top to the middle and the bottom. It had fixed that problem by reversing the redistribution of wealth and income. The ideological cover for that fix was bipartisan demonization of domestic socialism combined with bipartisan pursuit of Cold War with the USSR. The major GOP vs. Democratic Party dispute concerned the modes and extents of governmental support for private capitalism (as in Keynes vs. Friedman, etc.). That minor squabble got raised to the status of the major issue for politicians, journalists, and academics to debate because they caved to the taboo on debates over capitalism vs. socialism.

Capitalism has so extremely redistributed wealth and income to the top 1 percent, so mired the vast majority in overwork and excess debt, and so extinguished good jobs (via relocating them abroad and automation) that the system itself draws ever-deeper disaffection, criticism, and opposition. At first, deepening social divisions expressed the systems disintegration. Now open street protests take the U.S. a step closer to a full-on crisis of the system.

Trump subordinated the old managers of capitalism by politically threatening them with aroused, angry small businesses and middle-income workers. Trump promises the latter a return to what they had before the upwards redistribution of wealth hurt them. He tells the old managers that he and his base alone can secure their social positions atop an upwardly redistributed contemporary capitalism. They will save the old managers from Bernie, progressivism and socialism. The Democratic Partys old, centrist leadership offers weak, partial opposition, hoping Trump goes too far and implodes the GOP.

In the wake of the pandemic and the massive unemployment used to manage it, wages and benefits will take major hits in the months and years ahead. Wealth will be further redistributed upward. Social divisions will deepen and so will social protests. This crisis in capitalism is also a crisis of capitalism.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused layoffs, furloughs, and financial uncertainty for millions of Americans. The result: Many tenants are struggling to pay their rent, and landlords are unsure how to cover their own expenses while helping tenants.

Nearly 60% of landlords said their tenants are unable to pay rent because of the coronavirus, and 80% said theyre willing to work with these renters, according to an American Apartment Owners Association (AAOA) survey of more than 1,100 landlords in May.

Some tenants are really having a difficult time, says Alexandra Alvarado, director of marketing and education at AAOA.

Several states have implemented emergency policies to help renters, including eviction freezes, late-fee waivers, and payment grace periods. But, often, landlords are still required to make their mortgage payments and cover other expenses, like taxes and insurance.

If youre a landlord and your tenant stops paying rent, here are a few things you can do.

Start a dialogue with the renter

Your tenants will probably let you know if they cant make their rent payments. With the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, landlords should check in with their tenants as soon as possible, before an issue arises.

Even starting back in mid-March, as people were getting laid off and businesses were closing down, we encouraged landlords to just reach out, communicate, open up a dialogue, and figure out who may have trouble, says Charles Tassell, chief operating officer at the National Real Estate Investors Association and owner of 118 rental units in Cincinnati.

Nonpaying tenants are a problem landlords deal with from time to time. With the pandemic, though, Tassell urges them to be especially understanding when renters are in a tough spot financially. He suggests that both parties come up with a payment solution that will work for everyone.

Work out a rent payment plan

Renters have different financial situations, so any arrangement that you make for paying rent cant be one size fits all.

Somebody may have reduced hours, somebody else may have been laid off entirely, and weve had [landlords] who said they've got nurses who just drop a check when they get a chance, because they're working 80 hours a week, Tassell says.

Tassell urges landlords to come up with a plan thats realistic.

It has to be something thats workable and manageable," he says, otherwise the terms might not be met.

For example, perhaps the renters could pay half of their $1,000-per-month rent for three months (or $500), then attempt to pay back what they owe by the end of that period.

Whatever the payment plan, put it in writing, with clear details of the amounts and time frames, Alvarado urges. This creates a paper trail, in case you or your tenant tail to follow through on any of the terms you have agreed upon.

Reach out to mortgage lenders about your options

If you're a landlord with a mortgage, having tenants who don't pay rent could mean that you can't make your mortgage payments.

If this is your situation, the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) helps borrowers (landlords and homeowners alike) by waiving late fees on mortgage payments and suspending foreclosures.

If you're worried you might come up short on your mortgage payment, contact your lender to see what relief it can offer. This will vary by location, lender, and type of mortgage. For example, Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans is offering mortgage forbearance, or a temporary pause in payments.

Mortgage companies will generally create new payment plans with landlords, Alvarado says.

But keep in mind they'll want proof that your tenants aren't paying, in the form of documentation showing rental income losses.

Tax bills are likely still due

Beyond making mortgage payments, landlords may have other expenses to cover, too. For instance: Property taxes, which cost a national average of $3,500 a year, according to ATTOM Data Solutions.

Because of the pandemic, a few municipalities are letting homeowners and landlords defer tax payments or set up payment plans, according to the Tax Foundation.

For example, Wisconsin is allowing municipalities to waive interest and penalties on late property taxes that are paid by Oct. 1.

Revisit your insurance policy

Home insurance is another expense that landlords need to keep paying, without falling behind. The cost could be sizable: According to the Insurance Information Institute, landlord insurance policies typically cost about 25% more than standard homeowner policies.

Luckily, some states have directed insurers to work with homeowners by creating payment plans, waiving late fees, and not canceling policies for nonpayment.

Some insurers, including Farmers and Liberty Mutual, are extending grace periods and not charging late fees.

Revising your policy now could also help you save money.

It's really important that landlords re-look at their insurance policy to find out exactly what's in it, exactly what's covered, and then also maybe shop around and get a better quote. Alvarado says. "They may be paying more on their insurance rates than they need to, and they could save some money there."

Just dont cut your liability coverage, since Alvarado expects that the coronavirus could add some extra risks for landlords.

For instance, tenants might sue because they caught coronavirus within the building, arguing that their landlord did not implement sufficient safety precautions for cleaning and maintenance.

Such lawsuits probably won't get far in court, but they could still be costly if filed, so having good liability insurance will help you sleep better at night.

Check out new small business resources

The CARES Act also includes programs through the Small Business Administration (SBA) for helping small businessesand yes, landlords do qualify!

You must own your rental properties under an LLC, and should apply for relief as a "business with not more than 500 employees."

If you do have one or a few employees, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a potentially forgivable loan for employers who maintain their payroll during the COVID-19 crisis.

The Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) offers emergency grants up to $10,000 to small businesses harmed because of the coronavirus.

One of the benefits of SBA funds and the additional funds being pushed out through the federal government is that these banks have capital to loan, Tassell says.

It's not like we're in the capital crunch that we were in the previous recession. So that is a real benefit to property owners if they have an asset with equity available.

Avoid evicting renters now, if you can

Across the country, cities and states, including New York and Washington, have issued emergency bans on evictions because of COVID-19, and many courts have been closed.

As courts reopen and bans expire, landlords should still try to hold off on evictions, Alvarado says. However, situations where tenants are damaging the property, involved in criminal activity, or not following social distancing rules may be cause for eviction.

A lot of tenants are being affected by things outside of their control, and I think landlords should realize that even where it is possible to have an eviction hearing and trial, that process is pretty costly, and it's time-consuming, she says.

Even if you get a judgment against a tenant for the rent owed, theres no guarantee it will be paid. Quite apart from that, its simply not an ethical thing to do at a time when people are struggling.

Working with the tenant may be better for both parties, Alvarado says. Its a situation-by-situation thing, where landlords will have to look at their financials and what they can afford, see if theyve worked out anything with their mortgage provider, and see if it makes sense to work with the tenant in that way.

The post Got a Tenant Who Can't Pay Rent? A COVID-19 Guide for Landlords appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 06:18:58|Editor: huaxia

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Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, walks out of the hearing room after a House Judiciary Committee's hearing titled "Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability" in Washington D.C., the United States on June 10, 2020. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The brother of George Floyd, the African American man whose death in police custody inspired protests across the country, urged lawmakers in a congressional hearing Wednesday to "stop the pain," as Democrats and Republicans offered different remedies for the U.S. problem-ridden police system.

"I'm here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired," Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, said at a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

In his emotional testimony at the House Judiciary Committee's hearing titled "Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability," the younger Floyd urged the lawmakers to honor those from around the world calling for change in the wake of his brother's death. "Honor them, honor George and make the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution and not the problem."

"If his death ends up changing the world for the better, and I think it will, then he died as he lived. It is on you to make sure his death isn't in vain." said Philonise.

Wednesday's hearing came one day after George Floyd was laid to rest, and two days after congressional Democrats introduced a piece of legislation seeking sweeping reforms to policing policies, which will make it easier to prosecute police misconduct cases and prevent excessive use of force by law enforcement.

Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus that led the drafting of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, said in her opening statement that she hopes the bill will pass both chambers of Congress and become law, so that "we never, ever, ever see again what we saw a few weeks ago."

Calling police brutality "an embarrassment of our nation in front of the entire world," Bass said the Unites States, which oftentimes points its fingers at so-called human rights violations in other countries, should honor its own commitment to human rights. "While we hold up human rights in the world, we obviously have to hold them up in our country."

On May 25, George Floyd, during the final moments of his life, was put in neck restraint for eight minutes and 46 seconds by a white police officer in Minneapolis, even as he begged for his life. Derek Chauvin, the now fired officer who kept his knee on Floyd's neck, has been jailed and faces murder charges.

"I can't tell you the kind of pain you feel when you watch something like that, when you watch your big brother, who you looked up to your whole entire life die, die begging for his mom," Philonise said.

While the Democrats stressed the urgency of reforming the broken police system to end police brutality and racial profiling, the Republicans, though also blaming racism, focused more on condemning the rioters that were agitated in the recent "Black Lives Matter" movement.

They argued that police officers and other law enforcement personnel constitute an important pillar ensuring the safety and security of local communities, and that violence against them should not be ignored.

Republican congressman Jim Jordan, ranking member of the judiciary committee, said at the hearing that George Floyd's death was "as wrong as it could be," while condemning the rioters. He also said the "majority of" the law enforcement officers are good people and first responders.

"It is absolute insanity to defund the police," Jordan said, referring to a rallying cry frequently heard in the recent protests throughout the nation.

In an immediate response on Twitter, President Donald Trump hailed Jordan's remarks as "a great statement ... concerning Defunding (not!) our great Police," adding that "this Radical Left agenda is not going to happen."

The Democrats in their proposed reform bill didn't embrace the idea of entirely defunding police departments either. Instead, it will provide grants to community organizations, encouraging them to build partnerships that improve accountability.

However, not only is the Democrat-proposed legislation expected to undergo extensive scrutiny by Republicans on Capitol Hill - who offered their own blueprint for reform in a 10-section draft bill that included police reporting, accountability, training and relations -- it's also possible to be pushed back by the White House, which has indicated that stripping police officers of their immunity is a non-starter.

Asked whether Trump would support the police reform proposals rolled out by the Democrats, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a news briefing Monday that the president was "talking through a number of proposals."

Declining to get into the details of the president's thinking, McEnany said that "there are some non-starters in there, I would say, particularly on the immunity issue."

In addition to banning life-threating police tactics such as chokeholds and limiting the transfer of military-grade weaponry to state and local police departments, the Democrat-proposed bill also sought to reform the immunity doctrine that shields government officials, including police officers, from liability for conduct on the job unless they violate "clearly established" constitutional rights.

"We cannot settle for anything less than transformative structural change, which is why the Justice in Policing Act will remove barriers to prosecuting police misconduct and covering damages by addressing the immunity doctrine," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday when introducing the bill.

Calling for swift action to pass the bill, Pelosi said Wednesday after meeting with Philonise Floyd prior to the hearing that injustice in the current police system "is readily apparent. The need to make the change is clear and the proposals to do so have been in the hopper for a while."

Appearing on Fox News "Fox & Friends" program Wednesday morning, McEnany noted that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, presidential adviser Jared Kushner and domestic policy adviser Ja'Ron Smith on Tuesday huddled with Republican Senator Tim Scott, who led the GOP effort to devise police reforms.

"They had a very positive meeting with Senator Scott and it was very productive, and we do believe that we will have proactive policy prescriptions, whether that means legislation or an executive order," McEnany said. Enditem
Terry and Reed claim their altercation with Burge Jr. occurred about 10 months prior to that incident, on Dec. 29, 2018, when they showed up at the Dixmoor police station to complain about parking and public nuisance tickets Burge Jr. had written Terry without cause or justification, according to the suit.
Black former students at two schools in Athlone are calling for major reform following a number of allegations of racism.

Athlone Community College and Our Lady's Bower secondary schools were both embroiled in controversy this week after a video featuring some of their white students making racist remarks surfaced online.

It comes as a number of black former students shared their experiences at the schools.

They have set up a petition calling on the schools to challenge racism, which has already attracted more than 4,000 signatures.

Valerie Oyiki (22), from Athlone, attended Our Lady's Bower until 2014.

While she was there, the school put on a performance of 'Hairspray' that included white students in blackface.

Ms Oyiki, who has since graduated from both UCD and Trinity, said the use of blackface made her "very uncomfortable" at the time.

After she saw a video which surfaced this week showing students at both schools using the n-word and joking about slavery, she decided to set up the petition.

Since then, she said she has been inundated with messages from other students detailing their own experiences.

"I cried so many times going through them," Ms Oyiki told the Irish Independent.

"I feel school children should be protected in any way that they can. You're in school 40 hours a week and if you're not comfortable and you're not allowed to be yourself - that shouldn't happen to children."

She said she was also prompted by the international Black Lives Matter movement, which she said "is not just about being angry unproductively".

"I think people are using their anger and their pain productively now to make changes so that the people who come after us don't go through the same thing we did," said Ms Oyiki.

Allegations at both schools include that black students were often encouraged to take pass classes, without any academic basis for the decision.

This resulted in white students and black students often being separated.

Both schools were also accused of having described groups of black school children as "gangs".

Earlier this week, it emerged students at both schools had appeared in a racist video first posted in 2019. The video featured racist language.

Both schools issued a statement in response to the video being circulated again.

Athlone Community College said it expressed its "sincere regret" for the hurt and anger caused by the video.

Our Lady's Bower said it was shocked by the video, and expressed "regret at the upset that this video has caused to the school community and to the wider community". It also apologised for using blackface in a previous school drama.

"The school musical 'Hairspray' 2013 very regrettably used blackface to enable the performance. This was wholly unacceptable," it said.

"We deeply regret and apologise for all and any offence caused by this production.

"The school takes very seriously all allegations of racism. The board of management of the school is establishing an independent review of policy and practice to ensure that our school is a safe and inclusive environment for all."
It is a milestone she did not want to miss.

But ringing the bell to signify the end of five-year-old Clodagh McNamee's cancer treatment is just not possible during the coronavirus pandemic.

The little girl from Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone has been receiving treatment after being diagnosed with leukaemia two-and-a-half years ago.

Tomorrow was due to mark the end of her treatment.

But instead of getting to ring the bell in the Children's Cancer Unit at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, she will be celebrating at home.

Mum Ciara (34) told about the shock of the initial diagnosis in January 2018.

"We noticed that for a few days after the New Year she was very pale," she said.

"I thought it was the chickenpox because she just wasn't her wee self."

Ciara and husband Conor (33) took her to the doctor and she was then sent to Belfast, where they received the diagnosis.

"You never know what it's like until it's at your own door," Ciara added.

At one point she was in the ward for nine-and-a-half weeks with infections.

But now she has come out the other side and is due to mark the end of her treatment this week.

The little girl is used to lockdown measures due to being prone to infection. Ciara said: "She knows she's not allowed near anybody at the minute, and if I ask her why she says: 'Because of the virus'."

The family can hardly believe they have got to this point and plan to mark tomorrow with a celebration in the house.

Ciara added: "She can't wait until the virus is over so she can ring the wee bell."

She said her daughter has been "so brave" and had a "smile on her face all the time and never let it get to her".

The family were assisted throughout by the Children's Cancer Unit Charity, which supports the work of the medical team and staff at the Children's Haematology and Oncology Unit at the Royal.

This year the charity is holding a Miles for Smiles fundraiser that sets participants the challenge of walking, running or sprinting one or more miles.
La Puerta Abierta is an organization that provides behavioral health resources to immigrants and refugees in the Philadelphia area. Read more

In recent weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, Latino Americans, like African Americans, have emerged as a group struck disproportionately by the virus because many have continued working in essential jobs while the virus infected thousands of people in cities across the country.

One study found that only 16% of Latinos were able to work from home  most work in retail and service industries, making them more likely to be exposed to the virus or face unemployment because of shutdowns.

Now, physicians and community leaders are worried about what those effects may have on Latino mental health, especially in a community often already lacking access to resources due to language and cultural barriers.

In Latino communities, like in other communities of color, there are continued gaps in folks having access to behavioral health services, said Michael Consuelos, the senior medical adviser for NeuroFlow, a behavioral-health platform. There arent as many providers in the community, and there are continued issues around stigma. Theres good evidence to show that all that was happening before COVID.

The pandemic has created a twofold problem for Latinos: Theyre experiencing anxiety from losing income and being in harms way, Consuelos, of Allentown, said.

Things that were already difficult are 100% more difficult now

For many linguistic minorities, especially Latinos, access to mental health or substance abuse resources is already scarce, said Margarita Alegria, the chief of the disparities research unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. But now, the isolation, fear about the future, and economic uncertainty is all going to magnify the sense of catastrophe. We also know that serious psychological distress happens in groups that are underinsured in a pandemic, and Latinos are the group with the highest uninsured rates.

As of June 3, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National Center for Health Statistics shows that in Pennsylvania, 11% of COVID-19 deaths were among Latinos, who make up 7.6% of the state population. Experts have cautioned that this number may not be accurate because the data are based on death certificates, which can be delayed. Plus, data on race are still not available for tens of thousands of cases.

Before the pandemic, Cathi Tillman already had her hands full as the executive director and founder of La Puerta Abierta, a nonprofit that provides trauma-informed and culturally sensitive mental health support to the immigrant and refugee population in Philadelphia. Tillman spent her days training mental health-care providers to better serve those communities and supporting undocumented families.

When the coronavirus came to Philadelphia, it immediately affected the communities Tillman works with.

People who were supporting themselves on some level now cant, she said. Theyve lost their jobs. They cant congregate socially, or go to church, which is a big part of the community for many people. They cant come into the office for therapy.  For recent immigrants and refugees, the things that were already difficult are 100% more difficult now.

Multiple studies have shown that unemployment and economic recessions are linked to worse mental health outcomes  a 2012 study done after the Great Recession found that people who were unemployed for longer than a year had significantly worse mental health compared to people voluntarily out of the labor force.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered.

Since the pandemic hit the U.S., data have shown that Hispanics are the hardest-hit group. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month that the unemployment rate among Hispanics was 18.9%, compared to 14.2% for white Americans, 14.5% for Asian Americans and 16.7% for black Americans. A survey by the Pew Research Center conducted in March also found that Hispanics were more likely to say that they or someone in their household has experienced a pay cut or lost a job because of the pandemic, compared to other adult Americans.

Consuelos said accessing treatment will likely become even more difficult for Latinos since many mental health services for their community are dependent on federal and state funding.

Those are the programs that will take a hit when there are low state revenues, he said. And thats when disparities between communities that are more vulnerable and other communities widen, compounding the problem.

Adding resources and increasing collaboration

When Sayre Health Center opened its testing site in the Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia last month, Kent Breams goal was to provide medical care to black and Hispanic individuals  groups that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. During the five-minute window between test ordering and swabbing, Bream, the centers medical director, also screens each person for anxiety and depression. Patients who show symptoms are referred to behavioral health consultants for treatment.

We noticed from the beginning of all this the anxiety from the stay-at-home order was causing more problems than COVID-19 was causing, directly, Bream said. Thats why they decided to screen for the virus, "and what were calling the fear virus, which causes anxiety and depression.

At first, most of the people who came for screenings were black, but as word spread that Bream speaks Spanish, the number of Spanish-speaking patients has increased.

He said that many Latinos are worried about how a positive test result will affect their family members.

Theyre experiencing what I call benevolent anxiety about working, not being able to work and support their families, Bream said. Demographically, many Latino families live in multigenerational homes with extended family members. They have family meals together. So theres more risk of exposure there.

Bream, who is also a physician at Penn Medicine, has been impressed by the strong social networks within the community  oftentimes, if someone tests positive for COVID-19, most of the individuals they have had contact with get tested the next day.

There are still individuals reporting feelings of hopelessness or nervousness every day, but its a much smaller portion than in the first two weeks, Bream said. Having knowledge eases the anxiety, and this group is becoming more confident as well in navigating the testing system.

As the mental health system grapples with the pandemic, Tillman said that its important for there to be as much collaboration as possible between different behavioral health providers. Before the pandemic, La Puerta Abierta launched a collaborative in February to teach providers how to help immigrants and refugees. The hope is that collaboration will result in more sensitivity, cultural humility and understanding.

Our mental health system, even in the best of circumstances, is inadequate, Tillman said. For other language speakers, its even worse. We have to invest in the issue of mental health in these communities, plain and simple, like anything else that really matters.
New Delhi, June 10 : S&P Global Ratings on Wednesday maintained India's sovereign credit ratings, affirming its 'BBB-' long-term and 'A-3' short-term unsolicited foreign and local currency ratings.

Besides, S&P Global Ratings said India's outlook on the long-term rating is stable.

"The stable outlook reflects our expectation that India's economy will recover following the containment of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the country will maintain its sound net external position," the ratings agency statement said.

"The stable outlook also assumes that the government's fiscal deficit will recede markedly following a multi-year high in fiscal year 2021 (ending March 31, 2021)." In terms of the rating rationale, the agency said that it reflects the country's above-average real GDP growth, sound external profile, and evolving monetary settings amongst others.

These are balanced against vulnerabilities stemming from the country's low per capita income and consistently elevated fiscal deficits that contribute to high general government debt, net of liquid assets, it said.

"India's economy will contract in fiscal 2021, largely owing to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. We forecast a 5 per cent decline in real GDP growth, which would be the worst economic performance in recent history," the statement said.

"The global economic downturn resulting from the pandemic, along with strict domestic measures aimed at containing the spread of the local epidemic, are hitting the economy hard, and will likely result in a significant fall in activity in the first quarter of this fiscal year (i.e., three months from April 1, 2020)." As per the statement, productive capacity has been severely disrupted during this period, and millions of workers have left their jobs to return home, sometimes crossing the country to do so.

"India's labour markets have therefore weakened dramatically, and may take some time to heal," the statement said.

According to the statement, even after incorporating a deep contraction this fiscal year, India's economy continues to outperform peers at a similar level of income on a 10-year, weighted average, real GDP per capita basis.

However, the ratings agency warned that new risks are emerging that could undermine the economy's recovery, even beyond the containment of Covid-19.

"Prior to the onset of the pandemic, India's GDP growth rate had already slowed measurably," the statement said.

"Existing vulnerabilities including a weak financial sector, rigid labour markets, and consistently weak private investment could hamper India's recovery if they are not actively addressed." Furthermore, tighter lending conditions continue across the financial system, particularly in the public sector, it said.

"This is reflected in a gradual decline in credit growth, which is likely to remain weak owing to subdued demand and limited risk appetite by the banks," the statement said.

"Liquidity concerns in some parts of the non-bank financial institution (NBFI) sector have also re-emerged since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis." Nevertheless, it said that India's economy is "likely to achieve a strong recovery following the deep contraction in this fiscal year; we forecast real GDP growth at 8.5 per cent in fiscal 2022".

"The economy's long-term outperformance highlights its resilience," the statement said.

"India's wide range of structural trends, including healthy demographics and competitive unit labour costs, work in its favour. A more favourable corporate tax regime, which is particularly supportive of manufacturing firms, should reinforce growth, alongside additional fiscal and monetary easing." The development comes after Moody's Investors Services downgraded India's sovereign ratings as it sees challenges piled up on the country's policymaking institutions to mitigate the risks of a sustained period of relatively low growth.

Consequently, Moody's downgraded India's foreign currency and local currency long-term issuer ratings to Baa3 from Baa2.
Iran has backed off from directly challenging the U.S. military in the region since the Jan. 3 drone strike that killed Iranian Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, the top U.S. commander in the Mideast said Wednesday.

Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said he is reluctant to paint a "rosy picture" on the deterrent effect of Soleimani's death.

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"Nonetheless, I think it has set them back," he said.

The airstrike that killed Soleimani at Baghdad's airport led to the Jan. 8 Iranian ballistic missile attack on Iraq's Al Asad Air Base, in which more than 100 U.S. troops were later diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.

Since the Al Asad attack, McKenzie said confrontations with Iran have settled into what he called a form of "contested deterrence."

"They're having to recalculate what we'll do and not do" with Soleimani's killing in mind, he said of the Tehran leadership. "They have seen we have the capability and the will to respond.

"That's why we've seen a decline in those tensions" brought on by Iran's attempts to expand its influence in the region, either directly or through the support of proxies, he added..

McKenzie also noted the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Iran and its leadership but added, "I am not certain it makes them less dangerous."

He spoke in an hour-long teleconference sponsored by the nonpartisan Middle East Institute and covered a range of issues in CENTCOM's area of responsibility -- from the civil war in Yemen to troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

He said the U.S. would meet the commitment to draw down the number of its troops in Afghanistan to about 8,500 in July, but he was less certain that the current plan for a complete withdrawal by May 2021 could be realized.

McKenzie said the U.S. withdrawal is conditional on a political settlement and cease-fires, adding that "those conditions have not been fully met."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Amid US Tension, Iran Builds Fake Aircraft Carrier to Attack
BOSTON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Frost & Sullivan, a leading global growth consulting firm, has announced today that NBD Nano's InvisiPrint won its New Product Innovation Award for anti-fingerprint coatings in the electronics industry.

The award comes after Frost & Sullivan interviewed several leading manufacturers of anti-fingerprint coatings. Based on the report, InvisiPrint offers several key competitive advantages over existing products in the market, which include 10-times superior strength at hiding fingerprint smudges, fluorine-free attributes, and competitive durability and processing strength.

"NBD is honored to be recognized for our unique ability to help customers in the electronics industry hide fingerprint smudges. Our InvisiPrint solution is poised to become the leading solution in the electronics industry, and we welcome the acknowledgment by Frost & Sullivan," said Miguel Galvez, co-founder of NBD Nano and lead inventor of InvisiPrint.

The Frost & Sullivan award criteria includes technological innovation, market readiness, commercial viability to name a select few. NBD's InvisiPrint addresses each criterion for its unique approach to hiding fingerprints on product surfaces. Furthermore, the anti-fingerprint market has stagnated, lacking new technological developments in recent history. Traditional anti-fingerprint coatings are based on perfluoropolyether technology, which was introduced over 20 years ago. NBD's solution is based on oleophilic technology and offers a brand new way to render fingerprints invisible by matching the index refraction of fingerprints with the glass substrate, as opposed to simply making fingerprint smudges easy-to-clean.

This award confirms NBD's commitment to innovation and collaboration with major consumer electronics manufacturers. "InvisiPrint's counter-intuitive technique is extremely effective at hiding fingerprints," said Nina Smith, NBD's vice president of Global Sales. "This award places InvisiPrint as a benchmark solution in the anti-fingerprint coatings market, and we value the recognition from Frost & Sullivan."

About NBD Nanotechnologies

NBD is a venture backed company located near Boston, MA. NBD focuses on coatings and additives that modify surface characteristics. NBD's broad product portfolio can transform the properties of glass and plastic materials, creating ultra-durable and highly functional stain and microbial resistant surfaces.

About Frost & Sullivan

For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success.

Contact:

Peter Shepard

[email protected]

SOURCE NBD Nanotechnologies, Inc.
Jalgaon : , June 10 (IANS) In a shocking incident, an 82-year-old woman from Bhusaval, who was missing for eight days from a government hospital here, was found dead inside a toilet in the same hospital on Wednesday, police officers and her relatives said.

According to Akbar Patel, Senior Inspector at the Zillapeth police station, the Jalgaon Civil Hospital (JCH) authorities and the family had informed the police that she was missing on June 2.

"Thereafter, we made full inquiries in Bhusaval, checked all patient registers in the presence of the relatives, scanned CCTV footage etc. and then registered the complaint on June 6," Patel told IANS.

The woman had tested Covid-19 positive on May 27 and had been admitted to another hospital before she was shifted to the JCH, and police teams were sent there to investigate.

The JCH authorities confirmed that she was seen in the ward till June 2 after which the whereabouts of the woman were not known.

"Finally, today, there was some foul smell emanating from one of the toilets in the hospital and we found the woman's body there. We have informed the family accordingly," Patel said.

In a video message, her distraught grandson has appealed to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to order a probe into the incident and punish those found negligent or guilty.

This is the second recorded case of a 'missing' Covid-19 patient found dead in the past three days, rattling the state health authorities.

On Tuesday, Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar ordered an inquiry after the body of an 80-year-old male Covid-19 patient, who went missing from the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali on Sunday, was found near the Borivali station, apparently killed in a train mishap.

State BJP vice-president Kirit Somaiya has raised the issue and demanded a thorough probe into such incidents.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Restaurants we contacted cited confusion about when the streets would actually close and how to be involved. All of the proposed corridors remain open for car traffic and some restaurant owners said they hadnt heard from the city at all. Others said they have been in contact with their local chambers to hammer out details or to propose changes to the project. Read more here.  Grace Wong and Nick Kindelsperger
New Delhi:

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar has written to his Pakistani counterpart suggesting ways to expedite trial in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack case in the neighbouring country but is yet to get a response.



Jaishankar wrote the letter on September 6 which was hand-delivered by the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad on September 9, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.



Swarup said that if Pakistan is serious about bringing to justice the perpetrators of the attack, it must act on the suggestions as the entire strike was planned from Pakistan, was carried out by Pakistani nationals and all evidence are in Pakistan.



Noting that the trial in Pakistan has not progressed expeditiously although it will be eight years soon since the dastardly attack, Swarup said, "In order to bring the guilty to book, our Foreign Secretary has recently written to his counterpart in Pakistan suggesting ways in which the trial could be expedited through cooperation through the legal channel."



He said the step was prompted by the delay in bringing to book the persons in Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai terror attack. "As you know, the entire attack was planned from Pakistan, was perpetrated by Pakistani nationals, all the evidence are in Pakistan, but eight years have passed and trial is happening at a snail's pace," he said.



Swarup said the country's focus is to check terrorism and the government wants to bring the Mumbai case trial to expeditious conclusion.



"We are prepared to offer suggestions on how it can be done through the proper legal channels," he said.

Asked if India has heard back, he said, "No".



On September 9, a former Lashkar operative arrested by Pakistan for his involvement in the 2008 terror attack was acquitted.



Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency said that "no allegation has been proved against" Sufayan Zafar, who was accused of financing Rs 14,800 for the attack and providing Rs 3.98 crore to co-accused Shahid Jameel Riaz prior to the attack.



Zafar was hiding after being declared proclaimed offender in the Mumbai case. He was arrested early last month from his hideout in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.



A resident of Gujrawala district of Punjab, approximately 80 km from Lahore, Zafar was among 21 absconding suspects wanted in this high-profile case.



Six suspects -- Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younus Anjum -- have been lodged in the Adiyala Jail, Rawalpindi, since 2009 for abetment to murder, attempted murder, planning and executing the Mumbai attacks.



Prime suspect Lashkar-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, believed to be the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, is in hiding after getting bail over a year ago.



166 people, including many foreigners, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai attack carried out by 10 Lashkar terrorists. Nine of the attackers were killed and lone survivor Ajmal Kasab was captured and later hanged in 2012.

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The House of Representatives has passed the new 2020 reviewed budget with N4 billion allocation to the Resident Doctors Act to foresta...





The House of Representatives has passed the new 2020 reviewed budget with N4 billion allocation to the Resident Doctors Act to forestall a pending strike by the Resident Doctors.





The House passed a new budget of N10.805trillion, with a recurrent expenditure of N4.942trillion, debt servicing at N2.488trillion, statutory transfer of N422 billion and capital expenditure of N2.4trillion.





During the consideration of the report of the House Committee on Appropriation by the committee on Supply, the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila informed the House that during his meeting with Resident Doctors, the doctors revealed their plans to embark on a strike on Monday.





Mr. Gbajabiamila said he was not ready to support any budget without an allocation to the implementation of the 2017 Resident Doctors Act, noting that N4 billion was needed for the implementation of the act.

Yesterday I met with the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors who will be going on strike on Monday. Their major issue is that the Resident Doctor Act passed in 2017 has not been implemented. We have not included them in the new budget.





The Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, James Faleke advised that funds be taken from the service votes to implement the act.





Meanwhile, the House also approved the $5.5billion loan request by President Muhammadu Buhari for the implementation of the 2020 budget.





The approval followed the consideration of the report of the House committee on loan and debt management by the committee on supply.





Speaking on the report, the Chairman of the committee on Loan and Debt Management, Ahmed Safana noted that the loan request to be sourced from bilateral and multilateral organizations will not increase the countrys debt stock beyond the 25% threshold.




Dr Alex George has had a very bad day.

The former Love Island star, who has been battling the COVID-19 pandemic round-the-clock from the emergency room of Lewisham University Hospital - took to Instagram to hit back at a bitter troll who attacked his appearance in a bizarre series of messages.

On top of being subjected to the nasty rant, Alex, 30, returned to his car in the hospital car park to find a parking fine slapped onto his windshield.

Bad day at the office: Dr Alex George, who has been battling the COVID-19 pandemic round-the-clock from the emergency room of Lewisham University Hospital, took to Instagram to hit back at a bitter troll who attacked his appearance in a bizarre series of messages

Alex shared a screengrab of the messages from the catty follower on Instagram Stories.

Despite evidently wanting to watch Alex's videos, the nasty culprit claimed his tired appearance was distracting.

'Giving out health content you'd be better to take care of yourself first, you look ruff, fair bad spots and eyes are like death! [sic]'the badly-written message read.

In a second equally inarticulate DM, they carried on: 'Jesus will you sort out them eyes with a bit of cream or something... and do something with that big spot next to ur mouth... so distracting and a struggle to watch the vid! [sic]'

Alex made light of it by commenting, 'Don't hold back hey!' next to the screengrab, adding: 'I have had acne most of my life, not ashamed of it. If you don't like it, don't watch my videos!'

He then posted to his Instagram grid, elaborating on this: 'I am hugely grateful for the overwhelming support I have received in the last few years.

Out of order: On top of being subjected to the nasty rant, Alex, 30, returned to his car in the hospital car park to find a parking fine slapped onto his windshield

He also took to Instagram Stories on his way to work, telling the camera: 'You can't please everyone. Some people have got bad things to say, no matter what you do!'

'To some of those who continue to make comments about my skin and acne, the fact that I look old and tired, if you want to follow someone who is a model with perfect looks and style, you are in the wrong place.

'I am focused on my job as a doctor and sharing my passions and interests in life. I am quite happy with my imperfections and dont plan to change anytime soon  Oh and yes I am tired!'

He also took to Instagram Stories on his way to work, telling the camera: 'You can't please everyone. Some people have got bad things to say, no matter what you do.

'Actually my spots have settled down today. But yeah, I have acne, and sometimes I get flare ups. And that's life. No-one's perfect, no-one's skin's perfect. Let's be kind to each other!'

But Alex's day went from bad to worse as he returned to his car to discover the soggy penalty notice on his car.

Nasty: Alex shared a screengrab of the messages from the catty follower on Instagram Stories. Despite evidently wanting to watch Alex's videos, the nasty culprit claimed his tired appearance was distracting

And... relax! Dr Alex ended the stressful day with a much-deserved soak in the tub

Despite being a member of staff and leaving a note on the windshield explaining this, the parking warden didn't seem to care.

Alex captioned this snap: 'Brilliant! What do they want me to do?'

He went on to explain that he's received three fines in the hospital car park during the pandemic.

'That's actually the 3rd fine now. I wrote a fill explanation on the paper next to it. Give up. Bad day today. New day tomorrow,' the ever-optimistic doctor added.

Dr Alex has been tirelessly using his social media platform to educate his 1.4m Instagram followers, 73k YouTube subscribers and 175k Twitter followers about the COVID-19 crisis as he fights the virus on the NHS frontline.

Last week he revealed that his coronavirus antibody test came back negative, sharing a video to his YouTube channel as he opened the results in front of his fans.

Results: Dr Alex has been tirelessly using his social media platform to educate his 1.4m Instagram followers, 73k YouTube subscribers and 175k Twitter followers about the COVID-19 crisis as he fights the virus on the NHS frontline

Tense: The former Love Island star shared a video to his YouTube channel as he opened results in front of his fans on Monday

Speaking to the camera, Alex said: 'I'm going to open up the text now. This is a huge moment, here we go, let's do it.

'Your Covid-19 antibody screen result from Lewisham... not detected.

'Well that is quite a shock. It's not detected, I don't have the antibody. That's a real surprise... I'm quite shocked by that because if you think about it I have been there on the frontline since the start.

'I tested people in the little pods outside the hospital, so we had pods set up when we first had cases... doing the swab test, sending patients home.

'And then of course I've treated many, many patients throughout this crisis. I've been exposed to hundreds because I've course I've been going up to the ambulances, I've been doing ultrasounds on people's chests, so I've seen a large number of patients.

Reaction: 'That is a bit of a shock and to be honest I am a bit disappointed. I know it sounds really, really odd and probably a bit ridiculous,' Alex said

'Of course I've been using my PPE and what this is, is probably a testament that the PPE does work...

'That is a bit of a shock and to be honest I am a bit disappointed. I know it sounds really, really odd and probably a bit ridiculous.

'Of course I don't want to have caught Covid-19, I'm very aware of how unwell you can be with Covid-19 but part of you thinks: "Gosh, I would like to be immune because I've seen a lot of patients, I'm immune, hopefully that means I less likely to be unwell from it again.

'And therefore it means of course that I am less of risk to loved ones, like my girlfriend.'

'One of the challenges is that I am away from my girlfriend': Last month, the Welshman admitted he's struggling living apart from his girl in a clip shared to his YouTube channel

Last month, the Welshman admitted he's struggling living apart from his girlfriend Amelia Bath.

Alex confessed he's 'tired' following his 'busy shift', and just 'wants to go home and chat' to the dancer, who he credited for helping him 'relax'.

Leaving the south London hospital in the early hours, he shared: 'My shift is now finished and I am just heading home. Its been again a busy shift  I know I keep saying this but it is the truth. I am feeling alright, I am tired.

'One of the challenges is that I am away from my girlfriend, I made the decision that I didnt want to risk giving it to her or her family, so I am up in London staying on my own  isolating and she is staying elsewhere so I dont give it to her.

Selfless: As the UK entered lockdown, the doctor made the brave decision to move closer to University Hospital Lewisham in a bid to protect his girlfriend from contracting the virus

Smitten: The couple, who met in a bar, have been going strong since December 2018, a few months after his stint on ITV2 dating series Love Island

'That is difficult when you have a busy shift like today you want to go home and sit and chat with someone and just hang out with someone to relax after what happened, its hard when you cant and you are on your own.'

Revealing the pair have been communicating via video message and call services, the NHS employee added: 'Technology is good, being able to FaceTime and chat to people.

'I try and share as much of my experience as I can because it does help, even doing these videos as well, telling you guys how I feel and what I am doing does help me get through a challenging time.'

The couple, who met in a bar, have been going strong since December 2018, a few months after his stint on ITV2 dating series Love Island.

Amelia has since shared her pride over Alex's career, writing last week: 'Im so proud of him and Im endlessly grateful for all the NHS staff and key workers who are working tirelessly during such uncertain times.'
Its called Going Direct. Thats the financial bailout plan designed and authored by former central bankers now on the payroll at BlackRock, an investment manager of $7 trillion in stock and bond funds. The plan was rolled out in August 2019 at the G7 summit of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming  months before the public was aware of any financial crisis. One month later, on September 17, 2019, the U.S. Federal Reserve would begin an emergency repo loan bailout program, making hundreds of billions of dollars a week in loans by going direct to the trading houses on Wall Street.

The BlackRock plan calls for blurring the lines between government fiscal policy and central bank monetary policy  exactly what the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve are doing today in the United States. BlackRock has now been hired by the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, and Swedens central bank, Riksbank, to implement key features of the plan. Three of the authors of the BlackRock plan previously worked as central bankers in the U.S., Canada and Switzerland, respectively.

The authors wrote in the white paper that in a downturn the only solution is for a more formal  and historically unusual  coordination of monetary and fiscal policy to provide effective stimulus.

We now understand why, for the first time in history, the U.S. Congress handed over $454 billion of taxpayers money to the Fed, without any meaningful debate, to eat losses on toxic assets produced by the Wall Street banks it supervises. The Fed plans to leverage the $454 billion into a $4.54 trillion bailout plan, going direct with bailouts to the commercial paper market, money market funds, and a host of other markets.

The BlackRock plan further explains why, for the first time in history, the Fed has hired BlackRock to go direct and buy up $750 billion in both primary and secondary corporate bonds and bond ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds), a product of which BlackRock is one of the largest purveyors in the world. Adding further outrage, the BlackRock-run program will get $75 billion of the $454 billion in taxpayers money to eat the losses on its corporate bond purchases, which will include its own ETFs, which the Fed is allowing it to buy in the program.

Helicopter money is also spelled out in the BlackRock plan, which explains why simultaneously with the $454 billion Congress carved out for the Fed under the CARES Act, fiscal stimulus was also going direct with $1200 checks and direct deposits to the little people of America and Paycheck Protection Program loans and grants going direct to small businesses.
Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE Updates: A team of NHRC on Thursday visited the LNJP hospital. Jyotika Kalra, a member was quoted by ANI as saying, 'We have come here to take stock of situation after NHRC took suo moto cognizance on the complaints of the patients regarding discrepancies in availability of beds on Delhi corona app and in hospitals.'

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Mumbai alone registered as many as 1,567 new COVID-19 cases, taking the number of cases to 52,445 on Wednesday, while 97 more patients died, taking the toll to 1,855, the city civic body said.

The number of cases in Maharashtra climbed to 94,041 on Wednesday with 3,254 new patients being detected. However, more than 44,500 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the state so far.

The world's leading economic power is by far the country most affected by the pandemic, both in terms of the number of reported deaths - 1,12,833 -- and the number of diagnosed cases, which stood at 1,999,313 at 8.30 pm Wednesday.

The novel coronavirus has infected nearly two million people overall in the United States, and in the past 24 hours has caused 1,082 deaths in the country, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University Wednesday.

The Shiv Sena-led government, which is grappling with the worst outbreak of the virus in the country, has allowed government offices to open with 15 percent staff and private offices with 10 percent strength.

The relaxations allowed by the Maharashtra government and the eCntre amid the coronavirus lockdown will be rolled back if people don't adhere to the social distancing norms strictly, warned Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday, following reports of crowding while boarding buses.

With the death of a COVID-19 patient in Assam, the toll in the state climbed to six on Wednesday while, 235 fresh coronavirus cases were reported with the total reaching 3,285, said health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Of the total 3,285 confirmed cases in Assam, at least 1,249 COVID-19 patients were cured of the viral disease, taking the recovery rate to 38 percent in the state. There are 2,027 active coronavirus cases in the state, said health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Nagaland registered one fresh coronavirus positive case, taking the COVID-19 total in the state to 128, a health department official said on Thursday.

Addressing the 125th Annual Session of CII, the prime minister had said: "World is looking for a trusted, reliable partner. India has potential, strength and ability. Today, Indian industries should take advantage of the trust developed in the world towards India... Getting growth back is not that difficult. The biggest thing is that Indian industries have a clear path of self-reliance."

He had said at the meeting of CII that Indian industries should take advantage of the trust developed towards India as the world is looking for a trusted and reliable partner.

Earlier on 2 June, Modi participated in the annual general meeting of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the foremost national chamber, through a video conference.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the inaugural address of the 95th annual plenary session of the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) on Wednesday at 11 am via video conferencing.

"More than 70,000 citizens have returned and nearly 17,000 flew out of India on Vande Bharat Mission flights till date. In addition nearly 110K people flew out and 55K citizens returned on more than 730 charters on foreign and Indian carriers permitted by DGCA. Permission for more such flights is in process," Puri said in a tweet.

More than 70,000 citizens have returned and nearly 17,000 flew out of India on flights under Vande Bharat Mission till date, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Wednesday.

They said the personnel were found infected during a contact-tracing exercise after the death of a 44-year-old coronavirus-infected constable on 6 June .

As many as 28 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel posted in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, officials said.

There have been four COVID-19 deaths in the country's largest paramilitary force, Central Reserve Police Force, having 3.25 lakh personnel. It has 516 coronavirus cases till now out of which 353 personnel have recovered, as per latest data.

With 435 more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Pune district of Maharashtra, the total number of COVID-19 cases climbed to 10,394 on Thursday.

The five doctors - four from AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, and one from Apollo Hospital - were found to have been infected with the virus during the contact-tracing exercise, according to a statement issued by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC).

As many as 110 more people, including five doctors, tested positive for COVID-19 in Odisha on Wednesday, raising the state's tally to 3,250, a health department official said.

Of the 110 fresh cases in Odisha, 97 were reported from quarantine centres where people returning from different states are lodged, while 13 others were detected in contract-tracing exercise, a health department official said on Wednesday.

The remaining over 70 resident doctors have been quarantined in their hostel rooms at the medical college, he said.

A hostel for resident doctors at the Muzaffarnagar Medical College in Begrajpur in the district has been sealed after six of them tested positive for the novel coronavirus and were shifted to a COVID-care hospital, said subdivisional magistrate Inderkant Dwivedi.

According to subdivisional magistrate Inderkant Dwivedi, the woman, a resident of Khatoli town here, was ill for a long time and had tested positive for COVID-19. She died at Subharti Medical Hospital in Meerut Wednesday evening.

A 42-year-old woman who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus died at a hospital in Meerut, an official said on Thursday.

Tripura on Wednesday reported 31 fresh COVID-19 cases, raising the infection count to 898, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said. Seventeen cases were reported from West Tripura district, eight from Sepahijala, three from Gomti, two from Unokoti and one from Dhalai, he said.

As many as 52,13,140 COVID-19 samples have been tested till 9 am on Thursday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said. In the past 24 hours, 1,51,808 samples have been tested, the medical research body said.

India reported the highest single-day spike of 9,996 fresh COVID-19 cases and 357 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the latest data released by the health ministry on Thursday.

After 9,996 more individuals tested positive for the novel coronavirus across the country, the total number of COVID-19 cases increased to 2,86,579 on Thursday, including 1,37,448 active cases, said the health ministry.

For second day in a row, the number of recoveries in India have exceeded the active COVID-19 cases after 1,41,029 patients were cured of the infectious disease as of Thursday. While, there are 1,37,448 number of active cases across the country.

With 357 more COVID-19 patients succumbing to the viral infection in the past 24 hours, the toll across the country reached 8,102 as of Thursday. This takes the mortality rate to 2.83 percent.

Out of the 1,928 samples tested for COVID-19 on Wednesday, results of 81 samples have come out positive, said King George's Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow on Thursday.

A total of 467 vehicles were also seized from their possession, they said.

As many as 441 people have been detained in Manipur for not wearing facial masks and not adhering to social distancing guidelines in public places amid the COVID-19 outbreak, police said.

Nepal has recorded 279 new cases of the coronavirus infection on Wednesday, taking the country's COVID-19 tally to 4,364. At least 15 people have died due to the disease, according to the health ministry.

His claim comes in midst of a raging boundary row between the two countries with India sternly asking Nepal not to resort to any "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims after Kathmandu released a new political map laying claim over Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura.

Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Wednesday claimed that 85 percent of the people tested positive for coronavirus in the country are those who returned from India.

New health and safety methods were tested during a series of special lockdown episodes that showed the fictional family dramas of the rural Yorkshire village played out during the pandemic. These episodes are airing now.

After weeks of shutdown, British soap opera Emmerdale is back in production, leading the way when it comes to resuming regular filming during the coronavirus era.

"Of the total, there are 8596 recoveries and 8221 discharges," said the state health department on Thursday.

With 51 more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Rajasthan till 10.30 am on Thursday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state climbed to 11,651. The COVID-19 toll was 264 after five more patients lost their lives to the infectious disease.

The world is fighting Coronavirus, India is fighting that too. But there are other issues also. Flood, locusts, hailstorm, fire in oil well, small earthquakes, two cyclones - we are fighting all of these together, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 95th Annual Day of Indian Chamber of Commerce.

Dr Cameron Kaiser, Riverside Countys public health officer, signed an order Wednesday canceling the popular festivals outside Palm Springs. Health officials are concerned about a possible surge in coronavirus cases in the fall.

The Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals have been canceled this year due to coronavirus concerns.

"Aatamnirbhar lessons start at home. Time has come for India to become self-reliant," said Modi.

Coronavirus would be turning point as India becomes self-reliant due to this crisis, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi during 95th annual plenary session of Indian Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

India is witnessing a steady improvement in COVID-19 recovery rate, as it exceeds 49 percent for the first time, improves to 49.21 percent as of Thursday, according to the Union Health Ministry.

Kolkata can take inspiration fromits past glory and act as a pivot for development of the East and Northeast, said Narendra Modi on Thursday.

"Indian economy needs to be dragged out from 'command & control and shift' to 'plug & play' mode, said Modi.

The cluster based approach for local production, which is now being promoted in India, is also an economic opportunity for all. Clusters associated with these will be developed in districts, blocks in which they are born, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi during 95th annual plenary session of Indian Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

With her death, the number of fatalities due to the infection in Jammu and Kashmir has risen to 52.

They said the patient was admitted to the hospital on June 7 as a case of acute calcular cholecystitis with hepatic flexural growth (CA Colon). Her sample was taken on the same day and came out positive following which the patient was shifted to the infectious disease ward a day later, the officials said.

A 62-year-old woman from Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, who had tested positive for COVID-19, died at a hospital in Srinagar on Thursday, taking the number of coronavirus-related fatalities in the Union Territory to 52, officials said.

In his address on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: "Decades ago Swami Vivekananda wrote, 'The simplest method to be worked upon at present is to induce Indians to use their own products and get markets for Indian goods in other countries'. This path shown by Swami Vivekananda is an inspiration for India in the post-COVID world."

Narendra Modi on Thursday reiterated that India should take steps to ensure that products that are imported from elsewhere are manufactured within the country. In last five to six years Indias goal of self-reliance has been paramount in policy, practice, he adds. The coronavirus crisis gave us a lesson on how to speed up efforts.

'At this time we have to take the Indian economy out of 'command and control' and push it towards 'plug and play'. This isn't the time for conservative approach. It's time for bold decisions and bold investments. It's time to prepare a globally competitive domestic supply chain," said the Prime Minister on Thursday during 95th annual plenary session of Indian Chamber of Commerce.

The apex court listed for hearing, the issue relating to pan-India suo moto of safety in children homes, on 6 July, reports ANI.

Supreme Court took suo moto cognisance of the report that 35 children in a government-run home in Royapuram, Chennai, have tested positive for COVID-19 and sought a status report from Tamil Nadu government regarding the spread of the novel coronavirus in shelter homes and steps taken to safeguard children.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Thursday told ANI that 42 laboratories are functional in Delhi for coronavirus testing. However, he added that seven of them were stopped for two to three days due to a delay in giving test results. "All labs are required to give test results within 24 hours," said Jain.

A Chief Medical Officer of CRPF has tested positive for COVID-19. The CMO has been shifted to a private hospital in Okhla. Total positive cases in CRPF now stand at 544, out of which 353 have recovered and 4 died, reports ANI

Andhra Pradesh on Thursday recorded 135 new coronavirus cases, increasing the states total infections to 4,261, reports ANI. This includes 1,641 active cases, 2,540 discharged/cured and 80 deaths.

Bihar on Thursday reported 109 more COVID-19 positive cases, taking the total number of cases in the state to 5,807, according to the latest bulletin by the state health department.

The total number of COVID-19 positive cases in Himachal Pradesh is now at 458, including 182 active cases, 259 recovered and 6 deaths, according to the bulletin from the state health department.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the Kerala government has decided to postpone the Sabarimala festival this year, which was scheduled from 19 June, reported The Times of India.

Sabarimala Temple to remain shut for devotees and only rituals will be held inside the premise from 14 June. Decision was taken after meeting between Devaswom Minister and Thantri, News18 reported.

The Uttarakhand government announced a slew of cost-cutting measures, including stopping increment to employees and fresh recruitment in all departments except health and police, to offset the losses caused by the coronavirus-lockdown and the battle against COVID-19, PTI reported.

The announcement of his death was delayed as his body laid in the morgue of a government hospital in the district headquarters of Diphu, 271 km east of Guwahati. The watchman stayed away after locking the morgue's door, as did heath workers out of panic over contagion.

The Superintendent of Police of Karbi Anglong district has ensured honourable cremation of a man who died of the novel coronavirus in Assam on Tuesday, The Hindu reported. The man from Sumpara village in Karbi Anglong district was the fifth COVID-19 victim in the state.

Earlier in June, 49 NDRF personnel and 12 Odisha Fire Service officials had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

As many as 136 more people, including 54 disaster response personnel who were engaged in cyclone Amphan relief work in Odisha, tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, raising the state's total to 3,386, a health department official said.

PML-N leader Ataullah Tarar confirmed on Thursday that Shehbaz, 68, has been infected with the virus. He claimed that Shehbaz contracted the virus as he had to appear before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on 9 June in a money laundering case, reported PTI.

Shehbaz Sharif, chief of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the latest top politician to be infected by the virus.

Two more deaths due to the viral disease were also reported in the district, taking the COVID-19 toll to 163, a health department official told PTI.

Indore registered a total of 3,922 coronavirus cases on Thursday after 41 more people tested for the novel coronavirus in the Madhya Pradesh district in the past 24 hours.

There is no community transmission of COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu till now. The outbreak has been curtailed in many districts of the state. Since Chennai is densely populated the spread of the virus is more there, ANI quoted Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami as saying.

Chief Minister Zoramthanga had on Wednesday condoled the death of H Lalvenmawii, saying the ex-gratia amount will be released from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund (CMRF) and will be handed over to her family through the Lawngtlai district deputy commissioner.

The Mizoram government has announced an ex-gratia amount of Rs 1 lakh for the family of an 18-year-old woman volunteer of a COVID-19 task force who died of "complicated ailments" after keeping vigil along the India-Myanmar border to prevent cross-border movement of people.

The Kanpur district court has been sealed for two days after a senior lawyer tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the general secretary of the district bar association said.

With the current surge in cases, India is on course to overtake Britain in the global list of countries worst affected by the pandemic and expected to reach the three lakh-mark by this week. The United Kingdom, which is the fourth worst-hit nation, has over 2.91 lakh cases.

The country has been recording close to 10,000 cases every day since 1 June. This means that nearly 90,000 cases have been added in the nationwide tally from 1 to 10 June.

The number of COVID-19 cases in India crossed the 2.76-lakh mark on Wednesday, and a third of them have been reported in the first 10 days this month.

With 75 more people testing COVID-19 positive in Uttarakhand till 2 pm on Thursday, the total number of positive cases in the state increased to 1,637, said state health department.

Karnataka government extended ban on online classes till Class 7 standard, ANI reported on Thursday. Earlier, it was decided to not allow online classes till 5th standard.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in a tweet said that BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and his mother have recovered from Covid-19.

"With 2,97,001 total cases, India surpasses United Kingdom (UK) to become the fourth most-affected country by coronavirus pandemic, according to Worldometers tally. The country's death toll stands at 8,473 and 142,454 cases are still active. US remains the most-affected country with the highest number of coronavirus cases (20,72,273) followed by Brazil (7,75,581) and Russia (5,02,436)," News18 reported.

The Telangana health department said that 208 more coronavirus cases and nine deaths were reported in the state on Thursday. Total number of cases in the state is now at 4,320, including 1,993 discharged, 2,162 active cases and 165 deaths.

Supreme Court on Thursday took suo-motu cognisance "on issues relating to the treatment of Covid-19 patients and for the dignified handling of bodies in hospitals".

48 more COVID-19 cases were reported in Jharkhand on Thursday. The total number of cases in the state is now at 1599, including 961 active cases, 630 recovered/discharged and 8 deaths.

The Delhi government on Thursday issued an order directing all designated COVID-19 hospitals to make oxygen facility available on all of their beds. Decision taken in view of the surge in positive cases in Delhi in last one week.

There is no single reason for the surges. In some cases, more testing has revealed more cases. In others, local outbreaks are big enough to push statewide tallies higher. But experts think at least some are due to lifting stay-at-home orders, school and business closures, and other restrictions put in place during the spring to stem the viruss spread.

In Arizona, hospitals have been told to prepare for the worst. Texas has more hospitalized COVID-19 patients than at any time before. And the governor of North Carolina said recent jumps caused him to rethink plans to reopen schools or businesses.

Cases are rising in nearly half the states, according to an Associated Press analysis, a worrying trend that could intensify as people return to work and venture out during the summer.

States are rolling back lockdowns, but the coronavirus isnt done with the U.S.

The total number of people who are receiving unemployment aid fell slightly, a sign that some people who were laid off when restaurants, retail chains and small businesses suddenly shut down have been recalled to work.

The latest figure from the Labor Department marked the 10th straight weekly decline in applications for jobless aid since they peaked in mid-March when the coronavirus hit hard. Still, the pace of layoffs remains historically high.

About 1.5 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, evidence that many Americans are still losing their jobs even as the economy appears to be slowly recovering with more businesses partially reopening.

30 more cases of coronavirus were reported in Goa on Thursday. Total number of cases in the state is now at 417, including 67 recovered and 350 active cases:, said state health department.

1282 people tested for #COVID19 in Himachal Pradesh today, of which 6 tested positive, 989 negative & results of 287 are awaited. Total cases in the state now at 470, including 177 active cases, 276 recovered and six deaths: State Health Department

Coronavirus Outbreak LATEST Updates: A team of NHRC on Thursday visited the LNJP hospital. Jyotika Kalra, a member was quoted by ANI as saying, "We have come here to take stock of situation after NHRC took suo moto cognizance on the complaints of the patients regarding discrepancies in availability of beds on Delhi corona app and in hospitals."

The Union health ministry, in a press briefing on Thursday, said that the recovery rate stands at 49.21 percent.

"The number of patients recovered presently exceeds the number of active patients," said Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry on COVID-19 situation in the country.

ICMR said the state government cannot lower their guard and need to keep on implementing effective surveillance and containment strategies preventing the spread of COVID-19.

There is no community transmission of COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu till now. The outbreak has been curtailed in many districts of the state. Since Chennai is densely populated the spread of the virus is more there, ANI quoted Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami as saying.

With the current surge in cases, India is on course to overtake Britain in the global list of countries worst affected by the pandemic and expected to reach the three lakh-mark by this week. The United Kingdom, which is the fourth worst-hit nation, has over 2.91 lakh cases.

The number of COVID-19 cases in India crossed the 2.76-lakh mark on Wednesday, and a third of them have been reported in the first 10 days this month.

The country has been recording close to 10,000 cases every day since 1 June. This means that nearly 90,000 cases have been added in the nationwide tally from 1 to 10 June.

As many as 136 more people, including 54 disaster response personnel who were engaged in cyclone Amphan relief work in Odisha, tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, raising the state's total to 3,386, a health department official said.

Earlier in June, 49 NDRF personnel and 12 Odisha Fire Service officials had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Sabarimala Temple will remain shut for devotees and only rituals will be held inside the premise from 14 June. The decision was taken after meeting between Devaswom Minister and Thantri, News18 reported.

The Kerala government has decided to postpone the Sabarimala festival this year, which was scheduled to begin from 19 June.

A Chief Medical Officer of CRPF has tested positive for COVID-19. The CMO has been shifted to a private hospital in Okhla. Total positive cases in CRPF now stand at 544, out of which 353 have recovered and 4 succumbed to the virus.

In his address on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: 'Decades ago Swami Vivekananda wrote, 'The simplest method to be worked upon at present is to induce Indians to use their own products and get markets for Indian goods in other countries'. This path shown by Swami Vivekananda is an inspiration for India in the post-COVID world.'

The cluster based approach for local production, which is now being promoted in India, is also an economic opportunity for all. Clusters associated with these will be developed in districts, blocks in which they are born, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi during 95th annual plenary session of Indian Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

"Indian economy needs to be dragged out from 'command & control and shift' to 'plug & play' mode, said Modi.

With 51 more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus in Rajasthan till 10.30 am on Thursday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state climbed to 11,651. The COVID-19 toll was 264 after five more patients lost their lives to the infectious disease.

"Of the total, there are 8596 recoveries and 8221 discharges," said the state health department on Thursday.

As many as 441 people have been detained in Manipur for not wearing facial masks and not adhering to social distancing guidelines in public places amid the COVID-19 outbreak, police said.

A total of 467 vehicles were also seized from their possession, they said.

With 357 more COVID-19 patients succumbing to the viral infection in the past 24 hours, the toll across the country reached 8,102 as of Thursday. This takes the mortality rate to 2.83 percent.

For second day in a row, the number of recoveries in India have exceeded the active COVID-19 cases after 1,41,029 patients were cured of the infectious disease as of Thursday. While, there are 1,37,448 number of active cases across the country.

This takes the recovery rate to 49.2 percent.

India reported the highest single-day spike of 9,996 fresh COVID-19 cases and 357 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the latest data released by the health ministry on Thursday.

A hostel for resident doctors at the Muzaffarnagar Medical College in Begrajpur in the district has been sealed after six of them tested positive for the novel coronavirus and were shifted to a COVID-care hospital, said subdivisional magistrate Inderkant Dwivedi.

The remaining over 70 resident doctors have been quarantined in their hostel rooms at the medical college, he said.

As many as 28 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel posted in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, officials said.

They said the personnel were found infected during a contact-tracing exercise after the death of a 44-year-old coronavirus-infected constable on 6 June .

With the death of a COVID-19 patient in Assam, the toll in the state climbed to six on Wednesday while, 235 fresh coronavirus cases were reported with the total reaching 3,285, said health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

India on Wednesday recorded 9,985 new COVID-19 cases and 279 fatalities, pushing the country's case count to 2,76,583 and toll to 7,745, the Union Health Ministry said.

On a positive note, the number of recovered patients has exceeded the count of active cases for the first time.

According to news agency PTI, nearly 90,000 cases have been added to the countrywide count of confirmed COVID-19 cases since 1 June, while nearly one-third of the overall toll has also been reported during these 10 days.

India's first COVID-19 case was detected more than four months ago on 30 January, but it took more than 100 days thereafter for the number of confirmed cases to cross 1,00,000 on 18 May. However, the next one lakh cases were added in just about a fortnight. More than 9,000 new cases have been emerging every day for over a week now.

India is the fifth worst-affected nation by the COVID-19 pandemic at present after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK. India is ranked 12th for the number of deaths, while it is at the 9th place for recoveries, as per the real-time global data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

India reports 9,985 new cases, 279 fatalities in 24 hours

According to the morning update issued by the Union health ministry, India reported 9,985 new cases and 279 fatalities in the 24 hours since 8 am on Tuesday, pushing the overall case count to 2,76,583 and toll to 7,745.

The number of active cases in the country stands at 1,33,632, while 1,35,205 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the ministry said. "Thus, 48.99 percent of the patients have recovered so far," it said. With this, for the first time, the number of active cases was lesser than then number of recoveries.

Dr. Neeraj Gupta, professor in the Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, told PTI the data shows that more and more people are recovering which is as per global trends that 80 percent are likely to have mild disease and make 100 percent recovery.

"This should provide hope to the people of India at large who are having a mortal fear of the disease. But then this should not make them complacent and people should follow social distancing and sanitisation guidelines," Gupta said.

Of the 279 new deaths reported in India on Wednesday, 120 were in Maharashtra, 33 in Gujarat, 31 in Delhi, 21 in Tamil Nadu, 18 in Uttar Pradesh, 11 in Telangana, 10 in West Bengal, nine in Rajasthan, six each in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, three in Jammu and Kashmir, two in Punjab, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, and one each in Bihar, Jharkhand and Tripura.

Out of the total 7,745 fatalities, Maharashtra reported the highest at 3,289 deaths, followed by Gujarat with 1,313, Delhi with 905, Madhya Pradesh with 420, West Bengal with 415, Tamil Nadu with 307, Uttar Pradesh with 301, Rajasthan with 255 and Telangana with 148 deaths. The death toll reached 77 in Andhra Pradesh, 66 in Karnataka, and 55 in Punjab.

The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 90,787 followed by Tamil Nadu at 34,914, Delhi at 31,309, Gujarat at 21,014, Uttar Pradesh at 11,335, Rajasthan at 11,245 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,849 according to the Health ministry morning update.

The ministry's website said that 9,227 cases are being reassigned to states and "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR".

States report increase in cases

However, a PTI tally of figures announced by different states and Union Territories, as of 9.25 pm, showed that the total number of confirmed cases has climbed to 2,77,286, while the death toll has mounted to 8,099. It also showed total recoveries at over 1.4 lakh.

The number of cases in Maharashtra climbed to 94,041 on Wednesday with 3,254 new patients being detected, while the number of COVID-19 rose to 3,438 with 149 new fatalities being recorded during the day. However, more than 44,500 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the state so far.

Mumbai alone registered as many as 1,567 new COVID-19 cases, taking the number of cases to 52,445 on Wednesday, while 97 more patients died, taking the toll to 1,855, the city civic body said.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said lockdown restrictions have been partially eased to allow resumption of business and other activities but the COVID-19 threat still persists. He urged people to avoid crowding and maintain physical distancing post easing of the lockdown norms and warned that lockdown restrictions would have to be reimposed if guidelines were not followed.

If the relaxations to the lockdown starts turning out to be risky, we will be compelled to re-impose the lockdown.  CMO Maharashtra (@CMOMaharashtra) June 10, 2020

In Tamil Nadu, a record number of 1,927 new cases emerged, pushing the state's tally to 36,841 The toll rose to 326 as 19 people succumbed to the disease. DMK MLA J Anbazhagan, a noted articulate member of the principal Opposition party in the state Assembly, died at a private hospital in Chennai after battling COVID-19 for eight days.

The Tamil Nadu government announced that it was recruiting more than 2,800 medical personnel including over 1,200 doctors and also proposed to double the number of beds in state government hospitals to 10,000. This would help lower the work burden of doctors, nurses and other health personnel and improve the COVID-19 treatment amenities, said state health minister C Vijaybaskar.

Gujarat, another badly hit state, reported 510 new cases to take its tally to 21,554, while its death toll rose to 1,347. The number of coronavirus cases in Ahmedabad district rose to 15,305 with 343 new cases being detected while the toll the district rose to 1,092 with 26 more fatalities.

New cases of the viral infection also continued to emerge across various states and UTs, including in Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

Jammu and Kashmir recorded 161 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total number of infections in the Union Territory to 4,507, as two fresh deaths pushed the toll to 51.

Seven more persons tested positive for COVID-19 in Manipur, taking the state's tally of coronavirus cases to 311. All the new patients had recently returned to the state from different parts of the country and were placed under institutional quarantine, a statement issued by the COVID-19 Common Control Room said, adding that their contact-tracing has been initiated.

The Rajasthan government sealed all state borders for a week from Wednesday as the number of confirmed cases in the state surged by 123 to 11,368.

No person can enter Rajasthan without a 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) from the state or leave without a pass, Director General Of Police, Law and Order, ML Lather said in an order.

'Transmission in community', says Delhi health minister

In Delhi, the total count of cases crossed 32,000 with more than 1,500 new cases getting reported, while its death count mounted to 984. The National Capital will need 1.5 lakh beds by 31 July once people start coming from other states for COVID-19 treatment, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said while announcing that the Lieutenant Governor's orders overruling his government's decisions on coronavirus will be implemented as "this is not the time for disagreements and politics".

Kejriwal said his government has "unprecedented challenges" ahead as data shows that COVID-19 cases will rapidly increase in Delhi, but asserted that around 1,900 patients got beds in hospitals in the last eight days and 4,200 beds were still available, a claim that comes amidst reports of acute shortage of beds in healthcare facilities in the National Capital.

Delhi's Health Minister Satyendar Jain said there is "transmission in the community" but only the Centre can declare whether "community transmission". "There is transmission in the community. But if it is community transmission or not that can be declared by the Centre only. It is a technical term," a statement quoting Jain said.

He had said on Tuesday that the source of infection is not known in nearly half of the fresh cases being reported in the National Capital.

Community transmission generally refers to a stage where contact tracing for a large number of infections is difficult to establish.

Warning of more trouble ahead, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said on Tuesday that the number of COVID-19 cases could surge to 5.5 lakh by 31 July in the national capital itself at the current rate.

With inputs from PTI
Arnab Goswami's lawyer Harish Salve on Tuesday sought exemption for him from appearing before the Mumbai police on Wednesday and also later pending the hearing of the petition.

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday refused to grant Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami exemption from appearance before the city police in a case about alleged provocative comments.

A division bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Riyaz Chagla, which was hearing his petition seeking quashing of the FIRs, asked him to appear before the police on Wednesday.

Two First Information Reports (FIRs) have been registered against Goswami in Nagpur and Mumbai accusing him of making provocative comments about a community during a news show.

The show was about migrant workers gathering in large numbers outside the Bandra railway terminus during lockdown.

His lawyer Harish Salve on Tuesday sought exemption for him from appearing before the Mumbai police on Wednesday and also later pending the hearing of the petition.

Last month, Goswami moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of all the FIRs lodged against him.

The Supreme Court on 19 May refused to quash the FIRs lodged in Maharashtra and said he could approach the Bombay High Court for relief.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Maharashtra government's counsel Kapil Sibal opposed the plea for exemption and said his interrogation was necessary for probe.

The bench then directed Goswami to appear before the concerned police station on Wednesday and posted the petition for hearing to 12 June.
Chhattisgarh chief mnister Bhupesh Baghel has asked Centre to allow states governments to avail the additional borrowing limit of 2% and enhance their resources during the Covid-19 crisis without any conditions.

In a letter to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Baghel asked her to reconsider the Centres decision to link the increased borrowing limit of states to specific reforms, adding that the economic packages announced by the Centre to deal with Covid-19 crisis and the ensuing lockdown were insufficient to revive the economy.

The chief minister said that considering the demand of states, the Centre has allowed an additional borrowing limit of 2 per cent of GSDP, but the state governments are unable to avail the benefit due to non-fulfilment of conditions and norms.

The problem of scarcity of resource remains unchanged for the states and the responsibility of the state government has increased even more as economic packages announced by the Centre to deal with the anomalous situation arising due to the Corona crisis and nationwide lockdown are also insufficient to revive the economy and meet the needs of the common people, the CM wrote.

The CM said that in present crisis it is the states priority to provide free food grains to the poor families, regular salary to the salaried people and proper health facilities for all. To provide relief to the people of the state, it is necessary to take prompt and effective action in this direction along with additional financial resources, he added.

Baghel further said that automation of fair price shops including installation of POS machines in remote and forest areas is a difficult target for the state to achieve as 14 districts of Chhattisgarh are affected by LWE activities. Similarly, there are many technical hurdles in implementing the DBT system by ending the power subsidy being given to farmers in the agrarian state, he added. The chief minister said that although these reforms are quite important, this does not seem an appropriate time for these changes.

In the present situation, it is more important that the state governments satisfactorily fulfil the immediate and primary responsibilities of public welfare and requested the union minister to allow the states to avail the additional borrowing limit and enhance their resources during the Covid-19 crisis without any conditions, the CM said.

As part of her final tranche on the Centres Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus package last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that an increase in the borrowing limits of states from 3% to 5% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for the year 2020-21, subject to their carrying out specific reforms.

Chattisgarh reported 14 new Covidd-19 cases on Tuesday, taking its total count to 1,211, PTI reported quoting a state health official.

There are 859 active cases in the state while five people have died of Covid-19.

EOM
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said L-G Anil Baijals order on hospitals accessible to everyone living in Delhi would be implemented amid a political slugfest in the national capital even as coronavirus cases continue to rise.

Kejriwal, who was addressing the media a day after he tested negative for Covid-19, said: L-G's directives will be implemented in letter and spirit, this is not the time for disagreements or arguments.

He also asked people to promote social distancing and usage of masks as a people's movement just like the odd-even scheme.

Baijal had overturned the decision of the AAP government to reserve Delhi government hospitals and some private ones for residents.

A day after officials from the Centre said there's no community transmission of Covid-19 yet in Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia reiterated that the AAP government is prepared for the worst and were preparing on minimising the damage.

"We have surpassed our infrastructure limit but we are prepared for the worst. The situation is still under control and manageable; damage is happening but we are working on minimising it," Sisodia told CNN-News18.

The deputy CM had earlier said that he estimated there might be 5.5 lakh coronavirus cases in the city by July 31. The national capital will need 80,000 beds by July end, he told reporters after a meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA).

Sisodia further told News18 that the government's plan was according to specific calculations and they were "matching up to the increasing number of cases in Delhi".

Elaborating further on government's plans, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that considering that 50% patients come to Delhi from outside, the state needs about 1.5 lakh beds by next month.

"I will personally oversee stadiums being turned into quarantine centres. In the last eight days, Delhi hospitals admitted 1,900 people, while 4,200 beds are vacant. Yet we got information that around 200 patients struggled to get beds. We will look into the matter. This is not the time to fight, we have to be together. If we will fight, coronavirus will win," the CM said.

On Monday, L-G Anil Baijal had overruled AAP government's order to reserve Delhi government-run and private hospitals in the national capital for Delhiites. This led to a war of words between the Centre and the state government with Sisodia accusing BJP of "putting pressure on L-G" and Kejriwal saying that L-G's order has created a "major problem and challenge for the residents".
Beijing's Commerce Department will host many parent-child events in shopping malls to boost consumption. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Beijing launched a monthlong event to promote consumer spending by parents and children on Saturday. The effort involves more than 200 companies and 2,000 stores in the capital whose aim is to meet the needs of families and make the city center into an international consumption focal point.

Beijing's Commerce Department will host many parent-child events in shopping malls to boost consumption. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The "Love More" marketplace will host a series of activities to bring parents and children together through handwork projects with different themes.

Beijing's Commerce Department will host many parent-child events in shopping malls to boost consumption. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Many shopping centers will carry out events around Father's Day in late June, which will help bring dads and kids closer to each other.

Beijing's Commerce Department will host many parent-child events in shopping malls to boost consumption. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Beijing's Commerce Bureau, the major organizer of the events, has released a "consumption map" for families, listing various activities in major business areas of the city.

Beijing's Commerce Department will host many parent-child events in shopping malls to boost consumption. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

At the same time, online shopping platforms such as JD.com will also participate in the events. They will offer platforms for shops and channels to promote products and services.

Beijing announced on Wednesday that it would offer coupons worth 12.2 billion yuan ($1.71 billion) to spur consumption after it was dampened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beijing's Commerce Department will host many parent-child events in shopping malls to boost consumption. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The first batch of coupons was available on Saturday at JD.com and can be used at participating restaurants and retailers in Beijing.

Beijing's Commerce Department will host many parent-child events in shopping malls to boost consumption. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll on Beijing's consumption," said Yan Ligang, head of the Commerce Bureau. "The upcoming consumption-boosting event will help promote the resumption of business and boost consumer confidence."

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)


What made you make a film like Season's Greetings?

After making my debut film Cakewalk (Esha Deol plays a married chef in the short, which depicts the personal and professional journey of a modern Indian woman), I wanted to make a film that deals with a mother-daughter relationship. So, I decided to make Seasons Greetings. On OTT platforms, were mostly fed bloodbath and terror. Barely do we get to see any relationship thats poetic. Either were showing sex or were showing sex along with the thriller. Most platforms are relying on sexuality explicit scenes or dialogue to attract audiences. With Seasons Greetings, we tried to bring back the audience with dialogue like, Bas ek karwat ki doori thi... or Yeh Guru Dutt wala pyar hai Sex And the City wale nahin samjhenge!" Even the lovemaking scene between Celina Jaitly and Azhar Khan is shot aesthetically. Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Sanjay Leela Bhansali are the filmmakers, who brought back the magic of romance on screen.



Tell us about how you got the cast of Season's Greetings together.

It wasnt a cakewalk. I had locked Paoli Dam as daughter and was looking for someone to play the role of her mother. I approached many leading ladies from the industry. But everyone had cold feet because of the characters graph. Finally, I met Lillette Dubey in Dubai at an event. She gave me five minutes to narrate the story, while she was waiting for her cab at the lobby. She was intrigued by the character of the mother, Suchitra. She comes from theatre background and enjoys experimenting with characters. But by the time we locked her, I lost my dates with Paoli. Thats when I approached Celina Jaitly, who I met in Dubai during the same trip. She had lost her father and a child. She was going through acute depression. When I narrated the story, she started crying. She could immediately connect with the character of the daughter Romita. I knew that it was divine intervention. Then I struggled to cast someone for the role of Chapala, a transgender house-help, who stays with Suchitra in her house. My producer Aritra Das introduced me to Shree Ghatak, a transgender. I took her audition and then did rigorous workshops before finalising her for the role. Finally, I was in search of Usmaan, Romitas live-in boyfriend. The search ended with Azhar Khan. When I saw him walking in the room, I knew he was my Usmaan. Usmaan is actually the binding thread of the plot.



A fine memory from the sets of Seasons Greetings

On the third day of the shoot, Celina had to shoot a scene with Lilletteji where she had to hug her as say, Ma aami eshe gechi (Ma I am back)! Just before the shot, she called me in her make-up room, sat with the script for a couple of minutes and burst out crying. She kept crying, looking out in the window. I sat beside her in total silence. The unit stood on standby. Only Celina and I knew what she was going through. She gathered her broken self, came out of the room and did that shot in one take. No wonder shes been praised for her performance today.



Whats on your mind after Seasons Greetings?

Seasons Greetings opened at the Cardiff International Film Festival and travelled across the globe. It fetched me the Best Director award at the Rajasthan International Film Festival this year. I am happy that the film has been blessed by the critics and the audience. Such a miracle happens once in a blue moon. In fact, this year I have four more films to be released. My next would be Rickshawala, a bilingual in Bengali and Bhojpuri. The film deals with the hand-pulled rickshawalas in Kolkata. Its a homage to Balraj Sahani and Om Puri, who played rickshawla in Do Bigha Zameen and City Of Joy respectively. After that I will be releasing Broken Frame, a Hindi short based on my short story Long Island Iced Tea. The film stars Rohit Roy Bose and Ritabhari Chakraborty. Its about a couple that decides to part ways on their wedding anniversary.





Then I have Shubho Bijoya, a Hindi feature for the digital platform. The film brings famous television couple Gurmeet Choudhury and Debina Bonnerjee back after almost 11 years. Its about a photographer, who turns blind and a super model, whos diagnosed with skin cancer. Its again a poetic and emotional story. Ive also announced my first full length feature film Binodinii, a biopic based on the famous 17th century theatre actress Binodini Dasi. I just finished working on the first draft during the lockdown. I hope to shoot this film after we return to normalcy.



What were the challenges you faced while switching from being a journalist to a director?

Direction is a gradual extension of myself. Im a storyteller. I always enjoyed feature stories, compared to breaking news. I am a creator. Thats what I enjoy the most. From writing biographies on Hema Malini (Beyond The Dreamgirl) and Sanjay Dutt (One Man Many Lives), to producing a finite series with Rajshri Ojha to creating my own films, it was all about gradually becoming an individual rather than just a representative of any group or corporate house.



Three things you love about being a filmmaker.

Storytelling, cinematography and editing. These aspects of cinema intrigue me the most. As a filmmaker, I first imagine the visuals  often in my sleep. Then I start weaving the plot. Then we experiment with various angles and takes at the shoot. I try to understand my cinematographers vision as well. In fact, I learn every moment. From my assistants to my spot boy, they all teach me. Finally, at the editing table we join the dots. Its as exciting as a jigsaw puzzle. Youre eager to see whether the final output matches what you had imagined.
The same court is to decide on the seizure of his property.

An investigating judge of Kyiv's Pechersky district court has issued a ruling authorizing the arrest of former Member of Parliament Konstantin Zhevago, who is suspected of embezzlement of Finance and Credit Bank's assets.

On Wednesday, June 10, the same court is to decide on the seizure of the suspect's property, First Deputy Director of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Oleksandr Babikov told the news outlet censor.net.

Read alsoCourt ruling confirms illegality of Bakhmatyuk's arrest in absentia  media

Having satisfied a motion filed by Zhevago's lawyers, Kyiv's Court of Appeals on May 25, 2020, overturned the decision previously issued by the investigating judge of the Pechersky district court authorizing the arrest of the former lawmaker who worked in parliament of the third-eighth convocations. The prosecutor's office filed another motion.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Zhevago in early October was put on the wanted list in the Finance and Credit Bank embezzlement case.

On September 27, Olha Varchenko, the SBI's first deputy director, said that they probed into Zhevago's involvement in a criminal scheme for embezzlement and legalization of UAH 2.5 billion (US$94.2 million) belonging to Finance and Credit Bank and issued a suspicion notice in absentia.

According to the SBI, he is the beneficial owner of the bank. It was established during the pretrial investigation that an offshore company opened credit lines in foreign banks in 2007-2014, Varchenko said.

Later, collateral agreements worth over US$113 million were concluded between Finance and Credit and foreign banks, under which the Ukrainian bank used own funds as collateral for an offshore company. The funds were placed on correspondent accounts with foreign-based creditor banks.

In 2015, the foreign banks collected the very US$113 million from Finance and Credit Bank's accounts for the offshore company's failure to fulfill its obligations under the credit agreements. The foreign banks wrote off the collateral sum immediately after Finance and Credit Bank had been declared insolvent.

Zhevago is facing charges under Part 3 of Article 27, Part 5 of Article 191 (embezzlement of other individuals' property held by an official committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons in especially large amounts) and Part 3 of Article 209 (legalization/laundering of proceeds of crime in especially large amounts) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

In July, a suspicion notice was handed over to two top managers of the bank.

Also, seven former officials of the bank, four of whom are now on the international and national wanted lists, have already been served with the notice of charges.
Wanzhou district in southwest China's Chongqing municipality has introduced poverty alleviation workshops to help poor people shake off poverty by securing jobs and incomes near their homes.

So far, the district has established 18 poverty alleviation workshops by encouraging enterprises to employ poor people and incentivizing migrant workers to set up poverty alleviation workshops back in their hometowns.

A clothing factory in the districts Guocun town is one example of this effort. Some workers in my factory are from poor households, said the factory owner Luo Xianqing, adding that she wants to help more people, especially poor populations, increase their incomes and escape poverty.

I couldnt find a job because employers thought I was too old, said Zhang Qingkai, who comes from a poor family and is an employee at the poverty alleviation workshop. Now I can receive a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan near home, Zhang exclaimed in delight.

Chen Rong, another employee from a poor family in Zhongyang village, is filled with hope for a better future. I began to work in the factory just after it was built, and now I can earn about 3,000 yuan per month, Chen said, expressing her confidence in being able to get rid of poverty after the income from her husband, who works elsewhere, is included.

Another example is the poverty alleviation workshop of a black fungus cooperative in Hongfu village of Longju town.

"Our village is located in a mountainous area and boasts abundant resources," said Ma Shutian, who founded the cooperative. Ma returned to the village in 2016 to produce fungus. Today, he owns a production and processing base with a plant covering over 1,200 square meters and about 4.7 hectares of land producing fungus.

"At the fungus base, I can earn 150 yuan and my wife 50 yuan each day," said a man surnamed Cheng, whose family is a registered impoverished household, adding that its very convenient, as they can earn an income near home and also take care of their family. The couple can make a monthly salary of more than 5,000 yuan.

So far, this poverty alleviation workshop has provided jobs for over 40 people from more than 20 impoverished households.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, Wanzhou also offered subsidies to all its poverty alleviation workshops and 33 enterprises that contribute to poverty relief efforts in the district, helping secure jobs for 2,015 impoverished people.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has brought back diamonds and pearls worth Rs 1,350 crore from Hong Kong belonging to diamantaire Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi in connection with Rs 13,000 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case. According to ED, the 108 consignments of UAE and Hong Kong entities of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi were brought back on Wednesday from Hong Kong.

Nirav Modi is in London jail, while his uncle Mehul Choksi is hiding in Antigua. Extradition proceedings against both accused have been initiated by the Indian investigative agencies.

The financial probe agency claims that the valuables brought from Hong Kong include polished diamonds, pearls, pearl and silver jewellery etc. These were kept in the godown of a logistics company in Hong Kong. The consignments were brought back to Mumbai today and the weigh around 2,340 Kg.

"These consignments had been sent to Hong Kong from Dubai in early 2018 and the officers of the Enforcement Directorate had received intelligence input about these valuables in July 2018. The officers were continuously engaged in discussion with various authorities in Hong Kong to bring these valuables back to India," said the agency.

After finalising various modalities and legal formalities, these consignments were dispatched from Hong Kong which reached India today.

India Today has learnt that out of 108 consignments, 32 consignments belong to the entities controlled by Nirav Modi, while rest belong to entities controlled by Mehul Choksi.

Earlier, ED had successfully brought back 33 consignments of valuables from Dubai and Hong Kong in cases against Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. These valuables were valued on arrival and were subsequently seized in India. Independent valuers assessed the earlier consignments to be worth around Rs 137 crore.

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: India sees 9,985 new COVID-19 cases, 279 deaths in 24 hours; tally surges to 2.76 lakh

Also read: Coronavirus effect: Availed EMI moratorium? Be ready for hiccups in future loans
Jami Resch, following another long night of monitoring protests as Portlands police chief, said she first thought of the idea of stepping aside from the job and offering it to Chuck Lovell, an African American lieutenant, as she was driving home late Saturday.

"Honestly, it was a feeling,'' she said Tuesday, the day after announcing her unprecedented decision. I was thinking, Whats not right? What is not happening that the community wants the bureau to do?' Changing policies wasnt enough. It had to be a more significant change.

She mulled the idea over with her family before she called Mayor Ted Wheeler about midday Sunday.

"I went to the mayor first to see if he supported'' the proposition before talking to Lovell, Resch said. Wheeler was headed to a meeting. He listened to Resch and told her that he wanted some time to consider it.

A short time later he called her back and said, "You know what, lets move' on that, she recounted. He didnt talk her out of her plan.

"When Chief Resch told me she believed that our community needed new voices to lead the conversation around community safety, I agreed,'' Wheeler said at a news conference introducing Lovell as the citys new chief.

With the mayors nod, Resch met with Lovell in her office Sunday afternoon. She said Lovell was clearly stunned by her request and expressed some hesitation. He wanted to make sure he wasnt being put in a position for the wrong reasons.

"I explained that I wouldnt do that to him,'' she said. "Chuck is a friend of mine.''

She said she recognizes that the No. 1 priority for the Police Bureau is improving the relationships the officers have with residents because when that relationship is a good one, the other goals, such as crime reduction, organizational excellence and inclusion, "naturally occur,'' she said.

She said she has enjoyed serving as chief since January. I really did. I thought the bureau really was in a good place internally and felt we made changes to help improve our relationships externally,'' she said.

Resch added that she was never out for "the title'' and was surprised herself when she got the call from the mayor late last year, asking her to succeed Chief Danielle Outlaw, who left to become Philadelphias police commissioner.

Resch said the chiefs job is "an incredible amount of work,'' and theres "a lot to carry in that position.''

But when you get tapped to step up and serve, she said, its an honor. And thats how Lovell reacted when she approached him, she said.

The mayor said he consulted with his staff, others in law enforcement and community leaders, but not a very large group to keep the information under wraps. On Monday morning before a noon news conference, Wheeler spoke with Lovell, saying he needed to confirm "that Chuck was all in.''

"Im humbled,'' Lovell said at the announcement. "Im a public servant. Im going to show up every day with a servants heart. Im going to listen. Im going to care about the community and care about people in the organization. All I can do is be me.''

Resch said shell return to the rank of captain as soon as Lovell is formally sworn in, which is expected in the next day or so, and doesnt know exactly where shell be assigned now. Resch, a 20-year bureau veteran, had previously served as a deputy chief and assistant chief under Outlaw.

Others in the bureau expect Resch may return to fill an assistant chiefs position later in the year after another officer retires.

She said she feels completely at peace with her decision.

"Today is a transition day,'' she said, speaking from her car as she was driving into work Tuesday morning.

She paused as she stopped to greet the officers posted by the fenced checkpoint on the Southwest Second Avenue entrance to the Justice Center. The Justice Center, which holds the jail, courtrooms and police headquarters downtown, has become a gathering spot for protesters. It became a target late May 29 by some who broke windows and set fire to a records office during demonstrations to decry police violence and institutional racism in the wake of George Floyds death in Minneapolis.

Resch said shelll start packing up her belongings and Lovell will start moving into the chiefs office.

She stressed shes committed to helping Lovell succeed.

"Obviously, we are collaborating,'' Resch said. "Its more important now to show that this change meant something.''

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter
By Kim Ji-soo





The health authorities were asking the public to refrain from unnecessary meetings, as small infection clusters have been reported in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area.

They were happening in closed spaces such as underground ping pong clubs or offices, among people holding small religious studies groups or meetings. Places with no windows or ventilation were highly prone to these infection clusters.



It was however a brilliant Saturday in early June. Deep summer verdant was visible everywhere.

So a group of four women defied the authorities' call, choosing instead to head to the Seongsu area, a hot place among the young and chic. Any stop at restaurants or cafes would be short, possibly just a pick-up of food or drinks.



A sense of expectation, curiosity about a new neighborhood, and a human stubbornness to show resistance to the virus prevailed.



We didn't know what to expect in terms of crowd size. Would there be long lines like when Blue Bottle opened its first shop here? No such line was visible.



But the neighborhood had a sufficient weekend crowd. Mostly young and fashionable people thronged the streets formerly known for its handmade shoe shops. Young entrepreneurs had their street stalls set up, featuring jewelry, fragrances and soaps they created themselves.



There were people wearing masks everywhere.



Some of the stores strictly adhered to the "everyday life quarantine" guidelines or infection prevention rules, checking temperatures and asking visitors to register their names and phone numbers. The fashionable cafes in the neighborhood were, without meaning to be, COVID-19 friendly. Usually standing in refurbished houses or former warehouses, they had a lot of space. It was a relief to see that these businesses seemed to be going strong.

But just as much if not more restaurants and small shops had none of these preparations.



No temperature checks, nor personal information registration. Tables were closely squeezed together for maximum business that was the norm prior to the COVID-19 era. People thankfully wore masks, but the masks were dropped constantly to eat, talk or drink. It was understood that businesses could not afford to seat their patrons apart as recommended by the health authorities. Hopefully, the tables were wiped and disinfected after each team left.



People walked sometimes right behind your heel, so confident perhaps in their youth or in old age that they could resist the virus. This is despite that some experts having advised people to stay one or two meters apart when walking outside. The Korean sentiment of having to hurry, to get ahead, still prevailed in the COVID-19 era.



Once in a social setting, it really was difficult to keep that the 1- to 2-meter safe distance required for infection prevention in daily life.



A myriad of feelings and questions about what was the best method of infection prevention raced through our minds, and most probably through the minds of those stylish young people thronging the area.



Clearing away the doubts, Director Jung Eun-kyeong of the Korea Centers of Disease Control and Prevention on Monday stressed that wearing a mask and/or keeping 1 meter apart can reduce infections by 80 percent.

With people, businesses and communities slowly reopening, there will be learning phases along the way. We should be willing to relearn and adapt.



The guidelines that the nation's health authorities announced when it switched from strict social distancing to infection prevention in daily life should be updated and re-issued.



Even the World Health Organization has changed its position on masks saying that people should wear fabric masks if healthy and that the face masks should consist of "at least three layers of different material." The WHO advised that those in the more dangerous age group of 60 or older should wear medical-grade masks if there is transmission within the community.




PUNE A 13-year-old boy was found dead at his house in Bibwewadi, police officials said on Wednesday.

The local police suspect that the boy hung himself on Tuesday, after his mother restricted him from watching television. The teenager, according to police, habitually watched cartoons on TV.

The boy lived with his mother and sister in a two-storied shanty in Adarsh chawl, Bibwewadi.

According to police, on Tuesday morning, as the boy and his sister were eating breakfast, the boy switched on the television to watch cartoons.

The mother asked his sister to switch off the television after which, the boy went upstairs, while the mum and sister remained downstairs.

When the sister finished her food and went upstairs she found him hanging by her scarf, as per their statement, said Vishwanath Shinde, constable at Bibwewadi police station, who is investigating the incident.

The incident has been recorded as an accidental death.

The boy attended a local government school and was to enter Class 8.

He had threatened to do this two years ago as well, according to his family members and neighbours. Back then, the television was the reason, but the neighbours heard the altercation and intervened, said Shinde.

The father of the teen does not live with the family, police said.
Students wearing face masks are seen in their classroom during a government organised media tour at Shanghai High School after it reopened in Shanghai, China on May 7, 2020. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese Regime Sending Politically Correct Instructors to Teach in Hong Kong and Macau

A Chinese provincial government is planning to send politically correct teachers to educate students in Hong Kong and Macau, shocking netizens in those territories.

Both were former European colonies that returned to Chinese rule, in 1997 and 1999 respectively, with Beijing promising to preserve their autonomy and essential freedoms.

The news comes as Beijing announced that it would enact a national security law in Hong Kong, drawing local concern that the proposal would enable Beijing to clamp down on dissent.

Netizens were outraged to learn that Chinas education system was leaching into their local schools through such arrangements.

In fact, it has been more than fifteen years since the Chinese regime first sent teachers to educate students in Hong Kong. The program is funded by Hong Kong taxpayers, but the teaching materials are decided by Beijing.

Hunan Recruiting Order

An internal document was widely shared on the Chinese internet in late May. It was issued by the Hunan provincial education department to its local city branchesthe education bureaus in Changsha, Hengyang, Zhuzhou, and Chenzhou cities.

On May 26, several Hong Kong media quoted Hong Kong officials, who confirmed the veracity of the document.

It ordered teachers to be recruited from local schools to teach at nursery schools, primary schools, middle schools, and high schools in Hong Kong and Macau. The two territories education bureaus would decide where the teachers would be assigned to work.

Hunan provincial education department recruits teachers to work in Hong Kong and Macao in May 2020. (Internet Photo)

The Hunan document attracted attention in Hong Kong because of its criteria for the teachers, the program costs, and the content they would teach.

The teachers must hold a solid political opinion, the document read. First, the teachers must adhere to the principle of one country, two systems and love the country, it continued. Beijing promised to uphold Hong Kong and Macaus autonomy under this framework after the territories returned to Chinese sovereignty. But in recent years, the Chinese regime has cited the principle to justify increasing encroachment on the territories.

Under this program, teachers will stay in Hong Kong and Macau for one year. If needed, the term can be extended, but it cannot be longer than two years.

The instructors are hired from state-run schools in mainland China. The document requested that the mainland schools retain these teachers positions.

State-run schools should pay the teachers salary and allowance [when the teacher works in Hong Kong and Macau] Every month, the Hong Kong Education Bureau or Macau Education and Youth Bureau will pay each teacher no less than 30,000 HK dollars or Macau Pataca [$3,870 or $3,760] as living expenses. On top of these, Hong Kong or Macau will arrange the teachers accommodations or provide rental subsidies, the document stated.

The mainland teachers will observe and train the instructors in Hong Kong and Macau, and evaluate their teaching materials.

Students sit at a Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exams in Hong Kong on April 29, 2020. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Beijing and Hong Kongs Cooperation

In fact, Beijing authorities launched a MainlandHong Kong Teachers Exchange and Collaboration Programme, which invites mainland teachers to train Hong Kong instructors, in 2005.

The Hong Kong Education Bureau introduced on its official website that the program first covered primary and secondary schools. In 2007, the program was extended to kindergartens and nursery schools.

Several provincial governments routinely select teachers to send to Hong Kong. In all their official announcements, the first criteria of the selected teachers is the same: being politically correctthat is, following the Partys policies on Hong Kong.

The Shanxi provincial education department issued a notice to each city in the province as well as three universities that train teachers, on April 27, 2015. The department would send five teachers to Hong Kong and six teachers to Macau. The first criteria for the teachers was having good political skills.

The Hainan provincial education department published its notice to recruit teachers for Hong Kong and Macau in May 2019, in which it requested that teachers must have a firm political stance support the central governments policies on Hong Kong and Macau, and be Chinese Communist Party members.

The Sichuan provincial education department also issued a similar notice on April 8, 2020, stating that teachers must adhere to the policy of one country, two systems, and love our country.

Students leave a middle school in Beijing, China on May 11, 2020. (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images)

Hongkongers previously protested Beijings attempts to launch a controversial moral and national education curriculum in 2012, which proposed teaching students that Hongkongers are Chinese and should devote themselves to the [Peoples Republic of] China.

Hongkongers feared that the curriculum would amount to political brainwashing. The Hong Kong government eventually scrapped the plans.
The 2020 election will bring more Russian-backed online disinformation campaigns aiming to exploit American protests over police brutality and systemic racism in order to foment division and distrust, experts predict.

Where it stands: Theres nothing new about Russias tactics  its intelligence agencies have been using disinformation to cynically aggravate U.S. racial tensions all the way back to the Cold War era. But we cant resolve this problem with cyber countermeasures and informational defenses. It will require actually tackling the root problem of racial injustice itself.

Background: Russias pro-Trump electoral interference campaign in 2016 was part of a broader, sophisticated, and ongoing information warfare campaign designed to sow discord in American politics and society, according to a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report released in 2019.

No single group was targeted more on social media by Russian disinformation than black Americans, according to the same report  with the majority of the posts on Russian accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube centering on racial issues.

Much of the content on these accounts focused on police violence. In 2016, Russian accounts also encouraged black Americans not to vote at all or to cast a protest vote for a third-party candidate for president.

According to the SSCI report, in 2016, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a state-backed Russian troll farm and disinformation shop, was particularly focused on issues surrounding race and content aimed at black Americans.

On Facebook, 66% of the IRA ads were related to race, and its location targeting was principally aimed at African Americans in key metropolitan areas, according to the report.

A major IRA Facebook page, Blacktivist, had over 11 million user engagements.

On Instagram, half of the 10 most popular IRA accounts were aimed at black Americans. And on YouTube, 96% of the IRAs activity was focused on racial issues and police brutality.

Flashback: This strategy by Russia has deep roots.

During the Cold War, a major prong of the U.S.-focused KGB disinformation operations was aimed at exacerbating racial tensions. In the run-up to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, notes the SSCI report, KGB officers mailed falsified communications from the Ku Klux Klan to the Olympic committees of African and Asian countries.

It also sent letters to five dozen black organizations leveling false accusations of atrocities committed against black Americans by an extremist Jewish group.

Since 2016, the track record of social media companies in regulating disinformation on their platforms has been mixed, at best. Twitter and Facebook have both routinely made public announcements regarding takedowns of disinformation networks on their platforms, but its a Sisyphean task.

Twitter has created a labeling system for synthetic and manipulated media and banned ads from overt state-controlled outlets. Facebook also recently banned ads from state media platforms in the U.S., but it still accepts advertising from these media outlets abroad. It is also labeling content from explicitly state-backed news sources.

But many critics  including some Facebook employees  believe the companys approach to regulating incitement and misinformation is too lax.

The big picture: The 2020 election will take place amid a larger information warfare environment where countries like China and Russia will use the U.S. government response to COVID-19, and ongoing protests and unrest, to cast doubt on the moral authority of U.S. leadership and the efficacy of liberal democracy more broadly.

Be smart: Russias online disinformation campaign in 2016 had far-reaching influence.

Facebook believes 126 million people may have seen Russian propaganda on its platform connected to 2016. Twitter has said 1.4 million of its users were exposed to Russian disinformation.

Russian operatives created Facebook groups and organized rallies and demonstrations around these fake groups.

In one case, Russian operatives scheduled dueling protests on the same day in Houston, causing Muslim civil rights activists to square off with anti-Muslim Texas secessionists. Footage from the event shows an anti-Muslim protestor waving the Confederate flag while others hold a banner that reads White Lives Matter.

Russian trolls even created a fake group called Dont Shoot Us, which posed as a Black Lives Matter affiliate and operated on multiple social media platforms.

Our thought bubble: Racism and police violence in America are a national moral crisis. That crisis also creates fractures that have  and will continue to be  exploited by hostile foreign states.

In that sense, the moral crisis is also a national security problem. The most effective way to end that vulnerability is to remedy the underlying injustice.

The bottom line: We can count on Russian operatives to fill social media with deceptive, divisive messages. But it was American police officers who shot Tamir Rice while he played in a park, killed Breonna Taylor in her own home and asphyxiated George Floyd outside a convenience store. The wounds Russia keeps pouring salt on are American-made.
The Atlanta-based salvage firm RMS Titanic said it would exhibit the telegraph while telling the stories of the operators who broadcast the sinking ships distress calls. The company plans to recover the radio equipment from a deck house near the Titanics grand staircase.

U.S. attorneys say federal law requires the firm to get authorization from the Secretary of Commerce before conducting salvage expeditions that would physically alter or disturb the wreck.

The agreement with the United Kingdom, they add, regulates entry into the hull sections to prevent disturbances to the hull and other artifacts and any human remains.

Missouri

Remnants of Cristobal sweep into Midwest

SPRINGFIELD  The remnants of Tropical Storm Cristobal moved across parts of the Midwest on Tuesday after lashing the South, unleashing downpours and bringing gusty winds as more high winds, heavy rain and thunderstorms were forecast.

Heavy rain hit Missouri on Tuesday morning, and Cristobal was expected to intensify later in the day as another energetic weather system approaches from the west and begins to interact with it, the National Weather Service said.
Rohingya refugees who were intercepted by the Malaysian coast guard off Langkawi Island are escorted as they are handed over to immigration authorities at the Kuala Kedah ferry jetty in Malaysia, April 3, 2018.

A boat carrying hundreds of Rohingya that has been at sea four months is currently off southern Thailand and has been blocked from entering Malaysias waters multiple times, a senior Malaysian maritime official said Wednesday.

The Rohingya on board the boat have been supplied with food and fuel by syndicates from Thailand and Myanmar, the chief of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

The boat carrying about 300 people is in Koh Adang island (waters). We believe that the vessel departed from Coxs Bazar in February together with the one that successfully landed, said Mohd Zubil Mat Som, the MMEA director-general, referring to a boat towed ashore at Langkawi, an island in northern Malaysia, on Monday.

The second vessel made many attempts to enter Malaysian waters previously but failed because it was detected by our patrols, he said.

A Thai naval official denied that any Rohingya boats were present in Thai waters in the Andaman Sea off Koh Adang, an island near the border with Malaysia.

Based on ship and helicopter patrolling, I dont see any reports that we spotted (Rohingya boats). We saw none, a Navy officer told BenarNews on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media directly.

Malaysian officials, for their part, have insisted that no unauthorized boats would be allowed to enter Malaysian territory. The boat that reached Langkawi was brought to shore only after dozens of its passengers jumped overboard and began swimming toward the island. Officials later reported that the boats engine had been sabotaged.

70 percent cannot walk

The Malaysian coast guard chief confirmed that both Rohingya boats had sailed from Coxs Bazar, a district in southeastern Bangladesh where close to 1 million Rohingya refugees from nearby Rakhine state in Myanmar have been sheltering at sprawling refugee camps.

The syndicates provided food and gas for the vessels. No vessel can last in the sea for four months without aid, Mohd Zubil said.

Authorities have begun screening the 269 Rohingya who were on board the boat that landed on June 8, including for the coronavirus, the MMEA head said.

He noted that 70 percent of them could not walk properly because they had been sitting and squatting for months aboard the boat.

On Wednesday, officials with the U.N.s refugee agency said they were still trying to access the 269 Rohingya who have been held at a detention center on Langkawi since Monday.

At this early stage, UNHCR has no first-hand information about the group, and is therefore unable to confirm their origin or provide information about their situation, a spokesperson in Kuala Lumpur for the U.N. agency said in response to questions from BenarNews.

UNHCR has sought immediate access to this group of arrivals in order to assess their protection needs and has offered to support, together with its partners, the Government of Malaysia by providing immediate humanitarian assistance and protection services in line with international standards, the official said.

The U.N. also commended Malaysia for its positive humanitarian action through allowing the boat to land at Langkawi  the first time in more than two months that Malaysian authorities permitted a boatload of Rohingya refugees to enter territorial waters after the country sealed its borders to guard against the further spread of COVID-19.

Allowing for the timely and safe disembarkation of refugees and asylum-seekers is a critical and life-saving act, consistent with international norms for the protection of asylum-seekers and persons at risk at sea including the principle of non-refoulement, UNHCR said.

Malaysia should send the Rohingyas to Myanmar

A day earlier, Malaysian Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaacob said that Malaysia would send the boats passengers back to Bangladesh if it was determined that their trip began in Coxs Bazar.

In Dhaka, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen said that his government would not take in the Rohingya who came ashore in Malaysia.

Rohingyas are the citizens of Myanmar and Malaysia should send the Rohingyas to Myanmar instead of Bangladesh. Otherwise, they (Malaysia) can keep Rohingyas in their own country, the foreign minister told BenarNews. Rohingya are members of a stateless minority group in Myanmar.

Meanwhile in Bangkok, human rights advocacy group Fortify Rights called on Asian countries to allow Rohingya boats to land.

Countries in the region should urgently allow Rohingya refugees and trafficking survivors to disembark. Rohingya people are genocide survivors and need protection, not to be left to die at sea, Putthanee Kangkun, a researcher with the group, told BenarNews on Wednesday.

The refugees from the boat should not be detained indefinitely, she said.

We know there are more boats at sea, she added, citing information passed on by a colleague in Bangladesh.

We know from previous interviews from two other recent boats that Rohingya died at sea, and conditions are awful on the boats. For example deprivation of food and water, she said.

In mid-April hundreds of Rohingya men, women and children were said to be starving when they were brought ashore in Coxs Bazar after a failed attempt to reach Malaysia by sea, with witnesses saying that Malaysian authorities had turned away their boat.

During the sea crossing dozens of passengers died and their bodies were thrown overboard, people who survived the journey said.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Bhopal, June 10 : Former minister in the Kamal Nath government, Jitu Patwari, on Wednesday accused the Centre of conspiring to topple the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. He said no less a person than Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has admitted it.

Patwari said in a press conference, "During the Indore visit on Monday Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accepted before his party's workers from Sanwer that he toppled the government at the instance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President J.P. Nadda." An audio clip of Chouhan addressing the activists has been circulated on social media. Congress spokesperson Narendra Saluja, "vouched for the authenticity of the clip" claiming that the party would release the video of the meeting if Chouhan disowned his voice in the audio.

"We were insisting for a long time that the conspiracy to topple Congress government was hatched in the state in collusion with the Centre. Chouhan has now accepted it. He can be heard saying he couldn't have become the chief minister without help from Jyotiraditya Scindia and Tulsi Silawat. He will do all that he can to ensure Silawat wins the by-election from Sanwer," Patwari said.

"Silawat sold himself despite being Health Minister during Corona times. We will not let such a person win a by-election at any cost," said the former minister.

"This was the man who was contesting elections for more than 30 years for Congress. How insensitive he has turned against his own people. Should he be allowed to win an election?" The Congress will now approach the Supreme Court after consulting experts on the matter. We will also appeal to the President, the Congress members said.

"Chouhan accepted the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister consented to delay the lockdown to pull down the state government. The Congress has been consistently warning the epidemic spread throughout the country due to the operation to topple the MP government. Indore and other airports were also not locked down despite Rahul Gandhi's advice. We will complain to the President, because it is a criminal act," Patwari said.

Chouhan visited Indore after the city had gone through 77 days of trauma. He had killed democracy and now comes to help a traitor win the election, said the former minister.

"By now our city had reached the sixth spot among the Corona-infected towns in the country. More than 4,000 persons have been infected and 165 have died. When the chief minister arrived here, we hoped that he would formulate a strategy to deal with the pandemic and would offer condolence to the families of the deceased, but it was just a political mission for him," Patwari said.

The patients were upset, the hospitals plundered them. Many have died for want of treatment. He has disappointed us all with his insensitivity. Indore people have watched him turn the visit into a joke. They will teach him a lesson. The Congress had conveyed through the collector a request for a delegation to meet the chief minister. He had no time, he further said.

"Even through all this, the Congress has decided to stand with the administration in dealing with the pandemic. The government has left the people to fend for themselves while the pandemic has spread unchecked. The Congress will carry out a public awareness campaign. Will distribute 25 lakh masks house to house. We are united to make the City number one in cleanliness, now we will stand together to beat Corona," said Patwari
Ministers are locked in a battle with Sinn Fein over claims the party is blocking payments to victims of IRA bombings.

The Troubles pension is a Government scheme to support thousands who were seriously injured during the 30 years of violence. It was due to open for applications on May 29. But the Government has accused Sinn Fein of holding up its implementation because it wants former prisoners to receive the money too.

Boris Johnson piled on the pressure on Wednesday, saying it was very important the party allows the scheme to be introduced.

A Whitehall source called the hold-up an absolute betrayal of those who have already suffered unimaginable pain. The delay has infuriated Troubles victims, who expect to receive between 2,000 and 10,000 a year.

Ministers are locked in a battle with Sinn Fein over claims the party is blocking payments to victims of IRA bombings (pictured: president Mary Lou McDonald speaking in Dublin)

Kenny Donaldson, the director of the South East Fermanagh Foundation victims group, said: 'Sinn Fein dont believe terrorists who injured themselves at their own hands or injured IRA personnel should be excluded and are blocking it.

The Government outlined the details of the scheme earlier this year and made it law. It is meant to be open to those who suffered physical or psychological injury. But it excludes those convicted of serious offences or those who were injured by their own actions.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson piled on the pressure saying it was very important the party allows the scheme to be introduced

SOLDIER IN BUS BOMB HORROR: 'IT'S A TRAVESTY' Former private Mike Drew, who nearly died when the bus he was on was destroyed by an IRA bomb in 1988, is among the victims still waiting for their pensions. Eight Light Infantry soldiers between 18 and 21 were killed in the blast in County Tyrone. Mr Drew, who was 18 at the time, needed around 500 stitches to his head, neck and face. Now 50, he is unable to work because of post-traumatic stress disorder. He said: It appears Sinn Fein are... trying to get the pension for the IRA members and class them as victims. That would be an absolute travesty if it happened. Id rather go without it myself than let them have it. His fellow victim Neil Tattersall, 50, who suffered PTSD after the 1992 Manchester bombing, said: Its another kick in the teeth because this was meant for victims, not IRA terrorists. Mike Drew nearly died when the bus he was on was destroyed by an IRA bomb Advertisement

Sinn Fein has so far refused to nominate a Stormont department to run the scheme because it wants to reopen the definition of a victim.

It has said that the criteria is flawed and discriminates against former prisoners. The move means the scheme cannot be opened for applications from those eligible.

Raising the issue at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, DUP Westminster leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said: The innocent victims have not been able to benefit from this scheme, not least because of the actions of Sinn Fein, who are blocking the next steps to implementation.

'Will the Prime Minister and his government now commit to do all they can to move this matter forward so our most vulnerable of innocent victims can receive this pension?

Mr Johnson responded: I think this scheme provides a fair, balanced and proportionate way of helping all those who suffered most during the Troubles.

'It is very important that Sinn Fein, along with all other parties, allow the scheme to go forward as soon as possible.

Sinn Fein politician Gerry Kelly previously told the BBC: It is the British Government who have brought these regulations, without consultation, to be discriminatory, and all they are interested in is to protect one section of victims.

Sinn Fein has also argued the scheme  expected to cost at least 100million over the first three years  should be funded by Westminster.

But Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has refused to commit to providing extra resources to fund it.

A Whitehall source said: Any further delay as a result of the distraction about eligibility criteria, which has already been set in legislation, is an absolute betrayal of those who have already suffered unimaginable pain and distress.

A UK Government spokesman said that the Northern Ireland Executive must take steps to unlock [the schemes] implementation... urgently. Sinn Fein did not respond to a request for comment.
A string of satellites is expected to be seen in the sky tomorrow morning.

Weather permitting, there will be a good pass of Starlink7, best viewed from the North Island, says the Tauranga Astronomical Society.

"Starlink7 will rise in the North-Nor-West at around 6am and will pass across the North Eastern sky. The leading satellites in the main train will disappear over the South Eastern horizon from 6:07am. The other satellites will follow.

"The last of the Starlink7 satellites will rise in the North West at 6:05am, will pass across the North Eastern sky and will disappear over the South Eastern horizon at 6:12am."

The Sun will still be well below the North Eastern horizon so the sky will be dark.

"Please allow up to 10 minutes from the times given here as it seems the timings can be out. You might want to set a reminder alarm on your phone.

"Please note that the sky charts show East on the left and West on the right because it is meant to correspond to the sky over your head, and not the ground under your feet like a map of the earth. You have to imagine holding the chart above your head to use it, and then the directions are correct."
A new state order will allow social gatherings of up to 250 people and retail stores and malls to operate at full capacity, Gov. Eric Holcomb said. Gatherings have been limited to 100 people and stores to 75% capacity for the past three weeks as such limits have been gradually lifted since early May.
Private lender Yes Bank on Tuesday said that Madhu Kapur, wife of the bank's late co-founder Ashok Kapur, and her family have withdrawn a case filed against it in 2013. The case was filed by Kapur when the family was locked in a pitched battle with the bank, then headed by Rana Kapoor who was subsequently dismissed by RBI in 2018.

After Ashok Kapur, the founding chairman of the bank, died in the November 2008 Mumbai terror attack, the relations between his family and Rana Kapoor, who are related, soured. Madhu Kapur in her suit had sought various reliefs including recognition of the family's right to participate in the management of the bank.

The suit also sought to restrain individual directors from acting as such or holding themselves out as directors of the bank, and restrain the bank from making or continuing with any application to any regulator/authorities for reclassifying the Kapur family's shareholding into a non- promoter shareholding.

In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, the bank said the Kapur family had agreed to reclassify its shareholding as "non-promoter" as per an intimation on May 30. The suit was withdrawn following reclassification of the familys holding and the Bombay High Court allowed the withdrawal, the bank said.

The Kapur family now owns about 1.50 per cent in the bank and are classified as public shareholders. Yes Bank had to be bailed out earlier this year by a consortium of lenders led by SBI as part of a process driven by the Government and the RBI. The Rs 15,000-crore bailout was necessitated due to Rana Kapoor's alleged mishandling of affairs while at the helm. Kapoor was arrested by law enforcement agencies after the bailout.

Also read: Franklin Templeton MF suspends e-vote process for closure of six debt schemes
WASHINGTON - District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser was a national hero in the eyes of some of the demonstrators across the country clamoring for police reform last Friday, as she ordered "Black Lives Matter" painted in the street as an inflammatory message to the White House.

Just four days later, as the District Council unanimously passed the sort of police reform that some of those protesters have been calling for, Bowser's position surprised some of her newfound fans: The Democratic mayor sent the council a stern message, asking them to slow down.

At a moment of intense national debate over how to fix the problem of police brutality while not undermining the role that police play in ensuring public safety, Bowser finds herself caught between both sides - striving to support civil rights and also the police department that she oversees.

Her critics say her gestures, including renaming a street and marching with demonstrators, are simply performance, not progress.

"Black Lives Matter is very critical of police. They're critical of me," Bowser said shortly after she hung the new "Black Lives Matter Plaza" sign outside the White House, and the group Black Lives Matter D.C. responded on Twitter, "This is a performative distraction from real policy changes. Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history."

The mayor continued: "That doesn't mean that I don't see them and support the things that will make our community safe."

All 12 council members voted Tuesday for a sweeping package of reforms. One of the highlights of the law is a requirement that the city disclose, within 72 hours of a serious use of force, the name of the officer involved and the officer's body camera footage.

Bowser, who has refused to release officers' names and some body camera footage from previous incidents, objected to that portion of the law on Wednesday.

"The body-worn camera policies that we have in the District of Columbia were carefully considered by a lot of participants," she said, wondering aloud whether the council's rush to change the law might have consequences for future criminal prosecutions. "Anything that would hinder an investigation and prosecution, we would be concerned about."

The mayor said on Wednesday that she would sign the emergency legislation, which passed with a veto-proof majorityand remains in effect for 90 days, but she had no praise for the council's steps. She said they should have waited for public hearings so that constituents could weigh in first.

The police union has vigorously opposed the legislation and threatened a "mass exodus" of officers from the department.

District Police Chief Peter Newsham said Wednesday that he wishes he had had time to study the law's provisions. For instance, the department does not use rubber pellets to dispel protesters, an activity banned by the new law. But officers do use a device that shoots rubber to disarm people with edged weapons such as knives, and he hopes the council did not ban that device.

When Newsham spoke at a budget hearing after the vote, Council member Charles Allen, a Democrat, the chair of the public safety committee who spearheaded the legislation, cut short the chief's lengthy opening statement.

"That just shows we don't give a damn what the police have to say," Newsham said later, agreeing with the mayor that his department has already made important reforms. "We're just going to do what we think is right. . . . This unilateral legislation in knee-jerk fashion, considering the history of reform the MPD has went through, is concerning."

Shortly before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, sparking the protest movement that has spurred legislators, mayors and courts in other cities across the country to take steps toward major reforms to their police departments, Bowser proposed a budget for next year which would slightly increase funding for the police department while reducing funding for some non-police programs.

"Had the mayor viewed those violence diversion and other social programs as effective in stemming the homicide rate and other violent social problems, she would not have cut them," said Chuck Thies, a longtime District political strategist.

Thies described the difference between Bowser and the council members who now support more rapid reforms as a difference in philosophy about what strategies will make the District's black community safer.

"Per Black Lives Matter, cops are bad. Cops make the world more dangerous. We need fewer cops," he said. "Bowser, when she had 'Black Lives Matter' painted on 16th Street, although it was a brilliant public relations move and it certainly contributed to calming people and saying we're with you . . . she doesn't agree with Black Lives Matter."

Next, council members are talking about paring back money from the police department, and redirecting it toward social programs instead - the goal of activists who call for "defunding" the police. Again, Bowser will likely oppose cuts. But this time, the council may be much more divided.

A flood of tweets in response to Bowser's dramatic gesture of painting the street and to a chart she tweeted on Wednesday which seemed to defend the size of the police budget, used the word over and over again:

"Defund. It's a simple demand."

"We said DEFUND."

"WHEN WE SAY DEFUND WE MEAN IT."

One activist wrote, "People who live here are furious because it's a distraction. Mayor Bowser needs to talk about how she's going to start reallocating budget from the police and instead she's painting words."

- - -

The Washington Post's Peter Hermann contributed to this report.
Photo: The Canadian Press Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney responds to a question during a news conference Wednesday April 17, 2013 in Ottawa. Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is releasing a new book laying out his vision for a more equitable post-pandemic economy. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is releasing a new book laying out his vision for a more equitable post-pandemic economy.

The internationally renowned banker's debut book "Value(s): Building a Better World For All" is scheduled to hit shelves next spring.

Penguin Random House Canada's Signal imprint acquired the Canadian rights to the title, which will be simultaneously published in the U.S. and the U.K.

The Canadian publisher says the book draws from Carney's 12 years of experience as a G7 central bank governor to examine the economic upheaval of the past decade as a reflection of a "common crisis in values."

"In recent decades, many countries have been moving, subtly but relentlessly, from market economies to market societies, where the price of everything is becoming the value of everything," Carney said in a statement.

"But when pushed during the (COVID-19) crisis, we've prioritised the health of the most vulnerable and supported each other, acting as an interdependent community not as independent individuals.

"Now, we have the chance for our values to shape our possibilities, creating a dynamic economy that works for all and sustainably over time."

Carney stepped down as governor of the Bank of England this year after working to steer the British economy through the country's preparations to leave the European Union.

He took over the helm of the Bank of Canada in 2008 amid the first signs of the financial crisis. During his five-year tenure, he was widely credited with helping Canada weather the recession.

In 2011, he was also appointed to oversee global financial reforms as head of the Financial Stability Board.

After years of advocating for a greener economy, Carney was recently named the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.

Carney, who hails from the Northwest Territories, has an undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard University and both a master's and doctorate in economics from Oxford University.

He spent more than a decade with Goldman Sachs in London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto before joining the Bank of Canada in 2003 as deputy governor.
Studies were already disrupted by strikes before the Covid-19 outbreak in March

Rising numbers of students believe they are getting poor value for money in the wake of the pandemic and lecturer strikes, research shows.

They have complained about a massive gap in learning while still having to pay 9,250-a-year university tuition fees.

The annual Student Academic Experience Survey also suggests an increasing impact on their mental health.

Rising numbers of students believe they are getting poor value for money in the wake of the pandemic and lecturer strikes, research shows (file photo)

It said students are significantly less likely than the general population to feel satisfied or happy with their lives, to feel their lives are worthwhile or to feel low levels of anxiety.

Undergraduates had already seen studies disrupted by strikes before lectures were shifted online in March due to the spread of Covid-19.

More than a million students were hit by 14-day walkouts by members of the University and College Union at 74 universities in February. Earlier action in November and December hit 60 institutions.

The survey questioned more than 10,000 students  half of them before March 16. The numbers reporting good or very good value for money declined from 41 per cent in 2019 to 39 per cent.

Those believing they are receiving poor/very poor value rose from 29 per cent to 31 per cent. Students interviewed in late March and early April were less likely to feel they have received good value. The cost of tuition fees was the main factor cited (57 per cent).

But students also pointed to lots of strikes and missed lectures and missed contact hours as well as universities being closed due to the pandemic. One student complained of a lack of support during strikes and having to pay for teaching which we did not receive.

More than a million students were hit by 14-day walkouts by members of the University and College Union at 74 universities in February (file photo)

Another said they were only at university for two months before leaving by mid-March due to Covid-19 and still having to pay the nine grand for tutoring fees.

Students still have to pay the full 9,250 tuition fee this year even if they do not go on to campus, use any facilities and are taught purely online.

Cambridge and Bristol have said they will run all lectures online until next summer. Universities minister Michelle Donelan said: It is clear that the impact of Covid-19 has, understandably, negatively impacted the experience of some students.

As universities prepare for next year, operating in what may be a different learning environment, it is essential that they offer a high quality education for all students, regardless of background.

The survey showed the virus affected happiness, but did not particularly hit other measures such as life satisfaction, which remained low  at just 11 per cent.
ROME  A few dozen black-clothed tour guides and tour organizers twirled white umbrellas to the tune of Singing in the Rain outside the Pantheon, one of Romes greatest tourist attractions recently.

The problem was, there were very few tourists.

The Pantheon, an ancient Roman temple, was among a wave of attractions across Italy that reopened this month after the coronavirus lockdown. The flash mob of guides and organizers was one of several similar events held in various Italian cities this week to draw attention to the severe problems caused after tourism  usually a lifeline  was paralyzed by the pandemic.

In the days after some of the first lockdown restrictions were lifted, Italians relished the empty streets, rediscovering city monuments and museums that they would normally avoid because of long lines.

But even as travel restrictions are lifted throughout Europe, reluctance to travel outside national borders remains high. Forecasts for the number of airplane reservations to Italy suggest drops of 95.2 percent in June, 82.4 percent in July and 76.4 percent in August, compared to the same periods last year, according to Italys national tourism agency, ENIT.
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Linkedin Paresh Dave (Reuters) Oakland, California  Wed, June 10, 2020 13:30 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd91560 2 Science & Tech US,students,tracing-COVID-19,TraceTogether,Singapore,contact-tracing-tool,technology Free

Singapore kicked off a global rush to develop contact tracing apps for the novel coronavirus when the city-state launched an apparently new system in March.

But the project actually drew inspiration from a 2014 US high school project that won an international prize but found no backers - until now.

It all started when Rohan Suri created an app at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, to tell his mom to leave home for the bus stop when he was seven minutes away. As the Ebola epidemic ravaged western Africa at the time, Suri and schoolmate Claire Scoggins connected the dots between tracking apps and contact tracers who ask patients whom they may have spread viruses to.

"I got really interested in basically automating a lot of these contact tracing efforts," Suri said, noting a staff shortage in remote parts of Africa during the Ebola epidemic.

When Suri and Scoggins developed a prototype called kTrace, they appealed to medical aid organizations and the US government to bring it to the frontlines. But they found no takers, even after winning third place for systems software at the 2015 International Science and Engineering Fair.

The app languished until Suri, now a 21-year-old junior at Stanford University, got an email on Jan. 24 from Jason Bay, a Stanford alum and senior director at Singapore's Government Technology Agency (GovTech).

"My mom had texted me saying, 'You've got to look at this virus in Wuhan and do something about it,'" Suri said, referring to the city in China where the coronavirus outbreak began. "I didn't take it seriously, though, and week later the Singapore government is reaching out."

Bay's team had been looking for technology to help curb the coronavirus and came across kTrace online. Suri spent February and March volunteering on GovTech's TraceTogether app alongside fellow Stanford students Nikhil Cheerla and Daniel Lee.

Contact tracing app TraceTogether, released by the Singapore government to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is seen on a mobile phone, in Singapore on March 25, 2020. (REUTERS/Edgar Su)

They said they gave Singapore a roadmap by sharing kTrace's code and providing advice in virtual meetings on stronger privacy protections. They also collected 13 phones to help test Bluetooth technology.

Singapore was "just looking around for any way to speed up the development process and we fit in," Cheerla said.

The agency said it contacted Suri "to understand his experiences and considerations in designing kTrace for Android." But Suri "did not commit code to TraceTogether, nor did [GovTech] use kTrace in the development of TraceTogether," it added.

New project

University scientists Kate Farrahi and Manuel Cebrian said their studies as early as 2011 were the first to show Bluetooth readings could aid contact tracing. They did not develop an app, however, and Suri had not seen their work in high school.

But since Singapore's app launched, several dozen governments, including Australia, Britain and US states such as North Dakota, have spent millions of dollars among them to develop separate tracing apps. Government health authorities administer and promote the apps and link them to their testing systems.

Many other governments are monitoring progress in Singapore, where about 25% of the country's 5.6 million residents have downloaded TraceTogether.

Contact tracing apps largely use anonymous Bluetooth radio exchanges to automatically log nearby users. The technology aims to slow viruses by identifying secondhand infections more quickly than through interviews.

But privacy concerns are a hurdle, and the technology does not work well on iPhones. A fix Apple Inc introduced in partnership with Alphabet Inc's Google last month limits the personal data contact tracing apps can collect, which authorities say reduces their effectiveness.

Singapore has adopted a costly solution: Giving residents small tracing gadgets, possibly worn on a lanyard, that do not require smartphones.

Suri said he, too, had developed a wearable device in high school because Ebola infections were highest in countries with low smartphone ownership.

Suri is now focusing on a third app called Zero, aimed at US cities.

The day after TraceTogether launched, a friend who knew about Suri's involvement introduced him to a handful of New York entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seeking to bring similar technology to the United States.

They ended up co-founding Zero, which aims to attract users by bundling contact tracing technology with a safety-rating tool for shops and restaurants based on measures such as occupancy limits and mask rules.

"You need a strategy that goes hyperlocal, and that's what Zero is doing," Suri said.

For example, a shopper would check Zero for safety ratings before deciding where to go. Shops could promote special hours through the app for customers who wear masks.

Zero launched for iPhones last week, with its first business listings coming soon in New Rochelle, New York. Contact tracing will be added when cities agree to become partners.
Nautical commuters will be able to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine as they sail along the River Thames when the Thames Clipper riverboat service resumes next week.

The service, which operates between Putney, in West London and goes as far east as Woolwich Arsenal, will resume operations on Monday morning - including a fully stocked bar.

Customers can order and pay for drinks and snacks using an app to be enjoyed on their socially-distanced seat.

Thames Clipper services will resume on Monday morning having developed a socially-distancing policy which will see 0.8 passengers per square metre

Passengers will be able to pay for their tickets using Oystercards or an app

Those onboard will be able to buy snacks and alcohol using an app on some of the services

Thames Clipper claim commuters will have more space than those using London Underground

Sean Collins, co-founder and CEO of the service said: 'It is key that we can support London and its commuters with the ease of lockdown and return to work, by providing travel in a safe and comfortable way. My entire team has worked incredibly hard to deploy new safety measures and to ensure our passengers have a contact-free and enjoyable commuting experience.

'The unique travel experience with Thames Clippers naturally provides good personal spacing and in addition we have reduced our passenger capacity to ensure even greater social distancing, which has allowed us to increase the number of bicycles we can carry on each boat, so those who want to cycle part of their journey can do so too.'

According to Thames Clippers, before the lockdown, they carried on average 1.4 passengers per square metre. That is being reduced to 0.85 passengers per square metre - compared with between five and seven passengers per square metre on London Underground.

The company confirmed they will also be able to carry between 15 and 20 bicycles per service - which is almost a doubling of capacity on some of its fleet.

The firm said the onboard bar will only be offering a takeaway service using contactless payments in line with the government's Covid-19 regulations.

However, an early reopening of bars and restaurants appears to be put on hold as the government fears the potential of a second wave of coronavirus infections.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson today announced the reopening of zoos, safari parks and drive in cinemas across England just hours after his government confirmed the mass return of primary school pupils has been delayed until September.

During Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said pub beer gardens will not reopen ahead of July 4. He said outdoor attractions where people remain in their cars, such as safari parks and drive-in cinemas, because the risk of spreading the disease is lower outside can reopen.

Thames Clipper passengers will be able to use the bar, although all payments will be contactless and staff will be wearing masks

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pictured, is expected to announce further loosening of the lockdown restrictions later today, but bars and restaurants are expected to remain closed until next month at the earliest

A Downing Street official said: 'People are continuing to make huge sacrifices to reduce the spread of coronavirus and avoid a second spike, but we know it is tough and where we can safely open up more attractions, and it is supported by the science, we will do so.'

Questions remain, however, over returning pupils to school with a number of councils, including in the north west of England, opposing plans to widely reopen after new data suggested coronavirus could still be spreading in their local areas.

Children in nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 in England began returning to primary school last week after the Government eased lockdown measures.

But some schools said they did not have enough space on site to admit all pupils in the eligible year groups, while adhering to Government guidance to limit class sizes to 15 and encourage fewer interactions.

Mr Williamson said the Government would like to see schools who 'have the capacity' bring back more pupils where possible before the summer break but conceded the Government was 'working to bring all children back to school in September'.

Shops will only be able to reopen if they have completed a Covid-19 risk assessment and can implement social distancing measures.

Bar owners have complained that a two-metre socially distancing rule will make many businesses financially insolvent as it will not be worthwhile reopening under such a system

But other businesses, including pubs, restaurants and hairdressers, will remain shut until July 4 at the earliest, Mr Sharma said.

It comes as hospitality chiefs have warned the rule requiring people to stay two metres apart could jeopardise firms' ability to reopen, with some asking for the distance to be halved.

Mr Sharma said the rule was being kept under review and 'when it is safe to do so, we will see whether you can move to a shorter distance'.

The science behind the two-metre rule aimed at preventing the spread of coronavirus does not take into account the 'economic devastation' and deaths caused by the restriction, a leading sociologist warned.

Professor Robert Dingwall, a member of one of the sub-groups feeding into the Government's scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage), said that even if the distance was cut to one metre, there would still be a 'safety margin' as it was 'very rare' for virus particles to travel that far.

The Government has come under intense pressure from businesses and some Tory MPs to relax the rule, amid concerns it will make it unviable for some firms, especially pubs and restaurants, to reopen, even when they are allowed to.

A study published in the Lancet found physical distancing of at least one metre lowers the risk of coronavirus transmission, but distances of two metres could be more effective.

The risk of infection when people stand more than a metre away from the infected individual was found to be 3 per cent, and 13 per cent if within a metre.

Prof Dingwall told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was a 'problematic' study because it did not look at the economic consequences of having a larger distance requirement.

'I think it's a question of relative risk. Even the problematic Lancet study that was published last week was really saying you're moving from a tiny risk at two metres to a very small risk at one metre.

'You have to set that against all the other harms that are being done by the, the economic devastation that is wreaked by the two-metre rule, the deaths that will be attributable to the lockdown itself, and to the social and economic disruption that is causing.'

Prof Dingwall, a member of the new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group (Nervtag), added: 'The work on transmission in naturally occurring environments suggests that it's very rare for particles to travel much more than half a metre.

'So you have that, you have that safety margin which is built in.

'And actually, as you get closer to people, you do begin to invade on personal space.

'With the exception of some very specific environments, like the London Tube at rush hour, you don't let people get back close to you, unless they are members of your household, children, romantic partners, people with whom you have a very close relationship.

'So there is a kind of natural boundary around people, and one metre is roughly double that.'

Business Secretary Alok Sharma was repeatedly questioned about the two-metre rule at the Downing Street press conference on Tuesday.

'When it is safe to do so, we will see whether you can move to a shorter distance, but ultimately we keep all of these things under review,' he said.

'There are other countries in the world that have moved from two metres to closer distances.

'Of course, they are further along in terms of their road map, in terms of opening up businesses.

'We are taking a cautious view on this. I completely understand why, for economic reasons, businesses will want to have a look at this two-metre rule.'
Last Thursday Coatesville, Pennsylvania, was home to what's become a familiar sight: a protest of more than a thousand people chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "I can't breathe."

But Coatesville is no ordinary place for a protest. About an hour drive west of Philadelphia, the old steel town of about 13,000 is a far cry from the liberal metropolises that typically host protests and demonstrations, underscoring the vast breadth of the reignited Black Lives Matter movement and the growing political importance of the suburbs."I think people are tired," said James Logan, Coatesville's assistant city manager, in a telephone interview Monday. "It's just been boiling for so long and now it's just running over."

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Black Lives Matter protest seen June 2020 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Alphonso Newsuan

In the two weeks since the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who lost his life after a police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, more than 700 cities and towns spanning all 50 states have been home to the historical Black Lives Matter demonstrations, extending past the country's traditionally liberal cities and into suburban and rural communities. From Greenwich, Connecticut to Waco, Texas to Wenatchee, Washington, protesters are standing up against police brutality and racial injustice, tapping into a level of civil engagement that city officials say they haven't seen in decades.

In Coatesville, Logan said the recent protests were reminiscent of when civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. visited the town in the 1960s.

"Let's just say modern day? I've never heard, when I look at our history, I've never seen anything like it," Logan said.

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Coatesville, Pennsylvania, Black Lives Matter protest. Alphonso Newsuan

City officials and attendees have been struck by the way the demonstrations have taken root on their own instead of by an overarching organization. Logan said Coatesville's June 4 protest  which was attended by over one thousand people  started as a simple Facebook event from a resident.

Story continues

In Ashland, Ohio, Keon Singleton started protesting alone, jogging with a Black Lives Matter sign around the mainstreet of his adopted town, where he is a college student athlete. After someone streamed it on Facebook, Singleton's lone jog became an 80-person march. He has kept the demonstrations going daily.

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Black Lives Matter protest, in Ashland, Ohio, June 2020. Keon Singleton

"I never even heard of a protest in a small white city," said Singleton, a Baltimore native who had never organized a demonstration before. "It starts in these small white communities....it's really good people, they just don't know what's going on in the black community."

When Hayley Mason decided to put together a vigil on the 4th Street bridge in her hometown of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, for example, she had no playbook or official organizing experience. After the killing of Floyd, Mason walked around town to gauge interest for an event, and visited the local chaplain who recommended a black reverend to speak. She invited her Republican state representative as well as his Democratic challenger. And she secured a permit from the city just in case.

Mason expected maybe 10 people to attend, given that the town of 7,000 is mostly white and conservative. But 250 people showed up, including the GOP representative. "I went from 'please let someone come out' to 'oh my gosh where are we going to put everybody?"said April Feagley, who helped Mason promote the event.

"In small towns, things happen kind of organically," Mason said. "It feels very different waking up in Huntingdon after that turnout...that turned a feeling of angst into 'wow I didn't know our small town was capable.'"

huntingdon protest

Black Lives Matter protest in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, June 2020. Hayley Mason

The organic nature of the demonstrations in such unconventional areas has the makings of a movement, and political strategists from both sides of the aisle have taken notice of the coalitions emerging from the protests five months out from election day.

"I have been shocked about seeing this biracial coalition of people," says Tharon Johnson, a Democratic strategist based in Georgia, where Amaud Arbery was shot and killed by two white men while out on a jog in February. "I see more white people in Atlanta marching to the governor's mansion than I see black people...I see more parents I know in suburban areas marching with their children."

There is also generally broad support. A CBS News poll found 58% of Americans disapprove of President Trump's handling of race relations, compared to 33% who approve. The survey also showed 57% say police are more likely to use deadly force against a black person.

"It reminds me in some respects of what we faced immediately after Parkland, where there was a big outcry," says Republican strategist Matt Gorman, referring to the Florida school shooting that galvanized protesters. "While 2018 certainly wasn't fought on gun control, you saw in the suburbs it popped...it became something you saw in ads, where it wasn't expected before."

Protests in the rural town of Anna, Illinois

Protesters rally against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd in Anna, Illinois, U.S., June 4, 2020. Brian Munoz / Reuters

The demonstrations in suburban areas represent a political shift made apparent in the 2018 midterm elections, where voters turned off by President Trump fueled the Democrats' takeover of the House. CBS News exit polling found that 53% of suburban women supported Democrats that year, a six-point swing from the previous midterm.

That trend appears to be continuing. A Fox News poll last week found Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden with a nine-point advantage over Trump in the key battleground state of Wisconsin, driven by a 14-point lead among suburban voters.

Over the past week, Wisconsin held protests in all 10 of its biggest municipalities, including in places like Janesville, the home of former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Waukesha, a key swing county outside Milwaukee. Democrats say the breadth of those protests present lessons for the party heading into the election.

"The turnout for Black Lives Matter protests in rural Wisconsin punctures the false choice between racial justice and economic issues," said Ben Wikler, chairman of Democratic Party of Wisconsin, a key battleground state. "I can't think of another moment when so many people have gathered spontaneously, especially to fight for black lives...in a state that has some of the highest racial disparities."

That the demonstrations are without modern precedent would be an understatement in some areas. Over 150 people came to a protest on Saturday in Vidor Texas, which was a hotbed of KKK activity as recently as the 1990s. And nearly 100 people demonstrated in Howell, Michigan, another town associated with the Klan.

And in Orange, Virginia, where a confederate monument stands outside the courthouse, residents held two Black Lives Matter demonstrations last week. "I've never seen anything like this in Orange," said Elizabeth Shepherd, who attended the event with her family. "The most striking part was the relative lack of counter protestors and the number of people who honked in support as they drove by."

Orange is about 75 miles northwest of Richmond, Virginia, which was the capital of the confederacy and remains the capital of the state. The town is part of Virginia's 7th Congressional District, a longtime Republican stronghold that flipped to Democrats in 2018 with the election of Abigail Spanberger. The congresswoman participated in demonstrations in the Richmond suburbs, marching from the Chesterfield County Police Headquarters to the court house.

Other protests took place in suburban areas like Chagrin Falls, Ohio; Fairfield, Connecticut; and St. Charles, Missouri.

Moving forward, both parties are trying to navigate the terrain. "This isn't a gun control protest that draws partisan lines...it's more unifying than other marches," said Gorman, the Republican strategist. But, he says, the conversation presents opportunities for the GOP when it comes to policy prescriptions, especially as Democrats argue for cutting police budgets. "You have to be very clear on where you stand on those policy prescriptions like defunding the police..to not just appeal to Republicans but to appeal to those suburban areas."

Tharon, the Democratic strategist, says the party needs to "have a rural and suburban strategy, that [seizes] on the white guilt...you have got to make them feel like hey you are part of this as well. Black Lives Matter is not just a black issue."

Atlanta police shooting of Rayshard Brooks sparks second night of protests

Atlanta police chief resigns after officer fatally shoots man

Protests held in Palmdale, California, after black man found dead hanging from a tree
Video footage showing a state trooper killing a black man after firing his handgun six times during a traffic stop struggle has been released by the New Jersey attorney generals office.

Maurice Gordon was killed by Sergeant Randall Wetzel on 23 May, and the office for the attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, has released 11 audio and video recordings that show the incident more clearly, using dash cam footage that recorded the traffic stop last month.

Mr Wetzels identity was released to the public for the first time on Monday, and the attorney generals office confirmed that the shooting is still under investigation.

The release of the video and audio clips came amid protests across the US, in opposition to police brutality against African Americans following the death of George Floyd.

Mr Floyd died after being detained by Derek Chauvin, who at the time was a Minneapolis police officer, but has since been fired and charged with second degree murder and manslaughter.

Recommended Police caught on video slashing tyres at Minneapolis protests

Mr Gordons death happened two days before Mr Floyds, and in an interview with the Associated Press, the attorney for his family, William O Wagstaff III, said that he believed race was a factor in his death.

If Maurice Gordon was a white male hed still be alive, Mr Wagstaff told the outlet.

Audio recordings of a 911 call made the day before by one of Mr Gordons friends was also released on Monday.

In the recording, his friend said that Mr Gordon left his house in the middle of the night, and looked really panicked.

In the videos, Mr Wetzel, who is white, pulled Mr Gordon over at around 6.30am and told him that he had been driving at 110mph.

Mr Gordon had been stopped 15 minutes earlier, after he was caught driving at 101mph, and a few hours before that was helped to get a tow truck by the police, according to the outlet.

When Mr Gordon was pulled over by Mr Wetzel he was told by the officer that where he stopped was not safe.

His car wouldnt start, and he was filmed unsuccessfully attempting to turn the engine back on.

Mr Wetzel then said he could wait in the police car, while a tow truck was called for, but Mr Gordon walked towards the highway and the state trooper guided him into his vehicle, but did not put him in handcuffs.

The officer asked Mr Gordon where he was going, and he initially said to buy a new car, but after being told he couldnt at that time of day, he was heard saying he was on his way to Atlantic City, according to the AP.

After around 20 minutes of questioning, Mr Wetzel offered him a face mask, but Mr Gordon left the car, and the officer, using an expletive, told him to get back inside.

Mr Gordon then closed the door at the back of the car, and walked over to the driver's side and attempted to get in, and Mr Wetzel shouted: Get out of the car!

The two then appeared to clash at the back of the vehicle, and six shots can be heard in the footage, after Mr Wetzel called for backup from other officers.

Recommended Lawyer arrested after spitting on black teenager at Floyd protest

When the other officer arrived, Mr Wetzel said that he had handcuffed Mr Gordon and used pepper spray before the shooting, although the video does not clearly show either.

Mr Wetzel told the other officer: He was in my car, went to give him a mask. He tried getting out of my car. We got in a fight on the side of the road. He tried running into my car.

I got him out, sprayed him. We got in a fight again. He ran away from me, tried to hop in my trooper car, grab my gun. We were fighting with my gun and I shot him. He was already cuffed.

Mr Grewals spokeswoman Sharon Lauchaire, told the AP that Mr Wetzel was not wearing a body camera during the incident, as his troop is in the process of getting them.

Additional reporting by Associated Press.
A second wave of coronavirus infections would wipe out four years of Australian economic growth and expose highly indebted mortgage holders to possible mass defaults, the OECD has warned in research that finds the pandemic will shape global policy for the rest of the decade.

In a report that highlights the successful efforts of Australian governments to control the virus and limit its financial impact, the organisation said policies such as JobKeeper, deep cuts in official interest rates and state initiatives were all supporting the economy.

The OECD has warned a second wave of the coronavirus would upend Australia's strong response to the pandemic. But it believes more infrastructure spending will be required to support the economy.

The OECD is expecting the Australian economy to contract by 5 per cent this year, the nation's biggest single year hit since the Great Depression but one of the best performances by any rich nation during the virus pandemic.

Unemployment is forecast to average 7.4 per cent through the year while private spending is tipped to contract by 7.6 per cent. The budget deficit is predicted to reach about 9 per cent of GDP for 2020-21, or more than $170 billion.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 10, 2020 | 09:11 AM | PADUCAH

Former Barbecue on the River executive director David Boggs has been booked into McCracken County Jail.The jail's website says 51-year-old Boggs was arrested by Paducah Police officers on June 6. He is charged with theft by unlawful taking over $10,000 but under $1 million. Those charges stem from allegations that Boggs stole nearly $25,000 from the Barbecue on the River bank account to pay off scammers who were threatening to expose lewd photos he sent to someone he incorrectly believed to be an underage person.Boggs had gone missing from the Paducah area for more than 18 months after the alleged theft was discovered. An extensive investigation and a lucky lead led PPD officers to the Columbia, SC area, where Boggs was found living in a trailer park. He was taken into custody by Lexington County, SC authorities on May 28.Boggs' preliminary hearing has been set for Thursday in McCracken District Court. His bond has been set at $50,000.

On the Net:
Kansas City Council Advances Proposal To Drop Charges Against Protesters After more than ten days of demonstrations across the metro, a Kansas City Council committee has passed an ordinance preventing city prosecutors from bringing charges against protesters unless they were accused of damaging property or engaging in violent acts. The proposed ordinance goes to the full council next week.

More deets on this political move that seemingly puts blame for the clash on police . . . And this effort is something that law enforcement leaders have vehemently opposed.Read more:
Pandemic, pandemonium, and governments in crisis

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The more crisis intensifies the more reactionary governing regimes become. The present pandemic-pandemonium crisis proves it. The greater the official panic the more governments lay aside principle to get things under control.

The pandemic has caused skittish politicians to become so reactionary that they have put churches in lockdown. Other magistrates have reacted to the pandemonium surrounding George Floyds horrid and unjust killing by serious consideration of defunding municipal police departments.

That strategy might work if we can transform human nature.

Oh, wait, thats the business of the churches deemed by some officials to be nonessential during the pandemic.

However, in some places the pandemonium made people forget the restrictions imposed during the pandemic as they gathered in city streets, squares, and, yes, churches, to pray. These were the most hopeful of protests because there was the recognition of the need for forgiveness. No properties were burned, no bricks hurled through windows, no theft.

These sometimes-impromptu outbreaks of public prayer forgot about social distancing and other pandemic protocols. Those folks just knew that our country needs healing and that Jesus is still the Great Physician.

Politicians did not organize or lead most of these gatherings, and could only nuzzle in, hoping for face time. Perhaps now there will be a different attitude about how essential churches and their people are.

Christopher Dawson would have been encouraged by those clusters of praying men and women. He described the breakdown of civilization in his lifetime and said that this instability was due to no other cause than to that very separation and dislocation of the inner and outer worlds of human experience.

But how can the two worlds be reconciled  especially when it comes to separation of church and state? Clearly in the current troubled moment cooperation is needed between the inner and outer.

But how?

An answer lies in Zechariah 4:1-7.

During the reign of Darius over Babylon, Zechariah, a prophet among the Hebrew captives, receives a powerful vision from the Lord. The revelation shows how God sees the completeness of the authority needed to resist and overcome destroyers of civilization.

Zerubbabel led more than 40,000 of his fellow Hebrews home to the Promised Land after their liberation from Babylon through the decree of Cyrus. Back in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel becomes the civil leader, the governor, of Judah, at that time a Persian province. He has the enormous task of leading his people to rebuild Jerusalem after 70 years in ruin and restore their civilization by reconstructing the Temple.

In his vision, Zechariah had seen a golden lampstand with an olive tree on each side. The lampstand represents the presence of God and the trees Zerubbabel, the civil ruler and the other, Joshua, the spiritual leader  the high priest.

It will take both to rebuild the city and restore the civilization. In that alliance they will be instruments of the Holy Spirit. The grand recovery will be accomplished,

Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)

This is precisely where we are today. The pandemic has devastated whole economies and left some people destitute. The pandemonium has left lives and ordered society in ruins. Church and state must work together to bring healing and recovery.

In the 21st century generally, we stare at the moral, spiritual, philosophical rubble that was once the best of Western Civilization. Many are overwhelmed at the extent of destruction, while others, in hapless delusion, dance over and through the ruins. Those who understand the tragedy in the mountain of debris are overwhelmed and wonder if greatness can be recovered.

We must lock our focus on the principle behind the promise God gives to Zerubbabel in antiquity: Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)

The great danger in a tight relationship between civil leaders and spiritual leaders is the potential for creating at least an informal theocracy. Church and State are indeed to be separate, and that prevents a theocracy.

While alert to the theocratic temptation, the focus on the Kingdom of God must not be lost. Even those who do not acknowledge its reality or believe in the blessings of a civilization established on its principles intuitively recognize the need for Kingdom qualities. Proverbs 29:2 (NKJV) says,

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;

But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.

Both Church and State are to recognize that God Himself defines their limits, and they must not try to cross over and usurp the role of the other. This means the Church must not try to become the State. This is what happens in theocracies. Theocratic systems inevitably become oppressive because those in civil leadership are claiming God as the source of their power, therefore asserting that they have divine and thus absolute sanction for their policies and actions.

On the other hand, the State must not seek to become the Church. When this occurs, the State assumes it has not only power at the immanent level but is itself transcendent. The State becomes the object of worship and must be obeyed. the distinctive roles of Church and State are confused, and they try to usurp one anothers positions as determined by God.

The health of a nation is in direct ratio to the health of the church within the nation. But the nation is the community of people. The church that does not engage with its society has lost its vision and mission. The nation that does not cherish the spiritual principles that are its foundation courts collapse as those foundations erode.
YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. Armenia refused to extend the term of using the Russian loan balance provided for the Nuclear Power Plant as it considered beneficial to provide a budgetary loan from its own financial resources for solving the problem, Minister of territorial administration and infrastructures Suren Papikyan told reporters in the Parliament, assuring that this has no connection with the Armenian-Russian relations.

The minister said there are stable, strategic and partnering relations between Armenia and Russia. But at the same time there is a problem of effective use of loans in our country. We have inherited different loans the terms of which have either been at the expiry stage or have been expired. And at this stage we considered more beneficial for our country that we can provide a budgetary loan from other loan resources or our financial resources for solving the problem, the minister said.

He said Rosatom is the main implementing company. The contracts with the partners exist, and as a result of providing the funds the construction works continued in a proper manner.

Earlier Armenia reached an agreement with Russia on attracting 270 million USD loan for the upgrading works of the 2nd energy unity of the NPP. Russia was going to give another 30 million USD as a grant.

Deputy minister of territorial administration and infrastructures Hakob Vardanyan told Armenpress that a total of 107 million USD balance was left from the 270 million USD loan and the 30 million USD grant, and the term of its use expired on December 31, 2019. We are just not extending the term of its use. In other words, it ended, only the balance was left which was not available to us. There was an option to extend it, but at this stage we will choose the option of not extending. The rest of the works will continue at the expense of other resources, the deputy minister said.

Earlier the Russian finance ministry gave a consent to extend it.

Reporting by Anna Grigoryan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
 Flash

China will take the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties as a new starting point to further enhance political mutual trust and deepen comprehensive cooperation with the Philippines, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

Tuesday marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the Philippines.

Spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press briefing that China-Philippines relations have been moving forward steadily thanks to the joint efforts of successive leaders and peoples on both sides.

Hua said the two countries have taken the opportunity of the Belt and Road Initiative to synergize development strategies, with fruitful cooperation outcomes in various fields.

In the face of the challenge of COVID-19, the two countries have worked together and lent assistance to each other, she added.

"China will continue working with the Philippines to implement the important consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, further enhance political mutual trust, deepen all-round cooperation and make greater contribution to the well-being of the two peoples and regional prosperity and stability," Hua said.

Hua said China highly appreciates Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin's remarks in support of the national security legislation for Hong Kong, adding that Locsin's attitude represents the rational voices and the strength for justice, which come from the majority in the world.
What comes to your mind when you read the name, Priyanka Chopra? Pleasant thoughts? Not-so-pleasant thoughts? No thoughts?

Well, let me guide you to something that will probably bring some clarity to your 'confused' thoughts about the former Miss World.

After being one of India's top actors, Chopra decided to go the Hollywood way. Not so long ago, she also got hitched to Nick Jonas who was literally every teenage girl's crush back in the early 2000s.

Then, things went a little downhill after she said, "Girl, don't yell...We're all here for love," back in August 2019, when she was questioned by a Pakistani woman at BeautyCon about the tense situation between India and its neighbouring country.

YouTube

That did not go down well with a lot of people who also accused Chopra for encouraging nuclear war between the two nations, which already have more than just a troubled past with each other.

Now, with the latest issues at hand (there are honestly so many), many have lashed out at the actor for never properly speaking up against injustice in India but jumping at the opportunity to point out wrongdoings in the West.

Maybe this pissed off a lot of people to the point that a Twitter thread comparing Chopra to trash cans went viral all over the micro-blogging website. The user Hredya Ramkumar basically posted pictures of the actor along with images of trash cans in the same colours as her clothing.

Priyanka Chopra with her identical twin (A THREAD) pic.twitter.com/3g7TqtwN6x  Hredya Ramkumar (@hredyaa) June 8, 2020

People were already calling her out for her 'selective activism' with advertising fairness creams and then going on to support 'Black Lives Matter'.

At the BeautyCon event that we mentioned earlier, the Pakistani girl had said, "You are a UNICEF ambassador for peace and youre encouraging nuclear war against Pakistan. Theres no winner in this. As a Pakistani, millions of people like me have supported you in your business of Bollywood."

To which Chopra had replied, "I hear you. Whenever youre done venting. Got it? Done? Okay, cool."

Not cool.
The pandemic, however, has infused discussions about standardized tests with practical considerations as well. When high schools shut down this spring, many students didnt have a place to complete the exams. Schools are often the only location where students can take the tests for free, but both the ACT and the College Board, which administers the SAT, canceled test dates in March, May and June. Chicago Public Schools did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether its facilities will be used as testing centers this summer.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday welcomed the resumption of talks led by the United Nations between Libya's warring sides and urged speedy negotiations to achieve a ceasefire.

"The agreement between the GNA and LNA to re-enter UN security talks was a good first step, very positive," Pompeo said in a news conference, referring to the UN recognized Government of National Accord and Libyan National Army, led by eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar.

"Quick and good-faith negotiations are now required to implement a ceasefire and relaunch the UN-led intra-Libyan political talks," Pompeo said.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on June 2 said Libya's warring parties had agreed to restart ceasefire talks.

Over the past couple of weeks, Libyas conflict has taken a new turn. In a series of rapid victories, the GNA has, with Turkish support, suddenly brought most of northwest Libya back under its control, dashing Haftar's bid to unite the country with help from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

While the United States has said it opposes Haftar's offensive, it has not thrown its support behind the GNA. It has also lambasted Russian involvement, a stance reiterated on Wednesday by Pompeo.

"Its time ... for all Libyans and all sides to act so that neither Russia or any other country can interfere in Libyas sovereignty for its own game," Pompeo said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump discussed Libya in a call on Monday. Erdogan said the two agreed on "some issues" on Libya.

Egypt has also called for a ceasefire starting on Monday, as part of a wider political initiative which was welcomed by Arab and Western countries. Turkey dismissed it as an attempt to save Haftar following the losses he suffered on the battlefield.

* This story was edited by Ahram Online

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In the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police, activist groups are pushing public school districts nationwide to reconsider whether to station police officers on their campuses.

The Minneapolis and Portland school districts have already voted to end their contracts with their police departments. Activists in Chicago and New York City are pushing their mayors to pull police out of local schools, arguing officers' presence does more harm than good for students.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, "defunding" school police would be a lot more complicated than canceling a contract. For decades, LAUSD has operated its own police department -- one of the largest independent school police forces in the nation.

But efforts to dismantle the L.A. School Police Department are picking up steam.

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Last week, the leadership of United Teachers Los Angeles endorsed a demand that LAUSD reallocate all funding from its school police department to mental health services and counselors -- a preliminary step in a process that could end up mobilizing the union's considerable political and organizing clout against the school police.

In recent years, UTLA has sided with activist and student groups who opposed the L.A. School Police on certain policy questions -- for instance, the district's policy on random student searches or school police use of pepper spray.

But the teachers union has explicitly stopped short of calls to dismantle the department -- until, maybe, now.

"This movement in the streets ... has made people rethink not just schools, but cities, in terms of the way policing functions," UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl said on Monday. "It's really this movement, this moment, this reckoning that's helped move toward this position."

Melina Abdullah of Black Lives Matter-LA speaks at a rally of labor unions at City Hall on June 8, 2020. (Kyle Stokes/LAist)

ARE POLICE UNIONS PART OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT?

The president of L.A.'s school police union, Gil Gamez, saw the UTLA leadership vote as a betrayal.

"We have a union president telling another union president that we want to disband your union," said Gamez. "We're part of the same district. In the union world, that's like, 'What are you doing? We're supposed to be brothers and sisters.'"

But at a Monday rally on the steps of L.A. City Hall, UTLA leaders joined several local labor unions to call on governments to "divest" funding from law enforcement agencies and use the money to fund other social services, including education.

At that rally, Black Lives Matter-L.A. co-founder Melina Abdullah also called on some of those same unions -- and the L.A. County Federation of Labor -- to "oust police associations from the labor movement."

"The interests of police associations that parade and disguise themselves as unions," Abdullah said, "are in direct opposition to every other working person in this country."

'WHAT WE REALLY NEED IS SUPPORT'

The UTLA leadership vote is only the beginning.

A representative body of 250 UTLA members still needs to vote on whether to adopt their leaders' proposal as the union's official position. That vote could happen by the end of June.

By then, it's likely the L.A. Unified School Board will have already approved the school district's budget for the coming year -- though other activist groups, including Students Deserve, will also be pushing the board to strip the school police department's $70 million budget.

Instead of police, "what we really need is support," said Sarah Djato, a Dorsey High School rising senior and a leader in Students Deserve. "We need [psychiatric social workers]. We need college counselors. We need places for creative expression. We need transformative and restorative justice."

ARE THE VOTES THERE?

Last summer, both the activism by Students Deserve and UTLA's support were instrumental in swaying four of the LAUSD board's seven members to vote the phasing out of the district's policy of randomly searching middle- and high school students for weapons and drugs. (L.A. School Police don't conduct the searches, but supported the policy and were often present for the searches.)

It's not clear whether these activists could reassemble the same four votes to immediately end funding for school police. Board members could also take more incremental steps -- for instance: disarming school police officers, requiring additional training or making less-drastic reductions in the department's funding.

But before UTLA leaders can lobby the school board, they'll need to ensure their own membership is on board. Caputo-Pearl was careful to note that "dialogue" is ongoing ahead of the broader union vote.

In one UTLA-friendly Facebook group, the union leadership's proposal to defund school police generated passionate back-and-forth -- with a decent number of commenters voicing opposition.

"I don't know school principals who don't want to be protected by something like a police officer," said LAUSD board member George McKenna. "Parents that volunteer on the campus -- you can even ask them. They don't see police as a problem for them."

George McKenna, a member of the L.A. Unified School Board, speaks during a meeting in August 2017. (Kyle Stokes/KPCC/LAist)

SHOULD POLICE OFFICERS BE STATIONED ON CAMPUSES?

McKenna -- a longtime school administrator and the lone African American member of the school board -- says he too has "been victimized" by police and agrees with Black Lives Matters' arguments about systemic racism.

But "school police are ... different from the municipal police," McKenna said, arguing that police officers' presence deters on-campus problems.

Gamez even said his is a model department, where police are specially trained to work with children and resolve conflicts well before the use of force becomes necessary.

"We are the department of the future in many aspects," he argued. "The number one job of a police officer is de-escalation ... Our officers are the best at de-escalation, and they don't even know it."

But two different studies of LAUSD police statistics in recent years have also shown that Black students are disproportionately likely to face arrest on-campus.

And some students have told KPCC/LAist that the presence of police on campus makes them feel unsafe in their schools.

"The [Los Angeles School Police Department] has always maintained a high standard of professionalism on our campuses," read a post on the department's Twitter account Tuesday. "We work closely with LAUSD students, teachers, and staff. Our mission is to provide a safe environment in which the educational process can take place."

Who would handle on-campus security if the district's police force were to be disbanded? UTLA leadership's proposal doesn't offer a complete answer to this question.

"You're not going to leave the workers out to dry," Caputo-Pearl said. "We'd want to be very supportive of whatever conversion process there was to make sure that the [school police officers] are able to find very good work to do."

But Caputo-Pearl also noted that many other urban districts don't run their own police forces -- and that maybe LAUSD should learn from them.
Javier and Martin Morales told their loved ones that, when they died, they wanted to be buried near their fathers grave in the small village of Mexico where they grew up. It was a wish that their family vowed to keep.

But when the brothers, who lived in New Jersey, died a few days apart in April after contracting COVID-19, their family struggled to keep their promise. Funeral directors and authorities in both the U.S. and Mexico told the family that repatriating their bodies home would be impossible  at least for now.

After six weeks of conversations with the funeral home and navigating laws governing the repatriation of remains, the family made the difficult decision to cremate, putting aside pains about their cultural and religious traditions.

Martin Morales.

We had to sit down and try to process it as a unit, said the brothers' niece, Karla Morales. At that point, what can we do other than sadly accept it? At least with cremation, we hope to return them to our grandmother when we can. Its not ideal, but that is the reality we are facing.

Can't ship from U.S. without 'non-contagious' disease certification

The Morales family is among immigrant families across the country who have tried to repatriate the human remains of their loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic without success.

The staff of funeral homes who specialize in shipping bodies abroad for burial said transportation of remains during the pandemic has become difficult because there are few flights and several airlines have also placed embargoes for the international shipment of human remains. Delays in obtaining required documentation, such as death certificates, from consulates and local registrars, some of which are closed due to the pandemic, have also created obstacles.

The family of those who have died after being infected with COVID-19 face additional hurdles and realities. The United States requires a noncontagious disease certificate or letter to be obtained before deceased human bodies are transported abroad, said funeral directors. Since COVID-19 is extremely contagious, family members cannot obtain that letter and the only option is cremation with transportation later.

Story continues

Javier Morales.

Without that letter, we cannot ship from the US.A, said Matthew Connors, director of operations and funeral director at Bergen Funeral Service, which has funeral homes in New Jersey, New York and Florida and ships around 70 human remains a month during normal times.

Several countries have published guidance on the repatriation of those who have died after testing positive for COVID-19. In Canada, for instance, human remains suspected or confirmed to have had COVID-19 can be repatriated if a body is cremated or if a body transported in an air-tight, sealed container. In Ecuador, officials have said they would only accept cremated remains of those who tested positive for COVID-19.

There are a lot of people that have gotten upset, annoyed, and bothered, but unfortunately this is the reality, said Alfonso Morales Suarez, consul general of Ecuador in New Jersey, who has fielded calls from families who want to send human remains to Ecuador in the past few months. These are sanitary protocols established by the government of the United States and the government of Ecuador, and there is no possibility to move complete human remains of those who have died of COVID-19, there is no possibility.

At the border: The Trump administration is turning away unaccompanied children at the border because of coronavirus

'People are desperate to fulfill their loved one's wishes'

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to more than 110,000 deaths in the U.S. so far, including more than 24,000 in New York and more than 12,000 in New Jersey, with those in immigrant communities being disproportionately affected.

Funeral directors who serve immigrant communities said they have spent hours talking to family members about the rules. Many they said have a hard time coming to terms with the idea of not being able to fulfill their loved one's wishes.

It saddens me, said Lisa LoRicco Sharp one of the funeral directors at the Gowen Funeral Home in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which usually ships between 30 to 40 bodies a year to other countries, but who said she has not transported any since the end of February. Trying to convince the family is the biggest thing."

Marco Perez, the managing partner at the Jorge Rivera Funeral Home in North Bergen, New Jersey, said he has received calls from community members who have family members in critical condition due to other ailments, such as cancer, and are now worried that they won't be able to send them abroad.

He said he's gotten many more calls from family members of those who died battling COVID-19.

"I can't repatriate someone due to a communicable disease,'' he said. "But I have been asked so many times, at minimum 80 different times from 80 different families. I have to tell them that you just can't do it."

Some, he said, purchased plots in their birth country years earlier and are not able to be buried there.

"For any family that has been affected by COVID-19, they have been deprived of so many things,'' he said.

Burials without funerals, grief without hugs: Coronavirus is changing how we say goodbye

Perez, whose funeral home transports around 150 to 200 bodies a year to the Caribbean, Central and South America said that in the first two months of the pandemic he shipped around 20.

Connors of the Bergen Funeral Home said he had one case where a family decided to bury their loved one locally but said they planned to exhume the remains later and ship them abroad.

People are desperate to fulfill their loved one's wishes while also working within the constraints of COVID-19, he said.

Some in the funeral industry are hopeful that once airlines begin to add flights and countries reopen, that requirements will change and that families will be allowed to bury their loved ones in their homelands despite contracting COVID-19.

"The clarity on this is not there yet, but it's getting closer,'' said David McComb, owner of Eagles Wings Air of Fort Wayne, ndiana, which works with funeral homes and airlines throughout the country to transport around 20,000 human remains a year within the United States and abroad.

McComb said there is no risk of transmission if a body is properly embalmed and placed in an airtight shipping container.

'We are relying on our (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to be the influencer with our consulates and embassies that there is no danger to anybody that would be moving the human remains in a container where the body has been properly embalmed,'' he said. "We are hoping that reason prevails and people get their wish of being able to celebrate their loved one's life in their home country."

Happiest memories in Mexico

Many friends asked Karla Morales why her family, especially her cousins, tried so hard to get their uncles' bodies back to Mexico. Her parents, aunts and uncles, she said, have always longed to be buried in their birth country where their ancestors have been buried. Her grandmother, she said, had also not seen her son, Martin Morales, for years.

Yes, my uncles were able to make a new home out of this country and were able to flourish, but their happiest memories were in their village, said Karla Morales. Its not just our family, many of course, but the channels we would have to navigate are so difficult.

Gregorio Rosales, 69, of the Bronx, was a taxi driver providing for his 13-year old daughter. He had lost his partner to cancer and was his daughters sole provider. When cases of coronavirus began to be reported in New York, Rosales continued to work, picking up riders at hospitals.

Gregorio Rosales, a Mexican immigrant, died from complications of COVID-19 on April 5. His family chose to cremate him and will send his remains back to Mexico next month.

He had the need of making a living for his daughter, so he needed to find a job and do whatever and might not have thought of the consequences of this, said his niece, Dulce Mojica.

Rosales contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalized before he died on April 5.

Mojica said the hospital gave her 15 days to find a funeral home to claim the body, otherwise, her uncle's remains may have ended up being buried in a mass grave. She called 27 funeral homes before she found one that could help her.

Mojica said after speaking with her 13-year-old cousin and finding out that Rosales had spoken of wanting to be laid to rest in Mexico she began to inquire about the procedures. Her family in Mexico was hoping she could figure out a way for Rosales body to return intact so they could bid him a proper farewell.

There was a lot of back and forth and me explaining to them that the funeral home was not giving us any option, that the only option was cremation, and for my family that was the worst, Mojica recalled. Honestly, when I received his ashes, it hit me. All of my family in Mexico are devastated."

Rosales moved to the United States about 35 years ago, Mojica said. He was unable to adjust his immigration status, which was the reason he never returned to Mexico, where some of his older children still live, she said.

The last time he saw his children in Mexico, they were little kids, the oldest one was 10 years old, she said. Now the way they will get back their father is in a box.

Alberto Curruchich Calicio, a Guatemalan immigrant who moved to Fairview a few years ago died of complications of COVID-19 on April 28, 2020.

A burial 3,000 miles away

Alberto Curruchich Calicio, 44, emigrated from Guatemala about three years ago. He left his wife and three children in the hopes of being able to find a job that paid better than what he made working in agriculture back home, said his brother-in-law Abraham Asijtuj of Passaic, New Jersey.

When he arrived in northern New Jersey he began work in construction, he said. He made enough money to provide for his wife, Patricia, and their children ages 18, 15, and 6-years old back home.

Asijtuj said that Curruchich Calicio hoped to return to Guatemala after a few more years.

But Curruchich Calicio would never get that chance.

He died April 28 in his New Jersey apartment,more than 3,000 miles from Santa Anita las Canoas, a village of the municipality of San Martin Jilotepeque in the department of Chimaltenango, where he lived before migrating.

He had been feeling ill for days, and after he died, an autopsy revealed that he had contracted COVID-19, Asijtuj said.

His wife wanted Curruchich Calicios body to be sent back to Guatemala. The family spoke about cremation, but his wife was adamant that his body be buried because of their Christian religious beliefs, said Asijtuj.

We had no other option but to bury him here and at least give him a Christian burial, said Asijtuj.

Asijtuj launched a GoFundMe page to collect funds for the burial. After gathering more than $7,000, Curruchich Calicio body was placed in a white coffin and buried in an unmarked grave at Fairview Cemetery in New Jersey. His family back in Guatemala watched the service via Facebook Live.

His wife is destroyed, shes still dealing with the loss of her husband, Asijtuj said. "Unfortunately, my sister and his children may never come, and she wont be able to visit his grave. Its sad, but there is nothing we can do.

Reach reporter Monsy Alvarado via email: alvarado@northjersey.com or on Twitter: @monsyalvarado

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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Coronavirus: Families struggle to keep their loved ones' burial wishes
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 17:44 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddabac1 1 National COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,vaccine Free

Indonesia needs to secure a minimum of 340 million ampoules of COVID-19 vaccines to accommodate at least 170 million people  nearly two-thirds of the country's total population  in the archipelago, a minister has said.

We need at least two vaccine shots per person for some 170 million people. So we need at least 340 million [ampoules] of vaccines, Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartanto said on Tuesday.

He said there was a relaxation on intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines currently being developed globally, meaning that any country that successfully comes out with a proven vaccine would be able to share their findings with others.

Whichever country discovers it first can share it with other countries so that they can begin co-production, Airlangga said as quoted by kompas.com.

As for Indonesia, he said a number of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) had cooperated with several companies in South Korea to develop COVID-19 vaccines.

Citing President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's order, the minister said the country prioritized cooperation in vaccine development with less-populated countries since those with populations bigger than Indonesia would need to prioritize their own citizens first.

Read also: Indonesia rallies to keep COVID-19 vaccines, drugs affordable

The 2015 Intercensal Survey (SUPAS) projected Indonesia's population in 2019 to reach up to 266.9 million people.

Countries with a smaller population, such as South Korea, France and Denmark, were therefore considered ideal partners for vaccine co-production, he said.

Separately, Research and Technology Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro, who is also the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) head, said that COVID-19 vaccine development in Indonesia was spearheaded by a consortium involving a number of institutions, including state-owned pharmaceutical holding company PT Bio Farma.

Bio Farma previously said it was hoping to start a pre-clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine by 2021.

We hope we can acquire our vaccines in a relatively short time, which means we wouldnt get behind other countries. We will develop an effective vaccine for the virus in Indonesia, Bambang said.

Bambang said Indonesia needed at least 250 million to 350 million ampoules to get at least two-thirds of the Indonesian population vaccinated. (dpk)
Under normal circumstances, Floyds killing at the hands of a white police officer and the global protests denouncing racism and police brutality might have drawn a muted diplomatic response from the Holy See. But in a U.S. election year, the intensity and consistency of the Vaticans reaction suggests that, from the pope on down, it is seeking to encourage anti-racism protesters while making a clear statement about where American Catholics should stand ahead of President Donald Trump's bid for a second term in November.
It was exactly two years ago this week that Donald Trump stormed out of Canada in a tantrum, upset with Justin Trudeau and his brief visit to the G-7 summit in Quebec.

Trump wont be coming back into Canada anytime soon  nor will most other Americans  with reports that the borders between our two countries will likely remain closed into the summer, or at least the first part of it.

The scheduled June 21 reopening is likely to be postponed once again, according to reports from officials in both countries, who are portraying this as a friendly meeting of minds on maintaining Canada-U.S. distance for now.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters on Wednesday that the current situation suits both countries quite well; that essential travel was continuing and that fruitful conversations between Canada and the United States are happening daily on this very subject.

But Freeland also stressed, with some emphasis, that national interests would ultimately prevail on when and whether to open the Canada-U.S. border. By national interests, what Freeland means is the premiers.

The federal government has all kinds of reasons to extend the shutdown of the Canada-U.S. border beyond June 21, but the countrys premiers are being particularly forceful on this point. For a group that is normally fractious, the first ministers have been remarkably united throughout the COVID-19 lockdown and are now apparently of one, made-up mind about keeping up a wall between the U.S. and Canada.

Say what you like about Trump, but he does have a knack for making Canadians happy that we live here, not there, especially at this point in history.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, asked this week about the looming deadline for reopening the Canada-U.S. border, made clear he thought the date was approaching too rapidly.

Its absolutely critical we tighten up the borders, Ford said, before launching into a spirited tourism advertisement for vacationing in Ontario this summer  as opposed to the United States.

You know, were used to maybe taking a trip down south, across the border in the summer. Why dont we look at our province? Why dont we travel around?

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said on CBC this week that he and his fellow Atlantic premiers were in talks about creating some kind of bubble around their provinces by July, to encourage their citizens to visit each other, rather than venture south.

Higgs pointed out that most of New Brunswicks problems with COVID-19 were travel-related, so he was happy to join the chorus of premiers wanting to keep the U.S. border closed.

To be clear, its not like this is a hard sell to Trudeau on the weekly calls between the first ministers. One federal source said this week that it would be difficult to find anyone at the decision-making level in Ottawa right now who is eager to get things moving at the Canada-U.S. border.

Trudeau was frosty to Trumps musings a couple of weeks ago too about holding this years G-7 meeting in the U.S. as planned this month, saying hed have to see what was being done to keep people safe.

As usual, one need only consult Twitter to see why Canadians are nervous about how things are unfolding in the United States. The presidents Twitter feed of late is a chaotic jumble of rants about the wave of protests across his country, simultaneously  incredibly  along with calls to get the reopening done already.

Trumps son, Donald Jr., was tweeting this week about a new spike in U.S. COVID cases and blaming the massive riots and protests  not Memorial Day weekend, as was originally suggested, based on the incubation time for the virus. Give me a break, Trump Junior said.

Whether its Memorial Day or massive protests, that one tweet alone from the Trump family makes a persuasive case that the U.S. doesnt really have its act together on the post-pandemic future. Trump tweets are not going to be confused with tourism promotion for the U.S. this summer.

Throughout this whole crisis, Trump hasnt made many friends among the provinces in Canada. Two months ago, when it looked like the president might be halting the cross-border flow of pandemic-flighting supplies, well recall, Canadas premiers were unusually vocal with their public condemnations of the president. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney pronounced himself extremely disappointed and insulted by Trump.

The disappointment apparently persists among all premiers, now similarly of the view that the U.S. stands as an example of everything Canada should avoid in coming out of the pandemic  including travel across the border. In dividing his own country, Trump has united Canadas first ministers.
FLINT, MI  The sounds of music and voices filled the air outside several restaurants Monday afternoon and evening in downtown Flint.

And also the smell of food.
The indigenous wife of Western Australia's health minister will attend the next Black Lives Matter protest in Perth despite the state government urging people to stay home due to the risk of COVID-19.

Carly Lane said she would participate in the rally at Langley Park on Saturday in solidarity with all those who stand against racism and Aboriginal deaths in custody.

'Systemic racism, whether it happens here or in America, is an abuse of our human right to live free of fear, and of our right to enjoy a full life,' she said in a statement on Wednesday.

'I support a peaceful rally and we should all be mindful of the health and safety of those around us.'

Carly Lane (left), the wife of Western Australia Health Minister Roger Cook (right), will attend the next Black Lives Matter protest in Perth despite the state government urging people to stay home due to the risk of COVID-19

Pictured: A woman holds a 'stop Aboriginal deaths in custody' sign at a protest in Perth

Health Minister Roger Cook says his wife is a private citizen and makes her own personal choices.

'That's one of the many reasons why I love her,' he said in a separate statement.

'I have great sympathy for the cause of ensuring Aboriginal people and minorities are protected from racism.'

But Mr Cook said the world was in the middle of a pandemic and people must take necessary precautions to minimise the spread of coronavirus.

'While I respect the right to protest, given the current situation, large mass gatherings are not advisable and I ask people to follow the current health guidelines,' he said.

'We urge people to not attend the protest due to the current health pandemic.'

Ms Lane (right) said she would participate in the rally at Langley Park on Saturday in solidarity with all those who stand against racism and Aboriginal deaths in custody. 'Systemic racism, whether it happens here or in America, is an abuse of our human right to live free of fear, and of our right to enjoy a full life,' she said in a statement on Wednesday

Perth hosted Australia's first Black Lives Matter protest, which drew about 2000 people.

The WA Police Force said officers will take a 'measured approach to the circumstances' on Saturday, with 'the ultimate aim being the safety of the community'.

Rally organisers have urged protesters to bring their own water, face masks and hand sanitiser, and stand 1.5 metres apart if they are from different households.

'The risk of developing severe illness is much higher for older adults and people who have serious underlying medical conditions,' co-organiser Jacinta Taylor-Foster wrote on social media.

'Our beloved elders are precious and we acknowledge the significant work they already contribute.

'We respectfully request that elders put their own safety first and consider not attending.'

Anyone who is immunocompromised or suffers from respiratory, cardiac or other chronic illness is also urged to stay home.

People from remote communities are encouraged to participate via self-organised, online events to reduce the risks associated with travel.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says the call for a truce in Libya does not seem sincere or believable to us.

Turkey has dismissed Egypts proposal for a ceasefire in Libya, saying the plan aimed to save renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar after the collapse of his 14-month military push to seize the capital.

Ankara supports Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Serrajs internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), whose forces have in recent weeks repelled the assault on Tripoli by Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia.

Egypt called for a ceasefire starting on Monday, as part of an initiative that also proposed an elected leadership council for Libya. Russia and the UAE welcomed the plan, while Germany said United Nations-backed talks were key to the peace process.

However, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday dismissed the proposal as an attempt to save Haftar following the losses he suffered on the battlefield.

The ceasefire effort in Cairo was stillborn. If a ceasefire is to be signed, it should be done at a platform that brings everyone together, Cavusoglu told the Hurriyet Daily News. The ceasefire call to save Haftar does not seem sincere or believable to us.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his United States counterpart, President Donald Trump, discussed Libya in a call on Monday. Erdogan said the two agreed on some issues on Libya, and that the GNA would continue fighting to seize the coastal city of Sirte and the Al-Jufra airbase further south from Haftars forces.

Cavusoglu said Erdogan and Trump had delegated their foreign and defence ministers, intelligence chiefs and security advisers to discuss possible steps in Libya.

Separately, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar told the A Haber television station that Haftar will certainly disappear if his battlefield losses continue to accrue.

As the support behind him is withdrawn, lifted, Haftar will certainly disappear there, said Akar.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his part welcomed the resumption of talks led by the United Nations and urged speedy negotiations to achieve a ceasefire.

The agreement between the GNA and LNA to re-enter UN security talks was a good first step, very positive, Pompeo said in a news conference on Wednesday.

Quick and good-faith negotiations are now required to implement a ceasefire and relaunch the UN-led intra-Libyan political talks, Pompeo said.
The confusion wont end in the debate over letting more Texans vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.

The cry from those who favor expanded mail-in voting has been that Texans shouldnt have to choose between their health and their right to vote. After a flurry of rulings by state and federal judges, the Texas Supreme Court has left voters with a third option: covert civil disobedience.

Facing an increase of cases of COVID-19 and irresponsible obstinance by Texas officials, all voters must consider this a valid choice, even if it trades one risk for another.

The state has left the millions of Texans who are concerned about going to the polls during a global pandemic but who dont strictly meet the requirements for an absentee ballot with few alternatives. Under current rules, eligibility is limited to those 65 or older, the disabled, people out of the county during the election and those in jail but otherwise qualified.

It is the disability qualification that is the crux of the argument for expansion proponents, who reasoned that the law considers eligible those with a sickness or physical condition that prevents the voter from appearing at the polling place at the risk of injuring health. Without a widely available vaccine, the risk is there for all voters.

After a series of court decisions that traded victories between civil rights groups and state officials led by Attorney General Ken Paxton, the final word, for now, rests with the Texas Supreme Court.

The justices  who heard oral arguments over video due to the outbreak  found the law does not allow voters who exclusively fear contracting COVID-19 to request an absentee ballot. But the court left it up to voters to make the determination of what constitutes a threat to their health.

We agree, of course, that a voter can take into consideration aspects of his health and his health history that are physical conditions in deciding whether, under the circumstances, to apply to vote by mail because of disability, Chief Justice Nathan Hecht wrote in a majority opinion.

The court went on to say that elections officials do not have a ministerial duty, reviewable by mandamus, to look beyond the application to vote by mail. Meaning they can take the word of voters who say they qualify to request an absentee ballot.

In trying to have it both ways, the court created a de facto dont ask, dont tell policy that adds to the confusion. The hand-off foists on voters the responsibility the court failed to take.

This makes Texas an outlier as more than 10 states that previously required an excuse to request an absentee ballot  under Republican and Democrat control  have made temporary or permanent changes to allow vote-by-mail by any eligible voter. Texas is one of the last holdouts, along with Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi.

To his credit, Gov. Greg Abbott has taken steps to make voting safer. He postponed the runoff election to July 14, doubled the period for early voting and ordered increased precautions at the polls, including social distancing.

Requesting an absentee ballot should be nothing more than another measure to keep voting as risk-free as possible, but instead, it has been politicized. Paxton has continuously cast his crusade against vote-by-mail as protecting election integrity, although widespread voter fraud is virtually non-existent. His comments have been in line with those of President Donald Trump, who has falsely claimed that voting by mail benefits Democrats.

Harris County officials are urging voters who qualify for an absentee ballot to request one. They have mailed absentee ballot applications to anyone currently registered who is 65 and older. For the November election, they are considering mailing applications to every registered voter along with instructions on the courts decision and letting them make that choice.

This is at the voters discretion. The form doesnt require information beyond checking a box for eligibility, Assistant County Attorney Douglas Ray told the editorial board. We dont have the authority or ability to investigate that.

But the risk of investigation is there, even if minimal.

The editorial boards calls to the attorney generals office went unanswered as of press time, but Paxton has not shown previous restraint. In April, he threatened to prosecute activists, county elections officials and anybody else who would advise voters who didnt qualify to request an absentee ballot even after a state judge found the statutes wording could be interpreted more broadly.

For Ray here in Harris County, the danger of prosecution is a realistic outcome only for those who advertise that they voted by mail simply because they were scared of the pandemic. For all others, the courts ruling, which encompassed a voters overall health picture when making the decision, should provide protection.

Proponents say they will appeal the latest judicial setback to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose decision could impact the November election, which is expected to have a very high turnout at a time when experts believe there may be a resurgence of COVID-19 cases.

Monday is the last day to register to vote in the July 14 runoff, with absentee requests due by no later than July 2. We once again call on state officials to expand voting by mail.

Voting shouldnt be an ink blot test anymore than it should be a health risk. Texans deserve safe access to the polls, and clear rules on how to vote legally. As long as confusion reigns, voters lose and so does our democracy.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Wednesday rejected the idea of renaming military bases whose names honor Confederate military figures who fought on behalf of preserving the institution of slavery, sounding another divisive note amid a convulsive and painful national reckoning over police mistreatment of African Americans.

Trump said he would "not even consider" changing the names of U.S. military bases named after Confederate generals, even as his own defense secretary, Mark Esper, has said he would consider such proposals and as prominent former military figures, including retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, have suggested that such a step is overdue.

The declaration marked another effort by Trump to align himself with conservatives on divisive racial issues, even as much of the rest of the country appears to be moving in the other direction in significant ways. The contrast underscores the risks that the president faces in emphasizing such positions amid ongoing protests, an economic crisis and the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Shortly after Trump laid down his marker on the Confederate names, NASCAR - the racing circuit that includes many Trump voters among its fans - announced it was banning the display of the Confederate battle flag from "all NASCAR events and properties." The mayor of Birmingham, Ala., also ordered the removal of a Confederate statue from a public park on Wednesday, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called for the removal of Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol.

The reconsideration of Confederate symbols and mythology comes as the country reels from the video of George Floyd, a black man who died after being pinned at the neck under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer during an arrest.

"It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom," Trump tweeted in his unusual capitalization style.

"The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!"

The tweets - which the White House press secretary later read aloud for reporters - came as the military takes new steps to address the legacy of the Civil War and responds to pressure surrounding race and racism in the military. Late last week, the Marine Corps announced a ban on Confederate symbols in public spaces at their facilities. This week, the Navy said it was moving to do the same.

On Monday, officials said that Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy were "open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic," referring to the proposed renaming of bases bearing the names of Confederate leaders.

Trump's intercession is the latest example of the president amplifying a divisive cultural issue that carries potential political benefits, and risks, for him.

The three states he named in his tweet are battlegrounds or potential battlegrounds in the November election, and places where Trump needs to turn out his largely white base of support. That base is also heavily rural, less educated and disproportionately male, a demographic that lines up with general opposition to the removal of Confederate symbols.

North Carolina is also the titular host of the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be nominated for reelection. Trump has vowed to move the event, or the celebratory public parts of it, because of coronavirus-related restrictions imposed by North Carolina's Democratic governor.

During the unrest sparked by the Floyd killing in Minneapolis, Trump and his allies have generally characterized the incident as an isolated case of police misconduct and have falsely sought to characterize nationwide protests as overwhelmingly violent and fomented by leftist anti-fascist radicals, or antifa.

Those positions put Trump out of step with most Americans. According to a Washington Post-Schar School poll released Tuesday, 69 percent of Americans say Floyd's killing represents a broader problem with law enforcement, compared with only 29 percent who say it is an isolated incident.

Those advocating for changing the names of the military bases say that keeping the Confederate references serves to commemorate such injustices.

"The United States is now wrestling with repeated instances of abusive policing caught on camera, the legacies of systemic racism, the challenges of protecting freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights while thwarting criminals who seek to exploit lawful protests, and debates over symbols glorifying those who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War," Petraeus wrote Tuesday in the Atlantic.

McCarthy and Esper are right to consider changes, Petraeus wrote, noting his own long association with Fort Bragg, which is named for Braxton Bragg, a U.S. Military Academy graduate who commanded the Army of Tennessee for the Confederacy.

"Once the names of these bases are stripped of the obscuring power of tradition and folklore, renaming the installations becomes an easy, even obvious, decision," Petraeus wrote.

Trump's tweets appear to foreclose further consideration of any renaming on his watch, however.

A printed copy of his Twitter message was handed out to reporters moments before a briefing with White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who said Trump had directed the unusual action.

McEnany also read it from the briefing room podium and argued that it is disrespectful to veterans and those who have died to rename places from which they embarked for service overseas.

McEnany suggested that the president would veto legislation that authorizes defense programs if it included the renaming of bases.

"The president will not be signing legislation that renames America's forts," she said. "We've got to honor what has happened there, not rename it. So that is an absolute nonstarter for the president."

McEnany likened changing the bases' names to HBO Max temporarily removing "Gone With the Wind" from its programming over racist depictions.

"Where do you draw the line here?" she asked.

The president's statement comes only days after tensions erupted between Esper and Trump over the president's desire to flood Washington with active-duty troops during the recent protests.

Esper and Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were widely criticized for appearing on camera alongside Trump after protesters were forcibly cleared from the Lafayette Square area near the White House where an array of forces including National Guard were present.

Officials have said that Milley and Esper did not know they would be taking part in a Trump photo op.

A spokesman for Esper declined to comment on Wednesday on the president's tweets.

This isn't the first time there have been calls to change the names of some of the country's most prominent bases. In recent years, when events such as the 2017 white supremacist march in Charlottesville renewed focus on the nation's persistent struggles with racism, efforts were made to rename the bases.

Trump has argued that statues of Confederate figures should not be removed because they are historical markers. He sympathized with what he called "very fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville, where a counterprotester was killed.

The latest developments come as the military grapples with controversy surrounding its participation in responding to recent civil unrest triggered by police violence and, more broadly, the role of African American troops and other minorities in the military.

In the past week, some current and former senior officers, including Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown Jr., who this week was confirmed as Air Force chief of staff, making him the military's first black service chief, have spoken publicly about the challenges and discrimination they have faced as African American service members.

Pentagon leaders are also facing pressure from Congress, where lawmakers are demanding that Esper and Milley appear to answer questions about the military's part in responding to recent protests. On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, issued a scathing letter in which he expressed his "profound frustration" with Esper.

"It is unacceptable that, except for staff communication, you have not responded to our formal written request that you and Chairman Milley appear before the committee for a hearing on the Department's roles and authorities in civilian law enforcement," Smith wrote, saying that the Pentagon had not provided written answers to questions on the same topic by a committee deadline.

In a statement, chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said that defense officials had briefed committee members on the issues Smith referenced earlier in the week and would provide them in written form on Wednesday. "The HASC staff is also well aware that we have been working on finding a mutually available date to testify soon," he said.

- - -

The Washington Post's Alex Horton contributed to this report.
A video posted on social media shows a group of men, including a New Jersey state corrections officer, taunting and mocking protesters Monday  with one kneeling on a mans neck, reenacting the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

The officer has been suspended, officials said Tuesday. Online commentators and state employment records identify him as Joseph DeMarco.

A second person who participated in the taunting in Gloucester County was fired from their job at FedEx, the company said.

And late Tuesday, Gov. Phil Murphy condemned the incident, writing on Twitter, Mocking George Floyds murder in effort to belittle the calls for justice from our Black and Brown communities is repugnant. I condemn this behavior in the strongest terms possible. We wont let the actions of a few distract from our progress toward dismantling systemic racism.

Floyds death over Memorial Day weekend has set off protests across the world.

That was the case Monday, when peaceful, chanting protesters marched along Delsea Drive in Franklinville, an unincorporated community in Franklin Township, N.J.

As the protest passed by a property, a group of men, with a President Trump banner behind them, shouted at protesters as one had his knee on the back of a mans neck.

You dont comply, thats what happens," the kneeling man is heard saying in one video. You dont comply, thats what happens right here, look. He didnt comply. He didnt comply. If he wouldve complied, it wouldnt have happened.

Floyd, accused of forgery, was not armed and did not appear to be resisting arrest, according to multiple reports. The officer who kneeled on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes was ultimately charged with second-degree murder. The three other officers involved were also fired and have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Multiple calls to Franklin Township Police Chief Brian Zimmer and Mayor John Bruno were not immediately returned. But Tuesday afternoon, the mayor, police chief and police department released a joint statement that does not specifically reference the kneeling incident, but denounces the actions of certain individuals.

The Franklin Township committee and its police department are appalled and saddened by the revolting actions of certain individuals after Mondays locally organized peaceful march, the statement said. This is not who we are as a community. We support the goal of this march which is to spread awareness and to ensure a better future for all of us.

Franklin Township police, who rode alongside protesters, were aware of the group of men taunting those in the march, with one officer telling protesters they would ride ahead and provide a physical buffer, according to a marcher named Russell, who is one of the people who recorded the re-enactors. He declined to have his full name published.

In the joint statement, Franklin Township police said they are investigating the incident, but did not release any further details or charges.

Social media commenters later outed one of the re-enactors as a state corrections officer. On Tuesday, the New Jersey Department of Corrections confirmed that a senior correctional police officer participated in the reenactment.

We have been made aware that one of our officers from Bayside State Prison participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd, said Matt Schuman, DOC spokesman.

The officer, whose name was not made public by the agency, was suspended from his post and was banned from state DOC facilities, pending an investigation, Schuman said. The officer was hired in 2002 and worked at Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County until January 2019, when he moved to Bayside.

The corrections officers union, PBA Local 105, posted a statement on Facebook Tuesday that did not specifically mention the incident, but said:

Make no mistake about itunder absolutely no circumstance do we condone nor will we ever tolerate actions and expressions of discrimination, harassment and hatred based on race, faith, skin color, national origin, nationality, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or disability. We need to continue practicing tolerance and understanding; not discrimination and hate.

PBA Local #105 is comprised of approximately 6,000 correctional police officers representing men and women that come... Posted by NJ PBA Local 105 on Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Another re-enactor was identified as an employee of FedEx, which a company spokesperson confirmed late Tuesday.

The behavior depicted in the video ... is appalling and offensive. The employee in question was immediately removed from all FedEx work duties while our investigation is concluded and all internal procedures are followed, FedEx said in a statement. A diverse and inclusive workforce is at the heart of our business, and we stand with those who support justice and equality.

Late Tuesday, the company said theyd fired the employee, saying, FedEx holds its team members to a high standard of personal conduct, and we do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video. The individual involved is no longer employed by FedEx. A diverse and inclusive workforce is at the heart of our business, and we stand with those who support justice and equality.

The videos also show the group of men standing in front of a pickup truck on a property with an American flag and a sign that says, All Lives Matter. The property is owned by James and Toni Demarco, according to property records.

Russell, a lifelong Franklinville resident, said the marchers saw the re-enactors on the first leg of the march, and they yelled, All lives matter." On the way back, more people had joined them and the group reenacted Floyds killing, he said.

He was ready, said Russell.

In one video that appears to be shot by one of the men involved in the reenactment, a man is heard responding to protesters chants of Black Lives Matter," with to no one. The videos show the group of men standing in what appears to be a firewood business, with a sign advertising firewood for sale. The phone number listed on the sign had been disconnected as of Tuesday.

Russell, who is black, said some of the men who taunted protesters had made racist and inflammatory remarks before on social media platforms. What bothered Russell the most was that young people who joined the protest were exposed to hate while marching peacefully.

That gentleman is somebodys uncle, Russell said of the man who kneeled. That gentleman is somebodys father. So you can imagine the hate that he has been feeling and the generations that come from him. Thats what probably hurt the most. To know that hate is not just being from them, but its being continued.

For Russell, the group of men and what they did speaks to an ugly secret that protests like the one in Franklinville Monday will hopefully shed light on: racism is everywhere.

I want people to see, they think this only exists in the deep south," he said. "Or in the midwest or the middle of the country where theres only three houses in a town. Thats not the case. We want people to understand and see racism exists everywhere.

Reporter Kevin Shea contributed to this story. Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.

More:

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CrossFit CEO calls tweets mocking coronavirus pandemic, George Floyd protests a mistake

Middletown councilman says he wont quit over Facebook posts on George Floyd, Rachel Levine
The IT Tralee campus which is to become part of the Munster Technological University. Photo Domnick Walsh

The announcement last month that the Institute of Technology in Tralee had been given permission to merge with it's counterpart in Cork to form Ireland's newest university was an historic day for the county.

The fruit of over a decades work the merger of ITT and Cork Institute of Technology to form the Munster Technological University will provide an enormous economic boost to Tralee and Kerry and greatly improve Kerry's offering when it attracting foreign investment.

The road to the MTU has been a long one and dates back to the late 1970's when -after years of campaigning by local business, political and educational figures - the Government of the day approved the creation of third level college in Kerry.

Thus Tralee Regional Technical College - one of several such institutes being opened around teh country at the time - opened its doors to students in 1977.

Initially the RTC shared a home the vocational school in Clash eventually moving into its own premises in what is currently ITT's South Campus facility in Clash in 1986 with an enrolment of about 1,000 students.

In 1992 as was the case with all of Ireland's RTCs the college became an autonomous Institute of Technology and IT Tralee was born.

The college's rapid growth continued and it was soon apparent that a larger campus would be required to house the Institute. A large greenfield site was acquired at Dromtacker on Tralee's northern outskirts and in the late 1990's worr began on what would become ITT's North Campus.

That opened in 2001 and the expansion of the college soon resulted in an explosion in student numbers and in the variety of courses on offer.

Kerry Technology Park also opened in 2001 and the two facilities on neighbouring sites developed a close working relationship and their fruitful cooperation soon made the Dromthacker area the centre of economic and technical innovation in the county.

In the mid to late 2000's discussions began about a root and branch transformation of the third level sector and the creation of the new technological universities to replace the country's 13 IT's.

In January 2014, the then Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn, introduced the Technological Universities Bill which set out the Government's legislative approach to merging the existing institutes of technology.

IT Tralee and CIT were among the first to express interest in the plans and when the Minister introduced the bill six years ago the Kerry and Cork colleges were named as one of three IoT consortiums that were already working on a mergers plans.

Formally established in January 2019 the tecnological University of Dublin - the result of the amalgamation of Dublin Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown, and Institute of Technology, Tallaght - was the first TU to open.

ITT and CIT had hoped to follow quickly in Dublin's footsteps - planning to enrol students in to the new MTU by September 2019.

But last July they suffered a significant setback when an international advisory panel set up to examine the Kerry Cork merger plan found serious problems with the process.

In its report the panel said the college's merger plan had a "lack of clear vision and strategy" and "leaves questions unanswered regarding the specifics of how the two applicant institutions are to become one".

IT Tralee's outstanding debts of 10million and the "strained relationship" between senior management and the academic staff unions were also cited as an issues of concern.

The report was seen as a hammer blow to the merger plan and threatened to derail the process entirely

Management of IT Tralee and CIT were given just six months to resolve the panels concerns and prepare a report for Eduction Minister Joe McHugh proving the case for the college's merger and the creation to the MTU.

The deadline to prepare the report - which had been recommended by the international panel - was seen as extraordinarily tight with the Chairman of the Higher Education Authority Michael Horgan, telling Minister McHugh the timeframe was "too ambitious" and calling for it to be extended.

While doubtless anxious about the future their merger proposal the MTU consortium immediately set to the task at and months of work followed.

Those months of hard graft paid off and at the end of March the college's presented their report - exactly on schedule to the Minister.

An anxious two month wait followed and on May 26, a few days earlier than expected - the news the county had been waiting for arrived Kerry had it's university.

Ahead of the announcement expectations were high and positive murmurs from the Department suggested good news was imminent.

Even so the suddenness of the announcement took many by surprise.

First announced that morning in Cork by Tanaiste Simon Coveney the news quickly reached Kerry leading to something of a commotion among ITT's management team - working from home due to the Coronavirus lockdown - as they scrambled to prepare and release a response to the historic news.

The Chair of IT Tralee's Governing Body Lionel Alexander neatly summed up what the news meant for the two institutes and their counties.

"The two institutes share an ethos of excellence, an ambition to serve the needs of our communities, and a vision of higher education provision that is innovative, responsive, entrepreneurial and forward-looking.

"The new Technological University will grow from the foundations laid down by CIT and ITT.

"MTU will be the first regionally based Technological University in Ireland. Our ambition is to have a lasting positive impact economically, socially and culturally on the South-West region and beyond; and our values will guide our relationships with students, with staff, our partners and the wider community of stakeholders".

Meanwhile the huge importance of a new university to the development of the region was emphasised by newly installed President of IT Tralee, Dr Brendan O'Donnell.

"This is a time of unprecedented challenge for the region, Ireland and the world. MTU will play a leadership role in the strategic development of the South-West region as we work towards national and global recovery.

"The availability of a skilled professional workforce is essential to the creation of Irish companies and in attracting new companies to locate in Ireland. A

"As a new university, MTU will develop and enhance curricula and research opportunities through stakeholder engagement ensuring that the changing demands of regional enterprise, the professions, and the community are realised."

In its 43 year history the Tralee college has helped shape Kerry. With University status now secured one can only imagine what the next forty years hold in store for the MTU and for education in the Kingdom.
WALTHAM, Mass., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) has appointed Dantaya Williams as chief human resources officer. Williams will report to Greg Hayes, chief executive officer, Raytheon Technologies.

"Dantaya has a proven track record in leading transformation throughout our organization with a focus on the development of innovative talent strategies to drive business growth," said Hayes. "With over 20 years at the company, Dantaya will leverage her skills and experience to lead a dynamic and global HR function that is critical to establishing Raytheon Technologies as the premier employer in aerospace and defense worldwide."

Williams replaces Doug Balsbough, who is retiring from the company after guiding the HR function through the closing of the merger of Raytheon Company and United Technologies (UTC). In his prior assignment, Doug successfully managed the integration of Rockwell Collins with UTC Aerospace Systems division. "We are grateful to Doug for his many contributions during his distinguished career," continued Hayes.

Williams joined the company in 1999 and was most recently vice president of human resources for the Commercial Engines division of Pratt & Whitney, overseeing key initiatives in talent, diversity, employee relations and HR transformation for its global workforce. Prior to her role at Pratt & Whitney, Williams was UTC's vice president of talent, inclusion and engagement where she was responsible for accelerating the company's global talent strategy. Williams spent more than a decade with former UTC business Carrier Corporation in labor relations, progressively increasing her responsibility within the HR organization.

About Raytheon Technologies

Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an aerospace and defense company that provides advanced systems and services for commercial, military and government customers worldwide. With 195,000 employees and four industry-leading businesses  Collins Aerospace Systems, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon Intelligence & Space and Raytheon Missiles & Defense  the company delivers solutions that push the boundaries in avionics, cybersecurity, directed energy, electric propulsion, hypersonics, and quantum physics. The company, formed in 2020 through the combination of Raytheon Company and the United Technologies Corporation aerospace businesses, is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Media Contact

Michele Quintaglie

C: 860.493.4364

[email protected]

SOURCE Raytheon Technologies
"In the past week alone, at least six lawyers have been targeted by the police directly in relation to the exercise of their ordinary work as lawyers. Four lawyers, namely Advocate Thabani Mpofu, Tapiwa Makanza, Joshua Chirambwe and Dumisani Dube, were arrested and charged with obstructing the course of justice and another two lawyers, Choice Damiso and Lawman Chimuriwo were taken in for questioning by the police and later released without charge."
Chad Daybell, the husband of Lori Vallow, who is charged with desertion in the disappearance of two of her children last year, was charged Wednesday with two counts of concealing evidence after human remains were found on his Idaho property, and his bail was set at $1 million.

During Daybell's initial court hearing Wednesday via Zoom, prosecuting attorney Rob Wood revealed that the remains found on Daybell's property were those of children, and said the state found the manner of concealment of one of the bodies to be "particularly egregious."

Wood did not elaborate on the state of the body, and a probable cause affidavit has been sealed, according to court documents.

Daybell was taken into custody Tuesday and faces two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, according to a criminal complaint filed in Idaho's Seventh Judicial District Wednesday.

The complaint said Daybell "did willfully conceal and/or did aid and abet another to willfully conceal human remains," with the knowledge that they were evidence in another felony case and investigation. The complaint said Daybell concealed the remains between Sept. 22, 2019 and June 9, 2020.

Daybell faces up to 10 years in prison and up to $20,000 in fines if convicted.

"Because of what has been found on Daybell's property, he has strong incentive to flee," Wood said, arguing for a $1 million bail to be set.

Daybell's attorney, John Prior, asked that bail be set at $100,000, saying Daybell did not resist arrest and had family and property in Idaho, indicating he wouldn't flee.

But Judge Faren Eddins set bail at $1 million, and said if it was met, Daybell must wear an ankle monitor and stay within a few Idaho counties.

Daybell's next hearing is scheduled for July 1.

Image Chad Daybell (Rexburg Police Department)

Authorities revealed Wednesday that two sets of human remains were found on Daybell's property in Rexburg. Details of the discovery came after police said Tuesday they had executed a search warrant as part of the monthslong investigation into the disappearance of Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan, who were 7 and 17 respectively when they were last seen in September.

Story continues

The Rexburg Police Department said Wednesday that autopsy results on the remains were pending.

Vallow and Daybell refused to cooperate with the investigation into the missing children when it began in November, police have said. The couple left the state.

Police have also said Vallow either knows the location of her children or knows what happened to them.

After Vallow and Daybell were found in Hawaii, she was arrested in February and extradited to Idaho on charges of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children. She is being held on a $1 million bond.

Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan. (Freemont County Sheriff's Office)

Vallow has pleaded not guilty, according to The Associated Press.

Vallow is also being investigated in the death of Daybell's former wife, Tammy Daybell. The body of Daybell, 49, was found in her home in October, a death initially ruled as natural but since classified as suspicious, and her remains were exhumed for an autopsy in December.

Chad Daybell, a self-published author who has written more than two dozen books about near-death and doomsday events, and Vallow married weeks after Tammy Daybell's death.

Vallow's fourth husband, Charles Vallow, also died last year. He was shot to death in July by Vallow's brother, Alex Cox, during a confrontation.

Vallow and Cox were questioned by police but not charged in that incident. Cox died in December.
[June 10, 2020] Tegra118 Makes First Strategic Acquisition with Purchase of Retirement Income Planning Software Provider RetireUp

Tegra118, a top provider of wealth and asset management technology solutions - and a portfolio company of Motive Partners, a specialist private equity firm - announced its acquisition of Illinois-based RetireUp, a leading provider of retirement planning technology. The acquisition will help advisors enrich their client relationships with powerful retirement income planning through a seamless, modern experience. It underscores Tegra118's promise to accelerate innovation, build its core platform with purpose, and simplify the wealth management experience for clients. Founded by a team of financial advisors, RetireUp boasts nimble and efficient software and simulations that make it easy for advisors to assess a client's needs for specific lifetime income products. RetireUp's solutions also transform complex financial concepts into easy-to-understand "big-picture" visuals, so advisors can help investors become active participants in their own financial futures. The entire RetireUp team will join Tegra118 as part of this transaction. "We're excited about our acquisition of RetireUp, a platform that helps advisors bring retirement income to the center of client conversations," said Cheryl Nash, Chief Executive Officer, Tegra118. "In today's climate, retirement income is top of mind. Advisors and investors benefit from richer discussions that provide a full picture of lifetime income from Social Security, annuities, pensions, insurance and other assets. This acquisition marks an important one in our growth story and is a testament to Motive Partners' commitment to accelerate and advance Tegra118's wealthtech platform." "RetireUp is a strong complement to Tegra118's rapidly expanding suite of front office solutions," said Alvi Abuaf (News - Alert), Industry Partner at Motive Partners and Board Member at Tegra118. "Its clean user interface helps advisors easily incorporate annuities into the overallfinancial planning process, for an experience that's holistic, collaborative, and personalized. It's especially useful during these turbulent times, as annuities become a more important component of investment portfolios given their security and predictability. The acquisition will also bolster Tegra118's offerings in the growing Insurance Wealth Advisory segment. In sum, it exemplifies Motive Partners' vision of investing in innovative tools and capabilities that better serve the needs of financial advisors and investors."



"We're thrilled to join the Tegra118 team," said Michael Roth, RetireUp's President. "Since 2012, RetireUp has supported insurance broker-dealers with a focus on annuity and financial planning advice. Joining forces with Tegra118, an established leader in the wealth management industry, is a logical and exciting next step that allows us to thoughtfully expand our footprint. Our combined offerings give Tegra118 an edge in addressing the growing market for lifetime income solutions." RetireUp Head of Technology Dan Santner commented, "RetireUp and Tegra118 bring unique strengths to the industry through proven, mission-critical technology that helps advisors enrich their client relationships through innovative, impactful solutions."

Together with our clients, we at Tegra118 are building the future of wealth management technology, and RetireUp's unique strengths will make our proven, mission-critical technology even stronger. Learn more at www.tegra118.com. About Tegra118 Tegra118 is an industry leading provider of software solutions to the wealth and asset management industry with a vast network of broker-dealers, asset managers, and custodians and trading interfaces. Its technology platform provides portfolio management, trading, accounting, rebalancing and reporting for managed accounts. Tegra118 also provides modular, goals-based financial planning, performance reporting and fee billing software for financial advisors and asset managers using modern API-based open technology. Tegra118 is committed to delivering powerful solutions that set a new standard for how people interact with, manage, and grow their wealth. Tegra118 is a Motive Partners company, a specialist private equity firm with offices in New York City and London, focused on technology-enabled business and financial services companies. For more information, please visit www.tegra118.com. About RetireUp RetireUp is a leading provider of integrated retirement income planning solutions built to strengthen the client-advisor relationship. By presenting complex concepts in easily understood numbers and graphics, RetireUp allows advisors to quickly engage clients and transform them into enthusiastic participants in the planning process. With powerful tools, actuarial-level product modeling, data integration, and an automated forms system, RetireUp facilitates more meaningful client-advisor conversations and faster, better solutions that streamline the entire planning process. For more information, visit www.retireup.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005209/en/

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The coronavirus pandemic has laid waste to many Alabama businesses forced to shutdown for more than a month. But in one case, it managed to forge an alliance between a venerable Birmingham restaurateur and a catering company.

George Sarris, the longtime owner of Birminghams The Fish Market, also oversees its catering company. But Sarris has joined forces with Richard Wilkins of R & S Food Services to form Yellow Bicycle Catering Co. The two see their collaboration as a way to keep going after the havoc the pandemic has played with their businesses.

Both of us put our heads together and tried to figure out, how can we survive? Sarris said. I dont think most businesses can survive with just 10 to 20 percent of their clients.

Wilkins formed his catering company three-and-a-half years ago with his wife Stephanie. He operates out of the old Culinard School kitchen, where he graduated in 2007. Sarris had been Wilkins landlord, and they had already collaborated on some events.

George Sarris and Richard Wilkins formed Yellow Bicycle Catering Co. to stay going during the pandemic.

Then came the virus. In two weeks, Sarris said he lost about $150,000 worth of business from cancelled events. Wilkins said within 48 hours, the shutdown had wiped about $25,000 in events from his schedule.

Every single person cancelled - large groups, weddings, rehearsal dinners, retirement parties, venues were shut down, Wilkins said. We went from a lot to nothing in just two days. We went from a staff of 12 people to just myself and two other employees part-time."

Within a few weeks, Sarris and Wilkins were talking about the state of the business.

We thought, its a new economy, the best way to survive is to merge, Sarris said. We thought it would be a good marriage. Like every marriage, you make sure your partner is good.

Why Yellow Bicycle? Sarris said the name comes from a story about a Greek restaurant owner who called his place Parthenon," but couldnt get noticed because his name wasnt distinctive enough. Someone suggested yellow bicycle because it was memorable. I thought it was a good idea, so I stole it," he said.

The menu ranges from Sarris specialty - Mediterranean food - to Wilkins menu, which is Southern food with distinctive touches. Business has started to pick up, they said, with weddings and events starting to fill up the books.

Its going to come back, but its not going to come back like it was yet, Sarris said.

Wilkins said the two companies separately have been getting calls from event planners because several catering companies have ceased operations since the pandemic. And it largely depends on the customers needs as to how many coronavirus precautions are taken. Some want pans of food dropped off, while others want individual box lunches. For the traditional buffet, staff members are serving food with masks and gloves on.
Sen. Mary Torres is calling on her colleagues to support the Guam Safe Housing Act of 2020 following criticism that the legislation interferes with contracts between landlords and tenants.

In addition to calling for support, the senator characterized certain concerns expressed about the measure as an "anti-victim rhetoric."

Bill 214-35, or the Safe Housing Act, creates several safeguards for renters or tenants who become victims of domestic abuse. In part, the measure would allow victims to terminate lease agreements early without suffering legal or financial consequences. Other protections include nondisclosure requirements, lock-changing requirements and protections against eviction and liability. As some lawmakers noted during the debate on the bill last week, the legislation is necessary to expand protections to victims of domestic violence on island.

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Leonard P. Campos, director of operations for RE/MAX Diamond Realty, argues in his written testimony the bill would mandate lease conditions that are not mutually acceptable and infringe on parties' rights to enter into contracts free of government interference.

"I believe this is a violation of the Contract Clause within the U.S. Constitution," Campos said.

But as Torres stated, 30 states and the District of Columbia have already enacted early termination laws.

"I'm merely proposing to add Guam to that list. In the meantime, landlords remain free to hold abusers accountable for damages on their property," Torres stated.

Campos was speaking on behalf of his clients  property owners. As director of operations at RE/MAX Diamond Realty, Campos said he is responsible for overseeing more than 500 property management accounts.

Most property owners depend on the rental income to pay mortgages and property expenses, according to Campos. While Bill 214 does require payment within 90 days of vacating a rental in case of early lease termination, Campos argues that many owners cannot wait 90 days to receive their rent and don't have the resources to cover damages made by tenants.

"However, companies with a broad portfolio of rental units will chalk this up as additional expenses and adjust their rental rates to account for the extra cost. The bill, if passed, ultimately leads to increased rental rates and further hardship for already struggling property owners," Campos stated.

Torres said the 90-day period was determined after reviewing a summary of state and local laws providing housing rights to victims of violence. The public was invited to comment on this provision since October 2019, she added.

"No bill is perfect, but after multiple public notices, a public hearing, and full deliberation on the floor, I can't help that some are just discovering this bill now," Torres said. "In the meantime, let's not lose focus of this measure's intent - to protect our victims of violence."

Campos also raises due process concerns in relation to the bill's requirements. According to Campos, Bill 214 removes due process for the accused by allowing the alleged victim to place financial lease burdens on the accused, while only requiring a police report or statements from a medical or mental health professional to trigger the conditions of the bill. The substitute version of the bill also specifies a restraining order as one of the documents tenants can provide landlords as evidence of abuse.

'Resources are better spent focusing on nonprofit family violence organizations'

Campos also states that statistics show 50% or more of family violence cases are dropped or not prosecuted, but doesn't cite the statistics he is referring to. However, he acknowledges this can be due to many reasons, including a lack of evidence or reconciliation of the parties.

Another potential reason for prosecutors dropping charges is when victims recant their accusations.

"Accusers often recant in domestic violence cases. The reasons vary. They can be economic; if the victim relies on her abuser for shelter or financial support. It can be the result of a change of heart or pure manipulation," according to a January article from the Justice Family Center Alliance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also shone a spotlight on domestic violence, with cases rising worldwide as lockdown procedures trap victims with their abusers, according to the Guardian. As the public defender noted in testimony supporting Bill 214, lease agreements also leave victims tied to their abusers.

Campos ultimately states that resources are better spent focusing on nonprofit family violence organizations or expanding government support for victims rather than creating "another victim - the property owner."

"I ask opponents of this bill: how long should victims have to wait before it's 'okay' for them to escape?," Torres stated in her response to Campos. "How much violence do you require to make early termination acceptable? If history is any indicator, waiting until an abuser is behind bars is far too late  and that's why passage of this bill is necessary."

Bill 214 has been placed on the voting file.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

When COVID-19 first emerged and began to spread, there was a rush to identify common characteristics shared by those infected. Geographic location, lifestyle and pre-existing health conditions were all early candidates for a distinguishing factor that would help predict who would be most susceptible.

It soon emerged that advanced age was likely a contributing factor in being vulnerable to the virus. Measures such as restricting the movement of anyone over the age of 70 came into effect in order to protect seniors from either contracting the virus or passing it on to others. And with that, some noticed a parallel outbreak of ageism and a rise in instances of prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person's age.

Professor Alison Chasteen in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, a behavioral scientist who specializes in stereotyping, prejudice and stigma across the lifespan, recently co-authored an editorial in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences on avoiding ageism and fostering solidarity between generations.

Chasteen spoke with Arts & Science's Sean Bettam about what she and her colleagues have seen and their recommendations for how to ensure that seniors are supported during such uncertain times.

You've observed that, in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a parallel outbreak of ageism. Has the pandemic fueled the perpetuation of stereotypes of older people?

Ageism was already present in most countries. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the tendency to portray older adults in stereotypical ways. What we have been seeing from different sources, such as social media, the media and government officials around the world, is a portrayal of people aged 70 and over as unable to contribute to society, frail and helpless.

Public health officials and the media once suggested that older adults were most likely to be infected by COVID-19. Some jurisdictions even imposed restrictions on the movements of anyone over a certain age. How might such declarations impact the mental health of those in that demographic?

Segregation based on age reinforces the message that all older people are vulnerable and should be protected. These declarations can undermine older adults' independence and feelings of competence.

Such policies ignore the fact that older adults are a heterogeneous group who vary greatly in terms of health status. As the pandemic has gone on, we now know that physical distancing measures are needed to protect people of all ages.

Are older adults the only ones being viewed as a homogeneous group when it comes to managing the pandemic? If so, why do you suppose that is?

It is certainly the case that in the early stages of the pandemic, the focus was on older adults and viewing them solely through the lens of their age. This was likely the case because of early data from other countries suggesting higher infection and mortality rates among older people. Yet, what we have seen in Canada is that almost half of the cases have occurred in people aged 30 to 59.

Have older people always been viewed with such generalizations and stereotypes or is it a relatively recent phenomenon?

Age stereotypes have long been applied to older adults. The term "ageism" was first coined in 1969, when it was recognized that prejudice based on age was a common occurrence.

What are the dangers in viewing older adults in such a uniform manner?

When we view members of a group as all the same, we are more likely to apply stereotypes to them. In the case of older adults, we are more likely to patronize them and treat them in a condescending manner. Our research has shown that older people report negative emotional effects from being disrespected and discounted.

At the same time, there are also dangers for younger age groups. We are all exposed to negative age stereotypes from childhood on and we may be more likely to apply those negative age stereotypes to ourselves when we grow older.

Thinking about aging and older people in stereotypical ways can lead us to form negative expectations about our own aging experiences. This results in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy where we think age-related declines are inevitable and we do not attempt to alter the course of our own aging experiences.

In what ways are older people uniquely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic? What do you think is the most challenging aspect for them to manage?

A major concern for older people is that social distancing, rather than just physical distancing, is happening. We know that loneliness and social isolation can have negative health consequences for people of any age. The fact that a focus has been placed on social isolating older adults means they might be at even greater risk of the negative effects of loneliness.

What can people of other generations do to better support seniors during this time?

We need to engage in physical distancing but not social distancing from our older family members, friends and neighbors. We can do this by finding ways to stay in touchwhether through chatting from people's porches or across backyard fences, calling, teleconferencing or texting older people or even writing them a letter if they are not online.

Engaging in such intergenerational contact will not only reduce all of our feelings of loneliness but will help to counter age stereotypes and bring a sense of solidarity across age groups. Recognizing that we're all in this together, no matter our age, is key.

Explore further 5 ways the COVID crisis has created an ageism crisisand what to do about it

More information: Liat Ayalon et al. Aging in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Avoiding Ageism and Fostering Intergenerational Solidarity, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B (2020). Liat Ayalon et al. Aging in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Avoiding Ageism and Fostering Intergenerational Solidarity,(2020). DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbaa051
Gass said the Arizona Supreme Court has made it clear that if someone is charged with disturbing the peace of an individual, the state must prove that the individuals peace was indeed disturbed.

Further, such conduct does not become criminal under our current statutes unless it disturbs the peace of someone by seriously disrupting something, the judge wrote.

None of that applies here, he said. Guffey was not, in fact, disturbed by Prosies angry words, Gass said.

He pointed out that Guffey is a Forest Service supervisor with 14 years experience who testified he deals with irate individuals quite often. Guffey also testified that Prosise did not threaten him and that his comments were vague rather than personal, Gass said.

Beyond that, the judge said what Prosise did was not seriously disruptive, as the station was closed at the time and its operations were not impaired.

Gass was quick to say that the court is not excusing what Prosise did.
Earlier this month, Emmerdale began the first British soap to resume filming after production was halted amid the coronavirus lockdown.

And star Danny Miller has opened up about what it's like to film socially-distanced scenes amid the special lockdown episodes for the ITV soap, saying that at times it had been 'difficult'.

Speaking on Wednesday's Lorraine, the actor, 29, who plays Aaron Dingle also described himself and co-star Jeff Hordley (Cain Dingle) as 'guinea pigs' after being the first cast members to begin filming the unique episodes.

Chat: Danny Miller has opened up about what it's like to film socially-distanced Emmerdale scenes amid the special lockdown episodes for the ITV soap, saying that at times it had been 'difficult'

Last month it was revealed that Emmerdale's production team had recorded six new episodes using a pared back crew at the show's studios in Leeds, with stories focused on characters in lockdown.

ITV confirmed that social distancing measures and safety protocols were put into place and strictly adhered to by the team, with the episodes being recorded over a two-week period.

One of the episodes include a two-hander between Cain and nephew Aaron, with Cain struggling over his feelings for estranged wife Moira, while Aaron becomes angered after his uncle hides a letter by his imprisoned husband Robert Sugden.

Guinea pigs: Speaking on Wednesday's Lorraine, the actor, 29, who plays Aaron Dingle also described himself and co-star Jeff Hordley (Cain Dingle) as 'guinea pigs' after being the first cast members to begin filming the unique episodes

Discussing the filming and how it differs from their usual work, Danny explained: 'The distance obviously is different. Were having to abide by rules and stay 2 metres apart.

'Believe it or not, its a lot more difficult for us to just do the everyday work because on top of that were in charge of cleaning and looking after our own props. The distance thing between television is kind of unsaid realise because you dont realise how close you get to the director when you show them your scripts and suddenly youre there.

'So there was people who was put in place to kind of be there and ensure that we didnt get carried away and suddenly face to face. It was difficult, a lot different obviously.

Changes: Discussing the filming and how it differs from their usual work, Danny explained: 'The distance obviously is different. Were having to abide by rules and stay 2 metres apart

Difficult: 'Believe it or not, its a lot more difficult for us to just do the everyday work because on top of that were in charge of cleaning and looking after our own props'

Meanwhile, the star opened up on making sure they adhered to the rules while filming, telling Lorraine Kelly: 'Jeff and I were used as guinea pigs if you like. We were very nervous to do this anyway. Not only do you have to keep yourself safe by keeping your distance but make sure you have to make sure youre keeping everyone else safe too.'

Elsewhere, with both Cain and Aaron having been forced to confront their feelings over their other halves, Danny praised the ITV soap for highlighting the importance of men opening up about their feelings,

He said: 'The whole lockdown experience and what were going through is encouraging us all to do that. I think Emmerdale are very good at picking out the topical stories and kind of creating them into the norm.

Filming: Meanwhile, the star opened up on making sure they adhered to the rules while filming, telling Lorraine Kelly: 'Jeff and I were used as guinea pigs if you like

'Cain and Aaron are two characters in Emmerdale who stereotypically in this world that we live in wouldnt want top talk to each other, and are two alpha males  beer and fighting an all that kind of talk that they do.'

He continued: 'But when it comes to the aspect of talking, its completely different. Aaron is a lot more acceptable and receptive of talking about his feelings whereas Cain isnt. And myself suffering with anxiety and depression, its amazing how a) I was very pleased to be part of it and b) that Emmerdale were tipping their hat to mental health.'

Meanwhile, Jeff Hordley who plays Cain Dingle also appeared on Loose Women on Wednesday, where he also discussed the lockdown episodes.

Speaking to the panel, he said: 'Whats great about this episode is that they have this journey to go on. Our episode was a well-crafted episode and was a joy for Danny and I to work on.

Praise: 'The whole lockdown experience and what were going through is encouraging us all to do that. I think Emmerdale are very good at picking out the topical stories and kind of creating them into the norm'

'Again in these times, its about trying to find positives and negatives. Because of these restrictions of these episodes, its less event based stuff, so theres no car crashes or things like that. Its going back to the kitchen sink drama which is what people love.'

The star also joked that he almost forgot how to act after months away from filming due to lockdown restrictions.

He added: 'Even when you go on holiday, you come back and youre a little bit rusty. I felt particularly rusty, felt like I was really acting which was first few scenes. But then its like riding a bike, you dont forget it.'

Previously speaking about the lockdown episodes, Executive producer Jane Hudson said: 'Lockdown has created an opportunity for us to focus on what is important in our lives.

Chat: Meanwhile, Jeff Hordley who plays Cain Dingle also appeared on Loose Women on Wednesday, where he also discussed the lockdown episodes

Back at it: 'Even when you go on holiday, you come back and youre a little bit rusty. I felt particularly rusty, felt like I was really acting which was first few scenes'

'When we first discussed commissioning these episodes back in March the writers instantly rose to the challenge.

'Seven weeks into lockdown and the scripts have an added poignancy and meaning. The response from everyone at Emmerdale to filming these episodes has been fantastic and we're really grateful for their support.'

While John Whiston - Managing Director of Continuing Drama for ITV Studios and Head of ITV in the North - added: 'It's brilliant that Jane and the team at Emmerdale have risen to the challenge of getting these episodes shot using the new protocols for filming drama while observing the government's social distancing guidelines.

It's back: Emmerdale became the first British soap to resume filming with a 'phased return' starting with six new episodes featuring characters in lockdown

Directed by Ian Bevitt, the six new episodes focus on Cain and Aaron (Jeff Hordley and Danny Miller), Chas and Paddy (Lucy Pargeter and Dominic Brunt), Sam and Lydia (James Hooton and Karen Blick), Marlon, Al and Ellis (Mark Charnock, Michael Wildman and Aaron Anthony), Mandy and Vinny (Lisa Riley and Bradley Johnson), and Jimmy and Nicola (Nick Miles and Nicola Wheeler).

ITV teased the episodes will see 'resentments and past feuds resurface, old wounds further exposed, relationships scrutinised, with doubts and insecurities laid bare', with a hint of romance.

Emmerdale airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7pm on ITV.




The start of the phased reopening of primary and secondary schools has been set for Tuesday July 28, although Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) June examinations will still run from June 29 to July 22 as there are only 800 centres.





This means that only Form Six, Form Four and Grade Seven classes will resume at the end of July with Lower Six, Form Three and Grade 6 pupils coming in three weeks later.





Other pupils will move back into their classrooms in three more phases.





Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa gave the date after yesterdays Cabinet meeting and said there was ample time for recommended health measures to be put in place.





Cabinet resolved that the reopening of schools be moved from the proposed June 29, 2020 to July 28, 2020, to allow the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to engage Treasury and other stakeholders or partners to mobilise for the provision of adequate resources, Minister Mutsvangwa said.





The announcement follows weeks of debate, which have seen submissions from teachers unions, Parliament, trust schools and parents to the Government. Most groups are opposed to the early reopening of schools.





The decision to reopen schools on July 28, 2020, does not affect the June examinations, which are to be held from June 29 to July 22, 2020, as initially proposed, said Minister Mutsvangwa.





June O-Level and A-Level examinations have far fewer candidates than the November exams, with Primary and Secondary Education Minister Ambassador Cain Mathema promising adequate social distancing during the examinations, saying there were 9 000 learners registered to write at 800 examination centres.





This translates to an average of around 11 students per centre. The reopening of schools is being done in phases.





Explaining the reopening sequence, Primary and Secondary Education Permanent Secretary Mrs Thumisang Thabela said examination classes would be the first group to go to school.





Phase one, we are looking at examination classes  these are Form Fours, Form Sixes and Grade Sevens, she said.





This will be followed by a gradual roll-out, which will see an eased increase in school numbers.





Phase two, which will follow after three weeks will be for classes writing next year. All classes will be split into two at this point, said Mrs Thabela.





Phase three is when the rest of high school learners will go to school and in primary, Grades Three, Four and Five will return to schools.





Lower primary school classes are expected to return towards end of September. As we get to phase four, classrooms will be used up due to social distancing. In this phase, Grade One and Two learners will return to class.




You are here: China

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Tuesday inspected the city of Yinchuan during his trip to northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Xi visited a rural ecotourism park and a vineyard near the Helan Mountains to learn about the development of local signature agriculture and the efforts on strengthening the ecological conservation of the mountains.
Demonstrators gathered near City Hall Wednesday to press the City Council to disband Portlands police force.

The protest took place as commissioners planned to vote on the citys annual budget, including some $7 million in police bureau cuts. But the vote was delayed until Thursday after the death of Mayor Ted Wheelers mother.

Wheeler outlined his proposal to cut three police units  transit, school resource officers and the gun violence reduction team  on Tuesday.

But many leaders of recent protests say the proposed budget cuts are not sufficient to end police violence and systemic racism.

The time is now to disband PPB, said Anna Swanson, an organizer of the demonstration outside City Hall at Terry Schrunk Plaza.

As the event unfolded, city councilors listened to virtual testimony about the proposal. Hundreds of people had signed up to talk.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 people converged outside City Hall to call for deeper cuts to the police force.

Two local groups, Dont Shoot PDX and Care Not Cops, organized the rally. The groups issued a 13-point list of demands Tuesday night that includes immediately cutting $50 million from the police bureaus budget, an amount seven times higher than Wheeler proposed.

We want (the funding) reinvested in the black community, with the vision of black people, said Rory Miah, an organizer with Care Not Cops.

Miah listed some priorities for the money, such as housing, rent assistance, mental health care and "reparations, most importantly.

Dont Shoot PDX and Care Not Cops also want city officials to reduce the size of the police force, stop hiring new officers and leave open positions unfilled. The groups are calling for the end of police units and tactics that have disproportionately affected people of color.

They want the city to stop using force to respond to break up crowds during protests. Police have used tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and ear-piercing noise on protesters at various points during the last two weeks.

Dont Shoot PDX sued the city last week. As a result, a federal judge granted a 14-day restraining order Tuesday barring police from using tear gas unless officers believe someones life is at risk.

Speaking to the crowd, Anna So urged the City Council to commit to disbanding the citys police force. She said the mayors current police budget proposal is basically the same as it was.

Were fighting for peoples lives, said So, who is with Care Not Cops.

Lilith Sinclair, a community organizer, pressed the mayor and other councilors to be accountable to the public and end closed-door meetings where decisions are made.

Im tired of talking about the numbers, Sinclair said, referring to the budget changes. "Maybe instead of talking about the numbers, we can talk about police putting their guns down.

Peggy Zebroski, 70, of Portland, stood among the crowd. Zebroski gained prominence after she sued the city for injuries she sustained in 2017 during a protest over a fatal police shooting. A jury ultimately decided not to award her any money.

When we say abolish the police, its not dissolving the police force right now," she said. "We know the root of crime is the terrible inequality people suffer under.

But she said the current proposed cuts to the police force amount to coffee and cookies at meetings.

Kayla Washington, whose father Jason Washington was shot and killed by Portland State police in 2018, asked the crowd for help to continue putting pressure to cut back and disarm Portland States police force.

Washington referenced the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, which set off protests nationwide and ultimately led the Minneapolis city council members to pledge drastic cuts to police.

"The time has come to see it happens in our own community, Washington said.

Sophia Glenn, who said her brother was killed by police in Ohio, fought off tears as she spoke to the crowd.

The brokenness that you feel is unimaginable, Glenn said. Even though Ive been through it, its like the Twilight Zone. You just dont know how it could have possibly happened. And its so unnecessary.

Ndem Nkem was among those who had gathered. Nkem said he attends peaceful rallies as often as possible to affect change.

I dont want any other young children and people to just feel like they are scared on the street, Nkem said. I still feel like a target sometimes, too, walking down the street, walking behind certain people. I feel like I could be a target to somebody, so I want to end that feeling.

Everton Bailey Jr. and Sean Meagher of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report. This story has been updated to correct the spelling Ndem Nkems name.

-- Alex Hardgrave

ahardgrave@oregonian.com

-- Celina Tebor

ctebor@oregonian.com
Representative image

Passenger-packed pods speeding through vacuum tubes linking Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to European cities could prove a viable low-carbon alternative to short-haul flights, according to a study published on Wednesday.

Although hyperloop technology, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel at airline speeds, has not yet proven feasible in large-scale operations, the airport said it was seriously exploring it as a potential form of sustainable transport.

"We are genuinely interested in where hyperloop could go," said Hassan Charaf, head of innovation at Royal Schiphol Group, which owns and operates the airport, one of Europe's busiest.

The airport conducted the study in partnership with Dutch company Hardt Hyperloop and it assessed how the system could potentially ease air travel congestion in the coming decades.

Although hurdles remain to realising the company's vision of a Europe-wide hyperloop network powered by renewable energy, the founders hope climate commitments in the European Union's Green Deal will spur greater investment.

"Hyperloop really has the potential to be the sustainable alternative to aviation," Tim Houter, Hardt's chief executive and a co-founder, told Reuters.

Hardt said it has also signed an agreement with a major European railway manager, which it declined to name, to jointly explore potential routes.

Founded in early 2017, and backed by investors including the Dutch national railway and Koolen Industries, a Dutch clean energy conglomerate, Hardt Hyperloop says it has since established Europe's first full-scale hyperloop test facility.

Popularized by Tesla founder Elon Musk, hyperloop technology is also drawing growing interest in parts of China, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.
Minneapolis Police Department chief Medaria Arradondo announced the department would immediately withdraw from the police union contract negotiations as one of a series of agency reforms following the death of George Floyd.

This first step of many, Mr Arradondo said, was in an effort to provide "transparency and more flexibility for true reform" for how the department polices citizens.

"I plan to bring in subject matter experience and advisors to conduct a thorough review of how the contract can be restructured to provide greater community transparency and more flexibility for true reform," the police chief said during a press conference on Wednesday. "Now this is not about employees benefit, wages or salary, but this is further examining those significant matters that touch on such things as critical incident protocol, our use of force, the significant role that supervisors play in this department and also the discipline process to include both grievances and arbitration."

More follows
The city of Beaumont took the biggest hit locally in sales tax allocations, which are down statewide due to the shutdown of most retail and other businesses ordered to protect against the coronavirus outbreak.

The Texas Comptrollers Office announced today that it will send $690.4 million in local sales tax allocations for June. That is 11.7% less than the same time last year, and it is the sharpest year-over-year decline since 2009.

Locally, Beaumont is looking at a reduction of almost 17%. That means almost $600,000 less coming in than during the same period last year. Overall in the fiscal year, the city is lagging behind in sales tax payments by almost 5%.

Beaumonts payments are the largest in the Southeast Texas area. It took in $22.5 million through this point last year.

Beaumont City Manager Kyle Hayes said the reduction in revenue and uncertainty to come is an issue for the citys budget since sales tax receipts make up about 33% of its general fund, but some of the impact was muted thanks to some budgeting measures last August.

We had no way of knowing this was coming, but we made an assumption that sales tax revenues were likely going to decrease in 2020, Hayes said.

As in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Harvey, sales tax revenues increased for the city after Tropical Depression Imelda as people bought supplies and replaced damaged items.

Hayes said the city reduced its budget for sales tax receipts for the year by about 8% to about $42 million. The actual June totals for 2020 came in around $2.9 million, about 10% less than the already reduced June expectations.

Whether that reduction was enough to allow the city to tackle needed maintenance projects or future developments will depend on how local economic recovery plays out, Hayes said.

It will be a challenge for the year-to-year (outlook), he said. If you see sales taxes go way up, then that means you can shift another penny and borrow more for projects. If they arent, you are either going to tax or hold steady.

In contrast to Beaumont, some smaller cities in Southeast Texas are seeing an increase.

Port Neches will receive about $168,000 for June, a 51% increase over last year.

Bridge City will see a 16% increase over 2019, bringing in $155,000 for June.

Despite the slight boost for some smaller cities, possibly from people staying closer to home and shopping locally due to coronavirus precautions, some of the regions smaller cities did take sizable hits.

Pinehurst is losing out on $8,000 in tax payments compared to last year, an almost 13% reduction. It is still ahead so far this year, by about 1.5%, with about $356,000 in payments.

Silsbee will see its June tax payments drop almost 7%, which works out to about $3,000 for the city. It is enough of a decrease to reduce its year-over-year payments by 2%.

Statewide, taxing districts and municipalities are seeing large reductions in taxes for June, with cities and transit systems seeing the largest hit at 11% and 17% respectively.

With the easing of state and local government social distancing orders beginning in May, business activity in the sectors most affected by measures to curb the pandemic should begin to slowly recover, but operations resuming at reduced capacity will result in continued reductions in employment, income and activity subject to sales tax for months to come, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said in a news release last week.

jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/jdickjournalism
Amazon said on Wednesday that it's banning use of its facial recognition software by police for one year, as pressure on tech companies builds to respond to the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.

"We've advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge," Amazon said in a statement. "We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested."

While the House Committee on Oversight and Reform has held a number of hearings on the use of facial recognition technology, it has yet to introduce a bill regulating the technology. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Ca., who serves on the committee told CNBC in a phone interview he is hopeful Congress will pass a bill this year.

"It's a good first step, but it's still not enough," said Rep. Gomez of Amazon's announcement.

"They're saying, 'we've been asking Congress to put guardrails on the use of this technology,'  but every time we tried to get more and more data they stalled  and we had to have hearings to make movement on the issue."

Gomez says the committee has been seeking more information about the technology, and to whom Amazon sells it.

Amazon's announcement comes two days after IBM said it was exiting the facial recognition business, with CEO Arvind Krishna calling on Congress to enact reforms to advance racial justice and combat systemic racism. Also on Monday, Democratic lawmakers unveiled a sweeping police reform bill, and on Wednesday the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on preventing police brutality.

Floyd, an unarmed black man, was killed on May 25, with video showing that the police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. In subsequent days, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has spoken up in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and has posted e-mail exchanges with customers who are unhappy with his stance.
In the mid-19th century three famous and influential black abolitionists, Charles Lenox Remond, Frederick Douglass and Samuel Ringgold Ward visited Limerick City and delivered a series of lectures exposing and educating people about the shocking reality and horror of racial slavery in the United States.

All three activists gave public talks to large crowds of Limerick people at the Independent Chapel (no longer extant), located at 6 Bedford Row, Limerick and Limerick man Liam Hogan has set up a GoFundMe Appeal to erect a plaque to commemorate the visits. The target for the plague was 2,000 and the donations are already well over that mark.

Details about the three abolitionists visits are detailed below by Liam, with a link to the donation page here:

For more of Liam's work see these links: here and here:

1841 - Charles Lenox Remond: The first black anti-slavery lecturer with the American Anti-Slavery Society. Hundreds of people from Limerick would have added their signatures to the famous anti-slavery 'Irish Address' at his four lectures in Limerick, which he delivered to Boston after his Irish sojourn.

1845 - Frederick Douglass: a former slave, renowned orator and abolitionist. He delivered two lectures in Limerick and was feted by the Mayor at an anti-slavery soiree at the Philosophical Rooms (no longer extant) on Glentworth Street. Both Douglass and Remond were hosted by the Limerick Anti-Slavery Society, which was mostly comprised of local Quaker families, particular the Fisher family of Lifford House.

1855 - Samuel Ringgold Ward: a former slave, Congregational minister and abolitionist. Lectured once in Limerick. Those who attended his lecture donated money to help the fugitive slaves based in Canada.

In recent years, a number of "Joined Hands in Freedom events have been held to mark these visits.

We now think it is vitally important that a commemorative plaque be installed at or near No. 6 Bedford Row which would mark the visit of these remarkable activists to Limerick. This plaque would help to increase awareness about the historic transatlantic links between Limerick and the U.S., highlight the role of some Limerick people in agitating to abolish slavery, acknowledge the brave anti-racist and anti-slavery work of black abolitionists in Ireland, and act as a beacon of anti-racism, solidarity and diversity in the heart of our city.
NEW YORKAmericas biggest mall owner is backing out of a $3.6 billion (U.S.) deal to buy a major rival as the coronavirus pandemic shakes the retail industry.

It is the second major retail deal signed before the virus hit the U.S. to crumble. The sale of Victorias Secret to a private equity group fell apart last month.

Simon Property Group announced it would buy Taubman in early February, just weeks before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that a California man was being treated for coronavirus, the first known case in the U.S. In March, clothing stores and malls were ordered to close.

The plunge in sales for retailers since then has been unprecedented, particularly for those with a heavy presence in malls. J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J.Crew, have all filed for bankruptcy protection this year.

Victorias Secret moved aggressively into malls at the direction of its parent companys founder Les Wexner, who wanted to push lingerie into the mainstream.

Malls have struggled for years as shopping moved online and consumers grew tired of them. Their plight even inspired a haunting YouTube channel called the Dead Mall Series.

The coronavirus has delivered a devastating blow to those that remain and also stores with a big mall footprint.

In U.S. malls that have reopened, drinking fountains are disabled or taped off, play areas for kids are closed, and sitting in a food court is done at a distance from other humans.

Retail consultant Jan Rogers Kniffen believes that half of the 1,000 malls in the U.S. will either close or be unrecognizable in two years. Before the pandemic, he expected only 300 to close, and that decline would take place over a decade.

The pandemic has accelerated that timeline. CBL, a Chattanooga, Tenn., mall operator with 108 properties, warned this month that it may fail.

On Wednesday, shares of any retail chain with stores in malls plummeted. Kohls, Macys, The Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch all slumped sharply.

Simon said on Wednesday that Taubman has been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic because many of its properties are indoors, have high-end stores and are in or near big cities.

Taubman Centers Inc., headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Simon, based in Indianapolis, owns or has a stake in more than 200 properties in the U.S. as of last year. Taubman Centers owns, manages or leases 26 shopping centres in the U.S. and Asia, including The Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey, and Waterside Shops in Naples, Fla.
By Sayyed Muhsin

A fatwa is a lens that conveys a precise view of a particular circumstance from an Islamic perspective, derived from the competent scale of knowledge on text and context, informing Muslims of the right course of action in a given scenario. Literally, the word fatwa means an answer or opinion and as a term, it is a disclosure of an Islamic legal ruling based on legal proof to the one who asked about it.

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The predominant legal and political systems in which they operate, as well as their educational formation, cause a great deal of impact on muftis (issuers of the fatwas) and their methodology of ifta (issuance of fatwa). A methodical examination of the extensively accessible fatwa literature could expose nuances of the Muslims daily life, their priorities, level of their faith and bothering issues during different periods of Islamic history.

Founded on June 26, 1926; Samasta is an authoritative and indigenous religious organization of traditional Sunni scholars in Kerala, a Southern Indian state, where Islam was propagated much earlier than the other parts of the country. Arguably, Samasta leads the largest number of the Muslim population in South India and under its guidance, a platform of ten thousand madrassas is nourished where nearly ten lakh students are now getting their Islamic education. Samasta Fatwa Committee (SFC) was formed on December 12, 1964, from within supreme council of Samasta to deal with queries of the mass by issuing a fatwa.

Based on the study of the interplay between fatwas and peoples responses to them, Samasta appears to be an instrumental religious authority in Kerala. Some of the questions posed to the SFC concerning rituals or personal issues may seem trivial to a casual observer, nonetheless, the scrutiny of its background reveals that the majority of them have social importance or contentious nature in the respective localities. The mentioned case in question might have waged controversy among people and thus they are divided into groups. For the final judgment, they solicit the legal opinion of the SFC, which would possibly win the acceptance of both sides. This factor insists the mahall[1] committees seek a legal opinion from the SFC.

The issues described in correspondence between the SFC and mustafti (petitioner/seeker of fatwa) demonstrate its essential role in governing the religious and social lives of thousands of people. Sometimes, it gives the impression that they want more than just a legal opinion; they seek broader advice, counsel and solutions to their problems. The sentences like therefore, we need your official fatwa to stop the disputes arose in our mahall and to maintain the unity of Muslims in our locality are noted at the end of quite a few questions. Former chairman of the SFC, the late Cherusheri Zinuddeen Musliyar recalled in an interview with him (2014) that sometimes police officers refer cases to the SFC soliciting to work as mediator where two groups are in dispute and they need an amicable resolution.

In some questions, people query the SFC about the stand of Islamic law on the court verdicts of personal law. For example, the court has judged the separation between a husband and his wife, while the husband asked the SFC whether the verdict is effective from the perspective of Islam or not. Once, a case filed in Kerala court about a child who was delivered after seven months of a valid marriage and DNA test proved that the child did not belong to the husband. Therefore, the court pronounced the verdict that the husband was not the father. But the mahall committee approached the SFC to know what Islamic jurisprudence has to say on this child.

On some other occasions, people draw the attention of the SFC to double standards of prominent leaders in the religious subjects, like the allusive promotion for innovative groups. In one of the similar occasions, the SFC replied, We will contact the particular leader about the mentioned subject to seek clarifications.

Moreover, some questions are from women who complained about domestic issues they are going through. By asking for legal advice, they solicit concrete answers to issues that have the prospective to transform their life. For example, on an occasion, a lady wrote a letter describing the violent nature and irreligious life of her husband. She asked Samsta to take action against him and to save her from the awful condition. In this case, the SFC wrote a letter to the mahall committee stating, The woman who lives in your mahall has written a letter to Samasta complaining about her husband and his family. We want from you, mahall committee, to take the proper actions after studying the case.

Interesting to note, in fatwas, the SFC reminds the petitioners to take rules of government into account. The constitution of Samasta (1996, 11) stipulates those who want to be a member of its general committee that the applicant must be abiding by the rules and regulations of the government. The SFC explains this explicit policy in medical, personal and contractual laws. For instance, in the reply to the question posed by hospital management about eye plantation with the cornea of a dead person, the SFC said it is permissible with certain conditions. One of the conditions was to ensure that is performed as per the rules of the government. Likewise, a lady asked about her insolvent husband who had more than one wife and was unable to afford the expenses of food and clothes. In the reply, the SFC explained, As described in the question, if the husband is unable to afford your expenses, you can proceed with faskh[2]. But it should be according to the regulations of the government. However, when Islamic principles are violated, the SFC urges mustafti to withhold from participating therein, even if it is by or from the government. For example, there was a question about the governments fund which was allocated for the welfare of Kerala Madrasa Teachers, but the amount was linked with the usury-based transactions. The SFC explained that receiving that fund is not permissible.

Here the SFC goes beyond the customary onus of a mufti, making an impact on society and trying various roles relevant for Muslims in Kerala.

[1] Mahall means a social format of Muslims of particular localities by dividing the areas which include a Jumuah Mosque and its committee. The committee leads the majority of collective rituals which are supposed to be done in a place where Muslims live and organize a wide variety of Islamic programs. In Kerala, almost all places where Muslims live have a separate mahall system and its committees.

[2] In Islam, the power to divorce is with the husband. However, to preserve the rights of women and to deter harm upon her, Islamic law allows women to apply for divorce, known as faskh, through a qadi or a judge with certain conditions.

Sayyed Muhsin obtained his PhD in Islamic Jurisprudence from International Islamic University Malaysia. Email: [email protected].
Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Wednesday criticised Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for his remarks on a border row, saying the Indian leader should be advised not to make threatening remarks.

Olis remarks were the latest twist in the border dispute between India and Nepal, which erupted last month when Kathmandu protested against the opening of an 80-km road running to Lipulekh on the border with Tibet. Nepal claims the Lipulekh region and the Oli government recently published a new political map that shows the area as part of Nepalese territory.

A constitutional amendment to give legal backing to the map was unanimously endorsed by lawmakers from all political parties in the House of Representatives or the lower house of Nepals Parliament on Tuesday.

Participating in a discussion on the issue in the lower house on Wednesday, Oli was quoted by media reports as saying that Indias central leadership should advise Adityanath not to threaten Nepal.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath-ji said some things about Nepal. His remarks were not appropriate or legitimate. The leadership of the central government [in India] should tell him not to speak on issues that he is not responsible for. He should also be told that his comments threatening Nepal will be condemned, Oli said.

Oli was also quoted as questioning Indias contention that the regions of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura are part of its territory. He said India had deployed its armed forces in these areas since the early 1960s but they belonged to Nepal.

There was no immediate response to Olis remarks from Indian officials.

During a recent interview, Adityanath had said Nepal should not repeat the mistake of Tibet while determining its political boundaries. Nepal should think of the consequences and remember what happened to Tibet, he had said.

Adityanath also said India and Nepal are two political entities but have one soul.

The two countries have cultural, historical and mythological links that date back several centuries and Nepal should remember this, he added.

While speaking in Parliament, Oli reiterated Nepals offer for a dialogue to settle the border issue. He said Nepal is confident about getting its territory back though diplomatic dialogue as its claims are backed by evidence.
The Ealing Council is preparing to rename Havelock Road  named after Henry Havelock, general in the colonial army involved in suppressing the 1857 Uprising in India  as Guru Nanak Road, as London reviews public spaces following the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.

The Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha is located on Havelock Road in Southall, which has long had a significant presence of people of Indian origin. Its MP, senior Labour leader Virendra Sharma, welcomed the councils decision.

He said: I welcome the decision by Ealing Council to finally rename Havelock Road - decolonising our streets. As the Member of Parliament for Ealing Southall and a councillor for 25 years before that I have often been ashamed the names of empire still pervade our streets.

I have long campaigned for schools to teach more about our Imperial past, not just the great strides made but also the shameful thuggery and violence, names like Havelock belong in books, classrooms and museums, not on the streets to be celebrated.

The community should come together to decide how we rename this road, but celebrating Guru Nanak Dev Ji in his 550th anniversary, and erasing a white man who killed Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus, would be a sign of our multiculturalism and our diversity, he added.

London mayor Sadiq Khan (Labour) this week called for a review of statues and other public spaces in the capital following growing protests in the UK linked to the killing of George Floyd in the US. Some statues of individuals historically linked to slave trade have been removed.

Julian Bell, leader of the Labour-controlled Ealing council, said in a video message to residents that he welcomed Khans plans to look at how public spaces in London represent the city in the present day.

He said: Our diversity is our strength and we need to make sure that our public realm, our statues, our road names, our buildings, reflect our diversity and do not reflect a frozen past where colonialism, racism and the slave trade were present and celebrated.

Havelock Road is where the largest Sikh gurdwara in western Europe is cited and as part of its 550-year celebrations of the birth of Guru Nanak this year, we want to make this name change to Havelock Road to Guru Nanak Road.

This will symbolise the huge contribution of our Sikh community in Ealing and also diversity as a borough, and also it will represent our unity as a borough too, he added.
This it is the story of a unique material - made of a single compound, it conducts electrons in different ways on its different surfaces and doesn't conduct at all in its middle. It is also the story of three research groups - two at the Weizmann Institute of Science and one in Germany, and the unique bond that has formed between them.

The material belongs to a group of materials discovered a decade and a half ago known as topological insulators. These materials are conducting on their surfaces and insulating in their inside "bulk." But the two properties are inseparable: Cut the material, and the new surface will be conducting, the bulk will remain insulating.

Some five years ago, Dr. Nurit Avraham, was starting out as a staff scientist in the new group of Dr. Haim Beidenkopf of the Institute's Condensed Matter Physics Department. Around that time, she and Beidenkopf met Prof. Binghai Yan when he had his first scientific visit to the Weizmann Institute. Back then Yan was working as a junior group leader in the group of Prof. Claudia Felser, a materials scientist who was developing new kinds of topological materials in her lab at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden. Beidenkopf and his group specialize in classifying and measuring these materials on the scale of single atoms and the paths of single electrons, while Yan was turning to theory - predicting how these materials should behave and working out the mathematical models that explain their unusual behavior.

Avraham and Beidenkopf were interested in uncovering the properties of a special type of topological insulators in which the chemical structure is organized in layers. How would the layers affect the way that electrons were conducted over the surface of the material? Theoretically, stacking layers of 2D topological insulator was expected to form a 3D topological insulator in which some of the surfaces are conducting and some are insulation. Yan suggested they work with a new material being predicted by him and later developed in Felser's lab. Soon the Weizmann and Max Planck groups started collaborating.

Avraham led the project, obtaining samples of the material from Felser's lab, undertaking the measurements, and working with Yan to see whether the theories' predictions would be born out experimentally. As the collaboration deepened, Beidenkopf and Avraham got the Faculty of Physics to invite Yan again to the Institute, and this visit eventually led Yan to decide to leave Germany and move his family to Rehovot, to take up a position in the Institute's Condensed Matter Physics Department. "That decision was a turning point that would set me on my present career path," say Yan.

Over the coming years, Beidenkopf, Avraham, Yan and Felser would collaborate on multiple research projects, exploring the properties of several different classes of topological materials. But understanding this particular material - a compound of bismuth, tellurium and iodine - would turn out to be a long-term project. To begin with, Yan analyzed the band structure of the material - in other words, the states electrons are "allowed" to inhabit. When the bands get crossed in the bulk - so called "band inversion" - they prevent electrons from moving around inside, but enable them to move on the surface. This "projection" of a state arising in the bulk of a material onto the surface is what gives topological materials their special properties.

Avraham and Beidenkopf worked with samples that had been cleaved, exposing fresh surfaces out of the layered structure. They used a scanning tunneling microscope - STM - in their lab to track the electron density in the different parts of the material. The theory predicted that the surface measurements would reveal a material that behaves as a weak topological insulator, thus being metallic on the edges and insulating on the top and bottom surfaces. Weak topological insulators were a class of topological materials that had been predicted but not yet proven experimentally, so the group was hoping to uncover such characteristic properties on the edges' surfaces. The researchers did, indeed, find that the material acted as a weak topological insulator on its cleft sides. But on the tops and bottoms of their samples, the group found evidence indicating a strong topological insulator, rather than the insulator that had been predicted.

Could this one material be not only at the same time insulating and conducting, but conduct in two different ways? As the researchers continued to experiment, testing the material with different methods and confirming their original results, together with Yan they continued to puzzle over the strange results. At one point, says Avraham, they even measured a new batch of samples that were grown independently by Junior Prof. Anna Isaeva and Dr. Alexander Zeugner at the Technische Universitaet Dresden, just to be sure the results are general and not an accidental property of one particular batch of samples.

Part of their eventual breakthrough says Yan, came from a theoretical research paper published by another physics group that conjectured how such a dual material might function. Topological materials are sometimes classified according to their symmetry - a property of the atomic structure of the material. The scientists looked for places on the surfaces where any such symmetry would be broken, due to flaws or irregularities on the surface, which, by scattering electrons, would affect the properties in that spot and highlight the type of symmetry "protecting" each topological state.

Finally, theory and experiment came together to show, in an article published in Nature Materials, that the material is, indeed, two different kinds of topological insulator in one. The exposed layers of the cleft, side surfaces create "step-edges" that channel the electrons into certain paths. While the sides are protected by both time reversal and translational symmetry, the tops and bottoms are protected by crystalline mirror symmetry, giving rise to a metal-like state in which the electrons can move.

While this two-in-one combination made it challenging to classify the material topologically - one of the main goals of such measurements - the researchers believe that other new topological materials could turn out to have such dual properties. That opens the possibility of engineering materials to have several desired electrical properties all in one.

"Technically, the work was challenging, but the story, itself, turned out to be simple," says Yan.

"It's also the story of a great friendship and what happens when you can have such close scientific collaboration," says Avraham.

"And it all started with a question about a particular kind of material," adds Beidenkopf.

###

Further Information:

https://www.nature.com/nmat/volumes/19/issues/6
The German government says it has received formal notification of a possible partial withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in the country, a move that some worry sends the wrong signal to Russia and damages NATO security.

The June 10 announcement follows media reports that U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered the withdrawal of up to 15,000 of the approximately 34,500 U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany.

Both the White House and NATO have declined to comment on the media reports.

"The federal government has been informed that there are considerations in the U.S. administration to reduce the presence of the U.S. armed forces in Germany," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer told journalists in Berlin.

"As far as we know, there has been no final decision," she added.

Some U.S. lawmakers have warned that if implemented, the reported plan would damage U.S. national security and strengthen Russias position in Europe.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump planned to move forward with the withdrawal of up to 9,500 U.S. personnel, while the German news magazine Der Spiegel said between 5,000 and 15,000 could be withdrawn later this year.

Earlier this week, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is also the leader of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), suggested that if the United States goes ahead, it would do more harm to NATO as a whole than to Germanys own defense.

"I don't want to speculate on something for which I have no confirmation," she told a news conference on June 8. "The fact is the presence of U.S. troops in Germany serves the entire security of the NATO alliance -- so American security too. That is the basis on which we work together."

Germany hosts more U.S. troops than any other country in Europe.

But transatlantic ties have become strained under Trump, who has repeatedly criticized Germany and other European countries for not fulfilling their NATO commitment to spend 2 percent of economic output on their militaries.

Berlin has pledged to increase military spending, but meeting the NATO target would likely not happen before 2030.

In an open letter dated June 9, 22 Republican members of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee said they were very concerned about reports that the Administration is considering a significant reduction of U.S. troops currently based in Europe as well as a cap on the total number of U.S. troops which can be present there at any one time.

Such steps would significantly damage U.S. national security as well as strengthen the position of Russia to our detriment, the lawmakers wrote, adding: In Europe, the threats posed by Russia have not lessened, and we believe that signs of a weakened U.S. commitment to NATO will encourage further Russian aggression and opportunism.

With reporting by dpa and AFP
[June 10, 2020] Kenya's mobile operators progress with 5G trials

Sydney, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of Paul Budde Communications focus report on Kenya outlines the major developments and key aspects in the telecoms markets.

Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Kenya-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses Kenyas telecommunications market continues to undergo considerable changes in the wake of increased competition, improved international connectivity, and rapid developments in the mobile market. The landing of four fibre-optic international submarine cables in recent years dramatically reduced the cost of phone calls and internet access, allowing internet services to be affordable to a far greater proportion of the population. In parallel, the sectors regulator has reduced interconnection tariffs and implemented a range of regulations aimed at developing further competition. The incumbent fixed-line telco has struggled to make headway in this market, prompting reorganisation in 2018 which included a sale and leaseback arrangement with its mobile tower portfolio. In early 2020 competition authorities approved the acquisition of Telkom Kenya by Airtel Kenya, with the new merged operator able to provide a greater challenge to the market dominance of Safaricom. Numerous competitors are rolling out national and metropolitan fibre backbone networks and wireless access networks to deliver services to population centres across the country. Several fibre infrastructure sharing agreements have been forged, and as a result the number of fibre broadband connections increased 53% in 2019, year-on-year. Much of the progress in the broadband segment is due to the governments revised national broadband strategy, which has been updated with goals through to 2030, and which are largely dependent on mobile broadband platforms based on LTE and 5G. BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries. On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth. Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report. The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions. Key developments: Telkom Kenya and Airtel Kenya secure approvals for their merger;

Alphabets Loon balloons finally come into service;

Kenya sees a 35% increase in international bandwidth in 2019;

Universal Service Fund extends mobile coverage to underserved northern regions;

Safaricom launches M-PESA Global payment service;

Government proposes increase in m-money transfer tax;

Regulator introduces a new system to measure QoS parameters;

M-money interoperability starts;

Report update includes the regulators market data to December 2019, operator data to Q1 2020, Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments. Companies mentioned in this report: Telkom Kenya, Jamii Telecom, Access Kenya (Dimension Data), Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC), Wananchi, Safaricom, Bharti Airtel, MTN, Liquid Telecom, Essar Telkom Kenya, Mobile Pay (Tangaza Pesa), Zioncell Kenya, Finserve Africa (Equitel), Kenya Data Networks (KDN), Jamii Telecom, SimbaNet, Africa Online, Access Kenya (Dimension Data), Wananchi Online, Swift Global, Internet Solutions Kenya (InterConnect), Gilat Satellite Networks, Afsat Communications, Inmarsat, Indigo Telecom (Thuraya), Nation TV (NTV) Key statistics

Regional African Market Comparison TMI vs GDP Mobile and mobile broadband Fixed and mobile broadband

Country overview

COVID-19 and its impact on the telecom sector Economic considerations and responses Mobile devices Subscribers Infrastructure

Telecommunications market Market analysis

Regulatory environment Regulatory authority Fixed-line developments Kenya Communications Act 1998 Revised Telecommunications Market Structure 2004 Kenya Communications Amendment Act 2009 Licence fees Universal Service Fund (USF) Interconnection Number portability Spectrum auctions Foreign ownership Telecom sector liberalisation Privatisation of Telkom Regional telecom licences Second national operator (SNO) licensing International gateway licences Unified licensing regime Mobile network developments Roaming Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) International gateways Spectrum Mobile Number Portability (MNP) Network sharing Quality of Service (QoS) SIM card registration Taxes Tariff regulation

Mobile market General statistics Mobile data SMS MMS Mobile broadband Mobile infrastructure 5G 4G (LTE) 3G 2G Other infrastructure developments Major mobile operators Mobile market share by operator Safaricom Airtel Kenya Essar Telecom Kenya Telkom Kenya Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) Mobile content and applications Mobile money transfer, m-banking M-medicine Handsets

Fixed-line broadband market Introduction and statistical overview Internet backbone infrastructure Broadband statistics Public internet access locations Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) networks Internet Exchange Points (IXP) Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC) National broadband strategy ISP market Fibre-to-the-Premises (FttP) networks Other fixed broadband services Wireless broadband Broadband via satellite Project Loon

Digital economy E-learning National research and education network (NREN) E-commerce E-government E-agriculture

Fixed network operators Telkom Kenya Wireless Local Loop (WLL) Liquid Telecom Kenya (KDN) Jamii Telecom AccessKenya

Telecommunications infrastructure Overview of the national telecom network National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) Liquid Telecom Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC) Safaricom MTN Fibre infrastructure sharing Data centres Smart infrastructure International infrastructure Satellite Terrestrial fibre Submarine fibre

Appendix  Historic data

Glossary of abbreviations

Related reports



Table 1  Top Level Country Statistics and Telco Authorities  Kenya  2020 (e)

Table 2  Telecom sector revenue in Kenya  2007  2017

Table 3  Annual mobile number portings  2013- 2019

Table 4  Change in the share of mobile voice traffic share by operator  2014  2019

Table 5  Growth in the number of mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Kenya  2010  2025

Table 6  Change in the number of prepaid and contract mobile subscribers  2014- 2019

Table 7  Change in SMS traffic by quarter  2012  2019

Table 8  Change in the volume of SMS domestic annual traffic  2008  2019

Table 9  Change in the number of mobile internet subscribers by provider  2013  2019

Table 10  Change in the share of mobile data subscribers by provider  2014  2019

Table 11  Growth in the number of active mobile broadband subscribers  2010  2025

Table 12  Change in the number of mobile data subscribers  2015  2019

Table 14  Increase in Safaricoms revenue  2011  2020

Table 15  Change in Safaricoms revenue by sector  2010  2020

Table 16  Change in the proportion of Safaricoms service revenue by sector  2014  2020

Table 17  Growth in the number of Safaricoms mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Table 18  Safaricom economic contribution  2016  2019

Table 19  Change in Safaricoms mobile ARPU by platform  2018  2020

Table 22  Change in the number of Telkom Kenyas mobile subscribers  2012  2019

Table 23  Growth in the number of Finserves mobile subscribers  2014  2019

Table 24  Mobile Pay mobile subscribers  2018  2019

Table 25  Growth in mobile money penetration rate  2013  2020

Table 26  Change in the number of m-money subscribers and agents  2012  2019

Table 27  Mobile money subscribers by operator  2014  2019

Table 28  Growth in the number of m-money transactions and value  2008  2019

Table 29  Growth in Safaricoms M-PESA revenue  2008  2020

Table 30  Growth in the number of Safaricoms active M-PESA customers  2012  2020

Table 31  Change in Safaricoms M-PESA transactions value by type  2011  2018

Table 32  Growth in the number of internet subscriptions  2010  2019

Table 33  Growth in the number of wireless internet subscriptions by access technology  2010  2019

Table 34  Change in the number of fixed-line broadband subscriptions by access technology  2010  2019

Table 35  Change in the number of fixed-line broadband subscriptions by access technology  2010  2019

Table 36  Change in the number of fixed-line broadband subscriptions and penetration  2010  2025

Table 37  Growth in the number of broadband subscriptions  2014  2019

Table 38  Decline in the number of DSL subscribers  2009  2019

Table 39  Market share of fixed broadband subscribers by operator  2018 - 2019

Table 40  Safaricom fixed broadband subscribers  2015  2020

Table 41  Growth in the number of Safaricoms fibre broadband premises covered  2016  2020

Table 42  Growth in the number of fibre broadband subscribers  2011  2019

Table 43  Change in the number of cable broadband subscribers  2016  2019

Table 44  Fixed-wireless subscriptions in Kenya  2007  2019

Table 45  Change in the number of fixed lines in service and teledensity  2010  2025

Table 46  Growth in international internet bandwidth  2010  2019

Table 47  International bandwidth capacity by platform  2013  2019

Table 48  International bandwidth used  2013  2019

Table 49  Historic - Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Kenya  1999  2009

Table 50  Historic - Fixed lines in service and teledensity in Kenya  1999  2009

Table 51  Historic - Internet users and penetration rate  1999  2010

Table 52  Historic - International internet bandwidth 2000  2009

Table 53  Historic - Essar Telecom subscribers  2010  2014

Table 54  Historic - Telkom Kenya revenue  2010  2014

Table 55  Historic - Internet services revenue and investments  2009  2015

Table 56  Historic - Telkom fixed-line subscribers  2008  2016

Table 57  Historic - MMS traffic  2012  2015

Table 58  Historic - ICT sector revenue in Kenya  2012  2016

Table 59  Historic - Mobile services revenue and investments  2009- 2017

Table 60  Historic - 2G Mobile base stations by operator  2012- 2017

Table 61  Historic - 3G Mobile base stations by operator  2012- 2017 List of Charts

Chart 1  Overall Africa view - Telecoms Maturity Index vs GDP per Capita

Chart 2  East Africa - Telecoms Maturity Index vs GDP per Capita

Chart 3  Africa  Bottom-tier Telecoms Maturity Index (Market Emergents)

Chart 4  East Africa Telecoms Maturity Index by country

Chart 5  East Africa mobile subscriber penetration versus mobile broadband penetration

Chart 6  East Africa fixed and mobile penetration rates

Chart 7  Change in the share of mobile voice traffic share by operator  2014  2019

Chart 8  Growth in the number of mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Kenya  2010  2025

Chart 9  Change in the number of prepaid and contract mobile subscribers  2014- 2019

Chart 10  Change in SMS traffic by quarter  2012  2019

Chart 11  Change in the volume of SMS domestic annual traffic  2008  2019

Chart 12  Change in the number of mobile internet subscribers by provider  2013  2019

Chart 13  Change in the share of mobile data subscribers by provider  2014  2019

Chart 14  Growth in the number of active mobile broadband subscribers  2010  2025

Chart 17  Change in Safaricoms revenue by sector  2010  2020

Chart 18  Change in the proportion of Safaricoms service revenue by sector  2014  2020

Chart 19  Growth in the number of Safaricoms mobile subscribers  2010  2020

Chart 20  Change in Safaricoms mobile ARPU by platform  2018  2020

Chart 21  Growth in the number of Safaricoms base stations by technology  2013  2020

Chart 22  Growth in the number of Airtel Kenyas mobile subscribers  2010  2019

Chart 23  Change in the number of Telkom Kenyas mobile subscribers  2012  2019

Chart 24  Growth in the number of Finserves mobile subscribers  2014  2019

Chart 25  Change in the number of m-money subscribers and agents  2012  2019

Chart 27  Growth in the number of m-money transactions and value  2008  2019

Chart 28  Growth in Safaricoms M-PESA revenue  2008  2020

Chart 29  Growth in the number of Safaricoms active M-PESA customers  2012  2020

Chart 30  Change in Safaricoms M-PESA transactions value by type  2011  2018

Chart 31  Growth in the number of internet subscriptions  2010  2019

Chart 32  Change in the number of fixed-line broadband subscriptions by access technology  2010  2019

Chart 33  Change in the number of fixed-line broadband subscriptions and penetration  2010  2025

Chart 34  Decline in the number of DSL subscribers  2009  2019

Chart 35  Growth in the number of Safaricoms fibre broadband premises covered  2016  2020

Chart 36  Growth in the number of fibre broadband subscribers  2011  2019

Chart 37  Change in the number of fixed lines in service and teledensity  2010  2025 List of Exhibits Exhibit 1  Generalised Market Characteristics by Market Segment

Exhibit 2  East Africa - Key Characteristics of Telecoms Markets by Country

Exhibit 3  Texting elephants

Exhibit 4  Job offers by SMS

Exhibit 5  2Africa submarine cable

Exhibit 6  2Africa landing stations



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Kenya-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses Nicolas Bombourg [email protected] Within Australia (02) 8076 7665 Outside Australia +44 207 097 1241

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Haiti - Justice : ANAMAH calls on all Magistrates, to observe an unlimited general work stoppage





Judge Wilner Morin President of the National Association of Haitian Magistrates (ANAMAH) in two open letters : the first addressed to the President of the Court of Cassation, Presidents of the Courts of Appeal, Deans of the Courts of First Instance, Magistrates near the said Courts and Courts and Justices of the Peace and the second to the Superior Council of the Judicial Power (CSPJ), denounces the contempt of the Executive for the demands of the Justices of the Peace on strike since June 1st and deplores the meager envelope allocated to the Judicial Power in the Budget 2019-2020.



Consequently, ANAMAH calls on all magistrates to an unlimited general work stoppage.



Letter to the President of the Court of Cassation, Presidents of the Courts of Appeal... :

"Honorable Magistrates,



The National Association of Haitian Magistrates (ANAMAH) [...] has the advantage of formally calling for your solidarity in order to observe a general work stoppage, following the proven contempt displayed by the Executive facing the strike led for more than a week by the Justices of the Peace, to demand better treatment in the light of the very high blow of life in this historically difficult period of the Judiciary.



Each of us watches helplessly the breakdown of the budget recently published by the Executive in defiance of the initial request made by the Superior Council of the Judicial Power (CSPJ) for the satisfaction of certain elements of the notebook of grievances of the Magistrates.



Each of us has this possibility of observing the part of 6 billion Gourdes of the budget allocated to the members of a power which exists only in name while the CSPJ struggles to find financial means valuing the judicial power since it received only 0.3% of the funds allocated to this budget https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30976-haiti-flash-the-government-adopts-a-budget-of-1987-billion-all-the-details.html



[...]



Let's renegotiate a united judiciary behind the same objectives."



Letter to the Superior Council of the Judicial Power :



"Gentlemen,



The National Association of Haitian Magistrates (ANAMAH) renews its compliments to you and takes this opportunity to remind you of its various actions in favor of dialogue, in particular the correspondence of May 23 and June 2, 2020 in which it invited the Council to the planning of a corridor of dialogue between the Executive and the Associations of Magistrates in order to avoid the radicalization of positions in the claiming struggle of Magistrates. Unfortunately, the calls of ANAMAH remain to this day without answers of any kind!



By adopting this passive posture, the ANAMAH notes that the Council thus becomes an accomplice of the Executive power in the total asphyxiation of the judiciary, the last budget published https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30976-haiti-flash-the-government-adopts-a-budget-of-1987-billion-all-the-details.html without taking into account the demands of the Magistrates is the absolute example !



This is why, while encouraging the Justices of the Peace to maintain their position, the ANAMAH calls on all the Magistrates, of all the jurisdictions of the Republic to observe an unlimited work stoppage, as of the date of this present.



ANAMAH will however ensure that emergency circuits remain functional for the duration of the stop [...]"



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30976-haiti-flash-the-government-adopts-a-budget-of-1987-billion-all-the-details.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Maggie Doherty, author of "The Equivalents." (Max Larkin)

When my son had just turned 1, I sold my first book. I had been attending music classes with him down the street from our apartment in Brooklyn. I had no childcare. After the class, one of the moms approached me. Hows the book going? she asked. Then she laughed in my face.

She had laughed at the implausibility of my getting any writing done while taking care of my son full-time. While everyone paid the music teacher, she walked back over to me. Im sorry, she said, touching my arm. I dont know why I said that. I assured her that I understood.

Why was it so difficult for me to relate to other moms at these kinds of baby classes? Didnt I have friends that were also moms? Eventually, I realized they were all at work. My being a writer and working from home meant I was surrounded mostly by stay-at-home moms. All moms are working moms in a sense, but not all are made to feel that way.

In 1960, the Radcliffe Institute hoped to bring women hindered by domestic labor back into professional life. To women with a PhD or equivalent in artistic achievement, it offered paid fellowships, office space, access to Harvard and Radcliffe libraries (except the male-only Lamont Library) and, of course, precious time to work. Maggie Dohertys brilliant new book, The Equivalents, tells the story of the institute by focusing on the five fellows who called themselves The Equivalents: Poets Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin, writer Tillie Olsen, painter Barbara Swan and sculptor Marianna Pineda.

Olsen had for many years struggled to write what she hoped would be the great proletarian novel. Years before she applied to the institute, she wrote in her journal: I dont even know if I could still write . . . Life (the job that takes so much of me, the family that takes so much of me) has its own anesthesia. I am so weary physically at night I sleep well and dreamlessly.

Though this was written in 1954, it could just as easily be a passage from my journal. I too often feel, as Kumin wrote, like Im playing the triple role of part-time writer, part-time teacher and part-time homemaker, especially now that thanks to COVID-19 restrictions, I  like many other parents  am without childcare.

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Radcliffes announcement was followed by hundreds of messages from women all over the country. Most of the callers had a baby crying in the background, Doherty writes. Sexton and Kumin were among the first applicants. The friends had been running their own writers group over the phone for years  a workshop for mothers, Doherty writes. They could be at home tending to children and simultaneously receiving edits.

The Equivalents is bookended by their working partnership and intimate friendship. Kumin often took on the role of caregiver for Sexton, who suffered many breakdowns and suicide attempts over the years. Its a fitting frame for the book, an example of what can be accomplished when women (even in direct competition) support one another.

The Radcliffe Institute did not provide childcare, and obviously, that work wasnt likely to be done by these womens husbands. Almost all the Institute women spent their stipends on help with housework, Doherty writes, adding that the burden shifted to nannies, babysitters, house cleaners and cooks  overwhelmingly women of color. Almost all of the Equivalents, with the exception of Olsen, had employed domestic help before they were admitted to the institute.

It was yet another example of the benefits of feminism (in those years but also today) being largely reserved for white women. Not until 1966 did Radcliffe award a fellowship to a woman of color, playwright Alice Childress. Alice Walker followed in 1971. Doherty devotes a chapter to these women and inclusionary feminism.

Readers will likely be familiar with Sexton and Kumin. In this group biography, Swan and Pineda are fascinating but supporting characters, while Olsen comes to the forefront. As a working-class writer who believed that under capitalism, most people are denied a society in which they can be valuable, Olsen is perhaps the most relevant today. Her family didnt come from wealth; she worked in factories, did physical and menial labor  whatever she could to keep her family afloat. Between working and mothering, there was little time for writing.

That disparity between Olsen and the other fellows came through in an awkward public lecture she gave in front of them, in which she suggested that caring for children might be incompatible with creative life. Doherty describes the silence in the room as the attendees, mostly white women from upper-class backgrounds, shift uncomfortably in their seats.

At the time, second-wave feminism was just beginning its ascent. Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique was published just eight days after Sylvia Plaths suicide in 1963. Years before having it all became a stock phrase, most of these women did not consider themselves feminists. Doherty relays a story Sexton told in the early 60s about being the first person ever to check out a copy of Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own, which had been gifted to the library in 1929.

Olsen never did write the great proletarian novel. But the Radcliffe Institute gave her the time away from her family to write about the obstacles in front of women (and particularly mothers) who hope to pursue a professional career in the arts. Her lecture at the institute became a Harpers essay and then a book, Silences, published in 1978. She was given appointments to teach at Amherst and other universities, and her thoughts on the lack of support for women and workers of any color led to major changes in college curricula, contributing to the creation of womens literature. Similarly, after her time at the institute, Walker taught a course on Black female writers at Wellesley College, the first of its kind.

Sexton committed suicide in 1974. Kumin was devastated. I carried Annes death in my pocket, she wrote to Swan. Poet Adrienne Rich, writing of Sexton, argued that suicide wasnt the only way women destroyed themselves: Self-trivialization is one. Believing the lie that women are not capable of major creations. The Radcliffe Institute legitimized work by women even when the fellows themselves didnt have the means to recognize its value.

When Rich won the National Book Award in the year of Sextons death, she declined to accept it as an individual, bringing the two other poets nominated, Walker and Audre Lorde, with her to the podium, to accept it on behalf of all women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world.

It has been 60 years since the institute started its messy experiment, which continues today and is open to people of all identities, even as most of the obstacles faced by the Equivalents persist. It is thus hard to imagine how a single policy solution could serve all women equally, Doherty writes in her epilogue, (though state-sponsored child care comes close). Why hasnt more been accomplished? One might ask todays protesters against racial violence. Dohertys rigorous history is an empowering reminder that to change ourselves, we must have systemic support outside ourselves  institutional structures that reinforce the belief that all people are created equal, not just equivalent.

Ferri is a writer based in Berkeley and the author of Silent Cities: New York."

The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s



Maggie Doherty



Knopf: 400 pages, $29.95
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is rejecting accusations that President Trump floated a 'baseless conspiracy theory' when he tweeted that a 75-year old cancer sufferer pushed by police may have been using his cell phone to obtain their radio signatures.

McEnany faced the assembled media Wednesday for the first time since Trump claimed on Twitter that the man, Martin Gugino, may have been part of a 'set up' and may even have deliberately manipulated his fall to the pavement in a way to mischaracterize police.

'It's not a baseless conspiracy  no not at all. I won't acknowledge that,' McEnany said, when pressed repeatedly about Trump's tweet.

'It's not a baseless conspiracy  no not at all. I won't acknowledge that,' said White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, as she defended a tweet by President Trump that a 75-year-old man pushed by Buffalo police 'fell harder than was pushed' and it 'could be a set up'

'The president was asking questions about an interaction and a video clip that he saw and the president has the right to ask those,' she said, referencing video assembled by right win One America News that Trump referenced in the explosive tweet Tuesday.

'The president does not regret standing up for law enforcement men and women across this country,' she said.

She characterized Trump's tweet  which also raised the possibility without evidence that Gugino was involved with antifa  as part of the obligation of media members and others to ask questions and parse information.

'In this tweet that he sent out he was in no way condoning violence. He was not passing judgement on these two officers in particular. But what he was saying is this: When we see a brief snippet of a video, it's incumbent upon reporters and those who are surveying a situation to ask questions,' she said.

Pressed on whether Trump should assemble facts before firing off a tweet, McEnany protested: 'The president did have facts.'

She said the nation is going through a moment when people are 'reflexively anti-police officer.' Earlier, McEnany backed up Trump in comments to Fox News.

'The president does not condone violence. He wants to see the appropriate amount of force used in any given situation, including this one. But he believes that the officers have a right to be heard,' she said.

She was also pressed on practical aspects of his claim that Gugino may have 'fallen harder than pushed' by two police officers.

'How does that work in terms of physics?' McEnany was asked.

'The president raised several questions based on a report he saw. He has a right to ask those questions,' she responded. 'And where he stands is squarely with law enforcement.'

McEnany doubled down even as a few Republican senators distanced themselves from the comments and others avoided comment claiming they had not even seen Trump's tweet.

'The president was raising questions based on a report that he saw' when he retweeted a report claiming the man, Martin Gugino, might be an ANTIFA provocateur,' McEnany told a panel of interviewers on 'Fox and Friends' Wednesday morning.

Trump also claimed based on watching video in the report that Gugino 'fell harder than was pushed.' The man is now out of the ICU but still in hospital following the incident, according to his lawyer. He was already undergoing treatment for cancer.

'They're questions that need to be asked,' said McEnany. 'In every case we can't jump on one side without looking at all the facts at play.

'This individual had some very questionable tweets some profanity-laden tweets about police officers.'

'The president was raising questions based on a report that he saw,' White House press secretary Keyleigh McEnany said in an interview Wednesday where she defended President Trump's tweet about a 75-year-old man shoved to the ground by Buffalo police

'This individual had some very questionable tweets, some-profanity laden tweets about police officers,' McEnany said of Gugino, who was knocked to the ground by police officers in Buffalo

Martin Gugino, a longtime peace activist from Amherst, had been at a protest at Niagara Square near Buffalo City Hall when he was pushed. He hit his head on the ground causing it to bleed

'Of course no one condones any sort of violence,' McEnany said.

'We need the appropriate amount of force used in any interaction. But there are a lot of questions in that case. In fact, you had 56 police officers who resigned in protest of how their fellow officers were treated.'

She was referencing a tweet Gugino posted the day before he got pushed that said 'F*** the police.'

Her mention of 56 officers resigning was an apparent reference to all 57 members of the Buffalo Police Department's Emergency Response Team resigning from the squad last Friday in support of the two colleagues who were suspended over the incident and are now being prosecuted.

'The president was just raising some of those questions,' she added.

The president had said that he agreed with at least part of what was put forward by the broadcast a network he regularly touts. 'I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?' Trump asked.

The report he referenced was on the One America News Network. The pro-Trump outlet picked the story up from the Conservative Treehouse website, which made the claim based on slowed video footage that Gugino was seeking to scan frequency information from police officers with his phone.

The OANN correspondent identifies himself as Kristian Rouz, who has been revealed to simultaneously be working for Kremlin-backed Sputnik news. The Daily Beast previously reported that Rouz was born in Siberia, graduated from Novosibirsk State University, and moved to the U.S. in 2017.

The report Trump cited and McEnany justified claims that the incident 'could be the result of a false flag provocation by far left group Antifa.'

It cites information that appeared on the Conservative Treehouse blog which identifies Mr Gugino as a 'well-known activist.'

The report used close-up, slowed footage of the incident while voice-over touting possible connections to Antifa, a group Trump has said wants to label as domestic terrorist organization.

An elderly man was seen approaching Buffalo police officers in riot gear outside of City Hall on Thursday

McEnany doubled down on President Trump's tweet about the 75-year-old man pushed down by Buffalo police

McEnany defended the president during an appearance on 'Fox and Friends'

Her Fox interviewers showed no expression while McEnany defended the president's tweet.

Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked: 'Kayleigh what about the timing of it in the middle of the George Floyd ceremonies,' referencing the funeral Tuesday, the last of several events to commemorate the man who died during arrest by Minneapolis police. It got wall-to-wall television coverage amid the uproar over Trump's tweet.

'Look the president has acknowledged so many times and rightfully so the injustice with George Floyd,' she said. She continued that Trump was 'raising some questions  some legitimate ones  about that particular interaction, and it's his prerogative to do so.'

Kelly Zarcone, attorney for Mr Gugino told TMZ that President Trump is wrong to draw links between her client and the radical left group, adding that Mr Gugino had been seriously injured.

Zarcone said: 'Martin is out of ICU but still hospitalized and truly needs to rest. Martin has always been a peaceful protester because he cares about today's society.'

She added: '[Mr Gugino] is also a typical Western New Yorker who loves his family. No one from law enforcement has even suggested anything otherwise, so we are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him.

Gugino texted USA Today after being asked about Trump's tweet. 'No comment other than Black lives matter. Just out of the ICU. Should recover eventually. Thx,' he wrote.

Trump rival former Vice President Joe Biden pounced on the Trump tweet in more detail Tuesday.

'My Dad used to say there's no greater sin than the abuse of power. Whether it's an officer bloodying a peaceful protester or a President defending him with a conspiracy theory he saw on TV. I'm a Catholic  just like Martin,' Biden said.

'Our faith says that we can't accept either,' he added.

Aaron Torgalski (left) and Robert McCabe (right) pictured in their mugs. They were each charged with one count of assault in the second degree in a court hearing Saturday morning over the shocking incident that left peaceful protester Martin Gugino in a 'serious condition' in hospital

Clinton retweeted a post referencing some backstory to the conspiracy theory

Kristian Rouz, who was previously revealed to have been working for Kremlin-backed Sputnik, produced the segment that Trump retweeted

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ripped the president Tuesday for issuing a 'reckless, irresponsible, mean, crude if there was ever a reprehensible, dumb comment.'

'And from the president of the United States at this moment of anguish and anger. He pours gasoline on the fire. If there was ever, if he ever feels a moment of decency, he should apologize fr that tweet,' Cuomo added.

Prominent Republican senators turned down the chance to criticize the president when asked about his tweet. 'I didn't see it. You're telling me about it. I don't read Twitter. I only write on it, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN. Added Texas Sen. John Cornyn: 'You know, a lot of this stuff just goes over my head.'

Former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona did weigh in. 'This was a 75 year-old-man shoved to the ground, left bleeding from a head wound. Trafficking in conspiracy theories like these is beneath your office, Mr President,' Flake wrote.

'Most of us up here would rather not be political commentators on the president's tweets,' said South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune, a Senate party leader.

Thune added: 'It's a serious accusation, which should only be made with facts and evidence. And I havent seen any yet.'

Utah Republican Mitt Romney, who is now a persistent Trump critic, said he had seen it and called it 'shocking' and added: 'I won't dignify it with any further comment.'

Asked about the tweet, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) responded: 'Oh lord.'

Martin Gugino's history of peaceful activism Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old man who got pushed to the ground by Buffalo police and who Trump accused of possibly being in on a 'set up' has a long history of activism for a range of causes. The resident of Amherst in upstate New York outside Buffalo has been involved with the Western New York Peace Center. 'He's a gentle person who really believes that he must stand up for what he thinks is right,' his friend Terrence Bisson told the Buffalo News. He has advocated for closing the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, climate change, and other issues. He has protested the treatment of child immigrants at the southern border. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown called him an 'agitator' and President Donald Trump claimed after watching a video where Buffalo police shoved him that Gugino 'fell harder than was pushed.' Friends of the retired computer programmer described Gugino as a devout Catholic and a graduate of Canisius High School, a private Jesuit school in Buffalo, who is a passionate advocate for multiple causes on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised. Gugino spent his retirement lending a hand to multiple causes, among them Black Lives Matter. Martin Gugino pictured with actor Ed Asner 'Martin has a passion for social justice,' said Mark Colville, who runs Amistad Catholic Worker in New Haven, Connecticut, and has known Gugino for years. 'When he sees wrong he wants to be involved in making it right.' Colville said Gugino made multiple trips from his home in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst to New Haven - a six-and-a-half-hour drive- to help prepare and serve meals at Amistad, a house of hospitality that describes its mission as 'follow(ing) Jesus in seeking justice for the poor.' Gugino never wanted to draw attention to his work, Colville said. He's a private person who lived alone. He cared for his mother until she died, and he recently lost his sister, too. The two have worked for years to advocate for the closing of Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. detention camp in Cuba where terrorism suspects could be detained without process. Gugino is active in Witness Against Torture, an organization formed in 2005 to protest the treatment of detainees on the base. Each January, group members travel to Washington, D.C., to fast and hold vigil outside the Department of Justice. Much of the work was done on behalf of Muslim prisoners, many of whom were picked up by the CIA and taken to Guantanamo after the 9/11 terrorist strikes. 'People, including Martin, made connections between their own faith and the faith of people detained because of their own faith,' said Matt Daloisio, a New York state public defender and one of the organizers of Witness Against Torture. Daloisio and several others say they've been texting Gugino in the hospital and hes been responding with emoji hearts rather than texts. Tom Casey, a retired civil engineer from Buffalo and a local coordinator for Pax Christi, an international Catholic peace movement, said the idea that Gugino is a provocateur is ludicrous. Gugino was certainly opinionated, Casey said, but always respectful of others. 'I have never heard him use a vile or angry word against anybody and I spent a lot of time talking to him,' Casey said. Gugino was also active on behalf of Black Lives Matter. After the 2014 killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African American boy who was shot by a police officer, Gugino traveled to Cleveland to meet with Rices parents. In 2016, Gugino participated in a protest in front of the Justice Department in which demonstrators called for murder charges against the officer who shot Rice. He is also active with the Western New York Peace Center and PUSH Buffalo, a coalition working on affordable housing. This fall, Jericho Road, a community health clinic in Buffalo, featured Gugino in its newsletters 'donor spotlight.' Asked why he gives, Gugino wrote: 'In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, and give drink to the thirsty.' Advertisement
New Delhi: Karnataka government on Wednesday (June 10) decided to ban online live classes for students from LKG till class 5 in all the primary schools in the state.

Karnataka Education Minister S Suresh Kumar said the state government has formed a committee to submit recommendations on the pros and cons of online education for classes 6-10. The committee will submit a report in 10 days, he added.

The committee, headed by Professor MK Sridhar comprises education experts VP Niranjanaradhya and John Vijay Sagar as members.

The minister told media persons in Bengaluru, "We have banned online classes for children in primary schools in the state as recommended by Nimhans director in a report, which said it should be conducted for kids only above 6 years of age."

The decision was taken following complaints to the Primary and Secondary Education Department by several parents that private schools were allegedly conducting online classes even for kindergarten children.

All private schools have also been directed to refrain from increasing any type of fee for the 2020-21 academic year as parents and guardians were reeling under financial burden due to the coronavirus fallout.

The department has already advised both government and private schools across the state not to reopen after summer till further orders due to the extended lockdown guidelines to prevent the Covid-19 spread.
La Salle University on Wednesday laid off 53 employees  nearly 7% of the full-time workforce  and cut the salary or hours of 48 others as a result of ongoing strategic planning and the financial impact from the coronavirus.

In addition, 51 vacant staff positions were eliminated, president Colleen Hanycz said in a message to the campus.

While difficult, these decisions comprise a necessary restructuring in order to best position La Salle University for continued viability, the Philadelphia university said in a statement.

The layoffs affect staff, while the salary reductions impact faculty and staff, said spokesperson Christopher Vito. The layoffs are immediate, and the pay reductions take effect June 29 for staff and Aug. 10 for faculty, Vito said.

The university, which enrolls nearly 5,000 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students, declined to list the jobs affected but indicated they touch virtually every corner of the campus. As part of the action, the university will no longer offer its Bilingual Undergraduate Studies for Collegiate Advancement program in the Lehigh Valley, though it will remain on the main campus. The program is designed to help students become proficient in academic English while furthering their education.

La Salle joins a number of other universities that have cut or furloughed staff and reduced salaries as the coronavirus has cost colleges millions in refunded room and board costs and is expected to cost more in the fall when students return. The Catholic university had struggled in previous years. In 2015, freshman enrollment plummeted 18% and 23 staff members were laid off as the school faced a $12 million deficit in its $132 million budget.

But the university was restructured under Hanycz, including a tuition reset and a marketing campaign.

 READ MORE: Reopening of Pennsylvania state universities will vary by campus

Hanycz announced the job losses to faculty and staff during a virtual meeting Wednesday. Employees who are paid more than $50,000 will take a 5% salary cut, while executive leaders will lose 7%, the president said in her message. She said she will take a 10% cut.

She said La Salle faces millions in losses and additional expenses, and if students cant return to campus in the fall because of the virus, schools like La Salle, which are lightly endowed and highly dependent on tuition, room, and board, face a dire financial outlook, she told the campus.

Earlier this month, Vito said La Salle had exceeded its enrollment expectations for the fall, including an increase in interest and deposits from students within the region. The university did not provide exact numbers. Many schools are bracing for a loss of prospective students over the summer, as the financial toll of the virus continues and uncertainty about fall learning remains.

We dont anticipate a clearer view of this years incoming class of first-year students until the semester begins, he said.

The university announced last month that it intended to resume in-person classes in the fall if government regulations permit. La Salle plans to start the semester Aug. 17 and finish it before Thanksgiving.
KBS2's "Fix You" shares new stills of Jung So Min practicing for a musical!

In the recently shared stills of Han Woo Joo, she is practicing for a particular dance move that she will perform in front of several people. Even though Han Woo Joo put her music career on hold to fix herself, she may be able to come back to where she left off after Lee Shi Joon told her that she can stop her treatment.

"Fix You" is a story that revolves around the destined relationship between Lee Shi Joon (Shin Ha Kyun), a vibrant psychiatrist who will do anything to heal his patients, and Han Woo Joo (Jung So Min), a hard-working musical actress who has bipolar disorder.

Watch out for spoilers below!

Working her way up gradually the music career ladder, Han Woo Joo won herself a rookie award at a musical award ceremony.

Unfortunately, her music career is put into a halt due to a man named Cha Dong Il (Kim Dong Young), who is suffering from a delusional disorder, which caused Han Woo Joo to get arrested on the live broadcast. This incident tainted Han Woo Joo's reputation, causing her rejections in multiple auditions and music companies.

As the series goes on, it is revealed that Han Woo Joo is diagnosed with and suffers from intermittent explosive disorder and borderline personality disorder. She experienced many abandonments in the past by her real mother and also her adoptive mother, which caused her to grow up with multiple wounds that will take too long to heal. She also grew to continually live in fear of being left behind or abandoned, resulting in her frequent and severe mood swings.

Lee Shi Joon's late wife also suffered from the same disorders as Han Woo Joo. He tried so hard to distance himself from Han Woo Joo but later on developed a relationship with her, allowing both of them to heal from their pasts gradually.

Unfortunately, Han Woo Joo still jumps back and forth in feeling emotions of anxiety and relief. Later on, Lee Shi Joon tells Han Woo Joo that she will be stopping her treatment, which leaves Han Woo Joo shocked.

Jung So Min received many praises for her perfect portrayal of musical actress Han Woo Joo. Noting that the character carries several emotions and has severe mood swings, Jung So Min gave a detailed performance of her role.

Do not forget to watch the previous and future episodes of "Fix You." The next episodes will air on June 10 at 10:00 p.m. KST.
(Newser)  The Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Gen. Charles Brown Jr. as chief of staff of the US Air Force, making him the first black officer to lead one of the nation's military services. Vice President Mike Pence took the unusual step of presiding over the vote, something he usually does to break ties. But Brown's confirmation, 98-0, was not close. Pence called the moment historic." Brown most recently served as the commander of US Pacific Air Forces. He is a fighter pilot, with more than 2,900 flying hours, including 130 in combat. He posted a video on social media Friday describing a lifetime of dealing with racial bias and the struggle to fit in to a predominantly white society, the AP reports.

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"Im thinking about my Air Force career where I was often the only African American in my squadron or, as a senior officer, the only African American in the room, he said in a raw tone. Im thinking about wearing the same flight suit with the same wings on my chest as my peers and being questioned by another military member: Are you a pilot? The military, with African Americans making up a little over 17% of its active-duty ranks, is more racially diverse than the country, which is 13% African American, according to 2019 Census estimates. But there is a much greater racial divide within the active-duty military based on rank. Nineteen percent of active-duty enlisted troops are black, but they make up only 9% of the officer corps.

(Read more Air Force stories.)
UPPER GWYNEDD  Township officials delivered a powerful message, in a unique way, on Monday night during their livestreamed meeting of the board of commissioners.

The meeting began with a statement read by Commissioner Katherine Carter, and following the statement, she said, We will now take a moment to acknowledge George Floyds suffering, as he called for his mother in the final eight minutes, 46 seconds of his life. We will now pause for eight minutes, 46 seconds.

We have agreed, we are going to be making this a blackout, so we are going to be turning off our video screen, added board President Liz McNaney, and Township Manager Sandra Brookley Zadell asked those watching to do so too. The video stream was darkened for the time period before the board resumed business.

The statement read by Carter was the following:

The country was horrified by the totally senseless death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and now the message of Joe Gale, Montgomery County commissioner, has stirred up even more anger and division throughout our community.

Gales statements and the assassination of Mr. Floyd are the prescription that has been written by the doctors of racism and prejudice for generations. Upper Gwynedd Township does not share his beliefs. We will take the necessary steps to make sure we secure change and equity in our community and dispel racism wherever and whenever we see or hear it.

With the barrage of news media coverage, we must not lose sight of the real issues, justice and change. We cannot possibly work to fix this problem without everyone at the table. We have already begun to work on projects to bring our community together peacefully and are looking for more ways to commit to anti-racism.

This problem will not change overnight or over the next month, but if we start a real, courageous conversation, to face the realities of the racial tension, we can make a step in the right direction.

We will make mistakes as we try to work on the issues that have separated us, but we have to communicate even when it hurts. As Will Smith said: Racism is not new, its just being filmed. When we know better, we have to do better. We are about change. We cant be silent. We must rise to meet this moment. Its not enough just to not be racist, we have to be anti-racist in order to dismantle these institutionalized racist concepts. Now is the time to make a commitment and pledge to break down the system of racism and oppression.

We are thankful for the public servants, the essential workers who are committed to protecting and caring for the public professionally. In Upper Gwynedd, we know that protests are the language of the unheard, and we want to thank the citizens who have participated in so many peaceful protests.

We want Upper Gwynedd citizens to know that we are listening, and we will continue to build bridges of equality that will bring us together, not separate us. We will always work to unify our communities and work on enduring change.

Recently, former President Obama spoke about change and hope. He said we must look to each other, listen to our young people, and work with our older citizens for change to happen. It will take all of us working with each other to combat injustice everywhere. We must be ever resolute in making the changes now, we must use this spark to work with each other on changing the broken system, not just fixing it. Please stay tuned over the coming months as we work on programming to bring community conversations to Upper Gwynedd Township.

That statement was subsequently posted on the townships website and social media channels late Monday, signed by all five commissioners.

McNaney gave an update on the townships plans to establish a local human relations commission, to field and rule on local claims of discrimination.

I have asked Ms. Gallagher to start that process, in helping us to form that HRC, McNaney said, referring to township Solicitor Lauren Gallagher, and added that she and board vice president Denise Hull had attended borough council meetings in North Wales as that town created their own similar board.

Upper Gwynedds commissioners are scheduled to next meet at 7 p.m. on July 13; for more information visit www.UpperGwynedd.org.
The sixth court hearing in the MH17 case has started at the Schiphol Judicial Complex in the Netherlands, according to an Ukrinform correspondent in The Hague.

Judges, prosecutors, lawyers, relatives of the victims and journalists are present in the courtroom.

Everyone observes social distancing rules due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prosecutors took the floor in court. They are presenting their position and telling about the details of the investigation.

Earlier reports said that due to the spread of the coronavirus, the number of people who can be in the courtroom is limited. Everyone can watch the trial online. The broadcast is available in two languages: Dutch and English.

The hearings are scheduled from June 8 to July 3, but it is not clear whether the trial will take place every day. It is not ruled out that the hearings could be postponed or canceled.

In March this year, the District Court of The Hague began the consideration of the case of the downing of flight MH17 in the sky over Donbas.

Lawyers Sabine Ten Doesschate and Boudewijn van Eijck from the Sjocrona Van Stigt law firm represent the interests of suspect Oleg Pulatov, lieutenant colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, who expressed a desire to participate in the trial.

On June 19, 2019, the international Joint Investigation Team named four suspects believed to be involved in the transportation and combat use of the Buk missile system, from which MH17 flight had been downed. Three of them are Russians: Igor Girkin (Strelkov), former colonel in Russia's FSB intelligence service and former so-called defense minister of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic"; Sergey Dubinskiy, general (at the time of downing  colonel) of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and head of the so-called "Main Intelligence Directorate of the Donetsk Peoples Republic"; Oleg Pulatov, lieutenant colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The fourth suspect is Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian civilian, who fought on the side of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic."

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over conflict-hit Donbas in July 2014. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. All of them died. The JIT reported that the plane had been shot down from a Buk missile system that belongs to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Kursk.

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The Galaxy Wearable app from Samsung could cause the company some trouble following the discovery that it prompts the download of the Samsung Pay APK from a secondary source. Thats based on reports stemming from a recent tweet from XDA Developers contributor Max Winebach.

At contention, the wearables-specific app is prompting a download of the secondary app when installed on non-Samsung phones. Designed specifically for Samsungs Galaxy-branded smartwatches, the Samsung Wearable app is required to use the devices. But the app is also prompting users to download a secondary application  Samsung Pay  when they run the app.

What is the Google Play policy on app sideloads and whats the risk?

The Google Play policy in question explicitly says that apps cannot install other apps that arent on the play store. That means it cant prompt users to install a different app from a different source. Thats because that kind of activity potentially puts users at risk. Its a behavior often used by malicious entities, to begin with. But, depending on how an app is coded and what the app manifest looks like, it potentially puts users at additional risk.

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In the latter case, allowing apps to be downloaded from secondary sources enables a bad actor to inject bad downloads into legitimate apps.

Thats not to say thats what Samsungs app is doing or that it is poorly coded. But Google has this policy in place for a very good reason.

Now, Samsungs activity here may or may not actually breach Google Play policies as laid out in the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement. Thatll be up to Google to decide. The Samsung Pay app is technically available for download on both the Google Play Store and on Samsungs Galaxy Store.

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But the download prompted by the Galaxy Wearable app doesnt arrive from either source. Instead, it downloads directly from an Amazon Web Services server.

This is a policy enforced across multiple Google products

Setting aside whether Samsung is breaking Google Play policies by allowing its Galaxy Wearable app to download Samsung Pay from an unauthorized source, Google has been cracking down fairly hard on developers who breach its policies. And those policies extend beyond the Google Play Store.

Recently, the company instituted a similar policy change to its Chrome Web Store, for example. And developers that dont follow that policy meet with a similar fate. In effect, Google now removes and disables extensions and apps from its browser market if it finds that they are downloading secondary apps from other sources.

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So Samsungs transgression here may be enough for Google to consider this a breach of the policies. If thats the case, the Samsung-built Galaxy Wearable app may ultimately be removed from the Play Store. Or Google may work with Samsung to fix the underlying issue.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator Mukund Keni (58) died of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) late at night on Tuesday.

Keni, who was the corporator of Kalwa under the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC), tested Covid-19 positive 14 days ago and was put on a ventillator support at a private hospital in Mumbai. His wife, Pramila Keni, is the opposition leader in TMC.

Keni had gone to a hospital to assist a Covid-19 positive patient and two days later he developed symptoms such as fever. Initially, he was admitted to a private hospital in Thane, but later was shifted to Mumbai after he tested Covid-19 positive. He was suffering from comorbid conditions such as diabetes and blood sugar and was put on a ventillator support the day he was admitted to the private hospital in Mumbai, said an NCP worker.

A Shiv Sena corporator (55) from Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation in Maharashtras Thane district died of Covid-19 on Tuesday, hours before Keni passed away because of the contagion.
An LAPD recruit officer class marches in for inspection during graduation exercises outside the department headquarters building in downtown Los Angeles. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: Apologists routinely contend that police violence is committed by just a few "bad apples." According to press reports, George Floyd's killer had a history of complaints of excessive force. How could anyone have known that Floyd's killer was prone to violence? ("Defund the LAPD? It's time to rethink public safety in Los Angeles," editorial, June 8)

The Minneapolis Police Department knew.

I was one of the counsel to the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991 (commonly known as the Christopher Commission), which was formed after the Rodney King beating. I was tasked with working with the forensic accounting firm Freeman & Mills to analyze the LAPD databases on the use of force by officers.

We were able to track uses of force and complaints of excessive uses of force to individual police officers through the LAPD's own records. Complaints of excessive force, though fairly widespread, were concentrated in a small percentage of police officers. Of the 1,931 police officers named in complaints of excessive force, 254 accounted for 30% of the complaints, and 47 officers had five or more complaints each.

I have no doubt this type of information is readily available today to the LAPD and other departments across the country. Police departments know who the "bad apples" are, and there is no excuse for them to be allowed on the streets.

Jeffrey Dasteel, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: To anyone of color or anyone with disabilities, the police can seem like a localized, state-sponsored terrorist group rather than a force for law and order.

They terrorize us. They harass us, arrest us and beat us more aggressively than they do with our more privileged counterparts. There are too many videos of police terrorizing peaceful protesters, and that's excluding all other aspects of our lives.

They kill us. Think of all the killings of unarmed black, brown or disabled people we hear about, and then think how many of them we don't hear about.

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They get away with it. The systems protect them. They terrorize and kill us, with almost no repercussions.

Hold the police and their enablers accountable. End police brutality. Defund the police.

Christian Salmeron, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: In the name of social justice, shall we reduce LAPD efforts against human trafficking? Child pornography? Outreach alongside mental health workers to homeless people?

Which neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by crime and suffer most when understaffing slows police response time?

In fact, public safety is a social justice issue.

Talk of reducing our police budget sounds like thinly disguised collective punishment, which wouldnt touch the truly guilty but would most endanger the most vulnerable.

Fay Russell, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Isn't the "police issue" not simply about the police department, but really about who seeks to become an officer?

Like it or not, the character of future police officers is shaped by the pool of candidates. I know we have some really decent officers, but I propose that we be more thoughtful in screening out those with racist predispositions and militaristic orientations.

Goetz Wolff, Los Angeles
Boris Johnson is facing mounting political and public fury today after his plans for returning children to school collapsed into confusion.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was forced to admit yesterday that plans for all primary school children to return for a month of school before the summer break in July had been abandoned.

And Government sources refused to confirm that all pupils at either primary or secondary schools will be able to go back full-time after the holidays, merely saying they hoped 'more' could return.

It has led to condemnation from parents left to juggle jobs and home-schooling and education experts demanding that ministers get their act together or risk damaging the educational futures of a generation.

Children's Commissioner Anne Longfield accused ministers of 'furloughing childhood' and said she was 'incredibly concerned' pubs and theme parks now looked set to reopen before most schools.

But what are the possible options the Government could explore to re-open the nation's classrooms?

Among those that have been mooted are using buildings like church and village halls to hold extra classes and extra lessons across the summer break.

A volunteer army, including ex-teachers brought out of retirement or new careers to return to classrooms could accommodate these measures.

One of the main issues for ministers however, will initially coming up with a concrete and serious plan to cover the next few months, with anxious parents awaiting good news as soon as possible.

Here we analyse some of the options that have been put forward.

Treat schools problem like the NHS and the furlough scheme during coronavirus crisis

Boris Johnson (pictured today in Downing Street) is facing mounting political and public fury today after his plans for returning children to school collapsed into confusion.

Former Education Justine Greening is among those who suggest that the first thing to do is start treating the issue with the same seriousness as ministers had for protecting the NHS and helping workers at risk of unemployment.

The shambolic U-turn over the primary school openings and lack of a plan to solve it has attracted a lot of Tory anger.

Ms Greening told the Times: 'We've had a national effort on both the NHS and protecting jobs and we now need the same national effort on schools,

'When he announced the furlough scheme, the Chancellor said he would do whatever it takes to protect households and businesses. That was the right thing to do. But we now need to see that same approach for schools and education.'

She later told GMB: 'I think many people will be very surprised that there isn't yet a government plan in place to help our schools get back open and there's also not a government plan in place to help children that have been most affected by the schools shutdown to be able to catch up.

'And the big risk for Boris Johnson's government now is that unless they bring forward a proper joined-up strategy, then it won't be a government that delivers levelling up in Britain, it will end up being a government that levels down and nobody wants to see that.'

Meanwhile Sir Michael said the Government's approach to education has been an 'absolute tragedy'.

He told GMB: 'What's happened over the last few weeks and months has been an absolute tragedy.

'And it's been a tragedy for those youngsters who need school, need the structure of school, need the routine of school, need teachers who will be working with them, to support them when they get very little support at home.'

He added: 'I just don't know how we've made such a mess of it, because headteachers, and I know lots of headteachers, will have been saying to the Department for Education, you've got this wrong.'

Mr Sunak has warned school closures are as damaging to the economy as the 2008 credit crunch, it was claimed today.

The Chancellor is believed to be among the most hawkish in government on the need to reopen schools.

He has privately told colleagues that the impact of keeping millions of pupils at home is the same scale as the financial crisis, which required nearly 140billion in taxpayer bailouts, according to the Telegraph.

The fears emerged after figures showed the costs of the government's furlough scheme rising again, with the UK on the brink of the worst recession in 300 years.

Axe the two-metre social distancing rule



A socially-distanced class at work at Landywood Primary School in Staffordshire this week

The Government's two-metre social distancing rules and advice from Public Health England  that class sizes should be limited to 15  are believed to be the major obstacles to getting more children back.

Mr Johnson is coming under growing pressure to ease the rules.

SAGE adviser Shaun Fitzgerald of Cambridge University, who helped draw up the rule, told the Times that there should be more focus on how long people are close together any whether they are facing towards each other.

'The thing which is missing from a simple two-metre rule is consideration of other factors, such as time, duration and orientation,' he said.

'It's all three that are important. I would not want to be 1 meter apart from somebody for an extended period because that's much, much higher risk than two metres.

'But being less than two metres for a short period and I'm not facing that person are ameliorating factors. If things evolve, it isn't necessarily because the evidence is any different.'

However, after months of this being a hard-and-fast rule that should not be taken, this could be a hard sell even to those parent desperate to have their children back in classes.

At Prime minister's Questions today Mr Johnson told MPs the rule is 'under review'.

Responding to SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, Mr Johnson said: 'I believe that those measures, the two-metre rule, need now be kept under review.

'As we drive this disease down, as we get the incidence down, working together, I want to make sure we keep that two-metre rule under constant review.'

'Nightingale schools'

Former chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw is among those who have said that the only way schools can physically return is with a drastic increase of space

Nightingale Hospitals were set up across the UK to deal with a surge in coronavirus cases and some have called for a similar approach to schools

Reception pupils from Landywood Primary School in Staffordshire take part in a socially-distanced outdoor exercise

Former chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw is among those who have said that the only way schools can physically return is with a drastic increase of space.

Current rules mean that classrooms are limited to 15 pupils at a time, who are socially distanced by 2m from others.

This means that rooms used to often containing around 30 pupils are half full. Or as Sir Michael put it on Good Morning Britain today: 'If you're going to insist on social distancing and a maximum of 15 in a class we will need double the amount of space, we will need double the amount of teachers and we've got to make sure we have that.'

But how to create that space. One idea is to mimic the Nightingale Hospitals that were set up across the UK to deal with a surge in the worst-affected coronavirus patients that fortunately has yet to materialise.

Yesterday, Reverend Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis chain of academy schools, predicted that some of his 30 primary schools could take on more children and that his staff are looking to utilise other community buildings as makeshift classrooms.

The Baptist minister told the Today programme: 'I think there are other ways around dealing with this as well because what the Government has said about bringing children back - keeping them two metres apart, socially distanced but bringing them back - well, of course it is not possible to bring all children back into a school building and keep the social distancing - it is an oxymoron, you can't do both things.

'But in any community there are other buildings that can be used - community halls, churches and other faith groups' buildings, hotels.

'We've explored conversations with some people like that so you can bring children back in and use those buildings because their emotional and social development is so important.'

A 'volunteer army' and ex-teachers to create more classes and work over the summer

As mentioned above Sir Michael wants to see more teachers as well as more classroom space.

Though the vast majority of schools have never actually closed - they have been open to the children of key workers - the number of teachers required was obviously lower than normal.

And if double the number of classrooms is needed, you may need double the number of teachers, depending on the use of technology.

Senior Tory MP Robert Halfon, who chairs the Commons Education Committee, has urged Boris Johnson to set up a 'national education army' to help pupils catch up with their learning in the coming months.

The Harlow MP and former skills minister said retired teachers, graduates and Ofsted inspectors should be asked to help open libraries and school gyms to create temporary classrooms.

He said such an effort would help mitigate the damage already done by the coronavirus crisis to the education prospects of 'left behind' pupils.

He told The Telegraph: 'We could start it now. Boris went on about this wonderful health service volunteering thing - which is great - but why on earth aren't we doing it for education?

'Why isn't Boris getting up there and saying 'I am going to have a national education army in our country to look after the 700,000 vulnerable children who are not doing any home or school work at the moment'? That is what Boris has got to do - it has got to come from the top.

Tory MP Jonathan Gullis, an ex-teacher, was one of those willign to give up his time to take part.

The new Stoke-on-Trent MP told the Commons Education Committee today: 'As a former teacher I'm prepared to come out and work over the summer...if we don't we are going to fail an entire generation.'

Screens and PPE equipment for teachers

Fee-paying schools are planning to reopen next week for children in years 10 and 12 who face exams.

They are doing it by supplying teachers with face screens and other equipment commonly used in hospitals.

Ministers have previously rejected a similar plan for state school teachers, saying that the social distancing measures were adequate. But if there is a need to get more people into available classrooms, it is one area that could be reconsidered.

Other measures that will be use include temperature checks using high-tech infra-red thermometers at the start of classes, and keeping doors open to allow air to circulate.

A national taskforce

Sir Keir Starmer used Prime Minister's Questions today to urge Mr Johnson to back his proposals to set up a national task force to look at the return of pupils to schools.

Sir Keir Starmer used Prime Minister's Questions today to urge Mr Johnson to back his proposals to set up a national task force to look at the return of pupils to schools.

He said: 'We all want as many children back into school as soon as it's possible and as soon as it's safe. What that required for that to happen was a robust national plan, consensus among all key stakeholders and strong leadership from the top - all three are missing.

'The current arrangements lie in tatters, parents have lost confidence in the Government's approach, millions of children will miss six months' worth of schooling and inequality will now go up.

'Several weeks ago I suggested setting up a national taskforce so everyone could put their shoulder to the wheel. It's not too late, will the Prime Minister take me up on this?'

Mr Johnson responded: 'Last week he was telling the House that it was not yet safe for kids to go back to school, this week he's saying that not enough kids are going back to school. I really think he needs to make up his mind.'
Jr NTR is currently elated with the Andhra Pradesh government's decision to resume shoot from July 15. The actor is all set to resume the shoot of his upcoming multi-starrer project Roudram Ranam Rudhiram, widely known as RRR, directed by SS Rajamouli. Jr NTR is also looking forward to joining the sets of #NTR30 after wrapping up the magnum opus.

The 30th venture of the actor, helmed by Trivikram Srinivas is unarguably one of the highly anticipated movies of the year. Well, there are several speculations doing the rounds about the cast and storyline of #NTR30. As per the latest buzz, Jr NTR will be essaying the role of an NRI in the movie, touted to be a thriller. It is said that the actor will essay a youngster who is born and brought up abroad. As he visits India for the first time, he gets astonished with the situation and tries to change his hometown for good. Reports are also emerging that the movie will have a political touch, carrying a social message.

Talking about the cast of the movie, sources reveal that the makers will soon rope in two leading actress for #NTR30, out of which one will be from Bollywood. Interestingly, the movie will mark the second collaboration of the actor-director duo after the 2018 film Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava.

Taking a look at their respective projects, Trivikram's recent directorial venture, Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo starring Allu Arjun, turned out to be a Sankranti winner at the theatres. On the other hand, Jr NTR will soon team up with KGF director Prashanth Neel for a yet-to-be-titled project. As per reports, bankrolled by Mythri Movie Makers, the movie will be made on a mammoth budget of Rs 150 crore. It is said that Jr NTR will be learning the dance form Kuchipudi for the highly-awaited movie.

Confirmed! Trivikram's Next Is With Jr NTR And Not Venkatesh Daggubati

#NTR31 Is Coming Soon: Prashanth Neel Confirms Project with Jr NTR, Calls Him A Nuclear Plant
As Canada works to flatten the coronavirus curve, the combination of anxiety, economic insecurity and isolation has mental health experts concerned that suicide rates in the country could be headed in the opposite direction.

A recent study co-authored by University of Toronto professor of psychiatry Roger McIntyre, the head of the University Health Netwooks Mood Disorders Pharmacology Unit for more than two decades, projected suicides as a consequence of the impact of COVID-19 on unemployment alone could lead to an increase of 27.7 per cent to Canadas annual average of deaths by suicide  about 4,000 per year  in both 2020 and 2021.

The study predicted three scenarios, with no mitigation, over the two-year period.

Minimal increases in unemployment rates between 2019 and 2021 would cause 4,127 suicides in 2020 and 4,143 in 2021, slight increases compared to the 2018 rate of 3,811, according to Statistics Canada.

Moderate increase in unemployments rates to between 7 and 7.5 per cent  should the pandemic be contained and lockdown measure be lifted during the late half of 2020  would see a 5.5 per cent increase in suicides per year, for a total of 418 excess suicides between 2020 and 2021.

Extreme increase in projected unemployment rate, about 15 per cent, would result in 2,114 suicides beyond whats expected in 2020 and 2021, representing that 27.7% increase in suicides per year.

Canadas official unemployment rate currently sits at 13.7 per cent. That number is knocking on the door of extreme, said McIntyre, and projects to an increase of about 750 suicides each this year and next.

I started thinking the objective is not to flatten the curve, McIntyre said when asked why he engaged in the study. The objective is to flatten the curve and prevent the curve of suicide and mental illness. The World Health Organization defines health as physical and mental and social well-being, so how does it add up that you can protect someones physical health by destroying their mental health? No ones going to say thats a good outcome.

The studys findings ring true based on research following previous pandemics, epidemics and economic shocks, like the 2008 financial crisis, the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and even the great depression, said McIntyre. Generally, for every one per cent increase in unemployment in the wake of those crises, there was a commensurate one per cent increase in suicide, he said.

Economy is part of your health, McIntyre said. The question is not one or the other.

Wage subsidies, income and small business support, relief with respect to rent and mortgage, workplace rehabilitation and retraining are all mitigating factors that have been shown to lower suicide rates in time of crisis, McIntyre said. But he also admits to being guilty in the first degree of making (the study) over simplistic by linking suicide to just one social factor, unemployment. Canadians are reporting worsening mental health and experts are concerned about the countrys forgetten addiction crisis and the potential for an echo pandemic of mental illness due to COVID-19. McIntyre calls depression, PTSD, alcohol and drug use the early clouds of an ugly storm said it is absolutely possible those factors could lead to more suicides than the study predicted.

If were going to accept that theres additional risk theres also potential resiliencies and I dont know how to weigh those out but what we do know is  suicide is not a mental illness, he said. Suicide is an outcome. Most people who commit suicide have a mental illness. (The study) does not include the increase in depression, the increase in PTSD.

Psychiatric care is another way to mitigate suicide rates, and McIntyre is also calling for a smart reopening of the economy in areas that are not hot spots.

We dont just need a vaccine for covid, we need a vaccine for mental health, he said. The vaccine is getting people back to work. I say that not because I want CEO fat cats to get richer, thats not my point. My point is I want people to feel a sense of efficacy. I dont want them agonizing if they can pay their bills and terrible distress and the next thing you know theyre going to kill themselves.

McIntyre said he would prefer to prevent suicides rather than treat people at risk of suicide or who have attempted suicide.

Louise Bradley, the president and CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, agrees.

Sometimes I hear people express it, after other epidemics, after other crises in the world, as if (suicide) is a fait accompli, she told the Star last month. It isnt. I really hope that will be given due consideration and serious thinking and planning.

Bradley said the Canadas annual average of 4,000 deaths by suicide a year is already actually much higher because of instances where cause of death is not registered as suicide.

The interventions needed to safeguard suicide rates from spiking because of the pandemic are the same interventions people need before the pandemic, Bradley said. Answers lie in individual communities and interventions may not be of the one-size-fits-all variety, but the pillars are the same: specialized supports for those who need help, public education and awareness, means safety, training for community leaders and research.

Those are the sorts of things are needed, perhaps more so now, because we also know that isolation is a huge risk factor when it comes to suicide, she said. I think we are now beginning to understand the huge importance of social connectedness.

It has been difficult to get suicide prevention taken seriously, Bradley said. She hopes a silver lining to the pandemic is that it can shine a light on an area that desperately needs the attention.

(Suicide rates) dont necessarily have to increase after this, she said. If we put the right safeguards, which are the same as before Covid, into place, that spike in people dying doesnt have to be.

If you are thinking of suicide or think someone else may be, there is help. Call your local crisis line or the police, or go to the emergency room of your local hospital. Resources are available through the government of Canada. You can connect to a national network of distress lines at 1-833-456-4566 and Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868.
BATON ROUGE, La. - A new baby was coming, so the aunts, uncles and cousins arrived by the dozens, their cars taking up the entire block and the lawn across the street, as they always did for Allen family parties. Carrying diapers and wipes, they gathered on the cracked driveway beneath the arching branches of an oak tree, waiting to learn whether Kenna Allen was having a boy or a girl.

It was Saturday, March 7, just days before they would learn how dangerous gatherings like this one had become. In 48 hours, Louisiana would report its first case of a lethal new virus, a distant worry that no one mentioned as they boiled crawfish and took photos in matching shirts with the words "He or she, what will baby bee?"

Kenna, a 34-year-old single mother navigating a high-risk pregnancy, took a selfie of her baby bump at about 18 weeks. She was wearing a "Mommy to bee" sash, part of the bumble bee theme she had chosen for the party. Her two daughters, 7 and 15, released blue and pink smoke bombs on the driveway. The guests wrote out ideas for names on a chalkboard: For a boy, Traylon, Travis or Taylor. For a girl, Brooklyn, Taylin or Treasure.

Her best friend and her sister, the only ones who knew the baby's sex, held up a sheet with rows of black balloons and the words "What will baby be? Pop to see."

"Hit it!" Kenna's cousin shouted.

Kenna popped each balloon until a onesie fell out of one of them, revealing what they all came to learn: The baby would be a girl.

Everyone hollered. Kenna ran from the garage into the living room, overwhelmed and disappointed. In a family of so many women, Kenna and her daughters had prayed for a boy. But a few moments later, Kenna walked back outside and smiled.

"This baby is loved," she told her guests. "I can't wait for her to be here."

As a gift, Kenna's best friend gave her matching necklaces for her three daughters, delicate gold chains with the words "big sis," "mid sis," and "lil sis."

Second-grader E'lajah imagined teaching her little sister how to dance. Tenth-grader Darrielle dreamed of getting her license and driving around with two little sisters in the back seat. And Kenna thought about the outfit her baby would wear as she came home from the hospital in August: A white onesie with pink bows and a rhinestone princess crown.

It was one of the last days before Kenna started seeing stories on the news about people sickened at the same Mardi Gras parades she'd gone to in New Orleans, before her boss, worried about her pregnancy, told her to stay home from her job at the Shell plant, before the virus began ripping through black communities like hers.

Before the day in mid-March when she started feeling a tightness in her chest.

- - -

Kenna pleaded with the doctor at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center not to send her home.

She had driven herself to the emergency room on March 27 with a fever of 102.6. Her whole body ached as hospital staff members in suits and face shields ushered her into an isolation unit, pumped fluids into her body through an IV and, after ruling out strep throat and the flu, tested her for the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19.

It would take about two days for the test results to come back, but Kenna said the doctors told her there was an 80% chance she would test positive. Still, her temperature had fallen to 100, chest X-rays showed no signs of pneumonia, an ultrasound showed her daughter's heartbeat was normal, and a walking test showed she had normal oxygen saturation levels, said Catherine Smith O'Neal, the hospital's chief medical officer, who reviewed Kenna's medical records with her permission.

The doctor called Kenna's obstetrician, and after going over her exams and vital signs, wrote in Kenna's medical chart that he was "not concerned with the patient's levels at this time." He told her he thought she could fight the virus from home.

Given her age and test results, Kenna was not considered a high-risk covid-19 patient. But she was also a pregnant woman with diabetes and hypertension in a state with one of the country's highest maternal mortality rates, especially for black mothers.

"I'm just not comfortable going home, the way I'm feeling," Kenna remembers replying.

But he assured her it would be safe. Drink plenty of fluids, he advised, follow up with your primary-care doctor, and come back if the symptoms get any worse.

"There is just nothing about her exam that says, 'You're not going to recover from this like all of the other 20- and 30-year-olds who we see,' " said O'Neal, an infectious-disease specialist. "We have seen pregnant women, and that doesn't seem to affect how they go. So while we always worry about pregnancy more, that doesn't portend a worse outcome in this disease. She met our criteria for discharge with close monitoring, which is what she got."

A nurse offered to help her out in a wheelchair. Kenna refused. She walked to her car, angry and scared, crying through the 15-minute drive back home.

She and her daughters were living with her mother, Donna Montgomery. They'd been through some difficult times.

Less than two years earlier, Darrielle's father had been shot and killed outside his Baton Rouge home. An article about his unsolved death hung on a memory wall above the teenager's bed. Across the hallway were photos of Kenna's father, who had died in 2017 after falling into a diabetic coma on his 67th birthday.

Kenna now worried about her Type 2 diabetes as she grew weaker, struggling to breathe. Her pregnancy, with a former partner she was still on good terms with, had been a surprise. She'd just been promoted to shift lead for a contractor at the Shell plant, which makes catalysts used to refine crude oil into gasoline or diesel fuel. She was saving money to buy a house for her and the girls.

The virus was threatening all of that. By the time the hospital called with her positive test results on March 29, her chest felt like it was going to cave in. Her sister, Cindy Allen-Wilson, who lives down the street, had also started feeling sick, and later tested positive for the coronavirus as well.

By April 1, Kenna was unable to climb out of her mother's bathtub, next to the second-floor bedroom where she had been isolated for nearly a week. She feared dying up there alone, while her children were downstairs and her mother was at work. She called her OB/GYN doctor's nurse, Tammy Farrow, who had been checking in with her every day.

"Sometimes, being strong is admitting you need help," the nurse told her. Kenna called her mother, who rushed home from her job cleaning office buildings.

As Donna was helping her daughter down the stairs, Kenna collapsed in her arms. Her mother called 911.

From a room at Woman's Hospital, where she'd been taken by the ambulance, Kenna sent her mom, sister and brother-in-law a goodbye text: "I did my best ya'll I'm sorry."

"Don't give up," her mom responded.

"Fight" her sister urged.

Forty-eight hours later, she was placed on a ventilator.

- - -

Kenna pulled at the breathing tube down her throat, fighting against the machine as it pushed air into her lungs. The ventilator would buy her time, doctors hoped, sending oxygen to her brain, her heart, her kidneys, her baby.

At 21 weeks, time was what the baby needed most. Every day mattered, every ounce of weight essential to her chance at breathing with her own miniature lungs. Every few hours, the nurses listened to the baby's heart, making sure it was still beating.

Tammy knew that Kenna was heavily sedated. But the nurse sent her a text message anyway, hoping she would someday see it.

"Praying God puts his mighty healing hands upon you today and everyday," she texted her, "and that you feel his presence mightily."

Her mother was also texting her prayers. "Lord heal my daughters body in Jesus name," Donna wrote.

On the morning of April 6, Donna's phone rang.

A few hours earlier, a nurse had entered her daughter's room to find Kenna's baby under the covers.

Her womb had contracted, but the ventilator and medications had masked any signs of labor. Kenna had delivered her child without knowing it. The baby was born a day short of 22 weeks, the hospital later said, before most doctors consider a human life viable.

She weighed 14 ounces and stretched 10 inches long, so small her mother could have held her with one hand. The time stamp on her birth certificate would be 3:42 a.m., but no one would ever know exactly when she had arrived.

Almost as quickly as she had entered the world, she left it.

"Like most pregnancies that end at this gestational age, the condition is critical and not compatible with life," Barbara Griffith, president of Woman's Hospital, said in a statement.

Kenna's baby would ultimately test negative for the coronavirus, adding to limited research suggesting the virus is not easily transmitted from mother to fetus. But she lived long enough to take at least one breath and record a heartbeat. Under Louisiana law, that meant the coroner would be required to issue a death certificate. The time of death was 4:50 a.m.

Hours after the hospital called Donna, East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Beau Clark shared the news of the "tragic case" during a news briefing on Facebook live. Without naming Kenna, he announced the first coronavirus-related death of a baby in Louisiana and one of the first in the country. Few other reports of infant deaths had emerged in connection to the coronavirus, including in Illinois and Connecticut, but the causes of death in those cases remained unclear.

Clark's announcement prompted expectant mothers across Louisiana to call their doctors and nurses, in fear of what the pandemic could mean for their pregnancies.

On Snapchat, Darrielle's cousin sent her an image of a TV news segment, wondering whether the coroner was talking about her mother. The 15-year-old hadn't even known her mom was on a ventilator.

It was the second time she'd learned devastating news about her family from social media. In 2018, she found out about her father's killing from a news report. Now she'd discovered the death of her little sister in the same way.

"I showed my grandmother . . . and I was like 'for real?' " Darrielle said. "You didn't tell me?"

Her mother remained sedated on the ventilator, unaware that the nurses had placed her baby on her chest for a moment before taking her away.

After the baby's death, Kenna was given remdesivir, the antiviral drug that has had positive effects on some covid-19 patients. It was in short supply at that time, but doctors got an overnight shipment from California.

In the days that followed, Kenna's lungs began to improve. And on April 14, after nearly two weeks on the ventilator, she started to wake up. She was still heavily sedated once the ventilator was removed, barely able to speak or move. She wouldn't remember what the doctors told her at her bedside that first day, or what she said to her mother and friends as they cheered and cried over the phone at the sound of her frail voice.

The following morning, her friend Lakeshia Septs called her, anxious to hear how she was doing. But Kenna sounded confused, and asked Lakeshia whether she could come to the hospital to see the new baby. Lakeshia froze, not knowing what to say. Did Kenna not know what had happened?

Lakeshia phoned Kenna's mother, who asked the doctors and nurses to wait for Donna to be there to tell Kenna about the baby. But the message didn't make it to a social worker who walked into Kenna's room later that day and gave her a form from the coroner's office, along with a pamphlet about grief.

"What is this?" Kenna asked.

"Your baby made national news," the woman said. "You didn't see?"

After the social worker was gone, Kenna pulled out her phone and searched: "first baby to pass away covid related baton rouge"

She cried alone as she read through the news article.

It had to be my baby, she thought.

She'd lost her child in a state with one of the worst infant mortality rates in the country, where black babies are more than twice as likely to die as white babies. The maternal mortality rate is the highest in the United States: Black women in Louisiana are more than two times as likely as white women to die of pregnancy-related complications. Yet Kenna, battling a virus killing thousands of black people, had survived - barely.

On her last day at the hospital, her nurses rolled her in a wheelchair up and down the hallways of two floors, as medical staff members clapped and cheered. Kenna cupped her face in her hands, sobbing as her sister, daughters, cousins, aunts, nieces and friends surprised her at the hospital entrance, screaming and holding signs with the words "You made it" and "It was God's grace." A nurse who was off work that day came to the hospital anyway, without her scrubs, to hug Kenna goodbye.

Then her sister and mother helped her into the passenger seat of the car, driving Kenna home without the baby she'd never met.

The baby she had named Treasure.

- - -

Donna untangled the strings of the Disney princess and Minnie Mouse balloons from Dollar Tree on a May afternoon, handing them out to relatives.

"These were all the balloons they had," Donna said. "Mother's Day took all of them."

Kenna picked one with a crown and the word "Princess," and leaned against the couch in the dimly lit living room, beneath a yellow banner with a photo of Kenna and the words "WELCOME HOME WE LOVE YOU."

She'd been home from the hospital for three weeks, but could still hardly walk. She spent most of her days on the couch or in bed, coughing and fighting migraines. Her doctors said it could take up to six months to fully recover. But now she felt strong enough to slowly limp out to the driveway on her own, to remember the baby she had not yet been able to fully grieve.

"Can I write on the balloon?" said E'lajah, who had celebrated her eighth birthday while her mother was in the hospital. "How do you spell sister?"

On the princess balloon, in blue marker, Kenna wrote: "I wanted you here but God need you more. It's ok we'll meet again soon." Then she joined the circle of family and friends in the grass beneath the oak tree, the same place where just two months earlier she had learned she was having a baby girl.

"All right ya'll, we're going to get started," Donna said, telling each person to go around the circle and say a few words for Kenna and Treasure.

"Kenna, we love you," her sister, Cindy, said. "I know you would've been a good mom."

"My little sister, you're always going to be in my heart," E'lajah said. "Even though I never got to see you, I'm pretty sure you're a beautiful angel."

"Kenna, we know you had a long road," her brother-in-law, Scott Wilson, said. "Just keep on pushing."

They each released a balloon into the sky, watching it float past the tree's branches.

Waiting to go last, Kenna toyed with the white strings, wrapping them around her bright green fingernails as she thought about what to say. She'd hardly spoken about Treasure since coming home. She hadn't looked through the flash drive of photos from the hospital, or the box of white embroidered linens given to every mom who loses a baby. She had only managed a glance at the pink card with her daughter's footprints, and the words "A Tiny Treasure."

She had refused to go upstairs to the closet filled with bags of baby clothes - unicorn socks, rainbow bibs, onesies with words like "Sunshine" and "Happy Everyday." Pink skirts and pink sweaters and even tiny pink hangers. She couldn't bear to see any of it.

Kenna hoped to give the clothes to another family, one she heard about while she was still in the hospital. Another pregnant black woman had been hospitalized with her for covid-19. The woman, 31 and seven months pregnant, had also given birth prematurely. The baby survived, but the mother did not. A nurse later told Kenna that the woman, Ajoraica Parker, had been in the room next to hers.

Kenna thought about Parker as she stood in the grass, holding her bundle of four balloons. That could have been her, she told her relatives.

"I'm glad that I made it, though in the process I lost my baby," Kenna said. "I think about her all day, every day. I have so many questions of why. Why me? Why her?"

Her sister put her hand on Kenna's back, filming her speaking on her iPhone. Tears streamed down Kenna's face.

"I want my baby back," Kenna said. "I know that's not going to happen. I know God is going to take care of her best."

Then she kissed the Minnie Mouse balloon, touching the strings once more before releasing all four balloons into the sky. She watched as they split apart above the trees, drifting off.

- - -

"Ya'll can have a seat," a woman in a mask said as Kenna limped over to a brown leather couch next to a grandfather clock. With her mother across from her, Kenna sat with her arms wrapped over her stomach, waiting for her baby's ashes. The funeral director walked in, holding a blue bag.

"This is everything, right here," he said, gently handing it to Kenna.

From the blue bag. she pulled out three boxes. Inside two of them were lockets, one silver and one gold, each around its own chain. The third white box, sealed tightly shut, contained the rest of the baby's remains, the funeral director told her.

"Thank you," Kenna said. The funeral director held the door for them on their way out.

As her mother drove home, Kenna sat silently in the back seat, scrolling through the posts on her Facebook timeline, videos from her weeks in the hospital. She held the blue bag in her lap as she looked out the window, past a cemetery, past a long line for the drive-through at Checkers, past a clinic where a group of health-care workers were taking a group photo outside, next to a sign that read "Heroes work here." The only sound in the car was her mother's soul music radio station, 106.5.

When they got home, Kenna sat down on the couch next to E'lajah.

Donna turned the light on and took the silver necklace out of its box, untangling the chain. E'lajah looked at the locket, engraved with footprints and the words "Mommy of an Angel."

"Something inside that?" E'lajah asked.

"Treasure," her mother said.

The 8-year-old's eyes widened. "Her body?"

Kenna nodded. E'lajah ran her hands over the box for one of the lockets. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a pencil, asking her mother if she could write on the container, and how to spell her sister's name.

Sitting next to her, Kenna whispered the letters: "T-R-E-A-S-U-R-E," as E'lajah wrote the name on the box, next to the words "We love you."

"I want a baby sister," the 8-year-old said to Kenna.

"I could buy you a baby doll?" Kenna said.

"I don't want a baby doll," E'lajah said. "I want a real life baby sister."

She curled up next to her mother, under a fleece blanket.

"All right, you ready?" Donna said, holding the locket.

She reached around Kenna's neck and gently fastened the chain. HEADLINE, PHOTOS, VIDEO?
Himachals Covid-19 tally climbed to 451 as six more people, including a woman, tested positive for the deadly virus on Wednesday.

Three cases were reported from Kangra, two cases from Sirmaur and one from Solan district.

Now, there are 184 active cases in the state as five patients have recovered.

Three cases from Kangra includea 28-year-old man from Baijnath who returned from Delhi on May 6. Another man, aged 56, also hailing from Baijnath returned on June 4. They were under institutional quarantine.

The third patient a 56-year-old woman from Dehra area returned from Delhi on June 7 and was under home quarantine.

Sirmaur deputy commissioner RK Pruthi said a 44-year-old woman, who works as an accountant at Kala Amb-based drug manufacturing unit at Orison Pharma International, was among the two new cases in the district. Eight people of the pharma unit, including its owner and his family, had tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday.

The company has been sealed.

A 39-year-old man, who works at the Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Delhi, also tested positive in the district. He had returned to the state on June 5 and was under institutional quarantine at Paonta Sahib.

Solan deputy commissioner KC Chaman said one case had been reported from Solan. A 30-year-old man, who works as a pharmacist, has tested positive. The patient hails from Bihar and came to Roopnagar from Delhi in a train on June 2.

He spent a night at the Roopnagar railway station and reached Nalagarh the next day. He was home quarantined till June 8 and was shifted to the isolation ward in Community Health Centre (CHC), Nalagarh, after complaining of fever.

HAMIRPUR WOMAN DIES, DEATH TOLL SIX

A 53-year-old woman from Hamirpur died due to the virus at Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC), Shimla, on Wednesday, taking the death toll to six.

Special secretary (health) Nipun Jindal said the woman had returned from Delhi on May 28. She was suffering from renal failure and her condition deteriorated at the quarantine centre. She was shifted to IGMC on June 4 where she tested positive for the virus. Her grandson has also tested positive on Tuesday, he said.

The first COVID-19 death in Himachal was reported on March 23 when a US-returned Tibetan man from McLeodganj died of the contagion. The second casualty occurred on May 5 when a 21-year-old youth from Sarkaghat, who was also suffering from a kidney ailment, died at IGMC, Shimla.

A 53-year-old man from Hamirpur died of severe respiratory distress caused by the virus on May 15 at Lal Bahadur Shastri Government Medical College (LBSGMC), Nerchowk, taking the states death toll to three.

Two women died of the contagion on May 25 at hospitals in Shimla and Mandi. Both were suffering from kidney-related and other ailments.

184 ACTIVE CASES

So far, Himachal has recorded 451 cases, of which 250 have recovered while six, including three men and three women, have succumbed to the disease. Eleven patients have migrated to other states.

Hamirpur is the worst-hit district with 124 cases followed by Kangra with 118 cases. A total of 54 cases have been reported in Una, 35 in Solan, 32 in Chamba, 24 in Bilaspur, 22 in Mandi, 22 in Sirmaur 13 in Shimla, four in Kullu and two in Kinnaur.

PANIC AS MAN DIES AT DHARAMSHALA HOSPITAL

Panic gripped Dharamshala Zonal Hospital after a man died here due to a serious illness. However, his Covid-19 test came out negative.

The 53-year-old had returned to Palampur from UP recently and was under home quarantine. He was shifted to a hospital on Tuesday where he passed away late at night.

The patient had had multiple health problems and his coronavirus test came out negative, said Dr GD Gupta, chief medical officer, Kangra.
I agree that the Joint Committee and Architect of the Capitol should expediently remove these symbols of cruelty and bigotry from the halls of the Capitol, Lofgren said. I stand ready, and call on the Chair of the Joint Committee to swiftly approve the removal of these statues. The Capitol building belongs to the American people and cannot serve as a place of honor for the hatred and racism that tears at the fabric of our nation, the very poison that these statues embody.
Combining capabilities from both platforms provides grocers with the operational toolkit necessary to rapidly deploy profitable ecommerce strategies

MONTREAL, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- WorkJam , the leading digital workplace solutions provider for organizations with frontline employees, and Digital Goodie , the ecommerce and fulfillment technology platform, today announced a strategic partnership to streamline online grocery operations. The functionality of both platforms, together, provides an all-in-one integrated solution that streamlines the ecommerce operations for grocers  optimizing end-to-end process execution while enabling faster time-to-market and margin improvement.

Amid recent pandemic shelter in place regulations, consumers have turned to online shopping for all essentials, resulting in accelerated adoption of grocery ecommerce. This accelerated growth is met with common pain points grocers face as they set-up and/or grow their online businesses: retrofitting stores to support ecommerce growth and safety protocols, implementing an ecommerce platform purpose-built for grocers, and managing a lean, but complex store picking and fulfillment operation. Through Digital Goodie, grocers are able to develop and scale their online business faster and more effectively with a platform that supports the specific needs of grocers while enabling superior pick and pack capabilities that maximize labor productivity. Combined with WorkJam's platform, grocers can effectively staff their stores and train frontline employees on ecommerce related procedures and direct rapid execution of store modifications projects.

"As the coronavirus pandemic pushes more grocery shoppers online, stores are struggling to keep up with the operations challenges brought on by increased customer demand," said Will Eadie, Global Vice President of Sales and Alliances at WorkJam. "We know that fostering a sense of customer loyalty comes from delivering an excellent employee experience. By providing frontline employees a direct line of communication to management and offering training around operational change, employers can empower their existing and reboarded workforce to deliver a high-quality ecommerce service experience to customers that is profitable for grocers."

Given the two companies' API framework, the combined offering enables grocers with fulfillment, task management, targeted communication, training, and pick and pack gamification for frontline employees under a single integrated solution. Being able to provide employee training and communication around updated processes allows organizations to scale their online businesses without becoming inundated with the online transactions that take focus away from operations.

"The combined functionality of WorkJam and Digital Goodie platforms enable grocers to create an unparalleled digital online grocery experience for consumers and drives profitability," said Moris Chemtov, Global CEO at Digital Goodie. "Grocery e-commerce comes with unique challenges that other retailers have not had to deal with. These challenges are exactly what the partnership focuses on. Grocers sell thousands of SKUs that frequently range from fresh-foods, dry-goods to prepared foods, they must work closely with brand partners on promotions and have a mechanism for picking in the stores that is highly efficient. In addition, they must retrofit stores and rapidly train frontline employees on e-commerce related procedures."

WorkJam and Digital Goodie's combined suite of solutions can be applied to other sectors of retail, restaurants, and manufacturing to improve order management for the omnichannel experience. WorkJam's customers include enterprises like Shell, Woolworths, and Ulta Beauty while Digital Goodie serves customers such as Co-op UK and S-Group of Finland.

To learn more, attend WorkJam and Digital Goodie's joint webinar: www.workjam.com/meet-workjam

About WorkJam

WorkJam is the Digital Workplace Platform industry leaders choose to unleash the full potential of their non-desk workforces. Available in over 28 languages and deployed in over 35 countries across the world, large-enterprise and mid-market companies using WorkJam have the ability to communicate across their non-desk workforce, help them understand and execute tasks, provide them with training, offer schedule self-service and a multi-location open shift marketplace, recognize, and reward employees and more  all through any mobile or desktop device. WorkJam is also loved by employees of these organizations due to the knowledge, flexibility and digital relationship created through the platform. Available as individual modules or in one complete solution that can be implemented in as little as five days, WorkJam has deep expertise in developing its platform for the applicable compliance, work rules and workflows required for non-desk employee organizations. Companies running on WorkJam achieve breakthrough cost-savings, productivity increases, and optimal labor utilization while motivating and engaging their non-desk workforce. Learn more at https://www.workjam.com/

About Digital Goodie

Digital Goodie is a Finnish digital commerce technology company providing a modern and fully customizable connected commerce platform aiming at connecting online and brick and mortar worlds to one seamless and simple user experience. The Digital Goodie Connected Commerce platform was included in the Gartner Digital Commerce Vendor Guide 2018 among the leading applications of the digital commerce ecosystem. The platform runs on top of a new generation microservices architecture consisting of modular commerce and fulfillment solutions.

Digital Goodie was founded in 2009, and has headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. Digital Goodie is backed by the US based eCommerce growth fund Black Dragon Capital.

http://www.digitalgoodie.com

Media Contact

Adam Hatch

617.359.9946

[email protected]

SOURCE WorkJam

Related Links

https://www.workjam.com


Rosemont Police Superintendent Donald Stephens on Twitter included a post claiming the person was a runner from an auto accident, and added that his agency, as well as Chicago and Illinois State police, all helped to search for the man who fled the accident scene on foot. Bartoli said it wasnt immediately clear in which jurisdiction the crash had taken place.
Americas meat industry has consolidated dramatically in recent decades. Missouri Farm Bureau and many farmer and consumer advocates are calling for investigations into the industry. A reliable and affordable meat supply is important, and market consolidation can harm both of these goals.

Today, four companies process over 80 percent of American beef. Three companies control 63 percent of the nations hog processing. Five companies control more than 60 percent of the chicken market, led by northwest Arkansas-based Tyson Foods. Tyson operates six poultry processing facilities in Missouri and 10 in Arkansas.

Consolidation itself is not necessarily bad. The problems arise when these companies use their size and market power to hurt consumers and farmers. Unfortunately, several recent events have fed suspicion toward the big meatpackers.

Last summer, a fire at a cattle processing plant in Holcomb, Kansas, roiled the market. The Tyson-owned facility, the second-largest plant in the country, was out of operation for four months.

Tyson was able to immediately shift almost all production to other locations. Less than a month after the fire, its CEO said that the only losses Tyson experienced were related to the cost of transporting cattle to other plants.

Despite Tysons resiliency, the prices packers paid farmers for live cattle plummeted in the aftermath of the fire. At the same time, consumer prices for beef shot up. Margins per animal for the meatpackers rose to their highest level in recent memory.

Many farmers cried foul. They argued that the industrys lack of competition let packers use the Holcomb fire as an excuse to raise prices for finished cuts while shortchanging farmers for their live animals.

After a nationwide uproar, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced he would investigate. Missouri livestock producers and Missouri Farm Bureau applauded this announcement. Unfortunately the investigation has yet to yield any results.

Fast forward to 2020. In April and May, the COVID-19 crisis hit meatpacking plant workers hard. National news buzzed about the large numbers of employees contracting the virus. Many plants temporarily closed or slowed down production as they installed safeguards.

Consumers found bare shelves in the protein aisle as supplies ran short and panic buying kicked in. Where meat could be found, prices were through the roof. Some people reported ground beef costing more than the usual price for steak.

At the same time, processors told farmers not to deliver animals to them. Farmers who were allowed to deliver were paid far less than normal for their animals.

This repeat of the Holcomb situation infuriated many farmers. They felt like the packers were taking advantage another of a crisis to boost their margins on both ends.

Missouri Farm Bureau and other groups called on USDA to expand its Holcomb investigation to include the new issues. Secretary Perdue quickly agreed to do so.

Senator Josh Hawley went a step further. He asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine the industrys conduct, pricing, and contracting, and possible effects of foreign ownership. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt asked the Department of Justice to investigate the industry for antitrust violations. He also asked the DOJ to look into ways to promote competition, address market manipulation, and protect consumers. Missouri Farm Bureau and several members of Missouris Congressional delegation joined the call for investigations.

It appears DOJ was listening. On June 3, its Antitrust Division announced it was indicting four senior executives for price fixing in the chicken market. The investigation is ongoing. Two days later, DOJ announced an investigation into the countrys four largest meat processors.

We also need more data about the effects of consolidation on the markets and how proposed solutions would impact the industry. Missouri Farm Bureau has asked for help from the University of Missouri. The Universitys Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) is the nations leading agricultural economics research center. Using FAPRIs analysis, policymakers can make informed decisions about any changes to the industry.

Missouri farmers and consumers deserve transparent prices and fair competition. If meatpackers are using unfair practices like collusion and price-fixing, this must be stopped. Using the best information and aggressive investigations, we can restore fairness to Americas meat industry.

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Police in Denver this afternoon apprehended a suspect in connection to a shooting that left one person dead and another wounded.

Officers received multiple calls about shots fired at around 11.42am on Wednesday in the 2900 block of North Huron Street near Coors Field.

Upon arrival, they discovered a man and a woman suffering from gunshot wounds. One of the victims has died. The other was transported to a hospital for treatment. The surviving victim's condition is unknown at this time.

Neither victim has been identified as of late afternoon.

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Police responded to the 2900 block of North Huron Street near Coors Field in Denver Wednesday morning and found one person dead and another wounded

Police received information the suspect in the fatal shooting headed for the mountains

During the ensuing investigation, police learned that the male suspect in the shooting was 'headed for the mountains,' Denver Police Department Division Chief Joe Montoya said during a press briefing.

Law enforcement officials in Jefferson County later contacted the man, tracked him down to a location near Pine Junction and US 285, and took him into custody at 1.25pm local time.

Montoya told reporters investigators do not yet know what prompted the shooting this morning, or whether it was random or targeted.

Denver Police Department Division Chief Joe Montoya announced the suspect's arrest during a press briefing in the afternoon

Police did say they believe the suspect, who has not been named, lives in the area where the deadly shooting took place.

Neighbor Ronan OShea told The Denver Post he heard six to 12 gunshots, following by a massive police presence.

O'Shea recounted how officers with guns drawn were running through the streets, warning residents of an 'active shooter' and urging them to shelter in place.
The coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August last year, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data, but China dismissed the report as "ridiculous".

The research used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan - where the disease was first identified in late 2019 - and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as "cough" and "diarrhoea".

"Increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019," according to the research.

"While we cannot confirm if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, our evidence supports other recent work showing that emergence happened before identification at the Huanan Seafood market (in Wuhan).

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"These findings also corroborate the hypothesis that the virus emerged naturally in southern China and was potentially already circulating at the time of the Wuhan cluster."

It showed a steep increase in hospital car park occupancy in August 2019.

"In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhoea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data," according to the research.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying was asked about the research at a press briefing yesterday and dismissed the findings.

"I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume," she said.

Meanwhile, new figures reveal the virus has infected more than seven million people across the world and killed more than 400,000.

The tally was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Greece's prime minister met with health and civil protection officials to discuss a sharp spike in coronavirus cases over the past few days.

During the meeting, officials stressed "the need for the strict implementation of the measures that have been decided upon in view of the gradual return to the new normality.

In India, New Delhi has reversed orders that limited the scope of coronavirus testing and reserved hospital beds for city residents as the Indian capital's caseload continues to surge. Delhi's numbers of infected jumped to 29,943 yesterday, out of India's 266,598 cases.

Pakistan has recorded more than 100 deaths in a single day from Covid-19 for the first time since keeping statistics in mid-March, when the country imposed a partial lockdown.

South Korea has reported 38 new cases of Covid-19 and one more death, bringing national totals to 11,852 infections and 274 virus-related fatalities.

At least 1,300 infections have been linked to international arrivals, with around 90pc of them being South Korean nationals who have returned home amid outbreaks in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

Officials have repeatedly pleaded for people to stay at home amid the resurgence in coronavirus infections, but they are so far resisting calls to reimpose social distancing restrictions after easing them in April, citing concerns about unleashing further shock on a fragile economy.
Delhi High Court on Wednesday (June 10) rejected a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which sought to bring the PM CARES Fund under the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act and calls for more transparency in it. The Delhi HC said that a plea in this matter is already pending in Karnataka and this is the reason why the court does not want to hear this care as of now.

The petition stated that the PM CARES Fund is a public authority within the ambit of Section 2(h) of the Right to Information Act and prayed for a direction to the trust to display the details of the fund collected and the purpose for which it is being utilized for on its website.

The petition also submitted that "Anybody that is "owned", "controlled" or "substantially financed" by the Government qualifies for a public authority under the RTI Act.."

The petitioner also insisted that the patients who have fallen victim to COVID-19 have the right to know about the fund collected for the very purpose of fighting the virus. It also maintained that the patients who need immediate financial assistance to fight the virus, "are not in a position to enforce their fundamental right of being treated and financially supported, by the use of funds collected in the PM CARES fund."

The petitioner had also expressed apprehension that if the details of PM Cares Fund are not divulged or disclosed, it gives reasons for suspicions. The petitioner also raised concern as to why should there be any secrecy, as the website also states that persons who manage PM Cares Fund shall have no personal interest.

The petition argued that in 2 months, the amount collected in PM Cares Fund stands somewhere around Rs 10,000 crores.

These donations have largely come from the Public Sector Undertakings, Central Ministries, salaries of armed forces personnel, civil servants and members of the judicial entities. These funds have been compulsorily donated into the PM Cares Fund, it stated.
The tweets  which the White House press secretary later read aloud for reporters  came as the military takes new steps to address the legacy of the Civil War and responds to pressure surrounding race and racism in the military. Late last week, the Marine Corps announced a ban on Confederate symbols in public spaces at its facilities. This week, the Navy said it was moving to do the same.
Tucson Sees COVID-19 Outbreak in Emergency 911 Call Center

In a COVID-19 world, emergency dispatch centers are more important than ever. 911 call centers are a source for police, fire and emergency medical help, and during the global pandemic, citizens are using these resources more than ever. In many cases, however, 911 call centers are finding themselves unable to muster the resources to meet community needs. Worse, many call center workers are testing positive for COVID-19 themselves.

At Tucson, Arizonas main communications center, which handles emergency calls, at least 17 employees have tested positive for the virus, according to local news source KOLD News 13. Of the 17 workers that tested positive, 11 were asymptomatic and six were symptomatic. In addition, eight workers were sent home as a precaution and are awaiting test results. A spokesperson for the county said that despite the troubles, the 911 centers operations remain unaffected despite a drop in staffing levels.

Protocols were put into place which did not interrupt 911 service or other service calls, city manager Michael Ortega told KOLD News 13.

The spokesperson stated that the city has taken new steps to protect workers health, and that it should act as a wake up call that all city employees who wish to be tested should be able to get a test.

It was a very serious situation, Ortega said. I feel very confident that the measures we instituted now are keeping employees safe.

The new measures have left some city officials wondering why the CDC-approved guidelines werent in place before. Ward 6 council member Steve Kozachik told KOLD News 13 that the outbreaks could have been prevented, and that the citys 911 center is critical to local operations and public health and safety.

The Comm center is ground zero for our ability to protect the safety of the public, Kozachik said. Every one of the CDC guidelines, including distancing, masks, testing, tracing and treating should have gone into effect on the first day the City shut down in March.

Kozachik indicated that he plans to request a timeline outlining when each of the safety measures was implemented.

Many 911 call centers across the country have taken steps to ensure that workers are protected from exposure to COVID-19, including installing plastic barriers between workers, spreading employees throughout the building, staggering shifts and implementing work-from-home programs.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
Travel in the Post-COVID-19 Era: 5 Items to Pack for a Hygienic Trip

Slowly but surely, travel is resuming. Ahead of the summer holiday season, European countries are slowly opening their borders to visitors from neighboring nations that have COVID-19 transmission under control. Other nations, including Singapore, are also currently considering creating a 'travel bubble' that will allow for business travel to resume on certain routes. Some countries, like Jamaica, Bora Bora, Tahiti and other French Polynesia islands are reopening to all tourists of any origin from June and July 15 onwards with no mandatory isolation period if the traveller has a negative COVID test result (taken within 72 hours of departure) and has travel insurance. With people getting ready to fly again, whether for business or pleasure, there is no doubt that international travel will take on a 'new normal' as airports, airliners and travellers will take extra precautions to avoid spreading disease. If you are thinking about travelling post-COVID, heres what you should pack to provide peace of mind and reduce your chance of getting sick.

1. Masks

By now, we've become used to wearing masks whenever we go outside. While wearing a mask was heavily contested in the earlier months of COVID-19, experts currently believe that widespread use of face coverings coupled with social distancing can reduce COVID-19 transmission. Since youll be in close contact with many people at the airport, wearing a mask can help reduce the risk of transmission when social distancing isn't possible. Its also important to wear a mask throughout the flight, especially on a full one since you will be sitting close to other passengers. While masks are harder to obtain from commercial retailers at this time as theyre sold out and needed for medical personnel, you can still purchase surgical or non-medical grade masks online for under S$30.00.

This table shows the cost of different types of face masks found on Lazada.sg, with masks retailing from S$6.89 per mask to S$15.39 for 50 disposable surgical masks

2. Disinfecting Wipes

Research has shown that tray tables are some of the dirtiest parts of a commercial airplane as passengers use it to change baby diapers. Tray tables can also contain cold viruses, influenza viruses and norovirus, according to microbiologist Charles Gerba. Respiratory illnesses can be spread through surfaces where droplets of saliva, mucus and other bodily fluids land such as the tray table . On your next flight, pack some disinfecting wipes and wipe down all hard surfaces around your seat, including the tray table, armrest, air nozzles, light switch, seat belt buckle, touchscreen tv, and remote before touching them with your bare hands. You should also wipe your electronic devices before and after placing them on the tray table to ensure that theyre clean. Disinfecting wipes are available at Redmart, Giant and Cold Storage for about S$4.00.

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This table shows the average cost of disinfecting wipes at different retailers

3. Flight Bags

Seat pockets are also one of the germiest parts of a commercial aircraft as people rest their bare feet on them, discard old food, used diapers and other trash containing bodily fluids in there. A study of more than 100 swab samples from 18 different flights has also found evidence that bacteria, yeast or mould are present in seat pockets. Instead of using the seatback pocket to store your water bottle, electronic devices, books or snacks, put them in a flight bag and hang it from the tray table latch. Flight bags can be purchased on Amazon for S$39.00 to S$76.00.

This table shows cost of 3 different types of flight bags that can be used to replace seat pockets in airplanes. Prices range between S$39 to S$76

4. Hand Sanitizer

Since youre going to be touching dirty surfaces on an airplane, hand sanitizers are essential to maintain hygiene while travelling. Hand sanitizer is even more important if you don't wear gloves. After wiping down surfaces, sanitize your hands with antimicrobial sanitizer to kill germs. Its also important to sanitize or wash your hands with soap before and after eating as it's simply a basic hygiene measure.Store brand, name brand and locally manufactured hand sanitizers are sold at prices between $2.50 to $7.00. You should look for hand sanitizers that are alcohol based and contain at least 60% alcohol. This is because alcohol can attack and destroy the envelope protein that surrounds some coronaviruses. However, you should note that even alcohol-based hand sanitizers have limitations. To ensure that your hands are as clean as possible, combine hand sanitizer use with frequent hand-washing.

This table shows the cost of hand sanitizer from different outlets such as Watsons and Raffles Health

5. Reusable Seat and Tray Table Cover

While the plane seats may look clean, airline employees have revealed that seats only get a proper cleaning when the plane is not in service. Beyond dirt, viruses and bacteria such as E.coli and hemolytic bacteria associated with strep throat have also been found on headrests. Even during cleanings between flights, the cabin crew only has time for superficial cleaning for aesthetic purposes, using a napkin or water to wipe down surfaces. While cleaning efforts have been ramped up to prevent COVID-19 transmission, there is still a chance your seat is not as clean as it could be. To minimise exposure to germs on fabric and hard surfaces even after wiping them down, you can invest in a reusable seat and tray table cover to be extra safe. Best of all, these items have use beyond travelling. For instance, you can also use the seat covers in movie theatres or other public seats. Disposable and reusable seat covers range in price between S$12.50 to S$41.50. Some of them even come packaged with with masks, wipes and hand sanitizer so you dont have to buy the items separately.

This table shows a few seat and tray table covers that can be used to cover airplane seats and tray tables

How Dangerous Is Flying?

The prospect of flying in a cramped space for hours on end surrounded by potentially sick travellers can give many people anxiety. However, current data suggests that in-flight transmission is relatively rare. Furthermore, airports are taking measures to reduce transmission including conducting temperature screening and requiring the use of face masks. Airlines are also taking extra precautions, with some airlines using highly effective electrostatic spraying to clean their fleets, while others are providing hand sanitizer and enforcing face mask use. Despite these new cleaning measures, going the extra mile won't hurt, especially as airports and flights become more crowded. To reduce your risk of infection during travel maintain social distancing, wash your hands often and wipe down any hard surfaces with antibacterial wipes before use whether on the plane or at the airport. Lastly, make sure you are following proper travel guidelines such as getting tested and providing proof of travel insurance. The new health risks associated with flying won't disappear any time soon, but if you take precautions and understand your risk, you can still enjoy travel as much as you used to.

The article Travel in the Post-COVID-19 Era: 5 Items to Bring For a Hygienic Trip originally appeared on ValueChampion's blog.

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The sometimes militarized government response to nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd has shone a light on the scope of the surveillance and enforcement apparatus that can be mobilized quickly against U.S. civilians.

The state of play: Since the protests began, extraordinary emergency authorities have been granted to the Drug Enforcement Agency to police demonstrators, including through covert surveillance, according to a DEA memo leaked to BuzzFeed.

It is not clear what this entails, but the DEA has planes outfitted with stingray devices that can suck up phone data in bulk.

Other agencies: Attorney General Bill Barr has mobilized a dizzying array of federal law enforcement agencies to police demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere.

This includes representatives of the Secret Service, National Guard, Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Park Police ... Border Patrol, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Transportation Security Administration, National Guard, Coast Guard, Federal Protective Service, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo leaked to Yahoo News.

The New York City Police Department has even requested drones from the Coast Guard.

Even U.S. foreign intelligence agencies could be roped into the domestic turmoil.

As Jenna McLaughlin, Sean Naylor and I reported at Yahoo News, at a recent virtual town hall, employees of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is primarily focused on military intelligence, raised concerns over word that a Defense Intelligence Agency task force was created to focus on the unrest.

According to sources, the DIA director denied any specific domestically focused task force but acknowledged that the agency was looking at any foreign nexus to the protests.

A DIA spokesperson told Yahoo News that the agency had created an internal coordination group to respond to increased and appropriate Department requests for information regarding the unrest.

The bottom line: Revelations of illegal surveillance of protesters and activists during the Vietnam War era created great scandal and upheaval and catalyzed many of todays most important laws and prohibitions governing domestic intelligence-gathering. Now the test is whether the U.S. government unlearned that lesson in the decades since.
Bengaluru, June 10 : A 22-year-old Mumbai resident, studying medicine in Pune, has turned out to be the first Covid-19 case in the Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka.

"This youth, a resident of Mumbai, had come to drop his mother at a relatives place," a health official told IANS on Wednesday.

According to the official, the student brought his mother, a diabetic, to the district thinking it would be safer to keep her in a green zone than Covid-19 hotspot Mumbai. "They took a train to Bengaluru and drove to the district from there, along with his uncle who came to pick them up," he said.

They had arrived on Friday and reached the district in the night. On Saturday, his mother was tested negative for coronavirus.

On Sunday morning, the youth complained of diarrhoea. "In the initial tests, there were some symptoms. It got confirmed on testing him for coronavirus. He was quarantined," said the official.

Currently, he is being observed in the ICU. "The student didn't come in contact with anybody from the district except his uncle, his lone primary contact," the official said.

The district health department has sanitized the place where he spent his time.

Chamarajanagar people are proactive in reporting to the district authorities any new visitors. As many as 70 people are quarantined in the district.

With the first Covid-19 case, the district's status has changed to orange zone.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Gone With the Wind was a tremendous blockbuster when it opened in 1939, and the epic Civil War tale starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable remains one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. But it has also long been considered a prime example of how pop culture spread destructive, false information about the Civil War, with its portrayal of the Confederacy as a noble cause, slave owners as sympathetic, and African Americans as stereotypes.

Now, in the wake of nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer held a knee to Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes, the racist inaccuracies in Gone With the Wind have prompted HBO Max to temporarily pull the movie from the streaming service.

In a statement quoted by The Hollywood Reporter, an HBO spokesperson elaborates on the decision: "'Gone With the Wind is a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society. These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible. These depictions are certainly counter to WarnerMedias values, so when we return the film to HBO Max, it will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.

The removal of Gone With the Wind came shortly after the Los Angeles Times ran an opinion piece by John Ridley, the Oscar-winning writer and director, in which Ridley asked HBO Max to take the film out of its streaming rotation.

The film, Ridley noted, is part of the narrative of the Lost Cause," and romanticizes the Confederacy in a way that continues to give legitimacy to the notion that the secessionist movement was something more, or better, or more noble than what it was  a bloody insurrection to maintain the right to own, sell and buy human beings.

Related: Reconstruction: America After the Civil War': PBS documentary explores events that still divide the country

Gone With the Wind" won Hattie McDaniel, who played an opinionated but devoted slave, an Oscar as best supporting actress, making McDaniel the first African American performer to win an Academy Award. As a Biography entry on McDaniel notes, all of the films black actors, including McDaniel, were barred from attending the films premiere in 1939, aired at the Loews Grand Theatre on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia.

The move to yank Gone With the Wind, however temporarily, comes after Cops, the long-running reality show featuring camera crews riding along with law enforcement officers, was canceled by the Paramount Network. The A&E cable network has also, for the moment, paused airing new episodes of highly rated Live PD, another ride-along-with police reality show. Those decisions came in the wake of the protests against widespread racial injustice and police brutality toward people of color.

More of our coverage:

-- Kristi Turnquist

kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist

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O prah Winfrey has said that the US is at a "true tipping point" over systemic racism as she hosted the first of episode of her new series and posed the question: "Where do we go from here?"

The talk show legend is leading a new Own Spotlight series where she speaks directly with Black thought leaders, activists and artists about racism and the current state of America amid the George Floyd protests.

During the first episode on Wednesday night that was filmed remotely, Oprah spoke to high profile figures who "match their words with their actions", including Stacey Abrams, Ava DuVernay, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ibram Kendi, David Oyelowo, and Bishop William J. Barber II.

She said: "We find our nation on a precipice, a true tipping point.

Oprah added that the US will not begin to change "until we acknowledge the hurt and the pain which we have all seen and have felt as visceral." / OWN/YouTube

"And just like all of you for the past few weeks I've been talking and zooming with friends and the same question keeps popping up.

"Is this the moment that will finally change our country where people recognise systemic racism for the problem and the evil that it is? Where do we go from here and what is it that we really want?"

Oprah added that the US will not begin to change "until we acknowledge the hurt and the pain which we have all seen and have felt as visceral."

The talk show legend is leading a new Own Spotlight series where she speaks directly with Black thought leaders / OWN/YouTube

Selma director Ava DuVernay addressed the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the large protests that followed before giving a harrowing account of childhood trauma during police raids.

She said: No ones talking about the economic inequalities that may lead people to want to go through a glass door to get a pair of shoes.

No ones talking about the systems that encompass all of the actions that were seeing, she added.

If youre concern with the murder of black people by police, to be deterred or shifted because someone is taking a pair of jeans from a Target, then youve got to look at how much you cared about the murder of the black people by the police to begin with."

Oprah spoke to high profile figures who "match their words with their actions", including Stacey Abrams, Ava DuVernay, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ibram Kendi, David Oyelowo, and Bishop William J. Barber II / OWN/YouTube

Of the systemic racism in the US, she said: Its not a broken system. It was built this way. It was built to function exactly as it is.

"So, I feel its just disingenuous for us as a society to suddenly act as if were horrified when everyone has participated in it, benefited from it, not for years. Decades. Centuries.

The Oscar nominee and activist also told Oprah about a terrifying experience that she and her family were subjected to by police officers during her childhood.

Police came into our backyard and -we grew up in the south cities of Los Angeles  police came in and I remember coming out of the house and seeing my father, my proud, beautiful father on the ground in our own backyard wrestled to the ground by police, she said.

Becoming visibly emotional, DuVernay said the police claimed that her farther fit the description of someone who was running in through the neighbourhood."

And so, seeing that was traumatizing me as a young person," she added.

She said: But it fit in with all of the police aggression that I grew up with living in Compton and Long Beach and Lynwood here in LA. Just a continuous presence always around.

"So when I see police, I do not think they are here to protect me," she told Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey Presents: Where Do We Go From Here? will air from 10pm on Thursday 11th June and Friday 12th June on Quest Red and dplay.
The Avengers might currently be in something of a transitional period. Certainly, Earths Mightiest Heroes deserve a break after Avengers: Endgame. Likewise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe needs time to reassess and recalibrate. After all, Loki isnt the only MCU character with a shaky allegiance to good or evil. In fact, one Avenger flip-flops nearly as much.

The cast of Avengers: Infinity War | Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney

The heroes and villains of the MCU are known for shifting alliances

With more than 20 movies, the MCU has given its characters plenty of room to grow and evolve. So fans have seen heroes go rogue, and villains find their way to the light. Even within the core Avengers, nearly all of them have confronted their own inner darkness.

Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) was a Russian assassin before S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited her. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) unknowingly contributed to terrorism through Stark Industries. Following the death of his family, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) became a violent vigilante known as Ronin. And Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)  well, you wouldnt like him when hes angry.

Conversely, a few characters who started out as villains have shown a lot more dimension in subsequent appearances. Guardians of the Galaxys Nebula (Karen Gillan) turned from Thanos (Josh Brolin) warrior to a full-on Avenger. And Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) joined up with Ultron (James Spader) to destroy the Avengers before switching sides.

RELATED: Marvel Phase 4: The 1 Major Change that Even Made Kevin Feige Nervous

Loki is the best known, but another character also has a very dark past

Tom Hiddlestons Loki has become the go-to example of an MCU character who has expertly shifted between hero and villain. Throughout his appearances, Loki fluctuates between teaming up with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and trying to destroy him. As the god of mischief, wed expect nothing less.

But another character is just as unreliable. And its not even his fault.

When audiences meet Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), hes the loyal, good-hearted friend of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). After seemingly falling to his death, Bucky emerges decades later as the deadly Winter Soldier. All that time, he was the brainwashed expert assassin for HYDRA. Captain America: Civil War even reveals he killed Tony Starks parents back in the 1990s.

Just within that third MCU Captain America film, Bucky goes back and forth between hero and villain. Of course, unlike Loki, Bucky has no choice. Hes at the mercy of Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) and retreats to Wakanda for reprogramming. From that point on, Bucky is back in control. Hopefully, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier allows him to stay with the good guys.

RELATED: Marvel Wasted Millions in the Most Useless Casting of an A-List Actor in the MCU

Which hero could turn against the Avengers in the upcoming movies?

Even if Bucky does remain loyal to his fellow MCU heroes, perhaps other characters will take a dark turn. If power corrupts, then heroes like Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Scarlet Witch could easily become the next Big Bad.

The biggest theory MCU fans have been mulling is regarding Hulk. The character has the most untapped potential to become a villain in Phase 4. Especially now that Bruce Banner has combined the brains and the brawn, an evil Hulk could be unstoppable if Marvel Studios goes that route.
Flooded road with

Tropical Storm Cristobal crashed into the Gulf Coast last weekend, making landfall on the Louisiana coast Sunday evening.

Many areas were flooded by storm surge and torrential rains, with closures mainly on secondary roads.

SONAR Critical Events and radar: Tuesday, June 9, 2020, 9 a.m. EDT

The remnants of the storm have been moving slowly northward since landfall, centered near Jefferson City, Missouri as of this morning. The system has traveled only around 660 miles, averaging a forward speed of just 16 mph.

As the system heads toward the Great Lakes-upper Midwest, it will continue to pull tropical moisture into the region. The result will be 2 to 4 inches of rainfall, drenching many areas from Missouri to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Rainfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour at times will push totals to 5 or 6 inches in some spots, increasing the risk for flash flooding and potential road closures.

Delays in surface transportation and freight movement are most likely to occur on the Interstate 35, 90, and 94 corridors, impacting cities such as Jefferson City, Missouri; Des Moines, and Davenport, Iowa; Minneapolis-St. Paul and Rochester, Minnesota; as well as Eau Claire and La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Severe thunderstorms could also pop from Lincoln, Nebraska to Topeka, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, in addition to areas from Chicago to Indianapolis, Indiana; St. Louis, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; as well as Clarksville and Jackson, Tennessee. Drivers may run into isolated tornadoes, large hail, and very gusty winds in these areas.

Wednesday, the severe thunderstorm threat moves into the Northeast, including the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania freight market where outbound volumes have been rising recently.

Other Notable Weather

Speaking of winds, conditions will be dangerous across the central and southern Plains today and tomorrow. There's an elevated risk of rollovers from eastern Colorado into Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and northern Texas as crosswinds from the north blast across I-40, I-70, and I-80. Gusts could reach 60 to 80 mph in some areas, making deadheading and hauling light loads especially risky.

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A heatwave will hit Texas today, with record highs possible of 95 to near 105 degrees from Houston to Austin and Brownsville. Reefer drivers will need to make sure their trailers are set to the proper internal temperatures in order to protect produce, beverages and other freight that may spoil in the heat.

Humidity will be stifling, leading to heat index readings of 105 to 120 degrees. So drivers should also take care of themselves, not just their trucks. In order to avoid heat illness or stroke, drivers should spend as little time as possible outside and drink plenty of water. When taking breaks, stay in air-conditioned spaces as much as possible.

Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Nick Austin.

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Extreme space weather events can significantly impact systems such as satellites, communications systems, power distribution and aviation. They are driven by solar activity which is known to have an irregular but roughly 11 year cycle. By devising a new, regular 'sun clock', researchers have found that the switch on and off of periods of high solar activity is quite sharp, and are able to determine the switch on/off times. Their analysis shows that whilst extreme events can happen at any time, they are much less likely to occur in the quiet interval.

The clock will help scientists to determine more precisely when the risk for solar storms is highest and help to plan the impacts of space weather on our space infrastructure, important since the next switch on of activity may be imminent as solar activity moves from its current minimum.

Published in Geophysical Research Letters by a team led by the University of Warwick, the sun clock uses the daily sunspot number record available since 1818 to map solar activity over 18 solar cycles to a standardised 11 year cycle or 'clock'. No two solar cycles are the same, but using a mathematical technique known as the Hilbert transform, the researchers were able to standardise the solar activity cycle for the first time.

The clock revealed that the transitions between quiet and active periods in solar activity are sharp. Once the clock is constructed from sunspot observations it can be used to order observations of solar activity and space weather. These include occurrence of solar flares seen in X-ray by the GOES satellites and F10.7 solar radio flux that tracks solar coronal activity. These are all drivers of space weather on the Earth, for which the longest record is the aa index based on magnetic field measurements in the UK and Australia going back over 150 years. All these observations show the same sharp switch on and switch off times of activity.

Once past switch on/off times are obtained from the clock, the occurrence rate of extreme events when the sun is active or quiet can be calculated.

Lead author Professor Sandra Chapman, of the University of Warwick's Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, said: "Scientists spend their lives trying to read the book of nature. Sometimes we create a new way to transform the data and what appeared to be messy and complicated is suddenly beautifully simple. In this instance, our sun clock method showed clear 'switch on' and 'switch off' times demarcating quiet and active intervals for space weather for the first time.

"Large events can happen at any time, but are much more likely around solar maximum. By cleanly ordering the observations we find that in 150 years of geomagnetic activity at earth, only a few percent occur during these quiet conditions.

"The ability to estimate the risk of a future solar superstorm occurring is vital for space and ground-based technologies that are particularly sensitive to space weather, such as satellites, communications system, power distribution and aviation.

"If you have a system sensitive to space weather you need to know how likely a big event is, and it is useful to know when we are in a quiet period as it allows maintenance and other activities that make systems temporarily more fragile."

The research was co-authored by Scott Mcintosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Robert Leamon of the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Nick Watkins of the University of Warwick and London School of Economics and Political Science.

Robert Leamon said: "The Hilbert transform is a really powerful technique across all of science. Sandra suggested it to me on a completely different project - this really is a serendipitous chain of events - because of her work in lab fusion plasmas, and when we applied it to sunspots, we saw it tied to the sharp switch-on of activity that we'd seen elsewhere. Sandra then saw the switch-off looking at the aa index."

Scott Mcintosh said: "We foresee that the door that this innovative work opens will lead to development of meaningful climatologies for solar activity and improved predictability that will result from that."

###

* 'Quantifying the solar cycle modulation of extreme space weather' is published in Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087795

Notes to editors:

For interviews or a copy of the paper contact:

Peter Thorley

Media Relations Manager (Warwick Medical School and Department of Physics) | Press & Media Relations | University of Warwick

Email: peter.thorley@warwick.ac.uk

Mob: +44 (0) 7824 540863

This work was supported by the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is a major facility sponsored by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977
Phuket fruit trader up in arms over B60k of unripe durian

PHUKET: A Phuket fruit trader has started the long journey from Phuket to Trat province, on the Cambodian border more than 1,100km away, to return a shipment of 636kg of unripe monthong durian that cost more than B61,340.



By Khunanya Wanchanwet

Wednesday 10 June 2020, 01:08PM

Mr kosit set out to return some of the durian to Trat province yesterday (June 9). Photo: PR Phuket

The fruit trader, Kosit Rattanaphong, filed at a complaint at the Damrongdhama centre (Ombudsmans office) at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday afternoon (June 9) to seek support for his claim after local police told him there was little they could do to help him.

The fruit trader, Kosit Rattanaphong, explained that he had placed his order with a farm in Trat on May 31, and the shipment arrived in Phuket on June 1.

But the durian was harvested too early, Mr Kosit said, presenting some of the durian as evidence.

Mr Kosit said that the seller at the farm had guaranteed him that if the durian was unfit to sell he could return it.

I tried to talk to the seller to help solve the problem, but the seller always evades me, Mr Kosit said.

Capt Jarat Lempan of the Wichit Police confirmed that Mr Kosit had filed a complaint at Wichit Police Station over the shipment.

"Sadly, I could not help Mr Kosit much because he bought it from Trat province. The crime happened there. It is outside my area of responsibility.

So I made a police record of the incident and I will transfer this case to relevant police in Trat province. I advised Mr Kosit to also file a complaint with the Trat police, and to take the durian to present to police there when filing his complaint. I will also explain this case to Trat police," Capt Jarat said.

Mr Kosit explained yesterday that the seller finally contacted him on Monday (June 8) and told him he could get a refund  but only if he delivered the durian back to the farm.

The seller said he would share the cost of delivery, but I am not sure the seller will do this. The distance from Phuket to Trat is a long way, Mr Kosit said.

Regardless, Mr Kosit set out from Phuket yesterday evening with some of the durian his pickup truck.

Before he departed, Mr Kosit confirmed that  if the deal remained sour  he would file a complaint with police in Trat.

The durian I am taking will be my evidence, he said.
Mr. Pompeo notified Congress of the emergency declaration on the afternoon of May 24, 2019, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. That same day, Mr. String was promoted to be the departments acting legal adviser. Congressional officials have raised questions about that appointment.

The three congressional committees investigating the inspector generals firing asked Mr. Linick to do an interview with them last Wednesday. They have also asked seven State Department employees to be interviewed, including Mr. String and Mr. Bulatao, but none agreed to the request.

Mr. Linick told lawmakers that Mr. Bulatao on occasion tried to bully him. And he said the two officials raised the possibility in their meeting that there might be a privilege issue that would prevent Mr. Linick from continuing his investigation. But a privilege issue only exists when a party is acting as a lawyer, and neither official was in that role during the formulation of the emergency declaration.

Mr. Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday that he had not read the transcript of Mr. Linicks interview with Congress. He argued that the inspector general is supposed to work for the agency head  thats me  and they are supposed to deliver and help make that organization better.

Its not what Mr. Linick did, he added.

Mr. Pompeo did not agree to be interviewed by Mr. Linick for the arms sale inquiry, and submitted a written statement instead. Investigators were close to finishing the investigation this spring and briefed senior State Department officials on findings in early March.

Lawmakers say officials have informally told them that the administration plans to sell another package of precision-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia, worth $478 million, and to grant Raytheon a license to expand its manufacturing footprint in the kingdom.

Mr. Linick also told lawmakers that he informed Mr. Bulatao, as well as Stephen E. Biegun, the deputy secretary of state, and other top agency officials in late 2019 of the inquiry into Mr. Pompeos potential misuse of employees and requested documents from the agency. Mr. Pompeo has indicated he did not know about this inquiry, but Democratic aides say that is unlikely given what Mr. Linick has said.
Indian and Chinese air force fighters remained on the ground, with negligible air activity noticed over the past two days, even as disengagement of troops picked up at two out of four points in the eastern Ladakh sector, officials watching the situation said on Wednesday.

The PLA Air Force fighter activity has come down considerably since military commander talks on June 6.

Fighter air activity was nil on Tuesday while there was some air movement in Aksai Chin region on Wednesday, said the officials cited above, adding that there was significant reduction of Chinese vehicles at patrolling point 14 at Galwan Nullah and a decrease in PLA troops at the contentious finger 4 in the Pangong Tso sector.

The PLA has already moved out 15 high-speed interceptor boats from the finger 4 area of the high-altitude lake.

According to senior officials, the reduction of air activity and the withdrawal from the two most contested points in eastern Ladakh means that disengagement will pick up in the coming days, with military commanders on both sides in touch with each other.

While the annual summer military exercises are on in Chinas Xinjiang region, the air forces on both sides conducted combat air patrol sorties around the stand-off area with air defences ready across the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Both the Indian Air Force (IAF) and PLAAF (Peoples Liberation Army Air Force) had been flying their platforms since the stand-off between the two countries armies began a month ago in the Galwan and Pangong Tso areas of eastern Ladakh.

The PLAAF brought in additional strength of half-a-squadron of fighters to the western Xinjiang region in the name of military exercises and had not only activated its air defences but also all the air basesKashgar, Hotan, Yarkand, Korla, Ngari-Gunsain the region. The Ministry of External Affairs remains tight-lipped about the ground situation in eastern Ladakh, but it is understood that the disengagement will be done slowly and steadily by the two armies with the military commanders being in touch with each other.

Even though the Chinese PLAAF has undertaken a number of sorties in the vicinity of eastern Ladakh like the Indian Air Force, senior Indian military commanders believe that this fighter flying was on account of exercises. As we have no confirmation that the fighters were loaded with ammunition and missiles, we believe that the Chinese Air Force was participating in military exercises. Weaponising the aerial platform would have indicated the intent of the Chinese military, a senior official said.

Senior IAF officials said the loading of air-to-air missiles is a sure indicator of the adversarys intent as the seekers of missiles have limited shelf life and hence there is no point in loading the fighters with expensive weapons if there is no hostile intention

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(Bloomberg)  Huawei Technologies Co. owns the most patents on next-generation 5G technology, ensuring the Chinese company will get paid despite Trump administration efforts to erase it from the supply chain, according to a new study.

Two research firms identified the inventions most closely connected to the 5G standards and found that six companies owned more than 80%  Huawei, Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc., Nokia Oyj, Ericsson AB and Qualcomm Inc., the only U.S.-based company in the group.

That may be awkward for President Donald Trump, whose administration has launched a global effort to shut out Huawei, accusing the Chinese company of being a security threat. The administration has fired a number of salvos, including a ban on the sale of any silicon made with U.S. know-how that is hurting the Chinese companys aspirations to grow in cutting-edge fields.

Even if they hire some other company to build the 5G infrastructure, they still have to pay the Chinese company because of the intellectual contribution to develop the technology, said Deepak Syal, director of GreyB Services Pte., a technology research firm that conducted the study with analytics firm Amplified AI Inc.

Identifying how many patents a company holds  and how key they are to the industry standards  will help determine who profits most from the next generation of technology, which promises to revolutionize developments such as autonomous cars, robotic surgery and connected homes.

Industry standards are critical to ensure that devices work together and communicate with each other. Tech companies get together to establish those standards and pledge that any relevant patents will be licensed on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.

There have been global patent wars for years over how to define those fair terms and whos entitled to how much money in royalties. They were at the heart of since-settled fights including Apple Inc.s scorched-earth battle with Qualcomm and Huaweis dispute with Samsung. Huawei has also stopped paying Qualcomm what may amount to billions in royalties amid a dispute.

The GreyB and Amplified study examined about 6,400 inventions declared essential to 5G by their owners that had active patents somewhere in the world as of Dec. 31, 2019. By comparing the wording of each patent to the standard, the team of 25 researchers found 1,658 patents to be core to 5G.

Courts and negotiators, though, will ultimately have to decide whether the patents really are essential to the standard, whether theyre valid, and how much they are worth.

Based on the study, all of the companies were found to be padding their patent submissions to ensure they would be able to enforce their rights later and in an effort to increase the amount theyd be able to collect in royalties.

Companies over-declare pretty equally, so reducing everyones share by 75% or so yields the same pecking order, said Jorge Contreras, a law professor at the University of Utah whos written about determining what is essential to a standard.

Huawei has collected more than $1.4 billion in licensing revenue and has paid $6 million to other companies, it said in a court filing in its patent dispute with Verizon Communications Inc.

Huawei creates plenty of its own intellectual property; we dont need to steal anyone elses, Ben Howes, a Huawei spokesman, said in an opinion video. The company said it put together the video in response to the U.S. governments attempts to prevent Huawei from collaborating with academic institutions and innovating with our R&D and patents.

First-Phase Study

The GreyB and Amplified study, considered the first phase as more patents are analyzed and the standards continue to evolve, showed the interconnectedness between companies around the world, Syal said. The the purpose of the study was to bring more clarity to where the discussions or decisions are being made, he said.

Rather than saying who has less contributions or who has less number of patents, lets work toward increasing the intellectual contribution of our country or our company and then build the 5G infrastructure, he said. Otherwise, even by blocking, they are not helping in the end because theyre paying money in terms of royalties.

As part of the Trump administrations efforts against Huawei, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo last week said European countries need to get it out of their system. They need to use Western technologies.

While the administration has helped curtail Huaweis growth outside China, it remains a player because of its global footprint and advanced technology.

From a pure technology standpoint, nationalism just doesnt work anymore, the University of Utahs Contreras said.
Hyderabad, June 10 : 'Bonalu', the state festival of Telangana, will be a low-key affair this time as the state government has appealed to people to celebrate it at their homes in view of Covid-19 pandemic.

As the annual festivities are mainly held in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, which account for majority of Covid-19 cases in the state, the government decided on Wednesday that there will be no public celebrations.

The nearly month-long festival is scheduled to begin on June 25 with with the celebrations at the Sri Jagadamba temple atop the historic Golconda Fort.

After a high-level meeting with elected representatives, police, municipal and Endowments Department officials, Animal Husbandry Minister T. Srinivas Yadav announced that only priests will perform Bonalu in the temples while people should celebrate the festival at their homes.

"People are requested not to come to the temples. The decision was taken to check the spread of coronavirus," he said.

He said the decision was taken as per te guidelines issued by the Central and the state governments for religious festivities.

The minister said the priests at the leading temples would perform the rituals, make the offerings on behalf of the government and take out traditional procession. There will be no public participation in these festivities.

The celebrations are scheduled at Sri Ujjaini Mahankali temple in Secunderabad on July 12 and 13, at Sri Simhavahini Mahankali temple in Lal Darwaza and at Sri Akkanna Madanna Mahankali temple in Haribowli on July 19 and 20.

The folk festival is mainly celebrated in the twin cities region during the month of 'Ashada' The women make offerings in the form of food to goddess Mahankali in specially decorated pots. During the month-long festival, people also hold 'rangam' or forecasting the future, organise processions and cultural events.

Attired in their best, women queue up at the temples to offer 'Bonalu', which consists of cooked rice, jaggery, curd and turmeric water, carried in steel and clay pots on their heads. The devotees believe that the annual festival will ward off evil and usher in peace.

The annual festivities conclude with a procession from Akkanna Madanna temple. The procession led by a caparisoned elephant, carrying the 'ghatam' of the goddess, passed through the main thoroughfares of the old city, including the historic Charminar.

It is commonly believed that the festival was first celebrated over 150 years ago following a major cholera outbreak. People believed that the epidemic was due to the anger of the Mahankali and began offering 'Bonalu' to placate her.

After formation of Telangana State in 2014, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had declared 'Bonalu' as the state festival.
Buoyed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah's virutal rally in Bihar, the saffrom party has decided personally connect with the people and distribute to them copies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's letter enumerating the achievements of one year of his second term in office, a state party leader said on Wednesday.

The party leaders and workers in the state will visit every household and visit the prime minister's letter from Thursday, Bihar BJP president and MP Sanjay Jaiswal told reporters here.

More than 39 lakh people in Bihar saw Shahs June 7 virtual rally on the internet, while more than one crore people watched the rally on TV, he claimed.

It has been the practice of the Narendra Modi government to give an account of its achievements on the completion of each year (in office). The PM wanted to share the achievements directly with the people through a rally but it was not be possible due to the coronavirus pandemic, Jaiswal, who is also partys chief whip in Lok Sabha, said.

We have set a target of reaching out to one crore households and I am confident that we will surpass it, he said.

BJP MPs, MLAs, MLCs, district presidents, state office bearers will visit the households on Thursday to distribute the prime minister's letter among the people, he said.

The party's block presidents and workers will visit the households on Friday, while booth level workers will visit and interact with the people on June 14, Jaiswal said adding BJP leaders and workers have been asked to wear masks or face covers and maintain social distancing in view of the coronavirus pandeminc.

Only two persons will visit a household for distributing the letters, Jaiswal said adding he will himself visit areas falling under Bankipore assembly constituency of Patna town tomorrow to distribute copies of the prime minister's letter.

Also Read: Coronavirus treatment cost: Tamil Nadu hospitals can't charge above Rs 15,000 a day

Also Read: Vizag gas leak: Andhra govt forms committee to probe incident; seeks report by June 22
[June 10, 2020] Ecopetrol taps the power of global innovation during time of crisis

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Plug and Play and Ecopetrol S.A. (BVC: ECOPETROL, NYSE: EC) signed a partnership to help address future challenges within the energy industry, focusing on sustainability, profitable growth, and digitization of its value chain. Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. It connects startups to corporations and invests in over 250 companies every year. Since its inception in 2016, their programs have expanded worldwide to over 30 locations globally, giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. Today the Colombian company announced its partnership with Plug and Play to continue fostering its history of innovation as the energy industry transitions to a more decarbonized and digitized business over the next decades. "We believe in open innovation and its power for strengthening our digital ecosystem. For this reason, we seek alliances with companies and organizations in Colombia and all over the world. Today we have challenges that require clever ideas and innovative solutions. This alliance with Plug and Play represents the possibility of expanding our options to reach the best developments," said Felipe Bayon, Ecopetrol's President. "We are incredibly thrilled to be able to partner with Ecopetrol in their digital transformation journey. Latin America is a great place for growing and developing disruptive technologies. This partnership is creating effective channels for startups around the world to collaborate with Ecopetrol and have access to industryexpertise in the region," said Wade Bitaraf, Founder of the Energy platform at Plug and Play.



This commitment to open innovation is part of Ecopetrol's innovation and technology strategy, which seeks to create value by strengthening its digital ecosystem through alliances with entrepreneurship centers in Colombia and the around world. Through this partnership, Ecopetrol will have the opportunity to work one-on-one with hand-selected startups to discover and implement new technologies for their business.

About Ecopetrol

Ecopetrol is the largest company in Colombia; it is a comprehensive oil chain company, one of the 40 largest oil companies in the world, and one of the top four in Latin America. In addition to Colombia, where it generates more than 60% of domestic production, it has exploration and production activities in Brazil, Peru and the United States (Gulf of Mexico). Ecopetrol owns the largest refinery in Colombia, most of the country's oil and pipeline network and is significantly increasing its participation in the biofuel sector. This press release includes statements on business prospects, estimates for operating and financial results and statements related to Ecopetrol's growth prospects. All of them are projections and, as such, are based solely on its Director's expectations on the future of the Company and their continued access to capital in order to finance the Company's business plan. The future realization of these estimates depends on market behavior, regulations, competition, and performance conditions of the Colombian economy and industry, among other factors; and as such, they are subject to change without notice. About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. Since inception in 2006, our programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in over30 locations globally giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. With over 10,000 startups and 400 official corporate partners, we have created the ultimate startup ecosystem in many industries. Companies in our community have raised over $9 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Dropbox, Lending Club and PayPal. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/ For more information please contact:

Media Relations (Colombia)

Jorge Mauricio Tellez

Telephone: + 571-234-4329

Fax: +571-234-4480

Email: [email protected] Plug and Play (Silicon Valley)

Jackie Hernandez

SVP Global Partnerships

Telephone: +1-510-299-1209

Email: [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ecopetrol-taps-the-power-of-global-innovation-during-time-of-crisis-301073335.html SOURCE Plug and Play

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Linking rising unemployment to cases of suicide, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday charged that the BJP was busy focusing on elections and not interested in tackling the problem of joblessness. There have been some cases of migrant labourers, who have returned to Uttar Pradesh from other states recently, committing suicide.

"In UP, unemployment has emerged as a big problem in form of suicides. Forgetting truth of corona, BJP has become busy in elections. When BJP is not considering unemployment and starvation as a problem, how will it solve them.With Bihar election nearing, after some days 'star campaigner' will also start flying," Yadav said in a tweet in Hindi.

BSP supremo Mayawati also asked the government to make concrete efforts to provide jobs to unemployed migrants.

"The Supremo Court order to withdraw cases against migrants in justified, timely and appreciable as due to corona pandemic and lockdown, unemployed migrants could not follow rules and FIRs were lodged against them," Mayawati said in a tweet in Hindi.

"The SC order to provide job to migrants in their home state is also welcome. In this regard governments should be serious and sensitive in providing them jobs and start the process without any delay. This is demand of the BSP," she said.
Cmdr. Weidman, a Springfield resident since 1975, was born in Wilkinsburg, Pa. He was a Vietnam War aviator and later transitioned to aeronautical engineering. He retired from the Navy in 1978 and became a senior scientist for Science Applications International, retiring as a vice president in 1996. He helped preserve Civil War records as a volunteer at the National Archives.
Some landscapes can hold their own against climate change better than others.A studyfrom the University of California, Davis, maps these places, called "climate refugia," where existing vegetation is most likely to buffer the impacts of climate change through the end of the century.

It found that about 15 percent of natural lands in California serve as climate refugia for the state's plants, including trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials. The mapping tool can help natural resource managers prioritize and plan climate-adaptive management efforts, such as wildlife habitat conservation and post-wildfire restoration.

The study is published in a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution devoted to the theme of climate refugia. The issue and an accompanyingwebsite, climaterefugia.org,include other refugia related to fish and wildlife, rivers and wetlands, mountains and forests.

THE SLOW LANE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

As climate change intensifies, identifying and mapping areas of relative stability -- what the journal calls the "slow lane" for climate change -- marks a path toward conserving them and the habitat and services they provide to wildlife and humans.

"This paper shows that there are places where, if you retain what's standing there now, it would have a better chance of remaining for a longer period of time -- like a century -- under wetter and drier conditions," said lead author James Thorne, a research scientist with the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy.

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SO WHERE ARE THESE PLACES?

The northwest Klamath Mountains, northern Sierra Nevada and the Central Coast ranges contain large areas where existing vegetation types are expected to persist under both wetter and drier future climate conditions. These areas are called "consensus refugia."

The three forest types occupying consensus refugia across large parts of Northern California include Klamath mixed conifer, Sierra mixed conifer and Douglas fir. Grasslands and coastal sage scrub cover much of the refugia in the Central Coast ranges.

Vegetation with the largest portions (more than 50 percent) of their extent in climate refugia include montane chaparral and Klamath mixed conifer forests. A quarter of existing Douglas fir also occurs in consensus refugia.

Other findings:

- Elevation and latitude matter: Blue oak woodland and blue oak-foothill pine occurred less in consensus refugia than oaks at higher elevations.

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-Iconic coast redwood forests (0.4 percent of its current range), coast live oak woodland (3.8 percent) and red fir forests (2.3 percent) were poorly represented within the consensus refugia.

POCKETS OF REFUGIA, WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY

If only 15 percent of California's natural lands have climate refugia characteristics for both a wetter and drier future, what does that mean for the remaining 85 percent? Thorne explains that it doesn't mean all other plants and trees will be outright destroyed. But they will likely face a higher level of climate stress than vegetation in refugia. Stress can affect rates of regeneration, reproduction and resilience under warming temperatures, drought, flood and fire.

Previous work by Thorne modeled climate risk to California's native vegetation under various emissions-saving scenarios and found that half the state's native vegetation is at risk for climatic stress. This new paper assumes a business-as-usual climate scenario under which greenhouse gas emissions continue their current trajectory.

"California is one of the biodiversity hot spots of the world," Thorne said. "Our natural ecosystems help to support all of the people in the state as well as this incredible range of species. My hope is that we start to be proactive in our management of landscapes, understanding that climate change is going to bring impacts and that we have to change how we address them."
DALLAS, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Puration, Inc. (USOTC: PURA) today confirmed plans to publish details of a developing merger transaction between PURA's cannabis cultivation operation spun-off to Nouveau (USOTC: NOUV) and Kali-Extracts (USOTC: KALY) NCM Biotech subsidiary. The planned merger transaction includes resolving the delayed issue of a dividend to PURA shareholders intended from the original cannabis cultivation. The terms of the planned merger transaction between PURA's cannabis cultivation operation and NCM Biotech includes a planned issue of dividends to PURA shareholders.

In an effort to concentrate on its CBD infused products business, PURA spun off its cannabis cultivation business it had been developing to NOUV in a transaction that included a planned dividend of NOUV stock to PURA shareholders.

The cannabis cultivation operation is thriving. The operation has recently purchased and relocated to a new property from its former leased property. Texas lawmakers have recently implemented hemp friendly farming regulations and in so doing, universities within the State of Texas have initiated hemp farming research programs. PURA's cannabis cultivation spinoff has initiated a number of joint research applications with Texas universities.

While the cannabis cultivation spinoff is operationally advancing, the plans for harnessing the NOUV public holding company capital structure opportunities to contribute to further advancing the cannabis cultivation spinoff have languished. PURA has devised a strategy to unwind the NOUV deal and simultaneously execute a new spinoff transaction. The new strategy does include a dividend within the spirit of the original transaction with NOUV.

PURA's cannabis cultivation spinoff has been working with Kali-Extracts' (KALY) NCM Biotech subsidiary in a joint effort to develop a proprietary cultivar to advance NCM Biotech's ongoing work to produce various medical treatments from their patented cannabis extraction process. NCM Biotech and PURA's cannabis cultivation spinoff are developing a plan to merge the two operations.

NCM Biotech is focused on medical research and the development of treatments derived from its patented cannabis extraction process. See a recent research report on CBD extracts derived from NCM Biotech's patented extraction process: Journal of Cannabis Research.

While plans for the new strategy for PURA's cannabis cultivation spinoff do involve an intended merger with KALY's NCM Biotech subsidiary, it does not include a stock transaction with the KALY public holding company. The intended merger would be realized within a new company. The new strategy does include a dividend from the new company to the PURA shareholders within the spirit of the original transaction with NOUV. The planned new strategy that includes a merger of NCM Biotech and PURA's cannabis cultivation spinoff is designed to benefit both PURA shareholders and KALY shareholders.

PURA anticipates making specifics of the new strategy public later this week.

For more information on Puration, visit http://www.purationinc.com.

Disclaimer/Safe Harbor:

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies' contracts, the companies' liquidity position, the companies' ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Contact:

Puration, Inc.

Brian Shibley

[email protected]

+1-(800)-861-1350

SOURCE Puration, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.purationinc.com


An influencer who blogs about her infertility battles has revealed her 51-year-old mother is carrying her baby.

Breanna Lockwood, from Chicago, and her husband-of-four-years Aaron, 28, have been trying to get pregnant since they got married.

The couple have endured seven surgical procedures, three rounds of harvesting eggs and four failed embryo transfers, as well as a single and twin miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy.

Breanna has shared their painful struggle on her Instagram and Facebook pages over the past year, admitting in a recent post: 'The trials and tribulations of infertility was undoubtedly the hardest venture we have had to face in our lives.'

Breanna Lockwood, from Chicago, and her husband Aaron (pictured right) have been trying to get pregnant since they got married - and her mother Julie (left) is now carrying their child

But last month she revealed that their dream of becoming parents is a step closer to becoming a reality, thanks to her mother Julie.

Over the weekend, Breanna posted a photo of Julie at 17 weeks pregnant, cradling her baby bump while she and Aaron hold up the ultrasound and an announcement board.

She captioned the sweet image: 'They say, "It takes a village to raise a child," but for some it can take a village to HAVE a child... We are happy to announce, finally... BABY LOCKWOOD IS ON THE WAY!'

Explaining the baby was 'made with a lot of love and a little bit of science', Brianna told how Julie is their gestational carrier.

'My mom will be carrying and delivering our baby!' she continued. 'The biggest supporter in my life is giving us our biggest blessing.

Explaining the baby was 'made with a lot of love and a little bit of science', Breanna, 29, told how Julie, 51, is their gestational carrier

'My beautiful mama is carrying her first grandchild, Aaron and my biological child, as a gestational carrier!'

A gestational carrier is a woman who carries someone else's biological child without donating any of her own eggs or DNA.

Breanna told how Julie went 'through the ringer of heath tests' to see if she could qualify to be her surrogate.

In fact, the mother-to-be says she was turned down by multiple reproductive doctors who said that her mom is too old to be a surrogate, despite the fact that she is in 'tip top' shape physically.

'Starting this venture i was told "no" by multiple REs [reproductive endocrinologists] as the standard age cut off is 45,' Breanna explained.

In the end however, it was Julie's healthy, active lifestyle that convinced doctors she would be able to carry a child safely.

Breanna explained that Julie had to go 'through the ringer of heath tests' to see if she could qualify to be her surrogate

Julie, pictured at 11 weeks pregnant, is one of only a handful of surrogates across the US to deliver their grandchild via gestational surrogacy

'Once my doctor met my mom at one of my appointments I could see his wheels start turning,' Breanna said. 'My mom is a double Boston marathon runner, and triathlete, and looks more like my sister.

'She is in tip top shape, better health than she was in her twenties when she gave birth to me! He agreed to see if she passed the preliminary testing and talk to the board... with flying colors she passed.'

The embryo transfer took place on February 25, and Julie is now due in November.

Breanna wrote: 'Sharing this adventure with my mom has been the most unique and amazing experience.

'Surrogacy is truly the most selfless gift. She is the pure example of "you would do anything for your kids" and if I can even be half of the mother she is, I know I'm doing something right.'

She added that Julie is one of only a handful of surrogates across the US to deliver their grandchild via gestational surrogacy.

The embryo transfer took place on February 25, and Julie - pictured with Breanna - is now due in November

Breanna has shared the couple's painful struggle online over the past year, admitting: 'The trials and tribulations of infertility was undoubtedly the hardest venture we have had to face'

The response from Breanna's 5,809 Instagram followers was overwhelmingly positive, with many commenting on her mother's incredible gesture.

One wrote: 'This is absolutely beautiful,' while another posted: 'So incredible! What a wonderful gift for all of you!'

In a follow-up Facebook post, in which she tagged her mom Julie, her father Rick, and her husband Aaron, Breanna thanked all of the thousands of people who have reached out to offer words of support to the family.

'I just want to to say we are absolutely overwhelmed with the love and kind words we have received! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!' she wrote.

'Never in a million years did I expect to receive so many touching messages, from all of the world, of women struggling with infertility and loss.

'Dont be ashamed of your story, it will inspire others.'
For some students at Hunter College in New York City, Asian American studies courses arent just a way to learn about their communities  theyre also a way to get involved in them.

As part of a class she took this spring, senior Isabelle Yank volunteered at CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, a group that serves poor and working class immigrants and refugees, and used her language skills in Mandarin to call older adults in Queens to check in on them during the coronavirus pandemic.

It's just one example of how Asian American students and student groups across the country continued acts of activism related to COVID-19, racial justice and voter registration as the academic school year came to an end, even if it meant doing so remotely.

One of Yank's classmates, Yuanqian He, a sophomore, volunteered with Red Canary Song, a coalition supporting Chinese massage parlor workers, to help inform them about unemployment insurance. Nafiul Bahri, a senior, meanwhile, raised money for COVID-19 patients living in Bangladesh. He promoted the campaign through social media, saying that as a Bangladeshi American, the effort was also a way to stay connected to his roots.

As Bangladeshis here, we can make a difference, Bahri told NBC Asian America. Every little bit matters. We had some folks donate $200, and one day we had some folks donate $2. But at the end of the day, something is better than nothing.

Isabelle Yank, a student at Hunter College, volunteered to check up on older Mandarin-speakers in Queens during the coronavirus pandemic. (Courtesy Isabelle Yank)

Glenn Magpantay, who teaches Asian American studies at Hunter College and serves as executive director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, said that he requires students to volunteer at community-based organizations as part of his course. (This year because of the pandemic, it was voluntary, but some students still contributed remotely.) He said that they deconstruct the model minority myth in the classroom, and volunteering further exposes the needs many in the Asian American community have.

We learn about the Asian American community through books and articles, through pop culture and media, but theres a real community thats there, he said.

Story continues

For other students, online organizing is a way to explore issues such as race and identity.

During a Zoom conference on activism in May, the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of the Midwest discussed issues such as Asian American identity during the coronavirus pandemic, how to address anti-blackness, and the killings of Trayvon Martin and Vincent Chin, whose 1982 death at the hands of two white men galvanized the Asian American community. It also included discussions about race and gender, as well as breakout sessions and a skit showing solidarity with other communities.

We're always going back to the Vietnamese identity, but also thinking intersectionally about all the other identities we have, Pele Le, one of the organizers of the event, said.

The virtual conference, which was attended by 24 people, was a way to keep student leaders and community organizers connected  which Le said was needed after the larger annual in-person conference planned for March was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Those retreats, and those spaces are extremely valuable in the Midwest, especially as most of us I'd say have the narrative of living in predominantly white spaces, Le said.

Participants were also encouraged to reflect on their own privilege as a way to understand how they could best serve as allies with other communities.

One of our questions was how would you demonstrate or explain what privilege is to someone who doesn't recognize their own privilege? said Justin Le, a recent graduate from the University of Iowa who helped organize the conference. He noted that in light of the wave of protests around the country, UVSA-Midwest is already planning its next workshop, which will focus on creating a space of healing in the community.

For other students, virtual activism became a way to expand their reach beyond the Asian American community.

The Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations, for instance, partnered with Better Than One, a collective of DJs and producers popular within the electronic dance music community, for the 2020 Project, a campaign to register 100,000 Asian American and Pacific Islanders to vote ahead of the 2020 elections.

Together, they put on a two-day virtual music festival called Fresh Off the Vote that livestreamed on Twitch the last week of May. The event drew more than 15,000 people and got more than 450 people to either register to vote or pledge to vote in November, according to Thao Tran, campaign manager with the 2020 Project.

Planning for livestreams and actually doing these livestream events really helped us understand that we want to use our platform to empower others, not just Asian Americans, Ramon Chanco, co-founder of BTO, said.

Fresh Off the Vote (UNAVSA and BTO Collective)

Organizer Chad Dominic Sahilan agreed, saying that current protests around police brutality and racism are a rallying call to fight injustices across all communities, not just within the Asian American community.

With our livestream events taking place concurrently around these civic issues and events, we wanted to bolster and leverage our platform to help represent the underrepresented, Sahilan said, noting that after the event members of BTO donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which pays bail for those who cant afford it.

For Tran, also a student at the University of Texas at Arlington, the experience was a reminder of the importance of organizing during uncertain times.

Never in a million years would I have thought that wed reach that many people for an event to promote civic engagement amongst the young AAPI community, Tran said. With all the issues going on in this world, I constantly tell myself, If I dont try to help make the world a better place, who will?

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BEIJING, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Phoenix Tree Holdings Limited ("Danke" or the "Company") (NYSE: DNK), one of the largest co-living platforms in China with the fastest growth, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020.

FINANCIAL AND OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

All comparisons are made on a year-over-year ("yoy") basis.

For the Quarter Ended March 31, 2020

Revenues increased 62.5% to RMB1,939.6 million ( US$273.9 million ) from RMB1,193.8 million .

( ) from . Net loss was RMB1,234.4 million ( US$174.3 million ) compared to RMB816.2 million . Net margin improved by 4.8 percentage points.

( ) compared to . Net margin improved by 4.8 percentage points. Adjusted net loss (1) was RMB978.9 million ( US$138.2 million ) compared to RMB799.1 million . Adjusted net margin improved by 16.4 percentage points.

was ( ) compared to . Adjusted net margin improved by 16.4 percentage points. Adjusted EBITDA (2) was negative RMB578.3 million ( US$81.7 million ) compared to negative RMB549.6 million . Adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 16.2 percentage points.

was negative ( ) compared to negative . Adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 16.2 percentage points. The number of apartment units operated increased 46.8% to 419,030 units as of March 31, 2020 , from 285,349 units as of March 31, 2019 .

FINANCIAL RESULTS

For the Quarter Ended March 31, 2020

Revenues were RMB1,939.6 million (US$273.9 million) in the first quarter of 2020, representing an increase of 62.5% yoy from RMB1,193.8 million in the first quarter of 2019. The revenue growth was primarily due to an increase in opened apartment units through organic growth and, to a lesser extent, an increase in opened apartment units through the acquisition of Aishangzu (3) in March 2019. The Company had 415,459 opened apartment units as of March 31, 2020, and 270,337 opened apartment units as of March 31, 2019.

Operating expenses were RMB3,101.6 million (US$438.0 million) in the first quarter of 2020, representing an increase of 58.5% yoy from RMB1,957.0 million in the first quarter of 2019.

Rental cost increased 67.5% yoy to RMB1,955.7 million ( US$276.2 million ) from RMB1,167.6 million primarily due to an increase in the number of opened apartment units.

increased 67.5% yoy to ( ) from primarily due to an increase in the number of opened apartment units. Depreciation and amortization increased 67.0% yoy to RMB328.3 million ( US$46.4 million ) from RMB196.5 million primarily due to an increase in the number of apartment units renovated and opened.

increased 67.0% yoy to ( ) from primarily due to an increase in the number of apartment units renovated and opened. Other operating expenses increased 105.6% yoy to RMB250.6 million ( US$35.4 million ) from RMB121.9 million . The increase was primarily attributable to (i) a loss on early termination of rental agreements due to the early termination of certain leases with property owners, which was primarily due to the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in a loss for the related leasehold improvements and deposits to the property owners for the first quarter of 2020, (ii) an increase in cost of services as the Company operated more apartment units, and (iii) an increase in incentives for apartment sourcing as the Company had more opened apartment units and recorded more amortized commissions and lead generation fees for sourcing such apartments in the first quarter of 2020. The following table sets forth a breakdown of other operating expenses, expressed as an absolute amount and as a percentage of revenues, for the periods indicated:



Three Months Ended March 31,

2019

2020

RMB

%

RMB

US$

%

(in thousands, except for percentages) Other operating expenses:

















Cost of services 56,603

4.7

76,070

10,743

3.9 Payroll cost 36,877

3.1

41,514

5,863

2.1 Incentives for apartment sourcing 15,628

1.3

30,008

4,238

1.5 Other expenses 12,776

1.1

32,315

4,563

1.8 Loss on early termination of rental

agreements -

-

70,671

9,981

3.6 Total 121,884

10.2

250,578

35,388

12.9

Pre-opening expense decreased 89.0% yoy to RMB9.2 million ( US$1.3 million ) from RMB83.3 million primarily due to a significantly lower number of pre-opening apartment units during the quarter compared to the prior year period. During the first quarter of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Company significantly slowed down the rate of sourcing new apartments.

decreased 89.0% yoy to ( ) from primarily due to a significantly lower number of pre-opening apartment units during the quarter compared to the prior year period. During the first quarter of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Company significantly slowed down the rate of sourcing new apartments. Sales and marketing expenses decreased 9.7% yoy to RMB204.0 million ( US$28.8 million ) from RMB225.9 million . The decrease was primarily attributable to a decrease in advertising expenses due to the Company's proactive actions to control costs and expenses. The result was partially offset by: (i) an increase in incentives for apartment renting, and (ii) an increase in payroll cost for sales and related support teams as a result of the recognition of the share-based compensation ("SBC") expenses upon the completion of the Company's initial public offering ("IPO") in January 2020 . The following table sets forth a breakdown of sales and marketing expenses, expressed as an absolute amount and as a percentage of revenues, for the periods indicated:



Three Months Ended March 31,

2019

2020

RMB

%

RMB

US$

%

(in thousands, except for percentages) Sales and marketing expenses:

















Advertising expenses 120,264

10.1

73,176

10,334

3.8 Payroll cost 58,665

4.9

67,697

9,561

3.5 Incentives for apartment renting 37,434

3.1

56,032

7,913

2.9 Other expenses 9,557

0.8

7,057

997

0.3 Total 225,920

18.9

203,962

28,805

10.5

General and administrative expenses increased 142.0% yoy to RMB273.7 million ( US$38.7 million ) from RMB113.1 million primarily due to the recognition of a substantial amount of SBC expenses upon the completion of the Company's IPO in January 2020 and a majority of which was allocated to general and administrative expenses.

increased 142.0% yoy to ( ) from primarily due to the recognition of a substantial amount of SBC expenses upon the completion of the Company's IPO in and a majority of which was allocated to general and administrative expenses. Technology and product development expenses increased 25.6% yoy to RMB61.0 million ( US$8.6 million ) from RMB48.6 million as a result of SBC expenses but partially offset by the Company's proactive cost and expense controls.

increased 25.6% yoy to ( ) from as a result of SBC expenses but partially offset by the Company's proactive cost and expense controls. Impairment of long-lived assets were RMB19.1 million ( US$2.7 million ) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to nil in the prior year period. The recognition of the impairment was due to the underperformance of certain apartment units relative to their projected operating results during the Company's impairment test in the first quarter of 2020. The underperformance of these apartment units was primarily caused by the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

were ( ) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to nil in the prior year period. The recognition of the impairment was due to the underperformance of certain apartment units relative to their projected operating results during the Company's impairment test in the first quarter of 2020. The underperformance of these apartment units was primarily caused by the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. SBC expenses included in the operating expenses items above were RMB206.3 million ( US$29.1 million ) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to RMB1.5 million in the prior year period. Because the exercisability of the share options granted by the Company was conditional upon the completion of its IPO, the Company did not recognize any SBC expenses related to the share options granted beforehand. Upon the completion of its IPO, the Company immediately recognized a substantial amount of SBC expenses associated with vested option awards in the first quarter of 2020. The following table sets forth a breakdown of SBC expenses, expressed as an absolute amount and as a percentage of revenues, for the periods indicated:



Three Months Ended March 31,

2019

2020

RMB

%

RMB

US$

%

(in thousands, except for percentages) SBC expenses included in:

















Other operating expenses -

-

14,320

2,022

0.7 Sales and marketing expenses -

-

18,771

2,651

1.0 General and administrative expenses 1,481

0.1

140,943

19,905

7.2 Technology and product development

expenses -

-

32,267

4,557

1.7 Total 1,481

0.1

206,301

29,135

10.6

As a result of the above, operating loss was RMB1,162.1 million (US$164.1 million) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to RMB763.2 million in the first quarter of 2019.

Interest expenses were RMB84.7 million (US$12.0 million) in the first quarter of 2020, representing an increase of 15.2% yoy from RMB73.5 million in the first quarter of 2019. The increase was attributable to an increase in interest expenses related to rent financing and additional bank loans. The following table sets forth a breakdown of interest expenses, expressed as an absolute amount and as a percentage of revenues, for the periods indicated:



Three Months Ended March 31,

2019

2020

RMB

%

RMB

US$

%

(in thousands, except for percentages) Interest expenses

















Interest expenses related to rent financing 50,066

4.2

56,151

7,930

2.9 Other interest expenses 23,454

2.0

28,578

4,036

1.5 Total 73,520

6.2

84,729

11,966

4.4

Net loss was RMB1,234.4 million (US$174.3 million) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to RMB816.2 million in the first quarter of 2019. Net margin improved by 4.8 percentage points to negative 63.6% from negative 68.4%. Adjusted net loss was RMB978.9 million (US$138.2 million) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to RMB799.1 million in the prior year period. Adjusted net margin improved by 16.4 percentage points to negative 50.5% from negative 66.9%.

Net loss per basic and diluted share was RMB0.87 (US$0.12) compared to RMB3.95 in the prior year period. Adjusted net loss per basic and diluted share (4) was RMB0.69 (US$0.10) compared to RMB3.88 in the prior year period.

EBITDA was negative RMB833.8 million (US$117.8 million) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to negative RMB566.7 million in the prior year period. EBITDA margin improved by 4.5 percentage points to negative 43.0% from negative 47.5%. Adjusted EBITDA was negative RMB578.3 million (US$81.7 million) in the first quarter of 2020 compared to negative RMB549.6 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 16.2 percentage points to negative 29.8% from negative 46.0%.

Cash and restricted cash were RMB4,226.4 million (US$596.9 million) as of March 31, 2020.

KEY OPERATING METRICS





As of





March 31,

June 30,

September 30,

December 31,

March 31,



2019

2019

2019

2019

2020

Number of cities in which the

Company operated

9

10

13

13

13

Number of apartment units the

Company operated (by status):





















Pre-opening apartment units (1)

15,012

5,160

14,835

7,081

3,571

Opened apartment units (2)

270,337

341,213

391,911

431,228

415,459

Total

285,349

346,373

406,746

438,309

419,030

Number of apartment units the

Company operated (by city):





















Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen

176,746

192,268

213,866

223,753

207,046

Other cities

108,603

154,105

192,880

214,556

211,984

Total

285,349

346,373

406,746

438,309

419,030





(1) Represent apartment units that are within the pre-opening period (i.e., the period between the effective date of the lease with the property owners and

the date when the relevant apartment units achieve ready-to-move-in status). (2) Represent apartment units that achieve ready-to-move-in status, including those rented out and to be rented out.



Three Months Ended

March 31,



2019

2020



RMB

RMB US$ Average revenues per rented-out unit per month (1)

2,225

2,015 285 Average leasing cost per unit per month (2)

1,599

1,498 212













(1) Represents the revenues recognized in the period presented divided by rented-out unit days (i.e., the simple sum of the number of days the Company

rented out each apartment unit during a particular period) in such period multiplied by the average number of days per month (assuming 30 days per month). (2) Represents leasing cost (i.e., the sum of rental cost and pre-opening expense) recorded in the period presented divided by total unit days (i.e., the simple

sum of the number of days the Company operated each apartment unit during a particular period) in such period multiplied by the average number of days

per month (assuming 30 days per month).





As of



March 31,

June 30,

September 30,

December 31,

March 31,

2019

2019

2019

2019

2020 Occupancy rate (1)

77.8%

89.0%

86.9%

76.7%

75.6%





















(1) Represents the aggregate number of rented-out apartment units as a percentage of the number of opened apartment units as of a given date.

SHARES OUTSTANDING

As of the date of this press release, the Company had approximately 1,828.8 million ordinary shares outstanding. The total number of shares outstanding excludes shares reserved for future issuances upon exercise or vesting of awards granted under the Company's share incentive plans. Each American Depositary Share (ADS) represents ten Class A ordinary shares.

BUSINESS OUTLOOK

Based on current market and operating conditions, the Company expects revenues for the second quarter of 2020 to be between RMB1,850 million and RMB1,950 million. This forecast reflects the Company's current and preliminary views, which is subject to change and substantial uncertainties, particularly in view of the potential impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, the effects of which are difficult to analyze and predict.

CONFERENCE CALL

A conference call and webcast to discuss Danke's financial results and guidance will be held at 8:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time (8:00 p.m. Beijing Time) on June 10, 2020. Interested parties may listen to the conference call by the dialing numbers below:

United States: 1-888-317-6003 Mainland China Domestic: 4001-206115 Hong Kong: 800-963976 International: 1-412-317-6061 Conference ID: 4043544

The replay will be accessible through June 17, 2020, by dialing the following numbers:

United States: 1-877-344-7529 International: 1-412-317-0088 Conference ID: 10144503

The webcast will be available at ir.danke.com and will be archived on the site shortly after the call has concluded.

(1) Adjusted net loss represents net loss before share-based compensation, incentives for apartment sourcing, and impairment of long-lived assets. Adjusted net loss is a non-GAAP financial measure. See the sections entitled "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" and "Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Measures to the Nearest Comparable GAAP Measures" for more information about the non-GAAP measures referred to in this results announcement. (2) Adjusted EBITDA represents EBITDA before share-based compensation, incentives for apartment sourcing, and impairment of long-lived assets. EBITDA represents net loss before depreciation and amortization, interest expenses, interest income, and income tax benefit (expense). Both adjusted EBITDA and EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures. See the sections entitled "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" and "Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Measures to the Nearest Comparable GAAP Measures" for more information about the non-GAAP measures referred to in this results announcement. (3) Hangzhou Aishang Danke Technology Co., Ltd ("Aishangzu"), a residential rental apartment operator that primarily operated in Hangzhou. (4) Adjusted net loss per basic and diluted share is a non-GAAP financial measure. See the sections entitled "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" and "Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Measures to the Nearest Comparable GAAP Measures" for more information about the non-GAAP measures referred to in this results announcement.

ABOUT DANKE

Danke, one of the largest co-living platforms in China with the fastest growth, is redefining the residential rental market through technology and aims to help people live better. Empowered by data, technology, and a large-scale apartment network, Danke's vibrant and expanding ecosystem connects and benefits property owners, residents, and third-party service providers, and delivers quality and best-in-class services through an innovative "new rental" business model featuring centralization, standardization, and a seamless online experience. Danke was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Beijing, China. For more information, please visit ir.danke.com.

CONTACTS

Investor Relations Contact

Danke IR

Email: [email protected]

Bill Zima

ICR, Inc.

Phone: +1 203-682-8200

Media Relations Contact

Danke PR

Email: [email protected]

Edmond Lococo

ICR, Inc.

Phone: +86 (10) 6583-7510

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Among other things, the business outlook and quotations from management in this announcement, the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on Danke's business and financial performance, as well as Danke's strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. Danke may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Danke's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: Danke's goals and strategies; Danke's future business development, results of operations and financial condition; Danke's ability to maintain and enhance its ecosystem; Danke's ability to expand its apartment network and resident base, meet evolving market trends, adapt to changing demands of property owners and residents and improve the effectiveness of its technology system; the future developments of the coronavirus outbreak; and fluctuations in general economic and business conditions in China and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Danke's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of this press release, and Danke does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

USE OF NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

The Company uses EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net loss, and adjusted net loss per basic and dilute share, each a non-GAAP financial measure, in evaluating its operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. The Company believes that these measures help the management identify underlying trends in the Company's business that could otherwise be distorted by the effect of certain expenses and income that the Company includes in net loss. The Company believes that these measures provide useful information about its operating results, enhance the overall understanding of its past performance and future prospects, and allow for greater visibility with respect to key metrics used by its management in its financial and operational decision-making.

EBITDA represents net loss before depreciation and amortization, interest expenses, interest income, and income tax benefit (expense). Adjusted EBITDA represents EBITDA before share-based compensation, incentives for apartment sourcing, and impairment of long-lived assets. Adjusted net loss represents net loss before share-based compensation, incentives for apartment sourcing, and impairment of long-lived assets. Share-based compensation represents compensation expenses in connection with the restricted shares granted to the Company's co-founders and other share options granted to the Company's employees. Incentives for apartment sourcing consist of commissions and lead generation fees related to apartment sourcing. The Company pays commissions and lead generation fees upfront when the relevant apartment is sourced and amortize such cost on a straight-line basis over the term of the lease with the property owner, which is generally four to six years. Impairment of long-lived assets represents the impairment loss of leasehold improvement, furniture and appliances due to the underperformance of certain apartment units.

The presentation of the non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The Company presents the non-GAAP financial measures because they are used by its management to evaluate operating performance and formulate business plans. The Company believes that the non-GAAP financial measures help identify underlying trends in its business, provide further information about its results of operations, and enhance the overall understanding of its past performance and future prospects.

The non-GAAP financial measures are not defined under U.S. GAAP and are not presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as analytical tools. The Company's non-GAAP financial measures do not reflect all items of income and expense that affect its operations and do not represent the residual cash flow available for discretionary expenditures. Further, the non-GAAP measures may differ from the non-GAAP information used by other companies, including peer companies, and therefore their comparability may be limited. The Company compensates for these limitations by reconciling the non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest U.S. GAAP performance measure, both of which should be considered when evaluating performance. For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table captioned "RECONCILIATIONS OF NON-GAAP MEASURES TO THE NEAREST COMPARABLE GAAP MEASURES" set forth at the end of this press release. The Company encourages investors and others to review its financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure.

EXCHANGE RATE INFORMATION

This announcement contains translations between Renminbi and U.S. dollars solely for the convenience of the reader. The translations from Renminbi to U.S. dollars and from U.S. dollars to Renminbi in this announcement were made at a rate of RMB7.0808 to US$1.00, the exchange rate set forth in the H.10 statistical release of the Federal Reserve Board on March 31, 2020. The Company makes no representation that the Renminbi or U.S. dollar amounts referred to in this announcement could have been or could be converted into U.S. dollars or Renminbi, as the case may be, at any particular rate or at all.

PHOENIX TREE HOLDINGS LIMITED UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (All amounts in thousands, except for share and per share data)



Three Months Ended March 31,

2019 2020

RMB

RMB

US$ Revenues 1,193,770

1,939,589

273,922 Operating expenses:









Rental cost (1,167,613)

(1,955,717)

(276,200) Depreciation and amortization (196,513)

(328,264)

(46,360) Other operating expenses (121,884)

(250,578)

(35,388) Pre-opening expense (83,321)

(9,198)

(1,299) Sales and marketing expenses (225,920)

(203,962)

(28,805) General and administrative expenses (113,109)

(273,749)

(38,660) Technology and product development expenses (48,608)

(61,037)

(8,620) Impairment of long-lived assets -

(19,144)

(2,704) Operating loss (763,198)

(1,162,060)

(164,114) Interest expenses (73,520)

(84,729)

(11,966) Interest income 20,477

10,251

1,448 Loss before income taxes (816,241)

(1,236,538)

(174,632) Income tax benefit -

2,167

306 Net loss (816,241)

(1,234,371)

(174,326) Income/(loss) attributable to non-controlling interest 59

(4,431)

(626) Net loss attributable to Phoenix Tree Holdings Limited (816,300)

(1,229,940)

(173,700) Accretion and modification of redeemable convertible preferred shares (79,168)

(28,692)

(4,052) Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders of Phoenix Tree Holdings Limited (895,468)

(1,258,632)

(177,752)











Net loss (816,241)

(1,234,371)

(174,326) Other comprehensive loss:









Foreign currency translation adjustment 7,853

140,976

19,910 Comprehensive loss (808,388)

(1,093,395)

(154,416) Comprehensive income/(loss) attributable to non-controlling interest 59

(4,431)

(626) Comprehensive loss attributable to ordinary shareholders of Phoenix Tree Holdings Limited (808,447)

(1,088,964)

(153,790) Net loss per share









Basic and diluted (3.95)

(0.87)

(0.12) Weighted average number of shares outstanding used in computing net loss per share









Basic and diluted 226,458,958

1,453,806,974

1,453,806,974

PHOENIX TREE HOLDINGS LIMITED UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (All amounts in thousands, except for share and per share data)





As of December 31,

As of March 31,





2019

2020



RMB

RMB

US$ ASSETS











Current assets:











Cash

685,277

826,396

116,709 Restricted cash

1,417,245

1,384,255

195,494 Accounts receivable, net

2,837

2,984

421 Advance to landlords

223,146

130,147

18,380 Prepayments and other current assets

636,618

625,712

88,369 Total current assets

2,965,123

2,969,494

419,373 Non-current assets:











Restricted cash

1,353,376

2,015,704

284,672 Property and equipment, net

3,167,537

2,881,057

406,883 Intangible asset, net

152,846

138,128

19,507 Goodwill

347,455

347,455

49,070 Deposits to landlords

608,475

577,093

81,501 Other non-current assets

410,703

371,436

52,457 Total non-current assets

6,040,392

6,330,873

894,090 Total assets

9,005,515

9,300,367

1,313,463 LIABILITIES











Current liabilities:











Short-term borrowings and current portion of long-term borrowings

4,554,362

4,654,298

657,312 Accounts payable

726,455

651,639

92,029 Rental payable

553,410

978,020

138,123 Advance from residents

976,348

906,061

127,960 Amount due to related parties

11,343

46,060

6,505 Deposits from residents

605,356

569,772

80,467 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

495,484

544,820

76,944 Total current liabilities

7,922,758

8,350,670

1,179,340 Non-current liabilities:











Long-term borrowings, excluding current portion

669,250

665,250

93,951 Deferred income tax liabilities

7,042

4,875

688 Other non-current liabilities

27,419

6,074

859 Total non-current liabilities

703,711

676,199

95,498 Total liabilities

8,626,469

9,026,869

1,274,838 MEZZANINE EQUITY











Total mezzanine equity

6,106,203

-

- SHAREHOLDERS' (DEFICIT)/EQUITY











Ordinary Shares

35

248

35 Additional paid-in capital

-

7,122,529

1,005,893 Accumulated other comprehensive (loss)/income

(57,852)

83,124

11,740 Accumulated deficit

(5,663,670)

(6,922,302)

(977,616) Total shareholders' (deficit)/equity attributable to ordinary shareholders

(5,721,487)

283,599

40,052 Non-controlling interest

(5,670)

(10,101)

(1,427) Total shareholders' (deficit)/equity

(5,727,157)

273,498

38,625 Total liabilities, mezzanine equity and shareholders' (deficit)/equity

9,005,515

9,300,367

1,313,463

















PHOENIX TREE HOLDINGS LIMITED UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS (All amounts in thousands, except for share and per share data)





Three Months Ended March 31,



2019

2020



RMB

RMB

US$ Net cash used in operating activities

(633,130)

(121,440)

(17,151) Net cash used in investing activities

(641,692)

(178,196)

(25,166) Net cash provided by financing activities

2,475,836

1,017,506

143,699 Effect of foreign currency exchange rate changes on cash and restricted cash

(71,886)

52,587

7,427 Net increase in cash and restricted cash

1,129,128

770,457

108,809 Cash and restricted cash at the beginning of the period

2,465,534

3,455,898

488,066 Cash and restricted cash at the end of the period

3,594,662

4,226,355

596,875















PHOENIX TREE HOLDINGS LIMITED RECONCILIATIONS OF NON-GAAP MEASURES TO THE NEAREST COMPARABLE GAAP MEASURES (All amounts in thousands, except for share and per share data)

The table below sets forth a reconciliation of the Company's net loss to EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA for the periods

indicated:





Three Months Ended March 31,



2019

2020



RMB

RMB

US$ Net Loss

(816,241)

(1,234,371)

(174,326) Add:











Depreciation and amortization

196,513

328,264

46,360 Interest expenses

73,520

84,729

11,966 Income tax benefit

-

(2,167)

(306) Subtract:











Interest income

20,477

10,251

1,448 EBITDA

(566,685)

(833,796)

(117,754) Add:











Incentives for apartment sourcing

15,628

30,008

4,238 Share-based compensation

1,481

206,301

29,135 Impairment of long-lived assets

-

19,144

2,704 Adjusted EBITDA

(549,576)

(578,343)

(81,677)

The table below sets forth a reconciliation of the Company's net loss to adjusted net loss for the periods indicated:





Three Months Ended March 31,



2019

2020



RMB

RMB

US$ Net Loss

(816,241)

(1,234,371)

(174,326) Add:











Incentives for apartment sourcing

15,628

30,008

4,238 Share-based compensation

1,481

206,301

29,135 Impairment of long-lived assets

-

19,144

2,704 Adjusted Net Loss

(799,132)

(978,918)

(138,249)

The table below sets forth a reconciliation of the Company's net loss per basic and diluted share to adjusted net loss per

basic and diluted share for the periods indicated:





Three Months Ended March 31,



2019

2020



RMB

RMB

US$ Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders of Phoenix Tree Holdings

Limited

(895,468)

(1,258,632)

(177,752) Add:











Incentives for apartment sourcing

15,628

30,008

4,238 Share-based compensation

1,481

206,301

29,135 Impairment of long-lived assets

-

19,144

2,704 Adjusted net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders of Phoenix Tree

Holdings Limited

(878,359)

(1,003,179)

(141,675) Adjusted net loss per share











Basic and diluted

(3.88)

(0.69)

(0.10) Weighted average number of shares outstanding used in computing

adjusted net loss per share











Basic and diluted

226,458,958

1,453,806,974

1,453,806,974

SOURCE Phoenix Tree Holdings Limited

Related Links

www.dankegongyu.com


A 41-year-old Allentown man is sought on charges he set his own car on fire along a Bethlehem street, city police report.

Angel Rosa, of the 300 block of North Sixth Street, just after 11:30 p.m. May 14 parked the tan Cadillac STS along the curb in the 1800 block of Livingston Street, police said after viewing surveillance video. The car had right front end damage, police said.

A bearded 5-foot 8-inch to 5-foot 10-inch tall man -- court papers say Rosa is 5 feet 10 inches tall -- opened the trunk and then took clothes from there and changed into them, police said. The man believed to be Rosa appeared to take photos of the damage to the car, police said.

The man makes a phone call and a woman drives up, police said. After they briefly speak, he takes some things from the Cadillac and puts a plastic bag into the womans vehicle, police said. She drives off, police said.

The man goes back to the trunk of the car, takes out a one-gallon gasoline container and pours the fuel inside the drivers side of the car and on the trunk before returning the container to the trunk, police said. He next tosses a flaming piece of paper or cloth into the car, police said. As he walks out of camera range, the glow of the fire can be seen, police said.

The fire was mostly contained by the Bethlehem Fire Department to the drivers seat and center console, police said. Documents in the car showed Rosa was the owner, police said.

Less than a mile north of there, the owner of a Jeep reported it was struck in the 2100 block of East Boulevard by a tan Cadillac, police said. The car fled, police said. Dark transfer paint was on the STSs right front fender, police said after examining the car after a search warrant was served.

Rosa is charged with risking a catastrophe and possessing explosive material (both felonies) as well as dangerous burning (a summary count in the arson category) and driving while his license was suspended due to a DUI, records show.

Rosa, who admitted in a phone conversation with an investigator to driving the car that day, crashing into a yellow pole outside the Walmart along Route 191 in Bethlehem Township and parking in that block of Livingston, denies lighting the vehicle on fire, police said. The car was never reported stolen, police said.

Rosa doesnt have a listed phone number so he couldnt be reached for comment.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting lehighvalleylive.com with a voluntary subscription.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com.
Col5Vid, a witty abbreviation for "Colombia Sin COVID," which means "Colombia without COVID-19," is among the most dynamic charity groups in Colombia today.

Its 25-year-old founder admitted that the concept was not "born at a board room table but on a bedroom sofa."

Expat Andres Arellano, who was born in Colombia and raised in South Florida, said he has never spent so much idle time. A couple of months ago, Arellano, also a financial analyst at a New York food-tech firm went through knee surgery and opted to recover in Bogota Colombia where his parents' home is located.

The Col5Vid founder just got to his parents' home in time for the COVID-19 lockdown in Colombia. This then meant, he'd stay there for a while.

Arellano said, while recovering from the surgery, instead of spending his idle time on Netflix, the young expat shared, he wanted to use it more productively.

Something struck Arellano while watching the news reports, specifically about the Colombians who could not feed their families and work because of the lockdown. "I've also cared" he continued, about helping out the nation that he said, "took in my family."

Col5Vid

Col5Vid is an organization comprising professionals and students who work together in support for Colombia's most vulnerable communities during the crisis, resulting from COVID-19. It is the group's primary role to "connect donors with their beneficiaries" transparently and efficiently.

The main objective of Col5Vid is to put up a bank of both "in-kind and monetary resources" to be distributed across the nation employing strategic alliances.

To date, the organization has already raised $65,000. Through the funds and help from its partners, Col5Vid has assisted in the creation of a network of charities in Colombia.

It has also assisted in the distribution of toiletry and grocery packages for one-month consumption, to thousands of families in need, even those in the "remote, southernmost Amazonas state of Colombia."

Alliances

Col5Vid offers various food coupon donation selections. Such vouchers are based on the grocery shopping food packages offered by Mercados La Recetta, and Grupo Exito includes $25 that can feed a single four-person household good for one month.

Additionally, this organization offers an effective and transparent platform, connecting faculty, students and alumni from different international colleges and university with the most susceptible and pandemic-affected Colombian communities.

Essentially, Col5Vid wants to foster a service link between the pandemic-wreaked communities in the country and the Colombian displacement.

That is why the organization has joined forces with "Give to Colombia" or G2C, which searches for the increase in the flow of international support to Colombia by means of proven transparency. Fundacion Grupo Argos is providing the dependable and "top-of-the-line" delivery of such donations.

G2C is a tax-exempt organization. Its main function is to facilitate the resources' channeling headed for "high-impact social projects" not just in Colombia, but the whole Latin America, as well.

Meanwhile, Fundacion Grupo Argos is an organization that shields water and biodiversity under an incorporated watershed model from which it discusses with communities to create strategies for conservation, eco-friendly culture and ecological production.

Check these out!
A majority black county known as a birthplace of African American empowerment is covering up a Confederate memorial erected more than a century ago and looking for ways to remove it permanently, a government leader said Tuesday.

Workers used a tarpaulin and ropes to cover up the square base of a 111-year-old statue in Tuskegee because it was recently spray painted with obscenities, Macon County Commission Chairman Louis Maxwell said in an interview. Unable to do more because of high winds, crews will look at covering the statue itself later, he said.

The east Alabama county, which is more than 80% black, also is researching what will be needed to remove the statue from its base and relocate it elsewhere, perhaps to a nearby heritage museum, Maxwell said.

Its part of the history of the county whether you like it or not, and we want to preserve it, Maxwell said.

Confederate monuments around the country have fallen in recent years amid contentious debate over whether they are proud monuments to Southern heritage or hated symbols of racism and past slavery. The debate has escalated anew in the nationwide protests over police misconduct and racism.

Erected by an Old South heritage group, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the monument was dedicated in 1909 during the era of legally entrenched white supremacy in the South. It was tagged with anti-Ku Klux Klan graffiti over the weekend amid protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Other cities including Birmingham have removed rebel memorials during the demonstrations, and Maxwell said it's time to take down the monument in Tuskegee, the home of Tuskegee University and the place where the nation's first black military pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen, trained during World War II.

The county is researching the implications of an Alabama law passed in 2017 to prevent the removal of Confederate monuments, Maxwell said. Officials in Birmingham said the cost of a $25,000 state assessment for removing its Confederate monument was worth more than the price of continued unrest.

Maxwell said he is trying to reach representatives of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which had a local chapter as recently as 2018, to discuss the memorial. A Birmingham-area lawyer who previously spoke for the heritage group said he no longer represented it.

Controlled by whites at the time, the county gave a downtown square to the Daughters group in 1906 for use as a park for white people and a Confederate memorial. The park has been open to all for decades since the end of legalized segregation, and Maxwell said that means the county can take back ownership of the land.

The heritage group has previously maintained it still owns the land and the statue.

Officials elsewhere also are trying to take down Old South monuments, most of which went up with Confederate descendants were trying to both honor their relatives and perpetuate the lost cause myth that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery.

A statue of a Confederate soldier was removed from a park in Jacksonville, Florida, early Tuesday, but a judge temporarily blocked Virginia Gov. Ralph Northams administration from removing a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond. The Alabama coastal city of Mobile took down a statue of a Confederate naval officer this week, but isn't ruling out the possibility that it might be returned to the same spot.

In Tennessee, Republican lawmakers are resisting calls to remove a bust from the Capitol of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general who became an early leader in the Ku Klux Klan. The state also has a day in Forrest's honor.

The removals arent isolated to the South. In Indiana, a monument dedicated to Confederate soldiers who died at a Union prison camp in Indianapolis was dismantled on Monday.
FILE - In this Oct. 23, 2019, file photo, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill arrives for a hearing at the state Supreme Court at the Statehouse in Indianapolis. Hill's law license will be suspended for 30 days over an allegation that he drunkenly groped four women during a party, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday, May 11, 2020. The unanimous court decision said that the state's attorney disciplinary commission "proved by clear and convincing evidence that (Hill) committed the criminal act of battery." (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File) (Michael Conroy/AP)
After a swift backlash from residents, the Hudson County Board of Freeholders has nixed a request from Sheriff Frank Schillari for tens of thousands of dollars in new riot gear.

On Monday, The Jersey Journal revealed Schillari requested roughly $23,000 to purchase 150 riot helmets and $3,000 for nonlethal weapons, including tear gas and foam bullets.

The article sparked immediate backlash on social media, with dozens of people blasting the proposal on Facebook and Twitter amid nationwide protests condemning police brutality.

A spokesman for the Hudson County Sheriff declined to comment.

Nevin Perkins, a Jersey City activist and the founder of the Black Men United coalition, called the request a waste of money and a provocation.

First of all, we need an abundance of funding allocated toward civil service programs, community engagement programs, Perkins said. Second of all, its unnecessary. In Jersey City we haven't indicated a need for riot gear or expensive artillery in terms of combatting outbursts. Weve done nothing but keep the peace.

Along with other Hudson County activists, Perkins worked to organize email blasts. Later Monday evening, the countys official Twitter account announced that the resolution will not go forward.

Anthony Vainieri, chair of the Board of Freeholders, said he decided to remove the items from the agenda for this weeks meeting after receiving phone calls and emails from constituents.

It wasnt really the right time to do this right now, he said. It just sends out the wrong message.

Vainieri also removed a request from the county Department of Corrections for 75 batons, which would cost nearly $11,000. Ron Edwards, director of the Hudson County Department of Corrections, appears to have made the request just days before the May 25 death of George Floyd.

In preparation of recent national events, it is imperative that our facility readies officers with the appropriate equipment and prepared for civil protests that may escalate to a dangerous situation, Edwards wrote in a letter to the county dated May 21. Its unclear what events Edwards was referring to.

Hudson County Freeholder Bill ODea said many freeholders were surprised on Monday to see the items on the agenda.

Most of the freeholders were shocked and dismayed that it had been put on the agenda, ODea said, noting that the schedule also includes a vote to declare racism a public health emergency in Hudson County.

How do you have those two items on the same agenda? he asked.

One law enforcement request remained on the schedule: an April proposal by the Hudson County Regional SWAT Team to buy roughly $61,000 of ammunition and equipment. But in a sometimes testy exchange during Tuesdays caucus meeting, some freeholders questioned the necessity and size of the purchase.

Its 100,000 rounds of ammunition, ODea said at the meeting, referring to the Hudson County Prosecutors Office request for nearly $53,000 worth of Winchester .22 bullets. Ive talked to people in the military and they looked at me like, thats a lot of rounds of ammunition."

Gene Rubino, executive assistant prosecutor at the Hudson County Prosecutors Office, defended the request.

When you practice and its methodical, and you practice over and over and over to do your best and to get it right and to do it safely, youre going to go through a lot of ammunition," Rubino told the freeholders, noting that the request for ammunition was part of a routine annual order.

But Freeholder Joel Torres said the disagreement over the purchase needed to lead to larger conversations about the allocation of county funding.

We need to realize that this conversation is also about the institutions that have led to systemic racism over generations, over centuries, he said, adding that the board needed to discuss how to support "people of color like myself, like (Freeholder Jerry Walker), like other freeholders as well, who feel that their voices are not heard, that they continue to be targeted, that they continue to be murdered in the streets for no reason.

The board will vote on the request Thursday.
New Delhi, June 10 : Delhi Congress on Wednesday demanded a white paper on the Kejriwal government's handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar Chaudhary said that due to the inaction and incompetence of the Kejriwal government, the people of Delhi are facing the spectre of a fast spread of Coronavirus, with the Delhi Government raising its hands in helplessness.

Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar Chaudhary said that Kejriwal has squandered a "golden opportunity" to improve the health infrastructure to check the spread of the virus, as Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in Delhi started on March 23, 2020 and Kejriwal had enough time on his hands.

"Kejriwal has misled the people of Delhi before and is still doing so. What was he doing till now? They have not visited any hospitals to check preparedness nor have they checked availability of food so far," said Chaudhary.

The Congress has launched a 'Speak up Delhi' campaign. Party social media head Rohan Gupta said, "We stand with Delhiites in their hour of crisis. We will continue to do our duty. It is not a Congress campaign, but a public campaign. We will not lag behind in our responsibility." Gupta launched www.healingdelhi.in website for Delhiites to share their pain and grief for their redressal.
Transaction Confusion and False Claims Both Leading Causes of Disputes and Chargebacks Shown to be Preventable Through Improved Merchant-Issuer Collaboration

Ethoca, a Mastercard company, today announced the release of new research that reveals cardholders have a strong appetite for digital solutions that provide greater insight into their purchases. These digital solutions will improve customer experience as well as reduce disputes, chargebacks and false claims by delivering in-depth purchase information direct to cardholders through digital channels such as mobile banking applications.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005105/en/

Full digital receipt offers the consumer complete purchase clarity (Photo: Business Wire)

According to the study, 72% of consumers engage with their financial service providers' website or mobile application at least once a month. This makes the digital channel a critical avenue between them and their issuer one that cardholders expect more from when it comes to information available on-demand. Furthermore, 96% of surveyed consumers expressed a preference for having more detailed transaction information available to provide increased clarity. The features identified by the 1,000+ surveyed consumers as being most valuable for alleviating transaction confusion are:

A picture of the printed receipt

The date and location of delivery for online purchases

A full list of products purchased

A link to refund and return details for the purchase

With greater digital dependency, having real-time purchase details is critical for consumers, merchants and card issuers alike. These features not only improve the overall experience for cardholders who no longer need to hunt for this information but they can effectively reduce incidents of false claims where a cardholder files a dispute unintentionally.

False claims are a significant and growing problem for all stakeholders in the payments ecosystem. For digital goods merchants, rates can reach upwards of 80% and higher. One of the most common reasons: transaction confusion. Cardholders reviewing their online statements often have trouble deciphering the brief, unclear descriptions that accompany each transaction, or they mistake genuine transactions made by other members of their household for fraud. This uncertainty often leads cardholders to contact their card issuer to dispute unrecognized transactions.

The resulting chargeback process is a long and expensive ordeal for all involved one that is expected to worsen in the current climate and in years to come. According to the report, the cost of chargebacks to U.S. issuers is expected to grow from US$690 million in 2020, to more than US$1 billion by 2023. The report also found that providing additional transaction clarity has the potential to reduce call volume by 25% in cases where the description of the purchase was unclear. In short, providing these features is a benefit to the entire payments ecosystem: card issuers, merchants, cardholders and supporting payment service providers. It creates a competitive advantage by delivering services that cardholders want while lowering the cost of disputes, false claims and chargebacks.

"Ethoca's collaboration with Aite on this critical research report validates what Ethoca has been hearing from card issuers and merchants for some time that false claims from confusing or scant transaction information are creating a poor customer experience and driving up dispute processing costs," said Keith Briscoe, Chief Marketing Product Officer at Ethoca. "This is the key reason why Ethoca has been laser focused on solving this problem over the last several years with digital receipts and transaction enrichment products. We are continuing to collaborate closely with the largest digital goods providers, retail brands and card issuers globally to ensure every consumer has clarity on the purchases they make through their trusted banking relationships."

"This study provides timely insights for card issuers, since consumers' reliance on digital channels has dramatically increased in the wake of the pandemic," said Julie Conroy, research director with Aite Group. "It is more important than ever for issuers to be able to facilitate user-friendly self-service capabilities. The provision of detailed transaction information in the digital channels and call center is an important underpinning of any digital dispute capability."

Other key findings include:

27% of consumers report that, once they connected with their financial institution, the charge wound up being correct.

A merchant interviewed said they are seeing a 65% deflection rate among issuers that leverage collaborative solutions to display enhanced transactional details. A 'deflection' occurs when clarifying purchase detail is successful in giving the cardholder the information they need to avoid pursuing an unnecessary fraud claim.

To download a copy of the full report, please visit https://hs.ethoca.com/aitereport

For an in-depth look at the findings of the report, and a walkthrough of what they mean for all stakeholders in the payments ecosystem, join Keith Briscoe and Julie Conroy for their upcoming digital session during Mastercard's Virtual Cyber Risk Summit on Wednesday June 17, 2020.

For more details on how consumers can best navigate billing disputes in the COVID-19 era, visit the Mastercard Content Exchange.

About Ethoca

Ethoca is the leading, global provider of collaboration-based technology that enables card issuers, ecommerce merchants and online businesses to increase card acceptance, stop more fraud, recover lost revenue and eliminate chargebacks from both fraud and customer service disputes. Through the Ethoca Network the first and only of its kind in the industry we are closing the information gap between card issuers and merchants. This unique capability makes fraud and customer dispute insight available and actionable in real time.

Our suite of services delivers significant revenue growth and cost saving opportunities to more than 8,000 merchants and 5,000+ card issuers in 70+ countries. Seven of the top 10 North American ecommerce brands, nine of the top 10 North American card issuers and 10 of the top 15 UK card issuers rely on Ethoca solutions and the network that powers them.

Ethoca was acquired by Mastercard in 2019.

To learn more, please visit www.ethoca.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005105/en/

Contacts:

Scott Girling-Heathcote

Senior Account Manager

SkyParlour

scott@skyparlour.com
World News: Sustainable fishery management key to ensuring food security, says FAO

June 10,2020 | Source: New Food Magazine

Worldwide per capita fish consumption has reached a new record of 20.5 kilograms per year and is poised to increase further in the decade ahead, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which is said to underscore the critical role of fish in global food and nutrition security. In light of this, a recent FAO report has highlighted sustainable aquaculture development and effective fisheries management as critical to maintain these trends. Total fish production is set to increase to 204 million tonnes in 2030, up 15 percent from 2018, with aquacultures share growing from its current 46 percent, according to The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) report. That growth is around half the increase recorded in the previous decade, and translates into an annual per capita fish food consumption forecast to reach 21.5 kilograms by 2030.



Fish and fisheries products are recognised not only as some of the healthiest foods on the planet but also as some of the less impactful on the natural environment, said FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu, emphasising that they must play a more central role in food security and nutrition strategies at all levels. The Director-General also pointed to SOFIAs reporting of growing evidence that while effective fisheries management results in robust or rebuilding of fish stocks, failure to implement these measures threaten their contributions to food security and livelihoods. Some 34.2 percent of fish stocks are now fished at biologically unsustainable levels, according to SOFIAs benchmark analysis.



However, sustainability trends for many major species are said to be improving. Catches of all kinds of tuna reached their highest level in 2018  about 7.9 million tonnes  and two thirds of the these stocks are now fished at biologically sustainable levels, an increase of 10 percentage points in just two years.



The improvement, the fruit of contributions from many stakeholders, attest to the importance of active management to reach and maintain biological sustainability, and serves to underscore how urgently we must replicate such approaches in fisheries and regions where management systems are in poor shape, said Manuel Barange, Director of the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. Not surprisingly, we notice that sustainability is particularly difficult in places where hunger, poverty and conflict exist, but there is no alternative to sustainable solutions.



COVID-19



While SOFIA is based on information before COVID-19, the baseline information it provides is already said to be helping FAO respond with technical solutions and targeted interventions for fisheries and agriculture, which the Director-General noted is one of the sectors most impacted by the pandemic. Global fishing activity may have declined by around 6.5 percent as a result of restrictions and labour shortages due to the health emergency, according to an addendum to SOFIA published by FAO.



The disruption of international transport has impacted particularly on aquaculture production for export, while greatly reduced tourism and restaurant closures have impacted distribution channels for many fish types, although retail sales have remained stable or increased for frozen, canned, marinated and smoked fish with a longer shelf life.



Trends in global fish supply



The SOFIA report also highlighted:



- Global fish production is estimated to have reached about 179 million tonnes in 2018, with a total first sale value estimated at $401 billion

- Aquaculture products accounted for 46 percent of total production and 52 percent of fish for human consumption

- China is by far the largest producer, buoyed by its highly-developed aquaculture industry, which has produced more farmed aquatic food than the rest of the world combined since 1991

- Aquaculture output is expected to grow by 48 percent in Africa, contributing to mitigate an expected population-driven reduction in per capita fish consumption on the continent

- Anchoveta was the top species for marine capture, buoyed by a strong production rebound in Peru and Chile, while Alaska pollock and skipjack tuna were next

- Inland capture fisheries  a significant source of food in many food-limited countries- reached the highest level ever reported, at 12 million tonnes

- Fish consumption accounts for one-sixth of the global populations intake of animal proteins, and more than half in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and several small island developing States (SIDS).
S ainsbury's has unwittingly found itself facing backlash following the removal of a statue of a slave trader in London, with calls for the supermarket chain to be boycotted.

Lord Sainsbury, whose great-grandfather founded the chain, has been blamed by some on social media for the removal of the Robert Milligan statue in West India Quay.

The statue was removed after the Canal and River Trust charity, which owns the land where it was located, said it would organise its safe removal following a petition launched by local Labour councillor.

However calls to boycott Sainsbury's come as a result of claims the Museum of London, which is reportedly funded by the Sainsbury family, was responsible for making the decision for it to be removed.

The Standard has contacted the Museum of London for a comment.

Statue of 18th century slaver Robert Milligan in east London removed 1 /18 Statue of 18th century slaver Robert Milligan in east London removed Workers prepare to take down a statue of slave owner Robert Milligan at West India Quay, east London PA Police officers look on as a statue of Robert Milligan is pictured being removed by workers from outside the Museum of London Docklands near Canary Wharf Reuters A statue of slave owner Robert Milligan is removed at West India Quay, east London as Labour councils across England and Wales will begin reviewing monuments and statues in their towns and cities PA Reuters Reuters PA PA PA TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL/AFP via Getty Images Reuters Slaveholder Robert Milligan's statue was removed on Tuesday TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL/AFP via Getty Images Workers remove the statue of slave-owner and slave merchant Robert Milligan after a petition in West India Quay, London Getty Images Protesters covered the Robert Milligan statue's head with fabric Ehtasham Haque The Robert Milligan statue was re-erected outside the Museum of London Docklands in 1997 Google Maps

The statue of the noted West Indian merchant, slaveholder and founder of Londons global trade hub, West India Docks, had stood outside the Museum of London Docklands.

With #BoycottSainsburys trending on Twitter, some people were delighted that "racist" people who were angry about the removal of the statue would be avoiding the supermarkets.

One user said: "Can we get a full list of everywhere racists are boycotting please? Imagine a world where you no longer have to encounter a single one of them."

Another added: "So let me get this straight. People are going to #BoycottSainsburys because Lord Sainsbury has urged statues of slave owners to be taken down? Are these people actually for real?"

It is not clear whether Lord Sainsbury has publicly spoken out about the issue.

Milligan owned 526 enslaved Africans who were forced to work on his familys plantation in Jamaica, according to the Museum of London, before his death in 1809.

The Tower Hamlets mayor said the statue paves the way for a wider conversation about confronting this part of our history and the symbols that represent it.

The Local Government Associations (LGA) Labour group said that after consulting with all Labour council leaders there was overwhelming agreement to listen to and work with local communities to review the appropriateness of local monuments and statues on public land and council property.

Protesters covered the Robert Milligan statue's head with fabric / Ehtasham Haque

Tweeting a video of the moment the Milligan statue was taken down, London mayor Sadiq Khan said: Its a sad truth that much of our wealth was derived from the slave trade  but this does not have to be celebrated in our public spaces.

In a series of posts on Twitter, the Museum of London said: "The statue of Robert Milligan has stood uncomfortably outside the Museum of London Docklands for a long time, one of only three museums in the UK to address the history of the transatlantic slave trade.

"The Museum of London recognises that the monument is part of the ongoing problematic regime of white-washing history, which disregards the pain of those who are still wrestling with the remnants of the crimes Milligan committed against humanity."

A spokesman for the museum told the Standard: "The Museum of London advocated for the removal of the Robert Milligan statue working closely with Tower Hamlets Council and the Canal and River Trust who are the local authority and the land owner respectively.

"This decision was made independently of our sponsors and donors."

Sainsbury's declined to comment.
Hong Kongers Still Defiant One Year Later As National Security Law Looms

By Verna Yu June 09, 2020

On June 9 last year, some one million Hong Kongers staged a peaceful protest against a proposed extradition law that would allow individuals to be sent to China for trial. Little did they realize it was just the first of more than 1,000 protests in a drawn-out anti-government movement that would plunge the Asian financial hub into one of the deepest crises in its history.

The protests unleashed years of unprecedented anger and frustration at the erosion of freedoms under 23 years of Chinese rule, particularly in recent years when Beijing accelerated political and economic integration to bring the former British colony under tighter control.

The movement has exacted a heavy human cost. Initially peaceful, the demonstrations took a violent turn as the government was seen as turning a deaf ear and police increasingly used tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and even live rounds on protesters, who first threw objects and later threw Molotov cocktails, set objects ablaze and wrecked banks, metro stations and pro-China retail outlets.

Although the Hong Kong government belatedly withdrew the extradition bill four months after the initial protests, police brutality and the government's refusal to launch an independent investigation into police violence further fueled protesters' anger as some resorted to more radical actions.

More than 8,900 people, of whom about 40% were students, have been arrested in more than 1,000 protests since June of last year.

Although many ordinary Hong Kongers do not agree with violent tactics on either side, many sympathize with the radical young protesters and share their sense of desperation and frustration at a government that seems answerable to Beijing and not ordinary citizens. Hong Kong's top leader is chosen by a largely pro-Beijing elite committee of around 1,200 people. Only half of the city's legislature is elected by ordinary voters, and because it is dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers, it does not have the power to vote down unpopular bills.

"I feel heartbroken that our young people have made so many sacrifices. But if Hong Kong doesn't resist, then China can do what it wants," said a 71-year-old retiree surnamed Chow who escaped from China to Hong Kong in his teenage years. "People of our generation were too weak, we didn't have the courage to fight against China. We simply fled."

A year after the initial protests, many Hong Kongers are shocked to find themselves in what they consider a much worse situation. Intending to stamp out protests, China's legislature in late May passed a plan to force sweeping national security laws on Hong Kong to prevent and punish "acts and activities" that threaten national security, including advocacy of secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference. Bypassing Hong Kong's legislature, China's vaguely defined national security laws will be applied to Hong Kong through an annex of the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law. The legislation would also allow Chinese national security organs to set up agencies in Hong Kong.

Many fear that the laws that have been used to suppress activists and government critics in mainland China will now be used to erode most of Hong Kong's freedoms.

"We used to have the shield of the authorities adhering to some level of international standards to maintain a veneer of respectability and accountability, but that has been shattered," said Edwin, a 40-year old lawyer. "That is where it gets frightening, because you worry where it all ends when the well-resourced government no longer feels the need to play by any rules whatsoever."

"There's also a sense of anger that they could be so brazen and heartless to their own people in a way I would not have imagined a year ago," he said.

The planned national security law has rekindled protests that had largely died down due to the coronavirus pandemic early this year and fueled an unprecedented demand for independence from China. Many protesters shouted slogans such as "Hong Kongers, build our nation!" in recent protests, which have rarely been heard on the streets before.

The looming draconian laws that many believe would spell the end of Hong Kong led skeptics to wonder whether Hong Kong protesters have taken the right approach in dealing with China. But many who have participated in the movement say they do not regret the resistance, even if it has brought on China's drastic retaliation.

As China has been tightening its control over Hong Kong they say, the territory's "death" is inevitable and the protest movement has simply forced China to show its "true face."

"Do you think the Communist Party would be good to you if you stop resisting? It would tighten its control even more," said 57-year-old Liu, a driver. "Don't forget that this is a dictatorial regime."

"Even if Hong Kong finishes now, it's visible to the whole word that, for the sake of this (national security), they'd send Hong Kong to its death," said Vincent, a student in his 20s.

Many say they support international sanctions against China, even if they would hurt Hong Kong's economy, describing their mentality using the Cantonese expression "lam chow", which means perishing with one's enemies. U.S. President Donald Trump said in late May the United States would eliminate special treatment for Hong Kong as a separate customs and travel territory from China for its violation of its promise on Hong Kong's autonomy.

"I am aware of the impacts of possible U.S. sanctions. But when Hong Kong has to suddenly die like this, I'd support it because we're desperate and there is nothing else we can do," said Vincent.

Under the shadow of the looming national security legislation, some vow to continue to speak up even if it means risking jail, while others try to learn how to maintain their resistance and conscience under Beijing's influence.

"I'd rather speak out and die than to live in silence," said Chow, quoting a classical Chinese text from the 11th century. "We know we have no means of fighting against China, but we'll not be subjugated."

"I'll still come out to protest. They can kill me if they want to, then people will see their true face," he said.

Vincent said his way of resistance would be to maintain a sense of Hong Kong identity by up keeping the Hong Kong culture and rejecting China's ideological assimilation.

Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said while he expected the resistance force to weaken, "I don't think they can successfully suppress it. People won't be subjugated. Many would go to prison and many would emigrate."

Joseph Cheng, retired political scientist at the City University of Hong Kong, said while he did not expect ordinary Hong Kongers to give up on their ideals, "the danger is substantial" under the new security laws.

"The anger is there and the dissatisfaction is there, their will to engage in struggles is there, but there is no easy victory ahead. It's going to be a very costly and very long-term struggle," Cheng said.

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Felicia Frazar is the managing editor of the Seguin Gazette. You can e-mail her at felicia.frazar@seguingazette.com .
Hong Kong Police Fire Pepper Spray As Crowd Marks Protest Anniversary

2020-06-09 -- Hong Kong police on Tuesday fired pepper spray at protesters gathered in the city's Central business district to mark the anniversary of a million-strong peaceful march last year to oppose government plans to allow extradition to mainland China.

Several hundred protesters, many of them clad in regular office clothing, occupied roads and gathered in high-end shopping malls on Tuesday evening to mark the anniversary of the protest movement, which demanded the withdrawal of the extradition bill that would have allowed the rendition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China.

But the protest was met with months of stalling and intransigence from the city's chief executive, Carrie Lam, who refused to respond directly to protesters' demands, saying only that the bill was "dead."

By the time Lam formally took the bill off the list of proposed laws in the city's Legislative Council in October 2019, the anti-extradition protesters were also demanding fully democratic elections, an end to the government's characterization of them as "rioters," an amnesty for the thousands of people arrested, and a full public inquiry into police violence towards peaceful protesters.

At least 25 people were arrested in Central on Tuesday evening after protests blocked traffic in the district. Fully armed riot police were bused to the scene, and pursued some people in the crowd, often apparently at random, video footage posted to social media showed.

Protesters moved away when approached, however, only to gather on a different street.

Police raised a blue warning flag claiming that the protest was "illegal," in spite of the right to assemble and protest being enshrined in Article 27 of Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.

Police said the gatherings were in breach of current coronavirus restrictions banning public gatherings of more than eight people.

As protesters once more faced off with police, the authorities said four people being prosecuted over the storming of the LegCo on July 1, 2019 are now being charged with the more serious crime of "rioting," which carries a potential jail term of 10 years.

Police are charging actor Gregory Wong, protest organizer Ventus Lau, former Hong Kong University student leader Althea Suen, and Brian Leung, a protester who removed his mask while reading out a statement after protesters had occupied the LegCo chamber with the offense.

"Actually the initial charges were that we were in a vicinity of the LegCo complex, which weren't very serious, so it did occur to us that they might try to bring more serious charges," Lau told reporters.

"But why did they pick today? Because this day last year, June 9, is when one million people marched; it's the anniversary of the start of the entire protest movement," he said.

"I was pretty shocked by that."

Brian Leung, who is currently studying in the United States, reacted to the news via his Twitter account.

"Am I now a fugitive? An exile? A political refugee? I don't know," Leung wrote.

'She started this chaos'

Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that the city "cannot afford" any more chaos caused by the protests, echoing the ruling Chinese Communist Party's claims that a draconian sedition and subversion law it plans to impose on Hong Kong will end "chaos" in the city following a year of mass protests.

Protesters took to Twitter to respond to Lam's statement.

"She started this chaos by attacking Hong Kong's enshrined freedoms," wrote user @Rover829, while @kllialan commented: "I also can't afford the chaos made by the government anymore."

"She means the chaos she created?" user @Star20861 wrote, while @manucanuck added: "Tell her to tell the [Chinese Communist Party] to stop interfering in Hong Kong's business."

Many former front-line protesters, who once fought back with bricks, Molotov cocktails, and batons from behind barricades of street barriers and umbrellas against oncoming riot police, have fled overseas to escape charges of "rioting."

A former front-line protester who gave only a nickname, Mike, said he left for Taiwan after being on the front line during several weeks of protests.

"After the storming of LegCo, the police were going round checking everyone's IDs," Mike told RFA from his Taiwan accommodation. "They were using documents and so on to try to find anyone who had been [a part of the occupation of LegCo]."

"The hardest thing about it isn't the fact that we got shot at, or beat up by police; it's the fact that I still dream about my comrades getting beaten up by police and tortured by them right in front of my eyes, but I am powerless to help them," Mike said.

Around one third of adults in Hong Kong have reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since the protest movement escalated last June, according to a mental health survey published in The Lancet last year, which said the incidence of psychiatric problems was similar to those usually associated with war zones or terrorist attacks.

Rights groups warned in November that Hong Kong was in a state of humanitarian crisis after police fired more than 16,000 rounds of tear gas in recent months, with around 1,000 of those fired into the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) campus during a single day in November.

A January opinion poll by Reuters found that most of Hong Kong's residents supported the five demands of the protest movement, with more than one third of respondents saying they had attended a protest.

Only 30 percent said they were opposed, compared with 59 percent of those polled who supported the movement.

Call for world action

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on governments around the world to take action to safeguard the people of Hong Kong as China prepares to allow its feared state security police to operate in the city under a draconian new law banning "actions or activities" deemed seditious or subversive.

"For the past year Hong Kong people have made clear their peaceful demands for freedom and autonomy," HRW China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement on Tuesday. "But the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong choose to respond with ever-greater repression and violence."

HRW said that while the vast majority of protesters acted peacefully, Hong Kong police had frequently used "excessive force" against them, while pro-China thugs also repeatedly attacked protesters and pro-democracy lawmakers.

It said the police have arrest around 8,000 demonstrators June 2019, yet no police officers have been held to account, while the incoming national security law poses a fresh threat to the city's promised freedoms.

"[The national security] legislation is likely to have wide-ranging impact on Hong Kong, making it difficult for people to exercise the many freedoms they have long experienced. Instead, exercising these freedoms could be treated as subversion," HRW said.

The group said governments should sanction senior Beijing and Hong Kong officials responsible for recent human rights violations in Hong Kong and future abuses under the national security legislation, subjecting them to travel bans and asset freezes.

"The global failure to respond to China's aggressive rights abuses ... have only emboldened the Chinese government," Richardson said.

"Foreign governments catalyzed by this grave threat to freedoms in Hong Kong should act swiftly to press Beijing over its human rights violations."

Reported by Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Mai Hsiao-tien, Tseng Yat-yiu and Lu Xi for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Copyright  1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content June not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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AUSTIN, Texas, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- For the large number of college students that have lost their summer internship opportunities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still hope. Many companies are still hiring, and others are moving to virtual internships. Intry is helping college students discover and land new internship opportunities through its suite of resume optimization tools that help them get seen and unlock their true potential.

"It's important for college students to get the early experience that will contribute to their career development down the line," says Jennifer Sethre, CEO and Founder of Intry. "Many students are still discovering who they are and what career path suits them best, and Intry can help them find those answers. "

Many students are still unfamiliar with the hiring process, not realizing that a majority of resumes are never seen by recruiters. Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) measures the number of relevant keywords in a resume, meaning that if a resume lacks enough of the right keywords, it gets filtered out without ever being seen by a human being. Intry's Jobs2Resume tool gives college students the power to overcome ATS software; simply copy and paste the desired job's description into the creator, and it will optimize that resume, populating the appropriate keywords for a customized resume for each job they apply to.

For the students with a limited amount of experience, unsure of how to present themselves to potential employers, Intry's TrueYou assessment helps to discover hidden skills and traits that could be valuable assets for the desired position. The quick and simple assessment helps students learn more about themselves to determine their career personality and discover where they best fit for their particular cultural traits.

Sethre adds, "Even those who have cultivated years upon years of experience in the workforce don't realize that a number of key personality traits and cultural fit can impact a person's enjoyment or fulfillment when it comes to their career. We want to help those college students still in the beginning stages of their careers to discover the right path early on, and discover a long-term career that's ideal for them."

Intry is there to help college students get on the path to career development and unlock their true potential. Sign up to Intry today, and discover the career path that's right for you.

Contact:

Jennifer Sethre, Founder/CEO

Email: [email protected]

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SOURCE Intry
LATEST June 10, 10:09 p.m. Hundreds of protesters in Oakland marched through the streets to Mayor Libby Schaaf's home on Wednesday to demand that the city defund the police.

The protesters are calling for Schaaf to redirect funds to education and homelessness.

June 10, 3:40 p.m. Sonoma County officials and mayors are gathering Wednesday afternoon in a show of support for community-led police reform in the county and a plan spearheaded by the Santa Rosa city government.

The plan, called the Community Empowerment Strategy, aims to "formalize" discussions between civic leaders and community members that have already happened, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports, as well as map out future planned conversations about police reform with community stakeholders throughout the summer. Raissa de la Rosa, the citys interim community engagement deputy director, will be overseeing the effort.

Over the next few months, the county will collect input from "50 community leaders and at least five community listening sessions" so county residents can take part in the reform process. The findings will be reported back to residents by Sept. 30.

June 10, 2 p.m. Calls to "defund the police" have appeared on protest signs, social media posts and on news chyrons lately. But what does it mean?

The killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer reignited familiar calls once again to end police brutality, particularly against people of color, and to re-examine permitted uses of force by law enforcement. But this time, the Black Lives Matter movement is stronger than its ever been before with protests taking place all over the world. And this time, accompanying the movement are calls to defund, which on the surface sound divisive or, depending on your political leanings, inflammatory.

Read our breakdown of the phrase here.

June 10, noon In a White House press briefing Wednesday, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany relayed a statement from the president declaring that existing military bases bearing the names of Confederate generals, including Texas' Fort Hood and North Carolina's Fort Bragg would not be changed. The statement comes after a series of tweets from Trump to that end. "The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars," he tweeted. "Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations...Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!"

In Wednesday's press briefing, McEnany also responded to several questions about Trump's suggestion that a 75-year-old man who was recorded being pushed to the ground by police and subsequently taken to a hospital for a serious head wound, could have been part of a "set up" by anti-fascist protesters.

"The president was asking questions about an interaction he saw and he has the right to ask those questions," McEnany said.

"Where [Trump] stands is squarely with law enforcement," she later added. "He was making no judgment, not condoning violence, not saying what happened in this case with these two officers was right or wrong, but hes standing back and saying we need to ask questions before we destroy lives and convict people in the court of public opinion."

June 10, 11:20 a.m. Following the SFMTA's declaration that San Francisco Muni buses would no longer be used to transport SFPD to anti-police brutality protests, the San Francisco Police Officers Association has told the agency to "lose our number."

"Hey Muni, lose our number next time you need officers for fare evasion enforcement or removing problem passengers from your buses and trains," a tweet read. "Shouldn't be a @SFPD officer's job anyway. @SFPDChief should stop using us for this."

June 10, 11 a.m. Nearly a dozen protests will be underway in the Bay Area Wednesday from San Rafael to Santa Cruz. Demonstrations are planned in Oakland, Daly City and more. See a full list of today's events at SF FunCheap.

June 10, 10:50 a.m. George Floyd's brother Philonese Floyd appeared at a House hearing Wednesday to appeal to lawmakers to "stop the pain."

"George's calls for help were ignored," Floyd said. "Please listen to the call I'm making to you now, to the calls of our family, and to the calls ringing out in the streets across the world. People of all backgrounds, genders and race have come together to demand change. Honor them, honor George, and make the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution -- and not the problem. Hold them accountable when they do something wrong. Teach them what it means to treat people with empathy and respect. Teach them what necessary force is. Teach them that deadly force should be used rarely and only when life is at risk.

"George wasn't hurting anyone that day. He didn't deserve to die over $20. I am asking you, is that what a black man's life is worth? Twenty dollars? This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough."

June 10, 8:50 a.m. The San Francisco Unified School District is considering ending its formal relationship with the San Francisco Police Department, 18 months after a five-year memorandum of understanding lapsed, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Some school officials have been frustrated by the continued presence of police in schools. Others are concerned that doing away with officers without supplanting the initial agreement with a new plan could be detrimental to student safety. The original MOU involved guidelines for officers when on campus for incidents involving drugs or violence, but there have been criticisms over its effectiveness in practice.

The execution of the MOU is also expensive; the SFUSD reportedly supplies $45,000 of the program liaison's salary, and another $7.5 million is spent on security aides who act as correspondents for the SFPD.

Read more here.

June 10, 8:30 a.m. As protests over the death of George Floyd continue in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is traveling around the state to have discussions with community and business leaders about racism, systemic injustice and how demonstrations are inspiring reform. He spent Tuesday in Oakland.

The governor's itinerary included a visit to the black-owned restaurant Miss Ollie's where he met with the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Cathy Adams. He also had a discussion with Akonadi Foundation President Lateefah Simon about everything from policing and criminal justice reforms, to educational, economic and health inequities impacting the community.

The San Jose Mercury News reports Newsom was asked about his stance on defunding police departments in the state.

"If youre calling for eliminating police, no," Newsom said during his visit at Miss Ollie's. "If youre talking about reimagining and taking the opportunity to look at the responsibility and role that we place on law enforcement to be social workers, mental health workers, get involved in disputes where a badge and a gun are unnecessary, then I think absolutely this is an opportunity to look at all of the above."

June 10, 8:15 a.m. Multiple protests are taking place in the Bay Area Wednesday including a sit-in protest at the Alameda Police Station, a march through downtown in Sebastopol and a skateboarding hill bomb in San Francisco.

For a more complete list of protests happening today and through the week, visit the Johnny Fun Cheap website.

MORE COVERAGE ON THE GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on Bay Area protest coverage here.

Amy Graff is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
SHENZHEN, China, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Huntkey, a leading provider of power solutions, today announces its Grand Anniversary Sale campaign to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The campaign will last from Jun. 10th to Sept. 10th, 2020, and it is targeted at Huntkey's distributors by offering them Two Packages of Gifts - special deals and giveaways.

Huntkey Anniversary Sale:

https://en.huntkey.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Anniversary-Banner.jpg

The first package of gifts: Huntkey provides its distributors with special deals on hot-selling products, which cover power supply units (PSUs), PC monitors, power strips/surge protectors and adapters. Distributors who take the deals will enjoy buy-then-get-for-free products or discounted orders, which will not be offered at ordinary times.

The second package of gifts: Giveaways will be offered to distributors in accordance with order amounts. Recently, Huntkey has launched three new products - the USB wireless charger, 30W USB-C charger and USB-C to lightning cable. These products will be provided as free gifts to Huntkey's distributors. The higher the order amount, the more gifts that distributors can get.

Huntkey was established in 1995. It has developed a wide variety of computer hardware and electronics products after 25 years of innovation. To celebrate the anniversary, Huntkey and its distributors will create as well as deliver value to markets via cost-effective products, meanwhile, they also benefit from the recognition and trust of the markets.

To learn more about the campaign, please visit: https://en.huntkey.com/

About Huntkey

Huntkey Enterprise Group, founded in 1995 and headquartered in Shenzhen, is a member of The International Power Supply Manufacturer's Association (PSMA) and a member of The China Power Supply Society (CPSS). With branch companies in the USA, Japan and other areas, and cooperating factories in Brazil, Argentina, India and other countries, Huntkey has specialized in the development, design, and manufacturing of PC power supplies, industrial power supplies, surge protectors, adapters and chargers for many years. With its own technologies and manufacturing strength, Huntkey has served Lenovo, Haier, DELL, Bestbuy and many other large enterprises for years, and has received unanimous recognition and trust from most of the customers.

SOURCE Huntkey

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Maestro Health, a tech-enabled health and benefits TPA, just announced the release of its Mental Health Stigma in the Workplace survey which examines the state of employees mental health and how employers are addressing it. The report is based on a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. workers and was collected in March 2020.

Maestro Health found 63% of employees have struggled with a mental health condition at some point in their lives; 42% said their condition has a significant impact on their ability to do their job well. Yet, just over half (51%) of those surveyed arent comfortable talking to their manager about their challenges, highlighting the need for employers to break the stigma around mental health in the workplace.

The spotlight that is now on mental health is long overdue, and its up to employers, healthcare providers and health plans to move the needle on mental wellbeing communication, education and support services available in and out of the workplace, said Nancy Reardon, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Maestro Health. Every component of wellbeing, whether its mental, physical, emotional, social or financial, has an impact on an individuals overall health. By ensuring that benefits and educational marketing strategies prioritize overall wellbeing, employers will eventually see healthier workforces, lower healthcare costs and improved productivity. But if our survey is any indication, there is still a lot of work to be done to realize those benefits.

The survey also examined work-related stress and how well employers educate their workforce about stress and signs of burnout. Key findings include:



56% of employees have not received information about mental health from their employers.

51% experience work-related stress on a weekly basis, while more than one-third experience it daily.

60% have taken a day off strictly because of work-related stress.

69% have experienced burnout as a result of their job, with employees in media, healthcare and food industries having reported experiencing the most burnout.

Mental health education doesnt just apply in times of crisis or during open enrollment. It is important we stop separating the mind from the body. Proactively preparing your workforce for future mental health-related issues can prevent employees from experiencing increased fear of the unknown because they are equipped with information and support that can help them better navigate stressors like benefit costs, where to go for doctor visits and which mental health counselors are in their network. By providing continuous open communication about what services are available for employees, how they can access those services and what they will cost, employers have an opportunity to change the narrative and remove the stigma surrounding overall mental health.

It shouldnt take a crisis for company leaders to put mental wellbeing at the forefront, but now more than ever, employers should be working to ensure their employees have what they need to be well, said Craig Maloney, Maestro Healths Chief Executive Officer. Maestro Health helps employers empower their employees to take control of their health and wellbeing, and weve built this mentality into our own culture. As a tech-enabled health and benefits TPA, we provide the support and resources employees need to improve both their physical and mental health outcomeswhich benefits everyone.

For more information about how Maestro Health helps organizations address mental health in the workplace, please visit: http://www.maestrohealth.com.

About Maestro Health

Maestro Health works with employers and their trusted advisers to administer self-funded health plans. By blending technology, analytics, care management and administrative services, Maestro Health helps employers optimize their health plans, drive better health outcomes and lower costs. When partnering with Maestro Health, employers can save money on employee healthcare and focus on what really matterstheir people.

To learn more, visit: http://www.maestrohealth.com.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 14:00 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd9501e 4 News tourist-destination,tourism,travel,destination,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

Tourist sites across Jakarta are set to reopen gradually starting June 13.

According to Jakarta Tourism and Creative Economy Agency head Cucu Ahmad Kurnia on Tuesday, the move was part of the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) transition into the "new normal era" implemented by Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan.

Based on the agency's circular, museums and galleries across the capital have been allowed to operate since June 8 as reported by tempo.co.

Beach destinations such as Thousand Islands in North Jakarta can also open up on June 13.

All outdoor and indoor tourism parks, including zoos but excluding waterparks, are allowed to welcome visitors beginning June 20.

Businesses under the agency's management, such as indoor and outdoor sport facilities, excluding swimming pools, have been allowed to operate since June 5.

Meanwhile, food businesses provided by hotels, excluding bars, have been open since June 8, however dine-in services are still banned.

According to the new policy, all places are required to follow health protocols and limit their number of visitors to 50 percent of normal capacity. (kes)
The lawyer of the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case has said the paedophile is angry at claims he abducted the three-year-old in Portugal in 2007.

A German state leader has also revealed that 43-year-old Christian Brueckner has been put into solitary confinement in prison for his own protection.

Friedrich Fulscher, who represents Christian Brueckner, 43, told German broadcaster RTL: 'Christian B. does not provide any information on the case at the moment and we ask for your understanding that we as defenders do not provide any information.'

Mr Fulscher said: 'How can a person, who is isolated in a prison and whom half the world's population accuses of the worst crimes, be?'

The lawyer angrily added that he would take action against false statements against his client Brueckner using 'civil or criminal law'.

It comes as Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the investigation into Brueckner, claimed that police have found that the suspect discussed kidnapping, raping and killing a girl in a conversation with another paedophile online.

Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the investigation into Christian Brueckner, told The Times that police have found that the suspect discussed kidnapping, raping and killing a girl in a conversation with another paedophile online

Christian Brueckner (pictured left) left Portugal after Madeline McCann (pictured right) disappeared on May 3, 2007 - three years after Hazel was raped

Portuguese prosecutors lay out Christian Brueckner's criminal convictions Christian Brueckner was named as the chief suspect in the disappearance of Maddie McCann last week State prosecutors have confirmed Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has two convictions in Portugal. It was reported last week the 43-year-old had served two prison sentences in the country - one of two months in Evora Prison in 1999 for a minor offence and a nine-month jail term on the Algarve in 2006 for petrol theft which he completed shortly before Maddie disappeared. There had been no official confirmation of the Portuguese press reports about Brueckner's criminal record there. But Portuguese prosecutors have now taken the unusual step of publicly confirming his criminal record. A spokesman for the Faro District of the Portuguese Public Prosecution Service said in a statement released late last night/on Tuesday night: 'In the last few days, several news articles have been published linking the German national suspected of involvement in Madeleine McCann's disappearance to other court cases that took place in the Faro district. 'In order to clarify the matter, the Public Ministry has been examining its records and has so far managed to collect the following information. 'The Maddie suspect was convicted of disobedience in one case and of theft in another. 'Five requests for international judicial cooperation were also found in which the name of the suspect is mentioned. 'One of the requests is related to a case actioned against unknown people and closed in February 2006, and four related to the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance.' The statement added by way of background and an explanation of the current state of the Madeleine McCann probe: 'The investigation is being conducted by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Portimao section of the DIAP in Faro with the assistance of the Policia Judiciaria. 'The investigation has been carried out in close co-operation with the German and English judicial authorities. 'After the re-opening of the process, no arguidos or official suspects were constituted, and investigations have continued through the carrying-out of fact-finding work which would serve the purpose of identifying and punishing the person or people responsible.' There was no immediate confirmation on whether the non Madeleine McCann-related request for international co-operation related to the November 2005 rape of an American OAP in Praia da Luz which Brueckner was convicted of late last year in Germany. Advertisement

Interior Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Claus Christian Claussen said that Brueckner has been moved to prevent attacks from other prisoners at Kiel Prison.

Mr Claussen said in a statement: 'CB [Christian Brueckner], who is a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, has moved into solitary confinement.

'We want to prevent him being attacked by other prisoners in Kiel Prison. He will only be allowed out of the cell accompanied by guards.

'He will be kept in the solitary confinement cell until further notice. The solitary confinement cells are in a separate wing of the prison.'

Meanwhile, Hans Christian Wolters told The Times that Brueckner discussed kidnapping, raping and killing a girl with another paedophile online.

At one point he wrote about his chilling desire to 'catch something little and use it for days', and when asked about getting caught he added: 'Meh, if the evidence is destroyed...'

'My private opinion is that he relatively quickly killed the girl, possibly abused her and then killed her,' said Mr Wolters.

'We believe our suspect committed further crimes, especially sexual crimes, in Portugal possibly but also elsewhere like Germany.'

Mr Wolters said that he wanted to collect as much evidence as possible before confronting Brueckner, so that he would have a smaller chance of being able to weaken the case against him.

Brueckner is now being investigated in connection with the disappearance of five children  including Madeleine, three, who went missing in the Algarve in 2007.

Yesterday it was revealed how Brueckner has been linked to the murder of a German schoolgirl who disappeared nearly 20 years ago.

Peggy Knobloch was nine when she vanished on her way home from school in 2001.

Part of her skeleton was discovered 15 years later by a mushroom picker in a Bavarian forest, around 60 miles from her home in Lichtenberg, Upper Franconia.

The town is roughly 100 miles from Brueckner's home town of Wurzburg.

Investigators have revealed the historic cold case is now being reopened in relation to the 43-year-old Madeleine McCann suspect, who is a convicted paedophile.

Chief public prosecutor Martin Dippold told German newspaper Bild that, while there is currently no evidence linking the suspect to Peggy's disappearance, 'he is now being re-examined in the case'.

Detectives are also re-examining the cases of Rene Hasee, six, who went missing while on holiday in Aljezur  25 miles away from Praia da Luz, where Brueckner was living at the time.

The German is also a suspect in the disappearances of Carola Titze, 16, who went missing in Belgium in 1996 and Inga Gehricke, five, who vanished in Germany in 2015.

The Mail also revealed he has been linked to the 2010 killing of Monika Pawlak, a 24-year-old prostitute, in Hanover.

The latest development comes as police in Portugal have already ruled out Brueckner as a suspect in the rape of Irishwoman Hazel Behan.

The mother-of-two has waived her right to anonymity to reveal she was viciously sexually assaulted by a masked man in her Algarve apartment in 2004 and said she believes he could have been the 43-year-old convicted rapist.

Ms Behan told the Guardian yesterday the Met Police were taking her case seriously and said they would be contacting Portuguese counterparts after she gave a statement.

But respected Portuguese daily Jornal de Noticas reported today that Madeleine McCann suspect Brueckner has already been ruled out of the unsolved sex crime, which happened in Praia da Rocha a half-hour drive east of Praia da Luz where the young British girl vanished.

The newspaper said: 'Jornal de Noticias has learnt that the idea it was Brueckner was considered when he became a suspect in the Maddie case. Unsolved crimes, like those of Hazel's, were revisited and the investigators concluded he was not the author [responsible].'

The newspaper offered no more information on what work had been done to re-examine Brueckner's possible involvement in the 2004 rape, which occurred the year before the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz which the German was convicted of late last year in his home country. Portuguese police have made no official comment.

Ms Behan says a stranger entered her flat in Praia da Rocha, Portugal, set up a video camera, tied her up with ropes and raped her in 2004 when she was 20 yeas old.

The now married mother-of-two was working as a holiday rep at the time and living in the resortown, which is around 20 miles away from Praia da Luz - where Madeleine was abducted in 2007.

Ms Behan, who now lives in Ireland, believes the attack on her bears the hallmarks of Christian Brueckner's rape of a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in September 2005, the Guardian reports.

Brueckner is being held in solitary confinement in a high-security prison in north Germany

Maddie disappeared from her hotel room in May 2007, 13 years later police have named a suspect

The victim in that case was tortured and raped by Brueckner, who filmed the savage attack.

The 43-year-old was sentenced in 2019 to seven years in prison by a German court after DNA evidence linked him to the assault.

But Ms Behan's assailant was never caught.

She claims Portuguese police made no attempt to examine her wounds for evidence and she says she is 'not confident' that officers examined her room closely.

But following the announcement that Brueckner had been made a suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, and media reports of his brutal attack on a woman in Praia da Luz, she has since given a statement to the Metropolitan Police.

Ms Behan has also waved her right to anonymity while revealing details of the attack on her in an interview with The Guardian.

She told the paper: 'My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out.'

'I had little hope over the last 16 years that they would find the man who did this. I was told at the time that I should just be quiet.

'Then I read about the poor American woman who was raped  who I would love to talk to  and the possible link that was being made between her attack and the person who abducted Madeleine McCann, and I was so full of anger, I knew in my gut it was the right thing to do to speak out.'

Ms Behan says the attack took place just weeks before her 21st birthday.

A friend of Christian Brueckner's two British ex girlfriends revealed he went off the radar following Maddie's disappearance in May 2007.

A day before the three-year-old vanished, the convicted German drug dealer told one of the women he had 'a job to do in Praia da Luz tomorrow'.

'It's a horrible job but it's something I have to do and it will change my life. You won't be seeing me for a while,' according to The Sun.

Three years later his other British ex joked that Brueckner looked like some of the photofits in the search for Maddie's abductor and asked him if he took her.

A friend of both women, who have each been interviewed by police but are not suspected of being involved in Maddie's disappearance, said: 'He blanked the question and shrugged  then added, 'Just don't go there'.'

The anonymous friend, originally from North Yorkshire but now living in Lagos, Portugal, said people dismissed the flippant comments, adding that both of his exes were beaten by Brueckner when they dated him.

He claims to have met Brueckner when he worked at expat bar The Tavern in the Portuguese town.

He added: 'What he said at that dinner suggests he could of planned the whole thing very carefully and that he might even have stolen Madeleine to order.'

Hazel Behan says a stranger entered her apartment in Praia da Rocha, Portugal, set up a video camera, tied her with ropes and raped her in 2004

Ms Behan was working as a holiday rep and was living in the resort town of Praia da Rocha, which is around 20 miles away from Praia da Luz - where Madeleine was abducted in 2007

Newly unearthed satellite imagery appeared to show Brueckner's campervan at the site of his former house in Praia da Luz around the time after Madeleine vanished in 2007

One of the unnamed women, understood to be from Berkshire, is said to have lived in Praia da Luz where she dated German paedophile Christian Brueckner for around a year from 2004 - three years before Madeleine went missing.

She is not a suspect in the case, but according to reports, has agreed to cooperate with police and has twice spoken to detectives investigating her former partner.

The mother-of-two, who is still living in Portugal, was interviewed last year by police as part of the investigation into Brueckner, and, according to The Mirror, has spoken to them again in recent days after the 43-year-old was identified as a prime suspect in the Madeleine case.

On Monday police revealed they wanted to speak to a third ex of Brueckner's, Nakscije Miftari

Brueckner is currently serving a jail sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in Portugal.

But he is reportedly eligible for parole this weekend and one friend has since revealed to the Sun that the unnamed woman is terrified he will come after her.

The friend said: 'She's really nervous, she knows B is in prison but fears he could be released one day and come after her.

'It's true they were together.'

Meanwhile, the Mirror say the woman's British ex-husband, a businessman who also lives in Portugal, was also spoken to by Interpol last year in connection with Brueckner.

He told The Mirror: 'We've decided not to talk. The police have been in touch and we've spoken to them. We don't want to be involved in this.'

On Monday police revealed they wanted to speak to a third ex of Brueckner's, Nakscije Miftari.

Nakscije met Brueckner when she was 17, after he set up home in a run-down part of Braunschweig, a crumbling industrial city in northern Germany, and ran a kiosk selling beer, soft drinks, snacks and sweets.

He later took Nakscije, who is German of Albanian descent, to Portugal in 2014 but she was deported back to Germany less than a year later following allegations of criminality.

Detectives in Britain and Germany want to quiz her about what she knows about Brueckner's past, in particular his time in Portugal.
[June 09, 2020] Operation HOPE Announces a New Marshall Plan for National Economic Recovery

Operation HOPE announced that it has begun work to galvanize private sector, federal public sector as well as non-governmental organization backing for its founder's vision for a New Marshall Plan, a comprehensive set of legislative and regulatory policies that address inequality in our economy and harness the untapped potential of millions of African Americans, who have been disproportionately affected by both the health and economic impacts COVID-19. This urgent need for transformative and coordinated policy changes are further compounded by the recent civil unrest in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. The New Marshall Plan includes legislative action to implement Education for All, Financial Literacy for All, Access to Job Opportunity for All to ensure a Living Wage for All, and Access to Capital for All. Operation HOPE Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Hope Bryant recently published his New Marshall Plan on the Milken Institute's Power of Ideas platform. The plan seeks to establish a new path forward to economic recovery both for the United States as a whole following the most dramatic economic downturn in its history as well as for its African American community, which has historically been left out of previous economic resurgences in this country. The New Marshall Plan seeks to add 1%-2% to annual GDP through a federally incentivized reinvestment plan that would be supported by the private sector. Operation HOPE has engaged its Fortune 500, national and regional financial institution, foundation, and community partners as well as members of Congress and the White House Administration to secure commitments o implement the New Marshall Plan policies as outlined.



"Rainbows only follow storms - and the storms that our country and especially our African American community are experiencing right now are severe. The New Marshall Plan is a path forward - one that is rooted in education, financial literacy and opportunity that will lead to more and better jobs, higher GDP, and a stronger, more resilient America," said Mr. Bryant. The plan has already received support from Operation HOPE's growing corporate partners, including some of the largest manufacturers and service companies in America as well as similar regional companies and small businesses. Over the past 90 days, these private sector businesses have committed to prioritizing job training, mentorships, and apprenticeships to minority communities.

For more information about the New Marshall Plan, please contact Bill Fair, Managing Director - HOPE Inside Disaster COVID-19 Response, at [email protected], or Elaine Hungenberg, Executive Vice President - HOPE Research Institute, at [email protected]. Organizations interested in reaching into underserved communities and to discuss joining the effort to implement The New Marshall Plan can contact Mary Ehrsham, President of Operation HOPE Partnerships, at [email protected]. About Operation HOPE, Inc. Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to "silver rights" with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved-disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through our community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities-turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. Project 5117 is our multi-year four-pronged approach to combating economic inequality that aims to improve financial literacy, increase business role models and business internships for youth in underserved communities, and stabilize the American dream by boosting FICO scores. Operation HOPE recently received its fourth consecutive 4-star charity rating for fiscal management and commitment to transparency and accountability by the prestigious non-profit evaluator, Charity Navigator. For more information: www.OperationHOPE.org. Follow Operation HOPE on Twitter (News - Alert) and Facebook @operationhope View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200609005867/en/

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New Delhi:

In an apparent dig at Pakistan, India on Thursday said while it has always worked towards Afghanistans development, there are some who have given the country only bloodshed and violence.

India has engaged with Afghanistan in capacity and capability building in agriculture, water, infrastructure, energy, health, education and many other sectors and the landmarks of this partnership are well-known, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

I think every patriotic Afghan appreciates and supports Indias development partnership with Afghanistan, he said.

In comparison, there are some who have given only bloodshed and violence to Afghanistan, he said speaking at his weekly briefing here.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists who orchestrated attacks in the country.

Taking a dig at Pakistan, Ghani had yesterday said, We see that there is a distinction between good and bad terrorists. Good terrorists are the ones that attack your neighbours, bad terrorists are the ones who attack you. This type of approach is enormously shortsighted. The blowback phenomenon is going to be bad. Terrorism will bite, like a snake, who feeds it.

Swarup rejected the opinion that main achievement of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was the ramping up of defence cooperation.

This is a totally incorrect inference. If you look at the joint statement issued yesterday, you would see how much of space has been devoted to the all-round India-Afghanistan cooperation, he said.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Starting on Wednesday afternoon, the trending list on the popular Chinese social media app Weibo will be banned for one week, the Cyberspace Administration of Beijing said, for "interfering with online communication orders, disseminating illegal information, and other problems"

The Chinese government heavily regulates the internet, and often removes "sensitive" posts about topics like the coronavirus and human rights from social media.

From Reuters:

Weibo will need to stop updating its lists showing the most popular search terms and topics being discussed on the platform for a week from Wednesday, the CAC said, adding it had asked its Beijing branch to fine Weibo. Weibo did not immediately respond when contacted by Reuters for comment. The CAC said that the violations related to a case involving a person with the surname Jiang, without going into further details. It was not clear whose communications Weibo is being punished for interfering with but it comes after a senior Alibaba Group executive's relationship with a prominent social media influencer came under scrutiny by Sina Weibo users in April, some of whom complained at the time that their posts were being censored. The executive, Jiang Fan, was later demoted after an internal investigation. Alibaba did not immediately reply when contacted by Reuters for comment.

Read more:China punishes microblog platform Weibo for interfering with communication

[June 10, 2020 / 4:52 AM]
Christina V. Smith

December 16, 1970 - June 4, 2020

BELMOND, IA - Christina V. Smith 49, died at home peacefully with her family by her side on June 4, 2020. Public visitation will be held Friday 4:00pm-7:00pm June, 12, 2020, at the Andrews Funeral Home in Belmond, Iowa. A private family service will be held at 10:00am Saturday June 13, 2020 with public access available on a Zoom' broadcast.

Christina V. Smith was born to Vince L. Miller and Cathy J. (Ruiz) Miller on December 16, 1970. Christina dedicated her life to Jehovah God as one of his witnesses and symbolized that dedication with the public declaration of baptism on October 25, 1983. Christina faithfully attended the Kingdom Hall, learning and teaching others about her faith and the hopes that the Bible teaches.

Christina was united in marriage to Gerald D Smith on March 23, 1990 and they were blessed with two children. Andreas V. Smith and Abigail R. Smith. Christina's great love of her family was highly important to her. She loved Andreas' singing and acting, watching him take part in many musical plays and performances. She loved listening to Abby play her guitars and piano for hours and attending her performances (her gigs'.) Christina also adored her mom, dad, brothers, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, and she especially cherished her nieces! She organized many, many family parties, games, meals, and get togethers.

Christina and her husband resided in Belmond, IA. During the early part of their 30 year marriage she worked at Cattleman's, PSI, and Eaton Corp. In 2006 Christina obtained an associate of applied science degree from Kaplan College. She then pursued various employments which included the insurance, legal, medical, and background screening fields.

Christina loved traveling, fashion, music, and the arts. New York City, San Francisco, and Orlando were among many of her favorite destinations. Paris, France was definitely on her to do' list. She attended numerous Broadway plays and could navigate the New York City subway system handily! She enjoyed going to various concerts, anything from local artists to large stage performances. She also loved cruising the Bahamas and the Caribbean, having fun on the various island excursions. On one cruise she enjoyed skirting a hurricane, admiring the 15' waves crashing against the ship! Christina also enjoyed shopping for clothes, shoes, purses and jewelry, she definitely had a style and fashion sense.

Christina was a large personality who knew how to love and live life! She loved adventures, challenges, and trying new activities. Christina was not afraid to express herself, she was a fierce advocate of her faith, family, and close friends!

Christina's life and memories will be carried forward in the hearts and minds of her husband Gerald Smith, Belmond, IA; her two children Andreas and Abigail Smith, both at home with their father in Belmond; her parents Vince and Cathy Miller, Belmond, IA; mother-in-law Linda Smith (Companion Dean Shepherd) , Belmond, IA, her brother, Brian Miller, Grays Lake, IL. and a niece Adrienne (Marshall) Larkin and their daughter Riley, Round Lake, IL. and niece Olivia Miller, Grays Lake, IL.; a brother Joshua (Tracy) Miller, Humboldt, IA and their children Elise, Jocelyn, and Nora Miller, all at home in Humboldt; sister Amanda (Travis) Krukow, Urbandale, IA, and their children Audrey, Lilly, and Gabriela Krukow, all at home in Urbandale; also numerous, aunts, uncles, cousins, and countless friends. Christina was preceded in death by grandparents Vincent F. and Pauline Miller, uncle Peter Ruiz, and grandmother Verona Ruiz. Andrews Funeral Home, Belmond, IA. www.andrewsfuneralhomeandfloral.com 641-444-4474.
S ri Lanka has announced it is reopening its borders to foreign tourists from August 1.

The country has said it will welcome tourists from all countries, but has put strict regulations in place.

The Telegraph reports that Sri Lankas tourism ministry says visitors must carry a certificate issued less than 72 hours before their trip stating that they are coronavirus-free and travellers will also be required to take a free test on arrival, with a further test taken four to five days later.

Foreign travellers will also not be permitted to use public transport (ruling out a ride on the famous train from Kandy to Ella, pictured going over the Nine Arches Bridge above). The Sri Lankan government has also raised the usual tourist visa fee from 31 to 78 to cover the extra coronavirus testing.

Guests will only be able to stay in government-approved accommodation and must stay in the country for a minimum of five days.

Tourists sites will be open from August 1 too, but with enforced hygiene and social distancing measures in place.

The Sri Lanka tourism ministry said at the time of the announcement: "While this may be inconvenient, it is essential to safeguard everybody and provide peace of mind."

If travellers are tested positive for coronavirus during their time there, they will be required to quarantine in a designated hotel for two to three weeks.

Sri Lanka has seen just 1,859 cases of coronavirus and 11 deaths.

The Foreign Office is still advising Brits against all unnecessary travel but added a new note to its advice this week stating: This advice is being kept under constant review.
French dairy producer Danone has ended an advertising campaign involving Russian actor Mikhail Porechenkov, Ukraine's Ambassador to France Oleh Shamshur has said on his Twitter page.

"I have good news for you. I have just received a call from Danone Secretary General Mathias Vicherat. The company ends the advertising campaign with the participation of Porechenkov. A rapid and responsible reaction. And the appetite returns," he wrote.

Earlier, Ukrainian diplomats in France reminded the Danone office in Russia that actor Mikhail Porechenkov, involved in their advertising campaign, is "a servant of the Kremlin terrorists." According to diplomats, big business should be responsible and should not forget about morality against the background of commercial gain.

Danone Russia earlier involved Porechenkov in advertising its products. In 2014, Porechenkov fired from a machine gun at the positions of Ukrainian defenders of the Donetsk airport in front of cameras.

Porechenkov is being persecuted by Ukraine for terrorist activities.

Danone's cooperation with the Russian actor has caused harsh criticism and outrage on social media. Public activists and ordinary users of social networking sites called for a boycott of the French company's products.

op
BROOKLYN, Ohio

Weapon charge: Cascade Crossing

On May 23, police were dispatched to Extended Stay after a witness watched a suspect hit another man with a pistol in the Cascade Crossing parking lot.

An arriving officer located the aggressor, who was sitting in his vehicle. It turned out that the Detroit man had a Glock in the vehicle. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and having a weapon under disability because he was a convicted felon.

The victim, also from Michigan, refused to cooperate with officers.

Criminal mischief: Behrwald Avenue

On May 23, police were dispatched to a Behrwald Avenue home after a resident discovered two broken light bulbs in his driveway. There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Drunken driving: Cascade Crossing

On May 22, police were dispatched to the Hooley House regarding a report of someone driving recklessly in the Cascade Crossing parking lot and hitting someone.

An arriving officer located the New Jersey driver, who hit the victim with his vehicle. He also smelled like booze. After failing a field sobriety test, the man was arrested for drunken driving and reckless operation.

The victim, from Parma, refused medical treatment.

Fraud: Ridge Road

On May 23, police were dispatched to the Ridge Road Verizon Wireless store after an employee discovered that a man had purchased nearly $2,300 worth of phones using a fake business account. There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Pandering obscenity: Tiedeman Road

On May 22, police were dispatched to Cracker Barrel regarding a pandering-obscenity call. An arriving officer talked to a Parma girl, 17, who said that a middle-aged man had showed her nude photographs of himself and tried to sell her marijuana at the Tiedeman Road restaurant. Police are investigating.

Fraud: Westbrook Drive

On May 23, police were dispatched to the Westbrook Apartments after a resident discovered that someone had fraudulently opened a checking account in his name. There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Theft: Brookpark Road

On May 21, a Parma man shopping at Walmart called police after discovering that someone had stolen his cell phone while he was inside the Brookpark Road store. There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Read more from the Parma Sun Post.
Editors Note: This is another in a series of funding component articles from Midland Health about the upcoming sales tax election





Midland County Hospital District (MCHD) provides more than $40 million per year in support of a wide variety of community health-care services, beyond the operation of Midland Memorial Hospital. These services are essential to the communitys health, and for many years have been fully funded by federal Medicaid supplemental payments. These payments are projected to decline by $23 million in fiscal year 2021, with annual cuts reaching $38.4 million by fiscal year 2024.

To replace the lost federal funding, MCHD has called for an election on July 14 to levy a tax on the sale of taxable items within the district, at a rate not to exceed one-quarter percent (0.25 percent) of the sales price of the taxable item sold anywhere in Midland County.

Should voters approve the ballot item, sales tax collections could provide a projected $28 million per year for the hospital district to use for community health-care services funding.

This is the third in a series of articles featuring vital community health-care programs funded by MCHD.

Acute behavioral health-care services

Inadequate insurance coverage and limited community resources often prevent individuals in need from receiving timely, appropriate behavioral health care. Just as in the case of chronic physical health concerns, neglect of behavioral health issues often leads to crisis: a suicide threat, overdose, or criminal arrest becomes the patients point of entry into the behavioral health-care system. These visits start in the emergency department, where our mental health team assesses the patients medical issues, stabilize them and evaluate treatment options. Because Midland Memorial Hospital does not provide behavioral health services, anyone requiring inpatient psychiatric or substance use treatment will be transferred to a setting better equipped to deal with those concerns.

We are fortunate to have some great resources and organizations to help manage these concerns. Our colleagues at PermiaCare, the regional mental health authority, help with patient evaluation and have secured state funding to cover some psychiatric admissions. PermiaCare has also begun work with us and the Springboard Center to improve management of substance use disorder patients. Through our relationship with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Centers Midland-based psychiatry department, patients in our community have better access to outpatient psychiatric services than ever before. Through the great work of Healthy Minds, Midlands behavioral health leadership team, we are helping to eliminate the stigma attached to mental illness and raising awareness of the many options available to patients in need.

Despite the best efforts of these and other dedicated local behavioral health providers, Midland County Hospital District (MCHD) still provides $2.9 million in annual financial support to acute behavioral health patients who come to us in crisis and do not have the resources to fund the psychiatric or substance use disorder hospitalization and treatment they need. This funding assisted 936 otherwise unfunded behavioral health admissions in fiscal 2019, the vast majority at Midlands Oceans Behavioral Center or the Springboard Center. Without MCHD funding, many of these patients would not receive the help they need in order to gain control of their disease and return to productive citizenship in our community.

MCHD has proposed a 0.25 percent sales tax to replace lost federal funding and assure our ability to continue funding vital behavioral health services.

Early voting begins June 29, and Election Day is set for July 14. Consult the Midland County Elections Office for details on voting locations and schedules.
Ladakh lawmaker Jamyang Tsering Namgyal has waded into the political back-and-forth between the opposition and the ruling BJP-led government over the India-China border row with a sharp comeback to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Namgyal, responding to Rahul Gandhis tweet asking the government to spell out if the Chinese had occupied Indian territory in Ladakh, replied in the affirmative. But this, he said, had happened in the years that the Congress was in power at the Centre. Starting from 38,000 sq km of Aksai Chin in eastern Ladakh seized by China in the 1962 war.

The 34-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker went on to cite three occasions over the 12 years when, according to Namgyal, China had occupied Indian territory.

I hope @RahulGandhi and @INCIndia will agree with my reply based on facts and hopefully they wont try to mislead again, he tweeted along with his list of territories that had been occupied by China

Watch: Jamyang Tsering Namgyal Vs Rahul Gandhi on China-India faceoff

The Ladakh MP had shot to fame last year after he delivered an impassioned speech in parliament that underscored how his constituency had been neglected for decades by successive governments that ruled Jammu and Kashmir. Namgyals speech put the spotlight on Ladakh, a region that had traditionally been relegated to the background in most debates over the erstwhile states special status.

Also Read: India, China disengage in three sectors at LAC.

Namgyals rebuttal to Rahul Gandhi comes at a time the opposition has amped up its attacks on the government over some media reports that claimed Chinese troops had entered inside Indian territory during the ongoing standoff.

Gandhi, however, continued to target the government. On Wednesday morning, he aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Chinese have walked in and taken our territory in Ladakh. Meanwhile The PM is absolutely silent and has vanished from the scene, he tweeted.

Gandhis fresh attack on Wednesday comes even as Chinese troops at the four standoff points in Ladakh have started thinning out. A Major General-level meeting is also scheduled between the two sides to work out the mechanics of scaling down troops on both sides of the Line of Actual Control.
As protests over racist policing in America continue to play out in the nations streets, a concurrent reckoning with race and inequality is taking shape inside the countrys notoriously white media companies, signaled in part by the sudden departures of high-profile executives. The most notable exit so far is James Bennet, whose tenure as the editorial page editor of the New York Times ended after a furor over an op-ed by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton that called for deploying the military against peaceful protesters. But in recent days weve also seen Christene Barberich step aside as editor in chief of Refinery29, after accounts of the discrimination faced by black women and other women of color went viral under the hashtag #blackatR29, and Stan Wischnowski resign from his post at the Philadelphia Inquirer after dozens of journalists in the newsroom walked out following the publication of a piece with the headline Buildings Matter, Too.

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Now the media Hunger Games cannon has come for Bon Appetit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport, whose resignation was announced on Monday hours after a photo of him and his wife dressed up as Puerto Rican caricatures for a 2004 Halloween party resurfaced on Twitter. In a statement posted on Instagram, Rapoport said he was stepping down to reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being and to allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place. The incident set off a painful discussion about the Conde Nast culinary titles history of alleged pay inequity and tokenization among staffers, contributors, and fans alike. (Full disclosure: I have a roommate who works at Bon Appetit.)

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For some, the Bon Appetit firestorm came out of nowhere. But for close observers, there were always hints of trouble simmering beneath the idyllic surface of the hugely popular food media brand, which manifests these days in hit YouTube series like Gourmet Makes and spinoff web verticals like Healthyish more than in the classic glossy magazine. Last year, food critic Soleil Ho wrote about the Bon Appetit test kitchens race problem for the San Francisco Chronicle, noting the lack of diversity in videos that had earned the magazine more than 6 million YouTube subscribers. And much of the criticism recently leveraged at food writer Alison Roman about who gets paid to be the public face of exotic ingredients and techniques from what writer Navneet Alang calls the global pantry could also be leveled at the publication where Roman got her start.

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That exact tension was clear on Monday when freelance Puerto Rican food columnist Illyanna Maisonet posted screenshots of a conversation she had with Rapoport on Instagram concerning why one of her pitches was rejected. In the conversation, Rapoport admitted that Bon Appetit doesnt have enough stories about Puerto Rican cuisine and wonders about how Maisonet can find a way in to the magazine. Food critic and wine professional Tammie Teclemariam then reposted Rapaports heinous costume, tweeting, I do not know why Adam Rapoport simply doesnt write about Puerto Rican food for @bonappetit himself!!! In the caption for the photo, which has now been taken down, Rapaports wife calls him papi and includes the hashtag #boricua, which NPR defines as a local name for a Puerto Rican that derives from the indigenous name of the island. The disgust over the photo then surfaced long-standing complaints about the way the brand handles diversity and equity.

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In an Instagram post, assistant editorand one of the few constant nonwhite personalities in the test kitchen videosSohla El-Waylly wrote that she was angry and disgusted at the photo of Rapoport and called for his immediate resignation. She then went on to describe some of the magazines other practices, writing that only white editors are paid for their video appearances. None of the people of color have been compensated for their appearances. In an interview with BuzzFeed, El-Waylly recounted how soon after she was hired at $50,000 a year, the magazine expanded her role without additional compensation. They were asking me to stand in the background of photo shoots and video shoots, which made me super uncomfortable, El-Waylly told reporter Stephanie K. Baer. I was brought on to do this one job, and Ive kind of taken on the role of a senior editor, contributing to all of the verticals in print and video. El-Waylly went on to describe a particularly galling experience:

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Last August, she was sent on assignment to Philadelphia, for a feature with three Black chefs, but because the publication doesnt have a great history of working with Black chefs, the chefs asked to work with all Black staff, El-Waylly said. There was no one on the food team that was Black, so they sent me instead because Im the darkest one, she said, adding that neither she nor the chefs were given a heads up about the situation. I arrived and I wasnt Black, and it was very strange for everyone involved.

After El-Wayllys Instagram post, many of her test kitchen colleagues and fans rallied behind her, and on Monday afternoon Sohla trended on Twitter. Many called for Bon Appetit to address its pay discrepancy issues, including senior food editor Molly Baz and food director Carla Lalli Music, who vowed not to appear in any additional videos until El-Waylly and their colleagues of color received equal pay and adequate additional compensation for their video appearances. Other well-known Bon Appetit staff joined them, including senior food editor Andy Baraghani, test kitchen director Chris Morocco, and chef Brad Leone. In response, Matt Duckor, the head of programming for lifestyle and style for Bon Appetits parent company Conde Nast, wrote that the way that we determine who should and shouldnt be incrementally compensated for video beyond their salaries is flawed and it needs to change.

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But more importantly, on the topic of pay inequities in the BA Test Kitchenthe way that we determine who should and shouldnt be incrementally compensated for video beyond their salaries is flawed and it needs to change.  Matt Duckor (@mattduckor) June 9, 2020

Shortly thereafter, old offensive tweets of Duckors surfaced and calls for him to resign began to circulate. Just Monday night, Conde Nast had tweeted, As a global media company, Conde Nast is dedicated to creating a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. We have a zero-tolerance policy toward discrimination and harassment in any forms. [Update, June 11, 2020, at 2:14 p.m.: On Wednesday, Business Insider reported that Duckor has also stepped down.]

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Consistent with that, we go to great lengths to ensure that employees are paid fairly, in accordance with their roles and experience, across the entire company. We take the well-being of our employees seriously and prioritize a people-first approach to our culture. (2/2)  Conde Nast (@CondeNast) June 9, 2020

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The statement, along with one from Conde CEO Roger Lynch suggesting that concerns around pay and equity would have been dealt with sooner if they had been brought up earlier, was rather predictably met with widespread outrage from former employees, many of them from marginalized communities.

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i wouldnt have quit my dream job if this were true of conde lol https://t.co/wsb7i8Okwm  Tyler Ford (@tywrent) June 9, 2020

Girl, when I brought up racism to HR I wasn't only ignored, but gaslit. I was emotionally abused, was told I was the problem, and eventually left after less than a year. Do better. Words mean nothing.  David Yi (@seoulcialite) June 9, 2020

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Bitch Ive worked for Conde Nast. You have a very high tolerance for both. https://t.co/AFo6432pZi  Jordan Crucchiola (@JorCru) June 9, 2020

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Oh rly @CondeNast? Because when I raised issues about racism in the workplace, specifically the @bonappetit test kitchen regarding @AndrewOKnowlton to your HR in 2017, it was met with "IF this happened to you" which btw is textbook gas lighting. https://t.co/AzpsHSjvV9  Eleanore Park (@eleanorehpark) June 9, 2020

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Fuck it if I get sued for this but I got a $5k raise for my promotion to a director title and still was paid nearly $50k less than the white woman who had the job before me. https://t.co/dJeaEKW9Ro  Zara Rahim (@ZaraRahim) June 9, 2020

It seems clear at this point that Rapoports and Duckors resignations and the subsequent naming of Amanda Shapiro as interim editor isnt the end of this saga. Not least because on Tuesday, photos surfaced from drinks editor Alex Delanys old Tumblr page that suggest he once baked a cake for a friend bearing the Confederate flag in icing. (His Twitter account has now been deactivated, and his Instagram made private.) [Update, June 10, 2020, at 11:30 a.m.: Delany has issued a statement regarding the photo, writing that he was 17 at the time and that it goes without saying that this is a despicable symbol.  It does not reflect the values I hold now  I cannot apologize intensely enough. He also pledged to donate his next paycheck to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.] And according to a Jezebel report, a small group of senior staffers and people of color working inside BA are currently working on a draft of demands requiring more transparency and compensation for employees of color at the company.

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Some will, predictably, declare that this recent raft of resignations and reckonings is nothing but cancel culture gone wild. But for the journalists of color who have either suffered in silence or whose concerns have been ignored, this moment is nothing if not long overdue.

Im happy for them, but at the same time, I cant help feeling the furor at Bon Appetit and the larger media reckoning is all too little, too late. As the Times Jenna Wortham pointed out on Twitter, consequences have only arrived after generations of black journalists and journalists of color burned themselves out trying to foment change or simply chose their sanity and left. What would the Washington Posts George Floyd coverage look like if Wesley Lowery hadnt been censured and censored for the very perspective that earned the Post a Pulitzer? What will the Times climate change coverage lose now that Kendra Pierre-Louis has left partially because she was disciplined for pointing out the racism that underpins traditional journalistic notions of objectivity? And what of those whose names we dont know, who have stayed silent out of fear of retribution in a rapidly shrinking industry where pointing out racism earns you more condemnation than actually being racist? What about the aspiring journalists who, after seeing the decimation of local and digital jobs, turn and see what Lowery and Pierre-Louis and El-Waylly have gone through in the most prestigious newsrooms and think that there is no viable way forward?

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Its clear that what has been lost by stifling and gaslighting nonwhite journalists cannot be fixed by a few high-level departures. Its less clear where exactly we go from here. But if the protests that have rocked the nation in the past two weeks have demonstrated anything, it is that that the responsibility to fix this cannot and does not rest solely on the shoulders of those who are already burdened by a double consciousness. This problem now rests where it always should have been: at the feet of the safe and the secure and the privileged.

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New Delhi: Social networking site Facebook has filed a lawsuit against a company in India. The company alleges that the Mumbai-based company used the name Facebook, which appears to be a case of fraud. The company is accused of using 12 such domain names.

A lawsuit has been filed against a Mumbai-based company in a Virginia court, according to a statement issued by Facebook.

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FacebookMumbai-based company Compsys Domain Solutions Private Ltd has created 12 domains similar to the Facebook name. The complaint alleges that the Indian company may have committed fraud in the name of Facebook.

Experts in the case said that the Indian company has registered the domain name with the same name as Facebook. These include sites such as Facebook-verify-inc.com, Instagramhjack.com and VideoCall-Whatsapp.com.

FacebookLooking at them, it seems that these sites are only designed to scam or deceive people. Facebook keeps checking all the sites and domains associated with its name in the internet.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 13:52:14|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Disastrous bushfires devastating much of the Balmoral village and the Blue Mountains world heritage area were caused by failed backburns, internal investigations by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) found.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation(ABC) revealed the details of two separate bushfire investigations on Wednesday, which blame mapping errors, communications breakdowns and unpredictable weather conditions for the failure.

New RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers believed backburn is a risky but essential strategy.

"For this last fire season, there were more than 1,000 backburns put in. Of that, 4 percent got out of containment," he said.

"There's not too many other options ... It's either we put in a backburn to stop these fires, or we'll just wait for them at properties and hope for the best."

The backburn near Balmoral was lit on Dec. 14, 2019 to protect Southern Highlands communities from the Green Wattle Creek Fire. The backburn quickly went out of control because it was lit in the wrong location.

The RFS lit another backburn to contain the fire west of Balmoral four nights later, which burned towards the village the next morning.

Local RFS captain Brendon O'Connor told the ABC that he was not aware of the plan.

"We had not been informed of this backburn whatsoever," said O'Connor.

"Given the forecast for the next day, which was 42 degrees (Celsius), very strong westerly winds, it was just a terrible decision to start the fire 2.5 kilometres out from a village."

The ferocious fire destroyed more than 20 homes in Balmoral eventually and killed two volunteer firefighters.

A backburn was lit on the same day, Dec. 14, 2019 in the Upper Blue Mountains to contain the Gospers Mountain megafire.

According to RFS's investigation, the backburn failed as the weather conditions changed unexpectedly. It destroyed over 20 homes in the Blue Mountain towns and burned 200 square km of the national park.

The NSW independent inquiry into the 2019-20 bushfires is still ongoing, which includes the use of backburns during the fire season. It is expected to be released at the end of next month. Enditem
Showing support for global efforts in fighting the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Vietnamese businesses have joined hands in providing the United States with nearly 1.3 million face masks and about 100,000 non-skid pairs of socks.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) hosted the donation ceremony last Friday, June 5.

During the event, Dr. Vu Tien Loc, chairman and president of VCCI, acknowledged that although the contribution was modest compared to the United States real demand for medical supplies, it was still a beautiful gesture from Vietnamese businesses and organizations toward the Americans during the difficult period.

According to VCCI, the aid was provided by Dony Garment Co. Ltd., AIC Group, Tan Dai Hung Plastic J.S.CO., SENGROUP, OneStep Vietnam Co. Ltd., Oxalis Adventure, Tuong Nguyen charity group, and several others.

Giving away 100,000 antibacterial and anti-droplet cloth masks with a total value of over VND10.5 billion (US$451,300), Dony Garment was one of the businesses that wanted to express gratitude to the United States previous support for Vietnamese people during the pandemic.

Pham Quang Anh, director of Dony Garment, said his company had been significantly impacted by the pandemic, both in good and bad ways, so it understood what kinds of adversity that other firms and people around the world were suffering.

At a time when the disease is spreading in other countries, including the United States, we want to contribute more to the international community. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have allocated five percent of Dony's entire revenue, from apparel to cloth masks, to the community, Anh said.

On behalf of Operation USA, the unit that would receive and distribute the shipment in the U.S., U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink expressed his appreciation for the Vietnamese government, VCCI, and the sponsors.

In English, we have a saying that A friend in need is a friend indeed. It means that if you find yourself in a difficult situation and you need help, you will find out who your true friends are because your true friends come forward and help you, he said, adding that the U.S. had made new friends in Vietnam through the event.

Concerning the pandemic situation in the U.S., Kritenbrink was positive that the States would successfully make it through, acknowledging that the help from the Vietnamese businesses and organizations would be a factor in the countrys success.

From the first day of the pandemic, there have been so many private companies and individuals here in Vietnam [that] reached out to the U.S. Embassy, offering donations of medical supplies as American frontline workers were facing the threat from COVID-19, he stressed.

The diplomat also praised Vietnams success in COVID-19 prevention and control which plays a crucial role in the nations economic recovery.

As of Monday, the United States had about 1.98 million confirmed cases and around 112,000 deaths from COVID-19.

While planning to gradually reopen the economy, the country remains vigilant for risks of the pandemic spreading.

The United States had made efforts to assist other countries in disease prevention. Specifically, it has provided Vietnam with $9.5 million for disease prevention.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
She once played Linda Fielding on the iconic soap Neighbours.

And 35 years later, Hugh Jackman's wife Deborra-Lee Furness is gearing up to return to the beloved show by directing three new episodes this year.

Appearing on Wednesday's Studio 10, the 63-year-old was taken aback when interviewer Angela Bishop unveiled a rare image of herself taken from an episode of Neighbours in 1985, when it aired on Channel Seven.

'Oh my gosh the hair!' cringed Deborra-Lee as the image flashed on screen.

In the photo, Deborra-Lee was dressed in full Linda Fielding garb - including a purple blazer and excessively teased 'do.

The scene appeared to involve her character engaging in a very heated phone conversation.

'Oh my gosh, the hair!' Hugh Jackman's wife Deborra-Lee Furness, 63, cringed as rare image of herself on Neighbours in 1985 flashed on-screen during an interview with Studio 10 on Wednesday - ahead of her return to the soap

It was acceptable in the 80s! In the photo, Deborra-Lee was dressed in full Linda Fielding garb - including a purple blazer and excessively teased 'do

Deborra-Lee's episodes are set to air this week, and will shine a light on the need for change in adoption laws in Australia through an arc about a gay couple wanting to start a family.

Adoption is something very close to philanthropic Deborra-Lee's heart, as she is the founder of non-profit Adopt Change, a grassroots advocacy group for children in out-of-home care.

The Australian-born star has also spoken openly about her experience of adopting her children Oscar, 18, and Ava, 13, with husband Hugh.

Advocate: Adoption is something very close to philanthropic Deborra-Lee's heart, as she is the founder of non-profit Adopt Change, an advocacy group for children in out-of-home care

Speaking to Stellar magazine in April of last year, Deborra-Lee with her saying the 'universe had a plan in place' for her family.

Despite initially starting the adoption process in Australia, she was forced to continue the process in the US, where laws are less draconian.

'Those who knew that Hugh and I had adopted our children Oscar and Ava in the US would come up to me in the street and ask: 'Why is it so hard to adopt in Australia?'

Family ties: Deborra-Lee and Hugh are parents to two adopted children, Oscar, 20, and Ava, 14. Pictured in 2012
The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is taking a leading role in a new, more hard-line pressure campaign against South Korea, highlighting what analysts say is a substantive policy role that goes beyond being her brother's assistant.

Believed to be in her early 30s, Kim Yo Jong is the only close relative of the North Korean leader to play a public role in politics.

During the 2018-2019 flurry of international diplomacy, Kim Yo Jong garnered global attention by leading a delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Later, she was often seen dashing about to make sure everything went well for her older brother, including holding an ashtray for him at a train station on his way to a summit with US President Donald Trump in Vietnam.

But this year, Kim has taken on a more public policy role, cementing her status as an influential political player in her own right.

"Prior to this, Kim Yo Jong was portrayed in state media as Kim Jong Un's sister, his protocol officer, or one of his accompanying officials," said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former North Korea open source intelligence analyst in the US government. "Now, North Koreans know for sure there is more to her than that."

Kim has worked behind the scenes in North Korea's propaganda agencies, a role that led the United States to add her to a list of sanctioned senior officials in 2017 because of human rights abuses and censorship.

In March, state media carried the first ever statement by Kim, in which she criticised South Korean authorities. That was followed by several more, including a response to comments by Trump, and last week, a warning that the North would cut communications with South Korea.

Lee said Kim's statements have a unique style, showcasing her wit and underscoring her powerful position.

"In addition to the harsh words and sarcasm, they can be bitingly witty in ways that the other statements are not," Lee said. "She seems to have more leeway in crafting her statements, which of course is not surprising."

When state media announced on Tuesday that the hotlines between North and South Korea would be severed, they said Kim Yo Jong and a longtime hard-liner, Kim Yong Chol, championed the decision at a meeting.

This rare explanation of a policymaking process portrayed Kim Yo Jong as "a very substantive person," said Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the Stimson Centre, a US-based think tank.

Madden said this new portrayal of Kim in state media may be a subtle dig at international analysts who have cast doubts on her ability to wield influence in the North's male-dominated society.

"They clearly have high hopes and expectations for her," he said. "Not necessarily the next leader, but something of a king maker nonetheless."
Rarely do we see REALTORS with such tremendous sales success willing and able to make the transition into management roles. In Tom, we have one of the most productive agents we've ever had on the coast who is inspired to make this significant shift into leadership. Chris Trapani, Co-Founder & CEO

Since its inception in 2006, Sereno Group has built the most productive, philanthropic and locally owned residential real estate company in the Silicon Valley region through its focus on progressive, agent-centric platforms and innovative, socially responsible leadership. The tradition continues with the recent naming of a new leader in the company ecosystem.

Tom Brezsny, a licensed Realtor in Santa Cruz for 31 years and a recognized thought-leader in the local real estate industry has been named VP of Experience for the Santa Cruz coastal offices. In addition to being a top-producing agent and the recipient of numerous sales awards and accolades, since 1996 he has authored a well-known weekly newspaper column called Real Estate of Mind, geared to educating local residents about the real estate process and changing market trends.

In his new leadership role, Brezsny will lead a local team of 60 highly productive and community-minded agents to serve their clients and support them in growing their businesses while upholding the values and culture of the company.

At Sereno Group, we believe in the essential nature of home and the importance of community in peoples lives. Every day we act as agents of change, helping our clients navigate through the biggest transitions in their lives. Its an honor to share the values and experiences Ive gleaned over the last 31 years with such a thoughtful group of like-minded professionals," said Brezsny of his new role.

As a 42 year resident of Santa Cruz, he has also served on the boards of numerous charitable organizations at the same time he has actively contributed to a long list of philanthropic efforts, arts organizations, local schools, youth sports, and non-profit ventures. The Santa Cruz Association of Realtors honored him with their Annual Community Service Award in 2005, in recognition of his ongoing efforts to provide permanent housing for homeless families and children.

Together with his wife Terry, he is the team leader of Brezsny Associates, Realtors with an exponential set of skills and more than 50 years of combined experience that has yielded more than 1,000 local real estate transactions over three decades.

About Sereno Group

Sereno Group has risen to become one of the top real estate firms in the San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties by overall annual sales volume. The sales team has the distinction of having the highest per agent productivity compared to other leading brokerages in the local markets we serve. RealTrends listed Sereno Group in the top five for Closed Sales Volume per Sales Associate as compared to all brokerages in the US.

In 2006, a small group of pioneering real estate thought leaders in Silicon Valley broke free from the impersonal mega-office model and formed a regional boutique agency that now has seven offices and transacted over $3.85B in annual sales volume. Through 1% For Good, the companys philanthropic efforts formed in 2012, $3.1M has been donated to local charitable or community-minded groups.


Some five years ago, several protesters dragged an effigy, wrapped in a sheet splattered with fake blood to represent a corrupt government official across Poipet town. They wanted to voice opposition against their communitys eviction from their land to make space for a railway project. One of them still feels the consequences of that protest today. Activist Chheng Bunhak, one of the leaders of the protest, was arrested and charged with traffic obstruction and incitement to commit crimes. But while he was released after two days following pressure by international and local rights groups, the investigative judge ordered him to appear at the police station in Poipet on the 25th day of each month. That condition still applies today. Sitting in his home next to the railway in Poipet city, the 42-year-old said the court monitoring conditions have made his life difficult. At this point, I feel very angry because I dont have the right to express my ideas since I am under the court monitoring, Chheng Bunhak said, explaining that he couldnt engage in activism for fear of being arrested again. Aside from his activism, the court monitoring conditions also put him in a difficult financial situation. Before the court case, he would work in Thailand for three to four months, sometimes a year. And while he could only find work as an occasional motor-taxi driver or construction worker in Banteay Meanchey, where he would earn about $5 to $10 a day, he could earn a regular income between $9 and $12 a day in Thailand. With the court condition of having to reappear at the police station every month, he said he could not leave to work in Thailand.

At the moment, Bunhak said his situation was particularly difficult because there were no jobs available in the construction industry where he lives, and the coronavirus pandemic had slashed his already meager income. The [my] case should not be kept on hold like this, he said. For the last five years, I lost and wasted my time. I cant go where I want to go. I lost my freedom. While maintaining his innocence, the former land activist said the provincial court should quickly put him on trial to clear out of the case. There should be an opening of what is called a trial to know whether I will be convicted or found guilty or what? The trial should be conducted, he said.  If I dont fulfill [the court conditions], I will be summoned once again. Bunhaks pending case is among nearly 40,000 pending cases in Cambodias provincial and municipal courts, most of them related to criminal charges. Purposeful Delays Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the delay of cases was done on purpose. The courts, he said, acted on the whim of the ruling party and its ministers. The Cambodian authorities use some of these old cases as a deterrent to prevent activists from protesting against human rights abuses or other forms of government malfeasance and corruption, he said. Basically, these cases are like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, left hanging over activists heads so they feel insecure and afraid that they could face trial and imprisonment at any time the government wants.

Activist Din Puthys experience of the past four years mirrors this limitation. At the end of 2016, the activists case in Poipet city drew the ire of the media and observers when a border police officer in Poipet town ostensibly pretended to be hit by Puthys car and collapsed while the car was not moving. Din Puthy, also known as Mang Puthy, was an official of the now-dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). He was charged with intentional violence and sent to pre-trial detention after the accident. Inside his home at Poipet, Puthy pulled out a stack of legal documents, neatly clipped together in one big folder. Although he was released after three weeks in prison, he was only released on bail. His charges were never dropped, and he still has two other charges against him that he said stemmed from his human rights activism. One case, brought against him in 2009 remains pending. Similarly to Bunhak, Puthy said he is struggling financially because of the court case. With three children to care for, he said the pending court case prevented him from getting a decently-paid job. For example, he said he had applied for a job at an insurance company but his application was rejected because of his open case status. While selling gas and drinking-water in his small shop located in his house to make some income, he said some people refused to do business with him because they knew he had been charged with a crime. Puthy believed that the courts kept the charges open on purpose to keep him from being an outspoken activist. To this day, he's still the president of the worker association Informal Economy Reinforced Association, but he's weighed down by the pending court cases. Because of this, Puthy said his advocacy activity has been weakened. With charges never dropped, Puthy said it would be easy for the authorities to arrest him. "Authorities could issue arrest warrants if I'm engaged in advocating activities that they didnt like," he said. The court cases also put him in a bad financial position, the travel to the provincial courthouse is expensive. Its difficult, said Din Puthy. But Chin Malin, spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, denied the allegations that courts purposefully delayed cases to intimidate activists. [The activists] never acknowledge that they commit offenses that are against the law. When they caused chaos and the law is implemented, they said they are exercising their rights, he said. For the authorities, they implement the law for all. They dont care who the activists are based on legal principles, nobody is ordering the courts to drop charges or to not drop them.

Contrary to those claims, Long Sokunthy, 48, is another activist who feels the weight of pending cases and who believes that her case was not dealt fairly. She was a representative for more than 200 families locked in a dispute over 1,400 hectares of land in OChrov districts OBeichoan commune. She spent 12 months in prison on allegations of destroying private property. Although the alleged crime happened between 2013 and 2015 according to the charges  she denies the charges  the arrest warrant was only issued in March 2018, a few days after which she was arrested. But while she was released and is not technically under court supervision, she is still required to show up at court for a litany of charges. Of the 14 initial cases covering a period from 2014 until 2017, she still has to deal with 10. This means that she sometimes has to go to court three times a month. Most recently, she went to court at the end of May for allegedly having committed intentional violence in 2015. The verdict is due on June 15. Like in all other cases, she denies the allegations. Costly Court Proceedings Soum Chankea, a local representative of the right organization Adhoc in Banteay Meanchey province, said corruption made court visits costly. When our management is slow regarding documents and other issues, there always be  bribery and under-the-table fees. Its been that the money will be spent at the court by the people whenever they go to court. If [you] want your cases proceeding to go quickly, lets give [us] some money. While a lack of technical skills to handle cases digitally and limited human resources contributed to slower court systems, Chankea said some court officials created the backlog of cases on purpose by postponing trials of the accused to slow down the hearing process. He said some judges would postpone the trial on short notice even when the accused had traveled from long distance to attend the trial. But if the people didnt come to attend the trial, judges will try them in absentia, he added.

Long Sokunthy knows the consequences all too well. Sitting inside her small grocery stall, Sokunthy said she had lost her income and savings to the land dispute. Partially to pay for legal services, she took up a loan of about $10,000 at a microfinance institute. While she has cleared out her debts with that institute, she said she remained in debt with private lenders, including to family members. Each time she went to court now she couldnt spend time selling her groceries. Because she had to set aside most of her daily income to pay for her debt, she could only take away about $2.5 each day to pay for her food and other daily expenses - so going to court, she said, was a significant financial burden each time. I wasted my time on [these cases], while I am trying to do business, Sokunthy said. This also affects her mental health. I almost lost my motivation to keep my business running and to continue living here, she said. We cannot concentrate anymore. [My] mind is in chaos. Like Bunhak, she wants to work in Thailand as a construction worker, but as long as the court cases are pending, she cannot leave. I dont want to live here, and I want to leave for good to Thailand, she said. Roeun Lina, spokesman for the Banteay Meanchey provincial court, declined to comment. Nguon Nara, president of the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court, also could not be reached for comment. Cleaning out Cases Having faced years of criticism for its slow judiciary, the Ministry of Justice launched a campaign to reduce prison overcrowding and decrease the mountain of cases in May. It said it would do so by increasing the capacity at courts, accelerate trials, and increase the use of bail and suspended sentences. Justice Minister Koeut Rith said the number of cases and inmates had increased on account of the governments anti-drug campaign that started in 2017, which had resulted in an exponential increase in cases being sent to court.
The state Senate has also unanimously supported this initiative along with the convention bureau of Atlantic City (Meet AC) plus various city and county political bodies.

When we started our campaign to brand Atlantic City as a center for climate change discussions, we did not anticipate that all restaurants and hotels throughout the city would be closing indefinitely just as we started to gain traction.

Despite this obstacle, we remain steadfast in our quest to address the changing climate, and we are galvanized by the outpouring of support from our community and local stakeholders.

According to a recent survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities, a majority of Americans are concerned about climate change, despite the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. Mandatory stay-at-home orders have forced us to seek alternative, more traditional ways to spend our time.

Farmers markets, plant nurseries and bicycle shops all across South Jersey have seen an increase in business as people step outdoors. Social distancing has turned business meetings and happy hours alike into video conferences, and even those vehemently opposed to technology are coming around.
By Sangmi Cha and Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) - A day after North Korea suspended communication hotlines with South Korea over defectors who send propaganda and contraband into the North, South Korea said it would take legal action against two organisations that conduct such operations. North Korea gets enraged when the defectors in the South send material such as anti-North leaflets and rice - usually by balloon over the heavily fortified border or in bottles by sea - and its media has in recent days denounced the 'mongrel dogs' who do it. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, recently called defectors 'human scum little short of wild animals' and said North Korea would cut communication with South Korea because of its failure to stop them

By Sangmi Cha and Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) - A day after North Korea suspended communication hotlines with South Korea over defectors who send propaganda and contraband into the North, South Korea said it would take legal action against two organisations that conduct such operations.

North Korea gets enraged when the defectors in the South send material such as anti-North leaflets and rice - usually by balloon over the heavily fortified border or in bottles by sea - and its media has in recent days denounced the "mongrel dogs" who do it.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, recently called defectors "human scum little short of wild animals" and said North Korea would cut communication with South Korea because of its failure to stop them.

South Korea, which is trying to improve ties with the North, said on Wednesday two defector-run groups, Kuensaem Education Center and Fighters for a Free North Korea, had violated the Inter-Korean Exchange and Co-operation Act by sending the leaflets, as well as aid like rice and medicine.

The two defector groups "have created tension between the two Koreas and caused danger to the border-area residents' lives and safety", said the South's Unification Ministry spokesman Yoh Sang-key.

One defector, Park Sang-hak, who left North Korea in 2000 and heads the Fighters For Free North Korea, has been sending leaflets about once a month for the last 15 years.

You can never buy peace with flattery and begging," he said of the South Korean government's response to the North Korean criticism.

About 33,000 North Korean defectors live in South Korea.

As part of the effort to improve ties with the North, South Korean President Moon Jae-in's administration has sought to discourage the leaflet and rice campaigns, and defectors complained of pressure to avoid criticism of North Korea.

On Monday, activists were stopped by residents when they tried to send plastic bottles stuffed with rice by releasing them at sea.

(Reporting by Sangmi Cha and Josh Smith)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Battling a killer virus that recognises neither orange nor green. It's the best hope in a political lifetime of uniting the DUP and Sinn Fein in common purpose.

There is no lockdown love-in at Stormont, but, whisper it softly, Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill are working well together on tackling Covid-19 after a very rocky start. Although how long that lasts is another matter.

They've joked that they are spending so much time together they could form their own social bubble when new guidelines for indoor meetings are introduced.

They are certainly putting in the hours. After others have long gone home and Parliament Buildings are locked up, O'Neill and Foster will often still be in their respective party offices late into the night.

Both regularly leave by the tradesman's exit - known in Stormont as 'the slope' - at the back of the building.

Expand Close Arlene Foster at a coronavirus briefing in Stormont Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press E / Facebook

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Last Friday the DUP issued its proposals to fast-track Northern Ireland out of lockdown. To the surprise of some, it was not a solo run. This week Sinn Fein gave the green light for small shops to reopen on Friday.

That was a significant step for the party. The DUP is instinctively supportive of the business community, but throughout this pandemic the Shinners have adopted an ultra-cautious approach that puts public health and workers' safety first and foremost. Stormont sources say that the party's junior minister in the Executive Office Declan Kearney took considerable convincing before signing up to easing restrictions.

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If the Executive has got it wrong and there is a significant rise in infections following the relaxation, Sinn Fein will pay a heavier price among its grassroots than its partner in government will with its base.

The Foster-O'Neill relationship is nowhere near as natural and warm as that enjoyed by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. This is a much more businesslike relationship. But there is a determination on both sides not to let potential problems fester.

"If there's an issue on a Saturday night, it won't be left until Monday morning to sort it out," said a source. "It will be a case of working through difficulties as soon as they arise and finding solutions."

The First and Deputy First Ministers text each other and hold video calls via social media. Some have suggested that the two women are making progress now because social distancing has cleared away their male contingents, but that's not the case.

The importance of DUP adviser Dr Philip Weir and his Sinn Fein counterpart in the Executive Office Stephen McGlade can't be over-estimated. "They're linchpins," said an insider. "They're always with Arlene and Michelle. They've a good relationship with each other and with those around them. They're calm and measured."

The contrasting response of London and Dublin in the early days of the pandemic caused friction at Stormont. Sinn Fein spoke out against what it saw as the slavish following of a flawed Westminster strategy that risked lives.

While critics accused the party of cheap political pointscoring - resulting in O'Neill's poll ratings being lower than Foster's - the Shinners' actions were genuine on this one. The disastrous handling of the pandemic by Boris Johnson, and the Dominic Cummings fiasco, means that even the DUP no longer looks to London first. The determination of Wales and Scotland to chart their own separate courses has also made it politically easier for unionists here to do the same.

Stormont's decision to ease lockdown so swiftly after Dublin did is a de facto recognition that an all-island approach is essential, although unionists regularly and rightly point out how Northern Ireland benefits from the UK's generous furlough scheme.

At the daily Stormont Press briefings the First and Deputy First Ministers complement each other. Foster is the more articulate, O'Neill is the more empathetic.

Behind-the-scenes efforts mean DUP-Sinn Fein rows at the Executive table have been avoided, but significant divisions still exist on a range of issues.

Shamefully, there has been no headway on reaching a compromise that would see Troubles victims secure a pension.

Brexit tensions remain too, with Sinn Fein supporting a time extension and the DUP against one. SDLP minister Nichola Mallon forced a vote, which was tied, on the issue at the Executive last week. It will return to the agenda next week, and the result could be different if the Ulster Unionists change their mind.

Yet the biggest Brexit battles are in the rearview mirror. It's Northern Ireland centenary celebrations next year, which could pose the biggest challenge to the DUP-Sinn Fein relationship.

In her phone conversation with the Queen last Wednesday O'Neill said her party's approach to the anniversary "will be to promote reconciliation".

But a week earlier Chris Hazzard MP referred to the "anniversary of the creation of the rotten orange state". Despite improved personal and political relations at Stormont, the huge ideological divisions between the DUP and Sinn Fein remain simmering underneath.
Authorities in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang are gathering public feedback on a draft scheme to convert the island district of Phu Quoc into a city.

The districts vice-chairman Pham Van Nghiep told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Monday that feedback collection is available at the respective portals of Phu Quoc District and Kien Giang Province at phuquoc.kiengiang.gov.vn and kiengiang.gov.vn for a 30-day period.

The provincial government is trying to go through the relevant establishment procedures and submit its proposal to the relevant ministries, central agencies and the lawmaking National Assembly for consideration.

Phu Quoc District has fulfilled several essential requirements for becoming a city at the helm of the Kien Giang administration, said the provincial Party Secretary Mai Van Huynh as quoted in Nhan Dan (People) newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Huynh said the local government intended to develop Phu Quoc Island into a city and a special administrative and economic zone in 2004.

Ten years later, the island satisfied the basic criteria to be classified as a second-tier urban zone.

The island district has experienced exponential growth in its economic and social aspects and urbanization for the past years, according to the local Party chief.

He noted that the district authorities are in turn overwhelmed with the issues concerning education, health, trade, tourism, demographics, safety and security, and social ills; therefore, the establishment of the city and its associated wards will make it easier for Phu Quoc to take care of these issues that come with a growing population.

He also stated that the establishment of a city will play a crucial role in politics, defense and security in an attempt to assert Vietnams sovereignty over its sea and islands.

The future city will become more attractive to investors in the tourism sector, thus fostering the socio-economic development of Phu Quoc in particular and Kien Giang in general, according to the senior official.

Dinh Cau (Cau Temple) in Duong Dong Town, Phu Quoc Island off Kien Giang Province, Vietnam is seen in this aerial photo. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

Under the draft proposal, Phu Quoc City will cover more than 575 square kilometers and have a population of over 177,500.

The city will have two wards, Duong Dong and An Thoi, and six communes: Ham Ninh, Duong To, Ganh Dau, Bai Thom, Cua Duong and Cua Can.

In 2018, the central government gave the authority of Kien Giang Province the go-ahead to lease a foreign consultant in charge of a master plan for developing the Phu Quoc Island into a special administrative and economic zone.

Last month, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc introduced a 30-day visa exemption scheme for foreigners visiting the island, effective July 1.

The island is poised to be eligible for the resumption of international tourists as Vietnam continues to see success in containing the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is mulling over steps to open doors to foreign visitors to several islands, particularly Phu Quoc. The move is intended to get the countrys struggling tourism back on track.

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Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Ir Hasni Mohammad described the federal governments decision to allow Malaysians to commute to Singapore from Johor Bahru for work as a light at the end of the tunnel.

Aside from providing relief to the people, he believes that the move will also help boost the economy of the two countries, reported Bernama.

I believe that the federal governments decision to allow Malaysians to commute to Singapore is for the economic benefits of both countries and the well-being of Malaysians working in the island republic, he said.

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Indeed, Malaysia and Singapore need each other especially as neighbouring countries.

Prior to the governments movement control order (MCO), it is estimated that around 200,000 to 250,000 Malaysians commute through the Sultan Abu Bakar Complex or the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) Complex at Sultan Iskandar Building to work in Singapore.

However, the introduction of the governments MCO and Singapores enforcement of circuit breaker measures caused many Malaysians to lose their jobs in the republic.

The state government will always help and cooperate with the federal government and Singaporean Government to facilitate the necessary arrangements and ensure they proceed smoothly, he added.

Hasni revealed that Singapore has invested RM19.423 billion in Johors manufacturing sector since 1999.

For 2019, investment from Singapore jumped 51.47% to RM1.68 billion. The investment trend from Singapore has shown a positive significance and among the biggest contributors to the investment in Johor, he said.

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ALBANY  In a letter to Mayor Kathy Sheehan, the president of the city police union said that her executive order banning choke holds and instituting other reforms at the department insulted every police officer in the country.

Greg McGee wrote the letter after Sheehan issued the order on Monday, which also requires officers to intervene when another officer is using excessive force or verbally escalating a situation. Sheehan's order came after more than two weeks of rallies against police brutality and days after the Common Council said it would pursue a series of police reforms itself.

You have taken an isolated incident involving individuals who never should have been police officers and used them to step on the backs of your own officers, McGee wrote in the letter to Sheehan. The letter comes after the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died after an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, and the protests that followed.

McGee said the department doesnt use some of the very tactics, including choke holds and hog-tying suspects, that Sheehan banned and that by doing so, she gave the impression that the citys officers did use those tactics.

In a response, Sheehan wrote that she understood the points McGee brought up but that she and other elected officials believe it was important for the city to reiterate its dedication to those principles.

Sheehans order also requires the history of racism to be taught to all department members and reaffirms training requirements for de-escalation and implicit bias.

There is a gap between how our residents experience interactions with the police and how police perceive those interactions, she wrote. We must work as a community to close this gap.

McGee has been openly critical of Sheehan before, criticizing her administration for not filling city dispatchers quickly enough and arguing that staffing shortages and changes to city policies have made officers jobs more difficult.

Councilman Owusu Anane, who represents the Pine Hills neighborhood, also responded to McGee's letter, saying that in his opinion, all McGee had done since becoming union president was cause division anytime residents pushed for police reforms.

"If the people of our city want to see change, and we as elected representatives of the people enact those changes, it should not be unreasonable to expect the Albany Police Department to abide by those changes," he wrote.

Anane also encouraged McGee to discuss any changes the council was considering with them directly, rather than write letters to the city.
Police departments in Connecticut will have to resume fingerprint collection services by June 15, a judge has ruled, marking the first time an executive order from Gov. Ned Lamont has been struck down in court.

Lamont issued an order on March 17 suspending indefinitely fingerprint collection in response to the COVID-19 global health pandemic.

The Connecticut Citizens Defense League and several of its members filed a lawsuit in response to the order, claiming the indefinite suspension of fingerprinting violates their Second Amendment rights because, in the state of Connecticut, a fingerprint must be collected by local police for a background check in order to secure a handgun permit.

Federal District Court Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer issued a preliminary injunction Monday requiring the state to resume fingerprinting activities no later than June 15.

Its a victory for gun owners in the state of Connecticut to be recognized that our constitutional rights dont just go away because the governor says so, said CCDL President Holly Sullivan. The constitution stands the test of the time and its much stronger than that.

Sullivan said she knew of at least 70 CCDL members who had tried to obtain a handgun permit since March 17 but were unable to because of the fingerprinting suspension.

In his 26 page decision, Meyer wrote that the executive order, All in all, I can well understand why the Governors order and Commissioners actions were justified at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But with the passage of time it is clear that a categorical ban on the collection of fingerprints no longer bears a substantial relation to protecting public health consistent with respecting plaintiffs constitutional rights.

Lamont said during his daily news briefing Tuesday that he had planned to end the suspension on fingerprinting in the near future anyway.

Every executive order I did was in the name of public health, Lamont said. At one point I thought people going in, fingerprinting was not something we wanted people to do.

Lamont spokesman Max Reiss said later that the administration informed the court last week of Lamont intention to repeal the executive order as the state proceeds into the second phase of reopening the week of June 17.

kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2563; @kaitlynkrasselt
Police and members of the National Guard in some cities have found the perfect photo op: walking with protesters, shaking hands, hugging. The Georgia National Guard even did the Macarena dance with demonstrators.

Media seem to love it.

FOX 5 Atlanta ran a story with a headline that included the phrase One perfect moment.

But its those moments that many in Indianapolis were weary of recently when some demonstrators, after marching miles toward the governors mansion, embraced police officers who temporarily dropped their riot gear following a tense standoff.

Cameras swarmed. It was the kind of image rehabilitation police departments have been eager for.

At least one officer was then seen walking with the group as they made their way back downtown.

He stayed with them for a few minutes and then later, as he was standing by a squad car, remarked to the lively demonstrators  who were chanting Fuck 12 and agreed police have never deescalated anything  that he was the one who walked with them earlier, as though to say justice is here.

There have been plenty of posts on social media rejecting the notion that demonstrators and police need to come together in that way.

Indy10 Black Lives Matter tweeted, Making this real clear. We dont shake hands with the enemy.

Theyre sometimes referred to as police huggers at protests.

Kyra Jay, who said shes been to protests most nights since they started, thinks interacting with police like that is counter-productive to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Hugging the police, when we dont have even one demand met on our list, is a slap in the face, she said in an interview June 4.

(The next day, Mayor Joe Hogsett announced Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is proposing updates to its use-of-force policy, which has been one of the consistent demands from organizers.)

That was the point Mat Davis, an organizer who recently helped start a group called the Indiana Racial Justice Alliance, made as he grabbed a megaphone when demonstrators near the governors mansion stood face-to-face with police. He told people to pull back.

OK, we done shook enough hands, he said. Lets go!

In an interview June 8, Davis said those who seek out those made-for-TV moments with police are effectively counter-protesters.

If youre not out here to reform criminal justice as a system or make the argument to abolish it altogether and replace it with some other reimagining of public safety, then youre not out here to push forward the struggle that weve been experiencing for 200 years in this city, he said, referencing the citys bicentennial.

Zion Smith, who has emerged as one of the leaders for protests, said hugging and shaking hands with police is pointless.

Were not trying to be buddy-buddy with the police, Smith, 20, said in an interview June 4. The police system needs to be reformed. Thats why were here. Im not hugging the police. Im not shaking a police hand. I aint doing none of that s**t.

Malik Muhammad, one of a few people who helped facilitate the embrace between police and demonstrators near the governors mansion, was confronted for his tactics a few days later downtown, where he said the exchange made him uncomfortable.

Muhammad, identified by other media as an Army veteran, had a private meeting with Gov. Eric Holcomb recently. He told WISH TV they talked about specific police reforms.

Muhammad, who is Black, declined an interview for this article.

If embracing and walking with protestors wasnt part of some staged effort in front of a bunch of cameras, the fact remains it was still highly visible, which led Crystal Wade to believe it wasnt a genuine gesture.

Wade, 40, said there is a time and place for those sorts of exchanges, but she thought it was probably staged and actually made things worse.

It would be nice if those gestures were made not just in front of the governors mansion, Wade said in an interview June 5 by IMPDs Northwest Precinct.

The Recorder also observed some demonstrators high-fiving police officers during a downtown march June 2, though most of those people appeared to be white.

Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.

A protester holds a sign denouncing people who have hugged and high-fived police during demonstrations. (Photo/Breanna Cooper)
Security forces allegedly killed at least six people and are being accused of using excessive force while implementing coronavirus lockdown measures.

Security forces in South Africa are being accused of using excessive force while implementing coronavirus lockdown measures.

They have allegedly killed at least six people.

Al Jazeeras Fahmida Miller reports from Johannesburg in the latest part of our series on the effect of the pandemic on human rights.
We should model Christs example when fasting. When He was on earth, He had Gods anointing to meet peoples needs, but He still needed to fast. The Bible says, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. (Luke 4: 1-2, 13-14).

The Holy Spirit had come upon Jesus when He was baptized. (See Luke 3: 21-22). Yet after fasting, He returned, In the power of the Spirit. Jesus receive the Holy Spirit after He fasted, but the Spirit within Him was manifested with new power. Although you receive the Holy Spirit when you were born again, fasting ignites the power within you; you develop a hunger for intimacy with God, and the work of the Holy Spirit is manifested in your life. Witnessing about Gods love and grace gives you joy, and you serve God in ways you never expected.

Soon after His forty-day fast, Jesus encountered a demon-possessed man. When you fast, God allows you to experience some challenges because you are ready to handle them [now] through the Holy Spirit. There are people to whom God wants you to minister, but they wont cross your path until youre equipped to help them. Fasting prepares you for service to God through humans, the Bible calls them, your neighbors (Ministry). Note: A fast ignites the power of the Spirit within you. Fasting prepares, empowers and equips you for ministry.

Lets pray: Father, thank You for teaching me about the power that accompanies fasting. Please, Lord, equip me for ministry as I consecrate myself to You, in Jesus name. Amen.

Todays reading: Ezra 1-2; John 19:23-42

Jesus is Our Model.


Laikipia Woman Rep Cate Waruguru has made a U-turn on her criticism of the Handshake and the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) and has agreed to work with Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta on critical national issues.

This after the staunch supporter of DP William Ruto held talks with the ODM Party leader at Capitol Hill offices on Tuesday. She was accompanied by Minority Whip and Suna East MP Junet Mohammed.

A statement from Railas office indicated that Waruguru was now willing to work with Odinga and Uhuru constitutional reform, national unity, and fighting the coronavirus.

Raila welcomed the woman reps commitment and commended her for being courageous and strong.

The former Prime Minister also challenged Ms Waruguru to bring on board more of her colleagues to embrace the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) which according to him is a good reform agenda for the country.

Raila also reiterated the need for leaders to work together particularly because of the difficulties the country is currently facing.

At this moment in our history, it is critical that we approach our search for solutions not as members of this or that party or tribe but as Kenyans. The President needs support and the country requires unity, the ODM leader said.

The President needs support and the country requires unity.

On her part, Waruguru praised Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta for uniting the country.

National unity is the strength that binds and inspires the people of our country. Thus, in reality, its protection, peace, independence and sovereignty are directly dependent on and relative to a nations pride, patriotism, and social cohesion is also known as unity, she wrote on her Facebook account after the meeting.

As long as my people in Laikipia benefit from Government projects, I dont mind. They are the ones that matter to me.

Waruguru was a fierce BBI/Handshake critic and was part of 16 allies of Deputy President William Ruto who are facing the sack from their positions in National Assembly committees in the ongoing purge of rebel MPs.
Something unthinkable happened in Minneapolis over the past two weeks: The Police Department lost its legitimacy. The public, roiling over the killing of George Floyd, withdrew its consent. Minneapolis public schools and the University of Minnesota ended their security contracts with the department. A veto-proof majority of City Council members pledged to dismantle it.

Now, the city is entangled in a political fight about how to create a system of public safety that does not depend on a domineering police force. In the absence of clear alternatives, forces opposing change are starting to coalesce. Yet the answers are right there. Even in the chaos of the past two weeks, ordinary people took control of their own safety and we learned that the safest system is one grounded in and accountable to an organized community.

I study grass-roots movements and have partnered for several years with organizers in Minneapolis on research. For the first few nights after the killing of George Floyd on May 25, they described to me a loose network of young black leaders and organizations like Black Visions Collective that drove the continuing and growing street movements against the police. Opportunists, however, were taking advantage of confusion to sow destruction.

Yet a network of community defenders quickly emerged to protect residents. Their goals? Protect peoples ability to safely protest and tamp down on the chaos. These community defenders sought to enable democracy, not squelch it, so that organizers could advance the struggle for reforms.
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FBI agents say they found bombmaking equipment and survival tactics in the homes of three men arrested at a George Floyd protest in Las Vegas with molotov cocktails.

Navy veteran Stephen T. Parshall, 35, Army reservist Andrew T. Lynam Jr., 23, and William L. Loomis, 40, who enlisted in the Air Force, were arrested May 30.

Prosecutors say they have ties to a movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the government. A complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas last week said the men self-identified as part of the 'boogaloo' movement.

Rags, gasoline, aerosol cans and weapons along with booby traps, fireworks and handwritten notes of military and survival tactics are said to have been found in their Nevada homes during searches.

Authorities said the men hoped to carry out a plan to create civic unrest by capitalizing on protests over businesses closed due to the coronavirus and later, the death of George Floyd.

The 'boogaloo' movement is a loose, internet-rooted network of gun enthusiasts who often express support for overthrowing the U.S. government.

Its name, a reference to a 1984 movie sequel called 'Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo,' is a code word for a second civil war.

Parshall, Lynam and Loomis each currently face two federal charges: conspiracy to damage and destroy by fire and explosive, and possession of unregistered firearms.

They also face charges of felony conspiracy, terrorism and explosives possession in state court.

Andrew T. Lynam Jr. He and two other Nevada men were arrested on terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during recent protests in Las Vegas

Police say Stephen T. Parshall, pictured, has ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government

William L. Loomis. Inside Loomis' home, the FBI say they found handwritten notes of military tactics, possible scouting routes and locations outside the city limits

All three were arrested May 30 as they prepared to attend a protest of Floyd's death after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in glass bottles, prosecutors said in charging documents.

Floyd died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes.

In the bed of Parshall's truck, the FBI found strips of red rags and gasoline, according to a police arrest report. Inside the truck were aerosol cans and weapons.

Inside Loomis' home, the FBI say they found handwritten notes of military tactics, possible scouting routes and locations outside the city limits.

They also found 'kill boxes, survival tactics, fireworks as distractions,' an explosive made of material used primarily for target practice and other traps, according to a police report.

The suspects - Stephen T Parshall, Andrew Lynam and William L Loomis - were arrested on the way to a protest in Las Vegas after filling gas cans at a parking lot and making Molotov cocktails in glass bottles, according to a criminal complaint. Authorities released the photo above of the Molotov cocktails

Three Nevada men with ties to a loose movement of right-wing extremists advocating the overthrow of the US government are facing terrorism-related charges in what authorities say was a conspiracy to spark violence during George Floyd protests in Las Vegas (pictured)

What is the 'boogaloo' movement? The anti-government 'boogaloo' movement is a loose network of gun enthusiasts who often express support for overthrowing the US government. Its name, a reference to a 1984 movie sequel called Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, is a code word for a second civil war. The movement is rooted in online meme culture, but the coronavirus pandemic has become a catalyst for real-world activity. Many 'boogaloo' followers have shown up at COVID-19 lockdown protests armed with rifles and wearing tactical vests over Hawaiian shirts and leis, a nod to the 'big luau' derivation of the movement's name. While some 'boogaloo' promoters insist they aren't genuinely advocating for violence, law-enforcement officials say they have foiled bombing and shooting plots by people who have connections to the movement or at least used its terminology. The current boogaloo movement was noticed by extremism researchers in 2019. From November 2019 into 2020 boogaloo-related chatter has increased nearly 50 percent on platforms like Reddit and Twitter. Advertisement

The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nevada did not respond to messages seeking more information about the 'kill boxes.'

Attorney Robert Draskovich, representing Parshall, said his client intends to plead not guilty and will fight the charges.

'This case is based primarily on a confidential informant, which is inherently unreliable,' Draskovich said Monday. 'Im concerned about what this person has to gain by telling this story.'

Lawyers for Loomis and Lynam did not immediately respond Monday to messages seeking comment.

The men are being held on $1 million bond each in the Clark County jail. They're due to make court appearances next week.

After his arrest, Lynam told officers that the group started on Facebook but evolved to recruit 'like-minded individuals' at rallies and protests.

He said members were vetted by undergoing physical training and surveying law enforcement at the protests and rallies.

Lynam apologized 'and said he was sorry for the danger his actions may have caused to the Las Vegas citizens who were engaged in constitutionally protected activity,' according to a police report.

Loomis, a U.S. postal worker, told officers during a police interview that he was looking for an outlet to express his rage, anger and frustration at the United States.

He told police he tried to convince the group to go hiking instead of attending the protest the night of the arrests.

Police say Loomis tried to flee during his arrest and was carrying a concealed firearm, long weapons, ammunition, radios and other equipment.

Parshall declined to be interviewed by police.
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police has paid homage to a 59-year-old sub-inspector, Karambir Singh, who died on Tuesday due to coronavirus infection.

Taking to Twitter, Delhi Police said, A member of our family, SI Karambeer made the greatest sacrifice in the fight against COVID. We pay our homage to this great warrior.

A member of our family, SI Karambeer made the greatest sacrifice in the fight against COVID. We pay our homage to this great warrior. #CoronaWarriors pic.twitter.com/cN1OvaAvM8  #DilKiPolice Delhi Police (@DelhiPolice) June 9, 2020

It may be noted that earlier, one constable and two assistant sub-inspectors of Delhi Police had died due to COVID-19.

Another constable, who had underlying health conditions and had been on leave since November last year, also died last week. Delhi Police said his test for COVID-19 also came positive.

The sub-inspector who died on Tuesday was posted in the northeast district, the police said.

He was admitted with symptoms of COVID-19 on June 2 at Army Base Hospital here.

"Police received information from Army Base Hospital that Karambeer, who was on ventilator support for the last five days, died on Tuesday morning," said Anil Mittal, Additional PRO (Delhi Police).

He was a resident of Brijpuri in Gokalpuri and is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son, who works with the Indian Railways posted in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, Delhi LG Anil Baijal also expressed his condolences over the SIs death.

Deeply saddened at the death of Delhi police SI Karambeer who made the supreme sacrifice in the fight against COVID. My sincere condolences to the family members !, he said in a tweet.

Deeply saddened at the death of Delhi police SI Karambeer who made the supreme sacrifice in fight against COVID. My sincere condolences to the family members !#IndiaFightsCorona https://t.co/blvh8wwmQo  LG Delhi (@LtGovDelhi) June 10, 2020

Around 500 personnel of the force have been infected with the virus so far. A total of 200 of them have recovered, according to Delhi Police.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Monika Bhardwaj, who had tested positive for coronavirus last month, joined office after recovering from the infection on Tuesday.

"I thank everyone for the prayers and good wishes. I have joined back today. Thankyou," she tweeted.
The BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership achieved in five years what the Congress could not in its 55 years' reign, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday. The senior BJP leader was addressing his party's 'Jan Samvadvirtual rally' here from Nagpur.

"What the Congress could not do in 55 years, the BJP government under the leadership of Modi has done in just five

years," he said.

Nationalism was his party's priority and ideology, and the Modi government has manifested it in the way it is dealing with Maoists and terrorists, Gadkari said. Their "appeasement" has now ended and Maoists and terrorists are being dealt with an iron hand, he added.

Under Modi's leadership, nationalism which puts the country's interest above other things is being pursued and vote bank politics is receding, the BJP leader further said.

By annulling Article 370 which gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir and clearing the hurdles in the way of the construction of Ram Temple, the BJP has stuck to its ideology, Gadkari said.

Gadkari also announced that the Chambal ravines in Madhya Pradesh will be developed as an industrial cluster.

Chambal was once a hotbed of dacoits but we will develop an expressway in the region with industrial clusters on either sides, he said, urging the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in the state to complete land acquisition in the next three months. Gadkari said the project will generate lakhs of jobs for the youths in the state.

(With inputs from Vivek Trivedi in Bhopal)
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought nearly all businesses to a halt in the United States at some point over the past few months. The restaurant industry alone lost more than 6 million jobs in March and April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In Oregon, more than 80 percent of the restaurant workforce was laid off or furloughed in April.

Now that many states across the country are moving into later phases of reopening, restaurant owners are having to think about the rehiring process. According to the National Restaurant Association, the restaurant industry has already added back more than 1.4 million jobs.

Gov. Kate Brown announced on June 4 that 26 counties in Oregon could begin Phase 2 of reopening. That means restaurants in those approved counties can stay open later with larger amounts of people allowed inside.

Nicole Mouton, co-owner of Screen Door on East Burnside Street, said the restaurant was still in the beginning phase of reopening (Multnomah County is the only county in the state that hasnt been approved for Phase 1 reopening, which would allow seated service in restaurants). Mouton said before the pandemic, the restaurant had around 100 employees. They were all laid off when the restaurant closed its doors.

Now that restaurants are able to reopen slightly, people are starting to get hired back, Mouton said. She said the restaurant had hired back about 30 people part-time and theyre using Oregons Work Share program to help schedule people.

We dont want to rush to open our dining room when were not sure we can do it safely, Mouton said. The partial opening of the dining room presents all kinds of challenges.

Despite moving onto this new phase, things still arent quite back to normal. According to the National Restaurant Association the majority of fine dining and family dining restaurant owners said they expected to employ less people within this year than there were before the pandemic.

Not every Screen Door employee is guaranteed to get their job back, Mouton said, and that positions depend on how well they can do in sales and how long the reopening process is going to take.

We would love to bring everyone back, but until we can open back up fully, I dont see us being back to a 100-employee business, Mouton said.

Until then, Mouton said the restaurant was prioritizing its takeout operations and practicing heavy sanitation procedures.

If we can make this model work for now, were just going to hang onto this model until we know more, Mouton said.

The same idea rings true for Sanjay Chandrasekaran, owner of The Sudra, an Indian-inspired vegan restaurant in Portland. He plans to take reopening slowly to make sure the takeout process they have now is working in case the restaurant has to close again.

Just because the government is saying we can go into Phase 1 doesnt mean the virus is going to act any differently than it did before, Chandrasekaran said.

At the beginning of the pandemic Chandrasekaran closed one of two restaurant locations and laid off the majority of his front of the house employees. Since then the closed location has been reopened and some of the couple dozen employees have been rehired, he said.

Chandrasekaran said hed like to hire everyone back, but hes not sure everyone wants to come back. He said many of his employees were worried about working in the restaurant and contracting COVID-19, and he believes those people will probably still be worried about getting sick.

He said hes unsure of what the future is going to look like in terms of rehiring and staying open, considering the pandemic could kick back up and more people could get sick once larger groups are allowed to congregate.

Theres no way were going to know its going to happen unless we try to slowly start reopening things, Chandrasekaran said. Were going to be ready to take a step back if necessary.

-- Ty Vinson

tvinson@oregonian.com

503-221-4315; @ty_vinson_

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany boasted that just 8% of Black voters supported President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid while attacking Sen. Mitt Romney's record on race.

When asked at a press briefing on Monday, McEnany refused to say whether Trump endorses the statement that "black lives matter" and instead attacked Romney's support for the anti-racism protests.

The press secretary pointed out that Trump won a slightly larger share of Black voters than Romney did and falsely claimed that Romney won 2% of Black voters, when he actually won 6%.

She went to attack Romney's controversial 2012 comments that Democratic voters "believe that they are victims" and "believe the government has a responsibility to care for them."

She falsely claimed that Trump took "great offense to those words," when he publicly defended them in 2012.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany talks with reporters in the briefing room of the White House, Thursday, April 30, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Evan Vucci/AP Photo

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany boasted that 8% of Black voters supported President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid and made false claims while attacking Sen. Mitt Romney's support for the Black Lives Matter protests on Monday.

When asked at a press briefing on Monday, McEnany refused to say whether Trump endorses the statement that "black lives matter" and instead quickly moved to attack Romney over his decision to march with protesters on Sunday in Washington.

McEnany pointed out that Trump won slightly more support from Black voters than Romney did in his 2012 presidential bid against President Barack Obama. But she falsely claimed that Romney won 2% of Black voters, when he actually won 6%.

"Mitt Romney can say three words outside on Pennsylvania Avenue but I would note this, that President Trump won 8% of the black vote, Mitt Romney won 2% of the Black vote," McEnany said.

Critics pointed out that Trump's 8% support among Black voters is a dismal percentage and mocked the press secretary for promoting that statistic.

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McEnany then went on to suggest that Romney is actually racist and pointed to his 2012 statement that "47% of Americans will vote for the president no matter what" and that these Americans "are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them."

The press secretary claimed that Trump took "great offense to those words" and called Romney's sentiments un-American.

While those remarks, which Romney made during a private fundraiser, were widely criticized and denounced as racist at the time, Trump actually defended the comments in 2012.

When asked about the comments, Trump told CNN's Piers Morgan, "I don't think [Romney] should be apologizing for anything" and Trump accused Obama voters of not paying taxes.

"This is something that has to be discussed. And, as you know, there are tremendous numbers of people  whether it's 47% or close to 50%  that don't pay taxes and that don't pay income taxes, and probably lots of other taxes," he said.

This comes after Trump mocked Romney on Twitter over his participation in the peaceful demonstration.

"Tremendous sincerity, what a guy. Hard to believe, with this kind of political talent, his numbers would 'tank' so badly in Utah!" Trump wrote, retweeting a video of the senator marching in Washington on Sunday night.

The senator told Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson that he was marching "to end violence, to end brutality, and to make sure that people understand that Black Lives Matter."

Read the original article on Business Insider
New Delhi [India], June 9 (ANI): Consumer intelligence platform Affle India on Tuesday announced the signing of definitive agreements to acquire full control of Appnext Pte Ltd in Singapore and 100 per cent intellectual property of Appnext app discovery and recommendation platform with immediate effect.



Affle will initially acquire 66.67 per cent equity ownership in Appnext Singapore with a clear path to acquire 100 per cent equity ownership upon attainment of mutually agreed growth targets.

Appnext's app discovery and recommendation platform enables top mobile handset manufacturers (OEMs) and apps developers to deliver personalised app recommendations to mobile users globally. Appnext blends app recommendations as a service that integrates seamlessly with the users' daily mobile journey.

Utilising its proprietary 'Timeline' technology, Appnext predicts which apps the users are likely to use next. With 300 million daily active users, 20-plus on-device daily interactions through strategic OEM partnerships and 60,000-plus apps, Appnext is the leading independent app recommendation platform delivering over 4 billion app recommendations per day.

Affle is a global technology company with a proprietary consumer intelligence platform that delivers consumer engagements, acquisitions and transactions through relevant mobile advertising. The platform aims to enhance returns on marketing investment through contextual mobile ads and also by reducing digital ad fraud.

"Affle 2.0 will focus on building sustainable market leadership in India as well as enhancing our competitive advantage globally through our technology innovations," said Affle's Chairman, MD and CEO Anuj Khanna Sohum.

"The Appnext platform transforms ads into app recommendations as a service for consumers and thus strengthens our cost per converted user (CPCU) business model by enabling greater return on investments for advertisers," he said in a statement.

At 12:20 pm, Affle India was trading 3.67 per cent higher on BSE Ltd at Rs 1,535.80 per share. (ANI)


Photo: The Canadian Press Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Chrystia Freeland arrives for a news conference on Parliament Hill amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

All federal agencies, including the police, must understand that systemic racism is a problem in Canada, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says.

Freeland made the comments at a media briefing Wednesday upon being asked about a denial from the RCMP's commanding officer in Alberta, Curtis Zablocki, that there is entrenched racism in Canadian policing.

Zablocki spoke Monday in response to questions about the wave of protests over the death of George Floyd in the United States.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been clear that systemic racism exists in all Canadian institutions, Freeland said.

"It is very important for all federal government institutions, including the police, to operate from an understanding that systemic racism is a problem for us here in Canada  to not be complacent about that  and we have to work together against it," she said.

Freeland noted Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair had spoken to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki about the issue.

"We know that a really big challenge for our government and for all of us is, first of all, of course, to acknowledge that this systemic racism exists and to take concrete action to work against it and, ultimately, to dismantle it," Freeland said.
(Newser)  It started with a chant: "Take it down." Then, a short time later Tuesday evening, protesters at Byrd Park in Richmond, Va., followed through, returning to the spot where an 8-foot-tall Christopher Columbus statue has stood since 1927 and yanking it down with ropes, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The demonstratorswho'd been in the park to support indigenous peoples, an extension of protests nationwide in the wake of George Floyd's killingthen dragged the statue across the street and deposited it in a lake. The statue, said to be the first of Columbus put up in the South, was also reportedly set on fire briefly. WRIC notes this comes just days after a statue of Confederate Gen. Williams Carter Wickham was pulled down in nearby Monroe Park.

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A similarly grisly fate met a statue in Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in Boston. It didn't get taken down, but by Wednesday morning, it no longer had a head, WPRI reports. Per Forbes, images showed the head lying on the ground next to the Columbus statue. CBS Boston notes that while Columbus is widely credited with "discovering" America, he's also accused of jump-starting the trans-Atlantic slave trade and abusing and killing Native Americans. Meanwhile, in another part of the world, a 150-year-old statue come down as well. Per the New York Times, a statue of King Leopold II of Belgiumwho "brutalized Congo" in the late 1800s, leading to the deaths of millions of Congolesewas removed Tuesday from a public square in Antwerp. A rep for the city's mayor, however, says the already damaged statue was taken down to fix, not due to public outcry, and would remain at a museum for now. (Read more Christopher Columbus stories.)
A woman who was hospitalized after being shoved over by an NYPD officer broke down speaking to Chris Cuomo last night as she told him cops had 'successfully made me quiet' and she is now afraid to leave her house.

Protester Dounya Zayer, 20, who was left with concussion after hitting her head on the pavement when she was shoved by NYPD cop Vincent D'Andraia, spoke on Cuomo Prime Time last night, accompanied by her attorney Tahanie Aboushi.

In an emotional segment of the interview, Cuomo asked Zayer whether she will return to protest after she recovers from her injuries.

Visibly upset, Zayer replies: 'I want to protest so bad. I know that people are getting hurt and they're able to go out.

'I'm ashamed to say that I'm a little afraid...It gets me very angry that they made me quiet, made me afraid to protest. I should not be afraid to protest.'

In an emotional segment of the interview, Dunya Zayer, who was shoved by a Brooklyn cop in May, said: 'It gets me very angry that they made me quiet, made me afraid to protest'. Pictured: Zayer and her attorney Tahanie Aboushi speaking to Cuomo

The officer, who was identified as Vincent D'Andraia, was caught on camera shoving 20-year-old Dounya Zayer during a George Floyd protest near Brooklyn's Barclays Center back on May 29

D'Andraia appeared in a Brooklyn court via video conference on Tuesday where his lawyer pleaded not guilty on his behalf. He was seen wearing a suit and a protective mask

Dunya said the incident has made her so afraid of the police that she is even scared of leaving her home.

'I'm too afraid to leave my house', she said. 'I'm too afraid to drive because I'm afraid I'm going to get pulled over and they're going to recognize me. I've been taking Ubers everywhere.'

Vincent D'Andraia, of the 73rd Precinct, was charged with assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing, at his arraignment yesterday.

Zayer said she 'didn't know concussion felt this awful' and that she hasn't 'been able to hold down food' since the incident on 29 May.

Recalling the moments leading up to the incident, earlier in the interview, Zayer said: 'I could see things getting out of hand, I could see that protestors were getting hurt.

'And I knew that it's always important to record what's going on when these situations occur.'

According to Cuomo, Dunya was told to move from the street by D'Andraia in the moments before she was shoved. She then asked the cop 'why?'

'If asking an officer "why?" warrants getting assaulted by a man who's supposed to have more self-restraint than an average civilian then I don't even understand why we even have law enforcement,' she said.

'I asked him "why?" He should have been able to properly answer without getting violent with me.

Vincent D'Andraia, of the 73rd Precinct, turned himself in on Tuesday and was charged with misdemeanor assault, harassment and menacing, by the Brooklyn district attorney's office

When asked what she would like to come out of D'Andraia's arrest, Dunya's attorney, Tahanie Aboushi, said: 'I'm not sure whether jail time is the right answer' and that his punishment should be left up to the justice system.

She also stressed that D'Andraia should not escape with a 'slap on the wrist'.

The 28-year-old officer did not say anything as he appeared on video from behind bars in a suit and protective coronavirus face mask yesterday.

He was later released on his own recognizance and ordered to stay away from the victim.

D'Andraia is the first New York City police officer to face criminal charges stemming from alleged misconduct exhibited during the early days of protests in the city over the death of George Floyd and police brutality.

The charges come days after he was suspended without pay and stripped of his weapons after bystander video was widely shared online showing him forcefully shoving Zayer, 20, during a protest near Barclay's Center.

On Tuesday, Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association slammed Mayor Bill de Blasio and police leaders for 'sacrificing cops to save their own skin' by sending officers out to protests with 'no support and no clear plan.'

'They should be the ones facing this mob-rule justice,' he said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Pat Lynch (pictured) president of the Police Benevolent Association slammed Mayor Bill de Blasio and police leaders for 'sacrificing cops to save their own skin'

Footage filmed by a witness showed the officer pushing Zayer so hard she was thrown back onto the street. She could be seen cradling her head immediately after as the officer walked off

The woman shown been violently flung to the ground by an NYPD officer was identified by those at the scene as Dounya Zayer, who later posted about the attack from hospital

'We will say it again: New York City police officers have been abandoned by our leadership. We are utterly alone in our efforts to protect our city.'

In a statement announcing the charges, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said he 'cannot tolerate the use of excessive force' against anyone exercising their constitutional right to protest, adding he was 'deeply troubled by this unnecessary assault.'

Zayer's attorney, Tahanie Aboushi, last week called for the D'Andraia's arrest, saying the woman had suffered a seizure, a concussion, bruising and lacerations as a result of the incident.

Video showed the cop had called Zayer 'a stupid f***ing b***h' and shoved her with such force that she flew out of her shoes and slammed her head on to the pavement.

She could be seen cradling her head immediately after as the officer walked off.

She later shared videos from her hospital bed saying she required treatment after the attack.

In a separate video taken from her own perspective, D'Andraia was seen taking a swipe at her phone, which she says knocked it out of her hands.

She claimed the officers asked her to get out of the way and she was moving backwards and asking why when the officer lunged at her.

'I am in pain. My head hurts. I haven't slept in three days... and I cannot stop throwing up,' Zayer told NBC soon after the incident.

'Them acting the way they acted today isn't helping the cause. It isn't proving to us that they care about us.

'He did this in front of his lieutenant and multiple other officers who watched me hit the ground. One even looked back to make sure I was still on the ground and they continued walking.

'Not one officer tried to help me and not one officer tried to stop the officer who assaulted me.'

The officer's supervisor, who could be seen walking nearby but failed to intervene, is also facing disciplinary action.

Law enforcement officials told the New York Times prosecutors are considering criminally charging at least 40 other officers over other incidents involving use of force.

It comes amid mounting criticism of the NYPD and city officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, who have been accused of overlooking police officers' heavy-handed tactics.

Last week, however, De Blasio warned that officers would face investigation for misconduct after videos emerged showing cops mistreating essential workers during curfew, despite them being exempt from the rule.

The NYPD officer who was caught pulling a protester's mask down to pepper spray him last week (pictured) has been suspended without pay, Police Commissioner Shea announced on Friday

D'Andraia is one of two NYPD officers who have been suspended without pay over incidents relating to misconduct at protests last week.

A second cop, whose name has not been released, was filmed the following day pulling a man's mask down to pepper spray him.

The man had been among a massive crowd of demonstrators in Brooklyn and had been holding his hands up at the time.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea announced the suspensions of both officers last Friday, saying both cases had been referred for disciplinary action.

'The actions by these officers stand apart from the restrained work of the thousands of other officers who have worked tirelessly to protect those who are peacefully protesting and keep all New Yorkers safe,' Shea said.

'While the investigations have to play out, based on the severity of what we saw, it is appropriate and necessary to assure the public that there will be transparency during the disciplinary process.'
US secretary of state says nations should resist pressure from Beijing, and Washington stands ready to help them.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has chided British bank HSBC for backing moves by China to impose a national security law in Hong Kong, a move seen by many critics of Beijing as a threat to the Chinese citys semi-autonomous status.

Pompeo said on Tuesday that such corporate kowtows got little in return from Beijing.

He added that the United States stood ready to help the United Kingdom with alternatives after Beijing reportedly threatened to punish HSBC and break commitments to build nuclear power plants in the UK unless it allowed Chinas Huawei Technologies to build its 5G network.

The United States stands with our allies and partners against the Chinese Communist Partys coercive bullying tactics, Pompeo said in a statement, his latest swipe at Chinas governing party.

Pompeo said the partys browbeating of HSBC should serve as a cautionary tale and referred to the banks Asia-Pacific CEO, Peter Wong, signing a petition supporting Beijings plans to impose new security legislation on Hong Kong.

That show of fealty seems to have earned HSBC little respect in Beijing, which continues to use the banks business in China as political leverage against London, he said.

Last week, HSBC said it respects and supports all laws that stabilise Hong Kongs social order, while its rival Standard Chartered said it believed the law could help maintain the long-term economic and social stability of Hong Kong.

Senior British and US politicians have criticised the banks for their statements.

Both UK-based banks derive the majority of their revenues or profits from Asia and have a significant presence in Hong Kong.

On Tuesday, David Cumming, chief investment officer at Aviva Investors  one of the largest shareholders of the banks  said he was uneasy at the decisions of HSBC and Standard Chartered to publicly support the proposed new national security law in Hong Kong without knowing the details of the law or how it will operate in practice.

Last month, Chinas parliament announced and quickly approved a resolution that would impose legislation on Hong Kong criminalising the harshest criticism against the government.

Pompeo said at the time that Beijings enactment of the new law would mean the US has no reason to treat Hong Kong more favourably than mainland China. Pompeo has already decertified the former British colonys autonomy under US law, which may have potentially serious trade consequences.

US-China ties have deteriorated rapidly since the start of the year over the coronavirus pandemic and Hong Kong. Washington sees Huawei as an extension of the Chinese government and has urged European allies to exclude it from mobile networks.

Pompeo said Australia, Denmark, and other free nations had faced pressure from Beijing, and it showed why countries needed to avoid economic overreliance on China and to guard their critical infrastructure from Beijings influence.

Free nations deal in true friendship and desire mutual prosperity, not political and corporate kowtows, he said.

The UKs Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Saturday that HSBC Chairman Mark Tucker had warned the British government against a ban on networking equipment made by Huawei, claiming the bank could face reprisals in China.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 01:57:21|Editor: huaxia

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Medical workers help the first batch of patients infected with the novel coronavirus move into their isolation wards at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China has called on the international community to crack down on disinformation over the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the lies and rumors against China seriously poisoned global anti-virus efforts.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Tuesday at a routine press briefing that recent days have seen an increase in disinformation on COVID-19, especially lies and rumors against China, which has severely poisoned international efforts.

"Facts have shown that the novel coronavirus is the common enemy of mankind, but what's more horrible than the virus are disinformation, rumors and slanders spread by people with ulterior motives," Hua said.

She said the "political virus" is also a common enemy of all mankind, and the international community should adopt a united stance against disinformation and disinfect the cyber space so that rumors, slanders and other forms of the political virus and their spreaders will never be able to find a foothold.

According to media reports, academics from the Australia Institute, after analyzing 2.6 million tweets from late March 2020 and 25.5 million retweets over a 10-day period, found that more than 5,000 twitter accounts retweeted nearly 7,000 times coronavirus-related information in a coordinated manner, promoting the same conspiracy theory that China had created the virus as a bioweapon. Many accounts had the hallmarks of so-called bots that were remotely controlled, according to the research.

The United Nations has pointed out in an article that unreliable information is hurting the global effort to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. 
Villar congratulates 6,000 Nueva Ecija farmers who received first batch of farm machinery under RCEF

Sen. Cynthia Villar congratulated the first batch of farmer-beneficiaries who received farm machinery and equipment under the law creating the P10 billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).

In a turn-over ceremony held at the Philippine Center for Post Harvest Development and Modernization (PhilMech) Science City of Munoz in Nueva Ecija, 36 farmer-leaders representing about 6,000 members of farmer cooperatives and associations, received various kinds of farm machinery and equipment last June 4.

In a video message played during the event, Villar, chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Agrarian Reform, congratulated the farmer-beneficiaries who are now equipped with the needed tools to help bring down their cost of producing palay and improve their competitiveness.

"Ito po ang ating programa para mapababa ang inyong production cost at mapalaki ang inyong ani nang sa ganoon lumaki ang kita sa pagsasaka," Villar said.

The farmer-beneficiaries received 31 four-wheel tractors, 13 rice combine harvesters and two riding-type mechanical transplanters. Villar noted that the farm machinery allotted for Nueva Ecija forms part of the total P5-B RCEF mechanization budget in 2019.

Under Republic Act 11203, P5 billion worth of agri-machinery will be distributed to 947 rice-producing towns in the Philippines at the rate of P5 million per town from year 2019 to 2024.

"Although we experienced some delay in the distribution of machinery, the other programs under RCEF were implemented last year and our farmers started to reap the benefits of the law through seed distribution, credit, and extension programs," Villar said.

Villar also urged PhilMech Executive Director Baldwin Jallorina to fast-track the distribution of the rest of the agri-machinery units to the other provinces under the 2019 budget.

"With the pandemic hitting the farming communities as hard as the other sectors in our country, these kinds of assistance should be prioritized to enable our farmers to quickly recover and continue to produce food for our people," Villar said.
Image: Supplied

Online retailer Kogan is raising $115 million as plans to grow the business.

It's the company's first capital raise since listing.

The raise comes after Kogan acquired Aussie furniture store Matt Blatt.

Visit Business Insider Australias homepage for more stories.

Kogan has launched its first capital raise since listing.

The Aussie online business has launched a $110 million capital raise to expand its services, grow its customer base and strengthen its operating model. Kogan is also conducting a share purchase plan to existing shareholders to raise up to $15 million.

The funds raised will be used to give Kogan the ability to jump on new opportunities in the future, the company said. It follows news Kogan acquired Australian furniture company Matt Blatt in May for $4.4 million, relaunching it as an online-only business. Prior to that, Kogan purchased Dick Smiths online retail business in 2016.

Kogan said it was able to gain value from these businesses by working with their existing systems, technology, processes and supply chains. It added that it is "well positioned to take advantage of current market conditions" in part because of its "low cost of doing business".

The company hasn't raised money since its listing back in July 2016.

"Kogan.com is committed to making the most in-demand products and services more affordable and accessible," Ruslan Kogan said in a statement. "Our long term strategy has enabled us to thrive in the current challenging environment, and we are now in a better position than ever to take advantage of growth opportunities.

"Our low cost of doing business and digital expertise have put us in the driver's seat to capture market share as the retail industry undergoes significant change."

READ MORE:

Furniture store Matt Blatt has been acquired by Kogan for $4.4 million, and will now become online-only
Prince Philips 99th birthday has been marked with a new photograph of him alongside the Queen, at Windsor Castle.

Philip is the latest in a growing list of royals to spend their birthday in lockdown, and is said to be planning a low-key birthday lunch with his wife.

They have been in Windsor Castle together since mid-March, where they retreated early for Easter Court. Its not clear when they might leave.

The new photo was taken last week in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle, with the famous round tower in the background.

The Queen is wearing a floral Angela Kelly dress and the Cullinan V heart-shaped diamond brooch, while Philip, with his hands clasped behind his back, looks smart in a blazer, shirt with a Household Division tie, and grey trousers.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle ahead of his 99th birthday. (PA Images)

Read more: Exclusive: No gun salutes for Prince Philip's birthday amid coronavirus pandemic

The Queen was pictured last week as she rode a pony through the castle grounds, but Philip hadnt been seen in public since Christmas, when he was pictured leaving a private hospital following a four-night admission for treatment relating to an undisclosed but pre-existing condition.

Philip, the longest-serving royal consort, has been famously described by the Queen as her strength and stay. He only retired from royal duties in 2017, but made a statement earlier this year in support of those responding to the coronavirus pandemic in the UK.

The Duke of Edinburgh spends most of his time in Sandringham now he is retired from public life, joining the Queen at Windsor over Easter and in Balmoral for Summer, in normal circumstances.

His arrival at Windsor this year and the subsequent time with the Queen is likely to be the longest theyve spent together in some years.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, said about their time shielding together at Windsor Castle: Its an opportunity for them in their later years to reconnect It is the perfect royal cocooning.

He added: They will make a fuss of him on Wednesday as much as you can make a fuss of the Duke of Edinburgh.

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The royal couple is reported to have a reduced staff of about 20 people during the pandemic, and Little said they are probably enjoying meals together but spending time on their own interests.

Princess Anne in the arms of Princess Elizabeth, with the Duke of Edinburgh, holding Prince Charles, in the grounds of Clarence House. (PA Images)

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh wearing 3D glasses to watch a 3D film, at the Pinewood Studios in Toronto in 2010. (PA Images)

Read more: Prince Philip called his uncle Lord Mountbatten's death a 'senseless act of terrorism' in poignant letter

The Queen will still be receiving her government boxes, and Philip could be keeping up with his painting and reading.

Prince Philip was born 10 June 1921 in Corfu as the prince of Greece and Denmark, to Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg.

His early years were spent in upheaval as his family was forced into exile during a military coup which overthrew his uncle.

He moved to England and attended Cheam Prep School in 1928, before going to Salem School in south Germany, then finally enrolling at Gordonstoun School in Morayshire.

He and Elizabeth met when she was just 13 years old. They wrote to each other over the years and were eventually engaged and married in 1947 after her 21st birthday.

Little said their different personalities could be to thank for their successful marriage.

He said: The Queen is a much more laid-back character, while the duke has never suffered fools gladly.

The Queen is much less confrontational so I suppose they are opposites in many ways but clearly the chemistry has worked for them as they are now in the 73rd year of marriage so that itself is quite remarkable.

The Duke of Edinburgh as he arrived at the laying up of the Colours of the Queen's Own Highlanders in 2003. (PA Images)

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at Broadlands in 2007. (PA Images)

Read more: Chocolate cake and gun salutes: How the Royal Family celebrates birthdays

Philip held hundreds of patronages during his time as a working royal, and is credited with the modernisation of the Royal Family. He led on the project to televise the Queens coronation and is said to have helped many the estates profitable.

Ingrid Seward, editor in chief of Majesty Magazine said: I think probably a lot of people dont know what hes done because he doesnt like adulation.

He doesnt like fame. He just gets on with it.

Speaking to AP, she added: I think he shaped the queens reign very subtly, and people dont really know what hes done.

So hes managed to do things without being noticed, which is what he wants.

In 2012, they marked their blue sapphire anniversary  65 years  and in 2017 passed the rare, personal milestone of 70 years of marriage  their platinum wedding anniversary.

Philips 99th birthday will be marked privately, but he might be enjoying some video calls with his family, including his son Charles, who recently confessed he is missing his father.

Prince Harry and Meghan, his grandson and granddaughter-in-law, revealed they called the Queen with their son Archie for her birthday, so the same may happen for Philip too.
In the wake of protests over George Floyds death, top defense officials said Monday they were considering renaming Army posts named after Confederate leaders, including Fort Hood in Texas. U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said they were open to a bipartisan discussion on the issue  a timely and welcome development.

As he so often does when small signs of progress appear in his administration, President Trump stepped all over it. He issued a tweet Wednesday afternoon saying none of that will be happening.

These monumental and very powerful bases have become part of a great American heritage, and a history of winning, victory, and freedom, Trump tweeted. Our history as the greatest nation in the world will not be tampered with. Respect our military!

Never mind that it was his own military bosses judgment he was trashing. Once again, the president shows he knows the words but not the music, crowing about reverence for the military while in opposition to the very values our soldiers are charged with protecting. There is nothing disrespectful about renaming these installations. Indeed, its indefensible to honor men who fought against the same U.S. Army he is putatively defending, and did so to uphold a brutal, inhumane system whose legacy we continue to struggle with.

The announcement Monday by McCarthy and Esper had been an opportune reversal  and proof that some members of the Trump administration were listening to the voices of millions of Americans demanding change in the weeks following Floyds death  since as recently as February the Army said there were no plans for change.

It is important to note that the naming of installations and streets was done in a spirit of reconciliation, not to demonstrate support for any particular cause or ideology, an Army spokesperson told Task & Purpose at the time.

That was a poor rationale then and it remains one. Yes, there was a legitimate effort to welcome back into the American fold confederate soldiers and others following the Civil War, to honor Abraham Lincolns exhortation to show malice toward none. But the Civil War was nearly a century old by the time Fort Hood, to take just one example, was established. Who were officials trying to reconcile in 1942, when the post, now Americas largest military installation, was designated?

Another rationale used by officials is that these installations are named for soldiers who hold a significant place in our military history. That argument doesnt stand up to scrutiny, either.

Fort Hoods namesake is John Bell Hood. The Confederate general is widely considered one of the worst commanders in the Civil War, losing all the major battles he fought and who accelerated the loss of Atlanta through his reckless assaults, according to George Eaton, historian at the U.S. Army Sustainment Command.

Military incompetence extends to Braxton Bragg, after which North Carolinas Fort Bragg is named, and Leonidas Polk, who gives his name to Fort Polk in Louisiana.

Other installations the Defense brass had said theyd consider renaming are Fort Rucker in Alabama; Camp Beauregard in Louisiana; Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia; and Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia.

None of these officers were winners, to use Trumps lexicon. They fought and lost their war against the United States. They were all traitors to the Union, whose names belong in history books and museums, not in a position of honor  especially not in the U.S. Army, which has itself played a role in helping desegregate America.

Change can be difficult, and there is an undeniable attachment for soldiers and veterans to the places where they formed lifelong bonds, but what Trumps tweets dont seem to understand is those places are much more than just a name, and those memories and relationships will remain regardless.

A council of Texas veterans and historian Eaton already have an idea for renaming Fort Hood to honor Special Forces Master Sgt. Roy Benavidez, a Texas native and Medal of Honor recipient who grew up an hour outside of Houston in El Campo.

As detailed last year in Texas Monthly, Benavidez survived 30 gunshot, bayonet, blunt trauma, and shrapnel wounds while rescuing a Green Beret patrol overrun by a thousand North Vietnamese infantry.

The son of a Mexican American sharecropper and a Yaqui Indian mother, Benavidez grew up poor and disenfranchised before distinguishing himself through his service and beyond, continuing to fight for veterans benefits later in life.

Whether Fort Hood is renamed in his honor or not  a prospect President Trump has now put on hold  Benavidezs story captures the spirit of the United States at its best so much more fully than the life of Hood ever did.

The Armys history is full of heroes who could serve as inspiring new namesakes, from the Navajo Code Talkers to the Buffalo Soldiers, to immigrants whove fought so bravely for a nation which they hadnt even yet been made citizens of, to gays and lesbians who served courageously under oppressive restrictions to pioneering women who served in and out of combat.

If the president wants to show respect for our military, it is time to honor those who fought for, not against, the United States.
We all saw a different side of Ron Nirenberg on Thursday afternoon.

The mayor addressed a crowd of protesters demonstrating outside the Bexar County Courthouse against police brutality and took a feisty buck-stops-here stance, culminating with a moment of rare bluntness from this normally nuanced politician.

Hold me accountable for it because Im the mayor of this mayor of this goddamn city and were going to make change together, Nirenberg said, to rousing applause.

On ExpressNews.com: Daily San Antonio rallies protesting police violence acquire focus, agenda

Nirenbergs response to the recent Black Lives Matter protests was a topic of conversation on this weeks edition of the Express-News Puro Politics podcast.

I think maybe hes found a new cause, said reporter Brian Chasnoff. Were probably going to see a lot of rhetoric from the mayors office on reining in the police.

Joshua Fechter, who covers City Hall, said the mayors impassioned tone might have been influenced by what happened earlier that day during a City Council meeting.

Protesters swarmed council chambers, were constantly interrupting council members during the course of the meeting. And you heard chants of defund the police, which youve seen all over the country, Fechter said.

It seemed to resonate with him to a degree. In the past, when the police union got its current contract back in 2016, he voted against it, mostly citing the fact that it was too costly.

I asked him about that after the meeting and his exact quote was, Weve got to ensure that our calculus for creating a healthy and safe community are more than just what we spend on public safety. So it seems like hes leaving the door open to taking a look at how much of the citys budget the police department encapsulates.

Hear this and other issues discussed on this weeks edition of the Puro Politics podcast.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed appointing Dzheppar to the post of first deputy foreign minister.

The Cabinet of Ministers, Ukraine's government, has appointed Emine Dzheppar as First Deputy Foreign Minister.

"The Cabinet of Ministers has appointed Dzheppar, Emine Aiyarivna, First Deputy Foreign Minister," MP from the European Solidarity faction Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote on Telegram during a government meeting on Wednesday.

In turn, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reported on the areas of responsibility of the newly appointed deputy foreign minister.

"The government has just appointed Emine Dzheppar to the post of first deputy foreign minister. The team has been replenished with a strong player. Emine will supervise the following areas: public diplomacy; international organizations; state protocol; Crimea," Kuleba wrote on Facebook.

Read alsoZelensky introduces newly appointed intelligence chief

"But first deputy is, of course, about much more things, and it is the diplomatic life that will pose additional tasks. I reasonably expect drive, consistency, and results in all directions," he added.

Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed appointing Dzheppar to the post of first deputy foreign minister. He said that representatives of the Crimean Tatars should be represented at the highest diplomatic level.
A WA Police custody support officer has been accused of assaulting a 36-year-old detainee at Perth Watch House.

Harvinder Singh Mohar, 27, appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with common assault over the April 11 incident.

Accused man, Harvinder Mohar. Credit:Nine News Perth

He pleaded not guilty and will stand trial on September 24, with CCTV and sworn statements expected to form part of the prosecutions evidence.

Mr Mohar is an amateur mixed martial arts fighter and has previously taken part in fights at various Perth venues.
The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East has said Iran is "struggling" with the coronavirus, trying to protect key officials and the military from the pandemic.

"There's significant penetration in Iran, and I think that penetration has extended even to the senior leadership," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said Wednesday in an event organized by the Middle East Institute in Washington.

Official figures released by the government indicate a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the last two weeks with one in five Iranians having been infected according to a health official.

According to the latest official announcement made by the newly appointed Health Ministry Spokesperson Dr. Sima Sadat Lari, the number of tested cases since February has now reached nearly 180,000. With 81 more deaths since Tuesday the toll has now gone up to 8,500.

Ehsan Mostafavi, a member of the task force set up to combat COVID-19 on Tuesday said about 15 million Iranians, one in five, may have been infected with coronavirus since the outbreak began.

McKenzie said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic has "made great sacrifices" to protect key personnel and parts of its military, including the Revolutionary Guard and its ballistic missile arsenal, its strategic air defense and parts of its navy.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been in self-isolation since February when the first wave of the epidemic emerged in Iran but has delivered a few speeches via television and had a few video conferences with government officials in charge of combating coronavirus.

Irans response to the pandemic has been haphazard and often unpredictable, as some measures to control the spread of the virus were coupled with a refusal to close religious sites in the first crucial weeks of the epidemic.

Presumably to meet Khamenei's wishes the government has opened mosques  for private prayers  despite the concerns expressed by health officials. On Wednesday the organization responsible for Friday prayers announced that from June 21 group prayers will resume in all but hotspots labelled as "red zones".

The number of new cases remains high, between 2-3 thousand a day, four months after the outbreak with a sharp economic impact including more than a 15 percent fall in the value of Irans currency.

Government officials attribute the rise in infections since the resumption of economic activities to people's reluctance to wear masks and to observe social distancing rules. But many blame the lack of coordination in the government and mismanagement for the rising numbers.
By PTI

KATHMANDU: Two people died and three others were missing after a tipper, carrying people who returned from India to a quarantine facility in Nepal, plunged into a river in Kalikot district when its driver exited the moving vehicle after an altercation with the passengers on Wednesday, according to media reports.

The district authorities have been able to establish contact with 27 missing people on board the vehicle. Four among them are critically injured and have been shifted to a hospital, The Kathmandu Post reported.

The tipper was taking returnees from India to a quarantine facility in Raskot municipality in the district, the report said.

Karnali Province Police Spokesperson Rajib Bahadur Basnet said the driver Ranganath Dhamala, exited the moving vehicle after a heated argument with the passengers who were complaining of overloading the vehicle.

Following the altercation, the tipper swerved off the road and plunged into the Karnali River in Lalighat at 10:40am today, said Basnet, adding that the driver has been arrested.

According to The Himalayan Times, a team of police has been deployed to the site for search and rescue operations.

Some of the passengers were rescued from the river by the local people, it said.
LANSING, MI  A protest led by the Michigan NAACPs youth and college division drew more than a thousand people to the state Capitol Wednesday to peacefully demonstrate against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, and to call for legislative reform.

Organized soon after a May 31 protest that saw thousands gather at the Capitol and march through Lansing neighborhoods, protesters and law enforcement officials gathered at the Lansing Center on Michigan Avenue at noon June 10 to march toward the Capitol.

Thousands gather at Michigan Capitol for protest against police brutality

They led chants and calls for change as a variety of speakers stepped up to a podium facing the Capitol lawn from the buildings front doors.

We must love and protect one another, Kyra Mitchell, a 21-year old Eastern Michigan University graduate and president of the Michigan NAACPs youth and college division, said to the crowd, many of whose members stood with fists raised. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Wednesdays two-hour protest included a moment of silence in memory of Floyd, nine different speakers and calls for political engagement as citizens. Lansing Mayor Andy Schor and Lansing Police Chief Daryl Green were among the marchers.

I was here to listen, Green said. To really take an in-depth level of introspection for our department. What I heard today is they are asking for our police departments to get better and certainly we want to get better.

Many state and Lansing police officers marched in uniform along with protesters, in some cases kneeling among the crowd.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after being handcuffed by Minneapolis police investigating an alleged forgery the night of Monday, May 25. Video shared widely on social media shows white Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes. In the footage, Floyd can be heard repeatedly saying he cannot breathe as civilians urge Chauvin to get off him and check his pulse.

Floyds death set off a series of protests in cities across the state and country in the last two weeks, some of which have been violent.

Michigan lawmakers want to declare racism a public health crisis

Black lives still matter, black lives still are loved, black lives are still valuable, black lives are still wonderful, black lives are still special, David Wiggins, the NAACP youth and college division organizer and adviser said, pumping his hands into the air. I often tell people wherever I go, If God made a class of people better than black people, he kept it for himself. So, when I say: black lives matter, I just want you to throw your first up and say, black lives matter."

In reaction to word that protesters were going to camp out by the House Office Building on Ottawa Street Tuesday night, the state House of Representatives canceled the Military Vets and Homeland Security and Transportation committee meetings Wednesday morning.

As the House has been doing recently on days with scheduled protests, staff have been encouraged to work from home," said Gideon DAssandro, spokesman for House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering. "The Capitol remains open and committees are still meeting there.

A focus on the importance of young minority individuals was a central theme of Wednesdays protest, Mitchell said.

It becomes personal when you have family members, younger brothers, younger cousins, who are impacted by this a lot and they dont understand, Mitchell said. My little cousin, he cant play with his toy guns outside. My little cousin is only 6.

Mitchell and others voiced support for legislation recently passed by the Senate requiring Michigan law enforcement officers to undergo ongoing training on implicit bias and violence deescalation and to participate in mental health screening.

Mandatory bias training for police passes Michigan Senate

Right now you see how its different because theres black people, brown people, white people, there is everybody out here, who are sick and tired of being sick and tired of seeing the injustices that happen to the black community, Daniel Mahoney, a Jackson County commissioner and president of the Jackson County branch of the NAACP, said.

By 2 p.m., rain and poor weather set in and most of the crowd had dispersed. Organizers set up tents for voter registration and to refer people to get tested at Sparrow Hospital for the novel coronavirus.

Also on MLive:

Thousands gather at Michigan Capitol for protest against police brutality

Protesters march again in Grand Rapids over police brutality and racism

Michigan school district superintendent fired after Facebook comments about George Floyd

Detroit protesters to discuss 23 demands with Mayor Duggan on Monday

Lansing police seek help gathering information after destructive protest
The Telangana government has decided to cancel this years Bonalu festival, one of the biggest traditional folk festivals in the state, due to the persistent threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic. The decision was taken by the Telangana ministers from Hyderabad in consultation with various temple committees in the city that celebrate the festival in a big way every year. The Bonalu was declared a state festival by the Telangana government after the states formation in 2014.

Speaking to reporters later, state minister for animal husbandry Talasani Srinivasa Yadav said the festival would be held by the priests of the temple in a simple manner this year without involving devotees. He appealed to the devotees to celebrate the festival in their houses and not to visit temples.

The traditional offering of bonam (derived from Bhojanam, meaning meals) to the goddess Mahankali will be done by priests within the temple premises. Even the procession of ghatam (pot carrying bonam) will be restricted to the temple premises. The government would supply traditional silk clothes for the presiding deity in the temples a day before the festival, he said.

Bonalu is a traditional folk festival celebrated every year in the Telugu month of Ashadham (falling in June/July), in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, and some other parts of Telangana state. The devotees worship Goddess Mahankali (a form of Durga) seeking her divine blessings to overcome all obstacles and get cured of diseases.

For Coronavirus Live Updates

Devotees make bonam (meal, comprising cooked rice, milk and jaggery) in new earthen pots (ghatams), which womenfolk carry on their heads to the temple and offer to the deity. The pots are adorned with neem leaves, turmeric and vermilion.

The festivities begin on the first Friday of Ashadham month and continue till the end. The main festivities begin at Goddess Mahankali temple at Golconda fort in the first week, followed by Ujjaini Mahankali temple at Secunderabad, Akkanna Madanna temple at Shalibanda and ends at the Mahankali temple at Laldarwaza in old city of Hyderabad.

The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19

Sections of people had demanded that the Bonalu festival be allowed to continue normally this year owing to belief that Goddess Mahankali would help devotees to overcome Covid-19 pandemic.

In fact, the Bonalu festival started in Hyderabad in 18th century when plague had broken out in the city claiming thousands of lives. It was goddess Mahankali which saved the people from the epidemic those days. This year, too, we wanted to celebrate to overcome Corona pandemic. It is not correct on the part of the government to cancel the celebrations, argued G Niranjan, patron of Akkanan Madanna temple committee.

Health department authorities had told chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday that it was not advisable to hold Bonalu festival this year since lakhs of people congregate at every temple during the festival which would likely result in an explosion of Covid cases in Hyderabad, a city already witnessing a surge in positive cases and deaths due to the virus in the last three weeks.
- Coco Martin is one of the most prominent personalities in Philippine showbiz

- Just recently, he decided to go to the Senate to pay a visit to Senator Lito Lapid

- The information was shared on the official Facebook page of the Senate of the Philippines

- The reason why Coco visited the politician was not stated in the said social media post

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Coco Martin recently went to the Senate of the Philippines to pay a visit to Senator Lito Lapid.

KAMI learned of the said information through a much-talked-about post from the Senates official Facebook page.

It was stated that the visit happened on Tuesday, June 9.

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However, the reason why the Ang Probinsyano star visited his fellow celebrity was not disclosed to the public.

Many people are waiting for the statement of Coco, especially because they want to know if the visit has something to do with the renewal of ABS-CBN franchise.

As of this writing, both Lapid and the handsome celebrity have yet to speak up regarding the said meeting.

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In a previous article by , Coco deactivated his Instagram account that has more than 3 million followers.

Coco Martin is undoubtedly one of the most popular and acclaimed actors in the country. His rags-to-riches story has brought inspiration to many people.

POPULAR: Read more news about Coco Martin!

Please like and share our Facebook posts to support KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinion about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
BISHKEK -- Ten years after bloody ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan that killed hundreds, Roza Otunbaeva -- who was interim president at the time -- spoke to the RFE/RL Kyrgyz Service's chief editor in Bishkek, Zairbek Baktybaev, about the factors that led to the tragic events and whether her government could have prevented the violence. She also praised the support of the international community and said Kyrgyzstan won't stop anyone from investigating what happened during those horrific days in early June 2010.



RFE/RL: The deadly ethnic clashes that took place in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010 mark one of the most tragic events in the recent history of Kyrgyzstan. Looking back, 10 years later, do you think there was any chance the interim government you led could have prevented the violence?



Roza Otunbaeva: We had a revolution in April 2010 that led to the interim government taking power in the country. After just two months, the bloody clashes took place.

Answering your question, I have to draw some parallels.

In 1990, Kyrgyzstan was still part of a big and powerful country, the Soviet Union, and yet we witnessed very tragic interethnic clashes in Osh at that time. The Soviet Union had everything: powerful armed forces, security services, and the Communist Party. Still they were not able to prevent the deadly interethnic clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh in 1990.

Just recently, we saw the Kazakh-Dungan clashes in neighboring Kazakhstanand look at what is happening in the United States now. Certainly, there were some serious issues in interethnic relations in Kyrgyzstan that ultimately triggered the June 2010 clashes.

The new interim government wasn't yet stable and powerful enough. We were still trying to stabilize the situation in the capital, Bishkek, in the immediate aftermath of the April 7 revolution [when the ethnic clashes broke out]. There had been more than 120 different protest actions and rallies in Bishkek within two months. We just didn't have enough power in the southern regions. There were several different groups trying hard to destabilize the situation in the country.



RFE/RL: Which groups, exactly, were interested in unleashing interethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan at the time? Some blame supporters of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev, others blame alleged [Uzbek] separatist groups, and there are also allegations of foreign interference and even the alleged role of drug traffickers.



Otunbaeva: I agree that all these factors existed. Bakiev fled [Bishkek] to the south and attempted to assemble the parliament there. Some politicians and others, too, tried their best [to make that happen]. Parts of law enforcement agencies continued to work for Bakiev, doing whatever they wanted. We had little control over them. We faced a shortage of staff and support.

By allowing the international commission in, we saved our conscience

As for criminal groups and drug traffickers, some international experts believe that those groups had been used [by certain forces] during the June events. Especially in the border areas, they helped to start riots and create chaos so they could transport large amounts [of drugs during the turmoil]. Also, the forces involved in drug trafficking tried to exploit the situation to take control of smuggling routes. I think the Russian intelligence services investigated this properly.

As regards outside forces, we cannot say that they were not involved. But we don't at this time have enough evidence to determine that. [Uzbek President] Islam Karimov spoke about it many times. Even at the UN [General Assembly], Karimov said there were certain forces who want to instigate conflicts in Central Asia, who want Central Asia to always be on fire. And those forces took advantage of the moment to try to start a fire [in Central Asia].



RFE/RL: You asked for military assistance from the Russian-controlled Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). What other decisions did you have to take in an effort to resolve the crisis?



Otunbaeva: The clashes stopped on June 13. It all started on the night of June 10. Osh was on fire. We were mostly focused on the situation in Osh. By June 12-13 [the clashes] had spread to Jalal-Abad. The interim government had a meeting late at night on June 10 and began sending planes [to the south]. There was no water, no bread there. There were people who needed to be evacuated. We evacuated about 7,000 people by plane. About 160 flights were organized. There were at least three flights every day. [We also] sent a lot of food to Osh and Jalal-Abad.

The humanitarian aid wasn't only coming from the central government. A lot of food supplies were sent from northern provinces, too. We also received help from the neighboring countries and there was international aid as well.

On June 10-11, there were big clashes in the south. People confronted each other. A lot of guns appeared there. We have a lot of facts and documents about the accumulation of weapons. It is a fact that weapons were taken from the military and police. People also used hunting rifles and blunt objects. In such a situation, of course, there were many deaths.

Then I spoke with Islam Abduganiyevich [Karimov]. He said he couldn't do anything. He said he would keep the border closed. He said there were many nationalists [in Uzbekistan] who were saying they were ready to go help [ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan]. Karimov told me: "I will take control of my side of the border and you decide for yourself how to solve the problem on your side." It seemed to me that Karimov wanted to say, "ask for help from whomever you want."

After that I started looking to contact our partner, Russia. I talked to [President Dmitry] Medvedev. That was on June 12. I told him that we needed armed forces and support because our own army and law enforcement bodies were not ready and were unable to deal with such mass clashes on their own. We asked for help from the CSTO. They probably spent a day in consultation. Then they told us that they were in a difficult position and that if they entered [Kyrgyzstan] it would look as if Russia was getting involved in a fight between two [ethnic groups].



RFE/RL: Who initiated the conversation with Karimov?



Otunbaeva: I think I reached out to him on June 11. He told me: "I see that you are in the situation like I was in 2005 during the Andijon events [when antigovernment protests were violently put down by government forces]. I understand you. Now, all I can do is close the border [to prevent Uzbeks from entering Kyrgyzstan to support the ethnic Uzbeks]. We also have a lot of people who say they need to go to help." About 70,000 people [fled from the clashes] and became internally displaced persons.



RFE/RL: I looked at the numbers and found that about 100,000 people were displaced.



Otunbaeva: I checked the statistics yesterday, about 70,000 people from Kyrgyzstan were placed in camps in Uzbekistan. The UNHCR handed out tents, creating conditions for people [to live]. More than 70,000 people, especially women with children, fled the conflict zone. The men mostly stayed. I believe Karimov made the right decision. His clear vision and knowledge of his people helped to choose the right solution. That is why no one crossed into our country from their side [during the conflict]. We remained face-to-face with our problem and, in the end, everything calmed down.



RFE/RL: The Kyrgyz government at the time acknowledged that the June 2010 events highlighted problems in handling interethnic relations in the country and it said that much needs to be done in that regard. There were initiatives to mix different nationalities during the resettlement of people [after they had been displaced or lost their homes], to introduce the Kyrgyz language in kindergartens, and many other measures. What has been done over the past 10 years to improve interethnic relations?



Otunbaeva: A lot has since been done. After the crisis we received a lot of support from the international community.



Over the past 10 years, the UN Peacebuilding Fund has provided Kyrgyzstan with $46 million. A lot of work had been done with that money. For example, new houses and schools were built. I must note that a school was also built by Kazakhstan. Most importantly, a concept for improving interethnic relations was written with the assistance of that [money]. That document expired in 2017 and the new version has since been prepared and is still awaiting government approval. The government must solve this difficult problem. But I believe there is still some work that needs to be done. For example, [Uzbek] children should go to kindergartens and they must study in Kyrgyz.

In regard to the schools, we are all satisfied with the situation. If you go to Osh today, all Uzbek schools teach in Kyrgyz. Parents want their children to learn Kyrgyz. Many young Uzbeks are fluent in Kyrgyz and this is an advantage for them. They speak Uzbek, Kyrgyz, English, Russian.

Regarding the kindergartens, I keep repeating even today that the earlier children begin to learn a foreign language, the better, since younger children learn languages easier. There is little progress in this regard in our country, as you can see in Bishkek. Now many kindergartens are run in Russian, in English, but there is a problem with teaching the Kyrgyz language there because the quality of [teachers] is very low. Lastly, mixing [different ethnic groups] in settlements is a very difficult issue. When the houses of the Uzbeks in the mahallas (Uzbek neighborhoods) were destroyed, we built new houses. And the people living there were mixed [between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz]. It was the case in Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Suzak. People know about it, but this is a very difficult issue all over the world.



RFE/RL: There were many different commissions -- both domestic and international -- that investigated the violence and its causes in southern Kyrgyzstan. An international inquiry commission led by Finnish politician Kimmo Kiljunen spent several months there for such a probe. Do you think the June 2010 events were studied and investigated enough?



Otunbaeva: There will be many more such investigations for many years to come and it's good for us. We never stopped anyone from coming and investigating. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and any other international or foreign organization that wanted to come, go around the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions, talk to people and find out what happened, they were all allowed to do so.

I would say that Kiljunen's report removed a large dirty spot from the face of our country. Today we work with an open and clear face around the world. For example, the report has four findings. First of all, it concluded that there was no genocide [in southern Kyrgyzstan]. Secondly, no war crimes occurred. Yes, crimes were committed, but the commission came to the conclusion that all cases should be tried in courts inside the country and decisions should be made by the Kyrgyz courts.

Of course, there are some negative points, black points -- I would say -- in the report. The issue [of the June 2010 clashes] was brought to the attention of the UN Commission on Human Rights, but they did not make any serious accusations against us. In my opinion this is very important for Kyrgyzstan. There were forces in our country that were against allowing the commission to enter Kyrgyzstan. We were the first state in the Commonwealth of Independent States to allow such a commission to work in our country. For example, similar commissions weren't allowed to work in Chechnya or some other places.

By allowing the international commission in, we saved our conscience. Karimov also said that only international experts should investigate the June events. "If not, we won't believe," he used to say. I think this gave us a boost. I made a decision. Under the supervision of the UN we accepted the commission, they came, and made their conclusions.
By Express News Service

K-POP contest 2020, an yearly event of the Korean Cultural Centre India, Embassy of the Republic of Korea, is back, with its first two rounds to be hosted online. Those willing to participate can post their performance video on YouTube, and register at kpopindia.com till June 15.

Owing to the exceptional situation, we have made the conscious decision to host the contest with only solo participants. Any Indian nationals above age of 14 years, who has a passion for dancing or singing to K-POP songs can participate in this open contest, says KCCI Director Kim Kum-Pyoung.

The regional round will be held on the K-POP website with winners competing from the first round in 18 cities of Ahmedabad, Aizawl, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Guntur, Hyderabad, Imphal, Itanagar, Kohima, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, and Pune.

Kum-Pyoung says, The videos of the participants of the online round can be checked on the website by clicking the cities. Fans can watch, like, and comment to cheer their favourite participants. The rules and eligibility criteria are listed on the K-POP website and social media channels.

On asked if a location for the final round has been selected, Kum-Pyoung says, Looking at the present situation, our top priority is public safety. It will be best if we first wait for the governments guidelines and then explore the best options to make it a successful event.

Over the years, K-POP has witnessed a growing fanbase in India. The 2019 contest saw a total of 3,475 people participate in 1,952 teams.

How to participate

Those willing to participate can post their performance video on YouTube, and register at kpopindia.com till June 15.
RIO DE JANEIRO  He's shown disdain for facts and science-based recommendations. He's said the public will eventually realize they were "tricked" by governors and large parts of the media over a "measly little cold." He's embraced chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for the coronavirus despite no evidence of the anti-malaria drugs' effectiveness in fighting the disease.

As Brazil's coronavirus infections have surged to a level surpassed only by the United States, President Jair Bolsonaro, the leader of Latin America's largest country, has followed a near-identical coronavirus script to President Donald Trump.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro has downplayed the dangers of the pandemic and argued against an aggressive national lockdown. He has continued to attend large political rallies, where he shakes hands with supporters and has touted his #BrazilCannotStop campaign, which asked people to get back to work and normal life. A federal judge later banned it. He has replaced two health ministers who publicly disagreed with his COVID-19 approach with military officials  a near but not total parallel to the case of U.S. health official Rick Bright, who claimed he was ousted from his position after raising concerns about Trump's promotion of hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine: Everything to know about the drug Trump says he's taking

Bolsonaro has also blamed Brazil's state governors for "destroying jobs." And in the wake of Trump's announcement that he wants to withdraw from the World Health Organization over claims it failed to adequately raise the alarm over the coronavirus because of its close ties to China, Bolosonaro said that he, too, is considering following in Trump's WHO footsteps, accusing the global health organization of "idealogical bias."

Trump and Bolsonaro have been "remarkably similar" in their dealings with the coronavirus, said Steven Levitsky, an expert on Latin America at Harvard University and the author of "How Democracies Die." "Both were incredibly slow to recognize the outbreak and to listen to experts who were calling for immediate action," he added.

Story continues

Rubens Ricupero, a former Brazilian minister of finance who previously served as Brazil's ambassador to Washington, said that Trump and Bolsonaro also both "prioritized the economy" over COVID-19 isolation measures, a decision he believes will likely lead to more economic damage over the longer-term because the disease was allowed to spread farther afield. "The economy will take longer to get back to normal," he said.

More worrying, Bolsonaro said on Saturday that Brazil would stop publishing running totals of coronavirus deaths because they were "not representative" of the true situation.

A supporter of President Jair Bolsonaro wears a face mask with Bolsonaro's image during a demonstration at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 7, 2020.

The move, which means the public won't know how many people have been infected or died because of coronavirus, has angered opposition lawmakers and public health officials. Brazil's Supreme Court ordered the government on Tuesday to release the figures. Critics worry it could be an attempt by Brazil's right-wing leader, a controversial and polarizing figure who routinely insults women and racial minorities, to disguise the true nature of the country's death toll. Coronavirus cases in Brazil are now growing at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world and the nation is on track, within a few weeks or more, to surpass Britain's deaths in the No. 2. spot behind the USA.

This "trick will not absolve the government for its responsibility from an eventual genocide," Gilmar Mendes, a Supreme Court justice, wrote on Twitter.

Oliver Stuenkel, a political analyst and professor of international relations at Brazil's Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university, said Bolsonaro's coronavirus response may resemble Trumps, but the latter has been far more extreme.

"Trump hasnt dismissed all the experts in his government. He has kept (National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director) Anthony Fauci, who is still saying things that are in accordance with scientific standards. In Brazil, there are currently no recognized health care experts in charge of handling the crisis," Stuenkel said.

Yet Brazil's health-care system is on the brink of collapse.

In five Brazilian states, beds for COVID-19 patients in the intensive-care units of public hospitals have reached over 90% of their capacity, according to Agencia Publica, a Brazilian investigative news agency. In Manaus, the Amazon rainforest region's biggest city, mass graves have been constructed to accommodate a wave of deceased patients, many of them with links to the area's vulnerable, poor and Indigenous communities.

Brazilians have expressed their discontent with Bolsonaro's administration by taking to their windows in the evening to bang pots and pans in protest.

Amanda Coimbra, 30, a translator who lives in Rio's famous Copacabana neighborhood said these protests have become a kind of "ritual" for her almost every day at 8:30 pm.

From the top floor of her 12-story apartment complex she has a panoramic view of a "sea of pans" that pop-up in the windows of the buildings scattered all around.

"We are so upset, angered and desperate with this situation. Our government is basically not doing anything about this (pandemic)," Coimbra said.

As the public backlash has grown, hundreds have taken to the streets to protest Bolsonaro's handling of the pandemic but also Brazil's legacy of deep-rooted racism  under the spotlight anew since George Floyds death in Minneapolis. In recent weeks, Black Lives Matter marches have joined forces with anti-Bolsonaro demonstrations to highlight cases such as that of Joao Pedro Mattos Pinto, a 14-year-old black student who was killed during a police operation in Rio. Pinto was playing in his yard.

George Floyd: Hundreds of mourners pay their respects

Bolsonaro's "government has kept a lot of issues like inequality and racism out of the political agenda," said Marcos Nobre, a professor of politics at Brazil's University of Campinas, in Sao Paulo, and author of "Period: Bolsonaros War Against Democracy."

"This is an opportunity to take back these agendas," he said.

For Bolsonaro and Trump, their mutual admiration is well documented, with the U.S. president noting on several occasions that they have "many views" in common.

But as Brazil's coronavirus crisis has appeared to spiral out of control  many experts believe its 740,000 infections may be a vast undercount  Bolsonaro's standing with Trump has not shielded him from the imposition of a U.S. travel ban from Brazil.

"Todays action will help ensure foreign nationals who have been in Brazil do not become a source of additional infections in our country," said White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany last month as Brazil joined China, Europe, Britain and Iran on the list of countries where certain travelers are banned from entering the U.S.

In this March 7, 2020, Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, center, stands with President Donald Trump, second from left, Vice President Mike Pence, right, and Brazil's Communications Director Fabio Wajngarten, behind Trump partially covered, during a dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

New ban: Trump administration suspends travel from Brazil to limit spread of COVID-19

Still, Bolsonaro is used to deflecting criticism.

"Its no use for the press to pin these issues on me when its not up to me," he said when questioned recently over an escalating coronavirus death toll in Sao Paulo state.

Bolsonaro has also pushed ever more false and outlandish claims, such as when he said in a now deleted Facebook post that the WHO encourages homosexuality and masturbation among young children. While the country has swiftly evolved into a new epicenter of the pandemic, and more than a dozen of his senior administration officials have tested positive for the virus, he has encouraged Brazilians to hold barbecues and has been seen riding a personal watercraft on Lake Paranoa, near Brazil's capital.

Mar-a-Lago: Trump met with Brazil official who has now tested positive for coronavirus

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro's admiration for Trump remains undimmed.

On May 27, as Bolsonaro joined a group of his supporters in prayer just outside of Brazils presidential palace in Brasilia, hidden behind a row of hands raised in the presidents direction was one man who was shouting out above the crowd, as revealed in a video of the event that was being streamed live on Bolsonaro's Facebook page.

"Let us pray for you. I believe you were brought here by God," the man said of Bolsonaro. Wearing a mask and addressing loyalists from behind a short metal fence, Bolsonaro eventually shifted the conversation to his admiration for Trump.

"It has to be Trump (in office)," he said, referring to his delight at the current U.S. administration. The crowd cheered. A few days later, the White House issued a statement announcing a shipment to Brazil of 2 million doses of hydroxychloroquine.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro follows in Donald Trumps COVID-19 footsteps
TEL AVIV - The Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that a 2017 law legalising settlements built on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank was unconstitutional. The decision came as the Netanyahu government is preparing to annex parts of the West Bank and is based on the fact that the law ''violates property right and the equal rights of Palestinians, privileging the interests of Israeli settlers over Palestinian residents'', the court said. The law involved about 4,000 homes built by settlers. Eight judges voted in favour of the decision and one against and ruled that the law - which passed with the wording that it was ''legalising the settlements'' - did not give enough attention to the fact that Palestinians are ''protected residents in an area under military occupation''.



The heavily debated law had been frozen after many appeals were filed by both Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, with even Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit refusing to defend it as state representative before the court. The law was to have made homes legal that had been built illegally by Israeli settlers on private Palestinian land ''in good faith'' to that had the support of the Israeli government or for which the owners had received 125% financial compensation for the land. In recent years, the court has ordered the demolishment several times of homes built in Jewish outposts on privately owned Palestinian land. The court's decision sparked an angry reaction by the right but was welcomed by the left. The Blue and White party under Benny Gantz - in the government with Benyamin Netanyahu - said that the court's decision would be respected and that the party would ensure that this happens. A source close to Netanyahu and quoted by Haaretz said that the annexation plan for parts of the West Bank would resolve most legalisation problems.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

According to the United States Geological Survey, Earth is home to about 1,500 potentially active volcanoes, with new volcanoes forming about once a week. Volcanic eruptions can be highly unpredictable and pose a major threat to life and property.

Katherine Cosburn, a Ph.D. candidate in The University of New Mexico Department of Physics and Astronomy, is leading a research initiative that uses computer modeling to better understand volcanoes and, possibly, enable scientists to more accurately predict volcanic activity. Cosburn, along with associate professor Mousumi Roy and a small team of undergraduate researchers, has been working on a series of projects aimed at better understanding how the internal processes of volcanoes are expressed externally. The insights yielded from her research may help geologists mitigate the damage caused by volcanoes by predicting their behavior.

The sight of conical volcanos like Mt. Fuji is striking, but the internal processes these mountains hide are, perhaps, the real spectacle. The objective of this project is to better understand the connection between the flow of magma beneath the surface of a stratovolcano and the external shape taken by the overlying Earth. Since stresses induced by magma may change the appearance of the land around it, observing the surface of a volcano could tell us about its inner workings.

Cosburn, whose background is in physics, tackles this problem with a theoretical and quantitative approach, using extensive calculations based on real-world data to model how magma and surrounding materials interact. Her project has used UNM Center for Advanced Research Computing systems extensively to perform these calculations. In Cosburn's words, it is "very possible" that the theoretical modeling her team has conducted using CARC systems could have real-world predictive value.

This research focuses specifically on stratovolcanoesthe big, cone-shaped volcanoes. As Cosburn explains, "If you ever made a paper-mache volcano as a kid, this is the type of volcano you made." Stratovolcanoes are particularly volatile and unpredictable, making them a looming threat to those who live and work near them. Many of the most disastrous volcanic incidents in human history, like the eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius, Mt. Pelee, and Mt. St. Helens, have involved stratovolcanoes. The ability to predict the behavior of stratovolcanoes has the potential to save lives and prevent economic hardship.

Cosburn plans to present her team's research at several upcoming forums including the 2020 Seismological Society of America Annual Meeting taking place this April in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the 2020 American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference on Distributed Volcanism and Distributed Volcanic Hazards in Flagstaff, Arizona this September. This year's AGU Chapman Conference will be focused on modeling volcanic activity for the purpose of harm mitigation and will feature a "field trip" to the Springerville volcanic field. Cosburn will also be presenting this project, along with her related research, as her Ph.D. dissertation.

Explore further The seemingly unremarkable crystals that could help predict volcanic eruptions
Michael Hill Jeweller has permanently closed its Tauranga, Upper Hutt and Johnsonville stores.

On May 15, the company announced to the New Zealand Stock Exchange that it would close stores across its global network in response to the changing retail environment caused by the coronavirus crisis.

Since then, the company declined to name the New Zealand stores that would be affected by the closures. But on Wednesday it confirmed the three.

"Michael Hill constantly reviews the profitability of all the stores in its network, and this has seen three stores not reopen following the COVID restrictions lifting  Johnsonville, Tauranga and Upper Hutt," it says in a statement.

"The remaining network of 49 Michael Hill stores across New Zealand are open and trading, with no further New Zealand store closures currently planned.

"Every effort has been made to redeploy impacted staff from those stores across the Michael Hill store network. For our customers, we make this transition easy to ensure we do not impact their shopping experience with Michael Hill and provide our customers with the solution to either shop at another suitably located store or via our online store."

In its announcement to the stock exchange, Michael Hill Jeweller says it's planning to close five stores in Australia and one in Canada, as well as the three in New Zealand.

The company says it has re-evaluated the store network, customer demographic, and store profitability.

"We are determined to open the right stores at the right time with the right inventory," it said in May.

"Accordingly, we have been negotiating with all our landlords to reach reasonable commercial arrangements that reflect the reality of the consumer marketplace and trading conditions."

As of June 8, Michael Hill Jeweller had received $2.2 million in wage subsidies for 326 staff.

Prior to the closures, Michael Hill Jeweller had 304 stores in New Zealand, Australia and Canada with global sales of A$569 million (NZ$593m) last year.

Retail expert Juanita Neville-Te Rito says the closed stores are all in locations that had dramatically changed over the last decade.

"Tauranga, for example, has shifted quite significantly over the last couple of years. If you go down the main street of Tauranga, it is a ghost town at the moment."

Stores have either moved to the Tauranga Crossing mall, which has become the city's new epicentre or into the newly refurbished Bayfair.

"Both malls have a really strong hospitality offering and are really family friendly," she says.

"Once you start getting that repeat visitation, they become your new local."

Upper Hutt suffered for its proximity to Queensgate mall, while Johnsonville had struggled for a long time, she said.

Michael Hill Jeweller has been approached for comment.

-Stuff/Debrin Foxcroft.
EVANSVILLE, Wis., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Retirement Income Strategies, a Wisconsin-based financial planning firm with locations in Brookfield, Evansville, Madison and Middleton, is providing local residents with safe options to seek the financial guidance they need amid the COVID-19 crisis. While virtual meetings options have already been in place since the start of lockdown, Retirement Income Strategies is now offering socially distant in-person meetings as well, giving local residents the opportunity to choose how they wish to receive essential financial planning services.

"We recognize that with both economic uncertainty and ongoing market volatility, residents need help managing their finances now more than ever before. As an essential service, we want to make sure our community has options available to them to seek financial advice in whichever format they're most comfortable," said Kristian Finfrock, founder and financial advisor at Retirement Income Strategies. "These trying times can have a direct impact on an investor's behavior and the financial decisions they make, especially if the recent market volatility has led them to discover they are taking on more risk than they are comfortable with. Whether it's through a virtual meeting or a socially distant in-person meeting that utilizes face masks, we encourage local residents to meet with a qualified financial professional to proactively address those risks now."

During the state's stay-at-home orders, Retirement Income Strategies transitioned employees to work remotely, maintaining all of its employees' jobs while continuing to provide residents with crucial financial services in a safe and secure way through virtual and digital services. In an effort to safely maintain client and community communication, Retirement Income Strategies implemented the following protocols:

Work-At-Home Protocols and Service Offerings

Scheduling virtual meetings via Skype, Zoom, Teams and JoinMe



Offering webinars in replace of the firm's in-person educational workshops



Continuing to air the Madison Money Guy radio show on WIBA, WCLO & ESPN, with Finfrock recording the show from his home



Offering a secure online platform to send financial information



Providing updates via email, video and social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) to clients and prospects on service offerings and the firm's reopening

Re-Opening Protocols and Service Offerings for Continued Protection Against COVID-19

Office purchases

Disposable facemasks



Extra hand sanitizers



Two air-scrubbing systems: A portable HEPA filtration system and hydroxyl generator that attaches to central air to eliminate mold, mildew and other airborne pathogens



Office protocols:

Sanitize each office space after every client visit



No handshaking, "fist-bumps" or other direct client touching



No longer offering food or beverage



Follow social distancing guidelines and conduct client meetings in rooms that allow for six feet of distancing



Continue offering virtual and digital service offerings for clients who prefer this method over in-person visits



Contacting Retirement Income Strategies:

Clients and members of the community are encouraged to contact the firm through the website (https://madisonsfinancialplanner.com), or by phone at 608-208-1800

For more information about Retirement Income Strategies, click here to visit the firm's website.

ABOUT KRISTIAN FINFROCK/RETIREMENT INCOME STRATEGIES:

Kristian Finfrock is the founder of Retirement Income Strategies, a Wisconsin-based financial planning firm with locations in Madison, Brookfield, Evansville and Middleton. Finfrock, commonly referred to as the "Madison Money Guy," and his team of professionals provide retirement, wealth management, investment, tax and estate planning services. He hosts a weekly radio show "Retirement Income Strategies with The Madison Money Guy" that airs on WIBA 1310 AM, ESPN 100.5 FM, and WCLO 97.5 FM. For more information about Kristian Finfrock or Retirement Income Strategies, please visit www.madisonmoneyguy.com or call 608-208-1800.

Securities offered through Kalos Capital, Inc. and Investment Advisory Services offered through Kalos Management, Inc., both at 11525 Park Woods Circle, Alpharetta, GA 30005, (678) 356-1100. Retirement Income Strategies is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Kalos Capital, Inc. or Kalos Management, Inc.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jill Jagelski or Gina Traficant

AdvisorPR

[email protected]

(702) 685-7450

SOURCE Retirement Income Strategies
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:09:38|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits a rural ecotourism park to learn about the development of local signature agriculture in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

YINCHUAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Xi underscored fully implementing the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, working hard to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and giving priority to ensuring stable employment and people's livelihood.

Efforts are needed to continue building a beautiful new Ningxia with economic prosperity, ethnic unity, beautiful environment and well-off residents, he said.

During his inspection trip from Monday to Wednesday, Xi visited places including the cities of Wuzhong and Yinchuan to learn about efforts to coordinate regular epidemic containment with economic and social development, consolidate achievements in poverty alleviation, strengthen ecological and environmental protection, and promote ethnic unity and progress.

Visiting a poverty relief workshop in the village of Hongde in Wuzhong Monday afternoon, Xi talked with villagers producing cartons.

Such workshops were set up for poverty alleviation, and they should lean toward needy people in terms of employment, Xi said.

Compared with migrating to cities to work, the villagers employed near their homes may not earn as much, but they can save on accommodation, food and transportation costs and are able to take care of their families, Xi added.

At the house of Liu Kerui, a villager of the Hui ethnic group, Xi took a good look at the courtyard, living room, bedrooms, kitchen and cowshed, and asked Liu and his wife if they had any difficulties and what they planned for the future.

Xi expressed his hope that the villagers could keep going and create better lives for themselves.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Visiting a section of the Yellow River, Xi learned about the river's ecological conservation.

He said the Yellow River is China's "mother river" and called on Ningxia to take good care of it.

Visiting the Jinhuayuan residential community, where people of several ethnic groups live together, Xi said no single ethnic minority group should be left behind in the country's building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

It represents the fine tradition of the Chinese nation and the great strength of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics to enable people of all ethnic groups to walk hand in hand into a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Xi added.

On Tuesday afternoon, Xi visited a rural ecotourism park in Yinchuan to learn about the development of modern agriculture in Ningxia and the operation of agricultural cooperatives to help farmers raise income.

He stressed upholding a people-centered philosophy of development and putting the interests of farmers first in developing modern agriculture and cultural tourism.

Xi required continuous efforts to fully implement the regular COVID-19 containment measures and accelerating the return of normal work and life order.

While visiting a vineyard in Yinchuan near the Helan Mountains, Xi said the mountains constitute crucial shields for ecological security in the northwestern part of China. He demanded resolute measures to strengthen the ecological conservation of the mountains.

Xi said the wine industry has promising prospects as the living standards of Chinese people continue to rise.

On Wednesday morning, Xi heard work reports of the Ningxia regional committee of the CPC and the regional government, and gave his acknowledgment of the progress Ningxia has achieved in various aspects of work. 
Trailblazer lieutenant Melanie Martins is a supply officer serving aboard guided-missile submarine USS Ohio (SSGN 726). She is also one of the first Filipinas to qualify as a submariner and earn her submarine warfare insignia in September 2019.

In earning her dolphins, denoting the ranks corresponding metal pin, Martins added to the list of women expanding among the elite community of Navy personnel. Martins claims she felt at home with her submarine family immediately.

Lt. Melanie Martins poses for a photo at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on May 29, 2020. (Chief Information Systems Technician Johnmark Centeno/U.S. Navy)

I felt like I knew my wardroom for a very long time when I first got there, she told the U.S. Navys official online publication. There was no awkward moment with anyone, even in the enlisted ranks.

Martins, originally from Angeles City in Pampanga, Philippines, described her first days on board guided-missile submarine USS Ohio in 2013 as scary, the complicated procedure involved in boarding and disembarking the vessel being particularly daunting.

I was so scared to climb up and down the escape trunk, Martins explained. The passageways are so tight, and the compartments are confusing, but everyone is willing to show and teach you where everything is, so I got familiar with the boat quickly.

Guided-missile submarine USS Ohio (SSGN 726) prepares to moor at Naval Magazine Indian Island, Ohio, after completing a 14-month forward deployment to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility. (Lt.Cmdr. Edward Early/DVIDSHUB)

According to Navy Times, female officers first began serving on missile submarines in 2011. Martins admitted expecting submarine life to be hard. I was wrong, she admitted to the U.S. Navy. It is really, really hard.

There are times when I am too busy and I ask myself, Why did I do this at all? the lieutenant and mother of one reflected. But then I realize that not all people are offered this opportunity. I have to grab it and be the best that I can be.

Sailors assigned to the Gold crew of the USS Ohio (SSGN 726) practice driving a simulated submarine in the ships control trainer at Trident Training Facility in Bangor on June 11, 2018 (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Amanda R. Gray/U.S. Navy)

Her best paid off when Martins earned her dolphins in September 2019. The newly qualified submariner was quick to credit her fleet for providing the support and expertise she needed to help her achieve her success.

In the submarine fleet we are close to each other, not only physically, but it is a brotherhood, she said. No matter the rank, if you are doing something wrong that can potentially kill everyone on the ship, you will be corrected.

Culinary specialists aboard USS Ohio prepare a meal for the crew at Puget Sound, Washington, on June 26, 2015 (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kenneth G. Takada/U.S. Navy)

Submerged beneath ocean, the lieutenant explained, one small mistake could mean disaster for the entire crew. In return for the trust and diligence of her submarine family, Martins cooks meals from her home country to nurture her colleagues health and hearts as well as their physical safety.

I cook Filipino dishes underway sometimes, she said. I am the only Pinoy aboard my submarine, so I show everyone our dishes. We never run out of rice, of course!

USS Ohio pulls into Apra Harbor to conduct an exchange of command between its gold and blue crews (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jeffrey Jay Price/U.S. Navy)

The lieutenant cited her family as her biggest source of inspiration. My family motivates me to be the best I can be, especially my daughter, she reflected. I want her to be proud of me one day.

Chief culinary specialist Dominique Saavedra, assigned to USS Michigan (SSGN 727), was the first female enlisted Sailor ever to earn her dolphins. Saavedra received the pin at a ceremony held at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in August 2016, saying in a Navy release that she couldnt be more proud.

Saavedras colleague, Captain Joe Turk, commended her achievement as a triumph for all aspiring female submariners. Chief Saavedras accomplishment reinforces the fact that there are very capable women who have the talent and desire to succeed in the submarine force, he said.

Sailors aboard the guided-missile submarine stand ready as the vessel pulls into Apra Harbor (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jeffrey Jay Price/U.S. Navy)
The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee is set to submit candidates for the chairmanship of the National Election Council to the NA on June 10, part of the legislatures ongoing ninth session in Hanoi.

A group discussion of legislators on June 9, part of the ninth session of the National Assembly

In the morning, deputies are going to engage in group discussions about the draft revised law on Vietnamese guest workers under contract, the draft law on international agreements, and the draft law amending and supplementing some articles of the law on settlement of administrative violations.

The draft revised law on Vietnamese guest workers under contract consists of eight chapters with 79 articles, one article less than the current law. The draft abolishes eight articles, adds nine new ones, and revises about 70 articles of the existing law.

The revision aims to institutionalise the 2013 Constitution and the Partys recent guidelines on the sending of Vietnamese workers abroad.

The draft law on international agreements to be debated comprises seven chapters and 53 articles. It regulates the jurisdiction, process, and procedures for the signing, amending, supplementing, extending, ending the validity and suspending the implementation of international agreements.

Meanwhile, the draft law amending and supplementing some articles of the law on settlement of administrative violations is intended to address shortcomings of the existing law, helping to improve the States management efficiency and effectiveness while ensuring rights and legitimate interests of agencies, organisations and people.

In the afternoon, parliamentarians are scheduled to vote on a resolution on the law and ordinance making programme for 2021 and adjustments to the programme for 2020. They will also vote on the law amending and supplementing some articles of the law on judicial assessment, and a resolution on the exemption of agricultural land use tax.

At the plenary sitting, the NA will scrutinise the raising of charter capital at the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.

After that, the NA Standing Committee will submit candidates for the chairmanship of the National Election Council. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will present a proposal asking the NA to approve the dismissal of Vuong Dinh Hue from the post of Deputy Prime Minister. Hue was appointed as Secretary of the Party Committee of Hanoi in February this year.

The NA Standing Committee will also propose the legislature relieve Nguyen Thanh Hai from the membership of the committee, as she was appointed as Secretary of Thai Nguyen provincial Party Committee in May.

Those proposals will then be discussed in groups.

Law makers adopt one resolution, discuss two bills on June 9

The 14th National Assembly passed a resolution on its supervision programme in 2021 and discussed two draft laws at the plenary sitting in the NA Hall in Hanoi on June 9, the second working day of the second phase of the NAs 9th session.

In the morning, the NA heard a proposal on the adjustment of investment policy for some sections on the eastern North-South expressway for 2017-2020 and a verification report by the NA Economic Committee on this matter.

A Government report and the NA Finance-Budget Committees verification report on a draft resolution on special finance-budget mechanisms and policies for the capital city of Hanoi were also presented to the legislature.

The deputies then spent the remaining of the morning discussed in groups the proposal and the Governments report

In the afternoon, the law makers passed a resolution on the NAs supervision programme in 2021 with 91.1 percent of votes.

They then debated issues of difference in the draft law on amendments and supplements to some articles of the Law on the Organisation of the NA.

Later, the draft law on residence (revised) was also tabled for discussion.

On June 10, the NA is scheduled to discuss in groups the draft law on Vietnamese guest workers under contract (revised), the draft law on international agreements, and the draft law on amendments and supplements to a number of articles of the Law on Handling Administrative Violations.

The legislature are to vote on a resolution on the NAs law and ordinance building in 2021 and adjustments to the law and ordinance building in 2020, the draft law on amendments and supplements to a number of articles of the Law on Judicial Assessment, and the draft resolution on exemption of agricultural land use tax.

Law makers will then discuss raising charter capital of the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.

Several personnel matters will be handled later, including the election of the Chair of the National Election Council, and the approval of the removal of Vuong Dinh Hue from the post of Deputy Prime Minister and Nguyen Thanh Hai from the post of member of the NA Standing Committee.

Legislators pass resolution on NA supervision programme for 2021

National Assembly (NA) deputies passed a resolution on the legislatures supervision programme for 2021 at the afternoon sitting of the ongoing ninth session in Hanoi on June 9.

The resolution states that, in 2021, the NA will carry out supreme supervision of reports on the term of office of the State President, the NA Standing Committee, the NA Council for Ethnic Affairs, Committees of the NA, the Government, the Supreme Peoples Court, the Supreme Peoples Procuracy, and the State Audit at the 11th session of the 14th NA.

The legislature will mull over a Government report on thrift practice and combating wastefulness in 2020, and report its supervision results relating to the settlement of voters petitions to the 10th session of the 14th NA.

In its first session, the 15th NA will review a report on the results of the election of deputies to the 15th NA and Peoples Councils at all levels for the 2021-2026 term; reports evaluating the implementation of socio-economic development and State budget plans in the first half of 2021, solutions for implementing socio-economic development and State budget plans in the second half of 2021; and the final balance of the State budget in 2019.

At the second session, the 15th NA will look at reports on the results of the implementation of socio-economic development plans in and State budget estimates in 2021 as well as socio-economic development plans, State budget estimates and budget allocation plans for 2022.

The NA will also review reports on anti-corruption efforts, crime prevention and fighting and legal violations, and the execution of judgments.

Presenting a report on the opinions of NA deputies on the draft resolution of the legislatures supervision programme for 2021, NA Secretary General and Head of the NA Office Nguyen Hanh Phuc said several deputies proposed reviewing reports on evaluating the implementation of the socio-economic development plans in the 2016-2020 and 2021-2025 periods and the socio-economic development strategy in the 2021-2030 period.

They also proposed a review of reports on anti-corruption efforts and thrift practice and combating wastefulness in 2016-2020, he said./.VNA
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov will lead Russia in talks on the New START treaty.  AFP/VNA Photo

WASHINGTON  Russia has called on the United States to make a positive" proposal as the powers open talks on a major disarmament treaty, warning that US insistence on including China could scuttle efforts.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov will meet in Vienna on June 22 with US envoy Marshall Billingslea to start negotiations on New START, which expires in February.

President Donald Trump has walked out on a number of international agreements but voiced a general interest in preserving New START, which obliged the United States and Russia to halve their inventories of strategic nuclear missile launchers.

But the Trump administration says that a successor to New START, a Cold War legacy negotiated under Barack Obama, should bring in China -- whose nuclear arsenal is growing but remains significantly smaller than those of Russia and the United States.

Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations by video conference on Tuesday, Ryabkov described the US willingness to start negotiations as "good news" but said: "The ball is on the American part of the court."

"We need to hear loudly and clearly what this administration wants, how it believes it would be possible to do something positive and not just to dismantle one arms control treaty or arrangement after another."

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had "no intention of participating" in the talks and accused the United States of trying to "deflect responsibilities to others."

Billingslea, writing on Twitter, urged China to reconsider.

"Achieving Great Power status requires behaving with Great Power responsibility. No more Great Wall of Secrecy on its nuclear build-up. Seat waiting for China in Vienna."

Ryabkov indicated that Russia did not oppose the US invitation to China -- an international ally of Moscow despite a complicated historical relationship -- but doubted Beijing would agree.

"My answer to a direct question on whether or not we think it would be possible to bring China to the table would be a flat and straightforward no," Ryabkov said.

"Now it depends on the US -- if the US believes it's worth continuing this dialogue with Russia or, for the US point of view, the Chinese participation is an absolute imperative that precludes (the) US from continuing a meaningful and forward-looking dialogue with Russia on arms control," he said.

Russia seeks to bring in France, Britain

In turn, Ryabkov said that US allies Britain and France, also nuclear powers with much smaller arsenals, should join the talks.

"The logic is a very simple one -- the more we come down in numbers, the higher is the price for every single warhead payload and we cannot simply ignore capabilities of some others."

Billingslea, in a speech last month at the Hudson Institute, said Trump was "not interested in agreements simply for agreements' sake."

The United States and Russia each had more than 6,000 nuclear warheads in 2019, while China had 290, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

France had 300 and Britain possessed 200, with India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea maintaining smaller arsenals, according to the research group.

New START expires around two weeks after Trump would leave office if he loses the election in November.

Russia as well as some US Democrats have proposed simply extending New START temporarily, voicing skepticism about sealing a brand new treaty by February.  AFP
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 00:26:21|Editor: huaxia

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Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias (2nd R) and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio (2nd L) sign an agreement in Athens, Greece, on June 9, 2020. Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio, on Tuesday signed an agreement here on the delimitation of maritime zones between the two countries. (Photo by Lefteris Partsalis/Xinhua)

ATHENS, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio, on Tuesday signed an agreement here on the delimitation of maritime zones between the two countries.

"Today is a historic day. It is a significant development, given that the previous accord (on the continental shelf) was from 1977. ... Our country's consistent aim is the delimitation of maritime zones with all of our neighbors in the context of the international law," Dendias said in a joint statement to the press, carried by the Greek national broadcaster ERT.

"I am truly content for being able to witness this important moment for Italy and Greece after so many years," Di Maio said.

The talks between the two officials in Athens also covered other bilateral, regional and international issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions.

Dendias reiterated his country's solidarity with Italy, which was tested hard by the novel coronavirus, while announcing the reopening of Greece's borders for Italian tourists.

"Starting next Monday and gradually until the end of this month, Greece is lifting all restrictions," Dendias said, citing the "improving epidemiological data" from the neighboring country.

As of mid-June, 29 countries with positive epidemiological data -- among them China -- can send to the airports of Athens and Thessaloniki tourists who will be subject only to sample testing for COVID-19 upon arrival, the Greek authorities have announced.

From June 15 until at least June 30, all other travelers arriving from airports on the European Union Aviation Safety Agency's (EASA) list of areas with a high risk of virus transmission need to be tested upon arrival and stay overnight at a designated hotel at the Greek state's expenses.

As of July 1, international flights will be allowed into all Greek airports and visitors will be subject to random tests upon arrival, the government said. Enditem
Jesus turned first to his disciples and warned them, Beware of the yeast of the Phariseestheir hypocrisy (Luke 12:1 NLT).

The Pharisees were the religious leaders of that day. They wanted to trap him [Jesus] into saying something they could use against him (Luke 11:53-54). These rulers had the power to throw people out of the synagogue and have them stoned. When one of them internally criticized Jesus for not ritually cleansing Himself before a meal, Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy.

His boldness in exposing these religious leaders must have shaken the disciples. What might they do to Jesusand to them?

Jesus, sensing their concerns, addresses them. But before soothing their fears, He warns them of a greater threat than personal harmreligious hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy has to do with playing a role, pretending to be something youre not. Relating it to yeast or leaven refers to how it spreads and infects others. A pinch of fermented dough would leaven the whole loaf.

I met a young woman who earnestly wanted to follow Christ. Her faith was set back by a hypocritical pastor. Shed left a wild lifestyle to follow Jesus and thought dating a pastor would be safe. This man turned out to be just like the unsaved men shed known before finding Christ. The experience shook her. Thankfully, she eventually met genuine believers who lived their faith.

The Pharisees pretended to love God with their outward show of religion. But inside they had no love for God or justice (Luke 11:37-44). Their hypocrisy turned people off who were seeking an authentic relationship with God and caused others to think it was ok to use faith to justify selfishness. Jesus said, But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea (Matthew 18:6).

Among the twelve disciples stood Judas. I wonder if Jesus looked at him when He spoke. Judas wore the mask of a devoted disciple, but behind closed doors he was a thief (John 12:6).

Judas ignored Jesus warning. His hypocrisy contaminated his whole heart leading him to eventually betray Jesus for a few silver coins. This infection cost him the loss of his eternal soul.

Jesus warned that all hypocrisy will be exposed. True faith in God is revealed in how we live when no one is looking. Those who live to please God honor Him whether anyone else sees or not.

Even during hard times, guarding genuine faith is more important than guarding our physical lives.

Photo credit: Getty Images/Chesiire Cat
The COVID outbreak and subsequent lockdown reaffirmed the importance of home ownership, and there is a growing need for apartments with larger spaces with work from home becoming a new normal, HDFC managing director Renu Sud Karnad said on Wednesday.

Aiming to capture this demand, HDFC Ltd, the country's leading housing finance company, said it is hosting an online property show featuring over 150 projects from more than 75 developers in the Delhi NCR region.

The company plans to extend this to properties in the Mumbai Region next week, HDFC said in a statement.

HDFC's online fair is an end-to-end technology platform, providing home seekers real-time information and connecting every phase of the home buying process at one place.

Starting on June 10, 2020, the Delhi online property showcase is a month long event.

HDFC will provide home loan facility to those homebuyers who move forward with their decision to own a home, it said.

"The last two months have been very difficult world over. But what has been reassuring in these trying times is the safety and security that one felt in one's home," Karnad said, referring to the lockdown imposed on March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus infections.

"Also with work from home being the new normal, particularly for working couples and young professionals, the need for homes with larger spaces is on the rise. We believe that all this has not only reaffirmed the importance of a home, but has also built a sense of urgency to own a home," she said.

In view of this heightened feeling for home ownership, the company has decided to host a series of online property shows, with information, projects and properties focused on specific cities or regions, Karnad said.

HDFC Ltd said it has assisted more than 77 Lakh customers in acquiring their own home over the last 4 decades.
Hundreds of stars have banded together to sign an open letter calling out leaders in the theater industry for neglecting to acknowledge their own white privilege and lift up people of color.

Actors, including Sterling K. Brown, Viola Davis, Katori Hall, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lynn Nottage, Leslie Odom Jr., Sandra Oh, Jeremy Pope, Billy Porter, Issa Rae, Cynthia Erivo, Uzo Aduba, Andre Holland and Danielle Brooks, have signed the letter -- titled "We See You, White American Theater" -- as "The Ground We Stand On," a reference to August Wilson's play based on his 1996 book "The Ground on Which I Stand." The book serves as a literary call to African Americans to challenge racist establishment by taking back their culture, and advocating for Black storytelling to be considered as important as its White counterpart.

lin-manuel-miranda-hamilton-inline-today-160316 (Theo Wargo / Getty Images)

"We stand on this ground as BIPOC theatremakers, multi-generational, at varied stages in our careers, but fiercely in love with the Theatre. Too much to continue it under abuse," the letter reads. "We will wrap the least privileged among us in protection, and fearlessly share our many truths."

The letter says there's inherent racism found in theater, with many leaders programming white-led plays and musicals, refusing to prioritize BIPOC communities and audiences, neglecting to say the words "anti-racism" when talking to boards, and heralding white privilege over the safety of people of color.

It calls out the theater industry for using people of color to appear in "galas, talkbacks, panels, board meetings, and donor dinners" without "being willing to defend the sanctity of our bodies beyond the stages you make us jump through hoops to be considered for."

Read the full letter below.

Dear White American Theater,

We come together as a community of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) theatremakers, in the legacy of August Wilson's "The Ground on Which I Stand," to let you know exactly what ground we stand on in the wake of our nation's civic unrest.

Story continues

We see you. We have always seen you. We have watched you pretend not to see us.

We have watched you un-challenge your white privilege, inviting us to traffic in the very racism and patriarchy that festers in our bodies, while we protest against it on your stages. We see you.

We have watched you program play after play, written, directed, cast, choreographed, designed, acted, dramaturged and produced by your rosters of white theatermakers for white audiences, while relegating a token, if any, slot for a BIPOC play. We see you.

We have watched you amplify our voices when we are heralded by the press, but refuse to defend our aesthetic when we are not, allowing our livelihoods to be destroyed by a monolithic and racist critical culture. We see you.

We have watched you inadequately compare us to each other, allowing the failure of entire productions to be attributed to decisions you forced upon us for the comfort of your theater's white patrons. Meanwhile, you continue to deprioritize the broadening of your audiences by building NO relationship with our communities. We see you.

We have watched you harm your BIPOC staff members, asking us to do your emotional labor by writing your Equity, Diversity and Inclusion statements. When we demanded you live up to your own creeds, you cowered behind old racist laments of feeling threatened, and then discarded us along with the values you claim to uphold. We see you.

We have watched you discredit the contributions of BIPOC theatres, only to co-opt and annex our work, our scholars, our talent, and our funding. We see you.

We have watched you turn a blind eye as unions refuse to confront their racism and integrate their ranks, muting the authenticity of our culture and only reserving space for us to shine out front on your stages but never behind them. We see you.

We have watched you dangle opportunities like carrots before emerging BIPOC artists, using the power of development, production, and awards to quiet us into obedience at the expense of our art and integrity. We see you.

We have watched you use our BIPOC faces on your brochures, asking us to politely shuffle at your galas, talkbacks, panels, board meetings, and donor dinners, in rooms full of white faces, without being willing to defend the sanctity of our bodies beyond the stages you make us jump through hoops to be considered for. We see you.

We have watched you hustle for local, federal, foundation and private funding on our backs, only to redirect the funds into general operating accounts to cover your deficits from years of fiscal mismanagement. We see you.

We have watched you hire the first BIPOC artists in executive leadership, only to undermine our innovations and vision of creating equitable institutions, by suffocating our efforts with your fear, inadequacy, and mediocrity. We see you.

We have watched you attend one "undoing racism workshop," espousing to funders you are doing the work, without any changes to your programming or leadership. You've been unwilling to even say the words "anti-racism" to your boards out of fear of them divesting from your institutions, prioritizing their privilege over our safety. We see you.

We have watched you promote anti-Blackness again and again. We see you.

We have watched you say things like - I may be white, but I'm a woman. Or, I may be white, but I'm gay. As if oppression isn't multi-layered. We see you. We have watched you exploit us, shame us, diminish us, and exclude us. We see you.

We have always seen you.

And now you will see us.

We stand on this ground as BIPOC theatremakers, multi-generational, at varied stages in our careers, but fiercely in love with the Theatre. Too much to continue it under abuse. We will wrap the least privileged among us in protection, and fearlessly share our many truths.

About theatres, executive leaders, critics, casting directors, agents, unions, commercial producers, universities and training programs. You are all a part of this house of cards built on white fragility and supremacy. And this is a house that will not stand.

This ends TODAY.

We are about to introduce you...to yourself.

Signed, The Ground We Stand On
NEW HAVEN  CASA of Southern Connecticut has been awarded a $60,000 Mentoring Grant from the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association for Children, according to a release.

The grant will allow CASA of Southern Connecticut to increase the number of children it serves, initially in New Haven County but also in Middlesex and New London counties, the release said.
Dozens of retailers opened their doors from the spectre of Covid-19 lockdown for the first time in over two months on Monday with one simple message to the wider public: 'Shop local'.

It was a message which was as opportune as it was bullish as consumers were given their first taste of high street shopping since mid March.

"It's great to be back to some sort of normality of getting up and going to work," admitted Spirit Clothing's Peter Dolan.

The local businessman, who together with co-founder Joe Flynn, moved the firm to its new 1m premises last October, said he believed last Friday's unexpected announcement by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to fast-track Longford and Ireland's re-opening was the right decision.

"It was probably about right," he contended, while hinting at the need for greater State backed financial support to aid rural provincial towns recover from an economically bruising past two and a half months.

"It's all about keeping up the social distancing, being mindful of people's space and hand sanitising as the last thing we want is a second surge. "But we do need some sort of economic stimulus to get the economy going again and in a sensible way.

"It's not just the town, it's the country and the world for that matter, but we will get through it and we will be okay," he said.

They were sentiments which were endorsed by Aine Farrell, of leading ladies boutique store, Aine's.

She said the message to consumers of the need to shop locally was now, more critical than ever before.

"The fact people can't travel outside of their own county, maybe now they will see just what Longford has to offer," she said.

"We have some fabulous shops in Longford and can provide everything that people need, businesses have developed their online shopping and we offer a fabulous service compared to other towns and counties.

"We have some fabulous men's stores, shoe shops and so much more that we can cover every aspect of people's shopping needs in Longford."
The Samsung Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition leaked several times now, and it seems like its coming to Europe as well. A well-known tipster, Roland Quandt, shared the information on Twitter.

He confirmed that the device will launch in Germany. In his reply to that comment, he also said that the same goes for most other European countries. Thats not all the information he shared, though.

The Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition is coming to Europe with 128GB of storage

He mentioned that apart from the way it looks, this phone will be the same as the regular Galaxy S20. He also added that it will include 128GB of internal storage.

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Now, the Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition will quite probably also pack in some BTS wallpapers, or even a BTS theme. On its body, youll be able to find the BTS logo, along with the Samsung one.

This phone will be purple-colored, as shown in leaks. Samsung usually refers to this color variant as Mirror Purple. The device does look quite interesting, that is hard to deny.

BTS, for those of you who dont know, is a Korean pop band. This band is extremely popular around the globe, though, so popular that Samsung decided to create a partnership and release a product with their name.

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The Galaxy S20+ is not the only BTS-branded device that Samsung is bringing. The Galaxy Buds+ BTS Edition are also on the way. Those earbuds also surfaced quite recently, and they will feature the same color as the phone.

The Samsung Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition is coming to Europe, but it will initially launch in Korea. Were still not sure in what other markets will it be available. It may even reach the US at some point.

It will support 5G, and feature a 4,500mAh battery

The device will support 5G connectivity, as does the regular Galaxy S20+ unit. The Exynos 990 will fuel the device in Europe, while you can expect to get 8GB or 12GB of RAM on the inside.

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A 4,500mAh battery will be included, as in the regular Galaxy S20+ unit. Youll get 25W fast wired charging, 15W fast wireless charging, and 9W reverse wireless charging.

Two 12-megapixel cameras, and a 64-megapixel camera will be located on the back of this phone. A single 10-megapixel unit will be included on the front side.

Were still not sure when will Samsung announce this smartphone, but considering the sheer volume of leaks, its probably coming soon.
(Natural News) Chronic insomnia is a common condition that affects about 10 to 15 percent of adults in Great Britain. While medication is often prescribed to help those with insomnia sleep better at night, a study has found that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a more effective treatment for the condition.

The study findings were published in the British Journal of General Practice.

What is chronic insomnia?

Chronic insomnia is a condition wherein a person has trouble falling or staying asleep at least three nights a week for three months or longer. It is also associated with problems like depression.

Patients with chronic insomnia may experience the following symptoms at night and during the day:

Daytime sleepiness/grogginess

Difficulty concentrating

Increase in mistakes and accidents

Irritability

Memory problems

Mood changes (e.g., feeling depressed)

Still feeling tired even after a nights sleep

Trouble falling asleep

Trouble staying asleep or going back to sleep

Waking up throughout the night

Waking up too early

CBT for sleepless nights

In the study, researchers analyzed the results of 13 previously conducted studies on the provision of CBT for insomnia through primary care. These included data from volunteers who were also taking sleep medications.

The study showed that CBT is an effective treatment for insomnia, but it isnt as widely used as sleep medications. Moreover, clinicians have limited knowledge about the therapy and patients lack access to CBT.

Dr. Judith Davidson, the studys co-author from Queens University in Ontario, Canada, said that because of its effectiveness, CBT should be made available through primary care service.

Sleeping pills arent good for long-term use since they cause negative side effects. Medications can also cause addiction.

The researchers noted that CBT is more effective for insomnia because the therapy encourages a patient to make changes in how they approach and think about sleep.

With CBT, a person can learn how to challenge ingrained attitudes about sleep deprivation so he can sleep better at night.

The effectiveness of CBT

The study findings revealed that CBT was effective for insomnia and also helped improve sleep quality. Its benefits also lasted for several months.

After analyzing the results of four randomized control trials involving 66 to 201 participants of mixed ages, the researchers found that volunteers, on average, fell asleep nine to 30 minutes sooner after taking a course of CBT for insomnia. The volunteers also experienced a reduction of between 22 and 36 minutes in the amount of time they spent awake after going to sleep.

Meanwhile, participants who were either included on a waiting list or given standard treatment only experienced about four minutes improvement in the time it took to fall asleep. These volunteers also reported a maximum of eight minutes improvement in time spent awake after going to sleep.

The scientists said that four to eight sessions of CBT are required to improve sleep quality. Patients with insomnia who only took part in two CBT sessions didnt benefit as much as the other participants. (Related: Clinical massage and guided imagery are low-cost alternatives to treating anxiety and insomnia.)

Davidson believes that the study proves why CBT should be offered as a treatment for insomnia through general practitioners since most patients consult them first. Alternatively, CBT may be offered by other licensed professionals such as nurses, social workers or other primary care services.

Natural remedies for chronic insomnia

Besides CBT, making lifestyle changes can help treat or prevent chronic insomnia. One way to do this is by improving your sleep hygiene and making changes to your habits.

To improve your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep at night, try these tips:

Avoid taking naps in the afternoon.

Dont drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, especially before bed.

Dont consume caffeinated drinks, especially close to your bedtime.

Eat smaller meals during dinner.

Exercise regularly.

Sleep and wake up at the same time every day, even if you dont have to go to work.

Dont use a phone, computer, TV or other technological devices one hour before your bedtime.

Sleep in a dark room or wear a sleep mask.

Sleep in a comfortable bed and keep your bedroom at a comfortable temperature.

If you have insomnia, change your lifestyle habits or try cognitive behavioral therapy to improve your sleep quality.

Sources include:

TheGuardian.com

Healthline.com
Little evidence supports the new recommendations for clinical screening for drug use. Do the potential benefits outweigh the potential harms?

In the June 9 issue of JAMA, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends that clinicians screen for unhealthy drug use (that is, any use of drugs that are illegal or medications not used for medical purposes) for all adult patients, but admits that there is still little evidence weighing the benefits and risks of this practice.

Screening for unhealthy drug use "is reasonable to consider in clinical practice, but it is not evidence-based for improving health," writes Dr. Richard Saitz, professor and chair of community health sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), in an accompanying editorial.

A service that likely has substantial harms for some, and small benefit for few under the most generous assumptions should be held to the same standards as other preventive services, regardless of whether it is a laboratory test that leads to an invasive treatment or a series of questions that lead to counseling and referral." Dr. Richard Saitz, Professor and Chair of Community Health Sciences,Boston University School of Public Health

Dr. Saitz is also a professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine, and a physician in the Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit and the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center.

In the editorial, Saitz points out that the USPSTF did not hold drug screening to the same standards to which it usually holds other preventive services it evaluates. Instead, he writes, the Task Force included studies of people who were seeking help for their drug use.

Usually, evidence for preventive services comes from people who are asymptomatic and not seeking help, because interventions differ in terms of their effectiveness depending on whether people are seeking help or not.

In the case of drug use, those seeking help are likely to be more amenable to changing their use than are people who are not seeking to change--and may not even think their use is risky.

The only evidence the Task Force found for the efficacy of drug screening, Saitz notes, was in people seeking help for cannabis use. There was no benefit for other drugs, such as opioids or stimulants, nor were there any effects on any health outcomes.

Saitz writes that screening is "not unreasonable" for clinicians, mainly because knowledge of a patient's drug use is valuable and sometimes vital to understanding a patient's health needs.

Making screening standard practice could also help reduce stigma by demonstrating that drug use is a health issue, and might encourage patients to talk to their health care providers about their drug use and even seek treatment through them, he writes.

However, Saitz also points out that screening comes with risks, particularly during pregnancy: 23 states and the District of Columbia consider drug use to be child abuse, three states consider drug use grounds for civil commitment, Alabama considers drug use to be chemical endangerment of a child, and South Carolina considers drug use to be criminal child abuse.

Drug counseling delivered poorly also poses risks, he writes, and having drug use on a patient's medical record could expose them to stigma in their health care.

"These observations should serve as an important call for the development and study of new strategies to identify and address drug use in ways that can reduce related harms," Saitz writes.
San Antonio, Texas (June 8, 2020) - Scientists at Texas Biomedical Research Institute's (Texas Biomed) Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) recently published findings indicating the baboon could prove to be a relevant model to test therapeutics and interventions for neurodegenerative diseases, such as early stage Alzheimer's and related dementias. The scientists observed a steep age-related cognitive decline in baboons about 20-years-old, which is the equivalent of a 60-year-old human. The team of scientists, led by Dr. Marcel Daadi, Associate Professor at Texas Biomed's SNPRC, published their findings in the May issue of Aging . These studies are a first step in developing the baboon as an appropriate animal model for early stage Alzheimer's disease.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, more than five million Americans are living with Alzheimer's, and one in three seniors die from the disease or related dementias. Dr. Daadi explained that early detection of age-associated cognitive dysfunction is crucial and may provide an understanding of the breakdown of brain systems, leading to better interventions.

"We don't know how Alzheimer's disease starts, and if you are trying to treat a patient already with advanced disease, it is nearly impossible to treat them because of the significant loss in brain cells" said Dr. Daadi. "If we detect early on pathology in the brain then we can target interventions to prevent it from progressing, and we are in a better position to help. This is the first time a naturally-occurring model for early-stage Alzheimer's has been reported. This model could be relevant to test promising drugs, to better understand how and why the disease develops and to study the areas of the brain affected in order to determine how can we impact these pathways."

Aging is currently irreversible and a significant reason for the gradual deterioration of general health and function. Neurodegenerative diseases, in particular, are related to the aging of brain cells and synaptic loss, which is a loss of the lines of communications inside the brain. As noted in the paper, humans and nonhuman primates (NHP) share many similarities, including age-dependent changes in gene expression and a decline in neural and immune functions. Previous studies have pinpointed the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of the brain as one of the regions most affected by age. The PFC plays an important role in working memory function, self-regulatory and goal-directed behaviors, which are all vulnerable to aging. To observe whether these PFC functions are impacted by aging in baboons and determine whether the baboons at varying ages could discern and learn new tasks, Dr. Daadi and his team separated the baboons into two groups based on age (adult group and aged group). Four cognitive tests were performed to observe novel learning, motor function and memory and shape association.

"What we found is that aged baboons lagged significantly in performance among all four tests for attention, learning and memory" Dr. Daadi said. "The delay or inability to collect rewards (response latency) also increased in older baboons, suggesting a decline in motivation and/or motor skills. The team then used a more complex task requiring integration of several cognitive processes and demonstrated that aged subjects actually have deficiencies in attention, learning and memory. Human studies have suggested a precipitous decline in brain systems function and cognition with 60 years as the potential breakpoint. These findings are consistent with our results."

Rodents have been the primary lab model to test therapeutic interventions for neurodegenerative diseases. However, mice do not always reflect human processes, so while this animal model has been integral to understanding neurodegenerative disease processes, it has not proven as effective in translating promising therapies to the clinic.

"The failure rate in clinical trials of Alzheimer's disease therapeutics is extremely high at about 99.6%, and we need to change that" said Dr. Daadi.

A nonhuman primate, or monkey, which is more similar to humans in terms of genetics, physiology, cognition, emotion and social behavior, could prove to be a more effective model to test therapeutic interventions.

Dr. Daadi and his team are moving forward and plan to submit a National Institutes of Health grant to allow for further research. This published study was funded by the Marmion Family Fund, the Worth Family Fund, The Perry and Ruby Stevens Charitable Foundation and The Robert J., Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation, The William and Ella Owens Medical Research Foundation, the NIH Primate Center Base grant (Office of Research Infrastructure Programs/OD P51 OD011133), the National Institute on Aging R56 AG059284.

"Our next step is to investigate the neuropathologies behind this cognitive decline and perform imaging to understand what happens to the neural connections and determine where defects may be," he said. "We will also look at biomarkers that can give us an idea of why this steep decline is happening. All this data will enable us to further characterize the baboon as a naturally-occurring model that may prove useful for testing early therapeutic interventions."

###

Texas Biomed is one of the world's leading independent biomedical research institutions dedicated to eradicating infection and advancing health worldwide through innovative biomedical research. Texas Biomed partners with researchers and institutions around the world to develop vaccines and therapeutics against viral pathogens causing AIDS, hepatitis, hemorrhagic fever, tuberculosis and parasitic diseases responsible for malaria and schistosomiasis disease. The Institute has programs in host-pathogen interaction, disease intervention and prevention and population health to understand the links between infectious diseases and other diseases such as aging, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. For more information on Texas Biomed, go to http://www.TxBiomed.org.
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Market Scenario

Global Restorative Dentistry market is expected to reach USD 21.27 Billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 6.5 % during the forecast period.

The Global Restorative Dentistry market is segmented based on based on product, end-user, and region.

By Product type - Restorative Materials, Implants, Prosthetics, Restorative Equipment.

By End-users - Hospitals & Clinics, Dental Laboratories, Dental Schools & Research Institutes. By region - North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa

Restorative dentistry is the study, diagnosis, and management of teeth disease and supporting structure of teeth. It includes endodontics, periodontics and prosthodontics and these are basically used in sealants/filling, inlays, onlays, crown/bridges, CAD/CAM, VENEERS.

Major Market

Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/10336

Drivers:

 Increasing number of dental practices.

 New digital density technology.

 Rising demand for cosmetic dentistry and implant.

 Increasing number of dental tourism.

Restraint:

 High cost of product hinders the growth of this market.

 Less reimbursement of dental procedure restrains this market.

Global Restorative Dentistry Market

Strategic Developments in the Global Restorative Dentistry Market:

In 2018, Inverness Graham (U.S.) acquired Vista Dental (U.S.).By this acquisition, the company enhanced the business growth in the dental restorative market.

In 2017, Dentsply Sirona (U.S.) acquired RTD (France) company. By this acquisition, a company acquired outstanding shares of RTD. According to an agreement, Dentsply Sirona continued to support and growth of the brand and private label business of RTD.

Product Insights:

Restorative materials and restorative equipment segment are expected to reveal exponential CAGR throughout the forecast period due to innovative product launches, and the increasing number of dental implantation procedures across the globe.

The North American region is playing the principal role in the global restorative dentistry market due to an increasing number of cosmetic dental procedures in the U.S. and Canada. Though, Asia-Pacific will be the second major market in the proximate. The presence of innovative dental advanced technology and the rising incidence of losing teeth, tooth decay, and other dental complications in the region

Scope of the Global Restorative Dentistry Market Report

Request for Report Discount: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/10336

Global Restorative Dentistry Market, Product

 Restorative Materials

 Implants

 Prosthetics

 Restorative Equipment

Global Restorative Dentistry Market, by End Users

 Hospitals & Clinics

 Dental Laboratories

 Dental Schools & Research

Global Restorative Dentistry Market, By Region

 North America

 Europe

 Asia Pacific

 Middle East

 Africa

Global Restorative Dentistry Market Key Players

 COLTENE Group

 Septodont Holding

 Voco GmbH

 Ultradent Products, Inc

 Zimmer Biomet

 Institut Straumann AG

 Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.

 Ivoclar Vivadent AG

 3M

 Danaher

 Dentsply Sirona

 SDI Limited SHOFU DENTAL

 BISCO, Inc.

 Datenschutz

 Henry Schein, Inc.

 BOTISS

 KaVo Kerr

 Keystone Dental, Inc.

 Jensen Dental

 VITA

 Zhermack SpA

 Zubler.

Reasons to Purchase this Report:

 Current and future of global deep global restorative dentistry market, the outlook in the developed and emerging markets.

 The segment that is predictable to lead the market as well as the segment which holds highest CAGR in the forecast period.

 Regions/countries that are expected to witness the fastest growth rates during the forecast period.

 The latest innovative developments, market shares, and strategies that are employed by the major market players.

More Info of Impact Covid19@ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/10336
Like many nations, Australia is not sufficiently prepared for cyber warfare. In a study published by the University of New South Wales at Canberra, Greg Austin writes that few governments have started to consider or financially plan for the civil defense force needed to maintain national stability in cyber space, both to support their military operations as well as to protect its citizens.

While governments worldwide have dedicated billions of dollars to purchase sophisticated weapons, a cyber storm attack could deter such weapons from operating or even reaching the frontline of modern warfare, as well as interrupting the support of its opponents military forces throughout the civil sector.

[ Keep up on the latest thought leadership, insights, how-to, and analysis on IT through CSO Onlines newsletters. ]

Why Australia is not prepared for cyber war

Austin has identified numerous civil defense gaps in preparing for a cyber attack, including research, legal, communication, and training.

Rory Medcalf, a senior intelligence analyst and former diplomat, trains Australias intelligence and defence officials at the National Security College in Canberra. He has argued that Australia is unprepared for an increasingly plausible cyber war. In many ways, we may not even know when a cyber attack or indeed when a cyber campaign against Australian interests has begun, he said.
Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said Tuesday that he missed initial notifications about Floyd and did not visit the scene, as he usually does after major events. He said he knew the arrest was on body camera video but that he would not be able to review it for several hours. Instead, he released the initial description after being briefed by supervisors, whom he learned later were also not at the scene.
In this episode of Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell speaks with Franklin Foer, journalist and staff writer for The Atlantic, about America's preparedness for potential Russian election interference in 2020. Foer, whose latest piece, "Putin Is Well on his Way to Stealing the Next Election," examined the lingering vulnerabilities in U.S. election systems, explains where weaknesses still exist and how Russian operatives may be altering their tactics ahead of the presidential election. He also discusses the potential effects of widespread civil unrest in the U.S. and global turbulence related to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how Putin's own domestic standing may affect his approach.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Effects on U.S. intelligence: "One of one of the most chilling things that I heard in the course of my reporting is that the various analysts who had been detailed to the ODNI to work on Russia and Russian interference were all asking to get transferred, or a lot of them were asking to get transferred out because they didn't believe that their  they believed that there would be such political pressure coming to bear on their assessments that they didn't think that they would be able to produce credible works that they could stand behind."Deterring Russia: "I think the extent to which Russia has been punished for what it did in 2016 has been quite minimal. When it comes to sowing distrust of authoritative information and distrust of American institutions, Trump has been instrumental in in in denigrating those, which makes it easier for Russian misinformation to spread. Even the question of Russian interference itself has become this partisan issue. And when the intelligence community wants to relay information about an attack, it's now questioned as being a partial, partisan actor in it, not a credible re-teller of a narrative. And I think Putin and when he surveys the scene, has got to be incredibly pleased [...]"Putin's domestic vulnerabilities: "Russia has been hit really badly by coronavirus, and Putin's response has not been wonderful. Putin is not somebody who thrives in crises. And so he's weak right now. And so the question is, does that weakness cause him to want to lash out and to do something that will assert himself in a very prominent sort of way for the sake of his own ego and for the sake of domestic audiences and for the sake of trying to prove his relevance on a global stage?"

Story continues

INTELLIGENCE MATTERS  FRANKLIN FOER

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Journalist and Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer Franklin Foer

MICHAEL MORELL: Frank, welcome to Intelligence Matters. It is great to have you on the show. It's great to have you as a part of our series on foreign interference in the 2020 election. I should say, I'm always interested in what led my guests to their respective careers. So let me just take a minute or two to start by asking you, how did you end up as a journalist?

FRANKLIN FOER: So I started as a journalist right out of my senior year in college. I went to work at Slate in the summer that Slate was getting started up. So it was hailed as the first real Internet magazine, and so I drove out to Seattle because Microsoft then owned Slate and Microsoft was in the process of assembling what was going to be a massive media empire that never quite took hold.

But I was kind of at Microsoft at the moment when it was the evil empire, when it was the kind of force that was dominating the world. And ever since then, I've been convinced that I would never quite make it as a journalist. So I'm always, even now, decades later, I'm kind of pleasantly surprised by every time an article of mine ends up in print. And it's really -- I just got to say, it's a great, great career because you're always able to follow your curiosity. And so I feel very, very blessed to have a career that's as interesting as journalism permits.

MICHAEL MORELL: I would imagine, like so many of my former colleagues at CIA, that being a journalist is something that for you has meaning that goes well beyond just a paycheck.

FRANKLIN FOER: Oh, absolutely. I mean, for me, it's almost -- it's not just the sense of mission, which is really wonderful. I love taking on subjects where I feel a sense of just justice or outrage or or passion about the subject. I mean, it really is a lifestyle. Because you are able to ask people questions all the time, which is kind of a wonderful way of engaging our fellow human beings, to come to them in that spirit of curiosity.And it's also for me, it's just the form of intellectual engagement that the profession permits means that not only do I think I get to get to give my values, but it's like I just can't really think of anything that would be more satisfying to my brain than than the career that I have.

MICHAEL MORELL: That's cool. So, Frank, your your piece in the Atlantic recently on Russia and the 2020 election, why did you write that?

FRANKLIN FOER: Well, this is a saga that I feel like I've been involved with since it began. So I -- in the 2016 campaign I wrote a long profile about Paul Manafort, and because of Paul Manafort, worked in Ukraine and his tangled business interests led me to start thinking about all the reasons why Donald Trump was praising Vladimir Putin and also led me to pay attention to all the very explicit things that the Russians were saying about American politics.

And there was so much that was just sitting out there in the open during the 2016 campaign about the hacks on the DNC and and the relationship to WikiLeaks. And I wrote a piece in July of 2016 called "Putin's Puppet" about Donald Trump and about Russian plans for interfering in that election. And so this is a subject that I've always cared about. And it just struck me as we were moving into this election season that there's so much that's going on in the world that -- we had this kind of politics of distraction where it's very hard for us to focus on any given problem.

And I just felt like I'd started working on this narrative four years ago. We knew, based on some of the intelligence community's reporting to the Hill, that the Russians were interfering -- intended to interfere in our elections again. And I felt like it was almost my duty to the narrative to look into what was happening and to examine really how our system responded to the events of 2016. And much of my story is not really about what's going on in Moscow. It's about what's going on, what's happened here in Washington and in the States and how we've prepared or failed to prepare ourselves for what seems inevitable.

MICHAEL MORELL: So, so long form journalism is is one of my favorite ways to to stay informed. And I'm just wondering, the piece you wrote, the kind of piece you wrote, how long does it take to do that? You know, what's the process? Are you working on more than one piece at a time? How long is the editing take? You know, how does all this work for somebody who is not used to the business?

FRANKLIN FOER: So I began this piece in January and it appeared on The Atlantic's website I think on May 11th. And so what I did was I spent the first -- starting in the middle of January. I started to set up meetings with experts in the field. And I just wanted to talk to the generalists first and just try to really get my mind wrapped around kind of what the problem is to figure out how I was going to report this story.

And it's kind of a form of ubiquitous capture where I just I order as many books as I can. I look for as many other long form pieces of journalism as I can. I start to compile congressional testimony. I start looking at that at court documents, because in this instance, I knew that there were some really great primary sources, that there was the Mueller report, which I'd read at the time, but I wanted to kind of reread extremely carefully. There were all the indictments that Robert Mueller brought, which were incredible primary documents, which the press kind of picks apart only a very little bit.

As somebody working on a long form story, my assumption is that if I go back to the original documents and the original sources, there's always a next level of detail that I can find in those documents. There was a series, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence published a series of great reports, which were very important for me as I was going about doing this. So I tried to figure out the problem. And then as I started to figure out the problem, I started to break it down into its component parts. So I knew that the Russians were interested in our electoral systems. I knew that they were interested in using social media for disinformation. I knew that they were going to hack documents. And so then I started to kind, as I got a feel for what the broad outlines of the story were, I started to kind of burrow down and figure out who the best experts were in those areas in particular, who could help serve as my guides.

And so then I booked a whole other set of interviews based on that. And as I go through this process, I'm starting to think to myself, 'All right. As I understand the problem, how can I best convert that understanding to storytelling?' So I'm starting to look for narratives and characters that I can use.

MICHAEL MORELL: So, Frank, your piece starts with the story of a young man named Jack Cable. Can you tell us his story?

FRANKLIN FOER: Right, so a guy who worked on the Hill said you need to talk to this kid at Stanford because he's a real expert in voter registration databases. And I thought to myself, 'Am I going to really call a college kid, too?' I've got this long list of experts I need to talk to. And I've had senators I need to talk to. I'm going to talk to this college kid? And just kind of for the heck of it, I sent him an email and we set up time to talk.

And I asked him, 'How did you get interested in this, in voter registration databases? You're a sophomore at Stanford.' And he started to tell me this incredible story. But out when he registered to vote, registered to get an absentee ballot at Stanford, he filled out a form on the Chicago Board of Elections website and it returned an error message to him. And it turned out that he had entered in an extra quotation mark in his address field. And Jack Cable happened to be a white hat hacker -- an ethical hacker who is working with companies and and governments to try to find vulnerabilities in their websites. And he just got interested in trying to figure out what vulnerabilities remained after the 2016 election, because we now know that the Russians probed the websites, electoral systems of 50 different states.

And he had the expertise to go and do this and so he did. And he found that in some instances, the exact same vulnerabilities remain that the Russians exploited in 2016. And so we set about trying to get people to pay attention to these vulnerabilities; he found it exceedingly hard.And Jack Cable is now, many, many, many months later, is now interning with the Department of Homeland Security as part of a team of Stanford kids who've volunteered to help them at the last minute to try to see if there are any vulnerabilities in the system that can be patched before the Russians try to exploit them.

MICHAEL MORELL: Yeah, it's interesting that after several years of trying to fix problems, that he stumbles on a vulnerability and then they end up hiring him, right, to find more here just five months before the election. It's a little scary.

So tell us about the hashtag #DemocracyRIP and how that is, at least, I think a really powerful symbol for the theme of your piece.

FRANKLIN FOER: Right. So we know the Russians, like the rest of the world, thought that Hillary Clinton was going to prevail in the 2016 election. And in the event of her winning, they had a whole campaign locked and ready to go to try to dispute the credibility of her election. And so they tried to get diplomats from the the Russian embassy in Washington to go work as poll observers across the country. They wanted embed their people in voting locations so that they could then go out later and talk about all the fraudulent things that they'd said.

But #DemocracyRIP was a hashtag that they had all set up, ready to go, to question the legitimacy of the Clinton election. And so to me, this signifies is that the 2016 election was never really about electing Trump. It was about a much larger project that the Russians had in mind with the intention of DemocracyRIP, of making our democracy as illegitimate as possible. One expert put it to me, 'the Russians export their own domestic model to the rest of the world.' And what Putin has done with the Russian polity is that he's created such a degree of cynicism that it's ultimately led to mass apathy and the degradation of Russian civil society. And if you want to discredit America and the American model to its core, the thing you do is you would create the same sort of cynicism that would lead to the same sort of apathy that you have in Russia.

MICHAEL MORELL: So, Frank, now we can sort of move to how we have, over the last three and a half years, prepared ourselves or not prepared ourselves for this onslaught by Putin. You write that our vulnerabilities have actually widened, not narrowed, over the last three and a half years. That's a pretty powerful statement. Can you kind of walk us through your thinking on that?

FRANKLIN FOER: Well, so, some of this is incredibly evident, which is that as a society, we've become much more fractured than we were four years ago. We're much more gullible when it comes to fake news and disinformation, that if you want to plant something into our informational ecosystem in order to trigger a desired result, it's just easier to do now because our faith in authority has whittled away even even further than that.

Part of the problem is, is the guy who presides over our entire system, which is if you looked at the bureaucracy, you would see that in the Department of Homeland Security in in the intelligence agencies, there's a high degree of of enthusiasm, of willingness, of a deep desire to address the the problem of Russian interference. And there are lots of great plans that that have been hashed across the government to deal with the problem. And there's some bureaucrats who've made real progress in doing it.

But every time there's been an effort to try to create the coordination and the centralization that's truly required to address the problem, it's been undermined by the president. And the president, of course, fired the acting Director of National Intelligence, Joe Maguire and his deputy, after he raised the subject of Russian interference in a congressional briefing and it just had a chilling effect.

One of one of the most chilling things that I heard in the course of my reporting is that the various analysts who had been detailed to the ODNI to work on Russia and Russian interference were all asking to get transferred, or a lot of them were asking to get transferred out because they didn't believe that their  they believed that there would be such political pressure coming to bear on their assessments that they didn't think that they would be able to produce credible works that they could stand behind.

And when I asked Senator Mark Warner, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, if he felt confident that he would know about Russian interference if it was happening, he said he didn't. He couldn't be sure that factual, comprehensive accounts of Russian interference would work their way through the system to the point that they'd arrive at his desk. So the public policymakers might not even know the full extent of Russian interference in this next campaign.

MICHAEL MORELL: So, Frank, you also write that the Russians are innovating and finding new ways to poison our politics. Talk about that a little bit.

FRANKLIN FOER: I mean, so you can look at each of these specific areas that I'm talking about and you can see how their tactics have evolved over time. We were so focused on the 2016 election that we kind of looked at that as a self-contained narrative, whereas what happens in American elections are part of a broader strategy that involves elections all over the world.

And if we look at what's happened in European elections we'd see that the Russians had intervened in or tried to interfere in most every significant European election since 2016, and you take something like the hacking of campaign documents and you can see how their sophistication has grown over time.

We see how -- I'll give you a couple examples. One is that the public has come to trust hacked and leaked emails as the most authentic expression of what happens in a campaign. And so the Russians, at least in France, started to exploit that trust in hacked documents to introduce falsified documents into the broader mix of authentically hacked documents. So they're exploiting our trust in that. And that's something that can happen in the last minute of a campaign, which is when these things tend to happen, and cause a great deal of chaos.

I mean, we've seen since this is 2016, they've shown their determination to hack. So there are, in Holland, there was an instance where -- this is not a campaign -- but to hack an antiproliferation organization, they sent their agents to sit in the parking lot outside outside the agency in The Hague and used all sorts of equipment to kind of to intercept Wi-Fi signals. I mean, the Russians, compared to some of the other adversaries that we face, are not -- they're talented and they're inventive, but they also just happen to be the most determined of the bunch.

MICHAEL MORELL: So this is not something that they did in 2016, right, put out fake documents. So if they did that, that would be something new.

FRANKLIN FOER: That would be an innovation. And I talked to I talked to various people at cybersecurity firms, one of whom is the guy who runs cybersecurity for Microsoft. And he told me one of the things that he was concerned about is that synthetic audio has evolved so that it's possible to really persuasively and effectively mimic someone's voice.

And so I could leave a voicemail for you as if I was your boss, leaving you instructions to send an e-mail or to drop something into a folder on the Cloud that would then give me access to all of your documents. And so I thought that was that was clever.

One of the things that we see is that the various branches of Russian organized crime execute schemes and they become this laboratory through which the Russian military intelligence kind of borrows techniques over time.

MICHAEL MORELL: So in your piece, you have three sections; one is called Hack the Vote. One is called the Big Phish and one is called Disinformation 2.0. Walk us through what you tried to do in each of those sections.

FRANKLIN FOER; So in Hack the Vote, I mentioned earlier that the Russians had kind of probed the voting systems of all 50 states. And it was a real question, I think, that the intelligence community faced coming out of 2016, which is, 'What did the Russians want from that exploratory mission?' It seemed as if they could have done much more damage. They could have caused much more chaos than they actually did in 2016. But they kind of stayed their hand. And it seems like they acquired this topography of the digital infrastructure of American campaigns. And so the question is, what can they do to act on that now?

And we know that from various Ukrainian examples that they're quite capable of of doing relatively  they can do big chaos and knock out systems, or they could do small things that would have big impact. So if they wanted to cast in elections legitimacy into doubt, they could they could alter a voter registration database so that one number and people's addresses were flipped, which caused confusion, which would then produce long lines at a voting station and people might turn away from the polls if they saw long lines or at the very least, it would create this -- they did it at a couple of stations -- it would create this air of suspicion.

And the air of suspicion is maybe just enough to cause severe damage to us. One scenario that I speculated about would be kind of based on what the Russians did in Ukraine, which is. what if on election night in Wisconsin they managed to post fake results on the Wisconsin Board of Elections website? You can imagine how the president or his allies or anybody could seize on that fake information in order to say that something funny had happened and that this whole election should be considered illegitimate and discredited.

I looked at the Russian tactic of hacking campaign databases and the possibility of leaking them. And I went back and I revisited the Podesta leaks from the 2016 campaign. John Podesta was Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, and his email was hacked. And I wanted to try to show the precise toll that that takes. I mean, we're well aware how the information that comes from hacked emails can distort the politics of a campaign. I think that the Democratic National Committee's hacked emails were unfurled in the middle of the Democratic National Convention, and they did a lot to sow suspicion among Bernie Sanders supporters, some of whom never came into the fold and never voted in November.

But it also -- I was really interested in some of the mundane implications of hacking for a campaign. So Podesta told me that in the middle of the last month of this campaign, he was busy dealing with identity thefts, who were who were taking his information from these hacks and setting up credit cards in their names and trying to get his Social Security benefits.

Most comically of all spending down loyalty points that he'd acquired on the bus that he took back and forth from Washington to campaign headquarters in New York. And, you know, it took it takes your eye off the ball. And there are lots of resources that need to get poured into responding to this. And so it's it's really a time consuming, emotionally exhausting thing to have to deal with.

Then I looked at disinformation and were were well aware of the way in which the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg put all sorts of of disinformation into the campaign. And I was interested in the ways in which Russian manipulation has shifted over time. And there's a lot that we've done well here. I mean, I think that the social media companies, for all the flak that they rightfully take -- you know, they've been kicked all over the place and deservedly so. But I think that they've done a lot to try to clamp down on inauthentic accounts, on the bot nets and accounts that are clearly attributable to the Internet Research Agency or other Russian assets.

But at the same time, the Russians keep evolving their approach. And one of the things that they've tried to do is they've tried to enlist others to do their business for them. So, for instance, after the hateful riots in Charlottesville, there were attempts by the left to organize counter rallies. And so what the Russians have tried to do was try to set up Facebook pages where they kind of seeded ideas, brought people together and then had authentic Americans do the work for them. So on their anti-Unite the Right protest page, they set it up and suddenly the Russian page on Facebook became a magnet for American activists who were authentically interested in what the Russians were talking about. And fake Russians then began communicating with the Americans, who then went about organizing their rally.

And so it creates a real complicated issue for the platform companies. I mean, just because the Russians instigate something, you do have authentic Americans using those pages as a way to express authentic opinions and organize rallies that are attended by authentic people. But we see the Russians kind of pushing and prodding and instigating.

And one other issue that I was very interested in that I feel like gets no attention is that there are now around the world close to one hundred examples of the Russians spending money on foreign campaigns. So illegally siphoning money into political systems around the world. And they tried to do that -- they did do that here. And when Rudy Giuliani's associates Fruman and Parnas were indicted -- I think it was last year when they were indicted -- there was evidence that the Russians were funneling money to congressional campaigns and into political action committees, and that's what we know.

But so much of our political system is just ill equipped now; there's nobody who's investigating foreign money coming into the American political system unless there is a specific lead for them to follow. We have nobody really monitoring the system, and the Federal Elections Commission, which should be investigating these things, really hasn't done it. In fact, hasn't had a quorum for much of the last year.

MICHAEL MORELL: So, Frank, your last section in the piece is called 'An Uncoordinated Response,' and it keeps the theme going about that we're not as prepared as we should be. And in that section, you write that Vladimir Putin could have no better friend than Donald Trump when it comes to Putin's attacking our democracy. What did you mean by that?

FRANKLIN FOER: Well, I mean, it's been pretty clear since 2016 that every time Putin attacked, Trump either denies their attack or declines to investigate it. I think the extent to which Russia has been punished for what it did in 2016 has been quite minimal. When it comes to sowing distrust of authoritative information and distrust of American institutions, Trump has been instrumental in in in denigrating those, which makes it easier for Russian misinformation to spread. Even the question of Russian interference itself has become this partisan issue. And when the intelligence community wants to relay information about an attack, it's now questioned as being a partial, partisan actor in it, not a credible re-teller of a narrative. And I think Putin and when he surveys the scene, has got to be incredibly pleased with what he wants.

And, you know, in the end, the thing that struck me about where we stand now relative to 2016 is that the Russians don't even need to aggressively intervene in this election in order to have a meaningful impact on it. That we're so we're so fractured, we're so vulnerable that a feather push from Moscow could result in toppling us. I mean, there's -- as we see now, we look into the streets where we're a society that's unwinding and we have a president who seems indifferent to that unwinding or seems to gleefully try to hasten that unwinding. These are all circumstances where a foreign actor who wants to cause us harm can cause enormous harm.

MICHAEL MORELL: Do you do you have a theory? This is the great unanswered question in Washington, right. But do you have a theory as to why the president has behaved the way he has toward Russia?

FRANKLIN FOER: You know, I think a lot of it has to do with his ego. And I think the idea that he didn't earn everything in 2016 on his own, that he was somehow helped from abroad means that he didn't achieve the glorious victory, he didn't receive the mass adulation that his ego demands that he does.

You know, there are these other questions which I think  let me put it this way. The Mueller Report never proved the sort of collusion that maximalists alleged when it comes to cooperation between the Trump campaign and and the Russians. And yet, buried in that report are still suggestions that there's something almost kind of pathologically sympathetic, that Trump has not only this real soft spot for Putin and for Russia, but there are all sorts of hints that he's got commercial interests. I still think when the fact that we didn't know about the construction of the plans for the Moscow Trump Tower and that the Moscow Trump Tower plans were going on simultaneous to the campaign and that there was a way in which he viewed the campaign as kind of an infomercial with Russia as its audience is still a very, very significant detail. And so I don't think we really know what this is all about. I think that it's possible that some of the less nefarious explanations are the truest explanations. And yet we can't conclusively, I think, dismiss some of the more nefarious explanations.

MICHAEL MORELL: So, Frank, we have just a couple of minutes left here. And I'd love to finish by asking you two questions. What's your best case outcome for the 2020 election based on your research and what's your worst case outcome? I know there's a little bit unfair, but, go for it.

FRANKLIN FOER: We've got to keep a couple of things in the foreground. The first is that Putin is, that Russia has been hit really badly by coronavirus, and Putin's response has not been wonderful. Putin is not somebody who thrives in crises. And so he's weak right now. And so the question is, does that weakness cause him to want to lash out and to do something that will assert himself in a very prominent sort of way for the sake of his own ego and for the sake of domestic audiences and for the sake of trying to prove his relevance on a global stage? That's one question.

And then the other thing that I think we just have to foreground is that given the unrest in American cities, given coronavirus, you know, we're doing a lot to achieve Putin's objectives well on our own. And so you take something like the unrest in cities. Yes, there's some evidence that the Russia and Russian camps are happy about it and would like to see it happening.

Yet to impute any sort of causation there seems to me to really stretch things much, much too far, that whatever is happening on the streets of American cities now, you know, entirely has to do with conditions in our own country.

So I think the best case scenario is that the Russians repeat a lot of the tactics that they used in 2016. And, you know, we just get lucky again that he decides that it's not worth his while to manipulate the access that he has to American voting systems, that they maybe hack emails and we're inured to the impact of hacks because they've happened so often in the past and maybe conditions are just, like, there's too much else going on for a hack to actually matter.

I think the worst case scenario is that with with a really well designed, really well targeted, really well disguised, almost anonymous sort of attack, he does something that causes us to doubt the outcome of the election. And then we have between November and January, more months of really terrible strife where Americans are debating in a violent  or violently contesting the legitimacy of the election.

MICHAEL MORELL: Yeah, that would be a bad outcome. Frank, thank you very much for that. Thank you very much for joining us today. I think everyone should go to the Atlantic website and read your piece. I think it's very important. Thanks for being with us today.

FRANKLIN FOER: My pleasure.

Christian Cooper on Amy Cooper's phone call to police: "Pulled the pin on the race grenade"

Santa Cruz resident pins down Air Force sergeant accused of killing Northern California deputy

New York City begins Phase 1 of reopening after three months of coronavirus lockdown
Sometimes, life comes at you fast.

Just ask the Republican leaders whove observed the events of the past two weeks.

The horrific killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police  he was laid to rest outside Houston on Tuesday  has led to a sustained outpouring of outrage over systemic racism and police violence. The groundswell has leaders on both sides of the aisle talking about the need for action.

Im dedicated to rooting out racial injustices so no other family has to experience what George Floyds family has, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, tweeted Monday afternoon. It will require bipartisan commitment across the country & listening to the voices of those who have been most affected is the first step  we must not fail to act.

Within minutes, he was welcomed to the cause by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat.

Great to hear, John, Castro deadpanned. Will you support the Justice in Policing Act?

Cornyn dismissed his fellow Texans invitation to endorse the measure, introduced this week by U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus.

Serious issues require serious bipartisan work in order to make progress, responded Cornyn, who is up for re-election this fall. Partisan grandstanding is not serious.

But by Tuesday morning, Cornyn had recalibrated his message.

While Cornyn dismissed proposals to defund or even disband the police in a news release, he said we need to do a top-to-bottom review of our criminal justice system something that has not happened in more than 50 years.

Well have to wait and see what kind of proposals are put forward by the Republicans who control the U.S. Senate and the Texas Legislature. A cynic might suspect that Republicans who have expressed a tentative interest in police reform in recent days will turn to other priorities once the public furor subsides.

But for Republican leaders such as Cornyn to publicly call for police reform constitutes a clear shift and a victory of sorts for the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in the wake of the police-involved shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

There are many different proposed federal reforms on the table, already. The Justice in Policing Act backed by congressional Democrats would, among other things, scale back qualified immunity for police officers; require state and local law enforcement agencies to report use-of-force data, disaggregated by race; and ban chokeholds, carotid holds, and no-knock warrants.

Local and state officials are looking at what they can do.

In Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner announced at Floyds funeral that he will sign an executive order banning chokeholds, and require police officers to give a verbal warning before shooting as well as to intervene when they witness misconduct by other officers. Turners budget proposal increases police department funding even as many call for diverting funds to other areas.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the Harris County Commissioners Court plan to establish a universal use-of-force policy for all county law enforcement agencies and, potentially, an independent civilian oversight board. And the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement will now train new police officers in the state in implicit bias training, after state Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat, requested such a change via the regulatory process.

Some on the left feel that such reforms dont go far enough. The Minneapolis City Council on Monday voted to disband the citys police department in lieu of a new, transformative model for cultivating safety in Minneapolis. And calls to defund the police have accelerated on social media  causing some angst among Democrats who feel that such a slogan misrepresents the goal of police reform and could alarm voters in November.

Still, racial injustice undermines public safety  and never in recent times have we seen such momentum for reforming policing in this country.

Southern Baptists, we need to say it clearly as a gospel issue: Black lives matter, said J.D. Greear, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, in a Facebook live video Tuesday.

And though Democrats have accused President Donald Trump of fanning the flames of division with his law-and-order rhetoric, top aides met on Tuesday with U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the chamber, to discuss his ideas on police reform.

This may be a recognition that many voters are growing uncomfortable with the trend of police shootings of unarmed African-Americans and Trumps response to it.

A Monmouth University poll released this week finds that 76 percent of all Americans consider racial discrimination to be a big problem in the United States  and that 49 percent of white Americans say that police are more likely to use excessive force against a black suspect, up from 25 percent in 2016.

And no wonder. Floyds death, at age 46, did not occur in a vacuum.

When he was remembered Tuesday at his funeral in Houston, guests of his family included relatives of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Botham Jean and Ahmaud Arbery  unarmed black men killed either by current or former law enforcement officers or those claiming to be assisting police. Those relatives are just a few of the bereaved Americans who have lost loved ones due to systemic ills that need desperately to be addressed.

erica.grieder@chron.com
(Photo : CrossFit/Facebook) CrossFit's CEO is resigning after his tweet drew massive backlash on social media. (Photo : TERRAY SYLVESTER/REUTERS) Acting CBP Commissioner said the drones are not to spy on protesters.

CrossFit's chief executive officer is resigning after his post on social media platform Twitter about George Floyd that sparked the anger of the people on the internet, and several gyms and companies, including Reebok, have severed ties with them.

CrossFit CEO Stepping Down

According to a report by ABC News, Greg Glassman, CrossFit's CEO, has issued a statement through the company's website this Tuesday, June 9, saying that he is stepping down from his position.

Glassman has already apologized for his insensitive tweet, which sparked a massive online backlash, admitting that he did make a mistake and that he should have been more sensitive.

Nevertheless, he remained adamant that he was racist.

"On Saturday, I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members," the statement said. "I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQ's or affiliates' missions."

The tweet in question was a reply to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's tweet, which includes a photo that says, "Racism is a public health issue."

Glassman replied, saying, "It's FLOYD-19," and proceeded to send another reply and criticizing the group for their "failed" quarantine model.

Your failed model quarantined us and now you're going to model a solution to racism? George Floyd's brutal murder sparked riots nationally. Quarantine alone is "accompanied in every age and under all political regimes by an undercurrent of suspicion, distrust, and riots." Thanks!  Greg Glassman (@CrossFitCEO) June 7, 2020

Due to the incident, companies working with CrossFit have severed ties with them, including around 1,250 gyms and well-known footwear and apparel brand, Reebok.

Read Also: Looter From BLM and George Floyd Protests Bragged About Theft on Facebook While Offering Stolen Goods for Sale

Drones Have Been Deployed Amid Protests

In other news, the protests across the United States continues and has spread worldwide, showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racism after the death of Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis cop kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes.

Although most of the protests were peaceful, several cities in some states experienced burnings and lootings, including in Minneapolis, wherein the protests first happened.

The violence could be why the acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner deployed CBP drones to monitor the ongoing protests from the sky, where it can track what's happening in the broader radius.

Acting CBP Commissioner Says It's Not to Spy on Protesters

Nevertheless, acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan told ABC News that the drones are not being used to spy on the protesters.

"What I would categorize that as just a false narrative," Morgan said. "We were not providing any resources to surveil lawful, peaceful protesters. That's not what we were doing."

The acting commissioner further explained that they are helping dozens of cities across the country to help both the state and its locals to ensure that their towns and cities are safe and peaceful amid the ongoing protests.

In addition, Morgan said that they were able to help track down the driver of a vehicle that allegedly ran over a law enforcement group in Buffalo, New York, through the drones.

The commissioner remained firm in saying that they are not taking any information on law-abiding protesters, but they are there to guarantee that that law and order is enforced and remains.

Morgan said that the assistance they are doing now is "no different" from the support they have offered throughout the agency's history.

Read Also: U.S. Aircraft Intercepted and Escorted Four Russian Nuclear-Capable Bombers Over Neutral Waters

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
LONDON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With life in lockdown continuing across the world, internet shopping is becoming the norm, as every business is by necessity now an online one - if it wasn't already. China saw a 215 per cent year-on-year growth in online grocery sales between January and February, and in the US online sales have increased by 52 per cent.

Global restrictions, social distancing rules, and every other change Covid-19 has made to our lives have forced businesses to adapt to new challenges, however. Chief among these are the new opportunities for fraudsters that increased online activity and transactions bring, with communications from governments and organisations regarding the virus being adapted to phishing scams by criminals. And with hugely increased demand, and more and more people forced to work remotely, it's becoming more difficult than ever to keep tabs on the scammers.

Data aggregation, KYC, KYB and risk compliance measures can be hard enough to implement in normal times, let alone during a pandemic. Implementing data services can take businesses many months, and the commitment of substantial resources and manpower. As a result, many just implement the minimum standards required, frustrated by the endless third-party data, AI and automation providers they often have to deal with. All the more worrying, given the increasing challenges companies face in these areas.

But in an article in Business Reporter, written by Chantel Meeley, (CMO), Ingo Ernst (CEO) and Alvaro Kurth (CRO) of 4Stop, describe how companies can remove the complexity of risk management integrations and manual due-diligence, and establish a real all-in-one solution, using KYB, KYC, compliance and fraud prevention technology.

4Stop is an orchestration hub that removes the hassle of engaging multiple operators to manage their data, replacing it with a one-stop shop that covers everything you need. 4Stop's KYB solution enables companies to receive all the data they need automatically in one harmonised view, where they can confidently accept or decline merchant accounts. The 4Stop KYC data hub encompasses one of the world's largest aggregation of KYC data services in the risk industry, to provide complete worldwide coverage, all with real-time activation and cascading verification logic. And its anti-fraud technology provides an automated, multi-faceted rules engine that performs dynamic decision-making risk analysis for granular risk monitoring and intelligence.

To find out more about 4Stop's streamlined, easy solution to today's data aggregation problems, click here to read the article.

Notes for editors

This press release has been provided by Business Reporter (www.business-reporter.co.uk).

About Business Reporter

Business Reporter is distributed with The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and City AM, with each publication reaching an average of 1.5 million people.

Content is also published through the Business Reporter and teiss websites, which include video debates, online articles and digital magazines, delivering news and analysis on the issues affecting businesses to a global audience.

Business Reporter also hosts conferences, breakfast meetings and exclusive summits, events which bring together some of the most influential decision makers and innovators in modern business. These exclusive events for business leaders give Business Reporter direct contact with readers and help to inform the content and direction of its editorial projects.

Business Reporter is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and was the first UK member of the UN SDG Media Compact. We have launched a website dedicated to showcasing the work of companies towards these goals at 17globalgoals.com.

Business Reporter is committed to providing meaningful analysis to everyone in business. Whether you're running a small business, the head of a local company or an executive in a multinational corporation, there's something for you at Business Reporter.

www.business-reporter.co.uk

About 4Stop

4Stop brings together trusted information, managed services, technology and expertise - an unrivalled combination that will empower your business to make well-informed decisions to confidently manage regulatory risk, while providing you with tools to make proactive decisions and action change that will accelerate your business performance. The 4Stop platform has been developed with a full understanding of compliance needs - locally and globally, today and in the future. To learn more visit www.4stop.com or contact a representative directly at sales@4stop.com
ATLANTA, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MoistureShield, a division of Oldcastle APG, a CRH Company, has partnered with Huttig Building Products in the west. Based in St. Louis, MO, Huttig will distribute MoistureShield composite decking products throughout most of California through its Sacramento and Rancho Cucamonga branch locations. These locations join their Phoenix branch serving Arizona and Nevada.

"There is tremendous demand by homeowners in our region for composite decks," said David Shanda, Vice President, Western Region for Huttig. "We're excited to help our dealers meet that need with MoistureShield's distinct innovations, such as CoolDeck, as well as their strong warranties and fire ratings." Well-suited for high-temperature climates, MoistureShield's unique CoolDeck Technology reduces heat absorption by up to 35% compared to standard capped composites in a similar color.

MoistureShield's Vision product line now meets Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) compliance tests required by California fire officials. Vision features the strongest cap in the industry, resisting scratches, stains and impact damage. In addition, MoistureShield's latest product, Elevate, an entry-level priced capped composite, recently introduced two new variegated colors: Alpine Gray and Riverbank that resemble tropical hardwoods.

"Expanding into the western region is a huge milestone for MoistureShield," said Matthew Bruce, VP of Sales, MoistureShield. "We're confident in Huttig's decades of dedication to their dealers as we define a new region for the brand."

Manufactured in the USA, MoistureShield features the Solid Core Difference for advanced strength and moisture resistance, making it an excellent choice for western lake community's docks and boat slips. It can be installed directly on the ground, in the ground or under water. Learn more at www.MoistureShield.com.

About Oldcastle APG

Oldcastle APG, North America's largest manufacturer of Outdoor Living Products, is part of CRH's Building Products division. CRH is a leading global diversified building materials group with operating locations in 32 countries worldwide. MoistureShield, a division of Oldcastle APG, proudly manufactures composite deck boards and related products serving a range of retail and distribution customers across North America. Visit www.MoistureShield.com.

About Huttig Building Products:

Huttig, currently in its 136th year of business, is one of the largest domestic distributors of millwork, building materials and wood products used principally in new residential construction and in-home improvement, remodeling and repair work. Huttig distributes its products through 27 distribution centers serving 41 states. Visit www.huttig.com

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Troops Suffer Coronavirus After Historic George Floyd Protests

National Guard troops test positive for coronavirus amid warnings of protest spike Some D.C. National Guard troops deployed to protests in Washington have tested positive for COVID-19, officials said Tuesday - as top White House Coronavirus Task Force members warned governors of a possible spike in infections tied to the nationwide demonstrations. The service members were among 1,300 D.C.

Get Your Message Across Despite Pandemic Masks

Communication tips to help get your message through your face mask KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- Coronavirus is brewing up a lot of change especially in the way we communicate. Masks are now part of our "new normal." For months, the Filling Station has been keeping its staff and customers safe with strict sanitizing policies and by wearing masks.

School Comeback 2020

Raytown Schools get parents involved on potential plans for fall amid COVID-19 RAYTOWN, Mo. - School districts across the metro are preparing for the fall semester. Not knowing what the return to school will for sure look like, many districts are still keeping quiet about plans. But the Raytown School District is laying it all out there to keep parents in the loop about what may come.

Show-Me Costly Corona

Missouri cities face budget shortfalls amid coronavirus pandemic INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - As cities reopen and businesses emerge from stay-at-home orders, local governments are figuring out how to manage budgets that are expected to face shortfalls due to the coronavirus pandemic. The city of Independence is one of many cities facing such decisions.

COVID-19 Crackdowns Saddens Sunflower State

Kansans Reveal Their Coronavirus Anxieties, From Money To Health To Loneliness LAWRENCE, Kansas - A full two-thirds of Kansans say they don't personally know someone who's been infected with the coronavirus. Yet an overwhelming number of respondents to a survey say the pandemic remade their lives, mostly for the worse. They talk of worry, boredom. It has cost most of them money.

Pandemic Cont'd

Dr. Anthony Fauci says coronavirus turned 'out to be my worst nightmare' and it 'isn't over' White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Covid-19 turned out to be his "worst nightmare" come to life as the coronavirus continues to rapidly spread across the globe. The virus is "something that's highly transmissible. ...

WHO Double Checks

WHO clarifies comments on asymptomatic spread of Covid-19 top World Health Organization official clarified on Tuesday that scientists have not determined yet how frequently people with asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 pass the disease on to others, a day after suggesting that such spread is "very rare."

Coronavirus Redux Fear Upon The Great American Reopening

WHO's chief scientist says there's a 'very real risk' of a second wave of coronavirus as economies reopen Stringent public health measures have helped stem the transmission of the coronavirus, but there's "every chance" of a resurgence as economies reopen, the chief scientist of the World Health Organization warned Tuesday.

Here's a quick check of local data on the continued spread of the pandemic . . .And so, tonight we're sharing a few more resources and links on the ongoing impact of the pandemic . . .Developing . . .
(Newser)  CNN says that for the first time in its 40-year-history, it has been threatened with legal action by a politician displeased with its polling results. The network says it received a cease-and-desist letter from President Trump's campaign, demanding that it retractand apologize fora poll released Monday that shows the president 14 points behind Joe Biden among registered voters. The letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker claims the poll was "designed to mislead" voters. "It's a stunt and a phony poll to cause voter suppression, stifle momentum and enthusiasm for the President, and present a false view generally of the actual support across America for the President," the letter states. CNN says it stands by the poll and has no intention of complying with the campaign's demands.

story continues below

The Trump campaign questioned the methodology of the poll and complained that it was largely conducted before Friday's jobs numbers came out, reports the Washington Post. The Post notes that other recent polls have also given Biden a double-digit lead. but not as high as 14%. In his response, CNN general counsel David Vigilante said when the network has "received legal threats from political leaders in the past, they have typically come from countries like Venezuela or other regimes where there is little or no respect for a free and independent media." Trump tweeted Monday that he had "retained highly respected pollster McLaughlin & Associates" to analyze the "FAKE" poll. Vigilante said pollster John McLaughlin was, of course, free to "share his criticisms across the US media landscape." He added, "That's how free speech works." (Read more President Trump stories.)
Actor Anil Kapoor shared a bunch of pictures from his film Janbaaz and they will take you back to the 80s. The 1986 film was directed by the late actor-filmmaker Feroz Khan and also starred Dimple Kapadia.

Remembering one of the finest, extremely stylish, with a child like nature but lion hearted film makers of our industry...Feroz Khan. Working with him was an extremely memorable experience... in Janbaaz as a filmmaker / co star & in Welcome as a co star! #34YearsOfJanbaaz, Anil captioned the photos.

Remembering one of the finest, extremely stylish, with a child like nature but lion hearted film makers of our industry...Feroz Khan. Working with him was an extremely memorable experience... in Janbaaz as a filmmaker / co star & in Welcome as a co star! #34YearsOfJanbaaz pic.twitter.com/mE2m6Ep7nc  Anil Kapoor (@AnilKapoor) June 10, 2020

Anil and Feroz had also worked together in hit comedy film, Welcome. Feroz Khans role as RDX and Anils Majnu Bhai were big hits with the fans. Feroz Khan died in 2009 at his farmhouse in Bangalore after battling cancer for a year. He was 69.

Also read: First KBC winner Harshvardhan Nawathe: Amitabh Bachchan spoke to me for one hour, asked me to take care of my parents

Anil Kapoor was last seen in Mohit Suris action thriller Malang with Aditya Roy Kapur and Disha Patani. His upcoming projects include Karan Johars Takht, in which he will play Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The film also stars Kareena Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Vicky Kaushal, Bhumi Pednekar and Ananya Pandey.

Anils film Dil Dhadakne Do completed five years of its release recently and the actor recalled some fond memories that he shared with his fellow cast members during the shoot. Taking to Twitter, he posted four monochrome photographs and one of them featured a dramatic pose given by the lead actors Priyanka Chopra, Ranveer Singh, Farhan Akhtar, and Shefali Shah and others.

The ship full of love, fun, happiness, and laughter set sail 5 years ago! A sea full of memories with the best people! #5YearsOfDilDhadakneDo #ZoyaAkhtar, he tweeted.

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Brazil's government resumed publishing the country's total death toll from the coronavirus pandemic Tuesday, after facing accusations of trying to hide the magnitude of its raging health crisis. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's government had stopped publishing the total number of deaths from the new coronavirus Friday, saying it was adopting a new methodology and would only report the number of deaths recorded in the past 24 hours in its daily bulletin. That drew accusations of foul play from a long list of high-profile critics, as well as a ruling from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Monday that the government must return to the old format. The health ministry did so Tuesday, indicating the death toll had risen by 1,272, to a total of 38,406 people killed by the virus -- the third-highest toll in the world, after the United States and Britain. The ministry said the total number of confirmed infections had risen to 739,503, the second-highest caseload in the world, after the US. Experts say under-testing means the real numbers in the country of 212 million people are probably much higher. The health ministry did not immediately respond to questions from AFP on why it returned to the old format and its plans for the future. Bolsonaro, who famously compared the virus to a "little flu," has railed against the consensus response to the pandemic, saying stay-at-home measures are needlessly wrecking the economy. He threatened Friday to quit the World Health Organization over "ideological bias" -- criticism echoed Tuesday by his foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo. "The WHO lacks independence, transparency and coherence. The foreign ministry is following its role with great concern," Araujo said. "We need to look into it. Is it a matter of political influence, is it a matter of non-state actors influencing the WHO?" Bolsonaro's threat to quit the WHO followed in the footsteps of President Donald Trump, whom he admires, and who withdrew the United States from the organization last month. Trump accused the WHO of bias in favor of China, with whom his administration has clashed over the origin and handling of the pandemic. Health workers from the city of Melgaco ride a boat ambulance after visiting a small riverside community on Marajo Island, state of Para, Brazil Health workers assist a COVID-19 patient at the Gilberto Novaes Municipal Hospital in Manaus, Brazil
That 1971 album, of course, was a masterpiece, both within the context of pop music and the political upheavals of that era. Da 5 Bloods may go over the top in its messianic depiction of Bosemans character, who becomes increasingly  and improbably  more Christ-like as the mysterious circumstances of his death are (unsurprisingly) revealed. But he delivers one of the films most memorable and powerful moments in a flashback, when he describes living in a police state back home. Every time I walk out that door, he says, I can feel how much I aint worth. Today, that line lands with a potent, dispiritingly prescient thud. The American War is over, a character announces early in Da 5 Bloods, referring to the Vietnamese peoples name for the conflict. Spike Lee is here to remind us that the war for America rages on.
Egypt has abolished covid-19 testing at the countrys airports amid increase in the number of contaminations, reports say.

The decision which went into force on the evening of Saturday June 6 seeks to boost resumption of air travel after its suspension since March as a result of the pandemic, to ensure life continues alongside COVID-19 and to avoid congestion at arrival halls across Egypts airports, Egypt Streets reports.

Egypt had imposed mandatory covdi-19 testing at its various efforts to slow down the spread of the respiratory disease.

The North African country has reported over 34,000 cases since the first case was confirmed in mid-February. At least 1,237 have died in connection with disease.

The decision to abolish the testing has stirred waves in public as the country is effected to welcome thousands of Egyptian returnees set to be repatriated.

Over the week-end, 105 Egyptians arriving from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, tested positive to covid-19.

Authorities has ordered to the returnees to self-isolate in their homes.
EWING  Before being charged with first-degree murder, Ewing man Aaron Adams went to a nearby liquor store, called 9-1-1 and indicated dead people were haunting his township home.

Then Adams mom, the owner of the Glen Stewart Drive residence, later arrived at the dwelling and found the naked corpse of 32-year-old Ashley Davis in the basement, slain by a BB gunshot wound to the chest June 1.

Police, who temporarily placed Adams into crisis after finding him at HK Liquors, later learned Adams and Davis were boyfriend and girlfriend and that Adams owned the three BB guns that were found in close proximity to Daviss body, according to statements made in court Wednesday.

With circumstantial evidence stacked against him and Adams having a long history of violence  including prior convictions for manslaughter and for assaulting another woman inside his proverbial man cave last year  Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Bingham II on Wednesday ordered the township man to remain jailed without bail on pretrial detention pending final resolution of the murder case.

Adams, 38, has been charged with first-degree murder, second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and certain persons not to possess a weapon due to a prior conviction in the slaying of Davis, a resident from Levittown, Pennsylvania, who became Ewings first homicide victim of 2020.

Davis suffered a BB gunshot wound to the chest, with the metal pellet striking internal organs and causing massive internal bleeding, killing her, the Mercer County Prosecutors Office said, citing an autopsy report.

Adams previously served a six-year prison sentence for admitting he fatally stabbed Ulysses Adams III, 21, of Sicklerville, during a fight at an Atlantic City party held in July 2006.

The current murder charge is a result of an investigation by the Mercer County Homicide Task Force and the Ewing Police Department.

A defense attorney for Adams unsuccessfully argued Wednesday for her client to be released from jail, saying, He is not a flight risk or danger to the community and therefore should be released pending resolution of this case.

Assistant Prosecutor Heather Hadley argued that Adams is a violent offender currently on probation for his 2019 domestic violence attack on another woman, alleging Adams murdered Davis in the same basement-bedroom man cave where Adams restrained another woman approximately 11 months ago. The defendant should be detained pending trial, she said.

Virtual court

Wednesdays remote detention hearing, conducted via online-video technology, revealed new details about the defendants background.

The judge recited a litany of facts in the case, detailing Adams mile-long rap sheet and the circumstances of what happened before police found a dead body in the basement.

Adams called 9-1-1 from a liquor store and reported that dead people were at his township home and that people were trying to kill him, Bingham said in court Wednesday, reciting the prosecutions narrative.

He had knowledge of someone deceased in his home, Bingham said of Adams. He didnt reveal who it was.

Police found Adams at the liquor store and brought him into crisis. Meanwhile, the defendants mother arrived at the Glen Stewart Drive residence and found the homicide victims naked body in the basement, Bingham said.

Authorities learned Adams and Davis were in a dating relationship by speaking to the defendants father, Bingham said.

Authorities also learned that Adams and Davis were both gathered at the house June 1 in the basement, which also served as Adams bedroom, Bingham said, citing a statement the mother had provided to police.

The mother said she received multiple phone calls from her troubled son between May 31 and June 1. She described him as being in a manic state and said he previously had been in crisis as a patient diagnosed with bipolar disorder, according to statements Bingham read in court.

The homeowner also said the BB guns in the house all belonged to her son, Bingham said before ordering Adams to pretrial detention. The weight of the evidence against the defendant is relatively strong.

Adams has a right to appeal Binghams decision.

The Mercer County Prosecutors Office is expected to present the homicide case to a grand jury in the near future in pursuit of an indictment.
Varun Dhawan has appealed to all to help the doctors, police force and frontline workers amid the COVID 19 pandemic. Citing example of the Spanish flu pandemic, which affected the world exactly 100 years ago, the actor said we all must take responsibility.



"1920 and 2020. The world has been through this before. We have to help our doctors, police force and front line warriors. Based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. India 2020 population is estimated at 1,380,004,385 people at mid year according to UN data. India population is equivalent to 17.7% of the total world population. We all have to take responsibility," shared Varun Dhawan on Instagram.





The actor shared several photographs from the time of the Spanish flu. In one photo it can be seen that a cinema theatre has been shut down as per the order of the mayor. Another picture shows a tram with a poster which reads: "Spit spreads death".



Varun Dhawan's appeal to the public comes at a time when India is going through a phased opening of the lockdown.
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Linkedin William Petri (The Jakarta Post) The Conversation  Wed, June 10, 2020 14:46 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd994ff 3 Health restroom,toilets,coronavirus,COVID-19,health-risk Free

Most public restrooms are grungy in the best of times. Now, we have the coronavirus risk to contend with, too. There are lots of risks  dirty sinks and door handles, airborne particles and other people in small, enclosed spaces who may or may not be breathing out the coronavirus.

So, how do you stay safe when youre away from home and youve really got to go?

As a medical doctor and epidemiologist, I study infectious diseases involving the gastrointestinal tract. Here are four things to pay attention to when it comes to any public restroom.

What goes into the toilet doesnt always stay there

Have you ever thought about what happens when you flush a toilet?

Scientists who worry about disease transmission in hospitals have, and their findings are worth remembering when youre in a public restroom.

All that bubbling, swirling and splashing can aerosolize fecal waste, sending tiny particles airborne. A study on hospital bathrooms found that the amount of those particles spiked after a toilet was flushed, and the concentration in the air remained high 30 minutes later. It didnt matter if the test was done right next to the toilet or 3 feet away. Second and third flushes continued to spread particles.

Researchers have found that the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, can be shed in feces for up to a month after the illness. Thats longer than in respiratory samples, though how much of that time the virus could be causing infections and whether the virus has infected humans through fecal waste isnt yet known.

Surfaces can harbor the virus, so wash up

The aerosols generated when someone infected with coronavirus coughs or even talks can be inhaled, of course, but they also settle out on surrounding surfaces, such as bathroom counter tops.

To stay safe, be extra careful and touch as little as possible in public restrooms, including door handles. Whatever you do, dont touch your eyes, nose or mouth after touching these surfaces  your mucous membranes are the coronaviruss entryway into your body.

When youre done, thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water, and maybe skip the hot-air hand dryer, which can also create aerosols and blow them toward you.

Carrying face masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes with you can help you be prepared, particularly if the facilities lack soap or running water.

Enclosed spaces are a problem

The air in an enclosed space like a public restroom can have coronavirus particles in it for several hours after someone infectious with COVID-19 was there.

Scientists still dont know how much of the virus you have to take in to become infected, but its better to be safe than sorry. Limiting the amount of time spent in any enclosed indoor space  restrooms and restaurants included  can reduce the potential for getting sick from the coronavirus.

Wear a mask, and walk out if others arent

One of the more insidious characteristics of the new coronavirus is that someone infected with the virus can be spreading it two to three days before they show any symptoms. Some people dont show symptoms at all, but they can still be infectious for days.

Based on surveillance during the Princess cruise ship outbreak in Yokohama, Japan, 15 to 20% of the people tested positive for the coronavirus had no symptoms. Data from Wuhan, China, put the number of asymptomatic cases at closer to 40%.

Keeping at least 6 feet away from others and wearing a mask can help you avoid spreading the coronavirus if youre asymptomatic and dont realize it. They can also help protect you, though social distancing in small public restrooms isnt always possible.

If someone else is in the restroom without a mask on, the best advice is to walk out. It isnt worth the risk.

---

William Petri, Professor of Medicine, University of Virginia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacer Health, the world's most downloaded daily activity tracking app for Android and iOS, today announced multiple upgrades for Pacer Groups and Pacer for Teams virtual challenge platforms. Pacer Groups and Pacer for Teams Account Owners now have access to four virtual challenge types, as well as extra challenge features and settings that create an improved in-app experience, including participant goal progress displays, improved branding opportunities, and external links to non-profit fundraising websites.

"Pacer continually strives to improve the user experience for its audience," said Michael Caldwell, Co-Founder, Pacer. "We hope these upgrades to Pacer Groups and Pacer for Teams will empower creators to host virtual fitness challenges that motivate and inspire their participants."

Pacer Virtual Challenges now include:

Total Steps - Accumulates the total amount of steps an individual achieves during the specified challenge period. Admins can also add a total step goal for individuals and teams that are tracked in a real-time progress bar.

Total Distance - Accumulates the total amount of distance in kilometers or miles that an individual achieves during the specified challenge period. Admins can also add a total distance goal for individuals that are tracked in a real-time progress bar.

Daily Step Goal - Participants are rewarded a point for each day they meet or exceed a chosen daily step goal during a chosen period.

GPS Activity Pace Challenge - Participants use Pacer's GPS activity-tracking feature to record a 5K , 10K , or other specified distance and are ranked by their per kilometer or mile pace time.

Individuals, communities, brands, and organizations can use Pacer virtual events to create one to 60-day long challenges, run different challenge types at the same time, and promote a brand or fundraising cause.

For easy Challenge participant onboarding, all Pacer Group and Team Challenges have a permanent invite link and corresponding QR Code that, when tapped on a smartphone, will guide users/participants through the Pacer app download, Pacer account creation, and Challenge entrance processes. There's also a third Group/Org/Challenge Key entry option.

About Pacer Groups

A Pacer Group is a free virtual community in the Pacer universe to share activities with friends, promote a business, brand or cause, and create virtual public challenges. Groups are managed entirely in the Pacer app, easy to set up and share, and have a variety of features and tools to keep users engaged. Groups are accessible in the Explore Menu.

Pacer Group Virtual Challenge Features:

All managed in the Pacer App

One account owner

Unlimited number of participants

Shareable with the invite link, QR code or Challenge Key

1-60 day total challenge time window

Upload challenge icon, cover photo, and brand color, and extra challenge details

Add a challenge Cause, such as an external link to the fundraising website

Sponsoring Group and Challenge both have message posting areas to interact and engage

About Pacer for Teams

A Pacer for Teams Organization is designed for business organizations to easily create, manage, and motivate employees' teams' fitness challenges. Health and wellness or human resource leaders, with a paid subscription, have access to extra features that include in-depth data sort and export, along with real-time and Individual and Team Leaderboards.

Pacer for Teams Enterprise Virtual Event Features:

All managed in Pacer for Teams Web-Based Admin Platform

One Account Owner and unlimited Admins

Unlimited number of participants

Unlimited number of teams

Shareable with invite link/QR code, P4T Organization Key

Upload challenge icon, cover photo, and brand color

Sort and export challenge data, including steps, distance, calories, and GPS activity times

Please visit https://challenges.mypacer.com for more Pacer virtual challenge information. Contact [email protected] directly to speak with a Pacer representative about product features. Contact [email protected] for Pacer for Teams features, pricing, and free trials.

About Pacer Health

Pacer is a powerful but simple fitness app that allows anyone to start getting fit right away. Unlike other apps that require pairing with a wearable device, Pacer runs directly on any smartphone with no need for expensive hardware or extra hassle. Pacer offers an intuitive data interface and guided workout plans. Designed for regular people who want to get more active and healthy, users come from varying levels of fitness. Users get inspiration, support, and competition from massive global online events, tens of thousands of location-based groups, and lively community feeds. Find more at www.mypacer.com or follow us on social media, Instagram , Pinterest , LinkedIn , and Facebook .

SOURCE Pacer

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Editors note: This week, the Star looks at what entering the second phase of reopening will look like. Every day, well try and answer a different question about post-lockdown life. Read about the risk and guidelines for moving between regions here.

Stage two of Ontarios reopening plan means that many folks who have been working from home or out of work since March will soon head back.

But how do you refuse unsafe work, and could you argue you shouldnt return to the workplace at all?

Ontarios Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) provides workers with the right to refuse work that endangers their health and safety. In cases where an employee refuses, there must be an immediate danger to their health or safety; the employer then must complete an investigation to come up with a solution.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills also pointed to the Infectious Disease Emergency Leave, an unpaid leave which protects employees who cannot work due to COVID-related illness, or who are self-isolating, caring for a loved who is sick, or due to school closures.

Randy Ai, a Toronto employment lawyer and founder of Randy Ai Law Office, spoke to the Star generally about how OHSA and COVID may coexist as workers start returning.

Ai stressed he is speaking from his own opinion as an employment lawyer and that each individual case would likely be unique  especially since COVID-19 is unprecedented. There are no judicial decisions yet on whether the existence of the virus is enough to refuse going to the workplace, and whats more, many of Ontarios courts are currently suspended.

Just the mere fact that COVID exists, I dont think is enough to pass a legal threshold of refusing work, Ai said. It would have to be that the employer is not providing, for example, personal protective equipment if youre in an industry where thats actually important (and) you have client contacts, or in scenarios where employees arent provided with proper physical distance policies.

To refuse unsafe work, there would need to be something specific within the workplace that created an unsafe environment.

For example, if you said I refuse to come to work because I dont want to get onto the TTC because COVID exists, I dont think that would be enough, Ai explained.

If youre exposed to dangerous environments, or potentially dangerous environments where you could contract COVID or pass it to other people or get it from other people ... then the employer, I would say, is obligated to provide you with the safety equipment and procedures so that you are protected in the course of your work.

All cases are going to be person-specific, Ai said. A person with a disability, or those who are immunocompromised could be eligible for a human rights accommodation.

If youre asking for someone ... to return to work, knowing that theyre immunocompromised or they have a disability, then you may run into a human rights accommodation issue, he said.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin poses for an undated booking photograph. (Minnesota Department of Corrections via Reuters)

Derek Chauvin Was in Negotiations to Plead Guilty Before Being Arrested

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was in talks with prosecutors to plead guilty before he was arrested on May 29, an official involved in his case said.

Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed black man accused of forgery, on Memorial Day. Chauvin was a police officer until he was fired shortly after the incident.

There were early negotiations with the defendant, between the Hennepin County Attorneys Office, and the U.S. Attorney, Hennepin County Attorney spokesperson Chuck Laszewski said in a statement to Fox 9. Ultimately, those negotiations failed.

The attorneys office didnt respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. The U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Minnesota didnt pick up the phone.

Eric Nelson, Chauvins attorney, told The Epoch Times via email: I am not commenting on the case on or off the record at this point.

Tom Kelly, Chauvins former lawyer, couldnt be reached.

While Floyd died on May 25, Chauvin wasnt arrested until May 29. A press conference making announcements in the investigation held on May 28 was delayed by over 90 minutes.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, charged with second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter of George Floyd, is seen in an artists sketch as he attends a court hearing via video link in Minneapolis, Minn., on June 8, 2020. (Cedric Hohnstadt/Illustration via Reuters)

When the briefing started, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald apologized, saying: We thought we would have another development that I could tell you about. Unfortunately, we dont at this point.

Sources told Fox 9 the deal would have included state murder charges and federal civil rights charges.

Chauvin was arrested and charged on May 29. Democrat state Attorney General Keith Ellison took over the prosecution of case soon after and elevated the murder charge to second-degree murder.

Ellison also charged the three other police officers involved in Floyds arrest with aiding and abetting murder.

None have pleaded guilty.

State, county, and federal investigators are conducting probes into what happened when officers responded after a Cup Foods employee told a dispatcher that they received counterfeit money.

Video footage showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes, including about two minutes after Floyd stopped moving. Floyd had complained he couldnt breathe.

Two other officers, J. Alexander Keung and Thomas Lane, were restraining the mans middle and lower body while the fourth, Tou Thao, stood nearby.
On April 11, 1861, Brig. Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard, commander of Confederate forces in the Charleston area, demanded that Maj. Robert Anderson of the Union Army surrender his command at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Anderson refused. Beauregard opened fire. And the Civil War ensued.

Today, Beauregard has a U.S. Army base in Louisiana named after him. Anderson does not.

Beauregard was not alone in receiving such a high honor as a traitor to the United States. At least nine other major Army installations are named for generals who led Confederate troops  a practice the Army has defended for years based on the assertion that they have a significant place in our military history, as one Army official recently said.

Among the former states of the Confederacy, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina each have one Army base named for a Confederate general, according to a 2017 Congressional Research Service report. Louisiana and Georgia have two each. And Virginia, which served as the seat of government for the Confederacy, has three such installations.

Most of these bases were established during World War I as camps and periodically shuttered between wars. In World War II, many of them were formally established as forts with their original names intact. But in at least one instance, a training area within a fort was named for a Confederate as recently as 1979  Wilcox Camp, named for Brig. Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox, within the confines of Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, itself named for a Confederate general.

Why havent the names been changed already?

The NAACP has long advocated for changing the names of military bases honoring Confederate soldiers, arguing that the battle flag glorifies treason and a hateful history of white supremacy and black subjugation.

The call to remove Confederate leaders names surfaces every time the continuing issues of race and the grim legacy of the Civil War and slavery in the United States are brought to light by current events. It was discussed following the mass shooting of nine black worshipers in Charleston, S.C., by avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof in 2015. Roof documented his fetishization of the Confederate flag in a blog before carrying out the attack, and also embraced the flags of Apartheid-era South Africa and the white-controlled nation of Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe.

After white supremacists marched on Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, ostensibly to protest the proposed removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, the idea of renaming Army bases was again floated by academics and pundits alike. Military leaders publicly denounced racism at the time, but Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the Army chief of staff, elected not to pursue renaming bases. Milley has since become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He received criticism last week for accompanying President Trump from the White House to a church in his camouflage uniform on June 1, moments after the area had been cleared of peaceful protests by security forces using tear gas.


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said the global economy is undergoing the deepest recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s due to the coronavirus, or Covid-19, pandemic.



As restrictions begin to ease, the path to economic recovery remains highly uncertain and vulnerable to a second wave of infections, the Paris-based think tank said in its latest Economic Outlook, published on Wednesday.



Given the high uncertainty, the OECD has provided two equally possible economic scenarios. Global economic activity is expected to fall 6 percent in 2020 if a second wave of infections is avoided. The world economy will expand 5.2 percent in 2021.



The unemployment rate in the OECD is forecast to rise to 9.2 percent from 5.4 percent in 2019.



But global GDP will fall more sharply by 7.6 percent this year before rising 2.8 percent next year in case of a second outbreak of virus triggering a return to lockdowns.



In the United States, the Covid-19 has brought the longest growth on record to a juddering halt, the OECD said. If there is another virus outbreak later in the year, GDP is expected to fall by over 8 percent in 2020.



In the single-hit scenario, the U.S. GDP would shrink 7.3 percent this year before rising 4.1 percent in 2021.



Eurozone GDP is expected to plunge by 11.5 percent this year if a second wave breaks out, and by over 9 percent even if a second hit is avoided.



Germany's GDP will decline 8.8 percent in 2020 if a second Covid-19 outbreak requires further containment measures or prolongs uncertainty. At the same time, the fall in GDP is estimated at 6.6 percent if the virus subsides by the summer.



If the pandemic is contained by the summer, France GDP will contract about 11.4 percent this year and rebound by 7.7 percent in 2021. Yet, if there is a second outbreak, GDP is projected to decrease 14.1 percent in 2020 and to recover by 5.2 percent in 2021.



Italy's GDP will fall by 14 percent in 2020 before recovering by 5.3 percent next year if there is another virus outbreak later this year. If further outbreaks are avoided, GDP is projected to drop 11.3 percent in 2020 and to recover by 7.7 percent in 2021.



The UK GDP is projected to fall sharply by 14 percent in 2020 if there is a second virus outbreak later in the year. An equally likely single-hit scenario would still see GDP fall sharply by 11.5 percent.



According to OECD, China's and India's GDPs will be relatively less affected, with a decrease of 3.7 percent and 7.3 percent respectively in case of a double hit and 2.6 percent and 3.7 percent in case of a single hit.



The agency said the recovery will take a long time to bring output back to pre-pandemic levels and the crisis will leave long-lasting scars.



OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said,'Uncertainty is clearly extreme in the current context, but the implications of that for macroeconomic policies are not symmetric.'



'Policy-makers were right not to be too slow to introduce emergency measures, and they should now guard against being too quick to withdraw them,' said Gurria.



OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone said, 'Extraordinary policies will be needed to walk the tightrope towards recovery. Restarting economic activity while avoiding a second outbreak requires flexible and agile policymaking.'



The OECD observed that strong fiscal support is warranted but it has consequences. The think tank called for well-targeted public spending to support the most vulnerable and provide the investment needed for a sustainable recovery.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Nandini Yadav

When I brought up the life after COVID-19, this is the picture Zoom India head Sameer Raje painted for me:

Just imagine: would you be comfortable going to the office now, where you sit in the same air conditioning as somebody who may be infected; you know the same air is being circulated. Or that you're sharing the same coffee mugs and touching the same coffee machine buttons or the lift buttons.

Just the thought of this is enough to make me want to go wash my hands!

But really, would you go back to the office after this, if it were up to you? Would you be ok spending time and money to get to work every day? Would you be ok waking up early in the morning to be able to get ready, eat breakfast, and reach the office at the time you are currently waking up?

COVID-19, Lockdown, Work From Home, and Zoom

I am assuming that a majority of us would shake their heads to these questions. This happens to work pretty well for employers as well  potentially lower workplace costs. And you know who else this works out well for? Zoom, and many other online conferencing platforms that we currently rely on for work calls, online classes, family meets, etc.

For the uninitiated, Zoom was launched in 2011, and has been a very popular enterprise tool since. But why are we hearing about it now, nine years later? The reason is that while many enterprise customers were using Zoom as their primary communication tool, its use by individuals was comparatively low, until the COVID-19 outbreak brought the whole world to a halt and locked us into our homes.

An explosive rise in Zooms user base

What COVID-19 did is it spiked up the usage by individuals, and in a very different manner. Before, individuals who were using it were probably using it in a very subdued manner, but with COVID, everybody started working from home, socializing from home and even people who had never used such a collaboration platform started using Zoom, Raje said.

In May 2020, Zoom became the most downloaded app in India, dethroning popular apps like TikTok and Instagram.

Zoom and its various security flaws

However, this sudden boost in popularity came with its own set of issues. Between the end of March to mid-April this year, several issues were reported in the Zoom app, including one called Zoombombing, which led to a temporary ban of the app by authorities in various countries.

Zoombombing is a term used to describe an attack where strangers join your Zoom call and disrupt the conversation. This can happen via hacks, as well as from something as simple as guessing the Zoom ID of your meeting.

The US banned the use of Zoom in schools, and in India, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued an advisory stating that the popular video conferencing app is not safe. Weeks later the ban was lifted by the US.

Raje, however, points out that more than being a security flaw, Zoombombing was about the way the users were employing the existing security features while using the platform. He says that the platform already allows users to lock their meeting rooms, but for calls like online classes and virtual meetings, people started sharing their meeting IDs on social media, occasionally inviting bad actors.

You cant announce on social media that you are leaving your house. You have to be careful while sharing the content on a social media platform. It's like telling the entire world, hey, I'm heading out and I have valuables at home. And oh, I usually don't lock my room, Raje adds.

Zoom apologises and repairs the platform

Regardless, Zoom chief executive Eric S Yuan apologised for the security flaws and within days, Zoom introduced a new security menu so that users can easily access privacy tools. The video conferencing app created a dedicated icon for security at the bottom of the screen, which replaced the invite button in the app.

And thats exactly why Zoom has stayed relevant and popular, despite all its security flaws. It has acknowledged and fixed its issues immediately, staving off a mass exit in the face of formidable competition.

Raje said that after lockdowns began to be imposed in different parts of the world, we went from 10 million participants a day on the platform to 300 million participants a day. Any company would have taken more than two years to do that, but we saw this jump in 12 weeks.

Obviously, there were some mistakes on our side as well. Like, for example, we could have been more proactive in mandating the use of passwords. We could have been more careful about the Chinese data centers, and we missed on geofencing some of the servers. We could have been more cautious. So this all bundled together, he added.

Relevance of Zoom in the post-COVID-19 world

How long can we rely on apps such as Zoom? The lockdowns got to end at some point, so what will be the future of these apps? I asked the same question of Raje.

He told me to consider a few possibilities for when the lockdown does actually lift:

You might have gotten comfortable working from home. I definitely have, and my team definitely has too. Who wants to travel from Borivali to BKC every day? We don't want to do that. People have realised the fact that there is an advantage to working from home. You're close to your near and dear ones, and you don't spend on travelling every single day, Raje said.

And for the employers, they can do away with real estate costs. And the fact that if employees are more productive working from home, why would they want them in the office? This entire transformation has been accelerated due to the COVID-19 situation and has brought forth this thought process that is accelerating the adoption of these technologies, he added.

Last month, Facebook also announced that it would allow its workers  who are able to work remotely  to do so until the end of the year.

The unprecedented crisis has compelled companies to modify their infrastructure and look at unorthodox and alternative ways to keep their business going. For the sake of coordination and timelines, a lot of workplaces insisted on employees going to the office, even when it wasnt absolutely needed. However, COVID-19 has compelled many employers and employees to reconsider the need to go to offices, or at least consider whether this is necessary for every employee.

What does this mean for Zoom and other similar platforms? Work from home FTW!
The judge who blocked the release of grand jury records in the Jeffrey Epstein case worked for the former Florida state attorney who decided not to prosecute Epstein on child-sex charges, and two of her children work for government officials involved in the case.

An investigation by the Miami Herald has revealed that Palm Beach County judge Krista Marx, who has refused multiple requests to unseal the grand-jury tapes from the 2006 indictment, worked for former Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer as an assistant state attorney from 1992 to 1998.

Marxs son also works for Sheriff Ric Bradshaw  who gave Epstein liberal work-release provisions following his guilty plea  as a sheriffs deputy.

Reached for comment, Marx told the Herald that a judge is prohibited from commenting on open cases. It is a clear rule of the judicial canons. See cnn 3 (B) 9.

Last August, Florida governor Ron DeSantis ordered an investigation into how Palm Beach County authorities handled the case against Epstein, and special prosecutors requested to review the records to determine whether the jurors were aware that many of Epsteins victims were underage. But Marx refused, saying that prosecutors needed evidence and could only unseal the records as a last resort under Florida law.

Marx also blocked an effort by attorneys representing the Palm Beach Post, who sued State Attorney Dave Aronberg and the county clerk, Sharon Bock, for release of the records. But she did not reveal that her daughter works for Aronberg as an assistant state attorney. Multiple reports have detailed how Krischer still has ties to both Aronberg and Bradshaw as an adviser.

While her husband, Palm Beach County Judge Joe Marx, says on his county web page that he will recuse himself from any cases that involve his two stepchildren, Marx does not have the same disclosure.

More from National Review
Beginning Monday, June 15, the New Mexico Department of Health is designating special COVID-19 testing hours for all employees in the food and beverage industry, according to a news release from the department.

Employees of restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, distribution centers and food manufacturing facilities will be able to receive free testing every Monday at Department of Health field offices from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Testing as many food industry workers as possible builds consumer confidence while helping employers minimize their occupational risk of an asymptomatic employee spreading the disease in the workplace, the release said.

Appointments are required for the free testing and those with insurance are asked to bring their insurance cards to the appointment.

Appointments can be made by calling local health offices and must be made by noon on the preceding Friday.

Food worker testing sites

Alamogordo: 1207 8th St, 575-437-9340 X4

Albuquerque: 2400 Wellesley NE, 505-841-4106

Anthony: 865 N. Anthony Drive, 575-882-5858 X4

Artesia: 1001 Memorial Dr., 575-746-9819

Belen: 617 Becker Ave., 505-864-7743

Bernalillo: 1500 Idalia, 505-867-2291

Carlsbad: 1306 W. Stevens, 575-885-4191

Clovis: 1216 Cameo St., 575-763-5583

Gallup: 410 Bataan Veterans Rd., 505-722-4391

Espanola: 2010 Industrial Pk Rd., 505-753-2794

Farmington: 355 S. Miller Rd., 87401; 505-327-44619

Ft. Sumner: 514 Ave. C., 575-355-3262

Hobbs: 1923 N. Dal Paso, 575-397-2463

Las Cruces: 1170 N. Solano, 575-528-5063

Las Vegas: 18 Gallegos Rd., 505-425-9368

Los Alamos: 1183 Diamond Dr, Ste D., 505-662-4038

Lovington: 302 N. 5th St., 575-396-2853

Portales: 1513 W. Fir, 575-356-4453

Raton: 226 E. 4th Street, 575-445-3601

Roswell: 200 E. Chisum, 575-624-6050

Ruidoso: 111 Kansas City St., 575-258-3252

Santa Fe: 605 Letrado St., 505-476-2600

Santa Rosa: 117 Camino de Vida, 575-472-3211

Silver City: 2610 N. Silver, 575-538-5318 X4

Socorro: 214 Neel Ave., 575-835-0971 X3

Sunland Park: 3807 McNutt Rd., 575-589-2543 X4

Taos: 1400 Weimer Rd., 575-758-4719

Tucumcari: 310 S. 2nd St., 575-461-2610
Pakistani Army Chief in Kabul as Part of Push to Start Intra-Afghan Negotiations

By Ayesha Tanzeem June 09, 2020

In a continuation of a U.S.-led push to encourage intra-Afghan negotiations, Pakistan's army chief took a one-day trip to Kabul Tuesday.

General Qamar Javed Bajwa met in the Afghan capital with both President Ashraf Ghani and the chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah, the man who would lead future negotiations with the Taliban.

Ghani's office issued a statement saying, "Both sides discussed the peace process and Pakistan's support of the process. They also discussed that the soil of the two countries would not be used against each other."

Pakistan and Afghanistan have long accused each other of providing havens to militants who attack their interests.

Officials also said a summary of the discussions would be included in a joint statement by the foreign ministers of the two countries.

The trip comes two days after the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, met Bajwa in Islamabad.

A press release issued by the U.S. Embassy after the meeting said Khalilzad and Bajwa "discussed steps required for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations."

Intra-Afghan negotiations is a term used to describe talks between the Taliban and a representative group of other Afghans, including the Afghan government, other political factions, civil society, and rights activists.

The negotiations are supposed to be part of a deal the Taliban signed with the United States in February to try to bring peace to Afghanistan.

They were originally scheduled to start on the 10th of March but were repeatedly delayed, primarily due to the Afghan government's refusal to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners as stipulated in the deal.

The government, which was not officially a party to the deal between the U.S. and the Taliban, was angered by the provision to release thousands of prisoners, especially as a prerequisite to starting intra-Afghan discussions.

The government felt that the release should be subject to an announcement of a nationwide cease-fire from the Taliban.

A three-day cease-fire announced by the Taliban during Eid al Fitr celebrations marking the end of (the holy month of) Ramadan, and a reduction in violence since, are widely believed to be part of efforts to bring the two sides closer.

President Ghani announced the release of 2,000 prisoners in response to the Eid cease-fire, in addition to the 1,500 Taliban prisoners he had already ordered released. The government has released around 3,000 Taliban prisoners, according to Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the Afghan National Security Council.

On Monday, in an online forum hosted by the Heart of Asia society, an Afghan research group, Abdullah announced that intra-Afghan negotiations were likely to start soon in Doha, Qatar.

"Dr. Abdullah decided to publicly announce for the first time the fact that the Afghan government and the Taliban have reached an understanding on the start of the intra-Afghan negotiations," said Janan Mosazai, the vice president of the society.

The Taliban have so far refused to start the negotiations unless all 5,000 of their prisoners are released. Mosazai, however, said international and regional pressure had seemingly led the two sides to view the prisoner release issue as a "work in progress."

"The two sides will start negotiations and not just hold back," he said.

In an interview with VOA's Urdu service Monday, the Taliban categorically rejected the possibility of negotiations until their demands were met.

"Intra-Afghan negotiations will start after the completion of 5,000 prisoners," Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai, the chief negotiator of the Taliban political team in Doha said, adding, "No date and place are decided for Intra-Afghan talks as yet."

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A jogger who booted two cygnets because they were in his way and he couldn't be bothered to run around them is being hunted by cops.

One of the baby swans tragically died on Wednesday after spending two days fighting the injuries, while the other managed to escape significant harm by returning to the water.

Police are hunting the yob, described as a balding man in his 60s dressed in running gear, today after the vile attack in Richmond Park, south west London on Monday.

A cygnet is fighting for its life after it was kicked by a jogger in Richmond Park (file photo)

A 60-year-old man kicked the baby swan because it couldn't be bothered to run around it

Royal Parks Police - part of the Met Police - tweeted on Wednesday afternoon: Update. Sadly the Cygnet died this afternoon, his injures were too severe.

'The suspect was seen to kick another cygnet, which thankfully managed to escape to the water. The jogger had a logo on his running top and is balding.'

The same body tweeted on Tuesday evening: 'Yesterday at about 5.30pm at Pen Ponds, Richmond Park a jogger kicked a newborn cygnet out of his way instead of going around.

'The suspect is a white male, about 60 years old,5ft6, grey hair, wearing black running shorts and vest.

Royal Parks Police are searching the individual responsible while the animal fights for its life

The cygnet was treated by the Swan Sanctuary, who forced to put the animal into intensive care.

The Royal Parks Police said that those treating the cygnet were hopeful to successfully treat the baby swan, but they admitted on Tuesday that the situation was not looking good.

Locals slammed the thug involved in the attack, with Anna Melville-James fuming: 'Vile person.'

Will Hide said: 'I think there'd be quite a long queue to kick the jogger.'

Martin Oxley added: 'This makes me so upset and angry.

'Twitter please do your thing. Let's find the person responsible.'

Harry Tangye joked: 'I have a number for a sniper the next time the jogger is passing through.'

Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information about the suspect is encouraged to call 07920 586546 and quote the reference number 0705738/20.
Just about the first task assigned to me when I landed a job working for the U.S. Congress fifteen years ago was to reach out to the famed economist Hernando de Soto and discuss how my bosses could help him in his quest to improve and expand property rights around the world.

In the late 1980s the Peruvian wrote a wildly influential book about the rampant poverty in his native country, which he largely attributed to the inability of the vast majority of his countrymen to obtain transferable property rights for their houses and stalls where they sold their goods. That lacuna denied them the ability to access capital markets and invest to improve their productivity and output.

De Soto argued--convincingly--that providing more tangible property rights would not only boost the economy but also deprive the Maoist insurrection that was laying waste to much of the country of its popular support.

While it would be a gross exaggeration to attribute the country's defeat of its terrorist threat and subsequent quarter-century of economic growth solely to De Soto's efforts, there is a consensus that the country's enhanced respect for property rights played an integral role in Peru's economic renaissance.

In 2004 De Soto had moved on to a new country: Egypt. He and his staff discovered that the country resembled Peru in the inability of its residents to have a legally recognized ownership stake in their biggest possessions, namely their home and--for entrepreneurs--their place of business.

The country's recordkeeping was weak, nearly all of the homes for the poor and working class had been built quasi-legally on property not designated for residential development, and no one evinced much of an interest in adjudicating these issues.

The members of the Congressional Committee on which I served--both Republican and Democratic--were hopeful that if De Soto were to succeed in Egypt that it might create a path for other countries in the Middle East to achieve economic growth, thereby taking some of the wind from the sails from the widespread unrest buffeting the populace in the wake of the Iraq war.

The U.S. eventually provided De Soto with funding, but his efforts there were largely unsuccessful. The Arab spring and the subsequent political upheaval undoubtedly played a role in its failure, but someone who worked closely with De Soto told me that the larger problem was that the Egyptians running the government ultimately evinced little enthusiasm for property rights. More property rights for citizens ultimately translates to less power for the people running the government, after all.

Unfortunately, little has changed in this regard, and the country's antediluvian perspective towards property rights threatens not only to bottle up domestic investment but to also greatly reduce foreign investment in Egypt as well.

In the last few years the countrys leadership has pursued foreign investment to improve its antiquated infrastructure, and in 2006 it awarded a 40-year concession to an international logistics company called DIPCO to operate a container terminal and expand and deepen the port at Damietta, which is near the entrance to the Suez Canal.

However, the project never got off the ground for a variety of reasons: The country never cleared the land for the container terminal for DIPCO to develop, government approval for the final plans kept getting pushed back, and the Arab Spring convulsed the government and led to multiple leadership changes, which contributed to the delays.

The repeated delays and the governments instability made lenders reticent to finance projects in the country, further exacerbating the problem.

As the delay began to approach a decade, the country decided it would cancel the project rather take steps to ensure its success.

DIPCO sued the Egyptian government for damages in the International Court of Arbitration and was awarded $427 million. Egypt appealed the decision, claiming that it was the injured party and disputing that the Court has any jurisdiction over the matter.

It is certainly the case that the failure to complete the project has been costly for the country, which stood to greatly increase its customs fees from having a port deep enough and big enough to accept the largest cargo ships currently on the seas. It has already started to pursue another contractor to dredge and expand its port at Damietta, but its track record is sure to give pause to companies that may be considering long-term investments in the country.

This is not the first time that Egypt was on the losing end of a lawsuit regarding its cavalier treatment of a contract with a foreign investor. Union Fenosa gas recently won a $2 billion arbitration case against the country for a lack of gas supply to an Egyptian plant the company owns a majority stake in.

The recent pandemic has once again revealed that the economics profession is far from being an omniscient discipline that can foretell the consequences of major events, but there are a few things its practitioners do agree on.

High on that list is that without the establishment of and respect for property rights, a country will have trouble convincing its citizens--or anyone else--to invest. And without investment, the path out of poverty is closed for most of its populace. Its a lesson that Egypt should take to heart.

Ike Brannon is a senior fellow at the Jack Kemp Foundation.
In the equity segment, everybody should have some kind of exposure to the IT and pharma space. These companies typically have long term contracts which are 5-10 years long, Nikhil Kamath, co-founder and CIO True Beacon and Zerodha, said in 'The Market Podcast' with Moneycontrols Kshitij Anand.

Q) News about reopening of the economy or Unlock 1 fuelled risk appetite on D-Street and that was one of the prominent reasons why D-Street managed to climb Wall of Worries. Nifty50 back above 10,000  does this worry you as we might be walking on thin ice?

A) I think a lot of the traction that we saw in the markets from March to April and May as well was more based on fear than anything else. I think for a disease or a pandemic, with a fatality rate as low as we have with COVID-19, I don't think it significantly impacts industry over the long term.

Yes, definitely it has short-term implications such as  it will break supply chains, reduces demand, etc. But, over the long-term, we do not see this as a deterrent for the industry to bounce back.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

I think it might take another 6-12 months or maximum of 18 months. We know that markets are forward-looking and the stock markets will not react based on the news, which is out there right now but what we can expect to see over the next 2-3 years.

I think the market is behaving on that rationale. We are looking into the future and thinking that I don't think it's unlikely that we do see a total recovery within 12 to 24 months and go back to higher levels than we had before Corona.

Q) During the month of March 2020, when the markets were getting into choppy waters due to the onset of COVID-19, and remember Nifty hit a low of 7500 -- True Beacons One fund beat Nifty by 13.39%. What is driving the performance?

A) True Beacon as a fund right now is an equity plus or debt plus and equity minus kind of fund. So we have a long-only component, which is typically about 65 percent of the portfolio, and long-only focused on large-cap companies, companies in the Nifty50 only.

The balance 35 percent is a long-short portfolio, which kind of takes advantage of short-term volatility spikes in the market. This has two advantages in times of volatility.

Whenever the markets are volatile and falling very quickly, the 35 percent of the component kind of comes into the fray, it gave good returns to the amount of money allocated to it.

This helped us cover a lot of the downside from the inception. So, we do very well in times of uncertainty and volatility when the markets happen to fall a lot, True Beacon generally will outperform.

The risk profile which is very conservative is what makes True Beacon an all-weather fund. We want to outperform the benchmark over the long term, which is Nifty.

Nifty typically has done about 11-12 percent kind of return in a year and we outperform this benchmark by about 6% to 8%. So that is the essence of True Beacon.

Q) Diversification will carry whole new meaning post now especially after the outbreak of COVID-19 which impacted financial markets. What are the ways in which investors can diversify their portfolio to battle tough times?

A) Well, I think just outside of the equity universe, it's very important for everybody to have some kind of fixed income exposure. I think, government, say, for instance, a tax-free bond, which right now will give you about 4.75 percent or 4.8 percent is a great instrument to have in your portfolio.

I think at least 20-25 percent should be allocated to something like this. You should definitely have some kind of exposure to gold because it acts as a natural hedge against equity portfolios.

If you have 10-15 percent in gold, and if you've had it for a while, gold for instance has done about 25 percent in 2019, and maybe 18-19 percent so far in 2020. And this would have significantly aided your portfolio on the downside.

Outside of having exposure to equity alone, I think a balanced portfolio will have an element of commodity. A combination of all of these will make it a balanced portfolio.

In the equity segment, everybody should have some kind of exposure to the IT and pharma space. These companies typically have long term contracts which are 5-10 years long.

These sectors are relatively more immune compared to many other industries in our Nifty ecosystem. These are good places to hide in times of uncertainty.

And a combination of equity, a diversified bucket of equity, fixed income, and commodities together, I think you should be okay for all times when markets are volatile or if they are going down or if they are going up. As a long term portfolio, I think that's a good mix to have.

Q) What is your call on markets for say 6-12 months? Which sectors are likely to take a lead on the upside?

A) IT and Pharma are not high beta industries. They're not the kind of companies which do well, if the markets go up 1 percent, maybe they will go up three-quarters of a percent.

So this might not give you tremendous outperformance over what the market has overall. Not looking at it from a 6 to 12-month perspective, but a long term perspective as to how you bring balance and sanity to a portfolio per se. I think it's very important to have these defensive sectors in the portfolio.

For the next 6 to 12 months -- I think what has been beaten down the most will likely to recover the most. If we have to follow what is happening in China, were seeing this phenomenon called revenge buying where people have come out after the virus lockdown and are buying everything from cars to bikes to homes to bags.

Consumer sectors which are benefited by consumer demand do very well in the interim. I can see a likelihood even in India that people who do not want to take public transport after the lockdown could end up buying scooters and bikes and low-value cars, the companies like Maruti, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, these are maybe some of the things which will do well in the near future.

Companies that are in the travel space, the hospitality space, which was beaten down a lot might recover. This is the trend we're seeing say in the American markets, for instance, where these companies which were beaten down the most be it a hotel chain or a travel chain, are bouncing really quickly. We would expect the same trend to kind of continue here, right.

Q) From your decade of experience this clearly marks a Black Swan event --- what would be your advice to listeners? What are the key takeaways from COVID-19 fall?

A) When it comes to Black Swan, the guy who coined the term Taleb, he himself seems to think this is not a black swan, but this is a white swan.

There were many hints suggesting that a pandemic like this will come about. It's just that governments and industry bodies across the world who have kind of chosen to ignore the cues which were at hand and perceive that we're immune to something like this without putting the work in.

Even though the event has happened now, I think, luckily, we are on the other side of the fear cycle. Hopefully, things pick up really quickly from here.

And, if the government is adept at incentivizing industry, and they do all that is required for people to get back out there and start manufacturing, I think we can bounce back from this very quickly. The markets are kind of reflecting that right now.

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
"For our schools, the benefits of being part of Inspired has never been clearer than in the past few months"

Nadim Nsouli, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Inspired Education Group, will discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the international K12 sector in the webinar "School of thought: Inspired Education, Rothschild and Clyde & Co on the future of K12 investing," hosted by EducationInvestor Global

LONDON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Nadim Nsouli, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Inspired Education Group, will participate in a webinar hosted by EducationInvestor Global on 11 June at 12:15pm BST focused on 'The Future of K12 Investing.'

Nsouli will join John Hayes, director at Rothschild and Co, an investment bank, and Ross Barfoot, partner at global law firm Clyde & Co, for a virtual panel discussion, chaired by Josh O'Neill, editor of EducationInvestor Global.

Together, the panellists will discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the international K12 sector. They will examine global issues through a corporate lens to identify the ways in which transaction metrics  such as valuations, price-to-earnings multiples and debt levels  will recalibrate in light of the coronavirus crisis to reflect changes to schools' operations, capacity and thus profitability. The panel will also shed light on how independent school owners, operators and investors can preserve value and protect brand integrity throughout this turbulent period and safeguard assets from future disruption through diversification.

"The benefits of being part of Inspired for our schools has never been clearer than in the past few months. We have been able to share lessons learned from across the world as our schools were closing down and going virtual one by one and we are now doing the same as many of them are reopening. It has been a difficult time for all but our management team, teachers and staff have shown exemplary fortitude and leadership," explains Nsouli.

Topics of discussion will also include:

Where investors in independent schools should be looking for opportunities amid Covid-19

How Inspired Education has navigated the Coronavirus crisis, without compromising educational quality

Diversification strategies to prepare school operators and their investors for future disruptive events

There will also be opportunities to put your own questions to the panellists during the webinar, which they will answer in a live Q&A following the panel discussion.

Commenting on the webinar, Vernon Baxter, managing director of Investor Publishing, said: "As the publisher of EducationInvestor Global, we are immensely excited about hosting a discussion between three industry leaders of such stature on such an important subject during these uncertain times."

"I have no doubt that, in this session, the panellists will share fascinating insights on this fast-moving environment and the discussion will make for essential viewing for decision-makers across the global K12 sector."

To register your free place at this webinar, please follow this link: https://www.ipevents.net/webinars/educationinvestor-webinars/school-of-thought/

For more information, please contact:

Shani Gerszenzon

Press and Communication Specialist

T: +34 913 459 946

M: +34 687123785

[email protected]

www.inspirededu.com



SOURCE Inspired Group

Related Links

http://www.inspirededu.com


The response that concerned aldermen the most was that of the National Guard, and the fact the aldermen did not know immediately that the unit was in the city. Several of them said they found out through social media postings.
[June 10, 2020] Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. Has Joined WIPO GREEN as a Contributing Partner

KAWANISHI, Japan, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. announced that they have joined WIPO GREEN as a contributing partner. WIPO GREEN is an open platform administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to connect green technology seekers and providers in order to spread and promote innovation in, and the increased use of, environmentally friendly technologies. WIPO GREEN aims to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by utilizing intellectual property to spread environmentally friendly technologies and promote innovation. By registering and publishing technologies on the WIPO GREEN online database, providers with advanced and environmentally friendly technologies that enable sustainable development will be able to connect with seekers who need such technologies. Since the establishment of WIPO GREEN in November 2013, more than 3,000 green technologies have been registered, and more than 600 connections have been made. Green Science Alliance focuses on the research and development of cutting-edge technology in the field of energy and environmentally-friendly technology, in order to achieve sustainable society. In April 2020, Green Science Alliance registered their environmental technology patents, such as 100 % nature biomass biodegradable resin, bioplastic and bioethanol (biofuel) from biomass waste, on the WIPO GREEN database, opening them for public use to create a better world. The Alliance will further register more of their environmental and energy friendly technologies. About WIPO GREEN WIPO GREEN is a global marketplace for sustainable technology, established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2013. Through its online database and regional activities, WIPO GREEN connects green technology seekers and providers in order to catalyze green innovation and accelerate green tech transfer and diffusion. The WIPO GREEN database is an online catalogue of sustainable solutions and needs across the world. It offers technologies from prototype to marketable products, available for license, collaboration, joint ventures, and sale. It also contains needs defined by companies, institutions, and non-governmental organizations looking for technologies to address specific environmental or climate change problems. Joining the WIPO GREEN database is easy and free of charge.



About Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. was established within Fuji Pigment Co., Ltd. as internal started up company on 2010 in Japan. Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. focuses on research and development of cutting-edge technologies in the field of energy and environmental green technology.

Research and business can be largely classified as following: 1. 100% nature biomass based biodegradable resin, bioplastic, nano cellulose, biodegradable resin uses waste wood, waste paper, bamboo, plant, starch, food waste as raw material. 2. Rechargeable battery, solar cell, fuel cell etc. for next generation. 3. Biofuel such as bioethanol made from waste biomass such as waste wood, waste plant, waste paper, food waste, etc. 4. Various types of cutting-edge material Quantum dot, metal organic framework (MOF), oxide nanocollids, metal nanocolloies, silver nanowire, chitin nanofiber, ionic liquid, noble metal alternative catalyst, visible light response photocatalytic material, artificial photosynthesis material, poly silica iron-based water coagulant chemical, etc. 5. CO2 storage and conversion technology, water harvesting from dry desert environment 6. Anti-bacterial, anti-virus materials. Green Science Alliance will keep challenging to develop cutting-edge good materials and products in the field of energy and environmentally friendly green technology in order to create better world. Please also refer to following links: WIPO GREEN: https://www3.wipo.int/wipogreen/en/ WIPO GREEN online database: https://www3.wipo.int/wipogreen-database/ Their environmental technology patents: https://www3.wipo.int/wipogreen-database/searchResultList.htm?query=Green+Science+Alliance&type=all&cat=0&sortby=date&filterby=all&rows=10&showAll=1 Media contact:

Ryohei Mori

[email protected]

81-72-7598501 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/green-science-alliance-co-ltd-has-joined-wipo-green-as-a-contributing-partner-301073474.html SOURCE Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd.

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Both Mid Ulster District Council and Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council have opened online books of condolence after the death in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Opening the book in Causeway Coast and Glens was outgoing mayor Sean Batesons final act as he relinquished the role at Monday nights AGM.

Chair of Mid Ulster Council, Cathal Mallaghan, said the book was available for anyone who feels something in the wake of Floyds death.

Racism is a real virus that lives in our communities and we should be doing everything we can to stamp it out, he said.

Normally, books of condolence would be open across our normal arts centres, but because of the Covid-19 restrictions, we will do it online.

I encourage everybody who feels something about this tragic case to get online and use this as a tool to express how you feel.

The death of George Floyd has sparked anti-racism protests across the globe, with protests held locally in Belfast and Derry over the weekend.

The books of condolence can be signed online via the Mid Ulster and Causeway Coast and Glens websites.
Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets in Nigeria to demand action and to combat sexual violence and rape against women in the country.

Sexual violence in Nigeria

On June 8, women's rights groups, composed of hundreds of members, marched to the state parliament in Lagos, Nigeria. They are demanding that the authorities declare a state of emergency on rape and sexual violence.

The march was sparked by the horrible deaths of Uwaila Vera Omozuwa, a 22-year-old student and Barakat Bello, another student. Both deaths were just a week apart.

Omozuwa was a 22-year-old university student from Benin City who went to church to study but was found in the pool of her own blood after she was raped and murdered on May 27. On June 1, Bello was another student who was raped and killed by thieves who robbed her home in Ibadan.

The increasing rape and murder of students over the past few months, including the increase in violence against teenage girls, have sparked demands for the government to take action on gender-based violence in Nigeria.

On June 8, the Women Against Rape in Nigeria group said in a petition that was submitted to lawmakers that the unfortunate events are not standalone, and that they are a result of unhealthy cultural practices in the country.

Also Read: New Normal? Man from Nigeria Sentenced to Death via Zoom

The group, also called WARN, is pushing for all states in the country to have a sex offenders list and for the list to be made available to the public. They are also pushing for measures to name and shame all perpetrators of rape and sexual violence.

The activists from several movements wore black outfits and they carried placards that read "End Rape" to demand government action against sexual violence.

Sexual survivors silenced

An activists and one of the women who organized the protest, Ebele Molua, said that Nigerian women have been violated and harassed for decades because the government still sees rape as a women issue, thus leaving women vulnerable to their abusers.

Molua added that in Nigeria, men catcalls and gropes women in the market and they become violent once women do not respond to their advances. Men dismiss the accounts of sexual violence and activists are demanding that this treatment of women needs to stop.

Even Nigerian celebrities have voiced their support over the matter, and they publicly denounced the sexual violence cases in the country. Citizens continue to gather in numerous cities in the country as they demand the government to arrest and charge the killers of the women who were raped and murdered.

On June 5, actress Hilda Dokubo joined the demonstration of a women's group and marched to the police headquarters in Lagos to demand justice for the rape and murder of students.

On June 1, another group of women's rights advocates, composed of mostly students, protested in Benin City.

According to UNICEF, one in four girls in the country has experienced sexual violence. Amnesty International has created a petition that is demanding justice over rape cases and murder of women in the country.

The organization stated that rape cases and femicide are not reported properly so the men who did the crime are still free. However, the latest killings of students in the country have forced authorities to think about the gravity of the problem.

The Human Rights Commission in the country has started a campaign on social media, which aims to educate men about sexual harassment and consent.

The police force in Nigeria is not innocent when it comes to gender violence. They have been accused of sexual harassment as well, but now they have stated that they will send police officers to guard the cities in the country and focus on sexual harassment cases.

Related Article: Nigerian Student Died Found Naked in a Pool of Blood Inside Church

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The United States nuclear energy industry has been in dire straits for years now. Despite the fact that nuclear has a huge advantage in the field of clean energy, with a well-established industry and infrastructure, zero carbon emissions, and an urgent need to curb greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, U.S. nuclear just cant catch a break.

Nuclear energy plants in the United States have been shutting down as other countries, most notably China and Russia, are ramping up their nuclear energy sectors. Even though the United States is responsible for a whopping third of all nuclear energy production worldwide, the country is quickly losing ground as nuclear plants struggle to turn a profit. Hit hard by the influx of cheap oil and natural gas from the domestic shale revolution, the nuclear energy industry in the U.S. is now being pummeled once again by COVID-19, and this time, many experts are wondering whether the industry can weather the storm.

Now, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is mobilizing to combat the failure of the domestic nuclear energy sector. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, the top brass of DOE and what loosely might be described as the nuclear energy establishment took to a webinar May 29 to explain and endorse the plan, Forbes reported this week. The industry was represented by Maria Korsnick, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the dominant nuclear power trade association, and by Clarence Bud Albright, CEO of the smaller U.S. Nuclear Industry Council. Related: China Set To Ramp Up Natural Gas Imports This Decade The ambitious plan to revitalize U.S. nuclear energy centers around the creation of a $1.5-billion uranium stockpile along with associated nuclear processing facilities, said Forbes. Collectively, these are known as the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. This feasibility of this plan has a strong foundation, considering that the United States is sitting on enough uranium to power the country for hundreds of years.

Last summer, the United States Uranium Committee of the Energy Minerals Division, an organization tasked with monitoring the nation's uranium and nuclear power industries, released their 2019 Annual Report at the yearly meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in San Antonio. The report assessed that the U.S. has more uranium than we would need to fuel hundreds of years of nuclear power generation, even if nuclear power was being relied on as a much more significant source of energy in the U.S., Oilprice reported at the time. This is great news for nuclear supporters in the United States, though historically the country has not mined its own uranium but imported the radioactive metal from other countries.

The DOEs idea of creating a uranium stockpile is appealing to the nuclear energy industry because mining and processing uranium into the yellowcake which is actually useful to the industry as fuel takes years. So this DOE project would allow the sector easier and more efficient access to fuel, to be sure, but will this really save the nuclear industry? Not really, since uranium has never been the issue.

Related: Global Oil Demand To Fall To Levels Not Seen Since 2014

According to Energy Secretary Brouillette, this plan for the new front end of the nuclear fuel cycle is both to revive the domestic industry and to protect the nuclear navy, as paraphrased by Forbes. But the DOE has undermined its own nuclear navy argument by stating that the nuclear navy is well-supplied with fuel until 2050, and more uranium in storage would do nothing for the nuclear industry which is in decline. It is the equivalent of getting a haircut to cure a stomachache.

According to Forbes reporting, this new plan lacks teeth because it does nothing to address what it identifies as the two real problems of the [nuclear energy] industry, which are the absence of a domestic market for new nuclear reactors and the difficulty in maintaining operations at the countrys existing plants. In fact, the U.S. has built next to zero new reactors in the last three decades, and those reactors that are managing to stay above water are largely doing so thanks to hefty government subsidies. And then there is the crushing cost of maintaining nuclear waste, which is falling on the shoulders of U.S. taxpayers. Forbes calls the shuttering of functioning nuclear power plants a tragedy and environmental vandalism.

So does the nuclear industry need help? Yes. Does it need innovation? Most certainly. Will a uranium stockpile provide help or innovation? Not in any significant way.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The finance ministry has proposed to decriminalise a host of minor offences, including those relating to cheque bounce and repayment of loans, in as many as 19 legislations to help businesses tide over the crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

The 19 legislations include Negotiable Instruments Act (cheque bounce), SARFAESI Act (repayment of bank loans), LIC Act, PFRDA Act, RBI Act, NHB Act, Banking Regulation Act and Chit Funds Act.

"Actions taken for decriminalisation of minor offences are expected to go a long way in improving ease of doing business and helping unclog the court system and prisons," the finance ministry said while inviting comments from stakeholders by June 23 on the 19 legislations.

"It would also be a significant step in the Government of India's objective of achieving 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas and Sabka Vishwas'," it noted.

Based on the feedback, the department of financial services will take a call as to whether a particular section should remain a criminal offence or if it should be suitably modified to decriminalise to improve ease of doing business.

The other legislations listed in the document for consultation for suitable amendments to decriminalise minor offences are Insurance Act, Payment and Settlements Systems Act, NABARD Act, State Financial Corporations Act, Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, and Factoring Regulation Act.

The Actuaries Act, the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act, the DICGC Act and the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act are also among the legislations.

Last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while announcing the fifth and final tranche of the Rs 20.97-lakh crore stimulus package for the economy hit by the coronavirus pandemic, had said that violations involving minor technical and procedural defaults would be decriminalised as effort to further ease of doing business in the country.

Taking a cue from the decriminalisation of minor offences under Companies Act, the department of financial services came out with a list of minor offences under various legislation and said decriminalisation of minor offences is one of the thrust areas of the government.

With regard to Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 relating to cheque bounce due to insufficient amount in the account, a person is deemed to have committed an offence and shall, without prejudice to any other provision of this Act, be punished with imprisonment for a term which may be extended to two years, or with fine which may extend to twice the amount of the cheque, or with both, it said.

For example, Section 40 of LIC Act, 1956 makes an act of a person who wilfully withholds or fails to deliver to LIC as required by section 13, any property or any books, documents or other papers which may be in his possession or unlawfully retains possession of any property of an insurer, punishable with imprisonment which may extend to one year, or with a fine of Rs 1,000 or both.

Similarly, it has proposed to decriminalise sections 36 AD (2) and 46 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and sections 58B (1), 58B (4A), section 58B (5) and section 58B (5A) of the RBI Act, 1934.

In order to develop a consensus, the department of financial services, which administers the Acts, has invited comments from state governments, UT administrations, civil society, academicians, public and private sector organisations and members of the public, it added.

Commenting on the finance ministry's proposal, Pratibha Jain, founding partner, Nishith Desai Associates, said it would provide relief to foreign investors for whom criminal liability for economic offences is a big concern.

Jain further said that "lack of clarity on the jurisdiction of SFIO, ED and CBI often results in multiple regulators and proceedings for the same offence, causing significant issue for defendants."

Moreover, she added, "Unlike some of the developed jurisdictions, Indian regulators especially SFIO and ED do not have processes to allow monetary penalties in lieu of imprisonment, especially for offences that are technical in nature."
Dr Lawrence said the Department of Health had been surprised by the low number of infections in people sharing a hotel room with a positive case. The good news is the transmission between people within a single hotel room seems to be quite low, and much lower than we would have ever thought, she said. Where weve had someone whos turned up positive and their friend or family are in the same room, only a very tiny number of them have ever become positive, in the single percentage points. Theres lot of theories why that might be; maybe that person is slightly more resistant to the bug, or perhaps they already had it. Dr Lawrence said if a person did return a positive test, their hotel room-mates were encouraged to move rooms and restart their 14-day quarantine period.

Curtin University infectious disease expert Archie Clements said WAs international border closure had been the most effective method for stopping the spread of COVID-19 in WA. If there were no interventions we could have ended up with thousands of cases, if not tens of thousands of cases from those 120 hotel quarantine positive cases, he said. Loading The cases would have set up a chain of transmission which would have exponentially grown the number of infections, but in reality we never would have got to that point before implementing other measures. Professor Clements said Australia and a handful of other countries had avoided sustained community transmission, including New Zealand, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The people arriving in Perth from overseas are coming from countries where the epidemic has gotten away and where there is large numbers of people infected and [their infections] probably suggest the true incident of infection is probably even higher [in that country] than what figures suggest, he said. WA currently has 28 active COVID-19 cases, but none of those people are in hospital. At the peak of the virus in early April, 59 people were hospitalised, with 18 in the intensive care unit. Dr Lawrence said the main cohort returning from overseas and interstate at that time were from cruise ships.

Hospitalisation is quite skewed by the cohort of passengers, so in the early days of passenger arrivals we have groups that came off cruise ships and of course just by virtue of the fact of the age group of people who tend to go on cruise ships, they tended to be older, which is a risk factor, she said. As the travellers returning have become younger and in particular families, weve had far, far fewer people hospitalised and when they have been hospitalised it might be just for a day or two as opposed to severe disease requiring intensive care. Dr Lawrence said scientists were still unsure of the cause of the virus in some passengers from the Costa Luminosa in Rome, who tested positive for coronavirus up to two weeks after leaving hotel quarantine. I dont think well ever know exactly why that happened, it was unusual, she said. We havent seen it in any other groups in any substantial numbers.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) Security today released new data examining the top challenges and threats impacting cloud security, indicating that the ease and speed at which new cloud tools can be deployed can also make it harder for security teams to control their usage. According to IBM survey data and case-study analysis, basic security oversight issues, including governance, vulnerabilities, and misconfigurations, remain the top risk factors organizations should address to help secure increasingly cloud-based operations. The case-study analysis of security incidents over the past year also sheds light on how cybercriminals are targeting cloud environments with customized malware, ransomware and more.

With businesses rapidly moving to cloud to accommodate remote workforce demands, understanding the unique security challenges posed by this transition is essential for managing risk. While the cloud enables many critical business and technology capabilities, ad-hoc adoption and management of cloud resources can also create complexity for IT and cybersecurity teams. According to IDC, more than a third of companies purchased 30+ types of cloud services from 16 different vendors in 2019 alone.1 This distributed landscape can lead to unclear ownership of security in the cloud, policy "blind spots" and potential for shadow IT to introduce vulnerabilities and misconfiguration.

In order to get a better picture of the new security reality as companies quickly adapt to hybrid, multi-cloud environments, IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) and IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS) examined the unique challenges impacting security operations in the cloud, as well as top threats targeting cloud environments. Top findings include:

Complex Ownership: 66% of respondents surveyed2 say they rely on cloud providers for baseline security; yet perception of security ownership by respondents varied greatly across specific cloud platforms and applications.2

Cloud Applications Opening the Door: The most common path for cybercriminals to compromise cloud environments was via cloud-based applications, representing 45% of incidents in IBM X-Force IRIS cloud-related case studies.3 In these cases, cybercriminals took advantage of configuration errors as well as vulnerabilities within the applications, which often remained undetected due to employees standing up new cloud apps on their own, outside of approved channels.

Amplifying Attacks: While data theft was the top impact of the cloud attacks studied3, hackers also targeted the cloud for cryptomining and ransomware4  using cloud resources to amplify the effect of these attacks.

"The cloud holds enormous potential for business efficiency and innovation, but also can create a 'wild west' of broader and more distributed environments for organizations to manage and secure," said Abhijit Chakravorty, Cloud Security Competency Leader, IBM Security Services. "When done right, cloud can make security scalable and more adaptable  but first, organizations need to let go of legacy assumptions and pivot to new security approaches designed specifically for this new frontier of technology, leveraging automation wherever possible. This starts with a clear picture of regulatory obligations and compliance mandate, as well as the unique technical and policy-driven security challenges and external threats targeting the cloud."

Who owns Security in the Cloud?

A survey from IBM Institute for Business Value found that responding organizations that relied heavily on cloud providers to own security in the cloud, despite the fact that configuration issues  which are typically users' responsibility  were most often to blame for data breaches (accounting for more than 85% of all breached records in 2019 for surveyed organizations).4

Additionally, perceptions of security ownership in the cloud for surveyed organizations varied widely across various platforms and applications. For example, the majority of respondents (73%) believed public cloud providers were the main party responsible for securing software-as-a-service (SaaS), while only 42% believed providers were primarily responsible for securing cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).3

While this type of shared responsibility model is necessary for the hybrid, multi-cloud era, it can also lead to variable security policies and a lack of visibility across cloud environments. Organizations that are able to streamline cloud and security operations can help reduce this risk, through clearly defined policies which apply across their entire IT environment.

Top Threats in the Cloud: Data Theft, Cryptomining and Ransomware

In order to get a better picture of how attackers are targeting cloud environments, X-Force IRIS incident response experts conducted an in-depth analysis of cloud-related cases the team responded to over the past year.5 The analysis found:

Cybercriminals Leading the Charge: Financially motivated cybercriminals were the most commonly observed threat group category targeting cloud environments in IBM X-Force incident response cases, though nation state actors are also a persistent risk.

Exploiting Cloud Apps: The most common entry point for attackers was via cloud applications, including tactics such as brute-forcing, exploitation of vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. Vulnerabilities often remained undetected due to "shadow IT," when an employee goes outside approved channels and stands up a vulnerable cloud app. Managing vulnerabilities in the cloud can be challenging, since vulnerabilities in cloud products remained outside the scope of traditional CVEs until 2020.

Ransomware in the Cloud: Ransomware was deployed 3x more than any other type of malware in cloud environments in IBM incident response cases, followed by cryptominers and botnet malware.

Data Theft: Outside of malware deployment, data theft was the most common threat activity IBM observed in breached cloud environments over the last year, ranging from personally identifying information (PII) to client-related emails.

Exponential Returns: Threat actors used cloud resources to amplify the effect of attacks like cryptomining and DDoS. Additionally, threat groups used the cloud to host their malicious infrastructure and operations, adding scale and an additional layer of obfuscation to remain undetected.

"Based on the trends in our incident response cases, it's likely that malware cases targeting cloud will continue to expand and evolve as cloud adoption increases," said Charles DeBeck, IBM X-Force IRIS. "Our team has observed that malware developers have already begun making malware that disables common cloud security products, and designing malware that takes advantage of the scale and agility offered by the cloud."

Maturing CloudSec Can Lead to Faster Security Response

While the cloud revolution is posing new challenges for security teams, organizations who are able to pivot to a more mature and streamlined governance model for cloud security can help their security agility and response capabilities.

The survey from IBM Institute for Business Value found that responding organizations who ranked high maturity in both Cloud and Security evolution were able to identify and contain data breaches faster than colleagues who were still in early phases of their cloud adoption journey. In terms of data breach response time, the most mature organizations surveyed were able to identify and contain data breaches twice as fast as the least mature organizations (average threat lifecycle of 125 days vs. 250 days).

As the cloud becomes essential for business operations and an increasingly remote workforce, IBM Security recommends that organizations focus on the following elements to help improve cybersecurity for hybrid, multi-cloud environments:

Establish collaborative governance and culture: Adopt a unified strategy that combines cloud and security operations  across application developers, IT Operations and Security. Designate clear policies and responsibilities for existing cloud resources as well as for the acquisition of new cloud resources.

Take a risk-based view: Assess the kinds of workload and data you plan to move to the cloud and define appropriate security policies. Start with a risk-based assessment for visibility across your environment and create a roadmap for phasing cloud adoption.

Apply strong access management: Leverage access management policies and tools for access to cloud resources, including multifactor authentication, to prevent infiltration using stolen credentials. Restrict privileged accounts and set all user groups to least-required privileges to minimize damage from account compromise (zero trust model).

Have the right tools: Ensure tools for security monitoring, visibility and response are effective across all cloud and on-premise resources. Consider shifting to open technologies and standards which allow for greater interoperability between tools.

Automate security processes: Implementing effective security automation in your system can help improve your detection and response capabilities, rather than relying on manual reaction to events.

Use proactive simulations: Rehearse for various attack scenarios; this can help identify where blind spots may exist, and also address any potential forensic issues that may arise during attack investigation.

To view the X-Force IRIS Cloud Security Landscape Report, download the full report here.

X-Force IRIS will also host a webinar on June 10, 1:00pm ET to discuss the findings; register here.

Media Contact:

Cassy Lalan

IBM Security Media Relations

319-230-2232

[email protected]

1 IDC CloudPulse Summary Q119

2 IBM Institute for Value Survey of 930 senior business and IT professionals

3 IBM X-Force IRIS: "Cloud Security Landscape Report"

4 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, 2020

5 IBM X-Force IRIS "Cloud Landscape Report," based on client incident response cases taking place between June 2018 and March 2020

SOURCE IBM
The Army is considering following the lead of the Marine Corps and Navy in banning Confederate flags on bases, Military.com has learned.

Army leaders are reviewing the Marine Corps' new policy banning Confederate flags and are considering a similar move, a defense official told Military.com. No decision has been made, the official added, but discussions are underway on the matter. Army officials acknowledged earlier this week that the service's secretary, Ryan McCarthy, was considering changing the names of bases honoring Confederate leaders.

The Navy announced on Tuesday that its top admiral directed his staff to craft an order prohibiting the Confederate battle flag on public spaces and work areas on installations, ships, aircraft and submarines.

Read Next: Navy Moves to Ban Confederate Flags on Bases, Ships and Public Spaces

"The order is meant to ensure unit cohesion, preserve good order and discipline, and uphold the Navy's core values of honor, courage and commitment," Cmdr. Nate Christensen, spokesman for Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, said.

The Marine Corps recently made official a policy banning Confederate flags that has been in the works since February. The Air Force has not returned a request for comment on whether it's reviewing the issue.

Top military leaders have been addressing the issue of racism in the ranks following the nation's unrest after George Floyd, a black man, died in police custody in Minnesota last month. In a recent letter to the force, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville and Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston said they are committed to treating everyone with dignity and respect.

"Our ability to defend this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic, is founded upon a sacred trust with the American people," they wrote. "Racial division erodes that trust."

Former military leaders, including retired Gen. David Petraeus have applauded the Army's willingness to consider renaming iconic Army bases in the wake of Floyd's death. The changes could affect iconic Army bases, such as Forts Bragg and Benning.

Col. Sunset Belinsky, an Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said McCarthy and Defense Secretary Mark Esper are open to a bipartisan discussion on the issue.

"Each Army installation is named for a soldier who has a significant place in our military history," Belinsky added. "Accordingly, the historic names represent individuals, not causes or ideologies."

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: The Army Will Consider Renaming Bases that Honor Confederate Leaders
The harsh immigration bill will needlessly shut out people trying to contribute to society, say Catholic leaders in a stinging attack on the plans.

They also warn that many thousands of EU citizens risk being left without legal status unless there are changes to the much-criticised settled status scheme.

And they urge Priti Patel, the home secretary, to use the bill to end indefinite detention of immigrants, condemning its devastating consequences for the vulnerable, including victims of torture.

The criticisms  as the bill is debated in detail in the Commons  come after The Independent revealed some Conservative MPs are urging Boris Johnson to soften the impact on lower-paid migrants, the heroes of the coronavirus crisis.

The former Tory cabinet minister David Davis, meanwhile, is leading a revolt against cruel detention without limit, warning it is making the scandal of modern slavery worse.

Now Catholic bishops have protested that the legislation will drastically alter peoples opportunities to build their lives here and contribute to society.

In a joint statement, leaders in England, Wales and Scotland also push for:

* A meaningful safety-net to ensure EU citizens are not left in limbo by the June 2021 deadline for settled status applications  including an extension, if necessary.

* A time limit on immigration detention  warning victims of torture, survivors of trafficking and people fleeing religious persecution are being locked up indefinitely.

Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration Show all 3 1 /3 Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration 405361.bin GETTY IMAGES Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration 405362.bin GETTY IMAGES Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration 405363.bin GETTY IMAGES

* The scrapping of the minimum income threshold for family visas  which unjustly separates tens of thousands of couples, parents and children.

* The repeal of laws against illegal working  because fear of prosecution deters people from escaping abusive employment practices or exploitation.

The bill  to replace free movement of EU citizens, after Brexit is completed next January  will impose a minimum salary threshold of 25,600 for most workers seeking to enter the UK.

There will be no exemptions for so-called low-skilled jobs, other than seasonal workers, and social care has been excluded from a list of shortage occupations with a lower wage floor of as low as 20,480.

Around 70 per cent of the 200,000 EU migrants who have come to the UK each year are expected to be excluded by the new rules, officials believe  which would mean around 140,000 shut out.

On settled status, the statement reads: No scheme will reach all European citizens in the UK.

Even if a small proportion do not make an application by the June 2021 deadline, this could leave thousands of people without legal status.

And, on indefinite detention, the bishops said: The UK remains the only European country without a time limit on detention.

This has devastating consequences for the wellbeing of vulnerable individuals who find themselves detained including some victims of torture, survivors of trafficking and people fleeing religious persecution in their home countries.

But a Home Office spokesperson defended the bill, saying: Change is vital if we are to deliver a high-skill, high-wage and high productivity economy.
British borders are not ready for leaving the single market at the end of the year, with a lack of information and a shortage of customs officers making it impossible to prepare, MPs have been told.

The government is well short of recruiting the 50,000 customs officers customs authorities say are needed, with trade experts warning that restrictions on space at some ports is also causing problems.

Were not ready, and were not entirely sure what we need to be ready for, Dr Anna Jerzewska of the UK Trade Policy Observatory told the Commons EU committee.

We dont really know whats going to happen at the border on 1 January ... we dont know how this border will function.

Dr Jerzewska said information provided by the government so far such as what tariffs would be charged on goods was welcome, but that the business community was waiting for ministers to explain what the UKs border operating model would be before it could take concrete steps.

In terms of border readiness, one of the issues here is the fact theres a lot of different actors that need to be ready: HMRC, Border Force, companies, as well as customs brokers, freight operators and port authorities, she said.

We also have certain places where this readiness will cause more of an issue than in other ports: we have our roll-on-roll-off ports where the readiness aspect is much more complicated than in other types of port because of time constraints and lack of space.

Sam Lowe, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Centre for European Reform told the same hearing of the Commons EU future relationship committee that many things needed to be sorted irrespective of whether the government managed to get a deal with the EU or not.

From a preparedness point of view, due to the nature of the future relationship that is on the table, most of these questions apply whether there is a free trade agreement or not, he said.

Lots of the information thats currently missing needs to be provided regardless: so I would echo Annas call that it would be very useful to see the business preparedness model soon.

Under the governments plans, customs and regulatory checks on trade will be introduced on goods travelling between the EU and UK, potentially disrupting supply chains.

The government separately wants these goods to be tariff and quota free, and is trying to negotiate a trade deal to achieve this  but the checks and extra customs capacity will be needed no matter what happens.

Dr Jerzewska highlighted a shortfall in the number of customs officers compared to the number planned by the government and suggested a training was well behind an estimated requirement set by the sector.

Asked whether there would be enough, she said: The simple answer here is no. Even before Brexit, the referendum, theres been a short supply of these people. Customs has always been one of these skills that has been lacking in the UK ... weve never actually had enough people of customs knowledge for all the conditions and requirements that we have.

I think HMRC customs academy, I think the number of around 1,000 people. When you look at other countries thats actually a good number, a realistic number of people you can train.

The expectation to train 50,000 people, first of all, we dont have them because we dont have 50,000 people interested in a career in customs, strangely enough. She added that this target wasnt a very realistic expectation.

Business groups warned last week that the UK would be heading for food shortages in the event of a no-deal exit from the single market. The British Retail Consortium warned that the clock is ticking really loudly and said a disorderly Brexit would mean a bigger challenge than the food supply chain faced with Covid.

Speaking after the committee hearing, UK Chamber of Shipping chief executive Bob Sanguinetti said: We believe it is increasingly difficult to see how any new infrastructure will be ready in time given we do not yet know what type of checks will be required.

There is very little space available in existing ports for new facilities, and complex IT reporting arrangements have to be agreed and introduced. These are the two major challenges.

These were huge projects for the UK government before the coronavirus pandemic and day by day it is increasingly difficult to see how the original timelines can be achieved. We are not calling for an extension to the transition period but we urgently need clarity about our future border requirements.

Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty

The deadline to ask for more time to negotiate a deal is the end of this month, with an extension of up to two years on the table. But Boris Johnson has said he will not ask for extra time.

Asked why the government would not extend on Tuesday, cabinet office minister Penny Mordaunt told the Commons that the government wanted to get a deal as soon as possible to give businesses more time to prepare.

There has been effectively no progress in Brexit trade talks since they kicked off at the start of the year, with both sides stuck on the issues of fishing, a level playing field for regulations, the governance of any deal, and judicial and policing cooperation. The trade experts at the EU committee on Wednesday were however relatively upbeat about the prospect of a deal because of the importance of securing one to both economies.

The UK left the EU at the end of January this year but is currently in a transition period during which its economic arrangements stay the same. This period is due to end on 31 December this year.

An HMRC spokesperson said: "The UK already has a well established industry of customs intermediaries who serve British businesses trading outside the EU, and weve injected 34m into growing the intermediary sector to support trade after the end of the transition period."
Chinas expanding presence in the Middle East places Syria as a strategic target for its desired sphere of influence, while tensions with the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic are now propelling its increased interest in the country.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has tried to court China, seeking Beijings help to legitimize his rule over the country and restore the damage from the nine-year-long conflict. It seems that Assad feels China would secure a viable post-war Syria under his auspices.

Last December, Assad welcomed greater Chinese investment, saying, Now, with the liberation of most areas, we have started discussions with a number of Chinese companies experienced in reconstruction.

He continued, It is well known that rebuilding countries destroyed partially or totally by war is very profitable and has high returns on investment."

On May 31, Syrias Foreign Ministry backed Chinas introducing of national security legislation and its imposition of sovereignty over Hong Kong.

Syria has been eager to promote itself as part of the Belt and Road Initiative [BRI], often calling on the mythology of the Silk Road and the importance Damascus holds in that history, Lucille Greer, research fellow at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, told Al-Monitor.

Officials highlight Syria's geographic connections to Europe and Africa, a point that China echoes as well. There are plans to include Syria in the slew of railroads that China is building in the region in the name of the BRI, Greer added.

Assads military backers  Russia and Iran  lack the financial means to meet Syrias reconstruction needs, estimated between $250 million and $400 billion.

Though Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia are warming to Damascus  particularly after Abu Dhabis Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed called Assad March 27, expressing the UAEs support for the Syrian people in this time  they would struggle to bypass European Union and US sanctions on Syria. Therefore, China is the only country Assad can turn to.

China certainly has interest in investing in Syria. The Syrian-Chinese Business Council states on its website that Syrian and foreign companies will participate [in Syrias reconstruction], and Chinese companies will have the largest share. Both states have strong trade ties, while Beijing and Damascus have signed various memorandums of understanding, including to cover repairing and protecting Syrian heritage sites and exhibit Chinese products in Syria.

It has also offered limited humanitarian aid in 2017, signing aid agreements worth $40 million, showing Beijing has so far held back on its desires to greatly invest in the country. However, Chinas investments in post-war Iraq may serve as a blueprint for its aspirations in Syria.

China, along with Russia, has repeatedly vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions against the Assad regime, showing its alignment with Moscow on Syria.

Meanwhile, Beijings ideological and security concerns make the Assad regime seem more appealing. Like Assad does against his opposition in Syria, China utilizes counterterrorism rhetoric to justify its widely criticized crackdown on Xinjiangs Uighur Muslim population, which Syria supports. As military advisers and fighters from Xinjiang have operated alongside Syrias opposition, Beijing seeks cooperation with the regime over this issue.

There were also rumors during the Arab Spring that the democratic fervor would spread to China, which made Beijing very nervous, said Greer. Syria plays up this insecurity in order to keep alive the relevance of Chinas partnership with them.

China has supported the Assad regime, in line with their stated principles of noninterference in the country's affairs. Yet this is largely a farce given that they actively prefer the regime, James Dorsey, award-winning journalist and senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, told Al-Monitor, thus highlighting Chinas favorability toward Syrias regime.

At the beginning of the battle for Idlib, Beijing weighed the possibility of sending in Chinas military force, Dorsey noted. Yet military involvement was always inconceivable, and it may simply go along with a Gaza Strip model for Idlib but would prefer for it to be retaken.

While Assads control over the country would provide stability for Chinese investments, Beijing is also cautious of security risks for Chinese personnel and investments, having withdrawn business opportunities from Yemen and Libya following their conflicts. Meanwhile, past pressure from Washington and Turkeys current involvement in Idlib means Beijing has previously sought to work around this and avoid overt interference.

Meanwhile, amid Beijings previously increased attentiveness in the country, China has upped its focus in Syria over the countrys coronavirus outbreak, while it has used COVID-19 diplomacy to bolster its ties elsewhere regionally, particularly the Gulf.

On May 18, Yao Shaojun, China's acting deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, called for de-escalation and cooperation over the virus that causes COVID-19, adding, There is a window of opportunity to promote inclusive dialogue and create favorable conditions for a political solution [to address the virus]."

However, China has delivered limited coronavirus aid to Syria, including just two cardboard boxes worth of supplies on May 13, and around 2,000 testing kits on April 15. It has not altered its policies because of the virus; its gestures are more symbolic and reputational boosting, presenting itself as a leader in fighting the virus.

On the other hand, increasing global Chinese and American tensions  which have spiked after accusations over the others handling of the virus  could prompt Beijing further toward Syrian investment. Dorsey noted, As China currently has three ports in Haifa and Ashkelon in Israel and Piraeus in Athens, Chinas port empire may be threatened given that there is serious pressure from Washington on Israel to relinquish Haifa.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview while visiting Jerusalem May 14, We do not want the Chinese Communist Party to have access to Israeli infrastructure, Israeli communication systems, all of the things that put Israeli citizens at risk. Later that month, Israel rejected a $1.5 billion contract for China to construct a power plant.

While the United States warned its other Middle Eastern allies against accepting Chinese investment, these evident risks to Chinas strategic ties with Israel would force Beijing to focus on countries that are nonaligned with the United States, namely Syria.

China would therefore eye up investing in ports in Syrias Latakia and Tartus, thus looking further toward Syria, should it lose influence in Haifa, Dorsey added. While China is also looking at Tripolis port in Lebanon, Syria would be a central part of Beijings leverage over the eastern Mediterranean, helping it bypass the Suez Canal, and outmatch the US Fifth Fleet.

In October 2018, China provided 800 electrical power generators to Syrias Latakia port, showing its preparedness to invest there. Last December, Russia announced plans to invest $500 million in Syrias Tartus port, yet Dorsey argued that this will not hinder Chinas involvement, given their close alliance.

The threat of US sanctions would have previously deterred China from excessive involvement in Syria, yet the harsh climate of US-China relations today may trigger Beijing revising its previously restricted stance.
New Delhi: With the whole world coming to a standstill due to the unprecedented outbreak of the coronavirus, tech-giant Google has come up with a new feature that will let users know about the COVID-19 related information when they venture out.

In a blog post by Ramesh Nagarajan, the Product Management Director of Google Maps, he informed that they are introducing a new feature for Android and iOS users to help them easily find important information if they need to venture out, whether its by car or public transportation.

When you look up public transit directions for a trip that is likely to be affected by COVID-19 restrictions, well show relevant alerts from local transit agencies. These alerts can help you prepare accordingly if government mandates impact transit services or require you to wear a mask on public transportation, said Nagarajan.

These transit alerts are currently being introduced in India, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, France, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, and the US.

Google Maps are also introducing driving alerts to notify users about the COVID-19 checkpoints and restrictions along their routes, like when crossing national borders. These features will be first rolled out in Canada, Mexico, and the US where the user will see an alert on the directions screen and after starting navigation if the route is impacted by these restrictions.

When navigating to medical facilities or COVID-19 testing centers, Google Maps will display an alert reminding users to verify eligibility and facility guidelines to avoid being turned away or causing additional strain on the local healthcare system.

They are starting the alerts for medical facilities in Indonesia, Israel, the Philippines, South Korea, and the US, and testing center alerts will be available in the US.

In 2019, Google introduced crowdedness predictions for public transit in Google Maps.

Powered by tens of millions of contributions from past riders, these predictions help people see how crowded a particular bus line or train tends to be.

Google Maps is now making it simpler for people to contribute crowdedness information for their transit lines. Look up Directions, tap through to see the Transit Details, then scroll down to find crowdedness predictions (where available) and easily contribute your own experiences.

Additionally, in February, Google Maps also announced new insights like temperature, accessibility, and security on-board, as well as designated womens sections in regions where transit systems have them.

These insights are now rolled out globally, helping users find feedback from past riders when available and submit their own, right alongside public transit routes.

To help wheelchair users around the world know before they go, Google Maps has added more granular accessibility information for people to find and contribute, including where there are wheelchair accessible doors, seating, stop buttons, and more.

To ensure proper social distancing, commuters are paying attention to how crowded or comfortable their ride and transit station will be.

Starting today, users can easily see the times when a transit station is historically more or less busy to plan their trips accordingly or can look at live data showing how busy it is right now compared to its usual level of activity.

Simply search for a station in Google Maps or tap on the station on the map to see the departure board and busyness data, where available.


The Rajasthan medical and health department announced on Wednesday that it will test all foreign travellers arriving in the state for Codi-19 after they complete seven days of institutional quarantine.

It has been observed that many of these people tested positive when they reached their home districts after spending seven days in institutional quarantine, said an order by Rohit Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary of health department,

Non-resident Rajasthanis travelling from abroad are put in seven days each of institutional quarantine and home quarantine.

For prevention for Covid-19 infection, spread and to break the chain of infections, it has been decided in public interest that every foreign traveller will be tested for coronavirus disease before going in home quarantine, said the order.

Meanwhile, 355 new cases were reported on Wednesday, taking Rajasthans Covid-19 tally to 11,600, even though the number of active cases was only 2,772. Four deaths were also reported on Wednesday. The Covid-19 death toll in Rajasthan now stands at 259.

Earlier, health minister Raghu Sharma said cases had soared in the last eight days and the department was looking into the reasons for it.

Our recovery rate is 75%, which is heartening, but the rise in numbers is worrying, he said. The minister said Rajasthans doubling rate was 22 days, which was better than the national average of 16 days.

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Building Uncertainty

Will projects resume? And if they do, will they spread the virus?

by Patrick Dunn

From the June, 2020 issue

Construction was one of the first industries Michigan allowed to reopen in May--but it wasn't immediately clear how much would actually occur. Scio Township supervisor Jack Knowles says that even he doesn't know if some projects are going to resume. A new retail development to the north of the Jackson Rd. Meijer store was ready to start when the pandemic hit, with earth-moving equipment on site. "Now the equipment's gone, and I don't know what their plans are."



Ann Arbor building official Glen Dempsey says he's not aware of any cancellations in the city. But the biggest approved projects are campus-area high rises--and with the future of on-campus education uncertain, investors may well rethink them.



Both Dempsey and Knowles stressed that they're just beginning to assess the pandemic's effect on construction. "It's going to take a while to see what the impacts are," Knowles says.



Work on the bike-pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks near Main and Depot streets never stopped during the shutdown--"considered essential continued without delay," Dempsey emails. Giant cranes installed three precast concrete tunnels overnight in May.



It was an impressive feat, but it didn't bode well for hopes of avoiding an infection "rebound." On two visits to the site that day, all workers were wearing hard hats and high-visibility vests--but many stood elbow-to-elbow, and not one wore a mask.



[Originally published in June, 2020.]








Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has held a phone conversation with Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to discuss cooperation between the two countries in the financial sphere and the introduction of visa liberalization, the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has reported.

According to the report, the parties assured each other of their desire to continue the active development of bilateral cooperation despite the difficult situation amid the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and discussed a wide range of topical issues.

"The Prime Minister of Ukraine and the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada discussed cooperation between the two countries in the financial sphere and the introduction of visa liberalization between Canada and Ukraine," the report reads.

The talks also focused on the extension of the bilateral free trade agreement between Ukraine and Canada (CUFTA) to the sphere of services and investment. Shmyhal said that trade between the two countries could be significantly increased.

Freeland, in turn, said that Ukraine and Canada had shown an example of positive cooperation during the coronavirus pandemic and expressed interest in deepening cooperation in the trade and economic sphere. In addition, she assured the Ukrainian side of support in counteracting Russia's armed aggression and of continuing the course for imposing sanctions against the aggressor country.

Shmyhal thanked Freeland for the consistent support of Ukraine on the international stage and expressed confidence that cooperation between the two countries would continue to deepen.

op
Johnson was behind the desk, out in the field and often the lead story at 10 p.m., Stafford said. Even after decades of work, Johnson could be spotted in his office working on the script, meticulously polishing every word. His reporting and writing was thoughtful, poignant and he used just the right amount of words."
London: Prime Minister Boris Johnson is under fresh pressure over his handling of the coronavirus crisis after one of Britain's most influential experts said introducing a lockdown just one week earlier would have cut the country's death toll by at least half.

Professor Neil Ferguson - the Imperial College London mathematician and epidemiologist whose research prompted Johnson and US President Donald Trump to introduce strict measures in late March - delivered the bombshell claim during testimony to MPs on Wednesday.

His evidence suggests 25,000 lives could have been saved had Britain implemented a lockdown at the same time as its European neighbours instead of waiting until March 23.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing fresh questions about his government's response to the COVID-19 crisis. Credit:Getty

Pushed on whether he had acted too late, Johnson said it was "too early to judge ourselves" and also declined to nominate any aspect of the government's response he regretted with hindsight.


ZURICH (dpa-AFX) - Swiss engineering company ABB Ltd.'s (ANN.L, ABB) chief executive officer Bjorn Rosengren said that the company will focus on having a stable structure and profitability before embarking on growth. The group's mid-term financial targets remain in place.



The company's mid-term financial targets of a 3-6 percent comparable revenue growth per year, an operational EBITA margin of 13-16 percent, and earnings per share growing at a faster rate than revenue growth, remain in place, Rosengren said in an investor webcast.



The chief executive said the company will provide an update on the strategy, including long-term 2030 sustainability targets, later this year at the Group's Capital Market Day in November 2020.



The company is still facing challenging quarters ahead due to the COVID-19 global pandemic and a drop in the oil price. This has led to a decline in demand in the automotive and power generation end markets, while travel restrictions and supply chain constraints also have an impact on business, Rosengren said.



At today's event, the company's chief financial officer Timo Ihamuotila said that the company expects to complete a sale of the Power Grids business to Hitachi at the end of the second quarter of 2020. ABB remains committed to a share buyback program using net cash proceeds from the transaction.



A new operating model ABB Way is evolving from the current ABB-OS, which is on track to deliver the targeted $500 million cost savings, with the full run-rate benefit during 2021.



ABB said it will empower 18 divisions comprised within the four business areas.



As part of the ABB Way, corporate functions will focus on financial, strategic and governance activities in the future and have a reduced headcount of less than 1,000 employees worldwide, the company said.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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My friend Jim called me with urgency in his voice; his elderly father, living alone in New York City during the peak of the pandemic, had a multiday fever and was losing weight. He wanted to know, should he take him to the hospital?

My typical response in this case  sudden illness in an otherwise healthy person  would have been yes. As an ICU doctor, I have sometimes been able to save elderly patients with serious urinary tract infections or pneumonia. If Jims father had one of those infections, the hospital might save his life, or at least buy him some time to figure out next steps. But after three weeks of doctoring in a pandemic, I realized that my answer had changed.

Jims father lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. While many other elders chose to stay inside, he had continued to take frequent walks and shop at the neighborhood bodega. I realized that there was a distinct possibility that COVID-19 was responsible for his symptoms. This virus was different from the more common bacterial infections I was used to. Coronavirus wreaked havoc on older bodies and had no proven cure. By that point Id cared for several very sick elderly patients with COVID-19, all of whom were in the process of dying, with no family or friends allowed to visit. Id watched too many families sob their goodbyes to intubated loved ones on Zoom, the phone held next to the patient's ear by PPE-wearing nurses. This was not the death that I imagined Jims father  or for that matter, anyone  would want.

Jim was still on the line, What do you think I should do with my dad? It suddenly felt as if there wasnt a moment to spare. Listen, I told him, You really need to plan quickly because you might not have a lot of time. Your father might deteriorate fast and Im not sure that the hospital is the best place for him to go. The truth is that if he goes in he may never come out. You may never see him alive again. I was surprised at the words coming out of my mouth. As a palliative care doctor, Ive learned how important it is to take time to discuss end-of-life medical decisions with patients, friends and family. It is hard for people to confront their mortality in a rush. We learn to create a space where it feels safe to explore ones values and preferences before making serious, even irreversible decisions. But the shocking pace of this pandemic spurred me on.

Jim was silent for a beat. Then his voice caught as he realized that he was in a situation that few Americans have previously had to imagine. He needed to talk with his father about something that few of us ever summon the courage to do, even when there isnt a pandemic breathing down our necks.

Dad wouldnt want to go into the hospital if he has coronavirus, he finally said with resolve. I need to go and get him. But there was more difficult information to process. If his father went home sick with COVID-19, he would need medical support for any symptoms he might have; whether shortness of breath, anxiety, pain. And so I forwarded Jim the numbers of several hospice agencies in the event that they would need quick access to one.

The hospital has always been thought of as the best place to go if youre really sick. Studies show that while approximately 80% of Americans prefer to die at home, only half that number actually do, the other half tempted by the false promise that the hospital will surely save them. The fantasy of perpetual life is an ingrained part of the American psyche, and weve all, patient and doctor alike, cast the hospital in the starring role. People with advanced age or serious illness come expecting help, but too often get treatments that make things worse.

They are placed on what I call the end-of-life conveyor belt, their bodies treated like objects, the focus being on their organ dysfunction and diseases instead of on them. Their preferences are ignored or never even elicited in the first place. This has resulted over the past many decades in a public health crisis of non-beneficial, high-technology deaths. The palliative care movement rose up in protest against it, but our culture is slow to change. People keep coming to the hospital as a mecca of hope, with its ICUs and machines.

But now, COVID-19 has made it impossible to pretend. The data are clear: Elderly or chronically ill people who become sick enough from COVID-19 to need a ventilator will not likely benefit from one. Many will die on those machines, or quickly after being liberated from one. With visitation from friends and family essentially prohibited, they will go through this alone, likely to suffer agonizing and lonely deaths at the end of machines. Its truly dystopian, and its happening now.

This feels so dramatic, yet its simply highlighting the fact that hospitals and ICUs were never the best solution for people with serious illness, frailty or end-stage illness. Even without the visitation restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, few family members can maintain a bedside vigil for their loved one in a hospital or long-term care facility. And even without the extra ravages of COVID-19 upon the elderly and chronically ill, end-stage illness doesnt usually respond to heroic ICU maneuvers. Long before COVID, and I suspect long after it, too many patients with advanced age and life-limiting illness will be harmed by their choice to come to the hospital for support and respite.

Maybe its time to reconsider our view of the hospital as the solution. We have learned a harsh lesson about its limitations these past months, especially for those who are at high risk of dying if infected by the coronavirus. For them, the possibility of dying alone on machines that are not helping, surrounded by harried, gowned and gloved health care providers, might be a risk they are unwilling to take. Its not to say that one shouldnt go  hospitals still can be a solution for certain conditions even among this population but the full set of outcomes must be weighed, and the choice not motivated by desperation or fantasy.

And so COVID-19 has a lesson to teach us all  even when this virus is long gone: the hospital is rarely a good place to die. If you are in a group that will be less likely to benefit, do you really want to go? And if you dont, what are your plans?

Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH is a palliative medicine and critical care doctor in Oakland and the author of Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Twitter: @Jessica Zitter
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Covid-19 could actually be up to four times less deadly than feared, according to a controversial estimate.

A review of antibody surveillance studies  which paint a much clearer picture of how many people have really been infected  suggests the coronavirus has a mortality rate of 0.25 per cent, meaning it kills one in every 400 people who get it.

Most coronavirus modelling, including the grim Imperial College London projection that warned 500,000 Brits could die without action and convinced ministers to impose a lockdown, are based on a death rate of around 1 per cent. For comparison, seasonal flu is estimated to kill around 0.1 per cent of patients.

The new estimate was based on figures from 23 different testing surveys carried out worldwide, which suggested the actual mortality rate ranged from as low as 0.02 to as high as 0.78 per cent.

Researchers looking into how deadly coronavirus is by looking at antibodies said the average death rate among patients was 0.25 per cent. This is at least four times less deadly than feared. The above graph shows is it slightly more deadly than seasonal flu.

The findings suggest up to 20million people across the UK  roughly a third of the nation  have had the disease.

That contrasts with official estimates from Public Health England which suggest just 4.67million people in England have had it  8.5 per cent of the population. Other data from the Office for National Statistics suggest the rate is 6.89 per cent  3.79million.

The study was led by Stanford University's Dr John Ioannadis, an epidemiologist who was among a trio of scientists accused last month of trying to make Covid-19 seem less lethal after they claimed the virus was 54 times more prevalent than official data showed.

Experts have questioned the estimate, casting doubt on the way the study was done and saying that signs point to the virus being considerably more deadly.

Estimates of the true death rate among people who have the coronavirus range wildly and, experts admit, are tied closely to certain population groups. For example, fatality rates will be naturally higher in places where there is a large elderly population

Dr Ioannadis used antibody studies  considered the best way to discover the true size of an outbreak  to work out an infection-fatality rate.

The size of Covid-19 outbreaks in many countries, such as the UK, remain a mystery because of controversial decisions to abandon mass-testing.

Antibodies are made in response to infections. The immune system stores them to remember how to fight off certain diseases.

Data from the antibody tests should be taken with a pinch of salt because the tests can produce large margins of error, even if they are highly specific.

And some scientific studies have suggested some patients who endured only mild symptoms produce barely-detectable levels of antibodies.

Some seroprevalence samples have estimated around 5million Britons have been struck down with the disease since the crisis spiralled out of control in March.

Antibody prevalence in the samples analysed ranged from as low as 0.1 per cent in one Brazilian state to almost half (47 per cent) of Brooklyn in New York.

HOW DR JOHN IOANNADIS'S WORK HAS CAUSED CONTROVERSY Researchers at Stanford University, including Dr John Ioannadis, have been accused of 'tipping the scale' on in a study of the coronavirus and implying it is more widespread - but less fatal - than previously thought. An analysis they published in April found that between 2.5 and 5.2 per cent of residents in Santa Clara, California, tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies. That meant the number of infected people in the county was 50 to 80 times higher than officials had reported. But the study was not peer-reviewed by other scientists, many noticed the way calculations were made was not explained, and several found mistakes in the methodology. In Version 2, the team walked back its earlier estimates and said only 2.8 per cent of Santa Clara residents contracted the virus but didn't know they were ill. That was 54 times more than the 956 confirmed cases that had been counted in the area as of April 1. The university is now investigating the research to see if the analysts were politically motivated or inaccurate and misleading. The findings, published by Dr Jayanta Bhattacharya, Dr John Ioannidis and Dr Eran Bendavid, were astounding because they meant the virus was much more widespread and that the death toll was much lower than believed. However, not long after version 1 came out, criticism started pouring in. Some experts critiqued the antibody test the researchers used, which was not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Others said that, because volunteers were recruited via Facebook, the participants were not random nor representative of the county. Additionally, the raw percentage of people who tested positive for antibodies was 1.5 percent, significantly lower than the final percentage the researchers published. A few weeks later, the revision was published saying that the estimated rate of infection was on the low end of their initial predictions. Advertisement

From the 23 estimates of how many people were infected, Dr Ioannidis was able to calculate how deadly the SARS-CoV-2 strain of coronavirus was.

For example, figures from Brooklyn show 4,894 people had died of Covid-19 by May 19  the study itself was carried out at the beginning of the month.

The original estimate suggested 1.2million people had been infected in the borough, giving a rough mortality rate of 0.41 per cent.

Data showed Kobe  a city in Japan  had the lowest fatality rate (0.02 per cent), based on its having recorded 10 deaths among an estimated 41,000 cases.

At the other end of the scale was the 0.86 per cent estimate from Milan, where 1,459 deaths had occurred out of a projected 170,000 cases.

Dr Ioannidis lowered the top-end of the range to 0.78 per cent after correcting for the way the tests were done. That is, they tested for only one type of antibody, when there are actually three types.

MailOnline has used the three estimates he provided  the low end, the median and the high end  to work out how big the outbreak in Britain could really be.

It is mathematically impossible for the death rate to be just 0.02 per cent in Britain because it would mean 200million Britons have already had the disease.

This is based on official data released today that showed the overall death toll in the UK  which has a population of only 66million  is at least 51,000.

It raises question about the accuracy of the figures from Kobe, as well as two other studies that had a mortality rate lower than physically possible for Britain.

For example, if all of Britain had been infected the death rate would be 0.07 per cent  but the true size of the outbreak is just a fraction of that.

The median Covid-19 IFR estimate of 0.25 per cent would equate to around 20million cases across the home nations  roughly a third of the UK.

This is also out of step with other seroprevalence estimates for England, which range between 6.9 and 10 per cent, or 3.8-5.6million cases.

For comparison, Dr Ioannidis' upper-range estimate of 0.78 per cent is in line with an array of other Covid-19 studies carried out across the world.

If the coronavirus has an IFR rate of 0.78 per cent  the equivalent of killing one in every 128 cases  it would suggest 6.5million Brits have had the disease.

Results of a government-run surveillance scheme released last week suggested up to 5.6million people in England could have already had the coronavirus.

Blood samples taken from 8,000 people showed up to 10 per cent had antibodies specific to Covid-19, showing they have had the disease in the past.

Public Health England's best estimate is that 8.5 per cent of people in England have already had the coronavirus - 4.76million people.

But this, it admitted, could be as high as 10 per cent (5.6m) or as low as 6.9 per cent (3.864m).

Regional variations show that the rate of infection has been considerably higher in London, with 15.6 per cent of the city's population already affected.

And it has been lowest in the South West, where only around 2.6 per cent of people are thought to have had the virus.

The national prevalence of antibodies suggests, with around 43,000 deaths from a population of 56million people, the true death rate of Covid-19 is 0.9 per cent.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) put the national level of past infection at 6.78 per cent - around 4.5million people in the UK.

And Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously revealed early PHE results suggesting the rate of antibodies in the population was only five per cent nationwide.

Dr Ioannadis's study, which hasn't been peer-reviewed by fellow scientists, drew criticism from one epidemiologist who pulled it apart on Twitter.

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, from the University of Wollongong in Australia, said the antibody testing surveys the study had chosen to use did not appear to be high quality and the criteria for including or excluding them were not rigorous enough.

Mr Meyerowitz-Katz said the paper  an update of his first controversial pre-print  had 'no clear methodology', 'strange criteria' and that it had 'excluded the most robust estimates'. He also warned that 'most of the issues are still apparent'.

Pointing out that a study of antibodies in the population in Spain had been cut out of the study, he wrote: 'There are also still obvious errors in the paper.

'Ioannidis claims that the Spanish seroprevalence estimate cannot be included because it has only been published as a press release. This is wrong...

'In fact, the Spanish seroprevalence estimate is a lengthy government report that is FAR more detailed than many preprints. Excluding it from the main estimate makes no sense scientifically.'
China has removed pangolin parts from its list of traditional medicines, state-backed media reported, in a move campaigners say is a vital step in helping to protect the endangered animal.

Pangolins  the worlds most trafficked mammal  are highly sought after in China and Vietnam for their meat which is considered a delicacy, while their scales are used in traditional medicine and folk remedies.

Similar in size to domestic cats and the only mammal covered in scales, all eight pangolin species are protected under international laws but there remains a growing illegal trade of the animals.

This week health authorities omitted pangolin scales from Chinas latest Pharmacopoeia, an approved list of traditional drugs and remedies due to wild resources exhaustion, according to a report in the Health Times.

WildAid CEO Peter Knights said the move was the greatest single action that could have been taken to save pangolins from extinction.

The increased protection coupled with the swift and comprehensive closure of live wildlife markets and removal of many wild species from the list of what can be consumed as food in China were already very positive steps to saving the pangolin worldwide and reducing the possibility of them ever being a vector for disease.

And now this announcement, effectively the closure of legal sales of pangolin scales, shutting the last major loophole in pangolin protection efforts, he added.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) welcomed Chinas decision, but urged action to stop the sale of pangolins on the black market.

PETA gives a nod to China for taking an important step to combat the demand for pangolin scales, director Elisa Allen told The Independent.

However, as long as it remains desirable and profitable for endangered animals body parts to be sold for medicine, wildlife will continue to be killed on the black market.

We urge the Chinese government to clamp down on the use of animal-derived substances for medicine  whether its pangolin scales, donkey skin for ejiao, or horse urine for Premarin, which is also an issue in the West.

The move comes after Chinas forestry authority last week upgraded the status of pangolins to first-level protected wild animal, the highest possible protection status alongside pandas and tigers.

Trade in pangolins is banned in China but it is estimated that between 116,990 and 233,980 were killed between 2011 and 2013, according to the World Wildlife Fund, but experts fears those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

Last year alone, authorities seized more than 130 tons of pangolin related products, a figure estimated to represent up to 400,000 animals, according to conservation group WildAid.

Gilbert Sape, Head of Traditional Medicine at World Animal Protection called for a permanent ban on wildlife trade, saying it wwas the only long-term solution to keeping wild animals wild, eliminating animal suffering, and all importantly, preventing major health epidemics.

Pangolins eat ants, termites and larvae. Some scientists believe they may incubate the Covid-19 virus that is thought to have emerged in Wuhan last year and has since swept the globe.

Following the outbreak of coronavirus at the end of last year, China banned the consumption of all wild animals in a bid to prevent further outbreaks but many wet markets have since reopened.

Earlier this year, The Independent renewed its call for the banning of trade in wild animals to help protect endangered species and avoid future pandemics.

These actions of China will have a real impact, these are steps that were critical, that needed to be taken if real conservation was going to happen for these animals, said David Olson, director of Conservation at WWF Hong Kong.

Most of the demand for pangolin is coming from traditional Chinese medicine and consumption. Thats what is driving this large scale illegal trade.



With additional reporting by Louise Boyle
NUR-SULTAN -- Police in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, have detained 12 activists who were picketing the European Union's office in the city.

The activists on June 10 were calling on EU officials to pressure Kazakh authorities to release three activists, Ruslan Nurqanov, Aibek Sabitov, and Darkhan Omirbaev, who were sentenced to jail terms of between 10 and 15 days last week on the eve of unsanctioned protests in Nur-Sultan. They were found guilty of calling for "illegal rallies."

During the demonstration, the protesters held portraits of the three jailed activists, as well as posters saying "European Union, Be With The Kazakh People!" and "#BlackLivesMatter #Kazakhstan."

One of the posters had a picture of a donkey with the face of the Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.

"We want police reforms! We want a new law on public protests! We are against the police state!" the protesters chanted before dozens of police forced them into vehicles and took them away.

Police in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstans second-largest city, Almaty, and at least three other cities detained more than 100 people on June 6 during anti-government protests. Some of them were later sentenced to several days in jail for taking part in the unsanctioned protests.

In Almaty, on June 10, a noted civil rights activist, Asya Tulesova, was sentenced to 10 days in jail for taking part in the June 6 protest.
The powerful personal stories of women who bravely entered Britain's factories to keep the country running during the Second World War are recounted in a new book.

When the war broke out, the young women of Sheffield watched as their sweethearts were sent away to fight, and were left with no choice but to step into the men's shoes and become the backbone of the city's steel industry.

Through hard toil and companionship, they vowed to keep the foundry fires burning and ensured that soldiers had the weapons, planes and ships needed to secure victory over Hitler.

SHOT BLASTER: Eva Kenny (pictured), who was born in December 1923 in Attercliffe, Sheffield, took a job as a shot blaster at Balfour Darwins during The Blitz

CRANE DRIVER: Margaret Barker left school at 14 and, before long, joined the Arthur Lees factory as a crane driver. Pictured, Margaret outside Arthur Lee & Sons

TOOL CUTTER: At 16, Gwen started work at Sheffield Twist Drill, where she witnessed a colleague have her hair ripped out after an accident using a lathe.

In new book Women of Steel, author Michelle Rawlins, from Sheffield, interviewed some of the last surviving women - many now in their 90s or 100s - who dropped everything to support the war effort.

Amongst a series of exclusive extracts shared with FEMAIL, one woman witnessed her colleague have her hair ripped when using a lathe, while a shot blaster was so 'terrified' of the noise, her mum rang her boss to have her moved to another department.

The office worker who became a shot blaster

Eva was born in December 1923 in Attercliffe, Sheffield. When war broke out, she took a job as shot blaster at Balfour Darwins. The noise was so terrifying that Evas mum rang her boss to have her moved to another department making hacksaw blades.

In 1942, when Eva was 19, she married her teenage sweetheart, James Albert, in a simple ceremony. Eva passed away, aged 96, in April 2020.

Eva (pictured) told how the noise was so terrifying when she took a job as a shot blaster that her mum rang her boss to have her moved to another department making hacksaw blades

Eva was 19 when she married her teenage sweetheart, James Albert, in a simple ceremony. Pictured, on her wedding day

When war broke out, Eva had a comfortable office job, but as soon as the call came for women to do their bit, she began work at a factory. Pictured, on the far left with her work mates

Eva (pictured) said that after her very first shift, she went home that night and just sobbed to her mother

Although the Women of Steel had varying attitudes to their new roles, its no surprise many of them were reluctant and scared.

'I was absolutely terrified,' recalled Eva Kenny, who was ninety-five when I interviewed her.

When war broke out, she had a comfortable office job, working at Carters, a medical company. But as soon as the call came for women to do their bit, Eva got her orders to leave her job and begin work at a factory.

She was assigned a position at Arthur Balfours as a shot blaster, which came as a shock to the system.

Eva said: 'The machines were huge, and the noise was horrific. Id never experienced anything like it, and it left me petrified. After my very first shift, I went home that night and just sobbed to Mum.

'The next day she went to see my boss and told them how scared I was, and thankfully I was then appointed a new role making hacksaws. It was still awful but better than my first job.

'All I had to do was place thin strips of steel in a machine that would shape them. They were sharp when they came out, but thankfully I never got hurt.'

The teenage crane driver who met her husband at work

Margaret Barker was born in December 1928. She left school at 14 and, before long, joined the Arthur Lees factory as a crane driver, where she met her husband, Jack.

The story goes that Margaret agreed to go out with him after accidentally hitting him on the head with the wooden weight attached to the crane she was controlling.

Margaret met her husband Jack (pictured together) at the Arthur Lees factory where she worked during The Blitz

Margaret agreed to go out with her husband Jack after accidentally hitting him on the head with the wooden weight attached to the crane she was controlling. Pictured, on their wedding day

Despite being forced to grow up quickly, Margaret must have enjoyed her job, as she stayed at the factory until the early 1950s. Pictured, centre, with two work colleagues

Margaret's son, Paul, told author Michelle: Mum was so incredibly young, and its hard to imagine how terrifying that must have been.' Pictured, Margaret and Jack with Paul

Margaret met her husband Jack at work - and the pair married in December 1950. Pictured together, left and right

Margaret Barker (nee Gregory), who left school in 1942, aged just fourteen, went straight to work at Home & Colonial Stores.

Not long afterwards, she joined Arthur Lees, where she started work as a crane driver.

Her son, Paul, told me: "Mum was so incredibly young, and its hard to imagine how terrifying that must have been. She was still a very young woman but going into a very adult world. Its something you really cant relate to in todays society."'

But despite being forced to grow up quickly, Margaret must have enjoyed her job, as she stayed at the factory until the early 1950s. It was there she met her husband, Jack, whom she married in December 1950.

Paul said: "Dad always told the story of Mum agreeing to go out with him after the wooden weight attached to the crane she was controlling hit him on the head. He always reckoned she went on a date afterwards as she felt so sorry for him!"'

The 16-year-old tool cutter who witnessed a horrific accident

Gwendoline Bryan was born in October 1923 in Barnsley, where she stayed until her family moved to Sheffield. At 16, Gwen started work at Sheffield Twist Drill, where she witnessed a colleague have her hair ripped out after an accident using a lathe.

Gwen, who married her husband, George, in 1947, is now 95 and lives with her only son, Mike, and his wife, Sarah.

Michelle Rawlins, from Sheffield, has interviewed the last surviving women of steel in her new book (pictured)

'Despite being continually told never to take their eyes off the machines they were operating, natural curiosity made every head turn in the direction of where the agonising wail was coming from.

"Whats happened?" Gwen asked no one in particular. She didnt have to wait long to find out. As quick as the sickening shrieking had started, one of the overhead belts came to a grinding halt and a crowd gathered around one of the female workers.

As Gwen edged closer, it soon became obvious where the relentless and stomach-churning crying was coming from.

The young woman who had arrived for work without her mop cap was now doubled over on the floor gripping her head  on one side, her once long, frizzy hair was missing.

It had become tangled in the machine and been ripped clean out. Blood was pouring down the poor girls face, staining her once porcelain-white skin ruby red.

"Oh gosh," Gwen gasped, covering her eyes with her hands, horrified by the macabre scene before her. It was like something from a horror movie.

Within seconds, foremen were around the girl, pressing clean cloths onto her head and leading her away from the factory floor. "Well get you to hospital," Gwen heard one say. "Youre going to be OK, I promise."

The widow who became a crane driver to support her family

Ivy Markham was born in October 1906 and grew up in Attercliffe, Sheffield. Her husband, Tom, was employed at the steelworks, William Jessops and Son, in Brightside; they married in June 1934 and their only daughter, Jean, was born the following year.

Just before Christmas 1938, Tom was killed in a workplace accident when his scarf got caught in a machine. With a young child to support, Ivy had no choice but to take a job in the steelworks as a crane driver. Ivy passed away in 1982, aged 75.'

Ivy Markham's husband, Tom, was employed at the steelworks, William Jessops and Son, in Brightside (pictured together). Just before Christmas 1938, Tom was killed in a workplace accident when his scarf got caught in a machine

With a young child to support, Ivy (pictured with husband Tom) had no choice but to take a job in the steelworks as a crane driver following her husband's death

And it wasnt just our Women of Steel who suffered life-changing injuries. After placing a request for relatives of these incredible women to contact me on several local-history groups on Facebook, I was contacted by Joan Green, whose late aunt, Ivy Markham, had worked as a crane driver in the steelworks throughout the war.

As Joan told me Ivys story, it seemed incomprehensible to me how shed managed to keep going through the most heartwrenching of times.

Ivy had married the love of her life, Tom Markham, in June 1934, and their only daughter, Jean, came into the world just a year later.

As it was for so many Yorkshire families, life was tough financially, especially with an extra mouth to feed. Tom worked long, arduous hours at the Sheffield steel firm William Jessop and Sons Ltd in Brightside.

Michelle Rawlins (pictured) is an award-winning journalist with 20 years' experience. She lives in Sheffield and lectures at the University of Sheffield

On 20 December 1938, Tom had gone to work as normal, no doubt looking forward to the festive break with his wife and their three-year-old little girl. But the loving father and husband never got to watch Jean, the apple of his eye, open her Christmas presents.

That evening, while waiting for her husband to come home for his dinner, Ivy was given the most devastating of news  Tom had been killed on a crane in a freak accident at work.

The details must have rocked Ivy to the core. Toms scarf had got caught in a machine, and unable to release it, hed been horrifically decapitated.

The death certificate read: "Severe laceration of the neck and haemorrhage caused by scarf he was wearing becoming entangled in a revolving shaft on a crane platform."

Its hard to imagine how Ivy coped afterwards and even more staggering when you learn that, within a year of her husbands untimely and violent death, she too was working in a steel factory as a crane driver.

Joan explained that her aunt only rarely spoke about the accident and her time in the factory: "Life was very cruel back then. My aunt never remarried and brought up Jean with the help of family.

Despite what she had suffered, Aunt Ivy remained in the steelworks until she was around sixty, but I believe it was the death of her too."

As she got older, she suffered from bronchitis and emphysema that was no doubt aggravated by all the fumes and dust she had inhaled for decades in the steelworks, and sadly she died in June 1982.'

WOMEN OF STEEL: THE FEISTY FACTORY SISTERS WHO HELPED WIN THE WAR by Michelle Rawlins, is published by Headline, 11th June at 16.99
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- A man accused of an armed robbery of a Subway was hospitalized after a Cleveland Heights police officer shot him, city officials say.

The unidentified suspect is currently at an undisclosed hospital and currently in stable condition, Cleveland Heights Police Chief Annette Mecklenburg said in a statement.

The robbery happened about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Subway on Mayfield Road near Warrensville Center Road, she said.

The man pulled out a gun, pointed it at the cashier and demanded money, Mecklenburg said.

The suspect ran out of the sub shop and Cleveland Heights police officers ran after him, she said.

The robber pulled out the gun and pointed it in the face of one of the officers who responded to the call, Mecklenburg said. The officer fired his gun and struck him, she further said.

Officers rendered first aid to the suspect before he was taken to the hospital.

The officer who fired at the suspect is on leave per department protocol.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations is handling the investigation.

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Prince George and Princess Charlotte honor Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to mark the end of Volunteer's Week. The two young royals were joined by their father, Prince William, as they participate in one of their family's charity works.

Teaching Them Volunteer Work While Young

On Friday, an adorable photo of Prince William and his two older children was posted on the Kensington Palace official Instagram account to mark the end of the Volunteer's Week. The image showed the trio doing their own share of volunteer work.

In the caption, Kensington Palace revealed what the family has been doing to help the older residents living in the area near their country home.

"As we approach the end of #VolunteersWeek The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are pleased to share a new photo taken by The Duchess as they played their own part in the national volunteering effort," the caption read.

The father of three can be seen holding an umbrella to protect his children from the rain. The two young royals were there to help their father deliver food to the vulnerable members of the community in Norfolk. The family of Prince William and Kate are currently in isolation in Anmer Hall amid the coronavirus pandemic.

This was not the first time that Prince William volunteered to help amid this health crisis. In April, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their family worked to prepare food packs and deliver parcels to the pensioners in their Sandringham Estate.

The Most Iconic Photo Of All Time

The photograph of Prince William with his two children is likened to the photo of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex during one of their last royal engagements in March. It was also raining when the royal couple was headed to attend the Endeavour Fund Awards in London.

In the photo, Harry can be seen holding up the umbrella for himself and his wife, Meghan Markle. The two were smiling as they headed to the function.

This photo of theirs quickly made it to the headlines of various news outlet. The photographer, Samir Hussein, described it as the "most iconic photo" of the royal couple.

"'I've photographed the royals for more than 12 years, but this photo really resonates. I've taken many photos I'm really proud of, but in terms of the huge interest in the subjects and the response I've had, this is probably the most iconic photo I've taken," Hussein told GQ.

Prince Harry and Meghan may have relocated to Los Angeles, but their volunteer work continues. The couple has recently been photographed while out and about in their neighborhood in California. They delivered food packs to the most vulnerable members of the community through Project Angel Food.

Volunteer work has indeed changed the lives of many during this pandemic. The celebration of Volunteer's Week is a reminder that everyone can do their own share to help the community despite the global health crisis.

The royals, whether they are in the U.K. or in the U.S., continue to inspire every one of the works that they do, each one hoping to make a difference.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks during a news conference about the partial government shutdown at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 17, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

US Senator Wants Australia and Allies to Join a New Cold War Against Chinese Communism

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) believes Australia should join America and the UK in a new Cold War against China.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald from Washington on June 9, Scott said America, Australia, and their allies must unite against communist Chinas goal of world domination.

We ought to do this together. All democracies are going to have to say to themselves: are they going to continue to appease the Communist Party of China, which is clearly focused on world domination and has taken jobs from democracies all over the world and stolen technologies from all over the world? said Scott.

Scott remarked that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does not believe in human rights or free and fair trade.

They dont want to be a caring world citizen. Theyre willing to take away peoples rights. Im disgusted with how they treated Uighurs and how they treated Hong Kong citizens, said Scott.

The former governor of Florida, Scott is one of the U.S. Congresss most outspoken politicians on the CCP. Currently, he sits on the U.S. government sub-committee for Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and the sub-committee for the Armed Forces, among others.

Scott has previously called for Americans to boycott goods made in China, urged the cancellation of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and accused China of trying to sabotage or slow down the United States efforts to create a vaccine for the CCP virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus.

A New Cold War Against Chinese Communism

Analysts have discussed the development of a new Cold War between America and China since 2018.

Australian international relations expert Alan Dupont argued that a cold war between the United States and China is now a reality as both countries have gone from a framework of cooperation to one of open rivalry and strategic competition.

Writing in a paper (pdf) for the Centre for Independent Studies in May, Dupont said China and the United States are now wrestling for strategic advantage in an increasingly bitter contest to determine which of them will be the pre-eminent state of the 21st century.

Dupont believes that this cold war will be different from the previous one between the United States and the Soviet Union because China is more integrated into the global economy.

However, Dupont wrote: Its conceivable that the world could divide into two competing trade and geopolitical blocs, much like the Cold War, except that the bifurcation would be more fluid and fragmented.

The first Cold War divided the world into two competing sides separated economically and politically. The communist Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as well as supporting China, Cuba, North Korea, and Mongolia.

America was supported by Western Europe, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, to name a few.

Sen. Scott wrote on Twitter on June 9 that in the New Cold War every democracy needs to show real accountability by standing up to the Chinese Communist Party.

We know Communist China is our adversary, violates human rights, & wants to be the sole global power. Real accountability will come when every democracy stands up to Communist China. I spoke with the @smh about the New Cold War  https://t.co/0MCzHhuNBH  Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) June 9, 2020
I asked each of them about the conversation: that moment in their young lives when a parent first warned them about what it meant to be black in America. One young woman remembered her mother cautioned her to always ask for a receipt with every purchase to prove the item was not shoplifted. Many talked about hair styles and clothing they learned to be dangerous in the eyes of white America. They were each warned about the danger of any contact with the police and how their tone of voice and every move had to be carefully considered. Every one of them remembered the first time they were called the N-word.
Stoltenberg says West cannot ignore China as it is coming closer in the Arctic, cyberspace and critical infrastructure.

The head of the NATO military alliance has said the West could not ignore the rise of China and so it was important that the United Kingdom had a review of the role of Huawei in its 5G network to ensure its security.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that China was coming closer to the West in various ways  in the Arctic, in cyberspace and in critical infrastructure, including telecommunications.

China is coming closer to us, we see that in the Arctic, we see they are heavily investing in critical infrastructure in Europe, and we see of course China also operating in cyberspace, Stoltenberg told BBC radio.

So, this is not about deploying NATO into the South China Sea, but responding to the fact that China is coming closer to us.

I trust that the UK government will design their networks in ways that protect the networks and make sure that the UK has secure 5G networks, Stoltenberg said.

Therefore, also I think it is important that there now will be a new review looking at exactly how to make sure that should happen, he said.

When asked about Stoltenbergs comments, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswomen Hua Chunying said that China does not pose a threat to any country.

We hope NATO can continue to hold a correct opinion about us and view our development rationally, she said.

Reassessment

As part of a broader reassessment of relations with China, UKs National Cyber Security Centre is analysing the impact of recent sanctions by the United States on the UKs decision earlier this year to allow Huawei a role in building its 5G network.





Prime Minister Boris Johnson in January granted Huawei a limited role in UKs 5G mobile network, frustrating a global attempt by the US to exclude the Chinese telecoms giant from the Wests next-generation communications.

Defying the UKs closest ally in favour of China on the eve of Brexit, Johnson ruled that high-risk vendors such as Huawei would be allowed into non-sensitive parts of the 5G network.

But the coronavirus outbreak, disagreements over Hong Kong and US President Donald Trumps anger with China has prompted the UK to reassess relations with Beijing.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the US, Canada, France, the UK and other western European states to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Sweden on Wednesday dropped its investigation into the unsolved murder of former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was shot dead 34 years ago in downtown Stockholm, saying that decision was made because the main suspect died in 2000.

Palme was gunned down on February 28, 1986, after he and his wife Lisbet Palme left a movie theater in the Swedish capital. The murder shocked the nation and shook the Scandinavian county's image as being so safe and peaceful that politicians could wander around in public without protection.

More than 100 people have been suspected in the crime and the unsolved case has been surrounded by conspiracy theories, ranging from foreign involvement, rogue Swedish police with right-wing sympathies to an act by a lone shooter.

The case was being closed because the main suspect, Stig Engstrom, died in 2000, the case's chief prosecutor, Krister Petersson, told a news conference in Stockholm on Wednesday.

"Stig Engstrom is deceased, and therefore I am not able to start proceedings or even interview him, that is why I decided to discontinue the investigation," Petersson told reporters. "Since he has died, I cannot indict him."

Hans Melander, head of the investigation, told the news conference that 134 people had confessed the murder  29 directly to the police  and some 10,000 people had been questioned during the 34-year probe.

Palme, who cut a flamboyant, even boyish figure, had sought to live as ordinary a life as possible and would often go out without bodyguards. The night of the murder he had no protection.

Palme had an aristocratic background but was known for his left-leaning views and was eyed with suspicion in conservative circles and by the United States. Among Swedes and in the Nordic region, he was a divisive figure, much loved but also despised.

Swedish PM Stefan Lofven, also a Social Democrat, was holding a news conference later Wednesday on the Palme murder.

At the time, the 52-year-old Engstrom was reportedly one of the first people at the murder scene and was briefly considered a possible suspect. He had a military background, was member of a shooting club, often worked late and had drinking problems, Petersson said. Also known as the Skandiamannen because he worked in the nearby Skandia insurance company, Engstrom had a strong dislike of Palme and his policies.

Yet Engstrom's actions on the night of the murder are unclear. Several witnesses gave descriptions of the fleeing killer that matched Engstrom, while others said he wasn't even at the scene. Engstrom himself claimed to have been present from the beginning, spoke to Lisbet Palme and police, and said he attempted to resuscitate the victim.

Soon after the murder, Engstrom appeared in Swedish media and developed an increasingly detailed story of his involvement in the events that night, even criticizing the police investigation. He claimed those witnesses who had described the killer had in fact been describing him as he was running to catch up with police officers in pursuit of the assassin.

The police then labelled Engstrom as a unreliable and inconsistent witness and classified him as a person of no interest.

Lisbet Palme was injured in the attack and later identified the shooter as Christer Pettersson, an alcoholic and drug addict, who was convicted of Palme's murder. The sentence was later overturned after police failed to produce any technical evidence against him, leaving the murder an unsolved mystery. Pettersson died in 2004.

Immediately after Palme was killed, thousands of Swedes flooded the scene of his death with red roses, a symbol of his Social Democratic Party, building a meter-high wall of flowers.

In Sweden, the Palme murder has been an open wound. Another later painful reminder of Sweden's lost innocence came in 2003, when Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in a Stockholm department store, also without bodyguards.

The unsolved Palme slaying also evoked another Swedish mystery: the disappearance of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who vanished in 1945 after helping at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews escape the Holocaust by giving them Swedish passports. In 2016, the diplomat, who is believed to have died in Soviet captivity, was pronounced dead by Swedish authorities, 71 years after he disappeared under unclear circumstances.
General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association, Dr Justice Yankson, has warned of an increase in cases in the country if Ghanaians fail to adhere to the strict measures put in place by the health authorities.



Currently, Ghana has recorded a total of 9,910 confirmed cases, 6,217 active cases, 3,645 recoveries and 48 deaths.



Comparing the statistics to that of other countries experiencing the Coronavirus outbreak, Dr. Yankson is of the view that Ghana has done so well with the handling of the COVID-19 cases which is evident in the number of deaths recorded and the recovery rate.



"COVID-19 as of now generally speaking, our numbers are going up, we are almost getting to ten thousand. What is clear is that the recovery rate as far as Ghana is concerned is very impressive. Death rate if you look at what we are doing or the statistics compared to other neighboring countries and even the world at large, we seem to have done so well. What it means is that our case management per what we have now can be described as the best you can find anywhere on this earth. It is the recoveries, the less death that actually show how good the case management itself is going. So, our case management team has done a real mans job."



Dr. Yankson made this statement on Monday, June 8, 2020, when he visited the construction site of the 100-bed infectious disease isolation and treatment facility, located at the Ga East District Hospital in Accra.



According to him, easing the restrictions should not mislead the people that COVID-19 has been eradicated, thereby neglecting the safety protocols.



"What is left for us as a people to do, is not to take our legs off the paddle, in terms of trying to contain the disease. Especially now as we have eased some of them. There is always a tendency that there could be a surge. Anytime you have infectious pandemic situation where restrictions come and people dont obey or adhere to the strict measures that have been put in place, there is always a risk of a surge and that is one thing as a country we need to try and avoid."



He said neglecting the safety protocols will plunge the country into a disarray as cases will increase and health facilities will be overwhelmed with cases, creating lack of access to facilities.



"As the numbers go up, if we dont contain it, and it overruns all the predictions around, what is going to happen is that, our whole health care system will also be overwhelmed and when it gets overwhelmed then case management itself becomes a problem because a lot more people cannot get access to the facilities on time and then the right care because the system is overwhelmed. So, we are at a point where we have to be very careful as individuals and as a state. We need to take preventive measures very seriously." He said.

Source: Naa Adjorkor Sowah









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India and its largest neighbour China have made incremental progress in resolving the border standoff in four points in Eastern Ladakh that began on May 5. Besides activating the usual diplomatic channels, in a rare move the two countries also deployed their top army officers to hold talks on June 6 in a bid to defuse the faceoff.

Weighing in the sensitivity of the situation and the larger geopolitical factors that have made handling such face-offs more difficult, the expectations from the meetings were realistic. There were no undue expectations such as withdrawing the trespassed troops before talks began, which anyway is no longer a standard template in the efforts to resolve India-China face-offs.

Both sides hoped for incremental progress, ways to continue meaningful military and diplomatic engagements to convey each other's concerns, to restore the status quo ante, and a reiteration of their commitment to peacefully resolve the border situation consistent with bilateral agreements. To that effect, the news on June 9 that India and China have disengaged at Eastern Ladakh is good news, and inspires hope that established processes and protocols will yield results.

The meeting between Lt General Harinder Singh, the Leh-based 14 Corps Commander and Major General Liu Lin, South Xinjiang Military District Commander that lasted over six hours did achieve that. However, resolution of the standoff seems a long haul and would require serious effort to build greater trust between the two sides, especially between the two militaries.

After all, peace and tranquillity in the border is the first and most essential requirement for the overall development of bilateral ties that have a common history of 5,000 years, and a common boundary of over 3,400 kilometres.

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Big Neighbours, Regular Irritants

These are not easy times in India-China relationship as it is increasingly evident from the last three border crises  namely Depsang in 2013, Chumar in 2014, and Doklam tri-junction in 2017.

Of course there were incidents that took much longer to sort out, but they were not of this magnitude. For example, the faceoff at Sumdorong Chu (Wangdung, north of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh) in 1986, took over eight years to resolve.

Following this, the Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement, signed in 1993 during a Beijing visit by then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was the first India-China border agreement meant for maintaining peace along the disputed boundary.

Though incursions have always been a part of India-China border management, in recent times they have become more aggressive. There are many factors that have led to this increase in frequency of incursions. At the ground level, the infrastructure development has made patrolling easier. China has not been taking India's border infrastructure development kindly. As their economic and political clout grows, both countries have been trying to increase their sphere of influence in the region and across the world.

Two big countries, two most-populated nations who are neighbours, yet with two different political systems having similar global ambitions will precipitate their own problems as well.

Important Bilateral Ties

Of late China has become more aggressive on matters of sovereignty in various disputes it has been party to. However, New Delhi and Beijing have been trying to manage their differences effectively. The ties have been given special emphasis by the current administration, and especially by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I attach great importance and priority to our relations with China. We are two ancient civilisations with a long history of engagement. China is our largest neighbour, and Indias neighbourhood occupies a special place in my national development plans and foreign policy, Modi said while welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping to Delhi in September 2014, four months after he was sworn in as the Prime Minister.

It was indeed a leap of faith by Modi to have accorded a public reception to a Chinese leader when he had arranged one in his home state Gujarat. Through the informal summits in Wuhan and Chennai, the two leaders discussed a future roadmap and more enduring solutions to their problems.

As COVID-19 threatens to shake up the global order, what India and China require to do are more political exchanges between the two leaderships to build mutual trust. However, trust is what is in deficit between India and China  New Delhi because of its past experience of trusting its neighbour, and Beijing because of no holds barred ambition and ravenous resolve to achieve it by any means.

Both countries need to tackle the situation with the gravity it warrants, reflecting their international stature. Stability in ties and peace along the borders are essential for the two countries undergoing economic and social transformation on an unprecedented scale. For a decades-old relationship, the true potential of the India-China bilateral ties  or even half of it  is yet to be realised. That is a shame.
Heres a look at some of the key protests of recent decades and what they achieved or failed.

The protests that left much of the world in a haze of tear gas last year were slowed by a pandemic  until the death of George Floyd sparked a global uprising against police brutality and racial inequality.

From Hong Kong to Khartoum, Baghdad to Beirut, Gaza to Paris and Caracas to Santiago, people took to the streets in 2019 in pursuit of freedom, sovereignty or simply a life less shackled by hardship while few prospered. It seemed as if the streets were agitated everywhere but the United States.

Now, after the death of Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who died in police custody when a white officer pressed his knee into Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes, protests rage around the globe.

Police or military brutality and racism are universal dynamics that are experienced in many societies.

The very nature of a protest suggests a desire for change, the need to right a perceived historical injustice. It is a means to an end. But to what end? Depending on the government the activists are demanding change from, the results can be varied.

Demonstrations were held last week in solidarity with US protesters as Floyds death resonated far beyond US shores because of lives lost in similar circumstances.

As the coronavirus crisis eased in China, protesters in Hong Kong began to emerge again. And Beijing moved swiftly to quash the movement that caused unrest for months last year, enacting a national security law that would effectively end the existence of one country, two systems.

A democratic government that is amenable to changes may enact legislation, or a change of leadership can be forced at the ballot box.

An authoritarian government, however, does not often bend. Protesting against it can be a life-or-death struggle; it may require activists to make a deal with the countrys military, or it may backfire, bringing in a more dictatorial leader or a ruinous civil war.

Here is a look at some of the key protests of recent decades and what they achieved or failed.

US civil rights

Black American demonstrators carry picket signs along the main street of Raleigh in protest against the enforcement of segregation in cafes and restaurants in the city on February 16, 1960 [File: The Associated Press]

The protests that erupted across the US last week had the unusual characteristic of being largely leaderless, though the Black Lives Matter movement was focal.

During the critical era of the 1950s and 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr, who led the 250,000 strong March on Washington, DC in 1963, and Malcolm X were colossal figures representing two different tracks: mass non-violent protest and getting favourable outcomes by any means necessary.

The Civil Rights Acts, initiated by the Kennedy administration, and Voting Rights Act were passed by the Johnson administration, which was sympathetic to tackling endemic racism in the nation.

These were key inflection points. But social injustice and the Vietnam War continued to dominate the US decade and beyond, reaching a crescendo of civil unrest in 1968 which has been echoed in 2020.

Democrats in US Congress are proposing an overhaul of police procedures and accountability but, like so much in Washington, DC, this has been snagged by partisanship.

Key Democrats, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, are also distancing themselves from calls to defund the police as President Donald Trump and his Republican allies blast the proposal.

Iron Curtain falls

Revolution was in the air in Eastern Europe in 1989 as civil resistance geared up to overthrow Communist rule.

One by one, countries fell in a reverse-domino effect  Washington had always been concerned about the dominoes falling in the Soviet Unions favour.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, laid the groundwork for this tectonic shift. The Berlin Wall fell, and one-party rule was swept aside in East Germany, Poland and other states once behind the Iron Curtain, mostly bloodlessly  the exception being in Romania where the tyranny of Nicolae Ceausescu and his family was ended by a firing squad on Christmas Day.

This period also included a Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, which was the historical antidote to the Prague Spring, a period of liberalisation in embracing communism with a human face that was ruthlessly crushed by more than half a million Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops in 1968.

Arab Spring and the current redux

It would be two decades before the world witnessed another wave of protests consume an entire region. This one was the first to be captured on a new digital platform, social media.

Protesters across the Middle East and North Africa took to the streets, demanding an overhaul of existing governments and reforms to the systems that had oppressed them for decades.

Tunisia was the first to protest in December, 2010, after a young street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after being humiliated by the police, who took away his wares.

In Egypt, the case of Khaled Said, another young man who died in police custody, served as the catalyst for nation-wide protests.

And rulers did fall: in Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia in 2011. But only the latter transitioned to a democratic next chapter.

Following a coup that deposed Egypts first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi, the country now lives under even more authoritarian rule under current leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. All dissent is extinguished, and thousands languish in prison.

Yemen and Libya have been torn apart by conflict, foreign intervention and humanitarian catastrophe.

Peaceful demonstrations against Bashar al-Assads rule in Syria quickly deteriorated after harsh crackdowns by the government, leading to the formation of rebel groups with foreign backing, and paving the way for a devastating civil war. That was compounded by Russian intervention in 2015, and the almost decade-long war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more.

In neighbouring Lebanon and in Iraq, civil protests erupted last October against ruling elites and corruption. Lebanon is suffering a confluence of crises as it teeters on the cusp of national bankruptcy.

In Iraq, too, where tens of protesters had been killed, the healthcare system is not equipped to deal with COVID-19, and the loss of oil revenue is hitting hard. Protests seem likely to reignite in both places.

The spirit of 2019 and 2020

Algeria and Sudan captured much of what civil disobedience and protest can achieve as the fragile transition to a new era continues.

Algerian students gesture during a rally in Algiers [File: Fateh Guidoum/The Associated Press]

In Algeria, protests that began in February, 2019 led ailing longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign. A contentious presidential election was held in December, but protesters are still demanding power be handed over to a civilian-led transitional administration to make way for real democracy.

Sudans protest movement succeeded in overthrowing a longtime military ruler who faces genocide and war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court. President Omar al-Bashir was toppled in April 2019 by the army, and protesters had to keep the pressure on until a joint civilian-military ruling sovereign council was created. The civilian forces are struggling to assert authority in the face of the militarys power.

Hong Kongs protests, which began one year ago this week, seemed to embody all the facets of democratic aspiration.

Protesters raise their hands to show five demands during a rally at the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Hong Kong [File: Achmad Ibrahim/The Associated Press]

But the clear intent of President of Xi Jinping and the overwhelming might of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army makes it ever more likely that the territory will be under Beijings rule much sooner than 2047 as agreed upon.

The landmark 1997 agreement in which the British colony was formally handed over to China, had stipulated things would remain unchanged for 50 years.
Mama, Mama  I cant breathe were some of the last words George Floyd struggled to utter while being killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Those words not only haunted millions of us in the aftermath of his death, but are now prominently displayed on signs lining the streets of hundreds of cities. The world has taken to the streets in protest. However, protest alone will not bring about change.

A clear strategy and goals for reform and an inclusive process for change are also needed in order to effectively combat racial injustice. Former President Barack Obama recently described protest and politics as a both/and rather than an either/or proposition. Inclusive community engagement, setting specific goals for reform and using the political process to hold leaders accountable for implementing changes within clear timeframes are all necessary to prevent the bold ideas being discussed from ending up in reports that collect dust on shelves. Whatever the idea, big or small, we have to begin at the community level to gain traction. Taking this approach will enable this moment to be converted into a movement that results in long-term, meaningful change.

The world was watching as Houston laid George Floyd to rest. His death and countless others have led activists, political leaders, stakeholders and the general public to direct an unprecedented level of attention to fighting police brutality and racial injustice. The why or mission of this effort is clear, but we also must clearly identify the how and the what in order to ensure that systemic change will result from this outcry.

To implement sustaining change, we must start with the community. The City of Houston should form a justice commission comprised of diverse stakeholders and community members to engage the public and make recommendations for reforms that combat police brutality and systemic racial injustice. These reforms should apply to police policies and procedures, state law and federal law. These recommendations should also be informed by public forums to listen to community concerns and input.

The commission should address reforms, including, but not limited to: appropriate cadet screening; bias, crisis and de-escalation training; officer intervention in excessive force situations; independent investigation and independent prosecutor involvement in use of force death claims and officer shootings; transparency with police misconduct records and claims; bans against chokeholds; body camera policies that increase public accessibility; elimination of no-knock warrants; citizen review board with subpoena power; exhausting alternatives before shooting; policies that demand reductions in racial disparities in connection with arrests, use of force and deaths at the hands of law enforcement; community policing; appropriate discharge of officers who should no longer be on the job due to excessive force; and other potential reforms.

Once the recommendations are established by the commission, timetables for specific goals , as well as points of contact to be held accountable for these goals should be presented in the report to the public and to the city. This keeps the focus on expedient action and prevents the recommendations from getting lost in the abyss of further review and bureaucracy. In order to reinforce accountability, the commission should also host public meetings to provide updates on progress in concert with the timetable established.

Along with policy advocacy and an inclusive process, the third leg to this three-legged stool is political participation. Individuals and groups advocating for change should register to vote and get deputized to register voters for the 2020 elections, as well as subsequent elections. The public must vote for candidates and officials who support a clear and specific agenda for combating police brutality and racial injustice. Such political participation does not stop at the election booth. Voting is only the beginning of our political participation:; we must remain engaged and hold leaders accountable to do what they say they are going to do while on the campaign trail. If our elected officials do not vote in a manner consistent with their promises or deliver on their promises, we should hold them accountable by supporting candidates who will.

We must approach this moment with a heightened sense of urgency to deliver meaningful change so that the murders of Floyd and countless others are not in vain. This nation cannot respond to this moment of truth with the delayed pace of all deliberate speed that followed Brown v. Board of Education. We must act with urgency as lives continue to be at risk each day that we delay. We must engage the community in honest discourse. We must set a clear course of action and reform at all levels. We must participate politically and hold our leadership accountable. If we do these things, we can transform this moment into a movement that shifts the trajectory of this nation  one in which America begins to extend her hands of justice to all of her people, no matter the color of their skin.

Edwards is an attorney, former U.S. Senate candidate in Texas Democratic Primary and former At-Large Houston City Council member.
The US is using methods of violence against domestic protests it has repeatedly used in its imperial adventures abroad.

As the world was gripped by the shocking scenes of police brutality against the Black community in the United States and the aggressive posture adopted by President Donald Trump against the protestors, an important development was missed by many observers. On May 29, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency flew a Predator drone, the machine used to kill suspected terrorists around the world, over the protestors in Minneapolis.

The use of the drone led to immediate condemnations from civil rights groups on the ground, as the city of Minneapolis lies outside the 100-air-mile border zone where the CBP has jurisdiction.

The incident is significant because it reflects the willingness of the US authorities to use technology developed to propagate imperial designs abroad against their own citizens. This, however, is by far not the first time that methods of imperial violence have made their way back home.

Scholars have long argued that the technologies of war used in imperial adventures abroad have a strong tendency of returning home to haunt domestic populations.

From tear gas to drones

For those of us who have lived in hotbeds of conflict since the war on terror began, drone warfare has been intimately tied to questions of empire, violence and accountability. Consider the case of Pakistan, where US-led drone strikes against suspected terrorists began in 2004. From 2004 to 2013, the US army conducted more than 300 drone strikes in the region bordering Afghanistan. At least 890 civilians were killed by US drones, with Amnesty International arguing that some of the strikes could be characterised as war crimes.

Yet, one of the most bizarre aspects of the drone programme was that it was not fully officially acknowledged either by Pakistan or the US for years.

This has increasingly become a permanent feature of modern-day conflict: an entire war could be waged without being acknowledged, allowing a global or regional power to impose unprecedented terror on a foreign society while simultaneously retaining the right to disavow its own violence.

In 2013, the US government acknowledged for the first time that its drone programme had killed US citizens. The strikes were ordered by then-President Barack Obama, who had drastically escalated the use of drone warfare in Pakistan and whose administration publicly defended the efficacy of drone warfare.

Given that drone technology has been so well received in both military and political circles in Washington, it was only a matter of time before it was put into use at home to support the efforts of the increasingly powerful and militarised police and border security forces.

During the recent protests, drones were not the only weapons with imperial roots that were used liberally against protesters. Tear gas was another.

Tear gas was invented by French scientists at the turn of the 20th century as a tool for riot control and it is believed to have been used for the first time by the French military against the Germans during World War I.

After the end of the war, there were mass protests and uprisings against colonial rule in places like India (1919), Egypt (1919), and Palestine (1920). The pockets of unrest were immediately crushed by colonial authorities, in some places with brutal force causing a high number of casualties.

One of the most terrifying incidents of British colonial violence was the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 in Amritsar, where around 400 civilians were gunned down for violating a curfew to attend a traditional spring festival with their families. The scale of violence led to an internal British inquiry and caused immense embarrassment to the British Empire, fuelling the rise of nationalism in the sub-continent.

In her excellent book Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of World War I to the Streets of Today, Anna Feigenbaum details how in the aftermath of these events, tear gas appeared as a more humane form of riot control against non-violent protesters in places like colonial India.

Colonial officials assumed that people in the colonial world were incapable of thinking rationally about their self-interest and acted fanatically in frenzied crowds. Tear gas, with its capacity to cause unbearable suffocation, was supposed to force the constitutive elements of a crowd to think rationally as individuals and disperse for self-preservation.

Needless to say, tear gas eventually became a regular feature of colonial policing in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Criminalising radical politics

The use of increasingly sophisticated techniques of policing under colonial regimes led to an important distinction between spontaneous protests and political agitators. The former were deemed to be conducted by apolitical subjects with grievances, who had to be kept away from activists who propagated dangerous ideas such as nationalism, anti-colonialism and communism. This situation created a contradiction within colonial ideology.

The ideological edifice of colonialism was built on the premise that colonised subjects were incapable of political thinking and had to be prepared for self-rule under colonial patronage.

Yet, the people that officials feared the most were anti-colonial thinkers precisely for their political thinking and their ability to link particular injustices with the broader reality of colonial rule.

Thus, while colonial ideology propagated the idea that the natives were unable to think rationally, colonial authorities anxiously observed increasing engagement with radical political ideas among them. The brutal punishment many of them received for political activity under colonial rule exposed the paradoxes of colonial paternalism.

This aspect of the imperial history of criminalising politics is on full display in the ongoing protests in the US. The right-wing media and the government are trying to portray George Floyds death as a singular incident of injustice. Trump spoke to Floyds family and called for justice soon after he tweeted threats to the protestors.

The aim is to present the issue as a technical and legal matter to be resolved procedurally, while repressing any inconvenient discussions about structural racism, capitalism and police brutality. Those who are pointing out the systematic nature of racial violence and insisting on a massive overhaul of the system are being framed as radicals and outside agitators.

Imperial history allows us to recognise the repetitive cycle of violence we are caught in and shows how violence in places like Minneapolis is a reenactment of events that have taken place elsewhere. Empires displace their internal antagonisms onto colonised lands, creating zones of exceptional violence while maintaining a liberal facade at home.

Anti-imperial internationalism

As the crisis of capitalism deepens in metropolitan centres, the state uses its imperialist infrastructure, including the technology, techniques and ideologies, to disperse, subdue and criminalise certain communities at home. The forced invisibility of suffering in faraway lands returns to haunt imperial centres, disrupting the fantasy that they can sustain a liberal order at home while using pervasive violence abroad.

American philosopher Cornel West has pointed out how the structural racism of the US state cannot be eradicated by changing faces at the top, as the Black Lives Matter movement took hold during the term of a Black president.

The same is true for imperialist adventures abroad, as both the Democrats and the Republicans, liberals and conservatives, have played their role in perpetuating conflict and destruction in the global South, including drone warfare.

Therefore, the key question is not whether a reasonable person can take the helm of an Empire, but whether it is possible to dismantle the imperialist machine itself. This question has taken on a particular urgency in the midst of the current pandemic and a looming climate disaster that should force us all to understand how intimately tied we are to each others wellbeing.

To confront the circulation of imperial practices of domination and subjugation, we need to urgently revive the tradition of anti-imperialist internationalism and construct global geographies of resistance. It means making explicit the global connections that are implicit in any incident of state violence and popular resistance.

We saw a glimpse of such solidarity when Black Lives Matter activists went to Palestine to express solidarity with Palestinian anti-colonial struggle, signalling the shared sense of rage and resistance. Such instances open the possibility of bringing disparate indices of pain and suffering into a broad and common political project to deny Empire the right to use poor countries and communities as laboratories for testing its ideas, techniques and violent technologies.

Only if we are able to build such genuine transnational solidarities, will we be able to confront the power of Empire, exorcise the ghosts of colonial and racial violence and prevent boomerang effects in imperial centres. The current crisis compels us to form this alliance soon, as humanity is short on time.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Market Overview:

The industrial Ethernet switch is a low port count, industrially hardened, a DIN-rail device for factory data procurement. These switches aid in continually broadening the variety of applications and end-user industries, the industrial Ethernet has emerged as a key platform of choice in both infrastructure architectures and automation. The market is anticipated to grow significantly over the forecast period owing realization by industries that using this will reduce the business downtime, availability of information at every location fast exchange of data between the selected sections and automation help in improving the productivity. Global Industrial Ethernet switch marketwas valued, in 2017 USD XX million and in 2027 is expected to reach at USD XX million with growing CAGR of XX%.

Market Dynamics:

Improvement of data center capacities and increase in deployment of Ethernet-based solution in industries are primarily driving the market. The increase in dependency of organizations on data centers, demand for high speed data services, and need for automatic switching devices are fuelling the market growth. The high cost associated with instalment of managed industrial Ethernet switches and lack of expertise are hindering the market growth.

Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/3318

Market Players:

Video servers market consist of various players, few key players of the market areJuniper, Cisco, HP, Aruba, Polycom, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft, Check Point, IBM, Brocade, and Siemens.

Market Segmentation:

The industrial Ethernet switch market is segmented on the basis of end user,industry verticals and geography. By industry vertical, the market is classified into aerospace & defense,manufacturing, electric and power, oil & gas, automotive and transportation, and others. By organization size, it is divided into large scale enterprise, medium scale enterprise, and small scale enterprise.

Further, on the basis of region the market is segmented into North America, Europe, APAC, Latin America and Middle East & Africa.North America is anticipated to hold significant growth rate through the forecast period due to the deployment of data centers and need for components assisting data centers, presence of large manufacturing industries, and deployment of smart grids are driving the market for industrial Ethernet switch market in this region.

Get Request for Table of Contents: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/requesttoc/3318

Market segmented based on end user:

 Large Scale Enterprise

 Medium Scale Enterprise

 Small Scale Enterprise

Market segmented based on vertical:

 Manufacturing

 Aerospace & Defense

 Electric and Power

 Oil & Gas

 Automotive and Transportation

 Others

Market segmented based on region:

 North America

 US

 Canada

 Mexico

 Europe

 UK

 Germany

 France

 Rest of Europe

 Asia-Pacific

 China

 Japan

 India

 Australia

 Rest of Asia-Pacific

 Latin America

 Brazil

 Rest of Latin America

 Middle East and Africa (MEA)

 South Africa

 Saudi Arabia

 Rest of MEA

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Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - The Stock Day Podcast welcomed US Nuclear Corp. (OTCQB: UCLE) ("The Company"), a hi-tech, scientific, radiation and chemical detection holding company specializing in the development, manufacturing, and sales of radiation and chemical detection instrumentation. CEO of the Company, Bob Goldstein, joined Stock Day host, Everett Jolly.

Goldstein began the interview by sharing some background information about the Company. "US Nuclear Corp. is a high-tech manufacturing company," he explained, adding that the Company develops drones and systems that detect toxic materials and search for clean water and air. "We also have stake in a couple of other companies - one is in fusion power and the other is in brain stimulation for Parkinson's, epilepsy and other important problems, such as concussion, back injury, and chronic pain," he continued.

Jolly asked about NASA's release of the Artemis Accords, as well as the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. "The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and, more recently, the Artemis Accords are the legal framework for what you're allowed and not allowed to do in space," said Goldstein. "The Artemis Accords allow for 'peaceful development'," he added, noting that this allows mining. "There is some military allowed, depending on how you read the specs, but no weapons of mass destruction are allowed anywhere in space."

"The next visit to the moon is supposed to be in 2024, and we're supposed to do a moon colony by 2028," said Goldstein, adding that the timeframe for a trip to Mars is less certain but may occur within the next 15 years.

"How will we put this into fruition by using fusion energy?", asked Jolly. "The moon base and Mars colony are going to need power," said Goldstein. "They're going to try to put up a permanent habitat - the habitat will grow into maybe a little town or something. But before that you need heat and electricity," explained Goldstein, adding that most of the energy sources used on Earth will not work on the moon or Mars. "Fusion is clean, it's modular, it's efficient," said Goldstein. "One gram of hydrogen can give you one megawatt of power," he added. "We feel that they absolutely need a fusion plant to produce reliable heat and electricity for them."

Jolly then asked about the use of fusion energy for spaceships. Goldstein explained that the current spaceships being developed by NASA and Elon Musk are using conventional fuels, which will work well for trips to the moon or Mars. "But if we want to do deep space, we'll need something different," said Goldstein, noting the weight of fuel that would need to be taken on these trips. "With fusion, just a few grams and you could get a lot of energy."

The conversation then turned to the Company's valuation. "Obviously we're surviving the pandemic here, and we're doing some very high-tech and exciting things. I think the stock will go up quite a bit," closed Goldstein, adding that the Company has several additional projects on the horizon.

To hear Bob Goldstein's entire interview, follow the link to the podcast here: https://audioboom.com/posts/7604076-us-nuclear-corp-discusses-the-potential-of-fusion-energy-in-space-exploration-with-the-stock-day

Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of "Stock Day," and Stock Day Media encourages listeners to visit the company's message board at https://investorshangout.com/.

About US Nuclear Corp.

US Nuclear Corp is a radiation and chemical detection holding company specializing in the development and manufacturing and sales of radiation and chemical detection instrumentation. Through three operating divisions (Technical Associates (TA), Overhoff Technology (OTC), and Electronic Control Concepts (ECC), US Nuclear Corp. harbors more than 100 years of combined experience in supplying top of the line instrumentation to any industry utilizing radionuclides. This includes nuclear power plants, national laboratories, government agencies, homeland security, military, universities and schools, research companies, hospitals, medical and dental centers, energy companies, weapons facilities, first responders, local governments, and manufacturing plants.

Safe Harbor Act

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations, estimates and projections and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believes," "predicts," "potential," "continue," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results.

Investors may find additional information regarding US Nuclear Corp. at the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov, or the company's website at www.usnuclearcorp.com.

CONTACT:

US Nuclear Corp. (UCLE)

Robert I. Goldstein, President, CEO, and Chairman

(818) 883 7043

Email: info@usnuclearcorp.com

About The "Stock Day" Podcast

Founded in 2013, Stock Day is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Stock Day provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. The Stock Day Podcast is the number one radio show of its kind in America. Stock Day recently launched its Video Interview Studio located in Phoenix, Arizona.

SOURCE:

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To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57599
Its not unusual for drugs to undergo some trials overseas. A 2010 report from the Office of Inspector General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that more than half of clinical-trial sites were located outside the United States, a shift that helped companies recruit volunteers and reduce research costs. Trials in developing countries  where diseases of poverty, such as malaria, persist and diseases like the Zika virus and Ebola are emergent  also may help secure approval for drugs that would specifically benefit those populations.
Francis I. Andersen, an Australian scholar who spent more than 35 years analyzing the syntax of the Hebrew Bible and created a powerful computer dictionary of the Scriptures clauses, phrases, and text segments, died last month at the age of 94.

Andersen started transcribing the oldest complete Hebrew text of the Bible into machine-readable form in 1971. It took him eight years to finish. Working with A. Dean Forbes, a seminary graduate who was researching a computers ability to recognize speech, Andersen developed a database of all the orthographic units of Hebrew Scripture, with seven different layers of syntactical information.

Today, the Andersen-Forbes database is used by Logos Bible Software, with a syntax search engine and phrase-marker graphs that open up the grammatical structures of ancient Hebrew. It is one of the research tools available in the Clergy Starter package, as well as other Logos software.

The database demonstrated the vast potential for digital Bible study just as the personal computer was being developed and made widely available. It was also a feat of Hebrew linguistics and Christian devotion.

Stuart Barton Babbage, an evangelical Anglican leader in Australia and one of Andersens spiritual mentors, said that Andersen brought the machines of science into the service of the Church and the proclamation of the Word of her Lord.

Andersen was also the author of the Anchor Bible commentary on Habakkuk, and co-author, with David Noel Freedman, of the series commentaries on Hosea, Amos, and Micah. Andersen loved the academic problems of understanding ancient Hebrew, but those who knew him said his deepest motivations were evangelical.

Right to the end Frank loved to talk about the Scriptures, the different forms of Hebrew that could be seen in the books of the Bible, and what was going on in the world of scholarship, wrote Andrew Prideaux, a campus minister at the University of Melbourne. But most of all, Frank wanted to talk about the goodness and love of God.

Andersen was born in Warwick, Queensland, Australia, in July 1925. He remembered his rural childhood as happy and wholesome, with people helping each other through droughts and depressions, regularly reciting the Lords Prayer, and singing God Save the King at parties.

His cultural Christianity became personal at the University of Melbourne, where Andersen earned a masters degree in chemistry, enrolled in a doctoral program, and then felt God prompting him in a different direction. Babbage, who was friends with C. S. Lewis and a supporter of Billy Graham, encouraged Andersen to switch from the sciences to the humanities. Andersen got a degree in Russian and then, with more encouragement from Babbage, agreed to take a position teaching at Ridley College, an evangelical Bible school in Melbourne.

The school didnt need a Russian scholar, but it did need someone with expertise in the Old Testament. Babbage said evangelical scholarship had been plagued with pedantry and needed someone who could bring a touch of originality and creativity to the discussion of controverted issues or the solution to textual obscurities.

As he later recalled, Frank needed little encouragement. Andersen decided to re-direct his academic career again and become an expert in Hebrew linguistics.

He went to Johns Hopkins University on a Fulbright scholarship in 1957 to study with William Foxwell Albright, the Methodist expert in biblical archaeology who had authenticated the Dead Sea Scrolls in the late 1940s. Andersen also worked closely with William Lambert Moran, a Jesuit scholar who showed how the study of obscure cuneiform texts from ancient Egypt could illuminate grammatical problems in Biblical Hebrew.

Andersen returned to Ridley in 1960 but only stayed for three years before he accepted a position at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Episcopal seminary in Berkeley, California. He taught classes on the Old Testament and continued researching arcane grammatical problems. His first major academic work was titled The Hebrew Verbless Clause in the Pentateuch. Then he wrote The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew.

At the same time, Andersen began his groundbreaking work using a computer to study the Bible. The seminary was part of the Graduate Theological Union, which connected Andersen to professors and students at seven other institutions in the area. It was also located near Silicon Valley, the emerging center of technological innovation, where people were figuring out how to make silicon semiconductors, integrated circuit chips, and microprocessors, as well as ways to network computers to share information. Andersen connected with A. Dean Forbes, who had graduated from Pacific School of Religion, one of the seminaries in the consortium, and then got a job as a project manager at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto.

The two men started computerizing the syntactical information from Hosea, Amos, and Micah. Andersen and Forbes finished the first syntactical concordance in 1972 and then started on Ruth and the rest of the minor prophets. When they finished those in 1976, they began work on Jeremiah.

At the time, it was not clear how the computer concordances would be useful. They could not be made available to pastors or even most Bible scholars, who didnt have access to research computers. But David Freedman, Andersens collaborator on three Anchor Bible commentaries, recalled being amazed at the incalculable quantities of esoteric analytical data the computer concordances could produce on the understudied minor prophets. And the possibilities presented by the advancing computer technology were too exciting to ignore.

His delight and enthusiasm for his self-appointed task of creating new and extraordinary Bible dictionaries [were] contagious, recalled scholar E. Ann Eyland. His imagination in his choice for tools and methods has resulted in work of inestimable value for Biblical scholarship.

Andersen left Berkeley after 10 years and took an academic position in New Zealand and then Australia. He returned to the United States in 1988 to teach at the New College for Advanced Christian Studies, in Berkeley. He taught at Fuller Theological Seminary from 1993 to 1997, before retiring to Melbourne at the age of 72.

As Andersen worked on obscure grammatical problems of Hebrew Scripture, he also reflected on the spiritual importance of his work. He wrote religious poetry in conversation with his translations and his own devotional experiences.

You know how brokenly and with what shame / my tongue took on your dreadful, mighty name, Andersen wrote in one poem, referencing his work on the Hebrew in Exodus 15:26. In another poem, Andersen wrote, I love you, Yahweh, and with merry mind / and singing hands shout, Joy! You are my Joy!

Andersens piety and scholarship were fused in his commentary on Job, which he published with InterVarsity Press. He analyzed the structure of the text, and well as the ancient poetic language. But Andersen made clear that those tasks were interesting and important to him because he believed the text was a revelation of God.

It is presumptuous to comment on the book of Job, he wrote in the introduction to his commentary. It is so full of the awesome reality of a living God. Like Job, one can only put ones hand over ones mouth (40:4). But God has revealed himself, preserving at the same time the inaccessible mystery of his own being. So we must attempt this impossible thing which he makes possible (Mark 10:27). However forbidding, he fascinates us irresistibly until, by kindness and severity (Rom. 11:22), he brings us in his own way to Jobs final satisfaction and joy.

One of Andersens sons died shortly after he finished the book. His wife, Lois, died in 2010. Andersen is survived by his sons David and John, daughters Nedra and Kathryn, and his second wife, Margaret.
Dubai, June 10 : The mortal remains of Nithin Chandran, an Indian expat in the UAE who died of possible cardiac arrest here on Monday, were flown back to Kochi late on Tuesday night.

The 28-year-old Chandran was under treatment for high blood pressure and a heart condition and is suspected to have succumbed to a heart attack while asleep, Gulf News reported.

Chandran's remains were repatriated from Sharjah International Airport at 11.30 p.m. on a chartered Air Arabia flight on Tuesday, which landed in Kochi at 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday. The body was later moved to his hometown in Kozhikode for the final rites, said Advocate Hashik, senior legal consultant who is handling Nithin's case.

Chandran and his wife Athira Geetha Sreedharan, who is also a Keralite, were in the news after a pregnant Sreedharan filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India in April seeking help to return home for her delivery due in the first week of July, amidst the international travel lockdown imposed by India following the coronavirus pandemic.

Chandran had stayed back in Dubai after sending his wife home on the first day of repatriation from Dubai on May 7 under the Vande Bharat Mission.

Sreedharan delivered the couple's first child, a daughter, on Tuesday, a day after her husband's untimely death.

"After landing in Kochi, Nithin's remains were taken to MIMS Hospital in Kozhikode so Sreedharan and the baby could see him one last time. She was not told about his passing until after her baby's birth as the family was worried it could cause mother and child some harm," said Hashik.

He added, "I have helped several families repatriate their loved ones to India in the many years of my service here. Nothing has broken my heart more than this case."
The Center for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana has expressed worry over the limited time period for the Electoral Commission's voter registration exercise.

A Research Analyst with CDD Ghana, Rhoda Osei Afful, in a Citi News interview said more clarity would be needed from the commission on how it intends to make the most of the registration period.

The EC plans to start the exercise on June 30, 2020 and run till the end of July.

But Rhoda Osei Afful said, what is not clear to me is when the exercise will end because if the exercise was going to end in July then you are looking at something less than the number of days that the Commission had indicated.

At the time, based on the days they provided, it seemed reasonable that they could cover, but now if they are starting at the very last day of the month, and we are still going to end in July then it means we are having fewer days, she said noted.

The EC will once again be using its cluster method for the registration, although the time spent in each cluster is expected to reduce.

Each registration team will spend six days in each phase within a cluster, a reduction from the initial 10 days outlined for the registration exercise.

The mop-up exercise has also reduced from five to three days.

The registration exercise is scheduled to take place at all the 33,367 polling stations, which will serve as registration centres nationwide.

There will be a day set aside, to assemble and prepare the materials for the next phase, according to the EC.

In between all this, there will be a day set aside to assemble and prepare the materials for the next phases, according to the EC.

Given the expected plan, Rhoda Osei Afful, said: it will be much more helpful to adjust the date they are stating otherwise we can have some challenges trying to cover as many people who are eligible as possible.

---citinewsroom
Oman Shipping Company, a member of Asyad Group, and Standard Chartered Bank have announced the banks first sustainable financing deal in the Middle East worth $35 million.

This sustainable financing agreement is the first of its kind in Oman and a first for Standard Chartered Bank in the Middle East. The 8-year facility is linked to key sustainability targets in line with United Nations sustainable development goals and the credit margin under the facility will be adjusted based on Oman Shipping Companys progress against sustainable targets, said a statement.

The facility covers two dry bulk Ultramax vessels, the Jabal Shams and Jabal Al-Misht.

The signing ceremony took place at Oman Shipping Companys headquarters and was attended by senior executives from Standard Chartered Oman, Asyad Group and Oman Shipping Company.

The signing is a further indication of the company and Asyad Groups commitment to leading sustainability best practice. Standard Chartered Bank continues to support economic growth in Oman, and with this sustainable deal reaffirms the banks clear commitment to environmental protection.

Said Al Mawali, Chief Executive Officer, Oman Shipping Company and Oman Drydock Company, said: This most recent deal with SCB will support Oman Shipping Companys operational expansion by further strengthening and increasing our capacity within a growing fleet. We are particularly pleased with the sustainability component of the agreement, a significant first for the Sultanate and the shipping industry in the region. We are determined to drive sustainability in our operations and supply chains, and we feel this agreement is aligned to who we are as a company, Asyad Group and our company values. As we continue to lead the direction of shipping regionally, we look forward to others following, by embracing more ethical financing agreements.

Hussain bin Ghalib Al Yafai, Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered Bank Oman, said: Standard Chartered is truly pleased to bring global best practice of sustainable finance to the Sultanate of Oman alongside our trusted partner, Asyad. Standard Chartered has served the Omani community, furthering their economic growth, for more than 50 years and we are proud to support their latest commitment to environmental protection.

"This deal gives us the opportunity to work across teams globally to propose the most optimal and innovative financing solutions for Oman Shipping Company. - TradeArabia News Service
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 17:05:33|Editor: huaxia

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HONG KONG, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong police said on Wednesday that they have seized five guns and uncovered 14 cases related to explosives since the social unrest last year.

Chou Wong-chung, superintendent of the Narcotics Bureau, said the police first seized a real gun in an arrest of a violent and extreme gang in December last year, and up to now the police have seized five real guns, mechanical gadgets and over 1,000 bullets, and destroyed self-made devices to make bullets and labs to make explosives. These cases have been proved to have connection with violent extremists and radical groups.

Chou said the police on Tuesday arrested a family aged between 38 and 65, involving two men and a woman, on suspicion of possession of arms and ammunition without a license and possession of offensive weapon.

Chou said the police seized a real gun, 390 live bullets and some mechanical gadgets when searching the suspects' house in Yuen Long.

The gun and bullets were bought from overseas websites and transported into Hong Kong via international delivery in a bid to avoid detection from the police, Chou said. The Hong Kong police will cooperate with overseas law enforcement agencies to plug the leaks.

Since October last year, the police have uncovered 14 cases related to explosives, seized high explosives, offensive weapons and some devices which can be detonated remotely, and arrested extremists who planted bombs in public places.

According to Hong Kong regulations, people convicted of possession of arms and ammunition without a license face up to 14-year imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 Hong Kong dollars (around 12,900 U.S. dollars). Enditem
WASHINGTON  The Taliban have yet to prove they will keep Afghanistan from becoming a base for terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland, a key criterion for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the country, the senior U.S. commander in the Middle East said Wednesday.

Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, identified al-Qaida as the threat about which he was most concerned in Afghanistan during comments to an online forum hosted by the Middle East Institute.

His remarks come at a critical juncture in a war that has lasted almost 19 years. U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in an effort to destroy al-Qaida for conducting the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to punish the Taliban regime for hosting the terrorist group. By utilizing CIA money, U.S. and coalition airpower and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance army, U.S. Special Operations forces were able to overthrow the Taliban within a few months. But after retreating to safe havens in Pakistan, the Taliban have waged a brutal guerrilla war, fighting U.S. and coalition forces and their Afghan partners to a bloody stalemate in which almost 1,900 U.S. service members have been killed in action.

Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In February, U.S. and Taliban representatives signed a peace deal in Doha, Qatar, committing the Taliban not to attack U.S. or coalition forces, and the United States to withdraw their forces down to 8,600 by this summer. The United States is ahead of schedule with its withdrawal commitment, according to McKenzie.

The general added that, per the Doha agreement, If conditions will allow, were prepared to go to zero by May 2021.

Those conditions would be, can we be assured that attacks against us will not be generated there, he said. As of right now  those conditions have not been fully met.

The Taliban, which are largely drawn from the Pashtun tribes of rural eastern and southern Afghanistan, are not likely to be plotting attacks against the United States themselves, according to McKenzie. The threat to the United States is not the Taliban, he said. Its never been the Taliban. Its the entities that they allow to live in Afghanistan that threaten us.

Story continues

Those entities are the Islamic State and al-Qaida, he said. But while al-Qaidas relationship with the Taliban dates back to 1996, when the groups Saudi Arabian founder, Osama bin Laden, moved his headquarters to Afghanistan from Sudan, the Taliban see the Islamic State as a rival.

The Taliban actually are no friends of ISIS and work against them, McKenzie said, using another name for the Islamic State. They have actually done a great deal of work to compress ISIS over the last year. However, he added, Its less clear to me that they will take the same action against al-Qaida.

The Central Command chief spoke about al-Qaidas presence in Afghanistan and the likely location of its leader in more detail than is typical for a senior U.S. military officer. The home of al-Qaida is in eastern Afghanistan, right up against the border, he said. The group has only a very small presence there, but the global leader is there, he added in reference to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian militant who took command of al-Qaida after U.S. Special Operations forces killed bin Laden in 2011. He doesnt have the ability to talk much, but we think hes probably physically up in that area somewhere.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri vowing to avenge the death of the network's Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a U.S. air raid in 2006. (Al Jazeera/AFP via Getty Images)

In order for U.S. forces to completely withdraw, the Taliban will have to prove through actions, not just words, that it is prepared to eliminate the al-Qaida threat to the United States from within Afghanistan, according to McKenzie. We dont have to like the Taliban, we dont have to believe the Taliban, he said. What we need to do is watch the Taliban and see what they do.

Meanwhile, the prospects for an overall peace in Afghanistan are murky. The Taliban are scrupulously adhering to their promise not to attack U.S. or other international coalition forces in Afghanistan, but they are aggressively targeting Afghan government troops, particularly in rural areas, according to McKenzie.

The Afghan government, which was not involved in the Doha talks, has been split over how to proceed, in large part because the main opposition figure Abdullah Abdullah refused to recognize Februarys election results that kept President Ashraf Ghani in power. The two agreed on a power-sharing arrangement in May, paving the way for a unified approach to dealing with the Taliban.

The government of Afghanistan is beginning to coalesce around a potential bargaining position that would allow them to go into negotiations, McKenzie said. The Taliban needs to demonstrate that theyre going to be faithful partners too.

Further complicating the situation is the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit Afghanistan, including the Taliban, hard, according to McKenzie.

The Taliban is significantly penetrated by it, he said, adding that this was unfortunate and a bad thing because anything that tends to destabilize decision making at a critical period of time is inherently not good.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
The U.S. Air Force will pit a drone against a fighter jet in an aerial combat demonstration next year. It's just one example of how the service is gunning to change the character of warfare, top officials say.

Last week, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, revealed that the Air Force Research Lab is working on an "autonomous system to go up against a human, manned system in some sort of air-to-air" test in July 2021. Speaking during a Mitchell Institute event, he said the test will be an indication of how the service's outlook is growing when it comes to the next dynamic battlefront.

Read Next: Trump Shuts Down Proposal to Rename Army Bases Honoring Confederate Fighters

"The drones we're exploring fit into the broader concept of, 'It's time to not talk about X-generation aircraft, it's time to talk about next generation air power,'" Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, said Tuesday when asked about how the test fits into the service's larger drone enterprise.

"The drones we're exploring are this 'next thing' that make a ton of sense to put on top of your stealth [fighter] advantage -- the ability to push something forward," he said during a video chat, also hosted by the Mitchell Institute.

The futuristic drone "can be a sensor for you, it can be a jammer for you, it can be a shooter for you," Roper said. "It's detecting for you ... and all the other things your imagination could dream up, that's what we're dreaming up."

That's especially true when it comes to leveraging artificial intelligence-driven drones to lead in the battlespace, he added. Roper has not been shy about using the Air Force's Skyborg project as an example of how AI can augment an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter or F-22 Raptor team sent out to conduct strikes.

"No one has flown with a digital pilot," he said of Skyborg, which seeks to pair AI with a human piloting a fighter jet -- training with its pilot, acting as a sidekick, rapidly thinking through problems and taking command if necessary.

Last year during the Paris Air Show, Roper said discussions were ongoing within the Air Force about the need for a proposed sixth-gen fighter concept, which could be the successor to F-22s and F-35s. But he also said the service is likely to choose something more elaborate.

"I think that's going to be a hallmark of sixth generation of air superiority," he said Tuesday of the drone-fighter pairing.

Skyborg could also fly with bombers and tankers "to provide extra defensive capability," Roper said. The Air Force launched an official solicitation for Skyborg last month.

Roper said that, regardless of the type of unmanned aircraft headed out to do the mission, artificial intelligence will undoubtedly have a role to play in gathering and quickly disseminating information.

For example, the replacement for the MQ-9 Reaper -- known as MQ-Next, aimed at having a more capable drone that can survive hostile environments -- should hone intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance gathering by adopting algorithmic technologies from the get-go.

The service posted a request for information solicitation for MQ-Next last week.

"The way we can really drop the cost per hour of ISR is if algorithms are doing most of the triaging of the raw video, and only sending back to remote operators objects that are of interest that are [important] to look at," Roper said, adding that it would cut down the number of airmen needed to sift through the data -- something the Air Force has attempted to do for years.

Researchers will look to Skyborg for the MQ-Next program, he said. "That's what's exciting about it, is there are multiple variables at play here.

"The roots of the Air Force are all about breaking boundaries and doing new things," Roper said.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related: Air Force Generals to Elon Musk: The Fighter Jet Era Isn't over Yet
(Los Angeles Times)

Two people were killed and three others, including a child, were wounded in a shooting at a toddler's birthday party in the Bay Area late Tuesday.

Officers responded to reports of a shooting in a residential neighborhood in the 100 block of Cynthia Avenue in Vallejo around 9:49 p.m., said Brittany Jackson, a public information officer with the Vallejo Police Department.

When they arrived, officers found four adults and one child, ranging in age from 10 to 63 years old, suffering from gunshot wounds. Two women, a 63-year-old and a 37-year-old, were pronounced dead at a hospital. A man, a woman and a 10-year-old child suffered injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening and were expected to survive, Jackson said.

The group was at a toddler's birthday party when several shooters exited a vehicle and opened fire, Jackson said.

A description of the suspects was not immediately available. Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Schillinger at (707) 648-4278 or the Vallejo Police Department Crime Tip Line at (800) 488-9383.
The African Union said that three civilians were killed and two others injured during a firefight between its forces in Somalia and Islamists from the Al-Shabaab group.

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said its troops clashed with Al-Shabaab fighters who had laid a roadside ambush on Monday northeast of Janale in Lower Shabelle, a hotbed for the insurgents.

"Regrettably, three women were killed in the crossfire while two were injured and are currently receiving medical attention at the AMISOM hospital," AMISOM said in a statement late Tuesday.

"We would like to render our sincere apologies and heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery."

AMISOM head Ambassador Francisco Madeira said the incident was "unfortunate" and that its peacekeeping force deployed in Somalia "remain committed to protecting the population".

AMISOM troops, which support Somalia's ill-equipped national army in the fight against Al-Shabaab, have been accused of killing civilians during past operations.

US forces, which regularly target the Islamists with airstrikes, announced in April that one of its drone attacks the previous year resulted in two civilian deaths.

It was just the second time the US military admitted to civilian deaths from its drone programme in Somalia, though rights groups say the true figure is higher.

Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in the Horn of Africa, has fought for over a decade to topple the internationally-backed Somali government in Mogadishu.

In 2011, AMISOM forces pushed Al-Shabaab out of their holdouts in Mogadishu, and the insurgents have since lost much of the territory they once controlled.

But they still carry out regular attacks against civilian and government targets, inflicting mass casualties not just in Somalia, but elsewhere in the region.

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MUMBAI: In a shocking incident, an 82-year-old woman from Bhusaval, who was missing for eight days from a government-run hospital at Jalgaon in Maharashtra, was found dead inside a toilet in the same hospital on Wednesday.

According to Akbar Patel, Senior Inspector at the Zillapeth police station, the Jalgaon Civil Hospital (JCH) authorities and the family had informed the police that she was missing on June 2.

The octogenarian, who was a Covid-19 patient, was admitted to the hospital on June 1. She went missing from the hospital the next day which was also registered in the district police stations. The police, hospital staffers and the family members had been searching for her since June 2.



While cleaning the hospital on June 9, the old woman's body was discovered in the bathroom of ward 7.

Earlier, this same hospital in Amalner was in the news when the medical staffers concerned had exchanged the body of a Covid-19 patient with that of a non-corona patient.

This is the second recorded case of a 'missing' Covid-19 patient found dead in the past three days, rattling the state health authorities.

On Tuesday, Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar ordered an inquiry after the body of an 80-year-old male Covid-19 patient, who went missing from the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali on Sunday, was found near the Borivali station, apparently killed in a train mishap.
Meghan McCain has described the 'defund the police' movement as playing into the hands of Donald Trump's electoral team, describing the concept as 'a really great campaign slogan' for the president.

McCain, a strong critic of Trump, told her co-hosts during Tuesday's episode of The View that she had grave concerns about the idea, which has gained momentum in recent days.

Proponents of reducing police budgets argue that the money would be better used on mental health care, social issues, homelessness and helping job seekers.

They point out that it is different to the campaign to abolish the police.

Scroll down for video

Meghan McCain on Tuesday returned to the debate about defunding police forces

McCain on Monday had discussed the idea with Senator Kamala Harris, telling her many voters were confused by the concept.

On Tuesday she returned to the theme.

'If you were to hire me to advise you to run for office, there are a few tenets of politics that have not changed,' she said.

'One of them is that if you're explaining you're losing. And there is a lot of explaining going on on this.

'If you mean reform, say reform. If you mean defund, say defund.'

McCain with her co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg (top left), Joy Behar (top right) and Sunny Hostin (bottom left). The show is filmed in the hosts' homes, owing to social distancing rules

McCain pointed out that Ilhan Omar, the congresswoman whose district includes Minneapolis, was calling for 'a complete dismantling' of the police.

On Sunday members of the Minneapolis City Council announced they were supporting the dismantling of the police and planned to start again.

McCain said that Omar's remarks had confused the issue further.

'This is giving Trump a really great campaign slogan,' she said.

McCain noted that Al Sharpton described the concept as misleading, without interpretation.

'Democrats need to be crystal clear on this,' she said.

'You guys can spin and say everything you want. Politics at the end of the day is about slogans, and "defund the police" is a great one for the Trump campaign.'

Protesters in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 3 calling for the defunding of the Phoenix police

'Defund the police' is a rallying cry seen at this protest in New York City on Saturday

A protester holds a 'defund the police' placard at a rally in Seattle on Monday

On Monday's edition of the show, McCain had challenged Harris, the senator for California, to explain the call to defund the police.

She tried to get Harris to give a yes or no answer to whether she would support defunding the police, but Harris dodged the question.

McCain later tweeted a series of points explaining why she felt the concept was unclear, and potentially problematic for Democrats.

McCain on Monday, after her discussion with Kamala Harris, continued expressing her opinion

She also hit back at people who said her questioning of Harris showed she was unprepared

Joe Biden, the Democrat challenger for the presidency in November, has said he does not support cutting funding for the police.

His campaign said in a statement that he 'hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change' and that he 'supports the urgent need for reform.'

Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesman, said however that Biden was opposed to cutting police funding, and believed more spending was necessary to help improve law enforcement and community policing.

On Sunday Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, announced that some of the funding to the NYPD - the largest police department in the country - would be moved to youth services and social work.
A Waltham, Mass.-based defense contractor that completed an acquisition of United Technologies Corp. in April now is making a donation to help feed Connecticuts hungry.

Raytheon Technologies is donating $5 million to 17 Feeding America member food banks. Here in Connecticut, Wallingford-based Connecticut Food Bank and Foodshare in Bloomfield are the beneficiaries of Raytheons donation.

Greg Hayes, chief executive officer of Raytheon Technologies, said the impact of COVID-19 on communities has been swift and unprecedented.

The communities where our employees live and work are in need, and its our responsibility to support our friends and neighbors during this crisis, Hayes said in a statement.

The donation amounts to a little more than $294,000 per food bank. Daniel Gomez, chief operating officer for the Connecticut Food Bank, said demand for the organizations service has increased by 50 percent or more since the coronavirus hit the state in March, the response to which closed businesses and putt people out of work.

Prior to COVID-19, 1 in 9 people in our service area struggled with hunger, including nearly 77,000 children, Gomez said in a statement.

The Connecticut Food Bank serves 500 food pantries and other hunger-related agencies in six Connecticut counties including New Haven and Fairfield.

Paul Shipman, a spokesman for Connecticut Food Bank, said the Raytheon donation comes at a opportune time. In addition to an increasing number of people needing the organizations services, food donations from grocery stores that had made up 60 percent of Connecticut Food Bank stock have decreased, he said.

With the increased demand and the decrease in donations, were having to buy more food to fill in the gaps, Shipman said. And food costs are high right now.

Two single-day food distribution events in Norwalk and Bridgeport drew more than 3,200 cars between the two location, he said.

We distributed 2.6 million pounds of food across our network in May, Shipman said.

Foodshare is the regional food bank serving 118,000 people in Hartford and Tolland counties.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
A worker at a hotel in Studio City uses a handheld machine to spray a disinfectant fog made of ethanol and hydrogen peroxide. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

If you decide to break away from your coronavirus lockdown to hit the road this summer, expect some changes at your hotel, such as no more valet parking, a sheet of plexiglass between you and the concierge and a capacity limit at the pool.

And forget about using the gym. It will be closed.

The breakfast buffet? Gone.

With Gov. Gavin Newsom expected to give the green light for leisure travel to begin Friday, the hotel industry has adopted a set of protocols that are changing the look of the country's hotels and the way they operate. The goal is to make guests feel safe, or relatively safe, from the coronavirus.

In addition to having hotel workers clean and wipe most surfaces much more often, hotel operators are installing stickers on floors to remind people to keep their distance from one another. Hand sanitizer dispensers will be placed throughout buildings. At least one hotel moved its lobby to a less crowded location; others have spaced pool furniture far apart to discourage guests who don't know each other from cavorting together.

In most hotels, staff will be wearing masks. Some hotels will offer masks and hand sanitizer to guests when they check in.

One hotel cleaning company is pushing for a greater use of robot vacuums to free up staffers to more thoroughly clean rooms. Many other hotels are turning to devices that spray a fog of disinfectant to kill germs that may be hiding in nooks and crannies.

"Most people can live with those kind of changes," said Janet Zaldua, chief executive of the Marina del Rey Convention & Visitors Bureau and a member of a Los Angeles County task force working on ways to safely reopen businesses. "I think there is so much pent-up demand."

The Whiz is an automated vacuum for use in hotels and office buildings. (Softbank Robotics Group Corp.)

Growing numbers of people are gearing up for vacations. A survey by Deloitte in mid-May of 1,000 Americans found that 31% were planning to stay in a hotel during a leisure trip in the following three months, up from 24% in mid-April.

Story continues

As hotels reopen, they face hot competition. Airbnb and similar companies have reported a recent surge in home rentals, touting the properties' relative lack of crowds and guests' ability to cook their own meals and control who enters the space. And as early as March, recreational-vehicle companies were seeing some success pitching trips in RVs and campers as a way to travel in a bubble.

The California Hotel and Lodging Assn. has developed a 34-point checklist to fight the spread of COVID-19. Hotels that abide by the checklist, including washing bed linen in the hottest water possible and eliminating valet parking services, will get a window decal saying the property meets the group's "Clean + Safe" standards.

The pandemic pushed demand for hotels  and all travel  to record lows. U.S. hotels have lost an estimated $31 billion in room revenue and have laid off or furloughed as many as 70% of their workers since the pandemic hit, according to data published by the American Hotel and Lodging Assn.

Hotel operators are hoping to attract more guests by promoting new ways they're trying to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection.

At the 70-room BLVD Hotel & Spa in Studio City, plexiglass partitions separate guests from workers at the front desks and at the bar. The gym, spa and pool have been closed. A shop in the hotel lobby that previously sold freshly made sandwiches, bagels, coffee and other breakfast and lunch items has been converted to sell premade, individually wrapped snacks.

In the rooms, the housekeepers wipe down the hard surfaces before switching on a hand-held device that resembles a small leaf blower that emits a fog made of a solution of hydrogen peroxide and ethanol. After the room has been cleaned and fogged, a sticker on the hotel room doors signifies no one has entered since the room has been disinfected.

"It's going to become the new norm," said Sagar Kumar, the owner of the chain of three BVLD Hotels. "It's something that every hotel should be doing."

It's unclear whether disinfectant fog is especially helpful against the coronavirus.

Fogging was used on airplanes during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, said Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at UCLAs David Geffen School of Medicine. But he said fogging hotel rooms is not necessary for the coronavirus as long as a housekeeper wipes down high-touch surfaces such as toilets and door handles.

"I dont think there is any reason you have to disinfect the walls and ceilings," he said, adding that the virus usually doesn't live on surfaces for more than several hours.

To disinfect rooms, Marriott International, one of the world's largest hotel companies, is testing the use of electrostatic fogging devices, which charge the droplets of solution that are being sprayed to make them cling to the surfaces. It is a process that Delta Air Lines is using to disinfect its cabins between flights. The hotel giant is also evaluating whether to eliminate or modify valet parking.

Marriott is also recommending that its brand hotels space furniture apart in common areas and install plexiglass barriers, hand sanitizer dispensers and signage to encourage physical distancing.

"Now, more than ever, travelers need to believe in the places where they stay," said Scott McCoy, Marriott's vice president of market operations and guest experience in the Americas.

The pandemic, according to hotel industry experts, is likely to make smaller hotels more popular among travelers over large chain hotels where guests may feel they are at greater risk of being infected by being exposed to large crowds of people attending conferences or weddings.

"Almost overnight weve gone from a hotel product that was functionally obsolete to highly desirable, Alan X. Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group, said of small hotels.

But even boutique hotels are making changes.

At the 22-room Hotel Joaquin in Laguna Beach, the check-in desk was moved from a cramped lobby to a larger living room area so guests are not crowded together. Around the pool, the deck chairs have been spaced apart to promote physical distancing and the furniture is wiped down with disinfectant after each use, hotel owner Paul Makarechian said.

The hotel has also closed its restaurant and instead encourages guests to order to-go food from nearby eateries to eat in their rooms or in the patios and outdoor areas. The hotel provides guests with disposable dishes, cups and utensils.

"We are not doing the traditional sit-down dining anymore," Makarechian said. "What we are trying to do is give the sophistication with a little less interaction."

Once demand begins to rise, hotels probably will hire more workers to clean more often and more thoroughly, said Kelvis Quaynor, vice president of Ganir & Co., a company that provides cleaning services to some of the nation's largest hotel chains.

But he believes overall labor costs can be controlled by introducing more automation, including devices such as the Whiz, an automated vacuum to clean hallways and large convention spaces.Quaynor said the "industrial-size Roomba," built by Softbank Robotics Group Corp., will free up staffers to focus on disinfecting rooms.

The Whiz is already in use at a hotel in Park City, Utah, Quaynor said, and he expects similar automation to be used nationwide within a year or two.

"COVID-19 is going to make this much more rapid than we thought, he said.
WASHINGTON, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Three-fourths of American workers (76%) think racism and discrimination is an issue at U.S. workplaces, but fewer than half (44%) think it's an issue at their company, according to a new survey from Clutch, a B2B ratings and reviews platform.

Clutch found that just 14% of workers say racism and discrimination is a major problem at their own workplace, compared to 43% who think it's a major problem at U.S. companies overall.

Employees believe discrimination is a problem at U.S. workplaces - but not at their own Employees believe discrimination is a problem at U.S. workplaces - but not at their own

Two-thirds of African-American workers (64%), however, say racism and discrimination is a problem at their workplace.

Many people may be discriminating without knowing it. These "microaggressions" are small actions, comments, and gestures people make that only marginalized groups may notice.

Workers may not think their company is discriminatory, but many likely don't understand common workplace microaggressions.

Most Workers Want Companies to Actively Address the Death of George Floyd and the Resulting Protests

Most people are supportive of the current anti-racism protests and companies that are responding to the race issues people are protesting.

Nearly two-thirds of workers (62%) support the current protests that resulted from the death of George Floyd, and 55% think their company should respond directly to the issues of the protests.

To address the anti-racism protests, companies have:

Released a public statement (30%)

Held an open discussion with leadership (19%)

Donated to causes (10%)

Promised to hire a more diverse workforce (7%)

Made it easier for employees to take time off (6%)

Angel Mills, owner of Angel Mills Brand Strategy, a marketing agency that specializes in brand development, is sharing emails and social media posts about the protests and is planning a forum for clients to discuss the issues surrounding George Floyd's death and how they affect black entrepreneurs.

"I think that it would be extremely tone-deaf and inconsiderate to refuse to acknowledge how the death of George Floyd is affecting the black community specifically and the world at large," Mills said. "It is imperative that companies speak up and begin to take action to do their part to dismantle racism."

Large Businesses More Likely to Address the Death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter Protests

Two-thirds of businesses with more than 500 employees (67%) have addressed the recent anti-racism protests, compared to 34% of companies with 2-500 employees.

Most large companies (51%) have released a public statement about their stance on racism and the actions they plan to take to address it, compared to 14% of smaller companies.

Overall, 65% of workers think their company has done enough to address the death of George Floyd and the resulting protests.

Read the full report here: https://clutch.co/hr/resources/how-businesses-are-responding-george-floyd-death-resulting-protests.

For questions about the survey, reach out to Kristen Herhold at [email protected].

About Clutch

Clutch is the leading ratings and reviews platform for IT, marketing, and business service providers. Each month, over half a million buyers and sellers of services use the Clutch platform, and the user base is growing over 50% a year. Clutch has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the 500 fastest growing companies in the U.S. and has been listed as a top 50 startup by LinkedIn.

Contact

Kristen Herhold

[email protected]

(202) 840-6690

SOURCE Clutch

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The Historic Morganton Festival is off for 2020, but the Sunrise Run is on.

Just in a different setting than usual.

While the festival was shelved for this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the accompanying Greenway run will carry on in a virtual manner this fall, the city of Morgantons Main Street Department announced on Monday.

Registration for the virtual run, either as a 1-mile fun run, 5K or a 10K, now is open online at bit.ly/3f1SQWT and costs $20 per competitor. Submitting results for the race will begin on Saturday, Sept. 12, scheduled to be the original race date, and will run through midnight on Monday, Oct. 12.

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Those who participate will be allowed to run their own fun run, 5K or 10K race at any point during that month span. Races can be run anywhere in town, the state of North Carolina or the country, Main Street said. Original race routes also are available online for those who want to stick to the yearly tradition of running on the Catawba River Greenway.

Once completed, runners can go back online and submit their results to their Run Signup profile.
[June 10, 2020] OSE Immunotherapeutics Presents New Data Supporting Bispecific Antibody Checkpoint Inhibitor Platform (BiCKI) and Bifunctional Therapy Targeting PD-1 and IL-7 (BiCKI-IL-7) For Cancer Immunotherapy

NANTES, France, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OSE Immunotherapeutics (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnemo: OSE) will present the latest progress on its bispecific antibody platform, called BiCKI, based on an anti-PD1 backbone fused with cytokines or costimulatory molecules, and a preclinical update on its developmental BiCKI therapy, a bifunctional anti-PD-1 / interleukin-7 (IL-7) fusion protein, called BiCKI-IL-7(1), at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting II, to be held on June 22-24, 2020.

Nicolas Poirier, Chief Scientific Officer of OSE Immunotherapeutics, commented: The AACR update presentations show that our BiCKI bispecific anti-PD1 checkpoint inhibitor antibodies platform and novel bispecific therapy combining anti-PD-1 and the cytokine IL-7, called BiCKI-IL-7, will help overcome resistance mechanisms to anti-PD(L)-1 therapies and could potentially address the needs of a patient population in immune escape from checkpoint inhibitor treatment. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are now considered a new standard of care against a wide range of cancers. However, these therapies are ineffective in a significant percentage of patients, and some initial responders eventually develop resistance to these therapies with relapsed disease (2). Sustained tumor antigen stimulation may result in a state of functional impairment referred to as exhaustion of tumor T lymphocytes. Disarming T regulatory cells (Tregs) is also important as Tregs contribute to dampening anti-tumor response. The poster entitled: Bispecific anti-PD1 ChecKpoint Inhibitors antibodies (BiCKI), an optimized platform designed to tackle anti-PD-(L)1 primary and secondary resistance mechanisms shows improvement of the BiCKI platform manufacturability and drug exposure by selectively designing the structure of bispecific antibodies. By fusing costimulatory molecules, either cytokines or a dominant negative receptor to the anti PD-1 blocking antibody, it is possible to generate and select a variety of efficient bispecific molecules that act synergistically to counteract primary and secondary resistance mechanisms of anti-PD(L)1 therapies. The poster: A novel bifunctional anti-PD-1 / IL-7 fusion protein potentiates effector function of exhausted T cell and disarms Treg suppressive activity features data validating the therapeutic potential of providing IL-7 signals to overcome PD-1 resistance. Data shows how the bifunctional anti-PD1/IL-7 therapy BiCKI-IL-7 favors the T-cell effector over T-regulatory immune cell balance by stimulating Teff cells and exhausted T-cells, while in parallel disarming Tregs immunosuppressive functions as opposed to IL-2 (and IL-15). (1) AACR Virtual Annual Meeting II poster details

Bispecific anti-PD1 ChecKpoint Inhibitors antibodies (BiCKI), an optimized platform designed to tackle anti-PD-(L)1 primary and secondary resistance mechanisms

Caroline Mary, Virginie Thepenier, Aurore Morello, Geraldine Teppaz, Margaux Seite, Marion Colonello, Justine Durand, Kevin Biteau, Emmanuelle Wilhelm, Nicolas Porier



A novel bifunctional anti-PD-1 / IL-7 fusion protein potentiates effector function of exhausted T cell and disarms Treg suppressive activity

Aurore Morello, Justine Durand, Margaux Seite, Virginie Thepenier, Geraldine Teppaz, Emmanuelle Wilhelm, Sabrina Pengam, Caroline Mary, Nicolas Poirier (2) Cancer J.; available in PMC 2019 Jan 1.; Mechanisms of Resistance to PD-1 and PD-L1 blockade

Theodore S. Nowicki et al.

ABOUT OSE Immunotherapeutics

OSE Immunotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing and partnering therapies to control the immune system for immuno-oncology and autoimmune diseases. The company has several scientific and technological platforms including neoepitopes and agonist or antagonist monoclonal antibodies, all ideally positioned to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases. Its first-in-class clinical and preclinical portfolio has a diversified risk profile: Tedopi  (innovative combination of neoepitopes) : the companys most advanced product ; positive results for Step-1 of the Phase 3 trial (Atalante 1) in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer post checkpoint inhibitor failure; due to Covid-19, voluntary definitive suspension of new patient accrual in the Step-2 initially planned in the trial.

In Phase 2 in pancreatic cancer (TEDOPaM, sponsor GERCOR) in combination with checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo  .

(innovative combination of neoepitopes) : the companys most advanced product ; (Atalante 1) in post checkpoint inhibitor failure; due to Covid-19, voluntary definitive suspension of new patient accrual in the Step-2 initially planned in the trial. In (TEDOPaM, sponsor GERCOR) in combination with checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo . BI 765063 (OSE-172, anti-SIRPa monoclonal antibody): developed in partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim ; myeloid checkpoint inhibitor in Phase 1 in advanced solid tumors .

(OSE-172, anti-SIRPa monoclonal antibody): developed in ; myeloid checkpoint inhibitor in . FR104 (anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody): positive Phase 1 results ; Phase 2-ready asset in autoimmune diseases or in transplantation .

(anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody): ; . OSE-127 (humanized monoclonal antibody targeting IL-7 receptor): developed in partnership with Servier ; positive Phase 1 results ; two independent Phase 2 planned in ulcerative colitis (OSE sponsor) and in Sjogrens syndrome (Servier sponsor) to start in 2020.

(humanized monoclonal antibody targeting IL-7 receptor): developed in ; ; two independent planned in (OSE sponsor) and in (Servier sponsor) to start in 2020. BiCKI  : bispecific fusion protein platform built on the key backbone component anti-PD-1 (OSE-279) combined with new immunotherapy targets; 2 nd generation of PD-(L)1 inhibitors to increase antitumor efficacity . Additional innovative research programs .

: platform built on the key backbone component anti-PD-1 (OSE-279) combined with new immunotherapy targets; 2 generation of PD-(L)1 inhibitors to increase . . CoVepiT: a prophylactic vaccine against COVID-19, developed using SARS-CoV-2 optimized neo-epitopes. First preclinical results expected start of H2 2020, possible clinical trial by year end.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, accrual of new patients in the clinical trial TEDOPaM is temporarily suspended and initiation timelines for both Phase 2 trials of OSE-127 could be impacted during the coming months. For more information: https://ose-immuno.com/en/ Click and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn

https://twitter.com/OSEIMMUNO

https://www.linkedin.com/company/10929673 Contacts OSE Immunotherapeutics

Sylvie Detry

[email protected]

+33 153 198 757



French Media: FP2COM

Florence Portejoie

[email protected]

+33 607 768 283 U.S. Media: LifeSci Communications

Darren Opland, Ph.D.

[email protected]

+1 646 627 8387



U.S. and European Investors

Chris Maggos

[email protected]

+41 79 367 6254 Forward-looking statements

This press release contains express or implied information and statements that might be deemed forward-looking information and statements in respect of OSE Immunotherapeutics. They do not constitute historical facts. These information and statements include financial projections that are based upon certain assumptions and assessments made by OSE Immunotherapeutics management in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current economic and industry conditions, expected future developments and other factors they believe to be appropriate.

These forward-looking statements include statements typically using conditional and containing verbs such as expect, anticipate, believe, target, plan, or estimate, their declensions and conjugations and words of similar import. Although the OSE Immunotherapeutics management believes that the forward-looking statements and information are reasonable, the OSE Immunotherapeutics shareholders and other investors are cautioned that the completion of such expectations is by nature subject to various risks, known or not, and uncertainties which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of OSE Immunotherapeutics. These risks could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in or implied or projected by the forward-looking statements. These risks include those discussed or identified in the public filings made by OSE Immunotherapeutics with the AMF. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. This press release includes only summary information and should be read with the OSE Immunotherapeutics Universal Registration Document filed with the AMF on 15 April 2020, including the annual financial report for the fiscal year 2019, available on the OSE Immunotherapeutics website. Other than as required by applicable law, OSE Immunotherapeutics issues this press release at the date hereof and does not undertake any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information or statements.

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In a statement, Minsa emphasized that this large-scale disease has a high level of infection and clinical deterioration in patients, who require hospitalization and admission to Intensive Care Units (ICU).





The country's health authority reported that the coronavirus pandemic has caused 308 (confirmed) and 1,155 (probable) deaths in Loreto.





"At present, the growth rate is slow and new cases are doubling every 14 days," it stated.





Additionally, Minsa said it has approved a health project aimed at 89,177 citizens of indigenous communities , which entails an investment of S/29 million (about US$8.41 million).





Likewise, it informed of the works to increase hospital capacity with 300 hospital beds and 25 ICU beds.





(END) NDP/MAO/RMB/MVB

The Ministry of Health (Minsa) on Wednesday called on authorities and inhabitants of the rainforest Loreto region to unite to combat and defeat the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and expressed solidarity to the relatives of those affected, directly or indirectly, by this pandemic.Published: 6/10/2020
A teen boy who was spit on by a protester spoke out Monday for the first time.

The incident happened Saturday afternoon in Shorewood, Wisconsin.

Shorewood High School junior Eric Lucas said he was still shaken by the confrontation.

"Day in and day out, my hope diminishes. The hope that my people and me, a young black man living in a white America can one day be equal," he said. "I am a young black man with hopes to be loved by a world and country that wrongs him before he was born."

Police said Stephanie Rapkin, 64, of Shorewood, parked her car to block the protest marchers.

She then got out and confronted protesters.

A video shared widely on social media shows Rapkin spit on Lucas.

She was arrested Saturday night at her home on charges of battery and disorderly conduct. Police released her.

Rapkin was arrested a second time Sunday at her home after a video showed her pushing another protester.

Investigators said she resisted arrest and kneed an officer in the groin during her arrest.

Rapkin is now facing additional charges. She was booked into the Milwaukee County Jail and held on $950 bail.

The school district superintendent asked the Milwaukee County District Attorney to add a hate crime enhancer to Rapkin's charges. Rapkin is white and Lucas is black.

Lucas said he and his family do not harbor hate toward Rapkin but want to see justice served in the case.

"At this time, I continue to be mentally and physically shaken. To be assaulted by an adult in my own community during the pandemic was traumatic," Lucas said. "Again and again, I am viewed not as a child, but as a color. A color that destroys and does not uplift and love. I am disappointed feeling unloved by individuals I have done no harm to. Injustice anywhere is a detriment to justice everywhere."

He appeared alongside Shorewood school officials.

"We have heard time and time again from our students and our families the need to take racial issues seriously, and we feel like now's the time. This is an appropriate case for that to happen," Superintendent Bryan Davis said.

They said they support Lucas and their other student leaders.

Rapkin is an attorney in Mequon, Wisconsin.

A petition was filed Sunday asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to investigate her conduct and impose any necessary disciplinary actions.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney said the case has not yet been turned over by Shorewood detectives.
Casinos now are scheduled to reopen in Northwest Indiana, and across the state, at 6 a.m. Monday.

Cris Johnston, director of the Indiana Office of Management and Budget and a Crown Point native, said he's still working to understand why May sales tax receipts came in $102.2 million, or 14.9%, off target, similar to April's sales tax miss of $103.3 million.

"Sales tax is generally a slow and steady revenue stream. Even in tough economic times, there's usually a growth pattern with the sales tax," Johnston said. "But our May collections have not been at this level since 2013."

Johnston also is carefully watching as this month's revenue comes in, since most years, including this year, June has the second-highest forecast monthly revenue total after April.

"June will have similar challenges to the month of April, but perhaps not as severe," he said.

The Hoosier State is likely to get back a good chunk of its missing April revenue once all 2019 personal and corporate income tax returns are filed by the July 15 deadline, rescheduled from the traditional April 15 filing date.
The respected man of God who is the General Overseer of Action Chapel International, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams and his family have reacted to some recent developments concerning their son Daniel Duncan-Williams.

A statement issued on Tuesday and signed by Bishop Ebenezer Obodai, the Spokesperson for the Archbishop and his family, said Daniel has been battling with acute bipolar disease for the past six years.

According to the statement, Daniels failure to continue his prescribed medication causes him to relapse hence some of his public outbursts which have become topical within the social media space.

He explained that although some of his conduct during such periods of relapse are obscene and abhorrent, it must be understood that he has a serious illness and is not of himself.

Archbishop Duncan-Williams, according to the statement, asked for prayers for his son.

Read the full statement below:

Mental Health: Toll, Tragedies and Hope

The significance of psychological health has become very personal to Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams and his family. Six years ago, Archbishop's son, Daniel Duncan-Williams, was diagnosed with acute bipolar disease. Through the family, Daniel has undergone the very best medical interventions, treatments and hospitalizations, yet he still experiences relapses when he does not continue on his prescribed medication.

His outbursts on social media and elsewhere should not be media fodder or click-bait; We acknowledge that the obscenities are abhorrent but understand that he has a serious illness. Daniel is not of himself and he has never been in prison.

Historically, many mega pastors have all had to deal with their personal family challenges in the public eye and in this same vein, we also ask you to separate who a person is from their mistakes. We love Daniel, and we believe God's mercy turns what was meant for evil to good, for them that love the lord and are called according to his purpose. Daniel also continues to be covered and supported spiritually with intense and consistent prayers.

The Archbishop has prayed all over the world for nations, leaders, pastors, families, mothers and lay people and at this time, he asks that you join in prayer for Danny and the family. We are believing, with God on our side, that Daniel will come out of this stronger and with a testimony to the glory of God.

The Archbishop says this is a test of his faith. In his own words; I acknowledge the situation my son is in, and I still love himplease pray for us. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

The Archbishop and his family continue to stand firm in their faith believing God for Daniel's full deliverance, healing and restoration. We ask that you please respect their privacy as they navigate through this trying time.

Psalms 3:3. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.

Bishop Ebenezer Obodai

Spokesperson forArchbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williamsand family

Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams' statement regarding his son, Daniel's actions and outburst on social media:

Archbishop Nicholas Duncan Williams and his family thank you for your prayers. Daniel's outbursts on social media and elsewhere should not be media fodder or click-bait. We acknowledge that the obscenities are abhorrent, but understand that he has a serious illness. Daniel has undergone the very best medical interventions, treatments and hospitalizations, yet he still experiences relapses when he does not continue on his prescribed medication.

The Archbishop says this is a test of his faith. In his own words; I acknowledge the situation my son is in, and I still love himplease pray for us. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

The Archbishop and his family continue to stand firm in their faith believing God for Daniel's full deliverance, healing and restoration. We ask that you please respect their privacy as they navigate through this trying time.

Psalms 3:3. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.

Bishop Ebenezer Obodai

Spokesperson for Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams and family
The FCC and other agencies utterly failed to monitor Chinese telecoms in the US for years, according to a scathing new report released the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In fact, the bipartisan subcommittee reportedly says that failure was ongoing for around 20 years. And that assertion has been backed up by at least one of the three Chinese telecoms in question.

According to China Unicom Americas (CUA), the telecoms have not been engaged with the group responsible for monitoring in nearly 20 years. Thats a group the report dubs Team Telecom, comprised of segments of the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense.

CTA seems to be at the center of the report

Of the three telecoms mentioned in the report, including China Telecom Americas (CTA) and ComNet USA, CTA appears to garner the most attention. Thats because, of the Chinese telecoms, CTA is ultimately owned by the Chinese government. But also because China Telecom has been operating in the US for nearly 20 years through CTA. And according to the report, thats been without any real oversight.

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Team Telecom, in 2001, didnt object to CTA operating in the US. The FCC fast-tracked the application. Initially, CTA was limited to providing international services between the US and other regions but not China. That was later changed to include China. In 2007, ownership of CTA was changed and that resulted in an FCC review. Ultimately, Team Telecom, the FCC, and CTA negotiated a three-page security agreement.

Team Telecom did not follow up. Instead, only two site visits were conducted in addition to a few intermittent emails.

Allegations of China Telecom hijacking of communications data can be traced back to 2010, according to the bipartisan report. But it wasnt until 2017 that Team Telecom began providing substantive oversight. And the team didnt begin asking questions about the reports until last year. CTA is said to have denied any allegations and the team reportedly took them at their word.

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It wasnt until April 2020 when Team Telecom recommended that the FCC revoke CTAs operating approval. The recommendation came with a warning that CTAs facilities-based authorizations allow it to request interconnections with US carriers.

Team Telecom further informed the FCC that CTA had already established relationships with major US carriers. That included carriers such as Verizon, CenturyLink, and AT&T.

Those companies do maintain security applicable to external traffic, the report notes. But they do not have any measures in place that deal with unique issues presented by CTA or its parent company.

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No oversight for Chinese telecoms is still a major area of concern for the Senate and US governing bodies

Now, CTA disputes allegations filed by the FCC and Team Telecom. Summarily, the company insists that the inquiry unfairly and improperly shifts the burden onto CTA. The company claims that it is being asked to prove a negative as it pertains to unspecified national security concerns.

CTA goes on to claim that the concerns are left vague, behind terms such as exploitation and influence from the Chinese government. But it goes further still to note that any decision to revoke its operating status will negatively impact Americans. The company says it not only serves many US customers. But also that it employees US citizens and permanent residents  although exact figures were not specified.

According to the bipartisan report, the Chinese government engages in cyber and economic espionage efforts against the United States. And telecommunications carriers operating in the United States could be used to further these efforts.

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The most recent recommendations from the FCC and Team Telecom seem to corroborate those assertions. But Team Telecom  now formalized as the EO Telecom Committee under President Donald Trump  does not, according to senators on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, have the authority to respond to threats.

As a result, the Senate report not only calls on the FCC to finish its review of the CTA and other Chinese telecoms quickly. Lead senators on the subcommittee, Rob Portman and Tom Carter, are calling for action to provide the EO Telecom Committee with the authority to provide better oversight and enforcement in the future.
Shula Mozes and Tal Zur are both busy women. Mozes is a social entrepreneur and the founder of a philanthropic volunteer association for youths. Zur is a designer and artistic director. The coronavirus pandemic has delayed the presentation of their new knit collection, but they are not deterred. While preparing their next collection, they have already released a coronavirus kit for home knitting. The kit includes detailed instructions and high-quality material for knitting face masks.

"We are a small team of women, doing everything and operating exactly like a start-up; we react quickly and dynamically to changes. We react, and if we fall down, we get up rapidly. For instance, we have started recently fabricating home-knitting kits for slippers and face masks. We are all about crafts and design. Does that mean that we should operate like a traditional society? Absolutely not!" Zur said, when they launched the home-knitting idea.

Mozes, the founder, and Zur, the co-founder, manage together the IOTA project. A young initiative, established in 2014, which connects the art of crochet knitting with the desire to create job opportunities for disadvantaged people and unemployed women. More specifically, it offers women who fled from Syria to Turkey and women from the Israeli-Bedouin community to deploy their crafting know-how for the creation of luxury furniture and decorations for indoors and outdoors. Using traditional techniques, the women follow designs imagined by the Israeli team, to create beautiful rugs, swings, stools, foot rests, cushions, quilts, and much more. A unique universe of colors and materials. Or in Zurs words, "creating innovative products from a traditional starting point."

Zur explained that the language of knitting is ancient yet universal, like the language of music and notes. Women from different countries and cultures can communicate and dialogue though knitting, even if they dont speak each others languages. "In Istanbul, there is an initiative that is a bit similar to ours. It is run by Izabela Ersahin, who works with female refugees. The women learn knitting techniques and they can work the way that is best for them. We started working together two years ago, and the idea is that we offer a way of thinking  not just design and production. This way, we are developing a chain of businesses with a common denominator and shared values."

Several other women work with Mozes and Zur in their Jaffa studio, including project manager Dorit Chesler, textile designer Lion Ben Aroosh, product designer Noa Curiel, head of knitting Iris Moalem and industrial designer Naama Steinbock. The women of IOTA say that their cooperation with Istanbul opens all sorts of interesting doors to local crafts. Throughout history, crafts were transmitted from father to son or from mother to daughter. Working with the Syrian refugees generates a new way of preserving craft and artistic traditions in global markets.

IOTA is also working with a group of women from the Bedouin village of Hura, in the south of Israel. "At first, we thought of working with young Bedouin women. They dreamt that with us they could exit their community circle. But this did not work out. Then we approached a group of women a bit older  mostly mothers. We started with a rather large group. Not all persisted. Some saw it did not fit them. Others stayed. Of course, enthusiasm was mixed with fears. We were from somewhere else, from Tel Aviv, and coming with a vision. The head of the village, Muhammad, accompanied us from the very first minute, and really helped us a lot to gather a group of women. He also offered us a room at the community center and put us in touch with key people," Zur added.

IOTA in Latin means a very small amount. The IOTA project focuses on small knit stitches and small steps forward. But the aspirations of the women behind this brand are all but tiny. For Chesler, IOTA is first of all a luxury brand, aiming for the international market. After featuring at the 2017 Tom Dixon's MULTIPLEX in Milan, at the 2019 Basel Art Fair and at Maison&Objet in Paris, IOTA is now targeting the US market.
Slate's Who Counts? series is made possible by the support of Slate Plus members and readers like you.

At 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Anita Heard arrived at the polls to cast a vote in Georgias primary. Heard, an 80-year-old black woman, was the first person in line at her precinctbut nearly four hours later, she was still waiting to cast her ballot. The precinct, normally staffed by a dozen poll workers, had just four. Its voting machines had malfunctioned, and the precinct manager had no backup paper ballots. An ever-growing line formed behind Heard, snaking around the building as voters tried to social distance.

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What is going on in Georgia? Heard asked Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein, who was interviewing frustrated voters. This is ridiculous, she declared. In the United States of America, in 2020, people cant vote?

As Heard spoke to Bluestein, thousands of voters in the Atlanta area were experiencing the same problem. The state experienced an election meltdown on Tuesday as scores of understaffed precincts scrambled to fix broken voting machines and procure paper ballots. Many residents had requested an absentee ballot but never received one, forcing them to join the monstrously long linesor forgo their constitutional right to vote. Theres no direct evidence that state officials intended to create this chaos and suppress votes. But their breathtaking negligence had the same devastating effect: the subversion of free and fair elections, a cornerstone of any true democracy.

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Georgias problems arise in part out of a botched effort to shore up its election security. Until this year, the state used voting machines called the Diebold AccuVote DRE, which ran on software developed in 2005. Cybersecurity experts discovered in 2006 that the software is dangerously insecure. Hackers could infect the computers with a virus that steals votes from one candidate and assigns them to another without detection. They could install malware that alters the vote count or prevent the machine from accepting votes. With access to just one voting machine, hackers could infect the entire system and manipulate every voting machine. They could also hack the machines remotely to steal votes.

Diebold eventually produced a security patch for its software, but previous Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a Republican, never implemented it. Instead, Kemp launched a massive voter purge that disproportionately affected Democratic areas. He also oversaw the closure of 214 precincts after the Supreme Court invalidated the Voting Rights Acts preclearance requirement in 2013s Shelby County v. Holder. These mass poll closures disproportionately affected black communities. In 2018, Kemp was narrowly elected governor.

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Many residents who tried to vote by mail were forced to go to the pollsonly to discover that voting machines didnt work either.

Alarmed by the possibility that hackers could easily change the outcome of an election without detection, a federal judge ordered the state to adopt a new system in 2019. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, responded by paying $106 million for new, ostensibly more secure voting machines. In this new system, poll workers must load each voters ballot onto an access card, which the voter then inserts into the machine. The ballot is supposed to appear on the touch screen. After the voter has selected their preferred candidates, they print their ballot, which contains a QR code, and feed it into a machine. In theory, then, there is a paper record of each vote.

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There are two problems with these machines. First, they are not truly secure because hackers can manipulate the QR code and change the vote count. Second, many of them just dont work. Raffenspergers office immediately blamed poll workers for allegedly not understanding setup or how to operate voting equipment. Bluestein, however, spoke with multiple precinct managers who found that ballots simply failed to appear after voters inserted their access card. Some precincts had provisional paper ballots on hand, which are usually given to voters of uncertain eligibility and can work as backup in a pinch. But they ran out of these ballots quickly, since everyone assumed most voters would use the machines.

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This equipment breakdown might not have been so catastrophic had the state conducted the election primarily by mail. And, under pressure from civil rights groups, Raffensperger did send an absentee ballot application to every registered voter in the state, encouraging them to vote by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic. But Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, told me on Tuesday that Raffenspergers office also urged counties to use out-of-state processors located in Colorado and Arizona. These processors took weeks, even months, to send ballots across the country to Georgia, and a large number of voters had not received them by Election Day. As a result, many residents who tried to vote by mail were forced to go to the polls on Tuesdayonly to discover that the states voting machines didnt work either.

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Raffensperger has accused county election boards of botching the new voting system; county officials, in turn, condemned Raffensperger for his abdication of leadership. It is true that some counties failed to allocate enough money for this election and to recruit a sufficient number of poll workers for each precinct after many backed out due to COVID-19. But it is Raffenspergers job to ensure that Georgias 159 counties can operate voting equipment by providing them with the necessary training, resources, and personnel.

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The secretary of state is responsible for setting the standards and helping counties meet those standards, Young said. This is ultimately his responsibility. Young pointed out that the ACLU of Georgia had exhorted Raffensperger to print enough paper ballots for every voter in case the machines malfunctioned; he refused. Raffensperger also touted the success of early votingeven as some voters failed to receive absentee ballots and others waited for longer than six hours to cast a ballot in person. There were warnings, Young noted. Voting rights organizations have been sounding the alarm that Georgia was not ready for this election.

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These problems, though, are not limited to Georgia. Last week, the District of Columbia experienced a similar nightmare after a huge number of voters never got absentee ballots. Unlike Georgia, the district is run by Democrats who purport to believe deeply in protecting the right to vote. But neither jurisdiction is equipped to handle even a slight strain, and the new challenges posed by COVID-19 proved to be too much. Their experiences are a huge red flag indicating that other states need to start adapting their election operations now or risk a calamity in November, when the stakes are even higher. The gold standard remains universal vote by mail. But if election officials cannot get absentee ballots out quickly enough, theyll need to open plenty of precincts stocked with enough paper ballots for every single voter.

When most people think of voter suppression, they probably envision overtly discriminatory laws, like Kemps crusade to shutter polls in black communities after Shelby County. But negligence, too, can result in voter suppression, in equally insidious ways. Free and fair elections are a baseline requirement of democracy, and if officials do not conduct them successfully, they might as well have thwarted them on purpose. Incompetence, as Young put it, has the same result as intentionally depriving someone of their right to vote.
She never fails to turn heads with her sultry social media snaps.

And Kimberley Garner was pining for days past as she shared a series of bikini snaps of herself from previous holidays to Instagram.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, looked radiant as ever as she donned a blue floral bikini top with a matching thong in one photo as she posed on the beach.

Sun-kissed: Kimberley Garner, 29, was pining for days past as she shared a series of bikini snaps of herself from previous holidays to Instagram

Taken in Barbados, Kimberley fixed the camera with a cheeky grin as she let her blonde locks fall loose down her shoulders.

In another shot, the star showcased her washboard abs as she relaxed in the pool while on a trip to Anguilla.

Balancing her drink on her abdomen, Kimberley ran her fingers through her hair and captioned the snap: 'Tropical rain'.

In another photo from the same trip, Kimberley looked sensational in a pink bikini and a large sun hat as she went sight-seeing with a friend.

Sizzling: In another shot, the star showcased her washboard abs as she relaxed in the pool while on a trip to Anguilla

It comes after Kimberley revealed plans that she had cancelled a secret wedding and ended a long-term relationship last summer.

The TV personality is currently in her native London as the United Kingdom enters another week of lockdown in the fight against coronavirus COVID-19.

But Kimberley, whose romances are kept away from the public eye, appeared to be in a reflective mood as she surprised fans by giving a rare insight into her private life while sharing a series of bikini snaps.

Sporting a distinctively patterned blue and white paisley two-piece, the blonde showed off her lithe physique while striking a series of coquettish poses during a recent trip to Barbados.

Wow: In another photo from the same trip, Kimberley looked sensational in a pink bikini and a large sun hat as she went sight-seeing with a friend

Addressing her 215,000 followers, the notoriously private swimwear designer admitted she came close to exchanging vows almost a year ago, before pulling out.

She wrote: 'I keep my love life a secret. But why not tell u a little. Almost got married last summer. I decided not to. Been single and dating since. Its great.

'Single over lockdown, Have grown so much, this past few months to myself has been amazing. Stronger and happier than ever.

Incredible: Kimberley looked amazing as she donned a bright red polka dot swimsuit

'Want to reassure you whatever stage your in, enjoy it, make your decisions for YOU. Dont stay in a relationship you dont want to be in. whats to come, what you dont know around the corner, is very, very exciting.'

The post comes several months after Kimberley revealed she had split with her former boyfriend.

Speaking to MailOnline in September, she confirmed: 'I ended the relationship recently. It was a really wonderful three years and we are still good friends today.'
Over 700,000 micro- and small-sized enterprises in Vietnam could receive a hefty reduction in corporate income tax payable this year, while more than one million individual taxpayers could be beneficiaries of personal income tax deductions.

Vietnamese authorities are mulling over providing financial assistance for micro- and small-sized enterprises (MSEs) by slashing 30 per cent of their corporate income tax (CIT). Last week, the National Assemblys Standing Committee agreed to put this plan up for discussion by the legislatures members before a related resolution on the plan will be adopted.

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung stated that businesses have braced themselves for a long and steep coronavirus-triggered downturn, while market turmoil has disrupted many companies. Therefore, local administrations hoped to boost MSEs affected by the economic fallout of the outbreak, as well as help the hardest-hit industries through tax reduction and deferrals.

Micro-sized enterprises are defined as those with a maximum workforce of 10 people, with annual revenue or total capital of less than VND3 billion ($130,500), while small-sized enterprises are those with a maximum workforce of 50-100 people, with total annual revenue of VND50-100 billion ($2.17-4.35 million).

The proposed CIT reduction would cost the state budget VND15.84 trillion ($688.7 million) if implemented for MSEs, and VND22.44 trillion ($975.65 million) if extended to mid-sized enterprises.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment previously proposed a 50 per cent cut in income tax for small- and medium-sized businesses and an equal cut in VAT for raw materials, goods, and services.

It has also proposed VAT refunds for businesses in industries directly affected by the pandemic like aviation and tourism and a reduction in fees related to road, port, and airport services, as well as vehicle registration. The final suite of policy proposals has not yet been completed and is still subject to discussions with lawmakers.

Just a few days ago, the National Assemblys Standing Committee adopted a personal income tax (PIT) deduction based on the number of dependents. The deduction for taxpayers will be raised from VND9 million ($390) to VND11 million ($480) per month, while the monthly deduction after each dependent will be lifted from VND3.6 million ($160) to VND4.4 million ($190).

The new scheme will take effect from July 1 and be applicable for this years tax period for employment income only, not for capital gains and investment income.

Nguyen Van Phung, director of the Department of Tax Administration at Large Enterprises from the General Department of Taxation, told VIR that PIT deductions would be applied to all employees, including those who work for foreign-invested enterprises.

According to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), there are around 6.89 million individual taxpayers, with the total PIT collected reaching over VND79.22 trillion ($3.44 billion) in 2019. However, the MoF estimates that if the proposal is implemented, the annual budget will constrict by about VND10.3 trillion ($447.8 million).

In April, the government enacted Decree No.41/2020/ND-CP on extending the deadline for tax and land use fee payments by an additional five months from the original deadline. Under which, the nationwide deferral is estimated to be VND180 trillion ($7.83 billion) in temporary liquidity, giving more than 700,000 businesses financial cushion as they cope with the escalating tension of the pandemic.

However, the lack of clear guidance could expose taxpayers to more risks, since a mistaken tax deferral can be overturned later on.

In some cases, it will take three to five years in retroactive assessment to clarify the legality of a tax deferment to a particular company. In the case the extension is unfounded and is turned around, the enterprise will be slammed with a huge bill for unpaid taxes, and of course, further penalties, warned Nguyen Duc Nghia, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Agent Club.

A representative of Vingroup  the largest local conglomerate  also emphasised the urgent need to extend the tax deferral to one year instead of the current five months since the virus has brought the economy to its knees.

Do Quang Hien, chairman of the Hanoi Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises Association suggested, Authorities should provide more relief such as cutting further tax lines, not only for now but also for the time ahead to encourage production and shore up businesses hit by the outbreak.

Speeding up the construction of industrial clusters will also pave the way for smaller and mid-sized groups to recover, Hien added. VIR

Luu Huong

Vietnam to raise taxable personal income threshold from July The threshold would now be raised from VND9 million (US$389) per month to VND11 million (US$475).
Two doctors among 19 hospital staff test positive for Covid in J-K's Udhampur

Global economy to contract by at least 6% this year: Report

India is witnessing a surge in confirmed cases due to the novel coronavirus outbreak ever since it started unlocking activities in a phased manner. Malls, restaurants and places of worship opened for the first time since March 25 when a nationwide lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of virus. As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the countrys Covid-19 tally reached 276,583 with death toll at 7,745.

As per a recent study, India is among a group of 15 high-risk nations where relaxation of lockdowns can lead to a spike in new cases.

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Assam showed a rapid rise in cases when compared to the rest of the country due to the migrant exodus over the last two weeks.

United States still continues to remain the worst-hit nation by the pandemic followed by Brazil, Russia, UK and Spain. With Latin America nations severely suffering from the pandemic, Argentina just days after extending its lockdown measures in the capital city of Buenos Aires has been registering 1,000 new cases per day.

Here are the latest updates on Coronavirus:
White House officials will present President Donald Trump with options on police reform as concerns mount about the party's response to the racial tension that has flooded the country in the wake of George Floyd's death.

Polls show Americans disapprove of the president's handling of the protests that sprang up after Floyd, a black man, died as a result of a white police officer kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes.

With the president politically weakened, Senate Republicans have started to form their own response, looking to counter a Democratic proposal with one that would get Trump on board.

White House officials will present President Donald Trump with options on police reform as polls show the president is politically weakened on issue

Republican Senator Tim Scott, the party's only black senator, is leading the GOP response in the Senate and said he'd like to have a measure proposed by Friday

White House officials want to present Trump with options Wednesday, so he can settle on which policies he supports in time for Thursday's trip to Dallas, where he could address the issue, Politico's Playbook reported.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump could either back legislation or issue an executive order.

'The president has been reviewing proposals,' she said on 'Fox & Friends' Wednesday morning. 'We do believe we have proactive policy prescriptions with that be legislation or an executive order.'

Trump was active on Twitter Wednesday morning but made no mention of police reform.

Republican Senator Tim Scott, the party's only black senator who leadership tapped to take the lead on police reform, said he would like to announce a measure by Friday, a fast-approaching deadline that shows the pressure the GOP feels to address the issue.

But Republicans would likely drop a much more narrow piece of legislation than the one Democrats presented on Monday.

Scott sent a draft plan to the offices of Republican senators after he met with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and adviser Jared Kushner on Capitol Hill Tuesday

The draft plan would condition grant funding on reporting on the use of force that causes death or injury, seeks increased funding for body-worn cameras and penalties for failing to use them and to establish a new independent commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system and make recommendations for reform, among other ideas. It also calls to make lynching a federal hate crime, according to CNN, which obtained a copy of the draft proposal.

But it does not include a ban on chokeholds, which Democrats have in their measure. Republicans may also add in a provision to make lynching a federal crime as a way to get around GOP Senator Rand Paul's procedural block of a stand alone bill on the matter.

Democrats' legislation, by contrast, makes it easier to sue police officers, prohibits racial profiling, makes lynching a federal hate crime and ends no-knock raids.

The key for Republicans is getting Trump on board. With the president's support, Congress enacted criminal justice reform last year. But, without it, any attempt could crash and burn as did an attempt to enhance background checks after mass shoots.

Trump, however, has been a bastion of tough talk in the wake of Floyd's death. He's presented himself as the 'law and order president,' and, on Wednesday, he sent a controversial tweet that touted the debunked idea that a 75-year-old Buffalo man, knocked down by police during a peaceful protest, might be antifa.

Trump 'isn't going to lead on it right now. But he could get behind it,' Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

The White House on Tuesday rushed to join Senate Republicans in their effort to put together police reform legislation.

Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior adviser Jared Kushner went to Capitol Hill for a last-minute meeting with Scott in his Senate office.

'It's a work in progress, so it was a real good conversation,' Meadows said after the meeting. They were joined by Ja'Ron Smith, an African American staffer who works on legislative policy in the White House.

'We want to let our actions speak louder than words,' he added but declined to give a time line on when legislation could drop. 'We're hopeful for something sooner rather than later.'

The move to work with Senators on legislative could be the White House way of ruling out a presidential address to the nation, which was one option being discussed as a means for President Trump to respond to the racial tension in the country.

Scott declined to offer details of what was discussed.

'We're making progress,' he said after the meeting.

White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows (center) and senior adviser Jared Kushner (left) went to Capitol Hill for a last-minute meeting with Senator Tim Scott as the administration rushed to join Senate Republicans on police reform legislation

Senate Republicans put Tim Scott, the GOP's only black senator, in charge of police reform legislation

The administration's visit to Capitol Hill came as President Trump's poll numbers have dropped with a majority of Americans criticizing his response to the protests which took place after the death of Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

Meadows refused to talk about what would be in a Republican police reform bill.

'We're not going to get into specifics. To negotiate in the press would do a disservice to the senator and his colleagues as well as some of the House members that are trying to be thoughtful,' he said.

Kushner, the president's son-in-law, led the administration's successful efforts on criminal justice reform last year.

Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina, sounded hopeful the Senate, the White House and Democrats could come together on the issue. Democrats unveiled their measure on Monday.

'I have been talking with folks in the White House about the track that they're on as well. I think there is some synergy between all three tracks to be honest with you, and certainly there's a way for us all to work together but we've been in discussion with them for several days,' Scott said.

He kept an optimistic note.

'I think we should all be optimistic right now,' Scott said. 'We have no reason not to be.'

Tire of waiting on President Trump to speak about police reform, Republicans on Capitol Hill are preparing their own proposals

Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah won praise from Democrats and Republicans alike when he marched with protesters in Washington D.C. on Sunday

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell tapped Senator Tim Scott to lead a working group of Republicans to hammer out a legislative response to the protests that have taken place across the country in the wake of George Floyd's death

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell tapped Scott to lead a working group of Republicans to hammer out a legislative response to the protests that have taken place across the country in the wake of Floyd's death.

'None of us have had the experience of being an African American in this country and dealing with discrimination, which persists here some 50 years after the 1964 civil rights bill and 1965 civil rights bill,' McConnell said a press conference on Tuesday.

Pressure is on lawmakers to act after protests sprung up around the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd

'We're still wrestling with America's original sin. And we try to get better, but every now and then it's perfectly clear, we're a long way from the finish line,' he added.

Pressure is on lawmakers, who stopped waiting on action from President Donald Trump to move forward on their own.

A new Washington Post-Schar School poll out Monday found 74 per cent of Americans say they support those protests while 69 per cent say the killing of Floyd represents a broader problem within law enforcement.

The same poll found 61 per cent disapprove of how Trump handled the protests while only 35 per cent approved, while November election polls show him far behind Joe Biden, raising alarm in the GOP Senate that their majority is at risk too.

Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill are working on their own police reform measures with a number of them expected to drop legislation this week.

Scott and Romney made the first moves, coming after Trump tweeted a conspiracy theory that a 75-year-old victim of police violence was an 'antifa provocateur' and calling '99 per cent' of police 'great.'

Republicans also formed a group of lawmakers who will work together on a plan. Scott is taking the lead and joining him are Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, who is close to Trump; Ben Sasse; James Lankford; John Cornyn; and Shelley Capito.

'It's still a work in progress. A lot is being added to it,' Romney said Tuesday of Republicans' legislative efforts.

Romney was praised by Democrats and Republicans alike when he joined protesters in Washington D.C. on Sunday, marching with them from the Capitol to the White House to show his support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

'My guess is we'll try and fashion something that that has broader bipartisan appeal,' the Republican senator from Utah said on Monday evening.

Republicans kept a hopeful note Tuesday.

'There seems to be a lot of momentum behind this right now, and if we can keep driving it forward maybe we can get to a point where we can actually legislate, and in a bipartisan way which would be ideal,' Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who is also part of the working group, said the team is in the process of soliciting ideas.

'It's a work in motion,' she said.

'We're still soliciting ideas and refinements and all that. It generally tries to go to both parts of the issue, both the policing part and the issues of racial discrimination and how to address those,' she noted.

House Republicans, meanwhile, are having their own conversation about police reform and aim to release a proposal by the end of the week.

Lawmakers have seen protests in their home states - a mass cry from constituents that could prove the impetus needed to move a package through Congress to President Trump's desk.


The High Power Committee (HPC) on the LG Polymers styrene gas leak meets to record testmony of several civic agencies. The committee is headed by senior IAS officer Neerabh Kumar Prasad and special chief secretary of industries R Karikal Valaven. (DC Photo by K N Murali krishna)

Visakhapatnam: Scientists who are watching the official probes set up into the styrene gas leak from a factory on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam on May 7 are crying foul that the investigating committee is packed with "wrong persons" or inexperienced 'experts' whose only contribution has been to think aloud.

In one case, the probe panel includes a member of the AP Pollution Control Board (APPCB) who was on the very committee that okayed expansion of the plant in question.

The gas leak occurred from a plant operated by L G Polymers at Venkatapalem village outside Visakhaptanam in the early hours of May 7. Horrific scenes of people gasping for breath and falling like leaves in the street unfolded, and more than a dozen people perished before the gas was attenuated.

The state government set up a High-Power Committee (HPC) to investigate the tragedy, and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered constitution of another probe into the case.

Scientists say this is eyewash. Dr K Babu Rao, a retired senior scientist of the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) and a member of Scientists for People, said, "Instead of presenting a clear picture of the incident, the HPC is confusing people with unstructured loud thinking by inexperienced members. Their nomination was purely based on academics, but not experience with process. The lack of safety experts on the committee presents an issue of conflicts of interest."

More seriously, the probe team includes some experts who had a part in the expansion of L G Polymers.

"Some of the members have been associated with the APPCB as experts on the State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC) which approved the expansion of LG Polymers and recommended consent and authorization without an EC (environment clearance). This cannot be simply brushed off. A probe into the systemic causes of the incident must include managerial and regulatory failures too."

He added, "This is like the APPCB investigating itself. It generates doubts about the objectivity of the probe."

The HPC comprises APPCB member secretary Vivek Yadav, who is also a member of the SEAC that scrutinizes project proposals. When contacted, he declined to comment on the matter.

However, APPCB chairman BSS Prasad said LG Polymers had approached the SEAC claiming to be a B-category industry. "But as it comes under A-category, the company was referred to the Expert Appraisal Committee of Union Environment Ministry. But it (the company) started operations without even getting their approval, " he said.

Scientists are questioning some of the observations of the HPC. One in particular is this: Auto-polymerisation might have led to formation of styrene vapour that leaked out from the gooseneck and dip hatch.

Experts in the Scientists for People call this a speculative statement. A month after the accident and several visits to the site, HPC could not present a picture of the tank roof and nozzles on it. A gooseneck releases the vapour downwards and spreads the release instead of in a jet. The HPC members might be hypothesizing without evidence, said Sagar Dhara, a Hyderabad-based environmental engineer and former faculty member of BITS Pilani.

Static electricity generation is a problem in styrene storage. Normal practices with other non-volatile liquids are not applicable to styrene. The reason deduced by the HPC is not supported by the best industrial practices, he opined.
Delhi recorded 34 deaths due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on June 8, taking the cumulative total to 905, even as the citys health bulletin for Tuesday was inexplicably delayed by 36 hours and released early on Wednesday.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The city also recorded 1,366 new infections, with the total number of cases crossing 31,000 on June 9, according to the latest daily health bulletin from the Delhi government. Delhis fatality rate is currently 2.8%.

Delhi government officials didnt comment on the delay in issuing the bulletin, which happened at a time when the number of cases and deaths in the region have spiked and Covid-19 patients are struggling to get beds in specially designated hospitals.

Late on Tuesday night, Congress leader Ajay Maken tweeted: .@ArvindKejriwal ji, good that your test report has come out negative. My sincerest wishes for your speedy recovery! But just a small query - Is the 9th June Health Bulletin for coming on 10th. Because just 4 minutes to go. We are still waiting! @CMODelhi

.@ArvindKejriwal ji, good that your test report has come out negative. My sincerest wishes for your speedy recovery!



But just a small query- Is the 9th June Health Bulletin for coming on 10th. Because just 4 minutes to go. We are still waiting!@CMODelhi  Ajay Maken (@ajaymaken) June 9, 2020

The number of tests in the city picked up on Tuesday, with seven laboratories across Delhi, which had previously been barred from testing, resuming work. The reports of 5,464 people were received on Tuesday, in comparison to 3,700 tests a day earlier, according to the bulletin.

This is almost comparable to the average of 5,590 tests a day done during the week ending on June 7. The data showed one in four people tested in Delhi turn out to be positive for Covid-19.

There are 18,543 active cases or those currently living with the infection, and a little more than 25% are admitted to the citys hospitals.

The Delhi government had further restricted testing to exclude asymptomatic people, who arent old or didnt have known co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension or cancer. The norms were relaxed after the regions lieutenant governor overturned the order on Monday, when the positivity rate was 27%.

The number of cases in Delhi are set to shoot up further.

On Tuesday, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said: We presented the data of our prediction where we observed that by June 15, therell be 44,000 Covid-19 cases and 6,600 beds will be required. By June 30, well reach one lakh cases and 15,000 beds will be required.

By July 15, therell be 2.25 lakh cases and 33,000 beds will be required. By July 31, 5.5 lakh cases are expected and 80,000 beds will be required.

Experts said the numbers are likely to be in lakhs but this is no reason to worry.

Jugal Kishore, head of the department of community medicine at Safdarjung Hospital, said, The disease is such that a lot of people are likely to get infected. Even if we assume a low number of 10% of the population, it still means 20 lakh people will get infected in Delhi, which has a population of two crore.

However, most of the infections will be mild. Our focus now has to be on not creating panic about it and ensuring people who need treatment, get it. We have beds, we have everything, but there is no coordination and guidelines are changing every day. People are dying because of lacunae of the system. What we need right now is effective management of the healthcare system.

Kishore said there is a need for a dialogue with the community and involving people in tiding over the crisis.
Police are conducting a criminal investigation into a small fire at a Gloucester County property where a group of men, including a prison guard and a former FedEx worker, reenacted the killing of George Floyd Monday, taunting peaceful protesters as they marched by them.

On Wednesday, police were investigating a potential crime at the Delsea Drive property in Franklinville, an unincorporated community in Franklin Township, that happened Tuesday night, said Lt. Matt DeCesari, public information officer for Franklin Township Police. No injuries were reported, but police did not release any more details.

Township Fire Marshal Anthony Baldosaro said that stacks of firewood in front of the property along the road were burned. The fire was minor and is now under criminal investigation, he said.

The property, across the street from the Community Commons shopping center, is where Joseph DeMarco, a correctional police officer at Bayside State Prison, a FedEx worker and several other people participated in an apparent counter-protest during a planned march down Delsea Drive.

Calls to a phone number listed for DeMarco were not immediately returned. Another number, listed for DeMarco and seen on a sign advertising firewood in the videos, was disconnected.

Sarah Hill stands across the street from the wood business owned by the DeMarco brothers with a Black Lives Matter sign Wednesday.

On Monday afternoon, peaceful protesters marched down the street, holding signs and chanting Black Lives Matter," escorted by Franklin Township police officers in patrol cars. As the protest passed by the firewood business, with a President Trump banner behind them, and a Thin Blue Line flag and sign reading All lives matter a few feet away, a group of men shouted at protesters as one had his knee on the back of a mans neck.

You dont comply, thats what happens," the kneeling man is heard saying in one video. You dont comply, thats what happens right here, look. He didnt comply. He didnt comply. If he wouldve complied, it wouldnt have happened. Its his own fault, thats why hes dead."

In the same video, seemingly filmed by one of the men participating in the reenactment, a man is heard responding to chants of Black Lives Matter with To no one."

On Tuesday, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) confirmed that a senior correctional police officer participated in the reenactment. The officer, whose name was not made public by the agency, was suspended from his post and was banned from state DOC facilities, pending an investigation, said Matt Schuman, a DOC spokesman.

The officer was hired in 2002 and worked at Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County until January 2019, when he moved to Bayside. Although he did not release the officers name, William Sullivan, president of PBA Local 105, the union that represents state correctional officers, confirmed that the officer was Joseph DeMarco.

Initially, commentators on social media identified the wrong person, a different correctional police officer with the same name who works at South Woods State Prison, said Sullivan. That man was not in any way related to the group of men who reenacted Floyds killing, he said.

Both Sullivan and an official with the DOC identified Joseph DeMarco as the man seen leaning against a pole in the videos, filming protesters as they march by. The union sees the June 8 incident as a mark on the reputation of correctional officers, putting the unions members in harms way.

We have gotten an overwhelming amount of members that are very upset by this incident, said Sullivan. According to our PBA Local 105 bylaws, you cant bring harm to another member. And its our position, based off the phone calls, these actions brought harm to our membership. It puts a target on all of our backs.

Another reenactor was identified as an employee of FedEx, which a company spokesperson confirmed late Tuesday. Late Tuesday, the company said theyd fired the employee, saying, FedEx holds its team members to a high standard of personal conduct, and we do not tolerate the kind of appalling and offensive behavior depicted in this video."

A spokesman for FedEx declined to provide more information Wednesday, including the name of the former employee.

George Floyd, who was being arrested for alleged forgery, was not armed and did not appear to be resisting arrest, according to multiple reports. The officer who kneeled on Floyds neck - for nearly nine minutes - was ultimately charged with second-degree murder. The three other officers involved were also fired and were all later charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

The videos from Franklin Township brought swift and wide rebukes from local and state officials, starting with the township police department and the mayor.

The Franklin Township committee and its police department are appalled and saddened by the revolting actions of certain individuals after Mondays locally organized peaceful march, the police chief, police department and Mayor John Bruno said in a joint statement Tuesday. This is not who we are as a community. We support the goal of this march which is to spread awareness and to ensure a better future for all of us.

Calls to Bruno were not immediately returned Wednesday. Lt. Matt DeCesari, public information officer for the township police, did not release any more details Wednesday, citing the ongoing investigation.

On Tuesday, Gov. Phil Murphy condemned the reenactment in a Twitter post. But in response to a question from NJ Advance Media at Wednesdays press briefing, Murphy stopped short of saying that Joseph DeMarco should be fired or lose his pension.

Its reprehensible. Period," he said. Theres a process underway. Beyond that, lets let the process play out. It was completely unacceptable and reprehensible."

According to Sullivan, there will be a Loudermill hearing, a hearing to determine if a public employee will be terminated, to determine if DeMarco will keep his job or be suspended with or without pay.

Another protest in solidarity with George Floyd is planned in Franklinville for Saturday 11 a.m.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.
There is a tendency among political anoraks to reduce government formation to a puerile horse race in which politicians are the ultimate winners and losers.

Analysis is concentrated on who is deemed to have the upper hand, who faces the most opposition within their own party ranks, which party is poised to win the war in battles on "red line" policy disputes and who is likely to emerge as Taoiseach. What isn't clear from any of this is what it means for you.

Usually, this sort of facile discussion is mercifully brief. Governments are formed within a month of an election and programmes for government can then be scrutinised and their implications for the public assessed in detail.

In 2016, it took a record 70 days to form a government - but that was a halcyon era, before even Brexit had appeared on the horizon as an existential threat. Politicians could afford to take their time.

We are now on day 123 since February's election and still no wiser about whether a deal will be done. The political parlour games have continued interminably.

The latest deadline, in a moveable feast of deadlines, is tomorrow - a target very few believe is credible. The country, in the grip of a pandemic and facing the very real prospect of an imminent no deal Brexit, has been in limbo for more than three months while politicians approach talks at their leisure.

Our caretaker government has been unable to pass legislation since March 29. The Seanad has yet to sit, with senators now threatening legal action.

Time for this zombie administration definitively runs out at the end of this month when legislation which underpins the Special Criminal Court must be renewed.

It's not just a crisis in the justice system at stake. Small and medium businesses have been ravaged by coronavirus. On May 2, the government announced a package of reliefs.

An important element was a State credit guarantee scheme, to facilitate loans of up to 1m to Covid-19-impacted businesses through the pillar banks. A total fund of 2bn for struggling businesses was flagged.

To date, even as the economy begins to tentatively reopen, businesses have been unable to access a cent from this scheme. New legislation is required to implement the plan. They and their employees have been left swinging.

On May 1, the Government published a road map to reopen the economy. Businesses were given nothing other than a date - no information on how their businesses would need to change in the light of continuing public health restrictions.

Yesterday morning, less than three weeks before its mooted June 29 reopening date, Failte Ireland quietly published guidelines for the hospitality sector online. If implemented, the measures would make tens of thousands of restaurants, cafes and hotels unviable.

If these businesses have to be put in cold storage for longer, until the two- metre social distancing guideline is reduced to one metre, will any support be available to sustain them? Who will make that decision? When will it be made?

Parents have also endured extreme stress as the first stage of the economy reopening came and went without any childcare supports in place. On May 29, after two aborted attempts at tackling the issue, guidance to help childcare providers reopen on June 29 was published. Children's Minister Katherine Zappone said she was publishing the plans a month in advance to allow providers study them at length before reopening.

However, a critical element was missing.

A funding package, detailing subsidies and grants was supposed to be published on June 5 but has yet to materialise.

Without this information, many do not know whether their businesses will be viable - or how much they will have to charge parents. How can parents plan for a return to work when they don't know who will be caring for their children?

How does any incoming government plan to alleviate the worry these parents are enduring?

What is the long-term strategy to ensure women will not be forced to quit jobs to stay at home to care for children as even if this new plan goes ahead later this month, capacity in childcare facilities will be greatly reduced?

The public health system is also at breaking point. More than 780,000 patients were waiting to be seen for assessment or treatment at public hospitals at the end of April, with this figure continuing to expand exponentially.

What do those in government formation talks have to say to people whose operations have been repeatedly cancelled?

How will any future government begin to clear this backlog? What kind of additional resources are going to be funnelled to the health service to help it dramatically increase capacity, which will be needed until a vaccine is found?

People all over the country have seen their lives turned upside down and made Herculean efforts to sustain themselves during this crisis. But they can't do it alone. They need a government in place to make policy decisions, allocate resources and provide some kind of long-term plan.

It is time for those in formation talks to put up or shut up. Having now expended five weeks on talks, if it transpires it was all a waste of everyone's time there will be real-life consequences for nearly every facet of society. There is more at stake than mere bruised political egos.

If Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party cannot find some way to work together, they should concede it now and put everyone out of their misery. Politicians will then have three weeks to come up with a plan B.
Georgia voters are casting their first votes Tuesday in an election cycle that could potentially have earthshaking consequences for the U.S. Senate, and Democrats are increasingly optimistic they could wrest two seats - and ultimately the Senate majority - from Republicans.

A deteriorating national political environment for Republicans - driven by President Donald Trump's sagging job approval amid the coronavirus pandemic and social unrest in U.S. cities - combined with a continued demographic shift and signs of rising enthusiasm among liberal donors have Democrats more bullish than ever that Georgia's Senate seats are in play.

Only one of the two seats is on the ballot Tuesday, with Sen. David Perdue running unopposed for the Republican nomination, while seven Democrats are vying for the chance to face him in the Nov. 3 general election. A second seat, held by appointed GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, will be decided in November, with an early January runoff likely to follow.

On Tuesday, voters experienced significant obstacles in trying to cast their ballots, including long lines, polling places that didn't open on time and new touch screen machines that failed to work.

Those issues threatened to delay vote-counting in metropolitan Atlanta and scattered other parts of the state well into Wednesday morning.

With about 15 percent of precincts reporting statewide late Tuesday, filmmaker Jon Ossoff appeared to be in strong position to qualify for an Aug. 11 runoff with about 44 percent of the vote. Former Columbus mayor Teresa Tomlinson, business executive Sarah Riggs Amico, and lawyer Maya Dillard-Smith were in a close contest for the second runoff slot, with each earning between 10 and 15 percent.

A candidate could claim the nomination outright and avoid the runoff by winning a majority of votes Tuesday.

Democrats' optimism is tempered by their recent history of falling short in Georgia despite high expectations, most recently in former state legislator Stacey Abrams's narrow 2018 loss in her run for governor. But the candidates facing both Perdue and Loeffler argue the trend is unmistakable - includuing Ossoff, who suffered a narrow loss in a hard-fought 2017 House special election.

"That old conventional wisdom about Georgia is entirely wrong - Georgia will be the most competitive state in the country this year," Ossoff said in an interview Tuesday, noting that statewide general elections have gotten progressively closer over the past six years. "Georgia is daily becoming younger and more diverse. The massive defection from Donald Trump's GOP in the suburbs continues. And all of these monumental efforts of the last several years . . . have all built enduring infrastructure."

Republicans themselves have sounded alarm bells about the race, citing internal polls, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved the race from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican" last month, reflecting the favorable environment for Democrats.

"Here's the reality: The state of Georgia is in play," Perdue said at an April 27 "Women for Trump" event, according to audio obtained by CNN. "The Democrats have made it that way."

Republicans, who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, have grown fearful about losing control this November, with competitive seats in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina while Democrats are playing defense in Alabama. Of the 35 Senate seats up for grabs this fall, Republicans are defending 23 of them.

Perdue, meanwhile, has enjoyed a massive fundraising lead, with more than $9 million in his bank account as he faces nominal opposition in the Republican primary. He has had to bat away unfavorable headlines about stock sales that he made in the early weeks of the pandemic, arguing that they were part of his normal trading activity rather than an effort to use insider information to avoid massive losses.

Unlike Loeffler, who was cleared of possible criminal wrongdoing last month, he was not under serious federal law enforcement scrutiny.

The national parties are beginning to draw battle lines as the highly competitive Senate race take shape. Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Georgia voters would opt for Perdue, an "original outsider" former business executive over the Democratic nominee attached to a liberal national platform.

"Georgians recognize that today's Democratic Party and the policies they rally around do not mesh with the values they hold dear," he said.

DSCC spokesperson Helen Kalla, in turn, called Perdue a "weak incumbent" who will "face a strong Democratic challenger holding him accountable for his sketchy and unethical stock trading, his attacks on Social Security and Medicare, and his support for the lawsuit to erase health care protections for preexisting conditions."

Perdue spokeswoman Casey Black predicted that the incumbent would ultimately face Ossoff in the general election and previewed in a statement the campaign Perdue would wage against him.

"While our campaign has known this will be a competitive race from day one, we look forward to contrasting David Perdue's record as a conservative outsider getting results for all Georgians with Ossoff's history as an unaccomplished liberal insider," she said.

Ossoff played down the possibility that he would be able to clear the field Tuesday and avoid a runoff, while also highlighting Perdue's vulnerabilities in the general election.

"We are prepared to win a runoff in August and don't believe that in any way that will impair the prospects for a victory in November," he said.

Earlier this year, national Democrats appeared sheepish about their Senate chances in Georgia, following Abrams's decision not to enter either race as well as early recruiting and fundraising struggles. Major national Democratic groups did not include Georgia among their initial fall advertising reservations, sending an early signal that Georgia was a long shot.

While that has not changed, Democratic strategists are keeping a close eye on key metrics in the state - none more so than voter registrations and absentee ballot data.

Since the 2018 election, hundreds of thousands of new voters have registered, and there is reason to believe they may trend Democratic. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found that more than 300,000 new voters registered in the state in 2019, representing a 3% increase in the state's total number of voters. Nearly a third of those are under 35, and the relative proportion of black, Latino and Asian voters have risen since 2016, the analysis found.

In one encouraging sign for Democrats, about 45,000 more Georgia voters have applied for Democratic ballots in Tuesday's primary than Republicans. While that partly reflects the competitiveness of the Senate race, there are also competitive Republican primaries across the state boosting GOP interest.

Senate candidates also have stepped up their fundraising. Ossoff outraised Perdue in the pre-primary period from April 1 through May 20, and Tomlinson has also shown the ability to raise enough money to compete.

Meanwhile, in the special election that won't be contested until November, Republicans continue to face a messy intraparty struggle between Loeffler and Rep. Douglas Collins. Many Republicans fear the internecine battle could consume the party's messaging against the eventual Democratic challenger.

The racial unrest of the recent weeks have simultaneously given a prominent Democratic candidate, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a higher profile in the state. The pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Warnock has used his perch - one held by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. - to call for a new focus on racial justice and civil rights, and his sermons and media appearances have in some cases translated into viral videos.

"It is the mutation of an old virus, covid-1619," he said about the plague of police violence in one sermon, referencing the year slaves were first brought to America. "We've been trying to beat back this virus since 1619."

Warnock's campaign has not reported updated fundraising figures since April, but several prominent Democrats have looked to channel their national donor bases in his direction in the wake of George Floyd's death after a brutal police chokehold.

Also on the ballot Tuesday are primaries with general-election implications, including in the suburban Atlanta district held by retiring GOP Rep. Rob Woodall that Democrats narrowly missed winning in 2018.

Republican candidates include business executive Lynne Homrich, physician Rich McCormick and state Sen. Renee Unterman, while Democrats are choosing whether to renominate Carolyn Bourdeaux, a Georgia State University professor who came within 433 votes of unseating Woodall. Among the five other candidates seeking the nomination are activist Nabilah Islam, state Sen. Zahra Karinshak, state Rep. Brenda Lopez Romero.

Another key primary will take place among Republicans in South Carolina, where four candidates seeking to face freshman Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham in one of the House GOP's top pickup opportunities. National Republicans are optimistic they will be able to nominate a woman to face Cunningham, with local official Katherine Landing and state Rep. Nancy Mace raising the most money and garnering the most prominent endorsements.

In South Carolina's Senate race, voters are likely to formalize a race between three-term Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and former state Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison. While the state is considered safe for President Trump in the electoral college, Harrison's strong fundraising - nearing $20 million for the cycle - has prompted some independent forecasters to move the race onto the national Senate battlefield.

Meanwhile, primary voters in Nevada will also pick Republican challengers for two other contested seats the party is targeting, facing Democratic Reps. Steven Horsford and Susie Lee.
Prince Philip turned 99 in June 2020. (Getty Images)

Prince Philip has built a reputation over seven decades of public service as a cheeky and gaffe-prone royal who does not suffer fools gladly.

Few have been as close to the Duke of Edinburgh over the years as royal reporters and correspondents who have followed his work and engagements both at the side of the Queen and alone.

Experts shared their favourite photos of Prince Philip and the stories behind them with Yahoo UK.

Royal biographer Ingrid Sewards favourite photo is of Philip at a polo match with Jimmy Edwards*.

Philip with Jimmy Edwards at a polo match in 1965. (Getty Images)

Seward, who is the author of a forthcoming book about Philip, said: In my favourite picture of Prince Philip he is laughing with comedian Jimmy Edwards at a charity polo match in 1965.

It says a lot about Philip - he loves the risque company of the old fashioned politically incorrect comedians and his favourite sport at the time was polo and he also looks cool in his polo gear and tinted glasses.

He has a wicked sense of humour and a love of life which is harder to see in more formal photographs.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty, chose a wet moment with the duke.

Read more: Prince Philip's 99th birthday marked with new lockdown photo with the Queen

Prince Philip during his final solo public engagement on August 2, 2017. (Getty Images)

He said: It was taken on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace on 2 August 2017 during the Duke of Edinburgh's final public engagement before retirement. As Captain General of the Royal Marines he'd just taken the salute at a farewell ceremony and despite it being high summer it rained on his parade.

He got wet, I got wet, and the cheering crowd that had gathered outside the palace railings got wet, but that didn't matter: we were witnessing a moment of royal history.

Read more: Prince William and Kate share photos in birthday message to Prince Philip as he turns 99

Prince Philip of Greece and Prince of Denmark, paid a visit on Aug. 29, 1945 to Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo)

Royal author Jane Dismore, who wrote Princess: The Early Life of Queen Elizabeth II, said one with a romantic connection to the Queen.

She said: Taken in 1945 during WW2, this photo of Prince Philip, aged 24, has the romance of being the one Princess Elizabeth kept on her mantlepiece while he was away with the Royal Navy.

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His beard makes him look rugged and reflects the action man that he was. On HMS Whelp at the time, he would shortly witness the historic signing of the surrender of Japan and remain in the Far East until January 1946.

The picture has a poignancy too, for he could not know that his successful naval career would be cut short by the early death of George VI.

Prince Philip carried aloft on a canoe through the streets of the Pacific island of Tuvalu in 1982 during the Royal Tour of the South Pacific. (David Levenson/Getty Images)

David Levenson joined Prince Philip and the Queen on the Royal Tour of the South Pacific in 1982 and shared one of his favourite photos of the prince from the tour.

The duke is carried aloft on a canoe as he and the Queen arrive at Tuvalu.

Levenson reflected on the Queen and Philip being carried shoulder high throughout the town, having been collected from their boat.

*Yahoo UK has been unable to source the exact image and has chosen one from the same day.
After stepping down as senior members of the British royal family, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, along with their one-year-old son, moved from the UK to the Duchess' hometown in Los Angeles, California.

Because of the coronavirus, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are forced not to leave their home and, instead, do their meetings and working with charities via Zoom. But the couple has also done a bit of volunteering work by delivering meals to people in the Los Angeles community.

The downtime has provided Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to spend that much-needed quality time as a family.

Though the couple still has not officially launched their Archewell Foundation, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning a new phase.

As per royal expert Katie Nicholl, the pair have always been a great team, and they have a great partnership.

"They work well together, and I think looking back on what's been a challenging and a testing year. They've done this together as a couple, and I think it's important to remember that."

According to a royal astrologer, she believes that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will have a new baby on the way.

Astrologer Debbie Frank, who is also Princess Diana's astrologer, predicts that Meghan will be announcing her pregnancy by the end of the year.

Frank is an astrologer who has made a ton of accurate predictions about the royal family in years.

Speaking to Hello Magazine, she revealed, "The rest of 2020 is packed with significant cosmic pointers that challenge Meghan to stay on track with her visions and dreams, and could present exciting additions to the marriage."

"She's certainly highly visible, and in December, there's a real sense of cutting with the past, perhaps another baby on the way and relief from having navigated a hugely transformational period."

Aside from predicting a Sussex Baby Number 2, she also predicted that the Duke and Duchess would encounter even more publicity and some professional challenges as they transition into private working people outside of the royal bubble.

"There are some bright lights overhead for the Duchess of Sussex in late spring and into early summer when generous, expansive Jupiter will put her marriage onto a happier footing as she and Harry go global."

Though Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are enjoying a slower pace and enjoying the time they spend with their son, they revealed that they only want two children.

In a September 2019 issue of British Vogue, the Duke of Sussex was interviewed by their good friend, Jane Goodall.

The 35-year-old father reflected on being a dad and the number of children he and his former "Suits" actress wife are hoping to have.

"Two, maximum! But I've always thought: this place is borrowed. And, surely, being as intelligent as we all are, or as evolved as we all are supposed to be, we should be able to leave something better for the next generation," telling Goodall.

Debbie Frank has also mentioned some changes that could be big for the royal family: eclipses hugely impact the royals.

She mentioned the birth of both Prince William and Kate Middleton, Princess Diana's death, Prince Charles and Princess Diana getting married, and these are said to have happened close to eclipses.

READ MORE: Goodbye, LA? Prince Harry, Meghan Markle to Relocate to Another Country Because US Is 'Unsafe'
MBABANE  The country has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases in one day since the first case was reported.

This, after 31 new positive cases were confirmed by the Ministry of Health yesterday.



Previously the highest number of cases was 30, which were recorded, on May 7, 2020.

According to the latest update, a total of 189 results were received, of which 158 tested negative and 31 were positive for coronavirus. This brings the total number of COVID-19 confirmed cases in the country to 371. The youngest positive case is of a two-year-old, while the eldest is 50-years old. The report further stipulated that there were 10 females and 21 males.



A total of 30 of the new cases came from the Manzini Region and one from the Lubombo Region. The majority of the new cases were asymptomatic.

Meanwhile, there are 57 COVID-19 cases that presented with co-morbidities including people with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, asthma and HIV infection. A majority of the confirmed cases with co-morbidities have been discharged, while a smaller proportion is still under care.



Currently, there are 232 recoveries and the deaths still remain at three. The Manzini Region has the highest number of infections, 228, while the Shiselweni Region has the lowest with 26.



Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi, when asked to shed light on the reason behind the hike in COVID-19 cases, said it could be due to the reopening of the economy which has allowed more businesses to operate, resulting in a lot of movement of people.

She noted that the country could continue to see an increase in the number of cases when the ban on the sale of alcohol has been lifted.
UPDATED at 7 p.m. Thursday to reflect that William Miller Sr. has stepped down.

WASHINGTON, Mo.  The editor and publisher of a Franklin County newspaper apologized and resigned Wednesday after publishing an editorial cartoon that has been criticized for being racially insensitive.

William Miller Sr. of the Missourian released a statement of apology that said running the cartoon was poor judgement on my part and for that I sincerely apologize.He announced his resignation later Wednesday.

The cartoon was intended to support our editorial position that defunding police departments in the aftermath of George Floyds senseless killing is not the answer to resolving the racial inequities and injustices that have occurred in policing in this country, Miller said. We did not draw the cartoon but selected it from a national service we use to support our editorial positions.

Floyd is the black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Missourian co-owners and editors Susan Miller Warden and Jeanne Miller Wood earlier issued an apology that said they had no knowledge the cartoon would be printed, and placed blame on Miller. They resigned Wednesday afternoon.

We saw the cartoon at the same time as our readers and were just as outraged and horrified as our staff and community, the statement read. Had we known we would have vehemently fought against publishing it.

Warden and Wood are Millers daughters.

Many families have been having these painful discussions in the privacy of their homes, their statement said. We unfortunately have to have this debate in a more public way.

A third daughter, Trisha Miller ODonnell, will take over as interim publisher and editor starting Thursday. ODonnell is the former editor of the St. Louis Business Journal.

The Missourian, situated in Washington, Missouri, has been owned and operated by the Miller family since 1937. Miller began working at the newspaper full time in 1953.

The Missourian is a different publication from the Columbia Missourian. They are not affiliated.

The cartoon depicts a masked black man grabbing a purse from a white woman who shouts for help.

Good luck with that lady, the masked man says. We defunded the police.

Tom Stiglich is the syndicated cartoonist who created it. He said in a statement to the Post-Dispatch that the cartoon was based solely on violent crime numbers here in the U.S.

First and foremost, may George Floyd rest in peace. He did not deserve to die like that, Stiglich said. I do not condone racism or police brutality of any kind. Its such a hostile environment were living in right now, one that needs more law and order, not less. The rioting and looting was extremely disheartening.

Miller said the Missourian will no longer publish Stiglichs work.

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Baghdad Central, a six-part series streaming on Hulu, is a crime drama set in the wake of the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Produced by Britains Channel 4 and based on the novel of the same title by Elliott Colla, the series was adapted by Stephen Butchard and directed by Alice Troughton. Its central figure is a former policeman under Saddam Hussein who goes in search of his missing daughter, in the course of which he interacts with British and American occupiers.

Remarkably, the mini-series, set in a country that has experienced the most heinous assault over the last 30 years led by the US, resulting in mass death and destruction, manages to take no position on this imperialist atrocity. That the word oil, a simple three-letter word, appears nowhere says a great deal.

Baghdad Central

The creators are not necessarily supporters of the occupation, but their opposition or criticism is so amorphous and passive that it amounts to prostration before the accomplished fact. Bending over backward to be fair-minded to everyone, they end up giving the benefit of the doubtor moreto the most prominent American military character in the series.

Baghdad Central opens in 2003 when Iraq is already occupied by a US-led military coalition. In Baghdad, Muhsin al-Khafaji (Waleed Zuaiter), a former police inspector in the Iraqi Police Service, learns that his elder daughter Sawsan (Leem Lubany) is missing. His younger daughter Mrouj (July Namir), suffering from kidney disease, tells him that Sawsan got a job through her university professor Zubeida Rashid (Clara Khoury) working as an interpreter for the occupation forces in the Green Zone.

Once in the Green Zone, the Iraqi ex-cop is offered a position by a slimy British policeman Frank Temple (Bertie Carvel). Khafaji becomes a collaborator in order to obtain medical aid for Mrouj and, surreptitiously, to look for Sawsan. He is soon the object of a tug-of-war between Temple and the no-nonsense US military policeman John Parodi (Corey Stoll), who wants Khafajis services as an investigator.

A few dead bodies surface and so does Temples illicit hoard of cash, revealing that the British official, along with his murderous mercenary cohort Evans (Neil Maskell), has been running a prostitution and sex slavery ring. Sawsan comes out of hiding with a vengeful determination to kill Temple.

A showdown ensues and the US military saves the day!

Corey Stoll in Baghdad Central

It is appalling that a high-level member of the American occupation ends up the voice of reason and the virtual hero of the series. Of course, Baghdad Central wants to eat its cake and have it too, since the creators know full well that wide layers of both the British and American populations are hostile to the invasion of Iraq, an illegal act under international law based on out-and-out lies.

Along these lines, as the series opens, there is some lip-service paid to anti-occupation sentiment on the part of the Iraqis. One character says, If you can wear sunglasses and chew gum, you can be an American soldier ... They believe we should kiss their arse and be grateful ... Im never sure if theyre going to shoot me in the head.

In addition, the university professor Rashid, who sends Sawsan and two other of her students into the Green Zone as information gatherers, identifies the occupiers as oppressors and invaders. But these few utterances evaporate into almost nothingness. While Stoll/Parodi performs the American dirty work in Iraq, he is nonetheless portrayed as an honorable man.

Furthermore, the choice of making the central character, Khafaji, a policeman is already telling. Not even an inch can be given to Washingtons justification for the war, but the Hussein regime was a vicious dictatorship and his police force carried out brutal repression of left-wing forces and the working class.

This is not, in fact, a series done from the point of view of ordinary Iraqis, as its makers claim. The American-hating taxi driver is virtually the only sympathetic Iraqi.

Whats more, the British production cant help itself, bringing in gender politics as a critical issue. Rashid is the representative of feminism and, indeed, in so far as an Iraqi opposition is identified, its central concern seems to be womens rights, not liberating the Iraqi people from neo-colonial domination. Butchard, the screenwriter, told an interviewer from Channel 4, As soon as war breaks out, one of the first casualties is always womens rights.

In Baghdad Central,the biggest crime in the series is Temples prostitution ring. No doubt this is foul and involves the oppression of women, but there is relatively little reference to the mass slaughter, the sociocide, that was already underway.

Waleed Zuaiter in Baghdad Central

In the same interview, Butchard refers to the fact that, by the time of the 2003 invasion, ten years of sanctions had broken Iraq and left its people suffering. But in this and other statements about post-invasion Iraq, he never seriously indicts US imperialism for its savaging of the country. Where is the outrage?

Butchards central conception apparently is that family is all we have, as one of his characters laments. Butchard told Variety: The backdrop of Iraq in 2003 adds a real and constant danger, as well as a political and global event that has rarely been explored from the viewpoint of an ordinary family; this adds texture, intrigue, suspense and of course threatbut the family remain front and centre. One banality piled upon another.

What was important, the screenwriter explained, was to identify and show that the love and fractures within this family are no different to the love and fractures within families worldwide. Then why set the film in Iraq if you have nothing substantial to say about the titanic events unfolding in that country? In fact, once the viewer is clued into the series preoccupation with family at the expense of the invasion, it falls entirely flat.

From the first Gulf War of 1991 through the 2003 invasion and subsequent military occupation of Iraq, US imperialism carried out the systematic destruction of what had been one of the most advanced social infrastructures in the Arab world. The second war claimed the lives of over one million Iraqis, turning another five million into refugees. This butchery is seen by the creators of Baghdad Central as a mere backdrop.

At one point, Khafaji says to never forget we are the cradle of civilization and the land of poets. What the series shies away from, however, is what Iraq has become.

Another interview with Butchard confirms this. The Agency claims that the writer was keen to avoid writing polemically about the aftermath of the invasion. (Why? How is such a thing possible in the face of these events?) Butchard concurs: Its very easy to tell this story in black-and-white terms with no grey but that would be wrong. There are people on all sides who are doing right and people on all sides doing wrong and people who are simply trying to get through the day and do a job in difficult circumstances.

It is entirely inappropriate and irresponsible to apply the term grey to such matters. Individual human behavior, emotional life and moral choices cannot be treated in simple black-and-white terms, but there is nothing murky or obscure about the monstrous conduct of the Bush and Blair governments and their military forces. They committed war crimes, crimes against humanity. Would Butchard suggest there were people on all sides  doing right and  wrong during Britains colonial rule in India and Africa, or during French imperialisms bloody war in Algeria, much less in Nazi-occupied Europe?

The series makers attitudes speak to the mood and outlook in what passes for the intelligentsia, a bit of hand-wringing and futile protest, but, in general, acquiescence all down the line with human rights imperialism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

This complacent, affluent layer is 1,000 miles away from taking a principled anti-imperialist stance.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has again pleaded with state leaders to reconsider hard border closures in an attempt to kick start the economy.

Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia are still refusing to allow interstate travellers to avoid a potential spike in coronavirus cases.

But Mr Morrison said the priority should now turn to the economy - which is now in recession - after the nation recorded zero community transmission cases on Tuesday.

'We need to get planes flying around Australia and if you want to see planes flying around Australia... we need to open up these domestic borders,' the PM told Parliament on Wednesday.

He said Virgin Australia, as well as other airlines and industries, could only anticipate a rebound when there were more planes in the sky and people could begin travelling freely.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has again pleaded with state Premiers to reconsider hard border closures in an attempt to kick start the economy

The Queensland government has refused to admit the border closures have contributed to financial hardship for businesses. The response comes after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk appeared to acknowledge the impact her decision could have on the industry

Ms Fusco (pictured with two men wearing shirts which encourage people to sanitise their hands) said the industry is doing whatever it can to stay afloat

'That (must) occur for South Australia, for Tasmania, for Queensland and Western Australia. This isn't a partisan issue,' he said.

'This is about ensuring that our economies can open up and I have made this point consistently.'

Queensland's Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk argues her border closures haven't had any adverse impacts on businesses in the Sunshine State.

In fact, she is determined to keep them closed for as long as she sees fit, and is currently locked in a High Court dispute with several plantiffs who argue the measures are 'irrational' and causing them 'financial harm'.

On Tuesday, the state government refuted the claims in documents filed to the court, saying it 'does not admit' financial hardships are directly related to border closures.

Gold Coast Central Chamber of Commerce president Martin Hall said he was astonished by the state government's defence.

'That is possibly the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard,' he told The Gold Coast Bulletin.

City streets are near empty (Sydney's George St pictured June 1) following the coronavirus lockdown

Waiters at Costa D'Oro in Surfers Paradise are simply happy to be back at work - even though they can't work at full capacity yet

The stunning development comes after Premier Palaszczuk on May 19 publicly acknowledged the impact border closures would have on the state's $12billion tourism industry.

'It has been heartbreaking to make tough but unavoidable decisions; for example, the decision to close our borders and place hard restrictions on the industry knowing they would hurt, while at the same time understanding they were absolutely critical to save lives,' she said when announcing the policy.

Ms Palaszczuk's refusal to open the border, against the advice of federal health experts and despite the pleas of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, has earned her comparisons to fellow Labor Premier Daniel Andrews, who is accused of holding back the economy by relaxing rules too slowly in Victoria.

While Victoria's Liberal Opposition has dubbed him 'Chairman Dan' - after former Chinese Communist Party leader Chairman Mao - while Ms Palaszczuk has been mocked as 'comrade Anna' by some of her critics frustrated by her uncompromising stand on border closure.

The New South Wales government released these statistics about the current coronavirus figures in the state

Nuccia Fusco (pictured left and right), co-owner of Italian restaurant Costa D'Oro in Surfers Paradise, told Daily Mail Australia she believes her business should be able to operate at full capacity

Mr Morrison has repeatedly called on state governments to relax border closures for other Australians.

'It's not good for the economy, particularly as we go into this next school holiday season. Those tourism businesses need that support,' Mr Morrison said.

'So those individual states, they'll have to justify those decisions themselves because it wasn't something that came out of national cabinet.'

Mr Morrison said he has never received medical advice which suggested closing state borders would be effective in beating the virus.

But he acknowledged states had sought their own medical advice, too.

Australia recorded zero new locally acquired cases of coronavirus on Tuesday for the first time since the peak of the pandemic, with two new cases in New South Wales identified as returned travellers who remain holed up in quarantine hotels.

While the milestone is great news for the nation, it is little comfort for businesses if it doesn't result in restrictions being eased.

Pictured: Demonstrators at the Sydney Black Lives Matter protest on June 6. While many of those who attended the protest wore face masks and used hand sanitiser, medical experts fear there is still a risk of the highly infectious virus passing among them

Nuccia Fusco, co-owner of Italian restaurant Costa D'Oro in Surfers Paradise, told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday night the lack of interstate traffic and gathering restrictions had crippled her business since they closed their doors on March 23.

'Restaurants should be working together and demanding change... I think that will happen very soon,' Ms Fusco said.

Ms Fusco hopes strength in numbers will encourage state governments to reassess current measures.

'I'm meeting with a group of restaurateurs and bar owners tomorrow to start a Facebook group to give us a voice,' she said.

Ms Palaszczuk has faced increased calls to completely reopen her state by the July school holidays to inject much needed funds into the economy.

Poll Should restaurants be able to trade as normal across Australia? Yes No Should restaurants be able to trade as normal across Australia? Yes 1004 votes

No 209 votes Now share your opinion





'It's not good for the economy, particularly as we go into this next school holiday season. Those tourism businesses need that support,' Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously said.

'So those individual states, they'll have to justify those decisions themselves because it wasn't something that came out of national cabinet.'

Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham also previously said the state was more reliant on tourism than most others in Australia, and would haemorrhage money.

In Surfers Paradise, the co-owner of Italian restaurant Costa D'Oro, Nuccia Fusco (pictured) admitted seeing the protests made her want to break the rules

Pictured: The restaurant operating at full capacity prior to coronavirus lockdowns. They are turning away upwards of 100 customers in a night due to restrictions

'Tourism businesses currently have no choice and no access to international visitors, and if we also leave them with no access to interstate visitors, then they're going to be bleeding in terms of viability and job losses for a long time,' he said.

Even though Queensland's borders remain shut, the premier has encouraged intrastate travel and on Saturday did not ban Black Lives Matter rallies.

Restaurant owner Ms Fusco explained that watching 60,000 people gather to attend Black Lives Matter protests throughout the nation - blatantly disregarding social distancing measures - was 'horrifying'.

'I was horrified. Three months of our hard work was just taken for granted,' she said. 'If this is allowed, we should be allowed the same thing and have as many people as we want in the restaurant.'

Instead, her restaurant turns away upwards of 100 loyal customers in a night because of restrictions allowing only 50 patrons at a time.

Ms Fusco said maybe they would receive more leniency from the government if they staged a protest.

The sunshine state was quick to lock down the border to stem the spread of the deadly respiratory virus, and has indicated it may not reopen for tourists until September

'I've been thinking well maybe the restaurant and all the other operators should do something, put up signs and have a protest day so we can have as many people as we want too. This does make you want to rebel when you see all these other people getting away with it... Why can't we do the same thing?' she asked.

Ms Fusco said she was set to defy the restrictions and allow more than 50 people in her restaurant this weekend, but her husband talked her out of breaking the rules, for now.

While she considered breaking the rules, Ms Fusco said in all honestly, she couldn't afford to pay the fine if she were caught.

'As much as I'd love to ignore the government restrictions and open for more customers, we can't afford the fine. I'm not even sure how much it would be but after three months of no money we can't afford to pay,' she said.

Instead, she said her family is praying the government will reconsider restrictions and allow them to reopen at full capacity soon.

'We're being far more careful [than the protesters]. We're sanitising and distancing... they should lift restrictions and we should get much more freedom,' she said.

The protest in Sydney was allowed, then banned, then allowed once again - and tens of thousands eventually showed
The suspect, who was named as Christian B., is in prison in Germany on a sentence for a drug offense. He is also appealing a conviction for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American in her home, which was also in Praia da Luz.

Image Madeleine McCann vanished 13 years ago. Credit... Metropolitan Police/EPA, via Shutterstock

His phone records reveal he was still in the town the evening of May 3, 2007, when Madeleine was left sleeping alongside her twin siblings, while her parents and their friends had a tapas dinner at a restaurant within their holiday resort.

But while the trickle of information about Christian B. and his past whereabouts and crimes has made the newspaper headlines, it is difficult to find anyone in Praia da Luz who has welcomed the revival of the police investigation. Few also sound hopeful about its outcome.

People have got tired of listening to all the theories about Madeleine, and I think that it is understandable that nothing feels very new after 13 years of various police leads turning out to be cold, said Hugo Pereira, the mayor of the municipality that includes Praia da Luz.

Theres also the feeling that anybody who could have possibly been interrogated has already said all that could be said, he added.
Boston, Mass., June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The One8 Foundation, Mass STEM Hub, MIND Research Institute, and Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MA DESE) have partnered to provide access to ST Math, a leading conceptual math program, in grades K-6 for Massachusetts schools. This 2020 Mass Math Initiative will keep meaningful learning happening over the summer and through the 2020-21 school year.

ST Math is a visual instructional program that leverages the brain's innate spatial-temporal reasoning ability to solve mathematical problems. ST Maths unique, patented approach provides students with equitable access to learning the states math standards through challenging puzzles, non-routine problem solving, and informative feedback.

Nearly 200 schools from 38 different districts including Boston Public Schools, Cambridge Public Schools, Lynn Public Schools, Peabody Public Schools, Pittsfield Public Schools, and Worcester Public Schools applied to be considered for the program.

The 2020 Mass Math Initiative was developed, in large part, to help mitigate both summer learning loss and the COVID slide, a term used to describe the potential impact of school closures on learning and achievement. According to a report published in April 2020 by NWEA, student progress in math is at greatest potential for risk by a COVID slide, and students could return to school in the fall with less than 50% of the learning gains and in some grades, nearly a full year behind what we would observe in normal conditions. Students use of ST Math can help reverse that trajectory.

In just two short years, we have been amazed at the impact we are seeing in Massachusetts with ST Math, said Brett Woudenberg, CEO of MIND Research Institute, the nonprofit neuroscience and education organization behind ST Math. The One8 Foundations support of MIND, with ST Math and beyond, has been vital to creating deeper, more conceptual mathematical learning in a diverse group of students and teachers. We are grateful for their expanded partnership and thankful to be able to provide ST Math statewide.

Story continues

The One8 Foundation began funding the ST Math Massachusetts Program in 2017 with an initial cohort of 54 Massachusetts schools. Over the past two years, the program grew to encompass 165 schools, totalling approximately 55,000 students. One8 Foundation has provided additional support for the quality implementation of ST Math for schools receiving grants through Mass STEM Hub, their school implementation team. Todays announcement further expands this highly effective conceptual math program to more elementary schools across the state.

Educators are working hard to adapt to the need for effective online learning options, said Joanna Jacobson, President of the One8 Foundation. We have supported the scale of ST Math for elementary schools in the state over the last two years because of the demonstrated student results and because children love to play these math games keeping them engaged in their learning. Helping more schools quickly deploy ST Math is an important initiative.

Students will be encouraged to play ST Math over the summer and complete puzzles alongside JiJi, ST Maths penguin mascot. In an effort to encourage as much participation as possible, the Summer Challenge will include prizes and celebrations throughout the summer beginning the week of June 15th. Prizes will be awarded to classrooms and educators who demonstrate progress, perseverance, and usage. Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeffrey Riley will also publicly celebrate specific program milestones throughout the summer.

Were glad to see ST Math become an option for additional Massachusetts schools this summer, especially as we all look for ways to maintain student learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, Commissioner Riley said. I am grateful to One8 Foundation, Mass STEM Hub and MIND Research Institute for making this opportunity available.

About MIND Research Institute

MIND Research Institute is a neuroscience and education social impact organization dedicated to ensuring that all students are mathematically equipped to solve the worlds most challenging problems. MIND is the creator of ST Math, a PreK-8 visual instructional program that leverages the brain's innate spatial-temporal reasoning ability to solve mathematical problems. Its unique, patented approach provides students with equitable access to learning through challenging puzzles, non-routine problem solving, and informative feedback. MIND has also developed programs under MathMINDs to provide students, teachers and families dynamic ways to actively engage with math, and to close the experience gap for all learners. MathMINDs includes Family Nights, the national K-12 Game-a-thon and MathMINDs Games. For more information, visit mindresearch.org.

About One8 Foundation

The One8 Foundation propels and supports outstanding leaders with compelling ideas that deliver scaled, sustainable social impact. Education is a priority area of strategic giving for the One8 Foundation, with a focus on preparing students for a rapidly changing high-tech world through applied learning and STEM education. To learn more, visit one8.org.

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Austria is lifting all checks at its border with Italy and scrapping quarantine requirements for arrivals from 30 other European countries as of June 16, according to Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg.

But restrictions will remain in place for Britain, Spain and Portugal and Austria will continue to advise against travel to the Lombardy region of Italy which was the area hardest hit by the pandemic.

Vienna hinted on Tuesday that coronavirus restrictions on arrivals from more than 20 European countries, including Italy, might be lifted in the middle of the month but the official announcement was delayed until after the final details had been ironed out at a Ministerial meeting on Wednesday.
BETHESDA, Md., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Walker & Dunlop, Inc. ("the Company") announced today the closing of a $100 million servicing advance line with Bank of America. The advance line is structured as a sublimit to an existing BofA warehouse line and may be used to fund advances of principal and interest payments on loans that are in forbearance or are delinquent within the Company's Fannie Mae DUS portfolio. The facility will provide 90% of the principal and interest advance payment at a rate of LIBOR plus 1.75% and will be collateralized by Fannie Mae's commitment to repay advances.

"I am extremely pleased to have this P&I advancing facility in place," commented Walker & Dunlop Chief Financial Officer Steve Theobald. "While forbearance requests have been far fewer than anticipated and fully funded using Corporate cash to date, it is nice to have this added liquidity in place."

The Company also provided information regarding the amounts advanced by the Company for the payment of principal and interest and guaranty fees on its Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae portfolios since the onset of the pandemic. Less than 1% of the Company's Fannie Mae loans and 2.4% of the Company's Ginnie Mae loans have been granted forbearance or otherwise required the advance of principal and interest payments through the end of May 2020. Forbearance advances will be repaid to the Company by Fannie Mae after the fourth month advances are made on a loan. Advances on Ginnie Mae loans are repaid when the loan returns to performing status or it is assigned back to the FHA. The Company holds no credit risk on its Ginnie Mae portfolio.

As of May 31, 2020 unless noted otherwise Fannie Mae Ginnie Mae Total Total Number of Loans in Company's Servicing Portfolio (at March 31, 2020) 2,432 1,149 3,581 Total Unpaid Principal Balance (UPB) of Loans in Company's Servicing Portfolio (at March 31, 2020) $41.1 billion $9.8 billion $50.9 billion Number of Loans Delinquent or in Forbearance 13 12 25 UPB of Loans Delinquent or in Forbearance $323.5 million $224.8 million $548.3 million Outstanding Principal, Interest and Guaranty Fee Advances at April 30, 2020 $0.4 million $1.2 million $1.6 million Outstanding Principal, Interest and Guaranty Fee Advances at May 31, 2020 $1.1 million $0.9 million $2.0 million

As of May 31, 2020, Walker & Dunlop had more than $250 million of cash on its balance sheet.

About Walker & Dunlop

Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD), headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, is one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the United States. The company provides a comprehensive range of capital solutions for all commercial real estate asset classes, as well as investment sales brokerage services to owners of multifamily properties. Walker & Dunlop is included on the S&P SmallCap 600 Index and was ranked as one of FORTUNE Magazine's Fastest Growing Companies in 2014, 2017, and 2018. Walker & Dunlop's 850+ professionals in 40 offices across the nation have an unyielding commitment to client satisfaction.

SOURCE Walker & Dunlop, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.walkerdunlop.com


Syracuse, N.Y. -- Syracuse police are investigating a reported shooting on the East Side on Wednesday night.

The shooting was reported at 10:36 p.m. at 1813 E. Fayette St., near the Parkside Commons apartment complex, according to Onondaga County 911 dispatch logs.

At least five police SUVs were parked near the building and an entrance was taped off. Officers appeared to be searching for shell casings in front of the building.

A Syracuse police spokesman was not immediately available for comment about the reported shooting.

This is breaking news and will be updated.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Chris Libonati via the Signal app for encrypted messaging at 585-290-0718, by phone at the same number, by email or on Twitter.
As a confidence-building measure before the talks between both sides slated to start from Wednesday at the Major General-level and after the military commanders' talks on June 6, the Indian and Chinese troops have disengaged at three locations including Galwan valley area (Patrolling Point 14), Patrolling Point 15 and Hot Springs (Patrolling Point 17) by 2-2.5 kms. "Disengagement has started in the eastern Ladakh sector but what we want is de-induction of more than a division size troops (10,000 plus troops) that have been deployed by the Chinese in the rear positions in its ...

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When employees at Salesforce, the cloud software giant based in San Francisco, eventually return to their office towers, they may find that the fun is gone from their famously fun-loving workplaces.

No more chatting in the elevator. No hugging. No more communal snack jars.

Before employees can even go into the office, they will be required to fill out online health surveys and take their temperature. If they pass the health screening and have a good reason to go in, Salesforce will schedule their shifts  and send them digital entry tickets for the lobby with an arrival time.

In the lobby, employees will be asked to wait for the elevator on social-distancing floor markers and stand on other markers once inside the elevator.

These new command-and-control work practices are intended to help protect Salesforces more than 50,000 employees as the company undertakes a colossal task: figuring out how to safely reopen its more than 160 offices around the world.
Severe job losses have been avoided in the retail sector as a result of the decision to reopen shops, a commerce chief has said.

Simon Hamilton said the furlough scheme had been a "godsend", stopping mass unemployment in the short-term.

Mr Hamilton, who is chief executive of the Belfast Chamber, added: "Ninety-five per cent of retailers have been availing of that scheme and putting a very high percentage of staff on that."

He said reopening retail tomorrow had been another boost.

"Having an earlier date to reopen than anticipated has been a huge, huge help in terms of getting going again. Had restrictions stayed in place and retailers remained closed in the summer then chances of quite a high number of job losses would have been quite severe," he said.

Mr Hamilton was addressing the Assembly's economy committee on Wednesday.

He said that retail had been one of the sectors hardest hit by restrictions during lockdown.

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Most retailers with a door opening onto the street are able to trade from tomorrow, but Mr Hamilton said units within shopping centres now required a definite opening date.

He said that in many cases the centres themselves were open, as they housed the "essential" retailers allowed to trade all through the crisis.

He added: "I'm aware of one of our members who has 60% of their shops actually open because they are deemed essential.

"They are well-versed and experienced in how to open safely and keep premises safe and clean and have queuing systems in place."

Mr Hamilton said that while retailers were pleased to be able to reopen, the sector was still entering a "dangerous period" and would require ongoing support from the Government.

He said that to maintain social distancing, shops would have lower footfall, and were also having to absorb the costs of measures such as Perspex screens.

Mr Hamilton said he wanted to offer support to chamber members in the hospitality industry, which is still awaiting a reopening date.

Hotels, restaurants and bars in the Republic are due to reopen on June 29.

The Executive is expected to consider whether to reopen the hospitality sector here when it meets on Thursday. It is also due to consider whether a plan to reopen hotels here on July 20 can be brought forward in tandem with the Republic.

Mr Hamilton said: "There's a real symbiotic relationship between retail, hospitality and tourism. We don't want to see our industries here falling behind our neighbours in the south."

Aodhan Connolly, director of the NI Retail Consortium, also gave evidence to the committee and repeated calls for a date when retailers in shopping centres can get back to business.

He said: "It seems a little bit arbitrary that they're not open, since a lot have gone that extra mile to ensure safety of staff including using personal protective equipment (PPE), social distancing and hand sanitisation.

"We need that final piece of the jigsaw to be opened as soon as possible, or at least a date for it to be opened as soon as possible."

Glyn Roberts, chief executive of Retail NI, warned recovery of the sector could take some time.

"We are making progress but it is a long, long road back," he said. "If we are in the midst of a very serious recession over the next few months, and possibly years, what impact that will have on consumer confidence and spending is a whole other issue."
DANVILLE (BCN)

Two people killed in a head-on crash caused by a wrong-way driver on Interstate Highway 680 in Danville early Sunday morning have been identified by the Contra Costa County coroner's office.

Nettie Perkett, 46, and Taurean Lee, 26, both of Antioch, died in the crash reported at about 3:45 a.m. Sunday on northbound Highway 680 near El Pintado Road.

A driver later identified as 27-year-old Concord resident Camille Kimball was driving a 2020 Ford Fusion south in the northbound lanes and crashed into a 2012 Honda Civic driven by Perkett with Lee as her passenger, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Both victims died at the scene, while Kimball survived and was taken to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. While at the hospital, she was arrested on suspicion of felony driving under the influence and vehicular manslaughter, CHP officials said.

People on social media mourned the deaths of Perkett and Lee, saying they were co-workers on their way home. A GoFundMe account created at https://www.gofundme.com/f/Funeral-service-2020 to support Perkett's family had raised nearly $1,500 as of Tuesday morning.

Anyone with information about the collision or the events leading up to it is asked to contact the Contra Costa-area CHP office at (925) 646-4980.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Officials said the fund is expected to start paying out later this month. People can apply through The Resurrection Projects website, though the site did not yet have information on how or when that process would open.
Syracuse, N.Y.  A man was shot to death Tuesday night at Parkside Commons in Syracuse.

A caller reported the shooting at 10:34 p.m.

The Syracuse Police Department rushed to the 1800 block of East Fayette Street and found a wounded 21-year-old man. The man had been shot in his midsection, police said.

The man was rushed to Upstate University Hospital, where he later died. His name has not yet been released.

The investigation is active and ongoing," police said. Anyone with information about the homicide has been asked to call (315) 442-5222.

Reporter Samantha House covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a comment or a story idea? You can reach her at shouse@syracuse.com.
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Linkedin Josa Lukman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 13:58 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdd942ff 1 Art & Culture #art,#art-collective,#ArtFair,#Arts-festival,#documenta,#documenta15,#Indonesia,#ruangrupa Free

It has been a year since Indonesian art collective ruangrupa made history by being the first Asians and first art collective selected to curate the prestigious art exhibition documenta in Kassel, Germany.

Scheduled to run from June 18 to Sep. 25, 2022, the 15th edition of documenta will utilize the concept of lumbung (granary), which is championed as a way of managing resources for a collective sustainability.

As ruangrupa gears up for its upcoming project, the pandemic has put many things on hold.

With two years to go, preparation for the art exhibition  held every five years for 100 days  is obviously rigorous. But with the pandemics effects reverberating globally, what has become of ruangrupas history-making role?

In a virtual discussion hosted by Goethe-Institut, five core members of ruangrupa discussed their efforts so far and what the next couple of years will entail.

Founded in 2000, ruangrupa has made its name in the Indonesian contemporary art scene not just through its participation in numerous illustrious festivals like the Singapore Biennale and Sonsbeek, but also through initiatives like the Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem art space and the Gudskul learning space.

The 10-member core of ruangrupa is composed of Ajeng Nurul Aini, Daniella Fitria, Praptono Indra Ameng, Iswanto Hartono, Julia Sarisetiati, Mirwan Andan, Narpati Awangga, Reza Afisina and Farid Rakun, with Ade Darmawan serving as director.

Farid, an architect and visiting lecturer at the University of Indonesias architecture department, reveals that the pandemic has led to some changes of plan, as research visits are a necessity in running art exhibitions.

But in this kind of situation its been made impossible, especially for a collective like ruangrupa. We normally depend on face-to-face meetings instead of [virtual meetings], as the ideas flow out of the human interaction in that space, he said.

Mirwan said that since the initial announcement, several of the core members had visited various European countries to conduct research, with Ades visit to Italy being the latest  managing to fly out just in time before flights stopped because of the pandemic.

Plans for several meetings for this year have fallen through, Farid says, including one in Kassel in March. Instead, technology-assisted interactions must make do, though he noted the measures had given him some thoughts on timing, money and energy-intensive trips.

Indra, who is also manager of the band White Shoes & The Couples Company, said the collectives goals in the near future were to roll out a public update on their progress and future plans in June, along with an explanation of the implementation of the lumbung concept.

Ruangrupa manager Ajeng, who is responsible for communication and public programs, explained that plans have now turned to Indonesia, researching how local art collectives work and connect.

The challenge was when we were running all of this research, COVID-19 showed up, which actually bred solidarity organically, she said.

In conversation: Goethe Institut hosts a discussion about the international art exhibition documenta in Jakarta in 2019 with members of the ruangrupa artist collective, which will curate documenta in Kassel, Germany, in 2022. (Courtesy of ruangrupa.org/Jin Panji)

So far, everything is going to plan, says Ade, with the collective successfully forming an artistic team with several specialist curators and experts. Ruangrupa has also worked with students in Kassel and Jakarta to work on an artistic element of the exhibition.

Whats more important is that the embryo of lumbung is starting to connect with an international network in Indonesia and Kassel.

Mirwan added that with the pandemic also affecting the economy and politics, the theme of lumbung became more relevant to explore as an idea and vision,

We should also note from the beginning that the word lumbung was not because ruangrupa was inspired to discover an apt concept or word for documenta 15, but that lumbung is a concept weve run with since our founding, he says.

When the offer came and we were asked to propose a concept, we felt that this was the most appropriate to submit given the situation.

Ajeng highlighted the lumbung concepts genesis in 2012, when ruangrupa along with other collectives banded together to create a business unit.

The issues weve discussed include external funding that does not last long, unstable government support. At that time, it was created to support the collectives operational costs by utilizing our skills.

In 2016, she said they made the decision to move and start something in Pancoran  the Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem  in South Jakarta.

We learned how to work with at least 30 people to create and run a new system. Two years later we created something that is educational in its core, which has been the dream for ruangrupa and many other collectives, she explained.

For Farid, lumbung is a faster way to explain the concept, which at its core is the sharing of resources owned by an organization or individual to be used by those in need.

Its like owning a drill, for example. Those who own one dont necessarily use it daily, and someone else can use it in the meantime. Because of this, not everyone in the community needs to own a drill, he said.

The idea is not uniquely ruangrupas, he continues, but the collective is pushing how the concept can affect the practice of arts in ruangrupa and Gudskul, as well as other artists and collectives around the world.

This crisis has made everyone realize how important it is to work together instead of competing with one another. (ste)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-11 00:01:05|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, talks with residents on the square of the Jinhuayuan community of Litong District in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

-- Xi said no single ethnic minority group should be left behind in the country's building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

-- Xi called for continuous efforts to make progress in the battle to keep skies blue, waters clear and land pollution-free and to push forward eco-environmental protection.

-- Xi required continuous efforts to fully implement the regular COVID-19 containment measures and accelerating the return of normal work and life order, stressing stable employment and people's livelihood.

YINCHUAN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Xi underscored fully implementing the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, working hard to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and giving priority to ensuring stable employment and people's livelihood.

Efforts are needed to continue building a beautiful new Ningxia with economic prosperity, ethnic unity, beautiful environment and well-off residents, he said.

During his inspection trip from Monday to Wednesday, Xi visited places including the cities of Wuzhong and Yinchuan to learn about efforts to coordinate regular epidemic containment with economic and social development, consolidate achievements in poverty alleviation, strengthen ecological and environmental protection, and promote ethnic unity and progress.

Visiting a poverty relief workshop in the village of Hongde in Wuzhong Monday afternoon, Xi talked with villagers producing cartons.

Such workshops were set up for poverty alleviation, and they should lean toward needy people in terms of employment, Xi said.

Compared with migrating to cities to work, the villagers employed near their homes may not earn as much, but they can save on accommodation, food and transportation costs and are able to take care of their families, Xi added.

At the house of Liu Kerui, a villager of the Hui ethnic group, Xi took a good look at the courtyard, living room, bedrooms, kitchen and cowshed, and asked Liu and his wife if they had any difficulties and what they planned for the future.

Xi expressed his hope that the villagers could keep going and create better lives for themselves.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to advance poverty alleviation in Hongde Village of Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Visiting a section of the Yellow River, Xi learned about the river's ecological conservation.

He said the Yellow River is China's "mother river" and called on Ningxia to take good care of it.

Visiting the Jinhuayuan residential community, where people of several ethnic groups live together, Xi said no single ethnic minority group should be left behind in the country's building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

It represents the fine tradition of the Chinese nation and the great strength of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics to enable people of all ethnic groups to walk hand in hand into a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Xi added.

On Tuesday afternoon, Xi visited a rural ecotourism park in Yinchuan to learn about the development of modern agriculture in Ningxia and the operation of agricultural cooperatives to help farmers raise income.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits a rural ecotourism park to learn about the development of local signature agriculture in Helan County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

He stressed upholding a people-centered philosophy of development and putting the interests of farmers first in developing modern agriculture and cultural tourism.

Xi required continuous efforts to fully implement the regular COVID-19 containment measures and accelerating the return of normal work and life order.

While visiting a vineyard in Yinchuan near the Helan Mountains, Xi said the mountains constitute crucial shields for ecological security in the northwestern part of China. He demanded resolute measures to strengthen the ecological conservation of the mountains.

Xi said the wine industry has promising prospects as the living standards of Chinese people continue to rise.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits a vineyard near the Helan Mountains to learn about the efforts on strengthening the ecological conservation of the mountains, in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

On Wednesday morning, Xi heard work reports of the Ningxia regional committee of the CPC and the regional government, and gave his acknowledgment of the progress Ningxia has achieved in various aspects of work.

Xi stressed unremitting efforts to push for high-quality development, accelerate the transformation of economic growth mode, speed up industrial transformation and upgrading, and expedite the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones.

Policies designed to reduce tax burdens on companies and measures aimed at expanding domestic demand should be implemented fully, he said.

Xi said innovation should be given full play to in driving growth and enabling industries to achieve high-end, green, smart and integrated growth.

He urged efforts to speed up the establishment of industrial system, production system and management system of modern agriculture, so that more signature farm produce of Ningxia will hit the market.

New breakthroughs in reform and opening-up should be achieved, Xi said, calling for targeted reforms and enhanced assessment of reform measures.

He called on Ningxia to seize the opportunities in the cooperation on Belt and Road Initiative, foster an open economic environment and promote higher-quality growth through greater openness.

Xi stressed resolutely winning the battle against poverty by addressing the prominent problems and weak links and sparing no effort to ensure poverty alleviation goals are accomplished on schedule.

Xi called for continuous efforts to make progress in the battle to keep skies blue, waters clear and land pollution-free and to push forward eco-environmental protection.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about efforts to strengthen ecological protection of the Yellow River at a section of the river in Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

On protecting the Yellow River, Xi called for efforts to build a pilot zone for the ecological conservation and high-quality development of the river.

Stressing the people-centered philosophy of development, Xi demanded solid efforts in ensuring employment for key groups such as laid-off workers, college graduates, rural migrant workers and demobilized military personnel, and in promoting balanced development of compulsory education in urban and rural areas and improving the public health system.

Xi called on all Party members, especially leading officials at various levels, to stay true to the Party's founding mission, remain clear-headed and maintain the political orientation.

He asked them to unwaveringly uphold and strengthen the Party's leadership, uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, and strive for the great goal of national rejuvenation.

"We must persevere in carrying forward the great cause that our revolutionary forefathers had fought for," Xi said. 
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended President Trump's refusal to strike Confederate leaders' names from military bases by asking where the country should draw the line.

'Should George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison be erased from history? What about FDR and his internment camps? Should he be erased from history? Or Lyndon Johnson? Who has a history of documented racist statements,' McEnany asked reporters.

She also pointed at comments presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden made about working with segregationist senators - and suggested he could be impacted by the fallout too.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended President Trump's decision to refuse to rename military bases named after Confederate leaders by asking where the country should draw a line

Kayleigh McEnany even brought up Joe Biden, who got in political trouble last June for boasting that he'd been able to work with segregationists while in the U.S. Senate

'And finally what about people that are alleged by the media to be segregationists?' McEnany said referencing Biden and the news coverage that came after he made the controversial comments last June.

McEnany also brought up the decision to pull the Civil War-era drama 'Gone with the Wind' from the HBO Max library.

'I'm told that no longer can you find on HBO "Gone with the Wind," because that is somehow now offensive,' McEnany said.

President Trump had announced minutes before Wednesday's press briefing that he 'will not even consider' renaming American military bases that were named after leaders of the Confederacy.

'These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,' Trump tweeted. 'The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars,' the president continued.

'Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations,' Trump said.

The 'Black Lives Matter' protests that have taken place all across the nation in the aftermath of George Floyd's death have renewed discussions on the appropriateness of memorializing Confederate figures.

Currently 10 Army bases are named after Confederate leaders.

Southern states that joined the Confederacy during the Civil War-era did so in order to keep their status as slave states.

On Monday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told Politico that he was 'open' to renaming these 10 facilities.

Politico reported that Defense Secretary Mark Esper - who has been at odds with Trump over how to deal with the 'Black Lives Matter' demonstrations - also supported the discussion.

McEnany opened up her Wednesday briefing reading a statement from Trump that mirrored his tweets.

She said the president would go as far as vetoing legislation if there was a name change.

The president has long sided with the 'heritage' argument to keep Confederate monuments and memorials erected.

In the past he's also defined it as a slippery slope.

Trump voiced concerns about erasing George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from American landmarks directly after he made his controversial 'very find people on both sides' remark about the Charlottesville protests in August 2017.

The president said that some people who had gathered in the Virginia town - among white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis - were concerned about the tear-down of a 'very important statue' of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Behind closed doors, as reported in ABC News' Jonathan Karl's book 'Front Row at the Trump Show,' Trump told advisers - including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Chief of Staff John Kelly - that while he knew the KKK and neo-Nazis were 'bad,' 'the issue for Trump was that the protesters in Charlottesville were taking up a good cause by fighting to keep the statue of Robert E. Lee in a prominent place,' Karl wrote.

Trump's next thought, Karl described, was 'next will be Washington and Jefferson.'

'Nobody jumped in to agree with the president or to challenge him. Nobody in the room suggested to him that praising Confederate generals was the inappropriate thing for a president to do under any circumstances, let alone after all that had gone down in Charlottesville just two days before,' read Karl's account.

Karl added that Kelly, a four-star general, chimed in to say he agreed about the 'greatness of the Confederate generals and on [Trump's] point about Washington and Jefferson.'
In the wake of George Floyd's death, many have taken to the streets to express their anger over systemic oppression and racial injustices towards black Americans. With people in all 50 states participating in demonstrations, young men and women are at the forefront calling for justice.

At the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement, a new generation of activists is demanding to be heard and using their voices to enact change.

Here are four young leaders actively driving change in the United States.

Stefan Perez, 16, Michigan

When Stefan Perez took a knee among hundreds of protesters in Detroit, it was clear to him that many individuals never got the chance to fulfill their dreams because their lives were prematurely taken from them.

The 16-year-old has always acknowledged racism and police brutality through his music, but in light of the recent nationwide protests, he took to the streets to express his outrage.

PHOTO: Stefan Perez raises his fist while addressing a rally in Detroit, June 3, 2020 over the death of George Floyd. (Paul Sancya/AP)

Perez left his home early in the morning on June 1 and started marching, meeting strangers along the way and encouraging them to march with him. The once-small crowd grew rapidly as he led hundreds of protesters over eight miles. He repeatedly chanted "no justice, no peace" over a megaphone to honor the African Americans who have died at the hands of police officers.

"We're all fighting for the same cause. We're trying to build towards a better future," Perez told "Good Morning America."

MORE: These London protesters broke down systemic racism in under 3 minutes

Perez managed the crowd and ensured that it remained peaceful throughout the day. At the end of the march, he urged protesters to abide by the city's 8 p.m. curfew and return home.

His leadership caught the attention of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who was overcome with emotion when he called Perez to commend his work. On the phone, the mayor couldn't hold back his tears as he told Perez, "You are everything that is special about the city of Detroit."

Story continues

PHOTO: Stefan Perez locks arms with other protesters while marching down a Detroit street. (Courtesy Diego Cruz)

Perez, who once considered himself a statistic and never throughout he'd make it to see his 16th birthday, certainly never imagined one day he'd lead a crowd of hundreds. He says growing up in his southwest neighborhood of Detroit, many of his peers never made it out of their teenage years due to gun violence. Although this was his first protest, he quickly found himself back on the front lines soon after, leading several other demonstrations in his city.

He plans to continue marching throughout Detroit until his message gets across to lawmakers.

"This is a step towards progression and together we're going to make a change," Perez said.

Tay Anderson, 21, Colorado

If becoming Colorado's youngest elected African American official wasn't noteworthy enough, Tay Anderson has also emerged as the leader for several protests in Denver.

Anderson currently serves as the director for the Denver School Board and is no stranger to leading social justice initiatives. He ran on a platform that included eliminating the school-to-prison pipeline by replacing school resource officers with mental health specialists, restorative justice coordinators and additional nurses.

PHOTO: Denver school board Director Tay Anderson addresses thousands near his state Capitol. (Courtesy Dave Russell)

Since the death of Floyd, demonstrators have been protesting in downtown Denver. When armed police officers faced off with protesters on May 28 in an attempt to disperse a rush-hour crowd from being in the streets, Anderson naturally stepped up to take the leadership role in an attempt to keep protesters safe.

"I immediately left my town hall meeting and went downtown to make sure everyone was safe," he said. "I ended up negotiating a stand-down with the chief of police and they opened back up the streets for protesters."

MORE: Michael Strahan posts moving video on Instagram about George Floyd protests

Since then, he has taken on the responsibility of organizing a majority of Denver protests while making sure his citizens are kept safe. His newfound attention has led to several online threats, but Anderson hasn't let that silence his voice.

PHOTO: Tay Anderson shouts into a microphone while marching alongside protesters. (Courtesy Dave Russell)

While Anderson continues to protest alongside thousands every day, he also wants to ensure no one contracts COVID-19. He recently received special acknowledgment from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis after encouraging all protesters to wear face masks and get tested. For those who don't have the proper protective gear, he helps to distribute masks in an attempt to prevent a surge in cases.

"People shouldn't have to risk their lives in order to say that black lives matter," he said. "If you're going to come out and protest, I want to make sure that everyone is safe."

Aalayah Eastmond, 19, Florida

Aalayah Eastmond's fight against violence first started in 2018 after she survived the massacre at her high school in Parkland, Florida.

In honor of the 17 students and educators who died at Stoneman Douglas High School, she became an advocate for gun violence in hopes of resolving the issue in America. Last year, she testified before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence prevention at Capitol Hill.

PHOTO: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior Aalayah Eastmond testifies before the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing on gun violence, at Capitol Hill, Feb. 6, 2019. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

Now, currently residing in Washington, D.C., for college, she's focusing her attention on the Black Lives Matter movement and police violence. By speaking out against injustice, she hopes to invoke change.

"Unfortunately, black people are impacted the most by systematic issues compared to any other group of people," she said. "I felt like it was my duty as a young black woman to shift the conversation and speak out."

MORE: Couple's engagement during middle of protest march captured in stunning photo

After noticing that many of the protests in Washington, D.C., lacked structure and organization, she decided to organize marches and lead protesters as they walked from the White House to the various federal buildings, calling for action.

Now a leader of the newly established social justice group Concerned Citizens, Eastmond and several other D.C.-based young adults came up with a list of 10 demands for local and national leaders. Included on this list are mandatory civilian review boards, commitment to ending brutal practices by police and empathy for the black community struggle.

"The marching and the chants are great, but we also get real change from demanding things to be done by the people we put in office," she said.

WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS! pic.twitter.com/ZKcU6EmxCh  Aalayah Eastmond (@AalayahEastmond) June 4, 2020

Eastmond remains hopeful for federal action but knows the change may not come easy.

"It's been two years since the Parkland shooting and we haven't really seen a substantial amount of change. This movement is probably not going to be at the snap of a finger either. We don't know how long it's going to take, but we're going to continue until we see change," she said.

Junior Dufort, 21, Connecticut

If you're wondering where Junior Dufort currently is, it's likely he's out protesting, making his voice heard all throughout the state of Connecticut.

Dufort has been calling for justice since May 30, five days after Floyd died while being arrested by Minneapolis police officers. Rain or shine, he travels throughout Connecticut demanding change. Although it may be exhausting at times, he does it in the name of the countless black men and women who no longer have a voice.

PHOTO: Junior Dufort raises his fist and yells through the microphone while marching through Norwich, Connecticut. (Courtesy Cam Curland)

"When you look back at the civil rights movement, the changes did not come about easily. It took an enormous amount of protesting," he told "GMA." "If we want to make a change, we must continue to apply pressure."

With three younger siblings, Dufort wants to be a role model and instill in them the importance of always speaking up and making their voices heard.

"I don't want them to ever fear standing up for what's right even when others may be against them," he said.

Just recently, Dufort marched peacefully to the Norwich Police Department hand-in-hand with his younger brothers. He passionately laid out his concerns to the chief of police in front of hundreds of protesters.

"We need more," he said, as he addressed the commissioner while proudly wearing his Martin Luther King Jr. shirt.

"My last words to the chief was, 'You will continue to see my face until the change we demand has come,'" Dufort said.

As a 2020 criminal justice and political science graduate, he has made it a mission to help fix systemic issues often seen in marginalized communities. Most recently, he served as assistant campaign manager for a campaign run primarily on resolving social justice matters.

Dufort doesn't plan to stop protesting anytime soon but says he's more than optimistic for what's to come.

"I know change is going to come," he said. "We just have to keep the fire burning. These protests are only the beginning and we can't stop."

Meet 4 young activists fighting racial injustice across the nation originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
PHOENIX, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The world leader in ice machine design and manufacturing, Hoshizaki , joins Easy Ice , the only national provider in the full-service ice machine subscription industry, to offer an ice machine subscription program available exclusively through Hoshizaki's dealer network. This all-inclusive subscription program allows dealers to gain access to a rapidly growing segment of the ice machine industry while offering a broader range of services to their customer base.

"Ice Makers by The Month is the most innovative and comprehensive ice machine solution in the marketplace," says Hoshizaki America's Sr. VP of Sales & Marketing, Chris Karsseins. "It is designed to meet the needs of the food service industry that now, more than ever, must plan more carefully how to best use capital. Easy Ice's singular focus on providing businesses with a reliable, high quality supply of ice is a perfect match with Hoshizaki's unrivaled dependability and durability. Full-service ice machine subscriptions are the fastest growing segment for ice machine sales and we are confident our customers, along with our equipment and service dealers, will benefit from this partnership with Easy Ice."

Ice Makers by the Month is an all-inclusive program featuring a new Hoshizaki ice maker combined with preventive maintenance, repairs, cleaning and sanitizing, all for one affordable monthly fee. There are no long-term commitments and no credit checks to become eligible for the service. An Ice Makers by the Month subscription is effectively a lifetime guarantee on the Hoshizaki equipment performance, even covering the cost of ice supply should the machine break down.

"Hoshizaki's commitment to this program gives equipment dealers an innovative way to sell more ice machines," says Easy Ice CEO Mark Hangen, "and perhaps most importantly, enables service dealers to continue providing their customers with an outstanding service experience. We share Hoshizaki's passion for delivering a superior ice machine solution to businesses across the country and are excited to deliver the Ice Makers by The Month program through Hoshizaki's outstanding network of equipment and service dealers."

For more information about Ice Makers by the Month and services offered, please visit icemakersbythemonth.com or call the hotline at (855)-553-7708.

About Hoshizaki

HOSHIZAKI is the world leader in the design, manufacturing, and marketing of a wide range of products for the foodservice industry including ice machines, refrigerators, freezers, prep tables, display cases and dispensers. Proud to offer the widest variety of ice machine types, sizes and accessories, Hoshizaki products easily meet any customer demand. With corporate headquarters in Peachtree City, Georgia, Hoshizaki America, Inc.'s continuous innovation and commitment to the highest standards ensures that our customers have exceptional quality products. Hoshizaki has earned ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year multiple years in a row for superior energy efficiency achievements. For information on all Hoshizaki foodservice equipment visit www.hoshizakiamerica.com .

About Easy Ice

Easy Ice, co-headquartered in Phoenix, AZ and Marquette, MI, is the national leader in the full-service ice machine subscription industry with warehouse and distribution facilities in Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City and Orlando. Since its founding in 2009, the Company has rapidly grown its ice machines under management to 25,000 units across 47 states. Easy Ice's commercial ice machine subscription programs include installation, cleaning, preventive maintenance, repairs, backup ice, and peak demand ice. The Company operates under three brands: Ice Masters in Kansas and Missouri; Automatic Icemakers in Chicago; and Easy Ice in all other cities and states. For more information, please visit www.easyice.com.

SOURCE Easy Ice

Related Links

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Marvel's Anthony Mackie is pooling his efforts with the United Way in his native Louisiana to set up United for Grocery Workers Relief Fund, a trust to aid grocery workers who've been putting themselves in harm's way amid the coronavirus.

The 41-year-old actor said in a statement that 'we often take for granted the people that are always there for us,' and that he visits the 'grocery store three to four times a week' to stock up on food for his family.

The New Orleans native is working with the United Way of Southeast Louisiana, the New Orleans Council on Aging and Entergy New Orleans on the collection, which would give grocery store employees in the Orleans Parish area $150 toward their utilities bills from the latter, according to Deadline.

Giving back: Marvel's Anthony Mackie, 41, is pooling his efforts with the United Way in his native Louisiana to set up United for Grocery Workers Relief Fund, a trust to aid grocery workers who've been putting themselves in harm's way amid the coronavirus

The Altered Carbon actor continued: 'Every time, I come face to face with essential workers who are providing me and so many others with one of the most important necessities, food.

'Now, more than ever, it is important that we express our gratitude and appreciation.'

The multitalented entertainer, who's been seen in movies, TV and Broadway, recently took over the role of Captain America for Disney+'s Falcon and the Winter Solider.

'With the idea of being a black man and becoming Captain America, it's been a daunting task because I think, at this day and age in America, I think we are open-minded to the idea of having my face represent us, as a country,' Mackie told Shadow and Act.

Rising: The multitalented entertainer, who's been seen in movies, TV and Broadway, recently took over the role of Captain America for Disney+'s Falcon and the Winter Solider in February

Heroes: The actor said he was appreciative of grocery store workers and focused on helping

He added that 'to be Captain America, I want my Captain America to represent everybody. Not just a specific group of people.'

As of Tuesday, the death total for COVID-19 was at 111,751 people in the U.S., with 1,973,803 total positive diagnoses, Johns Hopkins University reported. On a global level, 411,009 people have died amid 7,227,869 positive diagnoses worldwide.
FORT WORTH, Texas, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Agriculture investment platform Harvest Returns has reached the milestone of raising over $5 million in global private placement farming opportunities.

Grass-fed beef cattle grazing in field.

Harvest Returns has emerged as one of the leading agriculture investing platforms within the past few years. The company is disrupting agriculture finance by providing producers and agribusiness entrepreneurs with a streamlined, flexible source of capital. The demand for curated risk-adjusted opportunities in a compelling asset class previously inaccessible to individual investors continues to rise.

Harvest Returns Chief Executive Officer Chris Rawley is proud of the work his team has done, as this marks a significant achievement for the company.

"Agriculture is a rapidly evolving space, being driven by technology, fragmented consumer preferences, and most recently, disrupted food supply chains," said Rawley. "We're focusing on a few different verticals that we see offer the most growth potential for our investors, including indoor agriculture and grass-fed livestock."

The company has helped grass-fed cattle and sheep producers raise $2.5 million, while funding vertical farms and other specialty growers across the country and overseas.

"We're passionate about helping small and mid-sized farmers start and expand their operations, while contributing towards a more resilient and healthy food system," notes Rawley.

David Nicola is CEO of Blackdirt Farms, a grass-fed cattle producer in the Southeastern United States that has completed two successful raises on the company's investment platform.

"We are very pleased with the results of our partnership with Harvest Returns as it provided access to a base of investors outside Blackdirt's existing network and proved to be an effective platform for raising capital," said Nicola.

Since establishment in 2016, Harvest Returns has distributed over $600,000 in returns to platform investors. The company reports a community of over 5,000 investors and nearly 700 farmers, ranchers, and agribusinesses.

About Harvest Returns

Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, Harvest Returns, Inc. is a financial technology marketplace created in 2016 by two military veterans to bring agricultural producers together with investors. Through democratizing the agriculture investment process, the online platform provides curated, diversified offerings of farms, ranches, and timberland to qualified investors.

For more information, please visit harvestreturns.com.

For more information about this topic, please contact Allison Spence at 844-673-8876 or email at [email protected].

SOURCE Harvest Returns
Papua New Guineas (PNG) former Prime Minister Peter O'Neill was last month charged with misappropriation, abuse of office and official corruption. The opposition MP was arrested at the Port Moresby airport on May 23 on his return from Australia and bailed to his private residence.

The case stems from a 2013 purchase made by ONeill as prime minister of two electricity generators from an Israeli company, LR Group, for $US14 million. The parliamentary opposition filed a police complaint about the purchase in 2014. Its revival, following a failed attempt to charge ONeill on another matter last October, suggests political moves to pursue the former leader. Another case against him from 2016 remains tied up in the courts.

Police allege that ONeill directed payments in contravention of procurement processes required under the Public Finance Management Act. The purchase was allegedly not approved by the national parliament, and did not go through required tender processes, nor was there legal clearance from the State Solicitors.

ONeill, who lost power to current Prime Minister James Marape in 2019, claimed the highly politicised case was being influenced and pushed by dark and shadowy figures behind the scenes, but offered no details. He said the generators were bought to address the chronic problem of power blackouts in Port Moresby and Lae, claiming the purchase was approved in the Supplementary (Appropriation) Act 2013.

ONeill also asked why Marape, who was finance minister at the time, was not being investigated. In response, Marape claimed that finance ministers were the last in the chain of approvals. He said he would not interfere in the police investigation, and was willing to act as a state witness.

The targeting of ONeill coincides with the passage through parliament of a bill to establish an Independent Commission Against Corruption. The Post Courier declared on June 4 that unanimous support by MPs for the measure would reassure our donors and bilateral partners that with corruption made illegal, good governance with transparency and accountability will prevail.

A vast gulf separates PNGs venal ruling elite from the poverty-stricken working class and rural masses. The political establishment is mired in cronyism and corruption. The parliamentary speaker, Job Pomat, was recently forced to step down amid allegations of corruption in his office.

Belden Namah as opposition leader laid the 2014 complaint against ONeill, but he is now his key political ally. He unsuccessfully sought to withdraw the complaint following last months arrest.

The purported concern over corruption is, firstly, a response to deepening popular hostility and ONeill is a convenient scapegoat.

In 2016, police opened fire on a protest, killing four students, that was demanding ONeill step down and face fraud charges. Opposition intensified following the 2017 election narrowly won by ONeill. Police and military units were dispatched to the Highlands to crack down on violence stemming from the election, which was widely regarded as illegitimate.

The government is desperate for foreign investment and aid. As oil and commodity prices have tumbled amid the COVID-19 epidemic, PNG faces a severe budget shortfall. Last month, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported that Marape is seeking a $US2 billion bailout from international institutions, including the IMF and Asian Development Bank (ADB), to prevent PNG becoming a failed state.

Even before the pandemic hit, PNG faced economic crises, with government debt near 40 percent of GDP and the 2020 budget in serious difficulty. Investment in the resource sector has been declining with the long-term fall in global commodity prices hitting foreign reserves and government revenue. The partially government-owned Oil Search has announced a cut in oil production from July due to weak prices.

The IMF and ADB are certain to demand brutal attacks on the social position of the working class. A likely devaluation of the PNG kina, currently propped up by the central bank, will send the cost of basic food items skyrocketing and a swathe of cuts in public spending, salaries and wages is expected.

The social disaster is being exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. While only a handful of cases have so far been officially reported, the countrys ramshackle health system, with just 500 doctors and 5,000 hospital beds for the population of 10 million, is in no position to cope with a major outbreak.

Late in his term of office ONeill made a turn towards Beijing for financial support that has not been changed by Marape. Initially, he entered discussions with China for a total debt restructure funded by Beijing. However, an Australian emergency loan of $440 million last November helped finance the 2020 budget, replacing a similar loan being negotiated with China.

With intensifying crises on both domestic and international fronts, Marape resorted to nationalist demagogy proclaiming a policy to take back PNG. Speaking to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute last July, he pledged regime shifts in the resource industry to bring more wealth to the people and free PNG from dependence on Australian aid.

In April this year, the government abruptly announced it would not extend the mining lease on the Porgera goldmine that contributes some 10 percent of the countrys total exports. Public pressure has been mounting over the mine, as domestic and international environmental and anti-mining groups have conducted a sustained campaign against its operations.

The move is extremely risky, threatening the mining investments on which the PNG economy heavily depends. The mines Canadian operator Barrick Gold and Chinese joint venture partner Zijin Mining declared the announcement was tantamount to nationalisation without due process. While Barrick threatened legal action, Zijin Mining warned the dispute could damage bilateral relations between PNG and China.

As the PNG government is in no position to run mining operations, Marape is likely seeking leverage in negotiations with other major players. He has accused ExxonMobil and Oil Search of holding the fledgling $US13 billion Pnyang gas project to ransom over their refusal to meet government demands for a better stake in the deal. He has also raised doubts over another gas project signed with French company Total.

Such nationalist posturing and maneouvring has nothing to do with improving the lot of ordinary people. A small privileged layer of the PNG elite, which reaps considerable wealth through their collaboration with imperialism and services to the transnational corporations, will continue to enrich itself while most people continue to live in abject poverty and economic backwardness.

Australian imperialism remains determined to maintain its dominance over its former colonial possession. Its major companies have investments in PNG worth $A5.8 billion. ONeills seizure of power in 2011, in violation of the constitution, was backed by Australia, which regarded him as a bulwark against the expansion of Beijings influence in the southwest Pacific.

Marape will be closely watched in Canberra. Behind PNGs sordid political intrigues lie sharpening geopolitical tensions. The countrys lucrative extractive industries, strategic location and relative size make it critical in the escalating US-led confrontation with China. Australia has intervened before in PNG politics to secure its interests, and is quite capable of doing so again.

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Some nursing homes were claiming that if a resident was on Medicaid, the facility would get to keep the $1,200 stimulus payment.



By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

Associated Press

WASHINGTON  Compounding the hardships of the coronavirus, some nursing homes have demanded that low-income residents turn over their $1,200 economic stimulus checks, a cash grab lawmakers want to halt.

On Tuesday, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the Health and Human Services inspector general's office to issue a warning to nursing homes and assisted living facilities that such practices are improper and unlawful.





. . .
 Flash

The funeral of African American George Floyd was held Tuesday in the southern U.S. city of Houston, where he was brought up and spent most of his life, two weeks after his tragic death in police custody in Minneapolis.

Hundreds of people came to say a final goodbye to Floyd at the Fountain of Praise Church. Memorial services had also been held for Floyd in Minneapolis and North Carolina.

Beginning at around 11 a.m. Central Time (1600 GMT), the private funeral service celebrated Floyd's home-coming with over an hour of singing and praying, before families and friends took turns to share their memories of Floyd and his 46 years of life.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden sent his condolences to Floyd's family via video.

Speaking to Floyd's six-year-old daughter, Gianna, Biden said, "You're so brave ... No child should have to ask questions that too many black children have had to ask for generations: Why? Why's daddy gone?"

"Why, in this nation, do too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life? " he continued.

"When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America," said the expected Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election.

Mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner announced at the funeral that he would sign an executive order banning city police from using chokeholds and strangleholds.

Officers will also be required to give a warning before shooting, he added.

"We honor him today," said Turner. "Because when he took his last breath, the rest of us will now be able to breathe."

Floyd is expected to be laid to rest next to his mother, who he called out for during his final moment of suffocation as his neck was under a white police officer's knee.

Floyd's death has galvanized a movement in the country and beyond calling for racial justice and police reform. Protests have been held across the country in the past two weeks with tens of thousands showing up, which sometimes ended in late-night violence and looting.
While public school districts struggle with shrinking budgets, dozens of Roman Catholic schools already have permanently shuttered this spring, nearly all for reasons directly related to the coronavirus pandemic and its resulting campus and economic shutdowns.

The loss of those schools could narrow the education market, particularly in low-income and high-minority communities. But the fate of all Catholic schools post-COVID-19 could also prove a bellwether for their public-school peers next fall, as they rethink how to approach instruction and keep students safe with shrinking budgets.

There have been falling enrollments [in many Catholic schools] so maybe were just seeing an acceleration of schools going out of business, but in terms of next year, the timing is particularly bad, said Neal McCluskey, the director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, which has been tracking the closure of private schools in the wake of COVID-19. The same thing that is causing private schools to go out of businessa bad economy driven by COVID-19is also going to really take a shot at public school budgets. With all these closures, well have a whole bunch of kids the [public schools] now need to educate  so its going to stretch resources even thinner .

Of the 52 private schools documented as permanently closed as of June 8, McCluskey found 43 are Catholic, representing more than 6,700 students. While students left behind may choose other parochial schools where available, if districts have to take on those students, he estimated, they will cost more than $108 million to educate.

Fewer Resources for Families

On average, the schools that have closed so far served higher percentages of black and Hispanic students than do private schools on average : 19 percent black students and 17 percent Hispanic students in the closed schools, compared to only 9 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic students in average private elementary and secondary schools, based on federal estimates.

Kathy Mears, the interim president of the National Catholic Educational Association, said its not yet clear how many total schools will close, but her group has been consulting with many schools trying to regroup after dramatic budget cuts.

This recession or depression, whatever you want to call it, its hitting those with fewer financial resources harder. [The schools] parents are maybe out of work or underemployed right now, and so they simply dont have money for tuition, Mears said. From 70 percent to 95 percent of Mears member schools operating budgets come from tuition, and the rest is from fundraising.

Many schools could not have their fundraisers this spring, or they had to have them virtually and donations were downagain, not because people dont want to donate, but maybe they dont have a job or theyre, you know, worried about their future employment, she added.

Many Catholic schools have received federal Paycheck Protection Program loans, and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos earmarked a portion of the funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for private schools, but that move has received congressional pushback .

The pandemic also has left parochial schools without their usual safety net.

Normally, if a school couldnt make payroll, they could go to their parish or to the diocese, but they are down on income too, because we havent had Mass, so its like not having income for three or four months. Its just impacting everything, Mears said.

In Sacramento, Calif., for example, parishes lost 25 percent to 75 percent of their annual income during the closures, having missed some of the most heavily attended Masses of the year on Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and through the Easter weekend. Lincoln Snyder, the executive director of schools for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, which includes 44 schools in 21 California counties, said the diocese has had to announce the closure of two schools already, and is considering closing a third.

About a quarter of Snyders schools in Sacramento receive subsidies from their parishes or archdiocese to support tuition for low-income students that will be more difficult to fund. So while Snyder said a massive outreach effort has meant that the schools will retain 96 percent of their students next school year, Were being very careful because we know family circumstances change over the summer. We know that many of them are going to be asking for financial assistance or more financial assistance.

Consolidation and Community

Several dioceses were already planning or starting parish consolidations. Pittsburgh, for example, has collapsed 61 parishes into 15. Many Catholic schools operate in conjunction with a parish church, so consolidations may mean individual schools see a sudden loss of priests or staff, or the influx of more schools that also need financial supports.

School leaders have been taking 20 percent, 25 percent pay cuts to try to keep their schools going, Mears said. So, if a school was vulnerable, COVID kind of pushed them over the edge, and we come to a place where people are like, you cant do this anymore.

In New Jersey, the Blue Ribbon-award-winning Academy of Our Lady of Peace was in such a position last month, when the Archdiocese of Newark announced it and seven other elementary schools would be permanently closed.

I was floored, said Suzanne Fahy, the president of the schools Home School Association (similar to a parent-teacher association) and mother of three students and one former student of the pre-K-8 school. I couldnt believe that we were closing and in the middle of a pandemic, no less. It was devastating, and we were already so kind of beaten down from the quarantine at that point.

Our Lady of Peace had been receiving about $277,000 a year in subsidies from the diocese to offset tuition. Fahy and other parents collected nearly 1,500 signatures in a petition to reopen the school and raised $413,000 to support operations this fall. The archdiocese agreed to transfer authority and financial responsibility for the school back to the local parish, which will reopen the campus this fall.

Such a literal Hail Mary effort hasnt been enough to save other schools, though. In Braintree, Mass., parents collected more than 2,000 signatures to save the nearly 60-year-old St. Francis of Assisi school after the Boston archdiocese announced it would shutter the school, which had its last day June 3.

While we acknowledge that the current state of the world has affected our schooland every other private schoolit is not the reason for this, parents wrote in a petition, arguing that they had only learned that the school faced financial trouble three weeks before the end of the year. To have neglected to allow us the opportunity to salvage our school and our community is a dereliction of duties and a complete failure to the children who should be shepherded through SFA.  Decisions have been made for our community despite a total failure to engage with families or focus on school finances and enrollment.

Archdioceses are starting to look for creative ways to save schools on the chopping block this year. For example, Snyder said his schools are trying to reboot Mercy High School, which was slated for closure, as a remote-learning school enrolling from 10 rural counties. Students would use computers in learning centers located in their individual parish churches, where they would be able to use video conferencing to participate in live classes in other Catholic high schools with a college-prep curriculum in the archdiocese. The teachers in the hosting schools would teach both live and virtually at the same time.

In many ways, it has been a really good training for us, Snyder said. Our teachers and families are going to have to keep a foot in on the distance education. We dont want to be exchanging a lot of paper or books during the pandemic anyway. And regardless of how we open, we also know we have some families or some students who may not want to take the risk of coming to school, and, and were trying to work with those families to ensure that they are still part of the community and have access to the curriculum. So I think a lot of our schools are going to be doing dual delivery for next year.

Mears said NCEA has started to work with other dioceses interested in creating virtual schools and hybrid-homeschooling options, in which buildings would be available a few days a week for labs, while other classes would be held by parents or remote teachers.

Yet Snyder and other school leaders are still concerned about the cost of preparing their classes and buildings for sanitation and social distancing come fall. Sacramento Catholic schools are ordering a 55-gallon drum of hand sanitizer for every 20 students, just to start the first month of school. Thats nearly three gallons a student, but Snyder expects teachers and students to go through the supply long before the end of the year, if not the semester.

Its going to be thousands per school, Snyder said of the costs.

Mears agreed. Nationwide, she estimates additional cleaning and supplies overall will cost $15,000 to $25,000 per school.

Thats an added expense that schools dont necessarily have in their budget, she said. You cannot raise tuition where youre doing online learning and youre going to have to pay for the school to be clean anyway. Its just a big vicious circle for a Catholic school.
In times of distress, we can draw strength from the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Though he is no longer with us physically, we can defer to him spiritually, through his principles, even now.

Our current existence has invoked a dichotomy of emotions. On the one hand, we are heartened by the recent peaceful protests by like-minded people from all walks of life. Yet, we are saddened and horrified by the violence and disenfranchisement that led us to the point of public protest in the first place. Meanwhile, it is important for us to keep our focus on the greater good, as Dr. King would have prescribed. He has left a legacy of wisdom which tells us that nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.

The transformation is slow. But we remain steadfast in our resolve. The universe is on the side of justice. We fully expect and demand progress to continue. A pandemic and three sequential murders of unarmed, innocent victims has put a spotlight on the life-threatening disadvantages that burden people of color. These same people have thrown caution to the wind in the midst of a pandemic because they have nothing else to give.

We cannot be expected to tolerate a pandemic and at the same time watch as police officers torture, taunt and kill a man as he begs for his life. Collectively, we knew that action was required. We cannot allow anyone, police officer or otherwise, to be so comfortable that they can boldly kill a man on camera and show absolutely no remorse. We cannot allow nonchalant torture and killing as if it was business as usual. That is a bridge too far, a cross that we are unwilling to bear. Some of us are of the mindset that since killing came so easy for these officers, this may well have been business as usual. But it cannot continue to be business as usual.

There has been an arrest this time. We know that such arrests have not always been forthcoming. We know the names of those whose lives have been taken at the hands of police: Amadou Diallo, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castille, Walter Scott, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. This is just a small sample. Named and unnamed innocent human beings have had their lives stolen by police officers who were hired to protect and serve. Yet, few of those rogue officers have ever been indicted. Of those indicted, even fewer are actually convicted.

It is amazing the officers were so preoccupied with killing an innocent black man that they did not consider the implications of their actions. As a result, they have now put their own futures at risk. Now they are unemployed and facing second-degree felony charges. Yet, even the dire consequences they now face are not as fatal as the death sentence served upon George Floyd.

Nonetheless, we cannot forget that the killing of unarmed people of color is symptomatic of a larger issue. Our inequities  economic, environmental, health, profiling, mass incarceration, unequal access to education  all point to the same problem. The problem is racism, and it requires drastic change. But we know we have the power to bring about that change. We can wield our power at the polls. We can use the same energy that compels us to protest and evoke a revolutionary change with our votes. Dr. King would expect nothing less. Therefore, Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Thank you Dr. King.
More than 1,000 Toyota RAV4 models have been urgently recalled over a suspension defect which could lead to serious injury or death.

The motoring giant issued the recall on the AXAH54, AXAH52, MXAA52 and AXAA54 RAV4 models on Wednesday.

Small cracks may form in the front lower suspension arms of the vehicles, Toyota said.

Toyota has recalled their AXAH54, AXAH52 (pictured), MXAA52 and AXAA54 RAV4 models over a potential suspension defect which could lead to serious injury or death

With acceleration and deceleration over time, the cracks could spread and cause the suspension arm to separate from the front wheel assembly.

'This could result in loss of vehicle control and increase the risk of a crash, causing injury or death of vehicle occupants or other road users,' the recall read.

All four models were sold nationally between October 21, 2019 and April 24, 2020.

Toyota will contact customers who purchased those models between the dates listed to organise an appointment for repair.

'Owners of affected vehicles should update their contact details with Toyota if these have changed, so that future communications can be received,' the recall read.
Residents of Fayetteville, Arkansas, wait in line to file for unemployment on April 6, 2020. Nick Oxford | Reuters

The coronavirus pandemic prompted Congress to rush out emergency legislation to help Americans facing new financial challenges. But there's a growing group of citizens opposed to one aspect of the federal aid effort  and some might be surprised by how young they are. Washington lawmakers passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill called the CARES Act in March. That legislation authorized the U.S. government to send Americans stimulus checks of up to $1,200 per individual or $2,400 per married couple, as well as $500 per child. But there is a catch: Those children must be under 17 years old, in keeping with the definition for the child tax credit. More from Invest In You:

Senate bill could provide families with as much as $10,000 per month

This is what happens to your 401(k) when you're laid off

Coronavirus pandemic is a 'defining moment' for Gen Z Adult dependents of all ages were excluded. That includes high school and college students, people with disabilities and seniors under someone else's care. Now, young people have started speaking up in an effort to get politicians to change the policy. Madison Park, 21, of Boise, Idaho, started an online petition with Change.org and has been trying to contact politicians in her state to make sure they're aware of the issue. Park has been unable to work in her job as a photographer for campus events at Boise State University, where she will be a senior in the fall.

Madison Park, 21, started an online petition after she realized that Congress' recent legislation prevented her and her friends from receiving stimulus checks. Madison Park

So far, Park has not been able to get through to her local unemployment office to claim benefits. Now, she is on her eleventh week without work. Getting at least $500 from the government would help to cover her rent, which she has so far paid through savings. "We did get hit hard from the virus too, so it's important for us to be able to get support from the government," Park said.

Where dependent rules come from

The cutoff for dependents in this year's stimulus legislation is not new, according to Janet Holtzblatt, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Similar terms were included in the last stimulus legislation. Meanwhile, the definition of the child tax credit  and the cutoff for dependents over 17  was set by politicians in the 1990s. The good news, Holtzblatt said, is that there is some wiggle room when it comes to these young people and their eligibility for stimulus checks.

That's because the payments are based on past tax returns for either the 2018 or 2019 tax years, whichever is most recent. So if a dependent was 16 in 2019 or 15 in 2018, parents will likely get a $500 payment, according to Holtzblatt. And that money will not need to be returned when they file their 2020 tax returns, she said. Plus, if someone is no longer a dependent as of 2020, they will get their stimulus payment when they file their taxes next spring, Holtzblatt said. Notably, there are certain criteria for who qualifies as a dependent and who does not, based on age (for younger individuals), residence and financial support.

Efforts to change the policy

There are efforts on Capitol Hill to change the policy on stimulus payments for adult dependents. The HEROES Act, which was approved by the House of Representatives, calls for a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks that would be available to dependents ages 17 and up. What's more, the legislation also calls for making that same population retroactively eligible for the first round of checks. But the bill would still have to get approved by the Republican-led Senate, which experts say is a high hurdle. Yet others are joining in to call for change. That includes state legislator Marcia "Cia" Price, a Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., left, and Marcia Price attend Google 4 NMAAHC celebrating the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on September 16, 2016 in Washington, D.C. Teresa Kroeger

Price, 39, became aware of the issue when she hosted a roundtable for teen constituents to find out how they were coping with the fallout from the coronavirus. The teens complained that employers were treating their generation like adults by expecting them to work full time once school was no longer in session. But at the same time, the government was excluding them from stimulus checks because of their age. "Their lives are largely impacted by the decisions that adults are making, and if we don't take the time to check in with them we are not doing them our greatest service," Price said. Price helped the group to come up with an online petition and advocacy plan. Now, the teens are have been inspired to take on other issues, Price said.

Meanwhile, other online petitions are also circulating. Sunii Owens, 18, a Las Vegas resident, started one in March. Owens was out of work at a local fast food chain due to the pandemic. She also had recently moved out on her own and is preparing to start college in the fall.

Sunii Owens started an online petition after realizing that some dependents were excluded from receiving stimulus checks. Sunii Owens
There have been rumors for a while that Apple might replace the Macs Intel processors with its own chips. If it did, it would cause a seismic shift in the PC industry -- it was huge when Apple moved from PowerPC chips to Intel, roughly 15 years ago.

The company may finally confirm this move at its WWDC developer conference, according to Bloomberg. Earlier leaks suggested the new chips would be built around the ARM-based A14 processor used in iPhone and iPad devices. Apple has apparently seen big improvements in Mac performance with the ARM chips, especially with AI and graphics performance. Better performing chips could mean thinner, lighter and more power-efficient Macs.

Apple

And Intel is still struggling, stuck using the same 14-nanometer chip tech, while AMD, Apple and Qualcomm will forge ahead with far more advanced 5-nanometer technology by 2021. Smaller nanometers mean power and efficiency improvements. Last year, Intel even admitted it wont even catch up to AMDs current 7-nanometer tech until at least next year. Apple is taking matters into its own hands, and it would make a lot of sense to reveal the news at WWDC, giving developers time to prepare for some very new Mac PCs.

When Apple made the switch from PowerPC to Intel chips, the biggest issue was app compatibility. Your favorite Mac programs and tools would need optimizing for new chips.

-- Mat

Razers Kishi is the Switch-style phone controller I've been waiting for

True gaming controls for your favorite mobile games.

Engadget

Razers GameVice-style controller accessory doesnt sync with your phone over Bluetooth. Instead it plugs straight into the device, reducing latency -- and the need for any internal battery. As cloud gaming services gather pace, we need more controllers like this for gaming on the go. Razers attempt isnt perfect, but its pretty good.

Continue reading.

SpaceX's next Starlink launch will help improve satellite imagery of Earth

Planet's six new SkySats will photograph Earth up to 12 times a day.

When Planet purchased the SkySat constellation from Google in 2017, it did so with the aim of becoming the most agile and comprehensive satellite imaging company in the world. Now, with a little help from Elon Musks SpaceX, the company is gearing up to provide the most detailed and up-to-the-minute imaging of Earth yet.

Recently, Planet lowered its satellite fleet from an altitude of 500km to 450km, increasing Planets image resolution from 80cm to 50cm. Thats enough to identify vehicles as cars or trucks, and the kind of fidelity needed to help bolster infrastructure for the eventual arrival of autonomous vehicles.

Now with SpaceXs help, in the next two months Planet will launch six more SkySat satellites into low Earth orbit with a Falcon 9 rocket. Having 21 satellites in orbit, Planet will be able to take images of some global locations up to 12 times a day, with a global average of seven times a day. (Planets already-speedy response times were highlighted last week when it was the first to provide a satellite image of the Black Lives Matter message on the street leading up to the White House.)

Continue reading.

Cyberattack forces Honda to suspend global production for a day

The company detected a virus on internal servers in Tokyo.

Honda

A cyberattack on the company's internal servers in Tokyo forced Honda to suspend global production for a day. Honda detected the virus on Monday and sent some employees home for the day as the attack impacted email and other systems in plants around the world.

Production at some US plants halted on Monday and while most work has resumed, car plants in Ohio and Turkey and motorcycle factories in Brazil and India reportedly remain closed.

Continue reading.

Two Las Vegas casinos want to join the Boring Companys tube system

Wynn Las Vegas and Resorts World are seeking approval for stations of their own.

The Boring Company

Right now, Elon Musks Boring Company has only dug enough tunnel to transport passengers to and from different parts of the Las Vegas Convention Center. But a local paper reports that two casinos have sought approval for stations of their own, which would extend the systems reach from Paradise Rd. all the way to the Strip.

Continue reading.

But wait, theres more...

New 3D printing technique could make shapeshifting robots more practical

Naughty Dog details the extensive accessibility features in 'The Last of Us Part II'

Reddit has the chance to chart a new course. Will it?

Nintendo reveals more than 300,000 of its Network ID logins had been compromised

The next chapter of 'Destiny 2' begins September 22nd with 'Beyond Light'

Kathy Sullivan, the first American woman to spacewalk has now conquered the deepest ocean

Many of Georgia's new voting machines aren't working on primary day

Panasonic mirrorless cameras now work as webcams

The Winklevoss twins are making a movie about the Winklevoss twins
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who developed mild fever and sore throat on Monday, has tested negative for coronavirus, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sources said here on Tuesday.

"Kejriwal has tested negative for Covid-19," a party source told IANS.

Kejriwal, who had opted for home isolation following symptoms, gave his sample on Tuesday morning for the Covid-19 test.

The report of the corona test has come and Kejriwal is completely safe as the test came negative on Tuesday evening.

Earlier, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said, "Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is not feeling well. He has fever and sore throat. That is why the Chief Minister has isolated himself. He is not even attending meetings."

Earlier, the Chief Minister had already isolated himself from all government programmes and meetings. He did not meet any officials on Monday. The Chief Minister kept himself in isolation inside his residence.

According to Delhi government officials, on Sunday morning, the Chief Minister held a Cabinet meeting. Several ministers including Sisodia, Environment Minister Gopal Rai, and Health Minister Satyendar Jain attended the meeting. Chief Secretary Vijay Dev was also present. However, developing fever, the Chief Minister cancelled all his programmes.

On Tuesday, the State Disaster Management also had an important meeting. The coronavirus situation in Delhi was discussed at this meeting. But the Chief Minister did not attend as a precaution. In his place, Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia attended.

Coronavirus is spreading rapidly in Delhi. By the end of July, the number of coronavirus patients in Delhi is expected to increase to 5.5 million, the Delhi government has said.

Sisodia said, "In such a situation, at least 80,000 beds will be required in Delhi hospitals to treat corona patients."
TORONTO, June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Internationally respected leader in television shopping Rose Arone (formerly Rose Mann) has refocused her company's marketing and sales efforts to create positive experiences for consumers at a time when these are needed more than ever and at the same time capitalize on the current trend in online and TV shopping.

With more than 25 years in TV shopping, Arone has made a name for herself by working with companies large and small. Arone helped make Snuggie a household name by bringing it to TV shopping channels in North America. One of her first clients, Scott Boilen, CEO of Allstar Products Group, had just found incredible success using infomercials to sell his Snuggie blankets. Arone and Boilen met in hopes of negotiating a mutually acceptable deal, and eventually her company secured the rights to bring Snuggie to millions of TV shopping households across North America via various channels. Over the years, Arone has worked with industry giants such as Media Syndication Global, Thane Direct and many others.

"Our new focus is helping people who have great products connect with the millions of people who search television shopping channels every day looking for something that motivates them and helps them growthat's where the name Northern Connection comes in," said Arone. "We love our Canadian roots, and Toronto is a vibrant city full of people who want to make a difference, so we challenged ourselves to ask how we could do the same."

There has been so much negativity in the world in 2020, we decided that our mission is to do whatever it is we can to inspire change for good. The TV shopping industry is experiencing tremendous growth in 2020, and many in the industry don't expect it to ever go back to pre-pandemic numbers. Many consumers have put this time of isolation to good use, learning crafts and hobbies that they will continue to do long after the masses have returned to their (new) normal routines. A recent article by Multichannel.com noted specific categories that have been upwardly affected, including food (up 66% from a year earlier on QVC and 48% on HSN.com), home-office gear (77% on QVC.com and 234% on HSN.com), wellness (up 143% on HSN.com), and health and fitness (up 126% on HSN.com).

Some product categories are seeing even more tremendous growth. While many of the TV shopping networks don't typically publish individual product sales numbers, Arone says she has seen TV shopping results trends similar to those of online retailer eBay. According to WRAL.com, eBay recently reported that bread machine sales are up 800%, sewing machines 420%, beer and wine making accessories 190%, and candle and soap making supplies 90%. We are seeing the same types of products find new sales trends in TV shopping.

"With what may be the last gasp for retail, in direct contrast with what some are calling a second act for TV shopping, now is the perfect time to launch this exciting effort of positivity and profits," says Arone.

About Northern Connection Sales, Inc.

Northern Connection Sales, Inc. was founded as a female-owned business in May 2004 by Rose Arone. Ms. Arone had already enjoyed years success in the direct-response TV and TV shopping industries. As Northern Connection approaches two decades in business, its founder has decided to focus the business on bringing products to market that can make real change for those seeking to use their current situation to improve their lives.

www.northernconnectionsales.com

[email protected]

SOURCE Northern Connection Sales, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.northernconnectionsales.com/


Study Abroad

4 Lessons Learned from the Study Abroad Front Lines Amid a Pandemic

With the COVID-19 pandemic escalating, the University of Evansville made the decision in March to send all its study abroad students home. Here's how the institution navigated the situation.

March seems like a lifetime ago, but alas it's been just a few months since the University of Evansville made the tough decision to send all study abroad students home. Most of them were attending Harlaxton College, Evansville's unique Victorian manor house located one hour north of London where we host 1,000-plus students annually from Evansville and other colleges across the world.

Announcing an early ending to the semester at Harlaxton was foreboding as it was ahead of President Trump's address to the nation and the 30-day travel ban  both of which happened just hours later. However, as the COVID-19 situation was escalating in Italy, France, Spain and elsewhere in Europe  where many of our Harlaxton students travel  it was the right decision to make. Thankfully we had the right technology in place to not only aid our response and get students back home safely, but also to creatively use our solutions to accommodate this unprecedented situation.

Because Harlaxton students regularly travel throughout Europe on the weekends, they are accustomed to using MyHarlaxton and MyUEAbroad, our study abroad portal powered by Terra Dotta's Study Abroad suite and Alert Traveler mobile app. In normal circumstances, students use MyHarlaxton and the AlertTraveler app to register their travel plans and check out and in for their weekend travels. This process allows us to keep them apprised of any local emergencies while they are traveling.

Our students' familiarity with this process was essential to being able to connect with them on their return travels home  not only to the U.S. but to China and Peru  as no one was going back to their home campus. This was critical, as flights were often changed and rebooked during that harried time of international travel. From our announcement on March 11, the first Harlaxton students returned home just 3 days later on March 14. And our last student arrived home to Peru in mid-April, as the country's borders were closed and we had to work with the Peruvian embassy in London to get the student home.

Also, with the help of MyHarlaxton's robust location tracking, we were able to determine if students had been in any European hotspots in the weeks leading up to the March 11 announcement. And, for those who did have a positive COVID-19 test, we were able to quickly identify and notify other potentially exposed students and staff.

Looking back, here are four lessons we learned along the way.

1) Act quickly. Even though it was a scary decision to make and seemed at once premature and appropriate to our duty of care, when we announced the end of the onsite semester at Harlaxton (all students finished their courses via distance learning) we very quickly asked every team member on both continents to report their travel plans. In addition, students used the same check out system for their returning travel, including the date flying, flight details, their plans upon return, who would pick them up, where they planned to stay for the rest of the semester and more. This detailed info collection process saved us in the long run, as we continue to use the info and students can continually update their info in real time. Also, for those who had a positive COVID-19 test, we could quickly see where they had travelled, the date they departed, what students and employees they interfaced with, what airports they had visited, etc.

2) Communicate, communicate, communicate. The rate of information flow at the onset and continuing through the pandemic response is staggering  for students, staff, parents, administrators and more. However, having MyHarlaxton as a central repository for all e-mail communication related to study abroad has been critical. Not only is it easy for students to refer back to, but it also gave the global education team access to a detailed log of all communications, including key dates and details.

3) Students are customers too. Don't overlook the customer experience. Our Harlaxton students come from all over the world and aren't all University of Evansville students. This spring, students were from China, Peru, Wisconsin, Texas, Indiana, Kentucky and other locales. As the pandemic expanded in the U.S. and abroad, we were able to check in with Harlaxton students in affected areas and include personal outreach from our president and VPs to make sure our students are safe and healthy. We were also able to quickly generate a reimbursements questionnaire and parents and students could upload their travel expense receipts, so our COVID-19 Financial committee could review all expense requests and appropriately distribute funds or a fund plan.

4) Commitment fuels creativity. As power users of MyHarlaxton for years, we were able to adapt and get creative in the ways we used the solution. It has been a tool for Application and Risk Management, but amid the pandemic it became a tool for Communication, PR and Marketing, Health and Safety, Accounting and more. Embracing a highly flexible solution will help you keep up with students and the quickly changing world. In attending our university cabinet meeting, I was able to draw on MyHarlaxton to quickly answer questions about student travel as well as students who may be affected by the pandemic.

The world is different than it was when we made our difficult decision in March. But we are already gearing up for a ramped-up Harlaxton College program in the future where we can get back to our core mission  encouraging students to go beyond their imaginations.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) first emerged in Wuhan City in China in December 2019. From there, it has actively spread across the globe. The United States has been the hardest-hit country in the pandemic, with more than 1.97 million people infected.

Now, a team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco, has found that the novel coronavirus, officially called the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), had reached Northern California several times on multiple occasions, and the state missed several opportunities to use contact tracing to contain the virus spread.

Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (pink) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (green), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID

The research, published in the journal Science, showed that the Bay Areas outbreak was generated by a mix of foreign and domestic arrivals. In that area, where the virus started to spread early in the pandemic, visitors arriving from China were just one of the many sources of the virus. The team noted strains coming from Europe, Washington, and even from a cruise ship.

Sources of the virus strains

The team aimed to investigate the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Northern California between January to mid-March. To arrive at their findings, they studied samples from 36 patients spanning nine counties and the Grand Princess cruise ship.

The team sequenced the genomes directly from the samples using a new method called Metagenomic Sequencing with Spiked Primer Enrichment (MSSPE). They identified each strain that infected each of the 36 patients. Then, they compared other known sequences of circulating strains of the virus.

Using phylogenetic analyses, the team discovered seven different SARS-CoV-2 lineages into California, including strains from the Washington state.

Study findings

The study findings revealed that there had been multiple introductions into California of different lineages of the novel coronavirus. In the first few weeks of the pandemic, the coronavirus was not spreading freely across the state. However, the cases were introduced over multiple times in separate incidents.

Further, the results shed light on how quickly the virus had spread in the Bay Area before it penetrated inland, and moved across the state. When testing became more widespread, the state reported skyrocketing confirmed cases and deaths. In early April, San Mateo County has been the hardest-hit area, with new cases spiking in early April.

While some of the strains had spread via local transmission, some local variants did not seed themselves further.

Social distancing may curb the spread

These findings underscore the importance of public health measures, including contact tracing. This method helped stamp out local outbreaks before they could spread to neighboring counties. Aside from contact tracing, lockdown and social distancing measures also helped contain the spread of the deadly virus.

Social distancing interventions, such as the shelter-in-place directive that was issued by the governor of California on March 20, 2020, may assist in stemming spread from community to community, the researchers noted in the study.

NEW YORK - APRIL 01, 2020: A long line outside of Whole Foods in Tribeca, New York as the store has implemented social distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Image Credit: Jennifer M. Mason / Shutterstock

Also, the researchers said that travel restrictions and suspension of non-essential travel, are needed to contain the spread of the virus.

Interstate dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 lineages has also been demonstrated coast-to-coast between Washington State and Connecticut (25), and from domestic and international travel into the San Francisco Bay Area in the current study. Suspension of non-essential travel may thus be necessary to prevent ongoing importation of new cases in California and other states, they added.

The novel coronavirus has now spread throughout 188 countries and territories, with the United States reporting the highest number of infections. California has a total of 137,017 confirmed cases. Overall, the countrys case toll has topped 1.97 million, while more than 1112,000 people dead. Recoveries have reached 3.35 million.

Across the globe, the death toll surpassed 412,000, while more than 7.23 million have been infected. Many countries have started easing lockdown measures despite skyrocketing cases. Health experts fear that the premature lifting of lockdown and social distancing measures may spark a second wave of the outbreak.

If the cases may increase exponentially over the next months, countries may impose lockdown measures again. It is unsure how many are infected since mass testing measures have not been rolled out yet in most countries. However, with the magnitude of asymptomatic carriers, the numbers may be higher.
Sullivan has set a July 16 hearing to weigh the unusual request, which came after Attorney General William P. Barr ordered a review of Flynns case. In the Justice Departments motion, which is supported by Flynn and prompted a career department prosecutor to quit the case, the agency said it concluded that Flynns January 2017 FBI interview was unjustified. The Justice Department also said the interview was conducted without any legitimate investigative basis, so any lies Flynn told about his contacts with Russia and other foreign governments were immaterial to any crime.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 12:46:42|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China's airline industry showed signs of recovery in May with the decline in key indicators significantly narrowing from a month ago, the country's top aviation authority said Wednesday.

Airlines flew a total of 25.83 million passengers last month, down 52.6 percent year on year. The decline narrowed 15.9 percentage points from April, Xiong Jie, spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told a press briefing.

Air cargo volume fell 12 percent year on year to 549,000 tonnes, compared with a 19.5-percent decrease registered in April.

The punctuality rate of Chinese airlines reached 94.8 percent in May, Xiong added. Enditem
Today, Pearson Packaging Systems officially withdraws its participation in this years premier industry event PackExpo 2020, scheduled for November 8-11 in Chicago. As safety concerns related to the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 persist, consultations with staff, customers, partners and vendors led to this decision.

As an organization responsible for hundreds of employees and their families, we consider it our moral and ethical responsibility to ensure their health and safety. It is also imperative that we do everything in our power to ensure the health and safety of our customers, suppliers, and the citizens of the communities in which we operate. This means adhering to mandates, recommendations, and best practices including, but not limited to, avoiding non-essential travel, engaging in social distancing, wearing face coverings, and engaging in proper hygiene and sanitation practices. Trade shows, by definition, are social gatherings where adhering to these practices are nearly impossible. As such, we elected to prioritize the safety of our employees, customers, and suppliers ahead of business as usual and take decisive action during this global health crisis, declares Michael Senske, CEO of Pearson Packaging Systems.

He continues, Pack Expo has long represented an important event through which we connect with our customer and industry partners, so we didnt take this decision lightly. That being said, we believe that we can leverage technology in order to maintain these important relationships while helping to significantly reduce the risk of the continued proliferation of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19.

Pearson will be joining a long list of companies that prioritize necessary risks to maintain full production and effective customer support over avoidable risks such as large gatherings in times of viable alternatives.

With its cancellation of this years show attendance, Pearson will be refocusing those resources into exploring and expanding meaningful ways to engage with customers, such as augmented reality, live demonstrations, and 3D simulations of equipment and entire lines. In addition, Pearson Packaging Systems is going to stay at the forefront of investing in technologies that continuously optimize its remote service support to help overcome any limitations still in place. This decision comes in response to an increasing number of customers recognizing the long-term benefits of reducing travel costs, improving response times and lessening their employees burden of time away from their families.

Although Pearson employees are able and willing to travel in support of customers, they are also equipped with the necessary hardware and IT support to effectively conduct their jobs from a distance. Our employees have quickly adapted to the changing business environment, and are highly motivated and capable of supporting our customers as well or better than before the onset of this pandemic, emphasizes Michael Senske.

Most of Pearsons robotic equipment deployed over the past five years already has built-in remote access capability, while the remainder of the product portfolio has now been augmented with this feature. Other means of connecting currently include video for live/real-time support, camera/DVR setups within discrete machine centers or production cells to capture events for remote analysis, and remote Windows Connections.

In its absence from PackExpo 2020, Pearson invites customers, partners and vendors to meet via video chat, social media, our website, email or phone following its mantra of

CONNECT. DISCOVER. CONQUER.

Contact us:

Web: PearsonPKG.com

Phone: 509-838-6226

Email: mktreply@pearsonpkg.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1254572/admin/

____________________________

About Pearson Packaging Systems

____________________________

With its portfolio of case erectors, robotic top-loaders, sealers and robotic palletizers, Pearson Packaging Systems specializes in secondary packaging automation solutions to overcome labor cost and supply, safety, quality and throughput challenges. The OEM and turnkey system integrator offers a single source supplier experience that enables its customers to enjoy uniform machine interfaces, standardized machine features, industry-leading delivery times and a single point of accountability.

To provide flexible and scalable solutions and minimize total cost of ownership, Pearson Packaging Systems is dedicated to the application of advanced technologies and a user-centric design. Since its inception more than 65 years ago, a diverse set of high-volume manufacturers and distributors in the food, beverage, personal care, chemical and online commerce industries has relied on Pearsons products and services to meet their growth and profitability objectives. To date, Pearson has deployed over 21,000 machines, which are now also available without traditional CapEx investments in a risk-free Machine-as-a-Service contract format.
Three men who were incarcerated for nine weeks for a violent disorder incident in June of last year have been released from prison on suspended sentences at yesterday's sitting of Longford Circuit Court.

Denis Hannifin (39), Curry, Athlone Road, Longford, Thomas Hannifin (41), Dublin Road, Longford, and Willie Hannifin (33), Knockahaw, Dublin Road Longford were all given suspended prison sentences following a lengthy hearing before Judge Keenan Johnson.

The three men, along with two juveniles, were charged with a violent disorder, which occurred on June 2, 2019 at approximately 5pm at Texaco filling station on the Dublin Road. Two of the five accused were also charged with the possession and production of a knife, and a third was charged with the possession and production of an axe.

A number of letters, including one from local TD Joe Flaherty, were furnished to the court and, in passing judgement, Judge Johnson commended Deputy Flaherty for providing the court with a letter, which took in both sides of the issue of feuding in Longford.

"I and the Longford people are repulsed by feuding," the letter read, going on to say feuds between local families are "a scourge on our county" and that they put "a strain on our Garda resources".

He went on to say that he is "deeply disappointed" in the actions of the three older men, whom he said are "likeable men, committed to family" and extremely hardworking.

Unfortunately, he went on, feuding has become a huge problem in Longford and "it would take men as strong as these" to stand up and make a change.

"This letter is by no means an attempt to sway the court," Deputy Flaherty added, but the letter served as a good character reference for the Hannifin family, the judge remarked.

Judge Johnson told the court he was grateful to Deputy Flaherty for his letter, saying "it took a brave man in a political position to write a testimony about these three individuals, when there is such public abhorrence for this type of behaviour".

On the evening of the assault, the court heard, the victim, Ronan Stokes, was in the shop on that evening when he was approached by Thomas Hannifin. CCTV footage shows the pair talking for a matter of seconds before the injured party punched Mr Hannifin a number of times, backing him out the door. In a statement to gardai, Mr Stokes explained that he felt threatened and admitted to throwing the first punch.

Read also: Three in custody and two on bail following Longford court appearance for violent assault

However, outside the shop, the four co-accused joined in the fracas, with one of the men slicing Mr Stokes' back with a knife, while another swung and axe, which did not make contact with Mr Stokes.

In his victim impact statement, Mr Stokes, who is 18 years old, said he was held in a headlock and felt the men punching him repeatedly.

"I was terrified. I couldn't get away. I thought they would never stop," he said.

Since the attack, Mr Stokes says he has trouble sleeping and suffers from nightmares. He has also lost interest in sport and swimming because he doesn't want to take his top off in case people stare at the scars left on his back from the assault.

"Last year, I put my trust in the gardai and now I'm putting my trust in you," he said in his statement, addressing the judge and asking him to send all five men to prison.

Turning to sentencing, Judge Johnson acknowledged that this was "a seriously, highly charged, violent altercation".

"The sad fact is that two of the accused were minors at the time. It's a sadder fact that they are two of the most culpable because they were armed. That's a serious matter," said Judge Johnson.

"Knife crime has no place in a civilised society," he added, stating that the court is obliged to send out a message that crimes of this manner will be punished with a harsh sentence.

"A sad feature of this case is that none of them had previous convictions of any consequence," Judge Johnson continued.

"The three senior figures have been in custody since April 7 and that is a significant punishment in itself."

They men were in custody during a very difficult period, when Covid-19 has placed further restrictions on those who are incarcerated, depriving them of education opportunities and prison visits.

Thomas Hannifin, he noted, was granted compassionate leave in recent weeks to attend the funeral of his granddaughter and, on returning to prison, had to isolate for 14 days, remaining in his cell for 23 hours a day.

The testimonials furnished to the court, he added, showed the men to be hard workers and indicated that the offending behaviour was "out of character" for each of them.

"But this was a serious offence and offences like these are far too prevalent in Longford," he remarked.

Thomas Hannifin and Willie Hannifin both pleaded guilty to the violent disorder but had no weapons, so Judge Johnson said he was satisfied that they fell in "the mid-range for sentencing purposes" and attracted a headline sentence of five years before mitigation.

Taking into account the fact that they had no relevant previous convictions and their guilty plea at the earliest opportunity, Judge Johnson reduced the sentence to three years and backdated it to the day they went into custody on April 7, 2020.

Finally, he suspended the entire sentence for a period of ten years on the condition the they both enter in to a bond of 500 to keep the peace for the entirety of the suspended sentence, and that they pay the sum of 2,000 to the Society of St Vincent de Paul in Longford within six months.

Turning to Denis Hannifin, Judge Johnson said that his offence fell into the low range for sentencing purposes and attracted a sentence of 18 months imprisonment before mitigation. However, he reduced this to one year and backdated it to April 7, before suspending it for ten years on the condition that he enter into a bond to keep the peace and that he pay the sum of 1,000 to the Society of St Vincent de Paul on Longford.

Finally, due to the nature of their crimes, Judge Johnson said he would be handing down a "short, sharp, custodial sentence" as punishment and remanded the two juveniles to Oberstown Children Detention Campus until July 6, 2020, when he expects to be furnished with probation reports. Thereafter, he will suspend any remaining sentence, depending on the contents of the report.

Read also: Further remand in custody for three on violent assault charge in Longford town
(ANSA) - Rome, June 10 - With 36, Italy has two more universities than previously in the 17th and latest QS World University Rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds, the world's most consulted global uni standings.

At 137th, the Politecnico di Milano gains 12 spots and confirms its place as top Italian uni for the seventh year in a row, getting its best result and the second best result ever by an Italian uni.

The MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology dominates the rankings for the ninth straight year.

The University of Bologna, the world's oldest, rises 17 positions to 160th while Rome's La Sapienza gains 32 spots to return to the top 200 at 171st.

The Politecnico di Torino climbs no fewer than 40 places to 308th.

Sixteen Italian universities placed the same as last year while 13 Italian unis rose, three fell and four were new entries.

At the top of the rankings, the MIT was followed by Stanford in second and Harvard in third.

Oxford was fourth, Cambridge seventh, Caltech fifth and ETH Zurich sixth.

Singapore's National University was 11th and Nanyang Technological University, also in Singapore, 13th.


Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 19:43:37|Editor: huaxia

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DAKAR, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Moustapha Fall, a young Senegalese man, never imagined his dream to be an entrepreneur would have come this quick.

Already owning a veggie farm of his own in Touba, east of Senegal's capital Dakar, the young man says this is in large due to his studies at the Confucius Institute at the Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD).

The 27-year-old Senegalese has a master's degree in agriculture and rural development obtained from the Faculty of Science and Technology of UCAD, also known as the University of Dakar. During his pursuit for Master's Degree studies, he also received training at the Confucius Institute and completed his internship at the Chinese Agricultural Assistance Mission based in Sangalkam, Senegal.

After completing his studies, he was selected by the Mission, established in 2006, as an intern where he gained professional experience in the agricultural sector.

He told Xinhua that he chose the Confucius Institute based on his academic backgrounds -- agriculture and rural development.

"This institute offers both theoretical and practical trainings, unlike other higher education establishments in Senegal," Fall said.

According to the Chinese director of the Confucius Institute of UCAD, Cui Jie, her institute has a cooperation programme with the Chinese Agricultural Assistance Mission in Senegal, by which, Senegalese students who are interested in agriculture, can spend six months to receive theoretical training at her institute before doing a six-month internship at the Chinese Agricultural Assistance Center.

At the Center, Chinese agricultural experts will teach interns a number of new agricultural techniques.

"China is absolutely a model of development. China has been able to develop by focusing on agriculture. The Chinese are very good at farming," Fall said.

Since 2006, Chinese experts have been sent to Senegal every year to demonstrate and teach the latest farming techniques to the locals. At the agricultural center in Sangalkam, Chinese experts regularly organize training sessions on agricultural techniques.

For Moustapha Fall, the transition from Confucius Institute to the Chinese Agricultural Assistance Center was very beneficial, because he was able to acquire quality training combining theory and practice. It also allowed him to have professional experience, in particular on the operation of an agricultural business, logistics and customer relations, among others.

"The Chinese experts are always ready to give you knowledge. They give all techniques free of charge thanks to a partnership with the Confucius Institute of the University of Dakar", Fall said.

Beyond his farm business, Fall also wants to offer the Senegalese people all his agricultural knowledge and experience learned from Chinese experts.

The cooperation with China in the agricultural field is "very beneficial" for the Senegalese people, Fall affirmed, calling on the Senegalese and Chinese governments to further strengthen it. According to the young entrepreneur, Senegal cannot develop without (having ensured) its food self-sufficiency.

Fall now has grown quite a bit of veggies in his 2,500 square meters farm where a harvest of eggplants, tomatoes and peppers is expected.

All the techniques he learned from the Confucius Institute of University of Dakar and Chinese Agricultural Assistance Mission in Sangalkam are being tested on this farm, which many Senegalese are starting to take an interest in.

"The demand is there. Touba is a big city and there are not enough farmers to supply the market with vegetables," Fall said.

According to him, the majority of Senegalese farmers practice traditional agriculture which does not allow them to have good yields. "The time has come to modernize this agriculture, to equip farmers with technical skills that will allow them to earn a decent living," Fall stressed.

He called on young Senegalese to embark on agricultural entrepreneurship, advising them to acquire solid training to "face and overcome each obstacle that stands in the way of success and the result will pay off".
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Linkedin Retno LP Marsudi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, June 10, 2020 20:02 590 fc6853813033f564188675f8bddb335f 3 Opinion OIC,extraordinary-meeting,Palestine,Indonesia,Retno-Marsudi Free

The extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Wednesday was extremely important.

The word extraordinary reflects the gravity of the situation. I hope the outcome of this meeting would also be extraordinary, not a business-as-usual result.

Today, we are still fighting hard to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. In Palestine, the fight is even tougher.

The creeping annexation and the COVID-19 pandemic is a double blow for Palestine. It shakes the very foundation of Palestine as a nation. It also threatens peace and stability in the region and beyond.

While everyone is focusing on global efforts to fight the deadly virus, Israel continues its path of annexation.

The current de-facto annexation is unacceptable. The planned formal annexation is even more unacceptable because it gravely violates international law and various United Nations resolutions, as well as undermines the international parameters and consensus on the question of Palestine, including the two-state solution, setting back years and years of diplomatic efforts and the prospect of peace. It will even kill our dream to see an independent and sovereign state of Palestine

In this hour of need, I would like to make an appeal to OIC member states: an appeal for massive mobilization.

The idea of OIC mobilization comes in three steps.

First, mobilization within and beyond the OIC. The mobilization will be directed to prevent division in the OICs voice. Our voice should be solid, which is to prevent a formal annexation from happening and to make the occupying power accountable for their illegal action.

If Israel finally carries on with the formal annexation, OIC countries with diplomatic relations with Israel should take diplomatic measures in line with various OIC resolutions.

Second, mobilization in international and multilateral forums. The OIC must become the engine for collective action in various global forums.

At the UN General Assembly, the OIC must initiate a resolution to reject the annexation. At the UN Security Council, OIC countries must urge the council to respond and take concrete measures to address the annexation. At the Human Rights Council, OIC members must voice their concerns over the potential human rights crisis caused by the annexation.

The OIC must also begin to lobby other groupings and other international organizations. On my part, I have sent letters to foreign ministers of Non-Aligned Movements, Group of 77, OIC countries, the European Union and all members of the UN Security Council, expressing Indonesias position and requesting their support to reject Israelis plan.

Third, mobilization to support the resumption of credible multilateral negotiations, which is guided by internationally agreed parameters with the aim to achieve a two-state solution.

Palestine is one of the oldest obstacles to our total commitment to the values of independence, humanity and justice. Therefore, Israels persistence on continuing the path of annexation cannot be tolerated.

Once again, let us work together, side-by-side, as a unified front to mobilize support for Palestine to stop Israelis despicable annexation plan.

The writer is Indonesias foreign minister. The article was based on her speech at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) extraordinary meeting held via a video conference on Wednesday.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
WASHINGTON  A white National Guard commander called the standoff in Lafayette Square the Alamo, implying that the White House was under siege. Black members of the D.C. Guard objected to turning on their neighbors. Army leaders told pilots to flood the box with everything we have as two helicopters buzzed protesters in the streets.

The National Guard is now engaged in an investigation of the havoc a week ago Monday in downtown Washington, similar to after-the-fact examinations more common to battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. There will be questions, interviews and competing narratives.

But on one point everyone is agreed: The first days of June, a calamitous period for the Trump presidency, have been a debacle for the National Guard.

There has been a torrent of criticism from Congress, senior retired military officers and Guard members themselves since more than 5,000 Guard troops  from the District of Columbia and a dozen states  were rushed to the streets of the capital to help in the crackdown on mostly peaceful protesters and occasional looters after the killing of George Floyd in police custody. The D.C. Guard has halted recruiting efforts, and at least four National Guard troops have tested positive for the coronavirus.
AS COVID-19 arrived in Canada and unemployed Canadians began to draw on emergency financial support, activists and volunteers started setting up community-driven fundraisers to help sex workers.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 9/6/2020 (590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AS COVID-19 arrived in Canada and unemployed Canadians began to draw on emergency financial support, activists and volunteers started setting up community-driven fundraisers to help sex workers.

Online donations have collected about $9,600 since April 21  allowing 96 individuals to receive $100 each through the Sex Workers of Winnipeg Action Coalition. The volunteer-run organization was one of several such groups across Canada to set up coronavirus pandemic relief funds, including in Toronto, Vancouver and St. Johns.

Many sex workers are ineligible or reluctant to apply for the $2,000 monthly Canada Emergency Response Benefit created to support people forced out of work during the pandemic, said Claudyne Chevrier, one of the Winnipeg coalitions founding members.

"Sex workers and their communities were once again faced with just taking care of their own, because theyre again excluded from support and excluded from society, even though... they want to take action to protect themselves and protect their communities," Chevrier said.

"Sex workers are experts when it comes to disease prevention, they deal with it every day in terms of safer sex... and so they wanted to do that again, yet they werent given the support that a lot of other workers were given."

While Chevrier couldnt estimate how many Winnipeggers rely on sex work as a main source of income, she said she is aware of those who moved their work online, including via webcam; others had to stop working completely. The most vulnerable may have had no choice but to keep working despite public-health risks, she said.

"We saw among our members, but also in our broader networks and the agencies that we are in connection with, how desperate everyone was," Chevrier said. "People depend on the income that they usually get for sex work, and that all of a sudden was just gone. So people were having very immediate needs that they were not able to meet, like food and shelter."

The coalition launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding effort and received more than 130 individual donations. Organizers developed an online application process for sex workers to claim the money and worked with local agencies that could reach people who fit the criteria but werent able to fill out the online form.

They prioritized sex workers who identified as Indigenous, Black, disabled, or other minorities, Chevrier said. "People who are, in any way, more targeted by systems of oppression."

The coalition is still collecting donations via e-transfer, Chevrier said. "Sex workers are members of our community. Sex workers are members of everyones community, whether people know it or not."

Sex workers are members of our community. Sex workers are members of everyones community, whether people know it or not.  Claudyne Chevrier

A 38-year-old Winnipeg sex worker and coalition member who spoke to the Free Press on the condition of anonymity said she hasnt seen any clients for several months, and doesnt yet feel safe to start working again.

"Ive been very, very fortunate to be in a position where I still have some income, but its been really challenging," she said.

"Even when youre not working, at least for me, its not like my business-related expenses stopped. I have expenses like website hosting and most significantly, a dedicated workspace, so Ive still been having to cover the rent and utilities on that space while being unable to use it."

Jen Zoratti | Next A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

She said she worries about greater stigma being placed upon sex workers who havent been able to stop working.

"Its been a source of stress and a big challenge for lots of folks who would absolutely prefer to not be in a close, intimate setting with others during the pandemic. But even though sex workers may not be considered essential workers, when theyre going to work, they face a lot of the same risks and challenges," she said.

Apart from health risks, she is also worried about the long-term economic consequences of the pandemic.

"I think sex workers are one of the groups that is really being impacted hard by this, because of the existing inequities that exist in our system that oppress and marginalize sex workers, and criminalize us."

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Voting havoc and a momentous funeral: Its Wednesday, and this is your politics tip sheet.

Georgia is quickly becoming a purple state  but only as quickly as its voters can get access to the ballot. And especially in the past few years, including the primary elections held yesterday, that has not always been a simple story. Scores of new state-ordered voting machines either malfunctioned or were simply nowhere to be found yesterday.

Voters stubbornly waited in lines for hours to cast their ballots, but that did little to quell the anxieties of Democratic officials. They have been eyeing Georgia as a soon-to-be swing state for years, but the 2018 governors election  in which the Democrat Stacey Abrams narrowly lost  was marred by widespread accusations of voter suppression, and the coronavirus has sown fresh doubts about whether all voters will be able to participate come November.

Georgia was one of five states holding primaries yesterday. Results were slow to come in last night, but early this morning, Jon Ossoff, the young moderate Democrat who lost a hotly contested House election in 2017, was handily leading the partys Democratic primary race for Senate, but was short of the 50 percent vote threshold needed to avoid a runoff.

Fifteen fast-moving days after George Floyd died at the hands of the Minneapolis police, he was laid to rest after a large funeral yesterday, with Al Sharpton delivering the eulogy and Joe Biden offering virtual remarks.

This was not just a tragedy, Sharpton declared. It was a crime. Responding to the business leaders and politicians who have taken pains to express their support for protesters, Sharpton brandished a sharp tone. Dont apologize  give Colin Kaepernick a job back, he said. Dont come with some empty apology. Take a mans livelihood, strip a man down of his talents, and four years later, when the whole world is marching, you all of a sudden, you go and do a FaceTime.

In the category of such apologies: At the moment Floyds funeral began, the New York Stock Exchange fell silent for 8 minutes 46 seconds, the length of time an officer held his knee on Floyds neck. A spokesman said it was the longest moment of silence in the 228-year history of the exchanges trading floor (where, it bears noting, the securities that helped Southern plantations expand were once sold).

Early in his remarks, Biden spoke directly to Floyds 6-year-old daughter, Gianna, mentioning his visit with the family on Monday. Youre so brave. Daddys looking down and hes so proud of you, Biden said. I know you have a lot of questions, honey. No child should have to ask questions that too many black children have had to ask for generations: Why? Why is daddy gone? he added, drawing applause.

Biden has expressed support for the police-overhaul package proposed by House Democrats this week, but at the funeral he didnt go into detail on policy. He struck a broader, more inspirational tone, while espousing change. We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul, from systemic abuse that still plagues American life, he said. When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America. And then, as you said, Gianna, your daddy will have changed the world.

A number of Republican senators have stepped forward to support changes to the police, including Mitt Romney of Utah and Tim Scott of South Carolina, who have committed to leading the effort to draft an overhaul bill, as well as John Cornyn of Texas and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. It remains unlikely that the Senate will take up the Houses bill without serious alterations.

Republicans have indicated that they could be willing to consider measures banning police chokeholds, classifying lynching as a federal crime, strengthening national oversight of the police, adding officer training requirements and trimming liability protections for officers, Politico reported.

When it comes to another round of stimulus legislation in response to the coronavirus, the Senates Republican leadership is less bullish. The House passed a huge $3 trillion bill last month, but G.O.P. senators have vowed that itll go nowhere. They say the soonest well see new stimulus legislation is July.
A day after North Korea suspended communication hotlines with South Korea over defectors who send propaganda and contraband into the North, South Korea said it would take legal action against two organisations that conduct such operations.

North Korea gets enraged when the defectors in the South send material such as anti-North leaflets and rice - usually by balloon over the heavily fortified border or in bottles by sea - and its media has in recent days denounced the "mongrel dogs" who do it.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, recently called defectors "human scum little short of wild animals" and said North Korea would cut communication with South Korea because of its failure to stop them.

South Korea, which is trying to improve ties with the North, said on Wednesday two defector-run groups, Kuensaem Education Center and Fighters for a Free North Korea, had violated the Inter-Korean Exchange and Co-operation Act by sending the leaflets, as well as aid like rice and medicine.

The two defector groups "have created tension between the two Koreas and caused danger to the border-area residents' lives and safety", said the South's Unification Ministry spokesman Yoh Sang-key.

One defector, Park Sang-hak, who left North Korea in 2000 and heads the Fighters For Free North Korea, has been sending leaflets about once a month for the last 15 years.

aYou can never buy peace with flattery and begging," he said of the South Korean government's response to the North Korean criticism.

About 33,000 North Korean defectors live in South Korea.

As part of the effort to improve ties with the North, South Korean President Moon Jae-in's administration has sought to discourage the leaflet and rice campaigns, and defectors complained of pressure to avoid criticism of North Korea.

On Monday, activists were stopped by residents when they tried to send plastic bottles stuffed with rice by releasing them at sea.
(Newser)  Countries including China and Russia are increasing their military presence in the high Arctic, and US President Trump is looking to follow suit. Trump has ordered an assessment of possible US bases at the North and South poles along with plans for a fleet of icebreakers to be ready by the end of the decade, per a memo released Tuesday. As the US has one medium and one heavy icebreaker, both of which are nearing end of life, the US Coast Guard is developing another three each, reports Defense News. But Trump's memo calls for "an assessment of expanded operational capabilities, with estimated associated costs, for both heavy and medium [polar security cutters] not yet contracted for, specifically including the maximum use of any such PSC with respect to its ability to support national security objectives," due in 60 days.

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It also requests "use cases" of missions that may be executed by medium or heavy PSCs, "including the facilitation of resource exploration and exploitation and undersea cable laying and maintenance." This is to identify the requirements "for ensuring a persistent presence in both the Arctic and, as appropriate, the Antarctic regions." The memo sent to various departments also asks for an assessment of four locations for polar basestwo in the US and two on foreign soil, per the Guardian. Greenpeace criticized Trump as "finding new ways to exploit the climate crisis" rather than supporting Arctic communities. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan backed the move, however, noting the US lags behind "our adversaries" in the Arctic, per Defense News. Russia, with 7,000 miles of Arctic coast, has 40 icebreakers, including a nuclear-powered version that doesn't need to refuel. (Read more Arctic stories.)
New Delhi: Filmmaker Vishal Furia is ready to entice viewers with his horror flick 'Chhori' starring Nushrat Bharucha. He feels horror is a space that is left wide open by filmmakers in the country. His film is a Hindi remake of the 2017 hit Marathi venture 'Lapachhapi'.

Horror is such a strong genre because the impact remains with the audience for life and yet when I left the broadcasting industry to join the film industry, I found a gaping hole in this category. I realised no one is doing justice to it and felt I could contribute, that is why I started writing Lapachhapi, said Vishal.

After opening to packed Marathi audiences in 2017, the award-winning Lapachhapi finds its new Hindi avatar with Nushrat Bharucha in the lead.

The young director is expectedly excited to recapitulate his run after the unprecedented success of the Marathi version.

When it came to Lapachhapi, I had to strategically scale down my production given the budget constraints and limit the intensity of the film. But with the Hindi remake, we can scale-up the scares and now with Abundantia and LA-based Crypt TV onboard - both of them who understand horror extremely well, we can go all the way, says an excited Vishal. Chhori is being jointly produced by Abundantias Vikram Malhotra and Crypt TVs Jack Davis.

The Marathi version with Pooja Sawant and Vikram Gaikwad in lead roles was the first of sorts for the Marathi moviegoer as well. While Marathi folk tales and stories are often entwined with elements of horror, a full-length movie in the genre had been missing for years.

The movie did well. A year before it was released, it got selected to 20 international film festivals where it mostly won. We released the movie in July 2017 and it stayed on in the theatre for 11 weeks due to amazing audience demand. All this, after shooting the movie in 15 days flat, reveals Vishal.

Influenced in parts by Stanley Kubrick, Polanski, Spanish and Japanese horror movies, he now eagerly awaits to see how Hindi audience reacts to his craft.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Amid the civil aviation ministry temporarily capping airfares, Competition Commission Chairperson Ashok Kumar Gupta has said it would be inappropriate to expect and apply normal principles of free-market during the crisis situation due to COVID-19.

His comments come at a time when there are temporary caps and floors on air ticket prices after domestic flight services resumed on May 25.

Flights were suspended from March 25 due to the nationwide lockdown to curb spreading of coronavirus infections.

International flights are yet to commence operations.

In an e-mail interview, Gupta said all regulators are addressing the situation arising out of COVID-19 appropriately through suitable actions.

"As far pricing caps put in place by the civil aviation ministry, I can only say that these are not normal times and it would be inappropriate to expect and to apply general and normal principles of free market during the crisis situation," he told PTI.

Generally, airfares are determined on the basis of market demand and they are deregulated.

Aviation watchdog DGCA monitors airfares on certain routes on a random basis.

Competition Commission of India (CCI) has been looking into allegations of unfair business practices with respect to pricing of air tickets.

There have been complaints of airfares shooting up during calamities and festival seasons.

Asked about the status of such complaints being looked into by the commission, Gupta said "it may not be fair to provide details of such probes except those which are already in the public domain.

" The temporary floors and caps on air tickets would be in force till August 24.

The minimum and maximum fares would be for seven categories that have been decided on the basis of flight duration -- less than 40 minutes, 40-60 minutes, 60-90 minutes, 90-120 minutes, 120-150 minutes, 150-180 minutes and 180-210 minutes.

Among other conditions, 40 per cent of the seats have to be sold at a fare less than the mid-point of the band.

It is also being ensured that fares do not go out of control.

At the same time, fares are reasonable for airlines as well, Civil Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola had said last month.
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday categorically denied referring to 'Shramik Special' trains, ferrying stranded migrant labourers back home, as "Corona Express"  an allegation made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently.

Instead, the Trinamool Congress chief insisted that it was the people who gave that name to crammed-to-capacity trains.

I havent said Corona Express, my statement was misinterpreted. I had said people were saying so. What I meant was these migrant labourers were sent violating the social distancing norms. Why stuff people in a single train? The train that was supposed to carry 1200 people are carrying 2,000-2,500 people, she said.

The Trinamool Congress supremo continued by saying, The frequency of the trains should have been increased instead of stuffing them in a single train. The migrants that are returning from five high-risk states are being kept in institutional quarantine. We have increased our testing numbers. Yes, our numbers will increase, theres nothing to worry but it will help us detect more people.

Her comments came a day after Amit Shah, while addressing a virtual rally for West Bengal, accused Banerjee of "insulting" migrant workers returning to the state on Shramik Special trains by calling the trains 'Corona Express', and asserted that migrant workers will ensure the "exit" of her government in the 2021 assembly polls.

"More than 11 lakh migrants have returned to Bengal. I never called the migrant special trains 'Corona Express'," she told reporters.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal Chief Minister also announced two shifts for government employees and closure of schools in July as well. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that government staff will work in two shifts - from 9.30 am to 2.30 pm and 12 noon to 5.50 pm.

"The earlier timing was 10.30 am to 5.30 pm. But now, we have split it into two shifts for easy movement of all government employees. I understand that commuting by public transport is a big issue," she told a press conference at the state Secretariat Nabanna.

She said that unlike other states, her government was giving salaries to all its employees without deductions amid the Covid-19 situation. She said if any government employee gets late in reaching office by an hour no penalty would be levied for late attendance.

Banerjee said that all schools will also remain closed in July, but the examinations will be conducted. Earlier, the state government had said that all schools would remain closed till June 30. "I urge all school authorities not to encourage any school fees hike," the Chief Minister said.

Calling the nationwide lockdown as an "unplanned move" by the Centre, she blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government for not taking adequate care of the migrant workers across the country.

"They have not done anything. But in Bengal, we have taken care of all migrant workers. So far, 11 lakh migrant labourers have returned to Bengal by trains and over 30,000 are yet to come," Banerjee said, adding that the state government has allowed gathering of only 25 people at a time in a place for marriage and religious functions.
OTTAWAOttawas complacency in addressing police violence against Indigenous peoples is killing our people, AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde told the Star Wednesday.

The problems are well known, the incidents of cruelty and violence well documented, and the recommendations to address the problems date back decades. But a frustrated Bellegarde said that the alarming pattern of police brutality against First Nations peoples has been allowed to continue.

There are so many recommendations, so many calls to reform the police and look at restorative justice. The complacency by governments for lack of implementation is killing our people. Thats what I see, Bellegarde said.

This has to stop.

As demonstrations denouncing anti-Black racism and police brutality spread, advocates of change in Canada have drawn attention to police treatment of Indigenous peoples. Last week, federal Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said he was outraged by reports of incidents he said require speedy investigations.

A video reported by APTN last week showed a Nunavut man stumbling in the snow when he was struck and knocked down by an RCMP truck before he was arrested. Days later, Chantel Moore, a 26-year-old from a First Nation in B.C., was shot and killed during a police wellness check at her apartment in Edmunston, N.B.

Allan Adam, chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta, has also alleged RCMP officers repeatedly struck him in the head and tackled him to the ground after they stopped him for an expired licence plate in March.

To see the violence from the shooting of Chantel Moore. It was a mental health check and she was shot, and the officer discharged his firearm five times on a young, 26-year old First Nations woman, Bellegarde said.

Look at the face of Chief Allan Adam a colleague, a friend of mine. And to see that and to say there is no excessive use of force? And to watch the videos? It was almost like they were set up by the RCMP.

The quick succession of incidents has bolstered protesters arguments for urgent police reform, more oversight, and for Canada to address systemic racism facing Black Canadians, people of colour and Indigenous communities.

But those arguments are facing resistance, including from within RCMP ranks. On Monday RCMP assistant deputy commissioner Curtis Zablocki, the forces commanding officer in Alberta, told reporters he did not believe racism is systemic through Canadian policing (or) systemic through policing in Alberta.

Responding to Zablockis remarks on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said its important for all federal government institutions, including the police, to operate from an understanding that systemic racism is a problem for us here in Canada.

Last year, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls issued a number of calls for police reform along with its final report on the causes of disproportionate violence against First Nations, Inuit and Metis women.

Among them were calls for Indigenous civilian oversight of police forces across Canada, new funding for Indigenous law enforcement and the recruitment of Indigenous officers, and calls for better training and reviews to ensure all actors within the justice system are free of anti-Indigenous bias and racism.

On Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair confirmed the government was working on a new legal and funding framework for Indigenous policing services. The current First Nations Policing Program, which includes 1,320 police officers serving 450 communities across the country, has been criticized for its lack of stable, long-term funding.

We have been working very closely with the territories in particular with respect to delivery of professional, culturally competent and respectful police services that can be wholly accountable to the territory and to the community, Blair told a House of Commons committee.

With files from Omar Mosleh and The Canadian Press.

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Britains Conservative government has been forced to drop its plans to have all primary children back in school within the next four weeks. It also conceded that there would be no further openings for secondary schools until September at the earliest.

The retreat is a credit to the millions of parents and educators who opposed the government and acted in defiance of the trade unions. However, the retreat is only temporary. The governments back to work agenda will continue to force children and educators back into unsafe classrooms.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson made the announcement in parliament yesterday. He did not offer much in the way of explanation, other than to claim that it was always the governments plan to move with caution and when the time is right.

This is a lie. There was overwhelming evidence from the governments own scientific advisors that it was not safe to open schools on June 1, but it continued with its plans. Primary schools were opened to nursery, reception, year 1 and year 6 children from June 1 to join children of key worker and most vulnerable for whom schools have remained open. Over 2 million additional children were due to be in school. However, more than a million children were kept at home by worried parents, fearing an explosion in COVID-19 cases that will spread throughout the population.

In some areas up to 90 percent of primary schools remained closed to more pupils amid rising fears about the spread of coronavirus. In large working class cities, where infection rates are up to seven times higher than parts of the southsuch as the north-east of Englandnot a single primary school opened to more pupils. In the north-west, just 8 percent of schools opened to more pupils, according to the National Education Union (NEU). The R (reproduction) rate is above 1 in many parts of the north-west, confirming the threat of an explosion of the virus.

The governments obscene claims that the reopening of schools was driven by the concerns over the impact on children suffering from disadvantage and inequalitywhich the government has overseenwere also exposed in the briefing. Williamson confirmed that free school meals vouchers will not be provided over the summer break to the millions who rely on them already, and the millions whose parents will be made unemployed due to the pandemic. He admitted that the governments plan to provide 700,000 laptops and internet access to families from disadvantaged backgrounds is a pipe dream. Some 100,000 laptops are being prepared to go out this week and a further 230,000 by the end of the month, whereas 700,000 are needed.

Williamson stressed that he is calling on schools to continue to open more broadly to those groups already invited back and for families who will need childcare as wider sections of industry begin to open from next week. Management of this drive has been handed over to head teachers and governors, who will be under increasing pressure as millions return to work.

There are no central statistics of the number of educators infected by COVID-19 or the number of schools which have been forced to close due to outbreaks. Sporadic reports from local newspapers reveal that some schools have been forced to shut10 schools in Lincolnshire and at least one each in Bradford, Sheffield, Doncaster and Derby. A primary school in Pennington in the New Forest was closed yesterday after a pupil was reported as infected.

While the trade unions and some sections of the Labour Party are claiming victory for the retreat, nothing can be further from the truth. Party leader Sir Keir Starmer wrote a letter to Johnson, revealed last week in parliament, stating that Labour fully support[s] the wider opening of schools as soon as is feasibly possible, but was concerned that without a stronger consensus of professionals and parents behind the wider opening of schools, some parents will choose not to comply and the issue will become even more socially divisive. He called on the government to explore how that consensus can be achieved in the shortest possible timeframe.

The unions, notably the NEU, the largest and ostensibly most left-wing, have been denounced by many of their members for refusing to call industrial action to oppose the unsafe conditions in which teachers have been placed by insisting it was up to individuals to challenge risk assessments. The NEU openly advocated the opening of schools from June 15, as did most local authorities, on the grounds that it will be safer by then. The key issues in reopening schools, according to NEU joint General Secretary Mary Bousted, were ones of logistics, not of risk.

An NEU press release said, It has taken the government some time to recognise what was obvious to most. The governments social distancing rules made it impossible for primary schools to admit all pupils before the summer holidays.

Paul Whiteman, of the National Association of Head Teachers, said Were pleased to see the government will not force the impossible and that the plan had too many practical barriers.

The unions insist that they are the only ones who can be trusted to oversee the imposition of the governments policy. They demand that the government not just politely listen to their advice, but also incorporate them into a national task force to police the working class.

The Socialist Equality Party has outlined the only viable perspective to defend the lives and social interests of the working class. We say:

Opposition to the reopening of schools can and must be the spearhead of an independent movement of the working class against the Johnson government and its murderous back-to-work campaign. The Socialist Equality Party calls for the building of action committees, independent from the trade unions, to safeguard the health of children, teachers and the entire working class. We propose that teachers and parents take up the following demands:

* Schools must remain closed for all pupils to prevent the spread of COVID-19 until scientific advice establishes that it is safe for them to reopen. Any teacher refusing to work for health reasons must be provided a full wage and a guarantee against victimisation.

* Within schools that are open, adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) must be provided, regular deep cleaning carried out and all activities risk-assessed to protect staff and children from cross infection and maintain social distancing.

* All cases of COVID-19 must be immediately reported to staff and families and affected schools closed.

* A massive increase in government funding must be advanced, paid for by taxing the super-rich and major corporations, to overcome the gutting of educational services and the devastating impact on educational achievement and mental and social wellbeing of children of the pandemic and school closures.

Teachers and other educators should contact the Socialist Equality Party to discuss organising this political fightback.
Humidity is under control now, but it'll be climbing through the day and especially into tonight. Scattered showers and storms for us today with leftover showers sweeping out through Thursday morning will lead us into a gorgeous Friday.

From there, we get back to cooler and more unsettled weather with the chance of showers through the weekend and early next week.

Today

After a rather chaotic forecast day yesterday, things are a little clearer for today. This NYS Mesonet map is from late afternoon Tuesday, when it was 84 degrees in Schuylerville, 72 in Glens Falls, 69 in Whitehall. All the cool air was bottled up in northern New York, with Whitehall being the swinging gate.

It was 79 degrees at 3:20 p.m. and 68 degrees an hour later.

This morning, it's cooler with dewpoints in the 50s into central New York but as you head farther west, we're looking at warmer temperatures with dewpoints in the low-and-middle 60s. While it'll be a warm day today, you'll really notice the humidity on the rise.

Quite the temperature swing from southwest to northeast across the state, upper 70s to upper 40s. Our area is sitting in the 50s.

Skies are mostly clear to start the day, but we'll pick up some more clouds as that warmer and more humid air makes it way east.

Humidity will become more noticeable as we get into this afternoon and especially tonight. Scattered showers and storms will develop as we get deeper into the day as well, with the Hudson Valley, the Thruway and Northway being the "dividing line" between a few showers and stronger storms. The best opportunity for severe weather will be from central New York and west, but there may be a few nasty storms as far east as the Mohawk Valley and Schoharie hills.

Highs today will be warmest to the west of the Hudson Valley and coolest as you head into western New England. We're looking at temperatures pushing 90 west into the Mohawk Valley and out I-88 to mid-and-upper 70s from the Rensselaer Plateau into Berkshire and Bennington counties. You'll note the higher temperatures coincide with the severe weather threat from yellow (severe opportunities) to light green (low threat of any storm)

Getting into tonight, a cold front will be headed our way. It will help to touch off more showers and a few thunderstorms. The humidity will continue to build later today and tonight, so any showers will have the potential to drop heavy rain in a short amount of time. Lows overnight will not fall much from the day's highs, upper 60s and low 70s.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Thursday

That front will continue to push through slowly, keeping rain and showers around into the morning. Once it clears the area, we'll start to clear out the skies and dry the air out a bit. Dewpoint temperatures will be slow to fall, staying in the 60s through the evening. A push of drier air will make its way in overnight, making for a more comfortable Friday. Highs Thursday will range from the low 70s to the low 80s, with overnight lows in the 50s to low 60s.

Friday and the weekend

Friday will be a beautiful day with a return to sunshine and drier air. Highs will top out in the 70s to the low 80s. From there, things get a little more unsettled for the weekend into early next week.

Saturday will feature a few scattered showers, mainly northwest of Albany. It'll be a cooler day with highs staying in the upper 60s to the upper 70s.

A tad cooler with a few more showers scattered about on Sunday, same to start the work week.

JasonsWeather

The Forecast You Want
[June 10, 2020] Aviation Capital Group Announces Commencement of Any and All Cash Tender Offer for its 7.125% Senior Notes due 2020

Aviation Capital Group LLC (ACG), a leading aircraft asset manager, today announced that it has commenced a cash tender offer to purchase any and all of its 7.125% Senior Notes due October 15, 2020 (CUSIP No. 05367AAA1 (Rule 144A) and U05357AA3 (Regulation S); ISIN US05367AAA16 (Rule 144A) and USU05357AA33 (Regulation S)). As of June 10, 2020, ACG had $600 million aggregate principal amount of the notes outstanding. The tender offer is being made pursuant to an offer to purchase, dated as of June 10, 2020, and a notice of guaranteed delivery. The tender offer will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 16, 2020, unless extended or earlier terminated as described in the offer to purchase (such time and date, as they may be extended, the Expiration Time). Holders of the notes who validly tender (and do not validly withdraw) their notes prior to the Expiration Time, or who deliver to the tender agent and information agent a properly completed and duly executed notice of guaranteed delivery in accordance with the instructions described in the offer to purchase, will be eligible to receive total cash consideration of $1,000 per $1,000 principal amount of notes, plus any accrued and unpaid interest from the last interest payment date up to, but not including, the Settlement Date (as defined below). Interest will cease to accrue on the Settlement Date for all notes accepted for purchase in the tender offer, including any such notes tendered through guaranteed delivery procedures described in the offer to purchase. As a result, notes tendered through the guaranteed delivery procedures will not receive accrued interest from the Settlement Date through the Guaranteed Delivery Settlement Date (as defined below), which is expected to be one business day after the Settlement Date. Tendered notes may be withdrawn at any time at or prior to the Expiration Time. ACG reserves the right to terminate, withdraw or amend the tender offer at any time, subject to applicable law. Payment for notes validly tendered in the tender offer and accepted by ACG for purchase will be made on the date referred to as the Settlement Date or, in he case of notes tendered through the guaranteed delivery procedures, the Guaranteed Delivery Settlement Date. The Settlement Date is expected to occur on June 18, 2020 (the second business day after the Expiration Time), and the Guaranteed Delivery Settlement Date is expected to occur on June 19, 2020 (the third business day after the Expiration Time).



The tender offer is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions. The tender offer is not conditioned on any minimum amount of notes being tendered. The tender offer is being made pursuant to the terms and conditions contained in the offer to purchase and related notice of guaranteed delivery, copies of which may be obtained from D.F. King & Co., Inc., the information agent for the offer, by telephone at (800) 669-5550 (toll-free) or for banks and brokers, at (212) 269-5550 (Banks and Brokers only), email at [email protected] or at the following web address: www.dfking.com/acg.

Persons with questions regarding the tender offer should contact the dealer manager: J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, 383 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10179, Attn: Liability Management Group, Collect: (212) 834-3424, Toll-Free by telephone at (866) 834-4666. None of ACG, the dealer manager, the tender offer agent, the information agent or the issuing and paying agent for the notes, or any of their respective affiliates, is making any recommendation as to whether holders should tender any notes in response to the tender offer. Holders must make their own decision as to whether to tender any of their notes and, if so, the principal amount of notes to tender. Please refer to the offer to purchase for a description of terms, conditions, disclaimers and other information applicable to the tender offer. This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities. The tender offer is being made solely by means of the offer to purchase and the related notice of guaranteed delivery. The tender offer is not being made to holders of securities in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction. About Aviation Capital Group Aviation Capital Group was founded in 1989 and is one of the world's premier full-service aircraft asset managers with approximately 500 owned, managed and committed aircraft as of March 31, 2020, which are leased to approximately 90 airlines in approximately 45 countries. ACG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo Century Corporation. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding expectations as to the transactions contemplated by the tender offer. Any such statements, other than statements of historical fact, are based upon ACG's current expectations and assumptions concerning future events, which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Accordingly, such statements cannot be guarantees or assurances of any aspect of future performance. Such statements speak only as of the time when made, and ACG undertakes no obligation to update any such statement now or in the future. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200610005431/en/

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 13:17:32|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to revise down the growth forecast for the Asia and Pacific region in an update to its World Economic Outlook (WEO) later this month, a senior IMF official said Tuesday.

"First quarter GDP (gross domestic product) growth turns mostly on the downside, with high-frequency indicators for April and May point to severe disruptions in the second quarter. China appears to be the main exception," IMF First Deputy Managing Director Geoffrey Okamoto told reporters at a virtual roundtable.

"Some countries also have had difficulty containing the pandemic spread, which has implications for their own economic outlook," said Okamoto, whose appointment as the multilateral lender's second-highest ranking official took effect in March.

Noting that the IMF is going to release an update to the WEO on June 24, Okamoto said "we expect to revise down materially reflecting the mainly longer-than-expected lockdowns and increasingly negative global trade spillovers, partially offset by large stimulus in several countries."

In the latest WEO report released in April, the IMF projected growth in Asia to stall at zero percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lowest growth since the 1960s. China is expected to see moderate growth of 1.2 percent, according to the report.

In response to a question from Xinhua, the IMF first deputy managing director said at the roundtable that one thing China benefited from was "very clear, decisive action early on" to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, and also "acting very quickly to put in place the policy support measures that would allow things to stabilize."

Noting that China is in the cycle a little bit earlier than other countries, Okamoto voiced hope that more countries will "end up in this category as time goes on," and other economies could follow an "upward trend" in a few months.

"Obviously we're still in the thick of this, and in many areas, there are economies that are just starting to reopen as we speak. And some of them haven't yet. So it's too early to judge for many of them," Okamoto said.

Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, who also joined the roundtable, said as China implemented and started to ease lockdown policy a lot earlier, China's first quarter performance was in line with IMF expectation, but for many other Asian economies, the first quarter numbers were worse than expected.

For the second quarter, Rhee said that China also "cannot be immune from" the global trade slowdown, while noting that China's economy seems to "turn around" in general, even though at a low level.

In its latest Global Economic Prospects released Monday, the World Bank Group said growth in East Asia and Pacific is projected to fall to 0.5 percent in 2020, the only region that could see growth this year, and economic activity in South Asia is projected to contract by 2.7 percent.

"On economic policies, we believe a full arsenal is needed to respond to the pandemic shock," Okamoto said at the virtual roundtable. "Difficult choices lie ahead for countries that don't have enough policy space and immediate priority is to raise health spending to contain the virus and slow contagion."

"If fiscal space is unavailable, expenditures should be reallocated to health," said the senior IMF official. "For countries with ample resources, there is scope to do more, particularly on policies to prevent long-term damage or scarring to the livelihoods of the least advantaged in society."

Noting that Asian policymakers have stepped up with fiscal packages and liquidity provision, Okamoto said the IMF has been updating and adjusting its lending facilities to better serving its membership, doubling access to emergency facilities and making about 100 billion U.S. dollars available.

As of last week, the IMF executive board had approved emergency financing to 66 countries totaling about 23.5 billion dollars in record speed, he said, noting that seven of those countries are in the Asian Pacific region.

At the roundtable, Okamoto also stressed the importance of global trade amid the pandemic. "We are a more prosperous world when trade and investment can flow freely," he said. "One thing that we've benefited from during this pandemic is the flexibility of global supply chains."

Okamoto said the world needs to "remain committed" to a vision embracing the interconnectedness in trade relationships dictated by global needs.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Tuesday also urged countries to recognize the benefits of global trade and guard against a "dramatic retreat" from globalization amid the crisis.

Noting that inequality tends to go up after a pandemic, the IMF chief said at a virtual event held by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that "we must put this squarely on our radar screen and recognize the importance of global trade in contributing to lower costs, higher incomes and lower levels of poverty." Enditem
Amitabh's Two-Day Plan To Send Migrants Home

It is going to be a two-day plan that began today, June 10. Rajesh Yadav, the managing director of Bachchan's company ABCorp Ltd., confirmed that four chartered flights were sent today. He said, "We are sending six chartered flights to airlift around 1100 passengers. Four chartered flights have gone today and two will be sent tomorrow."

The Flights Were Sent To Four Cities

The chartered flights were sent to four cities of India, including Prayagraj, Lucknow, Patna and Gorakhpur. Not only this, but Amitabh also arranged food packets for the migrants' journey.

Big B Wants To Do Something Similar For Migrants From The South

Bachchan intends to do something similar for migrants from the south who are stuck in Mumbai and are unable to find means of transport to reach home safely.

He Had Arranged Buses Earlier

Earlier, Amitabh had organized ten buses for migrants looking to make their way home to Uttar Pradesh from Mumbai.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The director-general of the World Trade Organization, Roberto Azevedo, recently said he was stepping down early. Exasperation over the WTOs diminished standing appears to have been a factor. Thats understandable. Step by step, governments have pushed an institution with an essential role in promoting global growth toward complete irrelevance.

Azevedos departure offers a moment to reflect. His replacement should certainly be a heavyweight, to affirm the WTOs value. More crucial is that governments from now on allow and empower the body to do its job. The U.S., especially, should learn to see the WTO once again as a global asset and not a confounded nuisance.

The WTO has two main functions. It provides a way for governments to settle trade disputes in an orderly fashion, so that squabbles dont escalate into tit-for-tat trade wars. And it serves as a forum for negotiating big new agreements to promote trade and hence growth.

In both respects, the body has been undermined. President Donald Trump and his advisers mistakenly think the dispute-settlement system puts the U.S. at a disadvantage. Theyve paralyzed this part of the WTO by blocking the appointment of judges to its appellate body. And governments everywhere have long conspired to block the trade-expansion mission, preferring smaller regional deals to a new global pact. The last big round of trade-reform talks fizzled out after years of getting nowhere.

Governments should revive both functions. Orderly settlement of disputes is better for all concerned than the worsening breakdown in trade relations that the Trump administration has engineered. Washingtons tactics havent just harmed the global trading system, theyve directly backfired, leaving U.S. consumers and producers worse off. If unresolved trade disputes are left to proliferate in this way, everybody loses  all the more so amid the risks arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.

For now, the WTOs other main purpose  lowering trade barriers  might seem less valuable, but its a mistake to think so. Existing trade accords need to be kept up to date, because technological change is driving new patterns of commerce and raising new issues. Other challenges arise as well. In particular, China has put the system under increasing stress because its non-market model is an awkward fit, and its government still relies heavily on trade-distorting subsidies. New approaches are needed to deal with this. And though previous rounds of talks cut most tariffs to very low levels, administrative and other impediments to trade persist. All these frictions serve, in the end, to curb living standards.

Story continues

So theres no lack of new trade-promoting work for the WTO to do. The method preferred of late  smaller pacts such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership  is second best, because it creates insiders and outsiders, with external economic borders that divert and distort trade. Wider multilateral accords are hard to do, admittedly, but thats what the WTO was for and its still the right goal. The idea worked superbly for decades after 1950, and it could work again, given the political will.

For the moment, to be sure, that critical ingredient is missing, especially in the U.S. One can only hope this might change, and that discussions about Azevedos successor remind governments of what they risk losing if they let the WTO fade to nothing.

Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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PG doctors stage a protest against alleged misbehavior and manhandling of doctors treating COVID-19 patients during the nationwide lockdown, near Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad. PTI photo

Hyderabad: Trouble flared up at Hyderabad's main COVID-19 treatment facility, the Gandhi Medical Hospital (GMH), on Wednesday with junior doctors spilling out into the streets outside to protest last night's attack on two of their fellow professionals by patient attendants.

Apart from their ire over the attack itself, the junior doctors spilled out details of the poor conditions under which they have been made to work and the relentless pressure they have been subjected to in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last evening, a 55-year-old coronavirus patient succumbed to the infection after which relatives of the patient allegedly assaulted junior doctors with an iron rod, the doctors alleged.

Irate health workers began their protest that went on till early hours this morning. Demanding more security and action against the attackers, the doctors sought deployment of a special protection force inside Gandhi Hospital.

Doctors say that the deceased patient had high sugar and blood pressure levels due to which he succumbed. They said the family had been apprised of the patient's deteriorating condition. Although the patient had been advised not to leave his bed, he was found lying unconscious near the toilet in the hospital. The doctors said the patient collapsed as he had flouted medical advice and strained his body. The doctors couldn't save him despite CPR.

Anger towards Gandhi Hospital has also been triggered by several videos released by patients in recent days. The last WhatsApp messages of a journalist who succumbed to COVID-19 complained of negligence and lack of attention. Doctors contend that most of the COVID-19 deaths are caused by co-morbidity factors.

The trouble at Gandhi Hospital comes a day after Deccan Chronicle reported that the hospital was sending home COVID-19 patients if their symptoms were mild. The High Court rapped the state government for not coming clean on the COVID-19 situation and governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has been critical of the state government's handling of the COVID-19 crisis.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 20:53:22|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- More than 160 experts and media representatives from 48 countries and nine international organizations called for international solidarity and cooperation to combat the COVID-19 pandemic during an online forum held on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Global Think Tanks Online Forum on International Cooperation to Combat COVID-19 also highlighted the importance to build a global community of health for all.

China has resolutely launched an all-out people's war against the COVID-19 outbreak and succeeded in containing the spread of the virus. In this battle, China will always stand together with other countries, said an official with the State Council Information Office.

Many attendees called for candid and in-depth exchanges among global think tanks to contribute wisdom and energy to enhance international cooperation to fight the virus and promote global economic development.

The pandemic has brought a negative impact to global governance, and countries around the world should join hands in areas including economic recovery, vaccine research and development, environmental protection and digital governance, said attendees from Australia, Belgium, Croatia, the United States, South Africa and the World Trade Organization.

The online forum was jointly hosted by 10 think tanks around the world. A joint statement was released after the forum. Enditem
IT SURPRISES us why the sudden courage for the Philippines to officially launch a beaching ramp in Pag-asa, one of the disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea.

In a gesture most ironic as we are supposed to celebrate the Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day every June 9, through Proclamation 148, signed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Jan. 24, 2002, Defense Sec. Delfin Lorenzana, tagging along a number of journalists, inaugurated the docking facility.

The ramps construction started in 2017 and would have been finished in a year. Lorenzana said unfriendly weather and rough seas delayed its completion, and thus the 2020 launch.

Where it was impossible for large ships to dock, the ramp can now host Navy ships carrying engineering supplies to repair the dilapidated runway in the island.

Construction materials and heavy equipment can now be unloaded, paving the way for the building of a military barracks, an ice plant for fisherfolk, power-generation installations, a weather station, civilian homes and a school, said Lorenzana.

This week, specifically on Independence Day, June 12, the Philippines will also inaugurate a sheltered seaport on another side of Pag-asa. This is meant to provide support to fishing vessels seeking safety during stormy weather.

This should make the island, internationally known as Thitu, more livable without militarizing it. Pag-asa is close to one of Chinas man-made islands in the hotly contested Spratlys. But Lorenzana assures, The Chinese have said that they will not attack us so were safe here.

Ah, so. Wed have thought it was outright Philippine assertion to its sovereign rights over the territory, but the statement sounded like the project only sees the light of day with Beijing concessionthat they wont attack us. And no small help that we havent heard a word from China protesting the construction of the facility.

To recall, the Philippines won its case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which recognized our sovereign rights within 200-nautical miles at the West Philippine Sea (WPS). Beijing, however, continuously rejects The Hague ruling, insisting on historical references.

This week, on the eve of the Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day, former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio reiterates the need for the Philippines to push its rights over the WPS. In an online forum, he said, We have to make this an election issue in 2022. The new batch of leaders should be one that will assert the arbitral ruling.

Upon arrival for the ramp facility launch, everyone started receiving SMS roaming messages that welcomed them to China. Lorenzana was amused, saying the Philippines should build for a stronger signal in the area. For one moment, we thought he was being metaphorical.
Additional reporting by Paul Hosford

A funding package of 75m for the childcare sector has been agreed by Cabinet.

The new model proposed by Minister for Children Katherine Zappone includes a once-off reopening grant of 18m for centre-based providers opening on 29 June and late August.

There is also a once-off capital grant of 14.2m.

All registered centre-based services re-opening between 29 June and the beginning of September can avail of this grant.

A once-off grant totalling 375,000 will be provided for childminders.

A grant of 500 per childminder registered with Tusla, or notified to authorities will be made to assist them with the costs of reopening.

The minister has also announced the temporary wage subsidy scheme will continue until the end of August for childcare services that reopen on June 29.

It will provide an 85% (or 70% for higher incomes) contribution towards the cost of wages.

Ms Zappone has said she believes the new measures will stop the price of facilities going up for parents.

In a statement, she added: Many parents need to return to work to support their families. Childcare is essential to this and a critical element in enabling our economy to get up and running again.

"We have clear public health guidance for the childcare sector on how this can happen as safely as possible. We now have a funding model which supports the public health guidance.

"I believe it supports the sustainability of the childcare sector. It is the first step back towards full capacity.

The suite of measures will run from June 29 to August 23.

The Department of Children will then review the operation of measures in July and will then make further arrangements for services normally reopening in late August and early September.

Labour Party spokesperson on children Sean Sherlock said that some creches have attempted to make up funding shortfalls by charging parents an additional 75 per week.

"We're getting calls from parents, especially if they're returning work that childcare facilities are actually asking them to pay additional fees for their children.

"In one particular case, the creche in question is asking for an additional fee of 15 euros per child per day.

"So, in the absence of any clear plan with any details on what the project entails.

"I think it's incumbent on the minister to actually publish those guidelines because parents need certainty."

Mr Sherlock said that need for certainty extended to childcare providers, some of whom will be unable to modify their buildings, regardless of the grant aid available.

There are some providers who irrespective of whatever grants are provided to enable them to partition their premises, the building they're already operating in is just too small to partition out further.

"There are a lot of community providers out there who you would have had small numbers. For instance, physical partitioning has a bearing on the operation of the play pods.

"What we haven't heard from the minister is whether or not she will make that funding available."

Mr Sherlock said that the previously called for extension to maternity leave should be approved to alleviate pressure on the childcare sector.

"Outside of the extended maternity leave issue, we now have evidence from the Central Statistics Office that there is massive pressure coming on working mothers in particular.

"No matter how progressive we think we are as a society, what we're seeing is that the lack of childcare is having a knock-on effect for working mothers in particular.

"And that's something that affects in terms of their own quality of life, but also in terms of their ability to participate in the workplace."
Facing death is a crash course in perspective that could be life-changing  if you have some life left to enjoy it.

Journalist Claire Nelson, 35, is one of those rare people who realised her biggest life regrets as she faced death, and was granted a second chance at a life that would be profoundly changed by her deathbed revelations.

Claire Nelson recovering in hospital after being lost in the desert for four days. Credit:Claire Nelson

I wish I told my family and friends how much they meant to me, says Nelson of her deathbed regret.

Nelsons revelation came to her as she lay under the scorching desert sun of Californias Joshua Tree National Park, unable to move because of a shattered pelvis shed sustained after slipping and falling off a cliff.
Kala Dalahan takes an order from Sherry Swingholm (front) of Plymouth Meeting and Ashlie Reilly (rear) of Devon at their table at Cerdo Restaurant in Conshohocken June 8, 2020 as the region moves into the yellow phase and outdoor dining is now permitted. Read more

Philadelphia is officially in the yellow phase of reopening, which the city has dubbed Safer at Home."

Some of our favorite boutiques have reopened. We can have small groups of people over for cookouts. Day camps have the green light. And outdoor dining is allowed in the suburbs.

But we want more. We want to go to the gym. We want to get a haircut. And for that, we have to wait until were in the green phase.

 READ MORE: Philly suburbs will move to green while the city enters a modified green phase

When can we move on to the green phase?

Hold your horses, people. Were still, at the very least, weeks away.

Gov. Tom Wolfs order says that a county has to be in the yellow phase for at least 14 days before moving to green. After a county transitions to the yellow phase, health professionals are supposed to closely monitor for anything that would increase the risk, such as significant outbreaks of COVID-19 cases, according to the governors website. And if that risk stays low for at least two weeks, the county can transition to the green phase.

Its worth noting that one of the original benchmarks for moving into yellow  fewer than 50 new cases per 100,000 population for two weeks  wasnt true in the Philly region but the state decided to move us forward anyway. So the criteria that were supposed to decide when a county moves between phases has also been shifting.

 READ MORE: What's allowed to be open in the yellow and green phase

And Philadelphians may have to wait a bit longer to safely move into the green phase, James Garrow, the Philadelphia Department of Healths communications specialist, wrote in an email. The citys health commissioner, Thomas Farley, is closely tracking the metrics and wants the city to continue to move toward its goal of fewer than 25 new cases per day. The Health Commissioner has been adamant that any move we will make will be guided by the science and what we are seeing in terms of disease spread in Philadelphia, not any particular time frame, Garrow wrote in an email. In other words, an increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases or deaths could delay a move to green.

 READ MORE: Q&A: Philly in the yellow phase

Wait a minute, Philadelphia  and many other big cities  held protests that drew thousands of people. How will that affect our progress?

We are really going to have to wait and see, said Thersa Sweet, an associate professor of epidemiology at Drexel University. There were many, many young people who were at the protests, Sweet said, so they are less likely to get severely ill. But they can still be carriers. The other issue: There was a lot yelling. And loud talking  as well as coughing, sneezing, or singing  releases respiratory droplets that can carry the virus, which increases the likelihood of spread, Sweet said. We have no way of knowing how many people who were potentially infected protested," Sweet said.

 READ MORE: Masks, Mass, and marches on Philly regions first weekend in the yellow phase

What do we do in the meantime?

Stay vigilant. The one thing people need to realize that when we move from red to yellow to green, it doesnt mean that the virus is gone, Sweet says. What it does mean is that the spread of the virus has slowed to the point that the number of people who need to be hospitalized arent taxing the health-care system.

So even when we move to the green phase, you have to consider your individual risk. That means if you are elderly, diabetic, suffer from asthma, or have a compromised immune system, its important that you continue to follow social-distancing rules  remain six feet apart  and wear a mask when you are around others or in closed, indoor spaces. The bottom line is we wont be 100 percent safe until we are down to zero cases and we have a vaccine. Anyone that thinks otherwise is really indulging in wishful thinking, Sweet says.
Less than two weeks after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, the city council announced it was planning to dismantle its police department.

The move comes as protests have erupted around the country over the death of Floyd and systemic injustices that have long impacted black communities. A number of social justice organizations and protesters want local municipalities to defund their police departments, and divert resources from police departments into social services and other needed services. Others have called for cities to to disband their police departments.

There is some precedence for the move in N.J.

In 2012, Camden disbanded its police department and switched to a regional force as murders peaked in the city and its cash-strapped police department was unable to police proactively after Gov. Chris Christie cut state aid significantly in 2010 and 2011.

Whether or not it has been a success is still being debated throughout the city of around 74,000. City officials point to it as a potential national model for community policing that has helped drastically reduce violent crime.

But community leaders and residents continue to voice concerns about a police department that they says was overhauled without their input and presents new challenges, like a less diverse department in a city that is mostly minority.

Mayor Frank Moran, who was the city council president at the time, said disbanding the police department in his home city was the hardest thing hes ever done, but said it was a necessary step in a city that had previously been described as the most dangerous in America.

Leading up to the move, the city force had all but given up responding to some types of crimes and its officers had an absenteeism rate of 30 percent, while it could not afford to hire more officers, The New York Times reported.

By May 2013, the department had been overhauled.

The Camden police department became the Camden County Metro Police Department. It went from having fewer than 200 officers to more than 400 (More than 150 members of the former Camden city police department joined the regional force). The department also employed a community policing strategy, flooding the streets with beat cops.

Camden needed the help theyre getting today and they needed it badly, Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, said at the time. I cant sugarcoat what the reality was. The reality was citizens feeling unsafe and risking their lives merely by walking the streets. The basics of public safety were diminished, and we needed to rebuild them.

The revamped regional department hired police officers at a lower salary with fewer benefits than the city force.

Community policing cannot be a program, unit, strategy or tactic, Scott Thomson, who led the department through the disbandment and retired as chief in 2019, testified at President Obamas task force on 21st Century policing in 2015. It must be the core principle which lies at the foundation of a police departments culture. Community policing is not an option, its an affirmative obligation.

With more officers, the new department put an emphasis on officers walking a beat in a neighborhood in order to get to know residents, de-escalation training and other community initiatives, like Meet Your Officers events.

When you hear now about defunding police departments, we dont talk about defunding, Mayor Moran said in an interview Monday. We talk about re-appropriating resources, making sure our officers are fit with the right equipment to do their daily job, but more importantly well-trained and training never ends.

The department has also invested in civilian crime analysts and artificial intelligence that has allowed it to police more proactively.

Throughout the seven years since the overhaul, city officials have constantly cited statistics that show the change in the department worked.

After murders peaked in 2012 at 67 killings, there were fewer than half that in 2019, while violent crime across the board dropped by 47% since 2012. Excessive force complaints against officers are down 95% since 2014.

However, the change in the police department was not received positively across the city. A number of city residents and police officers objected, petitioning city government to prohibit it.

But then-Mayor Dana Redd sued residents in her own city to stop the petition and prevailed, despite the state Supreme Court later ruling it was illegal to disband the department without a public vote, according to Courthouse News.

Darnell Hardwick, a leader of the Camden County NAACP, said residents were disenfranchised" through the process.

But the ruling came after the county department was already in operation.

There was no will to keep the other police force, Hardwick said. There was a will to disband it. They wanted to disband it.

Residents and community leaders have objected to the county force for its aggressive policing of petty offenses, and incidents where officers have not been reprimanded for alleged misconduct. They are also critical because the force is less diverse.

Colanudus Kelly Francis, a local NAACP leader and a Camden resident since 1949, said the city has been worse off since the regional department was formed because the officers do not reflect the citys population that is more than 90% people of color.

In 2014, one year after the city department was disbanded, 43% of the officers in the new department were minorities, according to Governing. Before it was disbanded, more than 70% of the officers in the city department were minorities, Francis said.

He said true community policing is when officers live in the city they work in and look like the people they serve, both of which he said is not happening in Camdens county police department.

But community leaders do acknowledge that while reform has not happened overnight, progress is being made and cities across the country can look to the South Jersey city as an example.

I do think their efforts have turned a page in terms of trust building, but it is a constant, said Dr. Nyeema Watson, who grew up in East Camden and is the associate chancellor for civic engagement at Rutgers-Camden. You have to always do this work.

Mayor Maron said he would welcome leaders of others city into Camden to study the revamped police department and how it has played out in the city, which has been plagued by violent crime for decades.

It is absolutely doable and we are a testament to that, he said.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the COVID-19 pandemic with his Cambodian counterpart Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen on Wednesday and conveyed India's commitment to further strengthening its relationship with the Southeast Asian country in all areas.

"India shares deep cultural and historical links with Cambodia -- an important partner in our extended neighbourhood," the prime minister wrote on Twitter.

Discussed the COVID-19 pandemic with Prime Minister Hun Sen. India shares deep cultural and historical links with Cambodia - an important partner in our extended neighbourhood. I conveyed India's commitment to further strengthening its relationship with Cambodia in all areas.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 10, 2020

Modi said he conveyed to Prime Minister Hun Sen India's commitment to further strengthening its relationship with Cambodia in all areas.

An official statement said the two leaders reviewed the robust development partnership between both countries, including the capacity-building programmes under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC) and Quick Impact Projects under the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation framework.

The Cambodian prime minister emphasised the importance his country attaches to its relations with India. Modi reciprocated the sentiment and stressed on Cambodia's valued role in India's Act East policy.

The two leaders also agreed to continue with the ongoing cooperation in helping each other's expatriates and facilitating their evacuation, the statement said.
On April 30, Balbir Sharma, a man with 36 cases of theft, robbery and snatching registered against him was released from Tihar jail as part of the prisons move to decongest its premises to contain the spread of Covid-19. Five days later, he was arrested for allegedly robbing a man of his cell phone and scooter.

A day before Sharmas release, Monu Sharma, a man with eight criminal cases, was also released in a bid to decongest the jail complex. Six days later, on May 5, he was arrested for stealing an electric autorickshaw in east Delhis Geeta Colony.

Two months ago, the Delhi government released around 2,800 prisoners to decongest the prison complex as one of the steps to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The released prisoners included 1,000 under-trials who were let off on bail while the others were convicts released on parole.

The records of arrested people over the last one month show that many released prisoners are back to a life of crime. Delhi Police has, in the past one month, arrested at least 129 such prisoners again after suspecting their involvement in cases of robbery, snatching, theft and burglary in different parts of the city.

After the lockdown norms were eased and we started receiving reports of regular crimes from different parts of the city, our police teams launched a crackdown on such criminals, a senior police officer, who did not wish to be named, said .Our investigation showed that many of them were those who were released during the lockdown. In ideal circumstances they would be in prison while the courts conduct trial. The prison department released them but instead of appreciating the decision, they are back to crime. We have sent them back. The prison authorities must verify the records of each prisoner before letting them off.

Another police officer said that though the police were proactive in arresting snatchers and robbers across the city, their efforts would be in vain if the prison keeps releasing habitual criminals.

The 129 prisoners we arrested again are those whom we could trace. The actual number of such released criminals who are again active could be more, the second officer added.

Reacting to the arrest of the released prisoners, a senior prison officer, who wished to remain anonymous, said they are complying with the courts orders and are only releasing prisoners who were arrested in crimes for which the punishment is less than seven years. Many prisoners who were arrested in non-heinous cases (punishment less than seven years) such as theft, snatching, burglary were released in March and April. We only release those who have one or few cases. Snatching and theft come under those categories. We analyse each case before releasing them. It is only done on the basis of the prisoners jail conduct.

The prison officer added that such prisoners are only released on interim bail and their cases will be analysed once the pandemic has subsides.

Prison expert, Sunil Gupta, who was a law officer in Tihar for over three decades, said releasing prisoners who had barely spent a week behind bars back to the society had threatened the citys law and order.

 I am all for releasing prisoners. A jail is a reformation centre. The prison department should have released those prisoners who had spent many years in prison and were part of the reformation exercises. You have instead released habitual criminals, who barely stayed for a month behind bars. They will definitely go out and commit crimes. They may be petty criminals, such as snatchers and burglars, but once out of prison without any reformation, they are a threat to the citys law and order, Gupta said.

Gupta also offered a solution. The former law officer said that instead of decongesting the jail by releasing such prisoners, the prison department should house them in a temporary jail outside the prison complex. The jail manual authorises the government to make a temporary prison in these times. They could make a school complex or a playground as a jail and house the prisoners there. We have done it in the past. Releasing unreformed habitual criminals within a month is a knee-jerk reaction that must be avoided. This will bring chaos.

Housing over 18,000 prisoners, Tihar jail is the most populated prison across the country. There are three prison complexes under Tihar -- Tihar, Rohini and Mandoli. In April, the jail authorities released around 2,800 prisoners - under-trials and convicts -- on interim bail and extended parole to reduce the population within the jail.

With thousands of prisoners living in close proximity, jail officers feared that the coronavirus disease would spread rapidly if the prison was not decongested. The three prisons have collectively reported 20 cases of Covid-19, which includes 17 prisoners and three jailors. None of the cases were detected in June.

Retired Indian Police Service officer Prakash Singh, who served as the police chief of Uttar Pradesh, Border Security Force and the Assam Police, said the police must document the cases of such prisoners and present it in court. Singh also said the prison department must introspect on the files of each prisoner they release.

They were released on humanitarian grounds but if they refuse to mend their ways, the punishment should be enhanced. Many of them are habitual criminals, who made nothing during the lockdown. They are not salaried or work anywhere so they depend on the earnings from the crime. Once released, they may be trying to make them up for lost months and are back to their business. The prison department must carefully scrutinise each case before releasing such criminal,  Singh said.

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When asked about the situation, Keck said her parade  which she said she took on only after several parents asked her to do it  wasnt meant to replace anything the school did and that they were open to being declined; they just wanted for the seniors to have one last chance to congregate. She also said she may have misconstrued what Ryfa initially said about permission.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 06/10/2020



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

star Jorge Nava has debuted his new girlfriend whom he's calling the love of his life.After teasing he has a new girlfriend on Instagram Stories multiple times, Jorge decided to go Instagram official with his love on Monday by posting a photo of the couple embracing during a hike on the Devil's Bridge trail in Sedona, AZ."Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her," Jorge captioned the picture, which was taken so far away fans can't see what the woman looks like."Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is the tree of life to those that embrace her; those that lay hold of her will be blessed."Jorge didn't reveal any details about his new girlfriend, but she goes by MsBlua on Instagram and definitely has a look that resembles his estranged wife Anfisa Arkhipchenko , whom he married on Season 4 of .In the comments section of Jorge's post, his girlfriend identified herself by thanking the photographer who took their photos.And Jorge wrote under MsBlua's comment, "We can't wait [to] have dinner with you and Joseph soon!"Jorge tagged both MsBlua and the photographer's account and added, "It was our pleasure meeting the both of you."Jorge told fans in his Instagram Stories he'll "share at 1,000,000 followers" the woman who has captured his heart, according to People.But until then, Jorge can't help but gush about her."Who's the new girl??" one follower asked Jorge, who reportedly replied, "The Love of my life!""I'm so blessed," Jorge reportedly responded to another person's question about his new girlfriend. "I got so lucky."Jorge also confirmed in the comments he's in the process of getting a divorce from Anfisa.When one Instagram user asked about Anfisa, Jorge shared a screenshot from DivorceFiller.com with the following update, "Case submitted for processing," according to People.Many fans wrote they'd love to see Jorge star on reality TV again. While there's no news of an upcoming project, Jorge revealed he'll be starting up a YouTube channel soon.Jorge was released early from prison on May 11 under community supervision, according to prison records obtained by the magazine."The sky is the limit #freedom," Jorge captioned a slideshow of photos on his Instagram at the time.Jorge began serving an initial 22-month prison sentence in September 2018 after pleading guilty to a felony charge of marijuana transportation.Jorge -- who dropped down from 275 pounds to 190 pounds in prison and now appears even thinner -- told In Touch Weekly in April he'd be interested in returning to reality television as well as "exploring different avenues to get back into the legal marijuana business."Jorge recently appeared on TLC's new spinoff : Self-Quarantined.Jorge, who had been behind bars for one year and eight months at the time he phoned in for the spinoff, said he hadn't seen Anfisa in person since the day he surrendered to prison."The night before I came to prison, we had an argument and things were not going well. I thought we were going to try to make things work, but they didn't -- and that was it. " Jorge shared in the episode."Probably about two months after I went to prison, she told me that she wasn't going to be with me anymore and was telling me that she wished I got 12 years in prison. She was basically trying to get rid of me."Jorge claimed he and Anfisa continued talking on the phone and he tried to work on their relationship, but things ultimately fell apart."Right now, we are technically married, but I ended up finding out throughout the Internet that she was actually with somebody else, and that definitely hurt. It really broke my heart, but there is really no way for me to do anything from in here," Jorge said.Anfisa apparently entered a new relationship with a man named Leo Assaf while Jorge was in prison, and the pair went Instagram official in mid-March when Anfisa posted a photo of Leo embracing her."I couldn't call her because she blocked my calls. It was just a mess. But that's the past and I overcame that. It definitely made me stronger," Jorge said, before insisting he had been willing "to do anything for love" but finally saw Anfisa's "true colors."Jorge apparently informed Anfisa by that point he'd be filing for divorce once a free man.Jorge insisted in April his dramatic weight loss definitely contributed to his breakup with Anfisa."I think she was just jealous of the attention that I was getting," Jorge previously explained to In Touch. "The news about my weight loss didn't sit with her very well."Jorge was a 27-year-old from Riverside, CA and Anfisa was a 20-year-old from Moscow, Russia when Anfisa arrived in America on a K-1 visa to be with her love.Anfisa didn't exactly deny she was in the relationship for Jorge's money, but she believed he, in turn, was dating her primarily for her looks. Regardless, the pair got married in a simple courthouse ceremony.Jorge was arrested at age 28 in February 2018 with nearly 300 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his car.Jorge claimed around that time his prior criminal record -- which includes two previous convictions for cultivation of marijuana -- is why he didn't receive a lighter sentence to begin with."With the charges against me, I was looking at around 24 years or something like that. [It was] some ridiculous number," he told TMZ in 2018."But luckily, my lawyer was able to work out a plea agreement and I got the charges dropped and I ended up pleading to a class 4 felony in Arizona."Recreational marijuana (especially 300 pounds of it) is still not legal in Arizona.After originally appearing on Season 4 of , Jorge and Anfisa -- who met on Facebook -- were also part of the cast of Seasons 2 and 3 of : Happily Ever After?.Jorge and Anfisa, however, confirmed in October 2018 they wouldn't be returning to .Anfisa dedicated her time to fitness while Jorge spent his time in prison, and she has since become a competitive bodybuilder."To fill the void that I felt after Jorge was sentenced and I was left on my own I decided to try to stay busy and do what I enjoy the most and it was working out," Anfisa previously said on Instagram.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 10, 2020) - City View Green Holdings Inc. (OTCQB: CVGRF) ("City View" or the "Company"), trading through the facilities of the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") under the symbol "CVGR" and on the OTCQB under the symbol "CVGRF" announces a forebearance arrangement reached with an arm's length lender in relation to the $450,000 secured loan entered into in May, 2019 which was due on May 31, 2020 (refer to May 31, 2019 news release). Pursuant to the terms of the forebearance agreement, the Company paid the lender $250,000 of the principal, together with all interest due as at the maturity date. The remaining principal sum of $200,000 and interest thereon will be due December 1, 2020. In connection with this arrangement, the Company has issued to the lender 1,000,000 common share purchase warrants, each of which is exercisable into one common share of the Company at a price of $0.15 until January 30, 2021. These securities have a hold period expiring October 10, 2020 in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Due to the current pandemic situation, in mid-March work was temporarily halted on the build out of the Company's 49 Easton Road, Brantford facility. Work continued to be halted until now. City View is pleased to announce that its workers will return this week to continue construction at the facility with protections put in place to protect workers and to comply with Provincial health orders.

City View is also pleased to announce that during these difficult times caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it has negotiated with its landlord who has agreed to reduce the monthly rent payable at 49 Easton Road by more than half the previous amount up to and including the September monthly period.

Rob Fia, CEO, commented,

"We have reduced a significant percentage of the debt payable on our books and strengthened our balance sheet. City View avoided taking on extensive debt or convertible securities early on which we believe positions our Company favorably as we complete the build out and licensing of our facility at 49 Easton Road in Brantford, Ontario. We are pleased to see our team back in the facility this week to complete the build out and appreciate the understanding that our landlord has displayed by reducing our rent during these difficult times. These are all positives as we move our Company forward to become a leading cannabis-infused food company."

About City View

City View Green is a leading cannabis-infused food company focused on the development of food brands, extraction and distribution. Upon the anticipated receipt of its Cannabis Act processing and sales licences ("Cannabis Licences"), City View will incorporate cannabis-infused food production and extraction at its Brantford, Ontario facility. Once operational, it is our expectation that City View will produce high quality cannabis-infused food, oils, distillates, and water-soluble products for the food and beverage markets. In addition, City View owns a 19.9% stake in Budd Hutt Inc. ("Budd Hutt"), a retail-focused cannabis company with access to cannabis cultivation and production licences in Alberta and other retail opportunities across Canada. Through its relationship with Budd Hutt, the Company anticipates securing shelf space, product placement, and distribution opportunities for City View's products. For more information visit www.cityviewgreen.ca.

For further information contact:

City View Green Holdings Inc.

Rob Fia, CEO & President

Email: rob@cityviewgreen.ca

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulations services accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements which are not composed of historical facts. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", or "plan". Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Although these statements are based on information currently available to the Company, the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. There are a number of important factors that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by forward-looking statements and information. When relying on the Company's forward-looking statements and information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include, among others, availability and costs of financing needed in the future, changes in equity markets, delays in the development of projects, and ability to predict or counteract potential impact of COVID-19 coronavirus on factors relevant to the Company's business. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

THE FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS PRESS RELEASE REPRESENTS THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE COMPANY AS OF THE DATE OF THIS PRESS RELEASE AND, ACCORDINGLY, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AFTER SUCH DATE. READERS SHOULD NOT PLACE UNDUE IMPORTANCE ON FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT RELY UPON THIS INFORMATION AS OF ANY OTHER DATE. WHILE THE COMPANY MAY ELECT TO, IT DOES NOT UNDERTAKE TO UPDATE THIS INFORMATION AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME EXCEPT AS REQUIRED IN ACCORDANCE WITH APPLICABLE LAWS.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57588
A survey presented by the Health Policy Commission Wednesday afternoon shows some Massachusetts physicians are considering layoffs, consolidations and selling their practices to try to recoup financial losses during the coronavirus pandemic.

The survey, which included responses from 400 practices statewide, suggests that more than half of primary care physicians, specialists and other physicians are considering furloughs, layoffs and pay cuts for providers and other employees.

The survey, conducted by the Massachusetts Chapter of the American College of Physicians and other institutions over the past two weeks, is not meant to be a representative sample of how Massachusetts practices are responding to the economic strains of the coronavirus pandemic. But the HPC board members who met Wednesday afternoon noted the survey highlights that physician practices are struggling to stay afloat.

David Auerbach, the MHPCs director for research and cost trends, said during a board meeting Wednesday afternoon that some providers who responded to the survey have already taken these cost-cutting measures.

So youve seen that primary care ... more than half, said things like, We have been furloughing or laying off employees, weve been cutting salaries. Weve been cutting services or operating expenses, said Auerbach, noting that physicians could select multiple responses. Thats true for most practices, a little bit less for behavioral health practices.

These practices considered other options, including consolidating with other practices, consolidating with hospitals, selling their practice and generating revenue by providing more services, but a smaller percentage of physicians said they were weighing those cost-saving measures.

A much smaller percentage of behavioral health providers surveyed said they were considering reducing their staff. According to the survey, 32% of these providers were considering furloughs and layoffs and 27% were considering cutting salary.

The most popular cost-saving measures among the behavioral health providers surveyed were cutting services. The survey says 40% of these practices said they were considering service cuts, second only to 41% of behavioral health providers who responded with other measures.

Private practices across the state faced financial losses during the coronavirus pandemic as Gov. Charlie Baker urged temporarily banned elective surgeries and urged required non-essential businesses to close, urging companies to shift to remote work. Physicians who werent working on the COVID-19 response were urged to offer telemedicine as the Republican governor mandated that insurers cover medically necessary tele-health services.

Even hospitals that saw an influx of COVID-19 patients during the surge saw non-coronavirus admissions decline in their emergency rooms, pediatric wings and other departments.

Auerbach presented national data from a separate report, showing emergency departments were 50% down in April compared to a year earlier. Hospital revenue from outpatient services was down 50%, and physician office visits and services were down more 60% to 70%.

Regional data shows that hospital visits across the country dipped between mid-March and mid-April, picking back up again in late April and throughout May. Hospitals in New England and the mid-Atlantic region were the worst hit, seeing a nearly 70% drop in visits in early April.

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Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, is encouraging travellers to start planning their next trip, once travel restrictions ease, with the launch of Etihad Travel Voucher.

Guests who purchase an Etihad Travel Voucher between June 10 and 24 will receive an extra 50 per cent cash value for future travel from August 1 onwards.

Robin Kamark, Chief Commercial Officer, Etihad Aviation Group, said: Now, more than ever, we want to give the world something to look forward to. Valid for two years, Etihad Travel Voucher will give our guests plenty of time to plan their future trip, and with 50 per cent extra credit, they will spend less on that well-deserved break.

Etihad Travel Vouchers are available in increments of $250 to a maximum of $65,000. The value of the purchased voucher plus 50 per cent extra credit will be added to a Travel Bank account for future redemption on flights, upgrades and extras.

To purchase Etihad Travel Vouchers, passengers can sign-up to Etihad Guest, the airlines loyalty programme, or phone the Etihad Airways Contact Centre in the UAE. - TradeArabia News Service
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 10)  Social media lit up with posts expressing sadness over the death of actress Anita Linda.

News of Linda's passing was posted by director Adolfo Alix on Facebook Wednesday.

"This is a very sad day for me. I am trembling as I am gathering my thoughts... She is like my Lola and part of my family. The great Anita Linda has passed away this morning at 6:15AM at 95 years of age. Prayers for her soul. My condolences to her family and her children, Francesca Legaspi and Fred Osburn," he wrote

Alix directed Linda in the 2008 film, "Adela." She won best actress in the 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival for her role.

Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) chairperson Liza Dino was among those who expressed her grief online. She shared a photo of her and the veteran actress, with a caption that read in part, "It was such a humbling experience to have been able to spend a moment with one of our country's living treasures."

Linda was the countrys oldest active actor.

In 2019, Linda was honored by the FDCP for her contributions to Philippine cinema. She has also received numerous awards for the roles she has played throughout her career.
S ir Keir Starmer has torn into Boris Johnson in their latest PMQs showdown as he accused him of flailing around over schools.

The Labour leader told the Commons plenty of other comparable countries were getting their children back into schools.

But Boris Johnson hit back by telling Sir Keir to get "his friends in the left-wing trade unions" to help get schools ready.

On Tuesday, the Government scrapped the plans to get more primary school children back in class before September.

Sir Keir said the Governments school arrangements lie in tatters, parents had lost confidence in the Governments approach and millions of children were set to miss six months of schooling.

He said: We are the outlier on this. Its no good the Prime Minister flailing around trying to blame others.

A month ago today he made the announcement about schools without consulting relevant parties, without warning about the dates and without scientific backing for his proposal.

"Its time he took responsibility for his own failures. This mess was completely avoidable.

There was also a terse reply from Sir Keir after the Prime Minister suggested they had spoken on the phone about the plan for schools.

Sir Keir replied "let's have this out" and added: "The Prime Minister and I have never discussed our letter in any phone call - he knows it and I know it."

The Prime Minister defended the Governments schools plan saying they were being extremely cautious and hitting out at teachers' unions.

He said: I think what wed like to hear from the Right Honourable gentleman is a bit of support for that and a bit of encouragement to pupils and perhaps even encouragement to some of his friends in the left wing trade unions to help get our schools ready.

Mr Johnson added: Last week he was telling the House that it was not yet safe for kids to go back to school.

This week hes saying that not enough kids are going back to school. I really think he needs to make up his mind.

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Cunard has extended the suspension of its cruise sailings until November due to the pandemic.

Simon Palethorpe, the president of the luxury British line, said the ability for people to move 'freely and safely across borders remains seemingly some way in the distance'.

All sailings have been cancelled for its ships Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria up to November 1, and for Queen Elizabeth (all three are pictured above sailing up the Mersey) up to November 23.

Scuppered: Cunard's Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth are pictured sailing up the Mersey

Cunard had previously cancelled trips up to the end of July.

Palethorpe said the firm needs to 'better understand the implications Covid-19 will have on board', and will resume operations only after it has enhanced its health and safety.

It is reviewing every aspect of its holidays. Customers will receive credit for a future sailing worth 125 per cent of the cost of their original trip.

Cash refunds will take up to 60 days to process. Southampton-based Carnival UK last month announced plans to cut 450 jobs across Cunard and its other cruise line, P&O Cruises.
HSINCHU, Taiwan, June 9 (Reuters) - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) is still in talks with the U.S. government about subsidies for its new plant in Arizona, chairman Mark Liu said on Tuesday.

"We hope federal and state governments could make up TSMC's running costs difference between the United States and Taiwan," Liu told reporters.

The new plant won't have business dealings directly with the military, but some of their clients might be suppliers to the military, he added. (Reporting by Yimou Lee; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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On June 9, Madhu Kapur and family decided to withdraw a lawsuit against the Yes Bank management. It brought the curtains down on a seven-year-old legal battle, 16-year-long association and bitter episodes of a family power struggle that would put Bollywood flicks to shame.

Long-running lawsuit

The Kapurs are no longer the promoters of YES Bank. To have retreated to the category of public shareholders is a dramatic change in status for the family that co-founded Yes Bank.

The lawsuit was filed on June 6, 2013 five years after the tragic death of Ashok Kapur, Madhus husband and the co-founder of Yes Bank (along with Rana Kapoor) at Trident Hotel, Nariman Point, in a terrorist attack. A lot has happened in Yes Bank since then.

That was a time when the Kapur familys relation with the Kapoors (Rana Kapoor and wife Bindu, who is the sister of Madhu) reached its lowest point. The main point of contention was representation on the board of the new -age private bank. Madhu Kapurs family wanted due representation in the bank after her husbands sudden demise.

But Rana Kapoor had different ideas. He seemed to dislike the idea of sharing power in the organisation, which he considered his own. Madhu Kapurs daughter Shagun Gogia was denied board seat.

The reason cited was that Shagun, the nominee of Madhu Kapurs family on Yes Board, lacked the necessary experience to hold that position. The Kapurs contested this and moved the court.

The affidavit sought judicial resolution in three specific aspectsrecognition and right to participate in the management of the bank, restrain individual directors from acting as such or holding themselves out as directors of the bank and restrain the bank from making or continuing with any application to any regulator/authorities for reclassifying shareholding into a non-promoter shareholding.

The story however changed after the Kapurs decided to exit the status of promoters in Yes Bank. On May 28 this year, the Kapur family wrote to Yes Bank consenting to reclassify their shareholding in the bank as non-promoter shareholders or public shareholders. Withdrawing the lawsuit from the Bombay High Court was the logical extension of this action.

Could the Kapurs have chosen a different path?

The Kapurs didnt really have any other option. As on March 31, 2020, Madhu Kapur held 1.12 percent in YES Bank while Mags Finvest (A Madhu Kapur Group company) had 0.30 percent, according to data from the BSE.

With such a minuscule shareholding, it wouldnt have anyway made sense for the Kapurs to be in the promoter group. Post the bailout, the banks ownership went to half of the Indian banking industry, with State Bank of India as the majority shareholder with about 48 percent stake in the bank. The old promoters and legacy issues were no longer relevant to Yes Banks new avatar. The Kapurs, thus, chose a logical step by exiting their promoter position and the case filed in the Bombay High Court.

Things were not smooth among the partners from the beginning. Yes Bank was set up in 2004. The understanding between Kapoor and Kapur was that Rana will be the managing director and CEO while Kapur would be the non-executive chairman. The third partner Harkirat Singh left the bank soon on account of differences.

Kapoor dominated the show while Kapur remained largely on the sidelines. Prior to Yes Bank, Kapur had foreign stints with different organisations starting his career with Grindlays Bank and ABN Amro. Yes Bank was his final assignment.

Kapurs death in 2008 was a turning point. The vacuum created by the co-founders death gave more space to Kapoor to have his way in the bank. And he did have his way on every business decision. Kapoor said Yes to most risky borrowers till the regulator said No to him in late 2018. It was a one-man show that eventually led to the collapse of the venture.

Post Kapurs death, according to Yes Bank insiders, the two families developed a trust deficit that ultimately led to the power struggle. Ashok Kapurs family was concerned about their future in Yes Bank while Rana didnt want to give away any power.

The silent disagreements turned to open conflict when Rana Kapoor refused to give a board seat to Shagun Gogia in Yes Bank, the daughter of Ashok Kapur and Madhu Kapur (sister of Rana Kapoors wife, Bindu Kapoor). Since 2013, Madhu Kapur, who inherited the promoter holding from husband Ashok Kapur, has been fighting a legal battle for the joint nomination right and a board seat for her daughter, Shagun.

Kapoor was reluctant to heed their request saying that Shagun didnt have the necessary board experience. This tug of war continued for several years. Finally, in April 2019, the two promoters  the Kapurs and Kapoor  buried the hatchet and appointed Shagun on the board of Yes Bank.

A hurried share sale

In March this year, Madhu Kapur sold 2.5 crore shares in the bank for Rs 161 crore at Rs 65 apiece. Kapur couldnt have sold more than 25 percent of her holding as the Reserve Bank of Indias (RBI) three-year lock-in for investors kicked in.

The irony of the events is striking. Rana Kapoor once called his holding in the bank diamonds forever only to sell it later while Ashok Kapurs family held on until the last moment. The Kapurs sold part of their shareholding only after the ownership changed hands at the end of a dramatic rescue deal. Compared with what the shares would have fetched during the giddy periods of Yes Bank, the Kapurs were forced to sell their remaining shares at a throwaway price.

The end

There are no winners and no losers in the prolonged tug of war for power and wealth in Yes Bank between Kapurs and Kapoors. Kapoors fate is hanging in balance as he is fighting a range of charges relating to quid-pro-quo deals, fraudulent transactions and RBI rule violations.

The Kapoor familys business empire under three holding companies  MCPL, YCPL and RAB Enterprises  is in disarray. On the other hand, the Kapurs too have suffered massive wealth erosion and loss of power. So ends a 7-year-old courtroom drama.
Springfield Public Schools on Wednesday afternoon outlined its plans to start the upcoming school year on Aug. 31 with a mix of in-person and online instruction.

School officials stressed the details are subject to change  and are wholly dependent on trends in the status of coronavirus rates.

Among the key points:

Learning in the classroom and remotely on a rotating basis: According to the current state recommendations, it is expected that students will attend school in person on a rotating basis. In other words, a student will attend school some days in person and engage in remote learning at home on the other days. However, the entire class will continue working on the same curriculum whether at home or in person.

The rotating schedule will continue until health authorities declare it is safe to allow schools to relax the rules around social distancing. As recommended by the state, the mixed schedule is necessary to keep the numbers of students in school at any given time at a level that will allow social distancing.

On days when a student is in the school building, class size will be limited and movement throughout the building by teachers and students will also be limited.

Families will be able to opt out of in-person education for their student and instead choose remote learning only. Remote learning will allow families to access materials, lessons, curriculum and instruction as provided by the childs school. It is not to be confused with homeschooling, which requires parents to facilitate a curriculum themselves.

Face covering: Students of all ages and teachers will be expected to wear a mask or face covering while in the school buildings and on the bus.

Safety and sanitation: Several safety protocols related to hand sanitizing and washing, building cleaning and sanitizing and possibly temperature monitoring measures will be implemented in all school buildings for 2020-2021. School meals will be individually packaged. Safety protocols will also be implemented for students taking the bus to and from school.

Superintendent of Schools Daniel Warwick said he is aware that current plans for school in the fall are out of the ordinary and he understands how a sense of the unknown may cause concern for some families.

These have been unprecedented challenging times for our families, and we appreciate the patience and understanding that our families, students and staff have granted us, Warwick said. We know that people have lots of questions, but we are sharing these very preliminary plans now with the hope of providing families with enough time to begin preparing for the fall."

Warwick said the districts back-to-school model is being designed based on guidance from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

This model puts the health and wellness of students and staff first, but we understand that it may present some families with issues that they will need to address before school starts, he said.

The district has established a Getting Back to School Safely page on its website, where it will post updates as they become available.

Parents with students currently enrolled in Springfield Public Schools should expect a phone call from their childs current school in the coming weeks, in which school administrators will ask parents about their plans for their student in the fall based on the current projection of what school is expected to look like at that time.
Data shows that shark catfish shipments in the first five months of 2020 plunged by 39.1% to US$456 million, with exports to China, the EU and the United States down by 48%, 47.3% and 19.8%, respectively.

As the sector is not expected to fully recover until the third quarter, measures are needed to develop the domestic market.

The shark catfish event is the beginning of a series of marketing sessions to be held to promote fishery products in Hanoi in 2020, aiming to help enterprises in the sector to overcome the coronavirus-induced difficulties.

MARD said it is working with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, trade associations, local supermarkets and distribution networks to boost shark catfish sales in Vietnam.

The ministry is also engaged in trade promotion activities to bolster exports to established markets while dealing with technical barriers and utilising trade agreements to develop potential markets such as Russia and Brazil.

Speaking at the event, MARD Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong stated that developing the domestic market can help reduce the pressure on exports while offering a wider choice for local consumers.

At the event, cooperation agreements were signed between catfish producers and supermarket chains.
The government should come out with a policy for gainful employment of migrant labourers in their home states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, an SBI report suggested on Wednesday.

The report further said that the government can create a comprehensive data base on migrant workers on the basis of travel history on Shramik special trains, call detail records and record of social sector schemes.

"With approximately 58 lakh migrants having gone back to home states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and more expected, we need a properly crafted policy of gainfully employing such migrant labourers in home states," said SBI Ecowrap.

After the government imposed nation-wide lockdown on March 25, 2020 to curb the spread of coronavirus, lakhs of migrant workers returned to their home states.

"...we need to build up a comprehensive database of migrant workers and formulate a policy for unorganised sector workers. Tracking the call detail records (CDRs) juxtaposed with travel history of the migrant labourers from Shramik Trains could be the first starting point of constructing such database," suggested the SBI report.

The CDRs could give a clear idea of out-migration intensity into districts in states that exhibit a high level of migrant labour movements, the report said, adding these districts could then be the starting point for providing gainful employment to migrant labourers.

The report further said that Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal has accounted for close to 90 per cent of the total migrants and hence it is imperative that tailored policies are crafted to absorb such labourers.

The report further said that with increasing number of migrant labourers back in home town, it will now be extremely difficult for state governments to provide employment.

Against such a background, extending livelihood jobs to job card holders by banks could lead to more money in the hands of the poor and marginalised, it said.

"The banks can advance say 40 per cent of the eligible amount to the MGNREGA cardholders based on a simplified application form with the caveat that the interest on such livelihood loans can be guaranteed by the government, the cost of which is minimal at around Rs 4,000 crore," said Ecowrap. '

Effectively, this loan will be self-liquidated when the MGNREGA cardholder contributes labour and pays off debt.

It further said that MGNREGA is no longer linked to the Minimum Wages Act and as a result, for a number of instances MGNREGA wage is lower than the state's minimum agricultural wage. It has suggested a relook at such norms even for a temporary period.
A Texas man was arrested Tuesday in Washington state on a kidnapping warrant out of San Antonio.

Officers found Andres Hernandez, 28, and a 16-year-old victim in Moses Lake, east of Seattle, according to police.

The victim's parents were enroute from San Antonio to pick up the victim Tuesday evening. There is no familial relationship between Hernandez and the victim, police said.

Moses Lake police received information last week that the pair were in the Grant County area. The U.S. Marshals and Washington State Police assisted in the search.

On Monday night, a K9 officer located Hernandez' vehicle in the 1100 block of Grape Drive. Police took Hernandez, who was in possession of a pistol, into custody Tuesday morning. His car was impounded pending a search warrant.

The victim was located nearby and was unharmed, police said.

The Moses Lake Police Department noted that local charges are expected to follow an ongoing investigation into Hernandez' activities in the area.
Virgin Australia customers are furious after the airline's administrators put a hold on refunds for frequent flyer tickets even though the flights in question never went ahead.

The airline's frequent flyer scheme, Velocity, paused refunds for flights grounded by the coronavirus pandemic after the business went into voluntary administration on April 21.

Last month Virgin told customers that anyone who had their frequent flyer tickets cancelled would receive a full refund of their Velocity Points.

They were also told they would not be charged a cancellation fee and would be refunded for the taxes, fees and charges paid for the ticket.

The airline's frequent flyer scheme, Velocity, paused refunds for flights grounded by the coronavirus pandemic after the business went into voluntary administration on April 21

Virgin Australia customers are furious after the airline's administrators put a hold on refunds for frequent flyer tickets even though no flights went ahead

But some of the airline's top frequent flyers have not seen any money for those taxes and charges, The Australian reports.

Velocity is planning to communicate with frequent flyer customers who have been affected by the issue soon.

'Once the administrators authorise us to make payments again, the tax refunds will be processed,' Virgin wrote to a Platinum Frequent Flyer member.

Some platinum members have been waiting more than a month to be refunded hundreds of dollars in flight taxes.

On Tuesday a spokesman from the airline's administrator, accounting giant Deloitte, said all efforts are being made to process refunds and taxes to Velocity members as quickly as possible.

The publication reported one couple are owed up to $800 in taxes for a trip to America in March but their travel agent was so fed-up with Virgin's refund process they were instead claiming the money through travel insurance.

Deloitte put a hold on all refunds and travel credits last month for flights that never went ahead.

Administrator Vaughan Strawbridge instead sought to compensate passengers with 'conditional travel credit' rather than cash refunds in an affidavit filed to the Federal Court.

The travel credits will include the price of the ticket and taxes paid.

Some of the airline's top frequent flyers have not seen any money for the taxes and charges paid towards tickets despite not flying

A spokesman from the airline's administrator, Deloitte, said all efforts are being made to process refunds and taxes to Velocity members as quickly as possible (Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Frequent Flyer at Virgin Australia Karl Schuster pictured)

Deloitte received 340,000 refund requests from customers since it took control of the cash-strapped airline after 65,000 flights were cancelled between March 1 and April 30.

Customers who have not claimed or used their credits during the process will be 'unlikely to receive a 100 per cent refund on any restructuring or upon liquidation'.

'The Conditional Credit scheme offers those customers the possibility of realising 100 per cent of the value of their refund by using the credit on a future flight or holiday package,' the court application states.

Mr Strawbridge added credits were 'necessary to preserve as much goodwill associated with the Virgin brand and business as possible for a buyer'.

The decision on whether to honour Virgin travel credit or give customers a refund will be up to the airline's new owners.

'Potential buyers may be motivated to extend these conditional credits as part of any restructuring or recapitalisation of the Virgin Companies' business for the purposes of maintaining and enhancing the customer goodwill associated with the Virgin Companies,' Mr Strawbridge said.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Geely, the most high-profile privately owned automaker in China, is likely to tap the battery swapping field, which has been long touted by the EV startup NIO.

According to China's Trademark Office of National Intellectual Property Administration, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group registered in early April a trademark for battery swapping service dubbed Yiyi Huandian (in Chinese).



(Photo source: Zhejiang Geely Holding Group)



Liu Jinliang, chairman of the Geely-backed mobility service platform Cao Cao Mobility, assumes the role of the general manager of the newborn brand, according to Tianyancha. Hence, some industry insiders surmise that Yiyi Huandian might serve the vehicles in commercial operation first, especially the all-electric vehicles for ride-hailing service, adopting a same approach to that of BAIC Group.

Vehicles deployed for mobility services are easily managed due to their limited sphere of activity, and more require a fast and convenient way to be recharged by reason of the long daily operating mileage, which may enable the battery swapping model to exert their advantages more easily.

After reached by a local media outlet, Geely didn't reveal when its battery swapping service can be commercially launched and become available to private cars' owners.

Geely's technical deployment in battery swapping can be date back to 2016 when it found Hangzhou Gechi New Energy Technology Co.,Ltd., which was then renamed Yiyi New Energy Technology Co.,Ltd. in December 2019. Tianyancha shows that the companys current line of businesses includes the operation of NEV charging and battery swapping stations and other relevant infrastructures.

Among the Chinese automakers that have battery swapping operations, NIO should be the most prominent one. It has to-day built 131 battery swapping stations in 58 cities across the country, according to local media reports.
Michael Ford is the first Toronto city councillor to test positive for COVID-19.

The 26-year-old Ward 1 Etobicoke North representative, a nephew of Premier Doug Ford, confirmed his diagnosis Tuesday.

This morning I was made aware that I have tested positive for COVID-19, he wrote in a statement.

I have been self-isolating and will continue to do so over the next 14 days as I work from home to participate virtually in city business and committee meetings, and to continue serving the residents of Etobicoke North.

I am feeling well and will continue to remain in constant contact with Toronto Public Health.

Ford aide Nicolas Di Marco told the Star the councillor has been in laying low since he got the test, just in case, but hes in good health, good spirits.

Hes looking forward to city business rolling on, city council starting up at the end of the month. Thats his mindset right now.

Di Marco said he did not know why Ford got tested or if he knows when or where he was infected. The Ontario government is advising people to get tested if they have any COVID-19 symptoms or had close contact with somebody infected.

On Twitter, colleagues sent well wishes to the amiable councillor.

Michael is a fundamentally decent and kind man, wrote Coun. Joe Cressy (Ward 10 Spadina-Fort York), chair of the Toronto Public Health board helping oversee the pandemic response.

We spoke this evening, and as usual hes in good spirits. Join me in wishing him a quick recovery. We need him back soon at City Hall so I have someone to spar with. Get well soon, bud.

Coun. Brad Bradford tweeted: Stay well, Mike! Want to see you back in the chamber when this is all done!

The youngest member of council, he was elected in 2016 in then-Ward 2 to replace his late uncle Rob Ford, and re-elected in the new Ward 1 in 2018.

Two of his colleagues have self-isolated  Coun. Josh Matlow, after he had contact with a man who later tested positive, and Mayor John Tory, who followed public health advice after returning from a trip to England.

Toronto Public Health said Tuesday the city has seen 12,828 cases of COVID-19, an increase of 121 cases since Monday. A total of 9,907 people have recovered.

The virus had killed 952 Torontonians, an increase of eight over Monday.

David Rider is the Stars City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider

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Genworth MI Canada Inc. has announced that it wont be following the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporations lead in tightening mortgage insurance eligibility.

In a statement earlier this week, Genworth said that it does not see a need for it to change its policies regarding debt-service ratio limits, minimum credit scores, or down-payment requirements

Genworth Canada believes that its risk management framework, its dynamic underwriting policies and processes and its ongoing monitoring of conditions and market developments allow it to prudently adjudicate and manage its mortgage insurance exposure, including its exposure to this segment of borrowers with lower credit scores or higher debt-service ratios, said Stuart Levings, the companys president and CEO.
Photo credit: Hotel Esencia in Mexico  Tanveer Badal

From Harper's BAZAAR

Somehow its June (March, and the start of lockdown, feels both like yesterday and a decade ago) and yet this year, like most of 2020, summer holidays are at risk of being cancelled. The thought of leaving your postcode may still seem like an ill-advised pipe dream (the government still warns against any non-essential travel), but hotels all around the world are preparing to welcome guests to a post-Covid reality over the coming months. Inevitably, things are going to look different for a while, with new buzz phrases like air bridges and travel bubbles suddenly a part of everyones holiday-booking vernacular.

The 14-day mandatory quarantine is probably going to put a lot of people off leaving the UK for now. But if you are dreaming of a summer holiday  whether its Aperol spritzes on the Amalfi Coast, saganaki at sunset in Greece or beers on a breezy French beach  this is what it might look like in 2020 terms.

From limiting the number of people checking in, implementing social-distancing measures at mealtimes and the temporary death of the breakfast buffet (RIP), there will be some noticeable differences in how hotels are run this summer. The private hotel experience  where guests will basically feel like they have the place to themselves  is set to become a popular option.

At the family-owned Grand Hotel Tremezzo on Lake Como, only 30 of its 90 rooms will be open to guests. The third-generation current CEO Valentina de Santis says: It will certainly be quieter but richer than ever terms of what it has to offer, as all our facilities will be available for the enjoyment of very few lucky guests. This is our answer to the need for safe travel for those discerning travellers that are still seeking exclusivity while being totally carefree. Those guests will be armed with a pocket-size hand sanitiser on arrival and, because this is Italy, a stylish face mask designed by a local silk artist. The hotels Villa Sola Cabiati can also be hired out, with a team of staff to arrange everything for you, from yoga sessions to boat trips from the marina.

Story continues

Photo credit: The Greek Villas' Villa Felice

The Greek Villas, a holiday-home rental company, is offering guests an experience that will essentially transform its houses into private hotels. This means caterers, cleaners, day trips, spa treatments and even a concierge. The company has also shrewdly teamed up with Lloyds of London to create an insurance package that means you can book without concerns about sudden changes in government regulations. And it can arrange a private jet if getting on a scheduled flight isnt looking all that tempting. Vasilis Pandis, co-founder and managing director of the Greek Villas, says: We have seen an increase in bookings with many being long-term rentals as travellers seek to relocate and escape cities. With this private-hotel experience, guests can enjoy the privacy of their own villa with the luxuries of a five-star hotel.

Tom Barber, the founder of Original Travel, has always aimed to offer travellers a degree of privacy, with things like fast-track security, out-of-hours museum access and private guided tours, but now hes taking it up a notch. We are doing more to create bubbles of protection around our clients when they can start travelling again, including a new collection of road trips departing from the UK on the Eurotunnel, designed to avoid busy airports and crowded planes, and make the most of Original Travels favourite small, boutique hotels, he says. We are supplementing our existing rail-only itineraries to include private rail carriages, such as the new private suites onboard the Belmond and were adding to our selection of stand-alone properties, be they nomadic glampsites, pop-up private camps or separate cottages within hotel grounds.

At Borgo Egnazia in Puglia, outbuildings offer a solution for long stays and are a great option for reuniting families wanting to spend a little longer together after so much time apart  its cassette and villas are spread across 40 acres. It may not have been something you previously looked for in a hotel, but the more anxious in your party will be relieved to hear that theres a doctor on-site 24/7 and a clinic with an oxygen supply.

For Julian Cabanillas, the GM of the Marbella Club, this isnt a new situation. Hotels have been adapting to new health and safety protocols continuously over past decades, he says. It will be more challenging to be able to provide the warm and familiar service we are famous for while adapting to new social norms. It will be a change of pace, but we feel that creating safe havens, full of small yet significantly thoughtful details, will ensure our guests continue to feel at home with us. For those seeking seclusion, the clubs 17 villas all have private entrances and theres a contactless check-in service in place for minimal interaction. The hotel is set to reopen on 2 July and Spain currently has no quarantine measures for incoming tourists.

Photo credit: Ana Lena

Of course, some hotels were already set up for social distancing, long before this pandemic hit. In Mexico, Kevin Wendles Hotel Esencia on the Riviera Maya sits on 50 acres, with no neighbours, three outdoor restaurants and its own beach. Since the celebrity-favoured retreat is already big on its privacy offering, according to Wendle, most of our tables and suites already exceed current social-distancing recommendations. The private villa, originally built for an Italian duchess, is available for exclusive use for the first time ever this summer. The hotel also has a new section with 12 suites, including seven right on the sand, that can be booked by one family or group of friends. We are even able to set up a private restaurant, with private chef and private waiters, exclusively for any group of more than 15 people travelling together, he adds.

For Wilderness Safaris, whose properties all enjoy the heavenly solitude of remote Africa and only ever have a handful of guests at a time, the camps already exist in isolation  and if youre dreaming of long-haul, the African bush is probably a good place to start. This is one instance where socially distanced dinners are a good thing, since the company plans to serve meals in different areas of its camps and concessions, meaning you get the added bonus of an unforgettable experience as well as keeping to two metres apart from your fellow guests.

If youve enjoyed having little Perspex boxes around you at the supermarket self-checkout, youll love the Lake Vanern cabins in West Sweden. The Ben Fogle-approved glass structures have only trees for neighbours and guests must sign up to a three-night stay, (preferably leaving their phones behind) in order to fully make the most of the peaceful setting. It's a good place to ease back in to normal life for anyone feeling not quite ready to face the real world and the rest of humanity yet.

Photo credit: Gili Lankanfushi's Private Reserve

The tiny islands of the Maldives are also a useful backdrop for minimising human interaction this summer. At Gili Lankanfushi, the 45 villas all have open-air living areas, roof terraces and private decks leading to the lagoon  and we can think of far worse places to cocoon ourselves in that its 1,700sq m Private Reserve, with its four bedrooms, private cinema, spa and gym, and slide for grown-ups.

Or you can stake out an Indonesian island for a month, since Nihi Sumba is taking bids for a 30-day buyout where guests will have two and a half kilometres of private beach, 500 acres and an island the size of Jamaica to themselves. The CEO and partner of Nihi Sumba, James McBride, says: For those taking the month-long buyout, we will be introducing more of an opportunity to educate themselves on Sumba, the tribal culture and way of life, which travellers normally dont have time to do this will tap into the new-generation hospitality travellers will be seeking post Covid  one that is soulful, more human and more honest.

So even though things are going to look a little different for a while, theres no need to retire your passport for good  all hope is not lost.

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Predictions that sea level rise caused by global warming will see the world's islands submerged under swelling currents may not come true, a new study suggests.

It claims that coral reef islands, such as the Maldives, could naturally adapt to survive surging water levels.

Previous research has claimed that sea level rise will cause islands to 'drown', with coral reefs being particularly susceptible, within decades.

However, an international team of scientists, led by the University of Plymouth, say this may not be a foregone conclusion.

Scroll down for video

New research claims that coral reef islands, such as the Maldives (pictured), could naturally adapt to survive surging water levels

Researchers say it is possible that coral reef islands could survive due to sediment from the beach being transferred to the island's surface.

The study combines physical experiments with computer modelling to simulate how reef islands can respond when sea levels rise.

It found that sandy, or gravel, islands effectively ride the wave, with its crest being raised as sea level rises.

Professor Gerd Masselink, who led the research, said: 'In the face of climate change and sea level rise, coral reef islands are among the most vulnerable coastal environments on the planet.

'Previous research into the future habitability of these islands typically considers them inert structures unable to adjust to rising sea level.'

He says these previous studies therefore predict enormous risk of island loss due to coastal flooding.

As a result, much of the research looking at preventing this has gone into building coastal defences or removing inhabitants of island communities.

However, Professor Masselink says little attention has been paid to the natural robustness and adaptability of these islands.

'These coral reef islands have developed over hundreds to thousands of years as a result of energetic wave conditions removing material from the reef structure and depositing the material towards the back of reef platforms, thereby creating islands.

'The height of their surface is actually determined by the most energetic wave conditions, therefore overtopping, flooding and island inundation are necessary, albeit inconvenient and sometime hazardous, processes required for island maintenance.'

Previous research has claimed that sea level rise will cause islands to 'drown', with coral reefs being particularly susceptible, within decades. But lab tests (pictured) recreated sea level rise for coral reef islands and found they actually rise with the water

Academics developed a to-scale model of Fatato Island, part of the Funafuti Atoll in Tuvalu.

They put this model in a specialist simulator called the Coastal Ocean and Sediment Transport (COAST) Lab which mimics different oceanic conditions.

Researchers manipulated the simulation to imitate what may happen in the future as global warming continues and sea levels continue to creep upwards.

One scenario run by the scientists was a sea level rise of almost 2.5 ft (0.75 metres), which is expected by 2100, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This found that the island crest itself, the top of the land, rose by 2.3ft (0.7m), keeping pace with the sea level rise and staving off any 'island drowning'.

Study co-author Professor Paul Kench from Simon Fraser University in Canada, said: 'The model provides a step-change in our ability to simulate future island responses to sea level rise and better resolve what the on-ground transformations will look like for island communities.

'Importantly, our results suggest that island drowning within the next few decades is not universally inevitable.

'Understanding how islands will physically change due to sea level rise provides alternative options for island communities to deal with the consequences of climate change.

'It is important to stress there is no one-size-fits-all strategy that will be viable for all island communities - but neither are all islands doomed.'
The Department of Veterans Affairs is saddled with an antiquated supply chain that is short of personal protective equipment (PPE) -- including N-95 masks and gowns -- swabs and other vital equipment to deal with a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, VA officials said Tuesday.

The VA's health care system currently has about a 30-day supply of protective gear on hand, but would need a supply backstop of at least 60 days or possibly six months to cope with a resurgence of the novel coronavirus in the fall, said Dr. Richard Stone, acting head of the Veterans Health Administration.

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At a hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, asked, "So, Dr. Stone, we're not where we need to be?"

Stone replied, "That is correct."

In his testimony, he added, "We recognize that a future pandemic wave may test all of us" in terms of the demand for adequate supplies for health care workers to protect themselves and treat patients.

For decades, the VA has relied on a "just in time" supply chain for deliveries that has been severely strained by the current pandemic, Stone said.

"This system has not delivered the response necessary," he said, but stressed that health care workers are adequately protected despite the shortcomings.

"Just in time for PPE is not the way to go," said Deborah Kramer, the acting under secretary for Health for Support Services at the VHA, who joined Stone at the hearing.

"The supply chain system is still broken," she said, and the capacity of America's manufacturers to meet the demand for PPE "has not caught up to the requirement."

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, noted that at least 33 VA health care workers had died of the virus, but Stone said there is no evidence as yet that the deaths were attributable to a lack of protective gear.

"It is impossible for any of us to understand how these employees got this disease" at this point, he said.

To suggest that "we have endangered personnel is just not borne out by the facts," Stone added.

He said that "no facility at VA ever ran out of protective equipment" despite staff and union reports of shortages that forced the re-use of protective gear.

Stone said the death rates for health care workers in Italy and Spain during the pandemic were above 10%, but 0.8% for the VA.

The low death rate amounted to "doing a good job in protecting our workers," he said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Trust in VA Now at an All-Time High, VA Says
FAIRFIELD  State Rep. Brian Farnen and Fairfield resident Alexis Harrison have started a fundraiser to generate support for local businesses and donations for the towns COVID-19 relief fund, according to a release.

The release said the two have begun printing signs that encourage people to support local businesses. If residents wish to purchase a sign, it said the suggested donations are $20 with proceeds going to the Town of Fairfields COVID-19 fund.

Small businesses are the backbone of our community, Farnen said. From Stratfield Road to Post Road, and everywhere in between, its my hope that individuals in our community will remember our small business owners and prioritize local stores, restaurants and businesses.

As a State Representative, Farnen said he has talked to many small business owners during the last several weeks, and will continue to advocate for their unique needs and be a resource. He said mall business owners invest in the community, and residents have to invest in them, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.

/Alexis Harrison

The release said estimates say 100,000 businesses have closed permanently because of the pandemic.

As a Fairfield native and a person who has a deep love for our town, I want our local businesses to thrive once again, Harrison said. Its been a difficult period for the last couple of months for Main Street, and I hope through these lawn signs, people will remember to buy locally and to support our small businesses.

Harrison said residents must continue to look out for each other during these challenging times and offer encouragement and support whenever we can.

Beverly Balaz, the president of the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce, said the way the community has come together during the pandemic has been heartwarming. She said the effort continues and people have not stopped helping.

Joshua LaBella/Hearst CT Media

State Representative Brian Farnen and resident Alexis Harrison have come together with an idea designed to create awareness to support our local business community through lawn signs and also help build Fairfields Covid-19 Recovery Fund, she said.

The chamber of commerce president said their mission is an important reminder for residents to shop local. She said the local business community is the backbone of Fairfields economy.

Small companies, restaurants, and family-owned businesses have felt the severe negative economic impact over the past few months, and they still need our support and help, Balaz said. This is a perfect way to do so.

Farnen said that small businesses in Connecticut that are negatively impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak can apply for Economic Injury Disaster Loans of up to $2 million. He said the Paycheck Protection Program through the U.S. Small Business Administration is also available to business owners.

To purchase a sign, contact Harrison at alexisharrisonrtm@gmail.com .
Thundershowers and light rainfall are expected in the Delhi-national capital region (NCR) till June 16, according to India Meteorological Department (IMD) authorities.

There is a trough (low-pressure area) running from north Pakistan to over the Bay of Bengal across northern Rajasthan.

A western disturbance is also affecting north-west India and there was cyclonic circulation over eastern Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, which has now merged with a cyclonic circulation over northern Odisha.

The combination of these three systems will lead to cloudy skies, marginally lower temperatures, and thundershowers for the next five to six days, the IMD authorities said.

The combination of the western disturbance and the trough will ensure light rain and thundershowers. Temperatures had soared to over 40 degrees Celsius in the past two days in Delhi, when the wind direction was north-westerly. Now, the wind direction is easterly and there is a lot of moisture incursion, said Kuldeep Shrivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre.

Monsoon has advanced into parts of Tamil Nadu, some more parts of west-central and northern Bay of Bengal; most parts of Mizoram, Manipur, and Tripura and some parts of Assam and Nagaland.

The conditions are becoming favourable for advancement of monsoon into some more parts of central Arabian Sea; Goa; some parts of Maharashtra; some more parts of Karnataka and Rayalaseema; some parts of Telangana and coastal Andhra Pradesh; more parts of central and northern Bay of Bengal and more parts of north-eastern states during the next 48 hours.

The conditions are likely to become favorable subsequently for further advancement of monsoon into Maharashtra; remaining parts of Karnataka, Telangana, Rayalaseema, coastal Andhra Pradesh, entire Sikkim and some parts of Odisha and West Bengal during the next 24 hours, IMD said in its Wednesdays bulletin.

The low-pressure area over east-central and adjoining the west-central Bay of Bengal persists with the associated cyclonic circulation extending up to mid-tropospheric levels tilting south-westwards.

Its likely to move west-northwestwards and become well marked during the next 48 hours. Under the influence of this low-pressure area, heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely to occur over Odisha, north coastal Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on June 10 and 11 and over central India from June 11 to 13, the bulletin added.
Press Release

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited deploys Nokia software products to enhance customer experience and service

10 June 2020

Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has deployed Nokia automation, analytics and machine learning software to enhance the customer experience and improve customer service accuracy and efficiency.

Among the products rolled out are Nokia Service Management Platform (SMP), which automates and simplifies the entire customer care process, and significantly reduces the time to resolve customer issues while improving accuracy.

Nokia SMP was deployed across all PTCL Contact Centers in Pakistan. With this, customer service representatives are more efficient with all relevant information including guided resolution steps - now available on a single pane of glass.

PTCL customers can now enjoy a better overall experience as Nokia SMP constantly improves trouble prediction and resolution capability, while reducing customer service costs. The software is based on Nokia Bell Labs machine learning algorithms.

Moreover, PTCL customers can now have an improved quality of experience across internet connectivity, IPTV and communications services by using Nokia's software solution.

PTCL and Nokia's collaboration includes the already deployed Nokia Network Analyzer - Copper, as well as Nokia Network Analyzer - Fiber, to gather insights that provide remote diagnosis and troubleshooting of last mile issues, further enhancing service quality and reducing customer service time and operational expense.

Moqeem ul Haque, Chief Commercial and Group Strategy Officer, PTCL, said, "We are committed to digitizing our customer experience and reduce customer effort by meaningful customer interactions with higher on-the-spot resolution. This project has enabled us to re-design our workflows with increased effectiveness at a lower cost. Our collaboration with Nokia has greatly accelerated our experience and organizational transformation."

Henrique Vale, Head of Nokia Software for MEA, said, "This go-live deployment provides several efficient tools that enhance PTCL's customer service capabilities and the user experience across the board. We are pleased with the deployment with PTCL and look forward to further supporting one of the leading telecom service provider in Pakistan for its digital transformation efforts."

Resources

Webpage: Nokia Service Management Platform

Webpage: Nokia Network Analyzer - Copper

About PTCL

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited

About Nokia

We create the technology to connect the world. Only Nokia offers a comprehensive portfolio of network equipment, software, services and licensing opportunities across the globe. With our commitment to innovation, driven by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, we are a leader in the development and deployment of 5G networks.

Our communications service provider customers support more than 6.4 billion subscriptions with our radio networks, and our enterprise customers have deployed over 1,300 industrial networks worldwide. Adhering to the highest ethical standards, we transform how people live, work and communicate. For our latest updates, please visit us online www.nokia.com and follow us on Twitter @nokia.

Media Inquiries

Nokia

Kannan K

Nokia Media Relations

Phone: +971 529 823 406

E-mail: kannan.k@nokia.com

PTCL

Fariha Tahir Shah

GM Corporate Communication Mobile

+92 331 555 4560

E-mail: fariha.shah@ptcl.net.pk

Nokia

Communications

Phone: +358 10 448 4900

Email: press.services@nokia.com
A team of scientists from Waterford Institute of Technology's (WIT) Pharmaceutical and Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC) and Eco-Innovation Research Centre (EIRC) have teamed up with University Hospital Waterford (UHW) and WIT-spin out company BioEnz Technologies Ltd to improve the speed of Covid-19 testing.

Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD, announced an investment of 1.4 million in 11 projects under the SFI-coordinated research and innovation response to the pandemic. This investment builds on previous funding and complements the existing research work underway in higher education institutions across the country.

The team will be led by Dr Lee Coffey, a lead scientist in the PMBRC and founder of BioEnz Technologies, a biological solutions company. Funding of 118,000 will be made available for the Expanding lab tests for the virus project through the joint Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and IDA initiative to tackle the scientific challenges posed by Covid-19.

The most reliable Covid-19 tests use a technique called polymerase chain reaction or PCR, explains Dr Coffey.

The virus is cracked open and the genetic material or RNA is extracted. This is then copied over and over using PCR until it can be detected. However the PCR step is slow and can take over two hours. We aim to speed this up and bring the time down to under 30 minutes.

"We also plan to validate the method on a wider range of equipment, thereby increasing the number of labs capable of testing for Covid-19. With the expertise in the team coming together from WIT, UHW and BIOENZ, we can trial thousands of better test options as quickly as possible.

The WIT and BioEnz Technologies team will work with the Pathology Department of UHW, led by laboratory manager Patrick Mulhare.

The global competition for diagnostic tests and reagents is extremely challenging. Increasing test speed without compromising on quality and test accuracy is of vital importance. Given the potential time delay for a vaccine, there will be an increased and ongoing need for extra testing capacity for some time to come, he said.

Dr Orla O Donovan, Biochemist and head of the Department of Science at WIT, brings her 20 years research experience to this project which is building on the strong ongoing collaborations between WIT and UHW.

For molecular biologists Dr David ONeill, Dr Denise OMeara, and Dr Andrew Harrington, the project is an opportunity to apply their expertise to this pressing societal challenge.

We routinely use PCR to address questions relevant to environmental and agricultural research, said Dr ONeill. We are delighted to apply our broad range of molecular expertise and experience to help optimize and improve turn around rates for Covid-19 testing.

For the award-winning PMBRC, this project is one of a several initiatives taking part within the research centre on COVID-19.

We have been working on a number of projects with academic and industry partners around the rapid testing for COVID-19 and the formulation of antivirals to treat the disease said Centre Manager Dr Niall O'Reilly.

Unfortunately Covid-19 will be with us for some time to come but the project funded here is a great example of a team of scientists coming together to tackle one of the many challenges we face. Hopefully the impact of this and other projects funded under the call will lessen the societal burden of the virus, he added.
Cynthia Chandran By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When 28-year-old transman K R Binoy, clad in a black shirt and dhoti, asked Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala to pose for a selfie with him, the latter readily agreed.

The Congress leader went one step ahead and held the mobile phone in his hand and clicked one more snap, giving Binoy the reason to be on cloud nine.

This happened at the Rajiv Gandhi auditorium at Indira Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram after Chennithala released the logo of the newly formed Kerala Pradesh Transgender Congress (KPTC) on Wednesday.

The function saw close to a two dozen transgenders joining the party officially. KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran, Chennithala and former chief minister Oommen Chandy distributed

identity cards to the new members.

Kerala: Congress inaugurated its Transgenders' wing (Kerala Pradesh Transgenders' Congress) in Thiruvananthapuram today. pic.twitter.com/LX9tw8grCJ  ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2020

Alathur native Binoy prefers to be known as a man. It was a dream come true for Binoy when he got the identity card as a KPTC representative from former chief minister Oommen Chandy. A choreographer, Binoy has been taking dance classes for students in his native town in Palakkad district. Binoy is getting ready to undergo the gender reassignment surgery (GRS) in Ernakulam in a few months time.

Life has not been easy for Binoy ever since he realised that he wanted to evolve as

a man.

I had done minor roles as a woman in a few films earlier, but the production controller asked me to sleep with him if I wanted to get better roles.

Hence, I left the field. I hope to get a government job so that my life as a man is secure. With the

Congress party membership, I am confident of getting our grievances addressed," Binoy told TNIE.

Arunima Zulfikar, who has been appointed the first president of KPTC, came for the function with her husband Zulfikar. Arunima is a member of Kudumbashrees Area Development Society in Alappuzha.

She told TNIE about her bitter experiences as a CPM worker. She had served in the SFI, DYFI and later with All India Democratic Womens Association.

I never got any support or respect from the CPM as they looked down on me. In fact, I had been holding the partys flag since I was three. It is not my fault that I am a transgender. They even threatened to kill me. I then felt that enough was enough," said Arunima.

On Wednesday, only two transgenders from each district had taken Congress party membership following Covid-19 protocol. The KPCC has decided to organise a mega convention of transgenders in the state once the Covid pandemic situation improves.

Parties woo transgenders

With local body elections around the corner in the state, political parties are aiming to garner maximum support of various sections of society, including the transgender community.

In February last year, the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi had appointed a transgender, Apsara Reddy, as the general secretary of All India Mahila Congress.

Three years ago, I P Binu, CPM ward councillor of Kunnukuzhy, had formed a transgender cell in the capital city. Unfortunately, a rift within weakened the organisation's work in the ward. Surya, a popular television actor and member of the State Board for Transgender Justice, told TNIE that the LDF government in the state had been rendering yeoman service to the community.

The LDF government has been funding the GRS. So far, 10 transgenders have availed Rs 2 lakh

each towards the surgery and hormone injections. During the Covid-19 pandemic, all transgenders were provided with ration kits. They will also be getting Rs 1,000 from the welfare scheme soon, said Surya.


Treatment costs up to VND700 million for foreign Covid-19 patients

The 43-year-old British pilot is the only foreign Covid-19 patient in Vietnam who is still undergoing treatment  PHOTO: VNA



Some 49 of the 50 foreign Covid-19 patients in Vietnam have recovered and the cost of treatment for each of them ranged from VND20 million to roughly VND700 million, the Ministry of Health announced today, June 8.

Among the nine Covid-19 patients who made a complete recovery yesterday was a British national, according to Tuoi Tre newspaper. The only foreign patient still undergoing treatment is a British pilot, who was identified as the 91st case.

The highest cost of treatment incurred by a foreign patient who has recovered was VND698 million at Hue Central Hospital.

The 26th patient, a British national, paid VND538 million for treatment, while another foreign patient who was hospitalized on March 11 and discharged on April 3 spent VND598 million.

Treatment costs for foreign Covid-19 patients at the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases ranged from VND20 million to VND45 million.

According to the Ministry of Health, insurance companies pay the treatment costs of most foreign Covid-19 patients.

In the case of the 91st patient, an insurance company is reviewing the file and would pay his treatment costs, which had amounted to nearly VND3 billion at the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases before he was moved to Cho Ray Hospital for further treatment on May 22.

COVID-19 situation in Southeast Asia over last 24 hours

Indonesia on June 9 reported the highest single-day increase in the COVID-19 count with 1,043 new cases, according to the countrys Ministry of Health.

The daily jump raised the total number of coronavirus infections in the country to 33,076, including 1,923 deaths. It has so far conducted 286,650 tests for the virus.

Over the last 24 hours, the Philippines announced six more COVID-19 deaths and 518 new infections. The countrys official tally is now at 22,992 cases, including 1,071 deaths.

The same day, Thailand recorded two new COVID-19 cases, taking the total count to 3,121, including 58 deaths. The new patients were among recent arrivals from Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands. The country has gone 15 straight days with no new community infections.

Meanwhile, all 19 people infected with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in Laos have recovered, with the last patient discharged from hospital on June 9. It has been more than two months since the first case reported in the country.

Laos has been clear of new community infections for 60 consecutive days.

Lao Health Minister Bounkong Syhavong said the country will continue imposing preventive measures against the disease until the end of June and new policies would be adopted depending on the actual situation./.

No new COVID-19 cases confirmed on June 10 morning

Doctor Bui Thi Tang begins a new working day

Vietnam has gone through 55 straight days without community transmission, as no new cases were reported as of 6am on June 10, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Among the total 332 infections, 192 were imported and quarantined upon arrival.

At present, 9,136 people having close contact with patients or entering from pandemic-hit areas are being quarantined at hospitals, concentrated quarantine establishments, and home.

The steering committees report showed that 317 out of the 332 cases, or 95.5 percent, have been given the all-clear, and no fatalities have been confirmed.

Three patients tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 once and three others tested negative twice or more./.

Vietnamese, Russian military medicine forces share COVID-19 prevention experience

The military medicine forces of Vietnam and Russia joined a video conference on June 9 to share experience in COVID-19 prevention and control.

Major General Nguyen Xuan Kien, Head of the Military Medical Department at the General Department of Logistics, told Russian officers that Vietnam has gone through more than 50 days without community transmission.

However, the country cannot declare free of the disease as it still reports imported cases and the situation in the world remains complicated with high risks of new outbreaks.

Therefore, studying and sharing disease prevention and control experience, especially in the prevention of cross infection or infection from concentrated quarantine facilities to the community, is essential.

This was the second time the military medicine forces of Vietnam and Russia had held a teleconference on cooperation in disease prevention and control. The move is in line with Vietnams policy of intensifying international cooperation in this field, thus contributing to consolidating the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership./.

Philippines, AIIB ink pact on co-financing for COVID-19 response

The Philippines has signed an agreement with the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) committing the multilateral lender to extend a loan of 750 million USD to support government efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Philippine Department of Finance (DOF) said on June 9 that it intends to use the new loan to augment the funds needed to slow down the viral transmission and carry out an economic recovery plan designed to fuel growth and create jobs.

In its statement, the DOF said the loan accord cements the AIIB's commitment to co-finance with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the Philippines' COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support (CARES) programme.

The AIIB loan carries a maturity period of 12 years, inclusive of a three-year grace period.

Last month, Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez signed an agreement with ADB Country Director for the Philippines Kelly Bird that would enable the government to access up to 1.5 billion USD in budgetary support from the bank to augment funds for the CARES programme.

At least 7.3 million Filipinos lost their jobs in April 2020 as the unemployment rate in the Philippines rose to a record high 17.7 percent in April 2020 due to the economic slowdown triggered by the COVID-19 lockdown since mid-March./.

Indonesia scraps provision limiting number of passengers on public transport

The Indonesian Transportation Ministry has issued a new circular amending its April rule that limited the number of passengers on public transit systems and private vehicles to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

According to the new rules, the maximum passenger capacity for land, sea and air transportation is no longer 50 percent.

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told the press that the opening of some economic activities will increase travel demand, thus the rule must be adjusted to suit the new situation.

The country has entered a transition period of relaxed restrictions called the "new normal".

A recent report from the national COVID-19 task force show there was a significant daily increase of infections on June 9 with 1,043 cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 33,076 with 1,923 fatalities./.

Two more COVID-19 patients go on to make full recovery



An additional two patients suffering from the novel coronavirus were announced to have made a full recovery from the virus on June 10, increasing the total number of recovered cases to 319, making up 96.1% of all patients.

The discharged pair are both Vietnamese citizens who had recently arrived in the country from abroad. Following their swift quarantine upon arrival at the airport, they were confirmed to have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus which leads to the COVID-19, on May 17 and May 18.

They were then admitted to the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi where the pair responded well to treatment and have since gone on to test negative for the COVID-19 twice in succession.

They are currently enjoying a stable health condition and are not showing any of the typical symptoms of the virus such as a fever, a cough, or shortness of breath.

Both patients will now be placed into isolation in their respective homes to undergo a mandatory 14-day observation period to ensure there is no possibility of the virus reoccurring.

At present, the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi is treating four COVID-19 patients left.

As of June 10, Vietnam has gone 55 consecutive days without new locally transmitted infections. It has confirmed 332 patients in total but no deaths have been reported.

With 319 patients going on to be successfully discharged from hospital, the remaining 13 cases are all receiving treatment at centrally- and locally-run hospitals, with the majority of them in a stable condition.

COVID-19 recovery rate improves to 95.48%

The recovery rate of COVID-19 patients in Viet Nam improved to 95.48 as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.



So far 317 have been freed of the virus, making up 95.48% of the country's patient tally, and the current active cases are reportedly in stable health conditions, the committee said.

The current patients include three tested negative for the virus once and three others tested negative for at least twice.

As many as 8,182 people are under quarantine due to having been in close contact with COVID-19 patients or returned from foreign countries and territories.

Regarding patient 91, who is a British national, Luong Ngoc Khue, Associate Professor, deputy head of the Sub-committee for COVID-19 prevention and treatment said he is experiencing miraculous recovery.

The patient has been put off a life support machine called Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for six consecutive days and could sit up, swing his legs and write, Khue added.

The patients recovery indicates the extraordinary efforts of our health workers at the Cho Ray Hospital, with strong support from top doctors from medical facilities nationwide, said Khue.

The British man has undergone 91 days of treatment since he was admitted to the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases on Mary 18./.

Over US$17 million allocated to support residents affected by Covid-19

The Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Committee has just required the Bank of Social Policies branch in HCMC to continue allocating over additional VND400 billion ( over US$17 million) to provide loans for poor city dwellers who are affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The amount of VND400 billion will be loaned to poor residents who planned to resume their business activities.

In addition, the bank was required to provide more money to those who wish to buy social houses as well as to employers to pay workers who were laid off during Covid-19.

Besides, the municipal Peoples Committee also ordered banks of social policies in districts to disburse state capital sources as quickly as possible as per plan.

Last but not least, these banks must disburse capital source of the poverty reduction fund to give loans to eligible near-poor and poor households in a bid to help them resuming their business activities.

District administrations must collect due debts and back debts. District peoples committees must set up trust fund to supplement for the poverty reduction fund through the banks of social policies to provide money to employees with the aim to restore production and business.

Furthermore, district administrations must help poor residents who wish to have money accessing to preferential credit program and the banks of social policies.

City authorities agreed to delay or extend debt payment within 24 months for those who were affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest analyst coverage could presage a bad day for accesso Technology Group plc (LON:ACSO), with the analysts making across-the-board cuts to their statutory estimates that might leave shareholders a little shell-shocked. This report focused on revenue estimates, and it looks as though the consensus view of the business has become substantially more conservative.

Following the downgrade, the consensus from dual analysts covering accesso Technology Group is for revenues of US$40m in 2020, implying a sizeable 66% decline in sales compared to the last 12 months. Losses are expected to turn into profits real soon, with the analysts forecasting US$0.10 in per-share earnings. Before this latest update, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of US$49m and earnings per share (EPS) of US$0.11 in 2020. It looks like analyst sentiment has fallen somewhat in this update, with a substantial drop in revenue estimates and a small dip in earnings per share numbers as well.

View our latest analysis for accesso Technology Group

AIM:ACSO Past and Future Earnings June 10th 2020

The average price target climbed 8.5% to UK7.95 despite the reduced earnings forecasts, suggesting that this earnings impact could be a positive for the stock, once it passes. That's not the only conclusion we can draw from this data however, as some investors also like to consider the spread in estimates when evaluating analyst price targets. The most optimistic accesso Technology Group analyst has a price target of UK12.00 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at UK3.89. We would probably assign less value to the forecasts in this situation, because such a wide range of estimates could imply that the future of this business is difficult to value accurately. With this in mind, we wouldn't rely too heavily on the consensus price target, as it is just an average and analysts clearly have some deeply divergent views on the business.

Looking at the bigger picture now, one of the ways we can make sense of these forecasts is to see how they measure up against both past performance and industry growth estimates. We would highlight that sales are expected to reverse, with the forecast 66% revenue decline a notable change from historical growth of 9.1% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 5.0% annually for the foreseeable future. It's pretty clear that accesso Technology Group's revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.

Story continues

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away is that analysts cut their earnings per share estimates, expecting a clear decline in business conditions. Regrettably, they also downgraded their revenue estimates, and the latest forecasts imply the business will grow sales slower than the wider market. There was also an increase in the price target, suggesting that there is more optimism baked into the forecasts than there was previously. Overall, given the drastic downgrade to this year's forecasts, we'd be feeling a little more wary of accesso Technology Group going forwards.

With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. At least one analyst has provided forecasts out to 2022, which can be seen for free on our platform here.

Of course, seeing company management invest large sums of money in a stock can be just as useful as knowing whether analysts are downgrading their estimates. So you may also wish to search this free list of stocks that insiders are buying.

Love or hate this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The city of Cleveland managed to do what many other cities of comparable size or larger have not  prevent prolonged violence or loss of life during protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Cleveland.com reviewed hundreds of news accounts of Floyd-related demonstrations in 52 U.S. cities, and found that 70 percent of the cities experienced more than one day of sporadic violence and at least six cities reported protests had resulted in deaths.
Click here to read the full article.

Times are tough, and thats why the textile and fashion industries continue to band together  through partnerships, the creation of requisite PPE, social justice organizations and the like  to assist in the global fight against COVID-19.

And that includes Cone Denim, which recently announced that a portion of its loom capacity has transitioned to produce Maxima medical fabrics for its sister division, Burlington.

Steve Maggard, president, Cone Denim, said being a part of the larger Elevate Textiles family has opened many opportunities for Elevates brands including Cone, Burlington and American & Efird to collaborate and innovate to better serve apparel brands and others within the textile and apparel industry who are stepping up to produce life-saving PPE.

The Cone and Burlington technical teams have been working closely to quickly transition a portion of looms in our Cone Denim Yecapixtla operation in Mexico to produce Burlington medical fabrics. Production is set to ramp up in June, he added.

Maxima medical fabrics are engineered with specific yarns and constructions to provide the highest level of proven protection, durability and comfort, based on levels for specific standards, Burlington said, adding that its fabrics are reusable, which adds another level of assurance of availability for PPE and provides a more sustainable solution longer-term.

Maggard continued, The denim industry is working in many ways to support our frontline heroes and communities. Cone is proud to be a part of such a compassionate community and glad to utilize the skills and talents of our employees to meet this critical need. At the same time, we are available to service our denim customers as retail starts to reopen and global demand for denim increases.

And Burlington said it also partnered with Tilley Endurables, a Canadian headwear company, to provide essential isolation gowns for health-care workers for our neighbors up north, with its aforementioned Maxima line of medical fabrics.

Story continues

Tilly, which focuses on making hats for the outdoor community, has had various partnership opportunities with Burlington over the years, but found a new connection amidst a global pandemic when Tilley pivoted its idle sewing capacity from hats to medical isolation gowns, according to Burlington.

Allen Smith, president, Burlington, Safety Components & A&E, Americas, said, Burlington is proud to be a part of an industry with such compassion and call to action as we have seen in the fight against COVID-19. The scarcity of PPE, due to the COVID-19 crisis, has reinforced the importance of reusable PPE, and we are pleased to offer our expertise to support Tilley as they step up to produce lifesaving isolation gowns.

Tilleys chief executive officer, Andrew Prendergast, said the firm had no knowledge of how to make isolation gowns prior to COVID-19. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put out a national call in mid-March for all companies who could make personal protective equipment to register with the Canadian government. We had just halted our sewing operations and furloughed 80 percent of our employees.

While we did not have direct knowledge of how to make isolation gowns, we were confident in the skills of our employees to pivot from hats to PPE with the right resources. We started working directly with Toronto East Health Network to create a new isolation gown. It was a fascinating process and moved extremely quickly.

After a series of conversations and phone calls, Tilly eventually hooked up with Burlington to use its Maxima medical fabrics.

Protective fabrics are in short supply, so we set out to find a suitable fabric. In talking with our elastic supplier American & Efird, they shared that a sister company within their own Elevate Textiles group was supplying another Canadian brand with medical fabrics. Our operations director put in a call, which connected us with a sales representative from Burlington  a familiar name and trusted supplier of fabrics to us, Prendergast explained.

The companies said the process of designing its isolation gown prototype also involved EcoTex, a provider of laundry and linen services, who provided fabric specifications and patterns.

And a mere eight weeks later, they had a prototype gown. Predergast continued, The prototype gown made from Burlingtons Maxima fabric was completed, tested and approved by the hospital, and immediately put into production. Toronto Healths support has been tremendous in trusting Tilley to deliver the same quality and care in gowns that we do in our hats  and they continue to champion our gowns and Burlingtons fabric every day.

To date, Tilley has produced more than 5,000 isolation gowns, primarily supplying long-term health facilities within the Toronto East Health Network and more recently, dental facilities, according to the companies.

And designers, too, continue to help move the mission forward. Sonia Carrasco, an eponymously named sustainable fashion brand based in Spain, said its been making masks  utterly stylish masks that feature an opening for a filter, and come in three two-tone colors  with leftover fabrics from its spring 2020 collection.

Its Upcycled Face Mask is made of 100 percent cotton, and proceeds will be donated to a program run by Fundacio Ared, a civil and social rights nonprofit organization, to help female victims of domestic violence.

For more Business news from WWD, see:

Outdoor Brands Talk Coronavirus Impacts

Brick-and-Mortar, Digital Retailers Adjust Strategies in Wake of Coronavirus

Field Notes: How Fabric Is Helping Save the Planet

Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Hawley Urges Barr to Launch Civil Rights Probe Into State Restrictions on Religious Gatherings

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is asking Attorney General William Barr to launch a civil rights investigation into jurisdictions that appear to be singling out religious individuals and groups for restrictions despite allowing George Floyd protests to take place.

Hawley expressed his concerns in a letter to the attorney general on Tuesday arguing that state and local officials cannot be permitted to continue imposing strict caps on religious gatherings such as limiting in-person services to 10 or fewer people while they allow thousands of people to gather closely during demonstrations.

States cannot allow one but prohibit the other, Hawley wrote in his letter (pdf).

He acknowledged that people are rightly angry about the death of George Floyd and should be able to protest peacefully but he added that when officials treat religious gatherings differently to mass gatherings of protests, it violates free speech and free exercise rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The First Amendment prohibits state officials from banning meetings based on the ideas that will be expressed, he said. State officials have determined that the message behind the current protests is worth saying. But state officials cannot block religious speech while allowing protests simply because the states think the protest speech is more valuable.

He ended his letter urging Barr to open a full civil rights investigation and to bring lawsuits that are necessary to secure the First Amendment rights of Americans.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also raised concerns on the Senate floor on Tuesday about the double standards taking place across the country, saying that some state and local leaders are praising the protests over Floyds death, even taking photos with protesters, despite having criticized protests over other causes in the last few weeks.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaks during a news briefing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on April 21, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

I have no criticism for the millions of Americans who peacefully demonstrated in recent days. Their cause is beyond righteous. It is the inconsistency from leaders that has been baffling, McConnell said, citing Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser as examples.

Here in the District of Columbia, the mayor celebrates massive street protests. She actually joins them herself, but on her command, churches and houses of worship remain shut, he said. I believe even the largest church buildings in the District are still subject to the 10-person limit for the things the mayor deems inessential.

He argued that free speech, free assembly, and free exercise of religion are all First Amendment rights that have the same constitutional pedigree.

Politicians are now picking and choosing within the First Amendment itself, he said.

Protesters have flouted social distancing guidelines and have gathered in large numbers over the past week to demonstrate the death of Floyd, a black man who died while in the custody of Minneapolis police. Over the weekend, the number of protesters reached record levels as people flooded the streets of cities including San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, and Chicago, in which many of them appeared peaceful.

Public perception over large public gatherings has changed after Floyds death. Over 1,200 health professionals signed an open letter that called for the government to not disband protests under the guise of maintaining public health for COVID-19 restrictions. The letter attempted to differentiate the current Floyd protests with previous protests against stay-at-home orders.

Barr has been vocal about the need to protect constitutional rights and civil liberties even during a public health crisis. The attorney general has previously said that while it is important that state and local officials put in broad measures to mitigate the spread of the pandemic at the beginning, these measures should be rolled back when the flow of cases begins to ebb. He said officials should then look into more targeted approaches.

He has also issued a memorandum directing federal prosecutors to be on the lookout for state and local restrictions that could be running afoul of the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times request to comment on the letter.

An earlier version of the article misstated the abbreviation for Missouri.
The company that has purchased retailers such as Aeropostale, Barneys New York and Forever 21 out of bankruptcy is looking for buying opportunities during the coronavirus pandemic.

"My strategy is simple. Buy low, sell high," Authentic Brands Group Chief Executive Jamie Salter told CNBC in a phone interview.

"We make sure, if we get into retail, that [the company] has a purpose," he said. "If it doesn't have a purpose, we find a purpose."

The pandemic, which forced thousands of retailers' stores and malls shut toward the end of March, has strained many businesses' liquidity and already pushed some over the brink and into bankruptcy. Department store chains Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney and Stage Stores have each filed Chapter 11 during the crisis. So did apparel maker J.Crew, along with the home goods chain Tuesday Morning. Pier 1 Imports, which had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection before the coronavirus being declared a pandemic, could not find a buyer during the crisis and has been forced to liquidate.

Now, many of these of companies are looking for a new owner for bits and pieces  or in some instances all  of their businesses.

That buyer could end up being ABG. It has been for a number of other struggling names. ABG also currently manages the apparel brand Nautica, sportswear maker Juicy Couture and shoe company Nine West, among others.

"I think there is a place for J.C. Penney," Salter said, citing one example of a bankrupted company he views worth saving. "They have been floundering. They haven't really found their spot. ... But I think there is a play for J.C. Penney. I think J.C. Penney needs a purpose. And I have my ideas on what it should be."

He declined to comment on whether he has held talks with Penney. Private equity firm Sycamore has been considering buying Penney outright or taking a stake in the department store, according to Reuters. That report suggested a variety of potential transactions are being considered.

Penney has until July 15 to receive the funding it needs and to meet the milestones required of it by its bankruptcy lenders, CNBC previously reported. Otherwise, it will head toward a potential sale.

Meantime, men's apparel maker Brooks Brothers is talking to banks about raising financing for a potential bankruptcy that could come as soon as July, people familiar with the matter have told CNBC.

"Brooks Brothers is a global brand," Salter commented. "I am looking at it from a global standpoint. Certain brands travel, and certain brands don't travel."

He also said J.Crew, known for its preppy looks, is a brand that is well recognized globally.

It's possible ABG could do more deals with megamall owners such as Simon Property Group and Brookfield, given their track record. The three came together to acquire Forever 21 out of bankruptcy. And they all have ownership of the teen apparel company Aeropostale.

Brookfield in early May said it was launching a retail revitalization program to focus on taking noncontrolling stakes in retailers to assist them with their capital needs. It said it was targeting spending $5 billion on the plan.

"We are partners with our landlords," ABG's Salter said.

Meantime, as shopping malls reopen across the U.S. and local lockdown restrictions are easing, Salter said he has been impressed with the bounce back among consumers.

"The malls are busy," he said. "People are going with a purpose. Average transactions are way up, and the numbers are increasingly getting better."

"Apparel will be back," he added. "People are not necessarily buying less apparel, they are buying different apparel. My guess is Lululemon sales are through the roof right now."
Linn and Benton counties are getting more than $10 million combined in Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) funds, transportation director Mark Volmert told the Linn County Board of Commissioners Tuesday morning by telephone.

Volmert noted that the $2 trillion CARES federal relief package included $25 billion for public transportation programs. Almost $23 billion will go to urban programs, and $2.3 billion will go to rural programs.

Volmert said the city of Albany will receive $2.8 million and the city of Corvallis already has received its $7.3 million.

CARES Act funds do not require a local match and may be used to help transit agencies maintain services and compensate for lost revenues during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Volmert said Oregon will also receive another $42.6 million in Section 5311 (Federal Grants for Rural Areas) funding. ODOT will allocate those funds to 35 programs, including $9.3 million locally.

Local programs will receive the equivalent of about one year of their current allocations. The Linn Shuttle will receive about $144,210; the Sweet Home Dial-A-Bus will receive $104,500; and Lebanons Dial-A-Bus program will receive $95,208.

In other business, the commissioners:

 Approved several financial transfers as the fiscal year end nears. Among them: $22,100 from contingency to personal services for general administration payroll and transfer for books to the law library; $41,000 for Road Department fleet maintenance; $200,000 from federal forest funds to the Linn County Sheriffs Office; $30,000 from personal services to materials and services for Juvenile Department payroll; $12,000 from materials and services to the Juvenile Department for year-end expenditures; $600 from the general fund for the law library books; and $52,000 from personal services and contingency for payroll for Public Health and Environmental Health and to purchase COVID-19 supplies.

 Accepted bids for roofing the General Services building. The engineers estimate was $108,840. Bids were: ABC Roofing, Clackamas, $174,620; J.R. Swigart Co., Pasco, Washington, $187,000; McDonald and Wetle, Portland, $218,000; Snyder, Tigard, $192,612.

 Approved the Linn County Sheriffs Office initiating a request for proposals to provide food and commissary services at the jail.

 Were told by Planning Director Robert Wheeldon that the department is on track to meet or exceed its annual budgeted revenue due to larger-than-expected industrial development and an increase in site-built dwellings in rural areas during the past year.

 Approved an agreement between Linn County Public Health and the Oregon Department of Corrections for $192,008 in pass-through funds to pay for a probation officer liaison, transitional housing, transportation assistance, DMV identification assistance and shelter services.

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Police officers make an arrest on the Stewartstown road in west Belfast after pursuing a vehicle through Lisburn.

Police officers make an arrest on the Stewartstown road in west Belfast after pursuing a vehicle through Lisburn.

A 15-year-old boy was arrested following a police pursuit between Lisburn and west Belfast on Tuesday night.

Police observed a Saab car driving in the Colinglen Road area of Lisburn and established the vehicle did not have valid insurance. The vehicle subsequently failed to stop for police and a pursuit by an appropriately trained police driver was initiated. The vehicle continued at high speed in the direction of west Belfast.

A stinger device was deployed by police in the Stewartstown Road area and the car was brought to a halt.

A 15-year-old male was arrested on suspicion of a number of offences and has since been released pending a report to the PPS.

Officers would encourage anyone who witnessed this incident or anyone with any dashcam footage to contact police in Lisburn on 101 quoting reference 1861 09/06/20 or submit a report online using our non-emergency reporting form via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-10 17:39:05|Editor: huaxia

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TIANJIN, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Chen Guoqiang, former vice governor of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Wednesday stood trial at the First Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin on charges of taking bribes.

Chen is accused of taking advantage of his various posts in Shaanxi or the convenience associated with his status to seek benefits for relevant companies and individuals in project contracting, obtaining loans and personnel promotion and recruitment between 2006 and 2018.

In return, he accepted money and gifts worth 35.66 million yuan (about 5 million U.S. dollars) either himself or via his family members, according to the prosecutors.

During the court trial, prosecutors presented evidence, and the defendant and his lawyers cross-examined the evidence. Both sides gave their own full accounts.

In his final statement, Chen pleaded guilty and expressed remorse.

The trial was open to the public and was attended by legislators, political advisors, press and members of the public.

The sentence will be announced at a later date. Enditem
Michigan on Tuesday recorded the lowest number of new COVID-19 cases reported in a 24-hour period since the first week the pandemic took hold in the state.

And while experts say to expect a second wave of COVID-19 infections later this year, they also say the surge severity will depend in part on adherence to social distancing guidelines and wearing a mask in enclosed public spaces.

Below is a look at a few recent developments in the coronavirus crisis in Michigan:

Is a second wave of coronavirus inevitable? Michigan nears critical point to suppress another outbreak

Epidemiologists say it's highly likely Michigan will see a second wave of COVID-19 later this year.

Even with business and social restrictions being eased back, Lixin Zhang, a professor at Michigan State Universitys Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, told MLive that it's too early for the public to adopt a "pre-pandemic" mindset.

One of the key factors in how severe the second wave will be, Zhang said, is whether people continue to follow social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines.

The professor likened the current situation in the state to a fire that's been put out but with embers scattered about that can reignite if people relax their guard.

Epidemiologists, including the director of the CDC, expect an increase in COVID-19 cases in the fall and winter months.

Michigan clerks prepare for the worst as coronavirus looms over 2020 elections

With new cases still being reported -- albeit at a much, much slower rate -- and the threat of a second wave in the fall, election officials in the state are gearing up for elections in August and November that could look far different from the usual.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson recently told MLive that her office is spending $11.2 in federal COVID-19 relief dollars to promote absentee voting and procure sanitization and other hygeine promotion measures for poll workers and voters.

With vote-by-mail being promoted as the safer alternative, many voters might not even see the inside of a voting booth. Benson's office mailed every registered voter an absentee ballot application for the upcoming elections.

Beson said her office is expecting the number of ballots cast in the Nov. 3 presidential election to double or potentially triple. The sharp increase in absentee ballots could mean a delay in election results.

Michigans 108 new coronavirus cases is fewest since week 1 of pandemic

On Tuesday, the state recorded 108 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 -- the lowest number of new cases in a 24-hour period since the first week the pandemic took hold in the state.

In addition to those new cases, the state also reported 25 more COVID-19 deaths, bringing the state's totals to 59,107 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 5,698 deaths linked to the infectious respiratory virus.

State health officials say another 5,891 probable cases and 245 probable deaths have yet to be confirmed positives by testing.

The latest seven-day average for new cases per day is 197, which is the lowest average since March 20. The seven-day moving average for new deaths is at 21, the fewest since March 26.

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Michigan Democrats seek more worker protections as coronavirus restrictions are lifted

Democrats in the state legislature, as well as labor groups, are calling for additional paid sick time for workers and other measures to protect those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The plan laid out this week by members of the Michigan Legislative Labor Caucus calls for workers to be able to stay home without being penalized if they are required to self-quarantine, stay home to care for a sick family member or are at heightened risk of complications from COVID-19.

The plan additionally seeks to rollback significant revisions to a citizen-led paid sick time proposal. In 2018, the Republican-led legislature opted to pass the initiative and amend it later on, significantly narrowing its scope.

Still more measures proposed include allowing workers to be eligible for unemployment compensation if they leave an unsafe work environment, as well as the creation of standards for scheduling and shift notices.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Read more:

How Michigan couples are getting married - or not - during the coronavirus pandemic

Health department could force big Flint-area summer events to cancel

Diners flock to downtown Flint restaurants as order is lifted

Blue Cross Blue Shield waiving coronavirus treatment costs for Michigan members through year end

Mackinac Policy Conference canceled amid concerns of coronavirus resurgence
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 9

Trend:

The number of coronavirus tests conducted in Azerbaijan has been revealed, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Management Union of Medical Territorial Units (TABIB).

As of June 9, 5,809 tests were conducted to detect new cases of infection.

In accordance with the data, in general, 349,200 tests were conducted throughout the country.
PHILIPSBURG: --- Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs announced on Wednesday during the Council of Ministers press briefing that a patient was admitted to the St. Maarten Medical Center, (COVID-19 pavilion) Tuesday night. Jacobs said the patient is in critical condition, but it is not yet confirmed if the patient is positive with COVID -19. The Prime Minister said another patient who was tested positive was also readmitted to the COVID-19 pavilion since the patient is suffering from other underlying medical conditions.

Jacobs called on residents to continue with proper social distancing guidelines, she said residents should also continue to practice proper hygiene. Jacobs also called on residents to be more cautious especially since inter-island flights recommenced on Saint Martin through L Esperance Airport. Jacobs said St. Maarten cannot afford to have another lockdown to COVID-19 pandemic.
By Express News Service

KOLKATA: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday made a no holds barred attack against the Mamata Banerjee government on Bengals COVID response, saying the migrants returning home will ensure the exit of her government in next years state elections.

At a virtual rally from New Delhi, Shah asserted that the migrants returning to Bengal will derail Mamatas government and her party. He also warned Mamata that Bangladeshi refugees will make her a "political refugee" because of her stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

I was shocked when Mamata called Shramik trains, in which poor labourers are coming back to meet their families and loved ones, as Corona Express. This is an insult to the migrants who were stranded in other states. This Corona Express will ensure your exit from Bengal in next election, he said, claiming Bengal received only 325 Shramik trains as against 1,700 of Uttar Pradesh and 1,500 of Bihar.

Shah was alluding to Mamatas quip that Shramik trains packed with migrant workers would turn into Corona Express.

Hitting out at Mamata for coming out on streets against the CAA, Shah accused the Trinamool boss of practicing appeasement politics. The day the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed, she was furious. I never saw any politician react like that way. I want to ask her why she is against Matuas (a Hindu sect that migrated from Bangladesh) and refugees. Why is she depriving our persecuted brothers and sisters from Bangladesh of their citizenship rights?

The Home Minister also accused Mamata of stopping central governments schemes like Ayushman Bharat and PM KISAN and depriving the poor from its benefits. She is preventing the farmers of Bengal from receiving an annual assistance of Rs 6,000. Give us the list on Saturday and we will disburse the amount by Monday.

Later, Trinamools national spokesperson Derek OBrien described Shah as an imitation master'. The central projects he mentioned in his virtual speech were launched in Bengal by Mamata Banerjee much before the Centre thought of it.
YEREVAN, JUNE 10, ARMENPRESS. The situation over coronavirus again shows some preliminary signals of stabilization, PM Pashinyan said in a briefing following the session at the Commandant's Office.

''The stabilization takes place at a very high level, we recorded 428 new cases yesterday, but I also want to note that thank to our efforts this high level becomes bearable for our healthcare system. In fact, the number of people needing hospitalization declines every day. If we are able to preserve this pace, we will completely solve the problem over hospitalization and will enter the stage of overcoming coronavirus pandemic, better to say, will move towards 0 cases'', ARMENPRESS reports the PM as saying.

According to Nikol Pashinyan, it's obvious that the majority of the citizens wear masks, respect the rules, but we still cannot record the desired results. ''Today the police officers fined 1800 citizens for not wearing masks by 15:00. I feel sorry for this number, because fining is not our goal. Yesterday we had an exclusive index in terms of recoveries  775 recoveries. In fact, we recorded some reduction of active cases'', the PM said..

Editing and Translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
OAKLAND (BCN)

Police on Tuesday released more details of a shooting by California Highway Patrol officers Saturday in Oakland that ended the life of a man and injured a woman.

CHP officers told Oakland police just before 10:46 p.m. Saturday that they were in East Oakland following up on an investigation about a shooting Friday night on Interstate Highway 580.

While in East Oakland, CHP officers told Oakland police that they saw a red, two-door 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat being driven recklessly.

Police said the license plate on the Dodge did not match the registration. CHP officers stopped the Dodge in the 9600 block of Cherry Street and got out of their vehicles.

That's when the driver of the Dodge allegedly started ramming CHP vehicles and three officers opened fire on the driver, police said.

Erik Salgado, the driver and 23 years old, was hit by multiple bullets and later died. The woman in the car was also shot and is in stable condition at a hospital.

Police said the Dodge was reported stolen last Wednesday from a San Leandro car dealership when 74 vehicles were taken from the business.

The investigation is ongoing and the information provided by police is preliminary, police said.

A GoFundMe page to raise money for Salgado's funeral has been set up and as of 8:10 p.m. Tuesday had raised $6,886 of its $10,000 goal. The page says the woman shot in the Dodge was Salgado's girlfriend and she was pregnant. Police did not provide the condition of the child.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed a former director at the central bank of Nigeria, Lamido Yuguda, as the director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The red chamber also confirmed Reginald Karausa, Ibrahim Boyi, and Obi Joseph as full-time commissioners of the agency.

These confirmations were sequel to the report presented by the chairman, Senate capital market committee, Ibikunle Amosun (APC, Ogun).

The committee recommends that the Senate confirm the four nominees as appointed by Mr President, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mr Amosun said.

Upon Mr Yugudas nomination by President Muhammadu Buhari in mid-May, some lawmakers raised eyebrows.

In a petition filed by the senators from Akwa Ibom State, they requested that Mary Uduk, who had been acting as SEC DG since Mounir Gwarzo was suspended two years ago, be confirmed as the substantive head.

So, while the nominations were put to voice votes, Albert Akpan (PDP, Akwa Ibom) reminded his colleagues of the petition the Akwa Ibom caucus filed against the candidature of Mr Yuguda.

But, Mr Amosun responded by saying the petition does not stop the work of his committee since they complained about being short-changed.

That petition will not hinder our work. They complained about being short-changed, he said.

On his part, Senate President Ahmad Lawan said there was no need for the ethics committee to present a report on the petition.

The senate, nonetheless, confirmed all four nominees.

Also, the Senate confirmed the appointment of six nominees as members of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

They are Salamatu Mohammed Bala (Adamawa), Alfred Egba (Bayelsa), Adamu Shettima Yuguda (Borno), Oladele Semiu Gboyega (Osun) Bello Abubakar Wamakko (Sokoto) and Ahmed Yusuf (Taraba).

The Senate, however, stood down the confirmation of Emmanuel Nwosu (Imo) on the recommendation of the Senate national planning and economic matters committee.

The committees chairman, Olubunmi Adetunmbi, in his presentation, said Mr Nwosu was not screened because the security report it received from the State Security Services (SSS) showed that there were petitions against the nominees, which the secret police said it was investigating.

Pending when the SSS completes its investigation, Mr Nwosus confirmation has been withheld, Mr Adetunmbi said.
In a very powerful and poignant gesture on June 8, legislators of the United States Democratic party led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knelt for a total of 526 seconds to observe the pain of George Floyd who died on May 25 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

The duration, 8 minutes and 46 seconds, was the time that Floyd, an African-American man, was pinned under the knee of the white police officer even as he pleaded that he "could not breathe" - a cry that resonated with pain both within the USA and across the world. However, the victim, who was declared dead during police arrest, did not become one more addition to the vast number of citizens in the USA who lose their lives during arrest/pre-trial detention. Floyds death triggered a nationwide protest under the banner Black Lives Matter that soon spread across the world.

The Justice in Policing Act 2020 bill introduced on Monday by leading US Democratic party legislators included Senators Chuck Schumer and Kamala Harris and many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. It recommends sweeping changes that will enable US law to reduce the scope for police brutality and make the law enforcers more accountable for their transgressions against vulnerable demographyin this case the black American.

However, given the deeply polarised political situation in the USwith the Senate controlled by the Republican party and President Donald Trump's loyalists and the House with the Democratsit appears unlikely that the police reforms bill, as it now stands, will be quickly approved by the lawmakers.

However, what is significant both for the USA and democracies world over is the manner in which citizen outrage has catalysed the elected representatives to review and redress the law in relation to the police and the use of force against the citizens. The old dictum that the accused or a suspect is deemed to be innocent till proven guilty through due process of law has been stood on its head in recent decades and each country has its own history of police excesses and the targeting of certain minorities.

In another radical development, the Minneapolis city council has pledged to completely disband the police force and replace it with a more empathetic and "transformative new model of public safety"but this is still a work in progress. Bringing about a transformation in an institution like the police is complex and contested and the larger socio-cultural ecosystem and deeply embedded power structures will have to be revisited with appropriate political resolve. These conditions do not exist in a Trump-led USA where stoking white supremacy and race bigotry has become an electoral tool.

The American experience has been particularly traumatic for the black citizen subjected to a history of slavery and related subjugation and this has been evocatively captured by American novelist James Baldwin ( 1924 - 87) who dwells with searing honesty on the plight of the "American negro born in that glittering republic": The moment you were born, since you don't know any better, every stick and stone, every face is white, and since you have not seen a mirror, you suppose that you are too. It comes as a great shock around the age of 5 or 6 or 7 to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indianswhen you were rooting for Gary Cooperthat the Indians were you! It comes as a great shock to discover the country which is your birthplace, and to which you owe your life and your identity, has not in its whole system of reality evolved any place for you."

Race relations have been deeply troubled in the USA and despite the valiant efforts of the liberal spectrum to reject racism and discrimination on the basis of colour and ethnicity, white privilege is an existential reality in American society in as much as elite groups are similarly enabled universallyfrom ancient times to the current moment in Minneapolis.

The transmutation of the US police is an institutional characteristic, wherein the primary tasking of the local police in the American south, prior to the Civil War, was to apprehend slaves who had escaped and return them to their ownersor shoot them if they fled. Thus, the racism on display in the George Floyd case was not an exception but a Pavlovian reflex, where the African American is more likely to be subjected to police intimidation than the white peer. To extend the Baldwin formulation, there was no equitable place in US society prior to the civil rights movement for the "nigger"except as being inferior to the white majority.

The latter servitude imposed on certain communities and the inequities heaped on them by state and society is a reality that the Indian subcontinent is more than familiar with both in a historical and modern context and this can be extended to the policing domain as well.

The Indian police mantle has been inherited from the colonial period (1857 - 1947) where there were no citizens but subjectssubjugated to advance the imperial interest by a white minority through a workforce of Indians who had been co-opted in different domains. The local thanedar/darogah ensured compliance through intimidation and fear and this trait remains deeply ingrained in the institutional psyche. India is in urgent need of its own police reforms and the Prakash Singh advocacy is highly laudable but, alas, remains ignored.

A former director general (DG) of the Uttar Pradesh police, Prakash Singh moved the Supreme Court through a public interest litigation (PIL) to bring about radical police reforms, and a 2006 ruling directed state governments to set up new institutions that would protect the integrity of the khaki force and improve their working conditions even while insulating them from political interference. However, these have not been implemented in letter and spirit and both the quality of the HR inducted in the police, their training and infrastructure support and institutional orientation remains below the median.

Loyalty to the political masters, especially in relation to state police is the more dominant strand than abiding by the spirit of the law and this was noted as far back as 1979 in the National Police Commission report that observed: The relationship that existed between the police and the foreign power before Independence was allowed to continue with the only change that the foreign power was substituted by the political party in power. Four decades later, Prakash Singh noted in a 2019 comment with anguish: Are the police today really protecting the people or they are still obsessed with protecting the rulers and safeguarding their interests?

India regrettably has remained indifferent to its Floyd moments and related law enforcement inadequacies for decades, despite the earnest efforts of many resolute citizens. Ask Prakash Singh, MP Nathanael and others of this persuasion.

Specific to the current US situation, Baldwin points to the way ahead. In his writings, this impassioned author cum activist noted: "What white people have to do is try to find out in their hearts why it was necessary for them to have a nigger in the first place. Because I am not a nigger. I'm a man. If I'm not the nigger here, and if you invented him, you the white people invented him, then you have to find out why (emphasis added). And the future of the country depends on that. Whether or not it is able to ask that question."

To their credit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues have asked that question. Do black lives really matter? The American people have to decide on the answerin the November polls.

(The author is Director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.)
A passenger wearing a face mask is seen at Manchester Airport, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Manchester, Britain, June 8, 2020. (Source:REUTERS/Phil Noble)

Across Asia, domestic lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus are easing, but international travel restrictions in the region remain tight.

Many countries have banned non-citizens from entry or even closed their borders altogether, with devastating consequences for some living far from family.

In Japan, citizens can leave and re-enter the country. Those coming from designated high-risk areas are tested for the virus on arrival and asked to observe a quarantine.

But foreign residents, even those with long-term ties or married to Japanese citizens, cannot do the same.

That put Sergent in an impossible situation when her father died suddenly in April: If she left for France, she would be stranded there.

"I might lose my job, my apartment, my income for quite a while," she said.

The 29-year-old was told she might be able to apply for a humanitarian exemption, but with just two days before the funeral, there wasn't time.

"My mother was devastated. I was the only one in the family who couldn't attend my father's funeral," she told AFP.

"My brother and sister described to me how they wrote a message on a little piece of paper and placed it on his jacket. And that was something I couldn't do," she added, her voice cracking.

THERE'S NO ONE ELSE

Yukari, who asked to be identified by her first name only, faces a similar situation.

She is half-American, half-Japanese and lives in Tokyo with her Japanese husband and their nine-year-old son.

But she doesn't have Japanese citizenship and faces being separated from her son and husband if she travels to the United States, where her mother is battling cancer.

"I'm ... (the) only immediate family that she has. There's no one else ... in the US," she told AFP.

Her mother was diagnosed with bile duct cancer in March, and in April her doctor warned she might have just weeks to live.

Ordinarily, Yukari would have taken the first flight out, but instead, she was forced to rely on friends of the family to help her mother.

After a touch-and-go period, her mother's health has stabilised, though the cancer has not gone away.

"I talked to her helpers, and one of them said 'I think she's holding on, to see you one more time.' That was hard to hear."

HUMANITARIAN EXCEPTIONS?

Elsewhere in Asia, the rules are even stricter, with countries like Mongolia effectively sealing its borders altogether. Even citizens are only able to re-enter the country on rare evacuation flights.

That has left people like Nyamtseren Erdenetsetseg and her husband Sukhbaatar Dorj, who are stuck in South Korea, with no way back and no idea when they will see their children in Mongolia again.

READ: Malaysian boy lives alone in Singapore for months, so that he wont miss school during COVID-19 outbreak

The couple went to South Korea in January to visit Erdenetsetseg's mother, who lives in Seoul. They left their five children with Dorj's mother while they were away.

But on Feb 23, Mongolia announced it was banning entry from South Korea, leaving the couple stranded.

They tried in vain to get a seat on an evacuation flight, and then on May 3, Dorj's mother died suddenly.

His sister has taken in the couple's children, who ask their parents on phone calls when they will be back.

"I don't say anything," Erdenetsetseg said. "I don't want to get their hopes up for nothing."

She has even considered allowing her Korean visa to expire instead of extending it, in the hope authorities would deport her. But doing that would mean she would be banned from South Korea in the future.

In some places, there are signs of tentative changes. China has begun relaxing travel caps for some foreign firms and is increasing the number of international flights.

And in early June, Japan's government said foreign residents now "may be granted" humanitarian exceptions to the ban, potentially offering Yukari an opportunity to see her mother.

"I just pray that ... I can go and see her one last time."
On February 10 and 11, 2021, the Automotive Ethernet Congress of the media brand Elektronik automotive will take place for the seventh time in a row. Please, submit your presentation and workshop proposals.

At the sixth Automotive Ethernet Congress (AEC) in February 2020, more than 850 participants, speakers and exhibitors learned about technical approaches, opportunities and challenges of this technology. Now it is time to prepare the seventh AEC and we need you for this!

The trend towards connected, automated and electric vehicles not only affects the automotive industry itself, but also the E/E architecture and thus the in-vehicle network (IVN). The demand for higher bandwidth, lower latency or better determinism is increasing. This requires corresponding IVN technologies such as Automotive Ethernet. But the actually desired standardization of the vehicle network is not yet in sight  as it was demonstrated at the sixth Automotive Ethernet Congress in February 2020. For example, in the low-end area there are two alternatives available with 10BASE-T1S and CAN-XL, which have their raison d'etre depending on the point of view.

Which technology will now be used to solve the problem of 10 Mbit/s data transmission? 10BASE-T1S is certainly better suited as a pure Ethernet solution for future automotive challenges, but CAN-XL also has potential in the view of some companies. The seventh Automotive Ethernet Congress, which will take place in Munich on February 10 and 11, 2021, will be the platform to discuss this and other issues. In addition, current and future technology and product developments will be the focus of the presentations, exhibition and workshops. The congress offers the opportunity to share and discuss new ideas concerning the implementation and use of Ethernet in the vehicle, and ultimately to adapt them for your own projects.

Please, Submit your Presentation and Workshop Proposal

To impart and pass on this knowledge, you and your expertise are in demand. Send us your presentation or workshop proposals on the following topics by August 17, 2020:

Introduction: Basics for Ethernet users

Architecture: Use of Ethernet in an automotive environment, requirements

Concrete implementation of Automotive Ethernet projects

Physical Layer: 10BASE-T1S or CAN-XL  solutions for 10 Mbit/s

Current and future PHY solutions

Audio/video transmission: AVB and TSN in practice

Safety & Security: critical applications with Ethernet

Measurment and testing, tools

Electromagnetic compatibility: from cable to conformity testing

Applications: Possibilities for the use of Ethernet

Of course other topics are also conceivable!

For those who were not able to attend the sixth Automotive Ethernet Congress, the following series of pictures offers the opportunity to gain a small insight.

Automotive Ethernet Congress 2020

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- Barasa said he had been approached by the boda boda operators who sought his permission on whether to burn the trucks over COVID-19 fears

- The vocal lawmaker stated he had given them a go ahead to execute what they felt was best to secure their safety, attracting the wrath of netizens

- In May, President Uhuru Kenyatta closed Kenya and Somalia border over spike in imported COVID-19 cases, especially among truck drivers

Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa has deleted a Facebook post that incited boda boda operators to burn trucks over COVID-19 fears by drivers.

The MP had found himself on the receiving end after he urged the motorcycle taxi operators to torch trucks in Kimilili constituency to prevent the spread of the pandemic considering most truck drivers had tested positive for the disease.

READ ALSO: Pierre Nkurunziza's wife Denise Bucumi still receiving treatment in Kenya after testing positive for COVID-19

Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa has found himself on the receiving end after inciting boda boda operators to burn trucks in his constituency over COVID-19 fears. Photo: Didmus Barasa.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Netizens photoshop Lulu Hassan, hubby's faces on ashy bodies to protest their rosy love

In the Facebook post seen by TUKO.co.ke, the vocal MP said he had been approached by the boda boda operators who sought his permission on whether to burn the trucks stating he had given them a go ahead to execute what they felt was best to secure their safety.

"It is evident that the Ministry of Interior is unable to block these trucks from passing through my constituency in a bid to evade compulsory COVID-19 screening and weighbridge at Webuye.

I have been approached by boda boda boys who sought my permission whether to torch them or not. I have instructed them to proceed and execute what is best to secure my constituency from the ravages of this pandemic," his post read.

Barasa's post sparked anger with many Kenyans condemning him over his provoking remarks.

In May, President Uhuru Kenyatta closed Kenya and Somalia border over spike in imported COVID-19 cases, especially among truck drivers.

A long queue of trucks at the Kenya-Uganda border. Photo: Daily Nation.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Uhuru amuomboleza Rais Pierre Nkurunziza kufuatia kifo chake

The head of state said the drivers must undergo compulsory COVID-19 tests and be declared negative before being allowed through the border posts.

"In the last week we have unfortunately witnessed an increased number of imported cases among individuals crossing into our countries through our borders; these areas have become a matter of grave concern to us.

Forty three cases have recently crossed the border from Somalia and Tanzania. There will be a cessation of movement of persons and any passengers into and out of the territory through Tanzania and Somalia effective midnight today," Uhuru said on May 16.

President Uhuru Kenyatta speaking at a past event at State House, Nairobi. Photo: State House.

Source: UGC

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

24 patients discharged as Kenya's Recoveries rise to 873 | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
The Tomah City Council has given the go-ahead for the city to open the Tomah Aquatic Center.

By a vote of 5-3 Tuesday, the council authorized a June 11 opening during its regular council meeting at Tomah city hall.

Council members Donna Evans, Richard Yarrington, Dean Peterson, Lamont Kiefer and Travis Scholze voted in favor of opening. Adam Gigous, Jeff Cram and Shawn Zabinsky voted against.

The pool had been scheduled to open June 4 prior to the state of emergency imposed March 18 by the Tomah City Council. The council lifted the emergency May 18.

Tomah is one of the few communities in western Wisconsin to open its municipal pool this summer. Mayor Mike Murray strongly defended opening the pool during Mondays Committee of the Whole meeting. He said Monroe County had reported only 19 COVID-19 cases out of a population of 46,000 through Monday.

If that number isnt good enough, what is? Murray said. How much safety do we want ... other than having zero contact with other human beings? Everybody has to make that decision for themselves.

Cram noted that Sparta wont open its pool this summer and that Tomah could become a magnet for people who dont have access to pools in their own communities. He said most health officials have expressed skepticism about reopening pools.

This is an area where social distancing is going to be difficult, Cram said. I dont know how many health officials we want to ignore.

Parks and Recreation director Joe Protz said the pool will reopen with capacity limits and use limitations. The water slide will be shut down to create more swim area, the concession stand will remain closed and no lounge chairs will be set up. Swimmers will be instructed to maintain a social distancing guideline of six feet.

Its going to be different, Protz said. Its not going to be your typical summer at the aquatic center.

Evans said shes willing to shut down the pool if swimmers dont follow the rules.

Either you follow the rules or you dont, Evans said. If you dont follow the rules, you lose your pool.

Protz said the biggest change will be the suspension of season passes. He said the Parks and Recreation Commission didnt feel comfortable selling season passes if the aquatic center couldnt guarantee consistent access. Twenty-five percent capacity limits the pool to 152 people.

Swim lessons will be conducted starting June 24. Protz said its unlikely the Tomah Torpedoes swim team will utilize the pool this summer.

Tomah Journal editor Steve Rundio can be reached at steve.rundio@lee.net.

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The Bakersfield City School District is investigating an incident involving one of its employees after a video was widely shared on social med
A staggering 17,000 workers, or 3 percent of the United States Postal Service workforce, have been quarantined since the start of the pandemic, according to a recent report by Government Executive magazine. To date, around 70 percent of those quarantined have been cleared to come back to work.

Management acknowledges that 2,830 workers have tested positive for COVID-19, out of a total workforce of approximately 630,000. However, USPS officials have not made publicly available the number of deaths.

The report by Government Executive, published May 21, was able to confirm that 126 federal workers had died to date from the coronavirus pandemic, including 60 USPS workers. However, these figures represent only a non-comprehensive tally.

USPS mail truck (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke with a USPS worker in New York City who was concerned by rumors that there had been a significant number of fatalities at his workplace. He works at the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center, one of the largest mail processing facilities in the country.

Following up on this, the WSWS contacted the New York City USPS postmaster on Monday to request up-to-date statistics on (1) the number of postal worker deaths in New York City, (2) the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus among postal workers in the city, and (3) the number of workers in the city who were quarantined. This information was requested to be broken down by facility and borough.

The WSWS also requested information regarding whether facilities with confirmed cases were closed for deep cleaning and for how long. The US Postal Service is a public enterprise and an agency of the executive branch of the federal government, so the requested information is subject to public disclosure.

The postmasters meager reply, transmitted by USPS Communications Specialist Xavier C. Hernandez, consisted in its entirety of the following: With a workforce of more than 630,000 employees there have been 2,830 postal employees who have tested positive for COVID-19, with some deaths (I dont have other numbers to provide you, sorry).

Hernandez added: Please find all other USPS Covid-19 information here, adding a link to a press release that was posted on the USPS web page on April 30. This press release, issued almost six weeks ago, did not contain any of the requested statistics, and only pointed to some minimal safety measures that the USPS pledged to adopt more than a month ago, such as face masks.

The WSWS pressed Hernandez on its original request, and Hernandez responded: I will reiterate that the number I gave you is the only available information I can provide, pasting a link to another USPS web page containing generic safety material.

The latter site contains materials of varying dates, such as color posters that can be printed out (one reads KEEP CALM AND WASH YOUR HANDS), as well as materials admonishing employees to wear masks, stay six feet away from other people, and to use tissues (then throw the tissue in the trash and wash your hands). None of the requested statistics could be located on this web site either.

One of two things is possible. One possibility is that the USPS does not actually track the numbers of deaths, confirmed cases, and self-quarantining postal workers in New York City. If that is true, it would represent colossal and scandalous incompetence on the part of a government agency with a budget of more than $70 billion, as well as reckless endangerment of hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives. Far more likely is the second possibility, which is that this information is tracked, but is not being disclosed to the public.

There are absolutely no good reasonsand plenty of bad reasonsfor keeping this information hidden from the public.

The Trump administration, both political parties, the news media, and their taskmasters in the corporate and financial oligarchy are currently pressing ahead with the homicidal drive to reopen the economy, which means sending millions of workers back into workplaces where they face the risk of infection and death. This constitutes an incentive to downplay and suppress the deadly consequences of this reckless policy.

The risks of working during the pandemic are substantial and serious. More than 400,000 people have already lost their lives in the global disaster, and more than 7 million have been infected. While 112,000 have already died in the United States, according to official statisticsmore than any other countrymany other victims have suffered debilitating and life-altering health consequences that will continue for years to come.

No worker of sound mind would choose to eat at a restaurant where people had recently died from eating contaminated food, but workers are being told every day to show up to contaminated workplaces where other workers have already fallen ill or have died. In many workplaces, the safety measures that have been trumpeted by management are largely cosmetic, designed to lull workers into a false sense of security, and do not reflect the gravity of the danger.

Managements reckless indifference to the fate of workers is compounded by the complicity of the unions. The four unions at USPSthe American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and National Rural Letter Carriers Associationhave also concealed information from workers in order to prevent them from taking any action that would disrupt production.

Hundreds of USPS workers had already been infected with the virus by mid-April, at which time workers anger peaked as they began to discover confirmed cases in their communities. USPS workers walked out in Coppell, Texas, while sickouts took place in Middle Village and Ridgewood in New York City, among other spontaneous job actions.

The USPS had a deplorable safety record prior to the pandemic. In February, a lawsuit revealed that nearly 44,000 USPS workers had been fired since 2006 after being injured on the job. The criminally indifferent response to the deadly virus is a continuation and expansion of the generally callous attitude to workers health and safety that predated the pandemic.

When it comes to information from management, another New York City USPS worker, speaking with the World Socialist Web Site, put it bluntly: They wont give you any.

Workers speak among themselves and gather and exchange what information they can: There are people that have been gone for weeks, and people who have been gone who never came back, he said. You find out about it that way. At this point everyone is used to that. You will not get that information from management.

He said management conceals this information because they knew what the ripple effect would be. Meanwhile, he said, workers feel like they were being lied to and manipulated. The whole postal system would be in danger of collapse, he said, if there were a full disclosure of the facts.

There was a situation where one of the workers caught it, and the manager did not tell the workers about it, he said. The workers found out, and then next day, half of the workers did not show up. I would feel that way too. They need to give you a chance to make your own decision.

What is more important, my safety or the job at hand? They did not have a clear way to handle the situation. We were pretty much left in the dark, he said. They waited until the last possible minute, until it was already at the doorstep, he added.

He said he supports the safety measures that have been put in place in his own workplace, which include disinfecting stations, masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer. However, he understands that not all workplaces have the same level of protection.

With respect to the ongoing mass protests in the city and around the world, he said he was supportive but he was outraged from before the protests. Police brutality and police racism existed before the demonstrations, he said, and the police are always this way. He said that things would not change through the politics of the Democrats and Republicans. In his view, people needed to stop the flow of money to the corporations and the rich: Thats the sweet spot. Follow the money.

Describing workers struggling to meet child care needs during the pandemic, drowning in bills, and going hungry, he added, You are frozen, but the corporations are still sending bills. The bills are not frozen. The bills are still coming in.

You have these idiots trying to open things up, he said, referring to the corporate drive to reopen the economy. The idea that you can ease back into it, in the pursuit of money, is ridiculous. You cant just go back to the way things were. All this is ridiculous.

Workers throughout the essential industries, who remain on or are returning to their jobs, have every right to demand that management provide prompt and detailed disclosures of all illnesses and deaths. Vague statements about some deaths are totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated.

The WSWS urges USPS workers, together with all similarly situated workers, to immediately form independent workplace safety committees, consisting of rank-and-file workers, to gather and circulate accurate information and enforce the most robust measures to defend workers and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace.
The Reddit community is once again demanding change. Fed up with what they see as the companys inability to deal with racist hate on its platform, a group representing hundreds of moderators, who together oversee some of the sites most popular communities, wrote a scathing open letter to CEO Steve Huffman.

The problem of Reddits leadership supporting and providing a platform for racist users and hateful communities has long been an issue, they wrote in the letter which was posted in r/AgainstHateSubreddits. It has been five years since your return as CEO and this still remains Reddits most glaring problem For too many years, Steve Huffman and the other Admins have stood by and allowed this site to fester with hate in the name of free speech. It is time to enact a specific and detailed policy that protects the disadvantaged members of our communities from hate based on their sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, or disability.

The letter also calls for the company to be proactive in banning moderators and active users of subreddits that promote hate and to hire additional community managers and more people from diverse backgrounds. And the company, they say, should make good on its promise to fill founder Alexis Ohanians board seat with a black candidate within the next three months.

This is far from the first time Reddit has struggled to respond to calls to ban hateful communities on its platform. The company has for years grappled with how much to police its communities. It took until 2015 for the company to ban some of its most abhorrent subreddits, and it took another four years before the company cracked down on r/the_donald, despite repeated harassment and threats of violence from its members.

Despite all that messy history, this moment could be different.

I've resigned as a member of the reddit board, I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate, + I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and Im starting with a pledge of $1M to @kaepernick7s @yourrightscamp  Alexis Ohanian Sr.  (@alexisohanian) June 5, 2020

Ohanian, the companys founder, has stepped down from its board, and promised to use future profits from his Reddit stock to  to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate. Maybe more importantly, the companys own users and moderators are calling for systemic change. The letter to Huffman was endorsed by moderators of more than 650 subreddits, which together represent more than 200 million users.

But if Reddits leadership sees this as the moment for substantive policy change, they have yet to convince their critics that this time will be different.

Huffman previously responded to Ohanians resignation and call for his seat to be filled by a black candidate. He said Reddit would honor the meaningful gesture, and pledged to use this opportunity for change.

I am obligated to call you out: You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence. So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don't get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long https://t.co/VN5XCiYp5g  Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) June 2, 2020

He promised to revisit Reddits content policy to address hate and racism, but stopped short of offering specifics. We will update our content policy to include a vision for Reddit and its communities to aspire to, a statement on hate, the context for the rules, and a principle that Reddit isnt to be used as a weapon, he wrote. He did not indicate if the company would actually ban hate speech outright.

The vagueness of those promises did not go unnoticed. Ellen Pao, who served as Reddits interim CEO in 2015, also responded with sharp criticism for Huffman. I am obligated to call you out: You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence, she wrote. So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don't get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long.

A spokesperson for Reddit declined to comment on the letter from moderators directly, or on the writers claim that their subreddit had been delisted from r/popular in retaliation. Ohanian appeared to endorse their message, though. In a comment on the letter, Huffman pointed to his earlier post, which promised changes to the companys content policy. Wed like to show progress with what we do in the coming weeks rather than what we say, he wrote.

For now, though, all this leaves Reddit in pretty much the same position it's been in. Its policy, in Huffmans words, does not explicitly take a stance on hate or racism. And until it details specifics of its promised new rules, its not clear how much will actually change.
New prospects for workers after social distancing

Hanois labour market is considered to have a relatively large demand after the social distancing measures came to an end, with some experts estimating the amount of newly available jobs to be around 10,000, especially in manufacturing and engineering sectors.

Ta Van Thao, director of the Hanoi Centre of Employee Services said that although the labour market was negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been positively developing recently, in particular directly in Hanoi. After many restaurants and cafes were also allowed to reopen, the service sector is forecast to offer thousands of new jobs.

Currently, the Hanoi Centre of Employee Services is providing workers with a wide range of information about the labour market as well as consultancy services to improve their employment opportunities.

Specifically, the centre collects recruitment needs from businesses and job search enquiries of prospective workers, building a database of supply and demand. From there, the centre connects employers and job seekers in many ways, mostly online via computers or smartphones.

As of now, about 1,200 businesses have registered with the Hanoi Centre of Employee Services, ready to offer new opportunities to more than 12,000 employees.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a change in the production model and the mode of operation of many industries. Since the health emergency is for now controlled in Vietnam, the labour demand is continuing to increase again.

In particular, businesses focusing on tech applications are now looking for new recruitment options to fill their ranks. Therefore, workers need to promptly adapt to these new conditions to meet the needs of possible employers.

Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City has also implemented various activities to support employers and employees, such as extending the time to pay social insurance for businesses, to help restart the labour market which had been frozen in the first five months of the year.

A representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Youth Employment Service Centre said that many businesses are in the process of raising their recruitment targets from a few dozen to a few hundred employees. These targets focus on industries such as marketing, transportation, customer care, and financial consulting.

The centre plans to soon conduct a direct survey about the labour needs of local business to then organise different activities to support businesses and employees in early July.

According to the latest survey by VietnamWorks, after social distancing ended, nearly 60 per cent of businesses have proved a certain ability to maintain and continue business development. Up to 39 per cent of participating businesses are optimistic that they will soon restore recruitment activities, of which 14 per cent can resume recruitment immediately.

In an effort to leave no one behind during the pandemic, Ho Chi Minh City had spent VND640 billion ($28 million) supporting people in financially-vulnerable positions.

Furthermore, an additional package of VND852 billion ($37 million) will be granted soon to support about 300,000 workers without a fixed workplace such as waste collectors, carriers, transporters, and motorcyclists.

In March, Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Council approved a financial support package worth VND2.75 trillion ($115 million) to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 and to support employees affected by the pandemic.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Stay-at-home orders and "lockdowns" related to the COVID-19 pandemic have had a major impact on the daily lives of people around the world and that includes the way that people sleep, two studies report June 10 in the journal Current Biology. Both studies show that relaxed school and work schedules and more time spent at home has led people to sleep more on average with less "social jetlag" as indicated by a reduced shift in sleep timing and duration on work days versus free days. But, at the same time, one of the studies also finds that the pandemic has taken a toll when it comes to self-reported sleep quality.

"Usually, we would expect a decrease in social jetlag to be associated with reports of improved sleep quality," says sleep researcher and cognitive neuroscientist Christine Blume from the University of Basel's Centre for Chronobiology, Switzerland. "However, in our sample, overall sleep quality decreased. We think that the self-perceived burden, which substantially increased during this unprecedented COVID-19 lockdown, may have outweighed the otherwise beneficial effects of a reduced social jetlag."

In their study, Blume and colleagues including Marlene Schmidt and Christian Cajochen explored the effects of the strictest phase of the COVID-19 lockdown on the relationship between social and biological rhythms as well as sleep during a six-week period from mid-March until end of April 2020 in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Their data showed that the lockdown reduced the mismatch between social and biological sleep-wake timing as people began working from home more and sleeping more regular hours from day to day. People also slept about 15 minutes longer each night. However, the self-reported data indicated a perception that sleep quality had declined.

In the other study, Kenneth Wright at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory and colleagues asked similar questions by comparing sleep prior to and during Stay-at-Home orders in 139 university students as they shifted from taking their classes in-person to taking them remotely. As the team reports, nightly sleep duration increased by about 30 minutes during weekdays and 24 minutes on weekends. The timing of sleep also became more regular from day to day, and there was less social jetlag.

Students stayed up about 50 minutes later while staying home during weekdays and about 25 minutes later on weekends. Students that tended to sleep less before the effects of COVID-19 took hold showed the greatest increase in the amount of sleep after they stopped going to in-person classes. After the Stay-at-Home orders went into effect, 92 percent of students got the recommended 7 hours or more of sleep per night, up from 84 percent before.

"Insufficient sleep duration, irregular and late sleep timing, and social jetlag are common in modern society and such poor sleep health behaviors contribute to and worsen major health and safety problems, including heart disease and stroke, weight gain and obesity, diabetes, mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, substance abuse, and impaired immune health, as well as morning sleepiness, cognitive impairment, reduced work productivity, poor school performance and risk of accident/drowsy driving crashes," Wright said. "Our findings provide further evidence that poor sleep behaviors are modifiable in university students. A better understanding of which factors during Stay-at-Home orders contributed to changed sleep health behaviors may help to develop sleep health intervention strategies."

"Not surprisingly, this unprecedented situation of the pandemic and the lockdown increased self-perceived burden and had adverse effects on sleep quality," Blume said. "On a positive note, though, the relaxation of social schedules also led to an improved alignment between external or social factors determining our sleep-wake timing and our body's internal biological signals. This was also associated with overall, more sleep."

From a sleep health perspective, the increase in sleep duration and regularity are welcome changes, say the researchers. For those having trouble with sleep quality, Blume suggests engaging in physical activity under the open sky.

Explore further Restricting sleep may affect emotional reactions

More information: Christine Blume et al, Effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on human sleep and rest-activity rhythms, Current Biology (2020). Christine Blume et al, Effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on human sleep and rest-activity rhythms,(2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.021 Kenneth P. Wright et al. Sleep in University Students Prior to and During COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders, Current Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.022 Journal information: Current Biology
ATLANTA  Jon Ossoff, the 33-year-old Georgia Democrat who earned national attention in 2017 with a spirited but unsuccessful congressional race in the Atlanta suburbs, won his partys nomination in a race for a Senate seat on Wednesday, a day after the states elections descended into chaos.

Mr. Ossoff will now face off against Senator David Perdue, an incumbent Republican and ally of President Trumps. The general election in November, one of two Senate races in the state that are expected to be competitive and could help tip the balance of power in Congress, will almost certainly be viewed as a referendum on Trumpism. Mr. Perdue, a business executive who is seeking a second term, has highlighted his close relationship with the president, arguing that it has helped Georgias business climate.

With 97 percent of precincts reporting on Wednesday evening, Mr. Ossoff had 50.5 percent of the vote, just over the 50 percent threshold to avoid a runoff election against Teresa Tomlinson, a former mayor of Columbus, Ga., who trailed far behind with 15 percent.

Mr. Ossoffs run three years ago in a special election in Georgias Sixth District, a longtime Republican redoubt, was fueled by hostility toward Mr. Trump, particularly among educated suburban women. But Mr. Ossoff also benefited from anti-Trump sentiment beyond the district, attracting significant funding from beyond Georgia and shattering congressional fund-raising records.
By PTI

MUZAFFARNAGAR: Six resident doctors of Muzaffarnagar Medical College and Hospital among eight people tested positive for COVID-19 in the district on Wednesday, officials said.

They pointed out that the doctors were working in non-COVID wards of the hospital and their contacts are being traced.

The total case count in the district has now gone up to 140.

Additional District Magistrate Alok Kumar told PTI here that the district authorities received 106 results of samples in which eight people including six resident doctors of the medical college in Begrajpur were found to be coronavirus positive.

He said there are now 72 active patients while 68 have recovered from the disease.

Of the eight new cases, one person is a resident of Kinoni village and had returned from Delhi recently while the other one is a resident of Adampur village apart from the six doctors.

Meanwhile, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. Praveen Chopra said the Health Department has started to take precautions and the family of the infected doctors is being traced.
With as many as 200 new Covid-19 positive cases detected in the past 24 hours Madhya Pradeshs coronavirus tally rose to 10,049 while the number of deaths registered so far is 427, as per the state health departments bulletin released on Wednesday night.

With the state crossing the 10,000-mark of Covid-19 positive cases it became the 7th state in the country to have 10,000 and more such cases, as per the union ministry of health and family welfares data.

The other states include Maharashtra with 90,787 cases, Tamil Nadu with 34,914 cases, Delhi with 31,309, Gujarat with 21,214, Uttar Pradesh with 11,335 and Rajasthan with 11,245 cases, as per the ministrys data.

Though Madhya Pradesh is the 7th state on the chart as far as the highest number of Covid-19 positive cases are concerned, its death rate is the second worst in the country at 4.24% that is only next to Gujarat which has 6.24% death rate.

The death rates of other states with 10,000 and more cases are 0.88% in Tamil Nadu, 2.27% in Rajasthan, 2.66% in Uttar Pradesh, 2.89% in Delhi and 3.62% in Maharashtra, as per the ministrys data.

The national death rate among Covid-19 patients is 2.80%. Thus, in Madhya Pradesh the death rate is about 1.5 times more than the national death rate.

As far as the geographical spread of coronavirus in the state is concerned only Niwari in Bundelkhand region which happens to be the latest district created in the state, out of the total 52 districts does not have any Covid-19 patient at present.

Of the 51 districts affected by the virus only six districts have Covid-19 patients in single digits while 31 districts tally is in double digits.

Indore tops the chart of Covid-19 patients with the figure of 3,881. Of them, 161 have died. Bhopal follows with 1,927 cases and 66 deaths and Ujjain with 745 cases and 64 deaths.

Ujjain has the worst death rate among the districts registered at 8.59% among the 14 districts which have more than 100 cases each.

The state has achieved 68.58% recovery rate with 6,892 patients cured and discharged from hospitals across the state.

The health departments health bulletin said, Review of the situation caused by Covid-19 is being done by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan daily. He has made an appeal to people to comply with the lockdown, cooperate with the government in breaking the chain of infection and keep away from rumours.
(Photo : marriedbyrevroxy/Instagram) The Gordon's wedding photo

What was supposed to be a simple wedding has become extra memorable as it went viral on social media.

"Some people were saying this is an example of black love, an example of Black Lives Matter, and I felt it all," Kerry Anne Gordon told BuzzFeed News.

Couple planned for a quiet ceremony until their wedding went viral

Surgeon and OB-GYN Kerry Anne went out on Saturday, June 6, raised her fist in the air, along with thousands of protesters along the streets of Philadelphia together with Michael Gordon, an IT professional whom she married later that day.

The couple said their vows at the Logan Hotel, which ended up becoming a powerful symbol of black love and community support as protesters stopped to offer them cheers, compliments, and best wishes.

"It was extremely powerful, it's hard to even describe what it was like," the bride told BuzzFeed adding that she was unsure "if people were thinking about love or protesting, or some combination" of both. "Some people were saying this is an example of Black love, an example of Black Lives Matter, and I felt it all," Mrs. Gordon said.

The newlyweds have been together for about five years. They were supposed to marry in New Jersey in May, but the coronavirus pandemic delayed their plans, particularly since Kerry Anne is a healthcare professional. However, she felt down when their wedding would be delayed by almost a year.

The couple originally rescheduled their wedding for June 2021, but when the Logan Hotel opened its lawn for free for couples whose weddings were affected by the pandemic, they then considered the option of eloping.

Unexpected wedding, unexpected viral photo

The Jamaican-born physician said she could understand all of the changes the pandemic was making. "A lot of our guests are international, so when the borders closed in March, that's when it became a real conversation that we were having about postponing the wedding," she said.

"Mike has always been for just getting the marriage part done and having the celebration part later, but I wanted everything to be done at once," the bride said. She then decided to make the most out of the two weeks they have to prepare for the wedding.

They chose one of two dates offered to them by the hotel, informed their immediate family, officiant, and photographers. Surprisingly, they arranged for their big day with just two weeks' notice.

"Our families did not know this was happening," said Gordon adding they did not even set up Zoom for live feeds with their families. "We wanted to privately and quietly say our vows together," she said.

The big day - a wedding and a protest

However, the night before the wedding became quite a stressful one as they learned about a protest scheduled the following day and en route the Logan Hotel, so streets and highways would be closed. They made early morning calls to confirm guests were coming in time for the ceremony.

Rev. Roxanne Birchfield, the couple's officiant, had been working with the Gordons for nearly a year for their wedding and she suggested the couple to elope instead of waiting for another year to marry. She felt anxious about her experience on that day. "Nothing about the day was easy," she told BuzzFeed.

However, Rev. Birchfield noted that she witnessed "the highlight of the day" just moments before the ceremony. She heard people shouting from the street, so she walked out to hear protesters cheering Kerry Anne, and when Michael joined, she thought she had to capture the moment.

"I immediately thought, this has to be recorded, we can never describe this to anybody without proof," said Birchfield as people can take it in various ways. "I felt that it was a monumental moment that uplifted and gave hope to the movement itself because Black lives mattering starts with a family and a community," the officiant said.

"It was a symbol of hope, symbol of peace, symbol of justice for the Black community," she added. In her Instagram, Birchfield shared photos and snap of the moment and wrote: "My first in-person elopement since quarantine... It couldn't be a better @marriedbyrevroxy WEDDING... First looks in the heart of protest... #blacklivesmatter."

The snap already gathered more than 355,625 views while a photo of the couple got over 2,000 likes and picked up by various media outlets.

Read also: How Have 'George Floyd' Protests Affected Cop-Related TV Shows Today?

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In an attempt to assist state governments to effectively address situation arising out of Covid-19, the Central Government on Wednesday released the third instalment of states' share of revenue deficit grant amounting to over Rs 6,000 crore.

The grant had been released for 14 states including Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Sikkim and six North Eastern states excluding Arunachal Pradesh.

"The government on June 10, 2020 released Rs 6,195.08 crore to 14 states as the third equated monthly instalment of the Post Devolution Revenue Deficit Grant as recommended by the 15th Finance Commission. This would provide them additional resources during the Corona crisis," Nirmala Sitharaman's office said in a tweet.

The money has been released ahead of schedule and as a special dispensation to meet immediate funding needs of the state governments looking to restore economic activity and minimise losses to its citizens due to disruptions caused by lockdowns.

Of the 14 states, the maximum grant-in-aid has gone to Kerala -- an amount of 1,277 crore followed by Himachal Pradesh with revenue deficit grant of Rs 953 crore.

Much of this money is expected to be used by states towards paying the salaries to their staff as sharp fall in tax collections in April has already put pressure on their accounts.
Thousands of holidaymakers are still empty-handed after spending months battling travel firms for sizeable refunds.

Airlines are under investigation for sitting on more than 7billion owed to passengers for cancelled trips, while travel agents have been accused of flouting the law.

But readers have told Money Mail they might have found a way to break the deadlock.

Many say they have had success by going to their bank or credit card provider instead.

Going nowhere: Airlines are under investigation for sitting on more than 7billion owed to passengers for cancelled trips, while travel agents have been accused of flouting the law

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act allows customers to reclaim credit card payments.

Or you can claw back money from your bank via a chargeback claim, which covers all card payments, although it is not a legal right.

Which? says the number of people using its chargeback and Section 75 tool is up six-fold since the start of the year.

Experts have warned it may not be straightforward, as claims are not being handled consistently. But Money Mail has now heard from scores of readers who have successfully won back their holiday cash from their bank or card provider.

So how you can do it, too?

We won back thousands... Victory: Mike Hurst says his family won three separate claims Mike Hurst, 66, from Clitheroe, Lancashire, says his family won three separate claims after being fobbed off by Ryanair. The airline cancelled their August flights to Croatia, costing more than 2,000 in total. He and his sons were offered vouchers, which they rejected due to Mike's ill health. Under Section 75, PayPal and Santander refunded his two sons after two and four weeks respectively, while Barclaycard refunded Mike after six weeks. Mike says: 'It seems the refund succeeded because Ryanair failed to provide it in the time required by law.' Mark Waller, 60, won a 5,000 chargeback claim from his credit card provider Halifax. Payday: Lesley and John Webb won back more than 8,000 by chargeback with Santander and MBNA after their cruise to Japan was cancelled Virgin Atlantic told him he would receive a refund at an unspecified date after he and his partner's flights to St Lucia were cancelled. Three weeks after claiming, Halifax enacted a chargeback. Virgin has 45 days to challenge it. Lesley and John Webb, both 73, from East Grinstead, Sussex, won back more than 8,000 by chargeback with Santander and MBNA after their cruise to Japan was cancelled. The couple were offered a voucher by tour operator Imagine Cruising, but Lesley says the banks approved the chargeback 'without a quibble'. Virgin and Imagine Cruising say they won't be challenging the claims.

So what does chargeback mean?

It allows you to reverse a transaction if services are not delivered. It covers all card payments but is not enshrined in law.

How is Section 75 different?

A legal right under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, it means credit card providers are jointly liable with the retailer for any breach of contract covering goods worth between 100 and 30,000.

You are still covered if the deposit you made was under 100, but the total cost of the goods is between 100 and 30,000.

When can I make a claim?

Card providers usually expect you to have pursued the retailer before making a claim, although this is not obligatory. Experts say you should go to the travel firm and your insurer before claiming.

Should you book a holiday? It's nearly June, the sun is shining, and right about now people would usually be eagerly anticipating summer breaks they've booked, or planning where to go away. But this isnt any given year. Coronavirus and the lockdown means we are advised not to travel abroad, don't know when we will be able to, and might have to take an extra two weeks off to quarantine when we get back. On this podcast, we talk holidays: where to go, when you might be allowed to, and the all-important financial side involving booking, cancellations and refunds. Press play above or listen (and please subscribe if you like the podcast) at Apple Podcasts, Acast, Spotify and Audioboom or visit our This is Money Podcast page.

What do card companies say?

Mastercard and Visa say chargeback can be claimed if a trip has been cancelled due to government restrictions, insolvency or if a voucher or credit note is rejected by the customer.

However, this does not apply to firms based in countries where the government has approved the use of vouchers instead of refunds, such as Italy.

American Express would not say more than that it was following 'normal procedure' and would take into account merchants' terms and conditions.

Airlines are under investigation for sitting on more than 7bn owed to passengers for cancelled trips, while travel agents have been accused of flouting the law

What are the exceptions?

Any payment made via a third party, such as a comparison site, is not covered under Section 75. PayPal is considered a third party unless payment is made with a PayPal credit card.

Goods also have to be for 'your benefit', so flights booked for family members may not be covered, although this is open to dispute.

Should I try chargeback?

There is no upper or lower limit to claims, but timescales vary when it comes to how long you have to make a request. It is normally used for payments you didn't make or authorise, and isn't designed to settle disputes with a retailer.

Unlike Section 75, a retailer can dispute a claim. If upheld, take it to the Financial Ombudsman.

Do some banks dismiss claims?

Which? has previously found that some banks are rejecting chargeback claims when businesses have offered credit notes or vouchers as an alternative.

Most will go only as far as saying they are treating claims a case-by-case basis, depending on terms and conditions with the retailer.

Is it the answer to refund hell?

Martyn James, of consumer complaints website Resolver, says anecdotal evidence suggests chargeback or Section 75 is quicker and 'you don't lose anything by submitting a claim'.

Gareth Shaw, head of money at Which?, says it is worth a shot if you have 'reached a stalemate', but does warn that banks are taking 'an inconsistent and confusing approach'.

m.dilworth@dailymail.co.uk
China has reiterated its refusal to participate in three-way disarmament talks with the United States and Russia ahead of a new round of arms-control talks between Washington and Moscow scheduled for June 22 in Vienna.

The United States had voiced hopes that Russia could convince China to join the negotiations about limiting the three countries' nuclear weapons stockpiles.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on June 10 that Beijing hadn't changed its previous stance that it was not going to join the talks.

"We noticed that the United States has been dragging China into the issue...whenever it is raised," with the intention of deflecting from its responsibility, Hua said.

President Donald Trump has in recent years pulled out of a number of international agreements, such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Iran nuclear deal.

The Trump administration, however, voiced a general interest in preserving New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which obliges the United States and Russia to halve their inventories of strategic nuclear-missile launchers. The treaty expires in February 2021.

But Washington is seeking to broaden the accord into a three-way deal that would also include China, whose nuclear arsenal remains significantly smaller than those of Moscow and Washington.

Hua, speaking in Beijing, said U.S. claims that it wanted to negotiate in good faith "feel extremely ridiculous and even surreal."

China's rebuttal of Washington's overtures came after Russia also warned that U.S. insistence on including China could scuttle efforts.

Moscow called on the United States on June 9 to make a "positive" proposal ahead of the Vienna meeting between Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and U.S. envoy Marshall Billingslea on New START.

Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations by videoconference, Ryabkov said, "My answer to a direct question on whether or not we think it would be possible to bring China to the table would be a flat and straightforward no."

"We need to hear loudly and clearly what this administration wants, how it believes it would be possible to do something positive and not just to dismantle one arms-control treaty or arrangement after another," Ryabkov said.

He added that U.S. allies Britain and France, also nuclear powers with much smaller arsenals, should join the talks.

The United States and Russia each had more than 6,000 nuclear warheads in 2019, while China had 290, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

France had 300 and Britain possessed 200, with India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea maintaining smaller arsenals, according to the research group.

With reporting by AFP and dpa
The double whammy of a pandemic and the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police has sent Americans view of the direction of the country to its lowest level in four years, just five months before the 2020 presidential election.

In a Gallup poll released Wednesday, only 20% of Americans said they were satisfied with the direction of the country, with 78% expressing dissatisfaction.

At the same time, President Donald Trumps approval rating in the Gallup poll dropped to 39%, down 10 points from a month ago. His disapproval rating rose to 57% from 48%.

Its definitely a warning sign for the president and the administration going forward, Gallup research consultant Megan Brenan said. As a sitting president whos about to face re-election, you dont want this.

The last time satisfaction in the countrys direction was this low was in July 2016, at 17%, with 82% dissatisfied. That fall, businessman Donald Trump capitalized on that widespread dissatisfaction, shocked the country and captured the White House.

And just four months ago, in February, 45% were satisfied with the way things were going, the highest percentage since February 2005.

Its not only Gallup that recorded a huge decline in satisfaction. In a recent Monmouth University Poll, only 21% said the U.S. was headed in the right direction, the lowest percentage in its surveys going back to 2013. Almost three-fourths, 74%, said the country was on the wrong track.

And in the Real Clear Politics polling average, 27% said the county was going in the right direction while 67% said it was on the wrong track.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

What happened was that economy entered a recession after being largely shut down to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, and then protests erupted across the country following Floyds death after a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee against his neck for more than eight minutes.

All of that makes for dissatisfaction whether or not you support the president, said Ashley Koning, assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers UniversityNew Brunswick. All of it makes for dissatisfaction, depending on whats going on with the pandemic and the protests.

While dissatisfaction dropped among Democrats and independents, the sharpest decline was among Republicans.

In the Gallup poll, only 39% of Republicans said they were satisfied with the direction of the country, down from 80% in February after the Senate acquitted Trump, only the third U.S. president ever to be impeached.

Theres clearly dissension among the ranks, Brenan said. Thats something for a president whos got a re-election coming up in less than five months to be concerned about.

The economic downturn robbed Trump of his greatest strength going into November. Almost 1.2 million New Jerseyans, for example, have filed for unemployment.

In a Quinnipiac University poll released in May, 74% of registered voters rated the economy as not so good or poor, while 23% called it excellent or good.

In December, the numbers were reversed, with 73% saying the economy was excellent or good and 25 percent rating it not so good or poor.

His biggest card has been the economy and hes losing that card, Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy said.

Brenan said the twin crises could put pressure on Congress to pass a new stimulus package to help the economy, and legislation reining in police misconduct.

The Democratic-controlled House has passed a $3 trillion stimulus bill and introduced police legislation. Senate Republicans so far have rejected another spending bill while planning to offer their own legislation in response to police misconduct.

At the same time, Trump also could continue to pressure governors to reopen the economy faster, she said, amid concern it could lead to a new spike in coronavirus cases and most Americans would rather go slow.

In an ABC News/Washington Post survey released earlier this month, 57% of Americans said they favored controlling the spread of the coronavirus over restarting the economy, while 37% said economic activity should take precedence even if more people were infected.

Anything that can be done to improve the economy at this point has an effect on satisfaction, has an effect on presidential approval, Brenan said. Theyre all in lockstep.

The Gallup survey of 1,034 adults was conducted May 28-June 4 with a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.
POLICE in Karoi have come under fire for reportedly revealing the identities of whistleblowers who caused the arrest of a returnee who had evaded mandatory quarantine.

The female suspect slipped into the country from South Africa on Friday, forcing vigilant residents to tip off the police who later picked her up.

She spent Saturday night at Karoi ZRP holding cells after health officials delayed taking her to Vuti quarantine centre. The returnee berated the whistleblowers on a WhatsApp group, labelling them "baboons"

According to some chats seen by NewsDay, the returnee, who cannot be named for professional reasons, said: "Karoi baboons sold me out. Someone reported me to the police after my arrival from South Africa on Friday. Taking a taxi to the police station to ensure I get quarantined as if that would bring food to their table.

"The officers mocked the individual and said the person is overzealous."

However, another group member hit back at her and commended the whistleblower for reporting her.
The Shareholders' General Meeting was held today at 2 p.m. under the chairmanship of Michel Giannuzzi, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

In view of the exceptional context of the Covid-19 crisis and in accordance with the provisions of the French order n2020-321 of March 25, 2020, the Shareholders' General Meeting was held at the Group's headquarters behind closed doors, excluding the physical presence of the shareholders and other persons entitled to attend.

The Shareholders' General Meeting was broadcast live via an audio webcast and will remain available on the Company's website for one year.

The shareholders were able to cast their votes by correspondence and ask written questions before the Shareholders' General Meeting was held.